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Chapter Eighteen

Kevin Bowden never thought he would miss the food aboard Spin One…until, that is, he encountered the bland, chunks-and-gruel meals that were the norm on Outpost. So he was doubly happy when he strode into one of the two galleys in Lost Soldier country and discovered it empty. Lack of privacy was one of Outpost’s other undesirable features. He grabbed a tray, piled on the entrees he’d missed most, and sat down to the serious business of eating.

About halfway through his meal, Bowden was startled by a cheery “Welcome back!” from the entry. He didn’t recognize the voice at first, turned, and discovered Murphy almost halfway to his table. Since when has Murphy ever been “cheery”? he wondered—at the same moment he realized that he had never seen the galley entirely empty. Well played, Colonel, Kevin thought as Murphy sat down across from him.

But even if the CO was here on business—what else?—his smile seemed genuine. “How’d it go, Major?”

“Good, sir,” Kevin replied, “even if it wasn’t without some challenges.” He explained the trip to the comet and how he had—eventually and with some coaching—returned to Outpost. They’d spent a couple days there while they got treatment for their injuries, then he’d flown them back to Spin One.

“Speaking of challenges,” Murphy said with a smile, “I heard you had fun during your first rendezvous with an orbiting object.”

“That was one of them.” Bowden chuckled ruefully. “How did you hear about that? Kamara said he wasn’t going to mention that to you.”

“Nothing travels through the hab like a good rumor.” Murphy winked. “The fact that you destroyed his rangefinder was quite the topic of conversation for a few days.” Murphy chuckled like Bowden had. “He didn’t tell me, by the way. I had a bet with one of the SpinDogs that you’d ace it on your first approach. That’s how the rumors got started. He’d never won a bet from me before.”

“Oops, sorry, sir.” Bowden winced. “I hope it didn’t cost you much.”

“Nope.” Murphy smiled. “I bet him twice as much that you’d be able to land on Outpost within your first two tries.”

Bowden shook his head. “You had a lot of confidence in me. I’m not sure I’d have made that bet.” He smiled. “I’m also glad I wasn’t aware of the bet until afterward. I had enough pressure on me at the time.”

“I knew you’d come through.” He nodded. “By the way, Kamara said you’re the best student he’s ever had.”

Bowden’s eyes opened wide. “Really? He said that?”

“Yeah. Apparently, he was pretty impressed with your skills. Finding his floating body with your radar, then rendezvousing with it and saving him may have had something to do with it.”

“Huh.” Bowden shrugged. “Raptis saved him—she dove off the comet after him and sealed his suit, or he never would have made it.” He shook his head. “Based on how he treated me, I never would have guessed I was better than a RockHound five-year-old. That’s what he said, anyway.”

“It’s true.” Murphy’s face got serious, and he rubbed his left hand absently. “Would you be ready for more? Launches to space and reentries?”

“Absolutely, just as soon as we can resume flying. I can’t be a full-up astronaut unless I can do launches and reentries.”

Murphy’s sweeping hand took in the habitat beyond the empty galley’s bulkheads. “Some people would say you’re already an astronaut. You are in space, after all.”

Bowden shrugged. “I’ll consider myself an astronaut after I’ve been at the controls for a round trip. Every other time I’ve been down to the planet and back, I’ve just been baggage, and while I’ve been here, I was more of a tourist. Astronauts do things in space.”

Murphy smiled. “Like land ships on tumbling asteroids like Outpost?”

“Exactly. You don’t have to tell Kamara how scared I was the first time I did it.”

“I won’t.” He winked. “Based on what he told me, he was a lot more scared than you were.”

Bowden shrugged. “I was in the zone. Sometimes, when you’re behind the ship, everything just works as if you’re on rails. Airspeed, angle of attack, lineup…they’re all ‘on,’ and it’s as if you didn’t have to put any conscious thought into keeping them there. There was never a doubt in my mind.”

“Is that pilot bravado or do you think you can do it again without anyone there to hold your hand?”

“It’s not just pilot bravado.” Bowden chuckled. “Well, not much, anyway. I did another ten landings on Outpost after that pass. Only took me thirteen attempts to get ten landings, which Kamara did say was better than most of the RockHounds can do. I nailed the one coming back from the comet, too, even with a hairline fracture in my left arm.”

“Ten out of thirteen makes you better than most?” Murphy asked. “It must be hard.”

