Curse of the Iris (7 page)

Meanwhile, five crewers didn't return at all, and four of those had taken their belongings with them—clearly they hadn't intended to come back. When Carlo asked if Diocletia wanted to remain in port to recruit new hands, she shook her head emphatically.

“I don't like the look of the spacers around here,” she said. “There are pirates enough in these parts—I don't need them belowdecks.”

But once the
Comet
extracted herself from her docking cradle and drifted gently away from Enceladus, Diocletia seemed to relax. They all did. The
clang-clang
of the bells, the squeal of the bosun's pipes, and the familiar tumult of shouted orders from belowdecks meant normal life had resumed and the ship was herself again.

“Green across the boards, Captain,” Carlo said. “Take her up to the fuel tanks?”

“Not yet, Carlo,” Diocletia said. “Let's loop through the planetary rings. Pilots assume it's like flying through asteroid debris, but they're wrong—there's all sorts of magnetic anomalies that will throw off your steering. If you ever have to do it, you'll be glad you practiced.”

Carlo grinned, clearly eager to show off his skills. As one bell sounded, he engaged the throttles and aimed the
Comet
at the vast pale-yellow globe of Saturn.

Tycho knew the rings were mostly tiny bits of ice and dust, rotating clouds of particles held in place by Saturn's gravity. But it was hard not to believe they were solid—as the
Comet
accelerated away from Enceladus, it looked like she was on a collision course with a massive grooved circle, its colors shifting from white through tan to black and back again as the angle of their approach changed.

“We're past the F ring already,” Carlo said. “Now approaching the A ring.”

“Take her in until you start recording magnetic fields,” Diocletia said. “Then hand her off to Yana, who will pass the helm to Tycho.”

The edge of the A ring expanded until it became a wall, and then the
Comet
was inside it, surrounded by motes of ice, dust, and rock that gleamed and flashed in the sunlight reflected by Saturn.

“It's beautiful in here,” Tycho breathed.

“Watch your scopes,” Diocletia said. “There are ribbons of ring material that are quite dense, with debris big enough to wreck the ship.”

Huff clanked down from the top deck and stood in his usual spot behind Tycho and Yana as Carlo banked smoothly through tumbling snow-white chunks of ice.

“Magnetic readings increasing,” Carlo said. “Ready to take the sticks, Yana?”

“Absolutely,” Yana said. “Vesuvia, I've got the helm.”

“Acknowledged.”

The control yokes beneath Yana's console emerged with a whine, telescoping out to her waiting hands.

“The magnetism throws off the yaw and pitch indicators,” Carlo said. “Trust your eyes and hands, not your scopes.”

Yana rolled the
Comet
to starboard as a ball of snow five meters across shot past them. Dust and ice crackled against the privateer's hull, leaving a shimmering tail behind the ship for a few moments before the whirling of the rings erased it.

“I see what you mean,” Yana muttered, staring at her instruments. “It's hard to keep her level.”

“Arrr, this is old-fashioned flying—gotta look out the window,” Huff said, gesturing at the viewports with the blaster cannon built into the stump of his left arm.

“Vaporizing the viewscreen is not advisable,” Vesuvia said.

“All I'm doin' is pointin', you demented abacus.”

Yana lifted her eyes from the scopes and gazed into the dazzle ahead of her, biting her lip.

“You're right, that's better,” she said. “But I can still feel the yokes pulling all over the place.”

“It's a tangle of magnetic fields in here,” Mavry said. “Physicists have been trying to figure it out for centuries.”

“They need to try harder,” Yana muttered, yanking back on the yokes to ease the
Comet
above a flurry of stones and gleaming dust.

“We're coming up on Daphnis, another of Saturn's moons,” Diocletia said. “Tycho, take the controls. Bring us around Daphnis, then up and out of the rings.”

“Aye-aye,” Tycho said, trying to sound confident. “Vesuvia, I'm taking the helm.”

