“Five hundred thousand kilometers,” the chief said. “Plus or minus a hundred thousand.”
“We better be really slow on our final approach,” Captain Drago said.
“Absolutely,” Kris said flatly.
“What about their communications equipment?” Kris asked. “Not that they make a practice of talking to us.”
“I’m sorry, Admiral,” the chief said. “At this range, they could have comm gear online, but unless they start talking on a wide enough beam, or really jack up the power on their gear, I’m listening to a great big nothing.”
“Then please keep listening,” Kris said, “and let us know if you hear so much as a twitch.”
“You’ll be the second to know, right after Captain Drago.”
“And you were only about thirty seconds behind me on this,” the skipper of the Wasp told Kris. “If you’d been home gnawing your liver instead of gallivanting around my ship, you’d have known it then.”
“I’ve had enough liver for this week,” Kris said.
She glanced in the general direction of the felines. Zarra was translating like mad.
NELLY, IS SHE GETTING THIS RIGHT?
PRETTY MUCH, KRIS. THERE’S A LOT THAT LOOKS LIKE MAGIC, AND THE GENERAL KEEPS SAYING SO. THE ADMIRAL INSISTS THAT THIS IS ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY . . . AND HE WANTS SOME.
GOOD. CORRECT ANY MAJOR MISTAKES, BUT LET THEM RUN THEIR OWN COURSE.
“Admiral,” Nelly announced to all, “we have the analysis of the main antenna’s takeaway from the recent event. I’m bringing it up on-screen.
The enemy base again appeared, only this time, each reactor stood out clear from the others. Two pairs of six reactors in the shape of a T, three aft in engineering proper, powering the ships’ rocket motors, and three strung out along the keel. The pair of six were docked nose in to a space marked out with five gigantic reactors, roaring away with plasma and the superconducting magnetohydrodynamic racetracks that the aliens used to extract electricity from the superheated plasma in their reactors.
Until only a few years ago, humans had used the same technology. Many starships still did.
Then the lights went out.
On-screen, gossamer shadows showed where the plasma went. There were brief sparkles where the plasma met something and interacted with it. On-screen, it was hard to see. No doubt, in person, it had been horrible to suffer.
“It appears that the reaction from venting the plasma,” Nelly reported, “tore the ships away from the station. We can’t be sure because the ships vanish from our observation as the plasma dissipates.”
“What happened on the station?” Kris asked.
“They stayed put for a bit more than a second after the ships, then they, too, vented. Each reactor vented in several different directions,” Nelly reported
On the screen now only the station showed. Shadows went in several directions from each reactor. Here and there were more flashes as structures not meant to face the demons of hot plasma encountered it and became one with it.
“If they were planning on doing this and being in shape to restart and attack us,” Nelly said, “I do not believe that it went as smoothly as they wanted.”
Kris found herself gnawing her lower lip.
“We’ll see what we shall see when we get closer,” she said. That didn’t have the firm finality that an admiral was supposed to bring to her words, but it was the best Kris could muster in this situation.
“Nelly, send to squadron: ‘Continue battle preparation. I don’t trust these bastards any farther than I can throw them.’”
“I sent it, Kris.”
ALL OF IT?
RIGHT DOWN TO THE “BASTARD” PART.
Kris shrugged. That might not go down with the other deathless words before battle, but it definitely reflected her thoughts. The Longknife legend would, no doubt, edit it appropriately.
54
It is impossible to come to a dead halt in space.
Always, you are orbiting the center of the galaxy at a mind-bending pace.
Usually, you are orbiting a sun at a more reasonable speed, but you are still moving.
Finally, most times a ship is orbiting a planet of some sort. We humans don’t go to space for the view, we go for the territory. Maybe we aren’t as territorial as the newly discovered felines, but we’re looking for living space and resources.
Kris knew all of these laws of physics. Still, from her flag bridge, she ordered Captain Drago to bring her squadron to as near a dead halt as possible when they were five hundred thousand klicks from the moon where the aliens had built their orbital refuge.
Making allowances for the huge gravity well of the gas giant only a few million miles away, the squadron drifted in space. Every mind, every sensor aboard, focused its full attention on the mystery that lay ahead of them.
Every scrap of spare computing power concentrated on analyzing what the sensors revealed.
It pretty much came to one big nothing.
“As far as the electromagnetic spectrum is concerned, there is no there there,” Chief Beni reported from his usual place at sensors on the bridge. “Every instrument we’ve got says there is just nothing happening up ahead.”
“Visuals?” Kris snapped from where she sat in flag plot.
“They are still rather vague,” Professor Labao reported from her elbow. “We are unsure if that stems from the junk that has been injected into the space around the base, or because whatever we are looking at just doesn’t look like what we are looking for.”
Kris did not smile although the report was as perfectly noncommittal as she’d expect from a scientist reluctant to admit he had nothing to add to their knowledge base.
No doubt, it was very embarrassing.
“Captain Drago, lead the squadron closer. If there is a creep speed, use it.”
That got a heads-up among the feline contingent observing them from the corner of Kris’s flag bridge. The admiral actually smiled at Kris.
Of course, a feline smile showed a lot of teeth. Long, pointed ones.
Let’s keep these folks as allies, Kris reminded herself. For the millionth time.
At four hundred thousand klicks, the observed results were no better than they had been at five hundred thousand.
By three hundred thousand, they were starting to get a decent picture.
It was ugly.
Two ships rolled and drifted alongside a long cylinder. Occasionally, they bounced off each other.
“There’s no guidance there,” Captain Drago concluded. “They’re totally out of any semblance of control.”
“But are they dead?” Kris asked. “I wouldn’t put it past them to have their lasers loaded and on automatic. Whoever closes in gets hit with one last, massive broadside.”
“They’d need sensors to know there was anyone there,” Taussig pointed out from his place at Kris’s other elbow.
“There could be something passive,” Kris insisted.
“It would have to draw some juice,” Captain Drago pointed out on net. “We are not getting anything at all. Not the low hum from capacitors, nor anything in the lower electromagnetic spectrum from something waiting to power up.”
Kris eyed Taussig, who sat at her elbow since he was now a passenger on the Wasp, riding along with the remnants of his Hornet.
“Take us in closer, Captain Drago. Professor Labao, I want that particular sector of space examined like no bit of vacuum has ever been before. I don’t trust these folks to give up without a fight.”
“There is always a first time,” Jack said.
“For a human, maybe. For them, never. It’s not ‘enlightened,’” Kris spat.