Torchship (40 page)

He collapsed on his bunk, shouting with laughter. “Now we’re
all in the Guard! That’s fantastic.” Mitchie waited for him to catch his
breath. Patiently. “Hey, don’t I get a say in this? Conscription’s against the
constitution.”

“No, it’s not,” said Mitchie, who’d gotten a B+ in Military
Law at the Academy. “It just takes the legislature passing a law with your name
in it.”

“Which the captain hasn’t done. Wait, this is a Bonaventure
ship, so Akiak law doesn’t apply.”

“Um . . . I think Bonaventure bans it completely. Not sure.
The skipper accepted it when I gave him the commission.”

“Nobody minds being conscripted into the top of the
hierarchy,” said Guo.

“You’re close to the top, Chief Kwan.”

“Not on this ship. Chief’s only worth something if there’s
some ratings to kick around. Can’t conscript Abdul, he’s a Fusion citizen.”

Mitchie contemplated their shared vision of Billy in
uniform. “Billy’d jump ship.”

“Without waiting for us to land it.”

“Yeah, he’s a good argument against conscription,” she said.
Sharing a laugh over Billy with him eased the pain that had been gripping her
heart for days. She sat on the bed and leaned in to her husband.

“Oh! That’s what you were doing,” exclaimed Guo.

“What?”

“Billy always came back from shore leave with stories of how
you’d grabbed some guy at random and dragged him off. Which did not sound like
the fussy control freak I knew. They were intelligence sources.”

“Yes. Um . . . Billy wasn’t all wrong about what I was
doing.”

“It gets guys to talk?” asked Guo.

“Usually guys. And yes.” They were lying on the bed now,
arms around each other. “That’s not very compatible with marriage.”

“I’ve seen a lot of different marriages,” said Guo. “Mostly
dyads. Some with more. Open and closed. There’s actually a six-group in Arsenic
Creek.” He paused. She waited. “But . . . fucking total strangers you don’t
even like is outside even the most open marriage arrangement I’ve ever heard
of.”

“I said it was complicated.”

“Yes, you did. And I shouldn’t have asked you to marry me
when there was a gun to your head, even if I wasn’t the one holding it. Do . .
. do you want me to let you out of your promise?”

“No, I don’t want that.” Mitchie hugged him tight.

“Then what do you want?”

***

Captain Schwartzenberger climbed up the ladder into the
bridge. “Wasn’t Mitchie supposed to relieve you three hours ago?” he asked
Bing.

“Yes. But she didn’t, and she’s not answering her cabin
intercom.”

“Did you try Guo’s?”

“No. They’ve reconciled or murdered each other. Either way I’m
enjoying the quiet.”

Hanrahan’s Pub, Demeter, Gravity 7.5 m/s
²

Guo threaded the tray back to their table, not spilling any
of the drinks despite the boisterous crowd. He passed out the mugs. The ones
with whiskey depth charges went to the three Navy men. Mitchie’s old mug was
still half-full. He put it on the tray with the empties to make it less
obvious.

The middle Navy man was still talking. “So then there’s this
huge noise and we’re looking at the stars. Which is an ugly sight when you’re
as deep in the hull as the engine room. Half a meter of diamond matrix, ripped
away like paper. Hey, I was going to get this round.”

“When we were running away from the swarm we passed your
ships going the other way,” said Guo. “We can buy some beers.”

“Well, if you put it that way . . .” They drank.

“I’m amazed you weren’t hurt,” said Mitchie.

“Ha!” The talker—Rodriguez—slapped his thigh with a metallic
ring. “Took the leg off above the knee. I’m wearing a temp. The organ growth
tanks are so overloaded I won’t get my new leg for months.”

Mitchie looked appropriately horrified.

“Oh, it wasn’t so bad,” said Rodriguez. “Rags got my leg
tied off and injected so fast it hardly hurt.” Rodriguez took a deep drink. “Really,
Rags should tell the rest of this. I only saw chunks of it.”

“Don’t make me talk when I’m drinking,” said the
two-striper.

“So Rags got my leg tied off and Chief Wang into a bubble.”
Rodriguez jerked a thumb at the third Navy man, who hadn’t said much. From the
way his voice rasped he’d need a few more weeks to recover from having a
lungful of vacuum. “Then he got to work. See, the busbars for the alternate
power run were designed for a five minute ramp-up. Kill the drive, trickle some
power, increase it gradually. But the officers want it at full instantly. Which
means thermal expansion, magnetic torqueing, and bars popping out of their
brackets. This time two popped out. Rags grabbed Wang’s magic hammer—and Chief,
you are a genius, stop denying.”

