Starbound (Lightship Chronicles) Page 8

  I was about to order dinner when I got an entry request chime at my cabin door. I looked at my watch to confirm that the day shift had ended. I figured it was Dobrina, but the last thing I wanted was her company, especially if it came with a lecture. I went to the door and hit the wall com, using the privacy protocol that kept the two-way visual display off.

  “Not now, Commander. Let me lick my wounds in private,” I said. There was a pause before the reply, and it wasn’t Dobrina.

  “Request you open the door, sir.” It was the deep and scratchy voice of my friend John Marker. I opened the door to see both him and Layton in the hall. “Thought you might need some cheering up, sir,” said Marker, holding out a dark amber bottle that had no label. I nodded to them both.

  “Come in gentlemen,” I said.

  We gathered around my sparse table and Marker poured into three glasses I pulled from my display cabinet. They’d been one of the many gifts I’d been given on my graduation from the Lightship Academy, what seemed like ages ago. Marker raised his glass. Layton and I followed suit.

  “To our lost comrades, proper marines, all,” Marker said. “May we fare as well when we die.” I recognized the unofficial Marine motto.

  “May we fare as well when we die,” Layton and I repeated in unison. Then we clinked our glasses and drank. It was Quantar scotch, and it was harsh and bitter, much like we all felt, I was sure. I looked at my two companions, young men who had attached their military careers to my own. Right now it seemed like a questionable choice to me.

  “I assume we’ll get replacements when we arrive at Candle, sir?” asked Marker in a quiet tone. I nodded.

  “Replacements, as well as new shuttles,” I said.

  “We can replace the numbers, but not the people,” Marker said. Layton nodded in agreement. A silence descended on us then, each of us in turn thinking about the losses we had suffered.

  “How well did you know Private Jensen?” I asked Marker, breaking the silence. He took another drink of his scotch before answering.

  “Aydra? Well enough. She was energetic, there was a real spark about her. She was good at everything she tried. First class. I told her more than once she should aspire to be more than just a grunt, but she loved it. Loved the training, the physicality of it,” he said. Then his gaze got distant and his eyes turned red.

  “Something more, John?” I asked gently. He drank again before replying.

  “She was a vibrant lover, sir, and I’m not ashamed to say it.”

  “You shouldn’t be, John, we’re all human.”

  “Her more than most,” said Marker. “I try to minimize my associations with women under my command, but she was . . . something special, and damned insistent!” He cracked a pained smile and then emptied his glass. I thought about her last moments, John and I holding her by either arm as we struggled to get down the lifter shaft to the station deck, away from the automatons . . .

  “How are Colonel Babayan and Verhunce handling it?” I asked. Marker shrugged.

  “Lena’s a stone wall. Verhunce is tough, but we’re all suffering a good dose of survivor’s guilt,” he said. I hadn’t had any time yet to sort through my own feelings of guilt and remorse, but the scotch was quickly forcing them out. I drained my glass before continuing.

  “Keep me apprised of their performance. And best to put Verhunce on light duty for a while,” I said.

  “Already done,” replied Marker.

  I put my empty glass down on the table, my buried feelings coming at me now regardless of my desire to resist them. I was glad I was with not just fellow officers, but with friends. I rubbed my hands through my hair, looking down at the table as if I could bore a hole through it with my eyes.

  “This is dirty business. Thirty-three dead out of thirty-seven . . .” I trailed off as the impact of those numbers started to hit me. Thirty-three men and women under my command, dead. Thirty-three people who had lives just like Private Aydra Jensen, or Private Kevin Horlock, killed in a fight that we probably never should have started by going up that shaft. Killed because I wanted to explore a possible Founder Relic, to satisfy my own curiosity.

  “It’s my fault,” I said, sighing and leaning back in my chair. “We never should have gone up after that power source.”

  It was the usually quiet Layton who took issue with my self-loathing assessment. “We’re out here to explore, Peter. Finding out what was happening on that station is what we were all trained to do. You followed protocols and you followed orders,” he said. I shook my head.

