Lochan leaned back, thinking. Had the captain decided on her own to return to Kosatka? That seemed unlikely given her earlier tirades about having to keep to schedule. More likely the captain had received new orders, perhaps from that agent Freya had warned about. There didn’t appear to be any other plausible explanation for a freighter to break from its scheduled runs and head back to a place where a war was being fought.
From what he’d last seen, the invaders very likely controlled space around Kosatka. Even if the defenders had somehow triumphed, would they still have the means to intercept an “innocent” freighter passing through Kosatka on its way to Hesta? One way or another, Lochan figured that he and Freya were once more looking at trips to Scatha or Apulu whether they liked it or not.
He hadn’t thought that he was that important. And certainly so far he hadn’t had much success in getting help for Kosatka. But maybe Scatha, Apulu, and Turan knew something that Lochan didn’t. Maybe their own information from other star systems was that aid for Kosatka was finally likely to come. Or maybe the empire builders were worried that their invasion of Kosatka might provoke a response if someone like Lochan was free to gather support.
Or, perhaps, this wasn’t about him so much as it was about Freya Morgan. Kosatka was already fighting for its life and freedom. But Catalan, as far as Lochan knew, was as yet untouched by direct aggression. Making sure that Catalan remained isolated and weak might be a priority for Scatha, one well worth extra efforts to keep Freya from reaching Eire and other star systems.
Now what? What could he and Freya possibly do to get out of this mess? Lochan knew he wasn’t anyone’s idea of an action hero. Freya, on the other hand, clearly had some skills not usually found in trade negotiators. But they were stuck on this ship, in a star system without any permanent human presence. How could the two of them take control of this ship and maintain that control long enough to get to Eire?
There wasn’t anything else that could change the course of the Oarai Miho. And there wasn’t any way left to escape with the lifeboat having been blown to pieces.
Where would they escape to? The only other possible refuge was the Bruce Monroe, quite a few million kilometers away behind them.
Though that would change, Lochan realized as he stared morosely at his desk display. Instead of the distances between the two ships remaining fairly steady as both headed for the jump point for Eire, the two ships would now be getting steadily closer as the other ship kept heading for Eire and this one headed back for Kosatka.
Down the same vector, in opposite directions.
They wouldn’t collide, of course. Lochan was no expert on ship maneuvers, but he knew that ships in space always kept some distance between them for safety. The Oarai Miho would ensure that its trajectory was a little off that of the Bruce Monroe. As little as the Oarai Miho could manage, of course, because any deviation from the most economical path between jump points would cost at least a little extra time and money. Also, of course, “little” in space would be at least a few hundred kilometers.
Too bad he and Freya couldn’t jump ship and . . .
Could they?
Lochan frowned at his display, remembering a story that Carmen had told him that she’d been told by Mele Darcy about something that guy Rob Geary had done.
The Oarai Miho’s main propulsion cut off. The freighter was now settled on its vector back. Lochan did a quick check, hoping no one in the crew would notice what he was checking or guess why.
The Oarai Miho was projected to pass the Bruce Monroe, the closest the two ships would get, at a distance of two hundred kilometers, plus or minus fifty kilometers.
Not exactly walking distance.
But momentum and a long enough lead and jumping off in the right direction might add up to make it all feasible.
Maybe not all that smart, but feasible. And what other alternatives existed? This idea might work. Or he might know just enough to think up this plan and not know nearly enough to realize that it was impossible. If he was wrong, it’d mean a lonely death.
Freya Morgan might have more practical knowledge to judge the merits of the plan, but how could he talk to her about this? They were confined to their cabins, and Lochan wasn’t foolish enough to think there was anyone else he could trust to pass notes between them. His choices came down to waiting for her to contact him, hoping she’d come up with something, or plan on his own and go find her when the time was right, regardless of risks.
Waiting for someone else to fix things usually meant nothing got fixed. Lochan had learned that the hard way before leaving Franklin.
His pad held some programs that could handle the calculations, ensuring that no one on the ship would spot them. He loaded in the data he had on the paths of the Oarai Miho and the Bruce Monroe, finishing just before his desk display went dead again.
He thought about two hundred kilometers of empty space. About the infinite cold and infinite nothing he would have to dare to try this.
