Captain Future xx - The Death of Captain Future (October 1995) by Allen Steele Read Free Book Online Page A

still transfixed upon the holo tank, jabbing his finger at Mars while raving about saboteurs and space pirates and God knows what else, when I turned back to Jeri. She had taken the helm in my absence, and as the Comet came up on the Fool's Gold again, I closely studied the mass-driver on the flatscreens.
    “Okay,” I said quietly. “The hangar bay is out ... we can't send the skiff in there while it's depressurized and the cradles are full. Maybe if we...”
    She was way ahead of me. “There's an auxiliary docking collar here,” she said, pointing to a port on the spar leading to the command sphere. “It'll be tight, but I think we can squeeze in there.”
    I looked at the screen. Tight indeed. Despite the fact that the Comet had a universal docking adapter, the freighter wasn't designed for mating with a craft as large as Fool's Gold . “That's cutting it close,” I said. “If we can collapse the telemetry boom, though, we might be able to make it.”
    She nodded. “We can do that, no problem ... except it means losing contact with Ceres.”
    “But if we don't hard-dock,” I replied, “then someone's got to go EVA and try entering a service airlock.”
    Knowing that this someone would probably be me, I didn't much relish the idea. An untethered spacewalk between two vessels under acceleration is an iffy business at best. On the other hand, cutting off our radio link with Ceres under these circumstances was probably not a good idea. If we fucked up in some major way, then no one at Ceres Station would be informed of the situation, and early warning from Ceres to Arsia Station might save a few lives, if evacuation of settlements near Lunae Planum was started soon enough.
    I made up my mind. “We'll hard-dock,” I said, turning in my seat toward the communications console, “but first we send a squib to Ceres, let them know what's...”
    “Hey! What are you two doing?”
    Captain Future had finally decided to see what the Futuremen were doing behind his back. He kicked off the nav table and pushed over to us, grabbing the backs of our chairs with one hand each to hover over us. “I haven't issued any orders, and nothing is done on my ship without my...”
    “Bo, did you been listen to what we've been saying?” Jeri's expression carefully neutral as she stared up at him. “Have you hear a word either Rohr or I have said?”
    “Of course I...!”
    “Then you know that this is the only recourse,” she said, still speaking calmly. “If we don't hard-dock with the Gold , then we won't have a chance of shutting down the railgun or averting its course.”
    “But the pirates. They might...!”
    I sighed. “Look, get it through your head. There's no...”
    “Rohr,” she interrupted, casting me a stern look that shut me up. When I dummied up once more, she transfixed McKinnon again with her wide blue eyes. “If there's pirates aboard the Gold ,” she said patiently, “we'll find them. But right now, this isn't something we can solve by firing missiles. Rohr's right. First, we send a squib to Ceres, let them know what's going on. Then...”
    “I know that!”
    “Then, we have to dock with...”
    “I know that! I know that!” His greasy hair scattered in all directions as he shook his head in frustration. “But I didn't ... I didn't give the orders and...”
    He stopped, sullenly glaring at me with inchoate rage, and I suddenly realized the true reason for his anger. His subordinate second officer, whom he has harassed and chastised constantly for twelve weeks, had become uppity by reaching a solution that had evaded him. Worse yet, he had done it with the cooperation of his first officer, who had tacitly agreed with him on all previous occasions.
    Yet this wasn't a trifling matter such as checking the primary fuel pump or cleaning the galley. Countless lives were at stake, time was running out, and while he was spewing obvious nonsense about space pirates, Mister Furland was trying to take command of