“We did it,” exclaimed Helmsman DuPont, slumping back in his chair ever so briefly. After taking a deep breath, he leaned forward and started tapping away at the helm panels.
“We’re going to make it,” Officer Trembaly announced in disbelief.
The bridge crew gave a cheer. “Three cheers for the Helmsman. Three cheer for DuPont,” said one of the bridge crew.
Tremblay let them give one good “hip-hip-hooray” before putting an end to it. “Belay that nonsense,” he ordered. “Quiet on the bridge. We’re not out of it yet.”
Even though the Navigator verified that the numbers looked good, everyone still watched the ship’s course on the main screen tactical display as it shot around the planet. As if by collective desire we could somehow physically pull the ship to safety.
When the ship was most of the way around the planet, and even a relatively untrained spacer like me could tell we were firmly in the clear, the First Officer gave himself a shake.
“Sensors report,” he barked. “Is there anyone out here with us? Ships, automated defenses, anything? Come on people, we’re in a new system here. Let's be professional,” he said, striding over to the sensor pit.
Spines straightened and then people hunched over their consoles with renewed vigor. The brief vacation from duty, while everyone waited to see if they were going to live or die, was over.
I supposed that in a ship with a trained bridge crew, there would never have been a vacation from duty in the first place. It was something to focus on in the future. What if there had been another warship out there waiting to pounce while we were distracted?
“Uh, sir,” said one of the Sensor Operators raising his hand. “I think you’d better take a look at this.”
“What is it,” demanded Tremblay moving over to the Sensors station.
“Well, if I didn’t know better, I’d have to say it was…,” said the Sensor Operator trailing off.
“Bug sign,” the First Officer said flatly.
“I was going to say nuclear weapons on the surface," said the operator. He paused to work down a gulp, a reaction he and I shared at that particular moment. "Bugs?”
“I want a targeted search for Bug ships throughout this system. Start in our immediate area and work your way outwards,” Tremblay said in a loud carrying voice. “You’ll find the necessary profiles in the ship’s DI to help refine your search.”
He turned to the sensor operator who had surmised that the readings indicated the presence of nuclear weapons. “If you look closely at the radiation levels, you’ll see that they’re practically non-existent. It’s one of the favorite bug weapons. Bunker-busters, they used to call them in the old days. Big enough to make a mushroom cloud, but without all that radiation to ruin the food,” he explained to the operator.
When the sensor operators didn’t immediately report any new findings, I waved the First Officer over for an impromptu conference.
“Bugs, Mr. First Officer,” I asked quizzically.
“Yes, Admiral. Bug sign,” reported Lieutenant Tremblay. “We’ve spotted a number of radiation-free craters and blast sites near outlying areas of the native population. It's consistent with a scout raiding pattern,” he explained.
At first, humanity had the thought the lack of other intelligent life forms in the Galaxy was a sign that there was a creator. Then, soon after the AI wars, we encountered the Bugs. Most Bugs were non-intelligent, instinct driven creatures. Some of the higher castes had something approaching sentience, but it was a hotly debated subject. Back in its prime, The Confederation never got around to making a final determination. The Empire, on the other hand, took a quick look and declared them nothing but a bundle of preprogrammed, if highly specialized responses.
Since even the Empire couldn’t deny that a space-faring race with access to beam weapons and high-yield missiles, as well as the ability to make more of them wasn’t the product of an advanced intelligence, they had initiated further investigations. So they looked into the matter just deeply enough to declare the Bugs had been genetically engineered and declared the matter closed. The official Imperial position was that they were probably designed by AI’s before or during the AI wars. Confederation scientists had hotly contested these claims.
Of course, the official Imperial position that humanity was the only advanced form of life in the universe, already threatened by the appearance of the Bugs in their sub-light ships, was demolished when humanity encountered the Gorgons.
The Imperial Senate still tried to maintain that the case was not yet closed on the Gorgons being another AI engineered race, albeit one with actual intelligence, unlike the Bugs. But no one was buying that line anymore.
Humanity was not alone out here and we were quickly waking up to that fact, despite the Empire’s best efforts.
“The nearest Bug sighting was over fifty years ago and nearly 64 degrees southwest of our position along the Spherical Rim of human space,” I protested evenly. “Unless they’ve suddenly developed faster than light technology, how did they get all the way over here?”
“I couldn’t say, Admiral. But we studied the Imperial Bug Campaigns extensively in the Academy. I know Bug sign when I see it. So it's either Bugs or someone who wants us to think it's Bugs,” he said stubbornly, folding his arms across his chest.
I opened my mouth to argue further, but was interrupted by a Sensor Operator who rendered all further argument moot.
“I’ve got a Bug ship blasting off of the surface of Tracto VI. The DI is classifying it as a Scout Marauder,” said a female sensor officer, her voice high with tension and anxiety.
