For Honor We Stand (48 page)

“Whereas, the Krag,” said the XO, “coming from rodents, care most about security, and their drama would be about hiding and getting away.  I suppose their plays would be about things like people who hide the truth of their lives from their friends and relatives, create a cover story that explains their disappearance, and then run away to another continent to set themselves up under a new identity.”

“Exactly,” said Max.  “In fact, you just summarized a standard, recurring dramatic plot.  It’s been the basis for uncounted works of Krag literature.  But, here’s my lesson for the both of you.  As of this very minute, you need to stop thinking about the Krag simply in terms of being one dimensionally evil.  Yes, they are a deadly enemy.  Yes, they are bent on our destruction.  But, they have motivations more complicated than just our extinction.  They have a thought process.  They have brilliant minds—on an individual basis they may be a bit smarter than we are.  Learn who they are.  Learn what makes them tick.  Develop sympathy and understanding and empathy for their point of view and learn to see the universe from a Krag perspective.  You can’t demonize them; you must see them as complex, rational beings.”

“All the better to kill them?” 

“Yes, doctor, absolutely.  All the better to kill them.  Speaking of which, gentlemen, I need to speak to our Chief Engineer about doing yet another thing with this ship that she’s not supposed to be able to do.  That, too, is all the better to kill the Krag because, my friends, amidst all the uncertainties and unknowns in this big bright galaxy, there is one thing you can absolutely count on.”

“What’s that, Captain?” both of the other men said in unison.

“This is war, and war is a kill or be killed proposition.  And you can absolutely count on me using every resource, pushing every system and every man, and breaking every rule in the book to make goddamn sure it’s us doing the killing.  Them or us?  It’s us.  Every time.  Good day to you both.  I’ll be in Engineering.”

He left.

***

The
Cumberland
had passed without incident through the first three of the danger zones jointly predicted by the CO and XO.  The fourth jointly predicted zone was only five hours ahead, but the area where Max expected to be attacked was ten minutes ahead. 
Cumberland
and
Broadsword
were at General Quarters:  all hands at battle stations, all weapons and defenses ready, engines standing by for rapid maneuvering. 

Max had dutifully informed Commander Duflot of his expectation.  Notwithstanding the warning, Duflot had the
William Gorgas
at Condition Green.  Duflot’s signal informing Max of his decision not to bring his ship to a higher alert status included the statement:  “I SEE NO NEED TO PUT MY CREW THROUGH THE INCONVENIENCE OF STANDING TO GENERAL QUARTERS WHEN THE ONLY EVIDENCE OF HEIGHTENED DANGER IS THE QUESTIONABLE JUDGMENT OF AN INFERIOR COMMANDER.”  There was no doubt in Max’s mind that Duflot meant the word “inferior” in both senses. 

Max hoped that Commander Duflot and, indeed, the whole group, didn’t pay too dearly for his arrogance.

“Mister Chin, you did signal ‘Mike Victor’ using the aft omni light.”

“Aye, skipper, just over three minutes ago.  There’s no way the pennant saw it.”

“Outstanding.”  He turned to Kasparov.  “Everyone in your section needs to be sharp, but I want particular vigilance on the sensor bands the enemy uses for his ship-board targeting scanners.  Not the general sensors they use to localize other ships, but the ones they activate to get a target lock for their missiles.  You detect anything that even smells like that, I want to know about it.  Don’t wait for a confirmation or a second phenomenology or to take a closer look at it.  Understood?  We’re not going to get much warning.  With the tail, we’re going to get just a few more seconds than Mr. Krag thinks, and we need to take full advantage of them.”

“Understood, sir.  We’re ready.  I’ve got two extra men on that console in my Back Room and Goldman is going to be here in about a minute to back me up on this console.”

“Goldman?” 

“Yes, skipper.  I know he was busted and I’m not presuming to promote him back to CIC status, but he is the sharpest man I’ve got on that kind of detection.  I’d feel better with him at my side, sir.”

