Alien Enigma (19 page)

"Damn them to hell and back. God, I hate the bastards. Dumb shits, but they hold the whip hand." Her voice rose then fell as the hopelessness of their situation settled back in her mind.

"Surely one of the nations on Earth is building better ships by now. Sooner or later they'll come back here." He said it with a firmness that he didn't know he really believed. Hope was all that they had, though, and he fully shared her opinion of the Sinchik aliens. He hated them too, but lately he had begun to wonder just how independent of the robots they were. He still thought they were the biggest problem, though, as did most of the captives. But the majority of them wanted nothing to do with the underground even though they were secretly in sympathy with it. They were just too scared to take part. That didn't bother him too much. He knew that most of humanity never had the will to revolt except under conditions more extreme than what they were suffering.

"By that time we may be dead and gone. Besides, look what happened to the ship that came after us."

"Yeah." He knew all too well. It had been shot down and crashed, with less than half the crew surviving, and many who had only been hurt were put to death afterwards. There hadn't been another starship since, not that anyone knew of. "But, Clemmie, it did come, even after ours was lost. It tells us they are still trying, even if it has been so many years."

"Don't listen to me, Doug. If I didn't have hope I wouldn't be talking rebellion. It's good we were able to make contact, too. It gives us both a better chance for when the time comes to escape-or maybe even sacrifice ourselves for the freedom of others." Clemmie's eyes watered up and a tear fell down her cheek. "That's why I just blurted out the password to you. I was becoming so depressed that I really didn't give a damn. I just wanted to do anything that might help change our circumstances."

He held her tighter and said, "There're things worse than death, Sweetheart, but I'm not giving up without a fight. I just hope we manage to see each other again before it happens!"

***

"Sir, Lieutenant Wannstead and Professor Harriette Juenne are here," CPO Mura announced.

Keane looked up from his desk in the captain's day cabin. "Thank you, Wanna. Send them in please."

Keane knew the young nerdy looking physicist concealed a mind of major stature to be selected for this mission. Her long blond hair was rolled into a bun and although she wore civilian clothes, they were practical and not flashy. She seemed like an actor out of an old 2000 prep school movie. She had to be very good even if her countenance did suggest she should still be in High School, or college at most. Why she wore thick glasses when she could have had the free Navy laser eyesic correction seemed odd, but physicists were a strange breed. Dunaway, his XO, was the only physicist Keane considered 'normal', but he was as cool as a cucumber and tough as titanium nails. Probably the smartest one on the ship except for Harriette, who was elegantly walking into the room carrying her TekPad. Wannstead was empty handed.

"Brian, Professor. Thank you for coming." He gestured to the chairs in front of his desk. "Would you like some refreshments?"

"Coffee would be fine, thank you," Harriette said. Her voice was confident and her manner assured. He mentally added a good few years to her age.

"Coffee's good sir," Wannstead agreed.

A moment later, after Mura had served them and withdrawn, Keane leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. "Who wants to start?" he asked.

"Go ahead, Harriette," Wannstead said, gesturing with an open palm.

"Alright. I can elaborate on this in more detail later, Captain. As you're aware, Brian and I were only recently advised of your request."

He nodded and motioned for her to continue.

"The energy beam that hit our ship, or shield, rather, appears to have been essentially a high energy laser - but there was a peculiarity to it. It shouldn't have been as powerful as it was, considering the distance it traveled and the amount of atmosphere it traversed. Somehow they managed to keep it contained into a tight coherent beam and prevent the attenuation you'd normally see in a laser over that distance, especially traveling through atmosphere. It wouldn't have taken much more to burn through our shield according to Lt. Jergens. I agree with his analysis. According to the readings we recorded while the laser was firing in timed pulses, each succeeding pulse was more powerful than the last. If that increase had continued, or if we hadn't destroyed or damaged it at the source, it would have overcome our shield."

"How much more energetic could it have become? Is there any way of telling?"

