Family Law 2: The Long Voyage of the Little Fleet (31 page)

"Sir, they bunched up so tight
all
of them will be within the effective cone. Chances are the four non-primary targets will get two beams each since they don't have any effective divergent velocity and they are large targets in cross section."

"Good. I still want both tubes being reloaded as soon as the first shots are away. If something goes wrong I hope to have a second go at them before they get within their weapon range of us."

"Loading crews are suited up and strapped in right next to the reloads," Tac said.

"Very well, fire upon reaching the ten minute time tic," Frost commanded.

* * *

"Do you have any idea how many weapons the
Sharp Claws
carries?" Dauntless, XO of the
Dart
asked.

"I've no idea," Captain Fussy admitted. "One would hope six or more. If he doesn't, I hope he'd be smart enough to run. If he shoots at one or two of the Biters and is empty I'd expect he'd immediately take off and we'll be right behind him. Even if he doesn't
hit
them, the Biters will be in a foul mood for his trying and ready to fire on anything they see."

"Separation! We have two weapons from the
Sharp Claws
. That's
much
further away from them than we've ever seen Biter ships shoot at each other."

"Maybe they will coast a bit. They're pulling away at fifty G. Can they sustain that all the way to the target?"

After a couple minutes the XO said, "Apparently they can. They are aimed a little to each side. I wonder why? Could they be assigned a target at launch?"

"Past the half way mark," he said a bit later, "surely they won't wait to see what these do before launching more? Turning into the targets. They..."

The telescopic screen went black in the middle from overload, the edges a white blaze. The radar went berserk with snow, then dark and the radio emitted a hash of static. Out the forward view port two white hot spheres, tiny in the distance, appeared to the eye as one bright point they were so close. They were painful to look at and as they expanded and cooled through yellow and orange to a brief sullen red over a couple seconds, they were hard to see through the flash blobs on their shocked eyes, before fading completely away.

"I've popped about half our breakers here!" The radar and com tech called. He was resetting them as fast as he could.

"Give the radar priority," Fussy ordered. "Those went off well away from the Biter ships. I don't know if they made them detonate early or what. Do they
have
any defensive systems that reach out that far?" he asked. "I find it hard to believe they could have hit them with any sort of projectile. Maybe the Biters have some new beam weapon to intercept incoming weapons?"

"Radar rebooting. We should have returns in a half minute."

The screen painted a couple of cycles to silence. There wasn't any return.

"Is the radar working?" Fussy asked.

"I'll turn it toward the
Sharp Claws
to test it," the tech said.

Ten seconds later the destroyer showed on the screen.

"The Biter ships," the radar tech said and stopped. Unwilling to complete the obvious statement.

"Gone... " Fussy said.

"But, there's no
debris
. There should be pieces. At this range, this frequency of radar should show anything as long as your forearm," he protested.

Fussy just looked at him. "Now we know why he only fired two missiles."

"What are we dealing with here?" the tech asked, frightened. "And this is their
smaller
ship."

"Persevere told us to watch carefully, so we could report what happened. I intend to do that. I also intend to make clear we don't want the Biters to ever acquire such weapons. Can you imagine what
they
would do with this sort of power?"

"I'm scared of anyone having this kind of power," the tech said.

"And yet, they didn't come in ordering us about and taking what they want," Fussy pointed out.

"Yes. I wonder if
we'd
be so restrained, wielding that sort of power?"

* * *

"You can take your time now," Frost's second in command, Barbara Wentworth, told the missile loaders. "Our targets are destroyed, so we want you to slow down and load as carefully as you would load the tubes in peacetime. In fact go back and double check all the connections and grapples you've already secured."

* * *

"Captain Fussy, would you care to continue along with us to your chart system number 68 and continue our survey?" Chance asked."

"Just like that? Nothing to say about the Biters?"

"What is there to say? They bit off more than they could chew, didn't they? We warned them and they ignored it. I'm sad, but better them than us. Do you want to conduct some sort of a memorial service or something? I don't know your custom, but we would respect it."

"Memorial? I might throw a party to celebrate the motherless monsters journey through the seventy two levels of their hell. I imagine they got an express ride to the lowest level."

"Ah, we're of a like mind then."

"But we have a lot of questions
how
you could do what we just saw."

"I imagine the representatives from Derfhome and Fargone back in system 80 will be discussing that sort of thing with your people. I'm just a task force commander of two minor ships. It's certainly not my place to play at ambassador."

"All right. I guess I can see that. Maybe I'm reaching above my station too. Set your course and timing and we'll continue our tour."

Chapter 15

"We just received a messenger drone relayed through from system 69," Talker told them.

"Oh good, Are our fellows and the
Dart
in that system?" Prosperity asked.

"Been and gone. Also six Biter vessels in a fleet were transiting the system. Most likely on the way here to confront your little fleet over damaging their vessel."

"One hopes they will have more courtesy than the last, because if they speak to Chance the way the last one did it will end very badly. He won't aim to nip their rear off," Madonna predicted.

"We wondered if you could do that on purpose."

"I wouldn't guarantee it," Prosperity hurried to say. "If it had been a serious warship, shooting back at him, he wouldn't have taken the risk to just disable it."

"Not serious..." Trader said. "What if I told you the Biters did the same thing with the
Sharp Claws
and told them to sit and be boarded?"

"Oh, in that case I guess they won't be coming here after all. Sorry about that. Nobody friendly got hurt I hope?"

Talker got that stressed look they recognized. His muzzle got little dimples and scrunched up so tight he showed little incisor points at the front. "Would you expand on why you don't think the Biters will be coming here now?"

"Well, if they screwed around with Captain Frost and the
Sharp Claws,
I imagine they are all dead now," the Third Mother volunteered before Prosperity could.

