Troy Rising 2 - Citadel (12 page)

“We have to rotate the plug,” Longwood commed. “Mission of Charlie is to provide smooth, continuous, power. Full power forward on my mark. Three, two, one
.
.
.
Mark.”

Instead of the previous flight lines, Dana now had a target karat. She applied power and the marking recticle slid off the karat.

“Fly to the target,” Paris said. “This will apply maximum value thrust to the mission.”

“Got it, Paris,” Hartwell said. “Danno, you understand?”

“Fly to the target, aye,” Dana said, adjusting her vector.

“You're doing good. Just keep that.”

“On it, Therm . . . EM,” Dana said.

“You've heard my handle,” Hartwell said. “The thing you've got to understand about handles is that once they're applied, it takes an act of God to change them.”

“So I'm stuck with Danno for the rest of my career?” Dana asked. She was figuring out that the target seemed to drift up and to port and was keeping mostly on target. It was actually sort of easy.

“Danno isn't a handle,” Hartwell said. “Danno is like a holding handle. You haven't been here long enough to get a handle. You haven't done anything stupid enough to get a handle, yet. Danno is what we call you because we're too polite to call you FUN. Besides, you aren't particularly useless and it has . . . alternative meanings that could get us in trouble with EEOC. ‘Yeah, this is Dana our FUN.' No, no, no, simply not gonna happen. Ditto all the alternates that were considered. So I've come to the conclusion I'm stuck with Thermal. In the richness of time, because there is now a permanent stop-loss and whether I like what I'm doing or not I can't get out of it, the reason for the handle may be forgotten and as a handle it's not all bad.”

“Yes, EM,” Dana said.

“So since you are my temporary coxswain until Boomer gets back, you may call me Thermal.”

“Aye, aye, EM. Question, EM.”

“Go.”

“Myrmidons have a remote control function,” Dana said. “Why isn't Paris just flying all the Myrms?”

“Because Paris is doing about a billion other things,” Hartwell said. “I suppose Paris could fly all the Myrms if he decided not to run the elevators, the battle systems, the air and water recycling, the STC . . .”

STC stood for Space Traffic Control.

“Having humans do what humans can do takes the load off Paris. Your backup, I will now tell you, is Paris. And Paris is flying two unmanned Myrms that I know of. But having you doing this frees up cycles. Paris said that the most he could manage was two and if the Horvath come through while we're doing this he's going to have to flip them out in a Dutchman.”

“Oh,” Dana said, nodding. “Thank you for the explanation, EM.”

“There are no stupid questions,” Hartwell said. “But there are a lot of inquisitive idiots. Speaking of Moose . . .”

“Discontinue thrust,” Longwood commed. “Full burn reverse.”

“Discontinue thrust, aye,” Dana said, cutting the power and going into reverse. “Full burn reverse, aye. EM? Why?”

“We've gotten the plug rotating,” Hartwell said. “Switching your port screen.”

The schematic was of the overall plan to move the plug into position. The combination of the Myrmidons and the Paw tugs, which had much more thrust and tractor power, had gotten the five hundred and fifteen billion ton plug away from its attachment to the wall of Troy and rotating in space. The rotation, in an apparent reverse of when it was pulled out of the wall, was going to leave it hanging in space with a gap.

“Why the gap, EM?” Dana asked.

“There are two shuttles on their way from Earth,” Hartwell said. “They're hoping that they get back before the Horvath come through. Normally, we wouldn't have any warning at all.”

“Holy cow!”

“What?” Dana asked. She was still managing to keep the targeting recticle and the karat together but she couldn't really pay a lot of attention to other issues.

“Switching your screen again,” Hartwell said.

The visual was of a pillar of fire, like a volcano, on the surface of what had to be Troy. Dana had a moment of the usual problem of scale until she realized the large objects around the pillar were Paws which seemed to be sucking the outgases from the volcano onto their forward plates.

“What's that?” Dana asked, nervously. “Did the Horvath come through?”

“No,” Hartwell said. “They're mining for some reason. Fast. I've never seen that beam before. It's cutting the iron like butter.”

“What are they doing that for?” Dana said. “It seems like a bad time to cut a hole in our wall.”

“Not sure,” Hartwell said. “Damn . . .”

“EM?”

“We're getting a flicker in one of the grapnels. I fixed that, dammit! Not a big problem. Just keep what you've got. I'll be right back.”

