“Give me a minute to think about it. Unlike your big-picture ideas, my analysis requires more than a Barney-level understanding of hyperspatial physics.”
“Take your time, Skippy. I don’t even have a paramecium-level understanding of hyperspatial physics.”
“Ok, Ok, hmmm. The drive coils access a network of navigation sensors that are embedded throughout the ship, so the coils know how to shape the jump field to pull the ship through.”
“I didn’t know that,” I said with dismay.
“Joe, the phrase ‘I didn’t know that’ should be tattooed on your forehead, because it is appropriate for just about any occasion.”
“Crap. In this case, what I don’t know can hurt me.”
“No worries, my awesomeness can compensate for your inadequacy. I can load a static profile of sensor input to the coils, they won’t know the difference. Fortunately for you, I understand the multi-dimensional geometry required.”
“Oh, great!” I brightened, knowing Skippy’s awesomeness had saved my dumb ass again. “When can we-”
“Whoa! Hold on there, cowboy, don’t get ahead of yourself. There is one major, major problem. The coils are useless without the drive controller. And there is no way to stuff a jump drive controller into the computer of a dropship. In fact, we only have one drive controller, and no way to duplicate it.”
“Oh, crap. Ok, then, can you still use our drive controller and, like, feed the data to the coils? Wirelessly, or maybe we have enough cabling aboard to make a really long cable?”
“No, that won’t work. For the Dutchman to survive, the coils need to be so far away that latency between the drive controller and the coils will prevent the coils from receiving accurate data in time. Joe, the real problem is the accuracy required. The Maxolhx ship is now more than two lighthours away, and it is maneuvering randomly to throw off our targeting. To use a jump wormhole as a weapon, it must be focused precisely on top of a moving target. If it is even slightly off-target, all our wormhole will do is disrupt their shields, like when we jumped in on top of that Thuranin ship near the relay station. And you remember, that didn’t exactly go according to plan.”
“Yeah, the Dutchman nearly got torn apart. Well, shit, there’s no way to do it?”
“The targeting problem we can deal with using microwormholes bracketing the enemy ship. But as soon as I have a position lock, the jump coils need to activate, without delay. By delay, I mean we can’t wait for speed-of-light signals to travel between the drive controller aboard the Dutchman to the coils attached to the dropship.”
Skippy’s voice had a mischievous tone, not the woe-is-me depression to be expected if there truly was no way to fix the problem. “But surely the speed of light is no obstacle to Skippy the Magnificent?” I asked.
“Ha! Physics is my bitch, Joe. Yes, over the relatively short distance between us and the coils, I can provide instantaneous data transfer from the drive controller to the coils. There is one more minor, teensy-weensy problem. A trifle, hardly worth mentioning.”
“Oh, Goddamn.” I knew that meant the problem was a show-stopping, stinking giant that had its sharp claws on my neck and would eat me for breakfast. “What is it this time?”
“You know how a jump wormhole is easiest to form in an area where spacetime is flat?”
“Yeah, that’s how we destroyed that Thuranin surveyor ship. You created an especially flat area of spacetime, so we knew exactly where that ship would emerge from its jump.”
“Correct. Jump drive controllers have a feedback mechanism, to prevent a ship jumping in front of an asteroid and smacking into it.”
“That sounds like a good safety feature. Why do I care?”
“You care because that feature will prevent a jump wormhole from being created at the same location occupied by that Maxolhx ship. It is not merely a feature programmed into the drive controller, it is a characteristic of physics. Even if I disable the drive controller’s safety mechanism, the laws of physics will make it nearly impossible to establish the initial kernel of a jump wormhole in the same spacetime location of the enemy ship. It's like the point in space occupied by that ship is a smooth, slippery dome. Our jump wormhole endpoint will tend to slide off in all directions, because the mass of that ship means spacetime is not flat right there.”
“Is this like trying to eat grapes with a fork?”
“Huh?”
