by Rolf Nelson
Meanwhile, Allonia, Bipasha, and Kwon tried to inform and reassure the various passenger groups on what might be expected. When calling another ship, a young man popped up on Allonia’s screen who she had seen before. He was still wearing his port security uniform, and moving into view next to him was a young lady also in uniform. It was the couple they had briefly encountered in the spaceport cleaning closet while escaping the facility. They were aboard one of the old liners. Both appeared as nervous as they were excited. They rapidly recounted how their meeting had radically recast all the tales of murder and hate they heard ascribed to the pair and their ship, how the orders they’d been given seemed utterly at odds with the official goals they were trying to achieve. The rumors they heard were much better supported by the “senderless” message they’d both received, and the experience their non-uniformed friends were facing opened their eyes much wider than they’d been comfortable with. In the end, they realized they were on the wrong side, and used their limited connections and secure spaceport access to help coordinate the loading and lift-off of the smallest liner (a mostly retired ship only used occasionally for training) with nearly three hundred people aboard, mostly coupled or small families.
“It was like a light got turned on,” Misty said. “Suddenly everything they said was so transparently phony. In that closet you seemed so real and genuine. So human. Their stories were so over the top and scary that they were suddenly laughable.”
“I – we – started questioning everything. The official answers that came down were always the same, but scarier and more emotional. More calls to not think, just act. You were nothing but wide-eyed murdering evil murderers who would kill us all given the chance.” Miles’ shook his head on the screen. “I got put on press-squad duty for three days. They were sweeping up everyone, pretexting anyone they didn’t like that didn’t have a legit flag. The really mean drunk with no recollection how he got on planet I could sort of understand, but conscription for not being willing to declare religious affiliation?”
“Then my sergeant told me I was eligible for a pregnancy bonus if I got knocked up, because there was going to be a need for more soldiers, and that I could easily put it in a state orphanage if I didn’t want to be bothered to raise it myself. It creeped me out, but I really don’t want to have to pay the fit and childless fine, either.”
“We’d been getting more serious, but that didn’t sound like a future I wanted to raise a family in. After I accidentally walked into a meeting, it just seemed like the thing to do.”
“So we are going to be able to get away, right? They won’t be able to shoot us, like they did the ships we heard about at Niven?”
“That’s the plan,” Allonia assured the couple. “Normally it’s impossible to field-lock more than two ships, but the captain and our ship have a plan that should let us take all of you with us. After that – it’s up to you once we drop you off.”
At last things were ready.
“This planet has been fun, but it’s way past time to see if this works. Get everyone lined up headed out-system,” Helton ordered. Around them Tajemnica’s background hum of power and drive fields increased slightly and the view out the ports started moving. On the tactical display, zoomed in to show all the nearby vessels showed them getting sorted out in a line with Tajemnica in the lead, an Orion at the rearmost spot and two other dividing it into roughly even thirds, and the rest more-or-less evenly distributed between them.
“Uh, Taj?” Quiritis said, frowning. “Why not straight out? I thought we’d-”
“Oh, yes, a trivial little detail I didn’t mention earlier. It seems somebody doesn’t like us.” The tactical display zoomed out to show the inbound navy ships.
“That’s not trivial. At those velocities, even you are going to have problems.”
“Ah, but we have a plan.”
“Your plan is to aim straight for one of them?” Kaushik sounded skeptical to say the least.
“Yes.”
“Did you run this plan by anyone?”
“Yes. Helton. But he didn’t want to scare anyone.”
“… too late.”
Chapter XXI
Flicker’s Fleet
Admiral Chorf liked his new fleet. With Flicker removed (and good riddance), he’d finally wrangled the job he’d long campaigned for. As expected, the ships and hardware were in excellent shape, the crews well-disciplined and competent. But he’d been unable to replace any of the senior officer corps, and settling for stationing a hand-picked selection of political discipline enforcement officers on each ship would have to suffice for the time being. The captains were understandably resentful, but he’d made it clear there would be zero tolerance of any behavior that smacked of treason, disloyalty, or even minor insubordination. Making examples of a few lieutenants had been messy, but it got his point across.
