Family Law 3: Secrets in the Stars (55 page)

Lee had a deeply ingrained spacer reverence for safety regulations. She said nothing.

They took the private elevator up, got a taxi and went into Armstrong. Stopped and switched to a much different van shaped taxi that had a docking collar at one end. When they got near the public field Gabriel informed her the ship was down and waiting for them. The taxi exited through a vehicle lock and went down a line of ships turning to the sixth in line and mated to the ship's airlock without any intervention on Gabriel's part. Unless he’d done it with his spex, but Lee didn't think so. He was too relaxed.

"I'm following traffic control and system scan in my spex," Gabriel told Lee. “I've had the
Cricket
ask for clearance and we're in count to lift. Your father and friends already have clearance to lift to the Retribution, and they should break orbit not too far behind us."

The hatch opened and they passed through what looked like a pretty normal airlock, except it had a bench on one side; that was more common on bigger locks.

There was a very short corridor, perhaps a little over three meters, and then they entered a small circular space Lee assumed to be on the centerline of the ship. There were two hatches and a bunch of sealed storage on the perimeter. Gabriel walked to a central pole piercing the deck and overhead and grabbed a take-hold on the pole.

"Lift," he said clearly, and was tugged off the deck. "Come along," he called down to Lee. When another handle appeared ascending she grabbed it. It was an easy lift in the lunar gravity. She hadn't realized they had entered the ship on the level under the control spaces. The view out of the taxi had been very limited and she hadn't seen how high the ship towered above them.

Gabriel waved an invitation for her to take the right seat, and started strapping in his own couch. The seat was powered and had bulky bands that went across it folded out of the way at the moment. She strapped in and looked over at Gabriel.

"Just let the seat position itself," he instructed. "Leave the manual controls down by your hands alone. I don't have a lock-out here. I've never needed one."

Another voice startled her. It did a very credible imitation of a man clearing his throat, and spoke.

"Lunar Control,
Cricket
of the Central Kingdom on short count to lift requests immediate partial orbit insertion at Level 20 and equatorial tangent exit to Derfhome jump vector with final adjustments in uncontrolled space. Data file follows voice. Master Dilbert Hathaway sitting the board."

"Cricket on count. Verified per your count. Be careful out there."

"Thank you, Simon."

"Safe mic?" Lee asked.

"Yes, dead mic, unless you ask for it," Gabriel confirmed.

"That's spooky," Lee said. "He sounds real. He knows the controllers?"

The loops folded down and locked over her couch and it flattened out.

Gabriel smiled. "He knows their voices. Dilbert, meet Lee. If my life signs should fail before we finish this flight please accept instruction from Lee and discuss your capabilities and her options. Try to accommodate her please." Gabriel scrunched up his eyebrows in thought. "Additional instructions. If I die this voyage also consider her your new owner and convey appropriate documentation."

"You can't do that!" Lee said. "I'm not sworn to your Lady, so I'm not privy to the tech in
Cricket
."

"I bet you're not privy to all the tech in your hand pad," Gabriel guessed. "But that doesn't keep you from sending messages with it. We sell a lot of tech totally sealed and encapsulated, with the understanding you don't pop it open to reverse engineer it or it may make a mess and kill you. That means if you own
Cricket
you still don't get to go down and open the drives."

Their conversation was interrupted by a gentle push, that held for maybe thirty seconds, and then eased off. It felt like lunar gravity again.

"Is that enough to orbit? It doesn't even feel like enough to keep us aloft," Lee worried.

"Heh, slaving your screen to mine. But not the board. We lifted at six G, and cut back to two pretty quickly. We'll coast outbound and let your father catch up with us," Gabriel said.

"Oh... " Lee said in a small voice.

After she thought about it a bit, Lee asked. "Don't people ask about weird maneuvers and ships disappearing without a full run to jump?"

