Short Story: KR-122

KR-122

"Quetzalli to unidentified ship, transmit identity and state your business." Nirav barked as authoritatively as he could manage, as soon as Quetzalli's transmission laser locked onto the oncoming vessel, which was no more than a blip on his display opposite the cluster of blips which represented the rest of the convoy and its hired escorts. As soon as he released the transmit control, a timer began to count down the seconds until his transmission had reached its target. Nirav was the only member of Quetzalli's compliment who was on duty; it was the middle of the third shift, and all the other four people on board were all asleep.

Nirav didn't know how to fly the ship. Of the five people aboard, only Hania and McCreary had even the most cursory spaceflight training. There was only a remote chance that a pilot would be needed before Quetzalli’s convoy reached Maribel, of course. The entire convoy was slaved to the lead ship’s helm, and all Nirav needed to do while he stood watch on the tiny vessel’s two-seat command deck was monitor the status readouts and field any incoming comms traffic.

A bigger or newer ship would have automated even these tasks, but Quetzalli was a bargain for a reason. Its crew module, only one hundred square meters of deck space divided into seven cramped compartments, had originally been designed with a small family in mind; for five adults, none of them habitual spacers, it was an uncomfortably small home. The novelty of interstellar travel had worn off in the first week, and the flaring of restless tempers had cooled after the second. After that, everything had settled into a dull routine of duty shifts, bland meals, sleep, and empty hours in the lounge.

Of course, now there was a new ship on the nav plot, creeping up to the convoy as it waited for the star drive of the slowest ship to charge. The nearest star was fifteen ly away, so it was obviously no chance meeting. Nirav wondered if it was a straggler, but remembered all the stories he’d read back on Earth about the outlaws who supposedly infested the frontiers. Would a single small pirate try his luck against a whole column?

The comms console timer ticked over to zero, then turned yellow and began counting back up, indicating that the vessel would have received Nirav’s message. As soon as it had returned to its original value, the timer turned green. The timer was a simple thing which most spacers probably didn’t need, but for a novice like Nirav, it was invaluable.

Two seconds after the numbers turned green, a response came in. “This is KR-122, Lagounov speaking.” The voice was a woman’s, nasal and bearing an accent Nirav didn’t recognize. “Returning to formation.”

Nirav shrugged. Most of the convoy ships were older models purchased by groups who couldn’t afford better, and their star drives were not all calibrated perfectly. KR-122 had probably found itself a significant distance from the main body of the convoy after the past jump, as several ships had throughout the voyage.

After several seconds, though, Nirav began to be The blip still was not tagged with the data from an identification transponder. The Navy escort crew had been insistent about the rules – the transponder was not optional, and all helms should be left in slave mode until released. If a ship did happen to mis-jump, the slaved autopilot would automatically try to return to formation. KR-122 was maneuvering too slowly to be in autopilot, and its transponder was still deactivated.

“KR-122, if you don’t cut into the escort’s command net and turn your transponder back on before someone else notices, there’ll be hell to pay.” Nirav sent. The ship was probably no larger or better-crewed than his own; it was possible that they didn’t even have a single person on board who knew how to fly the ship with the autopilot turned off. The first few days of the journey had been chaos; between hapless crews touching buttons without knowing what they did and the antics of a few self-styled hotshot free-spirits who’d resented the Navy’s firm convoying regulations and had taken every opportunity to defy them, the crews of the escorting frigate and its three parasite gunships had been hard-pressed to get the convoy moving safely. By now, everything had settled down – if Lagounov wanted to make trouble, she wouldn’t get far before one of the gunships undocked, ran her down, and towed her to an uncomfortable rendezvous.

On the display, KR-122 inched closer to the formation. There was no reply, nor did the ship change its behavior. It seemed strange that the sensor systems on the larger ships farther up the formation hadn’t noticed Lagounov’s ship yet. Nirav sighed, switching the ship’s lone comms laser to home in on the convoy’s escorting frigate. He pitied Lagounov, probably out of her depth on a third shift watch just like he was – but rules were rules, and Nirav didn’t want to give the Navy any reason to complain about little Quetzalli.

Lagounov finally sent a reply, just as Nirav’s equipment was ready to transmit again. “Quetzalli, how do I do that?” The reply came, calmly but with a touch of uncertainty.

Nirav sighed, then instructed the laser to wheel all the way back around to send to the straggler again. “Can’t help you there, KR-122.” He sent. “I have no idea what you’re flying.”

“Who am I talking to?” The delay was narrowing; KR-122 was getting closer.

Nirav glanced over to verify that his ship’s transponder was still working, and that, as the ostensible commander for the rest of the shift, his name was being broadcast in addition to the ship’s name and identification codes. Could Lagounov not see the identification signal? Once again, he set his transmitter to seek out the Navy escort. They would deal with Lagounov in her confusion.

Nirav’s console flickered wildly, then its display surface darkened. As he pounded his fist on its side, the command compartment’s lights died as well. The hum of the atmospherics cut out seconds later. Nirav froze for several seconds in the utter darkness, imagining himself and his compatriots drifting silently in interstellar space until the air ran out.

Just as he stood up to find the manual alarm control, Nirav heard the atmospherics whir to life once more. Within seconds, the lights came on, and the consoles began to re-initialize.

“What the hell was that, Nirav!” McCreary, suddenly filling the doorway into the rest of the ship, barked. He hadn’t even bothered to throw on a shirt after jumping out of bed. Perhaps the disappearance of the constant hum of atmospherics had awakened him.

“Uh. I don’t…” Nirav tried to say, but the older man pushed past him to jab at the restarted displays. Nirav stayed out of his way. Quetzalli had experienced a few electrical problems when they’d first bought it, but they had fixed most of them. Evidently, one had slipped through.

The nav plot came back on, one of the last consoles to reassert itself. Nirav glanced at it and immediately noticed that the plot had one less blip. “She’s gone.” He exclaimed.

“Who’s gone?” McCreary growled, flicking through the readouts too fast for Nirav to read.

“There was a ship here.” Nirav poked his finger into the ghostly constellation of lights hovering over the nav panel to the place the missing ship had been. “A straggler called KR-122.” Had the ship suffered a power failure too? Was everyone on KR-122 going to die?

“Not our problem.” McCreary decided. “Send up a contact report, then run down to the patch panel and check those power feeds.”

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Originally posted on Cosmic Background on 2946-06-09.