Torchship (4 page)

“Well, that must be for the
best. Don’t want to risk their software going corrupt.”

“Of course.” Tsugawa turned
back to the gear. The other joined the line for the refreshers.

Near Planet Kronos.
Acceleration 10 m/s
²

Bing checked the time again. Seventy
minutes until they finished this boost. After three days of near-constant
acceleration they’d coast over Kronos’ north pole and see the whole ring
system. While the tourists pressed their noses to the window she intended to go
get a nap. Keeping them entertained had been more work than she expected even
with Billy organizing the free-fall soccer and other games. For now the
groundhogs still slept in their tents. She hoped Malachi would let them keep
those tents–space rated ones were valuable in the Disconnect. Overkill for this
job but the captain had squeezed Jones for every key he could get.

She walked over to the one
family-size tent. After the first morning she’d decided to let the teenagers
have first turn at the facilities while the others slept. The chaperone stuck
his head out of his tent as she approached. “Wake up call,” Bing reassured him.
He nodded but kept watching her. The girls woke more cheerfully today. Bobbie
was as eager as she must have been for Christmas mornings.

Once the girls were mostly
through their routines Bing crossed the hold to wake the next. Mr. Mussa had
fallen asleep holding his dumb-reader again. The accountant had been more or
less adopted by the university group as another student. “Good morning, everyone!
We’ll be arriving at Kronos within the hour. Billy is cooking breakfast so get
ready fast.” Mussa got up. The rest stirred and grumbled. Astronomy departments
didn’t attract morning people.

The captain came down the
forward ladder. Billy passed him baskets of food and dishes. Soon the tourists
were all eating, cabin fever dispelled by bacon and eggs. “That worked well,”
the captain said to Bing.

“Thanks. Nothing like saving
the best meal for when they’re crankiest.”

Mitchie’s voice came over the
PA. “All hands, end acceleration in five minutes. Secure for free falling.” The
officers pitched in to help Billy gather up the dishes. The passengers belted
themselves into their usual seats.

“All hands, free falling in
ten seconds. Five seconds. End acceleration. Stand by for maneuver.” The window
had been facing away from Kronos on the last boost. Now Mitchie flipped the
ship. The window filled with the shining rings. Gasps came from the tourists. Even
the crew were transfixed by the sight. “All hands, secure for free falling.”

Chatter started up again. Professor
Tsugawa hung over his students’ shoulders as they collected data. Billy joined
the officers in the back. “They look happy,” he said.

“Mostly,” said Bing as she
stifled a yawn.

“Why don’t you go get that
nap,” said the captain. “I can keep an eye on them for this shift.”

“Okay. Make sure you keep an
eye on ‘Uncle John.’ There’s something wrong about him.”

“Oh, not this again,” groaned
Billy. “He’s fine. Hasn’t done anything wrong. He’s been the least trouble of
any of them.”

“He’s not her uncle. He
doesn’t look a thing like her.”

“So he’s an in-law. This is
exactly the kind of thing you’d stick an unemployed son-in-law with.”

“Keep it down,” muttered the
captain.

“He doesn’t act unemployed,”
said Bing. “Too alert. Look at him now. He’s not staring at the rings. He’s
looking all around.”

“Including at us. So don’t
stare at him.” Schwartzenberger shifted to put his back to the tourists.

Billy turned away as well. “I
think you’re just being paranoid. The guy hasn’t been any trouble at all.”

WHANG WHANG WHANG WHANG
WHANG. Everyone started as the hull rang with impacts. “A bit of space junk,
folks,” announced Captain Schwartzenberger. “Happens all the time. That’s why
the hull’s so thick. Nothing to worry about.” He kept an ear cocked for the
whistle of escaping air–nothing. He was still uneasy. The impacts had been
regularly spaced, not the usual random distribution. He wasn’t sure where
they’d been hit but it felt like the impacts were on the lee side. His comm
chirped. “Yes?” Bing and Billy leaned in to hear.

Mitchie reported, “Sir, I’ve
got a ship on local comm. He says those were his cannon rounds. He said if we
don’t give Bobbie Smith to him he’s going to switch to armor-piercing.”

