Mavericks

by Craig Alanson

  “Seven seconds for full reset, maybe eighteen seconds to restore full capability, Ma’am.” Irene cautioned the ship’s current commander, “Problem is, the Toaster’s sensor suite got beat up pretty badly in the fight, we lost an entire array on the portside, and there are big gaps in the dorsal arrays.”

  “Anything that would prevent the sensors from picking up a return echo from a Yankee search?”

  “No, those active pulses are so powerful I could detect a ship with my suit sensors, if I were standing outside.”

  “That won’t be necessary, Striebich.” The cadets had been appalled when they heard Perkin’s plan to scan the battlespace with active sensor pulses immediately after jumping in, because Fleet doctrine was that stealth was life and no one compromised stealth, especially not in a potential combat situation. Perkins’ reasoning was the intense gamma ray burst of their inbound jump would already illuminate their position to any ship in the area, and the Toaster’s stealth field was, well, basically toast at that point. If a stealthed Bosphuraq ship was lingering around the battlespace, Perkins would rather detect the enemy presence with a sensor echo, than with maser bolts cutting into the Ruh Tostella. “We will be ready to jump the hell out of there if we detect unfriendlies?”

  “Yes,” Derek called up the jump option list on his console. “Short jump, then long. The quicker we have to initiate a jump, the less accurate it will be,” he warned. Short-long was Ruhar Fleet standard procedure for an escape jump. Conduct a short jump to get clear of the immediate battlespace, and drop off quantum resonators just before the jump to confuse enemy sensors about where the ship had jumped to. Then conduct a longer jump, with the hope that by the time the enemy determined where the far end of the short jump was, the escaping ship would be long gone. Derek agreed with the thinking behind the procedure, except the Ruh Tostella was not equipped with quantum resonators, and they would need to pause for an estimated forty minutes after the short jump, to calculate their long jump. If a Bosphuraq ship were waiting for them, Derek thought the Toaster was as good as dead already.

  “Then there’s no point waiting. Sound the alarm for jump prep and start feeding power into the coils.” Perkins closed her eyes briefly and said a silent prayer. Please, God, don’t let me screw this up, people are depending on me.

  The Ruh Tostella jumped with fair accuracy, considering that the jump had been programmed partly by a group of third-year cadets. According to the navigation system, they missed the target point by only fourteen thousand miles. In space warfare, that was practically on top of their target. Perkins took that as a very good omen. “Anything?” Perkins asked with one eye on the clock and one on the sensor display. Ten seconds had gone by, and the display was still blank.

  Then the display lit up. All over.

  “Multiple contacts!” Derek shouted louder than needed. “Wait, wait,” he added to Irene, who had a finger poised on a button to jump them away. “All contacts are solid, Colonel, we’re not picking up a return with a fuzzy silhouette like we would if there were a stealthed ship out there. There are a lot of contacts, though,” he whistled. “Looks like a big debris field.”

  “Striebich, keep your finger on that button,” Perkins ordered, “but don’t activate a jump without my order. We’ve got a limited number of jumps before this bucket fails us.”

  As the sensor data became more clear, Perkins became less tense and more fearful. Unless a Bosphuraq ship had a super-effective stealth field or was so far away they hadn’t received a sensor return yet, the battlespace appeared to be empty of threats. It was also empty of potential rescuers. “Nothing? They’re all gone?” Perkins leaned over Irene’s chair, her eyes flicking from one part of the display to another. The area was cluttered with drifting debris, so much that the Ruh Tostella twice had been forced to maneuver away to avoid colliding with spinning pieces of dangerous junk. Active sensors had thoroughly scanned the area out to half a million miles, and there was not a single intact ship anywhere near them. In most cases, the software’s ship identification system had difficulty determining what type of ship most of the debris came from, because the parts were so small and torn apart.

  “It looks that way, Ma’am,” Derek concluded. “I’m sorry.”

  “We’re all sorry, Bonsu. Could a ship have gotten away?”

