Till the Conflict Is Over

by Michael A. Hooten

  A short man with a well-trimmed beard and gold oak leaves on his collar turned and sighed. “Can it possibly wait?”

  “What time frame are we talking?”

  Suppo looked around at the scene. “Give me an hour. We've got most of it in hand, but there's the question of complicity.”

  The XO's eyes narrowed. “More people are involved?”

  Ltcmdr Clark shrugged. “That's what we don't know.” He jerked his thumb at the guy in the zip ties. “Chatty Cathy over there keeps saying so, but won’t tell us who, or how.”

  “I see.” Cmdr Tatum marched over to the helpless petty officer and leaned close to his ear. No one heard what he said, but the guys eyes widened, and he shook his head, then nodded, then shook his head again, looking dejectedly at the deck.

  The XO came back over. “I think he's good now. His collaborators were just the people who purchased from him, which he seemed to think was equal to what he did. I assured him that they would get their punishment, but that they would likely stay in the Navy, whereas if he did, it was only going to be in the brig.”

  Clark ran his hand over his head. “I wondered, but I was having trouble getting him to be straight with me. Thank you, sir.”

  “Thank you, Suppo. I'm glad you caught this guy.”

  Ltcmdr Clark shrugged. “Wasn't really me. SK3 Harris was the one who voiced his suspicions, and then brought me evidence. I just followed up and provided him support.”

  “My thanks to him, then.” He looked around. “When will I get the full report?”

  “Tomorrow afternoon, sir.”

  “Very good.” He turned to leave, but I cleared my throat. “Yes Wright?”

  “My part, sir? The aft radar needs it for full capacity.”

  “Oh, of course. Suppo?”

  Clark already had his tablet out. He swiped a couple of times and said, “Let me pull it. Give me a sec.”

  He disappeared for a moment, and then came back with a cardboard box. he scanned my tags, scanned the barcode on the side, had me sign his tablet, and then, finally, I could get the hell out of there.

  I got the regulator back in, got green lights on my system, and everything looked to be back to normal, at least in my world. But I saw Harris a couple of days later, and that's when he introduced me to his Highness.

  “It was Mong,” he said when I asked him what had happened.

  “Mong?”

  “Yep.” He leaned forward. “Emperor Mong was the one who whispered to Benny, 'Hey, wouldn't it be easy to sneak a bunch of booze on board?' And then when Benny did without so much as a sideways glance, that bastard Mong returned and said, 'Hey, you've got so much, you could probably make a little side business from selling to your thirsty shipmates.' And Benny was stupid enough to believe him.”

  I shook my head. “And when Benny got busted...”

  Harris sat back. “Mong had moved on to some other poor squid, who hopefully is assigned to another command.”

  “One can only hope.”

  Harris nodded sagely. “Beware the Emperor Mong. He's always so reasonable until the shit hits the fan, and then he's nowhere to be found.”

  After that, I saw that evil emperor all over. He encouraged Volley to prank Dilly by filling his coffee pouch with decaf, and he convinced a guy in engineering to skip tagging out a generator—then convinced his buddy to come and distract him, while someone else flipped the switch to get his fan back on. His majesty probably giggled like a loon when the stupid deck ape stuck his fingers into a live circuit. Good thing it was only 120 AC; he did become the poster boy for following safety regs, however.

  Yep, Emperor Mong has plagued every military since two tribes first fought over who got dibs on the woolly mammoth carcass. And he will probably be with the first crew that steps foot in a new galaxy. He's that kind of guy.

  Chapter 9

  We were in our home port when Port Jackson got hit. I was talking to Katy in the comms center, when klaxons began going off all over the place, and the line went dead. A message appeared instructing everyone to go to their emergency stations, which I guessed was back to the Niagara for me. I ran out of there with a dozen other guys, fighting through crowds that seemed determined to go the other way. My tablet was buzzing, and when I glanced at it, it confirmed my hunch: all personnel were to report back to the ship. She was going to cast off ASAP.