Receiving intelligence that there was apparently more than one of those ships was a little frightening, but hearing that they appeared to be trying to hide in plain sight and moved at accordingly low velocity may have given him the opportunity he was looking for. With carrier fleets from three other systems and a joint command that gave him reasonable freedom of action, they could pin the troublesome ship deep in the gravity well. The L1 points were heavily guarded now with ships and mines, so the only way out was through one of the fleets.
At this range, of course, conventional missiles were useless: they’d just turn into more debris they’d have to fly through in short order. Same for the railguns. The ship’s high acceleration meant that when they finally met the velocity differential between the ships would be tremendous. Even a single slug hitting might have catastrophic effects. Once they were close enough neither shooting the projectiles nor avoiding them was a desirable option. At extreme range, beams would be attenuated somewhat by gas and dust, and accuracy would be difficult. But the longer that little ship dawdled, the more certain the entrapment, and the more energy their impacting railgun metal would have. His plan was perfect.
The carrier’s sensors couldn’t sort out the details of what the ships were doing from this far away, but local sources beaming telemetry out to them gave a pretty clear physical picture of what was going on. But as seemed to be the case all too often, it gave no indication what was really happening or why. Pausing in orbit to shuffle crewmen when they had to see incoming fleets puzzled him, and his captains didn’t offer any insight that helped; whether that was because they honestly didn’t understand it or because they were enjoying his confusion and obvious frustration was not clear, but in either case it could be used as an excuse to cashier and replace them once this action was over.
Finally there was word of the ships moving. The organic systems showed the undifferentiated blob of ships getting smaller, then all but disappearing into a single point. Panic set in for a moment. NO! They couldn’t possibly be able to transition from that deep in the well, could they? Nausea swept over him briefly, nearly making him run from the bridge. But then the remote sensor data was integrated in and the picture because more clear. They were lining up, one behind the other like battleships from the days of sail, and they were lined up pointing directly at his carrier. Physically understandable, but why?
“Telemetry is solid. Testing control interfaces and field measurements.” Taj said, the armored woman’s avatar spoke quietly to the tense bridge crew. “I like the view. Integrating the sensor data from a baseline this long gives great resolution. All ships responding well.”
“Feels wrong to let you totally take over,” Quiritis complained.
“I understand. But I see the entire EM spectrum and subspace the way you see colors of a rainbow. This is a field test, so I just have to eyeball it and adjust instantly as things change. If it doesn’t work, they’ll all need to be shut down instantly and restarted independently… OK, here we go.”
Around each of the ships the vaguest of glows kicked up as their drive fields, weak at first, gradually, tentatively, increased power,
extending further and growing brighter unevenly. The minutes crawled by as Taj observed, shifted, adjusted, measured, and experimented by slowly moving ships around trying to find harmonics, synchronicities, and useful constructive and destructive interference where the fields overlap and intersect. Most of the small ships became entirely enveloped in the larger and more powerful fields from the liners and Orions. Order and position was shuffled, field strength and shape was varied. Finally she was satisfied with the arrangement and started ramping up power, making the ship vibrate slightly. Outside, the glow intensified and grew, pulsing and shimmering like an aurora around the cluster of ships starting to accelerate away from the planet at an increasing rate.
“Mercy sakes alive, looks like we got us a convoy!” Taj exclaimed, a big grin on the armored tanker’s avatar’s face. “Ain’t that just a beautiful sight!” on the screen Taj threw an image from a remote station watching their actions. The field was huge. They’d be able to drag every ship along, no matter how marginal the drives, as long as they could stay powered up.
On Allonia’s screen the Station 3 logo blinked for an incoming call. Skip, the station controller, appeared when Allonia tapped it to accept. He looked very concerned, then surprised. “What’s going on out there? Oh, you.”
