Ion Trail 10: Mind the Gap

“Kyle!” I shouted unnecessarily over the commlink. “Check the scan again. Anything? I need to know if the nanites are transmitting again.” A few moments passed, and I heard Clinton respond.

“Not a thing, Captain,” he said. “If they’re still operational, they’re not talking. I… think we got away clean?”

“Let’s hope,” I replied. “But let’s also verify. I want someone in the engine room at all times, monitoring. Talk to Diaz, have him set up a schedule, but I want you personally to make sure that everyone who takes a shift knows what to look for.” I slumped back in my seat as I keyed off the commlink, feeling the adrenaline still surging through my body, with nothing to do with it. After a second, I thrust myself up from my seat and stalked out of the cockpit. I needed to move. I needed to do… Nothing. There was nothing that actually needed to be done, but my body needed to do something, anything. Sitting still wasn’t an option.

When I reached the corridor where the cabins were I saw Harper coming out of her room and without pausing to consider, grabbed her in a fierce hug. She froze for a second and I realized I should have asked, but before I could pull away, she returned the hug, not as aggressively, but firmly enough. After a minute I pulled back and looked at her a little sheepishly.

“Should I be worried, or pleased?” she asked with a wry smile.

“Pleased,” I said, then, “Or worried. Both, I don’t know.” I laughed, a little too loud. “I just needed to do something. We had another close call, but nothing like last time.” She raised an eyebrow, her amusement fading just a little bit.

“What do you mean?”

“It was the black ship,” I replied tersely. “Found us again, but we jumped out in time. I think.”

“You seem,” she paused, considering, “proud of yourself.”

“I am,” I said, surprised. “I really am. I knew something was wrong before the sensors detected anything, and I acted in time. We got away clean.” The deep sense of triumph was leavened with caution, but only a little bit. “I think we did, anyway.” She smiled, her gray-blue eyes twinkling as she did.

“It’s a good look on you, Captain.” She reached out and gripped my shoulder and I didn’t flinch, even a little bit.

=+=

Telling the rest of the passengers didn’t go over as well as the last meeting, but they’d calmed down after I explained. It was a solid plan and it was also the only way we were going to get more food any time soon. The part that had really thrown them was when I’d dropped the bomb I hadn’t even dared reveal to my unofficial crew; No one was disembarking for the foreseeable future. The speed with which the black ship had arrived at our little pit stop made it very clear that they’d come from Proxima Tau; unless that thing had a hyperdrive so advanced that it could move five times faster than anything I’d ever heard of, there was no way it’d come from anywhere else including Kestrel Station. While we had to assume that anybody who had the technology to create nanites that sophisticated would be advanced in other ways, that stretched the bounds of credulity. So we would stop into the Proxima Tau mining station, avoid the main station entirely, then get the hell out of there; we’d probably head to Bekter’s Rim and I’d finally be able to turn responsibility over to the TU. I’d also need to tell them everything we knew, about Kestrel, the black ship and the nanites, all of it.

It didn’t take long to settle back in to the rhythms we’d developed during the first leg of the trip. Carla had begun her classes again, and they were as well-attended as before, with one key addition; a day after we’d jumped to hyperspace again, Shanna finally joined everyone else in the cargo bay. Harper was close at hand to ensure she didn’t overdo it, and she moved like she’d forgotten how, but she got there mostly under her own power. We ended up having a communal meal in the cargo bay as a small celebration. It was the normal, meager fare, but the boost in morale from seeing her up and around for the first time since we’d fled Kestrel made it seem like a party. She didn’t stay long, but the next day she returned, and the day after, getting steadier every day, with more color in her cheeks.

Then it was crunch time again. The nanites had remained silent for the entire trip, so we had no reason to believe that the black ship would know where we were headed. I was hoping that maybe they’d run out of juice, but I wasn’t ready to count on it; we’d maintain a watch on them indefinitely, until we’d finally found safety. On the morning of the day we were due into Proxima Tau, I had Diaz supervise a restructuring of the cargo. With very little money to my name, we’d have to use the cargo to barter for what we needed with the miners, so we’d pulled out everything we thought would be most valuable, and made room for anything we might be able to bring aboard.

“Kyle,” I called over the commlink, as I settled into my seat, “I’ve released control of the ship’s primary sensors to you there in the engine room. While I’m bringing us in to the mining station, I want you scanning Proxima Tau Station as closely as you can. Clinton, I want you to stay on the diagnostics scans, in case the nanites wake up. You did get the modified scan working for the sensors, like we talked about?”

“Sure thing Captain,” Clinton replied. As soon as Kyle… Yeah, he’s got it. If any active nanites are in range, he’ll see them.”

“Everyone secured in back there?” I asked via intercom. “We’ll be dropping out into Proxima Tau in about ten minutes.”

“Cargo is secured, all personal items are put away,” replied Diaz from the cargo bay. “All passengers not otherwise engaged are in the galley or the cabins.”

“Copy,” I replied. “I’ll notify when we’re one minute from Drop Out.”

This was a routine drop, unlike the emergency drop we’d done before, so immediate hazards were unlikely to be a problem. On the other hand, given the assumption that the black ship had come from Proxima Tau, I wasn’t exactly sanguine, either. My nerves were buzzing as I rechecked everything one more time. The hyperspace timeout showed one minute, so I closed the viewscreen cover and keyed the intercom again.

“One minute to drop out. Standby.”

I watched the countdown as it approached zero, and then felt us drop out of hyperspace, the small shudder than ran through the ship as we did so. I opened the viewscreen cover immediately, visually scanning the blackness before me and checking the sensor readings. We’d come out in the expected location and there was nothing of immediate concern, so I increased throttle and made for Proxima Tau 5. Once we were moving, I checked in with Kyle.

“Anything on sensors?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary,” he said. “Station’s still there, no more than the expected debris field. If there are nanites, we’re not close enough to detect them.” I heard him clicking a few keys, then, “Huh.”

“What?”

“I tried a passive radio scan, and there’s no traffic at all.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, though I was pretty sure I knew.

“The normal things you’d be able to detect at this range, traffic control, the local nav transponder, there’s nothing. If we were to get closer, I would also be able to detect the local drone control frequencies, but…” I’d gone cold as his words confirmed my fears. The station was either dead or had all of its comms wiped out. Either way, it pointed to only one possibility; the black ship had been there and taken steps to ensure that no information escape this time. If there were people alive aboard the station, they likely wouldn’t stay that way.

“Copy,” I said dully. “Needless to say, this is need-to-know information.”

“Understood, Captain.”

I monitored our approach to Proxima Tau 5 while I calculated the distance we’d need to be to properly effect the slingshot around it toward the mining station. I wondered what we’d find there; they were sparsely manned at the best of times. Sometimes there’d only be a single person manning the whole station for a month at a time, and at others there might be as many as a couple dozen personnel aboard. We’d find out soon enough, I supposed. Just in case, I decided I’d start calculating the navdata to Bekter’s Rim as soon as we’d made the slingshot.