“Acknowledged.”

Tycho took hold of the control yokes with clammy palms. He had never felt at ease piloting the
Comet
, even when there weren't dangerous magnetic ripples and whirlpools all around him.

The yokes shimmied briefly in Tycho's hands, warning him they were active. He felt the
Comet
pulling in all directions, her automated flight systems trying to make sense of data distorted by the forces around her. Blinking away sweat, Tycho glanced back and forth between the scopes and the viewport.

“We're fifteen thousand klicks from Daphnis,” he reported. “Should be entering the Keeler Gap in just a moment.”

A minute later the
Comet
passed through a scree of dust and emerged in empty space—a brief gap in the rings carved out by the gravity of Daphnis. Once the ship was clear of the ring material, the controls settled down and Tycho exhaled gratefully. The
Comet
still felt huge and unwieldy, but at least she wasn't fighting her own yokes.

Daphnis gleamed ahead of them, a chunk of icy rock perhaps eight kilometers long. Tycho stepped on the throttle, eager to finish the exercise, and the moon grew rapidly on the viewscreen, surrounded by a halo of ice crystals.

“Easy, Tycho,” Mavry warned. “Daphnis is heavily magnetized—”

Suddenly Tycho's scopes spun, and the yokes felt like they were trying to fly out of his hands. He thrust them forward, struggling to regain control, and the
Comet
tumbled forward in a roll, spinning bow over stern. Shouts came from below, and Tycho felt his vision going gray. Vesuvia intoned a warning, but Tycho couldn't hear it over the roaring in his ears.

He eased back on the yokes, breathing hard, and managed to stop the
Comet
's tumble and bring her upright again. Still fighting for control, Tycho heeled the ship over to port, aware of Daphnis hurtling overhead. Ignoring the nonsensical readings filling his scopes, he struggled to climb out of the moon's magnetic field.

Then he had control again, the yokes quiet in his hands.

“I'm okay,” he said, wondering if that was true. “Are we clear?”

“No,” Mavry said. “We're still in soundings—Daphnis is less than a kilometer to stern.”

Tycho twitched the yokes to starboard, and the
Comet
rolled that way, as obedient as if this were a basic simulation. Curious, he cut the throttles and gently spun the ship to face the way they'd come, until the surface of the hulking moon filled the viewport.

“Am I going crazy?” Tycho asked. “Instruments register no anomalies whatsoever.”

“That's my reading too,” Yana said.

“We must be in some kind of lee—a place where the magnetism drops to zero,” Mavry said.

Tycho raised the
Comet
's nose and accelerated away from Daphnis. A moment later, the yokes began to flail against his hands. This time, though, he was expecting that. He kept his eyes on the viewscreen and his hands steady, correcting the
Comet
's course until the magnetic readings shrank to nothing.

Two bells sounded. Nobody said anything for a moment.

“Well, Tycho,” Diocletia said in a small voice, “I'm not sure if that was the worst piloting I've ever seen or the best.”

Tycho let his breath out and shut his eyes for a moment. He heard his father chuckle.

“I think maybe it was both,” Mavry said.

5
MISSION TO P/2093 K1

A
ll on the quarterdeck were relieved when the
Comet
drew close enough to P/2093 K1 to detach from her long-range tanks. For the Hashoone kids, the voyage had been seventeen endless days of homework and flight simulations interrupted by boring watches. By the time they approached P/2, Tycho was certain Vesuvia had taken a dislike to him: her critiques of his homework struck him as borderline vicious, and she filled his flight simulations with clogged fuel lines, tricky docking maneuvers, and magnetic anomalies.

“Processing data on P/2,” Yana said, fingers flying over her keyboard as her scopes filled with information gathered by the
Comet
's sensors. “Looks like a typical cosmic snowball—just enough ice, loose rock, and organic compounds for gravity to hold together.”

“Arrr, we better not 'ave come all this way for nothin',” growled Huff.

