Claws That Catch

CHAPTER FOUR

“Power for five knots,” the CO said as the tugs released the lines on the ship.

Since its existence was supposed to be a huge secret, the Blade II had been docked in a standard subpen. Which meant a massive concrete box with overhead cover. Just flying out was out of the question. Arguably, she could have driven herself out, as she had done on previous occasions. But the tugs were standard and with the secrecy off, no longer an issue.

What was an issue was their sailing orders.

“Twenty degrees starboard,” Prael said, gritting his teeth. The deep water where subs hid was to port. The main basin for Newport News was to starboard, the basin where the thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of watchers had gathered to watch the world’s first starship take off. “Let’s kick it up a bit.”

“Twenty degrees starboard,” Weaver repeated. “Engage drive to one percent. Maintain water contact.”

There was already a supplemental provision bill before Congress for a new spaceport, a real one that didn’t involve water. But it was still based at Newport News. The Navy had slid the entire plan across the table and, as far as anyone could tell, they were for once getting everything they asked for. Riding a tide of public opinion was a wonderful feeling.

“Why do I get the feeling that everybody wants us to burst out of the water?” the CO said. “Input, XO?”

“One option, sir,” Bill replied. “Alternatively, rising ominously into the air, passing slowly over News and Norfolk then out to sea. Then kick it in to get out of the grav well faster. I really don’t think we want to go supersonic at low altitude near a city. There are regs against it for that matter. And we can only go so far nose up without everyone falling sideways. We’ll have the depth in the turning basin for a slight dip.”

“I think we should go for the splashy exit,” Prael replied. “People have gotten used to seeing it on TV, haven’t they? Once we reach the turning basin, go to twenty meters, then we’ll bounce out at about forty knots and accelerate to just under Mach One. Not as flashy as Spectre’s runs, I’ll admit, but we don’t have Akulas to avoid.”

Brooke watched as the ship carrying her husband first dipped into the harbor then splashed out, heading upwards and outwards towards the stars. Her eyes were filled with tears, but she wasn’t the only teary-eyedone in the crowd by far.

“Calm down, Tiny,” Miriam said, rubbing the cat’s sides. “It’s shiny. It’s better than with Spectre.”

It was a note of pure cat distress as the massive feline squatted on his haunches and howled at the overhead. But deeper and richer than any housecat. When it passed through a thick hatch and echoed through the ship…

“Captain Weaver?” Prael asked.

“Not… sure, sir,” Bill replied, listening to the sound of bending metal that resounded through the hull. “But it sounded expensive.”

“We need to know if we’re spaceworthy, XO,” the CO snapped. “Pilot, level off and drop the accel.” As the ship leveled out the sound subsided. “Damage report.”

“Pressure is holding at two percent over standard atmosphere,” Bill replied. “No reports of structural damage. Sir, we’ve never heard that particular sound from the ship. Yes, it sounded bad. But it might have just been things settling. The inertial compensators don’t kick in until we’re out of the grav well and coming back we didn’t maneuver very hard. My gut is saying bad things. Every sensor we have, every person we have on watch, is saying everything’s shiny.”

“I want the source of that transient tracked down,” the CO said, nodding. “But if we’re spaceworthy, then we’re spaceworthy. Pilot, kick it back in.”

As the acceleration climbed and the ship pointed upwards, the sound started up again.

“COB, track down the source of that sound,” the CO said. “Find out what’s broken in my ship.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” the chief of boat replied.

“Reaching exoatmospheric,” Bill said as the feel of being pointed up fell off and the deck was once more “down.” The artificial gravity created by the ancient artifact was just slightly under Earth’s gravity. It was so slight a difference, most people didn’t notice. It just made for a feeling of lightness. It kicked in automatically as the ship left Earth’s gravity well.

“Pressure check,” the CO said as the noise subsided. “I really want to know what that sound is.”

“Pressure is nominal,” Weaver replied as everyone’s ears popped. The air was overpressured for the check then slowly reduced to a high oxygen content but low pressure. “We’re not leaking, whatever it is.”

“Very well,” the CO said. “Astro?”

“One-Six-Eight mark neg Nine, sir,” Lieutenant Fey said. “Course for Cheerick to pick up our dragonflies and their riders.”

“It’s times like this I really think I’ve stepped into wonderland,” Prael said distastefully. “Pilot, course laid in?”

