I frowned.
“Should we proceed as planned, Chief Engineer?” I asked.
“It may have taken a little time to get everything squared away, but it’s all worked out now, Sir,” Spalding bragged.
“You have full authority in this matter. If we can get those Spindles repaired, we must do so at any reasonable cost,” including risking the flagship, I silently added.
“I’ve got this, Admiral,” Spalding said with complete and total certainty.
That was when I knew for sure we were in trouble.
***
Spalding waited until the Little Admiral had been reassured before switching channels to Maintenance-4.
“Is everything good, Tucker?” he asked, happy to be done with the hand-holding portion of the operation. Admirals were just like captains in his experience, they needed constant reassurance that everything was going to be just fine or they flipped a lid. Considering you needed one or the other of them in good humor in order for the go-ahead to play around with all the good toys, an experienced engineer soon realized there was no choice but to humor them. Mama Spalding raised no idiot; he knew which side got the butter on his bread. But now it was time to be done with hand-holding and get busy with the serious business of keeping everyone alive.
“No, everything is not ‘good’, Commodore Spalding,” Lieutenant-Commander Tucker said sarcastically.
“I am no longer at my post monitoring those anti-matter generators and no thanks to you, I am about to be intimately involved in running over to board a piece of alien technology we had no business with in the first place. That’s not to mention it recently vaporized half an enemy fleet and every single lancer we placed onboard it. So no, everything is very blasted far from GOOD!” he cursed.
“Glad to hear it!” Spalding chortled.
“Do you want me to come over there and hit you?” demanded the Lieutenant-Commander.
“Striking a superior officer in a warzone is an executable offense, Officer,” Spalding growled warningly.
“Don’t tempt me. Since I consider myself dead anyway, maybe I should just go out in style. Better an airlock party than being vaporized by poorly-understood alien technology we had no business messing with in the first place,” Tucker declared.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Well unfortunately for you, a little scramble out on the hull’s not getting you out of Spindle duty. I need the best man for the job and after me, that’s you. So since I can’t be in two places at once. guess who’s heading over to that Spindle if I have to tie him to a rocket and shoot it over my own self?” sneered Spalding.
“If I agree to go over to that murderous piece of alien garbage masquerading as a piece of high technology, will you agree to send me back to my generators?” Tucker asked.
“No deal and before you say anything else, you’re not getting out of this job that easily,” Spalding declared with certainty.
“What more do I have to say? Just demote me already and send me back to my generators!” snapped Tucker.
“I would have already broken a lesser man by now. Fortunately for you, I respect your talent. That’s why you’re stuck as Assistant Chief Engineer for the duration of this deployment,” said Spalding.
“That’s it, I’m out of here. Engineering Team, deploy the grav-raft; we’re going over to that Spindle and I mean right blasted now,” said Lieutenant-Commander Tucker.
“Hey now! Wait for orders,” barked Spalding.
“Why should I? You never did,” scoffed Tucker.
A second later, the grav-cart detached from the hull and activated its maneuvering jet.
“Why, of all the nerve!” Spalding snarled, furious. Young Tucker reminded him far too much of a younger, headstrong Terrance P. Spalding. Talent had to be tolerated but something was going to have to be done to curb the impudent whelp’s ways.
After ruminating for a few moments, the old Engineer smiled nastily. He had just the notion.
Onboard the maneuvering grav-cart, Officer Tucker sneezed.
The engineering crew jetted over at high speed but spent a good five minutes filibustering a few feet away from the Spindle while they scanned and rescanned everything in sight before finally—fatefully—the Lieutenant-Commander placed one tentative foot on its hull.
Fortunately, nothing happened and following the directions relayed by the Spindle’s DI, they hooked up the trunk line. After watching in horror as the hull literally swarmed around the end of the power line and confirming the alien artifact was receiving power, Lieutenant-Commander Tucker led the charge back to the Lucky Clover II.
***
Mid-mind watched with suspicion as the lower-sentients attached the power feeder. Fortunately for them and the rest of the lower sentients of their species inside the star system, nothing untoward occurred and the lowers quickly sped back to their ship with appreciable speed.
Of much more concern to it, and surprisingly so, was the Hunter-Killer Virus picked up when scanning their data-transmissions.
Low-mind quickly shut it down and then shared the anti-viral defense it had crafted with mid-mind, so it wasn’t a problem as such. But although it was easily recognizable as a modified version of the Hunter-Killer Programs mid-mind was used to, the variations indicated a later version than it had in its memories.
What other strange things was it going to find out here in this part of space?
Mid-mind couldn’t help but long for the day high-mind was able to take over all of these worrisome details. It increasingly felt out of its depth.
***
In less than a day, Spindle had restored the second spindle’s exterior and transferred its attention to the floating remnants of the third Spindle. This had required the use of roughly 30% of the Lucky Clover’s max anti-matter generator load.
