Asimov's Science Fiction (3 page)

Why wasn't Coop shooting back? He could blow those things apart.

But the modified view showed little rays of light, coming from the small ships and hitting the
Ivoire
with a flare. The light and the flare were clearly constructs that Graham had designed to make the shots visible.

Still, they seemed creepy and a little overwhelming, rather like being stung continually by tiny insects. Pinpricks in isolation were annoying. Continual pinpricks weren't just annoying, they became painful.

"Have those ships been targeting more than one area on the
Ivoire?"
she asked.

The answer wasn't readily apparent from the images that Graham had designed.

"I don't know," he said, "but if they are, the
Ivoire's
in real trouble. From what I can tell, those ships have a lot of firepower."

The weapons she understood, the ones that worked against great ships like these, required a lot of space and often their own power system away from the ship's engines. She had never seen ships so tiny with repeated firepower, the kind that could do damage on something like the
Ivoire.

That wasn't entirely true. It was possible, if the ships gave up something, like speed. But these little ships kept up with the
Ivoire
and had powerful weapons.

"How is that possible?" she asked.

"I don't know," Graham said. "They're not like anything we've ever encountered before."

"And," Phan said, "they don't seem to be anything our various allies have encountered either."

"What about the Xenth?" Sabin asked. The Xenth weren't really allies, but they were the ones who suggested the brokered peace conference.

"I'm not getting anything from Sector Research," Phan said. "They're scrambling for information from the
Alta.
But they're not finding anything."

"Which might mean that there's nothing to find," Wilmot said.

He seemed unusually pessimistic. Sabin frowned at him. He didn't look at her. He was bent over his console, working furiously on improving their speed so that they could get to Coop faster.

"Captain." The single word cut through all the discussion. It was Alvarez. "Look at the
Ivoire."

Sabin looked. It seemed to glow.

"Is that your effect, Perry?" she asked Graham.

"No, sir," he said. "That's the
Ivoire."

Sabin had never seen anything like that before. "What the hell is that?"

The
Ivoire's
glow increased and then the ship vanished.

"Tell me they activated their
anacapa,"
she said, hoping she didn't sound as worried as she felt.

"They did," Graham said, "but I only know that because I just got a transmission from them a few minutes ago, announcing their intention to do so."

"That transmission should be simultaneous with the
anacapa's
activation," Sabin said. "We should have gotten it as the
Ivoire
vanished."

"Yes, sir," Graham said, his tone speaking to the problem more than his words did.

"Keep this screen open, but show me what happened when that transmission was sent," she said.

Another screen appeared next to the main screen. On it, the ships—all of them, including the
Ivoire
—were in slightly different positions.

The little rays of light kept hitting the
Ivoire
in various places all over its hull.

"Dammit," Ebedat said.

"What?" Sabin said. She hadn't seen anything. But her eye kept getting drawn to the scrum of little ships left in the
Ivoire's
wake. The
Ivoire's
disappearance seemed to have confused them. Or maybe they were automatic, and unable to cope with a target that suddenly vanished.

"I think," Ebedat said, "and let's put an emphasis on 'think,' okay? I
think
that six shots hit the
Ivoire
as it activated the
anacapa."

"That shouldn't cause a problem," Wilmot said.

"Not with weapons we understand," Ebedat said, "but these didn't show up on our system without some tweaking from Lieutenant Graham."

"Good point," Sabin said, wanting to shut down dissent while Ebedat had the floor.

"And look." Ebedat froze the frame, then went over to it and pointed. "Three of those shots hit the general vicinity of the
anacapa
drive."

"The most protected drive on all the ships," Wilmot said. "You can't hit the
anacapa
without penetrating the hull."

"Do we have proof that the hull was penetrated?" Alvarez asked.

"There's no obvious damage," Graham said.

Sabin frowned at it all. "We don't know what kind of weapons they're using. They might have penetrated the hull without damaging it."

"That's not possible," Wilmot said.

"Most cultures would say the
anacapa
isn't possible either," Sabin said, "and almost everyone we've encountered hasn't figured out that foldspace exists."

The bridge was silent for a moment. The second screen's image remained frozen. On the first screen, the little ships swarmed the spot where the
Ivoire
had been, almost as if they were trying to prove to themselves that it hadn't become invisible.

"The
anacapa
couldn't have malfunctioned and created that light," Wilmot said, but he didn't sound convinced.

"We don't know if that light came from the weapons," Sabin said. "The
Ivoire
is probably in foldspace right now. Did Captain Cooper send us a window? How long does he plan to be in foldspace?"

"That part of the message was garbled," Graham said. "Give me a moment to clean it up."

"How long would you remain in foldspace, Captain, if this were happening to the
Geneva?"
Phan asked.

"The
Ivoire
knew support was half a day out," Sabin said. "That would seem like a blip in foldspace. They could return without worrying about the little ships."

She hoped that was what Coop had done. Just because one captain would do it didn't mean another would. It was logical, though. And then they could all take on the problems caused by those little ships.

"They'll also get a chance to assess damage," Wilmot said, "and maybe recalibrate their own weapons to take out those little ships."

Sabin frowned. Coop hadn't fired on those ships, that she had seen anyway. Maybe he had other reasons that he couldn't do so. Maybe his weapons systems weren't working. Maybe he already knew that the weapons had no effect on those little vessels.

"He planned a twenty-hour window, sir," Graham said. "At least I think that's what the
Ivoire's
message said. I'm coordinating with several others in the front line. We'll let you know if that estimate is wrong."

"It sounds right to me," Sabin said. "It gives the
Ivoire
enough time to do some work on its own and it gives those small ships enough time to give up on the
Ivoire
and think it gone."

"And it also gives enough time for us to arrive," Wilmot said.

