From the right, zipping across the screen with amazing speed, were five green triangles. Two went up over the blue dot, two went over, and the fifth slowed to keep pace with Sunsinger.
Rangers!
“They're chewing him to pieces!” Lin crowed.
She waved at the screens at the top of the control panel that measured energy fluctuations and mass changes in the space around the ship. Bain could hardly understand enough to translate a static screen, much less one where the figures changed every second. Lin was happy—no, she was ecstatic. That translated the data perfectly for Bain.
“Explosion,” Ganfer warned. “Prepare for shock wave.”
“Hold on!” Lin threw herself back in her chair, and held onto the sides of the seat with a white-knuckle grip.
Bain copied her. Even so, he nearly lost his grip, and was flung forward so that his chin contacted hard and sharply with the edge of the control panel when something lifted the ship and turned it upside down and flung it forward at double Sunsinger's previous speed.
He saw stars behind his closed eyelids. His jaw throbbed with jagged lightning bolts—broken, maybe? Then he felt heat and wet gushing down his chin and neck.
“Bain?” Lin reached across the gap between them, and grabbed him by his shoulders, pulling him back against his chair.
“I'm okay.” He forced his eyes open and tried to smile. It brought a splash of fire across his chin. Bain pressed a hand to his chin, and brought it away spattered with blood.
“You are going to have one lovely scar to remember this by,” Lin promised. She gave him a crooked smile, and there were tears in her eyes.
* * * *
Dr. Anyon came over to Sunsinger by shuttle, docked at the rear of the ship by the cargo hatch, and came through the rarely-used airlock. As Lin said, how often did a Free Trader ship come to a stop in space long enough to socialize from one ship to another? Captain Gil came with the doctor. He and Lin ran a quick interior check of the ship, while the doctor cleaned and stitched Bain's chin. A team of Rangers went over the outside of the ship, checking for damage from the shock wave and the near miss of the energy beam.
Bain and Dr. Anyon were working in the galley, making lunch for the four of them, when the preliminary report came from the outside team. Bain called Lin and Gil to return to the bridge immediately.
“I hope this is it,” Dr. Anyon greeted them, as the two captains hurried up from the cargo hold.
“ What is it?” Lin bounced off the ceiling, and arrowed down to the galley booth.
“They found three shield tiles missing in a little patch where the outside dome shutters retract into the body of the ship,” Bain hurried to say. “The residual energy from the shock wave is the same in the skin of the ship as it is in the shield tiles, so the repair team is pretty sure the tiles came off before we ran into the Mashrami.”
“That little unprotected spot let them detect the refined metals in the ship's skin,” Gil said. He slid into the booth, and thumped his fist once on the table. “All our precautions, and something so stupid and small trips us up.”
“It took three scans before they made up their mind to come after us,” Lin reminded him.
“That's supposed to be comforting?” He glared at her. For a moment, Bain imagined the Ranger captain was the elder, worried about a green, optimistic new recruit who didn't know the danger she had been in. Bain would have laughed at the idea of Lin not knowing her situation, but he was too tired and achy from their frantic flight, and didn't have the breath to laugh.
“So, you send a message to Banner, and tell those scientists we need a system that monitors the shield tiles to warn us when one gets loose or falls off or breaks. I imagine large cracks would be as dangerous as losing an entire tile.”
“No, we won't send a message to Banner. We're all going to Banner, and give Sunsinger a thorough overhaul,” Gil said. “Right now.”
“Gil—”
“I'm serious! Don't you have any idea how close you came to getting your ship killed from under you, Ganfer wiped out of existence, and then you two vaporized?”
“I'm very aware,” Lin said, in a near whisper. “But if I let it paralyze me, even for a few seconds, I might never break free of that.”
“I'm not saying you should let it paralyze you. Just sit down and stop being the hero for a while.”
“Hero?” She stared at him for a few seconds, then sank down into the galley booth, and started laughing, slowly, unevenly, with a threat of tears in the sound.
