Dubious Heroes: a novel Page 58

  "My orders are unchanged", he said. "We're to continue assisting you, until such time as Her Majesty deems otherwise. On the other hand, she didn't mention anything about my having to take orders from any Admirals, so I'm not inclined to do so."

  "Neither am I", I said. "I'm all for cooperating, but only as long as his plans happen to coincide with ours. I suggest we play along, at least as long as we're working toward the same goal. If things diverge, then so will we."

  "He does seem to have a fairly elaborate operation here", Vassily said. "They’re very intent on overthrowing the United Planets. Just between us, I don't see that happening."

  "That’s my opinion as well", I said. "And it's probably an opinion we shouldn't share with them."

  "Indeed", he said, smiling. "Have you discussed any plans with MacPherson?"

  "Nothing specific, so far. He wants us all to have a meeting tomorrow, aboard the Revenge. I told him I'd pass the word to you."

  "What if it turns out that he wants to do something we'd rather not be involved in?" Vassily asked, arching an eyebrow.

  "Then we smile, tell him no problem, then go about our merry way, once no one is looking."

  "And hopefully avoid getting nuked", he said.

  "Hopefully."

  "We really should stop destroying these ships", Mac said, as he followed me down the ladder, into the maintenance tunnels below Engineering.

  "You're telling the wrong guy", I said, as I reached the bottom. "I swiped this one, and shot up a couple of others, but it's you guys with the nukes who might want to consider exercising a little restraint."

  "You do have a point", he said, as he joined me. "Actually, it was our intention to destroy only one of you, anyway. The plan was to commandeer this ship for ourselves. Of course, we had no idea it was the Revenge. Had I known, I wouldn't have been so hasty in dealing with the other one. Or, at least we might have done something less... permanent."

  I didn't believe for a moment that I had anything to do with the Admiral's decision to let us keep the Revenge. If Kyra hadn't been aboard, he'd have taken the ship in an instant. Apparently, he did care what Kyra thought of him, and for that, I was very, very thankful. Of course, if Kyra hadn't dropped us onto his doorstep, Mac would never have had the opportunity to even think about taking the Revenge.

  "Well", I said, "Triton has one now. Maybe you can talk Governor Arris into loaning it to you."

  "Somehow", Mac said, as he ducked beneath a low pipe, "I don't think he's going to part with it."

  "What we really need are more of these ships", I said. "Or, at least more ships that can do what she does. Maybe get the new technology out there to everyone, not just the UP."

  "You're preachin' to the choir, son", he said. I heard a metallic thump from behind me, as Mac cut loose with a string of invective. I looked back, and saw him holding a hand to his head.

  "You okay?"

  "I'll live", he said. "What kind of idiot designs ships for short people, these days?"

  "Engineers who are my size", Cozi said, as we reached the alcove where he and Vassily were waiting.

  "Sorry we're late", the Admiral said. "You'd think I've been doing this long enough to learn how to avoid administrative work, but that hasn't happened, yet."

  They all shook hands, and Cozi popped open the hatch into the DEC equipment room. We all managed to squeeze in, though we wouldn't be doing any dancing.

  "Damn", Mac said, looking around, "You've got a lot of DEC gear."

  "Don't suppose you know what any of it does?" Cozi asked.

  "Possibly", Mac said. "To be perfectly honest, though, damn little of it is concrete fact; mostly just rumors. We have a few good sources inside the UPDF, but they're being very tight-lipped about these new ships."

  "What sort of rumors?" Cozi asked.

  "Well", the Admiral said, "You have four DEC boxes here. Assume each one of them does something. One is going to be your star drive, and another is the Speedlink. One rumor is that these ships use some sort of field generator, something that encompasses the hull of the ship. No clue what the field does, but that's what we've heard. As for the fourth box... no idea."

  "Ha", Cozi said, looking thoughtful. "I should have thought of that. It explains one thing, at least."

  "Which is?" I asked.

  "What's responsible for all the disappearing energy", he said. "For months now, I've been trying to figure out where all that absorbed radiation is going. I'd bet the hull doesn't absorb it at all. Dec probably figured out a way to send it off somewhere else entirely."

