And bid the planets and the sun
Their own appointed orbits run;
O hear us when we seek thy grace
From those who soar through outer space.
The singing tapered off, then Commander Herdez looked around the quarterdeck at those present. 'The Navy Hymn was originally written in the 1860s. The verse speaking of those in space was added in the 1960s. Sailors have always faced peril, and not always come home. But Petty Officer Davidas is part of a endless line of explorers and seafarers stretching back for untold centuries. Now he has gone to join them, and their ranks are surely brightened by that.' Herdez nodded to a bosun mate who placed his left hand on the controls of a portable stereo. 'Hand salute.'
Everyone somehow managed to find the room to swing their arms up and hold their best salutes.
The bosun hit the Play control on his stereo, and the slow, mournful notes of Taps echoed softly through the quarterdeck until the last, long measure trailed off into silence.
'Two.'
Everyone dropped their salutes.
'That is all. Thank you for coming.'
'Wait a minute.' The beginnings of movement halted as Captain Wakeman finally spoke again. 'I wanted to pass on some good news on this solemn occasion.' A nervous smile flickered across his face. 'As some of you know, we've been watching a South Asian Alliance ship for some time. He's been hugging the edge of our area, but he's just taken the plunge and he's coming right through without requesting permission. We're going to intercept that ship! Who knows, we may even have to seize it. It's a great opportunity, and, well, let's get after him!' Wakeman ducked out the hatch, leaving silence behind him.
Paul watched Commander Herdez' face as she eyed the Captain's departure, her expression revealing no emotion.
After a brief pause, Herdez glanced around once again. 'Dismissed.'
Paul held himself in place, waiting for a few moments while others tried to wedge themselves through the hatches instead of fighting the crowd himself. His gaze settled on the body tube and the four sailors standing beside it along with Carl Meadows, ready to transport it to the launch tube from which it would be fired into space. Another ship, coming through this area and apparently deliberately defying the U.S. claim to this part of space. Does it know we're here? We might have been detected when we sent in the investigation report. Rumors of Q- ships came back to haunt him. Is it armed, a warship in disguise, maybe planning to surprise us and take us out before we can defend ourselves? Are we going to be in a shooting engagement before all is said and done? He watched the body tube, wondering if it would be merely the first of many he'd see on this trip. Wakeman's enthusiasm seemed not only inappropriate, but also thoughtless. I need to take another look at our orders.
Chapter Six
The other ship stood out easily against the backdrop of space, but then most objects did. Like all warships, the USS Michaelson carried a wide variety of eyes with which to scan the heavens for items of interest. Some were devoted to watching for natural objects that might pose a hazard to the Michaelson herself by blundering through the same location in space at the same time as the ship. Others watched for human artifacts, which could generate hazards of a different nature.
'Space is cold.' Jan Tweed pointed at the read-out beneath the symbol representing the intruding ship. 'Look how much hotter that ship is than the temperature of space around it. It's like seeing a campfire in the distance.'
'Do we have any visual yet?' Paul leaned closer to the display as if that could somehow resolve details on the distant ship better.
'Just background occlusion.' As objects moved through space they might not be directly visible themselves, but their movement could be spotted by watching them block the view of stars behind them. 'Nothing detailed.'
'Strong temperature variation and background occlusion. Then it's not a warship.'
Jan shrugged. 'Or it is a warship, and he's turned off his can't-see-me system and is broadcasting vented waste heat instead of recycling it.'
'I guess that could be true, couldn't it?' Paul glanced upward, as if he could somehow see the sophisticated system which made the Michaelson and other warships so hard to spot. Almost the entire outer hull was covered with micro-lenses interspersed with video displays. Anything a lens saw on one side of the ship was looped 180 degrees to the opposite side of the ship and displayed on a screen. With all the lenses and screens working, all you saw when you looked at the Michaelson was whatever the lenses on the opposite side were seeing, just as if the ship weren't there at all blocking the view. Effectively, the Michaelson bent light around her and remained invisible inside her cocoon. It wasn't a perfect system because small gaps existed in the lens/screen array, but you had to get pretty close to spot those gaps. With waste heat disposal minimized and directed out along an empty vector away from the ship, neither visual nor infra-red sensors had much chance of seeing the Michaelson from a distance.
'Yup.' Tweed eyed him dubiously. 'Did you read the intelligence assessment on Q-ships?'
'Yeah. 'Insufficient evidence exists to either prove or disprove the existence of Q-ship type combatants, so caution is advised when approaching other ships.'' Paul quoted. 'That's a lot of help.'
'Sir?' Paul turned at the question, seeing both enlisted watch standers eyeing him and Lieutenant Tweed. 'Sir, we've heard these Q-ship things mentioned a lot. What are they?'
Jan made a deferring gesture to Paul, who ordered his thoughts before speaking. 'The basic idea's been around a long time. You make a warship look like an innocent merchant ship, and when your prey gets close enough you drop the disguise and open fire.'
'I saw a video where pirates did that,' the bosun mate of the watch offered. 'Way back when, with sailing ships and stuff. How come they call 'em Q-ships?'
'Because that's what the Brits called them during World War One. They had a serious problem with enemy submarines attacking their merchant ships, so they made these ships they called Q-ships as sort of a secret name. If a submarine approached on the surface to sink what it thought was a helpless merchant, the Q-ship would try to surprise and sink the sub.'
'That's a nasty trick. So that guy we're heading to intercept might be that kind of trap?'
'It's… possible. There's no proof any Q-ships actually exist in space.'
'Ships go missing,' the quartermaster of the watch insisted. 'Just gone.'
Lieutenant Tweed smiled indulgently. 'Accidents. Unfortunately, they happen.'
'Well, maybe, Ma'am.' Plainly unconvinced, the quartermaster exchanged glances with the bosun mate, then the two enlisted watch standers launched into a whispered discussion of the pirate video one had seen.
'I don't think you convinced them,' Paul muttered.
Jan smiled crookedly. 'I know a little bit about fear, Paul. I don't like that we don't know more about this other ship, I don't like the way he's heading straight into our area so brazenly, and I don't like all the rumors about covert warships.'
'A lot of rumors are just garbage. Totally wrong.'
'How many rumors do you have to bet your life on them being garbage?'
'Not a lot.' Paul tagged the ship's symbol and read the associated data as it scrolled by. 'They think it's a South Asian Alliance ship?'
'That's what they think.'
'The South Asians have been pretty aggressive lately, back on Earth.
'I read the same intelligence reports you did, Paul. If you're trying to reassure me, you're doing a lousy job.'
'Do you think he knows we're here? If our transmission of the death investigation report betrayed our
