The Devil and Deep Space

by Susan R. Matthews

  “Lek, switch your flyby on proximate hit when we get to it. Shani, your kill, confirm. Preparing to discharge round.”

  The artillery platform grew gray and ominous on the forward screens. They were going to run dead into it at any moment — but the ship spun to one side, rather than colliding, and at the nearest possible approach, just before the thula broke its head–on course Andrej felt — rather than saw — the huge flare from the thula’s forward gun, as Avenham fired.

  Blooming like an astraffler in the side–panel screen the artillery platform blew up, sending bits of stalloy and debris in all directions.

  “Piece of work, this cannon.” Avenham’s voice was appropriately respectful. “Next up on four, Lek? Stildyne. Pin it in the second laterals.”

  Now that they were through, now that they could run behind the mine field, it would be one round after another till the gap was cleared. Great Ragnarok labored to gain speed behind them, and they had less than the eighth part of a shift to clear the field before their ship would enter the kill–zone. The thula threw herself upon her target as if shot from a howitzer–piece; and Stildyne — on ship’s–left laterals — hit the sequence perfectly. That was two, then.

  Lek ran the ship at extreme tolerance, the consumption monitors cycling at an alarming rate. Silent and tense, Andrej watched the remote sensors, fixed as they were on Ragnarok well behind them — Ragnarok, standing for the vector, and the eager convoy of heavy Security from Taisheki Station straining after her.

  Three and four; five, and the arti–plat had the thula targeted a shade too narrowly for comfort, so that the energy wash blinded the screens for a long instant before the ship’s auto–recovers picked up feed again.

  Six and seven; eight, nine, and Lek played the thula’s navigation like a man in a dream, his every gesture slow and deliberate — only at so fast a pace that he didn’t seem to stop moving for an instant. He was working hard, and Taller beside him struggled to keep pace. Lek knew what he was doing; he didn’t hesitate. And still the odds against which Lek had to fight to do his work were staggering, Safe or no Safe.

  Ten platforms down. Only six to go. There was a voice in the forward cabinet, and it was neither Avenham’s voice nor Lek’s voice, Stildyne’s, Lorbe’s, anybody’s. Andrej was confused, so focused on the target grid above the primary display that it took him a moment to realize who was talking.

  “Thula. Evacuation party is reporting to host, damage to craft — translation injury. They’re losing heat.”

  First Officer, that’s who it was. The eleventh platform came up on the forward scan; Lek circled around it so that Alport could fire from the backside of his arc even as he was changing vectors for the next target. Was anybody paying attention to First Officer?

  Or was Mendez talking to him? Plaiting into braid, Andrej reached for more information. “The evacuation party’s craft suffering damage, First Officer. Losing heat. How bad is it?”

  “The harriers are still four eighths behind us, Andrej, and we’re not going to be able to afford to slow for tractor. If you can pull them on board. If not, well.”

  But they were running short of time, and Andrej didn’t know for certain whether Mendez’s braid had even fed into any plait but his. He was the last person on board of the thula who could hope to judge whether they were going to be able to pick up a damaged evacuation craft or not. “Thank you, First Officer. Thula away.”

  Twelve. It was a temptation to call the run off, and go for the evacuation party, and let the Ragnarok hazard the remaining guns. But it was unthinkable to try to stop now, unthinkable to hazard seven hundred lives to try for eight. No.

  The evacuation craft had been damaged by debris; they had not fired on the evacuation craft — they were not responsible. The cold was not so bad a way to die. And the people in the evacuation party, they had all been willing that the Ragnarok should be forced into Taisheki Station, with a Fleet Interrogations Group all too probably in the wings. He had to keep his peace. To speak now would be to betray Lek. And not only Lek — but every soul on board of the Ragnarok.

  Thirteen, and Lek shook the thula fiercely from side to side, running down the platform’s line of fire as the guns tried to fix on them for long enough to get a target registration and shoot. One of the weaponers stopped a round midway between the platform and the ship, but the impact was too close — the thula lost her course for one terrible moment, and rolled against the shock like sea–wrack at flood.