Billy said, “Well, maybe she
brought a bodyguard along.”

***

Schwartzenberger climbed up
the ladder into the bridge and bolted the hatch after him. The radio buzzed
with another threat. Mitchie answered in a high-pitched, panicked voice, “I’m
just the pilot! I can’t promise anything! The captain will be here in a minute!”
She closed the mike and turned to the captain. “I spotted him, sir,” she said
in her normal tone. “It looks like a Bolt-class interceptor.”

Schwartzenberger followed her
finger to a gleam paralleling the ship’s path. He nodded and strapped into the
co-pilot seat.

“This is Captain Alois
Schwartzenberger of the
Fives Full
. Who am I talking to?”

“Call me the Kronos Taxi
Service, Captain.” The voice was cold, calm, male, with a Demeter accent. “I’m
here to give one of your passengers a lift.”

“I’m sorry, they’ve all
bought round-trip tickets.”

“You won’t need to give her a
refund. We’ll even compensate you for your trouble.”

“My passengers are not for
sale, pirate!”

“Look–I’m taking the girl. I’ve
got armor-piercing loads for the cannon and a few missiles. You can hand her
over and be half a million keys richer … or I can shred your ship and you
freeze out here with your crew and passengers.”

“Half a million bullshit. It’s
easy to make promises when you’re going to kill us anyway.”         

“The money’s real. We can
even deposit it in advance. And I won’t hurt anyone if you cooperate.”

“Double bullshit. You can’t
afford to have witnesses to a kidnapping.” Mitchie handed him a note. He read
Sent
tightbeam distress call to Kerberos Base
and gave her a thumbs-up.

“My orders are to have as
many witnesses as possible. Seems that makes it more likely the ransom will be
paid. Doesn’t say much for her family, does it?”

“So… you actually have a half
mill in cash in your little boat there?”

“Better,” answered the
stranger. “I say the word and it drops into your trading account on Demeter. Then
you can just float the girl across to me in an emergency pod. Nobody gets hurt.
Not even her.”

Schwartzenberger sighed into
the mike. “Okay. Make the deposit. We’ll get her ready.” He turned the mike
off.

“Nice to work with a sensible
man.”

The captain felt Mitchie’s
stare on him. “We’ll keep stalling for time. I’ll get an empty pod set up to go
over. Your job will be to watch for when they go to pick it up. When they’re
closest pivot and give them a blast with the torch. With luck we can cause
enough damage to break contact until the Navy gets out here.” A sharper tone, “Don’t
look so damn relieved. Buying time is our priority here.”

“Sorry, sir,” said Mitchie. “Um…
if you want to break contact I might be able to do that now.”

“Seriously?”

Mitchie pointed at the rings.
“That’s pretty dense for a spaceship to fly though. I’ve flown through Akiak
mountains in thunderstorms. A bunch of ice doesn’t scare me. That guy–”
pointing at the interceptor “–probably does all his flying by telling the
autopilot where to go. First time he tries to go within fifty klicks of an
unplotted rock it’ll execute an automatic anticollision maneuver. A couple of
those and we should be out of sight. Plenty of places to hide in the rings.”

“A torchship isn’t much like
flying a winged shuttle, girl. You think you can get through there without
smacking some ice?”

“I’ve flown sims like that.”
She gave him a hard look. “Captain, I
promise
I can take us through
there safely.”

“Well. I can’t argue with an
Akiak promise. We’ll do it. They’re probably still dealing with the money. Best
time.” The captain activated the PA. “ALL HANDS, ALL HANDS. STRAP IN. STRAP IN
FOR ACCELERATION AND MANEUVER. ACCELERATION AND MANEUVER IN THIRTY SECONDS.
STRAP IN. THIS MEANS YOU, GUO. THIRTY SECONDS.”

Mitchie grabbed a pair of
sliders for a quick calculation on the pilot station’s mini-plotting board. She
ignored Bing’s voice coming from the captain’s comm. He barked back, “Just tell
them it’s pirates.”

