Blast it, Frothup was cold, at least at Aberstwyth port. You'd expect that on Blizzard or Vineways but it's easy to forget that some planets have seasons. Frothup's are mild enough in the settled regions but when your warmest garment is a zip-up sweatshirt, a blustery 40 degrees — 18 local, a sure tip-off the place wasn't settled by USSF transportees — is cold enough.
I'm ahead of the story already. Times I set foot on the dirt, I usually ride down in a cargo flight, well after all the crash-urgent goods have moved and Engineering has settled into in-port routine. Not today; with new and seriously-different Stardrive power amplifiers to learn, install and get certified, there was no time to spare. Oh, not that they'd actually give up a payin' seat, but I was squirt-boostering down first-available standby, first passenger flight that came up with enough spare mass margin to get me in.
It was still likely I'd have to wait and the first rule of travel is, Bring Something To Read. Despite a couple of interruptions, my comic book was getting interesting; the plucky young hero had just saved the day and his boss, a gorilla, probably wasn't gonna eat him. (And I thought my job had hazards!) In the real world, the slightly scruffy passenger waiting room off Lupine's starboard squirt-booster bay, the PA system went bong and muttered, "Technician Ecks, report to Gate Six. Technician Ecks to Gate Six, please."
Yeah, yeah, sky-blue courtesy phone t'you, too. And I'd finally got myself slouched comfortably, too! I climbed to my feet, hoisted my carry-on bag onto the seat I'd just quit, stuffed the graphic novel in a side compartment, grabbed the bag and started off. Sixth bay of eight and I'd sat down near Gate One, where the slidewalk lets off. The passenger area is not all that big — no more so than a factory town's bus station, Earthside, or maybe a large subway stop — but it is long.
It's airlocks into every squirt-booster and no cheating on the door; E&PP's Safety crew doesn't care if it takes longer, locking through four or five at a time. The seal between the Lupine's lock and the squirt-booster's hatch is only 95% reliable, as they'll point out at great length if you're fool enough to ask; it's rare they'll explain that most failures in that five percent are trivially tiny leaks. The real risk is that they're assembling and moving big, massy transports on the other side of the bulkhead and if the hatch on that side gets smashed, with the airlocks, damage is limited. Or that's the theory. I reached my ride as they were herding the last batch through the lock and squeezed in, making apologetic sounds. Pressure was equal on both sides so it's not that big a deal, one hatch shuts and green lights illuminate next to the blue "air okay" indicators above both hatches; open the next one and the hatch you entered through is locked closed, complete with a big red light that wavers in intensity (long-short, long-long-long) just in case you're both illiterate and color-blind. The fancy lights — LEDs — are a decade-old upgrade; when I signed aboard, the indicators were still direct-reading gauges and mechanical "flags." Either way, it's a social ritual akin to taking a busy elevator; you're closer than you'd like to be and so's everyone else.
No sooner described than done; the hatch opened and we filed across the seal and through another open hatch into the squirt-booster. They're ungainly, unglamorous vehicles, long, skinny shapes with two flat sides connected by a smooth curve, tapering at each end. They're strapped to stacks of cargo containers, or to each other, or just fly solo, depending on need. Passenger versions are set up like a commuter jet, seating three across with luggage racks overhead on the high side, low along the curved face and a narrow walkway that splits each row into a pair and a single.
I didn't even glance at the crowd sorting themselves into the amusement-ride seats; at my left was the hatch to the control room and in it stood Butch-the-pilot, with a toothpick in his teeth and a half-grin on his face. "Well, well, well," he said, "Look who went tourist," and winked at me.
"Like heck," I told him, "I'm headed down for school. Official business."
He nodded and waved me to one of the two "jump seats" up against the bulkhead, nearly as all-enveloping as the passenger seating. "Yep, so they tell me. Sit down close, maybe I'll let you look over my shoulder later."
Not such a bad deal, that; it's highly automated fly-by-wire, with rules of precedence that make the ones for trains look lax, but it's still genuine flying, with an actual view outside. I love it; I enjoy even an ordinary passenger seat. It is, however, not for the squeamish. Even a state-of-the-art squirt-booster is a wild ride; the newest in Lupine's fleet is running hardware and software three years old. Which is another reason they haven't got portholes for the passengers — even the video display is heavily smoothed, just like a fancy camera, and it's a new thing to have it on during even part of the descent. Ascent's another story — blink-blink-blink, with three corresponding lurches and you're up where skies are black and the fallin's easy. Plus or minus a blink; a good navs system can do it in one Jump but the jolt's too rough. Conversely, if it's a tricky orbital match, crummy navs software or just old, there may be quite a lot of Jumping, falling, reorienting and Jumping again. And don't even get me started about the glocke-y, microJumping, mad-German-science jitterbugs the Edgers prefer! No matter the vehicle or the rev of the control/navs software or Drive, it's generally pretty fast: Here to There in under an hour, waiting-for-clearance included.
Landing is different. Squirt-boosters are more efficient grouped and just like locomotives, you only need a driver in one of 'em. Four-up is a typical package: four big cargo containers, strapped together in a diamond (one on top of two on top of one, in set-down attitude), with the longways cucumber-wedge shapes of the squirt-booster strapped in the corners. That would mean two be will upside down and two will be backwards during deceleration and one module gets both...except the seating is modular, normally handled in 3-seat by 4-seat sections with a narrow little aisle. Those can be further reconfigured into columns of four in line, which is what gets slid into the two upside-down wedges — very rarely; passengers dislike it. The "landing gear" is just fat airbags backed up by skids, deployed very late in the landing process. There's been at least one rollover, scary but harmless. (C'mon, people, it gets slammed through the thickness of an entire atmosphere!) Stick a saucer (heat shield) on the aft end of the fat-cucumber assembly and there you have it but for one last, creepy step. Pilot, of course, flies from the rightside-up, forward-facing squirt-booster and the other three are slaved to that one. Copilot gets to fly backwards in the other topside section. Just in case. They tell me it's quite a view.
The cockpit is equipped with two seats nevertheless and plenty of room, making Butch's offer even better than you might think. Another batch of passengers cycled in and filled the remaining seats. Butch told me, "I'll call you once we're foamed up," gave the steward who was sorting them out a minimal high sign and ducked into the cockpit. I was already in the jump seat farthest from the steward's control panel and had the padded bars down and the five-point harness clicked together before you'd read half of my desciption.
Steward was a skinny guy I didn't recognize with an E&PP patch on his coverall and a row of "merit badges" showing specialties underneath. I can't read 'em all but I recognize first aid with CPR and defib training, Fire/Hazmat/Pressure and Security Auxiliary; he had plenty more besides. It's not exactly a serve-drinks-and-soothe job, another place where E&PP's hands-on "general specialists" are found.
I'm going to describe the trip in some detail. The Hidden Frontier is still officially secret and this is supposed to be "fiction," but this is way cool for all it is usually not fast-paced action or even gripping interpersonal conflict (but stay tuned — you'd think just swapping out a 'Drive final amplifier would be cut'n'dried but my job is never that easy).
You're probably wondering about the term foamed up. And that'd be the main reason there aren't any portholes: With the cargo containers and squirt-booster units all strapped together and loaded full, the next step is a big lurch and a short, swaying ride to be covered in ablation material: foam.
Older systems used jettisonable shields and hand-assembled shells; the very first reliable ones ended in a parachute drop and they're still used for small, cargo-only drops to remote locations. For passengers and most cargo, that was replaced by microJumps and clever 'Drive tricks. The last five years, better control software and smaller, more nimble 'Drives incorporating Edger (Glocke-derived) tech have simplified even our more-conservative landers. —Edgers have been jittering in and out of atmosphere for decades now and only rarely leaving big, smoking holes in the landscape; our side of the line, streaking down in a ball of flame might seem worse but for all that it remains a brute-force solution, hundreds of thousands of commercial trips have resulted in only three known accidents, neither on Earth. (USSF? Don't look at me; they don't publish stats. You couldn't get me in one of their early landers at gunpoint, though: getting shot is safer).
Even before the ride down, preparation is unnerving enough when you can't see it. In the cockpit, pilots admit to finding the process claustrophobia-inducing. The display at the front of the passenger cabin shows calm, pastoral scenes but it doesn't fool anyone; the assembled squirt-booster/cargo container bundle swings gently from four "sacrificial" lifting eyes while Our Highly Trained Staff (also known as the riggers who have most irked their supervisors) slap jettisonable covers on the cockpit windows and spray layer upon layer of quick-curing ablative foam over the entire vehicle. A mere 20 or 30 minutes later, they're done and duck out just before your transport gets shuttled into one of the big airlocks; the inflight movie has already started.
I'm joking. Our passenger drops, they play soothing music, mostly to hide the interesting sounds, while the screen at the end of the compartment the passengers face shows a shifting, soft pattern of mostly greens and blues or the formentioned highly-smoothed outside view, once there is one. Any frequent flier aboard is already engrossed in some kind of personal-playback device; while the spraying is getting done, the steward checks to make sure the useful little projectiles are secured. Company policy once banned them altogether — a "personal" cassette player masses enough to do serious damage — but that mostly resulted in greater stealth rather than compliance. Better believe starship crew were early and serious adopters of the no-movin' parts versions and the smaller, the better.
So why did they worry? Why do I, even now, hope the steward's carrying duct tape and knows how to use it? (Yes and yes, btw). See, it's like this: after they stuff our ride into the best-fitting airlock (and play scavenging games with the air left once the pumps have hit their limit), the outer hatch opens and a nifty hydraulic ram pushes the squirt-booster stack on out — and immediately down. It starts out slowly, 'til you're free of the idling 'Drive field and then, ah, then the fun starts.
Big starships take up "forced geosynchronous orbits," with the Drive ilding to keep effective real-space mass low. Essentially, hovering on the big fusion-over-MHD main realspace drives. It's not without risk, anything in actual orbit at that level that intersects is movin' fast enough to make a mess, but it does have some advantages: for instance, as soon as the squirt-booster is clear of the ship and the 'Drive field, it drops just like a rock, heat-shield end first. The feeling is precisely one of being in a vehicle that is pushed off a cliff, which is pretty much what just happened.
I don't care how many times you've done it, it's still a surprise. Into the can you go, the air hammers and hisses away and you wait for final clearance. Then there's a series of mechanical noises, the thing gets slid for what seems a long way (it isn't; the ram is very slow) and, suddenly, the noises stop and you're falling, strapped in a chair, laying on your back in an echoing near silence, broken only by the low thrumming of life support and an occasional tick or thump from the various systems.
It doesn't stay that quiet for long. Once you've "dropped over the edge," the first sound is usually everyone taking a deep breath and if there's an ijit or ijits aboard, they'll announce themselves with a nervous laugh or a whoop better suited to a roller coaster. Didn't have any of those this trip but the inevitable weak tummy didn't take long to make itself known. The steward glanced at an unlabeled annunciator panel facing our seats, where a steady red light had given way to a blinking amber one, unbelted and went to work. The first drop's usually the longest and the gentlest; the pilot's getting his last met and traffic info before things heat up and loading the numbers into his presets, while the steward deals with any messes, or panics and hands out airsickness bags to anyone who looks a bit green. There are usually plenty of takers; I already had that imminent-head-cold feeling of zero-g and was pleased I'd slept too late for breakfast. On the panel, the yellow light steadied up and I heard a quick double knock on the hatch into the cockpit; I looked up and saw the status tally on it change from LOCKED to OPEN.
Don't have to ask me twice. I grabbed a handhold with one hand, popped the latch of my five-point with the other, shrugged out and refastened it (a crummy job one-handed but you can do it) and had the hatch open and myself through. There are good reasons you don't waste time moving aboard a squirt-booster.
Butch was still poking at a touchscreen and frowning; he waved at the shotgun seat and I spidered my way in though the dimness and belted up. The lighting is set to ramp up slowly; by the time the cockpit window covers are popped, it is bright enough to make ease the transition but most pilots prefer to start out in the dark. I think they feel too closed-in otherwise, but it's just a guess — I've never thought to ask. There was finally a little noise other than residual whoosh and hum of lifesupport: a thin, high screech as the upper atmosphere became thick enough to matter. Butch made a last few keyboard entries, shoved it back in its slot, fiddled the covers over the preset buttons on his right and left armrests open and shut, sighed and relaxed. "Don't plan on a picnic," he remarked.
"Oh?"
"High overcast and drizzle. If you've been missing blue sky the last three months, don't blink on the way down."
"Mm-hm." I wasn't paying as much attention as I should have; even in these days of glass cockpits and advanced automation, there's a fascinating amount of instrumentation and I don't spend as much time with it as I'd like. A decade back, Handsome Dave decided he'd had enough of the nominal "day" shift old-timers; when a quiet directive was passed around instructing us to treat Jonny Zed "as though he was a valuable member of the Engineering Department," it was the last straw and he very nearly jumped his contract. As it happened, this was just after the Starship Company had started installing Beamtheon Mark IV 'Drives in the squirt-boosters and they had vast and convoluted problems from the outset. I don't know how it was managed but the next I knew, Handsome Dave had a bench in the Vehicle Maintenance shops at the aft end of the starboard squirt-booster bay. He's spent most of his shifts there ever since. Good for him but the rest of Engineering has to work all the harder to stay current. All of which goes to explain why I was starin' at the display when I should have been learning about the weather — not that it would have done any good.
While I stepped though read-only maintenance screens, we fell on. Things were about to the first fun stage; the assorted disconcerting noises had been getting louder, accompanied by increasingly violent shaking. I was starting to feel like my sinuses were clearing, a sure sign of increasing weight. On the main display in front of Butch, a little animation showed our past and projected trajectory, with a little icon at a discontinuity. Next to it, a countdown ticked inexorably backwards, only without the ticking. Butch opened the covers over his presets and got that six-things-at-once piloting look. As the count hit zero, it felt like something picked the vehicle up, slammed us around and all of a sudden, I was weightless again. The shaking changed character and started to slacken but I knew it would be back, worse than before.
If you're Isaac Newton, we just broke an immutable law of nature; the ship wraps itself up in a low-order Jump field, rotates the field projector, and pops back into real space "falling" in an orientation related to the direction the projector was turned. (I can handwave my way through the math but you really don't want me to). Falling any direction but down doesn't last, of course, and it's a huge jolt; but if you have the tummy for it, it sure is fun!
The kicker is, the location where your little private bubble of space-time rejoins the one most folks use is only approximate 'til you actually do it. The smaller and quicker the Jump, the greater the uncertainty. (Contrarily, a very powerful 'Drive field will do you in about like a ride inside a microwave oven, so every Jump a squirt-booster makes has to be small and fast). The closer to the ground you use this trick, the more likely you'll star in your very own crater: air's compressible but dirt and water, not so much. So we travel in a series of "sonic" booms, around half of them the real thing and the remainder the louder thunderclap created when the squirt-booster phases back into real space. The pilot's job is to end up over the landing area, falling at a rate the very limited-burn-time rockets can bring to a gentle landing. A good pilot can set down within a city block or less of his goal. Butch is really good, usually able to land right on the mark. On the other hand, this isn't like an airplane; unexpected wind, bad weather, lousy navs or just plain bad luck can require trading accuracy for a survivable set-down. There's no such thing as a touch-and-go! There's no good second chance; "up" is the safest direction to go but the minimum safe Jump is far enough and deceleration cap limited enough to make a soft landing questionable on the second try and highly unlikely on the third. As a result, "landing fields" for squirt-boosters are very large open areas; a quarter-mile square is a small field and most are between a half-mile and a kilometer square. (Even bigger for Edgers; their pulse-field "bell" shuttles are a lot more maneuverable but have been known to pop into realspace a bit lower than the surface of the landing area. This can be very loud).
—I wasn't thinking of any of that at the time; I was grinning and trying not to shout "Whee!" After the first Jump, we "fell" up awhile, slowed and started down again. It's a strange feeling. The heatshield RFI was down to nothing; there was plenty of time for another position fix from the Lupine. Butch looked at the numbers, satisfied. "Where we should be."
The next drop, we broke the sound barrier, a strange feeling; the shaking gets worse and worse and then — the ride becomes eerily smooth. A bit of that and then another little Jump and vector adjustment; we went subsonic and sped up again. It's deadly serious stuff...and the best roller-coaster ride imaginable.
What was up does come down; eventually we were low enough, slow enough and the ablative foam was sufficiently burned and blown away that Butch triggered the release control, allowing the canopy covers to shred away, revealing the promised blue sky and fluffy clouds.
As also promised, it didn't last. Those clouds were a solid pillow underneath us and comin' up fast.
We fell into the clouds and things grayed up. I was grinning like an idiot; I know I have gone on and on about the process (it's still not quite routine, which is why it's so rarely fatal) but it's big mean fun. "Not quite routine:" I was watching the display as the next hop-point approached, hit, and we dropped out of the here-and-now with a jar and—
And right back in, with a lurch that left the little ship feeling heeled over to my left. Rain lashed across the canopy, obscuring a dim gray limbo beyond, briefly lit by lightning accompanied by a peal of thunder. On the main displays, several icons went red and I looked over at Butch, who was already busy. I called up the basic STATUS display, found an OL flagged red for the #4 squirt-booster unit, "upside down" on the corner below us. I paged through to the detailed info, and it looked like the thing had lost power barely into the last Jump. Back out to the top screen and there 'twas: we were falling at an angle to our intended path, and too fast.
There wasn't much I could do besides keep my yap shut, so I did. Butch was still busy when I glanced over but he looked more annoyed than worried. He punched in some more numbers, reached over to the control stick at his left and said, "Here we go."
[To Be Continued]
30 May 2010
21 May 2010
A Funny Thing Happened On The Way (revised and completed)
The Lupine had done a particularly rough reemergence into normal space to start my day; the first big jolt had produced an electrical transient spikey enough to throw the primary 'Drive telemetry for a loop and we'd had to fly even more blind than usual while I — more or less assisted by Jonny Zed — reset everything we could get to with the 'Drive running full-tilt. Randall was piloting, of course; he gets it done and nothing rattles him but he figures everyone else is that way, too. Plenty more little things got shaken loose, too and it wasn't any better for the Enviro & Physical Plant crews; even the Power gang had some faults, thanks to the honkin' big spike. By way of comic relief — second-hand, I didn't see it — the XO, riding observer in the Bridge, lost his lunch on the second transition. Man's a pro; they tell me he just grabbed a dropsick bag, heaved horribly, sealed the flap and held on 'til the process was through.
Thanks to some inventive genius in Navs, we'd Jumped long and were decelerating at .9 g instead of the normal .75. You wouldn't think it would make much of a difference but it feels like lead shoes, only all over.
