Wolff and von Barronov spent part of their time working with the captain and the science crew on making sense out of what had been happening about 23,000 miles below the ship's geosync orbit. A good-sized, detailed picture was developing; the Chinese had not stinted any effort to build the complex. It was larger than any similar establishment on Earth. The mine alone was staggering; if an appreciable amount of its contents were ever transferred to Earth, they could cause serious economic problems in the precious metals and jewels industry. "If nothing else, a strike of diamonds of this magnitude could break the DeBeers monopoly once and for all," observed von Barronov, and Wolff could only nod in agreement.
The rest of the time they spent examining the Chinese starship and its singularity drive. The only real conclusion they came to was, the Chinese had clearly stolen an early version of the drive that wasn't optimized for rotational travel, either in the 3D world or through time – backward or sideways.
On the fifth ship's morning of their stay, after breakfast, the three visitors responded to a call to meet with LaForrest in his ready room.
The captain, sipping his coffee, looked at a couple of message forms he'd been handed when he awakened. "Buford sent Constitution here with a couple of messages, and she arrived last night," he said. "The first message says there was a huge, 'nuclear-like' explosion at a known former PLA installation near Kunming, Yunnan, South China, and as far as Buford and his smart boys can figure out, it occurred co-temporally with the blast here on Sanddoom. They say 'nuclear-like' because they did detect some radiation, but not quite enough to say a nuke went off. Nevertheless, high-def photos of the building that blew indicate it was stuffed full of electronics and what appeared to have been a stage with several, okay, he says three, toroids surrounding it. All three of the toroids are now flat on the ground, as if they were knocked over. The interesting bit is, they later found a fourth toroid, which appears to have been flung about a kilometer away where it landed in a shallow lake. Analysis of seismic data plus high-def orbital video caught at the time of the incident suggests a blast in the range of about one to two kilotons of TNT, equivalent." LaForrest peered over the message form at the Marines. "Thoughts."
"Clearly feedback from the main blast at the Sanddoom installation," said von Barronov.
"Yeah, I'll bet the engineer had set the portal up to connect to the Chinese installation as soon as Prisha and Naira were safe aboard the station," concurred Wolff. "It didn't all feed back because the connection would have broken as soon as this portal blew, but it would have let at least some of the energy through before it failed, I imagine. And the fourth toroid would have been the Tau toroid, hung over the top of the stage, so it simply got launched like a tank turret does when the tank gets hit with a Javelin and the ammo locker is open."
LaForrest grunted. "That jibes with what Buford's team think. So for the moment, we don't have to worry about teams of RIF mujahadeen transporting back to Earth and blowing shit up in the cities."
"Unless there are already a few there," pointed out Wolff.
"Thanks for that reassuring observation. Buford also suggests they are on the lookout for any sign of infiltration and will handle it appropriately." LaForrest set that message form down, and looked at the other one.
"This one is from Buford to the three of you, personally, and asks what the hell you're doing lollygagging around on my ship when you have a mission of your own to run." He smiled, thinly.
"Wasn't our fault we ended up having to rescue two civs and help deal with a Chinese starship that isn't supposed to exist," replied Wolff. "But he's right, we need to be on our way."
"There is a question I have to ask," said LaForrest. "Why would they still be running a ship out here if they had a working portal back home? Seems redundant to me."
Wolff and von Barronov looked at each other. "Good question," said von Barronov. "We've been so busy with the rescue and data crunching, I guess we never gave it much thought. Maybe they just got the portal working, and the ship was on its last trip here?"
"But we think they were using the portal to ship parts and materials here," objected Wolff. "If that's the case, that idea falls apart."
"Maybe they don't trust it with humans yet," conjectured his friend.
"Then why not with gems? I mean, if they'll ship steel and plastic and silicon and things like that, what stops them from sending gems?"
Von Barronov shrugged. "Maybe it does something to the crystal matrix that kills the value of the gems. In anything else non-organic, that might not be a problem. For humans, it might be fatal. And maybe they didn't use plastics, for that reason." He thought about that for a moment. "Or, possibly they came to the station the first time, looked at our drop pods, and decided to bring their own so as not to deplete our inventory, and to drop that sort of thing, instead. How they got humans here, well – maybe they did land. I guess we'll find out when Intelligence get done interrogating the crew."
