The Far Side of The Stars

by David Drake

  "But I'm glad you didn't tell me before," Daniel continued, noticing the tremble in his voice, "because I would've tried to stop it."

  He grinned, a harder expression than his usual.

  "And given the good result it's apparently obtained," he said, "that would've been a pity."

  Adele nodded. A team of technicians under Mr. Pasternak himself was adjusting the jury-rigged High Drive mounts in the bow. Probably to change the subject she said, "The ship those came from was much smaller than this one. Will these be able to lift us?"

  "Well, lift isn't the question," Daniel said, walking forward a few steps so that they had a better view of the newly installed motors. "The plasma thrusters will do that, and they weren't damaged when the High Drive failed."

  He grinned again. "Mr. Pasternak and I don't believe they were damaged. We'll see, of course. But the High Drive gives us our impulse in sidereal space. Since our progress in the Matrix is a function of that initial impulse, the present much-reduced output will delay our arrival at Radiance by more than I like."

  Now that he was alert again, Daniel noticed shoots that'd risen from soil seared down several feet when the Goldenfels' High Drives failed. They were curling against the outrigger, inserting suckers into broken seams. And there was a colony of quarter-inch insectoids living in the same outrigger! Goodness, where there was life, there was hope.

  Not that there was a great deal of hope for those examples, particularly the tiny animals, unless they could breathe vacuum; but it was a good principle to keep in mind. To continue to keep in mind.

  "I thought that the sails drove us in the Matrix," Adele said. Her eyes were on the gaping hole melted in the belly plates when a High Drive motor spewed antimatter into a normal atmosphere.

  The damage was impressive enough to draw attention, that was for sure. Nickel-steel icicles hung down in a three-foot circle. A patch of pink structural plastic glued to the inner surface of the hull closed the hole. The patch was sturdier than it looked, but nobody, least of all Daniel Leary, would pretend to be happy with the situation.

  "The sails only give us direction in the Matrix," Daniel explained, thinking as he spoke that if there'd been time, a cap of sheet metal for this crater and the eleven like it would've been a good investment against when they got into action. A plasma bolt would turn the plastic into a chemical explosive. . . . "We have only the momentum we start with when we enter other universes. The constants differ so that our apparent location in relation to the sidereal universe may change very quickly, but we can't add real velocity while we're in a bubble universe of our own."

  He looked at Adele. "I don't mean to sound gloomy," he said. "If I didn't think the plan was workable, I wouldn't attempt it."

  Adele looked amused. "Daniel," she said, "can you predict with certainty everything that's going to happen in the course of this operation?"

  He drew back as though she'd slapped him. "No," he said in a reserved tone. "Of course I can't, not a fraction of the events. I hope to react properly, with the aid of a skilled crew. Granting that we'll be undermanned, of course."

  "Since many of the events are unpredictable . . . ," Adele continued. Daniel could hear laughter bubbling under her words but for the life of him he couldn't understand why. "Then it's quite possible that most of them, maybe all of them, will turn out for the best, isn't it?"

  "Well, yes," Daniel agreed. "That's of course what I'm hoping for, though I won't claim I expect matters to work out that way."

  "Daniel," Adele said softly, "a person like you is never going to believe that a plan with so many variables is certainly unworkable. If the goal is important enough, you're going to attempt it. And every one of us in the crew is going to join you willingly because you're our captain."

  She smiled, though the curve of mouth was as hard as a thruster nozzle. "And because you're Daniel Leary," she added.

  Daniel laughed and linked arms with her. "Let's go back to the Sissie," he said. "I want to review the operation again with Mr. Chewning, and I'd like you to be there for the code briefing."

  He began to whistle a snatch of "The Streets of Balshazzar," "When I was a young man. . . ."

  But after all, while there's life there's hope.

  * * *

  "It's first-rate equipment," Daniel said through his two-way link with Adele. "No question about that—and Fleet Standard, too, not commercial crap. Well, not that Alliance commercial equipment is all bad. The trouble is that it's not what I'm familiar with. Do you find that also, Adele?"

