NOVEL SIMPLE 213 Sailing Backwards
"Is that it?" Donovan pointed to a point in space well beyond the bounds of the harbor. He had seen something, but he didn't know if it was just a figment of his imagination.
"Don't bother trying to find them with your eyes alone. Their ships are painted in such a way that makes them hard to see, really hard to see."
Trebar admonished Donovan for his efforts. The raiders of the Jakobi Brothers were painted black with red flecks, an almost perfect recreation of the environment they hunted in. It was almost impossible to spot them until they were right on top of you, close enough for you to either make out the ropes that controlled the sails, or had turned to board and displayed the unpainted deck. Either way, actually being granted the privilege of seeing those ships before the crew began their attack was rare.
Furthermore, getting away from them was close to impossible. They were fast, even by Holifanian standards, which made them equally difficult to take down. Should you be a sluggish and unaware cargo ship, you would be assaulted and pillaged in a flash. Should you be a nimble and vigilant military vessel, you would never be able to catch up to them.
Well, that paradigm was (supposedly) going to be shattered by Donovan, but for the time being it was the truth.
"No, I think I see them. I can't tell how far away they are, mind you, but I can definitely see them."
"How can you be so sure?"
"To my knowledge, stars tend to be immobile."
Trebar shut his mouth and looked out in the general direction of Don's pointing, trying to determine if they were actually somewhere in the vicinity. He didn't see any movement, how Donovan could have went beyond his comprehension, but he supposed it wasn't impossible. It wasn't impossible that Donovan was just seeing things either, but Trebar decided to believe him this time. Who knew? Don's eyes might be better at detecting that sort of movement than his own, not that it really mattered.
Dropping the subject, Trebar turned around to see how everyone else was faring.
Diana was, naturally, hugging Donovan's arm. She was dressed quite fancily in comparison to the more casual clothing she wore normally, and there was a decent chance that she was using her lover to support her. Diana's high heels were a little bit less than ideal for traversing the wooden panels of the dock.
Len, who had tagged along in his role as Donovan's 'brother', was seated on some form of abandoned crate. He was admiring the view, not doing much else besides that.
Titanyana had positioned herself slightly in front of Donovan, currently squinting out towards where Donovan had pointed in search of the ship. She was, naturally, excited, though she was also quite nervous. Her clothes weren't particularly special.
"They're late. . ." Finally, the Montaug stood at the edge of the docking pit. His clothes were the same as always, tradition requiring a certain outfit be worn at all times when on duty, however he did appear to be a little bit more put together than normal. Maybe it was just because he didn't have a seat messing up the fabric and forming creases everywhere, but now he looked that little bit more like a formal sacrifice, like the martyr he represented. ". . . I suppose a few minutes doesn't matter much anyways."
Normally, Trebar would be cursing how much time had been wasted. The Montaug didn't express it, but it had been at least fifteen minutes since they were scheduled to arrive. He couldn't bring himself to get mad this time around though. Despite the perceived recklessness of the Jakobi Brothers, they did not graduate at the top of the Sanctum's naval academy by luck. They were cautious, meticulous about route and environmental safety to an extreme degree, so while it was incredibly common for them to be 'late' to prearranged meetings, they had never lost a ship.
Their ships always returned free of damage sustained outside of combat, not so much as a scratch from debris or errant storms.
Trebar was more than happy to lose a few minutes of his life if it meant that the mission got done without issue, especially considering the importance of this one. He was even willing to believe that this quality of theirs was a contributing factor to them being selected. They were fast, safe, skilled, and it seemed that they needed to make a delivery of cargo to the Terrans anyways.
"How far out do you think they are?"
"I really can't give you an estimate on their speed, they are just too far away."
"Hrmmm. I wish I could see it too."
"I'll point at it again once they get a little bit closer. Try to see if you can spot where some stars disappear or reappear, that would be where the sail is I think."
Trebar, having eavesdropped on Donovan and Diana's conversation in a bid to learn the secret, once again squinted and scanned the sky. . .
"Was that. . ?" Sure enough, small red dots disappeared and reappeared in sequence as something covered them up, an imperceptibly mobile matrix of dull red dots taking their place. Move your vision for a second, and you would lose track. "It is!"
"Hm?"
"Oh, uh, it looks like they are almost here." Trebar's attention was drawn away by the Montaug. "They are right . . . where did they go?"
Not even half a second had passed and Trebar had already lost the ship. The Montaug was, naturally, somewhat perplexed at Trebar's actions. Usually he wasn't one to lose track of something.
- - - - -
"Which slot are we headed for again?"
"Fifth on the right. I see a lady in a grayish white dress there waiting, second from the left."
". . . ain't that the Montaug?"
"Nah, Montaug's an old man. He should be all hunched over at this point in his life."
"Uh, Lebby? I think Kupr's right for once."
"Oh please. Don't compare your eyes to mine! I can spot a beauty from a galaxy away. You guys are just jealous you can't get a date."
The two brothers gave each other a sidelong glance. Sure, Lebenstrum's eyesight was the 'best' of the brothers, but he didn't exactly have the best track record when it came to identifying things. Many a time he had gotten them into trouble raiding a ship that was much larger than they had been expecting. On several occasions he even managed to get them into a scuffle with military vessels full of veteran soldiers.
Of course, the reward for those 'mistakes' absolutely outweighed the risks taken. Such ships usually felt safe on account of their size or crew quality, only to be caught off guard by an unexpected and undetected threat. They had managed to capture more than their fair share of nobles or those valued by nobles this way, a surprising number of them being the daughters of nobles. . .
