by Hal Colebatch, Mark O Martin, Gregory Benford, Paul Chafe
Aboard the scoutship Silent Prowler Chraz-Captain extended and retracted his claws. The cramped conditions and deadening watch-on/watch-off routine were barely tolerable at the best of times. With life-support systems running at minimum and an extra body consuming precious space and atmosphere his nerves were stretched to the extreme. That the extra body was a senior officer did nothing to improve the situation. Now that they were at the most delicate and dangerous point of their mission his passive sensors were picking up a ship on a nearly intercepting course. It too was drifting, power off. Worse yet its flight path would put it behind him in another two hours, cutting off his retreat. It could be a derelict, but that was asking too much of coincidence. It was even less likely to be another kzin reconnaissance ship. The vegetable chewers had detected them and laid a subtle trap.
He vented his pent-up frustration in a scream, slammed his fist down on the alarm button and shouted into the intercom, “Battle stations! Chief Engineer, come to full power.” Simultaneously he grabbed his battle armor and began to put it on. It took him less than thirty seconds to don the cumbersome gear and pressurize it. Before he was finished Advanced Sensor Operator and Sraowl-Navigator had bounded into the control room and started scrambling into their own suits. Already the missile status indicators were glowing red, indicating Senior Gunner was at his post. No more than forty-five seconds elapsed before Sraowl-Navigator reported, “Battle stations established, sir, power and drive coming on line, sensors and weapons systems ready.”
Chraz-Captain growled in approval, his hands busy entering targeting and course commands. His crew were second to none. Their performance could not fail to impress the senior officer. After weeks of tense boredom it was almost a relief to see combat. He keyed the intercom again. “The monkeys have set a snare for us. We will show them what it means to catch a kzin!”
“They’re powering up,” warned the ensign at the sensor console. Commander Mace had no need to sound the alarm. Her crew had been waiting on full alert standby for six hours now. Knowing their target’s course and speed, Excalibur had found the enemy three days previously through their optical telescope. To her infinite relief it had turned out be a scoutship after all, Prowler class, reconnaissance variant. Now its image floated serenely on the bridge display screen, its absorptive hull coating only slightly lighter than the ultimate black surrounding it. A stylized twin glowed red on her combat console. Excalibur had gone to battle stations long before her wide-angle sensors had given the slightest hint of the icon’s presence. It was a safe bet that the scoutship would have instruments as good as or better than theirs, but Excalibur had the advantage of knowing their target’s courseline.
She smiled a little at that thought. Detection technology had become amazingly sophisticated, but since the time of sail nothing beat a trained eye and a telescope—you just had to know where to look. She had an antique brass naval telescope hanging on the wall of her cabin and beside it an iron sextant. Thus she maintained her link with the generations of mariners who had sailed Earth’s oceans. She also wore a skull-and-crossbones earring in defiance of UNSN regulation. Elizabeth Mace was a Belter, and Belters were prone to identify with outlaws in general and pirates in particular.
She pushed the comm button. “All hands look sharp, we’ve been spotted. All systems on.” She switched the comset to EXTERNAL. It was already set to the Terran emergency band; presumably the scoutship would be monitoring it. She’d spent some time in the last two months improving her command of the Hero’s Tongue. One short speech had occupied much of her studies. “Kzin scoutship, this is the UNSN destroyer Excalibur. Surrender or be fired on.”
In reply the image on the display flashed several times. “Missile launch, radar lock,” called the sensor ensign. Simultaneously a cluster of flashing icons appeared beside the enemy’s symbol on her combat console. That was a bit of a surprise. The Prowler class mounted no beam weapons, but at this range it would take minutes for the missiles to reach Excalibur, more than enough time to shoot them down. Typical tabby behavior: attacking seemed to be more important than winning to them. Mace keyed the intercom again. “A and B turrets, hit the kzin. C turret, take the missiles.” She felt relaxed and confident. They easily outgunned the scoutship and while it could outrun them it couldn’t outrun a laser beam. She had them right where she wanted them.
