Passage at Arms Read online

  One way to cripple a Climber is to keep on her so tight she has to stay up. If she stays long enough, she’ll cook herself. Forcing that is the principal function of the other firm’s hunter-killer squadrons.

  We aren’t as unpredictable and evasive as the holonetnews would have people believe.

  That little black hole, that little shadow we cast on hyper and norm, can kill us. “A pseudo-Hawking Hole,” Diekereide says. “Named after the man who posited substellar black holes.”

  A Climber’s shadow is minuscule but still distorts space. If someone comes close enough, with equipment sensitive enough, he can locate it.

  There’re three ways to hammer on a Climber in null,” Diekereide says. He holds up three fingers, then folds one down. “First, and most effective in theory, and the most expensive, would be to send a drone Climber up to collide with your target and blow its CT. That’s no problem right now.

  The other firm doesn’t have Climbers. Let’s hope the war ends before they figure them out.”

  “Oh, yes.” My tone is sufficiently sarcastic to raise an eyebrow.

  “The other ways sound more difficult, and probably are, but they’re what the other team has to work with. Their favorite is to concentrate high-wattage short-wave energy on our pseudo-Hawking. Doesn’t physically hurt us, naturally. But every photon that impacts on our shadow adds to our heat problem and shortens the time we have to shake them. They use fusion bombs the same way, but that’s a waste of destructive capacity: Your pseudo-Hawking’s cross section won’t intersect a trillionth of the energy. But they’ll do it if they want you bad enough.

  “One thing they did, till we got wise, was to maneuver our shadow into their fusors. That puts a lot of heat in fast. But if you know what they’re doing, you can maneuver and destabilize their magnetic bottle. They’ve given that up.”

  The other method of attack is plain physical battery.

  A pseudo-Hawking point is so tiny it can slip between molecules. It doesn’t leave the other firm much room to obtain leverage. But they’ve found their ways, usually using graviton beams from multiple angles. A Climber suffers every shock as the coherent graviton beams slam her Hawking point a centimeter this way or that.

  “I went through one of those my first patrol,” Diekereide says. “It was like being inside a steel drum while somebody pounded on it with a club. It’s more frightening than damaging. They have so little cross section to work with. If it gets too bad, you go a little higher and cut your cross section. It’s a game of cat-and-mouse. Every time out they try some new tactic or weapon. They say we have a few of our own in the cooker. A missile we can launch from null. A device we can run down from null to vent heat while we stay up.”

  “And a magnetic cannon?”

  He snorts derisively. “I’ve got to admit, that’s the only new gismo we’ve actually seen. What use the thing is, is beyond me.”

  “Ambrose, I’m getting a feeling about it. Nobody sees any use for it. Command isn’t so thick they’d stick something on just because the Admiral’s nephew thought it up.” That theory has gone the rounds. Strange tales crop up to explain anything Command doesn’t see fit to illuminate. “Maybe it’s some special, one-shot thing. Special mission.”

  “Think so? The Old Man say something?”

  “No. And he wouldn’t if he knew anything, which he doesn’t Orders haven’t come through yet.”

  “Anybody tell you how Tarkenton took out one of their Main Battles during the siege at Carmody? That was in the Eight Ball. Her third mission.”

  Climber Fleet Tannian has developed a plethora of legends about famous patrols and Commanders. Tarkenton’s story is one of the big ones. His kill came during the war’s darkest hour. It threw the enemy fleet into total confusion. The ship he skragged was control for the entire Carmody operation.

  Those were the glory days, the easy days. Tarkenton is still alive. He commands Climber Fleet Two, far in toward the Inner Worlds. I saw him once, shortly after his appointment. He’s a lean, hollow-eyed man who travels with a guard of ghosts.

  There’re a thousand stories, and I’m sure I’ll hear them all. Diekereide dearly loves to talk.

  One he tells is about the Executioner. The Executioner is the other team’s best. He commands a pack of hunter-killer specialists. They operate more like bounty hunters than an escort squadron.

  “We don’t have to worry about him. They sent him to take on Tarkenton’s Fleet six months ago.”

