Defender

42

Fighting the alien ship was one thing. Salvaging it for study was another thing entirely.

As the Wasp closed on it, Kris saw a wildly spinning and twisting wreck. “No human could survive in that,” Nelly judged, and Captain Drago was willing to accept that judgment even before their visuals showed every hatch opened to space.

“Do you think there are any survivors in airtight compartments?” Jack asked, clearly getting ready to lead a boarding party.

“I doubt it,” Kris said. “There weren’t many airtight bulkheads on the mother ship we examined.”

“So it’s not just Victory or Death,” Captain Drago said, “but everything goes fine or death. I know you want to take that thing home to granny and the good professor, but I’m not taking this ship within fifty klicks of that out-of-control hulk.”

“Nelly, we need to stabilize that mess,” Kris said, then glanced at the course that appeared on the main screen. The hulk was in a wildly elliptical orbit with a high apogee, but its plunge back to the planet would be a close graze on the first orbit followed by a spectacular crash the second. “And we need to do it fast.”

“Like in this orbit,” the captain muttered. “I’ve had my ship’s feathers singed once today. I will not risk it again.”

Kris noted the possessiveness Captain Drago was showing toward the Wasp. There would be no more pushing him where his ship was concerned.

“I’ll need all the longboats,” Nelly said. “No crew; we’ll control them from here.”

Fast as only a computer can do, Nelly and her brood had the launches away and reconfiguring in flight. All eight of the Wasp’s auxiliary antimatter power plants were also drafted into the mission, rerigged to power reaction motors and sent on their way.

“Kris, I really love this new Smart Metal. It’s like magic.”

“We all do, Nelly.”

All this time they had been doing their best to map the spinning, tumbling wreck. The damage control teams on the Wasp helped Nelly spot the alien ship’s primary hull strength members where they’d been revealed by Kris’s laser slices. Nelly and family plotted courses for the auxiliary rocket motors and had them dart in as their targets spun into view. Only one motor missed and got batted out fast, narrowly missing the Wasp and just barely avoiding a dive into the planet.

“Damn,” Nelly said.

“Doing it right eleven out of twelve times at bat would put you in the record books for baseball,” Jack pointed out.

“Yes, for a human,” Nelly agreed.

Kris and Jack just shook their heads.

They were approaching apogee when the eleven rocket motors fired. First they took the spin off. Then, with the problem more manageable, they adjusted the rockets to suppress the tumbling. Faster than Kris would have expected, Nelly had the alien wreck lying docile in space.

And beginning its dive back to the planet’s flaming embrace.

“There are twelve main hull longitudinal strength members poking out the aft end,” Nelly reported. “Kris cut them off a bit ragged, but that may help us make a solid connection.”

Kris was glad her computer found her work acceptable. Jack just grinned.

As the Wasp extended twelve girders of Smart MetalTM out to connect with the target, Captain Drago brought the Wasp close alongside the battered stern of the alien. Soon, it loomed over them. He halted his approach five klicks out.

“I’m not going any closer until someone assures me that hulk is dead and no one has hung around to blow me up.”

“There’s not enough time for my Marines to get over there if you also want to get this mess nudged into a high orbit.”

“Then have your marvelous Nelly send her minions over there for a quick look-see.”

“Nanos on their way,” Nelly replied as a swarm of them departed from the tips of the docking girders. “I’ll replace them before you need to dock,” she assured the humans.

For a long fifteen minutes, the nanos scoured the aft-most compartments of the hulk. All showed signs of explosive decompression as the departure of the engineering section opened the stern to space. There was no evidence of explosives or booby traps left behind.

There were lots of bodies. A horrible lot of them.

Even Jack gulped as the picture became clear. “I think we’ll leave the examination of the hulk to nanos. I’m not sure I could get my Marines through that.”

Kris agreed.

Captain Drago brought his Wasp in to mate with the alien wreck a good half hour before they were due to graze the atmosphere. By applying power in a slow, gently rising fashion, they secured the mating and got themselves edged into an orbit that never came closer than 150 klicks to the grasping planet below.

“That is one huge hood ornament,” Captain Drago said finally with a major sigh. “I hope Your Highness wasn’t expecting us to make more than one gee on our way back to Alwa.”

“One gee was more than I dared hope for,” Kris admitted.

They strengthened the docking with the hulk as they swung around the planet and headed back out to a second apogee. The Wasp began applying power to the jury-rigged docking collar as they approached their highest point and had them drawing free of the distant planet before they began another dive.

Around them, the hull of the Wasp groaned and moaned, but nothing broke loose. “Quarters are going to be a bit tight. I’m going to keep the Wasp at something between Condition Baker and Charlie,” Captain Drago announced to all hands, “but we’re headed home.”

In the privacy of her day quarters Kris wondered aloud to Jack, “You think Captain Drago would appreciate it if you moved in with me? Think of the space we’d save.”

Jack gave her a good-night kiss and sent her on her way to her lonely night cabin.

But the question would soon come up again.