by Britt Ringel
The physical effects on her crew would be severe without the anti-rad regimen but the non-stop barrage could also adversely affect Zanshin herself. Lochlain could think of no preparation, no pill he could give his ship to avoid the ever-worsening malfunctions he could not anticipate. Immense Cape-sized freighters, with their multiple redundant systems and massive engineering crews, were the only freighters large enough to stay ahead of the tide of mechanical failures and sail Zanshin’s intended course. Even then, accidents still happened. Most shipping companies instead accepted an extra six weeks of sailing, avoiding the worst of the nebula by routing their freighters through the second half of the Carinae tunnel loop to approach the system from Iaslone.
Lochlain shook his head, trying to cast out growing doubts about his course of action. Over the next hour, he duplicated Lingenfelter’s navigation panel at his console and plotted Zanshin’s location by himself to compare his calculations to hers. The independent estimates were within 50,000 kilometers of each other, the equivalent of a hair’s width in the deep of space. Lochlain knew that in the Carinae tunnel, each mistake would compound the next as the ship and crew battled the effects of radiation. The inaccuracy could easily accumulate until Zanshin fired her tunnel drive at the wrong position in the tunnel by mistake and missed her exit. Even worse, by the time Zanshin arrived at the culmination of her trip, the freighter would only have the fuel to generate but a single tunnel drive effect. There would be no second chance.
Lochlain’s waking nightmare of the voyage ahead had one fortunate side effect: he had completely forgotten about the Lasso-class patrol craft ahead. It was only when Zanshin was centering herself on the Menali tunnel point that he realized his ship had passed beneath the vessel’s notice.
Five minutes later, the freighter unleashed her Deltic tunnel drive and slipped into the realm of tunnel space.
* * *
Lochlain stepped out of his tiny bathroom and padded quietly to the bed until he saw a datapad’s illumination casting a ghostly light on Brooke’s face. “Mercer, you should be resting,” he chided lightly. “You had one hell of an evening.”
Brooke protectively tucked her left arm close to her side but her right hand supported her datapad. She was deftly using her thumb to scroll through pages on the screen.
Lochlain pulled back the bedsheet and slipped in next to her. He scooted over to see what had held her rapt attention for the last hour. “Are you playing that trading game on your datapad?”
“No,” Brooke said defensively while shielding the screen from him, “I’m not playing it. I’m just looking at the Harmleikur refugee information.” She squinted at the screen. “I have to be missing something. It’s a game and there has to be a way to win.”
Lochlain slid closer until their shoulders brushed. He looked at the screen. “You can’t fit four thousand people on a Tuoma-class freighter, Mercer.”
“I know,” she growled lightly. “At first I thought maybe there was a way to keep the star from frying the planet but that’s obviously not the right answer.” She chewed her lower lip for a moment. “Harmleikur has four PRESERV-A38 FEUS containers.”
“What’re those?”
Brooke shifted and winced as pain ran through her back. “Ow, I’ve got to stop doing that. A PRESERV container is the Brevic Republic’s equivalent of a LIFEGUARD shipping container. It’s a short-haul, special purpose container used to transport livestock between planets.”
“You’re not suggesting—”
“I know,” she cut him off. “Stuffing people into those containers would be inhumane. Besides, they’re short haul. They don’t have the life support capability for a trip through a Type-A tunnel.” She blew out a long sigh. “The containers have to be a red herring. There’s got to be another way.”
“What if there isn’t?” Lochlain asked while running the bottom of his foot along her smooth calf. “What if this scenario is only meant to drain time and resources? Look, Shinshin is already in a Republic star system and we’re not going to be transporting anything of value out of the system—”
Brooke gawked at him. “Uh, hello. There are four thousand two hundred and nine people we’re going to be carrying out of this star system.”
“You’re not going to save them all, Mercer. Sometimes you’ve got to cut your losses even if it means people die.”
“Bullshit!” Brooke answered forcefully. She shifted her hip to push Lochlain several centimeters away from her. “If you aren’t going to help, then back off and let me brainstorm.”
Lochlain leaned in to kiss Brooke but her datapad rapidly intervened. “Goodnight, Reece.”
He turned away from her. “Goodnight,” he replied curtly. Lochlain counted to ten silently before sighing dramatically.
Brooke sighed back.
Only a faint rattle in the bedroom’s air duct serenaded the couple.
Minutes later, Lochlain pushed the covers back and sat up. “Have you at least figured out how many we can pack into the spine of the ship?”
* * *
The tunnel point in the Menali star system shuddered and burst in a disturbance that radiated outward like the ripples in a pool. One moment, the deserted star system was an empty void that stretched from its A7 subgiant star to its heliosphere. The next instant, five humans and their ship appeared from Vulsia to keep it company.
Despite its desolation, the Menali star system was massive. The subgiant, seventeen times the size of Sol and over twenty-one thousand times more luminous, cast relentless blue-white light over four chthonian worlds, five barren, rock planets and a sporadic, thin asteroid belt that encircled the star system two hundred light-minutes from its center. Zanshin entered the system like a specter. Even the tunnel point’s navigation buoy failed to greet her, merely logging the freighter’s entry into its database.