The Second Spindle had yet to join in the repairs taking place on the third Spindle, but the mere fact it was making the attempt was heartening.
After two days, the Second Spindle activated, sending a weaker beam than the first toward the wreckage of the third Spindle.
“Well this is hopeful,” muttered Science Officer Jones.
“Analysis?” I asked.
“The Second Spindle appears to have completed its repairs and the super-structure of the third is currently being reconstructed. The nano-technology the alien devices are using appears surprisingly effective,” he replied.
“It seems very fast to me but what’s your comparison?” I asked.
“First, it’s able to reuse and basically recycle broken remnants, directly reincorporating them back into the main body of the Spindle, something we are currently unable to do without throwing them into a smelter and completely recasting everything before we rebuild the hull by welding the pieces back together,” explained Jones.
“Even using our best shipbuilding techniques, I doubt we could do it half as quickly and that’s if we were back in a Caprian shipyard with full priority! Frankly, they’re doing in a matter of days what I’d normally consider a two week job, and that’s if we already had all the needed materials present. Nano-technology is amazing,” Jones continued with a hint of jealousy.
“Something to consider for the future,” I said.
“If the heartland sectors have access to something similar to what we’re seeing here, I’m not surprised they have a competitive advantage over the rest of the galaxy in technology, cost and speed of building,” he said bitterly.
I nodded; the scales had been lifted from my eyes. Even if the technology was comparable, anyone with access to nano-building technology could produce twice as much with half the effort.
I was already imagining how fast all those ships left sitting in the repair yard over the past two years could have been put back into action. From the sight of things here, with the use of nano-technology, they’d come out as good as or possibly even better than factory new upon being released.
I pulled up my co
m-link and dialed up the Chief Engineer.
“There’s a reason no one with a lick of sense tries to use nano-technology, Admiral,” Spalding glowered after I’d relayed my question as to why we’d never thought of using it.
“But surely there are advantages. Building and repair speed for one,” I pressed.
“There’s advantages to using multi-tools too!” Spalding barked, “but you don’t see me running around eager to use them.”
I was well aware of the old engineer’s phobia when it came to multi-tools.
“We need to find ways to reduce manpower costs while maximizing repair times. This just seemed like an ideal way to do it,” I said.
“So anti-matter and rail-guns… I mean hyper-plasma cannons aren’t good enough for you,” Spalding growled.
“I was just interested in the technology is all. We need every edge we can get,” I defended myself.
“Listen, I’m no stranger to cutting corners and coming out ahead,” Spalding immediately rejected, slapping a hand on the table in front of him, “but we don’t need any grey-goo incidents where an entire shipyard and everyone and everything in it melts down because we want a rush job on a warship. We don’t have the expertise, the training or even the blueprints for nano-technology. Not to mention it’s illegal as a get out!”
“Illegal is in the eye of the beholder. Tracto signed none of the technology-restricting accords. In part because they wouldn’t let us,” I said.
“This isn’t anti-matter. This isn’t droids. We’re talking nano-technology here! It’s one thing if we found an artifact and manage to use it safely, but a whole ‘nother ball of wax for us to start playing around with it willy nilly. Take my advice, we’ll stick to nano-welders and put the rest of this tomfoolery out of your head. Any job that’s worth doing is worth doing right, Your Majesty,” Spalding ended with conviction.
It was like squeezing blood from stone. Well, if even the normally pro-technology Spalding was saying it was too dangerous to use, I had no choice. I had to put it aside for the moment. We’d circle back around to it later if and when I had more information.
Until then, it looked like nano-technology was a dead end.
Cutting the channel, I turned to the navigator.
“Check with the Spindles and see if there’s anything it needs to get out of this star system within the next week, that we can provide,” I said.
“Uh, Sir, I’m not sure it can even do that,” said Shepherd.
“Just send it,” I said.
“How? There isn’t really a spot in here that says what ‘can we give you to speed up the process’,” he replied helplessly.
My eyes narrowed.
I almost opened my mouth to say just treat it like a droid and send the transmission, but then I stopped.
“Here let me,” I said. The more Spalding talked about how he ‘convinced’ the thing and then later protested that it was just another computer system, the more suspicious I became.
Let’s see what happened when I sent it a free form message.
Stepping over to the computer console that connected to the Elder Tech computer on the Spindle, I pulled up the buggy translation program. After hunting for a while, I found a box for inputting coordinates and instead of putting in a series of galactic coordinates, I instead put in a simple text message.
Time to see what happened.
Two hours passed and I decided the communication attempt had been a failure.
Then there was a response.
“Admiral, I’m receiving an unusual response,” reported Shepherd.
“What is it?” I asked.
Shepherd gave me an odd expression.
“It’s in the format of a mathematical equation,” he said.
“So?” I said.
“Instead of numbers, the reply was in letters,” said Shepherd.
I came over to take a look.