All that and more besides: it was a middle-of-nowhere Navs waypoint to line the ship up for the short Jump to Frothup, revectoring at what the bridge crew were calling "a crummy little star" (Sure: "star," "little." Compared to what? A navigator's ego? A Jump pilot's confidence?). I'm sure it seemed little to anyone who had time to look. We weren't going to get even as close to it as Pluto approaches good ol' Sol.
I had just completed that ugly shift and was weighing shower first versus dinner first when my hatch buzzed. It means visitors, just like it does at your house. H'mm, hadn't considered that option. Peeked through the viewer — also like yours, though pressure-rated — and saw a wall'o'man stepping back. In uniform and not the policeman blue of Security, nor the spiffy Merchant Marine getup of command staff. I turned to the phone — also an intercom — punched the TALK button and asked, "Who izz it?" So sue me; I'm not a big fan of uniformed strangers.
A woman's voice replied. "'It' is Lt. Wu, Sgt. Thomas and Corporal Slin-"
I cut her off, handy ol' TALK button. "Do you have a warrant?" I was pretty sure I hadn't done anything and besides, Sheriff Mike likes me, some. He'd'a warned me. Right? Hey, I was a genuine heroine, I was!
"A warrant? Miz Ecks, I have been tasked with bringing you to a conference room, not arresting you."
"Okay, okay." Security — or any E&PP Emergency Responder — can override doors anyway. I popped the hatch and in they came.
It was an interesting assortment. Sgt. Thomas was as dark a man as I've yet met, self-assured, friendly-looking and mostly plain big. He walked in as if he owned the place and stopped in the center of my cabin. I gave way and sat down on my bunk. Corporal Sl-something (I never did get a good look at her name tape), fanning out on the far side of the room, could not have been more of a contrast, petite and perfectly composed, skin the color of coffee with cream and close-braided hair. Last, Lt. Wu: Eurasian, intimidatingly pretty, sable hair, grass-green eyes and moved like someone who would have landed on her feet if the ship suddenly flipped on one side. She walked over to me — three strides, not much of a walk — and had clearly measured me up and found me wanting by the time she got there. She looked vaguely familiar and when I noticed the "feathered shoe" (a quill and an old-fashioned adding machine) pin on her collar it clicked. "But you're from the purser's office! Hey, I worked all those hours. Ask anyone in Engineering! Ask the Chief!"
"Oh, for pity's sake! There's nothing wrong with your time sheet. As far as I know. I'm not here on Purser's business; I'm also USSF Reserve. We all are. I have no idea what this is about. We were activated and told to fetch you, is all."
They've changed the uniforms since my short stint and the Reserve's are different still, a dark, nearly black brown, off-white and pale gold instead of the Regular-USSF's midnight-blue, silver grey and (gak) baby blue. (There's a perfectly good reason for the distinction, which I may explain sometime). Besides, these days USSF is essentially a kind of space-going Coast Guard, focused on keeping the peace and helping the hapless. It still didn't bode well.
On the other hand, despite her brisk, not-unfriendly manner, Lt. Wu was radiating suppressed impatience and I hoped I wasn't the target. I had a distinct impression the big, happy Sergeant would be just as happy if she told him to palm my skull and start me walking. So I didn't mull long. I stood up smartly and despite being taller than the Lieutenant, she didn't give way. So I smiled (never let 'em know you're worried) and said, "Let's be off, then." Might as well.
She turned without a word and led the procession; I grabbed my zip-up hoodie and fell in behind, turning in the corridor to see Sgt. Thomas shut and dog my hatch, looking older in the corridor lights than I'd first guessed. The "Locked" led flickered on, so I didn't have any excuse to linger. He gave me a stern look, echoed by the corporal; the Lt. cleared her throat and set off again. Down the passageway and then aft, which probably meant they had a vehicle; the nearest access to the central utility route is a couple hundred yards aft of where my cul-de-sac opens onto the slidewalk.
They had a car, one of the generic little golf-carts-from-space. I got to share the back seat with the sergeant; it was a close fit. Not a word from any of them.
* * *
Lt. R. N. "Rannie" Wu was furious. Furious! Someone was going to hear about this. Activate her on an idiotic babysitting job, go pick up a grubby tech who was either clueless why or an outstanding actress. Her status was supposed to be low-profile! Oh, there were layers and layers; her USSF Reserve status was no secret. But as the seventh-ranking member of Space Intelligence on the Lupine — as far as she knew — assignments to routine jobs like this were rare. What a waste! Ship's Security could surely handle this one, even if they'd nearly made a mess of the situation with the Edger lunatic she'd been informed of only after the fact. ...The mess, it suddenly clicked, this tech had been in thick of.... Her anger picked up a tinge of dour amusement. Possibly not as innocent as she seemed, oh?
* * *
In far less time than it takes riding the slidewalk, we pulled up at the very familiar stop below Primary Command/Control/Comms, home to the Tech Core, Drive Control, the Bridge and my home-away-from-home, the Engineering Shop. —And Officer's Territory above all that, which is where we headed, up a flight and through pressure hatches, elevator up three floors, and another short climb and another set of rated hatches to where the carpets are fresh, the bulkheads are paneled and the worries are staggering. Most of that section's a recent — well, ten years old — addition, sharing its hull (though not open access) with the first-class accommodations. Early-evening/Second Watch shift, not a lot of activity; we headed forward, through yet another pair of hatches, into the refurbished-but-original senior officer's section. Stopped just inside, at the entrance to what I'd guess was once a wardroom. It's a smallish conference room now: nice carpet, panelled walls, indirect light, table and chairs occupying the center, coffee (coffee!) service neatly racked in a corner.
Not a large compartment and when I peeked in over the Accounting Lieutenant's shoulder, it was made all the smaller by Captain James himself seated at one end of the table, a large, genial, soft-looking man with very cold eyes. He's a veteran of the War, of course; don't ask me what he did but it left an imprint. Security Director Mathis was at his right and — I should be more surprised — The Chief was at his left. Corporal Sl- peeled off as we entered and stationed herself outside the hatch with that unreadable military non-expression, ready to stand there as long as it took; Sgt. Thomas did the same imitation of furniture inside. Lt. Wu gave me a severe look and turned to Captain James. "Technician Ecks as ordered, Sir!"
He looked at her tiredly. "So I see."
"I presume you wish us to remain, Sir?"
"Incorrect. In fact, you didn't see Roberta, you didn't see anyone here. And neither did the rest of your detail."
"Sir?"
"None of us were ever here, Lieutenant."
I ventured a glance at Sgt. Thomas, standing impassively inside the hatch. Without moving any other muscle, he winked at me. I quirked an eyebrow at him but he made not to notice. Meanwhile, Lt. Wu was trying not to look annoyed, piqued or curious and mostly succeeding; or so it looked to me. She managed to limit herself to, "B- yessir."
"Good job. You are dismissed."
She acknowledged the order, turned smartly and departed, giving me another Watch Yourself look and collecting the Sergeant, who managed to give me another wink and the least flicker of a grin before he followed her out and shut the hatch.
This left me looking at a closed door, which didn't seem to be the best idea; I turned around to find all three men waiting. "Sit down," the Captain told me and I sat. "Not at the far end!"
The Chief gave me a semi-baleful look. I got up and sat down next Sheriff Mathis. Maybe I could hide behind him if things got worse.
On the other hand, maybe they're gonna pin a medal on me. A secret medal. Hey, it could happen.
Captain James gathered our attention, using whatever power it is that ship-captains, successful miltary COs and the better managers have, and launched right into it: "Bobbi, do you know why you've been asked here?"
"Umm, no. Some 'ask,' Sir. Er—"
He smiled. That's a good sign, right? "There were reasons. Ahem. It has been brought to my attention that you have a 'blog.'"
I shot a quick glance at Sheriff Mike, who looked innocently back. So I looked across at the Chief, inscrutable as ever. He's never struck me as the net-surfing type. Besides, what's this "brought to my attention" stuff? I filed the forms back when I started.
The Captain continued, "It would be an understatement to tell you the Starship Company is concerned about security. Access to interstellar space is the single most explosive secret on Earth and the allied governments require we closely monitor all communications to the homeworld. Yours is getting close to the line."
"Sir — Captain, I cleared that. Ask Mike. I know what the guidelines are and I've followed them: no details about the Stardrive, nothing about the CLASSIFIED, no real names of stars, planets outside the Solar System or any person, no time/distance numbers, I could quote the whole list."
"Security Director Mathis was first officer I asked. His faith in you is...extraordinary. Our employer's faith, less so."
Aw, rats. And it's such a long way home, or even to Kansas II, which is probably as close as they'll ever let me get. "So I have to stop?"
I don't know about anyone else, but I could have heard a pin drop in the silence that followed.
Time stretched and my heart sank. Then his expression relaxed; he almost smiled. "No. Particularly in light of certain, hem, recent events. But I am given to understand that the United States Navy has applied considerable pressure to ensure you stop mentioning the Naval Air Station at Groom Lake."
You may have noticed I lack tact. "What? It's just handy shorthand for 'secret airbase.' I've hardly even talked about Area Fif-"
The Chief hissed, "anh-ah!" at me.
"—Groom Lake NAS. And besides, civilian traffic works out of—"
The Chief gave me a blankly disapproving look and kicked me. Or maybe it was Mike, but I doubt that.
"—Another field. Other fields. And besides, I follow the news from home! The new President's cut NASA 'way back. They're about to go public about us!"
Captain James shook his head. "I think he'd like to. His party could certainly use the boost. But it won't happen. The Russians won't stand for it, the Chinese are threatening and the French—" He broke off. I gave him my best quizzical look. "I can't tell all I know and I don't know much. Something has them badly scared. They've tightened security and are in talks with all the major players, even China." I started to speak and thought better of it; this was all way above my pay grade. "The upshot is, you need to watch what you write and how you write it. Based on the latest from USSF Farwatch Command at NAS Groom, the Starship Company has issued new guidelines for communication — letters, e-mail and all online contact. Everyone will be getting a copy but you are getting one now." He paused and looked stern. "Before you get into real trouble."
Okay, fair enough. —For readers who just wandered in, it goes like this: The NATO/Far Edge war sputtered out a few years before the Cold War Earthside lurched to an end. Nations got out of the "Space Navy" business about as fast as they could; even the blackest of black budgets can only be stretched so far and things were right at the breaking point. As "swords" like the huge carrier/transports Vulpine and Lupine were beaten into plowshares — actually, cargo and passenger carrying behemoths* — civilian ideas like freedom of speech and freedom of association began to spread. There are still real problems stemming from the fact that the Hidden Frontier is hidden and while the effort to keep it so usually isn't intrusive, it is often troubling. How to keep something that big hidden? For the Edgers, it's a culture-wide conspiracy of silence; these are the folks responsible for the few genuine UFO encounters, after all and their ranks include some of the most successful smugglers and black-marketeers humanity has yet produced. The Russians and Chinese simply don't allow anyone in the know (other than a handful of officials) to return to Earth, ever. The Soviet Russians went to extremes, back when: the entire second generation on Stalin Mir were raised unaware of Earth at all. After the USSR fell, the Russian Federation faced a difficult challenge and bobbled it on that world. The Stalinists will trust no one and allow only the most limited contact. At least they're the sole exception among the ex-Soviet worlds, the rest of which are now about as free (or not) as Mother Russia herself. The French FTL fleet is entirely military and under strict discipline; their "colonies" are supposed to be much smaller than anyone else's, narrowly focused on scientific specifics. The U.S./Commonwealth worlds, on the other hand, try hard to keep communications open and available. Between worlds, there are no limitations unless the planetary governments impose them (as has happened, various times, on Linden/Lyndon). Dependent governments and enterprises, like the oil and mining outfits on Blizzard, the U.S. Territory of Kansas II or the Canadians on Vineways can't even impose stricter limits than the allied governments allow. There's Fed/Crown censorship on what goes back to Earth, but it has been pretty relaxed; who'd believe it?
Some, it seems, do. Or USSF and the U.S. Navy think they do, which comes to the same thing as far as it matters to me.
And I was getting the VIP treatment because...? While the Chief was doing his usual impression of the Buddha — the serene one, not the fat, jolly version — and "Sheriff" Mike can do the cop-face all day long, Starship Captains, the successful ones, are political animals. Captain James was more successful than most and proved it now by giving me a conspiratorial smile. "Your blog already had ears twitching. Your little run-in with an FCS agent played well with the Company and the worlds we trade at but it put you right at top of USSF Intelligence's list. I know you like to play the iconoclast; I've seen your service record" — Ouch! It was my bad luck to have enlisted in the U. S. Space Force just in time to learn my trade...and then run headlong into the drastic reductions of the 1980s. Any excuse would do and I was young and entirely too independent: O-U-T, missy, and don't get caught in an air-tight hatch on the way — "and you must understand this is not the time to get your back up."
"Is that a roundabout way to say I have to drop my blog? There's about a dozen people who'd be e-mailing with questions."
He looked impatient. "No. It means you have to follow the new guidelines. I'm sure you can do that; USSF wanted to be sure you took the advice seriously."
"Serious as the walk home, Sir!"
"Hm. See that you are, or you just might have to."
I hoped that was a twinkle in his eye but I think I have learned when not to push my luck. "I shall, sir." I did my best to radiate demure sincerity, failed. "I shall."
He turned to the Security Director and nodded; Mike handed me a manila envelope and said, "There ya go: the rules."
* * *
That was 48 hours ago. Never did get any coffee in that meeting. I've been studying The Rules in my free time since and truth to tell, it's nothing I wasn't already doing. —Oh, I have been getting close to the edge. I really shouldn't have even mentioned the CLASSIFIED, let alone any clues to the size or the hinting at what trades are involved in building one; but good luck assembling your own and even more so considering that the — but never you mind. It's somewhere between the size of a fridge and a Freightliner and when tickled properly it folds up space like your Mom does a bedsheet and that's all you need know.
And I Work On A Starship is gonna stay right here at the usual stand.
__________________________
* All starships are hideously expensive to operate (though peculiarities of the 'Drive do create economy of scale, especially for the very largest) but an aging fleet of star-jumping warships and their supporting vehicles, with enormous crews, out-dated equipment and little provision for cargo, couldn't be supported for long and kept hidden. Lupine and Vulpine were the biggest of the breed and had required massive refitting for their new role.
Thanks to some inventive genius in Navs, we'd Jumped long and were decelerating at .9 g instead of the normal .75. You wouldn't think it would make much of a difference but it feels like lead shoes, only all over.
All that and more besides: it was a middle-of-nowhere Navs waypoint to line the ship up for the short Jump to Frothup, revectoring at what the bridge crew were calling "a crummy little star" (Sure: "star," "little." Compared to what? A navigator's ego? A Jump pilot's confidence?). I'm sure it seemed little to anyone who had time to look. We weren't going to get even as close to it as Pluto approaches good ol' Sol.
I had just completed that ugly shift and was weighing shower first versus dinner first when my hatch buzzed. It means visitors, just like it does at your house. H'mm, hadn't considered that option. Peeked through the viewer — also like yours, though pressure-rated — and saw a wall'o'man stepping back. In uniform and not the policeman blue of Security, nor the spiffy Merchant Marine getup of command staff. I turned to the phone — also an intercom — punched the TALK button and asked, "Who izz it?" So sue me; I'm not a big fan of uniformed strangers.
A woman's voice replied. "'It' is Lt. Wu, Sgt. Thomas and Corporal Slin-"
I cut her off, handy ol' TALK button. "Do you have a warrant?" I was pretty sure I hadn't done anything and besides, Sheriff Mike likes me, some. He'd'a warned me. Right? Hey, I was a genuine heroine, I was!
"A warrant? Miz Ecks, I have been tasked with bringing you to a conference room, not arresting you."
"Okay, okay." Security — or any E&PP Emergency Responder — can override doors anyway. I popped the hatch and in they came.
It was an interesting assortment. Sgt. Thomas was as dark a man as I've yet met, self-assured, friendly-looking and mostly plain big. He walked in as if he owned the place and stopped in the center of my cabin. I gave way and sat down on my bunk. Corporal Sl-something (I never did get a good look at her name tape), fanning out on the far side of the room, could not have been more of a contrast, petite and perfectly composed, skin the color of coffee with cream and close-braided hair. Last, Lt. Wu: Eurasian, intimidatingly pretty, sable hair, grass-green eyes and moved like someone who would have landed on her feet if the ship suddenly flipped on one side. She walked over to me — three strides, not much of a walk — and had clearly measured me up and found me wanting by the time she got there. She looked vaguely familiar and when I noticed the "feathered shoe" (a quill and an old-fashioned adding machine) pin on her collar it clicked. "But you're from the purser's office! Hey, I worked all those hours. Ask anyone in Engineering! Ask the Chief!"
"Oh, for pity's sake! There's nothing wrong with your time sheet. As far as I know. I'm not here on Purser's business; I'm also USSF Reserve. We all are. I have no idea what this is about. We were activated and told to fetch you, is all."
They've changed the uniforms since my short stint and the Reserve's are different still, a dark, nearly black brown, off-white and pale gold instead of the Regular-USSF's midnight-blue, silver grey and (gak) baby blue. (There's a perfectly good reason for the distinction, which I may explain sometime). Besides, these days USSF is essentially a kind of space-going Coast Guard, focused on keeping the peace and helping the hapless. It still didn't bode well.
On the other hand, despite her brisk, not-unfriendly manner, Lt. Wu was radiating suppressed impatience and I hoped I wasn't the target. I had a distinct impression the big, happy Sergeant would be just as happy if she told him to palm my skull and start me walking. So I didn't mull long. I stood up smartly and despite being taller than the Lieutenant, she didn't give way. So I smiled (never let 'em know you're worried) and said, "Let's be off, then." Might as well.
She turned without a word and led the procession; I grabbed my zip-up hoodie and fell in behind, turning in the corridor to see Sgt. Thomas shut and dog my hatch, looking older in the corridor lights than I'd first guessed. The "Locked" led flickered on, so I didn't have any excuse to linger. He gave me a stern look, echoed by the corporal; the Lt. cleared her throat and set off again. Down the passageway and then aft, which probably meant they had a vehicle; the nearest access to the central utility route is a couple hundred yards aft of where my cul-de-sac opens onto the slidewalk.
They had a car, one of the generic little golf-carts-from-space. I got to share the back seat with the sergeant; it was a close fit. Not a word from any of them.