  “All those dead Imperial marines . . . it should have been warning enough,” I protested, then sighed again and took the bottle, pouring us all another drink. I continued with my pity party.

  “I trust my intuition too much and I don’t think practically, and I’m impulsive. This time thirty-three marines got killed,” I said.

  “You’re too hard on yourself,” said Marker after emptying his glass a second time. “If it wasn’t us, then another ship would have explored that station, a ship likely not as capable as Starbound. Serosian’s weapons helped us to clear that thing out of here. Now Jenarus is safe. A less capable ship led by less capable officers could have been destroyed, with all hands lost. It hurts to lose so many men and women that I’ve trained myself, but it’s a better outcome than the alternative.”

  I grudgingly accepted Marker’s words as I drank again. He was probably right. A Royal Navy frigate or destroyer wouldn’t have been capable of pushing the station toward the surface of Jenarus 4 and forcing it to bug out with the jump point generator. It was small consolation.

  “And I think you’re forgetting that you may have saved us again today by shutting down the energy weapons array,” said Layton. “That wasn’t an easy decision. Many times you guess right. And mostly you end up saving someone’s life. You have a gift, Peter.”

  “Do I?” I said. “Or am I just lucky? And will my luck run out soon?” Layton shook his head at that.

  “What did you test out at in command school for intuition?” he asked. I hesitated. Only the Admiralty had that information, and me, of course. The testing was required for any officer deemed capable of one day commanding a ship in either the Union or Quantar Royal Navy. Some said it was the navy’s deciding factor in promoting a candidate. These men were my closest friends in the service and in many ways their lives might depend on decisions I made in the future, so in a way they had a right to know, but still, I hesitated.

  “C’mon,” said Marker, “spill it!” Whether it was the scotch loosening me up or not, I had no way of knowing, but:

  “Eighty-four point six,” I finally said.

  “Jesus Christ!” Marker exclaimed. “You’re practically psychic!” The navy didn’t officially believe in psychic abilities, but still . . .

  “The average is fifty-three point two,” stated Layton. “I scored in the fifty-seventh percentile and they gave me command of an entire cadet team! How in the hell can you be human with an intuition score like that?”

  I thought about that a moment. Maybe genetic traits had fallen in my favor, but I never considered myself better than my friends nor anyone else I served with. And I certainly felt all too human under the current circumstances.

  “It didn’t help us at the station, did it?” I said. Layton waved me off.

  “If I was you,” continued Layton, “I wouldn’t consider anything but my intuition when making command decisions.” I shrugged at that.

  “I’m still likely to make a mistake fifteen times out of a hundred,” I said.

  “I’ll take those odds any day. Next time we get liberty at Artemis I’m taking you with me to the gaming tables,” said Marker.

  Then he poured again and we consoled ourselves with stories about the dead marines. Marker knew each one by name, and we remembered them all. By the end of the evening we had gone through dinner and
the entire bottle of scotch. I pushed them both out of my cabin at midnight, making sure to take a hangover pill before I crashed down on my bed, not bothering with the covers. Tomorrow was another day, and I would get to return to my duties, which I was glad for. Even the unpleasant ones.

  The alert claxon woke me at 0318. I jumped up from my bed stone-cold sober thanks to my meds and grabbed my uniform jacket, quickly pulled on my boots, and straightened my hair in the mirror. Then it occurred to me, was I even on duty?

  I called up to the bridge and immediately got Maclintock. “Don’t bother asking,” he said. “You’re reinstated early, Mr. Cochrane. Now get up here.”

  “Aye, sir!”

  I ran out the door and down the hall toward the main lifter, pulling on my duty jacket as I went. I saw Dobrina coming out of her cabin as I ran, and slowed to meet up with her. “Know anything?” I asked.

