Dreadnought (4 page)

“Then
paint it again,” Tarrel insisted. “I don’t want to present my ship to
Starwolves looking like a tramp.”

Lake
considered that briefly. “All right, you get your paint.

Who
knows what might impress Starwolves? They eat prodigiously, and they seem to
like furry little animals and other cute things. People who have talked to them
say that they are never what you would expect, that they can be intelligent,
gentle and in many ways rather innocent. Other than that, I really don’t know
what I can tell you.”

“I’m
really not worried about the Starwolves, as long as I can get their attention
before they scorch my ship. It’s the things I can’t see that worry me more.”

Captain
Tarrel returned to her ship a couple of hours later, having argued with the
refitting crew about the installation of external missile racks on
Carthaginian’s hull. Getting that had taken some persuasion on her part, since
the battleship already carried four dozen missiles in internal bays, and also
because the crew chief had been reluctant to give additional ordnance to a ship
on a diplomatic mission, and possibly also from reluctance to give weapons to a
ship that was likely doomed anyway. But Tarrel wanted weapons that she could
use without betraying her intentions by opening bays or powering up a system.
Any trick that she might have up her sleeve would be a great help, considering
the disadvantage she was at already.

She
found that her crew had shrunk considerably in one respect, and grown somewhat
in others. She found herself with only three complete bridge crews, a basic
maintenance crew and a handful of other necessary specialists. Lake, forever
frugal, had left her with just enough to keep her ship running while risking
the fewest lives possible. Her crew had expanded by one, a rather clever but
harmless-looking young man, wearing the insignias of an executive officer, whom
she found sitting in her chair. Since she already had a second-in-command, the
rank of executive officer could mean just about anything from mission commander
to special advisor or observer. She decided that he was going to be an
observer, and he had better not observe anything from her chair ever again.

“And
just who are you?” she asked sharply as she checked the progress reports on the
ship’s refitting.

“Lieutenant
Commander Walter Pesca, reporting as ordered,” he responded briskly, affording
her a very snappy salute.

Oh,
the bright and eager type. “Why are you on board my ship, Mister?”

“I
was recommended as an advisor. I’m an alien contact specialist with extensive
training in linguistics. If you find new aliens, I’m supposed to learn how to
talk to them and try to guess whether they are telling the truth. If we end up
talking to Starwolves, I’m supposed to try to figure out their language so that
we can eavesdrop on them. Sector Commander Lake thought that you might find me
useful.”

“You
might be useful,” she agreed guardedly, “but you are not a command officer. And
only command officers can sit in my chair.”

“I
won’t forget, Captain.”

“Since
you were sitting in my chair, do you know what happened to my first officer?”
Tarrel asked.

“Right
behind you, Captain,” Chagin said, coming up behind her at that moment. “I was
just down checking the installation of the missile racks you wanted.”

“You
know, those missile racks are not really a very good idea,” Pesca remarked
brightly, pleased to be helpful.

Tarrel
glanced at him. “I found this person in my chair.” Pesca looked very nervous.
“There didn’t seem to be a senior officer on the bridge.”

“There
doesn’t have to be a senior officer on the bridge when the ship is secure at
station,” she told him. “And like I said, you’re not a command officer anyway.
Have you ever been on board a ship before?”

“Yes,
of course!” he insisted in injured tones. “I’ve traveled on the couriers many
times.”

“Couriers?
That’s like tourist class,” Tarrel exclaimed. “Did Commander Lake choose you for
this mission personally?” “Yes, I believe so.”

Tarrel
shook her head slowly. “You know, I’ve just become aware of a plot to
assassinate the Sector Commander. Assuming that I survive to come back for him.
Chagin, has anyone sent down word about where they expect us to find this
monstrosity?” “Captain, that information was given to me to relay to you,”
Pesca offered hopefully, seeming more sure of himself once he was discussing
business. “The Dreadnought has been following a predictable path along projected
patterns that have been shunted down to your computers. Given the anticipated
travel time for the convoy, we should be able to intercept the Dreadnought in
the Standon System in eight days. Orders have already been relayed ahead to
have the local traffic cleared and the station abandoned.”

