by J. N. Chaney
“No shit.”
“Dash,” Leira shouted. “We’re out of control!”
“You don’t say. Hang on.”
The fragment of Dark Metal debris had begun a wild spin despite the Archetype and Swift holding on with their steely grips. As they began whirling faster, it was obvious that the solution to stabilizing the mass was too complex on short notice—there was only one fix.
“Leira, let go and break off,” Dash said, his voice level and cool.
“Dash, I’m not going to just leave you—”
“Yes you are. There’s too much drag from both mechs, we’re losing too much velocity. Let go. That’s an order.”
The Swift released the Dark Metal fragment and instantly vanished. Then it reappeared again, sweeping across the heads-up in a blur, before vanishing again. Dash focused on the attitude data. He needed to boost the fragment fast, but he had to do it in the right direction, or he’d just send it into an even more chaotic tumble or slow it down, instead—and it was already critically close to starting a long, inexorable fall into the brown dwarf.
“Sentinel, I need bursts of acceleration to match the tumble so we can speed this thing back up!”
“Understood. I am assuming control of the drive, while you direct the trajectory—”
“Yeah, good, just do it.”
Sentinel began pumping out powerful bursts from the Archetype’s drive, timed so that they coincided with the Dark Metal chunk’s forward trajectory. Dash grimly kept his eyes locked on the trajectory display.
The downward path of the fragment flattened out, then began to rise again. It was working, but not fast enough—any more interference from the brown giant’s roiling atmosphere could be disastrous. So Dash played a hunch.
“Next pass, Sentinel, give it everything you can.”
“Understood.”
The Dark Metal fragment, the Archetype still clinging to one end of it, spun wildly. As soon as the mech’s thrust was properly aligned, Sentinel poured on the power. The off-center mass made them tumble even harder and faster, but Dash was counting on that.
As soon as the thrust died again, Dash released the debris and swung it has hard as he could with the Archetype’s arms.
The mech was flung away from the Dark Metal, but as it receded, it imparted some of its own momentum to the debris. It gave it enough of a kick that the Archetype surged away from the brown giant’s turbulent depths. Dash fought to get the mech back under control, desperate to reacquire the fragment and accelerate it even more. But before he could, he heard a loud whoop.
“Yeehaw, here we go!” Amy shouted.
The Slipwing plunged into the upper atmosphere, dipping deep enough to get close to the debris and activate her magnetic drive. She staggered, bucking hard as the sudden addition of mass yanked at her, but then her fusion drive lit and she burned hard, dragging the Dark Metal higher and higher as she climbed back into a higher orbit. Dash could well imagine the cacophony of warnings blaring through his poor abused ship’s cockpit.
But it was enough. The Dark Metal fragment now had enough velocity to gain a high orbit over the brown dwarf, one distant enough from its churning atmosphere that they could boost it back to the Forge at their leisure.
Dash flew the Archetype up into the same orbit, let out the breath he’d been holding for who knew how long, and took stock. The Archetype had suffered moderate damage during her wrenching maneuvers in the big planet’s atmosphere, but nothing the self-repair systems couldn’t handle. Leira reported much the same for the Swift. As for the Slipwing, though—
“Do you want the damage list alphabetically, or chronologically?” Amy asked. “Either way, it’s a long one.”
“Plus, we took a damned high dose of radiation,” Viktor said. “If we didn’t have the med facilities aboard the Forge handy, I’d say that Amy, Wei-Ping, and I just lost a few years off our life expectancies.”
“Eh, you guys are just fussy old coots,” Wei-Ping put in. “We had everything under control.”
“I have to admit, that was some damned good flying,” Amy said. “You should’ve seen it, Dash! I don’t think Wei-Ping even broke a sweat. She just took us in, but we were coasting at first, and then—”
“I get it, Amy,” Dash said, giving the heads-up a tired smile. “Wei-Ping kicked ass.”
“Damned right I did,” the pirate replied.
