The False Admiral (13 page)

“Only one way to find out, Admiral.” Nils had that wild look again. I wasn't sure I liked that.

“Get on it. Go.” I pointed meaningfully. Off he went, back through the passenger space and down the ramp.

I looked at Deilani and Salmagard. “We've got work to do too. Lieutenant, use this computer to find our range. Find out if it'll get us there.”

“And if it won't?”

“You're an officer,” I said. “Act like it.”

She gave me a funny look, then sat down and keyed up the systems.

“My orders, Admiral?” Salmagard asked as we descended the ramp.

I panned my light around the inside of the Avenger's container. There was nothing here but the flyer itself, and two large crates that didn't look like what we needed. “Fuel cells,” I said. “We can't go anywhere without fuel. We'll use the shuttle's reserves—they should still be around. Find a grav cart and meet me at the launch zone. We should be able to move a cell between the two of us.”

Salmagard jogged off down the row of containers while I headed for the nearest bay wall before remembering that no power meant I couldn't use a console to locate the reserve cells for the
freighter's shuttle. I'd have to find them the old-fashioned way, but they couldn't be far.

Deilani's voice came over the com. “This FPC isn't intended for long-range operations. It's a stealth model, meant for ground insertion, launched from a mobile platform. It won't take us far.”

“Take a look at the fuel economy supposing we disable the stealth functions.”

“That would buy us some flight time, I suppose . . .” A brief pause. “We'll need to keep the recyclers online, won't we?”

“Too early to say.”

“I can disable weapons systems?”

“Of course. It doesn't even have weapons mounted.”

The channel shifted; Deilani had just made the conversation private. “Admiral, you do realize that if we
do
this, we'll be walking right into the hands of the Ganraens.”

“We've been over this. They're colonists, not soldiers. With a little luck, they'll treat us like the wayfarers we are.”

“But hadn't we better have some kind of plan? They might be your people, but do they know that? You should be as worried as we are.”

The propaganda had really gotten to her. She really thought these people might go straight to hostilities, when in truth the Ganraen colonists would just be curious and puzzled. They'd be wary. They might even detain us. They wouldn't hurt us, but Deilani could see them only as the enemy.

The graduates had been in training during the war. They had been heavily exposed to the Evagardian wartime views of the Commonwealth, which were less than flattering. The Empire liked to paint the Commonwealth as mad and corrupt, which, to be fair, was partially true. They also liked to point out that the royals would hire
private military to fight their war for them, which Evagardians considered impolite.

None of that meant that these colonists were rabid animals that would murder us the moment we showed our faces.

“We couldn't fight an entire colony even if we wanted to,” I said. “We've got a cease-fire. They're people just like you. Instead of an Empress, they have their Royals. Their ships are ugly and they aren't as excited about their DNA as imperials, but they're just as civilized as you or me. It'll be fine. Now, how far can that thing take us?”

“Normal operational range is about twenty-five hundred kilometers,” Deilani sighed. “So make that five thousand.”

“That's not much.” But it made sense—this flyer was supposed to deploy from a strategic carrier.

“If we cut the stealth systems, that will give us more. If we fly at the most energy-efficient speed, we can get even more,” Deilani told me. “But there's no atmosphere, so when we're out, we're out. There's no glide, no controlled descent. We have to land it before we go dry.”

“The AI will force us to. It won't let us just drop out of the sky. So with everything you can do to max our range, how much does that buy?”

“I think—if you can fly this thing—if we went about it the right way, we'll still be five or six hundred short. And that would be a forced landing.”

“Damn it, that's
almost
there.”

“It's still a long way,” she reminded me. “Maybe it doesn't sound like much, but it would take more than a week on foot.”

“Yeah, but it's not
so far
that we can't try to figure something out.”

“Even in this gravity, making that kind of hike isn't realistic. We don't even know the terrain,” she scoffed. I couldn't blame her for putting up this resistance. On top of being a long shot, a trek like that wasn't likely to be much fun.

“We have the stamina,” I said, hoping it was true.

“Maybe. But not the oxygen,” Deilani countered.

Now I was the one pacing. “Are you sure? There is a
lot
of air on this ship—more than enough to get us there. What if we could find a way to take some with us?”