"One
little
ship, destroyed six big ships with two shots!" Talker informed them.

"Wow, x-head missiles are
so
expensive, I'm surprised he doubled up on them. If he missed any he could have finished them off with other weapon systems, but I wasn't there, so I shouldn't second guess him. He
was
responsible for protecting the
Roadrunner
and
Dart
. I might have gone into overkill mode too, with that responsibility hanging over me. Really, the size of the ship doesn't mean much when you are fighting with missiles," Prosperity said. "If one gets through, you are toast. You seem upset. Did you think it was a fluke when Gordon shot the Biter ship here?"

"No, not a... fluke. My translation software had to ask for fluke and toast, as well as overkill...I'm still not sure I understand
toast
. With fluke it was at least clear the meaning wasn't a parasite. Overkill I understand all too well. We knew you were dangerous. I guess what I'm trying to say is we didn't know
how
dangerous."

"We haven't been trying to hide it," Prosperity told him. "We're really not dangerous at all, if you don't threaten us and try to do a hostile boarding of our ship. What were we supposed to do to show you how dangerous we are? Come in all nasty like Biters and blow up a moon to scare you?"

Talker sat looking at them silently a bit before replying.

"
Could
you blow up a moon?
Have
you ever blown up a moon?" he asked directly.

Prosperity looked at the third Mum, with a sickly stricken face.

"Don't look at me big mouth;
I
didn't bring it up."

Talker did a double face plant. Both hands wrapped around his eyes with his muzzle sticking out.

"Well, Gordon kind of accidentally blew a moon up," Prosperity admitted reluctantly, "testing a different kind of missile, a nasty sort of weapon he'd captured from the Earthies we'd really rather not use anyway. It was a crappy little moon, uninhabited, really not anything to worry you... honest."

"You-aren't-making-it-any-better," Talker said from behind his hands.

"But, you can see where we don't want to pass these things out like party favors," the Third Mum explained. "What if you mess up and allow the Biters to get some?"

"Party favors..." Talker muttered, lowering his hands to check the translation software. "Ah, holiday crackers," he said laughing a little. He seemed a bit... unhinged. "Yes, your point is well taken. I too greatly favor keeping them away from the Biters."

"I'm sure we can supply some systems that will let you keep the Biters off your back, but within limits. Within limits where we won't worry we were mistaken about your nature and find out you decided the best way after all, was just to remove the Biters from the universe. I don't think you seem like the sort to do genocide. But we should know you better. I mean, the Biters
might
have some redeeming qualities, if they can just be trained to realize threatening Gordon is plain suicide."

"I'm sure when these six ships fail to come home it will send some sort of a message to them," Talker allowed. "I don't know if they will be afraid enough to ask what happened to them with any,
restraint
. They would regard six ships as a formidable fleet. It was probably every ship a major house owned and maybe a couple hires too. They were of course already short the one you damaged. That's about as big a fleet as any Biter clan would own. I have trouble imagining they are capable of cooperating  beyond two houses. Even if their existence was threatened."

"That's good. I'd hate to think we precipitated them sending every ship they own against you in a vengeful fleet," the Third Mum worried.

"No, we haven't known the Biters that long, but I'm pretty sure that isn't in their nature. I think this is where I should gratefully accept your limited offer. It would suffice as you said, to keep the Biters 'off our back'. If we can send out single ships again and not worry they'll disappear we can recover our economy that they have disrupted, and get back to exploring for new worlds and resources, just as you are doing."

"Great. Now all we have to do is figure out what you need and how much it is going to cost you," Prosperity said. "Are we talking just Badgers, or are you going to arm your other races too?"

* * *

"Well, we found out why they don't have ships zipping all over at twenty Gs acceleration using the artificial gravity to neutralize the acceleration," Prosperity told Thor.

"Oh, I really wondered about that, how did you find out about it? Did they ask you how
we
do it?"

"We finally had a big enough handle on them with the deal to supply weapons that I felt I could admit we don't have such a thing. They didn't seem too surprised, they said it was one of those unplanned fortuitous discoveries that just happen trying to do something else. Not developed from theory. In this case from research in high temperature superconductors. They
do
have some excellent superconductor tech worth trading for."

"But
why
don't they use it in ships," Thor demanded, before Prosperity went too far off subject.

"Oh, he gave me a long technical explanation, but basically, if you try to accelerate a system with an active plate in it the miserable things
drag
. It displays inertia while it is running, more than just the mass of the machinery. So they use it in something orbiting at a constant velocity and they can use it in a ship after it has attained velocity and is coasting inertial to its destination, but it's pretty useless for what you were talking about. Making a ship have less perceived acceleration inside. You'd have to have far more power to spare than we have so far to overcome it. You'd need the power to move the mass of an asteroid around like we can accelerate the
Roadrunner
."

"Oh well. It was a nice idea," Thor said, disappointed, frowning. "But that contradicts what I know about relativity," he objected.

"I don't know enough to have an opinion. It's still a significant convenience and who knows what our guys will do with the idea once they start playing around with it? It will nullify a static field, so the Badgers use it in amusement parks and in hospitals and facilities for the aged."

"Amusement parks?"

"Apparently kids of a certain age
love
to walk around on the ceiling and have video taken of them waving upside down."

Thor just shook his head.

* * *

The
Dart, Roadrunner and Sharp Claws
entered system 68, a boring place unless you were a Planetologist. There were about a dozen Sasquatch in a ship used as a research station on the fringes of the system, light hours away. They were looking into some theory of planetary formation and the hail the
Dart
sent them wouldn't get there before they'd jumped out. This was as far as they planned to go into the charted star systems.