Ship's Boy (2 page)

“You
must
, milord,” a deeper voice replied as I spun around, tearing my eyes away from the spectacle of destruction outside. It was Lord Marcus, who’d somehow been wheeled into the hanger without all the customary trumpet-flourishes. Milord had barely survived a war-wound in his youth, caused by an illegal weapon so terrible that even modern medicine couldn’t restore the use of most of his body. Therefore, his wheelchair was a badge of honor. “I’ll not be run off of my own world without my wife and eldest son!” he repeated.

The man pushing the wheelchair sighed and rolled his eyes. He wore a military uniform, apparently a high-ranking one because it was covered with medals and gold braid. “We’ve completely lost aerospace superiority,” he explained, apparently not for the first time. “And we’re not likely to get it back. Every spaceport on the planet is being hammered, and the rest of your family is half a world away. How can we possibly get them here?”

“Your family is an important one, sir,” added another man. This one was dressed in the royal purple of a King’s ambassador. “You have higher duties. We simply
must
get you back to Court. Or who knows how much more will come unwound?”

Milord’s brow lowered, and his mouth formed a hard, thin, line. “Don’t remind
me
of my higher duties!” he snapped. Then at last he nodded and half-turned towards the military man. “But Carlos is correct, regardless.” His face softened. “Keep them safe for me, Winston?”

“Or I’ll die trying. My sacred word of honor, milord,” the officer replied. Then he turned towards the men of the
Broad Arrow
, who were mostly standing around and staring wordlessly. “You heard milord!” he roared. “Emergency departure! Now! Now! Now!”

That was enough to snap us into motion. Instantly I dashed for the ship. My path took me directly past milord’s wheelchair; with a gesture he stopped me. I froze in place, eyes wide and jaw agape. I’d never spoken to a nobleman before, not even a knight! “Well,” milord said with a smile. “How’s my latest special project coming along?”

My mouth worked, but I wasn’t able to answer. So he smiled and fozzled my ears. “For luck,” he explained. Then he turned to a well-dressed and pleasant-looking boy standing a pace behind him. “James,” he said, waving his youngest son forward, “this is David Birkenhead, apprentice ship’s engineer.”

The boy bowed his head slightly and smiled. “Pleased to meet you, David. From what I hear, someday you’re liable to be in charge of my ship’s engine room.”

My mouth worked again. I knew that Dad chatted with milord like this, but… but… “I certainly hope so, sir.”

He smiled again. “I’ve read a few books on warp tech, David, and heaven knows I’ll never be able to make heads or tails of them. Apparently you’re much brighter than I am.”

My jaw dropped again, and I noticed that the Royal Ambassador’s eyes had turned cold as ice. It wasn’t good for a slavebunny when a human looked at him like that, even on Marcus where whipping and collars and the other really bad parts had been done away with. So I decided it was time to make an exit while I still could. “I’m sure I’m not nearly as smart as you must be, sir,” I reassured milord’s son. “But… I need to go. I have a console, you see.”

“Of course,” milord replied, smiling. “And tell your father I said hello!”
Then I was racing up the companionway again, shaking like a leaf and yet eager as could be to tell Dad what’d happened!

But Dad wasn’t in any position to partake in conversation. An emergency takeoff without the benefit of a hardpoint was no joke—even I knew enough to appreciate that. So when I arrived at my duty-station he merely glanced at me and smiled. “Watch the coil readings,” he ordered as I strapped in and synched the console. I nodded back; there wasn’t much else for me to do, no matter how badly Dad might need the help. I’d only been an apprentice for a few months, after all, and the only two subjects I’d had enough time to learn anything useful about were coil readings and how to wear my Field suit. The rest of my time was either spent sweeping the floors or doing math, math and more math. “Everything’s in the green,” I reported eventually. “Number five’s edging towards the amber, but you already know about that.”

“Yeah,” my father agreed, his smile fading. Actually, number five was well within normal limits by the standards of any
real
ship’s engineer. Or so the representative of the company that’d just overhauled the unit had made the mistake of claiming in front of Captain Saunders, milord’s personal pilot. Said company’s contract was canceled within minutes, and the rep had been required to personally apologize to Dad. It was one of the most impressive things I’d ever seen. Especially since the company rep was at least technically correct—it wasn’t legal for a slave to be a ship’s officer. That was why Captain Saunders was listed on the ship’s papers in both capacities, even though it was physically impossible for him to do both jobs at the same time.