“Kasparov, it’s your department and, you’ll be making the call, so if you want to dig up Sir John Jellicoe and put him in that chair, you won’t have any complaints from me.  Just tell Goldman not to get too comfortable up here.  He’s still got time to serve down in the waste treatment plant.”

“Aye, sir.”

Max sat down at his station, unconsciously rubbing his palms on the legs of his uniform to take off the sweat.  This one was going to be hairy.  Just then, Goldman cycled through the CIC security door, followed by a Marine who took up station inside the door.  Goldman had lost his general CIC clearance which meant that if he was in CIC, the Marine would be there, too.   

A moment later, the doctor cycled through the door.  Clouseau came in with him, scampering around his feet while somehow managing not to trip him or get stepped on.  Cats do that, somehow.  The doctor sat at the Commodore’s Station while Clouseau curled up on top of the signal condition equipment box for the Sensors station.  The extra signal processing load from the towed array was making the unit run about ten degrees warmer than usual, making the box a nice toasty, pre-warmed cat perch, with the added benefit of putting the cat within easy reach of both Goldman and Finnegan, should either have a mind to pet a cat while on watch.  Clouseau stretched invitingly, resulting in a brief scratch behind the ears and under the chin from Finnegan.  Goldman was too wrapped up in his console to notice.  Clouseau looked at him with obvious irritation.  Goldman was now on the cat’s shit list.  Anyone who does not believe cats have shit lists has never lived with a cat.

Seconds ticked by, tension gripping all of CIC like a vise.  Max found himself having to make a distinct expenditure of attention and effort to keep from sitting on the edge of his seat or fidgeting or standing at the Sensors station watching the take from the towed array.  He willed himself to sit back, hands on the arms of the chair or holding his coffee, radiating confidence.  He wasn’t fooling anyone.

He kept glancing over at Kasparov and Goldman, who were intent upon their console, scrutinizing each of the apparently random dots representing signals processed out of the towed array.  Max gave into temptation and pulled up the same displays Kasparov and Goldman were watching.  To the untrained eye, they were nothing more than two screens each consisting of a black background covered with a few dozen tiny dots in assorted colors.  Each dot represented some kind of signal detection, likely random noise.  The location of the dots on the screen, left or right, indicated relative bearing.  One screen displayed the bearing on a horizontal plane level with the decks of the ship, with dead ahead in the center and the two edges each representing dead astern; the other displayed the bearing to the same contacts on a vertical plane, perpendicular to the decks, with “above” the ship in the center and “below” at the two edges of the display.  To help the operator correlate the two representations of each contact the system would highlight the dot representing a contact on one screen when the operator would touch the corresponding dot on the other with his finger or a stylus. 

Each screen’s vertical axis represented time with the newest signals at the top, a new line painting itself across the top of the screen once every two seconds causing the previous lines to move slowly downward, leading to this data output mode being known as a “waterfall display.”  The size of the dots showed strength of the signal, and color showed the frequency.  If several different frequencies were detected at the same bearing, the computer would display the dots very close together, surround them with a set of brackets, and place a bright orange vertical line at the actual bearing.  A strong detection would show up as a series of large dots, of many colors, accumulating one atop the other in a column, either straight or slanting to one side as the source and the receiver moved relative to one another. 

Max pondered the situation.  If he was a Krag trying to pounce on this group, where would he lurking?  Not dead ahead, because that’s where the group-leading
William Gorgas’s
active sensor scans would be the strongest.  And not dead astern, because Señior El-Krag can see that there are Destroyers in the group and many Destroyers are equipped with towed arrays that would provide sensitive coverage in that direction.  And not dead abeam, because, instinctively, those bearings represent the flanks that we mammals with vital organs in our rib cages instinctively protect.  No, they’re rats and we’re monkeys.  When we’re on the ground, the threats are around and above us, not below.  But, underground and in the underbrush is where the rodent goes when he feels threatened.  Given his druthers, the rat comes from underneath and goes for the belly or the throat or the genitalia, which is the last place the monkey expects to be attacked.

