Sundowner Page 6

  Raqella sat off to the side, a definite distance from the others, and from the furtive, darting glares he tossed towards Ch’ghan, and the way their collar fur was ever so slightly bristled, Nicole knew there’d been words and more between them.

  Since this was crew business, she turned away from Ramsey and slipped on her headset.

  “Something I should know about?” she asked Ch’ghan, on a private com channel, keeping the conversation exclusively between themselves.

  “The youngblood had some thoughts of sitting in my place. If my behavior warrants my removal, Shea-Pilot, that is your prerogative.”

  She sighed and shook her head, breathing a subvocalized and heartfelt, “Shit!”

  “Nicole?” Sheridan prompted, stepping close beside her.

  “Raqella struck an attitude. Ch’ghan responded accordingly.”

  “Can you cope?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “If I can’t, Colonel, I’ve no right to be here.”

  She changed channels on her com and Raqella visibly started to hear her. They were across the room from each other and Nicole had pitched her voice so low that Sheridan was hard put to hear her; Raqella didn’t have that problem, Nicole came through his headset as clearly as if she’d been standing right in his face.

  “Do you acknowledge me as commander of this vehicle?” she demanded.

  “So I have been told.” He didn’t look at her. In fact, he turned his face even more away from the body of the room and the others. His answer wasn’t wholly satisfying but Nicole decided to let that slide.

  “Do you acknowledge me as Shavrin’s cub?” This, she spoke in Hal, and allowed herself the smallest of smiles—barely a crease at the tip of her lips—as his spine straightened.

  “So I have been told,” he repeated. This, she wouldn’t ignore.

  “Do you acknowledge me as Shavrin’s cub?” she repeated, no louder than before but with an unmistakable edge.

  “I so affirm,” he said, after a deliberate pause that he’d run out to just this side of an unforgivable insult.

  “You have been named to my crew,” she continued, still in Hal, “I am therefore responsible for your life. In fulfillment of that responsibility, if I don’t have your word that you’ll behave yourself—now and for the duration of this mission—I’ll abort the test. Is that understood?”

  “I give you my word, Captain,” he said in his exotically accented English.

  She was tempted to pull the plug. Ramsey knew it, without more than an idea why, simply from the set of her shoulders and jaw. Nicole also saw when he deliberately caught her eye that he was fully prepared to back her. He didn’t understand Hal, not the fully colloquial and idiomatic way she was speaking it, but he trusted her judgment. That faith tipped the scales.

  “By Hearth and Home,” she growled, casting down before Raqella one of the Hal’s most sacred oaths. “By the blood of She who bore you, and the claws of those who have fought to preserve that life—since you are not yet of an age to do so in your own behalf. By the Waters of the WorldSoul.”

  Raqella reacted to that, springing to his feet with such force that he shot straight to the ceiling, so upset that he couldn’t react in time to prevent a solid impact. It took him a moment to recover; that plus the shock of the collision itself blunted his immediate, instinctive response to hurl himself at Nicole’s throat.

  “You shame me with such words,” he spat, full-voiced, turning heads throughout the room, although only Ch’ghan guessed the reason.

  Nicole breathed her reply into her mike, keeping the conversation as private as possible to avoid precisely that.

  “You shame yourself,” she said, “with your acts. We are here to work, as professionals. If you would join us in that spirit, you will be welcome.”

  To his credit, and Nicole’s frank surprise (because she didn’t think he had that in him), Raqella mastered himself and brusquely nodded his head.

  “I would,” a hitch in his voice, as he made sure his emotions were properly under control, “join you, Shea-Pilot.”

  “I want your word, Raqella.”

  “You have it. By Hearth and Home, by blood and claws. By the Waters of the WorldSoul.”

  “No trouble, Colonel,” she told Sheridan.

  She scanned the room, belatedly noting that one figure was missing.

  “Where’s Gene?” she asked. As in Gene Hardesty, the Swift’s electronics systems specialist.

  “On the monitor console, here at Main Mission,” was Ramsey’s reply.