Everything went smoothly from there, though the oppressive feeling persisted. Soon enough we were cruising toward the mining station. I’d had Kyle do a quick scan of the mining station as we approached and he said that he detected the normal control frequencies for the robo miners, but nothing else. Since we didn’t have our comms disc reaching out to the station wasn’t an option, so I proceeded cautiously. Once we were close enough that I could visually inspect the station I saw nothing out of the ordinary, but I did see a problem; the star dock doors were sealed; with no way to request entry, we’d have to figure something else out. I killed the throttle as we neared and coasted in, using the steering thrusters to bring the ship about into landing posture, and to slow us to a synchronous holding position.

“Clinton,” I called over the commlink. “You fancy a spacewalk?”

“Another one? Aww, Captain, you shouldn’t have.” I grinned at his bantering tone.

“I’ll meet you at the port airlock once I check in with everyone.” Then I headed for the galley, where most of the passengers were waiting anxiously. I found Diaz and called him over for a quick, whispered update before turning to the rest of the people.

“Alright,” I said, “We’re here at the mining station, but the doors are closed. With no comms we can’t request entry, so Clinton and I are going to go see if we can get the doors open. Just sit tight a little longer, okay?” Once I was done, I headed to the airlock. I hadn’t done a spacewalk since training, but at this point it was hardly the most stressful thing I’d ever done. Clinton was already suited up and I quickly did the same before stepping into the airlock. Clinton joined me and I cycled the airlock, holding my breath as the air was pulled out of the tiny room; it was silly, but I hadn’t ever been able to break the habit. Once the indicator had turned the dull red that indicated it had reached full vacuum, Clinton opened the outer door and we stepped out into space.

The absence of gravity immediately triggered a sense of vertigo as I left the artificial gravity of the ship, but my training took over and after several controlled breaths I was fine again. Clinton waited until I nodded to him, then we both kicked away from the ship toward the station, ten meters away. Once we reached the hull of the station, we both latched on to one of the ubiquitous hand-holds designed to help maintenance workers move around, and hooked an arm around each other.

“Lanyard away,” he said when I had a firm grip on him, and then began hauling in the half-inch thick plas-weave rope as it detached from the ship. I held him steady until he could fasten the magnetic end of his lanyard to the station, then we switched and I did the same, pulling it in hand over hand until my lanyard was solidly attached next to his.

“Now what?” I asked. “This is your area of expertise, right?”

“Yup,” he said. “Follow me.” He turned himself about so he could plant his boots on the hull, where they stuck; I always expected to hear the click, but of course space didn’t transmit sound. I followed suit and soon we were walking across the hull toward an access panel on near the bay doors. He knelt and pulled a multi-tool from his belt and worked at the panel for several minutes before it came open. Another tool came out next, looking like a bulky datapad, which he plugged into a port inside the panel. He examined the screen for a moment, then nodded. “Good news is, power’s on, so I can get this open without resorting to manual force. Life support is likely running, too.”

“Good to hear it,” I said, and waited as he started tapping complex sequences into the datapad. He muttered under his breath, the commlink conveying the general sense if not the specifics of his words until finally he gave an exaggerated tap on the device, grunting in satisfaction. The massive shackles on the bay doors unlocked and they started to slide open. “Great job. Let’s head back to the ship, so we can get her inside.”

“You go ahead,” he demurred. “I’m gonna go on in and scope the place out. I’ll see you when you get in there.”

“Suit yourself,” I replied, and kicked off toward the ship. I smacked into the side only a couple meters from the airlock, detached my lanyard from the station, and in I went. I skipped suiting down, only removing my helmet before I headed for the cockpit. Clinton, meanwhile, was playing tour guide, confirming the air quality was within acceptable standards and describing the inside of the star dock. It sounded fairly typical although much, much smaller than a standard station; it’d fit my ship though, and that’s what mattered. I nudged the reverse maneuvering thrusters and started to guide the ship back into the bay. Intent as I was on guiding the ship, I lost track of Clinton’s rambling descriptions.

“Woo!” I said out loud as I felt the gentle impact on set down. I threw myself out of my seat and headed for the cargo bay, which was already filling up with people eager to get off the ship. “Clinton, we’re coming out to you,” I called over the commlink as I stepped up to the cargo door controls. I raised my hand with a flourish, looking over the excited faces of my passengers, and then pushed the button. “Clinton, you there? We’re coming out.” As the door began to open I realized I hadn’t heard him in several minutes.

“Clinton?”

“He’s doing what I told him to,” a new voice said, ugly with menace. “And unless you want new holes where there were none before, I’d suggest you do the same.”

As the ramp settled to the ground, I saw Clinton standing about 5 meters behind the ship, facing me with an abashed expression on his face, his helmet off and his arms raised. The man behind him looked like he wasn’t interested in games and the large gun he leveled at me made me inclined to take him seriously.

Ion Trail 9: On Edge

As soon as everyone endorsed my plan to go on to Proxima Tau, I began to second-guess myself. I took pains to make it clear that Bekter’s Rim was still an option and that I’d already inputted the navdata. They all listened attentively, then asked me which plan I thought was better; when I said that I thought Proxima Tau was risky but the better plan overall, they all simply agreed. Just getting out of the room nearly caused a panic attack after it was all settled and we’d discussed some of the details. It was like they couldn’t see that I was flying by the seat of my pants, and that half the reason we weren’t dead was blind luck, rather than some special insight I had. Of course, I’d gone to great pains to hide that fact; leaders don’t want to look insecure in front of their people lest they undermine their own cause. Though I wasn’t at all sure that this wasn’t going to bite me in the ass, I guess the only direction to go was forward.

Besides, if I messed up it’s not like anyone would be able to yell at me.

After I left the engine room I swung by the med bay to check in with Harper. I peeked first, just in case they’d started the procedure, but I found her talking quietly with Shanna. She smiled at me when I poked my head in further, so I came in and closed the door behind me.

“Hey,” I said. “So, uh…?” I glanced at Shanna, then toward the desk, where the med kit was still laid out.

“I’m discussing with Shanna what I think is going on, and what I’m going to do to try to fix it,” Harper said. I looked over at the injured girl who looked scared, but took the effort to smile bravely at me. She had a pretty smile. I hoped everything went well for her.

“What’s your timeline?” I asked. She looked up at the edge in my tone, and studied my face for a moment.

“It’ll have to be soon,” she said. “She’s not getting better, so I can’t wait long. Is there a concern I should be aware of?”

“Uh, probably nothing to worry about,” I said hesitantly. “Leaving shouldn’t jar anything, and hyperspace is smooth sailing ninety-nine percent of the time.”

