What May Come

Please see chapter 1 for author's notes.

Chapter 19: Atsirhc

Goddard tried not to sigh as he moved back toward the bunkroom to see what Suzee had discovered. Radu had given up trying to contact any of the other people involved in the resistance for the time being and was working with Harlan to plot a way into the warring sector. A lot depended on being able to disguise the scout though…if the Spung recognized that it was stolen their mission would be over. No convenient asteroid fields this time around. Even more depended on the accuracy of the information they had. Scouts were designed to run independently for long periods of time, but they did need refueling at points. Maybe back on the Spung station they should have put in a request for resupply as long as they were there. Too late to worry about that now, though, and if they couldn't locate the Christa before the ship's power supplies ran down…well, they could cross that bridge when they got to it. "Suzee?"

"Up here, Commander. I found some caulking material that should hold to the hull well enough to change the name of the ship and hold up to a pretty close inspection. And Cat and I think we can alter the engine output to make them look a lot weaker than they are."

"Weak enough to make them pass as an earlier class of ship?"

"Well, I don't have any specs on other ships' power outputs, but if you can find some numbers…yeah, we can probably match them pretty close. Can't change what it looks like, though."

"Except for the new drive, I think this is a pretty standard scout ship. If we can alter the name and the engine outputs—and with the beating we took getting into the asteroid field—we should be able to pass the ship off as quite a bit older than it is. In the UPP, retired ships are sold after their weapons armaments and any classified technologies are removed…I don't see why the Spung should be any different. Otherwise they'd have to pay for the melting down of old hulls."

"Cheaper to sell them off and then refine better ore than try and separate out the trace metals," Suzee said with a nod. "Yeah, that could work. Still need some kind of specs though…maybe there will be something in the computers."

"Do you have the consoles translated?"

"Radu did them all when he was up here. How's it going up there? Have we found anyone who can help us?"

"Not yet."

"How much longer do we have?"

"We rendezvous with the Centauri in about twenty minutes…after that I'm not sure the numbers Jacie gave us will work. They seem to be sector-specific, so when we leave…"

Suzee nodded again. "If he can get the other guy—Ghi?—back on the comm, I can try going into his mind. See what he really knows."

"That might be worth a try," Goddard agreed. "See if you can locate the specs in the next ten minutes, and then come back down to command. How are your ribs?"

"They're fine, Commander. I'm all right, really."

He doubted that 'all right' was a term that applied to anyone who'd been a captive of the Spung, but they didn't have time to argue about it just then. "If you start hurting, go ahead and take another one of the painkillers." She called out agreement as he climbed back down out of the engineering room, taking the pack of caulking with him.

"Commander, what's that?" Harlan asked curiously as he made his way back to command.

"I'm going to do a quick spacewalk before we meet the Centauri and change the name and identification numbers on the ship."

"You think they'd give us up?"

"I think they'd sell their own grandmothers if they thought there was profit in it. After all, it isn't us they owe. Mr. Radu, I need a name and an identification number I can replace the ones already on the hull with."

"Well…" he brought up the numbers on the screen and frowned. "You could change that to a seven…and that back to a one…there's not a lot can be done with those two…um…"

"Show me." He watched carefully as Radu entered a new line of numbers below the old ones, memorizing the lines he would need to add to change the pattern. "All right, how about at name?"

"What about Atsirhc?" Harlan suggested. "Or whatever that set of symbols actually says…looks like Atsirhc to me though. They fit over whatever they've got there now."

Radu shrugged. "It's pronounced Dargah…not a Spung word, at least not as far as I know. It…it sounds like it could be a name, though, so…"

"Dargah it is," Goddard said with a nod. "Where did you get that from, Mr. Band?"

"The letters look like Christa, spelled backwards," he answered with a shrug. "My friends and I used to play a game when we were little…if we didn't want anyone to know where we were going we'd write the names in reverse. Thought maybe if one of the others heard it…I guess they wouldn't get it anyway though, even if they did hear the name. Doesn't' sound the same."

"They might if they saw the ship," Goddard said with a nod. "Forward might be a little obvious since at least some of the military speak Standard, but there's no reason not to use it backwards." Especially if it helped to raise their morale and make them feel like they were doing something, even something little. "Harlan, bring the ship to a halt for a moment so I can get this done. Have you two found a route in?"

"We think so…if hiding the ship really works, anyway."

"Suzee and I came up with another trick or two to help with that. She can explain it when she gets back down here. Radu, try one more time to get hold of the people who haven't answered, and then when Suzee gets here call Ghi again. She's going to try and read him and see what he knows." He waited for both students to nod. "I'm going to get suited up." Actually changing the name and numbers on the ship didn't take long…the caulking held well and was able to spread thin enough to hold up to all but close scrutiny. Which the Centauri would probably be giving it, but there wasn't much else he could do. He floated to the end of the tether to get a good look at the ship…there were enough dings and outright dents that it didn't look much like the neat little ship that had flow up alongside the Rockhopper…what, two days earlier? About that, anyway. It seemed much longer. He reeled himself in and ducked into the airlock, sealing it behind him and shedding the spacesuit. He opened the airlock to see the dejected looks on his three crewmembers' faces. "No luck?"

