Truth and Beauty 3-5

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The victualing wharf lived over New South Wales, about a 90-minute flight. Jack loosened his seatbelt enough to pull his phone free. He wrote a short text to Jevons, describing his misfortune. The message took a surprising amount of time to compose; bitterness and blame kept creeping in.

He sighed, saving the message instead of sending it. Over on FaceTime he updated his status, adding several exclamation marks to show his excitement. He thumbed through friends’ pages for a while, ignored congratulatory replies to his updated status, then reread his message to Jevons. It was as good as it would be; he tapped send.

Various other craft passed them. Some were wherries, but others where lighters, carrying cargo to and from the planet surface. Several ships’ cutters tore past, racing for bragging rights. A barge, bearing the revolving green lights of a flag officer; an ambulance with flashing lights; several black-hulled buoy tenders. They overtook a cluster of station tugs guiding a wounded frigate; Jack saw carbon scoring and twisted metal, and noted that the frigate’s engines were dark. Orion was her name - Captain Wilcox’s ship.

Once they were past the frigate and its retinue, Jack made out the victualing wharf. Several vessels were tied up along side it, loading and unloading. One was clearly a T-2 - Jack recognized the long, somewhat rounded profile, not unlike a loaf of bread - and clearly, as Jevons had described, in need of a paint. Faded lettering across her stern, some of it raised, read ROTH.

“Bravo-oscar-six-five-three, Roth.” said the wherryman into his microphone, telling the victualing wharf’s traffic controller that he had Roth’s commanding officer aboard. Jack’s eyes searched his craft, picking out details, assembling a sense of her condition and capabilities: old, high-mileage, and overdue for a refit. The engine nozzles were dark since she was plugged into the wharf’s power grid, and looking into them Jack noted that they were not original: Algonquin-Electric 300 series, probably 375s. Premerger, based on the tail cones. Reasonably maintained, though that bluing at the number two nozzle's inner edges suggested that the fuel mixture was too lean. He tried to remember whether the T-2s used a single- or multi-point injector setup. He had read a case report of a multi-point system being retrofitted, but that had been on a private vessel; would Whitehall be willing to spend the money on a T-2?

The wherry slowed as it drew close to the gate, and the wherryman began fiddling with his docking controls. With no more than the usual jolt the docking rings mated and locked, turning the wherry’s mood lighting blue. “Here we are, sir, gate C-9,” said the wherryman, “and an uncommon fast and smooth trip it was."

“So it was,” said Jack, tapping his ID to the reader, then typing in the value of his tip and swiping his thumb. He removed his headsets and unbuckled his harness, grabbed his hat and daybag from the seat beside him, and climbed through the hatch into the wharf.

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