Lochan stared at his hands where they rested on the small desk, remembering his frustration at having to leave Kosatka to its fate as the invaders approached. Remembered wishing that he could do something more, could fight like Carmen could. That wasn’t him. It never had been. Where someone like Carmen would instantly act or react, making the moves necessary to save their own life, Lochan knew that he’d hesitate and think and try to figure out the best thing to do. “You shouldn’t feel badly about that,” Carmen had insisted more than once. “There are things that call for acting without thinking, but there are also things where people need to think, then act. Too many of them act without thinking even then. We need people like you who think.”
He certainly had time to think now. But he had a suspicion that deep down inside he’d already made up his mind. The problem would be figuring out how to do it if Freya wasn’t in a position to help.
But, as Carmen always said, he was pretty good at figuring out what to do if given the time.
* * *
Carmen had woken up in the afternoon, feeling as if her entire body was one big bruise. But her mind was clear enough to recall the conversation early that morning so she started walking to the nearest hospital in search of Domi.
Once there, she felt dirty and unkempt in the sterile corridors of the hospital, her fatigues and her body reeking of too many days without any opportunity to get clean, her hands and face still marked with dirt and smoke, her rifle a deadly contrast to the livesaving devices around her.
But there were other soldiers in the hospital, some providing security in case stray enemy soldiers showed up, some visiting injured comrades, and some delivering new wounded. And far too many who’d already been wounded and received treatment.
“Captain Dominic Desjani,” she asked the information desk, dreading what reply she might receive.
“Identification,” the desk bot asked in reply.
Feeling her heart lift at what seemed like a positive response, Carmen tapped her lower arm with the ID chip emplaced in it against the bot sensor.
“Volunteer Officer Carmen Ochoa,” the bot commented. “Registered next of kin. Access authorized. Floor five, section four, bay nine.”
Domi was here. He was alive.
“Thanks,” Carmen said. People still did that with bots, saying thanks to something that didn’t even register the courtesy. She wasn’t sure why they did that. But it didn’t hurt.
She rode a crowded elevator up alongside a pair of worn-out doctors who seemed to be having trouble staying awake. “Can I get you guys anything?” Carmen asked. “Coffee?”
“Thanks, but we’ve got some waiting,” one of the doctors replied with a quick look at Carmen. Her eyes lingered on the rifle. “We’re not expecting any more trouble here, are we?”
“No,” Carmen said. “I’m visiting my husband.”
“Oh, good! Um, I mean . . .”
“I understand.” Carmen nodded around her. “They didn’t damage this place?”
“No,” the other doctor said. “They probably wanted to be sure it was completely intact when they took over. Didn’t work out that way, though.”
The elevator stopped on the fourth floor, and the two doctors moved to get off. “Thank you,” Carmen called after them.
“Just doing our jobs,” the second doctor said, but he smiled at her as he left. “Thank you.”
Carmen got off on the fifth floor and followed the signs, not wanting to bother pulling out her pad for personalized directions.
Bay nine had several occupants, all but one of whom were either asleep or sedated.
Dominic looked over as she came in. He grinned.
She stumbled to his bed, wiping away from her dirty face tears that had unexpectedly appeared. “Hi, Domi.”
“Hi, Red.” He reached up for her hand. “Good to see you safe. We got lucky.”
“Sort of. You lost a few pounds.”
“Yeah,” Dominic said. “Nothing I can’t live without. It might take a little while for them to set me up with a prosthetic. Sudden high demand for those, you know? And eventually they can try regrowing the part of my leg that’s gone. I hear knees are still a little tricky.”
She sat down on the side of the bed, gazing at him. “I seem to be more upset than you are.”
“I’m probably still numb. And realizing how lucky I am.” He looked at her in a way that made Carmen feel embarrassed. “Hey, Red. I’m going to have some time off. Convalescing, you know. Maybe we could find something to do.”
“If you don’t have half a leg, and there’s no prosthetic,” Carmen said, shaking her head, “you’re going to be stuck in bed while you’re convalescing.”
His smile took on an unexpectedly wicked aspect. “Maybe we can think of ways to pass the time while I’m, um, stuck in bed.”
She laughed. “Maybe.”
