Silver Search

by Rock Whitehouse

  David nodded.

  "Normal procedure after a message is sent is to check the receiver status. Sometimes a SLIP transmission can sort of bleed over onto the receiver and knock it out of alignment."

  David's face brightened. "So maybe they saw something on the SLIP receiver status display?"

  "That's what I'm thinking, yes."

  Harris looked back at David. "That's interesting. You'll be meeting with Frances Wilson and Lloyd later on to discuss that part in more detail."

  "Yes, sir, I understand."

  "I've listened to the Bridge audio," Harris said, changing the subject, "and it bears out what you're describing. I heard several officers express their concerns, and Davis just held his position. I don't think I really understand it."

  "It's hard to think about, Admiral, because Commander Davis was always very good to me, and to the crew in general. It seems like he just maybe overplayed his hand a little?"

  "Well, this hand cost us a lot of lives," Terri responded. "And a ship. Len was infuriated by the attack on Inor —swore he'd make them pay ten times over. That worried me, but it never occurred to me that he'd take this kind of chance."

  Harris agreed. "Even Linda Rodriguez, who was as forward-leaning and aggressive as anyone I know, can be heard more or less asking him what the hell he's doing. He didn't like it."

  "If I may," Carol began, "this is a lesson for all of us. This enemy isn't going to be easy. We've had some wins, but they aren't going to just let us light them up whenever we encounter them. Look at what happened to Columbia —they just got out in time because Commander Reynolds had the sense to run like hell when he needed to."

  "So, what are you saying, Carol?" David asked.

  "I guess I'm saying if they do something unexpected, something, well, weird, like this was, you don't wait. You run, and come back for another day." Carol's tone was plain, a matter of fact, saying something she felt was clear on its face.

  "Most commanders are not going to like that advice, Lieutenant Hansen," Harris pointed out.

  Carol shrugged. "Perhaps not, but isn't that what this situation is telling us?"

  "Could be, Carol, could well be. But on the other hand, we can't just bug out whenever something looks a little strange."

  "Well, Commander, for what it's worth, on Sigma's bridge everyone except Commander Davis knew we should have gotten the hell out of there after like five minutes of that bugger hanging out on our tail." David looked around the table before continuing. "I know it's a command decision, and for sure it's a judgment call that can't be reduced to an equation, but we need to let our commanders know what happened here so they can adjust their thinking when something like this happens again."

  "I agree, Lieutenant Powell, and I'll draft an advisory for the fleet along the lines of your thinking."

  "Yes, sir. I apologize if I spoke out of turn, sir, but it was strange and avoidable, and people died." The stress and regret were plain on David's face.

  Ron Harris leaned forward, looking first at one, then the other. "Listen, both of you. I will tell you if you're out of line. I take no offense at sincere, well-founded opinions strongly expressed. It helps to know that this isn't a casual thought, as you said, a rule that can't be expressed in an equation."

  "Yes, sir, thank you, sir." They started to get up when David spoke again. "One more thing, Admiral, after the SLIP was hit, they never fired at us again. Abe Jackson picked that up. I was too busy shooting to notice."

  "I saw that in your report," Harris said. "Do you draw the same obvious conclusion that I do?"

  "I do, sir. For me, that fact alone is conclusive evidence. All by itself it seals the case that they were using the SLIP to track us."

  Harris nodded his agreement. "Yes, David, I agree with you. It seems awfully definitive." Harris leaned back in his chair, thinking. "I will include that in the notice to the fleet." He looked at his watch and leaned forward again, ready to stand up. "Thanks, David. I really appreciate you spending a little time with me."

  They all stood and left the office. It was almost time for David's meeting with Frances and Lloyd, and Carol still had work to do on the academics list with Kathy Stewart. Harris and Terri Michael went back to his office and drafted an update to the fleet.

  PRIORITY 207808021400UTC

  TO: ALLFLEET

  FROM: FLEETINTEL

  SUBJECT: SLIP

  TOP SECRET

  ANALYSIS OF SIGMA ENGAGEMENT DATA AND DEBRIEF OF SURVIVORS

  LEAVES FLEETINTEL WITH STRONG BELIEF THAT ENEMY HAS DEVELOPED

  A METHOD OF TRACKING FLEET SHIPS USING THE SLIP SYSTEM.