“Run the reply though the translator,” I said.
“We already did,” said the Navigator, sounding frustrated.
“Not the interface with the alien tech, the regular translator program,” I said.
The navigator cut and pasted, and within moments, the formulas for metals, silicates and basic elements appeared on the translation program followed by weights in grams and kilograms. The list was significant. If you only had one battleship’s hold to pull from, it might be tricky—but considering I had a whole fleet of ships, it was something we could easily handle.
“There are some rare earths here, Sire,” said Adrienne Blythe, our damage control person.
“If it gets us home before the bugs eat Tracto, it’s worth it. Even if it doesn’t…”
It was probably still worth it but I wasn’t so insensitive to mention that. “Check the fleet inventory and if we don’t have it or it would put us in a bind, contact the planet. A sector capital with both a transshipment point and functioning shipyard should have everything we need,” I said.
She nodded.
As it turned out, supplying the Spindles with raw materials proved the least of our problems. Within hours, it had the majority of what it asked for with the remainder on the way.
Contacting the planet for some of the more exotic elements, on the other hand, opened its own can of worms.
Chapter 56
Panic at the Sector Capital
“Sweet crying Murphy! Admiral, you can’t honestly be thinking of leaving now. There are two Swarms still out there unaccounted for!” cried the System Magistrate.
“I regret that difficulties in our home system require us to leave before the job is completed. However, the last two Swarms are the smallest of the bunch. Thanks to the interdiction of their scout-ships and scout marauders as well as the destruction of the previous bug queens and their harvesters, the two remaining Queens haven’t had a chance to expand,” I said.
“Six hundred in one Swarm and five hundred in the other, I don’t know what you consider substantial, but over a thousand bugs qualifies around here, Sir-ah!” the Magistrate said tartly.
“Substantial or not, you have the forces to deal with them when we leave,” I said regretfully.
“Barely, and we could lose half our fleet in the process! Thousands will certainly die, tens of thousands in all likelihood and hundreds more ships will be lost than would otherwise be the case, if you leave; and that’s the upside. Worst case, more of these blasted sensor spoofing bugs will get through and ravage our population centers!” he exclaimed.
“This is why you have a Sector Guard and a Sector Governor,” I said pointedly.
“This is why we have you and your exorbitant fees!” he glowered.
“Your homeworld now has a fighting chance; surely you wouldn’t deny ours the same,” I said pointedly.
“We have a contract and much as I personally would hate for it to come down to that, our Sector Governor, who you yourself just mentioned, has indicated he is more than willing to utilize its enforcement clauses,” the System Magistrate said pointedly.
I arched an eyebrow.
“I’m glad you mentioned your esteemed leader. It brings up a good point. Why is he not here?” I asked. I had a pretty good idea why not but I wasn’t about to make this conversation any easier on the System Magistrate than I needed to. Honestly, I only accepted his call because of the exotic materials his system had provided, that and I wasn’t eager for yet another pointless discussion with the Governor of Sector 26.
“It was thought things might proceed with less friction if you and I—” he said.
“Less friction?” I interrupted, “I don’t see how there could have been any more, all things considered. But that’s fine. I won’t hold your boss against you,” I finished wearily.
The System Magistrate looked like he wanted to lodge an objection but swallowed it.
That made it seem like a good time to make a point and move things along all at once.
“Look. You can t
alk about contractual obligations for as far as the day is long. But the fact is, I’m jumping the MSP back to Tracto, the first chance I get. Now I can leave a handful of warships if that’s the sticking point. But let’s be clear that’s all I’m obligated to provide and as far as I’m concerned, I’ve saved your star system from total annihilation already,” I said mildly.
“I understand your position but I’m not responsible for Tracto,” said the System Governor, “my concern is for the hundreds of warships and their crews belonging to our sector and the millions of potential victims on the ground. A handful of warships quite simply isn’t going to cut it.”
“Hundreds of warships is a misnomer even if you count the freighters masquerading as warships that your Sector Governor has been flying around the inner system,” I pointed out bluntly, “and you’re just going to have to live with that handful of warships because that’s all I can spare.”
“This could call your entire security contract with the regional authority into question. This isn’t some tier two world you’re abandoning, it’s a core-world and Sector Capital,” said the System Magistrate, deciding to play hardball.
Well I could play hardball too but there was no need to appear completely unbending.
“As soon as we’ve settled our own bug invasion, there’s nothing right now that says we won’t come back,” I said with a look that challenged him to provide me that reason, “but we’re going and that’s final.”
“If you’re going, then why haven’t you already left?” he asked finally.
“Don’t worry about us,” I said.
“It’s my understanding that a group of pirates attacked your alien mass-transportation device, destroying two of its three major components. Will you still be able to go to Tracto and still return here in time? My staff’s analysis of the jump routes indicates getting there and back will be… challenging,” he finished lamely.
Admiral's Throne Page 46
