XD:317 (Fourth Fleet Irregulars)

by S J MacDonald

  ‘And the charts we’re using, there,’ Hali Burdon explained, ‘are the ones we’re generating ourselves, or rather, that Kate’s new system is generating for us. We’ve been running dual-screen with those, since Karadon, in phase three of the trial. Phase one, Kate just took readings, herself, generating charts and comparing them with the ones we already have. Phase two, she did that real time for three weeks, with constant comparative analysis. Once she and the skipper were satisfied that the data was reliable, we went to phase three, dual screen, running Kate’s charts side by side with the official ones. Now we’re in phase four, using Kate’s charts for our dead reckoning. We won’t know how successful that has been, of course, until we do meet up with other ships and get at least three confirmations of position and time, but that’s what’s going on with those charts, Tass, we’re creating them ourselves as we go along.’

  Tass found this deeply unnerving, and had to be assured that they were not going to get lost, either in space or time, and that there was no chance of them veering off course and accidentally banging into a planet. Laughing at that kept the crew entertained for hours.

  Terese, though, saw the serious, important side of that.

  ‘If this works, surely, it would enable you to traverse far more difficult space – even to navigate through nebula and dirty space.’

  Alex gave her the same kind of look she’d given him when he’d admitted he didn’t know who his Senator was.

  ‘I thought you knew that,’ he commented, in some surprise. ‘The sub-committee approved the project on that basis, didn’t they?’

  ‘Yes, well, we tend to pass the Second’s requests for R&D projects on the nod,’ she confessed, with a wry grin. ‘If they are asked to justify their decisions on that, you see, they smile happily and give everyone enormous bundles of project documentation. Which, you know, even the précis explanation that’s supposed to be within the reach of non-scientists to understand makes most Senators have to call in a scientific advisor to explain it to them. We just don’t have the time, and it’s recognised that that’s the Second’s remit, after all, making best use of the research facilities here. So yes, I knew, of course, that the cartographic project was about developing the ability to map space while traversing it, but I hadn’t realised how far ahead it projects those charts, actually giving you the same quality of data as if it was charted space. If it turns out to be accurate, reliable, you could go anywhere!’

  ‘Well, anywhere there’s physical room for the ship to manoeuvre, yes,’ Alex agreed. ‘And yes, that does mean that we would be able to traverse nebula and areas of space currently considered too unsafe for navigation. And that, yes, means that we could move warships out beyond our borders, through areas of space even the Marfikians are known not to be able to navigate, a stealth capacity that would give us a tremendous edge.’

  ‘Oh! And that’s why they coupled that trial with the Ignite test,’ Terese observed. ‘Stealth capacity with a sneak-attack missile.’

  Alex nodded. That was something Candra Pattello had never understood, never wanted to understand. It was all about the missile, for her, and she’d had no interest in the research Kate was doing. In fact, Kate’s research was likely to turn out to be far more important, in the defence of the League, than any ‘bigger bang’ missile.

  ‘It is early days, yet,’ he warned, seeing the excitement on Terese’s face. ‘First field trials of the prototype. And with all due respect for Kate’s brilliance, it will need to be very thoroughly tested in conditions of increasing difficulty, with the results scrutinised by other experts, before anyone would risk a ship in dirty space. So we are, you know, looking at years of development and testing before that is even a possibility. And we have, again with all due respect to Kate, learned not to get too excited about these huge potential projects, as they do so often run into technical hitches and fail to materialise.’

  ‘But you’re using the data, right here, right now,’ Terese pointed out. ‘And didn’t I see something about you keeping the system, once the trial is over?’

  ‘For ongoing field trial, yes,’ Alex agreed. ‘That means we’ll be running it in tandem with normal navigation charts. The Second is paying us to do that, for the next three years. I can also make some operational use of the system on the usual ‘at your own discretion’ basis, but with that strictly limited to space that the Fleet would consider safe for off-chart navigation anyway, no venturing into non-navigable areas.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Terese, with a little nod, as if coming to a decision, but saying no more.

