A Talent for War

by Jack McDevitt

  I rendezvoused with Corsarius several hours later. By then I knew that Chase had been able to get the magnetics working. We’d be able to move, at least. The capsule wasn’t designed to fit in the warship’s bay, so I secured it to the hull outside one of the hatches. I wasn’t quite ready to cast it adrift, until I had a better idea how things stood.

  Chase opened the hatch for me. “Okay,” I said, as soon as I had my helmet off, “let’s get out of here.”

  She looked unhappy as we headed back toward the bridge. “We can’t outrun them, Alex.”

  “This is the Corsarius,” I said.

  “It’s also two hundred years old. But that’s not the problem. Listen: we’ve been through all this. We don’t have a stardrive. The computers are behaving as if we do, but we don’t—”

  “We have to assume it’s there. If not, nothing else will make much difference.”

  “Okay. But even if we’ve got Armstrongs hidden back there somewhere, we need time to get a sufficient charge to make the jump—”

  “How much time?”

  “That’s what’s strange. The readout should be precise on that. But the computer says between twenty-five and thirty-two hours.”

  “I don’t think this is a time to worry about details.”

  “I suppose. Anyhow, I started to power-up as soon as I came on board. ”

  “When will the mutes be here?”

  “In about six hours.”

  “Then let’s get moving.”

  “They’ll catch us long before we can make the jump. Even if we assume the most optimistic numbers.” She’d got the internal systems working. Each of the hatches opened as we approached, and closed behind us. “I thought it best to keep the individual compartments sealed, until we’re reasonably sure of internal integrity.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Good idea. How come we can’t outrun them? I thought this thing was, supposed to be fast.”

  “It probably is. But they’re already at a high velocity; we’ll be moving out from a start-up.”

  I tried to visualize the situation. It sounded like Sim’s problem at Hrinwhar. Enemy ships bearing down, and no real chance to accelerate away. What had he done? “How long before we can vector out on a head-on course?” I asked.

  “You mean go out to meet them?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  She frowned. “Why make it easy for them?”

  “Chase,” I said. “What happens if we run right past them? How long does it take them to get turned around?”

  “Hell.” Her face brightened. “They’d never catch us. Of course, they’ll probably shoot a big hole in us as we go by.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “They’re going to a lot of trouble for this ship. The whole point of the attack on the Centaur was to try to prevent our getting aboard Corsarius. I can’t believe they’ll risk destroying it.”

  “They might if they think we’re going to get away with it.”

  “Then we’ll have to take our chances. You have a better idea?”

  “No,” she said, sitting down in the pilot’s seat. “You’ll be happy to hear the magnetics test out. We’ll have full-thrust linear anyhow. If necessary, we can ride them home. Only take about fifty centuries.”

  “Let’s see the mute,” I said.

  There was a large, wraparound display set over the viewports. It darkened to the color of the night sky, and the alien appeared. I’d never seen anything like it before, and I wasn’t at first certain that it was a vessel at all: at least, whether it was capable of carrying a crew. It appeared to be a cluster of approximately twenty hyperboloids of varying sizes and design, slowly orbiting each other in a manner that suggested they were not physically connected. There was only a stylized resemblance to the alien vessels of the Resistance era. For purposes of comparison, a silhouette of the Corsarius appeared in the lower right corner. We were scarcely larger than the smallest of the alien’s components.

  “Are we sure it’s a mute?”

  Chase shook her head. “Damned if I know. Only thing I’m certain of is that it’s not ours. The destroyer was certainly a mute.” She pushed back from the pilot’s console, and swung to face me. “You really want to try running past that thing?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I don’t think we have any other option.”

  “Okay,” Chase said, loading instructions into the computers. “We’ll start to leave orbit in about fifty minutes. How close do you want to go?”

  I thought about it. “I’d like to stay out of firing range. Any idea what that might be?”

  “None.”

  “Okay, let’s try for a minimum of ten thousand kilometers. That should make for a tough shot, at least. And still give them a long turn.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Locked in. By the way, this thing’s really building up an operational power reserve. We’ve got enough juice to run a big interstellar. And it’s still climbing. I suspect, if it comes to a fight, we’ve got a substantial kick ourselves.”

  “It’s not going to blow up, is it?” I was thinking of the Regal.

  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  Minutes later, the engines of the Corsarius took hold. Chase looked up at me from the navigator’s console. “Historic moment, Alex. You want to execute?”

  “No,” I said. “Go ahead.”

  She smiled, and pressed the keys. I felt the ship move.

  “Once we leave orbit,” I said, “give us everything we’ve got. Full throttle.”

  “Alex,” she said, “the Corsarius can accelerate a lot faster than you and I can. We’ll move pretty quickly, but it’ll be well below what this ship can do.”

  The alien was getting bigger. It had begun to pulse with a soft blue-green glow, reminiscent of Christmas lights.

  “Operational power levels are still building,” Chase said. “I’ve never seen anything like it. This son of a bitch might actually have enough of a punch to knock that monster over. If we have to.”

  “I’d rather outrun it,” I said.

