Torchship Captain Read online

  Torchship Captain

  Karl K. Gallagher

  © 2017 Karl K. Gallagher.

  All Rights Reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Published by Kelt Haven Press, Saginaw, TX.

  Cover art and design by Stephanie G. Folse at www.scarlettebooks.com.

  Editing by Laura Gallagher.

  Audio Recording by Laura Gallagher.

  Lyric from “Sam Jones” quoted with permission of CJ Cherryh.

  To Robert Anson Heinlein

  For a lifetime of inspiration

  Cross section of 25m freighter Joshua Chamberlain.

  Interstellar Gate Map

  Chapter One: Battlefront

  Joshua Chamberlain, Boswell System, acceleration 3 m/s2

  Mitchie thought the asteroid shouldn’t be pretty. It was. The cometary ice dumped on the forward side gave it a smooth marbled appearance. A dozen rocket exhaust plumes glowed blue as the torch engines shaved its orbit. Together it looked like a vase of flowers.

  It should be ugly, she thought. Carving it into a skull would be overkill. But something destined to smash a world should be rough and grey.

  The asteroid would hit planet Boswell in four months. The impact should finish off the artificial intelligence who’d betrayed the humans living there a century ago. It would be the eleventh world reclaimed from the Betrayers since humanity began this offensive.

  The torch Mitchie’s freighter was delivering would cut two weeks off the time to impact. She thought of it as saving eighty lives. The human fleet was losing forty spacers a week as it fought the swarm of robot ships protecting the planet, keeping them pressed back so they couldn’t intercept the rock until it was too late.

  “Twenty klicks out and I have the beacon for our landing spot,” said Centurion Hiroshi.

  “Good. Take us in,” ordered Mitchie.

  “Aye-aye, Skipper.” The pilot tilted the ship. The asteroid grew in the clear bridge dome.

  The plumes springing from the back of the asteroid had irregular gaps between them. Their destination was in one of those gaps.

  After covering half the distance Hiroshi pivoted the ship, aiming Joshua Chamberlain’s plume to overlap the biggest plume in the ring. That torch must have been taken from a wrecked heavy cruiser.

  Two klicks away from the rock Hiroshi cut the torch and let the ship drift on. He called the converter room to direct them to secure the torch, a mandatory safety measure when preparing to land on an inhabited body.

  Mitchie thought the work crews tending the asteroid’s torches were too few to count as “inhabitants” but didn’t stop him.

  Co-pilot Mthembu was watching for the landing point. “I think I see it. Ring of green lights.”

  “Green lights, aye,” said Hiroshi.

  The bridge was brighter than daylight with the glow from the mighty plume by their target. Mitchie found it too bright to look at directly. She focused on the side of the asteroid, tracing the pipes carrying melted ice back to the torches that would use it for reaction mass.

  The light brightened.

  Mitchie glanced at the plume. It was pivoting toward the Joshua Chamberlain. “Evasive!” she snapped. The torch’s support structure must be buckling, she thought.

  Hiroshi saw the threat coming, a blast of plasma that could destroy their ship. He fired all the maneuvering thrusters at full. The ship pushed closer to the rock. The plume kept sweeping toward them. Mthembu started praying.

  She gritted her teeth. Yelling at Hiroshi for obeying regulations wouldn't make their last moments any better. And she didn't want to distract him from maneuvering away from the plume.

  As the plume swept closer it changed color—yellow and orange of plasma not fully heated, multi-colored sparks where metal fragments were burning up in the exhaust. The torch was ripping its propellant lines apart as the structure collapsed under it. Debris was caught in the pipes. Then the plume faded out as the last pipe broke.

  The ship pivoted as Hiroshi turned her to avoid hitting the asteroid. Mitchie glanced at the torch that had nearly killed them but her eyes were still adjusting from the glare. It was just shadows between the still-working plumes.

  “Dammit. Anyone see the pad?” asked Hiroshi.

