Free Starfist: A World of Hurt by David Sherman & Dan Cragg Page B

to control his expression, but wasn't able to keep some astonishment from showing. "But, sir, we can't follow a ship in Beamspace!"
    "Of course you can," Admiral Orange admonished Commander Happiness.
    "Sir?" Happiness asked, confused. Everybody knew starships couldn't be tracked in Beamspace.
    "It's simple. You enter Beamspace on the same trajectory your quarry enters it. That is how you find its destination."
    Commander Happiness blinked. That wouldn't work, but he wasn't about to tell the only admiral of the starry heavens in the entire history of his world that he was thinking from the wrong end of his spinal column. "Yessir," he unhappily replied. He ordered his astrogator, Lieutenant Sunshine Stems'n'seeds, to plot the course.
    "Aye aye, sir," replied Lieutenant Stems'n'seeds. "How far do you want us to jump?"
    Therein lay the rub. The Broken Missouri could jump back into Space-3 anywhere from one light-year distant to twenty or more lights, and nobody had any way of knowing without being informed by someone privy to the freighter's astrogation plan. Even then, the vagaries of Beamspace were such that where a starship returned to Space-3 would vary to some extent from a true straight line. If that wasn't enough, when she made her jump back into Beamspace following the brief course correction for which she reentered Space-3, the Broken Missouri could jump in any direction. Again, there was no way for anybody to know--or even make an educated guess--without, again, access to her astrogation plan.
    Commander Happiness was in a very bad position. No matter what he told his astrogator, he was going to be wrong. He swallowed, wondering if he'd be allowed to wear a spacesuit when he was keelhauled, and asked, "Sir, how far does the admiral want us to jump?"
    The look that Admiral of the Starry Heavens Orange gave him was one that had sent many a staff officer scurrying back to quarters for a quick shower and change of undergarments. The voice in which he replied was cold enough to fracture continent-size ice sheets. "This is your ship, Captain. How far do you normally jump?"
    How far the Goin'on jumped depended on how far she was going, how great the need for precision was, and whether she had any escort destroyers. Happiness glanced at the starchart to see where other gravity wells were relative to the evidently mineral-rich planet they had under observation and picked a destination midway between it and the next major gravity well that could have a negative impact on the starship's reentry into Space-3.
    "Make it four point one lights," he ordered.
    "Four point one lights. Aye aye, sir," Stems'n'seeds replied. "Jump in five minutes."
    Happiness turned to Orange. "If the admiral will return to his cabin, sir."
    "The admiral will remain on the bridge, Captain," Orange said in a barely less frigid voice.
    He proceeded to strap himself into the Skipper's jump couch.
    Commander Happiness unhappily looked about the bridge. The other jump couches were all occupied by officers and crew who actually had jobs to perform during the jump. He came to the sad conclusion that he was the only person present on the bridge whose presence wasn't vital during a jump, and headed for the executive officer's cabin, which he was sharing since Admiral Orange occupied his.
    Ten minutes later, no worse for the experience of a jump than usual, Happiness emerged from his cabin, wondering why the officer-of-the-deck hadn't restored ship's gravity. He found out--and almost lost it--when he entered the bridge.
    Essential crew were carefully selected for their ability to withstand the gut-wrenching effects of jumps. Admiral Orange hadn't made many jumps since he'd been assigned to planetside duty as deputy G1 of the previous CNO fifteen years earlier. The single jump the Goin'on had made between We're Here! and the vicinity of the Rock had, purely coincidentally, come as the admiral was taking a nap. This was the first jump he'd made while conscious in a