I told Chris about it, just in case, but I don't know if he even heard me. The man seemed lost in thought and genuinely upset about having to leave.
Frankly, I thought we were walking away ahead of the game. We'd pushed our luck about as far as humanly possible, and then some. Our contract was complete, and we'd learned of a potential security issue for the Alliance -- heck for the galaxy! UH had to be able to find something profit-bearing in that. Yet our ML was pacing the companionways in a brooding funk, as if his favorite puppy had been kicked -- or worse yet: like he was the puppy.
I grabbed a dehydrated meat-like stew, added hot water, and sat down in the Common Room with SS1 and SS2, who spoke to each other in a kind of techno-pidgin I didn't understand. They were deep in their specialty, which had its own terminology and shorthand. For some time, they cross-referenced and studied various elements of the incoming data from passives, filtered it out from the EMF bouncing off the hull, compared it to archived information, made notes, and then formulated different approaches to organizing it all. They tackled fine details, not just one-by-one, but often five at a time. I couldn't follow them at all. They weren't talking to me anyway, but it was weird to observe a specialty in action that was related (at least in part) to my own, that I was wholly under-trained in.
It made me think of my own research, and I refocused on it.
The commander of Liquidator, as well as his senior officers, had public profiles on record. This amounted to little more than sanitized news bites created by a Montaro marketing arm. It crowed about the talents and virtues of the Team staff that would be in charge of Corporate's newest toy. I read their personal statements included in the file, all of which were doubtlessly squirted out by some under-paid copy writer. The whole thing was just a pile of go-Company advertorial nonsense, but it was a place to start.
We had a massive database of Montaro facts and figures that UH had installed before launch. Some of this info seemed to have been purloined from AIN Intelligence sources, though most of it was public and unrestricted. It had all been carefully refined and cross-tagged by United Humanity's legendary contextual data analysts, resulting in a very comprehensive library of Corporatespace information. I cross-referenced the officers' names and backgrounds with all their known command positions previous to Liquidator, as well as any educational records and notable affiliations.
Bit by bit, as I sat eating, I built up a few vague personality profiles of the people in charge of hunting us down. There were significant holes in my data, to be sure, but by the time I dropped my tray and utensils in the cleaner/reclaimater in the galleyette, I felt like I'd painted a picture of a mixed-bag of career management and career military types.
Superficially, that sounded dysfunctional, but I doubted they'd be together on a post like this if that was really the case. I chose to go with the opposite assumption: that they worked very well together, with the commander and his staff running a tight ship.
And yet...
We had been a ghost: one of the most advanced stealth vessels in space.
We'd been able to slink right past their defenses and listening posts. I doubted very much that there was any fortified position in space that Shady Lady couldn't penetrate to some degree. They'd only seen us at all because of an unpredictable variable.
It was actually comforting, to an extent, to realize that. And the comfort lasted all of five minutes before John and Stinna both made surprised noises, and started tripping alarms.
"Oh, my God!" SS1 fairly shouted. "Graviton spike!"
"There's an exit cone in our path," SS2 added quietly.
Chris ran forward from his bunk, calling for details. We collided as I tried to dash past him on my way to Gunnery. He stumbled on with a curse. I went down to my knees -- unhurt, but scared. Standing and looking back, I saw Mavis, far up front, shaking her shiny, plugged-in head with what looked like disgust or panic.
And then my own pre-set alarm went off, indicating that someone had just gotten a weapons lock on our invisible little ship!
OOOOOOOOOO
There were no portholes or shieldglass windows looking out, but the meeting room did have a large display on the wall. It was currently showing a live feed from an exterior camera. A series of strobing multicolored lights in the distance revealed themselves against the sparkling backdrop of border space by appearing to move. These represented the dozens of Zulu Dawn support vessels for Citystate, some which were just a few kilometers off, while others paced at a distance of several thousand.
"Oh...um, okay," I replied. "Well, it seems he's actually a private contractor working for Churchspace agents. A spy, effectively. He was injected into Meerschaum before the mission even began. Also, I require that, if and when his health allows, he be placed into custody and turned over to Corporatespace authorities once we arrive, to face charges of Espionage and Conspiracy To Commit Murder."
I could have demanded to have a union rep with me, but there wasn't anyone immediately available with the kind of clearance that made both UH and Meerschaum feel comfortable. I could have also delayed the proceedings while a certified Gunnery Advocate was located, which all parties found acceptable, but that could have taken weeks. Fleet had seen to it that we didn't have that much time.
"You require it?"
"Yes, as Chief of Investigations for Montaro Administration Security."
Every face on the other side of the table stared at me with incredulity.
"Are you telling us that you're some kind of spy as well?"
"Oh, no. Certainly not. I was hired for that position after arriving in 216-11B."
"Meaning, you compromised the mission we hired you for?"
"No. My employers there never knew of that mission, nor of anything related to it. To my knowledge, they still don't."
