Wolf Star (Tour of the Merrimack #2)

by R. M. Meluch

  An easy man to fight for.

  The signals tech mumbled, stunned, at his station. “How can this be happening?”

  John Farragut took up that question to the res operator without the despair. “How can this be happening?”

  Resonance exists outside of four dimensions. It does not follow spatial limits and so is impervious to time. A resonant pulse exists in the instant, the now, and then does not. It has no echo, no persistence. Unless your res chamber was tuned to that unique harmonic and waiting for a signal, the pulse may as well not exist in your universe.

  Rome had Merrimack’s harmonic.

  “There are infinite res harmonics,” Farragut spoke what everyone knew, then what everyone wondered, “How could they get ours?”

  “Espionage,” Colonel Lu Oh answered before anyone else could. Calli heard the accusation in it. Did not have to look to know which way Colonel Oh was facing when she said that.

  Calli’s education at Palatine’s prestigious Imperial Military Institute had been equal parts help and hindrance throughout her career. Her training there had made her an exceptional officer, but it left her loyalty forever suspect.

  Colonel Oh was not the first CIA skakker leech to set her hooks into Calli Carmel’s back.

  Calli kept her voice soft, hard. “I suggest you turn those eyes elsewhere, Mr. Oh.”

  John Farragut turned to the signals tech, “No signal lag? None at all?”

  “None, sir,” the signals tech confirmed, woeful.

  IFF itself was not resonant. Could not be. Resonance had no location, and an IFF signal source must be locatable in order for friendly ordnance to avoid it. However, resonance was the only way to synchronize signals between ships light-seconds apart. Merrimack had sent the seed to the fighter craft via resonance, so all ships would receive it at the same instant.

  “In that case it’s not just our harmonic,” said Calli. “They’ve got our IFF code sequence. We only fed a seed change to the Swifts.” The seed started the program at a common point. From there the IFF signal changed according to the “random” program.

  And the Roman IFF changed along with it.

  “Captain, they’ve got our master code,” said Calli, the only possible conclusion.

  Blue eyes rolled as if heaven were still the direction opposite artificial gravity’s pull. “Oh, for—” Farragut interrupted himself. “Note to file: the moment we get out of this we warn Monitor.”

  Monitor shared much with her sister ship, including codes. One gets cut, the other could bleed, too. “Aye, sir.” Calli gave a sharp nod.

  Marine pilots screaming on the com in their Swifts were audible across the command platform. Orders, warnings, curses, sometimes a cry that abruptly ceased.

  Colonel Steele, white and rigid as a block of ice, died every time one of his Marine’s plots blinked off the tactical screen. “Shut off the IFF!” came out of his mouth like an order.

  “Belay that!” Farragut’s counterorder brought him an ice-blue glare of utter betrayal.

  Before Steele could say something else ill-advised, Farragut grabbed hold of Steele’s sleeve, and said in a whisper, “TR, we can’t. The Romans are right up in our faces spitting. What is more predictable than for us to power off our IFF? I’ve bit this hook, I’m not fixin’ to swallow it.”

  A thick muscle bulged at Steele’s square jaw with the clenching of his teeth. He could not argue. Farragut was right. Why the man was the captain.

  “It’s such an obvious thing for us to do,” Farragut said softly. “They have to be ready for it.”

  Calli picked up the logic trail from there. “So if we were to cut out IFF, what would be the Roman countermove?”

  “Don’t know. Don’t care. We’re not playing their game. What we’re going to do is send the recall. Make the Romans think we’re fixin’ to tuck and run.”

  “Are we?” Calli asked.

  “Thinking about it. And while I’m thinking—God damn!” Broke off at the sight through a porthole. A Roman ship so close he could see it. See it. See its interior lights winking through its torpedo tubes.

  Merrimack’s recall signal brought the Swifts swarming back toward the battleship’s docks on either wing.

  But the Swifts could not get close.

  The battleship Valerius belched forth fighters of its own to intercept them, while Valerius, the two Strigidae and the five Accipitridae continued to hammer the Merrimack .