  “I have it. Ten o’clock low.” Mthembu pointed toward a shadowy spot with a few green flecks in it.

  Landing took some finicky maneuvering. The pad was a shelf cut into the side of the asteroid, putting Joshua Chamberlain’s flank only thirty meters from solid rock. It felt like a free fall docking. Even when the thrusters cut off, the rock’s acceleration was too light for them to feel.

  Mitchie unbuckled. “We’ll have to chain down the landing legs. Hiroshi, stay at the controls. Mthembu, you’re with me. I want to find whoever was in charge of mounting the torch that almost killed us and have words.”

  The co-pilot nodded as they suited up. At over two meters tall, he’d come in handy if the conversation went beyond words.

  In the hold Mitchie saw Chief Mechanic Guo Kwan organizing the crew. Her shoulders untensed when she realized he was unharmed by the violent maneuvering. She knew someone would have reported to her if her husband had been injured . . . but she needed to see him to be sure.

  “Once your suit has passed inspection, head out the airlock. Keep your safety lines hooked on. Finnegan, see if they have any tie-down chains already installed,” he ordered.

  Since they were on duty he limited his greetings to her to, “Suit inspected yet?”

  “No.” Mitchie hooked a toe into one of the rings in the floor of the cargo hold and spread her arms wide. A suit inspection could be fun, but there were too many witnesses right now.

  Guo finished at the ankle seals. “Good to go, ma’am.”

  Bosun Setta had inspected Mthembu's suit. “He’s good too,” she said.

  “That’s everybody,” said Guo. “Let’s head out.”

  Mechanic Finnegan had found one of the pad’s tie-down chains and was wrapping it around a landing leg with the help of the two deckhands. The rest of the crew spread out to copy them. There were only four chains, but Guo declared that secure enough.

  “Good work, everyone,” said Mitchie. “Chief Kwan, Coxswain Mthembu, with me. Everybody else back aboard.”

  From the landing pad they could see the wrecked torch now. The ring of thrusters was intact, but the platform to hold it in line with the other engines had collapsed. Torn pipes were growing strange ice sculptures as they leaked into vacuum.

  The asteroid’s work crew left guide ropes connecting the landing pad to other sites. Mitchie pulled herself along the one heading toward the wreck. The other two followed, safety lines clipped to her and each other.

  “Chief, isn’t that pack heavy?” asked Mthembu.

  Mitchie chuckled, making sure her radio was off. Guo was wearing a thruster maneuvering unit on his suit, along with all his other ‘just in case’ gear.

  “It is. But somebody might fall off this rock and I’d hate to go back inside to get it. You really wouldn't want to fall into those plumes.”

  She glanced at the circle of plumes pushing on the asteroid. Yes, even at the very small acceleration of this rock if you fell off it you’d eventually wind up passing through the plasma exhaust of the torch rockets. Mitchie shivered and kept both hands on the guide rope.

  She flipped through radio channels. There were over a dozen space suited figures clustered around the wreckage. None working. It looked like they were discussing how to fix it, or fix the
blame.

  Channel seven had their conversation. Mitchie hastily turned down the volume. The argument was in a mix of English and Chinese. She knew Mandarin pretty well but her Cantonese was limited to space traffic control jargon and curses.

  The latter was most of the conversation.

  Mitchie switched back to four. “Locals are on seven. Sounds like they’re having a meltdown. I’ll have to sort this out so we can get them to unload our cargo. Switching.”

  She stopped a few meters from the crowd. “Who’s in charge here? I have a bone to pick with you about almost pluming my ship,” she transmitted at max volume. The guide rope let her brace her feet against the rock to stand tall. Not that her height would intimidate anyone. She was at least two hands shorter than everyone here.

  The reply was multiple overlapping messages. But she had their attention. The ones in the middle stopped shoving each other and pivoted to face her.

  “I’m Commander Michigan Long. Who’s in charge here?”

  The nearest suit was a Fusion Navy model. The wearer snarled, “Fuck off, we’ve got enough problems without more damn Diskers!” He swung a monkey wrench, missing Mitchie, and hopped closer as he swung again.

