"That's not a Biter," Fat said with conviction.
"Voice transmission following radar from second vessel," Einstein said.
"Play it on the open channel," Chance ordered.
The sound wasn't anything they expected. It shrieked, it gobbled, it moaned and wailed a horrible lament that sent chills down their spines then dopplered away to nothing.
"No further transmission," Einstein said.
"That is nothing from any of our species," Fussy assured them.
"Could that possibly be speech?" Fat Ortega wondered.
"Why transmit it otherwise?" Frost asked.
"Sudden thermal emissions on first vessel, and I have an image. First vessel is a match for Biter hulls. The thermal emissions are a match for previous Biter missile launches. Radar now confirms Biter missile launch targets us. Closing is more from our relative velocities than its acceleration. Time to impact nineteen minutes."
"We can jump to system 67 before that," Frost said.
"Another Biter launch," Einstein said.
"He must be able to see with that crappy radar that he has multiple targets," Frost guessed.
"Second vessel shows over seven hundred meters long with eighty by fifty meter cross section," Einstein reported, but he made it sound like a question.
"Greaser crew is weapons free to fire on Biter vessel," Frost ordered. "I don't care if we can jump out before they arrive. You don't fire on us with impunity."
"The large vessel has thermal emissions indicating a missile launch. It appears to be three missiles. Targets indeterminate for a few seconds." Einstein was showing a little stress in his voice. "The large vessel is not braking. They appear to be on an intercept vector with the Biter. Radar clarifies unknown large vessel is targeting us with their fire. Their missiles have much higher acceleration. They may arrive before jump. Especially if they are standoff weapons."
"Program the two missiles in our tubes on the large vessel," Frost ordered. "Full evasive programs and ECM active on the X-heads. Hold fire. Repeat, hold them hot but do not fire. If his weapons get through our close defense we'll send him a little message from the grave," Frost vowed.
"Hit! Radar shows Biter vessel breaking up from Greaser fire. We didn't just hole him, we must have hit something that generated secondary effects. Greaser is working on Biter missiles now. We have...wow."
"Einstein, 'wow' is not...OK, I'm seeing it on my own display. Wow indeed," Chance agreed.
"Large unknown vessel has altered course upon destruction of the Biter vessel. It now appears to be on a course to stop along the track of our hindmost follower. I can only assume he intends to reverse course and intercept him. It is decelerating at fourteen point six G," Einstein reported, awed.
"Why not just shoot in passing?" Fussy asked.
"He doesn't..."
"Detonations! All three missiles targeted on us detonated simultaneously," Einstein reported. They were nukes, but surprisingly small yield. The spectra were weird."
"Remove missile targeting on large vessel," Frost ordered. "Return to untargeted ready condition ."
"You don't need full power when you send a self destruct command. Just enough to vaporize the missile," Chance explained. "They decided anybody shooting Biters was off their target list. But they are probably still pissed at us for shooting him."
"Why?" Fussy asked, still not getting it.
"They never intended to fire on him. They jumped in on his tail intent on intercepting and capturing him," Chance told the Badger with a smile. "Now they are going for the rear fellow on our tail. Even at fourteen G he'd never double back and catch our near follower before jump. He'll still be ours to deal with in the next system."
"The spectra... I think they were pure fusion weapons," Einstein said, remembering to mute the feed to Fussy this time.
"Well, we already knew anybody who could build that are ahead of us in tech," Chance said, and made a subtle switch flicking gesture to Einstein before Fussy noticed too much dead airtime.
"Shit. Who did the Biters piss off who make spaceships damn near a kilometer long that have that sort of legs?" Fat Ortega asked.
"I don't know. They thought we were a problem," he said amused. "May they have the joy of whatever their arrogance has bought them. Einstein, quickly prepare a video mosaic of Humans, Hinth and Derf to transmit to the new fellow before we jump. Fussy, your call to make, do you want cameos of your races added to the mosaic? Less the Biters of course."
