"Pilots, you will forgive the intrusion. Pilot Waitley, I assume you have not been to your room, and thus have not seen my request. I am in need of someone to pilot me to Codrescu, leaving yesterday, if not sooner. Your class schedule being clear for forty-three hours, I wonder if you might do the honors?"
Twenty-Five
Codrescu Station
Eylot Nearspace
They got to orbit in a sprightly fashion, Cherpa's spot on a hotpad meaning Theo slotted the ship into a launch window quickly, even if that window wasn't optimum from a fuel viewpoint.
yos'Senchul gave her initial lift plan a vague glance, praising it as textbook perfect. Then he'd gone on:
"This is not an exercise for finding fuel efficient launches, Pilot. Consider your necessity as a PIC to be conserve time, rather than energy. Once lifted, please find us the fastest way to docking. Consider me your client and your payload for an express delivery."
Pilot Waitley had followed those instructions implicitly, allowing the routing to include what was, as she considered it, an expensive burn from what would have been a higher elliptical orbit to arrive at the proper orbit more quickly.
Cherpa's boards felt more familiar than the shuttle's had last time she'd flown it—all the sim time she'd put in recently meant she expected a ship scan to include more than nearby space; expected it to have warning for Jump, expected what was in front of her. What she hadn't quite expected was how much of her scan was blocked by Eylot's presence, nor the sudden change in comm traffic when their destination rose above the horizon.
Theo spent some small time studying the scans to see if she could figure which ships were actually going somewhere in system and which were transiting to Jump points. Cherpa's navsystem was immensely helpful in this; she could, with the touch of a button, plot a dozen ships likely outbound and a few more than that likely inbound from Jump. As she watched the scan fill in, a ship seemed to fuzz into existence outside local space but—according to the scan grid—well inside regular Jump space. Experimentally she ran the scan back—yes. There was the place where the new ship wasn't—and, suddenly, without glare, flare, or warning, there it was.
"Second," she said to yos'Senchul, "is there a reason the ship that just showed up without Jump glare isn't tagged with a name or ID number?"
"Pilot, I will explore this. It does happen, from time to time, that what appears on screen is a 'ghost ship.' "
She glanced from her screen to him quizzically,
The instructor gave her a wry grin. "It is a bad name, I admit. I believe this term was coined by a Terran, many Standards ago."
He adjusted something on his board, frowned momentarily.
"The Liaden phrase is ekly'teriva, which would translate as the ship unseen, perhaps, or shadow ship. Still, there are times—the math is intricate well beyond simple piloting equations, as I understand it. Basically, there are conditions that may occur in Jump that can cast an image of a ship ahead or behind itself; though it is very rare."
Theo sighed, considering her threaded webwork, and wondering if that might enable her to conceivably get a handle on . . .
"Another, more likely, possibility is that there is a scan error, Pilot. A misplaced bit or byte in the computer memory, a flaw in the scan head, a tracking overlay retained. I have created an incident report and am scheduling the scanner for maintenance on our return."
Theo looked at the screen with the numerous objects and projected courses . . .
"That one has no course? The ghost ship?" Her hands said explain explain.
"As I say, scanner error, Pilot. The object in question seems to have the same proper motion Cherpa enjoys. For this to be true of a ship just out of Jump would be . . . extremely unlikely."
"Tag it," she said finally, "it annoys me."
"Local scan will not show it," yos'Senchul told her the obvious, politely.
"Good. Tag it Shadow Ship, then go to local scan."
"Pilot," the instructor acknowledged.
Eylot nearspace zoomed in, Codrescu grew larger, and the shadow ship dutifully dropped out of scan so she could concentrate on the mission to hand.
The place that was Codrescu wasn't pretty, and the approach wasn't neat and tidy, like bringing the shuttle into one of the three shuttle-only bays at the so-called "big orbit" a full planetary diameter higher.
While the basics of matching orbits were the same, the fact was that this was crowded space: ships and satellites, work crews, stockpiled supplies netted with warn-aways, and then more of the same, all of it in vague joint revolution around Eylot with the amalgamation that was Codrescu Station proper. Theo was glad of something concrete to do, and something to think about other than the security walk-around, the silly politics . . . and too, the pilot's card she'd have soon enough along with her degree, if the stupid planet didn't close the academy down first.
"Bringo wants to know who is that First Board on Cherpa?"
From the corner of her eye Theo saw finger flicks from yos'Senchul; glanced aside to see the confirming not required, chatter and tucked her affirm, yes into a reaching touch for the close-up of the red-and-blue-lighted swarm that was someone's unpressurized warehouse in orbit. That close-up brought with it fine detail of the thing's local motions: as long as Theo moved the ship along smartly there'd be no problem from that quarter. In a moment or two she'd killed off more of the overspeed and was on a slow drift toward a pattern of green and white lights, with flashing red at the corners. That would be Cherpa's immediate goal.
It didn't matter that she hadn't answered Bringo; in a moment a cascade of replies came at mixed volumes:
"Says here T. Waitley, Provisional Two, out of Anlingdin . . ." That voice, strong, professional, and likely male, from somewhere close; and "Thet'd be a tray-nee fline a awful cutesey line inter Berty Saixteen . . ." which was a lot weaker signal and harder to decipher—both probable gender and probable meaning—and then a "Welcome to Eylot's back pocket, Pilot. If you've lost sumpon it's prolly here and if you hain't lost anythin you darndy well will."
Over it all, crisp, clear, and unconcerned, came Station Ops: "Cherpa, your alignment is good and you've got the choice of manual or automatic clip-on. You're in Berth Sixteen space, we confirm. I suggest manual if you need points or automatic if you're getting hungry. Slot billing has started."
"Thank you on the confirm. I'm on manual in twenty-two ticks."
Cherpa was small and quick to answer the board, but Theo felt like the controls were a bit slow here in close orbit. The feeling grew as the clock ticked down and she made her approach to Berth Sixteen.
"No clip, Pilot," said her second; and she sighed. They'd jostled the bumpers ever so slightly and rather than trying to force things she backed away to try again.
"Thet-away, pert close, pert close," came the chatter and Theo wagged fingers in the direction of volume, heard yos'Senchul's "Yes, Pilot, confirm volume down," as she located her ship within the beacon field and, after a count to ten, tried again.
This time was worse rather than better, worse in that she could see even before the final moment of closing that the alignment was off, high.
"Does the station bounce?"
She looked directly at her second, whose hands were poised over, but not on, the board.
"Very good question," he said carefully. He scanned his instruments, observed her hands well away from the controls and sat back, flexing his new hand. The new hand was why she was Pilot In Command: yos'Senchul had been called to travel while the nerve meld was yet healing, and while his strength and base control were good, he lacked yet the hundred hours of adjustment and training that must be certified for flight.