Family Law 2: The Long Voyage of the Little Fleet

by Mackey Chandler

  Chapter 15

  "We just received a messenger drone relayed through from system 69," Talker told them.

  "Oh good, Are our fellows and the Dart in that system?" Prosperity asked.

  "Been and gone. Also six Biter vessels in a fleet were transiting the system. Most likely on the way here to confront your little fleet over damaging their vessel."

  "One hopes they will have more courtesy than the last, because if they speak to Chance the way the last one did it will end very badly. He won't aim to nip their rear off," Madonna predicted.

  "We wondered if you could do that on purpose."

  "I wouldn't guarantee it," Prosperity hurried to say. "If it had been a serious warship, shooting back at him, he wouldn't have taken the risk to just disable it."

  "Not serious..." Trader said. "What if I told you the Biters did the same thing with the Sharp Claws and told them to sit and be boarded?"

  "Oh, in that case I guess they won't be coming here after all. Sorry about that. Nobody friendly got hurt I hope?"

  Talker got that stressed look they recognized. His muzzle got little dimples and scrunched up so tight he showed little incisor points at the front. "Would you expand on why you don't think the Biters will be coming here now?"

  "Well, if they screwed around with Captain Frost and the Sharp Claws, I imagine they are all dead now," the Third Mother volunteered before Prosperity could.

  "One little ship, destroyed six big ships with two shots!" Talker informed them.

  "Wow, x-head missiles are so expensive, I'm surprised he doubled up on them. If he missed any he could have finished them off with other weapon systems, but I wasn't there, so I shouldn't second guess him. He was responsible for protecting the Roadrunner and Dart. I might have gone into overkill mode too, with that responsibility hanging over me. Really, the size of the ship doesn't mean much when you are fighting with missiles," Prosperity said. "If one gets through, you are toast. You seem upset. Did you think it was a fluke when Gordon shot the Biter ship here?"

  "No, not a... fluke. My translation software had to ask for fluke and toast, as well as overkill...I'm still not sure I understand toast. With fluke it was at least clear the meaning wasn't a parasite. Overkill I understand all too well. We knew you were dangerous. I guess what I'm trying to say is we didn't know how dangerous."

  "We haven't been trying to hide it," Prosperity told him. "We're really not dangerous at all, if you don't threaten us and try to do a hostile boarding of our ship. What were we supposed to do to show you how dangerous we are? Come in all nasty like Biters and blow up a moon to scare you?"

  Talker sat looking at them silently a bit before replying.

  "Could you blow up a moon? Have you ever blown up a moon?" he asked directly.

  Prosperity looked at the third Mum, with a sickly stricken face.

  "Don't look at me big mouth; I didn't bring it up."

  Talker did a double face plant. Both hands wrapped around his eyes with his muzzle sticking out.

  "Well, Gordon kind of accidentally blew a moon up," Prosperity admitted reluctantly, "testing a different kind of missile, a nasty sort of weapon he'd captured from the Earthies we'd really rather not use anyway. It was a crappy little moon, uninhabited, really not anything to worry you... honest."

  "You-aren't-making-it-any-better," Talker said from behind his hands.

  "But, you can see where we don't want to pass these things out like party favors," the Third Mum explained. "What if you mess up and allow the Biters to get some?"

  "Party favors..." Talker muttered, lowering his hands to check the translation software. "Ah, holiday crackers," he said laughing a little. He seemed a bit... unhinged. "Yes, your point is well taken. I too greatly favor keeping them away from the Biters."

  "I'm sure we can supply some systems that will let you keep the Biters off your back, but within limits. Within limits where we won't worry we were mistaken about your nature and find out you decided the best way after all, was just to remove the Biters from the universe. I don't think you seem like the sort to do genocide. But we should know you better. I mean, the Biters might have some redeeming qualities, if they can just be trained to realize threatening Gordon is plain suicide."

