The Voyage of the Iron Dragon

by Robert Kroese

  Chapter Fifty-three

  Now facing backwards toward the capsule, he saw Freya push off against the hull just before the tether went tight. There was a jerk as her mass pulled against him, and then they were in freefall again. Thorvald, spinning head over heels, threw his hands in front of his helmet just in time to cushion his collision with Freya. She bounced away from him, and he activated the power winch to bring in the tether. The tether went taut and the two came together, Thorvald’s helmet against Freya’s boots.

  “Hold still,” he said, as she wriggled against him. She went limp, and Thorvald gripped her legs, twisting his body around until they were face-up, relative to each other. He pulled himself up along her body until their visors were touching. They were still spinning rapidly head over heels, and Thorvald was momentarily blinded by the glare of the setting sun as it streaked past behind Freya’s head. He clamped his eyes shut and tapped a button just above his waist to fire one of the attitude jets on the rear of the suit. Opening his eyes, he found that they’d nearly stopped spinning. A couple more short bursts, and they were suspended with their heads toward Earth and their feet toward the capsule. Thorvald couldn’t see the Cho-ta’an ship, but the capsule was more-or-less where he’d hoped it would be at the end of this maneuver.

  “Can you see Defiance?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Good. I need you to orient us so that your rear-facing jet will move us along a line that’s thirty degrees off from straight down, in the direction of Defiance. Got it?”

  “Thirty degrees from plumb, toward of Defiance. Roger that.” Freya activated her jets in a series of tiny bursts that gradually moved them into place.

  “Are we good?” Thorvald asked, when she’d stopped.

  “As far as I can tell. Defiance is—”

  A chill swept over them as the sun vanished behind the Earth and they were enveloped in darkness. Freya didn’t need to finish her sentence: she could no longer see to navigate. They were just going to have to hope they were in the correct position.

  “All right,” Thorvald said. “Ten seconds of full thrust, on my mark. Ready?”

  “Ready.”

  “Go.”

  Freya engaged the rear thrusters, and Thorvald felt his suit push against hers. After ten seconds, she cut the thrust. There was no sense of movement. Earth was completely black beneath them; all they could see were stars, brighter and clearer than any stars they had ever seen. For the next hour, they waited, inches away from each other but unable to touch, their primitive space suits doing little to ward off the cold. Although they had enough oxygen to last several hours, these suits were never meant to keep them alive for more than a few minutes in space. Whether their fingers would still work when they came around into the sunlight again remained to be seen.

  They also would not know until the sun came out again whether the maneuver had been successful. The idea had been to put them into a slightly more elliptical orbit, essentially executing another Hohmann transfer to get their orbit to intersect that of Defiance. The suit jets possessed a tiny fraction of the propulsive power of the Gemini capsule, but the mass of the two astronauts was also far less, making it much easier to alter their orbit. With some luck, the maneuver would have altered their trajectory enough to get them close enough that one more burst of thrust would allow them to rendezvous.

  When the sun rose again, however, they found that they were still over two hundred yards from Defiance, and their current orbit did not look like it would take them much closer before they started drifting away again. They would need at least one more burn to get them close enough for the final rendezvous maneuver. Thorvald radioed their status to the command center, but there was no response. They were on their own.

  Thorvald maneuvered them into position for another burn and then used all the propellant in his jets in an attempt to get their orbit to intersect that of Defiance. By the time the sun disappeared again, they were on a promising trajectory. They faced another hour in the freezing cold, but so far they were free of frostbite. This would hopefully be their last night in space: besides being almost out of propellant, they were now running low on oxygen. If they weren’t close enough to rendezvous when the sun came up again, they would die together of asphyxiation.

  The sunlight revealed that they had overshot their goal: they were now only about a hundred yards away from the Cho-ta’an ship, but the distance was growing by the minute. They could just make out the hole in the hull where Mallick had gotten in.

  “We’ve got to try to rendezvous,” Thorvald said.

