“Unfortunately, yes. That's their best route of escape. They get to a Knaught Point far enough ahead of one of our patrol ships and hide their angle of entry so we can't figure out where they went.”
“That's what I thought.” Lin nodded, frowning slightly. She gestured for Bain to come closer. “Help him over to the galley. He needs something solid in his stomach.” She pushed off from the wall and skimmed over to her seat at the control panel. She caught hold of the edge with one hand and neatly slung herself into place. Lin looked back over her shoulder at them and shrugged. “Well, maybe not too solid.”
“I'm not sure if I could hold anything down,” Gray said. He held onto Bain and let the boy push off and fly them both over to the galley booth.
“You need some energy to get your brain working.”
“There's a really good cereal that you can almost drink,” Bain offered. “It's not too sweet. You can put fruit in it and extra milk. Would that be all right?”
“We can only try.” The man slid into the booth and rubbed at his face with both hands. He wasn't sweating like he had been when Bain first saw him. The boy supposed that was a good sign.
“Do you think they use computers to calculate the Knaught Point entrance?” Lin said.
“They have to.” Gray rolled down his tattered uniform sleeve over the patch in his elbow. “I don't know of any Spacer who would work for them.”
“My thought exactly.”
“What if they catch a Spacer?” Bain asked. He put the bowl of cereal mixture and water into the heater and pressed the buttons to start cooking.
“They can try to force us to take them through Knaught Points, but they can only try once.”
“Huh?”
“There's a lot involved in taking a ship through a Knaught Point,” Gray explained. “You have to know your ship very well, how it reacts to stress and the sounds it makes when it approaches a Knaught Point, how it feels when it's running strong or bad. Then there's the mental state of the Spacer who's doing the piloting. You don't want a Spacer who's angry or afraid. They can make mistakes without meaning to. Force and threats don't work very well.”
“Oh.” Bain jumped when the bell went off on the heater. He turned to take the bowl of cereal out and mix it with fruit syrup and milk to cool it. “You mean, the Spacer can make big mistakes and nobody would know if it was on purpose or not?”
“Exactly.” Gray grinned. “You catch on fast.”
“Best pupil I ever had,” Lin said. “Bain, people who try to kidnap Spacers and force them to pilot their ships only try once. Either they learn their mistake and let the Spacer go, or nobody survives to try again.”
“Oh.” Bain stopped stirring the cereal mixture. Mental images of Spacers taking ships through Knaught Points the wrong way danced through his head. He thought of pirates angry enough to shoot and kill Spacers—and getting themselves stranded in unexplored, far-distant parts of the galaxy.
“What's your plan, Captain?” Gray asked.
“If we can't shake them in the next hour, I'll head for the Knaught Point, pretend to take a dive, and loop back around. If the pirates are depending on a computer to do their calculations, they won't catch on quickly enough when we don't go through. They'll go through, not be able to find us, and hopefully they'll figure they were off by a few degrees.”
“Will they turn around and come back?” Bain wanted to know.
“If they're relying on a computer to do their calculations, they'll have to at least stop and review tapes from their scanners to figure out what we did. Hopefully.” Lin paused and grimaced. “Hopefully they'll think their calculations were wrong, and they'll backtrack what they did. If they do came back and try to chase us, we should have a big enough lead to get back to Dogray and land right in the middle of the Rangers.”
“I don't see what you needed me for,” Gray said. He took the bowl of watery cereal from Bain and nodded his thanks.
“If the maneuver doesn't work, I'll need to know everything you know about the pirates, to figure out what to do next,” Lin said. “When that happens, I won't have time to explain to you everything that didn't work.”
[Back to Table of Contents]
* * *
Chapter Eleven
Bain was on duty at the control panel when the pirates made their move.
Lin had set up a schedule where she and Bain took turns watching the screen and checking every single control and gauge and information display. Every half hour they changed jobs to keep them as alert as possible. Gray offered to help, but Lin told the Ranger it was more important that he rest and finish recovering. She opened up another sleeping cubicle on the bridge and helped him get settled in a nest of blankets on the bunk. The curtain stayed wide open so Gray could look out onto the bridge and hear everything that happened.