"Also," interjected Wolff, "that may mean they never actually did manage to get live muj back to Earth, unless they went by ship. Maybe they never actually thought of sending humans through in hullmetal containers. That story of sending them through the portal may be nothing but misdirection, fabricated to tie up resources Earthside that might be used otherwise."
LaForrest had been frantically taking notes on his holotab. "I'll pass all that along to the interrogators," he said. "That's golden stuff." He scrolled through it quickly, then punched in an address and mailed it.
"So what do we do about the other slaves?" asked Ariela, abruptly.
All three men looked like they'd rather be somewhere else. Master Chief Charles, on the other hand, placed a plate of Ariela's favorite snack cakes in front of her, giving her a look and a wink that said, You go, girl.
"Ari," replied Wolff, with a grimace, "much as we'd love to go down there and liberate them, we can't. We agreed when we let the RIFs off with permanent exile to Sanddoom that we wouldn't interfere with their peculiarities and would let them run the planet to suit themselves – as long as we didn't detect any attempt to get into space, and/or return to Earth. And while that sounds like the North putting up with the South's 'peculiar institution' until 1865, it's not the same thing. We never had any control over these people, and we never will. We just got tired of them blowing everything up for Allah, and when they went nuclear, we reached the end of our rope. And, at the point of kinetic kill weapons, we forced them off the planet. I believe your folks in your timeline did the same."
"But they were paying the Chinese – who broke an international agreement – to repatriate at least some of them back to Earth, to perpetrate more terror attacks." Ariela folded her arms, and got an "I ain't playin' here, boys," look on her face. "They clearly broke the agreement from their end. They made an attempt to go back to Earth. That means the agreement is off, and so should be the gloves."
"Lieutenant," said LaForrest, gruffly, "a piece of professional education you lack is that we don't have the authority, on our own, to declare them in breach. That is a diplomatic function, and I haven't been given any order from either the President or the Space Force Commandant to execute such functions. For one thing, I'd need a fuckload – excuse me, miss – more Marines than I have between Constellation and Constitution. And a lot more on-orbit firepower than just two frigates can muster. They could have tunnel communities emplaced all over the area between the city and the destroyed science center slash mining complex. With only two platoons of Marines, we could not run a successful ground operation, even if we knew right where the hareems were. And we would have to take and hold the city, to ferret out the slaves held by individual owners." He shook his head. "Can't do it with two platoons, Lieutenant. Wouldn't you agree, Major Wolff?"
Wolff nodded, knowing LaForrest had singled him out because he had served on deployment as a ground-force Marine. "Reluctantly, sir, I'd have to agree with that analysis. Two platoons is only a rump company. We do have the 1/1 First Company weapons secti
on aboard Constellation, but if we had all six frigates, two full companies, I'm still not sure that would be enough. Around 400 riflemen, total, including the HQ sections? We'd be lucky to hold the mine area, let alone the city. And we have only a rump battalion, anyway; we don't have room for a third company aboard the frigates. To date, and for that reason, one has not been stood up, at least to my knowledge."
"Correct," nodded LaForrest.
"How many U.S. Marines could you pack on a Santa Maria?" inquired Ariela, bowed but by no means broken.
Wolff's jaw dropped.
"Son of a bitch," he said, faintly.
"It's right up their alley," said LaForrest, wonderingly. "Why didn't we think of that?" He grabbed his comm. "Communications," he barked.
"Go for Communications," came the response.
"My compliments to Captain Macdonald on the Constitution, and let him know I need to take Constellation back to Earth for about an hour to consult with General Buford. We'll be back as soon as we can. He's to continue keeping an eye on the city while we're gone; I imagine the complex below will be just fine for the moment. LaForrest, out."
"Aye, aye, Captain. Contacting Constitution now. Communications, out."
"You want us to stay aboard?" asked Wolff.
