Manxome Foe

by John Ringo

  He hovered over the left end of the piece until it headed back "up" then engaged his shoulder thrusters, heading "down" towards the pod on the end. He realized at the last moment that the pod might be fragile, in which case this was going to be one stupid thing to do. And depending on its mass . . .

  The soles of his armor, though, encountered the upthrusting pod with a "clang" that could be heard through his armor. It slammed him upwards, hard, spinning him away. But as he spun he got a glimpse of the piece and the rotation had slowed to almost nothing.

  "Good one, Two-Gun," Commander Weaver said. "You okay?"

  "Fine, sir," Berg replied, working his jets to try to get his own tumble balanced out. "Himes, Smith, can you stabilize it now?"

  "Got it, Sergeant," Himes replied.

  Berg finally got stable looking "down" at the ship and the piece of debris. He was low on nitrogen-pressure for the thrusters and still moving away from the ship. That wasn't so good.

  "How you doing, Two-Gun?" Weaver asked. The transmission was somewhat scratchy.

  "Working on that one, sir," Berg admitted. "I'm not sure I've got enough pressure to make it back. I don't suppose you could ask the CO to come pick me up when you're done, could you?"

  "Lo . . . ssure?"

  "Low fuel," Berg said calmly. "Low fuel. Low fuel." His rangefinder had the Blade at over a kilometer and receding at ten meters per second.

  ". . . ger . . . ait."

  "Conn, EVA . . ."

  "Two-Gun's doing a Dutchman," the CO said. "We see that. Tell the other Marines to standby on the debris. We'll go pick up Two-Gun and come back."

  "Roger, sir."

  "Pilot," the CO said, gesturing with his chin. "Carefully."

  "Go pick up one wayward Marine, sir," the pilot replied. "Aye, aye."

  The pilot swung wide around the debris, which was between the ship and the wayward Marine. The boat was nearly three stories high, if he didn't go "high" he was going to clip the debris and the Marines still clinging to it. That would be, in piloting terms, an "oops."

  The ship at these low speeds was remarkably delicate in handling. He could accelerate and decelerate faster than an Indy car. So he had to mainly be cautious in how fast he moved. Although he could decelerate fast, he could accelerate fast enough that he didn't have the reaction time to slow down. A thousand gravs of accel were at his fingertips. This movement required less than a gravity of acceleration. Keeping it that slow was the problem.

  From Berg's perspective, the ship was starting to get a bit smaller. Which was not comforting. Space was a very big place.

  But as he watched it moved "upwards" from the debris as delicately as a snowflake then suddenly expanded in size, coming towards him like lightning and then "stopping." Actually, it was still coming towards him, just much slower. The pilot was a genius.

  Then he started to feel the "pull" from the ship's artificial gravity and "down" suddenly became far less abstract.

  "Commander!" Weaver said as Berg started to fall towards the ship, accelerating fast.

  "Conn, EVA," Weaver said over the comm link. "We're going to need to bring Two-Gun in in microgravity. And we need to convert fast."

  "Already considered, EVA," the CO replied. "XO, sound microgravity."

  "ALL HANDS, ALL HANDS. MICROGRAVITY IN TEN SECONDS. TEN, NINE, EIGHT, SEVEN . . ."

  "Shit," Machinist Mate Gants said, grabbing his tools up and putting them in their slots.

  "Just what we needed," Red replied, picking up the smaller attachments for his Number Two arm and stowing them in a butt-pouch.

  As the gravity fell away, Red continued picking up tools with the small pincers that were a permanent attachment of the Number Two Arm. Gants picked up his last screwdriver, grabbed a screw and then paused.

  "Man, I really wish we hadn't had chili for lunch," Sub Dude moaned.

  "If you puke all over this compartment . . . Use a bag man, use a bag!"

  Berg still had his velocity but the pilot, again, corrected delicately so that he floated "down" to the ship, only having to correct slightly as his boots touched the upper deck.

  "I'd take that as a mixed experiment, Sergeant Berg," the astrogator said. "On the one hand, you corrected the rather notable spin."

  "On the other hand, I got blown into space doing it, sir," Berg ended. "Yes, sir. I'd given that some thought."