  Merrimack’s field groaned and rasped with every strike. The battleship’s violent jinking to deflect the Roman salvos from her engines also kept the Swifts from lining up any kind of safe approach.

  “This is a loss, Captain,” Intelligence Officer Lu Oh, advised. “Do not hand the enemy its objective.”

  She was telling him to run.

  Colonel Steele’s white face, his bulging muscles, his blanched fists were as loud as a shout: No!

  Captain Farragut nodded. “We should run. I hope the Romans don’t wonder why we’re not doing that.”

  “Are we done thinking about it?” Oh prompted. “Do we have a plan now?”

  “We do—”

  The artificial gravity gave a burp that brought stomachs to throats, rising on a wave and not settling back down. Lights browned down, brightened up.

  The systems monitor reported a flux in Engine Three. Contained. Stabilized.

  Farragut kept speaking through it with no change in voice, “—If we can switch on the IFF transponder in that Wren we liberated back at the Abyss.” And to his XO’s uncomprehending stare he filled in, “That little Roman spyship we commandeered last month. Wearing French colors.”

  “That one,” said Calli, lights going on.

  “That one. Where did we put it?”

  “The boffins are dissecting it in the maintenance hangar. Starboard wing.”

  Lu Oh spoke skeptically, “You’re suggesting we send the Wren’s signal to the Swifts instead of our own IFF?”

  “Not instead of ours,” said Farragut. “With ours.”

  The signals tech had to speak. “Sorry, sir. I don’t get it. What will that accomplish? The Romans will just pick it up and mimic it. Apparently, whatever we feed to the Swifts’ IFF sounders, we feed to the Romans’ IFF sounders.”

  “That’s why we’re not going to feed the Wren’s signal into the Swifts’ IFF sounder. We’re going to feed it into the Swift’s emergency sounders.”

  A distress call, like an IFF signal, was meant to be heard, and be traceable to its source.

  “A false SOS is against all conventions of war,” Calli advised, very softly.

  “We’re not sending an SOS. We’re just using the emergency equipment. All my ships will be sending two discrete signals. And the instant we activate the Wren’s signal, our guns are going to target Merrimack’s IFF signal.”

  Calli’s neatly shaped eyebrows lifted. She motioned to one of the techs.

  Already poised on the seat edge, the young man flew from the command platform. His boots clanged on the deck grates all the way to the starboard maintenance hangar.

  Steele, a brave man but not a scientific one, missed the connection that everyone else on deck seemed to be making. “What keeps Merrimack from shooting my Marines?”

  Or were his pilots forfeit here?

  Farragut answered him. “We code a NOT operand into our targeting system and direct all ordnance to hit Mack’s IFF but NOT the Wren IFF.”

  Steele was unconvinced. “What keeps a missile from carrying out the ‘hit our IFF’ command before it gets to the ‘don’t hit the Wren IFF’ command?”

  Farragut caught his balance against a deck tilt, and answered his doubting Marine commander. “If I remember right, the NOT operand has precedence in computer decisions. In machine language NOT means absolutely NOT, while in human talk it’s usually negotiable.” He looked to the signals tech and targeting specialist who were coordinating the program over the com with the tech in the maintenance hangar. Lifted his brows for confirmation. />
  “Uh, yes, sir,” the signals tech hesitated. “It does. NOT has precedence. Within its own statement it does.”

  Targeting added, “If you get your NOT outside the right statement, it’ll negotiate like hell.”

  “Then let’s get it in the right statement and get it there quick. I don’t want the Romans to think we’ve got anything left in the bull pen.”

  The ship’s field hiccupped. Pressure quit. Boxed the ears with its sudden return.

  Tactical mumbled assurance, “We don’t look like we got skat.” He yawned wide to pop his ears.

  Colonel Steele paced a trench into John Farragut’s narrow command deck. Screams over the com bludgeoned the big man’s stony nerves. The fighters, trying to return to the battleship, could not possibly dock with a bucking target.

  “TR, send a verbal recall. Insist your pilots get back here right now.”

  Merrimack’s pilot, intent on letting nothing line up anything on Merrimack, heard that. “Do you want me to let them approach, sir?”

  “Hell, no.”

