“Fifteen. Telemetry from her suit indicated that she went under fairly early on, so I took advantage of the situation.” Captain Tarrel had passed out in her seat, which had been inclined about halfway in anticipation of this event. For the same reason, the supply of drugs that had been selected was close at hand. Now that they had found the Dreadnought, she could be given the drugs used by the Union that gave humans a higher tolerance to stress, allowing them to recover almost immediately if they did pass out. For the moment, simple smelling salts brought her back instantly.
“Vile stuff. Take it away,” Tarrel commented, making a face. “How goes the war?”
“Valthyrra found the Dreadnought,” he told her, giving her the additional drugs. “It apparently did not sense her scanner pulse, and she was able to put the planet between us before it could discover us. We are waiting now to begin our next move, once we know what to do. Any ideas?”
“Based upon past experience, run like hell comes immediately to mind. The trouble is that hiding from the Dreadnought does us absolutely no good, beyond offering the chance to choose our own time and method of acting. Is there any way to sneak in closer before it knows that we’re here?”
“There is none that I can envision,” Valthyrra said, bringing her camera pod well back into the upper bridge. Kayendel had joined them as well.
“Two thoughts come to mind,” Tarrel mused. “We do something that hints of our presence without giving it away absolutely, and then we see if we can lure the Dreadnought into coming here. Or we can use the Maeridan as bait. If the Dreadnought chases her, we might be able to slip in behind. Is she blind to the rear, I wonder?”
“I am not,” Valthyrra said. “I would not expect that plan to work. I would have to use my impulse scanner to track its position, and it will become aware of that too soon.”
“Then we should bring it here,” Kayendel declared. “Valthyrra, correct me if I am wrong. Like most gas giants, this one probably has a very large and powerful magnetic field, which serves to hold in an invisible cloud of ionized particles that will interact with a ship’s shields and cause stealth to become ineffective.”
“Yes, I have already dropped my own outer shields altogether,” Valthyrra agreed. “I was looking like a distant thunderstorm with all that discharge over the shell. Anticipating the point of your question, the answer to that part is also yes. If the Dreadnought comes through here, we will be able to see it from static discharge even if the ship itself remains invisible. That probably offers the best chance we will ever have to get an extremely short-range scan.”
“Before it turns around and kicks our ass,” Tarrel added. “The only real alternative is to wait for it to make a regular scanner sweep and then move in on it quickly. But that doesn’t work, does it?”
“If we detect the sweep, then the sweep detects us,” Valthyrra agreed.
“The other plan is best,” Gelrayen agreed. “What do we need to do?”
Valthyrra was already considering that. “Supplying the bait should be simple enough. I will simply have one of my drones hide itself on a small moon and begin making random achronic noise. The Dreadnought will have to come here to see what it is, something that it can only destroy at very close range. The only real problem is hiding myself. Where does a fifteen-million-ton fighting ship hide itself?”
“Anywhere it wants?” Captain Tarrel asked innocently.
“Cute.”
A solution to the second problem presented itself very quickly. Once Valthyrra had a look about with a very short-range scan, she was able to find any number of small shepherding moons in the gas giant’s band of rings. One of these moons, an irregular rock about twenty kilometers across, had a very convenient hole like a very deep impact crater that was just the right shape to hold a Starwolf carrier. Her construction bay at Alkayja station had been smaller. The Methryn was able to back into this, ready to move forward just enough to expose her main battery and her sensitive forward scanner array. The moonlet did posses a trace of gravity, just enough to pull the carrier slowly to her left. Since the rate of fall was only about a tenth of a meter every minute, her field drive was able to counteract that pull.
A drone was prepared and sent on its way to a much larger moon just outside the disk of the ring, at present less than ten thousand kilometers away. By the standards of the Methryn’s scanner, that was very short range indeed. Better yet, the most direct approach path between that moon and the Direadnought’s present position lay only three thousand kilometers out from the Methryn’s cubby hole. Valthyrra hoped that static discharge against that very high-power shield would give away its position as it passed through.
“Something about this situation bothers me,” Captain Tarrel commented. “This entire plan seems very unorthodox.”
“The stupid idea is a favorite Starwolf tactic,” Gelrayen told her. “When nothing else works, try something stupid. You always surprise your enemies, and you often surprise yourself.” “I’m beginning to understand why you people were never able to win the damned war.”
“My drone has begun its first series of broadcasts,” Valthyrra reported. “It is repeating a brief sequence on a low-power signal, very much like a transponder or a distress beacon. In fact, I have it using Starwolf codes. If the Dreadnought knows our language, as certain of my siblings have suggested, then it should find that bait irresistible.”
“I thought that you were going to be more subtle,” Gelrayen said, looking up at her camera pod. “Just random achronic signals.” *
“The Dreadnought is in the business of breaking things, and random signals would already sound broken. It has destroyed a small mining station in these moons already, and it might think that a transponder came from that wreckage. This is designed to look like a surveillance drone trying to transmit data out of system using the gas giant as a shield.”
Captain Tarrel leaned back in her seat. “Now I get the feeling that you’re trying to get this complicated.”
