For Honor We Stand (53 page)

Max looked over at DeCosta who had assumed his station about fifty seconds after Max assumed his.  “XO, if you have any brilliant ideas, or even relatively non-stupid ones, I’m all ears.”  At the last phrase, he touched his ears which were, truth be told, somewhat larger than average.

“They’re not that large, sir,” said DeCosta touching is own, more normally proportioned ears.  “But, as for the Vaaach, they spotted us, apparently without any difficulty, deep in interstellar space, with all our stealth systems engaged.  They’ve got reactionless drive, so they can run rings around us in terms of speed and maneuverability.  We couldn’t scratch their deflectors if we had the whole fleet here.  They’ve got an antimatter cannon that can turn us into a bright flash of light and gamma rays in about three tenths of a second.  It looks as though our best weapon is your proven ability to talk to them.  I read the reports from your last encounter.  It sure seems like you understand how they work.  I’m sure I speak for the rest of the crew when I say that I have every confidence, sir.”

“Thanks, XO, you are a source of nearly infinite comfort.”  Now, loud enough to be heard by all of CIC, he said, “Since we’re dealing with the greatest known Hunters and Warriors in the Galaxy, we need to look the part, people.  Weapons, we want them to find us loaded for bear.  Reload with Ravens in all three tubes, bring pulse cannon to Prefire.”  Listening to the acknowledgement and implementation of these orders with half an ear, he punched in the voice channel for the Marine detachment. 

“Kraft here,” came the answer right away, tinged with just a trace of a Germanic accent.

“Major, this is the skipper.  I need you and your six biggest men geared up to do battle with anything on two legs in CIC in about three minutes.  Possible?”

Max could almost hear the man smiling.  Even for a Marine, Major Kraft’s gung came with unusually large dose of ho.  “Sir, as the ship is at GQ, all of my men are already geared up to do battle with anything on two legs and just about anything that runs around on four, six, eight, or ten.  Do you want us in camo face paint or carrying any particular kind of heavy weapon.”

“The standard M-88s and M-72s will do fine, but I think the face paint is a good touch.”

“On our way.”

“Thank you, Major.  Skipper out.”  He punched the channel closed. 

“Mister Nelson, disengage all stealth systems.  Maneuvering, put us on an intercept course for the target.”

As Nelson and LeBlanc were carrying out those orders, DeCosta leaned in Max’s direction.  “Sir, I’m not sure I understand those last two orders.”

“Vaaach psychology,” said Max, without a trace of pedanticism or condescension.  He knew that what he was doing was anything but obvious.  “The Vaaach have detected us, apparently without difficulty.  Stealth, trying to hide, looks like cowardice.  Understand that the Vaaach divide all animal life into two categories:  predators and prey.  Then there are different categories of predator, but let’s skip that for now.  Anyway, if you don’t want to be treated like prey, you act like a predator.  So, that’s what we’re doing.  We disengage stealth and steer an intercept course.  In hunting terms, we’re going to step out from behind the bushes and face them like equals, not cower in the underbrush like frightened rabbits.  That make sense?”

“Yes, sir.  It does.  What are the categories of predator?”

“Pertinent question.  There are two—the Vaaach are sort of a black and white species—so they tend to divide lots of things into two, and only two, groups.  The categories of predator are ‘Hunters with Honor’ and ‘Hunters without Honor.’  You ever wonder why we spell ‘Vaaach’ V-A-A-A-C-H instead of just V-A-C-H when it would be the same phonetically?”

“Actually, I have, but I never bothered to look it up.”

“Curiosity about things like that might serve you well, XO.  You learn lots of interesting things when you take the time to find the answers to the questions your mind generates because some part of your mind has decided that those are the questions that you need to have answered.  Back to the Vaaach.  We spell it that way because it is a compound word made from three parts.  ‘Ach,’ meaning ‘hunters,’ ‘a’ meaning ‘having,’ ‘possessing,’ or ‘being endowed with,’ and ‘va’ meaning ‘honor.’  Of course their syntax is different from Standard.  They put the object of the preposition first, so ‘Va-a-ach,’ their own name for their race, means ‘hunters with honor.’  Says a lot about them, don’t you think?”

“Sure does, skipper.  Let’s hope that they honor us by not blowing us to flaming atoms.”

“Amen to that.”

“After reading your report from the last encounter, I always wondered . . . .”  DeCosta’s curiosity remained unsatisfied, because at that moment the ship gave a sudden lurch.

