Lochlain felt crushing nausea hit him as Zanshin dove into normal space. He likened it to being flipped upside down dozens of times while spinning rapidly in a circle. Even clutching his chair’s armrests did little to diminish the sense of tumbling vertigo. Having no choice, he accepted the sickening sensations and panted to ride out the disorientation as he had always done before.
Truesworth’s wavering voice cut through the curtain of discomfort. “We are inside the Vulsia system, Captain. The tunnel point beacon is green.” There was a pause before the sensorman added, “Elease, you’re cleared out of the immediate vicinity up to the middle marker.”
Lochlain forced open his eyes and saw his navigator nodding feebly as she continued to cover her mouth with a hand. She finally swallowed successfully and croaked, “Wow, that was a bad one. I’m sorry.”
There was strong evidence supporting a theory that the level of disorientation experienced in a tunnel dive was proportional to the physical distance the ship was from the center point of the tunnel when its dive was initiated. The principle explained why a dive into tunnel space was usually gentler on a crew than dives coming out of the altered realm of physics. It was much easier to plot a position inside a star system and hit a tunnel point’s center than in the featureless, compressed folds of t-space.
The rough transition seemed like a harbinger of disaster to Lochlain. Earlier, he had come to the chilling conclusion that Carinae not only offered Zanshin the best chance to extricate herself from her economic predicament but possibly her only chance. Lingenfelter’s less than encouraging navigation performance with the present dive had resulted in fiercer than normal disorientation for his crew. If she encountered similar problems fixing the exit point of the radiation-saturated Menali-Carinae tunnel, Zanshin could miss the tunnel exit entirely.
No one was exactly sure what happened to starships that missed their exit dives, mostly because those starships were never heard from again. Such tragic events were a rarity given advances in navigation; however, tales of poorly timed tunnel drive malfunctions and near-miss dive events were still whispered in the darker corners of orbital taverns. The latest apparent victim was a super-massive Cape-sized freighter that failed to return to normal space several years ago. The insurance underwriters insisted the cause was “navigator error” but the freighter company had attempted to pass the loss off to a loading company in Helwan that mislabeled some of its cargo. The only certainty was that the 725,000-tonne cargo ship and her fifty-seven crewmembers were lost to tunnel space.
“It’s okay, Elease,” Lochlain answered once he could speak. “After we’re cleared to the orbital, let’s rerun your tunnel navigation calculations and figure out what happened.”
Lingenfelter cringed at the mild reproof but nodded dutifully. She was currently rotating Zanshin, orienting the 230-meter workhorse toward the fourth planet.
Lochlain pressed a finger to his console. “Mercer, how’d we do on dive efficiency?”
Brooke replied shortly, “Eight point eight percent.” The tone of her voice made her displeasure easily evident. “At this rate, we have enough for two more star systems.”
Carinae was still within reach. “Why are we draining so much?” he asked.
Brooke’s technical answer did little to clear matters up for him. As they discussed the disappointing dive efficiency, he watched Lingenfelter make her final course adjustments. Despite the poorly plotted tunnel dive, the bridge was running smoothly and required nothing more than minimal oversight. He once again thanked providence for his experienced deck officer at sensors. Lingenfelter calculated speed and distance and placed her results on the system plot. A cursory look at the bridge wall screen told Lochlain that Zanshin would arrive at the orbital in three hours and fifty-three minutes. He worked his controls to transfer Lingenfelter’s tunnel calculations to the chartroom. “All right, Elease, let’s step out and run the math again.”
The post mortem of the tunnel dive attributed the miscalculations to minor but incremental navigation errors compounded by Zanshin’s vexing chronometer issue. The additive effects resulted in the ship’s Deltic drive generating the tunnel effect 1.6 seconds too early. The dive was within the acceptable margin of error but the imprecision was still significant. Lochlain forwarded their findings to Brooke with a pointed reminder of how important it was to locate and correct the ship’s timekeeping problem.
By the time Lochlain and Lingenfelter had finished their dissection, Zanshin was nearing final approach to the trade orbital. It was nearly 01:00 ship’s time. Mercifully, the freighter had made a peaceful run in-system without garnering attention from any of the three system defense ships policing space between the Ancera tunnel point and fourth planet. Their unmolested trip was not attributable to luck. Well over ninety-five percent of inbound cargo ended up inside the storage compartments of the trade orbital and it was far easier to conduct inspections inside the safety of an orbital rather than the dark of space.
Elements from a visiting Federation destroyer squadron bumped Zanshin back in the docking queue but she moored safely after only an hour’s delay. Once Lingenfelter announced that the ship’s virtual lines were secure, Lochlain synchronized to the docking ring, maneuvered the docking tube to Zanshin’s airlock and secured the ship’s access to the huge orbital. For the crew, it was finally time to sleep.