  You have to admire a man who makes a name for himself in destroyers. Destroyer people do the most thankless, unnoticed work there is.

  I return to Ops after action stations secures. I want to see what the Old Man does with his fueling luck. Diekereide made a good guess. He wants to shake down his new hands and get the feel of the refitted ship.

  “Not bad when you can walk around, is it?” Yanevich asks as I amble in.

  “No. But the mode can be confusing. We’ll go parasite again just when I get the hang of it.”

  He winks. “So it goes. So it goes. Have a seat.” He offers the viewscreen chair.

  I don’t refuse. My leg is aching and I want a better look at Subic Bay. I didn’t see much of her from below. I switch to augmented infrared and skip from camera to camera.

  The image, when I find it, has a spectral look, which isn’t unusual with infrared.

  “That a new-type tanker? Or is the augmentation screwed up?”

  The only tanker I ever saw consisted of a long rectangular girderwork with a perpendicular squashed-egg CT tank on either end. A flying dumbbell. Drives were at the ends of crossbars athwartships amidship, turning the dumbbell into a giant jack. Crew’s quarters were inside the arms.

  Subic Bay’s main structure is similar, but she’s twice that other vessel’s length. She has lesser dumbbells crosswise at either end, giving her four tanks instead of two. The thwartships crossbars are longer. They mount heavier drives and probably provide roomier quarters.

  Two Climbers are nursing. A third is maneuvering into position. I suppose the naked tank is the one we used.

  “First one of these I’ve seen myself,” Yanevich says. “The new Kiel class. They’re trying to speed things up. Put more Climbers into action and get more missions per ship. Which means they have to get more CT to Fuel Point faster.”

  “How about safety? Seems like doubling the handling capacity would cube the chance of disaster.”

  “Never lost a tanker yet.” He grins at my sour expression. “Those people are careful. They know they’re sitting on a live volcano. You think our OC was bad? You should see those people. They stay out a year at a time. When they cut loose, they cut loose.” He glanced at the screen wistfully. “But they do have mixed crew.”

  The absence of comrades of a more delicate persuasion is having its effect. Conversations have grown less impersonal and professional. Throdahl is entertaining the watch with an intimate account of his relationship with the black radiowoman. His friend Rose is playing straight man. It’s obvious they’re old story-swappers.

  Throughout, Fisherman stares at his displays and pretends deafness. His particular faith has a strong fundamentalist bent.

  From the shadowed jungle gym of the inner circle, Laramie calls, “Wouldn’t it be a candy game if we ran into a she-ship out? Link locks, and holiday routine for the crews.” He giggles. When he laughs, Laramie sounds like a nine-year-old girl being tickled.

  “Yeah,” someone muses. “Wouldn’t it be straight dusty, making it in null grav?”

  Rose has a story about it. His is as unlikely as all such tales. Nobody believes a word, of course. Convincing the listener isn’t their object. The someone again mentions how he’d like to try it in free-fall.

  Someone else says, “You want to try it, go down and see Hardwick.”

  The old hands snigger.

  Nicastro pauses between me and Fisherman. “So soon you forget, Spook. Your playmate isn’t with us this go.” I’m surprised. The Chief does
n’t usually join the game. He pats Fisherman’s shoulder. “Good board, Junghaus.”

  Good board? Either he has something in detection or he doesn’t. Good and bad have nothing to do with tachyon gear, only the operator’s skill at interpreting what he sees. When he has no contacts, he can do nothing but watch green lights and a blank screen. Only when yellow shows does he have to pay attention.

  Then it dawns. Fisherman is short on confidence. He needs reassurance. His faith is one attempt to bolster it.

  “How did Laramie get the name Spook?”

  The Chief says, “Earned it in boot camp, I hear. Because he has a talent for becoming invisible when there’s work to do. Buckets got his name because he has the chamberpot detail when we Climb. A reward the Old Man gives people who get on his nerves. The men below can explain their names better than I can.”

  Nicknames intrigue me. How is it some people attract them, some repel them? There were people in our battalion who always had one. Subject to momentary change. Some I never did know by a given name. On the other hand, I’ve never had one myself. I worried about it when I was younger. Didn’t they like me?

