To Honor You Call Us (33 page)

The first step belonged to the Stealth Officer.  “Emitting a burst of Cherenkov-Heaviside radiation.  Switching from Stealth Mode to Emulation Mode—electronic and drive signatures now mimic a Romanovan Revenue and Inspection Cutter,
Flavius
Class.”  One of the missions for which the
Khyber
Class destroyers were built was penetrating into enemy space and destroying his shipping to cripple his war production, much as United States submarines had penetrated Japan’s Pacific defense perimeter to destroy her merchant marine during Earth’s Second World War.  To enable them to perform that mission, in addition to a highly effective stealth suite to hide the ship’s own emissions, each also had a sophisticated “emulation” suite consisting of emitters designed to mimic the electronic signatures radiated by the drives, weapons, sensors, and other systems of a variety of other ships.  She could not change her color or her shape, but in terms of her electronic, graviton, and other emissions, the
Cumberland
was the space faring equivalent of a chameleon. 

“Ahead at zero point zero five c steering the first leg of standard Romanovan search grid.  Prepared to increase speed according to Romanovan jump recovery procedures.”  This from LeBlanc.

“Broadcasting transponder ID code copied by Naval Intelligence from the
R.R.I.C.
Caracalia
,” announced Comms.

“Visual inspection confirms that all our shutters are closed, all dummy viewport panels are illuminated, and all false running lights are activated and operating.”  Midshipman Kurtz made the announcement in a steady, if still treble, voice.  Max had put the Midshipmen in charge of much of the visual deception scheme and, as the Midshipman in CIC, Kurtz was their liaison with Command. 

“Beginning active sensor sweeps.  All sensor types, frequencies, polarization schemes, modulations, and phase variances calibrated to mimic Romanovan sensor protocols,” said Kasparov.

As a result of these deceptions, Max was hoping that the sensors on board the Ghiftee freighter (freighter sensors are usually pretty rudimentary) would show what appeared to be a ship coming through the jump point that led to Romanovan space, identifying itself electronically as a Romanovan cutter, emitting the same sensor beams as a Romanovan cutter, recovering from jump at the same rate as a Romanovan cutter, and carrying out the same search patterns as a Romanovan cutter.  The purported Ghiftee should conclude, therefore, that the
Cumberland
was
a Romanovan Cutter.  If it walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and flies like a duck, it must be a duck.   

“Speed is now at point two eight,” said LeBlanc, forty-six minutes later, “which is where the Romanovans like to cruise at in this class.  Executing second leg of search pattern.”

“Active sensor contact,” announced Kasparov.  “Bearing, range, course, and speed congruent with previous passive contact identified as November two.  Getting a good, strong return.  Sir, that would be a solid detection for a Romanovan ship.”

“Very well.  Now we act like we just spotted them.  Maneuvering, increase to what would be Flank for the Romanovans and shape course to intercept.”

“Romanovan flank, intercept course, aye.”

In a few minutes, the
Cumberland
had accelerated to 0.55 c, just as a Romanovan Cutter would under the circumstances.  An hour and a half later, the destroyer had matched course and speed with the freighter and was holding station 800 meters off her starboard beam.

Just then, Doctor Sahin walked onto the bridge, resplendent in the crimson and gold uniform of a Romanovan Cutter Captain, glittering with enough multi-colored braid, oddly-shaped insignia, and jewel encrusted medallions to decorate a dozen admirals and the bellmen from every five star hotel in the quadrant, and made only slightly more ridiculous by the matching riding breaches tucked into gleaming cavalry boots, complete with loudly jingling, jeweled spurs.  An absurdly long sword in an elaborately bejeweled scabbard hung at his side.  Several men broke out in open laughter.  “Doctor Sahin,” the skipper exclaimed, “you look as though you outrank God!”

“I beg you, sir, to say nothing further along those lines.  It is a most impious remark,” said the doctor, genuinely horrified.

“I beg your pardon, Doctor.  It was an improper thing to say.  But that uniform!”

“You have my pardon, certainly.  Indeed, it is a bit excessive.  But, the Romanovans do have an exaggerated sense of their own grandeur, as one would suspect for a colony of upstart Italians with pretentions of being successors of the Roman Empire.  They even speak Latin, of all things.”

“Now, Doctor, let’s not have any illiberal remarks about Italians.”

