Captain Patel was looking at the tank, feeling a pain which was far too familiar.
Five hundred dead, soon to be six hundred.
I am the captain., I will grieve later, I cannot be allowed to do it now.
Lieutenant Commander Rose walked up to him and said, "Sir, we have to do something. We can send boats out there, maybe rig them with shielding. We can't just leave all those people to die."
"Samantha," the captain said softly, "They're already dead. Your duty, my duty, is to the living, to those we can save and to those on this ship. Sending people to their death will not help anyone. Right now, what matters are the three boats we can save and the people on this ship.
"Can you do that, Lieutenant Commander?"
"Yes, sir."
Patel turned away and looked at the tank, and despite what he had just said, looked at the Snowball. It was just out of reach, no ship able to get there fast enough to do any good.
He heard someone use their mag shoes to walk up beside him. He turned around and saw his XO, Commander Randal Smith. The commander looked like the captain felt. In a low voice, he said, "We have a problem," then gestured to the door.
The captain motioned for them to go to his office, between the bridge and C&C.
When inside, the XO swiped his wristcomp, and an image of the system and surrounding space appeared.
"I was talking to the physics team, when I saw this."
Several waves were expanding out from the stars at the center of the diagram, going far past the edge of the system before fading away.
"What are those? They don't look like radiation."
"That's because its hydrogen and helium, expanding outward at more than ten KPS. What's important is this." He waved past the edge of the system. "I ran the numbers and we can't displace through that. Even with every cycle of every computer on board, we'll be stuck moving wholly through real space over the course of decades to get to the nearest star."
"How long do we have?"
"The physicists say between a week and a month, but they put so many qualifiers on it I doubt its more than a guess. No one's ever been in the same system as a nova before. We have to leave as soon as we can."
The captain got up and mag-walked to the bridge. All of the twenty consoles were being used.
Making sure to use his Captain voice, he instructed, "Officer of the Deck, begin rigging for emergency thrust, we are to be ready in twenty-four hours. I want to be out of the heliosphere and displacing in less than two weeks."
Lieutenant Commander Rose turned her head and after a notable pause, "Sir?" she questioned; using her tone to ask what she could not ask in public.
"I understand the risks, Lieutenant Commander. I have faith in the crew." He smiled with some effort and said, "We'll be fine."
Samantha Rose gave orders, directing everyone on board not busy to help lock everything down.
The captain was walking back to the C&C when Smith asked him, "Are you going to announce why we're readying to leave so fast?"
"In a few hours, when everyone is good and busy, I will announce it. Does the physics team know not to tell anyone?"
"I didn't tell them. I just used their data. I doubt they'll put it together in the next couple hours. They're probably the only ones happy on the ship. The first scientists in history to have close-up data of a nova."
"Hopefully they will stay distracted for a few more hours."
"Captain, I need to go to engineering, get them up to speed."
"Do it quickly. I need you to go through our supplies."
"Jagan, we hadn't even started to take on supplies from this system, no way we can make it back to the grid. We might have to stop in a virgin system."
The captain sighed, "I know. We never planned on this possibility. I want you to find someplace we can get to."
He headed off to his office as the captain entered the C&C. It was much larger than the bridge, more than ten meters wide with two rings of consoles and a large tank. The tank was a large cube, inside of which was a hologram of the system with every boat and natural body of any size displayed. Trajectories were displayed with symbols and colors that detailed their acceleration during their projected courses. They were showing as between purple (less than a tenth of a G) and blue-green (almost two G's).
The bridge was the heart of the ship. Every system that kept him running was controlled from there. When the ship was not moving, there was a minimum number of crew on the bridge.
The C&C, however, always had a full complement. It was responsible for coordinating everything in the system, every boat, every probe. It also crunched sensor information and passed it to the bridge.
The Trajectories Officer called out, "Incoming course change, from the Birtha for the Birtha and the Snowball."
That got the captain's attention.
He saw the track belonging to the Birtha change from a short black one to a long red one that intersected with the Snowball. Both the Snowball and the Birtha then swung around Marble in a parabolic course with enough uncertainty that the course was a cone instead of a line.
That cone then circled around Marble, into its shadow.
He then called out, "Message incoming from Birtha, reads 'Relay to Snowball: Strap yourself down. We're coming for you. You're not going to die'.'"
---
The world was heavy, after more than a day at five G's, it was hard to even think of anything else. They had some very powerful drugs running through them; The kind of drugs that were illegal in more places than they were legal.
Even after all of his objections, Thomas had worked hard to get the boat ready, doing everything he could to EMP proof it. However, they only had so much optic cable and Thomas did not want to rely on radio for controlling the boat given the amount of radiation the sun was putting out.
The ship started to shake, badly.