Lt. R. N. "Rannie" Wu was furious. Furious! Someone was going to hear about this. Activate her on an idiotic babysitting job, go pick up a grubby tech who was either clueless why or an outstanding actress. Her status was supposed to be low-profile! Oh, there were layers and layers; her USSF Reserve status was no secret. But as the seventh-ranking member of Space Intelligence on the Lupine — as far as she knew — assignments to routine jobs like this were rare. What a waste! Ship's Security could surely handle this one, even if they'd nearly made a mess of the situation with the Edger lunatic she'd been informed of only after the fact. ...The mess, it suddenly clicked, this tech had been in thick of.... Her anger picked up a tinge of dour amusement. Possibly not as innocent as she seemed, oh?
In far less time than it takes riding the slidewalk, we pulled up at the very familiar stop below Primary Command/Control/Comms, home to the Tech Core, Drive Control, the Bridge and my home-away-from-home, the Engineering Shop. —And Officer's Territory above all that, which is where we headed, up a flight and through pressure hatches, elevator up three floors, and another short climb and another set of rated hatches to where the carpets are fresh, the bulkheads are paneled and the worries are staggering. Most of that section's a recent — well, ten years old — addition, sharing its hull (though not open access) with the first-class accommodations. Early-evening/Second Watch shift, not a lot of activity; we headed forward, through yet another pair of hatches, into the refurbished-but-original senior officer's section. Stopped just inside, at the entrance to what I'd guess was once a wardroom. It's a smallish conference room now: nice carpet, panelled walls, indirect light, table and chairs occupying the center, coffee (coffee!) service neatly racked in a corner.
Not a large compartment and when I peeked in over the Accounting Lieutenant's shoulder, it was made all the smaller by Captain James himself seated at one end of the table, a large, genial, soft-looking man with very cold eyes. He's a veteran of the War, of course; don't ask me what he did but it left an imprint. Security Director Mathis was at his right and — I should be more surprised — The Chief was at his left. Corporal Sl- peeled off as we entered and stationed herself outside the hatch with that unreadable military non-expression, ready to stand there as long as it took; Sgt. Thomas did the same imitation of furniture inside. Lt. Wu gave me a severe look and turned to Captain James. "Technician Ecks as ordered, Sir!"
He looked at her tiredly. "So I see."
"I presume you wish us to remain, Sir?"
"Incorrect. In fact, you didn't see Roberta, you didn't see anyone here. And neither did the rest of your detail."
"Sir?"
"None of us were ever here, Lieutenant."
I ventured a glance at Sgt. Thomas, standing impassively inside the hatch. Without moving any other muscle, he winked at me. I quirked an eyebrow at him but he made not to notice. Meanwhile, Lt. Wu was trying not to look annoyed, piqued or curious and mostly succeeding; or so it looked to me. She managed to limit herself to, "B- yessir."
"Good job. You are dismissed."
She acknowledged the order, turned smartly and departed, giving me another Watch Yourself look and collecting the Sergeant, who managed to give me another wink and the least flicker of a grin before he followed her out and shut the hatch.
This left me looking at a closed door, which didn't seem to be the best idea; I turned around to find all three men waiting. "Sit down," the Captain told me and I sat. "Not at the far end!"
The Chief gave me a semi-baleful look. I got up and sat down next Sheriff Mathis. Maybe I could hide behind him if things got worse.
On the other hand, maybe they're gonna pin a medal on me. A secret medal. Hey, it could happen.
Captain James gathered our attention, using whatever power it is that ship-captains, successful miltary COs and the better managers have, and launched right into it: "Bobbi, do you know why you've been asked here?"
"Umm, no. Some 'ask,' Sir. Er—"
He smiled. That's a good sign, right? "There were reasons. Ahem. It has been brought to my attention that you have a 'blog.'"
I shot a quick glance at Sheriff Mike, who looked innocently back. So I looked across at the Chief, inscrutable as ever. He's never struck me as the net-surfing type. Besides, what's this "brought to my attention" stuff? I filed the forms back when I started.
The Captain continued, "It would be an understatement to tell you the Starship Company is concerned about security. Access to interstellar space is the single most explosive secret on Earth and the allied governments require we closely monitor all communications to the homeworld. Yours is getting close to the line."
"Sir — Captain, I cleared that. Ask Mike. I know what the guidelines are and I've followed them: no details about the Stardrive, nothing about the CLASSIFIED, no real names of stars, planets outside the Solar System or any person, no time/distance numbers, I could quote the whole list."
"Security Director Mathis was first officer I asked. His faith in you is...extraordinary. Our employer's faith, less so."
Aw, rats. And it's such a long way home, or even to Kansas II, which is probably as close as they'll ever let me get. "So I have to stop?"
I don't know about anyone else, but I could have heard a pin drop in the silence that followed.
Time stretched and my heart sank. Then his expression relaxed; he almost smiled. "No. Particularly in light of certain, hem, recent events. But I am given to understand that the United States Navy has applied considerable pressure to ensure you stop mentioning the Naval Air Station at Groom Lake."
You may have noticed I lack tact. "What? It's just handy shorthand for 'secret airbase.' I've hardly even talked about Area Fif-"
The Chief hissed, "anh-ah!" at me.
"—Groom Lake NAS. And besides, civilian traffic works out of—"
The Chief gave me a blankly disapproving look and kicked me. Or maybe it was Mike, but I doubt that.
"—Another field. Other fields. And besides, I follow the news from home! The new President's cut NASA 'way back. They're about to go public about us!"
Captain James shook his head. "I think he'd like to. His party could certainly use the boost. But it won't happen. The Russians won't stand for it, the Chinese are threatening and the French—" He broke off. I gave him my best quizzical look. "I can't tell all I know and I don't know much. Something has them badly scared. They've tightened security and are in talks with all the major players, even China." I started to speak and thought better of it; this was all way above my pay grade. "The upshot is, you need to watch what you write and how you write it. Based on the latest from USSF Farwatch Command at NAS Groom, the Starship Company has issued new guidelines for communication — letters, e-mail and all online contact. Everyone will be getting a copy but you are getting one now." He paused and looked stern. "Before you get into real trouble."
Okay, fair enough. —For readers who just wandered in, it goes like this: The NATO/Far Edge war sputtered out a few years before the Cold War Earthside lurched to an end. Nations got out of the "Space Navy" business about as fast as they could; even the blackest of black budgets can only be stretched so far and things were right at the breaking point. As "swords" like the huge carrier/transports Vulpine and Lupine were beaten into plowshares — actually, cargo and passenger carrying behemoths* — civilian ideas like freedom of speech and freedom of association began to spread. There are still real problems stemming from the fact that the Hidden Frontier is hidden and while the effort to keep it so usually isn't intrusive, it is often troubling. How to keep something that big hidden? For the Edgers, it's a culture-wide conspiracy of silence; these are the folks responsible for the few genuine UFO encounters, after all and their ranks include some of the most successful smugglers and black-marketeers humanity has yet produced. The Russians and Chinese simply don't allow anyone in the know (other than a handful of officials) to return to Earth, ever. The Soviet Russians went to extremes, back when: the entire second generation on Stalin Mir were raised unaware of Earth at all. After the USSR fell, the Russian Federation faced a difficult challenge and bobbled it on that world. The Stalinists will trust no one and allow only the most limited contact. At least they're the sole exception among the ex-Soviet worlds, the rest of which are now about as free (or not) as Mother Russia herself. The French FTL fleet is entirely military and under strict discipline; their "colonies" are supposed to be much smaller than anyone else's, narrowly focused on scientific specifics. The U.S./Commonwealth worlds, on the other hand, try hard to keep communications open and available. Between worlds, there are no limitations unless the planetary governments impose them (as has happened, various times, on Linden/Lyndon). Dependent governments and enterprises, like the oil and mining outfits on Blizzard, the U.S. Territory of Kansas II or the Canadians on Vineways can't even impose stricter limits than the allied governments allow. There's Fed/Crown censorship on what goes back to Earth, but it has been pretty relaxed; who'd believe it?
Some, it seems, do. Or USSF and the U.S. Navy think they do, which comes to the same thing as far as it matters to me.
And I was getting the VIP treatment because...? While the Chief was doing his usual impression of the Buddha — the serene one, not the fat, jolly version — and "Sheriff" Mike can do the cop-face all day long, Starship Captains, the successful ones, are political animals. Captain James was more successful than most and proved it now by giving me a conspiratorial smile. "Your blog already had ears twitching. Your little run-in with an FCS agent played well with the Company and the worlds we trade at but it put you right at top of USSF Intelligence's list. I know you like to play the iconoclast; I've seen your service record" — Ouch! It was my bad luck to have enlisted in the U. S. Space Force just in time to learn my trade...and then run headlong into the drastic reductions of the 1980s. Any excuse would do and I was young and entirely too independent: O-U-T, missy, and don't get caught in an air-tight hatch on the way — "and you must understand this is not the time to get your back up."
"Is that a roundabout way to say I have to drop my blog? There's about a dozen people who'd be e-mailing with questions."
He looked impatient. "No. It means you have to follow the new guidelines. I'm sure you can do that; USSF wanted to be sure you took the advice seriously."
"Serious as the walk home, Sir!"
"Hm. See that you are, or you just might have to."
I hoped that was a twinkle in his eye but I think I have learned when not to push my luck. "I shall, sir." I did my best to radiate demure sincerity, failed. "I shall."
He turned to the Security Director and nodded; Mike handed me a manila envelope and said, "There ya go: the rules."
That was 48 hours ago. Never did get any coffee in that meeting. I've been studying The Rules in my free time since and truth to tell, it's nothing I wasn't already doing. —Oh, I have been getting close to the edge. I really shouldn't have even mentioned the CLASSIFIED, let alone any clues to the size or the hinting at what trades are involved in building one; but good luck assembling your own and even more so considering that the — but never you mind. It's somewhere between the size of a fridge and a Freightliner and when tickled properly it folds up space like your Mom does a bedsheet and that's all you need know.
And I Work On A Starship is gonna stay right here at the usual stand.
__________________________
* All starships are hideously expensive to operate (though peculiarities of the 'Drive do create economy of scale, especially for the very largest) but an aging fleet of star-jumping warships and their supporting vehicles, with enormous crews, out-dated equipment and little provision for cargo, couldn't be supported for long and kept hidden. Lupine and Vulpine were the biggest of the breed and had required massive refitting for their new role.
09 March 2010
"Important Notice?" Sure Is!
I'm not sayin' the E&PP techs still haven't found the slow leak in squirt-booster Bay 3, but...
17 February 2010
The Battle Of Ganymede, Part 2
Story begins at The Battle Of Ganymede, Part 1 [Editor's note: Accuracy of this fictionalized account of the only battle fought between FCS forces (Mil/Space and others) and USSF plus NATO allies within Earth's own solar system is in some doubt. Many of the incidents have not been verified and most of them cannot be. The Mil/Space Tech "Hawkins" does appear to be the father of Juliette Hawkins, first known case of Hawkins-F.]
On the surface, the soldier was still struggling with the cleaning rod and muttering a steady stream of imprecations directed at the Army, USSF and someone apparently named "Damn Ted Armalite." It wasn't helping.
Sudden movement caught his eye; he looked up in time to see rocks, dust and ice hanging in the middle distance, then starting a lazy fall back down as the ground underneath shook. He missed the flash of movement to his right that could have been two men carrying large packs. They didn't miss the glint of reflected light from his faceplace and ducked behind a truck-sized rock.
* * *
"Snakecrap!" Hawkins said it; braided line connected the two men, clipped to attachment points at front and back of the harness built into the outer coveralls they wore over their leotard-like pressure suits. Mil/Space had thoughtfully included an intercom cable; mating jacks at each end connected it to an earphone and microphone in their bubble helmets. SOP called for VOX rather than push-to-talk, reasoning time and a free hand to flip a switch might both be in short supply if things went wrong. "You saw it, too, Lieutenant."
"Yes. He is not one of ours."
"Check. Now what?"
"We have a closer look." Griffon began to check his weapon as he spoke, then moved the sling to a looser, front position that would allow easy aim but hang out of the way until needed. Hawkins did the same, with a shorter loop to keep it mostly clear of the line between them. Hardly more than an oversized handgun, their "rifles" looked like nothing so much as something hastily welded together to lubricate heavy machinery. "He's out in the open. Looked like he was seated or dug in."
"Pretty sure he was seated, up against one of those rocks." Hawkins wasn't their top imaging tech — that had been Feelie — but manpower was too scarce for the Edgers who ran Mil/Space to assign any man to an imaging post who wasn't both sharp of eye and quick to grasp what he saw.
Griffon nodded. "Could be. Suggestions?"
Neither man had set out to be a professional soldier and neither one had undergone extensive training in the ancient skills of ground troops. Their employer, Mil/Space, was one of several contractors supplying skilled manpower to the Federation of Concerned Spacemen, still the only real ruling body on the Far Edge. Specialists, their war had been a matter of images on a screen, of the sudden flash that told of a hundred lives lost, of stealth and subterfuge, months of boredom punctuated by hours of frantic activity. The ground war on Ganymede had come as a surprise to the Edgers; confident of the technological advantage from the German 'Drive technology that reduced the effective mass of spacecraft and their own improvements that allowed safely controllable, albeit jerky, maneuvering near a planetary surface, even the recent loss of Peace-and-Prosperity, their most populous settled planet, to a USSF flotilla had not appreciably shaken their opinion. Nothing had until routine scans found a very large USSF/NATO fleet approaching from an unexpected direction and by then it was too late.
The officer had been born on Earth itself, a child of one of the original FCS conspirators, smuggled aboard along with many others. Most of his life since had been spent aboard spacecraft and space-based industrial facilities. While he didn't suffer the paralyzing agoraphobia that was the bane of many of his peers, he didn't have Hawkins' ease in the wide-open spaces, either. The Tech was from Peace-And-Prosperity, formerly Linden, of mixed Edger/German background; he claimed Ganymede reminded him of the mining camp at Pitty on his home world. Anyone who hadn't seen the place assumed he was exaggerating. "Ground's pretty torn up. I think there's enough cover to get a closer look before we plan too much. Might even be able to just grab him."
While they spoke, the subject of their discussion had managed to remove the KIT, CLEANING, XM-16E from its storage location and was assembling the contents, remembering the lecture: "These kits are scarcer than your rifle. You are the first soldiers to receive them and you will learn to use them!" Should'a tried it one-handed, he reflected. Locking the bolt back was going to be even more interesting, but it was a better bet than trying to get the receiver open. He looked up again, thinking he'd seen something. Shouldn't be anyone — or anything! — at all out here, not so soon after— After what? He couldn't remember. Hell with it. Clear the rifle, find out where you are, figure out what to do next. He turned back to his rifle, wondering what the chances were the body he'd spotted was still carrying any air.
He didn't wonder long. A figure in a funny-looking spacesuit popped out from behind a boulder to his right, pointing a nasty-looking grease gun at him and then ducked back out of sight.. He started to reach for his XM-16 with both hands, nearly dropped it at the stab of pain from his shoulder, but managed to bring it to bear, just as another guy slid down the rock he was leaning on, landed to his left, made a long reach and grabbed his gun, attempting to twist it down and away. He shouted and tried to stand as the second man bumped his helmet, grabbed him to maintain the connection and yelled tinnily, "Drop it!" While he was distracted, the first one closed the distance and yanked his rifle away. He was their prisoner, as fast and simple as that.
* * *
"He doesn't look too good," Hawkins protested. "And we're not in the greatest shape ourselves." They'd reattached the line and intercom between them. At their feet, the subject of their discussion still sat where they'd found him, deprived of his rifle and knife, trying unsuccessfully to read their lips. The shorter one was gesturing. "There's no way we can carry him and I don't think he can walk."
The Lieutenant was having none of it. "Are you a mindreader, then? We do not know that."
"Nossir. But he sure didn't try to stand when we grabbed him. Even if he can, we can't take him along."
"What else? Leave him? Shoot him?" Life was hard on the Far Edge but it was not cheap; there were rarely enough hands for any task. Extensive automation helped and aggressive recruitment of Earth's displaced, disaffected and unwanted had begun to make a difference — possibly too much so on Peace-and-Prosperity, but that was Earth's problem now. Between the harshness of space and the shortage of manpower, few Edgers would consider leaving a man behind. Even if they had to invent reasons why. "We need to find out what he knows. General Filiaggi needs to learn what they know."
Hawkins almost rolled his eyes. The General — founder and principal of Mil/Space and one of the chief proponents of hired contractors rather than civil servants for nearly everything — was infamous for his strong opinions and fierce temper. Keeping him happy was both necessary and nearly impossible. "You think so?"
"I'm certain of it - and it's an order. We're taking him along."
The soldier wasn't having much luck making out what they were saying but frequent glances his way left no doubt it was about him. It's sure not about where to stop for lunch, he thought, and nearly grinned. Better to think about that than what the other two might do next. Or about what might've gone wrong with his arm. Their coveralls — clearly not spacesuits, open at collar, sleeve and cuff with something shiny that looked skin-tight underneath — bore familiar-looking name tapes and unfamiliar insignia, starting with some kind of star-and-rifle logo under a banner that proclaimed "MILSPACE ASSOC." or something similar along with a smaller design consisting of a star and the letters "FCS." One of them had upside-down chevrons-and-rocker on his sleeves, with a lighting bolt over a bowl shape at the center. The other had bizarre triple bars. Digging up a memory from his childhood in Chattanooga, he took a guess and when triple-bar bent down to bring their helmets in contact, spoke first: "Captain, what's the verdict?"
The other man made a sound like a chuckle, "Hah. Captains command ships. Call me 'Lieutenant.' Senior Lieutenant, about the same as one of your 'Captains.' Less confusing." His speech was almost unnaturally distinct, like a telephone operator's. "What is your name? Can you stand? Can you walk?"
"I might need some help standing. Walking, I could do that for—" he glanced at his air gauge and made a rapid estimate "—about forty-five minutes." Faces pressed too close and at a funny angle, he could still sense puzzlement change rapidly to annoyed comprehension. "And my name is..." This was nuts. How could a guy forget his own name?
The enemy officer wasn't waiting. "Insufficient air. Not good. What are your oxygen connections like? We might be able to jury-rig—"
He interrupted, "We might not have to." It took some explaining. The other Edger, "tech-not-sergeant" Hawkins, freed up the breather backpack from the partially buried body and brought it back. The nametag on the pack read, "Wilkerson, M." It didn't ring any bells. One tank was full; the other was just over three-quarters. The chemical bargraph on the CO2 absorber, the one you normally had to have a buddy read, showed ten percent gone.
While he sat with the pack on his lap, steadying it with his left arm and holding the pendant gauges in his right, his captors reconnected their intercom.
