Outriders

by Jay Posey

  “No, I haven’t, captain,” she said, with obvious irritation. “There kinda hasn’t been time with you wanting me to shut the ship down and crack all these logs and dump all the system data–”

  “Yeah, all right, Thump, I got it. First priority is getting the ship under control. The more space we can keep between us and the Martians, the better. We’ll figure the rest of it out after that.”

  “Well, I don’t think that’s going to be a problem,” Thumper said.

  “You got that figured out already?”

  “No,” Thumper said, and she flicked a hand at the display. “We’re stopping.”

  “There’s no way we reached Martian territory already…” Lincoln said, checking the nav chart. He was right, they were still outside Martian-controlled space. They didn’t have all that far to go, astronomically speaking, but there was no doubt that the ship was still in open space, and would be even if they had a nice, leisurely deceleration. “For some reason, this doesn’t make me feel any better.”

  “No, sir.”

  The ship’s purpose wasn’t a mystery; it was a puzzle. All of it had to make some sort of sense, if he had the right information, but his mind was too off balance, too stirred up to be able to put the pieces together. And it didn’t seem likely that he had much time left to figure it out.

  * * *

  COMMODORE LIAO KEPT her eyes on the scans, but her attention was on the exchange taking place between her communications officer and the one aboard the UAF Mako-class cruiser that had just entered Martian space.

  “You have entered territory under control of the Central Martian Authority,” her communications officer said, “in violation of interplanetary law and the Planetary Sovereignty Treaty. Change course as directed, or we will have no option but to assume hostile intent and to respond accordingly.”

  “Negative, Relentless,” came the response, “we are in universally acknowledged open space. We will hold course.”

  “They’re slowing,” Liao’s tactical officer reported. “Should I initiate calculation of a firing solution, captain?”

  “No, lieutenant commander,” Liao answered. Once she initiated weapons systems lock-on, the other ship’s defensive system would warn its crew. They would have no choice but to respond in kind. And then, any hope Liao had of de-escalating the situation would vanish. But there was another way to probe for hostile intent, without becoming the aggressor.

  “Helm, maintain course. We’ll consider ourselves in a blocking position,” she said. “Tactical. Go to half ECM, monitor for signs of disruption attempts.”

  There wasn’t much place to hide in space, and with the weapon systems the navies had on board, it was trivial to hit just about anything you could see. Electronic countermeasure, or ECM, capabilities were where the real battle took place. Typically, the first ship to defeat the other’s ECM was the guaranteed victor, unless the other ship managed to get its own firing solution worked out before impact. In those rare cases, everyone lost. Of course, calling them ECM was almost as archaic a term as port and starboard, but the navy was nothing if not traditional.

  “Half ECM, aye,” the lieutenant answered.

  Half ECM would be enough to draw the desired attention, without revealing Relentless’s full capabilities.

  “Let’s see how they respond.”

  * * *

  WILL and his wing had been underway for only a few minutes before the nagging feeling finally got the better of him. Something about those deniable assets out there. Sounded too much like leaving someone behind.

  “Hey, Bear,” Will said. “What’d you make of Hawkeye’s little speech?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Noah said. “Kind of sounded to me like he was saying the guys out there are on their own.”

  “Yeah,” Will said. “That’s kind of what I thought. Any thoughts on what we should do about it?”

  Noah was quiet for a few seconds. “Well. What do you think Dad would have done?”

  “What do I think he would have done, or what do I think he would tell us to do?” Will said. Noah chuckled. And then Will added. “You know what Dad would have done.”

  “Then why are we talking about it?”

  “You sure?”

  “A thousand percent,” said Noah.

  “Well, all right, roger that,” Will said. “Hope you’ve got a retirement plan.”

  “It’s fine,” Noah answered. “Being a major isn’t as cool as I’d been led to believe, anyway.”

  Will switched over to the wing communications channel.

  “Havoc Two, Havoc Lead,” he said. “You guys see that ping at our six?”

  “Negative Havoc Lead, we’re zero on scopes.”

  “Uh, roger that,” Will said. “It was just a blip. There and then gone. You didn’t catch it?”

  Havoc Two didn’t respond immediately, and when she came back, she sounded a little concerned, like she’d overlooked something she definitely should have seen.

  “Negative Havoc Lead, uh… no we didn’t see anything.”

  “Copy,” Will said. He gave it a few seconds, long enough to imply he’d had another conversation in between responses. “All right Havoc Two, maintain escort with Whiplash. We’re gonna drop back and check it out, just to be safe.”

  “You want us to hold position?”

  “That’s a big negative, Havoc Two. Whiplash made it clear they’re expected at Point Artemis. Maintain speed and heading. We’ll call if we run into trouble.”

  “Uh… all right,” Havoc Two replied. “Hope you know what you’re doing, Will.”

  “Always do, Lena,” he said. “Havoc Lead, dropping formation, and out.”

  “Copy that, Havoc Lead. Be smart.”

  Will throttled back and let some distance stretch between the main ship and Havoc Two before he brought his gunship around and headed back the direction exactly opposite from his orders.

