Starship Tomahawk (The Hive Invasion Book 2) (15 page)

"Begging your pardon, Ma'am. I realize I'm not welcome in your hangar, but in the interests of being neighborly I could help you with the door."

She peered at him suspiciously. For all his polite words he looked a bit smug, and she wanted to tell them to go march off a cliff. But he had to be twice her mass, and her screaming muscles told her not to be foolish. "That would be wonderful. I just need a gap of a couple meters or so."

He turned away, and she heard a faint rattle as he laid his rifle on the tarmac. A moment later there was a man on each door, grunting with effort as they heaved the doors open. She noted with satisfaction that, even for such big men, it was not an easy task. She grabbed the handle on the inside, started to help, and felt her muscles protest. "Oh, to hell with it." She stepped back and let the men do the work.

When each door had moved about a meter, both men stepped back, panting. More men moved in to take their place, these ones in blue Navy uniforms. A man and woman came into the hangar, grabbed the handles, and helped.

When the gap was four or five meters, Christine called, "That's enough. That's really all I need." Everyone kept heaving, drowning out her voice in the squeal of protesting metal. She had to shout before everyone froze, staring at her.

"That's wide enough," she said. "I don't need the doors open all the way." They straightened up, brushing dust from their uniforms. "Thank you," said Christine. "I really appreciate it." After a moment she added, "Some of you risked your lives coming here."
Idiot. They flew into a system occupied by the Hive.
"All of you risked your lives coming here. And you helped us liberate the planet. Thank you for that, too." She stopped, feeling foolish.

"We're all in this together," said a man with a rank stripe across his chest. "You colonists fought like heroes."

His voice was familiar, and she moved sideways to get a better look at him. Without sunlight behind him she could see his face. He was about thirty, with sandy hair and the dark blotch of an old bruise marring his cheek. "Nicholson, isn't it?" She thought for a moment. "Captain?"

Someone behind him chuckled, and he grinned. "Lieutenant, actually. Are you Ms. Goldfarb?" They'd met during a planning session before the raid on the alien tower in Garibaldi Plaza. "I should have the marines sweep the building."

It could use a good sweeping. It's filthy in here.
"Do you really imagine some Hive troops locked themselves inside?"

"Well, no." He shrugged. "We should be thorough, though. They're going through the entire city."

"I'll holler if any aliens come scuttling out of the shadows," she promised.

"Good enough." His head tilted back as he looked up at the freighter. "I didn't know there was a ship in here."

A voice inside her head told her to be cautious. She didn't want the Navy confiscating the bloody thing, or some such foolishness. But it was a bit late to pretend there was no ship, so she gave in to her natural enthusiasm. "It's the
Theseus
," she said. "We called it that because it keeps visiting Ariadne and then suddenly leaving." By the blank look on his face he didn't know his Greek mythology, so she rolled her eyes and continued. "She's a surplus freighter, purchased by the colony eight years ago. It's the only ship in the system that's all ours."

The old freighter must have looked pretty humble to a Navy man, but it didn't show in his face. He gazed up at the
Theseus
, smiling, and said, "Nice. It's a Heron-class, right?"

She nodded, surprised by how pleased she was that he recognized it. "One of the last ones ever made."

He gave an approving nod. "They don't make 'em this solid anymore. Which is dumb, considering how the cost of fuel has come down." He took off his cap and raked fingers through his hair, wincing a bit as his arm rose above his shoulder. "This thing will outlast ships ten years newer. Twenty, maybe."

"I know!" She couldn't help warming to one of her favorite subjects. "The frame is solid titanium, and it's thick. Thicker than most steel frames these days. You could drop this baby from fifty meters up and not do a lick of damage."

Nicholson walked forward, still gazing up at the ship, then paused and looked at Christine. "Er, do you mind if I take a look at her?"

Well, that's more courtesy than his marines showed.
She smiled. "Go ahead."