“But?” she replied.

“But if anything happens before we can jump to hyperspace again, things could get dicey.”

“Dicey?” Shanna spoke softly, but I could hear the strain in her voice. I looked at the girl again, and weighed my options. Her face was waxy, almost yellowish in the dim light of the cabin, and her eyes bright and feverish. I hadn’t been planning on telling anyone but my ‘crew’ until we were underway, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to tell them both what the plan was.

“Well, as you know, we’re very likely being tracked by the black ship,” I explained. “We’re stopped now, trying to remove the, um, tracking nanites from the hull. If we’re still working on that when the black ship, or whoever, arrives, I may have to take evasive maneuvers again.” She nodded her understanding, and winced at the movement. I glanced at Harper as well before I continued. “I’ve also decided, after conferring with some other people, that we’re going to push on to Proxima Tau.” This got a blink of surprised from Harper, so I rushed on to explain. “The only other viable place is more than a week away from where we are now, and we’re already so low on food that I don’t think we’re going to have anything left, very soon. There’s a small mining station that we should be able to resupply at, and I believe we should be able to avoid getting near Proxima Tau station, where most of the risk is likely to be centered. I wouldn’t do it if there were a better option, but…”

“I see,” Harper replied simply. “It seems like you’ve thought this through, at least.” She looked back at Shanna, and frowned thoughtfully. “I’d like to do the procedure this evening, unless you think that’s a bad idea. I don’t know that Shanna should wait any longer without a very compelling reason.”

“If anyone shows up that early, there’s not much we’ll be able to do anyway,” I replied. Just let me know when you’re beginning and when you’re done, okay?” I smiled at Shanna and reached down to awkwardly pat her shoulder. “You’ll be fine,” I told her. “I have every confidence in Lorna’s skill.” I stumbled over the name, but figured if that’s what she preferred I’d make a point of using it, at least when talking to her patient.

“Thanks, Captain,” the girl replied with another brave smile. She actually seemed to have taken heart from my words, which made me feel a little better too. I excused myself after that and went back to the cockpit. Diaz was there, slumped on his elbows humming tonelessly when I got there. He didn’t seem to notice me walking in, so intent was he on the chatter from my commlink. I couldn’t resist; I reached over and tapped his left shoulder, then quickly moved around to his right. He reacted as you’d expect, looking around to his left, then snapping back toward me when found no one to his left.

“Just makin’ sure you’re awake there, Diaz,” I chided in mock seriousness. “You can get out of here for now, I’m back.” I dropped back into my seat as soon as he was out of the way.

“So what’s the plan, Captain?” he asked. “Did they convince you to go to Bekter’s Rim?”

“Nope,” I said. “They all endorsed your crazy plan. We’re headed to Proxima Tau as soon as they clear the hull.”

“It’s not my plan!” he protested, and I couldn’t help but laugh. “I just made a half-baked suggestion, you ran with it!”

“Well, we’re all running with it. I made sure they knew the risks and alternatives, but they agreed with me. It’s the best we’ve got under the circumstances.” I stretched, feeling the tension knotting my shoulders and wished I could get a massage. Diaz would probably be happy to oblige, but I didn’t want to give him any ideas after the other night. “Go on, get out of here. Oh, and I’m not planning on telling everyone else until we’re underway. They all want to put their trust in me, well, I’m gonna take it, and if they want to mutiny once we’re moving, then so be it.”

After Diaz was gone, I sat there in my cockpit and listened to the conversations out on the hull. Barry had gone and replaced Alan, and he and Craig were talking about food, of all things. Clinton had taken over for Kyle in the engine room and at the moment he was enthusing about a fondue place he liked to take dates whenever he had time off back at Kestrel. About half-way into telling a particular story, he stopped suddenly; no one filled the silence for a few minutes. My guess was that they all remembered that Kestrel Station was likely a debris field now. Eventually Barry mentioned that he’d cleared his section, and could Clinton check it over on the diagnostics? After that, the conversation slowly picked back up again.

This went on for a couple more hours before Diaz stuck his head into the cockpit to let me know Harper was starting her procedure. I closed my eyes and hoped that everything worked out. I even considered trying to pray to Sister Estrada’s Jesus, but just couldn’t bring myself to; I didn’t believe, and it seemed disrespectful to try even for the sake of a life. Despite my worry, it didn’t take long to get lost in the minutia of the mission on the hull, though even that faded to a buzz as fatigue and tedium crept up on me. I think I was half dozing when Kyle, who’d taken over again in the engine room, finally caught my attention.

“Captain?” he said, sounding like it wasn’t the first time.

“Yeah, sorry,” I said quickly. “Go ahead.”

“Listen, we’ve been going for fourteen hours now, and even Clinton’s starting to make mistakes.”

“Hey!” came an indignant protest from Clinton.

“Sorry buddy, but you know it’s true. Any chance we can table this for a few hours of sleep?” I hesitated for a moment. If anyone showed up with the job undone, we’d just wasted all of this time for nothing. But I knew how tired I was, and they’d been doing a lot more of the work; if Kyle was asking, then I think they’d all reached the end of their endurance.

“Permission granted,” I said, then grimaced at how pompous I sounded.

“Aye Captain,” Kyle replied, with a smirk that came straight through in his voice. “You heard her boys. Reel it in, and let’s get a few hours of sleep.”

“I think I’ll be fine to go back out in four to five,” said Clinton. “I’ve done it enough on, um, ‘time-sensitive’ salvage jobs that I’ll be good by then.”

“Yeah, that’s fine,” replied Kyle. “I guess I can do what needs to be done, too. You going to catch a few hours of shut-eye too, Captain?”

“Guess I should try,” I said with a frown. I hadn’t heard anything back from Harper, and it’d been a couple hours, at least. I didn’t want to disturb her if she was still working, but I was getting worried. “Signing off. Make sure you wake me when you get started again,” I added. “I need to be ready to jump as soon as you’re done.”

With that, I went back toward the cabins, wondering if maybe I should peek in on Harper and Shanna after all, but when I got there it turned out to be a moot point. Carla was standing outside of the med bay, leaning back against the wall with her eyes closed looking exhausted. She had a chucks pad from the med kit taped around her torso, and it was nearly black with blood. My heart started pounding as soon as I saw her.

“Hey,” I said. She jerked slightly, and opened her eyes, taking a moment to focus on me.

“Captain,” she replied, “Hey. Didn’t hear you coming.”

“Is… Are you…” I couldn’t seem to get the words out, that sense of dread crowding into my throat. Sleep was no longer even a thought.

“Oh, we’re done,” she said wearily. “Just finished up a moment ago, Harper’s covering the incision, said she didn’t need me anymore for that part.” She glanced down, seeming to only then notice that she was covered in blood and she blinked a few times before she reached up to try to take it off, with fingers that didn’t seem to work right. I leaned forward to help her, doing my best not to touch the dark, wet stains.