“Aye, aye, sir,” the pilot replied. The recently promoted petty officer was a survivor of every battle the Blade had been in and lived to have his hands on the control of the ship. “Second star to the right and straight on to morning.”

“Just engage,” Prael said with a sigh.

“How’s it going, Two-Gun?” Captain Zanella asked.

The Marines were settling into place, but Eric was already done so he’d headed for the Admin office in the ship and settled down to catch up on paperwork again.

“Just fine, sir,” Eric said, not looking up. “Bit strange to have a cabin, even if I am sharing it with Lieutenant Morris.”

“Well, here’s your course load and your homework schedule,” the CO said, handing over an SD chip. “I got a buddy who’s an instructor at FROT to send me all his stuff and a syllabus. The OBC portion is open-source. The syllabus has us doing two hour blocks a day. And since they’re both multi-week courses and we’ve got just this cruise to cover them, I’ll be taking it pretty fast. And I won’t be able to do all of it, so the XO is going to be doing some of the courses. Then there’s the simulator portion. FROT now uses the actions on Runner’s World and Cheerick as part of their exercises so you get to replay them as an officer. Comments?”

“What fun,” Berg said, trying not to sigh. He’d slipped the chip into his computer and scanned the course load while the CO was talking. It looked like a couple of semesters in college to him. “I mean, aye, aye, sir.”

“That’s the spirit,” the CO said, grinning. “If you want to blame somebody, blame the President.”

“He gets blamed for enough, sir,” Eric replied. “When do we start?”

“Fourteen hundred. You need to read the first portion by then so you’re prepared.”

That was barely three hours away. Berg looked at the mass of paperwork he had to catch up on and the courses he had to take and mentally kissed sleep goodbye.

“Aye, aye, sir.”

Bill whistled to himself quietly as he went off watch. He knew he’d have to be back up in a couple of hours, given that he was going to be busy when they got to Cheerick working on arranging the dragonfly fighters they were picking up. Not to mention integrating the Cheerick riders. But being XO had some privileges. When he’d done previous cruises he’d been bunked with three other officers. This time, he had his own…

He paused and swore as he entered the corridor to his quarters. The damned door was missing. Of all the things the Space Navy was bringing over from the sub service, why did it have to be this?

It was a game the crew played. Sometime in the first week of the cruise, somebody stole the XO’s door. Thereafter, the game for the XO became “find the door.” Since the XO was supposed to know every nook and cranny in the boat, surely he could find one door?

Right then, Weaver swore he was going to win. The XO rarely did. Crews were ingenious at hiding the door. But he was, by God, going to Find the Door.

In the meantime, though, he had to go find a spare blanket.

“Get the ball,” Red said, tossing the ball down the corridor, then turning back to the pump. “Jesus, when’s Miriam’s shift?”

“I dunno,” Sub Dude said, pulling the pump out and looking in the pipe. “But I hope it’s — ”

“Mraow!” Tiny said, dropping the tennis ball.

“Damn, this thing’s fast,” Red said.

“What in the hell…” Chief Gestner said, his eyes wide. “What in the hell is that thing? It looks like a four legged Mreee!”

The felinoid Dreen slave race had tricked humanity, early in the war, into believing they were friends. Closing the Dreen gates, however, had required putting a planet buster bomb through a gate that led to their homeworld and as far as humans knew, wiping them out. Only on the last mission had it been discovered some still survived. Human attitudes towards the Mreee varied, with most pitying them. From Chief Gestner’s expression, he apparently wasn’t a Mreee fan. Or maybe he just didn’t like cats.

“His name’s Tiny,” Sub Dude said, tossing the ball down the corridor. “He’s the ship’s mascot. We got infested with this weird rodent sort of thing on Cheerick the last time we were there. The only way to keep them down is Tiny here.”

“Oh,” the chief said, blinking. “So it’s a cat?”

“Yeah, Chief,” Red said. “It’s a cat. It’s a Savannah. You’ve heard of them, right?”

“Oh, sure,” the chief said, clearly having not a clue. “Well, carry on.”

“Will do, Chief,” Gants said. As the chief turned the corner he let out his breath. “Grapp me. We’re so grapped.”

“Nah, I think he bought it,” Red said.

“Bought what?” the COB asked, coming from the same direction the machinist chief had passed.

“Uh…”

“How’s Tiny?” the Chief of Boat asked, taking the ball and tossing it down the corridor.

“Just fine, COB,” Sub Dude said, his eyes wide.

