The Fate of the Argive
The drifting cruiser had missed Argive's arrival, but it
stirred at last as a cluster of energy sources appeared
where they had no right to be. Passive sensors reoriented
on the betraying signatures of unknown starships, and a
trickle of power sent it sliding closer to them, silent as
the vacuum about it, a darker shadow in a lightless room.
The newcomers were obviously practicing strict emissions
control, but they were not cloaked, and the signatures of
their standby drive fields betrayed them. The watching
cruiser hovered, counting them, prying at their emissions
to learn their secrets, and a com laser deployed. It
adjusted itself with finicky precision, aligning its
emitter on another patch of spaceone as empty to any
sensor as that which held the cruiser itselfand a burst
transmission flicked across the light-hours.
There was no acknowledgment, but the watching cruiser had
expected none. It had discharged the first part of its own
function by sounding the warning; now it set about the
second part of its duties, maintaining its stealthy watch
upon the intruders... and waiting.
"Everything in order at your end, Alex?" Commodore Braun
asked the face on his com screen.
"Yes, Sir. Kersaint's got the backdoor, and the rest of
the flotilla's ready when you are."
"Good." Braun nodded in satisfaction. Detaching the single
destroyer to cover the Indra warp point was almost
certainly unnecessary, but standing orders were firm.
Kersaint was the insurance policy. If anything nasty
transpired, the destroyer would be clear of it, able to
fire out courier drones to alert the rest of the
Federation, whatever happened to the rest of SF 27.
Not that anything was likely to happen. They'd spent
almost four months sweeping Alpha One without turning up a
single sign of intelligent life. The survey had taken much
longer than usual due to Condition Baker's requirement
that the Survey cruisers remain permanently cloaked, and
Braun knew his personnel were even more eager than usual
to check out the two outbound warp points they'd plotted.
If neither of them led to closed points, the flotilla
could revert to normal operations and put all this
stealthy creeping about behind it.
"Very well, then, Alex. We'll check back with you
shortly."
"We'll be here, Sir," Cheltwyn agreed, and Braun waved a
casual salute to the screen and glanced at Elswick.
"Once more into the breach, dear comrades."
"Yes, Sir. You have the con, Stu."
"I have the con, aye," the astrogator confirmed, and TFNS
Argive crept forward into yet another warp point.
A dozen ships waited, hidden in cloak and spread to
intercept any vessel bound in-system from the warp point,
but the picket cruisers' reports had revealed a problem:
many of the intruders were faster than any of the waiting
defenders. The defenders couldn't overtake them in a stern
chase, nor could the pickets send warning when the
intruders made transit. The alien ships were clustered
about the warp point, certain to spot any courier drone
which might be sent through, and that would warn them to
flee. The defenders thus found themselves forced to guess
about the enemy's current maneuvers and plans, but they
knew he was surveying. That meant he was bound to come
through eventually, and so the ambush had been set. If the
intruders were obliging enough to send their entire force
through the warp point and into point-blank range, there
would be no need to pursue... and if they declined to do
so, perhaps they could be induced to change their plans.
The transit was a rough one, but Braun shook off his
disorientation and nausea as Argive's temporarily addled
electronics sorted themselves out and Channing checked his
readouts.
"System primary is a G0," the lieutenant reported.
Braun's display restabilized, and he grimaced. A
starship's initial heading upon emergence from an
unsurveyed warp point was impossible to predict. Grav
surge couldand didspit a ship out on any vector, and until
a point had been thoroughly plotted, no astrogator could
adjust for it. Of course, that seldom mattered much. Since
he didn't know anything about what lay at an unplotted
warp point's terminus, one vector was as good as another.
In this instance, however, the system's central star lay
almost directly astern. The warp point was well above the
ecliptic, giving Argive's sensors an excellent look "down"
at it, but her course took her steadily away from the
primary, and Braun had just opened his mouth to order
Commander Elswick to bring her ship about when Channing's
senior petty officer spoke up.
"Emergence point is a Type Six," she announced, and Braun
exhaled in satisfaction. A Type Six was open, so perhaps
they could forget all this cloaked sneaking about and
"I'm getting artificial emissions!" Channing snapped
suddenly, and Braun whipped his command chair around to
face Plotting.
"What sort?" he demanded.
