Alien Enigma (31 page)

Rambling looked pained. "I know what you're concerned about, Captain. I wouldn't want to lose her but jobs like these are what she's trained for. She can do it better than anyone else I have available."

Keane nodded. "So long as you're sure. I'd hate to lose her, too," he added before thinking how that might sound. He went on quickly, "We'll work it all out during the conference since they'll both be there." After settling the matter, Keane began wondering if
he
was the one letting sentiment interfere with duty. He knew he had mentally cringed at the thought of Cindy being directly exposed to enemy fire in a shuttle. "But first, I do have a concern. Won't this throw you short a shuttle?"

"Ordinarily it would, sir, but the shuttles can carry more than their design loads easily. Also, since we've had a number of casualties, that leaves more space. In short, that won't be a problem. And since Xanadu is our last objective, we'll be going all out, won't we?"

"Within reason, Steel, but I don't want more of your marines shot up just for a limited return. If you know you're going to take casualties, make sure the objective is worth it."

"Will do, and that's my sentiment anyway. And by the way, we've been spending some of the extra time to beef up the shuttle we'll be using with advanced stealth shielding. I wish we had the material to improve them all like that, but we're out of a major component."

Keane had decided to slow down the voyage to Xanadu and to exit from hyperspace at the very edge of the system, giving them some more time before coming in range of the city's defenses. He was glad to see Rambling had been using it in a favorable manner but then he would have expected it of the man anyway.

"Okay, Steel, if there's nothing more for now I'm going to take an hour for a nap. I'll see you in the Captain's conference room at ..." he glanced at this thumb. " ...at 1400. And I think we had better have Harriette and Brian Wannstead, too. That sound okay?"

"Good by me. They're both sharp people. Maybe they can come up with some more ways of killing robots."

***

The nap and a quick shower refreshed him. As Keane walked back toward his day cabin he found Cindy standing there by the hatchway with her auburn hair looking like it had just been washed and dried. Her slim petite body stood almost at attention. He could have sworn he saw the shape of her nipples pushing at the blouse of her fresh fatigues.
She had to be wearing a bra -didn't she?
Keane thought there was a regulation about woman officers wearing bras but wasn't sure. Some of the new halters were so thin it didn't matter much anyhow. He couldn't help but stare appreciatively and smile, losing track of time. Cindy smiled back. She smelled like a sweet rose garden.

Cindy finally broke the silence. "So, Captain, are you going to let me in, or do you plan on having me stand in the hallway until I figure out the secret code?"

Had she been waiting on him? "No code required. My CPO controls it all. She even lets me inside once in a while."

Cindy chuckled as he pushed open the hatch.

The others, Rambling, Cindy, June, Wannstead, Harriette and Kean's main officers had all arrived early. CPO Mura had coffee, tea and snacks already out and arranged. She seated officers, noncoms and civilians as they arrived and made sure everyone had TekPads at their elbows. She was nothing if not efficient.

Keane waited until Cindy found her seat and two other late arrivals showed up and then took the head of the table. "Ladies, gentlemen, this will be our last formal conference before coming out of hyperspace. I have nothing specific on the agenda but I would like each department head to give a brief summary of any concerns or developments some of us may not have been apprised of yet.

"Our basic battle plan has been pretty much finalized and I know all of you have been working to exhaustion in order to try making it foolproof. Of course we all know that isn't possible, if for no other reason than that nasty little gremlin, Murphy, who always finds a way to make his presence known. Murphy is the main reason for the truism that:
'No battle plan survives contact with the enemy'
. What we want to do is be ready to change our plans at an instant's notice and be ready to take advantage of any occurrences where Murphy decides to play for the other side." He was rewarded with chuckles and a few outright laughs for that statement.

"Now then, Major Rambling has some last minute updates for us. Major?"