  “We’ll never make it.” They’d planned for the rendezvous to occur at a distance of up to two hundred yards, but that was with full propellant tanks.

  “No choice,” Thorvald said. “Orient us a few degrees above Defiant and give it a short burst. Hopefully we have enough propellant to correct and do one more short burn.”

  Frey did as instructed, halting their movement away from Defiant. They were now on a course that would take them within twenty yards of the Cho-ta’an ship. While she was orienting them for the final burn, though, the propellant gave out.

  “Shit!” she yelled. They were both out, and in a few seconds, they would drift right past Defiant and into outer space.

  “You have to do it,” Thorvald said.

  “Do what? I have no propellant.”

  “The rendezvous. Push off against me.”

  “What? No! Thorvald—”

  “No time to argue. We’ve got about ten seconds. You’re the engineer. You’ve got the training.”

  “Don’t talk crazy. We’ll use the tether.”

  “Not long enough. It’ll pull you back. You have to do this alone.”

  “Thorvald, I can’t!”

  “You can. You have to. I’m sorry, Freya. I did my best. I didn’t mean to leave you alone.”

  “No! You’ll die!”

  “If you don’t do it, we’ll both die. Pull your legs in.”

  “Thorvald!”

  “Pull your legs in!”

  She pulled her knees as close to her chest as she could in the restricting suit. Thorvald gripped her ankles pulling his chest up against the soles of her boots.

  “I’ll come back for you.”

  “I’m sorry, Freya. Now’s your chance. Push.”

  “I’ll get Defiant working and pick you up.”

  “Push, God damn it!”

  Freya straightened her legs with a jolt, shoving Thorvald away from Defiant. He frantically disengaged the tether and Freya kept moving toward Defiant. Her kick had been a couple seconds late, and at first it seemed like she might miss the ship after all. The slid alongside its hull until her left arm hit an antenna, slowing her movement and causing her to swing around until her right boot caught the edge of a panel. Thorvald smiled as the Cho-ta’an ship receded into the distance. She had done it. All she had to do now was crawl along the hull until she got to the breach and climb inside. He had no doubt she’d be able to get the hull repaired and get the ship working. She’d trained for this task for months, using an underwater mockup of Defiant.

  “I’ll come get you,” Freya panted, as she made her way along the hull. “I just need to get the nav system online.”

  “Get that patch in place,” Thorvald said. “You’re running out of air.”

  “So are you.”

  “Yes, but my job is done. I’m sorry, Freya. It’s all on you now.”

  In training, it had always taken at least forty minutes to get the ship pressurized, and it could take several hours after that to get the rest of the ship’s systems online. He had less than an hour of oxygen left. If only he’d been a little more precise with the Hohmann transfer, or if the tether had been a few yards longer, or… but it was too late for any of that. He’d done the best that he could, and he’d gotten Freya to Defiant. She would have to handle the rest.

  “I’ll get you,” Freya said. “If the primary systems are still running, it won’t take long to p
rogram an intercept course. If you conserve your oxygen—”

  “There’s no time, Freya. You need to focus on getting that patch in place. Relax. If you rush, you’re going to make mistakes.”

  “If I don’t rush, you’re going to die.”

  “You need to forget about me. Focus on the mission.”

  “This wasn’t the mission. We were supposed to do this together. I can’t… Thorvald, twenty years in that ship, alone.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I screwed up. But you’re wasting oxygen. Focus.”

  For some time, all Thorvald heard was Freya’s breathing. She was now just a tiny white bump on the side of the Cho-ta’an ship. He watched as the bump moved slowly to the hole in the hull and then disappeared inside. “I didn’t want to share a spaceship with you for twenty years anyway,” she said.

  “I don’t blame you,” Thorvald replied. “My brother says I snore.”

  “Sounds like I dodged a bullet.”

  “Yeah. You need to stop talking or you’re going to run out of oxygen before you get the patch on.”

  “If stop talking, I’m going to panic.”

  “I’ll talk. Focus on my voice.”

  “Okay.”

