Her Brother's Keeper - eARC Read online

  Even being a cargomaster was more involved than Annie had assumed. Kimball was required to account for every gram of mass the ship was carrying. Not just the cargo, but consumables and reaction mass alike. It all had to be stowed and secured correctly, and the ship’s cargo mass had to be symmetrically balanced around the axis of thrust. As supplies were consumed or cargo offloaded, everything had to be reshuffled to maintain that mass balance. Yet for all that, they had assigned Annie to Kimball because his area of responsibility was one of the less technical ones on the ship. Annie didn’t know anything about engineering, software writing, electrical systems, plumbing, astrogation, or thermonuclear propulsion above what she’d learned in her primary school education. She was told she didn’t need a lot of specialized training to move containers around and help clean the ship.

  As she was leaving her berth, a klaxon sounded and the pilot announced that the ship would be getting underway. With a dull roar, the Andromeda’s engines ignited. Annie felt a sense of weight returning to her body as the ship hit one gravity of acceleration and held there. The pilot announced that the burn would last for ninety minutes, and Annie was grateful for it. She wasn’t used to freefall and had been on a strict liquid diet as her body adjusted. Being dropsick was a miserable experience that had left Annie wondering what she’d gotten herself into.

  A few minutes later she was greeted by Systems Tech Daye, one of the crewmen who seemed to have many jobs. Annie had worked with Daye a lot since leaving New Austin and thought he was nice. He was a pale, skinny young man with long, dark hair that he kept tied up in a bun while on duty. “How are you doing, groundhog?” he asked, politely letting her go down the ladder first.

  “Transit shock wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be,” Annie said, climbing down to the cargo deck. “I guess my dad and his team all got sick.”

  “I saw that,” Daye said. “Did you not get sick as well?”

  “I did,” Annie admitted as she reached the deck below, “but at least I didn’t throw up on the medic like that guy Markgraf did.”

  “I may have laughed at her when that happened,” Daye said. “Felicity didn’t think it was as funny as I did. I’m glad you’re holding up, though, kid,” he said, joining her on the cargo deck. That was our first translation. We’re in orbit around JAC-83-45891.”

  “I know that one,” Annie said.

  “Did you study the flight plan?”

  “All four thousand hours of it! But I knew that star from before. It’s a class-M red dwarf, five-point-three light years from Lone Star. You can see it from where I live on New Austin for most of the winter.”

  “Okay, but like I said, that’s our first translation. We have a lot more of those ahead of us before we get to Zanzibar.”

  Annie’s stomach churned at the thought. “Does it get better?”

  “Indeed it does, Crewman-Apprentice,” Cargomaster Kimball said, approaching his two subordinates. “With time and frequency, the effects of transit shock aren’t as bad. You get used to it, as they say.”

  “Good morning, sir,” Annie said respectfully, though she towered over Kimball.

  “Good morning to you, young miss,” Kimball replied. “You as well, Tech Daye. Shall we begin another day of bringing the Crewman-Apprentice up to speed?”

  Daye patted Annie on the shoulder. “She’s a fast learner, Mr. Kimball.”

  “I agree,” Kimball said, looking up to study Annie. “She took to freefall maneuvering rather quickly, didn’t she?”

  “Today was her first translation, and she’s holding up a lot better than those big tough mercenaries upstairs.”

  “Ah,” Kimball said, smiling up at Annie. “A quantum deflowering, as the crude joke goes. Well done, young miss. I can think of no better way to celebrate than by introducing you to the basics of shipboard firefighting. Have you ever been in a spacesuit before?”

  “No, sir,” Annie said.

