Invisible Enemy

by Ken Britz

  Lin frowned. “I don’t think so, unless we make it out alive. Then I’ll just drug him to the gills, and he won’t argue.”

  “How very professional of you.”

  “You forget how long I’ve been around you subspacers,” Lin smiled, then concern returned to her face . “I’m worried about you.”

  “Got any more of that lovely gene-splice tea?” Kenga asked.

  Lin ignored her question. “The stimulant I gave you earlier wore off faster than I thought it would.” Her fingers flew over the synthesizing kit and her brow furrowed.

  Kenga closed her eyes. “I had to relieve Reed of his position.”

  “You don’t think the whole boat knows that?” Lin said. “It won’t be good for you.”

  “It’s what’s best for Kuro. I can’t trust him.”

  “You don’t have a choice. He’s proconsul. He could take the ship from you.”

  “Not in battle. He can’t take the command codes from me. The only thing he can do is operate the self-destruct overrides. He won’t do that unless I push him to the point of no return.”

  Kenga heard the clink of the teakettle as Lin set to brewing.

  “We’ll need additional antiradiation doses for the crew,” Kenga said.

  Lin glanced at the screens; the colors sparkled in her eyes. “Planning something?”

  “I might have to give the proconsul what he wants. A real fight. If I have to do it, I will, but…” Kenga closed her eyes. Her crew was taking an incredible risk. Could they count on her to get them through this? There was no question she could count on them. She wanted to fight. She wanted to test her mettle against the enemy again. It both elated and sickened her. She’d been at war too long.

  “Mind if I check your suit?” Lin asked while they waited.

  “Be my guest,” Kenga said.

  Her old friend examined her spacesuit, running diagnostics. The suit clicking and chiming blended with the purr of the gravitic impeller, almost lulling her to sleep. “I’ve been thinking of home, you know. Of Midgard-Sekai.”

  “It’s a bit late to think about taking leave. You want to go home again?”

  “I want to be back on Sea Duty and not care that there’s a war going on.” Kenga saw it clearly once again. What made something so unattainable seem so close? So, desirable?

  There was a soft knock on her door.

  Lin handed Kenga a custom chemtab and Kenga slid it under her tongue. Lin smiled and pocketed something.

  Kenga tapped her bunk panel. The door slid open and Master Chief Wagoner was hulking in the doorway. “Come in, COB,” Kenga said with a warm smile, exuding strength she didn’t have.

  “Just making my rounds and thought I’d pick your brain, skipper,” the COB said, a smile on his round, pink face. He nodded to Dr. Lin. “I hope she’s doing all right, doc?”

  “She’ll be fine once she drinks my tea,” Dr. Lin said. “Would you like a cup?”

  “If I can talk strategy with the skipper, yes, please,” the COB said.

  Kenga propped herself up on her elbows. A trickle of energy from the chemicals hit her bloodstream, and the knifing pain dulled. “Have a seat. What’s on your mind?”

  Wagoner accepted the magbulb from Dr. Lin and sat. Dr. Lin’s kit chirped, and she checked the data, her face carefully neutral. She made a fresh magbulb of the gene-splice tea for Kenga and closed up her kit. The COB nodded to her, and she left, sliding the door shut behind her.

  Kenga sipped her tea, the scalding heat invigorating her. “What’s on your mind?”

  “Nothing major as far as the boat’s concerned. Sven Chung was Weapons leading petty officer, so I’ve moved him up to acting chief and assistant weps.”

  “That’s fine. Chung’s good at his job. I’d prefer him in the starboard torpedo bay.”

  “Which is where he can stay. Dale was only on the loader deck because he liked it. Weapons first love and all that. Doesn’t mean Chung can’t manage the department from somewhere else. The torpedo bay’s still damaged anyway, but the hull’s back together. We lost some ordinance but new weapons are being fabricated and new racks are being printed by the machine shop. We should be back into rapid build before the hull is ready for subspace.”

  “I’m sorry about Dale,” Kenga said, closing her eyes. She hated to lose a shipmate, and the emotional surge pushed more of the pain away “We’ll get to full funeral honors, if we can, and I’ve recommended posthumous commendation in my patrol report.”

