The Seafort Saga, page 82
My cup runneth over. “There’s another!”
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.
“I gottim! I gottim!”
“Steady, Deke. Wait for range.” Walter Dakko.
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
“Gottim!”
“Good boy!”
“LOOKATIM PLODE!”
Amen.
And there was silence.
19
MY UNSTEADY HAND SHUT off the last of the alarms. Slumped in my armchair, a stranger called for damage reports. He seemed to have something caught in his throat.
“Engine room reporting, no damage. Full power on-line, but we’re damn near out of propellant.”
“I know, but we had to maneuver.” I spoke as if from a great distance.
“Hydroponics, no damage, sir.”
“Comm room, no damage, sir.”
Beside me, Philip Tyre sat frozen at his console, fingers gripping the sides of his chair.
“Recyclers, no damage, sir,” said the speaker.
A tear ran unchecked down the boy’s face.
“Galley is undamaged, sir.”
The midshipman caught his breath.
“Kerren, status report!”
“All systems within normal parameters,” the puter intoned. “All compartments airtight except the hold. Hold is breached portside, thirty point three meters forward of the launch berth. Hold is decompressed.”
Philip straightened his shoulders, leaned back, took a deep shuddering breath. His hands remained fastened on the armrests.
“What happened to the projectile that beast threw?” Pointedly, I ignored the middy.
“It dissolved the portside hull plating in the hold,” said Kerren. “Sensor lines are destroyed and dislodged cargo is blocking my camera view. I cannot estimate the size of the breach.”
I frowned. Beside me Philip attempted a smile. He shouldn’t have. His face crumpled. He threw up his hands and his shoulders shook.
I cleared my throat. “Inspect the corridor, Mr. Tyre. Check the wardroom for damage. Then find the cadet and see he’s all right.”
“Aye aye, sir.” Gratefully Philip fled.
It wasn’t much, but it was all I could think of on the spur of the moment. At least it allowed him the privacy of the wardroom.
I’d wanted to meet in the officer’s mess, where we could gather at the informal breakfast table, but I no longer dared leave the bridge untended, even for a moment. So Philip Tyre and I sat at our consoles, seats swung round to face the chairs from the lounge occupied by the Chief and Gregor Attani.
I asked simply, “What do we do?”
Silence hung heavy, punctuated only by the muttering of Kerren’s monitors and sensors. I’d allowed the crew to stand down from Battle Stations only after we’d passed several tense hours without encountering more fish.
The Chief cleared his throat “Is there really a decision to make, sir? What options do we have other than to do what we’re doing?”
“You think our situation unchanged?” I sounded more acid than I’d intended.
Gregor, saying nothing, stared at the screen.
Dray held his ground. “Essentially, yes.” He waved toward the hold. “Kovaks and Clinger will have the breach sealed in a couple of hours. Then we’re in the same situation as before.”
“Except that we’re virtually out of propellant. And the hold may be contaminated. It’s where our remaining food supplies are stored.”
I’d given Philip and Dray permission to interrupt freely, so Philip’s interjection was not impertinent. “We rigged Class A decontamination gear in the launch berth,” he said. “And all the stores of food are sealed. We should be able to get to them safely.” He bit his lip. “Will we need to go back to the hold later for anything else?”
“We’ll go through full decontamination whenever we do,” I growled. Vacuum or no, I would take no chances.
They waited for my lead. “So we go on as before?” I was unsatisfied.
The Chief said again, “What else can we do?”
“Is there any chance whatsoever we can get the drive working?” Philip, to Dray.
Gregor stirred. “Sir, I—”
Philip swung on him in fury. “You’re here by sufferance, Cadet! Open your mouth again and you’ll wish you’d been born without one!” Gregor recoiled from his senior’s anger.
“No chance of doing anything with the drive,” Dray said gruffly. The Chief stared into the intermediate distance, about ten meters beyond the hull. “We’re testing right now, and I suppose we’d better keep on. It’s the only hope we can offer the crew.”
I asked, “How long can you string it out?”
“A long time, if necessary.”
I sighed. “We may not need long. Kerren, replay the tape.” I looked at the screen where Kerren displayed the ragged N-wave produced by our damaged drive.
“Aye aye, sir.” The first alien appeared abruptly in what had been empty space.
“Again, in slomo.”
Kerren cut to the beginning of the recording, at very low speed. I still couldn’t detect an interval between the time we saw nothing, and the moment a fish floated off our bow.
“How did it find us?” Philip muttered. Over his head, the scene continued to replay.
“Remember, they found Challenger before.” My eyes were on the screen. “When Admiral Tremaine had her. All we’ve done since is fire the thrusters.”
In replay, one by one the fish on the screens fell to our laser fire, except the last survivor, which pulsed and abruptly disappeared as the lasers found its range.
It blipped out of existence as fast as the first fish had appeared.
“They could come back any moment.” I was reluctant to say it aloud.
“But why?” Philip cried. “Why do they keep coming?”
Gregor Attani said, “Sir—”
“You don’t have permission to speak,” Philip snapped.
I felt sorry for Tyre, doing his best to hide his fear, unaware that it revealed itself as savagery toward his charge. I stepped carefully. “I would be willing to hear him, if you give permission,” I said with delicacy.
