“If it’s steel, I could cut it off with an acetylene torch,” Gants continued, walking around the pod. “I could go get one and try it out if you’d like.”
“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” Bill said. “Oxy-acetylene doesn’t work the same in vacuum as it does normally.”
“Well, I don’t see any screws or bolts, sir,” Gants continued. “It looks like it was made of one piece. I’d guess it’s some sort of advanced weld. Sort of making the two pieces meld together. Don’t know how they did it, but I’d like to know.”
“Hopefully, they’ll tell us if we’re nice enough to them,” Bill replied. “COB, we done here?”
“We’re done, sir,” the COB said.
“Let’s get into the ship and—”
“EVA, Conn.”
“Go Conn.”
“Commander Weaver, what happens if the ship goes into warp with people on the hull?”
“I’ve actually thought about that one, sir,” Bill replied. “The spacetime metric for the warp bubble is a big bunch of tensor math but I think I’ve figured out that the warped spacetime around—”
“Shortest answer in history, Astro!”
“Should be fine, sir, why?”
“What about normal space drive?”
“That’s not so good, sir,” Bill said. “There’s no surrounding shield so to speak. Anything that gets through, we’ll hit. Why, sir?”
“I’m opening up the recovery tube,” the CO said. “Get everyone into it, right now. We’ve got Dreen. XO, microgravity, if we open that up under normal they’ll all fall.”
“Tactical, I’ve got no feel for size, here,” Spectre said, looking at the forward viewscreen. The thing was small, light and fuzzy, only showing because of reflection from the system’s sun. “Or distance. How far away is it? How big is it?”
“Unknown, Conn,” Tactical replied. “Without either a size or a distance, we can’t calculate the other. I’ll give you my gut, though, sir. It’s really big and it’s pretty darned far away.”
“That’s so precise I’m feeling all warm and fuzzy, Tactical!”
“At present it is the best we can do without going active, Conn. Do you want us to go active?”
“Negative,” the CO replied. “Not until we’ve recovered the EVA. EVA, status?”
“Piling in, sir,” Bill replied. “Three more to go.”
“Tell them to jump it,” the CO replied.
“Conn, Tactical, target designate Sierra One appears to be closing our position.”
“You mean it’s getting bigger on the screen,” Spectre said sarcastically. “I’d noticed.”
“Range and size still unknown.”
“EVA?”
“We’re in. Getting down and preparing—”
“Can it, get the soft-suit guys on top, we’re going hot. XO, normal space drive, now. Tactical,” he continued as weight settled onto him. He could hear in the distance a series of clangs and bangs that was undoubtedly six or seven Wyvern suits falling down a three story shaft. “Go active. Pilot…”
He looked over at the astrogation chair and frowned.
“Hell with it,” he said. “Get me a view reciprocal to that Dreen ship.” When the view changed he walked over and pointed at a star. “Pilot, normal space. Head for that star. Three hundred gravities.”
“Three hundred, sir?” the XO asked.
“I don’t want them knowing our max accel,” the CO replied. “Commander Weaver?”
“Sir?” Weaver said. “We’re sort of… tangled here. But I got the guys in suits on top.”
“Good, but I need you up here on the double,” the CO said as the ship began to hum from the drive. “I need to know where I’m going. And even more important, where I’m not going. Tactical, range and size?”
“Range, four light-seconds,” Tactical said in a remarkably calm voice. “Size… right on eight hundred meters in length, two hundred in breadth and depth.”
“That’s nearly a klick,” the XO said wonderingly. “A third of a mile long. I don’t even want to think about the tonnage.”
“And two football fields wide,” the CO pointed out. “As wide as a carrier is long. XO, set rear tubes two and four. Target’s signature, silent mode.”
“Aye, aye,” the XO said. “Set tubes two and four, signature Sierra One, silent mode.”
The ardune torps were a combination of antiair missile and torpedo. They could lie silent until passive detectors found a designated target, then go active, kicking on their rockets and heading for the target.
“Sir, are you sure about that?” Weaver said as he entered the conn. He was panting slightly from the run, still wearing his skinsuit and his hair was askew, but Spectre realized he was glad to see him. “It’s unlikely that our systems will be able to successfully engage them.”
“I’m aware of that, Commander,” the CO said. “And that even an ardune warhead may not scratch that thing. But those are all ifs. We don’t know and that’s the point. So now we find out. And I’m aware that we’re telling them that we only have those to fire. Still, want to find out. It’s what we’re out here to do.”
“Yes, sir,” Bill said, opening up his console. “Did you mean to head to Rigel, sir?”
“I’m just glad I’m not pointed at Earth,” the CO admitted. “I’m not, right? I don’t want to head back to the good guys and tell the Dreen where they are. Right now, I want to find out if these guys can catch us in normal space. If they can, we’ll go to warp and see if they can catch us there. I want to stay at arms length, though. Heck, I want to know what arm’s length is!”
“Yes, sir,” Bill replied. “Right now we’re heading at a fairly significant angle from both Earth and the aliens. So you’re on target, sir.”
“Can we find the aliens again?” the CO asked.
“Yes, sir,” Bill replied. “I have a position calculated for them.”
“Figure out if that Dreen ship is headed for them as well,” the CO said.
“Sir, are we sure it’s Dreen?” Bill asked.
“Tubes are set,” the XO said. “Launch?”
“Belay,” the CO replied, blanching. “No, we’re not sure it’s Dreen. We can’t even get a good look at them from this range. But who else could it be?”
“The battle made a lot of noise, sir,” Bill pointed out. “Anyone in the area with an FTL ship. Survivors from our friends they don’t know about.”
“That’s a big ship,” the XO argued. “They’d have mentioned it, surely.”
“With all due respect, sir,” Bill said. “ ’Surely’ means you’re not. I’m not saying that they’re not Dreen. I’m saying we don’t know. I respectfully suggest that we figure out if they’re hostile before firing on them. Of course, the only way to know for sure is if they fire on us.”
“No,” the CO said. “What we do is let them get close enough we can get a good look at them. If they even look like Dreen, we’ll drop the torps. Tactical, target status?”
“Bearing remains the same, Conn,” Tactical said. “Range has increased slightly.”
“Pilot, slow to one hundred gravities of acceleration,” the CO ordered.
“One hundred gravities, aye, aye.”
“How close do we let them get?” the XO asked.
“That is a very good question,” the CO admitted. “No more than two light-seconds. Tactical, I need a continuous update on range to target. Pilot, I want a continuous high G random evasion pattern. If they’ve got a ship-killer laser with this range, we won’t see it until it gets here. I want to avoid that.”
“Random evasion, aye.”
“What haven’t I thought of?” the CO asked.
“The Dreen didn’t seem to have any technology that fell into the category of magical, sir,” Bill replied. “They didn’t teleport except through the gates. They didn’t seem to be able to read minds. I can’t think of anything.”