“I can.” Colonel Campbell brings up the date-and-time window of the tactical display mirrored on the screen.
“We’ve been away from Fomalhaut coming on fifteen days now. We don’t have time to sit here and keep an eye on this happy assembly out here. This detour has cost us enough time and fuel already. Let them pack up and leave the system—I don’t give a shit right now. We have thirty thousand people waiting for us to come back to New Svalbard and tell them where the Lankies are lying in wait. We’ll leave the drones on station. If we ever get back, we can collect them and download the recon data.” He looks around in the briefing room. “Does anyone present disagree in any particular aspect?”
Major Renner doesn’t look happy, but she shakes her head curtly.
“I want to hear if anyone dissents,” the colonel says. “I am serious, people. You’ve all put your head into the noose with me when you decided to spring me out of the detention berth. You’ve earned the right to a choice here.”
There’s silence in the room except for the faint rustling of uniforms as people shift in their seats a bit. Then Major Renner clears her throat.
“We don’t go back and complete our mission, none of this is going to be worth the court-martial, sir,” she says. “They won’t risk the task force on a blind transition into the solar system, especially if we go missing.”
All over the room, there’s murmured agreement.
Colonel Campbell nods. Then he exhales slowly and pinches the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger. “Very well. Then let’s figure out how to get back to Fomalhaut, and then get the hell out of here.”
“Two options,” the XO says back in CIC. “And you won’t like either one.”
She highlights two different trajectories on the hologram in front of her. The display table shows a long-scale three-dimensional map of the inner solar system, or at least the slice of it that stretches from Earth to the asteroid belt beyond Mars.
“Option one,” she says, and the first trajectory lights up briefly in pale yellow. “We go back the way we came, through the blockade and around Mars. We’d do another slingshot burn and hope we get lucky again. If we make it past, we’ll stealth to the Alliance transition point again, wait for a gap in the Lanky patrol pattern, and slip through into Fomalhaut. Same run we took in, only in reverse. Ten days, little less if we manage to use Earth’s gravity well for a nice push.”
She highlights the second trajectory, which lights up in pale green.
“Option two, we go the long way. With the current alignment, we can take the deep-space route here, but there won’t be anything to slingshot around. It would take a lot more time and energy.”
“How much longer?” the colonel asks.
“If we want to have any juice left in the tanks after we get to Fomalhaut, we can’t go full-out burn on that leg. Thirty-five days at one-g sustained for both legs of the burn, and I wouldn’t advise going any faster, or we’ll be coasting through the transition point with vacuum in the tanks.”
Colonel Campbell studies the map while rubbing his chin. There’s gray stubble on his face that makes him look uncharacteristically untidy.
“I like fast,” he says. “Thirty-five days is more time than we can spare. But the fleet back at Fomalhaut can’t make the run past Mars.”
He reaches into the display and zooms in on the area around the Alliance’s Alcubierre node. The two alternate trajectories converge or separate here, depending on your perspective and starting point, and he flips the map around a bit as he follows both tracks with his finger.
“We go the deep-space route, we may find a different way back from the node to Earth. Could be they don’t patrol that stretch of space as heavily.”
“Or at all,” Major Renner says.
“God knows there’s precisely fuck-all between here and the node on that route. If we get stuck out there, we’re truly stuck. Not even a comms relay in that area, never mind a depot or a mining outpost. But thirty-five days.”
I watch the exchange with some anxiety. I don’t know which fills me with more dread: the prospect of doing the death ride around Mars again in reverse and rolling the dice on those fifty-fifty odds one more time, or spending over a month in this ship scouting out the middle of nowhere.
Then Dmitry, who has been standing next to me and politely observing the exchange, clears his throat, and everyone in the CIC pit turns to look at him.
“Is not fuck-awl between here and node,” he says.
“Excuse me, Sergeant?” Colonel Campbell says with a raised eyebrow.
Dmitry steps up to the holotable and pokes the pale green option-two route with his finger. “You go this way. Is not just empty space. We call this Krasnyy Marshrut Odin. Red Route One. Like in old capitalist military film. There is anchorage for refuel and supply.” He taps a point halfway on the trajectory. “We use this sometimes when we have new ship to keep secret. Or for specialist operation. Black ops,” he adds, in his best version of an American accent.
“Whoa,” Major Renner says. All around, there is some incredulous chuckling and tittering in the CIC. “You are telling us that the SRA has a secret supply point for refueling Special Forces units. That sits near the trajectory we have to take to get to the SRA transition point.”
“Da,” Dmitry says agreeably.
“And you are volunteering this information. As if it isn’t a major military secret.”
“Da,” Dmitry says again.
“Why would you do that?” Colonel Campbell asks.
“Is best way to get back. Not quick like go around Mars again, but more safe. You go faster burn, use more fuel, fill up again at Alliance anchorage. Can get food, too, but I would not recommend.”
“You have the coordinates for this anchorage,” the XO says.
“Is in suit, in computer.”
“And they’ll let us refuel there? Think you can convince them to refuel a Commonwealth ship? That’s mighty risky.”
“Nobody there,” Dmitry says. “Is automated.”
“They’ll throw you into military prison and throw away the access card when they learn that you gave away a major military secret, Sergeant Chistyakov,” the colonel says.
“Then you will not tell,” Dmitry says with a wry little smile.
“Assume we can get there at full burn, fuel consumption be damned. How much time would we need if we can top off the tanks at the Alliance anchorage?” Colonel Campbell asks the XO.
Major Renner consults her PDP and taps around on the screen for a few moments. “Seventeen days, sir.”
“To the anchorage or the turnaround point?”
“To the transition point, sir. The whole run.”
Colonel Campbell looks at the major, then me, then Dmitry, and then he shakes his head with a smile.
“What weird and wonderful times we’re living in, people.”
“Khorosho?” Dmitry asks. “Is good?”
“Ochyen khorosho,” the colonel replies. “Very good. XO, lay in the trajectory for option two and prep the ship for departure. We’re going the long way in a hurry. And let’s hope there’s light traffic along the way.”
CHAPTER 16