Suddenly the viewscreen flared white. “Missile detonated,” called the sensor ensign. Her combat display showed an expanding sphere of orange haze, marking the area where the warhead’s energetic plasma degraded Excalibur’s instruments. She waited for it to dissipate as it grew but it didn’t. Mace’s calm evaporated. The kzin hadn’t intended to hit them, he was covering himself. Another warhead went off. The red icon and its gentle orbit curve disappeared from the display, replaced by a rapidly expanding course funnel. The scoutship could be anywhere inside it. Mace swore and swung the navigation cursor around until it intersected the outsystem side of the funnel. The enemy captain would be trying to use his superior acceleration to get out of Excalibur’s range and Sol’s gravity well at the same time. She punched EXECUTE and felt the ship surge beneath her as the gravity compensator adjusted to the new load. The viewscreen flared again and she flipped it off. On her display Excalibur’s icon began to slide towards the interception point, slowly at first, then faster and faster. A second volley of missiles detonated, filling the screen with more blobs of orange blankness.
Suddenly a new icon appeared, very close, flashing red. Even before the sensor ensign called ‘Missile lockon’, she had stabbed the comm button. “All turrets—” Before she could finish, a green line flashed on her display, linking Excalibur and the missile. It flashed again and the icon disappeared.
“Good shooting, C turret,” she finished. That one was too close for comfort. She cursed herself for not expecting the tactic and hoped the tabbies didn’t have any more surprises like that up their sleeves.
Minutes later they had reached the expected intercept point but had yet to locate the kzin. Large areas of the screen were now covered in orange haze, but from their position they had a clear view of the portion of the kzin’s course funnel that would give most promise of a viable escape route. There was nothing there.
Hypothesis: The kzin had much more powerful drives than the assumptions punched into the combat computer. If so they were already beyond Excalibur’s range and beyond capture. It might be true but since it left no options, assume not.
Hypothesis: The kzin had accelerated deeper into Sols gravitational well. They might have escaped for the moment, but their mission was doomed. If Excalibur didn’t find them the massive Earth-orbiting sensor arrays would be brought into play. Dozens of warships would be available for the hunt. That far into the singularity there would be no need for them to sneak up on their quarry. Perhaps the tabby had taken the risk, but if he had then Mace didn’t need to worry about it.
Hypothesis: The kzin had reversed course when the warheads went off, his drive emissions covered by their blast. He’d simply followed his own missiles, overtaken the fog of charged particles, matched velocities and shut down again He’d just drift back out the way Excalibur had come in. By the time the haze dissipated enough to allow Mace’s sensors to work reliably the volume the kzin could occupy would be immense. Before they could search that space he would be far enough out to use his hyperdrive.
Mace stabbed an orange sphere with her finger. That had to be it. With no power emissions to track and no precomputed course to search with the telescope Excalibur would be forced to use active scanning to search out her quarry. That might work but it would also give away their position. At the short detection ranges possible in the particle haze they’d probably earn a beamrider missile in the tracking array for their trouble. Earth’s facilities were no use. They were powerful enough to find the kzin through the fog but Earth was over a light-hour away and hyperwave didn’t work inside the singularity. It would take an hour to ask for help, two more for Earth to bo
unce a beam off the scout and another for them to tell her what they’d found. By then the kzin would be long, long gone.
Mace mentally doffed her hat to the enemy captain. He’d led her straight down the garden path to her present predicament. First he’d made her think he was attacking then that he was fleeing and while she was preoccupied chasing shadows he’d just tiptoed out the back door. She’d like to meet that cat—not that it was very likely under the circumstances. Of course she’d try her best.
With sudden decision she keyed the intercom. “Weapons officer to the bridge.”
A few moments later he stepped through the bulkhead Lieutenant Curzon was tall and lanky, with a face that managed to be simultaneously roguish and boyish. His movements were sure and self-confident. He had a reputation as a lady-killer, and Mace could see why. Of course any sort of personal involvement was out of the question. Not that the idea was unpleasant, but its effect on shipboard morale would be disastrous. Elizabeth was no prude, but she was Excalibur’s commanding officer first and last.
