Battlespace (38 page)

“But how do they know we're here?” Dominick asked.

“For that, why don't you take a look at the screen. We'll let Cassius tell his side of things.”

The flatscreen on one side of the conference table lit up; simultaneously, a noumenal download became available for the humans present. Ramsey chose to focus on that rather than the screen. There was less chance of missing something important that way.

He found himself adrift in space. It took a moment for him to recognize what he was seeing…a vast, spiraling smear of starlight, the galaxy seen from outside. The scene rotated slowly, and he saw other, more easily comprehended objects…a planet, a red-dwarf star, the magnificence of a globular star cluster, and what appeared to be an asteroid or small moon pierced by an enormous cavern or hole. He was forcibly reminded of the crater Stickney, on Phobos, one of the moons of Mars, only instead of being a deep pit filled with dust and loose rubble, the hole seemed to go down and down and down forever, with no bottom.

A star gate, tunneled into the side of a fair-sized asteroid.

“This is what I saw—or, rather, what my downloaded alter-ego saw—on the other side of the Sirius Gate,” Cassius explained. “Here is the relevant imagery.”

The scene shifted to the planet, visible only as a slender, ruddy crescent close by the shrunken red sun. A star gleamed—oddly—
inside
the arms of the crescent, where no star should be. Cassius's imaging system zoomed in on that star; the crescent expanded until it filled the scene, then expanded some more and moved out of sight. The star stayed star-like for a moment, then suddenly expanded as well.

And then Ramsey was looking at the golden, needle-shaped spacecraft he'd seen before, the one that had emerged from the Sirius Gate to destroy the
Isis
.

“Xul-mul-ma-gur,”
one of the N'mah rumbled.

“A Xul starship,” Cassius translated. “And they almost certainly now know we are here.”

4
APRIL
2170

General Ramsey
Conference Chamber
Sirius Stargate
1540 hours, Shipboard time

“One of the Marine pilots of 5-MAS,” Cassius went on, “rescued me, so to speak. Captain Greg Alexander fell through the stargate during the battle, four days after I—after Cassius I-2, rather—went through.”

“Wait a sec,” Helen Albo, Dominick's chief of staff, said. “I'm confused. Are
you
Cassius? Or the other Cassius? Which one is I-2?”

“I am both,” Cassius replied evenly. “When I was downloaded into the Starhawk probe, Cassius Iteration-two became a separate consciousness, experienced a different stream of events and recorded memories different from those of the Cassius left behind. When I—when he, rather—returned, he was uploaded back into the MIEU computer net, where his separate memories became my own. Essentially, Cassius I-2 no longer exists as a distinct and separate entity. I am he.”

“Oh. Stupid question.”

“Not at all. The English language is not well designed for distinctions of this nature.”

“How badly damaged was your Starhawk?” Ramsey asked.

“My maneuvering thrusters were operable, enough so that I was able to stop my spin. My main drive, however, was damaged, and I had lost nearly all of my reaction mass. I elected to maneuver my craft to a parking point some fifty kilometers from the opening of the stargate on that side, and observe the region.”

“For clarification,” Ricia Anderson said, “we've named that stargate the Cluster Gate. We're uncertain as yet which of a number of different globular star clusters it might be, but the name seems to fit. That gate—and the red dwarf sun it orbits—appear to lie within a few hundred light-years of the cluster proper. Go ahead, Cassius. Excuse the interruption.”

“Some eighty-three hours after I went through, Captain Alexander emerged from the gate. His Starhawk was badly damaged and incapable of maneuvering. Fortunately, we both fell through the gate on similar trajectories, and ended up in the same general volume of space, and I retained sufficient maneuvering capability to effect a rendezvous with him. These scenes were taken by one of the remote probes I released in the area.”

The assembled humans and N'mah watched the scene as recorded by a remote probe—one damaged SF/A-2 Starhawk drifted slowly alongside a second, more badly mangled one. Against the backdrop of the sky-filling galaxy, a space-suited human figure emerged from the badly damaged fighter and began checking over the plasma-blasted ruin of the portside thrusters of the other.

“Fortunately, his Starhawk still possessed reaction mass. My main drive was damaged but repairable. Captain Alexander was able to effect repairs to my portside drive, a matter of replacing the KR-1509 circuit board, which had melted, with the identical board from his SF/A-2, which was intact. The repairs allowed me to reverse my path and return through the gate.”

“Why didn't Alexander come with you?” Dr. Franz wanted to know.

“My Starhawk had neither life support, nor space for a human passenger. The cockpit area had been given over to the electronics necessary to support the Cassius iteration.”