  Once we got to our GQ stations and most everyone was accounted for (we had a couple that couldn’t get back, but it wasn’t anyone in weapons), we got underway, and got some more information.

  The miners had decided to be more aggressive and Port Jackson had been their first target, to prove that they were serious. Ironically, half the crew cheered their decision; squids hated that base. But still, they had destroyed, or at least seriously disabled, a major space station. And we didn’t know how.

  Our nice, quiet, boring patrol area had suddenly become a hot zone.

  They had us working around the clock trying to detect the miner’s weapons, but we didn't even know what we were looking for. So we headed for Port Jackson, to see what we could see, and maybe rescue any survivors.

  You want to know stress? How about a month long voyage towards a known enemy action, when you didn't even know what you were looking for? Calling us nervous wrecks would have been giving us too much credit. We passed that threshold in the first two days.

  At the same time, it was the normal stuff: watch, sleep, chow. Lather, rinse, repeat. There is a routine to being underway, and though we never forgot why our liberty had been cut short, it was like a headache that still hurt even when you got distracted by other things. And then you’d have a few minutes to just sit, and all the anxiety would come rushing back.

  Yeah, it was a rough month.

  We did get some good news about halfway to the L4 point. CIC was buzzing with it when I came on watch at 1945. “We know what kind of propulsion they’re using,” Volley told me when I relieved him.

  “Yeah? What is it?”

  “Ion jets.” I must have looked confused because he said, “C’mon, you know. Like they use on the deep space probes.”

  Realization came like a solar flare, roaring up from nothing. “So the energy signature is smaller than we expected.”

  “Yep, but it can be calibrated for.” He grinned even wider.

  I pressed my temples with both palms. “So we’ve got to figure out how detect such a tiny signal.”

  “You, me, and every other fire controlman in the navy,” Volley said. “And you’ll never guess who figured it out.”

  “Who?”

  “Port Jackson, before they got hit.”

  “No shit?”

  Volley shrugged. “The whole station is essentially an observatory and scientific outpost, and they are always streaming their stuff out to the whole damn solar system. They tagged an anomaly, tracked it right up to the point they got nailed, and someone in some think tank somewhere realized what it meant. Tons of ion engines, all moving in steadily for the kill.”

  I whistled. “What happened to the... whatever it is.”

  “No clue,” Volley said. “But we're going to find out, one way or another.”

  I can tell you this much, it helped shift our attitude, at least in weapons. We had something to look for, even if we still weren't quite sure what it might be attached to. Some of the other divisions... well, I saw Suppo Clark on more than one occasion walking down a passage staring at his tablet and oblivious to the people around him to the point that people bounced off him regularly, and yet he barely broke his stride. He would just mumble an apology and continue on. I'm not sure how he made it over the knee knockers.

  All the while, we sped towards Port Jackson. Two civilian supply ships reached them before we did and managed to rescue almost a hundred people. But we looked at the images they sent out, and it made me shake. Thousands of holes, though they looked clean, so the best guess was armor piercing rounds only. But they had targeted the main reactor and the com
mand center, so evidently they had learned from Juno, just different lessons than we had. And still no one had found the spacecraft responsible.

  It turned out that Port Washington solved the riddle of detecting the ion engines before anyone else, but what they found only upped our stress levels. Over two thousand targets appeared on the main screen in CIC, nearly fifty million nautical miles behind us. We had passed them over a week before, and not noticed. Thankfully, they had not been targeting us, because we would have never understood what killed us any more than Port Jackson.

  A few civilian ships passed close enough that we got a visual, and I almost had a panic attack: they looked a lot like the mines that had destroyed the battle fleet at Juno. But these were somewhat bigger, chunks of rock around ten meters across, with an engine on one side and a gun barrel on the other. Panning out, it looked like a slow-moving cloud of debris. And I'm sure that's exactly what others had seen as the deadly rocks moved though the solar system. There are lots of them out there, but no one just assumes that they're benign anymore.