“It is, but then again, so is landing on an aircraft carrier in heavy seas, and Navy pilots have gotten…well, when we got snatched, we were pretty good at it. No telling what they’re doing now back home.”

“Maybe we’ll find out,” Murphy said. “But before we can…”

“You have a new mission for me?”

“I will. For now, though, you still have more training to do.”

“Still can’t tell me what the mission is?”

“No, I can’t share it yet as the walls here have ears, but things are in motion, and I need you trained ASAP. Maybe sooner than that. I need you to concentrate on becoming the best astronaut you can be, as quickly as you can do it.”

“Well, I’ve had worse jobs,” Bowden said. He smiled. “This is better than flying for the Navy.”

“How so?”

“Back on the ship, when you got back from flying, you had a ground job you had to put hours into. Here? All I have to do is fly and get better at it. I love my job.” He frowned. “But sir, I thought there were no more flights to or from R’Bak.”

Murphy nodded, leaned across the table. “The surveyors haven’t followed their usual game plan. They’ve only sent a handful of lighters ahead to R’Bak. The rest of their smaller craft are snooping around above and below the ecliptic.”

“That doesn’t add up,” Kevin muttered, mostly to himself. “They’ve got no reason to look for us.” Then the realization hit: “They’re looking for their missing coursers. Or their remains.”

Murphy nodded. “That’s the only thing that makes sense. Either searching for wreckage or potential mutineers lurking in the lee of an out-of-the-way rock. But whatever the reason, it gives you an unexpected opportunity to complete your training and for us to make one last supply run to the surface. The volunteers who are staying behind to set up our isolated landing fields need a few more tools and an extra water purification unit; theirs crapped out.”

“These are the guys you stranded on an island south of the equator?”

Murphy grimaced. “Well, they volunteered, actually—but yeah, more or less. And the work they’re doing will make it a lot easier—and safer—for us when the time comes to return. It’s one of the few locations where our birds can deorbit safety. No locals to see the spiral descent contrails, and no terminal glidepath that takes you right over R’Bak Island and then the satraps north of the Hamain.”

Bowden nodded. “And no more VTOL-assisted acute angle descents. Those burn so much fuel that you frequently can’t make it back upstairs without a RATO.”

“Said the guy who’s not an astronaut?”

“I’m still just making noises like one.”

“Whatever you say, spaceman. Now, in addition to the supplies for the runway team, I’ve got a little biofreight for you to haul.”

Kevin raised an eyebrow. “So, you’re still going to send Yukannak dirtside?”

Murphy nodded.

“And how does he get anywhere useful if this island is so remote?”

“You are his ride, but he’s getting off before you land.”

Kevin stared, then understood, smiling. “So he gets to land via drop pod. Fitting. But won’t the surveyors be more likely to see us if we’re loitering to make a drop?”

“If your mission profile was to ferry him to a drop zone, then yes. But you’re just going to dump his pod out of your bay. Then we remote-operate the pod’s thrusters and push it into a descent sleeve that will drop him into the laps of the Sarmatchani. More or less.”

Kevin smiled. “A meteoritic descent, huh? That should make Yukannak sweat some more.”

“You bet. And test his loyalty, too.”

“How so?”

“Because the Sarmatchani are not actually going to be in the drop zone. They’re going to hold back a few hours. That gives us a chance to see what Yukannak chooses to do if he believes he’s a free agent.”

Kevin nodded. “Does he wait or bug out to look for someone who can take him to his own kind?”

“That’s the concept. We need to give him every chance to betray us before Chalmers’s team has to depend upon him.”

Bowden frowned. “Yeah, but even if he doesn’t run, that’s not proof positive that he can be trusted. He’s probably levelheaded and smart enough to realize that it could be a test. Anyhow, if he really means to betray us, he won’t show he’s a turncoat until it really counts.”

“Agreed. It might boost him pretty far up the Kulsian social ladder if he can deliver our collective heads on a platter. But so far, he’s provided us with pretty useful information.”

“Does that include confirming your conjectures about the surveyors staying close to the downport at first?”

“It does. Although the current situation is unprecedented, he’s guessing that they won’t start trying to show the flag or investigate what happened to the coursers until the bulk of their flotilla joins them.”

Bowden heard the hanging tone. “But…?”

“But he also shared a less encouraging projection: that the Harvesters will follow the surveyors as soon as they can.”

“He likes making ominous pronouncements, doesn’t he?”

