by B. V. Larson
I nodded. “That’s a good idea.”
Sipping her tea, her eyes unfocused as she thought about it. “A day to set up the conveyor belt. It will help if we enforce conservation measures on water and food.”
I shook my head. “No way. Work the crew for longer hours if you have to, but they need hot showers, lots of food, and at least one beer a day on average. You’re in charge of this, Warrant Officer Turnbull. Don’t ask: give orders, kick ass. We may not be getting shot at, but time is life right now. We can sleep after we’re dead.”
“Slave driver.” Her lips quirked upward.
A hundred dangerous responses to that quip suggested themselves to me, but I just smiled in return. We finished the meal in a more relaxed silence, and then I went back to work.
I kept on my feet constantly trying to be everywhere at once. I gave directions when I needed to, but mostly I resolved disputes among tired, irritable people, keeping a smile plastered on my face.
I put on undersea armor and worked alongside the marines for a shift at a time. It felt good to do something physical. Sometimes I stood guard with a laser rifle and beamed down the occasional native shark. There were a lot of aggressive species here—far worse than back home on Earth. Most of the time I spent loading shovels full of sea floor into the hopper, which took it to the conveyer that carried the endless tons up the ship’s ramp and into the factory room.
Hoon proved to be invaluable when it came to locating the rare elements we needed. He took a sea-scooter we built for him and scoured the seafloor. I sent marines along with him as he seemed to have no fear of the local life. He insisted they wouldn’t like his flavor, but some of the big predators might have swallowed him by the time they realized he wasn’t tasty.
Another conveyor belt, more underwater loaders, and the next phase got underway. First I directed a series of enormous domes be built, each a hundred yards across. We made them from constructive nanites, inflating them with air pressure and fitting structural supports as they expanded. One of them surrounded Valiant to make it much easier to repair and refit the battlecruiser.
Our single factory never stopped operating and never broke down. It was a marvel of engineering, combining the best of the Macro and Nano technologies. Because we had templates for every conceivable naval system, all Adrienne had to do was make sure the factory stayed full of materials and out came the goodies in a steady stream. Substitutions had to be made for lack of certain exotic elements, but we were able to procure almost everything we needed by digging deep into the sea floor.
The ships I was planning to build weren’t Star Force regulation-standard, naturally. They were thin-walled tin cans that lacked all but the most critical systems. Anyone who piloted one of these flying crates wasn’t going to enjoy it since the only pressurized living space would be inside their own spacesuits.
We moved the ship factory outside Valiant into one of the domes for ease of access. The dome was really a geodesic structure of construction nanites mixed with calcium and other deposits scooped right off the floor of the cold ocean. The nanites were programmed to seal up if a dome sprung a leak, but I wouldn’t want to be inside one if the Lithos came back and bombed anywhere near this position.
“All right,” I said to Adrienne and Sakura as we sat at the boards that controlled our factory. Rather than leaving them separate, I’d suggested they be placed facing each other, like a piano player with two keyboards. That way one person could monitor both. “One small item would help before we make our next move. I need an ultra-stealthy directional laser transceiver that we can get on the surface in order to talk to Marvin. It needs to be undetectable. I figure he's painting the moon with a coded signal from time to time, and we need to be able to find and return it.”
“We can do that,” Sakura said, pushing her black hair behind her ears.
“Good. After that, our next project is to build antiproton beams. That’s what the Pandas used, and that’s what our think-tank people say is the fastest way to kill Lithos.” That admission had been dragged from the scientists, and I’d had to intimidate them a bit. They probably thought I was a tyrant, but I couldn’t let misguided ethics stand in the way of my plan.
“The mechanisms are completely different, so we’ll have to replace the guts on everything,” Sakura said. “I don’t want to give up lasers completely, though. What if we run into something new?”
“Is there a way to keep both options, other than just splitting them half and half?” I asked.
“I was thinking about that,” Sakura said. “There’s no perfect solution, but the limiting factor is not usually the number of turrets. There’s enough hull space to place twice as many weapons. The problem is a lack of power and human operators. Especially with these antiproton beams.”
“So what you mean is, we can just make and install the APs,” I said, coining a term for the antiproton weapons, “and hook them up alongside the lasers?”
“More or less. We’ll have to make sure they don’t interfere with each other, and—”
I waved. “I know there will be tradeoffs. I trust you to figure out the details. Consider the project approved. Set up an equivalent AP for each laser. Let the gunners switch between them at will but not use both at the same time. Also, since we’ll be keeping fewer crewmen aboard Valiant, use the extra space for more generators and capacitors. This ship needs to be optimized for three functions only: command, control, and combat.”
Adrienne nodded. “I assume we’ll want AP weapons for the marines, but they can only carry one thing at a time.”
“They can leave their lasers in the armory or squads can carry a mix. Once the weapons are done, start making improved missiles optimized against the Lithos. Throw in whatever else you can think of. I also want some smart mines with repellers on them that we can drop out and fly into position. Stealthy ones, if you can, with nukes.” I paused to let them catch up in their note-taking and then went on. “What about anti-snowflake defense? Maybe a tall turret that can depress a small AP weapon enough to shoot them off of our hulls? Or is there anything else that you’ve thought of?”
