by Ryk Brown
“Sorry.” Loki continued to watch the jump computer as it verified their position and made adjustments to the next jump. In between each jump, the shuttle’s autopilot would make any adjustments necessary to keep them on course throughout the series of jumps. For the most part, all they had to do was sit back and enjoy the ride, which was exactly what Josh intended to do. Loki, on the other hand, preferred to monitor the system. Although the automatic sequencing for multi-hop jump routes had been in service for several months, the idea of a computer hopping them across the sector in one and a half light year jumps with less than a minute to recalculate each jump, still did not sit easy with him. It was a fact that Josh found amusing, since Loki had always been the one who was enamored with automated systems, while Josh had always been what Captain Scott referred to as a ‘stick and rudder’ pilot.
Sixteen minutes later, the windows became clear again as the last jump in the sequence completed.
“Jump series complete,” Loki announced.
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the 72 Herculis system,” Josh said. “How far out are we from Tanna?” He inquired.
Loki pointed out the forward window, slightly left of center.
Josh looked out the window as well, spotting the pale blue-green dot that was Tanna. It was considerably larger than any of the background stars, and was increasing in size at a rapid pace. “Why are we so far out?” Josh wondered. “You couldn’t jump us right into orbit?”
“First time in an unfamiliar ship,” Loki explained. “Better safe than sorry.”
Josh did not reply, only raising an eyebrow. He looked at the blue-green dot outside again. It was already three times larger than it was a few seconds ago, filling up half of his window. “I guess I should start decelerating, huh?”
“Probably, a good idea,” Loki agreed. “Put us in orbit, and I’ll plot a jump down to the surface.”
“Got it,” Josh replied, as he brought their engines up to power and began to decelerate to orbital entry speed. “Where’s the pickup point?”
“Some field out in the middle of nowhere,” Loki answered.
“Why not at the spaceport?”
“She wants to avoid attracting attention to herself.”
Josh chuckled as the shuttle’s engines continued to burn, sending mild vibrations through the shuttle’s flight deck. “Yeah, I guess having your own private jump shuttle to run you to and from work every day would raise a few eyebrows.”
They continued to decelerate for several minutes, until Josh finally ended their burn, placing the shuttle in low orbit over Tanna. “In orbit,” he announced.
“Jump to the surface is plotted and locked,” Loki announced. “We’ll jump in a few hundred kilometers away, then fly in the rest of the way. That way no one in the immediate pickup area will see our jump flash.” Loki punched in some commands, calling up nav data on the screen. “Slow us down another one fifty to knock us out of orbit and put us on a descent angle.”
“Got it,” Josh replied, bringing the throttles up slightly. The shuttle vibrated again, until Josh reduced thrust thirty seconds later. “That should do it.”
Loki examined their descent angle, and then commanded the jump computer to recalculate their jump after the change in course and speed. After a few seconds, the system indicated it was ready. “Ready to jump, in three……”
Josh pulled the nose of the shuttle up a few degrees so that they would be level in relation to the surface after they jumped.
“Two……”
Josh swung the engine pods into a downward orientation, with a ten degree angle aft to ensure they would have some forward thrust as well as general lift.
“One……”
“Thermal shielding online,” Josh reported after double-checking the indicators.
“Jumping.”
The windows went opaque once more, as the shuttle jumped to the surface. The ship bounced sharply, giving a violent kick to one side. Josh immediately brought all four engine pods up to full thrust to ensure adequate lift, as the sudden introduction of atmosphere against the hull of the shuttle shook its flight crew.
“Whoa!” Josh exclaimed. “This thing doesn’t jump in as smoothly as a Falcon, does it!”
“We must have jumped into some wind shear, or something,” Loki said.
“Maybe we’d better check the local weather next time,” Josh suggested. “You know, before we jump? You love that flight-planning crap, right?”
“Probably wouldn’t hurt,” Loki agreed, slightly embarrassed that he hadn’t thought of that himself.
Josh struggled to regain control of the shuttle as the winds bounced them about. Eventually, the outside air established a smooth flow pattern over the shuttle’s hull, and the ride was back to the normal amount of bounce one expected during atmospheric flight. Josh looked at Loki. “I think it best that we leave that part out of our post-flight report.”
“Agreed,” Loki replied sheepishly.
Abby stood next to the dilapidated barn in which her vehicle was parked, scanning the distant skies. A distant whine perked her ears. Moments later, the shuttle appeared low on the horizon, flying only a hundred meters off the surface of Tanna. It approached rapidly, more so than the Tannan shuttles that usually occupied the planet’s skies. When the shuttle pitched up and slowed in an almost violent fashion before touching down smoothly on the hard-baked dirt before her, she realized who Captain Scott had assigned as her flight crew.
A few seconds later, the side hatch opened up, and a friendly face appeared. Abby smiled wide, also noticing Josh leaning across the cockpit to wave out the starboard window at her. She moved quickly to the shuttle and up the ramp, its engines idling at a low intensity.
“Need a ride, ma’am?” Loki called from the hatch as Abby ascended the steps.
“What took you so long?” she asked in jest.
