Fire with Fire

Chapter Thirty-Eight

ODYSSEUS

As soon as Caine got the news, he bolted out of his stateroom, across the corridor, and into Opal’s berth. She looked up with a big smile. “And to what do I owe-?”

“The Dornaani are here-and we’ve got pictures.” He put his hand on her firm upper arm, drawing it gently towards him: a dancer’s cue to “follow.”

They left the delegation’s hab mod at a trot, dodging around the stacked cargo bins and duffle-bagged supplies that were still being loaded into it. As they cleared the end of the luggage-slalom, Caine saw Lemuel Wasserman crossing the T-intersection ahead of them. Caine grabbed Opal’s hand, pulled her in the direction Wasserman had gone.

She almost stumbled, looked at Caine: “What? Where are we going?”

“Wherever Wasserman goes.”

She looked ahead as Lemuel disappeared around a corner. “Follow him? Why?”

“Because he’ll have the inside track on where to see the first sensor results.”

“But that will be the bridge-”

“Don’t bet on it. This corvette is rigged for spec ops. There’s a section amidships which has a couple of unlabeled rooms. And I bet he’s heading toward them.”

“You’re thinking a passive sensor suite?”

“I’m thinking the works: passive, active, every spectrum you can think of and more. The intel folks knew they were going to get a look at a Dornaani ship, so I’m betting they loaded this hull with every sensor known to man-and probably a few that are still in the experimental stage.”

“And how would Lemuel have located it?”

“I figure he shadowed folks in the mess, listened to their chatter, figured out which ones had the advanced science backgrounds.”

They rounded a corner-and saw, in addition to a single unmarked door at the end of the passageway, Lemuel Wasserman reasoning with two Marines. The look on the smaller-and senior-leatherneck’s face was not promising. “C’mon,” whispered Caine as he tugged Opal forward.

They arrived just in time to hear Lemuel’s voice rise a decibel and a whole octave: “-and who do you think needs to see those results the most? I’ll tell you who: they picked me to go on this mission to do exactly what you are now preventing me from-”

Caine stepped alongside Lemuel and brought out the biggest and best smile he could muster. Damn: I must look like Nolan, right about now. A large, congenial grin to put all the restless natives at ease. “Hello, gentlemen. Can I help?”

Lemuel looked sideways at Caine and grunted. The shorter Marine, a gunnery sergeant, looked him straight in the eyes. “I doubt it, sir. I was just explaining to Mr. Wasserman that our orders are very clear regarding security and clearance in this section. If he can’t show me the correct ID, then I can’t let him pass. Or you either.”

Caine’s smiled broadened. Good preemptive move, Gunny. But I’m heading toward higher ground. “I’m sure this is all just an oversight. I wonder if you-or your team member-could call in to Mr. Downing and have him wave us in?”

The sergeant’s face did not move, but his eyes wavered.

Gotcha. “Mr. Downing got the jump on us-got here first-and probably overlooked the special clearance protocols. He expects the entire delegation to join him, I believe.”

“He didn’t say anything.”

Thanks for confirming that Downing went through already. “Probably too excited himself; pretty historical stuff happening in that room down the hall.”

“Essential stuff,” piped Wasserman from over Caine’s shoulder.

Caine turned, shone his smile at Lemuel, used his eyes to say “shut up,” turned back to the gunny. “I guess we’re all a little worked up. So if you’d be kind enough to give Mr. Downing a call, that should set everything straight.”

The sergeant nodded at the larger leatherneck, who did a crisp one-eighty and tapped his collarcom, walking away as he started to speak in quiet tones.

“Thanks for your help, Gunny.”

“Don’t thank me for anything yet.”

But the bigger, younger marine had already returned and nodded once at the gunnery sergeant.

Who seemed a bit surprised, then shrugged and stood aside. “Sorry for the mix-up, sirs, ma’am.”

Lemuel leaned forward to respond: Caine put a hand on his shoulder. Surprised, Lemuel stopped with his mouth open, looking at Caine. Who jumped into the silence, determined to save Wasserman from himself: “No problem, Gunny; you’re just doing your job the way it’s supposed to be done. Thanks for your help.”