Dominic’s smile faded. “Seriously, though. What would you think of starting a family?”
“We’re already . . . you mean have kids? Now?” Carmen waved around. “We’re in a city that’s half-wrecked, there are still the remnants of an invading army on the planet, you’re lying there with half a leg gone, and you want to knock me up? That’s what seems like a good idea to you? What have they got you on?”
“It’s not meds talking, Red.” Dominic looked away, upset. “I could have lost something more important than my leg, you know.”
“If that’s what’s worrying you, we can have a bunch of your little guys frozen,” Carmen said. “Available in case of need.”
“That’s not it. Really. Red, it could have been you. Or either one of us could have been killed. I’ve been talking to some of the others in here,” Dominic added earnestly, gesturing to the other beds. “There’s going to be a pause now, a break in big hostilities. Because we hurt them bad. They can’t come back in strength tomorrow. But in another year or so, maybe a couple of years, they might come back.”
“And you want me walking around nursing a baby when that happens?” Carmen asked.
“If it’s ours,” he said.
She looked down, sighing, not wanting to reject the idea out of hand but also worried for reasons that went back to her own childhood. “Domi, you’re being romantic, thinking of something that doesn’t just symbolize the future but is the future, and I’m being practical, seeing all the problems. I guess that’s how men and women think of children. The men are all about the promise and the potential, and the women worry about what can go wrong and all the demands. Here I am, the person who gives speeches about not losing hope, and I’m afraid to risk something that’s all about hope. Let me think about it. You might have second thoughts as well, you know.”
“I might. Red, something tells me that Kosatka is going to need more Desjanis.”
Carmen gave him a cross look. “And why are you certain they won’t be Ochoas?”
“Good point. We haven’t discussed that. How about if the girls are Desjanis and the boys Ochoas?”
“Turnabout? All right. But that doesn’t mean I’m agreeing to starting anytime soon! Not yet.”
“Fair enough.” Dominic sagged back in bed as if exhausted by the brief conversation.
“Look at you, overstressing yourself,” Carmen chided, fussing with his pillow. “Do you need anything? Stop talking strategy with your fellow wounded and get the rest you need.”
He smiled. “Hey, you know what else I heard? The government is thinking about creating a royal family.”
“A what? You mean, like a queen? For Kosatka?”
“Yeah. Because, what do we look to that makes us all Kosatka? There are political parties and stuff, but those divide, too. If there was a royal family that had no political power but served as symbols of Kosatka, they’d be something everyone could rally around. Can you imagine if the call to arms had come from Kosatka’s prince or princess instead of First Minister Hofer?”
Carmen made a scoffing laugh. “That’s crazy.”
“Red, you’ve told me that one of the problems on Mars was that there wasn’t anything to tie everyone together. It was lots of different groups with different agendas, and when that all fell apart no one knew what to turn to. Right?”
“Right,” Carmen agreed reluctantly.
“Maybe it’s not a bad idea. I mean,” Dominic added, “as long as they don’t have any real political power.”
“Maybe. Where would we get a royal family from?”
“Import one from Old Earth, maybe. Or just pick someone who seems right. That’s how all royal families started originally, right?”
“I suppose. But none of that will matter unless we get help,” Carmen added. “We would’ve been in a hopeless situation if that ship from Glenlyon hadn’t shown up and helped. A royal family might make a nice symbol, but what we need now is for Lochan to make it to Eire and convince others to finally offer some real assistance.”
“Lochan’s a lot tougher than he looks,” Dominic said. “I mean, in ways that matter.”
“He is,” Carmen agreed, worrying about her friend and hoping he was safely almost to Eire by now. “I’m glad that you see that, too. How long are you going to be in here?”
“They’re already talking about moving me out, but there’s a shortage of undamaged beds at recovery facilities. I heard they’re using hotel rooms.”
Carmen smiled. “I got to stay at the Kosatka Grand Centrum for a while after I first got to Kosatka. That’d be a nice place to spend a few days. I’ll see if I can talk to somebody. It looks out over Centrum and . . . where . . . Domi . . .” Sudden tears threatened her again.
“I know,” he said. “Red, I know.” He clasped her hand.
They sat like that for a long time, not speaking, but together.