  Nicole was aghast. “This isn’t funny, Ramsey. You screw around with the flight schedule, then start strip-mining my crew. You trying to guarantee failure or what?”

  “You have so little faith in what you helped build?”

  “Be real. The crew’s as integral an element as the machine itself. We’re a team.”

  “I’m afraid you’ll simply have to adapt. It’s no reflection on his capabilities, Nicole, he’s a good man. But circumstances warranted the assignment of someone better qualified to take his place.”

  “There is no one!”

  “Such a vote of confidence,” said a new voice from beyond Nicole’s shoulder. “Does a woman’s heart proud, y’know what I mean?”

  “Damn,” Nicole said, surprise giving way to delight as she saw who’d spoken, “oh, damn!”

  “Is that a good cuss, d’you think,” Hana Murai asked Ramsey, “or a bad cuss?”

  Nicole gave her a mock punch on the arm, then gathered the other woman into a bear hug of an embrace. Momentum sent them spinning in slow circles, rising at the same time until Hana raised a hand to keep their heads from bouncing off the ceiling.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Nicole demanded as a gentle shove settled them back on the floor.

  “Glad to see you, too, Ace. You want I should leave?”

  “Get stuffed, Murai. What I mean is, from your last letter, aren’t you supposed to be chasing rocks around Saturn or something?”

  Hana was about to reply, but offered a dismissive shrug instead.

  Nicole stared long and hard at her best friend, then turned her gaze once more on Ramsey.

  “The point was made,” he said, “that since Dr. Murai designed most of your vehicle’s electronics—hardware and software—she might be a valuable addition to your crew. Not to mention your history.” That, he had pegged perfectly; there was no one Nicole would rather have at her back. But she’d thought only she knew that.

  “What’s this all about, Colonel?” she asked quietly.

  Sheridan shifted position, so that everyone could see him.

  “An announcement has been made by Earth First that an attempt would be made to disrupt the test.”

  Comments were immediate, and mostly dismissive—“Are you serious?” from Dan Fahey, “Are they?” from Simon. And, upon seeing Sheridan’s reaction, a collective groan. “Fucking terrorists. Give us a goddamn break!”

  “Spookshow’s checking it out,” he told them, “CIA, FBI, the United Nations Intelligence Service, the rest of the Intelligence alphabet. As yet, neither Langley nor the Bureau nor Turtle Bay can offer any definitive corroboration of the threat. They could be blowing smoke, they could be serious, nobody really knows.”

  “You knew about this?” Nicole asked Hana.

  “I’m here,” she replied.

  Nicole turned to Ramsey. “What about capability, can they actually carry out such a threat?”

  “Nobody really knows.”

  “Terriffic.”

  Newton’s laws applied as much to politics as physics; that Nicole learned early, at the feet of her lawyer father and journalist mother. Every action had its opposite reaction, the distinction being that in politics—unlike physics—that response wasn’t always equal.

  The world had been having a hard enough time coming to grips with the new realities of space, and Earth’s place in the scheme of things, even before contact was established with the Halyan’t’a. In the span
of a generation, humanity had gone from its first hesitant steps exploring its local solar system—with barely one active space station and no installations at all on the Moon—to active exploitation of this galactic neighborhood, and a steadily growing fleet of FTL cruisers reaching hungrily out across the neighboring stars, much as the early explorers and mountain men had across the North American continent two centuries before. In the lifetime of Nicole’s father, new worlds had been discovered capable of supporting human life, and colonies established. Human perspective on the Universe had widened immeasurably. A generation had come to maturity that owed allegiance to Earth as the motherworld only in the abstract. It was Future Shock in top gear, every morning bringing some new change. And not everybody liked it.

