by Rick Cook
“There are those who fear that with the drive you will come ravening our home planet.”
“But you do not?”
“It will take you time to learn to build the drive, even with the help we could give you. When you get it you are more likely to seek out other stars to colonize rather than bother us. It does not make sense that you should come to our home system, except perhaps to trade.”
“And you would permit that?”
Jenkins shrugged. “It is not mine to permit or prohibit. I am concerned with my ship and my crew.”
“What do you propose?”
“That we trade. Knowledge of the drive for my crew.”
“I already possess what knowledge your ship has of the drive.”
“You possess what knowledge was in active memory when you attacked. That information was stored separately and not in the computers.”
Derfuhrer paused. Yes, his people said that the humans did not keep everything in memory at one time. An odd, crude system. But then they were an odd, crude lineage. It was possible, just possible, that this captain was telling the truth.
“I will give you all knowledge of the drive we possess.”
“Full knowledge?”
The captain hesitated. “We do not have that.”
“It is not enough,” he said at last. “I must have more.”
“I have no more to give,” Jenkins protested.
“There is Takiuji-san.”
“You expect me to worsen my position by giving up another crew member?”
“I would trade him for the others.”
“His lineage would not like it,” Jenkins objected.
Derfuhrer made the Colonists’ equivalent of a shrug. “It is easier to satisfy one lineage than many. Especially if a suitable weregild is available.”
It was Jenkins’ turn to pause while he called up the meaning of “weregild.”
“I must think on this,” he said. “May your lineage prosper.”
“And yours,” replied Derfuhrer and broke the connection.
“Said the spider to the fly,” Jenkins muttered under his breath as he stared at the blank screen.
Peter Jenkins looked up and down the table at his assembled advisers. “Lady, gentlemen, I have made arrangements with Derfuhrer for release of our hostages,” he said bluntly.
“On what terms?” Carlotti asked.
“The Colonists have agreed to exchange all the humans for one man, Dr. Takiuji.”
“That’s madness!” one of the others burst out.
“It would be madness if the trade actually took place. However it will not. The trade will be a cover for an attack on the Hasta base.”
“Storm the base?” Carlotti said stiffly. “Captain, may I remind you that we are not soldiers.”
Jenkins drew back his lips in a tight, hard smile. “Wrong. We are soldiers. Because we have to be.”
“Still, their guards are trained for military operations. We are not.”
“You ever pull guard duty?” Iron Alice asked sharply.
“Why, no,” Carlotti said, surprised.
“Well, let me tell you something. It is the fastest way in the world to make even good troops sloppy. Want to bet the bozos on that planet weren’t that good to start with?”
“We have another advantage, Doctor. Gravity.”
“Gravity is the same for all of us.”
“Now, but not historically. Have you noticed the way the Colonists maneuver their ships?”
“Eh?”
“Their maneuvering, did you notice anything about it?”
“Well, they seem to do it very deliberately.”
“Slowly, Doctor. The word you are looking for is slowly. For thousands of years they have lived at very low gravity. Their home planet probably had a gravity less than half of Earth’s. They’re weaker than we are and their reflexes are much slower.”
“Their machines aren’t,” Carlotti said grimly.
“We have ways of dealing with their machines,” Jenkins told him. Then he outlined his plans.
“There’s one little thing you left out of that briefing,” Iron Alice said after the others had left.
“Eh?”
“How are you going to get your trade goods back?” “He’ll have a chance.”
“This is insanity and you know it. If it goes wrong they could still end up with Dr. Takiuji and win the game.”
“I guarantee you that won’t happen.”
“How can you be so bloody sure?”
“Dr. Takiuji and I have made arrangements to prevent it.”
Iron Alice DeRosa stopped cold. “You mean suicide. He’ll kill himself like Ludenemeyer did.”
“Death in a good cause is part of the Japanese culture,” Jenkins said carefully.
DeRosa didn’t say anything.
