Level Five and Six fabricators were the gold standard. You could make anything on one of those, assuming you had a trained operator at the controls. Fabbers required a thinking being to perform the ‘proper quantum wave-function collapse’ (a fancy term for ‘magic’ as far as Rodolfo was concerned) that got you the stuff you wanted rather than a mess of randomly-arranged matter. ‘Fabber operators are the closest thing to God you’ll find in this world.’ Rodolfo’s Basic Subatomic Construction instructor loved to say that, much to the annoyance of the Star Baptists in the class.
“I think I can use it,” Rodolfo said. “I’m rated on a Level Three. Still taking classes to qualify for Four; I’m about halfway there.” He looked at the trio of Machinist Mates who were along; they were from the Cromwell, so he didn’t know them. “How about you guys?”
“All Level Twos,” MM Kruger said. “Hell, I’ve never seen a Level Four in the flesh.”
The machine shops aboard the destroyers had Level Two fabbers as well as normal tools; they could rebuild modular replacements for basic components, but that was about it. For major repairs, you needed the services of a logistics ship, which had a couple of NAD-3s or -4s aboard, making it as expensive as a battlecruiser despite having no armor, weapons or military-grade warp drives. Rodolfo was the best fabber operator in the Ataturk. Maybe in the entire squadron. He might be able to play with a Level Seven, and build some high-grade stuff. Might.
He wanted very badly to try, though. Just the chance to take a test drive on this beauty was worth risking a few burned-out synapses.
“Ain’t gonna be easy,” Hong said. The chief couldn’t wrap his head around the mental acrobatics that using an NAD-4 or higher required, but he knew his stuff. “Not calibrated for human brains, for one. The civvie chick running the station says she uploaded our blueprints into it, but who knows if the translation protocols are up to snuff. One mistake and we get shit that don’t work, or worse, shit that blows up.”
“I’ll be careful, Chief,” Rodolfo said. “Like I said, I think I can handle it.”
“Don’t think, R&R Yes or no?”
“I can handle it, Chief.”
Chief Hong grinned. “Then let’s take her for a spin, what do you say?”
* * *
“Hit another jackpot,” Heather told Peter as the two enjoyed the luxury of an hour’s lunch, two days after their victory.
“Too bad we don’t rate salvage rights, or we’d all be billionaires by now,” he said. “Still, I believe we’re all getting some nice performance bonuses this year.”
Those could easily triple your yearly pay rate, or even triple your yearly hazardous duty pay. A drop in the bucket compared to the amount of loot they had ‘liberated’ from the Tah-Leen, but better than a poke in the eye. Heather was looking at a nice bonus herself. Modern civil service prided itself in rewarding performance rather than ticket-punching and ass-kissing, although the dreaded General Inspectors made sure the undeserving didn’t use the bonus system unfairly. She was sure nobody would question these bonuses, though. The diplomatic mission had single-handedly fixed the trade deficit the war and the Ovals’ betrayal had created.
This must be the first time a diplomatic mission has exterminated and looted an entire civilization, she thought. Well, unless one wanted to call Cortez’s expedition a diplomatic mission.
In the abstract, she found the whole situation rather regrettable, but in this particular case the Snowflakes had it coming.
“The Navy team has gotten the Tah-Leen fabbers to work,” she went on. “One of them, at least. The habitat has eight large-scale models, all rated at Level Six, or perhaps better than Six. About three thousand smaller systems, too, although most of them have been mothballed since before the last Ice Age on Earth, so nobody knows how many of those we can get working again. Given enough operators and time, and if we modify the habitat and turn it into a shipyard, Xanadu could easily out-produce Earth. Probably out-produce every human world combined.”
“Damn. Time is a problem, though.”
She nodded. “Even if everything goes well, getting this place in working order is going to take at least a couple of years. Probably more like three to five, since we can’t spare enough qualified personnel, not as long as the war goes on.”