"You want to reveal that much to a complete unknown?" Fussy asked. "It also implies we are closer associates than has happened yet, though I expect it will."
"They told me enough about their character when they destroyed their missiles in flight. These folks have weapons similar to ours. You could do worse than imply we are friends under the circumstances."
Fussy blinked once. "Do it," he agreed. Probably with all sorts of reservations there was simply no time to express. Possibly exceeding his legal authority too.
"Brief mosaic of our images sent," Einstein reported. "It was head and shoulder shots and I doubt it will win any awards for video composition and directing."
"I'd love to see how they capture the Biters," Chance told them. "Unfortunately we would need to engage the Biters in stern chase of us here and jump very late into the known jump parameters to see it."
"That's why I agreed to associate us in the video," Fussy informed Chase.
"I'm not sure what you mean."
"We are jumping out and the new species, new race, will be alone here with the Biters. I can't imagine the Biters surrendering graciously at all. They will resist and try to fire on them and probably make them cut their way in their hull and drag them out," Fussy predicted. "I can easily imagine them either claiming an association as allies with us in their usual bluster, or worse, claiming ownership of us as what you called client races. Neither of which the new fellows are as likely to believe now after they figure out the format and see us all in that video, sans the Biters."
"Our shooting the Biter they pursued should remove all doubt," Chase said.
"Jump in three minutes," Chance announced. "On the even minute by our clock at 17:12. No time to spread out. Let's show the new fellow we have some style leaving."
At 17:120000000000001 they were gone to system 82. Their fleet was one more jump.
Chapter 21
"I'd really like to visit your planet," Lee told Talker. "I imagine it's quite different from your station. Every planet I've been to had something worth seeing."
"I thought you'd had your fill of planets after Earth," Talker said.
"I don't want to be stuck on one it's true. But they can be beautiful and interesting. I especially liked the time we spent on Derfhome walking in the deep forest and meeting Gordon's people."
"So you had a pretty good visit on Derfhome?"
"It wasn't without it's negatives. The first Mother wasn't too pleased to have me as a guest. We managed to resolve that without bloodshed."
Talker got that rippled look to his muzzle Lee was learning was puzzlement or doubt, quite distinct from amusement or surprise. "That's always a plus," he allowed.
Lee ignored the wry remark.
"I'll have to ask permission from the planetary authorities. We have quite distinct areas of responsibility. They have not been thrilled at all our activities up here. Worried it will bring trouble to them below. I'd note they were once asked to allow Biters on the planetary surface and refused. When the Biters asked again in less polite terms the planetary officials plainly said they would consider it an invasion and kill them. That they were issuing and dispersing weapons to the general population to act as a militia with instruction to resist even if there was no central directing authority."
"Are you trying to prepare me not to be shocked if they feel the same about us?" Lee asked.
"No. They are aware of the deals we are making and the potential benefits to all our worlds. The Biters never had any real benefit to offer. T
hey'll pay for something begrudgedly if they can't steal it. They've seen images of you and I doubt they'll feel threatened by one small Human female."
Talker could tell from the frown and glare that he'd offended her, but couldn't figure out why.
* * *
"Clean sky," Einstein reported after they emerged in the next system, number 82, and there was no close traffic.
"You may stand down from battle stations and damage alerts if it pleases you," Chance offered. Fussy and Frost both issued such orders, to the relief of their crews.
There was a system traffic history scan being transmitted. There was mining activity but not a living world. Not even much mining activity on the one dead world that supported it. Most of it was in space.
The system scan showed a sped up replay of the Biter ship they'd killed before jump entering this system almost opposite and making an easy change of vector without shedding much velocity. They were well along their crossing when the huge stranger ship entered from an entirely different quadrant. It made a violent right angle burn to chase them. The Biter ship had accelerated hard for jump not attempting to reply to the brief Banshee wail the stranger transmitted once. The scan was so recent the end of the chase and both ships' jump hadn't propagated to the central scan and back to be incorporated in the latest broadcast. However the wave front of that event was long gone since they entered near where it happened. It would take most of their transit before system scan caught up and retransmitted the two ships leaving where they were coming in.