The camera pod rotated quickly. “I am trying to be subtle. In my experience, subtle and complicated look very much alike.” “The logic aboard this ship is amazing,” Tarrel said, and sighed. “If it thinks it knows what it is, won’t it just leave the thing alone and see what happens? If it looks like it belongs to Starwolves, a Starwolf might come along and claim it.”
“Oh, I never thought of that.” The camera pod dropped slowly, then lifted brightly. “Well, I still believe that it will work. The Dreadnought will have to be curious. What else does it have to do with its time?”
“Oh, that’s logic again! It’s a machine. It has an untapped bounty of machine patience.”
“I’m a machine, and I can be very impatient.”
Tarrel had to think about that for a moment. “You know, I suspect that you’ve just invented a trap for catching yourself. What are you going to do if this doesn’t work?”
“Something else.”
It took a while, but Captain Tarrel finally realized that she was being teased by a machine. Unfortunately, that thought did not occur to her for another three days. It amused Valthyrra to play harmless games of subtlety with Tarrel, who obviously doubted her ability to be clever.
“Passive scanner contact,” Valthyrra warned, again very serious. “I have identified static discharge against a high-power shield approaching from six thousand kilometers. No visual contact with any ship.”
“Is it the Dreadnought?” Gelrayen asked.
“Well, that is the only invisible ship I know. It is definitely moving toward the drone.”
“How did it get here so quickly?”
“I have three theories about that,” — Valthyrra offered. “It might have been built to handle routine accelerations of two or three thousand G’s, or else it might employ some type of drive that either negates or avoids ail energy of acceleration. Or it might have become aware of the drives from that unshielded drone the moment it left my bay, and has been under way to this location for some time.”
“Warn the crew to prepare for immediate battle,” Gelrayen told her. “Have damage control parties standing by throughout the ship. Surveillance?”
“Impulse scanners and passive receivers standing by.” “Weapons?”
“All power is diverted to the main battery,” the weapons officer on the middle bridge responded. “Conversion cannon is at pre-stage warming.”
“Helm?”
“Manual controls are at stand-by status,” Kayendel reported. “Captain Tarrel?” he asked, glancing toward the upper bridge.
“I’m counting all the ways that things can go wrong,” she answered as she tightened the straps. “Standing by to pass out.” “Your confidence is reassuring. Valthyrra, do you have visual contact of any form?”
She responded by sending a highly magnifiedf image to the main viewscreen, although the only thing it showed was a light shower of minute sparks as the Dreadnought’s shield reacted with ionized particles charged by the gas giant’s magnetic field. But at least they had direct visual evidence of its presence, and not just in that discharge of sparks. The Dreadnought itself, or rather the light-absorbing cloak of its powerful shield, appeared as a vast black shape passing before the stars. It was a curiously frightening vision, for Captain Tarrel even more so than those times when she had not been able to see it at all, like the shadow of a ghost.
“The Dreadnought is at closest approach,” Valthyrra reported. Even she spoke softly, as if fearful of being overheard. “No scanner contact yet, so I assume that it is not aware of my presence. Stand ready.”
“Whenever you think best,” Gelrayen told her.
Valthyrra moved out of her hiding place on the moonlet, rushing forward with a quiet, steady acceleration from her main drives. At these distances, relatively small increases in speed covered a great deal of distance in a hurry. The carrier moved in a sweeping, graceful glide, actually meant to minimize her reliance upon field drive for navigation.
“I will probably have only the one chance, so I should make the most of it,” she reported. “I am going to throw as much power as I can into a forward impulse sweep.”
Being in the shadow of the planet was a mixed blessing. It was essential to her decoy and it allowed her to see the fairly small flashes of discharge against the Dreadnought’s shield. On the illuminated side of the planet, she would have been able to track the Dreadnought with far greater accuracy as its black shadow passed over the bright bands of the gas giant. At least she could locate it easily enough by the discharge flashes of its shield. She had not warned the others that she had actually not been completely certain that there would be any visible static discharge, knowing that it might have been absorbed into that light-eating shield.
She dropped in quickly behind the Dreadnought, then moved cautiously forward until she followed at only fifteen kilometers, five times her length and only slightly more than its own. As far as she knew, this was as close as anyone had ever come to the Dreadnought. Even at this range, all she could see was a featureless black shape passing before the stars. One portion of her multi-layered mind was aware that at some point in the next minute or two, that vast machine was going to turn and begin ripping her apart. She was new, still bright and shiny, and she did not want to submit herself to the damage she expected to take. But the rest of her mind was very much on business, aware that her time was very limited. She aimed every impulse cannon that could be brought to bear and fired, standing ready with her primary attention to the scanner receivers, her main drives and defensive systems, and a very close electronic eye she kept on the Dreadnought’s response.
“I have the results of my first close-range impulse scan,” Valthyrra said. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I cannot see through that shield. I would have to be able to match frequencies to get a scanner beam through, and I cannot do that at random.”
“Well, we expected that,” Gelrayen remarked, then looked up. “Hold on. Are we running like hell?”
“No, the stupid thing still has no idea that I am here. I wonder if it really is blind to the rear. It seems like such a waste, sitting here right on the monster’s tail and not able to do anything about it.”