  We lifted out of orbit within the hour, and, with our prow turned toward the enemy—for that was certainly how we both thought about the other ship—we accelerated. Almost immediately, Chase reported that the other vessel had begun to change course. “To get closer,” she said.

  “Veer off. Try to keep that ten-thousand-kilometer range at closest approach.”

  “I’ll do what I can.” She looked grim. “But I wish to hell one or the other of us knew what we’re doing.”

  Chase was right: the pressure of constant acceleration wore us down. She looked exhausted after an hour, and I became acutely conscious of my heartbeat. We increased oxygen content, and that helped for a while.

  Meantime the distance between the two ships narrowed. “Coming fast,” Chase said.

  “They won’t shoot. The only reason they’re here is to salvage the Corsarius.”

  But I wasn’t really all that confident, and Chase knew it. So we waited, while the computers counted down the time.

  The alien’s components seemed to be moving within themselves: whirling lights and orbiting topological shapes. It looked ghostly, insubstantial. “Closest point of approach,” said Chase. “Mark.”

  The computer announced in a burgundy female voice: “They are tracking us for laser fire.”

  “Hang on, Chase.”

  “Goddam it, Alex, we forgot something—”

  She was interrupted by a blast. The ship lurched violently: metal tore, and something exploded. Klaxons howled and warning lights blinked on. Chase unleashed a series of expletives. “The magnets,” she said. “They just wiped us out, first punch.” She looked gloomily at me, and at the image of the alien as it reached maximum size, and began to diminish. Red lights across the status boards were switching to purple. “The ship’s sealing itself, but we’ve got problems.” She shut the alarms down.

  “What happened?” I asked. The pressure of acceleration had eased. Considerably.

&
nbsp; “That’s not my doing,” she explained. “They cut a hole in our propulsion system. And unless you’re an expert at repairing magnetic drive units, we’re going to be down to a slow walk.”

  “Well, we’ll keep moving at our current velocity, right?”

  “Actually, we’ll do a little better than that. But that isn’t very good, when the other guy keeps accelerating. What will happen now is that they’ll continue on, loop around the planet and come get us. Pretty much at their leisure. And what really irritates me is that it needn’t have happened!”

  “Why? What do you mean?”

  “The problem is neither of us knows anything about combat. We’ve got a shield. But we never activated it!”

  “Son of a bitch.”

  “Now you know why Gabe was bringing John Khyber along. The old naval systems expert. He damned well wouldn’t have overlooked anything so obvious!” Her eyes filled with tears. All we’d been through, and it was the first time I’d seen her so discouraged.

  “What about the stardrive? Any damage to that?”

  She took a deep breath and flicked switches. “Stardrive ignition is still no less than twenty-three hours away. But I’m damned if I can imagine what’s going to ignite. Son of a bitch, we had plenty of time. You know what we had up? Standard navigational meteor screens! We’re lucky we didn’t get nuked. Dumb!”

  “No point worrying about that now. How much time do we have before they catch us?”

  Chase tapped the computer. “About fourteen hours.” She slumped in her seat. “I think,” she said, “it’s time to run up a white flag.”

  She was right. The giant vessel swung round the world that had been Sim’s prison, and hurtled after us.

  We went into the after section and looked at the magnetics. Three of the series were fused. “It’s a wonder we’ve got any acceleration at all,” Chase said. “But it’s not going to be enough to make a difference.”

  We used our remaining time as prudently as we could. First thing we did was get an explanation from the computer on the ship’s system of shields. I would have liked to run a test, but I decided it might be a better idea not to let the mutes see it. Maybe they assumed it was no longer operational. After all, what other explanation could there be for not using it in a situation which so clearly called for defenses? Then, having assured ourselves, perhaps too late, that we would not stand completely naked to the bastards, we started to look to our firepower.

  While we watched them come, we studied schematics, and talked to computers. We learned details about a bewildering tangle of weapons systems, which were operated from four different consoles. And I began to understand why the frigates required an eight-man crew. “We couldn’t hope to fire more than one or two of these damned things,” complained Chase. “If we had more people, people who knew what they were doing, and everything worked, I think even now we could put up a decent fight.”

  “Computer,” I said; “can the mute detect our power build-up?”

  “Unknown.”

  “Can we read power levels on board their ship?”

  “Negative. We can detect external radiation only, and I can draw inferences from mass and maneuvering characteristics. But they would be estimates whose only real use would be to provide absolute minimum values.”

  “Then they can’t read ours?”

  “Unknown. We lack data on their technology.”

  “Alex, what are you getting at?”

  “I’m not sure. But I’d prefer they think we’re helpless.”

  “What’s the difference?” asked Chase. “Their screens are up. They’re assuming we’re dangerous.”

  “Computer, what can you tell us about enemy capabilities?”

  “Corsarius was struck by an enhanced laser of extremely narrow concentration. The energy required to produce the effect we witnessed, at their extreme range, implies power which exceeds ours by a multiple of at least six point five. Analysis of ECM and physical structure suggests the generation of a quasi-magnetic energy field for defensive, and perhaps offensive, purposes. Probably an amplified version of our own shields. We would be wise to assume considerable difficulty in penetrating defensive systems.

