Humans Page 3

  The MA field could reduce the overall mass of the missile to a tiny fraction of its real value without reducing the effectiveness of the action/reaction of the propellant exiting the thrust nozzles. That required some very fine tuning of the field itself but it allowed a normal thrust profile.

  The thrust, however, was concentrated on accelerating a much smaller mass. Mass attenuation or not, acceleration was still the result of force divided by the mass of the object.

  Trying to intercept a missile when it’s approaching your ship at a nearly relativistic velocity?

  Good luck with that…

  “Nobody seems crazy enough to attack her,” Eth replied mildly, “and she wants them tested. Surely, you see her dilemma?”

  In reality, at least half her reason for giving MA-equipped missiles to Eth for his new ship was in gratitude for having saved her life several times in the fight against Uktannu.

  “Well, let’s just hope one of those MA generators doesn’t get frisky and increase the mass of the weapon,” she muttered darkly, “or hadn’t any of you geniuses considered that? A missile with the mass of a small moon sitting in the magazine compartment? You think our grav plating can keep up with that? We’d have to maintain course and velocity until it was repaired…”

  “Hammurabi’s ass fungus!” Noa burst out, eyes wide. “Can you imagine what we could do with a kinetic warhead? Would the math even support it?”

  “Whoa!” Eth pointed an admonitory finger at the engineer. “No tinkering with those MA fields on our ship! When time permits, we’ll find a nice little moon where you can set up a lab.”

  “This is why I don’t sleep well,” Oliv muttered.

  “Missing your Quailu boyfriend?” Noa teased.

  “That ended a while ago.” She shook her head.

  “Oh!” Noa scratched at the back of his neck, his ears red. “I, uh, didn’t mean to…”

  “It was never serious,” she scoffed. “Just keep your hands off those weapons, alright?”

  Eth chuckled as Noa scurried aft to engineering. “You’re pretty good at getting people to do what you want, aren’t you?”

  “I have no idea what you mean,” she replied with a grin. She nodded at her display holo. “You see the cryo-bank status?”

  Eth turned back to his screen. Just as she intended, he thought with wry amusement. He’d already decided to hand this ship over to her, after this operation. He just wished she didn’t keep proving what a good decision it was.

  The cryo-banks were fully cooled.

  “Alright,” he said. “Cryo-banks are ready to go. Close the interchange valves and bring the emission management system online.”

  “Interchanges are closed,” Gleb confirmed from the engineering console. Ship is rigged for quiet running.”

  “Very well,” Eth acknowledged. “How long before we have to come back here and dump some heat?”

  “Half a day, if we’re just sitting quiet,” Gleb replied without checking. “Maybe a third of that, though, if we’re doing much acceleration.”

  “So, that would let us reach the planet and return, if we wanted?”

  Gleb nodded. “Take us about an hour at full pitch on all three drives. We’d have about an hour on target before we had to disengage and return here.”

  Eth nodded. “Good to know. Hendy, take us up.” He stood and walked over to the edge of the large holo-display that took up the center of the bridge.

  “Let’s see what all the fuss is about,” he said quietly.

  “We’re clear,” Oliv announced half a second before the holo populated the data-skeleton for the Sippar system with actual information.

  “Color correct,” Eth told the computer. “Adjust for Human visual range.”

  The blue-scale image hadn’t been changed from this ship’s earlier incarnation as a Quailu frigate. Eth had never even noticed until now. For some reason, when they were in a potentially hostile situation, he started noticing the small distractions.

  The image changed to show a miniature solar system in true color. Eth drew a rough box around the main inhabited planet and its surrounding region. “Reset bounds,” he commanded.

  The image zoomed in.

  Eth grunted. “Anyone here think that’s a little bit odd?”

  “Well,” Oliv frowned up at the central holo, “some might think it a tad odd to send a massive assault force and just have it sit there, watching an almost insignificant defense force…”

  “A bold strategy, Oliv,” Gleb declared in a reasonable approximation of a sports announcer’s voice. “Let’s see if it works out for them.”

