by Kal Spriggs
He felt sweat bead his forehead as he waited. He counted the seconds off, five, ten, fifteen... I'm running out of time, hotel security will be on the way. Normally Chandral agents reacted with aggression, assuming themselves superior to their opponents, they attacked fast, expecting to catch their attackers by surprise.
They were far more dangerous when they holed up and waited. Bob's stomach twisted as he thought about going into that room, not knowing where the other three of the security team might be, much less their even more deadly superior.
Bob activated the dead-man switch with his left hand. He swallowed, moving up to the door and then to the side. He activated it and waited, giving himself a moment to adjust to the dark of the bedroom, waiting for some kind of attack or gunfire, his breath coming rapid and his heart racing.
It was empty.
Bob swept through the room quickly, noting the signs of hasty departure. It was impossible. He had monitored the hotel and his target's arrivals and departures. There had been no notice as he glided in, no notice as he came down... The security team he'd killed had been the target's outer security, he would guess, which meant...
He saw neatly packed bags and clothing near the empty closet. As he saw them, his comm unit pinged to inform him that the target was leaving the building. I missed him by minutes, possibly by seconds...
His target would know that someone was after him. For that matter, it looked as if he were leaving the planet. Bob had nothing, no way to track him, once he escaped. That left him with only one hope.
***
Punatra sat calmly his eyes hooded as he watched Colonel Steyn on his view screen. The human looked unhealthy, a certain sign that the parasite had begun to be rejected by his body. If allowed to continue the process, the host's immune system would eventually kill the parasite. In the process, the loss of higher brain function suborned and replaced by the parasite would lead to coma and then death. But that didn't matter in this case.
Punatra ignored the rocking and jolting of the shuttle as they exited atmosphere. He would soon rendezvous with the United Nations Guard Fleet Ship Pathfinder. Once aboard, he would link up with other ships, a small task force assembled for one purpose: to hunt down the Fenris.
He had already suborned the senior officers of that force, many of them were on “special” orders. They and their crews had been made into extensions of Punatra's will, just as the soon-to-be late Colonel Steyn had been.
Of course, it wasn't a large force. It was made up of “special assignment” vessels whose absence could be excused and who already served mostly off the books. Many of the ships had functioned as little more than sanctioned pirates or as dumping grounds for Guard Fleet. The hardest part was keeping those ships supplied with food, fuel, and equipment.
Of course, food is relatively easy since most of the crews are little more than Lazaran. Robbed of their free will, they would not complain when forced to eat scraps or even the remains of those crewmembers who had perished as their bodies rejected the parasites he'd implanted in them.
“As soon as the Pathfinder leaves the system, trigger operation Ragnorak,” Punatra ordered. Part of him wanted to wait, to observe the destruction in person, yet he couldn't risk the Pathfinder being detained in connection with the destruction. Even a cursory inspection would reveal that there was something seriously wrong with the crew.
That would lead to questions, and questions are something I can't afford at this point... Operation Ragnorak was going to be a massive atrocity, on scale that Guard Space hadn't seen in decades. The fact that it would be Guard officers giving the orders would be a serious blow to their authority. I will have Jormungandr's Venom and will follow up this disaster with one of far greater magnitude....
He smiled as he considered it. The end result would be very gratifying. Today he would kill billions of the apru. He would follow that up with tens, if not hundreds of billions of them.
“You sent the approval documents to Vagyr?” Punatra asked.
“Yes, master,” Colonel Steyn replied.
“I will stop there after I settle this business with Fenris,” Punatra didn't bother to thank the man. Those papers would authorize his makeshift force to resupply from the Guard equipment and maintenance stockpiles at Vagyr. Since the port was notorious for turning blind eyes to pirates and other unsavory types, he wasn't as worried about the possibility of questions being asked.
