Midshipman Henry Gallant in Space (The Henry Gallant Saga) (13 page)

Neumann was the son of rich and powerful Gerald Neumann, president of NNR Shipping and Mining Co. He had been the star quarterback on the academy football team and was fond of saying, “Winners always win.” And he seemed intent on proving it, every day. Now he managed to wear an expression of boredom, even though he was sitting with a posture of inflexible attention. His gaze was stuck in a distant stare.

For the most part, Gallant had learned to disappear into himself when those around him ignored him. But on this occasion, his latest comment was proving too provocative for his shipmates to simply ignore.

“What does that mean?” asked Barrington unable to contain her curiosity.

Neumann seemed to chafe in his seat, as if to protest this violation of Gallant's informal verbal isolation.

“That Titan scout we chased off several weeks ago might have discovered our newly finished accelerator on Ganymede. The aliens might realize that it will allow us to produce our own antimatter locally. That greatly extends our refueling capabilities at Jupiter Station. We now have the capability to conduct extended multiple ship journeys outward toward Saturn and Neptune. They would see that as a threat,” said Gallant.

“That is only a possibility if you think the aliens have considerable knowledge of us, as well as our ship and engine characteristics,” countered Neumann, unable to resist challenging Gallant.

“I think it’s possible that the aliens have been in our solar system for a considerable time. They could have been monitoring human progress for many decades. We know they have a sizeable population and numerous ships on Saturn's satellites,” said Gallant, standing up, leaning forward, and placing his hands on the table for emphasis.

“If that's accurate, and if they were always as hostile to us, as they appear to be now, why haven’t they attacked in force long ago?” asked Neumann.

“Perhaps, they had only a small space force until recently,” said Gallant.

“Why would that be the case?” demanded Neumann.

“Maybe they were slow to build up a fleet. Or maybe they’re originally from another star. In that case, they would have had to first build shipyards and support facilities.”

“Why couldn’t they use the interstellar ships you imagine them to have?” Neumann spoke heatedly, as he stood up and leaned forward, so that he was almost in Gallant’s face.

“We have no idea what their interstellar ships would look like. Possibly their interstellar ships would be mostly engine and life-support, particularly if they could only travel at a small fraction of the speed of light. The journey from another star might have taken many decades to get here,” said Gallant.

“Decades? You can’t be serious,” said Barrington.

Thinking out loud, Gallant said, “The UP could build a generation ship today. It would have to be self-sustaining, providing its own energy, food, air, and water. It would need to be about twice the size of the
Repulse
without any weapons and with a crew of just a few hundred. If we used multiple sets of engines it could continue to accelerate to nearly our current maximum missile speed of 0.1c. That would make the trip to Alpha Centauri in twenty-four years. The original crews would grow old and some would die leaving their descendants to continue the voyage.”

He could see his words were carrying weight. Gallant was thrilled that they were including him in the discussion. He added, “If the Titans started out on a generation ship from one of our neighboring stars, their original intent could have been just to provide the seeds for a colony of their species. Once they got to our solar system however, they discovered it was already inhabited.”

“If they are the more advanced species, why are they so hostile to us? They’ve never tried to communicate with us in anyway,” Chui interjected.

“If they reached the solar system a long time ago, they could have witnessed our Earth conflicts, followed by our space wars before the Unification. All in all, they wouldn’t have formed a very favorable opinion of us,” said Gallant.

“Why isn’t their technology more advanced?” someone shouted from the back.

“Possibly they had to retool and rearm. It must have taken a great deal of time to build up an infrastructure to support both their growing population and industrial base. All the while they would have kept tabs on humanity,” said Gallant.

“All their interactions with us have been hostile. Maybe they are just an aggressive and dangerous species,” said Neumann.

While he wanted to contribute his insights, Gallant didn’t want to say anything that might alienate his shipmates once more. He said, “I can’t argue with that. There’s no way for us to demonstrate friendship now, if they shoot whenever we get near.”

