Murmansk-13

One of them, Captain Lieutenant Yegor Yermakov, had taken a position beside the Captain’s chair. Yermakov was a stern faced man, old for his rank, too old to obtain a command of his own. Leo guessed he was a convert from the Northern Fleet due to his weather beaten features. Burst capillaries netted across his cheeks and bulbous nose, evincing a life exposed to too much cold and too much vodka.

Yermakov lent into Leo, so close Leo could see his greying, windswept, nest of hair flutter as air circulated the bridge. “Phase three complete, sir,” he said in a hushed tone, his adherence to rank at odds with his obvious experience. “Thrusters are back to stabilization mode, we are holding steady on the current orbital plane.”

“How’s our velocity looking?”

“A little low, Captain,” Yermakov looked over his shoulder in trained suspicion. “But she’s coming up as we get closer to the planet.”

“Thank you, lieutenant.”

Yermakov stepped back, returned to monitoring the telemetry readouts as the Yumashev rounded into the next phase of the rendezvous. Leo glanced at the target acquired on the radar, the Riyadh. Just five hundred miles now, she was travelling faster, beginning to disappear over the detectable horizon. To complicate matters her orbit was decaying, albeit lightly. Her captain had reported fuel shortage amongst the ships many ills. The Yumashev would have to time her descent, allowing her velocity to slowly climb as the Riyadh rounded the planet. With luck, they would meet on matching orbital planes just as the Yumashev synchronized her velocity. Of course, while the Riyadh rounded the planet, they would be blind, she could accelerate up to escape velocity or disintegrate in the planet’s atmosphere without their knowing.

As Leo contemplated the many new ways the mission could go further awry Captain Korashev reappeared on the bridge. Seeing everybody prepare to stand, Korashev motioned for them all to remain seated and walked straight to Tarasov. Leo extricated himself from the Captain’s chair, using his deference as an excuse to take a step closer to the Captain and the physicist.

Surreptitiously, Leo attempted to eavesdrop on their conversation.

Korashev stroked his walrus moustache, allowing his hand to rest across his lips. “Have you still got the trail from the arc?”

“Yes, Captain,” Tarasov began, strangely unctuous for a missions scientist. “It’s faint and fading fast, but I believe I’ve managed to calibrate the detector to its particular signature.”

“Will it hold?”

“Probably not, it’s like a contrail. But we can use the data I have to estimate a trajectory.”

Korashev peered around the bridge, Leo stared busily at one of the wan spotlights fixed in the deckhead – obviously prying.

“What if it jumps?” Korashev asked, half eyeing Leo.

“There will be a definite exit point, a radiation spike. Then it’ll be gone. But to all intents and purposes it is academic, Captain.”

Korashev returned his withering gaze toward the scientist. “What do you mean academic?”

Even from a distance, Leo could see Tarasov’s brow moisten under scrutiny. He doubted many of the scientists enjoyed their conscription into the navy, but military service was one of the conditions that subsidised their research in deep space. Six months mandatory.

“The initial rate of acceleration,” Tarasov faltered. “Far exceeds our own capabilities, while I doubt it can maintain that rate of thrust… if it did it would be six months flight from us within a week.”

The Captain mulled over the scientists words for a moment, then gave a curt nod. “Very good, Tarasov. Do what you can to keep track.”

Leo stepped aside as Korashev assumed the Captain’s chair. He took his seat without a word and for a moment Leo wondered if he was expecting a debrief in their ongoing orbital chase.

“Listening in, Ossipov?” Korashev said his grandfatherly voice somewhere between jovial and threatening.

“No, Captain,” Leo lied and immediately decided to backtrack. “Was just wondering if there was a change of orders, sir.”

“Orders are the same, Leo. We are to detain and question the survivors aboard the DSMV Riyadh,” Korashev turned to Leo, his features more suited to the Winter Palace imperial ball circa 1890 than a deep space destroyer. “They did after all break one of our toys.”

Korashev leant into the radar, the blip that had been Murmansk-13 swallowed up by the Red Supergiant’s radiation fog. Now all that remained was a faint trail of radionuclides left in its wake and a nebulous debris field.

“We have been given a secondary objective, however,” Korashev said, in an offhand manner.

Leo stood in silence for a moment, finally resolved to prompt the Captain. “And those are?”

“Once we have the survivors onboard we are to pursue the Iban arc that accelerated away from Murmansk-13.” Korashev’s neutral expression softened to a smile as he watched Leo take the instructions onboard.

“An Iban arc?” Leo repeated, awestruck.