Retreat And Adapt (A Galaxy Unknown) (23 page)

Caine was sweating inside the spacesuit despite it being a temperature-controlled environment. Terran armaments pretty much followed a general construction form, but this was alien technology, and Caine had no idea how they thought. After reviewing again for a third time, he made a decision to proceed. He steeled his nerves and prepared to push the probe into the hole.

"What's going on, Chief?" suddenly shattered the silence inside his helmet.

Caine's arms immediately tensed and he froze as he was. After a couple of seconds, he retracted the probe and said, "Lieutenant Remus, sir. With all due respect, never interrupt a demolitions engineer when he's trying to disassemble an unknown device. If there's anything to report, I'll report it."

"Uh— sorry, Chief. Carry on."

"Yes, sir."

Caine steeled himself again and placed the tip of the probe at the hole. He took a deep breath and said, "Inserting the probe into the casing hole."

He pressed it very slowly into the hole, ready to retract it immediately. As it slid into the hole without resistance, Caine could only wonder if there was some other reason for the hole. Then he felt the probe encounter something. He stopped and said, "I've reached the end of the unobstructed travel. The probe cannot go further unless I add force. Adding force."

Caine pushed slightly and felt something give. The probe slid forward a few more millimeters.

"Something gave inside the casing. It's possible I've depressed an activation switch. If the missile doesn't explode, I'll see if the warhead is loose."

Caine breathed in controlled breaths for ten seconds before reaching out and taking hold of the warhead with his right hand. He still held the shaft with his left. As he gently pulled, it separated from the missile.

"The warhead is off," he said.

Examining the warhead and missile body, he saw how the warhead was intended to be attached.

"It's a simple and effective attachment system. A munitions worker can swap warheads in seconds if necessary. The warhead isn't giving off any radiation, so the fissionable material must be limited to the second section. I'll try to separate the second section from the missile. Inserting probe."

Caine took a couple of deep breaths and slowly pushed the probe into the casing. Just because it worked with the warhead didn't mean that the second section would detach the same way, but the money would be on the systems being the same.

When Caine felt resistance, he paused. "I've met resistance in the second hole. Increasing pressure."

He took a deep breath and held it. Again, Caine felt something give and the probe traveled a few more millimeters. When the missile didn't explode, he released the breath he had been holding and relaxed.

"Attempting to remove the second section."

The piece separated and floated free.

"The second section is off, and the sensors tell me that it contains the fissionable material. The third section is giving off only mild radiation, no doubt from having been in close proximity to the second section.
Tagus
, how do you wish to proceed?"

"Proceed according to plan, Chief," Commander Osborne said.

"Aye, Captain. Stevens?"

"Here, Chief."

"Bring me the bomb disposal containers."

"On my way, Chief."

Within an hour, the warhead had been secured in one container, the nuclear weapon stage in a second, and the delivery rocket portion in a third. It was expected that the delivery rocket had exhausted its fuel and posed no threat but better safe than sorry. The Dakinium locker housing the nuclear section was fully lined and no radiation would leak through. It was also expected that if the nuclear weapon were to detonate, the Dakinium would absorb the energy fully. The only question was the warhead. If it contained a substance that could destroy Dakinium, it might pose a danger. But the size of the warhead was small, and the explosive force was probably minor and only sufficient to spread the substance upon impact with the hull of the target since a larger explosion would most likely destroy the second stage nuclear weapon before it could be detonated. It was only the unknown aspects of the substance in the first-stage warhead that caused any real misgivings about taking the missile into the shuttle and then the
Tagus
.

"Good morning, sir," the
Tagus
XO said to Commander Osborne a week later when he reported for the daily briefing.

"Good morning, Jerry. I just received new orders. We're to take the missile we recovered to Quesann ASAP."

"Then they're calling off the search effort?"

"No, the search will continue for weapons that might have gone ballistic and not exploded after failing to hit a target. We're the only ship pulled out of the search effort. HQ wants this thing fast. Since we found it, we get to ferry it back."

"Well, I can't say I'll be sorry to see Quesann's pristine sandy beaches again. I wonder if they've cleared the sea for swimming yet."

"I don't know. And I don't know if we'll have time for R&R. We'll probably deliver the missile and then be sent right back out again."

"Without even a liberty weekend?"

"We'll have to see. With enemy ships destroying ours without even a fight, I don't imagine much shore leave is being approved these days."

* * *

"Let me see if I understand this," Director Wpleshoi said to Commander Blithallo, the senior officer at the Approach and Departure Center, "You want this Board of Directors to authorize moving the city because a single console in the Center is intermittently displaying a single dot for only an instant a few times during each shift, then is fine again."

"Yes, ma'am. The equipment has been tested and retested and we can find nothing wrong with it, which would indicate that the contact is very real."

"And you feel that this intermittent problem represents a threat to the city?" Another Board member asked.

"Uh— not necessarily a threat, sir. It's more of a mystery that must be solved if we're to continue to have trust in our equipment and know that it is reporting the situation correctly. There might be a danger that we're unaware of."

"Our generals have reported that the most powerful military in this part of space poses no threat to us. In two confrontations, we've destroyed their ships easily. In successive encounters, they've run away before we've had a chance to engage them. We've reported our success to the Denubbew Dominancy High Council and expect to hear soon about plans to assimilate this part of space. When other cities join us here, we expect to move through this part of space, destroying all sentient beings and terraforming the surfaces for colonization of our species on every viable planet. Why should we care that a single piece of electronic equipment is malfunctioning?"

"That's just it, Director. Repeated testing of the equipment has proven beyond any doubt that the equipment is not malfunctioning. I believe there's something out there and that we need to know what it is so we're prepared to handle it when the time comes."

"I'll approve sending out a ship to investigate."

