Nelly made sure the Smart MetalTM did the right thing. Rather than wrapping itself around the launch like any normal cable would, the connection point between the cable and the collar just slid around the boat.
Kris managed to right the boat without flying them outside the red circle . . . just barely.
“Maria is out cold,” Jack announced. “She bounced her head off the bulkhead pretty badly.”
“I’ve got at least one other human off-line,” Nelly said. “It’s degrading our programming speed.”
Then it happened.
They flew into a wall.
A jet stream traveling at nine hundred kilometers an hour is not a wall in the air. Not exactly. But if you’ve been handling torrents of air going hither and yon and suddenly run into a stream of air moving with a single purpose and great speed on a course at nearly ninety degrees from your course, it can sure feel like a wall.
Launch 2 was a few hundred meters in the lead when it hit the wall and took off sideways. Kris and Launch 1 were next. Launch 3 must have been trailing them by nearly a half kilometer.
The Smart MetalTM was able to stretch to keep Launch 2 attached. It barely managed to keep Launch 1. There was no way it could handle Launch 3 as the distance to it suddenly unwound.
The cable to Launch 3 let go.
Kris immediately went into overdrive, her hands and feet pushing controls as she fought to keep the balloot from being ripped away from the two launches that still had a tenuous hold on it.
“Tighten the line,” Kris ordered Nelly. “Reel that sucker in.”
“I’m doing it, Kris. I’m switching what’s left of Launch 3’s cable to strengthen 1’s and 2’s.”
“Keep the balloot’s lip open,” Kris demanded. “We aren’t going to go through all this to get back with nothing to show for it.”
“It’s open right now. I’ll switch metal there once you two boats get yourselves back in formation.”
“Launch 2, hold your course as best as you can,” Kris said. “I’ll form on you.” As best as I can, she added under her breath.
“Nelly, give me a course.”
“Try this.”
Kris flew it
“I’m shortening up the cables,” Nelly said. “I’ve got the balloot fully open. Do you think it’s calmer in the jet stream?”
“Maybe it is,” Kris allowed, “but when we hit the other side of this puppy, all hell’s going to hit us.”
“Any suggestions?” Jack asked.
“Maybe if we fly out of the top of it,” Kris suggested. “Launch 2, prepare to take it upstairs.”
“Roger. We’ll try to climb out of this mess.”
“Nelly, give us a climbing course.”
The screen in front of Kris moved. Kris applied power and followed the pipper up.
“How much reaction mass do we have?” she asked.
“It looks like seventy-five percent,” her copilot shouted.
“Anything more is icing on the cake. Nelly, have you heard anything from Launch 3 since we lost it?”
“No, Kris, all the ionization down here makes radio communications out of the question.”
“Launch 3 was the old farts, wasn’t it?” Jack asked.
“Yes. If anyone can find his way back to the Wasp, it’s Chief Beni,” Nelly said, sounding more hopeful than confident.
“Let’s get this balloot back to the boat. Then we can worry about one launch,” Kris said, hating herself for being so mission-oriented at a moment like this. But that was what she was expected to do.
You look for the better of two goods, you avoid the worst of two evils. You are practical.
She hated herself for what she’d become.
Get out of your head. Fly this boat.
Kris flew. They did manage to get above the worst of the jet stream before they exited it. Kris was half-tempted to take them back down and try to fill the balloot to the rim, but she remembered all the comments she’d heard of late about her bucket of luck being down to the bottom.
“Nelly, can we match orbit with the Wasp from here?”
“If we work at it, Kris.”
“Let’s do it before this poor old boat breaks in half.”
“We did lose pressurization a while back,” the copilot pointed out.
“We did? I didn’t notice.”
“There was a horrible groan back here,” Jack said. “I thought we were going to fly all apart.”
“She wouldn’t dare,” Kris said.
“On you, maybe,” the copilot said. “I’m pretty sure she would have done it without a second thought on me.”
Kris enjoyed a tight chuckle. The flying was getting easier, which was to say it was just horrible, not suicidal. “How’s Maria?” Kris asked.
“Coming around,” Jack and Nelly said.
That was confirmed a moment later by sounds of puking on net.
And then choking.
“Jack!” Kris called.
“I’m working on it.”
Kris didn’t have to look, she could feel the boat move under her as Jack unbuckled himself from his seat, worked his way to the emergency equipment bin, and found a survival pod. By the time he came back forward, Penny had released Maria from her seat. Both of them then stuffed the petty officer into the pod, where she could remove her helmet and try to catch her breath through all the vomit.
Jack, being Jack, most likely also stuffed some other gear, like wipes and burp bags in with her. Jack was just that good.
“Nelly, have you lost Sheri?”
“No, she’s still on the wireless net. She’s doing her best to work through Maria’s problems. We’ve still got all four of us working that wire, Kris.”
“Good.”
A few minutes later, Nelly reported that she was closing the mouth of the balloot. “It’s eight-two percent full. We’ve got all kinds of stuff in there besides hydrogen and helium. That ought to provide the Wasp with some decent reaction mass, and some water.”
“Good,” Kris said, keeping the pipper in the middle of the flight path and trying not to think of what lay behind her.
She tried not to think, but it wasn’t working.
She’d never asked for the battleships to come along on her search. She would have happily settled for a few corvettes or other little boys like PatRon 10’s, but no. They were sailing with a Longknife, so they came loaded for bear.
And something a whole lot bigger than a bear bit their heads off.
And now, even as she was running for home, she couldn’t keep her team together. The chief had joined her at the Battle of Wardhaven. He’d been the best Captain Santiago had, and she’d passed him along to Kris when she needed him.
Yes, he was always looking for a way to avoid a fight and find a beer. He wasn’t the poster boy for a Navy career, but he was good at what he did, and that was what made him indispensable to Kris.
But he had gotten too close to one of those damn Longknifes, and now he was dead.
Colonel Cortez had made a mistake that should have landed him in jail for a few years. Yes, he deserved to sit and contemplate the sin of trying to steal an entire planet for the money interests who hired him. But he didn’t deserve to die for it.
He’d gotten too close to a damn Longknife, and it had killed him.
And Professor Scrounger, when he signed on to be the miracle worker for the Wasp’s supply department, had just been looking for a way to keep his ex-wives in the manner they had become accustomed to. Ask him, and he’d tell you all about it.
Only now you couldn’t. Like so many others who rubbed elbows with Longknifes, he was dead, and those damn Longknifes just kept rolling along, gathering people to them and dropping the dead bodies by the wayside.