“What do you want to do now?” Ghalfin asked Tarsem.
“I want you to tell the Chandler they have a serti to complete their rescue and after that we’re vaporizing the Odhiambo for the safety of our headquarters,” Tarsem said. “And I want you to tell them that we’re sending a crew to assist if they need it and to observe if they don’t.” Ghalfin nodded and spoke into her headset.
Then Tarsem turned to me.
“Don’t tell me, I already know,” I said. I got up.
“Where are you going?” Byrne asked, looking up at me.
“I’m going with our rescue team,” I said. “To observe.”
“You might blow up,” Oi said.
“Then the Earth knows I blew up helping to save their people.” And knows the Conclave didn’t let the Colonial Union take on all the risk alone. Or sacrifice, I thought, but chose not to say. I knew that was part of Tarsem’s math. I nodded to those in the room and made my way to the exit.
“Hafte,” Tarsem said, and I paused at the doorway. I looked back to him. “Come back alive, please.”
I smiled and left.
* * *
“All right, this pilot is just showing off,” Torm Aul, the rescue shuttle pilot, said to me, as we approached the Odhiambo and the Chandler. The rescue shuttle contained me, Aul, zis co-pilot Liam Hul, whose seat I was currently occupying while Hul loitered in the general cabin, and six fellow members of the Fflict species as the rescue team. The Fflict recognized five genders: male, female, zhial, yal, and neuter. Aul was zhial, and ze liked zis pronouns accurately stated. I would too, in zis position.
“Which pilot?” I asked.
“The pilot of the Chandler,” Aul said, pointing at the monitor that gave zim zis external view. “The Odhiambo is tumbling chaotically so the Chandler is matching its movements.”
“Why would it do that?” I asked.
“It’s safer for the people running the rescue,” Aul said. “Makes the two ships stable relative to each other. But it’s difficult to do because the Chandler pilot has to track the Odhiambo’s movements precisely.”
“Once the ship started tumbling it should continue to do so in the same manner,” I said. “I think that’s close to a thermodynamic law.”
“Yeah, but that assumes no additional input of momentum,” Aul said, and pointed to the Odhiambo in the monitor. “But the Odhiambo is damaged and venting all sorts of things. And we can’t tell when those venting events will happen. No, it’s a mess. So the Chandler pilot’s tracking all of that in as close to real time as it can.”
“Could you do it?”
“If I wanted to show off, sure,” Aul said. I smiled at this. “But I wouldn’t do it with anything larger than this shuttle. Whoever the Chandler’s pilot is, it’s doing it with an entire ship. If it messes up, you’re going to have two ships tumbling down on headquarters, not just one.”
“We need to tell them that,” I said.
“Trust me, Councilor, they’re way ahead of you,” Aul said.
“Hail the Chandler, please,” I said. “Tell them we’ve come to offer assistance if they wish it.”
Aul did as ze was told, muttering into a headset in zis own language while I watched the two human ships tumble in tandem.
“The captain of the Chandler is named Neva Balla, it sends its compliments and says that it requires no assistance at this point,” Aul said, after a moment. “It says that they are under some time pressure and incorporating us into their plans would just add to the pressure. It asks us to hold position at twenty klicks relative—that’s about twenty-five chu—and to monitor the Odhiambo for power surges or rapidly rising temperatures.”
“Can we do that?”
“Maintaining a twenty-five-chu relative distance is something we can do on autopilot. And this shuttle’s packed with a good amount of sensory apparatus. We’re good.”
I nodded up to the monitor. “Any way we can stabilize the image of the ships so they don’t look like they’re tumbling? I want to be able to see what’s happening without getting vertigo.”
“No problem.”
“If the captain of the Odhiambo is still on the ship, ask it to send us a real-time data feed, please,” I said.
“Will do.”
“Also, Captain Neva Balla is ‘she,’ not ‘it.’”
“You sure?”
“I’ve met her before,” I said. “Humans generally prefer to not be called ‘it’ whenever possible.”
“The things you learn about people while you’re on the job,” Aul said.
* * *
“Here we go,” Aul said, nodding to the monitor. On it a lone figure stood in an open airlock on the Chandler, directly across from the Odhiambo. The distance between the two ships was less than thirty plint—about fifty meters in human measurement. Aul was right: Whoever was piloting the Chandler had impressive control.
The figure in the airlock continued to stand, as if waiting for something.
“Not a good idea to run out the clock,” Aul said, under zis breath.