Interregnum (Children of Steel Book 2) Read online

  "This is Aux Helm. Maneuver completed. Bow orientation now bearing one five two, azimuth two nine three. Out."

  I switched the main com off mic as Jeri came on the line.

  "Not bad, Raj, but why so slow?"

  "Fuel conservation. Plus I didn't want anyone to feel it."

  "Okay, but don't worry about fuel so much next time, if it's an issue I will let you know. As for feeling it, anything up to ten percent of maximum on the thrusters won't be felt by the crew, and you have to get over fifty before they'll really be bothered by it. Above eighty and you'll want to tell them to strap in or hang on."

  "Okay" I replied.

  "Next question, why didn't you roll it first?"

  "I didn't want to mess with the sensor and intel people too much."

  "Okay, that was the right thing to do. But always do that which you feel safest with. The only people who you really need to worry about are the defense and offense crew when it comes to ship orientation. The others may bitch, but if it is going to make your life hard, ignore them. But the weapons crews must be listened too. If they suddenly ask you to roll the ship, roll it."

  "Got it," I replied.

  "I have the con," Jeri said.

  "You have the con."

  I called up the course plan and displayed it on my helmet, as I waited for the engine burn. Our course led to Tualatin Five, which I would not have been able to pick out of the background stars if it didn't have a designator tag pinned to it on the main display. All of the planets and planetoids were marked. I could see Tualatin Six, which was about a quarter of the system away, and Tualatin Four, which was on the far side of the sun.

  The system data entries told me that Tualatin Six was a Jovian-sized gas giant with eleven moons, and that Tualatin Four was a terrestrial planet about twice the size of earth, with no moon and a Venus-like atmosphere.

  Turning my attention back to Tualatin Five, our destination, I zoomed in on the planet and called up the system data entries. Tualatin Five was a gas giant, a bit larger than Neptune, but not much. It had four moons, one of which was much larger than the others and in a highly elliptical orbit, with its orbital plane canted thirty-eight degrees off the plane of the ecliptic.

  That moon was designated as Tualatin Five-D, and was the one getting the most focus from the sensor teams.

  "So, is Five-D our target?" I asked Jeri.

  "The general consensus is that it stands out, so it's the most likely target."

  "What do the sensor techs think?"

  "Helm to Sensors, Intel," I heard Jeri ask over the main com, "What's the current guess on our target?"

  "Intel. Same as before, still no signals."

  I keyed my mic on the command circuit, "Aux Helm. Shouldn't you have picked something up by now?"

  "Intel. Either they're all dead, or they're running a hidden installation. We only broke out one hundred and three minutes ago, so if they saw our breakout flash and sent an immediate response, we won't hear anything for about ten minutes from now."

  "Think we will?" I asked.

  "Sensors. They'd be crazy not to. We broadcast a message at Tualatin Five as soon as we had identified the planet to tell them who we are and why we're here."

  "Time will tell us," the exec's voice said coming over the command circuit. "Helm and Aux Helm, I want you to plot least time intercepts to Tualatin Five-D. Give me a couple of options. Report when ready."

  "Yessir," I heard Jeri respond.

  "Aux Helm, Yessir." I replied as well.

  It took me five minutes to come up with two different solutions, one of which was a max thrust option, all the way into orbit. The other was only different because it put us in an orbit over the moon's equator. I sent it up to Jeri, as helm command she'd present the options to the exec.

  She sent me hers at that point, and her max thrust option was the exact same as mine, which made me feel good. Her equatorial orbit was a bit closer than mine, and she'd also included a polar orbit option, as well as a gravity sling option that dove directly at Tualatin Five. That last one was the most interesting, as it allowed for us to power down the engines and coast in, with a correction burn on the far side of Tualatin Five, which would not be visible from the moon. It wasn't as fast as either of the previous options, but it would still get us there fairly quickly, and they wouldn't see us coming until we did the orbital injection burn.

  "Jeri, what's with the last option?" I asked her over our private channel.

  "Just covering our bases, they may not be friendly, Raj, plus its good practice."

  "Incoming message, Sir!" The communication operator, a female fox suddenly said.

  "Let's hear it," the Exec ordered.

  "Mayday, Mayday. This is the Sagert Company mining installation, we are on the fourth moon of the fifth planet. We are low on food, supplies, medical, everything. Please assist. Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. This is the Sagert Company mining installation, we are on the fourth moon of the fifth planet. We are low on food, supplies, medical, everything. Astra, please assist. Message repeats."

  "Guess they got our message," The Exec said. "Bridge crew, standby for orders."

  I heard him go off com then, and I guess he was talking with the captain. A minute later he came back on the bridge circuit.

  "Sensors, do you have a fix on their location?"

  "Yessir! Sending it to Helm."

  "Thank you. Helm, maximum burn, least time option, execute in five minutes."

  "Aye, Sir! Preparing to maneuver, do you want me to announce it, Sir?"

  "I got it."

  "Attention all hands! Attention all hands!" The exec had switched to the Astra's ship wide announcement circuit. "Secure for maneuvers and maximum burn in five minutes. Repeat, secure for maneuvers and maximum burn. Section heads, orders to follow. That is all."

