Chapter 16
“I do love it when I have a chance to sit in the dining room and idle over a meal,” he announced.
I began to stand and he waved me back down. It’s common curtesy to relinquish the command seat when the Captain arrives on his Bridge. I guess Tanguy wasn’t ready to relieve me just yet. It seemed he wanted to talk.
“There’s a package being delivered to your suite,” he said sprawling on the couch across from navigation, “Looks like civilian clothing.”
“I guess that’s part of my mission. Whatever it is?” I said, “Any idea why I’m going to the Construction Station?”
“My orders are to deliver you,” he said, “What I do know is there are troubles between the station workers and the Druids.”
“Troubles?” I asked, “Druids don’t mix well with others but it’s usually isolated cases. Not multiple troubles.”
“Sorry J-Pop, that’s the message I received,” Fire Dog explained, “Deliver you and a mention of troubles were it. I guess the puzzle is for you to figure out.”
So I was going to a Construction Station to look into the tension between Druids and station personnel. At least I had an idea of the mission if not the whole story. Maybe the Druid Council of Elders didn’t know the story. Maybe it was my job to uncover the details. I felt better armed with even that little bit of information. Felt better, until I remembered the course plotted by this Captain.
“Captain Tanguy. I have a subject that I’d like to discuss with you,” I stated.
“Oh, now it’s Captain Tanguy,” he said squinting his eyes, “Well, if we’re going formal Lieutenant Piran, speak your mind.”
I typed and pulled up the math, the moon, the comet and the improbable path between them. This I sent to the navigation station screen.
“I’ve sent the course to that screen,” I said pointing to the station across from the relaxed Captain, “If you’d like to follow along.”
“Did you change anything?” he asked not having moved a muscle.
“No Sir,” I assured him, “But, I’d like to go over the plot with you.”
“I know what it shows,” he said swinging his legs onto the couch and placing his hands behind his neck, “I did the math.”
“Yes Sir. But the tract is, ah, tight,” I said stumbling over the urge to correct an experienced navigator and maintaining a respectful tone.
“Yeah, it’s a thing of beauty,” he said yawning and not bothering to cover his mouth, “Isn’t it?”
A disaster on a collision course with a tragedy was what I would have called it. But certainly, not a beautiful piece of navigation. I didn’t say it out loud.
“Let me be blunt,” I said, “Your plot is questionable.”
“No, Lieutenant Piran, the course is expedient,” he said still reclined and looking bored, “Maybe you’ll be more confident if you knew a few things about me.”
“Captain Tanguy, please enlighten me and if possible convince me that we will not die in space,” I said.
A Naval Officer can and should override any decision that puts a ship in jeopardy. I didn’t want to pull rank on this older Captain but I would if he didn’t come up with a plausible story. All I could envision at the moment was us as a yellow streak drilling into a space rock until our momentum ceased and the fuselage compressed into a flat slab of alloy.
“When I was a young man, I took a job with a small mining company,” he began, “We had a contract for a small slice of the asteroid belt. It was a tenuous position. Larger corporations held leases to the belt on either side of our claim. Looking back, I guess the only reason we got the rights to mine the area was to keep the conglomerates separated.”
“I began as an operator in the processing Globe. Survey elements would mark the most promising asteroids and we’d squeeze the Globe into the area and begin mining operations. After three years in the Globe, I took a course in navigation and began to run a mining shuttle. Out to the asteroids, crack them, drill out the ore and shuttle it back to the globe for separation. Believe me, piloting a rig through the rocks, boulders and debris was an exercise in strategic planning”.
“I appreciate your experience in asteroid maneuvers,” I said, “but that isn’t the same as deep space navigation.’
“No, I guess it isn’t but that’s just to explain the start,” he said closing his eyes and sinking deeper into the cushions, “The field we were working was mostly barren. Probably another reason we were granted the rights. For years we found just enough ore to survive. We repaired rather than replaced, hired young rather than pay for experience, and we got efficient and thrifty. All in the name of survival. The good thing was I learned all the jobs, learned them well enough that in my seventh year with the company, they put me on a survey vessel.”