“We’re inside the Menali system, Captain,” Truesworth reported. “The closest navigation buoy is green although the three located near the Carinae tunnel point are all yellow.” His eyes darted left to right as he read his screen. “They’re broadcasting warnings about the dangers of the tunnel ahead but traffic is not closed.”
“There are three nav buoys?” Lingenfelter asked.
“Yeah,” Lochlain answered. “You can use all three to get a hyper-accurate fix on our location as you center on the Carinae tunnel point.”
Lingenfelter nodded as she charted the fastest course to the buoys. “That makes sense. At least we’ll have a great starting point when we dive.” She updated the bridge’s wall screen and Zanshin’s predicted path through the star system appeared. “It’s a big system,” she noted. “It’ll take us fourteen hours and twenty-six minutes to cross it.”
“Execute,” Lochlain ordered, “and then take the next ten hours off. I want you fully rested before we dive, Elease.” He partitioned the wall screen and a duty schedule appeared on its right half. “Jack, I’m giving you the nightshift while we’re in tunnel space.” Lochlain was planning to rest during the small hours of each morning and he wanted Truesworth’s steady hand guiding the ship while he slept. “Elease, you have 06:00 to 14:00 and I’ll take the swing shift until it’s Jack’s turn again. I want navigation fixes computed every thirty minutes and a continuous update of our position in a backup file in case we lose our primary navigation logs to a malfunction.” In addition to the backup file, Lochlain was planning to save a second backup on his datapad. He suspected the other deck officers would do the same thing.
Lingenfelter nodded gravely at the instructions. “If we lose track of our position in the tunnel, we’ll never know when we pass by the exit.”
“What are the engineering shifts?” Truesworth asked.
“Mercer created them,” Lochlain answered. “They’re running twelve-hour shifts together during the day and then one of them will be on call during the off-duty hours. Mercer has the early morning, and Casper is taking the late evening.”
“They’re going to be very busy,” Truesworth pred
icted. “I’m not much of an engineer but I can hold a light and turn a spanner. It goes without saying that if either of them needs a hand, I’m more than happy to help.”
“Seconded,” Lingenfelter said in support. “I don’t plan on getting a lot of sleep during the tunnel ride.”
Lochlain’s mouth twisted. “I don’t think any of us will, but we have to try. Now off with you, Elease. Go rest up.”
Once the Svean exited the compartment, Truesworth turned to the captain and asked bluntly, “What do you think our chances are?”
Lochlain scratched his chin as he looked down at his panel. “I like to think better than fifty-fifty. It really just depends on how Zanshin holds up. We might sail the entire tunnel with only a few non-essential systems failing and be just fine.” He raised his head to stare back at Truesworth. “Or, we might suffer a malfunction to something irreplaceable, like the tunnel drive, and be stuck in the tunnel forever.”
Truesworth ran his hand over his console. The hand was weathered but trim, just like Zanshin. “Let’s hope she holds up,” he stated quietly. The corners of his mouth twitched. “I’ve been pretty lucky when it comes to sailing in good ships.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Wrathful, for example,” Truesworth reminisced, “she was one, sturdy brig. During my last battle, she took two passes from the enemy. The first pass was against another privateer brig named Bishop. Before the second pass, I switched positions inside the line to take pressure off a native snow and ran against an undamaged brig called Count. We took terrible damage but I thought protecting the native vessel was the right thing to do.” He shrugged pensively. “It was them or us and I chose us.” He sighed in retrospect. “Maybe it was a mistake after all. The Iron Brigade certainly thought so, but Wrathful did survive.”
“I’ve only seen corporate battles on the holo-vids,” Lochlain confessed. “Never was in a system the same time one was happening. I’ve actually never witnessed a starship fire a shot.”
Truesworth thought about the statement but then smiled. “Well, up until the Vulsia trade station, I’d never been shot at with a handheld weapon so maybe we’re even.”
“I guess there’s no such thing as boarding actions in naval battles, huh?” Lochlain commented. A haunted expression washed over the sensorman that brought gooseflesh to Lochlain’s arms. “Some corporation tried to board your ship?”
Truesworth swallowed forcefully as if the encounter was stuck in his throat. Finally he croaked out, “I was with the Republic at the time but it’s not a story that I’m keen on retelling. I didn’t see much of the action but what I did witness was more than enough.”
Lochlain moved to him and placed a hand on Truesworth’s shoulder, realizing that he was rapidly becoming fond of this strange ‘Vic. “Well, I, for one, am damned glad they didn’t shoot you because now you’re here. I think Zanshin is going to need your expertise if we’re going to survive the dive to Carinae.” He made his way to the exit. “I’m going to go see if I can help with anything in Engineering. Let me know if something comes up.”
Chapter 35
Lochlain pointed at the game screen and chastised, “Your hardpoints aren’t even half full.”
Brooke slapped his hand away. “I know but there are only four PRESERV containers. It’s bad enough that I’m locking eight hundred people into cattle containers that are going to run out of atmosphere in tunnel space. I’m not putting the rest in standard cargo units.”
“How many did you pack into the freighter?”
