Para Bellum

by Christopher Nuttall

  The virus was using them to fly the ship, he reminded himself. They should have some data we can use.

  He leaned forward. “Do you believe we can hack the bioneural network, if we managed to capture one intact?”

  “I don’t believe so, not barring a major advance in biological technology,” Sana said. She looked pensive for a long moment. “People have been speculating about bioneural networks for decades, sir, but ... they’ve never produced any workable hardware. The concept of biological starships is light-years beyond us. Even the RockRats concede it will be centuries before we manage to modify ourselves to live in space without technological enhancement, if indeed it is possible at all. The virus may be completely beyond our ability to ... hack.”

  Her face darkened. “It may be possible to interface with a cluster of viral cells,” she added thoughtfully, “using a neural interface ... but I wouldn’t care to try. The virus is simply too alien.”

  “But a cluster of viral cells would be expendable,” Doctor Tisane pointed out. “We wouldn’t be carrying out the experiment on humans - or alien prisoners.”

  Stephen shifted, uncomfortably. The Royal Navy had strict regulations governing the care of alien POWs, ordering their captors to ship them back to the xenospecialists as soon as possible. Indeed, alien POWs were almost always treated better than human prisoners. No one knew how an unknown race would react to the mistreatment of their POWs - and no one knew what an unknown race would consider mistreatment. The Tadpole POWs had been treated very well, despite the increasingly hopeless war. But then, it had proven almost impossible to talk to them. One of the darker scenarios his briefing notes had covered had been the prospect of aliens unable to tell their captors that they were suffering.

  But the virus was ... a virus. It might not notice - or care - if humans carried out experiments on viral cells. To it, the infected were little more than skin cells. It might not even notice their deaths. And, regardless, it posed a terrible threat. Stephen knew the xenospecialists had been granted wide latitude to do whatever it took to find a vaccine - or, worse, a biological weapon that could be used against the virus. Would anyone care if he ordered Sana to try to design a neural interface that could be used to hack the virus?

  “I think that question is probably best decided by the folks back home,” he said. The boffins had been bragging about the promise of neural interfaces for the last two hundred years, but - so far - they’d achieved no real success outside the laboratory. The idea of a mind-controlled starfighter was tempting, yet - in the real world - the interface almost always caused significant brain damage. “We can safely leave it in their hands.”

  Sana looked relieved. Doctor Tisane didn’t look anything like so happy.

  Stephen looked at him. “Doctor, what’s your opinion?”

  “We have completed our preliminary assessment of the captured ship,” Doctor Tisane said, pulling his datapad off his belt. “As you can see” - he brought up a holographic display - “the ship is a curious mishmash of technologies. Their plasma cannons, for example, are inferior to ours ...”

  “Inferior?” Stephen was surprised. “Really?”

  “Yes, Captain,” Doctor Tisane said. He sounded annoyed at the interruption. “Their plasma cannons are actually comparable to the early models, the ones we built before the First Interstellar War. We actually noted a pair of them losing containment and exploding well before the starfighters could blast them off the hull. This may be a third or fourth-rate ship, by their standards, but I can’t understand why they used such primitive weapons when they certainly have the technology to improve them. If nothing else, they pose a hazard to life and limb.”

  “True,” Stephen agreed.

  His face twisted as he thought back to the war. He’d been in his early teens when humanity had discovered it wasn’t alone in the universe, but he remembered the stories. The early plasma cannons had been more dangerous to their gunners than the enemy. Even after humanity had reverse-engineered Tadpole weapons, it had proven quite difficult to keep them from overheating and exploding ... often doing considerable damage in the process. A starfighter that suffered a containment breach was almost certainly doomed. Only a handful of pilots had managed to eject before it was too late.

  “On the other hand, the computer cores and fusion plants are actually more advanced than our own,” Doctor Tisane continued. “They don’t seem to use their computer cores to their full potential - Sana thinks they prefer to use their bioneural matter for computations - but their fusion plants are another matter. Put crudely, that relatively small ship has more power than a battlecruiser. I’m actually surprised they didn’t add more drive nodes. It would give her an upper speed comparable to a destroyer or frigate.”

  Stephen winced. “Can we duplicate their technology?”

  “We can’t upgrade Invincible’s fusion plants, if that’s what you’re asking,” Doctor Tisane said, dryly. “Not now, in any case. In the long term, yes; we can duplicate their fusion cores and install them in our ships. The technology is relatively simple. We just have to be careful that we don’t accidentally cause more problems for ourselves than we solve.”

  “It would probably be better to redesign the control programming from scratch,” Sana put in, mischievously. “Copying their programming might lead to an unpleasant surprise.”

  Stephen looked from one to the other. “Do you think their bigger ships might have higher acceleration curves?”

