Trouble with the Natives by Karlos Allen	Table of Contents Chapter 2 Chapter 3, part 1 appear in this issue.
Chapter 3 part 2 of 2

“However, terrible as your loss has been, it does not give you the right to treat the rest of the crew the way you have. If I hear you pull any more attitude, or refer to anyone the way you referred to Doctor Sorenson, I will have you confined to one of the life-support pods for the rest of the trip. The charge will be harassment.”

“You can’t do that.”

“You are wrong. I can. You would of course be free to sue when and if we get home, but I will not let that stop me. You will do your job and you will cooperate with the rest of the crew. Is that understood?”

“...Yes.”

“Good, dismissed.”

Singh watched him leave. He shook his head. Aspen and Macaroon, it seemed beyond belief.

Two hours later the ‘strategy team’ minus Aspen were back in the storm cellar. Tsao reported first. “We started by analyzing the heat output of that ship. In space, every joule of energy generated by a ship has to be radiated away. Reading the IR signature of it and applying some basic analysis gave us a pretty fair idea of what it’s capable of.

“Nate was right earlier, that ship was pulling its punches. We believe that at full power it is probably capable of vaporizing us outright if it should catch us with our sail down.

“Why they didn’t use that is beyond me unless it is true that they’re trying to hide. With our sail up and all of the dust dumped we could hold out against that kind of onslaught for a minute or so before enough heat leaked through to start causing damage.”

“How long would we have then?’

“That’s just the problem, we don’t know. We suspect not very long. There would probably be a cascade effect as the coils were burned out by the heat that did get through. This would cause the field to collapse. Then we’d vaporize.”

“I see, is there anything we can do to strengthen the sail?”

“Add mud.”

“Mud?”

“Mud, or rather dirty ice. The ring is lousy with it. A lot of it is leftover from collisions between iron or stony-iron asteroids. A lot of the dust grains have ice crystallized around them. We could sweep the field through a knot in the ring and pick them up.

“This would help us several ways. The sail would be denser; the ice would absorb a lot of the heat as it vaporized, and the vaporized particles would still stay in the field and block the laser.

“It would give us a side benefit, too. Besides the dust there’s a lot of ‘gravel’ in the ring. That would stay in the field and shred any projectiles they might throw at us.”

“How much time would we gain?”

“We could probably stretch it out for quite a while. You see, we also know how long they could keep up a maximum output beam before they started to overheat. It’s only about five minutes. Then they’d have to stop for a few minutes to cool. We estimate that if we can get it thick enough and keep the ship spinning, sorry Singh, we could hold out almost indefinitely.”

“What’s the downside?”

“It’s heavy. Really heavy. We wouldn’t be able to accelerate at all, let alone break orbit with all that dust in the field. That means that if we go that route we’re stuck here until we win or die. We certainly can’t run from them.”

“What about improvements offensively?”

“We’re still working on that. I can tell you right now, there’s no way we could match that ship. We don’t have enough onboard power.”

“I see. Well, Deb, it looks like it’s up to you.”

“We’ve put together a nice little presentation. If some one would dim the lights I’ll show it.”

The lights died down bringing the screen into focus. At first it was blank; Singh could hear Deb’s voice: “Alien base. We are not hostile. We do not know why you are attacking. If you are hiding from someone we make this offer. If you will cease attacking, we will leave. We will not broadcast your presence or anything about you until we get to our home world. At that point we will have no choice. That will give you a full two years.

“However, if you try to intercept us again, we will broadcast as loudly as possible the following information.” The screen lit up showing a series of images of the ship from different angles, followed by several images of the base and finished with a view of the Jovian system from above with a red arrow pointing clearly at the moonlet the base was on.

“We got to thinking about this message and we think it would be a good idea to put it on one of the remotes and fly it by the base rather than broadcast it from the ship directly. This would also give us time to change orbits and hide as much as possible.”

Aspen accosted him in the corridor about a half hour later. “Well? Have you figured out how we are going to destroy that ship?”

“No. Aspen, I’ll be honest, we are hopelessly outgunned. We are not remotely close to having enough power to slug it out with that ship. We can hold out against them but only at the cost of losing virtually all our maneuverability. We are pinning our hopes on Deb’s ‘blackmail’ scheme.”