  Wagoner nodded at this, his expression somber.

  “You’re not here for that, are you?”

  “No, ma’am,” Wagoner said.

  “How’s the crew?”

  “They’re worried about you, ma’am,” Wagoner said. “I don’t think they understand the mission. I know I don’t, and…” Wagoner shrugged. “I don’t think the exec—the proconsul—knows either, which is the hardest part to understand. Is there something more to this mission than the shipyard?”

  Kenga regarded him thoughtfully and chose her words with care. She’d been patrolling and raiding with Wagoner for five solyars now—he’d come over with her when she transferred off the Akuma Fisk for command of the Kuro. She’d never withheld information from him before, certainly not after Kuro was underway.

  I have to disappoint you, too, COB. All warfare is deception.

  “I wish I could say more, Chief. I’m just not at liberty to discuss it.” He waited for her to continue, knowing her all too well. “I wouldn’t have taken this mission if this boat and crew weren’t up to the task, and the shipyard is the target.”

  He studied her face. “I know when an order has come from the Admiralty. We’ll do our duty, and I know you’d not put Kuro in harm’s way unless the need was great. You are her captain.” He drank some tea then said, “Proconsul or no, Commander Reed is a warfighter. Blind to what’s important, but aggressive as all Hel.”

  “That’s my problem, chief,” Kenga said, and Wagoner realized he’d said more than he should have about the proconsul. Kenga agreed with him, but she didn’t want Wagoner saying something she would have to testify to if it came to that. “I know his shortcomings, and he’s more spacer than subspacer, but it will take time to change that. Time we unfortunately don’t have.”

  “You’ll get us through this, skipper.”

  “To Hel and back, Chief.”

  “Aye, to Hel and back,” the chief agreed, setting down the tea and pushing himself to his feet. “I’ll finish my rounds and then head to the galley.”

  Kenga smiled. “Tell Chop to dispense a shot of captain’s brandy—my special reserve.”

  “That’s for after action,” Wagoner said, his eyebrows rising.

  “We’re going to be in one Hel of a fight soon. I want the crew calm. I have more than enough for after action.” Kenga grinned. “A testament to my confidence in the crew,” she added.

  “I’ll let Chop Chung know, ma’am. He won’t like it.”

  “He knows where to find me.”

  With a smile, Wagoner departed.

  Kenga lay back, watching the sparking repair points on her display and drinking the gene-splice tea. Nervous energy replaced her weak tiredness. Kuro changed course to lay her minefield and finally, she dozed.

  She woke up with whispers of the sailing dream in her head again. She noticed how the minefield was laid out and snapped the buzzer for control.

  “Conn, officer of the deck,” came the reply.

  “Shift orbit to ten thousand kilometers inside the Jovian exosphere. Set radiation shielding to maximum.”

  There was a surprised pause before, “Aye aye, ma’am.”

  The impeller purred as the ship altered course to descend into the Kenga remembered there was an upside to being so close to the Jovian. The massive planet would give the impeller a serious acceleration kick. It might put them on par with the corvette, and the change might make the coming fight more interesting.

  20

  GLSS Mareng
o Orca

  Rigel B Inner System

  0551 U.Z.

  1254.12.14 A.F.

  The vector change alarm klaxoned. GLSS Marengo Orca cut thrust, whipped around its trajectory line. The ship turned smartly, incurring high gees away from its center of gravity before reigniting thrust and beginning the deceleration burn. Jack Hollis didn’t appear to notice, his attention fixed on output thrust in both main engines. It edged up, but didn’t pass the eighty percent mark.

  “Sixteen light minutes from Jovian,” Jackie Traynor said next to him.

  It drew him out of his reverie. “Sensors, conn, full sweep of the Jovian and ASDIN detect.”

  “Conn, sensors, full sweep in progress,” Sensors replied. “ASDIN detects negative tachyon at this moment.”

  Hollis’s attention was back on the mains power curves. The drives wouldn’t mean much if they were problematic in the heat of battle. He checked the astrodisplay as the inertial compensation settled to one and a half gravities.

