John Sandford - Saturn Run

“We can’t allow any weaponry on board,” Crow said to Barnes. “I assume your marines will take any baggage apart, molecule by molecule.”

Barnes said, “Yes. Frankly the biggest danger is that they’d take a weapon away from one of us, get a group of us together as hostages, and threaten to start executing people. So we need really good weapon control. Weapons only to people who really know how to control them.”

Crow nodded.

And finally, Fang-Castro asked, “The Odyssey hasn’t even asked for help, yet. Not ship-to-ship. I don’t want to call Zhang, I’d rather have him do it. But suppose we manage to take the Chinese on board and all they really want is help. Where are we at on consumables? Do we need to transfer some from the Odyssey ? How would we do that?”

The meeting went on for two hours.

Then Comm pinged them: “Admiral, the Celestial Odyssey is calling us.”

A day and a half after departing the Maxwell Gap and the deadly alien constellation, the Celestial Odyssey was closing in on the Nixon . The two ships were separated by a few thousand kilometers, and the gap was narrowing at a kilometer per second.

Zhang was considering the good news: the Nixon had stayed its course and made no efforts to evade the impending encounter. They had sufficient reaction mass to follow the Nixon , however it maneuvered, but the ship was badly battered, and he didn’t want to put any more stress on it than he absolutely had to.

Cui pushed for contact with the Nixon : “Sir, we’re only hours away from the Nixon . Shouldn’t we contact the Americans and ask for rescue?”

He smiled what he hoped was an enigmatic smile: “I feel that ambiguity serves us better, for the moment.” Seeing that Cui was not satisfied, he said, “Speak plainly, Cui.”

“I don’t see how that helps us. In fact, I don’t entirely understand why you didn’t reach out to her much earlier.”

“This isn’t about the Nixon . It’s about the people on Earth, playing their games. We have not been entirely candid with those ben dan on Earth about the condition of our ship. I don’t want anyone to know how damaged we are, how weak we are. People talk. If American intelligence learned what we know, the terms of the rescue might change. l want them frightened of us, I want to be treated as equals. Unfortunate victims of shipwreck, but equals.”

Cui shook her head, still skeptical. “But how can we not look like a threat to them, sneaking up on them in silence? It’s dangerous. They must be going crazy over there. It would make me crazy if I were their captain, this kind of suspicious behavior.”

“No doubt it would, Mr. Cui, and it would make me crazy also. But tell me this: If the situation were reversed, what would you do? Would you initiate hostilities, fire upon the other ship? When it has not, in fact, overtly demonstrated a hostile intent? You, yourself, commented on how flimsy their ship is, how easily we could cripple it. Would you really fire upon us?”

She paused. “Uh, no. Not without an explicit authorization. Maybe not then.”

Zhang nodded approvingly. “Very good, Cui, you’re thinking like a space captain. You may get your own ship yet. If we live through this. The ability to put yourself in somebody else’s shoes, that’s a valuable survival skill in space. We have a lot more in common up here—and a lot more risks we share—than the groundpounders understand.”

“All right, sir, but what if you’re wrong about this? What if she has secret orders to finish us off? They’ve had time to fab a bomb…”

“Then we are at the mercy of Fang-Castro’s conscience. She has as much space experience as I do, and I have as much faith in her as I would have in me. I know what I would do, without a moment’s hesitation.”

But it was all academic, anyway, Zhang thought. The fate of the crew of the Celestial Odyssey had been taken out of their hands a day ago, when they’d made the burn that put them on an intercept course with the Nixon . Either she’d rescue them or she wouldn’t. Zhang had done the best he could.

Soon he’d know if his measure of the American admiral was correct. He and Cui headed for the bridge. It was time to play out the next scene in this drama he’d constructed.

“Comm, open a distress frequency channel.” The murmurs between the bridge crew got momentarily louder; then everyone became very, very quiet, as Zhang’s gaze swung around the room. He spoke calmly and clearly, with the utmost respect and deference, yet with no hint of subservience.

“This is the Chinese deep space research vessel Celestial Odyssey . We are issuing a Mayday call. We are in distress and are in need of immediate assistance. Please respond.”

He waved a finger at the communication station to close the channel. “Comm, put that on a ten-second loop. Repeat it until we get a response. When we do, patch it through immediately.”

He smiled at Cui: “Now? We wait.”

Fang-Castro watched the rearward screen as the Celestial Odyssey closed on them. If she cut the engines, they’d arrive in ten minutes. She had no intention of doing that, because there was little doubt that the Chinese ship could fire up its engines to keep up with the slowly accelerating Nixon . The Chinese were two kilometers to starboard, well out of the path of the VASIMR engines’ exhaust and safely distant from a collision course.

“Let’s hear the hail,” she said.

Summerhill, the comm officer, said, “It’s recorded, on a loop.”

He touched a button and Zhang came up, in the middle of a sentence: “…are in need of immediate assistance. Please respond.” After a couple of seconds of silence, the recorded message started from the beginning. On the second repeat, Fang-Castro ordered it muted.

“Put me through to the Odyssey ,” Fang-Castro said. Summerhill touched another button and then pointed at her: “You’re up, ma’am.”

“ Celestial Odyssey , this is the United States Spaceship Richard M. Nixon . We’ve received your distress call. Please stand by.” She signaled the communications officer to close the channel. After a quarter minute, the muted distress message loop cut off.

“Good. They’re listening full-time,” she said. “Mr. Crow? Mr. Francisco? Anything you want to say before I proceed? This is for the official record.”

Crow shook his head: “We’ve talked it through. Speaking officially and for the record, as the President’s representative, I’m satisfied that we have prepared as well as we can for… whatever eventuality. I agree that under the accepted laws of space, we are required to perform a rescue of a ship in distress, if we are able to do so.”

“Thank you,” Fang-Castro said. “Mr. Francisco?”

“I agree with Mr. Crow, ma’am.”

Fang-Castro signaled Summerhill to reopen the channel to the Chinese. “Ship in distress, Celestial Odyssey , this is Admiral Naomi Fang-Castro. What is the precise nature of your emergency and what assistance do you require? Over.”

“Admiral, this is Admiral Zhang Ming-Hoa. I am very happy to hear from you. I will keep this brief: my ship was badly damaged during our aerobraking maneuvers at Saturn. Most of our hydrogen tankage is gone. Our remaining tanks cannot carry enough reaction mass to get us back to Earth before our life-support or engineering systems fail. We have expended almost all our reaction mass just to match velocities with you. In your vernacular, we ‘need a lift.’ Otherwise, we are all dead. Over.”