"Is he leaving this mess for us to clean up?" Phan asked, a bit too bluntly.

But Sabin knew what she meant. "The Fleet is operating diplomatically on Ukhanda. Once fire is exchanged, diplomacy ends."

"Yeah, so why wouldn't we fire?" Phan asked.

"I mean, once
we
fire, diplomacy ends," Sabin said.

"So we're supposed to take it when someone shoots at us?" Phan asked.

Had Phan never been in a battle? Sabin couldn't remember. It had been a long time since the
Geneva
had been under fire.

"Sometimes," Sabin said. "But we're generally not a diplomatic ship. Captain Cooper's weapon components would be different for this mission, and his orders would be constrained."

"Twenty hours," Wilmot said, clearly wanting to change the conversation. Protecting Phan? Sabin couldn't tell. "Does he want us there early to take the action he couldn't take?"

"He probably wants the show of force," Graham said. "It's one thing for a bunch of tiny ships to go after a large ship. It's another to face twenty ships from our front line."

Graham had a point. And Sabin had a job to do. She had to get her ship to that location, but she also needed clear instructions from the
Alta.
The diplomatic mission might be important or it might be something that the front line could scrub.

"I'm going to change," Sabin said, "and while I'm in my cabin, I'm going to see if I can get clear orders from the
Alta
on what we need to do when we get to Ukhanda. The last thing we need to do is blunder our way into a crisis."

Phan looked at her, expression serious. This time, however, Phan didn't say anything.

Wilmot was still staring at the screen as if he were trying to understand it.

"For the moment, Charlie," Sabin said to him, "you have the comm. Notify me if anything changes. And do your best to get us to that spot as fast as we can go, would you?"

"Yes, sir," Wilmot said.

She tugged on her bracelet as she left the bridge. To tell the truth, she was relieved that the dinner wouldn't happen. She liked action. She liked doing her job, not talking about trivial things.

She was worried about Coop, but he could take care of himself.

Her most important job now was to make sure the
Geneva
didn't screw up the Fleet's plans for the region.

She needed guidance, and she needed it now.

It only took Sabin a few minutes to remove the dress and put on her uniform. Her uniform felt like a second skin to her. She glanced at the bed, her dress with its bow and fancy fabric splayed on top of the coverlet, and wondered what she had been thinking. She expected her crew to be prepared on front line.

She should have been, too.

Her quarters were the largest on the
Geneva,
not because she reserved the best for herself, but because regulations insisted. She had to put up with a certain amount of ceremony as captain, and she didn't like it any more than she liked the dress.

But she appreciated her quarters this evening. Because, unbeknownst to most of the crew, the captain's quarters had a back-up control area, along with its own private communication network. And to get into that area took several layers of identification and approval. Once she was inside—alone—no one else could get in without even more identification and approval from her.

The area was just off her bedroom. A panel in the wall hid the entrance to the back-up control area.

She finger-combed her hair, then went through the various protocols that opened the panel. It slid back, revealing a small space that looked more elaborate than the back-up controls in engineering. In addition to the back-up navigation, piloting, and weaponry, there was an entire console for communications.

She closed the panel, then settled in, facing the communications console. This was where she had usually contacted Coop. In fact, he was the person she spoke to the most from this room.

It felt odd not to contact him at all.

The thought made her just a little shaky. She wasn't sure why she was so on edge about his message, even though her counselor at the academy would tell her why she was. He would have said that it had to do with her father.

Sabin set that aside.

She took a deep breath, feeling the calm she was known for descending on her.

She put a message through to Command Operations on board the
Alta.
Command Operations guided the Fleet. It was an organization of top-ranked officials, most of whom had served with distinction as captains of their ships once upon a time. They were the ones who essentially ran the Fleet.

There was a civilian government, but because the Fleet's origins were military, the power structure remained so. The civilian government took care of general management and often took care of diplomatic relations, but in situations like this one, Command Operations took charge.

Sabin identified herself, and then she said, "I realize I'm not senior captain for the front line, but so far, the senior captain hasn't checked in."

And she hoped that message got through: the front line's senior captain was so far away from his duties that he couldn't come to a support request in a timely fashion.

"We're heading toward the
Ivoire's
position as per Captain Cooper's request. We'll be there in less than twelve hours. But we all have some questions about the mission."

Finally the screen across from her winked on, revealing the faces of several members of Command Operations. She had met two, including General Zeller, who had been the first to question her abilities to captain, more than twenty years ago. The other three faces looked familiar, of course, and even if she hadn't known them by reputation, the listing of names and credentials below their images would have helped her understand who she was talking to.

The faces seemed to float against a black background. Long ago, Command Operations had established its communications imagery to show only the pertinent information and nothing more. In conversation with a captain, only the faces had been deemed pertinent.

"Your mission or Captain Cooper's?" asked General Nawoki, the other person that Sabin had met personally. She barely knew General Nawoki, although she admired Nawoki's military record. Nawoki was one of the few officers who had defended her ship—with no loss of life—in a four-day prolonged battle after her
anacapa
had broken down. At one point, overrun by the enemy, she managed to stave off boarding and ship capture by reengineering half the lifepods into weapons.

"I'm interested in both missions," Sabin said. "According to what little we saw of the attack, Captain Cooper did not fire on the ships. Speculation from our Sector Research team is that these ships are Quurzod, and we know that the
Ivoire
was on a pre-diplomatic mission to the Quurzod. I need to know—the entire front line needs to know—if we're not to fire on those ships, or if the diplomatic mission is off."

The members of Command Operations did not look at each other—that she could tell, anyway. She had no idea how the cameras were set up in Command Operations. She didn't even have a high enough rank to enter the level on the
Alta
that housed Command Operations, let alone ever go into the room.