“Very well, give the order to start Operation Ragnorak,” Punatra said. “Be certain to clear my follow-on team to use your personal transport--”
The viewer screen whited out for a moment, followed by a loud noise that overwhelmed the audio. As the pickup on the other end adjusted, there was splatters of something on it and no sign of Colonel Steyn.
Punatra stared at the display in shock. What had happened? Some kind of terrorist attack? A bomb? Yet there were no alarms going off in the Colonel's hotel room.
A moment later, a brown-haired apru stepped into view. He wore a Guard Army uniform, though Punatra couldn't make out his rank. “Who are you, where is Colonel Steyn?”
“I'm afraid that Colonel Steyn won't be joining you... for the rest of his life,” the man smiled. “In fact... he won't be passing on any of your orders either.”
Punatra adopted a confused expression, not a hard task considering the confusion he felt going through him. Was this some kind of internal investigation? Had some Guard Army Military Intelligence officer stumbled on Punatra's efforts while looking for corruption? “I'm not certain what you mean, I'm sure this is all some misunderstanding.” Surely he didn't just kill Colonel Steyn? There would be repercussions to that, even a Guard Intelligence officer couldn't take such an action...
“Nor,” the man went on, “will your escort be joining you. I took care of them, before I paid my visit here. Fortunate, isn't it, that I managed to catch you?”
Punatra's face went hard. “Who are you?”
“For these circumstances, you can call me Bob,” the human smiled. He had a disgustingly cherubic smile, like one from classical paintings back on Earth. I will make him plead for my forgiveness before he dies.
“Bob,” Punatra snarled, “you have involved yourself in business beyond your understanding. You might have removed my agent there, but I have other contacts. I will find you, and when I do...”
Bob smiled broader, “Bah, your kind really does bluster and threaten, don't you? Is that something they teach you how to do or are all Chandral born to it?”
Punatra's snarl of anger cut off and his eyes went wide. It was impossible. No apru should know that name. He and his kind had operated in strict secrecy. They had exterminated any potential leaks. Punatra tried to find words, but all he could force out was, “How!?”
“Tell you what, I'll tell you all about it when I see you at Vagyr,” Bob said. Before Punatra could even process that, the human cut the transmission.
***
Bob stepped out into the corridor, keeping his head down as he hurried along. Security had locked down the upper floors, where Bob had killed half of his target's security team, but he'd managed to acquire a uniform and reach Colonel Steyn's suite easily enough.
He'd been lucky, the Colonel's security detail had moved to secure defensive positions in case this was some kind of terrorist attack. Bob had downed the four of them with a stunner, outside of the Colonel's suite. That had allowed him to slip into the room and overhear most of the Chandral agent's orders. While he'd kept the other man off his game, he'd copied and then erased the Colonel's terminal. Whatever his Operation Ragnorak was, it wouldn't go into effect, not without the Colonel to order it.
He's after the Fenris, Bob reminded himself, yet he couldn't afford to think about it, not yet.
Bob slipped into the elevator and focused on his next moves. He had to get off the planet, he had to either catch up with the Fenris or get to Vagyr. They had no idea what was coming after them... and Bob was the only warning that they would receive.
A quiet part of his mind reminded him that his duty was to remain here and report in. He'd violated one of the key directives of his organization, when he'd spoken to the Chandral. That kind of taunt was one thing when he used it against an enemy agent he was about to kill. It was something else entirely to do it to one that was currently beyond his reach. Half of the vulnerability of the Chandral agents was that they didn't know that anyone else knew about them. They thought they had every advantage... and they didn't expect anyone to expect their advantages.
That made them arrogant, sloppy, and somewhat predictable. Bob Walker might have just ruined that for the rest of his organization.
It doesn't matter, Bob thought to himself. He had to get to the Fenris, he had to protect his friends... he had to save Aldera. They were in danger and they had no idea what was coming for them.
***
Chapter 10
Time: 1100 17 February 292 G.D.
Location: Deep Space, Harmony Protectorate Space
“They have no idea what's coming for them,” Mel said with a smile.
