“The drives of the missiles are not designed to be parked in precise locations in space, sir,” the XO added. “We’re probably going to have to manually adjust them.”
“Get a party of Marines,” the CO said. “They can handle it.”
“Okay, I’ll admit that we should have been using these things when we were gathering space bits,” Powell said. “My bad.”
“I didn’t even know we were carrying Cheerick boards, Top,” Berg replied, looking over the boards.
The Cheerick antigravity surfboards, like the biological defenses of their planet, were the product of either ancient Cheerick who were light-years ahead of both humans and present day Cheerick in technology or, possibly, an older alien race. Nobody was quite sure. But the result was a marvel, a gold-colored board that looked not unlike a finless surfboard that was capable of reactionless flight and had, apparently, unlimited range. It sensed the desires of the rider, seemingly by telepathy, and went wherever the rider wished, even into space.
Where they were created was still a mystery; they simply turned up scattered across the planet, one or two a year in any given area. Since they lasted, as far as anyone could determine, forever, the Cheerick had built up quite a supply of them over time. In the country that was the humans’ primary ally on the planet, they were a royal monopoly. The queen of the country, grateful for the aid the humans had given in saving her country, had turned over thirty of the boards to the Blade before it left. Most were being carefully taken apart in Area 51. But nine had been sent with the Blade.
“They’re jettisoning the remaining SM-9s right now,” First Sergeant Powell continued. “As well as six torps. We’ll take all nine of the systems in tow and pull them over to the unreality node. So as soon as the Dreen come through, they’ll be sitting right on them.”
“That’s going to be a nice Christmas present,” Gunny Neely said with a chuckle.
“There’s one little ugly fillip,” the first sergeant said. “We don’t actually know when the Dreen are going to come through. If they come through while we’re doing this evolution, it’s going to get ugly. So work fast. And this is probably pissing in the wind, but just in case you do end up on top of a Dreen ship, you’re going armed.”
“Understood, First Sergeant,” the gunny replied.
“First Platoon is going to be in charge of placement,” Top added. “Since there are only nine boards, the guys placing them are going to have to use them. That means the teams and their leaders. Gunny, you’ll manage the action from the deck.”
“Understood,” Gunny Neely said.
“Get suited up and head topside. Two-Gun, I think you better get your guns.”
“These things really work as advertised?” Smith asked, looking at the board askance. They’d carried them up to the top deck and now had to mount them in microgravity.
“I’ve only ever used them more or less in air,” Berg replied, using his suit jets to lower himself onto the board. It felt rock solid, though. He disengaged the suit jets and thought about moving forward. The board moved out, his boots attached to it by a still poorly understood “sticky” effect that was suspected to be some sort of tractor field.
“But they work just fine,” he added, swinging around. “Hop on.”
The Marines, now that the one guy with experience using the boards was satisfied, jetted onto the boards and then started flying around.
“Watch yourselves,” Berg cautioned. “Don’t run into each other.”
“This is fun,” Himes caroled, scooting by. “Why didn’t we break these out to pick up debris?”
“For once, Top forgot to think outside the box,” Berg said. “Now get in formation and settle down. The missiles are coming out.”
Once again, the missile techs from the sub hoisted the missiles slowly up into space. But this time, the Marines took over from there. After much discussion, the only thing that anyone could decide was to “lasso” the missiles with ropes and pull them into place.
Berg attached the standing end of a rope to “his” missile, Tube Two, and then used the board to slowly circle it, paying out the rope so that it didn’t cause the missile to twist along with him. Once he’d circled it he made a slip knot and cinched it down.
“Everybody ready?” he asked.
“It’s spinning,” Himes said.
“I told you to pay out the rope,” Berg replied disgustedly. “Just stop where you are. It’ll unreel, then come back around to your position. Tie it off, then. Smith?”
“Got it tied,” the lance corporal replied.
By the time Berg got to the nose of the ship, he could see where the unreality node must be. The rest of the platoon was clustered in the area, emplacing a circle of torpedoes.
“Where’s the other missile?” Staff Sergeant Hinchcliffe asked.
“Himes had problems getting it tied off,” Berg replied. “He’ll be over.”
“Slow down now,” Hinchcliffe warned. “These things tend to get away from you. And yours is about ten times bigger than the torps.”
Berg had been thinking about that exact problem. So he slowly uncinched the rope and thought about slowing. The missile continued on its way, slipping through the rope. At the end of the missile were four control vanes, extended now that it was out of its launch tube. Berg cinched the rope down just before the vanes and wrapped the rope around the back of his armor. The free end had drifted forward as he slowed and as the rope went taut he carefully belayed it through his glove claws, slowing it as fast as he dared.
“I think it’s going to get away from me,” Berg admitted. He wasn’t concentrating on the board but as he clamped down on the rope, the board adjusted its relative motion to the ship, “stopping” in space. The combination of clamping down on the rope and being “stuck” to the board meant that all the energy of the multiton missile was suddenly transferred to his suit.
“Whoa, chither!” Berg snapped as his suit bent forward. He could hear joints straining but none of his seals popped, thank God.
The rope, though, had flex in it. Thus the missile “stopped” but then rebounded, twisting in space towards his board.
“Whoa, doggie,” Berg said, flying down and around the missile, then getting in position to move it from the rear. “This thing ain’t easy to move around.”
“Vote, Wagner, get the nose under control,” Hinchcliffe ordered.
With the help of the other two Marines, Berg managed to get the missile aligned on the unreality node just as Smith and Himes arrived. They, too, had trouble slowing the missile but with the spatial mechanics better understood the group of Marines was able to get them aligned in a few minutes.
“Right, we’re good here,” Hinchcliffe said. “Let’s get back to the—”
“MARINE UNITS! SCATTER! INCOMING DREEN!”
“Conn, Tactical. We’ve got a big neutrino pulse coming from the unreality node!”
“Tell the Marines to scatter,” Spectre ordered. “We’ll recover them later. Pilot, Warp One. Mark Ninety. Straight up. NOW!”
“Himes, Smith, follow me!” Berg snapped, picking a star at random and thinking Head for that star, as hard as he could. He realized after a moment that he didn’t know if the board had warp capability. It might have been made by the same species that made the warp drive. But it seemed to be in normal space. Unfortunately. Because when that Dreen ship came through, the local area was going to be very unpleasant.
“Oh, chither, oh, chither,” Smith was muttering over and over again.