Deadly Nightshade

by H. Paul Honsinger

  2). OBTAIN ANY AND ALL POSSIBLE INTELLIGENCE REGARDING ANY OTHER SPACEFARING RACES YOU ENCOUNTER, PAYING PARTICULAR ATTENTION TO ANY THAT MAY IN ANY REASONABLY PREDICTABLE TIME FRAME POSE MILITARY THREATS TO THE UNION.

  3). GATHER ASTROGRAPHIC, ASTROMETRIC, ASTROCARTOGRAPHIC, PLANETARY SURVEY, AND ARTIFACTUAL RADIOMODULATION DATA IN ALL AREAS TO WHICH THE ACHIEVEMENT OF OTHER MISSION OBJECTIVES BRINGS YOU. BE CERTAIN TO NOTE ANY JUMP POINTS OF WHICH YOU BECOME AWARE.

  4). BE AWARE THAT I INCLUDED SUBPART 3) OF THESE ORDERS—THE PART RELATING TO ASTROGRAPHIC DATA, ETC.—PURSUANT TO STRICT REGULATIONS REQUIRING THAT SUCH ORDERS BE ISSUED TO ANY AND ALL UNION FORCES THAT FIND THEMSELVES OUTSIDE OF KNOWN SPACE. I DID NOT REPEAT NOT WRITE THEM. NEVERTHELESS, REGULATIONS ALSO REQUIRE THAT YOU FOLLOW THESE ORDERS TO THE SAME EXTENT AS ALL OTHERS. THEY FURTHER SPECIFICALLY PROHIBIT ME FROM MAKING ANY COMMENT THAT I CONSIDER SUCH ORDERS RIDICULOUS, IDIOTIC, LAME-BRAINED, DIM WITTED, A WASTE OF VALUABLE TIME AND RESOURCES, AND NOT RELEVANT TO WINNING THE WAR. I AM ALSO STRICTLY ADMONISHED TO REFRAIN FROM MAKING STATEMENTS SUCH AS THAT I CONSIDER THEM TO BE BLUNDERING AMATEURISH INTERFERENCE IN MILITARY OBJECTIVES BY A BUNCH OF PANTYWAIST EGGHEAD SCIENTISTS WHO DON’T KNOW A CRUISER FROM A CROUTON. I TRUST I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR.

  7. RADM MIDDLETON HAS THE FOLLOWING ADVICE FOR YOU, IN WHICH I CONCUR COMPLETELY, EXCEPT FOR ALL THE “LITTLE SPACE TUG THAT COULD” MOTIVATIONAL HAPPY HORSESHIT THAT I THINK DOESN’T WORK NEARLY AS WELL ON YOU AS A SWIFT KICK IN THE ASS. OR THREE. BELOW THE LINE OF DASHES IS MIDDLETON’S ADVICE. I WILL EXPECT YOU AND YOUR SHIP BACK WITH THE FLEET ASAP OR I’LL MARK YOU AWOL AND HAVE THE COST OF THE NIGHTSHADE DEDUCTED FROM YOUR FLIGHT PAY. HORNMEYER SENDS.

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  MAX, FIRST, PLEASE ALLOW ME TO CONGRATULATE YOU FOR BEING THE FIRST KNOWN HUMAN TO REACH THE CENTAURUS-CRUX ARM OF THE GALAXY. I NOTE ALSO THAT YOU NOW HOLD THE RECORD FOR GREATEST DISTANCE FROM EARTH EVER REACHED BY A HUMAN, HAVING BROKEN THE PREVIOUS RECORD BY APPROXIMATELY 9500 LIGHT YEARS. IT IS QUITE A PITY THAT BOTH OF THESE FIRSTS WILL LIKELY REMAIN CLASSIFIED FOR DECADES.