Roger made the hand motion that told the computer to throttle down to two G's. At five G's they could neither talk nor use any kind of controls the boat was outfitted with. He did however have a small swipe pad he had programmed to throttle down the boat to two G's when he triggered it.
Thomas's hands flew over the controls when they were down to two G's. "Shit, mag bottle one is weakening, and I can't fix it. I think it's the superconductors."
"Can we maintain our acceleration?"
Thomas said, "If we turn up the other three maybe, but it's risky. We might get a burn through. Best case if that happens is, we lose half the boat."
"How likely is that?"
"No idea. The other option is to turn around. We still have time. No one would blame us."
"I will not look in the mirror and see a man who could have saved the women he... could have saved more than a hundred lives but chose to save himself.
"And I think you feel the same way, or you would have found a way to stop me."
Thomas smiled and said, "I can think of worse ways to die. Turning up the other three bottles."
Roger made some minor adjustments to the course as the other engine's burn was increased, and their acceleration was brought back to five G's.
He was pushed back into the chair again.
---
Roger moved his fingers over the panel on his armrest and the boat dropped down to two G's again. After days at five G's, it made him feel as light as a cloud. Still sore all over, of course.
They were at turn-around, the last chance for days to get a good location fix. Once the engines were facing Marble, it might as well not exist as far as the instruments were concerned.
"Deploying Eyeball nodes thirty-six through forty, cross your fingers."
Two G's was as low as Thomas would let him take their acceleration. He was concerned that if the temperature fell too far too fast, it could crack the casing.
They were deploying some of the remaining eyeball nodes to give them a better map for final adjustments.
Roger saw his screen's update then and Thomas said, "Ready for turning burn."
Not being able to turn the drive off, they had to do a turning burn. They were not killing all their velocity, but they had to kill much of it.
"Burning."
Not being able to turn the drive off they had to do a turning burn.
He reached out and flipped the ship as fast as he safely could, while keeping the engines going at two G's. He tried to ignore the dizziness and vertigo. When he was done, he let the computer update their trajectory then started to fix the damage the turn had caused to it.
Roger saw the new nav data start to feed into his boards. He made sure it was enough then before saying, "Ready?"
"Hell no, but do it anyway."
Roger's last thought as he ramped back up to five G's was of Kat.
---
The engines died, and Roger was weightless again.
He hurt all over. Just as he was getting used to it, his flight suit started to squeeze his torso and inject who knew what into him.
The navigation instruments started to blink, showing they were cycling, looking for reference points to get a more precise location fix than was possible when the plasma drive was on.
The engines had been well past maximum for seven days. They were very lucky to have only had minor hits from micro-meteoroids.
Assuming they were really on course, they would intercept the Snowball in a matter of hours but for his plan to work, they would practically have to be close enough to touch.
He looked up at the screens and could see Marble and its rings. He looked at it for several moments before he went over their course.
"We still on track for plan 'Probably Going to Die'?" Thomas asked neutrally.
Ignoring Thomas's defeatism, Roger replied, "Looks like it. We have less than an hour."
"Good, never wanted to turn forty anyway."
As he said that, several warnings went off. The diagnostic screens changed to show cross sections of the drive casings.
The drive casings never directly touched the plasma. They did, however, project the magnetic fields that did. The slightest flaw and the field they projected would have weaknesses that the plasma would leak through.
The temperatures of all four drive casings were lowering rapidly. There were several lines on them already notating cracks. More were appearing as Roger watched and the casings cooled. Each time it happened, he flinched.
Roger asked, "Can we do anything about that? We might need to use the drive again."
Thomas laughed, "No, get those casings hot again and they'll burn through. Then we die." With a graver tone, he then said, "We knew this was a risk. Hell, this was all but a certainty. They were never meant to get that hot for that long. We can still save them, just gotta do it with jets."
Roger reduced the alarm to a single blinking light. He then turned his full focus to the course, looking for anything in their way that was too small to have been mapped before. They were going fast enough that he had to be very careful. He would have little time to dodge anything.
With more than a little guilt, he looked up the medic's data. He liked to think that Alexi would have agreed to risk her life for the Snowball, but the truth was, he didn't know. He couldn't know. At least her vitals looked good. The medic reported that she had suffered no damage from the G's.
That was good. He wasn't sure if he could live with her dying. Although a small part of himself was terrified that he could live with it, if it meant getting Kat back.
He loved her.
He had loved her for a while. He had just never realized it; he was so afraid of her, but that wasn't her fault and he shouldn't blame her for it.
Roger forced himself to push the realization to the side. He had a job to do and lives depended on him.
He launched a probe, of the type they used for mapping. Between the probe and the Birtha, he was building a picture of the flotsam between him and the Snowball. He plotted the course, not that he had much in the way of delta-V, but he could at least avoid anything major.
