by Dain White
They are already probably hopping mad at us raising ship without clearance, if they even noticed. Not that I cared one iota how mad they were. The only thing that mattered now was my crew, my ship, and my life – in that order.
“Gene, we're getting close now, I am going to need you and Pauli on the cargo ramp soon. Naturally, I am going to recommend you remain on belay, mister, with retractor controls belt-side.”
“Aye Skipper”, Gene said, in a voice that sounded as if it was carved from wood. He definitely seemed awake.
“What's our plan Dak?”
“Gene, you know me, I don't often have a plan that makes enough sense to share with others. That's never stopped me, of course.”
I gave a brief thought, as brief as I could, about the benefit of planning, and often how pointless it is to try to plan against the unknown. Of course, rather than focusing on any specific plan, I try to just stay full to the scuppers with plans. I have so many plans stored up, I just swap the good bits around to fit the situation. Normally, I do it without thinking, and would expect any officer to do the same.
Of course, none of this was really helping me grasp the situation hurtling towards us. I figured talking it through couldn't hurt, and it might cheer up Gene. He sounded pretty tense.
“Gene... if Janis can pinpoint which grounder Jane is in, I think I'll just bring us back upwind right above her. I'll hold station so you two can hook her grounder with the hoist and haul her aboard.”
Saying that out loud didn't make it sound less crazy, quite the opposite in fact. I couldn't see Gene's face at that point, but I really didn't need to – he was probably regretting his decision to join my crew.
While I never have second thoughts about telling myself what to do, I always struggle over moments in my command where I have to ask my crew to place themselves at my disposal, to follow my lead and face unimaginable danger, to succeed in the face of failure.
Gene and Pauli were up for the task, of course. To think otherwise was to contemplate the alternative, and the alternative was unthinkable. Jane was going to live, as far as I was concerned, there was no alternative.
As we punched through the thickest parts of downtown, riding a nearly solid current of wind and navigating spires like strange chromium seaweed, Janis and I kept the Archaea pointed true, balanced in the current of wind. Even with help, it was tremendously difficult to hold a line, and required every last bit of concentration.
Every moment seemed to last forever, anything I didn't need to see or hear became relegated to background static as I paid one-hundred-percent attention to the pipe.
Even though I had picked a course with the least compression and acceleration, even with Janis balancing the ship, I knew we were approaching our absolute limit for safe operation of this frigate.
Maybe a little beyond, actually.
Of course, Gene might think we were dangerously past any rational limit, but if I went through my life trying to keep Gene from freaking out, we wouldn't have any adventure. Probably end up sitting in port and drinking beer all day. I couldn't deny that sounded like a mighty good place to end up after a day like this, but first we needed to make sure Jane and Yak could be there to enjoy it with us.
We were almost there, one last arco on the port side, and I needed to haul us around to the leeward eddy, so we can line up for a shot at Shorty.
“Janis, I am about to get into the lee of this one to port. Would you please give me a best guess on Shorty's location? I will need this LZ on screen and mapped at maximum resolution to make this approach.”
“Absolutely sir. Jane is located 324 meters below us, ranged 1284 meters at 278.” She flashed a new pipe on my screen, coming about to port in the wind shadow of the nearest arco, then rounding over to starboard to come back upwind.
As we rounded the last arco, an unbelievably massive wall of metal even at this altitude, we started to buck wildly up and down, buffeted by incredible turbulence. I fought for control with my stomach in my throat as wind shear flung us down a few thousand meters in a heartbeat.
Not that my heart was actually beating at that point.
I tucked us in as close as I could to the arco, and held station as best as I could in the swirling, chaotic leeward eddy.
“Sir, would you like me to take the helm?” asked Janis sweetly. I considered it for the briefest of moments. Some choices are hard... others are very easy.
“Very well Janis. You have the conn.”
“I have the conn, aye”.
