At least they were courteous as they escorted her and Pesca to the lift — the fastest that she had ever ridden — and took them up to the Kerridayen’s bridge. Commander Daerran was waiting to greet her personally. He was the first Starwolf that she had ever seen not in armor, dressed as he was in what might have been a uniform of white tunic and pants. He seemed at the same time to be smaller than the pilots who had greeted her outside the docking tube, as she had expected, but she could also see how heavily muscled his small frame actually was. Of course, it was not bulk alone that gave the Starwolves their tremendous strength and speed. Theirs was an artificial race, created completely by genetic engineering, and even their most basic biochemistry was entirely their own. The fact that they looked vaguely human was an arbitrary factor, for there was no actual genetic relationship between the two races.
“Captain Tarrel, welcome aboard,” Daerran greeted her, his voice lighter and more musical than it had been over the com.
“Commander Daerran,” she responded. “This is my special advisor, Lieutenant Commander Walter Pesca.”
“A diplomatic liaison?”
“No,” she replied vaguely.
“Allow me to introduce relevant members of my own crew,” he said, leading them from the side corridor onto the bridge. “My first officer Kayell. And, of course, the present manifestation of Trendaessa Kerridayen.”
Tarrel was rather surprised when the long, double-armed boom fixed to the ceiling of the center of the bridge pivoted around, a pair of camera lenses rotating in unison to focus on her. After that startling introduction, she almost failed to notice the first officer, a young male Starwolf. As a bridge officer, his white tunic had black bands about the cuffs. She was glad for the distinction, about the only way she had to tell one Starwolf from the other.
The bridge of the carrier was not as large as she had anticipated for a ship of such tremendous proportions. A single vast viewscreen dominated the front of the wedge-shaped bridge, with a line of various stations along the front. The middle bridge, with its large consoles for the helm and weapons station, was elevated above the main level by a series of steps to either side. And above that was the upper bridge, the Commander’s station, where he could look down into every console on the bridge. Considering the telescopic vision of the Starwolves, he could probably read the data on the monitors at each station. Daerran immediately led them up to his own station. Trendaessa rotated her camera pod around to join them.
“Do you have your data on the thing?” Daerran asked as he lifted himself into his seat at the console, using the overhead bars.
Tarrel gave him a small optical disk, which he fed into a drive on one of the side consoles. The machine tried for a long moment to digest the disk, then abruptly spit it out again.
“Yo, incompatible format,” Trendaessa remarked. “Kayell, will you run that disk down to the number three optical reader at the engineering station. Now, Captain Tarrel, why don’t you tell us your impressions of what you saw.”
At the same time that she listened to Tarrel’s account of her three separate encounters with the Dreadnought, Trendaessa sifted through the various records that had been made aboard the Carthaginian at those times. She employed the three main monitors at the Commander’s station to project visually some of the images she was compiling, almost as if she was thinking aloud through those monitors. She never looked at the monitors themselves, so she must have had some way of viewing those images directly.
“I suspect that your assumptions are basically correct,” the ship said when Tarrel had concluded her account. “The Dreadnought, as you call it, is almost certainly only a machine, and not an especially clever one at that. Those times when it seemed only to be playing with convoy, destroying ships in an almost lazy manner, it was probably responding at a low-priority attack status. There was no need for it to be in any hurry.”
“What manner of machine?” Daerran asked.
“A ship-killing machine, of course,” Trendaessa explained. “It apparently scans large areas of space for the presence of artificial power sources and any machine that is intact and potentially functional. The attack on the station did show it destroying one larger ship that was not powered up, while shuttles escaped unharmed, so there must be some targeting priority other than just the sources of active power. My belief is that this is an automated weapon of unknown alien origin, designed to destroy a civilization’s ability to make war by decimating the ships and supporting devices that make interplanetary flight possible.”
“Did someone aim this damned thing at us?” Tarrel asked. “That is possible, but I doubt it,” Trendaessa said. “Most likely, this one was set loose and just never got turned off when the war was over, if there was anyone left to turn it off. The fact that it responded to your attempt to communicate is interesting. It was probably asking you if you were friend or foe. Needless to say, you did not know how to answer. Given much more information, which I doubt that I will be able to obtain, I might be able to learn the codes that identify a ship as a friend, or perhaps even tell it to shut itself down. It would probably take far less time to simply find a way to destroy it.”
“Then you have not yet seen a way to destroy it?” Daerran asked.
“No, I am afraid not. That monster is protected by the most powerful shield that I have ever seen. My own shield can of course be set at the proper frequency and level of power that will make me invisible to scanners by simply absorbing the active scanner signals, and by containing all emissions from the ship itself. The Dreadnought has a shield powerful enough that it contains light, like a black hole, although gravity is not the agent of this process. It is not actually invisible; if it was between you and a planet of a very close star, then you would see that area blacked out by its shields. But it does not reflect or allow light to escape, and that gives it functional invisibility in open space. Scanner invisibility is much more useful. From a defensive standpoint, we are about even.”
