Chapter Three
The trip out to the secluded spacedock where the Prometheus had undergone its refit took more than an hour aboard a high speed shuttle. Bobby Dare was our pilot. Although he wore his beard neatly trimmed and his sun-bleached hair pulled back into a conservative ponytail these days, Bobby hadn’t changed much since our return from forced exile. He still radiated the same aura of a free spirited surfer with excess energy to burn. Morgana and I hadn’t seen Bobby in over a month and he kept up a running narrative for most of the trip, filling us in on everything we had missed since we’d last seen him. Like the other members of the original crew who had decided to stay on with the ship after our return to Gilead, Bobby had found a home aboard the Prometheus. We were his family and he didn’t want to be anywhere else. His face glowed as he described all of the changes to the ship and how well the upgraded systems functioned. He was like a child with a new toy and his excitement was infectious.
Finally, after what seemed like much longer than the seventy minutes the trip actually took, Bobby shut down the main drive, silencing the low rumbling that had been vibrating through the craft since we left Haven. We had finished our deceleration burn and were now on final approach.
As Bobby casually flipped the shuttle end over end so that we were once again facing forward, Morgana and I stood up to peer through the main viewport while Max stayed in his seat. He was not a fan of space flight. In spite of the advances in artificial gravity technology, space travel made him nauseous. Once we were aboard a larger ship like the Prometheus he would be fine. Until then, he would remain stoically in his jump seat at the back of the cabin. Meanwhile, Morgana and I crowded together behind Bobby’s chair to look over his shoulders at our destination. We swept our gaze from side to side but we could see nothing ahead apart from the blackness of space. I glanced at his console and noted that there was nothing on his sensor screen either.
“Pretty good, isn’t it,” Bobby said, grinning up at us. “The platform is covered with the same ablative coating as the ship. You can be right on top of it and not even know it’s there.” He activated the comm system. “This is road runner calling coyote. I’ve got the sheriff with me and we’re heading for the corral. Somebody turn on the porch lights, please.” Bobby was a fan of vintage 2D videoplays known as movies. His current obsession was a genre called westerns.
Moments later, brilliant, interwoven strings of pearls blazed into existence against the velvet backdrop. The pearls were actually work lights arranged along the lattice of girders that made up the spacedock. I was surprised to see that we were laying less than five hundred meters off the platform and yet I hadn’t been able to see it.
Then, as my eyes adjusted to the sudden brilliance, I could make out the silhouette of the ship within the dock. Suspended in the center of the dock’s metal skeleton was my old ship, the Prometheus. Stretching just over one hundred meters from bow to stern with a thirty six meter beam, the ship was basically a flattened cigar shape with the bulge of the command superstructure projecting from its dorsal side a third of the way back from the bow. Just aft of the command ‘sail’ a pair of wide doors were folded open to allow spidery, mechanical loading arms to lower several large shipping containers into the ship’s main hold. When the Prometheus had been in service as an attack sub in the Gilead Fleet, the cargo bay had been the ship’s missile room. By removing the silos the ship’s destructive capability had been reduced, but not erased. Although it no longer carried a compliment of long-range, antimatter missiles, it was still a formidable fighting ship.
Bobby must have noticed the way I was looking at it because he brought the shuttle around in a wide arc and entered the forward end of the spacedock to take us on a slow pass along its hull.
As we drew alongside the ship I could begin to make out some of the details on its surface. If I didn’t know that it had just undergone months of modifications I would have thought that it was just another nondescript transport, and one which had seen better days at that. The stealth emitters had been redesigned so that they were incorporated into the plating and no longer made telltale bulges along the hull. Up close, numerous dents and score marks could be seen marring the hull which attested to years of difficult, interstellar travel. There were even several areas where mismatched plates had apparently been welded in place to repair damaged sections. What wasn’t obvious was that its appearance was nothing more than a cleverly crafted fiction specifically designed to make the ship seem unremarkable. In spite of its battered appearance, the truth was that just about every part of the ship, from its engines to its concealed weapons systems, was state of the art.
“I don’t see the new gun ports,” I commented as I studied the ship.
“They really did a good job, didn’t they?” Bobby said. “The doors are so well integrated into the hull that you can hardly see them even if you know where to look. There’s one right there.”
Bobby pointed out a section of plating near the bow where one of the newly mounted guns was located. Even with him pointing directly at the door I couldn’t see any seems in the hull. No one would ever suspect the guns were there.
