by Kal Spriggs
Admiral Mizra gave a slow, grudging nod. “He’s a well-spoken officer. Perhaps the exception to what I said earlier. But then again, his family always hated the Guard, so I shouldn’t be surprised that he went over to your little squadron.” He cocked his head, his eyes narrowing, “What do you propose to do if things don’t go to plan?”
“Escape,” Colonel Frost replied without missing a beat. To his side, he could see Rawn shift nervously in his seat.
“You’ve a knack for survival, I’ll give you that,” Admiral Mizra mused. “You promise to deliver Admiral Rao and the vessel over to me, if you succeed?”
“I want the ship,” Colonel Frost bargained. The officer would expect that.
“Only if you’ll agree to have partial bridge crew of my people,” Admiral Mizra countered. “The way your people handle their ships, you’ll need the assistance.”
Colonel Frost gave a slow nod, “Fine. Send over your people to help us modify our transponders.”
“I will, and I’ll tell their Captain Ortega to expect you at Vagyr,” Admiral Mizra gave him a nod, “Good luck, Colonel.” He cut the communications link.
“Sir...” Rawn began.
“We’re not going to play fair,” Colonel Frost looked over at his second in command. “Because there’s no way that Guard Fleet bastard or that mercenary bitch over there is going to play fair, either.” He wished he’d been included on the message traffic. But Admiral Mizra had hoarded that information. He hadn’t even sent the full transmission, just the transcripts. This Captain Amiss sounded like some kind of hard-ass. Probably some old, bitter Guard Fleet pensioner who’d signed on a bunch of her former drinking buddies to be her crew. Still caught up in concepts like “honor” and “duty.”
“We’re going to go to Vagyr. We’ll even do this meet… but I want you and your team prepping the whole way there. Once we make orbit, your team will board the ship and take her. I’ll control the ground team, we’ll seize Admiral Rao and any potential hostages and then, using the transponder codes for Admiral Mizra’s ships, we’ll open fire on the Guard Fleet bastards.” He smiled as he said it.
This was going to kick off one hell of a war. Admiral Mizra was going to have no choice but to fall in line. He and his ships weren’t match for the entirety of Guard Fleet, but combined with the superweapon that Frost was going to get from Rao, it should be enough to shake the system.
That’s all he wanted at this point. To shake things enough that people woke up to the truth. The Star Guard were corrupt, evil, and their Security Council was full of cronyism and corruption. There was no protection in serving the Guard, in paying their tributes and taxes.
And Colonel Michael Frost would show them that, even if it meant he had to murder entire worlds to do it.
***
The battlecruiser went to FTL warp and Punatra sat back in his chair, his thoughts musing as his crew made preparations to follow the ship.
He had misjudged the young woman who commanded that ship. It was a rare thing, for him. Combined with the worries of this agent who knew too much… well, it gave him pause.
It was not going to stop him, of course. His mission was to bring the apru of Guard Space to their knees. They would welcome the Chandral as their saviors and heroes and Punatra would kill them in their billions to accomplish that.
But perhaps some of them were not totally inferior or without worth. He pulled up the file on Melanie Armstrong. She was listed as deceased, with a classification code attached. Punatra hadn’t accessed that code, he doubted he had that kind of pull, not just yet, and he didn’t want to draw too much attention. But he suspected it related to the reports of Galapunatra. The automated warship Fenris that had been destroyed on the same date… and that his grandson Galapunatra had last reported from only a few months earlier.
Her family, he saw, was a long lineage. Officers. Commanders. Leaders. It was a genetic line that ran unbroken almost longer than his own, all the way back to Old Earth. That was something he could respect every bit as much as her obvious intelligence and quick thinking.
Most Chandral, he could admit privately, did not adapt well. They were not quick on their feet. They followed instructions and did as they were told. Initiative was discouraged, among all but the most elite.
She had striking features. Not what he would consider beautiful. Her face was too long, too thin. Her blue eyes and blonde hair were “exotic” among his people, but he had long since worked such impulses out of his system.