“So Captain Alexander is still adrift outside the Cluster Gate,” Ramsey said. “How much life support does he have left?”

“At the time,” Cassius said, “five point three hours ago, his fuel cells would provide reserve power for another fourteen hours. He evacuated the air from his cockpit in order to perform the EVA to effect repairs on my Starhawk. His space suit, I estimate, if connected to his reserve shipboard tanks, had air for another twenty hours.”

“So we have fourteen hours, more or less, to go in and pick him up.”

“Unless,” Admiral Harris said, “the Xul have already picked him up.”

“You said the Xul may know about us,” Dominick said. “Is that because of your, ah, incursion to the other side?”

“Actually, we saw no indication that the Xul starship was aware of us,” Cassius said. “Our ships were tiny and operating at extremely low power. However, we must assume that they are aware of the gate's operation.”

“When the
Isis
first approached the Sirius Gate,” Harris said, “she launched several remote probes through the gate aperture. We now believe the Xul ship became aware of
Isis
's presence as those probes emerged through their side of the gate. If so, they would certainly know about those two fighters.”

“And be on the way now to investigate,” Ramsey added. “At least, we must make that assumption.”

“So the question becomes,” Dominick said, “what can we do about it?”

“I'd give a lot for a planetary defense battery right now,” Harris said. “Something big enough to be sure of taking out that Xul behemoth.”

The N'mah rumbled among themselves for a moment, then posed a question to Cassius in Sumerian. He translated. “Please, what is ‘planetary defense battery'?”

“Anything big enough to kill the Xul ship,” Harris replied, grim. “Railgun. Plasma weapons. Missiles with nuclear or AM warheads. The
New Chicago
has a fair-sized particle beam cannon, spinal mount. But from what we've seen of that Xul battlewagon, we'd need three or four such weapons firing together to guarantee a kill.”

“But…do you now have such weapons aboard each of your vessels?” one N'mah said.

Another N'mah agreed. “It was your use of these weapons against what you call the Wheel that prompted our defense in the first place.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Dominick protested. “
You
fired first at
us
.”

“Maybe he means the laser sampling, early on,” Valle suggested.

“No. Each of your starships possesses a…” Cassius broke off, then continued in his usual voice. “The N'mah words literally translate as ‘huge-fire-moving-bow.' I believe, however, that she is referring to some type of very large, high-energy weapon.”

“Something shooting energy instead of arrows?” Valle said. “That makes sense.”

“No,” Harris said. “It does not.
New Chicago
is the only ship with that kind of weapon. The other ships have spinal-mount railguns, but those aren't nearly big enough to worry something as big as the Xul ship.”

“No, no,” one of the N'mah insisted, through Cassius. “Your ships. Big fire-weapons. What you said before…‘spinal mount.'”

“I think she's right,” Ramsey said. “I think she means the Kemper Drives!”

That caused some consternation around the table. “What
the hell are you talking about, General?” Dominick demanded.

“Think about it, sir. All of our ships are essentially very large particle accelerators. The Kemper Drive uses magnetic fields to accelerate reaction mass to near-light speed and blast it out into space…either astern or forward, depending on whether the ship is accelerating or decelerating. What comes out tends to be a
very
hot plasma. You all know damned well how careful we are not to point those things at, say, an inhabited planet or space station when we light them off! When we decelerated into the Sirius system, though, we must've looked like we were coming in, plasma guns blazing!”

Further questioning proved that Ramsey was correct. The N'mah had ships that operated with a magnetic drive…nothing as large, as powerful, or as
deadly
as the Kemper Drive accelerators. To N'mah instrumentation, the MIEU's arrival had looked like an attack. They'd chosen to stay hidden—their usual strategy when confronted by the arrival of a Xul ship—until Cassius I-2 had used his sampling laser,
obviously
a direct attack. Then, and only then, had they struck back.

“Are you suggesting that we could use our ships as weapons?” Harris asked.

“Exactly. And the sooner we position the ships, the better. We should also plan on sending another probe through the gate, just to take a quick peek at the other side.” Ramsey was talking fast now, trying to keep up with his own racing thoughts as he traced out the possibilities. “Our immediate problem is the Xul ship at the Cluster Star Gate. If it comes through to our side, we must destroy it. Whether it comes through or not, we must also destroy the Cluster Gate.”

“Why the Cluster Gate?” Dominick asked.