  "Conn, EVA," Weaver said. "Marine recovered. Let's go pick up some debris."

  "Okay, this is where it gets tricky," Bill said. "We're grounded, right COB?"

  "Aye, sir."

  Four lines had been attached to the debris as well as a grounding cable, the ship rotated "up" to the wing and positioned delicately under it. All they had to do was get it across twenty meters of empty space.

  "Pulling this thing in will be easy," Bill said, looking at the four bosun mates on the lines. Those lines, however, had already started to oscillate, imparting a vector to the wing. "But while it seems light, it has lots of mass. If we get it moving too fast, it's going to crush you between it and the hull when it hits. So you're going to have to—"

  "Sir, if I may?" the COB said. "Team. On my command. Handsomely." He waited about a second. "Belay. Step back. Retrieve lines. Retrieve . . . Just pull out the oscillation. No more pressure than that."

  The piece was coming down slightly askew and very slowly. But slow was good in Bill's opinion. And he noted that the COB had arranged some sort of rubber matting where the wing was going to hit the ship.

  The ropes the crew was using were flying everywhere in the microgravity environment, but they didn't seem to be getting in the way. The four bosun mates were retrieving them hand over hand, stepping away from where the wing would impact.

  "Four, handsomely," the COB said as the wing started to get some drift to the side. "Belay. Retrieve. Retrieve . . ."

  As the wing impacted the rubber mat, it rebounded upwards.

  "Belay!" the COB said. "Sharply!"

  All four of the bosun mates clamped down on their lines, then pulled in, fast, stopping the wing from getting out of control. In a moment it was hard against the hull and steady.

  "Something like that, sir?" the COB asked.

  "Just like that, COB," Bill admitted. "I'll leave it to you to get secured."

  "Why, thank you, sir."

  17

  The tactical tech leaned forward and frowned at his screen. It was a mass of junk. The problem was that while all sorts of particles could be picked up, the Navy still didn't know enough about space to filter for everything. It was a bit like being back in the WWII days of unfiltered hydrophones. You had to listen to all the noise of the sea, and there was a lot of it, trying to find the sounds of submarines or surface ships. Waves, shrimp, herring farts, they all added up.

  In this case, solar wind, the residue of particles from the space battle, the particles generated by the ship. It all added up.

  So filtering it out, until they got good algorithms for the system, was still more art than science. Fortunately, the tech was a pretty good artist. And the latest reading was giving him fits.

  "Sir, permission to do a visual survey of one-one-seven mark fifteen?" the tech asked.

  "Go."

  "Can you figure out how to get that off, Machinist Mate?" Bill asked, pointing to the pod.

  "I don't know what this is, sir," Sub Dude answered, slapping the wing.

  The alien device had been secured behind the sail, held down with ropes and space tape. It was only one of several pieces cluttering the deck but definitely the largest.

  "If it's steel, I could cut it off with an acetylene torch," Gants continued, walking around the pod. "I could go get one and try it out if you'd like."

  "I don't think that would be a good idea," Bill said. "Oxy-acetylene doesn't work the same in vacuum as it does normally."

  "Well, I don't see any screws or bolts, sir," Gants continued. "It looks like it was made of one piece. I'd guess it's some sort of advanced weld. Sort of mak
ing the two pieces meld together. Don't know how they did it, but I'd like to know."

  "Hopefully, they'll tell us if we're nice enough to them," Bill replied. "COB, we done here?"

  "We're done, sir," the COB said.

  "Let's get into the ship and—"

  "EVA, Conn."

  "Go Conn."

  "Commander Weaver, what happens if the ship goes into warp with people on the hull?"

  "I've actually thought about that one, sir," Bill replied. "The spacetime metric for the warp bubble is a big bunch of tensor math but I think I've figured out that the warped spacetime around—"

  "Shortest answer in history, Astro!"

  "Should be fine, sir, why?"

  "What about normal space drive?"

  "That's not so good, sir," Bill said. "There's no surrounding shield so to speak. Anything that gets through, we'll hit. Why, sir?"