“But after we win the war, this is going to move us way up in the totem pole.”
“Yep. Maybe not quite enough to qualify for Great Power status, but a lot closer than where we are now.”
She didn’t add that ‘after we win the war’ should really be ‘if we win the war.’ Pessimism rarely achieved anything useful.
“Meanwhile, we may not be able to use our new super-fabbers to start churning out dreadnoughts, but I convinced Chief Hong to run some replacement gear for your company. Think of it as an early birthday present.”
“Thank you,” he said with a grin. “Although the machine shops aboard the destroyers and the cruise liner could replace all our ordnance and equipment easily enough.”
“Well, since we are suffering from an embarrassment of riches, I dug up some Tah-Leen blueprints and had MR Rodrigo turn out some improved gear. Here, let me upload the specs.”
Peter frowned for a moment while he skimmed through the technical data she sent to his imp. His eyes widened. “Jesus. Double-layer personal shields?”
“Yep. That’s what those robot dinosaurs were using, which is why they were so hard to kill. And your new body armor’s refractory index is about three times better, too. If the simulations are right, 4mm plasma rounds won’t be able to penetrate the new chest plates even after multiple hits; ditto for normal laser pulses. And the new power packs are rated for three weeks of sustained operations.”
“Damn. If we could outfit the whole Corps like this…”
“Well, having a Level Six fabber outfit a Marine company isn’t exactly cost-effective. But with only one qualified operator and three assistants, we really can’t tackle any big projects, so we might as well do something for your troops, just in case they have to repel boarders or whatever.”
They both laughed at the ludicrous idea.
“The only project that took precedence was building a life support module and reinforcing the seals in that creepy skeleton-ship of Zhang’s, and that only took half a day. Now they’re turning out about a dozen armor suits or twenty power packs an hour, alternating between them. Should be able to outfit your company, the Secretary’s protective detail and all the navy master at arms in two or three days.”
“Thank you. That’s one hell of a present. I better start thinking of something special for your birthday.”
“You should have your bonus by then.”
“Well played, agent. How about weapons? Any chance they can improve what we’ve got?”
“Now you’re getting greedy.”
“What can I say? When it’s raining soup, you don’t go outside with a fork.”
“Well, if time permits we might be able to do something. Meanwhile, though, here’s directions to the Tah-Leen Armory. I’ve made sure all the weapons there are safe to use, and General Gage signed off on the idea of sending a team to see if there’s anything you can outfit the troops with. Think of that as a Christmas present.”
“Talk about loot. Consider that bonus spent on you. Every last cent.”
“I always figured the way to a Marine’s heart was through his gun collection.”
* * *
“Ho, ho, ho,” Russell said, watching the company’s gunnery sergeants and a few trusted souls go scrounging in the Weapon Shop of the Gods.
Watching through his imp, of course. Nobody was about to trust one Corporal Edison in a warehouse stuffed full of exotic alien goodies. Hell, Russell wouldn’t trust himself in there. The temptation to pocket a few souvenirs would have been impossible to resist.
The armory was nothing like the impersonal ferroconcrete bunkers in which Russell had spent a good chunk of his life, mostly waiting in line to pick up or drop off stuff. A
mazing how much time you spent waiting in line in the Corps. This room was about the size of a super-freighter’s cargo hold, a few kilometers long in other words, with a ceiling clearance of at least a hundred meters. Rows of stacks ran all the way up, hundreds of them, some big enough to fit a combat shuttle, other filled with weapon racks. It was a gun-bunny’s wet dream come to life.
“Are you in or out?” Gonzo asked him. He and a few other guys from the platoon were about to start a game of Texas Holdem.
“I’m out for now,” he said, surprising everyone, including himself. “I just want to see what we’re getting.”
