Viewpoints critical, p.7
Viewpoints Critical, page 7
"Why yes," replied the admiral.
McCaine said nothing and leaned back in the stiff chair, almost tilting the front legs off the deck. Reagan was known for the use of straight-backed chairs to make subordinates uncomfortable, recalled McCaine. But someone forgot to tell him that they didn't have as much effect in low grav.
"Urn . . . ah . . . look, Captain. I understand some of your men are not terribly pleased about your scheduling of the new Recovery Vehicle ..." His voice trailed off.
"You mean, because I scheduled myself for the test hops and because I have the first salvage tour?"
"You must admit it's a bit unusual," noted the admiral suavely.
"The RV-2's unusual, Admiral, and so are the circumstances of its adoption by the forces." Damned unusual, thought McCaine. No pilot retraining, no full R&D, and only a sketchy addendum to the RV-1 basic flight manual.
The admiral nodded and said nothing. McCaine had him boxed. If Reagan said anything either way, he'd end up in trouble.
After a long silence, the admiral concluded lamely, "So I hope you'll consider all factors in phasing it into a normal operating schedule as soon as possible."
"Yes, sir. I certainly will."
Admiral Reagan nodded a curt dismissal. McCaine bounded down toward
the lower levels of the outer station edge where the salvage docks were. He had to detour through the third deck to avoid one section. Suited maintenance workers were sealing off a bulkhead with instaplast.
"Trouble?" he asked the senior NCO on the team.
"Outer bulkhead blew, Captain, right through to the shell."
"Casualties?"
"Don't have a handle on the totals, sir. Skitter maintenance crews. Maybe ten bought it right away, ten with pressure injuries."
Just another facet of the problem, thought McCaine. The whole damned station was ceramic and plastic, glorified sand and wood, because His Royal Majesty was saving all the scarce metal possible so that he could have massive royal transport for the Court, and, of course, some skitters and warheads to use on the Macedonians. Now ten people were dead, and ten more might be dying, not even on duty in the holy water war.
No one could hit anyone's home planet, not with the laser defense systems powered off the core-taps. But the defense systems used a lot of power, and that reduced the energy for industry. That meant the water from the Belt bergs became more valuable the longer the war went on. Which was why the loyal servants of His Royal Majesty were fighting the loyal servants of the Macedonian Technocracy with plastic outposts and jury-rigged salvage ships. The scarce metal left over from the Court went to the high-powered skitters.
Meanwhile, men and women died at the Trojan Points and elsewhere along the Belt when plastic shells failed and inadequate salvage ships crashed or skitter engines failed a million miles from anywhere.
McCaine walked into the ready room just behind Commander-Second Wyemouth.
Wyemouth turned on McCaine.
"Sir, I protest. As senior flight commander, either I or the senior test pilot should take the RV-2."
McCaine saw Wyemouth tightening his jaw.
Hell, the idiot's going to start screeching in front of the whole duty crew. McCaine took his Executive Officer firmly by the elbow, using the pressure points, and levered him toward the lock antechamber. "Mort, I think you're right. We should talk about it." McCaine half closed the hatch and let go of Wyemouth's elbow. "Are you proposing murder or suicide, Mort?" Wyemouth just stared at him.
"Despite your more recent flight hours, Commander, and those of Lieutenant Commander Heatherton, you are overlooking several points. First, neither of you has flown the RV-2, and in spite of all the noises made by Bu-ships, the RV-2 handles a lot differently from the RV-1. Second, I know that. I have flown it. And third, I am the commanding officer, and I have to answer for what happens. Is that clear?"
"Perfectly clear, sir," muttered Wyemouth through clenched teeth.
"Mort," said McCaine exasperatedly, "stop making a jackass out of yourself. You don't have a thing to lose. If I'm wrong, I'm the one who gets relieved."
From the glint in Wyemouth's eyes, McCaine could see that he was getting through.
"Yes, sir," answered the Executive Officer, more quietly.
