The Service of the Sword

'From a million klicks out?' Damana asked. 'That's one hell of a stretch.'

'This isn't like a grav lance,' Pampas said, shaking his head. 'That does actually push the wedge out far enough to knock out a sidewall. What this thing does is more subtle. It runs the attacker's wedge frequency up and down, alternating between a pair of wildly different frequencies, setting up a sort of rolling resonance. Even at a million klicks out, there's enough of an effect to throw an instability into the victim's own wedge, which manifests itself as a transient feedback through the stress bands back into the nodes. The current goes roaring through a handful of critical junction points—' He lifted a hand and dropped it back onto the table. 'And as we saw, poof.'

A hard-edged silence settled momentarily onto the table. 'Poof,' Sandler repeated. 'Is it focused, or does it affect the entire spherical region around it?'

'With only the one target in this particular attack, it's hard to tell,' Pampas said. 'But I'd guess it's focused. There may be a spherical effect at a much closer range, but the million-klick shot has got to be aimed.'

'Well, that's something, anyway,' Damana said. 'If we can keep to missile-duel range, we should be able to stay out of its way.'

'Unless they set the things up in stealthed probes,' Hauptman said darkly. 'Or even in a mine field.'

'That's the other thing,' Pampas said, his lips puckering slightly. 'If we're right about how this thing operates, it won't work against a warship.'

Damana and Sandler exchanged startled glances. 'You mean one of our warships?' Sandler asked.

'I mean any warship,' Pampas said.

Damana was staring at Pampas as if waiting for the punchline. 'You've lost me. Why not?'

'Because warships generate two different sets of stress bands, remember?' Pampas said patiently.

'Thank you for that lesson in the obvious,' Damana said tartly. A bit too tartly, in Cardones's opinion; but then, Damana was tired, too. Certainly everyone here knew perfectly well that every warship generated two separate stress bands. The outer one was what kept an opponent's sensors from getting an accurate read on the inner one, because—in theory, at least—someone with an accurate read on the strength of a wedge could slip an energy weapon or sensor probe straight through. Preventing that from happening was one reason warships' impeller nodes were so powerful for their size. 'So why can't it just take them down one at a time?'

'Because there's no specific frequency for a resonance to latch onto,' Pampas explained. 'The two wedges act like weakly coupled springs, with their frequencies in effect flowing back and forth into each other. Same reason it's impossible to scan through someone else's wedge. We —I mean the guys inside— know how the wedges flow into each other, because we've got the nodes and the equipment running them. But there's no way to figure it out from the outside.'

'If you're right, that would explain why we haven't seen this thing used in combat before,' Hauptman commented.

'Maybe,' Sandler said. 'But that doesn't make it any less of a threat to merchantmen and other civilian craft. You sure there's no way to block it, Georgio?'

Pampas held out his hands, palms upward. 'Give us a break, Skipper,' he protested. 'We're not even sure we've got the exact method figured out right yet. All I said was that if we are right, the effect can't be blocked. It's like gravity in general, working through the fabric of the space-time continuum. I don't know any way to build a barrier to space itself.'

'Well, then, how about trying to stop the effect?' Cardones asked hesitantly.

'How?' Pampas asked, his tone one of strained patience. 'I just got finished saying we can't stop it.'

'No, I mean stop what it's doing to the impellers,' Cardones said. 'If it's an induced current that's frying the junction points, can't we put in some extra fuses or something to bleed it off?'

'But then the—' Pampas broke off, a sudden gleam coming into his red-rimmed eyes. 'The wedge would come down anyway,' he continued in a newly thoughtful voice. 'But then all it would take would be putting in a new batch of fuses instead of trying to cut out and wire in a complete set of junction points.'

'Couldn't you even use self-resetting breakers instead?' Damana suggested. 'That way you wouldn't need to replace anything at all.'

'And your wedge would be ready to go back up as soon as the breakers cooled,' Pampas agreed, nodding slowly. 'Probably somewhere in the thirty-second to five-minute range.'

'Either way, it would beat the hell out of lying there helpless,' Hauptman said.

'Yes,' Pampas said. 'Yes, this has definite possibilities. Let me pull up the circuit layouts—'

'Negative,' Sandler interrupted. 'All you're pulling up right now is a blanket. Neck-level ought to do it.'

'I'm all right,' Pampas assured her. 'I want to get going on this.'

'You can get going after you've slept a few hours,' Sandler said, her tone making it clear it was an order. 'Go on, get out of here.'

'Yes, Ma'am.' Wearily, but clearly trying not to show it, Pampas got up from the table and trudged from the room.

'Best news we've had in months,' Hauptman commented.

'Definitely,' Damana agreed. 'So what's our next move, Skipper? Back to Manticore to report?'

'Not quite yet,' Sandler said slowly, fingering the data chips Pampas had left behind. 'After all, right now all we've got is a theory as to what's happening. And a possible theory of how to counter it.'

She lifted an eyebrow. 'Wouldn't it be nice to be able to drop a complete package on Admiral Hemphill's desk instead?'

'Okay,' Damana said cautiously. 'So how do we go about doing that?'

Sandler was gazing thoughtfully out into space. 'We start by setting course for Quarre.'

'Quarre?' Damana asked, looking surprised.

'Yes,' Sandler said, her eyes coming back to focus. 'We're going to commandeer one of the Manticoran freighters waiting there for the next convoy and let Georgio play with circuit breakers on the way to Walther. If I'm right—if the Jansci is their next target—we may get a chance to see if we've really found the answer.'

Damana glanced pointedly at Cardones, as if to remind his captain that the Jansci and her high-tech cargo were classified information from mere regular Navy types. 'Except that they've never hit a whole convoy before,' he pointed out. 'Individual ships only. Certainly never one with a military escort.'

'And now we know why,' Sandler agreed. 'But remember that they've been building this whole thing up for several months. They'll know we've been watching for a pattern; if the Jansci is their main target, they'll make sure that's the attack where they break that pattern. It's a perfect way to throw us off-balance.'

'I don't know, Skipper,' Hauptman said doubtfully. 'Sounds too complicated for a Peep operation.'

'I agree,' Sandler said. 'But I don't think the Peeps are working on their own on this one. I think they've linked up with someone else who's plotted out the actual strategy.'

'Who?' Cardones asked.

Sandler shrugged. 'Sollies would be my first guess. Or maybe the Andies. Someone who has the technical expertise to come up with this gravitic heterodyne in the first place.'

'And then foist it off on the Peeps?' Hauptman asked doubtfully. 'Knowing full well it's only a matter of time before we figure out how to stop it?'

'Maybe they figure it's a chance to stock up on Manticoran merchandise until that happens,' Sandler said. 'Or maybe whoever owns the hardware is running a con game of his own on the Peeps.'

'That's a kick of an idea,' Damana said. 'They'd sure be ripe for it, too, especially after Basilisk.'

'Just be thankful he didn't dangle it in front of us,' Hauptman said dryly. 'I bet BuWeaps would be just as interested in this thing as the Peeps are.'

'Don't laugh,' Sandler warned. 'The way these top-secret operations get compartmentalized, someone in