There was probably a fairly large contingent of illegitimate noble children born of the 'prisoners' captured by the brothers and their crew, none of which were the result of rape! Unfortunately, they were almost certainly of the Jakobi bloodline, more specifically the loins of Lebenstrum. He was nothing if not a seducer, which usually meant that they had to offer 'reduced rates' for ransom out of guilt (and to get Seppard off their asses).
His actions had the (ridiculously) helpful benefit of giving them a reputation as 'criminal gentlemen', most ships electing to surrender to them once they understood who it was they were the victim of. The Jakobis did not slaughter. The Jakobis did not torture. The Jakobis did not defile (without consent). The Jakobis offered 'fair' rates for the release of their prisoners, and were always willing to negotiate.
This portion of their reputation was almost exclusively the result of Lebenstrum's actions, actions which often got them into just as much trouble as it got them out of. Their current situation was one such result, sleeping with the daughter of the pirate lord they had been working with.
". . . I wish you the best of luck with, uh, the lady they have waiting for you." Pongratz dropped down to the main deck to order the men around. Void-docking required a much different process than sea-docking, and he wanted to make sure there weren't any mistakes.
"Hm. I think you boys could learn a thing or two from the way I do things." Lebenstrum stretched his arm behind his head. "I'm something of a professional, you know?"
"Oh, so what happened with Missus Petunia was-"
"Shut it! I didn't know she was a widow."
"I still feel like a professional should know those sorts of things before making a move. . ."
- - - - -
"Here it comes." Trebar had given Donovan and Diana a quick overview of what to expect from their approach minutes ago so that they wouldn't be too surprised if something they did seemed dangerous. "I think we should probably take another step or two back given, well, I think their reputation speaks for itself?"
"Hm, yes. I think that would be a good idea." The Montaug nodded his head in agreement with Trebar. "It has been some time since they have visited the Great Csillacra. I wouldn't be surprised if they did something stupid."
'Void-docking' is extremely different than the normal method, 'Sea-docking'. Whether or not it is more difficult entirely depends on factors such as slip location, ship characteristics, and crew experience with the process, but for the most part it is beneficial to think of them as two completely different processes. They share the same end goal, that being to stop the ship in a place where it can be mounted and dismounted from a nearby structure. There-in lies the biggest difference.
Unlike sea-docking, void-docking lacks a natural resistance to motion. There are no vast bodies of water in the void, so they must stop themselves some other way. The most reliable way of doing this? Reversing the direction of the sails.
It sounded positively retarded to Donovan, someone who had a limited knowledge of how ships of sail operated, that making mere pieces of fabric point backwards relative to a wind would make them pull in that direction. The direction of force was primarily determined by the direction of the wind.
Of course, Donovan knew better than to question it openly. If these people, people he had come to trust, people who knew how these sorts of things related to split worked, said that was the way it worked, then that must be the way it worked. One might imagine that any semblance of logic had left Donovan's mind on matters of split, which it certainly had, but that didn't mean there wasn't any logic involved with what was happening.
The logic just didn't conform to Donovan's 'split-less' understanding of the physical world.
To think of these vessels as one-to-one recreations of ships of the sea was his first and most vital flaw here. These were void vessels. They might sail with the wind, but the wind they utilized was not one of matter, not one that transmitted force by contact alone. The winds were more analogous to 'fields', be they magnetic, electric, or gravitational, though they still aren't a perfect representation. What is important is that, just like the fields Donovan was used to, those winds had a 'direction'.
The sails were not just random pieces of square cloth thrown onto a mast, they were artisanal works woven in a deliberate fashion out of special materials in order to 'catch' the wind and push the ship in a certain direction. Much like a magnet, by turning those sails around the 'polarity' of the fabric would reverse, 'catching' the wind in the other direction. This had to be done carefully lest the ship be ripped from it's intended course, but it was possible.
SHJUOOOK!!
The sound of the sails flaring in the opposite direction could be heard from a distance, the black hulk shuddering as its approach slowed. Now it was sailing in reverse, but moving backwards.
- - - - -
"Alright, we're coming to a stop. Stow sails! Pull daggerboards!" Pongratz, who had been looking over the edge, began to yell commands to the sailors. "All jumpers ready? Three, two, one, JUMP!"
Four men jumped from each side of the ship, each having the end of a mooring rope tied to their waists. With the sails folded like this, there was no way for them to maneuver down into the slip that had been prepared for them. They were going to have to pull it down by hand, that being the jumpers' job. They were permitted some ability to miss their drop, though it would be painful, owing to the rope they were tied to.
Landing and subsequently untying their ropes, each of the men slipped the ends underneath a horizontal wooden pole a few inches off of the ground by the edges of the slip. Then they pulled, hard. The ship may be made of wood, but it was still a ship. It took some effort to get a few tons moving, so more of their crewmates joined in on the fun once it was proven that they would not be needed to correct a mistake in their speed or alignment.
"Wa-HOO!!!" thump
One of those who dropped was sporting a set of clothing that appeared far fancier than the rest. It wasn't exactly dress clothing, but in comparison to bandanas, rough cloth, and shirts with the sleeves torn off, a semi-well tailored black cotton(?) officer's uniform with red seaming and gray embroidery stood out.
"Ah, never gets old. Anyways, an introduction. My name is Lebenstrum Jakobi, eldest of the Jakobi siblings and captain of this lovely vessel. To which wondrous beauty do I owe the pleasure of greeting this day?" This man, Lebenstrum, practically pirouetted before bowing as he made his introduction.
The only problem was that he did not direct this flattering introduction towards Diana or Titanyana, the only ladies present.
"Trebar?"
"With pleasure, sir."