“Dreadnought?”
Tarrel asked.

“It’s
a very old word for the largest class of battleship.” “Yes, I know that. It
just seems to suggest a very great certainty that the Starwolves are not behind
this.”

“That
does seem to be the suspicion, although I suppose that you know more about that
than I do,” Pesca said. “The term Dreadnought is one that is not used for any
of our ships and it also differentiates this ship from the known Starwolf
carriers. Assuming, of course, that it isn’t a modified carrier.”

“That’s
what they’re paying us to find out,” Tarrel commented. “Find yourself a cabin
near the bridge where I can find you in a hurry.”

“Thank
you, Captain,” Pesca said, and withdrew.

“Well,
what do you think of Wally?” she asked.

“He
seems competent enough, once his brain comes on-line,” Chagin remarked
dubiously. “They have to paint portions of the hull before they can hang all
the missile racks, but everything should be done in time.”

“Good.
I want those missiles rigged to fire without going through the main weapons
computer or targeting scanners. We should be able to do that ourselves without
upsetting the station crews.”

“They
find us strange enough already over the missile racks,” he agreed.

“Good.
Then tell them that I want every drone in the convoy rigged to explode from
full generator overload on a signal from here.”

Chagin
looked vaguely impressed. “Would that really destroy this thing?”

“No,
I doubt that,” Tarrel said. “I was just thinking about something. When I was
very young, I believed that little monsters danced in my room at night. I
thought that if I could turn on the light quickly enough, then I might catch
them by surprise before they could hide. I was thinking about doing something
like that with our Dreadnought.”

Chagin
had to think about that for a moment before he realized what she had in mind.

Carthaginian
led the convoy into the system, dropping abruptly out of starflight well out on
the fringes and maintaining nearlight speed as they hurtled directly in. This
was, as far as anyone could know, the best guess of where they could expect to
find the Dreadnought. The Standon system, their original destination, had
already been attacked while the convoy was in flight. The small commercial
station and base for the System Fleet was gone, although every ship that could
move or be moved had fled. They found this system in much the same condition,
indicating that the mysterious enemy ship had been here, too. They could not
know yet whether it had gone on again, seeking other prey.

In
spite of the best efforts of the computer grid to maintain the convoy in
perfect formation, the ships running in that widely spaced configuration were
of various sizes, types and stages of disrepair. Some were so decrepit that
their engines and generators surged and faded, some constantly and others at
unpredictable intervals. As far as Captain Tarrel was concerned, that was just
as well. The Dreadnought appeared to respond to high-energy emissions, and this
sad lot was making all manner of tempting noise.

“Disperse
the convoy to wide formation,” she ordered as soon as the group of ships had
settled in from their transition from starflight. “Arm all self-destructs
except our own. Wally, stand by with your communication.”

Lt.
Commander Pesca had learned to bear his nickname with good grace, assuming it
to be a compliment or term of affection.

He
remained blissfully unaware that the Captain simply found it difficult to
afford him the dignity of a military title.

“Communication
standing by,” he responded. “Do you still wish to send on the light-speed bands
as well?”

“Let’s
not leave any stones unturned,” Tarrel answered. “Broadcast your communication
now.”

Pesca
had put together a rather competent first-contact communication, repeated in
every major language he knew, including some that were entirely mathematical in
nature and transmitted on both achronic and standard radio bands, as many as
the ship could handle. They did not expect an actual dialogue with the
Dreadnought, but any response might give them a fix on its location and
possibly reveal something about its nature. At least they would know where to
look.

“We
already have a response,” Pesca announced only a few seconds after the
transition began. “One brief message on a single achronic band. Less powerful
than a Starwolf achronic carrier, but more distinct.”

“What
about the message?” Tarrel asked impatiently.

“The
computer can’t identify anything familiar about it.” “Any guesses?”

