April 8: It's Always Something (31 page)

Chapter 22

"Do you need something to help you sleep?" April asked.

"What, again?" Jeff asked, teasing her.

"I probably won't sleep a wink," April insisted.

"Then
you
should take a pill," Jeff said, reasonably. "Or use the electric thing."

"Either sometimes leaves me out of sorts the next day."

"Well, I certainly don't need that, do I?" Jeff asked. "Not to be unkind, but what I really need is just a dark room and some quiet. If you want to sit up and worry go ahead, but since you aren't second to me, or third or fourth, you can afford to be tired tomorrow."

"OK, I'm going to go read and make some hot chocolate and be quiet," April promised. "Love you," she said, which she didn't say over and over every day.

"Thank you, I love you too. And stop saying it like you are saying goodbye," Jeff ordered.

April just nodded, not trusting her voice, and left him.

* * *

"I waited until watch change so we could all be present," Chaffee explained. The control room could not contain them all and there were four listening through the open hatch.

"We have committed to mutiny from our command," Chaffee said bluntly. "As soon as I refused an order which was sheer suicide, and disabled com we were all committed. You know nobody from this vessel would ever have their loyalty free from suspicion. The only question now is what are the best circumstances we can find for ourselves.

"Mr. Church, first watch sensor tech, "Captain Chaffee pointed to him, "suggested Australia. They are an English speaking country with tech that doesn't seem under the North America's control. We can hopefully trade the Silverfish for citizenship or at least residency, and probably even a cash settlement or allowance. If any of you are determined to remain sailors they have a navy.

"If we went to any of the Asian countries, the culture is alien and I don't trust them not to repay us with a quiet execution. The South American countries, even Brazil and Argentina don't have the tech capacity to appreciate the Silverfish. They are also intimidated by North America and it would be too easy to find us and terminate us there. Europe...Europe is still a mess right now despite what the news says. They have strange politics and no telling what they'd do with us. They might be horrified at being tossed a hot potato and just hand us back. Any other ideas?" Chaffee invited.

The XO leaning against the bulkhead just inside the door uncrossed his arms and stood again. How about doing a deal with the Homies?" he proposed. "They apparently have a much deeper appreciation of naval architecture and systems than we thought. God only knows, they have enough money to afford to buy us out from what I've heard. If we can get a lift to Home. I have a lot more confidence the USNA will have a harder time reaching me there than Australia."

"I doubt they have the lift capacity to take the
Silverfish
to Home," Chaffee said.

"No need," the XO, Mr. Carlson said. "We can cut out the Moniker and the code computer, take the advanced weapons out of the launch tubes and that's eighty or ninety percent of the value. If they want to sell the rest off to Australia, they can do so. In fact, I'd suggest it to them."

Chaffee looked stunned. "I admit, I never thought of that. It's an audacious plan. If anyone is totally opposed to going to Home then they could remain with the ship. I'm sure they would welcome experienced hands who know the vessel. Do we have further thoughts on this?" the Captain asked, suddenly much more democratic.

"Sir," said Jones, "my understanding is passage to lift is much harder to buy than a ticket for the down leg. If anyone is displeased with life there after giving it a go, a return to Australia, or anywhere on Earth should be much easier."

"That says a lot about the general consensus," Carlson pointed out. "People on the average don't
want
to come back. Despite what the talking heads on the telly tell you."

That got a disdainful snort of derision from several there. They might not have been in open rebellion this morning, but they weren't idiots either.

"Show of hands." Chaffee said. "Three choices. Who wants to go to Home?" Twelve hands went up. "Who wants to stick with the Silverfish and go where she is sold off, probably Australia?" Three hands went up. Chaffee was pleased and relieved to see nobody was adamant on a solo course.

"Very well, all we have to do is figure out how to approach the Spacer vessel without getting our butts blown off by them, or our own people, trying to keep us from doing so. Mr. Wallace, bring her about in a wide turn, and approach our initial target. We shall discuss how to do so safely, but there is no reason to keep putting distance between us."

"Aye Sir, but begging your pardon, what was the third option?" the helmsman inquired.

"Why, to join with Mr. Hastings in exiting via the legacy torpedo tube," Chaffee said.

* * *

Somebody was shaking April's shoulder persistently.

"Lemme 'lone," she said closing her eyes tighter.

"Well if you don't want to come along fine," Jeff said. "You can stay here and prep breakfast for us when we come back."

April remembered where Jeff was going and her eyes popped right open. She was still confused to find herself looking at the heathered grey fabric of her couch. She didn't remember going to sleep there.

"I'm
up
!" she insisted to Jeff's back. He turned around blinking in surprise at the sudden complete reversal. He was dressed in the outfit she'd had made for him recently, the fancy shirt and sparkly jacket.

"Why are you all dressed up?" she demanded.

"Why not?" he countered. "It's a special occasion. It seems every time a person does anything now, good or bad, somebody feels compelled to put the video of it online. Kill or be killed, at least I can do it with a little style. Besides, it's a psychological edge. You keep telling me to consider the social side of things. I think your average Earthie seeing us on the telly would say, "Come look Martha, this ugly thug in the rough clothing is trying to kill the nice young man in the pretty outfit. He must be a celebrity. Is he a singer or vid star or what?" Don't you think?" Jeff asked.

"I think you're nuts, but I like you that way. Just don't get it all ripped and stained or
I'll
kill you."

"That's the nicest thing you've said about this stupid affair yet," Jeff said, happy.