  “I thought as much. Both of you, this way,” he said, heading toward a row of storage lockers. “We’ll get one adjusted for you so you can begin your training. The firefighting suits differ from regular suits only in their improved resistance to heat and flame. A shipboard fire is one of the most dangerous situations a spacer can face. Fire in freefall moves and flows like a vapor. If contained it will quickly consume the oxygen in a compartment and extinguish itself. If not contained, it can rapidly spread, especially in an oxygen-rich environment, or if there is, say, a hydrogen leak. Many of the materials used in standard ship construction, such as titanium, magnesium, and aluminum, are extremely flammable and burn very hot. There are oxidizers on board as well. Shipboard fires have killed plenty of spacers over the centuries, and must not be taken lightly.”

  “Aren’t there automatic fire-suppression systems?” Annie asked.

  “There are, young miss, but those systems will not help a shipmate who has succumbed to smoke inhalation or has lost consciousness from lack of oxygen. If the ship is damaged in combat or in an accident, those systems may not be working correctly. Catastrophic shipboard fires are very rare, but we always train for the worst-case scenario as if we expect it at any time. To do otherwise is to court complacency, and complacency is the enemy of the spacer. Complacency kills.”

  “I understand, sir,” Annie said.

  “Good girl,” Kimball said with a smile. “Let’s get you suited up.”

  Chapter 17

  Zanzibar

  Danzig-5012 Solar System

  Trench Town, Northern Hemisphere

  Six thousand kilometers north of Lang’s Burg was an isolated settlement built in an eighty-meter deep gash in the surface of Zanzibar. The windblown ceramicrete highway, built more than a century before, was raised just high enough above ground level to keep it from getting buried in dust. The long, lonely road had withstood the forces of erosion well, Zak thought. He’d had plenty of time to think about the road; the caravan from Lang’s Burg had spent over a local week making the treacherous journey. Dozens of vehicles traveled in a tight convoy, laden with supplies, fuel, weapons, and Lang’s soldiers. Trench Town wouldn’t know what hit it. Zak quietly hoped and prayed that they wouldn’t resist, that nobody would be killed.

  The settlement had, before the Maggot bombardment, been little more than a mining outpost. It was so remote that even the Maggots ignored it, not hitting it with their particle beam weapons. After the fall of Zanzibar, the survivors at what later became known as Trench Town had several advantages. Their location protected them from the incessant, howling winds that plagued this region of the planet. The mines gave them access to valuable commodities like iron and salt, as well as ice—deep below the settlement was a vast, frozen underground lake. The citizens of Trench Town had been able to grow crops in greenhouses, raise livestock, and take in survivors from other parts of the ravaged world (the few that made it that far north, in any case).

  Trench Town was far enough away from Lang’s Burg and Freeport that the society there posed no threat to Lang and his machinations, but that didn’t matter to the warlord. He wanted every settlement on Zanzibar under his thumb and paying tribute so that he could better equip his army. More importantly, Zak’s research had revealed that miners that had, long ago, before the war, discovered buried artifacts, a hidden treasure trove from the lost native Zanzibari civilization. Upon learning this, Lang immediately began planning to capture the town at all costs. Zak, Anna, and Cecil were dragged along to exploit the find after the town was secured.

  It took Lang’s militia about two days to pacify Trench Town. The citizens put up a valiant defense, but they had few weapons and fewer people who knew how to use them. Lang’s forces were not well trained, but they were battle hardened veterans of countless such conquests of independent settlements all over Zanzibar. During the battle, Zak and his companions were held back in the encampment Lang’s men had built in the rocky highlands surrounding Trench Town. There they waited with Lang, his guards, and his camp followers, as his militia assaul
ted the town with gun trucks and heavy weapons. Zak watched helplessly as the defenders were cut down.

  When the fighting was over, Lang rode triumphantly into Trench Town with the rest of his caravan. During a big, theatrical show trial, he acted as a judge while the citizens who fought back (and survived) were given a choice: they could pledge fealty to Aristotle Lang, or be executed. Those that chose death were hanged, strung up from rocky outcroppings of the trench in which the settlement was built, and were left to swing in the wind as a warning to the others. Zak had thrown up after watching this.