“We could try shooting it, I suppose,” Gelrayen mused. “What would happen if we gave it our conversion cannon at this range?”
“It would probably do it no more harm than when the Kerridayen shot it at somewhat longer range, considering that shield,” the ship replied. “But the backwash would, however, fry us.” “Yes, I had forgotten about that. Stupid idea.”
“I thought Starwolves like stupid ideas,” Tarrel called from the upper bridge.
Gelrayen glanced in her direction. “We have to draw the line somewhere.”
“Would anyone want to listen to a good idea?” Kayendel asked. “Since we seem to have the time, what about keeping an impulse beam on that shield and changing frequencies rapidly until you have a match?”
“That might just work, if I can find that frequency before the Dreadnought turns around and kicks me in the nose,” Valthyrra agreed. “Even if I get through that shield, I will probably only get a moment at best. . Hold on.”
“Trouble?” Gelrayen asked, noticing that the Methryn still had not run.
“Someone is shooting at the Dreadnought, and it is not me.” Actually, it was not particularly hard to figure out just what was going on. Her passive scanners did not detect the approach of any ship, just a series of high-power bolts just like those from her own forward battery. The shots were actually going somewhat wide. It was, of course, the Maeridan, but she was still too distant to target accurately on the visual reference of the black shape of the Dreadnought’s cloaking shield moving over the brightly colored bands of the gas giant. A hail of short-duration bolts was coming down at random over a radius of about twenty kilometers. Valthyrra was faced with the need to consider raising her own battle shields to protect herself from her own sister ship. Like the Maeridan, she had her own outer shields at stealth intensity, so that the other carrier would have been able to locate her only by visual identification, and her dull black hull was designed to defeat that. Considering how relatively tiny she was compared to the Dreadnought, she could easily be overlooked.
“What the hell does Khallenda Maeridan think that she is doing?” Valthyrra asked herself. “She was supposed to keep herself hidden unless I found myself in serious trouble.”
“She probably thinks that you are,” Kayendel reminded her. “I suspect that you must have set that drone to broadcast a Starwolf distress code. Your own, no doubt.”
Valthyrra rotated her camera pod to look at the ceiling. “Damn my hull! Of course. I forgot that she was sitting out there waiting, and I did not think to warn her to ignore that distress code. She is trying to rescue me, and that drone led her right here.” “None of us thought of that,” Gelrayen told her. “Do not blame yourself.”
“I have just received scanner return,” Valthyrra reported, returning to business. “The Dreadnought has just taken the Maeridan’s range by scan. I do not believe that it is aware of me, since I detected no direct scanner pulses aimed in my direction.”
“If you try to warn the Maeridan, you will give away your own position,” Gelrayen warned her. “Do you want to try backing away from that monstrosity first?”
“No, I like it best right where I am. ”
The Dreadnought opened fire on the Maeridan, although it seemed to be having some trouble getting the carrier’s range by impulse scan alone. It was firing a series of sustained bolts of moderate power, obviously hoping to lock with the carrier’s shields and force an overload that would cause the carrier to lose her stealth capabilities. The Maeridan was responding by throwing everything she had in the direction of the Dreadnought, making herself an easy and obnoxious target. Her intention, no doubt, was to give a damaged Methryn a few moments to collect herself and get to safety any way she could.
Of course, Valthyrra Methryn was alive, well and ready to employ one of those complicated p
lans that so annoyed Captain Tarrel. She opened fire with all sixteen of the larger cannons in her forward battery, directly into the back of the Dreadnought’s shield. She could not hope to do any damage. Rather than the usual short, rapid bursts from her cannon, she maintained a steady fire as she tried to match frequencies with that shield, each cannon searching a different band of frequencies. Long seconds passed, and with each instant she feared that the Dreadnought would discover her before her experiment proved itself. Then one of the cannons found the right frequency and penetrated the shield. In only a fraction of a second she had matched the frequencies of all the other cannons with the first, and she poured all the raw power she could channel inside that shield.
The result was spectacular. The Dreadnought’s shield collapsed in a sudden, blinding flash, and for a single long moment the immense machine stood fully revealed before them, obscured somewhat in the flare as the Methryn’s powerful cannons continued to rip across its bulk. Surprisingly, its hull did not seem to be a massively armored shell like that of a carrier, as they would have expected, but a maze of machinery of tremendous size. If her conversion cannon had been ready, even at partial power, she could have destroyed it at that very moment. The Dreadnought began to turn slowly and then that black shield was up again, locking out the Methryn’s destructive beams and cloaking the alien weapon in the blackness of space.
Valthyrra knew when it was time to leave, and this was certainly the time. She pivoted herself about sharply until she was facing back the way she had come, then engaged her main drives in a single, sharp burst of speed. But the drives failed after only the first instant, leaving her drifting at a speed that was not taking her away from her enemy fast enough.
Valthyrra was so surprised by that sudden loss of power that she brought her camera boom up sharply, cracking the pod against the ceiling. “Rashah ko ve’ernon! Val traron de altrys caldarson!”
If she had been able, Captain Tarrel would have taken notes for Walter Pesca’s language lessons.
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