by David Weber
"Speaking of explosions," Hastings went on after a moment, "what's the latest estimate on their yields?"
"Something like five hundred megatons for the big one." She whistled silently, and he nodded in heartfelt agreement. "The little fellows were down in the multi-kiloton range, but I understand they were all a lot cleaner than they should've been."
"For which we can only be grateful," she said quietly, and he nodded again. A brief silence fell as they pondered the tremendous destructive power which had erupted out of nowhere. The biggest explosion had been so brilliant and high as to be visible from both sides of the Atlantic, and its EMP had knocked out the avionics on seven different civilian airliners—all of which had crashed at sea with no survivors—as well as wreaking general havoc on the satellite communications industry and the Global Positioning Satellites everyone had come to take so much for granted. There was a very large hole in the orbital electronic network which had once covered the Atlantic, and Morris hated to think what that burst of fury had been like at closer range. It must have been like a foresight of Hell.
"But what do you think of our tape?" he asked finally.
"Impressive. Very impressive." She nibbled thoughtfully on a bent knuckle. "Whatever they were, they weren't ours. Or anyone else's, for that matter. Of course, SPASUR's track already proved that—this is just icing on the cake."
"But the fact that an F-14 in full afterburner lost ground on them that fast has more immediacy than tracking station reports, no?"
"True. And visual confirmation of their size is impressive, too." She shook her head. "I still can't understand how they got clear down to the edge of atmosphere before they were picked up, though. Anyone who could build those things should certainly be capable of foxing our radar, of course, but if they can do that at all, why stop? And just what were they doing in atmosphere, anyway?"
"That, I should think, is pretty obvious," Morris said. "Admiral Carson got mixed up in somebody else's war."
"Granted, but why here?" She shook her head and leaned back in her chair, crossing her legs and worrying an earlobe. "There's no way to prove it, but I think it's pretty damned obvious those things were designed for space, not atmosphere."
"Reasons?" he asked.
"Their size, for one, and then there's this. . . ." She restarted the tape and pushed the fast-forward button, then froze the image as the Tomcat pilot completed his roll and the picture stabilized. "See those bright hemispheres in front of them?" He nodded. "That has to be how they were able to pull that speed. Some sort of—well, call it a force field."
"That's what NASA figures," Morris agreed.
"Has to be," she said. "Their hulls would be white hot at that speed without them. But if they were meant primarily for atmosphere, the designers would have given more thought to what might happen if their shield failed, I think. Look here." She touched the image of the rearmost vessel. "See all those external bulges? And here and here—those look like aerials of some sort. There's no suggestion of any lifting surfaces, either. Add that blunt nose and these weird curved sections here, and they'd be in real trouble if they lost their shields at high Mach numbers. In fact, I'll bet that's how we managed to knock any of them down. A piddling little SAM wouldn't shoot one of those things out of the sky, but if it could screw up that force field . . ."
"Don't underestimate our SAMs," Morris cautioned. "Depending on what hit them, you're talking up to a ninety-pound warhead, and there were hundreds of the buggers flying around. Still, NASA and Point Mugu both tend to agree with you. According to them, it was losing whatever was protecting them that did them in—especially if they took enough battle damage to give the airflow something to shred."
"And that's why none of it makes any sense!" Hastings protested. "Why fight in a less than ideal environment? These were space ships, for God's sake! Even if you assume they just sort of wandered into our solar system from Out There, why fight in atmosphere?"
"Maybe we've been invaded," Morris suggested only half-humorously.
"It's a mighty strange invasion, then," Hastings snorted. "I've never had much patience with the notion that we're so important that mighty alien fleets are just lining up to conquer us, but even if they are, where is the fleet? And does the fact that there were obviously two sides mean one of them is friendly to us?" She shook her head.
"All excellent questions," Mordecai Morris agreed, standing and reaching for his jacket with a weary sigh. He draped it over his shoulder and grinned crookedly. "Do you have an opinion?"