Deilani groaned over the com. “I
know
, but the problem is the EV suits. There might be a way to fill EV cartridges, but that's a specialized process—it's just like EV suit maintenance. It's got to be done by techs who know what they're doing and have specialized equipment. EV maintenance isn't its own career field because it's so easy, Admiral. It's not something we can do ourselves. If we try to jury-rig something, it's going to be extremely inefficient, and we'll lose as much air as we get to breathe. We can't carry enough
and
get it from standard tanks into these suits.”

So our fancy EV suits were the problem.

“What if we used grav carts? Or changed into tech suits?”

“Tech suits would slow us down too much. They're for working, not walking. And grav carts can't handle anything but smooth terrain.”

“Damn. Good point.”

“It was a good idea,” she said, surprising me. Was Deilani trying to comfort me?

“If carts are no good, then just work the numbers on what we can carry on our backs.”

“I can't do that without knowing our transfer rate from O
2
tanks.”

“Estimate. Be pessimistic if you have to.”

“Even being optimistic, this plan will not work. It
won't
. So what do we do now?”

“Stay positive, Lieutenant. I'll figure something out.”

PROMISING to think of something was easier than doing it. I could talk big all I wanted, but that wouldn't make six hundred kilometers any more manageable.

Salmagard found me sitting against the bulkhead by the lockers containing the reserve cells.

“Admiral?” She was standing over me with a gravity cart. I still couldn't read her. She was trusting me, and giving me more credit than I deserved. But under the circumstances, she didn't really have a choice.

“Right,” I said, and got up, swallowing my nausea. This was pointless, but I couldn't tell her that. I couldn't tell Nils, either. They were working like people with hope.

I was boxed in, and I felt stifled. I was sweating despite my EV
suit's efforts to cool me down. My mouth was dry. “Let's get started on these,” I said. “We have to break them open.”

It took both of us and a metal bar to lever open the lockup that housed the fuel cells. The cells themselves were hot to the touch, and even heavier than expected. The cart dipped noticeably under the weight.

We pushed the cell back to the Avenger and managed to install it, though it left us with burning muscles and aching backs. Salmagard didn't complain, so I didn't either.

There were three more to go. Before we could leave the container, Nils' voice was on the com.

“Hey—hey, where is everyone?”

“We're at the flyer,” I replied.

“You're in the crate?”

“Yeah.”

“Grab onto something.”

“Wait—wait, don't—not with us
in here
,” I hissed, but the container gave a jerk, and Salmagard and I were staggering for balance. I grabbed her and held on to one of the Avenger's landing struts as we swung wildly.

“Can't wait,” Nils was saying. “Cell's draining right in front of me. I'm literally watching the readout go down. Got to do this now.”

Nils put us down gently enough that there were no fatalities, but there was still plenty of pain.

“Okay,” he said, sounding breathless, but invigorated. “That was pretty easy.”

I wondered where he was. The robotic arm used to move the containers wasn't meant to be operated by hand—and if it was, then it would be with a feed. No power, no feeds. That meant Nils
had to be somewhere from which he could see the entire bay. Somewhere high up. “Everybody needs to stay inside the flyer,” he said.

Salmagard and I staggered up the ramp and grabbed handholds.

“I'm going to crack the box.”

It was good that he'd thought to do that; I'd forgotten that to use the Avenger we'd first have to get it out of the container. There was a loud hiss, and the four walls fell away. The roof of the container remained suspended above, attached to the arm. The crane Nils was controlling moved it aside and dropped it with a resounding boom.

The freighter lurched. Metal groaned.

“Easy!” I shouted.

“Sorry,” Nils said, though it came out as a squeak.

I hurried down the ramp to take stock of things. He'd moved us nearly to the end of the bay. We were now in the open, and the Avenger was facing the main doors. They weren't meant for launching vehicles, but they would do. The Ganraen Royal emblem stamped on the doors was massive, but faded with age.

He'd also moved us closer to the reserve cells. That would be useful if this plan wasn't already dead in the water. We simply didn't have the range we needed to reach the colony. I rubbed at my eyes.

I had to come clean with them. I'd tried. I had
tried
to help these three. This was just the hand we'd been dealt, and it was my fault. I couldn't make it right, but I could at least tell them the truth.