* * *
Lochan Nakamura had spent a day and a half waiting, as the combined speed of both freighters closed the distance between them. A day and a half spent waiting for periods when his display worked so he could check the situation and try to refine his plans. A day and a half hoping that Freya would somehow contact him.
Lochan knew he couldn’t claim any special skills or experience when it came to figuring out intercepts in space. But the math was the sort of thing any computer could handle with ease, and at the velocities he was dealing with straight Newtonian physics was apparently good enough. The math had given him a time when it had to be done, a period of time it should take, and a time when they should arrive.
He was hazy on the rest. Maybe Freya could fill in the blanks.
The optimum time to do it would be early in the ship’s day. Fortunately, the captain had dictated that Lochan, and he hoped Freya, only got one meal a day, which arrived about noon. If he did things right, he could escape his cabin, find Freya, and they’d be gone long before anyone noticed.
The time had come, well past midnight on the ship’s clock. He either acted now or gave up, but nervousness threatened to paralyze him. Oddly enough, it wasn’t the thought of Carmen’s depending on him that got Lochan moving but the memory of Mele Darcy telling him to trust his own abilities and judgment.
Lochan knelt by the door to his cabin. He couldn’t hear anything outside. The crew hadn’t bothered posting a guard because where could Lochan go? He didn’t think there’d be much risk of encountering anyone else at this time. Only the crew members standing watch on the control deck and in engineering should be awake. If even they were.
He’d once owned a company that, among other things, manufactured locks. The company had failed for reasons that had everything to do with Lochan’s mistakes and little to do with the quality of the locks and other products. The lock on his door was similar enough to the cheapest designs he’d sold back then that he knew how to pop it. Locks on cabins were sort of a luxury item on freighters, so no one invested in top-of-the-line models. As long as it held the door shut, that was enough.
A thin slice of what was supposed to be meat, though Lochan wasn’t sure what creature it might have come from, had been easy to palm at his last meal. Trying to keep the spork would have been noticed instantly, but who counted pieces of mystery meat? As soon as it had cooled and dried, pressed under Lochan’s pad, the slice stiffened into a rigid blade, apparently as hard as iron, and the length of Lochan’s thumb. It wouldn’t have been good enough to defeat a decent lock in a well-set door, but it was plenty good enough to slide between door and jamb so that Lochan could unset the lock he was dealing with.
Outside, the passageway was silent, dark with the lights dimmed. It felt a little absurd to take his carryall along, but Lochan did, walking as silently and quickly as he could to Freya’s cabin.
That lock was also easily defeated, though Lochan jerked with worry every time he thought he heard someone approaching.
To his surprise, Freya didn’t get up when he opened the door. She lay still in her bunk. He approached her carefully, reaching out as far as he could to nudge her, not even wanting to whisper in case her cabin was still bugged.
She didn’t react. He nudged her again, harder. Still nothing. If not for the sound of her breathing deeply, Lochan would have worried if Freya was all right.
He finally crouched over her bunk, using his pad to illuminate her face. Freya didn’t react when he pried open one eyelid. Her pupil looked unusually large and shrank slowly under the light from his pad.
They’d drugged her. Maybe in her meal, judging Freya to be far more dangerous than he was. Before about three years ago, they would have been right.
He got Freya across his shoulders, moving awkwardly in the small cabin, used one hand to grab her bag as well as his, and shuffled out of the cabin. He needed one hand to hold her across his shoulders, so Lochan had to bend his knees and put down both bags to close the cabin door behind him. Picking up the two bags again, he headed for the place he had seen while moving around days before with Freya.
The hatch had a label, of course. Personnel Air Lock. He remembered coming in through it, seeing the lockers on one side holding survival suits. And another important item fastened on the other side, a strap-on maneuvering system to let someone in one of the survival suits direct their course through space.
Lochan paused, breathing heavily from his burden. He’d expected Freya to identify any alarm here, but she was still out cold. He examined the hatch carefully but didn’t see any obvious signs of an alarm.
The lights in the passageway began glowing steadily brighter, warning that the ship’s day was about to begin. With no alternative, Lochan crouched to set Freya down, then rose again to open the air lock’s inner hatch.
