Zakharova looked up from her workstation, "What about the missing freighters?"
"One thing at a time, Lieutenant. If we can get a face-to-face meeting with whoever is down on the surface, that could give us a starting ground for negotiation."
She gestured towards the frigates, "And them? We could launch a probe to track them."
"And have it shot down by a long-range missile?" Marshall shook his head. "We'll have to worry about them later on."
"What if the colony – if that's what it is – won't meet with us?"
"That's what the Espatiers are on board for, Lieutenant." He walked into the elevator, Zakharova holding open the door, following him through before it could close. As the doors slid shut, he saw Caine flashing him a look of sympathy as she settled into the captain's chair. His side had started to ache again; the adrenaline of the battle had provided some temporary relief.
"Sub-Lieutenant Volkov," she began.
"I thought this would come up. He's off the bridge, Lieutenant. He froze in a battle situation."
Her eyes narrowed, "Doesn't he deserve a second chance?"
Marshall sighed, "With a hundred lives resting on his reactions? There are eight other people on board qualified to take that station; for the present, there's no harm in Ryder commanding the watch from the guidance station. Realistically a senior officer is always going to be on the bridge while we are orbiting Ragnarok anyway."
She shook her head, "And, of course, she's a Martian."
"That has nothing to do with it, Lieutenant. If Ryder had frozen, she'd be off the bridge. Or any other officer."
There was a pause. "What do you want me to do with him?"
"Right now, talk to him. I shouldn't have to tell you this. Make sure medical gives him a full check-up to make sure he hasn't got anything wrong with him, sit him in front of the psychoanalyzer. You want to see him back on the bridge? Give me a reason to trust him again, Lieutenant. Right now I can't take that risk."
The door opened at one of the maintenance levels, Zakharova stepped out, walking briskly down the corridor. Marshall called after her, "Everyone gets one shot, Lieutenant. If they miss, we can't dare give them another." She turned her head for a second, then continued walking down the corridor as the door closed.
Chapter 10
"We're settling into orbit, sir," Sub-Lieutenant Franklin said from the guidance station, briefly turning her head to look at her commander. Ragnarok loomed large in the viewscreen, looking colder and bleaker in real life than it had in the computer-generated representation earlier.
"Still no sign of any response to our communications?" Marshall asked.
Weitzman shook his head, "Not a peep, sir. Now we're getting this close, I can pick up the odd trace of tight-beam from them, but not enough to read."
The watch officer, Sub-Lieutenant Kibaki – for once permitted to sit at his station with the remainder of the senior staff below decks, frowned as he looked at his terminal, "Captain, we could place ourselves in between two of those satellites with little difficulty, pick up some of those signals. I've prepared a course for – er – Ragnarokosynchronous orbit that would intercept the transmissions."
Marshall raised an eyebrow at the Titanian, "Ragnarokosynchronous?"
The gray-haired officer grinned, "I've been wanting to use that one since we got here, Captain."
"They'd just stop using that satellite. We'd learn nothing and perhaps invite unwanted hostility."
The elevator doors opened, Mulenga emerging with a datapad held in his hand, walking over to the captain's chair. He looked at the viewscreen, shaking his head, then passed the datapad to Marshall, who began to scan through it.
"Sensor reports on the planet. Physically it matches the last survey reasonably closely, but there are some odd variations that seem to explain each other."
"You'll have to explain that, Lieutenant," a puzzled look crossing Marshall's face.
"The levels of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and the like have significantly increased. More volcanic activity as well, and the temperature has already risen a couple of degrees from the averages reported by the previous survey. We're watching the beginnings of an attempt to terraform this planet, Captain."
Marshall grimaced at the prospect. The attempts to terraform Mars, without the consent of the colonists already living on the planet, had been one of the sore spots that had led to the outbreak of war; the only legacy of those days was a disrupted weather system that was still brewing up dust storms years later, and the growth of some genemodded plants that were proving to be extremely resistant to extermination.
"Can they do it?"
"Possibly. Such happened on Earth on three separate occasions without – so far was we know – any intelligent intervention. The geological processes are well-understood; the introduction into the atmosphere of greenhouse gases analogous to that undertaken on Earth in the 19th and 20th centuries would do the job."
"The result?"
Mulenga regarded the world on the viewscreen, shaking his head, "I would hope that those behind this work would know that more throughly than I, Captain. Potentially, this planetary sub-system is in the Goldilocks Zone, but whether you would end up with a suitable world for large-scale colonization is another question entirely. In any event, it would be centuries before the work was completed."
Marshall scanned further down the datapad, skimming past the physical data to the later sections of the report, "What about signs of life?"
"Several heat sources indicating sites of settlement, clustered in the equatorial belt on areas of geologic stability." He walked over to the holographic display and started to manipulate controls, incorporating the results of his scans. "All of them appear to be within two hundred miles of each other. We read each settlement to consist of a large dome, similar to those used in early Lunar and Martian colonization back in the last century."
"For heating rather than retaining atmosphere, presumably."
"Exactly. No roads as such, but plenty of evidence of artificial passes through mountains and the like, probably created with kinetic warheads. A couple of strips that would be suitable as spaceports."