  We turned around and headed towards Earth. Once we had our sensors calibrated, we could track the bastards in closer to real time, and the cloud on the big screen sprouted motion vectors, all pointing towards Port Washington. The vectors were short, but not short enough. They would reach the base a week before we did.

  Every day at every chow, the gunners and the fire controlmen would sit together and talk about what to do about the swarm. It seemed like a natural name for the weapon cloud, and I soon heard it being used all over the ship, but I don't remember who said it first. What I remember is sitting at breakfast with three gunners, Owens, and FC1 Edwards from the computer center.

  “You know,” Gunny Bob said as he chewed his bacon, “I bet a Pulverizer could take out hundreds of those at once.”

  “No way,” Edwards said. “You've got to get in close, shoot 'em down one by one.”

  “Yeah, right,” GM2 Ashton said. “Like they won't shoot back.”

  “Well, we do have shields,” Owens said.

  “Not strong enough to deflect thousands of inbounds,” GM2 Thomas said.

  “Yeah, if Port Jackson couldn't, neither will we,” Gunny Bob said.

  I said, “How does the Pulverizer work exactly?”

  “Plasma shock wave,” Gunny Tom said. “Acts like a ten-ton hammer on everything within I don't know how many kilometers—”

  “About a hundred,” Ash said helpfully.

  “Okay, about a hundred clicks,” Gunny Tom said. “Not something you want to set off accidently in your tubes.”

  “So why can't we just fire one from here?” I asked.

  “Not enough range,” Ash said. “They're just a special warhead on a standard medium range missile, and yeah, they could go forever until they hit something, theoretically, but what really happens is they self-destruct if they lose comms with the ship.”

  “You don't want unexploded ordinance just drifting around out here,” Edwards said.

  “Duh,” Owens said. “We're not idiots, you know.”

  “It's more than that even,” Gunny Bob said. “These missiles have some serious maneuverability. It's not normally used for a Pulverizer, but it could be, giving it a better chance of hitting the target. But only if we're in range.”

  “And when will that happen?” I asked.

  Ash just shook his head. “Two days after the Swarm reaches Port Washington.”

  ***

  But despite the fact that we still couldn't save the base, Gunny Bob's idea got a lot of traction in our division. The gunners ran the numbers constantly, talked about how they could modify the missile range, the comms, or the warhead. The limits seemed pretty hard coded in the hardware, however, and we couldn’t come up with any good solutions. It all came down to getting the swarm to pause, and no one could figure out how to do that. Well, no one but me, but what I came up with I couldn’t even say out loud.

  We had a big meeting not long afterwards. The swarm only had about week before it got to Port Washington, and the captain got the whole of Weapons Division in the wardroom, along with all the line officers. “We're going to get Space Command on the horn here pretty soon, but I wanted to see if anyone had anything to offer them other the fact the Port Washington is fucked.” He rubbed his temples for moment, then looked around at each of us. “Let's go. Everyone is free to talk. Ensign, you can start, but if you have something, anything, don't hesitate to speak up. I want ideas, answers... whatever you've got.”

  “Sir,” Ensign Burrows said. “We've got a few ideas. If we can close the range, I think one of the Pulverizers might be able to take out a bunch at once.”

  “Explain.”

  And I heard Burrows give almost a word for word quote of what Gunny Bob had told us. The captain listened, nodding, and said, “Sounds good. But how do we get within range to try it?”

  And the room turned to stone. No one had an answer for that, and we could see the plot on the screen behind him. The swarm hadn't slowed a speck and would still get to Port Washington before we got to it. I still had my idea, and still didn't want to say it.

  Gunny Bob cleared his throat. “Doesn't Port Washington have some defenses?”

  “Missiles,” the captain said. “About a thousand of 'em, but Pulverizers? Who knows. I kind of doubt it, since they have some pretty strong shields. Asteroid busters are put on ships that might encounter large unexpected rocks unexpectedly.”

  “No rail guns, sir?” asked Gunny Tom.

  “Nope,” the captain said sighing. “They pulled those off years ago. Considered non-essential for expected threats.”