  Adele pursed her lips, wondering how to respond. With the truth, she supposed; it was the choice she invariably made, and when speaking to Daniel there wouldn't be negative repercussions. Still, she could shade her answer. . . .

  "Well, this is a new system to me, of course," she said, "but I've configured it to emulate my handheld. There was plenty of time for that. And, ah, thank you again for allowing me to use a station here on the bridge. I suppose it was for security that the, the Alliance kept the signals room separate, but I wouldn't be comfortable like that."

  When Adele was working she was oblivious of everything going on around her—including, as she'd proved in the past, combat damage that made the Princess Cecile whip like a gavotting dancer. Nonetheless she preferred to be here on the open bridge instead of off in the signals compartment, even though most of her education and working hours had been in rooms and carrels where she was utterly alone.

  She had a family, now, her fellow RCN spacers. She liked being with them, particularly when she was likely to die at any moment.

  The Goldenfels' bridge was much larger than that of the Princess Cecile. A subordinate console was attached back-to-back with each primary position so that a junior specialist could echo the actions of the officer at each station. The exception was the command console, standing in solitary state in the center of the compartment.

  There were bridge stations for a Navigator, a Third Lieutenant, and a commissioned Engineering Officer. None of those personnel existed in the Princess Cecile's crew, let alone the rump which Daniel had transferred with him to the Goldenfels. Adele was at the Navigator's console. She'd had no difficulty in patching the full capacity of the vessel's signals suite to it.

  "Six, this is Six-One," said Midshipman Vesey from the Battle Direction Center. She was using the command channel instead of a two-way pair, though that wouldn't have mattered to Adele, who routinely accessed all commo on the Princess Cecile and now on the Goldenfels as well. "All personnel are present or accounted for. Over."

  Under the circumstances that meant "present" since none of the personnel assigned to the Goldenfels were on leave, sick, or on detached duty. Vesey was following the form. That was proper at any time and inevitable now that the midshipman had become executive officer of a ship far larger than the corvette to which she'd signed on.

  The Goldenfels' present crew was eighty-six personnel, which included seventeen formerly-Alliance riggers who'd asked to be taken on. Some had been captured when the Princess Cecile arrived, but ten had come out of the bush when they realized the situation. Spacers were by definition a transient lot. Even naval vessels ordinarily were crewed by people from a dozen independent planets, and the populations of some of the Alliance's client states were anything but pleased to serve Guarantor Porra.

  Even so the freighter was undercrewed, but Daniel said the situation was satisfactory. It wouldn't be a long voyage, after all.

  "Thank you, Mistress Vesey," Daniel said. "Break. Power room, report."

  "Power Room reporting all green," Pasternak replied. "Anyway, there's nothing more I can do to turn this crippled pig into a starship. Four out."

  "Roger, Mr. Pasternak," Daniel said. From where Adele sat she could see Daniel's fingers moving on his keyboard, shifting one display into the next. His face looked as calm as the statue of a saint. "Break. Princess Cecile, this is Goldenfels Six. What is your condition, over?"

  Sun was at the gunnery station, leaving Dor
st to handle the Princess Cecile's plasma cannon. That wasn't a bad situation. The midshipman lacked Sun's experience, but he had a natural gift for weapons and—perhaps more important—had shown himself completely unflappable.

  Chief Missileer Betts had remained aboard the Princess Cecile. Daniel would control the Goldenfels' missiles himself. The alternative would've required Chewning to act as the corvette's missileer, and all he knew how to do was rubberstamp the attack board's solutions—a near guarantee of failure. There was as much art to missile-slinging as there was to astrogation, Adele knew from listening to crewmen talk; and she knew also that Betts himself considered Daniel a master of that art.

  Of course the Princess Cecile wouldn't be in a position where she needed her missiles if things went as planned, but the chance of that happening wasn't even worth a laugh. Thinking of the possibility of perfection, Adele chuckled.

  "Goldenfels Six, this is Sissie Six," said Mr. Chewning. He sounded earnest and a little nervous, like a small child presenting his class project. "Sir, the Princess Cecile is ready to lift and proceed to the rendezvous location. Over."