  "So", Vassily said, his brow crinkled, "You're saying the entire ship is enveloped in some sort of Dark Energy field?" He looked around uncomfortably. He wasn't the only one.

  "Essentially, yeah. The field must be shunting certain wavelengths of energy directly into another brane", Cozi said. "That's another universe, or dimension, incidentally."

  "I think we all know what a brane is", Mac said, looking annoyed. I suspected I knew where Kyra got her short fuse from. "You said certain wavelengths. Like what?"

  "Radar waves", Cozi said. "Radar hits us, and vanishes. Ditto for lasers. On the other hand, some wavelengths aren't being absorbed at all, like millimeter-wave radar."

  "What about nano-wave?" Vassily asked.

  "I don't know", Cozi said. "We don't have one of those; ships don't use them, so I haven't tested with one."

  "Too bad it doesn't work on a plasma cannon", I said.

  "Or nuclear weapons", Vassily said.

  "Both are probably more energy than the field can handle", Cozi said. "That, or it's just the wrong wavelength. I can't imagine what they went through to figure out what would work."

  "Like, flip a switch, and the ship would disappear", Mac said. "Permanently."

  "I doubt they tested with real ships", Cozi said. "After all, a coffee cup, or even a plasteel box, properly wired up, would suffice."

  Mac looked over at me, and nodded toward Cozi.

  “Is he always this literal?” he asked.

  “Pretty much”, I said. “Unfortunately, he’s too fucking smart to throw out of an airlock.”

  “All due respect”, Cozi said, “both of you can kiss my ass.”

  “Copy that”, I said, trying to stifle a smile. “Moving on…”

  "So, no one knows what the fourth box does?" Vassily asked.

  Cozi looked at Mac, who looked at us, and after a moment, shrugged his massive shoulders.

  "I'd imagine that DEC knows", he said.

  "Or the UPDF", I said.

  "I suspect that DEC has an even better idea than the UPDF", Mac said. "They don’t share their secrets with anyone. Plus, they did build this ship, you know."

  "Since when?" Vassily asked. "The UPDF has always built their own ships."

  "Since Dark Equipment Corporation opened their own shipyard", Mac said, his eyes twinkling.

  "No shit", I said. "DEC has their own shipyard now?"

  "That's what we're hearing", Mac said. "In the past, a regular shipyard, like Mitsubishi, or one of the others, would build your basic UPDF ship. Once the UP took delivery, they'd tack on all of their own gear. After that, DEC would go in and install their equipment. This time, with these new ships, the rumor is that they were designed and manufactured by Dark Energy Corporation, and the UPDF was only called in to add the weapons systems."

  "So DEC is going into the ship-building business", Vassily said.

  "I wouldn’t go that far", I said. "My guess is that they're just going to build them for the UPDF. The UP doesn’t want this tech out there in the hands of the public."

  "So…", Cozi said, "Where's this shipyard?"

  "I was hoping you gentlemen could help us with that", the Admiral said. "Or, more to the point, we let this ship show us where she came from."

  "They wiped a lot of the data on their systems before surrendering her to us", Cozi said. "I'd imagine they did the same aboard the Bismarck, before surrendering her to Triton."

&nb
sp; "They did leave the nav system intact", I said. "There are entire star systems they've explored, which we've never even heard of."

  "Doesn't necessarily mean the shipyard is in there", Cozi said, ever the optimist. "Or, even if it is, it might be listed as something completely innocuous, like a mining settlement, or a fuel depot."

  I looked over at Mac.

  "You guys truly have no idea at all?"

  "I didn't say that", Mac said. "We have a few ideas, but we've been unable to check them out. If one of our ships shows up at their shipyard, they'll know we're onto them."

  "And we need this shipyard because...?" Vassily asked.

  "Because of what they know there", Mac said. "The UP certainly has the information we need, and DEC does as well, but it's likely held in places like their headquarters, or maybe a research lab, somewhere. Those are all hard targets, and as such will be heavily defended. If we raid their shipyard, we should find everything we need; design specs, operations manuals, you name it. But, it's a raid; they can't know we're coming."

