Daring (46 page)

That assumed the alien bought into the idea that the
Wasp
was just a wandering rock that was not sticking to any safe orbit in this system.

The remaining Smart Metal
^TM
would be spread out in front of the
Wasp
as she came rocketing out from behind the giant. Nelly already had a program that would change the face they showed the alien. If they put a ranging laser on them, all they would see was a tumbling rock.

Nothing here to see, move along, people . . . or bug-eyed monsters . . . as the case might be.

Hope was not a strategy. Luck was not a tactic. That was what Kris had learned in Officer Candidate School. If she pulled this off, she'd have to write her old instructors a letter about changing the curriculum.

On second thought, would anyone but a Longknife have the guts to pull this off? Would any rational teacher want to suggest this to any student whose best interests they cared for?

“Nelly, remind me to skip that letter.”

“What letter?”

“Never mind; if you missed that, it's just another embarrassment I don't need to admit to.”

“First, Kris, you are getting very good at keeping your thoughts from me. Secondly, you are getting very strange. You know how you used to talk about my needing to spend some quality time with Auntie Tru?”

“Yes.”

“I'm thinking we need to find someone for you to spend some quality time with, whatever that is, talking to someone about how your brain is working . . . or not.”

“Make a note about that, Nelly, now shut up.”

There was a loud bang, then a ripping noise came through the hull members, not over any audio system. People on the bridge looked around but saw nothing.

“We've got a hull breach along the main spindle, between bulkheads G and H,” Penny reported from her station at defense. “Damage control is moving to contain it. Report is that a weld let go.”

“Very good,” Captain Drago said calmly.

The
Wasp
continued its dive toward the ice giant below. The ride started to get a bit bumpy. A clang and rattle told them something else had let go. Kris found herself holding her breath.

She wasn't the only one.

“Three containers just made an unscheduled departure from the
Wasp
,” Penny reported. “No one in them, but I think we lost half our supply of famine biscuits.”

“I don't know whether to cry or cheer,” the petty officer backing Kris up whispered not at all softly. People chuckled and found they could remember how to breathe.

“Zero gee in five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . . now,” Sulwan announced. “We will be in zero gee for ten minnow,” Sulwan announced. “We will be in zero gee for ten minutes. Stay close to your high-gee stations because this is only an intermission.”

Captain Drago mashed his comm button. “Damage-control parties, keep the bridge informed on your progress. Lieutenant Pasley, can you give me any idea of what might break next?”

“I'm not sure, sir,” Penny said.

“We might have some ideas,” Mimzy answered at her neck. “The
Wasp
is not rigged for remote sensing of its hull stress, but Dada has noticed a minor air loss out of spindle compartment J, and identified a blur in the pictures coming from outside camera 53. The container it is on may not be attached as securely as we wish.”

“Damage control,” Captain Drago ordered, “check for a leak in spindle compartment J-2-g. Advise any personnel in the outer containers that they may end up on their own if they don't move inward like we told them to.”

The skipper shook his head as he cut his commlink. “We ordered everyone to the spindle. But why do I think there are a few ignoring me? Boffins, likely.”

As the ten minutes of no acceleration passed, various damage-control details reported in. The burst seam was welded shut again. The leak was plugged, then welded down. Four boffins reported to the spindle. They'd been recording the view from the close encounter with the gas giant.

Common sense had finally prevailed over scientific curiosity.

The second high-gee blast would accelerate them onto a course that would take them close to the alien. With luck, it would also make it look like the rock they were impersonating had approached the ice giant from behind and therefore been out of sight all along.

That was the hope.

Kris was only too aware that a whole lot of people had died while she did what she hoped would work.

In the end, she reflected, she had accomplished what she set out to do. That huge mother ship was not going anywhere for a long time, if ever.

Still, a lot of her fleet had died in the effort.

Had it all been worth the cost?

Kris wished she could go back and find out. Hopefully, she would get a chance to someday. But for now, getting home and reporting what had happened was her job.

As the long hours slid by while they drifted toward the alien, Kris tried not to think about the calls she'd made and the price people had paid for them.

The alien did nothing. They did nothing.

They both did a whole lot of nothing.

Then the alien went active, and matters got interesting.

Very quickly, things got mortal.

60

“The alien just ranged us,” the lieutenant, now covering sensors, reported.

“With what?” demanded the captain.

“Laser and radar.”

“Did they get a ping off our cover, or from the
Wasp
itself?”

“Just the cover, sir,”

The skipper leaned forward in his seat. “Now we see what happens next.”

Kris took the cover off the firing button.

“Captain, we're tracking them visually with the 24-inch pulse lasers and both of the defensive 5-inchers,” Kris reported.

NELLY, GET READY TO RANGE THEM, THEN FIRE, ON MY ORDER.

KRIS, I HAVE THEM IN MY CROSSHAIRS. THEY AREN'T QUITE IN RANGE, BUT IF THEY TAKE A SHOT AT US, I'LL RANGE THEM AND BE READY TO FIRE IMMEDIATELY.

BUT WE WAIT, GIRL.

YES, KRIS, WE WAIT.

The alien ranged them again.

And the buoy back at the ice giant started blaring demands on several channels and in several languages.

“Unidentified starship in this system, identify your captain and his lineage. What port are you registered at and who has received your oath of loyalty?” The word choice was Ron the Imperial Rep's, but Kris had chosen to send the same message out in several human languages. Let the aliens figure it out.

“The bogey has ranged the buoy,” the new lieutenant reported.

“It's too far for them to fire at it,” Penny said.

At a million kilometers, all they'd be doing was warming the metal of the thing. Still, a second later, the alien blasted away at the distant demanding source.

