For Honor We Stand (Man of War Book 2)

by H. Paul Honsinger

  “This isn’t like the old Mark XXIV system, where you had to supply the number of contacts. The system solves by iterative calculation and finds a number of contacts that fit the data. The operator inputs are really too easy to screw up, sir, even by someone as green as me.”

  “I just ran a few system checks and everything checked out,” Max said. “You guys did too, right?” Both Greenlee and Klesh said they did. “Is this system capable of generating its own visual plot of the contact in addition to feeding the plotted coordinates to Tactical?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Greenlee. “We don’t use the routine much, though. The Tactical display has a lot more capabilities.”

  “I understand. Pull it up anyway. It might give us a better idea of what the system is doing and why the interpretation algorithm is so confused.”

  Greenlee keyed in a few commands and the main 3D plotting display in the back room and the secondary tactical display in CIC went dark. After a few seconds, they started to display the new data. First came the plotting grid, faint blue lines dividing the cube into hundreds of smaller cubes. Then came the blue dot in the center of the plot, representing the Cumberland. Finally, the system projected a fuzzy green dot representing the contact.

  “Mr. Greenlee, why is the system projecting the target as being indistinct or fuzzy?” asked Max.

  “Sir, the system’s projection is a probability determination,” Greenlee answered. “The target is somewhere in that area, with the area of highest probability in the darkest green and fading out as the probability decreases near the edges of the area.”

  “Very good. Now, let’s see it at larger scale. Don’t worry about keeping the Cumberland in the projection. The folks in Navigation have a general idea where we are.” That got a few chuckles. Even though the ship was travelling at high multiples of lightspeed through the vastness of interstellar space, the “folks in Navigation” prided themselves in knowing the Cumberland’s location within a few meters.

  The scale changed and now the target projection occupied a blurry sphere about two centimeters in diameter. Klesh glanced at the display without much interest and then turned back quickly. He stood and walked over to the display. Max in CIC was looking at it intently as well.

  “That’s odd,” said Klesh.

  “It sure is,” said Max.

  “It’s not supposed to be that indistinct,” observed Greenlee.

  “Wait a minute,” said Max excitedly, “that projection’s not a sphere. It’s elongated—along the x axis. It’s an ellipsoid. No target projection is supposed to be an ellipsoid. Unless…”

  “But sir,” Greenlee said, “the computer is trying to solve for one target, two targets, and for more than two, but still can’t get a valid solution.”

  Suddenly, an idea hit Max. Could it be that simple? “Gentlemen, when we ran our tests on the data transmission path, did you do what I did and test only for signal strength?” Max asked.

  They both said they had. It was, after all, the standard procedure.

  “How about if we test for signal resolution?” said Max. “I know that there isn’t a common fault that affects the res, but what if we’re getting garbage out of the computer because the data for two targets is getting blurred together into the data for one, but the computer is too smart to assume that one superluminal spacecraft is more than a hundred kilometers wide or is zigzagging back and forth across that distance on a microsecond time scale? Initiate a high-resolution multitarget test signal right where the signal comes into the ship from the sensor array, and read it at every signal node.”

  Greenlee looked at Klesh anxiously. The older noncom sat down beside the young man and smiled. “Not something we do every day. Let me show you how.” The test took about a minute and a half of rapid keystrokes to set up. “All right. Let’s let ’er rip.”

  A green box labeled INITIATE TEST was flashing on the display. Klesh touched it decisively. A few seconds later, he chuckled. “Lookee here what I found.” His display was showing a schematic of the sensor signal path from its beginning in the sensor array to its end in the main sensor data processer. One spot was blinking orange.

  “It’s the signal conditioning processor,” he said, his voice conveying both relief and irritation. “It takes the initial data stream from the array, amplifies it to something strong enough to be sent through the ship’s systems without being corrupted, strips out the noise and artifacts, and then sends it down the line. It’s got some minor fault that’s causing it to blur or degrade the signal. That box is deeply buried in the bowels of the ship, though. It takes a few hours to swap out.”

