Sarah Zettel - Fool's War

Lipinski nodded and climbed to his feet.

“Intercom to Pasadena ,” Yerusha’s voice cut through the air. “Emergency launch prep! Starting now!”

Al Shei was on her feet and half-way to the door before she had a chance to think about it. She wasted a precious second to turn and face her Houston one more time.

“You still with me, Rurik?”

His wide mouth quirked up in an attempt to smile. “Still with you.”

Neither one of them lost any more time. They strode out into the corridor and onto the stairs to get to their duty stations. Al Shei tried very hard not to think about how she was never going to be able to return to this world again and attempted to concentrate on how she was going to get herself and her ship away from it.

Yerusha finished tightening the launch straps around herself just as Schyler burst onto the bridge. He threw himself into his own chair.

“Intercom to Pasadena ,” he called out as he pulled his straps around him. “Role call, all hands!”

“Law!” came Resit’s voice.

“Comm, Huston, Odel, Rosvelt.”

“Galley, Sundars!”

“Engine, Ianiai, Javerri, Shim’on.”

“Cheney, on my way up!”

“Cheney, you get to your bunk and strap in!” called Yerusha. “We’ll handle it up here!”

The voices rattled off the crew names, and Schyler’s breathing began to grow easier. They’d done it, she could practically hear him thinking. They’d gotten them all back.

Yerusha turned her attention back to her own boards. They’d gotten them back. Now it was her job to get them all out of here.

“Watch, we need to put out some kind of clearance call,” Yerusha said, scribbling down her orders to the ship. Set the engines on stand-by. A check of the lines to The Gate showed some repairs had been managed. She could get to the docking clamps. She called up Trustee’s authorization codes and set the clamps on stand-by as well. Change the view on the screens, make sure there was still a clear route out there.

Schyler drove his pen across the boards, opening the lines to the port. “This is mail packet Pasadena to The Gate Flight Control. We will be launching in thirty seconds. I repeat we will be launching in thirty seconds.”

“ Pasadena ,” called an unidentified man’s voice. “You’re under house arrest! You’re not go…” A burst of static cut the voice off.

“Oh yes we are,” answered Schyler and he shut the line down. He nodded to Yerusha. “And make it good.”

“Aye-aye, Watch. Intercom to Pasadena . Clamps releasing. Prepare for free fall.” Yerusha slapped the OVERRIDEkey and brought both hands down on the boards.

The station fell back and what little hold gravity had on them vanished. Years of training screamed at Yerusha to call in, to get the distance and time verification. She glanced at the clock over her board. Two clicks at fifty seconds. A good rate. Steady. Three point six at one minute twenty. She checked the angle on the thrusters.

“ Pasadena this is the Farther Kingdom Port Master!” shouted an auto-translator’s tinny voice across the intercom. “You are hereby ordered to stand down your…”

“Don’t,” said Schyler quietly to Yerusha.

“I wasn’t going to.” Five clicks at four minutes fifty five seconds. Close, but not fatal. She hit the command keys on her board. The primary indicators blinked from yellow to green. “Torch lit.”

The port shot backwards and gravity laid its hand over the ship again. Yerusha didn’t give the all clear, or make a move to undo her own straps. She kept her gaze fastened on the window and its attendant view screens. The screens showed everything clear, port, starboard, stern, bow, topside and keel. The proximity alarms stayed quiet. The way ahead was unbroken darkness.

But they still had no contact from the port, no real flight plan out of the system, and no way to know what any one else out there was doing. She cursed the reasoning that made her send Maidai home. They could have used her. She could have made her a foster…

She could have left The Gate to founder in its own mistakes, except it turned out that she couldn’t. She had told herself that she was sending Maidai home because The Gate could hold a soul and her wafer stack couldn’t. But that wasn’t the whole truth.

“Intercom to Lipinski,” she called without taking her attention off the screens. “Can you tap a signal from the port? We could stand to know who else is making a run for it.”

“On it.” His voice was strained. Yerusha clamped down on her curiosity. Her job was not to interrogate Lipinski, it was to get them out of here.

Which left the question of how.

Schyler seemed to be having the same thought. “What’s your plan, Pilot?”

Yerusha sucked in a breath between her teeth and checked the fuel burn rate. “Watch, we have two options.” She called up the fuel reserves and the amount they needed to get them through the Vicarage system safely. The difference between the two was not enormous. She forged ahead anyway. “We can either go very slowly and carefully and take an extra ten, maybe fifteen hours to get to the jump point, or we can burn the reserves through, take the extra gee for about five hours and be out of here in twelve.”

She shot her calculations across to his boards and risked a glance up at him. His square face looked ten years older than it had when they put into the port.

“Burn it,” he said.

A mix of reckless excitement and trepidation hit Yerusha with his words. “On it.” She bent back over the boards and started her calculations. “Intercom to Lipinski. Have we got that line yet?”

“Intercom to Pasadena ,” said Schyler beside her. “We’re going to double gee for five hours. Observe all precautions. Keep strapped in unless absolutely necessary…”

The central view screen lit up with a map of the system. It was criss-crossed with red, green and white lines representing flight paths. Satellites hung as gold dots and asteroids burned blue. Even as she drank it in, the pattern changed.

Nice going, Lipinski, Yerusha thought, writing her preparatory orders down. It wouldn’t be a straight path. There wasn’t one. But at least she could do a little navigation…

Schyler was still talking. “Acceleration in…” he tapped the counter so Yerusha looked across at him. She processed the unspoken question and held up five fingers. “Five minutes.” Schyler finished. “Repeating…”

Yerusha tuned out the message and barely noticed when he fell silent. Her mind was full of voices plotting paths and thrust and angles and attempting to measure fuel and reaction mass down to the cubic centimeter.

Can do. Just barely, but can do.

A silver blur shot past on the port screen. Its white line dragged itself across the view screen. “Fractured burn brain,” Yerusha muttered and changed her projected path by a hundred clicks. The lines held still for a moment. She called up the activation menu and fed the flight plan to the system. Nerves made her check the OVERRIDE key, and the clock. Fifteen point six-five clicks at twelve forty-five.

She reached across to one of the sideboards and opened up a broadcast channel. “This is the mail packet Pasadena . We are heading at 42, 15, mark 4 towards the jump point at two gee acceleration. All ships advised to clear route.” She set the message on a loop, muted the internal broadcast and set it playing.

“Twenty seconds and counting until acceleration,” Schyler said loudly, and Yerusha fastened her gaze back on the screens.

The orders are in. Pay attention. The ship’s on auto. Don’t blink, you don’t know when some idiot’s going to come too close. It’s crowded out there and nobody knows where anybody else is. At this speed you’re going to need…