“Anyway, you guys can tell me all the war stories you want when we get back to the Forge. Right now, let’s just get back to the Forge.”
Battered, but essentially intact, they started their flight back, the Slipwing pulling their hard-won Dark Metal behind.
20
Although he’d seen it going on many times now, watching the fabrication plant aboard the Forge work still held him in rapt fascination.
Articulated arms stretched, grabbed, and folded in perfect synchronization, lifting fragments of metallic debris into the great smelters, then plucking forged components out of molds and setting them into tractor fields that carried them away. Dark Metal had its own furnace, a device that combined heat, pressure, and a bunch of quantum effects Dash didn’t understand to liquify the stuff, allowing it to be molded separately. He could imagine the glowing metals—bright yellow-orange for most, but a striking, iridescent blue-green in the case of the Dark Metal—flowing through the conduits, shunted by massive valves from mold to mold. And all of it was happening autonomously.
Dash had a moment where he simply savored the grandeur of everything before him—a scene of such elegant power it made him stand still.
“Never gets old, does it?” Viktor asked, stepping up beside Dash on the balcony overlooking the fabrication plant.
“No, it doesn’t. Just too bad it’s all about making weapons,” Dash said. “I mean, imagine how this could be used for making—well, anything. Ship components. Prefab houses and buildings. Farm machinery.”
Viktor leaned on the railing and smiled at Dash. “You’re not really a man of war, are you?”
“Not really. I hate that I needed to arm the Slipwing, but—and all due respect to our allies, the Gentle Friends—you just can’t get away from violence from things like pirates, or at least the threat of it.” He sniffed and leaned on the railing beside Viktor. “And as for something like the Golden, well, I don’t think I could have even imagined that.”
“So we need to kick their asses for good. And then, we can turn all of this to peaceful purposes,” Viktor said. “It could end up being a renaissance for civilized space.”
“Yeah. Maybe.”
“You sound doubtful.”
Dash sniffed again. “I can’t help thinking that there are more than a few assholes out there that would love to keep these machines working to produce weapons, even long after the Golden are gone. I intend to stop that, no matter what.”
Viktor nodded, but said nothing else. For a few minutes, they just watched the intricate, mechanical choreography, then Dash straightened. “Anyway, we need to get to the War Room, I think. Everyone’ll be gathering there—” Dash stopped and turned to Viktor. “That is, if you’re feeling up to it.”
Viktor gave a weary smile. “Custodian informs me that I’ll be suffering fatigue from the radiation treatment for a couple of days. He couldn’t resist making a snide comment about my frail physiology at the same time.”
“Of course he couldn’t.”
“Anyway, I don’t think I can just sit that time out. The Golden, or Bright, or whoever’s coming, could very well be here by then.”
“Yeah, no rest for the weary, or anybody else,” Dash replied, clapping Viktor on the shoulder. “Let’s go do this war council, then I’ll buy you a drink. I understand Freya’s made something like whiskey.”
“Out of what?”
“Didn’t ask,” Dash said, as they headed for the nearest elevator. “Didn’t want to. As long as it’s drinkable, that’s good enough for us. We’re half pirate now.”
“So, the Forge is runnin
g flat out, making mines and the components for mine-laying drones,” Ragsdale said, winding up his report. “Custodian’s also come up with a plan for autonomous missile platforms. They’re quick and easy to build, and can just be loaded with missiles we already have in the station’s magazines. The clever part is the feed system. These things should be able to manage a pretty incredible rate of fire.”
Dash studied the holo-image projected in the middle of the War Room. It had changed to show a boxy construct consisting of missile bays and a drive. It had the advantage of requiring little, or even no Dark Metal. As long as any of these platforms remained in close proximity to one another, or even the Forge, they wouldn’t suffer from comm lag caused by distance.
“How easy are they to reload?” Dash asked. “Incredible rate of fire means they’ll end up empty incredibly fast. And it looks to me like they’d have to be brought back aboard the Forge and reloaded manually.”