  I suppose I lack color.

  Yet Rose and Throdahl are colorful enough. Throdahl’s “Thro” is the only thing I’ve heard used on either of them. It’s curious.

  Rose is telling a new tale. This one from his recent leave. “We’re cruising this road south of T-ville, see, and here’s this bitch, maybe sixteen, just shaking along. Kicking up dust. Javitts spots her and says, ‘I’m going to pick this up.’ She ain’t even hiking. Like maybe she’s headed for the next cabbage patch. Javitts wheels over, asks her does she want a ride. She fish-eyes us maybe half a minute, says okay. You never seen a mover like Javitts. Ten minutes, man, I shit you not, he talks her into stopping by the barracks while we shift to Class A’s. Soon as he gets there, he calls this other bitch to say we’re going to maybe be a little late. All the tune we’re driving, he’s talking shit. Now it’s my turn while he’s on the horn. I’m thinking, what do you do to follow his act? I don’t have to worry. She starts talking first. Man, you wouldn’t believe it.”

  “Not from you,” Throdahl says. “You got shit coming out your ears. But you’re going to tell it anyway, so get it over with. We can’t stand the suspense.”

  “One of these days, Thro. Pow! You know that? Wham! I got my right hand registered. Know what’s wrong with you? You got no couth, Thro. Damn right I’m going to tell it. Get some class.”

  “What about the slut?”

  “You got less couth than Thro, Barbarian. What she does is, she turns to me and says, ‘You know, I started fucking when I was eleven.’ I shit you not. Just like that. Straight off the bulkhead, and wearing the shit-eatingest smile you ever seen. Dusted me. Only thing I could think to say was, ‘You should be pretty good, then.’ And she said she is, and started telling me about all the guys she screwed and how they all told her she was the best they ever had.”

  “Get into her?”

  “Fucking well right. Let me tell it...”

  “Hey,” one of the inner circle calls down. “You pick her up on Heyrdahl Road? She have a big Caesarean scar?” That’s Laramie again.

  “Yeah. So?” Rose sounds a little defensive.

  “He ain’t lying, guys. That’s the slut that gave me the clap last tune we were in.”

  General laughter. Catcalls.

  “You get that certain feeling when you piss?” Throdahl asks and hoots at his own comedic triumph.

  “Knowing him,” Laramie shouts, “he better start worrying about spitting.”

  The First Watch Officer leans past me and punches the general alarm button.

  The Commander descends from his eyrie in seconds, surveys the silent compartment. He smiles when he sees me at my station.

  He thumbs a switch on the shipwide comm. “This’s the Ship’s Commander. I have the conn. Stand by for maneuvering exercises. Department heads, report.”

  Each reports his men on station and ready.

  “Engineer, what’s your influential status?”

  “Go, commander.”

  “Astrogator, are you clear?”

  “Clear, Commander.”

  I glance at Westhause’s back. He seems as embarrassed as Fisherman. Curious. He was no prude at the Pregnant Dragon.

  “Engineering, take hyper at my mark. Stand by. Execute.”

  For an instant the ship’s interior seems to spin and twist away into a geometric surreality.

  “Departments heads, report.”

  Again all bailiwicks report a go.

  “Mr. Westhause, program me a ten-minute Inoko Loop.”

  The maneuver is a four-dimensional figure eight. Jokester astrogators call it a Moebius trip. This one will return the ship to her starting point in the stated time.

  Aboard normal warships the Bridge Engineer would relay the astrogator’s program to his own department. Here the astrogator and Chief Quartermaster handle the data relay.

  “Ready, Commander.”

  “Execute.”

  There’s no sensation of motion. Momentum has no detectable effect inside an influential field. There’s no evidence of movement inside the display tank, either. Westhause has chosen a small, slow, lazy, tight loop involving very little relative motion.

  The man is deft, quick, and certain. He’s a first-rate astrogator. It’s nice to know I’m flying with an expert.

  The Climber completes the loop. The Commander polls department heads again, drops hyper, conducts yet another poll. Everything is go-go-go.