"Have you had coffee?" April asked. For sure she needed some.

"No, but we're running out of time. You go shower and I'll make the coffee.

Jeff was already sipping his coffee when April came out. He'd expected perhaps she would go with her very sinister black outfit complete with swords and a belt with cases and pistols. Instead she had on a gorgeous off white gown, almost light honey colored with seed pearls sown in designs. She wore her best necklace with canary diamonds and matching earrings.

"It goes with your browns," she said simply.

* * *

"They pinged us again, so they know we turned and are approaching them again. Worse the fast platform, the super cavitating one, is sprinting to get between us as we approach the Spacer ship," their sensor officer informed them.

"Mr. Church, I'd like you to set the active sonar to ping every two minutes at lowest power. We can't hide, and might as well acknowledge it. Perhaps they have somebody smart enough to see it as a white flag. If they have someone really capable of thinking outside their tactical training, they will find a way to respond to that message."

Nothing happened for several minutes and then Mr. Church announced. "I have new cavitation noises. I think it must be the first platform we lost contact with. The bearing is correct. They seem to be running the system through a wide range of power settings and speeds. It has a very different pattern than the other super cavitation system."

"Yes," Chaffee said with conviction, "we interrupted them in their sea trials. We're being tracked and probed with at least two systems they've never used."

"How nice of us to give them a real world problem to test their equipment," Church said.

What was there to say to that? Everybody sat in silence until Church spoke again.

"They seem to have settled on a setting for the device that was just reactivated. I don't have an estimate of its speed yet, but I noticed it seems to have moved slightly on a bearing that would indicate it is also going to cross courses with us."

"Behind us," Captain Chaffee said. "They're going to bracket us. That's what I'd do."

"Active sonar. A new one," Church said. "On exactly the same bearing as the fast super cavitator getting ahead of us. Apparently they have a lower powered sonar that doesn't need their drive shut down to function." After a bit he reported, "Second ping at low power. Exactly two minutes after the first, just like ours." Nobody said anything, the question was too obvious. They all waited with anticipation. Sure enough, at exactly two more minutes there was another ping.

"And we see you too," Captain Chaffee said. "Now if they only had some way to tell us, 'Alright, come on in, we won't shoot.'"

Church scrunched up his eyebrows thinking hard and eventually volunteered his thoughts.

"I'm not sure how I'd do that," he admitted. "But if I wanted to send the opposite message, 'We're just about ready to blow you away.' I'd increase my pings to maybe a fifteen second interval. I think if they should do something like that, with all respect for your command, Sir, we should come to a halt or at least dead slow."

"Sir, we could surface at that point and use the international distress frequencies to call them on the radio," the weapons officer, Jones suggested.

"I'm quite reluctant to do that Mr. Jones. I'm afraid that the loss of the
Silverfish
, especially with the Moniker system onboard, would be enough reason for our own to take us
and
them out with a ballistic missile or a hypersonic from Hawaii, and no concern how it
looks
."

"Yes Sir. I can see that. I'm not sure the Homies would
allow
that, Sir. And if they
did
succeed I imagine the launch source would end up looking like a certain Chinese space port."

Chaffee looked surprised. "You think they have an over watch on their ship and intercept capabilities?"

"Above the water is much more their natural element, yet they moved to immediately protect it from submarine threats like us. I can't believe they didn't have that threat covered first. Do you remember the Spacer girl in the news awhile back, who destroyed a Chinese sub near Hawaii?"

"Yes, and PACCOM was upset they could pop up so close to the island undetected," Chaffee remembered. "They were aware of it as soon as it breached, and wasted time talking back and forth, trying to get permission to fire on her. They could have had a missile on it in ninety seconds, instead the Spacers laid a veritable barrage of kinetic weapons on it about four minutes later. It was overkill, and a horrible public relations failure, foreign weapons like fireballs streaking across USNA airspace one after another. The civilians all had time to call each other and run outside to watch it like a fireworks show. But you have to have a very precise location to target with Rods from God sort of weapons. I really doubt they are accurate enough to hit a hypersonic in flight. If it's facing the right way the pilots can actually
duck
. And a ballistic weapon is an even smaller target."

"Yes, but since they have weapons in the hundreds of megatons range...How close do you have to get to swat something out of the air with that big a boom?" Jones asked.

"Now that is an interesting question, Mr. Jones. I hope we never have to find out. I'd rather not be close enough to write the after action for that scenario."

* * *

Jeff wasn't sure who would be at the duel. Mr. Muños had made clear on previous occasions that he expected to officiate. But every challenge until now had been resolved by one party or the other yielding, or failing to meet, and being expelled by the Assembly.

The old location to call a duel had never seen use. The new location in the third ring was better. The industrial segment of the corridor was wider, the acceleration felt like a standard G, and facing each other so closely in the plane of rotation the ballistics would be effectively like being on Earth.

People had no idea from the challenge what weapons would be offered. Patrick gave not a hint. No matter how wide the corridor or what backstops were positioned, a lot of people would be reluctant to risk the chance of a stray shot catching an innocent bystander. For all they knew the idiot Earthie might pick blunderbusses. Jeff expected several people to take video, but wasn't sure if anybody would stream it to public channels. It seemed a bit tacky to broadcast.

When they came to the elevators there were a half dozen people waiting to go down to the new ring. But when Jeff and April got on and hesitated, waiting for the others to board, they waved them on. He thought about it as they dropped, trying to understand why, and decided it was a respectful gesture.