  "I'm sure when these six ships fail to come home it will send some sort of a message to them," Talker allowed. "I don't know if they will be afraid enough to ask what happened to them with any, restraint. They would regard six ships as a formidable fleet. It was probably every ship a major house owned and maybe a couple hires too. They were of course already short the one you damaged. That's about as big a fleet as any Biter clan would own. I have trouble imagining they are capable of cooperating beyond two houses. Even if their existence was threatened."

  "That's good. I'd hate to think we precipitated them sending every ship they own against you in a vengeful fleet," the Third Mum worried.

  "No, we haven't known the Biters that long, but I'm pretty sure that isn't in their nature. I think this is where I should gratefully accept your limited offer. It would suffice as you said, to keep the Biters 'off our back'. If we can send out single ships again and not worry they'll disappear we can recover our economy that they have disrupted, and get back to exploring for new worlds and resources, just as you are doing."

  "Great. Now all we have to do is figure out what you need and how much it is going to cost you," Prosperity said. "Are we talking just Badgers, or are you going to arm your other races too?"

  * * *

  "Well, we found out why they don't have ships zipping all over at twenty Gs acceleration using the artificial gravity to neutralize the acceleration," Prosperity told Thor.

  "Oh, I really wondered about that, how did you find out about it? Did they ask you how we do it?"

  "We finally had a big enough handle on them with the deal to supply weapons that I felt I could admit we don't have such a thing. They didn't seem too surprised, they said it was one of those unplanned fortuitous discoveries that just happen trying to do something else. Not developed from theory. In this case from research in high temperature superconductors. They do have some excellent superconductor tech worth trading for."

  "But why don't they use it in ships," Thor demanded, before Prosperity went too far off subject.

  "Oh, he gave me a long technical explanation, but basically, if you try to accelerate a system with an active plate in it the miserable things drag. It displays inertia while it is running, more than just the mass of the machinery. So they use it in something orbiting at a constant velocity and they can use it in a ship after it has attained velocity and is coasting inertial to its destination, but it's pretty useless for what you were talking about. Making a ship have less perceived acceleration inside. You'd have to have far more power to spare than we have so far to overcome it. You'd need the power to move the mass of an asteroid around like we can accelerate the Roadrunner."

  "Oh well. It was a nice idea," Thor said, disappointed, frowning. "But that contradicts what I know about relativity," he objected.

  "I don't know enough to have an opinion. It's still a significant convenience and who knows what our guys will do with the idea once they start playing around with it? It will nullify a static field, so the Badgers use it in amusement parks and in hospitals and facilities for the aged."

  "Amusement parks?"

  "Apparently kids of a certain age love to walk around on the ceiling and have video taken of them waving upside down."

  Thor just shook his head.

  * * *

  The Dart, Roadrunner and Sharp Claws entered system 68, a boring place unless you were a Planetologist. There were about a dozen Sasquatch in a ship used as a research station on the fringes of the system, light hours away. They were looking into some theory of planetary formation and the hail the Dart sent them wouldn't get there before they'd jumped out. This was as far as they planned to go into the charted star systems.

  Their next transition was back towards system 80, into system 66
which had stations of several races and three active mining locations, one a small rocky planet very close to the star, one among an asteroid belt unusually far from the star and one on a moon of a gas giant as far from the star as Uranus was from the sun. Chance wanted to do at least a fly-by of the remote station. It was both an orbital station in the meta-stable point with the gas giant and a mining camp actually on the moon's surface. He was curious about it. It was a low gravity nitrogen - hydrocarbon atmosphere moon, so it made him think of Titan. The surface had rocky outcroppings, but also jelled islands of what would make pretty good napalm. Tidal friction and heat from the gas giant kept it from freezing solid this far from the star.

  The gas giant was unusually large and the moon described as rich. He wondered if the giant was large enough it was related to Brown Dwarfs in its formation and if the system had any similarities to the rich Brown Dwarf systems they had found. He didn't share the reasons for his interest with Fussy.

