Counterweight (11 page)

Without the distraction of his dead predecessor, the next
thing he noticed was the capacitor bank. The CB was a standard part of every
ship, storing enough energy to restart the fusion reactor in the event of an
emergency. No crew would ship out on a vessel without a CB.

Until now, Rick had been counting on N’Mid’s mention of
spare parts. If the captain had any sense, he’d carry more spares than
reactant. The reactant had a short shelf life, so limiting extra was just
common sense, but most parts would last for years if left inert. Computer cores
and peripherals were exceptions as they needed life support systems and, even
then, they tended to fail after a few months if they weren’t installed in a
ship. Engineering supplies tended to have longer shelf lives.

Mag-field emitters, for example, would last for decades in
storage and they were crucial to crew survival so Rick knew he’d find some. He
just wasn’t sure there would be enough.

But now, he forgot about the emitters and treated himself to
a good solid bout of angry cursing.

The CB racks were empty.

It made sense, after he calmed down and gave the matter some
thought. Raiders probably wouldn’t want to waste their profits on items they
could steal. Their crews would resent any reduction in their shares, even for
ship maintenance – they didn’t own the ship, after all; that should come out of
the captain’s share.

The raiders’ ship probably had faulty capacitors in its bank
and so the crew had helped themselves to what they needed before leaving.
Understanding why didn’t help Rick. Without those capacitors, he didn’t have
the start-up energy necessary to get the reactor back online.

He shook his head. One of the first rules of damage control
was to concentrate on what
could
be done. That way, his mind could work
on the bigger problems while his hands took care of the small ones.

He looked around the room, trying to guess where the parts
might be stored, and felt a flush of relief when he knew he’d find them in a
small storage alcove behind the reactor array.

Pre-cog ability was a definite advantage when it came to
work like this. Instead of searching the entire compartment for the parts, he
only had to decide to search each location. As long as each area was reachable
within fourteen seconds, he was able to know the results without having to
perform the actual search.

He walked around the fusion plant, based on the venerable
Tokomak
,
designed and built by Russians more than two centuries ago, and he went straight
to the racks where the emitters were stored. They at least had enough parts to
repair the array. He just didn’t know if it would ever be used.

Carrying the parts, he approached the reactor. “Okay,” he
crooned soothingly. “Tell me where it hurts.” He moved around to the port side
and took a coil tester from one of the stanchions. Without actually using it,
he continued to circle, testing and, yet, not really testing the emitters until
he found the three that had failed.

Replacing them was child’s play.

He stepped back and looked around for the initiator station.
He walked over and familiarized himself with the particular sequence for this
plant. Holding his hand over the panel, he considered pressing the final
command – the one that would commit power to the containment emitters before
energizing the reaction itself.

He saw, in his mind, that the magnetic shield would
stabilize to a point where it could contain the reaction. Though the full
start-up of the shielding was beyond his ability to see, he knew there wasn’t
enough power in the reactor’s continuous power cell to do the job. That cell
was just there to buffer against any fluctuation in the main power source from
the reactor itself.

It certainly didn’t have enough juice to fire the microwave
initiators for the main reaction.

He chewed thoughtfully at the inside of his lip. It was an
old habit that somehow shifted the gears of his thought processes. He pushed
his ear against the side of his helmet in a vain attempt to relieve an itch. If
the hull wasn’t breached, he’d have less distraction right now…

He stopped all movement, ear pressed against the small
speaker on the right side of the helmet, eyes glazing as he sought to firm up
his grip on a sudden thought.

The life support systems were still running. They were
designed with their own back-up power against the chance of a long-term reactor
failure. A crew could survive, adrift, until they were rescued or their food
ran out.

Because there was no air left, the atmo cyclers had shut
down. The heat and lights were both still running. The heady flush of salvation
washed over him. He could feel a slight tingle in his limbs.

There might be enough power in the life support cells to get
the reactor running. He shut down the heating systems and killed the shipboard
lights, switching them to proximity activation.

Life support usually drew its power from the fusion plant,
so that meant the system could serve as a link between its own back-up and the
fusion reactor. He looked back down at the panel and brought up a holo screen.
Stretching it out, he managed to trace the schematics and find the cut-out
switch.

The cut-out isolated life support from the reactor,
preventing the bleed of vital energy into a dead containment array. He took a
deep breath and reached up to deactivate the cut-out.

Looking down at the imitation panel, he saw a row of amber
indicators. Green would have been nicer but, like his dad used to say, “You can
tell the universe what you want till you’re blue in the face but, sooner or
later, you gotta roll whatever dice you have.” All he could see was a working
containment field; he had to act on faith.

Almost on impulse, he committed the sequence.

He turned as the shielding grew in strength, glowing blue
through the gaps of the emitter array. After twenty seconds, the first
microwave initiator fired, the rest following in sequence. The hum of the
initiators began to build, filling the compartment with the comforting sound of
a starting reactor.

Rick moved around the outside of the plant, following each
firing with a growing elation until there were only three initiators left. That
was when the juice ran out. He stood there in shock as the hum died out.

All that juice, wasted. Three lousy initiators. He knew
there was enough power in one of the shuttles to fire three emitters but it was
too late for that now.

He frowned. The shielding hadn’t faded yet. If the power had
run out before the last three initiators fired, then where the hell was the
containment system getting its power?

The hope surged back. It was drawing power from its regular
source – the reaction. He ran to a control panel and dragged the containment
power control down by ten percent.

Sure enough, the slight reduction in draw was enough and the
last three initiators fired. Rick tore his finger away from the panel, letting
the containment field snap back to full power in time to contain the growing
reaction.

