“What are you called?”
“Sergeant Eric Bergstresser, sir,” Berg repeated.
“No, what are you called?” the Hexosehr insisted. “What’s your handle?”
“Two-Gun, sir,” Berg replied, trying not to roll his eyes.
“What you fight, Two-Gun?”
“I have fought demons on the Cheerick world, sir,” Berg replied. “I have fought crabpus. I am one of five survivors from our previous mission, sir. I am the holder of one of our nation’s highest awards for combat.”
“You fight ships?”
“No, sir,” Berg replied. “I am a United States Space Marine. I fight in space, on land and sea. But I fight close up.”
“You are proud?”
“Yes, sir! I’m a Marine.”
“You are afraid?”
“Yes, sir. Only an idiot isn’t, sir.”
“But you fight anyway?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Because you are Marine?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You choose? You volunteer?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’ll do. Go back. We talk later.”
“Return to ranks, Sergeant Bergstresser,” Lieutenant Monaghan said, a note of puzzlement in his voice.
“Excuse me, Scientist Rimmild,” Captain Blankemeier said, confused. “What was that in aid of?”
The greetings had paused as the “Combat Master” walked away and braced the Marines. All of the humans were goggling.
“Most Hexosehr are willing to fight once,” Philosopher Baelak replied. “Some are willing to fight twice. This Marine, he fights many times. Combat Master Dugilant was interested in the nature of your fighters. He is satisfying his curiosity. You seem surprised that he did this. It is a breach of protocol?”
“We’re fighters, ma’am, not diplomats,” Spectre replied. They’d gotten the sexes thing straightened out before the visitors arrived. “If he wants to go over and brace one of my Marines, he can brace one of my Marines. But, yes, it was a breach of protocol.”
“I will mention this to him,” the diplomat said. “What is next?”
“Ma’am, I’m going to turn you over to Miss Moon,” the CO said. “She is our linguist but has other talents and knowledge. Commander Weaver is going to interface with Scientist Rimmild and Combat Master Dugilant. Commander Weaver is our astrogator, an engineer and scientist as well as a naval officer.”
“What are your restrictions upon our movement?” Philosopher Baelak asked.
“None,” the CO said. “If we’re going to work together, you need to know what we have to do it. And our systems, with the exception of the drive, are primitive compared to yours. But you may be able to make suggestions or improvements that will aid us in this and other fights. If you can and will. I’ll be honest. We want access to your technology. We want to know what you know about the Dreen. In return we will do whatever we can to help you escape and to find you a world to go to. One far enough away from the Dreen that you’ll be secure.”
“That had better be very far away indeed,” Scientist Rimmild interjected. “We have data on their spread. We are willing to share this as well as other things in return for support.”
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about,” Spectre said, nodding. “Thank you. I do not know of your sleep needs. We can only base that on our previous passengers. But we have set up waste elimination facilities, we have some food that they found mildly palatable and a compartment adjusted to your air needs. So I’ll let you get to it.”
“You are not human,” Scientist Rimmild said as the threesome entered the engine room.
“You are very observant,” Tchar replied, clacking his beak in humor. “I am Adar. We are allied with the humans. Like the humans, we first encountered the Dreen as invaders through a gate. Then, later, we met the humans. Now we are allied against our common enemy. I am the engineering consultant for the ship’s drive system.”
“You know, we have enough problem with scientific details,” Bill said. “But I just realized, we can’t even show you schematics. I’m not sure how to translate our diagrams into something you can sense.”
“How does your drive work?” Rimmild asked, walking around the sphere. “I am picking up electromagnetism, but that just supports this ball. And a stream of neutrinos.”
“We don’t actually know,” Bill admitted. “The Adar found the central bit, a small black box, in some ruins. I figured out how to make it work as a drive. But it does things we still don’t understand. It drops in and out of superluminal at a very high frequency. The pulses are timed so that light can filter through but that’s about all. Nothing that is harmful. It shifts to reactionless normal space drive with artificial gravity close to our own automatically when we approach a gravity well. When we’re deep in the gravity well, it turns off the automatic gravity and inertial compensation. How much of that is part of the theoretical basis and how much is engineering we just don’t know.”
“Can you fire from within it?” Dugilant asked.
“No,” Bill said. “On the other hand, nothing we’ve run into can get through. We just did a sweep of the main Dreen ship that’s pursuing you. It hit us, several times, with plasma fire. No effect.”
“That would have been nice to have,” Dugilant said. “How fast can you cycle in and out? Is it controllable?”
“About a third of a second to turn it off,” Bill replied. “Another third of a second to get it to come on-line. But if you’re thinking of flying in and launching, then warping out, it takes longer than that for our systems to launch. As much as five seconds for our major weapon. We have lasers that are faster, but they are relatively weak. I’m not sure they could scratch that dreadnought’s armor.”
“And your main weapons are chemically propelled rockets?” Rimmild asked, still circling the ball.
“Yes.”
“Acceleration?”
“They are fired under low acceleration,” Bill said. “Barely two of our gravities. Five seconds after firing their rockets fire. Those have one hundred gravities of acceleration.”
“If you came in close and fired, the Dreen would detonate them before the rockets went off,” the combat master said.
“They did that with our torpedoes already,” Bill said. “At about two light-seconds.”
“A squee,” Rimmild said, still circling the ball. “If we can power it. What is your power system?”
“Stored ardune,” Tchar said. “Quarks. Unique quarks.”
“I’m not getting that,” Rimmild said. “Unique I got. The other two terms… Matter negative to normal?”
“No,” Bill said. “Not antimatter. Quarks are the most basic building blocks of matter. Smaller than atoms or protons. The building blocks for matter.”
“You keep that in your ship?” Rimmild asked. “How much?”
“Over four kilograms,” Tchar said, holding up two of his massive fists. “This much.”
“I hope you don’t land on planets!” Rimmild said.
“Unfortunately, we do,” Bill said, wincing. “We’re aware of the risks. Ardune, quarkium, is also what we use in our missiles as a warhead.”
“All I can say is I’d like you to get this ship as far away from our ships as possible!” Rimmild said. “Insane!”
“It’s necessity,” Bill replied. “We need the power. And you haven’t even heard the good part about the drive system…”
“You have much knowledge of this ship?” Baelak asked as the linguist led her forward.
“When we were on our way out here I spent time working on it,” Miriam said. “I was bored so I worked with the technical crews that maintain it. At this point, yes, I have much knowledge of this ship. Every bolt, every rivet as they say.”