Philip turned scarlet. “Aye aye, sir.” He nodded to Gregor. “Go ahead.”
Gregor swallowed. “How do they get here, sir?” heasked.
I shrugged. “That’s one of the many things we don’t know.”
“I watched a holovid once, back home.” Attani shifted awkwardly. “About inventing the fusion drive. They showed a ship Fusing. It looked a lot like the way that fish disappeared.”
“The fish are alive,” I said. “They don’t have fusion drives.”
“Birds don’t have airplane engines,” he said.
I was speechless a long moment. “Organic fusion?” I sputtered. “How?”
The cadet shrugged. “I don’t know, sir. What else could it be?”
The Chief shook his head. “I don’t see how it’s possible. An N-wave couldn’t be generated organically.”
“Bats navigate by generating sound waves,” Philip remarked.
I waved him down. “That’s all beside the point. The issue is why they seek us out, not how.”
“Sir, if you’ll permit—”
I glared at Gregor. “You’ve had your say. We don’t have time to speculate where they’re from.” I turned to the Chief, my tone glum. “I suppose you’d best continue drive tests as long as—”
Gregor shot to his feet, gripped the back of his chair with both hands. His face was pale. “Listen to me.”
Philip and the Chief exchanged glances, astonished at the cadet’s impertinence. We all rounded on Gregor.
“Ten demerits!” snapped Philip. “You’re confined—”
“I’ll teach that youngster—”
“They hear our N-waves!” Gregor’s voice was sharp over the babble.
“—to behave—”
“After all I’ve taught—”
We fell silent, gaping. The cadet appealed, “I’m sorry to interrupt, sir, but can’t you see?” He gestured at the screen, where the jagged line wavered. “If they travel by N-wave, they must be able to sense them. Hear them.”
I said slowly, “How can we be sure—” My mind reeled. Did they hear us travel in Fusion, or only when we Fused or Defused? Were ships attacked while actually in Fusion? If so, would we ever learn of it?
“Lord God.” I don’t know which of us said it.
“We’ve used the fusion drive for over a century,” I demanded. “Why didn’t they hear us before?”
“Maybe they’ve come a long, long way,” Gregor Attani said. I felt a chill.
“Let’s assume they hear us Fuse and Defuse,” I said slowly. “That would explain why they attacked our ships at nav checkpoints.”
“How could you hear an N-wave?” the Chief wondered. His glance traveled up to the simulscreen, where the jagged line pulsed. “And what about that wave we’re producing. That—caterwauling.”
I wasn’t listening; I’d already swung to the console and slapped the power lever to “Off.” The jagged line vanished from the screen. “Kerren, reset emergency override on the engine room! Disconnect power to the drive!”
“Aye aye, sir. Override reestablished.”
I stared at the simulscreen, terrified of what might appear. Nothing came. After long moments I forced my muscles to unknot and swung my chair back to the waiting officers. “There’s no proof you’re right,” I said to Gregor. “But we’ll proceed on the assumption you are, until we learn otherwise.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Anything else?”
“No, sir.” He looked as if he wanted to make himself invisible.
“Then take your seat.”
He did, quickly. We had little left to discuss and the conference ground to a gloomy halt, I told the Chief to explain to Ms. Bartel and the others why we’d stopped testing. “If there’s any grumbling, send them to me. And keep standby power to the lasers at all times.”
I took up the caller. “Mr. Tzee, summon the first laser firing detail. They and Group B will rotate watches for the next week.” Hard on them, but I couldn’t risk less.
“I’ll take the next watch,” I said, blinking back exhaustion. We’d been up through the night, time unnoticed, and it was already near end of morning watch. “I’ll go change my shirt first. Chief, you have the conn ‘til I’m back. Philip, get some rest. You too, Cadet.”
Wearily I trudged to my cabin, wondering what had become of Mrs. Reeves. I had my finger on my hatch panel when the alarms sounded again.
I scrambled back to the bridge. I only needed one glance at the simulscreen. “Chief, go below!”
“Right!” He moved fast for a big man.
This time, there were eight.
In a moment the departments began reporting. Philip Tyre, his duty station on the bridge, dashed in, coat awry.
“Lasers have power!”
“Seek targets!”
I gripped the thruster controls. There was little to do but watch.
“Target bearing one five four, range five hundred meters!” Elena Battel.
“Kill it!”
“He’s getting ready to throw!”
Deke shouted, “Big’un behin’ us, Cap’n!”
I saw. A copious squirt of the port thruster, and Challenger responded with an unbearably slow turn.
“Amidships! Jesus, he’s close!”
“Got a lock!”
Kerren’s monotone was continuous. “Encroachment oh five oh, declination three five, range five hundred meters. Encroachment two six one, declination oh eight four, range one hundred meters. Encroachment—”
“Watch the one above us! He’s settling!”
“Power line overheat! Switching to alternate!”
There were too many, too close. Save us, Lord God. “Philip, all passengers stand by to don suits. See to it.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
A whirling tentacle broke free, sailed toward us in the deadly silence of vacuum. “Damn! Get it!” Walter Dakko.
