-7-
As the chase continued, it soon became evident that the Blue’s ship had strengths and weaknesses not shared by our own vessels. As it flew closer to Eden-11, it sped up as we did, but when it flew around the planet and followed us, it did so ponderously. It was as if the ship was a heavy tanker and couldn’t maneuver as well as our lighter craft.
I ordered my fleet to slow down further, and the captains all along the line began applying braking jets. This didn’t make my crews happy; they wanted to leave Phobos behind. But I didn’t think we had any choice. I didn’t want to lose Tolerance and give the crazy cloud any ideas about attacking other targets in the system.
“Colonel,” Jasmine asked me, coming to my office specifically to complain. “Are we seriously going to brake in the face of the enemy to keep them within close range?”
“Have you ever played with a kitten, Captain?”
She squinted at me. “What?”
“A kitten—you know, a baby cat.”
“I don’t understand…well, yes. I suppose I have.”
“Well, I have too. The trick is to get their attention with a small, moving object. A piece of tissue paper works well. With a bit of string tied to it, you can have hours of fun pulling it away and having the cat chase it. But you know what happens when you yank it away too far? Out of range?”
She sighed and rolled her eyes at me. I would have been annoyed at the gesture, but she had very pretty eyes and I was being an irritant on purpose.
“The cat loses interest,” she said.
“Right. Now, I don’t know if the Blues will operate the same way, but so far their military strategy has been extremely simplistic. They don’t even know how a military command structure works, and I don’t think they have any heavily hierarchical structure in their society.”
“And the significance of that cultural detail is…?”
“I suspect they’re less socially sophisticated than we are in certain ways. I believe they can be manipulated—tricked. They won’t see a deception or manipulation until it is too late.”
“You’re saying they’re a race of country bumpkins?”
“Sort of,” I said. “They understand argument and rhetoric, but they don’t understand military tactics.”
She nodded. “I hope you’re right, Kyle. I really do.”
She left me and went back to flying her ship. I believed her when she said she hoped I was right. If I wasn’t, we were probably all as good as dead.
I went back to studying what we knew of the strikes against our ships. I had to figure out how their weapon worked if I was to have a hope of defeating it. I brought it over to the weapons people, one of which was Marvin. He wasn’t really part of the weapons staff, but as our general science officer, any odd alien tech was in his jurisdiction.
“Hello Colonel Riggs,” Marvin said brightly.
“Hello, Marvin. What have you got in the way of a theory concerning the operation of this weapon? How does it work?”
“We don’t actually know. But I would hesitantly theorize that their ship generates a compression field of some kind. The field might create a region in space where mass is effectively greater, or it might apply crushing force like a hand squeezing into a fist.”
“I guess that makes some kind of sense,” I said, looking at the data. “But we’re still in the dark about how Phobos is propelling itself. Even more importantly, the ship has a weapon we have no clue about, and no defense against—other than staying several million miles away.”
“Sir,” Marvin said promptly, “I have some theories in that regard as well.”
“What theories?”
“I need more data in order to present a complete hypothesis.”
“Well Marvin, the only way we could get more data would be by visiting the damaged ships directly. What happened to that pinnace I sent out there to investigate the first wreck?”
“That vessel was destroyed, sir…” Marvin said. “Unfortunately.”
I frowned at him. He didn’t sound like he thought it was unfortunate, but it was hard to tell with Marvin. He might just be using his usual neutral inflection.
“How did that happen?”
“The enemy vessel targeted and destroyed the pinnace when our fleet was in close proximity. There were no survivors and the mission was not executed.”
“Why wasn’t I informed another vessel was hit?”
“It was only recently discovered. I’m sure with all the excitement of assaulting Phobos, the detail wasn’t reported to the flag officers.”
“Hmm,” I said. “We’re swinging back by there soon on our way to the Helios ring. We’re also going pretty slowly. Can you run some numbers to see if we can reach—”
“Here they are,” Marvin said quickly. His tentacles rasped on the big screen. I soon saw that we could make it out to the wreck and back if we used a fighter on full burn. We’d only have about a twenty minute window to make the launch, however.
As I studied the display, which showed a dashed green line out to the wreck and a curving return course, I noticed the display and calculations were very detailed. Marvin had even programmed a narrowing cone of operational time to make the mission happen. I began to get suspicious.
“You had this ready to go before I got here, didn’t you Marvin?”
“Yes. But I must ask for your decision now, Colonel. Are we going or not? The launch-window is rapidly closing.”