“Lin, the pirates are moving up,” Bain said. The triangle outlining the three dots of the pirate ships hadn't changed position on the screen, but the numbers had changed. It was only half a kilometer of distance less between Sunsinger and the lead pirate ship, but the change sent a cold chill down Bain's back.
“Confirmed,” Ganfer announced before Lin could open her mouth to ask.
“I think they've figured out what we're trying to do.” Lin winked at Bain, and her hands started flying over the control panel again. “Get the dust release control ready, Bain.”
“Dust?” Gray asked from his seat on the edge of the bunk. He released himself from his nest of blankets and safety net and drifted over to the control panel.
“Stellar dust. We release it at the key moment in a chase, and the enemy can't figure out where we are or where we went. For a few seconds, at least.”
“We used it on the Mashrami, the first time,” Bain said. “It worked really well.”
“Who would have thought of that?” Gray chuckled. The sound turned into coughing. “All the money the military spends on developing cloaking devices and screens and warp fields, and you do it with a little stellar dust.”
“A little?” Lin snorted and looked up from the new commands she was punching into the control panel. “Do you know how long it takes to collect enough dust to make a difference to a ship's sensors?”
“No,” the Ranger said slowly.
“Do you know how much it takes to do that?”
“Nope.” He shrugged and looked at Bain. The boy felt sorry for him.
“They don't call it ‘dust’ for nothing.” Lin winked at them and went back to work.
“We catch dust whenever we can, just in case,” Bain said, offering what he could to make the Ranger feel not quite so foolish.
“It's still a good idea,” Gray muttered. He pushed off the control panel and floated back to his cubicle.
“Better strap in. We'll be doing some fast maneuvers pretty soon.” Lin looked at the screen and nodded. “They've increased speed again. Ganfer, can you boost our speed, but not enough for them to notice?”
“I already have,” the ship-brain responded after a momentary pause.
Lin grinned. She unbuckled her safety strap and pushed off for the storage closet that led up into the observation dome.
“Bain, stay down here until we're just within range of the Knaught Point. Then I'll need you up top. Transfer dust control back to your panel in the dome. Lieutenant?” Lin paused in the doorway.
“Captain?” Gray pushed off his bunk and floated out into the bridge again.
“If you wouldn't mind monitoring things down here while we're up top, I'd appreciate it.”
“I thought you'd never ask.” Gray grinned and flew over to the control panel. He slid into Lin's seat, and watched until she had vanished up the passageway into the observation dome. “Does it—he—the ship brain. Does it do that often?” he asked Bain in a soft voice.
“His name is Ganfer.” Bain wasn't quite sure what the man meant. “He listens all the time, if that's what you mean.”
“No, not that. The change in speed, without bein
g ordered.”
“Ganfer is a person. Why wouldn't he do things if he thinks they need to be done?” Bain was a little surprised he hadn't thought of that before, himself.
“But—” The Ranger shook his head. “There are things you hear about Spacers and Free Trader ships, but you never think they're true.”
“You mean the ship-brains acting like people?”
“There's a story I heard, back when I was in the Ranger academy ... “Gray tightened his safety belt. “Some people believe that the Commonwealth didn't build the first Spacer ships. Some people think that the first Spacers found their ships, and the ship-brains were already there.”
“Somebody else built them?” Bain's voice squeaked with surprise. It made sense. “Ganfer, is that true?”
“I don't know, Bain,” the ship-brain answered. “So much of my memory was lost when Lin's parents were killed, I don't have access to reliable facts. But I do know that my original design is older than the Commonwealth.”
“Who built you, then?” Gray asked.
“Lin theorizes that the people who explored space before the Downfall of First Civ built the original Spacer ships and the computer units which became the first ship-brains.”
“Wow,” Bain whispered.
