-11-
Since there wasn’t much to do after the Tolerance stopped talking, I went to bed. I left instructions for my officers to wake me up in the event anything interesting happened.
Before I knew it, I was fast asleep. It seemed like two minutes later when the door chimed. I sat up with a sudden intake of breath.
“Come on in,” I said, then let a deep breath out in a long sigh.
The hatch dilated open and I stopped scratching my head to see who it was. There were no emergency lights or klaxons going, so I figured it couldn’t be too serious.
The figure in the hatchway was female in shape. I tapped at the nearest wall, causing the lights to shift up an octave in brightness with each touch. It was none other than Dr. Kate Swanson.
“Hello, doctor,” I said. “You look like you’re in one piece.”
She smiled, crossed her arms and shook her head. “You weren’t really asleep, were you?”
“Um…sort of.”
“After what you’ve been through? Do you know how unusual that is? Psychologically speaking? Most people would be up all night, worried and stressed.”
I stretched and swept my legs off the side of the bed. My feet found my shoes—or rather my shoes found my feet. Smart clothes could be like over-anxious pets. They adhered themselves to me and began strapping and tightening without any confirmation that I wanted them to.
“Whenever anyone mentions psychology to me, I reach for my sidearm,” I said, chuckling.
She didn’t seem to think my comment was particularly funny. I paused, frowning. Had I blown a possibly fruitful moment for both of us?
“Unbelievable,” she said. “You doomed the entire human race to oblivion, then came down here for a nap?”
I narrowed my eyes, studying her. “Did someone send you to wake me up?”
“No, Colonel. I just thought you might like to see me.”
“Yes,” I said. “I’d like that very much. Let’s go get some coffee, shall we?”
Together, we walked down the ship’s primary passageway. I found myself looking around for Jasmine. I didn’t really want her to see me with Kate. I knew it was silly, after all Sandra was dead and I was a free man. But old habits die hard.
Fortunately, we met no one who even gave us a second glance all the way down to the wardroom. There, we had our coffee. She had cream, chocolate and some kind of sprinkles on hers. I quietly slipped a shot of bourbon into mine. I silently accounted that as equivalent to a beer and a half.
We talked for a while. I told her I’d checked the casualty lists frequently and was able to give her the exact time her status had gone from a question mark to a known survivor. This gained me a real smile.
“They found me at that time,” she said. “I was in one of those medical tubes—you know the ones.”
I nodded. Sandra’s last days had been spent in just such a coffin-like contrivance. I’d stared into those devices to check on badly injured people more times than I cared to remember.
“It was airtight, of course, and had its own environmental controls. Still, I was close to dying. When the engine room was hit, the hull nanites rushed toward it, trying to compensate. Something blew apart as the walls thinned themselves, and the entire place depressurized. We had on vac suits, as per regulations, but you’re never quite expecting sudden catastrophic pressure loss. Several of my staff were sucked out into space. We never recovered the bodies, there was no time.”
She sipped her coffee again, troubled.
I touched her hand gently. She put her other hand on top of mine. I thought about giving her a squeeze and pulling back, but I left my hands clasped with hers instead.
“It’s always rough to see people you care about dying around you,” I told her. “I assume you managed to stay in the chamber, then to get yourself into one of the medical units?”
“Yes. The damage—it was bad, Kyle. The hit was beyond sudden, it was instantaneous. One second, the ship was cruising and everything was perfectly normal. The next moment the engine was the size of a basketball, and the walls around it had been sucked inward, forming strange patterns like melted wax. I’m not sure if that was due to the nanites, or to some side effect of the weapon that hit us.”
I gave her our current theory on how the weapon worked. Marvin didn’t have many confirmed details yet, but we were learning more each time it hit us.
“So,” she said, “why hasn’t Tolerance hit us again?”
“Our best guess is he’s limited by his power levels. It seems like his ship has one primary gun. It can fire at tremendous range and do great damage, but it drains all his power. He has to let it build up for several minutes before firing again. It’s like he’s charging a battery to full before each shot.”
“You think firing at a longer range made him reduce the scope of the area affected?”
“Definitely. He targeted the engine room specifically and took it out at great range, but he can’t do that with regularity. Now that we’re pulling away from him and dodging as we fly, he might not be able to hit us at all.”
“That’s what we thought last time.”
I shrugged. “In war, there are always surprises. What’s important now is that you’re safe, and the fleet is largely intact.”
We sipped our coffees and chatted about happier things for a time. Somehow, a near-death experience often puts people into a romantic mood. I wasn’t sure as to the cause, but I’d seen it time and again. Dr. Kate Swanson was no exception to this rule.
I’d just begun to wonder if I was going to get lucky tonight after all when she stood up and took her leave. She said she was sore and tired after almost dying a few hours ago. I believed her, but I walked her to her room just in case.
I scored a kiss for my troubles, but that was all. I headed back to my own quarters, sighing. I kept thinking of the two women I was pursuing, and I had more trouble falling asleep this time around.