  I CANNOT HELP BUT REMARK HOW TYPICAL OF YOUR LIFE AND YOUR PERSONALITY IT IS THAT YOU FIND YOURSELF IN THIS UNIQUE AND DIFFICULT SITUATION. NEVERTHELESS, I CAN THINK OF NO YOUNG OFFICER BETTER SUITED TO SURVIVING AND, INDEED, PREVAILING IN THE FACE OF SUCH ADMITTEDLY DAUNTING CIRCUMSTANCES. YOU HAVE ALWAYS SHOWN A MARKED CAPACITY FOR MIXING CONVERGENT AND DIVERGENT THINKING AND FOR FINDING SOLUTIONS TO INTRACTABLE PROBLEMS THAT NOT ONLY BREAK FROM PRE-ESTABLISHED PATTERNS BUT THAT SHATTER THEM. THIS TRAIT WILL SERVE YOU WELL IN THE DAYS TO COME.

  YOU HAVE ALSO MANIFESTED, IN TIMES OF THE GREATEST CONCEIVABLE STRESS AND DANGER (YOU KNOW THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF WHICH I SPEAK) AN UNQUENCHABLE DETERMINATION TO SURVIVE. OF ALL THE MEN I HAVE KNOWN IN ALL MY YEARS IN THE NAVY NONE (WITH THE POSSIBLE EXCEPTION OF THAT BLOODY BULLHEADED BASTARD HORNMEYER—WHOM I SUSPECT TO BE MORE OR LESS DISTANTLY RELATED TO YOU ON YOUR MOTHER’S SIDE) IS MORE STUBBORN AND LESS LIKELY TO GIVE UP NO MATTER HOW DIFFICULT THE STATE OF AFFAIRS. REMEMBER CHURCHILL: “never give in, never give in, never, never, never--in nothing, great or small, large or petty--never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”

  AS FOR SPECIFIC SITUATIONAL ADVICE, I HAVE ONLY A LITTLE, GIVEN HOW RARELY LONG-DISTANCE ADVICE IS OF ANY USE AND PARTICULARLY IN LIGHT OF HOW LONG THE DISTANCES ARE IN THIS CASE. HERE’S WHAT I DO HAVE FOR YOU:

  1. GO ALONG WITH THE VAAACH FOR NOW, UNLESS AND UNTIL THEY DEMAND THAT YOU DO SOMETHING THAT YOU KNOW YOU CANNOT DO. YOU WILL KNOW WHEN AND IF THAT HAPPENS. THE VAAACH HAVE SOME SORT OF PLAN FOR YOU, OTHERWISE THEY WOULD HAVE KILLED YOU BY NOW.

  2. MAKE FRIENDS. YOU ARE A LONG WAY FROM HOME AND NEED ALL THE ALLIES YOU CAN GET.

  3. WATCH YOUR MOUTH. YOU HAVE A KNACK FOR SPEAKING YOUR MIND WHEN YOU SHOULD SHUT UP. KEEP YOUR THOUGHTS TO YOURSELF AND SAY ONLY WHAT IS NEEDED. IN THAT WAY YOU WILL MAKE MANY FRIENDS AND FEW ENEMIES.

  4. AVOID DEADLY FORCE IF YOU CAN. IF YOU MUST RESORT TO FORCE, HOWEVER, EXERT THAT FORCE SUDDENLY, DECISIVELY, AND WITH RUTHLESS FEROCITY. REMEMBER MACHIAVELLI—THE BEINGS YOU ENCOUNTER SHOULD EITHER BE CARESSED OR DESTROYED. NOTHING IN BETWEEN. IF YOU ARE GOING TO SHOOT, SHOOT TO KILL. DO NOT LEAVE A WOUNDED ENEMY BEHIND. KILL HIM. DO NOT ALLOW WOUNDED SCOUT OR SCREEN VESSELS TO SURVIVE LONG ENOUGH TO REPORT OR RETURN TO THE FLEET. THEY WILL REPORT NOT ONLY YOUR POSITION BUT YOUR CAPABILITIES AND WEAKNESSES—FINISH THEM OFF IMMEDIATELY. ONCE YOU HAVE ATTAINED THE OBJECTIVE THAT BROUGHT YOU TO VIOLENCE, STOP FIGHTING AND ATTEMPT TO MAKE PEACE AT ONCE. TODAY’S MOST BITTER ENEMIES CAN BE TOMORROW’S CLOSEST ALLIES. LOOK AT THE FRENCH AND THE GERMANS IN THE 20TH CENTURY OR THE CHINESE, JAPANESE, AND KOREANS IN THE 21ST OR THE WU-R’LEE IN THE 22ND.

