CROWELL
14 “This ship have a name?” I asked Plenko, running my hand over the control panel, as if checking for dust. We’d spent several hours going over the Memor ship’s helm controls, including the pilot bubble, the slot drive, tracker, maneuvering thrusters—everything. The ship wasn’t large. A two-seater, with barely enough space behind the harnesses, where Plenko stood now. The cabin was sealed from the back compartments: some supply lockers and the main engine hub and the proprietary Memor engine array.
“If I have the translation correct, the IDENT says it’s called Glass Spire, Plenko said. “But it’s ours now. At least for a little while. You can name it whatever you’d like.”
“The Tem Forno has a nice ring to it,” my partner suggested.
I ignored him. Instead, after a few seconds, the name came to me. “Call it the Lucky Lawrence.”
“After your dad,” Plenko said, nodding. “A fine choice.”
“We’ll need a hell of a lot of luck to pull this off,” I said. “It doesn’t hurt to pull from my dad’s strength.”
“The first hurdle is one of the hardest,” Plenko said. “Piloting it from out here, ground to station, without clearance. It’ll take some fancy flying to get past some of the Authority watchdogs.”
“If we can maneuver well enough to avoid them, and we come in hot, it might not be so bad.”
Plenko agreed, but he had a suggestion. “We chance discovery out here, but it’s worth the risk to conduct some low-altitude flying tests. Get a feel for the atmospheric controls. You can’t practice the next step—morphing the code and engaging the bubble for the jump slot—but you can verbalize the steps. Run through the preflight checklist. Mimic the procedure and the motions. You must be precise. Your movements from atmosphere to orbit to slot must flow.”
“Is there a disadvantage to the special slot drive system?” Forno asked. “More time to engage? Increased runtime?”
“Maybe. That’s why you need to be test pilots.”
I felt confident enough. Plenko had a lot of the specs down. “What happens when we get to the slot? We won’t have prior clearance. No flight plan.”
I had some knowledge about this because Dorie and Brindos hijacked a press shuttle on Temonus, not a typical slot vessel at all. Hell, not even an off-planet vessel. They fled Temonus for the quarantined Ribon in a damn hurry. Of course, they’d had a trained pilot. He’d not been very willing, and complained about everything, including the fact that we were taking our lives—and his—into our own hands by taking the ship through the slot without a slot tracker, but we hadn’t given him a choice.
“You’ll have to run and jump,” Forno said. “Slot speed will be overly high, but that’s your only chance.”
I remembered something. “Dorie told me that when they did the run to Ribon on that press shuttle, the pilot entered the insertion codes and morphed the trip to Ribon on the ground, before they even entered atmosphere.”
Plenko was way ahead of me. “Can’t do it in this case, due to the Memor slot drive. The calculations are too tight. Too sensitive.”
I seemed to be out of questions, and Forno hadn’t thought of any either. We were as ready as we could be to put some real time in behind the controls.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s fly.”
It didn’t take long for Forno to master the low-altitude maneuvers, oddly enough, considering the size of the Memor controls. I didn’t understand how Helks handled most Memor or human tools when forced to do so.
He’d learn the ship’s controls because he needed to do the return flight solo. He had to prep the ship for the jump slot, followed by the sideways slip to the intermediary station. Once there, Forno would be my muscle and I’d do what I had to do to quantum travel. Forno would take the ship back to Barnard’s.
Plenko barked out instructions from the row behind us as he practiced. The ship ran smooth and fast, and responded to every command, turning and accelerating effortlessly, no matter the speed. It was a hell of a ship.
We all kept a wary eye on the horizon, hopeful we wouldn’t attract the attention of the planet’s Port Authority. Forno worked the controls, and Plenko yelled at him to keep the speed steady and not overcorrect.
I really liked hearing someone else yell at Forno for a change.
When Plenko was certain Forno could run the Lucky Lawrence without serious flaws, it was time for the next step: play-acting the prep for slot travel. Forno practiced it now as the ship raced low along the lush landscape. Next, he practiced the insertion process, all pretend, step by step as I talked him through it from instructions given by Plenko. Forno didn’t do the steps, just pantomimed them. I didn’t ask how he knew all these piloting specs.
“You’re in the control area,” I said. “You’re flying hot toward the jump slot. Probably chased by Authority. Access bubble controls to engage slot engines. When they fire, you reach down to disengage the slot tracker. Insertion codes ready. Morph the code to Memory, with alternative sideways slotting at the ready. Insertion codes entered, wait for codes to morph, nodes to emerge and construct holo-image of Memory.”
Forno frowned, uncertain of a step. “Do I release the lockout?”
Plenko said, “No. You can skip the lockout.”
“Okay,” he said.