“I’m tryin’! It’s movin’ too fast!” Deke.
“Inside our circle!”
“It’s comin’ at the launch berth!”
I was already at the thrusters. Challenger turned her broadside from the swirling mass, not enough to avoid it, but enough so it struck the hull forward of the launch berth.
“Propellant reserves at minimum,” Kerren said calmly. “Two minutes maneuvering left, Captain.”
“God damn them!” My blasphemy went unremarked.
“At the stern,” shouted Dakko. “The shaft!”
A big fish drifted aft, colors pulsating against the black night. As I watched horrified, a blowhole opened, squirted. The fish floated toward the drive shaft wall, below the engine room.
Reluctantly I squirted another precious blast of propellant. We swung away from the danger. The fish followed. A patch in its skin began to swirl and change colors. One of its outriders began to emerge.
“Stand by to repel boarders!”
Not one, but three of the figures launched themselves from the fish alongside the engine room. They sailed to the hull surrounding the drive shaft.
“Got the sumbitch!” Ahead a fish wilted, its innards spurting into the night.
“Engine room reporting. Alien boarding party on hull outside the drive shield.” Somehow, Dray made it sound like a routine status report.
“Master-at-arms, repel boarders at engine room! Dray, get your people suited!”
A fish forward of the disk pulsed rhythmically, disappeared.
“Look! The bastard Fused when he got hot!” Elena Bartel.
“We’re already suited, sir,” said Dray. “Uh, the fish is closing fast.”
On the simulscreen, I watched catastrophe approach. My eyes flicked to the readouts. We had propellant for barely one more maneuver.
“Jesus, Lord Christ!” Philip rose from his chair. Aghast, I started at the screen.
About three hundred meters off our starboard side a fish had appeared, the largest I’d ever seen.
Kerren intoned, “Encroachment oh nine three, declination zero, range three hundred meters and closing.”
Propellant puffed from a blowhole. Already a tentacle was forming on the exterior. The fish drifted closer.
“The fish at the stern is just off our shield, Captain!” Dray’s voice was ragged. Nothing but a plastalloy drive shield separated the engine room from the vacuum. When the fish dissolved the shield, the engine room would decompress. And my suited men would be in the compartment with those—beasts.
“Is Dakko there?”
“Here, sir! Engine room.”
“Can you fight them off?”
“There’s three of the outriders Outside. If they eat through, we’ll burn them. But the fish tself—” He left the rest unsaid. Dakko’s puny weapons could do naught against the might of the looming fish.
We were under attack from all sides, but the most immediate danger came from two fish: the one releasing invaders to the engine room, and the immense creature looming amidships.
I glanced at the screen. The aft fish was within meters of the drive shaft. If it hurled its acid projectiles at the hull ... I recalled the deaths of Hibernia’s crewmen. Walter Dakko and his party were helpless against the acid.
All was lost. “We have to abandon the engine room,” I said, the taste of defeat so bitter I paused before issuing the command.
“No!” Philip leaped to his feet.
“There’s no choice—”
“We’ll lose power to the lasers!”
“Unless we get our men out they’ll be killed!” I gestured helplessly. “We can’t save the engine room!”
The huge fish amidships let go a projectile. It spun lazily toward the hull.
“We can!” Philip insisted.
“No lasers fire far enough inward to cover the drive shaft.”
Dray’s voice, edged with panic. “The fish will make contact any second!”
“The launch.” Philip was pale. “Let me take it.”
“It’s unarmed.”
“It’s got hot propellant and it can ram.”
Dumbfounded, I stared.
He waved at the simulscreen. “What difference does it make? Look at them!” Still I said nothing. “Sir, let me go. Maybe I can scare that thing off.”
I found my voice. “No.”
“What else am I good for?” His young features contorted.
“No!”
“Then we’ll die for nothing!” He hesitated, then ran to the hatch. “Maybe I can sear the fish with our exhaust.” The hatch slid open. He paused a microsecond. “Permission to leave the bridge, sir!”
I had to try twice before I made the word audible. “Granted.”
The midshipman flipped a perfunctory salute and ran down the corridor out of sight.
I swung to the screen. Our fire had neutralized the projectile from the midships fish, but the alien had formed another glob, already swirling toward us.
In less than a minute the console lights blinked, warning me the launch berth was occupied and depressurizing.
The midships projectile sailed untouched through our fire.
“Sombitch!” screamed Eddie Boss in the comm room, blasting my eardrums. “My gun! He got my gun!”
“Midships laser malfunction!” Kerren.
The launch shot from its berth.
“Shut down power to midships laser!”
“Power is down.”
“Captain, it’s gonna throw at the engine room right now!” The Chief, his voice taut.
I swallowed. “Abandon eng—”
“Hang on, Dray, I’m almost there,” Philip Tyre’s voice was steady. “Get in the shop compartment, you’ll have another bulkhead between you and the acid.”
“Do that, Chief.” My hand gripped the console.
“Aye aye, sir.”
Mr. Tzee’s voice cut across the babble. “Look at the screen, sir.”
The huge fish amidships was growing three more projectiles.
“Fire on him!”