  Daniel had drafted the majority of the corvette's riggers to his new command, but Chewning had the relatively simple task of taking the Princess Cecile to an orbit above an uninhabited—but marginally habitable—planet at roughly a day's voyage from Radiance. The Sissie's High Drive installation was undamaged, so even without Daniel's expertly-nuanced astrogation and Woetjans and her full team to execute the details, the Princess Cecile should be in position long before the Goldenfels arrived.

  "Roger, Sissie Six," Daniel said. "I hope we'll see you again in approximately ten days. Good luck to you and your crew, Mr. Chewning. Goldenfels Six out."

  "Good luck and good hunting, sir!" Chewning replied. "Sissie Six out!"

  Daniel took a deep breath and shook himself in his harness. He saw Adele looking at him and gave her a thumbs-up, then returned his attention to his display.

  "Ship, this is Six," he said over the intercom. "Prepare for lift-off. Lighting thrusters—" his finger stabbed "—now!"

  Adele leaned back in her acceleration couch as the plasma thrusters lit with a bone-deep growl. She wouldn't see solid ground again till the Goldenfels reached the Radiance system.

  She grinned again. If then.

  CHAPTER 28

  Radiance was a bright spot in the panoramic starfield at the top of Daniel's display; Gehenna was a similar bead 30 degrees to clockwise along the ecliptic. Either could have passed for an unusually bright star to an inexpert eye, but Daniel would've picked out the planet and satellite by their slight proper motion during the ninety-seven minutes he'd been waiting for the picket boat to clear the Goldenfels to land.

  The picket had just arrived, a 600-ton country craft whose antennas had been removed. Instead of making the vessel look sleeker Daniel found the result ugly and disfigured, like a man with cropped ears.

  Though the picket was unarmed, its real duty was to act as trigger for the Planetary Defense Array orbiting not Radiance but rather its satellite Gehenna. If there'd been any doubts about there being an active base on Gehenna, the presence of a newly-installed Alliance minefield would've dispelled them. The Commonwealth homeworld itself was only incidentally covered by the array centered on the satellite, 730,000 miles from its primary.

  "Four persons are boarding the scooter," Adele announced from her console. She was using her unaided voice across the stillness instead of speaking over the intercom; Daniel didn't know whether that was for security reasons—Adele was listening to low-power transmissions within the picket boat—or if she just preferred to talk normally when that was possible. "Three are Commonwealth personnel, a naval officer and two spacers. The fourth is Lieutenant Caravaggio of the Alliance Fleet, officially an advisor to the local authorities."

  She coughed, keeping her eyes on her display instead of turning to look at her companions on the bridge as she spoke. "The guardship is named the House of Peace, but its crew and their control in the base on Gehenna refer to it as the Outhouse."

  Daniel unlatched his shock harness, though he didn't get up from his couch just yet. "Sun," he said, "take your pipper off the picket boat. I don't want our friends to feel threatened when they board us in a few minutes."

  "But sir!" Sun said. "What if they—"

  "If you vaporize them, as I'm sure you could, Sun," Daniel said, "within ten seconds one of those mines is going to detonate and send a jet of charged particles through us. We both saw the result of that above Kostroma. Personally, I wouldn't find our lives a fair exchange for that orbiting dustbin."

  The mines were thermonuclear weapons, each fitted with a simple magnetic lens. When the mine acquired a target, the device detonated and the lens in its last microsecond of existence directed a significant proportion of the blast toward that target. The mines were either triggered by command, or because a target had approached too close without the correct response to its interrogation code, or because the target violated some other parameter. Attacking the guardship would certainly be such a violation.

  The gunner grimaced, but he immediately touched a control that made the targeting circles vanish from his display. "No sir," he said, "I guess I wouldn't either."

  "They're leaving the guardship," Adele said. The scooter was a simple cage of struts and wire woven around a tank of reaction mass with a plasma thruster at either end. Daniel saw rainbow exhaust puff from the back. The image swelled rapidly at first, then burped plasma from the bow and slowed to a crawl.

