“Gentlemen,” Max said amiably, “I’m just as fond of getting in and getting out as the next man, but there are other factors you’re failing to consider. Although the cartographic data we received from the Vaaach says that this is a Krag ship with a Krag cargo, she’s broadcasting a Ghiftee transponder ID. That means that there is a strong possibility that she has a legitimate Ghiftee registry and is therefore officially classified under interstellar law as a neutral vessel.
“And gentlemen, I can’t just go gallivanting around the galaxy blowing neutral vessels to hell and gone, because,” he counted off the points on his fingers, “one: they’ll court martial my happy ass and throw me in the brig until I’m about a hundred and twenty-seven years old. Two: I will be held liable in damages by an Admiralty court for the value of the ship and its cargo, which is more money than any of us will ever see in our lifetimes. And three: the Union Foreign Ministry is doing everything in its power to get the Ghiftee—not to mention the Romanovans, the Rashidians, Pfelung, the Texians, and just about every other human and nonhuman neutral power in this end of the swamp—to come into the war with us against the Krag.
“Now don’t you think that it is just possible that a Union warship launching an unprovoked attack on an innocent neutral freighter merrily navigating through unclaimed space, not to mention the deaths of its innocent, neutral crew, just might undermine those efforts? Does the name Lusitania mean anything to you?”
Both men silently conceded the point. “But,” the doctor pressed on, “if the Ghiftee are neutral, how can we interfere with their ship at all, much less do what you’re planning?”
“It’s the law. By their repeated unprovoked attacks against neutral shipping, the Krag forfeited their right under customary interstellar law to have themselves and their goods carried in neutral shipping. There is occasionally some fairness in law, you know. It’s a natural consequence of their actions: because they did not respect neutral rights, they do not get to avail themselves of neutral rights. So the Krag, both their rat-faced selves and their cargo, are legally contraband and can be seized wherever they are found. But we have to have evidence that the contraband is on the ship, so to do that, we have to board her.”
“Then why not just board her without all the elaborate, and apparently gratuitous, play acting and deception that your plan entails?” the doctor asked.
“Because the instant this little freighter suspects us as a Union warship, she’ll run.”
“What if she does?” the doctor asked. “If she runs, we know she is guilty, so then we catch her. My understanding is that our vessel is a very speedy one.”
“It is, but this freighter is faster. This particular design is built for and marketed to smugglers and blockade runners. Her top speed is a hair faster than ours, and since she’s lighter, she accelerates like a rabbit. We need to convince her to heave to and permit us to lock on a grappling field, or we’ll never get on board.”
“But won’t she flee the moment she sees us?”
“There, Doctor, is where you’re showing yourself to still have dirt on your feet.”
“Dirt?” He looked at his boots.
“It’s an old spacer expression. To have dirt on your feet means that you think like a planet dweller rather than someone who lives and works in space. You’ve been on ship for so short a time that you still have planetary soil on your footwear. Your question shows that you approach vessel identification like someone who has seen it on trid vid dramas but never done it in real life.”
Max continued, warming to his subject. “Telling friend from foe out here is no easy matter. From a million kills away, even if a ship were painted bright white and lit up like the Galactic Princess on New Year’s Eve, a high-resolution optical scanner would pick it up as just a bright speck, so we mostly rely on transponder ID signals and IFF codes exchanged electronically. Those can be faked, so at closer range we try to verify visually what the electronics tell us, but most of the time you still can’t see a damn thing unless you light the other ship up with half a dozen of your own high-power collision lights, which is a good way to get shot at because lots of folks interpret that as a distinctly unfriendly act.
“Even at close range, most of the time you can actually see very little. We’re in deep space, nearly forty AU from this system’s sun. It’s dark out here. Really dark. And no one—and I do mean no one—paints warships anything but black. Not just black but with layers of coatings that absorb visible light and lots of other forms of energy. Generally, all you can see is an area where you can’t see any stars, sporadically filled in with an occasional running light, collision light, or viewport, but little or nothing of the shape of the hull itself.”
“So,” the doctor said, “that is why you have taken, I hear, every crew member not strictly needed to operate the ship and put him to work installing false running lights, self-illuminating panels that look like viewports, and making various dummy antenna and fixtures to attach to the hull.”