"Lieutenant, he's got threaded connectors. Fine threads! And manual valves!"
"Not quick-connects? Those big suits do hold a lot of air. As for manual valves, Tech, your suit has them, too. I am certain you follow S.O.P and use them; the check valves are merely a back-up." He suppressed a sigh. Hawkins did no such thing unless he was being watched. Planet-dwellers were easy to spot by their causal, sloppy observance of safety procedures, at least until the first time their luck failed. Afterward, well, the survivors were more careful. The tension between long-held Edger belief that stupidity ought to be self-correcting and not wanting to lose a man was usually subsumed in the larger concerns of the increasingly-heated conflict with Earth. Usually.
Hawkins, feeling unfairly chastised, folded his arms and tried to look resolute. The officer had other worries. "Is there a radio in that thing? Did you notice a radio on the dead man's suit?"
"No and no. And no antenna on his. Could be something transistorized, low-power, too small to notice. I doubt it."
"H'mm. And without quick-connects, he has only as much time as his pack and the one just salvaged will allow."
Griffon considered the options. Odd were good there was an Earth vessel, some kind of low-radar-image landing craft nearby, which it would not do to encounter even if only a skeleton crew was aboard. Closest friendly — if she'd made it — was Skidoo, a lightly-armed freighter that had been landing when his imaging installation had been hit. Next best was a tie between the another imager and General Filiaggi's "flagship," the mostly-hidden Not Minneapolis, a repurposed seagoing battleship "borrowed" under dubious circumstances. The freighter was out; it would have been an obvious target, for one, and if enough of the imagers had been taken out, odds of a successful landing weren't good. Heading for the next imager was a shorter trip but one that would take them farther away from the flagship, towards a destination in unknown condition with uncertain communication. And he didn't want to share credit for the capture, he admitted to himself with a sour grin. On the other hand, the Minnie was either intact or his destination didn't matter. And on the other other hand— Operational security was tight; he knew where the flagship was, offset from and little outside the ring of five imagers that surrounded the township-sized landing area, but he didn't know the intervening terrain or how to find the hidden accesses.
He was looking towards his prisoner but not really seeing him when the scene suddenly lit up. Hawkins, intercom still plugged in, yelled distortedly, "Holy howling snakes!"
He turned in time to see the fireball still growing and moving upward. Had Skidoo's captain decided to run for it and been hit? The location looked right, but it could have been an Earth ship hunting the freighter and struck by fire from his own side. It was an expanding blob of hot gas, molten metal and twisted debris now. Molten metal including the reactor. "Hawkins, help me grab the Earther, now. We need to be on the far side of the rock he's leaning on."
Unsurprisingly, the prisoner was staring at the fireball, too. Griffon and Hawkins rounded on him, hoisted him up in a chair carry with the spare air pack still in his lap, the lanyard a trip hazard between them and made good time getting the boulder between themselves and the explosion. Their passenger struggled briefly until Griffon put his helmet in contact and shouted, "Explosion. Rad hazard." It wasn't much cover — the glowing mass was still headed up — but it was better than nothing at all. The explosion was well distant, almost to the horizon, so their direct exposure couldn't have been significant. Or if it had, there was nothing to be done here and now. Indirect exposure was another story; "hot" debris was going to be settling gently down for a long time. Maybe even days; but the same low gravity that was going to keep material aloft for such a long time meant it wasn't raining rads yet.
"Set him down here, Tech." When had Earth become so bold? He was used to thinking of them as incompetent clods, timid navigators who lacked the closely held tricks and techniques that allowed FCS-allied ships to twitch and jitter their way down to a planetary surface, controlling their effective mass and altering their vector with tiny, subcritical Stardrive jumps. What had been a battle of infrequent feint and parry in which Earth's only gains were the result of blind luck had turned nastier, starting — as far as he was concerned — with their imager and who knew what else. With a nuke plant vaporized and sprayed across Mil/Space's landing field, the fight had to move elsewhere. Didn't it? He didn't have enough information; it didn't matter, he had to act. Six months ago, he'd been graveyard-watch imaging officer on an independent "covert freighter" little larger than Skiddoo, a watchstander-cum-engineering manager with a fancy title. Recruited by one of the several contractors hired by the Executive Committee of the Federation of Concerned Spacemen to provide "external security," he'd been run through a hasty military officer's school, most of it a stack of reading and a handful of lectures, then assigned to a series of imager installation much like his shipboard job. Or they had been until today, when a lot of material that had seemed dull, unlikely, even paranoid had suddenly become sensible.
Griffon's prisoner, picked up, hauled around the huge boulder and dumped on the ground with barely an explanation watched the enemy officer with gnawing worry. To him the man seemed distracted, almost alien, his body language close and cautious. He'd seemed not unkind but he was an enemy officer and by everything he'd been told, the enemy was sneaky, untrustworthy and profoundly different. The other one, the "Tech," (and what kind of rank was that?) acted a little more normal — he'd even been looking over the XM-16 he'd slung on his back when the lieutenant sent that around the boulder — but "Tech" was one of them, too. He took another look at his air gauge and did a little mental math: a half-hour, no, call it 40 minutes left. Sure felt like the last time he'd looked had been longer than five minutes ago. He looked back up to see the Tech looking at the sky and looked that direction himself to pick out three shimmering stars slowly descending. The enemy officer, Griffon, was beside him in a couple of loping steps; the "clonk" of their helmets colliding pulled his attention away.
"Are those are your side's ships?"
"How should I know? Anyway, I don't have to answer."
The officer was silent for awhile, as the lights grew larger and brighter, one clearly closer to them then the other two, shapes almost visible through the white light of the rockets. Finally, he spoke, "They're not ours. It's either yours or we both have company."
As they watched, Another light, dimmer, redder, joined the three, jittering and jinking, the light flaring and flickering. Griffin spoke again, "Now that is one of ours." Squinting, the soldier could almost make out its shape, like a hat with a narrow, conical rim. It seemed to jump from one position to another almost randomly; closer and then farther away, tilting and turning. It stabilized briefly, upside down and moving up, then vanished. Almost immediately, one of the three likely-USSF ships blossomed into a swelling sphere, reddening and churning. Griffon asked, "That is steam? Just how 'hot' are your landers?"
A whole shipload of good guys just died and this weirdo wants to talk shop? Not a chance! "Damifino. Wouldn't tell you if I knew." Bits of wreckage were starting to rain down, raising widely scattered puffs of dust in the distance, a vague wave sweeping towards their position. Griffon said something about "...Cover!" and waved the tech over.
———
The narrative breaks off there. Further specifics of their actions that day are unknown. Sr. Lt. Griffon stayed with Mil/Space during their re-organization from a corps of mostly specialists to the deadly "Space Marines" known today, a change prompted by huge losses during the fighting on Ganymede. The USSF soldier may have been Cpl. Lawrence Mathis, recorded with Griffon as having been treated for mild radiation exposure aboard FCS Saint Paul (the "Not Minneapolis," a converted former Brazilian seagoing battleship "borrowed" while being towed to the breakers) and repatriated in the war's first prisoner exchange some weeks later. Mathis was reported lost later that year when the USSF Mitchell went missing while investigating a reported Edger smuggling base on the far side off Earth's Moon; no wreckage has yet been found. As for Hawkins, he is known to have died on Ganymede; his body is interred in the monument there, a vast, faintly radioactive raised terrace bulldozed up from the former Far Edge landing field, site of the fiercest fighting and where four ships fell or were destroyed on the surface: USSF landers XL-5 and XL-17, the FCS armed freighter Skidoo and FCS "gunship," the privateer Extraneous.
On the surface, the soldier was still struggling with the cleaning rod and muttering a steady stream of imprecations directed at the Army, USSF and someone apparently named "Damn Ted Armalite." It wasn't helping.
Sudden movement caught his eye; he looked up in time to see rocks, dust and ice hanging in the middle distance, then starting a lazy fall back down as the ground underneath shook. He missed the flash of movement to his right that could have been two men carrying large packs. They didn't miss the glint of reflected light from his faceplace and ducked behind a truck-sized rock.
"Snakecrap!" Hawkins said it; braided line connected the two men, clipped to attachment points at front and back of the harness built into the outer coveralls they wore over their leotard-like pressure suits. Mil/Space had thoughtfully included an intercom cable; mating jacks at each end connected it to an earphone and microphone in their bubble helmets. SOP called for VOX rather than push-to-talk, reasoning time and a free hand to flip a switch might both be in short supply if things went wrong. "You saw it, too, Lieutenant."
"Yes. He is not one of ours."
"Check. Now what?"
"We have a closer look." Griffon began to check his weapon as he spoke, then moved the sling to a looser, front position that would allow easy aim but hang out of the way until needed. Hawkins did the same, with a shorter loop to keep it mostly clear of the line between them. Hardly more than an oversized handgun, their "rifles" looked like nothing so much as something hastily welded together to lubricate heavy machinery. "He's out in the open. Looked like he was seated or dug in."
"Pretty sure he was seated, up against one of those rocks." Hawkins wasn't their top imaging tech — that had been Feelie — but manpower was too scarce for the Edgers who ran Mil/Space to assign any man to an imaging post who wasn't both sharp of eye and quick to grasp what he saw.
Griffon nodded. "Could be. Suggestions?"
Neither man had set out to be a professional soldier and neither one had undergone extensive training in the ancient skills of ground troops. Their employer, Mil/Space, was one of several contractors supplying skilled manpower to the Federation of Concerned Spacemen, still the only real ruling body on the Far Edge. Specialists, their war had been a matter of images on a screen, of the sudden flash that told of a hundred lives lost, of stealth and subterfuge, months of boredom punctuated by hours of frantic activity. The ground war on Ganymede had come as a surprise to the Edgers; confident of the technological advantage from the German 'Drive technology that reduced the effective mass of spacecraft and their own improvements that allowed safely controllable, albeit jerky, maneuvering near a planetary surface, even the recent loss of Peace-and-Prosperity, their most populous settled planet, to a USSF flotilla had not appreciably shaken their opinion. Nothing had until routine scans found a very large USSF/NATO fleet approaching from an unexpected direction and by then it was too late.
The officer had been born on Earth itself, a child of one of the original FCS conspirators, smuggled aboard along with many others. Most of his life since had been spent aboard spacecraft and space-based industrial facilities. While he didn't suffer the paralyzing agoraphobia that was the bane of many of his peers, he didn't have Hawkins' ease in the wide-open spaces, either. The Tech was from Peace-And-Prosperity, formerly Linden, of mixed Edger/German background; he claimed Ganymede reminded him of the mining camp at Pitty on his home world. Anyone who hadn't seen the place assumed he was exaggerating. "Ground's pretty torn up. I think there's enough cover to get a closer look before we plan too much. Might even be able to just grab him."
While they spoke, the subject of their discussion had managed to remove the KIT, CLEANING, XM-16E from its storage location and was assembling the contents, remembering the lecture: "These kits are scarcer than your rifle. You are the first soldiers to receive them and you will learn to use them!" Should'a tried it one-handed, he reflected. Locking the bolt back was going to be even more interesting, but it was a better bet than trying to get the receiver open. He looked up again, thinking he'd seen something. Shouldn't be anyone — or anything! — at all out here, not so soon after— After what? He couldn't remember. Hell with it. Clear the rifle, find out where you are, figure out what to do next. He turned back to his rifle, wondering what the chances were the body he'd spotted was still carrying any air.
He didn't wonder long. A figure in a funny-looking spacesuit popped out from behind a boulder to his right, pointing a nasty-looking grease gun at him and then ducked back out of sight.. He started to reach for his XM-16 with both hands, nearly dropped it at the stab of pain from his shoulder, but managed to bring it to bear, just as another guy slid down the rock he was leaning on, landed to his left, made a long reach and grabbed his gun, attempting to twist it down and away. He shouted and tried to stand as the second man bumped his helmet, grabbed him to maintain the connection and yelled tinnily, "Drop it!" While he was distracted, the first one closed the distance and yanked his rifle away. He was their prisoner, as fast and simple as that.
"He doesn't look too good," Hawkins protested. "And we're not in the greatest shape ourselves." They'd reattached the line and intercom between them. At their feet, the subject of their discussion still sat where they'd found him, deprived of his rifle and knife, trying unsuccessfully to read their lips. The shorter one was gesturing. "There's no way we can carry him and I don't think he can walk."
The Lieutenant was having none of it. "Are you a mindreader, then? We do not know that."
"Nossir. But he sure didn't try to stand when we grabbed him. Even if he can, we can't take him along."
"What else? Leave him? Shoot him?" Life was hard on the Far Edge but it was not cheap; there were rarely enough hands for any task. Extensive automation helped and aggressive recruitment of Earth's displaced, disaffected and unwanted had begun to make a difference — possibly too much so on Peace-and-Prosperity, but that was Earth's problem now. Between the harshness of space and the shortage of manpower, few Edgers would consider leaving a man behind. Even if they had to invent reasons why. "We need to find out what he knows. General Filiaggi needs to learn what they know."
Hawkins almost rolled his eyes. The General — founder and principal of Mil/Space and one of the chief proponents of hired contractors rather than civil servants for nearly everything — was infamous for his strong opinions and fierce temper. Keeping him happy was both necessary and nearly impossible. "You think so?"
"I'm certain of it - and it's an order. We're taking him along."
The soldier wasn't having much luck making out what they were saying but frequent glances his way left no doubt it was about him. It's sure not about where to stop for lunch, he thought, and nearly grinned. Better to think about that than what the other two might do next. Or about what might've gone wrong with his arm. Their coveralls — clearly not spacesuits, open at collar, sleeve and cuff with something shiny that looked skin-tight underneath — bore familiar-looking name tapes and unfamiliar insignia, starting with some kind of star-and-rifle logo under a banner that proclaimed "MILSPACE ASSOC." or something similar along with a smaller design consisting of a star and the letters "FCS." One of them had upside-down chevrons-and-rocker on his sleeves, with a lighting bolt over a bowl shape at the center. The other had bizarre triple bars. Digging up a memory from his childhood in Chattanooga, he took a guess and when triple-bar bent down to bring their helmets in contact, spoke first: "Captain, what's the verdict?"
The other man made a sound like a chuckle, "Hah. Captains command ships. Call me 'Lieutenant.' Senior Lieutenant, about the same as one of your 'Captains.' Less confusing." His speech was almost unnaturally distinct, like a telephone operator's. "What is your name? Can you stand? Can you walk?"
"I might need some help standing. Walking, I could do that for—" he glanced at his air gauge and made a rapid estimate "—about forty-five minutes." Faces pressed too close and at a funny angle, he could still sense puzzlement change rapidly to annoyed comprehension. "And my name is..." This was nuts. How could a guy forget his own name?
The enemy officer wasn't waiting. "Insufficient air. Not good. What are your oxygen connections like? We might be able to jury-rig—"
He interrupted, "We might not have to." It took some explaining. The other Edger, "tech-not-sergeant" Hawkins, freed up the breather backpack from the partially buried body and brought it back. The nametag on the pack read, "Wilkerson, M." It didn't ring any bells. One tank was full; the other was just over three-quarters. The chemical bargraph on the CO2 absorber, the one you normally had to have a buddy read, showed ten percent gone.
While he sat with the pack on his lap, steadying it with his left arm and holding the pendant gauges in his right, his captors reconnected their intercom.
"Lieutenant, he's got threaded connectors. Fine threads! And manual valves!"
"Not quick-connects? Those big suits do hold a lot of air. As for manual valves, Tech, your suit has them, too. I am certain you follow S.O.P and use them; the check valves are merely a back-up." He suppressed a sigh. Hawkins did no such thing unless he was being watched. Planet-dwellers were easy to spot by their causal, sloppy observance of safety procedures, at least until the first time their luck failed. Afterward, well, the survivors were more careful. The tension between long-held Edger belief that stupidity ought to be self-correcting and not wanting to lose a man was usually subsumed in the larger concerns of the increasingly-heated conflict with Earth. Usually.
Hawkins, feeling unfairly chastised, folded his arms and tried to look resolute. The officer had other worries. "Is there a radio in that thing? Did you notice a radio on the dead man's suit?"
"No and no. And no antenna on his. Could be something transistorized, low-power, too small to notice. I doubt it."
"H'mm. And without quick-connects, he has only as much time as his pack and the one just salvaged will allow."
Griffon considered the options. Odd were good there was an Earth vessel, some kind of low-radar-image landing craft nearby, which it would not do to encounter even if only a skeleton crew was aboard. Closest friendly — if she'd made it — was Skidoo, a lightly-armed freighter that had been landing when his imaging installation had been hit. Next best was a tie between the another imager and General Filiaggi's "flagship," the mostly-hidden Not Minneapolis, a repurposed seagoing battleship "borrowed" under dubious circumstances. The freighter was out; it would have been an obvious target, for one, and if enough of the imagers had been taken out, odds of a successful landing weren't good. Heading for the next imager was a shorter trip but one that would take them farther away from the flagship, towards a destination in unknown condition with uncertain communication. And he didn't want to share credit for the capture, he admitted to himself with a sour grin. On the other hand, the Minnie was either intact or his destination didn't matter. And on the other other hand— Operational security was tight; he knew where the flagship was, offset from and little outside the ring of five imagers that surrounded the township-sized landing area, but he didn't know the intervening terrain or how to find the hidden accesses.
He was looking towards his prisoner but not really seeing him when the scene suddenly lit up. Hawkins, intercom still plugged in, yelled distortedly, "Holy howling snakes!"
He turned in time to see the fireball still growing and moving upward. Had Skidoo's captain decided to run for it and been hit? The location looked right, but it could have been an Earth ship hunting the freighter and struck by fire from his own side. It was an expanding blob of hot gas, molten metal and twisted debris now. Molten metal including the reactor. "Hawkins, help me grab the Earther, now. We need to be on the far side of the rock he's leaning on."
Unsurprisingly, the prisoner was staring at the fireball, too. Griffon and Hawkins rounded on him, hoisted him up in a chair carry with the spare air pack still in his lap, the lanyard a trip hazard between them and made good time getting the boulder between themselves and the explosion. Their passenger struggled briefly until Griffon put his helmet in contact and shouted, "Explosion. Rad hazard." It wasn't much cover — the glowing mass was still headed up — but it was better than nothing at all. The explosion was well distant, almost to the horizon, so their direct exposure couldn't have been significant. Or if it had, there was nothing to be done here and now. Indirect exposure was another story; "hot" debris was going to be settling gently down for a long time. Maybe even days; but the same low gravity that was going to keep material aloft for such a long time meant it wasn't raining rads yet.