  Then, humanity discovered they weren’t the only players on the board. The Universe had to be shared, not only with the Hal, but with a far nastier species—who they’d encountered but Earth had not—from farther down the spiral arm towards galactic center. This brought even more cries of alarm from concerned and agitated pundits, pointing back at Terrestrial history and the catastrophic encounters between the so-called First World—Europe—and the less technologically advanced societies of the Third, with repercussions still being felt to present day. No matter that the Hal and humanity seemed to stand at comparable levels, or that the Hal approached Earth as potential allies and equals. The fear was that somehow, some way, the human species would be subverted and ultimately overwhelmed, unless the same was done to the Hal in reverse.

  Earth First was born from that xenophobia, pushed along in no small measure by the passage—midway through Charles Russell’s second term, as the keystone of his foreign policy—of the One World Treaty, essentially binding the nations of the Earth into a global confederacy centered around the United Nations. The individual governments retained autonomy over their internal affairs, but in matters relating to the world as a whole, especially diplomatic relations, the Secretariat held sway. Nobody really liked the arrangement; indeed, more than a few grumbled that it was merely a ploy by the United States to maintain its hegemony over interstellar exploration. But a majority had grudgingly, eventually, come to accept Russell’s core argument: that standing alone would only bring about a balkanized and terminally conflicted political structure that would in turn guarantee the exploitation of Earth by the Halyan’t’a that everyone most feared.

  Unfortunately, passage of the Treaty didn’t end the debate; quite the contrary. The counterargument was made—passionately, persuasively—that humanity was being sold down the proverbial river. In the four years of Russell’s second term, aided and abetted by a couple of spectacularly disastrous incidents between human and Hal, that opposition had coalesced into the Earth First movement. However, while there was sufficient support to make them a credible force, there was nowhere near enough to change basic policy. That perceived impotence—along with the fact that time could well work against them, as positive ties between the two species became stronger and deeper—only made matters worse. It wouldn’t be the first time a political movement with no hope of victory working within the system took to armed struggle to achieve its ends. And thereby perpetuated that conflict from generation to generation, so that it seemed to take on an inextinguishable life of its own.

  “For political reasons,” Sheridan said, breaking Nicole’s train of thought, “it’s been decided that the test cannot be postponed.”

  “Like hell!”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I’m Spacecraft Commander and Project Manager, and I will not put my vehicle and people in jeopardy simply to serve somebody’s political agenda.”

  “I hate to state the obvious, Captain”—his use of Nicole’s rank instead of her name was deliberate—“but that’s precisely what donning these uniforms means. And I would hardly dismiss President Russell as ‘somebody.’ He was fully briefed, by General Sallinger among others, and communicated his decision to me directly. With the full concurrence, I might add, of General Canfield—both as C-in-C Space Command and NASA’s Director of Manned Spaceflight. Occasionally, we have to fly in harm’s way, no matter what, and charge the guns at Balaclava.”

  “So we’re launching early to throw them off-balance, assuming there’s any ‘them’ waiting out there?”

  “Precisely. A day ahead of the original mission profile and three ahead of the revised flight schedule I released yesterday.”

  “I’d feel happier with some harder data, one way or the other.”

  “Wouldn’t we all. Anything turns up, we’re supposed to hear.”

  Nicole made a face, and Sheridan nodded reluctant assent.

  “Granted, Nicole, I know how the bureaucracy works, same as you. Executive Branch—in DC and New York—needs this test to fly, and do so perfectly, for a whole host of reasons. No one’s going to raise a red flag for anything less than a battery of active antimissile launchers. Perhaps not even then.”

  “It’s unlikely we’ll encounter any threat during the descent phase,” she mused aloud, as much to herself as the others. “We’ll be under power, with near a full load of fuel, and at a fairly hefty speed. We’ll be deaf and blind during the ionization period, but that should be too high an altitude for any opposition to reach—unless they’ve orbital capability and they’re up here already.”

  Sheridan shook his head: “Nobody’s in near-Earth space who isn’t supposed to be. And we’ll be closely monitoring everything that lifts during your flight window.”

