Metal Swarm - Kevin J. Anderson [32]
Lanyan had no great love for bureaucrats and administrators, but he needed someone with specific skills to organize these complex activities. It was an accounting job more than a command responsibility. Lanyan had never thought he would miss Admiral 'Stay-at-Home' Stromo…
When he reached the large turning wheel of the admin dock, he locked down his ship and disembarked. He didn't expect a brass band, but he had hoped for someone to acknowledge his arrival. He headed directly for the main control centre, trying to get used to the slightly off-kilter gravity of the spinning station. The central chamber's walls were filled with screens and trajectory diagrams, space-traffic directors filled every seat, shouting orders and diverting vessels as they dealt with numerous near misses.
A civilian-piloted space tug had hooked up to a halfway-intact Ildiran warliner. The tug was a small ship, but it had applied significant thrust to get the ornate hulk moving. The tug had matched its drifting rotation to stabilize the warliner, then dragged the alien battleship toward the shipyards, like an ant hauling a leaf twenty times its size. While the tug had used enough thrust to get the warliner moving, constantly accelerating, its captain hadn't planned for sufficient power to slow the giant ship down when it reached the construction field. The tug's fuel ran out as it strained.
Lanyan absorbed the slow-motion disaster. 'Doesn't that pilot know the first thing about momentum? It's a high-school mathematics calculation.'
'Mayday!' the tug operator cried. 'I have no fuel, no manoeuvrability--'
'And not a chance in hell,' Lanyan muttered.
Two tugs raced out of their docking bays, but the dead warliner had begun to tumble straight toward a corralled salvage yard of engine parts. One of the new tugs reached the ship in time and applied thrust, pushing it sideways, but the resulting collision was inevitable. The first hapless tug, drained of fuel, managed to detach and let itself drift away rather than be dragged along.
'I need a pickup!' the tug pilot called.
'Let him wait. I don't even want to watch what's about to happen.' Nevertheless, Lanyan couldn't tear his eyes away. A second tug grappled to the warliner and began to push, but it was too little, too late. The first tug had spent nine hours accelerating, and a few minutes of thrust couldn't deflect the warliner enough to make any difference.
'Detach! Detach!' one of the space-traffic controllers said. The second tug remained connected for just a few moments longer, then gave up. Crawling forward with nothing to stop it, the Ildiran warliner collided with the salvage yard, smashing like a killer asteroid into the engine parts.
Lanyan shook his head and groaned. 'Incompetents! Bloody incompetents, the lot of them. And they're supposed to be the hope of Earth?' He was not looking forward to delivering his report to the Chairman.
Seventeen
Nah'ton
The green priest was all alone on Earth.
For weeks Nahton had been under house arrest in the Whisper Palace, though he was still allowed to receive updates and statements via telink so that he could report them to the Chairman. Basil Wenceslas was convinced, however, that Nahton must be slanting his reports. The Chairman refused to believe that so many colonies would follow the upstart King Peter against him.
As mist machines watered the Theron plants next to his potted treeling, Nahton saw Chairman Wenceslas approach the open, guarded, doorway. The dapper man was accompanied by Captain McCammon and two additional royal guards. I Nahton did not let his gaze linger on the captain. McCammon also disagreed with the Chairman's decisions, and, along with Nahton, had helped the King and Queen escape. But almost no one knew that.
'I have decided to be