She shrugged. "I can't say for sure since I don't know how it was accomplished to begin with. The
Doc Travis's
rail gun and plasma pulser wiped out the whole area. All we picked up were scraps of a new alloy with peculiar properties. Very high elasticity combined with extreme strength. Think of super strong rubber metal. We have nothing like it. As for the energy of the weapon, it's all speculation."

Keane was not interested in new metals. The enemy weapon was the big problem. "Harriette, can you please
speculate
on how much more powerful the pulses would have become?"

"Well ...just based on the first few hits, and taking into consideration really low atmospheric attenuation, another twenty to thirty per cent in yield would have been sufficient to break through our magnetospheric shield."

Keane frowned. "The reason lasers are so powerful is that they don't attenuate. The light is coherent and doesn't spread. And the increase in energy ...that's not like a normal laser, is it?"

"Doesn't spread
much
, Captain. There's a difference. And no, lasers usually contain about the same amount of energy, assuming the pump remains the same. Generally, you can't increase that without damaging the emitting source. However, it appears that the Worms have managed. What we saw was probably the result of the laser obtaining more pumping energy as the source of its power came on line and was then increased. How much more energy the weapon could have drawn is unknown. In practical terms, it means we need to take down the source very quickly after the energy weapon begins firing on us."

"Um, yes. Go on." It wasn't sounding good so far.

She shifted her gaze to Wannstead.

"Sir, it's not all bad news. We've been talking to Fred ...to Lt. Jergens, that is, and he thinks he can enhance the shield, at least temporarily. And Harriette has a couple of ideas that I think will work."

"Tell me." Keane motioned with his hand for them to continue.

Brian frowned and rubbed his forehead as if thinking. "Sir, it's a bit unorthodox but ...well, we can't do anything about the tightness of the beam at its origin, nor its source of energy, but if we can react quickly enough I think the Quantum set of our drive can be attuned to match the laser pulses and in turn send a ...a surge into the shield at precisely the moment the beam hits it. That should partially dissipate it. It won't be much but if we could also match our plasma pulser to interfere with the beam before it arrives ...well, everything together should protect us."

Keane smiled thinly. "You keep saying 'should'."

"Without a test against the actual laser beam of the Worms, there's no way to be certain, Captain," Professor Juenne stated. "Besides, we're talking light speed here, a precision interference that's not been tried before. Take the laser pulser. We can't affect the first beam, of course, because we won't know they're firing until it hits us. What we'll have to do is trace the path back, compensate for movement and then fire our pulser along that path. It might take several tries before we manage to interfere with it because we'll be anticipating. Unfortunately, the pulser is called that because it shoots plasma pulses, not a continual beam, although it does shoot a succession of them rapidly. See the problem?" Her earnestness made her look a bit older.

"Yes, I see, but get with Lt. Jergens and go to work on all that. I'll get you whatever resources you need. I want you to find a way to double the strength of our shield before we hit the next planet." He mused for a moment. "Of course, it sounds like the best solution would be to respond very quickly with counterfire and destroy either the power source or the laser housing. I suggest you consult with Commander Mundahan and see what can be done along that line, too."

Professor Juenne smiled. "Captain, I said we might be able to interfere with a more powerful pulse, a twenty per cent more powerful one-but sir, you're asking for a one hundred per cent increase, and that may be impossible-and even if we could, the energy required for the shield could cause a quantum instability in our drive. We don't have equipment for that kind of flux containment. We could blow up the whole ship."

"Actually we might have the equipment," admitted Brian sheepishly.

"What?! What do you mean?" asked Harriette.

"My father and I had the C class ships built with a second super conductor flux containment field generator. It's hidden in the enclosed propulsion module. It's designed to come on line only if the ship's primary generator fails-kind of like an automatic failover. I might be able to bring it online even with the primary working, if you can figure a way to duplex the field-that is, without getting us killed."