“Don’t worry about the yowling,” the COB said, taking the ball and tossing it again. This time he bounced it off two bulkheads but the cat caught it in midair and spun on the floor hammering back. “He’ll get used to maneuvers.”

“Hope so, COB,” Red said.

“If he’s getting in the way of your repairs, send him over to Camp Watch. He hasn’t got much to do.”

“Will do, COB,” Sub Dude said.

“See ya.”

Bill paused as he entered the missile room since he nearly got hit in the head by a ball.

“Sorry, XO,” the petty officer on missile watch said. “Watch out for — ”

The ball bounced off the deck and hit the bulkhead just over the hatch, bouncing again towards the port bulkhead. A white streak went by Weaver’s face and caught the ball midair, hit the bulkhead by the hatch with four feet, then launched off at least ten feet to land in the middle of the large compartment. Two bounds and it was at the end of the compartment, dropping the ball at the Camp Watch’s feet and wriggling its butt in preparation for the next run.

“…Tiny.”

“What in the hell… ?” Bill said.

“He’s for rounding up those rodents we picked up on Cheerick, XO,” the Camp Watch said stonily.

Bill recognized the petty officer as a veteran of both missions of the Blade, one of about sixty crewmen who knew darned well they hadn’t picked up any “rodents” on Cheerick. The ship, as much as possible, maintained quarantine on alien worlds for the express purpose of avoiding picking up a possibly pestiferous alien species that could be a problem on Earth. An alien version of kudzu, much less rats, would be unwelcome in the extreme.

For that matter, the Blade II had been made from scrap of the Blade I. There was no way in hell “space hamsters” had somehow gotten from one to the other.

So he had one of two choices, one of two types of XO to be. The first choice, since they were barely nine hours from Earth, was to report that they had an unauthorized pet onboard and turn the ship around. Hell, they could space the thing, he supposed, but he knew that would be a disaster on many levels.

The second choice was to go along with the cover story. Obviously, nobody who knew that there weren’t any alien space rats on the ship had reported the presence of the massive cat. And at least he no longer had to worry that there was a serious structural issue with the Blade II. He now knew where the sound like bending metal had come from. And he suspected he knew who had smuggled the massive creature onboard.

“How’s he doing?” Bill asked.

“Haven’t seen any chee-hamsters in days, sir,” the Camp said.

“Glad to see he’s earning his way,” Bill said. “Secure the missiles for landing on Cheerick.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” the Camp Watch said, tossing the ball then hitting the switches that ensured that no matter what a missile could not fire. “Missiles secured.” He picked up the ball again and tossed it.

“Carry on,” Bill said, exiting the compartment. “Chee-hamsters,” he added with a giggle. “Chee-hamsters…”

“Colonel Che-chee,” Captain Prael said. “Welcome aboard the Vorpal Blade II.”

The Blade had been to Cheerick several times since returning from the mission where she met the Hexosehr. After the first few missions, the powers-that-be had determined that there were, in fact, no major hostile organisms to be picked up on Cheerick, including chee-hamsters, and had relaxed the once strict quarantine. Thus the greeting party had been able to meet Lady Che-chee on the underbelly ramp the Blade II sported.

“Ig keek, Che-Chee,” Miriam squeaked. “Ikki keek, Vorpal Blade Two.”

“Englik unkertank,” the massive rodentoid squeaked. The Cheerick were bipedal, rotund chinchillalike beings of about human height but significantly higher mass. “Skeakink uk… uh… hu-arker. Keek eek krik skeek kree.”

“Colonel Che-chee has been studying English and understands it,” Miriam translated. “She just has a hard time pronouncing most of our phonemes.”

“Feel free to speak Cheerick, Colonel,” the CO said. “I don’t understand your language, yet, so I can hardly fault you for not being able to speak ours. If you and your pilots will accompany me to the wardroom we can continue this discussion in comfort.”

“Uh, sir,” Bill said. “Permission to speak.”

“Go, XO.”

“Sir, I would suggest that the Mothers accompany us to the wardroom,” Bill said. “The chief of boat is on-hand to get your males settled in their quarters.”

Miriam nodded at the series of squeaks and shrugged.

“She’s the only Mother,” Miriam said. “The others are all enlisted.”

“Damn,” Prael muttered. “I’d forgotten about that.”