“Exactly, Doctor, we’re going to be a Romanovan revenue and inspection cutter, a vessel that’s very roughly the same size and shape as we are—not surprising since the Romanovans habitually copy Union designs, at least generally. In the dark, it will be close enough. People see what they expect to see. And that’s where you and your linguistic talents come in.”
Max’s comm panel buzzed. He hit the button. “Skipper here.”
“Brown here, Captain. We may need a postponement.”
He suppressed a sigh of exasperation. “I don’t think we can do that, Wernher. What’s the problem?”
“Sir, in order to mimic the profile of the Romanovan ship, I’m having to make a very large number of fittings, fairings, dummy antennae, and other attachments to the hull. I’ve got all three metal shops working full tilt, but they’re falling behind.”
“What about putting additional men to work with hand tools?”
“We’ve got the extra tools, but all the people skilled in metal working are already at work in the existing shops. There just aren’t that many people on board who have the necessary skill. I know: I’ve already determined that I need to train more men in metal-working skills, but that won’t solve my problem in the next few hours.”
Max thought for a minute; then it hit him. The engineer’s thinking was stuck in a box. A metal box. “What about all that damage control wood we keep on board to shore up bulkheads and build temporary compartments and fixtures?”
“What about it?”
“Can’t we use that? I know we’ve got eight or ten men with reasonably good carpentry skills.”
The comm line was silent, but for the engineer’s inarticulate sputtering. After about ten seconds, he was able to form words. Barely.
“Surely. Sir. You aren’t… you can’t be… suggesting that I place… wood on the hull?” His tone sounded as though Max were suggesting that he replace one of the gleaming white Verrakian marble pillars at the Temple of Universal Justice with rude columns made from mud bricks mortared with musk ox shit.
“Wernher, think about it. These things are nothing but props. They don’t have to carry any structural loads. They don’t have to withstand weapon fire or atmospheric friction. They just have to sit on the hull and look like what they are supposed to look like for about thirty minutes. They could be made of papier-mâché or PlayKlay for all the difference that it would make. If it makes you feel any better, we will remove them at the earliest convenient moment.”
“Well, sir, it still feels improper, somehow.…”
“Great. I knew you were too good an engineer not to follow the data, Wernher. Now fire up the wood shops, and let’s get these frauds fashioned and fitted. CIC out.” He closed the connection. “And now, Doctor, speaking of frauds, let’s get you to the quartermaster for a fitting.”
“Approaching jump point Alfa,” announced LeBlanc. “Coming to full stop. Thirty seconds or so passed. “There. Skipper, we are at full stop, right on top of this system’s Alfa.�
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“Very well. Okay, people. Operation McGruder One: Execute.”
The first step belonged to the stealth officer. “Emitting a burst of Cherenkov-Heaviside radiation. Switching from Stealth Mode to Emulation Mode—electronic and drive signatures now mimic a Romanovan revenue and inspection cutter, Flavius class.”
One of the missions for which the Khyber class destroyers were built was penetrating into enemy space and destroying his shipping to cripple his war production, much as United States submarines had penetrated Japan’s Pacific defense perimeter to destroy her Merchant Marine during Earth’s Second World War. To enable them to perform that mission, in addition to a highly effective stealth suite to hide the ship’s own emissions, each also had a sophisticated “emulation” suite consisting of emitters designed to mimic the electronic signatures radiated by the drives, weapons, sensors, and other systems of a variety of other ships. She could not change her color or her shape, but in terms of her electronic, graviton, and other emissions, the Cumberland was the space-faring equivalent of a chameleon.
“Ahead at zero-point-zero-five c, steering the first leg of standard Romanovan search grid. Prepared to increase speed according to Romanovan jump-recovery procedures,” said LeBlanc.
“Broadcasting transponder ID code copied by Naval Intelligence from the RRIC Caracalia,” announced Comms.
“Visual inspection confirms that all our shutters are closed, all dummy viewport panels are illuminated, and all false running lights are activated and operating,” said midshipman Kurtz in a steady, if still treble, voice. Max had put the midshipmen in charge of much of the visual deception scheme, and as the midshipman in CIC, Kurtz was their liaison with Command.
“Beginning active sensor sweeps. All sensor types, frequencies, polarization schemes, modulations, and phase variances calibrated to mimic Romanovan sensor protocols,” said Kasparov.