  Lek set the board to rights and closed on target. Stildyne fired the left–lateral battery and blew the platform into utter ruin. Only three to go. Those people on the artillery platform had surely expected to be well clear before the mine field was called into active play. For all Andrej knew, they weren’t even Fleet resources but civilian contractors.

  Fourteen. The thula heeled back on her own impulse–train and ran for the next target, eager for the kill, and the chief weaponer gave the word. “Go for it, Smath. Your hit. Good shot.” It was fractions of an eighth left before the Ragnarok would come into range, and only one arti–plat still threatened her. One last platform and Ragnarok was clear to breach the mine field; the ship already had the advantage of speed in the chase, because the pursuit ships were either too small to do the Ragnarok’s great black massy hull much harm or too big to gain sufficient speed to close.

  One final platform, only one more, and it turned its primary guns toward them, blossoming into a cloud of dust and scrap and useless chunks of trash as the thula fixed and fired and killed. The Ragnarok was clear.

  Steady, almost stately, the Ragnarok made full transit into what had been the kill–zone as the remaining stations fired on the ship in a vain attempt to reach beyond the range of their emplaced guns and put a stop to its deliberate progress.

  “Nicely done, thula.” First Officer, again, and Andrej unstrapped himself from the webbing in his secure–shell to go see that Lek was all right. “Well flown, Lek. Very nicely shot, weaponers all. Come on home, we’ve got a vector to catch, and the sooner we hull over the happier Wheatfields is going to be with all of us.”

  Andrej didn’t like the confused sideways glance Taller was giving Lek, nor did he quite understand the fearful intensity of Lek’s focus on his boards. The thula did not seem to be reorienting toward the Ragnarok, nor to face pursuit, scant eighths behind the ship.

  “Mister Kerenko?”

  The expression on Lek’s face was one of utter concentration, not the anguished conflict of a governor going wrong. No conflict at all. Determination, rather, and — meeting Lek’s dark sharp Sarvaw eyes — Andrej knew as surely as if he had been told exactly what was going on in Lek’s mind.

  “We can make it work, sir. Their only chance.”

  Yes. Plaiting into braid, Andrej keyed into the standard emergency strand. “This is Andrej Ulexeievitch Koscuisko. We have been given to understand that an evacuation craft is damaged. It is our intent to take this craft into cargo.” Switching onto ship–strand, he continued. “Weaponer, if you would direct the tractor.”

  Three of the pursuit ships had veered off from their primary course, moving to intercept. That was their right, perhaps. The point that First Officer had made was that the pursuit ships could not reach the damaged evac craft in time: the thula could — so there was a chance.

  Why should they risk their lives — and a death about whose full horror they suffered no illusions — for the lives of an artillery emplacement crew, just recently engaged in doing all they could to set the traps that would ensnare great Ragnarok and every soul on board?

  “Yes, sir.” Avenham’s voice was clear, calm, neutral. Unquestioning. “Stildyne, Lorbe, on lateral forwards, mark. Alport, you and Shani and I, off–station, onto tractor.”

  Because they wouldn’t have gotten into this desperate situation in the first place if they had been willing, as individuals, as a ship, to sacrifice anyone’s life to their own survival, if they thought that there was any way around it.

&
nbsp; It seemed to take forever to close on the evac craft, its external signals already warning of extreme stress tolerance, losing heat. Taller toggled into braid from his station, signaling urgently for a response, trying to see whether they were already too late. “Thula to evac craft. Prepare to tractor. Evac, are you there? Please. Respond.”

  No, only the mechanical code, in reply. The damaged ship no longer had enough power to maintain heat and transmit voice at the same time. Only the mechanical code, but that was hopeful, because someone had to be able to move, to initiate the transmit — Extreme emergency situation exists. Failure of integrity imminent. Please expedite rescue effort. Eight souls in custody.

  “Evac craft on scan,” Avenham said.

  Lek did something to his console, and the thula shuddered like a wild animal cornered in a field trap, coming around. Three pursuit craft, on the second lateral, and it seemed to Andrej that they were making entirely too good a rate of acceleration for anybody’s peace of mind.