Marshall rose, walked around the hologram, waving his hands to focus on the inhabited portion of Ragnarok. "And the lack of signals?"
"Communication could be handled by tight-beam via the satellites, or via underground cables. We adopted similar measures during the war, though nowhere near as extensively."
"Population?"
"No less than five thousand, no more than eighty thousand."
Marshall turned to look at the astrogator, saying, "That's a pretty wide variance, Lieutenant."
"I have no data on population density." He regarded the map carefully. "My judgment – but this is just based on my own thoughts, not actual data – is that it would tend to the upper ranges of that estimate."
"How could a colony that size grow up in twenty years?" Kibaki pondered from his station. "It took Titan fifty years to get to a hundred thousand, and Mars about the same amount of time. Could the earlier survey readings have been faked?"
"I don't see how, Sub-Lieutenant," Mulenga replied. "They come from too many different sources. Nor could a presence in the system have been hidden for very long."
Marshall looked back at the hologram again, then over at the viewscreen. "I'm going down there."
"I don't think that would be wise."
The captain turned, frowning, "Diplomatically, I should make first contact with them."
"Leaving Mad Zack in the captain's seat," Kibaki muttered.
Storming over to the watch officer's seat, Marshall turned his chair around to face him, almost sending him falling out onto the deck, "You are speaking about the Executive Officer of this ship, Sub-Lieutenant."
Kibaki looked up at him, "Sorry, sir. I spoke without thought."
"Three extra watches might convince you to consider your words more carefully. Report to Sub-Lieutenant Ryder as Guidance on Alph
a shift for the next three days."
"Yes, sir." Worryingly, the Titanian didn't seem to have changed his mind overly much. The elevator doors opened, Dietz and Caine stepping out. Caine moved over to the Tactical station, Dietz over to look at the hologram, then turned to face the captain.
"You wanted to see me, sir?" Caine looked over at the two, slightly suspicious; Marshall was reasonably sure that Dietz hadn't noticed.
"Mr. Dietz, we need to start thinking about locating those two frigates," Marshall began. "The only probes we have on board are much too slow not to be shot down."
Dietz looked over at the sensor station, "We lost contact after they entered the atmosphere of Gatewood, correct, spaceman?" The technician nodded, and he continued, "Work with astrogation to provide a best-guess track of their possible arcs of escape. While they may be somewhere behind the gas giant, there will be a somewhat limited collection of somewheres to search."
"That'll help, Dietz, but I don't want to leave Ragnarok orbit unless we don't have any choice."
The operations officer ran his hand across his chin, nodding, "Then I suggest that Mr. Quinn be assigned to mate as much as he can of the sensor apparatus of two probes into a pair of missiles adapted for long-range autonomous operation. One can be used to swing around the rear side of Gatewood, the other can act as a communications relay."
Mulenga's eyes widened, "That's a very extensive modification, Captain."
Dietz turned to look at the astrogator, then back at Marshall, "The Chief Engineer may be somewhat unorthodox, but I do not question his competence to perform such work."
"Nor do I, Lieutenant. Go down and brief Mr. Quinn. Mr. Mulenga?"
"Sir?"
"You'd better lend one of your better technicians to assist Quinn's team with the work, and then both of you can start the process of patching it into our systems. Launch them as soon as they are ready, and naturally – please make that as soon as possible."
The two officers nodded, Dietz saying, "Aye, sir."
Marshall turned away from them, walking towards his office. As he passed Kibaki, he turned to the still sullen junior officer, "Have Ensign Esposito report to my office on the double, Sub-Lieutenant. You have the bridge."
"Aye, aye, Captain," he replied, paging the espatier through his console. Marshall continued to walk into his office, the door sliding open; Caine rose from her station, following him. The door closed behind her as Marshall sat behind his desk.
"What's up, Deadeye?" he said.
"You're going down there. Don't say anything, I can see the look all over your face."
"I need to negotiate with the planetary leadership. It has to be the commanding officer."
She gestured at his side, "That still bothering you?"
"Not much. Our doctor knows her trade pretty well."
Leaning over the desk, Caine shook her head, "You'd better hope so. You're going to get yourself killed if you carry on like this."
Marshall leaned back in his chair, "I'll have a squad of espatiers to look after me, old friend."
"Less of the 'old'."
"What more do you want, Deadeye? I've got to lead from the front, it's all I know."
"Ensign Esposito might be a bit on the young side, but she's the obvious choice to lead a contact team here. Once she makes contact with whoever is in charge down there you can go down yourself. For all you know, that shuttle might land into the middle of a trap. Getting yourself taken hostage will make a bad situation worse. We still haven't identified the freighters yet."
The captain sighed, "Most likely they've been hidden on the far side of Gatewood. Hopefully one of Dietz's Deadly Probes will find them."
"Another thing. If you go down, then Senior Lieutenant Zakharova is in command once again."
A frown covered Marshall's face. "She is second in command of this ship. I just gave the watch officer extra duty for calling her names in front of me on the bridge."
"This isn't the bridge. This is you and I in your office. I don't trust her. I don't trust Dietz. They were thick as thieves while you were incapacitated; Mulenga and I were totally out of the loop."