Nothing obvious happened in the way of alarms or alerts. Lochan dragged Freya inside the air lock, grabbed both bags, and stepped inside again to close the hatch.
He sat in the dark for a few minutes, getting his breath back and waiting to hear any reaction, dreading the rapid thump of running feet headed for the air lock. But nothing happened. He did hear one set of footsteps clumping by but at the leisurely pace of someone who wasn’t in a hurry.
Checking the time, he saw that he still had an hour left. Lochan used his pad to provide light again since he didn’t want to fumble around in the dark and maybe activate an alarm, or the outer door to the air lock, while looking for a light control. The lockers did hold survival suits, and Lochan was able to figure out the suit-controls-for-dummies they all used, ensuring the air recyclers were working and the suits ready to go. Their outer shells seemed far too thin to trust against the emptiness of space, but the basic design was over a century old. Tough enough to hold up to the usual bumps and other hazards, cheap enough to be easily replaced if something important in the suit failed.
Lochan saw something else, an emergency medical kit. Maybe there was something in there that would help Freya. Digging around in it he found an item labeled “broad spectrum drug/poison neutralizer.” That sounded useful.
Wishing he could ask Freya’s permission before taking this risk, but knowing he had no choice, Lochan opened her mouth, lifted her tongue, and meted out several drops.
Sitting back again, Lochan waited.
It only took about a minute before Freya’s breathing changed, growing quicker and shallower. Worried, he bent over her just as Freya’s eyes opened.
Her stiffened hand stopped just short of his neck.
“You’re lucky I have good enough reflexes to override them when I recognized you,” she whispered. “What the hell is going on?”
“They drugged you,” Lochan explained, moving a bit away from her. “I don’t know when.”
“Me neither. I was being careful about my meals. They could have sent gas into my air vent, though, to knock me out, then followed up with something to put me in a deep sleep.” Freya sat up cautiously, looking around. “Is this the passenger air lock? What are we doing here?”
“We’re escaping.”
“Do you have time to explain this? Where are we escaping to? Are we at Eire?”
Lochan shook his head. “We’re still at Tantalus. They reversed the ship to take us back to the jump point for Kosatka.”
“Oh, hell. How long was I out? And how are we going to . . . ?” She frowned at him. “You’ve got a plan?”
“Yeah. Since we’re coming back to the jump point for Kosatka using the most economical trajectory, and since that other freighter, the Bruce Monroe, is coming from that jump point using the most economical trajectory, the ships are going to pass fairly close to each other.”
“Really?” Freya gave the air lock’s outer hatch a worried look. “What does fairly close mean?”
“A few hundred kilometers. I mean, practically touching in terms of space, you know.”
She stared at him. “A few hundred kilometers?”
“Two hundred, plus or minus fifty. We get into two of these suits,” Lochan explained. “And there’s a maneuvering unit over there so we can accelerate and slow down a bit. We jump along the right vector at the right time, and we’ll meet up with the Bruce Monroe.”
“Which will be going along a different vector at a very high speed compared to us,” Freya said. “Have you ever seen a bug hit a windshield? This would be a lot worse than that.”
“Maybe the Bruce Monroe will change course a bit to pick us up,” Lochan said, worried by her reaction. “They came from Glenlyon. We should be able to trust them.”
Freya lay down flat again, looking up at the top of the air lock. “This ship is taking us back to Kosatka. The reason for that is obvious. There’s no other way off, is there?”
“I don’t think so.”
“So, short of killing the crew and all the other passengers and taking the ship to Eire ourselves, this is our only way to avoid being turned over to the bad guys.”
Lochan stared at her. “I have to admit that the killing everybody else on the ship option hadn’t occurred to me.”
“It wouldn’t be easy, and we’d have some trouble explaining doing that when we got to Eire,” Freya admitted. “I never would have thought of jumping to the Bruce Monroe, though.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Because . . . it’s really insane. You know that, right?”
“I know of a guy who led a bunch of people in a jump across space to another ship,” Lochan argued.
“How far did he jump?”
“It was . . . something like . . . a hundred meters?”
“Which is a little less than two hundred kilometers!” Freya sat up again, rubbing her head. “Whatever they used on me gave me a headache. Is there any aspirin handy?”