  “And the bastards hit us with the unexpected,” Chief Hammerdale said. “Fuck 'em all.”

  “I think they're going to do that to us, first.” The captain rubbed his eyes. “Well, let's patch in the brass and see if they've got any bright ideas.”

  The plot on the screen disappeared, replaced by a dozen new frames, two of them looking much like our wardroom, though without the non-comms. The top center face was one I knew well, and he also spoke first. “Any news, gentlemen?” Admiral Duffy said.

  Captain Butler spent a few minutes explaining the idea of using an asteroid busting missile on the swarm. I noticed he didn't give credit to Burrows any more than Burrows had given it to Gunny Bob. And he said, “The problem is that the swarm will reach Port Washington before we reach them.”

  “Any Pulverizers Admiral Venn?”

  Port Washington's CO was scanning a different screen. “Doesn’t look like it, sir. We haven't had a problem with rogue rocks in a couple of decades. At least, that's the last time we had any according to stores.”

  “Any other ships with Pulverizers that might be able to intercept them?” Admiral Duffy said. “Admiral Ramsey?”

  Another admiral two squares away said, “I'm checking, sir, but it looks like the Niagra is the closest.”

  A marine general in another square said, “Is there any way to distract the swarm?”

  That set off a big conversation all around, and ideas got tossed out, but everything seemed to involve sacrificing other ships, non-warships, to save the port. It made my stomach sink even further, since what I had in mind was basically the same thing, only with my ship, my shipmates—and me.

  When everyone has run out of steam, Admiral Duffy said, “Well, it looks like we're up shit creek no matter what. Thank you, gentlemen—”

  “Excuse me, Admiral Duffy?” I said, trying not to let my voice crack.

  All the officers in the room looked at me with shock or horror. The enlisted guys looked at me with pity or amusement.

  “Yes?” Admiral Duffy said. “Who is that? I can't really make you out on my screen.”

  I stood up. “It's FC2 Wright, sir. And I have an idea.”

  Recognition dawned, and I could see the same understanding in his eyes that I felt in my heart. “What do you propose, son?”

  “A long shot, sir, but we don't seem to have any o
thers.”

  Admiral Duffy tapped his desk impatiently. “We don't have the luxury of ignoring long shots. Spit it out.”

  “Yes sir.” I took a deep breath. “What if the miners found out that I was on board?”

  The marine general laughed. “Who are you that they would give a flying fuck?”

  I just stood there, not sure what I should say, or how. The admiral that had checked on the ships was the one that saved me. “He's the man that killed Juno, General Tanner.”

  Understanding dawned all over the screen, and in the wardroom... well, they got it, too. Along with what I was actually proposing.

  General Tanner stroked his chin. “You think they'd try and destroy you over destroying the port?”

  Admiral Duffy barked a laugh. “I think he thinks they can do both. What's the next closest warship?”

  “The Sioux Falls,” Admiral Ramsey said. “Six days further away than the Niagra and coming from almost the opposite vector. But even if the swarm would pause for a few days, she might get close enough to help Port Washington.”

  “And I'm right on the Sioux Falls' ass,” another captain said. “We might be able to get a bit more acceleration from our engines and get there about the same time.”

  “Thank you, Captain Smith,” Admiral Duffy said. “That would give us two warships with Pulverizers at least in Port Washington's sphere of influence, where they could help if nothing else...”

  The conversation moved on, and I sat down. I felt a bit light headed, and the cold sweat on my forehead didn't help.

  The meeting wound down, and the brass signed off, but Captain Butler didn't dismiss us. Instead, he looked right at me and said, “You'd better hope the miners really hate you.”

  And Ensign Burrows added, “You'd also better hope Gunny Bob's idea works.”

  Well, at least Gunny was getting credit again.

  Chapter 10

  Things changed a lot for me after that. I knew I wasn't any different than before, but everyone else sure acted as though I had changed. Some admired me, some thanked me, but plenty cursed me and my name. After all, I had basically started us on a suicide mission.