Chapter 17

That encounter with the chlorine breathers had taken the fun out of our vacation, so we decided to head home. Shit, I hate it when that happens!

When we got home, I put together a team of psychologists and philosophers in hope that they could come up with a solution to that problem, but I didn't expect much of the effort. Still, I had to try.

Well, it looked like I had won my battle with NASA, such as it was. NASA had given up on manned space missions and was hiring us to put robotic test instruments in various places around the galaxy. They had bought some FTL radios and were busy collecting data from some of the strangest places. We even tried to help them put together an instrument package to drop inside a black hole, but that fizzled out for lack of funding.

The Chinese were refusing to have anything to do with us and were still trying to get a base established on the moon, serviced by conventional chemical rockets. I just can't figure out why they are so damned stubborn. They could hire us for a dozen flights for just what it costs for one of their flights in a chemical rocket. I suppose it has something to do with "face," but it goes beyond my understanding.

Well, it was bound to happen! With so many billions of planets in the galaxy, we were certain to encounter another race with FTL capability. Just why in the hell did they have to turn out to be so paranoid and hostile. These people could not have anything to fear from us and vice versa under normal circumstances. These people came from a water-planet and use something dissolved in the water the way we use oxygen. We never did find out what it was because they refused to talk to us when they found out that we were not like them.

Our initial meeting was quite peaceful. One of our survey ships was looking at a solar system, QW-15467-AA, that we had never visited before, and were just leaving when another ship pulled up into hailing range. The coincidence was remarkable in that the other spaceship also bore a vague resemblance to a submarine. Apparently, this was enough for the other ship to be willing to talk, since they assumed that we were also water-breathers because of the shape of our vessel.

Quite a bit of information had been transferred when negotiations had to break off because Parrot Fish was running low on oxygen. Well, not really low, but they were down to the point where regulations said that they had to return to base for a resupply and a light maintenance check.

As soon as Jim Barret, the captain of Parrot Fish, said that he had to go back to base and gave his reason, there was dead silence from the other ship. Then, "You are not water-breathers like us?"

"No, we breathe oxygen directly from the air. We are down to a two-day supply, so we are required to return to our base for resupply. Please excuse us. It has been a pleasure meeting you, and we would like to talk some more. Where would be a convenient place for us to meet?"

"Air-breathers are too dangerous to be allowed to live! Prepare to die!" With that statement, several explosive devices were sent in the direction of Parrot Fish. These were all destroyed by the banks of Quad-50s carried by our ship.

When the attack failed, the other ship tried to run. Barret thought that he might disable the other ship and force them to talk, so he turned his guns on the alien spaceship. A single burst of fire was aimed in front of the other ship, but the ship literally exploded when the first bullet struck. Later analysis of the sensors aboard Parrot Fish revealed that the alien ship must have been filled with water. The water apparently transferred the force of the strike throughout the ship, causing it to explode. The mechanism must have been much the same as dropping a sealed plastic jug absolutely filled with water onto a hard surface—the water distributes the force of the impact uniformly and causes the jug to explode.

Anyway, whatever was the cause, nothing was ever found of the Pluggarth's ship, except bits and shards. We didn't even know the size and shape of the Pluggarths. Barret assumed that the Pluggarths had been in contact with their home base by means of FTL radio, but he didn't know what kind of report had been sent. Once he was sure that the Pluggarths were completely destroyed, he returned to Auburn full of regrets.

After a quick maintenance check and resupply, the Parrot Fish returned to QW-15467-AA, accompanied by Guppy as backup in case of trouble. They popped out of FTL with their cloaking on, so they were able to approach the solar system without attracting attention from the three Pluggarth ships in the vicinity. Guppy remained cloaked, but Parrot Fish dropped its cloaking as it approached the alien ships.

There was no hint of talking, almost the moment that Parrot Fish became visible, the aliens opened fire with guns and missiles. The Parrot Fish's defense shield was up, so the aliens were not able to damage our ship, but their fire was relentless. After trying for half an hour to get the aliens to talk instead of fight, Barret lost patience and returned fire. This time, his bullets bounced off the alien ships as if they, too, were impervious to incoming fire.

This was producing no useful results at all, so Barret cloaked Parrot Fish and tried to escape. There was a short delay, and then the aliens began following him. Furthermore, they opened fire on the cloaked Guppy, which they apparently had just discovered. Shit! It looked like the aliens had some way to pierce our cloaking!

Parrot Fish and Guppy made a run for open space and went into FTL as soon as they reached the launch threshold speed. They jumped to our solar system and came home to make a full report.

The report of the aliens being able to pierce our cloaking was very disturbing to us all, especially since we couldn't figure out how they were doing it. Somebody finally suggested that they might not be tracking us, but rather the hole in the background radiation that was generated by our cloaking. This was similar to the trick used by sonar operators to track submerged submarines that were so quiet that they could not be heard above the background noise. They seemed to create a "hole" in the background noise that could be tracked by the right instrumentation. Our R&D people immediately started work on a blanking device that would simulate background radiation and hide the "hole" that our cloaking made.

Meanwhile, a concerted effort was being made to find a way to disable the alien's defense shield. We were pretty sure that we could not do that directly, but we might be able to disable it indirectly by destroying their inability to generate artificial gravity and/or deploy a gravity shield. We knew that an EMP (ElectroMagnetic Pulse) would temporarily disable the devices, so we looked for a way to employ that to our advantage.

The easiest way to generate an EMP under the circumstances was to set off an atomic bomb. The math was done and the size of the necessary bomb was calculated. This was made into a missile that could be launched as soon as we came out of FTL and aimed at the aliens. The missile was remotely controlled through FTL radio so that it could be steered and exploded under command from the launching vessel. Simple cloaking would protect the launching vessel since the EMP would pass through without affecting the ship. Only a few experiments were necessary to work the bugs out, and several of the missiles were built.

We still didn't know how to find the aliens except by rendezvous at the QW-15467-AA system. Parrot Fish and Guppy were fitted to launch the new missile and sent back to see if they could make contact with the aliens. They mad contact all right. A dozen alien vessels were now orbiting the star and came in to attack as soon as our ships showed up.

Barret tried in vain to get the aliens to talk, so he launched one of his special missiles at a collection of the alien ships. Guppy had already cloaked, so Barret did the same to Parrot Fish just before detonating his EMP bomb. There were six of the alien vessels near enough to the exploding missile to reap the full effects.