They did have a few advantages. The Storm’s skin returned an extremely low radar profile compared to other ships. Her internal heat sinks could store days of waste heat. And when necessary, capillary-like microtubules in the ship’s skin could be flushed with liquid hydrogen to ensure that the hull’s outer temperature remained only a few degrees warmer than space. It was a very stealthy ship when it was flying dark. If the Laconians were looking for a standard rock hopper or salvaged military ship, the Storm could look too small to fit the profile. He checked the hydrogen supply, adjusted the temperature variables in his search, and looked again. The window opened a crack wider.
They could take off from Callisto when the moon was behind Jupiter, then do one very hard burn with the planet blocking line of sight to the Tempest and any other inner-planet observation posts. It wouldn’t keep other ships and minor posts from picking up the drive plume—there were just too many eyes in the system to evade all of them, no matter how complex his flight path. But between running cold and keeping the main observers blocked, he could get a decent delta-v for a few hours. Then they could kill the burn and float dark for as long as the heat sinks held up. Once they’d put a little distance between themselves and the Jovian system, cozied up to the gravitational low-energy paths that the Belters and salvage miners used, they could fade in their fake transponder, start a very gentle burn toward the ring, and hope they looked like just one of dozens of ships headed that way.
Once they were far enough away, put in a call to Saba and see if any of the union ships had room to scoop them up and get them the hell out of Sol system.
It was pretty damn thin, as escape plans went. But they were living in thin times.
Alex ran the simulation back and forth, adding in various launch and escape burn projections until he’d come up with a plan that the computer agreed gave them the best chance of success. If he hadn’t overlooked anything. If the variables were weighted correctly. If the gods didn’t just hate them that day.
He leaned back, and his skull throbbed like his brain had an appointment elsewhere. He stretched his neck. The muscles felt like he’d been punched. There had been a time he could go for hours fine-tuning a flight plan. And he still could, but the price was higher. He swatted the desk to shut down the holographic map display. The room lights came up on the small and dingy working space he was occupying during their stay on Callisto. A desk that fed directly to the Storm’s system so that none of his queries would leak out to Callisto’s larger data environment. A wall screen with access to a couple thousand different information and entertainment streams. A combination sink, toilet, and shower alcove in the corner that included a rank mildew smell free of charge. It even had a cot with a flat pillow and threadbare blanket if he decided not to head back to his coffin hotel. All the discomforts of a naval base bachelor pad. It didn’t make him nostalgic.
He was stirring a chalky analgesic powder into a glass of water, the grains of medicine swirling like stars, when his terminal began playing the first few bars of his favorite Dust Runners song. “Accept connection,” he yelled at it, then gulped down his medicine. The bitterness crawled up his tongue like a living thing, and he shuddered. “Yo, Bobbie, what’s up?”
“Meet me at the dining room in twenty,” she said, then closed the connection before he could ask a question.
Dining room was just a code phrase for a small storage compartment off a seldom-used side tunnel. It was one of half a dozen rooms they’d designated for secret meetings. They were swept every couple of days for listening devices, and members of Bobbie’s strike team dressed in civilian clothes kept an eye on them to see if anyone else was going in or out.
Alex’s time in the military had all been on board ships or on naval bases waiting for a shipboard assignment. He’d never been a spy or special forces operator like Bobbie. He found the built-in paranoia that came with a secret mission lifestyle exhausting.
“I should probably pick up some food,” he said to his terminal. It beeped a recognition at him, then sent an order to a noodle shop in the lower medina. The owner of the shop was a resistance member who would send a pickup notification to Caspar. It was another code. He wasn’t even vaguely hungry, but if someone heard him or got a copy of the signal, it sounded innocuous. Nothing about his life was what it looked like anymore.
Ten minutes later Alex walked into the back room of the noodle shop and found Caspar waiting for him. When they weren’t using the space for secret meetings, it was the noodle shop’s dry goods pantry, and boxes of supplies were stacked up against most walls. The station’s heating ducts had been closed off, so the room stayed about ten degrees cooler than the shop itself, and Alex could just see his breath in the air.
“How long do you need?” the kid asked without preamble.
“Dunno. Give me two hours, then we’ll meet up at the casino. Blackjack. I’ll be at the five-dollar table.”
“Copy that,” Caspar said. He pulled off the heavy hooded jacket he was wearing and handed it to Alex. Alex put the jacket on and passed his terminal to Caspar. The kid would wander the station for a couple hours. Anyone who was tracking Alex by terminal location would be sent on a merry chase. It was unlikely that anyone was tracking any of them. The terminals were as stripped down and anonymized as it was possible to make them. If their false identities had been cracked, they would probably already have been picked up by security and interrogated by Laconian operatives. But Bobbie had laid down the operational security law, and they all followed her rules to the letter.
Caspar took the terminal and stuffed it into his jumpsuit pocket, then gave Alex a cheery little wave and headed for the door. “Wait,” Alex said.
“Everything okay?” Something in Alex’s tone had put a little worry line between the younger man’s eyes. Nothing is okay, Alex wanted to reply, but didn’t.
“Just be careful. Something happens to you, it doubles my workload.” He tried to make it a joke, but it fell flat. The line between Caspar’s eyes deepened.
“I don’t need you to daddy me, Alex. I know my job.”
“Yeah, sorry about that,” Alex said, then leaned against the wall and rubbed his eyes. His headache made him want to press his face against it. Only a thin layer of composites and insulation separated him from the natural tunnel. Maybe some ice that was as old as the solar system itself would be cool enough to numb the throb in his temples.
“It’s no big deal,” Caspar said. “But my father pulled up stakes when I was seven. I didn’t need one then, and I don’t now.”
“Fair enough. Truth is . . .”
Caspar waited. Alex heaved a sigh.
“Truth is I’m worried shitless about my own kid, and I’m just projecting onto you. Don’t take it as anything else, okay?”
Alex waited for Caspar to leave, but he didn’t. Instead he sat down on a stack of boxes labeled SOY NOODLES and crossed his arms. “You think the Laconians know it was us?”
“What? No, I didn’t mean—”
“Don’t fuck around, Alex. I have family too.”
“It’s not that,” Alex said. He spotted a small bag of dehydrated onion flakes and picked it up. It felt cold in his hand, and heavenly when he pressed it to his temple. Caspar sat on his boxes, staring and bouncing one knee impatiently.
“Then what is it?”
“He’s getting serious,” Alex said. “Maybe even married. Probably married. It’s just making me think about how much I don’t want to mess things up for him. You always think you’re going to leave things better for your kid than you found them for yourself. That’s not working out for me.”
Alex moved his bag of onions to the other side of his head, but it had started to warm up.
“Worrying feels like you’re at least doing something,” Caspar said. “I get it. When I started flying for the union, I worried about my mom so that I wouldn’t feel guilty for leaving her behind.”
“You’re too smart for your age,” Alex said. “But yeah, that’s probably it. Or close enough. I was a shit father long before I left my family to play revolutionary.”
“I dunno,” Caspar said, then stood up. “My father took off because my mother asked him to stop spending the rent money on pixie dust. You’d win father of the year if it was down to a two-man race.”
“Thanks,” Alex said, and surprised himself by laughing. “That’s a hell of a compliment.”
Alex’s terminal buzzed in Caspar’s pocket. The kid pulled it out, then said, “Cap wants to know where the fuck you are.”
“On my way.”