“Certainly not.  Admirable people.  Can there be any a nobler tribe than the race that sired Vivaldi and Verdi, Da Vinci and Michelangelo, Dante and Cima?  No.  I refer to the Romanovans as a distinct species sprung from the Italian
genus
.  One need only look at this comic-opera costume of a uniform, much less listen to their interminable bombastic symphonies or view their grotesque, grandiose architecture to know that, as a people, they have a deep-seated sense of inferiority and an overwhelming need for external validation.”

“That, Doctor, is beyond me.  Now, you are certain that you can pass for one of them—to convince someone who has heard their speech many times that you are a native?”

“Certainly.  I have studied Latin since the cradle and spent a great deal of time in Romanovan space with my father, selling machine tools and purchasing gourmet olive oil.  Their language is merely Classical Latin with a Tuscan accent and with some rather idiosyncratic grammatical errors.”

“Outstanding.  Then have a seat right here.”  Max got up from his station and gestured for the doctor to take his place.  The doctor’s sword got hung up on the skipper’s console causing the tip to swing around and hit Garcia in the knee.  The XO grasped the sword and guided it so that it would follow the doctor into the seat.

“Careful, Doctor,” said the XO, “you’ll put someone’s eye out with that.”

“Indeed,” he said with an embarassed smile.  “I mustn’t make more work for myself.”  Then, sheepishly, as if to explain the accident, “It
is
an unusually long sword.”

The XO smiled.  “They must be compensating for something.”

“Indeed,” said Sahin.

Temporarily evicted from his accustomed place, Max sat down at the “Commodore’s Station,” a comfortable seat with a compact console on the Command island, usually unoccupied, placed there for use by visiting senior officers.

 Now it was time to talk like a duck.  “Comms, send the first message,” Max ordered.

“Aye, sir.”  The Romanovans, like the Romans before them being enamored of all things traditional, invariably hailed and communicated with foreign vessels using the old Interstellar Text Transmission Protocol, the same protocol which, with the interposition of a translation matrix, was used to communicate with alien species.  So, it was in that clunky, hundred year old code, which did not allow the sending of lower case letters, punctuation, or special characters, that the
Cumberland
sent:  “GHIFTHEE FREIGHTER THIS IS THE ROMANOVAN CUTTER CARACALIA STOP PREPARE TO BE BOARDED FOR SAFETY AND CARGO INSPECTION STOP NULL ALL DRIVES AND DISABLE ANTI-GRAPPLING FIELD STOP MESSAGE ENDS.”

The freighter, like most ships, had an anti-grappling field.  Such fields could be overcome either through brute force by a hugely powerful grapfield, such as the one generated by the Vaaach ship of recent memory, or through finesse by jamming.  The
Cumberland
, however, lacked the power to overcome an antigrap and could not jam such a field in less time than it would take for the freighter to escape.  So, Max needed to convince the freighter to null its field.

About a minute passed.  “Response message, sir,” said Comms.  The text appeared on Max’s console, and on several others:  “WE ARE IN UNCLAIMED SPACE STOP OUR COURSE DOES NOT TAKE US INTO OR THROUGH YOUR JURISDICTION STOP  STATE AUTHORITY BY WHICH YOU CLAIM RIGHT TO BOARD THIS VESSEL STOP MESSAGE ENDS.”

“Exactly what we thought they’d say,” said Max.  “Wait thirty seconds and then send the second message.”  In response to Chin’s puzzled look, “We don’t want it to look like we had the message already written, do we?”

Chin nodded his comprehension.  “Aye sir.  Wait thirty and then send message number two.”

At the appropriate moment, Chin hit the key for the second transmission.  It read:  “THIS SYSTEM HAS A JUMP POINT WITH COUNTERPART IN ROMANOVAN SPACE STOP THEREFORE UNDER ARTICLE XXIX SECTION 8 PARAGRAPH 12 OF THE SECOND INTERSTELLAR CONVENTION ON NAVIGATION CUSTOMS COMMERCE AND TERRITORIAL CLAIMS THIS SYSTEM LIES WITHIN OUR SYSTEM DEFENSE AND IDENTIFICATION ZONE STOP AS SUCH WE ARE ENTITLED TO BOARD YOUR SHIP TO INSPECT IT FOR COMPLIANCE WITH INTERSTELLAR SAFETY PROTOCOLS AND TO DETERMINE WHETHER YOUR VESSEL OR CARGO POSE ANY THREAT TO THE SECURITY OF OUR IMPERIUM STOP MESSAGE ENDS.”  This message had the dual attributes of not only copying exactly a message sent under similar circumstances by a genuine Romanovan cutter, but also of being a scrupulously accurate statement of the applicable interstellar law.  The Romanovans might be pompous asses, but they were punctilious about interstellar treaties.