“We are making arrangements to pick him up.”
“If everything goes just right and we have more luck than we deserve. Otherwise he dies down there. Or worse, they squeeze him like a grape.”
“There is a calculated risk. Now if there is nothing else?”
Iron Alice DeRosa opened her mouth, closed it and saluted very deliberately. “Nothing else, sir. Do I have the captain’s permission to go?”
“Granted,” said Jenkins and watched her turn and head for the bridge. Suddenly it felt very cold and lonely up here.
Now or never, Carmella O’Hara told herself as she approached the door to the executive officer’s office. Now or never. For the first time in weeks, she was wearing her uniform. It was clean, neat and as pressed as she could make it.
She took a deep breath and knocked.
“Come in,” the familiar voice said from inside. Carmella let out her breath and went in.
Iron Alice DeRosa was sitting behind the desk, waiting for her. “You requested an interview, Pilot?”
Thank God, Carmella thought, she’s not going to bring family into this.
“Ma’am, I request to be relieved from pilot duty for the coming mission,” Carmella said formally.
For a minute, a long minute, Iron Alice DeRosa just sat there, looking at her niece and saying nothing. It was as bad as Carmella had imagined it would be. She wanted to die where she stood, or at the very least sink through the floor and vanish forever.
“You’re making the request to the wrong person,” she told her at last. “You should go to your immediate superior.”
“Yes ma’am,” Carmella said woodenly.
“However, I will pass this request on to your superior without recommendation so that he can make the decision.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Then if there’s nothing else?”
“No ma’am.” Carmella prepared to leave.
“Then would you tell me what’s wrong, Cammy?” Iron Alice said softly. “Just between us?”
“I—I’m just not competent to fly the mission,” Carmella blurted out, confused by the sudden turn of events. She stopped and looked down at the deck. “I’m sorry to let you down,” she mumbled.
“You’re not letting me down,” DeRosa told her. “You’re making the best choice possible if you don’t think you’re up for the mission. Better to say so now than have things go sour later. But would you mind telling me why?”
“You wouldn’t understand it,” she said keeping her eyes on the floor. “It’s something you’d never understand.”
“Try me.”
“Because I’m scared,” Carmella said defiantly, blinking back tears. “I’m not like you and I’m scared out of my goddamn mind.”
“And you think I’m not?” Iron Alice grinned like a wolf. “Lady, I’ve been scared ever since I went out for this job. And right now I’m fucking terrified.”
Carmella stared. “But you said you’d lead the flight yourself,” she protested.
“That’s something different,” her aunt said. “You don’t send people out to do something dangerous if you aren’t willing to do it yourself. Besides
,” she added simply, “it’s always easier to go out and die yourself than to send people out to do it for you. But I can’t go. I know too much and I don’t have the reflexes anymore. So I get to sit here on the ship and be afraid.”
“Mom always said you were never scared of anything,” Carmella said wonderingly.
Iron Alice smiled. “Your mother is nice, but she’s not too perceptive.”
Carmella nodded. “Aunt Alice, why did I get a pilot’s berth?”
“Why do you think you got that job?” she asked carefully.
“Because I’m your niece.”
“Wrong!” Iron Alice DeRosa roared. “You got it because you’re the best damned pilot I could find. You’ve got the training, you’ve got the experience, you’ve got the reflexes and most of all you’ve got the piloting sense. I didn’t get you this berth. You got it for yourself by being one of the best small ship pilots there is.”
“But I thought . . .”
“That I pulled strings? Don’t put too much trust in latrine gossip.” The older woman took Carmella by the shoulders. “Cammy, listen to me. Don’t ever do anything for me. Don’t do it for the family pride. Do it for yourself, for who you are and who you want to be. And if it isn’t for you, then don’t do it.”
“I don’t know what I want right now.”
DeRosa sighed. “We’ve got time. Give me your decision by 0800. If you want to go, then go. If not, I’ll square it with your commander. But decide for yourself, girl!”