  And to Colonel Steele, who looked like he’d been stabbed in the gut after dutifully relaying the impossible order to his desperate Marines, Farragut said, “I’m just feeding their arrogance.”

  “You’re feeding them my Marines.” Steele whispered that, so as not to be heard arguing with the captain on his own command deck.

  “Rome doesn’t want to erase your dogs, TR. Those Accipiters could have mopped them all up by now. They want the Mack.”

  Steele paled in realization. “Hostages.”

  Farragut nodded. “The Romans won’t kill all of our Swifts. They baited us. Made us come to them with our boats out. Gave us something to lose. Rome wants us to stay and try to rescue our fighters—because Rome can’t afford to get into a footrace with the Mack. That big battle heap of theirs can’t accelerate fast enough to catch us if we run.”

  “The Accipiters can,” Tactical advised.

  “Those Accipiters don’t want to catch the Mack.” Without their heavy hitting comrades, the light Accipitridae were no match for Merrimack.

  “We aren’t running without my Marines!” Steele hadn’t meant to say that aloud to his captain. Waited for a rep.

  But Farragut said firmly, “No, TR. We are not. Targeting! Status!”

  “We are loading code to target Merrimack’s IFF, and waiting for the Wren code to load the NOT command before transport to the active library.”

  Farragut clicked on the intercom. “Maintenance hangar! This is Farragut. Get that code NOTted and up here yesterday.”

  The ship shuddered around them. Beyond the hatch, a crewman spilled into view, half falling from an upper deck. He dangled from a ladder rung, flailing for his footing. Recovered and scrambled back above deck.

  A crewman in a space suit.

  The XO had not ordered the crew to suits. To wear one without orders won you a rep at least, hard time more likely. Wearing a suit meant you saw a high chance of dying.

  Wearing a suit against orders meant you knew you were as good as dead already.

  Calli snapped to the nearest MP. “Brig that man.”

  Farragut was on the intercom again: “Maintenance hangar! Farragut. Tell me something.”

  “Maintenance here! Wren code ready to load, sir!”

  “Targeting!”

  Targeting picked up the cue. “Loading code, aye.”

  “Com, what is your status?”

  “Com has the Wren IFF ready to send into all ships’ emergency sounders. Com standing by.”

  Calli turned to the captain. “Priority of targets, sir?”

  Captain Farragut answered at once, “The battleship’s engines. Any open gunport. Get the Valerius. Ignore the little skat.”

  Calli had to shout instructions over the thunder roll of a heavy salvo hitting Merrimack’s field.

  “Targeting! Status!”

  “Targeting ready, sir.”

  “Fire Control, stand by!”

  “Fire Control, ready and standing by, aye.”

  “Signals, stand by!”

  “Signals standing by, aye.”

  “Com, stand by to feed Wren signal into the Swifts’ emergency sounders.”

  “Com standing by, aye.”

  Farragut met his exec’s gaze. “Ready, Cal?”

  “On your word, John.”

  They waited. Calli nodded at the sensor display, at the Roman battleship looming, all its gunports gaping. “Here he comes.”

  Desperate sounds filled the waiting. A Swift on approach cracked against Merrimack’s field. Over the com, his flight mates shouted after him. A flight leader cried out, forlorn, betrayed—why won’t Merrimack let them dock?

  “Oh, for Jesus.” Farragut signaled Calli, “Call it.”

  Calli ordered: “Com, send Wren IFF.”

  “Sending Wren IFF, aye.”

  All U.S. ships’ emergency sounders began chirping with the Wren’s IFF signal.

  And immediately after, “Fire!”

  Merrimack opened up everything. Techs braced themselves against the nothingness of another balk, another failure.

  Blessedly, they felt the ship’s power bunch and deliver. Heard, felt, the screech of ordnance leaving Merrimack ’s barrels. The angry smell filled the corridors.

  Merrimack’s force field opaqued with overload of sudden luminosity.

  The tactical display reimaged in a moment, showed the Roman battleship Valerius heave. “Got him!”

  Voices on the com—several of the fighter pilots at once—crowed, “Yeah!”

  The command deck erupted with jubilant cries, all the techs on their feet, shouting.

