April 2: Down to Earth (14 page)

"The thing on the nose must be a radar, but why is it flat instead of a dish?" Paul wondered aloud from behind them. "And why is it braced with so many fine lines?" The engines at the rear looked very different and there was an entire extra freight module, inserted behind the cabin shown in the older picture. That made the ship a good three meters longer by itself. As the
Happy
rolled, there were a couple flashes of static on their screens. In particular the radar display dissolved twice, in a flare of static that was not normal.

Inside the
Happy Lewis,
Don was completely disoriented in the rear, as Click rolled the ship in two axis at once and scanned the sky with their radar in a full circle out as far as lunar orbit. The restraints bit into him as he was twisted first one way, then a new direction before the old settled. He was forced to choke down his breakfast that was trying to come up his throat in a lump. Finally Click rolled the nose back to the station and looked behind it with radar as much as he could.

As the nose came back to the station the Frenchmen saw a faint violet glow of discharge flicker across the surface of the radar disk on the front of the
Happy Lewis,
as the trace of gas from her thrusters blew through the gossamer disk on the nose of the vessel. The radar display in the French ship gave a final bright flash and then the system breakers behind them all popped out with a flurry of snaps and the radio gave out an electronic raspberry of overload before it died too.

They only had time for a quick exclamation of surprise however, because then as the nose rolled past them, toward the South pole of the planet under them all, the thrusters stopped it's roll and a terrible white plume of plasma drew a line as far as they could see the opposite way. Paul behind them, was resetting the breakers as quickly as possible and the radar flickered and rebooted, painting a new screen within seconds. The icon on the radar screen was already kilometers away and as they watched, numbers in a bracket beside the blip showed the acceleration eased off, from nine and a half G to a more moderate eight. "They cut off the conventional thrusters and eased off the main a bit once they saw no pursuit," John said. "I've never seen a ship move like that. It looked more like a missile launch than a manned vessel."

"Now I know what the guy wires are for at least," Paul acknowledged. "That radar disc must be stronger than it looks, if that sort of acceleration doesn't just peel it right off the nose of the ship, even with supporting guys, but why did they hit us with ECM, when we had already seen and recorded so much about them?"

"They didn't use any Electronic Counter Measures," Gial explained. "Their radar wasn't even on a multiple of our frequency. It's just pumping out so many watts and we were so close, that the surge was from stray inductance, even though there was no close match for it to really couple with our system. If they had scanned and matched our frequency, we wouldn't have a radar anymore. It would be fried. That disc isn't a reflector. It's an array of many nano antennas, with a Veselago lens over each one. I've read they were possible, but I've never seen one and you should forget I've described it to you. The whole thing is highly classified by our people."

"It should send a beam as parallel as a laser, focused down to one wave length in diameter, for an unholy distance. And even steer multiple beams to multiple loci. Can you imagine what a few Gigawatt density of millimeter waves would do, focused on a spot a half centimeter across on our hull? Or how far out you could get a return off even a steathed hull, if you can paint it with that kind of power density? We'll compose a report with all our recordings and observations and send it along home. I expect they'll be very pleased."

"There's one thing I remember from lunch, you should be sure to include in our report sir," Paul said, looking very serious. "The lady told us that in a few weeks they will have two more armed merchants, of a
new
class in service that, 'Will make one of the older ones look like a rickshaw with a bent wheel', if I remember her words."

"Let us hope gentleman, that the Republic never asks us to engage the rickshaw we just saw leave. I believe it may offend some, but I plan on making that clear to our superiors that it would likely be futile, regardless of the vigor and valor with which one might pursue it."

"For what it is worth Sir, both the gentleman that addressed us on com and Miss Lewis herself at lunch, expressed that they consider the French friends. I'd say, let's mention it in our report that their active crews have that view and we should do anything we can to encourage it," John suggested.