Pesca
considered that briefly. “It is a machine code and very brief. I suspect that
we have just been hailed with a recognition code. If we respond properly, we
get to talk. If not, we get blown away. That suggests to me that the
Dreadnought is entirely machine-driven.”

“Clever
boy,” Tarrel remarked to herself, thinking that Wally might just win back his
rank at this rate. “Do you have a direction on that signal?”

“I’m
putting it up on the navigational grid now, Captain.” Tarrel glanced at the
navigational monitor, a large screen between the helm and navigator’s stations
just before her. To her alarm, the source Of that signal was nearly directly
behind and slightly above their own flight path. It was probably moving in to
intercept. Carthaginian was following the convoy. At this point, they were the
most tempting target.

“Move
us quickly up through the convoy until we are leading,” she ordered
frantically. “I want a safe lead on those ships as quickly as we can get it.
Stand by the self-destructs.”

“We
can’t detonate those ships while we’re anywhere within the convoy,” Chagin
reminded her.

“Yes,
I know that. I just hope that we can get through before that thing takes out
too many of our ships.”

She
did not add that, with the Carthaginian accelerating quickly through the
convoy, her powerful main drives would be giving out some very appealing
emissions. She considered the risk to be worthwhile. Indeed, they were almost
through the convoy before the first of the ships suddenly exploded.

“Are
we clear?” she asked.

“Give
me thirty seconds more and we should be able to ride out the shock wave without
damage,” Chagin reported.

“Make
that forty seconds more,” the surveillance officer added. “We might not get a
reading if we’re too close, and we need the lead time to make a good
identification.”

“I’ll
give you every second I can. Just stand ready.”

A
second ship was taken out before the minimum time to safely detonate the
convoy. Captain Tarrel counted the seconds to herself, but the loss of a third
ship just short of the surveillance officer’s mark convinced her that it was
time to go. The delay in executing the order would take care of the rest, with
some to spare. If she lost too many ships, the plan would not work.

Every
ship in the convoy exploded its generators from a forced overload at the same
moment, the combined blast enough to destroy a planet but spread over a fairly
large area of space. And the leading edge of that blast was coming right up
Carthaginian’s tail. Fortunately the battleship was already traveling nearly
fast enough to outrun even the flash, and she had begun moving to the very edge
of transition threshold since the order to detonate. She needed every second
she could get to stay ahead of the shock wave, which would be just as deadly to
her systems as the Dreadnought’s high-energy weapon unless it had some time to
dissipate.

“I
have it!” the surveillance officer announced. “Positive contact!”

“Blessed
be!” Tarrel declared. “Take us on into transition. We might be lucky enough to
avoid the shock wave completely. ”

As
soon as Carthaginian was safely into starflight, she joined Chagin and Pesca at
the surveillance station for a look at what the scanner had been able to
detect. Even Carthaginian’s most accurate and powerful active scanners had been
unable to identify any trace of the Dreadnought. But the explosion of the
convoy and the tremendous energy involved had acted like a powerful flash or
strobe, briefly illuminating the mysterious ship, and the passive scanners had
been aimed past the flash to capture the reflection from the Dreadnought. The
information collected had not amounted to much, the most intriguing item being
the visual representation of achronic scattering of tachyons emitted by the
blast. To their frustration, all it showed was a featureless gray cylinder with
rounded ends.

“Is
that the ship?” Pesca asked.

Chagin
shook his head. “That’s just the reflection from her hull shields, if I had to
guess. I don’t like guessing anything about the monster, but I have seen that
often enough to be certain.”

“That’s
it,” the surveillance officer agreed.

“Do
we have a size on that?” Tarrel asked.

“I
can give accuracy to within ten percent. We have a length of twelve kilometers
by just under three across. No indication of just how large the ship inside
that shield might be, unfortunately. The Dreadnought’s visual and electronic
invisibility is probably some function of the shield, which must be extremely
powerful. Otherwise we should have had some reflection from the ship itself.”