Immediately the Archaea hung solid, unmoving, as stable as if we had docked on the hard. Pauli looked back at me and I nodded as confidently as I could. He unclipped and started to make his way aft on legs that looked like they were made of water.
“Alright Gene, we're as stable now as we're going to get, about 1800 meters away from Jane, and Janis has a pretty good fix on her. Please make your way to the cargo hold at this time. We're going to come around, and then run upwind to place the cargo ramp as close as we can get. Pauli will drive the hoist, and you will need to hook up her grounder from the end of the ramp so we can yard it up into the cargo bay.”
“Aye skipper, piece of cake, right?”
I laughed, ignoring how much it sounded like a shriek.
“I don't know what kind of cake you normally have Gene... if this was a cake, it would be frosted with fear and smell like the south end of my shorts!”
*****
Pauli arrived just as I was latching my retractor to the ramp hardpoint with hands that were shaking uncontrollably. I waved him to the hoist controls, and gave him both thumbs up to let him know I was ready.
“Captain, we're in position now” Pauli said in comms.
“Very well, Pauli. Stand by and hold on.”
My hands felt like they were welded to the rail on the side of the ramp. It was all I could do to keep my feet as the captain eased us out from the eddy and into the full blast of the howler.
Inside the cargo hold, just hanging on like we were... this was incredibly dangerous, even with him at the controls. One wrong move, mistake, or random gust, and Pauli and I might end up dashed senseless on the deck. I felt utterly helpless, once again finding myself deep in the bowels of a ship while Dak does something heroic beyond comprehension, my life in his hands.
“Okay folks, I can see the lights of Shorty's grounder, or at least I hope it's hers. All hands, prepare to come about!”
“Ready about, aye” I said, and looked up at Pauli gripping the controls like he was trying to tear them off the rail. He nodded down at me, but looked like he was about to be sick. I couldn't blame him, not one bit. I felt a little dropsick myself.
Our captain was far and away the best starship pilot I've ever worked with, and the only person I would trust to do what we were doing. All the same, I was amazed at how smoothly he pulled us around. The reac drives were ramping up and back as he fought across the wind, and the lifter compensation was making my stomach flutter and lurch, but all in all, I was expecting far worse.
“Gene, I am on final approach... Shorty's grounder is wedged up really tight against a barricade on the lee side of the expressway, and looks like it's about to go over. I don't think we have much time left, so let's move with a purpose!”
I nodded at Pauli, and he started to drop the ramp as we made our final approach. Turbulence from the trailing edge of the expressway hurled us up and down violently, almost tearing my hands away from the rail – I gripped as hard as I could, tight enough to leave dents. I was too scared to be scared at that point, it was as if I had pushed through terror to some sort of serene place. I briefly wondered if this was how Dak felt all the time. My brain started filling up with all sorts of random thoughts, as if in self-defense, as a buffer against the reality of our situation.
We started weaving from side to side as we fought upwind. The sound of the drives at the end of the ramp were thunderous, but they were almost impossible to hear over the scream of the wind as it blew past the opening ramp.
It was all I could do to stay sane, as the wind filled the hold with swirling dust, glittering in the loading lights. With the hoist hook clipped to my belt, I started making my way down the ramp as it dropped into madness.
I was just about to the bottom of the ramp, and regretting every step I had taken in my life leading up to this moment, when the flashing lights of the crushed grounder lit up the billowing dust below me.
“Gene we should be here now.” Dak's voice in my ear was solid, reliable, and calm, despite the horrendous balancing act he must be doing to hold us on station. As steady as we were, we still swung back and forth across the tangled mass of wreckage below like a pendulum counting down our remaining moments.
I waved at Pauli for some slack, and payed out the hook until it caught the wind. My eyes filled with tears as I watched the grounder slowly but surely rising to the top of the wreckage mashed against the barricade.
