Weapons of choice

In Manning Pope, DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, had retained the world's foremost expert on the engineering of spacetime foam, and set him working hard at the second great militarization of Einstein's theory of relativity. They also had an overweening egotist whose only real interest was in the opportunity the Project provided to spend other people's money on his personal obsession-FTL, faster-than-light travel.

Pope's incipient mania and a couple of breathtaking developments in quantum computing had moved the entire schedule onto the fast track. The senators currently overseeing the mission were understandably pleased. Their Japanese, British, and Russian counterparts were all likewise thrilled at the prospect of having an exciting new way to kill Chinese infantry and Taliban jihadis. And Pope had never felt the need to burden any of them with details concerning his research.

Now on the verge of proving his FTL theories, Pope seemed to hesitate.

A quick, stealthy look passed between Morley and Dunne, but neither said anything. They'd never seen Pope or Murayama look anything other than painfully arrogant, so this sudden change in character set off alarms. But nobody really cared what they thought. And anyway, this might be an opportunity for them to watch Kolhammer beating on the boss again, which was such an appealing thought that Morley had arranged to trap any incoming communications for covert storage on his own flexipad. If they blew circuits all over the fleet, like last time, Kolhammer would go postal for sure, and that sort of footage could keep a guy entertained for months on a long voyage.

As the Quad came online, each team member responded with a slightly increased heart rate, slightly shallower breathing, and a measurable change in galvanic skin response. They were all excited, no matter what their private qualms.

WETAR STRAIT, 1234 HOURS, 15 JANUARY 2021

While Pope's colleagues set to their preparations, maybe a dozen pairs of eyes throughout the entire task force were directly fixed on the giant scientific ship. Two sailors on the destroyer trimaran HMS Vanguard, enjoying a furtive cigarette to mark the end of their watch, speculated on the contents of the oversized megatanker. Neither guessed correctly.

The pilot of a Marine Corps F-35, climbing through five thousand meters above the task force, happened to cast her gaze down at the same moment, but the jet quickly slipped over the eight-hundred-meter length of the Nagoya, and she took in the four strange, bulbous pods on her deck without really registering. The pilot had clocked some serious hours during the last fortnight's exercises, and the sight of the Nagoya was entirely routine to her now.

A bored fourth officer on the bridge of the Japanese Nemesis cruiser Siranui trained a pair of vintage binoculars on the distant form of their mystery guest, but his thoughts were mostly back home where he was certain his two girlfriends must have discovered each other by now, given his ill-advised decision to start banging a couple of Office Ladies dorming on the same floor of the same singles complex.

Throughout the rest of the task force a small number of sysops routinely scanning the threat bubble scoped out the "ghost ship," probing her annoyingly effective electronic defenses with low-grade scans, looking to pierce the black hole that enveloped her. The temporary community of task force Elint operators were agreed that a fully amped blast from a Nemesis array would strip her naked. But of course they weren't allowed to do that, so during rare moments of downtime they dicked around with low-power blinkscans, feeling out the Nagoya's electronic perimeter.

After the infamous brownout, Commander Judge had quietly and deniably encouraged such unlicensed shenanigans. Had he known what was coming, though, he would have junked his career and ordered all of the group's Nemesis arrays tuned in and burning bright, 24/7. But nothing had even remotely suggested that things were about to unravel aboard the Joint Research Vessel.

PROJECT CONTROL, JRV NAGOYA, ZONE TIME: 1235 HOURS, JANUARY 15, 2021

Pope seated himself at the command deck of the control room. With little to do as his underlings worked their consoles, he was able to sit back and savor the moment, to drink it in as a curiously loose feeling crept over him.