In spite of the ship’s original armament, the Prometheus had proven to be vulnerable along its flanks. The Gatling guns I’d had added to the ship’s arsenal would fix that problem. Although primarily designed as a defensive system to shoot down incoming missiles, the guns could also be deployed offensively against hostile ships that approached too near. Firing specially hardened, synthesteel rounds at a rate of up to six thousand per minute from their rapidly spinning magnetic induction barrels, the guns would be a nasty surprise for any unfriendly ship that tried to close on us.
As we continued past the command deck superstructure and approached the open cargo bay, I saw a space suited figure walking along the hull directing the loading arms. Even the bulkiness of an environment suit couldn’t disguise that ambling shuffle. I reached across Bobby to the comm system.
“Aren’t you supposed to be finished loading our cargo by now?” I said. “We’ve got a schedule to keep, mister.”
Lucky Dobbs, the ship’s supply officer, twisted slowly toward us. When he caught sight of the shuttle he tossed a casual salute in our direction.
“I would have been but somebody called my partner away to pick up some bloody VIP,” his voice spoke to us from the ship’s console. “You know the type—self important stuffed shirt who thinks he runs the whole kingdom.”
I grinned. “If I bump into anyone like that I’ll be sure to let you know. So, how’s it going?”
“We’re almost finished. Most of this last minute stuff is for your new wiz kid’s science lab. He sure does have a lot of toys.”
“Try not to break any of them,” I said. “I’ve seen what he can do and I have a feeling we might need his talents.”
“Another one of your famous hunches, huh. Well, we’ll make sure he gets everything he needs. Ian’s got an engineering team standing by to finish installing the last of his stuff as soon as it’s aboard.”
“Doesn’t he want to oversee that himself? He’s usually very picky about any new equipment being installed on ‘his’ ship.”
Lucky laughed. “He already looked over the specs and didn’t see anything needing more than standard power feeds. Anyway, wonderboy’s already told us where he wants everything to go, so all the techs have to do is bolt it all in place and connect it to the ship’s power grid. Besides, Ian’s busy giving the crew down in engineering a hard time—something about the antimatter injector for one of the new engines being out of alignment by a few microns. I hear he’s having them pull the entire core and realign it.”
That was typical of our engineer. He was never satisfied until everything was perfect.
“As long as he’s got everything put back together by the time we’re ready to leave,” I said.
“You know Ian. He’ll be working right up to the last second but e
verything will be in place when he’s done.”
“I’m sure. Since it looks like you have your hands full yourself I won’t keep you.”
“Somebody’s got to see that things get done right around here. I’ll stop by later and you can offer me a cup of coffee while we catch up.” Lucky gave us a parting wave and turned back to overseeing the last of the cargo that was being loaded as we drifted toward the far end of the ship.
Moments later we were approaching the stern. As Bobby brought us in a sweeping curve around the back of the ship, we found ourselves staring into the yawning mouths of the dual exhaust funnels for the new ion-pulse engines. Although they didn’t look any different from those of a typical ion drive, the tubes were in fact part of a revolutionary new drive system that had been developed under the government’s contract with Empyrean Technologies. Standard ion engines superheated deuterium until the electrons were stripped away from their atoms. The ionized gas was then directed out through the drive funnels to provide thrust for the ship. But our new engines used the precisely controlled annihilation of matter with antimatter to generate thrust. The resulting paroxysm produced many times the thrust of a standard ion drive while needing only a fraction of the fuel. According to the projections, the new engines would more than double the flank acceleration of our old drive system. Extreme care had to be exercised when using the drive however due to the immense ‘tail’ that would stream from the back of the ship under high acceleration. Anything caught in the path of that tail would be cremated. Because of the dangers involved in using such a drive, the Prometheus was the first vessel to be outfitted with ion-pulse engines.
I placed my hand on Bobby’s shoulder and gave an appreciative squeeze.
“Thanks,” I said as I continued to drink in the scene through the viewport.
“Welcome home, Jason,” Bobby said warmly and I realized that I really did feel like I was coming home. Turning back to the controls he brought the shuttle in an arc above the ship and back to the main gangway hatch.
“What’s it like inside?” I asked.
“Just like you wanted. Anyone who comes aboard won’t bat an eye. They’ll think we’re just a down on our luck transport.”
I looked up as Bobby brought us closer to the ship. Expertly firing short bursts from the shuttle’s maneuvering thrusters he quickly lined us up with the gangway hatch and brought us in to dock. The shuttle contacted the hull with a brief electrical flash of equalizing static charges and I heard the muffled thunk of the docking clamps locking us in place. A green light flashed on the bulkhead above the shuttle’s hatch and I pressed the door control while Bobby shut down the shuttle’s systems.
