“You think they arrived early and caught someone setting the trap,” Coloma said.
“I don’t know about ‘caught,’” Wilson said. “I think whoever it was was in the process of setting the trap and then was surprised by the Polk’s arrival.”
“You just said these things were looking for the Utche,” Abumwe said. “But it sounds like one of them hit the Polk, too.”
“If the people setting the trap were nearby, it would be trivial to change the programming of the missile,” Wilson said. “It’s set to receive. And once the thing hit the Polk, it would be too busy focusing on that to pay much attention when a strange ship popped up on its sensors. Until it was too late.”
“The early arrival of the Polk ruined their plans,” Coloma said. “Why is this thing still out there?”
“I think it changed their plans,” Wilson said. “They had to kill the Polk when it arrived early, and they had to get rid of as much of it as possible to leave in doubt what happened to it. But as long as there’s enough CDF missile debris among the wreckage of the Utche ship, then mission accomplished. Having the Polk go missing works just fine with that, since it looks like the CDF is hiding the ship, rather than presenting it to prove the missiles didn’t come from it.”
“But we know what happened to the Polk,” Abumwe said.
“They don’t know that,” Wilson pointed out. “Whoever they are. We’re the wild card in the deck. And it doesn’t change the fact that the Utche are still a target.”
“Have you disabled the missile?” Coloma asked.
“No,” Wilson said. “I was able to read the missile’s instruction set, but I can’t do anything to change it. I’m locked out of that. And I don’t have any tools with me that can disable it. But even if I disabled this one, there are others out there. Hart’s and my heat map shows four more of these things out there beside this one. We have less than an hour before the Utche are scheduled to arrive. There’s no way to physically disable them in time.”
“So we’re helpless to stop the attack,” Abumwe said.
“No, wait,” Coloma said. “You said there’s no way to physically disable them. Do you have another way to disable them?”
“I think I might have a way to destroy them,” Wilson said.
“Tell us,” Coloma said.
“You’re not going to like it,” Wilson said.
“Will I like it better than us standing by while the Utche are attacked and then we are framed for it?” Coloma said.
“I’d like to think so,” Wilson said.
“Then tell us,” Coloma said.
“It involves the shuttle,” Wilson said.
Coloma threw up her hands. “Of course it does,” she said.
IX.
“Here—” Schmidt thrust a small container and a mask into Wilson’s hands. “Supplementary oxygen. For a normal person that’s about twenty minutes’ worth. I don’t know what that would be for you.”
“About two hours,” Wilson said. “More than enough time. And the other thing?”
“I got it,” Schmidt said, and held up another object, not much larger than the oxygen container. “High-density, quick-discharge battery. Straight from the engine room. It required the direct intervention of Captain Coloma, by the way. Chief Engineer Basquez was not pleased to be relieved of it.”
“If everything goes well, he’ll have it back soon,” Wilson said.
“And if everything doesn’t go well?” Schmidt asked.
“Then we’ll all have bigger problems, won’t we,” Wilson said.
They both looked at the shuttle, which Wilson was about to reenter after a brief pit stop in the Clarke’s bay.
“You really are insane, you know that,” Schmidt said, after a moment.
“I always think it’s funny when people get told what they are by other people,” Wilson said. “As if they didn’t already know.”
“We could just set the autopilot on the shuttle,” Schmidt said. “Send it out that way.”
“We could,” Wilson said. “If a shuttle was like a mechanical vehicle you could send on its way by tying a brick to its accelerator pedal. But it’s not. It’s designed to have a human at the controls. Even on autopilot.”
“You could alter the programming on the shuttle,” Schmidt said.
“We have roughly fifteen minutes before the Utche arrive,” Wilson said. “I appreciate the vote of confidence in my skills, but no. There’s no time. And we need to do more than just send it out, anyway.”
“Insane,” Schmidt reiterated.
“Relax, Hart,” Wilson said. “For my sake. You’re making me twitchy.”
“Sorry,” Schmidt said.
“It’s all right,” Wilson said. “Now, tell me what you’re going to do after I leave.”
“I’m going to the bridge,” Schmidt said. “If you’re not successful for any reason, I will have the Clarke send out a message on our frequencies warning the Utche of the trap, to not confirm the message or to broadcast anything on their native communication bands, and request that they get the hell out of Danavar space as quickly as possible. I’m to invoke your security clearance to the captain if there are any problems.”
“That’s very good,” Wilson said.
“Thank you for the virtual pat on the head, there,” Schmidt said.
“I do it out of love,” Wilson assured him.
“Right,” Schmidt said dryly, and then looked over at the shuttle again. “Do you think this is actually going to work?” he asked.
“I look at it this way,” Wilson said. “Even if it doesn’t work, we have proof we did everything we could to stop the attack on the Utche. That’s going to count for something.”
* * *
Wilson entered the shuttle, fired up the launch sequence and while it was running took the high-density battery and connected it to the Polk’s black box. The battery immediately started draining into the black box’s own power storage.
“Here we go,” Wilson said for the second time that day. The shuttle eased out of the Clarke’s bay.
