“Yeah. Way I see it, too. Guess it’s worth it. Back to work.”
It had to be worth it, Colvin thought. It just didn’t make sense to put the whole human race under one government. Someday they’d get a really bad Emperor. Or three Emperors all claiming the throne at once. Better to put a stop to this now, rather than leave the problem to their grandchildren.
The phones buzzed again. “Better take a good look, skipper,” Halleck said. “I think we got problems.”
The screens flashed as new information flowed. Colvin touched other buttons in his chair arm. Lt. Susack’s face swam onto one screen. “Make a signal to the fleet,” Colvin said. “That thing’s bigger than we thought. This could be one hell of a battle.”
“Aye aye,” Susack said. “But we can handle it.”
“Sure,” Colvin said. He stared at the updated information and frowned.
“What is out there, Captain?” Gerry asked. “Is there reason for concern?”
“There could be,” Colvin said. “Mister Gerry, that is an Imperial battle cruiser. General class, I’d say.” As he told the political officer, Colvin felt a cold pit in his guts.
“And what does that mean?”
“It’s one of their best,” Colvin said. “About as fast as we are. More armor, more weapons, more fuel. We’ve got a fight on our hands.”
“Launch observation boats. Prepare to engage,” Colvin ordered. Although he couldn’t see it, the Imperial ship was probably doing the same thing. Observation boats didn’t carry much for weapons, but their observations could be invaluable when the engagement began.
“You don’t sound confident,” Gerry said.
Colvin checked his intercom switches. No one could hear him but Gerry. “I’m not,” he said. “Look, however you cut it, if there’s an advantage that ship’s got it. Their crew’s had a chance to recover from their hyperspace trip, too.” If we’d had the right equipment— No use thinking about that.
“What if it gets past us?”
“Enough ships might knock it out, especially if we can damage it, but there’s no single ship in our fleet that can fight that thing one-on-one and expect to win.”
He paused to let that sink in.
“Including us.”
“Including us. I didn’t know there was a battle cruiser anywhere in the trans-Coalsack region.”
“Interesting implications,” Gerry said.
“Yeah. They’ve brought one of their best ships. Not only that, they took the trouble to find a back way. Two new Alderson tramlines. From the red dwarf to us, and a way into the red dwarf.”
“Seems they’re determined.” Gerry paused a moment. “The Committee was constructing planetary defenses when we lifted out.”
“They may need them. Excuse me…” Colvin cut the circuit and concentrated on his battle screens.
The master computer flashed a series of maneuver strategies, each with the odds for success if adopted. The probabilities were only a computer’s judgment, however. Over there in the Imperial ship was an experienced human captain who’d do his best to thwart those odds while Colvin did the same. Game theory and computers rarely consider all the possibilities a human brain can conceive.
The computer recommended full retreat and sacrifice of the observation boats—and at that gave only an even chance for Defiant. Colvin studied the board. “ENGAGE CLOSELY,” he said.
The computer wiped the other alternatives and flashed a series of new choices. Colvin chose. Again and again this happened until the ship’s brain knew exactly what her human master wanted, but long before the dialogue was completed the ship accelerated to action, spewing torpedoes from her ports to send H-bombs on random evasion courses toward the enemy. Tiny lasers reached out toward enemy torpedoes, filling space with softly glowing threads of bright color.
Defiant leaped toward her enemy, her photon cannons pouring out energy to wash over the Imperial ship. “Keep it up, keep it up,” Colvin chanted to himself. If the enemy could be blinded, her antennas destroyed so that her crew couldn’t see out through her Langston Field to locate Defiant, the battle would be over.
Halleck’s outback twang came through the earphones. “Looking good, boss.”
“Yeah.” The very savagery of unexpected attack by a smaller vessel had taken the enemy by surprise. Just maybe—
A blaze of white struck Defiant to send her screens up into the orange, tottering toward yellow for an instant. In that second Defiant was as blind as the enemy, every sensor outside the Field vaporized. Her boats were still there, though, still sending data on the enemy’s position, still guiding torpedoes.