“How is she?” Her words had calmed most of my anxiety, but there was just so much blood.

“It was really touch-and-go for a while,” she replied, sighing as the chucks finally came unfastened from behind her back. “Give me a minute, I’ll see if Harper can tell you more about it. I just did what she told me. I didn’t really understand everything that she was doing.”

“Take your time,” I said, and leaned back against my door to wait as she went back into the room. Several minutes passed and I think I actually dozed off standing against my door before the med bay door opened again and Harper came out. Despite how long of a procedure it’d been, she barely looked any different than she usually did, though there was a smudge of blood on her cheek that I doubt she realized was there.

“Hey Captain,” she said with a tired smile. “Shanna’s out of the woods, for now. She had some decent-sized lacerations on her hepatic vein that was causing some hemorrhaging and the jaundice that I’m sure you noticed earlier. I had to clamp it and suture it to stop the bleeding. I didn’t find anything else except for the bruising and her broken ribs, but I’d already bound those the best I could.”

“So she’s okay?”

“Well, she will be, God willing,” she replied. “I’ll have to use the rest of the Neocodone in the kit for pain management and I’ll be dosing her with the antibiotics to try to prevent infection, but I think- I think she’ll make it. The rest is up to her.” I sighed in relief, once again feeling the fatigue as I released some of the tension I’d been holding.

“You going to try to sleep now?” I asked her. If anyone deserved it… well, a lot of people did, but she was certainly one of them.

“Yeah, June is going to come sit with her while I catch a few winks,” she replied. “After I get cleaned up, of course.” She gestured at herself, and then looked back at me. “Looks like you should be doing the same.”

“That’s the plan. I just wanted to check with you before I crashed.”

“Good plan. Good night, Captain.” With that and another smile, she went to her room, and closed the door. I stood there for another minute, looking at the med bay door before I went to my waiting bed.

=+=

Four hours of sleep was worse than no sleep. Well no it wasn’t, probably, but I was definitely feeling bleary and cranky. I sat cross-legged in the cockpit with both hands wrapped around a hot cup of coffee that I’d scrounged from the galley, listening to Clinton and Kyle jabbering cheerfully at each other on the commlink. Kyle had been just as grumpy as I was when we’d first gotten started but he’d warmed to Clinton’s upbeat commentary, quickly leaving me feeling especially sour at their banter. Only Barry seemed to be properly surly and while I’d barely ever spoken to the man, I felt an unusual kinship with him in this particular moment. The rest of the ship was asleep, further heaping insult on top of everything else.

Still, the rest seemed to have done them good; the job was progressing well enough, all things considered. When I’d asked, Kyle has estimated maybe another six hours at the pace they’d been proceeding. That timeline made me nervous, but considering the scale of the problem, it was probably better than I had any right to expect. So I sat and I listened, the whole time arguing with myself as to why I’d decided I needed to be awake for this.

An hour passed, and the part of my mind that was arguing for going back to bed was gaining ground, especially considering that the coffee was gone. I checked the long range sensors again, but all I saw were the same asteroids that I’d seen the last dozen times. If anything jumped into the system anywhere near enough to be an immediate threat, the alarm I’d set would let me know, but I didn’t have much better to do. Just then, tapping at the door distracted me from my internal debate.

“Yes?” I called, turning in my seat to look at the door as June opened it. The woman had a small plate of food and- bless her- another cup of coffee.

“Morning Captain,” she said. “How’s the work coming?”

“Slowly but surely,” I replied, eyes fixed on the coffee. She chuckled and handed it to me, along with the plate of food. I took a long swallow of coffee, nearly scalding my throat, but I didn’t care; it was nectar, it was ambrosia. After a moment, I took a nibble of the food feeling my stomach grumbling eagerly.

“Let them know breakfast is ready and we’ve set aside plates for them,” she said. “Alan is ready to relieve them whenever, and Craig was just finishing breakfast when I left.”

“Will do,” I said around a mouthful of powdered egg. “And thank you.” She waved in acknowledgment as she left, and I tucked into the food with a will, what little there was of it, and soon was scraping the plate for whatever scraps of flavor I could find. After that I settled down with my second cup of coffee and returned to listening. Craig and Alan took over for Barry and Clinton, and work continued apace.

“Uh, Captain?” It’d been at least an hour, maybe two, and I was drifting when Kyle’s voice changed from his normal bantering tone.

“Yeah?”

“The nanites just, uh, disappeared,” he told me. “Stopped transmitting, at least.” We probably had about… ten percent left to remove, mostly in harder to reach locations, and they just vanished from the scanner.”

“That’s strange,” I replied, feeling a prickle on the back of my neck. “Um, keep trying. Give me a minute.” I checked the scanners again, tweaking the settings and diverting a little more power, trying to push their range out a little further. It wasn’t much use, as my ship wasn’t configured either for combat or scout-work, though this line had been used for both, with other configurations. They still showed nothing unusual, but the nerves just wouldn’t go away. The chatter on the commlink, a near-constant background noise for the last day, had also gone silent.

“Nothing, Captain,” Kyle came back, breaking the silence. “Nothing on any frequency I can think of. No subspace, no microwave, nothing.” There was a pregnant pause, and when he spoke again, his voice was tentative and unsure. “Maybe… maybe there’s not enough of them to keep an active web anymore? The remaining patches were mostly around to the sides of the ship.”

“Maybe,” I agreed, trying to calm the yammering voice in the back of my head. That voice was always present whenever I was in a crowd, but had grown considerably quieter over the last several days, as I’d come to know the passengers, and they’d felt less like strangers. There was no comforting sense of familiarity about its return, and I felt on the edge of panic. Something wasn’t okay. Something was very wrong. “Craig, Alan?” I waited for their acknowledgements. “Get back inside, okay? Just- hurry up.”

I started to prep the ship for departure. Sensors still showed nothing, but they could have been screaming of incoming missiles and I wouldn’t have been anymore keyed up. I keyed the intercom and announced that we were preparing for departure, and then over the commlink told Kyle to let me know as soon as Craig and Alan were back inside.

“Please be nothing,” I muttered, rubbing the back of my neck with one hand as I primed the hyperdrive, activated viewscreen polarization and selected the Proxima Tau navdata. “Just nerves, that’s all.” I wasn’t convinced, and the panic was edging higher. Kyle announced that everyone was inside, and without acknowledging, I kicked the throttle up and slewed the ship around a bit too abruptly toward the nearest patch of clear sky.

As soon as I started moving, my long range sensors started blaring as something large immediately started closing from just beyond their maximum range. I almost hissed in vindication. Bastards must have been waiting to see what we’d do. I snarled fiercely and swatted my hand down on the Jump button, and the viewscreen flared white before polarization kicked in, and we were gone.