“Grap field,” announced Kasparov.  “Two-point-three-five million Hawkings.”

“Maneuvering, null the drive.  Take maneuvering thrusters to standby and inertial attitude control offline.”  The orders came quickly, but without any evident emotion.  “Not even a Battleship could make headway against a field that strong.  And they’ve probably got the damn thing set on ‘low.’”

As soon as LeBlanc acknowledged those orders, Kasparov spoke up.  “Sir, it’s déjà vu all over again.  Based on visually observed ship configuration and spectrum of the light from her view ports, Uniform one is posident as Vaaach, same type of ship as our last encounter.  Intel has code named that type
Boron
Class.  And, sir, based on what little trickle of sensor data I’m getting from her, we’re thinking it might be the same ship.”

“Wouldn’t that be an interesting coincidence,” Max said, hoping he sounded a lot calmer than he felt.  Several CIC displays showed an image of the Vaaach vessel, a gigantic, black spear point, bristling with technologically advanced means of killing other thinking beings.  The warships of most known species looked like non-threatening elongated boxes or elongated cylinders.  But, when the Vaaach built a warship, the ship itself looked like a deadly weapon.

Suddenly Chin stirred and started hitting controls.  “Sir, it’s only been less than a minute since they grabbed us, but we just received comms from the Vaaach ship, sir.  And, text sir, not visual.  Coming up on Commandcom.

The butterflies in Max’s stomach turned into a flock of condors.  If the Vaaach wanted to talk, they waited about a minute and a half and then established visual comms, usually on Channel 7.  No one ever received text comms from them.  At least, no one who lived to file a report.

Max read the text as it came up on the display.  “YOU HAVE MADE CLANDESTINE INCURSION INTO VAAACH TERRITORIAL SPACE STOP EXPLAIN QUICKLY WHY WE SHOULD NOT IMMEDIATELY DESTROY YOU STOP MESSAGE ENDS.”

“They certainly do not waste words,” said the doctor.

“Not usually, no,” Max said.  The doctor didn’t know the half of it.  The message contained none of the formalities of a Vaaach communication between hunters:  no greetings, no announcement of the sender’s identity and his credentials as a warrior/hunter, and no ritual insults to the recipient.  Just the combined demand and threat.  That was bad.  Very, very bad.  The Vaaach were pissed.

Max needed to send a reply.  Now.  And without much time to think about it.  What to say?  Think Honor.  The Vaaach are all about Honor and their Rules of the Hunt.  Max spent a few minutes typing on his console, made a few revisions, and then said, “Mister Chin, send the text that’s on CommandSend.”

“Aye, sir.”  Chin accessed the Commander Send data/comms channel, pulled up the message, and sent it.  Only after it went out could just about everyone in CIC read:  “THIS VESSEL IS FOLLOWING THE BLOOD TRAIL OF WOUNDED PREY STOP ENTRY NOT CLANDESTINE BUT ANNOUNCED BY REPEATED BROADCASTS ON STANDARD INTERSPECIES COMM CHANNELS STOP MESSAGE ENDS.”

“You’re not going to ask them not to kill us?”

“Absolutely not, doctor.  Not unless I have a strong desire to die in the next five seconds.  From the Vaaach perspective, any kind of pleading is at least a sign of weakness and, very likely, a sign of guilt.  If you are innocent, why plead for mercy rather than simply demonstrating that you are innocent?  What you do in this situation is tell the Vaaach the facts that
mean
they should not kill you:  in this case, first that we were in active pursuit of wounded prey, which under their rules gives us the right to enter their territory; and, second, that we didn’t sneak in but announced our presence honorably.”   

Major Kraft and his Marines cycled in through the hatch.  Having deduced what Max wanted them for, DeCosta arranged them behind the skipper so that if visual communications were established, the Vaaach would see six hardened warriors and their immediate commander arrayed behind their Captain, ready to engage in personal combat. 

Once the Marines were suitably arranged, no one said a word.  Either the Vaaach would respond to the message or they would activate their antimatter cannon and vaporize the
Cumberland
.  One or the other.  Any time in the next minute or so.  Max had to will himself to relax his grip on the arms of his chair.  He was sure his fingers had left permanent impressions in the metal.  The wait seemed endless.  Time oozed forward like a tired snail going uphill.

“Beep.”  Because of the usual murmur of voices in CIC, the soft electronic alert from the comms console was generally inaudible to anyone but a man sitting right in front of it.  This time, it sounded almost as loud as the General Quarters klaxon.  Everyone let out the breath they didn’t know they were holding. 

