Michael Flynn: Up Jim River

“And if yon is the trade ship ye’ve spoken of,” said Bridget ban pointing to the forward viewscreens, “even a miss would still hit something.”

Donovan grunted. “I used to think the B and B was big.”

As the shuttle entered the hangar, Wild Bill put her down hard to the deck. The gravity snaps engaged and held her fast, killing her forward momentum. The hangar doors closed and air dumped in—and with the air came the sound of klaxons. Alfven warnings. The Blankets and Beads was preparing to grab space to yank itself away from Prabhakaran .

Donovan pushed the others aside to reach the air lock. Bridget ban called after him, “There is no place to run to this time, Fudir.” But the Terran popped the door, dropped to the deck, and ran to the intercom on the hangar wall, where he called the bridge.

Maggie B’s face showed. “What is it, Fresh?” Then she scowled. “You! Get off my horn. You’re not crew.”

“No, I’m your charter. When you yank space, turn about and head for Prabhakaran’s dead side. If you pull forward, she can still shoot you out of the sky.”

“Those little pop guns…”

“ That is Commonwealth tech! You have not seen a tenth of what that ship can still do. The AI is awake now and thinks she’s defending herself against attack! The apertures on the damaged side are fused shut. It can’t fire from that quarter.”

The captain’s lips compressed into a thin line. “Every time you show up,” she said, “I run into trouble.”

“I’ve only shown up in your life twice.”

“Let’s not make it three.” She turned from the screen. “D.Z., right about on the alfvens. Engage at fifty. Full power. Five tugs.”

By then the others had joined him. Wrathrock was being carried aboard on a floater by the ship’s medico. Franq, Hallahan, and DeRoche had rushed off to their emergency stations. Bridget ban nodded at the now-blank intercom. “Smart advice,” she said. “I expect you are correct.”

“Apology accepted. Come on, let’s get to the control room.”

Méarana led the way and Bridget ban followed. Donovan brought up the rear. Halfway through the tube that connected the shuttle module with the control module, the alfven klaxon hooted a second time—the short-long, short-long warning that engagement was immanent.

They grabbed railings and stanchions, and for an instant the ship seemed to stretch like taffy along a skewed axis. Most captains did not engage alfvens this far down a sun’s gravity well. But Blankets and Beads carried survey-class alfvens and, against escape from the ship defense batteries of A. K. Prabhakaran , what did a few burnt-out capacitors matter?

Blankets and Beads skipped across the face of the Commonwealth ark in quantum jumps. Donovan entered the control room in time to see clusters of antennae on the derelict vessel twitch in unison, like grass flustered by a spring breeze.

And one of the cargo modules on the B and B exploded into vapor.

The ship lurched at the impact, her center of gravity suddenly relocated, her angular momentum abruptly changed. Ripper Collins, in the pilot’s saddle, cursed. D.Z. bellowed orders to damage control. “Was anyone in Cargo C? Was anyone in…? Ma’am! Automatic vacuum doors closed on all connecting tubes. No one lost. Princess Wennawa reports her party is shaken but unhurt.”

Wild Bill said, “Raising the dead side. Defensive batteries are falling below the ship’s horizon.”

A certain amount of tension drained out of the crew; but Bridget ban said, “We are only assuming that the defenses on this side were slagged.”

Maggie B. turned to look at her. “I’ll ask who the hell yuh are when I have time. Meanwhile, in my control room, yuh have the right to remain silent. Time for milk and cookies later. Full speed, Mister ad-Din, directly away from that adolescent fantasy.”

“Full speed, aye, ma’am.”

The captain settled back in her seat as D.Z. gave orders to DeRoche and Collins. Flint Rhem turned from his astrogation station. “Activity on the near side. I’m putting it on screen four”

Barnes leaned forward again. Missile port shutters and energy projector blisters, long fused shut, struggled to open. “Too close,” Barnes muttered. She slapped her comm. “Duckie! How long before those alfvens are recharged?…Not good. I’ll need a tug a mighty soon. I’ll take thirty percent when yuh can give it to me. Out. D.Z., how’s the helm?”

“We’re a trade ship, Maggie. We don’t turn on a dime.”

“I’ll take quarters. Give me what we have.”

Moments passed, and none of the shutters snapped open.

Maggie Barnes began to relax. “She can’t fire.”

There was a sudden flare deep within the derelict ship. Something buckled and part of the ship seemed to cave in on itself.

“She thinks the gun ports are open,” whispered Bridget ban.

“Her sensors are slagged on this side,” said D.Z. “How is she aiming?”

“She’s not. She’s firing blind. Expect a broadside.”

A. K. Prabhakaran suddenly lit up like a candaleria. She glowed a serene and lovely orange. Radiances leaked from the edges of ports and from open hangar decks. Donovan thought of sunlight striking through gaps in the clouds.

And then Prabhakaran herself was a cloud—a bright, hot nebula of gasses that for a time held the shape of the ship she had been, and then began to disperse. The ark had been large enough that its own gravity would hold much of the debris together and someday it would congeal into a strange metaloceramic asteroid.

With traces of organic chemicals mixed throughout.

Good-bye, Billy , Donovan thought. Sofwari. Paulie. Good-bye, nameless thousands of Terran colonists, dreaming of new lives on new worlds. Good-bye, Peacharoo .

He sighed. “Damn,” he said.

Méarana looked at him; took his hand. “What?”

Donovan nodded at the screen. “We broke it.”

Praisegod Barebones looks up from the inventory that he is reconciling to see the scarred man enter the Bar of Jehovah and blink in the dimness. He raises his hand in salute.

“You came back,” he says.

The scarred man grunts. “I could not bear our separation any longer.”

“You were too wicked even for the paynim beyond our protected skies,” the Bartender guesses.

“I saw wickedness even you might blanch to hear, brother Barebones.”

“I am the Bartender. I hear so many confessions you might be surprised what I blanch to hear.”

The scarred man sketches the ghost of a smile. “A bowl of uiscebeatha.”

“I would hardly blanch at that, friend Fudir. My uisce sales suffered horribly in your absence.”

The scarred man says nothing, and returns to his former niche in the wall. He wonders if anyone had sat here during his absence. He wonders if anyone knows he has returned.

The Bar is never empty, it is never at rest; but at midafternoon it approaches a pause. The sun casts a nimbus of white light through the front windows, giving those at the tables in the barroom an imprecision of outline, a faerie appearance. It reminds him of how the sun had dawned inside A. K. Prabhakaran .

Praisegod brings the bowl himself and sets it down. “You still owe a tab,” he points out.

The scarred man pulls a chit from his blouse and shows it to him. It is a marvelous imitation of a Kennel chit. The Bartender has never seen a finer copy. But it does not glow when handled, as genuine chits do.

“Ah,” mumbles the scarred man. “I had forgotten. The account is closed.” He rummages in his scrip and pulls out Gladiola Bills.