“Minimal effect. Force Field One remains at a ninety-nine percent capacity.”
“Not bad at all,” Captain Benchley said. “We’ve got to get us some of those.”
“Sierra-One is firing its main guns again. No effect.”
More missile volleys came their way, each slightly smaller than the last as launcher magazines were exhausted or components were damaged by heavy use. A poorly-maintained or decrepit ship could be rendered ineffective by breakdowns as easily as by enemy fire. Her guess was that the Lampreys she was facing were afflicted by both problems.
Fourteen minutes went by.
“Sierra-Two is in range.”
“Our turn. Open fire.”
* * *
“This has got to be one of the most ridiculous naval engagements in history,” General Gage commented.
Fromm had to agree. The American destroyers were like children teasing a caged gorilla: as long as the cage bars held, they could poke it with sticks with impunity. Only problem was, it would take a lot of pokes before the gorilla died.
They were doing their best, though. A Lamprey cruiser broke apart under the steady hammering of the American squadron’s twenty-five main guns. The flaming wreckage began to drift away as the rest of the alien force steamed past it. DESRON 91 shifted its fire to the second cruiser, saving the dreadnought for last.
“Enemy is changing course,” the tactical officer in the situation room reported. “They are retreating.”
Someone – one of the civvies, most likely – began cheering before realizing nobody else was joining in. The cheerleader shut up.
“This is all well and good,” General Gage said in the silence that followed. “But now they know those destroyers are our only weapons.”
“Warp transit detected at two light seconds. Small unidentified vessel jumped into warp. It only showed up briefly on our sensors.”
“Stealth ship,” Heather said. “Gone back for reinforcements, I’m sure.”
“That was a probing attack,” Gage said. “Now that they know the Tah-Leen’s heavy artillery isn’t in play, they’ll bring something better than those relics to the fight. Wouldn’t it be great if we managed to activate those systems when their real fleet shows up?”
“We’re no longer trying, General. Unfortunately, the security locks will trigger a self-destruct command if we try to brute-force our way past them. The ensuing explosions may or may not destroy the entire habitat. They will almost certainly degrade or shut down the force fields protecting us. Instead of wasting time and risking everything, we are looking for alternative means to engage the enemy.”
“Point taken. Do what you can.”
DESRON 91 scored a few more hits on the retreating Lampreys, but the enemy had gone into full defensive mode, and they only managed to lightly damage another cruiser before it moved beyond effective range. The alien task force left the system in good order.
“Three hours to Shoorash System,” General Gage mused. “If they have a fleet ready at the other end, we’ll detect the incoming emergence sometime after that. We’ve got a minimum of six hours before they show up. Hope you can come up with something before then.”
Fromm had his troops stand down but remain at their posts. It would take a while before they were needed, if they ever were. Everybody tried to relax, knowing the calm wouldn’t last very long. Most of the combat veterans managed; Fromm made himself comfortable and took brief nap, noticing General Gage doing the same. You rested when you could, because it was likely to be the last chance you got for a while. Or even for the rest of your life.
His imp woke him up. As expected, they’d detected an incoming fleet, due to arrive in four hours.
In the ensuing time, two civilian vessels arrived, paid off their transit fees, and headed to their exit points at flank speed, having been warned that hostilities were imminent. Others had simply turned around and gone back the way they’d come. He wondered what kind of tales those merchantmen would tell, and who else might decide to come poking into Xanadu to see what was happening. The ruthlessly pragmatic move would have been to destroy those innocent bystanders, but even if moral considerations hadn’t mattered, practical ones did: the destroyer squadron didn’t have the firepower to chase down and destroy those ships.
Heather hadn’t gotten any sleep. She’d been too busy looking for ways to turn the systems she could control into some sort of weapon. He silently wished her luck.