McCaine opened the hatch into the ready room and moved up in front of the status board. The skitters had launched at fifteen past. The Macedonians had sent interceptors after the first launch, with a cruiser hanging back, probably the Alexander. Anytime, there'd be some junk for a pickup. He gestured to Lyn.
"Let's go."
The two of them walked through the ready room, through the locks, and into the waiting tug. McCaine took his time strapping in before beginning the checklist. Lyn was already going through her list. The tech's position was to the pilot's right and back a half meter, with a narrow aisle between the two seats. The staggered arrangement allowed McCaine an unencumbered sweep through the bubble canopy.
"Primus Operations, this is Angel Zero Three. Ready for lift," snapped McCaine through his helmet chin mike. His visor was open.
"Angel Zero Three, you're clear. Caution for traffic off north axis."
McCaine triggered the forward trim jets with a momentary burst and let the outpressure from the dock and jets throw the RV-2 clear. He could feel the heaviness and extra power of the modified ship. But no amount of new plastic and remodeling could disguise the smell and sense of the weariness the tug incorporated, thought McCaine.
He checked the main screen for the departing skitters, then flicked the heads-up display tab, which projected the console instruments onto the lower edge of the canopy. That way he could pilot head out and still use the full board. Some pilots never got the hang of it.
Personally, he suspected Mort Wyemouth was one of them.
McCaine tuned in the guard monitor, now just static, as well as the skitter attack frequency. He checked both the screen and the actual space off the station's north axis. Both his eyes and the screen showed the last skitters well clear of the station.
As McCaine eased the tug into a minimum fuel curve toward his recovery station, he thought about Primus ... its existence and mission.
Right now the job was to hold the area around the gigantic hunk of ice called Anemone until the Royal Engineers could complete the drive installation on the iceberg. Then an attack team with a cruiser would shepherd Anemone for the first leg of the spiral inward to Darneill. The middle leg of the transit would be without armed escort. The fuel cost would be too high for either Darneill or the Macedonians.
Off Darneill, the gross retro-rockets would waste more water to brake the iceberg and orbit it. Finally, the Royal Engineers would parcel out the ice for attack fuel processing and for the industrial needs of the dry planet below.
Macedonia didn't need the water. At least, they professed they didn't, but intended to make the getting of it expensive for the Darneillian monarchy.
McCaine broke off his reflections and began to concentrate on the message traffic of the skitter attack channel. While straining to hear the skitter pilots, he took a quick look sideways at Lyn, who was running another test pattern on her console. Even in a shipsuit, she was striking.
He turned up the volume on the skitter frequency.
"Pegasus Lead, this is Peg Two. Aborting. Mace splinter in the tanks."
First casualty of the watch, thought McCaine as he keyed his transmitter.
"Peg Two, this is Angel Three. Interrogative immediate pickup."
"Negative. Have slosh for turn and coast."
"Roger, Peg Two. We'll be waiting."
McCaine gave the main thrusters a tweak to increase the fractional glide toward the skitter return lane. Peg Two's immediate use of his fuel to get into a return glide would save McCaine both work and fuel, meriting His Majesty's gratitude for energy conservation.
McCaine wasn't totally grateful, all things considered, because accomplishing what he had in mind was going to be stickier with a live crew—not that he wished Peg Two any more trouble. Coasting back to a plastic station with the hope that a plastic tug could pull you in could hardly be the most comforting thought.
McCaine scanned the long-range screen for the distant blip he knew would be pulling away from the skitter line around Anemone. When it appeared, he locked the tracking computer on it and punched in the request for ETA and PA coordinates.
Better yet. Peg had overdone it with the thrust and would be coming in high and fast.
The Princeps system was an old one, a strangely bright sun located at the fringe of Type II suns where even the space between planets seemed to have a luminosity. Despite the extensive asteroid dumpings of the Belt, the system was low on dust, and the Royal Astronomers could only explain the light level with a speculative and intricate fold-around theory.
McCaine snorted. Trust an academic to come up with an elaborate theory instead of saying he didn't know.
Against the bright background, he still couldn't see the disabled skitter, but the screen showed Pegasus Two with a continuing minimal acceleration.