“Not this time, assholes!”

Ion Trail 8: The Drop Out

The previous day hadn’t ended after my private session with Sister Estrada, and by the time the chronometer had woken me in the morning any tension I’d lost was back, with reinforcements. We’d discovered that Barry Savage, a guy who’d done a lot of different odd jobs over his life, had some space-walking experience, so he’d been assigned to help Clinton scrub off the nanites. I’d helped them rig up some of the spare nitrogen bottles into something to help, and we’d made our plans. Kyle would be patched in to the commlink from the engine room, where he’d be monitoring their progress on removing the nanites.

Meanwhile I would be in the cockpit, trying to determine our location and trying to figure out where we were going from there. If we were lucky, I’d be able to get a positive ID on a nearby celestial body, otherwise I’d have to triangulate from whatever stations or colonies that were in range. With subspace transponders we could get near real-time location data from incredible distances, but it took longer that way, and increased the chance that they’d discover us before we could get away; it was impossible to say how long it would take to scrub all of the nanites off the hull of the ship.

“Alright, people,” I announced over the intercom. “Find a good place to be, because there’s no telling what we’ll be coming into once we drop out of hyperspace. Maybe we’ll get lucky and it’ll be nice, clear space, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.” I unkeyed the intercom for a moment, trying to think if there was anything else. After a moment, I keyed it up again. “Diaz, double check the cargo bay and make sure everything is secure. Give me an up when it’s done.” Then I leaned back in my seat, waiting.

I flexed my fingers and rolled my neck. Loose. Alert. I’d taken a full measure of coffee this morning, even though they usually served it very diluted; Coffee wasn’t going to be filling any bellies, so I didn’t even feel guilty. Anything that gave me the slightest edge was a plus. I checked over every display on the console, like I’d already done twice since I sat down. The tension of waiting was going to kill me, if Diaz didn’t get back to me soon. It’ll be someone else’s problem then, I thought with a morbid grin. I stared at the switch, feeling the itch, but knowing that it’d be satisfied soon enough. You’ve got this, I told myself. You’re alert, you’re ready. You’re competent, you were near the top of your-

“Captain,” Diaz’s voice on the intercom cut across my pep talk and made me jump. “Everything, and everyone, is secure. Medic Harper has also given me an up for the med bay.”

“Ack,” I replied briefly, feeling my nerves begin to buzz a little bit more. “Standby for Drop Out.” This was it. I checked that polarization was active for the forward viewscreen and opened the cover; Normally, I’d do this after we’d dropped out of hyperspace, but given the circumstances, I didn’t know if I’d have that much time; every second could count. Even with polarization on, the light from outside was nearly blinding. Squinting against the light, I reached up, flicked up the plasteel cover, and flipped the switch.

It took a second that seemed longer, given how keyed up I was, but then the blinding light seemed melt through in the center, slipping rapidly past the ship on either side as the darkness of real space reasserted itself. Immediately proximity sensors began screaming, and I gripped the yoke, straining through the afterimages to see what lay ahead. Then I realized the blank space in front of me, devoid of stars, was rapidly growing to fill my whole view. I jerked hard to starboard instinctively, where the barely visible obstacle seemed more tenuous. The dark blotch slid left, ever so slowly, as the proximity sensors blared ever louder, signaling impending collision until I could actually make out the crags and crannies of a massive asteroid barely a few kilometers ahead.

“Come on, come on!” I growled, holding the yoke hard to the right, watching as the rugged surface slid to the left, far too slowly. At what seemed like the last possible second, starry blackness dominated right side of the viewscreen, and the mass started to slip by on the port side of the ship. I couldn’t relax yet, though, as the enormous chunk of rock had a sufficient gravity to draw a dense debris field in around it, consisting of chunks of ice, smaller asteroids, and the wreckage of countless impacts filling much of the space between. I did my best to maneuver my ship through the field, hearing as well as feeling the thousands of small impacts on the deflection shield from all of the smaller bits I couldn’t hope to avoid. I could feel my lips peeling back, baring my teeth in concentration as I peered into the darkness, trying to discern the chunks large enough to do damage to my ship.

Almost as quickly as we’d come out into the drifting wake of the asteroid, it was gone, falling behind us as I put the colossus to our aft. Silence filled the cockpit as the proximity sensors finally quieted, and the loudest sound was my own breath hissing through my teeth. I quickly scanned forward again, alert to any other obstacles; as close as that had been, I couldn’t afford to let my guard down yet. Had I reacted even a few seconds later, we probably would have plowed into it no matter what I tried.

But there was nothing. I loosened the death grip I had on the yoke, frantically scanning the proximity display for anything nearby, before I finally realized that we were in the clear. The ship had come out in a densely packed belt, but ‘densely packed’ meant something very different in the vastness of space. We were safe, for now. I brought the ship slowly to a halt, using the asteroid behind us as a point of reference.

“We’re good,” I announced over the intercom, and heard a tinny cheer, picked up by the cargo bay’s intercom. “Anything to report?”

“We had some personal effects get tossed around in cargo bay.” Diaz’ tone seemed slightly embarrassed. “The majority of the cargo is still solid, though.”

“Good to hear it,” I answered. “Are Clinton and Barry ready to go?”

“Captain, we’re standing by,” said Clinton’s voice. “Just say when.”

“When,” I replied. “Get out there and get started. I’ll be monitoring on the commlink. Kyle?”

“Here, Captain.”

“Good. Keep me apprised of their progress, as well. I’m going to get started figuring out where we are.” With that, I turned off the intercom, and flipped on my commlink. I could hear Clinton and Barry exchanging comments as they cycled the port airlock, readying to go out, while Kyle instructed them as to where they’d need to start working. I left my mic unkeyed for the moment, letting their conversation be background as I swiveled to the navconsole.

My first order of business was figuring out where we were. Luckily, there was a great big greenish star off to the starboard side, around which our asteroid belt was wrapped. It always seemed that Drop Outs ended up in the vicinity of some star or other celestial body, often dangerously so. As big as space was, it seemed like an awfully big coincidence, but at the moment it was a convenient one; I probably wouldn’t need to triangulate from the nearest transponders, so long as this star had been surveyed.  I tapped a few keys on the navconsole, and it began running a search on the particulars of this star; spectra, surface temperature, radius, satellites, and so on. As it did, it also constructed a three-dimensional model of the star system. There wasn’t much here, just a few dwarf planets littering the single asteroid belt and not much else. Some enterprising mining operation could make some money out there, but without any sort of infrastructure or support it’d be a lonely station with only the mining robots to keep you company; I highly doubted there was anyone else in system.