  “Not yet,” she said, pulling on her own jacket and then sealing it with a motion of her index finger. I followed suit as the lifter made its way up to the bridge. We were both nearly presentable when the lifter doors opened.

  The bridge was on yellow alert. Maclintock was at his station but dressed in just his duty shirt, slacks and boots. I glanced at Serosian’s station, but it was dark and quiet. Dobrina made for the XO’s station, but Maclintock motioned me to the longscope.

  “If you please, Commander,” he said. I fired her up and got under the hood as quickly as I could. “Long-range scan please, Mr. Cochrane. Approximately fourteen AUs toward the jump tunnel,” came the captain’s voice through my ear com. I did as instructed.

  The bridge quickly started filling up with day shift personnel. Layton, Jenny Hogan at Astrogation, Duane Longer at Propulsion. We had a full crew by the time my ’scope focused and sharpened. I ran a deep-field scan.

  “Scanning, sir,” I said.

  “I’m here as well,” came Serosian’s welcome voice in my ear. “Monitoring from my quarters, Captain.”

  “Very good. Let us know when you have something, Mr. Cochrane,” said Maclintock. I acknowledged while my scan continued. It took about thirty seconds for the longscope to pick up two targets in the infrared spectrum.

  “Two targets have emerged from the jump tunnel, sir, holding in place in our path. By displacement they’re similar to the HuK we encountered at Levant,” I stated.

  “These are of a more modern design, however,” said Serosian through the com. “Likely about one hundred and eighty years old, by my guess. They are similar to a known design from our archives but they appear to have some modifications.”

  “Manned or unmanned?” asked Maclintock.

  “Automated,” replied Serosian. Maclintock cursed.

  “Search and destroy mission, again,” said the captain. “How long until intercept?” They were 14.6 AUs distant from us, but we were traveling on full HD impellers, almost .96 light speed.

  “I make firing range in one hundred and twenty-seven minutes, sir,” I said.

  “And if we slow down?”

  I readjusted my calculations. The news was not good.

  “According to their specs, they’ll catch us in three-point-four hours on their full impellers even if we stopped and reversed course, sir,” I reported.

  “And they’re in our way. They know we have to get to that jump tunnel, so they’re content to wait for us to get there,” said Maclintock.

  “Yes, sir,” I said, having nothing to add to my acknowledgment.

  “Energy weapons status?” Maclintock asked.

  “Minimum six hours to complete the bootup, Captain,” said Dobrina through the com. Maclintock sighed heavily, then made his decision.

  “We go forward, then,” he said. “And hope our torpedoes don’t let us down.”

  All division heads were present at the strategy session fifteen minutes later in the briefing room. Myself, Dobrina, Serosian, Layton, Marker, Babayan, Jenny Hogan, and Duane Longer were all spread out around the conference table. As I looked down at them I was reminded of how young we all were. I wondered if this was part of the Grand Plan, to populate deep space not with experienced local spacers, but with young, fresh minds that could be open to the possibilities of newly rediscovered civilizations, and perhaps their technology as well. It was a subject that would have to wait for one of those rare times when Serosian and I could share an evening in conversation rather than making battle preparations.

  Captain Maclintock gave us the sitrep. “The situation is that we will face a well-equipped and heavily armed enemy attack force in less than two hours. We are at a disadvantage with our energy weapons array down, so anything we can gain before we engage them is to our benefit. Ladies and gentlemen, I want to hear from each of you as to what your department might bring to the table. I’ll start with you, Mr. Cochrane,” said Maclintock, looking to his right at me.

  He chose me first because as third in command I had direct reports from all of the department heads sitting at the table, and a few more who weren’t here. Dobrina would be in charge of ensuring any decisions made by the captain were carried out properly, something her focused demeanor would be of great use for. One thing came to mind immediately.

  “We could reengage the hybrid impeller drive,” I said. Dobrina looked up from scanning her report plasma and glared at me from across the table.

  “The thing is more likely to damage us than help us,” she said.