"Clear across the spectrum, Sir." Channing's voice was
flatter, but it was the clipped, hard flatness of
professionalism, not calmness. "Looks like navigation
beacons further in-system, but I'm also getting radar and
radio."
"I'm showing unknown drive fields in-system," the tac
officer said in the same clipped tones.
"How many?"
"Lots of them, Sir," Tactical said grimly. "Over a
hundred, at least."
"Jesus," someone whispered, and Braun felt his own face
tighten.
"Condition Able, Captain Elswick!"
"Condition Able, aye." Elswick nodded sharply to the tac
officer, and the shrill, atonal wail of Argive's General
Quarters alarm whooped. Despite her size, the specialized
equipment of her calling put a severe squeeze on the
Survey cruiser's armament. She had barely half the
broadside of Battle Fleet's Bulwark-class heavy cruisers,
but her weapons crews closed up with gratifying speed as
the alarm screamed at them.
"Update the drone. Append a full sensor readout and
launch," Braun ordered through the disciplined chaos.
Argive's speed was so low the range to the warp point had
opened to little more than a thousand kilometers, and the
courier drone's drive was no more than a brief flicker
across the plot as it streaked away at 60,000 KPS. The
commodore watched it go, then turned his eyes back to the
fresh icons appearing on the large-scale master plot as
Plotting and Tactical worked with frantic haste to update
it.
"Commodore, I've got something strange here." Channing
sounded as if he could hardly believe his own sensors, and
Braun raised his eyebrows at him. "Sir, this system has at
least three planets in the liquid water zone. I've only
got good reads on two of them from here, but Sir, I'm
picking up massive energy signatures from both of them."
"How massive?"
"I can't be certain from this far out" Channing began, but
the commodore chopped a hand at him.
"Give me your best guess, Lieutenant."
"Sir, I've never seen anything like it. Both of them look
bigger than Old Terra herself."
Braun stared at him in disbelief. Humanity's home world
was, by any measure, the most heavily industrialized
planet in known space. Not even New Valkha came close.
"I'm sorry, Sir," Channing said defensively, "but"
"Don't sweat it." Braun shook himself and managed a
crooked smile. "Just be sure the stand-by drone gets a
continuous update of your findings."
"Aye, aye, Sir." Channing sounded relieved by the
mundaneness of the order, and Braun turned to Commander
Elswick.
"Let's not get in too deep, Ursula. Come to zero-five-
zero. We'll sweep the perimeter for a while and see if we
can get a better feel before we move further in-system."
"They've found what?"
Captain Alex Cheltwyn looked at his communications officer
in disbelief, then yanked his eyes down to the display at
his elbow as the drone completed its download and a new
star system appeared. Detail was sadly lacking from the
preliminary data, but bright, scarlet icons glowed
balefully in its depths, and his nostrils flared as he
studied them.
Commodore Braun held the ultimate responsibility, but he
was on the far side of the warp point. It was up to
Cheltwyn to decide what to do with the rest of the
flotilla, not just the escort, and his brain shifted into
high gear.
Even Argive's preliminary info suggested the presence of a
massive, highly advanced culture, and, unlike the link to
Indra, both of this line's warp points were openso why
hadn't they seen any sign of these people on this side?
There might not be any habitable worlds, but why weren't
Alpha One's warp points even buoyed? It was possible its
only other open point led to an equally useless cul-de-
sac, which might explain the absence of navigation buoys,
but Cheltwyn couldn't afford to assume that. Yet if that
wasn't the case, then the absence of any spaceborne
artifacts could only represent a deliberate decision on
someone's part. Either that, or
"Com, raise Ute. Advise Commander Chirac of Argive's
report and instruct him to stand by to fall back on the
Indra warp point with the rest of the Huns. Then get off a
transmission to Kersaint. Download the full report and
instruct Commander Hausman to relay to Sarasota."
"Aye, aye, Sir."
"Allison, bring us to Condition Able and have Commander
Mangkudilaga arm San Jacinto's squadrons for a shipping
strike. We'll use Sha's for fighter defense if we need
them."
"Yes, Sir." His exec turned to her terminal and began
inputting orders, and Cheltwyn stared back down into his
plot and gnawed his lower lip. Something didn't add up
here, and a worm of acid burned in the pit of his belly.
