Commander

by Richard F. Weyand

  “Twins? That would be something, wouldn’t it?”

  “It’s a harder pregnancy, but it’s not as hard as two pregnancies. And I’ll have plenty of help. It’s not like we don’t have staff, or I have to do housework, or something.”

  “Twins. That sounds nice, actually.”

  “Well, there are no guarantees, Bobby. It’s not even fifty-fifty odds. But it is a possibility I thought I should warn you about.”

  “No, I’m good with it, Amanda. Either way.”

  Dunham pulled her closer.

  “So when will you tell the nanites to suspend?”

  “I already have.”

  Jared Denny and his associates at Sintar Specialty Services had made about as much progress as they could on the electronic countermeasures program. What they needed to continue was primarily technical data. Highly classified technical data. The next thing they would need was even worse: actual platform time, with real warships. This would be ridiculously expensive unless the Imperial Navy took it on.

  He was trying to decide how to proceed when he got a mail from Fred Dunlop, the head of the ship acquisition department. The subject was ‘Award of Contract.’ That was surprising, because Sintar Specialty Services didn’t have any open bids with the Navy at the moment.

  Denny read through the mail message. Cost-plus, no-bid contract for Project X. Details classified. Contractor to have access to classified technical materials as required for completion of project. Contractor to have access to military personnel and systems as required for completion of project.

  It was a complete blank check. The only thing it didn’t say is what the hell Project X was.

  “Fred Dunlop.”

  “Good morning, Mr. Dunlop. Jared Denny here.”

  “Ah, Mr. Denny. What can I do for you?”

  “I am in receipt of your message regarding Project X.”

  “Yes, Mr. Denny. Is everything in order?”

  “Mr. Dunlop, the only thing your message doesn’t include is a description of Project X.”

  “Ah. I see. Yes. Well, the orders came down from the Projects group in Imperial Administration. When I asked my Projects coordinator, they had no further information for me about Project X other than this award of contract had come out of the Imperial Palace. The Co-Consul’s office, as a matter of fact.”

  “The Co-Consul’s office?”

  “Yes. And when my Projects coordinator asked the Co-Consul’s office what Project X is, they were told the following, and I quote: ‘We assume they are working on something. Whatever it is, see they get whatever funds and help they need.’ Close quote.”

  “No shit.”

  “My words exactly, Mr. Denny. It seems you have fans upstairs. Way upstairs. I assume that, in fact, you are working on something?”

  “Oh, yes. And we were just about to the point we would need to stop without access to classified technical information and actual weapons platforms.”

  “That will no longer be a problem, Mr. Denny. You just let me know what you need, and I will take care of it personally.”

  “Do you want to know what the project is, Mr. Dunlop?”

  “I would actually prefer not to know, Mr. Denny. Not until you are much further along. Until you are ready to present findings and recommendations. In the meantime, just let me know what you need.”

  “Shouldn’t you appoint a contact for us, Mr. Dunlop? I mean, I’m sure you have lots of other things going on. That’s a big department.”

  “Which mostly runs itself. No, Mr. Denny. When the orders come directly from the Co-Consul’s office, I will be more than happy to personally ensure they are carried out with the enthusiasm and dispatch required.”

  Two months later, lying on the chaise on the pool deck after she had swum her laps, Peters had news for Dunham.

  “Bobby, now’s the time. I ovulated yesterday. Actually, my nanites tell me I ovulated twice yesterday, so we’re probably looking at twins.”

  “The nanites tell you that?”

  “Well, they’re not doing anything else right now, and they’re just hanging around, so yeah, they give me information like that.”

  “And you’re sure, Amanda?”

  “Sure I want to start a child, or sure it’s gonna be twins?”

  “Sure you want to start a child.”

  “Absolutely. C’mon, Marine. You’ve got the range. Fire for effect.”

