Navigator Control, this is Porter Tigress. Extensive debris aft of Navigator, range less than one kay.
Porter Tigress, understand debris. Scanning this time. Maintain separation.
Frig! Maintain separation? I’d had to navigate around all that crap, and they hadn’t even warned me. Control, maintained separation during approach. Just thought you’d like to know. Request clearance to bay four.
Cleared to bay four.
Bay four was longer, not quite so high as bay two. Didn’t enter all the way, about halfway. Weird when you’re split with half the shuttle inside the atmosphere barrier and the other half in vacuum. Differential visuals.
Porter Tigress, Bay Control. Hold position. Cradle moving to recover.
Bay Control, holding.
Had to wait until they got the cradle under the grapples. Needle had mass, even in null grav.
Porter Tigress, cleared to release grapples. Hold position.
Opening grapples this time.
Seemed to take a good quarter stan, but the time showed three minutes before Bay Control came back.
Porter Tigress, clear to leave bay. Minimal power.
Departing. Understand minimal power.
After all that, cradling into bay two was a snap. Inside my armor, I was soaked.
Still had to go through all the shutdown checklists and final clearances from Navigator Control. Also had to report the overstress of the rear grapple and clamp. Finally, I did get out of the shuttle and made my way from the bay to the ready room.
Close to fifteen hundred. Battle with the Sunnis had taken less than a stan. Recovery had taken three.
Major Tepper was waiting. “Not a bad recovery, Lieutenant. Shaimen will make it. You cut it close on habit-ability.”
I was glad to hear that Shaimen had made it. Worried about that all the way back. “Her needle was tumbling end over end. Had to slow it enough to use the grapples.”
“You didn’t mention that in the transmissions.”
“It’s in the system logs, sir. Didn’t want to spend time explaining, not with the separation we were building.”
The major nodded. “You hate to explain, don’t you, Lieutenant?”
Should have been obvious. You can’t explain to idiots, and usually don’t need to for people who can figure it out “Have trouble with it, sir.”
“Chang. This is a military vessel and a military operation. Not everyone understands what you’re doing out there. A few words of explanation would ease things for everyone. You might think of them as… system lubrication. People have moving parts, too. I can explain it this time, and I will. You’re not used to this kind of operation, and you were handling a lot. But lots of people were handling a lot, and one of them didn’t make it back.”
“I’m sorry, Major. I’ll try to keep that in mind in the future.” Tried to look contrite.
Tepper snorted. “You don’t do the contrition well, Lieutenant. Don’t try it. Just explain.”
“Yes, sir.” Managed to smother a grin. Tough woman, but she was right.
“Any quick questions?”
Looked at her. Blotted the sweat off my forehead. “Bf this is so frigging important, why didn’t we get a dreadnought as an escort?”
“Because there aren’t any spare dreadnoughts, not with the latest mobilizations and maneuvers by the CWs and the Middle Kingdom, and the Covenanters with their latest pacification efforts. Even if there were, sending one might have been worse. It would have told the whole Galaxy how important this mission is. Every dreadnought’s assignments are monitored by every other system. Instead of having two obsolete Sunni ships, probably turned over to the Children of Mahmed, we might have had a three brand-new cruisers chasing us.”
“Obsolete… the shields?”
The major nodded. “Let’s just say that there was more to this man meets the eye.”
Didn’t want to hear that. Not at all.
“Lieutenant Lerrys is standby now. You might want to get cleaned up before we translate. Gate ETA is in less than a stan.”
“Yes, sir.”
So I headed back to my closet stateroom and a shower. At least, I didn’t have to share it with anyone. Major’s words about there being more than met the eye nagged at me. So did a suicide attack by obsolete ships. Even obsolete ships cost billions of creds.
23
Goodman/Bond
I’d barely settled into the armory on five-day after morning muster. I hadn’t slept well. Alveres snored very loudly, and I’d have to adjust to that. Even the sonic earplugs hadn’t helped. So much for the Comity’s vaunted technology.
Then the captain had announced over the screens that the ship was on an exploratory mission to an unusual planet that might have some artifacts, possibly even alien ruins, but that we wouldn’t know much more until we got there. Crew scuttlebutt was that there were real aliens. That didn’t make sense. There were lots of scientists aboard, but no Comity Marines. There weren’t any diplomats, either. If there were real live breathing aliens, we’d be carrying lots fewer scientists and lots more Marines.
That told me the captain was staying close to the truth. The Comity was looking to search an abandoned alien ship or some ruins, maybe looking to find some new technology. More likely some ruins, if the colonel wanted me to plant a locator beacon. We couldn’t afford to allow the Comity any additional advantages from an alien technology. Things were bad enough already. If the technology had come from the subdemons of Iblis… that made the possibilities even worse.
“Bond! Over to the transport tubes.” Chief Stuval didn’t quite yell.
I hurried. “Yes, chief?”
“They’ll be calling battle stations before long. Word is that there are Sunni bandits chasing us. We need to start loading torps into the transport tubes. For the needle-boats. Get the small slider. You and Ciorio load it from bank one. Just four to the slider.”
“Yes, chief.” The small slider could only carry four torps. The larger one took six. The armory had transport tubes that shuttled torps to the firing ports and the bays. They were one way. Any unfired torps had to be brought back by slider and reserviced. According to what I’d learned, sometimes repeated temperature differentials affected the internal systems. As a precaution all torps that went out in needleboats and came back unused were checked out before being sent up to the needles for use again.
I had the slider in place before the loading rack in bank one when Ciorio showed up. Even with the dolly and loaders, wrestling the torps onto the slider was work.
“Too bad we couldn’t go null grav,” I said.
“Don’t even think it,” Ciorio said. “That’s how the Flewelling got scrapped. Torps still got mass. You get it moving in null grav, and it doesn’t stop until it rams into something.”
“They’re safed,” I pointed out.
“They’re supposed to be safed. Just like all the 503s weren’t supposed to need reworking.” Ciorio grunted as he fastened the safety clamps in place on the first torp. “What’s the first rule for an armorer?”
“Don’t trust anything you can’t verify yourself.” That was one of those sayings I’d been conditioned with. It didn’t appear anywhere in writing, but all the armorers knew it.