I stopped myself there, and turned to look back at the Avenger. Salmagard was descending the ramp with Deilani just behind her. I looked at the aircraft. The wings, the thrusters, the roof. Not especially broad, but broad enough?

“We're not done,” I said, turning to Deilani.

“What?”

“We can do it. We can cover that distance. There's a way.” I turned away and keyed the com. “Nils,” I said. “There was a crawler on the manifest. Find it and crack it open while the arm still has juice.”

“Crawler? But why?”

“Do it!”

“Yes, Admiral!” I motioned to the girls and started to run.

Above, the arm swung ahead of us, lowering to open a sizable—but not
too
sizable—crate. The walls thudded down, and Nils set down the roof instead of dropping it.

Inside was a terrain crawler. It was an Evagardian model, wearing a white-and-gray military pattern. Third Fleet markings. Surface ops. There were six wheels and seating for five. There was a mounting for a large weapon of some sort, and the fuel cells were strapped to the side.

We wouldn't even have to look for them.

“Nils, I want you to pick this up with the arm, and put it on top of the flyer.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me, Ensign. The flyer can't take us all the way. We'll need a boost for those last few kilometers.”

“On
top
of the personnel carrier?”

“People have been strapping things to the top of vehicles for centuries,” I said.

“To
aircraft
?”

“It's a little unconventional, but it's a combat aircraft—it can handle it. And the gravity's light.”

“It'll cost us fuel economy.”

“Maybe it'll make up for it. It's no heavier than the weapons would be. It just brings us up to normal weight.”

“It's an assault crawler. It's not meant for distance. Will it take us far enough on just those cells?” Deilani asked me.

That got us questioning looks from the ensign and Salmagard; they hadn't heard our conversation from earlier. They didn't know exactly how far we had to go.

“I don't know. We'll find out.”

“We'll
find out
?”

“Hey,” Nils cut in. “This thing is no good—I mean, it is—but it can't climb a mountain, and it can't get us across, say, a big trench. It can't swim.”

“No oceans,” I said. I was pretty sure I remembered that from the survey. “At least, I don't think there are. As for the rest—well, the crawler has a jumper, and in this gravity, that'll give us at least a little play if we need it.”

“We're still gambling,” Deilani said.

“We're gambling every second we stay here,” I told her. “The ship could fall anytime. Do you want to die out there giving it a shot, or do you want to die down there waiting for help that might not come?”

“We don't even know if there are any people out there.” Deilani was doing her best not to panic, but fear was bubbling to the surface. I didn't blame her, but we didn't have time.

“There's
something
out there,” I said.

“All it did was pick up the signal—it could just be a probe. We don't have anything but your word to go on. You say there's a colony out there, but what if it's something else?”

“Like what?” I asked, genuinely curious.

“Like a military base.”

“Then you'll fit right in.”

“It's not a probe,” Nils cut in. “A probe wouldn't have registered. Whatever's out there has a real com array. That still works,” he added, as though impressed that Ganraen technology could even do that much. “And if there was a Commonwealth base here, we'd know about it. We all know how the front line stands—or how it stood before the cease-fire.”

“We're close to Demenis,” Deilani countered. “There could be bad people out there. Maybe your people,” she said to me.

“So I'm a pirate now? Come on, Lieutenant. Enough.”

“All right.” Deilani put up her hands. “I'm sorry, all right?” She meant it. At first she'd felt obliged to contradict me, and now to play devil's advocate. But the time for arguing had come and gone a while ago.

“I'm all for trying to do this right,” I told her plainly. “But we need to be together on this one. If this plan is worse than staying here, it can't be by much.” I shrugged. “That's all I got. Are you coming or not?”

She nodded, eyes distant. “I'm with you.”

Nils needed to hear that; his relief was audible over the com.

“Ensign, make it happen—put the crawler on the flyer. We'll lock it in with binders. We'll have to bring plenty of them, because we're going to put as many O
2
tanks as we can on that thing before we go. Lieutenant—everything we stockpiled in Medical—bring it up here and get it aboard. Private, we've got three more cells. Everybody go.”

I had to be forgetting things, but I wasn't going to stop and
worry about it. There wasn't time to think of everything; it was time for action.

Now that the plan was merely ambiguous instead of downright hopeless, the chore of moving the cells didn't seem so bad. Salmagard must have picked up on my dejection before, because she seemed energized.

