Wasteland of flint

The Cornuelle

Hadeishi overhanded onto the bridge, tunic straight, uniform jacket entirely neat. Kosho and Hayes were seated at the main navigation station, heads bent over the display. The Marine heicho standing watch near the hatchway coughed sharply, then straightened to attention. A difficult task in z-g, but he was an Imperial Marine.

Heicho Tonuac started to a

"Sho-sa, sound battle stations. Recall all work crews and prepare to take us out of orbit," Hadeishi said without preamble as he settled into his chair, powered motors whining to align the shockfoam with his back and legs. "Full emissions control, Thai-i Hayes. Release active control of the weather satellites and spin the hyperspace generators down to minimum. Tell Engineering I want as shallow a gravity dimple as possible."

The bridge was filled with immediate activity; men and women shifting to combat stations, low voices keying comm to the various ship's departments. There were no questions, only a swift response. Hadeishi felt a stab of pride. A fine crew.

Kosho keyed open the all-hands cha

A warning tone sounded throughout the Cornuelle and every starman and Marine aboard rushed to secure whatever compartment they were in. Even through the mass of the ship, Hadeishi felt the rumble of the hab rings spi

"One minute to z-g," Kosho a

"Satellites are ready to release – shall I force orbital decay?"

Hadeishi nodded, his stylus sketching a trajectory on his main panel. "A lengthy descent, Mister Hayes. I want no debris to reach the ground. Work crews?"

"All aboard," Kosho replied, listening to the boat officer on her earbug. "Hyperdrive has spun down. Skin mesh is active, comm arrays withdrawn, active tracking cold. We are on passive detection only."

"Sublight engines at low power, Mister Hayes. Here is your plot." The captain flicked a glyph with his stylus and the motion plot appeared in the threat-well. Hadeishi felt a tug of disappointment – Ephesus Three had no moon, which would have made the Cornuelle's escape path much shorter – and he'd been forced into a long ellipse to swing away from the planet. "Refine please – we must orient our engine flare away from the planet. Once we have moved out of the plane of the ecliptic we can go to higher power, but only if the body of the ship blocks line-of-sight to our thrust plume."

"One minute to boost." Kosho began to count seconds.

Hadeishi felt the engines come up as a faint, thready vibration in the panel under his hand. Acceleration tugged at his sleeve, but in the tight embrace of the shockchair he barely noticed.

The Cornuelle began to move, slowly and carefully, swinging away from the planet and the distant dot of the Palenque. From Hayes's reworked plot, Hadeishi saw they could shift to cruising speed in approximately sixteen hours. A long slow pull, he thought with a flash of irritation. My thoroughbred forced to plod in the mud.

"Time?" Mitsuharu looked to Kosho with interest. The exec flushed, one slim hand diving into the pocket of her duty jacket, then looked guiltily to the clocks on her command panel.

"Seven minutes," she said. Hadeishi thought he could see a faint blush on her cheeks.

"Excellent."

After thirty minutes of acceleration gentle enough to win Thai-i Hayes a pilot's berth on a Pochteca starliner, Hadeishi ordered the crew secured from battle stations and raised himself from the captain's chair. Feeling Kosho's eyes on him as intent as any targeting laser, the chu-sa turned to the Navigation and Weapons stations. "We will discuss finding the Tyr in thirty minutes, after the duty watch changes."

Hadeishi returned to his cabin, where the steward had cleaned up his abandoned tea and put away the usual litter of books and 3v readers which accumulated around the captain's desk and workstation. Ship's night had already come, the di

Which, he thought ruefully, is extremely unlikely. He owned an admirable service record, but his "secret" perso

When he returned to the bridge, Kosho and Hayes – who had obviously not had the luxury of a shower – were waiting on either side of the threat-well, the softly glowing holospace crowded with indicators, icons and velocity markers. Hadeishi paused in the entryway and spoke softly into his comm. "Kusaru-san, please bring three teas – very sweet – and two tubes of miso."

There was barely a grunt in answer from his steward, but Hadeishi knew the old man would see to the matter immediately.

"So," he said, bringing himself to a halt by grasping the rail girdling the threat-well. "How do we find this miner? Or has he left, even before we begin our search?"

A lesser being than the lieutenant commander would have given Hadeishi an open glare, he was sure, but the young Sho-sa contented herself with failing to bow before begi

"This is a compressed display of the Ephesian system," she said. "This gray section is the asteroid belt occupying the orbits between Three and the distant, irregular orbit of Four. We acquired the navigational scans made by both the original Imperial probe and by the Palenque upon arrival in the system. Luckily," and she allowed herself a wintry smile, "Sho-sa Cardenas was a careful man. Like yourself, he ordered his navigator and exec to conduct a systemwide navigation survey as soon as they arrived in Ephesus orbit."

Kosho made a sharp motion with her stylus and most of the objects in the well vanished.

"This is the condensed version of the Palenque scan. You see it is moderately detailed. Luckily for us, Navigator Gylfisson concentrated a fair amount of his long-range scan activity on the asteroid belt. I believe that he – like the presumptive miner – was looking for planetesimals bearing heavy ores, radioactives, rare metals and so on. We made the same kind of scan during our survey…" The stylus moved again, and a second layer of data appeared, showing a much thicker representation. "…with superior equipment. Hayes-san has been ru