Infinite Stars

by Bryan Thomas Schmidt

  “Shut the ramp,” he said, “and stand by countermeasures.”

  Strapping in again, he fired his thrusters at maximum and slammed the throttle forward. Amidst a swirling cloud of dust, the Hawk lifted into the air. It was sluggish, but slowly responded to his commands. He turned east and started to climb. He caught one last glimpse of Axe-One, and a pair of dark-suited figures moving amongst the wreckage.

  Weighted down, the Hawk could never attempt a vertical climb into orbit. Jack kept the throttle at full and steered east, hoping the momentum he’d gained simply from Thor’s rotation would help propel him upward. Scanning the tactical situation, he saw Frankfurt overhead and a sea of rebel forces swarming the landscape before him. Staying low to avoid anti-air fire was no longer an option. Heavy jinking was impossible with the Hawk so fat. If he wanted to reach orbit, all Jack could do was continue his straight, gentle climb through the hostile sky. He could feel the rebel guns lining him up in their sites right now.

  Frankfurt was still dropping orbital bombardment, a steady stream of meteors striking down all across the landscape. With nothing else to do for a moment, Jack watched the bombardment pattern, noting how the strikes were alternating to his port and starboard. But those rebel batteries weren’t the threat—it was the guns directly in front of him that had a clear shot.

  “Highlight the rebel batteries dead ahead,” he ordered Singh.

  Moments later, a cone of enemy symbols stretching out in front of the Hawk shone more brightly.

  “Forest, this is Axe-Two,” he signaled. “Bound for orbit but heavy and no maneuvering ability. Request bombardment support against highlighted hostiles.”

  There was no change in the bombardment pattern.

  “This is Forest, negative. Highlighted are inside your danger zone for friendly fire.”

  His own ship wasn’t going to protect him for fear of hitting him?

  “This is Axe-Two. I cannot maneuver and I’m a sitting duck. Take highlighted hostiles. Concentrate fire on those closest to my position.”

  Jack watched as the bombardment paused. The Hawk continued to climb. He heard the tracking alarm in his ear and felt the thump of countermeasures firing. Then a new rain of fire dropped out of the sky directly ahead of him. He kept his eyes down on his controls as bombardment strikes blazed past him. The firing frequency increased, and even from his altitude Jack saw a long line of black smoke carpeting the surface. The bombardment probably wasn’t hitting anything with accuracy, but Jack didn’t care. If the rebels were too busy keeping their heads down, they weren’t paying attention to him. And as he gained speed he only needed a few seconds to get past any single gun.

  The sky was darkening as he climbed, the curved surface of Thor becoming clearer. He was out of range of the surface guns and Frankfurt’s blue symbol was beckoning ahead. There was still enough atmo to keep the ride bumpy, but the Hawk’s thrusters were back in their element. He got the nose up more and did his best at a full climb.

  A flashing red light caught his eye. He scanned his console and swore.

  “What is it, sir?” Singh asked.

  Obviously he’d sworn louder than intended.

  “Low fuel,” he said. “And we’re not out of the gravity well yet.”

  She didn’t respond, but he heard her tapping quickly at her console. No doubt she was using the computer to figure out what Jack’s pilot experience had already discovered: they didn’t have the fuel to reach Frankfurt’s position.

  “Forest, this is Axe-Two,” he signaled. “Fuel emergency. Request you close my position at best speed.”

  The acknowledgement came back immediately and Jack saw the vector on Frankfurt’s symbol alter dramatically as the destroyer changed course. Within moments the ship was moving toward him, but the vector still pointed high above. Jack checked his altitude. Not high enough. Frankfurt was a vessel designed purely for vacuum, and his Hawk was still fighting through the soup of atmo. He needed to get higher.

  The engines were already on full burn, or at least as full as the limping port engine could manage. Checking his external mountings, Jack ejected his pair of self-defence missiles and the countermeasures pod. There was nothing to fight up here, and the loss of their deadweight gave him a few more seconds of thrust.