“Any anomalous surface features?” asked Mavry, peering at the main screen. It showed nothing but the darkness of space, sprinkled with stars—comets like P/2093 K1 were practically invisible without the bright tails they sprouted when buffeted by the solar winds.

“You'll have to get me closer,” Yana said. “At this range I can only resolve surface features larger than a hundred meters.”

“Closer it is,” Carlo said. “Finalizing intercept course. Captain?”

“Take us in,” Diocletia said.

“Aye-aye,” Carlo said. He activated his headset microphone and alerted Grigsby as he angled the
Comet
to port and accelerated toward P/2093 K1.

“Building spectrum analysis of organic compounds,” Yana said. “Appears to be basic primordial ooze.”

“Maybe the treasure is buried inside P/2,” Tycho said.

Six bells sounded.

“Hold on a sec,” Yana said. “I'm picking up something. Looks like . . . wait. Vesuvia, sensors just went blank. What—”

Something slammed the
Comet
to starboard, the impact driving Tycho's neck and shoulder into the tough leather of his harness. There was a flash of brilliant light and a thunderclap of sound that left the Hashoones instinctively clamping their hands over their ears, spots dancing in their vision. The enormous noise faded into a low, rolling groan, accompanied by the shuddering of the quarterdeck beneath their feet.

“What was that?” yelped Yana.

“Impact,” Vesuvia said in her emotionless way. “Port engine support.”

“Damage report?” Diocletia demanded.

“Damage assessment initiated,” Vesuvia replied. “No data at present time.”

“Carlo, evasive action,” Diocletia said. “Yana, what have you got?”

“Nothing!” Yana said. “I'm totally blind!”

Carlo yanked the left control yoke back and shoved the right yoke forward. Acceleration pressed the Hashoones back in their chairs as he spun the
Comet
to port, trying to shield the damaged section of her hull from their attacker. Tycho heard the wail of the bosun's pipes belowdecks, ordering the gun crews to their stations.

“Damage consistent with a missile impact,” Vesuvia said. “Hull breach contained. Power feeds severed in affected area. No further diagnostics available. Calculating trajectory of enemy projectile and sending data to gun crews for target acquisition.”

“Someone was waiting for us,” Diocletia said, then activated her headset. “Mr. Grigsby, sensors are down. If you see a target, take the shot.”

“Our pleasure, Captain,” Grigsby growled. “Nobody takes a piece out of the barky without us having something to say about it.”

“Tell the crews to make it count, Mr. Grigsby,” Diocletia said grimly. “Yana?”

“Electromagnetic interference across all bands,” Yana said. “Someone's jamming us. It's more powerful than anything I've ever seen.”

“Fight fair, you scurvy buzzards!” Huff roared, his forearm cannon jerking madly in response to its owner's anger.

“Initiating countermeasures,” Yana said. “Looking for where the interference is weakest so we can boost a signal and punch through it.”

“How long?” Diocletia asked.

“Can't tell you,” Yana said. “I need some time to analyze the interference.”

“Fast as you can, then,” Diocletia said, her voice brisk and businesslike. “Carlo, take us in so we can get a visual on our attacker. Dad, get below and assist the gun crews. Mavry, go aft and get me a more detailed damage assessment. Tycho, you're on communications.”

No one argued—a captain's word was law, especially during combat. Mavry unbuckled his harness and rushed for the companionway leading from the quarterdeck to the fire room, arms out to catch himself in case the ship took another hit. As Huff clomped down the ladderwell, the
Comet
's cannons began to roar, making the deck tremble beneath Tycho's feet.

Tycho stared at the main screen, on which the enemy ship was little more than a brighter point of light against the stars. At this range and without sensor data, the
Comet
's gunners had no chance of doing real damage to their foe. Their best hope was to keep the enemy gunners off-balance.

The bright spot on the viewscreen pulsed momentarily brighter.