Vulsia’s trade orbital was something of a Frankenstein’s monster. Originally, the orbital had served the planet below as a standard space station. When the Federation began its push to colonize Carinae, freight poured into the system and the station was hastily expanded and upgraded in a patchwork fashion. Eventually, Vulsian senators convinced the Federation Council to dedicate the orbital purely to commerce and authorize the funds necessary to construct a new orbital to serve the system.
That new orbital was a scant five hundred kilometers from where Zanshin lie moored and scheduled to enter preliminary service in under a year. It was a smooth, aesthetic design that would greatly increase Vulsia’s commerce capacities. In contrast, Zanshin’s current harbor was a piecemeal assembly of “plug and operate” compartments, crudely grafted equipment and “temporary” cargo storage sections pressed into permanent service through necessity. The external chaos of the station translated directly to the ambiance inside as overworked and overwhelmed orbital security stretched to its limits. The station’s layout was a befuddling jumble of side passages intersecting each other in a dizzying labyrinth that would have confused most minotaurs. In short, it was a smuggler’s dream.
The next morning, Lochlain’s first order of business was delivery of the consignment containers to the orbital storage yards. Unsurprisingly, three of the five containers they carried were ultimately destined for Carinae and would, once again, wait in consignment until their owners bid high enough for a foolhardy ship captain to justify the dangerous trip. After Lochlain deposited the last ore container, he processed the electronic formwork to prompt the final payment. Thirty-five thousand Federation credits trickled into Zanshin’s account. That apparent fortune would shrink immediately by almost ten thousand credits when the crew’s shares were deducted. Provisions for a ten-day trip to Carinae could easily cost another five thousand. Docking fees, shore power while docked and consumables for general maintenance and life support would rapidly drain the remainder leaving Lochlain with less than five percent of his original total to place in reserve for a fuel cell recharge. In his current economic position, a pricey equipment failure on the ship would translate to insolvency. The problem would only exacerbate since Truesworth, Lingenfelter and Naslund had completed their trial runs and commanded full engineer and deck officer shares going forward. By the time Lochlain returned the shuttle to Zanshin, taking consignments to Carinae had never looked so good.
He plodded down the main deck toward the mess in a foul mood. When he reached the common rooms, he heard the distinctive noise from the exercise machine inside the entertainment lounge. Lochlain poked his head inside and saw Brooke rowing hard on the machine. His eyes narrowed. “You’re going to aggravate your shoulder and end up costing us a fortune in medical care,” he growled. “I already had to pay to get the auto-doc rewrapped by a certified technician because of you.”
Brooke stopped to gape briefly at his allegation before offering her captain a distinctive salute. “Yeah, sorry about that,” she replied acerbically. “Next time I’ll have the good sense to duck and let you get shot.” She resumed her rowing at a slightly more furious rate.
Lochlain snarled but reined in his anger. He walked up to Brooke and offered in a more gentle tone, “Sorry. I’m just mad at the galaxy right now. I delivered our freight and we’re basically more in debt now than when we started.”
“We still have the other container,” Brooke reminded him. She slowed her frantic pace on the machine back to a more reasonable level.
Lochlain sighed. “All that money was up front.” He looked at her helplessly. “Sorry, but I needed the money for the squib.”
She stopped the machine. “Seriously?” She grunted in disbelief and stared blankly ahead for a moment. “Well, damn. I guess we better hope your contacts here have some particularly illegal cargo they need transported.”
“We need to deliver Isett’s container first,” Lochlain said. “Although, after my last conversation with her, I’m a little concerned.”
“About what?” Brooke took her feet off the rowing pedals and pulled off her fingerless gloves.
“She suggested collecting the bounty on Zanshin. Offered to cut me in and she might decide to do it even though I declined.” Lochlain’s brow furrowed and his mouth twisted. “Hell, her people in this system may even decide to try it by themselves and she’d have genuine deniability.”
“We could always not deliver the cargo,” Brooke suggested as she wiped her face with a towel.
Lochlain shook his head. “We’d never get another job, smuggling or legit. Plus, Cindi Isett’s ‘to-do’ list is something you want to stay off of.”
“Okay,” Brooke said as she rose from the machine, “then we go in expecting trouble. I still have my raid armor and we have some nice PDWs thanks to Mr. Munn or whoever he really was.”
“Are you fit for duty?” Lochlain asked as he looked at her shoulder. Her tank top left her shoulder bare and it was still an angry pink.
Brooke shot him a purely diabolical look. “You seemed to think I was last night.”
Lochlain blushed despite himself. “Okay,” he surrendered with a laugh. “Who else do we take with us?”
Brooke toweled the side of her face again as she thought. “Well, Jack is former Brevic military so he’s capable.”
“I’m not worried that Jack won’t know how to use a gun,” Lochlain countered artfully. “I’m more concerned that, as a Brevic, he’ll just start shooting for no good reason.”