After a brief silence, Kelsey asked “Does anyone have an idea for what kind of fleet tactics they’ll employ?” Since Kelsey was the CIC analyst officer, she had worked with the available alien information trying to make sense of their tactics. “Everything I’ve seen makes me wonder how much AI capabilities they possess. For all we know, their entire ship could be automated. All their maneuvers have been incredibly precise.”

“In the skirmishes that have occurred so far, never more than a few ships were involved. The aliens have been content to fire a few warning shots and leave,” said Red. “Their ships have all been destroyer, or cruiser size. We've never seen them deploy any fighters.”

“What would they do in fleet formations? Will they act as independent units, or will they act in highly coordinated fashion?” asked Chui.

“Besides worrying about formation tactics, we need to understand how they react to causalities. For example, would they use suicide attacks?” asked Barrington.

“Tell me Gallant, do you think our fighters could defeat their small destroyer size ships, one on one?” asked Neumann.

“A single fighter would be out-matched by a Titan destroyer. The destroyer could fire ship-killer missiles and heavy plasma weapons. Our lasers and antimissile missiles don’t pack enough punch to inflict more than moderate damage. Given that our fighters are five times faster than their destroyers, a fighter squadron could coordinate antimissiles to knock out their missiles while strafing them with lasers. They might even use some antimissiles to impact vital areas of the ship. That at least would be worth attempting,” responded Gallant.

The group seemed thoughtful and remained quiet for some time. Gallant’s entire experience with this discussion was very different from the dialogue he had observed during the videoconference of the battle cruisers’ captains. It seemed that the two groups addressed completely different topics, reflecting dissimilar priorities. It was possible that the captains were more concerned with higher level issues of general warfare strategy while the midshipmen were focused on the specifics of tactics in combat and the nature of the enemy.

Gallant was satisfied that this interaction had resulted in his achieving a new relationship with his shipmates. He felt that he would no longer be shunned by them, with the possible exception of Neumann and his shadow, Chui.

Still, the alien problems, both strategic and tactical, remained daunting. They didn’t have enough information to connect all the dots. What kind of creatures were they? How advanced were they? How many ships did they have? Each a great questions, but Gallant didn’t have a worthy answer. Neither did anyone else. Nevertheless he knew they would soon find out—one way or the other.

Some answers came sooner than expected. That evening DSP 162 began transmitting data to
Repulse
. After its four week journey at 0.002c, the replacement probe had reached Saturn and begun gathering targeted information about Titan, just as Gallant and Kelsey had preprogrammed.

The preprogramming had included instructions for a stealth journey to penetrate close to Saturn and its moons. In particular, Kelsey had directed that information about the moon, Titan, be collected, including its industry and population, as well as shipyards and power stations. She was particularly interested in finding out about the alien’s physical nature, by examining their habitat.

CIC was bustling with scientists, analysts and technicians, sharing their data and opinions. The data was in the form of images, statistics, and synthesized logical conclusions, drawn by the probe’s AI. CIC coordinated efforts of radar, communications, and analysis teams under the Operations Department leader, Lieutenant Mather. The radar and telescope operators worked to correlate the long range information that they had previously collected, against this new reservoir of evidence.

Commander Jackson and her scientists joined in to field technical questions concerning the probe’s findings about Titan’s alien life-form. Jackson said, “Our analysis includes speculation about why Titan was chosen as the aliens' primary base. We believe that moon’s characteristics are especially favorable for them.”

Kelsey said, “While Saturn has a hydrogen-helium atmosphere, ice moon Titan is the only moon in the solar system with its own atmosphere. It’s bigger than Mercury and covered with hydrocarbon clouds within a nitrogen-rich atmosphere. A methane cycle with a complex molecular soup is formed from reactions in its upper atmosphere when ultraviolet radiation hits the methane. The probe’s data shows that Titan is a world with black, oily rivers—not to mention, lakes of methane at one hundred eighty degrees Kelvin.”