  “So, um, I don’t really know what to say.”

  “That’s a first. Do you know any songs?”

  “I know part of a poem.”

  “Recite it for me.”

  “All right. It’s a very old poem. My grandfather used to recite it for me, but the version I memorized is from a book in the library. It’s called Beowulf. The part I know goes:

  “‘Forth he fared at the fated moment,

  sturdy Scyld to the shelter of God.

  Then they bore him over to ocean’s billow,

  loving clansmen, as late he charged them,

  while wielded words the winsome Scyld,

  the leader beloved who long had ruled.

  In the roadstead rocked a ring-dight vessel,

  ice-flecked, outbound, atheling’s barge:

  there laid they down their darling lord

  on the breast of the boat, the breaker-of-rings,

  by the mast the mighty one. Many a treasure

  fetched from far was freighted with him.

  No ship have I known so nobly dight

  with weapons of war and weeds of battle,

  with breastplate and blade: on his bosom lay

  a heaped hoard that hence should go

  far o’er the flood with him floating away.

  No less these loaded the lordly gifts,

  thanes’ huge treasure, than those had done

  who in former time forth had sent him

  sole on the seas, a suckling child.

  High o’er his head they hoist the standard,

  a gold-wove banner; let billows take him,

  gave him to ocean. Grave were their spirits,

  mournful their mood. No man is able

  to say in sooth, no son of the halls,

  no hero ‘neath heaven,—who harbored that freight!’”

  Chapter Fifty-four

  Reyes, O’Brien, Helena and the others made their way through the tunnel and boarded Stjörnubát. When they were all aboard, Reyes triggered the release mechanism, lowering the knar to the water. Sitting in the stern, O’Brien ordered the crew to take up their oars. Several minutes of chaos ensued, during which the inexperienced oarsmen nearly ran them into the rocks, but eventually Stjörnubát began to creep away from the island toward the southwest.

  As it did so, it attracted the attention of many of the Indians on the shore, who were loading their snekkjas with goods taken from the settlement. Soon, several of the snekkjas pushed off from the shore and began pursuit. Stjörnubát had a lead of several hundred yards, and with a strong wind once again blowing from the north, O’Brien ordered the sails unfurled. A few of the crew had some experience sailing a knar, and they made quick work of the task. By the time the snekkjas got their sails unfurled, Stjörnubát was half a mile away. The snekkjas pursued for some time, but eventually began to furl their sails, one by one. Unable to tack, the Indians would have to either row back to Antillia or wait for the wind to change. When it looked like the danger had passed, they changed course to the east. Ultimately they would have to tack north to rendezvous with crew at Camp Collins in Bermuda, but for now they would ride the wind as fast as they could away from Antillia.

  Once they were on their way, Reyes ordered one of the men to get the radio from the ship’s hold. The crew unpacked it, and Reyes tuned it to the frequency they’d been using to communicate with the Gemini capsule. Getting no response, she tried a frequency in the band that the Cho-ta’an ship had been transmitting on. Instead of the screeching they’d heard in this band since the destruction of Andrea Luhman, they heard the voice of a teenage girl.

  “—Freya Odsdottir of the spaceship Defiant,” the voice said over the radio. If anyone can hear me, please answer.”

  “Freya!” Reyes answered. “Do you copy?”

  “Chief, is that you?”

  “This is Reyes. Sorry for the radio silence. Mission control has been relocated.”

  “Thank God,” Freya said. “Camp Collins isn’t answering. I thought I was all alone.”

  “You’re aboard Defiant? What about Thorvald?”

  “He didn’t make it, Chief,” Freya said, her voice cracking. “Our trajectory was off, and he… Oh God, chief. I’m alone up here.”

  “You’re not alone,” Reyes said. “I’m here. O’Brien and Helena are with me.”

  “What about Nestor? And Alma?”

  “We lost Camp Aldrin. But I’m here, and I’m safe. I won’t leave you.”

  “Copy that,” Freya said.