  “I disagree,” I said. “If we were able to rig it to repeat the power burst we used to escape the jump space tunnel, it could be to our advantage. We could potentially accelerate away from those HuKs, or jump right past them into the tunnel and activate our Hoagland Drive before they could get off a shot, sir.”

  Maclintock looked down the table to Duane Longer. “Lieutenant?”

  Anticipating his question, Longer said: “I can have her hooked up in twenty minutes, sir. Give me another twenty to warm her up and she’ll be at your beck and call.”

  Maclintock nodded. “Good,” he said. “That’s Propulsion. What about Astrogation, Lieutenant Hogan?”

  Jenny Hogan flushed a bit under the captain’s gaze, cleared her throat nervously as she always seemed to do, and started in. “If we were to play out the scenario with the hybrid drive, we would have time to spool up the Hoagland and get ourselves into an HD jump bubble within about five minutes of the hybrid drive resetting. I doubt those HuKs could catch us before we jumped, so we would be on our way back to Candle before they could react.”

  “For what purpose?” The voice was loud and angry, and it came from down the table, from John Marker. “If we jump back to Candle and spend weeks getting repaired, then what? Those HuKs will still be here, still have to be dealt with if we come back. What’s to stop them from following us back to Candle and attacking us there, or even attacking Jenarus itself? We lost thirty-three marines in this system. That’s a lot of human capital, not to mention they were all friends of mine. Are we just going to forget that? Run away while we can? If we do that I guarantee they will be back next time with even more force. This ship is all that stands between our Union and the old empire. If we’re planning on turning tail and running every time we face a difficult situation then I’d just as soon surrender now.”

  The room went dead quiet. His words were powerful and spoken in anger, but I couldn’t argue with his logic.

  “I agree,” I said. “We must do more than just escape this system. We’re being tested, and I fear if we show weakness then we’ll fall into a downward spiral we won’t be able to escape from.”

  Dobrina took up the challenge. “Fight them when we’re not one hundred percent? Put the ship at risk, all of the crew, not just the men and women we’ve lost already? You may not remember, Commander, but I lost an entire ship and crew at Levant. That’s something I don’t want to repeat, ever. And if they can report that they destroyed us, even a weakened Lightship,
that will only embolden them,” she said forcefully. Her words stung. I was at Levant, too, and part of Impulse’s crew.

  “That’s enough,” said Maclintock. He looked pensive, then leaned forward as he considered everything. After a moment he looked up at George Layton. “Can we engage them using just our torpedoes, helm? Can we keep them at close enough range?”

  Layton nodded. “Our Hoagland Field should protect us enough from their energy weapons to allow me to maneuver us into effective torpedo range. But if they’re shielded as well—”

  “They have limited shielding, mostly designed to stop energy weapons. They will eventually become vulnerable to our torpedoes, if we can stay close enough to them,” said Serosian.

  Maclintock looked to me again. “Can you keep your torpedo volleys effective against them with their maneuvering capabilities?” he asked.

  “I’ve worked up multiple scenarios in training, sir. I’m confident I can handle them both. Mr. Serosian will vouch for my skills.” The captain looked to the Earth Historian, who merely nodded affirmative. Maclintock took this in silently, then looked down the table again to Lena Babayan.

  “Colonel, I know your marines have taken a big hit, but can you cobble together teams from nonessential volunteers to strengthen our hand-to-hand defense forces?” Maclintock asked.

  “I thought Mr. Serosian said the HuKs were unmanned?” interjected Dobrina. It was a valid question. Maclintock dismissed it quickly.

  “If our time in Jenarus has taught us anything, XO, it has taught us that ‘unmanned’ doesn’t mean unpopulated. They could have automatons like the ones at the station aboard,” he said. He looked back down the table again to Colonel Babayan.

  “Aye, sir. We can put together a full complement from volunteers,” she said.

  “I might suggest Lieutenant Daniel, the purser,” I said. “I saw him shoot before we left Candle. He’s not bad.”