As a result of these deceptions, Max was hoping that the sensors on board the Ghiftee freighter (freighter sensors were usually pretty rudimentary) would show what appeared to be a ship coming through the jump point that led to Romanovan space, identifying itself electronically as a Romanovan cutter, emitting the same sensor beams as a Romanovan cutter, recovering from jump at the same rate as a Romanovan cutter, and carrying out the same search patterns as a Romanovan cutter. The purported Ghiftee should conclude, therefore, that the Cumberland was a Romanovan cutter. If it walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and flies like a duck, it must be a duck.
“Speed is now at point two eight,” said LeBlanc, forty-six minutes later, “which is what the Romanovans like to cruise at in this class. Executing second leg of search pattern.”
“Active sensor contact,” announced Kasparov. “Bearing, range, course, and speed congruent with previous passive contact identified as November two. Getting a good, strong return. Sir, that would be a solid detection for a Romanovan ship.”
“Very well. Now we act like we just spotted them. Maneuvering, increase to what would be flank for the Romanovans and shape course to intercept.”
“Romanovan flank, intercept course, aye.”
In a few minutes, the Cumberland had accelerated to 0.55 c, just as a Romanovan cutter would under the circumstances. An hour and a half later, the destroyer had matched course and speed with the freighter and was holding station eight hundred meters off her starboard beam.
Just then, Dr. Sahin walked onto the bridge, resplendent in the crimson and gold uniform of a Romanovan cutter captain, glittering with enough multicolored braid, oddly shaped insignia, and jewel-encrusted medallions to decorate a dozen admirals and the bellmen from every five-star hotel in the quadrant, and made only slightly more ridiculous by the matching riding breeches tucked into gleaming cavalry boots, complete with loudly jingling, jeweled spurs. An absurdly long sword in an elaborately bejeweled scabbard hung at his side. Several men broke out laughing.
“Dr. Sahin,” the skipper exclaimed, “you look as though you outrank God!”
“I beg you, sir, to say nothing further along those lines. It is a most impious remark,” said Sahin, genuinely horrified.
“I beg your pardon, Doctor. It was an improper thing to say. But that uniform!”
“You have my pardon, certainly. Indeed, it is a bit excessive. But the Romanovans do have an exaggerated sense of grandeur, as one would suspect for a colony of upstart Italians with pretentions of being successors of the Roman Empire. They even speak Latin, of all things.”
“Now, Doctor, let’s not have any illiberal remarks about Italians.”
“Certainly not. Admirable people. Can there be any a nobler tribe than the race that sired Vivaldi and Verdi, Da Vinci and Michelangelo, Dante and Cima? No. I refer to the Romanovans as a distinct species sprung from the Italian genus. One need only look at this comic-opera costume of a uniform, much less listen to their interminable bombastic symphonies or view their grotesque, grandiose architecture to know that, as a people, they have a deep-seated sense of inferiority and an overwhelming need for external validation.”
“That, Doctor, is beyond me. Now, you are certain that you can pass for one of them—to convince someone who has heard their speech many times that you are a native?”
“Certainly. I have studied Latin since the cradle and spent a great deal of time in Romanovan space with my father, selling machine tools and purchasing gourmet olive oil. Their language is merely classical Latin with a Tuscan accent and with some rather idiosyncratic grammatical errors.”
“Outstanding. Then have a seat right here.” Max got up from his station and gestured for the doctor to take his place. The doctor’s sword collided with the skipper’s console, causing the tip to swing around and hit Garcia in the knee. The XO grasped the sword and guided it so that it would follow the doctor into the seat.
“Careful, Doctor,” said the XO, “you’ll put someone’s eye out with that.”
“Indeed,” Sahin said with an embarrassed smile. “I mustn’t make more work for myself.” Then, sheepishly, as if to explain the accident, “It is an unusually long sword.”
The XO smiled. “They must be compensating for something.”
“Indeed,” said Sahin.
Temporarily evicted from his accustomed place, Max sat down at the Commodore’s Station, a comfortable seat with a compact console on the command island, usually unoccupied, placed there for use by visiting senior officers, largely to keep them out of the way.
Now it was time to talk like a duck. “Comms, send the first message,” Max ordered.