  * * *

  IT WAS while he was laying Vector’s body down and composing it that Lincoln’s mind unexpectedly gave him a solution. A solution, but one he hoped wasn’t the solution. The pieces fell into place too neatly, though, and brought with them that strange sense of satisfaction that came with solving a difficult puzzle, even when there’s no way to verify the answer was correct.

  “Thumper,” Lincoln said. “Those multiple manifests. Is that the sort of thing you could spoof to make a ship look like a different ship?”

  “On scopes you mean?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  She thought about for a moment. “Well. Not like just any ship. But, if you had something of a similar enough shape and size, yeah you might be able to pass yourself off as something else. Sensor profile would just have to line up enough. You mean like, between a hauler and transport?”

  “No, I mean more like a civilian vessel and a military one,” he said, walking over to the navigation display.

  “Oh,” Thumper said. And then, again, with more gravity. “Oh.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t know what good that would do though,” Thumper said. “If it’s only one-sided, I mean. Relentless might think this ship is part of the Terran fleet or something, but UAF knows it’s not. Not like they’re going to take it as an attack on the fleet.”

  “But what if our side thinks it’s a Terran civilian vessel, with fifty-seven innocent souls aboard?”

  And now Thumper saw where he was going.

  “If Prakoso’s code could hide a rock from a sensor array,” Lincoln continued, “is there anything keeping it from being able to fudge the location of a ship, by, say, a few thousand kilometers?”

  “None at all.”

  “And would that force a ship’s weapons systems to miscalculate?”

  “Not necessarily,” Thumper said, “I guess… yeah, you could maybe wedge an interface in there, between the sensors and the output. Tactical designates a signature, not a location in space. So, you know, on scopes maybe it looks like the thing is in one place, b
ut all your weapon systems see it accurately where it really is. Doesn’t matter if you think it’s in one place or another, firing system’s going to do all the math and hit what you tell it to hit. You think that’s what they’re going to do?”

  “I think we better get off this ship,” Lincoln said. “Dump what you can of the data. The rest of us will do a quick pass, see what physical we can scoop up. And get a line to Whiplash, let ’em know we need to pull out.”

  * * *

  “THEY’VE STOPPED RESPONDING,” Liao’s communications officer reported.

  “Captain,” said the tactical officer, “Mako-class vessel is showing weapons hot. I must advise that we initiate a firing solution immediately.”

  They hadn’t picked up any activity from the ECM scatter, and there were no warnings of impending target lock. But Liao understood the urgency in her officer’s voice. The longer the situation went unresolved, the more likely it became that the final resolution would be combat.

  “Communications,” she continued, “what’s the closest allied vessel to our position?”

  “That would be…” the officer responded, pausing to check the system. “CMAV Ardent, captain.”

  “Open a channel to Ardent, and request verification of our target data.”

  “Aye, captain.”

  Communications coordinated with tactical to share data across to Ardent. A few minutes later, the communications officer shared the results.

  “Ardent confirms, one Mako-class vessel, at four thousand kilometers inside Martian sovereign space, showing weapons hot. They’ve asked if we need support.”

  “Very well. Thank Ardent, but decline the offer of support, they should remain on mission,” Liao answered. “Tactical, proceed with target acquisition, maintain a firing solution. But do not arm until my order.”

  “Captain, with all due respect,” the tactical officer responded, “if they fire first, it’ll be too late for us to do anything but pull the trigger before we die.”

  “Then undoubtedly we will be remembered as heroes, lieutenant commander. But as long as I am in command of Relentless, she will not be remembered as the ship that started the war.”

  * * *

  “CAN’T REACH THEM, meaning what?” Lincoln said over comms. He and Sahil were loading a few pieces of gear into the Lamprey, gear they’d stripped out of the runabout in the ship’s main bay.

  “I mean like radio silence,” Thumper replied. “Dead channel. I don’t think anybody’s listening.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” Lincoln said. “Were they supposed to do a handoff?”

  “If they were, no one mentioned it to us.”

  “All right,” Lincoln said. “Well, keep trying to raise them, while we finish up. Maybe they had to go dark to skirt some CMA vessels. If we can’t get a response, we’ll load up anyway, catch up with them on the way out. What’s your status?”

  “Almost done with the data dump,” Thumper answered. “Still working the commo channel to see if I can pry it free.”

  “Roger, keep me posted.”

  There wasn’t all that much physical evidence to gather. A few weapons, some terminals, a couple of larger devices that neither Lincoln nor Sahil had seen before. Hopefully the techs back home would know what to do with them. Other than that, for the most part the ship was pretty clean, not counting the fifty-seven perfectly preserved bodies in canisters down below. Lincoln didn’t have any interest in trying to load any of those up.

  After a few minutes, Thumper called back in.

  “Link, got good news and bad news.”

  “I need the good first,” Lincoln said.

  “Okay, I’ve got a parallel line open now.”

  “Okay, what’s that mean?”

  “I sort of have commo capability now. We could at least send messages out from here.”

  “And the bad?”

  “I broke something with navigation. I locked out the remote access, but I didn’t get local control back. I think the ship’s dead in the water.”

  “Oh,” Lincoln said. “Well that’s not so bad.”

  “And… uh…”

  “And what, Thumper?”