Murphy nodded. “His take on the dominant Kulsian Overlords—Family Syfartha—is that they don’t like uncertainty and they like failure even less. And even though the Syfarthans don’t have much to do with sending the first two flotillas, as far as the rest of Kulsis is concerned, whatever happened to the coursers is their fault.”

Bowden smirked. “Guess their ‘succeed-or-die’ standard cuts both ways, after all.” He sat straighter, very conscious his food was getting cold. “So are there any shuttles already at the landing field? Because if there aren’t, and we have a major malfunction, we’ll be stuck dirtside with the surveyors soon to arrive in orbit.”

“By the time you get there, there will be two craft on site. You take one back up; they’ll keep the one you took down.” He broke off and waved to someone behind Bowden. “And here’s the person who’ll take you on your next flying adventure.”

Bowden turned to find Burg Hrensku walking toward him. “Hi, Burg. What are you doing here?”

“Hello,” the SpinDog said. “Apparently, I am to be your next instructor—at Primus Anseker’s direct request.” He shrugged. “When the Primus asks…”

“You say yes.”

“Well, I’ll leave you two to get on with it,” Murphy said, standing. He glanced down at Bowden and held the gaze for an extra second, giving it significance. “As quickly as possible.” He nodded once, a sharp jerk of his head. “I’ve got a lot of new sewage to stir through back in my office.” He left and Hrensku sat down in Murphy’s spot.

“So,” Hrensku said, “I know you’ve been on a number of runs to the planet and back. What is most important about performing a reentry?”

Bowden chuckled. “I was riding in the back for all but the last trip up, so I wouldn’t say I’ve got a lot of experience doing it.” He pondered the question a moment. “Slowing down and landing in one piece?”

Hrensku smiled. “You’re not wrong, but that was not what I was asking. How do we get from space safely through the atmosphere so that we can land in one piece?”

“I’m sorry, but I never went through astronaut training. I can modify and fly aircraft, and now I know how to fly spacecraft in space, but I don’t know how to transition a spacecraft into an aircraft.” He gave Hrensku a wry grin. “I was kind of hoping you’d teach me that.”

“I will, but I wanted to see what you knew, first.”

“Well, based on the spacecraft piloting I’ve done, I know you need to slow down to go lower, so I imagine it starts with going slower.”

“Correct. Besides, if you go too fast, you’ll bounce off the atmosphere and go flying off into space, never to return.”

“I will?” Bowden asked, horrified at the thought.

Hrensku laughed. “No, you won’t go flying off into space. We always tell the new trainees that, though, to see their reactions.”

Bowden chuckled self-deprecatingly. “Okay, you got me. So you can’t skip off the atmosphere.”

“Oh, no, you totally can skip off the atmosphere,” Hrensku said.

“But wait—”

“You just don’t keep going into space,” Hrensku finished. “If you don’t slow down enough for atmospheric penetration, you can bounce off, but you are still in orbit. You will go back up partway toward where you started, and it may take you a while to get back down to the atmosphere again, but you don’t fly off into space. You just end up at a lower orbit than where you started.

“If you are performing a reentry, the two most important things to doing it successfully are your velocity and the entry angle with respect to the local horizon. These two things need to be within the limits of your craft or bad things happen.

“We’ll talk about velocity first. As you already mentioned, it’s a major factor. If you are going too fast, the thermal loads and braking forces will overwhelm your heat shield. Once the heat shield fails…”

“You burn up,” Bowden said with a nod. “How fast are you talking?”

“Typically, from a low orbit, the velocity is around eight kilometers per second, but you also need to have the correct entry angle. If the entry angle is too steep, the braking effect due to atmospheric friction will become too large and the spacecraft can break up. Additionally, the steeper the entry angle, the higher the heat. Once again, if the heat exceeds what the shield can take, you will either get burn-throughs or the heat shield will fail entirely.”

Bowden nodded. “And your crispy remains will fall to Earth. I mean the planet’s surface.”

“Correct.”

“And, let me guess, based on your earlier comment, it can’t be too shallow either, or other bad things happen.”

“You are correct again,” Hrensku said. “At a shallower angle, the deceleration won’t be enough, and the spacecraft will travel much farther than it is supposed to. You might not be able to make it back to where you intended to land…or even find a spot where you are able to land. Additionally, even though the heat shield will be exposed to a lower amount of heat, it will be exposed for a much longer time, which may result in a larger total heat load. No matter how good the shield, at some point, you’re going to burn away all the protective insulation. Whether that results in burn-throughs or heat seeping through the shield, making the temperatures inside the spacecraft too high, neither is pleasant.”