"Set him down here, Tech." When had Earth become so bold? He was used to thinking of them as incompetent clods, timid navigators who lacked the closely held tricks and techniques that allowed FCS-allied ships to twitch and jitter their way down to a planetary surface, controlling their effective mass and altering their vector with tiny, subcritical Stardrive jumps. What had been a battle of infrequent feint and parry in which Earth's only gains were the result of blind luck had turned nastier, starting — as far as he was concerned — with their imager and who knew what else. With a nuke plant vaporized and sprayed across Mil/Space's landing field, the fight had to move elsewhere. Didn't it? He didn't have enough information; it didn't matter, he had to act. Six months ago, he'd been graveyard-watch imaging officer on an independent "covert freighter" little larger than Skiddoo, a watchstander-cum-engineering manager with a fancy title. Recruited by one of the several contractors hired by the Executive Committee of the Federation of Concerned Spacemen to provide "external security," he'd been run through a hasty military officer's school, most of it a stack of reading and a handful of lectures, then assigned to a series of imager installation much like his shipboard job. Or they had been until today, when a lot of material that had seemed dull, unlikely, even paranoid had suddenly become sensible.
Griffon's prisoner, picked up, hauled around the huge boulder and dumped on the ground with barely an explanation watched the enemy officer with gnawing worry. To him the man seemed distracted, almost alien, his body language close and cautious. He'd seemed not unkind but he was an enemy officer and by everything he'd been told, the enemy was sneaky, untrustworthy and profoundly different. The other one, the "Tech," (and what kind of rank was that?) acted a little more normal — he'd even been looking over the XM-16 he'd slung on his back when the lieutenant sent that around the boulder — but "Tech" was one of them, too. He took another look at his air gauge and did a little mental math: a half-hour, no, call it 40 minutes left. Sure felt like the last time he'd looked had been longer than five minutes ago. He looked back up to see the Tech looking at the sky and looked that direction himself to pick out three shimmering stars slowly descending. The enemy officer, Griffon, was beside him in a couple of loping steps; the "clonk" of their helmets colliding pulled his attention away.
"Are those are your side's ships?"
"How should I know? Anyway, I don't have to answer."
The officer was silent for awhile, as the lights grew larger and brighter, one clearly closer to them then the other two, shapes almost visible through the white light of the rockets. Finally, he spoke, "They're not ours. It's either yours or we both have company."
As they watched, Another light, dimmer, redder, joined the three, jittering and jinking, the light flaring and flickering. Griffin spoke again, "Now that is one of ours." Squinting, the soldier could almost make out its shape, like a hat with a narrow, conical rim. It seemed to jump from one position to another almost randomly; closer and then farther away, tilting and turning. It stabilized briefly, upside down and moving up, then vanished. Almost immediately, one of the three likely-USSF ships blossomed into a swelling sphere, reddening and churning. Griffon asked, "That is steam? Just how 'hot' are your landers?"
A whole shipload of good guys just died and this weirdo wants to talk shop? Not a chance! "Damifino. Wouldn't tell you if I knew." Bits of wreckage were starting to rain down, raising widely scattered puffs of dust in the distance, a vague wave sweeping towards their position. Griffon said something about "...Cover!" and waved the tech over.
———
The narrative breaks off there. Further specifics of their actions that day are unknown. Sr. Lt. Griffon stayed with Mil/Space during their re-organization from a corps of mostly specialists to the deadly "Space Marines" known today, a change prompted by huge losses during the fighting on Ganymede. The USSF soldier may have been Cpl. Lawrence Mathis, recorded with Griffon as having been treated for mild radiation exposure aboard FCS Saint Paul (the "Not Minneapolis," a converted former Brazilian seagoing battleship "borrowed" while being towed to the breakers) and repatriated in the war's first prisoner exchange some weeks later. Mathis was reported lost later that year when the USSF Mitchell went missing while investigating a reported Edger smuggling base on the far side off Earth's Moon; no wreckage has yet been found. As for Hawkins, he is known to have died on Ganymede; his body is interred in the monument there, a vast, faintly radioactive raised terrace bulldozed up from the former Far Edge landing field, site of the fiercest fighting and where four ships fell or were destroyed on the surface: USSF landers XL-5 and XL-17, the FCS armed freighter Skidoo and FCS "gunship," the privateer Extraneous.
15 January 2010
The Battle Of Ganymede, Part 1
[Editor's note: Accuracy of this fictionalized account of the only battle fought between FCS forces (Mil/Space and others) and USSF plus NATO allies within Earth's own solar system is in some doubt. Many of the incidents have not been verified and most of them cannot be. The Mil/Space Tech "Hawkins" does appear to be the father of Juliette Hawkins, first known case of Hawkins-F.]
He came to still annoyed, his XM-16E in his lap, a spent casing broken and stuck in the chamber. Frickin' poodleshooter! The light was wrong and he still felt seasick. They said you got used to it but he was starting to doubt that applied to everyone. He reached for his "advanced lightweight combat weapon" — the miserable malfing toy — and winced at sudden pain in his right arm, stabbing like lightning. He looked down and felt his irritation change to a stab of fear as he saw the huge dent in the joint protector at the right shoulder of his spacesuit. Lucky I'm not dead, he thought, pushing the fear away, then raised his head to stare at the empty, icy waste before him, a maze of pressure ridges and drifts of powdered ice and and rock dust, punctuated by the starker black and white chaos of a fresh crater perhaps a hundred feet away. It was hard to judge distances, until he realized a lumpy shape in the middle distance was a spacesuited form, awkwardly sprawled face down; on the edge of the crater, other shapes had to be a helmet, an arm, possibly a torso— He looked back down at his rifle. Yeah, some luck.
It was day three or maybe four of the battle. He was one of the specially-selected, specially-trained USSF ground troops, equipped with state-of-the art weaponry; as far as he had known — and not much cared — six months earlier, a mere handful of men had ever left the Earth and that was just for a few close orbits and a flaming, dangerous return.
The only thing he had known about space travel that had turned out to be true was the danger of re-entry and supposedly the science johnnies were working on that. He wasn't sure what the knowing talk of "gravitational anomalies" meant — there were too many new things to learn that weren't rumor: A decade earlier, the United States, in the person of one adventurously mutinous airman, had reached the Moon in secret. He had died in a crash landing on his return, destroying his vehicle and adding a new crater to the A-bomb range in Nevada. The "Outer Hebrides Agronomy Project" had jumped from raw physics to crude but workable hardware in three years and given rise to top-secret Project Hoplite, an effort by the United States and Western allies to establish a nuclear missile base on the Moon. The project had gone terribly wrong; the limited technology available included a nearly-miraculous faster than light Drive but control was so clumsy that the trip was effectively one-way. The "dedicated scientists" chosen to plan the venture had subverted it, packed the crew with fellow-conspirators and ultimately fled the Lunar base for an unknown destination, sending a single cryptic message when they departed: "We have saved you twice over."
What that could mean, no one was certain. The eventual follow-up trip had found the remains of what appeared to be a Luftwaffe Moonbase not far from the site Project Hoplite had selected and used to launch their unauthorized flight into the unknown, but the German base had obviously been abandoned years earlier. Just as obviously, the later conspirators, the self-described "Federation of Concerned Spacemen" had removed or destroyed anything that might have shed light on the Third Reich's 'Drive technology.
As time passed, reports of "flying saucers" had become more and more frequent; in NORAD-controlled airspace, the vehicles were increasingly elusive. Elsewhere in the world, men willing to deal in cash (or better, barter commodities) found new customers, secretive, close-mouthed foreigners who came and went in ways it was best to not inquire after too closely. NATO and Soviet intelligence services noticed, and drew their own conclusions.
Meanwhile, the remains of OHAP/Hoplite (under the new acronym JANETT) recovered from the Lunar mission's betrayal and grimly set about building what was to become the United States Space Force. As it grew, selected NATO allies -- supportive Brits, incredulous French, inventive Canadians -- were made privy to the secret. Of course the Russians had found out. The hue and cry from HUAC and Senator McCarthy did little to distract them or their spies.
He'd been told none of this when he was encouraged to volunteer for a "unique opportunity to serve;" during the rigorous (and frequently bizarre) training that followed, he and his peers quickly learned that excessive curiosity was one of the many ways to wash out. It wasn't until they were aboard the "experimental Navy transport" City of Philadelphia and well out to sea that they were assembled a squad at a time and given the first lecture of many to follow on the real situation, as the "Navy ship" brought its 'Drives online and squirt-boosted into Earth orbit. Freefall turned out to be a sorting process all its own; despite a lingering, floaty queasiness, he'd been among the first to adapt, rewarded by being put to work securing and cleaning up after the rest.
Philly and her sister vessels were hastily welded-together adaptations from USN's mothball fleet fitted with Stardrives and reaction drives that managed nearly a eighth of Earth-gravity thrust on a good day, hardly enough to keep feet on decks, mess trays on tables and chow in a soldier's stomach, but enough it was, especially if you could keep from thinking about the source of that acceleration. The Raytheon Mk. IIa Stardrive itself was barely-controllable in the gravitational field of a planet; it could reliably hurl the ship away from the surface but that close-in, the possible vectors occupied about a 70-degree hemicone of probability. Unlike later designs, the Mk. IIa was unable to "skim the interface," reducing the ship's effective mass; it could take you up to a selected altitude, more-or-less, and it worked adequately covering vast interplanetary distances but the detail work of accurately getting from place to place took a reaction drive. A rocket. More of a teakettle, really; aiming for simplicity, Philly-class space vehicles used an atomic pile to boil water, the same pile that ran twin, contrarotating steam turbogenerators to power the 'Drive and the rest of the ship's systems. Shielding was...adequate. Personal dosimeters were mandatory.
On the Earth-Moon run and starting stealthily, the ships couldn't carry enough water to manage the constant-boost profile that would have made the trip a day's excursion. Instead, it was a five-day trip. Fifteen minutes at maximum boost five times a day made bright spots of relief from the microgravity provided by the bare minimum water flow needed to keep the pile "lively," at least as lively went, which wasn't much.
Every minute of of the journey not given to rest, meals, meals headed back up and struggling with inadequate, clumsy relief plumbing was taken up by training. Drilled and skilled in the soldier's fundamental arts, he and his fellow-selectees had already been taught the basics of scuba-diving, parachuting, gymnastics and advanced hand-to-hand: everything their superiors thought might be of use without giving away classified information. Now that the secret was revealed, the pace was redoubled. There was a reason for it: America — and her NATO allies — had an enemy in space. The traitors of Project Hoplite were making raids, abducting innocents, mutilating livestock, triggering anti-bomber/antimissile alerts; who knew what they might try next?
Landed — with a grinding, scary thump — and billeted like sardines at USSF's Fort Hiram Q. Snodgrass — "the first American on the Moon and for all that he was an Air Force noncom, the first USSF spacemen and don't you forget it!" — his days and those of his fellow-spacemen became even more crowded: Space-suits, Care, Operation and Field Repair of; The XM-16E, Battle-Rifle Of The Future (plus range time, starting in a huge, isolated, pressurized range and moving to vacuum); Tactics and Maneuver in Vacuum, Zero-G and Low-G (largely speculative). They learned a specialized language of gestures ("Your suit will not have a radio transmitter! Transmitters can be tracked! Transmitters will get you killed!") and practiced working in heavy spacesuit gloves. Specialists learned their shares of thousand-and-one jobs required to support troops fighting and working in the most hostile environment Man's armies had ever taken on. Eventually his cadre, the entire attack group, was ready; the United States Space Force had their ground troops.
The enemy was on Ganymede, possibly Europa as well, snuggled deeper in the strong electromagnetic and gravitational fields that made navigation and communication increasingly difficult the closer ships got to Jupiter. "Fortress Europa" was a grim joke among the planning officers, fretting the uncertain margins of spacecraft performance and human endurance. They reasoned if the rebels could do it, so could our troops, despite the enemy's superior spaceflight technology. NATO/USSF Operation Bounty Hunter was begun at the appointed day and hour, proceeding faultlessly up to landing their new spaceships on Ganymede with all the elan the Moon shuttles had lacked. It had become increasingly less-smooth afterward in a series of brief, bloody firefights, equipment failures and/or overt action.
And it had all come to this: alone in a strange place with a malfunctioning weapon and unknown injuries, the immediate past a thunderous blank. He started to shrug, winced, and set about clearing his rifle one-handed. Step One, remove cleaning kit from buttstock, tricky enough in spacesuit gloves.
* * *
Not two hundred feet away, in a pressurized "hut" concealed, half buried, under a deliberately-random pile of the excavated material, an FCS imaging tech was working to free his superior's leg from a fallen equipment rack that had managed to trap the officer without — as nearly as either man could tell — doing serious harm. He gave the rack another shove, then stopped to poke at a tender spot on his left arm. "Ow!"
"Hawkins?"
"Lieutenant?"
"You do not know from 'Ow' until you have a, h'mm, comms package on your leg. Give it another push."
Hawkins grinned to himself. The Lieutenant was a decent guy and he must not be too badly hurt if he was still dotting every i and crossing every t.
It had taken a series of efforts, Hawkins heaving at the rack as Lt. Griffon inched his left calf free. The effort was not helped when a speaker on the wall began an anemic burbling. Both men turned toward the source of the sound, below which a panel hung slightly askew. One tally on it was flickering.
"'Pressure Low.' Want your fishbowl, Lieutenant?"
"I am almost out from under. Have your ears popped? Mine have not. Two or three more tries and we can both work on the next...challenge."
The other man nodded, realized Griffon wasn't looking at him, shrugged and gave the leaning rack another shove, and another, and the officer was free. Griffon rolled on out from under the table and stood in one smooth motion, patted dust from his garment, then looked down.
"Torn!" Sure enough, the tough, stretchy material of his pressure suit had a vertical, two-inch rip on the side, at mid-calf.
"Stand still." Hawkins swept fallen items aside with his foot and knelt for a closer look. "Could be worse, you didn't get cut."
"Do you think it will hold if wrapped?"
"It should. There's rip-stop gunk in the suit lockers, too. No reason to chance it."
"Absolutely. We had better check on Hix, Feelie and Ferrill, first." The remainder of their team, a remote-sensing outpost for the landing field, had been off-shift in the living quarters module when the impact happened.
"You stop at the lockers, I'll step on through. Deal?"
Griffon favored the soldier with a thin grin. "That's 'Deal, Sir?' And it is."
The suit lockers were next the airlock hatch at one end of the long, narrow enclosure, and opened into both the equipment room and the bunkroom at right angles to it by means of interlocked, pressure-tight hatches. The two sections connected via the main airlock; the suit locker, tucked into the angle between them, could serve as a crude back-up airlock.
The suit locker was only in mild disarray and the main airlock appeared to be intact. Hawkins grabbed his helmet and breather pack from their stowage, stepped into the airlock and secured the hatch. Across the small area, telltales next to the hatch into the living quarters glowed warnings for pressure and temperature, confirmed by direct-reading instruments beside them. "Should've shown up on the alarm board," Hawkins muttered to himself. He tried the hatch anyway. Undogged, it still wouldn't budge. He settled his helmet into place, shrugged into the breather pack, set the valves and then began to cycle the airlock, one careful step at a time.
When the pressure was low enough — surface-normal, a good enough vacuum for most purposes, he opened the hatch into the living quarters.
Into what had been living quarters; he stepped back as debris slid gently into the lock: a battered telltale panel, a ripped girlie calender from a hot-rod shop, unrecognizable lumps of ice and rock falling in slow motion to reveal...an elbow? Possibly. He stood for a moment as the mess came to a stop, puffs of dust still floating, and shook his head. There weren't any pressure-tight bulkheads past the hatch and all the pressure-suit helmets and breathers had been in the locker. No one could be alive in there. Clearing the blockage away, he gently closed and secured the hatch and set to repressurizing the lock. When it had finished cycling, he returned to the equipment room, where Lt. Griffon was winding a stretchy strip of fabric around his pressure-suited calf, covering the tear. Griffon started to speak, caught sight of the other man's face and stopped. His expression grew more somber.
"They're gone, sir." The two traded a look; both of them knew of men who had died in this conflict but never so close. "Looks like that side took a direct hit." The officer nodded. "Has there been any traffic on comms?"
"I haven't heard a peep, but I haven't checked the transceiver yet, either."
The FCS was using a wired-wireless system, low-power FM transceivers obtained surreptitiously on Earth or copied in their own shops, interconnected by coaxial cable. It was inefficient and not completely secure, but cut through the terrific radiofrequency interference around Jupiter better than any other system they'd tried.
Hawkins looked at the fallen rack. Cables exiting the top had parted raggedly. Tubes were still lit in the equipment. "Power's on, those cables were down low and there's plenty of slack, but the coax is broken. I can patch it up well enough."
"Well enough to keep us from being a shining beacon to our foes?"
"Dirtsiders, I'm not too impressed with their SigInt; I think so, sir."
"I would not be too hasty to underrate their abilities, Tech. Hook it up and we shall hope you are right or they are too busy to notice."
Expedient repairs notwithstanding — as long as there's duct tape available, you don't need a mating connector to hook RG-8 cable to an SO-239 jack, though it helps — Hawkin's calls produced no reply.
Griffon checked his watch. "Should be a time pip shortly." But the time came and went; either the officer's watch was a lot worse off than it looked or the radio circuit was dead.
Hawkins was the first to speak. "Nothing. Looks like we walk."
"Indeed."
* * *
On the surface, the soldier was still struggling with his rifle and the cleaning rod while muttering a steady stream of imprecations directed at the Army, USSF and someone apparently named "Damn Ted Armalite." It wasn't helping.
[CONTINUED HERE]
[DELETED SCENE: twenty minutes earlier, under the ice/dust surface, sparse lights flickered on, dimly illuminating drifting haze. A man coughed, retched, then asked, "Oh, holy snakes, what was that?"
From under a table, a fussily-precise voice muttered, "What do you _think?_ They shelled us."
"Um, right. Lieutenant Griffon?"
"None other. And you would still be Hawkins, correct? I don't suppose you're in a position to help me out from under here; my leg appears to be trapped."
The room had been small to begin with; shaken and jumbled, it appeared even smaller. Equipment cabinets were leaning at crazy angles, kept from falling over only by the lack of space to fall into. Hawkins was still strapped in position in front of the imaging display rack, which had rocked but settled back into its original position. He gingerly tried to move, his skintight pressure suit incongruous on his skinny, potbellied body. He poked at a tender spot on his left arm. "Ow!"
"Hawkins?"
"Lieutenant?"