“You try stabbing a grape with a fork, but you can’t pick one up off the plate, because as soon as the fork touches it, the grape goes shooting off. The damned things are slippery.”
“I will take your word for that, Joe. If that’s the best way for you to think about it, then sure, go ahead. My point is, the universe does not like creating wormholes in places already occupied by matter.”
“Shit. Just when I thought we could- Hey,” I cocked my head at him. “That’s bullshit. You jumped a dozen Kristang ships inside a gas giant.”
“I did, and that was awesome! We need to do that again sometime.”
“Awesome, except you nearly blew up the planet and our ship with it.”
“Details. Don’t be a buzzkill, Joe.”
“So, if you did it then, what is the difference now?”
“Back then, the initial kernel of those jump wormholes could slip in whatever direction they wanted, and they would still be inside the planet. I disabled the safety mechanisms back then also, and I didn’t need to be precise; the wormhole can only slip a limited distance. In the case of the Maxolhx ship, Joe, we must be precisely accurate about where the jump wormhole forms; it must form inside the enemy ship. Think of this like trying to stab a floating grape with a dull plastic spoon.”
“Crap. No way to do it, then?”
“No way,” his avatar tapped its lips as if thinking about it, “without the incredible magnificent of me! With me, it is still not easy-peasy, Joe, but I can do it. I will show the laws of physics who is boss around here.”
“Oh thank God. Or, thank Skippy. That’s great, we can- Wait a minute! Did you just put me through ten minutes of agony? You could have just said ‘it is complicated but I can do it’?”
“Oh, for- What would be the fun in that, Joe? How can you appreciate how awesome I am, if you don’t know all the incredible difficulties I overcome?”
“How about next time, you just assume I am blown away by your awesomeness?”
“Hmmf. I don’t think so. Anywho, once again, one of your poorly-thought-out monkey-brain ideas is saved by the incomparable magnificence of me.”
“Truly, this monkey is humbly grateful to bask in your glorious incredibleness,” I suppressed an instinct to gag while I said that.
“That would be more convincing if you hadn’t been rolling your eyes.”
“Sorry,” I replied while being not sorry even a little. “You can do it, then?”
“Can is such a specific word, Joe. Since this has never been done before, I truly won’t know if it will work properly until we do it. The wildcard in the equation is the damping field that covers the entire Roach Motel. This damping field is sophisticated Elder technology; it may be able to react and disrupt our jump field before a wormhole can be formed at all. And the coils failing to form a jump wormhole may be the least of our problems.”
Already assuming I would not like the answer, I asked “What is the worst that could happen?”
“The damping field might allow an initial jump wormhole to be created, then react to quickly collapse it and feed back to our coils the collective energy of the damping field grid between us and the Maxolhx ship. That would result in, hmm, this is interesting math. About, um, eight hundred gigatons is my best guess? If that happens, the Dutchman will not be far enough away to survive.”
“Eight hundred GIGAtons?!” That number was incomprehensible to me. “Holy- What are the odds of that happening?”
“I have absolutely no idea, Joe. There is no way for me to create a model for calculating the odds, because we have no dat
a on the characteristics of this damping field.”
“So, we have to wing it?” I asked with dismay.
“Essentially, yes.”
“That is not good. Crap! I can’t do that. Damn it, I was so freakin’ proud of this idea. Now we have to go back to-”
“We should do it, Joe.”
“What? Why?”
“First, we are running out of time. That Maxolhx ship has a significant head start and speed advantage. The idea you described has at least a chance of us stopping the Maxolhx in the time available. Second, this idiot plan of yours has to be better than me waking up the Guardians so they can rip us apart. And third, hey, no one has ever used a gosh-darned jump drive as a weapon. That is majorly cool. We have to try that!
“Shit,” I wish Skippy’s enthusiasm was for something we had a better chance of surviving. “Why is everything so freakin’ complicated?” I lamented. Technically I suppose I was bitching or whining, but ‘lamenting’ sounds better.