  “It’s possible,” Derek replied without a trace of hope in his voice. “The system can only account for sixty three percent of the mass that should be around us, but some of the ships, like that City of Sandeppe, blew up hard. There wouldn’t be enough left of those ships to track the mass, because a lot of the mass got converted to energy.”

  “Any sign of the Deal Me In?”

  “The forward section is gone, this is most of it,” Derek indicated a loose cloud on the display. “But the aft section, hmmm, that’s interesting. Looks like it’s mostly together.” He enhanced the image, to show a short section of the star carrier’s spine, with a single empty docking platform, attached to the aft engineering section. “Um, yeah, they took some hits there also.” As Derek continued to zoom in on the broken star carrier, they could see a reactor that had its plasma vented through a burned-through hole in the exterior shielding. The entire area around that reactor was scorched and melted. “That doesn’t look good,” Derek muttered.

  “Shit,” Perkins shook her head. She might have gotten all their hopes up for nothing. The Ruh Tostella still could not jump far enough to get anywhere useful, and their single functional reactor was steadily failing. All they might have accomplished was slowly dying in that lonely part of interstellar space, rather than their previous position in lonely interstellar space. “Secure from active search,” she ordered. “It’s too dangerous to send dropships out there, with all the debris drifting around.” The real problem was chunks of debris crashing into each other, creating more debris and sending pieces careening in all directions. “Launch a recon drone, I want a full scan of what’s left of the star carrier. If you see another piece of debris out there large enough to investigate, send another drone. We can’t afford to miss anything.”

  They didn’t miss anything, because there wasn’t anything to be missed. Other than the aft section of the Deal Me In, the largest piece of debris was the size of a dropship. The Bosphuraq battlecruiser had been brutally thorough in its destruction of the Ruhar ships, so much so that Perkins wondered whether the Bosphuraq captain had a personal grudge against those Ruhar. Space combat rarely left significant parts of wounded ships intact, the kinetic energy of railguns and the explosive power of ship-killer missile warheads could quickly tear unprotected ships apart, while a single hit to a reactor or jump drive capacitors could cause a ship to destroy itself. Still, Perkins had hoped to find something useful in the debris cloud, and she was straining to keep the necessary confidence in front of her reluctant crew. The second recon drone had flown around to examine several remnants of Ruhar ships and found nothing useful, so Perkins had recalled that drone after it unfortunately displayed images demonstrating that some of the debris drifting around were shattered Ruhar bodies. She did not need the cadets seeing frozen, charred and bloated bodies of their people.

  Giving up on hoping to find a miracle in the smashed remains of the Ruhar battlegroup, she concentrated on what remained of the star carrier, knowing that section of the ship was extremely unlikely to contain a living Jeraptha. She gave her cadet crew plenty of time to examine the stricken star carrier, assigning two additional drones to the search, and not asking Jinn for her opinion until six hours had passed. “What do you think?” Perkins asked as she handed a squeeze bulb of hot klah to the senior cadet. “Is anything there salvageable? Useful to us?”

  “No,” Jinn needed the klah to keep herself awake. “Their normal-space propulsion system is scrap, a third of it is simply sheered away. Whatever hit there, it tore the power couplings loose. That ship isn’t going to move on its own again.”

  “I saw that. What about the reactors? One of them looked fairly
intact.”

  “There is one reactor that vented its plasma and shut down properly. Please! Before you ask, no, we can’t get anything useful from that star carrier’s reactor. To restart our own reactor, I was able to rely on instructions that walked us through every step in great detail, and as you remember we still had to abort the restart sequence three times because something went wrong that the procedures didn’t anticipate. With a Jeraptha reactor, we would be starting from absolute zero.”

  “Cadet, I have every confidence-”

  “You shouldn’t. It is impossible. Wait,” Jinn held up a hand. “Please, Colonel. That reactor vented its plasma, but it is damaged, there are cracks in the exterior sheathing and the containment magnets inside have become detached from their mounts. We can’t fix it. I do not think even the Jeraptha could repair that reactor without a shipyard capable of heavy-duty work, It is impossible, impossible,” she looked at Perkins from one eye to another, seeking understanding as if that particular word could not translate properly.