  "I'm opening up the recovery tube," the CO said. "Get everyone into it, right now. We've got Dreen. XO, microgravity, if we open that up under normal they'll all fall."

  "Tactical, I've got no feel for size, here," Spectre said, looking at the forward viewscreen. The thing was small, light and fuzzy, only showing because of reflection from the system's sun. "Or distance. How far away is it? How big is it?"

  "Unknown, Conn," Tactical replied. "Without either a size or a distance, we can't calculate the other. I'll give you my gut, though, sir. It's really big and it's pretty darned far away."

  "That's so precise I'm feeling all warm and fuzzy, Tactical!"

  "At present it is the best we can do without going active, Conn. Do you want us to go active?"

  "Negative," the CO replied. "Not until we've recovered the EVA. EVA, status?"

  "Piling in, sir," Bill replied. "Three more to go."

  "Tell them to jump it," the CO replied.

  "Conn, Tactical, target designate Sierra One appears to be closing our position."

  "You mean it's getting bigger on the screen," Spectre said sarcastically. "I'd noticed."

  "Range and size still unknown."

  "EVA?"

  "We're in. Getting down and preparing—"

  "Can it, get the soft-suit guys on top, we're going hot. XO, normal space drive, now. Tactical," he continued as weight settled onto him. He could hear in the distance a series of clangs and bangs that was undoubtedly six or seven Wyvern suits falling down a three story shaft. "Go active. Pilot . . ."

  He looked over at the astrogation chair and frowned.

  "Hell with it," he said. "Get me a view reciprocal to that Dreen ship." When the view changed he walked over and pointed at a star. "Pilot, normal space. Head for that star. Three hundred gravities."

  "Three hundred, sir?" the XO asked.

  "I don't want them knowing our max accel," the CO replied. "Commander Weaver?"

  "Sir?" Weaver said. "We're sort of . . . tangled here. But I got the guys in suits on top."

  "Good, but I need you up here on the double," the CO said as the ship began to hum from the drive. "I need to know where I'm going. And even more important, where I'm not going. Tactical, range and size?"

  "Range, four light-seconds," Tactical said in a remarkably calm voice. "Size . . . right on eight hundred meters in length, two hundred in breadth and depth."

  "That's nearly a klick," the XO said wonderingly. "A third of a mile long. I don't even want to think about the tonnage."

  "And two football fields wide," the CO pointed out. "As wide as a carrier is long. XO, set rear tubes two and four. Target's signature, silent mode."

  "Aye, aye," the XO said. "Set tubes two and four, signature Sierra One, silent mode."

  The ardune torps were a combination of antiair missile and torpedo. They could lie silent until passive detectors found a designated target, then go active, kicking on their rockets and heading for the target.

  "Sir, are you sure about that?" Weaver said as he entered the conn. He was panting slightly from the run, still wearing his skinsuit and his hair was askew, but Spectre realized he was glad to see him. "It's unlikely that our systems will be able to successfully engage them."

  "I'm aware of that, Commander," the CO said. "And that even an ardune warhead may not scratch that thing. But those are all ifs. We don't know and that's the point. So now we find out. And I'm aware that we're telling them that we only have those to fire. Still, want to find out. It's what we're out here to do."

  "Yes, sir," Bill said, opening up his console. "Did you mean to head to Rigel, sir?"

  "I'm just glad I'm not pointed at Earth," the CO admitted. "I'm not, right? I don't want to head back to the good guys and tell the Dreen where they are. Right now, I want to find out if these guys can catch us in normal space. If they can, we'll go to warp and see if they can catch us there. I want to stay at arms length, though. Heck, I want to know what arm's length is!"

  "Yes, sir," Bill replied. "Right now we're heading at a fairly significant angle from both Earth and the aliens. So you're on target, sir."

  "Can we find the aliens again?" the CO asked.

  "Yes, sir," Bill replied. "I have a position calculated for them."

  "Figure out if that Dreen ship is headed for them as well," the CO said.

  "Sir, are we sure it's Dreen?" Bill asked.

  "Tubes are set," the XO said. "Launch?"