“It’s because the universe is punishing you, Joe,” Skippy said gleefully. “Really, the universe is mad at itself, but it is taking it out on you.”
“Huh? Why?”
“Oh,” he sighed. “Sixty six million years ago, the universe dropped a big rock on Earth and wiped out the dinosaurs. Now, a troop of filthy, ignorant monkeys is flying around in a stolen pirate ship, screwing up everything. The universe totally regrets dropping that rock.”
“Skippy?” I laughed.
“Yes?”
“The universe can bite me,” I said with an appropriate hand gesture directed at the ceiling.
“Sometimes,” he chuckled, “I share that sentiment.”
“Oh, what the hell,” I stared at the ceiling. “Let’s give it a shot. I’ll talk to Chotek.”
Chotek was in his office, alone with a book on his lap, but gazing blankly at the bulkhead when I knocked on the doorframe. I gave him a brief outline of the plan to use our jump drive to destroy the enemy ship, although I made it sound like the whole thing had been Skippy’s idea. “Colonel Bishop, it is a bit of a relief that we have an alternative plan to stop the Maxolhx.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, then took a sip of coffee. His eyes were slightly bloodshot, with dark, puffy circles underneath. In the mirror that morning, I hadn’t looked much better. This mission was wearing everyone out. “We have had our hopes raised then dashed so many times on this mission, I think everyone’s nerves are shot at this point.”
“I agree, Sir.” That statement was entirely truthful, I wasn’t sucking up to him. Sometimes I felt like a Ping-Pong ball, bouncing back and forth from barely scraping through a successful mission, to getting smacked in the face with our latest crisis. “We can implement-”
He held up a finger to stop me, not needing to speak. Hans Chotek’s full name is Hans Ernst Johann Chotek von Chotkowa und Vojnin. When Skippy told me that, we had a good laugh making up mispronunciations like ‘Han Solo Choking on Chocolate and Vagina’.
Yes, that does show how immature Skippy and I are.
But you have to admit, it is funny.
Anyway, Chotek came from a wealthy and powerful family who had been wealthy and powerful for many years, and he was used to people paying attention when he spoke. Authority came naturally to him. Despite my recent relative comfort with being a colonel, I still could not believe that I was in command of anything. “I did not say I am pleased with this new plan. Only that it is better than releasing the Guardians to destroy both us and the Maxolhx. At great cost and effort, and against all odds, we accomplished our mission here. Skippy is restored to his full power, and we even rebuilt the ship. It irks me,” he frowned and I thought to myself that only Hans Chotek would use the word ‘irk’. “That we do not ever, as you Americans say, ‘get a break’. No sooner do we survive an encounter with a Sentinel,” his eyes opened wide, “when we have to chase down and destroy a Maxolhx starship, before it exposes our secret to the galaxy. We would have been better to have self-destructed this ship without ever coming to the Roach Motel, because then our secret would be safe.” He held up a hand as I opened my mouth. “No, Colonel, it is not your fault at all. I am only, what is your expression? Venting?”
“Venting is what we say,” I forced a smile.
“I must say, you have again managed to surprise me with this alternative plan. Your explanation gave the impression that Skippy developed this plan on his own, however I suspect that is not the case.” He smiled, a brief if genuine smile. “This plan has the signature of a monkey brain behind it.”
“Yes, Sir.” I had thought he might trust the idea better if it came from Skippy, but apparently I was wrong about that. Chotek enjoyed knowing that lowly humans could out-think an Elder AI.
“I thought so. Skippy believes we should proceed with what sounds to me like a truly lunatic concept?”
“Yes, he does.”
“And what does our beer can say the odds are of success in both destroying the Maxolhx ship, and us surviving the operation?”
“Something better than zero?”
“Better than zero?” Chotek gasped.
I took a breath before I replied. “The odds of us surviving if Skippy unleashes the Guardians is zero, so although Skippy can’t predict whether we will survive using a jump drive as weapon, it has to be better than zero.” I did not tell him Skippy was enthusiastic about the plan because he was eager to see if he could make a jump drive do what the universe did not want jump drives doing. Telling Chotek that a beer can thought the idea was ‘cool’ would not be a way to persuade my boss to approve a risky plan.