  I looked at the plot, Jeri had already started to move the ship to point it at the new vector, it was a small enough change that she'd have it done by the five-minute mark.

  "Engineering, any issues with the engines today?" The exec asked.

  "No, Sir, Engineering reports all green."

  I listened in on the command circuit as all of the sections reported secure, then watched as the burn clock counted down to zero and the engines went to maximum thrust.

  I was surprised by just how much I felt it; I was also surprised when we lost gravity. I'd never been on the Astra during a maximum thrust burn before. The two times it had happened that I was around for, I was flying a shuttle, so I wasn't onboard for the experience.

  "How long until we get gravity back?" I asked Jeri over the circuit.

  "We'll get twenty percent back in thirty minutes, once the engines have hit full power."

  "It takes the engines thirty minutes to hit full power?" I said surprised.

  "You might want to skip ahead to the engineering section of your course work, or ask Terease if you want the finer details in regards to the Astra, but while under max thrust all non-vital power is diverted to the engines until they spool up to one hundred and ten percent."

  I nodded and looked at the course plot again, three days until flip over, seven days until orbit. Well at least there was a clan meeting tomorrow.

  I did look it up when I got back to my quarters, while waiting for Cassandra. I already knew that full thrust was one hundred percent, and that maximum thrust was typically one hundred and ten percent. Those settings carried over into the shuttles.

  What I hadn't known was that in the Astra, the engines did take quite a bit of time to go from that one hundred percent, to the one hundred and ten. And that extra ten percent consumed a lot of power, so gravity was turned down to conserve power, and a lot of non-essential systems were also throttled back.

  I was even more surprised to learn about 'Emergency Thrust'. Emergency thrust was one hundred and twenty-five percent power and all other systems were shutdown, with all power going directly to the engines. If something didn't have a backup power source, it was offline
.

  It also took the ship's engines ninety minutes to reach that level of power, and depending on age and condition, they'd start to burn out after ten or so hours. The one advantage of emergency thrust was that you got to the max thrust power level in only ten minutes, and the one hundred twenty percent level in forty-five.

  The disadvantage was that it cut engine life by a significant amount when you used it. Oh, and once you went past one-twenty the chance of catastrophic engine failure became something to worry about.

  Hopefully this was an option I wouldn't ever see.

  5

  The next day was Saturday, and it was time for the monthly clan meeting. I was still on alert, though at this point no one was all that worried about an attack on the ship as we were inside the Eschar limit, and anyone dropping out here would fry their jump engines. Also, as far as we could tell, the location of this system was still a secret.

  Fortunately my schedule was such that I wasn't on duty during the meeting the evening, so attending wasn't an issue for me.

  The meeting was in one of the larger exercise spaces rather than Balizar's and Sharazad's quarters as we were hosting the leopards of the 2nd Heavy Infantry, now onboard the Astra.

  As meetings went, it was fairly typical. I didn't bother to figure out the male/female ratio, like I once would have, but it did appear that Mist, Danielle, Kyrani, and Selenna were enjoying a lot more attention than usual.

  "What are you thinking about, Raj?" Sharazad asked coming over to me.

  "How nice it is not to have to play that game anymore," I said with a smile and nodded towards Selenna who was definitely holding court.

  Sharazad laughed, "Yeah, I don't miss it either. So how is Cassy doing?"

  I opened my mouth to say "fine," but then I stopped and thought about it a moment.

  "That bad?" She said looking concerned.

  "I wouldn't say that," I replied, "but she is a lot more prone to threats of violence."

  "How so?"

  "When Colonel Johnson asked for me to help train some of the newer troops, she threatened him if he tried to borrow me for anything more than that."

  Sharazad shrugged, "Well, you only mated a few months ago, and he was your last commander."

  I shook my head, "She threatened to kill him in his sleep. And she meant it. It's not what I would have expected, she used to be a lot more about veiled threats, hints, you know, less about actual physical violence."

  Sharazad nodded.

  "Also, she's gotten a lot more physical with me," I related the elbow jabs, the attack with the mop handle, and a few other minor incidents. "To be honest, it seems like she's developing a temper," I sighed. "I don't mind her turning it on me, but I'm worried she might turn in on someone else."

  Sharazad nodded again, and thought for a moment, "I suspect that going through the prison camp she had to modify her behavior and become more physically aggressive to survive. I also wouldn't be surprised to learn that her inability to have any affect on her environment in the camps frustrated the hell out of her, and her temper is an outlet for that frustration."

  "Okay, that makes sense. But what do we do about it."

  "I'll talk to Balizar about it; just keep an eye on her. If it starts to get worse call one of us."

  I nodded.

  When everyone started to settle down to discuss any events or issues that had come up for any of the members, I went and found Cassandra. She was talking with a bunch of the females from the infantry, there were quite a few of course, but that really didn't surprise me. What did surprise me was that Aruba was there, and Cassandra wasn't growling at her.

  I came up behind Cassandra and put my arms around her, giving her a hug, I nodded to the other females who were all giving me that appraising look reserved for boyfriends and mates everywhere.