The fact that the intruder had emerged from an unexplored
warp point headed out-system wasn't surprising, but it
hadn't changed course to head in-system. Like all its
other electronic systems, its cloaking ECM had fluctuated
as it made transit, and the watching sensors had spotted
it easily. With that head start and helped by its low
speed, they tracked it with relative ease despite its
cloak, but its heading took it directly away from the
ships deployed to catch it. Worse, it had not summoned its
fellows forward, and its sensors must be amassing more
system data with every passing second. Minutes trickled
past while the intruder continued to move away from them,
and then, at last, six superdreadnoughts and six
battlecruisers turned to pursue.
"Sir? I think you'd better take a look at this."
"At what?" Commander Salvatore Hausman looked up with a
frown. Captain Cheltwyn's electrifying transmission had
come in three hours ago, and Hausman had been deep in
discussion of its implications with his executive officer.
"This, Sir." The tac officer tapped his display, and
Hausman stepped closer to look over his shoulder. A vague
blur of light flickered in the plot, and Hausman's frown
deepened.
"What is that, Ismail?"
"Skipper, that's either a sensor ghost... or an active
cloaking system at about thirty-six light-seconds."
"A cloaking system?" Hausman stiffened, eyes suddenly
wide, and the tac officer nodded grimly. "How long has it
been there?"
"Just turned up, Skip. If it is somebody in cloak, he's
closing in very slowly. I make it about fifteen hundred
KPS."
Hausman grunted as if he'd been punched in the belly, and
his mind raced. It couldn't be a cloaked starship... could
it? The very idea was insane, but Ismail Kantor wasn't the
sort to make that kind of mistake.
The commander turned away and pounded his fists gently
together. Kersaint was four and a half light-hours from
the rest of the flotilla, and that meant Hausman was on
his own. If that was a cloaked ship, it could only mean
the people whose existence Commodore Braun had just
discovered already knew the flotilla was here. But if they
knew and hadn't even attempted to make contact, and now
they were trying to sneak in close
"Stay on it, Ismail," he said. "Don't go active, but get
Missile Defense on-line. I want an intercept solution
cycling ten minutes ago."
"Aye, aye, Sir."
"Com!" Hausman wheeled to his communications
officer. "Record for transmission to Captain Cheltwyn."
"Recording," the com officer replied instantly, and
Hausman faced the pickup.
"'Sir, Tactical has just detected what may beI repeat, may
bea cloaked starship closing my position from'" he glanced
at his repeater display "'zero-niner-two one-zero-three at
approximately fifteen hundred KPS. I will initiate no
hostile action, but if attacked, I will defend myself.
Please advise me soonest of your intentions and desires.'
Got that?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Send it Priority One," Hausman said grimly, and settled
back in his chair as the light-speed burst transmission
sped across the vacuum. His warning would take over four
hours to reach its destination. Any reply would take
another four hours to reach him, and, he thought grimly,
if that signature was a cloaked ship, that would be at
least six hours too long.
The picketing cruiser eased closer to the unsuspecting
enemy ship that sat motionless on the warp point. Its
active sensors and targeting systems remained on standby,
but its missiles were ready, and its mission was simple.
Commander Elswick and Braun stood side by side, staring
into the master plot, and Argive's captain shook her head
as still more icons appeared. The range was far too great
for detailed resolution, but Braun had decided to chance
deploying a pair of recon drones. It was a risk, since the
drones couldn't cloak, but their drive fields were weak.
The chance that someone might notice them was remote, yet
they extended Argive's sensor reach over a light-hour
further in-system, and what they reported was incredible.
The system swarmed with activity. Drive fields tentatively
IDed as freighters moved back and forth between its huge
asteroid belt and the inner planets, and the RDs had long-
range readings on the mammoth orbital constructs those
freighters apparently served. Braun had once spent twenty
months in the Sol System on a routine cartography update,
and the spaceborne activity of this system dwarfed
anything he'd seen there. He pinched the bridge of his
nose, then looked up as Lieutenant Channing appeared
beside him.
"Commodore, you're not going to believe this," the
lieutenant said quietly, "but I've just gotten a look at
the third orbital shell. It's not another habitable
planetit's two of them."
"Twin planets?"
"Yes, Sir. They're both around one-point-two standard
masses, orbiting about a common center." The lieutenant
shook his head. "That makes four of them, Sir. Four in one
system."
"Lord." Braun shook his own head, trying to imagine the
sort of industrial base a star system with four massively
populated planets could support.