  “Impossible, I understand. Cadet, you’ve done a remarkable job. I can’t ask for more. I accept there is no potential for using Jeraptha reactor to power our life support systems.”

  “Thank you, Colonel Perkins,” Jinn shuddered slightly with relief and fatigue.

  “No reactor, then. What about-”

  “Contact!” Derek called excitedly over Perkins’ zPhone. “We got something out there, Ma’am. Looks like a Jeraptha escape pod.”

  “Escape pod!” Emily found her pilot’s excitement to be infectious. “Just one? Are there survivors aboard?”

  “Just the one,” Derek reported slowly as he reviewed the data on his console, hoping for better news. “One intact, we found others that are damaged, this is the first one generating power. It began pinging a distress call a few seconds ago. Maybe it needed to get a certain distance from the battlespace before it activated, or maybe it has a timer?”

  “Or maybe it picked up our signals,” Perkins suggested. “Survivors?”

  “All we’re getting is a location ping, Colonel. We’re too far away to see inside with our sensors. It could be empty, but it is pinging and I don’t know if a Jeraptha pod would do that unless it was occupied? I couldn’t find anything in the ship’s database about operating procedures for Jeraptha gear.”

  “Ah, dammit. Please tell me the debris field is relatively clear between us and that pod.”

  “Not a chance, Ma’am.”

  “Damn it. All right, send a drone.”

  The drone reported one living Jeraptha was inside the escape pod, though it was in a state of semi-hibernation caused by the pod’s mechanisms. “I don’t suppose the beetles equip their pods with the capability to rendezvous with a rescue vessel?” Perkins asked hopefully.

  “No, Ma’am,” Irene turned to look up at their captain. “I worked with a cadet to research everything the ship’s database knows about those pods, and they have a very limited ability to maneuver, basically they can move to avoid collisions, but that pod out there has used up all its fuel so it didn’t crash into the debris cloud. The casing has dents and scratches from impacts already, I hope it isn’t damaged. We need to go out there and bring it to us.”

  “How did I know you were going to say that?” Perkins crossed her arms as she floated behind the pilot couches. “I suppose you are first in line to volunteer?”

  “Well, Colonel,” Irene winked at Derek. They had tossed a coin and Derek lost. “If you send two cadet pilots, it might look like you were not willing to risk human lives.”

  “Right, but if you go with a cadet, I am clearly not playing favorites,” Perkins rolled her eyes. “Christ, Striebich, you’re right about this one. Of course,” she mused with a hand rubbing her chin. “I could send Tutula with a Ruhar cadet, which would make it an interspecies rescue operation.” Seeing the crestfallen look on Irene’s face, she took pity on her pilot. “Relax, Striebich. You’ve sold me on the idea. Take Tutula and a cadet pilot to be safe, go bring that beetle here to us.”

  The beetle was a young Machinist’s Mate named Ernt Dahl, who was barely older than the Ruhar cadets, as he had been aboard the Deal Me In as his first assignment out of school. The translator told Perkins that Dahl’s rank of ‘Arlon’ was something like ‘junior ensign’ or ‘probationary ensign’, so he was certainly not an experienced senior officer. He was overjoyed to be alive when the pod automatically revived him, upon being brought into the pressurized environment of the Ruh Tostella’s docking bay. Part of Perkins had been hoping the Jeraptha would naturally take on the burden of command after awaking, but Ernt was perfectly happy for Perkins to be in charge, and apparently saw nothing odd about a human commanding a Ruhar ship.

  Despite Ernt’s knowledge of technology far beyond Ruhar capabilities, he was not much help with the battered Toaster. After an assessment that had his antennas drooping with despair, he agreed with Jinn that the ship’s one functioning reactor would shut down when its containment system failed, and there was nothing anyone could do about it with the equipment available. After initially being stunned and thrilled to see part of his ship had survived, Ernt was equally pessimistic about the condition of the Deal Me In. The reactors were basically scrap, vented plasma had eaten into the backup power systems, and the engines that flew the ship through normal space were scrap. The only bright spot was the star carrier’s jump drive system, for the coils and capacitors had come through the battle in fair condition.