  EXACT EXPLOITATION TECHNIQUE UNDER INVESTIGATION.

  SHIPS WHICH ENCOUNTER CONSTANT BEARING/DISTANCE

  BEHAVIOR BY ENEMY VESSELS SHOULD CONSIDER IMMEDIATE RETIREMENT

  AND SHOULD SHUT DOWN SLIP SYSTEM UNTIL CLEAR.

  WE WILL PROVIDE MORE SPECIFIC INFORMATION/GUIDANCE AS IT BECOMES

  AVAILABLE.

  HARRIS

  END

  ISC Fleet HQ Intel Section

  Ft. Eustis, VA

  Tuesday, August 2, 2078, 1000 EDT

  Lloyd waited uncomfortably in Frances' office. The old leather armchair in the corner was soft enough, but the topic on the table made him nervous. Finally, the new Fleet guy, Powell, knocked on the door frame and came in. Frances made the introductions, and afterwards Lloyd looked at him closely. Pleasant looking, nothing special, average height and build. Something intense in the eyes, though. Lloyd could not miss that. And something more in his bearing, something hard and determined about him. Kelly Peterson, sitting next to Powell, seemed relaxed and in control. She, like a lot of the Intel people he had met, seemed to know how to keep their knowledge and expertise just under the surface. They seemed so normal, like regular people, until you got them into a conversation and then they'd kick your intellectual ass without breaking a sweat.

  Frances started the discussion. "So, Lieutenant Powell, Lloyd here is the authority on the SLIP system."

  "Authority? Forstmann and I invented it!" Even as he was saying it, Lloyd wondered why he suddenly felt so defensive, and felt such a need to make sure everyone knew he was the expert in the room.

  Frances gave him a puzzled glance and then continued. "Yes, we know that, Lloyd." She turned back to Powell.

  "So, David, can you tell Lloyd and me what Ensign Farley told you?" Powell nodded, taking a second to gather his thoughts, then spoke directly to Lloyd.

  "I only know part of what was happening. Leah was killed in the middle of the conversation."

  Lloyd's eyebrows went up, and he shifted in his chair. One thing this Powell was, for sure, was tough. It couldn't be easy to talk about a conversation with a shipmate that was terminated by her death.

  "Piecing the conversation together afterwards, we think her chief tech had pointed out something on the SLIP receiver status display. He was with her. She was telling me about 'periodic fluctuations' when the missile hit."

  "That's it?" Lloyd asked, disappointed.

  "That's all I heard."

  "But you think they were tracking you with it?"

  "Yes, well, Leah did, anyhow. Before she mentioned the fluctuations, she said she thought they were tracking us with the SLIP receiver and that they could do it from FTL."

  Lloyd looked over at Frances. "Not much to go on."

  Frances nodded her understanding. "True, but Farley was the Communications officer. She knew the SLIP system as well as anyone on the ship. If she thought the enemy was tracking with it, we should give that a lot of weight."

  "Shit," Kelly Peterson said, suddenly sitting upright in her seat. Three sets of eyes went to her.

  "Shit!" she repeated, louder this time. "Periodic fluctuations! Frances, remember that low-level signal we couldn't figure out? The thirty-five-second one?" Frances' eyes widened with recognition.

  David looked from one to the other. "Care to share?"

  Kelly looked over at Franc
es, who nodded her agreement.

  "We've been copying a wide spectrum of SLIP transmissions trying to find the enemy."

  "And doing TDOA?" he asked, and Lloyd's head snapped over to Powell.

  "You understand that?"

  Powell looked back at him. "It's an introductory exercise in the first level Intel school. Time Difference of Arrival is a classic communications intelligence technique."

  Lloyd just looked back at him, baffled, as he continued.

  "Mrs. Wilson, just so I understand, you've been monitoring enemy communications?"

  Frances leaned forward in her chair, her elbows on the desk. "We've been trying to, David. We've copied a few signals that we can locate, but it's not like we're copying all their traffic."

  "Yet," Kelly added.

  David took a moment to absorb what he'd just heard.

  "OK, so tell me about this 35-second repeating signal."

