Artifact Space by Miles Cameron

Author:Miles Cameron [Cameron, Miles]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Orion
Published: 2021-04-13T16:00:00+00:00

Nbaro’s first mission was a simple drop down into atmosphere, where she was assigned to land at one of the industrial spaceports that ringed the megacity of New Soweto. From space, as the megacity was in darkness, it looked like a haze of light bigger than anything on New London, and the air traffic was as thick in the atmosphere as the space traffic at Kili Station.

Nbaro was co-pilot with the skipper, so all she had to do was keep the communications flow going. Lubumbashi Control picked them up from Kili Control, and they landed on an ultra-modern magnetic rail system that mimicked the ship’s launch and landing tubes but with a much more comfortable deceleration.

‘I hate letting a computer fly my craft,’ Skipper Truekner said.

Landing into the rail system was all automated. Despite his words, he leant back and let go of the yoke after the green light on the computer said that Lubumbashi Control had the landing.

‘So,’ he said. ‘How’s Tactics?’

‘Really fun,’ she said.

‘That’s an excellent answer. What’s fun about it?’

‘It’s a game,’ she said. ‘I like games.’

He nodded, scanned his instruments by old training, and tried not to watch the landing lights that the craft was approaching at breakneck speed.

‘It’s not a game when people die,’ he said. ‘I know, I know. I’m paid to say that sort of thing to junior officers, OK? What have you learned that interests you?’

‘A lot about using the railguns to launch us,’ Nbaro said. ‘I’ve been thinking about ways to put a reflective or obscuring cloud just in front of us, so that we can make a burn or two without being seen.’

He looked interested.

‘If one tube launched sand while the other tube launched one of ours,’ she said. ‘Or just one second behind, to leave behind a pre-laid screen.’

‘I’m liking all that.’

‘I’ve been looking for ways to run cold, to hide manoeuvres, to hide even the launch of the torpedo. It’s all fun.’

‘Somehow I knew you were the right person for the job,’ he said. ‘And … we’re down.’

They’d missed the landing. Nbaro laughed.

‘It’s funny,’ she said. ‘It’s funny how little we actually know about how to fight a war in space.’

Truekner was raising his couch.

‘It’s a fine thing,’ he said. ‘We’re really just a glorified merchant marine. War in space is a terrible idea. People will die, ships will die …’

‘You think it’s coming, don’t you, sir?’

‘Why do you ask that, Nbaro?’

She looked over at him. ‘I see you worry. Sir.’

He nodded. ‘The New York and the Hong Kong,’ he said. ‘Every day I expect to hear it’s the Dubai, too.’ He shrugged. ‘Yeah, kid. Someone’s coming for us. I want to be ready. You know why I always have two birds on the line every time we go to Battle Stations? I’m practising for the time it’s real. You know why we always load with torpedoes? Because we’re practising for the time it’s real. Even down to loading the damn torpedoes.’

‘Yes, sir.’

He shrugged, unbuckling his harness. ‘I’m just a crazy old man.

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