"We try to be somewhat discreet in controlled space. Nothing we did back there is going to raise any eyebrows," Gabriel pointed out. "When we leave Lunar controlled space soon we'll also drop off the scan. Our allies in the Republic control scan. Our own vessels get the true scan including each other. It isn't any big issue because we have more maneuverability, so we easily avoid other traffic. There aren't that many Central ships, a few dozen. The occasional jump radiation burst that a ship may see directly, not off scan, they just ignore. Nobody want to be seen as a crank, and that's what the Earth nations are happy to paint those who see such inconvenient things."

Lee remembered that Gordon had decided to officially ignore the one he'd seen, but she said nothing.

Chapter 33

"Here we go," Gabriel pointed out what was on the display. "Retribution, on our vector, and a few hundred kilometers off in parallel. He's pulling 2.5 G which is nice, I'll cut back and let him pass, intercept and hail him because we're pretty stealthy. He can't see us right now so he's moving along, confident we'll show up as promised. I appreciate that."

Lee looked the flight cabin over in the lull. It wasn't that much different than her ships. The loops over the acceleration couches. The couches were a little more comfortable, but that was a nit. As far as the controls, a screen was a screen. It wasn't like they had foot pedals and yokes to compare. The viewports were a bit bigger and wrapped back around a little further. But it wasn't some weird futuristic thing to intimidate her. Except the AI voice. That was something.

"You got a head up here or do I have to go back down the pole?" Lee asked.

"The center door right behind us. I'll release your seat and maintain constant boost. Be careful getting up, because you'll be heavier. If you take too long and I need to maneuver, I'll call in the head and tell you to stay put. You don't want to do that and miss the show," Gabriel warned.

Lee felt heavier over the next few seconds and then the framework pivoted up and to the side like it had been when she’d sat down. The couch didn't sit back up again so she had to, and the acceleration was at least eight tenths of a G. She hurried and used the head, and came right back.

Gabriel moved closer to the Retribution and hailed them, asking them to cut back acceleration and then hold it constant. The ship assumed the seven tenths of a G they often used, and replied they'd hold steady.

"Coming up within a hundred meters," Gabriel warned. Lee looked out and could actually see the
Retribution
by bare eyeball. That was unusual. Once they were holding station Gabriel instructed the ship.

"Dilbert, plot a jump sequence for Derfhome, dragging along the mass of a heavy cruiser. Don't press the envelope. Better to make a few extra jumps at better probabilities. We aren't in that great a rush," Gabriel told the machine. "I'll dim the cabin so you can see better," he told Lee.

Lee felt like contradicting him, that they were in a rush, but held back.

"Retribution," Gabriel called on low power com to keep things private. "We will be moving you. Don't alter course or change power. This won't last long."

"Go ahead, Dilbert."

Lee was looking at the
Retribution
and the stars changed pattern behind her. She had no sooner gasped in astonishment than the stars flickered again, and again. She should have been counting. It must have been a dozen or fourteen times they changed with no star straight ahead after each transition as she was used to, and then they stopped changing, and a star hung there, not only ahead but quite close.

"And... Derfhome," Gabriel said, pleased with himself.

"Holy shit... "

"The memory fades, but it is quite impressive the first time, isn't it? Excuse me a moment.
Retribution
, that's Derfhome off your bow. I see we have system scan so I assume you do too. You have about fifteen minutes before your wave front announces your arrival to set a course and compose your hellos. I wish you much luck resolving your issues."

"Are you coming in with us?" Gordon asked.

"I was hoping to take Lady Lee for a late night snack, and join you later, but I hadn't asked her yet. With her new metabolism you're going to have to get used to feeding her more often," he warned. "Just a moment while I ask. Would you like to go somewhere with me for drinks and snacks before rejoining your friends?" Gabriel asked.

"I was sort of wanting to see how they resolved things with the USNA cruiser and the alien big wigs," Lee said.

"Of course. But we'll be back before they can assume Derfhome orbit, and while they are still talking. I'm sure they will log the initial conversation for your amusement."

"Where do you want to go?" Lee asked.