  They got a courtesy broadcast of the recent system plot from the inner planet, because they were closest the way they'd come in. They had to do a dogleg around the star to get to the far mining station. The Dart announced the intention of all three ships to go to the far station.

  As they proceeded around the star they got an update almost as soon as the speed of light lag allowed the news of their arrival to reach to the far station and return.

  The Biter ship, The Pride of Cintapan, announced an emergency undock and exit. They had been listed as due to depart in four days. Now they said they would undock in an about two hours and they listed no destination, which Fussy admitted Biters often skipped, feeling it wasn't any business of grass eaters where they come and go.

  "Does that have anything to do with us?" Chance asked Fussy.

  "Nah, the Captain suddenly remembered it was the Clan Father's naming day and they needed to move it if they didn't want to miss it."

  "Badgers have sarcasm?" Frost on the Sharp Claws asked.

  "It's an art form," Fussy admitted, after checking the translation software. "But it makes the ones you say are cat-like angry when you use it and the Bills just look at you like you've lost your mind."

  "There are a few humorless humans like that too. They complain we need a special sarcasm font for text messages."

  "I suspect Biters may be that way," Fussy allowed, "but they are so quick to take offense nobody wants to test it."

  "What is Cintapan?" Captain Frost asked.

  "A Biter clan, but I have no idea if they name them for a founder, or the territory, or what. If anybody has actual maps of their clan territories, or a written history for them I'm not aware of it. We get bits and pieces, when they talk on open com or get drunk in a bar and argue or brag."

  "How long exactly have the Biters been around, being a pain in the butt to your other races?"

  "I understand they showed up in the home systems of both the Sasquatch and the Cats about forty of your years ago. They made a few transits and wouldn't talk to anyone. After a couple years they saw enough system transits on the edge of their explored space, off at the other end from where you came in, to figure out where they were coming from."

  "They just have one Home world then?" Chance asked. "You said they have three systems, it would surprise me if they had that many living worlds."

  "One living world, but the other two systems are very well populated. The Home world was divided up and the boundaries set in stone long before they went to space. Now the only way to have the sort of importance the Biters seem to crave is to claw your way to the top of a clan, or go off and establish your own, even if it is on a barren little airless moon," Fussy said.

  They watched the system plot of the Biter ship exiting the direction opposite them. There is a phrase in the proverbs of our religious teachings," Chance told them, "it seems appropriate here. "The wicked flee when no one pursues," he quoted.

  "That translates very well," Fussy said. Was that a Badger grin?

  * * *

  "The Badgers have been talking about missile systems," Prosperity said, "because they saw we used a missile on the Biters and the reports about the Sharp Claws made clear they used missiles, but I mentioned we have other weapons systems. They aren't as keen on those seeing we preferred missiles and used them first, but would you consider demonstrating the peashooter for them? Unfortunately they looked up a peashooter in our part web, saw the children's toy, and it didn't impress them to see the weapon system we want to sell them named after a cheap plastic tube used by kids to shoot seeds."

  "Yeah, well Happenstance Cohen would probably flip out if he heard the name we adapted for his system. You can look up what he called it if you want. It was some big long technical description nobody would use day to day. I'm sure it's on the paper work. I'm not responsible for doing his PR for him or advertising it. I think a demo will impress them whatever we call it.

  "Are there any Biter ships scheduled in system for a demo," Thor asked straight faced.

  "You are a wholly evil Derf and will come to a terrible end," the Third Mother predicted.

  "Thank you, Mum," Thor said, unrepentant.

  "What would you consider a suitable target?" Gordon asked.

  "A chunk of ice would make a spectacular target," Lee suggested. "Pick one small enough and it will vaporize completely. You create no traffic hazard from it as a bonus."

  "Ask them to suggest a ship sized chunk of ice. But don't discuss effect, suggest it on the basis of demonstrating accuracy foremost," Thor said.

