Free Black Box by Ivan Turner Page A

beginning to sweat. He tried to
remember the first time he’d been in a control room during ship to
ship combat. That had been a long time ago. He’d been manning the
Engineering station and the captain had pressed him for updates
every fifteen seconds. He’d used the words no change so many
times in just eight minutes that they still echoed queerly through
his skull.
    But this was nothing. Of all of the Ghost
ships Beckett had encountered in the service of the United Earth
Space Force, this one was proving to be the most ineffective.
Despite Jack Tunsley’s assertion that they were getting “cooked”,
he could see on the display that hull temperature was only slightly
elevated. At this rate, he estimated they had another eighty or
ninety minutes before there would be any noticeable damage.
    The ship moved into position.
    “Cut the firing program, Mr. Boone. Target
the capture point. Mr. Winkler, run an unsteady back and forth
pattern and continue to roll. We don’t want that heat ray to get a
bead on us.”
    The ship responded efficiently and Beckett
could see that Boone’s skills had improved since before their
leave. For once, he’d used his time wisely instead of sitting out
in the hayfields of his parents’ farm with old sports magazines.
Beckett blanched. Were his hobbies any better? Maybe not. But his
skills certainly were.
    Before long, a trail of vapor began to run
from the Ghost ship. It brought a smile to the captain’s face. He
only wished he had some idea what it was he was disabling. If he
could shut down their drive, he could maybe capture one of the
bastards.
    And then it was over. There was a flash and
a pop and the Ghost ship vanished from space.
    “Did we destroy it?” Winkler asked before he
could stop himself.
    Beckett shook his head. “They ran.”
    To date, no one had been able to figure out
Ghost wormholes. They opened within an instant, taking the Ghost
ship away from an enemy, but they closed slowly. Once, during the
early days, an eXchengue captain had worked up the nerve to follow
an opponent. That captain and his ship were never heard from again.
UESF captains were under standing orders to log the positions. So
far, no Ghost ship had ever emerged from the wormhole of an
escaping ship.
    With the battle over, Beckett’s crew was now
without orders. Winkler, as uninspired as he appeared to be, was
moving the ship back into position for a landing. But to Beckett,
the attack seemed too coincidental. Another failed landing would
burn too much fuel and they would be unable to complete the
assignment. He ordered Winkler to program a course that would take
them on a patrol about the planet and its satellites. Then he
ordered all of his officers into an immediate conference, leaving
the Crew Chief in charge of Control.
The Eight Hundred Pound Gorilla
    The largest and most luxurious room on the Valor was neither large nor luxurious. The short corridor
that ended in the door leading to the Control Room had a conference
room that paralleled it in shape and length. Two doors led from the
corridor into the conference room, one in the front and one in the
back. The setup allowed officers to enter and exit in a steady flow
and reach the control room in seconds. Inside, the room was narrow,
just enough space for a thin conference table and ten chairs. The
table was so thin, in fact, that officers could actually reach
across and touch each other if that was part of the protocol. Built
into the table, at an interval that forced two people to share,
were computer monitors and keyboard screens. There was one setup at
the head and another at the foot of the table so that the captain
and his first officer had one each to him or herself.
    Beckett, having been in Control, was the
first to arrive at his briefing. He took the chair at the head of
the table. He could literally exit the room and spill himself into
the hatchway back into the control room. He sat for almost five
minutes, drumming his fingers