“Hi, Skip. Shop project works really well, so we’re taking some immigrants into The Deep.”
“You’re doing what? Who are you?”
“We’re the good guys, according to legend.”
“A Navy ship is telling you to assume a stationary orbit. You do know that, right?”
“Yes. But that’s just a formality because they have orders to destroy AI ships, so-” she shrugged. “They’d rather kill us than let people leave, so we’re escorting a convoy of colonists. I’ll try to give you a bit more warning next time we’re here in case you want to leave, too.”
“But why would anyone want to leave? Never mind that. You are headed right for a Geminorum carrier fleet headed straight toward you! If you don’t haul it down they’ll kill you! They have lasers, and nukes, and everything!”
“Thanks for your concern. We’ve been dealing with them for a while. Oh, and if I were you I’d sell any gold or silver you have, and convert your bank account to cash while you can. Gotta go.”
After signing off, she looked at Helton. He nodded. “Yes. Tell Skelton and the rest of our friends to sell, and let the Zamboni brothers know it might be time to check on their cash.”
This time, Captain Zorba’s face was more cheerful than Helton’s. “I appreciate the advanced warning of market turbulence. Your employer was right to be worried. I’d hate to be drawn into something like that unprepared.”
“My pleasure. I wanted to prevent any misunderstandings that might get people hurt needlessly,” came Helton’s reply a few seconds later. “I’m sorry to hear that markets are so uncertain that bankers are being seen jumping from balconies. I’m sure the rumors of them being thrown are nothing but flights of overheated imaginations. But debts too large and gold fever can arouse powerful emotions. It’s much wiser to only risk what you can afford to lose, and buy things you can afford.”
“Oh, I’m sure you’re right. And, thanks to your warning, not a single navy ship I’ve talked to that has been in the system for the last week suffered an unexpected loss in retirement or morale funds. To the contrary, in fact.”
“Glad to hear it. Always happy to help out my friends in uniform when I can.”
“Let me know if you see any illegal ships or engineered super-soldiers out there, will you?”
“Certainly, Captain, certainly.”
“I’m guessing that’s what the inbound fleets are looking for. Are they going to be a problem?”
“Hope not. I’ve met them before and they let me by. It won’t the quite the same this time, but I think we can reach an understanding.”
“For your sake I hope so. Some systems have taken an ugly turn in recent weeks, judging by the news. I’m sure the intelligence sharing idea I heard about might be very mutually beneficial.”
Helton smiled knowingly, glad at the tacit admission that Zorba and Nomon had gotten together. “If I hear word of any more banks trying market rigging or kiting more paper than they can back, I’ll pass word along on that as well… just so you don’t get involved needlessly on an accounting fiasco.”
“That would be well-received by the crew as well. Morale is up markedly in the last week by pretty much any measure. Have a good flight, and best of luck avoiding the carriers, Mr. Jones.”
Admiral Chorf was getting worried again. The field-locked convoy was coming right at him, aiming dead center for the middle of the battle group. Reports were that it wasn’t particularly high acceleration, but it was noticeably higher than some of the ships were reported as normally being capable of. But they did not appear to be trying to avoid him, talk to him, negotiate with anyone, or shoot at him. After hours of closing on head-on collision vectors, he ordered the fleet to start firing. At these speeds they would only get one pass. Win or lose, there would be no second chance because it would take many hours just to stop, and by then Tajemnica would be long gone. He ordered all ships to start firing, beam weapons only.
It seemed like a very long time before the first ship indicated it had actually complied – foot-dragging of more than a metaphorical sort. Another act to charge the captains with. Fine. That was for later.
He watched and waited for damage reports to come in. The beam discharge counter for each ship started to climb, more slowly than it seemed like it should. The range was still long, but they should see at least some evidence of hits and damage any time now. He swore under his breath. “Get me Spiritus!” Several seconds later the carefully composed captain of Cruiser #1 appeared on his screen. “Why are you not firing faster?”
