Daring (7 page)

They were halfway to the moon when the chief announced, “Something is lifting off from our target moon. Whoever they are, they're coming straight at us.”

9

“Raise defenses,” Kris ordered.

“Shields up,” said Sulwan as an umbrella of Smart Metal
^TM
spread out in front of the
Wasp
. Battleships and cruisers were encased in ice, some of it meters thick, to ablate away the blazing sting of lasers and even kinetic weapons. Small ships like the
Wasp
, especially when it was wrapped in shipping containers full of scientists, Marines, and other gear could hardly use the ice defense.

The rotating umbrella of Smart Metal
^TM
, especially if it was angled to the threat axis, not only provided protection but also gave the
Wasp
a chance to hide behind it.

Where, exactly, was the
Wasp
with respect to the spinning parasol?

Guess.

Meanwhile, Kris's ship had four 24-inch pulse lasers ready to strike out with a sting of her own.

Slipping out farther to the left of the
Wasp
, the
Intrepid
deployed her own protection.

Ahead of them, the unknown continued to close.

“How fast is that sucker accelerating?” Captain Drago asked.

“Three-point-five, no three-point-eight gees, sir,” the chief reported.

“Can you get us a picture of it?” the captain asked.

“I got one as it launched, but the thing is spraying something into the space all around it now.” The chief tapped his board, and a small window opened on the main screen. It showed a series of spheres balanced on rocket fire.

“Fusion rockets?” Kris asked.

“I would guess so, from their temperature,” the chief said. “But I'm getting next to nothing from my electronic readouts.

“Nelly, hail it. Try every language we know,” Kris said. “Say ‘We come in peace,' for starts.”

“Doing it, Kris.”

While Nelly tried to open a conversation, the ship continued to close the distance, eating up the kilometers.

“Is it going to try to ram us?” Sulwan asked.

“Get ready to take evasive action,” Captain Drago ordered. “Don't do anything yet. It's on a steady course. Let's not juggle its elbow.”

The three ships closed. Nelly tried sending numbers to see if they would talk math back to her.

Then the thing hit them with a laser.

The spinning parasol did its job, rotating more Smart Metal
^TM
into the vacancy as fast as the laser could make the hole. When the power hit ended, the parasol was still there. Nelly quickly patched it up, but the shield out there spinning was several meters smaller across.

“Ouch,” the chief said.

“That was not nice,” the captain agreed.

“Locked and loaded,” Kris said. “I think Nelly and I can graze it through all the gunk it's pumping into the space around it.”

“Do it,” the captain said.

“Nelly, let's open the largest sphere to space. Just a quick cut,” Kris said, moving the crosshairs on her board to show exactly where she wanted to hit the stranger.

Nelly put a red dot on Kris's target. With sincere regrets for starting the next alien war, Kris closed the firing switch for Laser 1.

On the screen, a laser reached out for the alien.

On Kris's board, an outside camera followed the shot. There, at least, the crud around the ship gave them something for the laser to relate to. A red beam cut right where Kris wanted.

One sphere took the hit along the top of its curve.

The alien didn't slow. It just kept coming.

“Hit it again,” Captain Drago said. “Aim for the engines.”

“Already setting up for it,” Kris said, and moved her crosshairs aft.

Before Nelly could cover the target with a dot, the alien shot a second time.

Once again, the shield did its job.

“We can't take many more like that,” Sulwan reported.

“Let's see how good they are at damage control,” Kris said as she punched Laser 2.

On the main screen, and on Kris's view, a red beam reached out for the aft end of the alien ship—and sliced right through it.

Behind it, the glow of the rocket motors sputtered, the ship wobbled on its tower of fire.

“I got 'em,” Kris said.

Then the spheres of the ship rippled as an explosion ran its full length, from bow to stern. Huge chunks of the different spheres flew in all directions.

Kris had seen ships die violent deaths. It was not something she ever wanted to get used to. But this explosion looked very different from any of the other ones.

“Chief, talk to me about what just happened. Professor mFumbo, what can your experts report? Was that a reactorcontainment failure?”

“I don't think so, Kris,” the professor reported. “My experts here say that was some kind of chemical explosion. We're running our high-speed cameras back over it. I can tell you more in a few minutes, but the explosion doesn't appear to have been initiated in the last sphere where you hit it. Rather, it started at the opposite end of the ship and moved aft.”

Kris nodded. “That was what it looked like to me, as well. Let me know as much as you can as soon as you can.”

“This is interesting,” the chief said.

“Everything is interesting,” Kris said. “What's making your bunny jump?”

“The moon. That hot spot where the ship just launched from. It just got very hot. Explosive hot. Whatever they were doing there, I think someone just blew up all the evidence. And unless I'm very mistaken, they used the exact same sort of explosives on the moon as they did on the ship.”

“Yes,” Kris said. “How very interesting.”

10

Lieutenant Commander, Her Royal Highness, Kris Longknife, leaned back in her chair, reviewing in her mind what had just happened. Had she just become the one of those damn Longknifes who shot up the first alien contact humanity made in the last eighty years?

Lately, she'd spent some time wondering how her great-grandfather's generation could have made such a hash of its encounter with the Iteeche. No “Hi. How are you?” Just shoot, shoot, shoot.

Kris tapped her commlink. “Professor mFumbo, have your boffins spotted anything else in this system that we need to shoot, dodge, or otherwise be aware of?”

“I'm afraid we have found nothing of interest. Or maybe the more proper answer is that I am glad to report we have not.”