The corners of the sergeant’s mouth crinkled: probably his equivalent of a smile. Caine nodded, towed Lemuel past the checkpoint, noting Opal’s suppressed grin.

Lemuel shrugged off Caine’s hand. “Thanks-but I had every right to tell that guy-”

“Lemuel. That guy-that Marine-was doing his job. And if there was a crisis on this ship, accidental or otherwise, he’d be one of the people most likely to save your life. You might want to consider that.”

Lemuel looked away as they reached the unmarked door. His retort was a grumble. “Okay, so I need to play nice to stay on Jarhead’s good side.”

Opal drew abreast of them and pinned Lemuel in place with unblinking eyes. “‘Jarhead’ would give his life trying to save yours, whether or not he liked your sorry ass. Being nice-hell, just being polite-to him is the least you can offer in return.” She opened the door, turned her back on Wasserman, and went straight in.

Lemuel stepped after her, head thrust forward, cheeks reddening. “Hey-”

Caine took Lemuel’s arm again. “No. Don’t start it. I won’t allow you to give Major Patrone any trouble. Besides, there’s one more thing you might want to consider.”

“Like what?”

“That she’s right.”

Lemuel looked up at Caine, then away. “Yeah. Maybe. Okay. Let’s go.”

They entered a room filled with screens and a few small holotanks. Three sensor operators were adjusting controls, studying results. Standing at the center of their triad, Richard turned, nodded, went back to watching the screens. In the most distant corner, wedged between two consoles, shoulders hunched together, Visser acknowledged them with a tight, perfunctory smile. Had she been wearing a sweatshirt emblazoned with the legend “I am a technophobe,” her discomfort could not have been clearer.

Evincing a diametrically opposed set of affinities, Lemuel pushed hurriedly into the suite, shouldered past Downing and almost dropped into the lap of one of the Navy ratings in his single-minded attempt to get at the machines. Opal sidestepped over toward Caine’s side; he felt her shoulder brush into contact with his upper arm and stay there. “Jesus, I see why they call Wasserman ‘Le Mule’ instead of Lemuel. What gives with him? Does he take jerk pills?”

Caine shrugged. “From what I hear, he’s usually less prickly than this. But either way, he’s the real deal when it comes to high-energy physics.”

“But I thought you and Richard had your doubts about his being assigned to the delegation.”

“Yeah, we did. We were worried that he might be an overpraised heir-apparent to the family’s reputation for genius. He’s got a lot to prove if he’s going to be someone other than the nephew of the Wasserman who invented-as much as any one person did-the shift drive.”

“But he’s got the goods?”

“And then some. Mark my words: he’s going to outdo his uncle. He’s rough around the edges, but in all our meetings, it’s been obvious he really knows his stuff. He can almost see the next generation drive.”

“So in the Wasserman family, the lightning of genius struck twice.”

“Looks like it.” Half of the screens starting scrolling off reams of data. Caine stepped forward. “What’ve we got?”

Downing gestured. “Come take a look: first visuals of the Dornaani’s arrival.”

In the largest screen, there was a sudden flash and then a blurred shape arrowed out of view to the left.

Lemuel-by dint of expertise-had effectively taken control of the suite. “Get me the first frame image of that ship, and zoom in on it. Ladar 3-D interpolation and densitometer sweeps?”

“Working through them now.”

Caine leaned forward to study the still image that popped up. “Lemuel, did that ship put out any thrust-did it accelerate-as it arrived?”

“Nope.”

“So it came in moving at that speed?”

Lemuel turned around, a smile on his face and one eyebrow raised. “Yeah-so you understand.”

Caine nodded, staring at the screen again. Opal cleared her throat. “Why is it important that their ship came in moving?”

“Because ours can’t do that. In order to achieve the power levels necessary to effect a shift, our shift carriers have to both accelerate to near-relativistic velocities and then use the energy output of an antimatter reactor. The shift drive uses up every bit of that energy, so when our ships come back into space normal, they’re at full stop.”

“So that means-?”