"Yes," confirmed LaForrest. "Just in case Buford has anything he needs to ask you. Let's get out on the bridge." He looked at Ariela. "Good thinking, Lieutenant. This will be reflected in my report." They all rose, and filed out of the room. Ariela, with a huge grin on her face, grabbed one last pastry and stuffed it into her mouth as she followed them.
"Okay," grumbled Buford, "you've gotten me out of my bunk at two in the morning for what, now?" In the holoscreen, seated at his desk, he looked haggard, but he'd at least put on his uniform shirt and run a comb through his hair. Whether or not he was wearing the uniform pants was a subject best avoided.
"Sorry, sir," apologized LaForrest, "but we felt this was something we needed to bring to your immediate attention."
"Go on."
"We're making progress investigating what was going on groundside at Sanddoom," explained the captain. "We captured an unmarked ship, what we might consider an oversized, three-decker pinnace, with about 40 Chinese nationals aboard."
Buford sat up straight. His eyes started to gleam. "Nice wake-up, there, Nate. I would have sworn you said 'Chinese'." His steward, off-screen, handed him a mug of coffee and he took a sip. "Ah, restorative. Thanks, Paul. Now, 'Chinese'?"
"Yes, sir," confirmed LaForrest. "Chinese. No capital armament, painted black, according to Wolff and von Barronov it's got an early-generation singularity drive based on data that was apparently stolen from the mathematicians they used at CalTech, back in the '20s."
"I thought we wiped all that data. Or No Such Agency did. Majors?"
"We and they did, sir," confirmed Wolff. "The Chinese either got it before that, or there were offline backups we missed. At any rate, the drives in that ship appear to have been developed with that data."
"Hrmf. And you can tell, because?"
"If you recall, sir," said von Barronov, "we built a prototype with that data and it, um, crashed and burned."
"Refresh my memory," prodded Buford. "And yes, I recall, it was TS compartmented, but at this point it doesn't matter and I don't care if my steward hears."
Von Barronov looked uncomfortable. "Sir, if this gets out . . . "
"Oh. Ohhhhhhh. I remember now. This was the test shot to . . . damnit." Buford turned aside. "Paul, they're right . . . I need you to leave for this. Give us about ten minutes and I'll let you know if you can come back in."
"Aye, aye, sir," they heard the Commandant's steward reply, and a moment later, they heard the door shut.
"Go."
"Yes, sir," said von Barronov, finally. "The test shot to Jupiter. We sent it with instrumentation to send back data from the Great Red Spot cyclonic storm. And something went wrong, everything went pear-shaped, the ship exploded – or rather, imploded and then the whole thing blew back out when the containment failed, just like a nova – and that's why there's no Great Red Spot, anymore."
"About fifty gigatons, wasn't it?" inquired Buford, gently.
"Aye, sir, that's about right."
"Roughly, a thousand times the size of Tsar Bomba," added Wolff. "But it happened so far up, the net effect on the planet was probably about 20 gigatons. And we know the bigger a bomb gets, the more its detonation pretty much gets in its own way, so we figure the total practical yield at the top of the atmosphere was only about a gigaton."
"'Only.'" Buford emphasized the word, with a grin.
"Yes, sir."
"We sent it in when the Spot was on the far side of the planet," continued von Barronov, "because at that point, nobody was supposed to know we had a prototype hyperdrive. And thank goodness, because nobody but us knows, to this day, why the Red Spot just up and disappeared from one rotation to the next, with a big black smudge replacing it and the atmosphere around it going stark raving nuts. I think the popular theory is that something – maybe a piece of 'dark matter' – about the size of the Moon came out of nowhere and crashed into the planet. Or maybe, a chunk of antimatter. But it's still, at least officially, a mystery, and most people are of the opinion that Jupiter simply took one for the team."
"Okay, so to get back to this Chinese pirate pinnace, you're saying it's a death trap?"
"Oh, yeah. I mean, oh, yes, sir."
"Can you fix her?" Buford held up a hand. "Hold it. I mean, can she be fixed? You don't have time for this."
Wolff shrugged. "Maybe, sir. Depends on whether it's important she be fixed."
"We need to bring her home as evidence. I don't know if she can be towed by a frigate through Alcubierre space. Do you?"