Emaross looked like a dancer who didn't know the steps. He was utterly confused -- a state I utterly understood.
"You took it upon yourself to become a double agent for us?"
"Again, no. I refuse to answer any questions beyond the scope of my original mission."
He studied me, then threw up his hands.
"I'm lost, Mr. Dosantos! You're making completely contradictory statements."
"I'm not," I replied concedingly, "but I recognize that it might look that way: you're operating without all the facts."
"Which you refuse to provide?"
"I can provide...some of them."
OOOOOOOOOO
six
* * *
"They have a lock."
"Where, where...?!"
"172 by 81 by 8231 -- dead ahead."
"We're fifty million klicks from the nearest jump point!"
"Tell that to them!"
"They sent Jaybird after us?!"
Mavis' voice was taught; John was clearly incredulous; Stinna sounded almost surprised (not really); Dieter just chimed in with a quick, "What is it?"; and Chris didn't weigh in with an emotional response of any kind, apparently reserving such solely for impatience with his underlings.
"It was the only possible ship they could send," I explained, getting seated in Gunnery, and trying my best not to sound panicky -- it wouldn't help us now. "They know we know about it already, so they don't need to hide. It was that weird pulse from it's dimensional transition that set off your alert, am I right?"
"Yes," SS2 confirmed, her voice as normal as ever.
"We're in an evasive arc, people," Mavis announced, all business. "I'm about to pull tighter. Prepare for inertial spill-over."
Though I was strapped in by now, I gripped my chair arms involuntarily, expecting the worst. The compensators were really good on Shady Lady, though, just like everything else, and I barely felt it -- just a low, creeping weight increase, down and to the left. It lasted for about half a minute, and then slacked off.
"Okay, we're on a vector tangent from that thing," the captain announced at last, and I sighed in relief. "I'm calling Battle Stations anyway. Everyone suit up."
Ambient light then dimmed to a dull red, and I reached for a pressure suit.
There were emergency lockers all over the ship, supplied with simple, one-piece pull-on things. These were specifically designed for survival inside the ship, in the absence of atmosphere -- not for a walk outside in the cold and radiation of space. Air-tight, non-encumbering, and ugly, they had miniature internal circulation systems and large flexible plastic hoods that bubbled out when pressurized.
Each dedicated station had a hose input for running atmo into and out of these suits from the ship's own life support system. If LS went down, they'd automatically disconnect and start feeding from internal sources, allowing six hours of standard use before going empty. We'd never worn them until now, outside of some quick drills before launch. They wouldn't have increased anyone's chances of survival from one of Liquidator's energy strikes, but nothing else would have either.
We hadn't counted on Jaybird.
When everyone had verbally confirmed pressure suit status, the captain ordered Dieter to kill atmo rechargers, engage reclaim pumps, and bring us to internal vac. This would prevent fires or blowouts should the ship become holed.
"Are they talking to us?" Chris asked, measured and calm, after Engineering reported us as Battle Ready.
"I think so," John informed him. "But the interference is pretty bad. The station is still soaking us with that energy beam."
"Looks like evasives worked," I stated, checking the readouts that flashed into my field of vision. "They had point-blank laser and active IR siting on us, but they've lost the lock. Passives show they're on the move, and running sweeps, trying to reestablish. The station is probably feeding them telemetry, but the freejump is off-angle from us now, and too far for its onboards to pick up any of our returns. Auto-assessment of their targeting system indicates they have a range-and-strike system of some kind -- probably a DEW. Neupacs, I'd say. Do we have opticals yet? I can't see anything."
"Resolving now..." Stinna said, dropping the live telescopic lightamp feed into the Gunnery channel.
Sure enough, it was Jaybird, or appeared to be. It was the only vessel anywhere in space that could have possible cut us off. It made sense.
The biggest surprise was it was armed. That was flabbergasting! Just how far along in development were these guys?
"John can you beef up the HP bleed-off resolution?"
"Heavy particles up..."
This gave me an assessment of the stray electrons and positrons thrown off by their fusion reactor, which, in turn, could be a thumbnail indicator of the available power the thing had for such systems as directed energy weapons. It came back as being at least five times higher than I would have expected for any vessel this size, and I cursed.
"You're seeing this?" I asked them all, hoping for feedback while I thought about our options.
"That can't be right..." Dieter supplied, from Engineering. "Nothing that small can house a reactor that powerful."
"They must need it for the new starjump engine," Chris concluded. "So they've developed at least two game-changers here. We've got to get back with this information!"
"I'm working on it," I stated. "I was expecting pop-guns on this thing, but they could fire Class III's or better with that much juice. If so, neutral particle streams from anything less than ten thousand kilometers are going to give us a nasty slap."
"Is that a euphemism for being killed?" Stinna asked, confused.
"Yes, it is. Good work, Captain," I added to Mavis, with genuine appreciation.