  5. NO ONE IN THAT PART OF THE GALAXY EXCEPT THE VAAACH KNOWS ANYTHING ABOUT YOU, YOUR VESSEL, OR YOUR VESSEL’S CAPABILITIES. IT IS IMPERATIVE THAT YOU KEEP AS MUCH OF THAT INFORMATION AWAY FROM AS MANY BEINGS AS POSSIBLE FOR AS LONG AS POSSIBLE. FOR ALL THEY KNOW, YOU ARE A GREAT WARRIOR SEASONED BY MANY BATTLES, PILOTING A FEARSOME WARSHIP OF FORMIDABLE CAPABILITIES.

  6. DON’T GET YOURSELF KILLED, YOUNG MAN. I HAVE BECOME RATHER FOND OF YOU OVER THE YEARS AND WOULD TAKE IT VERY MUCH AMISS IF YOU DID NOT COME HOME TO THE FLEET. I HAVE IT ON GOOD AUTHORITY THAT, WHEN YOU MAKE IT BACK, HORNMEYER WILL PROMOTE YOU TO LTJG. HE CAN HARDLY DO OTHERWISE. I HOPE YOU ARE SENSIBLE OF AND CAN DERIVE SOME MEASURE OF SOLACE FROM THE AFFECTION THAT I NOW SEND TO YOU ACROSS THE GREAT—SEEMINGLY UNCROSSABLE—GULF THAT SEPARATES US. I AM CONFIDENT THAT I WILL SEE YOU BEFORE TOO MANY MONTHS PASS. BEST WISHES AND GODSPEED. MIDDLETON SENDS.

  MESSAGE ENDS.

  Max read the message twice, crying and laughing at the same time. Not only was the message pure, triple distilled, vintage Hornmeyer, it was actually (for him) an extremely warm, personal document. And, of course, Max could not help but be touched by Rear Admiral Middleton’s kindness. Max shook his head. Admiral Middleton would always be too large and complex a figure for Max to wrap his brain around. He was full of so many contradictions. Charles Middleton was, in person, the kindest, most gentle man Max had ever met. And yet, he had just sent Max a message advising him to strike with maximum ruthlessness, kill wounded enemies, and never let any scouts escape alive. Even with all the things he missed, he missed Admiral Middleton most keenly. Max lost his father when he was eight years old, right after his mother died. His grieving dad placed him in the care of the navy, and now he felt almost as though he’d lost, or was at least grievously separated, from another father—one who had been crucial to his growth as a man and as an officer.

  He sighed. Max was used to pain: lost mother, lost baby sisters, lost father, watching the Krag kill his shipmates, being hunted through his own ship by the Krag for day after agonizing day for twenty-six days. He endured it. He endured it all. He endured it all and continued to function and do what he must. He endured it and went on to complete his training and do his job, not just competently, but excellently. Max would endure this pain as well, carefully labeling and packing and stowing it in its proper place with all the storage containers full of agony and grief and loneliness. He would meticulously note its presence and weight and storage location on the proper mental manifest after which, he told himself, it would not concern him further.

  Max wiped the tears from his eyes, blew his nose, squared his shoulders, and got to work.

  First things first—he used the console in the accommodation cabin to check the sensor logs and the current sensor readings to make sure that no threats had arisen when he was sleeping and to see if the unidentified ship had done anything new or different. There was nothing noteworthy except that, now that the ship was closer to the inner part of the system, it was becoming clear that it was not headed for Tindall II but to a point near the planet or, at least, near as viewed from the perspective of the outer Tindall system. Max punched up the planet’s orbital data and confirmed his suspicio
n. The ship was headed toward Tindall II’s L4 Lagrangian point—a location in space 60 degrees ahead of Tindall II in its orbit around its primary. At L4, and at its twin L5, 60 degrees to the other side of the planet, the arcane alchemy of orbital mechanics allowed a ship or installation to remain in a point in space stationary relative to the planet. Both of these Lagrangian points were far enough away that an object parked there could not be detected by the Tindallites’ technology, and would stay in place with a minimum expenditure of maneuvering fuel.