Wolff shrugged again. "We might be able to dock the Bandersnatch to her, extend the RV's singularity field to cover both ships, and rotate her home, say maybe to Mars orbit. Then something could come out and tow her the rest of the way to Earth at sublight one, or something like that. Maybe you could hire Elon. Or, you know, we did move Apophis into L5, back in 2029, by simply strapping the Bandersnatch down to it and applying enough power to change its orbit."
Von Barronov groaned. "He makes it sound so easy."
Wolff ignored him. "But structurally, she's fine. It's her drive we have issues with. I'm amazed they got her back and forth from Earth several times as it is."
"Hmm. Well, I want you to go complete your primary mission, and then if we don't have anything better figured out by the time you get back, we may try that. So. That can't be what you came here to ask me about in the middle of the bloody night. But you can rest your minds about capturing her – I agree, painted black and with no national markings, she falls into the "pirate" category and is definitely fair game as a prize. We'll discuss prize money later, but I'm sure it's the last thing you actually want to lard onto your already-huge and un-payable government credit."
"Not our prize, General," Wolff pointed out. "Constellation did all the work, and the Space Force Marines boarded her without any input from either myself or Major von Barronov. So we respectfully decline any prize money and request our shares, if any, be distributed among the personnel of the Constellation."
"And Lieutenant Wolff?"
"Sir," Ariela spoke up for the first time, "if there is any prize money in this for me, which I tend to doubt since I'm not attached to the Constellation in any way, I'd prefer it be transferred to Prisha and Naira, my patients who were rescued from the terminal station and who are still in critical condition in Constellation's Medical Section."
"Hrmf. We'll discuss that later. So now I need to know why you're all really here."
LaForrest looked at Ariela. "Lieutenant, your idea, your plan – you lay it out."
Ariela explained.
Buford looked nonplussed. "Captain LaForrest, how many Marines do you think this will require?"
LaForrest looked thoughtful. "Probably at least one MEU.
Not sure how we'd transport all their vehicles and suchlike."
"An MEU is still 2,200 Marines?" asked Wolff.
"Yes," nodded Buford.
"You can get all the manpower embarked on five pods. Tear out the guts of the other five pods and you can probably carry most of the ground vehicles, plus. They're designed for that, sort of," Wolff continued, "because they're BaeNorGrumLockMart products, and the guts are installed like commercial airliner guts. Pull all the seats and other accoutrements, and the vehicles go up the ramp and into the suddenly-much-larger former passenger area. You might even get some of the smaller helicopters in. You'd have to ask BaeNorGrumLockMart, though. And you'll want to ask them about lift capacity for vehicles and materiel as opposed to people, but as I recall, those pods are way over-engineered for the mass they're normally intended to carry."
"Holy shit," observed Buford. "We could ship five MEUs and the better part of their equipment in the five Santa Marias."
Von Barronov whispered something in Wolff's ear. Wolff looked at him, and nodded. "That's a good idea. Sir," he went on, "Major von Barronov and I have agreed to forego Heinlein-Alcubierre drive royalties on drives built to equip five MEU equipment transports. You have DoD send the releases to our lawyers, and we'll sign them."
The commandant blinked. "That's quite generous."
"They would never be paid, anyway, but why jack up the national debt even more?"
"You think BaeNorGrumLockMart would build the ships for free?"
"Oh, hell no, sir, but you could always try waving our releases at them and shaming them into a hefty discount." Wolff grinned. "The ships would hardly be ready any time soon, but who knows when they might really be needed?"
"No need to sell me," sighed Buford. "Look, let me get on to the Marine Corps Commandant – later this morning, after breakfast – and see what he thinks about cutting loose an MEU to go pacify Sanddoom. My guess is he'll jump at the chance. And Space Force and the Space Force Marines can handle the air and space aspect, so the whole MEU may not even have to deploy. But I promise you I'll have an answer by the time you get back from your jaunt corewards. And I'll also have a read on the legal aspects of what we think is a breach of the agreement with the mullahs. I don't want to disappoint the Lieutenant, but that's under the control of State, and even in this enlightened day and age, State is loaded with a bunch of . . . er . . . lightweights." He grinned.
The Lion and the Lizard Page 11