his sector, he’d drop it down to one G. It was a bit on the complicated side, but the double domes had worked it out over the years.
Maximilian Rostoff had evidently been a space pilot in his youth. When he and Demming had spotted the drifting Kraden derelict he had not only gotten a fix on it but had determined its course and speed and now Don had little difficulty in locating the Miro Class cruiser.
And there it was all right, drifting comparatively slowly, inertia maintaining the speed that it must have been under when it was hit and the crew killed.
He had never seen a Kraden spaceship before, though, like every other cadet, when he was at the Space Academy he had pored over the photographs and video-tapes taken during the initial battle between the Kradens and Earthmen. There could be no doubt of its extraterrestrial origin. Earth spaceships, even the Monitors which were assembled in space, were still built, for unknown reasons so far as he was concerned, to resemble overgrown torpedoes. The Kradens were built every which way and sometimes basically resembled a box.
The Miro Class cruisers looked more or less like a rectangular box. The only manner in which you could tell if they were coming or going was that there was a control area in the prow, a blister. Or, at least, that’s what the Earthling technicians had decided it was, and were probably wrong, Don thought.
He braked to the speed of the other ship and then used his directional jets to circle it. It was even larger than an Earth Monitor and must have been one hell of a fighting machine in its day. If it
Had he done a more thorough job of his patrol, the last time—hell, for the last half dozen times—he should have stumbled upon it himself. In actuality, largely he had kept himself doped up on soma during those few days he had remained in space, keeping himself only alert enough to be able to make his routine reports. Anything to fight off the space cafard.
He circled it again. If he had spotted it on his last patrol there was no doubt that he would have at first reported it as an active enemy cruiser. Demming and Rostoff had been right. The Kraden ship looked untouched by battle.
That is, if you approached it from starboard and slightly abaft the beam. From that angle, in particular, it looked untouched.
Demming and Rostoff had mentioned going inside and finding repulsive looking alien corpses. On the face of it, it had probably been Rostoff alone who made the spacewalk between the automated space yacht they were in and the extraterrestrial ship. Demming couldn’t have gotten into a spacesuit, even had he wanted to. And even though he’d had constructed a special one to fit his bulk, Don doubted that the fat slob would have exerted himself to that point—no matter what the potential profitable possibilities.
He imagined that Maximilian Rostoff had warped the space yacht up against the alien craft and had then donned a spacesuit and crossed over to explore it. Don wasn’t going to be able to do the equivalent. His One Man Scout boasted no spacesuit nor was there any manner of exit and entry, once in space. He would have liked to explore the interior, as Rostoff had done, but there was simply no way.
In actuality, until this point he had made no decisions. He was still in a position to report in to the base, to reveal that he had located a derelict Kraden cruiser. Undoubtedly, it would do him a lot of good. The engineers would fall all over themselves. It might even win him a promotion. Eric Hansen had been bounced up to full lieutenant just on the strength of having
Surely, this discovery would take the commodore off his neck, at least for the time. It would also mean that as soon as he had made the report he would be ordered to return to base. They’d want to question him in detail. He wouldn’t have to stay out the full three weeks, which he dreaded.
But that wasn’t all of it. Once the initial excitement was over, and he had been a several week news item, he’d be back in the same spot as before. He’d be sent out again, and when he panicked, under cafard, sooner or later the commodore would lower the boom on him. Psych.
That’s what decided him. If he was psyched, it would come out that it hadn’t really been him who had discovered the Kraden but Demming and Rostoff.
He dropped back into the exact position he had decided upon, took another long swig out of his vacuum bottle, then flicked the switch on his screen.
A base lieutenant’s face illuminated it. He yawned and looked questioningly at Don Mathers. He said, “Mathers, your routine report isn’t due for another six hours. Don’t tell me you’re having engine trouble again. The commodore told me—”
Don said, allowing a touch of excitement in his voice, “Mathers, Scout V-102, Sector A22-K223——”
“Yeah, yeah,” the other said, still yawning. “I know who the hell you are and where you are.”
Don said excitedly, “I’ve spotted a Kraden cruiser, Miro Class, I think.”
The lieutenant flashed into movement. He slapped a button before him. The screen in Don’s One Man Scout blinked a moment and then Commodore Walt Bernklau was there.
He snapped, “Mathers, you aren’t in space cafard, are you?”
“No, sir! It’s a Kraden all right!”
The screen flickered again. Then it was halved. Besides the commodore, a gray haired fleet admiral looked up from the papers on his desk.
“Yes?” he said impatiently.
Don Mathers rapped, “Miro Class Kraden in section A22-K223, sir. I’m lying about two hundred kilometers off. Undetected thus far—I think. Otherwise he would have blasted me out of space. He hasn’t fired on me… yet, at least.”
The admiral was already doing things with his hands. Two subalterns came within range of his screen, took orders, dashed off. The admiral was rapidly firing commands into two other screens. After a moment, he looked up at Don Mathers again.
“Hang on, Lieutenant. Keep him under observation as long as you can. Don’t get any closer. We don’t want him to spot you. What are your exact coordinates?”
Don gave them to him and waited.
The commodore, still on his half of the screen, said, suspiciously, “You’re sure about this, Mathers?”
“Yes, sir!”
Within a minute, the Admiral returned to him. “Let’s take a look at it, Lieutenant.”
Don Mathers adjusted the screen to relay the Kraden cruiser. His palms were moist now, but everything was going to plan. He wished the hell he could have another drink.
The admiral said in excitement, “Miro Class, all right. Don’t get too close, Lieutenant. You’re well within range. They’ll blast you to hell and gone. We’re sending up three full squadrons of Monitors. The first one should be there within an hour. Just hang on.”
“Yes, sir,” Don said. An hour. He was glad to know that. He didn’t have much time in which to operate.
He let it go another five minutes, then he said, “Sir, they’re increasing speed.” He had flicked off the scanning of the Kraden. He couldn’t afford to have them spot any of the damage, though that was unlikely at this angle.
“Damn,” the admiral said, then rapidly fired some more into his other screens, barking one order after another.
Don said, letting his voice go very flat, “I’m going in, sir. They’re putting on speed. In another five minutes they’ll be underway to the point where I won’t be able to follow, and neither will anybody else. They’ll get completely clear, and the Almighty Ultimate only knows where they’re headed. Possibly to hit Earth itself.”
The admiral looked up, startled. The commodore’s eyes widened.
The admiral rasped, “Don’t be a fool.”
“They’ll get away, sir,” Don said, trying to make his face look determined. Knowing that the others could see his every motion, Don Mathers hit the cocking handle of his flakflak gun with the heel of his right hand.
The admiral snapped, “Let it go, you ass. You wouldn’t last a second.” Then, his voice higher, “That’s an order, Lieutenant!”
“Yes, sir,” Don Mathers said.