  Plans, Counterplans, And Bots

  The Honorable Frederick Cloverdale, Ambassador to Estvia from the Democracy of Planets, was once again visiting with King Michael VI, hereditary king of Estvia. Coffee had been poured and cookies selected.

  “You asked for this meeting, Mr. Ambassador. What is our topic today?”

  “Yes, Your Highness. My first order of business today is to ask how the delivery of the first group of warships went, and how they are working out for you.”

  “There have been some minor teething issues, Mr. Ambassador. It is new equipment for us, and we’re having to learn how to use it effectively. But your representatives have been most helpful in getting things sorted out.”

  “Ah. Good. I am always concerned when delivering equipment that all goes smoothly, Your Highness. I’m glad we have been able to work through any issues that came up.”

  “So far, everything has been well handled, Mr. Ambassador.”

  “Excellent. On to the second matter. I wanted to stop by, Your Highness, and inform you confidentially of something that has come to our attention.”

  “Very well, Mr. Ambassador. I assume it has something to do with Sintar?”

  “Yes, and more so with some of your colleagues, Your Highness. Apparently, some of them have decided to take more direct action to discourage Sintar from expanding trade into the independent star nations.”

  “What sort of direct action, Mr. Ambassador?”

  “Commerce raiding on Sintaran shipping, Your Highness.”

  “That is unlikely to work out well, Mr. Ambassador. Sintar will take a very dim view of such activities. They are courting reprisals.”

  “Not necessarily, Your Highness. They are carrying out these activities in other star nations’ space, and using warships we recently delivered. It is almost impossible to tell who is doing what, when everyone is using the same ship designs.”

  “Well, they had better not try it here, Mr. Ambassador. Estvia will treat any such activities as simple piracy. We have already been the target of reprisals from Sintar, and I have no desire to repeat the experience. Foreign warships in our space had best mind their manners.”

  “I may be able to convey your desires back through diplomatic channels so as to avoid any incidents here, Your Highness. I cannot guarantee anything, of course.”

  “I understand, Mr. Ambassador. Do your best, though, if you would. I have no desire Estvia be singled out for Sintar’s attentions again.”

  “Thank you for meeting with me, Your Majesty.”

  “Of course, Your Highness. It’s good to see you again.”

  Dunham and King Michael shook hands and then both sat in the club chairs in the featureless room of the VR simulation.

  “I wanted to bring you up to date on where we are with the DP, and also to share with you something the DP’s ambassador told me.”

  “Please proceed, Your Highness.”

  “We have taken delivery of the first group of DP warships, Your Majesty. My people are learning the systems now, and putting them through exercises. I hope to have the plans and performance data soon, which I will be happy to share with you.”

  “That would be most welcome, Your Highness.”

  “The other news is more disturbing, Your Majesty. The DP ambassador said that ‘some of my colleagues’ – identity unspecified – have decided to take more direct measures to discourage Sintaran shipping. Specifically, commerce raiding on Sintaran shipping. I had the impression he was trying to encourage me to do the same.”

  “They do not fear reprisals, Your Highnes
s?”

  “The DP ambassador said they were planning to undertake such activities in other star systems using recently purchased DP warships. It would be almost impossible to tell who was doing it, Your Majesty.”

  “Even if it was the DP themselves, Your Highness.”

  “That had occurred to me as well, Your Majesty. If the DP wants to ratchet things up, they can undertake the commerce raiding themselves, and say, ‘It’s not us. Lots of people are using our hardware these days.’ That may have been their plan in selling their retiring front-line hardware in the first place.”

  “How did you respond to him, Your Highness, if I might ask?”

  “I told him they had better not do any such thing in Estvian space, Your Majesty. That we would treat it as simple piracy. I gave him the explanation we had already been the target of reprisals from Sintar, and I didn’t want Estvia to be singled out by you again.”

  Dunham nodded. Reinforcing belief in the existence of bad blood between Estvia and Sintar would keep King Michael in the loop of communications as the DP continued to stir up trouble between Sintar and the independent star nations. And it was a perfect excuse for telling the DP ambassador commerce raiders better not be operating in Estvia.

