Silver Enigma

by Rock Whitehouse

  "Well, it may seem obvious, but it's still what we have as a starting point."

  There was general agreement to that.

  "RFG's with Lazy Dogs. Somebody paid attention in their Theoretical Weapons class," LCDR Elias Peña observed,

  "Yep, that's for sure," Harris answered.

  Warrant Officer Kelly Peterson looked up from her tablet. "Isn't that the one where all you do is watch old movies?"

  Harris sat up straight, feigning offense. "It's not the movies that are hard, Peterson, it's the writing up of what you would do if you were faced with whatever the movie threw at you that's difficult."

  "So, that's a yes?" she followed up, pushing the boss just a little.

  "Yes, but to be fair, in the second semester we read old Sci-Fi books, too," Harris answered. "Does their use of these weapons tell us anything? I doubt they've read much Pournelle."

  Frances Wilson, oldest and perhaps most hardened member of the analysis team spoke first.

  "Well, they're as ingenious, and vicious, as we are, I guess. It will be interesting to see the RFGs. Pournelle suggested tungsten, but you'd probably have to bring that up from a planet. If you were satisfied with some cheap nickel-iron rods, you could make a thousand from any modest sized iron asteroid you might have handy."

  "OK, so, what do we really know?" Harris asked again.

  Elias Peña spoke up. "Not much, beyond what you've already said, Captain." Peña was, without the title, the apparent second-in-command of FleetIntel. He had been on several consecutive tours in space and was now doing his first HQ tour, which he hated. He thought it much easier to be single aboard a ship where he could focus his thoughts and emotions on the critical tasks at hand. Back on Earth, either on leave or in this HQ assignment, he found he was less professionally focused and more personally stressed.

  "Anything else?" There was silent agreement as he looked around the table, so Harris went on to his next question.

  "OK then. What do we need to know?" Harris asked. The answers came quickly from all around the room.

  "What kind of FTL drive are they using? Have they independently found the Forstmann technology?"

  "How their anti-ship weapons work and how we might defend against them."

  "How are they communicating? If they have a Forstmann Drive, do they also use SLIP?"

  "What do they want?" The strident voice brought all eyes again to Frances Wilson, seated opposite from Captain Harris. Physically, she was a fairly small and unremarkable well-past-middle-age woman. But her mind was as keen as it was quick. "If we can figure out what they want, the rest may be irrelevant."

  "And if all they want is to kill us?" came the sharp reply from Peña.

  "Then that would be a useful fact, would it not?" was her calm response. They locked eyes for a moment, with Peña finally acknowledging her insight with a slight nod as they disengaged. Ron found himself smiling slightly at this exchange. The intellectual competition seemed to make them all smarter somehow.

  Ron nodded his agreement. "OK - we could go on and on - but I think our immediate requirements are for technological intelligence, specifically weapons, communication, propulsion. I would add sensors to that - it would be useful to know from what range they can detect us. So, what are our challenges?"

  "Damn laws of physics are stacked against us," Ann Cooper said flatly. "We want to find them, but the distances and the delays are incredible, even with the Drive. This isn't the North Atlantic. We can't lay out a line of sono-buoys and catch the Russians as they blunder by. It's huge beyond comprehension."

  Kelly Peterson leaned forward. "They must have a home. We're building starbases - geez, I hate that term, it's so sci-fi - so I expect they would as well. There must be outposts, depots, service, and repair facilities. All of those are essentially stationary targets. Unless we want to theorize they live entirely on ships."

  "But even if that's true, they could be anywhere. Their depot could be hanging out halfway between their two least favorite stars," Frances responded.

  Peña replied "Correct, and any facility like you're talking about would just be a large ship. To be in a useful position, it would have to be capable of FTL. Otherwise, the supplies would take lifetimes to get to where they're needed. That's what we're doing. Drape it in stealth like we do and it's damn near invisible."

  "We still need to know how they're moving and communicating," Scott repeated.

