Vaughn Heppner - The Lost Starship

Maddox grinned. Keith liked that about the man. He could be a stuffed shirt and then change into a cunning devil.

“I’m glad to hear it,” the captain said. “Lieutenant, plot the exact course. Then we’ll see if our scout can slip onto the comet without the Saint Petersburg noticing.”

Later, after the second use of the gravity generator, Keith flexed his fingers. He sat with a straight back in the pilot’s chair. His focus was glued to the flight screen.

For the umpteenth time this trip, he wished he were in a strikefighter. Piloting wasn’t as enjoyable locked in the same room with everyone else. To float alone among the stars while popping his head next to the fighter’s canopy was far more freeing.

Keith double-checked the scout’s velocity and its relation to the approaching comet. Behind them, one hundred million kilometers away bulked the massive T dwarf. Its pull affected them more because the ship dumped gravity waves. If he’d maneuvered with the thruster…

Keith cracked his knuckles. “Ready, sir?” he asked.

“Take us down, Ensign,” Maddox told him.

Grinning from ear to ear because he felt nervous, Keith began to use the gravity generator with greater flexibility and control than he’d done before. “A bit at a time, sir,” Keith explained.

The ace eased the Geronimo lower toward the comet, which traveled around the T dwarf in a giant elliptical orbit instead of around the system’s star. The comet was a dirty snowball, composed of ice, rock and bits of miscellaneous debris. For its size, the thing didn’t have a lot of weight. What he didn’t want to do was land so hard it cracked the snowball. Even worse would be to break it into pieces as if hit by a billiard ball. That would be a dead giveaway to the destroyer where the scout had gone.

“Easy does it,” Maddox told him.

“No worries, sir,” Keith said. “This will be a piece of fluff.” He didn’t feel that in his gut, but why let them know. This was his specialty. He would see them through.

“Baby, baby, baby,” Keith whispered under this breath. “Now we’re going to see.” He applied more power.

The gravity generator shook the ship. Metal groaned.

“Let up on the generator!” Lieutenant Noonan shouted.

Keith did no such thing. This was the final approach. His panel shook before him. The gravity generator clacked with strain. It could break any second, and maybe the smart thing to do would be to let it rest. He kept it running.

“Ensign!” shouted Maddox.

The generator began to make even worse screeching sounds. Keith winced. His chest erupted with fear. If the gravity generator blew up—the game would be over. The others kept shouting at him. He ignored their pleas. This was just like strikefighter combat. The man with bigger balls won these. He continued to use the overburdened generator, dumping more gravity waves.

“Sir!” Valerie pleaded with Maddox.

Keith studied the approach. They still came down too hard. He tapped his board. The overburdened generator roared with complaint. The entire scout shook. So did Keith as he sat in his chair. He refused to stop, though. Either the generator lasted or— The Geronimo gently settled onto the snowball. A few ice particles broke off and drifted into space. That wasn’t good. But the comet held, and they had survived the landing.

With another tap on the board, Keith turned off the gravity generator. It whined down the scales, at last going silent before it stopped running. The ace waited in his chair for his nerves to settle. Finally, he looked around and laughed heartily to show them he was the pilot extraordinaire.

“Nothing to it, Chaps,” Keith said. “It was a lovely piece of fluff, just like I told you it would be.”

They were down. Now they waited on the comet as the destroyer crossed the star system.

For Keith, the waiting proved harder than the landing. Having something to do kept his thoughts from lingering on the staggering odds that always seemed to climb higher against them.

Just like the others, Ensign Maker’s nerves had frayed throughout the past months of run, endless repair, hide and slip away down another wormhole. It didn’t help that they did this in a battered scout. The Saint Petersburg or the star cruiser always found them again. It was maddening and debilitating to shipboard morale.

Keith wore a vacc-suit as he jumped out of Geronimo’s hatch. The stars blazed around him as he glided onto the dirty-white surface. He turned back, viewing his home for the last three months. He’d always had a good eye, able to tell where he’d welded, where the dents mashed inward and which hull parts were good.

I can’t believe I gave up my pub for this. I must have been out of my bloody mind. We’re never going to survive the alien system. The idea of using the comet as a sheath—pure rotgut arrogance is what it is .

He faced forward and began to glide across the surface. Keith had a knack for this. He was well aware that if he jumped too high, he would reach the comet’s escape velocity and float away. It was like ice-skating, something he used to do a lot of as a kid. He’d played hockey for a time. His small size meant he’d been a target for the bruisers trying to check him into the boards. His skating speed and slap shots had won more than one game for the team.

He glided, feeling free as he never could cramped within the scout. Everyone was getting on one another’s nerves. Seeing the same faces every day, smelling the recycled air and eating the freeze-dried crap— I need a drink .

In his helmet, Keith licked chapped lips. A good brew would help. Even better, would be a shot of Scotch sliding down his gullet.

I wonder where the captain hid it.

Keith had been good for longer than he believed he could. By the Rood, he hadn’t been this sober ever since Danny-boy’s…

Keith licked his lips one more time. He didn’t want to recall his brother’s death. Oh, yes, he had taken the captain’s evil pills for a time. If he drank, he’d likely puke out his guts. Well, he would if he’d continued to pop the little traitor capsules every several days. Starting a week ago, he’d flushed the pills down the toilet. He remembered the captain’s threat. The baton smashing the bottle— That was a dirty trick . He had a scar on the back of his right hand because of it. Will one drink make any difference?

In his heart, Keith suspected it would. He’d given the captain his word. The blighter had helped him remain sober. The abyss— Don’t be melodramatic, Keith, my boy. What abyss? That’s pure tommyrot .

He knew that wasn’t true, but he wanted to lie to himself. Despite the cramped quarters aboard Geronimo , he’d felt alive these past weeks. It had been like that at Tau Ceti. The threat, the excitement, the pressures fed his sense of adventure. He’d saved the crew a time or two. That had been the best part of all.

I haven’t lost anything flying a craft .

In his helmet, Keith grinned. He glided over a ridge and saw a red flare out there. It was time to go to work.

He reached Meta with her jackhammer. She was almost indistinguishable in her silver vacc-suit. She’d made a huge hole already. Frozen down at the bottom was supposed to be Professor Ludendorff’s cache: engines and fuel.

They had short-speakers between them to communicate. He hailed her. She lifted a gloved hand to acknowledge him. Afterward, she pointed at the second item, a spacetorch.

Keith went to it, clicking it on. In seconds, he had a hot tongue of flame on the end. He put the blue flame against the ice, burning it away. He helped her uncover the cache. The Saint Petersburg was coming fast. He didn’t see how they could possibly make the comet-sheath ready in time.