Martinez realized that standing close behind him was the Grand Supreme Admiral. He snapped a salute. “Sir!” Regulations dictated that he remain at his station, but military courtesy also had a place.
“I see that the rest of the duty crew is out to lunch,” Thatcher said. “After all, there was no need for a relief detail for lunch, when no one in their right mind would have thought that anyone might show up unexpectedly. Do we have any idea what we are looking at?”
“Sir, they’re not in our light cone yet. I see the emergence, and I can track four ships coming up to some level of power, but it will take the AI systems a while to suggest what I might be looking at. The best I can say is that their drives are running very smoothly, so that they are pulling some tens of gravities with almost no graviton admissions. Really powerful drives being run at low power will do that.”
Thatcher took the adjoining chair. “I see you have all of the position data panels seconded to your screens, so even if the rest of the crew isn’t here at the moment you have track of everything. Time to get images?”
“I was hoping for another minute,” Martinez said, “though it depends a bit whether the observation buoys are up and running completely or not, which I can’t monitor from here, and which aren’t in our chain of command, anyhow.”
“Here we are having Fleet maneuvers,” Thatcher said, “so these people must be latecomers to the dance. Who are we missing?”
“All ships are here,” Martinez said. “The Anglic Union, from Old Earth, is supposed to be sending a group of ships, but they weren’t expected for several days yet. However, here comes the IFF signal and some images.”
Thatcher stared patiently at the screens.
“Sir,” Martinez said, “according to the IFF, these are the Anglic Union ships. They are the Langley, Hiram Maxim, Orville Wright, and Wilbur Wright. And in a moment the holodisplay will show us one of them.”
There appeared before the two men an image of a single ship. According to the pictures, the Langley was a thick pancake, painted white, accelerating parallel to its minor axis.
“That’s certainly different,” Thatcher said to himself. “Does that match anything we have on file?”
“Sir, so far as I can determine our people on Terra advised us of the names of the four ships, and made the remark that Anglic Union ship design was extremely eccentric and highly backwards. They neglected to mention that anything specific was unusual about the shape of the Anglic Union ships. They suggested that nothing should be expected of Anglic Union ships other than serving as ore freighters.”
“Traffic Control should have hailed them by now,” Thatcher said. “Has there been a response?”
“No, sir. However, Traffic Control is probably also out to lunch. After all, the warp point is closed during maneuvers.” Martinez shrugged. “The folks at the far end should’ve had plenty of notice that the Terrans had showed up, and should’ve sent through to us a message boat telling us of the Terran arrival. They seem not to have done that.”
“Basic lesson for a first-line officer,” Thatcher said. “Trust your fellow sailors, but don’t assume they will do everything right.”