“That is a limitation of the design,” Custodian replied. “The only way to avoid that would be to construct the platforms so they can fabricate their own missiles, but that would greatly increase their complexity, as well necessitate ensuring they have the requisite raw materials.”
“We could also just make them bigger so they hold more missiles,” Leira said, but Conover, who’d been walking around the design schematic and studying it, shook his head.
“I don’t think they can be enlarged much more. More mass means a more powerful drive, and that’s going to make them more complicated and harder to make, too.”
“So turn them into suicide weapons,” Benzel offered. When everyone turned to look at him, eyebrows raised, he went on. “Seriously. Once they’re empty of missiles, have them use their drives to attack whatever enemy is nearest. Build a big warhead into them. Basically, just make them into big missiles themselves.”
Dash looked back at the schematic. “So make them disposable.”
“Yeah, why not?”
“Custodian, what do you think?” Dash asked.
“It seems like a reasonable strategy. If there is no Dark Metal used in their construction, then the platforms actually are effectively disposable.”
“Great. We stick a big warhead in them like Benzel suggested, and we’re good,” Dash said. He looked at the rest of them. “So all we need to do now is figure out how best to use all of these new toys.”
Conover stepped forward and waved away the missile platform schematics. “Sentinel, can you show that minefield plan we’ve been working on?”
A new image appeared, one depicting a series of minefields as stippled volumes of space sprawled among the various bodies making up the Forge’s system.
“This is what we propose for the initial deployment of mines,” Conover said. “These will interdict the most dangerous approaches, from the closest translation points to the Forge. As we make more mines, we can fill in more fields.” As he spoke, more stippled areas appeared, with time indexes showing how long it would take to deploy each. “According to Custodian, we can begin laying these mines in about three days. That’s when the first of the minelaying drones will be ready to fly.”
Dash crossed his arms. “Let’s hope the Golden decide to wait a few more days to attack us then. Now, how about these new missile platforms? How long until we can have those deployed?”
“The missile platforms require minimal resources and construction time, as they can be loaded with missiles already in the Forge’s inventory. If construction begins immediately, it should be possible to begin deploying them in one day.”
Dash blinked. He’d expected another wait of several days. He wasn’t used to relatively good news. “Oh. Okay. Well, go ahead, start building them—right now.” Dash tapped his chin. “Now, we just have to figure out the best way to deploy these things.”
“I have a suggestion,” Benzel said.
Dash turned, along with the others.
Benzel leaned forward. “My poor Snow Leopard has been left way back in the interplanetary dust by all of—” He grinned and swept his arms around. “Well, all this! But I think we might have a way of using her that you’ll find really useful.”
Dash raised his eyebrows. “We’re all ears.”
“See, one of the ways we, let’s say, convince other ships to let their guard down is by seeming to be in distress.” He raised a hand. “I know, I know—it’s a rotten thing to do. But, hey, that’s all behind us now. The Gentle Friends are out of the privateering business.”
Wei-Ping gave him a sudden hard look. “We are? But you said—”
“That we’re out of the privateering business, that’s right, Wei-Ping,” Benzel said, his broad smile not wavering. “Anyway, the Snow Leopard has aboard her a transponder system that will simulate everything you’d expect from a damaged ship on scans—radiation leaks, vented plasma and atmosphere, even debris. Now, from what you’ve told me about these Golden, they seem like the type of assholes that might just want to pounce on something like that.”
“One damaged ship, drifting near the Forge?” Viktor asked. “That’s going to look pretty obvious. I don’t think the Golden are quite that gullible.”
Dash nodded. “No, not if it’s near the Forge. But suppose it was out there, drifting among the debris from our fight against the Bright? It could look like a crippled ship from the battle. Then, if we hide some of these missile platforms among the debris nearby, we’ve got a nice little trap in the making.”
“Do you really think the Golden will fall for that, Dash?” Viktor asked.
