by Diane Duane
The half-a-person whooped with that very distinctive laugh of his—an even funnier sound than usual, smothered as it was inside the console—and carefully came out from under, brushing himself off as he stood. Regardless of his age (in the mid-thirties), his six-foot height, and his silver-shot hair (now somewhat disarranged from being inside the console), Jerry Freeman always struck Jim as one of the youngest of his crew. The man was eternally excited about something—for example, right now, those old sterries—but though the subject of the enthusiasm might change without notice, his total commitment to the subject of the moment never did. “What are you two up to?” Jim said.
“Words of one syllable, please,” said McCoy.
“Oh, come on, Bones. You have to learn some big words sooner or later. E-lec-tron. Can you say that? Sure you can….”
Freeman took a moment to smooth his hair back in place. “We’re confusing the intercom system, Doctor,” he said. “Among other things. But what the captain needed was a more effective jamming system for subspace communications than Fleet has bothered to design for wide-area use. Mostly they’ve tried to handle the ‘beam-tapping’ problem in deepspace communications by avoiding it…defeating it at sending and receiving ends with ‘unbreakable’ codes, hypercoherent wavicle packets, all that silliness. But what technology can produce, technology can sooner or later decode or unravel.”
Uhura was leaning on one elbow beside Ael with a humorous look on her face, watching her protégé lecture. “You can’t solve a problem that way,” she said. “Fleet has been ignoring the medium through which the messages travel, considering deepspace too big and unmanageable to handle. And it’s true that ‘broadcast’ jamming of the sort done in a planet’s ionosphere is impossible out here; while the relatively small-scale jamming already available to us is useless for our present purposes. So what Jerry and I have been doing is finding a way to make space itself more amenable to being jammed…a method that’s an outgrowth of the way Jerry’s been making digital documents more amenable to being rechanneled.”
“Mr. Scott helped,” Jerry said. “We used material from the parts bank to build a very small warpfield generator of the kind used in warp-capable shuttlecraft. We attached that to one of the little message buoys that the ship jettisons in jeopardy situations. Then we adjusted the warpfield generator so that it would twist space just slightly over a large cubic area, causing the contours of surrounding subspace to favor randomly directed tachyon flow along certain ‘tunnels’ at a certain packet frequency—”
“Good-bye,” McCoy said. “I’m off to do something simple. A hemicorporectomy, possibly.”
“It makes subspace much easier to jam,” Mr. Freeman said, sounding rather desperate. “That’s all.”
“Why didn’t you say that?” McCoy muttered.
“I did.”
“It also takes a lot of power,” Jim said thoughtfully. “Even a hefty warpfield generator would only have a limited life expectancy.”
“Yes, sir. Four hours is our predicted upper limit. But for those four hours, nobody trying to use subspace communication is going to hear anything but what sounds like a lot of ‘black noise’—stellar wind and so forth. And whatever they try to send will be perverted into the same noise.”
“Range?”
“Presently about a thousand cubic light-years, Captain. If you want more, you can have it, but the life of the generator becomes inversely shorter in proportion to the extension of the jamming buoy’s range.”
Jim nodded—he had rather expected that. “All right. How many of them can you put together for me in the next four hours?”
Uhura and Freeman looked at each other. “We’ll need more people—”
“Get Scotty and the engineering staff on it.”
“We don’t dare overdrain the parts bank, sir,” Freeman said. “Will three more be enough?”
“They’ll have to be. Ael, how about it? How fast are your people likely to understand this if they come up against it?”
The commander looked dubious. “Hard to tell, Captain. They are not all idiots like LLunih, or as complacent as t’Kaenmie and tr’Arriufvi, who’re pacing us in Helm and Wildfire. I would delay as long as possible before deploying such a device; that would give any interested observer less time to become suspicious and start deducing what was going on.”
Yes, Jim thought, you would say that, wouldn’t you? No matter what you were up to. But he put the thought aside for the moment. “Agreed,” he said. “At our present rate we should be hitting the ‘breakaway’ point, where we drop our pursuit, in about five hours, correct?”
“That’s so, Captain.”