The thirty seconds were up. Mitchie
fired the torch.
Fives Full
leapt forward at ten gravs.
Hopefully
everyone’s strapped in
, she thought. She fired the pitch thrusters to bring
the nose down. A second firing stopped the ship pointed straight at the rings.
She pressed the converter room intercom button. “Guo, can I get forty gravs for
a few minutes?”

The mechanic wasn’t fazed by
the request, but his tone made it clear he wondered what the sudden emergency
was. “Maybe a few seconds. We barely started cooling off from the last leg. Run
too hard and we’ll bust the thermal limits.”

“Okay, I want a few minutes
of high accel, as much as you can give me, then probably a couple hours of
running at ten gravs.”

“Damn. What–okay. You can
have four minutes of twenty-five gravs.”

The captain entered the
conversation. “Mr. Kwan. Ignore the yellow limits. We are going to red-line all
parameters until further notice.”

The intercom stayed silent
long enough for a few syllables to go by. Then Guo Kwan answered. “Aye, aye,
sir. Stand by.” They heard a slide rule clicking. “You can have thirty-two
gravs for six minutes.”

“Perfect! I’ll try to not use
it all,” Mitchie promised. That made turnover time easy enough to do in her
head.

“They noticed,” said the
captain calmly. The kidnappers’ ship was close to out of sight now, until it
lit off its torch with a bright blue glare.

The ship-to-ship radio
sounded. “
Fives
, where the fuck do you think you’re going? We have three
times your accel and twice your delta-V.” Schwartzenberger contemplated the
transmit button and decided to let them wonder.

Mitchie left the torch on as
she flipped the ship end for end. Every bit of in-plane velocity would help. Once
the maneuver finished she took the ship to Guo’s limit. She sank back into her
cushions. The couch was fully reclined. She focused on the chronometer, trying
to ignore the ship growing in the cockpit window.

“You’re right,” said the
captain. “He’s autopiloting. Missed your turnover. He went to max accel to
compensate, then went ballistic. Over a hundred gravs must’ve hurt enough to
make him hit the emergency switch. Now he’s at forty-five gravs but still going
to overshoot.”

“Let’s see how many more
mistakes he makes, sir.” Mitchie grinned. She’d never gotten to red-line a ship
before. Might never get to again.

The end of the 32-grav burn
zeroed their southward velocity as they entered the densest part of the middle
ring.
Fives Full
now paralleled the chunks of ice in their orbits–but at
ten times their speed. Mitchie aligned the ship to the right of the velocity
vector. Enough yaw would keep them in the ring even at ten gravs acceleration.

Both eyeball and radar
confirmed the gap she’d aimed for was empty. Mitchie looked ahead and nudged
the ship north to pass close over the rock in her path. She kept switching
between looking at the radar scope and the window. The echoes displayed by the
primitive radar depended more on the shape and composition of objects than
their size. Not that her eyes were foolproof. They were on the sunward side of
Kronos. If the chase lasted until they went into the planet’s shadow she’d have
to leave the ring. Best if they solved this before then. She yawed thirty
degrees to the left then forty to the right to weave among the next few rocks.

“He’s back,” said the
captain. “In plane with us. Not in gun range yet.” Mitchie kept maneuvering. Pitch
down, yaw right, pitch up. “Ha!” Schwartzenberger burst out. “He’s still on
autopilot. He set it to follow. It’s matching us turn for turn.”

“Good,” answered the pilot. She
stopped looking along her present course. Swiveling her head to scan the whole
sky she spotted her goal. A quick radar pulse confirmed it. Mitchie yawed the
ship eighty degrees left and more than doubled the torch thrust.
Fives Full
slid sideways through the sky. The pursuer shifted course to follow her rapidly
changing velocity vector.

Schwartzenberger lifted
himself in his seat. Turning his head unsupported hurt in the high
acceleration. He pushed to see over the edge of the bridge window. The target
was obvious as soon as he saw it. Three snowballs, each about fifty klicks
across, in a neat triangle. The captain lay quietly back. Too late to pass it
by. Best not to distract her.

“Guo, how long can we keep up
this accel?” asked the pilot.