"He told me he was concerned that he'd have to take over."
Caine stood up, pacing around the room, looking out of the viewport at Ragnarok turning below. "We thought about it. Almost everything she was doing seemed designed to antagonize the non-Callistan members of the crew, Danny. Her people were getting the best watches, lecturing everyone else on what to do. She's out to make this ship Patrol in all but name, with herself in the captain's seat."
"I don't know if I want to hear where this is going."
She turned, her hair sweeping around her neck with the abrupt movement, "Danny, this is me, remember. You said you wanted your wingman again, right? Well here I am. She's trouble. If you get captured, I don't trust that she'd make the right decision. Nor do most of the crew."
"So what do you suggest? Do you want her job?"
"Mulenga is next in line. The crew like him, and will follow him."
"One problem. He doesn't want to lead."
"He'd do it if necessary. You go down to the surface – after Esposito's troopers have cleared the way for you, I hasten to add – then you've got to take her with you."
Marshall shook his head, smiling, "What would you do? If you were sitting here?"
"Resign in your favor." The two of them laughed, as she continued, "One other suggestion; send Maggie down as shuttle pilot. You'll probably have to give her some sort of rank, but she's been hanging around a lot with Esposito."
"And?"
"You read the reports on that heist on Mariner? They seem to work well together in a crisis. This is gut instinct, here."
Marshall slid across a pad from his desk with a contract to join the Triplanetary Fleet on it, "I had the same thought."
Caine smiled, scanning the file, "Tell you what; I'll take this down to her. I might be able to persuade her more effectively than you can."
"Perhaps so."
"And you'll stay up here this time?"
"This first time," he paused for a moment, "yes."
She smiled, "Of course, I'd have fewer objections if you sent Zakharova."
"Don't tempt me."
Caine shook her head as she walked out of the office, datapad in hand. Marshall contemplated the surface of Ragnarok, strange and alien, orbiting below. That was exactly the sort of thing he'd signed up for in the first place, and aside from the objections of hopefully-paranoid Tactical Officers, he was damned if he was going to let anything stand in his way.
Chapter 11
Orlova walked towards the unfamiliar shuttle, frowning at its lines, looking with care at its twin delta wings. She tugged on her uniform, scratching herself on her leg, trying in vain to make herself more comfortable in the plain worksuit.
Around her, a group of maintenance technicians were finishing up her pre-flight checks, topping up the fuel tanks and running some final inspections of the hull. Normally, that would have been her job, and a few glances at the on-board computers would probably have sufficed.
Loud footsteps raced up behind her, and she heard a cough. After she'd ignored it for a minute, she felt a tap on her shoulder, and turned to see a slight young man with a bashful look on his face.
"Are you Spaceman Orlova?" he asked, his voice quiet.
"I might be. Who are you?"
"Spaceman Second Class Khachaturian. I'm assigned as your observer."
She put her hands on her hips, "What are you meant to observe? Me?"
His head jerked from left to right; a couple of the maintenance techs had stopped their work and were looking at the conversation, "Sensors, systems, that sort of thing."
"Do you have a real name? If I call you by that gobbledygook you just spouted at me, we'd crash by the time I asked you to do anything."
"A real name?"
Esposito walked up behind him, a smile curling on her face. "She means your first name, spaceman."
"Right," Orlova said, "Get in and start your observing. I'll be up in a minute." She shook her head as she watched him amble up the ladder, narrowly missing catching his head on the door. "Who thought I needed a watchdog?"
"I think it's standard practice. My gang on board?"
"Hunter's got them all ready to go. They seem eager to be going on a proper mission this time."
The officer looked up at the shuttle, "They might be less eager when they learn that we're not supposed to be attacking anyone. Unless, of course, we get attacked. The Captain just briefed me."
"How is Cap'n Danny?"
She frowned, "Now that you're wearing a uniform, you might have to be a bit more careful throwing that around."
"Don't remind me. Caine conned me into this get-up; as soon as we get back to Sol I'm getting out of it."
"I'm sure that'll be popular with the troops. Remind me to have my camera ready."
Orlova laughed, "I tend to charge for that sort of a show, Gabi. What does our glorious leader want us to do?"
"Land, look around, try and find someone for him to talk to. A take me to your leader mission."
The pilot shook her head, "We've been calling them for two days. They don't seem eager to speak to us."
"I'm sure we'll find someone when we get down. You do know where you're going, right?" A tone of mock concern was creeping into her voice.
"Just over the uninhabitable mountains of certain doom to the only spot of bare ground we could find long enough to take the shuttle." Orlova patted the side of the hull, "I just hope someone gives us landing instructions."
Esposito walked over to the passenger airlock, a foot on the lower rung of the ladder, before turning around to face the pilot, "I just hope no-one down there has surface-to-air missiles and an eager trigger finger. Let's hope we both get what we want."
Orlova grinned at the young officer, then scrambled up the ladder and into the crew compartment, swinging into the pilot's seat and sliding her control key into her console. The controls moved about, sliding into her preferred positions, though with some changes to adjust for the larger surface area.
Battlecruiser Alamo: The Price of Admiralty Page 10