frequency and intensity, it will also break up active scanner beams. At an even more intense level, it has the same effect even on light. But the Dreadnought knows the frequency of its shield, and it knows the corresponding frequency for an achronic beam that will slip through the wave troughs. It is a shutter that opens and closes thousands of times every second. From the outside, it appears constantly closed. From the inside, constantly open. Does everyone follow me so far?”
“From a distance,” Tarrel remarked drily, and several of the others seemed to agree with her.
“If the secrets of the universe were easy, there would be no justification for experts,” Dalvaen explained. “Unfortunately, knowing all of this does not give us what we would like to have. Let me show you on the simulation what we have so far. This is an application of what Captain Tarrel did to get the only clear scanner reading of the Dreadnought we have so far. She hit it with so much energy that just enough of the proper frequency and intensity was bounced back by the Dreadnought’s shield. We have developed a special high-intensity achronic scanner pulse which we propose to call an impulse scanner. When the pulse strikes the surface of the shield, it is absorbed in the same manner. But at that same moment, achronic resonance causes a signal of proportionally smaller strength and frequency to be bounced back. ”
He set the simulation into motion. The carrier sent two pulses, and a target responded deep within the system.
“No scanner lock,” one of the Starwolf Commanders observed.
“No, we do not receive a clear signal of the target,” Dalvaen said. “All we get is a ghost reflection of the shield itself. It is perfectly accurate to location, size and distance, but it still gives us no detail about anything within the shield. It cannot, since the signal never penetrated the shield. It was easy enough to guess how to do this, since the Dreadnought did it to the Kerridayen after failing to find her on normal scan. You can find those pulses in the Kerridayen’s records, but there was no reason for the ship’s computers to consider it relevant information at the time. ” “Unfortunately, there are three deficiencies with this system. The first is that it gives you no information about the target itself. Because the pulse generates its response by interacting with the shield, it cannot reach through the shield to the ship within. Secondly, you will only want to use the impulse scanner very sparingly. The interaction of the pulse with the shield can be detected. The Dreadnought will sometimes know that it is being scanned, and the side of the shield reacting to scan indicates the general direction of the source of the scan. You can see it, but it will know to begin looking for you.' The third problem is that there might not be a better way to do this, since the Dreadnought used the same system itself.”
“You used the word ‘sometimes,’ ” Daerran observed. “Just how often does it become aware of the scan?”
“Our simulation is designed to respond to impulse scan by returning scan,” the researcher explained. “The simulated Dreadnought returns scan only twenty-one percent of the time.
However, we expect the real thing to be much more sensitive to scan by an unknown factor.”
“Could it see through normal stealth intensity shields, or would it get the same ghost reflection?” Daerran asked.
“The simulation tells us that it receives only the reflection,” Dalvaen answered. “Perhaps it does not yet know what a Starwolf carrier looks like.”
“It knows already,” Daerran reminded him. “We lost our shields before it was over.”
Fleet Commander Asandi nodded absently. “Very well, then. You have a working model. How soon can you design working hardware?”
“We anticipate two hard days of work, if we let the computers do most of the general design for us,” Dalvaen said, having prepared his answer to that important question already. “The next question is, do we build a working model to scale and test it aboard a smaller ship, or do we go ahead with the fitting of a carrier?”
Asandi considered that only briefly. “We test it on a carrier. If it works, we’re ahead that much. If not, we lose very little. How soon can construction and actual fitting of the device be completed?”
“That depends entirely upon the ship,” the Kelvessan said, as if he already anticipated some problem with his answer. “This is a major refitting, requiring extensive opening of the hull around the nose and all through the ventral groove. We have to make major modifications to the scanner computers and rebuild the surveillance station on the bridge. We even have to go into the ship’s core computer, and you know what that involves. Expect four to five weeks on an existing carrier.”
“Existing seems to be the relevant word,” Asandi observed. “We could manage the conversion in half the time on the Methryn. Her hull is still open at every important point, and she was built with a number of modifications that make her computer grid more versatile. We can tie the new systems directly into the network. The parts can be installed as quickly as they can be made, perhaps nine days, and another week to close the hull.” Asandi turned to one of the Starwolf Commanders. “Is the Methryn ready to fly, Commander Gelrayen?”
“We were going to take our time closing up, perhaps another four weeks,” he replied. “By foregoing simulations and an extended trial run, we could do it. But I do not have to point out to you the disadvantages.”
“We will discuss it,” Asandi said, then turned back to Dalvaen. “Prepare designs for the Methryn, the Kerridayen and one of the flight-ready ships in port. We’ll have a decision on which ship to refit first in a couple of hours at most. Could you join myself and the Commanders in my office in a (quarter of an hour?”
Captain Tarrel was not completely certain what it all meant, except that a portion of her mind that was always devoted to business was thinking that, if the Union had this impulse scanner, the Starwolves would never again be able to slink about their systems unseen. All she could do was to remember everything that she possibly could of what she heard, for all the good it might do. The Union had trouble with the most basic achronic technology, so they could never reproduce this. She followed dutifully as Asandi and his flock of Starwolves made their migration through the station. Her presence had not, however, gone entirely unnoticed. When they entered the tram on the military level, Asandi joined her.
“You will tell me if you learn anything that you shouldn’t,” he said. “I have too much to worry about to remember to pay any attention to what you might be hearing. How many secrets have you dug up, by the way?”
Tarrel almost laughed, thinking that Asandi was good at pretending to be a kindly, doddering old fool. “Only one, really. We fool ourselves, back where I come from. The Union is completely out-classed. Your Starwolves could have made short work of us long ago.”
“No, not really,” he told her. “We have the technology, and you have the numbers. When we have pressed you to it in the past, usually without meaning to, you have been able to put together fleets large enough to pull down a carrier. Do you realize that you people have destroyed two-thirds of the ships we have ever built?”
“Just returning the favor,” she quipped, although she was surprised to hear that.
“This is some fine war that we’ve been fighting,” he continued. “We’ve been at it for thirty thousand years. Either side could end it at any time, and neither side wants to pay the price that would demand of us. I wonder if we might be able to keep the truce, once we get rid of this monster.”
“Unless it eats us both alive,” she commented.
The mood of the meeting in the Fleet Commander’s office was a strained, brooding one. Commander Gelrayen sat somewhat apart from the others, looking remarkably like someone who had found himself in trouble and did not entirely understand why. He was a young Kelvessan, in so far as they all looked young. Perhaps it was fairer to say that he seemed less experienced than the others. While the others wore command white, he was in the solid black of the fighter pilots. She recalled that his carrier was still in the construction bay, and she realized that he had probably never commanded a ship in flight before.
“There is no reason to make an issue of this,” Asandi declared as he took his own seat behind his desk. “This is not an emotional matter. We are here to discuss the merits of fitting the Methryn with the first of these pulse scanners. At issue, I suppose, is the question of whether or not a ship that has never even flown should become the spearhead of our attack against the Dreadnought.”
“ An inexperienced ship, and an inexperienced commander,” Gelrayen added. “I might point out the Methryn might still be the best choice. If we have only one ship with an impulse scanner, it might be tactically best to have that ship stand off from a distance and supply information to the others. They could then remain invisible to the Dreadnought.”
“Assuming that we move out now to attack the Dreadnought,” Daerran said. “First we have to test the impulse scanner to see if it works, and to what degree. Then we have to do something about finding a way to make that machine vulnerable to our weapons. The Methryn would have a lot of work to do. ” “Then you take the Methryn