  Doctor Tisane hesitated, noticeably. “I don’t know, Captain, and I’m reluctant to make any predictions. We’re running up against some pretty hard technological limitations when it comes to making our ships faster, not least the need to fit more drive nodes into an ever-expanding hull, but ... it’s possible they could boost their nodes with the extra power, at least for a short period. And if they’ve managed to improve their drive systems in a way we cannot anticipate ...”

  Stephen swallowed a curse. Invincible was hardly the fastest thing in space - there was no way a giant carrier could outrun a frigate, let alone a starfighter - but she was extremely fast for her size. The boffins had insisted that she could outfight anything that could catch her and outrun anything that could outfight her. Stephen had no doubt that Invincible could give a full-sized fleet carrier or battleship a very hard time, even though his ship wouldn’t last more than a few minutes if a battleship hove into gunnery range. But if the virus’s warships were considerably faster than Invincible, the fleet carrier was in deep shit. Being overhauled by a handful of enemy battleships would be utterly disastrous.

  No need to panic yet, he reminded himself, dryly. They didn’t manage to run us down back when we were fleeing Alien-1.

  “I get it,” he said, softly. “You cannot predict their technological development.”

  “No, sir,” Doctor Tisane said. “There are just too many things about their ship that doesn’t make sense. For example, their most advanced computer core was connected to the targeting systems, but the sensor blisters - those that survived - are inferior to our current designs although superior to those mounted by Formidable and the other ships that died at New Russia. Tadpole masking fields are unlikely to fool them for long, if at all. Their ... ah, their least capable computer core was attached to the drive nodes, something that makes absolutely no sense. They need to be aware of fluctuations within the drive field.”

  “Unless the viral bioneural network was capable of handling any problems that might arise,” Sana said. “And besides, it isn’t like they were using a truly primitive system. There’s no hint they were having drive problems until we crippled the ship.”

  “True,” Doctor Tisane said. He cleared his throat. “The bottom line, sir, is that they should be using some aspects of their stolen technology to improve others. It’s like” - he waved his hands in the air - “it’s like having fusion cores and power cells, but using gasoline and internal combustion engines at the same time, or advanced computers and abacuses working in tandem. They do
n’t seem to realise the potential of their own systems. I have staffers working under me who have already devised ways to improve their systems or adapt them to service us. Some of them even believe that we can take their fusion technology and use it to make missiles actually practical.”

  “That would put the cat amongst the politicians,” Stephen said, amused. The Next Generation Weapons program had been trying to crack the problem of long-range missiles - and turning missiles into effective weapons - for the last decade, but results had been somewhat mixed. Plasma cannons outmatched missiles every time. Even bomb-pumped lasers were of limited value if they never got near their target. “The missiles would have to be extremely fast, though.”

  “That’s the point, sir,” Doctor Tisane said. “They would be extremely fast.”

  Stephen leaned back in his chair. If Doctor Tisane was right - and Stephen had no reason to doubt him - there was going to be another arms race as soon as Invincible returned home. It wouldn’t even be a bad thing, at least at first. The human race was locked in yet another war for survival. But afterwards ...? Who knew what would happen when the war was over?

  And the war is not over yet, he reminded himself, sharply. The enemy fleet was massing in Alien-1, but - as far as they knew - it had not yet set course for Falkirk. It has not even fairly begun.

  “I see,” he said. “Do you have any other insights?”

  “Not as yet, sir,” Doctor Tisane said. “My full report will be with you by tomorrow at the latest. However, we have barely scratched the surface. I would prefer to remain with the alien ship until she can be taken back to Earth.”

  Stephen considered it, thoughtfully. Getting the captured ship home was a priority, but so was continuing the mission. They had to probe the depths of alien space before the war began in earnest, if only so they’d know where to send the fleets. There was no way he could take the alien ship as far as Falkirk, let alone Earth, without incurring intolerable delays. And yet ... cracking the mysteries of the alien starship might be the key to winning the war.

  “We have no way to know how advanced she is, relative to the remainder of their fleet,” he mused. “Do we?”

  “No, sir,” Doctor Tisane said. “But we can extrapolate from what we find inside her hull.”

  Stephen met his eyes. “Could you fly her home?”

  It was Sana who answered. “No, Captain. The command datanet is a ruined mess and I doubt we could fix the interface links anytime soon. Their system is a little more open than ours, probably because the virus handled the connections between the cores, but I don’t think we could replace the damaged or destroyed systems.”

  “Brilliant,” Stephen said, sardonically. Theodore Smith had had it easy. All he’d had to do was link his captured ship to Ark Royal. “I’ll detach one of the freighters and a small prize crew. They can take her as far as Falkirk. The fleet there can take her the rest of the way.”

  Doctor Tisane frowned. “Does that give them a claim on our prize money?”

  Stephen resisted the urge to laugh. Commander Newcomb had told him, two days ago, that the main - often the sole - topic of conversation among the crew was precisely how they were going to spend their prize money. The Admiralty would be generous. They hadn’t captured a rusty old barge, but a genuine alien starship. The reward money would be divided out by rank and spread out over the entire flotilla, yet even the most junior crewman - or civilian expert assigned to the crew - could look forward to a sizable payday. The Admiralty would be very generous indeed.