“A survey ship is smaller than a mining shuttle,” Captain Tanguy explained, “The core sampler is smaller, the explosives I carried were fewer and the physical ship is smaller. All this means is that it can be crushed and lost in an asteroid belt like a damaged Sloop among the stars. Never to be found.”
“For a year, I fluttered from asteroid to asteroid sometimes finding ore but mostly coming up only with plan old granite, silicate minerals or magma solidification,” he said, “But I learned close navigation and how to thread a ship between multiple orbiting objects.”
“That is impressive,” I ventured, “It’s still not deep space quality.”
As if he hadn’t heard me, he continued, “I had worked a sector out to the far edge of the asteroid belt. Far from the Globe and the mining shuttles, out where the asteroids cease to exist and space stretched empty as far as the scanners could record.”
“I was tired from a week of dodging between the rocks and figured I’d take a day of rest,” he said, “So I flew out of the belt, set my Internal ion drive to maximum and enjoyed the view of the flowing and twisting boulders of the belt.”
“Six hours into my mini vacation, I saw a smooth, bright ribbon on an asteroid,” he said opening his eyes and removing his hands from the back of his neck, “I maneuvered back into the belt to investigate that asteroid. On the way, I spotted other asteroids in the area sporting metallic bands. For the first time since I started with the small company, I had found a mother lode. I flew to each and took core samples. I placed TNC and split a few smaller ones and the ribbons of ore stretched deep into the rock. Then, I made my biggest mistake.”
Captain Tanguy sat up and placed his feet on the floor and made fists with both hands. His face creased and his mouth became a slash across his face. His passion apparent as he related the story.
“I radioed my location to the processing Globe along with the results of the assays of the ores,” he said now throwing his arms around, “Iron, gold, silver and other minerals and there was more. Huge veins of the mineral Gadolinite. Ah, Gadolinite, from that they process Erbium and the salts of Erbium are used in every space ship, every Station and even on the planets. In other words, my small company and everyone involved was about to reap containers full of Pesetas. We were all rich.”
“It took the Globe three weeks to work its way to my location,” he said dropping his voice to a whisper, “For those weeks, I dreamed about buying my own Station and staffing it with beautiful women and the best whiskeys. For three weeks, I was a king.”
“The Globe and six mining shuttles arrived and we began mining. All of us loving life, projecting our futures and working around the clock,” Tanguy said raising his voice like he was going to break into a song, “We had four days of mining and processing when the asteroid belt exploded.”
“Our ordered universe in the asteroid belt dissolved into chaos,” he said. All the joy gone from his voice, replaced by a strained growl, “I flew or rather bounced around until I arrived at the Globe. She’d been shaken and from the asteroid strikes, I could tell her gravity generators were down. There was nothing between the hull and the marauding rocks to prevent them from pulverizing the Globe into so much tw
isted metal.”
“I managed to find a working dock and sailed into the madness,” he said calmer now as if the tale were beyond his emotional range, “Three of our six shuttles had made it to the Globe for what that was worth. I held to the railings as I stumbled to the command deck. There, I found that the Bridge crew had been caught off guard. They’d fallen and as I entered, no one was taking evasive action. They were mangled heaps of flesh.”
“Engineering informed me that a blast had cracked part of our ion wall and all the power was being consumed by life support. It was then I made the hard decision. I ordered engineering to shut down life support and transfer power to our drive. The Globe wide announcement reach only half the able bodied crew members. They scrambled to rebreather stations and pulled on space suits. The rest, my coworkers, friends and almost rich cohorts died from space exposure inside the safety of a processing Globe.”
He paused and I could see his breathing was ragged as he pulled in great gulps of air. Finally, he shrugged his shoulders and continued.
