Edge of Redemption (A Star Too Far Book 3) (6 page)

“Cruisin’ for a bruisin’,” Huron muttered.

William couldn’t help but smile. The other two were almost like twins. Dark hair like burnt coffee and wide faces. Large wasn’t quite enough of a word to describe them. They looked like a pair of lost lumberjacks, or stonemasons. Abraham, his Anabaptist friend, flashed into his mind.

“Group, halt!” The Corporal’s eyes swung slowly and locked onto William. “Group, reporting for duty.”

“At ease, Corporal, fall in.”

There was an ease, a gracefulness, all with an overtone of extreme violence. Her face was a mass of scars, or what remained of scars after nanites smoothed it out. It must’ve been bad, he thought, for the nanites to not remove it all. As she turned her eyes flickered red, nanite implants. William looked down to his tablet: Corporal Vale Thorisdottir.

“Open ‘er up, Harry,” Admiral Muir said. She approached William and sized him up. “She’ll be done, or soon enough. We’ll have another day to finish it up, but you can start loading now.”

William nodded. The Admiral didn’t look much better than before, just more awake. And sober. “I think you owe me a pastry, Admiral.”

Admiral Muir turned and cocked her head slightly with a wide smile on her face. “Ahh, I thought you looked familiar. That was a good start to a bad day.” She looked satisfied as she turned to the hatch. A chubby civilian engineer walked over to the airlock and plugged in an oversized tablet. A dim hissing pulsed and surged from a panel next to the door. Chilled steam flowed from beneath the panel. Breathable atmosphere was pouring into the little ship for the first time.

“She gonna hold, Harry?” Admiral Muir asked.

Harry shrugged and stood with the tablet cradled in his arms. The light above the airlock flickered to yellow and then green. Williams heart raced faster. He stole a glance at Huron and Shay: both looked as excited as he was. He was almost leaning forward, eager to get in. There it was, just on the other side, waiting.

“Aww fuck,” Harry spat. “Popped a weld.”

William felt as deflated as the ship. The airlock light danced back down to red once again. He looked over to Admiral Muir with a questioning glance. She shrugged and sighed. “Why don’t you guys go get something to eat?”

William turned back to face his crew and tried not to look disheartened. More engineers came running along with men in vacuum suits. He had a hunch it was going to be a long day. But on the plus side, he’d get a stab at some second breakfast. He looked at the growing crowd of engineers and wondered if this was the equivalent of a ship sinking right out of drydock.

*

A week later they departed with little fanfare and less reception. Throughout the week more of the stubby pocket frigates detached from the station and sped for points throughout UC space. News and plans were still months old, set into motion as foreseen and unknown. Orders passed down set out guidelines for reaction—Earth was simply too far away to oversee every contingency. Never before had so much relied on so few.

They passed by freighters, clawed and mauled. Raking damage from mass driver barrages and blooms of carbon black showed the truth of the battles. A particularly mangled Arkhangel class battlecruiser forged past with a gaping hole large enough to drive the pocket frigate into. Somber greetings were made and they passed in opposite directions.

William scrutinized each ship as it passed by under high power magnification. He wanted to see what the wounds of war from a different front looked like. He’d been on the receiving end of the Hun once before, and of the Sa’Ami recently. Was anything different? Or did they still rely on the massed barrages and simple technology?

They passed more ships heading for refit and eventually met up with the convoy in orbit around Mars. The dusky red planet was like an iron-stained cueball. The poles glowed white with bands of dirty green streaking through some of the valleys. Ships and cargo arrays were strung out around the planet everywhere. The bladder of intergalactic trade was suddenly stopped and the piss of commerce was holding above.

He found his convoy just beyond the edge of Phobos in the shadow of the moon. Three bulk freighters: one old enough to house a museum, along with a personnel carrier and a single corvette that looked very similar to the one he’d taken on his way out of Redmond. That beautiful little ship came back to him, Samoan mercenaries and all. It was a bloody business. It was his, if only for a few short weeks. His first real command.

Now this was his duty, that little pack, strung along to the very edge of UC space. Where beyond only licensed prospectors and the very fringe of society dared to roam. There was a part of him that envied those that went beyond.

