Ad Astra

by Jack Campbell

  “Alright. The saints know you’ve promised to try and make the lifeboat, Kilcannon. You don’t want to meet them with a broken promise fresh on your record. Remember that. For my part, I’ll keep that lifeboat waiting as long as I can.” She hesitated. “Should I get Captain Weskind?”

  “No! She won’t go with anyone but me. I’ll bring her with me.”

  Halley Keracides looked like she wanted to argue, but then nodded and left. About ten minutes later she called the bridge and reported that everybody was at the lifeboat. Everybody but the guys in engineering, Captain Weskind and me.

  A moment later another metal projectile whipped by Lady. I wondered how long they’d give me to react this time. But it hadn’t been a warning shot. More projectiles came in, aimed straight at Lady. I heard and felt the impacts, grateful that the storage spaces in the bow were taking the brunt of the first volley. That’s why they were there, to absorb damage if Lady hit something or something hit Lady.

  But storage spaces aren’t armor and those metal projectiles were fast and heavy. There was a pause of a few minutes after the first volley, apparently to see if we’d take the hint after actually being hit, then more rounds started coming in. This time they started punching through. Tiny hurricanes roared through Lady as the shots from the privateers ripped holes in her. Atmosphere vented from a score of holes in the hull, pushing Lady slightly off course as they did so. I corrected the course and watched the instruments report dropping air pressure until every compartment in the ship was in vacuum.

  I checked the read-outs again, watching the paths the other ships made as they swung through space, and I knew it was time. I brought Lady around, finally steadying her pointed at the spot where the smaller privateer would be in fifteen minutes. The barrage of projectiles halted for a moment as my course change avoided shots aimed at the place where Lady hadn’t gone. In the momentary calm, I popped a console I’d never opened in earnest and threw two switches.

  On the outside of the hull, massive grapples opened and electromagnetic pushers engaged as the emergency cargo jettison system activated for the first and last time on Lady. The big cargo containers which ringed the ship at two places were pushed away from Lady, slowly spreading out around the course she was on. As the last containers cleared the hull I goosed Lady’s engines to the maximum we could manage. The old girl shook and shuddered, but she accelerated away from the containers, leaving them traveling behind us down the same course. As I turned Lady slightly again, I watched as the delayed commands I’d fed to the cargo containers activated and they started offloading drums of precursor chemicals through load points located on their tops and bottoms, the drums drifting into the areas between and among the big cargo containers. Good riddance to a cargo I never should’ve loaded.

  In the process of clearing my conscience I’d also created a huge shotgun blast aimed for the point the smaller privateer would reach in twelve minutes. I wondered how long it would take the privateer to spot what I’d done, figure out what it meant and try to alter its trajectory. It shouldn’t matter. Freighters, even freighters fitted out as privateers, weren’t designed to dodge wide debris fields aimed right at them.

  I steadied Lady just short of a collision course with the larger privateer. The longer I could leave that privateer thinking I was only planning a close firing run, the better.

  Ten minutes. “Vox, evacuate engineering now.”

  “This is Chen. Vox is dead. We took some hits back here and suffered power arcs.”

  Damn. “The rest of you get out of there and get to the lifeboat.”

  “How much longer -.”

  “Go!”

  “Aye, aye. On our way.”

  Lady’s hull twitched and rang with impacts as kinetic rounds from the privateers hit again and again. I sat there, watching compartments and systems report damage or just go dead as the solid metal chunks tore into and through Lady. I wondered what would happen if a round came through the bridge. Would I have time to realize it or would I just find myself face to face with Dingo, him demanding to know what I’d screwed up this time? Eight minutes. Close enough and maybe too close.

  I made a small course correction, finally fixing Lady onto a collision course, then I locked the docking system onto the big privateer and deleted the engine braking and maneuvering overstress limitation sequences. Lady would steer herself directly at the privateer, engines going full blast, as long as her systems still functioned. I stood up, fighting for balance as Lady jerked to maintain her lock on the big privateer, and stared at the screen where the shape of privateer loomed. Then I ran for the Captain’s cabin.

