Vorpal Blade

by John Ringo

  The Mark V Wyvern was a significant upgrade over the Mark IIIs that were the last Miller had used. But they still had some issues. He swore the Adar had made them more likely to disco. At least for him.

  "Oh, it's not all that bad," Weaver argued. "I mean, it doesn't look like much right now . . ."

  Miller got the feedback loop under control and overrode the "head" controls to pan around in a 360.

  The volcanic island wasn't a complete loss. Throw in about thirty C of temperature, some palm trees and . . . well just about everything and it would make a hell of a resort.

  The shore was almost pure lava rock. Indeed, most of the vista was lava rock. That which wasn't a crashing sea. With no continental landforms, the waves had thousands of miles to build up steam and some of them were nearly two hundred meters high. And the winds that drove them were high. The two humans probably couldn't have stood against the gale if it wasn't for the Wyverns.

  More Wyverns were spread out across the rocky terrain, though. The planetology and biology teams were out collecting samples. On the outer perimeter the Wyverns of the Marine security were hunkered down and looking for threats. Threats were pretty unlikely in Miller's opinion, but the Dreen had turned up in some damned unlikely places. All they needed was a little biosphere and they were in like flint.

  There was some vegetation. Red tendrils straggled up from the edge of the incredible surf. Some of them had flowerlike heads that waved in the howling wind.

  "Don't look like much is putting it mildly," Miller said. "Although I could probably do a nice arrangement with some of those flowers . . ."

  "You SEALs never look up," Weaver said.

  Miller toggled the override and looked up.

  "Okay," he said about a minute later. "You've got a point."

  E Eridani Beta was a striped gas giant with the striations of massive winds and storms rippling its gaseous surface in a dozen colors. Hovering overhead, it was the dominating feature of the sky.

  But while it dominated, it wasn't the only thing in the clear sky. At least a half a dozen lesser moons were in view, moving fast enough to track. They reflected the light of the planet, and with their own varied surfaces they were a rainbow of color in the sky.

  Last but not least, there was a thin, very dark, ring around the planet, close in.

  All in all, it was a spectacular sight.

  "I mean, there could be intelligent life," Weaver argued.

  "Yep, there it is, right there," Miller said, pointing.

  "Where?" Weaver asked, excitedly.

  "Them flowers," Miller said. "Smartest things on this planet. They finally crawled out of the water, looked around, went 'Maulk, this is one mothergrapping cold ball of ice of a planet' and devolved back to flowers. I know that if I developed consciousness on this planet, I'd lose it as fast as possible. Through repeated blows to the head if necessary."

  "Alpha Team," Lieutenant Berisford said. "Geo is heading up to the hills. They have requested that you not 'mess anything up' but I want you to move up there and cover them. Ensure the security of Dr. Dean especially. In the event of emergency, screen their retreat. Charlie, I want you moving to a secondary position. Bravo, you're with me in reserve."

  "Let's move," Jaenisch said, bounding into a run.

  "They don't want us in front of them, Jaen," Berg pointed out.

  "Got that," Jaen said. "We'll vector left. Head for that cluster of boulders. In the event we have to screen them, that's our assembly area."

  "Got that," Hatt said. "I don't see much to screen them from."

  "Nothing on any of the passive sensors," Berg pointed out.

  "Just because you can't see it, doesn't mean it's not there," Jaen said. "Space Marines, remember?"

  "Lichenlike growths," Julia said, kneeling the suit and flipping out a sample probe. The science suits had specialized sampling tools attached to the right "hand" of the suit. She used a scraper to pick up some of the growth off the rocks and slid it into a sample tube.

  "Do you want to check out that red stuff?" Master Sergeant Ed Bartlett asked. The Bio Team Leader gestured towards the shoreline where massive waves hammered what was apparently a high cliff. The waves looked to be a couple of hundred feet high and the spray flew up higher than the boat.

  "If we do, we're going to have to be careful," Julia said. "It looks worse than Antarctica. You slip, boy, and I'm not sure we're going to be able to find you."

  "Noted," Ed said. "But we are going to have to get a sample, right?"

  "Yes," Julia said, standing up. "But first we need to do random sampling of the area to see what sort of microgrowth is on the rocks. Then we sample out from the boat. Then we go down and see our little red friends. Frankly, I think we should be looking for a more lively world, instead, but I suppose you would call this 'good training.' "

  "Grapp," Hattelstad said as his Wyvern went airborne.

  Dr. Dean had, apparently, collected his samples and was now headed back to the ship.

  Charlie had been crouched in a cluster of boulders watching for a threat that never came for a good six hours. So they were ready to head back. As soon as the science party was halfway down the hill they had bounded out to "screen their retreat." At which point the reduced gravity had struck.

  Moving in reduced gravity was always difficult. It was possible, if you were careful, to get more speed out of the armor by "bounding," taking long strides that were impossible in Earth's gravity well. It worked well on flat ground and could be done on hills. But you had to be careful.

