Free Frontiers Saga 10: Liberation by Ryk Brown

lieutenant said with a nod. “Your arrival is well timed. We were just trying to decide how best to shield your data cores from the effects of the zero-point energy device.”
    “The what?” Yanni asked, a curious look on his face.
    “Sir,” the sergeant said, stepping back to depart. He winked at Yanni. “Good luck, Mister Hiller.”
    “Thank you, Sergeant.” Yanni turned back to the lieutenant, his curiosity still piqued. “What were you saying? A zero-point something?”
    * * *
    Nathan watched from the command chair on the Aurora’s bridge as his helmsman, Mister Chiles, manipulated the ship’s docking thrusters. The view screen before them was filled with the image of the Celestia sitting on the surface of Metis, which loomed above them. “This just doesn’t feel right,” he mumbled to his XO who stood next to him.
    “Up, down… it’s all relative in space,” Cameron reminded him.
    “At least this big view screen is finally good for something,” he said as he leaned his head back to look straight up at the top edge of the screen as the Celestia grew larger in the screen and slid slowly aft.
    “One hundred meters,” Mister Riley announced. “Speed: one meter per second. Range to Celestia: two hundred meters. Closure of two and a half meters per second.”
    “At what distance are we going to stand off?” Nathan asked his XO.
    “Fifty meters at our closest points,” Cameron answered. “Any closer and we’d be constantly adjusting our position to avoid being pulled down on top of the Celestia.”
    “Is fifty meters far enough?” Nathan wondered.
    “It will have to be. The rescue tunnel is only sixty meters long, so even if we stand off at fifty, we’ll only have ten meters of slack available. We’ll have to counter with station-keeping every twenty minutes or so to avoid ripping the tunnel. However, Mister Chiles has programmed the auto-flight system to maintain our position in precise fashion.”
    “A pilot after your own heart, eh?”
    “If you mean a good pilot, then yes,” she quipped.
    “Firing thrusters,” Mister Chiles reported from the helm.
    “Forward speed at zero,” Mister Riley reported. “Still descending. Closure at one meter per second. Range to stand off distance is fifty meters. Drifting slightly to port.”
    “Correcting,” the helmsman answered as he quickly calculated the amount of thrust necessary to stop the drift. A moment later, he entered a command and the port thrusters answered.
    “We’re directly over our targeting point,” Mister Riley reported from the navigator’s station. “Zero drift. Still descending. Point five closure. Thirty meters.”
    “Tell the attachment team to stand by,” Nathan ordered.
    “Attachment team is already in position and standing by,” Naralena reported from the comm station.
    “Twenty meters.”
    “Queuing up final parking thrust cycle,” Mister Riley reported calmly.

    Four technicians in Corinairan EVA suits stood in a circle on the Aurora’s flight apron and faced aft. Below them, four long rows of heat exchangers stretched out from under the aft edge of the flight apron to the forward edge of the drive of the ship’s massive main propulsion section. In between them was the specialized deployment cart that carried the Emergency Rescue Tunnel.
    They leaned back as best they could in their bulky suits, craning their necks and rotating from side to side, in order to see the Celestia as they hovered upside down above her. Small docking thrusters located all around the ship perimeter fired tiny, repetitive bursts of accelerated propellant in shimmering blasts as the Aurora’s helmsman brought the massive ship to a complete stop exactly fifty meters above the Celestia on the surface of Metis.
    Two of the technicians climbed up the two ladders located on opposite sides of the ERT deployment cart. Once they reached the tops of their ladders, the lead technician grabbed the maneuvering controls and fired the small