"Thank you, Captain. Actually, there are two. First, we've decided on the basis of recordings and after-battle briefings that the smaller of the two classes of robots we've seen are probably the most dangerous opponents. We believe they are in control of the larger robots, and both my marines and your scientists think it's possible they even control the Worms through an implant. All the Worms autopsied so far have one implant in their brains. It's possible we may not even see any Worms in Xanadu but I don't think it likely.

"I do expect to see fewer than our original projections, based on all our experience and findings so far. On the other hand, we're expecting to see more robots of both classes-and possibly a new class altogether, considering that Xanadu should be a completed city by this time. Of course all our conjectures are problematical. What we may find at Xanadu remains an enigma but we're preparing on the basis of what we've seen so far.

"What this means for the marines is that after
Doc Travis
neutralizes the city's air and space defenses, we'll be assaulting the city proper. To that end we're going to use one specially outfitted shuttle to coordinate close air support and another for direct support. We want to get our marines down beneath the surface of the city and hunt for whoever or whatever is controlling the city, whether it's a master robot, a giant Worm, or a central node that reports to yet another planet, possibly the original home of the Worms or robots, whichever came first. I know it sounds dramatic but the whole future of mankind may depend on what we discover at Xanadu and I believe Captain Keane agrees with that."

Keane simply nodded that he did.

"Now any of you who have seen footage of our previous contact with robots in combat are wondering how less than six hundred marines intend to defeat thousands of robots, aren't you?" He grinned ferociously. "I wouldn't blame you. They're hard to kill, but we've learned and we have three ways to come at them now. First is the close air support I spoke of. The shuttles will be armed with some innovations to our classic weaponry such as penetrating fragmentation grenades embedded with sharp ended projectiles designed to pierce the robot CPUs. Next are marine snipers armed with our heaviest rifles, .50 caliber Barretts. Our regular snipers will be carrying the new M107, which have a longer range and use a new type of cartridge that penetrates then explodes. Don't ask me what it was originally designed for because I don't know, but it's a deadly sumbitch. And besides our regular snipers we've formed two auxiliary units that will use the old Barretts, which believe me are still potent weapons. They'll handle close encounters with the small robots in classic urban warfare mode. The barrels of the rifles will be cut short for easy handling while fighting.

"And last, we have two other special units just organized. They will carry unique jamming equipment we hope will be effective against the frequencies the robots use for communication." He paused as if gathering his thoughts, sipped at his coffee, and added a last comment. "There's also the human underground we hope will be able to provide us with help in locating the main concentrations of Worms and robots and their defenses, whatever and wherever they are. I can't honestly say they will be a big help but we do have volunteers from former captives who will be with the assault formations of marines. If they can make contact with the underground right at the beginning of hostilities it could give us a tremendous advantage, but as I say, we'll hope they help but not count on it. And I believe that's all I have."

"That's quite a lot, Steel," Keane said. "And it's a hell of a lot more than we had going in last time. Good work." He turned to Brian Wannstead and Harriette, who were sitting next to each other on purpose in order to better lend support to each other if necessary. "Now let's see what our ship wizards have for us. Which of you wants to lead off?"

Harriette nodded her head at Brian. His gaze tracked around the assemblage at the conference table and came to rest on Thomas Berry, COB and senior enlisted man of the
Doc Travis
. "I have to give credit to our Senior Master Chief for the one additional innovation Harriette and I have come up with. Since I was involved with the construction of
Doc Travis
right from the beginning I thought I knew more about the ship than anyone else on board, but the Bosun comes close to me and in fact, in one particular area, he's proved he knows more. I'm speaking of our defenses. Our shielding is now about as tight as we can get it so far as resisting laser and plasma weapons, or even nukes, but our biggest weakness remains solid matter penetration. So far the worms-or robots, take your pick-haven't used anything like a rail gun or artillery fired into orbit against us. Lucky for us because our meteoroid shield has been just that, a defense against meteors. It wouldn't have given us much protection against those weapons.