  “I don’t have a few hours, Chief. I need reliable contact data right now.” Max was the captain. Making impossible demands went with the job.

  “Well…” The chief pondered the problem. “Skipper, the unit has an auxiliary setting where it runs on a backup processor—it’s not as sensitive as the main, but we’ve got a strong contact here, so it should read it just fine. Normally, it switches over only when the main fails, but I think there’s a way to send a manual command that will make the box disregard the main and run on the auxiliary until we can get it swapped out.”

  A broad smile spread over Max’s face. “Try SCE to AUX.”

  Klesh and Greenlee looked at each other blankly. “Um, sir, that’s not a valid command.”

  “It used to be, gentlemen. This just reminded me of something from Jurassic Space. Just keep doing what you’re doing, Chief.”

  “I think I’ve got it, Skipper. I just sent what should be a valid command to switch to the auxiliary processor. Let’s give the system a few seconds with a cleaner data stream.”

  Max turned his attention from the 3D display back to the Sensors console’s SSR ATTN data channel that he had earlier pulled up for display on his own console. In a few seconds, the nonsensical conclusions reached by the computer resolved into usable data. Yep. Two contacts. Solid bearings, ranges, speeds.

  “Contact!” said Hobbs, nearly shouting. Max turned to him sharply and made a downward patting motion with his right hand to signal him to lower his voice. Hobbs got the point, rattling off his designation of the contacts as Uniform One and Uniform Two, their speeds, bearings, and ranges, in something approaching a normal tone of voice.

  “Maneuvering, get us back on our former course and speed. Match our former course track exactly and put us at the point in space where we would be if we had not changed course. As fast as possible without compromising stealth.” Lugatsch acknowledged the order.

  “Hobbs, keep a close eye on those two contacts. Don’t blink. Don’t even fantasize about blinking. If they so much as swerve to run over a rattlesnake, I want to know. Understood?”

  “Understood.” Max could hear the compression drive increasing the ship’s speed and the cooling system for the fusion reactor working harder as the power plant increased its output to supply the staggering amount of energy needed to trick the space–time continuum into propelling the ship at more than two thousand times the speed of light. About ten minutes later, he heard the notes of both power plant and cooling plant drop as the speed dropped to 1960 c. Lugatsch announced that the ship was back on its former track at its former speed, where it would have been had nothing happened.

  Max asked the mid stationed in CIC to assist the captain to get him some coffee, pointed at the pot, and raised an inquiring eyebrow at Levy, who nodded. Getting coffee was part of the job description, and the boy who happened to have that duty for this watch—a nine-year-old named Gilbertson, one of the second or third youngest class of squeakers—almost skipped over to the coffeepot to fetch for both officers. Oh, to have that kind of energy at about one in the morning.

  While he was doing that, Max punched in the voice loop for the Sensors back room. The USS Cumberland College of Advanced Space Warfare and Keeping Your Ass from Being Nuked by Some Rat-Faced Krag Bastard was no
w, once again, in session.

  “Gentlemen, this is the skipper. I want to thank you for your hard work just now. I know that because of the new training schedule, you are short a few people who might have made things run a little smoother, and I understand that. I’m on your loop to remind you that just because you are constantly hearing that Mr. Krag doesn’t do very well at thinking outside the box is no excuse to keep your thinking inside the box.

  “Why? Because we’re talking two different boxes, people. Don’t make limiting assumptions. Always know what your assumptions are and if, when you apply them, you turn up nonsense, go back to them and try a different set. Never assume that your equipment is working properly until you have tested for and eliminated every conceivable malfunction. Keep trying until you get something that explains the data. Men, never forget, the job of the Sensors section is to find truthful interpretations that fit the sensor data, not to find data that fit your interpretations. It’s likely to be an exciting watch, folks, so stay alert. Keep your eyes peeled and your minds open. Skipper out.”