  Lang was brutal in his pacification efforts, but he was also smart. While his men forcibly confiscated all the weapons they could find from the citizens of Trench Town (only Lang’s men were allowed to have guns), they also distributed food and medicine. The isolated northern settlement had been hanging on for all these years, but they were desperately short on some supplies, and Lang provided them. He even gave a big, pompous speech about how he was going to reunite all of Zanzibar, bringing civilization back to the ravaged world at any cost. It almost made Zak sick again.

  This is how the wayward historian, along with his compatriots and surrounded by Lang’s guards, found himself being led deep into one of Trench Town’s mines. Only a few of the settlement’s prewar computers worked, but Zak was able to get enough information off of them to understand where he was being led. It was during this operation that the miners had discovered a natural cave system which had been sealed for millions of years. Deep in this cave system, several kilometers underground, the miners discovered what they had called “the tomb.” Leading them underground was a guide from Trench Town, a gray-haired man named Linus.

  “Do you think we’ll find an actual skeleton of a native Zanzibari in there?” Cecil asked, his voice muffled by his respirator.

  “I don’t think so,” Anna answered. “Unless they fossilize, bones turn to dust in a matter of decades.”

  “In any case we’re not the first ones here,” Zak added. “The prewar scientists went through this place and collected everything they could find. According to the records, they used the site to store artifacts when the Maggot assault was imminent.”

  Linus spoke up sullenly, leery of the armed guards all around him. “My grandfather was a small boy when the war started,” he said. “He told us stories of the splendor of the old colony, of how comfortable life was despite the harshness of our world. His father worked in the mines, and he told us stories of how they found the relics of the Zanzibari. You won’t find any skeletons in there. Everything they found was boxed up and sealed for long-term storage.”

  “I suppose that will make Lang happy,” Cecil said glumly. “It’ll be easier to transport them south.”

  Zak shook his head slowly at the thought, but tried to stay focused on the task at hand. It was all he could do.

  Chapter 18

  The Privateer Ship Andromeda

  Deep Space

  Baker-3E871 System

  Baker-3E871 was a pale white dwarf star, slowly dying an eons-long death. Its dim, harsh light was filtered through beautiful rings of debris, a stellar disk that surrounded the star and made for an awe-inspiring image on the Andromeda’s screens.

  Or at least it would have, if the damned screens would work, Catherine thought. In terms of transit shock, not all translations were created equal. Being shunted into the Baker-3E871 system had been particularly hard on the ship’s systems. The captain monitored the process of getting underway, noting happily when systems came back online, as a pair of systems technicians were replacing electronic components on the command deck.

  The transit point was presently outside of the dying star’s debris disk, if only barely, but it was still uncomfortably close to the star itself. Momentum is not retained when translating into a new star system, and the Andromeda had to consume a lot of reaction mass to get up to orbital velocity so as not to fall into the white dwarf. The acceleration gave her technicians the sensation of gravity as they worked to replace burned-out optical computer boards behind Nuchy’s console.

  “Captain!” It was Luis Azevedo. “You need to see this!”

  “Send it to my…damn it!” Catherine snarled. Her screens were still locked up. She unfastened her safety restraint, pushed herself out of her chair, and gracefully drifted across the command deck toward her junior officer. “What is it, Luis?” she asked, bracing herself on a nearby handhold.

  “We didn’t notice at first because sensors were offline. But the optical auto-tracking picked it up as soon as the system cycled. Look.”

  Catherine moved in closer to get a better look at the young officer’s display. Against the starry background of space, a shimmering blob reflected the light of Baker-3E871. It was surrounded by other such blobs, chunks of rock and ice in the star’s debris disk, but it stood out nonetheless. The image slowly zoomed in, magnified hundreds of times, until she could make out the silhouette of a large ship. The spindly vessel appeared to be slowly rotating, end over end.

  “It looks like she’s adrift, Ma’am,” Luis said.

  “Range?”

  “Point-nine million kilometers. She’s skimming the edge of the debris disk.”