“Approaching Knaught Point range,” Ganfer announced before the awed silence could settle into the bridge.
“I'm going.” He released his safety strap and pushed off. Bain zoomed across the bridge and into the storage closet. He grabbed onto the bottom rung and twisted, flinging himself up the passageway into the observation dome.
The protective shield plates had already folded back, giving a clear view of the pulsing clusters of points of light that were the Knaught Points. A long, silvery-blue arc of sparkles filled the lower portion of the dome, beyond Lin. Bain paused a moment at the top of the ladder and stared. He wondered where that had come from and what caused it.
“Strap in,” Lin said without looking at him. “Ganfer is going to increase speed in ten seconds, and we'll have some nasty gravity waves when he does.”
Bain pushed off the wall and flew over to his usual acceleration couch. He strapped in with one hand and checked his control panel with the other. A blue light blinked over the button for the dust release hatch, showing it was ready for use.
“Ow,” he muttered, when suddenly something pressed against his chest and face and shoved him sideways into the cushions of the acceleration couch.
“Warned you.” Lin's hands flew over the controls. “Quiet zone coming up. Did you bring your tape?”
“Should have.” He grinned, even though his face felt a little warm with embarrassment. The first time he worked with Lin at a Knaught Point jump, he had been so afraid of making noise at the wrong time, he had considered bringing tape with him to cover his mouth. Bain decided he never should have told her about that.
“Here we go. Hold on, Lieutenant,” Lin added.
Bain didn't watch the sparkles of light and the pulses and changes of color as Sunsinger approached the Knaught Point. This time it was too serious. A serious as when the Mashrami ship was chasing them. Bain didn't know why, but pirates felt like a much bigger danger than aliens. Maybe because the aliens would just shoot at them and try to destroy the ship. If they succeeded, everyone would be dead and that would be the end of it. With pirates, Bain knew they would try to take the ship with as little damage as possible. They would hurt the people on board before they killed them. If they didn't kill the passengers, the pirates would make them slaves or hold them for ransom, but they would still hurt them to make sure no one tried to fight back or escape. Bain didn't like the idea of Ganfer being turned off, destroyed, and Sunsinger taken apart, all her parts added to other ships or sold. That was as bad as killing people.
“Ready,” Lin said. “Hold on!”
Sunsinger reared up like a horse. The engines screamed through the hull and the ship's frame shuddered. Bain couldn't breathe with the gravity of a whole planet sitting on his chest for ten long seconds. He held his hand over the release control and kept his eyes open. He was afraid if he closed his eyes he would lose consciousness, and then what good would he be to Lin?
“Now!” Lin shouted.
Bain hit the release hard enough to bruise his hand. He finally looked at the Knaught Point. The flickering black-and-silver spots reached wide, like arms opening to embrace the ship and then swallow it.
Sunsinger twisted down. Bain felt his stomach come up into his throat and squash his lungs. He thought he would throw up for a single second that lasted forever. Sunsinger turned upside down and spun down through space. There was no such thing as ‘up’ and ‘down’ in space, but with the twisting of gravity there was a definite ‘down,’ and always in the opposite direction the ship moved.
Bain had never been space-sick before, but now he knew what it felt like. He vowed he would never be mean to anyone who was space-sick. Never ever again. He would even apologize to Toly Gaber for laughing at him.
Lin let out a shout. It sounded fierce, like she fought someone. Bain looked at her, afraid he would see fear on her face. He saw anger sparkling in her eyes, but she grinned wide, teeth bared. Sweat trickled down her face, but she didn't raise her hands from the controls to wipe it away.
Suddenly, like someone had flipped a switch, the twisting, falling, wrong sensations stopped. Bain gasped and collapsed back against his couch. He choked, waiting for his stomach to finish coming up his throat.
“Take deep breaths,” Lin said. Her voice was ragged. The sound of her breathing was loud in the dome.
Bain realized then that the engines had stopped straining. Everything was loud now. Only a few seconds ago he couldn't hear anything over the shrieks of Sunsinger's straining engines.