“Fine. We’ll drop one of those buoys there as we begin the engagement, to keep your three friends from yelling for help. One we’ll drop in the area of Levaeri when we reach it. To the third one I want the fourth warp generator attached so that it has starflight capability as well as the subspace alteration function. We’ll send it off past Levaeri, along the likeliest vector of approach for an unexpected ship. Think about that, Commander, and let me know.”
Ael blinked at Jim. “But if the ship is unexpected—” Then she smiled. “Ah, Hilaefve’s Paradox, eh Captain? Very well. I will think about it for you.”
“Good. Uhura, Mr. Freeman, take what people you need and get on it. One thing before you go: why have you taught the holography console to shout gibberish?”
Uhura chuckled. “Captain, it takes months of practice and skill to handle a ship’s communications board so that there’s no signal leakage through the shields. The problem is, after working with a board for awhile, a comm officer does that without thinking of it—and I didn’t think to warn poor Aidoann. Not that she would have known what to do about it—I haven’t had time to teach her all the board’s little tricks. So Jerry took the same random number generator he used in the jamming buoy’s tachyon-switching protocols and adapted it to the multiuse programmable logic solid that every intercom in the ship has inside it. The solids will now encode and decode voices and data at their sending and receiving ends; signal along the circuitry, which is where the leakage comes from, will now only manifest as that gibberish you heard—so that even while Ael’s people are handling our intercoms, we can say anything we have to without worrying about being overheard, or needing people to run around with notes….”
“Nice work,” Jim said, and both Uhura and Freeman looked exceptionally pleased. “Now I need another four hours of it. Uhura, have Lieutenant Mahasë cover for you on the bridge till you’re done. Both of you scoot!”
They did. Jim watched them go, and Ael moved around to join him and McCoy. “If we’re to be in battle in four hours,” she said, “I’d best go see to Bloodwing and make sure my people are ready.”
“Sounds good to me, Commander. Bones, I’m about ready for my nap. Have me paged at point six, unless something requires my attention sooner.”
“Right.”
Ael went off in one direction, and the doctor in another. Jim just stood there for a moment, watching them both out of sight—then headed down to his cabin, via engineering, thinking very hard about chess.
He was still thinking about it two hours later, after his nap turned into a tossing-and-turning session, and even one of McCoy’s mild soothers left him completely awake. On Jim’s desk screen, the ship’s computer had obligingly translated the chesscubic’s holographic display of McCoy’s game with Ael into a 2D graphic, and displayed it for him. It made a fascinating study—the first moves sure on McCoy’s part, tentative on Ael’s; then roles reversing—McCoy moving with more of an outward show of caution, apparently seeing what Ael would do if offered the run of the cubic. There was a point at which the computer recorded a long interval between moves; she had hesitated. Jim could almost see those cool eyes of hers across the cubic, suddenly lifted to assess not only the tactical situation but the man who sat across from her—who was, at the moment, himself a tactic. And then came a series of moves that were, to put it m
ildly, insulting. She became “polite” to McCoy. She moved out into the cubic, but genteelly, almost as if not wanting to beat him, almost as if they were playing on the same side. McCoy put up with it for about ten minutes, then timed about half his pieces out, preparing to dump them on her like a ton of neutronium in six very visible moves. He could seem insulting too, when it suited his purposes.
And she derailed Bones as totally as Bones had derailed Spock. Three of her pieces timed out, not even critical ones. Three moves later, McCoy’s pieces all came back—into cubes that were suddenly no longer vacant. Annihilation, all over the board. McCoy had one stronghold left for his king and both of his queens.
Ael sacrificed both her queens to his—and checkmated his king with three pawns and a knight fork.
Her first game.
She didn’t even care, Jim. Chew on that.
He did. It tasted awful.
—and the red alert sirens started whooping, and there was no time to waste worrying anymore. Trust her, he told himself bitterly as he leapt up from the chair, pulling the velour on over the undertunic. Or don’t. But make up your mind.
He ran out, seething. The corridors were alive with his people, and with Romulans, too, scrambling for posts. He dashed into the lift at the end of officers’ country and found tall pretty Aidoann already in there, breathing hard. “Where’s the commander?” he said, as the doors closed on them.