Being in the company’s weapons platoon meant you got all the heavy stuff that was too good for ordinary grunts. Russell figured a lot of the goodies would end up in their hands. Of course, if the shit kept hitting the fan whenever Third Platoon was around, they would need every bit of special ordnance they got. The doctors had fixed all the damage he’d taken in the last few days, but he was in no hurry to get hurt again. The new armor and weapons might help him stay in one piece for a change. Not to mention some of those fancy guns might end up combat-lossed and turned into a tidy little profit once they got back to the World. He was looking forward to his performance bonus, but he wouldn’t mind supplementing it on the side. There was no such thing as having too much money, at least not in his experience.
Most of the stuff contained in the huge armory couldn’t be used by humans without some heavy modifications, but it looked like a lot was designed for species with opposable thumbs or equivalents. Made sense; just about every Class Two and many Class One species had hands and fingers. Russell watched greedily while the NCOs had their lackeys load up goodies into robotic cargo haulers. Single-shot missile launchers in a variety of flavors, including some sort of anti-personnel warhead that didn’t damage buildings or vehicles while subjecting any organic beings in its area of effect to lethal doses of short-lived radiation. Heavy lasers to replace SAWs and Alsies. Portable graviton cannon that would hole a tank with a single shot, or a cruiser’s hull for that matter. Self-propelled hand grenades with a better blast radius than a 100mm mortar bomb; they better be careful about those babies.
They were going to spend the next several days familiarizing themselves with the new gear instead of enjoying some well-deserved R&R, but at least it was going to be fun work. Even the Corps couldn’t make weapons training suck, at least not out in the field, far away from the remfie assholes who always managed to leech the joy out of every damn thing.
Funny how things turned out sometimes. A couple days ago, he’d been running around with a spear like he was fighting in the Crusades or something, and tomorrow his company would be the best-equipped Marine unit in the universe.
He only hoped they wouldn’t need to use their new toys until they were back with the battalion. This detached duty shit sucked.
Sixteen
His imp woke him up. Priority call.
A quick glance told Fromm how bad the situation was. He ordered General Quarters as he donned his uniform. Everyone could have used more rest, but they’d enjoyed a whole five days to heal and refit. The troops might even be bored by now, if it wasn’t for the new weapons training they’d been getting.
They might have to put those lessons to use, he thought as he rode a conveyor car to the improvised Command Information Center for the newly-renamed Starbase Malta.
They’d picked the new name (pending approval from the government when and if they reestablished contact) because nobody was going to fly a US flag from a Habitat for Unique Diversity. Malta’s historical context as a highly-fortified island standing astride a major trade route fit the current situation rather well.
On the other hand, the historical Malta had been seized numerous times by assorted conquerors. He hoped the name didn’t turn out to be a bad omen.
The CIC was the simulated Situation Room the Tah-Leen had made for the American delegation, with a few improvements. The holotank and screens the Snowflakes had used to show off their blood games was now being used as a tactical display. Fromm took a seat after pouring himself a cup of Navy coffee, black, no sugar. Everybody else was drinking the same, smoking cigarettes, or both, except for Sec-State, who was an old-fashioned puritan about such things and contented herself with drinking distilled water while wrinkling her nose at the puffs of smoke rising all around her.
They were going to need all the chemical help they could get. Fromm saw nothing but bad news displayed on the holotank and his own imp projections.
“We have an incoming warp transit due to emerge in three hours,” Heather reported. For the time being, she was the base’s unofficial administrator; God knew nobody else could run the place. “The emergence point is at the maximum allowed distance, two light seconds from the habitat. Given the transit times involved and tentative sensor readings, our best guess is that it’s a Lamprey task force, a minimum of six vessels, maximum twelve, including one capital ship.”
“Why wouldn’t they arrive further out?” General Gage asked. Standard procedure for warships was to emerge into normal space at least several light hours away from the mouths of warp valleys, despite the greater energy costs and risks involved. That was the only way their arrival wouldn’t be detected hours before they completed their transit.