“Yeah,” Lochan said, depressed. “So we’re not doing it?”
“Who said we’re not doing it?” Freya popped the painkillers before giving him a small smile. “A couple of hundred kilometers across open space to a ship on a different vector in suits designed for emergency use. What could possibly go wrong? It’s crazy, but it’s our only chance. And if the worst happens . . . it’s liable to be a whole lot less painful than whatever would be waiting for us at Scatha or Apulu.”
“We are doing it?”
“We’re going to try. Amazing idea, if I didn’t say so. Crazy enough to maybe work. When do we have to jump?”
Lochan checked the time. “Thirty-two minutes.”
“Plenty of time. Let’s make sure everything on those suits works, especially the comms, and see if we can figure out how to use that maneuvering unit. And Lochan . . . thank you. You’ve given us a chance.”
As they got into the suits, leaving the hoods off to conserve the air recyclers as long as possible, Freya gave him a questioning look. “Why didn’t they also drug you?”
“I guess they weren’t worried about me,” Lochan said with a shrug.
“They were wrong.”
It felt good to hear that.
Freya found an alarm attached to the outer hatch and disabled it. “They might not even realize we’ve left,” she told Lochan. “Like I said, this is crazy. No one who really understands space would think we could do this.”
“Eight minutes to go,” Lochan said, checking his pad. “I’ve got a bearing we’re supposed to jump out on, and this pad should show where we need to go to meet the Bruce Monroe if that ship keeps going where it has been going.”
“Good.” Freya eyed the maneuvering unit. “Do you mind if I take that? I don’t have much experience with that sort of thing, but—”
“Be my guest. You’ve got more experience than I do. We tie ourselves together?”
“Yeah. Use two . . . no use three lines. We’ve got plenty. Leave about three meters slack between us. No! We need to tie ourselves together to form a single mass for the maneuvering thrust to direct! If you’re on the end of a tether, your mass will swing all over the place and we’ll veer all over space.”
“Tie ourselves together?” Lochan asked, feeling awkward again.
“Tie ourselves tightly together,” Freya said, frowning down at the line in her hands. “The maneuvering unit fits on my back. I’ll strap that on, then you’ll have to go in front. Put your back to me. Come on! Press in. I know it’s a little weird, but just think of it as that sort of kinky date you never really went on.”
Lochan backed up until he was pressed against her front, the thinness of the survival suits separating them more apparent than ever, her head just behind his. Passing the line back and forth, they tied themselves together securely.
They shuffled to the outer door, pausing again to pull their hoods on and activate the seals. Lochan watched the simple display inside the helmet light up with a series of reassuringly green telltales. He shifted the comm circuit to the one he and Freya had agreed on. “Hello?”
“Hi,” she called back. “You’re loud and clear. How am I?”
“It sounds like you’re right behind me,” Lochan said.
“Good. Do you have your pad fastened to something so you won’t lose it?”
Angry with himself for not thinking of that, Lochan pulled a tether from the survival suit’s belt and clipped it to the pad. “Now I do.”
“All right. I’ve got both of our bags strapped to my belt, so we shouldn’t lose those. How’s the time?”
“Two minutes.”
“Let’s open that hatch.”
Lochan reached, touching the control to cycle the air lock. The external mics on his suit picked up the sound of atmosphere being pumped from the air lock, a sound that faded into nothing as the air grew thin, then turned to vacuum.
The outer hatch opened, endless empty space beyond, and Lochan felt a sudden surge of fear. Could he take that next step? Or would he be paralyzed with fright?
Freya’s arms tightened about him from behind. “We can do this.”
“Are you scared?” Lochan asked, his breath feeling short.
“Hell, yeah. You?”
“Yes.”
He couldn’t help laughing, thinking of them tied together. Somehow knowing that she was also scared made it easier for him to admit to and deal with his own fears. “Deal.”
The seconds were counting down. Keeping his eyes locked on his feet, Lochan shuffled forward until he was balanced on the edge of the air lock, standing over an infinity of emptiness, his hands gripping either side. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.
Closing his eyes tightly, Lochan jumped. His stomach lurched as they abruptly left the freighter’s artificial gravity and suddenly became weightless.