  "Only Tranquility copied it —,"

  "Only Tranquility?" he interrupted. "How many of these scanners are out there?"

  Again, Frances nodded her assent to Kelly. "Four. Here, Inor, Kapteyn, and Tranquility."

  David looked at Kelly, then back to Frances. "You've all been pretty busy, eh? Good work. So, Kelly, Tranquility copied this thing?"

  "Yes. There were three instances, ninety minutes each, where they saw this repeating signal. No one else saw it."

  "When did this happen?"

  "June 26, early morning UTC."

  David looked at her. "June 26th?"

  "Yes," Kelly answered, unsure where David was going with this.

  "Tranquility, is, what, maybe ten, eleven hours from GL 876 by SLIP?"

  They all looked at David, but no one spoke.

  "Seems like you copied them tracking us," David finally said, breaking an uncomfortable silence.

  "Oh my God..." Frances said quietly.

  David looked over at Lloyd. "So, Mister SLIP inventor, any ideas?"

  Lloyd shifted uneasily in his chair, feeling the spotlight focused on him. "No, not offhand. We didn't understand this signal at all before."

  David held his eyes on Lloyd. "Well, it's just a thought, but could you reproduce this and see what our SLIP units do with it?"

  Lloyd was unhappy with this exchange already, and now it was getting worse.

  "I'll need to think about that. Let me get back in the lab and see."

  Frances looked from Lloyd to David and back. "I think that would be a good start."

  "I agree, Mrs. Wilson," David said, "but make sure the signal strength is low. We don't want to tip the enemy that we're on to how they're tracking us."

  Lloyd nodded, got out of his chair, and left the room. He was frustrated that he didn't know the answers to the questions he was being asked, and he was suddenly very afraid his brainchild might have a flaw that had already cost dozens of lives. But the only recourse for him now was to get back in the lab and figure it out. Whatever the answer was, he knew he had to find it.

  Kelly sat for a moment, then turned to David, sad.

  "I'm sorry, David. We didn't have any idea what this signal was."

  He smiled grimly. "Kelly, there was nothing you could have done even if you did. The fight was already over before the signal even got to Tranquility II."

  She nodded and stood to go back to her own desk.

  David waited for her to be gone and then looked directly at Frances.

  "Can he do it?"

  Frances shrugged. "He did help invent the thing. I guess if anyone can figure this out, it's Forstmann and him."

  "Kind of an odd duck, you know? He reacts pretty obviously when he hears something he doesn't know."

  "Yes, I've noticed that."

  "Yeah, it's like he's surprised that someone would know something he doesn't. That bothers me."

  "Well, I don't think it's conceit, I just think he hasn't encountered that many people at his level, and he's surprised when he does."

  "His level is pretty high, for sure. I just hope it's high enough."

  "Amen to that."

  David stood and left Frances' office, carrying new anxiety about whether they would really be able to solve this puzzle. He hoped, but he also doubted.

  Bachelor Officers' Quarters

  Ft. Eustis, VA

  Wednesday, August 3, 2078, 0715 EDT

  David was having breakfast when his phone buzzed with a message. He planned another day hanging around FleetIntel, but today he didn't have anything specific to do. He liked talking to Evans, and Ann Cooper, and Frances, too. Columbia was still more than a week away, and he welcomed the time to adjust to a new role and get up to speed on what FleetIntel was thinking. He was also planning for another evening with Carol. Her extended presence on the surface was an unexpected gift for both of them. But Antares would be pulling out soon, and David knew they would be gone for a long time. Today she would also be in FleetIntel, working with James George and Ron Harris to make the final calls on which academic experts they should approach to go to Beta Hydri with them.

  David was also writing a lot of letters. He was the senior survivor of Sigma's near-fatal battle; as such, it fell to him to communicate with the families of the crew members that died. Some he knew very well, like John Sanders, but others in the ranks he really knew almost nothing about. Still, he did his best to convey what had happened and that the crewmember had performed well in hard circumstances.

  This all came back into sharp focus as he read his message.