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* * *
Chapter Eight
Eighteen days later, Bain sat at the control panel on watch duty, and listened to the silence of the ship. The ‘point of no return’ for the oncoming Mashrami ship's intersection with their path was still four hours away. Lin was asleep, conserving her energy for any tricky maneuvers she might have to perform.
The time spent on Banner, while the scientists worked on the shield tile monitoring system, was not wasted time. The report on Sunsinger's encounter with the Mashrami went out to the other Ranger-Spacer teams, and the other ships came back from their test patrols to wait for the adaptation. Bain and Lin visited with the other Spacer captains participating in the shield tests and traded stories. No one had come as close to disaster as Sunsinger. Lin was relieved, and the other captains were impressed with her skill.
Bain had been amazed to learn that the other captains already knew who he was, and how he had become crew on Sunsinger.
“What one Spacer knows, the others eventually know. It's a matter of survival,” Lin told him, when he expressed his surprise.
“But—I'm just a kid.”
“You're a Spacer, descendant of Spacers, and you're my apprentice. Like Sourpuss Malloy said, we need all the Spacers we can get hold of during this war.”
Now, sitting at watch, Bain thought about how nice it had been to be welcomed among the Spacers without any reservation. A few had even teased Lin, and said that if Bain got tired of shipping with her, he would be welcome on their ships. He remembered how, only a year ago, he had been stuck in that orphanage on Lenga, and dreamed about being Spacer crew somewhere, anywhere.
“Time?” he said.
“Two hours forty-nine minutes since shut-down,” Ganfer responded in normal volume.
They had both learned months ago, the best way to rouse Lin from a sound sleep was to whisper. If everything proceeded normally, her subconscious didn't rouse her. Lin could sleep through a brass band playing on the other side of the wall, as long as they weren't a physical threat. The wrong sound, no matter how slight and soft and momentary, could rouse her and bring her across the bridge, into her seat, pushing buttons to handle the problem before she even had her eyes open.
Bain wondered if he would ever grow to that stage of oneness with the ship. He had gained a good instinct for knowing what was wrong with the ship before the warning indicators lit or alarms sounded. He had a strong talent for cobbling together temporary repairs that held until they could get to a spaceport. Several times, the repair crews at their various stops had said that Bain's emergency measures were as effective as anything they could have done under controlled conditions. Bain liked hearing that, and he liked even more seeing that proud smile light up Lin's face.
He still didn't have her bone-deep feel for the ship that reached through sleep or pain or laughter, and told her exactly what needed to be done before it became a conscious awareness. Bain still had to stop and think and analyze before he could make one of the thousand tiny adjustments necessary during every watch period on board the ship.
Being out here in this relatively unknown sector of space, with Mashrami bearing down on them, made that sense of inadequacy even more frustrating.
“If you want to study—” Ganfer began to offer, after another ten minutes of silence.
“Thanks, but I couldn't concentrate.”
“Lin is the same way. I'm surprised she's managing to sl
eep at all.”
“Is she? I thought maybe she was just pretending to sleep.” Bain wished he could get his reading screen and study. He had found the basic overview of Order history fascinating, and the in-depth, decade per unit investigation held his attention just as strongly.
“No. I've been monitoring her pulse and breathing. She's asleep.”
“That's good.” He noted another change in the numbers on two different screens, and recorded the time in the log.
That was a new development in the tests, along with the shield tile monitors. Bain recorded every change made in the Mashrami's course, rates of speed, the time of shut-down, sensor sweeps, reactions—anything that happened or didn't happen until the Mashrami vanished from the ship's sensors. The unit was like a data pad, but made to withstand damage like explosions or instant decompression. If information wasn't recorded on a regular basis from the time the file was opened until the ‘close file’ code was tapped into the bottom of the record, an automatic distress signal/locator beam began to broadcast.