Aside from the lack of weight, it didn’t feel exactly like falling. There was nothing pulling at him, nothing rushing past to give a sense of motion. Lochan opened his eyes, seeing nothing ahead but endless nothing spangled with stars.
The stars were slowly rolling past, which was Lochan’s only clue that he had pushed off unevenly and was rotating.
“Let me see the pad,” Freya’s voice urged.
He held it up, using one gloved hand to brush off some moisture on the screen that had almost immediately stiffened into ice crystals.
“All right,” Freya said. “I can see the maneuvering system controls slaved to my suit. We need to . . . let’s finish turning around, then I’ll light off the unit along the right vector.”
Lochan waited, trying to calm the panic that occasionally threatened, as the stars slid past until the dark bulk of the Oarai Miho appeared to block out part of space. He and Freya were sailing away from the ship under the force of Lochan’s initial push off from the air lock, but otherwise, they were still moving along the same vector as the ship they’d left. Conservation of motion. He wondered what Isaac Newton would think if he could see that law of physics displayed so clearly out here far from the world that Newton had never left.
There wasn’t any sign of trouble on the darkened exterior of the freighter. No indication that anyone had noticed the departure of two passengers who were supposedly locked safely and separately in their own cabins.
“Hang on,” Freya cautioned him.
The only thing he could hang on to with one hand was the line across his body holding them together, his other hand extended holding the pad so that Freya could see the vector they needed to aim for.
He felt a jolt of acceleration, the illusion of some gravity suddenly returning as the maneuvering unit fired, hurling them away from the freighter and, hopefully, toward the Bruce Monroe.
The stars stopped sliding past, steadying before him and on all sides. Lochan stared about him, startled by the feeling of being accelerated, yet without any other clue that his senses could detect of actually moving. The only thing close enough to have provided that kind of reference was the Oarai Miho behind them, and he suspected the freighter was already becoming just one more spot in the darkness of space as Lochan and Freya accelerated away.
The acceleration, and the false feeling of some gravity, stopped as Freya shut off the maneuvering unit. Lochan’s ears and stomach flip-flopped again before settling into a lower-key state of discontent.
“We should be on track, Lochan,” she said.
“Now all we have to do is hang here?” he asked.
“We’re moving pretty damned fast. But, yeah, it’ll feel like that. I’m going to call the Bruce Monroe in about half an hour. By then the Oarai Miho will be far past any meaningful turnaround point to catch us again, and the Bruce Monroe will have time to prepare for changing their own vector to pick us up. We’re actually going to travel a lot more than two hundred kilometers because we’re on a vector to intercept the Bruce Monroe as it approaches, crossing the two hundred kilometers separation between the ships and leading the Bruce Monroe by enough to meet up with it.”
“What if the Bruce Monroe doesn’t maneuver to match vectors?” Lochan asked.
“We’ll have two choices. Bug on the windshield or wave as we go by.”
“I’m still scared,” he admitted.
“Me, too. There’s someone back on Catalan I’d like to see again. Have you got anyone besides Brigit?”
“I don’t have Brigit. But . . . Carmen. She’s a friend. Just got married.”
“On Kosatka? I hope she’s all right,” Freya said.
“I hope you get back to Catalan. Is your whole family there?”
“Such as it is out here,” Freya said. “My parents stayed back on Lagrange Three, orbiting Earth. I’ve got a brother who went far out so who knows if I’ll ever hear from him again.”
“Far out? You mean one of those corporate colonies that went out as far as they could?”
“That’s right.” Old upset and irritation entered her voice. “To get away from interference and unleash their full potential, they said. I told him that he was crazy, that out that far there’d be no one to make the corporation owning the colony follow through on their promises to people like my brother and his family. But I was told I didn’t understand and effective corporate governance would ensure all agreements were honored. Why is it people who are so cynical about some things are so willing to idealize other things?”
“Beats me,” Lochan said, grateful for the distraction posed by the conversation. “As a rule, I believe in people, but I only trust the ones who’ve shown me they’re worth trusting.”
“Yeah. Right.” He felt her head moving behind him as Freya looked around. “It’s big. So big. We’re so small. But I think what we do matters. Do you?”
“Yeah, I think so, too,” Lochan agreed.
