Merrimack
had on board a distinguished civilian of immense knowledge and experience,
Don
Jose Maria Cordillera, a quietly magnetic presence on the space battleship. He was revered, even loved, by the company and crew for his humanity and for his personal mission, which he shared with the
Mack
: the complete destruction of the Hive.
He rose courteously from his desk as the captain entered his small quarters. A holographic projection had erased the close walls and opened the compartment to vistas of horses running across green-gold pastures, purple mountains on the hazy horizon, and swallows cavorting in the deep blue sky. Chlorophyll scents and a warm zephyr came from unseen vents. Potted plants, real ones, blended the illusion into the reality of Jose Maria’s small living space.
“To what do I owe the honor, young Captain?”
Farragut handed Augustus’ language module to Jose Maria Cordillera. “Can a man, even a Roman patterner, really have decoded an entire alien language in five hours? Or has Rome already been here and Augustus just brought this aboard with him?”
“Augustus can and did create this,” said Jose Maria. Unrejuvenated, he still looked much younger than his fifty-seven years, even with the silver streaks in his long black hair. “I watched him do it. We had to excise parts of this module, actually. Sometimes his mind would digress into interesting patterns until he forced himself back to the translation project.”
“That kind of ability—” Farragut started, searched for the right word. “It’s inhuman.”
“Yes,” said Jose Maria. “It is. What must have been done to Augustus to make him so is also inhuman.” He handed back the module gravely. “I was just reviewing some of his observations now. I have many questions for him.”
“He’s asleep.”
“I shall not try to wake him.”
Farragut doubted he could. Apparently, Augustus slept like a corpse.
A second recon patrol approached within two light-days of the F8 planet, Arra, and immediately spun around and came hying back to
Merrimack
as if in flames. “They know we’re here!”
“How can they?” Farragut asked.
“You were seen,” Steele accused his Marines.
“Not us, sir. You were. They’ve seen
Merrimack
.”
And the recon flight played back a news broadcast from the planet Arra:
“Alpha Flight, what is your situation?”
“Up screwed! Man down! Man down!”
“That’s Colonel Steele and Flight Sergeant Blue.” Farragut recognized the voices. “Where did this recording come from?”
“From the planet,” said the flight leader of the second recon patrol. “Arra. Every channel, every station, every city. They’re playing it over and over like a national disaster. And they’ve got video.”
On the playback,
Merrimack
appeared as a silhouette of menace, backed by the cluster’s glow. Her shape vaguely approximated an antique spearhead, from the long angular shaft that was her central fuselage, to her flight decks delta-swept back on either side, and her top and bottom sails, also back swept to aid deflection. She made a majestic, cruel profile, half seen in the dark.
Then the Swifts—angry little hornets—bulleted from her wings to score the surrounding space with red tracers. Mines detonated with fiery sprays on all sides. And
Merrimack
herself opened up and heaved out a broadside. Vapor briefly shrouded her, hissing from her gunports. The halo of it caught the light of her guns, and the battleship seemed to be on fire. Her volleys, like lightning flashes, gave evanescent glimpses of her true dimension. Turrets swiveled like malevolent eyes.
“The natives have seen this?” Farragut asked, aghast. “They’ve gotta be scared to death.”
“They are.”
“This is scaring me, and it’s my
Merrimack
!”
The transmission went abruptly black. “And right here must be when we took out the space buoy. Camera was in the buoy. The angle fits.”
“So these pictures were taken way back there at the Rim. How did this signal cross the one hundred and ten light-years from the buoy to the F8 system?”
“That’s a hell of a question, sir. Given that even two light-days from Arra, the best they’re sending out is laser and electromag. We don’t have a living clue how they received this.”
Farragut turned to his XO. “Commander Carmel.”
“Captain.”
“Time to step it up. Get me to the planet—Planet name, somebody.” He snapped his fingers.
“Arra,” someone provided.
“Get me to Arra, now.”
“Silent, sir?” Calli asked.
“Lordy, no. Light us up like the Jupiter Monument.”
Swinging into orbit around the white-veiled, tourmaline world Arra,
Merrimack
was greeted with a salvo of missiles from the planet’s surface.
The XO, Calli Carmel, issued orders for evasion.
Arran fighter spacecraft were scrambling aloft with ridiculous slowness.
Farragut arrived in the control room. “What are they bringing to bear?”
“Sublight missiles, sir. Unknown loads.”
“Speed?”
Calli’s mouth pulled wryly toward one cheek. “Oh, hell, John, I want to get out and help them push.”
“Maybe I should spot them twelve runs and give them a pitcher,” said Farragut. But not to fall victim to overconfidence, he checked, “Tac, do we have anyone sneaking up on us?”
“Negative,” the tac specialist responded. “The only traffic from the planet is moving sublight and that’s all running away.”
“What about the fighters?”
“Arran fighter craft haven’t even cleared the planetary atmosphere.”
“How long till they clear?
“Not for three minutes yet.”
“Three—! I could die and be reincarnated twice in three minutes. Current disposition of the missiles?”
“Distance from
Merrimack
two hundred klicks. Velocity nine kps,” tac responded, then quickly updated, “Distance two hundred and ten klicks.”
Merrimack
was moving faster than the missiles.
“All right. Turn the missiles around.”
“Sir?” his XO questioned.
“Flip ’em, Cal. Return to sender.”
Before Calli could express horror, the captain added, “But detonate the warheads before they reenter atmosphere.”
Calli dropped her voice, but the control room was not built for privacy. “That’s not easy to do, Captain.”
“I didn’t ask if it was easy.”
Commander Carmel still hesitated. “The captain is aware we could just keep walkin’ away from these missiles.”
“I am so aware. The order, XO.”