"My pleasure," the bald, half-mechanical woman replied.
"They could have had us the moment they dropped in," Chris mused. "We were surprised."
"They hesitated, too," I observed. "They aren't a fighter crew, but it's a tactical error I doubt will be repeated. Mavis, I need your go-ahead back here."
"We don't know if they were really going to attack," Chris inserted instead, an assessing tone in his voice. I didn't figure we had time for that now.
"It looked like it to me! And our pants were down. They still are. The station is supplying that ship with our general location. They'll regain their weapons lock if they can match vectors and close the distance. This is now a ship security matter, giving Shady Lady's crew authority over its mission parameters -- and you aren't crew. I need clearance to defend ourselves."
"This could start a war," Dieter pronounced gravely, which was true. Interstellar conflict with a nation that now had a massive technological lead.
"They still don't know who we are," Mavis pointed out, from up front.
"That's right," I put in. "We could be anyone - even another corporation from this side of the border. If we stay away from these guys, we can avoid political repercussions."
"And how do you propose we stay away?" Chris demanded.
"I don't know yet, but I want to be able to protect us here. Otherwise, why am I aboard?"
"I have no idea."
Ouch.
Okay, that one hurt.
But I'd suspected it all along -- and, anyway, there were more pressing matters.
"Look, Chris -- our choices are simple: either we give up, or we don't."
"We can't give up," John injected. "They'll arrest us. And I've had trouble over here before."
"I went to school for a year in Corporatespace," Stinna put in.
"What's that got to do with anything?" SS1 demanded.
"I'm fine with giving up," she replied simply. "We have legal authority to be here."
"That won't stop them from throwing us in isolation cells!"
"Why would they do that?"
"We're not surrendering this ship or this data," Chris spoke, terminating their bickering. "Ejoq, watch Jaybird like a hawk. You'll get the authority to fire, but only if they strike first."
"That's not your call, Chris," I stated. "You're Mission Leader, but the mission is over now."
"Ejoq," the captain put in, quietly. "We can't create an international incident. I'll free-up Gunnery, but only if it looks like they want to attack, instead of just intimidate."
"It'll be too late by then, Mavis. They have the firepower -- I'm telling you."
"Noted."
"We're not here for a battle," Chris put in, sounding smug in my ears. "We're here to learn! Now drop it."
This was a mistake.
This was a big mistake.
I didn't respond to him.
"All right, then," our ML went on, directing the inaction. "John, can you listen for data exchanges, at least?"
"I'm trying. It's not easy to sift through this noise. I have decrypts going on the most recently archived stuff, though..."
Stinna added, "We gathered a big-enough sample of cracked ciphers that we can run parallel comparisons on anything new that comes in."
"How do you see that?" SS1 snapped. "We've only broken a subset of..."
I dialed down their volume, and dialed down my ire. Then I opened a private channel to Mavis.
"Ejoq, don't. Just, don't."
"C'mon! Are you really okay with letting Jaybird get the first shot in?"
"Why would I be? But we can't cause an international crisis over here."
"There'd be one anyway. UH would have to report us missing, eventually."
She was silent for a bit, chewing it over.
"He'll be pissed. I can't have you at each other's throats."
"If we get out of this alive, I'll be happy to hear him yell."
More chewing. More silence.
"Okay then. Inputting Captain's Code now. Don't make me regret this."
And suddenly, Gunnery was hot.
"He'll see it if he looks, Ejoq."
"Then bolt my hatch -- lock me in here. If he drags me out of my chair at the wrong time, it could mean our lives."
"Right."
There was a soft clunk behind as the door latches engaged, magnetically sealing Gunnery shut.
As captain, Mavis had ultimate authority over the ship. Her se
curity codes could access every system, and she held the highest clearance of us all. She and Chris were supposed to work together on the mission, more-or-less as equals. This had manifested itself as him acting like a leader right from the start, and her acquiescing to many decisions because they pertained more to the mission than anything else.
But there were limits to that sort of thing, and times when distinctions of rank and areas of responsibility mattered. This as one of them.
"You really think they'll attack?" she asked, a thin but firm anxiety in her voice.
"They wouldn't have jumped at us unless they were willing to mix it up. Keeping this tech secret is clearly more important to Corporate than losing a prototype of it -- or, for that matter, than any repercussions our disappearance might bring. And as long as we fail to ID ourselves, they have the perfect right to do it: we're just faceless spies to them."
"They'll want to hunt us down and finish it," she observed grimly. "You're sure they out-gun us?"
"Not completely -- I mean, they have the power for a big gun, but they don't have much space for one."
"Unless they do," she mused. "Starjump and power generation might not be the only innovations here."
"Depending on how fast that drive can be engaged, they could have a potato gun, and still outclass us. If they can simply fire and jump, fire and jump, we might not even get a shot in."
"And if it's slow to engage?"
Risk Analysis (Draft 04 -- Reading Script) Page 7