“Yeah, I see that,” I said, not liking this. I felt I might be in the middle of one of Marvin’s grand schemes. But I had to agree with him, if we wanted to see that wreck the decision had to be made now.
Then something else he’d said clicked in my mind. “You said ‘we’ are going? Meaning yourself?”
“Of course. As your science officer, it would only make good sense.”
“Yeah, right,” I said, then sighed. “All right, let’s suit up and go. I’ll fly the fighter.”
“An appropriate vessel has been placed on hold in the launch bay. All weapons have been removed, giving us extra fuel and sensory equipment for contingencies.”
“No way,” I said. “Put at least the forward gun back on there. I’m not flying an unarmed fighter into hostile space.”
“Sir, that will hamper—”
“We have time. I can see your numbers, Marvin.”
His tentacles squirmed in distress. I could tell he was mentally weighing the time he’d have to waste trying to convince me to do things his way versus just complying and getting into space as quickly as possible. In the end, he gave up and rushed for the launch bay.
“Please follow me, sir. There isn’t a moment to spare.”
As I left the bridge, Jasmine intercepted me. Her brow was furrowed with worry.
“He set this up, you know that don’t you?”
“I would guess that he did,” I said. “But I want to know what we’re up against, and I don’t have time to burn him at the stake like I should.”
“Sandra wouldn’t have wanted you to go off with Marvin alone.”
I smiled. “You’re right about that. But she’s not here right now.”
Still, I hesitated. She had her hand on my chest plate. I could have easily brushed past her, but I didn’t. I knew she had some feelings for me, and it was nice to know someone gave a damn whether I lived or died.
I thought for a second she was going to give me a kiss or a hug, but she didn’t. She was standing in front of a lot of her personnel after all, and they were all watching us while trying to pretend they weren’t.
My helmet buzzed with a personal channel call.
“Colonel Riggs? Is there a problem? I have the fighter reconfigured now. It is on the pad and ready for launch. Are you coming or am I going to be forced to fly this ship alone?”
“You’re not permitted to fly anything unless it is an emergency.”
“We could discuss the parameters of what kind of event constitutes an ‘emergency’, but I would prefer not to. There isn’t sufficient time.”
Finally, Jasmine removed her hand. I smiled at her and gave her a slight hug. I could tell she liked it, but she cleared her throat and nodded to me instead of reciprocating.
“Until you return, sir,” she said.
Then just like that, I found myself hurrying down the long central passage to the launch bays. When I got there, I found a fighter with Marvin in it. Really, it was more like Marvin had wrapped the ship around his body. I could tell now that what he’d meant by ‘extra sensory equipment’ was himself. The parts he’d left out were not sensor boxes, but parts of his own body. There were segments lying here and there around the ship, discarded. They dripped oil and left yellowish puddles on the decking.
“How did you squeeze into that thing, Marvin?” I asked, laughing.
“Please Colonel, could we just launch? There will be plenty of time for jibes and pleasantries during the flight.”
I climbed into the cockpit, which I found cramped. He’d scooted my seat up. I felt the instrument panel was too close and the stick—well, it was almost in my crotch.
“Give me one more inch, will you? Just shove backward a bit.”
I heard groaning metal and scratching sounds. A hatch opened and three cameras spilled out, cracking on the deck plates. He’d jettisoned some of his tentacles along with the cameras.
“I should have brought a smaller pilot,” he complained.
“I should have brought a smaller passenger,” I replied.
I engaged the engines and the ship went live. A moment later, a smart metal hatch opened under us and the tiny craft was sucked down into the breach. We were loaded like a shell into a cannon and soon that cannon fired with an ear-splitting boom.
Coming out of the long launch tube of a carrier in a fighter was always exhilarating. Every time I did it, I wondered why I didn’t pull rank and go patrolling with the escort ships every day just for fun.
I gunned it once we were at a safe distance and had clearance from the CAG. I whooped as our huge exhaust plume almost engulfed Gatre for a brief moment. Flying fighters was fun, and having an excuse to fly at maximum acceleration was even better.
Once we were up to cruising speed, we had a few minutes to talk before I had to perform the reversal maneuver to flip around and aim the engines in our direction of travel. Fighters had only one real engine, and they had to use it to accelerate and decelerate.
“All right, Marvin,” I said, “now it’s time to talk.”
“When I suggested that, it was a metaphorical reference—”
“No. No way. You’re going to answer some of my questions right now or I’ll turn this ship around and take you home.”