"I've already done that."

"How? You don’t have the authority to dispatch a ship."

"True, but I do have the authority to reroute returning and outbound ships, advising them to be on the lookout for unidentified objects as they pass a certain point."

"Very clever, Commander. And has anyone reported seeing anything suspicious at the specified coordinates?"

"Uh— no, ma'am."

"And yet you still want to move the city to that area."

"Yes, ma'am."

"We'll take it under advisement. Dismissed, Commander."

"Yes, ma'am."

As the door to the chamber closed behind the departing Commander, the head director said to the others, "Any thoughts? Should we give any credence to this reported console reading that can't be substantiated by visual sightings from spaceships?"

"If there was something out there," one of the board members said, "one of the rerouted ships would have seen it. It has to be a malfunction in the console despite what the technicians have said."

"I agree," said another. "The DeTect system was a valuable addition to our defenses, and it has proven itself reliable in the past, but it simply might be seeing something just large enough to record a hit, such as a micrometeorite, but not large enough to register visually. In any event, something that tiny can't represent a threat to this city."

"Let's take a vote," the head director said. "All in favor of moving the city, signify now. All in favor of not moving the city, signify now. The vote is unanimous. We stay where we are. Is there any new business to discuss?"

* * *

"Where are we?" Marine corporal Beth Rondara said to the PFC who was on his knees, bent over her as she lay on a deck without benefit of blankets, mattress pads, or even oh-gee shielding. Some light slaps to her face had awakened her.

"I think we're in an enemy ship," PFC Vincent Kilburn said, straightening up. "This appears to be some kind of laboratory."

Rondara struggled to sit up, her mind still slightly clouded from stasis sleep. The room was completely empty. "What makes you think that?"

"It's not a brig, and you can see all sorts of equipment through that window over there," Kilburn said, pointing to a window at one end of the small room.

Rondara looked down, only then realizing she was naked, as was Kilburn. She recalled stripping down and slipping into a standard, formfitting stasis suit before climbing into a chamber in a lifepod aboard the
Salado
. But the deck here wasn't cold, so clothing wasn't a necessity, and modesty was one of the last things they needed to be concerned about right then.

Kilburn stood up and extended a hand towards Rondara. She took it and he helped her stand, then held her arm until she was steady on her feet. It was a couple of minutes before the room and her brain were in complete sync. As she let go of Kilburn's arm, she walked to the only window. She could see a room full of equipment, the purpose of which was unclear, and two stasis beds in the background. The door to the room where they were being held had no mechanism for opening it from their side.

"Think they intend to do a little testing?" she asked Kilburn.

"Wouldn't we? I suppose all that matters is whether we'll survive intact."

"Yeah, but that's not all that matters. They're going to try to learn everything they can about SC and the Corps. And they may want to know how we're put together first."

"Put together? You mean…"

"Yeah," Rondara said. "Exactly. And even if they put us back together, the experience of being taken apart isn't something we should look forward to."

"So, we try and escape then?"

"And go where?"

"I don't know. Hey, maybe we can sabotage this ship."

"And kill ourselves and the others that were with us aboard the
Salado
?"

"I don't really think we're getting out of this intact, Corporal. They didn't hesitate to kill everyone aboard the
Yenisei
and the
Salado
."

"Never give up, Kilburn. We still have something they will never have."

"What's that?"

"Admiral Carver."

"No offense, Corporal, but the Admiral can't help us here. We don't even know where we are, so how can she?"

"I don't know, but she's been in tough scrapes and never given up hope, and neither will we."

A noise at the window drew their attention. Something was moving around in the lab.

"What the heck is
that
thing?" Kilburn said.

"Looks kinda like a robot— or maybe a cyborg."

"Cyborg? You mean like half human?"

"Well, a creature whose body has been replaced in part by electromechanical devices to improve functionality, such as mobility, strength, or dexterity. It may not even be animal-based life. It might be aquatic or plantlike in its natural form. Look at that small window in its chest. That looks like it's filled with a clear fluid."

"Yeah, but how does that indicate it's not animal based?"

"It doesn't— not completely. But of all the sentient beings we've encountered in GA space, all evolved from animal life, and none live in fluid."

"It looks sort of like a human skeleton. Why does it look so much like us?"

"Well, it might be a coincidence, but…"

"But what?"

"It's basically a machine. They might have constructed it to appear like us on purpose."

"Why?"

"Maybe they expect that we'll adapt better to a form we know."

"It's a machine. They can't expect us to cozy up to that."

"I didn't mean it like that. I meant they might want to turn us into cyborgs, and perhaps think our coordination will be better if the body shape conforms to what we were born with."

"What? Are you kidding?"

"No. They might put the brains of captives into those kinds of bodies and make them work as slaves. In fact, that might be one of our fellow Marines or an SC engineer. For all we know, we're the last to be awakened."

"No way. If that was one of our guys, he'd be freeing us right now."

"The aliens would probably wipe the mind of a captive when they put it into a new body. I agree that if it
was
still one of us, it would be freeing us. So whatever or whoever it might have been, it's one of them now."

"Oh, yeah? Well if it's one of them, I wonder how well its head would hold up to a home run hit with a meter-long piece of steel pipe?"

"We may never know. They didn't leave us anything in here that we could use as a weapon. In fact they didn't leave us anything. I wish they'd at least left us our stasis suits."

"If we ever get out of here, I'm going to find out if I can knock it over the outfield fence."

"No attacks until I give the order. Understood, PFC?"

Kilburn sighed lightly. "Aye, Corporal."

"Now let's concentrate on memorizing the position of everything in the laboratory so we can find our way around in pitch black."

"Do you have a plan?"

"Not yet. I just want to be prepared if an opportunity presents itself."