“I do not think that heat-limiting the guns early in the action at extreme range is the optimal tactic.”
“You can flush the excess heat through the main power system, and you know it!”
“Yes, at the cost of increase portal erosion and primary power instability, while reducing efficiency significantly.”
“I don’t care about that right now. I want them dead, and the sooner the better. Full power, as fast as you can, and power-system efficiency be damned.”
“Under protest, aye-aye, Sir.” Spiritus replied stonily.
Looking at the damage evaluation board, he saw that none of his ships had been hit yet. Good. The tactical damage display indicated no damage to Tajemnica, either. Very odd. Hundreds of pulses had been fired. Even at this range, some of them must have hit. The shot counter started climbing faster, first with one ship, then another, soon all of them were firing faster than he’d thought possible at full power. And still the enemy damage display indicated nothing. Suddenly the counter for Cruiser # 5 stopped increasing. Then the shot counter for its interceptors as well. “Wickard, what the hell are you doing?” Long seconds ticked by before an angry looking Captain Wickard appeared on his screen. “Explain yourself!” Admiral Chorf demanded.
“The lasers are not working. We were aiming deliberately and carefully, evaluating damage. We saw nothing. No significant effect. We could see the hits – that’s the sparkling you may have noted in the drive fields, but nothing more than a barely measurable surface warming.”
“Impossible! They don’t have some mythical laser shield. Nobody does!”
“I know that, sir.” Wickard replied fiercely. “A tech noticed that something in the net power readings and heat-dissipation numbers that weren’t right. It’s not that they are super tough, but rather our actual laser output is vastly below indicated. A tiny fraction of one percent. We are investigating it now.”
“You’ll be on charges for failing to maintain your weapons systems properly, Wickard!”
“All Fleet beams have the same problem. Not maintenance, sabotage. All of them… Sir.”
Chorf glared at the man insolently staring back at him. “They must h
ave gotten into the friendly-fire safety protocols.” He turned to the carrier’s fire control officer. “We have to know where the problem is NOW. Aim at one of the interceptors and engage it.”
The officer started to protest, but was silenced by the duty compliance officer aiming a pistol at his head. “Yes, sir.” Gritting his teeth as he tapped a display to select one small ship at more or less at random, he gave the order to fire, but no discharge was indicated.
“Disengage the FFiSP and fire again!” Chorf ordered. Again biting his tongue the fire control officer gave the commands. A discharge was indicated and the ship’s icon on the tactical display sparkles and goes gray, indicating hit and out of action if not destroyed.
“They work fine. Now fire at that ship!” Orders were passed and they try to fire again, seeing more of the same: sparkles with no effect. The admiral seethed even as he started to worry. The closure rate was higher than he’d ever been in outside of simulations, and they’d be passing in less than five minutes. “Reduce acceleration to one meter per second! Switch to manual targeting! Fire railguns! Launch missiles!” he yelled. The bridge crew moved, grudgingly, to comply, passing order and making adjustments to controls.
Silence. Chorf heard no sounds of firing. No launch indicators lit up. Settings and readouts were checked and double-checked.
A com tech spoke first. “Signal, sir! Tajemnica.” Without awaiting the order to do so he put it on the main screen. Helton’s instantly-recognized face looked out at them.
“Ah, so you’re the rat-bastard who got Jan’s fleet, eh? Sucks to be you right now.”
“I’ll kill you!” Chorf spat.
“I take it you just discovered the little surprise package Taj left, attached to the message we sent your ships as we departed Dustbowl.”
“You… you… What have you done to my ships?”
“Just be glad she didn’t target life support, only weapons.” A murmur runs through the carrier’s bridge. “Taj has a lot of experience with military programming. You can’t shoot us. I’m sure Admiral Flicker would like to have been here to talk to you, but she’s learning about the newest Armadillos. I think they will get along pretty well.”