“There we go. Now counter-burn on the bow for half a second at ten percent. A mouse fart of a burn.”
Indy has no docking arrestors anymore, having shed them like a bee losing a stinger when we fled Independence eight days ago. Even if we did still have something for the docking clamps to grab, the SRA docking system is not compatible with ours, so we have to fly in a very precise formation and perform what the fleet calls a floating link—a flexible docking collar from airlock to airlock, and nothing to keep things from coming apart except the formation-flying skills of the helmsman.
“You got it now,” Major Renner says. “But don’t slack off. We lose the collar, we won’t be replenishing squat.”
Dmitry and I are in armor again. The padding on my left hand makes the armored glove uncomfortably tight, but I luckily still fit into battle armor without having to leave off one glove and rendering the whole system compromised. We stand by as the CIC personnel do their rendezvous dance for the docking maneuver. Almost a month of seeing an Alliance sergeant in battle rattle standing in the middle of a Commonwealth warship’s CIC has completely blunted the novelty of the sight for the rest of the crew.
“Extend the docking collar,” the XO says. “Nice and easy. Half a meter per second.”
The holotable has half a dozen windows open, all showing the docking operation from as many different camera angles, with the numerical data readouts from the navigation computer overlaid on top of everything: closing rates, relative velocities, elapsed mission time, radar distances. Indy has her own flexible docking collar for ship-to-ship docking actions, and we watch as it extends out of the hull and starts to stretch across the twenty-five and a half meters to one of the auxiliary airlocks of the unmanned Sino-Russian deep-space anchorage Luzhōu-19.
“Hard lock achieved,” the chief engineer says from his station. “Divergence rate one-quarter centimeter and steady. We are go for transfer ops.”
Major Renner looks over to Dmitry and me. “Your turn, Sergeants. Go over there and open sesame.”
We go down to the main airlock, where the SI squad’s fire team Charlie are all already waiting for us in full combat gear: Sergeant Humphrey, Corporal DeLuca, and Privates Andrews and Pulaski.
“Ready for a field trip?” Sergeant Humphrey asks when we connect to the fire team’s comms circuit. She readies her M-66 carbine and bounces the targeting laser off the nearest bulkhead to make sure it works.
“Anything to get to step out for a few minutes,” I reply. There’s a PDW slung across my chest instead of my usual issue M-66. I tested my marksmanship with the carbine on Indy’s range a few days ago, and the two missing fingers on my left hand make it a little awkward to maneuver the short but heavy weapon. The PDW is a strictly short-range affair, but it weighs about half of what the rifle does and is less than half as long, much easier to handle with a hand and a half.
Dmitry is in battle armor, but unarmed. He looks at the handful of combat-ready troops in front of the airlock and shakes his head.
“Station is automated,” he says. “No personnel. Nobody to fight. You can leave weapons.”
Sergeant Humphrey grins without humor. “I don’t care how many lunches you’ve had with the skipper. I’m not going to break into an SRA installation unarmed.”
She walks over to the control screen for the main airlock and punches in the access code. The inner airlock door opens, and we file into the lock.
“Verify hard seal on the docking collar,” Sergeant Humphrey says into the shipboard comms panel.
“Hard seal verified,” the reply from CIC comes.
We all lower our helmet face shields and let the suits take over the life support.
Sergeant Humphrey seals the inner lock and cycles the outer hatch. The air rushes out of the lock—not the violent decompression of a compartment venting into vacuum, but the relatively slow release of air into a low-pressure environment. Beyond the open main hatch, there’s the twenty-five-meter stretch of flexible alloy tube connecting us to the auxiliary hatch. The outer surface of Luzhōu-19 looks like nobody has bothered to refresh the paint job or scrub the hull down since they assembled the anchorage.
“Let’s go,” Sergeant Humphrey says. “Moving out.”
We make our way across slowly and carefully, mindful of the minor up-and-down and side-to-side movements of the tube, which is the only thing connecting Indy to the station, a rather inconsequential and easily torn umbilical. It won’t be a disaster if it breaks while we’re in it because our suits are vac-sealed and we can EVA our way back to the airlock, but we are sandwiched between Indy’s four thousand tons and the larger mass of the anchorage. A slight nudge in the wrong direction on the helm controls in CIC, and we’ll be adding to the layer of grime on the outside of the SRA facility.
“Sergeant Red Star, you’re up.” Sergeant Humphrey points at the auxiliary hatch and the bulge for the wireless network receiver next to it.
Dmitry nods and turns away as he accesses his suit’s computer to ferret out the access codes. A few moments later, the auxiliary hatch unlocks with a loud thunk and a vibration that makes the skin of the flexible docking collar ripple slightly. Sergeant Humphrey brings up her M-66 and turns on the weapon light to illuminate the hatch. It slides into a recess in the hull, and lights come on in the airlock and passageway beyond.
We make our way through the docking collar and onto Luzhōu-19, with Sergeant Humphrey taking point and the rest of us close behind. The inside of the anchorage is almost as grimy as the outside. I don’t know when they put this pit stop on Red Route One, but from the worn deck lining and the myriad of scuffs and paint streaks on the passageway bulkheads, it looks like SRA starships have been filling up and resupplying here for many decades.
The anchorage is roughly cross-shaped, with a big central hub and four smaller docking spokes branching out from the central section. When Sergeant Humphrey has satisfied herself that there isn’t a platoon of SRA marines looking to jump out of dark corners and ambush us, she lets Dmitry take the lead. He guides us to the anchorage’s main control booth in the central cargo transfer area of the station, where he starts turning on displays and flicking switches.
“Made ready freight lifters and fuel system,” he says. “Anchorage has fuel for twenty little imperialist spy ships.”
“Indy, Delta Six,” Sergeant Humphrey says into the comms circuit. “All clear on the inside. Our Russian friend says there’s plenty of juice.”
“Delta Six, Indy. Splendid news,” the XO replies. “We’re sending over the engineering team. In the meantime, secure the place top to bottom. And see if you can find us some variety for the galley. Maybe the Alliance has field rations that aren’t altogether awful.”