“Why didn’t we see it before now,” demanded Officer Tremblay.
“We weren’t looking for it when we first transferred above the planet. Now that we’ve swung almost the entire way around the planet, its location is coming back up on our screens.”
“A scout marauder means the planet should show signs of at least a level three incursion. There’s not enough damage on the surface for a level three,” the First Officer muttered under his voice.
Tremblay walked over to the sensor pit. “Calculate that ship's point of origin, and scan that area on the surface. If we missed one ship, maybe there are more of them. The standard pattern of behavior for Bugs is to bombard an area from orbit prior to landing their vessels. If we're seeing a Marauder-Class, it's possible there's more bug activity that we think. Scan around that ship's take-off point before widening your search to include the whole planet. Sometimes this class is accompanied by one or more of the smaller Scout ships.”
Another sensor operator spoke up, “Sir, if there was ever an orbital defense battery over Tracto VI, it's gone and there’s no sign of it now.”
The results indicated there were no more bug ships on the planet's surface, and although they uncovered a few more sites where the Bugs had used their missiles, it wasn’t enough to satisfy the First Officer.
“Maybe there was an orbital battery and the Bugs destroyed it, and that’s why there are discrepancies between what you learned at the academy and what actually we’re seeing here,” I offered. It seemed like a reasonable hypothesis.
“Possible, but it seems unlikely,” Tremblay said shaking his head. “The Bugs follow an instinctive pattern. They would have sent small scout ships first, and there’s no way ships that small could have taken out an orbital defensive battery.”
I nodded in understanding and then started shaking my head as an idea occurred to me. “Maybe they had the same kind of problem we did when they jumped in the system,” I said.
Officer Tremblay cleared his throat. “Sub-light ships, remember. They wouldn’t come in via hyperspace and so they couldn't have the same problems.”
My face heated at my own stupidity. “Oh, Right. Well, what about another ship. Merchants or Pirates or something. Heck, even the Imperials could have the same problems we did and it killed them,” I countered, not yet willing to give up on the idea completely.
“Imperial, no way. They’d have to know the same thing we now know about jumping into the system. It's better to do it a long way out and come in nice and slow. Merchants, not likely. This place is restricted and merchants don’t want to risk getting their ship impounded on a lark,” Tremblay said shaking his head at each point.
“Well, what about pirates then? They could have jumped in and either shot down or crashed into the orbital battery,” I continued, pushing the idea as far as it would go.
“I supposed that’s possible,” Tremblay said sourly. “It's more likely there never was an orbital defense battery at all. Although,” he said thoughtfully, “The Empire could have stationed a ship or two out here and pulled them back when they pulled out of the Spine-Ward Sectors. They could have destroyed the Bugs and then left. Honestly, I don’t know. We just don't have enough information available at this point.”
For my own part, I had moved beyond worrying why the Bugs were here and was now worrying about dealing with this Bug ship and the safety of the Prometheans.
The sensor team had detected the Settler ships. Apparently they had arrived safely just outside the system, unlike the Lucky Clover which had almost crashed into a planet.
I would check with the Settler Captains again but it looked like the bright idea of bringing the Prometheans to an Imperial Protectorate World in a Restricted System was turning into a disaster. I tried to imagine the conversation. 'Prometheans, the infallible Admiral Montagne has brought you to your new temporary home. Not only is it inhabited by the primitive neo-barbs we warned you about, but it’s also a system that’s also been infested with Bugs, or soon will be. Good luck, it's a brave thing you're doing here!'
I should have listened when the System Defense Officers, who knew more than I did about military matters, and the Settlement Captains who knew more than a would-be colonial administrator about settlements and settlers, both agreed that coming here was a bad idea.
I needed something upon which to vent my frustrations.
“How far away is the Bug ship, Mr. Tremblay,” I asked, glaring at the scout marauder on his main screen.
“With our speed, we should be able to come close enough for an extended combat pass,” the First Officer said judiciously. “They’re faster than us, but we’ve already built up a good head of steam and they’re just now breaking free of the planets gravity.”
“Set a course,” I ordered, and sat back in the Admiral's Throne with my fingers steepled in front of my face.
“Yes, sir,” said the First Officer. “Please remember that in addition to the weapons systems that were lost or destroyed during the successful ramming of the two pirate cutters, all of our efforts have been focused solely on rescue operations.”
“Meaning what, exactly, Mr. Tremblay,” I asked, suspecting I already knew the answer and that it was one I was going to hate.
“We’re still effectively unarmed, Sir,” the First Officer said taking a deep breath. “Engineering only had time to reinstall two turbo laser turrets. There’s been no chance to test fire them yet.”
“Then we’ll test them on that Bug Ship,” I said with an evil grin. Finally, something I could annihilate and, in the process, make the system just that little bit safer for the settlers.