"Peg Two, this is Angel Three. Interrogative thrust."
"Angel Three, Peg Two, Slosh still dripping. No fuel control. Jettison shears inoperative."
"Roger. Be ready for a bit of a shake-up."
McCaine flicked the thrusters, fingertips tapping the control studs through the skinsuit's glove tips, trying to match the course correction readouts on the panel. His outside gauntlets were strapped back flush against his suit forearms, and the helmet face slots were irised open.
Some of the Finance Ministry planners had suggested going to unpres-surized deep-space RVs, but the king had nixed that. McCaine thought about spending all that time completely suited, not with the light suit he wore, but a full deep-space rig, and shook his head. Besides, a fully unpressurized tug would require more expensive equipment or at least the manufacture of another set of equipment and instruments, and another type of war manufacture was the last thing the fragile economy of Darneill needed now.
On the other hand, he mused, a lot of the plastic shells of the pressurized skitters and RVs were cracking . . .
McCaine sighted Pegasus Two off his nose at ten and a half, right where the tracking screen said it was.
"Seal up, Lyn. Here we go. Mag-trac at seventy-five." McCaine closed his helmet and checked the internal pressure. Sealed tight. Theoretically a precaution, but practically speaking, a necessity.
"Roger. Suited tight," responded the tech. "Mag-trac on standby."
McCaine started the recovery. Coming in on the mirror course, watching both closure and the heads-up display indicator of the power drain as Lyn brought the mag-trac online. As the RV-2 passed over the powerless skitter, McCaine eased the nose thrusters up to about half, about 10 percent more than the RV-1 at max. According to the specs, the mirror course was the most power-effective recovery.
McCaine thought it stank. Power rations aside, everything could go wrong and probably would, sooner or later. But he was playing it by the book. In any case, Pegasus Two was close enough to the station that the backup tug could take over if Angel Zero Three decided to split apart.
"Angel Three, this is Peg Two. Interrogative intentions. We're splintering."
"Are you suited? "
"Suited but junked."
McCaine smiled to himself—grimly. The disabled skitter was nothing but scrap plastic and fatigued metal by now. "Roger that, Peg Two."
McCaine watched the force vectors drop toward zero in the heads-up display and mentally calculated the distance and vector to the station. He keyed his mike.
"Primus operations, this is Angel Zero Three. Alert Angel Zero Two for possible launch. Zero Three has full load in progress."
"Angel Zero Three, Primus. Two is clear to lift. Interrogative assistance."
"That's negative this time."
"Captain," protested Lyn, "I believe we're still in the green." McCaine translated that formal statement as "what in the hell are you up to?"
"So far," he answered, "but you're using three-quarter charge to hold and kill Peg Two's outdrift, and I'm still half plus on the nose thrusters. We're showing some internal pressure loss, and I wouldn't be surprised if something busts loose soon."
McCaine would have been surprised if it didn't. He'd executed the recovery strictly by the book, and the book had been written by Buships. But, in practical terms, the book was wrong.
He could already feel the vibrations through the pilot's couch, even fully suited and sealed. The sealed suit blocked most sound and pressure changes,
but he felt the tug's internal atmosphere disappear even before the pressure drop fully registered on the console and the warning light flared.
Guess One verified. Despite all the rhetoric in the manual, Tech Command hadn't beefed up the hull.
"Primus, this is Angel Three. Internal pressure and higher instruments nonoperative. Suggest launch Angel Two."
"Roger, Angel Three. Angel Two is clearing. Interrogative assistance."
"Negative this time. Have Prime in visual. Will need dock crew."
"Roger. Dock crew waiting."
McCaine checked the mag-trac. The charge was dropping rapidly with the compensators gone.
"Lyn, do we have a mechanical hold on Peg Two?"
"That's affirmative. Clinched up when our shell went. Had to crumple his topside for a grip, though."
"Peg Two, this is Angel Three. Interrogative crew."
"Angel Three. We're shaken, otherwise fine."
McCaine juggled the RV-2 and the towed skitter to a dead halt outside Primus's main salvage port. In a few minutes, both ships were inside.
