“And what reality do you see of this battle?” Miriam asked, engaging her suit jets to right herself as the Hexosehr finished the installation.
“That it is probably futile,” Baelak said. “This weapon will barely scratch the dreadnought. It may be better against the destroyer, but not much. And if your captain attacks again and again, as will be necessary, sooner or later the Dreen will get a shot through and then you will be destroyed. If we make it, we will bring words of your courage to your planet. But the reality that I see is that I would rather die, unknowing, in deep sleep than watch the final dissolution of my race.”
21
“Okay, let’s go try this thing out,” Spectre said, rubbing his hands. “Commander Weaver, I hope you have a convenient target? Any handy asteroids?”
“Well, sir, like any Jovian, this one has moons,” Bill said. “There are a couple of small ones. Does that work?”
“Gimme a course,” the CO replied.
“That’s a moon?” Spectre asked, looking at the lump of rock.
“Actually, sir, it technically counts as an asteroid that’s been captured by the gravity well of the Jovian,” Bill replied. “For it to be a moon, it has to have sufficient internal gravity to assume a circular shape.”
“So you did find me an asteroid,” the CO said. “Good job. Tactical, you have the target in sight?”
“Conn, Tactical, we are tracking the target designated Sierra Four.”
“Open tube doors and fire,” Spectre said.
What fired was a ball of white light that receded faster than the eye could track. But it was apparent from the streak on everyone’s eyeballs that it had missed the conveniently close and extremely nonmaneuvering moon, asteroid, space junk.
“You missed, Tactical,” the CO said.
“We’re adjusting our targeting computers now, sir,” Tactical replied. “Be just a moment.”
“The Dreen target’s a lot bigger, sir,” Bill pointed out. “That thing’s barely the size of their destroyer.”
“We’re going to be shooting from much farther away,” the CO pointed out.
“Maybe, maybe not, sir,” Bill said, wincing.
“I think I’m not going to like this explanation,” the CO said. “But give it to me anyway.”
“Sir, we’re going to be trying to come out of warp at a very fixed point,” Bill said. “But even using a computerized system, a fraction of a second’s variation means we could be well outside the weapon’s range or… well inside. Really really inside. I’ve been looking at how precise our warp system is, from that POV, and it’s not really all that precise. It can get us consistently within a half light-second of our preferred position, but…”
“The range on this thing is a third of a light-second,” the CO said. “We could end up on the other side of the target, firing the wrong way. Or outside the envelope.”
“Yes, sir,” Bill said. “The needs of this mission are approaching the noise in our own ship systems. And that assumes we can get it aimed at all.”
“Conn, Tactical. We think we got the glitch worked out.”
“Try it again, Tactical,” Spectre said. “Turn that thing into dust.”
Again the ball of light, like a streak of lightning. This time, though…
“Whoa,” the CO said, blinking his eyes. The impact of the chaos ball had been extremely bright and the asteroid was now two chunks drifting away from each other. “I like it. Right, Weaver, find us a bigger target and let’s try this warpy thing.”
“CO has control,” Spectre said. “Matching target course and velocity?”
“As closely as I can figure from these instruments, sir,” Weaver replied.
“Right,” Spectre said, moving the reticle onto the larger asteroid. This one was, in fact, larger than the Dreen warship. “What’s the chance we’re going to come out of warp inside it?”
“About a million to one, sir,” Bill said. “You want the details?”
“No, million to one sounds good,” Spectre replied. “Prepare for engagement.” He took a deep breath and pressed the button on the joystick.
They had started at five light-seconds out, the farthest that they could detect the target with their systems. But at Warp Four, that distance took less than milliseconds to cross. There was a confusing blur, a flash of light and they were looking at space again as the system automatically warped them to a preselected safe point.
“What just happened?” the CO asked. “Did we hit it?”
“Looking for it, Conn,” Tactical replied. “Found the target. Negative impact, Conn.”
“Replay that at slow speed,” Spectre said.
With the video at one-one hundredth speed, it was apparent that the ship had come out of warp at outside the range of the weapon. The effect of the chaos ball was impossible to determine because they had warped back out before it even reached the target.
“The good news is, they probably wouldn’t have been able to hit us, sir,” Bill said. “Based on my models, about a one in a thousand chance.”
“And we didn’t hit them, Commander Weaver,” the CO pointed out. “Any way to tweak this system? Get us a bit more likely to get closer? Get us a bit more accurate? Get rid of some of the noise?”
“I can work on it, sir,” Bill said. “But we’re getting short on time. It’s more a matter of fine tuning the warp drive and that’s problematic from any number of perspectives.”
“That assumes that the Dreen ever show up,” Spectre said. “I’m starting to feel like a prom date that’s been stood up. Where are they? But as long as it doesn’t break the system, take some time to tweak. Get Miss Moon in on it if you need her. Get that Hexosehr scientist in on it. Hell, get Tchar if you can drag him out of his room. Maybe he has a Ronco gadget that will help. I’m going to go do paperwork until you get this thing working. And call the Caurorgorngoth and find out where the Dreen are!”
“I face the reality that is before me,” Kond said, examining the sonar taste of the unreality node. “The longer the Dreen fail to emerge, the more ready the fleet is to leave. This is a good thing. But they could only have delayed to take an action I cannot anticipate. This is a bad thing. Have they translated to another system to use a node we do not suspect? Surely they would not take the time. Surely they fear us less than that. But why have they stopped? Are they damaged? Were they, too, unable to generate unreality? I sit upon the crux of a decision not of my control and it is upsetting to my psyche.”
“What is upsetting to my psyche is that I realize the humans have a weapon more effective for this than we,” Favarduro interjected. “We are not so insane as to carry quarkium in our ships. Their missiles are more powerful than anything we fire save the chaos ball generator.”
“But too short ranged to do any good,” Kond said.
“Except when a ship is coming out of unreality,” Favarduro replied. “We have laid mines, but they are paltry compared to a large quarkium release. And if placed in the node, they would be in contact on emergence.”
“I need to call the Sharp Sword,” Kond said.
“So they think our weapons can actually make a difference?” Spectre said. “Set a course for this unreality node. Let’s lay down some mines.”
“We’re working on tweaking the precision of the warp drive, sir,” the XO reminded him. “I’m not sure it’s up at the moment.”
“Get it up,” the CO said. “We’ve got a mission that actually works.”