Quickly she outlined the situation and her conclusions, illustrated by the combat display. “We can’t track him in that soup passively, and our active scanners will be so degraded that by the time we get a lock well be well inside his missile range. The only way we’ll find him is if he emits something, and he’s not going to do that until he’s ready to jump out.”
“So our job is to make him give himself away, without giving ourselves away in the process.” Whatever Curzon’s reputation, he was the soul of professionalism when it came to the job at hand.
“Exactly. What I want to do is launch a spread of missiles, on these courses.” She touched a key and a fan of lines spread out from Excalibur’s icon, skewering the orange cloud. “I don’t want them to switch to active scanning until they enter the cloud, and I want them to go to target-track mode halfway through, whether they’ve acquired anything or not.”
“And make them think we’ve got a lock on them when we don’t.” Curzon was smiling, the rogue showing through.
Mace smiled back. “How long?” she asked.
Curzon was already on his way out. “Ten minutes,” he said. “Ten minutes or you can have my next leave.” He was running when he left the control room, leaving her wondering if the ambiguity in his words was deliberate or not.
In fact it was only eight minutes before the ready lights on the launch board flicked back to Armed. Excalibur had reversed course and was coasting towards Mace’s best guess at the kzin’s position. The viewscreen was back on but showed only stars, their hard brilliance undiminished by the particle storm. Despite the havoc it was playing with their sensors it was little more than hard vacuum in the visible spectrum. She keyed the intercom. “All turrets stand by, missile bay sequence launch as planned.” A faint tremor came through the floor and a blue icon appeared on her display. Mace held her breath and watched intently. Even if the kzin didn’t fall for the ploy there was the chance that Excalibur would pick up an echo from one of the missiles. Another tremor and another icon appeared, following a different track. There was nothing to do but wait.
“Missile detected!” Sensor Operator’s voice cut through the silent control room like a knife. “No lock yet.” A wiggling line on his display showed the telltale signature of the missile’s search beam.
“It’s not on an intercept course, Captain.” Sraowl-Navigator’s voice was hushed, as though the Terran’s sensors would register a louder tone.
“They are firing blind, hoping to make us betray ourselves. If they had located us they would use lasers.” Chraz-Captain was calm, in control. “Back plot its trajectory and give me a targeting point. Senior Gunner, soft-launch a four-spread on those parameters, passive seekers only.”
Seconds later Sraowl-Navigator had a firing solution punched through to the combat computer. The lights went down and the purr of the lifesystem stopped as Senior Gunner drew power to his launch coils. No need to risk increasing their generator output for the few extra minutes it would take to charge them on minimum power. Of course the enemy might detect the emission spike when the coils discharged but that risk had to be taken. The particle fog was thinning as it expanded, but it should still be thick enough to hide so small a pulse. Chraz-Captain didn’t dwell on what would happen if it was not.
A series of thumps reverberated through the ship. Simultaneously the missiles appeared on Chraz-Captain’s battle plot. With engines off they crawled along their trajectory lines with painful slowness. No matter, time was on his side and now he too had his claws extended. Let the humans give chase and he’d have their ears on his belt. He watched the plot with his own ears swiveled forward and his pupils dilated, a predator watching prey wander into striking distance.
“Missile has locked on, sir! Drive emissions changing aspect!” The line on Sensor Operator’s screen was pulsing faster, the peaks higher and sharper. Chraz-Captain felt a spike of attack/panic run through his system, his ears whipped flat against his skull, fur bristling. Then self-control reasserted itself and he watched the flashing symbol. The missile had passed them before locking on. It would need to decelerate before it could start tracking them, giving him the precious seconds he needed to scent the wind. Perhaps they had been acquired, perhaps this was another primate trick to flush their quarry. The atmosphere grew thick with hunt-tension and an undertone of fear. Sraowl-Navigator’s voice was a muted snarl as he gave commands to the computer. Moments later he reported. “Missile is reversing course, the new vector is not an intercept either.” The relief was evident in his voice.