“Beamed back over to Bloodwing, Captain,” Aidoann said. She looked at him with those big brown eyes of hers, and Jim had a sudden thought that she looked rather like Uhura, the same slant to the eyes…. “Sir—” she said.
It was the first time any of them had called him anything but “Captain.” Something cultural? he wondered. But whatever, suddenly she wasn’t a Romulan anymore; she was a young crewperson, looking nervous before a major engagement. “Antecenturion?”
“Do you have things you believe in?”
Impossible not to answer such directness. “Yes,” Jim said.
“I hope They’re with us now,” Aidoann said. “Those three will blow us all to Areinnye if they can.”
“Aidoann,” he said, grateful that he could pronounce that word at least, “your commander and I have other plans.”
She grinned at Jim, a quick flash through the otherwise Romulan intensity. The bridge doors opened for them.
I just hope they’re the same ones, Jim thought, and swung down toward the center seat.
Spock got out of it with his usual quick grace and hurried back to his station. “Captain, we are running slightly ahead of schedule,” he said over his shoulder as he went. “Registering a group of large masses at most extreme sensor range. Their location and arrangement agree closely with Bloodwing’s estimates for ephemerae of Levaeri V and its primary. The station is not yet detectable. On the revised schedule, we are now five minutes from scheduled ‘breakaway.’”
“Good. Mr. Mahasë”—Jim turned to the gray-haired, gray-skinned Eseriat who was holding down Uhura’s post, with Aidoann standing by if she should be needed. “Get me engineering.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Engineering, Scott here…”
“We’re running fast, Scotty—in range a bit early. How are Uhura and Freeman doing?”
“They’re just helping my people put the finishing touches on the last buoy,” Scotty said.
“Fine. Load one of them up; we’re about to lay an egg.”
“Already in photon torpedo tube one, Captain.”
“All right. Hold on to it, Scotty; I’ll let you know when. Thirty seconds tops. Out. Aidoann, please call Bloodwing and give them the prearranged signal.”
“Yes, sir,” she said. And then, after a moment, “Bloodwing, this is Enterprise; t’Khnialmnae.”
“Tr’Rllaillieu,” said Subcommander Tafv’s voice, cool and calm as usual.
“Subcommander, we have an emergency,” Aidoann said, not having to fake a small tremor in her voice. “A small party of Federation personnel have broken out of group detention—”
Mahasë killed the frequency between the two ships. Jim hit the intercom button on his chair. “Okay, Scotty, now!”
The ship held steady as always, but there was a small muffled noise, much quieter than the usual dull thump of a photon torpedo on the way out. “Buoy away, Captain,” Chekov said, “heading one eighty mark minus twenty.”
“Activate it.”
Chekov hit a control on his board. “Operational, Captain. Subspace communications are jammed.”
“Allcall,” Jim said to Mahasë; and when he spoke again his voice rang through the ship. “Battle stations, battle stations! Secure for warp maneuvering!” He made a kill-it gesture at the Eseriat. “Screens up, gentlemen, deflectors on full. Mr. Sulu, kick the engines up to warp three. Break out of Bloodwing’s tractors and maneuver at your discretion. Closest Romulan vessel—”
“Rea’s Helm, sir.”
“Lock on phasers. Fire at will. Mr. Chekov, photon torpedoes—”
“Tubes three through six charged and ready—”
“Mr. Sulu, why aren’t we moving!”
“Bloodwing has increased power to her tractors, sir—”
Why that—! She was supposed to— “Break them,” Jim said tightly.
“Engine overheat, Captain—”
“Risk it. Break free!”
Sulu’s hands swept over his board. “No good, sir—”
“Increase warp.”
“Sir, no result, Bloodwing’s too close—”
“Rea’s Helm has put its shields up, Captain,” Spock said, staring down his viewer. “Hailing us.”
“Ignore. Mr. Chekov, fire on Bloodwing.”
Aidoann’s head jerked up; her face was ashen. “Shielded, Captain—” Chekov said.
