Starhawk (A Priscilla Hutchins Novel)

by McDevitt, Jack

  “Good. Set intercept course. Let’s move.”

  “Captain, I have Barton’s World on the scopes. The signal is coming from that direction.”

  “Copperhead,” said Miller, “the bomb exploded thirty-two hours ago. Took out the engines. Fortunately, no casualties. But we are at Barton’s World in a failing orbit. Repeat, failing orbit. Estimate twelve to thirteen hours before we go down.”

  They angled to starboard, assuming a new course. “Benny,” said Priscilla, “how long to get there?”

  “If we had sufficient fuel to sustain acceleration and braking, we could make it in approximately six hours.”

  “I’m not interested in theoreticals. Give me a practical estimate. How long to get there and still have some fuel left?”

  “Twelve hours, with prudent fuel expenditure.”

  “Gremlin,” said Priscilla, “how reliable is your estimate?” She sat with her jaw propped on her fist, waiting for the response. Jake sat quietly, watching.

  “Copperhead, the estimate looks good.”

  “All right, Gremlin. We’ll be there in ten hours.”

  “I was suggesting twelve hours,” said Benny.

  “Burn some fuel. Do it in ten.” Jake nodded agreement. “Make it happen, Benny.”

  He leaned in and took the mike. “Josh,” he said. “This is Loomis. How many people do you have on board?”

  They waited. Then: “Hello, Jake. Glad you’re here. We have twelve total.”

  Twelve? Priscilla glanced up at the overhead air duct. No way their life support could handle that.

  Jake took a deep breath. “I thought you were hauling cargo.”

  “That was the original plan, Jake. But we got pressed into service to run a tour.”

  “Okay, Josh. We’ll see you in a bit.” He stared at the display, which showed the relative positions of Barton’s and the Copperhead. “Benny, we’ll start acceleration in four minutes.”

  “Yes, Jake.”

  “Priscilla, if you need to do anything, this would be a good time.”

  * * *

  PRISCILLA HIT THE washroom, then checked on Tawny. They’d put her in what they now referred to as her acceleration closet, where the blanket and sheets would protect her. She meowed when the door opened. Let me out.

  Priscilla wanted to give her a hug but was afraid she’d get loose. “We’ll do a couple of breaks along the way, Tawny,” she said. “But for now, you’re going to be stuck in there.”

  Meow.

  She had a plastic bag with kernels and a slit that allowed her to get at them. Her water was in a flexible plastic bottle. With a soft nozzle. Priscilla secured an imager to the inside wall so she could keep an eye on the animal. “See you later, pal.” She sighed and returned to the bridge. Jake was waiting. She slipped into her seat and told Benny to move out.

  The acceleration pushed her back.

  She put Tawny on the auxiliary screen. The cat was pressed against the back side of the closet. The blanket and sheets seemed to be providing sufficient cushioning. But she did not look happy.

  “Incoming,” said Benny. “From Union.” He put it on-screen.

  Copperhead, we have just received a code five from the Gremlin. They’ve suffered loss of power and are currently in a failing orbit around Barton’s World. We’re not sure how long they can maintain orbit. Best estimate three days from this transmission. Acknowledge.

  It was well over two days old.

  “Josh,” Jake said. “I assume another ship is coming?”

  Priscilla closed her eyes and just concentrated on breathing while she waited for the answer. Benny asked if she was okay.

  “Yes,” she said.

  Then, finally, Josh: “Yes. The Thompson’s en route. Coming in from Ross 128. Should be insystem in about thirty hours.”

  * * *

  PRISCILLA’S JOURNAL

  We can’t move very much. We’re at 2g acceleration, so all we can do is sit here and watch the instrument panel and try to breathe. It’s too much effort even to talk, and my eyes are getting pushed back into my head. Heartbeat is up. I’d sleep if I could, but I’m wide-awake. Every once in a while, Jake tries to relieve things with a joke, but at the moment, nothing seems funny. And it doesn’t help that I can’t hear him very well because it’s hard to do anything more than mumble.

