Faces tightened but no one objected to the plan.
Captain Landry did some quick calculations to check the timeline. “Good. If we can get through to the other passage before the Censorials transition into normal space they won’t know where we went. They might even think we’re hiding on a rock in the system.”
That produced some hope. Roger actually smiled.
The smile vanished when Betty picked up a pair of pursuing fighters. “They’re not closing on us very fast.”
“Too small,” said Landry. “In thin aether they’re fast but they bog down in the thick stuff. Probably ran ahead of their mother ship in the gap.”
“How well do missiles work?” asked Welly.
“In soup like this? Not at all. They’d have to come to kissing range and lase us.” Landry ran some calculations. “Won’t catch us in time.”
As promised, the fighters were still out of attack range when Azure Tarn transitioned into the Fwynwr Ystaen system. The ship made no transmissions. It would be a poor return for the good deal the miners gave them to drag them into this mess.
The cruise across the system was simple enough Landry sent crew for naps again. He even took one himself.
Or he’d intended to. When Lane woke him he’d finished a full night’s sleep, seven whole hours. “I set an alarm for three hours,” he complained.
“I know. I turned it off,” answered his wife. “You needed the rest.”
She smirked as he bit his tongue to stifle more useless complaints.
He asked, “Who has the con?” instead.
“Marcus. He’s fully qualified and he needs more bridge time.”
“All right.” Landry staggered to the head, dealt with the essentials, and threw some water on his face. He looked longingly at the shower sack but there wasn’t time for that before the transition back to hyperspace.
“Did you sleep any?” he asked Lane.
“Three hours and a bit. Marcus just woke me.”
“Okay.” He pulled on a working uniform, his rank indicated only by some embroidery on the shoulder of the shirt. The chest bore only his name and the ship’s, same as any other member of the crew.
Marcus was sitting in the command chair when his parents arrived on the bridge. He cocked his head interrogatively at his father. Landry nodded. Marcus stood, declaring, “Captain has the con.”
The captain took his seat. Everyone else was at their post already. His repeater screen held a helpful list of how much everyone had slept in the past 24 hours. “Helm, status?”
Roger, who’d also had a full seven hours, reported, “On track for transition.”
“Thank you.” A countdown showed on the repeater. Just over ten minutes.
Everyone was looking better. Sleep was part of it. They’d all been frayed around the edges by the stress of escaping. The larger share was the optimism. Nobody was actually cheerful but the worry and despair was fading.
Five minutes to transition.
Two minutes.
“Oh—” Betty’s voice froze, as if she was searching for an appropriate expletive and couldn’t find one strong enough. “Oh, heck. We’ve been pinged.”
The rest of the crew found curses easily enough.
“It’s the big transmitter again. Mamma must have followed us through.”
Landry’s voice was stern. “Focus on the jump. Worry about the Censorate later.”
“We’ll be through before the echo reaches them,” said Betty.
The transition was executed on schedule. As Soon predicted it was about a third as rough. Which was still damn unpleasant.
Landry clung to the arms of his command chair, which pressed firmly against his butt in defiance of his ears’ insistence that it was falling away and throwing him into a spin.
By the time he recovered enough to check on the crew, Soon had verified Roger’s view of the shoals. The ship was homeward bound along the passage.
***
“No debris found,” reported the sensor chief.
“They made a successful transition,” said Captain Wing. “Follow them through.”
“No, sir,” said the astrogator.
Wing was too astonished to be angry. “Would you care to expand on that, Lieutenant Commander?”
The officer swallowed. “Of course, sir. Transitioning into hyperspace through untested coordinates is a Survey Corps responsibility. Survey always tests new points by transitioning from hyperspace to normal space to reduce the chance of a fatal collision. Navy doctrine on emergency transitions dictates that a pinnace or frigate must go through and return before hazarding a larger vessel.”
The astrogator stood at parade rest, awaiting his fate.
“That is why you will not obey my order?” asked Captain Wing mildly.
“Yes, sir.”
The captain turned to the assistant astrogator. “Lieutenant Gossem!”
“Yessir!” The junior officer was not happy to be noticed during this confrontation.
“Can you plot a jump where the freighter went through?”
“Um, yes, sir.”
“Sir, he’s willing,” broke in the senior astrogator, “but the data he has to work with are a single radar fix and low resolution visual observations. That’s far too large an error box to go through safely.”
The captain’s only response to this was, “You are relieved.” Then he turned to the junior officer again. “Acting Lieutenant Commander Gossem, take us through.”
“Yes, sir!” The joy of promotion was clear in Gossem’s voice. Even if Wing couldn’t make it permanent, time acting at a higher rank could take a year or two off the wait for promotion.
The executive officer approached Captain Wing. “Sir, this is reckless. If you intend to go through with the jump, I must also ask to be relieved.”
“Very well, you are relieved. You may report to your quarters.” Wing turned to the FOL. “Lead, you are acting XO.”
***
The bridge was quiet as they slipped through the passage. The glowing pastel pink shoals on each side lit the bridge in a cheerful light which didn’t match the faces of the crew.