“And the offensive standpoint?” Daerran asked. “Can you see it, and can it see you?”
“I do not know. One carrier cannot see another that has its shields at stealth intensity, and I doubt that I could see this Dreadnought. I cannot know whether or not it could see me. Its shields are more powerful, and it might also have the technology to penetrate mine.”
“And what about weapons? This energy-transfer weapon it uses does not seem especially dangerous to me.”
“That is because we have never seen it used at anything more than its most basic level. We use a destructive achronic beam which cuts into the target before the power charge is released in a quick, strong jolt to destroy the object. The Dreadnought uses a benign carrier, and releases its charge in a relatively slow, steady stream. This benign carrier beam does not betray itself on scan, or visually, the way our own bolts do, so the weapon beams cannot betray the location of the ship itself. But I am very certain that the weapon can be stepped up quite a bit in intensity, once firepower is more important than absolute stealth.”
“Then I doubt that our cannons would penetrate that shield,” Daerran said.
“I doubt that even my conversion cannon would be able to penetrate that shield,” the ship added. “I am not certain that I can fight this thing. For that matter, I am not certain that all the carriers together could fight it. It might be easy, and it might be impossible. We need more information.”
“Do you have any recommendations?”
“Only to find it and see what we can see.” She hesitated. “We need a decoy for it to attack, just as Captain Tarrel has so cleverly used decoys against it. Unfortunately, the only decoy that will serve our present need is myself. I must fight it, even knowing that I cannot win and that I will sustain some damage, for the sake of learning what we can.”
“Is it worth damaging one of our few ships for the sake of information?” Daerran asked.
“Is it worth the destruction of a carrier, or worse, trying to fight this thing unprepared?” Tre
ndaessa asked in return. “I am not concerned. I will withdraw before I am severely damaged.” Daerran leaned back in his seat, both sets of his arms crossed on his chest. “Get in touch with Home Base for advisement and tell them what you propose. If they agree, then we will attempt it. Tell them also that we will be moving to intercept the Dreadnought now, and to send their reply there. Do you have any clear idea where to look?”
“I do see the pattern in its movement,” the ship confirmed. “This machine really is not very clever. I know exactly where to look.”
Daerran nodded, then turned to Tarrel. “Captain, we have to release your ship to prepare the Kerridayen for battle. I can put your ship out here, or when we reach our destination. But I invite you to stay with us as an observer and adviser. I warn you that the ride will be rough.”
Tarrel nodded. “Thank you. I believe that I would like to go along, but I would like to send the Carthaginian back to Vinthra now and have my first officer advise Sector Commander Lake of our progress.”
She hurried back to her own ship, knowing that the Kerridayen was delaying her own flight for her. She still needed to pack, uncertain just how long she would be among the Starwolves. And she wanted warm clothes; having asked, she had been told that they preferred a fairly cool environment to counteract the greater heat their fierce metabolism produced. She meant to compose a very hasty report, relay her instructions to Chagin, and send the Carthaginian on her way. The prospect of being aboard a Starwolf carrier during a major battle was an exciting and rather intimidating matter indeed. Lt. Commander Pesca ran to match her determined stride as they hurried down the long boarding tube.
She glanced at him over her shoulder. “Are you planning to stay with me?”
“That is my assigned mission, Captain,” he said. “Is there some reason why I should not stay?”
“No, as long as you keep quiet and out of the way.” She glanced at him a second time. “How are the language lessons going so far, Wally?”
Pesca frowned fiercely. “I have yet to hear a single one of them speaking their own language. Even their monitors had been converted to read Terran. They plan to keep their secrets.”
“Then is there any reason to come along?”
“They have to let something slip eventually,” he insisted. “Besides, you need at least one person about who has to do what you tell him.”
Pert boy!
Kerridayen moved into the system cautiously, her hull shields at stealth intensity. She made her changes of speed slowly, braking herself with her forward main drives as little as possible to contain their energy emissions. The Dreadnought’s apparently slow changes of speed and direction during its previous attacks suggested that it employed very much the same tactic. The objective of this first round was to attempt to determine whether the alien ship could hide itself from Starwolf scanners — something they did expect — and see if it could see the Kerridayen even with her shields hiding her — something no one could guess. Whatever happened next would depend upon the results of this experiment. If the Dreadnought saw and attacked the carrier, they would have to fight immediately. If not, they would eventually have to show themselves. Trendaessa assumed that the enemy was here, but she could not be absolutely certain unless it attacked.
“Either the Dreadnought has been here already, or else this entire system has been closed down completely,” Trendaessa said. “There is not a single drive or major power source in operation anywhere in nearby space. However, I do detect unexplained radiation residues, suggesting the explosion of conversion generators. I wish that I could tell you more, but active scanner signals would give away our position.”