  “Can you give me a status report? What condition is Defiant in?”

  “Hull is repaired, and the cabin is nearly up to pressure. Life support is still on the default settings, so the O2 is a bit high, but I’ll get that sorted once everything else is nominal. Operating system is online, and as you can tell, I’ve got comms working. Some of the sensors have been damaged by meteor strikes, but nothing mission-critical. Should have nav and propulsion working shortly.”

  “Then we did it,” Reyes said, hardly believing the words coming out of her own mouth. “In a few hours, you’ll be on your way.”

  “I’ll be on my way. Alone.”

  “I’m sorry, Freya. You know that’s not how we planned this. I’d suggest bringing Defiant down for a landing, but—”

  “I know, ships like this aren’t designed to take off from Earth gravity. We’d never get it into space again. It’s all right. I knew what I was signing up for. I just didn’t think I was going to be doing it alone.”

  “You won’t be completely alone. We should be able to maintain radio contact for a while.”

  “A year, max.”

  “Well, it will give you some time to acclimate, at least.”

  “Yeah. I should get to work on propulsion. I’ll give you an update when I can.”

  “Copy that, Freya. And thank you.”

  *****

  Over the next several hours, Freya sent occasional updates as she got the various systems aboard Defiant working. After she reprogrammed the life support system to produce a more human-friendly atmosphere, she reported that she was going to get some sleep. It was now night in the Caribbean, and the ship continued to sail east throughout the night. One of the men with some sailing experience relieved O’Brien, who was in dire need of rest. Helena had given him some painkillers and a stimulant, but by sunset he was fading fast.

  O’Brien slept until nearly noon the next day. In mid-afternoon, after several failed attempts, they managed to get Stjörnubát to tack north toward Bermuda. By this time, communications had been reestablished with Camp Collins; a transformer failure had temporarily taken down their radio. Three days later, Stjörnubát arrived in Bermuda. Her crew and the three technicians still on duty at Camp Collins were, as far as they knew, the only Eideje
lans left alive on Earth.

  Freya spent six days familiarizing herself with Defiant and making sure its systems were working nominally before plotting a course for the Fractalist planet. It was more time than they’d planned for, but it wasn’t like they were in a hurry: the war they needed to end wouldn’t start for another eleven hundred years. Besides, some allowances had to be made for Freya, who would now be undertaking the twenty-year journey alone.

  Thanks to the time dilation effect of near-light-speed travel, the journey would actually only take about four years, from Freya’s point of view. She would spend the first year accelerating to 99.5% of light speed, which was the maximum speed of any known propulsion system. Faster than that, certain undesirable physical effects tended to occur that would hamper the proper operation of the ship’s systems as well as any organic entities aboard it. At 99.5% of light speed, time would pass a tenth as fast on board the ship relative to stationary objects outside it, which meant that during the seventeen years that she spent traveling a little less than seventeen light-years, she would experience the passage of only one point seven years. At the end of this period, the ship would turn around and decelerate for another year, so that it would be near-stationary by the time it reached the Fractalist planet.

  Defiant broke orbit on xx, reaching one gee acceleration three days later. Cho-ta’an ships were capable of much greater acceleration, but the savings in travel time was not worth the added stress on the ship and its human occupant. At one gee acceleration, she would reach 99.5% of light speed in a little less than a year.

  While Defiant rocketed toward the outer planets of the solar system, the refugees from Antillia settle in at Camp Collins. At its peak, Camp Collins had been home to over three hundred people, so there was no shortage of room. The local native tribes were friendly, and there was little danger that they would be pursued across the ocean by the Indians who had attacked Antillia. Lacking leadership, the Indians would likely settle on Antillia, making use of the Eidejelans’ buildings and tools and eating their stores of food. At some point, though, the food would run out, and they would have to migrate elsewhere. Maybe some of them would go to South America. Gabe had told them that the xx culture in xx had possessed sailboats similar to those employed by the Norsemen. It was possible some of those boat builders had been migrants from Antillia.