  What the hell is at Tindall II’s L4? I guess I’ll find out soon enough.

  He looked at the chrono: 05:19. He had set his alarm for 05:30, so it made no sense for him to go back to bed. On the other hand, he had the rest of his day planned, almost down to the minute. If he started in on one of the tasks he had planned for himself now, it would throw a monkey wrench into all of that planning. So, with nothing to do, Max decided to do nothing.

  Well, not exactly nothing. The control cabin of the Nightshade had no windows and was, in fact, located almost three meters from the bow, which was the home of the main deflector, the bow sensor array, the forward optical scanners, and several other pieces of critical hardware. Windows would defeat the purpose of the ship’s stealthy design as they would allow light, heat, and other evidence of the vessel’s presence to bleed out into space where they could be detected by an enemy. Recognizing, however, that humans inside confined spaces have a strong desire to look outside of those confines, the Nightshade’s designers had provided the ship with an observation blister amidships on the vessel’s dorsal surface. It was little more than a hemisphere of LumaTite, with a radius of two and a half meters, accessible through a hatch. The hatch was of the same construction as the other exterior hatches and, once one jettisoned the blister with the attached pyrotechnics, could serve as an emergency egress point if the other hatches were blocked or disabled.

  Max squeezed through the narrow access tunnel, operated the hatch, floated into the blister, and closed the hatch behind himself. There were no lights in the blister and the LumaTite was almost perfectly transparent and non-reflective. What Max saw, surrounding him 180 degrees in every direction, was as close as a human being could ever come to viewing interstellar space with his naked and unobstructed eyes. The first thing that drew his attention was a star several times brighter than all the rest dead ahead of the ship. That was the system’s primary, Tindall. But, even at this comparatively close distance, it was definitely more like a star than a sun—there was no discernable disk. It was merely a pinpoint of light that happened to be much brighter than the other pinpoints.

  As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, Max was able to make out the hazy band of light that marked the plane of the Milky Way Galaxy. Max had reflexively oriented the ship so that the plane of its deck was aligned with the plane of the galaxy, so he was able to look around himself and see the band as a diffuse ring surrounding the ship. To the starboard and slightly aft was the flattened disk of the galaxy’s core, much brighter than it was when viewed from Union space, not only because Max was now significantly closer but also because the view was not obscured by the Coal Sack, a vast, dark absorption nebula that lay between the Union and the Core. In the opposite direction lay the Orion-Cygnus arm and the Union, all of its stars too remote to be seen by the naked eye from Max’s current position. Max looked in the direction of home, knowing that he could see none of it and, indeed, could very likely not even see any individual stars that were visible from anywhere in Union space. Still, he had the sense of his mind reaching out along his line of sight across the 14,000 light years to the space that held every human being in the universe.

  Except him.

  Perversely, the thought that he was thousands of light years away from the nearest other human being didn’t sadden him. For reasons he could never explain, he found it funny. So funny, in fact, that he started laughing out loud. The idea that he, a snotty-nosed, 16 year old, lowly Ensign, was far beyond the limits of human exploration on a mission of what might turn out to be of historic importance (who knows—making friends with the Vaaach could change the course of the war) when just a few weeks before a Commander was busting his chops for not having folded his own socks in his own footlocker “in the manner prescribed by Naval Field Manual 88-543-F.” It seems that Max had not bothered to turn the socks right side out before rolling them into the tight ball required by regulations.

  Max laughed further when he remembered that as soon has he had gotten outside of Union space on the third day of his mission, he had re-balled every pair of socks on the Nightshade so that they were inside out. Just because.

  “Chew my ass for folding my socks wrong NOW, asshole,” Max said in the general direction of the Orion-Cygnus arm. He knew it was a petty thing to say. But he never said that he had yet matured beyond the point of being petty.

  Having sunk to the level of yelling about socks at a naval commander who was 14,000 light years away, Max knew it was time to go back inside. He opened the hatch and floated back down the tunnel into the accommodation cabin, and began his normal morning routine.