It could take up to an hour to determine if this star was in the catalog, so I studied the telemetry and listened as Kyle, Clinton and Barry worked. Scrubbing alone was ineffective; the mechanical mites just clung to the surface of the ship and no amount of scraping or scrubbing seemed to dislodge them. The nitrogen was more effective; they could be removed then, but it made for a lot of tedious, repetitive work. We’d need to come up with a faster way to do this, if we ever had to deal with it again. After about thirty minutes of listening to them, and worrying that I’d been wasting time on looking for the star, a result pinged up.

This was an unnamed star, identified only by its survey number, but it was in the catalog. Position data came with it, and it didn’t take me long to figure out where we were. It turned out that we were only a short distance, relatively speaking, from Proxima Tau; over three-quarters of the real space distance had been covered in the four days in hyperspace. This was worrisome, because if they’d gone to Proxima Tau ahead of us, it wouldn’t take them long to reach here; A day, maybe less, unless they were a lot slower than I expected them to be, and it would be stupid to assume that.

“Kyle,” I said, keying my mic on the commlink. “What’s your best estimate on our timeline?”

“Um, I’m not sure,” he said. “They’ve got a solid process now, but they’ve barely started. We’re probably not going to be able to do this all in one go.”

“We’re probably going to need a few more canisters of nitrogen, too,” Clinton interjected.

“Shit,” I muttered. “Okay. The nitrogen we can do, but I’d like to see if we can, uh, maybe rotate some other folks through, to spell you guys. I’m worried that we’re going to have to jump again before you’re through, so I’d rather not stop working any longer than we have to.”

“Copy,” replied Clinton. “We’ll do our best, and here in a couple hours I’ll send Barry back, so I can train someone else, and we’ll figure out a rotation.”

“How’s nav coming?” asked Barry. He didn’t talk nearly as much as Clinton and Kyle, but he seemed a solid sort.

“Got our loc,” I answered. “Which is why I’m worried. We’re a lot closer to Proxima Tau than I was hoping we’d be. I’m going back to radio silence while I look at options.”

“Copy.”

I turned back to the navconsole and brought up a star map, with our location marked by a bright flashing green dot, and considered our options. Obviously Proxima Tau, close as it was, was out. I scanned the nearby star systems, looking for something occupied. After a moment, I remembered the filters, and a lot of stars flickered out of sight, leaving a relatively small number of occupied star systems remaining. Bekter’s Rim was a good option, as Alan Hamilton-Gonzalez had pointed out during our first meeting, but it was in the opposite direction, out past where Kestrel Station had been. It’d take over a week to get there, and we were so low on supplies that June no longer badgered me when I skipped meals. As I sat there staring at dots that represented whole stars and hundreds of thousands if not billions of lives, the door to the cockpit slid open, and I turned to see Diaz poke his head in.

“How’s it going, Captain?” He asked. I gestured at the star charts, feeling very disgruntled. He leaned in and studied it for a moment. “We the green dot?” I nodded in confirmation. “That other dot there’s much closer than the one you’re looking at,” he said. “Can’t we just go there?”

“That’s Proxima Tau,” I said dryly.

“Oh. Guess we can’t go there, huh?”

“No, probably not,” I sighed. “Bekter’s Rim is probably our best bet, but that’s over a week away.”

“Too bad we couldn’t just sneak past them at PT,” he said. “The small mining station could probably supply our needs, and it’s usually only got a skeleton crew.” I raised my eyebrow at his assessment. “My cousin’s a robo-jockey. He did a year at PT.”

“Huh.” I considered what he’d said, and looked back at the star charts. My eyes drifted from Bekter’s Rim, back to our present location, and over to Proxima Tau. “Hmm.” I murmured thoughtfully. I clicked over to Proxima Tau, loaded the most recent system report and watched as the screen switched over to a 3D display of the system, much like the one it’d shown for the star we now orbited, but with various satellites labeled. Proxima Tau orbited a moon around a gas giant, the sixth planet in the system. I projected the revolutions of the various planets and stations to present day, then walked it forward by three days.

“What’re you thinkin’?” Diaz asked, leaning in close enough that I could feel his body heat on my shoulder. I tried to ignore it as I thought about how to answer his question. Our arrival in-system would put us…

“Here,” I said, poking my finger at the map. “We’d be out of alignment for a direct shot to the mining station, but if we slingshot the fifth planet, we could probably avoid getting too close to Proxima Tau station.”

“Wait, wait. Are you thinking about actually going to PT?” he asked, his voice incredulous.

“You suggested it.”

“Yeah, but I’m pretty, not smart,” he replied so defensively that I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Julio, you might actually be a genius.”

=+=

I ended up entering navdata for both Bekter’s Rim and Proxima Tau. Even as the Captain, this was a decision I didn’t think I should be making alone. By the time I’d done both sets of calculations and then double-checked them, Clinton and Barry were both back onboard, taking a break, while Craig and Alan were outside. The constant repetitive chatter over the commlink had almost become meaningless, and served mostly to exacerbate the headache I’d had by the time I was done. I let them know I was going off comms for a while, and promptly sat Diaz down in my spot, with a stern admonition to touch nothing, but to keep an ear on the commlink.

I poked my head first into the improvised med bay, hoping to talk to Harper. Instead I found her there with Carla, and the contents of the ship’s med kit spread out on my desk with a few knives from the galley as well. I waved off her questioning look; it seemed that she was getting ready for the surgery and what I wanted to ask her would wait. I went to the galley next, but only found June re-inventorying the food stocks. She smoothed the worried expression away when she saw me enter.

“Hey, wanted to run something past you. Well, all of you, you who’ve been helping out so much on this trip. Where’s Melva?” I thought of her mostly as ‘Sister Estrada’, but everyone called her Melva, so I just went with the flow.

“She’s in the cargo bay. Some of the others were nervous, so she went to do what she could to calm them.”

“Are you busy here, or can you step away? I’d like to talk to all of you at once.”

“Oh, it’s nothing that can’t wait. I’ll come with you.” With that, she closed the cabinets, remembering to latch them, and stepped around the counter. We went to the cargo bay to collect Sister Estrada, who departed with just a few murmured words of comfort, along with Clinton and went to the engine room where Kyle was still working with the space-walking team on the hull.

I looked around at everyone, these strangers whose lives had become so entwined with my own. Aside from Diaz and Harper, who were otherwise occupied, these were the ones I’d started to think of as “my crew.” They were the people I trusted most to help me make this decision that would affect everyone. I realized, as I readied myself to speak, that I trusted these people more than I think I’d ever trusted anyone in my life. The thought made me smile, but before anyone could ask why, I began my spiel.

“Okay,” I said, “So, I think I’ve got a plan.”

Ion Trail 7: Impossible

In the engine room, they’d pulled up the advanced diagnostics display, which showed a 3D projection of the ship. I peered at it for a second before looking to Clinton and Kyle for context.