  We take a four-minute break from the acceleration every once in a while.

  (Written during one of the breaks.)

  —November 16, 2195

  Chapter 4

  “LOCKING IN BARTON’S World on the forward scope,” said Benny. “Full mag.”

  It was a misty disk, mostly dark because it was facing away from the sun.

  Priscilla looked over at Jake. “How do you put a bomb on an interstellar?”

  “It would be pretty difficult unless you’re one of the techs with access. Or the pilot.”

  “Priscilla,” said Benny, “it’s time to go to cruise.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Do it.”

  Benny shut down the thrusters. It was like having a heavy weight lifted off her chest. “Gotta do that again sometime,” she said.

  Joshua called from the Gremlin: “We see you.”

  “Better let me do this,” said Jake.

  Priscilla nodded.

  “Josh,” he said. “Who are your passengers?”

  “High-school girls, Jake. They’re from the Middle East. They’ve all won science awards. This was supposed to be their prize, a flight to the Lalande Monument. Oh, and there’s a teacher.”

  Jake closed his eyes. “Where’d the bomb come from? Any idea?”

  Priscilla listened to the faint whisper of moving air and the occasional bleep of the electronics.

  Then Joshua was back: “If I’d known that, we’d never have left port. It was low yield. Just enough to take out the engines. The Gremlin has been hauling supplies for one of Kosmik’s terraforming operations.” Jake growled something about the antiterraformers. “It looks as if somebody just wanted to disable us. And send a message. But the mission was changed at the last minute, and we were pressed into service when the tour ship that was supposed to carry these students didn’t pass the maintenance inspection. Whoever put the bomb on board discovered what had happened, apparently didn’t want to risk killing a bunch of high-school kids, and called in a warning. That’s how they found out.”

  “We have a problem,” said Jake.

  “I can guess,” Joshua said. “You can’t support twelve more people, right?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “That was the first thing I looked at when I heard you were on the way. But if the Thompson gets in reasonably close on its jump, we should be able to make everything work.”

  “Most of his passengers are teens,” said Priscilla. “They won’t use as much oxygen as adults, will they?”

  “In fact,” Jake said, “they’ll use more. Kids breathe deeper, or something.”

  “So what the hell are we going to do?”

  “Don’t panic, okay?” Jake’s voice was cold. “No matter what happens, stay calm.”

  “I’m not panicking.”

  “Good.”

  “Benny,” she said, “how many can we take on board?”

  “The maximum we can support, Captain, including you and Captain Loomis, would be ten. No more than that. Assuming everyone breathes normally.”

  Priscilla turned frightened eyes on Jake. “That means we have to leave four of them? To go down when the Gremlin falls out of orbit?”

  Jake shook his head. “The Thompson’s due here in, what, another day or so? We just have to buy some time.”

  “How do you suggest we do that?”

  “The Gremlin should have a lander. We can put a couple people in their lander and launch it. Then br
ing the rest of them over here and put two more in ours. That should work fine, as long as the Thompson gets here reasonably quickly.”

  “Oh. Sure,” she said. “I wasn’t thinking.”

  “Why don’t you ask him about the lander?”

  She took a deep breath and called over. “Josh, this is Priscilla Hutchins. I’m working with Jake. Do you have a lander?”

  “Yes. But it was damaged in the explosion, Priscilla.”

  “Would we be able to use it?”

  “Not without causing another explosion.”

  She looked back at Jake. “That shoots that idea.” Her training hadn’t incorporated anything like this. “Barton’s is a living world, isn’t it? Is there any chance we could just get them out and take them down in our lander? To the surface?”

  “Unfortunately not, Priscilla,” said Benny. “The atmospheric mix here isn’t breathable.”

  “There’s still a way out,” Jake said. “We can support three people in our lander for about nineteen hours. That’s a little tight, but we should be okay.”

  “That still leaves one unaccounted for.”

  “We’ll have to squeeze one more on board. It’ll be a strain on life support, but we should be able to manage until the Thompson gets here.”