Dash shrugged. “Don’t know. Does it matter, though? At worst, they ignore it. At best, it lures them in. Either way, it gives them something else to have to think about. If we’re really clever about how we set it up, we might even be able to coax at least some Golden into a disadvantageous position. Anything could help.”
Viktor frowned, but then nodded. “All good points.”
“Go ahead and work with Custodian to set that up,” Dash said to Benzel.
The supposedly former privateer gave an enthusiastic nod of his own. “You got it, chief.”
“Okay, so that takes care of the mines, the missile platforms, and the Snow Leopard,” Dash said. “Unless you guys have any more surprise weapons and the like to spring on us?”
He looked around, but just got head shakes. Custodian and the other AIs likewise remained silent.
“All right,” Dash said. “So the Forge, the Archetype, and the Swift will do what they do best: kick Golden ass. Amy, we’ll keep the Slipwing in reserve. She’s not really up to fighting the Golden, but if they bring along friends like the Bright or Clan Shirna, her firepower could definitely come in handy.”
“Sounds good, Dash,” Amy said. “I’d love to shoot me up some bad guys.”
“As long as you’re shooting up bad guys you can actually hurt, that’s great.” Dash turned to the assembly at-large. “So that leaves one big question.”
“The Silent Fleet,” Leira said.
Dash nodded. “I’ve been talking to Sentinel about it. All fourteen of those ships can be slaved into a single network. That means that, in theory, anyway, they could all be controlled centrally, by a single AI, say.”
Benzel leaned back in his seat. He wasn’t grinning anymore. “I thought that’s what you brought us along for. To fly and fight those ships. You saying you don’t need us to do that anymore?”
“Or that we’re just going to, what, basic crew, swabbing decks and patching leaks?” Wei-Ping added, her voice hard.
Dash held up a hand. “I said we could do that. But we’re not going to. Sentinel, tell them why.”
“Having worked extensively with the Messenger for some time now, I have observed that he is unpredictable, inconsistent, draws on past experiences that have no discernible relevance to the current situation, makes up and then changes plans essentially in the moment on the basis of woefully incomplete information, and assumes risks that often border on, and sometimes cross into irrationality.”
Dash grinned and shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a complicated guy.”
“Insofar as I find it difficult to assign better than even a fifty percent probability to any course of action you’re likely to choose, you are, indeed, complicated,” Sentinel agreed.
Despite the earlier tension, Benzel had started smiling again. “I get the sense from Sentinel that I should be finding all of this just terrible, and that you’re a terrible person because of it. But—hell, those all sound like damned fine qualities to me.”
“Oh, if you want a list of things to dislike about Dash, I can give you one,” Leira said.
“Alphabetically or chronologically.” Amy said.
“I love you guys, too,” Dash said, wearing a lopsided grin. “Anyway, Sentinel, you were saying?”
“I do, indeed, consider all of those qualities undesirable,” Sentinel said. “They are, in every meaningful respect, flaws. Moreover, you, Benzel, and the Gentle Friends all display similar qualities. In some ways, in fact, you are even worse.”
“She’s talking about you throwing yourselves into space after that hunk of Dark Metal,” Viktor said.
“This coming from the man who turned the Catch into a big net,” Benzel shot back. “But, okay, we’re irrational, unpredictable, risk-taking idiots.”
“Tell us something we don’t know,” Wei-Ping muttered.
Benzel laughed at her, then turned back to Dash. “What’s the point of all this?”
“Sentinel?” Dash said.
“By any reasonable calculation of probability, allowing the Gentle Friends to operate the Silent Fleet independently is an unwarranted risk. It makes no sense and is, frankly, a bad idea. The logical course of action is to give Custodian, Tybalt, myself, or some combination of us control over it.”
Benzel opened his mouth, but Dash raised a hand again. “Let her finish.”
“I am, nonetheless, in agreement that the best course of action is to give the Gentle Friends full and autonomous control over the Silent Fleet.”
Benzel stared, then shook his head, a puzzled frown tightening his face. “Wait. You just said the best thing was for you to control that fleet.”