“Planet Memory image morphed and inserted,” I continued. “Engage the bubble. In one minute or less, you’re enveloped by the pilot’s bubble. Preconfigured insertion code, run and jump speed. With proximity to slot, you should be automatically slotted. Station officials will be extremely pissed off. Wait for entrance into the jump slot, then reinject the slot tracker.” I turned to Plenko. “And that’s that.”
Plenko said, “Do it again.”
Over and over until Forno could verbalize the steps on his own, do all of it without errors, as he would have to on the way back. He wouldn’t have me there to guide him or remind him of any of the specific steps.
Emma messaged from the ground and said she’d intercepted some chatter from Authority about a possible breach of flight protocol near Gottelburg.
“That’s us,” I said. “Better hurry.”
We added the routine of slipping sideways to the new slot, which would bring us to the intermediary station. Forno ran through the same routine as before but included the mimicked motions of firing the Memor proprietary slot engine. Luckily, there weren’t many steps to this procedure. When the slot engine engaged, he’d initiate a simple 90-degree turn, but at a torque barely tolerable for humans.
Sideways.
We’d be in the intermediate slot and on our way to the intermediary station. Our biggest question mark was the station itself. Having never been to it—and having never seen it—no amount of prep would give us enough details about this one station. Small crew, no ships. That was all we knew.
We could guess though, so we played out as many scenarios as we could.
“Alert,” Emma said from below. “Authority is on the way. I figure you have ten minutes, tops. If you’re going to go, you better go.”
Plenko acknowledged her, then told Forno to set the Lucky Lawrence down a hundred yards from the hangar. “You’re on your own,” he said, once they’d landed. “You have the Tarot cards you need for this step. The specs are on your com card.”
“They are?”
“Pushed to you while you were practicing the slot routine.”
“Encrypted?”
“Of course. Unauthorized ping. You have it, and you can read it.”
Emma’s voice again. “Hello? Going? Terl, you’ve got to get out of there, too. They might search the hangar now that they have coordinates.”
“They’re leaving now,” Plenko said, patting me—as lightly as he could—on the back. “Me too.”
There wasn’t much else to say or do after that. We had to get gone, and fast. Plenko headed for the ship’s exit. I worried about Dorie. I worried about Plenko’s Thin Man being with her. I worried I wouldn’t understand the Tarot cards well enough to get them to work for quantum travel once I arrived at the station.
I’d worry about Forno’s return later on.
“Anything happens to Dorie,” I told Plenko’s retreating back, “I’ll hold you responsible. There’ll be hell to pay when I get back.”
Plenko glanced over his shoulder. “If you get back.”
I nodded.
“Fair enough,” he said.
And then he was gone.
We fired hot, slagging the open field in our haste to depart, forgoing any low-altitude maneuvers. The acceleration couches and our harnesses took the brunt of the force. We might’ve done some damage to the hangar as well, but I knew Plenko and Emma had skipped out of there in time. We were ahead of Port Authority but left plenty of clues behind if they decided to pursue. The pressure on my chest lessened as the dampeners kicked in, and we reached higher altitudes.
“Pursuit?” Forno asked.
“Not that I can see.”
We hit space. Forno already had the insertion codes ready. “Firing the primary slot engines.” The ship whined as the drive engaged.
“Correction,” I said.
“What?”
“Pursuit.”
Forno throttled up, still burning against the last of Barnard’s atmosphere. “Go faster,” he said. “That’s always best practice.”
Then the Lucky Lawrence shivered.
I swore. “Something hit us.”
“Slapper,” Forno said. “Low yield. Getting our attention. They’re not close enough yet.”
“Keep flying.”
“Slot tracker disengaged. I’m making a run for the jump slot.”
The coms crackled over the ship’s speakers soon after, a warning from the station.
<<THIS IS OSPREY STATION TO APPROACHING VESSEL GLASS SPIRE. YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO APPROACH THE SLOT. PLEASE RESPOND AND PREPARE TO BE BOARDED BY AUTHORITY VESSEL>>
I’d almost forgot the ship’s registered IDENT, Glass Spire. Tracking showed the authority vessel gaining. Its IDENT was scrambled. They didn’t want us knowing too much. “Keep going,” I said.
“Like you have to convince me.”
“Got the insertion codes?”
“Already entered. Code to Memory processing.”
I saw the nodes popping out on the resin and the holo-image of Memory forming. “Cutting it close. You ready?”
“Ready as a Helk First Clan doing ballet.”
“I can’t even begin to picture that, let alone understand how—”
“On my toes.”
The ship shimmied when the next slapper hit. We skewed wildly. I willed the engines to hang on. Not too much farther to go. I had a visual on the jump slot. Whether we made it depended on nailing the slot at the right time and the Authority vessel not tearing the ship apart. We needed some luck now.