“Traffic,” Loki answered, smiling back at her.
* * *
“Are you sure we’re in the right area?” Naralena asked as they stepped off the transit platform.
Jessica looked out across the neighborhood from the raised platform. The streets were dirty, with litter scattered about. People were sleeping in several of the more recessed doorways. A scantily-clad young woman stood on the corner not twenty meters away, flirting with every male passerby, as well as several of the females. Everywhere she looked, there were unsavory characters, and none of them appeared to be doing anything of importance. They were just watching people go about their business.
“Jesus,” Jessica exclaimed. “No matter where you go in the galaxy, if there are humans, there are slums.” She spotted a sign in the distance. “Is that the place?” she asked Naralena, pointing down the street to their right.
“I believe so.”
“Let’s get there as quickly as possible,” Jessica said as she moved toward the exit. “Keep your head up, and look confident, and whatever you do, don’t get sucked into conversation with anyone along the way.”
Jessica moved down the stairs to the street with Naralena following close behind. Once at street level, she started down the straight in the exact fashion she had described… Head high and confident. Although she did not shy away from eye contact with anyone, she also did not seek it out. More importantly, she ignored them as much as possible, despite the occasional comments that were spoken in their direction.
A few minutes later, they found themselves at the front steps of the hotel. The building was tall, old, and appeared somewhat neglected.
“Doesn’t look very inviting, does it?” Naralena said under her breath.
“No, but it does look inexpensive,” Jessica replied. “Shall we?”
Jessica stepped forward, pushing the door inward and entering the lobby. Upon entering, they were met by a disturbing smell… a mixture of bodily waste and ineffective cleaning solutions. There were several people sitting in the large lobby, all of them appearing down on their luck and without anyplace else to go.
She walked up to the front desk. It was a long counter, nearly shoulder height, with bars reaching up to the ceiling, creating a complete barrier between the customers and the man working on the opposite side.
Jessica looked at the man. He appeared no better off than the people in the lobby, or the others on the street.
“For a room you are to look, yes?” the man said in rather poor and incorrectly accented Jung.
Naralena immediately took the initiative, replying to the man in Cetian rather than Jung. “Yes, we would like a room with two beds.”
The man looked Naralena over. “By the hour, day, or week?”
“Pardon?”
“Do you want to pay by the hour, by the day, or by the week?” the man explained, appearing somewhat irritated.
Naralena looked at Jessica, whispering, “Do we want to pay by the hour, day, or week?”
Jessica smiled. “Week.”
Naralena turned to the man and spoke again in Cetian. “We would like the weekly rate.”
“Private lav, or shared?”
Jessica understood the man this time. “Definitely private.”
“Private,” Naralena responded.
“Ident Cards?”
Naralena looked at Jessica again, then replied, “They were stolen on the train ride in, I’m afraid. Are they required?”
The man rolled his eyes. “Fifty credits per week, up front.”
Naralena pulled a fifty-credit chip out of her pocket and passed it between the bars to the man.
The man passed a small, transparent, key card back to her. “Sixth floor, six two seven. One week. You don’t pay, you get tossed at the end… no excuses. When you get new IDs, show them to me. Got it?”
“Understood,” Naralena answered. “Where is the elevator?”
“It’s over there,” the man said, pointing to his left, “but you’d be better off taking the stairs… Trust me.”
“Thank you.” Naralena turned to Jessica. “Shall we?”
Five minutes later, they entered their room. Jessica walked inside and looked about. “Not as bad as I thought, considering the lobby and the neighborhood.”
“Are you kidding?” Naralena wondered.
“Come on. Are you telling me this is worse than Haven?”
“Actually, yes,” Naralena insisted. “Not much worse, I grant you, but worse none the less. At least on Haven we weren’t paying to live there, we were paying off our debts.”
Jessica went over to the view screen on the dresser and turned it on. “Crap. It’s just a media box. No network terminal.”
Naralena turned toward the bathroom. “I have to use the toilet.”
“I guess we’re going to have to steal a portable terminal from somewhere,” Jessica said, “or find a way to make some money and buy one.”
“I take it back,” Naralena called from the bathroom. “It’s a lot worse than Haven.”
* * *
A small light flashed on the inside of his visor, followed by a repetitive beeping. Lieutenant Dorn opened his eyes, glanced about the inside of his visor, then took a deep breath as the beeping and the flashing light stopped. Before him lay Weldon, the fourth planet in the 70 Ophiuchi system. It was an icy world, with ice caps that reached into the lower latitudes, leaving only a two-thousand-kilometer band of temperate climates around its equator.
Weldon was a small planet, only half the size of Earth, and therefore had significantly less gravity than Earth, and even less than the world on which the Ghatazhak had originally been trained. Despite its smaller size, it was home to a significant garrison of Jung soldiers, which was protected by an array of six orbital missile launchers.
During an earlier cold-coast recon of the system, Scout One had witnessed a test firing of one of the launchers. What they had discovered was a single missile that broke down into more than one hundred separate, independently maneuverable, smaller missiles, any of which could inflict significant damage to a ship in orbit. That, combined with shields that protected the base, made it an impossible target to bombard from orbit. Even with the array of laser turrets that had replaced the Aurora’s original mini-rail guns, the ship would not be able to remain in firing position long enough to overpower the garrison’s shields.