"You also should  write out a transcript of your lunch as well as you can remember it, together and we shall submit it with our report. A professional intelligence officer might glean something from it that you'd miss." Staring at the sudden blush, both the young men were stricken with and way their eyes slide away from him and locked on each other in desperation, he got a slow smile across his face. "But of course you might run the story past your Commander first, in case there are any irrelevant events, that we don't want to bother the professionals with. I dare say I'd enjoy the story for its own sake I think. I've been a young man on liberty before you know."

"Oh it's not anything
bad
at all," Paul assured him. "It's just if you weren't there and didn't know how events lead up to that point, one might not understand an odd incident where the Master of the
Happy Lewis
was licking mustard from behind John's ear and trying to jolly him out of a bad mood. But after all, as you say they
are
allies aren't they Sir?" he asked hopefully.

"As you say," he agreed leaning back in the seat to hear the story out. "I'm sure any indignities you suffered, are not unlike other Frenchmen have endured for the Republic."

* * *

Click had eased off to what he considered a moderate six G, even before they went around the curve of the Earth from the station. Now they coasted in a new polar orbit. "I changed our vector significantly before shutting down, once we were out of line of sight," he explained. "If anyone was trying to work up an intercept, they should have a real hard time, unless they have seamless tracking across Antarctica and I'm certain few do. Certainly not North America, after what we did to their assets last year. Maybe Argentina or New Zealand, but I don't think either of them would go out of their way to see North America's cows home. But I'd still like one of us to sit the weapons board for a few orbits, just in case."

Don didn't complain. He felt beat up and squashed, but he wanted this ride so bad he wasn't going to start complaining now and look like a wimp. He was quietly glad though the burn was over. Some of the small items he had thought unimportant to take out of his pockets, had bruised him from the acceleration. He started pulling tools and things out and stowing them in the mini-locker by his station. April floated back and joined him, with a look of concern on her face. "I know that was a pretty rough ride. Do you need anything from the medical kit?" She was trying to be kind, but it irritated him that she was moving about real easily, unbothered by the ordeal and worried about the Old Man. Still, she was right, he was hurting.

"Yeah I'd like a couple of whatever pain killer won't make me woozy. I left this silly little pistol off that guy's ankle in my breast pocket," he said, fishing for it awkwardly with his left hand, "and I thought it was gonna bore a hole through me under boost. I bet I'll have a bruise showing the serial numbers embossed in my hide. How the hell much juice did Click pour on anyway? I've pulled five and a half, before but it felt nothing like this."

"He was at nine and a half for just a little. That's actually a half G past rating and when we get back the maintenance guys will yell at us about it," she admitted. "The new ships are being designed to pull 16 G."

He restrained the urge to groan at that number. "Here, you want this stupid thing?" he offered, holding the tiny automatic out to her. "I'd be scared to shoot somebody with this. It might make them mad."

"No I'm with you. If I want to irritate them I've been doing that fine so far, just running my mouth."

"Uh, does that tiny thing take brass shells?" Edwards inquired tentatively. "I sort of collect antique guns, if you guys aren't interested."

"Take it. Otherwise we'll probably just pitch it," Don assured him, tossing it over. He put a few more hand tools in the small locker. The inside was lined with pockets and tie downs and he wanted his pockets empty if they boosted hard again. "Here, these seem to be identical," he observed, pulling the two heavier service pistols out. "Glock 9 mm. You got the drop on them. They're your prize I guess."

"Yeah but you reached out of the booth and took it right out of the guy's hand. He was still trying to shoot me, even if it was kind of pathetic. Let's split ‘em. Take your pick."

Dan looked at both sides of them. They both looked so new he couldn't tell any difference, so he just picked the one in his left hand and shoved it back in the locker. "How about these?" he asked of the badges when he pulled them out of his pocket. "Pitch ‘em? Or does somebody collect them too?" he joked.

"Actually I do." April admitted. "I have a Chinese p-suit rank badge, I wear on a holster for dress up and I'll do the same with these."