* * *
It took Phobos nearly a week to crawl across the Helios system. I warned the Worms to stand clear of the ship, doubting they could do much if they did attack.
The big lumbering vessel steered after us at first when we headed toward the bloated red sun, but eventually veered off. As I’d hoped, Tolerance had realized two things: that wasn’t the way to Earth, and he was never going to catch us.
We were surprised by one thing: when the ship approached the huge star, it slowed suddenly, showing more capacity for deceleration than it had previously, then bounced toward the ring to the next system. I first noticed it when I came to the command deck a few days later and eyed the boards.
“Is that trajectory path right?” I asked.
“Yes sir,” Marvin said promptly.
He had a number of cameras tracking me as I frowned down at the big screen and ran my finger along the route the ship had taken.
“That pattern of motion…is that even possible? I mean, at those velocities?”
“Technically, anything is possible with sufficient force.”
“Yeah, but it was barreling toward the sun, then it just did a ninety degree bounce away from it. The slowdown and initial acceleration at a new angle…it doesn’t make sense.”
“No, not given observed behavior and traditional assumptions about their propulsion systems.”
I looked up from the puzzling data and noticed all his cameras. There were at least seven watching me.
“All right, Marvin,” I said, “if you know something new, tell me about it. And none of your dodging around, this time. We’re facing a serious new enemy here.”
“Right you are, Colonel,” he said, and then stopped.
We stared at one another for several long seconds. My frown deepened. “Do you want something? Is that it?”
His tentacles rattled and slapped for a moment as he sidled closer. He reached out with a single, skinny worm of metal and tapped at the screen. Something lit up with a red circle, something that was far behind the main body of the fleet.
“What’s that?”
“Gatre.”
I stared at it. “Right, I see it now. The wreck is still flying on a trajectory straight toward the far ring. It’s moving at lower speeds, but at a much more direct angle.”
I tapped at the drifting ship, projecting its path over time.
“Hmm, she’ll be coming close to the ring to Alpha Centauri only a day behind us.”
Marvin shuffled and rattled. I could tell he was working up to something, but I couldn’t tell what it was.
“There might be new details to learn, about the enemy weaponry, I mean. This ship isn’t a total loss. I’ve taken careful measurements. The fringes of the vessel aren’t damaged at all in places. This seems to be because the ship was struck twice. There are spots along the hull that show no damage or a transition from a normal state to a crushed state. By studying the boundary damage—the region where the effect ended—I might be able to make certain discoveries.”
“All right, let me see if I understand what you’re saying. You want to fly out there somehow and take samples or something? I don’t think there’s time, Marvin. If we got on a fighter today and flew it out there, we could make it, but there wouldn’t be fuel enough to get back.”
Marvin looked agitated. “I’ve done the math. I always do the math before I make a request like this. It is possible. But it will take special permission from you, Colonel Riggs.”
“Hmm… A request? I think you’re attempting extortion.”
“A strong word, Colonel.”
“Yeah. What new information do you have? I’m not approving anything until you give me an excuse to indulge another of your fantastic voyages.”
“Just this, sir: I think I understand the enemy propulsion system. The evidence, in fact, is overwhelming.”
It’s always difficult for a human to admit they’ve been successfully manipulated by a machine, but once again I found myself in that position. “All right. Tell me what it is.”
“Do I have your permission to—”
“No,” I said, “but you have a shot at getting it. Just give me your data right now.”
“Very well. The enemy ship is using gravitational control systems for propulsion. Completely self-contained systems.”
I thought about it. “There is no exhaust or other form of energy release… Do you think that’s how their ship is changing course, too?”
“Absolutely. That was my first clue. They aren’t emitting any exhaust, even when maneuvering. That rules out most forms of propulsion. The only known form of propulsion that they could be employing is gravity manipulation. Really, the conclusion is obvious when you consider it carefully.”
I had to admit it did make sense. Our ships had gravity systems for stabilizing the vessels and easing high-G acceleration. In smaller systems, we used grav plates to make our armored battle suits and vehicles like tanks fly. But to achieve any real speed we needed more powerful engines.
“So they’re using gravity plates to fly a giant ship around,” I said, talking to myself. “Nothing else.”
“That conclusion is inescapable at this point.”
It was obvious, but it was also staggering.
“The power involved,” I muttered, staring at a close up of the big ship. “It’s shocking. And the grav plates themselves would have to be huge.”
“The ship is quite large.”
“Yeah. And look at their pattern of motion. It does make sense. The ship was falling toward the red giant using normal gravity to pull it closer. Then it switched on the plates, and the very same force that had been pulling it reversed like a magnet switching polarity. What pulled it faster started pushing it with fantastic force.”
“Our own grav plates operate in exactly the same manner,” Marvin said. “But on such a smaller, weaker scale. We think of them as systems limited to gliding an object over planetary surfaces. But there is no technical reason they should be incapable of more, given sufficient energy and mass.”
