, or a bookstore near you.(Readers from the United Kingdom and abroad can also find Clouds of Darkness on Amazon.co.uk )
from Chapter 5
THE NEXT DAY, COOK found himself staring down a dim corridor, feeling the gentle vibrations of the small ship’s engines beneath his feet. He’d looked forward to the trip to Looking Glass. It was a welcome break from the grim routine of command in wartime. But beginning the journey back to his ship he felt more worn and tired than when he’d left her, and they still had a long sail ahead of them.Clearly, the old Mulligan-class escorts were not built for luxury. The narrow corridor ran the length of the ship from the air lock aft, over the engine room and past the upper crew quarters all the way to the bridge. Four feet wide, only the shortest crewmen could walk its entire forty-meter length without hunching over. The handholds along the side, installed to give the crew quicker movement along the spine when the gravity was cut, were green with tarnish. The blandness of the walls was broken only by the occasional discoloration of a past water leak. Cracking floor tiles carried the full burden of nine decades of service and two decades of neglect. The Mulligans were once the scourge of pirates everywhere. Now resurrected for use as couriers, they ferried Terra’s military elite from one theater to another, and from the command centers eastward to the Front.
The escort’s control room was a mess. Charts littered the auxiliary controls, and the pilot’s station was covered with the half-eaten remnants of dinner. Eight feet across, the bridge barely had room for the two stations placed at the controls. The accumulated clutter nearly sealed the two control officers into their station seats, and stood in marked contrast to the meticulous trim her commander kept on the rest of his ship. From his vantage just aft of the entry ramp, Cook took a deep breath and smiled. His first command had been an escort, a newer and sleeker model than this one, to be sure, but an escort just the same. And his own control room would have failed the inspection of a blind old pirate, much less a Cozzie blueshirt. It was good for him to see how the rest of the fleet lived, he thought. Perspective was always healthy. And right now, he could use a hearty dose of nostalgia, as well. Looking toward the bridge, he smiled to see the small ship’s two officers busily engaged in navigating the escort back toward the front, and began walking down the corridor toward the bridge.
“HEADING STEADY,” THE navigator reported, checking his instruments. “Guide-beacon constant at 050; ‘lights-out’ beam still active.”
“Roger,” responded the pilot. “Holding steady as she goes.”
“Hear anything from our VIP’s, Steve?”
“Not a thing. Both were sacked out, last I checked. Near as I can tell, You-Know-Who got his tail rearranged by some of the Brass. Probably took the fight out of him, for a while.”
“Goddamn,” grinned the navigator. “Bet the lizards would be sliming down their chins to hear that. Hope he doesn’t stay down like that for too long.”
“His traveling companion would probably second the motion, don’t you think?” The two young blueshirts laughed roguishly, and turned their attention back to their instruments.
COOK STEPPED ONTO the entry ramp and paused. In the midst of chaos, routine and training would hold even the creakiest ship together. But the pride an officer took in his command could make even the smallest ship sparkle. The evidence of this young lieutenant’s promise was apparent even through the aging fixtures and superficial clutter. Though cracked, the floor tiles gleamed; even the tarnish-stained hand holds shined as if ready for inspection. Upon first coming aboard, Cook had wondered if the last bits of spit and polish were for his benefit; if so, it would not have been the first time a junior officer had gussied up his ship to impress a visitor. But the routine on board was too fixed, too well ordered, to be anything but standard. Besides, he’d picked the ship at random. No young blueshirt could have trimmed his ship this well in just a few short hours. Smiling at the memory of simpler days, he turned his attention to the two young officers at the controls.
THE NAVIGATOR SEARCHED the mass of star charts and pulled a broad vista on the console in front of him. An intense round of calculations on the computer left him scratching his head.
“Charts say we’ve got shoals ahead, composition unknown. Rocks and ice, most likely. Pretty big patch, too.”
“Give ’em a wide berth, don’t you think?”
“Well, charts also say we just passed through the middle of binary star system—Class Double-G,” replied the navigator. He looked from one side of the forward viewing window to the other, then turned his head to peer out the portside porthole.
“I sure as hell don’t see any star system,” continued the navigator, exhaling loudly. “So either we’re lost, or the charts are fucked to high heaven again.”
“Mike, don’t do this to me. Not again. And not now, for God’s sake!”
“Sure beats the hell out of me what we’re going to do, Steve. Go round the shoals, we’re likely to wind up in the middle. Plow straight ahead, and bam! And if something happens with You-Know-Who on board, it’ll mean our hides. Assuming, of course, that we actually live through the encounter with that maverick herd of asteroids out there...somewhere.”
“Oh, Christ— ”
“Problems?” Cook stepped out from the shadows, and walked toward the small bridge. After a brief flash of panic at the prospect of having a senior line commander snooping around their bridge, relief flooded the faces of the young officers.
“Commodore Cook— !” gasped the navigator, an ensign on his first duty.
“We have a problem with the charts,” the pilot interrupted. Cook gave him a quick sizing glance. The lieutenant had a lone, dark blue duty stripe on his sleeve, showing a single tour of duty on a starship; his dark brown eyes were intelligent and intense. Though obviously concerned about his ship, he showed no signs of the numbing fear that often gripped junior officers when confronting a navigation problem alone, in the vastness of space.
“Nature and extent?” Cook’s commanding voice and gruff scowl immediately set the young blueshirts on the edge of their seats, concerned that the smallest mistake would become an indelible blot on their service records.