Jackson said, “Worlds, similar to Titan, that had temperatures suitable for liquid methane could be found around a red dwarf star. Red dwarfs are also often highly magnetically active, and experience large stellar flares that emit powerful bursts of ultraviolet radiation. One nearby possibility could be Gliese 581, an M3-type red dwarf located 20.5 light years away. Four planets have been confirmed orbiting Gliese 581.”

A member of Jackson’s staff added, “Life in this environment would be a whole new category of habitable planet, where liquid methane replaces our own liquid water cycle. Methane-based life-forms on Titan could consume hydrogen, acetylene, and ethane, and exhale methane instead of carbon dioxide. Such creatures would take in H2 in place of O2, react it with acetylene instead of glucose, and produce methane instead of carbon dioxide.”

Gallant tried to absorb all the new information and evaluate what it might mean when he had to face the aliens in battle. Since he would be in an armored suit with an oxygen-breathing apparatus, he guessed they might be in a similar suit, only with a methane-breathing apparatus. The same types of hand guns could be used by their adversaries.

After several hours, most of the scientists and technicians left the CIC area, leaving only Kelsey, Gallant, and the communication team members to review the data.

In the communication shack, Gallant and Kelsey looked over Howard’s shoulder as he presented the probe’s data records in detail.

Gallant speculated, “It's possible that it’s the gaseous outer planets that attract them. The data we’ve collected so far seems to indicate the Titans are 'terra-forming,' or in this case, 'Gliese-forming' our outer planets. They may have little desire to approach Earth or any of the inner planets. But as interlopers, they may assume that they will have to fight us for them. So they don’t want to communicate and give away any information.”

Kelsey reviewed the details they had of the alien ships’ characteristics in order to determine which images around Titan were warships. She estimated that large numbers of transports and warships had departed from Saturn since their last data dump. She said, “The Titan force approaching Jupiter in all likelihood came from Saturn, and that depleted the area’s numbers. More could still be coming from the outer planets, but for now, my estimate—or ‘guess,’ as the captain would frame it—is that at least two hundred ships are missing from the previous Saturn inventory.”

“How many would you say are warships? And what are the rest? Supply ships?” asked Gallant.

“About eighty percent80% are warships, and the rest could be a combination of transports and supply ships,” Kelsey replied.

“Transports? Then were looking at an invasion force,” he said with consternation.

“Most likely. Possibly twenty to thirty transports,” said Howard.

“Can you further refine the warship classes?” asked Gallant.

“No, too much of their infrastructure is underground in hardened bunkers, or camouflaged with overlaid emissions that mask information. They are deliberately keeping their warships hidden behind satellites, and much of their infrastructure is underground.”

“They have a space station at Titan that has a field generator that distorts their emissions, and it’s tough to evaluate. The aliens are going to try and surprise us with their actual strength and play misdirection, as much as possible,” said Gallant.

“Look at these images around Titan. Would you say they are orbital fortresses?” asked Kelsey.

There was a thoughtful silence while they considered the information. “The probe has been collecting emissions from the ships to identify them, but it’s also collecting communication signals between ships and facilities. We can make neither hide nor hair of what the signals are,” said Howard.

“That can’t be right. You mean you can’t decrypt or decode them?” asked Gallant.

“I mean the signals are a combination of dots, dashes, musical tone, frequency oscillations, and harmonics combined into a complex pattern that weaves them together beyond our understanding. I mean I can’t tell if it’s a language, an encrypted language, or if we’re getting their music videos,” said Howard.

Once again, they remained lost in their own thoughts.

“This information means that at least they will not achieve a complete strategic and tactical surprise. We have an opportunity to prepare,” said Kelsey.

“Nevertheless, this is going to be a massive attack that will test our strength,” said Gallant.

As the meeting was winding down, Captain Caine arrived and listened to their findings. He said, “Mr. Gallant, I want you and Midshipman Mitchel to go to Ganymede — immediately — and brief Colonel Ridgewood of the
7th Marines
about what he may be up against. In addition, I want you to send Chief Howard and a team of communication techs to set up a stealth relay communication satellite, so Ridgewood can stay in contact with
Repulse
while he’s in deep underground bunkers.”