“Multiple warp emergences, matching the initial readings. Enemy order of battle: three People’s Choice dreadnoughts; four missile battleships, unknown class; ten battlecruisers, half of them new missile platforms; the other five are Grievance Committee-class ships; twenty Antithesis destroyers, and thirty Social Revenge frigates.”
“That’s the Middle Quadrant Armada, near enough,” General Gage said. “About the same size as the force that we broke at Melendez System. Most of those are brand-new, too.”
Left unsaid was what everyone knew. Nothing DESRON 91 could do would destroy that force before it could either batter down Malta’s shields or physically reach the station.
“With your permission, General, I will see to my command,” Fromm said.
“Of course, Captain. Good luck.”
“Thank you, sir.”
He didn’t think there was enough luck in the universe to help them, but he would do what he could.
* * *
“This is your final warning,” Supreme Spacer Rep Keesh said. Despite the fancy title, it didn’t look very different from the last Lamprey fleet commander, except for a few gold studs embedded on its leathery skin. The jewelry didn’t improve its looks one bit.
“You will stand down, lower your force fields, and surrender the Tah-Leen Habitat for Unique Diversity, which you have obviously seized through typical American savagery. And possibly some surprising and commendable cunning,” Keesh went on. “Neither will save you from our wrath, however. You have ten minutes to comply if you wish to save your miserable lives.”
The toothed maw vanished from the holotank.
“It actually used human time units for his deadline,” Sec-State commented. “That was rather nice for a Lhan Arkh.”
“And we can trust its word as much as we could any Lamprey,” General Gage said.
Secretary Goftalu nodded. “I know. The Imperium would spare our lives if we surrendered. The Lhan Arkh merely want to take the station unscathed. We wouldn’t survive capture by more than a few hours at best. I will try to stall them when the ten minutes are up, but I doubt they will listen.”
“Every minute you gain us could make a difference,” Heather said.
“We all have the utmost confidence in you and your team, Ms. McClintock,” the Marine commander said. “Carry on.”
In other words, you better come up with something good, or we’re all dead.
In retrospect, concentrating all their efforts on unlocking the Central Battle Conduit had been a mistake. She should have detailed someone to look for alternatives, just in case they didn’t break through in time. Next time she had to assume control of an ancient alien facility, she would know better. By the time they’d given up, it was probably too late.
If someone is breaking into your home, and you can’t get to your gun, find an improvised weapon. For the past seven hours, her team had been doing just that.
“I think we can reconfigure the orbital thrusters into something that will damage a ship,” Mario Rockwell reported.
Heather went over the data and ran it past a retired Fire Controlman in her team.
“Won’t do much good, ma’am,” he said. “Even generating the equivalent of a five-inch grav-gun blast would cause the station to start drifting. And the range would be terrible. Hundred klicks, maybe twice that with a lot of finesse. Not enough to make a difference.”
“Well, so much for that,” Rockwell said in a disgusted tone. “I think that covers about every secondary system. Except communications. Maybe we can drive them
crazy by beaming them a constant stream of rom-com flicks. Or War-Metal music.”
“Wait. Communications,” Heather said, mostly to herself. A glimmer of an idea began to form. “Dammit! I should have thought of this sooner!”
“Whatever it is, better make it quick. I’m considering using tractor beams to throw garbage at them.”
“I think we can do better than that.”
She ran a quick inventory of the items she’d thought of, compared the specs on the screen with another set of data, and smiled.
“A lot better than that, as a matter of fact.”
Seventeen
“All systems are nominal,” Machinist Mate Kruger said; he and several other spacers under Chief Hong had spent some time away from their shiny new fabber and helped make the Corpse-Ship space-worthy. Captain Benchley had approved the reassignment, although the commander clearly didn’t expect anybody to get an ancient rust bucket made out of an even older alien carcass to ever become operational.
Well, they’d proven the bubblehead officer wrong. More or less.