  Jack scanned his console again, searching for anything else he could drop. There was nothing more externally mounted—the only thing left to dump was fuel, and he needed every last drop of that to propel him upward.

  Up ahead, he could actually see the bright outline of Frankfurt through the blue symbol on his projection. Ordering Singh to remove the tactical display, he visually assessed the destroyer’s movement, wondering why she was so visible. Terran warships were colored a dark charcoal specifically so that they were not easy to see in space. Why was she shining?

  Because, Jack suddenly realized, she was pushing through the upper reaches of atmo, and super-heated gases were creating a bow wave. The damn destroyer was coming to him.

  And if Commander Rossato was willing to risk everything, so was he. Jack knew he had one last way to push his Hawk upward. Pointing his thrusters directly aft, he fired them all. His fuel readings began to plummet, but he watched as his rate of climb crept higher.

  “Forest, this is Axe-Two, firing all thrusters as boosters.” He paused, not sure what the correct military lingo was for his next request. “Request you… catch me.”

  Frankfurt’s fiery form was looming large overhead, closing from his starboard side. Jack kept his course steady and felt the fuel burn through his engines and thrusters. The Hawk climbed. And climbed.

  Silence fell in the cockpit. The pressure against his seat faded to nothing. The tanks were empty, and the engines ceased. He could see Frankfurt bearing down on him, shuddering within an envelope of fire as she edged lower. He’d built up a lot of speed in his climb, but she was madly decelerating from a stable orbit.

  “Sir,” Singh whispered in the still cockpit.“What’s going on?”

  Jack could feel the effects of zero-g in his body. The controls were useless in his hands. His eyes remained on the approaching mass of Frankfurt. The fires were fading as she slowed, but the big ship was growing in his vision at an alarming rate.

  “All personnel,” he said calmly over the internal speaker, “brace for impact.”

  The Hawk’s nose was beginning to dip. In another few moments it would top out in its ballistic arc and start its long descent back to Thor. Frankfurt loomed closer, filling half the sky with her dark bulk. Thrusters fired and she swung to expose her port-side hangar door.

  Jack felt a sharp tug of gravity, gasping as he felt the Hawk begin to fall. But training kicked in and he scanned his instruments—altitude was steady. And the sense of falling was sideways, not down. Frankfurt’s arrestor beams had grabbed his craft and were even now pulling him into the airlock. Mechanical clamps then reached out and secured themselves to the Hawk. He watched as the brilliant surface of Thor disappeared behind the dark floor of the airlock, felt as the Hawk thumped down onto the hard surface. The last of the planetary glow vanished as the airlock outer door closed.

  * * *

  A hot shower always helped, but even scrubbed clean and wearing fresh coveralls Jack felt terrible. Lieutenant Dawson was dead. His body and those of the other victims had been left behind on the surface. Left behind by Jack. Safely in deep space and relaxing after the mission, everyone in Frankfurt seemed thrilled at his “success” but all he could picture in his mind were the dead bodies left behind.

  But there was one bright memory from the mission. It took a bit of asking around, but Jack eventually found Master Rating Daisy Singh in the gym.

  He heard her before he saw her, the steady thump of gloves against a heavy bag punctuated by the odd smack of a roundhouse kick. She was stripped down to shorts and a muscle shirt, skin shining with sweat as she pummeled the bag with furious blows. Jack couldn’t help but be impressed. She’d appeared tiny and slight under her cover
alls, but now he saw that her bird-like frame was taut with muscle.

  She noticed him. With one last cross-hook combination she stepped back from the bag, breathing heavily as she stared at him.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” he said, walking up to her.

  “It’s okay, sir,” she gasped.

  “You did really good today.”

  “Thanks,” she said automatically. Her expression didn’t reveal gratitude, though. Her face was tight, eyes puffy. This close to her Jack realized that there were tears mixed in with the sweat on her cheeks.

  They stared at each other for a long moment, the silence punctuated only by heavy breathing which she was already bringing under control.

