Tori Florez stared at him for a moment, then chuckled.
‘Right you are, skipper,’ he said, and with that, gave him a nod and broke off the call. Eight seconds later the Excorps ship began to transmit a navigation signal which the others could tag their autopilots to follow. Then they cruised into lead position, ensured that all the other ships in the squadron were ready and turned off into the Barrier Ridge.
Twenty nine and three quarters of an hour later, after a ‘juddery bit’ which had satisfied even Silvie’s enjoyment of turbulent space, they passed into a feature named by Excorps as Belstein’s Alley, in memory of an Excorps ship which had been lost there with all hands.
That had been in the previous century but even so, everyone in the Fourth was familiar with the story. The loss of the Belstein, as with the other four Excorps ships lost in this region, had formed part of their own operational briefing. The Belstein loss was unusual in that they’d managed to release a sublight buoy with a download of their log, which had subsequently been retrieved by another ship. They had all seen excerpts from that log, and there was already quiet on the Heron at the point where Alex asked them to stand in silence for a moment to honour the seven brave men and women who had lost their lives in attempting to do what they themselves were trying – to find a way through the Barrier Ridge.
They had crossed the border at what was still considered to be the most promising entry point to find a way through to Oreol. Once past Belstein’s Alley, though, they turned off the routes Excorps had already explored, trying to find a new way through.
This was not nebula – there was actually nothing to see here, at least not to the naked eye. But it was very dirty space; a region of standing waves, vortices and wave space currents which had pushed particles of interstellar gas and dust into eddies and patches which lay in wait for the unwary like invisible brick walls. Without the Naos system analysing and predicting what lay ahead, a ship might have just seconds to respond to proximity alerts. And by then, whatever way the ship tried to jink in evasive manoeuvres, they were likely to find that they were trapped.
With the Naos system it was obvious which ways were lethal and which might just be possible. Choosing a way through, though, was just as much a matter of instinct as it was of technology, as the Naos system could only predict a chart ahead of them for about twenty minutes. That meant they constantly had to adjust their route, dodging and weaving through a 3D labyrinth.
And they had, inevitably, to turn around and retrace their route at any time when the way ahead showed up red on every possible route. That happened after another fourteen hours of traversing what had seemed the most promising route. They were taking turns on point, in five hour rotations. It was Skipper Florez on point again at the time of the turnaround, towards the end of their second full day outside League borders.
Alex laughed when the Excorps skipper signalled an apology for leading them up a dead end.
‘If we map it,’ he signalled back, ‘other people don’t have to.’
This was an Excorps philosophy which they fell back on when explorations led them nowhere. No exploration, they said, was ever useless, even if all it achieved was to map some hellhole so that nobody else would ever have to go there.
Tori Florez signalled back the code for laughter. And from then on, there was no tension between the Fourth and Excorps ships. It was as if until then Tori Florez had not been entirely convinced that the warships would really be able to handle the realities of exploration. It was only now that they saw how the Fourth reacted to a frustrating reverse that they fully accepted them as expedition mates.
The Comrade Foretold, on the other hand, was not being acknowledged at all. They just drifted behind them, an unacknowledged shadow at the edge of their scopes.
It was only when they flipped around in as tight a 180 turn as the squadron could accomplish that the Comrade Foretold, taken by surprise, came into their signalling range.
Alex, deadpan, flashed them a message as the squadron ripped past.
‘I wouldn’t go that way if I were you.’
The Comrade Foretold didn’t answer, but they turned about sheepishly and fell in behind the squadron again. Then, about twenty minutes later, they nudged up close enough to signal a request for a meeting with Captain von Strada.
Alex responded with an invitation to Harard Perkins to join him on the Heron, and duly welcomed him into his daycabin a few minutes later.
‘One thing I have to establish, Captain,’ said the LIA agent, once courtesies had been exchanged and Banno had brought drinks, ‘I have to ask – how long have you known that we were tailing you?’ He saw Alex’s answer in his mischievous grin, and sighed. ‘Yes, that’s what I thought.’ He looked curiously at the skipper. ‘Pointless to ask what the range of your scanners actually is, I suppose?’
‘Sorry,’ said Alex, and was Fleet enough to treasure the moment. ‘That’s classified.’
Harard accepted that with good grace.
‘Further than ours, though, obviously.’ Then he looked a little reprovingly at the captain. ‘You might have let us know before.’
‘We didn’t want to spoil your fun,’ said Alex.
Harard sighed again and picked up the mug of sweetened barley drink that Banno had brought him.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Cards on the table. I am operating under orders to observe your operations, in case anything you might discover poses a threat to League Security.’
Nothing in Alex’s manner gave away that he’d just won a bet with his second in command.
‘LIA jurisdiction,’ he observed, ‘stops at the League border.’
That was pure wind up, as Alex knew very well that the LIA carried out operations which went into Marfikian territory. Harard though, didn’t realise that Alex was playing dumb.
‘In extraordinary circumstances,’ he said cautiously, ‘special permission may be granted for cross-border operations.’