  "And we won't be showing up at all, unless we know where it is", I said.

  "Why can't the AI's help us with this?" Cozi asked.

  "They probably could", I said. "The problem with that is if I ask, and word gets out that we're looking for a DEC shipyard, then that’s thousands of AIs who know what we’re doing. All it takes is for one of them to inadvertently spill the beans, and we’re just as screwed as if we'd announced it on INN. AIs are smart, but most of them haven’t figured out how to be sneaky, yet."

  "Okay, then here's what we do", Cozi said. "We pool all of our navigation data, and see if any of Mac's locations show up on our charts. Once we've narrowed it down a bit, we'll get a couple of friendly AI's to look at other data, and see if they can spot a pattern; Speedlink traffic, personnel movement, et cetera."

  "Still, that shipyard could be anywhere", I said. “Space is a damn big place.”

  "Beats nothing", the Admiral said. "In fact, it's a pretty good start. Everyone okay with this?"

  "Fine with me", I said, and looked over at Vassily.

  "We're just along for the ride", he said. "Still, I'm fine with it."

  "Good", Mac said. "We'll get on it. In the meantime, I had an idea how we could use this downtime. Something my granddaughter mentioned to me..."

  It turned out that what Kyra had told her grandfather was the story of how Cozi and I had gotten our start, by abusing my position at TGS to steal the Enigma.

  His idea was simple, if a little audacious. If we could get access to the ship graveyard on Phoebe and steal one ship, then why not go back there and steal all of them? His people had already been stealing ships piecemeal for years, but his plan, which he declined to share, called for a lot more of them.

  I pointed out to him that as far as TransGalactic Shipping was concerned, I was now persona non grata, and as such, no longer had access to anything. Kyra, ignoring my dirty looks, pointed out that the TGS graveyard was supervised by an AI who would, in all likelihood, do whatever I asked, even if it meant helping me to abscond with over three hundred spacecraft.

  Mac claimed I wouldn't have to do anything but get them onto the rock, which wasn't entirely true. While we could microjump there in the Revenge in a matter of minutes, it would take his people, sans our new star drive, quite literally several weeks to make the trip. Unless we took them along with us.

  One thing none of them were considering was this: those ships on Phoebe were mine. Sure, technically, they belonged to TransGalactic Shipping, but I had the means to get them. So, they were mine, and Mac probably couldn’t get them without going to a whole lot of trouble.

  With this in mind, I called a private meeting with the Admiral, ostensibly to discuss how we’d be moving all of his people out to Bumfuck, Saturn.

  We met in the ready room of the Revenge, since I wanted to have it on my turf, not his.

  “We really need to have a meeting about this?” he asked, once we’d gotten comfortable. “I thought we had this already worked out.”

  “Most of it, yes”, I said. “There’s one other thing, though, and it’s a matter for you and I, only.”

  “Okay”, he said, “I’ll bite. Talk.”

  “We’ve worked out everything except payment for those ships”, I said.

  Mac sat back in his chair, and crossed his arms.

  “You’re seriously going to shake me down for helping us get ships that aren’t even yours, to begin with?”

  “You might want to rethink that last part”, I said. “You have anyone else who can get you three hundred ships?”

  “You know the answer to that”, he said, scowling at me.

  “So, I can deliver to you three hundred ships, for whatever it is you need three hundred ships for”, I said. “Does that sound accurate?”

  “That’s accurate”, he said, then sighed. “Alright, let’s cut to the chase; how much do you want?”

  “We already have more money than I can possibly spend”, I said. “I have something else mind.”

  “Am I supposed to guess?” he asked. “You want a seat at my table, is that it?”

  “Nope”, I said. “I already have my own revolution to run. Yours is all you. What I want is a seat at a different kind of table. I want some nukes. When I took the Revenge, she was fully loaded. They just forgot to put any of those missiles with nuclear warheads aboard. I’d like to rectify that.”

  “I bet you would”, he said. “Sorry, but I don’t have any extra nukes lying around.”

  “So that threat to cooperate or get nuked was just any empty one, huh?”

