By Other Means (5 page)

“I suppose so.”

The slender figure waved off the obvious confusion, “Do not let my humor trouble you, Skavid. Go back, prepare your people. Reports indicate we have some time, but not as much as we might like. There is far too much invested and not wagered on this operation for us to fail.”

“As you order, Sir.”

The subservient figure bowed and left the room, letting in the light for a moment just in time to expose the pale alabaster color of the slender figure’s flesh as he winced and glanced away from the door briefly.

What is it with these youth species and their love of light? It is so untrustworthy a way of observing the universe.

The door closed, leaving the figure along in the dark again, pondering the future set before him.

The Ross had triggered a right mess, bumbling around the frontier as they had. He didn’t know who, how, or
why
anyone would give them the rights to open new territories with Alliance backing, but it had been done.

Likely someone was paid well and truly for that bit of paperwork.

It was done, now, however and while it had certainly proved costly for the Alliance there was profit to be had. The main fleet suppliers already had new contracts worth fortunes that many planets would choke on, where they forced to spend such wealth. An entire new fleet of ships had to be replaced, and it seemed that the fear of the unknown ‘weapon’ used was pushing a movement to expand the fleet.

With fleet numbers having been regulated since the war with the Ross, any expansion was enough to make suppliers practically enter a mating frenzy.

That vote for expansion was at risk, however, if this treaty went through.

With wealth surpassing the entire domestic product of some of the smaller stellar empires, there was significant value in preventing it from being passed… at least for the time being.

The being almost pitied the… Humans, was it?

Whatever.

They had no clue what they were flying into, but that was what made it all the better. If he did things right, not only would there be no treaty signed but shortly the Alliance would be in an official shooting war for the first time since the Ross War.

Small skirmishes were fine for business, but nothing sold ships and weapons like the real deal.

It’s time to use up some of the stockpiles the Fleets have been storing anyway, can’t have them sitting there in the warehouses too long. They might get the idea they don’t need to buy new toys if the old ones aren’t played with from time to time.

The USV Mexico was a third Generation Terra Class starship and, like her sisters, something of a monster in space.

Constructed from meteor iron in a solar forge, the ship had little concern for the worries that plagued space ship builders generations past. Size, weight, overall mass… these factors were hardly a consideration in any of the Terra class ships.

Inside and out, they were huge.

Laid out more like an office building than a conventional starship, the Mexico had ninety decks from stem to stern, not counting the observation spires that arced forward from her aft. The ship only looked sleek from a distance, from up close her fourteen hundred meter mass was enough to make even the oldest hand gape just a little.

Her core, however, is what gave the Mexico her fighting trim.

Without the alien singularity design that formed the base of her gravity core, the Mexico would have been limited to the same few gravities of acceleration as her ancestors. Even at their best the Los Angeles, Hood, and Cheyenne class ships were little more than stationary targets to a ship like the Mexico.

For Sorilla walking the decks of the still gleaming ship was a bittersweet homecoming.

She’d served on all of the last several generations of ships, beginning with the Los Angeles herself. They’d all been great ships, crewed by incredible people, but the Mexico and the Terra class as a whole were in a completely different league and there was absolutely no question of that in her, or any, mind.

The Terra ships were the finest every built by human hands.

So what the hell happened to Valkyrie?

It was the burning question that everyone wanted to know, especially those who served on Terra class ships. Was it some alien weapon that did them in, or was there something unknown with the singularity mass that resulted in the disappearance of the task force?

Since she’d recently been cleared for some of the intelligence reports coming back from negotiations, Sorilla was one of very few to know that it was almost certainly not some secret alien weapon. In fact, the aliens seemed as confused and concerned as anyone else about the whole matter.

Which left the ships themselves, she supposed, and the spectre of alien technology that helped give them their incredible speed and maneuvering, not to mention steady gravity. If there was something wrong with the singularities, something catastrophic in the system or the software, at least she supposed that none of them would likely every realize it before whatever it was vanished them too.