“Those weapons could do anything from not work, to explode and make a crater in the ship when we try to fire them,” Tremblay said, looking levelly at me. “When we had no choice but to rush to battle against the pirates, it was a risk well worth taking. In this situation however, we have the time to perform a proper series of tests before rushing to use them in combat.”
“And how long would that take? To safely test them without the chance they’d blow up on us,” I asked, keeping a tight rein on my voice.
“Long enough that the Bug ship would be able to get out of range of our larger, slower ship,” the First Officer said evenly.
I clenched my fists hard enough that I felt fingernails threatening to break the skin of my palms.
“Or we could always ram them like we did the pirates,” the First Officer said scornfully.
Even in my anger, I could tell he was being half serious and half mocking, which only inflamed my temper further.
“A better option than a method of last resort, First Officer,” I said icily. I glanced around the room and could see that everyone on the bridge was listening in on our conversation.
“We could always board the Bug Scout to recover the helpless colonists captured for use as a bug food source, like they do in all the holo-vids. Except for the fact that the Lucky Clover is full of helpless settlers and we don’t have any Jacks,” he shrugged, “An unarmed shuttle full of boarders like they show in the vids would be suicidal. The Scout Marauder would blow them away before they’d have time to match velocities and get on board,” said Tremblay.
His tone was respectful but it was clear I was being mocked, and once again in full view of the bridge-crew. The references to holo-vids which often showed the action hero ramming or boarding enemy ships were a staple of bad entertainment. Everyone, including myself, knew that what worked in a holo-vid was sensational, dramatized and, worst of all, impractical against any sort of thinking enemy.
On the other hand, I had seen a type of ship capable of successfully boarding a larger vessel. Two of them were strapped to the hull of the Lucky Clover right now, and no one ever claimed Bugs were smart. For that matter, the Imperials went out of their way to let everyone know just how stupid the Bugs actually were.
I guessed the question was whether or not could we stand by and just let this Bug go, knowing full well that it was going come back later with all its friends and that in the meantime, the Bugs were going to eat their human captives while they were still alive?
For a while, if only in my own mind, I dreamed of taking both cutters. Oh, I talked a good game about only taking one of them, but in my heart of hearts I had imagined there would be so many volunteers from among the crew that one ship couldn’t handle them all. I dreamed of a turn away crowd of more volunteer boarders than both ships could carry, if I’m completely honest.
As is so often the case, hopes and reality failed to intersect. When I had the department heads announce the call for volunteers, the answer to my call was, to put the best face on a sorry situation, underwhelming.
All volunteers were supposed to assemble in the overfull and incredibly cramped main cargo hold. I would have used the mess hall but it had been taken over by the refugees. A half hour after my final deadline to show up, I only had a dozen volunteers from the crew of the Lucky Clover, and half a dozen Prometheans who were still smarting over the pirate attack and wanted to follow the Caprian War-Prince into battle.
Apparently, Prometheans had some weird cultural quirks of which I was previously unaware.
As for the Caprians, well most of them were from Gant’s armory detail. It seemed that after seeing me clunking around in my battle suit, the boys each started refurbishing an old suit of their own on the sly. I was told there were more of Gant's men willing to go, but he insisted someone had to stay behind to guard the armory.
So, discounting Gants' eight, I had four men from the general crew. One of them was a woman, but I suppose that particular distinction isn't all that critical. Two weren’t even proper volunteers at all! The Doc in charge of medical had sent them over under the impression that I was going to have more boarders than I actually did. It seemed Medical had this tradition that whenever a security detail was sent off the ship, someone volunteered to go with them.
I hadn’t a clue but whatever. The other two genuinely wanted to go hand to hand with the Bugs. Well, more like blaster to bug flesh. They were so gung-ho crazy from all our near misses lately they had even brought along their head-bags in case the bug ship had no atmosphere. The devices had such a terrible reputation that I couldn't remember even hearing about crewmen actually wanting to use the old-style breathing devices.
So, the nineteen of us plus the pilot I would have to
draft to fly us over trooped on into the Cutter engineering identified as being best suited for the mission. I was skeptical when I saw it was the one knocked out by Lieutenant Commander Synthia McCruise’s Corvette. Perhaps they were serving their revenge against me for leaving them out on the hull during the ramming? I knew the thought was unworthy of their Admiral, but also more likely to be on the money than not.
I didn’t say anything though. If the pilot thought he could fly it over to face the Bugs, who was I to stop them?
We were on the way. Chasing the Bug Scout Marauder, when the pilot I had scrounged up and ordered to join us, finally opened up enough to say more than two words at a time.
“How long you want me to stick around after I get you inside that sucker,” he asked.
“What do you mean, how long? Until we crush the Bugs, free the captives and destroy the ship,” was my answer, seemingly stating the obvious. Isn't that how it always worked out?
Admiral Who? (A Spineward Sectors Novel:) Page 20