  “I don’t like this, sir,” Traynor said, her brow furrowed as she poured over data from the inner sensor field.

  “You got something?”

  “No, that’s just the problem,” Traynor said. “I have nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

  “It’s a subspace ship. She’s got a massive heat sink, near invisible hull plating, and a gravity impeller. She’ll be almost impossible to find before she’s inside weapons range.”

  “That’s the problem. Venger thinks they damaged her. If they did, the sensors should give us something. Her stealth depends on an intact hull. If she’s in subspace, we should detect her. So, the question is…”

  “Where the hell is she?” Hollis finished.

  Traynor smiled, the crease between her brows vanishing. “Something like that, sir.”

  “So, there are some possibilities, yes? There are several approach trajectories to Alexandria, all of which they would detect except for subspace. She could be far above the ecliptic, which would have a low sensor coverage. The probabilities grow denser as we approach Alexandria’s ecliptic plane.”

  “How would that help?”

  “Suppose she’s uninjured. If she’s uninjured, she’d probably be in subspace now, yes? To avoid the sensors and slip past us.”

  “But she’s not,” Traynor said.

  “Jackie…” Hollis cautioned.

  “Yes, ASDIN is a new technology, but we got the ship’s signature from Venger.” Traynor rubbed her eyes. She had been combing sensor data, though the crew sensorheads and machines were doing the massive job already. “We have some potential trajectory data, but there’s nothing on ASDIN. Unless she’s deep, she’s not there.”

  Hollis considered that. “If she’s uninjured, she could go deep…”

  “Sir, she has time on her hands. She could go deep and then shallow when she’s close to the shipyard.”

  “Hmm. Let’s finish our analysis before we jump to possible outcomes, XO.”

  “If she’s not injured and not using subspace, we should get a sniff. After half a day, nothing.”

  “Okay, what if she’s injured?”

  “If she’s damaged, she couldn’t go into subspace right away.”

  “That’s reasonable to assume, depending on the extent of her damage,” Hollis agreed.

  “So, she wouldn’t go above the ecliptic or in the sensor field…” Traynor trailed off Hollis watched, fascinated, as her mind made new connections.

  “She has all the time in the world, or in the system…”

  Traynor set the astrodisplay to the widest field. “Shit.”

  Hollis smiled and waited.

  “She’s hiding behind the Jovian or somewhere inside the magnetosphere. That’s complex.”

  “Not for a gravitic impeller. And she can see us coming AUs away with our drive plumes and profile.”

  “Damn, you let me sit here for hours,” Traynor said.

  “No, you had it a while back,” Hollis replied. “You just got tunnel vision in the sensor data.”

  Traynor smirked. “I’ve seen you obsessing over the drive curves.”

  “You got me there,” Hollis admitted. “It’s the engineer in me. I want nothing less than one hundred percent combat capacity.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever met an engineer who’s gotten peak efficiency from their ship systems,” Traynor said, running probability calculations on her theory.

  Hollis returned to work, hating himself. Now that Venger was out of the fight, Orca should be back at the shipyard, lending its offensive capability to the orbital defenses, but he’d committed himself to assisting Venger. Why did that bastard Rogers get himself shot to hell? He decided to take one swing around the Jovian on his way back in-system, inside the sensor field. That seemed prudent. Safe. He frowned—that felt wrong. He’d have to pick up where Venger left off. Perhaps he could save the day…

  “Venger’s out of the fight, at least for the moment. Jolly has a plan, but…” Amber Cowan shrugged noncommittally. “I still have eyes and I’m sending you any sensor data. Good hunting, Jackie. This is a seasoned enemy. A real Arbitrator. We’ll have a drink on Alexandria after, okay? Godspeed.”

  Cowan’s face was puffy, though it was from the lack of gravity, not her emotional state. Cowan was angry and defiant over being bested in her first real fight as Exec. We always fall down, Traynor thought. We always get up, her old tactics instructor told her during her academy days. She wondered who she was fighting.