"Did you take it away from him the same way we got these?" Dan asked with a mischievous smile.

"Oh no. We killed that sucker and stuffed him out the lock," she explained so matter of fact it made him shudder. He passed the prize to her with no regrets. They were definitely not his sort of hobby.

"Why don't you get in your p-suit now that we have time? April suggested. "Everything seems quiet, but we're a cautious lot. Some of these cushions come off, if it's too big for the seat."

"I don't think I actually thanked you. It was terrifically brave to jump on that fellows back and cover them like that. If you hadn't done that, I think I'd be on another shuttle headed for a North American prison right now. Guys like me, arrested on political charges, pretty much just disappear."

"I swear to you, if they ever snatch you, I will offer them a deal they can't refuse to give you back. I can't do anything about how they treat their own people, but for one of us I would fight them to get you back. If they had snatched you before I got there, I'd have sat off NLV and punched holes in the important parts, until they got the idea I was
really
irritated."

"Do you think your fellow militia members would go along with that, on behalf of one old vacuum rat?"

She looked at him funny. "They'd expect the same to be done for them. But I don't have to ask anyone. There are no locks on our ship weapons. And any of the militia members that are trained and that means all the space faring members, have access to our weapons systems from their com or spex. If Click for example is sitting playing Black Jack on New Las Vegas and he finds out they nuked Home, he doesn't even have to get up from the table to make war on North America. He can send through his spex and unleash whatever he decides is needed. I'd hope he would do some careful confirmation of the responsibility, but realistically nobody has any serious grudge against Home except North America. The Chinese haven't made a peep since that one run in with their shuttle. But I'm afraid we're becoming a bit of a fixe idee for the North Americans as our French friends would say."

"That seems pretty scary to entrust individuals with that much power. What if someone is not stable - what's to stop them acting on a whim?

"Don, we all talked this out in detail. Think about all the weapons the Earth nations have to use. It still comes down to some individual that decides to use them. They may make a show of a committee deciding, but somebody still makes the motion and somebody pushes the button. Only difference is if a militia member uses our weapons we'll all know who did so. The system is not anonymous. Anybody who logs on and activates a system, we all know about it right away.

With the Earthies though, we'd never know who did the killing. Just like when the Americans sent a shuttle full of soldiers to invade Home. We know the orders had to come from high up, but we don't really know if it was the President, or who actually said, ‘Do it.' Their system has always covered up personal responsibility and spread the blame around. We will not evade personal responsibility. If we decide we have to fight again it will be right out in plain sight," she vowed.

"The people picked to live on Home are pretty well tested to be stable mentally. You don't get shipped up if you test positive for the common organic mental disorders. We don't let just anyone into the militia either, there are several people we've all agreed don't get in, even though they wanted in. There are still those who don't fit diagnostic standards of mental illness, but everybody knows they are a flaming jackass. Dave even let a worker go, because he wasn't militia material and he wouldn't risk him working on our ships."

"It scares
me
more, to think that down there this kind of power
hidden
in one person's hands who doesn't really have to answer for his actions. We've seen their President can pretty much order any military action he wants and nobody will question it. And I don't see anybody testing their Presidents for stability. We have thirty-eight militia members that have full access right now. I'm more concerned with making sure the North Americans know someone
will
survive an attack to hit them back out of that number, than I'm worried about making it safer for them. If they wanted to be safe, they shouldn't have started a war they couldn't win."

"Does your concern mean you don't want to be recruited into the militia? I should warn you most of the guys building new ships and maintaining the armed ones, are full militia members, so it would be pretty hard to hire you without entrusting you as a member," April revealed.

It was a new and shocking thought to imagine being entrusted with that sort of power - and responsibility. "I'll have to think about that. I don't want to accept unless I've thought it over and can be sure I have the will to actually use that sort of power. It wouldn't be fair to you guys if I took the responsibility and then find I didn't have the nerve to use it."