“Send along course plot, please,” William said to Lieutenant Shay. He squirmed in his chair and tried to get comfortable. The bridge was tiny, claustrophobic, like a closet compared to the spaces he’d been on before. With each hand he could lean forward and tap whoever was at either command station. At least he could wake them up easy enough.

The entire ship was tight, cramped, small. To make it even worse, the main hall between sections was zero gravity—it wasn’t even possible to walk and stretch. He never realized how much he’d miss a simple walk. Judging by his waistline, he’d need to start working it off soon, or find a nanite fat burner. The thought brought him to dinner. The other downside of a small ship was that the scent of every meal wafted and drifted everywhere.

“Course sent, acknowledgments from all except the, uh
, Greater Prosperity of the Rising Ocean
.”

“Who? What?” William leaned and looked over Shay’s shoulder. The ancient freighter appeared to be powered down. “Ping them again please.”

After the third hail, the pitted and worn freighter finally acknowledged the call.

“Datastream live please,” William said.

Screens flashed to life and showed incoming data from the convoy members. Reactors were primed, Haydn’s powered up, and all systems showed nominal. Except for
the Greater Prosperity of the Rising Ocean
. William shook his head. He had a feeling he’d be babysitting that one.

“Overlay that name, call it the
Grouper
,” William ordered.

Lieutenant Shay nodded with a smile. “Done, they’re reporting startup now.”

William sat back in his seat and stretched his feet out until they touched on either console. A shadow passed over him and he turned and saw the face of a Marine staring in and gawking at the screens. PFC Grgur Vlasic had his mouth open far enough that William could see his back teeth. “Can I help you, Marine?”

Vlasic looked back, shook his head and snapped to attention on the other side of the bulkhead. William found the new Marines a bit odd: both Grgur and Igor were from the Serbian colonies. They were also the ship’s cooks, though William wished there was a bit more variety to what they cooked. He could only take so much garlic and paprika essence.

The Marines were barely enough to form up into a group. Corporal Vale made for an imposing squad leader: beyond the scars, she was heavily muscled and toned. Her service record was impressive—her latest deployment ended when a wire grenade detonated in her face. Now she had an alloy skull and nanite eyes. The only thing more impressive than her service record was her discipline record. Vale Thorisdottir liked to fight. William had chuckled more than once reading through the incident reports.

“They say they’re ready, Captain.”

“Very well, send the signal, we’re moving out. Form us up above the group. Give me a nice cluster, Lieutenant.” William wanted everyone close enough that he could cover them with the mass driver batteries. He had every expectation of running into Sa’Ami striders.

For a moment he felt a sense of resentment. Here he was herding a group of civilians to a system that they didn’t want anymore while other ships were heading to the front. He had the experience they needed, just not the birthplace they wanted.

“Grouper is lagging,” Lieutenant Shay said, unsurprised.

The visual display had icons overlaid onto the distant ships. Beyond lay the red disc of Mars with Phobos only visible because a few rays of light scattered from the edge. William knew why Grgur was gawking: it was an impressive sight.

“Mr. Huron, Haydn primed and ready?” William keyed the comms and asked.

“Should be, Captain,” Huron replied in the twangy accent of Mars.

The convoy pulled farther away from Phobos and pointed in a direction far and away from anything. Before them lay almost totally empty space. Civilian traffic seemed to be avoiding leaving the system while any military vessels had transponders shut off. Only the signature of a Haydn blink would betray where anything moved through.

The Haydn drive worked by clipping the space between gravity waves. All except for the very peaks. When the gravity waves were steep, like near a planet, the blinks would be short. While in deep space a single blink might cover a light year between gravity wells. But the very peak of the wave was still traversed the old fashioned way: with a gravity drive.

The first blink was another hour out and William took the opportunity to review the drill schedule. Every shift was to be engaged in every manner of battle, emergency, and failure. What a Captain could normally do in half a year he would have to accomplish in a few weeks. Beyond that and he’d enter a zone where the usual patrols had been pulled to the front.

