“It’s not something I hadn’t thought about,” Powell admitted. “And discussed with the Old Man. He raised the same point, including the trust issue, and I gave him the same answer. So you’re not the Lone Ranger.”
“I trust Two-Gun more than I trust the rest of your company,” Miller said after the hatch closed. “No offense. Kid’s just good. And he’s lucky. It’s a tough combination to beat.”
“Agreed,” Powell said, turning back to the video. “The hell of it is, so do I. It is favoritism. I just think it’s pragmatic favoritism.”
15
“Coils charged,” Engineering Specialist Rorot stated. “Unreality generator coming online…”
“That does not sound good,” Favarduro quipped as a hard vibration coursed through the ship.
“Structural integrity failure in Number 23 generator pylon,” Rorot said calmly. “Shutting down.”
“How very good,” Ship Master Kond said quietly. “Time estimate?”
“I will need to go outside,” Rorot said, standing up. “A team is on the way. I would anticipate at least two hundred kleg.”
“Very well,” Kond said. “Keep me updated when you have the time. Favarduro, maintain maximum watch.”
“We have seen no indications of the Blin dreadnought,” Favarduro replied. “It is possible it was destroyed by the Klingoddar and the fighters were remnants. Or it may still be out there, damaged as we are and effecting repairs.”
“Keep a watch,” Kond replied. “Chaos ball generator?”
“That is on-line,” Favarduro admitted. “So we have that at least. I’ll fire the minute I see any threat.”
“I wonder what their detection systems are like?” Weaver said, frowning.
“Say again, Astro?” the CO replied, watching the forward viewscreens. The trace of gasses was now displayed in false color and they were following the track at low warp.
“Well, unless they have some sort of detector which is FTL,” Weaver said musingly, “then we’re going to come up on them before they see us. Even what we’re seeing isn’t quite real time. We’re, effectively, past the point that we see by the time we see it. If that makes any sense.”
“About as much as everything else about this job,” the CO replied, not correcting the former academic on his omission of the obligatory “sir.”
“About the only FTL detector we know of, theoretically, is a tachyon detector,” Bill continued, frowning now. “And as far as I’ve been able to determine, we don’t give off tachyons.”
“We’re far too high class,” Spectre quipped.
“Well, your astrogator’s a redneck, sir,” Bill replied. “But the point is, the neutrinos, quentaquarks and such like that we do radiate, propagate slower than light. So…”
“So we’re going to get up to them before they can detect us,” the CO said. “I like it.”
“Yes, sir,” Bill replied. “But the point is, we’re going to get up to them before they can even see us. That’s going to come as a surprise. And they just left a battle…”
“Visual on ship,” Tactical called. “Zooming forward viewscreen.”
There was a brief image of a ship. There was no reference for size but the ship was a long ovoid with dozens of sharp wings sticking out ending in oval devices that looked somewhat like jet engines without an intake or exhaust. The exception to the oval look was a hammerhead projection from either the front or the rear; with the way the ship was sitting it was impossible to tell which.
“Drop us out of warp,” the CO said, swiveling his chair forward.
“Sir!” Bill called. “I respectfully suggest you…”
“Where did that come from?” Favarduro shrilled, his hand dropping to the Chaos cannon switch. There was a hum from forward and a ball of white flashed out, closing the intervening gap rapidly.
“Belay firing,” Kond snapped. “That is not a Blin warship!”
“Oh, Drdunc.”
“…Belay that order, sir!”
“Conn, Tactical, we are under fire!”
“Pilot, warp us out of here!”
“Damn that’s fast!” Weaver snarled, turning to his monitors. “What in the hell is it?”
The ball of what looked like chain lightning was closing the three light-second gap at nearly the speed of light. The Blade had barely dropped out of warp and was now trying to scramble back. The conversion was, unfortunately, slow.
Just as the ball of whatever it was reached their position, the Blade’s engines finally converted them back into warp and the pilot, instinctively, punched in maximum warp up and to the side. They flashed by the alien ship in the millisecond that was left before the weapon reached them.
“Tactical,” the CO said. “What was that weapon?”
“Unknown, Conn,” the TACO said. “All our particle screens went ballistic. We couldn’t even get a reading on it. In fact, we lost all our readings.”
“Pilot, bring us around,” the CO said. “Try to stop a bit farther out and be ready to go back into warp…”
“Where did it go?” Favarduro asked. “Where did it come from?”
“I am supposed to be asking you that question,” Ship Master Kond replied. “Fortunately, it did not fire upon us. I am inclined to show them the same courtesy. If they come back.”
“There,” Favarduro said. “It is at two-one-six mark fifteen. Range sixty-two dreg.”
“How much time from when it disappeared to when it reappeared?” Kond asked.
“Six treek,” Favarduro said nervously. “It crossed over seventy dreg in six treek.”
“That is faster than light,” Kond said, wonderingly. “It has a non-node unreality generator.”
“That’s not theoretically possible,” Favarduro pointed out.
“Theory is always superceded by fact, Senior Tactical Specialist,” the ship master said. “And that is fact. Unless you distrust your instruments.”
“I wish I could run a check,” Favarduro said. “But I don’t have such a system for my brain. Permission to speak to the Ungur.”
“I’m glad to see you have your balance back,” Kond replied. “And nearly as glad to see your hubris pricked by our visitors. Communications, send standard first contact protocol message. Let us see if these are friend or foe.”
“Conn, Tactical. I’m getting a pulse of EM and neutrinos from the target, designated Sierra One. It’s powerful but it’s not pulsing like radar. I think they’re trying to talk to us.”
“XO, we got an SOP for this?” the CO asked, looking over at Weaver.
“Yes, sir!” the executive officer said, pulling out a manual. “There are a selection of first contact protocols prepared!”
“Right,” the CO replied, trying not to grin. “You try to find out what we’re supposed to do. In the meantime… Commo, send them video from conn. See if their computers can parse it out.”
“Sir,” Weaver said. “Remember that Miss Moon thinks they ‘see’ with sonar. I’m not sure they have an equivalent of video.”
“Commander Weaver, they have, presumably, a home-built FTL drive,” Spectre said. “They have some sort of quantum torpedo thingy that goes faster than we do in normal space. I’m going to presume that they have better computers than we do and might actually have experience at first contact. We have a lash-up of human and Adar computers and a linguist that is pretty sure that squirrels are intelligent. They may even be aware that other species use visual light instead of sonar to see the universe. In other words, I’m going to let them figure it out.”