  * * *

  JOSHUA SENT PICTURES of the students, a group shot of them at the spaceport just before they boarded the shuttle, another photo of them gathered around a guy in a pilot’s uniform. Everybody was smiling. One of the girls was a blonde. Joshua stood in the middle, in his silver-and-blue uniform. She’d seen him several times in the Cockpit and Skyview. He was a big guy with a loud laugh, one of those people who thought he could do anything.

  There was also the teacher, identified as Shahlah, the daughter of Jamal Touma, who was the sponsor of the program. She was about Priscilla’s age. Attractive. “This is the first year for the award,” said Joshua. “It’s to be an annual grant, and Shahlah wanted to be present. She’s apparently the person who persuaded her father to make it all happen. The award. The ride to Lalande. The whole game.”

  * * *

  THE GREMLIN WAS a Delta-class freighter. It had a reputation for reliability, and it had become a favorite carrier for Kosmik. Its hull, steel gray with an oversized cabin, was imprinted with the Kosmik logo, a hawk carrying a scroll.

  The ship gleamed briefly in the light from the distant sun, then disappeared across the terminator into the nightside of Barton’s World. “Benny,” said Priscilla, “how long do you estimate it can remain in orbit?”

  “Two and a half hours. I would say three at most.”

  Barton’s World looked remarkably terrestrial. Big continents with long mountain chains, lush green forests, wide oceans, and snowcapped poles with large, white, fur-bearing animals. Enormous lizardlike creatures prowled jungles and plains. “What’s wrong with the atmosphere?” she asked.

  Jake passed the question to Benny. “Too much carbon dioxide. And only about half of the requisite amount of oxygen. Biologists believe that something killed off early life-forms that absorbed carbon dioxide. The local equivalent of plankton. Oxygen concentrations dropped to half, carbon dioxide concentrations rose, and forests spread. That pushed the temperatures up, and the oceans warmed. The result was to drive the carbon dioxide out of the ocean and into the sky, where it became a fixture. Unbreathable.” He paused. “I can go into a detailed explanation if you wish.”

  “That’s okay,” said Jake. “Thank you.”

  Priscilla had already turned him off.

  “All right.” Jake pointed at the display. “Let’s concentrate on getting lined up with the Gremlin.”

  * * *

  TAWNY WAS OUT of the closet, and Priscilla was waiting as the Gremlin came around the rim of the planet, back into the sunlight. Shahlah appeared on-screen and delivered a tight smile. “Welcome to Barton’s World, Priscilla,” she said. She was gorgeous. The photo hadn’t done her justice.

  The kids cheered when they looked outside and saw the Copperhead. Then the captain appeared. The all-right-I’ve-got-it attitude she remembered from the Cockpit was down a notch. “We’re glad to see you guys,” he said.

  Priscilla nodded. “Glad to be here. We ready to start, Captain?”

  “Sooner the better. One thing, by the way: The kids don’t know we’re going down. They’ve been told they’re being moved to other ships because of the engine damage. I haven’t gone into any additional detail.”

  “Okay. They’re going to have to do a spacewalk to get over to us. Will that be a problem?”

  “They already know about that.”

  Had the Copperhead been one of the newer vehicles, say, a Mariner-class, they could have docked the two ships and taken the children off directly. But Priscilla didn’t even have direct access to the Gremlin with the lander.

  * * *

  JAKE CLIPPED AN imager onto his vest so Priscilla could watch everything. Then he put on one of the Flickinger units, picked up the second one, which constituted their entire supply, and went out through the air lock. Priscilla watched him cross to the Gremlin. Joshua, Shahlah, and the girls were waiting for him.

  The students all appeared to be about seventeen or eighteen, and they looked both relieved and worried. Relieved, she guessed, because Jake was there; worried about doing a spacewalk.

  Jake turned off the Flickinger field. “This is Captain Loomis,” said Shahlah. “He’s come to give us a ride.”

  He shook hands with her and with Captain Miller, and turned to the passengers. “Hello, ladies,” he said, as if they were all cruising on the Nile. His manner suggested this was all routine stuff. No problem. We do this all the time. “It’s good to see you. Weren’t there any boys who won a prize?”