  “And Relentless has target lock on our ship.”

  That was the bad news. If they had a firing solution already worked out on the ship, the thunder could already be on its way. Lincoln’s first instinct was to get everyone in the Lamprey and off the ship. But if they didn’t prevent Relentless from destroying the vessel, then nothing they had done on board would matter.

  “You say we can send messages out?” Lincoln asked.

  “Yeah,” Thumper answered.

  “Open a channel, I’ll be right there.”

  * * *

  “COMING IN FROM WHERE?” Liao asked.

  “It’s reading like it’s coming from the Mako-class vessel, captain,” the communications officer said. “But it’s on a different beam protocol than before.”

  “ECM attack?”

  “No, captain, it’s clean. Legitimate communications channel, but using civilian protocols.”

  “It could be a ploy, captain,” the tactical officer said. “Trying to buy time while they line up a shot.”

  “I’m perfectly aware of what it could be, Tactical,” Liao said. “Thank you for your counsel. Communications, accept the message, patch through directly to me.”

  “Aye, captain, patching through to your station.”

  When the channel opened, Liao spoke in her most commanding voice. “This is Commodore Rianne Liao, captain of CMAV Relentless. Identify yourself.”

  “Captain, your ship sensors have been compromised,” the man on the other end of the channel said. “The ship you are targeting is a civilian vessel outside of CMA’s sovereign territory, do not fire. I say again, your ship’s sensors have been compromised.”

  “Identify yourself, or we will have no choice but to assume hostile intent.”

  “Even if we had hostile intent, the only weapon systems on board are point-defense cannons. The vessel you are targeting is an unarmed civilian craft.”

  “And how do you know which vessel Relentless is currently targeting?”

  “Because I’m standing on its bridge,” the man said. His lecture didn’t sound prepared, his voice didn’t carry the strained notes or false confidence of someone seeking to deceive. That alone kept Liao from ordering her crew to make ready to fire. But she didn’t mind testing. She muted the channel.

  “Tactical, arm weapons, prepare to fire. Hold for my command.”

  “Arming weapons, aye, captain,” the tactical officer answered. There was a little more pleasure in his voice than Liao cared for.

  She reopened the channel to her mysterious caller. “The ship we are targeting is a Mako-class cruiser, four thousand kilometers inside Martian-controlled space,” Liao said flatly. “This has been verified. If you are in fact on the bridge as you say, then you will no doubt have noticed our weapons are now armed and ready to fire.”

  “I do in fact see that, yes,” the man said, “A few hours ago, you made contact with Yoo Ling 4. At that time, it was under the control of elements hostile to both… to both CMA and the Terran fleet. At that time, control code was injected into your sensor system, code designed specifically to misrepresent the position and nature of this vessel. This is the same ship, the one you saw as Yoo Ling 4, and is now appearing to you as… well, I guess as a Mako-class cruiser. Only, it’s not where you think it is.”

  Liao muted the channel momentarily. “Tactical, give me a run-back on Yoo Ling 4. Project forward to the cruiser’s current location.”

  “Aye, captain,” the tactical officer answered.

  Liao reopened the channel. “I had both position and signature verified by a second ship, which had no contact with Yoo Ling 4.”

  “If you use standard protocols, then Relentless will propagate that same code to any ship she communicates with. It’s in the handshake routine, during credential exchange. Any ship you’ve co
mmunicated with is at risk of spreading the same.”

  “That sounds like you’re asking me not to fire on your ship, and not to communicate with any of my allies.”

  “Uh,” the man said. “Yeah, that does sound like an accurate representation of what I’m saying, yes, captain.”

  “You can perhaps appreciate how this might be difficult for me to accept.”

  “If I were lying, I’d be telling a better story,” the man said.

  “Captain,” tactical reported. “Yoo Ling 4 couldn’t have reached the same position as the cruiser. There hasn’t been enough time.”

  Liao nodded thanks to her tactical officer. But before she could mention it to the man on the other channel, he continued.

  “Captain,” he said, “if I told you who I really was, you wouldn’t believe me. If I told you how I ended up here, you wouldn’t believe that either. And if I told you what I found when I got here, well… I’m not sure that even I quite believe it myself. I can’t think of a single thing I could say that I’d expect you to believe.”

  “Then why are we talking?”

  “Because I’m hoping that you’re just as desperate to avoid starting a war between our planets as I am.”

  The words had the ring of truth to them, and gave Liao at least a hint of who she was talking with. He was from the other side. But not in the way she’d expected. The moment seemed suddenly absurd, that she as captain of a CMA warship should be confronted with such a bizarre situation, with the stakes as high as they could possibly be. There was no training for this, no amount of mentoring or study could have prepared her for the ridiculousness she was now facing. On paper, the choice was easy. Ignore the nonsense, engage the ship. Perhaps the cruiser’s ECM systems had failed, and this was the captain’s desperate attempt to buy time.

  But Liao’s gut wouldn’t allow her to make that call. There was a way to test whether anything the man had said was true or not. The time it would take might very well be the doom of her ship and her crew if she was wrong. But if he was telling the truth, the consequences of firing would cost many more ships, and many more lives.