  “Belnut,” Eth muttered, zooming in on one of the ship’s flanks. “Wasn’t aware Lord Belnut had any claims in the region.” He zoomed the view back out. “Hendy, start taking us in closer – three drives at fifty percent. Gleb, keep an eye on our return parameters.”

  “Three drives at fifty percent,” Hendy confirmed.

  The display began to zoom in very quickly, leaving nothing in view in a matter of seconds. “Reset and pin view boundaries,” Eth instructed the computer.

  The image was restored to show the two opposing forces but their motion was artificially accelerated. With every passing second, the Scorpion was moving forward in time, as far as the image was concerned.

  The gas giant had been just under two light-hours from their target. More than enough time for a battle to have happened, so they might be approaching a very different situation from the one that currently showed on the holo.

  Ships were jockeying between echelons and shuttles scurried between the vessels of the attackers with what looked like reckless velocities.

  But still, nothing was happening and they had a half-day-long approach.

  Fighting in space lacked the immediacy of ground operations. It was surprising how often a decision to initiate action led to a long period of boredom. He raised an eyebrow.

  If nothing was happening…

  “Lieutenant, you have the bridge,” Eth said, turning to her. “Haven’t slept for twenty-three hours now. I’ll be in my bunk if anything happens.”

  He knew he’d never be able to sleep, not while they were hurtling toward a hostile fleet with stealth as their main weapon. Still, he’d said he was going to his bunk, so he could hardly be seen wandering the corridors.

  He climbed into his bunk, ordered a wakeup alarm and lay down for a long stretch of staring distractedly at the ceiling. There might even be a headache if he was lucky.

  “Yeah,” a voice said, “you got it rough, alright!”

  Startled, Eth lurched back to a sitting position, his right hand reaching for the weapon he’d set aside before getting into his bunk. He frowned at the intruder.

  “Ab? You’re dead!”

  “Ah! That must be why the back of my head seems to be missing,” Eth’s old mentor mused sarcastically. “Thanks, though, for the reminder. Never know when a fella might forget to stay dead, especially if most of my hippocampus is a stain on a Chironan sidewalk…”

  “What…” Eth trailed off, squinting at his dead comrade.

  “What am I doing here in your quarters?” Ab shrugged. “Someone’s gotta tell you to get your head out of your ass! Being in charge is never easy.” He held up a hand, palm toward Eth to forestall any interjection. “I know… believe me… I know I made it look easy but it’s an endless ass-ache to have everyone looking to you for the answers.”

  “You ever wish you were just one of the team?”

  “All the time, as far as you know.”

  Eth tilted his head quizzically. “As far as I know?”

  “Well, yeah,” Ab said, raising that damned eyebrow. “You didn’t think I was a ghost, did you? I’m just a dream.”

  The alarm surprised him when it went off. At first, he thought it had mistaken his instructions and gone off almost immediately but he’d been sleeping for eight hours.

  He rolled out of the bed, stretching his arms to work the kinks out of his shoulders.
If I’m going to get into my bunk, I should really remove my armor. Maybe that’ll keep Ab from visiting. He walked back to the bridge, hardly believing that nothing significant had happened yet. Still, if anything had changed, Oliv would have sent for him.

  He walked onto the bridge, returning her nod.

  “Forty light-minutes out,” Oliv said, “and still no action. What the hells are they playing at?”

  She turned to the helm. “Hendy, let’s stop around ten light-minutes out.” She cloned a smaller, secondary display and zoomed it out by a factor of ten. “Sippar 2 is almost in conjunction with Sippar Prime. Put us just outside of 2’s orbit. We’ll peer over her shoulder.”

  The fleets continued with their pointless perturbations.

  “Technically,” Hendu hedged as he stabilized Scorpion’s position near Sippar 2, “this puts us eleven and a half minutes out, but I doubt anyone will file a complaint.”

  “And they’re still just batting their eyelashes at each other,” Oliv mused.

  Eth dismissed the small, cloned display. “Gleb, what kind of loiter time do we have if we stay here?”