He unbuckled and slid out of the compartment.

A moment later he was back and slid into his station chair.

“Command, Thirty-Three. Request permission pull power on lower port grapnel. Imminent failure. Will require reduced power.”

“Roger,” Longwood commed. “Can you fix it?”

“On it,” Hartwell said.

“Reduce power,” Longwood said. “Get it fixed as quick as possible.”

“Cut power by forty percent,” Hartwell said.

“Power forty percent, aye,” Dana said, pulling back on her stick. The karat immediately started to drift off target. “I can't keep on track at forty.”

“Paris,” Hartwell said. “We've got an issue here.”

“Disconnect,” a robotic voice replied. “Repair if possible.”

“Roger,” Hartwell said. “Reduce to five percent back while I kill the grapnels.”

“Five percent, aye,” Dana said. “What's with Paris?”

“Like I said,” Hartwell replied, cutting the grapnels. “Things must be getting complicated. Get us backed away from this cluster so I can work on the grapnel in peace.”

“Back away, aye,” Dana said, scanning around. There wasn't much traffic. All of the boats in the immediate area were still pulling away at the plug. But . . . “I don't have traffic lanes.”

“Just stay in formation but . . . back a few hundred meters,” Hartwell said, standing up and pulling out the tool kit.

“Two hundred meters, aye,” Dana said, backing away at a snail's pace. She set her relative motion to match that of the drifting plug of nickel iron and then leaned back and crossed her arms.

“Danno,” Hartwell commed. “There any traffic around?”

“Negative,” Dana said, scanning the traffic monitors.

“Set the lights to unpowered,” Hartwell said. “And start tracing the power relays to the port, lower grapnel from your end.”

“Set transponder to unpowered, aye,” Dana said, setting the transponder to “inactive” and getting out of her seat. “Trace from my end, aye.”

“Thirty-Three,” Longwood commed a second later. “Status?”

“EN Parker is assisting in tracing of fault,” Hartwell commed. “Remains in cabin.
No nearby traffic. Maintaining spatial awareness, Command.”

“Roger,” Longwood replied.

“Thermal, get Danno back in her chair,” Mutant commed. “She needs to be concentrating on flying, not engineering.”

“Back in her chair, aye,” Hartwell commed. “Dana, back in the chair.”

“Back in the chair, aye,” Dana said. She'd barely gotten the access panel off.

She had to admit she was happier sitting in the command chair. She'd set the traffic monitor to retrans to her plants but having the screens up was a much better choice. She changed the transponder to “active” and leaned back with her arms crossed again. That kept them away from the controls.

“Command, Thirty-Three,” Hartwell commed about twenty minutes later. “This fault is only appearing at full power. Decline to perform a hot test during an active evolution. We're deadline as a tug.”

“Roger deadline,” Longwood replied. “Head to the barn.”

“RTB, aye,” Hartwell commed. “Dana, return to base.”

“Return to Base, aye,” Dana said. “Paris, vector to shuttle docking bay.”

“Roger, Thirty-three,” Paris said. “Stand-by . . .”

“What are we waiting for?” Hartwell said, resuming his seat.

“I'm waiting for a vector from Paris,” Dana said. “I guess he's busy.”

“Whatever,” Hartwell said. “Just keep us away from that plug. It's got a lot of mass.”

“Away from plug, aye,” Dana said, backing up some more.

“Call Paris again,” Hartwell said. “We've been . . .”

“Thirty-three, Command,” Longwood commed. “Belay RTB. Stand by vector Athena to rendezvous with Columbia shuttle Seventeen.”

“Rendezvous Shuttle Seventeen, aye,” Hartwell replied. “What the frack?”

Dana got the downloaded vector and blinked, hard.

“This is a deep space rendezvous,” she said, yawing the shuttle around and applying power. “We're going half way to earth.”

“Thirty-three,” Mutant commed. “Explanation. Columbias only pull five gravities. They're afraid they're going to get caught in the cross-fire. Make the rendezvous, get everybody into your boat, they'll be packed, and then get your asses back here as fast as you can move. Maximum power to turn over and max delta on reverse. Kick that horse. Confirm.”

“Max delta rendezvous, aye,” Hartwell said, breathing a sigh. “Roger. Danno, kick this horse.”

“Kick this horse, aye,” Dana said, applying maximum power.

