by D. M. Pruden
Nano-tech had been around for almost three centuries, but nobody had figured out how to invent a general purpose nanite. My own were as close as possible, but they were just programmed to identify and isolate a small number of common viruses that I would be expected to encounter as a doctor. The ones the Morality Police injected me with were specifically designed to fight sexually transmitted microbes. Hodgson’s had clearly been developed with the single purpose of defending his system against the nano-virus. Though they all attacked different invaders, all remained fixed in the scope of what they could accomplish, and I had pushed them as far as I could without success.
But all was not lost to me. I still could try to replicate Hodgson’s nanites and inject yet a third population into me. The lab was equipped with some rudimentary equipment that would allow me to do so, but it would take time. With any luck, their design might be good enough to keep me alive if exposed. I wasn’t sure I had a statistically large enough sample from Hodgson to build a working version with enough of the correct structure to be useful. Still, it was the only chance I had for when the inevitable happened. I only hoped enough time remained for me to pull things off.
♢♢♢
I awoke to a hand insistently shaking my shoulder. I’d fallen asleep at the desk and took a few seconds to groggily recall where I was.
Dylan Hodgson stood over me, amused.
“Napping on the job?”
“Late night. Why are you here?”
“You didn’t answer when we pinged you, so Garrick sent me down here.”
“I’m touched by his concern.”
“Don’t be. Everyone is being summoned to the bridge for a briefing. Turns out that the Terran’s didn’t take our bait. They are coming for us at full burn.”
♢♢♢
We gathered in the crew compartment for the meeting. Dunn arrived last and immediately began the briefing. “We have to make a decision.”
“What decision is that, exactly? Seems to me like our options are limited to death or capture at this point.” I said.
“The option of escape remains, Doctor. It is the only one I am willing to consider. I will destroy this ship before I allow it to fall into the hands of the Terrans.”
As bad as the news was, I was relieved to finally learn where Dunn’s loyalties lay. I reviewed the grim faces of the others. Nobody seemed prepared to argue with him, so I kept my mouth shut too.
Garrick took up the briefing. “We’ve put some distance between us for the moment with a boost in thrust from the engines, thanks to your efforts, gentlemen,” he indicated Schmaltz and Bogdan. “However, it is not a question of if Athena catches up to us, only when. We’ve doubled back and are now on acceleration burn en route to Venus.”
I volunteered the query, “Why?”
“They will, naturally, expect us to use the gravitational assist from our approach to the planet for a high speed heading to Luna. Once inside Luna’s jurisdiction, they know they cannot touch us without violating the peace treaty.”
“This is a Terran ship, isn’t it? Won’t we be in treaty violation?”
Dunn interjected. “This is a research vessel, not military. It was constructed by Rego in their facility and leased to the Terran science council. It possesses a Lunar registration. Once we enter orbit and request sanctuary, the Terrans can do nothing.”
Garrick interjected, ”We’ve run all the scenarios and we cannot outrun them, even with a gravity boost from Venus. They simply have more thrust. They intend to cut us off long before we reach safety.”
“Then what’s the point?” I asked.
“We aren’t going to Luna, at least, not right away,” said Dunn. His smugness annoyed me. “We will use the gravitational boost to take us towards the sun. With a close pass to Venus, we will pick up speed and should easily be able to lose Athena.”
“How close a pass?” A lump developed in my throat.
“Close,” said Garrick. His voice dripped with condescension.
“Why can’t they just do the same and follow us?” asked Bogdan. His voice shook and his eyes were twin moons on his face.
Garrick glared at him. I was thankful somebody else asked stupid questions too. “Because they already made their course correction to intercept us, assuming our destination is Luna. The Terrans tipped their hand. By the time they realize our plan, it will take too long for them to change their own course to pursue us directly. We’ll be long gone.”
“Yeah, but flying into the sun? Isn’t that, well, dangerous?” I am not a space jockey and didn’t really care how dumb I sounded.
“A good question, Doctor,” said Garrick. It was the nicest thing he had ever said to my face since I came aboard. “Under the circumstances this plan wouldn’t work, but we hold an advantage over any other ship, including Athena because this vessel is designed to fly much closer to our star than anyone else. We will accelerate on an oblique trajectory to enter orbit within the cover of the chromosphere, well beyond Athena’s ability follow. So, as you see, we have an escape plan, but it is far from risk-free.”
Finished his lecture, Garrick allowed Shigeko to continue.
“While Athena won’t be able to catch us, she can still make an emergency course correction once she sees what we are up to. The maneuver will put us into her firing solution after we slingshot out from behind Venus. It is a narrow window, only forty-three seconds, but we will be vulnerable.”
I looked around at the heads nodding like they were agreeing on a restaurant for dinner.
“Am I the only one with a concern about this?”
“You may be as concerned as you wish, Doctor. You don’t get a vote. This is merely an informative meeting so that you can all prepare. Another ship has been dispatched by our employers. They intend to intercept us as we enter solar orbit, allowing us to transfer over and escape.” Dunn’s posture made it clear that he would brook no further discussion.