“No, they don't,” Johnny Woodard said. “But I'm not really sure I understand, myself.”
Mel frowned and glanced at the holographic displays. The two suspected pirate craft had been trailing them for almost two days now as Fenris trolled at a leisurely pace through faster than light warp, ostensibly headed towards Gallan, an uninhabited system within the Harmony Protectorate.
“Those two ships have moderately deep drives,” Mel said after a moment. “Fenris's best guess is that they are either fast destroyers, like the Intrepid class that the Protectorate Armada was known to use, or else they're small or outdated cruisers, which aren't terribly uncommon among pirate gangs operating out of Vagyr.”
“Okay,” Woodard nodded, “I get that. So why are they following us? I mean, I'm not a tactical genius when it comes to ships, but it seems a battlecruiser should eat a couple of smaller ships.”
“I've toned down our drive, which has us going slower and makes us look like a merchant ship,” Fenris's deep growl answered. “Some of the upgrades I received from Hanet gave me a bit of flexibility on my warp geometry, a single lighter power setting that allows me to make my drive field signature look like a merchant drive, that is, deep but not necessarily wide.”
“Okay...” Woodard frowned, “and military ships are deep and wide?”
Mel nodded, “It makes them more resilient.”
“We will emerge from FTL warp in the Gallan system, they'll emerge close to us, how close depending on how good their sensors are,” Fenris went on. “At that point, we will have them at close range with superior firepower. They would be wise to surrender.”
“Sure,” Woodard waved a hand, “so they don't know that they're following a battlecruiser. Or at least, we don't think they know.” He frowned, “Who's to say that they aren't doing the same thing?”
Mel stared at him. She opened her mouth to answer that the idea was ridiculous... but then she shut her mouth. “Fenris?”
“Of course, it is possible,” Fenris admitted. “There are a variety of drive mimicking methods. Some are better than others...” his gruff voice trailed off. “There's a chance that Johnny Woodard is correct.”
Mel swallowed a bit as she considered that. Her first, almost instinctive, thought was to demand why Fenris hadn't considered that. Yet that wasn't fair. After all, neither had Mel. “How good of a chance?” Mel asked.
“That may be impossible to guess,” Fenris admitted after a long moment. “There have been technology and equipment transfers from Hanet to the Harmony Protectorate, including at least one military grade warp drive with similar warp geometry flexibility to the one I currently have installed.”
“Could that make a bigger ship appear smaller?” Woodard asked.
Mel felt her stomach knot, “Yes... yes it could. You could make a cruiser look like a corvette.”
“Or a dreadnought look like a small cruiser, if you were willing to stress your drive enough,” Fenris admitted. “And unfortunately, at this range and under these conditions, it would be impossible for me to tell, not before we emerge from strategic warp.” Normally, the distortion of space created by warp drives was very visible to all manner of sensors. However, in strategic warp, ships were slightly out of phase with the rest of the universe. That meant that unless ships were similarly out of phase, they would be undetectable. That was further complicated by the fact that ships traveling at strategic drive were technically moving faster than light in relation to the rest of the universe, so ships had only momentary, fleeting glimpses of one another... unless they were following a very similar course and relative speed.
“They both popped up two days ago,” Mel thought out loud. “We assumed that they were contacts that flitted past and then adjusted course to match ours.” It was a difficult procedure and almost impossible for most merchant ships that ran with moderately deep drives. They couldn't attain the higher strategic warp speeds of warships, so they couldn't catch up to another merchant ship. She cocked her head, “Could they have had a good enough look at us to realize what we were?”
“Doubtful,” Fenris growled. “More likely, if they are in pursuit of us, then they had a ship or sensor platform in our last system that caught a good look at us.”