“Okay, so we ran all of the normal diagnostics, right?” said Kyle, almost seeming excited. “And they all came back with the same thing. There was a second signal located somewhere near the bow. It’s really strange that it couldn’t get more specific than that. A hyperspace drive or even a transponder,” he paused and nodded to Clinton, “gives off a pretty strong resonance; that’s why they’re generally so easy to locate on radar.”

“So we pulled this up, and mapped the relative points of origin for all hyperspace resonance waves,” Clinton took over the explanation. “You see here, that’s the drive.” He pointed to the display where a flickering ball of light was overlaid on the projection of the ship. I glanced toward the bow, and frowned; he saw my expression, and nodded vigorously. “Right? The signature is there, but it’s not a single point; it appears to somehow be spread over the front of the ship.” I looked back at him, and then at Kyle and confirmed my suspicion; they were both excited, and looked very pleased with themselves.

“You’re not saying that this is somehow good news?” I asked.

“Oh no,” said Kyle, shaking his head with a manic grin, “No, we’re probably fucked.” Clinton shot his friend an exasperated look, but he too had a slight smile on his face.

“Look,” he continued, pulling up a different display. The hull integrity diagnostic? “I jiggered with the parameters a bit, trying to determine the source. Normally this diagnostic looks for debris, damaged plates, and micro-perforations. I added in a radiation scan, and tweaked the numbers until finally…” He gestured grandly at the screen. I scowled at his enthusiasm, and peered closely.

“What am I looking at?” I mostly knew how to read the results from these kinds of diagnostics. It was part of the training Grey Dwarf gave their pilots, since so many of us would be on solo-hauls like this was supposed to be. But I couldn’t make sense out of what the display showed; thousands of tiny motes, all over the hull but primarily toward the front, all of them sources of- I glanced at the parameters- subspace radiation.

“We think they’re nanites,” said Kyle. “All of them working in sync to act as a single hyperspace transponder.”

“That’s impossible,” I blurted out. “Nanites can’t do anything that complicated without a centralized controller, and we would have detected that far more easily than this!”

“That’s what we thought, too,” Clinton said. “But once we knew where to look, we found that there were also very, very tiny microwave transmissions that seem to propagate through the nanites in waves. They’re communicating with each other.” As he spoke, he tapped a few keys and I saw the image change to show waves of tiny microwave pulses sweeping across the hull, like drops in a pool of water, sweeping back and forth, overlapping and rippling constantly. Signals that small would be hard to detect against general background radiation if you weren’t specifically looking for them.

“Can you pick up what’s being transmitted?” I asked. He shook his head.

“No, it’s pretty heavily encrypted. Honestly, I don’t know that we’d be able to read it, even if it wasn’t.” He was probably right; what we were seeing was essentially impossible, by what I knew of nanotechnology. Nanites were capable of a lot of very fine, precise work but they had to be controlled by a central computing device, giving them their instructions and coordinating their efforts. These seemed to be actually communicating with each other, independently. This information created a lot more questions than it answered.

“Any ideas, guys?” I asked after staring at the screen for another minute. “I’d like to know how the hell they got there, but more importantly, we need to figure out how to get rid of them.” Neither of them said anything, so the three of us just sat there for a bit, each lost in their own thoughts. I still found it hard to believe that nanites were causing this problem, nanites far more advanced than anything I’d ever heard of. It had to be the black ship, I reasoned. All of the previous logic was still in place, as to why anyone would even want to track my ship, and this new wrinkle of impossible technology just pointed toward the black ship not being just a rogue element or a pirate of some sort.

It hit me then, and it made sense. Not the solution, but the delivery method. The black ship, while it was doing whatever it did to take down the datasphere, had seeded these nanites into space around the station, and we’d flown right through them.

“Hey, uh, do you think you could configure our sensors to pick these things up, now that we know they exist?” I asked.

“Maybe?” said Clinton. “They’d have to be transmitting at least the microwave pulses or else they’re so much space dust, but I think I could. Why?”

“Beginnings of an idea,” I replied. “Not to remove them, not yet, but how to avoid running afoul of them again, assuming we get out of this.”

“Well, as for removing them,” said Kyle, hesitantly. “Why not just try the easiest solution first?” I looked at him and waited for him to continue. “We could, you know, just… scrub them off. They’re on the hull, not inside of it, so we could potentially just physically remove them.” I tilted my head, considering. It’d be tedious work, with a lot of checking and rechecking, but it was possible. Except for one thing.

“We can’t do that in hyperspace,” I said. “To go out there, even with a suit, would expose you to so much radiation that you’d fry in minutes.”

“I know,” he said. “We’d have to drop out to do it, but it’d work, right?”

“Probably,” I admitted. “But we’d have a very short margin once we dropped out before we’d have to be away. If they’re actively tracking us, and we have no reason to believe they’re not, they’ll be able to tell where the transponder dropped out within… hours, tops. We could have as little as a day to clean them off, and get gone.”

“Well, let’s think a bit longer then, but it’s a plan if we can’t come up with something better,” he said. I agreed. It wasn’t ideal, but neither was anything else about this whole situation. So long as we didn’t go where they expected us to, we’d have that margin, and it might be enough, if we were quick. I glanced at the time and was surprised to see how late it was.

“You guys should get some sleep,” I said. “We’ll talk again in the morning, see if we can come up with anything better.” They agreed and I stood up to go. A thought occurred to me, so I paused in the door way. “And you guys are both geeks.”

I headed back to my room. I’d thought about stopping into the cockpit just to check on things but when I remembered that urge to flip the switch, I decided it was better to stay away for now. As I opened the door to my cabin, I heard a soft sound, and turned to see Diaz poking his head out of his room, blinking at me sleepily.

“What’re you doing up?” he asked through a yawn so vigorous that it made me want to yawn too.

“Clinton and Kyle found something out,” I said. “Not enough to move forward with a solid plan yet, but it’s a start. We’ll talk more about it in the morning.” As I spoke, he stepped out into the hallway. He was wearing his pants and an undershirt, but no shoes, with mussed hair and sleepy eyes. I smiled at the picture.

“You’re cute when you’re all sleepy,” I teased him. Having some sort of plan had taken a lot of the tension off; not all of it, but a lot, and I was feeling good. He looked at me as though he wanted to say something, and I just lifted an eyebrow, still smiling.

Suddenly he stepped forward, grabbed my shoulders and leaned down to kiss me. I froze for a second, surprised, before I shoved him back with a hand on his chest. He was much stronger than I, but he didn’t resist for more than a second, stepping back and looking confused.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I snarled at him, furious. He stepped back further, flinching from my tone, his hands held wide.

“I thought…” he said, and gestured vaguely between us.

“You thought?” I said, still angry, but since he was already as far back as he could be, I managed to wrestle my temper back into check. “You thought what, Diaz?”