“What MR Kruger means, ma’am, is that all systems we can figure out are up and running,” Chief Hong clarified. “We mated those components to this… this thing, as per your instructions. It took some doing, but they will work as advertised, and all the seals are set, dry and good to go. Won’t get no atmosphere leaks, that sort of thing. But you have no sensors or targeting systems, no propulsion system of any kind, no weapons at all as far as I can tell, no shield generators, and only a cobbled-up power pack to keep life support and commo running. So no, I can’t certify this boat as fit for duty. Or even certify it as a boat. As far as I can tell, we just stuck a few hundred thousand bucks of extraneous equipment on somebody’s art project. Ma’am.”
“That’s because you haven’t listened to anything I’ve said about how this vessel operates, Chief,” Lisbeth said. “Or rather, you heard me but refused to believe me.”
They’d moved the corpse ship to a new room; the one she’d turned into a perfect sphere wasn’t suited for any sort of construction work. Everyone had seen it, though. They all knew the Corpse-Ship had done that, not to mention killed every Tah-Leen in the station. But since they couldn’t understand how those things had happened, they dismissed them.
Behind the belligerent non-com, Atu the Three-Eyed Alien thumbed its nose at the bubbleheads. Lisbeth almost started giggling, which wouldn’t have helped her cause one bit. She had to keep her insanity a secret or they wouldn’t let her fly.
Unaware of the antics of her invisible friend, the chief went on talking:
“I’ve been working ship systems for sixty years, ma’am. I keep up with the literature. You can’t power a ship the way you described. It’s impossible.”
“I suppose we’ll find out soon enough. I suggest you and your department return to the fabber, Chief. This area is probably going to take a beating, and you saw what happened to the Tah-Leen that were in the other room with this ‘art project.’”
Chief Hong looked a bit worried for a second before his preconceptions overrode his good sense.
“Aye, aye, ma’am,” he said, saluting her before leaving. There was very little respect in either the tone or the gesture. Oh, well.
As soon as the spacers had left the room, Lisbeth took a deep breath and slowly let it go, beginning a set of meditation techniques she’d learned as part of the Langley Project. A feeling of approval coursed through her. She smiled and winked at Atu, who winked back, using its upper eye. The alien’s outline had taken an unmistakably cartoonish appearance, just cute enough to star in one of the flicks that Disney-Warner put out on a regular basis. She’d either gone crazy, or her perspective had been forever altered by the changes she’d forced onto her brain. For all practical purposes, there was no difference between the two alternatives.
“We prepared ourselves thus, in the early days, as we learned to cope with the perils of the Starless Path,” the dead alien said, its words as clear as if it had been standing right behind Lisbeth. For a moment it almost sounded like the old Atu, wise and in love with its own voice. “You are doing well, little sister,” it went on in a sillier tone. “Soon you will perform great deeds. Or die horribly for no good reason. Reality is like that. Six of one and all that.”
Accepting she would never be normal again wasn’t easy. For the rest of her life, all she had to look forward to was living in a universe where half the things she saw or heard were only in her head. For some reason, the realization made her giggle.
“Don’t sweat it, kiddo,” her guardian angel told her. It had produced a carrot out of thin air, and was chewing on it philosophically. “You see, Doc – can I call you Doc? – you simply see more deeply than the rest of your kind. In other words, there’s a thin line between a prophet and the crazy guy you find rummaging through garbage for his dinner.”
“You aren’t really Atu, are you?”
“I’m many things. I’m Atu’s ghost, and I’m all about balance and all that good stuff. I’m also something that has to use what it finds in your head to communicate with you. I am what I am, as God and Popeye used to say. Unfortunately, you went a little loco back there, so you’ve got a wacky guardian angel for your troubles. It’s okay. You’ll learn to deal. And eventually you’ll teach others.”
She didn’t want to teach others. She wanted to fly.
“You will do both. If you live long enough. Reply hazy, try again.”
The Warpling masquerading as the Pathfinder’s spirit shut up after that. She wondered what happened to the real Atu. It’d probably gone back into its coma. Or maybe she’d absorbed it completely when they did that mind-meld thing.
