Read Online Fool's War by Sarah Zettel - Free Book Online Page A

left sat the pilot’s relief, only other member of the bridge crew on duty at this time. He was a round, little man named Cheney who had Asian eyes and had let himself go almost completely bald. This was his third run with Al Shei as a pilot’s mate, he’d told her. He had described each trip with the single word every shipper with more than one working synapse wanted to hear. Uneventful .
    The other two members of the bridge crew were waiting out launch in their cabins. Most of the work had been done while the Pasadena was still in dock. Schyler, Yerusha and Al Shei had mapped and timed the route while figuring the requirements for fuel and reaction mass. Yerusha had programmed the simulations. When the stats lined up to her satisfaction, she wrote them into Pasadena ’s computers. Both Schyler and the ship had verified them.
    Al Shei and her crew had been on board even before Yerusha, re-checking the ship inside and out. When it came to flight capability, it didn’t matter to Al Shei that the Pasadena had been checked over less than forty-eight hours previously by a Lennox expert. Yerusha couldn’t fault Al Shei’s caution. She and her crew would be depending absolutely on the ship for the next six to eight months, she and her crew should be the ones to decide if it was ready to go.
    It had taken a day of drill calls and simulations to get the new crew used to each others’ speech patterns and how the orders were given and confirmed. After that, Al Shei and her engineers had remotely warmed the reactors and accumulators with the “hot” mix of deuterium and tritium. Once warmed, the Pasadena’s engines could run on the much safer mix of hydrogen and boron (11). The ship was humming and ready when they all were allowed back on board to strap down and start out.
    “Oberon to Pasadena , we’ve got you at fifteen klicks at eleven minutes and fifty-nine seconds. Good luck and see you soon.”
    “Thanks Oberon. See you soon,” replied Schyler. “Clear to go whenever you’re ready, Yerusha.”
    Yerusha checked the angle of the jets one more time to make sure they were pointing away from the station and the incoming traffic. “Intercom to Pasadena ,” Yerusha called. She lifted her hands and held them flat over her boards. “Counting down to acceleration. Ten, nine, eight…”
    She heard no sound of movement under her countdown. There was nothing to do. The systems were all up and running. The final set-up had been completed four hours before the docking clamps had let them all go. Now was the time to rest in the harness, pay attention to the monitors and remain quietly confident that nothing unexpected was going to happen.
    “Three… two… one.” Yerusha brought her hands down on her board. The ship read her fingerprints and sent its signal down to the engine compartment. “Torch lit,” she reported, just before a low rumble that echoed all the way up the drop shaft confirmed her call.
    Gradually, Yerusha’s head settled on her neck, her neck rested against her shoulders and the floor reached up and pressed against the soles of her feet. The harness went slack against her shirt and trousers as her body settled into the chair.
    Despite two hundred of years of attempts to separate it out, gravity had remained a property of mass and motion. Without enough of either, you had free fall. Al Shei ran her ship at close to one gee acceleration. In that respect at least, the run was going to be comfortable.
    The displays on the monitor in front of Yerusha all remained green. She read the numbers and thrust ratios one by one. Each was exactly as it should be.
    The intercom started bringing up the voices from engineering.
    “Station One, all normal and constant,” said Javerri, the FTL Assistant, who didn’t look like she ever got enough sleep.
    “Station Two, all normal and constant.” Ianiai, a big, black bear of a boy who though the knew a lot more than he did.
    “Station Three, all normal and constant.”