“They just do not know how to say ‘How are you?' do they?” the captain said. “Commodore Longknife, you are weapons free as far as I'm concerned.”

Kris was tempted to give them a second warning. After all, they'd just fired off everything they appeared to have.

“Appeared to have” was the operative phrase.

Who knew what they really had?

“Range them, Nelly, and fire.”

The 24-inch pulse lasers reached out for the stern engines of the alien. The angle was acute but manageable. The 5-inchers lashed out for the bow, where the command center was on the
Wasp
.

Kris's bottom was pushed down into her high-gee station as the
Wasp
put on acceleration. Far below, the reactors began to pour electricity directly into the power system, sustaining the blast of the 5-inch guns through several seconds and beginning to replenish the capacitor for Laser 1.

The rocket motors also slammed the
Wasp
forward and to the right.

That proved to be a good idea because the aliens did indeed have more lasers ready to come online. Even as their aft end crumbled under the
Wasp
's fire, they were reaching out to pierce their attacker.

Fortunately, their attacker wasn't where she had been.

In front of them, the supposed rocky face of an asteroid converted itself to defensive shields to protect the
Wasp
from the next shot.

But the next shot never came.

It started aft, and the explosion then shot through the ship. In seconds, what had once been a good-sized scout ship was nothing but a sprinkle of glowing bits.

“God in heaven,” Penny said.

“Was that us, or did they have another dead man switch?” the skipper asked no one in particular.

“I can't tell you, sir,” was all Kris could say.

“I think there's something still there,” Sensors said. “Give me a moment; there's a lot of junk out there, but I think it launched a small boat just before it started firing.”

“Do we finally have some survivors?” Kris asked, then did something about it. “Jack, we need to deploy some Marines. There's a small boat out there, maybe full of survivors. Maybe, I don't know, someone who wanted to live rather than fight to the death.”

“Could it also be a booby trap?” came back from the Marine officer.

“Anything is possible. Just, if they're alive, I'd really like to talk to them.”

“Understood, Commodore, keeping my Marines alive is secondary to getting them alive. We can do that.”

With an order from Captain Drago, Sulwan applied precious reaction mass to braking the
Wasp
and edging it toward the small alien spacecraft.

Kris watched the alien carefully but tapped her commlink. “Please broadcast on a narrow band, back to the ice giant, a recall message to Launch 3. If it's still out there, let's let them know that we want to hear from them now.”

“Aye, aye, ma'am,” came from the comm watch.

Captain Drago eyed Kris.

“I've got to at least try to find them.”

The skipper nodded.

Kris went back to watching the craft as they closed in on it. It made no attempt to dodge them but continued to drift in space. That could mean a lot of things. Kris tried to concentrate on the good and leave the bad to Jack and his Marines.

“That's close enough,” the skipper ordered.

“Jack, you can launch your Marines.”

“We're taking Launch 1. I've got Gunny with me.”

Then the silence began to stretch.

Kris didn't much care for the first words that broke it.

“We got a situation here,” said Gunny Brown.

“What kind of situation?” Kris asked.

“The hatch to this boat is open a good ten centimeters.”

“How'd that happen?” Kris demanded.

“Your guess, Commodore, is as good as mine,” the old NCO answered.

“Will you look inside?”

“That's what I'm doing, ma'am. It's kind of ugly. There appear to be two bodies, young, I'd say a male and female. Oh. What have we here?”

The silence stretched.

Kris waited.

“I think I know why these two fled the scout when the shooting started,” Gunny said. “I'm holding a makeshift survival balloon with two of the cutest little babies you'd ever want to see.”

“Babies?” Kris echoed.

“Yep, if they were my kids, I'd say they're about six months old and in need of feeding or a diaper change from the squalling.”

Kris had prepared herself for a lot of things, but this was nowhere near even the bottom of her long list. The
Wasp
and its crew had always met the demands she put on it, but a nursery? A nursery for orphans?

A nursery for alien orphans!

“Skipper?”

“I know, Your Highness, I will have one of the compartments close aboard the spindle converted into a nursery. We'll canvass the crew for anyone with experience or the desire to be a nanny.”

“Thank you, Captain Drago.”

Out in space, Launch 1 came alongside the craft. The baby bubble was immediately transferred to the longboat. Then the Marines jury-rigged a collar to attach the alien craft to the launch and began a careful return to the
Wasp
. Once back, the alien craft was locked down outside and the launch recovered. The Marines, though they had not shared an atmosphere with the aliens, still were subjected to full decontamination procedures.

The babies were quickly hurried into isolation before they were changed. Their parents had taken along a bag with baby essentials in it. The surviving boffins immediately subjected it to a thorough analysis.

The diapers were cloth, very much like cotton. “We can match them.”

The rubber pants were made of some sort of plastic. Again, they could be replaced.

The formula was the big question mark. It seemed to be based on something like milk, with a lot of extras. The boffins were confident they could duplicate it from the
Wasp
's shrunken supplies. That assumed that something humans called milk could be digested by someone with such different DNA.

First, they would use what the presumed parents had brought.

Kris left them to their work.

Which left Kris with nothing else to do but watch as the bridge crew prepared to blast for the other fuzzy jump point in the system.

She tapped her commlink. “Communications, have you heard anything from Launch 3?”

“Nothing, Your Highness. We're guarding every frequency Chief Beni might use. We haven't raised so much as a hum or a click that might be them.”

Kris closed her eyes as the breath went out of her. She wished she was like Penny. At a moment like this, she'd say a prayer and feel better for it. Instead, Kris struggled to bring in a deep breath, then let it out slowly.