“Aye, sir.”
The Romanovans, like the Romans before them, were enamored of all things traditional, and invariably hailed and communicated with foreign vessels using the old Interstellar Text Transmission Protocol, the same protocol that, with the interposition of a translation matrix, was used to communicate with alien species. The Cumberland, therefore, had prepared a series of communications in that clunky, hundred-year-old code, which did not allow the sending of lowercase letters, punctuation, or special characters. The first message read: “GHIFTEE FREIGHTER THIS IS THE ROMANOVAN CUTTER CARACALIA STOP PREPARE TO BE BOARDED FOR SAFETY AND CARGO INSPECTION STOP NULL ALL DRIVES AND DISABLE ANTIGRAPPLING FIELD STOP MESSAGE ENDS.”
The freighter, like most ships, had an antigrappling field. Such fields could be overcome either through brute force by a hugely powerful grapfield, such as the one generated by the Vaaach ship they’d encountered, or through finesse by jamming. The Cumberland, however, lacked the power to overcome an antigrap and could not jam such a field in less time than it would take for the freighter to escape. Max needed to convince the freighter to null its field.
About a minute passed. “Response message, sir,” said Comms.
The text appeared on Max’s console, and on several others: “WE ARE IN UNCLAIMED SPACE STOP OUR COURSE DOES NOT TAKE US INTO OR THROUGH YOUR JURISDICTION STOP STATE AUTHORITY BY WHICH YOU CLAIM RIGHT TO BOARD THIS VESSEL STOP MESSAGE ENDS.”
“Exactly
what we thought they’d say,” said Max. “Wait thirty seconds and then send the second message.” In response to Chin’s puzzled look, Max explained, “We don’t want it to look like we had the message already written, do we?”
Chin nodded. “Aye sir. Wait thirty and then send message number two.”
At the appropriate moment, Chin hit the key for the second transmission. It read: “THIS SYSTEM HAS A JUMP POINT WITH COUNTERPART IN ROMANOVAN SPACE STOP THEREFORE UNDER ARTICLE XXIX SECTION 8 PARAGRAPH 12 OF THE SECOND INTERSTELLAR CONVENTION ON NAVIGATION CUSTOMS COMMERCE AND TERRITORIAL CLAIMS THIS SYSTEM LIES WITHIN OUR SYSTEM DEFENSE AND IDENTIFICATION ZONE STOP AS SUCH WE ARE ENTITLED TO BOARD YOUR SHIP TO INSPECT IT FOR COMPLIANCE WITH INTERSTELLAR SAFETY PROTOCOLS AND TO DETERMINE WHETHER YOUR VESSEL OR CARGO POSE ANY THREAT TO THE SECURITY OF OUR IMPERIUM STOP MESSAGE ENDS.”
This message had the dual attributes of not only copying exactly a message sent under similar circumstances by a genuine Romanovan cutter but also of being a scrupulously accurate statement of the applicable interstellar law. The Romanovans might be pompous asses, but they were punctilious about interstellar treaties.
“Sir,” said Comms, “they are requesting visual. Receiving a carrier on channel 5.”
“Doctor, that looks like your cue. Everything ready, Chin?”
Comms checked to be sure that the camera was set for a tight shot of the doctor, just his head and shoulders, with so little of the background included that no one could tell from the image that he was on a Union destroyer instead of the Romanovan cutter. “Aye sir, all set.”
“Now, Doctor, remember you are playing a part. Imagine yourself as Admiral Sir Joseph Porter, K.C.B.”
The doctor sat up straighter, donned a Romanovan-style headset, adopted the stern aspect of aloof, haughty condescension that went with the Ruler of the Queen’s Navy from Gilbert and Sullivan’s H.M.S. Pinafore, and nodded imperiously to Max.
Max gestured to Comms who said, “Opening channel 5.”
The several screens punched into channel 5 briefly showed the standard interstellar visual comm test pattern, a black circle transected by two wide bars at right angles to each other, the bars each divided into several blocks containing different shades of gray. Because color perception varied so greatly from species to species, standard transmissions were in a monochrome mode inaccurately referred to as “black and white.” Color communications generally took place only between ships of the same flag.
To Honor You Call Us (Man of War Book 1) Page 25