As much as it galled me, he had come up with a reasonable plan. How he had arranged for a second vessel wasn’t an issue anyone wanted to inquire about. The idea, as crazy as it sounded, was our only shot at surviving this.
Chapter 23
With no further questions, the meeting broke up and we proceeded to our stations to prepare the ship for the gravity boost. Hodgson walked with me towards medical.
“You were pretty quiet in there,” I said.
“I’m not what you would call a tactician.”
“Hmm. Just a jarhead who follows orders, huh?”
“Something like that.”
“I think you, Mister Hodgson, are a man of many hidden talents. How did someone as clever as you come to work for a guy like Dunn?”
“Right place and time, I suppose.”
I stopped and gazed up at his handsome face.
“But what are you to him? At first, I thought you might be his paid muscle. Then you turn out to be a chef and an assistant engineer. Bogdan told me you know almost as much as he does. So what is your story?”
He smiled and resumed walking, forcing me to catch up. I needed to try a different approach.
“How long did you serve in the military?”
“Fifteen years. Why the sudden interest in my background?”
“I’m bored! I’ve got nothing to do on this ride except strap in and scream. Besides, you are a mystery to me and I like to solve mysteries. It’s the diagnostician in me, I guess.”
“There’s not much mysterious about me. I joined up in the last few years of the Lunar war. Never experienced combat. I’m good at cooking, the Admiral found out and hired me. When my term ended I shipped out to find other employment. I met Dunn through some of the Admiral’s contacts and the rest is history.”
“So how does a Terran ex-soldier end up working for an enemy corporation?”
“Last I checked, the war has been over for seven years. We’re all living peacefully and Dunn had work for me. Money is money.”
“You found it that easy?”
“Like I said, I never saw combat. I imagine my perspective might be a little more biased if I had.”
We reached the medical centre but I didn’t want to go inside, mostly because I enjoyed Hodgson’s company.
“So, Doctor, are you going to tell me about yourself?”
“Oh, my story now? You wouldn’t want to hear that.”
He leaned against the door, blocking my path.
“I think I would.”
“Not much to tell. Born on Terra. Mom was a military companion, so I’ve no idea of who my dad was. Lousy home life. Got into a lot of trouble until somebody took an interest in me and sponsored my education and entry into med school. After the war ended I signed on as a doc on one of the cargo ships until I got recruited by Dunn.”
He grinned and said, “That wasn’t so hard. Now I feel like we have the start of a real relationship.”
My jaw clamped shut and I ground my teeth for a second before I caught myself and returned his smile.
“I should get inside and finish up some things.”
“Sure.” He stepped aside and opened the door.
“Join me after we make it through the gauntlet? We can celebrate our survival.”
“Why not?”
“Great! See you on the other side, then, Doctor.”
He smiled broadly and strolled down the corridor towards engineering. I stood in the doorway and regarded him for a moment. What did I know about Hodgson, anyway? Besides being a decent lay, the only other things I knew were he cooked, could fix things and he worked for Dunn. Maybe he normally did Dunn’s dirty work. Would Dunn eventually send him to kill me when it became time?
♢♢♢
Sixteen hours later on the bridge, most of us sat strapped in and watched the milky sphere of Venus grow rapidly in the monitors. Dunn was nowhere to be seen. I would have asked about him, but I didn’t want to care and, frankly, I had more pressing concerns on my mind.
I had been witness to a couple of gravity assist maneuvers, but never one this challenging. We headed straight for Venus, planning a sharp turn around it. The idea was to add the acceleration of our approach along with the planet’s momentum to speed us up and outrun Athena.
Or something like that. I hated physics. To the best of my understanding, we needed to get close to the planet to pull it off. Insanely close in my humble opinion which Garrick made clear, nobody was interested in hearing.
I occupied myself by digging my fingers into the arm of my chair and tried to keep from hyperventilating. It wouldn’t do to have the ship’s physician freak out before all the fun started. I consoled myself with the knowledge if things didn’t work out as planned, we would all get a brief opportunity to scream and I could fill the air with my useless I-told-you-so’s as we burned up in the atmosphere. I thought I may as well make my last words creative, so I spent some time composing a particularly acidic vindictive to hurl at Dunn, in the event he ever decided to grace us with his presence. As I finished that thought, he arrived and wordlessly took his seat behind the Captain.
“More important things to attend to, Mister Dunn?” I asked.
He gave me his predatory smile and replied, “Everything I do is important, Doctor.”
Not in the humour to spar with him, I shut up before I voiced my real thoughts.
Even though we flirted with death in this maneuver, everything on the bridge remained calm and routine. There was no violent shaking of the ship as we approached the planet or any indication suggesting the danger in what we attempted. I closed my eyes to distract myself by imagining my hands around Charlie Wong’s throat and what I intended to do to him if I ever encountered that son-of-a-bitch again. I hoped my ghost would be able to haunt him at the very least.