“All hands!” the ship’s annunciator suddenly declared. “Attention all hands! This is First Officer Prescott speaking. Up ship in three minutes. I repeat, up ship in three minutes.”

I blinked. That wasn’t half enough time for Dad to go through his prefight routine, and the very first thing he’d taught me was how vital it was to always do everything by the book. Then, I blinked a second time as he tossed the checklist into his desk drawer. “Engineering aye-aye,” he replied.

It was impossible to hear any more battle-sounds through our hull, but the heavier shock waves penetrated just fine. Another rolling series of detonations took place, the last one severe enough to maybe knock me off of my feet if I hadn’t already been strapped in. And somewhere in there we also must’ve cast off the chocks and begun rolling, because
Broad Arrow
was now alive and moving.

I was supposed to be an engineer in training, yes. But watching the coil readings didn’t take more than a fraction of my attention. Dad always encouraged me to split-screen them with stuff I hadn’t been trained on yet, like Field anomalies. But this time I turned on the tactical plotter instead…

…and immediately wished that I hadn’t. It was a virtual sea of red pips, half of them converging on us. “Dad!” I exclaimed, swiveling the monitor to face him. “Look!”

He glanced over, then his eyes widened. “God above!” he muttered. Then he turned back to his own duties.

“But…” I complained before biting off the words. I was crew now, not just a silly passenger. So it wasn’t for me to judge if our captain was about to get us all killed.

We rolled and rolled, then suddenly the ride roughened as
Broad Arrow
left the taxiway and sought a clean patch of grass to take off from. Meanwhile, something very strange happened on the tactical display. All the blue-- and therefore friendly-- pips were racing towards us! It was a stupid thing to attempt on some levels; even as I watched half a dozen or more of our fighters vanished from the display as they attempted to turn away from their enemies in mid-dogfight and concentrate in order to clear a patch of sky for the
Arrow
to fly thorough. Men were willingly accepting death in order to save milord, I suddenly realized. For the first time in my life, I wondered why anyone would do such a thing.

Then a new voice spoke up from Dad’s intercom speaker. It was Captain Saunders. “Tobias,” he asked softly. “How’re we doing?”

Father bared his incisors for an instant before replying. “As well as can be expected,” he admitted eventually. “We’ll either fly or collapse into a quantum black hole, one or the other.”

“You run a tight engine room, Tobias,” the pilot replied. “Obviously, there’ll be no verification checks.”

“Yeah,” my dad agreed, nodding. “I’m liking what I’m seeing so far, all but number five rod. And that’ll do, unless we’re damned unlucky indeed.”

“Good,” Captain Saunders agreed. There was a long pause while he conversed with the control tower. Then his attention returned to Dad. “In that case, I suppose you won’t mind if we also unship ‘A’ turret during the initial translation.”

My father’s mouth dropped wide open, and so did mine. A hyperfield’s natural state was to project itself skin-tight over the entire outside of the ship; while it was indeed possible to create small holes at the muzzles for the guns to fire through, each such exception complicated the engineer’s task enormously. Out in flatter space it wasn’t so bad. But during a takeoff, and an emergency one at that…“Are you… I mean…”

“We won’t make it without at least some of the guns,” Captain Saunders explained. “And the Imperials won’t be expecting them either.” He sighed. “You’re good, Tobias. The best I’ve ever seen. Wing it; that’s an order. I don’t expect the results to be pretty. And if you can’t manage, well…” He left the rest unsaid.

Suddenly Father’s eyes were wide and the stink of lapine terror filled the engineering spaces. It wasn’t all Dad’s—some of it was mine, too. His jaw worked once, then a second time as if he were about to object. Then his fingers began flying across his control board like I’d never seen before and I knew better than to interrupt him even for an instant. So I looked at the tactical display again—the blue dots were still converging on us, and sure enough a red-free area was developing as the Boyens were forced out of the developing kill-zone. Then the ground shook again and the crimson dot nearest us vanished.