“The chart doesn’t conform to the observable cosmography,” the pilot replied, in his most objectively analytical tones. “Specifically, we seem to have missed a binary star system that’s on the map, directly on our course line. At present we can’t be certain where we are. The extent of the failure is unknown—and to be honest, Commodore, I cannot rule out human error as a contributing factor. But our orders are to maintain radio silence until the next checkpoint, so we can’t call and ask for directions.”
Cook moved some clutter from the auxiliary station and took a seat on the edge of the console, pretending not to notice the embarrassed glances exchanged by his young companions.
“Please...” The navigator started to rise from his station. Cook stopped him with a wave of his hand. The commodore glanced over the chart of the surrounding skies before bending over to look outside the ship through the forward window bay.
“You can’t really trust charts, you know,” he said absently, looking first ahead to port, then toward starboard, his brow furrowed in concentration. “At least not these charts. Actually, not the first charts of any new skies. They’re usually made in a hurry by some junior mapmaker and rushed to print before anyone checks them again.”
Cook stood and eased his way behind the station seats to the starboard side of the ship, where he peered through the porthole.
“Problem is,” he continued, “we need accurate charts, and we need them all yesterday. That’s an impossible order to fill, so don’t blame the chartmaker. Just don’t trust his work. Leastways, don’t bet your life on it.”
Cook turned and smiled wryly. “That’s why the Crutchtans will always have an advantage fighting in their own skies. They’ve had a millennium or two to iron out the wrinkles in their maps, while we’re left plodding through the heavens, hoping we don’t run into anything solid along our way. It may not prove decisive, but then a strategic advantage in war is often nothing but an accumulation of little edges, all added together.”
The navigator and pilot both nodded attentively. They both hoped that the Commodore would eventually get around to solving their navigation problem for them, but were too well disciplined to interrupt a senior officer in the middle of a lecture.
Especially this senior officer.
“Well then,” Cook said, his mood changing from philosophical to business-like. “I think I have this little muddle figured out.”
The pilot’s eyes widened; his navigator’s mouth opened, then closed in disbelief. Cook squinted as he looked out the forward observation window.
“Whoever scouted this sector obviously did so from that general direction,” the commodore pointed ahead and to port, “coming from Cosmic West. Probably made most of his readings visually, instead of relying on instruments.” He sat back down on the console.
“How do you know..., ” the pilot began.
“Comparing the chart with what we can see from here,” Cook continued, briefly scanning the chart again, “there seems to be a marked bias toward Galactic Center, toward our starboard beam. It’s variable, but definitely there. So as far as the missing star system is concerned— ”
He pointed over his shoulder. “There’s a single G-class star astern to starboard, another single-G ahead to port. Since Central Command has never lifted the standing order to note the location of all uncharted G-class star systems, this sort of sighting would have caught the eye of the dullest scout in the fleet. I suspect our chartmaker took a visual sighting from a few parsecs anticenter-east, mistook them for a single system, and took their mean distance for his positional reading.”
“But how— ”
“As far as our particular problem is concerned—and as a rule of thumb on any chart of unsettled skies, for that matter—I’d trust a hazard indicator before I’d trust the marked position of any star system. Since they rarely appear on your screens until it’s too late to avoid trouble, shoals are a menace to any ship in the vicinity, and a survey scout would place the shoals properly if he did anything right at all. So I suspect that the chart’s anticenter plottings are accurate enough. And if you ask my advice,” Cook smiled inwardly, knowing full well that anything he said would be taken for divine truth by his two young companions, “I’d assume that the shoals are right where the map says they are, but I’d still bear a tad to port and give them a wide berth, even if it does make our route a little less direct. Twelve points over 155 should do quite nicely, I would think. Just hold the course until the shoals show on your instruments, then make whatever adjustments you need.”
Both junior officers kept a stunned silence; Cook scratched his head and smiled sheepishly, trying his best not to look smug.
“Of course,” he said at last, “it’s not my ship, so it’s not really my decision.” He rose to his feet; the younger officers were too startled to move.
“Well, it’s been a long day, and I won’t trouble you any more. Maybe tomorrow, after we’ve passed the shoals, you can show me what this old escort can really do.” He chuckled gently, and started toward the ramp.
The lieutenant was the first to regain his wits.
“May I escort you back to your cabin, Commodore?”
Cook shook his head as he walked. “Achh—couldn’t get lost here if I tried. And I do have rather a lot on my mind. Thanks anyway.”
“Thank you, Commodore.”
Turning at the entrance ramp, Cook smiled wearily and nodded.
“Carry on, Mr. ....?”
“Cavanaugh, sir.”
“You run a fine ship, Mr. Cavanaugh. Carry on. Call, if I can be of any help. I used to run one of these ships, you know. But that was a long time ago.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
Cook disappeared into the shadows, heading back to the interior of the ship. The two young control officers said nothing until they heard the commodore’s footsteps echo past the forward hold, heading aft toward the mess room. The instant they were sure he’d gone, Cavanaugh craned his neck looking out the forward observation window while his navigator ran a quick positional check on a half-dozen nearby stars.
“My God—all a point or two off…or three or four. Every one off to starboard, just like he said.
“Looks like a damn bunch of stars to me. Can’t tell one from another. Not without a map.”
“All that, from one glance. Didn’t even look at an instrument. Not a single fucking one.”
“Mike— ”
“I know – come to port— ”
“Heading 155, north 12 degrees.”
“Aye aye.”
“Christ.”
“You know, I’d heard stories...but I didn’t— ”
“Me neither.”
* * *
© 2011 by Jeffrey Caminsky
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