Keane was glad he had Brian aboard but was disappointed in the hidden ship specs that he hadn't been told about. "Brian, Professor, get it done, and let me know when the work is completed. I suspect your test will come sooner rather than later. Let's hope your theories match the facts. And Brian, the first free moment you're not tied up with this problem, come see me. If there are any other concealed aspects of his ship, I damn well want to know about them now!"

***

"Million? Did I hear you right? Next time we'll be fighting a fucking
million
of the bastards?" Bullet said, aghast at the number named. He lowered the trigger housing of his rifle down to the lap cover and stared around the armory as if the Worms were about to start pouring inside.

Zembra shrugged. "That's what I heard. Don't take it as hard fact."

"Well, all I can say is we better have more air cover and battlefield preparation than we did last time. Shit. You sure you didn't hear, like multitude instead of million?"

"My hearing's perfect, Dan, unlike some marines I could mention."

"Okay. Shit."

"You said that already."

He tried to grin. "Did I? Well, nothing's wrong with saying it again, is there?"

"Not a thing," Platoon Sergeant Martinez said as he entered the armory. "But what's your problem, Bullet? You worried about fighting a measly million worms?"

"Uh, no, Sergeant."

"Good. I'm pretty sure we have a million rounds for our rifles, so what are you worrying about?"

"Uh, okay, I see it now, Sergeant. One round, one dead worm. We run out of ammo at the same time we run out of worms." He picked the trigger housing back up and began oiling and wiping again.

Zembra said nothing during the discussion but as soon as Martinez was gone she tapped Bullet on the shoulder.

"Yeah?"

"You better not miss, lover," she said and grinned.

***

"Tomorrow will probably be our last day together," Douglas said. He and Clemmie were lying together in her narrow sponge-like bed in the darkness that was broken only by the feeble light from orange glow spots. The half meter square rectangular spaces above head height were always lit, day and night. They were spotted all through the corridors and rooms of the city. "I know." Her voice was little more than a strained whisper. "Doug, before we're parted I have to tell you something."

"So do I," he said, interrupting her. "I've discovered ..."

"It's important, so ...what have you discovered? Is it something to do with the underground?"

"Yes. What about you?"

"Same here." Her laughter was stifled but distinct. "Who goes first?"

He tickled her under her breasts then leaned down to kiss them. "Let me. The group I've been with so long has discovered the central defense node, where the energy beams are manned."

"Energy beams?"

"The ones used to shoot down the ships. Haven't you even heard of them?"

"Oh, sure. Their hand weapons use energy beams, too, you know."

"Yeah. I've seen them in action." His features took on a grim countenance, like a soldier facing overwhelming odds with no way to retreat. He shook his head. "Sorry. Bad memory, anyway, we've worked out a plan. When the next ship from Earth comes into this system we'll know it by the way the Worms and robots who operate the defenses scurry in that direction, to that area. That'll be our signal to come out in the open with everyone armed. We'll take over their defense node then see if we can signal the ship to bomb hell out of them everywhere they concentrate. That'll give the rest of you a chance for a successful uprising in the areas where the Sinchiks and robots have thinned out. All the disorder the bombing will cause should help."

"But ...what if they don't bomb?"

"We'll be shit outta luck, but we're going to do it, Clemmie. We've waited long enough. Even if the ship doesn't give us any help, with that part of the city in our hands the rest of you can make a fight of it. Maybe seize enough weapons and power packs to hold out in the jungle until the next ship comes along. So far as our tech can tell, the commo he concealed during the surrender still works."

"Really? Doug, that's great! Now tell me, just how much do you know about the area surrounding the defenses? Have you explored under them?"

"Under?"

Her mouth opened in surprise. "You don't know, do you?"

She sounded excited. He gripped her waist. "Know what, Clemmie?"

"About the tunnels. Our group just recently found out about them and we've been pushing further and further into them, even though we've lost two people during the exploring. We think they extend under the whole city but we've had to go slow. They're so twisted it's easy to get lost, and of course we can't leave marks to help us. It's sheer brute memory."