  Daniel rose from his couch. He wanted to give a final pep talk to the crew over the intercom, but Adele's concern for security stopped him. Instead he called in a voice that the score of spacers on the bridge and loitering in the corridor beyond could hear, "All right, Sissies. All we have to do is act like a gang of half-uniformed cutthroats who generally operate on their own. That shouldn't be much of a stretch, should it?"

  Because the Goldenfels' cover was that of a freighter, her crew hadn't worn Alliance Fleet uniforms. Besides, on-duty clothing for spacers tended to be anything loose and drab no matter who they happened to be working for. The ship's present crew wore garments from both Alliance and RCN stores, along with a mixture of civilian garb from a score or more of planets which they'd visited in the course of their careers. In fact they looked exactly like the crew which Captain Bertram had commanded and were pretty similar to the crew of any vessel in either navy that wasn't either an admiral's flagship or otherwise cursed with officers who worshipped spit and polish.

  Through the laughter, Daniel heard the clank of the scooter's electromagnets clamping to the hull, then lesser clinkings as the boarding party entered the airlock. He propelled himself into the forward transfer compartment which contained the companionways and airlock, waiting for the inner hatch to open.

  Adele, still strapped into her couch, shook her head at the unthinking skill with which Daniel and the other spacers moved in freefall; he grinned boyishly at her. So far as he was concerned, that wasn't a patch on the way she navigated the thickets of information retrieval. It was all in what you were used to, he supposed.

  The airlock opened. The Commonwealth officer and a spacer whose vacuum suit looked dangerously worn got out, followed by Caravaggio, the Alliance advisor Adele had warned about. He was a young fellow, no more than nineteen, with close-cropped black hair and a pugnacious expression.

  Last through the lock was Woetjans, a hulking giant when her rigging suit doubled her apparent bulk. The boarding party must've left the remaining spacer on the hull to guard their scooter—a piece of mindless paranoia, so far as Daniel could see.

  "HSK2 Atlantis, requesting permission to dock on Lorenz Base," Daniel said to Caravaggio, ignoring the Commonwealth officer who was nominally in charge. The latter was a man in his fifties with a sad expression and a drooping gray moustache, a considerable contrast from the bold red-and-silver patterns on his vacuum suit.

  "Where's Captain Bertram?" Carav
aggio said, his eyes narrowing. "And what the hell happened to you guys, anyway? You look like a wreck on the way to the scrapyard!"

  "Bertram's dead," Daniel said, clipping his words and glaring at the Alliance lieutenant like he wanted to tear his throat out. Neither he nor Caravaggio was quite perpendicular—and they slanted in opposite directions. Daniel wasn't sure you could really be threatening when you looked like part of a comedy act, but he was trying.

  "And as for what happened to the Goldenfels," he continued, "if you were cleared to know that you wouldn't have to ask. Give us the codes, sonny, and go back to wiping windshields for tips."

  "Look, you!" the youth replied, flying hot before the situation really sunk in. When it did, he paused with his mouth open.

  Daniel let his lip curl, which wasn't really an act. Though young, Caravaggio was older than Midshipman Dorst. Dorst would've kept his temper until he understood what was going on—though if he decided then that there was a problem, he'd proved himself in the past to be strong and determined when he went about finding solutions.

  "Look," Caravaggio resumed in a less argumentative tone, "I have to report who you are. I mean, whoever you are, I have to report before they'll clear you through."

  Daniel grunted. "I'm Kidd," he said. "I was the Third Lieutenant. Lieutenant Boster, he was the XO till the same problem as took off the Old Man."

  In fact Lieutenant Kidd—whom they'd captured on Morzanga and released there with all the other Alliance spacers who hadn't signed on with the freighter's new management—was a lanky fellow who resembled Woetjans more than he did Daniel. Caravaggio and his superiors would very possibly have the Goldenfels' crew list, but it would be abnormally bad luck if the Alliance officer happened to know Kidd by sight.

  The important thing was that Kidd and Daniel were about the same age. There was no way a twenty-three year old could pass for a senior officer of a vessel like the Goldenfels.

  "And if you're wondering about Lieutenant Greiner," Daniel continued after a heartbeat pause to make sure his luck hadn't been abnormally bad, "don't, because he wasn't in the chain of command. If you take my meaning."