I tried desperately to set the hook, and each time it skipped off the grounder, I felt my heart stop. I knew I was running out of time, and kept trying to cheat the clock, to get one more shot in before the buzzer.
And then, in the midst of despair, tears blurring my eyes, almost before I had realized what had happened, I had it hooked. A wave of exhilaration flooded through me all the way to my toes.
I was just about to wave Pauli to pull slack when the grounder popped loose of the barricade and lifted up and over in a wrenching scream of grinding metal. I leaped back to the rail as the cable pulled short and jerked to a stop, snapping tight next to me.
I waved at Pauli to pull her in, and started running up the ramp, cringing and ducking as the grounder dangled and spun against the crushing force of the wind at the end of the cable. As it came aboard, the grounder started whipping back and forth, spinning and snapping across the ramp.
“Captain, Gene has her hooked, and I'm warping her in now. Please stand by.”
“Very well, Pauli.”
Pauli hung on the hoist controls, and bit by bit the grounder pulled in until it was on the ramp and grinding up towards the cargo bay. He started raising the ramp as soon as it was clear, and we both dashed over to the grounder even before the hoist had stopped.
Working as fast as we could, I passed a chain strap over and through the twisted mass of metal and Pauli hooked it down to a strongpoint in the deck plate.
“Captain, we have the grounder secure, looking inside now.” I said, though I was terrified to think of what I might find.
The Archaea briefly shook enough to stagger us around a bit as Pauli and I worked our way up and across the grounder, looking through swirling clouds of dust lit by the loading lights into what was left of the interior.
The interior of the grounder was scoured to bare metal, every part that could have been removed was either blasted off or missing. What remained was bare metal, wiring harness and other ragged bits of strap, brackets, and the plastiform seats in the rear compartment.
The dust was deep, drifted all the way up to the top of the passenger side window, but as we looked down, Pauli burst into tears when we saw Shorty caked with dust clawing her way towards us.
“Captain, we have her!”
“Very well Gene, outstanding. Get her strapped in and get back on station. This isn't over folks, we need to haul mass immediately.”
Chapter 5
After we cut off the binders and laid her on the bunk, I wiped the worst of the dust out of her eyes while Gene administered a sedative and made sure her crash bars were clamped down securely. She gave my hand a solid squeeze and smiled, as her eyes sagged shut.
Gene and I shared a look across her, of relief and accomplishment, but as wrung out as we were, the day had just started. We both set off on a run back to our stations.
“How does she look, Pauli?” the captain asked, as I dashed across the bridge deck for my station. The Archaea was coming back around downwind, shaking violently as I pulled around the crash bars and fought to get them secured.
“She looks great Captain, considering what she must have been going through. We were just in time... couldn't have cut that any closer – her grounder actually went up and over right after we hooked it.”
Captain Smith whistled through his teeth and shook his head. “Lucky girl... any other survivors?”
“No, sir. She was tucked in on the lee side, and almost completely drifted over when we pulled her out, but the driver of the car didn't make it... either he was blown out of the grounder, or...” I trailed off, unwilling to finish that thought. There was nothing left of the interior, scoured to bare metal. Whatever had happened, I hoped it was mercifully quick.
“Easy son,” he said softly, “you did it, she's safe... now let's go round up Yak. I gave him a direct order to return to the Archaea, and I'll be damned if he doesn't get an opportunity to do so.”
As we spoke, the Archaea started to lift and climb, falling off the wind, aiming for a safe distance for an orbital burn.
“Janis, please shape a course for orbital burn and that bogey, it's time to go get Yak, dear.” He paused briefly as the course flashed on screen, “Very well Janis, that will be perfect.”
“You're welcome sir. Please be advised, I am recommending an in-system assisted slipspace jump to match vector as efficiently as possible.”
I felt the hairs rise on the back of my neck. With a response time curved past subjective now, Janis has the reflexes to pilot an in-system slipspace jump – though the thought terrified me.
“Gene, I will need slipspace active and ready to use at your earliest opportunity.”