“I have a few ideas,” Sakura said. “What next?”
Now she was getting it. I wasn’t interested in a long technical discussion. Those were fun, but I didn’t have time to indulge myself as the commander.
“Once you’ve got Valiant into shape, we’ll need more ships. What will a Litho-killer look like?” Both of the women gazed at me, puzzled. “I mean, if you could design a ship of any size—specifically to fight the Lithos—how would you make it?”
They didn’t answer, except to look thoughtful. I could see my question had seeded their fertile imaginations. “Okay, let me give you a few parameters and you can get to work. I want the new ships to be operable by at least one and no more than six crewmen—whatever works best. They have to be able to keep up with Valiant, and operate with her. Our people have to know they can survive contact with the enemy. They each need an escape pod in case they get swarmed by snowflakes.” I took a breath. “They also each need a powerful self-destruct if all else fails. Better a clean death than being crushed and digested by Lithos.”
I could see that last requirement bothered them somewhat, but they would get over it. I wasn’t looking for kamikazes, but just like every marine could overload his power pack, these ships would be able to self-destruct.
“The new ships can be any size, by the way. Don’t think that because the crews are small, the ships have to be small too, unless that’s the best solution. My goal is to have the most combat power per person, not per ton. People are our limitation. Hell,” I revised my own instructions, “if you think a fully automated, pilotless ship is the way to go, I’ll consider that too. Now get to work on all those things. We’ll meet once a day talk about your progress. Feel free to call me whenever you need to.”
Getting up, I smiled encouragingly at them both and then took my leave. I turned at the door to see them with their heads togethe
r over the design screens, already deep in planning their production runs. That was what I wanted. Give them a goal and let them come up with solutions.
I had another dozen items I wanted them to produce, refit or add, and was thinking of more all the time, but we had only so much time so I had to prioritize. While I had no clue what kind of timetable the Lithos would impose on us—would they gather all their forces and blockade or bombard the moon, lose interest and go home, or something in between?—I had my own idea of how long we could wait.
I remembered reading studies on submarine crews done by the US Navy back in the twentieth century. While a nuclear sub itself could theoretically stay submerged for as long as the food held out, crew performance started to degrade rapidly after about ninety days without a significant stand-down.
We’d been more or less locked aboard one battlecruiser with each other for more than two months. We now had some living improvements—the big domes where people could jog or play sports, the ability to manufacture alcohol and other supplies and the mixed nature of the crew allowing pairing up. But I still figured that the three-month time limit was a rule of thumb. I wanted to stay down here no more than another month before breaking out and giving everyone something to think about other than how annoyed they were with each other.
Already we’d had a few brawls. As everyone was nanotized, these weren’t terribly dangerous, as long as noncoms were around to step in and keep anyone from getting killed, but disciplinary problems represented a danger sign for me.
Kwon was back on his feet now, with a supporting lower body exoskeleton to help him walk around. Legs didn’t grow back that fast, not even with the help of nanites, and we didn’t have any Microbe bath facilities. The good news was that he could still knock heads and keep order. Gunny Taksin was relieved about that, I could tell. The man was a good noncom, but he was no Kwon. Nobody was.
To relieve some tension, especially among the marines, I suggested Kwon set up one-on-one bouts with rules—boxing or cage-fighting, whatever he thought was appropriate. He took the idea and ran with it, and soon we had our own ultimate fighting championships. You’d think marines would have no energy after working long sea-floor mining shifts, but a few always felt like beating the crap out of their fellows while the rest got to watch.
-26-
After a week went by and the weapons work was underway, I insisted on seeing the draft of the new ship design. It turned out they had two.
Sakura wanted a blizzard of small, simple, automated combat drones the size of Fleet fighters. They would be directed by crewmen aboard Valiant with local control systems located in a half-bright brainbox on board. Each would have one AP and two missiles in external racks. It would be highly maneuverable but would need refueling fairly often. In essence, it would turn Valiant into a carrier or mothership, with half our fighting power in our combat drones.
Sakura’s plan also had the advantage of being able to kamikaze these small ships without loss of life. It would be simple enough to replace ships even if Valiant was in space, as long as we had the raw materials.
The other design, Adrienne’s, was for a three-man frigate. A tenth the size of a battlecruiser, these ships would be more independent and capable of long-range missions. The frigates could also carry significant firepower, not needing much space for people. The ships would be built for maximum power, weapons and engines. Lightly armored, it would be sort of a gunboat with multiple missiles and beams. Adrienne had taken my suggestion about anti-snowflake turrets to heart and there were special APs at strategic spots that could sweep along the skin to burn off any snowflakes before they cracked the hull.
I debated with myself for a whole day before splitting the difference and telling them to make both. First we’d build several manned battle frigates and then as many unmanned combat drones as we thought we could control. This added some complexity to our operations—but also a lot of flexibility.