“I thought that you, you know, liked me,” he said, and the sadness in his voice was just enough to defuse most of my remaining anger. “You’re always joking that I’m pretty, so I just…”

“Damnit Diaz,” I began, then stopped, took a deep controlling breath and tried a gentler approach. “Julio, listen. I do like you, but not like that.” I sighed, and leaned against the wall by my door. “You’re a good guy, but I’m not looking for anything right now. Especially not right now.”

“I understand,” he said, disappointment plain in his tone. “I’m sorry I kissed you.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Look, there has to be a boundary, alright? I’m the captain of this ship, and you’re my first mate. You’ve done everything I’ve asked of you, but this? This isn’t going to happen, okay?”

“Okay,” he said, and gave me a sheepish smile.

“Go to bed,” I said, turning to my door to do the same. I saw him nod out of the corner of my eye, and reach to open his door. “Oh, and Diaz?” He paused, and I hardened my voice again. “This never happened. Got me?” With that, I entered my room and closed the door.

I spun around and just flopped back down onto my bed, eyes unfocused. What the hell? I thought. I didn’t even think of the guy that way. I mean, he was cute, and under other circumstances, for instance where could just jump in my ship and fly away, I might have been interested in a fling with a handsome station guy, but Diaz was… Diaz. It was like kissing my little brother. I shook my head and hoped that this would be the end of it.

Instead, I thought about the nanites. The word ‘impossible’ crossed my mind several more times as I considered the how and the why, and I thought about the challenges of removing all of those microscopic machines from my hull. I wondered if they were heat-sensitive? It wasn’t like we could take a blow-torch to my hull, not in space, but maybe we could figure something out. Maybe cold? We did have nitrogen on board, part of the cooling system; maybe we could freeze them off and dispose of them before they recovered? I wouldn’t mind getting a sample if we could do it safely. But no, it was too risky. Just remove them and go. Who could I have do it? I only had two space suits. Clinton was an obvious choice; his career in salvage had given him experience with this sort of thing, but who else? It couldn’t be me, as I would have to triangulate our location and plot a new course before we were discovered. If we couldn’t come up with something better between us, I’d call another meeting to see what skills my other passengers might have between them. Though my mind continued to wander from scenario to scenario, I was satisfied that we had the start to a way forward and I finally managed to fall back to sleep.

=+=

“I imagine most of you are wondering why I gathered you here,” I said. That line felt like it had been used up centuries ago, but the words were already out of my mouth and I noticed a few smirks from the gathered passengers. “Well, things have changed, and not really for the better.” No more smirks, now. I glanced around, meeting the eyes of my co-conspirators standing in the group. Clinton had his arms crossed, and Kyle fretted with his sleeve unconsciously. Harper kept the same level expression that she always did and Diaz’s expression was openly worried, though he knew what was coming. “We’re not going to make it to Proxima Tau.”

I expected an immediate uproar, but aside from a few muttered epithets, the group stayed silent. Braced for questions and accusations, I didn’t know what to do for a moment until I saw Sister Estrada smile encouragingly at me. I coughed unnecessarily and spoke again. “The black ship is tracking us.” This got more of a reaction, but they quieted down surprisingly quickly. None of this was going according to expectations, and it was frankly freaking me out a bit. “We have a- a plan, to stop it from tracking us, but we have to stop. We can’t go on to Proxima Tau.” I didn’t mention that we’d possibly consigned that station to the same fate as Kestrel Station; I would bear that burden quietly with the few people who already knew.

“So what does that mean?” Craig asked, with a nervous quaver in his deep voice. No one else spoke.

“It means we’re going to drop out of hyperspace, probably tomorrow morning,” I answered. “You all know that I don’t want to do this, but I think it’s our only option.” I glanced at June and Sister Estrada. They’d only been told this morning, during breakfast. They controlled their expressions well, but I could tell that they were nervous too. “Once we stop, we’ll have to remove the transponder, uh, and I’ll plot a new jump once I know where we are.” Assuming we didn’t die right away, of course.

“Are we going to run out of food?” Caroline, the concierge, asked, and I glanced at June before quickly answering.

“I don’t know, but I do know that June and Melva are doing an outstanding job; we’d have been out of food days ago without their hard work.” There were murmurs of agreement. You could see the hunger in people’s faces, but no one complained, and no one had anything less than compliments for the meals provided by the rancher and the priestess. “We’ll just have to… to keep going. I’ll get us to the nearest station or inhabited planet, and we’ll be able to get all the food we can eat then.”

As before, there were more questions that followed, but the tone was entirely different. The questions were less frantic, less accusatory, and sometimes someone else jumped in to provide a suggestion before I even had a chance to speak. Several times I was complimented on how good a job I was doing and by the time it was over, I was even more overwhelmed than I had been the first time. I took my leave and went straight back to my room. When I arrived, I found that the priestess had followed me quietly. I could see that she wanted to speak privately; I owed her that much, and more, so I gestured her into the room ahead of me.

“May I sit?” she asked. When I indicated she could, she sat in the single chair, facing toward the bed. I took a seat on the bed itself and waited for her to say what she needed to say.

“You look…” she paused, looking at me thoughtfully for a moment. “Startled. Perhaps a bit confused.”

“Uh, yeah,” I agreed faintly. “I guess I am. That meeting didn’t go anything like I thought it would.”

“What is it you expected?” She had a small smile playing at the corner of her lips, as though she knew exactly what I expected. Still, I answered anyway.

“I expected shouting,” I said, throwing my hands in the air. “Panic, accusations. Not… that.” I waved a hand back toward the cargo bay that I’d just left.

“Do you know why you got… that?” she said, speaking and waving her hand in deliberate mimicry. I shook my head mutely. I wanted to cry but didn’t understand that, either.

“They trust you,” she said. “You’ve gotten us all this far. We all owe our lives to you.” Each sentence felt like a fist to the stomach. I reached up and squeezed my temples between my fingers and thumb, hiding my eyes from her.

“But I screwed up,” I said, unable to keep my voice level. “I didn’t even detect the transponder, Clinton and Kyle did that. I didn’t ration the food, that was you and June. Organizing the cargo bay was all Diaz, and Harper, she, she-“ my voice broke in a sob, and I stopped talking, trying to rein it back in.

“Susan,” she said gently, reaching forward to put a hand on my knee. I flinched, but was glad when she didn’t withdraw her touch. “You can’t do it all. You’re just one woman, a remarkable one, but just one.” I couldn’t help it. All the stress and fear and confusion just poured out, and I cried. She just made quiet soothing sounds and gently patted my knee until I’d cried it all out.

“This is what leadership is, child,” she said, once I was through. “You see what needs to be done, but you don’t have to do it all yourself. You’ve delegated marvelously, and that’s a large part of why we all trust you. You will get us through this. I have faith; in Jesus, yes, but also in you.”