“And both are probably fatal,” Bowden opined.

“Correct. Also, if the entry angle is really shallow, you again run the risk of bouncing off the atmosphere and continuing with your orbit. This results in an elliptical orbit, and when you come back down, you’ll be in a different place than you’d planned, probably nowhere near your intended reentry corridor.”

Bowden nodded. “So we end up landing somewhere far, far away.”

“Probably.” He shrugged. “For reentry, accurate guidance and control is extremely important.”

Bowden took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I see.” He shrugged. “So how do we figure all that out?”

Hrensku stood. “Come with me, and I will show you.”


Murphy checked the video feed from the small compartment on the other side of the double-locked bulkhead door.

As always, the asset was in constant yet moderate motion. Yesterday, he had been meticulously packing the gear he would take down to R’Bak. Today he was binding them with straps; tightly wrapped gear had the best chance of withstanding the brutal buffeting of a meteoric descent from orbit.

Murphy nodded to Janusz Lasko. The submariner brought his Thompson level with his belt and toggled open the door. “Just about ready?” Murphy snapped from his side of the coaming.

“Very nearly,” the asset answered. He showed neither surprise nor the faintest hint of anxiety. “It seems rather early to be sending me down, though.”

Murphy smiled. “I have to hand it to you, Yukannak. After all this time, you still think you’re going to get me to respond to your leading comment, to reveal information by irritating me into showing that I know more than you do?”

Yukannak shrugged. “There’s nothing I could do with that information, even if it was my intent to gather it.”

Murphy wondered if any part of that reply was true. “Yet, you know that’s what we will always assume. Just as you know that if you give us any reason to doubt your loyalty—”

Yukannak held up a hand. “I quite understand, Colonel. The SpinDogs have made it quite clear that if I betray your trust, it is they who will decide how I am to be dealt with. And I have seen what is in their eyes.”

“Your death?” Murphy asked.

“Much worse than mere death. Regardless of the many ways in which this system’s exiles have departed from the original path of their Exodate progenitors, it is clear they remember that terror is one of the pillars upon which dominion is built.” Yukannak’s lip creased in what might have been a smile. “Of course, the SpinDogs’ dominion over me would last only so long as they felt themselves adequately entertained by my suffering.”

Murphy shrugged. “An outcome that is entirely up to you. In seventy-two hours, you’ll be in position. Twelve hours after that, if you survive the drop, you will be in the hands of Sarmatchani tribesmen. Many are relatives of the ones who died as a result of the advice you gave to the satrap of Imsurmik.”

“I was simply playing a role that would enable me to survive long enough to escape,” Yukannak amended.

“And in the course of that,” Murphy retorted, “you lied to or killed whoever stood in your way. Including relatives of the people who’ll be waiting for you, and who crave an excuse—any excuse—to gut you like a fish. So it behooves you to be, as we would put it, on your best behavior.”

“Another of your strange idioms,” he commented, leaning away from the tightly packed kits on the bunk before him. “I am ready.”

“Before you go,” Murphy said, stepping into the tiny compartment. “I’ve been entertained, even interested, in what you’ve had to say about Kulsis. But I wonder how much of it will prove true.”

Yukannak shrugged. “As you have pointed out before, once the surveyors arrive it will not be long before you capture some Kulsian and use his statements to assess the veracity of mine. So I would be a fool to deceive you.”

“So it would seem to me,” Murphy replied, crossing his arms. “But you may have reasons that I cannot foresee, because my knowledge of you and your people is incomplete.”

“I have often thought the same about you and your people,” Yukannak answered. “But there is certainly at least one great difference between us.”

“You mean that we’re the ones with the guns this time?”

Yukannak smiled. “Yes. That is the determining variable, isn’t it?”

“We’ll see,” Murphy said. “But before you depart, there’s a term I’ve heard among the SpinDogs that I suspect may mean something different on Kulsis. While it’s not relevant to your specific mission, I am seeking clarity about that difference. As a matter of curiosity.”

“Yes, a matter of such curiosity that you came to seek an answer now…in the event that my drop capsule has a ‘suboptimal’ descent.”

Murphy shrugged, turned to leave. “As I said, it is not urgent.”

“What is this term?” Yukannak asked quickly. “I will provide what information I can.”

Still facing away so the Kulsian could not see his small smile, Murphy said, “Tell me what you know about ‘Reification.’”


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