The crowd in the doorway dispersed as the two of them walked together, circling the ship, talking the entire time. "I wasn't on the
Alexander
," Nicholson said, "but I watched through a window on the
Achilles
while she took apart the Hive fleet during the battle for Earth. Gave me a whole new respect for older ship designs, let me tell you." He nodded in the direction of the corvette. "Don't get me wrong, the
Achilles
is a beautiful ship. But if I had to fly through a Hive swarm, I'd want to be in something from this era." He pointed up at the
Theseus
.

"Especially if I can shield it," she said, and he looked at her sharply. "I have some ideas," she said, uncomfortable under his sudden scrutiny. "Is it true the aliens mostly use heat weapons?"

He nodded. "I haven't been in a space battle yet, but I've seen all the reports." He thought for a moment. "Actually, there's one exception. Two exceptions. Their EMP weapon, whatever it is. It seems to be more effective than any EMP strike we've ever developed. I mean, we have EMP shielding. We've had it for decades. But this weapon of theirs, whatever it is, goes right through everything."

The implications fascinated her, but she tried to look solemn instead of smiling in delight. "What's the other exception?"

"That tower. The gun they built in Garibaldi Plaza." He glanced at her. "Actually, I wanted to ask you if you would talk to the science team. They're tinkering with the weapon, and they're just about having kittens. Before this, all they've had to work with is shot-up scraps of ships from space battles. Rumor has it you're a brilliant scientist. I thought you might be able to offer some insight."

The compliment pleased her more than she would have expected, and she felt her cheeks grow warm. "It's not really my area of expertise …"

"We've been studying Hive technology for less than two months," he said. "It isn't anyone's area of expertise. Anyway, if you decide you're interested, you'll find them at Garibaldi Plaza. They know you by reputation already. They've heard about your work with heat shielding."

Learning that strangers were talking about her was unsettling.
Well, if my idea works out, plenty of people will be talking about me. I better get used to it.
"I might do that," she said.

Nicholson lifted a finger to his ear. "Whoops. Duty calls. It was nice meeting you, Ms. Goldfarb." He hurried away.

Christine finished circling the ship, relieved to see that everything seemed intact. She looked up at the freighter's ugly, blocky lines, not really seeing it. Instead she saw possibility. The
Theseus
had a lot of hull space, a lot of area where heat could dissipate. Her half-hearted attempts to adapt her heat-shielding technology to make personal armor had failed completely.

A spaceship, though …

The refrigerator in the corner of the hangar had long since stopped working, but the canned drinks inside were perfectly drinkable, if warm. She sat on a workbench sipping fruit juice and staring at the ship, thinking about heat and refrigeration and the stresses that acted on a spacecraft. She rested until weariness gave way to restlessness, and then she hopped down from the bench, tossed the can in the raw materials bin, and headed for the exit.

Her legs were stiff from sitting, but she knew the stiffness wouldn't last. She'd be sore tomorrow, but tomorrow would be soon enough to worry about that. She'd be done walking soon. Done for the day, most likely. The odds of her reaching her apartment today seemed small. She'd spend the night in her workshop, as she had so many times before.

The door to her workshop stood open. She frowned, then noticed the track the door had left in the dust inside. It had been opened recently, then. Probably by Nicholson's marines, checking for stray Hive troops. Unless an alien had opened the door, darting inside to evade the same marines.

Snorting at her own paranoia, she went into the workshop. The lights surprised her by coming on. They wouldn't last. Her batteries had to be almost dead.

It was a large workshop, maybe a third the size of the hangar. She had five fabricators, smaller and much more sophisticated than the industrial units at the factory. She wouldn't be able to run any of the machines until someone restored power. She would have to pester George Thompson and get him to make this district a priority.