  The coffee arrived. Both men took a few sips.

  School wasn’t over. He had dismissed the big lecture class of freshmen and sophomores. Now for the senior seminar. “Well, Mr. Levy, a good weapons officer doesn’t have his head stuck in the Fire Control console. He needs to know something about what is going on with the targets he’s shooting at. So what’s going on here?” Seeing a bit of a blank look, Max prompted, “Start with the basics and work up from there.”

  Max could almost hear him gulp. “Well, sir, there are two targets, Uniform One and Uniform Two, currently unidentified. Uniform One is right on our six, matching our velocity at 1960 c at a range of 1.116 AU. Uniform Two is 272 kills off his port beam. I don’t think they know we’ve spotted them back there.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “We just got an upgrade to our local compression detection system. That gave us about a 40 percent increase in its range. As far as we can tell, the Krag are still at their old level of technology. There’s no way they just blundered into us way out here in interstellar space dozens of light years from the FEBA. The only theory that makes sense is that they somehow knew we were coming through, lay in wait along our flight path, picked us up, and then fell in behind us, beyond what they thought was our detection radius. When we did our localization maneuver, we never entered their detection radius, so they should be ignorant of what we did. They aren’t really interested in tracking us. They’re acting like they know where we’re going. They just want to get there right behind us.”

  “Exactly what I had concluded. All right. Now, who are they?”

  “Well, sir, we’ve got to presume they’re Krag.”

  “Can we do more than that? Do we have any evidence of who they are?”

  “No, sir. At this range and at superluminal velocities, all we can do is to detect bearing, range, and speed. We don’t have any of the phenomenologies that give us an identification.”

  “Don’t we? What’s the range to Uniform One again?”

  “One-point-one-one-six AU.”

  “Anything about that number sound familiar to you?”

  “Come to think of it, it does ring a bell, but I can’t remember what it is.”

  “That’s because the contexts are too different for your brain to make the connection easily. Fortunately, you’ve got a memory aid.” He pointed at the keyboard.

  “Riiiiight. Sir.” Levy typed in a query, asking the computer to find other distances, ranges, and sizes that were 1.116 AU. There were fourteen matches. He started down the list: the mean diameter of the Hoffman Nebula, the periastron of a periodic comet in the Alphacen system, the length of the first experimental compression drive flight undertaken by the Pfelung, and…“That’s the mean distance of the Krag homeworld from their sun. It’s basically their AU.”

  “You got it. That’s a nice comfy distance for them. When they want to stand off a safe distance from something, that’s a distance they often pick. Not always, not even most of the time, but often enough that when you see something at that range you know it’s a Krag ship. In some ways, they’re a lot like us. Haven’t you heard skippers say, ‘Maneuvering, put us one AU behind Hotel Three’—things like that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And there’s a clincher. What’s the range between the two ships?”

  “It’s 272—no, 273 kills.”

  “No. The exact distance. Take it to two decimal points. I’m betting that it’s exactly 272.53 kills.”

  Levy input the query. “That’s right, sir. How did you know?”

  “The fundamental Krag unit of linear measurement is .27253 meters. I think it was the length of the first Hegemon’s foot, or something like that. Lots of the things they do come out to a nice round power of ten of that distance. Like the maximum range of their Foxhound missile, which is…?”

  “It’s 27,253 kills. I get it.”

  “Again, they’re a lot like us that way. Can’t you just hear the big cheese back there telling the smaller cheese, ‘Position yourself a thousand Kragometers,’ or whatever they call their unit, ‘off my port beam’? That’s just the sort of thing we’d do. That’s why I often give orders to stand off at odd ranges.”

  “So, sir, that pretty much makes them Krag.”

  “I wouldn’t bet against it, Levy. Not even if I were betting with your money. Now, let’s get a little speculative. What does that mean for us?”

