Free Aces by Craig Alanson

said to Seth “See if you
can find a registration for this ship.”
    Miller looked
sheepish when he sent his reply. “Our hypercomm transmitter isn ’ t
working, we can receive messages, but not send, ditto for our transponder. We
weren ’ t supposed to be in this area, we cut our survey
trip short to get the transmitter repaired. This ship's complement is mostly
doctors and medical research people, can we assist? Our shuttle only holds four
people.”
    Schroeder kept
the radio on mute as he looked impatiently at Gina, until she replied. “Ah,
Captain, Nightengale is registered, and the ship
out there meets the configuration. It ’ s a survey ship,
they search for alien plants and animals that could yield useful drugs. That ’ s what the Registry says, anyway.”
    Schroeder nodded,
satisfied he had all the information he was going to get. His ship wasn ’ t a Navy warship, Ace ’ s sensors
were for navigation and that ’ s about all. He sent a reply.
“Be advised that we have a shuttle dropping now, it should be on the surface
shortly. Could you rendezvous with us, in case any of the miners need medical
attention? All we have aboard is a medical bot.”
    “Sure, the
doctors here would like a change of scenery anyway, and this will be good public
relations for BioPharma. Always good to keep your employer happy.” Miller said
with a friendly smile. “I see your shuttle on radar, we can rendezvous with you
in…” he checked something off screen, “about fifty minutes.”
    Schroeder raised
an eyebrow, and turned toward Seth. Fifty minutes, from dropping out of
hyperspace, to matching orbit with Ace ? That was fast, such maneuvers
often took a day or more, depending on the relative positions of the two ships.
Seth queried his navigation console, and gave a thumb ’ s up
sign. “They came out of hyper right in the sweet spot, Captain, they ’ re just about lined up for orbit already. Their navigator is
either very good, or very lucky.”
     
    Captain Gante
came back onto the bridge, with a thought nagging at the back of her mind. Tigershark had been patrolling this sector for fourteen months with no incidents, now
there were two distress calls at the same time. It never rains unless it ’ s pouring, her mother used to say. She came up behind her first
officer ’ s chair, and drummed her fingers on the seatback.
“XO, any luck?”
    Lt. Commander
Ross blinked, and rubbed his eyes. He ’ d been staring at
the screen for too long. “Ma ’ am, if I was fishing for our
dinner, we ’ d be eating crackers tonight. I ’ ve
got nothing. No sign of the Isaac Newton , and no sign of an explosion.”
He turned halfway around in the seat to face his captain. “If anyone survived,
they must be using battery power to run whatever life support they have left.”
    “ Keep
looking, XO. ” She frowned, and crossed to the communications technician.
When Atlas Challenger had arrived at Ares and gone into stable orbit,
that transport ship had sent a message to Tigershark that the rescue
operation was on schedule and going well. No communication since then. That was
not unusual, because if the freighter had sent a message directed back toward
Earth, Tigershark could not have picked up the narrowband transmission.
She instructed the communications technician to signal the freighter to send a
status report, then Gante went back to her cabin to complete some crew
evaluations.
     
    For Rick, the
flight got boring again, until the shuttle encountered the planet ’ s
atmosphere, and he experienced the familiar roaring sound, and turbulence, of a
spacecraft slowing down by burning a hole in the air. In Ace ’ s no-luxuries cargo-hauling shuttle, the descent was much
louder and rougher than the commercial spaceplane flights Rick was used to. At
some point, Sam came over the intercom to announce that, because the shuttle
was now surrounded by super-heated plasma, they would soon temporarily lose
contact with the ship. It was nothing