  Jack figured now was the time for him as the officer to say something inspirational; to reassure his crewmember that all was well in the worlds. But it wasn’t, and he couldn’t insult her with some patronizing speech.

  “That mission went to shit,” he said finally. “But we made it back and I couldn’t have done it without you.”

  She nodded, blinking away fresh tears. One of her gloves rose slightly, as if she was going to punch the bag again, but she held back.

  “So most missions aren’t like that?”

  He considered. The silence stretched again.

  “How could you leave those people behind?” She blurted out. “I know we were heavy, but…”

  “No buts—that’s it. We could never have lifted off if we’d tried to evacuate the bodies, and now we’d all be dead or captured.”

  And there was no way, Jack thought, pushing down his own memories yet again, that he was being a prisoner again.

  Was that it? Was he so afraid of his own fate that he was willing to sacrifice anyone? He didn’t actually know if Chang and his partner had an alternate escape route.

  “I’m just glad you’re in charge,” Singh said. “I wouldn’t want that on my conscience.”

  Thanks. Jack suddenly had to blink away his own tears.

  “Well, I’m sure Fleet will send us a new lieutenant soon enough,” he said. “And then they can be in charge and I’ll just go back to flying.”

  She was about to speak, but her gaze suddenly shifted to the gym’s entrance behind him. She nodded for him to look.

  Turning, Jack instinctively straightened to attention. Commander Rossato was walking toward him.

  “Good evening, Mr. Mallory.”

  “Good evening, ma’am.” He gestured to Singh. “Do you know my Hawk’s new operator? Master Rating Singh did an excellent job today.”

  “Yes, you both did.” She looked at them with a quiet understanding. “It was a tough mission, but a lot of good came from it.”

  Jack glanced at Singh. She was stone-faced but the moisture in her eyes revealed the emotions just below the surface. He turned his gaze back to Rossato. “I didn’t think destroyers were atmo-capable, ma’am.”

  “They’re not,” Rossato said, a strange smile playing at her lips. “I didn’t think Hawks were strike fighters, but you sure flew yours like one. I got inspired.”

  Once upon a time he would have loved a compliment like that. Now it just made him feel tired.

  Rossato was no fool.

  “Some days are worse than others, Jack.” She nodded to Singh. “Daisy. But you did an amazing thing today. I’m not telling you to be proud of it, or inspired by it, or any of that BS. But you saved twenty lives today, and that’s twenty excellent reasons to cut yourself some slack.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Congratulations, Lieutenant Mallory.”

  He looked up, surprised she’d make a mistake like that. “Ma’am, it’s sublieutenant.”

  “I said lieutenant.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a pair of epaulettes, each with two silver bars. “And so does the admiral.”

  Having a lone commander swap out the subbie rank on his coveralls in the middle of the ship’s gym wasn’t exactly how Jack had pictured his first promotion. Nor had he ever thought he’d feel quite this miserable having the additional bar plunked on his shoulder.

  She shook his hand and turned to go, calling over her shoulder. “Command brief is in one hour—as the flight department head you’ll be expected to attend.”

  Jack’s heart sank. There was no cavalry coming. No one was going to step into Dawson’s shoes and take responsibility. It was all on him.

  “I got your back, sir.”

  He turned. Singh extended one of her gloves toward him, knuckles out. Her expression had cleared and he saw in it something he hadn’t seen since they met: hope.

  He fist-bumped her glove. Then figured he’d better get some kind of flight department report put together for the evening brief.

  “See you around, Singh.”

  1969’s “The Ship Who Sang” is the first story in what became the Brainship series, written by Anne McCaffrey—creator of the Dragonriders of Pern—and others. The protagonist is a brainship, a ship which literally can sing. In 1994, McCaffrey called the resulting novel—for which this story served as the first chapter—the book of which she was most proud, and the story itself her favorite personal work. A very famous space opera, and a true classic.

  THE SHIP WHO SANG

  ANNE MCCAFFREY

  She was born a thing and as such would be condemned if she failed the encephalograph test required of all newborn babies. There was always the possibility that though the limbs were twisted, the mind was not, that though the ears would only hear dimly, the eyes see vaguely, the mind behind them was receptive and alert.