Bain had a nagging fear that he would forget to make the regular entries, cause the distress signal to start, and bring the Mashrami down on Sunsinger to investigate. That was the main reason he didn't even try to study while on watch duty.
He took the recorder with him when he went to the galley to heat a sandwich.
“Ganfer, is coffee really that good?” Bain picked up a sealed cup out of the rack, and sloshed the contents around. Lin always made a batch of ten cups at a time, and prepared the cups for quick re-heating. He had never really been tempted by coffee before.
“Lin says there are many ways of making it good, and twice as many ways to make it bad.”
“That's no answer.” He chuckled and turned the cup over. He let go of it for a moment, and it spun slowly in free-fall for a few seconds until he caught it again.
“Lin says coffee is a trained taste and she never had the time to play with flavors and sweetening. She drinks coffee as medicine.”
“Like stimulants?” Bain nodded. He had noticed that, but hadn't made the conscious connection before. “She doesn't drink coffee to celebrate, like with chocolate. Most of the time, she drinks herbal teas. Coffee is only to stay awake, when we're in trouble.”
“Coffee is gentler than stimulants, and does have some purging qualities for the blood. In limited doses.”
“Ten cups is a limited dose?”
“How long does it take Lin to drink all of those?”
“Oh.” Bain flipped the cup once more, and put it back in its rack.
If it took Lin two whole days to get through ten single-serving cups, and she drank it only to stay awake during dangerous situations like now, then Bain doubted coffee tasted that good. He knew of many things that didn't taste half as good as they smelled.
His sandwich was hot enough now. He took it out of the heater, and floated back over to his seat. His hand just touched the back of the chair when Ganfer spoke.
“Bain, the Mashrami has changed course.”
“Speed?” Bain jammed his sandwich into the net pocket at the side of the control station, and threw himself into his chair. He hooked one ankle around the support post to hold himself in place until he could take the time to buckle his safety strap.
“Unchanged.”
“Lin?” He raised his voice, and looked toward the curtain of her cubicle.
It slid aside before he could finish saying her name. Lin pushed off her bunk and flew across the bridge and over the control panel. She finished sliding into her robe as she bounced off the corner of wall and ceiling and down to her seat.
“I heard.” She spared him a tight smile, and glanced over the readings on all the screens. “No energy changes. Anything going on around us that could account for the change in course?”
“Nothing I can see.” Bain looked at the screens again. He felt a momentary, panicked throb of guilt when he realized he hadn't recorded the course change yet in the data pad. He yanked it out of his belt where he had tucked it when he went to the galley, and started typing.
“There is an increase in asteroid density for roughly two hundred fifty cubic kilometers,” Ganfer said. “We are on the other side of the field, twenty degrees X-axis, twenty-five degrees Y-axis, nineteen degrees negative Z-axis off the Mashrami's previous course.”
“That could explain—No.” Lin scowled and tapped the controls for one screen to bring back the information that had scrolled out of her sight a second ago. She tapped a long string of numbers that suddenly highlighted itself in blue. “If they follow this course change, they'll be heading directly into the mass instead of avoiding it. That doesn't make sense.”
Bain dutifully recorded the numbers and Lin's words. Captain Gilmore had impressed on him how vital it was to have every possible bit of data recorded. Even six years into the war with the Mashrami, they were still learning new things about their unseen enemy. Who knew when a single new fact could turn the tide of the war?
“What are they doing?” Lin muttered. “Ganfer, is it possible to uncover one of our exterior sensors, and get a visual?”
“The ship should be safe until we're hit with a sensor beam, and it catches on the unshielded mechanism,” the ship-brain replied, after only a half-second's pause.
“Is it worth the risk?” she asked, in an even softer voice.
Bain knew Lin wasn't really talking to him or Ganfer, but thinking aloud. He recorded the proposition to uncover a visual sensor, and waited.