"Record that scream carefully," Chance instructed. "I suspect it is something like – stand to and prepare to be boarded."
"Well what would you do if something that size and power chased you?" Captain Fussy asked.
"I'd try to talk to him. If I couldn't talk and he acted aggressively I'd hit him with everything I had. If that didn't work I'd let him try to board me and blow the ship if he got close enough to let me take him with me."
"You'd destroy your ship before allowing it to be captured?" Fussy asked, big eyed.
"Yes." Chance answered without any attempt to persuade him.
"You'd follow these orders?" he asked on the open channel, but not of any specific officer. He seemed clueless about how offensive and inappropriate such a question was.
Captain Frost just glared out of the screen at him, too angry to speak.
"Well of course... " Lord Byron replied like he was a bit daft to ask.
"Certainly," Einstein answered. "We all would."
"I am on the command circuit back in engineering," Ho'omanawanui said. "I don't usually have anything to say, but let me tell you Badger Boy, if we were defeated, boarded, and I didn't have orders coming from the flight deck anymore, you better damn well believe that we'd have a dual reactor failure you could see at the neighboring stars."
"Oh."
"Entry radiation ahead. Yes! They overjumped us," Einstein reported. "System scan is no use to them. Neither of us will be on it for a several hours even though it happens to be on our side of the star.
"Locals are saying hello," Einstein reported.
"Captain Fussy, would you speak with them for us please?" Chance asked, apparently unmoved by the previous discussion. Surely Fussy understood which way the wind blew now.
"Certainly, Would you give me some idea how much you want me to reveal of outsystem action and your intentions?"
"I imagine they will want to know what was happening with that huge strange ship. I certainly would. You are free to tell them the Biter ship it was pursuing fired on us unprovoked and we destroyed it. I have no more information on the stranger I wish to share. I would rather not speculate they may intend an interception and capture without any real proof. If they know any more than is on system scan we'd sure like to know. As to the Biter ship ahead of us, you may say it has pursued us very aggressively and we consider it hostile."
"Einstein, would you use the Trade translation program and very politely inform the Biter ship ahead of us that his fellow Biters have been making a habit of shooting at us and we intend to destroy him if we see him do anything but proceed straight through the system," Chance requested.
"Aye, sir, with pleasure. He overjumped us a couple light minutes, so we'll be waiting four minutes plus time for him to tell us if he's decided it's a good day to die."
"The locals calling us are miners," Fussy reported, "they said some of their fellows over in the area the big ship came in hailed it close enough they should have heard but they got no reply. They agree the Biters are trouble and what you'd call a pain in the butt. They stopped short of saying to go ahead and shoot them, but I think that's the way sentiment runs. They are more concerned with the unknown. I told them the Biter that just exited ahead of the big ship fired on us and then destroyed them in flight."
"Thank you Captain Fussy. Which of your races are the locals here?" Chance wondered.
"Badgers and what you call Sasquatch. They've an affinity for deep space mining."
"Biters have our message," Einstein noted.
"You know, if I were a miner looking for asteroids worth busting up, I believe I'd just keep my mouth shut and ease around to the opposite side of my rock if I saw a seven hundred meter space ship come in like a bat out of hell," Captain Frost commented.
"There are a lot of folk sayings and popular wisdom about Sasquatch," Captain Fussy admitted. "One unkind saying is that you shouldn't pick a fight with a Sasquatch because they are too dumb to be afraid. But no race that built starships on their own are stupid. I once was drinking with a mixed group and somebody repeated that slight. The Sasquatch just laughed and informed us they are simply out of practice being afraid, because they killed everything on their planet they needed to be afraid of."
"Was he joking or serious?" Fat asked.