The deviousness of a few exercises made him smile. Simulated electrical fire followed by a water leak. A vacuum leak inside of the sewage treatment system. Plus the old standby of only failure missions. Situations where there is no possible way to win. He needed to know what Shay was made of, along with Midshipman Bryce.

“Mr. Bryce, verify Haydn status please,” William said to the young Midshipman.

Bryce had the good looks of someone who had lived on a planet where the beach lifestyle was the only lifestyle. His accent was slow and ponderous, as if speaking too fast was an insult. His skin was sun stained a few shades darker than everyone else, but in the way that said he’d lived on the beach. Beyond that, though, William sensed an uneasiness in the Midshipman, a reluctance to take command.

“Five minutes, Captain. The
Grouper
is claiming they’re ready,” Lieutenant Shay said.

William keyed the comms and decided now would be a good a time as any to see how Mr. Bryce behaved. “First drill, folks. Railgun strike, both myself and Lieutenant Shay have been killed. Mr. Bryce has command. Proceed.” He smiled down at Bryce’s blanched face. The Midshipman’s eyes looked to be sucked out of their sockets.

“But, Captain?”

“Tut-tut! I’m dead, as is Ms. Shay.” William leaned back into his chair and crossed his arms over his chest.

The Midshipman between the two with his jaw open. Grgur had popped his head back around and was peeking in once more. Bryce turned quickly to Grgur, but before he could speak, the Marine disappeared.

“But. I—shit?” Bryce slapped his hands onto the console and looked back up to William and Shay.

William was glad this was happening now, and not when a real railgun round just punched through the bridge. He looked down at Bryce with a placid face. He had every expectation that the young man would come to grips and settle on a course. Any course really, everything was locked in, all he had to do was say ‘go’.

A mock medical team burst onto the bridge along with Huron and another maintenance tech. The remainder of the crew performed a quick triage, mechanical and medical, before returning to stations. William waved Huron off from his role on the bridge, he wanted to see what Bryce would do.

Bryce sat still, shoulders locked forward, like a statue.

The clock ticked down on the display and finally reached zero. Status indicators for the rest of the convoy pulsed. Comms request came in one after the next. No one would blink until the convoy lead gave the order. William was close, so close, to ending the exercise and verbally thrashing the tanned Midshipman when he finally snapped out of it.

“Convoy, blink as soon as able,” Bryce said quickly. His head snapped back to William and Shay and back to his console. His fingers wobbled about, seeking for the right bind. “Uh, Engineering, Haydn drive ready?”

“Haydn clear,” Huron responded.

Bryce looked back once more. “Blink,” he said, and pushed the key down.

The starscape shifted an almost imperceptible amount, the blink was short, almost short enough that they could have burned it. On the opposite side, the convoy was building velocity and powering across the next trough. The corvette came in a few moments later. All ships were present except for the
Grouper
.

William had a feeling it wouldn’t make it. But what would his Middie do?

“Convoy, continue to point delta-eight. Formation as ordered,” Bryce said in a more confident tone. He looked from screen to screen and settled back into his chair, looking slightly more in control. A moment later he turned slightly at William with a shade of relief on his face.

“All clear, Mr. Bryce?” William asked.

Bryce’s eyes darted from side to side and he nodded slowly. “Uh, yeah, Captain.”

William sucked in a breath and hit the comms. “Convoy acceleration zero.” He released the key and looked down to Bryce. “I think we’re missing someone.”

Bryce’s face, which was almost back to full color, dropped to nearly white as he slunk down into his chair. The Midshipman looked between Shay, William, and back to Grgur before hunching himself over his console.

“Bryce,” William said and waited for the Midshipman to turn. “You did well. Just slow down a bit, you had plenty of time.”

William looked back to the display and wondered how many more blinks the
Grouper
would be trolling behind. He also wondered how well Bryce was going to handle everything else thrown at him. Especially when it wasn’t a drill, but that steely time when doing something was better than nothing.

––––––––

T
he smell of garlic with a touch of paprika struck Emilie as something odd to have in the midst of space. The scent was right on the edge of overpowering, the merging point of coughing politely and declining dinner altogether. The hallway was quiet, still, empty. The transport ship had the feeling of a freshly built hotel without any of the fanfare.