  Harris nodded. "To answer the first question: no, we can't detect a ship moving FTL under Forstmann Drive. You all know the basics of how it works, or how they've told us it works, anyhow. Ships under Forstmann Drive exist in an isolated area of space-time around the ship. As explained to me, the drive bends space-time in front and behind and the ship falls into the void, pushed from behind. Once the drive is off, they're back in so-called normal space with the rest of us, and we can see them. I don't know about SLIP. I could try to ask."

  "Well, sir, just because we can't detect a ship in the Drive, we should be at least open to the possibility that they can." Ann Cooper pointed out.

  "No reason to assume that." Kathy Stewart argued.

  "Not assume - just remember that we may not be top dog here. They may have capabilities we aren't aware of."

  Harris retook the direction of the discussion. "OK, let's think about action items. We need a SLIP technology briefing. That'll take some doing."

  "Forstmann invented the drive. Could we ask them if there are any other methods that they know of to achieve FTL speeds?" Roger Cox asked.

  "Oh, sure, no problem. Let's ask the biggest company in our part of the known universe for its deepest secrets," Peña commented sarcastically. Harris gave Peña a glance of disapproval but didn't push it any further.

  "They also invented SLIP. Are there alternative methods?" Roger Cox ignored Peña's condescension. Harris decided it was time to wrap up the discussion. They needed more information and they weren't going to get it sitting there.

  "We didn't cover the gap that Captain Collins' group pointed out. Any dispute on that?" he asked.

  "Ugly thing, sir. Needs to be checked out." Peña agreed, speaking for the group.

  "So, can we agree that our first tactical priority is to cover these nearby systems? Besides simple checks for intelligent life, giant repair depots and alien starships, we should task them to look for answers the other questions we've raised."

  "OK then, I will confirm with Plans that we agree that the recon they have proposed should go forward immediately. I will also outline these other needs for them. " Harris was wrapping up, and the group knew how this went. He took one final look around the table. Good people trying hard, he thought.

  "Ok, that's it."

  They stood when he did, and he was quickly out the door and headed back to his office. Once there, he called Fiona Collins again and gave her the Intel endorsement of the need to look at the gap systems. He gave her the high points of the discussion - weapons, communications, propulsion, sensors, home planet, depots, and the rest. Hanging up, he leaned back in his chair and thought about the next call he had to make. He had CINC's confidence, but it was not without limits and if he asked for something like he was about to ask for, he really needed to be sure he really needed it. As head of FleetIntel, he could make the call. CINC would pick up. He picked up the phone and called a member of his team instead.

  "Frances, can you come to my office? Thanks." In a few seconds the thin, graying, mid-fifties woman came in, closing the door behind her. She sat across from him, notebook in hand, pen at the ready.

  "After the discussion today - the Drive and SLIP and whatever - who should we be calling to get the information we need?" She looked surprised. She took a moment to reply.

  "Not the question I was expecting, Captain, but there is only one answer: Randy Forstmann. He did the original FTL research, no one knows the internals of both technologies like he does."

  Ron paused, looking across the desk at his most senior civilian analyst. She had
been at this since long before he joined the Fleet, having come over as a much younger woman after time at the NSA, where she worked on Chinese ICBM assessments. Scary stuff. She was almost old enough to be his mother, but one thing she was not was matronly. Her husband now commanded a mining ship and so was gone for long periods of time, just as he always had been. They were childless, but Ron knew she doted on her small collection of nieces and nephews whose pictures decorated her desk. She was hard-headed, demanding, critical of sloppy thinking, and thin-skinned at times. She commanded respect from all around her, and she could throw a wicked verbal elbow when necessary. Her dedication to his Intel shop, he knew, was beyond question.

  "OK, I'll call CINC." After a moment he continued, "I hope you weren't planning retirement, Frances because you're here for the duration."

  She smiled slightly. "Wouldn't think of it."

  "Good."

  "Good luck with CINC." She rose and left, closing the door behind her.

  He picked up the phone, dialing the Operations Center.