  Mitchie threw up her arm. She’d take a broken bone over a cracked helmet.

  Guo flashed past her. Kicking off with both legs and firing the thruster pack on full made his punch to the wrench-wielder’s center of mass strong enough to fling him off the asteroid. Someone yelled “Grab him!” but he was already soaring out of reach.

  The guy’s safety line didn’t break. When he reached the full length it stretched, held, then pulled him back almost as fast as he’d left. He landed in the middle of the crowd, knocking more men in suits off the rock.

  The sight reminded Mitchie of a living history team she’d seen demonstrate ‘bowling.’ Guo touched down next to her with a gentle puff of his thruster pack.

  When the radio channel was no longer choked with screams she said, “I’m Commander Long. I’m in charge here. Officers, sound off.”

  There were two—a Fusion Navy lieutenant commander and a lieutenant from the Disconnected Worlds, home to Mitchie and her crew. The brawl had been over whether the Fusion construction crew had not braced the torch enough or the Disconnect operators had run at a higher thrust than intended.

  “I don’t care whose fault it is,” Mitchie told the group. “Yes, the Fusion and the Disconnect were at war with each other a couple years ago. There’s tension. And grudges. Such as my grudge over you nearly killing me with your damn collapsing torch. But we are fighting a common enemy. The Betrayers would kill all humans if they could. So let’s focus on getting the job done. Put this torch back in operation. Then my ship has another one off a wrecked destroyer for you to install.”

  Part of why tensions remained so high was the war had been ended by blackmail. In her spy days Mitchie had found a secret that would shatter the Fusion of Inhabited Worlds. The Fusion government had abandoned their effort to incorporate the Disconnected Worlds into their rigid control system and allied against the Betrayer artificial intelligences as the price of keeping it hidden.

  Guo joined in the discussions on how to fix the torch. Mitchie left it to him. She was a good spy and better pilot, but engineering she left to experts.

  Most of the debate washed past her.

  Guo said, “Fine, you’re out of girders. You carved some damn big pieces of nickel-iron out of this asteroid to make that landing pad. Let’s carve some pieces big enough to be pillars holding up the torch. Weld them in place and it’ll hold.”

  She knew she could count on Guo to come through.

  Four hours later she did pitch in, along with most of Joshua Chamberlain’s crew, to help push still warm chunks of nickel-iron into place under the big torch assembly. Then everybody grabbed a rope to get clear as the welding started.

  Guo bounced over and touched helmets with Mitchie for a private chat. “I figured out why this outfit is such a cock-up.”

  “Oh?”

  “They’re all survivors off ships too damaged to repair. No unit cohesion, lots of PTSD. I think command considered this a safe place to stick them while we’re still going ship-to-ship with the Boswell Betrayer, but they need some moderating rods for this reactor core.”

  “Right. I’ll call Logistics and see what they can send out. People without PTSD are in short supply though.”

  “Thanks. These guys need the help.”

  “No problem. Well, there will be a problem. As soon as I call in they’ll have another job for us and we haven’t even unloaded this cargo yet.”

  Logistics Ship Hammond, acceleration 0 m/s2

  Normal container ships carried neat stacks of standard cargo containers. The Hammond looked lumpy. A tight cluster of pressurized boxes was surrounded by empty slots. They isolated the laboratory. The rest of the ship wore irregular stacks of containers. Mitchie thought it resembled a chewed-on pine cone.

  Joshua Chamberlain hung next to the pressurized section. It didn’t have a docking port. The Fusion had insisted on no other ships being allowed to touch Pete’s laboratory. They were terrified of the AI technology he was researching escaping into another ship’s computers.

  Which was why Mitchie’s ship was working this assignment. It was an analog ship, built with no computers at all. The Fusion prohibited foreign computers from entering their space so the Disconnected Worlds built the analog ships to trade with their richer neighbors. A slide rule could not carry a computer virus, or rogue AI, or other cybernetic hazard.

