Family Law 2: The Long Voyage of the Little Fleet (16 page)

"Hmm, you have a point there. With us sitting still and the drone coming effectively at rest to us, I'd hate to be closer than fifteen thousand kilometers from it. But if we tell them a number like that we're basically telling them what our own effective weapons range is."

"Wouldn't a greaser reach out further?" Brownie asked.

"Yes, it would probably kill that target at fifty thousand kilometers and it's a speed of light weapon too. But you have to use a longer pulse duration than an X-head generates and then it takes significant time to physically point it at the next target and pulse it again. You can't engage multiple targets simultaneously."

"Let's double it, thirty thousand kilometers and ask them for permission to do the same. Let them think we are uncomfortable at less range. It can't hurt to have a little extra respect. Ask them where we can park a drone at that distance, looking at their station and planet. What will
we
be able to see from thirty thousand kilometers?"

"Something about the size of a ground car, with image processing, which doesn't run real time, but figure about a thirty second delay. Good enough for tactical decisions at this range I'd think."

"Perhaps we should send the
Roadrunner
back so they see it leave and as you pointed out before, they'll know the cat is out of the bag as far as their existence being reported," Thor said.

"That's tempting," Gordon admitted. "It would be insurance. The down side is then if we want to send further word we probably would send the
Sharp Claws
, which really diminishes our capacity."

"I've a question," Brownie asked.

"Why so formal all of a sudden? Did you get all offended about the species thing? Ask away."

"Could you program that jump drone you made for exploring solitary brown dwarfs to jump into the system we just came from?"

"Easily, but what would you have it do there?"

"Program it to sit quietly and wait for a recall or come back after some period of time. Once it left, these folks have no way of knowing it's range or capacity. It would serve the same purpose as the
Roadrunner
of making them uncertain if word of our discovery has been sent home. Also, it has been bothering me how
long
we are sitting here chatting with these people. I may be a bit paranoid, but if they wanted to they've had sufficient time to send forces around behind us and have an ambush waiting for us if we suddenly don't like how things are going and decide to go home. The drone could be programmed to come back and warn us if there is activity in that system."

"Brownie, perhaps you should be fleet commander," Gordon said.

"My pardon, sir. I really meant no disrespect to your command."

"No, no. I'm not being sarcastic. I missed an obvious danger and feel terrible about it. When you described that maneuver I could picture it and my gut just about turned inside out."

"It is a
very
smart drone," Thor reminded him. "It should be very easy to program it to come to a rest with respect to the system and drift conserving power, listening but using no radar and come back to us with a report if it observes ships entering the system."

"Those are all excellent ideas. Get it programmed as soon as possible. And Thor?"

"Yes?"

"See if engineering can do something simple to increase its radar cross section, make it look large enough they may wonder if it could be crewed. And have it leave the system at high acceleration for a crewed vessel, ten or twelve Gs. Might as well let them wonder what our performance envelope is too. Let me know when it's ready."

"Gordon, I'm looking at the images of their station. It's a plain big flat plate, about forty meters thick. What do you make of that?" Thor asked.

"I'd say they have some sort of artificial gravity. Not based on acceleration like ours."

"Forty meters thick? You think maybe it's a double layer?"

Gordon thought about it a bit. "Maybe. It could be two layers and whatever they use to attract in the middle. Two levels but down is to the center from each side."

"Never thought of that," Thor admitted. "But if they have artificial gravity why don't we see any ships at huge acceleration levels? We see traffic, but it doesn't look all that much different than around any of our worlds. If I had artificial gravity I'd use it to nullify perceived acceleration and boost at five or six G while staying comfortable. Drives are more efficient at high G too."

"I don't know. Maybe they just aren't in a hurry?" Gordon guessed. "We'll have to ask."

* * *

"They are saying if we provide dimensions and the grapple points or locking mechanism they will produce a docking point so one of our ships can come visit their station," Luke told Gordon sitting to coffee and a snack.

"Now you know why they were so fussy about measurements of length. I tell you what. Inform them we'd rather make our docking collar conform to their station standard. I'll have engineering make up an adaptor and we can still have any ship dock just by switching the adaptor. It should be a half hour fab job unless somebody insists on making it way over complicated."

"I think I can say that. I'll get engineering to provide me some drawings to explain the concept. Has their drone been behaving itself? It hasn't made any offensive emissions or tried to drift closer?"

"Not at all. It has an optical aperture almost three meters across. It shouldn't need to get any closer to see me waving out the forward port at it. They were polite enough to ease it into place too. They didn't rush it into place and brake it violently to see if we would react. I made sure ours didn't look like a missile launch either. We are fortunate we have an instrument maker aboard who understands how to make a multiple aperture telescope that is likely
much
better than the single instrument the natives put in place. It has three telescopes of the eight tenths of a meter diameter we can fab, all twenty meters from a common center. I had no idea we could do that." Gordon frowned. "Are they saying anything that made you worry they might misbehave?"

"Nothing specific. There was a new ship that came in and docked at the station.  I'm sure you've been looking at the images. The shape is different than any of the others and it's half again as big as the biggest other ship docked there. It isn't so much they have changed what they are doing, as far as their methods. But I have the sense the information has gotten more..." He stopped and hunted for a word. "
Trivial
. Less important and they seem to be asking more follow up questions, like they are not as sure of themselves."

"Since the new ship came in?"

"Yes. You've seen the ship in our files?"

"Yeah. We noticed it was different. It doesn't seem to be bristling with weapons or have a bunch of small vessels attached. We have more shuttles grappled on ourselves actually. I hadn't thought before but that might worry them."

"I don't know enough yet to have an opinion," Luke said. "But did you see the approach and docking this new fellow did?"