Deilani gamely ran off to start hauling things up.

Salmagard and I had to pause as the crawler went by overhead; I trusted Nils, but I still didn't want to stand under it. He got it positioned on the roof . . . mostly straight. Straight enough; the Avenger's flying wouldn't be seriously affected.

As we were muscling the second cell into its slot, making the connections and sealing the shield over it, Nils clambered up with an armful of magnetic binders to fasten the crawler on.

“I want you to check the systems and make sure it's ready to go,” I called up to him. “We aren't going to have time to mess with it out there.”

“It is. Why
is
all this stuff ready to go, Admiral?”

“Use your imagination,” I groaned, rubbing at my shoulder. Two more cells to go.

The deck moved beneath our feet. It was only a mild tremor, barely noticeable at all—but all three of us fell silent and kept absolutely still, as though our own weight and motion were enough to influence the entire freighter. Seconds passed.

We all started to breathe again, but the morale boost that had come with finalizing our plan was gone. We were no longer wondering if the freighter would be swallowed by the planet. It would be. The question was when.

It didn't take Nils long to finish, and after getting him to help
us with the third cell, I sent him to work with Deilani. The flyer looked odd with the crawler sitting on it, but this was about staying alive, not staying dignified.

The next problem was deciding how much time we could devote to scrounging supplies. We didn't need very many survival packs; food and water weren't the problem. Out there we'd run out of air long before we got hungry, but we'd take some regardless.

The freighter was full of O
2
tanks. There was oxygen for use with every type of suit, for maintenance vehicles to be used on the hull, for emergencies, even for engineering functions.

But how much could we take with us once we left the flyer? We could pack plenty of it into the hold, but only so much could go on the crawler.

I tried to give the breathable-air problem the consideration it deserved. The obvious thing to do was take as much as possible; if we had to leave some behind after we landed, so be it—but could we justify the time?

The terrain shuddered and the freighter settled again.

The answer was no. We could not justify the time. None of us were kidding ourselves now, not about anything.

I moved into the cockpit, checking the systems. The padded seat and soft blue lights might have been soothing under different circumstances, but my mind was racing. The shuttle's reserve cells were feeding just fine; the Avenger had power, a welcome luxury. I plugged in the results of Nils' ping, which gave us a destination. I downloaded it to my EV suit's AI as well. We'd have to find our way even after the flyer was out of power.

As I familiarized myself with the controls, the trainees loaded O
2
tanks and other supplies.

I unclouded the front viewer and had a look at the bay from the perspective of the Avenger. I gazed at the bay doors for several long moments, before realizing why I was so hung up on them.

“Oh, no.”

They didn't hear me. That was fine. I wasn't talking to them. I wasn't talking to anyone.

I shouldn't have been surprised that Deilani was watching me closely enough that she noticed the shift in my mood. She made her way to the cockpit and put her hand on my shoulder.

“What is it?”

“The bay doors. How are we going to get them open?”

“Well, they're just doors . . .” She looked past me. Yes, just twenty-meter-high doors that were something like two meters thick. One couldn't really pry them open with a bit of metal. And there was, of course, no power.

“Oh,” she said, sounding faint. She sank into the copilot's seat, her eyes locked on the doors, just like mine. “What do we do?”

“I have no idea.”

It was one thing to plug what amounted to a large battery into something like the arm on the ceiling. You couldn't do that with these doors. They were not going to open. That simply wasn't going to happen.

But did that mean we were trapped? Maybe not. Maybe this was a setback, not a deal breaker.

We just had to find a way out that didn't involve opening the doors. I looked toward the takeoff pad. Those doors wouldn't open either; it wasn't any different over there. Same problem.

Was there some other way out, some silly idea that would never occur to anyone? No. There were two pairs of bay doors. They were
both sealed. Particularly well sealed, because in normal flight, opening them would depressurize the single largest space on the ship.

I sat back and closed my eyes. This was my life.

Deilani's expression was numb. None of this truly awful fortune seemed to surprise her much. Salmagard was dealing with it gracefully, and Nils was holding it together only because he thought he could count on me. Probably because I liked and appreciated him; he didn't seem like someone who was accustomed to being liked and appreciated.