"I don't know, yet," she said, nibbling her knuckle again. "At first glance, I'm inclined to think we were just more-or-less innocent bystanders who got caught in the crossfire, but there're too many unanswered questions for us to assume that. And at least one side's probably a bit ticked with us. Any better refinement on the kill data?"
"Nope," Morris said. "Turns out our 'nuclear hardening' isn't quite as effective as we'd hoped, especially when the task force didn't have time to implement doctrine for surviving a nuclear attack. Most of Admiral Carson's electronics had fits from the EMP when whoever the hell it was nailed the Kidd, and every radar and almost all the computers went to hell when the pulse from that big bastard hit. But it looks like Antietam and Champlain managed to guide most of their SAMs into the targets before the big one flat-out killed their target illumination aerials, and the RAMs and AMRAAMs were on internal seekers. Visual estimates are that we got two, possibly three, out of the first group, with possible hits on a couple more. Obviously we didn't get them all," he added with a crooked smile.
"Obviously," Hastings agreed. "So we don't know who they were, how many of them we got, who killed what after we engaged them, who won, or where the survivors—if any—went afterwards!"
"Except for one thing," Morris said softly, and she quirked an eyebrow at him. "One thing everyone's agreed on—nobody tracked any of them headed back out. I suppose it's possible they wiped each other out, but I tend to think one side or the other probably won. And if neither side blocked our radar on the way in, why do it on the way out?" He shook his head.
"You mean one side, or possibly both of them, is still around?"
"I think we have to assume they could be," he agreed, slipping into his jacket. "And if it's only one, we'd better hope it's the side we didn't get any of. In either case, it looks to me like we'd better find out where they wandered off to, don't you think?" He headed for the door, then paused and looked back with an exhausted smile.
"Thanks for volunteering to write the brief, Jayne," he said. "Try to tie up all the loose ends nice and pretty. If the boss likes it, I'll take the blame—otherwise, you get all the credit."
He vanished out the door before she produced a fitting reply.
CHAPTER SEVEN
enemy n, pl. -mies. 1. One who evinces hostility or malice toward, or opposes the interest, desire, or purpose of, another; opponent; foe. 2. A hostile force or power, as a political unit, or an individual belonging to such a force or power. 3. Something destructive or injurious. [Middle English enemi, from Old French inimicus: in-, not + amicus, friend.]
—Webster-Wangchi Unabridged Dictionary of Standard English Tomas y Hijos, Publishers
2465, Terran Standard Reckoning
Richard Aston opened his eyes and stared at the checkered oilcloth tablecloth an inch from the tip of his nose.
He grimaced and straightened, suppressing a groan as his spine unbent, then blinked in surprise as his brain roused. He'd fallen asleep with his forehead on his crossed forearms, which, unfortunately, hadn't been unusual since his "guest's" arrival. That much he'd grown accustomed to, but the cabin was full of daylight, and her incessant demands for food should have waked him hours ago.
They hadn't, and he turned his head quickly—only to freeze in shock.
She was awake. More than that, she was lying on her side, head propped up by the fist curled under her jaw, and watching him with bright, calm eyes.
He sat motionless, staring back at her, and the
moment of silence stretched out between them. Somehow it had never occurred to him that she would wake while he was sleeping. He'd envisioned offering her a mouthful of food and watching awareness slowly filter into her eyes. Or perhaps it would have happened while he was tenderly wiping her forehead with a damp cloth. He felt he could have handled either of those with comparative aplomb after all this time.
He most emphatically had not expected her to awaken and just lie there, self-possessed as a cat, patiently waiting for him to wake, and he felt almost betrayed by her aplomb. It registered only slowly that it was because her calm watchfulness violated his mental image of her—which, he thought wryly, was based on the way she ate. Patience wasn't something he'd associated with her, and that understanding brought amusement in its wake.
She watched gravely as he grinned, and then, slowly, her generous mouth curved as she took in his weary, unshaven appearance. Her wry, apologetic smile woke a gleam in his own eyes, and their mutual amusement seemed to feed upon itself, aided, in his case, by a vast relief that she had survived to wake up despite his ignorance about how to care for her. He began to chuckle, and she chuckled in response.