Less philosophizing and more flight-prepping, she told herself.
At this point she would be running through the standard combat sortie checklist, except nobody had handed her an operations manual for an antediluvian alien vessel animated through necromancy and mated to assorted American and Tah-Leen gizmos. If she made it out this in one piece, she was going to have to write it herself. She only hoped they’d let her add illustrations to the manual. Maybe even a cartoon guide.
All the normal systems that ran on electromagnetic and gravitational waves were up and running; she dutifully double-checked everything anyway. She was crazy, not stupid. Next came the stuff that ran on unicorn farts and bad karma; to check on those, she reached out with her mind, a procedure she still had no idea how to describe to those who hadn’t done it themselves. The ancient bones of the ship began to draw power from the Starless Path; it felt like when you downed a shot of expensive booze and its warmth ran down your body. Or the way an orgasm made your synapses fire off a twenty-one-gun salute.
Power system, check. She wasn’t exactly sure how much energy was coursing through the ship, other than it was more than the output of a War Eagle’s gluon power plant, by at least a factor of ten. The Corpse-Ship rose from its cradle and floated several inches above it.
STL propulsion system, check. The little ship was fast. She couldn’t quantify how fast exactly, but the visions suggested it exceed the Rothschild Threshold of 1/1000 c by a fair margin.
Shields, check. The force-warp field combo that had saved her life during the final battle with the Scholar came online, giving the black ship a nice pinkish-yellow sheen you didn’t see every day, unless you’d had visions of Warp Marauders coming down from the sky, ready to plunder and ravish, oh my.
Weapon systems, check. The firing ports were the skeleton’s triple eye sockets. They used a trio of gravity beams to compress a small volume of space into a tiny singularity. Tiny, but fierce.
“Feel the wrath of my dreadful gaze, nasty hobbitses!” she said, and giggled.
Sensors, check. Her senses reached out beyond her body. She became aware of Starbase Malta and everybody in it. Going out further, she saw the Lamprey armada sailing on, preparing to launch its first missile volley as it moved towards optimal energy weapon range. In between, she saw the f
ive boats of DESRON 91, looking pitifully small by comparison. She’d better hurry up.
Structural integrity – downcheck. Shit.
The bio-mechanical frame was old, probably older than any sophont-made structure still standing in the galaxy, and decay had set in. The crystalline-matrix that bound together the skeleton and the Marauder-built cockpit had deteriorated, little cracks forming at the molecular level. Put too much stress on it, and it would break apart. Now that she was running power through the Corpse-Ship, she could feel potential fracture lines all over its frame.
How long will it hold together?
“Cannot predict now,” her imaginary friend said. “As little as five minutes of combat operations. No more than five hours.”
“Gee, that’s not exactly precise.”
“Too many variables are involved. I’m an angel, not a god. A man’s got to know his limitations, Christopher Robin.”
“You’re not a man, Pooh. And Christopher Robin was a dweeb.”
Atu winked at her and popped out of existence. Smartass fairy godmother.
Well, she bet this old crate could do a lot of damage in five minutes. And going out in a blaze of glory would be a permanent solution to all her temporary problems.
“Cleared for flight,” she told herself. Her imp started playing her go-to tune for fighter ops, Totenkopf’s riff on Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries, the majestic classical opera peppered with harsh War Metal drums and lyrics. She’d named this ancient crate after her favorite band, as a matter of fact.
Space-time began to bend and twist all around the Corpse-Ship Totenkopf as she poured power into its warp engine and prepared to enter the Starless Path. She sent a terse message to DESRON 91 before she joined the fray.
“Tally-ho, motherfuckers!”
* * *
USN Captain Naomi Benchley was experiencing a lot of new things that day. It was rather refreshing for someone who’d mistakenly thought she’d seen everything.
Advance to Contact (Warp Marine Corps Book 3) Page 30