John Ringo: Vorpal Blade

So the Navy had wholeheartedly offered Newport News when the new boat was under discussion. Out of their own pocket, drawing on funds detailed for other bases and ship maintenance, they had upgraded the facilities to be as “state-of-the-art” as they could, even before the decision was made. The Air Force had pointed out that, unlike Dreamland, there was no way that a ship taking off from Newport News, by day or night, could remain undetected. The Navy had pointed out that the boat was to be based on a submarine . All it had to do was submerge, get far enough offshore, make sure there wasn’t anything in view via sonar, and then take off from there.

In the final event, Newport News, a quiet little seaport on Chesapeake Bay, had become the world’s first starport. Stranger things had happened, but not many.

The outer door to the guard facility was easy enough to pass; all he had to do was wave his card at the reader and the door opened. Beyond he was in the “blast” room. Weaver had been consulted on the design. The room wouldn’t quite stop a nuke, but it would stop anything else. There was a single door out of the room. It was designed around a bank vault, unmarked and with a keypad next to it.

He swiped his security card past the reader and punched in his code, then went in as the powered door opened. This revealed another room. On the left-hand side was a window of aliglass.

“Weaver,” Bill said, holding up his ID to the guard. The guard’s name was Johnson, Bill remembered. They’d chatted one time in the breakroom. If Johnson recognized him, it wasn’t apparent.

Johnson looked carefully at the ID, then consulted a list.

“Please enter your keycode,” the guard said in a monotone, still staring at Weaver as if he was a suspected terrorist.

Bill swiped his card again and punched in a different code. That door led to a small room, windowless, with a video camera over the far door and a laser to the left. The laser swept over him, doing a retinal and surface temperature scan. The room was a “mantrap.” The inner door was interlocked in such a way as it couldn’t open until the outer door had closed.

“Weaver, William, Lieutenant Commander, Astrogation,” a robotic voice intoned. Then the inner door opened.

Bill had once done a short stint as a consultant to the NSA. Getting into the National Security Agency involved showing your card to a guard and then walking in. He wasn’t sure if this setup was overkill or if the NSA had lousy security. But, surely, there was somewhere in-between?

As soon as he got through the final portal he turned left down the corridor and stopped to check a computer terminal. The meeting he was supposed to be at, in two minutes, was in Secure Four, a high-security auditorium. When they’d first started work on the 4144, meetings were getting so turned around that they’d installed this system to keep track. They still got shifted from time to time, so checking it had become habit.

The system showed that the meeting was still on time and in the same place, but there was a peripheral note keyed to him saying that he had been cancelled as a briefer. He was supposed to report to call a secure extension instead.

“What the… ?”

Bill flopped into his office chair and punched in the extension, wondering who would answer.

“3326.”

“Weaver,” he said, as calmly as he could.

“Commander Weaver, this is Admiral Townsend,” the voice said. “I’m the base commander at Norfolk. A blast from the past apparently needs to talk to you. Now.” The admiral did not sound happy.

“Sir…” Bill started to protest and then stopped. If Townsend was saying they needed to meet, now, it was something serious. “Where?”

“My office, as soon as you can,” the admiral said. “You know how to find it?”

“Yes, sir,” Bill replied. “I’ll be there in about… well, it’s going to take at least forty-five minutes.”

“See you in one hour.” The phone clicked off.

Maulk . He had to drive back to Norfolk!

When Bill reached the admiral’s office he was surprised as hell to see Chief Miller, in a Hawaiian shirt of all things, waiting in the room. Not to mention Mimi and Tuffy.

“Good to see you,” Bill said, puzzled but pleased. “Long time, Chief.”

“You can trip down memory lane later,” Townsend replied. “Apparently our security isn’t as tight as we would have liked.”

“I don’t think that you can really say that, sir,” Miller replied unhappily. “There’s no real way to tell how Tuffy got the information.”

“Go ahead and explain, young lady,” the admiral said, leaning back in his chair.

“Tuffy says that we, that is Mr. Miller, myself and Tuffy, have to go along with you on the ship,” Mimi said calmly. “You have a warp ship, converted from a submarine, docked at Newport News. Naval Construction Contract 4144. You’re leaving in about a week. Chief Miller needs to be outfitted with a Wyvern Five. That’s why we had to meet today; he’ll need to get started tomorrow.”

“Just like that?” Bill asked, amused. “Does Tuffy say why ?”

“Not… really,” Mimi said, showing the first sign of agitation. “Usually, we communicate with… concepts, not really words. I just realize that I’ve known something all along. But this time, it’s like I can’t understand what I know. There’s math in there, that’s mostly what it is. Very high end math, further than I’ve gone. Maybe further than you’ve gone, Dr. Weaver. But it’s locked up in causality and… chaos. The concept is just very big. I think what he’s trying to say, although he says I’m wrong, that it’s more, is that if we don’t go along, and stay with the missions in the future, the universe is going to end. Not the Earth, the universe . I get a sort of feeling like a bubble popping and then… nothing.”

“Oh,” Bill replied, blinking. “Does he explain why? In a way that you can understand?”

“I think it’s more like something tied to probability,” Mimi said, shrugging. “I can’t make heads or tails of it, really. But he’s definite. We have to go along.”

“Okay,” Bill said, shrugging. “You’re in.”

“Just like that?” Admiral Townsend asked, aghast. “The entire team has already been chosen. And they have been training for the last year .”

“Admiral, whatever Tuffy is, he’s never been one to joke around,” Bill replied. “And if he says that these three have to come along, they have to come along. My recommendation, sir, and I will gladly put it in writing, is that they be assigned as crew.”

“Okay, I’ll get started on the paperwork,” the admiral said, looking over at the former chief. “There are days, Todd, when I wish you’d just left me in that damned jungle.”

Mimi and Tuffy had been invited to stay with the admiral for the evening. While Weaver would have preferred to repair to the bar for the discussion with Miller, that was out of the question. So the two of them found themselves in a secure room with nary a beer in sight.

“So you got your ship?” Miller asked, taking a sip of coffee. It was Navy coffee, at least, so it wasn’t exactly bad.

“The United States now has a warp ship,” Bill said. “You wanna hear?”

“Go ahead,” Miller said, leaning back.

“I figured out a way to get the little black box to work,” Bill said. “The Navy built a spaceship around an old Ohio. In two days we’re lifting off for the first deep space mission. We’ve tested it in the system, but we’ve never even gotten to the heliopause. This time we’re going to other worlds. You in?”