“That would be highly counterproductive, Colonel.”
“Yes it would, so talk.”
“What would you like to talk about?”
“How you engineered this. What exactly happened to the pinnace I sent out here?”
“I fail to understand your references, Colonel Riggs. Are you asking how I altered the fighter to carry my person, or—”
“Knock it off, Marvin. I’m asking what you did to make sure you were the one to fly out here to this wreck.”
“I volunteered myself for the mission, if that’s what you mean.”
I could tell he was going to evade the point until we ran out of time. It was a common tactic for him. Marvin could have taught a class on the subject: Stonewalling 101.
“Hmm,” I said. “Let me see if I can piece it together for you. You were curious about it, right? Some kind of new technology we’d never encountered before. You had to see the results up close and personal, but without dying in the process.”
“I found the topic stimulating, yes.”
“All right then. You must have been disappointed when I ordered the pinnace sent out to survey the wreckage.”
“Disappointed? I would not employ that term.”
“Well, I would. How to do it…” I thought for a moment, then snapped my fingers. I had it.
“Where did you relay that last message? The one they never answered?”
Marvin squirmed.
“I did as you instructed. I made it seem as if the transmission didn’t come from Gatre.”
“Right,” I said. “Meaning you relayed it through the pinnace after the first carrier was hit. You baited them into destroying the pinnace so you’d later have a chance to check out the carrier wreckage first hand.”
“I was only following orders. Your orders, Colonel.”
I nodded slowly. In a way, he’d done us a favor. Instead of losing another carrier at that point, we’d lost a smaller ship. But it was also unacceptable that he would knowingly cause the death of a pilot by baiting Tolerance—even if the rest of us had yet to figure out what was happening at the time. Events often went this way with Marvin.
I heaved a sigh. When it came to ethical conduct, Marvin was in a category all by himself. He was very perceptive, but instead of sharing his insights he used them to achieve his own strange goals. When he acted on information, he applied his own twists. He knew he was dooming a ship by relaying my message through it, even if the rest of us hadn’t figured it out yet. Was that evil, or just the careful utilization of a gift the rest of us didn’t have? I was ambivalent about it on this occasion.
“I’ll have to decide if there will be repercussions for your actions later,” I said. “Right now, I want you to focus on gathering as much data from the wreck as you can.”
“We’re already close enough for a preliminary scan. Very interesting. Can you slow down? It would be optimal if we could circle the wreck in a low-velocity sweep. Thank you, Colonel.”
I played chauffer for the next minute or two while we swung around the crushed ship. I soon tired of that and set down on the flattened aft of the wreck. The entire thing looked like a car that had been through a demolition machine—twice, maybe.
“This is unbelievable,” I said as I climbed out of the fighter and walked around on the hull. “What kind of force could exert so much pressure? It’s like you said, a compressing field came at the vessel from all sides and smashed it.”
“I don’t think so, Colonel,” Marvin said. “Not now that I’ve seen the damage up close.”
He extracted himself from the fighter with difficulty. He wouldn’t have been able to do it at all if he hadn’t discarded much of his structure. He’d kept only a few of his large cubical units and most of his body consisted of tentacles, sensors and cameras. The cubes, I knew, housed his central power unit and his overly-large brainbox.
“What do you mean, Marvin? Do you know what kind of technology we’re facing here?”
“Yes. It seems fairly obvious.”
I looked around, dumbfounded. The hull resembled a run-over can on the side of a highway to me. Floating bits of glass and other debris were everywhere around it. Being in space around a large object like this was sort of like walking on the bottom of the ocean. My every movement caused clouds of particulate matter to rise up in swirls.
“It’s not obvious to me.”
“Let’s do some simple deductive reasoning,” Marvin said.
Coming from most people, these words would have sounded condescending. But I knew that Marvin was only enjoying himself in his own, weird way. I decided to play along.
“All right,” I said, “we’ve got a crushed ship that has apparently suffered a high-force blow from all sides at once. Looks like an implosion more than an explosion, if only due to all the small debris floating around.”
“Excellent. You’re making progress. I’ll show you another clue.”
I sighed in my helmet while Marvin lifted and tapped at a sheet of polymer that must have been from inside the ship somewhere. As I examined it, I frowned. It was peppered with slivers of other, more fragile materials.
“Hmm,” I said. “It looks like something on the outside of the ship popped and shot slivers into the interior. Maybe one of the viewports?”
“Close. This material has been identified as having resin compounds that match your vac suit.”