  “That was well played, Your Highness.”

  “Thank you, Your Majesty. What is your likely response to such raiding?”

  “The traditional defense against commerce raiding is convoys and warships, Your Highness. Another option here is to cut back on our international shipping, but that is likely exactly what the DP wants. Any shortage in shipping or import-export trade would be happily made up by the DP. I am unlikely to accommodate them there. I’ll have to see what we come up with. Something a little more unexpected might be best. I have no clue yet what that might be. It would also be nice to figure out who was doing it.”

  “Then you could, er, more directly express your displeasure and discourage the practice, Your Majesty.”

  “Exactly, Your Highness.”

  Dunham’s white-blue eyes grew cold, and King Michael shuddered with a sudden chill.

  “Exactly,” he repeated.

  “So that’s the situation. Thanks to King Michael, we know someone is going to start commerce raiding our commercial vessels. The open question is, What do we do about it?”

  “The problem is that, once a freighter makes down-transition from hyperspace, it’s reliant on the local hypergates to get back into hyperspace,” Saaret said. “It’s trapped in the system with the pirates, with less acceleration and maneuverability and no way to defend itself.”

  “We could rig some of them as Q-ships,” Dunham said.

  “That might work once or twice, but a Q-ship has no chance against a full-up warship that knows what it’s dealing with.”

  “I think one important thing would be to find out who it is,” Peters said. “How can we figure out who is doing it? If we did that, we can make it clear we don’t like it much.”

  “That will be a problem,” Dunham said. “Let’s say we send along some military assets with some of our freighters, and they surprise a raider and blow it to dust bunnies. How do we figure out whose it is? We know it’s going to be a DP warship, but who’s operating it?”

  “Personnel would probably be easiest,” Saaret said. “Uniforms, identification cards, DNA. Computer memories would tell us a lot, too, if we could find one of the main computers in the wreckage. We just need one of the redundant memory modules.”

  “And how do we sort through the wreckage, in a hostile system, with no way out other than the local hypergate?” Dunham asked.

  “We could stage a lot of our hyperspace projector ships toward the frontiers,” Saaret said. “If they were closer, the military assets could protect the freighter until the projector ship could get there. We could have additional military assets show up in the meantime. If the local system sent their own military out to cause trouble, having ours show up and kick them around might be a salutary lesson as well.”

  “We still have the problem of inspecting the wreckage,” Dunham said. “That’s a specialist’s job. Not just anybody can go EVA, transfer to the debris of the other ship, know what they’re looking for and where to look, and get back with any evidence for analysis.”

  Saaret nodded, but Peters was lost in her thoughts. She suddenly started.

  “HARPER units,” Peters said. “Have a specialty HARPER unit for the job. One that can maneuver EVA. We can have a specialist running it from anywhere in the Empire.”

  “OK, now that’s a good idea,” Saaret said. “But a specialty unit? Which ships would we put it on to make sure we had them where we needed them?”

  “Actually, we could probably use having one or two of those on every ship,” Dunham said. “It’s not like it wouldn’t be useful in more conventional ways. Just add one to the standard inventory.”

  “Do you want me to run this through Projects?” Saaret asked.

  “No, I want to keep it quieter than that for now,” Dunham said. “I’ll take care of it.”

  Jared Denny was just starting his day when he got a priority message. He gulped when he saw the Imperial header. Only one person in the three hundred trillion residents of the Sintaran Empire could generate that header, and he wasn’t a subject.

  It was an invitation to a VR channel, and Denny went full immersive on the channel. He found himself in a simulation of a well-appointed office. A man in his mid-thirties sat behind an expensive desk, his hands clasped on the desk. His white-blue eyes were instantly recognizable to Denny, who had watched the Imperial coronation two years before.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Denny. Be seated.”