"You do not know from 'Ow' until you have a, h'mm, comms package on your leg. Get over here."
Hawkins grinned to himself. The Lieutenant was a decent guy and he must not be too badly hurt if he was still dotting every i and crossing every t. END DELETED SCENE]
He came to still annoyed, his XM-16E in his lap, a spent casing broken and stuck in the chamber. Frickin' poodleshooter! The light was wrong and he still felt seasick. They said you got used to it but he was starting to doubt that applied to everyone. He reached for his "advanced lightweight combat weapon" — the miserable malfing toy — and winced at sudden pain in his right arm, stabbing like lightning. He looked down and felt his irritation change to a stab of fear as he saw the huge dent in the joint protector at the right shoulder of his spacesuit. Lucky I'm not dead, he thought, pushing the fear away, then raised his head to stare at the empty, icy waste before him, a maze of pressure ridges and drifts of powdered ice and and rock dust, punctuated by the starker black and white chaos of a fresh crater perhaps a hundred feet away. It was hard to judge distances, until he realized a lumpy shape in the middle distance was a spacesuited form, awkwardly sprawled face down; on the edge of the crater, other shapes had to be a helmet, an arm, possibly a torso— He looked back down at his rifle. Yeah, some luck.
It was day three or maybe four of the battle. He was one of the specially-selected, specially-trained USSF ground troops, equipped with state-of-the art weaponry; as far as he had known — and not much cared — six months earlier, a mere handful of men had ever left the Earth and that was just for a few close orbits and a flaming, dangerous return.
The only thing he had known about space travel that had turned out to be true was the danger of re-entry and supposedly the science johnnies were working on that. He wasn't sure what the knowing talk of "gravitational anomalies" meant — there were too many new things to learn that weren't rumor: A decade earlier, the United States, in the person of one adventurously mutinous airman, had reached the Moon in secret. He had died in a crash landing on his return, destroying his vehicle and adding a new crater to the A-bomb range in Nevada. The "Outer Hebrides Agronomy Project" had jumped from raw physics to crude but workable hardware in three years and given rise to top-secret Project Hoplite, an effort by the United States and Western allies to establish a nuclear missile base on the Moon. The project had gone terribly wrong; the limited technology available included a nearly-miraculous faster than light Drive but control was so clumsy that the trip was effectively one-way. The "dedicated scientists" chosen to plan the venture had subverted it, packed the crew with fellow-conspirators and ultimately fled the Lunar base for an unknown destination, sending a single cryptic message when they departed: "We have saved you twice over."
What that could mean, no one was certain. The eventual follow-up trip had found the remains of what appeared to be a Luftwaffe Moonbase not far from the site Project Hoplite had selected and used to launch their unauthorized flight into the unknown, but the German base had obviously been abandoned years earlier. Just as obviously, the later conspirators, the self-described "Federation of Concerned Spacemen" had removed or destroyed anything that might have shed light on the Third Reich's 'Drive technology.
As time passed, reports of "flying saucers" had become more and more frequent; in NORAD-controlled airspace, the vehicles were increasingly elusive. Elsewhere in the world, men willing to deal in cash (or better, barter commodities) found new customers, secretive, close-mouthed foreigners who came and went in ways it was best to not inquire after too closely. NATO and Soviet intelligence services noticed, and drew their own conclusions.
Meanwhile, the remains of OHAP/Hoplite (under the new acronym JANETT) recovered from the Lunar mission's betrayal and grimly set about building what was to become the United States Space Force. As it grew, selected NATO allies -- supportive Brits, incredulous French, inventive Canadians -- were made privy to the secret. Of course the Russians had found out. The hue and cry from HUAC and Senator McCarthy did little to distract them or their spies.
He'd been told none of this when he was encouraged to volunteer for a "unique opportunity to serve;" during the rigorous (and frequently bizarre) training that followed, he and his peers quickly learned that excessive curiosity was one of the many ways to wash out. It wasn't until they were aboard the "experimental Navy transport" City of Philadelphia and well out to sea that they were assembled a squad at a time and given the first lecture of many to follow on the real situation, as the "Navy ship" brought its 'Drives online and squirt-boosted into Earth orbit. Freefall turned out to be a sorting process all its own; despite a lingering, floaty queasiness, he'd been among the first to adapt, rewarded by being put to work securing and cleaning up after the rest.
Philly and her sister vessels were hastily welded-together adaptations from USN's mothball fleet fitted with Stardrives and reaction drives that managed nearly a eighth of Earth-gravity thrust on a good day, hardly enough to keep feet on decks, mess trays on tables and chow in a soldier's stomach, but enough it was, especially if you could keep from thinking about the source of that acceleration. The Raytheon Mk. IIa Stardrive itself was barely-controllable in the gravitational field of a planet; it could reliably hurl the ship away from the surface but that close-in, the possible vectors occupied about a 70-degree hemicone of probability. Unlike later designs, the Mk. IIa was unable to "skim the interface," reducing the ship's effective mass; it could take you up to a selected altitude, more-or-less, and it worked adequately covering vast interplanetary distances but the detail work of accurately getting from place to place took a reaction drive. A rocket. More of a teakettle, really; aiming for simplicity, Philly-class space vehicles used an atomic pile to boil water, the same pile that ran twin, contrarotating steam turbogenerators to power the 'Drive and the rest of the ship's systems. Shielding was...adequate. Personal dosimeters were mandatory.
On the Earth-Moon run and starting stealthily, the ships couldn't carry enough water to manage the constant-boost profile that would have made the trip a day's excursion. Instead, it was a five-day trip. Fifteen minutes at maximum boost five times a day made bright spots of relief from the microgravity provided by the bare minimum water flow needed to keep the pile "lively," at least as lively went, which wasn't much.
Every minute of of the journey not given to rest, meals, meals headed back up and struggling with inadequate, clumsy relief plumbing was taken up by training. Drilled and skilled in the soldier's fundamental arts, he and his fellow-selectees had already been taught the basics of scuba-diving, parachuting, gymnastics and advanced hand-to-hand: everything their superiors thought might be of use without giving away classified information. Now that the secret was revealed, the pace was redoubled. There was a reason for it: America — and her NATO allies — had an enemy in space. The traitors of Project Hoplite were making raids, abducting innocents, mutilating livestock, triggering anti-bomber/antimissile alerts; who knew what they might try next?
Landed — with a grinding, scary thump — and billeted like sardines at USSF's Fort Hiram Q. Snodgrass — "the first American on the Moon and for all that he was an Air Force noncom, the first USSF spacemen and don't you forget it!" — his days and those of his fellow-spacemen became even more crowded: Space-suits, Care, Operation and Field Repair of; The XM-16E, Battle-Rifle Of The Future (plus range time, starting in a huge, isolated, pressurized range and moving to vacuum); Tactics and Maneuver in Vacuum, Zero-G and Low-G (largely speculative). They learned a specialized language of gestures ("Your suit will not have a radio transmitter! Transmitters can be tracked! Transmitters will get you killed!") and practiced working in heavy spacesuit gloves. Specialists learned their shares of thousand-and-one jobs required to support troops fighting and working in the most hostile environment Man's armies had ever taken on. Eventually his cadre, the entire attack group, was ready; the United States Space Force had their ground troops.
The enemy was on Ganymede, possibly Europa as well, snuggled deeper in the strong electromagnetic and gravitational fields that made navigation and communication increasingly difficult the closer ships got to Jupiter. "Fortress Europa" was a grim joke among the planning officers, fretting the uncertain margins of spacecraft performance and human endurance. They reasoned if the rebels could do it, so could our troops, despite the enemy's superior spaceflight technology. NATO/USSF Operation Bounty Hunter was begun at the appointed day and hour, proceeding faultlessly up to landing their new spaceships on Ganymede with all the elan the Moon shuttles had lacked. It had become increasingly less-smooth afterward in a series of brief, bloody firefights, equipment failures and/or overt action.
And it had all come to this: alone in a strange place with a malfunctioning weapon and unknown injuries, the immediate past a thunderous blank. He started to shrug, winced, and set about clearing his rifle one-handed. Step One, remove cleaning kit from buttstock, tricky enough in spacesuit gloves.
"Hawkins?"
"Lieutenant?"
"You do not know from 'Ow' until you have a, h'mm, comms package on your leg. Give it another push."
Hawkins grinned to himself. The Lieutenant was a decent guy and he must not be too badly hurt if he was still dotting every i and crossing every t.
"'Pressure Low.' Want your fishbowl, Lieutenant?"
"I am almost out from under. Have your ears popped? Mine have not. Two or three more tries and we can both work on the next...challenge."
The other man nodded, realized Griffon wasn't looking at him, shrugged and gave the leaning rack another shove, and another, and the officer was free. Griffon rolled on out from under the table and stood in one smooth motion, patted dust from his garment, then looked down.
"Torn!" Sure enough, the tough, stretchy material of his pressure suit had a vertical, two-inch rip on the side, at mid-calf.
"Stand still." Hawkins swept fallen items aside with his foot and knelt for a closer look. "Could be worse, you didn't get cut."
"Do you think it will hold if wrapped?"
"It should. There's rip-stop gunk in the suit lockers, too. No reason to chance it."
"Absolutely. We had better check on Hix, Feelie and Ferrill, first." The remainder of their team, a remote-sensing outpost for the landing field, had been off-shift in the living quarters module when the impact happened.
"You stop at the lockers, I'll step on through. Deal?"
Griffon favored the soldier with a thin grin. "That's 'Deal, Sir?' And it is."
The suit lockers were next the airlock hatch at one end of the long, narrow enclosure, and opened into both the equipment room and the bunkroom at right angles to it by means of interlocked, pressure-tight hatches. The two sections connected via the main airlock; the suit locker, tucked into the angle between them, could serve as a crude back-up airlock.
The suit locker was only in mild disarray and the main airlock appeared to be intact. Hawkins grabbed his helmet and breather pack from their stowage, stepped into the airlock and secured the hatch. Across the small area, telltales next to the hatch into the living quarters glowed warnings for pressure and temperature, confirmed by direct-reading instruments beside them. "Should've shown up on the alarm board," Hawkins muttered to himself. He tried the hatch anyway. Undogged, it still wouldn't budge. He settled his helmet into place, shrugged into the breather pack, set the valves and then began to cycle the airlock, one careful step at a time.
When the pressure was low enough — surface-normal, a good enough vacuum for most purposes, he opened the hatch into the living quarters.
Into what had been living quarters; he stepped back as debris slid gently into the lock: a battered telltale panel, a ripped girlie calender from a hot-rod shop, unrecognizable lumps of ice and rock falling in slow motion to reveal...an elbow? Possibly. He stood for a moment as the mess came to a stop, puffs of dust still floating, and shook his head. There weren't any pressure-tight bulkheads past the hatch and all the pressure-suit helmets and breathers had been in the locker. No one could be alive in there. Clearing the blockage away, he gently closed and secured the hatch and set to repressurizing the lock. When it had finished cycling, he returned to the equipment room, where Lt. Griffon was winding a stretchy strip of fabric around his pressure-suited calf, covering the tear. Griffon started to speak, caught sight of the other man's face and stopped. His expression grew more somber.
"They're gone, sir." The two traded a look; both of them knew of men who had died in this conflict but never so close. "Looks like that side took a direct hit." The officer nodded. "Has there been any traffic on comms?"
"I haven't heard a peep, but I haven't checked the transceiver yet, either."
The FCS was using a wired-wireless system, low-power FM transceivers obtained surreptitiously on Earth or copied in their own shops, interconnected by coaxial cable. It was inefficient and not completely secure, but cut through the terrific radiofrequency interference around Jupiter better than any other system they'd tried.
Hawkins looked at the fallen rack. Cables exiting the top had parted raggedly. Tubes were still lit in the equipment. "Power's on, those cables were down low and there's plenty of slack, but the coax is broken. I can patch it up well enough."
"Well enough to keep us from being a shining beacon to our foes?"
"Dirtsiders, I'm not too impressed with their SigInt; I think so, sir."
"I would not be too hasty to underrate their abilities, Tech. Hook it up and we shall hope you are right or they are too busy to notice."
Expedient repairs notwithstanding — as long as there's duct tape available, you don't need a mating connector to hook RG-8 cable to an SO-239 jack, though it helps — Hawkin's calls produced no reply.
Griffon checked his watch. "Should be a time pip shortly." But the time came and went; either the officer's watch was a lot worse off than it looked or the radio circuit was dead.
Hawkins was the first to speak. "Nothing. Looks like we walk."
"Indeed."
On the surface, the soldier was still struggling with his rifle and the cleaning rod while muttering a steady stream of imprecations directed at the Army, USSF and someone apparently named "Damn Ted Armalite." It wasn't helping.
[CONTINUED HERE]
[DELETED SCENE: twenty minutes earlier, under the ice/dust surface, sparse lights flickered on, dimly illuminating drifting haze. A man coughed, retched, then asked, "Oh, holy snakes, what was that?"
From under a table, a fussily-precise voice muttered, "What do you _think?_ They shelled us."
"Um, right. Lieutenant Griffon?"
"None other. And you would still be Hawkins, correct? I don't suppose you're in a position to help me out from under here; my leg appears to be trapped."
The room had been small to begin with; shaken and jumbled, it appeared even smaller. Equipment cabinets were leaning at crazy angles, kept from falling over only by the lack of space to fall into. Hawkins was still strapped in position in front of the imaging display rack, which had rocked but settled back into its original position. He gingerly tried to move, his skintight pressure suit incongruous on his skinny, potbellied body. He poked at a tender spot on his left arm. "Ow!"
"Hawkins?"
"Lieutenant?"
"You do not know from 'Ow' until you have a, h'mm, comms package on your leg. Get over here."
Hawkins grinned to himself. The Lieutenant was a decent guy and he must not be too badly hurt if he was still dotting every i and crossing every t. END DELETED SCENE]
21 December 2009
Slap-Happy Holidays
I walked into the Engineering Shop to start my shift, only to discover Jonny Zedd was holding forth to Kent Good on the care and feeding of our few remaining multitrack data recorders, using the one Kent had opened up on a service cart as a podium. He went on and on, about how there are no moving parts in the head assembly (wrong), how none of the device-specific mechanical or electronic parts can be had (way wrong; [a major Japanese manufacturer] did grab up the product line long ago but they've continued to support it — and long-time USSF supplier Universal Actives second-sources everything but the front panel.
I listened agog at the depth of misinformation as Johnny wound down and departed on the hour, his shift being over. Kent shook his head, sighed and smiled.
"You're a patient man," I told him; Kent came to us after a couple of decades in Engineering on a smaller ship of the same vintage as the Lupine, which means it would have had the exact same recorders. "Gave you the skinny, did he? Jonny's killed at least a half dozen of those things since I signed aboard."
Kent smiled even more broadly. "I know. I'm into this one after he 'fixed' it. But you stop — Christmas is just next week."
He's right. Merry Christmas to Kent, Handsome Dave, C, Jay, The Chief and especially, Jonny Zed — and f'pity's sake, Jon, don't get too ambitious! Merry Christmas to us all.
Merry Christmas to my readers, too.
I listened agog at the depth of misinformation as Johnny wound down and departed on the hour, his shift being over. Kent shook his head, sighed and smiled.
"You're a patient man," I told him; Kent came to us after a couple of decades in Engineering on a smaller ship of the same vintage as the Lupine, which means it would have had the exact same recorders. "Gave you the skinny, did he? Jonny's killed at least a half dozen of those things since I signed aboard."
Kent smiled even more broadly. "I know. I'm into this one after he 'fixed' it. But you stop — Christmas is just next week."
He's right. Merry Christmas to Kent, Handsome Dave, C, Jay, The Chief and especially, Jonny Zed — and f'pity's sake, Jon, don't get too ambitious! Merry Christmas to us all.
Merry Christmas to my readers, too.
11 December 2009
Inbound: Going Bump In The Night
Lupine, a ten-mile-long city in flight Blish never dreamed of, was coasting in zero-g. This is no fun but we'd bounced in a little off-kilter and Navs had so decreed. If you're not susceptible to falling dreams, it's not so bad for sleeping; tuck in the covers and drift off like Little Nemo! I woke up about three-quarters when the alarm sounded and my cabin lights blinked on and then off again. From the phone panel set in the wall next to my bunk: "Final warning! Acceleration in thirty seconds! Take hold!"
It sounded like Navs finally had us lined up for our first inbound course correction.. About time; I was already tired of squeeze-bulb instant coffee. I hoped it was going to be a long burn.
I was still recovering from my brush with death at the hands of a unbalanced Edger -- or a fanatical member of their Home Guard, take your pick; either way, Irene nearly got me. I'd been sleeping a lot and ordering in meals; it's not cheap but even though Dr. Poole himself had cleared me to go back to work (and the Chief was fuming at his restricting me to light duty, or at least faking it convincingly), I was not a hundred percent.
So I just laid there muzzy headed for a few minutes before blinking my eyes into some semblance of focus and palming the lights back on -- there's a handy switch for that, right below the telephone panel -- then took a quick look around. Nothing unsecured but my jeans and they weren't going to hurt anything. It's not like a NASA-front moon shot from the '60s; Lupine ramps up thrust over a period of several hours to get back to our normal three-quarters g, plenty enough to make down stay down. With that happy thought, I drifted back into a big, fluffy gray cloud of sleep.
BA-BUMP! A big double jolt woke me right at the threshold of sleep. I kept my eyes shut, thinking, hoping, probably just a reflexive kick, and drifted back off.
Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzt. BZZT! BZZT! "BOBBI!" It was later but I had no idea how much. Lights were still on, my pager was bleeping and the telephone was saying my name. I slapped at the big PHONE button, said something and got a worried-sounding reply. "Bobbi? You awake?" It was Kent.
"Mororless... Wha...?"
"I said, are you up?"
"YES. Whaddizzit?"
"I dunno, the 'Drive just dropped off and we can't restart it. Drive Control keeps getting SWR trips. Doc Schmid was here and he said to call you -- he's already headed for the 'Drive compartment."
Lupine's Second Officer is a first-rate Navs boffin and fully-qualified for 'Drive work but it's been a very long time since he slung solder or swung a wrench. Suddenly I was a lot more awake. And it hit me what the double bump had been: 'Drive quits while we're under heavy thrust; we stop bein' so slippery in realspace and the reaction drives throttle up to compensate, almost immediately. "Almost" is what makes it bumpy. The big MHDs downstream of the fusion reactors (all of it tended by the Power Room gang) have significant control lag -- jokingly known as "turbo lag" -- so all the RF-pumped ion maneuvering drives already running on our normal "down" axis were briefly pushed to 120% and then backed off in a not-quite compliment to the MHD starting to roar. All perfectly normal behavior, not that you ever get used to it. I sat up, peeked around the corner to see if I'd left the phone camera off (yes), got up and started digging out clothes. "Tell him I'm on my way." So much for that nice warm bunk and a full night's sleep. "Have you made sure Navs is aware?"