  He has Westhause program an hour’s loop with secondary loops built in. Again the results are satisfactory.

  There’s but one test left. A Climb.

  A terrible cold hand seizes me as the Commander begins the countdown. We’re in hyper again. For a few minutes I’m wholly convinced that we’re going to die. Then there’s a conviction that nothing can happen to this Climber. I’m aboard. Nothing can happen to me. Then the premonition of doom returns. Back and forth, a ball pounded by emotional racquets.

  Worrying, I miss the antimatter ignition sequence. My first hint of how far matters have progressed is the Commander’s ‘Take her up.”

  There’s no mistaking the groan of the Climb alarm. Tan-man’s PR people have saturated the media with it.

  “Annihilation stabilized,” Engineering reports.

  “Take her to ten Bev,” the Commander orders.

  “Ten Bev, aye, sir.”

  My companions suddenly acquire an ectoplasmic insubstantiality. They seem to glow from within. And the scene has become black and white. It’s like looking into a big holo cube with its color module out. Gone are the flashing green, amber, and red lights. Gone are the colors of the non-uniform clothing the men all wear. Gone are the color-codings of piping, wiring, and conduit.

  It’s a spooky scene, these surroundings. Almost an argument for Fisherman’s beliefs.

  The glow in the men has nothing to do with life-force or souls. The hardware glows too. Even the atmosphere sparkles. During one of his lectures Diekereide told me we’d be sensing the energies binding subatomic particles when we saw the glow.

  I can also discern the big darkness beyond the ship’s hull. That’s the spookiest part. A big black nothing without stars, trying to push its way in. A black dragon keeping mouth and eyes closed till it’s close enough to gobble these fools who dare enter its lair.

  I admit that I was warned. I didn’t believe. The warning was useless. I’m scared shitless.

  “Systems check,” the Commander says. “Department heads report.”

  All departments are go. TerVeen treated the ship well.

  “Take her up to twenty Bev.”

  I mutter, “Holy shit.” I’m drowning in my own sweat, and with no better excuse than fear. Internal temperature hasn’t risen, a tenth of a degree. My animal brain snarls. The heat converters are secured. The accumulators for the energy weapons haven’t been discharged. Fuel
Point might be attacked. We could be caught with our endurance limited...

  The Commander won’t discharge a weapon here, fool. That would be a dead giveway. A subtle treason. The signature of an energy weapon lasts forever, though it flees the scene at the velocity of light. It can be backtracked to its point of origin.

  I’m not the only one sweating before the drill ends. Fisherman, too, is soaked and twitching. Will he settle down? Will the pressure of combat be too much for him?

  “Astrogator. Let’s see your ten-minute Inoko again.”

  I stare at a lifeless screen and wonder how Bradley’s troops put up with Climb. Their only clues to current events are the alarms. They’re shut off from both the universe outside and the rest of the ship. Theirs is a tiny world isolated within our slightly larger universe.

  “Loop completed, Commander.”

  “Very well. Take her down to twenty-five Bev.”

  ‘Twenty-five Bev, aye, sir.”

  Twenty-five? I must have missed us going up. How high were we?

  “Ship’s Services, commence dehumidification.”

  The rarefied atmosphere is near saturation. The simple thermometer near the compartment clock says real temperature increase has been but 3.7 degrees. I remind myself that in battle crews routinely endure temperatures approaching eighty degrees.

  The Commander eases us back into hyper, shifts to fusion power, then drops to norm. “Vent heat,” he orders.

  A midnight woods-whisper trickles through the ship. Ship’s Services is circulating atmosphere through the radiator vanes. In minutes the air feels chilly.

  “Mr. Westhause, return to the tender. Mr. Yanevich, rig for parasite mode. Department heads. Meeting in the wardroom as soon as the ship is secure.”

  I invite myself to the conference. As far as the Commander is concerned, I have access to everything but his classified material. None of the others asks me to leave, though Piniaz obviously resents my presence.

  Performance in null is the subject. Everyone agrees. The ship is ready. Crew and intangibles remain the question marks.