“Somebody has to say it, might as well be me,” said Betty. “Are we really going to show those Censorial bastards how to get to our home?”
Roger snapped, “What’s the alternative? Be captured and let them torture it out of us?”
“I don’t want to be tortured. But I don’t want to see Fiera covered in craters either. There’s an alternative a ninety degree turn away.” Betty waved at the shoal visible out her window.
“You can’t be serious!” said Soon.
Betty shrugged. “I don’t like it. But is it worse than the other two?”
Half the bridge crew started talking at once. Landry contemplated the suggestion. If it was just him and a willing crew he’d consider doing it if there were no better options. With his wife and child on board—no.
“There’s more than those three options,” he said, voice pitched loud enough to cut through the babble. “We’ve only explored a small fraction of this expanse. We could go into unexplored space and break contact. Or get out of sight, drop into normal space, and wait. We have the supplies for a long cruise. That warship was doing local patrols. I doubt they have food for months.”
That ended the argument. Everyone looked relieved, even Betty.
“For now we’ll continue down this passage. When we reach the opening it’ll be decision time.”
As Landry thought through the decision tree he glanced at Betty. The key factor was how soon the Censorials followed them into this passage. If Betty could detect Censorial radar before they were close enough to get a usable echo Landry could maneuver to avoid them.
No signals had been detected by the time Azure Tarn emerged from the shoals. That left several options open on Landry’s decision tree.
“That’s it, now we’re totally doomed,” snarled Betty.
“That’s not doom. That’s salvation,” said Cap
tain Landry, discarding all his plans.
Filling the sky ahead of them was a storm, writhing streamers of purple and red shot through with flickers of lightning. There was no nearby object to judge its size against but Landry suspected it was larger than the one they’d run into before.
“Roger, take us into the storm.” Going straight into the open had been the worst option. Easily seen, no place to hide. But that was before he saw the storm.
By now the helmsman had given up on complaining about his orders. “Aye-aye.”
After an hour of cruising Soon updated their course to adapt to the storm’s observed motion. Some crew were sent below to help Marcus and Alys with securing the hold. The remaining loose cargo might not stand up to being shaken by the storm.
***
The hold was ugly. Tying down vehicles in minimum time led to expedients such as smashing windows to run a strap through the inside or pounding a staple into the roof to make an attachment point. Broken crates were stuffed in bags or wrapped in tarps.
Marcus hooked the end of a tie-down strap to one of the few exposed latches on the deck. A few twists of the ratchet pulled the strap taut, pressing a line of floaters against the deck. He stood and looked around at his helpers. They were finished securing the floaters. Now everyone was reaching under vehicles to gather up parts and debris.
“Everyone hang on, get ready to flip!” he called. Then he pulled a handcomm from his pocket. “Hold to bridge.”
“Bridge, aye,” came his father’s voice.
“Request hold artificial gravity set to negative five percent.”
“Confirm negative five percent.”
“Negative five, confirmed.”
“Will do.”
Marcus put the handcomm away and took hold of the strap with both hands. “Everyone grab hold! We’re flipping. Stay put until stuff stops falling.” He felt uncomfortable shouting orders at the first mate, but she was clear that this was his project, he was in charge, and she was just a worker bee here.
Tets, Welly, and Soon he had no trouble bossing around.
Marcus wobbled as his weight dwindled away. Then his feet left the deck as the AG went from slight positive to slight negative.
As the force strengthened again he dangled from the strap, his feet toward the overhead. A glance around showed everyone else was dangling as well. Alys had cheated by getting back in the operator’s cab for the crane.
The hold rang with the rings of metal pieces bouncing onto the overhead. Floaters scraped against each other as slack in tie-downs let them shift. There was a smell of dust—the hold’s corners were being shaken out.
More parts fell as tilting floaters dropped anything caught on their underside. When the silence lasted five seconds Marcus let go of his strap. At five percent it wasn’t much of a drop.
With his feet on the overhead he looked at his dangling helpers. “Okay. Meet up at the aft end. We’re going to walk through. Alys, bags.”
The fore and aft ends of the hold were packed deck to overhead with fully secured floaters. They’d barely budged with the gravity flip. That left only half the hold for them to walk.
“Is this a FOD walk?” asked Tets. Cleaning up ‘Foreign Object Debris’ was a routine and hated chore.
Alys passed out sturdy canvas bags to everyone.
“It’s like a FOD walk,” answered Marcus. “Just pick up the big stuff. The little bits we’ll have to live with. We don’t have time for it.”
He bent over to pick up a shard of a broken window the size of his foot. “Don’t bother with little crysplas fragments. We don’t care if they’re broken more. Just pick up debris big enough to damage something when the storm shakes us.”
“How big?” asked Welly.
Right, keep it simple. “Anything bigger than the palm of your hand, bag.”
“My hand or hers?” joked Tets. He high-fived Welly. His hand was almost twice as wide as hers.