“Sync navigation to Field core… Mark!” Captain Saunders declared as Father ignored the command to verify the automatic hookup. Clearly he had other fish to fry, and just this once I thought our commanding officer might forgive him. I turned all my attention to the control rods—they were doing fine, just like always, But looking at them was the only way I could help Dad.

“Close your visor and energize your Field, David,” Dad muttered, and my ear-linings flushed a deep red—in the excitement I’d almost forgotten. Engineers always turned on their Fields during takeoffs and at other key moments for protection from possible radiation surges.

“Five,” the first officer declared as Father continued to punch keys and change screens and otherwise attempt to compress a week’s worth of complex adjustments into mere seconds. “Four, three, two, one…”

Then the lights dimmed and
Broad Arrow
screamed in agony, her poorly-adjusted coils twisting her in directions that no living mind could perceive. And I screamed as well, nightmare visions of contorted space and a collapse into forever slashing across my own suddenly deformed soul. Then Father was screaming too, though he didn’t slow down a bit, “A” turret was blasting away at something…

…and we were at last lurching across the sky.

4

I’d been inside an unbalanced Field before; Dad had rigged a little setup in the back of the hanger so that I could pass the adaptation test before being formally approved as an apprentice. A few unlucky individuals went temporarily insane under chaotic warp conditions and therefore couldn’t be held responsible for their actions. These poor souls had to be strait-jacketed during all translations for everyone’s safety, even as mere passengers. In order to pass my test I’d undergone total disorientating misery for over an hour while performing a task that required my total attention—playing a complex videogame, in my case—and while my score had suffered a little I’d passed easily. But even
that
experience was poor preparation for what I was undergoing now; Dad’s testing-Field hadn’t been rigged nearly so far out of true as this one, and I also hadn’t been scared out of my wits going in. As it was I tested the sick-tube in my suit for the very first time—it worked amazingly well—and tried to focus my wayward, ever-shifting consciousness on the Field coils. Even as I did so, number five edged up into the amber.

“Dad!” I cried out, though through my warped perceptions it sounded more like deep-voiced giant saying
Dard-de!
There was a prescribed way of phrasing reports to avoid confusion due to the distortion, and I used it even though it probably would’ve sounded funny to an outsider. “Double-ewe cee! Rod! Fiv-ver! One-Oh-Thu-ree!”

My father nodded, but otherwise didn’t respond at all. A hundred and three—one hundred was the yellow area’s border—wasn’t all that bad. Probably the unit was stressed as could be due to the out-of-balance condition, and since he was already doing all he could to fix that, well…

Just then I heard a series of rapid-fire explosions above my head—they were amazingly sharp and loud. It was ‘A’ turret, which was located only a few feet above us. I’d never heard it fire before, and the sound rather frightened me until I realized what it was. What scared me even more, though, was the way that number-five rod’s temperature shot skyward as the Field warped even further out of true at the insult. “Dad!” I cried out again!”

“I already know,” he replied, deceptively calm as his hands flew over the keyboard. “Compensating now.” And sure enough, the temp dropped almost as quickly as it’d risen…

…until suddenly a new string of explosions raced down the hull, this time well forward of us. “Shit,” Dad observed, his voice calm and flat. Once more, the temps shot skyward.

“We’ve been hit, Tobias,” Captain Saunders informed us unnecessarily. “Compensate with everything you’ve got! I can’t afford to reduce power—we’re borderline on making orbit and I expect we’ll need every erg.”

“Aye-aye, sir,” Dad responded as all the core-rod indicators soared into the red. “Understood.” Then he turned to me. “David, I’m going to need a spare EVA tank; I fear that we’re going to have to open up the engine room to vacuum. Go get one for me, and another for yourself.”

My jaw dropped. I’d never heard of letting vacuum into an engine room on purpose before, not for anything!

“Do it, son!” he urged. “I’ve no time to argue!”

I nodded; orders were orders and this was hardly the time to question them. “Closing my board,” I acknowledged. “All rods are in the red, sir.”

“All in the red,” he acknowledged. There was something terribly sad in his voice, though I couldn’t quite grasp what or why. “Go get me those tanks, son! On the bounce, now!”