“The Globe was taking a beating and the monitors showed breaches all around the structure. We were venting what little atmosphere remained but I had flight control. I took too long or so it seemed, but I finally plotted a course through the asteroid belt to the edge and empty space. It took a lot of twists and turns, close calls with massive asteroids and near misses with rouge rocks. We broke through to the safety of empty space, only to find shuttles from our neighbors, the giant mining corporations.”
“They rescued what remained of our crew,” he said with irony, “and claimed salvage rights on our Globe and equipment. Then it was decided that for the good of the Galactic Council Realm, the ore rich area should be mined by organizations who could process it properly. We lost our business and any rights to the ore. They paid us off and shipped the crew to different parts of the Realm.”
“It sounds like you have a legal claim,” I said.
“I might or I might not,” he replied, “There aren’t enough of us with the seniority to bring a case that would drag on for years in court or pay the cost of the lawyers. No, I was almost rich but now I’m just a Yacht pilot. A Senior Navigator with a suspicious Navy Officer questioning my credentials.”
“I think my question has been answered,” I relented, “but what caused the explosion?”
“Well, that depends on who you believe,” he said winking at me, “The official report, by investigators from the mining corporations, states a miss handling of explosives by the Globe crew and improper storage of TNC. Probable cause being inattention to regulations by an exhausted and overworked crew. However, all the damage to the Globe was external. Of course that can’t be proven as the Globe was imploded shortly after the crew was taken off her.”
“That’s where you got the call sign Fire Dog?” I asked trying to change the subject.
“No J-Pop, I got that because I like my whiskey straight and my women with a pulse,” he said laughing and standing, “Mister Piran, I have the Bridge.”
“Aye, Captain, you have the Bridge.”
Chapter 17
When we evolved to External drive, I synced my PID to the External clock. The alarms were set five minutes before we crossed path with the moon and later five minutes before we crossed the wake of the comet. I may die in space but I’ll be an arachnoid’s abdominal if I’d settle for being killed in my sleep.
Captain Tanguy did a masterful job of turning the Yacht, lining up on the vector and performing a one snap evolution. I had faith in him, I did, but I still synced my PID.
The Captain took first watch as was his right and he assigned me second watch. That was nice of him but not so great for the engineer, he pulled third watch. All the watches were dull as our view was limited to yellow ions flowing over view screens and not much else.
To break up my days, I intruded on the Druid’s practices. I set by Clan Strap down and fished around inside and retrieved my Druid fighting sticks. Not the Knight sticks with the sharp alloy tips, I didn’t want to hurt anyone. The custom warrior grade sticks were enough to impress at least some of the Druids.
The ritual chant I skipped waiting for them to begin the fighting stick drills. On my first foray to the lounge deck, three Druids communicated something to each other. I couldn’t understand but I could speculate.
‘Clan Knight is Folk,’ was my guess.
They didn’t know I was raised among Druids so their secret thought transmissions weren’t so covert. Although I couldn’t understand, I could tell by small body and eye movements when they sent messages. I picked one of the three for my first fight. He didn’t disappoint me. He did disappoint his fellow conspirators.
‘What are they feeding them,’ I thought as he raised directly up from the kneeling position and raised some more until he was looking down at me, ‘big one. I don’t remember any of my Ritual Mates towering over me.’
I tucked my left stick under my right arm and held the right stick up. We began and as I suspected he attempted to bully me. Sidestepping, I swept his retreating left arm catching it before he could cock it again. Then I spun and caught the right arm with my left foot. He was off balance and needed a second to recover. I didn’t give it, instead, I stepped into his guard and drove both stick into his diaphragm. He sat down hard on his dignity.
“Assuming the attack before you reach a period of grace and flow,” I instructed, “Leads to death.”