  "CINC, please...Captain Harris in FleetIntel...Yes, I will wait...Sir...Admiral, FleetIntel has a request...Well sir, we need to talk to someone, and we're going to need your help...Randy Forstmann...Yes we're serious...There are questions about FTL propulsion and communications that we need answers for...I'd rather not be more specific sir...I know they're guarded about their technology sir, but we're in a war here...Thank you, sir." He hung up, feeling that it was almost too easy. But, maybe Forstmann would refuse. More likely, Ron thought, his lawyers would refuse.

  He got a message that the data miners had nothing new to report. He called Fiona Collins back and then headed back to the Operations Center to see what else might happen that night.

  The Drive Pub and Bistro

  Just off Ft. Eustis, VA

  Monday, January 17, 2078, 2030 EST

  Ben Price had done what he could with the information available on the second day of the war. It wasn't much. They were still arguing about which stars to prioritize, and he was getting tired of it. But at least it was an honest argument, he said to himself, a fight worth having. Fiona Collins had sent him home a few hours earlier. He finished up his work and went home to his now sparsely furnished apartment just off the base to shower and change. Skipping dinner for lack of appetite, he headed out for a walk in the cold evening, hoping the chill would clear his head a little, and eventually found himself wandering into The Drive, a pub favored by Fleet HQ personnel. It was a safe place for Fleet folk, where they could unwind, let off a little frustration, and easily get back to their quarters.

  Ben walked into a warm, noisy place, media screens covering almost every wall with all five major news channels and several sports channels going all at once. He found it strange to recognize the nondescript HQ building he worked in daily as the backdrop for various talking heads, looking all serious and sincere over the WAR IN SPACE or DISASTER AT INOR headlines at the bottom of the screen. He saw clearly how little they knew as they stood there chattering away, pretending to be the experts. Huge pictures of Teresa Michael and Carol Hansen frequently replaced the HQ image as the anchors prattled on about how little was known about them. Ben thought the images looked like ID pictures and he doubted either woman would have been very happy to have those plastered all over the planet. He avoided the crowded dining room to the left of the entrance and headed into the large oak-paneled bar on the right.

  Looking down the long bar, packed with patrons, he saw Joanne Henderson seated alone in a corner booth at the far end of the room. After their dust-up yesterday, they had made a decent peace, but he suspected that Henderson was still stinging from their initial exchange. Almost without thinking, he made his way along the bar, pausing to greet some acquaintances, and ended up standing at Joanne's table. Dressed down in jeans, SFU hoodie, and walking boots, she was drinking something dark with ice, he couldn't tell just what.

  "May I join you, Commander?"

  "Sure, Price. But you'll have to stop calling me by my rank. Sounds strange in a bar."

  Ben sat in the other corner of the booth, a spot that gave both of them a good view of the room.

  "What would you prefer? We do have this whole military chain-of-command structure to deal with."

  She shrugged and was about to answer when the waitress appeared.

  "What will it be?"

  Ben looked over at Joanne. "What are you drinking?

  "Glenlivet 15 on the rocks."

  Ben gave a fake shudder and looked up at the waitress.

  "Dewar's, double, neat."

  As the waitress left, Ben looked back at Joanne, who was now looking at him as if she had just seen him for the first time, one eyebrow pretty far up.

  "Took you for a beer man."

  "And I took you for a wine woman. I guess this time we're both wrong."

  She gave in and smiled at that. "I guess so," she said with a wry but growing smile.

  Issue settled, Ben thought.

  "So, this-is-me-not-calling-you-Commander-Henderson, what would you prefer?"

  She leaned back against the booth, slowly turning her drink as she looked into it, as if to find an answer.

  "Look, Price, we've both been at this for what, ten years? Maybe more? We've been working together for a while now. Off-duty, like this, how about we just do first names? At the office, yeah we need to be military."

  "Well, Joanne, calling you Joanne will take some practice."

  "As will calling you Ben, Ben." she took a sip of her drink. "Did you get your wife off to Montana?"