  In Hatt's case, he'd taken one bound just a bit too far. He'd intended to hit a flat spot and instead intersected a boulder. His right leg went out from under him and for just a moment he was airborne. Then he slammed onto his back.

  "Grapp," he repeated.

  "Like I said, watch the gravity," Sergeant Jaenisch said, coming to a crouch near the fallen suit. Berg landed on the other side, tracking back the way they came.

  "Charlie, status?" the platoon leader called.

  "Just a slip, sir," Jaen replied as Hatt got to his feet.

  The Wyverns would have been impossible to get out of a position on their backs were it not for the design of the arms. While the human arm could not wrench behind its back with any strength, the Wyvern "arm" could. So Hatt simply slid his arm behind his back and flexed, rolling the Wyvern onto its stomach. From there, it was just a matter of pushing himself to his feet.

  "Slick move, grease," Berg said. "I suggest a new team name."

  "Turtle?" Jaen asked.

  "I was thinking Grease," Berg said. "But Turtle works."

  "Grapp you, rookie," Hatt said.

  "Methinks the lance corporal is offended," Berg said.

  "Methinks the lance corporal has point," Jaen replied. "Let's move."

  "Charlie, move east and screen bio team. Same deal, don't mess anything up."

  "Seems like we always get point," Hatt said.

  "Shut up and move."

  "Well, that was a whole lot of nothing," Jaen said, rolling into his rack with a sigh. "Twelve grapping hours in a Wyvern with nothing to look at but rock. What grapping fun."

  "View was cool," Berg said.

  "Some of us weren't looking at the pretty planet," Hattelstad said sourly.

  "Then you weren't looking for aerial threats," Jaen snapped. "Yes, the view was cool. But I could wish they'd pulled us off in less than twelve hours. Man, I'm whacked. I'll see you guys tomorrow." With that he hit the closure on his rack and opaqued it.

  "I'm for bed," Berg said, stripping out of his skinsuit. The blacksuit stank to high heaven and they were only issued one. He put the suit in a zipper-lock bag and stuffed it away in a compartment. "Damn, laundry's not till the end of the week."

  "Stuff a nannie pack in with it," Drago said, leaning out of his bunk. "It'll be fresh as a daisy tomorrow."

  "Really?" Berg asked.

  "Really, Two-Gun," Drago said. "I guess we've all got things to learn."


  "Thanks, man," Berg said, pulling the suit back out. He slid a nannie napkin into the bag and sealed the whole thing back up.

  "De nada, man," Drago said. "We were getting tired of the smell, anyway."

  Berg chuckled and sealed his bunk, lying back with his arms folded on his chest. Then he reached up and turned up the circulator before getting out another nannie nap. He was getting tired of the smell, too, but his next shower cycle wasn't until day after tomorrow. He rubbed down in the confined quarters, then doused the light.

  It had been a long day.

  "Dr. Dean is busy trying to assimilate all the data we've collected," Dr. Beach said, smiling faintly. "So I have asked Master Sergeant Runner to present the planetology report on Dean's World."

  The post-survey meeting was taking place in orbit, everyone having decided that even space was a more hospitable place than "Dean's World." The wardroom was crowded with the boat's senior officers, most of the heads of the science team, Miriam and Mimi. The latter two had turned up and, respectively, charmed and assumed their way into the meeting.

  "Thank you, Doctor," Runner said, looking at his notes. "Dean's World is an atectonic rocky moon with marginal habitability. I'm gonna have to lecture.

  "Earth is a tectonic planet. That means that it had continental masses that, slowly, move and recycle material through subduction, crustal folding and volcanism. The reason that this occurs is that there's a chunk of crustal material, more or less the size of the Pacific, which is missing. Very early in Earth's development Earth's moon struck the planet with a glancing blow and picked up that material.

  "Earth has deep oceans, which act as a heat sink and temperature regulator and constant tectonic processes refreshes the atmosphere. Furthermore, crustal material is able to 'emerge' because the water all flows into the oceans.

  "In the case of Dean's World, such a strike never occurred. Thus all the tectonic material is trapped under a solid crust. That crust is buried under an ocean that is more or less uniformly deep and relatively shallow. One of the reasons those waves get as high as they do is that the bottom is only about six hundred feet down, more or less everywhere.

  "The only rocky land is where some volcanoes have burned their way through the crust and formed islands, more or less like pimples on a teenager's face.

  "Basically, it's Mars with a better atmosphere and a bunch more water, probably because of the better atmo. That's the planetology side. Bio?"

  "It's a Class Four biosphere," Julia said. "Red chlorophyllic analogue. Very simple life forms. We didn't get to do much sampling in the ocean but I'm perfectly happy letting follow-on researchers do that. No indications of Dreen genetics anywhere. The world's clean, in other words. Be a decent place if we ever have to find a new place for penguins and polar bears. Well, except for the CO2, which would kill them in a few seconds."

  "I think the important point that we're missing here, Captain," Beach said, "is that there is a habitable moon here, and that there is life. This is a biosphere that is right at the edge of current theory."