It was cold comfort, but that was all the comfort Sorilla knew she was likely to get.

So it wasn’t a surprise for to feel tension as she walked the decks of the Mexico, nor to feel it faintly in the air. Alexi had told her about the concerns and scuttlebutt floating around the fleet about the Terra class and their
alien
technology, but she’d been a little too self absorbed at the time to really let it sink in.

She could feel it now, see it in the way people walked. There was a hidden tension, one she suspected that few of the crew knew they harbored, even. It was visible in their body language, however, the way they walked, the way they held themselves. Her processor could pick it right out of the air, literally, in the voice stress of a dozen whispered conversations she heard in passing.

If something happens to us, it’ll be the end for the Terra class I’ll bet,
Sorilla speculated.

She knew the power of rumor and fear, she used it often enough to her own advantage after all. Propaganda was one of the first tools in her toolbox, and the most effective under normal conditions. Over the centuries, humans had become masters of it, to the point where it was habitually used even in peacetime on allies and citizens.

Which brings me to something not covered in my orders,
Sorilla mused as she continued to make her way to her quarters.
I’ll have to try to pick up enough alien psychology to make that particular tool useful again.

On Hayden she’d only been able to use that part of psychological warfare in the most basic ways. Strike and fade tactics, making it look like the jungles were haunted, those sorts of things. Honestly she didn’t even know if it worked, but it was habit and good tradecraft so she’d kept it up and taught it to her Pathfinders.

Against human foes, it would have been effective and demoralizing. Against aliens?

Sorilla mentally shrugged. No one had a clue.

Going to have to fix that.

She came to a stop in the corridor, checked the section number again, and then her location on her implanted HUD.

Home sweet home,
Sorilla thought as she wrenched open the heavy door and stepped across the threshold, careful to preserve her shins from being barked on the knee knocker. She tossed the duffle to the floor and swung the door closed behind her.

It was going to be a long mission, she suspected.

*****

“Admiral on deck!”

“As you were,” Ruger said as he stepped over the knee knocker that separated the bridge from the corridor, walking across the open deck to where the Captain was standing.

Captain Hiro Usagi had the air of a man about to go into battle, no matter when Ruger saw the man. Sometimes he wondered if Usagi looked like that before taking a shower or using the toilette, but those were amusing questions he kept completely to himself. There was little doubt that Usagi wouldn’t find them amusing.

“Welcome, Admiral,” The Captain said in only very slightly accented English, just the barest hint of his native tongue’s guttural burr carrying over.

“Thank you, Captain. Are we ready?”

“Still taking on provisions, Sir. The last transfers from Hayden Station are scheduled to be complete by Fifteen Hundred today.”

“Good, and we’re cleared for departure?”

“By Sixteen Thirty hours, Sir.”

Ruger nodded, “Excellent as always.”

He started to turn away when the Captain lightly cleared his throat, bringing his attention back.

Usagi’s deep voice contained a certain concern that Ruger was surprised by, he’d never heard the man use anything but the most professional tone in the past.

“Sir,” Usagi saod, his voice dropping, “I understand you’ve assigned Major Aida to the Diplomatic Security Detail…”

Ruger raised an eyebrow, “You know her?”

“Of her, Sir. Fleet knows
of
her.”

The Admiral sighed, just slightly exasperated, “Really Captain, I never took you for one to buy into that albatross nonsense.”

Usagi stiffened, “What I buy into or choose not to buy into hardly matters. The crew is already spooked by the loss of Valkyrie as things stand, adding Aida’s reputation to the worry over the Singularity reactor is a concern.”

“The Major is the foremost expert on alien tactics, and she’s an expert asymmetrical warfare. Find me someone else who can do the job we need done and I’ll consider your concerns,” Ruger replied in a quietly firm tone, “Clear?”

“Clear. Sir.”