I stared at it. “But my suit is smart metal. This stuff looks like shards of stiff plastic.”
“When great forces are applied, nanites often take on this configuration.”
“That reminds me, I said, looking around. “Where are all the nanites? Are they all dead?”
“Yes. They’re more than just dead, actually. They’re fused into brittle metal masses. Like clumps of frozen snow scooped up and pressed together.”
I grabbed samples of these materials as we examined them. Marvin did the same, but I didn’t trust him to not damage the samples. I wanted pure ones to give to my science people.
“This stuff is made up of crushed-together nanites?” I asked. “That supports my compression theory.”
“Not at all.”
I looked at him. “Just stop beating around the bush and tell me what you think happened. And yeah, I know there are no bushes out here.”
“What propulsion systems do we currently know about, Colonel?”
“Chemical, nuclear…anything that throws mass away from the ship quickly to cause it to move the other way.”
“Those are common, outdated systems. But there is one more.”
“You aren’t talking about the rings, are you?”
“No, I’m talking about grav-plates.”
I looked around and laughed. “You think gravity manipulation could do all this? That would take a couple of huge grav-plates! And a fantastic level of power, too. Our best plates can make a tank or small ship fly at low speeds, but that’s it.”
“For just a moment, let us assume the Blues have technology superior to our own.”
“Yeah,” I said, looking at the nanites in my hand. They crumpled to a fine, silvery dust when I handled them roughly. Whatever had killed this ship had done a thorough job. “That’s easy to do.”
“Superior technology indicates by definition that either entirely new techniques are being applied, or that known techniques are being applied with improved effectiveness. I’m suggesting that the latter is the case here.”
All the while he spoke, he kept moving his cameras, taking samples and doing readings. Watching him work was fascinating. He could multitask better than any human that had ever lived.
“Let’s get back to the ship,” I told him. “We have less than two minutes before our return window closes.”
We managed to stuff ourselves into the fighter again, but only barely. Our flight weight was mysteriously high. I noticed this as I closed the cockpit and kicked on the jets.
“Marvin, how many samples did you bring with us?”
“About six hundred kilograms worth.”
I grunted, thinking of my five or six baggies of random wreckage.
“Are you sure we can fly back with all that?”
“Yes. I ran the calculations as we flew out here.”
“Why so many damned samples?”
“Full acceleration will be required to match speeds with Gatre. I assumed that many of the samples would be damaged.”
There were many crashes and tinkling sounds coming from the back of the ship as I put the petal down and we sped away.
“Where did you put all that mass?”
“The only available storage areas were the in empty dorsal fuel tanks.”
“The fuel tanks? I better not suck dead nanites into my engines.”
“That shouldn’t happen. The samples have been isolated with smart metal barriers. I also took the liberty of disabling several valves that connect those tanks with the engines.”
Great, I thought. More tampering. But at the same time, I thought I’d figured out what he meant about employing improvements to known technology.
“You really think the Blues’ ship did all this damage with gravity manipulation?”
“Yes.”
“If they have better, more refined gravity control, that would explain a lot,” I said. “But doing it on such a scale and with such great range—it would require massive generators.”
“Enough to fill a small moon?”
I looked out in the direction of Phobos. I couldn’t see the ship with my naked eye, but I could see Eden-11, a brownish-white disk. The big ship was in the sunward direction, following my remaining fleet doggedly across the system.
“It does fit. Their super weapon crushes things, I can’t deny that. What I don’t understand is how they do it at range. Our grav plates only reach a few feet.”
“That’s a power-relative range,” Marvin said, “but still, I don’t think they used gravity plates to achieve this destruction over such a long distance. Again, they used known technology but with superior techniques.”
“So, they somehow caused the ship to implode? At about a million mile range?”
“Yes, exactly. They didn’t place their gravity plates around the ship, but instead caused a gravity effect—an anomaly, if you will—to occur within the hull itself.”
“Ah, I see what you mean now. That’s why everything is crunched down and nothing blew apart. They sucked it all together by making a high gravity field inside the ship. How large would that field have to be?”
“Very difficult to say without further analysis. But really, it’s not a matter of the size of the field. If a single point in space sparked into existence, full of collapsed atoms, it could apply sufficient force.”
I thought about it all the way back to Gatre and the more I did, the less I liked it. I had to admit, the theory fit the facts as we knew them.
If Marvin was right in his theories, the Blues could essentially form a tiny black hole wherever they wanted to—and they’d chosen to do it in the middle of my ships. How could my fleet defend itself against that?