After going over the details, I had to admit he’d figured out something significant. The first step to defeating any alien power was to understand their technology. It was beginning to seem to me that the enemy ship did not employ things we didn’t understand, but the Blues had built a ship of such vast scale that it could do things we hadn’t thought of with the technology we used every day.
“Okay,” I said after another ten minutes of study. “Now, tell me about your proposal.”
“I want to fly out to Gatre and study the damage.”
“I know that. How exactly do you plan to get there and back in time? Before the fleet leaves the Helios system. And don’t say you want us to hang back for you. I’m not going to let Phobos out of my sight for long, even if it is heading toward Earth to attack the Imperials.”
“I wouldn’t dream of asking for you to hold back the entire fleet.”
“Yes, yes you would. But just tell me exactly what you’re proposing.”
“It’s simple, really. I’ll need a dozen grav-plates of my own, nothing this carrier can’t spare. After cannibalizing a single fighter, the main drives will be attached to the dorsal and ventral…”
He continued, and brought up a detailed schematic. I frowned at it, trying to take it all in. There were sensor boxes, specimen racks, tiny holds and extra power generators. At last, I realized what was at the front of this train wreck of equipment. It looked a tangle of tentacles and cameras.
“Wait a minute, Marvin! Is that you I see up there on the tip of this iceberg of stuff? You’re trying to turn yourself into a ship again, aren’t you?”
“I wouldn’t even propose something like this, Colonel, if it wasn’t a necessity.”
“A necessity?”
“There’s no other way for us to examine the dead ship. There’s no other way for us to gain the critical knowledge we need to defeat this terrifying new enemy.”
A squadron of cameras studied me. I figured every one he had was trained on me.
I sighed. “All right,” I said, “but I think I’m going to regret it.”
“Excellent, Colonel! Now, I’ve taken the time-saving step of drawing up these orders for you to sign. If you would open the folder on the desktop nearest to your right hand, you’ll see the files now. It’s the icon that’s blinking, Colonel.”
“I know that,” I growled. “I’m just having second thoughts.”
“I thought we had a deal, sir.”
“We do. But I don’t know how I’m going to explain it to my staff.”
I was in the middle of signing orders electronically when a new input screen chimed at the corner of the big table.
“Something’s coming in,” I said, reaching to tap at it.
“Another distraction?” Marvin complained. He almost had me in the bag, and he wanted the deal done.
“It could be important.”
“Or it could be a weather report from Eden-8.”
I looked at him. It wasn’t like him to make a smartass remark. I wasn’t sure if he was becoming more sophisticated, or he’d just gotten lucky.
“I can finish this later—”
“Colonel, I’m under a tight time constraint as it is. I need these approvals in order to—”
“All right, dammit,” I said, tapping to open each form and quickly signing it. I usually didn’t sign things without reading them, but I was getting tired of scanning Marvin’s manifests.
“What’s this?” I asked, frowning at one of the last items.
“You’re almost done, Colonel.”
“Bioinformatic permissions? Release of remains? What the hell?”
“Sir, the incoming reports are still waiting. In order to access them quickly, you only have to press your right thumb to the lower left corner of each document in the folder. Then you can check on the reports.”
I looked at him. “Marvin, how dumb do you think I am? No—don’t answer that. Let me tell you something: I’m not signing any more manifests. You got your sensors, you got your fuel, you got your fighter to take apart. That’s all you need to get out there and back, and that’s all you’re going to get. I’m not giving you permission to mess around with the bodies of any Star Force dead you might find floating around out there. You can just forget about that.”
Marvin didn’t answer. He was frustrated; I could tell by the way he held his tentacles. But that was just too damned bad.
I closed the last three items, leaving them unsigned, then brought up the blinking report. It was from our long range sensor crew.
I read a line or two of the bulletin, then slapped Marvin on the brainbox. “You knew what this was.”
“There was no immediate danger to the ship.”
“You ignored an incoming report and then tried to use it to snow me into signing for things you don’t even need.”
“‘Need’ is a relative term in the investigative sciences, Colonel.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
I tapped at the displays and called my bridge people to the tactical table. They circled around. Everyone was reading the input and coming to the same conclusions: the Worms were launching their ships.
I’d told them not to. I’d told them to stay put on their planet or to hang around on the far side of their world with their fleets if they wanted to. But the Worms were nothing if not brave and impulsive. They were like the knights of old in that they didn’t always do what their own commanders ordered them to do. They were excitable, and I usually liked that about them. But today I had the feeling they were going to be slaughtered.
While we talked about what action we should take, Marvin slipped away toward the elevators. I knew where he was going. He wanted to get to the hanger deck to begin rebuilding himself.
I looked after him and shook my head. I’d let that robot build himself into a ship before, and things had never gone the way I’d hoped.
Maybe this time I’d get lucky.