“Bridge, this is damage control.”
“Yeah, Greg.”
“Hulled in main memory bank area. I’m getting replacement elements in, but you better go to secondary computer for a while.”
“Already done.”
“Good. Got a couple other problems, but I can handle them.”
“Have at it.” Screens were coming back online. More sensor clusters were being poked through the Langston Field on stalks. Colvin touched buttons in his chair arm. “Communications. Get number three boat in closer.”
“Acknowledged.”
The Imperial ship took evasive action. She would cut acceleration for a moment, turn slightly, then accelerate again, with constantly changing drive power. Colvin shook his head. “He’s got an iron crew,” he muttered to Halleck. “They must be getting the guts shook out of them.”
Another blast rocked Defiant. A torpedo had penetrated her defensive fire to explode somewhere near the hull. The Langston Field, opaque to radiant energy, was able to absorb and redistribute the energy evenly throughout the Field; but at cost. There had been an overload at the place nearest the bomb: energy flaring inward. The Langston Field was a spaceship’s true hull. Its skin was only metal, designed only to hold pressure. Breach it and—
“Hulled again aft of number two torpedo room,” Halleck reported. “Spare parts, and the messroom brain. We’ll eat basic protocarb for a while.”
“If we eat at all.” Why the hell weren’t they getting more hits on the enemy? He could see the Imperial ship on his screens, in the view from number two boat. Her field glowed orange, wavering to yellow, and there were two deep purple spots, probably burnthroughs. No way to tell what lay under those areas. Colvin hoped it was something vital.
His own Field was yellow tinged with green. Pastel lines jumped between the two ships. After this was over, there would be time to remember just how pretty a space battle was. The screens flared, and his odds for success dropped again, but he couldn’t trust the computer anyway. He’d lost number three boat, and number one had ceased reporting.
The enemy ship flared again as Defiant scored a hit, then another. The Imperial’s screens turned yellow, then green; as they cooled back toward red another hit sent them through green to blue.
“Torps!” Colvin shouted, but the master computer had already done it. A stream of tiny shapes flashed toward the blinded enemy. “Pour it on!” Colvin screamed. “Everything we’ve got!” If they could keep the enemy blind, keep him from finding Defiant while they poured energy into his Field, they could keep his screens hot enough until torpedoes could get through. Enough torpedoes would finish the job. “Pour it on!”
The Imperial ship was almost beyond the blue, creeping toward the violet. “By God we may have him!” Colvin shouted.
The enemy maneuvered again, but the bright rays of Defiant’s lasers followed, pinning the glowing ship against the star background. Then the screens went blank.
Colvin frantically pounded buttons. Nothing happened. Defiant was blind. “Eyes! How’d he hit us?” he demanded.
“Don’t know.” Susack’s voice was edged with fear. “Skipper, we’ve got problems with the detectors. I sent a party out but they haven’t reported—”
Halleck came on. “Imperial boat got close and hit us with torps.”
Blind. Colvin watched his screen color indic
ators. Bright orange and yellow, with a green tint already visible. Acceleration warnings hooted through the ship as Colvin ordered random evasive action. The enemy would be blind too. Now it was a question of who could see first. “Get me some eyes.” he said. He was surprised at how calm his voice was.
“Working on it,” Halleck said. “I’ve got minimal sight back here. Maybe I can locate him.”
“Take over gun direction,” Colvin said. “What’s with the computer?”
“I’m not getting damage reports from that area,” Halleck said. “I have men out trying to restore internal communications, and another party’s putting out antennas—only nobody really wants to go out to the hull edge and work, you know.”
“Wants!” Colvin controlled blind rage. Who cared what the crew wanted? His ship was in danger!
Acceleration and jolt warnings sounded continuously as Defiant continued evasive maneuvers. Jolt, acceleration, stop, turn, jolt—
“He’s hitting us again.” Susack sounded scared.
“Greg?” Colvin demanded.
“I’m losing him. Take over, skipper.”
