The Parafaith War (22 page)

“Unlike most simulator sessions, on this one you may take as long as you wish on your setup. I would recommend that you do so.” Kurbiachi nodded and bowed ever so slightly.

“Thank you, ser.” Trystin bent and picked up his gear bag and followed Kurbiachi out into the simulator bay and the smell of plastic, ozone … and tension.

Kurbiachi merely nodded at simulator six, and Trystin climbed the ladder .easily. When he opened the simulator hatch, Trystin staggered, feeling the same overpowering flow of data that he had sensed in entering the cockpit of the Roosveldt. The signal intensity was lower, no doubt on purpose, and the amount of data flowing through the implant was less, but Trystin still felt as though the entire Maran Defense Net were attempting to take up residence in his skull-and what he experienced wasn’t even the full scope of what was supposed to be routine for a pilot officer. He glanced at the empty noncom couch. He didn’t even have to deal with the technical data that would normally be going through the tech boards.

He wiped his forehead. Kurbiachi had said he could take as much time as he needed.

First, he checked the hatch and the air system before sealing the cockpit and stowing his gear in the locker. Then he strapped in and began the checklist, fumbling because he was used to the manual toggles and studs, and not his implant.

“Precheck,” he instructed the system through the implant.

“Full or abbreviated?” came the system query. “Full.”

Trystin was deliberate, his directions through the implant considered and precisely triggered as he tried to get a more complete feel, although every rush of data seemed to bring another sweat to his body. His entire shipsuit felt soaked long before he signaled for switchover from “station” power to “ship” power. Just as in the Roosveldt, the moment of weightlessness twisted his guts before the half-grav of pseudoship-norm reasserted itself in the simulator cockpit.

“Coldrock one, station control. You are cleared for low-thrust separation….”

“Beginning separation.” Trystin demagnetized the holdtights, and, as Kurbiachi had predicted, found both his hands and implant toggling the repeller field. The screens twisted, indicating somehow Trystin had managed to separate at an angle and with a tumbling motion. With ship gravity centered in the hull, he didn’t feel the tumbling, but the screen inputs and the data net confirmed his clumsiness.

Slowly he pulsed the field until he had the “corvette” on course line and stable. Theoretically, he could have tumbled for a long time without too much damage, before the oscillations created by the conflict between the minute but real solar and planetary fields began to build. But the inputs from the net would have given him a headache, and Kurbiachi definitely would have fried him for overstressing the simulator.

Don’t think like it’s a simulator, he told himself as he confirmed the thrust and course line. Think like it’s a corvette. It is a corvette.

“Dust density is point zero six and rising,” scripted the message from the exterior monitors.

Trystin inched up the shield power, noting the increased heat in the accumulators, then recalculated his path, trying for an arc above the dust line that generally centered in the ecliptic. “Outside system parameters.” He tried again.

“Will require one hundred ten percent of system power.”

While he could get the power from an accumulator dump, that wasn’t a good idea, and he recomputed with lower thrust, knowing that the lower thrust would drag out the elapsed time.

“Dust density point zero five and dropping.” As he recomputed again, Trystin smiled grimly, through the headache that was steadily worsening. It was going to be a long session/mission.

After adjusting the arm units to near-maximum resistance, Trystin stepped up on the inclined treadmill and began to jog, pumping his arms rhythmically against the resistance units.

Each minute ticked by slowly, ever so slowly, in the one point one gee section of the workout facility that he usually seemed to have to himself. After less than twenty minutes, his legs felt like lead, but he kept jogging. At forty minutes, his arms felt like they were ready to cramp into inert lead.

He slowed the machine to a quick walk an hour after he had started, and to a slower walk after another ten minutes. His exercise shirt and shorts were drenched, but there was no point in taking a shower-not yet, not until he cooled down more.

After walking slowly for another five minutes, he stepped off the equipment and into the reading-room section of the workout facility where there were four consoles, all of which seemed almost new. He pulled the sturdy chair over to the end console, the one closest to the overhead ventilator. If student pilots couldn’t get enough time to exercise, the guidelines recommended as much time as possible in the higher-gee environment. Trystin tried to do both as much as possible. Unlike some student pilots, he had no trouble sleeping. Waking up, yes, but not sleeping.