The task of disabling the garrison’s defenses had fallen upon the Ghatazhak. With insufficient time available to hike across the frozen tundra of Weldon from a remote insertion point, a cold-coast orbital jump had been chosen as the method of insertion. It was a high-risk mission, both the execution of the jump and the completion of the mission on the surface once down… which is exactly why Lieutenant Dorn had volunteered. This was the type of mission that future generations of Ghatazhak would talk about with reverence.
The lieutenant grabbed the remote from his chest, and activated his cold jets, rotating around to look at his men behind him. One by one and without a word, each man raised his hand to confirm that he was awake and on task. He raised his own hand, spinning his finger in a circle, then holding up five fingers. He watched as his nine men fired their own cold jets and rotated until they were properly oriented, flying back first just as he was.
At a predetermined point in their mission time, the ten Ghatazhak fired their deorbit thrusters. The cold-jet thrusters continued to fire for several minutes, slowing them down just enough so that, to any Jung sensors on the ground, they might appear to be rocks that were slowing as they began to interact with the planet’s thin atmosphere.
The lieutenant glanced at his jump rig’s sensors. The back of his suit was beginning to heat up. Not a significant amount, and certainly no more than expected, but the temperature was rising at a steady and ever-increasing rate.
After several minutes, their deorbit thrusters’ propellant was depleted. The lieutenant’s jump-rig sensors showed him to be on the proper atmospheric interface trajectory. He activated the release mechanism, feeling the deorbit thruster disconnect from his back. A spray of more cold jets passing all around him confirmed that the small pack had moved away and clear of the formation. He looked back at the formation of Ghatazhak following behind him, watching as their deorbit packs also floated up and out of their way.
The lieutenant pressed another button on his remote. He felt his suit vibrate as he watched the next layer on the backs of his men unfold in spiral fashion, creating a circular, concave dish. Two small panels, one on each side, on the end of long arms, folded out from the sides of his jump rig. On the right panel was a control stick. On the left, a control pad. The lieutenant pulled his knees upward, placing his feet against the inside of the concave dish, sliding them downward until his toes locked into rungs along the bottom side of the dish.
Lieutenant Dorn pressed a button on the left control pad, activating the atmospheric interface dish’s maneuvering system. His visor become semi-opaque, and a navigation display appeared on its inner surface. He no longer cared about the view on the other side of his visor. He only cared about keeping his interface vehicle on the proper trajectory.
The display had already indicated a climbing shield temperature by the time the lieutenant had made his first minute course correction. He wondered for a moment if his men were also set and on course, but there was no way for him to know. Even though the Jung ships in orbit were well beyond the range of close-quarters comms, it was not worth the risk of detection, especially since there was nothing he could do to help them if something had gone wrong. Of course, he would know their fate in a few minutes, once they had successfully penetrated Weldon’s atmosphere, jettisoned their interface dishes, and begun their free fall.
Lieutenant Dorn felt a bump against the interface dish on his back. It felt like it had been struck by a small, soft object. Then there was another, followed by a third. With the fourth bump, a small wisp of yellow-orange plasma trailed off the right side of his dish, fading away a second later. The bumps continued, becoming more frequent as well as more severe. He checked his trajectory. It was exactly as expected. Withi
n seconds, the bumps became so frequent that he could no longer separate them. His entire body began to vibrate as he rode his interface dish, back first, down through the steadily thickening atmosphere. Fiery wisps of plasma segued into a constant wave of fire that surrounded him on all four sides. His visor darkened further to protect his vision, as his interface dish shook violently, continuing its suicidal plunge toward the planet below.
The lieutenant ignored the shaking, the deafening rumble that reverberated through his jump rig, and the wall of fire that surrounded him. Instead, he continued to make minute adjustments to his trajectory. Not only could he see his dish’s tendency to rock from side to side on his attitude display as it threatened to flip over and subject him to instant incineration, but he could feel the uneven pressures against his dish as the atmosphere of the planet came at him in uneven waves. The concentration level required was the most his service in the Ghatazhak Legions had ever demanded of him.
For a moment, he thought he saw a flash of light behind him, like a sudden surge in his own plasma trail, but there had been no preceding bump felt against his back. He dismissed the event from his mind, preferring to keep his energies focused on the task at hand. In another minute, his speed would have been reduced enough by atmospheric friction that the fires would disappear, and he could abandon his dish and begin his free fall.
Fifty seconds left…
Another flash of light, this one to the opposite side of him, yet still extremely close by.
Forty seconds left…
Warnings flashed in his visor, alerting him that his own attitude thrusters were no longer powerful enough to counteract the forces of the thickening atmosphere. If his dish wanted to flip over and kill him, there was nothing he could do about it.
Thirty seconds…
At least his death would be instantaneous.
Another flash of light… Slightly left and much further away than before.
Twenty seconds…
The violent shaking was beginning to lessen, and the swaying motion of the disk was lessening as well.