  They continued on their way to Ignition One, practising the turnaround drill several times a day, but with an increasing focus on the missile test that they’d be undertaking there, too. Denni, the Devast Industries geologist, was asked if she would give a talk about it one evening, which proved to be so popular that the venue had to be changed from mess deck four to the gym, with an open-comms broadcast of it for the crew on duty to watch it, too, so far as their duties allowed. Alex attended, too, and not out of courtesy either but genuine interest. Denni had pitched her talk, as requested, to an audience of spacers. That meant it was presented more like a final year university lecture than a general interest chat. The Heron’s crew were fascinated, particularly by the tech known to mining surveyors as a ‘mole’. It was a deep bore tunnelling probe, only a metre or so across and weighing just a few tons, but capable of penetrating deep within the mantle of a world, and doing so in a matter of hours, too. It would melt its way down, using laser cutters at such extremes of temperature that it would vaporise the rock it was blasting through, analysing it as it did so. Spacers knew about moles in principle, but few had ever seen one for real, so the strip-down talk about it with the casing removed had them keenly interested. They were amused, too, by Denni’s plea for environmental issues to be considered when they were finalising plans for the detonation.

  ‘No, I’m serious,’ she said, smiling, herself, but earnest, too. ‘I know, yes, we’re blowing up a planet and we need to monitor how the debris spreads, but if it is possible to do so without affecting the missile test, I would like the targeting to be done in such a way that at least the bulk of the debris goes into orbit in the goldilocks zone. That’s something I always advised, as a mining surveyor – it’s about being responsible, you know, and mindful of the future. Just blasting stuff to bits is fine and all good fun, but I personally, on principle, try to leave every place I work no worse for me having been there, and if possible, improved. If the debris is so targeted as to fall into the goldilocks zone, there is every possibility that it will go into a planet-forming cycle of collisions, and a chance, at least, that you will end up with a planet capable of supporting life, in a system that did not have that before.’

  ‘Er...’ Mack McLaver, the systems engineer who’d supervised the building of the missile, spoke up, at that. ‘But there isn’t going to be any debris, Denni. We’ve talked about this. The Ignite is a surgical strike missile, it’s intended to take out a planet, instantly and cleanly, leaving other system infrastructure undamaged. That’s the whole point of it, to be able to take out a specified planet within a system, say, one being used for arms manufacturing, but leave the inhabited world undamaged. There shouldn’t be any debris to speak of, at all.’

  Denni gave him a look which conveyed her opinion of military claims for ‘surgical strike’ weaponry.

  ‘Fine,’ she said, ‘but let’s at least ensure that if anything goes wrong and there are megatons of debris flying around, it’s going in a good direction.’

  ‘But you’re talking about tens of millions of years, there,’ Very Vergan pointed out, amazed.

  ‘I’m a geologist,’ Denni replied, and grinned, spreading her hands, ‘We think in big time scales. And me, personally, I’d like to leave a legacy of possibilities, not of destruction.’

  Everyone looked at the skipper, who grinned, too, giving her a nod.

  ‘If it’s feasible, without affecting the
test,’ he agreed.

  That got a buzz going, as the idea that they might be able to start a cycle of creation that could, some day, end up with a life-bearing world was even more exciting than blowing a planet to bits.

  They arrived at Ignition One just after seven in the morning, two weeks after leaving charted space. They would have got there during the night but Alex had given orders for the ship to slow down. He knew his crew, and didn’t want them staying up half the night just to see the arrival. There was no rush about this, after all. They would be here for at least a week before they fired the missile, with little to do but surveying and planning.