  SLIP PERSONAL 207808020930UTC

  TO: FLEET/LT DAVID POWELL

  FROM: SIGMA/SLT MARGARET WHITE

  SUBJECT: REMAINS

  DAVID:

  I WANTED TO LET YOU KNOW THAT THE SEARCH OF SIGMA WAS COMPLETED 7/28.

  WE HAVE IDENTIFIED FIFTY-ONE SETS OF REMAINS ON BOARD.

  I WILL SEND A FULL LIST TO FLEETPERS BUT WANTED YOU TO KNOW THAT

  LISA BRIGGS WAS AMONG THOSE IDENTIFIED. ONLY TECHNICIAN PAULA JOHNSON

  WAS FOUND ON THE BRIDGE.

  THE REMAINS WILL STAY IN FROZEN STORAGE AND WILL BE SENT BACK

  ON THE FIRST AVAILABLE VESSEL.

  SORRY TO HAVE TO REPORT SUCH NEWS BUT THIS IS WHAT WE BOTH DO.

  WARMEST REGARDS,

  PEG

  END

  He looked away, saddened by this reminder of that day on Sigma. Carol looked at him as she sat down across the table, the obvious question on her face. He handed the phone over to her to read.

  "Oh, God, David, I am so sorry."

  "Yeah, it's still hard to think about."

  "I know."

  "But at least some of them will be coming back. And, as Lieutenant White says, this is part of what we do." David leaned back, setting his coffee carefully back down on the table.

  "What's she like?" Carol asked between bites, "I've never met her."

  "Crazy tall and thin, like six foot three or something. Very smart, very nice. She said I had set the record for the shortest time in grade as an ensign ever."

  Carol laughed. "I bet you did, now that you say that!"

  "That's how she introduced herself. You'd like her."

  "I think I would."

  "All business, though, once we got back out to Sigma. She took command, switched into engineer mode, and off she went."

  "A pro."

  "Right, exactly."

  "Still, reading between the lines, I hear kindness in her voice. She didn't have to send this."

  David nodded, picking up his coffee as he thought about it. "True. "

  "Too bad about Lisa."

  "Briggs was very good to me, Carol. She tried to draw me out, get me involved with stuff around the wardroom. I thought maybe she was hoping for something more."

  Carol waited for him to continue, when he didn't, she prompted him. "But?"

  "But Lisa was a great person. You knew her: smart, attractive, thoughtful. I liked her a lot, but it could never go beyond that for me. I couldn't let her believe otherwise."

  "
The way you talk about her makes me think of Marty."

  "Sure, I get that. He was a good guy, a good friend to you, just as she was to me."

  Carol set down her fork and looked David in the eye. "It's only been a few days, David, but you know I'm here for you, right?" She reached across to take his hand. "We can talk about Sigma, or Davis, or whatever else, if you need to."

  "I know, Carol, I do. I'm doing pretty good so far, but thanks."

  "You had a nightmare last night."

  He nodded sheepishly. "Yes. It was the same one I've had a few times. I see the missiles coming right at us and I'm screaming at Leah to go tell Briggs to duck." He looked over at Carol. "It's stupid, I know. Childish, even."

  "I don't think so. I think you’re just trying to work through the loss of so many people you knew and cared about."

  "Sure, maybe."

  "You did everything you could. You know that, right?"

  "I did everything I could think of at the time, sure. Maybe I could have done something better, I don’t know."

  As he spoke, she could hear his inner self second-guessing decisions made weeks ago, decisions that could not now be changed. "You weren't in command. Davis was."

  "I know."

  "Right. Don't forget that." Carol looked at him for a moment. "Have I said this morning that I love you?"

  He smiled. "Sure. Just a second ago."

  "OK, just checking." Carol thought a second and then changed the subject. "Have you seen your Grandmother?"

  "Grandma Virginia? No, not in person. I had a video call with her yesterday."

  "I bet she was glad to hear from you."

  "She was. It’s just her and me now. She was really upset about Sigma."

  "No doubt. Did you tell her about us?"

  "Oh sure. She was really happy about it. She remembers you well."

  "Nice. You should go see her."

  "Don't think I'll have time. I'll video call her again before I go."

  Carol nodded her understanding and they passed the rest of breakfast in silence, as Carol went back to thinking about candidate academics, while David was still seeing the lost faces he would always remember.