Timothy Zahn - Warhorse

He confirmed that they were indeed turning the proper direction, then turned to face Yamoto. “Question, Lieutenant?” he asked mildly.

“Uh… yes, Commander,” she said, her voice cautious. Over her filter mask, he could see tension lines around her eyes. “I wasn’t informed we’d be leaving the Amity.”

“No, you weren’t,” he agreed. “Wwis-khaa, how are we coming?”

“Epilonninni is almost ready,” the Tampy said.

“Good. Keep it moving.”

Yamoto dropped her eyes to her console. “We’re going to Arachne, sir?”

“Briefly, yes,” Ferrol nodded. “Or rather, for the Tampies and me it’ll be briefly.

We’ll be dropping you off before we leave.”

She looked up at him again. “Commander, whatever you’re doing—”

“Is none of your concern,” he cut her off, putting some steel into his voice. He had no intention of getting Yamoto entangled in this, and the simplest and safest way to do that was to keep her as totally in the dark as possible. “As I said, you’ll be dropped off at Arachne, and your part will be over.”

For a long minute she gazed at him, her eyes hard with suspicion. Ferrol returned the glare as calmly as he could, listening to his heart pounding in his ears and feeling the bulge of the needle pistol pressing into his side under his tunic. The last thing he wanted was to have to start waving the damn gun around…

Almost reluctantly, Yamoto let her eyes drift away. “Understood, Commander,”

she said with a sigh. “Here’s your package,” she added, holding out the datapack box she still held. “If you really want it, that is.”

“Of course I want it,” he growled, taking it. Opening it, he selected one of the slender cylinders and handed it back to her. “This is for you: all the navigational data on Arachne and the colony there. We’ll be transferring you to a lifeboat once we reach the planet, and I’m afraid you’ll have to make your own way down. Think you can manage it?”

“Of course,” she said, professional pride momentarily eclipsing her misgivings.

“Good. Wwis-khaa, how are we doing?”

“Epilonninni is ready,” the Tampy said.

“Can Epilog see the star all right?” he asked, double-checking. A blazing star like Sirius was a dead-simple target to Jump to; Arachne’s sun was something else entirely.

“He can see the star,” Wwis-khaa said.

Ferrol gave the scanners a quick check. Luck was with him; the Amity still hadn’t caught up. His maneuver must have caught Roman completely flat-footed. “All right, then: Jump.”

The blue Sirian light vanished from the side viewport; simultaneously, an unremarkable red-orange star popped into view directly in front of them. “We’re here,” Ferrol announced, striving for a confidence he didn’t feel. Here; but if his direction vector had been wrong, here wouldn’t be the Arachne system. And if his calculation of the planet’s orbital position had been wrong… Feeling sweat breaking out on his forehead, he keyed for a proximity scan.

And found immediately that his fears had been for nothing. “Arachne, ho,” Yamoto said, peering at her own displays. “Right on the nose, too—forty-eight thousand kilometers away, bearing six port, eighty-two nadir. Just slightly downslope.”

Ferrol took a careful breath. “Make for the planet, Wwis-khaa,” he ordered the Tampy. “Two gees acceleration, or as much as Epilog can handle.”

“Your wishes are ours.”

For a minute Ferrol’s shoulders pushed against his restraints as Wwis-khaa turned Epilog nadir toward Arachne. The mottled blue-white crescent appeared in the forward viewport, the pressure eased and changed direction, and he was pushed back into his seat. “On our way,” Yamoto said unnecessarily. “Two gees acceleration.”

Ferrol nodded and keyed the lander’s scope screen, his stomach beginning to knot up again. He’d ordered the Scapa Flow to wait for him here… but that had been nearly two months ago. If they’d gotten tired of waiting…

A brief glint of sunlight caught his eye. A ship, running in geosynchronous orbit, all the way around the planet from where the human and Tampy colonies were located.

Grinning tightly, Ferrol set the comm laser to track and keyed an intercept course into the helm. “Wwis-khaa, shift direction onto the vector indicated,” he ordered.

The laser signaled ready—“Scapa Flow, this is Chayne Ferrol,” he called.

“Identification: beta hopscotch. Come in.” He held his breath—

“Scapa Flow here,” Malraux Demarco’s voice came. It sounded relieved. “Long time no hear, Chayne.”

“Much too long,” Ferrol agreed. “What’s ship status?”

“Oh, pretty much ready to go whenever you are,” the other replied. “You, uh, bringing us a gift there?”

“On loan only,” Ferrol told him. “Listen closely, now. Our ETA is—” he scanned the helm display for the numbers—“about forty-five minutes. I want the cargo bay cleared—and I mean cleared—and one lifeboat prepped and stocked for a flight planetside. Also, dig a pair of mid-length rein lines out of storage—four hundred meters ought to do it—and get them attached to the forward grapple. Attached good.”

There was a short pause. “Sounds like we’re not going to be going hunting, after all,” Demarco said.

“Oh, we’re going hunting, all right,” Ferrol told him grimly. “Count on that. Now.

Here’s the plan: we’re going to put the lander here into the cargo bay, with the rein lines hanging out the main hatchway. We’ll pack the gap to make the bay airtight; but since any real tug on the lines would tear out the sealant, we’ll run your set of reins between our space horse and the forward grapple to do the actual pulling, leaving the one from the lander slack. Clear?”

“Except for whether or not that lander will actually fit in our cargo bay,” Demarco said. “Our rangefinder readout on you makes it pretty damn close.”

“It’s close, but it’ll work,” Ferrol assured him. “I’ve run the numbers twice, and it can be done.”

“Well… if you say so,” Demarco said, still sounding unconvinced.

‘Trust me,“ Ferrol said. ”Anyway, that’s my problem. You just concentrate on making sure I’ve got room to get the thing in. That, and getting the rein lines hooked up. Oh, and you’d better run a cable from the bay intercom box so that we can link up to the lander’s outside comm port.” A stab of momentary guilt twinged at him; but without enough filter masks for the Scapa Flow’s entire crew, they really had no choice but to confine the Tampies to the lander and cargo bay.

“Got it. I presume we’re rather in a hurry?”

Ferrol threw a sideways glance at Yamoto’s profile. “There’s enough time to do the job right,” he told Demarco. “That doesn’t mean you should stop for coffee, though.”

“Right. We’ll be ready when you get here.”

“Good. Ferrol out.”

He keyed off the laser and set the scanners for a full radar and beacon search.

Unlikely there would be any other ships in the vicinity, but there wasn’t any point in taking chances.

“You going to do the docking yourself?” Yamoto asked.

Ferrol nodded. “I’d planned to, yes. Why?”

“Because I don’t think you can do it,” she said bluntly. “Not without wrecking either the lander or your cargo bay or both.”

Ferrol had wondered about that himself. “I’ll take it real slow,” he told her. “Or else have the Scopa Flow’s chief helmer come out and take us in.”

“With the Amity breathing down your neck?” she asked pointedly.

“Who said the Amity was breathing down my neck?” Ferrol countered.

She turned contemptuous eyes on him. “Oh, come on, Ferrol, let’s cut through the snow,” she said. “Whatever you’re doing here, you’re doing it on your own, without a scrap of authorization from anyone. We both know it; and we both know that if you take the time to EVA a helmer out here, you’ll be crowding your timetable so much he’s likely to rush the job.”