Carmella nearly collided with Captain Jenkins in the corridor. She threw him a quick salute and then hurried past him.
“That was your niece, wasn’t it?” Jenkins asked as he came into DeRosa’s office. “I understand she’s quite a pilot.”
“Yeah,” Iron Alice DeRosa said proudly. “She’s a hell of a pilot.”
“Spun down and ready, Captain.”
Jenkins looked around the bridge and out at the spangled sky in front of them. The air was chill against his skin and the armrests of his couch icy to his touch. They had been running the air conditioners full out for the last twenty-four hours and the temperature on the bridge was approaching fifty degrees Fahrenheit.
“Very well. Pilot, execute.”
DeRosa leaned forward and flipped a switch. “Executing . . . now.” And the universe blinked.
The star field had shifted subtly and wheeled about them as the Maxwell dashed through space on a new vector. The navigator began to call out their direction and speed, but Iron Alice DeRosa was already playing the sidestick, wheeling the ship about so the torch faced the direction they headed.
The torch flared and Jenkins was rammed back in his seat as the Maxwell lost velocity. The numbers reeled off on his console as speed fell away from them under the raging force of the reaction.
“Lining up,” DeRosa called out. She played the thrusters like a piano, feeding a bit less here and a little more there. The stars slowed and stopped their movement. The computers rechecked their position, drank in new data from the gravity array and applied corrections to the data.
“On course. Executing. Now.”
Again the stars blinked and then wheeled madly. Again the starship slewed about and once more the fusion torch roared to kill unwanted velocity. Jenkins noticed he was sweating inside his suit and hoped it was nerves.
“On course. Executing. Now.”
The universe spun crazily and the room had become noticeably warmer. A bad one, Jenkins thought. We can’t take many like that. The spinning stars slowed and then began to precess as the computers and the pilot got the ship under control and lined it up for the burn to kill their accumulated velocity.
Then the fusion torch kicked in and Jenkins was rocked back in his seat. The straps bit hard into his already tender shoulders, but he barely noticed.
“Correcting, correcting. Stand by. Executing. Now.”
They couldn’t escape detection, of course. Too many eyes had been watching them and even if they hadn’t been, the electronic storm they stirred up in their wake crashed upon the detectors all over the system at the speed of light.
But even light takes time to traverse space and even an M5 solar system is a vast place. It took minutes and hours for the tortured particles and waves bearing the news of the Maxwell’s passing to reach those detectors. And in this case, even minutes was too long.
“Correcting,” Iron Alice sang hoarsely. Sweat ran down her face and the force of the fusion torch bucked her into the straps. “Correcting. Correcting.” Then a pause. A long pause. “Stand by. Now.”
Five times the Maxwell jumped. After the fourth she was hung in real space for nearly ten minutes as her pilot and computers corrected her heading and velocity to the absolute best of their abilities.
The air in the control room was stifling in spite of the dull roar of the air conditioners. Jenkins pressed his jaws together to fight down the nausea. From somewhere on the bridge he heard the sound of retching and knew not everyone had been as successful as he was.
He concentrated on his display because he could not close his eyes. The stars out the port gave him vertigo.
“Correcting,” Iron Alice croaked. “Correcting, correcting, correcting.” She held the sidestick between her right thumb and forefinger and moved it with nervous jerky motions. Through the hull Jenkins could hear the bow thrusters cutting on and off, like a car spluttering out of gas. The pilot stilled her hand and studied her own display for a moment.
“This is as good as it gets, Captain.” Her voice was so hoarse and strained it was almost unrecognizable.
“Very good, Pilot,” Jenkins was hoarse too. He thumbed his mike onto the ship’s main comm circuit. “All hands stand by. Jumping . . . Now.”
And the stars blinked again.