“I don’t want to miss one. If I fail to detonate one, I send a nuke into the Arran atmosphere.”
“Then hit ’em before they reach atmosphere. We have enough guns.”
“Requires precision shooting. We will be shooting toward the planet. If I miss—”
“Don’t miss.”
“Aye, sir.” And from there, Calli issued orders in frosty efficiency to targeting and fire control, her voice sharp with obedient anger.
A reverse tractor pulse gently nudged the missiles about, sending them arcing back down for reentry. Targeting tracked them. Fire control stood by for detonation.
While anyone monitoring the situation from the planet had a view of the business end of their own weapons.
Captain Farragut let the Arrans suffer a minute of blind terror—watching their own monstrous weapons fall back toward their atmosphere—then issued the order for the passover.
“Calli. Be precise.”
“Targeting, do we have a lock?”
“Lock achieved, aye.”
“Fire control. Detonate Arran warheads.”
“Detonating Arran warheads, aye.”
Nuclear fire high above the atmosphere would be visible from the ground.
“Missiles secured,” Calli reported without expression.
The tactical specialist reported the Arran fighter craft turning around and heading back toward base.
“Mr. Carmel, your ship,” Farragut gave way to Calli. “I’m fixin’ to go ashore. All departments, let me know everything I need to know. And somebody, figure out how to say: ‘Take me to your leader.’ ”
Colonel Steele followed the captain from the control room. He had to hurry; John Farragut moved fast. Steele, commander of the ship’s two Marine companies, offered privately, “I think we’re looking too far away for these aliens’ mother world.”
Farragut stopped, turning in the narrow passageway. “Your patrols found something, TR? You know where Origin is?”
But Steele suggested flatly, “Ask the guy who speaks their language.”
“You mean Augustus?”
“He cracked an alien language in five hours?” Steele asked in heavy suspicion. “Sure he did. These colonies are Roman plants, just like him.”
“Wishful thinking, TR?”
So startled, Steele could say nothing more eloquent than, “Huh?”
“You want to shoot him,” Farragut said.
A protest rose, died. Steele confessed, “I do.”
Farragut smiled, clapped the lieutenant colonel on his broad shoulder. “ ’s okay, TR. I talked to Jose Maria. He says the translation feat is well within a Roman patterner’s range. He also agrees that those boys downstairs are from way out of town. This is not a Roman plant.”
Not well educated for his rank, Steele still did not swallow everything the multidegreed civilian experts on board pronounced as truth, trusting instead to his own instincts. But Nobel Laureate Jose Maria Cordillera was not an ordinary xeno. Known on board, reverently, as
Don
Cordillera, the Terra Rican aristocrat was a sophisticated, gentlemanly, Renaissance man.
Don
Cordillera knew everything. Smartest man God ever invented. Even TR Steele would not doubt
Don
Cordillera.
But Steele also knew that nothing good could come from a Roman.
The captain was an idiot.
That stupid, bright smile brightened the hatchway to Augustus’ billet among the torpedoes. “Come down to the planet with me?” Farragut invited.
Augustus hesitated. “In person or VR?”
“In the flesh.”
Augustus rolled his eyes, as if speaking to Heaven. “Why did I even have to ask? And me a patterner.”
“You’re not a patterner when you’re not plugged in,” said Farragut. “I found out you really did forget most of the Myriadian language right after you worked the translation. You wanted me to think you were just being stubborn. But you operate a lot like a computer. Once you unplug, most of the random access memory falls right out of your head.” He waited for comment, idiotically proud of his discovery.
Augustus offered nothing in return. He had not been asked a question, and did not feel like being chatty with idiots.
Augustus’ enigmatic stare could not deflate that bright-eyed buoyancy. The captain retained that doggy look—eager and full of infinite, idiotic goodwill, unasked for and unwanted.
Augustus noticed that Farragut had put no surveillance on him. No watchers. Augustus had scoured his own tracks for shadows, but the incredible truth was that there were none. Trusting to a fault, Farragut took in his enemy and turned around so fast it left nowhere to stab him but in the back.
And backstabbing was beneath Augustus. He wanted Farragut to get it looking him straight in the eyes.
Augustus supposed he was meant to appreciate this grand display of trust, and to resolve not to let his captain down. But Augustus disliked personality cults, and John Farragut led by force of personality. In a culture as deconstructed as that of the U.S., without a Roman sense of duty, their people were lost. Like ducklings, they imprinted on the first strong influence they met. And here they were, all of them quacking after confident, dynamic John Farragut.
“What did you think of my introduction to the Arrans?”
“You mean your stupid, grandstanding stunt with the Arran missiles?”
That only paused him for a moment. Farragut hadn’t thought the stunt stupid. “I thought it would communicate our overwhelming superior force without launching our own weapons against them. I showed them we could destroy them, but that was not why we came. It worked. Monitors say the Arrans are coming out of their shelters to point at the light when we orbit over.”
“They might just as easily have concluded that we like toying with our prey before we eat it. You assume the universe thinks like John Farragut, and I know for a fact that it doesn’t. You are bold, forthright, cheerful—qualities you count on to bluff and charm your way through strange waters—but those qualities are not universally admired, I assure you. A stranger is as likely to see you as loud, undignified, vulgar, ignorant, inappropriately childish, and neglectful of my customs.”
“Your customs? Was that a Freudian slip?”
“No slip. Quite on purpose.”
“Did I do something to offend Rome?”
“Do? You did not do. You are. Your people obey you because they respect—not to mention adore—you.”
“And you have a problem with that?”
“Romans lead by force of law. It doesn’t matter if a Roman loathes his CO. He follows him to hell anyway. A Roman XO does not suggest a better way to deal with the incoming missiles when issued an order.”
Augustus had been monitoring the control room during the encounter.