Mel didn't need to ask what would have happened then. Most often, pirates and military scouts acted in pairs. One ship would have followed their course, Fenris moving at a leisurely speed designed to mimic a freighter. The other scout, having a projected course, could have moved at twice their speed to reach allies with their course data and then those same allies could have moved in pursuit. If Fenris had taken any kind of evasive maneuvers, that would be one thing. The second ship would have had to drop track to go report the course change.
But they hadn't been evasive at all. Fenris and Mel had wanted to pick up any pirates who might be following merchant ships. That was their plan... only they might have picked up more than they could take.
“Okay,” Mel chewed on her lip as she considered the situation. “So we have one of several situations. Either they are what they appear, in which case we drop out of strategic warp, they drop in on top of us, and we smash them flat.” Johnny Woodard nodded and Fenris remained silent. “Or we drop out of strategic warp and we find out they are either a dreadnought and an escort or two dreadnoughts.”
“Then we have a serious fight on our hands,” Fenris growled.
“How would we fare?” Johnny Woodard asked.
“Not good,” Mel replied. “Fenris, you fought a task force before, your first mission, right?”
“A Culmor raiding squadron and a convoy and their escorts,” Fenris corrected. “Most of the ships were small, M-class cruisers.”
“Your sister ship, the Romulous, encountered a Culmor Dreadnought squadron,” Mel noted.
“Romulous didn't exactly survive the encounter,” Fenris growled.
Mel grimaced at that. “Two dreadnoughts will be faster in tactical warp,” Mel mused. “They'll mount more weapons. But could you focus fire, maybe hit them hard and evade?”
“I'm considering tactics as we speak,” Fenris said. “There's a good chance that, if they don't emerge right on top of me, I'd be able to evade one or both of them. But the disparity of firepower is... severe. One Autumn-class dreadnought mounts forty-eight heavy disruptor batteries as its primary armament. A full salvo would cripple my warp drive and likely result in severe structural damage. That doesn't take into account warp missiles or the secondary battery, merely a full salvo with reasonable accuracy.”
Mel considered that. “We'll need to examine options.”
“Why not just crank up the drive and lose them?” Johnny Woodard asked.
Mel felt uncomfortable as she considered that. “We don't know that these two ships are the renegade dreadnoughts. In fact, odds are against it, the intel we saw before we left Harmony said that they left the Protectorate, went to Vagyr, and then he
aded for Drakkus for sanctuary.”
“In reality, two dreadnoughts would likely retain a full squadron to screen them and provide additional support,” Fenris noted. “While someone might employ them in this task, such massively expensive capital ships are meant to shatter enemy formations and defenses, not to pursue or ambush a lone battlecruiser.”
“But we're a target,” Woodard noted. “We have Admiral aboard. We're also a considerable firepower addition to the mercenary force guarding the Harmony Protectorate. Wouldn't there be value in taking us out?”
Mel realized that Woodard was taking on the role of devil's advocate. On a military ship, that would be the executive officer's job. With their loose organization, and with how Mel often felt like she was herding cats, it was a role that no one had filled. Still, the questions he asked were ones that needed to be addressed.
“There's other ways for them to hurt the Peacekeeper Task Force,” Mel contested. “While the group is substantial, they lack any significant capital ships. A full out assault, led by both dreadnoughts and backed by sufficient supporting ships could drive them out, maybe even run down most of the mercenary ships in the process.”
“But that's an all or nothing proposition, right?” Johnny asked. “If it doesn't go well, then they lose a substantial part of their force, and then they're positioned where they'd be at odds with the Guard and the Mercenary Guild, right? Whereas if they pick off a few of their ships at a time...”
“That makes sense,” Mel admitted. “Fenris?”
“Using the two dreadnoughts together as hunters is still a low probability... but using one with a cruiser or one of the Targe-class carriers as support would make sense,” Fenris admitted. His deep voice sounded uncertain. “They wouldn't even need to disguise the carrier, the Targes have a relatively shallow drive for their size. Furthermore, there's a good chance that, if they picked out our course, they could position additional ships in the target system.”