“Nothing genius about a non-conducting sledgehammer,” rasped
Wang.

“No, the hammer’s not genius. Getting the captain to pay for
it, that was genius.”

“Hmph.”

“Anyway, back to Rags, here,” said Rodriguez. “He’s got his
feet braced and hammering the bars into place. I’m floating there, tied down,
watching him ‘cause he’s the only show. Then four boarding robots came in the
hole. Spider-like things. Flat disk with long legs all around. Two meters
across. They see Rags and go for him.” He took a sip on this cliffhanger, enjoying
Mitchie and Guo’s fascination.

“He turns and lets them have it with the hammer. Smash!
Captain’s on the PA screaming, ‘Where’s my power? I need beam power now!’ and
Rags just smashes, doesn’t say a word, legs flying everywhere. Then he smushes
the last one and cool as you please gets on the comm,” his voice went flat, “Engine
Room to Bridge. Alt Power ETR two minutes.” Rodriguez broke out laughing as
Rags hid his blush behind his beer.

“Minute and a half of hammering and beam power was on. Whole
damn ship rings like a bell when they fire that thing. He never said anything
about it until we asked where all the legs came from.” Rodriguez slapped Rags
on the back. “And that’s why Engineer Apprentice Ragout is the next recipient
of the Comet of Valor.”

Rags’ mug dropped back to the table. “You didn’t.”

“Why do you think I was the last one on the leave shuttle?
The Exec wanted to go over my witness statement.” Rodriguez beamed.

“That’s bullshit. That’s not what happened.”

“I was stoned on pain meds, but there was a security camera
still running and there’s debris from the boarding bots. You did good, son.”

“That’s not—you want to know why I didn’t say anything about
the boarders?” demanded Ragout.

“Don’t see that it matters, but tell if you want to.”

Guo bribed a passing waitress to give him someone else’s
pitcher. He topped off the Navy men’s mugs.

Ragout blushed furiously. He burst out, “I thought they were
hallucinations! I mean, what’s more likely, robots shaped like my worst
nightmare with no guns, or that I had a suit leak and was going hypoxic? I didn’t
think they were real until the hull was patched and we were out of our suits
cleaning up.”

“Don’t matter,” rasped Chief Wang. “You did the jobs of five
men and a squad of Marines. I don’t care what you thought.”

Mitchie raised her mug. “To Engineer Ragout. He gets the job
done.”

“Hear, hear.” Four mugs clinked as the honoree stared at the
table.

“Curfew, gentlemen.” A master at arms stood over the table.

“They’re enforcing that?” asked Rodriguez.

“Sure are, EM. Something about the barkeeps wanting you all
out before the beer runs out and the riot starts.” More MAs were clearing the
bar of everyone in uniform.

The trio stood, expressed slurred thanks to the diskers for
their drinks, and went off. Mitchie and Guo let the MA inspect their passes and
sipped until the bar quieted.

“I told you this would be fun,” she said.

“Fun and educational,” Guo agreed. He now knew far more
about the
Kydoimos
-class battleships than he’d expected to, given that
their existence was still classified.

Mitchie had her datasheet out. “There’s a Marine bar three
blocks East of here. Let’s see if they get to stay up late.”

He sighed.

“Don’t you want to show our appreciation to those brave men?”
asked Mitchie.

No, and neither do you
, thought Guo. “All right.”

They walked to the next bar hand in hand.

Karl Gallagher has earned engineering degrees from MIT and
USC, controlled weather satellites for the Air Force, designed weather
satellites for TRW, designed a rocketship for a start-up, and done systems
engineering for a fighter plane. He is husband to Laura and father to Maggie,
James, and dearly missed Alanna.

Karl has written white papers, engineering proposals, blog
posts, fanfic, trade studies, rants, graduate school papers, RPG adventures,
operations orders, forum flames, conference papers, short stories, after action
reports, wargame rules, satires, and a sestina. This is his first novel.

Kelt Haven Press is releasing print, ebook, and audiobooks
by Karl K. Gallagher.
Torchship Pilot
will be released in late spring
2016. For updates see:

www.kelthavenpress.com

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