He took deep breaths, trying to hold them and slow them like Lin did. To his surprise and relief, the sick feeling vanished almost immediately. Bain grinned at Lin.
“Did we make it?” he whispered. His throat hurt, like he had been shouting at someone for hours.
“Looks like it. Ganfer, can we head back to Dogray?” Lin's voice cracked.
“Turning back to course now,” the ship-brain responded. Ganfer sounded like he hadn't done anything at all. Bain would have laughed if he had the energy.
* * * *
The pirates didn't come back through the Knaught Point. Lin assigned Bain to watch all the screens and check the monitors for the slightest fluctuation, all during the ride back to Dogray. He watched even when the ship was too far from the Knaught Point for the sensors to notice anything.
Gray had to go back into the healing bed. His safety strap broke during the wild, twisting, spinning ride to the Knaught Point and the breakaway, when Lin stopped the jump at the last moment. He flew across the bridge and hit the edge of a storage drawer and cut his forehead. The Ranger knew how to land and how to relax when he hit hard surfaces, so he didn't break any bones. He was bruised, though, and there were spatters of blood across the bridge to clean up, when Bain and Lin climbed back down from the dome.
Lin decided to leave the passengers in stasis until they landed at the spaceport. She and Bain cleaned up the bridge and watched for the pirates to come back through the Knaught Point to chase them. Traveling at normal speed, it took them nearly a whole day to return to Dogray. It was a very quiet trip.
[Back to Table of Contents]
* * *
Chapter Twelve
“You're lucky conscription is illegal,” Captain Gilmore said. “You and Bain would both be members of the Rangers right now, with lifelong service ahead of you.”
“I've heard worse threats,” Lin said, chuckling along with the captain.
Lin and Bain sat in the main hall, eating dinner with Gilmore and his lieutenants. Gray had spent the first part of the meal telling them about his experiences alone on the bridge during Sunsinger's near-miss of the Knaught Point and escaping the pirates. Bain decided he liked the Ranger lieutenant. Anyone who could admit hi
s terror and pain and laugh about it as he told his friends and his commander was someone Bain wanted to imitate. Gray had to be strong to do that.
Then Gil had made Lin narrate her side of the events, starting with landing at the Danimoore farm and learning about the pirates, and the dead and wounded Rangers. Bain had squirmed a few times when Lin told the gathered officers what he had done. He felt proud, but embarrassed, too. Lin made it sound like he was much smarter and faster and braver than he had felt at the time.
“Are all Spacers like you and the boy?” Dr. Wooler asked.
“I hope not,” Gil muttered. He watched Lin from the corner of his eye and grinned as he spoke.
“Fortunately, not all Rangers are like your commander, too,” Lin said. She grinned and batted her eyelashes at Gil, then they both burst out laughing.
“We could win this war much faster if the Spacers were all working with us,” a lieutenant said from the end of the table.
“But we are,” Bain blurted. Immediately, every head turned and every gaze focused on him. He felt his face get hot, but he had to keep talking. “Lin says we all have to work together, or the Mashrami will beat us. She says it's not just Commonwealth and Fleet work. It's all Humans. Right?” he added, turning to face Lin.
“Exactly right.” Lin nodded and rested her hand on his shoulder, squeezing for a moment. “The fact of the matter is, Doctor, Spacers are just too independently minded to work well with big, rigidly organized groups like the Fleet or you Rangers. Like your ships, you're too big to move quickly or to get into the little areas where the people really need help. Spacers will always help where we're needed. I can promise you that. Just don't try to make us do it your way.”
“Take that as a warning, gentlemen,” Gil said. “If Captain Fieran had followed the rules when I was a worthless little dirtball, I wouldn't be here.”
“If we can't incorporate Spacers into the military, maybe we should send our officer candidates to study with Spacers,” Dr. Wooler said. “What do you say, Captain Fieran? Would you and your apprentice be willing to give our trainees some lessons?”
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