  Captain Weskind was there. Face down on her desk. She’d opened her suit. There wasn’t any time to see how long it’d been open and how badly she’d decompressed. I sealed the suit and repressurized it and sat her limp body on the edge of her desk and turned my back to her and draped both her arms forward over my shoulders and grabbed her hands and lifted her on my back and ran for the hatch.

  I staggered down passageways which swung wildly as impacts and sharp maneuvers to keep the ship aimed at the privateer altered Lady’s motion. The lights flickered, caught, then finally died, leaving dim patches where the few working emergency lights came to life. What must have been a metal projectile from one of the privateers burst through a bulkhead three meters in front of me and went corkscrewing on, chewing another hole through Lady’s guts.

  Ten meters from the lifeboat access the deck suddenly bent and rose on one side, then the bulkhead slapped me. I hit the other bulkhead, my vision graying out, then managed to get to my feet again, Captain Weskind still a dead weight on my back. Something inside Lady screamed as it tore under stress, the sounds transmitted through her structure and into my suit. She was dying. Saints forgive me she was dying. I stumbled down the weirdly narrowed passageway to the junction, then one more meter to where outstretched arms waited.

  Captain Weskind was pulled from my back and then I was pulled in as well, the lifeboat hatch being slammed shut almost on my feet. I felt the hard deck beneath my back and remembered the lifeboat was overcrowded. People were screaming but my head was swimming too much to understand. Then a great hand pressed on me as the lifeboat accelerated away from what was left of Lady, putting everything it had into getting away. I struggled to breathe as a couple of bodies lying partly across me tripled in weight.

  A black fringe grew around my vision as I lay there, but I kept my eyes fixed on the display screens at the front of the lifeboat. The one in front of the piloting station showed only the spinning star field, but the auxiliary screen was locked on the area where Lady was still heading.

  The big privateer was accelerating, trying to get up speed, finally realizing Lady was playing for keeps, but its own mass and inertia were holding it back. Lady came down on it, moving so much faster under her long acceleration that the old freighter seemed like an arrow. The privateer was still firing, but the shots were only chipping pieces off Lady. They couldn’t stop or divert her.

  Lady roared down from above like the angel of death and struck across the privateer at an angle. I fought back the blackness and what might have been tears as Lady’s old hull bent around the point of contact. The privateer’s hull bent, too, curving upward on either side of the impact. I could see hulls shredding, compartments blowing open under the stress and spilling their contents into space, countless minor detonations rippling through the merged wreckage as systems and structures failed explosively. A cloud of vented gases blocked direct view of the wrecks as they spun off, locked together in their death throes.

  Off to the side, the slower-moving cargo containers and cargo drums were coming down on the smaller privateer. It was moving, too, trying to dodge the field of debris. It almost made it. Drums hit, denting the hull or punching through, but the smaller privateer managed to hold its course. Then a big container clipped its bow. The privateer shuddered and lurched off to one side under the impact, directly into the path of another containe
r. The second one hit aft and hit hard. I watched energy flare and knew the privateer’s engines had slagged. The smaller privateer staggered into an erratic roll, taking more glancing impacts as it spun away.

  I couldn’t see the refugee ship. I couldn’t remember where it was supposed to be relative to us now. I tried to find it but my head hurt and I felt very tired and it was too hard to keep that blackness out of my eyes, so I let it fill my eyes and my head and let the pain go away.

  #

  I opened my eyes and saw light again. Smooth light, steady light. I blinked, turning my head to see what looked like a very well-appointed sick bay. I turned my head the other way and saw Halley.

  She nodded at me wordlessly, waiting for me to speak.

  “This doesn’t look like a peacekeeper prison infirmary.”

  Halley twisted her mouth into a sardonic smile. “No. The peacekeepers figured they owed you one. You’re on the Vestral ship Fenris Rising. Outbound from Fagin.”