Lucky Lawrence.
Forno engaged the bubble. The holo image to Memory appeared on the resin just as a transparent film surrounded Forno and the control area. Cutting it close, indeed.
The ship skewed again, but it was less intense. We were going to make it.
“Got vessels near the slot,” Forno announced.
“It’s the queue. Go right by them.”
We did. Authority wouldn’t chance firing now, but I didn’t know if any other security could keep us from the slot. I didn’t think so. We’d get there, then the bigger unknown would be the sideways jump.
But Authority did fire again, and this time we were pushed forward after a powerful thud. A wrenching noise. A warning light and a strident signal. Lucky Lawrence slowed, but kept on target, and the slot was right there.
“Ashtay!” Forno yelled.
I blinked. “Did you just use Pig Latin?”
He didn’t answer. “What’re they doing shooting—” He moved with purpose inside the bubble. “We’ve lost the slot engine.”
“What?”
“Boosting primary with secondary power.”
“That’ll pull you—”
“I’ll compensate.”
The transparent bubble hazed my view of Forno, but I could still make out perspiration on the leathery skin of his forehead. I gripped the couch. Authority support ships were en route, but if we could just get to the slot, momentum would pull us in. We couldn’t access extra power for boosting once in the slot, but we might have enough residual thrust to carry us through. Also, we weren’t going the full distance to Memory, and if we could just get to the point of our sideways jump, the Memor engine could take us from there.
“Come on,” I said.
<<THIS IS OSPREY STATION TO UNAUTHORIZED VESSEL GLASS SPIRE. YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO APPROACH THE SLOT>>
Earlier I’d said to myself, we’re going to make it. Now? It didn’t seem likely.
“Slow roller, coming in,” Forno said. He glanced at me, his face a wash of emotions. “This’ll do us in.”
Fuck.
<<NO MORE WARNINGS GLASS SPIRE. WE ARE FORCED TO USE LETHAL FORCE. JETTISON IF ABLE BUT NOT LIKELY TO SURVIVE THIS CLOSE TO THE SLOT>>
“It doesn’t make sense,” I said. “They should just let us go. Why are they so protective of the slot? We’re a Memor ship.”
“Maybe they’ve seen through our IDENT. Maybe they know we’re not who we say we are and they’re protecting the intermediary station.”
A number of people could profit from this mission failing. Morgan. His client. Or Sakson. Lorway. Even Plenko if we didn’t know the whole story.
<<GLASS SPIRE RESPOND. RESPOND AND CONFESS AND WE’LL PUT IN A GOOD—>>
The ship lurched. Shot forward. Osprey Station silenced.
Silenced?
We were in the slot. Blackness and diamond points of light.
“The explosion gave us the final push we needed,” Forno said. “We’re slotted, but barely, and no slot engine. If we make the intermediary station, it’ll be a miracle.”
This also didn’t make sense. “The explosion should’ve torn us to pieces.”
The bubble had collapsed with the loss of the slot engine. Forno pulled away and shook his head. “Not our explosion.”
“What do you mean, ‘Not our explosion?’”
“Another ship in the queue. Not sure what kind, or how big. It was next in the queue, lining up for a better insertion point. Its destruction saved us. The blast pushed us into the slot.”
I closed my eyes and felt the weight of the ship’s sacrifice settle on me. How many had been on that ship? I took a deep breath. “Slot tracker?”
Forno shook his head. “Useless to reinject now that the engine is down. Maybe the Memor proprietary drive will let us if we can find the intermediary station. If we don’t, we’re adrift and likely lost in here, unless chance spits us out, or a rescue vessel bothers looking. The way Osprey was shooting at us, I’m going to guess we won’t be on any priority rescue list.”
It was strange seeing Forno this serious; no joking around now. “What about the main engines?” I asked.
“Useless in the slot. We’d burn up the ship trying to compensate. Even if the main engines worked. It’d just hasten the inevitable.”
“What about turning the Memor drive on ahead of schedule?”
“Plenko said no. If we’re not in sight of the sideways slot, he doesn’t know what it’ll do to the ship.”
“If he doesn’t know what it’ll do, then maybe we chance it.”
“You want to try, we’ll try, but there’s no urgency yet. We could just do nothing and end up drifting right to it.”
He’d told Dorie about the TWT transport that had gone missing in the slot, that it had been found, all passengers safe. Five days for the rescue vehicle to find it. A cold jump from inside the slot with new codes. He wondered where Dorie was now. Gone with the Plenko copy, back to Earth, to Morgan. She was in as much danger as I was, maybe even more so.
Come on, Lucky Lawrence.
“Okay,” I said, giving in. “Let her drift.”