“Can we angle Sunsinger enough so that the body of the ship covers most of the sensor?” Lin asked, after almost five minutes of waiting silence.
Ganfer responded with a series of numbers—angles and coordinate points to turn the ship. Lin's fingers danced over the control panel. Bain didn't even feel the change in the ship when the thrusters fired for single seconds at a time.
“Let's hope the Mashrami are too busy looking at that asteroid field to notice the change in our drift and tumble.” She glanced over at Bain, and cracked a grin. “You're recording all that?”
“Trying.”
“Thank Fi'in it's only words, not sounds or video. I'm in no condition to be recorded for posterity.” She grimaced and tugged the collar of her robe off her shoulder. Lin didn't even try to straighten her tangled hair.
A snorting gasp of laughter escaped Bain. It wasn't long, but it was enough to release half the pressure that had been building on the bridge since Ganfer had noticed the course change.
“Sensor uncovered and angling out to begin visual,” Ganfer announced.
“Any energy fluctuations?”
“There is a small increase in magnetic bands around the rear of the ship.”
“Magnetic bands, hmm? That's interesting. Either there's some magnetic disturbance out there affecting the ship—”
“Negative,” Ganfer interrupted.
“Or the Mashrami are generating a magnetic field. Why?”
“Could they grab onto us?” Bain offered.
“Not from this far away.” Lin leaned her elbow on the edge of the panel, and rested her chin in her palm. She frowned and studied the few screens showing data on the far wall. “Anything yet?”
“Sensor control is reduced to avoid electrical energy transmissions,” Ganfer said.
“Why don't you just say it's taking longer than usual?” she grumbled.
She winked at Bain, then sat up straight and pointed at a screen in a line of four blank ones on the far wall. It lit up in shades of red and blue against white, with black spots ringed in yellow that floated across the whole.
“That's it. Those spots moving there are the asteroids, showing what's solid rock and what's radiant energy. The white is electromagnetic static in the background. That big red blob shading out to purple at the edges is the Mashrami. Their energy gradient is way down. Any theories, Ganfer?”
“Either they are conserving energy, or they are in serious energy depletion phase.”
A green line
appeared across the middle of the Mashrami ship, and crawled across space to touch one of the floating black dots of asteroid.
“Huh. That's interesting.”
Bain muttered agreement, and made notations in the log of what happened on the screen. He took a moment to access the computer file controlling the sensor and what it recorded, and linked it with the automatic recorders in the data pad. He grinned when he thought of the reaction of the scientists back on Banner, when they saw this.
“What are they—” Lin sat back and stared and didn't finish what she had meant to say.
Bain stopped recording and looked. The asteroid was now almost to the Mashrami ship, judging by the shortness of the green line. The yellow ring of radiant energy coming from the asteroid had turned orange. As Bain watched, it flared into red then white and an eye-searing blue.
The asteroid vanished.
“Ganfer, analyze!” Lin snapped. Her hands flew over the controls, and two blank screens on the control panel lit up with numbers and scientific symbols. Bain couldn't understand a fraction of them, and they shifted so quickly he couldn't read the ones he recognized.
“Theory,” the ship-brain said. “The Mashrami ship destroyed the asteroid using contrasting gravities created by the magnetic beam which initially drew the asteroid to the ship.”
“But why?” Lin tapped two buttons, and the information on the screens froze.
“Energy gradient on the Mashrami ship has improved by two point oh five eight percent.”
“Oh ho.” She nodded. “How much did the energy gradient deplete to create and sustain that beam?”
“Checking.” Ganfer held silence for three seconds. “The gradient went down point oh oh five four eight percent from the time the augmented monitoring began until the asteroid vaporized.”
“So that's how they do it. Or at least one of the ways they do it.” Lin continued staring at the numbers on the screen, and her smile crept across her face, growing wider with each second. “Bain, do you have all this recorded?”
Dead World [Sunsinger Chronicles Book 3] Page 7