He unstrapped and flipped the full gauntlets over his control gloves. Knowing Mort Wyemouth was waiting for him in the ready room, he headed for his own compartment first.
Both Heatherton and Wyemouth met him outside his door.
"Sir," asked Wyemouth carefully, "was there any special reason you ran a reverse approach?"
"Because it was recommended by the design team as the best one. I also used less than three-quarters max thrust."
Both of them looked a him, afraid to comment but not willing to let the matter drop.
"Gentlemen, let me ask you one question. If I had used a standard RV-1 approach, and I limited the capabilities of the RV-2, how long would it be before I was replaced for failing to use the RV-2 to its fullest?"
Wyemouth started to say something, but stopped. He didn't bother to hide his expression of disgust.
Heatherton scratched his ear, opened his mouth, then shut it suddenly, and nodded. He turned and left McCaine with his Executive Officer.
McCaine was glad Heatherton was getting the picture. At least one of them understood.
"Sir," inquired Wyemouth, "do you intend to have someone else try out the second RV-2, or are you planning the first operational ride in all four? "
"Since I did not have the chance to test out all the capabilities, Mort, I'll be taking out Zero Eight when she's ready."
"How about the next one?"
"That depends on the results I get with Zero Eight." McCaine wasn't about to spell it out for him, not now.
McCaine opened the door, walked into his combination office/stateroom, and closed the door in Mort Wyemouth's face.
Sooner or later, he'd probably pay for it. Wyemouth had his commander's bars because his brother was on the Privy Council, not because of his capabilities as a Space Forces officer.
That was also why Wyemouth was assigned as his Executive Officer and was ready to report any transgression of His Majesty's Imperial pile of rules and regulations.
McCaine sighed. Here he was, an acting captain, a permanent commander-second, and filling a commander-first's billet as a salvage squadron CO., according to his orders, for the purpose of temporarily facilitating the service introduction of the RV-2.
"Sometimes, you wonder," he muttered half-aloud. "Sometimes you really do."
He struggled out of his shipsuit and hung it in the equipment locker, automatically switching the recycler capsules and the oxygen pack.
Leaning against the edge of the desk, he slipped a ration cube into his mouth, hardly noticing as he chewed and swallowed it, and automatically took a swig from the waterbulb in his personal effects locker. War, but at this point he didn't mind.
"Should have more to eat," he said to the bulkhead, "but enough is enough."
He sat on the edge of the desk swivel to pull off his inner boots, getting up in turn to peel off his jumpsuit. He hung it on the locker hook, levered down his bunk, collapsed onto it, and was asleep in minutes.
He was awakened by an insistent thumping on his door and realized he'd fallen asleep without even dousing the lights. Terrible waste of power, but it showed how tired he'd been.
"Yes!" he barked, stretching and swinging out of the bunk. He looked at
the windup chrono on the locker shelf. He'd left the locker open as well, and slept through a full watch. Probably it would be all right. Lyn wasn't supposed to have the second RV-2 ready until later. "Commander Haskins, sir."
McCaine suddenly felt smelly. All of them smelled. But he pulled on a clean jumpsuit and wadded the dirty one he'd hung up into a mass, stuffing it into the bottom locker cube.
"Just a minute," he called as he flipped the bunk up.
He pulled the depilator from the shelf and ran it over his face quickly, wiped his cheeks and chin with a damp towel, and jammed everything back into his locker and closed it.
"Come on in, Lyn."
She looked down oddly, and he realized he was barefoot. He decided not to explain.
"Ed, I'm short of time." She looked terrible, dark splotches under her eyes, patches of grime around her neck, and bloodshot eyes. She'd been working while he'd slept.
He gestured to the chair. Lyn ignored the motion and leaned against the bulkhead, which creaked and bent slightly.
"You split virtually every exterior seam on Zero Three with that recovery. That doesn't include the damage to the frame."
"I thought so."
"Was it necessary? You know it's a better tug. Sure, it's not all that Tech Command claims, but do you have to prove it out here?"
