“I don’t recognize it,” Dr. Beach said, frowning. “It’s certainly interesting, isn’t it? But it’s not at a level that would normally be called seismic. It almost looks like truck traffic.”
“Frequency is wrong,” Runner said, bringing up a pop-up and sorting through the list of known low-impact seismic events. “This is truck traffic. Low-frequency rumble. It’s close to small-tube magma movement. This… I don’t have anything like it.”
“Too bad we lost Dr. Dean,” Dr. Beach said. “I know you didn’t get along, but—”
“I tried to stop him from going that way, Doctor,” Runner said. “It was a professional failure on my part that he died. And I also recognized that we needed him. This is only one example. That hill over there is another. I keep thinking that if I could figure out how a basolith appeared without any secondary indicators I could determine what this is. But neither of them make sense.”
“Keep an eye on it,” Dr. Beach said. “If it is some sort of slowly moving mini-fault, we don’t want any damage to the ship.”
“Especially since the nearest rumble is less than a kilometer away.”
“Tough day, Weaver?” the CO asked as Commander Weaver entered his office. Weaver had thrown on his uniform over his blacksuit but his hair was still plastered with sweat.
“Long one, at least,” Weaver said. “I hated leaving Miller behind. He’s like a right arm.”
“So I’d like your argument for staying,” the CO said. “I feel I owe you that. But be aware that I’m pretty much set on leaving and letting D.C. decide. Among other things, I feel it’s over my paygrade to set up long-term treaties.”
“Understood, sir,” Bill said, rubbing his forehead. “My first argument is the one that I stated. The records of these people indicate that demon break-outs tend to occur when they get too advanced or something along those lines. Maybe population density. They don’t know what causes it and we don’t either. But they’re here, now, and if we make a treaty with this group and then leave it’s a waste of paper. They won’t be here when we get back.”
“Got that one,” the CO said. “And while I feel for them—”
“There’s a PR aspect, sir,” Weaver said, frowning. “Even in the black community. These guys are cute. If we cut and run and leave the poor little rodents to be eaten by demons… Sir, that’s going to look like maulk. Especially if we run without so much as contact with the demons. ‘Oooh, big bad Vorpal Blade is scared of some widdew demons?’ I’m not saying that should be a factor that causes you to accept casualties, but it’s a factor. One I only thought about on the walk back. And when we do, eventually, go white… It’s gonna look even worse. Especially since we or somebody will be back and see the aftermath.”
“So you’re saying I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t,” Spectre said. “That I can lose my career fighting a pointless battle and losing troops or by cutting and running and letting the poor little chinchillas die.”
“Taking Miss Miriam as a pool of the eventual white PR reaction, sir,” Weaver said, “I would guess ‘crucified’ is more likely in the latter case.”
“Great,” Spectre said. “But there’s a better reason, I hope?”
“There are too many questions, sir,” Weaver said. “And I’m not talking about pure curiosity, here. I’m talking about things that are just bugging the maulk out of me. The boards. Where in the hell do they come from? They are tech that is advanced on Adar. I’ve tried the one we’ve got out and they really do seem to read your mind. And we’re not even Cheerick! I want some more just so we monkeys can tear them apart and be baffled. The Demons. I’d say they are some sort of created species, like the Dreen, but very focused. What is their purpose? How are they created? Where are they created? If we leave and come back after this society is destroyed, we’re just going to have to start all over again. And we’ll need to find one that is just about as advanced to have any luck with using local support. Even if we go back just to ask for reinforcements, we’re going to get held up. Committees, commissions, boards, every idiot in the black community, and they are numerous, sir, trust me, is going to want to add to the reports and recommendations. State is going to get involved and that means two months of reports going back and forth for addendum and amendment.
“Right here, right now, sir, you have more authority than any captain since the sailing days. Go back and it’s going to be two generals and an admiral arguing over sandwiches. Maybe at far remove they can make a better decision, sir, but by the time they decide to come back, maybe with more firepower, it’s going to be too late. Those are my arguments, sir.”
“And more responsibility than any CO in history,” Spectre said. “This is the only spaceship we have, as I have repeatedly pointed out. If these Demons are bad as they seem, we could lose it.”
“Not… if it’s off the ground, sir,” Bill said. “At least, it reduces the likelihood.”
“Take off and hold in orbit?” Spectre said. “Drop down to replace troops from time to time?”
“Yes, sir,” Bill replied. “Actually, it’s not really necessary to get into geosynch. It actually won’t even be an orbit. It is more like a hover in the region of the atmosphere known as near space. It will require continuous piloting to keep the ship over Cheerick City, but it can be done. You could even stay lower in atmosphere than near space but then it really is like flying in the wind. Commo shouldn’t be a big problem as we’ll only be at altitudes a little higher than a U2 flies. High data rate commo might require a better ground station though.”
“Leave one platoon on the ground,” the CO said, nodding. “If they need support, we can drop anywhere to provide it.”
“And you can engage with the lasers, sir,” Bill pointed out. “Those will stop an assault of Demons, sir. They’re designed to take out ships.”
“ ’Fire phasers from orbit, Chekhov,’ ” Spectre intoned. “Heh. Let me think about it, Weaver, but those are all cogent points. Dismissed. And get a shower.”
“Yes, sir,” Weaver said, grinning.
“We’ve had the distillers running full time, so go ahead and get a Hollywood shower,” the CO said, referring to just letting the water run. Normally, a shower was spray on water, soap, rinse.
“Thank you, sir.”
“Jesus Christ,” Guppy said as soon as the three exhausted Marines entered the compartment. “You heard about these grapping Demons, right?”
“I’ve been following Commander Weaver around for the last sixteen hours,” Jaen said, hopping in his rack and stripping off his skins. “But we weren’t exactly privy to the discussions.”
“That Adar down in engineering’s trying to figure out what the claws are made out of,” Seeley said, rolling over. “But they tested it on a piece of grapped up Wyvern armor and it cut right through it. Not easy or anything, but it could cut right through it.”
“Fine, we do our survey and then get the grapp out,” Berg said, rolling into his own rack and slipping his skinsuit into a bag with a nannie pack.
“The Cheerick asked if we’d stay and help them,” Seeley said. “Captain MacDonald’s against it. There’s not enough of us left for one thing. But Captain Blankemeier has the final word. Commander Weaver’s meeting with him right now.”