“I note that. Scan for weakest point and fire phasers right there. Look for areas of screen overlap, those spots are sometimes poorly protected—”
“Shields going up on Wildfire and Javelin, Captain,” Spock said. The ship shuddered as something hit the screens. “Fire, Captain,” Spock added. “From Bloodwing. Phaser fire, clean hit on number six screen, screen efficiency decreased to sixty percent—”
Damn! Damn! DAMN! “Return fire at will, Mr. Chekov. Mr. Sulu, if you don’t break those tractors in about a second, I’m going to tell Lieutenant Renner who stole her clothes from poolside last month!”
Next to Chekov, who was firing the phasers in blast after blast, Sulu went pale. Jim didn’t see what he did, but the ship lurched mightily, and suddenly space on the screen in front of them was clear again. “Damage?” he said.
“Minimal,” Spock said. “A very quick burst at warp eight, most precisely angled. Well done, Mr. Sulu.”
“Yes,” Jim said, sweating and grim, but grinning nonetheless.
“Four clean hits on Bloodwing, Captain. Her forward screen is down to thirty percent efficiency, and her port screen has failed altogether. Further fire—”
“Forget her,” Jim said. “Sulu, Chekov, get me those three ships!”
“Positions on screen,” Spock said. There they were in schematic: Bloodwing lying a little to one side, coming after Enterprise but losing speed; Rea’s Helm closing in from port and above, Wildfire coming in faster yet from the starboard, Javelin arching around toward the rear. “Mr. Chekov, watch out for him—”
“Firing rear tubes, standard spread,” Chekov said, eyes flickering back and forth from his board to the screen. “Recharging.”
“Clean misses,” Spock said. “Javelin is in evasive maneuvers. Dropping back—now closing again—Rea’s Helm is in close approach—”
“Fire!” Jim cried at exactly the moment Chekov did so. White fire lanced away from the Enterprise, hitting the Romulan ship exactly in a screen overlap zone over a nacelle. There was one of those seemingly month-long pauses, and then Rea’s Helm blew up, blazing, matter and antimatter making a small sun of her. Sulu brought Enterprise curving about and threw her right into the expanding
cloud of debris, letting the deflectors take it.
“Steady on, Mr. Sulu,” Jim said, leaning forward in the center seat. “We’re leaving a trail—”
“Yes, sir, I know,” Sulu said. “Warp six—” He was working on his console again, while behind them sensors showed Wildfire screaming in from the starboard, Javelin trailing somewhat, and Bloodwing at the rear of the pack, building speed but still far behind.
“Wildfire is closing,” Spock said calmly. “Firing to her port—” Spock paused a moment, looking down his scanner. “Explosion, Captain. She has destroyed jamming buoy. Wildfire’s range now five hundred thousand kilometers—four hundred thousand—”
Sulu’s eyebrows went up as his hand flickered over the console. Jim watched him with uneasy delight. He was doing something Jim had seen done in starships in warp, but always at slower speeds: deforming the warpfield itself, broadening and flattening it forward, tightening it to the rear. And the ship was responding in the only way she could—slowly, gracefully nosing downward as she flashed through the Helm’s remains, then nosing down faster, harder, pitching forward until she was literally flying “vertically,” nacelles and the broad side of the disk forward.
It was not a position a ship could fly in for more than a few seconds, in warp. Yet if this worked…“Mr. Sulu—” Jim said.
“I know, Captain,” Sulu said, and kept Enterprise rolling forward—a slow somersault through otherspace at seven hundred twenty times the speed of light, while behind her, seeing nothing but the unchanged shape of her defensive screens, Wildfire came charging in—right into the teeth of her forward phasers. If Sulu could get her around in time! She was flying “diagonal” now, easing out of it, flattening out—flying upside down and backward, and right into their faces, now here came Wildfire, firing phasers—“Hits on number one shield, number three shield,” Spock said, beginning to sound a touch grim now, “number one buckling, Captain; reinforcing—”
“No! Belay that!” Jim could feel Spock glancing at him, ignored it for the moment. “Another hit on number three,” Spock said, “down to twenty percent—”