  Farragut ordered, jubilant, “TR, cancel the recall. Have your dogs beat the blue peaches out of ’em!” Though he scarcely needed to; the Swifts were already raking up the Roman fighter craft in a shredded cloud.

  “Aye, sir!”

  Celebration quickly subsided as the scene on the monitors rolled out. Watched in a kind of horror as the Roman battleship convulsed, twice, from within. Had the look of internal explosions.

  The shimmering aura of Valerius’ force field flickered, snuffed out. Another heave. Smoke belched from her gunports. And the great ship went silent and dark.

  4

  “HEY’RE HURT.”

  Farragut lunged forward, gripped the console, wide-eyed. “Oh, for Jesus. We hurt ’em.”

  Out came the white flags, stiff and unfluttering in the vacuum, on the Roman ships.

  Over the com from a Marine Swift: “Delta Leader here. This skigspawn Strix is showing white! Do I have permission to shoot his ass!”

  “Stand by,” Farragut sent.

  “Stand by?” Cowboy Carver from Alpha Flight there. “Stand by?”

  Colonel Steele got on the com. “Stand fragging by, Marine!”

  Farragut again: “Marine Wing. This is Captain Farragut. Collect the bricks.”

  Oxygen in solid form was often towed outboard of long-range vessels rather than waste habitable space on board. And because hydrogen could be acquired anywhere, a ship’s oxygen bricks were also its water supply.

  “You may acquire your targets, but do not fire unless fired upon.” Farragut clicked off, murmured to the white-flagged battleship on his monitor. “Your turn.”

  Valerius appeared to be listing, as if it had lost its orientation in space.

  And came the hail from the Roman commodore. He announced himself as Decurion Diomede Julius Silva of the Imperial ship Valerius. He already knew his foe’s name. “Captain Farragut, your assistance, if you please.”

  Farragut returned: “Commodore, strike your colors and show me your sincerity.”

  The Roman eagles reeled inboard from the Valerius. The escort Strigidae and Accipitridae followed suit, but their force fields stayed lit.

  The Swifts buzzed round them like suspicious hornets.

  “Captain Farragut, will you back off your fighters?”

  “No, sir,” said Farragut. />
  In the delay, the Swifts requested permission to fire. The small Roman fighters had all gone inert. Perhaps because they had been under remote control, but perhaps not. The Roman fighters were not showing white, so Farragut gave the Marine Wing permission to take them out.

  At length, the force fields of the Strigs and the Accipiters winked out. The Romans were completely at Merrimack’s mercy.

  Now John Farragut leaned over the com on straight arm and asked, “What do you need, Commodore?”

  Coughing and a blaring alarm sounded behind the Roman’s stoic voice. “I request evac and decontamination.”

  “You got it,” Farragut sent. And to his XO, “Bring ’em over and tank ’em.”

  Farragut expected no treachery from his prisoners. Surrender in space was, by necessity, cordial. Vacuum was merciless. To run up a white flag in deceit was unconscionable. Only pirates—stupid ones—and terrorists tried it. God help everyone if space warfare ever degraded to that. Combatants of civilized nations were always aware that next time it could be you or your brothers in arms under that flag.

  The rules were strict. Between each other, Palatine and the United States abided by all conventions, written and unwritten, of ships in distress and ships in surrender.

  The Strigs and Accipiters, though intact, did not attempt to turn the situation. Nor did they run. As suspected, those ships were running lean, little more than gun platforms with engines. Without their mother ship or their oxygen bricks this deep in Scorpion space, they could only run as far as their cold, slow deaths.

  The Roman commodore transmitted helpfully, “To facilitate evacuation I should tell you, Captain Farragut, we do have U.S. LDs and collars on board.”

  “Oh, really?” Now there was an unhappy surprise. Landing disks and displacement collars were not equipment the armed forces left lying around for the taking.

  “They are correctly coded to your displacement chamber,” the decurion added.

  “I don’t doubt that,” Farragut said, less than pleased.

  “We had intended to board you, sir. Though not like this.”

  In ten minutes the displacement engineers reported having received thirty-five Roman crew in space suits.