Ruger sighed. He was honestly disappointed with the Captain, but more so with the crew because he knew Usagi was quite correct in his assessment. It wasn’t blatant, but any spacer worth his Oxygen could feel that something was
off
when you wandered the decks of the Mexico… or any of the Terras now.

The crews were scared.

Not the terror that comes from battle or crisis, no that was a fear you could face and overcome. The men and women on board the ships of SOLCOM were
born
to face that sort of fear. What this was, however, was a persistent background terror that you almost didn’t notice even as it ate away at your composure like water eroding a stone over centuries.

How do you fight something like that? Something you can’t face, you can barely even feel?

Ruger hoped the mission went well, otherwise he suspected that the Mexico wouldn’t be the last crew to fall to this particular enemy.

*****

“They have a certain basic elegance to them, do they not, Master of Ships?”

The blue skinned Parithalian glanced up and at the screen that was showing the Terran ship across the full breadth of the main screen before she shrugged, “Possibly, Ambassador. I hadn’t considered it.”

The Ambassador, a squat dark skinned individual from deeper in Alliance territory than the Parithalians, glanced over skeptically.

“Truly? I thought you Pari’s were all ship mad.”

The Master of Ships sighed, turning to look at the screens, “It is an effective design, but far from elegant if you want my true assessment.”

“Oh? Do tell.”

“They use a particularly volatile thrust mechanism, fueled by diamether. No sane species would have that anywhere near a ship, let alone as the
fuel
for one. It’s a minor miracle the ship doesn’t vanish into photons the instant it is put under thrust.” She said, a hint of distaste in her tone. “Frankly, just being this close to one of their ships makes me nervous, Commander.”

“Diamether? Truly?” The Ambassador frowned, “Isn’t that a controlled element?”

“No, Ambassador, it’s an
uncontrollable
element,” The Master of Ships muttered, “hence my concerns. I believe that they use Diamether Hydrogen, assuming intelligence gathered on the captured ship is correct. We have a strict procedure in place now, ordering all fleet ships to avoid the propulsion wake of Terran craft. Even slight inefficiencies in their drive system will leave occasional clusters of Diamether floating in space. Not enough to seriously harm one of our ships, but certainly enough to chew up our outer hulls and require an increased maintenance schedule.”

“Do they use it as a weapon?”

“No, they’re insane, not stupid.” The Master of Ships chuckled, then settled somewhat, “Their ships are a frightening conglomeration of technologies we consider obsolete and technologies we don’t even remotely understand… and the part that honestly frightens me, Ambassador, is that I’m reasonably certain they don’t understand them either.”

“That seems unlikely.” The Ambassador said skeptically.

On the screen the large ship slowly pivoted in space, bringing its nose away from the planet.

“Watch, they’re going to aim their thrust carefully,” The Master of Ships said, “they’ll use the gravity of the planet to sweep up any residual particles, letting them annihilate in the upper atmosphere.”

The Ambassador watched, mouth slightly open as the ship clearly did just that, aiming it’s aft thrust well away from the Terran station and the Alliance vessel, but right into the upper atmosphere of the planet.

“Screen overlay,” The Master of Ships called, “High energy scans.”

The screen went mostly dark, aside from the point where the Terran ship’s engines were warming up. There a brilliant blast of light was showing, exploding out of the ship and toward the planet.

“Second screen,” She called then, “Upper atmosphere, high energy scans.”

Now the Ambassador found himself looking at the second screen as it showed another dark swath of space, the planet barely visible in the background, aside from some brilliant dots of light exploding into action from nowhere.

“Those are normal readings, Sir,” The Master of Ships said, “High energy radiation impacting stray clusters of atmosphere and condensing into particle singularities. Happens over every world… but just keep watching… there.”

As he watched a stream of particles exploded across the screen, lighting it up in a brilliant show of energy.

“Abyssal Singularity,” He breathed out.