‘And you have such permission – from the President?’ Alex enquired.
There was a short but telling silence.
‘From the relevant authority,’ said Harard.
Ah, thought Alex. Politics. One Senate subcommittee had authorised their mission. Another had approved the LIA’s request to monitor what they were doing.
‘So,’ he said eventually, then paused as he saw that the LIA agent wanted to speak.
‘I know,’ said Harard. ‘You see only two alternatives. Either I join the squadron and put myself entirely under your authority or you will do your utmost to lose us, leaving us no alternative but to return the way we came.’
Alex nodded. He really wasn’t interested in inter-committee politics other than in how they affected his own mission right here and now. In a way he could understand the security services’ concern. This was not like the previous first contact with Gide, in which the Solarans had already told them that the world beyond their border was peaceful and presented no threat to the League. Nor was it like the Samart expedition – Samart was so distant from League borders and so isolationist that they had never been known to go to any other world, so were regarded as of very low threat to the League.
This was different. This was a civilisation which neither the Solarans nor the Gider knew anything about. And it was potentially very close to the League border, which was itself just days from Telathor. It was not very surprising that the LIA would want to make their own assessment of the risk such a civilisation might pose. But on the other hand…
‘I can’t risk you endangering our mission,’ said Alex, with no trace of apology.
‘I understand,’ said Harard. ‘But at the same time, I have my own priorities.’ He sat forward, clasping his hands earnestly between his knees, and said something that was truly remarkable for any intelligence agent and almost unprecedented for the LIA. ‘Perhaps,’ he suggested, ‘we might find a compromise?’
It took a long time and intensive debate to reach that compromise, requiring a good deal of
patience and goodwill on both sides. Eventually, though, they shook hands on a deal which satisfied both. Harard then went back to his ship to tell them what had been agreed, while Alex sent copies of the agreement to Harry, Dan and Tori Florez, giving them five minutes before he went to the command deck and told his own crew.
‘The Comrade Foretold will join the squadron during the search phase,’ he told Buzz, who was waiting there to know the outcome of the meeting. ‘At the point where we are approaching a system, though, they’ll peel off to a designated rendezvous and wait there for an agreed amount of time. If we haven’t contacted them by then they will return to Telathor and report us as missing in action, presumed captive or destroyed.’
Buzz looked mildly interested. ‘I’m surprised they’d agree to be that much under our jurisdiction,’ he observed, and Alex chuckled.
‘Well, it turned out, when we got right down to it,’ he answered, ‘that the LIA’s job here is to watch and see if we get seized or blown to bits by hostile aliens. They were a little reluctant to admit that – I think they felt that we might take offence – but it actually makes very good sense from the point of view of League security. Anyway, I’m happy with that agreement on the basis that we decide when they leave us, where they go and how long is a reasonable amount of time for them to wait.’
Buzz grinned at him, knowing very well how hard Alex must have had to negotiate to win those vital points.
‘Excellent, dear boy,’ he said, and Alex smiled. ‘So long,’ Buzz added, ‘as they keep to their side of the bargain.’
Alex’s smile slipped. He had formed a good opinion of Harard’s professionalism and integrity, and didn’t like to think that he might be that wrong in his judgement.
‘We shook hands on it,’ he said, and hearing the crisp edge in his voice, Buzz just smiled again and held his peace.
So, they continued on their exploration with the Comrade Foretold now tucked neatly into the squadron. And so they remained for the next eight weeks – long, wearisome weeks with very few highlights to distinguish one day from another. Day after day, they tracked behind whichever ship was taking point, twisting and turning through the maelstrom and all too often having to reverse their course and try another route. They were in a state of perpetual standby, a semi-alert in which all standby crew were required at stations and the ship was kept in a state of far more rigorous readiness than was normally the case. No clutter was allowed – even putting a pen down on a table for a moment would get you told from all directions to pick it up, fast. Freefall mugs became the norm for drinking and tables were cleared the moment that you’d finished eating. Not that anybody really needed reminding that they were in a high risk area. Despite the best efforts of the helm pilot on point to steer the safest and calmest route, the ships were continuously vibrating, with periods in which the jolting became so severe that they went to freefall and stayed tethered off the deck as much as possible.
There was not even the distraction of socialising to alleviate the stress of such conditions. Shuttles only moved between the squadron at rare intervals, so there was none of the ship visiting, sports tournaments and other events which were the expected benefit of travelling in squadron. There was a sense of isolation, not just from the distance they had travelled outside the League into space no other ship had ever penetrated, but between the ships, too. On the Heron at least, though, morale remained extremely high. That might have been something to do with the fact that Alex himself was having the time of his life. He had minimal demands on him at that time in terms of squadron management, no outside hassles at all, and with all his paperwork caught up he could concentrate on skippering his ship.