Hasta was looming out the port window. Too large, far too large and closing too quickly on a crazy corkscrew path. Iron Alice hit the sidestick hard and the Maxwell bucked sideways under maximum impulse from the thrusters. Then the torch cut in with a great whooshing roar that carried through the entire ship. The planet spun away behind them and Jenkins held his breath. But the Maxwell’s engines were more than a match for the gravitational forces and their steady roar lessened then stuttered, then stopped and started again and then stopped for the last time.
Even before the crew unstrapped the next phase had begun. As soon as the Maxwell broke out for the final time, thirty small rockets took off in all directions from her hull. As DeRosa fought to get the ship back under control they exploded at distances of a couple of kilometers to several hundred kilometers from the ship. And suddenly the Maxwell wasn’t alone in the sky.
Iron Alice relaxed her grip on the stick as the ship slowed its mad rush to nowhere.
“We’re stable,” she croaked.
“Crews execute,” Jenkins called over the comm channel. “Shuttles standby.” He thumbed the circuit off. “Get me a position as fast as you can.”
The twelve-hundred-meter length of the ship was boiling with activity. Space-suited workers scrambled from improvised acceleration couches and out the locks, lugging equipment with them. Access compartments crudely carved in the ship’s hull were thrown open and apparatus was rigged. Vacuum jacks and astronomers alike labored frantically to get the pieces into place. Others formed human chains to pass the contents of the lockers forward.
The Maxwell was not armed and was never intended to be armed. But simple rockets are easy to mount and easier to launch. And every vacuum jack and rock crawler in the Earth system knows how to make them. Within minutes of Jenkins’ order the ship was surrounded by an expanding cloud of projectiles, most of them heading for Hasta hanging blue-gray above them.
The bridge crew ignored the activity, concentrating instead on getting a precise position in relation to Hasta.
“Better than I thought,” DeRosa said. She was still hoarse, but her voice was coming back. “We can launch the shuttles whenever you’re ready.”
“Get them out of the bays,
” Jenkins said. “Then get me an ETA and update it constantly.”
“Want them to start in?”
“No. Let’s let Hasta stew in its own juices for a bit.”
From their makeshift bays in the flanks of the Maxwell, four ungainly craft rose and turned their noses toward the planet. They were ragged and a little hesitant as they used their maneuvering jets to clear the great ship, as if their pilots were not used to them. They stood alongside their mother ship like remoras escorting an enormous shark.
The blue-black sky over Hasta blossomed. Flares of all colors blazed, turning night into day and day into summer’s noon. Higher up the spectrum other radiation sources sprang out in streaks and splotches. Lines of light streaked through the sky as tons of chaff burst in low orbit, burning on reentry with magnesium radiance. Down in the atmosphere other chaff containers burst, distributing silvery clouds everywhere.
“Pity we didn’t rig a few nukes,” DeRosa said thoughtfully. “A string of EMPs would mess them up nicely.”
Kessner, their communications officer, snorted. “Against a space civilization? Forget it. Their stuff is so rad hard they wouldn’t even notice.”
“Well, they’ll notice this all right. It must be hell out for the Fourth of July down on the surface now.”
“Well, let’s see if we can mix some substance in with the sparkle,” Jenkins said. “Launch the rocks,” he ordered.
Out on the hull, other work groups swung their launchers to the azimuth and elevation the computers gave them. These were larger, sturdier constructions. Unlike the lighter missiles, which were being fired as fast as they could be passed up, these projectiles were brought out of the hatches by jury-rigged cranes. They had no weight, of course, but they had plenty of mass and the men who maneuvered them into their launch frames moved slowly and carefully.
One after the other, the “rocks” left their launchers. Lost in the electromagnetic riot kicked up by the bombardment, the transmitter signals from the rocks gave the Maxwell a precise fix on each of them. Down below, Billy Toyoda’s computers translated that into an orbit track for each rock and an elongated oval footprint that moved across the surface of the planet beneath each of them.