  It must be afternoon in Imperial City, though it was morning for Denny. He sat down in a comfortable padded chair before the desk.

  “Good afternoon, Your Majesty.”

  “Mr. Denny, I have a project for you. I don’t want to run it through Projects because I want to keep it quieter than that for now. Just your group. When you have something, you can report it to me, and then we’ll open it up a bit, all right?”

  “Certainly, Sire.”

  “You can do this under the Project X umbrella. I directed that you be given an open-ended project, and I think that’s what they called it. Is that right?”

  So Project X came direct from the Emperor? That explained the blank check.

  “Yes, Sire. That’s right.”

  “Good. Here’s what I need, Mr. Denny. I need a HARPER unit that can go EVA, off the ship, maneuver to the wreckage of another ship close by, inspect it for evidence of various kinds to determine whose ship it is, and return with the evidence. That could be just the video evidence from the VR, it could be computer evidence like memory modules, it could be DNA evidence from bodies. It might need to cut that evidence away from the debris. Do you think you can do that?”

  “I don’t see why not, Sire. Would this be a specialty unit? Or part of the standard HARPER kit?”

  “Probably part of the standard HARPER kit, Mr. Denny. Some of those capabilities, especially maneuvering off-ship, would be useful in a lot of other scenarios, I would think. That is the part we will go public with in a ‘ho-hum, yet another version’ kind of way. But the specific task of wreckage inspection we will keep close. Very close. Just your team, please.”

  “Certainly, Sire.”

  “All right, Mr. Denny. That’s the assignment. Any other questions?”

  “Timeframe, Sire?”

  “It is a near-term need, Mr. Denny, so what speed you can manage, while getting it right, will be appreciated.”

  “Yes, Sire. We’ve got it.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Denny.”

  And with that, the Emperor dropped the connection.

  “All right, everybody,” Denny said, “we have a new assignment under Project X. This is a near-term need, so it’s our highest priority.”

  “Did this come in from ship acquisition?” Narang asked.

  “No. It came from the Imperia
l Palace.”

  “Wow.”

  “What he wants is a HARPER unit that can maneuver off-ship, in space. That can transfer from one ship to another in close proximity. A few miles, I think.”

  “We’ve talked about that before,” Liu said, “but we didn’t see a need.”

  “OK, so that will be the more open requirement. The top-secret requirement is that this unit can go to the wreckage of another ship, and be used to figure out who’s ship it was. I think they’re anticipating some anonymous attacks, and they want to be able to figure out who’s doing them.”

  “And when do they want this?” Liu asked.

  “Yesterday, but tomorrow will have to be good enough. I got the impression if he had them now, he would be happier, but I was specifically asked to get them as fast as we could get them right. So this is job one.”

  “You keep saying he. Who’s he?”

  “The Emperor. He gave me this assignment directly.”

  The fastest way to get the job done was, as before, to buy commercial subassemblies that could be attached to the HARPER common frame. There was even a modular propulsion unit available. It was manufactured for remote-control assembly robots in spacedocks, and had the range and capacity to well exceed the requirements. Best of all, it already had a VR control interface that had been shaken out.

  By luck, the propulsion units were stocked in the system in which Bob Fielding lived, and the Project X access to Navy personnel and facilities allowed him to test the prototype unit between ships in orbit for refitting and restocking.

  They had only had the assignment a month when Denny sent a message to the private mail address that had sent him the VR request under Imperial header. He got an acknowledgement an hour later and entered immersive VR to find himself once again in the simulated office across the simulated desk from the Emperor’s avatar.

  “Yes, Mr. Denny. Problems?”

  “No, Your Majesty. We’ve completed the assignment.”

  “So soon?”

  “We had actually thought about the off-ship capability before, Sire, and suitable propulsion units are available as a modular assembly. They’re used in spacedocks. We tested one on a HARPER unit and it works very well. The other capabilities were already part of the HARPER line-up.”