  “Nearly a half day.”

  Eth darted a surprised look at him.

  “You gotta remember,” Gleb said in response to the look, “that the one hour loiter time was after a full-pitch run. We came in here at half power and those engines are exponential cookers. At fifty percent pitch, you’re gonna generate way less than half the heat you would at a hundred.”

  Eth understood the math involved; he’d even discussed it with Noa during the design of the latest ship, but he was still getting used to the whole heat-management side of these new ships. He nodded. “Keep track of when we need to make a run back to that gas giant, assuming a full-power run on all three drives. Put it up here.” He pointed to a space above Sippar Prime.

  A clock appeared, counting down from twenty-two hours and seventeen minutes.

  Eth nodded again, gesturing at the clock. “This is good. Let’s turn it into a table – loiter times before a return run at one hundred percent, seventy five and fifty.”

  “Hang on.” Gleb’s fingers flew through the air in front of his face. “There! How’s that?”

  The clock updated, showing the three options as well as listing the return location.

  Eth walked around the data table, watching its interaction with the rest of the holo. “Computer, set text color to white with dark gray background.” He waited for the update. “Reduce emissive factor by fifty percent.”

  He nodded as the text grew dimmer. “Perfect. Pin this display in the holo and make it standard operating procedure.”

  It gave him a measure of confidence, knowing exactly how much time he had to work with. “Quarter power, Hendy. Let’s get close enough to pick their pockets.”

  “Something sure as hells doesn’t add up here,” Oliv said quietly.

  “Yeah,” Eth confirmed. “Something’s missing. I can feel it.”

  She raised an eyebrow at him. “A feeling? Is this something you haven’t shared with us?”

  He shrugged. “Not sure. I don’t think it’s like that. It’s just my subconscious, I think, showing better sense than my conscious mind.” He nodded at the displayed fleets. There’s a reason for that. I think it’s meant to draw us in.”

  They watched in silence as the Scorpion drew nearer and nearer. Conversation faded as their unease grew. The loiter time ticked down, slowing to reveal roughly three quarters of a day when they came to a stop, just a few light-seconds out from the invaders.

  “They’re still just waiting,” Oliv groused. “This is downright unsettling.”

  “Waiting for what?” Hendy turned to look at Eth. “Their victims are sitting right in front of them. What more can a glory-hungry Quailu want?”

  “Us,” Eth replied with calm certainty. “Our lord, to be specific.” He turned to Gleb. “If we fire up the signal pair, what would it do to our countdown?”

  Gleb frowned. “Initiating the link draws a shitload of power. Keeping it open is a heavy draw as well but it’s the initiation that’ll really hurt. We’d end up having to dump heat before we got halfway back to that gas giant.”

  He offered an apologetic shrug. “Sorry, sir. No way we can get away with opening a link while we’re still sitting here.”

  “Sure there is,” Eth countered, “’cause we’re tossing the plan of going back via the outer planets. Bring the path drive online and then initiate the signal pair.”

  “Very well, sir,” Gleb said, shaking his head in resignation. “If there’s anything else we can do to increase our heat generation, just let me know…”

  After a few minutes, a space to Eth’s right began to shimmer and the decking changed color in a small space beneath the anomaly. A new layer of noise emitted from the shimmer and, suddenly, a Quailu stepped into view.

  “Fleet-Captain Rimush.” Eth inclined his head in polite acknowledgement.

  “Lieutenant Commander.” Rimush replied curtly. “Report.”

  “Something very odd, sir.” Eth grabbed the clone icon for his main display and tossed it into the shimmering image of Rimush.

  Rimush turned to the side, nodded and stepped out of sight.

  Mishak appeared and Eth inclined his head much farther than he had with the fleet-captain. “Lord.”

  “What are we looking at?” Mishak demanded. “Is this a recording?”

  “Live data, lord. I believe their true intent is to draw you here, though I can’t imagine what their purpose might be. We’ve observed nearly ten standard hours of them sitting here like this and the gods only know how long this has been going on before we arrived.”