  The electro-encephalogram was entirely favorable, unexpectedly so, and the news was brought to the waiting grieving parents. There was the final harsh decision, to give their child euthanasia or permit it to become an encapsulated “brain,” a guiding mechanism in any one of a number of curious professions. As such, their offspring would suffer no pain, live a comfortable existence in a metal shell for several centuries, performing unusual service to Central Worlds.

  She lived and was given a name, Helva. For her first three vegetable months she waved her crabbed claws, kicked weakly with her clubbed feet and enjoyed the usual routine of the infant. She was not alone, for there were three other children in the big city’s special nursery. Soon they all were removed to the Central Laboratory School, where their delicate transformation began.

  One of the babies died in the initial transferal, but of Helva’s “class,” seventeen thrived in the metal shells. Instead of kicking feet, Helva’s neural responses started her wheels; instead of grabbing with hands, she manipulated mechanical extensions. As she matured, more and more neural synapses would be adjusted to operate other mechanisms that went into the maintenance and running of a space ship. For Helva was destined to be the “brain” half of a scout ship, partnered with a man or woman, whichever she chose, as the mobile half. She would be among the elite of her kind. Her initial intelligence tests registered above normal and her adaptation index was unusually high. As long as her development within her shell lived up to expectations, and there were no side-effects from the pituitary thinking, Helva would live a rewarding, rich, and unusual life, a far cry from what she would have faced as an ordinary, “normal” being.

  However, no diagram of her brain patterns, no early I.Q. tests recorded certain essential facts about Helva that Central must eventually learn. They would have to bide their official time and see, trusting that the massive doses of shell-psychology would suffice her, too, as the necessary bulwark against her unusual confinement and the pressures of her profession. A ship run by a human brain could not run rogue or insane with the power and resources Central had to build into their scout ships. Brain ships were, of course, long past the experimental stages. Most babies survived the perfected techniques of pituitary manipulation that kept their bodies small, eliminating the necessity of transfers from smaller to larger shells. And very, very few were lost when the final connection was made to the panels of ship or industrial combine. Shell-people resembled
mature dwarfs in size whatever their natal deformities were, but the well-oriented brain would not have changed places with the most perfect body in the Universe.

  So, for happy years, Helva scooted around in her shell with her classmates, playing such games as Stall, Power-Seek, studying her lessons in trajectory, propulsion techniques, computation, logistics, mental hygiene, basic alien psychology, philology, space history, law, traffic codes. All the et ceteras that eventually became compounded into a reasoning, logical, informed citizen. Not so obvious to her, but one of more importance to her teachers, Helva ingested the precepts of her conditioning as easily as she absorbed her nutrient fluid. She would one day be grateful to the patient drone of the subconscious-level instruction.

  Helva’s civilization was not without busy, do-good associations, exploring possible inhumanities to terrestrial as well as extraterrestrial citizens. One such group, Society for the Preservation of the Rights of Intelligent Minorities, got all incensed over shelled “children” when Helva was just turning fourteen. When they were forced to, Central Worlds shrugged its shoulders, arranged a tour of the Laboratory Schools and set the tour off to a big start by showing the members case histories complete with photographs. Very few committees ever looked past the first few photos. Most of the original objections about “shells” were overridden by the relief that these hideous (to them) bodies were mercifully concealed.

  Helva’s class was doing fine arts, a selective subject in her crowded program. She had advanced one of her microscopic tools which she would later use for minute repairs to various parts of her control panel. Her subject was large, a copy of the Last Supper, and her canvas small, the head of a tiny screw. She had tuned her sight to the proper degree. As she worked she absentmindedly crooned, producing a curious sound. Shell-people used their own vocal chords and diaphragms, but sound issued through microphones rather than mouths. Helva’s hum, then, had a curious vibrancy, a warm, dulcet quality even in its aimless chromatic wanderings.

  “Why, what a lovely voice you have,” said one of the female visitors.