  "Belay," the CO replied, blanching. "No, we're not sure it's Dreen. We can't even get a good look at them from this range. But who else could it be?"

  "The battle made a lot of noise, sir," Bill pointed out. "Anyone in the area with an FTL ship. Survivors from our friends they don't know about."

  "That's a big ship," the XO argued. "They'd have mentioned it, surely."

  "With all due respect, sir," Bill said. " 'Surely' means you're not. I'm not saying that they're not Dreen. I'm saying we don't know. I respectfully suggest that we figure out if they're hostile before firing on them. Of course, the only way to know for sure is if they fire on us."

  "No," the CO said. "What we do is let them get close enough we can get a good look at them. If they even look like Dreen, we'll drop the torps. Tactical, target status?"

  "Bearing remains the same, Conn," Tactical said. "Range has increased slightly."

  "Pilot, slow to one hundred gravities of acceleration," the CO ordered.

  "One hundred gravities, aye, aye."

  "How close do we let them get?" the XO asked.

  "That is a very good question," the CO admitted. "No more than two light-seconds. Tactical, I need a continuous update on range to target. Pilot, I want a continuous high G random evasion pattern. If they've got a ship-killer laser with this range, we won't see it until it gets here. I want to avoid that."

  "Random evasion, aye."

  "What haven't I thought of?" the CO asked.

  "The Dreen didn't seem to have any technology that fell into the category of magical, sir," Bill replied. "They didn't teleport except through the gates. They didn't seem to be able to read minds. I can't think of anything."

  "Space fighters like the Cheerick?" the XO asked.

  "Possible," Bill said. "Even likely depending upon their tech. Space fighters require that you have a technology that accelerates a small system faster than a more massive one. If they have that, then space fighters are a possibility. This is all guess-work."

  "Conn, Tactical. Target's emission profile is changing. Target bearing seems to be changing. I believe they might have launched something. Separation. Conn, Tactical. Sierra One bearing change. Bearing now one-one-three mark one-seven. New target, designate Sierra Two. Energy profile lower. Bearing constant. Range decreasing."

  "Keep me updated on Sierra Two," the CO said. "Send Sierra One data to Astrogation. Weaver, where are they going?"

  "Working on that, sir," Bill said. "It will be a minute."

  "Conn, Tactical. Sierra Two closing at over one thousand gravities of acceleration. Sierra Two redesignate, Bandit Group One. Count twelve. May be Bandits or Vampires, still unsure." />
  "Space fighters," the CO said, nodding. "Very high accel."

  "Higher than ours, sir," the XO pointed out.

  "Yep," the CO replied. "Recalibrate tubes two and four for bandit signatures. Fire on my mark."

  "Aye, aye."

  "Conn, Tactical, Bandits at three light-seconds and closing."

  "Communications," the CO said. "Send them a hail. Standard first contact dits and dashes." He looked over at the XO. "See what they make of that. Astro, Sierra One?"

  "Headed on a bearing to intercept our friends," Bill said. "About seven hours to that location at three hundred gravities. Depending upon their system, they may have to slow down or they'll be going really fast when they get there. In which case longer."

  "Gimme a view of Bandit One," the CO said.

  There was barely a shimmer on the viewscreen. The smaller ships were too small at that range to resolve well.

  "I wonder how much fuel those things have," Spectre mused. "Are they missiles or space fighters? Are they designed to be recovered, in other words, or do they destroy themselves in a wealth of glorious energy release? If we outrun their point of no return, will they turn around and rejoin their carrier or blow up?"

  "Knowing the Dreen, they're probably grown, sir," Weaver said. "They could be a bit of both. If they do the mission and have enough fuel to return, they return. If not, they die in space. They're just an organic extrusion of the ship. The way the Dreen work, anything is just an organic extrusion, no more important to them than skin cells flaking off are to us. They may even be consumed upon return rather than, say, refueled, rearmed and refurbished. The ship is probably able to grow more as long as it has the necessary components."

  "Space fighters and missiles?"

  "If they fire something at us they're space fighters," Bill said, shrugging. "If they try to close with us and destroy us they're missiles. We're trying to apply human terms to Dreen. It doesn't always work."