  Nonetheless…

  The Dibbarra, Kwharaz Sector

  Mishak looked away from the holo-image of Eth. “Someone wants us to go to Sippar.”

  “And we can’t refuse,” Tashmitum insisted. “Their overlord supports us at court. We can’t simply ignore a threat to one of their systems.”

  “This is a trap,” Rimush reminded them, tightly controlling his emotions.

  ‘Which is why we don’t simply blunder into it,” Mishak confirmed.

  “Lieutenant Commander,” he turned back to the holo. “How much time do you have left before you lose stealth?”

  “With the signal pair running, the path drive spooled up and a little room for maneuver, we’ve got just over an hour, lord.”

  “Then there’s no time to waste,” Mishak said, darting a glance at Rimush. “Spool up the fleet. We jump in five.” He tilted his head back toward Eth. “You’re three light-seconds away from the enemy. Those missiles from the Lady Bau can cross that distance without running out of fuel?”

  The holo shrugged. “As I understand it, lord, the MA weapon will simply stop accelerating after the fuel runs out. Nonetheless, it will still have its accumulated velocity, even if the MA field generator cuts out. These weapons can cross three light-seconds in an extremely small time-frame.

  “My concern is more about the detonation sequence. They claim to have developed processors fast enough to handle the high-speed impacts but we have our doubts.”

  “But at such a high velocity,” Mishak countered, “wouldn’t the kinetic impact do severe damage?”

  Eth nodded. “It should. Hard to tell how it plays out in a real situation. It’s why I’ve let my engineer install shaped osmium inserts inside the missile casings.”

  “Osmium?”

  “Aye, lord. Densest thing we could find on short notice. Twice the density of lead.” The holographic Human grinned wickedly. “Should make a nice kinetic insurance policy if our detonation sequences fail on us!”

  Mishak made a deliberate effort to grin at his Human officer. “Well done! You’ll be our insurance policy. I doubt we’ll get out of there without a bit of killing. We’re pathing in now. Shut down your pair node; that should cut your heat profile a bit. We’ll re-establish comms on a standard secure link on drop-out. Three light-seconds is tolerable enou
gh and I need you listening in on whatever happens.”

  “We’ll be ready, lord.” Eth shimmered out of sight.

  “We stand ready, Lord,” Rimush said. “General quarters has been declared throughout the fleet and coordinates have been passed and confirmed by all call-signs for a standard intervention posture.”

  “Very good, Fleet Captain. Initiate.”

  “What do you think their goal is here?” Tashmitum asked as the deck plates rumbled with the energy of transition. “Have we started a bad precedent by making a belligerent into a future councillor?”

  “You think this might be a bald attempt to extort a promise of influence?” Mishak asked.

  “Perhaps,” she admitted. “I may have opened a book we can’t close when I made that offer to Gobryas.”

  Mishak considered it for a moment. “I think you did what had to be done. That was a relatively small conflict. If we’d failed to find a peaceful resolution there, then how can the electors expect us to maintain peace in the rest of the empire?”

  “Nonetheless,” she countered, “we can’t simply make every stubborn belligerent into an advisor. The throne room is crowded enough as it is. We’d have to issue regulations to reduce the size of courtier barges, update traffic control… It’s not a road we should follow.”

  “I agree.” Mishak was surprised to find his fists clenched in anticipation. He felt slightly guilty, being reminded of his heightened awareness of physical cues, given who had taught him. It wasn’t something he could tell Tashmitum about.

  “It’s time to take off the velvet glove and show the iron fist,” he continued. “It’s time to start applying more violent means of negotiation.”

  They dropped out on a plane that separated the two opposing fleets, but aimed away from them so as not to accidentally destroy them with the plasma of their drop-wash.

  Not that there was much drop-wash accumulation during the short hop from Kwharaz but it was best to start on a polite footing.

  “Bringing the fleet around,” Rimush said. “We’ll be…”

  “Multiple mass separations!” tactical announced, urgency radiating from the entire tactical station. “Hostile fleet is launching multiple missiles and kinetics!”