“That is true enough,” the ship agreed. “Even so, I still believe that self-awareness and even some emotional responses are necessary for a machine to be truly devious. That might be our advantage.”
“If so, that machine must be programmed for deviousness,” he said. “I do not know what else to say about a ship that develops one impression of its abilities and tactics and then abruptly changes. That is devious.”
The Vardon had cut her speed considerably and was now making her final approach to the planet. At this range, she was finally able to make a detailed scan of the planet itself and the general area of attack. Now that she was able to get better information on some of the more subtle details, she began to realize that matters here were rather more complex than she had first anticipated. That also taught her a lesson on being more cautious, and she began to devote more of her attention to space about her, especially behind. That was no reassurance. If the Dreadnought was still lurking, she would not know until she was attacked.
Wondering what she could do to guard herself better, she recalled what she had seen in the reports on the attacks on the Carthaginian and the Kerridayen. She checked her files for the recognition code that the Kerridayen had used to hail the Dreadnought, modified that slightly and broadcast it in the achronic bands. When she received no response, she felt somewhat better about the situation. But not entirely.
“Commander, I have recognized a second change in the attack patterns of the Dreadnought,” she said. “Emissions and dispersal patterns indicate two separate attacks, over a full day apart. The main attack, the destruction of the station and most of the ships, occurred first. A second, smaller group of ships was destroyed some time later. I cannot say when the attacks on the surface took place, since dispersion patterns in atmospheric conditions are too irregular to predict. Because very few fires are still burning in the debris, I would predict that most if not all of the surface strikes took place during the initial attack.”
“What would you make of that?” Schyrran asked.
She brought her camera pod back around. “Subtlety. I would say that the Dreadnought withdrew after the first attack, hid itself, and waited for more ships to come blundering into the system. It might still be lurking about, for that matter. The last attack was only a few hours ago. Because those emissions are fresh, I mistook them at first as the time frame for one single attack.”
He looked up at her camera pod. “What is it thinking? If you were the Dreadnought, what would be your priorities?” Theralda considered that briefly. “I have seen and fought a Starwolf carrier. I would consider the Starwolves to be the only real threat facing me in the performance of my mission, as far as they have been a threat. I might or might not be aware of how many carriers there actually are, but one of my greatest priorities would be the destruction of those ships. And I have only just realized where we might have been making a very serious mistake.”
“What is that?”
“We have been treating the achronic channels as being entirely our own property, simply because it has been so for so long,” she explained. “And we have been exchanging large amounts of information by achronic means, quite literally everything we know and plan to do. If the Dreadnought has been receiving and translating those messages, then it knows more about us than we would like. It will know our exact number, our general locations at any time, and all of our various facts and speculations about it, our enemy. It will even know that the Methryn is being fitted with a new scanner. And when she comes out to find it, then it will know that as well.”
Schyrran crossed both sets of his arms on his chest, looking displeased about the situation. “Continue your reports as usual, but compose a message about your suspicions and send it on a very tight beam to Alkayja station. If that thing is listening to us, then we might be able to mislead it with false information.”
During that time, the Vardon had braked to an orbital speed some distance out from the planet. She began broadcasting in the common Union commercial and military bands in the hope that someone on the planet could supply her with a more accurate timetable on the attacks. She was soon given to wonder if the Dreadnought’s double attack had spooked the locals into being too terrified of their communicators to respond, for fear that the transmissions might draw the monster back. She might have spooked them herself; she had already met some resistance to accepting the idea that Starwolves were no longer enemies but allies. But she had not recorded a single scanner beam on her way into the system. As long as she used the Terran language and did not identify herself, they had no way of knowing who she was.
“Military shuttle AK-2110 D reporting,” a reply came at last.
“Report your position, shuttle,” she ordered sharply, encouraging them to believe that she was herself a Union military ship.
“We were evacuating from the station, and we were coming down to Forestan Base. When we saw that the base was under attack, then we decided to settle down into the mountains and wait.”
“Then there was time to evacuate the station?” she asked.
“Hardly. I know of only two more shuttles that got away. There were pods all over the place. But there was a large munitions store at the station, and that went early on. I think the explosion took out most of the pods before they could get clear.”
“But there was a second attack?” Theralda asked. She was certain of that, but she wondered if they knew.
“Yes, a small military convoy came in about five hours ago. They called down, just like you did, and the Dreadnought attacked while we were talking to them. Are your sure it’s gone now?”
“It seems to be, and I have even hailed it,” she responded. “You say that the last attack was about five hours ago?”
“Yes.”
“Then listen to me. You can begin spreading the word that the Dreadnought seems to be gone, and it is unlikely to attack the planet itself again anyway. Try to get things up and running again as soon as possible. I would like to stay and help you, bill I must try to race the Dreadnought to the next system likely to come under attack and order an evacuation.”
“You can’t out-run that thing.”
“I am the Starwolf Carrier Vardon,” she said.
“Oh.” That was followed by a very long pause that Theralda found vaguely amusing. “Then they will probably accept your word that everything is safe enough now.”
“If you cannot trust a Starwolf, who can you trust?” she asked, knowing that it was unkind of her to tease humans in distress. “I am leaving orbit presently. Your own fleet should be here within a couple of days.”
Theralda shifted her attention back to her own bridge. Commander Schyrran had stepped down from his station and was comparing notes with the navigator and the first officer at the navigational station. They all looked up at her camera pod as the Vardon engaged her main drives and began to move swiftly out of orbit. She brought her pod closer.
“It has been about five hours since the last attack,” she announced. “My own suspicion is that the Dreadnought left this system to proceed to its next target immediately after that. It had been waiting for Starwolves, and they did not come.”
“You said that you know where it is going,” Schyrran reminded her.
“I believe that I do,” she said. “And if it continues on for a third attack in this group, then it will hit Norden within a week at most.”
That was very bad news. While Norden was not a Sector Capital, it was still one of the most important and populous worlds in this Sector, a crossroad of trade as well as a center of high-tech industry. If the Dreadnought did hit there, this Sector would lose two major commercial spaceports, and orbital manufacturing complexes in addition to a large military station. And if the attack was not anticipated, the losses would likely include not only the system fleet but a very large portion of the Sector Fleet as well, as many as twelve hundred heavier ships, and perhaps another two thousand commercial vessels caught at the stations. A major shipyard would be gone as well, and that loss would effect this Sector’s ability to recover quickly from its damages.
“Will you call ahead for support?” Schyrran asked.
“I will, but I doubt that any other carrier will get there sooner than myself,” she said. “Perhaps the damage might be less if I did not, but I still must proceed to the second system in this sequence and warn them that the Dreadnought is probably on its way. There is nothing I can help them to do otherwise.”
He nodded his agreement. “But what about Norden? Are you thinking about trying to fight?”
“No, I cannot fight the Dreadnought,” she admitted reluctantly. “Just the same, it very much goes against my nature to run away and allow that machine to have its way in a major system. That used to be my job.”