Defiant writhed like a beetle on a pin as the deadly fire followed her through maneuvers. The damage reports came as a deadly litany. “Partial collapse, after auxiliary engine room destroyed. Hulled in three places in number five tankage area, hydrogen leaking to space. Hulled in the after recreation room.”
The screens were electric blue when the computer cut the drives. Defiant was dead in space. She was moving at more than a hundred kilometers per second, but she couldn’t accelerate.
“See anything yet?” Colvin asked.
“In a second,” Halleck replied. “There. Wups. Antenna didn’t last half a second. He’s yellow. Out there on our port quarter and pouring it on. Want me to swing the main drive in that direction? We might hit him with that.”
Colvin examined his screens. “No. We can’t spare the power.” He watched a moment more, then swept his hand across a line of buttons.
All through Defiant nonessential systems died. It took power to maintain the Langston Field, and the more energy the Field had to contain the more internal power was needed to keep the Field from radiating inward. Local overloads produced burnthroughs, partial collapses sending bursts of energetic photons to punch holes through the hull. The Field moved toward full collapse, and when that happened, the energies it contained would vaporize Defiant. Total defeat in space is a clean death.
The screens were indigo and Defiant couldn’t spare power to fire her guns or use her engines. Every erg was needed simply to survive.
“We’ll have to surrender,” Colvin said. “Get the message out.”
“I forbid it!”
For a moment Colvin had forgotten the Political Officer.
“I forbid it!” Gerry shouted again. “Captain, you are relieved from command. Commander Halleck, engage the enemy! We cannot allow him to penetrate to our homeland!”
“Can’t do that, sir,” Halleck said carefully. The recorded conversation made the executive officer a traitor, as Colvin was the instant he’d given the surrender order.
“Engage the enemy, Captain.” Gerry spoke quietly. “Look at me, Colvin.”
Herb Colvin turned to see a pistol in Gerry’s hands. It wasn’t a sonic gun, not even a chemical dart weapon as used by prison guards. Combat armor would stop those. This was a slugthrower—no. A small rocket launcher, but it looked like a slugthrower. Just the weapon to take to space.
“Surrender the ship,” Colvin repeated. He motioned with one hand. Gerry looked around, too late, as the quartermaster pinned his arms to his sides. A captain’s bridge runner launched himself across the cabin to seize the pistol.
“I’ll have you shot for this!” Gerry shouted. “You’ve betrayed everything. Our homes, our families—”
“I’d as soon be shot as surrender,” Colvin said. “Besides, the Imperials will probably do for both of us. Treason, you know. Still, I’ve a right to save the crew.”
Gerry said nothing.
“We’re dead, Mister. The only reason they haven’t finished us off is we’re so bloody helpless the Imperial commander’s held off firing the last wave of torpedoes to give us a chance to quit. He can finish us off any time.”
“You might damage him. Take him with us, or make it easier for the fleet to deal with him—”
“If I could, I’d do that. I already launched all our torpedoes. They either got through or they didn’t. Either way, they didn’t kill him, since he’s still pouring it on us. He has all the time in the world—look, damn it! We can’t shoot at him, we don’t have power for the engines, and look at the screens! Violet! Don’t you understand, you blithering fool, there’s no further place for it to go! A little more, a miscalculation by the Imperial, some little failure here, and that field collapses.”
Gerry stared in rage. “Maybe you’re right.”
“I know I’m right. Any progress, Susack?”
“Message went out,” the communications officer said. “And they haven’t finished us.”
“Right.” There was nothing else to say.
A ship in Defiant’s situation, her screens overloaded, bombarded by torpedoes and fired on by an enemy she cannot locate, is utterly helpless; but she has been damaged hardly at all. Given time she can radiate the screen energies to space. She can erect antennas to find her enemy. When the screens cool, she can move and she can shoot. Even when she has been damaged by partial collapses, her enemy cannot know that.
Thus, surrender is difficult and requires a precise ritual. Like all of mankind’s surrender signals it is artificial, for man has no surrender reflex, no unambiguous species-wide signal to save him from death after defeat is inevitable. Of the higher animals, man is alone in this.
