“I’m not sure I’ll have a chance to shoot second,” Kris said. “But hold it, hold it. I don’t want to go off hunting until I have some idea of who it is I’m hunting.”
“What?” “Huh,” and “I thought you’d made up your mind already,” came in answer to that.
“Folks, all I did was see if I had some weapons that might be able to make a dent in something the size of what Phil reported. By the way, Vulcan, lie alongside the corvettes and begin installation. Your twenty-four hours started five minutes ago.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am.”
“There you go,” Krätz snapped.
“Admiral, please don’t shoot up the Vulcan. Let’s look at what we’re facing. A ship attacked the Wasp with no defiances given, no warning at all. I don’t take that for a declaration of war, but it does tell me that there is stuff out here that shoots first and doesn’t care about asking questions later.”
“Yes,” Admiral Kōta said.
“Secondly, we found a planet stripped. Its civilized species wiped out. We found the remains of a few of the people we think did it. The connection to the ship that shot at us is tenuous, but it is there.”
“I can follow you,” said Admiral Channing.
“The Hornet came back with a report of one huge ship. We have audio and video from that ship that we have not yet been able to decode. I’d really like to see who or what is on that ship before I make any decision about what we do here.”
“I agree with you on that,” Admiral Kōta said. “I would prefer not to start shooting only to find out that, say, the planet we’re worried about has an unstable star and the ship approaching it is on a rescue mission.”
“I’m glad someone is thinking about that,” Krätz grumbled.
“Nelly, would you please get me Professor mFumbo,” Kris said.
“Kris, he says he’s busy. Go away.”
That brought a chuckle from the admirals on-screen . . . and from Kris’s staff around her.
“Can they do that?” Vicky asked.
“They can get away with anything they can get away with. Nelly, put me through to the very busy professor.”
“You got him.”
“Professor, we need your input.”
“I’m busy,” he snapped, then seemed to reconsider the question. “What kind of input?”
“On taking all humanity to war,” Kris said.
“Oh my God, what are you talking about, woman?”
“I think you have his attention,” Vicky said.
“I think I do, too. Professor, we think the ship you got that video from is about to attack and destroy an entire civilization. We need to have a peek at what the people inside it look like. We’d love it if you could match some DNA off that video to some that we have on file, but I doubt even our boffin team can do that. In its place, I’d really need to see the video the Hornet recorded Real Soon Now. Time is of the essence.”
The professor came on-screen in a new window. “ And this may determine if we go to war with them?”
“Pretty much, Professor. I don’t mean to make you feel pressured or anything.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, young woman. You’re telling me if the video take from the big ship shows people like we found on the ship that attacked us and the bodies on that murdered planet, you plan to attack them.”
“Let’s say that if there is a match, we’ll have to seriously consider what we do next.”
The professor ran a worried hand through his hair, the first time Kris ever remembered him showing any sign of stress. “The data is in a format that we have never seen before. It doesn’t fit any logical structure. I’ve cracked coded video, but this goes far beyond a coding.”
“Could it be they don’t want strangers reading their stuff?” Kris said.
“Most definitely,” the professor said.
“Nelly, have you got any suggestions?”
“Kris, my kids and I have been doing everything we can think of to crack those videos. Nothing elegant works. Nothing brute force works. It is very frustrating for us computers to find such limits to our abilities.”
“Have you asked the chief to look at it?” Kris asked.
“No. He’s busy,” Nelly answered stiffly.
And besides, Nelly, you don’t want to get him involved, Kris added to herself.
“Nelly, interrupt the chief. Maybe he and the Greenfeld tech types might have a different twist on it.”
“Yes, ma’ am.”
Nelly didn’t sound very happy, but she obeyed. Kris glanced around her team. “So, ladies, gentlemen, and alien, until we have something from the ship to look at, I suggest we go about our business. Admiral Krätz, weren’t you about to move your squadron over to Jump Point Dora so they could shoot up any bug-eyed monster that edged its nose through the jump?”
“Yes. I guess I can move over there.”
“Kris, do you mind if I stay aboard the Wasp?” Vicky said.
“You aren’t seriously worried about being in a launch, are you?”
“No. I can hardly be, since I had my best friend, Maggie, ride the barge back over here while all this was going on. But I have this serious concern about my admiral taking a potshot at you. My being here just might make him have second thoughts before he does something you’d regret.”
“Come to think about it, I do have a spare bunk you can use.”
“Thanks.”
“Are we really just going to sit on our hands?” Jack asked.
“Consider yourself lucky, old boy,” the colonel said. “The poor working stiffs of the Vulcan will be slaving away in a few moments, out to arm your little corvettes with monster killers. And the Greenfeld battleships will soon be tracking that jump point, their itching trigger fingers eager to blast anything that comes through the jump. Me, I’m curious, Your Highness.”
He paused while everyone turned to give him their full attention. “Does that monstrous mother ship punch through the jump point with all her little monsters tucked in tight, or do they go charging through the jump ahead of her?”
“A very interesting question,” Kris said. “It might make for a very disappointing ambush if the little monsters were out front. Phil, any idea how big the little ones that chased you were?”
“Several million tons, according to our measurements of their gravity distortions. Their mass per cubic meter was not shabby either.”
“Each one as big as a couple of the admiral’s battleships, huh.”
“From what I saw, they don’t do anything small,” the Hornet’s skipper said. “But I can say this. They were all tied up alongside. They had no patrols out when I came across them. Admittedly, they were thirty-two hours away from their last jump and a good fifty hours away from their next one.”
“Is it possible,” Kris said, “that they are hungry? If they’re heading for their next feeding frenzy, it may have been quite a while since they last gobbled up a planet. They may be conserving resources.”
“You’re guessing,” Jack said.
“I’m examining possibilities,” Kris said. “That’s all we can do until we get a look at who’s running that monster ship.”
“Dear Lord,” Abby kind of prayed, “I hope the picture we get of those cusses are of little green ladies with twelve fingers.”
“Amen,” said Penny.
“We can hope,” Kris agreed.
“Until then, we wait,” the colonel said.
“I am good at twiddling my thumbs,” Ron said, and proceeded to do that with four hands and a whole lot of fingers and thumbs.
“How do I top that?” Vicky asked.