"Anywhere in the human sphere," Gabriel said shrugging. "It's hard to find good service in the Beyond, you know."

"Give me a mic and channel to Gordon," Lee said.

"Gordon, I'll catch up with you in a couple hours, maybe at Derfhome station. Love ya, bye."

"I assume you know all the good places," Lee said. "Surprise me."

– The End –

And now check out Fenris Unchained, also from Henchman Press:

The Wolf is Loose.

Ten years ago, after her parents were killed in a terrorist attack, Melanie Armstrong walked away from a military officer’s career to raise her orphaned brother.  

Since then she's been captaining a tramp freighter – shuffling from world to world, scraping to barely get by, but content that she's made the right decision.
 

But when her ship crashes, authorities make her an offer: take a fifteen-year sentence on a prison world where the average lifespan is a third of that.

Or take part in a mission to stop an ancient, and until-now forgotten, robotic warship, the
Fenris
, from completing its hundred-year-old task of destroying a planet, killing millions.

CHAPTER I

Time: 0815 Local, 01 June 291 G.D.

Location: Dakota, Dakota System

A yellow light began to flash on the control board.

That was nothing new, not aboard the
Kip Thorne
. Warning lights lit up half the panel. It was a Christmas display of yellow caution lights, flashing priority lights, and red danger lights that gave the board an aspect of impending doom.

The pilot didn’t look over to the panel to see what was wrong. One of the red lights indicated a malfunction in the auto-pilot system. That meant that the tall, blond woman had to bring the
Kip Thorne
down by hand.

Not a difficult a task for an experienced pilot. She enjoyed flying, enjoyed it more than anything else, really. She didn't enjoy thirty six hours of flight time spent awake on stimulants while flying a ship that needed far too many repairs.

She shot a glance at the panel, and then flipped on the intercom. “Rawn, take a look at the starboard thruster.” She shook her head. Tried to push thoughts through a mind that seemed turned to mud.

The intercom crackled and hissed, his voice difficult to make out. “Uh, Mel, we might have a problem.”

The light ceased flashing. She sighed in relief, “No, it cleared up here, good job whatever you did.”

The ship bucked. The alarm light flashed red. A moment later, so did six or seven other warning lights. “What the hell did you just do, Rawn?!”

Mel fought the control yoke, eyes wide, as she swore to herself:

“
Rawn, was that the starboard pod going out?”

The ship yawed over as she overcompensated and she fought it back under control.

“
Rawn, you’d better get that thruster back online.”

She heard a squeal from the hatch as it opened. It had always reminded her of a ground vehicle's brakes screeching just before an accident.

She tried not to apply that metaphor as some sort of warning to her current flight. Her brother spoke from behind her: "I’m going to pack the escape pod. Anything you want me to throw in?” he asked.

“
What?” Mel craned her neck to look at him.

The ship spun sharply and threw her against her straps and tossed her brother into the wall hard. She bit off a curse and struggled with the controls for a moment. It seemed to take an eternity to fight the ship back under control.

The radio crackled, “Freighter
Kip Thorne
, this is Dakota Landing Control, you broke out of your landing queue, return immediately, over.”

“
We’re going to lose the other thruster. The port thruster is in worse shape. What do you want me to put in the pod?” her brother asked.

His calm voice made her clench her teeth.

“
We’re not abandoning ship,” she told him sharply. “I can land this thing.” It would be hard, though, with just one thruster. They couldn't engage their warp drive in atmosphere, not without disengaging safeties that were there to prevent that.
Even if we had time,
she thought,
it would be a stupid thing to do.
The warp drive field would tear the atmosphere around them and if they hit anything in warp, the difference in relative velocity would not only kill them but quite possibly wipe out Dakota's biosphere.

She forced her mind to focus. When she spoke, her voice had the calm tone that she emulated from her father: “Dakota Landing Control this is Freighter
Kip Thorne,
we just lost our starboard thruster and are requesting immediate assistance, over.”