“Captain Drago, I'm going to withdraw to my Tac Center. Please feed all ship data to that location after first making copies of that data and copying them out to several backup locations. Those of you on the bridge, you may want to make an extra copy of your board's data and hide it in your sock drawer. It may come in handy when you write your memoirs of today, if you don't need it earlier at my court-martial to prove that there were no changes to your data by me or anyone else.”

“Ain't it great to be a part of history,” Sulwan observed dryly, but the navigator was already downloading her board to a memory chip . . . and had several more on her board ready to be filled.

Captain Drago looked around. “I'll order a crate brought up from supply.”

“Thank you,” Kris said. “Nelly, have my staff meet in my Tac Center.”

“They are already headed there.”

“Ask the galley to bring around coffee and sandwiches. I'm hungry, and I think it's going to be a long night.”

“Cookie is already putting together a tray for us, Kris,” Nelly reported.

With a sigh, Kris stood and began to make her way off the bridge. Behind her, a gunnery mate second class slipped into her vacant station and began to download Kris's data.

Her team was waiting for Kris by the time she reached her private retreat. Captain Jack Montoya, Royal USMC and head of her security detail, had taken the seat to her left. There he had a clear view of the door and anyone trying to enter. Professor mFumbo held down the other end of the table. He'd come alone.

Abby, officially Kris's maid, was to Jack's left, fiddling with the tray of goodies . . . and also where she had a good line of sight on the door. Abby was a crack shot who even the Marine detachment's Gunny Sergeant could only match shots with.

Penny, the staff's intel expert, had taken the seat to Kris's right, which put her back to the door. If something evil got as far as that without her knowing it was coming, she'd consider her job a failure and the mess something for the Marines to clean up.

To Penny's right was Colonel Cortez, Kris's defeated foe and ground-tactics advisor. Right now, he pursed his lips in reflection. “I've never been around when a galactic war got started, but that sucker didn't leave you any choice but to shoot. Very aggressive behavior.”

“I'm glad to hear that somebody else feels the way I do,” Kris said. “But I need to know what actually happened back there and who was doing what to whom. There are too many unknowns and unthinkable things that leave me scratching my head. I do not like that. Not at all. Penny, will you take the lead on forensics?”

“I expected you'd want me to. I've had Mimzy capturing some of the raw feed off the boffins' video take. The wreckage is in much bigger chunks than I would expect had a reactor failure been involved. With luck, we'll have something bigger than atoms to examine. Professor, I hope you'll excuse me for having my computer do what one of Nelly's kids can do so well.”

The professor scowled at the request for forgiveness. He had been offered one of Nelly's “children” when Kris's computer got the biological urge to gestate. His initial experience had been something less than sterling, and he'd returned the gift.

He and Captain Drago, both.

The boffin could not be happy to have Penny using the same secret weapon that he had declined in order to steal a march on his people.

“Do what you will. But remember, what might look like something at first blush to an amateur may have a totally different meaning when examined patiently by a trained expert.”

“A good point that we will keep in mind,” Kris said. “So, Penny, what are your first observations?”

“Give me a minute,” Penny said, her unfocused gaze aimed in the general direction of the overhead. Penny's ivory skin seemed to pale almost to translucent as her breath slowed.

Usually, this kind of first glance would have been done on one of the wall screens for all to see and comment on. Instead, Penny held whatever output she was getting to just herself and her pet computer, Mimzy. The computer feed colored the contacts of Penny's eyes but was private to her.

The minute Penny had asked for stretched into two. Then three.

Kris began to get edgy; this was her first initial alien contact. This was humanity's first new alien contact in eighty years. The last one had gone horribly wrong.

This one looked to be going along the same downward path.

Kris didn't much like the trip. Worse, Kris didn't like that this one was her responsibility.

Just as Kris was about to open her mouth, Penny's gaze dropped from the overhead. She took a deep breath. “Okay, I think I can see how to brief this.”

“We're ready,” Kris said.

“Nobody will ever be ready for this one,” Penny said, half under her breath.

Across from her, the wall screen lit up. Abby turned to face it. Jack pushed his chair away from the table so he could see, without losing sight of the door.

The screen opened on a view of the moon as a large explosive blew out in a gale of expanding gases. Some of the debris cloud achieved at least orbital speed, maybe escape velocity.

“First things first. The explosion on the moon. It was a chemical explosive, conventional. Not something we use. That stuff is corrosive and dirty. It's in our books, but it hasn't met environmental standards since before we broke loose from Earth. I'll leave it to the boffins to give you all the gory details if you want more.”

“Was it done intentionally?” Kris asked.

“No doubt in my mind,” Penny said. “Both because of the type of explosives and the timing. It blew within five seconds of the ship destroying itself.”

“Isn't that an opinion?” Abby shot at Penny.

“A well-founded one, I think,” Penny countered. “When you have the same explosives letting go within seconds of each other, coincidence must take a backseat to facts. Once can be an accident. Twice, we should start looking for hostile activity. Three, and only a fool doesn't assume enemy actions.”

Spoken like a true paranoid,
Kris thought, raising an eyebrow to Penny's other listeners. The rest of the room took a moment to mull her viewpoint. No one chose to express a dissenting opinion.

“Go on,” Kris said.

The view on the screen changed to show the unknown ship charging up to meet them. In slow motion, Kris's laser beam shot into the aft-most sphere of the ship.

“I put it right where you wanted it,” Nelly said.

“Exactly,” Kris agreed, and watched as the fusion engines sputtered, throwing the ship off its steady course.

“Oh, and for what it's worth,” Penny said, “the hostile was on a collision course with the
Wasp
until Kris's hit in the engine room knocked it off track.”

“Nasty little beggar,” the colonel observed dryly. “Shooting first and hell-bent on ramming. I'm developing a serious doubt that they ever intended to ask questions.”