  Ben suddenly had a pained, desperately unhappy expression. He squirmed in his seat a little. Henderson didn't miss it.

  "Spit it out, Ben."

  He wondered if he should confide in her, their friendship being just seconds old. But something about her told him he could. He decided to risk it.

  "Well, I didn't tell the whole truth yesterday. She wasn't just moving, she was leaving. I got the papers from her lawyer today."

  "You have children?" She was a little unhappy with herself that she didn't already know the answer since she'd been working with Ben Price for months. But, she had always kept a distance between her personal life and her work, it hadn't come up in conversation, and she would not have asked about it herself.

  "No, which does simplify the problem, I guess. She said she'd had enough of wondering what would happen next, where we would go next. Her folks never thought I was up to the job, anyway."

  "So what happened?"

  Ben smiled sadly and nodded.

  "Oh, it was quite the scene. How I don't do this and she does all that and she doesn't deserve this f-ing fleet shit life."

  He paused a second.

  "And then I got hit it the face with her rings."

  Ben looked up from his drink at Joanne.

  "And she just stood there, glaring at me."

  "And then?"

  "So, I look down on the floor at those rings, you know? Goddamn engagement ring was like three months' pay. But, really, I didn't care. I still don't. I looked at the rings, took a last look at her, picked up my coat and walked out."

  "Where did you go?"

  "BOQ. I had to beg but the clerk found me a room. I didn't sleep much. She left this morning so I went back to the apartment after work today. Not much left but I'll get by."

  "Well, it's her loss-"

  "No, Joanne, it isn't. It's mine," he interjected. "I loved her enough to marry her and mean it. I still do, I guess. Now, well, she's westbound somewhere around Iowa and all I have left, I guess, is the fleet."

  His drink came, he took a long sip and then found himself turning the glass and looking into it for answers just as Joanne had been when he walked up to her table. After a moment he looked across at her, his eyes slightly narrowed as he considered how to ask her the question on his mind.

  "What?" she asked, seeing his expression.

  "Admiral Asshole."

  She frowned and looked away, she turned
a little and switched right leg over left for left over right. She was several years older than Ben, but with her hair down it was easier to see that she was an attractive woman. He wondered why she tried so hard to hide it. Then again, he thought, maybe it was just the lighting in the bar. She turned back to him.

  "Let's just say the Admiral has a degree in foreign relations."

  "Oh?"

  "Russian hands and Roman fingers."

  Ben leaned back and looked at her sympathetically.

  "What did you do?" he asked after a moment.

  She sat up very straight, obviously proud of herself. Then she leaned over and spoke quietly, close to Ben's ear.

  "Crushed his left testicle with my knee. He was off for two weeks. Flu, they called it."

  Ben nodded his understanding, then leaned closer to her.

  "Joanne, just for the record, I am not coming within six inches of you without a written invitation with witnesses, ok?"

  She pulled back and laughed. "Ben, you would never do what Gerhard did, You're a man, he's a child."

  "Thanks to you, he's damn near a boy soprano!"

  They laughed pretty hard at that. When it faded she looked back at him, and her face softened.

  "I really am sorry about your wife. I know that will make things harder for you. Have you told Fiona?"

  Ben shook his head. "No, but I will, sometime soon. It's a little embarrassing somehow."

  "Bullshit. I realize you might feel that way, but what, Ben Price, have you done wrong? You cheat on her, mistreat her?"

  "No of course not."

  "Right - listen to yourself - of course not. You can be a real pain to me sometimes. But, you're smart, you have integrity, you can be trusted. Don't be embarrassed if you didn't do anything wrong."

  "A pain? I'm a pain? And here we were getting along so well."

  She made a face. "Oh, and you haven't thought I was a pain in the ass?"

  He feigned shocked surprise. "No, ma'am, at least, not since I came in the bar."

  She smiled, took a deep breath, and leaned back. "Jesus, Price you make me laugh. That's really dangerous."