Throwing up his arms, he screamed in triumph and winced
almost immediately as his ears took the brunt of the celebration. He danced a
little jig, imagining how the early cavemen must have felt the first time they
managed to make fire.

He wasn’t going to die out here in the dark after all.

He looked around the room. The ship was riddled with hull
breaches. Was he going to have to spend the entire voyage clamped to the back
wall of the bridge in an EVA suit?

Tsekoh, Capital of Chaco Benthic

C
allum
left the small shop with a coffee in his hand. A real, honest-to-goodness
coffee. He strolled over to the curve in the railing where the city turned back
on itself. The pedway had been extended into a cul de sac where the MoonSilver
franchise had set up a patio. He picked a seat where he could see the
pedestrian flow in both directions and looked down at the black gold in his
mug.

Bit by bit, the Republic was being infiltrated by Human
culture. Earth music was now on an almost even footing with its alien
counterpart, thanks largely to the capture of a single Human officer.

Commander Gabiola, one of the founders of the Long Range
Space Group, had been the only survivor seized when her vessel fell prey to the
enemy on a deep mission into some Republic backwater. Though not the
first
source of Earth music, her iPlant was loaded with the largest and most diverse
collection yet seen by the enemy.

It had only been a matter of time before one of the analysts
decided to make a copy of her files and smuggle it out of detention for
personal use. From there, it was a straightforward, exponential progression as
the music was showed off to several friends at a time and copies passed along.

Cal had arrived on Benthic with the full complement of
music. It was so common as to make him stand out by its absence. He couldn’t
afford
not
to listen to it because Human music was the kind of thing a
Human agent would be expected to avoid.

He had resisted the urge to splurge, however, when coffee
first made its appearance on Benthic two years ago. Several plantations had
sprung up in Republic territory and the price of the beverage was slowly coming
down, thanks to an aggressive market push by MoonSilver – Republic, but it was
definitely the kind of thing the enemy would watch for – at first.

They knew from MoonSilver – Alliance’s sales that the oddly
flavored drink was immensely popular with Humans. All early adopters of the
beverage in the Republic probably had an augmented surveillance file. It was a
decent bet that Human infiltrators would be drawn to a taste of home.

After two years, Callum had decided it was reaching the
tipping point. So many citizens – those who could afford the indulgence – were
forming the coffee habit that it would now look odd if he continued to avoid
it.

He fought the grin as he took a first sniff. He knew part of
his reasoning was nothing more than an attempt to justify his decision. He
wanted coffee, dammit! Still, it made good sense in terms of blending in and so
he took a tentative sip.

It was harder than he thought to hold back the enraptured
sigh as he formed what he hoped was a speculative expression. For all he knew,
the security cameras were still looking for evidence of familiarity in
first-time purchasers.

“Can’t believe this is your first coffee,” Belfric mused as
he took the seat across from him. He adopted the universal grin of an old hand
watching an initiate. “What’s the verdict?”

A shrug, more from pleasure than indifference, but effective
all the same. “Not sure it’s worth the price.” He offered Belfric a look of
disdain. “I suppose it’s one of those things you have to develop a taste for?”

“Hah! Wait till you finish and see how you feel.” Belfric
tilted his head forward slightly. “It has twice the caffeine of a floater…”

“Really?” An appraising glance at the mug. “Might be worth
the price after all.” He didn’t want to seem too reluctant about coffee. He had
every intention of becoming a regular consumer again.

“You hear about the fuss up near the tether station?” Bel’s
light tone concealed the fact they were now discussing the death of one of his
oldest friends.

The actions of the Stoners had unsettled C’Al and his inner
cadre. They’d decided not to conduct any more organized meetings and all
communication would now be conducted in the open as much as possible.

“Yeah, I even heard the shops falling but I didn’t think
anything of it.” A safe enough statement. Shops fell all the time. He wouldn’t
probe. He simply offered bland responses, leaving it up to Belfric to work in
the details as he saw fit.

“One of my cousins was up there,” Bel lied. “Works as a
clerk for some hot-shot importer and he said one of the Stoners used a stun
scatter on the crowd.”

“What, just randomly?” A reasonable response and it
indicated C’Al’s grasp of the important detail. The Stoners were trying to
capture one of his people. They’d been right to increase their
counter-surveillance measures.

“Seems like they were after someone who’d just come out of
the station.”

“Hmmm…”  C’Al took another sip. “Maybe they wanted to
charge him rent for being in the station for too long?” He hoped his message
was clear enough.

Bel nodded, grinning. “Not wise to spend too much time in
there, I suppose.”

That was a relief. Callum didn’t much care for this verbal
fencing but Belfric had understood the message. No watchers were to stay in the
station long enough to attract attention. He could be trusted to get the new
details out.

He took another sip, this time nodding with approval as he
set the mug down. “It does grow on you,” he admitted as grudgingly as he could
manage. He looked up at Belfric. “You hear about the rash of free training?”

Bel nodded. “Crazy, huh?” He shook his head. “Close to a
dozen, all in the last couple of days. But the really wild thing is how fast
the news is spreading about it.”

“Oh yeah?”

A nod. “It’s starting to draw crowds. The lucky kids going
in for a pod session have to pass a gauntlet of gawkers.”

This was better news than Callum had expected. He was hoping
to get some buzz started but it sounded like the word was getting out faster
than his wildest projections. For a population as starved of prospects as Chaco
Benthic, the tiniest spark of hope could be enough to start a wildfire.

“Long overdue, if you ask me.” He saw Bel’s nod. Message
understood – accelerate the process by any means.

“Whoever’s behind it is a fine fellow, as far as
my
log shows.” He stood and picked up his drink. “Well, I have a get-together with
my wife’s family.” He nodded at C’Al and left.