He felt a sharp pain in his neck and looked up to see Thomas with a fist full of injectors.
"What the hell?"
"Do you want your med's or do you want us to die? They're focus drugs. They'll increase your reaction speed and stop you from feeling fatigue."
"Some warning would have been nice."
Thomas ignored him and said, "This one is for the pain." He injected Roger in the neck again. Roger ignored it and the several more that followed.
A blip appeared on one of the proximity screens. It quickly resolved into many small objects.
Roger yelled, "Incoming, strap yourself down!" as he sealed the bridge hatch and closed his helmet.
They hit when Thomas was half in the seat with one hand on the straps. There was nothing Roger could do to help Thomas as he tried to maneuver to avoid the worst of the rocks.
Thomas's form was pulled first into the hatch with an ominous crunch. He then sailed ahead into the co-pilots station, though not quite hard enough to destroy any of the displays. He was able to quickly scramble into the co-pilot's chair for the rest of the meteor storm.
It took more of their jet delta-V than Roger liked to avoid the large rocks in the storm, but they made it. He turned to Thomas and asked, "You okay?"
"I'll be fine, but can we please not do that again?" he said with a loud cough. "We take any damage?"
After setting the jets to slowly correct the slow spin along the long axis, Roger looked over the damage. It wasn't bad. They vented almost all the air from several breaches in cargo bays, and even from one reserve tank. But with only three people on the boat, one tank would be more than enough. Everything looked good. That was, until he looked at the updated data that came from the probe.
They were off.
Not by much, but more than enough. Way more than he could hope to correct with the jets alone. He looked on the map for something to use to turn.
He saw a moon that they were going to pass nearby, with a small nudge, it would work. "You sure the plasma drive is down? We have a problem and I just need twenty seconds."
Thomas grunted. something then said, "What problem?"
"We're off course. I need to swing us around a moon to fix it."
"Maybe? If we keep it fast and use each engine for no more than a few seconds."
I'm coming.
"Ride the engines manually. I need as much burn as you can give me."
Several minutes later, Thomas said, "Ready when you are."
Roger looked at the icon that represented the Snowball for a moment, then at the moon they were going to slingshot around. He turned on the jets and with a small amount of expelled gas, the Birtha changed directions.
"Engine one fire .... now."
The Birtha sputtered;, the thrust was uneven. It lasted for about five seconds then before Thomas said, "Cutting, readying engine number two."
Roger twisted the ship around with the jets. With just one engine firing at a time, they were not being pushed straight. He had to correct manually.
When he was done, he said, "Engine two fire .... now."
That one only lasted two seconds, and it sputtered worse than before, but they were almost there. Their projected course was almost on target.
"Cutting, readying engine number three."
Roger spent several minutes turning the ship for the next burn and waiting for the right moment. They were about to start their pass of the moon.
"Engine three fire ... now."
Roger was being pulled into his seat as he looked at the moon. They were pointed directly at it for the entire burn. Thomas was able to hold it for ten seconds, somehow.
"Cutting, we will have to wait for engine four. It got too hot from the other three firing."
After checking the new course, Roger sighed in relief, "Don't need it—we're on course."
Half an hour later, he saw the Snowball. It was much larger than the Birtha, pitted and charred. It looked dead.
He almost cried when he saw it.
No major EMP's so far. All he needed to do was finish before the next major one. Sir Isaac Newton would take care of the rest.
The Erikson had lost communication with the Snowball days before, but Roger tried anyway. "This is the Birtha, does anyone read?
"Strap down now if you're reading this. Strap down and prepare for high and erratic G's."
Nothing but static.
"We're coming. We will help you. I'm coming, Kat." His voice broke a little when he said, "I love you. You're not going to die."
Again, nothing but static. He had no time to try again. The Snowball was fast approaching.
"Get ready to give me a burst from engine four. I may need it after we're joined up."
Roger brought up the tether controls and configured them to launch at maximum speed, then for it to magnetize as soon as it was clear of the ship. If he aimed correctly, it would hit somewhere just ahead of the engines and hold long enough to launch spikes and weld itself in place. He would only get one shot. If he missed, they would go sailing past. The Birtha would not end in the shadow of Marble but in open space, as doomed as the Snowball behind them.
It's just like the sim, it's just like the sim.
He breathed in and out deeply several times, until his hands stopped shaking.
He stared at the Snowball as it grew bigger while using the jets to do some fine-tuning of the course. Finally, everything looked right, and he hit the release for the tether. He could feel the ship jump backward as the cable went forward.
Roger had his hand just over the manual tether controls, waiting.
It couldn't have taken more than forty seconds, but it felt like an eternity.