"No one answered," Harlan said with a shrug. "We tried Ghi, but he didn't pick up again."

"Well then, we go with what we already have. Suzee, did you find the information you need?"

"Not exactly…they don't give any real numbers, but they did list performance improvements for the upgrades they've made to the engines. Working backwards off that I think I can get something close to an earlier power curve."

"All right, how soon can you get it set up?"

"It'll take a couple hours to put in controls that scale everything down but still let us pull it up to full power if we decide we need to. And I'll need a couple extra sets of hands."

"Well, that part won't be a problem. Can you at least determine a max speed for the earlier version so Harlan can get us to the Centauri without raising any eyebrows? I'd rather not blow our cover story before we even have time to tell it by having a ship too high-tech."

"Sure, no problem."

"Uh, Commander? What exactly is our cover story?" Harlan asked.

"Pretty much what Aslinn and Jacie told them. The Spung kidnapped our ship—our perfectly normal, common ship, just like the ones you can find at any spaceport—and some of our crew—who, for the record, are also perfectly average—because of some political agenda. They aren't being held ransom, we have no money, they were just part of a large group that got taken and we're searching for them."

"So basically we're so boring they haven't got any reason to mention us to the Spung or make any connections between us and anything that's happening in the empire."

"Exactly, Mr. Band. We are all perfectly average and boring. I'd rather we spent as much time as possible here on the scout…the less they actually see of us the better, and the less time they have to spend questioning us."

"Well, we can claim engine repairs for the work I'll be doing," Suzee pointed out.

"For the work we'll be doing, at least to them," Goddard said. "I don't know if Jacie mentioned how many of us there were in his last message, but if he mentioned four I want you claiming illness and never showing your face. If the Spung are really looking for telepaths, the may have broadcast your holoimage as a dangerous escapee or something to try and recapture you."

She paled a little. "I didn't think of that."

He was glad to see that she wasn't disregarding his warning, even though he hated giving it. The other two looked equally serious. "We also need to get some sleep while we're on the deckship. I know no one wants to—" he raised his voice to override all three's protests—"but we don't know when we'll have another opportunity. Trust me, people, one thing you learn pretty quickly in any kind of combat situation is to take your rest when you can."

The chime of the comm system drew all of their attention to the screen. "Is it Aslinn and Jacie?" Harlan asked.

Radu shook his head. "No…it looks like it's coming back from one of the messages I left."

"Well, answer it, genius," Suzee told him. "What are you waiting for, an invitation?"

Goddard sighed. Maybe…hopefully…they'd get some more concrete information. "Go ahead, Mr. Radu."

Radu moved back in front of the screen and opened the channel. And rocked back in horror as a Spung man in a military uniform appeared on the screen.

"Close the channel!"

Goddard's words actually followed on the heels of Radu's hand crashing down on the console, breaking the connection. "Th-they found us!"

Harlan had brought up the engines up to full almost as quickly as Radu cut off the transmission. "Can we make it back to the asteroid belt?"

"Wait, Mr. Band. Radu, you said you couldn't find these people's locations because the contacts were through satellite relays, right? Is the same true in reverse?"

"Well…I g-guess so. If he's really calling back from the same location I was trying to contact and didn't cut in on the message somewhere near here." Some of the color returned to his face. "And I think the channels were encrypted, so…they must have captured whoever we were supposed to talk to and just took the message meant for him."

"All right. Well, it looks like Aslinn and Jacie were right to worry. No more transmitting, and don't accept any incoming messages regardless of which contact it comes from. We don't need them knowing anything about us…or posting our holoimages anywhere. Harlan, reduce engine speed and continue our course to the deckship." All three looked shook up by the encounter, and Goddard couldn't blame them. He'd thought Aslinn and Jacie were overreacting…they were both fairly young and didn't have any real training beyond hands-on experience. And even that, as Aslinn had freely admitted, had been on the edges of the movement rather than directly involved with the empire. But…well, they'd obviously been right about the Spung being ready to move on the resistance. From this point out, they were on their own.

"Commander, I've got a large ship on sensors," Radu interrupted his musing.

"The Centauri?"

"I'll know in a momen—it's the deckship. They're hailing."

"Open a channel, and let me do the talking. I'm fairly certain traders speak Standard. Suzee…hide."

"His name is Shavic," Harlan reminded him. "And we need to get off in Antarsh."

"I know, Mr. Band." He took a deep breath as the screen cleared and a man's image appeared on the screen. "Captain Shavic, I presume?"

"You are Goddard, yes?"

"Yes, sir. You've spoken to Aslinn and Jacie."

"To Jacie. Transporting you to Dartholm cancels our debt to them. Beyond transportation, anything else you need will require payment in full or signature of appropriate contracts."

"We understand," Goddard agreed. "If it is acceptable to you, we don't need transportation all the way to Dartholm." Wherever that was. "If you could let us off in the Antarsh sector, we'd appreciate it."

"Do Aslinn and Jacie understand that this favor will still be considered full repayment of our debt to them?"

"Absolutely," Goddard assured him. At this point, he doubted they'd give a damn where the Centauri left them. A fact he certainly didn't plan on telling these guys. "Where should we dock the ship?"

"Shut down your engines, we'll bring you in."

Goddard nodded to Harlan. "Do it, Mr. Band."