  "Agree with that one," Julia said, nodding.

  "So that means that we could be finding habitable planets around virtually any star you'd care to visit," Beach concluded, pointing to the plasma screen on the wall. It was currently getting the "take" from the forward camera and showed a billion stars.

  "Our current mission is to do a cautious survey of the immediate area," the captain pointed out carefully. "To find as many habitable planets as we can and to look for intelligent life. Commander Weaver, does this planet, in your opinion, change the plan of the current survey?"

  "A bit," Weaver admitted. "What Dean's World shows is that while we should look primarily at main sequence stars, if we overlook such things as moons in marginal life zones we might miss the needle. I think we're going to have to either go faster or extend the survey time to ensure we don't miss something."

  "XO, can we stay out longer?" the CO asked.

  "We've got the food," the XO said. "I'd mostly worried about atmosphere and water. But we took on a bunch of water on Dean's World. Some of it we cycled for fresh water and we broke out a bunch of O2. That extended our time by maybe a week. If we can keep doing that, we're only food limited. We've got enough food onboard for ninety days. Of course, the crew's gonna get pretty tired of three-bean salad—"

  "Our mission parameters were to stay out for up to ninety days if we could keep up on air and water," the CO said, frowning. "Given the hazards associated with entering star systems, I'm going to say we're out a maximum of sixty days, less the time to travel to Sol. That way if we have to limp through a transition zone, we can. Very well. So much for the lovely 'Dean's World,' " he said, grinning slightly. "Where next?"

  15

  Many MANY Connotations

  "Stable orbit around Tau Ceti established," the pilot said proudly.

  "Sergeant Runner has detected two planets in the life zone," Commander Weaver said. "He picked them up on the way in by eyeball. One's a gas giant. Much smaller than Uranus though. Probably moons; he's surveying at the moment."

  "I'm glad you pronounced it properly," the CO said dryly. "Vector?"

  "Two-three-three degrees mark dot five to the nearest," Weaver said. "Four AU and a bit. That is outside of the liquid water zone by at least three AUs. The liquid water zone for Tau Ceti is between point six and point nine AUs sir. Hey, that's a rocky body."

  "Pilot, come to two-three-three, Warp One," the captain said. "It's a planet so we should have a look at it."

  "That . . . doesn't look like much," the captain said.

  "Atectonic again," Bill replied, nodding. The "planet" looked more like Earth's moon. It didn't even have the ruddiness of Mars. It was just a pitted gray surface. "Little or no atmosphere. We don't have the spectral readings, yet, but I'd guess no vegetation. Probably the core is low in radioactives so it's cooled off and the atmosphere stopped being recycled. Call it Lord Kelvin's World. Back when scientists were beginning to understand how old the Earth really was, Lord Kelvin, who was the premier physicist of his day, 'proved' that even if Earth started off as a molten ball, it would have cooled off in no more than six thousand years. Since there were volcanoes, it had to be less than six thousand years old. One of the better pieces of complete garbage science ever written because he didn't know about radioactives. It's radioactive material that keeps the Earth's core molten. Also a great example of why you should never let theory get in the way of empirical data. Anyway, if there ever was intelligent life there, it's long gone."

  "Let's try the next system. Commander Weaver?"

  "Epsilon Indi perhaps, sir," Weaver said. "But exit in that direction is going to be . . . interesting. And there are some things we should consider."

  The CO came over and looked at his screens, puzzling them out.

  "What . . . things?" he finally asked. "The heliopause bow shock's in the other direction."

  "Luyten 725, also known as YZ Ceti, is going to be off our port if we head for E Indi," Weaver said, zooming out on the screen so the nearby star was evident and then highlighting it. "It's close at a heading four-eight. We've got three systems fairly close to each other here and I'm not sure what that's going to do to the disturbance zone."

  "Head around it," the CO said definitely.

  "Agreed, sir," Bill replied, rubbing his forehead. "But . . . I would like to recommend an astrophysics fly-by at least. Perhaps an extensive survey. The combination of bow shock from YZ Ceti and the trail material from Tau Ceti might have picked up some interesting stuff."

  "Stuff," the CO said, monotone. "Define . . . stuff."

  "Well sir, some astronomers figured out a few years back that the Tau Ceti system has about ten times too much cometary and asteroid type debris in it. Nobody understands why," Bill said, shrugging. "Perhaps something out there is the cause."

  "Wait a minute," Spectre said with a frown. "You mean we've been riding around inside a star system that has ten times more debris i
n it than normal and nobody bothered to mention this?"

  "Uh, sorry, sir; space is big." Weaver said.

  "I realize that space is big Lieutenant Commander, but . . ." Spectre paused as the implications of Weaver's comment sank in. "Oh hell, what was the increased probability of hitting something?"

  "About a half of a percent worse than in a normal system, sir." Weaver tried not to grin. "Its Kuiper belt should be about ten times more populated than ours, but that ain't a particular problem. Populated is an overstatement of any Kuiper belt."