Libre, A Silver Ships Novel (The Silver Ships Book 2)
Page 19
“Did you or did you not influence the SADEs to build the Freedom first?” Eric demanded.
“I did not. It was their decision,” Alex replied.
“And I’m supposed to believe you?” Eric challenged.
On that note, Alex decided he was done coddling the man. “Leader, you seem to have had a problem with me since day one. Is it me or all New Terrans?”
Eric felt trapped. His people did not confront one another like this. In addition, he was embarrassed by his reactions to the Admiral. Eric knew the Admiral was trying to help his people, but after a century of cultivating a life of careful control, he hated the New Terran for disordering his world. There, he had said it—he hated the man.
Alex watched Eric struggle with his thoughts. He politely stayed out of the Leader’s head. It wasn’t the time to intrude. “So it’s me who’s your problem, not my people,” Alex said, confirming what was evident. The Leader’s response was a shrug of his shoulders as he eyed the top of his desk. “Leader, we don’t have to like one another. You’re not my favorite person, either.” Alex’s words caused Eric to lift his eyes off the table. “In fact, if I’m being blunt, Leader, I think you’re a pain in the ass. But we need to work together; we need to survive together.”
“Admiral, I believe that you’ve just said the first thing that I think we can wholly agree on.”
“Which part, Leader?”
“You’re a pain in my ass as well, Admiral,” Eric replied, staring defiantly at Alex.
Alex burst out laughing. The Méridien had finally gotten off his chest what had been irritating him.
The Admiral was laughing so hard that Eric thought he was being insulted, but the Admiral’s laughter appeared innocent, and it was infectious. Soon Eric was joining him.
When the two men regained control, Alex said, “Well, now that we know where we stand with each other, let’s get back to business. We are seventy-three days into our SADEs’ estimate of 90 to 120 days. If your Bellamonde liner were to comm us tomorrow that the swarm was headed here, we would have eight to ten days before the silver ships would be entering our system. Days later, they would be burning your city-ships into hulks along with everyone on board. Can you launch in eight to ten days in order to stay ahead of the swarm?”
“You know we can’t, Admiral.”
“Then we need the maximum warning time to save as many people as possible, and this is how we get that additional time. When the first liner tells us they’re lifting, we divert all efforts to transferring and lifting the population. At the last moment, we launch one or both of the city-ships from the stations, power the engines, and start moving them out of system, on an opposing course from the aliens’ entrance. With a city-ship’s mass, we will need every hour we can get to clear the system. Remember, the silver ships can achieve 0.91c, and your behemoths will be lucky to reach half of that before the FTL exit point.”
“But, Admiral, if you start moving the city-ships before we’ve finished lifting the population, the shuttles will be of no use completing the effort.”
“That’s true, Leader,” Alex said. “After your launch, we would try to take as many people as we could aboard the faster ships, the Rêveur and the other liners, up until the last moment. Then we would follow the city-ships.”
“What are the estimates for when all of the people and supplies will be loaded, Admiral?”
“At the present rate, we will complete the passenger and supply loading as well as minimal preparation of the Unser Menschen in forty-nine days.”
“At the far end of the SADEs’ estimate of the swarm’s arrival,” Leader Stroheim said with chagrin.
“Yes, if their estimate of when the Bellamonde swarm will lift is correct, we will need as much advance warning as we can get, Leader.”
“I will send the Stern Vagabund and Stern Reisende to replace the Stern Licht today, Admiral,” Eric said, resignation in his voice.
-21-
For many days now, the Stern Vagabund and the Stern Reisende had settled into comfortable routines on station just outside the Bellamonde system and lay passive, floating in the darkness only 210K km away from one another.
Captain Asu Azasdau of the Stern Vagabund had just laid his head down for the night when he received a priority comm. The message galvanized him, and he rushed to dress and dash back to the bridge. When he entered through the access way, the stricken look on his Second Mate’s face was all the confirmation he needed.
“They’re rising, Captain,” was all the poor man could say.
Asu regarded the passive telemetry, already eleven hours old. The domes were leaving their dug-in positions and surging up through Bellamonde’s atmosphere into space.
“Captain, comm burst from Captain Hauser,” the ship’s SADE, Rosette, announced. “The Stern Reisende is making for FTL exit.” To be safe, the Captains had prearranged signals they could deliver by laser comm to prevent the silver ships from detecting their comm traffic. Before she entered FTL, Captain Lillian Hauser would be transmitting the emergency message to Libre that the swarm had lifted.
* * *
Terese was enjoying her evening meal with Tomas. Over the course of their efforts together, they had developed a close relationship, solving the myriad headaches that plagued first the Freedom then the Unser Menschen as the work progressed at a feverish pace. And the sex is wonderful, Terese thought as she sipped her cup of aigre. She had found Tomas to be a very inventive and enthusiastic lover.
Terese considered the possibility that she might have been an Independent at heart, and it was just coming out. Blame or credit, whichever it was, would have to go to the New Terrans. They embraced life, and she had discovered that she cherished them for it.
At the end of a meal, Terese often found herself the center of attention of the Librans. They hungered for the New Terran stories she had recorded. She had just shared General Maria Gonzalez’s story of heartache over the loss of her two sons with her audience when she noticed Tomas stiffen. His eyes lost focus, then he abruptly stood up, and sent to her,
Terese sent a quick query.