He flipped the power switch, absently using the small towel to blot his forehead as he used the implant to interface with the station library. He began his daily search through the maintenance manuals to see what else he could find to follow up on the hints he had picked up from various instructors. All of them seemed so straightforward, but none of them were. Commander Folsom’s suggestions about detecting accumulator problems had led him through reference after reference, and more than a few talks with senior noncoms, most of whom had just said something like, “I really can’t say as there’s any specific thing, ser. It’s a feeling you get with experience.”

Trystin didn’t have the experience, and by the time he got it, it might be too late, and that had led to his ongoing search of engineering and maintenance manuals. Between Commander Folsom and Commander Eschbech, it seemed as though he’d read every engineering reference in the system, and he still couldn’t answer half the questions they asked.

He wiped his forehead and took another deep breath. As he began to cool down, he wiped his forehead again before going back to the material on the screen. Then he glanced up and, through the glass, saw a trim but muscular figure in an exercise suit begin a warm-up routine in the next room. The woman’s back was to him, but she looked somehow familiar. After a minute or so, since her face was away from Trystin and he couldn’t figure out who it might be, he went back to the net and the library.

The engineering manual indicated that minute power surges often foreshadowed accumulator failure, but unless he installed a recording monitoring system on every ship how would that knowledge help? He needed a clue that was visual. What did power fluctuations affect? He couldn’t find anything on that, but that led him down the line of tracking power flows-

“Exercising in the sitting position. Lieutenant?” asked Ulteena Freyer, sweat pouring down her forehead as she walked into the reading room.

“I already spent an hour on the treadmill and weights,” Trystin snapped.

“Touchy, aren’t you?”

“Major, I apologize for any offense I may have caused. Certainly, none was intended. I may have been somewhat preoccupied with my work.”

“You are touchy.”

Trystin repressed a sigh and offered a smile. “Only when I’m tired.”

“I’m sorry, Trystin. I spoke out of turn. The other day I came in here and found every console taken, but not a one of them had even raised a sweat.” “That’s all right.”

“What are you working on?” Ulteena took the console closest to the door.

“Engineering … sort of. Stuff on accumulators.” “Hmmmm… is that new? I don’t recall much on them. ” She wiped her forehead with the small towel taken from the waistband of her exercise shorts. Like Trystin had been, she was soaked in sweat.

“Something that an instructor suggested I check out…” Trystin admitted. “I’ve been sandwiching it in.”

“Then it’s either Kurbiachi or Folsom.” She wiped her forehead with the back of her forearm. “Folsom.”

“That figures. He’s a translation engineer. Kurbiachi gets you with sensors and nav equipment.” “I seem to have had them both.” “You’re fortunate.” She laughed, and the sound was actually musical. “That’s assuming you survive.” “Right.”

“You will, and you’ll probably appreciate them later.” “I keep trying to hold that in mind. It doesn’t always help, since they’re always coming up with something else.”

Ulteena laughed softly. “That’s the problem with all of us. We’ve never time to think about the past, and we’re always planning for the future. And since the future’s always the future, we never live in the present.”

Trystin paused. He’d never thought of Ulteena as philosophical. “I hadn’t thought of it quite that way.”

“Try it. You still have to prepare for what will happen, but it might help.” Ulteena wiped her forehead. “If you’ll pardon me, I do have to do some of that preparation myself.”

“Of course.” Trystin nodded as she turned to the console. He looked at her back for a moment, then wondered why he bothered. While she was friendly enough, sometimes surprisingly warm, they were headed for different ships, perhaps totally different parts of the Coalition.

Never live in the present … don’t have time to remember the past … planning for the future … her words swirled in his mind. Then he wanted to laugh as he looked down. He didn’t really have time to consider what she’d said-not if he wanted to avoid having Folsom and Kurbiachi or Commander Eschbech allover him.