“Hers. Let’s go.” Marcus stepped forward and scooped up a power transducer. It stuck in the middle of the bag, too light in 5% gravity to overcome friction.
The first mate picked up a shredded fender. The rest started work. The hard part was staying balanced. Bending over brought one foot off the plates. Putting it back down too hard would kick the crewman into the air.
Marcus grabbed Alys to keep her from going face-first into a pile of crysplas gravel.
“Could we have more gravity?” she asked.
He pointed at the floaters suspended overhead. “I don’t want to strain the tie downs.”
“Oh. Right.” Alys gingerly picked up a stator.
***
Garbled reflections became clear radar pings as the Censorials emerged from the shoals. Betty couldn’t find any change in their azimuth. The Censorials were headed straight for Azure Tarn.
“They’re not being very chatty,” remarked Captain Landry. “I expected regular threats, promises of mercy, and demands for cooperation whenever they had line of sight.”
Roger didn’t need to keep his hands on the controls now. The autopilot could keep the ship in a straight line. “Targeting radar is a threat,” he said.
“True,” answered the captain.
“They might have heard how our chat with the cutter went,” said Betty.
The bridge was silent for a while.
Then Betty began twisting dials on her console. “Finally! They’re close enough for me to pick up secondary echoes.”
“Secondary?” asked Roger.
“Radar works by bouncing a radio wave off our hull. When the echo gets to their receiver they read our angle and distance. But some of the echo bounces off their hull and comes back to us. I know when the first echo bounced off us so I can measure the distance to them.”
She studied a waveform on her display. “Too garbled to tell much about them. It’s stronger than I expected. Not a straight sixth power return. That ship must have a flat surface facing us, maybe even corners.”
“Good,” said Landry. “Will it catch us before we reach the storm?”
“I need more data before I can estimate its speed.”
Before she had enough data the cargo hold workers were released to their regular duties. Soon took over the calculations.
“We’ll reach the center of the storm before it’s in directed energy range. Not that we’ll go there,” said the astrogator.
“As we close on the storm we’ll lose speed,” said Roger. “I already backed off a hair. Aether density is going up.”
Soon nodded. “I included an estimate.”
“What I’m wondering,” said Captain Landry, “is when the Censorials will do that math.”
“Looks like they already did,” answered Betty. “Check out the aft camera.”
Landry pulled up the feed on his repeater screen. Six dots formed a circle around a dot that must be the mother ship in the center. “Yep, we have incoming fighters.”
“What’s the plan for dealing with them?” asked Roger. His voice was calm but Landry could see the tension in his hunched shoulders.
“Cube-square law,” answered the captain firmly. He looked around the bridge. Most were confused. The first mate rolled her eyes at him. He turned back to Roger. “Make sure we’re at max speed. Wait for Betty to complain.”
That produced a snort from the sensor tech but Roger answered with a firm, “Yes, sir.”
Before they needed to cut speed again the winds of the storm started shaking the ship. Not hard, just a shimmy. But it was enough to bring back memories of the storm they’d run into outbound from Fiera.
Landry and Soon studied the currents of the storm. Bands of pastel fog swirled around the center of the storm. They judged the turbulence of different streams by the mix of colors. A glow through the fog told them the core was compressed enough to release the energy of fracturing aether. Flickers showed lightning spreading out from the core.
“Okay, when we enter the purple current pull up and stick with it,” orde
red the captain. “That will carry us over the top fast. Might be a chance to break contact long enough to drop into normal space.”
“Aye-aye,” said Roger.
The six fighters were closing in on Azure Tarn. They began pinging with their targeting radar. The dart-shaped fighters didn’t offer enough of a reflection for Betty to pick up secondary echoes. To her joy the captain finally authorized using the small antennas to ping the Censorials. They were slowing, not able to push through the thickening aether with as much authority as the larger freighter. Their formation was losing its crisp hexagonal shape as gusts shoved one or another out of position.
“There’s the purple current,” said Soon. She spoke out of nervousness. Everyone on the bridge saw it filling the forward window.
The ship bucked as she hit the turbulent layer between the current and surrounding maelstrom. Roger brought her back on course. Then they were immersed in purple fog. The ship swayed hard to starboard. Roger went with the turn, aligning Azure Tarn with the flow.
As the ride smoothed out Roger said, “We’re in the middle of the current.”
“Good work,” said Captain Landry.
“Fighters are cutting the corner,” reported Betty.
“Good. Stupid bastards don’t know what they’re playing with. How’s their formation?”
“All over the place, sir. I think one just moved completely across the circle.”
“I’ll bet.” Landry chuckled. “Wait until they try to take those kites through the boundary layer.”
Soon ran calculations on the enemy craft. “They’re falling behind. The turbulence is costing them more speed than the shorter path is saving them.”
“Yep. Cube square law at work. They have more surface area per unit mass so the aether can push them around.” The captain was smug enough to make the first mate roll her eyes again.
Betty cursed. “Missile launch!”
Storm Between the Stars: Book 1 in the Fall of the Censor Page 18