  Traynor considered replying to Cowan’s message, though the light delay was twenty minutes, but checked the sensor feed instead. She was receiving data via tight beam. Venger was passing along her data, doubling the possibility of finding the enemy ship. With her data added to Marengo Orca’s, they could triangulate the enemy’s position in subspace. The only problem was she wasn’t in subspace. That was still interesting and still puzzling. She’d need to enter subspace to get past the sensor field.

  Traynor scanned the astrodisplay and ran various attack vector scenarios, either bleeding speed or slingshotting. She recommended a vector to reduce velocity. Subspaceships had gravitic impellers, which had a much lower acceleration curve than standard fleet vessels. Even with Hollis babying the engines, they could overtake the N-boat if she came around the wrong side of the Jovian. The more hours that clicked by without ASDIN detect, the more likely the sub was in real space, waiting or licking its wounds. Traynor flipped the sensors and zoomed in on the Venger. She was much farther out, just another pinpoint among the stars without enhancement. She glittered with the small debris field around her. She looked intact. Damn, Traynor thought. Hollis should’ve gotten his ass out of the engine room and burned hard to intercept with Rogers. She set her tactical screens and folded her arms in thought.

  Hollis got out of his creche and stretched. “XO, I’m heading back to Engineering. We have two hours before we reach Jovian orbit.”

  “I’ll have the crew cycle through the galley,” Traynor replied.

  Hollis nodded. “Call battle stations afterward, but wait until I’m back on the bridge, Jackie.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Traynor checked the sensor sweeps and turned to the Officer of the Deck. “You have the Conn, Jonesy. Have the mess decks spool up a hot meal for the crew.”

  The short woman acknowledged and returned to the ship’s routine.

  Traynor was anxious, but she didn’t know why. The anticipation of battle and death was part of it, sure, but there was something more. Did she think Orca wasn’t ready? Her crew was competent, and the captain, for all his engineering quirkiness, was a warfighter. Not as aggressive as he should be, perhaps, but enough to be relied on to guard the back door of the shipyard, so to speak. No, something else was bothering her. Was it the Venger? It was a damn shame the enemy had taken her out of the fight. Her crew was damn good, and her skipper a crazy tactician. It was the possibility of facing one of the Hegemony’s newest and deadliest subspace ships—an Arbitrator. That had
to be it, knotting into a ball of anxiety in the pit of her stomach.

  Traynor found herself in the forward torpedo room. Commander Loew was there, overseeing a loading evolution. The crew were swapping warheads and sensor packages according to the scenario Weps dictated. Traynor caught his eye, and he joined her watching the team work.

  “Drilling and killing?” Traynor asked.

  “Just knocking some shipyard rust off the team. You’ll want all the speed you can get trading shots with an Arbitrator if she has Backbreakers in her fin. What do you want to do with the Bettas?” Loew motioned to the torpedo loadout screens displaying two Bettas stowed in Tubes Three and Four.

  Traynor pursed her lips. “Judging on the performance of Venger’s Bettas, I’d like to stick to a two-shot salvo. First torpedo with low payload and high fuel for velocity. Second loadout heavy. If the first hits, it’ll slow her enough to give it another punch. If it misses, it’ll make her flinch and maybe drop into real space. Might have to change tactics on the fly. If she goes deep, she goes deep. It’s stalemate if she does—she can’t attack, and neither can we.”

  “Mm,” Loew replied. “The Bettas are already slow, but a low mass and yield might give one enough velocity to just put her within parameters of a standard fish…”

  They worked through some details, fine tuning a recent attack scenario sent over from Venger.

  “You’re worried about the fight?” Loew said when they finished up the parameter review and committed the changes.

  “I’m concerned,” Traynor said, acknowledging why she was there.

  Charlie Loew was an old friend and good at reading her mood. It was her thankless job as XO to drive the crew, and she was an able exec—the crew found her terrifying. Loew understood that more than any other department head and knew she was ready to command Marengo Orca.

  “Concern is your job as exec and captain,” Loew said. “You’re worried about the Arbitrator.”

  “It’s a war. People will die, so that’s not what concerns me,” Traynor said. “No, I think we’re missing something. The way the sub fights is erratic. It’s like she doesn’t want to fight, and then she unleashes hell like a cornered snake.”