A bin near the door held several dozen metal filaments, each one a rod no thicker than the lead in a pencil but longer than her arm. She called them Fourier filaments, and they were the crowning achievement in her career so far. You could hold one end of the filament in your hand, poke the other end into a candle, and feel the heat of the candle immediately. Fourier filaments had an incredibly high heat conductance.

A ship with a hull made of Fourier metal would always be the same temperature from stem to stern. The heat from the alien weapon would spread evenly across the entire ship. The hull would get hotter and hotter, taking no damage, until the entire hull reached its melting point.

At which time the entire hull would melt, all at once.

With the surface area of the
Theseus
, it was unlikely to be a concern. Still, there were steps she could take to make the heat shield even safer. Thicker hull plates, for example, would help. The problem was, she only had so much of the metal on hand. It was wretchedly difficult to make, requiring large amounts of silver and zinc. The biggest ingredients were copper and aluminum. She had plenty of those, but very little zinc.

No, the key was to take all that incoming heat and radiate it back into space. Vacuum was an excellent insulator for conduction and convection, but not for radiation. The key to heat loss by radiation was surface area.

Thick hull plates weren't the answer, then. Filaments were. She would cover the
Theseus
in a thin layer of Fourier metal, and then add thickets of filaments like patches of hair. Each filament would poke out into the void, radiating heat and cooling the ship. If she could mount enough filaments on the hull, the ship would be effectively immune to Hive weapons.

Of course, any substance that conducted heat well would also conduct electricity. What would the EMP weapon do to Fourier filaments? She imagined the filaments lighting up as current flowed through them, with sparks leaping back and forth.
I wonder if I could mount a couple of cameras on the hull. I would love to see what that looks like. Of course, if the EMP weapon is firing, the cameras will be fried …

She pictured the
Theseus
in deep space, surrounded by Hive ships, and an unexpected wave of fear crashed into her.
This is the enemy that tore apart the toughest ships in Spacecom. They nearly conquered the Earth, and they're smarter now. They've adapted, learned how to hurt us. The
Theseus
won't last five seconds.

"Who am I kidding?" She dropped the filament back in the bin, wrapped her arms around her stomach, and moaned. "We're doomed. We're in deep space, surrounded by hostile aliens, and we're going to die." Her stomach muscles clenched involuntarily, and she dropped into a squat, curling forward until her face was against her knees. For weeks she'd been living under a tree in an orchard, tinkering in a farmer's garage, and suppressing the fear that ground away at her day and night.

Now, it all hit her at once.

In a dim corner of her mind she realized she was lying on her side, curled into a ball. The floor was none too clean, but she didn't care. She clutched her knees and sobbed as fear and loss washed over her, through her. On and on it went, until her habit of analysis, which was as much a part of her as breathing, began to assert itself. She began to wonder how long it would take to process this backlog of emotion, whether there was a formula that could measure duration and intensity.

Once the analytical part of her brain got started, there was no stopping it. She wanted to keep crying. She wanted catharsis. She wanted every last bit of suppressed horror to be experienced, exorcised, released. But her body uncurled, she shifted into a more comfortable position on the floor, and her mind, despite her intentions, wandered.

Finally she stood up, stretched to release some stiffness, and wiped her face. She brushed the worst of the dust from her face and crossed her workshop to where chalkboard paint covered a section of wall. She wiped away a diagram of the atomic composition of Fourier metal and went looking for a piece of chalk.

"Heat shielding," she wrote. "Fourier metal hull plates and filaments for heat dissipation." She paused, gathering her thoughts. "Shields aren't enough," she wrote. "The ship must be armed."

Hammett was the last to leave the
Tomahawk
.

He paused in front of the airlock, taking a last look down the length of the ship he'd commanded for a few short weeks. She had served him well. She'd destroyed her own weight in Hive ships, and he would miss her.

Most of all, she represented a phase of the war that, he was reluctantly beginning to realize, was now over. Things had been simple when he left Earth. Us versus them. Humans against the Hive, with all of humanity united against the alien threat. The alien threat remained, as strong as ever. Humanity still hung by a thread, waiting to be devoured by the inevitable Hive counter-attack.