Chin dispensed with the usual announcements.  He just said, “On Commandcom, sir.”

“PROVIDE PRECISE IDENTIFICATION OF PREY YOU CLAIM TO HAVE WOUNDED STOP MESSAGE ENDS.”

At least it wasn’t a blast from their antimatter cannon.  Max typed.  A bit longer than last time.  “Send this.”

“Aye, sir.”

“PREY IS KRAG MEDIUM CRUISER UNION NAVAL REPORTING NAME CRAYFISH CLASS STOP DAMAGE INCLUDES DESTRUCTION OF METASPACIAL TRANSCEIVER ARRAY DAMAGE TO MULTIPLE MISSILE TUBES AND PROBABLE SMALL HULL BREACH STOP QUERY DO YOU WISH US TO MAKE SENSOR SCANS OF KRAG VESSEL OR SENSOR RECORDS OF BATTLE AVAILABLE TO YOU STOP MESSAGE ENDS.”

Again the waiting.  Clouseau stood up and stretched languorously, investing the familiar series of motions with the unaffected sensuality possessed only by cats and sexually confident human females.  He sprang lightly to the deck and, continuing to stretch while he walked, sauntered onto the command island and lay down with his head resting on Max’s left foot.  Max could not help but smile at the situation:  the domesticity of having a cat using one’s foot for a pillow, not in a living room in front of the fire, but on a heavily armed warship at battle stations facing possible annihilation by an advanced alien race nearly a thousand light years away from the blue and green world on which the respective owners of the head and the foot had evolved.

“Sir?”  It was Ensign Bales, the seldom heard from officer who oversaw the ship’s computer systems and data network. 

“Yes, Bales.”

“It’s hard to tell, but I think that the Vaaach just pulled a dump from our computer.”

“What did they get?”

“It looks like they scanned the whole MDC,” he said, his voice tinged with incredulity.

Most of the heads in CIC turned at that one.  The
Cumberland
’s
Main Data Core contained a stupefyingly enormous quantity of data.  The most rapid data transfer technology available in the Union—the fastest computer in existence reading the data, transmitting it over a high bandwidth, 2.5 million channel, polyphasic quantum differentiated laser “pipeline,” to be written by the fastest computer ever made--could probably accomplish it in half a day.  And the Vaaach had done it, not only without permission in nearly undetectable fashion from kilometers away without any physical connection, but had done so in only a minute or two.  Bales explained, “I would not have spotted it at all, but we did a super high resolution scan of our data drives after the last encounter and came up with a subtle signature made by the kind of sensor they use that gets left in the nano-magnetic substrate.  Basically, they employ a sophisticated quantum scan to take a snapshot of each one and zero molecule orientation in the memory matrix, which would mean that their sensor resolution is down to the molecular, if not atomic, level.  Then, they just convert the scan back into data using some kind of translation algorithm.  If that’s what it is, they have sensor technology like we never imagined.  Of course, we may be sitting here for a while waiting for any response—it will take them hours just to resolve the image into a machine readable data stream, and I can’t begin to predict what it will take for them to work their way through the operating system, find the files they want, translate them into their own language, and read them.” 

Max shook his head.  “No, Mister Bales, I don’t think it will take them long at all.  I think I may have time to take a leak, though.  Barely.”  Max got up and went to the head. 

He had just come back, had Gilbertson fetch him some coffee, and took a few sips when Chin announced, “Skipper, I’m receiving a request to establish visual communications, channel seven.”

“By all means, Mister Chin.  Let’s not keep the mighty hunters waiting.”

Chin worked his console.  Less than a minute later, Max’s Commandcom display and a dozen other displays around CIC punched into that channel showed the furry face of the Vaaach commander.  It looked like the same one they had encountered a few months before, but it was hard for humans to tell one Vaaach from another.  Basically, they all looked like Koala bears.  Enormous, ferocious, carnivorous, long fanged, very short-tempered Koala bears.  Koala bears that made an Earth grizzly bear look like the kind of bear you tuck under the quilt with your four year old daughter at bedtime.  The average Vaaach was 4.5 meters tall, with razor sharp retractable claws the size of carving knives, six fangs about as long as bayonets, and hard-staring yellow-green eyes that looked as though their owner was deciding how you would be at your most flavorful: fast grilled, slow roasted, or raw.