  With a war on the rules for analog ships had been waived. Joshua Chamberlain now had two digital boxes on the bridge, one for navigation and the other for communication. They had one advantage over a warship’s integrated systems: if the artificial intelligences they were fighting subverted the box’s code, the crew could smash the box and revert to analog methods. This had won the ship several initial reconnaissance missions.

  Mitchie was content with doing rear-area work now. She just wished it wasn’t so frantic. The overworked logistics fabricators tried to make enough parts and ammunition to keep the warships in action but her crew wound up spending as much time salvaging casualties and spare parts from wrecks as they did making deliveries to the combat zone. Helping the researchers was a nice break.

  The research team crossed from the Hammond on their suit thrusters.

  Mitchie waited in the cargo hold to welcome them. The Marines arrived first, grabbing onto a single safety line at parade-precise intervals. Pete Smith and his assistant scientists followed. They bounced off the deck a couple of times but found handholds before they damaged themselves or anything else.

  Setta closed the hatch and flooded the hold with air.

  The three scientists popped off their helmets as soon as they felt full pressure collapsing their suits against their skin. The rest waited until they heard Setta declare the atmosphere was good. Mitchie used the break to order Hiroshi to move out. They all settled gently on the deck as he used thrusters to maneuver to a safe distance from the Hammond.

  Once Setta took her helmet off and said “All clear” the military personnel followed.

  Pete hopped over to Mitchie to offer his hand. “Mitchie—I mean, Captain Long, thank you for offering to help us out.”

  “You’re welcome. It looks like an interesting mission.” And more restful than running munitions to the front lines.

  The senior Marine came to attention next to Pete. “Chief Warrant Officer Langerhans, commanding Commando Team 83, reporting aboard, ma’am.”

  Mitchie returned his salute. “Welcome aboard, Chief. Make yourselves comfortable.” She waved at the dorm container used for injured rescuees.

  She invited Pete up to the galley to give her a detailed briefing. Following him up the ladder let her see the shaved patch on the back of his head. Healing incisions lined the edges. “Did you have a head injury?”

  “No, not as such. Decided it was time to upgrade my imp
lant. Tripled the data storage capacity.”

  “Oh, okay.” She shivered slightly. She’d much rather carry a gadget than give up a piece of skull to let it ride under her skin.

  The situation was straightforward. Zeta 437 was an AI ship which had run out of missiles then had its torch blown clean off while attempting to ram. Now it was well behind the line of battle.

  “The battle damage assessment showed the center section intact. There should be an undamaged brain unit. We’re going to pull the memory and take it back to my lab.”

  Mitchie sipped her tea. “I see some hazards, but it’s all stuff the Marines should be able to handle.”

  “Yes, they executed similar jobs for me in two other systems. Sharp guys.”

  “I’m surprised you’re working with Fusion troops.” Pete had been exiled to Mitchie’s homeworld for violating the Fusion’s harsh laws against computer research.

  Pete added some sugar to his teacup. “That’s . . . well, that’s a compromise.”

  “Mmmm?”

  “The Fuzies don’t like my research. They’re afraid I’ll revive some AI and let it take over my lab. So the Marines keep an eye on me and my test material.”

  “Must be uncomfortable.”

  “Oh, they’ve been fine since I explained the goal of the research is looking for weaknesses and developing new weapons.”

  “Have you come up with any weapons?”

  He shook his head. “I’m figuring out the evolution of the AIs. The original block of meta-control code is still being carried along but without the code police doing checks it’s full of bit rot. None of the control mechanisms execute any more. I’ve been using the rot patterns to find which AIs descended from common ancestors.”

  “How does that help us?”

  “It doesn’t. But if we find a weakness in one type its relatives should also be vulnerable.”

  ***

  Zeta 437 spun violently in empty space. A Marine made a high-speed pass to put a thruster pack on the hull. A second pack was needed to completely stabilize it.