  “Tractor initiate. Very low reading off evac craft, your Excellency.” Avenham’s warning was predictable, but worrisome. It would be frustrating if they were to lose their lives — and still come too late for the evac craft. “Give us a little drop, Lek — good. Tractor is firm, gaining cargo bay now.”

  The tractor could not be rushed. If they damaged the thula’s cargo bay, they wouldn’t be able to pressurize, and then it wouldn’t matter whether they had the evac craft or not. Did he imagine it — Andrej wondered — or could he hear the subtle sound of the closing of the cargo bay doors beneath the white noise in the wheelhouse?

  “Chief.” It was Stildyne, talking to Avenham. “Respectfully suggest we move this thula at the first possible opportunity — ”

  “Go for it.”

  Avenham’s response was all the word Lek apparently needed. The thula shuddered and it seemed to groan, but the pursuit ships that Andrej could see on the second lateral screen disappeared, and when they reappeared on the tertiary dorsal scans they were appreciably smaller than they had been before.

  They were going to need him down in the cargo bay. They all knew how to use emergency stasis suits to treat cold injury and blood–gas imbalance — it was one of the first and most important things anyone learned about exo–atmospheric travel. But he was the one who knew best how to set the respiration, whether circulation should be induced, and whether neural activity should be artificially suspended until they got their casualties to Infirmary on Ragnarok.

  He needed to be there to stabilize, in case Wheatfields could not bring himself to release the thula from full implosion field without a thorough scan, especially in the middle of preparation for a vector transit. The chance that the evac craft’s distress call had been just part of an elaborate trap was perhaps not very great, but it was there.

  All of which meant that he had to leave Lek here alone, more or less alone, prey to the fury of his own governor. If the Safe should fail, and him not here to rescue his Lek —

  Lek was steady, solid, almost relaxed. There was no conflict that Andrej could detect in his face, in his voice, in his manner as he made his moves and sent the thula straight and clean for Ragnarok. Andrej took him by the shoulders from behind as he sat, smiling at Lek’s questioning look, at the basic blissful confidence that underlay his evident concentration.

  There was no guarantee that they’d reach the Ragnarok in time to come on board for the vector transit. There were no guarantees that the people in the evac craft were still alive. Yet Andrej knew that Lek’s choice had been the only honorable choice, and was glad to praise him for it.

  “Thank you, Lek. Very well done, indeed. You will not need me?” Lek nodded almost absent-mindedly and turned back to his boards, completely focused on his pilot’s task. Taller gave Andrej a reassuring smile on Lek’s behalf, and — satisfied — Andrej left the wheelhouse to get down to the cargo bay, and see what could be done for the people in the evac craft.

  ###

  The officer’s praise was only part and parcel of the joy Lek had in this fine thula; Koscuisko always praised their good performances, and Lek already knew that he’d done well. The officer’s absence was not going to be a problem. There were reasons why Koscuisko had to leave the wheelhouse, and reasons why Lek had to concentrate all of his remaining energies on making their rendezvous with Ragnarok, because it would all be for nothing if he didn’t get back to the Ragnarok in time.

  “Let’s see how much speed she has left in her,” he suggested to Taller, easing the retards out to full liberty now that they were clear to run for home. “It’ll be a little tight, maybe, but we can make it work. Pull off on reserve. Weaponer. Close ports.”

  The enemy still pursued, but they could not touch the thula’s speed. “Closed, all ports, Lek.” No weaponer was ever happy to have to put the guns away, but there was no argument. It was up to speed to save them, and not firepower. Borrowed firepower had blown a hole in the mine field and cleared a way for the Ragnarok; now speed was all they had to bring the ship, the crew, the officer back safely to their proper berths.

  “We’re starting to fling caramids,” Taller warned; and the analysis of the drives was showing signs of stress — but there wasn’t any help for it.

  “We can afford it. Increase yield on quats. We only need another three eighths. Five eighths, max.” Once they came level with the Ragnarok they could surrender motive power to the parent tractors, and divert all remaining power to turn the craft. It would be enough.