A brief pause.
“Aye skipper, powering up now.” Gene sounded as terrified as I felt.
“Gene, I want you to know that I am flying a concerned eyebrow at the moment, lest you think I am just going to hurl us into the unknown at superluminal speed without a worry or a care.”
“I know Captain... it's just been a pretty long day.”
“Gene, Yak deserves our very best. I am concerned as well, but... I can't give him any less, and he's just about out of targeting range. I am completely out of options.”
“Dak, you are making the right choice. I'm standing by. Let's go get Yak.”
“Very well, all hands – stand by for a 12g compensated orbital burn, time to light the fires!”
My head crushed back into the headrest as we hurtled to orbit on an incandescent column of fire.
*****
I held the yoke tight as the sky turned black through the forward port, and fought to keep my eyes open against the acceleration as I was crushed against the cushions.
Even with pseudomass compensation projecting a gravity well ahead of us to counteract our acceleration, we were still experiencing close to six gravities, more than enough to cause unconsciousness in all but the most seasoned pilots.
Of course, I was seasoned like a salty dog, and concentrated on breathing and staying alert as the waypoint timer clocked down on my screen, and the slipspace transit approached. I checked the boards to make sure there wasn't anything flashing ambers, and started energizing the slipspace field right on the mark.
Slipspace works on the principle of capturing a bubble of normal space, then accelerating that bubble beyond the speed of light by projecting pseudomass ahead of us, pulling us down deeper and deeper into a warped hole in spacetime.
The pseudomass generators function using a frame drag effect, caused by a dense packed array of supercooled, magnetically accelerated rings. Each ring in the array is accelerated in phases, amplifying the effect and allowing it to be focused. The entire unit is mounted in a gimballed armature that allows it to be aimed – this is how we direct pseudomass to offset grav-loading and keep us from splashing into puddles of warm pink goo when I light the fires.
Janis had plotted an assisted slipspace course that was flashing front and center on my screen, with a big red button marked EXECUTE. If there's one thing I like more than anything else, it's pressing a big red button. My fin
ger was getting that itchy feeling... once the stasis field had energized, there was only one thing left to do.
“All hands, stand by for an in-system slipspace run – secure for free fall at this time.”
I kicked off the burn, and almost immediately my eyes cleared and the gray tunnel I was staring through started to fade. I gave my head a good shake to clear it, and mashed the red button.
“Everything is looking good in engineering, Captain” Gene said on comms. “How long is this slip?”
“Only a few more seconds Gene – just a little tiny hop, nothing to it.” I said, exuding enough cool for any number of cucumbers.
“And then what Dak? Do you have a plan for what comes next? We don't know what we're facing here, do we?”
“Gene, I always have a plan. Stand by.”
I needed a plan. Plans require information, and information is power. Power is... well, Janis would know.
“Janis, dear, do you have any information on the target characteristics? Mass, configuration, armament, that sort of thing?”
“Absolutely sir, the target masses 30 tons, and is best characterized as a heavy runabout, inter-system capable. I am unable to postulate armament or crew compliment, but I am reasonably confident the target is boosting towards a rendezvous with a larger long-haul craft of some sort.”
“Thank you Janis, that's just what I needed to know.” I scratched my head and allowed myself the luxury of a thought or two. I try not to make a habit of it, but from time to time they are unavoidable.
“Janis, please clone target solutions to Pauli's screen--”
“Captain, I don't know the first thing about this role!” Pauli turned in his chair to fix me with a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed look.
“Pauli, there's nothing to it. Shorty's down, so I need you man. Janis is going to handle firing, but I need you to keep an eye on the solutions. Can do?”
“I'll do my best, sir.”
“That's all I can ask, son. You'll do fine. I need you to keep an eye on Janis as well, but you do that in your sleep already.” I flashed him the smile of ultimate command, guaranteed to boost confidence or else.