  “Well, Skipper, I suppose it would have to mean that the Krag had in their possession sufficient information for an intercept.”

  “Which is?”

  “It’s what you need to determine a velocity vector in time and space. Departure point, departure time, either course or destination, and speed.”

  “Right, Levy. Now, if they had our departure point and time, course or destination, and speed, what does that imply?”

  “There has to be some sort of leak, or spy, or Krag ability to intercept and decrypt at least certain critical tactical communications, or they somehow observed our departure.”

  “Observation wouldn’t have helped them. You weren’t on watch, so you wouldn’t know this. I departed the system nearly 90 degrees off the lubber line on two axes and ran at 1580 c for an hour and a half, then turned toward the rendezvous point and increased speed to 1960 c. So anyone taking a read on our departure or tracking us for the first ninety minutes would have been completely misled as to direction and velocity. So, we’re back to the first set of possibilities. How do we narrow that down? Any ideas?”

  “Sir, I’m not much on Intel. Too much guessing. I’m better at concrete stuff, like what my warhead is going to do against a Krag deflector.”

  “Bullshit, Levy. I’ve been a weapons officer and I’ve worked in Intel and I can tell you that the two have more in common than you suppose. A great deal of Intel is just as precise and concrete and logical as the data you deal with as a weapons officer. There’s lots of hard data involved in both. It’s something you need to get a handle on. To be a well-rounded officer, you’ve got to understand at least the fundamentals of every one of the warship combat disciplines: Tactical, Weapons, Sensors, Intel, Countermeasures, and Stealth. And it doesn’t hurt to know a thing or two about Logistics, Engineering, Damage Control, Environmental Systems, and Personnel, either. If you want to rise to command rank, you’ve got to be a well-rounded officer.”

  The young man raised an inquiring eyebrow, as if to ask if he had a chance at command rank. Max nodded and shrugged at the same time, as if to say, “You have the potential, as far as I can tell, but whether you make it is going to be up to you.” Just because a lot of important things went unsaid between Navy men did not mean that those important things went uncommunicated.

  “Okay,” Max continued. “How do we narrow down where the Krag are getting their information? I’m not asking
you to recite an Intel maxim. I’m asking you to go at it logically. You’re a logical man. You can figure it out.”

  “Well…where I would want to start is to know the source of their information. We would get a good start on that by identifying which communication or report or filing or data entry, exactly, they got their paws on.”

  “Bull’s-eye. Okay then, where would the Krag get the data points they need to intercept us in the vastness of space? Work it out. Use elimination if you have to.”

  “Well, it’s not our orders because the admiral didn’t give us a specific c multiple or even dictate that we use compression drive instead of jumping. It doesn’t have our time of departure or our exact starting point in the Rashid system. Without those, you’d have a hard time finding us with twenty ships, much less two. And then, your deceptive departure course would put us on a slightly different track.

  “No signals have left this ship since we left for us to be tracked with. So, that leaves…our cruise plan? Did the cruise plan include your deceptive maneuver?”

  “It did.”

  “That has to be it, then. The Krag got their paws on our cruise plan.”

  Max smiled. “See, Mr. Levy, you may be able to get a handle on Intel after all. That makes a pretty little puzzle for Intel, doesn’t it? How did they get it? Send a message to the XO that, on my order, I want you and Bhattacharyya to have your administrative periods today at the same time. You and he are going to trace what happens to a cruise plan when it gets filed, and come up with your best hypothesis about how the Krag got it.

  “Look at it from their perspective. If you wanted to get a cruise plan, how would you go about doing it? Route your report—nothing fancy, two pages or so—to me. I’ll put my spin on it and send it to Admiral Hornmeyer’s N-2 section—see what the Intel/Security boys have to say when they learn they’ve got a major leak somewhere. Meanwhile, I’ll get off a signal directly to the admiral right away to let him know there’s a leak and that any compartmentalization he was counting on for this mission has been blown.”