“I want on Tsao’s team.”

“What? Why? You yourself said you have no experience with combat or weapons. Besides you two hate each other. Putting you on his team would guarantee failure.”

“Singh, I need to be on that team.”

“Why? Revenge?”

“Precisely. Don’t be so surprised, Singh. If you were in my position you’d want the same.”

Singh looked down for a moment. “No, Aspen, I can’t put you on Tsao’s team. What I said about you not working together is still true. Wait, wait,” he held up his hand, “what I want you to do is attack the problem separately. Tsao and his team are attacking it along orthodox lines, and that’s good. Things become orthodox because they generally work. But sometimes they don’t. I want you to attack it along unorthodox lines.”

Aspen actually rubbed his hands together. “That’s better; I’ll get right to work.”

“Wait, Aspen, I know what’s motivating you, and I understand. No, I do. But you need to understand what’s motivating me. I’m not after revenge; I want to get us, all of us, home in one piece. That’s it. I don’t care if they agree to Deb’s blackmail, I don’t care if we have to invent some kind of doomsday weapon out of spit and string, I want us to go home!

“That’s your problem statement. When I said ‘neutralize the ship and the base’ I was not indulging in military double-talk. I mean precisely that. Neutralize; make it so they can’t hurt us. That’s all.”

Singh floated into the module control bay a few minutes later. The circle of techs hunched over their screens looked like a miniature Mission Control. Against the far wall, in the center of the circle, was a larger screen that currently showed the inside of the launch bay. “Nate, how’s it going?”

“Fine, Singh. The probe’s been reprogrammed to fly past the moonlet and broadcast the ‘offer’. If they broadcast anything back it will relay to us via a tight beam squirt.”

“Won’t that give us away?”

“No, radio tight beam is still pretty broad. At best they’ll know what direction we are in relation to them but that’s about all, and that would be only if they’re able to pick up the beam.”

“All right, so we release the probe and then we change orbits?”

“That will happen at the same time actually, we’re going to run one of the tethers out to maximum length. It still isn’t quite long enough to be a good momentum exchange tether, but it will work.

“Better yet we won’t be radiating any energy at all. I was going to suggest that we shut everything down that we possibly can for a couple of hours. By then the ring will be between us and the base. We could use that cover to change our orbit a little bit more.”

“What about getting caught with the sail down?”

“That’s a risk we take, but unless they’ve already fixed their ship and sent it back hunting for us, the probe will see it and let us know. It’s going to be sending us squirts every minute or so with the data from its detection array.”

They turned to the main screen and watched as the little probe floated out and docked with the tether. After a few minutes, they began to drift toward one of the walls as the center of mass began to shift.

“Did you add some ballast to the probe, Nate? It seems we’re starting to feel this a little quickly.”

“Yeah, more junk. It seemed like a good way to get rid of it. We’re actually going to do this in two stages. We’ll release the probe first so that it will drop into the right orbit to contact the base, then we’ll run out the tether to max length and release the rest of the ballast there.”

“Would this maneuver work if we had the sail loaded?”

“You mean to get us out of the system? No, the tether isn’t nearly long enough and the amount of mass we would have to move would be huge, somewhere on the order of a moonlet. If we use that ‘loaded sail’ maneuver, we’re going to mass hundreds of tons. Any kind of movement will probably cause so much stress to the coils generating the magsphere that they’d burn out or rip right off the hull.”

A few minutes later there was a slight jar and then weightlessness returned as the ballast was dropped.

“We might as well get comfortable, the probe won’t reach the base for another hour or so.”

“Good, we can spend that time shutting systems down. When the broadcast reaches them, I don’t want them to be able to see us.”

* * *

Krallgh looked around at the small cell he’d been dumped in. Everything was either gray metal or black rock on the base. This was gray metal. He wondered what was happening to the ship. From the damage reports he knew that it would be close to a day before it was ready to fight again, and the natives could be doing almost anything during that time. If they were smart they’d be trying to get away.

No, he shook his head. They knew how fast the cruiser was. They wouldn’t be trying to get away; they’d know that was impossible. They’d be trying to follow up their advantage somehow. Oh well, it was the Commandant’s problem now. His was surviving a field court martial.