  The massive black belly of great Ragnarok began to crown on ship’s forward horizon. Checking his signatures, Lek frowned, but he wasn’t worried yet. She had plenty of tolerance. Why shouldn’t she? She was a Malcontent, after all, and a Malcontent stood in need of as much tolerance as a Sarvaw did, for mere survival. This ship and he had more in common than anyone could know —

  They gained on Ragnarok in a great steady wave that swept them ever forward. Well beneath the maintenance hull now, and the thula yielded gratefully to his instruction to ease up, stilling herself with perfect manners to find her place beneath the still–open slot and hold there motionless, precisely matched to Ragnarok’s exact speed and rate of acceleration.

  Lek opened braid, watching the pursuit ships behind them, but not far enough behind. . . . “Ragnarok, the Malcontent’s thula. We request transfer to ship–comp on primary drives.”

  Well, she wasn’t the Ragnarok’s thula; Fleet couldn’t afford her. And the Malcontent was going to want her back, Lek reminded himself sternly; but that inevitability had no power to grieve him, not just now. Not on the crest of the rush he was riding, the flying they’d done, the way she could move.

  “Thula. This is Ragnarok.” It was Ship’s Engineer who came back in the braid; Lek couldn’t quite decide what note it might be that he thought he heard in Wheatfields’s voice. “Ready to acquire. On your mark.”

  Because the Ragnarok needed to take responsibility for holding the ship at speed, while the thula concentrated on the more delicate process of moving herself up into the host’s waiting maintenance atmosphere. “We surrender primary, at mark four. Two. Three. Four.”

  Yes. Smooth as the cream from an Aznir dairy cow.

  There were internal communications going back and forth around him, weaponers’ status reports, Stildyne talking to Ship’s First, Koscuisko calling for transport on emergency stasis. The crew of the evac craft were still alive, then. It was not outside the realm of possibility — in Koscuisko’s characteristically cautious phrase — that they would be all right. That was good news, but nothing that he could afford to waste any attention on.

  “Commence sequence, Taller,” Lek warned; not that there was much Taller could do. He fired his laterals one by one, bringing the line up carefully to put a spin on the thula — east of forward heading, dead on meridian.

  It was slow, and the pursuit ships were out there, but he couldn’t afford to notice them any more than he could afford to listen to Koscuisko’s voice over i
ntra–ship braid. Too much nose, and the thula spun too far east, slipping away from the meridian line. He had to hold the meridian line. And he had to hold it now.

  A touch at offside tailings, and she came true. “Request check for entry window, Ragnarok.” She didn’t stay perfectly aligned; she continued to slide ever so gently to one side or the other — the basic problem inherent in any reaction–correction process. He was tightening her orb moment by moment. He needed to be able to move the instant she was solid true and stayed there.

  “Move that thula, Mister Lek. You’re well within tolerance. Now, if you please.”

  Well within tolerance, his ass. He was dead solid perfect. And the Ragnarok knew it.

  Lek hit his basal lifts, and the thula began to rise gentle and straight into the maintenance atmosphere of the Ragnarok. They had to bring it into the maintenance atmosphere if they were to hope to make a vector transit before the pursuit ships could reach them; but if the hull was damaged as they tried to berth, they wouldn’t be making any vector transits at all.

  Taller cut the ship’s screens to real actual, and Lek watched the solid thickness of the maintenance hull seeming to sink as the thula rose, so close it was tempting to reach out from his chair and try to touch it as they passed. There wasn’t much clearance — but they’d known that there wouldn’t be.

  They were clear of the hull, and rising toward the loading aprons overhead. Made it. He cut the thula’s lifts; the ship rode on tractor, safe within the maintenance atmosphere.

  On the ship’s screens Lek could see a crew from Engineering — in full environmentals, and tethered, just in case — moving the final sections of the hull into place with disciplined urgency. The Ship’s Engineer would be for vector transit, now. They couldn’t have much time, so Lek was surprised to hear him coming over braid as the chief weaponer and Stildyne came forward into the thula’s wheelhouse.