  Several of the students smiled. Others frowned, indicating they hadn’t understood.

  “Captain Loomis,” Shahlah said, “the boys get a separate flight. We’ve come a long way, but we haven’t come that far.”

  * * *

  JAKE AND JOSHUA had gone onto the bridge and were talking in low tones.

  “I know,” Joshua said.

  “But we can take everybody. You and I should stay with the Gremlin until it’s ready to go down. That’ll save some air on the Copperhead.”

  “We’ve already talked about that,” he said. “Shahlah will stay also.”

  “You sure?”

  “She insists.”

  “All right. We stay as long as we can. Then we’ll cross over and move three people into our lander. We’ll be pushing life support a little. But it should be okay.”

  “I hope so.” Joshua took a deep breath. “If we get through this, Jake, I’ll take you to dinner.”

  They laughed. “We’d better start moving the kids. How many suits do you have?”

  “Two.”

  “Okay. I brought an extra one with me. Priscilla, you listening?”

  “I’m here.”

  “Some treats would be nice. I’ll be over with the first batch in a few minutes.”

  * * *

  PRISCILLA’S JOURNAL

  This does not feel as if it’s going to end well. The Sydney Thompson is still more or less twenty hours away.

  —November 17, 2195

  Chapter 5

  JAKE ARRIVED WITH three girls and their luggage. All were breathless after doing a spacewalk wearing no protection other than their air tanks and a harness that seemed to do nothing more than produce a soft glow. They filed into the passenger cabin, rolling their eyes and laughing and exchanging comments in Arabic. At that moment there was no need for a common language. Priscilla and Jake helped them out of their gear.

  Priscilla brought out juice and cookies, and they did introductions. The girls were Adara, Lana, and Ishraq. “Make yourselves at home,” she said.

  Jake was putting the Flickin
ger units and air tanks into a plastic bag when Priscilla asked him to join her on the bridge.

  “Something wrong?” he asked.

  “No. I just need to ask you something.” When she was sure no one was close enough to hear, she lowered her voice. “Listen, Jake, I can go over and stay on the Gremlin. There’s no need for you to do it.”

  Jake took a deep breath. He looked impressed. “Well, that’s very generous of you, but no. Let’s leave things the way they are. Anything else?”

  “Jake, you’re the real pilot on this flight. If there’s a problem, you need to be here.”

  “We’ve got a problem, and I’m here. This is what I get paid for.”

  “Jake—”

  “Forget it. Your job, whatever happens from here on out, is to get these kids home.” She opened her mouth to respond, but he held up a hand indicating she was to be quiet. “This is my responsibility. We’re all going to survive, so don’t worry about it. In any case, I don’t want to have it on my record that I allowed a student pilot to board a ship with problems.” He looked back at her without cracking a grin. “If I did that, I’d never be able to set foot in the Cockpit again.”

  “Jake, if there’s a problem, I’m not certified to solo with this ship.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I’m certifying you now.”

  “All right. How about we flip for it?” One of the girls, Adara, was watching them through the open hatch.

  “Keep your voice down, Priscilla. And no.” He looked at the overhead. “We’re not flipping for anything.”

  “Why not?” Somewhere in a deep, dark place, she wanted him to refuse her. To keep saying no, he was the senior officer, it was his responsibility. “Jake—”

  “Because it’s my call. Because you’re a woman.”

  That was irritating. “Women and children first.”

  “That’s the tradition.”

  “It’s a bit old-school, isn’t it?”

  “Listen, just take care of things here, all right? Do that, and we’ll be okay.”

  “You have a plan?”

  “Yeah.” Jake waved at Adara. Smiled. She smiled back and turned away. “It’s simple enough. When we’ve got all the children over here, Shahlah, Josh, and I will stay with the Gremlin as long as we can. Then when we have to, we’ll come over here and move into our lander. We should be able to live off its air supply until the Thompson shows up. That way we won’t put any additional pressure on the ship’s life-support system.”