  “Oh.” I thought about that. “Lady…”

  “The collision totally destroyed the larger privateer. The smaller was knocked completely out of commission by the impacts of the cargo containers. The peacekeepers rounded it up a few days later.”

  “A few days later.” I lay back, feeling a lot more tired than someone who’d been asleep for at least that long ought to feel.

  “Peacekeepers picked us up. Good thing. That lifeboat of yours wasn’t in very good shape. Neither were you. Concussion, a few broken bones. That kind of thing. The refugee ship made it, by the way. They’re safe.”

  So Lady’s sacrifice hadn’t been in vain. I nodded.

  “Captain Weskind would be very proud of you, Kilcannon.”

  “Captain Weskind -.” The question stalled as I saw the look on Halley’s face.

  “She’s dead.” Whatever Halley saw in my expression made her lean forward a bit and squeeze my hand. “You did everything you could. Her suit must’ve been open at some point. Yes? She’d suffered too much decompression. You got her onto the lifeboat, but it was too late.”

  I was silent for a long time, letting the sorrow roll through me. And the guilt of relief. Captain Weskind had died on the ship she loved. Maybe she’d understood enough of what was happening to make that decision. Now she’d no longer have to face a universe her mind couldn’t deal with anymore. Now she wouldn’t have to try to go on without the Lady. But when everything else had passed, one thought still stung. “I think I remember her being pulled on the lifeboat before me.”

  “That’s right.”

  “The Captain should’ve been the last one to leave the ship.”

  Halley leaned back again and regarded me. “The Lady’s Captain was the last to leave the ship.”

  “You just told me you took Captain Weskind onto the lifeboat first.”

  “So I did.” I waited, but she didn’t explain her statement. “Any more questions?”

  “Yeah. Who the hell are you?”

  Halley gave me that twisted smile again. “I have a confession to make, Kilcannon. Keracides isn’t my real name. My actual name is Halley Vestral.”

  “Vestral?” The name took a minute to connect. “As in Vestral Shipping?”

  “Yes. My mother’s the majority owner.”

  I inhaled deeply. “I wondered why First Officer Chen deferred to you. As if you weren’t just some passenger.”

  “He knew who I was and so did the Captain of the Canopus. Nobody else on the ship did. Mother and I often travel under false names for security reasons.”

  “Good thing, I guess. Why tell me now?”

  “Because I want to offer you a job, Kilcannon. After consulting with the Vestral Shipping officers and sailors who observed you on the Lady, my mother agreed without reservations.”

  A job. With Vestral Shipping. On a bright, clean ship. “That’s…thank you. I, uh, know I’ll need to work my way up from whatever I’m hired at -.”

  “The job offer is for Captain of one of our ships.”

  I just stared for a long moment. “I’m not qualified.”

  “We think you are.”

  “I’ve never served as a Captain.”

  Halley started to speak, then paused. Eventually, she just nodded. “We think you’re qualified,” she repeated.

  “What about the rest of the crew from the Lady?”

  “I knew you’d ask about them. We’ll find positions for all of them.” Halley paused again. “That System Tech. Siri. Some people were panicking while we waited for you in the lifeboat, trying to get us to go. She kept her body across the lifeboat hatch so no one could close it until you got there. She’s awful strong for such a small girl.”

  “I’ll have to thank her, if I ever see her again.”

  “You will. She’s signed on as crew on this ship.” She saw my face. “She’s clean now and deserves the opportunity. It’s the least I could do, Kilcannon.”

  “Uh, thanks.” The word felt so hopelessly inadequate, but what could I say that would convey what the offer to me meant? I wouldn’t be roaming the docks, trying to find another old ship willing to hire me on as, maybe, Third Officer. Instead, I’d be Captain of one of the bright, shining ships of Vestral. With a full crew and a maintenance budget. Good runs to good planets.

  I ought to feel something.

  I leaned back against the bed, wondering why everything seemed so empty. Here was everything I’d ever dreamed of, everything I’d ever envied, everything I’d ever wished for. I had it. “Why aren’t I happy?”