But humanity was no longer united.

"Unbelievable," he muttered, then turned his back on the
Tomahawk
, ducked through the airlock hatch, and entered the battlefield of a different war.

He moved through the airlock in the nose of the
Tomahawk
and stepped through into the airlock in the nose of the corvette
Tulwar
. The two ships were locked together nose to nose, like strange dogs meeting.

A marine stood on sentry duty just inside the lock, the first of many unsettling changes. Hammett wasn't displeased to learn the Corps had been reinstated, though he was alarmed by the speed of implementation. How much training did this hulking young man really have with the rifle slung over his shoulder?

He understood the value of the Marine Corps – a handful of marines might have saved a bunch of lives on the
Alexander
– but their presence on a tiny, crowded ship like the
Tulwar
was disturbing in its implications. He was pretty sure the marines weren't on board to fight aliens.

They were there to control the crew.

Beyond the marine the narrow corridor was crammed with crew from the
Tomahawk
. There was simply nowhere else to put them. Hammett stood shoulder to shoulder beside Benson, who leaned into Geibelhaus to make room. It wasn't comfortable, but the trip to the surface of Ariadne wouldn't take long. Hammett frowned, wondering how long he'd be grounded.

The deck plates thumped against the soles of his feet as the ship touched down. After a minute the line of sailors began shuffling along, moving deeper into the ship, heading for the landing ramp. Hammett waited until Benson was a pace or two away, then followed.

A minute later he was on the surface of Ariadne for the first time, squinting in sunlight that had a bit more red than he was used to, taking in the scent of lush plants and a hint of flowers, overlaid by the steel and hydraulic fluid stink of the ship behind him. The rest of the crew milled around the landing gear, unsure of what to do next.

The
Tulwar's
commanding officer followed Hammett down the landing ramp, a handful of her own crew behind her. It was easy to tell who was on which crew. The Navy's uniform had changed while Hammett had been gone. Sailors wore black armbands now.

Major Potter was a blonde woman of about forty, her hair pulled back in a severe braid. Her face was compressed in a pinched expression that looked permanent. She reminded Hammett of teachers he'd known, the worst kind, the ones constantly scanning the room for any sign of rule-breaking.

Every few minutes she'd reach up and touch the sash across her chest, as if to remind herself of her position and authority. Everyone else got plenty of reminders too. She barked pointless orders at the sailors who followed her, telling them to stand in a line, shoulder to shoulder, beside the ramp. Then she stomped back and forth in front of the hapless sailors, eyeing them like she was inspecting an honor guard. She glared at one man, a seasoned specialist who stared back with the equanimity of a professional who knows his worth. "Stand up straight," she said. "Hold your head up high."

It made Hammett's hackles rise. She wasn't actually trying to destroy the morale of her crew. She was simply a foolish woman who knew she didn't deserve the power she wielded. Everyone else knew it too, which drove her to assert herself. Without meaningful orders to give, she would give pointless orders. The crew would resent her for it. They would resist in subtle, petty ways, and she would just get worse.

"You there." Potter made a gesture that encompassed most of Hammett's crew. "Don't just stand around like a bunch of lallygaggers. Form a proper line." She flapped an arm, indicating a stretch of tarmac in front of the
Tulwar
where they might line up.

A dozen pairs of eyes swung toward Hammett. He sighed and said, "As you were."

Potter turned to face him, her mouth tightening until her lips all but disappeared. "I'm a major in the EDF!"

"Come and see me when you get a Spacecom rank," he said, and turned his back. A quick scan of the area showed him a ruined building that might have been a terminal, a large hangar, and a third corvette. He walked swiftly toward the third ship, needing to put distance between himself and the ridiculous EDF woman. If he stayed he was going to tell her off, if he managed not to deck her first. That would help nothing.