Lemuel’s tone was almost congenial. “So that means that the Dornaani either don’t need as much energy, or are much better at generating it, because they just came out of shift moving at one hell of a clip. The mere fact that they have any exit velocity means they can generate excess energy-kinetic energy, in this case-before shifting. That means that they might not even need the weeks of near-relativistic preacceleration that our ships require. And here’s another indicator of just how far ahead of us they are: take a close look at the hull design.”

Caine did: it wasn’t at all akin to the long modular frames of Earth’s gargantuan shift carriers. Shaped like a blunted arrowhead with down-angled edges, the Dornaani vessel was essentially a delta-shaped design. As Caine studied the finer details, he noticed what seemed to be vents or intakes on the underside of the ship’s drooping “wings.” “Are those-?”

“Fuel scoops, yeah.”

“And the significance of that is what?” Elena’s question announced her arrival: Caine turned, saw Durniak, Trevor, and Hwang file in behind her.

Wasserman leaned far back in his chair. “Well, if the Dornaani can use any gas giant-and maybe any water world-as a gas station where they can tank up on hydrogen, then their experience with interstellar travel is going to be entirely different than ours. In every one of our systems, we have to maintain a multi-billion dollar infrastructure to provide fueling and cargo handling for our shift-carriers. But with a ship like theirs, you could conceivably go anywhere that there’s a gas giant insystem. Interstellar travel made fast, cheap, and easy.”

Trevor squinted at the arrowhead image of the Dornaani ship. “No sign of fuel booms or receptacles for tanker interface?”

“Maybe theirs don’t look like ours, or are hidden, but I’m guessing they work with internal fuel only. The architecture is all wrong for drop tanks.”

Caine turned to look at the ship again. “So that tiny hull also holds all the fuel they need.”

“Looks like it.”

“So how in the hell…?” Caine let his astonishment swallow the many different technological puzzles posed by the ship they were staring at.

“How the hell, indeed.” Lemuel shook his head, kept scanning the data.

Downing frowned. “It’s disconcerting that they can put that kind of performance in this little box.”

“And it’s a damned mystery box,” interrupted Lemuel. “We’re hitting it with ladar scans, but I’m getting garbage back.”

“Garbage?”

“Yeah. Beam reflection is shot to hell. I’m just getting a froth of photons pushed back at me. And I’ve got no return at all on the radar-no, wait: radar is registering their hull, now.”

Caine studied the screens; he couldn’t make much sense of the reams of data. But he had a guess. He leaned toward the lieutenant who was the suite’s ranking officer. “Tell me: as you got radar contact just now, did it look like anything you’ve seen before?”

She thought for a moment. “No-wait, yes: like when you’re trying to get through electronic countermeasures and then the target’s ECM goes offline. The garbage straightens out and you’ve suddenly got clean data. Except here there wasn’t any signal at all-and then, all of a sudden, there was.”

Lemuel turned around. “What are you thinking?”

“That they decided to give us a better look by turning off their electronic stealth measures.”

“But active stealth measures would put out an energy signature-and we’re not getting any electromagnetic emissions at all from their ship.”

“That’s because they must have the system built right into their hull material: probably some kind of electrobonded matrix-”

Lemuel’s down-curving eyebrows reversed upward into an arch of surprise. “Sure, some kind of radar absorbing and reflecting material that only works when they’re pushing current through it. Like stealth materials, only you’ve got an off-switch, since the antiradar molecular structures-or whatever-only have that property when they’re getting juiced.” Lemuel smiled at Caine. “And now, I’m thinking the same thing regarding the problems with our ladar. Probably some kind of hull coating that works like a scattering prism: breaks up coherent light. Might be a good defense against lasers, too.”

“Could be-but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

“Hey-it’s like you said about the Marine sergeant: I’m just doing my job.”

Caine smiled back. Good: Wasserman may occasionally be a jackass, but he doesn’t hold a grudge. And he may be right in another way about the parallel between him and the Marine sergeant: for all we know, the information he’s gathering in this dull little room may ultimately save us all.

The external commo screen was suddenly bright with data. Caine moved toward it, announced, “We’ve got activity on tight-beam commo,” and thought: here I go, Speaker to Aliens.