Cheerick females were larger and stronger than males and filled all senior roles. That is, once they were post-breeding stage. Breeders were sub-sentient and males were considered to be lacking seriousness and intelligence. Whether the latter was genetics or culture wasn’t clear, yet, but all males were relegated to enlisted slots whereas Mothers, post-breeding females, were the officers and leadership of the society.

“In that case, Colonel,” the CO said, “if you’ll accompany us to the wardroom, the COB will get your men settled.”

Colonel Che-chee squeaked at the nine males accompanying her and gestured to the COB. It was clear that they were getting a bit of a dressing down but if it suppressed them it wasn’t apparent. They were all grinning and nose-wrinkling at boarding the human spaceship.

“Ko,” Colonel Che-chee said after a moment, gesturing into the ship.

“We’re going to want to run exercises on the run out to Taurus,” Captain Prael said, once the group reached the wardroom. “And since we’ve never tried to keep dragonflies alive on the hull for this long, that’s going to be an issue. We’ll just have to hope they survive.”

Previous missions of the Blade, besides bringing ambassadors back and forth, had included testing various ways to carry the Cheerick Dragonfly Fighters. The dragonflies had both a very fast normal space drive system and lasers for engagement. But their real trick was a force field, permeable to the lasers but apparently impermeable to anything else, that could absorb a good bit of punishment. The organic fighter system would be major force multiplier if they survived.

“The colonel is sure they will,” Miriam translated. “Every test so far has been successful. Is there any news on how they work?”

The Blade had brought back a dragonfly after their first mission. It had died enroute, since they had no clue about how to feed it, but the parts were all still there.

However, human and Adar scientists had been stumped by the creature. It generated the lasers using a rather comprehensible chemical system. Part of its dietary requirements that the humans hadn’t known was that it needed the base chemicals for the lasers, the dragonfly equivalent of vitamins. However, beyond that point, humans and Adar were scratching their heads. It had various parts that were probably its reactionless drive, antigravity generator and power source. But the power requirements for the dragonfly’s proven range and acceleration were enormous and there was no fusion reactor in the things’s guts.

Live dragonflies had been delivered to the Hexosehr and they promised to look at them as soon as they got settled. But for the time being the answer was…

“No,” the CO said to Lady Che-Chee, shrugging. “We still have no clue. Do you dislike providing support?”

Miriam winced at the blunt question, then chuckled at the reply.

“The short answer is: No,” the linguist translated. “The longer answer is the Cheerick realize that if they didn’t have the dragonflies, they would have virtually nothing to trade. As it is, with them, they can bring in scientists and specialists to advance their technology and culture. They’re allies, but…”

“Alliances are based on mutual benefit.” Prael nodded. “Good. Very well, the mission is to investigate an area we think a higher technology race once inhabited and try to find any technologies that may help in the war against the Dreen. The Dreen are known to be in the sector but it’s believed in minimal force. We may not even encounter them. If we do, however, I intend to run rather than fight. This is a scouting and exploratory mission, not a raid. If we do have to fight, however, we’re going to need to have your wing integrated. I’d suggest that we get down to particulars of how we’re going to use you and your people…”

“Hey, Berg, I’m heading down to Kakki Town,” Lieutenant Morris said, sticking his head in Admin. “You wanna come?”

Between loading the dragonflies and some diplomatic duties, the Blade was going to be on Cheerick for better than two days. Given that, and that the actual loading would be late in the action, the CO had authorized shore leave.

The Marines, especially, were looking forward to it. On-board the ship they had nothing to do but drill and while First Sergeant Powell was inventive, the drills became boring as hell quickly. This was the last friendly planet they could look forward to visiting for some time and just seeing sky from outside a Wyvern suit sounded good.

“I wish I could,” Eric admitted. “But I am loaded to the max.”

“Check with the Old Man,” Morris said. “It’s shore leave, man!”

“Sir, am I authorized for shore leave?” Eric asked after being given permission to enter.

“You’re an officer now, Lieutenant Bergstresser,” Zanella said, looking up from his monitor. “If you feel you have the time and you’re not on a duty roster, that’s up to you.”

“Are you taking shore leave, sir?” Eric asked. He knew that that wasn’t a straight “yes.”

“I’m still up to my eyeballs in paperwork, Lieutenant,” the CO replied, gesturing at the monitor. “The good part about a twenty day cruise is that I might be almost caught up when we get to our destination.”

“In that case, sir, I will decline to take shore leave,” Eric said, nodding.

“Thought you might.”