Chraz-Captain relaxed, slightly. His eyes were still glued to the battle plot, watching the vector line of the searching enemy missile and the slow, silent progress of his own. His liver held but two desires, to see the symbol for the human ship appear and to see Silent Prowler slide across the frustratingly close line that marked the edge of Sol’s singularity. At full acceleration they could cross the gap in minutes, but the destroyer would detect their drive spoor and her lasers would not miss. Had he more of the kzreeoowtz-fog-throwers he could escape behind a redensified haze screen. The monkeys would be left stalking shadows. He abandoned that line of thought. One might wish for one’s tree to grow meat, but it was better to watch for prey. Silent Prowler’s sensors were extensive and powerful, her mission demanded it. They were a small target while the destroyer was large and Advanced Sensor Operator was thoroughly familiar with the dynamics of the particle haze where the man-monkeys had to grope blindly for the band gaps where the interference was less intense. If the humans crept too close he would surely spot them first. Then, with their target’s speed and trajectory known for certain and the range so short…
“Missile detected and locked on!” Sensor Operator yelled, clearly taken by surprise. “We’re in its search cone.” The air-plant, running on minimum, had barely cleared the fight/fear scent from the control room. Now the atmosphere thickened again. Sraowl-Navigator’s screens danced as he calculated the weapon’s acceleration vector. “It’s got us.” His voice was clipped, in control, but his pheromones told another story.
Chraz-Captain screamed a curse and yelled. “Get us out of here, emergency speed, full evasive action. Senior Gunner, target that missile and launch! Command-detonate the current spread, and as soon as that destroyer shows herself, launch another!”
He felt his weight build up as Chief Engineer pushed the gravity polarizers past the point where they could compensate. The deck thumped and the lights dimmed as Senior Gunner fired. The missile streaked away under full acceleration. White spheres blossomed on his plot board as the other spread went off. The cover they gave would last for seconds at most. Perhaps that would be enough. The lights flickered briefly before going down again as the distant whine of the power plant rose to a scream. Chief Engineer was pouring every last erg into the drive coils. Inexorably his weight increased. A ship symbol appeared on the plot and the deck thumped again as Senior Gunner punched out his last three missiles. With
out warning a series of massive hammerblows struck the ship. Alarm klaxons sounded and half the lights on the damage-control panel came on but the crushing acceleration continued so Chraz-Captain ignored them, his attention focused on the plot board, his hand poised over the Jump button. Ever faster Silent Prowler sped towards freedom. His very weight stole his breath but still he screamed for more speed. The pain was immense, his vision dimmed and brightened in pulses. The line was very close now, just a few more seconds.
The universe roared and flared searing white, then faded to silent darkness. On Chraz-Captain’s plot board Silent Prowler’s symbol slid over the singularity line. Then it too flickered and went out.
The scoutship tumbled end over end, spinning slowly about its long axis. It was a mess. Blast pitting marred her prow, though Excalibur had gotten no missile hits. The kzin captain must have ridden right through the shock pulse of his first covering salvo. The destroyer’s lasers had cut massive gouges through the ablative armor and in many places had melted the hullmetal underneath. A major penetration, probably the fatal one, had occurred in the drive section and a secondary explosion had blown most of it off. The sensor dome was ruptured, spilling cables and electronics into space like entrails. Reports from the boarding party told a similar story. Three kzinti dead on the bridge, their combat armor riddled with metal droplets sprayed from the hull by a beam that didn’t quite get through. Another crushed by a failed support beam in the weapons bay. The realities of victory were sobering. Mace could feel no hatred for her enemies, only a sense of loss. Flatlander propaganda pictured the kzinti as soulless predators but she felt more kinship with her victims than Earth’s teeming, ground-bound billions. They too had known the soul-searing grandeur of the void, the ultimate emptiness which made fragile life so much more precious. They had undertaken a dangerous mission and when it went wrong they had fought well against long odds rather than surrender. She only hoped she would go down as bravely when her time came.