Their chuckles became laughter; and that, he later realized, was the moment his last, lingering fear of what she might be vanished.
He never knew exactly how long they laughed, but he knew it was a release of intolerable tension for both of them, and he surrendered to it gratefully. There was probably an edge of hysteria in it, he decided later, but it was such a relief the thought didn't bother him at all. He leaned back in his chair, roaring like a fool, and her rich laughter—no giggles for this girl!—answered him.
But finally, slowly, he regained control, managing to push the laughter aside without relinquishing the bright bubble of amusement at its core. He shook his head at her, wiping his eyes, and sat up straight.
She seemed to catch his change of mood, for she sat up, too, perching tailor-fashion on the bunk, and he just managed to keep his eyebrows from rising as the sheet fell down about her waist and she made no move to recover it. Instead, she bent forward, eyes and fingertips examining the faint, raised scar of her wound unself-consciously. Well, he'd always thought his own culture's nudity taboo was one of its less sane aspects.
"Ah, hello," he said finally, speaking very slowly and carefully. He'd spent the few waking hours in which he wasn't shoveling food down her considering what to say at this moment. He'd scripted and discarded all manner of openings, unable to settle on a properly meaningful first greeting to an extraterrestrial. But when the moment came, none of his laborious compositions seemed in the least fitting after their shared laughter.
He bit his lip for a moment, watching her narrowly and wishing he were a trained linguist. Establishing communications was going to be rough, he thought. But then she opened her own mouth.
"Hello, yourself," she said in a velvet-edged contralto as clear and cool as spring water.
Those two words stunned him, for it had never occurred to him that she might speak English! He gawked at her, and she looked back as if surprised by his reaction, but then a gleam of renewed humor touched her eyes.
"Take me to your leader," she said with a perfectly straight face.
His gawking mouth snapped shut, and he frowned indignantly. He was trying to be serious, and she was making stupid—! But then he realized exactly what she'd said, and his eyes narrowed. Her people must have spent a long time studying his for her to know how that particular cliché would affect him.
"So," he said severely, "your people have a sense of humor, do they?"
"Well, yes," she admitted, "but mine's a bit lower than most."
He rubbed an eyebrow thoughtfully, savoring the unexpected loveliness of her voice . . . and her accent. He'd never heard one quite like it, and he would have bet he could identify the nationality of most English-speakers. But not hers. Her vowels came out with a peculiar, clipped emphasis, and she had a strange way of swallowing final consonants, like the "r" in "leader" and the "t" in "most." There was an odd rhythm to her speech, too, as if the adjectives and adverbs carried more weight than they did for the English-speakers with whom he was familiar. . . .
"Hello?" Her slightly plaintive voice startled him, and he blinked and snorted his way up out of his thoughts. She grinned at him, and he felt himself grinning back once more.
"Sorry. I'm not used to rescuing distressed spacewomen." He watched her carefully, but she only shrugged.
"You do it quite well for someone without experience," she said.
"Thanks," he said dryly. "My name's Aston, by the way. Richard Aston."
"Leonovna," she said, extending her right hand. "Ludmilla Leonovna—" he started to reach out, only to pause at the Russian name, but his surprise became astonishment as she continued "—Colonel, Terran Marines."
He gaped at her, and she sat patiently, hand extended. Colonel? This kid? Impossible! But then the rest of her introduction penetrated, and he cocked his head, an edge of suspicion creeping back into his thoughts.
"Did you say Terran Marines?" he asked slowly.
"I did." Her speech was even quicker and more clipped then he'd first noticed, he thought absently, concentrating on what she'd said.
"There isn't any such organization," he said flatly at last. "And if there were, I doubt they'd be enlisting Russians."
"I know there isn't—yet," she returned, equally flatly, still holding out her hand. "And I'm not a Russian. Or not in the way you're thinking, at any rate."