Did the Service design it so no one had time to think, really think? He still hadn’t found time to finish reading the handouts on Revenant theology, perhaps because he kept getting hung up on the whole question of why anyone would believe a prophet without any real physical evidence of a god.

He shrugged and flicked his console from accumulators to translation subsystems.

Trystin checked his armor and the seals on the helmet again, holding on to the railing inside the access tube. The short figure in armor arrowed down the tube toward him in the streaking bound that those experienced in min-gee affected. He caught the subcommander’s insignia-not that any of the instructors were less than subcommanders with at least two complete ship tours-and the dark hair before he saw the woman’s name-duValya. “You’re Lieutenant Desoll?” She braked easily and stared at him, dark eyes matching dark hair, a face regular enough to be attractive, except for the penetrating intensity of the eyes. Why did all the attractive women have such perceptive eyes? Or was he only attracted to perceptive women? “Yes, ser.”

“We’ve got number ten. Lieutenant. Armor ready?” “Yes, ser.”

“We’ll do the preflight first, and then I’ll brief you after you’ve had a chance to familiarize yourself with the feel of the systems.” “Yes, ser.”

“Some pilots feel that you don’t need to preflight the outside of a corvette, especially if you’re the only one piloting it, every flight. That’s probably true. On the average, what can happen in space? Then again, it’s your life, and a half hour of time. Do you want to gamble your life against half a standard hour, especially when your translation error can run days?”

The subcommander’s logic was sound, but all those half hours added up, and pretty soon they amounted to days, and he wouldn’t always have days.

“Now, I know that all the little safety edges can add up, and there will be times that you feel you just don’t have the time…”

Trystin repressed a groan. Did all of them read minds? “… so the best policy, I have found, is to do everything whenever it is at all possible. Then, when the mission comes when you really don’t have time, you’ve laid the odds in your favor.” Subcommander duValya bobbed her head, but her short thick hair didn’t move. Trystin nodded.

“I know you know the preflight sequence, and you’ve practiced it on the exterior dummies in the simulator bay for at least the last six months, but it’s different when you’re weightless and floating around.” Commander duValya cleared her throat. “You start with the lock seals, even before you head out. Then, once you’re suited and sealed, you cycle the exterior side lock. I know it’s part of the station and not the vette, but … it could be embarrassing, or worse, if the lock were to jam with you on the outside. Cycling generally prevents that. There’s some loss of atmosphere, but given that you represent close to a billion creds, a little air is cheap insurance… .”

Trystin listened as duValya repeated, so close to word for word that she might have written them, the preflight manual’s instructions. Maybe she had. All the instructors seemed to be experts on something-and everything. “… is that clear?” “Yes, ser.”

“Fine. It’s all yours. I’ll watch. You can ask questions without penalty, this time, but if you forget something or have to ask a question later, I won’t let you forget it. Now … you go out first.”

Trystin sealed his suit, triggering his implant. “Comm check, Commander?” “Check, Lieutenant.”

The training corvettes essentially floated in heavy reinforced composite docks off the spiderweb of access tubes and locks. Since Chevel Beta was a largish chunk of rock with minimal gravity, providing artificial gravity outside the station proper would have been a waste of power.

Remembering all the briefings, after he exited through the narrow lock, Trystin immediately clipped the retractable tether line to the recessed ring by the corvette’s hatch.

Seemingly slumping in the ship cradle, the BCT-1O looked more like a partly deflated oval bladder made of metal than a ship.

“Good. Don’t ever forget that tether clip. You can make a real mess of yourself if you have to use attitude jets. Here they have enough power for escape velocity.” The commander’s voice rang hollowly in the armor’s speakers.

Slowly Trystin pulled himself across the corvette’s hull, noting replacement plates, and the many signs of repairs, such as the scratches around the sensor bulges and the heavy layers of heatshield. As he had been instructed, he only did a visual inspection of the orientation jets and the mass thruster nozzles. He avoided even floating/bouncing behind the nozzles.

“Is there anytime you actually physically inspect the exterior of the thrusters?” he asked.