“I thought you were like that. Do you want to work together once we get to Eire? Maybe two of us, representing two star systems, can get a lot more attention than each of us individually.”
“Yes,” Lochan said. “If we can, sure. If we both make it.”
Her laugh surprised him. “Either we both survive this, or neither of us will, Lochan.”
They didn’t talk for a while after that. To his surprise, Lochan found himself drifting off to sleep. Weightless, suspended in nothing, no changes outside the suit, he felt cradled by infinity. Would this be how it would feel when the air recycler on the suit finally gave out? That wouldn’t be so bad, would it?
But he did want to see Carmen again. And Brigit. And get the help that Kosatka needed.
The sound of Freya’s broadcasting startled him to full wakefulness again.
“Freighter Bruce Monroe, freighter Bruce Monroe, please respond. This is a humanitarian emergency. Please respond.”
“Will the Oarai Miho hear that?” Lochan asked when Freya paused.
“They will if they’re listening,” she said. “I had to use the emergency circuit that everyone is supposed to monitor full-time so I’d be sure the Bruce Monroe would hear us.”
Freya had repeated her call twice more, while Lochan waited with a sinking sense of failure, when a response startled him.
“This is the Bruce Monroe replying to unknown caller on all-ships emergency frequency. Are you on the Oarai Miho? Your signal doesn’t seem to be coming from there.”
“We are two individuals in open space,” Freya replied. “Survival suits and a maneuvering unit. We’re on a converging vector with your ship’s trajectory and need rescue.”
The reply took awhile.
“Two individuals in suits in open space,” the voice from the Bruce Monroe repeated. “I need to know the circumstances that led to that.”
“We were being forcibly taken to Hesta. Confined against our will,” Freya said. “I am Freya Morgan, trade negotiator for Catalan. With me is Lochan Nakamura, special representative of Kosatka.”
They were waiting for a new reply from the Bruce Monroe when another, all-too-familiar voice sounded on the circuit.
“Those two are criminals! This is the captain of the Oarai Miho. Those two are saboteurs and thieves, responsible for the destruction of valuable property and the theft of items from this ship! They are . . . in league with the pirates! Do not pick them up!”
Freya responded the moment the captain stopped. “Bruce Monroe, this is Freya Morgan. The captain of the Oarai Miho is lying. She is in league with the pirates and is under the control of Scatha. I promise you that the government of Catalan will compensate you for any expense involved in matching vectors and rescuing me and Lochan Nakamura.” Lochan’s pad had no sensors, and the survival suits could only handle close-in situations, nothing far away. They couldn’t tell what either ship was doing as the Bruce Monroe and the Oarai Miho began arguing directly with each other.
Was the Bruce Monroe’s signal getting stronger? It should be, since they should be getting closer, and the energy of the signal wouldn’t be spreading out through space as much.
How much warning would they have if the Bruce Monroe didn’t pick them up on its visual sensors, track them, and maneuver to match vectors closely enough to recover them? Would they have a moment of awareness of the freighter suddenly there close, then an impact that wouldn’t do the ship any good and end their adventure forever? Or would there be a brief glimpse of a far-off object blocking a few stars as it raced past them, followed by a long wait for the end?
“Hey, Lochan,” Freya said, her voice low.
“Yeah?”
“Thanks. We got this far. You know how to show a girl a fun time.”
“You’re welcome. I’ve had a great time, too. We should do this sort of thing again.”
Her laugh sounded reassuringly normal, without any stress underlying it. “No, thank you.”
The sound of the incoming transmission felt so loud that Lochan winced. “Citizen Morgan, Citizen Nakamura, this is the Bruce Monroe. We are matching vectors and rigging the emergency recovery net. Stand by. If you have any remaining power in your maneuvering unit, try to shift your vector up three degrees and eighty degrees to starward. Be advised there’s a risk of physical injury during recovery under these circumstances.”
“A risk of physical injury,” Freya murmured, then laughed again.
Lochan felt the maneuvering unit’s thrust push at them once more as Freya tried to match the vector shift that the Bruce Monroe had asked for. “We could get hurt?” he asked her, before he started laughing as well.
For just a moment, he understood how Mele Darcy probably felt at times like this. What the hell. Let’s do this.