‘‘Take us in closer toward the inhabited planet,” Daerran said. “If we do not find the station, then we know that the Dreadnought has been here. ”
“Right now, we could use just one more of those drones I had a few days ago,” Captain Tarrel remarked. She had been given a jump seat installed on the upper bridge, specially padded to protect her from the hard accelerations that the Starwolves considered normal.
“Yes, that is an idea.” Trendaessa brought her camera pod into the upper bridge. “I could release one of my drones and have it run through the system. If the Dreadnought is here, it will snap at that bait.”
“That would also give us the opportunity to observe its attack from a safe distance,” Daerran agreed. He turned to Tarrel. “Captain, how long should we expect to have, assuming it can see us?”
“The first time, it found us within five minutes. In that case, I suspect that it must have followed us into the system, since it had not attacked anything there before our arrival. In the second case, it was on top of us within the first minute. Either we were very unfortunate about where we came out of starflight, or else it engaged its own stardrives to maneuver in quickly behind us.”
“It probably saw you coming before you left starflight and entered the system, and it was waiting for you,” Trendaessa told her. “My own scanners are capable of that.”
If nothing else, Tarrel was coming to have a greater appreciation about just where her side had always stood in the silent war they had been fighting with the Starwolves. Their technology made the best Union battleships seem very primitive in comparison. And yet the Starwolves themselves seemed to believe that they would find themselves helpless to deal with the Dreadnought. As Trendaessa had once said, it was stupid but powerful enough to have its way. Certainly the Union forces could never hope to fight that monster entirely on their own.
They made their pass of the single inhabited planet at speeds which were still a significant portion of the speed of light, coasting at that very fierce pace. Because of her speed, the Kerridayen did not actually come that close to the planet, but aimed her best optical sensors in that direction in the few seconds that they were passing near. She continued in on her trajectory, executing a series of wide parabolic loops about the local star to brake her speed without engaging her drives. At the same time, she was busy processing the information she had received.
“The Dreadnought has been here,” she said. “I detect no station, no ships and no orbital power sources. There are some rather large pieces of scrap orbiting the planet, probably the remains of the station itself.”
She directed a recording of the enhanced images she had received. The first was in motion, red-shifted on approach and then blue-shifted as the carrier had sped past, and it showed very little. She then displayed a small series of captured images from that sequence, further enhanced and magnified, showing a vague cloud of debris drifting in close orbit.
“I wonder if they had time to get out,” Daerran said quietly.
“That depends upon whether or not a general evacuation order has been sent throughout this area,” Tarrel answered. “If it wasn’t for our present need for stealth, I could invoke my diplomatic pass and call down to the planet.”
“We might get a chance yet,” he said. “Trendaessa, is there any way to know how long ago that attack came? What about dispersal patterns for that radiation you detected?”
“One moment, Commander. Something is happening,” she said, then lifted her camera pod slightly in a gesture of alarm. “Val traron! We are being fired upon.”
Two words of Starwolf, and Wally was not there to hear it.
“What do we have?” Daerran asked.
“It is all very vague,” the ship explained. “The weapon beams leave a very distinct trail of emissions after they have passed, probably leakage from their undischarged energy. My immediate guess is that the Dreadnought knows we are here, but she cannot scan us clearly enough to get a distinct weapon lock. ” “Stand by your main batteries and ready your conversion cannon,” Daerran said. “For now, try contacting that monster. ”
“No, wait!” Tarrel ordered sharply. Both the Starwolf and his ship turned to stare at her. “This might be your chance to get in one clean shot at that monster. Have your best weapon standing by. When you hail it, the Dreadnought might respond like
it did for my ship. If it does, you trace the source of that transmission for a weapon lock.”
“Whatever they say, humans are not all stupid,” Trendaessa commented, with remarkable lack of tact for a machine. “Commander, this might be important, and we still collect the information we want if it fails. But if that ship has learning capabilities, which it surely must, then it might only work once. Either we try now, or we wait until we have several carriers ready to fire all at once.”
Daerran looked up at Trendaessa’s camera pod thoughtfully. “You still want to try this?”
“Of course. It is going to fail anyway. The Dreadnought is not going to lower that shield until we can give the proper code. But the blast of the conversion cannon against that shield might give scanner reflections of the interior. That is very important.” He nodded. “Charge your conversion cannon, then.”
Before Trendaessa could prepare her most lethal weapon, one of the beams from the Dreadnought connected with her own shields. The discharge exploded like a storm of lightning over the surface of her shields for several long, tense moments — too long while her position was illuminated to her enemy — but the power couplings were finally able to handle the excess energy that was ripping through her shields. Once again hidden in stealth mode, the Kerridayen immediately shifted her position several kilometers down and one side, while a volley of new discharge beams lanced through the place where she had been only a moment earlier.
“Conversion cannon charged to eighty-five percent,” she reported. “Ready to fire on command.”
“Transmit the code,” Daerran told her. “If it replies, then fire on it the moment you can fix the source of its signal.”
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