Suddenly the door slid open, the guard stepped aside and the Commandant walked in. Krallgh got to his feet. “Sir?”

“Do you speak the native language?”

“Some of them, sir, why?”

“We’ve just received a transmission from a small probe that they have orbiting near us. I’ve looked at the video part, but no one understands the language. You will translate it for me.”

“Yes, sir.” He ran the recording a couple of times listening to it and thinking.

“Well?”

“They’re offering us a deal, Sir. They’ve guessed that we want to remain undetected. So they have promised to leave quietly and not to broadcast anything about our presence until they get home. Then they’ll have to, but they point out that this will give us two years.”

“And if we attack?”

“Then they’ll broadcast that video sequence as loudly as they can.”

“So it’s blackmail, is it?”

“Well, it could be called that. We could also just think of it as diplomacy. We get what we want, and they get to live. That’s not a bad deal.”

“You would call it that, wouldn’t you? I call it blackmail. Nobody blackmails the Navy.”

“Sir-”

“No, the honor of the fleet won’t allow us to be blackmailed by a bunch of ignorant savages. My honor won’t let me do this.”

“What about the mission, Sir? Secrecy is absolutely imperative. We are authorized to do whatever it takes to preserve that. We were prepared to launch an unprovoked sneak attack on non-combatants to preserve it. Why not just let them go?

“Two years from now it won’t matter if they say anything or not. If the front moves through here, they will be occupied either by us or by the Smartheens. Please, sir, let’s not jeopardize the mission. Let’s just let them go.”

The Commandant looked at him. “That’s your recommendation is it?” he asked very softly.

Immediately Krallgh wished he’d insisted on a full scale assault. He knew that the Commandant was determined to do whatever it would take to make him look bad. Abruptly the Commandant turned and left, the door sliding shut behind him.

A couple of hours later the door opened again, this time it was Intelligence Officer Sreagh. “What did the Commandant want?”

“I don’t understand the question, Sreagh.”

“The Commandant was here and spoke at length to you right after we received the transmission. Then he left. He ordered the entire crew off of the cruiser and boarded it with a complement of Marines and some base personnel. They left almost immediately. What did you say to him?”

“Were the lasers replaced before he left?”

“No, he loaded the missile bays with tactical nukes instead.”

“The fool! I’m sorry, Sreagh, but that’s what he is. He’s throwing away the mission in a fit of pique. He’s so obsessed with proving that I was wrong in how I handled the native ship that he doesn’t care what happens to the mission, and I think I pushed him into it.”

“What was in that message?”

“You don’t understand English either?”

“No, it wasn’t necessary. We aren’t here to deal with the natives; that’s why we put the base clear out here. They were never supposed to know we existed.”

Krallgh explained the message and what he’d told the Commandant. Sreagh shook his head, “You’re right, he is a fool.” He paused “This is an Intelligence operation. Navy is only providing man-power and logistical support. Therefore, I can relieve him of command. I believe you are next in line, so get out of that cell and let’s see what we can do to salvage this.”

* * *

Singh floated in the command deck again watching the display. It was virtually the only thing on in the room. He was shivering uncontrollably by now. Practically the only places that still had heat were the life support pods and the storm cellar. Everyone who didn’t need to be somewhere else was huddled there trying to keep warm.

It had been two hours since the transmission had been sent to the alien base. It had been about one hour since the ship had taken off from there; its first act had been to destroy the probe flying nearby. Fortunately they’d seen it happen. They had already been shutting things down and now they watched as the alien ship spiraled out from the base, hunting them.

He looked down at the red button under his hand. All he had to do was push it and the broadcast would start. Only one thing held him back. It was something he himself had said when they first saw the ship launch. “Once we broadcast, two things will happen. They will know exactly where we are, and they will have nothing to lose. If they were pulling their punches before, they won’t anymore. The fact that they are calling us on this means we’ve already lost. Sending the signal won’t stop them from shooting us; at worst it’ll give us some kind of posthumous revenge.”

So he looked at the button but didn’t push it. It helped that currently the ship was moving away from them.

To be continued...

Copyright © 2007 by Karlos Allen