John Ringo: Manxome Foe

“They were hard to track with the stuff we had at that time,” Bill said, frowning. “We never really could get a good direction on them.”

“Well, our office took your original data and crunched it… a little harder,” the lieutenant said, smiling slightly. “What we determined was that most of the Dreen gates, all the ones surveyed, seemed to point towards the Sagittarius constellation area. There is a cluster of stars, called a ‘local group,’ in that area that we now believe to be the primary center for Dreen worlds. It’s located in the Sagittarius arm, fortunately.”

“How far away… ?” the admiral started to say.

“The galaxy is divided into arms, sir,” Fey said, pulling up another picture of the local portion of the galaxy with some stars marked in on it. “We’re here, in the Orion Arm. The next arm over is the Sagittarius Arm. We’re talking, straight distance, about a thousand light-years away, possibly two thousand.”

“Two thousand hours,” Captain Blankemeier said with a wince. “At max speed. Long damned way.”

“I like it,” Admiral Townsend said. “The farther away they are the better. But that’s not why we’re here.”

“No, sir,” the lieutenant said. “However, it’s important to the story of HD 36951. The point is that HD 36951 is the nearest gate we have to the area the Dreen may be infesting. So the post was recently upgraded with a small security contingent and there were plans in the works to put up a satellite system. However…”

He tapped his computer again and a video started. The initial view was of the ground and the audio of panting.

“The base… it’s gone…” a man’s voice said, the view coming up and showing an area of dust and smoke. “There was… a big explosion. I was out surveying the… there’s… Oh, my God…”

The view whipped upwards and a dark shadow could be seen in the sky. The outlines were ovoid but that was about all that could be seen as the view began jumping all over the place.

“ Grapp this… grapp this…” the voice said, panting and apparently running. “I’m heading for the gate. If I don’t make it…”

The screen went to snow suddenly and the strained voice was cut off.

“On the far side of the gate a major explosion was detected coming through,” Lieutenant Fey said, cutting off the video. “Kinetic energy only, no radiation. A response team took about two hours to get there. The local sheriff’s office in the meantime sealed off the gate. The response team from SpaceCom found the base destroyed, apparently as a result of a kinetic strike. They also found the video camera but not the person using it who, based on the voice analysis, was Dr. Charles Talbot, an archaeologist studying the ruins on the world. There was no evidence of any alien presence; however, based on standard protocol a Mark-88 was fired through the gate, destabilizing it, and the gate is now being moved to Antarctic secure area as all potential Dreen gates have been moved.

“While the main base was destroyed, there was a secondary base in the nearby ruins. It is likely that there were survivors of the initial attack and the blast. They had limited supplies, however. Their holding out for the time for us to get there would be… problematic.

“That concludes my briefing, sir.”

“And we’re supposed to go find out what happened, sir?” Blankemeier said. “We were supposed to be taking the new ambassador to Cheerick, sir.”

“And you will, after this mission,” Admiral Townsend said. “There are several pieces to this. It’s unlikely that a rock just dropped on the planet and happened to hit the base. Somebody destroyed it. We need to know who, especially if it’s the Dreen. And Dr. Talbot, although not an astronomer, might know enough about the galaxy to direct the probable enemy here. For that matter, there’s the possibility of survivors. So you’re going out, now. As fast as possible. Head to this… what was the star, son?”

“HD 36951, sir,” the lieutenant said.

“Head to that star, find the planet, find out what happened if you can, check for any survivors, then try to find out who did this,” the admiral said. “If it’s the Dreen we have to know if they’re there. It would be good to find out something about their space technology for that matter. All we got from the Mreee was that they had some. What’s the status of your ship? The real status.”

“Just some minor refitting that has to be done, sir,” Blankemeier replied. “Really. We can loft any time. But our personnel are scattered to the winds.”

“Get them recalled,” the admiral said. “Lieutenant Fey has all the background data on the study team on… whatever that star was called. He’s going to be going with you as an advisor and another set of eyes. You won’t be bringing your usual science group with you. Anybody else you want?”

“Commander Weaver?” the CO said, looking over at the astrogator.

“I’d suggest taking the normal SF contingent. They’ve got enough technical expertise to be useful if we need the data without being as… limiting as most of the science team.”

“He’s trying to say they tend to survive better, sir,” First Sergeant Powell interjected. “Not that any of them made it last time. I’d suggest taking Miss Moon. Keeping her occupied without the usual science teams will be interesting, but we may need a translator. Especially if it’s a species other than the Dreen.”

“And the Marines are going, obviously,” the admiral said, nodding. “How far away is this star, son?”

“About five hundred and fourteen light-years, sir.”

“Astro?” Blankemeier said.

“Twenty days, sir,” Bill said, doing the math fast in his head. “If we were going straight line. But we’ll have to jink around a bit to avoid gravity bubbles. And more with cool downs. But the real problem will be relative adjustment.”

“Say, again?” Admiral Townsend said, then nodded. “The star’s going to be moving differently than Sol. Got it. This deep space stuff is taking a little while to sink in on this old sailor. Continents and islands don’t move. Not so you can notice.”

“A lot differently, sir,” Bill said. “Every star moves at a different rate relatively speaking. Nearby stars generally move at about the same rate as Sol, but even there we’re talking about a relative velocity higher than any human spaceship ever produced until we made the Blade . And in this case, we’re talking about outside of the local cluster. When the Blade exits warp it has the same inertial constant as when it entered. Basically, how Sol is moving. We’re going to be doing a lot of adjustment when we get there. Less when we take a look around, though. But I’d block out a day for adjustment, given cool down time. And most of it at max thrust.”

“Not to digress terribly,” the admiral said, frowning. “But why don’t those different movement rates affect the people transferring through the gate?”

“As far as we can determine, sir…” the lieutenant answered, “when you step through a gate you just are there. It’s as if you hadn’t been at another point. We’re still trying to figure out the physics for it. But that’s the effect.”

“Okay,” the admiral said, shaking his head. “I sometimes long for the days of Halsey. Captain? You understand the mission?”

“Three weeks to a month to even get there, sir,” Blankemeier said. “Unknown time on site and in the area looking for the hostiles and getting a handle on the situation. Then another month back. I hope we don’t take damage like the last time. Leaking air for that long would be… tough.”

“You’re just there to find out what happened, Captain,” the admiral said. “Try not to get into any furballs. But… It’s like old time ship captains. If you decide that it’s necessary to take action, take action. You’re going to be very much on your own until the eggheads figure out how to replicate that drive.”