  I hadn’t realized I’d spoken that until Halley shook her head. Her eyes were looking right into mine, as if she could see something there. “I’m sorry. You aren’t happy because you know the odds are vanishingly small that you’ll ever find Haven again.”

  “Haven? What are you talking about? I’ve never found Haven.”

  She smiled that not-a-smile again and shook her head once more. “You still don’t know where Haven is?”

  “I’ve never known where Haven is. And I thought you said Haven isn’t real.”

  “No, I said there isn’t any one place which all sailors could call Haven. But it does exist.”

  Riddles. I couldn’t handle them at the moment and broke eye contact with her, staring up at the overhead. “Then where is it?”

  “Kilcannon, you fool. Haven is that place you most want to be, the place that holds everything important to you.”

  When I looked down again she was walking away. I wondered what she’d meant.

  Saints, I miss the Lady.

  Author's Note on As You Know, Bob

  Reviews are often the bane of writers. This is especially true if the reviewer chooses to write about the book they wish the writer had written rather than the one the writer did write. Sometimes the reviewers’ complaints leave writers scratching their heads in bewilderment. And sometimes that all works out fine. When the first book in my Lost Fleet series was published, one reviewer took Dauntless to task for many perceived sins. Among these were assertions that it wasn’t multi-cultural enough, and didn’t contain explicit references to trendy new science fiction concepts, and above all didn’t explain in detail how everything worked. In short, I was being called to task for not having done the sort of things for which SF is often mocked by the wider world. The reviewer concluded that Dauntless could have appeared in John W. Campbell’s old Astounding magazine. As it turned out, many readers yearned for that sort of story, so the put-down ended up generating a lot of sales for me. In addition, the review inspired As You Know, Bob. I got a lot of good things out of that negative review.

  As You Know, Bob

  The agent: How’s that science fiction novel you’ve been working on coming along? Send me an excerpt from the beginning so we can see about getting it into shape for today’s market.

  #

  The story begins: The phone rang with Bob’s signature tune, so Bill tapped the receive button. Bob’s face appeared, looking unusually enthusiastic since he normally t
ried to coast through life with minimum effort. “Did you hear about the frozen Lumpia?”

  “Not yet.” Lumpia. That sounded important enough for Bill to pause his work and face the phone. “As you know, Bob, frozen Lumpia isn’t nearly as good as fresh.”

  “This stuff is! There’s a new process. Meet me in the lobby and we’ll go get some and check it out.”

  Bill’s conscience tugged at him. “I dunno, there’s this analysis of the signals from the Eridani Probe that I’m supposed to be running . . .”

  “It’ll be there when we get back.”

  “Okay.” Bill stood up, powering down his workpad and heading for the door.

  In the hallway he met Jane, a researcher who worked a few doors down. Bill tried not to stare as she crossed her arms and looked at him. “You’re in a rush. Going on some important mission?” she asked dryly.

  “I guess you could say that. I’m going to pick up some frozen Lumpia.” Bill hesitated. Jane had the kind of smarts and attitude that had always attracted him, but she had never shown much interest in Bill and had turned him down the one time he had asked for a date. Maybe she would be willing to consider a more casual errand together. “Do you want to come along?”

  Jane pulled out a money card and checked it, then shrugged. “Sure. Why not? I need to pick up some stuff, too.”

  #

  The agent: This is okay, but I can’t sell it. Something’s missing. It’s not SciFi enough, do you know what I mean? This is supposed to be happening in the early twenty-second century and there’s nothing about the singularity or nanotech or quantum states or cyberspace or posthumans or multiculturalism or complex antiheroes. How can you call that SciFi? I know, I know, you’ve told me that when people use tools they don’t think about how they work. But readers expect certain things from SciFi. Oh, and the characters. Those aren’t SciFi characters. Punch them up and make them the sort of characters you see in real science fiction. And get some gratuitous sexual content in there.