Shipstar by Benford Gregory & Niven Larry

Author:Benford, Gregory & Niven, Larry [Benford, Gregory]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 2014-04-08T00:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-EIGHT

Captain Redwing started crisp and sharp, fresh from coffee, with the same questions he always used when taking staff through the planning stages of a new, untried operation. Standard questions, but always able to surprise.

They had walked through Karl’s simulations and Ayaan Ali’s trajectory analysis. The Specialty Artilects had put their own stamp upon the general plan, though as always they did not make judgments beyond a probability analysis. Their deep problem, Redwing thought, was that they were so much like human reason with far better data—and yet so forever uncertain.

The worst way of reviewing options was to let people make speeches. Questions shook them up, made them come forth.

He looked at the entire assembled crew around the main deck table. “First question: What could we be missing?”

Karl Lebanon answered. “Their defenses.”

Fred Ojama said, “Ayaan Ali and I did a depth scan for those. Nothing obvious, like the gamma ray laser.”

Beth Marble set her mouth at a skeptical slant. “They could launch craft against you from anywhere.”

Petty Officer Jam scowled. “I’ve seen curiously few flights above their atmosphere envelope. They don’t seem to launch into space often.”

Clare Conway said, “Speaking as copilot, the obvious way to launch is to just pop a craft out on the hull side. It’s moving at hundreds of klicks a second right away, so you zoom around the rim. Come at us from that angle.”

Ayaan Ali nodded. She was wearing a metallic blue scarf over her hair and resisting the urge to toy with it, Redwing noticed. This crew was good at suppressing tension and not allowing it to change the group mood. That had been a high selection criterion. She spoke slowly. “We would have time to deal with that. I am able to turn the ship quickly now. We’ve learned how to use the magnetic torque technique to gain angular momentum from the fields above their atmosphere. And we may be difficult to spot, since we will be in the jet.”

Karl nodded. Redwing saw they had now mentally stacked up the unknowns, which was a good moment to hit them with more. “Second big question: How will this not work?”

Silence. Beth said quietly, “If they have something to prevent tipping the jet awry. Something we can’t guess at now.”

“They’ve surprised us plenty before,” Ayaan Ali added.

Karl added, “Right. They’ve had lots of time to think about this.”

Clare said, “What maybe won’t work? Me. I may overestimate my ability to pilot through the jet. Beth, how bad was it?”

“An endurance test, mostly. I was driving straight up the bore, staying near the middle. Had to stay on the helm every second of the way. The big problem was keeping SunSeeker stable in the plasma turbulence. The jet is far denser than anything this ship and its magscoop were designed for. I had to max everything we had.”

Redwing wanted to add, And we nearly overheated, too, but he said instead, “Sounds hard. But we’re thinking of a fast flight through, yes?”

“I think so,” Beth said, looking at Redwing, who nodded.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.