"The Bosun called me on the matter and suggested a solution that may help if we do have to defend the ship against rail guns, for instance. Would you like to explain, Master Chief?"

"I believe you could probably do better with the math than me, sir."

"Alright. Basically, what the COB suggested was strengthening the complete shell of
Doc Travis
." He grinned as he saw the reaction. "I know, it doesn't sound feasible without the facilities of a shipyard, does it? I thought so, too, but the Chief changed my mind. You see, the shell is composed of overlapping plates welded together, just as all interstellar ships are. What the Chief did was demonstrate a technique he and his machinists worked out for making the overlaps into a seal rather than a weld.

"What he and his crew did was experiment with the "rubber metal", as they call it, which is used in a lot of the alien cities and in the treads of the robots. They took samples and ran an exhaustive analysis of them with damn near every instrument in the ship's inventory, as well as some they cobbled up to fit the circumstances. The elasticized metal, as we superior types have been calling it ..." he waited for the expected laugh and got it. " ...proved a tough nut to crack but they did it. At first we identified the constituent elements through a spectral analysis, but the formula compound was hard to figure out. We eventually got it, though." He displayed a series of equations and explained them to his audience. "However, that wasn't enough to make the material."

Keane was foggy on his chemistry, but knew if you had the formula, you had most of the problem solved. "Lieutenant, a chemical compound formula should be enough for
Eve
to design a method of working with it-shouldn't it?"

"Sir, it's kind of like knowing the formula H2O. Most of us think of this as water. If I told you to make it solid, we all know we need to get it below thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit to turn it into ice. Now we all know this because we know ice. We got the formula, but this material from the planet was layered in nano-sheets, and they somehow crisscrossed the molecules so that you got elasticity with the strength two hundred times that of steel, similar to an Earth product called graphene-which we can't produce on Earth in any real large quantities because it's very expensive-except for the military. Plus, they somehow knitted in another component to make it flexible, like rubber." Again he displayed equations and formulas.

"Long story short,
Eve
found a way to take our graphene stores and some of our inventory of a component similar to spider silk, of all things. By charging the hull sections we want to protect,
Eve
can coat those areas with rubberized metal through a process of atomic layer deposition. We basically paint on graphene paint, charge the sections we want to protect, and then spray on the compound of metal rubber. It'll create the lattice structure that'll protect the ship in those areas. We only have enough of the graphene paint to do about half of the ship though."

"That's great work," said Keane.

"That's not all Captain. We also found that when we produced the material under a heavy magnetic field in the presence of very high heat source, with all of the processes very precisely gauged, the team found they could actually meld the plates of the shell together into an ultra-strong alloy. It's better than piecemeal protection. We might be able to do the whole bottom side in one shot. It's painstaking, finicky work but if you'll allow us an extra two days the Chief says he can turn the shell of the ship into something that'll resist rail gun fire. Here are the final formulas." Brian projected a series of equations to an overhead screen.

Harriette took over and began explaining from the beginning but soon lost most of her audience. She was still lecturing away when Keane interrupted. "Um, Ms. Juenne, I believe you and Brian have made your point." He shifted his attention to Berry. "Chief, will there be any danger to the ship in converting the shell into the new alloy?"

"No, sir. Like the Lieutenant said, it's just tedious. My boys can handle it, though. And frankly, Captain, they're more than willing to get started since they saw that schematic from the second city that looked as if it was the beginning phase of construction for housing the type of magnets necessary for rail gun construction. They aren't enthusiastic over having their ship hit by one of those suckers, sir. And just to reiterate, we can't do the whole shell. What we want to work on are the overlaps and the areas around parts of the ship which are utterly necessary for functioning, such as the control room, our weaponry, and the gravitics and quantum drive. It will leave about half the ship in its original state, but even if we get hit repeatedly I doubt anything like a rail gun can put us out of action. We may take casualties but the ship will be able to keep fighting."