Another message passed between the two remaining conspirators, this one was some kind of warning. Druids, especially young ones have a lot of pride and a lot to learn. I selected one of them for my next demonstration. He also ended up on his butt, as did the third Druid. Once I’d taught them that I could take each of them down, in the same manner, despite their change of tactics, I rested.
After the first unsteady experience, the rest of the workouts and fights were calmer at least on the inside. Outwardly, the sticks clashed and sweat poured from the combatants. The three conspirators accepted me and every session after the first was a friendly joust.
Weeks into our cruise, my PID rang me awake. It was third watch and I was tired. Never the less, I hit the galley for a cup of coffee and meandered to the Bridge.
“Can’t sleep, J-Pop?” Fire Dog asked. He was sitting at the Navigation station.
The engineer turned from the pilot’s seat and gave me a nod. He acted as if it were normal for all the Bridge watchers to gather in the middle of the night for a chat.
“That’s right Captain. Thought I’d wander around,” I lied.
“Have a seat. We’re still two minute from crossing the moon’s path,” Fire Dog said, “If we’re going to die, at least let’s be comfortable.”
“Aye Sir, comfortable it is,” I replied as I sat on the sofa.
I’ll never know how close we were to impacting with the moon. The Yacht Elouan sailed through its orbit and I went back to bed.
Two weeks later we reconvened on the command deck and waited as we passed through the asteroid’s wake. We had a tense talk and thanks to Fire Dogs’ navigation, no collision.
After weeks more of cruising, the Elouan evolved to Internal drive, performed a dogleg to adjust our course, went to External drive and we finally evolution in an orbit around the Construction Station.
It looked as if a dull rust colored ball had the top and bottom lopped off. Then cones of thin fiber were snapped on to replace the original shape. The wide dirty orange center contained the work, living and recreation areas. Under the cones, on both ends, were the fabrication and assemble areas.
The Construction Station was old. Having been one of the first projects when the Galactic Council Realm was formed. Under the cones, most of the Navy’s vessels had been conceived, designed and built. It was home to thousands of workers and support staff and three Heart Plants. It was also home to the largest family of Druids in the Realm, next to the Clan home planet Uno.
Two of the Heart Plants were giant Whites. One old, massive and reachi
ng the end of a long life. The other was smaller, younger and ready to take its sister’s place suppling rich sea salt atmosphere to the station.
The third Heart Plant was an adult Blue. It rested in a tomb, outside the Station, under a cone. A Navy Frigate was slowly being assembled around the structure surrounding the plant. A ship so massive that its foot print occupied almost three quarters of the Station’s deck. This forced the manufacturing of smaller ships to the other end of the Construction Station.
Most of this I learned from the five Druids between beatings. Some by me and, yes, some to me but how else can you get better at a Martial Art. The other information about the station came from an exhaustive search of the ship’s library.
The five Druids had left in a Druid shuttle earlier. After thanking them for the exercises, which they didn’t respond to, I met Captain Tanguy in the galley. We had a long talk and a relaxing meal.
The civilian clothing supplied by the Druid Elders included a plan shoulder bag. My Clan Strap was hidden in it. I looked like any Merchant crewman on shore leave as I joined the cook, steward and engineer for the trip down to Construction Station. They were going to secure resupplies and replacement equipment. I was going to investigate tensions between workers and Druids, whatever that meant?
Our shuttle slid into the Station egress tube and we disembarked via the tube through massive air curtains. At the end of the tube, station personnel waited.
“State you name and reason for your visit,” one said as my group emerged into a cavern.
Above us loomed massive clamshell doors, while far below on the deck we moved as if we were small bugs. Sometimes giant pieces of ship’s plating and beams would pass into the Station through those doors. Right now, it was just four unassuming bodies passing far below them.
I stepped up to a security officer and reported, “Oscar Piran, Merchant seaman and I’m on shore leave.”
“Piran. Length of visit?” the intake officer asked leisurely waving a scanner over my PID.
Galactic Council Realm 2: On Duty Page 14