"That's what makes it even funnier," Fussy said, "with a Sasquatch nobody can tell."
"Biter ship is accelerating!" Einstein said, surprised.
"Show the vectors on screen," Chance requested. "Away from us?" he asked, surprised.
"Showing probable course," Einstein updated. "He's going to skim the star and go out the other side hot. I bet he's going for the system the fellow we killed came from, before this one."
"He wouldn't talk to you either," Fat noted, with contempt.
"Well somewhere off in that direction are a lot of Biters. I hope he doesn't bring them all back with him." Chance said.
"Three jumps from that system to a Biter colony world. It doesn't show easily in your chart because it doesn't call out the routes, but it's there," Fussy told them.
"We'll be back in 80 before they can be there. They can bring their whole navy for all I care once we are back with the Retribution and Murphy's Law. Even one of the DSE's could give them a pretty hard time from what I've seen."
"Will the folks here shoot off a drone to system 80 so they'll have word about the big ship before we arrive?" Chance asked Fussy.
"Drones are expensive and nobody here is going to spend that kind of money when I already told them we are headed there. We'll be bringing the news home ourselves."
"How did this system get cataloged as number 82?" Einstein asked. "It seems out of sequence."
"For whatever reason it was bypassed and then somebody backtracked and checked it out later," Fussy told him. "That isn't uncommon. Also, Biters don't really have a navy. Each clan has to buy their own, so very few have several and there are a lot of small clans that will never have the funds to buy and operate a ship. If they want a force of any size they'd have to seek agreement with other clans to join up. Absent a big cash payment they'd have to guarantee there will be loot. They aren't very agreeable, and so far every time they mess with you it has been a dead loss. It should be a hard sell."
"Well this one got away, but with a thirty million kilometer lead and a bit higher velocity it would have been a stretch to run him down. I suspect the big ship decided he couldn't overtake him in this system before he jumped out, or we'd h
ave seen him by now. We'd have had to stick everybody in their bunks on gel bags and sippies. I have no doubt we'd have lost a few crew to the acceleration to catch him. I have to get just one lousy missile externally mounted on the Roadrunner," Chance complained. "The Roadrunner could have run him down, But we need some cheaper, smaller missiles too. It don't make any sense to use a missile on him that's probably worth more than their crappy ship."
Fussy added gel bags and sippies to his search and question list, along with X-head, nuke, yield and Greaser. Surely somewhere in the huge chunk of English web they'd received there were some hints of what those terms meant.
"Persevere, I'm putting a file on your screen. It's a brief summation of our circuit and actions in each system. Transmit it to Gordon first thing as soon as we have entered system 80, just in case we still have somebody looking to prevent us getting back."
"You think an ambush is a possibility? Persevere asked. "Or there might be others overtaking us?"
"Not a very great chance, no. But what were the odds that we'd see a seven hundred meter alien starship? Why risk waiting to pass really critical information a minute longer than necessary?"
And that's why he's captain, Persevere realized again.
* * *
"They not only said you can come down, but that if you want to use your own shuttle that's fine," Talker told Lee. "Have you been lobbying behind my back?" he asked, plainly.
"Not a word," Lee told him. "I don't know anybody down there, to even know whose arm to twist."
"Now there is an image," Talker said of the expression.
"I'm surprised you know what lobbying is. That's very much an Earth expression. They don't lobby on Derfhome, and they call it something else on Fargone."
"It took me awhile to find the term. I'm glad it was correct. What do the Fargoers call it?"
"Bribery."
"Sometimes, I'm not sure when you are serious and when you are making humor," Talker admitted.
"Good, the best humor is ambiguous and the truth if shocking best of all," Lee said.
Talker looked like he wanted to say something, parted his mouth even, slightly, then decided to play it safe. "You are otherwise welcome to take one of our shuttles down if you wish the experience. I spoke to your chief engineer and he said our shuttles are about the same for safety."
Family Law 2: The Long Voyage of the Little Fleet Page 33