The Myrmidons could pull four hundred gravities of delta-v. Unfortunately, the inertial controls could not handle quite all the delta. Which meant that three Gs pressed Dana back into her seat.

“Danno,” Hartwell said a moment later. “You are turning into a pretty good coxswain.”

“Thank you, EM,” Dana said, breathing deeply. The suits included...uit function, so she wasn't having much trouble with the acceleration. But it was a bit hard to breathe.

“But you are going to have to dial in on a few things,” Hartwell said. “I know the answer to the question, but I'm not sure you do. Do we have enough fuel for this?”

“Uh . . .” Dana said, checking her fuel state. Then she started trying to do the calculations. They had plenty to get to the rendezvous. That would require accelerating to about half way to the shuttle and then “flipping” around to decelerate. Not quite half way because the shuttle was headed for the Troy as fast as it could accelerate. Which meant they were going to have to overcome their own closing vector which was more fuel . . . “Uh . . .” she said again.

“The answer is this is a Myrmidon,” Hartwell said. “When fully tanked, it has three hundred hours of fuel, including the fuel necessary to drive the inertial stabilization system, at a cruise power of ninety gravities. We used a lot of fuel tugging that chunk of iron but only about five percent of our tanks. So we've got enough. We have enough to get to Jupiter. But not back.”

“Fwhew,” Dana said, breathing out in relief. For a second there she was afraid they were doing a Dutchman.

“Dutchman” was the general term, referring to The Flying Dutchman, for drifting away into space.

“Did you take the acceleration of the Columbia into your calculations?” Hartwell asked a moment later.

“No, EM,” Dana said. “I'm sort of shooting for a spot forward of their current position.”

“Paris?” Hartwell said with a sigh. “Paris?”

“This is Athena,” a female voice replied. It was warm and wise sounding and Dana felt a shiver go down her back. It sounded like how you wanted your mother to sound.

“Request some help with a flight plan, Athena,” Hartwell said.

“Your flight-plan is sub-optimal, EA Parker,” Athena replied, without the slightest trace of reproof in her voice. “Not surprising since you never completed the full coxswain's course. It is, in fact, very good given that you were guessing. You would have overshot by about fifty thousand kilometers but with the power of the Myrmidon you could have caught up quite readily. A modified flight-plan has been transmitted. You will begin turn-over in seventeen minutes. You will have six minutes to complete the maneuver which, given your demonstrated flight ability during the previous evolution, is more than enough time. You will do fine. The shuttle pilot has superior experience with docking maneuvers. He will do the docking.”

“Roger, Athena,” Dana said, smiling.

“You're doing remarkably well, young lady,” Athena said. “And your actions may save many lives. The shuttle would have taken an additional four hours to reach the Troy. It is estimated that the Horvath will emerge in no more than two.”

Dana did some rapid calculations and tried not to squeal. They were barely going to be able to make rendezvous, pick everyone up and get back to the Troy in two hours.

“Thank you for your assistance, Athena,” Dana said, trying not to hyperventilate.

“You are most welcome, EA Parker. I will put you in communication with Columbia Seventeen when you are on approach. Be with God.”

“Wow,” Dana said.

“Yeah,” Hartwell said. “I missed that we're in Athena space. She's something.”

“ ‘Be with God'?” Dana said. “She sounds like my Aunt Marge. Uh . . . and what's Athena space?”

“Paris handles the STC around Troy and the gate,” Hartwell said. “Athena handles the rest of the system. They're both US military AIs. Argus is the Apollo Mining AI. He handles SAPL. There's talk of getting a unified civilian STC AI up and running, but the negotiations have been held up for years. Besides, they'd want the location of the AI core to be known. Take that out and there goes your STC.”

“Where's Athena?” Dana asked.

“Classified,” Hartwell said. “As in really classified. There are three or four sites mentioned but nobody really knows. And we like it that way. When, if, battle gets away from Paris, Athena takes over. When Troy gets to the point of being able to fight that is.”

“Coming up on turn-over,” Dana said.

“Feel free to concentrate,” Hartwell said with a chuckle.

There was a way to do a complicated skew turn while under power that decreased the period of turn-over and was extremely efficient. Athena had clearly looked at the quality of coxswain and settled for KISS, Keep it simple, stupid.

Dana cut power on the mark and yawed the shuttle carefully around until it was on vector.

“Two minutes to burn,” she said, enjoying the relatively low gravity. Earth normal was feeling light.