At my direction, Hansen and our noncoms took the design specs and set up a training program for the new positions. The battle frigates each needed a pilot and a gunner. The third position was for a marine, and he or she needed basic competency to take over either of the other two spots. I could have gone with just two seats, but I wanted these little ships to be able to repel a boarding snowflake or two and keep fighting in space. Somehow, marines always seemed to save the day, so I insisted on them as part of the package.
Hansen had wanted separate training simulators, but I vetoed that idea as too complex. The ships would have a power-down simulation mode, and as each came off the assembly line he could use it as a training device. I made sure their engines and generators were to be installed last. I didn’t want any new gunners accidentally blazing away with real weapons inside our domes.
Valiant’s gunners also needed to learn new procedures with the APs, and we trained every remaining crewman and marine to direct the combat drones. These would fight in flights of two like old-style atmospheric jets: a lead and a wingman—or wingbrain—per ship. Each director could be assigned as many flights as he or she could handle. In a pinch, I could direct all of them through Valiant’s brainbox since the humans weren’t really flying them but merely giving orders to their brains.
In the end, we were able to manufacture fifty of the little unmanned craft, an amazing accomplishment born of a lot of hard work and an abundance of raw materials. With the squadron of battle frigates surrounding Valiant, we’d have a tough little task force.
During all this time, the whales watched us. Hoon did his best to communicate with them. He eventually declared them highly intelligent animals, almost sentient, like Earthly apes or dolphins. If there was a fully sentient race on this moon, they hadn’t come near enough for us to notice, and we weren’t wasting any effort on scouting.
We’d constructed a separate dome for Hoon filled with seawater, filtered and conditioned to his liking. He said the native fluid contained an excess of certain minerals and was slightly low in oxygen, but otherwise he seemed comfortable. I supposed the conditions were analogous to humans on a world with thin air that stank. The resources we diverted were actually quite minimal, and I wanted to make sure we didn’t get blindsided by some kind of native kraken or waterborne parasite. I considered Hoon’s dome a form of insurance as well as good diplomatic relations.
One day I took the time to inspect his operation. Inside his enclosure, he had a whole zoo—a menagerie of local creatures which looked more or less like Earthly sea life, but I was far from an expert. To me, the fish looked like fish, the crustaceans like crustaceans, with all sorts of variants filling the many ecological niches.
In one pen, it appeared that he’d cultivated hundreds of lobsters closely resembling his own species, except they were much smaller.
“Your evolutionary equivalents?” I asked him, leaning on the slick retaining wall that ensured none of the critters climbed out of the pen.
My smart suit performed well underwater and I’d become accustomed to operating in a liquid medium. I leaned close and eyed the lobsters, and they eyed me. What seemed odd to me was the universal fixation of their focus. They stared as if I was the one being studied in a cage instead of the other way around.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Hoon said. “Even if these were native life, the likelihood of such a close equivalent evolving would be infinitesimal.”
“Uh huh,” I said, wondering if Hoon had ever met up with a terrestrial lobster. Staring at the crawly things mesmerized me for a moment, and my mind was distracted enough that I almost missed Hoon’s meaning.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “What do you mean ‘even if these were native life’? What else could they be?”
Hoon’s motions became agitated, reminding me of Marvin when he wasn’t certain of my reaction to something. I guess every species has a fight-or-flight response that manifests itself similarly. Hoon was easier to read without a suit. Unlike Marvin, he didn’t try to dodge or dissemble.
“They’re my
offspring, of course,” he admitted.
“Ah....” That was a stunner. “Congratulations. Um…are you female?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. If I were female I would have programmed my translator to sound to you like a female of your species. In my species, the male carries the eggs after the female lays them, and they are fertilized in a proper ceremony. I’ve had them itching and aching in my under-pouches for months. Some of the eggs quickened and hatched when they sensed the presence of a large volume of water.”
“Some of… How many of them are there?”
“In total? Over two hundred.”
I realized by now that the little Crusties had lined themselves up in semicircular rows and seemed to be intently listening to my conversation with Hoon…with their father, I should say.
“Cute little buggers,” I said.
“Do not patronize me. I know how your people see our form—we resembled a food delicacy on Earth. Disgusting. Do not for one moment think my children are available for your consumption.”
“I wouldn’t ever consider eating them, Professor Hoon,” I said. “But I bet they’re going to eat us out of house and home, and we don’t really have room for them on the ship. So…what’s your plan here? Are you planting a colony?”
“Exactly. A wild colony, to be sure, but one that will be compatible with the local ecosystem. I will educate these children as much as possible and leave brainboxes to teach them of their people and their storied history.”
Appalled, I said, “You’re just leaving them? Half-grown children, with machines to raise them?”
“Our people aren’t like yours,” Hoon said with an air of one giving a lecture. “Our young are turned out into the wild and the fittest survive. Those that return full-grown receive an extensive education. This is only logical. How else can the race improve?”