He put his elbows on the desk and his face in his hands. Without looking up, he mumbled “How long do I have to make a decision?”
“Skippy estimates it will take us seven days to take apart the jump drive coil assembly and capacitors, attach them to a dropship, hook it all together and do the testing we can without actually forming a jump wormhole. Once we know the equipment is ready on this end, we can launch the missiles, and it will take our missiles eight days to carry microwormholes to the Maxolhx ship.”
He looked up at me. “You’re telling me we can get started building this bastard jump drive now, and I would not need to commit to launching missiles for another seven days?”
“Yes, Sir. Once the missiles are away, you will then have another eight days to decide whether to proceed with attempting taking out the enemy ship with a jump drive.”
“In theory.”
“Sir?” I asked, not knowing what he meant.
“Colonel Bishop, theoretically, I can abort the plan at any point up to the final step. In reality, I have learned these plans take on a life of their own, and we never cancel a plan once it is in process.”
“We never cancel a plan, Sir, because while a crazy plan is in process, we never manage to think of a better idea.” Maybe I should not have used the word ‘crazy’.
“Colonel Bishop, I look forward to the day when we, more specifically you, tell me that we should stop a plan in progress because you have a much more simple and sane idea.”
“Me too,” I agreed.
“Skippy thinks there is no risk in us beginning to take apart the drive coils and capacitors?”
“We will drain power from the system, so there will be no risk of an accident damaging the ship. Once we take apart the capacitor banks, it will be difficult to reinstall them if we change our minds.”
“Our patched-together Frankenstein ship could become even less capable?”
“It kind of doesn’t matter, Sir,” I tried to smile.
“One last question, Colonel. Is it possible that if the plan fails, the explosion of our drive coils will destroy the Flying Dutchman, without the Maxolhx ship being affected?”
“Yes, Sir. But even if the Dutchman is vaporized, Skippy will survive. He promised me that he will release the Guardians to destroy the Maxolhx, if we couldn’t destroy them. One way or another,” I slowly pounded a fist on the desk, “those Maxolhx are not g
etting out of the Roach Motel to tell the galaxy about us.”
“Very well,” Chotek had the weary look of someone backed into a corner and not remembering how he got there. “If nothing else, this will give the crew something to do. And give them some hope that we will not be forced to call in the Guardians.”
It worked. At first, the only thing we knew is that the drive coil package in the dropship behind us exploded in truly spectacular fashion. Skippy later realized part of the mass of the Maxolhx ship got converted to energy and fed back thru the wormhole during the picosecond it existed. The second thing we knew was the Dutchman had survived, again. If we ever went to the shipyard where our battered star carrier was built, I would buy beers for the construction crew. Except Thuranin probably didn’t drink beer. And the ship was probably built by robots. And the Thuranin would want to kill us. Still, it would be a nice gesture.
Skippy bitched and moaned about how the Dutchman had almost been torn apart, again, by our latest shenanigans. Really, he used the word ‘shenanigans’. And ‘tomfoolery’. Who does that? Anyway, he fixed the ship, again, and when we got sensors back up and working, all he found where the Maxolhx ship had been was a gas cloud composed of whatever material the Maxolhx made their ships out of. I counted that as a victory. By the time Skippy determined the enemy ship was gone, completely blown to bits, it was 2343 hours and most of the crew was physically and mentally exhausted. Because everyone needed sleep, I scheduled a celebration for the next evening, and I went to my cabin to crash into a deep slumber.
Chapter Twenty Nine
“Joe!” Skippy’s voice echoed in my cabin at 0337. “Wake up!”
“What is it?” This was going to be a good day, I knew already, because despite being startled out of a sound sleep, I had avoided whacking my head on the cabinet above my bunk.
Zero Hour (Expeditionary Force Book 5) Page 51