“The Tah-Leen have a way to make warp jumps impossible outside established FTL emergence points,” Heather explained. “We still don’t know how; we don’t even know if the system or gizmo in question is still operating.” There was a clear note of frustration in her voice. “We’re like a bunch of schoolchildren playing around in the bridge of a starship. We haven’t begun to understand where all the controls are, let alone what they do.”
“I know you’re doing your best, Ms. McClintock. Please continue.”
“Thank you, and my apologies for that outburst, Madam Secretary. As things stand, the Lhan Arkh will not attempt a deep space insertion. My guess is that they intend to approach the habitat and demand to speak with their diplomats.”
“At which point they will notice their dreadnought is gone, and will see my ships arrayed around the station,” Captain Benchley said via remote communication. She was on a shuttle headed back to the task force whose destroyers’ ten-inch popguns were the only heavy weapons the stations new owners could field against an invading force.
“The jig, as they used to say, is up,” General Gage said. The words sounded like a death sentence.
“And we haven’t had any luck reactivating the habitat’s weapon systems,” Captain Benchley added. Fromm wasn’t sure if there was a tone of reproach in the officer’s words or if he was just imagining it.
“About the only good news is that we have full shields now,” Heather said. “Three layers, each more powerful than the last, extending a hundred and fifty, fifty and zero-point-one kilometers from the surface of the habitat, respectively.”
“Hope we don’t need them,” Gage said. “We’ll try to bluff our way out of this, but we will prepare for the worst.”
“I’ll do my best, General,” Sec-State told him before turning back to Heather. “Are the VR filters ready?”
“Yes, Madam Secretary. You will look and sound like a Lamprey.”
In the last five days, over a hundred civilian ships had transited through Xanadu, below average traffic for the star system. The orbital docks spinning two light seconds away from the habitat were fully automated. When communications were necessary, the ships had been contacted by computer-generated images matching their species. All in all, Starbase Malta had generated half a billion GCUs of profit and the alien vessels had come and gone without any idea the system had changed hands. That was about to change, unless Sec-State managed to pull off a small miracle.
The next three hours were spent in tense preparations. Fromm monitored the internal defenses: two infantry platoons reinforced by a company of robot guards surrounded the habitat’s only active power plant. Third and Fourth Platoons and another robot company were
near the improvised quarters the Americans were using as temporary residences, acting as a mobile reserve. Finally, a platoon of Navy master at arms, thirty men from the Secretary of State’s protective detail and another hundred-and-twenty robots guarded the fabber facility as it kept churning out more ammo and gear. Those three hundred and sixty robots were all they had been able to activate; most of the Tah-Leen machines had been destroyed during the takeover. Unfortunate, but it had been necessary at the time.
The possibility of ground assault was very real. Installations on fixed orbits were one of the few targets Starfarers occasionally attacked via boarding actions. The treasure-trove the Tah-Leen facility represented was too tempting a target to merely destroy. He and Heather had laughed about it because the idea of a short battalion defending a habitat of that size was ridiculous. On the other hand, most of the station was empty. The Lampreys were welcome to wander around what were mostly lifeless ruins.
Everybody was in position by the time a series of warp emergences were detected. The Lamprey task force came out singly and spread out; that was the best way to prevent accidents during the several minutes of incapacitation that followed a lengthy transition. Eight ships, including a dreadnought.
Eventually, the aliens hailed the habitat. The tooth-filled maw of a Lhan Arkh Second-Class Spacer Representative – their equivalent of a Rear Admiral – appeared in the holotank.
“In the name of the Lhan Arkh Congress and People, I request to speak with Syndic Boosha,” the Spacer Rep said in what was fairly polite language for the Lampreys.
“Syndic Boosha is unable to come to the comm,” Sec-State said pleasantly, letting the base’s translation and visual filter system render her words in the proper Lhan Arkh forms. “The delegation left Xanadu several days ago.”
Warp Marine Corps- The Complete Series Page 91