“Mister Kasparov, let’s shift the towed array negative z to the drive trail, forty-five kills.”

“Aye, sir, shift the tail negative z to the wake, zero-four-five kills.  And, sir, Goldman suggested the same thing about two seconds before you did.”

“Outstanding.  Good to see that Mister Goldman is back to his old self.  We’re going to need everyone’s best today, I think.”  Goldman was one of the crew members who had been taking illegal drugs made on board by the now imprisoned Spacer Green using an illegally obtained MediMax pharmaceutical synthesizer.  Goldman had been taking stims, while most of the other drug abusers were taking an anti-anxiety medication called the “Chill.”  “And, Mister Chin, blinker the Piranhas that they might want to focus their attention in our forward, ventral zone, offset twenty-five to thirty-five degrees from our base course on both axes.”

Although the group was on EMCON, when the fighters stationed in this system showed up to escort the group, Max had Chin blinker them on the sly, filling them in on the situation and asking them to watch for blinkered Morse code “suggestions” from the
Cumberland’s
aft signal light, positioned where it was invisible from the pennant ship.  Max’s growing reputation nearly guaranteed that the fighter pilots would be receptive to those suggestions.  The four fighters that joined the group, twenty year old but still serviceable FS-51 Piranhas, ducked their finger-four formation under the group, divided into two-ship elements, and diverged to accelerate ahead to sanitize the area Max was concerned about, blasting it with active sensor transmissions. 

Max focused his attention again on the feed from the towed array on his console.  He turned his eye to the area of the screen representing the bearings from which he thought the Krag vessels most likely to appear.  Just a few random dots.  Nothing yet.  He picked up a dry erase marker, commonly used in CIC for indicating or highlighting information on displays, and drew brackets around the bearings where he expected the Krag to be hiding.  And, just to be sure of himself, he instructed the computer to show him on an adjacent display dots of the colors associated with the most likely Krag missile targeting frequencies.  Yep.  Those were just the shades of garish pinkish purple and coffee with too much cream in it tan that he remembered. 

His eyes went back to the two waterfall displays and he looked again at the bracketed areas of the top lines.  Nothing.  Just a random speck or two of the wrong colors.  He saw the men fidgeting.  These men were smart and, like spacers going back to the beginning of the space services and the Salt Water sailors before them, they were good at reading the mood of their Captain.  The Captain was expecting trouble, and so were they.

Five minutes passed.  Ten.  The fighters moved from one area to another, systematically searching with eyes and sensors.  The group would be out of the danger area in just four more minutes.  Max could almost feel Commander Duflot gloating.

But, they weren’t out of the woods yet.  This is just when people start to think they’ve got it made.  Just where their vigilance starts to slacken.  Max could feel it around him:  stances more relaxed, people taking a second or two to look away from their displays every now and then.  They needed to be reminded.  “Just because we’re
almost
out doesn’t mean we
are
out, people.  If I had a tail and whiskers, this is just where I’d hit us.”  He felt the men’s vigilance tighten.

He turned his own eyes back to the two waterfall displays in front of him, focusing on the two areas he had bracketed.  Maybe he was being too smart.  As the
Cumberland
approached the edge of the interference zone, there was less and less space inside the zone at those bearings relative to the ship.  Maybe they would come from the flanks, or from the dorsal direction.  His eyes ran along the tops of the displays along every line of bearing.  He couldn’t watch them all at once.  That was what he had Sensors people for, but he just couldn’t keep himself from looking even if Kasparov and Goldman might take it as a sign that he didn’t trust them to spot a threat as rapidly as he could.

Couldn’t keep himself from looking?  Bullshit.  He switched the displays from the towed array data channels to the fusion reactor efficiency/performance plots.  He would trust his people. 

To make a point of it, he turned away from Sensors to Weapons.  “Mister Levy, when we have well-cleared the danger area, I’m going to stand down from General Quarters.  This time, when you take the pulse cannons from Ready back down to Prefire, I want to do a purge of the cryo conduits and get someone from GM to verify . . . .”