“Sir,” said Comms, “they are requesting visual.  Receiving a carrier on Channel 5.”

“Doctor, that looks like your cue.  Everything ready, Chin?”

Comms checked to be sure that the camera was set for a tight shot of the doctor, just his head and shoulders with so little of the background included that no one could tell from the image that he was on a Union Destroyer instead of the Romanovan Cutter.  “Aye sir, all set.”

“Now, Doctor, remember you are playing a part.  Imagine yourself as Admiral Sir Joseph Porter, K.C.B.”

The doctor sat up straighter, donned a headset, adopted the stern aspect of aloof, haughty condescension that went with the Ruler of the Queen’s Navy from Gilbert and Sullivan’s
H.M.S. Pinafore
, and nodded imperiously to Max.

Max gestured to Comms who said, “Opening Channel 5.”

The several screens punched into Channel 5 briefly showed the standard interstellar visual comm test pattern, a black circle transected by two wide bars at right angles to each other, the bars each divided into several blocks containing different shades of gray.  Because color perception varied so greatly from species to species, standard transmissions were in a monochrome mode inaccurately referred to as “Black and White.”  Color communications generally took place only between ships of the same flag. 

The test pattern was soon replaced by the face of a human male with light hair, light eyes, a long, thin nose, and a small, pointy chin.  He appeared to have an unadjusted age of about sixty, which meant he could be anywhere between fifty and a hundred and fifty.  To the doctor’s trained eye, and to Max’s practically experienced one, the man appeared to be extremely nervous.

“This is Fergus McKelvie, Master of the Ghifthee Freighter
Loch Linnhe
.  We request further verification of your identity before we consent to boarding.”

“Captain McKelvie,” the doctor replied in an unaccustomed accent, presumably Romanovan, and with equally unaccustomed steel in his voice, “you
will
be boarded, whether you consent or not.  This cutter is armed and in these dangerous times my orders are to treat as hostile and to fire upon any vessel that does not heave to for inspection.  I suspect that your owners would not appreciate having to tow your vessel to the nearest yard to replace the drive unit that I am prepared to blast to flinders five seconds from now.”  Romanovan Cutter Captains did not ask nicely.  They started with bluster and threats, then worked their way on up.

“Cutter Captain, you know that we can out run you.”

“Granted.  But you cannot outrun my pulse cannon, sir.  I will have your main sublight drive burned off before you can say ‘all ahead Flank,’” said the doctor as prompted by Max via headset.  He turned his head to the right where he had been told the Romanovans put the Weapons console on their Cutters and barked:  “
Armis dominum, para incendere
.”  As arranged earlier, the Stealth Officer created the semblance of what would have happened had a real Cutter Captain ordered his Weapons Officer to “prepare to fire.”  He activated emulation emitters giving off a power signature similar to that given off by a Cutter’s pulse cannon being placed in Prefire mode.

There was no doubt that the deception fooled the freighter captain, as the expression of abject horror on his face was unmistakable.  In fact, he looked as though he was about to become physically ill.  “No no no no NOOOO,” he nearly shrieked.  “Don’t fire.  That won’t be necessary.  Not necessary AT ALL.”  He turned to his right.  Still speaking Standard, he ordered in a panicked voice, “null the drive, kill the field, prepare for boarding and inspection.”  Back to the camera, he said, quaveringly, “Captain we await your boarding party.”

“Wise decision, Captain.”  To his imaginary Weapons Officer, “
Armis dominum, qui inrita ordinem
.”  And then to the camera, “Very well.  Prepare to be boarded. 
Finum nuntiante
.”  In response to those orders, stealth killed the false pulse cannon emissions and Comms closed the channel.

The instant the channel was closed, Max turned to Weapons, “Engage grappling field and put the freighter in docking position.  Maneuvering, as soon as we get a firm lock, null the drive.”  He hit the comm switch, “Major Kraft, you and your boarding party ready?”