  And the taxman is forbidden by law to take any of the reward money, Stephen remembered, with a wry smile. The incentives for taking an alien ship intact are staggering.

  “No,” he said. “But we do have to get the ship home to claim our prize.”

  He felt his smile grow wider. He didn’t need the money - his trust fund alone would keep him fed and watered for the rest of his life - but it was the principle of the thing. He’d give the money to charity, perhaps. It had been a long time since Britain’s finest had been left to starve in the gutter, but still ... there were institutions for retired servicemen that could do with a sizable infusion of cash. Or ... he dismissed the thought, curtly. They had to get the ship home before they could claim any of the money.

  “I look forward to reading your report,” he said. “I’ll see you both later.”

  He watched them go, then brought up the starchart. It was unlikely they’d find anything else in Alien-2. He certainly didn’t want to linger. So far, the virus didn’t seem to have realised that it had lost a ship, but that would change soon enough. By then, he wanted to be well away from the captured ship’s projected course. The virus might not know when the ship had been captured, but it would certainly know where. Shaking his head, he keyed his terminal.

  “Commander Newcomb, detach one freighter to escort the captured ship back to Falkirk, after we transfer its cargo to the rest of the flotilla,” he ordered. It was a shame they hadn’t thought to bring a mega-freighter - they were so large that the alien ship could have been stowed inside the freighter’s hull - but transhipping cargo from one ship to another in deep space was hard enough with a military-designed freighter. “And then inform the flotilla. We will be proceeding to Alien-3 as soon as the alien ship and her escort are underway.”

  “Yes, sir,” Newcomb said.

  And hope to hell we find something useful, Stephen thought, as he closed the connection. We don’t know how long we have before the war begins in earnest.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Alice paused in front of the hatch, feeling almost like a naughty girl who had been sent to face the headmaster. It had been something that had happened to her more times than she cared to admit, back when she’d been in boarding school, and only the fact that her father had been a war hero had kept her from being unceremoniously expelled or sent to a borstal for the remainder of her education. She wasn’t sure how many of the horror stories about borstals were true - she’d learnt enough, during commando training, to suspect that no one would survive the borstals if the stories were true - but she supposed she should be glad she hadn't been sent there. She might not have been considered for officer training.

  And yet, half the platoon had spent time in the borstals, she thought sourly. They learnt how to apply themselves and actually work.

  She stared at the hatch for a long minute, silently cursing herself. She was dawdling and she knew it, something that would have gotten her in trouble during training. It was better to be doing something, the sergeants had said, than sitting around waiting to be hit. Even doing the wrong something was better than doing nothing. And yet, there wasn’t an enemy on the far side ... she shook her head crossly. The headshrinker who was on the far side wasn’t an enemy, but twenty years of education, training and active service told her otherwise. The headshrinker had her career in the palm of his hand and she knew it. And she hated it. She was - she knew she was - blunt and plain-spoken. It was considered a virtue amongst the marines. But saying the wrong thing could send her career plummeting down in flames.

  A low quiver ran through the ship as she picked up speed. Captain Shields had formally announced, five hours ago, that Invincible and her dwindling flotilla would pass through the tramline into Alien-3. Alice had been reading yet another report at the time, awaiting her appointment with the headshrinker. The report had been maddeningly uninformative, much to her annoyance. She didn’t blame the spooks or xenospecialists for knowing nothing, but she hated it when they refused to admit it. The report read like it had been written by someone who feared they would be fired - out a cannon, perhaps - if they admitted that they’d learnt nothing since they’d written the last report.

  And you’re woolgathering, Alice told herself, sharply. Coward.

  The thought spurred her to raise her hand and press the buzzer. She had never been a coward, not since she’d been a five-year-old who’d been dared into climbing a rickety tree by her friends. Her mother had been furious - and
terrified, Alice saw now - but Alice had been proud of her achievement. She’d felt fear many times in her life, yet she’d carried on regardless. Fear was just another enemy to overcome. But now ... she understood bullets snapping past her head, but not verbal warfare. She gritted her teeth as the hatch hissed open, silently inviting her into the cabin. Who knew? Perhaps the headshrinker would be in a reasonable mood.

  Sure, she thought. And maybe the horse will learn to sing.

  Colonel Watson - Doctor Watson, she reminded herself - had been given a nicer cabin than her, although it wouldn’t have been hard to find a nicer cabin than the hot-bunks in Marine Country. The junior crewmen and midshipmen had nicer bunks than the marines. Some of them didn't even have to share! She heard the hatch close behind her as she advanced into the chamber, feeling as if she was moving into enemy territory. Doctor Watson had redesigned the room to make it look like a comfortable place to sit, rest - and chat. She might have been fooled if she hadn’t known who and what he was. A headshrinker simply could not be trusted.