‘It feels like the old days,’ he commented to Buzz, revealingly, as they sat one evening having the mug of soup and hot beef roll the Fleet called ‘soppo and a dog’. Alex had spent some of the day going about the ship, motivating his crew and seeing that everything was being done as it should. He had taken over for a while in engineering, giving Morry Morelle a much needed break, and he had conned the ship through their five hour stint at taking point, choosing a path through the storm. He had spent much of that day in Silvie’s company, too. She often went around with him now, enjoying his own sense of calm confidence and pleasure in the adventure.
Buzz gave a little spluttering laugh, looking at the skipper with warm amusement. He knew that the reason everyone else on the ship was treating this situation as normal and even enjoyable was because Alex himself was so relaxed and enjoying it. But the reality was that they were in very dangerous space, never more than a minute away from forces which would have torn the ship apart, and only getting deeper into the maelstrom with every hour that passed. Even when they weren’t on point, they were having to endure constant vibration, jolts and stomach-turning lurches, with a never-ending, exhausting need for vigilance.
There were, however, highlights, like the moment at which Professor Parrot walked onto the command deck, followed by all the research team, to present Alex with a syringe containing the very first working prototype of the nano-probe. There were tremendous cheers at that – it was a game changer, not just in terms of their current mission but as a new level of technological achievement.
‘I only hope,’ said Professor Parrot, ‘that we survive to get the discovery back to the League.’
Such concern was not shared by the rest of the expedition, though. It might be tough at times, hard work and not always comfortable, but the sheer thrill of what they were doing kept all of them motivated.
By the end of week eight they had traversed seventy six per cent of the distance to Oreol, a journey which, in open space, they could have accomplished in nine days. Three of those weeks had been spent finding a way around an obstacle so enormous that they’d named it the Titan Eddy, a vortex more than a light year in circumference.
On the same day that they found a way to sneak between the outer whirl of the Titan and its neighbouring vortex, dinner was made memorable by the service of wedges of fresh konaberry.
They had endured some very strange malformed fruit and vegetables from the biovat even before arriving at Telathor, and now that they were in the heart of the maelstrom the vat was producing so erratically that it hardly seemed worth operating it at all. Only the fact that attempting to get it to work was an ongoing experimental project made the Fourth persist, with anything edible it might produce being regarded as an unexpected bonus.
On this particular day, it had been set to grow kona berries, the simplest and most successful of all the fruits it could produce. Kona berries were very small, blue, intensely sweet and juicy. On this particular day, they remained blue, intensely sweet and juicy but they were very definitely not small. They had to be taken out of the tank at the point where they were ramming their way out of it anyway. Alex, as always, had the job of deciding whether they were to be considered edible or not. Faced with a scientific analysis which said they were safe to consume and a sample cut from one of the fruits, he nibbled with some caution. Then his expression changed.
‘That’s delicious,’ he said, and while signing the authorisation for them to be served to the crew, asked, ‘Can we get them to grow like that when we want?’
The answer was a regretful no, as nobody had quite figured out yet what made the biovat occasionally explode into hyper-growth under varying multi-dimensional forces, but the outcome was much enjoyed, at least, both as a culinary treat and as a source of shipboard humour for the next few days.
Then, at the end of week eight, they had a stroke of luck that had all of them cheering again.
They found a calm, a quiet backwater amongst the chaos of currents and vortices. It was so big that it was, like a canyon in nebula, obviously going to persist for some way, and it opened up a route in more or less the right direction.
It was instantly named Tranquillity Flats, and celebrated by the squadron being put into a holding pattern there for the rest of that day, and overnight.
For the firs
t time in two months, the ships were not vibrating. It was wonderful. For a long time, people didn’t even talk much, just relishing the beautiful quiet. Then there was a mad rush of ship visiting as shuttles were authorised to ferry off-duty crew between the squadron, with a riot of competing social events making the most of the opportunity. By midnight, though, everyone was back aboard their own ships and settling to enjoy the first quiet night’s sleep they’d had since crossing the border.
At 0600 they were on their way again, though continuing to enjoy the calm conditions until just gone 1500. At that point, the route ahead to Oreol was blocked by a broad, fast-moving current which was just within their safety margin for attempting to traverse. Alternatively, they could turn parallel to it and continue to explore Tranquillity Flats in the hope that some other calmer route might present itself.
The Minnow had point at that time, and Harry Alington signalled ‘straight on’. Alex smiled approval. It might have been tempting to opt for a more comfortable, leisurely exploration but Harry too was having the time of his life. Out here in the wilds they were far beyond all the fuss and politics, just human beings relying on their training and on one another to confront the most dangerous space any ship had ever managed to traverse. They were the first people ever to come here, and the magic of that, the thrill of that, had awoken Harry Alington’s soul. When he was out front, with the Minnow breaking ground, he truly was a pioneer opening a route which would go down in the history books. And more than that, the sheer joy of the adventure had reminded him why he’d wanted to join the Fleet in the first place, and why, even, he had agreed to a secondment to the Fourth. Bitter as it had been to have to face the fact that his career relied on being redeemed by his arch rival von Strada, he had recognised even then that the Fourth offered opportunities for exploration and adventure he would never meet with in the regular Fleet.
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