As the doors hissed open and we stepped into the Prometheus, I found myself somewhere that was both familiar and strange at the same time. When I had captained the ship as the infamous smuggler Cordass Pell, the crew had gone to great lengths to maintain it in top condition. For two and a half years this ship was more than just a cargo transport to us. It was our home, and we had taken loving care of it. Not only were all of its systems kept operating at top efficiency, but its decks were always polished, its bulkheads kept clean and freshly painted. It was a ship that had glowed with the pride of its crew.
Although it was still the same ship it had a different feel now. Scuff marks marred the once pristine decking while random dings and scrapes showed in the bulkheads. The paint had been chemically aged so it appeared dull and faded. Random smudges stained the walls and dirt was stubbornly crusted in the corners. Taking a quick look down the port side passageway I saw that a couple of the overhead lighting panels were dimmed and one was out completely. It was not exactly the appearance of a ship on its last legs, more like one that had fallen on hard times, another victim of the depressed economy. It was perfect.
With the shuttle secured, Bobby excused himself to head to the cargo hold just as a familiar figure appeared from the main stairwell.
“Jason, welcome aboard!” Chris Conrad called as he stepped onto B deck and caught sight of us. We grabbed each other in a brief bear hug.
“It’s great to see you!” I said when I released him and stepped back.
Chris beamed, his broad grin making him look even younger than he was. Even though he was only a couple of years younger than me, I always thought of him as a kid. He and his best friend, Mark Sooth, had been the youngest members of our original crew. When we first met, they were a pair of college students who had run afoul of Sebastian’s draconian policies by simply trying to exercise their right to free speech. In spite of their youth, Chris and Mark’s brilliance had quickly made them valuable members of our shipboard family and I was very happy to have them back. Apart from the fact that they had proven themselves to be competent and dedicated crewmen, I had a more personal reason for being pleased that they were here. The simple truth was that Chris and Mark, as well as the other members from our original crew, were my only true friends. As king I could only get so close to anyone. I had hundreds of acquaintances I interacted with on a regular basis, many of whom I was friendly with, but there was no one I really considered to be a friend. No matter how friendly those exchanges were, there was always a subdued formality to our interactions. It was impossible for people to ignore the fact that I was the king of the most powerful nation in the galaxy. But the people who had crewed with me for those years when we had eked out a living as a trade ship had no hidden agendas. They had no ulterior motives for seeking out my company other than simply because we were friends. And as I thought about my friends now, I realized how much we each needed that connection in our lives. We had all shared a life altering experience that bound us together as closely as any blood relationship.
“Well, what do you think?” Chris asked, gesturing around proudly.
I looked around and traced a gouge in the bulkhead with my fingers.
“Sad,” I said eventually.
“Yeah, I know what you mean. It hurts to see her looking like this.” An excited smile slowly grew on his face. “But underneath she’s a real monster. I almost feel sorry for any pirate that tries to take us on.”
“Almost,” I said, surprising myself with the hard edge I heard in my own voice. “But that’s why we need the ship to look like this. We’re the bait and, if necessary, the trap.” I found myself thinking about the missing crew from the latest transport ship the pirates had attacked. I knew all too well what it meant to be forced into a life of slavery. These bastards had to be stopped.
From the way Chris was looking at me, my feelings must have shown on my face.
“You know, Jason, you’re actually kind of scary when you get that look in your eyes.”
“Just putting on my game face,” I said. “Speaking of which, I’m late for my appointment with Doc Jacobs.”
“And I’ve got to get to the avionics bay,” Chris said. “Testing turned up a minor discrepancy between the primary navigation array and one of the redundant sensors. It looks like the sensor wasn’t recalibrated properly after the new software was installed, but we should have everything sorted out by the time we’re scheduled to leave.”
“That’s good. I should be finished with Doc in an hour or so.” I turned to Morgana. “I’ll see you on the bridge when I’m done.”
“I’ll be using the time to get familiar with the new sensor system,” Morgana said. She held up a data stick. “I was able to get recordings of the engine signatures for each of the ships that have gone missing. Once I upload this into our system we can compare the power field signatures of any ships we come across with what we have on file and know exactly which ships we’re tracking.”
The electromagnetic field put out by the drive system of a starship is as unique as a person’s fingerprints. Unless the pirates completely replaced the engines aboard the ships they had stolen, we would be able to identify any of the ships they were using as soon as we were close enough to scan them.
Finally,
I looked behind me to let Max know he could head down to his quarters and get settled in, but he was already gone. Although I had seen him exit the shuttle right behind us, Max was nowhere in sight. He had to have slipped away while we were talking. It was typical of him to want to get right down to work without drawing attention to himself.
I turned back to the others and we said our goodbyes before each of us headed off in a separate direction.