  “Propulsion appears to be standard. Armstrong symmetries are detectable in radiation pattern, as is a magnetic track of the type one would expect for a linear drive system—”

  And so on.

  For several hours, we continued to widen our lead over the mutes. But they were accelerating at a much higher rate than we were. And eventually, Chase informed me quietly that they had exceeded our speed, and were now beginning to close.

  Its blue-green lights grew brighter on the screens. And, as it drew near, it began to slow down, presumably to match our course and speed.

  We were both chilled by the precision of the long-range laser shot which had destroyed the engines, and neither of us held any illusions about the outcome should we be forced to fight.

  Nevertheless, we concentrated on our own weapons. We had nukes and accelerated particle beams and proton rams, and half a dozen other devices I’d never heard of. The most promising (which is to say the easiest to aim and fire) seemed to be a weapon that Chase referred to as the scattershot: a wide-band energy beam consisting of gantner photons, hot electrons, and a kind of “particle soup.” Its effect, according to the computers, was to destabilize matter at short range. “But you have to get in close,” the computer warned. “And you have to knock out the defensive systems first. It won’t give you any penetration at all of the shields.”

  “How do we do that?” asked Chase.

  The computer replied with a complex strategy requiring quick maneuvering and operators at three of the weapons consoles.

  “One console,” I said. “We can only man one. Or two if we dispense with the pilot.”

  “Why don’t we just give them the ship?” said Chase. I could see fear in her eyes, and I doubt that I was doing a good job hiding my own emotions. “That’s what they want, and it’s our best chance to get away from here with our heads.”

  “I don’t think,” I said, “that we should surrender the Corsarius. Under any conditions. Anyhow, you saw what they did to the Centaur. I don’t think we have any choice but to fight. Or run, if we can.”

  “It’s suicide,” she said.

  I couldn’t argue with that. Still, we had a hell of a ship. And they wanted it very badly. That might give us an advantage of sorts. “Computer, if the alien’s shield was down, what would be the logical target for the scattershot?”

  “I would recommend,” it said, “either the bridge or the power plant. I will inform you if I am able to locate them.”

  Chase looked out the viewport at the mute, whose shadow now filled the sky. “We might as well throw rocks,” she said.

  We shut down what was left of our magnetics, and coasted now at a constant speed. The alien settled into a parallel orbit, about a kilometer to starboard. Chase watched them a while, and then shook her head hopelessly. “They can’t see the capsule,” she said. “How about if we put a timer on one of the nukes, blow the ship to hell, and get out? We might still be able to make it back to the planet.”

  “You’d spend the rest of your life there if you did,” I said.

  “First things first.” She hunched her shoulders, and turned back to the screen. “I wonder what they’re waiting for.”

  “My guess is they’re trying to figure a way to get us out of here without damaging the ship. Maybe they’re waiting for the destroyer to come back. Where is it, by the way?”

  “Still headed out of town. I’d say another standard day and a half before they can even turn around. Anyway, what would they need a destroyer for?”

  She looked through a viewport at the giant ship floating off our beam.

  “Their shields are still up?”

  “Yes. This would be a good time for an idea.” Her face clouded. “I just had an uncomfortable thought. Can they read our minds from there?”

  �
�I don’t think so. They have to be reasonably close. A few meters, judging by my experience with them. And by the way, if they do get inside your head, you’ll know it.”

  “Unpleasant sons of bitches, aren’t they?” She tapped the keyboard. “Energy levels have finally stopped rising. I think we’re about as combat ready as we’re going to get. If any of this stuff still works.”

  “Assume everything’s fine. That’s what we’ll need to survive, so assume it. If there’s a problem somewhere, knowing about it in advance won’t help us any.”

  “So what do we do now?”

  “Wait,” I said. “Keep the scattershot primed. If we get a chance to use it, we’re going to shoot, and run like hell.”

  “Limp like hell,” she corrected.

  “Benedict.”

  The sound spilled out of the ship’s commsystem. “It’s coming from the mute,” said Chase.

  “Don’t acknowledge,” I said.

  “Alex.” The voice was warm, understanding, reasonable. And familiar. “Alex, are you all right? I’ve been worried about life support over there. Is there anything we can do?”

  It was S’Kalian. Defender of the peace. Idealist. Friend. “I’m sorry about the loss of the Centaur. The destroyer was only supposed to prevent anyone’s boarding the artifact.”

  “Stay on the trigger,” I told Chase.

  “What do I aim at?”

  “Pick your target,” I said.

  “Preferably toward the center,” said the computer. “Without specific knowledge, the most probable location of the power plant would be a centralized position within the configuration.”

  S’Kalian again: “Alex?”

  Chase nodded. “Locked in. Now’s your chance to ask him to take down the screens.”

  “Alex, you can hear me. We have an opportunity to settle this peacefully. There need be no bloodshed.”

  I opened a channel. His image appeared on one of the auxiliary monitors. He looked solicitous, compassionate. “You can’t have the Corsarius, S’Kalian.”

  “We already have it. Fortunately for both our peoples, we have it.”