“Dropped off-line? With your accel profile, are you sure you didn’t—?”
“I didn’t. It went. Have someone check the supercon lines to the converters. Someone who’s never done the maintenance on shuttle one. If you find what I think you’ll find, have him check shuttle two before you clear Braun to drop.”
He frowned, the anger gone. “Why do you think that?”
“Shuttle’s new. Built for this mission. Been everywhere except planetside. Couldn’t prove it, but the converter cut out just above transition point. A couple of minutes earlier, and we wouldn’t have made it back to orbit. Might have had a long-shot chance at making it back to the landing zone, but maybe not.”
“I’m not following you, Lieutenant.”
“Seen this sort of stunt once before. Grav cutout switch. They’re not designed for one-point-two gees. We have to have greater initial accel…”
Could see the sudden understanding. “A tech… of course. Could be even deep-compulsion.” He shook his head. “I’m crazy, buying into that until we know.”
“I had to stretch shuttle one to its limits to do that pickup of Needle Four. If the converter had been the problem, a system glitch, it should have shown up then.”
“We’ll have to inspect and see.”
“I’m going to write up the flight report, then get a shower.”
“Stay in the ready room for a bit, Lieutenant.”
“Yes, sir.” Didn’t see any point in arguing. So I sat down at one of the maintenance consoles at one side of the ready room and began to write up the report.
Didn’t finish the report before Morgan was back in.
“You were damned lucky, Lieutenant. Or more than that.” He was scowling.
“Damned good, Commander. If I hadn’t recognized what was happening, the shuttle and everything in it would have been a pile of metal and composite somewhere down below us.”
“You knew something was wrong. I had ops go back over your ascent track. You practically blew every propulsion system in the shuttle before you lost the converter.”
“That’s not true, sir. I stayed within parameters.” Barely—but I had. I couldn’t have used the photon-thrusters at all. No point in mentioning that. “I got to thinking about the power loss on the way down. Thought it was turbulence, but it might not have been.” I shrugged. “The way the systems are engineered, I figured that a fast ascent would be safer. If I’d been wrong, it wouldn’t hurt. Just wanted a safety margin, sir.”
Commander’s eyes narrowed into a squint. He opened his mouth, then snapped it shut. “Chang… your background says that you don’t trust authority, and you don’t share information… I don’t like that.”
Shouldn’t have drafted me if he’d known that and didn’t like it. Wasn’t about to tell him. “Sir. I couldn’t have explained something I started to feel on liftoff. As soon as I got back, I told you what I thought. Besides, even if I’d figured it out planetside, what could we have done? Left the shuttle down there as part of the ruins? And maybe lost shuttle two as well?”
He looked at me.
I looked right back at him.
“We’ll talk about this more, later, Lieutenant. There are a few matters more pressing.” Then he was gone.
More pressing than attempted sabotage? Or was he talking about dealing with my so-called attitude?
The shakes didn’t hit me until I was halfway back to my stateroom. Hot shower helped.
I still wondered why anyone would go to such lengths. There was a good chance that the towers didn’t hold anything humans could understand, let alone use. Yet the expedition had been attacked, and we had one case of sabotage, and Morgan was worried about more than the shuttle.
After I got wanned up and cleaned up, I almost didn’t hit the mess, but I was starved. Sneaked in just before the captain and the Special Deputy Minister did, and sat with the recovery and archeological types—Kaitlin Henjsen’s team, plus the silver-haired astronomer, Dr. Taube. She had to be really old. Mostly just ate and listened.
“… first indications are that there aren’t any obvious ways in…”
“… definite measure of high tech…”
“What if it’s not a city, just a technological system tied to Chronos? Then what?”
“Then, we do what we can,” Henjsen said, “and help the technical and technological types figure out exactly what kind of machinery and equipment it is and why it was put there…”
Sounded like a straightforward type. I kept listening.
Morgan cornered me after dinner, right outside the mess. “We need to talk. Privately.” He was still angry. Could tell it from the stiffness of his posture. “My office.”
He turned, and I followed to the ramps. His office was up in the control sections of deck fifty. It wasn’t any bigger than the one he’d had on Deep Find Station. Had hatches, not doors.
He closed the hatch. Didn’t sit down and didn’t suggest I should. “I told you I wouldn’t stand for this kind of shit, Chang. We don’t have room for hot-shit individualism.”
Didn’t feel like playing games. So I let him have it. “Morgan, I put my life on the line, and PateFs. That shuttle doesn’t get back, and you don’t have much of an expedition. Didn’t see you risking your life. I didn’t give Patel a choice, and I’m sorry about that. Anyone else but me, maybe Braun, in that shuttle, and all you got is junk, either sitting on that frozen-assed lake, or as wreckage strewn all across Danann. You’re pissed because I didn’t give you a choice. You ever think that I saved your frigging ass and your blessed career? Either way, you come out better. You really want to explain to His Highness the Special Deputy Minister why you grounded a shuttle that looks fine? Or ordered one up that went to energy and quarks?”
His lips tightened. But he didn’t blow. Had to give him credit for that. Been in his skintights, and I would have reamed me halfway to the void and back. Showed why he was a commander, and I’d never be anything like that.
“Lieutenant…” He took a deep breath, then another one. Then he shook his head. “You are a piece of work. I tried a sim. Crashed every time, and I knew what was going to happen.”
“That’s why I’m a pilot, and you’re a commander.”
“I don’t need more smart-ass shit.”
“I’m sorry.” That stopped him. He didn’t expect that. “I didn’t mean it that way. Meant that you plan. For organization and running things, planning is better. Piloting is as much instinct as planning. I told you it was feel. I’ve got a better feel for piloting than you do. I’d also make a mess of what you do.”
“Have you told anyone?”
“No, sir. I hadn’t planned on it, and I don’t intend to.” Would have been stupid, too. Letting anyone know that I’d known there had been sabotage and that I’d lifted off would make the crews nervous. The way it was, word would get around that there had been a problem and that I’d handled it. That was all anyone needed to know. “Did you find out how it happened?”
“Junior mech. He’s in the brig. Not that we’ll find out anything from him. The moment he realized he’d been caught, nanite routines kicked in. Most of his adult memories are gone.”
Shit! That meant either a big multilateral or one of the major intelligence services—CW, Middle Kingdom, or the League.
“Exactly.” Morgan could see I’d understood. “This stays between us.”
I nodded. It had to be, mostly. “The captain might know. She’s sharp.”
“You actually admit someone else might be?”
“There are people smarter than I am. They just can’t do what I do.” I stopped, then added, “Sir.”
“Chang… you are an interstellar—make that an inter-galactic—pain in the ass. It’s too bad you’re such a damned good pilot.” He almost smiled, but it wouldn’t have been a good smile. “Lerrys will take the drop tomorrow. You need the time off.”