Kemp averred that A) he had; B) the navigators were swearing and C) they wanted our best guess when we'd have the 'Drive online again ASAP. No doubt -- with the 'Drive pulsing away on low, we can cheat at physics; lose it and they're unexpectedly playing at Newton's table. Oh, there'll be one or two what-ifs covering this kind of failure running already, there's a reason most starship navs types are avid chess and Go players, but they've got to get it updated in a hurry and start working up what-ifs based on how soon we get the 'Drive running.
Nice damn timing. An SWR fault, especially at the low power level used for sub-light maneuvering, is about sure to be between the big final amplifiers we were headed in to replace and the CLASSIFIED, or possibly between it and the 'Drive field radiator. Easily-found external evidence of exactly where it might be is unlikely.
One item in our favor I didn't find out about until I got to the 'Drive compartment was we had some extra and very high-zoot test gear; while I slept, Dr. Schmid had received a Mad Rushin' delivery of an elderly but nice Network Analyzer, on loan from the Company HQ, Earthside -- Earthsideish, that is: Farside City on the backside of the Moon. He had decided it couldn't hurt to have a look at the CLASSIFIED and the new combining system using our own gear and ansibled the request right before we dropped back into normal space.
A quick aside for readers not out here on the Hidden Frontier: "Mad Rushin'" or "Mad Russian" is a nickname; the outfit calls itself "Express Delivery Service," only in Russian, and they fly small, egg-shaped FTL vehicles that consist of a hot (in more than one sense) power plant and oversized Stardrive, a smallish cargo bay, a screamin' basic Navs setup and one (1) young, well-trained, enthusiastic and optimistic Russian star-flyer in a ruggedized space suit; there's no other enclosed life-support. Most of the "drivers" were born on the old Red planets, nearly all are former Soviet Space Arm (the real one) and every last one of them is a born gambler. The death toll isn't quite as bad as you might think but nobody's offering them life insurance policies -- and when it absolutely, positively has to be there in four days or less and price isn't a concern, your best (and most often only) option is a Mad Russian, popping in and out of a high-order 'Drive field and taking exactly as many Rads as his employer's medical advisers permit. A difficult-to-read font I assume is Cryllic says "BisPosEtKom"[1] on the olive-and-crimson labels, but in English just about everybody calls it some version of "Mad Rush Shipping," including them. Story is that most of their courier ships have been retrofitted to modern fusion reactors now but nobody's willing to sneak aboard to check and most of the hulls still have "hot" spots, so you can't be sure from a distance. So, now you're up to speed -- and so was I, on a mad rush of my own.
It's a good ways to the closest connection between the crew-level slidewalk system and the ship's only direct maintenance-vehicle connection between the control center and the 'Drive compartment. This is all to the good, as there's no slidewalk in it, just narrow, railed walks along the sides. I jog-trotted that stretch, grabbed wildly at the rail when the deck swayed once, kept moving and was out of breath when I came through the hatch to find Dr. Schmid, Big Tom and four suited-up riggers looking every bit as happy as you might expect guys who'd normally be hitting the bars and/or the arcade about now. Tom looked sheepish and the conversation shortly revealed why.
Dr. Schmid said, "Oh, hi, Bobbi," and as I dogged the hatch,he added, "The Chief'll be here any minute with the adapters and cables."
I looked at him and raised an eyebrow.
Tom spoke up, "Um, I was told was to bring the analyzer; I didn't see anything that looked related near it."
Dr. Schmid managed to look tired and noncommittal at the same time. "Power's up as high as we can make without VSWR shut-down."
I glanced at the control rack display for the 'Drive finals: idling at about two percent peak power, with a duty cycle that should knock our effective mass down to about 85 percent, and asked if the riggers had 'laid hands' on the big coax yet. The crew boss, Dan, shifted uneasily and said, "Nope; we'll have to rig and I figured you guys would want to make with the Big Science first."
"Can you send two guys out with an IR camera, scope the line, and then get started with as much as can be done without shutting down the Stardrive?"
He nodded and glanced at Dr. Schmid, who nodded back and said, "Might as well. We'll watch on the monitor in here, get as many eyes on it as we can. At ten percent..."
"Yeah, we might not see much." The boss rigger turned to his crew. "Randy, Jer, gear up and head on out."
* * *
Sure enough, we didn't see much; maybe a warm spot seventy meters out but zooming in didn't resolve it any better. The riggers packed up the IR camera and began, well, rigging, setting up the lines and winch they'd need if we'd lost a section of transmission line. In the accessway along the CLASSIFIED, Big Tom and I unstowed two spare concentric-line sections (19.35 feet long, 6.125" OD and much too heavy even at Lupine's normal three-quarter g; there's a lot of copper in them) and laid them ready on the deck.
As we ambled back into the 'Drive compartment proper, the Chief arrived carrying a mailbin loaded with books (hey, Starship Company, ever heard of CD-ROMS? Thumb drives?), bright blue precision cables and two big boxes of adapters and calibration ends (shorted, open and cal-lab-accurate 50 Ohms) for the network analyzer, each marked KEEP WITH NET. AN. AT ALL TIMES!!! "Found it under a 50-foot coil of 12/3 cable, the whole thing bungee-netted to the deck," he puffed.
Big Tom looked relieved at this news. I took the bin from the Chief, hauled it around behind the Stardrive final amplifers to the analyzer, sat it down and dug out a book, right volume on my first try; it'd been at least a decade since I'd messed with one of these and the trick we needed to do -- swept bandpass time domain reflectometry, "radar on a rope" -- is not the most obvious mode to set up. If all you remember about a thing is that it was difficult and counterintuitive, it can be a powerful incentive to relearn fast. All the more when your boss and his boss have both walked back to look interestedly over your shoulder.
Chapter 2, INSTRUMENT MODES, page 2-12, TIME DOMAIN, just a brief description of Option 010. Chap.6, MEASUREMENT, page 6-29, pay dirt! Bandpass TDR, yes, yes.... I punched buttons and got into Transform mode, nifty, set Start and Stop and hey-dammit! Can't get the thing pushed out past a couple hundred nanoseconds, not ten pecent of the time (distance) we'd need. I looked around in frustration to see the Chief take his celphone from his ear and make a throat-cutting motion, turned to see Big Tom walk back to the front of the 'Drive finals and heard the big contactors thud open as the Lupine jolted with the ion drives throttling up in transition. The 'Drive was off; Dr. Schmid cranked the manual coax switch knob around, disconnecting the CLASSIFIED and connecting the line to the 'Drive radiator array with the test port; he hooked one of the precision cables to it and leaned over to connect the far end to the Network Analyzer.
I tried setting the Stop limit to the right value: nothing doing. Knew I was overlooking something but there's nothing in the book... Sweep menu? Start freq, stop freq, right across the critical (and, you bet your life, classified!) band, okay. Now, linear or log sweep? H'mm, it's in linear; I toggled it and went back to the the Transform menu and Lo! A shining victory for semi-panicked fobbing-at-controls! I punched the STIMULUS: STOP button, spun the manual-setting knob and walked the end of the displayed 'scope trace out the line... At 95 meters, a small spike, fine; then at 165, pow! Right off the scale! "Got it, Doc!"
"Don't be hasty," he warned me, "You're not even halfway out."
But there were no other big blips, right out to the gentle trailing-off of the 'Drive array. One-sixty-five was our culprit. Dr. Schmid used his phone to dial into suit radio comms and have the riggers give the line a good whack at the proper point (82 and half meters, since the analyzer gives you the there and back distance). I took out my calculator and came up with the flange between line sections 10 and 11 as the most likely and sure enough, slapping that flange made the spike on the Analyzer's TDR trace dance.
It was enough to even convince Dr. Schmid; he smiled and agreed we needed to replace both sections, while cautioning me to be prepared to find even more damage, "...once the big discontinuity is remedied." He's right far more often than not.
Dr. Schmid took the Chief off to one side and started a whispered conversation. I didn't really intend to overhear but caught, "...found it now...might as well go get what sleep you can. You look like hell and you were awake two days straight when we almost lost--" He noticed me not-really-listening, shot me a look that was almost a glare and I decided to see if there was something useful I could do farther away.
Finding the problem is half the repair; with the 'Drive offline, Lupine was still burning through reaction mass at a wasteful rate. The long accessway for the CLASSIFIED ends at the regular airlock the first pair of riggers had used. The hatch between the accessway and the 'Drive compartment is a full airlock hatch, not just pressure-rated, with a second set of indicators and controls for exactly this job, hauling sections of high-power concentric-line out into the Great Beyond. It's an annoyingly large enclosed volume and takes awhile to pump down. As soon as we'd decided to replace the two suspicious sections, boss rigger Dan and his helper Adrian ("He's a new guy -- transferred up from window-washer in the greenhouse." Or maybe he has a Ph.D. Riggers, I never know if they're serious) had sealed up their suits, shut the hatch and started it cycling. You can't scavenge all the air with a practical pump but you can save a lot of it; unfortunately, the amount lost is proportional to the enclosed volume. So we don't use the big lock unless we must; Lupine is huge but this is a negative-sum game.
Dr. Schmid and I passed the time running the network analyzer and showing Big Tom how to use it. I'd called up the suit radio channel on the 'Drive compartment phone and in speaker mode, we listened to Dan and his crew discussing the job, with occasional comments from the safety officer on duty in the Control Room. Eventually, we felt more than heard the outer hatch open; by then, the first two riggers had unbolted the line sections, jacked the line apart and removed them, and were ready for the two new pieces.
The rest is "mere mechanics," as they who don't have to do it say. The riggers dropped the new sections in, bolted them up and we repressurized the line with dry air to 3 psi above ship standard.[2] Meanwhile the riggers gathered at the hatch, killing time. Takes about fifteen minutes to air the line back up and another fifteen to be sure we don't have any really egregious leaks; there's no point cycling them back in 'til we're sure their work has succeeded.
The first part of pressure-testing doesn't take much attention. Much more interesting was the network analyzer display, now minus the big mismatch blips. There were a few tiny wiggles on the display but nothing's perfect. Ten minutes after shutting off the air supply, the gauge hadn't budged a tick down from just-over-three. Doc Schmid cocked an eye at me and said, "Let's apply some power!" He reached up and started cranking the transfer switch back from TEST to NORMAL.
I went over to the phone, picked up the handset, "Dan? You have have your field-strength meters handy? We're going to bring the 'Drive up slowly; if they get even close to yellow, sing out!" 'Drive energy is nothing to get casual about. "Yellow" on the little meters riggers are supposed to carry is well below the danger level: better safe than cooked.
Punched up another line, the hotline to Drive Control. Eric answered. Good; he's nearly unflappable. "Eric? We're gonna try running the 'Drive up to about ten or twelve percent; set it at 20% duty cycle. Match me with the ion drives, okay?"
"Are you callin' Power Room, or should I? They're kind of unhappy since the big glitch."
"I'll leave that to your tact and diplomacy. Five minutes -- you'll see the rig fire up on the remotes. I'll start at zero and bring it up slowly."
He laughed and hung up. Doc Schmid gave me a nod. "Five minutes. You do it."
Fine by me -- brass he may be but he's got entirely too much faith in the goodwill of the universe to suit me.
Our 2/O has an endless supply of anecdotes, a good many for the days when men were men and 'Drive techs occasionally got knocked into the middle of next week, not always metaphorically. This one involved the old City of Louisville, a water-cooled Klystron-like 'Drive final and contaminated cooling water. I really hope it's not true, but it does begin to explain how the Lousy got its other nickname. After five minutes of that, I double-checked the Christmas Tree displays on the front of each 'Drive power amp, green side lit to READY and red all off, and pushed the BEAM ON button. The compartment lights flickered as the high voltage supplies step-started; the 'Drive came up at zero power, standing current only, and then one of the three finals crowbarred to OFF.
I said a Very Bad Word (as is my habit when these noisy little bobbles occur), checked to see that output was indeed zero, cleared the fault and put that final amp back to STANDBY. Quick as it was, the timers were still happy and the READY led lit up in a few seconds. Gave Dr. Schmid a glance, he nodded and I pushed the BEAM button again. The reluctant amplifier came up, stayed on and I started to breathe again.
Time to see what happens next; I tapped on the RAISE POWER button and watched the Forward Power meters for all three finals and the combined output lurch up a tick. One percent, two, three.... The floor briefly felt a bit greasy underfoot, then steadied. Eric was tracking the (apparent) change in real-world mass very closely. He's good at it. Ran power up a little more, inching up to ten percent. Not a wriggle on the Reflected Power meter. This is what we can safely call A Good Sign. I stepped on up to twelve percent and it stayed steady.
A quick word about power: the meters on the 'Drive finals (and the remotes at DQ) are reading peak power; average power is what fiddles with our relationship to the rest of universe. The average power depends on the waveform, which in normal space is just a pulse, with varying on/off times depending on just how skittery Navs wants the ship to be. It gets way worse making a hole in reality and wrapping the ship up in it but Highly Classified Complexity aside, it's still average power that does the work.[3] So who cares about peak power? Engineering does; it's on the peaks that insulators break down, phantasmajector tubes find fun new ways to fail, and so on and so forth. Like the time we proved (by unwanted example) that Tweed's baseplates for the high voltage safety switches tended to absorb moisture from the air, though we had some help from defective E&PP climate-control with that one; but that's another story. Keep notes -- you might fall on hard times and have to work as a 'Drive tech some day!
Meanwhile, Dr. Schmid was already on the horn with the riggers, asking for another IR scan and redundantly cautioning them to mind their field-strength meters. He hung up and turned to me, "Have Eric hand off thrust to the MHD and we'll run 'er up some more. Might as well find out now if it's going to fail." He was grinning. Unusually for the breed, he loves this kind of dice roll. Me, not so much.
Still, he's right. I'd rather find out inbound to a planet than heading for a Jump or part-way through, especially when our destination has repair facilities. Another call to Eric and some discussion of ion thrust hand-off to Power/MHD, 'Drive duty-cycles and peak power later, Drive Control had walked us down to 1% on-time and I was gradually increasing power again. Without the complex modulation that wraps the ship up in a pocket universe and squirts it along at a rate that has outpaced light when we pop back into normal space at the end of a Jump, it's highly predictable but the shorter the duty cycle, the worse the effects if there's any stutter or irregularity. It nearly always goes okay; but even 10,000-sided dice with one bad side still do have that bad side.
On the other hand, every Jump is a dice roll, too, with a lot more at stake than the jars and bumps of abruptly varying thrust. Lupine is huge but resilient; built for battle, her structure bends under stress instead of breaking. I wasn't especially worried but I kept a hand on a grab bar and my toes under the footrail[4] as I ran the output past 70 percent peak power. The rig stayed steady as can be. Not a tick on the Reflected Power meter.
The boss rigger called in to admit their field strength meters were now indeed at the lower edge of yellow, so we held at 70 for ten minutes, fifteen, twenty.... Dr. Schmid pronounced himself satisfied. He had me run the 'Drive back down to ten percent and hand off full control to Eric in DQ, adding, "Have him call up Navs for their latest runcharts and load them in the automation; I have no doubt we'll soon be hearing from Port Control."
As it turned out, he was right.
The riggers were already cycling the lock, having carried the bad line sections in with them. The bad line would have to go off to one of the machine shops for repair. We were back in the starship business once again.
_________________________
1. "Bistro Postev'tee Etu Kompaniya," something like, "Deliver This NOW Co." Alternatively and with typically-mordant humor, if you catch one of their brave (or shal'noi, loony; most likely both) pilots when he's well-rested, he'll tell you it means "Now deliver (save) this company," profit margins being very slim when your business model is based on what amounts to a nuke-powered top fuel dragster with a cargo bed. Increasing Internet connectivity is helping a lot, since their dispatching and routing problems are, literally, cosmic. It has paid off for them in other ways, too: every Mad Rushin' vehicle carries an ansible, an e-mail node, ginromous RAID arrays and several different versions of normal-space wireless data transceivers. They've got contracts with many planetary ISPs to carry the e-mail but their own traffic comes first.
2. For the nuts'n'bolts types, what we're breathin' is an oxygen/nitrogen mix at less-than-Denver pressure and with a bit more oxygen than they serve in Colorado. We could air up the concentric line with anything nonreactive, as all we're really after is to keep the inner-conductor connectors from vacuum-welding, prolong the life of the PTFE parts and give hot spots a little extra cooling help. In the old days, they used high-pressure tanks of nitrogen, hauled up and aft from E&PP's chemical plant (greenhouse fertilizer, gunk for air, water and sewage processing and on and on), but a pair of nifty little commercial gizmos do the job now with a lot less heavy lifting and a way lower chance of inadvertent cold-gas torpedoes.
3. Well, really it's RMS power, but you either knew that already or don't care. If you ever need the info, you'll learn it.
4. After every stretch of zero-g time, in addition to the usual bumps, bruises and et learning the hard way that mass remains even when weight is imperceptible cetera, the ship's clinics receive a steady stream of patients with sore feet, skinned toes and suchlike; bracing your feet under the toerails when they don't stick to the deck by themselves gets to be a habit but humans're not really built for it.
It sounded like Navs finally had us lined up for our first inbound course correction.. About time; I was already tired of squeeze-bulb instant coffee. I hoped it was going to be a long burn.
I was still recovering from my brush with death at the hands of a unbalanced Edger -- or a fanatical member of their Home Guard, take your pick; either way, Irene nearly got me. I'd been sleeping a lot and ordering in meals; it's not cheap but even though Dr. Poole himself had cleared me to go back to work (and the Chief was fuming at his restricting me to light duty, or at least faking it convincingly), I was not a hundred percent.
So I just laid there muzzy headed for a few minutes before blinking my eyes into some semblance of focus and palming the lights back on -- there's a handy switch for that, right below the telephone panel -- then took a quick look around. Nothing unsecured but my jeans and they weren't going to hurt anything. It's not like a NASA-front moon shot from the '60s; Lupine ramps up thrust over a period of several hours to get back to our normal three-quarters g, plenty enough to make down stay down. With that happy thought, I drifted back into a big, fluffy gray cloud of sleep.
BA-BUMP! A big double jolt woke me right at the threshold of sleep. I kept my eyes shut, thinking, hoping, probably just a reflexive kick, and drifted back off.
Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzt. BZZT! BZZT! "BOBBI!" It was later but I had no idea how much. Lights were still on, my pager was bleeping and the telephone was saying my name. I slapped at the big PHONE button, said something and got a worried-sounding reply. "Bobbi? You awake?" It was Kent.
"Mororless... Wha...?"
"I said, are you up?"
"YES. Whaddizzit?"
"I dunno, the 'Drive just dropped off and we can't restart it. Drive Control keeps getting SWR trips. Doc Schmid was here and he said to call you -- he's already headed for the 'Drive compartment."
Lupine's Second Officer is a first-rate Navs boffin and fully-qualified for 'Drive work but it's been a very long time since he slung solder or swung a wrench. Suddenly I was a lot more awake. And it hit me what the double bump had been: 'Drive quits while we're under heavy thrust; we stop bein' so slippery in realspace and the reaction drives throttle up to compensate, almost immediately. "Almost" is what makes it bumpy. The big MHDs downstream of the fusion reactors (all of it tended by the Power Room gang) have significant control lag -- jokingly known as "turbo lag" -- so all the RF-pumped ion maneuvering drives already running on our normal "down" axis were briefly pushed to 120% and then backed off in a not-quite compliment to the MHD starting to roar. All perfectly normal behavior, not that you ever get used to it. I sat up, peeked around the corner to see if I'd left the phone camera off (yes), got up and started digging out clothes. "Tell him I'm on my way." So much for that nice warm bunk and a full night's sleep. "Have you made sure Navs is aware?"
Kemp averred that A) he had; B) the navigators were swearing and C) they wanted our best guess when we'd have the 'Drive online again ASAP. No doubt -- with the 'Drive pulsing away on low, we can cheat at physics; lose it and they're unexpectedly playing at Newton's table. Oh, there'll be one or two what-ifs covering this kind of failure running already, there's a reason most starship navs types are avid chess and Go players, but they've got to get it updated in a hurry and start working up what-ifs based on how soon we get the 'Drive running.
Nice damn timing. An SWR fault, especially at the low power level used for sub-light maneuvering, is about sure to be between the big final amplifiers we were headed in to replace and the CLASSIFIED, or possibly between it and the 'Drive field radiator. Easily-found external evidence of exactly where it might be is unlikely.
One item in our favor I didn't find out about until I got to the 'Drive compartment was we had some extra and very high-zoot test gear; while I slept, Dr. Schmid had received a Mad Rushin' delivery of an elderly but nice Network Analyzer, on loan from the Company HQ, Earthside -- Earthsideish, that is: Farside City on the backside of the Moon. He had decided it couldn't hurt to have a look at the CLASSIFIED and the new combining system using our own gear and ansibled the request right before we dropped back into normal space.
A quick aside for readers not out here on the Hidden Frontier: "Mad Rushin'" or "Mad Russian" is a nickname; the outfit calls itself "Express Delivery Service," only in Russian, and they fly small, egg-shaped FTL vehicles that consist of a hot (in more than one sense) power plant and oversized Stardrive, a smallish cargo bay, a screamin' basic Navs setup and one (1) young, well-trained, enthusiastic and optimistic Russian star-flyer in a ruggedized space suit; there's no other enclosed life-support. Most of the "drivers" were born on the old Red planets, nearly all are former Soviet Space Arm (the real one) and every last one of them is a born gambler. The death toll isn't quite as bad as you might think but nobody's offering them life insurance policies -- and when it absolutely, positively has to be there in four days or less and price isn't a concern, your best (and most often only) option is a Mad Russian, popping in and out of a high-order 'Drive field and taking exactly as many Rads as his employer's medical advisers permit. A difficult-to-read font I assume is Cryllic says "BisPosEtKom"[1] on the olive-and-crimson labels, but in English just about everybody calls it some version of "Mad Rush Shipping," including them. Story is that most of their courier ships have been retrofitted to modern fusion reactors now but nobody's willing to sneak aboard to check and most of the hulls still have "hot" spots, so you can't be sure from a distance. So, now you're up to speed -- and so was I, on a mad rush of my own.
It's a good ways to the closest connection between the crew-level slidewalk system and the ship's only direct maintenance-vehicle connection between the control center and the 'Drive compartment. This is all to the good, as there's no slidewalk in it, just narrow, railed walks along the sides. I jog-trotted that stretch, grabbed wildly at the rail when the deck swayed once, kept moving and was out of breath when I came through the hatch to find Dr. Schmid, Big Tom and four suited-up riggers looking every bit as happy as you might expect guys who'd normally be hitting the bars and/or the arcade about now. Tom looked sheepish and the conversation shortly revealed why.
Dr. Schmid said, "Oh, hi, Bobbi," and as I dogged the hatch,he added, "The Chief'll be here any minute with the adapters and cables."
I looked at him and raised an eyebrow.
Tom spoke up, "Um, I was told was to bring the analyzer; I didn't see anything that looked related near it."
Dr. Schmid managed to look tired and noncommittal at the same time. "Power's up as high as we can make without VSWR shut-down."
I glanced at the control rack display for the 'Drive finals: idling at about two percent peak power, with a duty cycle that should knock our effective mass down to about 85 percent, and asked if the riggers had 'laid hands' on the big coax yet. The crew boss, Dan, shifted uneasily and said, "Nope; we'll have to rig and I figured you guys would want to make with the Big Science first."
"Can you send two guys out with an IR camera, scope the line, and then get started with as much as can be done without shutting down the Stardrive?"
He nodded and glanced at Dr. Schmid, who nodded back and said, "Might as well. We'll watch on the monitor in here, get as many eyes on it as we can. At ten percent..."
"Yeah, we might not see much." The boss rigger turned to his crew. "Randy, Jer, gear up and head on out."
Sure enough, we didn't see much; maybe a warm spot seventy meters out but zooming in didn't resolve it any better. The riggers packed up the IR camera and began, well, rigging, setting up the lines and winch they'd need if we'd lost a section of transmission line. In the accessway along the CLASSIFIED, Big Tom and I unstowed two spare concentric-line sections (19.35 feet long, 6.125" OD and much too heavy even at Lupine's normal three-quarter g; there's a lot of copper in them) and laid them ready on the deck.
As we ambled back into the 'Drive compartment proper, the Chief arrived carrying a mailbin loaded with books (hey, Starship Company, ever heard of CD-ROMS? Thumb drives?), bright blue precision cables and two big boxes of adapters and calibration ends (shorted, open and cal-lab-accurate 50 Ohms) for the network analyzer, each marked KEEP WITH NET. AN. AT ALL TIMES!!! "Found it under a 50-foot coil of 12/3 cable, the whole thing bungee-netted to the deck," he puffed.
Big Tom looked relieved at this news. I took the bin from the Chief, hauled it around behind the Stardrive final amplifers to the analyzer, sat it down and dug out a book, right volume on my first try; it'd been at least a decade since I'd messed with one of these and the trick we needed to do -- swept bandpass time domain reflectometry, "radar on a rope" -- is not the most obvious mode to set up. If all you remember about a thing is that it was difficult and counterintuitive, it can be a powerful incentive to relearn fast. All the more when your boss and his boss have both walked back to look interestedly over your shoulder.
Chapter 2, INSTRUMENT MODES, page 2-12, TIME DOMAIN, just a brief description of Option 010. Chap.6, MEASUREMENT, page 6-29, pay dirt! Bandpass TDR, yes, yes.... I punched buttons and got into Transform mode, nifty, set Start and Stop and hey-dammit! Can't get the thing pushed out past a couple hundred nanoseconds, not ten pecent of the time (distance) we'd need. I looked around in frustration to see the Chief take his celphone from his ear and make a throat-cutting motion, turned to see Big Tom walk back to the front of the 'Drive finals and heard the big contactors thud open as the Lupine jolted with the ion drives throttling up in transition. The 'Drive was off; Dr. Schmid cranked the manual coax switch knob around, disconnecting the CLASSIFIED and connecting the line to the 'Drive radiator array with the test port; he hooked one of the precision cables to it and leaned over to connect the far end to the Network Analyzer.
I tried setting the Stop limit to the right value: nothing doing. Knew I was overlooking something but there's nothing in the book... Sweep menu? Start freq, stop freq, right across the critical (and, you bet your life, classified!) band, okay. Now, linear or log sweep? H'mm, it's in linear; I toggled it and went back to the the Transform menu and Lo! A shining victory for semi-panicked fobbing-at-controls! I punched the STIMULUS: STOP button, spun the manual-setting knob and walked the end of the displayed 'scope trace out the line... At 95 meters, a small spike, fine; then at 165, pow! Right off the scale! "Got it, Doc!"
"Don't be hasty," he warned me, "You're not even halfway out."
But there were no other big blips, right out to the gentle trailing-off of the 'Drive array. One-sixty-five was our culprit. Dr. Schmid used his phone to dial into suit radio comms and have the riggers give the line a good whack at the proper point (82 and half meters, since the analyzer gives you the there and back distance). I took out my calculator and came up with the flange between line sections 10 and 11 as the most likely and sure enough, slapping that flange made the spike on the Analyzer's TDR trace dance.
It was enough to even convince Dr. Schmid; he smiled and agreed we needed to replace both sections, while cautioning me to be prepared to find even more damage, "...once the big discontinuity is remedied." He's right far more often than not.
Dr. Schmid took the Chief off to one side and started a whispered conversation. I didn't really intend to overhear but caught, "...found it now...might as well go get what sleep you can. You look like hell and you were awake two days straight when we almost lost--" He noticed me not-really-listening, shot me a look that was almost a glare and I decided to see if there was something useful I could do farther away.
Finding the problem is half the repair; with the 'Drive offline, Lupine was still burning through reaction mass at a wasteful rate. The long accessway for the CLASSIFIED ends at the regular airlock the first pair of riggers had used. The hatch between the accessway and the 'Drive compartment is a full airlock hatch, not just pressure-rated, with a second set of indicators and controls for exactly this job, hauling sections of high-power concentric-line out into the Great Beyond. It's an annoyingly large enclosed volume and takes awhile to pump down. As soon as we'd decided to replace the two suspicious sections, boss rigger Dan and his helper Adrian ("He's a new guy -- transferred up from window-washer in the greenhouse." Or maybe he has a Ph.D. Riggers, I never know if they're serious) had sealed up their suits, shut the hatch and started it cycling. You can't scavenge all the air with a practical pump but you can save a lot of it; unfortunately, the amount lost is proportional to the enclosed volume. So we don't use the big lock unless we must; Lupine is huge but this is a negative-sum game.
Dr. Schmid and I passed the time running the network analyzer and showing Big Tom how to use it. I'd called up the suit radio channel on the 'Drive compartment phone and in speaker mode, we listened to Dan and his crew discussing the job, with occasional comments from the safety officer on duty in the Control Room. Eventually, we felt more than heard the outer hatch open; by then, the first two riggers had unbolted the line sections, jacked the line apart and removed them, and were ready for the two new pieces.
The rest is "mere mechanics," as they who don't have to do it say. The riggers dropped the new sections in, bolted them up and we repressurized the line with dry air to 3 psi above ship standard.[2] Meanwhile the riggers gathered at the hatch, killing time. Takes about fifteen minutes to air the line back up and another fifteen to be sure we don't have any really egregious leaks; there's no point cycling them back in 'til we're sure their work has succeeded.
The first part of pressure-testing doesn't take much attention. Much more interesting was the network analyzer display, now minus the big mismatch blips. There were a few tiny wiggles on the display but nothing's perfect. Ten minutes after shutting off the air supply, the gauge hadn't budged a tick down from just-over-three. Doc Schmid cocked an eye at me and said, "Let's apply some power!" He reached up and started cranking the transfer switch back from TEST to NORMAL.
I went over to the phone, picked up the handset, "Dan? You have have your field-strength meters handy? We're going to bring the 'Drive up slowly; if they get even close to yellow, sing out!" 'Drive energy is nothing to get casual about. "Yellow" on the little meters riggers are supposed to carry is well below the danger level: better safe than cooked.
Punched up another line, the hotline to Drive Control. Eric answered. Good; he's nearly unflappable. "Eric? We're gonna try running the 'Drive up to about ten or twelve percent; set it at 20% duty cycle. Match me with the ion drives, okay?"
"Are you callin' Power Room, or should I? They're kind of unhappy since the big glitch."
"I'll leave that to your tact and diplomacy. Five minutes -- you'll see the rig fire up on the remotes. I'll start at zero and bring it up slowly."
He laughed and hung up. Doc Schmid gave me a nod. "Five minutes. You do it."
Fine by me -- brass he may be but he's got entirely too much faith in the goodwill of the universe to suit me.
Our 2/O has an endless supply of anecdotes, a good many for the days when men were men and 'Drive techs occasionally got knocked into the middle of next week, not always metaphorically. This one involved the old City of Louisville, a water-cooled Klystron-like 'Drive final and contaminated cooling water. I really hope it's not true, but it does begin to explain how the Lousy got its other nickname. After five minutes of that, I double-checked the Christmas Tree displays on the front of each 'Drive power amp, green side lit to READY and red all off, and pushed the BEAM ON button. The compartment lights flickered as the high voltage supplies step-started; the 'Drive came up at zero power, standing current only, and then one of the three finals crowbarred to OFF.
I said a Very Bad Word (as is my habit when these noisy little bobbles occur), checked to see that output was indeed zero, cleared the fault and put that final amp back to STANDBY. Quick as it was, the timers were still happy and the READY led lit up in a few seconds. Gave Dr. Schmid a glance, he nodded and I pushed the BEAM button again. The reluctant amplifier came up, stayed on and I started to breathe again.
Time to see what happens next; I tapped on the RAISE POWER button and watched the Forward Power meters for all three finals and the combined output lurch up a tick. One percent, two, three.... The floor briefly felt a bit greasy underfoot, then steadied. Eric was tracking the (apparent) change in real-world mass very closely. He's good at it. Ran power up a little more, inching up to ten percent. Not a wriggle on the Reflected Power meter. This is what we can safely call A Good Sign. I stepped on up to twelve percent and it stayed steady.
A quick word about power: the meters on the 'Drive finals (and the remotes at DQ) are reading peak power; average power is what fiddles with our relationship to the rest of universe. The average power depends on the waveform, which in normal space is just a pulse, with varying on/off times depending on just how skittery Navs wants the ship to be. It gets way worse making a hole in reality and wrapping the ship up in it but Highly Classified Complexity aside, it's still average power that does the work.[3] So who cares about peak power? Engineering does; it's on the peaks that insulators break down, phantasmajector tubes find fun new ways to fail, and so on and so forth. Like the time we proved (by unwanted example) that Tweed's baseplates for the high voltage safety switches tended to absorb moisture from the air, though we had some help from defective E&PP climate-control with that one; but that's another story. Keep notes -- you might fall on hard times and have to work as a 'Drive tech some day!
Meanwhile, Dr. Schmid was already on the horn with the riggers, asking for another IR scan and redundantly cautioning them to mind their field-strength meters. He hung up and turned to me, "Have Eric hand off thrust to the MHD and we'll run 'er up some more. Might as well find out now if it's going to fail." He was grinning. Unusually for the breed, he loves this kind of dice roll. Me, not so much.
Still, he's right. I'd rather find out inbound to a planet than heading for a Jump or part-way through, especially when our destination has repair facilities. Another call to Eric and some discussion of ion thrust hand-off to Power/MHD, 'Drive duty-cycles and peak power later, Drive Control had walked us down to 1% on-time and I was gradually increasing power again. Without the complex modulation that wraps the ship up in a pocket universe and squirts it along at a rate that has outpaced light when we pop back into normal space at the end of a Jump, it's highly predictable but the shorter the duty cycle, the worse the effects if there's any stutter or irregularity. It nearly always goes okay; but even 10,000-sided dice with one bad side still do have that bad side.
On the other hand, every Jump is a dice roll, too, with a lot more at stake than the jars and bumps of abruptly varying thrust. Lupine is huge but resilient; built for battle, her structure bends under stress instead of breaking. I wasn't especially worried but I kept a hand on a grab bar and my toes under the footrail[4] as I ran the output past 70 percent peak power. The rig stayed steady as can be. Not a tick on the Reflected Power meter.
The boss rigger called in to admit their field strength meters were now indeed at the lower edge of yellow, so we held at 70 for ten minutes, fifteen, twenty.... Dr. Schmid pronounced himself satisfied. He had me run the 'Drive back down to ten percent and hand off full control to Eric in DQ, adding, "Have him call up Navs for their latest runcharts and load them in the automation; I have no doubt we'll soon be hearing from Port Control."
As it turned out, he was right.
The riggers were already cycling the lock, having carried the bad line sections in with them. The bad line would have to go off to one of the machine shops for repair. We were back in the starship business once again.
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1. "Bistro Postev'tee Etu Kompaniya," something like, "Deliver This NOW Co." Alternatively and with typically-mordant humor, if you catch one of their brave (or shal'noi, loony; most likely both) pilots when he's well-rested, he'll tell you it means "Now deliver (save) this company," profit margins being very slim when your business model is based on what amounts to a nuke-powered top fuel dragster with a cargo bed. Increasing Internet connectivity is helping a lot, since their dispatching and routing problems are, literally, cosmic. It has paid off for them in other ways, too: every Mad Rushin' vehicle carries an ansible, an e-mail node, ginromous RAID arrays and several different versions of normal-space wireless data transceivers. They've got contracts with many planetary ISPs to carry the e-mail but their own traffic comes first.
2. For the nuts'n'bolts types, what we're breathin' is an oxygen/nitrogen mix at less-than-Denver pressure and with a bit more oxygen than they serve in Colorado. We could air up the concentric line with anything nonreactive, as all we're really after is to keep the inner-conductor connectors from vacuum-welding, prolong the life of the PTFE parts and give hot spots a little extra cooling help. In the old days, they used high-pressure tanks of nitrogen, hauled up and aft from E&PP's chemical plant (greenhouse fertilizer, gunk for air, water and sewage processing and on and on), but a pair of nifty little commercial gizmos do the job now with a lot less heavy lifting and a way lower chance of inadvertent cold-gas torpedoes.
3. Well, really it's RMS power, but you either knew that already or don't care. If you ever need the info, you'll learn it.
4. After every stretch of zero-g time, in addition to the usual bumps, bruises and et learning the hard way that mass remains even when weight is imperceptible cetera, the ship's clinics receive a steady stream of patients with sore feet, skinned toes and suchlike; bracing your feet under the toerails when they don't stick to the deck by themselves gets to be a habit but humans're not really built for it.
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