Schmidt had been right: This all would have been a lot easier if the shuttle could have been piloted remotely. There was no physical bar to it; humans had been remote-piloting vehicles for centuries. But the Colonial Union insisted on a human pilot for transport shuttles for roughly the same reason the Colonial Defense Forces required a BrainPal signal to fire an Empee rifle: to make sure only the right people were using them, for the right purposes. Modifying the shuttle flight software to take the human presence out of the equation would not only require a substantial amount of time, but would also technically be classified as treason.
Wilson preferred not to engage in treason if he could avoid it. And so here he was, on the shuttle, about to do something stupid.
On the shuttle display, Wilson called up the heat map he’d created, and a timer. The heat map registered each of the suspect missile silos; the timer counted down until the scheduled arrival of the Utche, now less than ten minutes away. From the mission data given to Ambassador Abumwe, Wilson had a rough idea of where the Utche planned to skip into Danavar space. He plotted the shuttle in another direction entirely and opened up the throttle to put sufficient distance between himself and the Clarke, counting the kilometers until he reached what he estimated to be a good, safe distance.
Now for the tricky part, Wilson thought, and tapped his instrument panel to start broadcasting a signal on the Utche’s communication bands.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” Wilson said to the missiles.
The missiles did not hear Wilson. They heard the shuttle’s signal instead and erupted from their silos, one, two, three, four, five. Wilson saw them twice, first on the shuttle’s monitor and second through the Clarke’s sensor data, ported into his BrainPal.
“Five missiles on you, locked and tracking,” Wilson heard Schmidt say, through the instrument panel.
“Come on, let’s play,” Wilson said, and pushed the shuttle
as fast as it would go. It was not as fast as the missiles could go, but that wasn’t the point. The point was twofold. First, to get the missiles as far away from where the Utche would be as possible. Second, to get the missiles spaced so that the explosion from the first missile on the shuttle would destroy all the other missiles, moving too quickly to avoid being damaged.
To manage that, Wilson had broadcast his signal from a point as close to equidistant to all five silos as could be managed and still be a safe distance from the Clarke. If everything worked out correctly, the missile impacts would be within a second of each other.
Wilson looked at the missile tracks. So far, so good. He had roughly a minute before the first impact. More than enough time.
Wilson unstrapped himself from the pilot seat, picked up the oxygen container, secured it on his unitard combat belt and fastened the mask over his mouth and nose. He ordered his combat unitard to close over his face, sealing the mask in. He picked up the black box and pinged its charge status; it was at 80 percent, which Wilson guessed would have to be good enough. He disconnected it from the external battery and then walked to the shuttle door, carrying the black box in one hand and the battery in the other. He positioned himself at what he hoped was the right spot, took a very deep breath and chucked the battery at the door release button. It hit square on and the door slid open.
Explosive decompression sucked Wilson out the door a fraction of a second earlier than he expected. He missed braining himself on the still-opening door by about a millimeter.
Wilson tumbled away from the shuttle on the vector the decompressing air had placed him but kept pace with the shuttle in terms of its forward motion, a testament to fundamental Newtonian physics. This was going to be bad news in roughly forty seconds, when the first missile hit the shuttle; even without an atmosphere to create a shock wave that would turn his innards to jelly, Wilson could still be fried and punctured by shrapnel.
He looked down at the Polk’s black box, tightly gripped close to his abdomen, and sent it a signal that informed it that it had been ejected from a spaceship. Then, despite the fact that his visual feed was now being handled by his BrainPal, he closed his eyes to fight the vertigo of the stars wheeling haphazardly around him. The BrainPal, interpreting this correctly, cut off the outside feed and provided Wilson with a tactical display instead. Wilson waited.
Do your thing, baby, he thought to the black box.
The black box got the signal. Wilson felt a snap as the black box’s inertial field factored his mass into its calculus and tightened around him. On the tactical display coming from his BrainPal, Wilson saw the representation of the shuttle pull away from him with increasing speed, and saw the missiles flash by his position, their velocity increasing toward the shuttle even as his was decreasing. Within a few seconds, he had slowed sufficiently that he was no longer in immediate danger of the shuttle impact.
In all, his little plan had worked out reasonably well so far.
Let’s still not ever do this again, Wilson said to himself.
Agreed, himself said back.
“First impact in ten seconds,” Wilson heard Schmidt say, via his BrainPal. Wilson had his BrainPal present him with a stabilized, enhanced visual of outside space and watched as the now invisible missiles bore down on the hapless, also invisible shuttle.
There was a series of short, sharp light bursts, like tiny firecrackers going off two streets away.
“Impact,” Schmidt said. Wilson smiled.
“Shit,” Schmidt said. Wilson stopped smiling and snapped up his BrainPal tactical display.
The shuttle and four of the missiles had been destroyed. One missile had survived and was casting about for a target.
On the periphery of the tactical display, a new object appeared. It was the Kaligm. The Utche had arrived.
Send that message to the Utche NOW, Wilson subvocalized to Schmidt, and the BrainPal transmuted it to a reasonable facsimile of Wilson’s own voice.
“Captain Coloma refuses,” Schmidt said a second later.
What? Wilson sent. Tell her it’s an order. Invoke my security clearance. Do it now.