She exhaled heavily and spun the console toward him. “Seven hundred and sixty-eight. There’s barely enough room for them to lay down.”
“Will life support hold up with that many?”
“I don’t know. Unlike Zanshin, this freighter has the standard organic, algae recycler so at least there’s a chance.”
Lochlain considered his next question carefully. “How many are being left behind?”
Brooke deflated before his eyes. “Two thousand six hundred and forty-one.”
He shivered at the answer. He lifted his hand to the screen and zoomed around the interior of the freighter. It was standing room only in the spines of the ship. The top and lower deck common areas were filled to capacity. Even Engineering had refugees huddled around the power core. Lochlain slid his finger up. “Hey, you still have the hangar.”
Brooke shook her head. “No, I packed them around the shuttle too.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, “but the shuttle is still inside the hangar. Dump it and you’ll make more room.”
Brooke bounced up and down before pulling Lochlain over to plant a kiss firmly on his cheek. “Genius! How did I overlook that?” She spun the console back to her and began typing.
Lochlain looked around Zanshin’s entertainment lounge. Used cups lined the gaming table. Polymer plates with half-eaten meals were stacked next to Brooke’s chair. “You’ve been spending almost all your free time in here,” he said quietly.
She ignored him for several more moments. “There,” she said with a smile as she punched the last key. “Bye-bye, shuttle. That’s like another fifteen or twenty people.” She looked at him. “What were you saying?”
“That you might be a little obsessed.”
Color rose in Brooke’s cheeks. “I’m an engineer,” she explained defensively. “We live for solving problems like this. By the way, I want to show you something.” She lifted her datapad from the table and began to peck rapidly on it.
“Is our ship ready?”
She snorted at his implication. “I wouldn’t be sitting here if it wasn’t,” she answered coolly before offering her datapad. “Look. Casper and I have figured a way to add a little extra power to strengthen the navigation shield when we’re in the nebula.”
“Won’t increasing power short out the bus?” Lochlain questioned skeptically. “If the nav shield could be improved, wouldn’t the manufacturers already have done it?”
She tilted the datapad in front of him. “It’s a horribly improvised solution that won’t work for long. We basically assembled an entirely new circuit and ran it from the power core to the shield generator.”
“That won’t damage the generator?”
“It would except that the circuit we built will melt before we trip the limits and do damage to the actual unit.” She let the instrument clatter to the table. “It’s just an extra bit of protection and it certainly won’t last long but every little bit helps.”
“Will we have enough in the fuel cells to power it?”
Brooke returned her attention to the holo-game. The on-screen freighter’s deck plan disappeared and a list began to scroll in its place. “Mm-hmm. The fuel cells will hold out. Even if the dives into and out of the Carinae tunnel take a bit extra, we’ll still have enough fuel for the power core to run the ship. I built in a nice margin of error back when I was calculating our tunnel dive efficiency.” She pointed at the screen. “Now, look at this and tell me what you see.”
Lochlain dropped his eyes to the game screen. It was the refugee list they first encountered when Shinshin arrived at Harmleikur. “It’s the names of people we’re trying to save.”
“Look harder,” Brooke urged while pointing at specific parts of the list.
Lochlain refocused on the screen. He read the names near her fingertips and then at random intervals before finding the commonality. His eyes narrowed and his hand began to scroll back up the list. Finally he noted, “There sure are a lot of people with Asian ancestry on this list.”
“Exactly,” Brooke confirmed with a knowing smile.
“What does this mean though?” he asked as he continued to scroll through the list. “Every ethnicity has spread pretty much across the galaxy.”
“Yes, but there are places where groups have concentrated,” Brooke noted. “Look at the Novyah systems in the Republic or the star systems around New Roma for instance.”
The list seemed endless. Lochlain shook his head irritably. “Can we
just get to the part where you tell me why this is important?”
Brooke’s jaw clenched briefly. “Where is there a high density of humans with Asian heritage near Harmleikur?”
“Okay,” Lochlain answered slowly, “I’ll state the obvious and go with Tengying Universal.”
She touched her finger to her nose. “Precisely. In fact, Ctama borders Harmleikur.”
“So wait, are you telling me that you think this Brevic colony of Harmleikur is housing a bunch of Tengying scientists?”
“Two thousand two hundred and seventy-one of them, to be exact,” she answered. “Although that total includes each Tengying scientist’s family.”
Lochlain’s brow furrowed at her unintentional admission. “Mercer, have you seriously inspected this entire list to that degree? Honey…”
Brooke worried her lower lip upon seeing his concern. Her hazel eyes darted away from him.
“Mercer?”
“Well… maybe… but don’t you understand the significance of this?”
Lochlain clucked at her. “Is the significance that my girlfriend’s become obsessed with a computer game?”
“No,” she objected emphatically, “I think Tengying and the Brevic Republic are working together on something in Harmleikur.”
Lochlain threw her an exasperated look. “Sweetheart, this is a game! In real life, the Republic doesn’t even recognize the corporate systems. In fact, the average ‘Vic hates corporations so much that he basically pretends we’re still part of the Federation. The Brevics don’t believe autonomy can be achieved through diplomacy. That’s why they put down their spinward colony revolts a generation ago!”