The tether caught. A few seconds later, it showed as being secure.
It shouldn't have worked, but it somehow, it had.
Roger reeled the cable in. He needed to get it all in as they made their closest approach.
"Holy shit, I can't believe that worked," Thomas blurted out.
"This is the hard part. Monitor the tether. Tell me if anything gets too hot or too tight."
Roger kept one hand on the nob that controlled the jets and one on the tether controls.
As the distance decreased, the tether was reeled in.
The Snowball was large on the screens. They passed less than a kilometer from it. Roger began to tighten the tether, but not enough to hold it firm. He felt himself gain weight, about forty-five degrees off from where they normally did when under thrust. They were pulling several G's as the boats started to spin around each other. The distance grew as he let the tether out. If he let it out too fast when they ran out of cable, it would snap. If he did it too slowly, the G-forces would snap it. He did the best he could by feel.
Even with the painkillers, every muscle in his body hurt. Forcing his hands to stay on the board took all he had.
When he reached the end of the cable, he felt a jerk and a vibration, but it held. There was still some acceleration to the side, but that looked to be the two of them circling each other.
He quickly checked the course. It was good. Even if an EMP hit, it wouldn't matter. They were ballistic and on course.
---
Captain Patel, Commander Smith, and following behind reluctantly, the astronomer Chuck Jackson, all entered the council chamber.
The room was large. One side had a large semi-circular table with the five-person council sitting behind it. None of them looked happy. The Erikson had been under acceleration for three days. They had managed to de-spin the rings just in time. The captain sincerely hoped he would never have to do anything like that again.
They never look happy, although, they will certainly be less so shortly.
When he approached, all stopped talking and stared at him.
The captain walked forward stoically and without preamble said, "The commander's report is being forwarded to you now with all of the details. In short, it says that we have ten to fourteen months of consumables."
Several of them blanched.
Councilor Nyda, the oldest member of the council, spoke up first, "I take it you have a suggestion, Captain."
"Yes, sir, I do, or rather, Jackson does. He oversaw our observation of Helvetios, the system we detected the signals coming from." The captain stepped to the side and gestured for Jackson to step forward.
He looked very nervous, not like the man who had talked enthusiastically and at great length to the captain the previous night. "Councilors, ladies and, uh, gentlemen, we are here." He made a gesture on his wristcomp and the large transparent screen showed a star chart of the surrounding space. He looked like he was gaining confidence as he spoke about those things with which he was most familiar.
"Helvetios is very close, slightly over fifteen light years away, or about two hundred and thirty days of travel of displacing five times a day at point one C. Unfortunately, it will require us to travel directly away from the grid. It's G5V. A star very much like Sol. We were not able to pull much data from the VLA nodes placed upsystem, but we did get basic stellar information." At this, the image changed and showed very fuzzy pictures of what looked like two gas giants.
"Helvetios has at least two gas giants. It's the only reasonable destination."
"What?" Councilor Lucas said, "There must be what, half a dozen stars within a year of here?. One of them must have a gas giant and an Oort cloud, or for that matter, we could use a rogue gas giant."
"Our rear plate took some damage. We may need to refit it, or worse, replace it. While yes, most of what we need are common metals. We will probably need some heavy metals as well; those are only found in useful concentrations on large rocky planets. We also need about a dozen trace elements for our food, beyond water, of course," Jackson responded.
The captain spoke up, "We are very low on hydrogen. We have enough to start the torch one more time. We have to stop somewhere with everything we need within easy range of the boats. That is the real problem."
The captain continued, "We might find everything we need at one of the smaller stars, but it would be a shot in the dark. Even with a full VLA out and working, finding a comet in an Oort cloud, let alone a rogue planet, is nearly impossible. It's just too dark that far from a star.
"There is also this.," He swiped with his wristcomp and a person's head appeared. The image was full of static, but it was definitively human.
He talked in an unfamiliar language then the static washed the image out.
"This was decoded just before the nova hit. They are human and should be able to offer assistance. Their help might be the difference between our life and death."
The captain was uneasy, to the say the least, about going to a dark colony for help. Over the centuries, a few colonies had chosen to leave the grid and break off contact, but never for good reasons.
"Helvetios is not a good choice. It's the only one. With rationing and some creative work from the chemists and biologists, we can stretch our food long enough to make it. If we wait even a week, we might not be able to displace."
"We should be welcomed. If they are as old as we think, they don't have string tech, which we can offer in trade. If they want, we can help them contact the grid, maybe even make up for the lost commission to build the string station."
They had more questions of course, most of which were useless. The captain sometimes thought the only people who ran for the council were those whose greatest desire was to hear themselves speak.
In the end, they agreed. As a rule, he did not go to the council with a question unless he already knew what the answer would be.
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