  "Greetings, Aruba," I said and nodded to her. "Congratulations on your promotion." I gave Cassandra a kiss on the top of her head, and relaxed a little when she leaned back into me. I guess the expected fireworks weren't going to happen after all.

  "Thanks, Raj. Let me introduce you to the girls," and she named each of the group that was there, introducing me to them.

  I smiled and nodded, saying hello to each as Cassandra just leaned back and purred, I realized that I had wrapped my tail around her, like I always did whenever we were close, and that gesture, plus my arms, which were still wrapped around her, had not gone unnoticed by any of them.

  When everyone found a spot to sit down after that, to listen to Balizar and Johnson, I pulled Cassandra onto my lap.

  "Were those looks of envy I saw?" I whispered in her ear.

  Cassandra purred, and gave a small nod, "I'd be lying if I said it didn't feel good. I got the best male around, and he's all mine."

  I rubbed the side of my head against hers from behind, "And I got the best female," I purred and gave her a hug.

  "Sometimes I worry about that hon," She whispered back to me.

  "Why would you do that?" I asked surprised.

  "Because I'm damaged goods, and you could have your pick of any of those."

  I blinked surprised. "Damaged goods? How could you say that, Cassy?"

  She sighed and I could feel her start to lean forward a little, "I did things, Raj,"

  I pulled her back against me, "We all did things, Hon. Just remember one thing."

  "What?"

  "That you're right, I could have had my pick of any of those, and I picked you."

  "You're too good for me, Hon," she purred and let herself be pulled back against me again.

  "Not good enough is more like it," I whispered and gave her ear a lick making her giggle and relax.

  I spent the rest of the meeting making sure she knew how I felt about her, and letting everyone else see as well, with a lot of very public displays of my very sincere love and affection. When we went back to our quarters afterwards Cassandra rewarded my efforts rather lustily.

  "So what got into you today?" She purred into my ear much later as we lay entwined on our bunk.

  "Being reminded that I got the best of the bunch," I purred back, smiling.

  Cassandra sighed and smiled back a little wanly, "Raj, there are things I want to tell you, things that I did, and well, I'm afraid of what you might think of me afterwards."

  "Cassy, I don't care," I said and I hugged her, "I mean that, I really don't care. It's in the past now, it doesn't matter."

  "But I don't know...."

  "Look, talk to Sharazad, she's a lot older, and more experienced. If you need to tell someone, tell her. If she thinks you should tell me, fine, then tell me."

  Cassandra looked at me for a moment, obviously in thought.

  "Why don't you want to hear it?" She asked curious.

  "Well, one of the reasons is that I'm afraid I'll get angry and want to go take it out on people who are probably all dead now anyway."

  "And the other?"

  I could feel my ears go flat as my own facial fur bushed out in embarrassment, "Well, I don't want to tell you all of the things that I did, some of them were pretty bad, Hon. I really don't want to end up comparing notes, you already have enough stupid things from my past to beat on me about after all. They're all in the past now, and that is where I want them to stay."

  She stared at me for a minute, not saying anything. I looked back at her; I'd tell her if she pushed, I just hoped she wouldn't.

  "I'll go talk to Sharazad," She said and sighed.

  "But one of these days I think I may want to compare notes."

  Now it was my turn to sigh.

  "But I think I can wait a couple of decades until then," she said smiling.

  I hugged her and purred. "Me too."

  # # #

  The ship ‘flipped’ and started the deceleration burn very early Monday morning. When I'd reported to my two-hour bridge watch, you could see Tualatin Five without any magnification by then, and it continued to grow rather quickly.

  We were taken off of
alert status that day, we were close enough into the gravity well now that a ship couldn't jump in anywhere near us. Of course attacks usually were really only a threat if you were carrying something worthwhile, or if there was a war on. And neither of those situations applied to us today.

  What we did end up doing on the shuttle decks was preparing for a rescue mission. As we'd gotten closer we'd learned about just how dire their situation was. We had rigged the two main cargo shuttles with stretchers and had packed them both full of medical equipment and food supplies.

  The assault shuttles would be carrying all of the 2nd H.I.'s medics, our medics, and two of the Astra's five doctors. Fifty members of the ship's security team were also going down, plus a couple of people from engineering and half of the intelligence analysts as well.

  I got assigned to fly the shuttle carrying the intelligence analysts, seeing as Cassandra was one of the one's going and I guessed they figured it would curtail any arguments.

  "How many people will we be evacuating?" Dave asked Chief Shandour as we went over our plans the day before we were scheduled to land.

  "Four hundred and seventy," Chief Shandour said.

  "That many? How many are we leaving behind?"

  "Well, we brought five hundred on the second module, so all of them at least."

  "No, I meant of the crew that's already there."

  "Oh, management figured it would be best to swap them all out. They need to be processed into Tri-Star, and let's face it; they haven't had a break in years, so it wouldn't be fair to leave any of the Sagert crew behind."

  "Wait a second," Carol asked, "We're taking out four-seventy, and that's all of them?"

  Chief Shandour nodded, "Apparently."

  "Do we have any idea how many were originally there?"

  "We think a thousand," he replied.

  Everyone looked at each other for a moment.