He shook his head doggedly, then blushed as he noticed the waiting hand. He reached out almost automatically, but instead of clasping his hand, she clasped his forearm and squeezed. He was a powerful man, but he had to hide a wince at the strength in her fingers. She was even stronger than he'd thought, but he managed to grip back with enough pressure to satisfy honor on both sides.
"Look," she said finally, releasing his arm, "I know this must sound confusing, but what year is this?"
"Year?" He blinked. "You've studied us thoroughly enough to learn our language, and you don't know what year it is?" She merely sat silently, waiting, and he shrugged. "Okay," he said, "I'll bite. It's 2007—why?"
"2007," she said thoughtfully, leaning back and absently tugging the sheet higher. "Prissy was right, then." She nodded to herself. "That makes sense of the wet-navy task force. . . ."
"Excuse me," he said firmly, "but could you possibly stop talking to yourself about things you already know and tell me just what the hell is going on here?" He'd thought he was exercising admirable control, but her expression told him differently.
"I apologize," she said contritely. "I'll try to explain, but first, could you tell me how I got here?" She waved around the small cabin.
"You fell out of the damned sky a hundred yards from my boat," he said bluntly, "and I fished you out." His face and voice softened. "I'm sorry there wasn't anything I could do for your friend."
"I guessed as much." She sighed sadly. "Poor Anwar. He came so far."
There was a moment of silence which he was loathe to break, but his curiosity was much too strong to be denied.
"Just how far did you come?" he asked. "Where are you from—and, please, don't hand me any more crap about the 'Terran Marines'!"
"It's not 'crap,' " she said. "Oh, I'm not from Terra myself. I'm from Midgard." She saw the mounting frustration in his eyes and explained kindly, "That's Sigma Draconis IV."
"Oh, great!" he snorted. "Parallel evolution's even better than the Terran Marines! Does everybody on Sigma Draconis look like you, or did they do plastic surgery before they dropped you on us?"
"'Plastic sur—?' Oh! Biosculpt!" She chuckled. "No, we're all like this, more or less . . . though some of us are men," she added innocently.
"Listen—!" he started wrathfully, but she raised a placating hand as if to apologize for her flippancy.
"Sorry," she said contritely. "I couldn't resist." She smiled, but it was a more serious smile, and she leane
d slightly forward. "I know it sounds confusing," she repeated, "but my people are as human as you are."
"Oh, sure! Blow a hole clear through me and I'll heal up overnight, too!"
"I said we're human, and we are," she said, and he blinked at her suddenly chill tone. She shook her head, as if angry with herself, and pressed her lips firmly together for a moment. Then she sighed.
"Please," she said. "Give me a tick, and I'll try to explain. All right?"
He nodded, not quite trusting himself to speak.
"Thank you. First of all, I am from Midgard, but Midgard was colonized from Earth." He started to protest the absurdity of her statement, then shut his mouth. It was hard, but he managed to keep it shut.
"Midgard," she continued with careful precision, "will be settled by humans in 2184." She met his eyes levelly. "That was about three hundred years ago . . . for me."
He was trapped by her eyes. Her statement was patently insane, but so was what he'd seen the night he plucked her from the sea. So was her survival and the way she'd slept and eaten for the past four days. And her eyes were neither mad nor those of a liar, he thought slowly. Indeed, there was an edge of desperation under their calmness—and he sensed, somehow, that desperation was foreign to this girl.
"Are you telling me you're from the future?" he asked very carefully.
"Yes," she said simply.
"But . . ." He shook his head again, more confused than ever, yet feeling as if understanding lurked just half a thought beyond his grasp. He drew a deep breath and fastened on an inconsequential as if for diversion.
"How does it happen you speak twenty-first-century English, then?"
"I don't," she said, and grinned faintly at his expression. "Not normally, I mean. Oh, mass literacy, printing, and audio recordings pretty much iced the language after the twentieth century, but it's actually a bit diff for me to match into your dialect. I'm a histortech by hobby, and that helps, but historical holodrama helps more." She laughed softly. "Not that they got it nickety, but they came close."