  “Any radio traffic coming from her?”

  “None that we’ve picked up so far.”

  “Very well.” Catherine pushed herself away from her junior officer’s console, flipping over as she did so, landing right in her chair. She tapped the intercom. “Colin, are you tracking that unknown contact?”

  “Roger that, skipper. Sensors are still giving me error messages, but I’ve got her on optical.”

  “Good. Lay in an intercept course, shortest time. Start broadcasting a standard emergency response message. If there’s anyone alive on board, maybe they can hear us.” Catherine rapidly tapped the controls on her command console. She was pleased to see that systems were starting to come back.

  Kel Morrow looked a little ragged when he appeared on her screen. Of her officers, he was the most sensitive to transit shock, and it was often a miserable experience for him. “Astrogation,” he said tersely.

  “Kel, we’ve got an unidentified contact nine hundred thousand klicks ahead of us. I’m not ready to trust the sensors yet, but optical telemetry leads me to believe she’s adrift. Once you can access the database, do a historical records search and see if there are any reports of a derelict in this system.”

  Astrogator Morrow raised an eyebrow. “Thinking of taking a detour, Captain?”

  “I wouldn’t, but it’s not far off of our planned trajectory. It’ll give the crew something to keep busy with.” Catherine didn’t need to mention to potential monetary gain from recovering a derelict ship. If the core systems of its transit drive, which required extremely rare elements and were difficult to manufacture, were intact enough to salvage, it would pay for the reaction mass needed for the intercept hundreds of times over.

  If the ship wasn’t a derelict, and was in fact in distress, then all the better. Ancient Laws of Outer Space demanded that any available ship come to the aid of another in need. In an empty system far from civilization, there was no one to enforce such laws, but that didn’t matter to Catherine Blackwood. The skipper of the Andromeda wasn’t the sort to ignore a call for help or leave a ship in obvious distress to its fate.

  Klaxons sounded and Colin’s voice was broadcast throughout the ship. “Stand by for acceleration, two gravities. T-minus ninety seconds and counting. All personnel stay in your acceleration couches. Personnel not on watch, return to your berths. Stand by for acceleration, T-minus eighty seconds and counting.”

  Catherine calmly fastened the restraints on her command chair, and reclined it back into the acceleration position. Her eyes lit up as she studied the blurry, magnified image of the unknown ship on her screen. Even if it proved to be nothing, at least it broke up the monotony.

  * * *

  Long hours ticked by as the Andromeda boosted along an intercept course intended to match the t
rajectory of the unknown ship. With her sensor suite fully operational once again, the Andromeda was able to thoroughly scan the adrift vessel in the visible spectrum, in the infrared, and with radar. What telemetry revealed was startling: the unknown contact was not a ship in distress. It undoubtedly had been at some point in the past, but presently it could only be classified as a derelict. She was cold, with no active emissions signature at all. Only the pale light of Baker-3E871 slightly warming one side of her hull caused her to stand out from the cold background of space.

  The intense ultraviolet radiation of the dying star had bleached her hull almost white, but the computer was able to identify the ship. Her name was Agamemnon, and she was huge. From nose to tail she was seven hundred and forty meters long, and she outmassed the Andromeda by an order of magnitude. Her primary hull was long and cylindrical. Four cylindrical habitat modules were folded against this section; under acceleration, their decks were perpendicular to the ship’s axis of thrust, so that passengers could enjoy a sense of gravity. While the ship coasted, the arms were intended to rotate ninety degrees outward. They would then be spun around the ship’s axis, using centrifugal force to simulate gravity for the crew during the long haul between transit points. A lengthy but narrow spine connected the primary hull to the propulsion unit, a bulbous cluster of massive rockets, propellant tanks, and radiators.

  She rotated lazily, end over end. Her hull was peppered and pockmarked with micrometeorite damage, but she was remarkably intact for being adrift in the rings of Baker-3E871.