  The surveying got under way at once, with their own scanners, as they swung into long orbit outside the comet cloud. They got the first visual images, too – remote analysis had determined the number of planets in the system, and their atmospheric composition, indicating no life on any detectable scale, but no ship had ever been here to take actual pictures. It was a wholly unremarkable solar system – had been picked for this because it was a wholly unremarkable system, with a star and basic layout similar to that of most inhabited systems. It had five rocky worlds and four gas giants, a hundred or so moons and the usual millions of comets and asteroids, nothing special at all. But it was special to the Heron because they were the first people to see it up close, making so many discoveries even in the first few minutes that it was hard to keep up with them all. The innermost planet had rings, perhaps a moon that had been destroyed in an impact. Rings were nothing special in themselves but these were strikingly beautiful – a cloudy pearl set in a great sparkling collar. One of the gas giants was very pretty, too, with bands of the purest azure striped with bands of pale yellow in contrary motion.

  They spent an hour orbiting the system, getting scans of it so detailed that even the tiniest asteroid was plotted. Alex chose an orbit close in to the star, generally the safest place to be in a wild system like this, and they plotted a route through the comet cloud. Most of the objects in the comet cloud were dust or dirty ice, billions of them, remnants of the system’s formation pushed out to its edge. Occasionally a collision would send one careening into the system itself, where it would become a comet. Running into several tons even of dirty ice at superlight speed certainly was not an impact even a warship could survive, but guns and missiles would get them through safely. They came to action stations, all guns primed and missiles at the ready.

  ‘Green, all green, sir.’ Buzz reported, formally.

  Alex gave the order and sat, then, with one hand resting lightly on the datatable. He looked very calm but his eyes never moved from screens, not even when guns fired at asteroids ahead of them and Tass Curlow screamed. She had been told that they were in no real danger, that even if guns missed or didn’t destroy the asteroid completely, automatic systems would cut in and fire deflective missiles. Blocking out the sound of Chantal Jeol telling Tass not to be so silly, Alex conned the ship into its parking orbit. They were still superlight, and would remain so since there was no tunnel here to decelerate them, but at L0 they were orbiting the star every two minutes, a leisurely cruise.

  ‘Orbit secured, sir,’ Buzz reported, and added, with a smile, ‘Neatly done, dear boy.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Most Fleet skippers would go their entire careers without having to take their ship through a comet cloud into a wild system. This was the second time Alex had done it in less than two years. He gestured at the image of the system on screens, ‘Will you do the honours?’

  Buzz turned a little pink, which was not something anyone saw very often. He had been embarrassed when Alex had first proposed that Buzz should lead the first-footing party. It was a high compliment from the skipper to his exec, to offer that, and Buzz, always modest, had tried to decline, saying that it should be Alex’s moment, by rights. Alex, however, had proved to be immovable, eventually just pulling rank on him and making it an order.

  ‘You’re absolutely sure?’

  Alex just grinned. In all his fifty three years of service, Buzz had never had the opportunity to first-foot. Even if Alex never got the opportunity to do so again, himself, he was determined that Buzz was going to have this moment.

  ‘Go,’ he told him, mock-sternly, at which Buzz laughed a little and touched a comm pad.

  ‘Grounding party to airlock four.’

  The grounding party consisted of a representative group of officers and crew, chosen by lucky dip, and Shion. She had tried to say that it wasn’t fair that she should have special privilege in this, but Alex had overruled her, too, with the full support of the crew. This would, in fact, be Shion’s first step onto any world in League space, and all of them wanted it to be special for her. She was allowed to pilot the shuttle, too, which she did with great pride, her first ever landing from space.

  They landed on the fifth world out from the star. The first two were so hot that they’d have melted any flag made of anything less than duralloy, the third was so small it barely rated being called a planet at all and the fourth was the planet they intended to blow up. So planet five was designated for first footing. Shion was allowed to choose where to land, selecting a plateau at the equator. Once the shuttle landed, there was a slight pause for safety checks, then the airlock opened and Buzz stepped out.

  It was hardly any kind of historic moment, at least not for anyone but Buzz and the Heron’s crew. But for them, at least, it was quite something to see Buzz taking the first steps on that world that any humans had ever made. He was soon followed by the others, moving bouncily in the light gravity, marvelling at the sight of their own footprints in the dusty surface.