“Because the Xul know that, right now, the way the codes are set, the Cluster Gate leads to the Sirius Gate, and that means it's only a matter of time before they come through
and find Earth. If we can destroy the Cluster Gate, well, let me ask our N'mah friends. What are the chances that they wouldn't know which gate, out of all those thousands of gates, was ours?”

The N'mah rumbled together for a moment, in consultation. “We do not have enough information to answer,” one said, finally. “But…we are hopeful. The Xul are numerous and spread throughout much of the Galaxy, and beyond. But there are so very many stars, so many possible systems. You are right in saying that the only link they have at this time to this system—and to your Earth—is the one leading from the Cluster Gate. Destroy that gate, and the Xul ship guarding it, and we may remain undiscovered.”

“Then, ladies, gentlemen, and N'mah,” Ramsey said, grinning, “this is what we'll do….”

General Dominick
Personal Quarters
UFR/USS
Ranger
1750 hours, Shipboard time

As soon as he could, Dominick had returned to the narrow closet that was his quarters on board the carrier, sealed the hatch, and put a block on his implant communications. Who the hell was in command of this expeditionary force, anyway? That goddamned Marine brigadier was like a force of nature. There was no guiding him, no changing his path once he had it in mind to go a certain way. And as for Lymon…

Helen Albo could reach him here, but no one else, and she had a list, a very short list, of who he would be willing to talk to.

The list did not include Cynthia Lymon.
Especially
it did not include Cynthia Lymon. That insufferable bitch was becoming more and more of a headache with her demands…
especially
her demands that he make himself available to her at all times, and that he relieve Ramsey and take personal command of the MIEU. He was beginning to think that the billions of newdollars she'd first promised him back on Earth could not possibly be worth this God-awful nagging.

She had a call in to him now, he noticed. When he closed his eyes and entered the noumenon, a call-waiting light flashed at the edge of his mind's-eye vision, with her name attached.

Well, let her flash.

Whether she knew it or not, he was still on her side, and working for her interests. Right now, the important thing was to salvage something of value for the MIEU to take back to Earth. They had the N'mah nanotechnique, and that was worth a lot. Better, though, would be the technology that operated the stargates, or a working Xul starship drive, or Xul weaponry. If he was able to secure anything like that, he could write his own ticket with PanTerra.

And after that, he would be rich enough to write his own ticket with the entire damned planet Earth.

The problem was that all of those possible windfall discoveries—stargate operation, starship drive, or advanced weaponry—were locked away onboard the Xul ship. And Marine Brigadier General T. J. Ramsey was planning on springing an ambush that would ensure the Xul vessel's complete destruction.

Something had to be done, and fast. Something other than relieving the Marine CO. Much as he would like to do it, Dominick did recognize that Ramsey had a way of making things happen…and he had serious doubts about whether Ramsey's Marines would obey an Army general with the same verve and élan that they obeyed Ramsey.

Damn the man, anyway. And damn his jarheads. They were very good at breaking things, but not as good at
secur
ing
them. There had to be a way to get them to capture the Xul ship instead of destroying it out of hand.

He opened his implant's communications function, thought-clicking on Ramsey's address listing.

General Ramsey
Combat Command Center
UFR/USS
Chapultepec
1755 hours, Shipboard time

Ramsey, too, had gone back on board ship, returning to the
Chapultepec
to better coordinate the offloading of the TRAPs they would be needing, as well as the special weaponry. When the call from Dominick came through, Ramsey was in a noumenal planning discussion with his senior staff and the Navy.

“I really question the idea of using one of the robot freighters as a missile,” Admiral Harris said. “We don't have time to offload more than a fraction of the supplies. We can't afford to ditch one third of this expedition's consumables!”

“I believe we can, Admiral,” Ramsey replied. “When we planned for this expedition, we weren't counting on finding food and water out here. The Wheel, so far as we knew then, was uninhabited—or might have been inhabited by critters so different from us in body chemistry that we couldn't use their food.”

“We can't,” Captain Louis Howard, the Battalion Medical Officer, said. “We can't survive on N'mah foods. The biochemistry is different.”

Ramsey had downloaded a report on the subject earlier. Certain molecules necessary for life were not symmetrical, but came in what were known as isomers. The sugar humans got energy from in food was what was known as a right-
handed sugar—that was where the word “dextrose” came from, in fact. Left-handed sugars would pass right through the human digestive system untouched. The same was true of amino acids. Humans required left-handed amino acids in their food; the right-handed isomer was useless.

As it happened, N'mah biochemistry was based on right-handed sugars, but also on right-handed amino acids. Essentially, that meant their food tasted okay, and provided short-term energy…but that humans would starve to death if they tried it as a long-term, steady diet.