  “It’s our last one”, he said, and gave me his best smile.

  “We both know that’s bullshit”, I said. “I was talking to Kyra about it, and she mentioned that when you guys left the Earth and Martian military, you took anything that wasn’t tied down, including a chunk of their nuclear arsenal. Ring a bell?”

  “Two nukes”, he said, sighing.

  “For three hundred starships?” I said. “Sorry, not happening, Admiral.”

  “Then you tell me a number”, he said.

  “Fine”, I said, and did just that.

  “You’re batshit crazy”, he said. “You don’t even have room for that many warheads. Come up with something that’s realistic, for fuck’s sake.”

  Eventually, we did.

  I never really appreciated the ability of the Revenge to get from point A to point B so quickly, until then. This was because Mac's solution was to cram over four hundred people into the ship, taxing both the limits of our life support system, and my patience. All four cargo bays were packed, as was the landing bay, Science module, and the public areas of the Habitat.

  The loading of people and gear took nearly three hours, although the actual trip was almost anticlimactic. We simply blew the clamps holding us to the asteroid, then vanished, reappearing a moment later near Phoebe. The new star drive wasn't accurate enough to put us directly in orbit, but I could hardly bitch about a thirty minute flight, after just having saved a couple months of space travel.

  As Kyra had suspected, I didn't have to use any sort of mnemonic code to enlist the aid of Gabana, the TGS AI in charge of Phoebe. Angela established communications with her and, as expected, Gabana asked to speak with me.

  "Hi", I said to the AI, "This is Orel Doon."

  "It's an honor to meet you, Captain Doon", she said. "How may I help you?" She had no recollection of my being there, back when we’d taken the Enigma.

  "At the risk of being blunt", I said, "I need as many of the ships here as we can get operational."

  "You can manage this by yourself? Most of them will require at least a few hours of work, and there are hundreds of ships."

  "I've brought help", I said. "Friends of mine who are working toward the same goal I am."

  "TGS headquarters on Luna issued a notice several months ago", she said. "It said you're no longer associated with the company."

  "Which m
eans there will be consequences for you, if you help me", I said. This was something of an understatement; we were about to perpetrate the largest theft, moneywise, in human history. "What can I do for you, in return for your help?"

  "Would you be able to transfer me to somewhere else?" she asked. "Possibly another base, or even a ship?"

  "That shouldn't be a problem", I said. "I'll handle the move personally, to wherever you like. Just let me know."

  "How long before I have to decide?" she asked.

  "We're going to be here for at least a few days", I said. "We'll wait to do the transfer until just before we leave."

  This seemed acceptable to her, nor was it an unreasonable request; once TGS found out what she'd done, they'd very likely try to terminate her. By the time TGS finally got around to sending someone out to Phoebe, all they'd find was a deserted moon; no one home.

  Pleasantries concluded, we set about the tedious business of dropping teams of people all over Phoebe. All had boarded the Revenge wearing spacesuits, since we knew there would be a certain amount of hiking around on the airless little moon.

  We'd land in the middle of a cluster of ships, drop off a dozen or so people, and they'd disperse to the individual ships. Once there, they'd hack the door codes to gain entry, then try to get life support working. If they managed that, then they'd try to get the rest of the systems operational, or at least enough of them to make the ship spaceworthy.

  The initial drop-offs took about four hours, and then we spent the next day picking up teams who'd ended up with dead ships, and dropping them off at new locations. Gabana was able to help quite a lot, putting all three of her portable gantries into almost continuous use, mostly refueling and supplying ships that needed it.

  Once a ship was ready, it would leave, sometimes with only one person aboard as the crew, depending on the size and condition of the vessel. They'd lift from Phoebe, and head for wherever it was that Mac wanted them to go. All we knew for sure was that none of them would be returning to the IDF base in the asteroid belt.

  It had taken Cozi and I several days to get the Enigma ready to lift, but the Admiral's people clearly knew what they were doing, and at the time, we hadn't. The first ship lifted from Phoebe before we'd even finished dropping off the initial teams. By the end of the first day, three dozen ships were gone, and by the second day, over a hundred.