  Breakfast eaten, ablutions performed, and clothes changed, Max propelled himself into the Control Cabin, strapped himself in, and activated the controls and consoles. He reviewed the records of the sensor data accumulated overnight and called up the current take on the most important sensors so that he could see it in real time on his displays. Then Max checked his stealth settings to be sure that he would stay undetected by the other vessel while also extending radiator fins on the part of his ship screened from the other vessel to maintain a healthy reserve capacity in his heat sink.

  Then he changed tactics. When he thought that the other ship was headed toward Tindall II, Max had set an intercept course, thinking that if this was a Plunderer vessel, he might be in a position to do what the Vaaach wanted him to do by blowing them to flaming atoms. But, now that the likely Plunderers were not an immediate threat to the planet, it made a lot more sense to remain concealed and collect more intel. He altered course and increased speed. Now he would slip in on the other ship’s six, follow at a discrete distance, and, he hoped, find out what the hell was going on.

  Max was growing more frustrated by the hour. He had terabytes of data about the situation, but he felt as though he knew nothing—nothing that counted, anyway. Max figured that he urgently needed to know the answers to three questions:

  1. Who are the Plunderers?

  2. What is the “precious treasure?”

  3. What the hell is at Tindall II’s L4?

  Max believed that, by slipping up behind the Plunderer ship (he was pretty sure that’s what it was) and following it to the L4, he’d almost certainly get answers to number 1 and number 3, and thought he had a better-than-even chance of getting an answer to number 2 as well.

  In any event, the other ship was cooperating with Max’s plans so far, plowing straight ahead on a lubber line for the L4, and not making any effort to hide its sensor signature or follow any kind of evasive course. He was certainly doing nothing to “clear his six” by making radical course changes for the purpose of making sure that another ship wasn’t following him undetected.

  Even if the alien maneuvered to clear his six, Max was in no danger of detection. He was following from more than half an AU away, well beyond the range at which Union or Krag sensors could detect the Nightshade, even with a direct hit by an active sensor pulse. This fellow’s sensor capabilities was not nearly as high.

  Max was finally getting enough data to get a decent picture of the Plunderer’s technology. The ship appeared to be some sort of transport or freighter—a small command module at the head of a long, thin spine to which were attached eight cargo modules in two rings of four, and an engineering-propulsion module aft. It looked very much like an extremely small Union bulk freighter, at least in overall configuration. The similarities, however, were only skin deep. Max’s analysis of the gases blasted by the drive into space, the spec
trum of the glow from the exhaust nozzles, and the ship’s plodding performance told him that it was propelled by laser ignition pulse fusion, the most primitive form of fusion propulsion (exempting of course the General Atomics Project Orion design in which the vessel spits out thermonuclear warheads that blow up behind the ship, pushing it through space). The alien technology was at least two centuries behind the graviton containment Svavarsdottir fusion reactors in Union vessels. Not only did laser ignition fusion drives not generate even a hundredth as much thrust as more advanced fusion technologies, they consumed enormous amounts of fuel in comparison to current Union designs.

  The aliens’ sensors didn’t appear to be much more advanced than their propulsion. The only scans Max detected were the products of simple synthetic aperture microwave radar, not any more advanced than the units on the gunships with which the humans fought the Ning-Braha at the end of the Jurassic Space era in 2034. With that level of technology, Max bet that they didn’t have compression drive, but were limited to traversing interstellar space using jump points. He wouldn’t be surprised if the jump technology they used wasn’t their own invention, but bought or stolen from another race.

  Just as he came to that conclusion, Max saw that the alien ship was slowly rotating end over end, probably to point its drive in the direction of travel in order to decelerate. It did exactly that, its velocity slowing. Now that he had a better idea of what kind of detection technology he was trying to avoid, Max had no compunctions about leaving the other ship’s wake to get a better look at what was at the L4. He slipped into a long, curving path that took him away from the Plunderer vessel, bringing him toward the L4 point from a direction 90 degrees away from the other ship’s approach vector. As soon as the alien ship wasn’t in the line of sight between the Nightshade and the L4, Max’s mass detectors indicated a large object at that location. “Large" as in nearly 250,000 tons. Max altered course again so that he could approach the object from a vector 180 degrees away from the Plunderer vessel, while popping out a sensor drone to tail the other ship so that he would know if it made any unexpected moves.