  "How far out can we hit that big of a target for sure?" Lee asked.

  "The proper question is how far out can we hit a target half that size, because when you are showing off you want a good margin of error. If we just nip the edge of it or take three shots they are not going to be wowed at all." Thor brought up the targeting software on his screen and considered it. "For a target the size of the Retribution, I'd say seventy thousand kilometers, as long as it is at something like normal orbital velocities."

  "Just for my own curiosity, how far would you take it as a war shot?" the Third Mother asked.

  "If it was my only target and I didn't have any other ships shooting at me, I'd put three shots on a target that size at a million point two kilometers and trust the spread of variation inherent in system to put at least one of them on target. The peashooter is not only cheap to buy, it's very cheap per shot too."

  "Talker is speaking of arming every non-Biter ship in their space if they can talk everybody into it. That would be near two hundred ships. I can't see any chance they'd spend enough to do that with missiles. But this peashooter gun they might buy. What are you grinning at?" she asked Gordon.

  "I'm picturing the look on Happenstance Jones Cohen's face, the fellow who designed the peashooter system, if we asked him for price and delivery on two hundred installed systems."

  "It's a long way back to Fargone, how would they go about taking so many ships that far to have major work done on them?" Lee asked.

  "Oh, they'd never try to do it that way," Gordon assured her. "Ours were installed at New Japan. Happenstance was working there when he sold them to us. For all I know he is back to Fargone, but it doesn't matter, they would bring a factory ship here and set up to do them in orbit, with another ship making a constant supply run back and forth to keep them supplied with parts. In fact, they probably would just contract with the locals for brackets and frames and simple mechanical pieces."

  "Thanks for mentioning that. I'm sure it will help when they consider what to buy," Prosperity told him. "After all, with missiles there isn't a whole lot we could ask them to fab."

  "They are still going to need to keep this system from falling into Biter hands. If anything it would be easier to reverse engineer," the Third Mum worried.

  "I had a little discussion on that with Trader," Prosperity revealed. "When you and Talker were going on in detail and we were out of the conversation anyway."

  "Indeed? And it is relevant how?"

&
nbsp; "Part of the standoff they have now, is the Biters don't have the sort of military that can land on a planet and hold territory. But part of what is restraining them is also that when they first found the Bills they pirated a ship and it became known. The second time they tried to board and seize a Bill ship the fellow stopped as ordered and then when they came to rest and sent a party to enter his lock, he rotated and rammed them under power from a few hundred meters away. Admittedly, they were going something less than a hundred meters a second when he impacted. But that's plenty to ruin your day in a spaceship. The Biters got a lot more cautious about boarding Bill ships after that and the others too. So it has been a bit of a stand-off most times, unless the Biters think they have an easy target."

  "Heh, put a Bill on every peashooter equipped ship, with a dead-man switch," Thor suggested.

  "That might not work," the Third Mother warned, "given the story was told more in a 'So be aware the Bills are nuts too,' frame of reference than a, 'Isn't that great?' story."

  "Still, I'm encouraged any of them have the guts to do that," Thor insisted.

  "They are aware now we had self destruct charges in our exploration ships," Prosperity revealed.

  "But that Bill did it with style. I'd imagine some of his crew might have even survived."

  "Yes, he had everybody suit up and strap in. He stayed on the flight deck, forward, in case he had to maneuver. He hit the Biter ship square in the side and broke her back. The wreckage had enough velocity away from the boarding party that they were unable to get back to any shelter. So they died too. Most of his crew was eventually rescued," Prosperity told them.

  "We should consider Bills for recruitment if their dietary needs are not too crazy," Gordon decided.

  "The others might make decent crew," Lee protested, " but, I can see where you'd favor Bills for command positions, we know at least some of them can make the tough decisions."

  "You once told me you didn't know if you could throw that switch," Gordon reminded her.

  "I've grown up a lot since then," Lee said.