The ship was the
Achilles
. Half a dozen people stood under the port wing, gathered around the base of a rolling ladder. Atop the ladder a sailor was opening hatches and poking at exposed cables and tubes. Hammett headed toward the group.

A familiar figure turned as he approached. "Captain," said Kaur. "I'm glad you made it down to the surface." She smiled. "I wanted to pick you up, but it wasn't … prudent."

A quick scan of the group showed no marine uniforms and no black armbands. It was an uncomfortable precaution to take, and one Hammett already sensed was going to become a habit. He walked aft, out of easy earshot of the rest of the group, and Kaur followed. They stopped under the tail of the ship, and both of them looked around for eavesdroppers before they spoke.

"The
Achilles
is grounded," Kaur said. "Totally incapable of flight."

That was bad news. "What's wrong with her?"

"Her crew have disconnected cables and couplings all over the ship," Kaur said, poker-faced. "If you need her, she'll be spaceworthy in about fifteen minutes. If her new commanding officer needs her, or the general in charge of the fleet, well …" She shrugged. "It could be weeks." She looked at Hammett, her expression wary.

"Not liking the EDF is one thing," Hammett said. "Disabling a ship, though?"

"Have you heard about Montreal?"

Hammett shook his head, then listened in growing shock as Kaur brought him up to speed.

"It's two Navies now," Kaur said. "The one that serves humanity, and the one that serves the EDF."

"Good God."

"Amen," Kaur said, and flashed a bleak smile. "The
Achilles
will be spaceworthy when the Hive returns, and not a minute sooner."

They stood for a moment in silence. Then Hammett said, "I need to billet my people."

That brought a chuckle from Kaur. "You may find things are a tiny bit disorganized. Refugees are trickling into the city, no one knows how many. Some people are dead, some are staying in the countryside until things quiet down. There are marines still sweeping the outskirts for aliens. My crew's still working out the details of their billets, and we don't know yet how many personnel are coming down from the new fleet."

"Well, who do I talk to? Please tell me it's not Major Potter."

Kaur chuckled again. "No, the man you need to see is Lieutenant Nicholson. He's more or less become our groundside coordinator and liaison with the colonists." Kaur paused for a moment, thinking. "Last I saw, he was heading for the sports fields." She gestured north. "Something's going on there, I'm not sure what. In the meantime, there's sort of a canteen set up at the Roadrunner. It's a good place to wait while people get organized." She pointed west. "It's a restaurant just across the street from the terminal. The terminal's the building with the hole in it," she added.

"All right, thanks, Commander." Hammett glanced around and spotted a red-shirted figure striding away from the
Tulwar
, heading for the terminal building.

"The EDF have their own hangout," Kaur said. "There's a bar in the terminal that's mostly undamaged. They've figured out the Navy personnel don't really enjoy their company." She made a face. "I think it's mutual. They don't like being around people who don't take them seriously. So they just hang around with each other."

"Lovely," Hammett said. "I'll see you later." He headed back to the
Tulwar
, where he told his crew about the Roadrunner. "I'm looking into billeting," he told them. "Then we'll see about further assignments. In the meantime, go have a bite to eat and relax. You've earned it."

He watched them go, weary, shuffling figures, many of them walking in a daze. He was the only member of the ship's company with combat experience, aside from the disastrous Battle of Earth. Those who were in that battle would have spent the duration floating helpless in a crippled ship. Today was their first real introduction to war.

They would relax, and let the realization that they were safe and still alive slowly seep in. They would drink too much, and talk to one another about the battle, and raise a glass to the people they'd lost. Without an officer present they would be able to let off steam. He vowed to stay away from the Roadrunner for at least a couple of hours.

He remembered his own first experience of combat. He remembered the aftermath, the shocked, harrowed looks on the faces of his shipmates. He felt like an old, old man as he turned away and went in search of Lieutenant Nicholson.