  It was not a particularly attractive world – grey dust, a few grey rocks, a distant flat horizon and a pale misty sky certainly would not win any awards for scenic splendour. But they hadn’t seen any kind of sky since Amali, so would have enjoyed the walk even without the thrill of being the first humans to visit the planet.

  The ceremony did not take long. A flag was planted with a small plaque attached, and as the others stood in a reasonably neat rank, Buzz put his hand on his heart and said the customary words.

  ‘I declare this solar system to be the sovereign territory of the League of Worlds, its star, planets and all matter therein to be vested in the property and ownership of the peoples of the League now and in perpetuity.’

  They all saluted the flag and gave three cheers, and that was that as far as the ceremonial was concerned. They did, though, stay for a few more minutes, just stretching their legs a bit and picking up a few bits of rock as souvenirs. Then they headed back to the ship, all of them beaming and Shion just laughing with delight.

  ‘I’m an explorer!’ she declared.

  They all were, by the end of the day. Shuttles were coming and going all day, taking groups off to first-foot on all the worlds and moons where it was safe to do so. All of them, by dinner time, had had the experience of being the first to walk somewhere, even their civilian passengers suited up and taken along.

  Tass Curlow was reduced to tears again by her experience. The luck of the draw had meant she wasn’t going with a party till quite late in the afternoon, and she’d been both anxious and impatient all day. When the time came, she was shaking with nerves as she was helped out of the shuttle, and then just stood there, overcome. They had landed on one of the moons orbiting the azure and yellow gas giant. Their pilot, Jace Higgs, had chosen a landing site with an eye to the view they would get, and it could not have been more spectacular. The gas giant dominated the horizon, rising as they watched till it filled the whole sky. There was no flag-raising ceremony or claiming ritual here, it was first-footing for pure pleasure. Even the experienced spacers were finding that thrilling, and for Tass, clearly, it was a life changing moment. Tears rolled down her face. There was nothing she could do about them anyway since they were of course all in survival suits, but she didn’t even seem to notice them, tear drenched eyes raised in awe.

  ‘I want to be a spacer,’ she said, when she
was back aboard the ship, de-suited and showered, recovering with a mug of tea. ‘How can anyone go back to streets and car parks after they’ve been out here and seen things like that?’

  ‘Honey,’ one of the crew told her, kindly, ‘you are a spacer. Even if you never leave Chartsey again, your mind is open, now, to infinite horizons. And once you see the universe like that, and how small our worlds are in it, you never do see things quite the same way again.’

  Once the initial survey and first footing were over, though, it was Denni’s turn to take the lead. She’d been aboard the ship for two months, now, just waiting for these few days, but now it came, she stepped up superbly. She spent much of the next week on the command deck, supervising surveys, analysing data and taking a leading role in planning meetings. The surveys went in stages. First, they had to confirm by direct testing that there was no life on any world or moon within the system. Even the discovery of the most basic microbial life anywhere would have meant them having to leave, heading to the alternative system. Shion found that hilarious.

  ‘You won’t blow up a planet, here, if there’s even so much as slime on a distant moon?’ she queried. ‘But you’re testing a weapon designed to blow up worlds, potentially with populations of billions of people?’

  ‘I know, there’s a certain contradictory ethic, there,’ Alex conceded, with a grin. ‘But it’s one of those deeply rooted principles, you know, that we don’t use any kind of large-scale destructive technology in systems where there’s life. Some mining methods, as you’ll see at Tolmer’s Drift, are incredibly destructive, crunching up asteroids and even small moons, and that changes the system significantly. If that could affect life, even a few ponds full of slime, we don’t do it, we just don’t.’

  ‘But at the same time, you put shoreleave huts on slimeworlds and throw all kinds of contaminants into their environments, including bacteria and even seeds,’ Shion pointed out. ‘There is just no logic to that.’