  “The star carrier’s jump drive is intact?” Perkins traced a finger along the schematic of the star carrier on the display in front of her.

  “Yes, remarkably so,” Ernt agreed, his antenna bobbing up and down vigorously. “Unfortunately, that is of no use to us. The jump drive control system was in the forward part of the ship, part of the navigation computer. We do not have any system to control the action of the jump coils.”

  “Arlon Dahl,” she used the Jeraptha’s rank to address him. “Is there any way for this ship’s drive system to control a Jeraptha jump drive?”

  Ernt’s antenna stood straight up in surprise and he looked away, perhaps embarrassed for the primitive human who had asked such a foolishly ignorant question.

  “No,” Jinn also was dismayed by being asked such a ridiculous question. “We don’t have an interface with the-”

  “Yes,” Tutula interjected with confidence. “This ship does have a capability to interface with a Jeraptha jump drive.”

  Ernt and Jinn just stared at Tutula, blinking slowly. If she had suddenly grown another head, they might have been less surprised.

  “How do you know that?” Perkins asked, glancing between Ernt, Jinn and Tutula.

  “One of this ship’s former officers told me about it. That is one advantage of being a member of an enemy species,” Tutula twisted her lips in a horrible version of a smile. “The Ruhar are always very happy to show me how superior they are. Your people,” he addressed the remark to Jinn, “have of course been studying Jeraptha jump drive technology every chance they get, particularly when your ships are attached to a star carrier. Each of your ships is equipped with a working computer model that emulates an interface with a Jeraptha jump drive. Whenever a star carrier jumps, your ships simulate controlling the jump to test the accuracy of the model, and your fleet studies the results to refine the model. The officer who revealed this to me bragged that the emulator is now believed to be ninety six percent accurate. He wanted me to know that the shortcomings of your jump drive technology are caused by hardware deficiencies, not by a lack of theoretical understanding or inability to program a drive controller. The Ruhar,” now she looked at Perkins, “know that Kristang jump drives are shamefully inaccurate. That is a failure of the warrior caste, not of my people. The warrior caste pays too little attention to anything not directly related to destructive power. My people,” she switched back to glaring at Jinn, “would correct that error.”

  “If we could interface our drive controller with the Jer
aptha system-” Jinn’s voice trailed off as she considered the possibilities, looking to Ernt for a sane voice to squelch an idea that must be mad. But the Jeraptha only looked at the display pensively, not noticing her.

  “The Ruh Tostella can attach to the hardpoint?” Perkins asked, pointing to the one remaining docking platform that remained on the star carrier’s shortened spine. “The star carrier jumps, and we jump with it?”

  “We can attach manually, yes,” Jinn scratched the back of her head, “I think so. Unless the clamps there are damaged. Colonel, even if we can control a Jeraptha jump drive, we have no way to feed power into their capacitors. Physically, there is no connection between our reactor and the star carrier. I don’t see any way to create a connection.”

  “It is not possible,” Ernt muttered, his claws flitting across the controls, considering the question. “No,” he concluded. “Colonel Perkins, my specialty is power generation. I am not an expert on propulsion or jump drives or computers, but this is my area of expertise,” he declared with confidence beyond his few years of training. “There is no equipment aboard either ship for creating a stable power connection between this ship’s reactor and the star carrier’s capacitors. The input frequency of the capacitors is,” he blinked, looking around as if just then realizing he was in the presence of three alien species. “Er, well, that is not a specification I can discuss with you. I can assure you the capacitor charging system is delicate and requires a specific-”

  “Yes, fine, I accept we can’t recharge the Deal Me In’s jump drive. What is the charge in those capacitors now?” Perkins interrupted.

  “We don’t know, I, er-I suppose we could determine that with our sensors,” Jinn added, embarrassed. “It is,” she waited while the damaged sensor suite responded. “Eighty one percent charge. That is an estimate, you understand? The Jeraptha do not give us specifications for their systems,” she added with a guilty glance at Ernt.