Stags do not fight to the death. When one is beaten, he submits, and the other allows him to leave the field. The three-spine stickleback, a fish of the carp family, fights for its mates but recognizes the surrender of its enemies. Siamese fighting fish will not pursue an enemy after he ceases to spread his gills.
But man has evolved as a weapon-using animal. Unlike other animals, man’s evolution is intimately bound with weapons and tools; and weapons can kill farther than man can reach. Weapons in the hand of a defeated enemy are still dangerous. Indeed, the Scottish skean dhu is said to be carried in the stocking so that it may be reached as its owner kneels in supplication…
Defiant erected a simple antenna suitable only for radio signals. Any other form of sensor would have been a hostile act and would earn instant destruction. The Imperial captain observed and sent instructions.
Meanwhile, torpedoes were being maneuvered alongside Defiant. Colvin couldn’t see them. He knew they must be in place when the next signal came through. The Imperial ship was sending an officer to take command.
Colvin felt some of the tension go out of him. If no one had volunteered for the job, Defiant would have been destroyed.
Something massive thumped against the hull. A port had already been opened for the Imperial. He entered carrying a bulky object: a bomb.
“Midshipman Horst Staley, Imperial Battlecruiser MacArthur,” the officer announced as he was conducted to the bridge. Colvin could see blue eyes and blonde hair, a young face frozen into a mask of calm because its owner did not trust himself to show any expression at all. “I am to take command of this ship, sir.”
Captain Colvin nodded. “I give her to you. You’ll want this,” he added, handing the boy the microphone. “Thank you for coming.”
“Yes, sir.” Staley gulped noticeably, then stood at attention as if his captain could see him. “Midshipman Staley reporting, sir. I am on the bridge and the enemy has surrendered.” He listened for a few seconds, then turned to Colvin. “I am to ask you to leave me alone on the bridge except for yourself, sir. And to tell you that if anyone else comes on the bridge before our Marines have secured this ship, I will detonate the bomb I carry. Will you comply?”
Colvin nodded again. “Take Mr. Gerry out, quartermaster. You others can go, too. Clear the bridge.”
The quartermaster led Gerry toward the door. Suddenly the political officer broke free and sprang at Staley. He wrapped the midshipman’s arms against his body and shouted, “Quick, grab the bomb! Move! Captain, fight for your ship, I’ve got him!”
Staley struggled with the political officer. His hand groped for the trigger, but he couldn’t reach it. The mike had also been ripped from his hands. He shouted at the dead microphone.
Colvin gently took the bomb from Horst’s imprisoned hands. “You won’t need this, son,” he said. “Quartermaster, you can take your prisoner off this bridge.” His smile was fixed, frozen in place, in sharp contrast to the midshipman’s shocked rage and Gerry’s look of triumph.
The spacers reached out and Horst Staley tried to escape, but there was no place to go as he floated in free space. Suddenly he realized that the spacers had seized his attacker, and Gerry was screaming.
“We’ve surrendered, Mister Staley,” Colvin said carefully. “Now we’ll leave you in command here. You can have your bomb, but you won’t be needing it.”
Jean Johnson’s “Theirs Not To Reason Why” stories span novels and short fiction for more than a decade now, and have prompted compliments from the likes of Gail Carriger, among others. This next story is the latest entry. Technically as much military sci-fi as space opera, the series crosses both, but what’s interesting here is how much the feel of the classic “sword and planet” subgenre is reflected.
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Author’s Acknowledgment: This story is dedicated to Gary Larson, creator of The Far Side, and thus is the inadvertent, unwitting, and utterly unassociated inspiration for the main character of this story. Alas, poor Gary; you know not what you begat. (Thank you!)
Mitch’s adventures are canonical to what my fans have decided to call the “Ia-verse,” aka my main science fiction universe. The actual infiltration and battle scenes take place on September 17, 2498 Terran Standard, while the writing portion takes place a few hours past midnight Terran Standard (the equivalent of Greenwich Mean Time) on September 18, 2498.
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