* * *
By coincidence, Alex and Renée were with Eric on the Freedom when Captain Hauser’s comm was received by Cordelia. Tomas and Terese rushed into the conference room to join them. The SADEs linked the conference room attendees, the other officers, and their seconds, and transferred the telemetry to everyone for review.
Alex’s ace at work, thought Renée, always pointing out the dark side.
Eric sat down heavily in a chair, deflated. He had seen himself in charge of the Independents, managing their escape to freedom. But if they had followed his plan, his directions, the entire population of Libre, except for those he could crowd on the liners, would have been dead in twelve to fourteen days wh
en the aliens reached the planet. It had taken the Admiral, who talked to the SADEs as if they were his crèche-mates, to discover a means of managing their escape.
Alex regarded the expectant faces around the table. It was amplified by the silence on the comm. So many people depended on him.
Renée queried Alex privately.
Alex sent with force.
Tomas felt a wave of energy pass through his implant accompanied by Alex’s words. How the Admiral’s emotions could be transmitted through his thoughts was a mystery to him. It was something unheard of in Méridien society.
Alex leaned back in his chair, cut his comms with the room’s occupants, and ordered the SADEs to do the same. He wanted their undivided attention.
Renée stood up and signaled Alain to accompany her.
Tomas and Eric watched Renée and her escort leave. Neither one of them thought to accompany her to help. Instead they turned their attention to Alex. Étienne took a step closer to Alex’s back as if ensuring he wouldn’t be disturbed.
Alex’s secondary implant held a mathematical flow model of the people on planet, on stations, and aboard ships. The city-ships were represented as volume pools. Shuttles were represented as transfer mediums assigned values for rates of transfer and passenger load. The stations were choke points for the transfer process. He used color to summarize the transfer rates to enable quicker comprehension of his strategy—red for less than an acceptable rate, yellow-green for barely acceptable, and blue-violet for meeting his goals.
Alex chose a nine-day timeline, hoping to build in a one-day margin of safety. The SADEs took Alex’s model and flexed it over a nine-day period, charting each shuttle flight and noting the ship’s condition. They researched impediments that might interfere with the model’s implementation.
The Lange Strecken, or Long Haul, the Leader’s freighter, was ready to sail now. Alex’s Geld Hersteller, or Money Maker, was short two more bays, which could be completed in six more days. Importantly, the freighter needed a full day to clear the station bay and load the flight-capable Daggers still planetside. Alex pinned a launch date for his freighter-carrier and the Daggers’ loading. A day after that deadline, the freighters had to clear the orbital stations and be headed out. The freighters were the slowest of their ships. They depended on efficient, not powerful, engines to drive them.
At Alex’s request, Julien relayed the planets’ positions to him. Libre’s orbit was coming into a midway position between the alien’s entrance point and the flotilla’s exit point, on the opposite side of the system. It could have been worse, Alex thought. We could have been on a near pass to the alien’s entrance point. Alex laid in the course for the exiting ships, leaving the acceleration rates to the SADEs to organize the flotilla to meet just before FTL exit.
Next Alex dealt with the Bergfalk passenger liners. There was time to fill all three of them. Each held 200 passengers comfortably. With extra provisions and pushing environmental systems, they could add 150 more. The SADEs had chosen orbital bays that could accommodate quick loading of the people on the Bau Ein station. The liner crews would support the loading of the people on the city-ships until the final moment. Because the liners were the fastest of the Libran ships, Alex set their launch dates for last. The liners would have no difficulty safely reaching the FTL point ahead of the aliens. The Rêveur was added to the mix, but Alex limited the total crew and passenger load to 280 to allow more efficient operation of his crew.
Anticipation—Z had come to understand what that word meant. The SADEs had divided the workload. Julien and Cordelia worked the model’s real-world issues. Z accepted the role of tracking the model’s numbers. When Alex asked for a summary, Z was ready:
Alex flagged the station choke point, requesting waiting passengers be moved away from major corridors and shuttle bay access. He wouldn’t be allowing passengers to load the liners just to be out of the way. He also sent a quick,
Alex waited for the SADEs to commune before Julien came back to him.
Julien added.
Z answered,
Alex could follow the numbers nearly as fast as Z. Barring an accident or break down, they could move 38,000 people to the stations in nine days. That left over 8,500 people on planet. Alex confirmed the orders for the safety lock changes for the Libran shuttles and the Outward Bound, with instructions for the pilots on their new load capacity.
Each SADE gave their assent. This was a fight to save every person on Libre. It could only be accomplished with risk, but each and every person had to be aware of the dangers. Once they accepted the risk, they were expected to deliver results.
Alex pondered her question, and the SADEs waited patiently while they programmed the changes. Alex’s locator application warned him of Renée’s approach. He opened his eyes and sat up to find Tomas and Eric staring at him and sensed Étienne’s movement behind him as the escort stepped back.
Renée and Alain returned with children wearing ship-suits and runner armbands, bearing food trays and pitchers of water and aigre. Renée sent an order to Étienne and Alain.
Young Amelia carefully placed a tray in front of Étienne with a shy smile and poured him a glass of aigre, which she knew he preferred. “Ser,” she said to him before she hurried to help the others serve.