"No, just an image of it at dock."

"Humor me then, watch this. First here's one of the other ships that came in system since we have had our surveillance in place. It's almost exactly like two others already docked to the station. This is the in system maneuvering. About eleven hours of it compressed to five minutes."

Gordon watched patiently, he wished Luke would get to the point though.

"At the end, approaching the station." It slowed to under a hundred meters a second well away from the station. As it drew closer it kept slowing and near the end few tens of meters dropped to well under a meter a second."

"Looks like normal cautious piloting to me," Gordon told him. "Hot dog and you damage stuff."

"Watch the new ship," Luke asked. "Same time compression factor."

It took less than two minutes to cover a similar distance. The approach was hair raising. Gordon found himself clenching the armrests. They were still closing at three hundred meters per second twice that distance from the station. Then, finally, they braked
hard
and at a constant rate until they docked on the station collar like a bird landing a fence post. If it stopped at all short of kissing the collar it had to be within centimeters. Far closer than they could see even with their surprisingly good telescope.

"That pilot is insane. If something goes wrong that close you can end up with your nose buried half way to the station center. Did you pick up any extra chatter when this happened? Like maybe their control was chewing this fellow out?"

"Not a peep."

"I have a suspicion," Gordon said. "Ask our friends if the new fellow who docked is another race. And if we could have some video of them."

"You think?" Luke asked, surprised.

"Me too," Thor told him. "It makes sense. I'll bet you a thousand bucks Ceres they are new."

"Not me," Luke said. "I'm not a gambler."

* * *

"The aliens we already know on the station acknowledged that the new ship that came in is another race. However they declined to show us video of them. We don't have sufficient experience or vocabulary yet to convey subtle things, but I got the sense they were apologetic. The Badger talking to us was wringing his hands just like my Italian grandmother used to when she was upset. When they said they couldn't show us this race, I'd have given at least one possible translation as, 'It isn't our place,' if you take it literally."

"They're scared of them," Thor said. He seemed quite certain. "Gordon, engineering reports the drone is operational and they have a skirt that gives it a radar cross section about half the
Roadrunner's
"

"Hold it ready to launch. Let's see where we are going with these new aliens first."

"Being scared is likely," Luke said. "That leads directly to a problem. The Badgers just said the newcomers indicated they do not want our drone sitting watching them. They said we should remove it in the next hundred thousand seconds or they will remove it for us. I think it's important the Badgers are who speaks to us when there is any conflict. It would indicate some sort of social rank with these new ones."

"Tell your Badgers that if the race that recently came in have any
demands
, they can address them to us directly," Gordon told him, "not through client races. See how both of them like that characterization and inform them if they want our drone removed fine, but theirs gets removed too."

"Are you sure you want to get that in-your-face?" Luke asked.

"Given the others reaction, what we have here is a bully race. Now if they really have superior arms or just a whole lot of attitude is the real question. But even if they can whip us, we'll never have any respect out of them if we just cower from them like the folks here who already know them. If they reply send the transmission to me or Thor. We'll speak with them directly as equals. They have all your translation work from the Badgers, no reason they can't speak to us without any lengthy delay."

"Yep, put them on our bridge screen if they call," Thor agreed.

"All right," Luke agreed. But he didn't look happy about it.

"Thor, make sure bridge crews on all ships are aware we may call on their weapons boards to direct peashooter or greaser fire. They may even be asked to fire missiles before the missile crews are at their stations to reload. The missile crews in all ships should be in a heightened state of alert. Not at their stations and nothing that will wear them down to maintain, but ready to drop what they are doing without changing clothing or needing time to secure things," Gordon ordered. "If anyone is involved in maintenance with something torn apart, proceed finish it and close it up. Don't initiate new projects. The galley should shut down hot meals and go to sandwiches and cold stuff."

"I'm on it."

"I wanted a break, but I'm joining you on the bridge until we see how they react," Gordon said.

When he got there Lee was already strapped in at an open console.

* * *

Luke came up to the bridge to report, neither Gordon nor Thor wanted to go back to the Ward Room to debrief him, but they wanted a face to face.

"I just finished transmitting to the station before I came up. We had to go over a lot of words. I feel they called into question words we had already agreed upon their meaning as a delaying tactic, because they really didn't want to present your reply to these new folk. With new terms it was even worse. I'm at a loss for a name for them even. They gave me a word but kept evading it's meaning."

"Did you pin down a clear translation of client?" Thor asked.

"Yes and I defined a lot of actions that fit that word and they would say, 'Well yes, we do that with them, but that doesn't mean we are client races.' They won't accept the label. They wouldn't give us their word for it either, reluctant to admit such a label exists."

"So, they are in serious denial," Gordon said, nodding.

"Unless you believe they are genuinely insane, yes," Luke agreed.

"Your men are calling you from the Ward Room," Thor told Luke. "Take it on my screen here and let's see what's so urgent."

"The main Badger you've been talking with insists he speak directly to you, Luke. I'll connect him now."

"This is Luke. I'm with our Commander Gordon and his second officer Thor. What did you want to tell us?"

"We sending your message to (new race) and more now (most recent?) software. We work long (make?) best we know. Before I touch screen (to?) (send?) I say (tell?) you one thing. (New race) have weapons," he touched the knife and some sort of pistol he wore, "not same these. They have
ship
weapons. They are fight ship to ship." The screen showed stylized ships and dots going from one to the other from both so they both turned into dots and dissipated. "They fight among they (selves?). One their ship dock here. Other their ship dock here. They not come out ship same time, no fight on station. You understand? You now (still?) want me to send message I do. Just know you (make?) not good (unhappy?)."