Athena apparently figured out what we were up to several hours before and made the trajectory adjustment Limn predicted. I originally thought forty-five seconds not an awful lot of time for them to shoot at us. When we were first told the plan, I imagined some scruffy jarhead lining us up in his sights, pulling the trigger and missing as we flipped our middle fingers in his direction and zipped away.
The truth was far less dramatic, Athena having released her missiles after making her course correction. It was a last, desperate effort on their part to destroy us while we remained in range. Since they could not know how close we would approach or what kind of engine boost we would use, they took their best guess and laid down a spread of missiles to hedge their bets.
“The last of their payload has been released, Captain,” announced Limn, far too calm for somebody being shot at.
“Engaging course correction,” responded Garrick.
The ship vibrated slightly as the engines fired, altering our velocity by just enough to theoretically avoid the firing solution.
“Exactly how many missiles did they shoot at us?” I asked.
“Two hundred and forty-seven,” said Limn. “They employed a statistical distribution to account for any changes...”
“Thanks. I’m sorry I asked.”
I thought the entire manner of our possible deaths in that missile spread unjustifiably anticlimactic. I had always imagined dying in a dramatic fashion. Though the prospect of being incinerated shortly did qualify, my rational self argued the navigation was expertly plotted and there existed little chance my fears would be realized.
That was the funny thing about fear. It didn’t need to be based on fact or reason. It was primal; the body’s way of warning you not to try something stupid.
But as I came to understand on this day, a war in space was nothing more than an algorithm; an exercise in applied statistics. No romantic concept of two ships spinning around each other in a dogfight. No dramatic weaving or running along side and boarding like the days of sailing vessels on the Terran seas. In space, war became cold calculation and nothing else. You shot at your opponent and never saw them blown to little bits because, by the time it happened, you would be long gone. It was too impersonal for my tastes. I sat back in my seat and closed my eyes to resume my imagined murder of Charlie.
I felt a warm hand grasp mine and opened my eyes to Hodgson leaning across the aisle.
“We’ll be fine,” he whispered. His eyes showed legitimate concern for me, and I wondered how I ever considered him to be Dunn’s willing stooge.
I gave him an insincere smile to make sure he understood I didn’t believe him and resumed rehearsing my especially creative curse for Dunn.
Chapter 24
Like many things in my life, the fears I held for our fiery demise in the Venusian atmosphere were unjustified. Garrick and Limn executed the required maneuvers calmly and expertly. If I had kept my eyes closed and not compulsively checked the monitor for our progress, I never would have known what was happening. With the planet receding in our rear facing camera, I relaxed my grip on my chair arm.
“Fifty-three minutes to missile spread,” said Limn.
How she remained so calm under the circumstances fascinated me. She was a trained professional who performed her job almost by rote. We all were selected for our expertise, and, despite the methods of recruitment, Charlie had assembled an exceptional team.
Dunn sat behind the Captain lost in his own thoughts. I wondered how many deaths he had been responsible for in his career and how many others would die before someone put him down. My life, as chaotic and contradictory as it seemed, was entirely predictable to the likes of him who made a business of exploiting other people’s weakness. He seemed to know what I would do, even in situations where I didn’t. I dearly wanted to surprise him, but I appreciated to do so would mean for me to cross lines which shouldn’t be.
I observed the others in the cabin and wondered what he had on them; what was his power over them allowing him to sit so easily in all this, assured none of us would slit his throat? He left little doubt he would not hesitate to order any of our deaths.
I thought of Dylan Hodgson and the mystery he posed. I’d misjudged his allegiances once, already. Was
he more closely associated with Dunn than he let on? Would he kill for Dunn, or did he work for someone else? One thing was certain, the nanites in his system were deliberately engineered to combat the nano-virus or one much like it. Hodgson’s presence on this mission was no accident, but his role remained a mystery. I just hoped it didn’t involve me or anyone else dying.
Before I realized the passage of time, my musings were interrupted by another announcement from Shigeko Limn. We would soon be encountering the first missile cluster. I took a deep breath and exhaled, glancing at Hodgson.
“Okay,” I said, failing to hide my anxiety. “Only two hundred and forty-seven booms and we are in the clear, right? I can count that high.” I smiled tensely at him.
“Actually, there will be more than that.”
“What? But Shigeko said...”
“Yes, they launched that many missiles, but they are just a primary delivery system. Each missile includes nine cluster missiles and every one of those contains five actual warheads.”
I did the math in my head. “Over eleven thousand!”
“Yes. Distributed over an area designed to maximize the likelihood of a hit...or two.”
I couldn’t keep the panic out of my voice. “So, that means?”
“You should keep yourself strapped in. One or two will be close.”
I swallowed hard. “How close do they have to be to...you know?”
“If they are using standard munitions, anything within a kilometre will probably cause us damage.” He looked at me with regret in his eyes, “Sorry.”
“And if they’re not?”
He shook his head but said nothing.
“I thought as much.” Suddenly, forty-five seconds seemed like an eternity.
“Entering the firing solution now,” said the calm voice of Limn.