The pair shared a laugh at the Republic’s expense but Lochlain finally said, “He does seem like he’s got a level head. What about Elease and Casper?”
Brooke inhaled thoughtfully. “I think they’re too green. Besides, we only have three submachine guns.” Her eyes widened with inspiration. “Take Elease. She’s a pilot and can sit in the shuttle with the engines revving in case we need to leave quickly.”
“Casper will be disappointed that we’re leaving him out,” Lochlain predicted.
“That’ll change when one of us comes back as a corpse.”
* * *
Lochlain softened the blow to Naslund’s ego by explaining that the shuttle would hold only four people and that Zanshin needed someone to remain on board. Further, he promised the aspiring smuggler that he could accompany Lochlain when he visited Janell Verdin.
Lochlain climbed aboard the shuttle and sat in the copilot’s seat to assist Lingenfelter through the pre-flight checklist. Behind him, Truesworth and Brooke performed weapon checks on their submachine guns. Brooke had told Lochlain the weapons were Lancaster Executioner-Cs built with no metallic components, along with a more chilling feature. She had discovered ports for smartlinks and only dedicated gunmen endured the pain and expense to have cybernetics surgically installed to interface with their weaponry.
Out of superstition, Lochlain had decided against jettisoning the bodies in tunnel space. Upon the discovery of the weapons’ smartlink ports, Brooke had repressurized Zanshin’s forward hold for a second inspection of the hitmen to confirm her fears but was relieved to find no evidence of smartlink hardware in their bodies. Dangerous men had been intent on murdering her but at least they had not been cybernetically enhanced humans with computer-assisted marksmanship.
Brooke finished her weapons check and started the process over with what would be Lochlain’s weapon. “We need to find some gun-cleaning kits on the orbital when we’re done,” she commented while ejecting the magazine. “These were never cleaned after the gunfight.”
“Will they work?” Lochlain asked from the front of the shuttle.
Brooke nodded. “Of course they will. I just hate the message I’ll be sending when I show up with a dirty weapon. It’s embarrassing.”
Across the aisle, Truesworth completed his own inspection and lifted the strap of his gun over his head and onto his shoulder. The Brevic had never held a submachine gun before. Brooke had half-expected the man to scoff at the offered weapon and pull a military-grade assault rifle from thin air. Instead, the war veteran confessed that he had never even qualified on the standard Brevic multi-rifle. As an officer, he explained, he had received a mere four hours of instruction on the standard navy sidearm and shot barely well enough at the firing range to pass the class with the minimum score. She threw him a confident wink as he looked up from his gun to her and smiled. The sensorman consistently defied her every preconception of a “‘Vic.”
“It figures that you’re the muscle of the group,” Truesworth said from his jumpseat.
“Why’s that?”
“You remind me of the most vicious officer I ever met. Sure, she was a quiet, unassuming woman in everyday life but when you threatened something she cared about…” He shivered dramatically. “Let’s just say that not a lot of things would be left in one piece afterwards.”
Brooke nodded as she leaned Lochlain’s weapon against her jumpseat. “I think I like this woman. What was her name?”
“Strap in!” Lochlain shouted from the cockpit. “We’re lifting off.” In front of him, the wall screen displayed the opening maw of Zanshin’s hangar. Behind the receding doors, a Handy-max freighter maneuvered gingerly to ease into a slip four hundred meters from Zanshin.
Lochlain watched their exit and he interfaced with the cargo master’s system on his freighter. Earlier he had set the ship’s controls to auto-accept the shuttle’s handshake. Lochlain brought up the camera feed to the last occupied hardpoint on the ship’s exterior. He powered the hardpoint and shuttle spotlights before activating the container’s anti-collision lights. “I’m extending the payload claws, Elease.” Yellow strobe lights flickered rhythmically over the protruding arms in front of the shuttle.
Lingenfelter cautiously piloted the craft down the length of the freighter toward Isett’s container. Several minutes later, she lined up with one end of her quarry. After creeping forward, Lochlain ordered her to relative rest and maneuvered the claws to the container’s lift points. A minute later, Zanshin relinquished her embrace on the box and Lingenfelter withdrew slowly from the freighter’s shadow and into the star system’s red sunlight.
Lochlain listened through his headset to the controlled mayhem on the orbital’s departure frequency and keyed his mic when there was a pause. “Orbital Departure, this is Shuttlecraft November-Six-Zero-One-One-Tango requesting departure to the planet.”
The reply was measured haste. “Roger One-One-Tango, contact at Docking Bay Thirty-Two. You are cleared to planetfall. Maintain standard separation from all traffic and proceed on your own navigation. Departure out.” The orbital controllers had much more pressing concerns than the swarm of tiny shuttles buzzing the orbital like bees around a hive.
Lochlain turned to Lingenfelter and smiled gregariously. “Let’s go deliver some contraband.”