“She says to shut up, you’re distracting her,” Schmidt said.
Distracting her from what? Wilson sent.
The Clarke started broadcasting a warning to the Utche, warning them of the missile attack, telling them to be silent and to leave Danavar space.
On the Utche’s broadcast bands.
The last missile locked on and thrust itself toward the Clarke.
Oh, God, Wilson thought, and his BrainPal sent the thought to Schmidt.
“Thirty seconds to impact,” Schmidt said.
“Twenty seconds …
“Ten …
“This is it, Harry.”
Silence.
X.
Wilson estimated he had fifteen minutes of air left when the Utche shuttle sidled up to his position and opened an outside airlock for him. On the inside, a space-suited Utche guided him in, closed the airlock and, when the air cycle had finished, opened the inner seal to the shuttle. Wilson unsealed his head, took off the oxygen mask, inhaled and then suppressed his gag reflex. Utche did not smell particularly wonderful to humans. He looked up and saw several Utche looking at him curiously.
“Hi,” he said, to no one of them in particular.
“Are you well?” one of them asked, in a voice that sounded as if it were being spoken while inhaling.
“I’m fine,” Wilson said. “How is the Clarke?”
“You are asking of your ship,” said another, in a similar inward-breathing voice.
“Yes,” Wilson said.
“It is most damaged,” said the first one.
“Are there dead?” Wilson asked. “Are there injured?”
“You are a soldier,” the second one said. “May you understand our language? It would be easier to say there.”
Wilson nodded and booted up the Utche translation routine he’d received with the Clarke’s new orders. “Speak your own language,” he said. “I will respond in mine.”
“I am Ambassador Suel,” the second one said. As the ambassador spoke, a second voice superimposed and spoke in English. “We don’t yet know the extent of the damage to your ship or the casualties because we only just now reestablished communication, and that through an emergency transmitter on the Clarke. When we reestablished contact we intended to offer assistance and to bring your crew onto our ship. But Ambassador Abumwe insisted that we must first retrieve you before we came to the Clarke. She was most insistent.”
“As I was about to run out of oxygen, I appreciate her insistence,” Wilson said.
“I am Sub-Ambassador Dorb,” said the first Utche. “Would you tell us how you came to be floating out here in space without a ship around you?”
“I had a ship,” Wilson said. “It was eaten by a school of missiles.”
“I am afraid I don’t understand what you mean by that,” Dorb said, after a glance to his (her? its?) boss.
“I will be happy to explain,” Wilson said. “I would be even happier to explain on the way to the Clarke.”
* * *
Abumwe, Coloma and Schmidt, as well as the majority of the Clarke’s diplomatic mission, were on hand when the Utche shuttle door irised open and Ambassadors Suel and Dorb exited, with Wilson directly behind.
“Ambassador Suel,” Abumwe said, and a device attached to a lanyard translated for her. She bowed. “I am Ambassador Ode Abumwe. I apologize for the lack of live translator.”
“Ambassador Abumwe,” Suel said in his own language, and returned the bow. “No apology is needed. Your Lieutenant Wilson has very quickly briefed us on how it is you have come to be here in place of Ambassador Bair, and what you and the crew of the Clarke have done on our behalf. We will of course have to confirm the data for ourselves, but in the meantime I wish to convey our gratitude.”
“Your gratitude is appreciated but not required,” Abumwe said. “We have done only
what was necessary. As to the data”—Abumwe nodded to Schmidt, who came forward and presented a data card to Dorb—“on that data card you will find both the black box recordings of the Polk and all the data recorded by us since we arrived in Danavar space. We wish to be open and direct with you and leave no doubt of our intentions or deeds during these negotiations.”
Wilson blinked at this; black box data and the Clarke data records were almost certainly classified materials. Abumwe was taking a hell of a risk offering them up to the Utche prior to a signed treaty. He glanced at Abumwe, whose expression was unreadable; whatever else she was, she was in full diplomatic mode now.
“Thank you, Ambassador,” Suel said. “But I wonder if we should not suspend these negotiations for the time being. Your ship is damaged and you undoubtedly have casualties among your crew. Your focus should be on your own people. We would of course stand ready to assist.”
Captain Coloma stepped forward and saluted Suel. “Captain Sophia Coloma,” she said. “Welcome to the Clarke, Ambassador.”
“Thank you, Captain,” the ambassador said.
“Ambassador, the Clarke is damaged and will require repair, but her life support and energy systems are stable,” Coloma said. “We had a brief time to model and prepare for the missile strike and because of it were able to sustain the strike with minimal casualties and no deaths. While we will welcome your assistance, particularly with our communications systems, at this point we are in no immediate danger. Please do not let us be a hindrance to your negotiations.”
“That is good to hear,” Suel said. “Even so—”
“Ambassador, if I may,” Abumwe said. “The crew of the Clarke risked everything, including their own lives, so that you and your crew might be safe and that we might secure this treaty. This man on my staff”—Abumwe nodded toward Wilson—“let four missiles chase him down and escaped death by throwing himself out of a shuttle and into the cold vacuum of space. It would be disrespectful of us to allow their efforts to be repaid with a postponement of our work.”