  “We have the advantages going down; they’ll have ’em during our ascent. Our fuel will be limited and with it, our options. If we fail to achieve orbit, we’ll be forced to glide home, just like the original shuttles; won’t leave us much room for maneuver. Also, since we’ll be climbing to a known rendezvous, we’re committed to a specific trajectory.” She had an inspiration, and looked sharply across to Sheridan.

  “I want authorization to change that, as circumstances dictate,” she said.

  “Come again?”

  “If there’s trouble, I want to be able to switch insertion trajectories out of the standard West-East corridor.”

  “Nicole, all the support facilities are geared along that route. You go haring off in some other direction, we could lose you in every sense of the word.”

  “I’m prepared to accept the risk, Colonel. Pilot’s discretion.”

  “I’ll consider it, and give you my decision before you board.”

  “Terriffic,” she grumbled again, and then heard the familiar growl of Ch’ghan’s voice as he wrestled with words that still came hard to him, even though he was wholly fluent in the language.

  “Is the likelihood of attack so great?” he asked.

  “You couldn’t ask for a more ideal opportunity,” Ramsey answered sourly as he indulged in a mug of coffee. Because the flight bay was zero gravity, the container was sealed and he had to sip the liquid through a straw. No fun, especially when it was piping hot. “The first human/Halyan’t’a joint venture, with all that’s riding on it for both cultures, it’s almost too tempting a target to resist. On the other hand, this could be nothing but a PR bluff. If Earth First is serious, though, it represents a quantum increase on their part.”

  “You, too, can be a world-class terrorist.”

  “I wish it were that funny, Hana. It isn’t simply the threat itself, but the capability behind it. We’re talking about something a whole lot more sophisticated than driving a truck full of explosives into somebody’s barracks.”

  “Somehow,” Nicole said, “that doesn’t make me feel any better.”

  “Me, neither. Cliché notwithstanding, young Captain, I’m afraid we’ll just have to play the hand we’re dealt. I know this makes for a lousy reunion,” he said to the pair of them, “and for that I’m truly sorry. Briefing in an hour, people, you launch in twelve.”

  Insertion was magic, Swiftstar sliding through the transition from vacuum to atmosphere—more properly known as the Entry Interface—a
s though it were riding rails, with a supernal smoothness that made Nicole grin delightedly. On her main panel display, the course ahead curved off and away around the rim of the world, reaching across the dark Pacific towards the coast of California. They were still well beyond the Terminator and wouldn’t see daylight until just before landing. The plane was so high their altitude was measured in miles—even in a mostly decimal society, aviation was where some old traditions yet held fast—and their speed such that their passage through what passed for air created sufficient friction to warm the leading edges of the wings and lower hull to a bright cherry and leave a trail of fire in their wake. Nicole felt some mild buffeting, more of a tremble actually, which would increase with their descent. Nothing unexpected, and well within operational parameters.

  A fast, reflexive glance at the secondary displays, flanking the larger main screen, assured her that ship systems and flight dynamics were at nominal levels. She flexed her shoulders against the snug fit of the four-point restraint harness and waited for the growing G-forces to push her into her seat. There was a wide-angle mirror mounted above the canopy; that gave her a view of Ch’ghan in the right seat beside her, as well as the two stations directly behind. Hana was behind him, while Raqella backed Nicole. The last two crew members, Simon and Dan, were farther back and out of her sight. If necessary, though, she could switch one of the displays to a visual of them.

  “Ionization peaking,” Hana reported, “we’re in Shadow.” As atmospheric drag on the vehicle generated friction, the heat buildup stripped electrons from the air surrounding Swiftstar, enveloping it in an ionization field that effectively inhibited all external communications, both radio and telemetry. Normal duration of the “Shadow” was about twelve minutes.

  “Simon,” Nicole called.

  “Systems nominal,” came his immediate reply, with confirmation from the raw data on the appropriate display. “Skin temperature at twelve hundred degrees Centigrade, rising along predicted curve. Heat exchangers are handling the load nicely.”

  “Dan?”

  “Engine status nominal, skipper. Ready to take the mains off-line and cycle the Scrams up to speed. Fuel status at eighty-seven percent.”