But the thought of breeding with her capabilities, strength, and intelligence appealed to him. Even excited him, the thought of how she’d resist. He might even leave her mentally and physically capable, the better to keep him on his feet. He felt a rush of pleasure at the thought, of the challenge, and of her bearing his offspring.
That, he thought, would be the best type of victory. To take the strengths of his opponents and to make them his own.
Victory would be his, after all. He would go to this meeting at Vagyr. He would turn it all to his advantage. He and his soldat bodyguards plus a force of Lazaran would storm the meeting location and seize Admiral Rao. He would extract the information he needed and dispose of the officer. Then he would order his Guard Fleet force to open fire on the planet to cover his escape.
The results would no doubt be horrific losses among the planet’s population, if not outright destruction of the biosphere. With the weapon in his possession, he could use the atrocity to gain traction, to trigger the weapon and kill humanity in their billions.
It was a different trigger to his plan, but he appreciated it all the more for Melanie Armstrong making it possible. She had countered him, but he would in turn, counter her… and she would be his prize, his trophy of this greater victory.
As his Task Group went to FTL warp, Punatra gave a pleased smile.
***
Time: 1200 21 February 292 G.D.
Location: Tremaine Station, Tremaine System
Bob Walker toyed with the grip of his BFR Twenty Five. The big, heavy pistol was a welcome and familiar weight, though in this situation, at least, it wasn’t useful.
“How long?” he asked for what must be the hundredth time.
“Ten minutes,” Captain Brauher looked over at him. Bob had chartered his freighter from Harmony to try and track down the Fenris. He’d figured that if Mel realized something was wrong, then she’d go to one of three places: back to Harmony or to one of the Guard outposts nearby. Since his target had appropriated a Guard Fleet Task Group, Bob assumed that if she returned to Harmony, she’d be relatively protected, especially since “Mister Bhutto” wasn’t going to return openly after Bob had threatened him.
That had left a Guard Refueling Station in an unnamed system nearer to the Harmony Protectorate and Tremaine Station, midway between Vagyr and Harmony. He’d ordered Captain Brauher to visit the refueling station first. It was a bit out of the way, but Bob wanted to catch Mel as soon as possible and he hadn’t wanted to come all the way out to Tremaine Station if she wasn’t here. But she hadn’t been at the refueling station, so he’d left a message warning her and ordered Captain Brauher here.
Captain Brauher had seemed rather eager to leave Harmony going anywhere. Given the small size of his vessel and his rather empty cargo hold, Bob would guess the man was a smuggler of some kind. Whether his normal cargo was fugitives, drugs, weapons, or something else, Bob hadn’t cared. Captain Brauher and his crew had taken Bob’s money and they hadn’t asked any unnecessary questions. He hadn’t seemed all that eager to be going to Guard Fleet military stations, but he hadn’t been arrested or interned at the last station, either. Probably no outstanding warrants, at least, so a skilled smuggler…
Even as he considered that, the freighter emerged from FTL warp.
“Arrival, no issues, running a scan…Multiple contacts…” Captain Brauher swallowed. “Holy shit.”
Bob wasn’t going to argue with the sentiment. The displays showed dozens of ships, i
ncluding two massive behemoths that had to be capital ships. “Who the hell is that?” Bob demanded. Surely there wasn’t a Guard Fleet Task Force out here, was there?”
“Transponders are showing Harmony Protectorate Defense Force,” Captain Brauher swallowed.
“Their ships are all interned or…” Bob trailed off as he realized the truth. Admiral Mizra hadn’t taken his ships to Drakkus. They were here. Then, even as he was considering that, about a quarter of those ships vanished off the display.
“What just happened?” Bob demanded.
“Some of those ships must have gone to FTL,” Captain Brauher answered, “Which means…”
The rest of the force went to strategic warp, vanishing off the display. Bob swallowed, realizing that something must have happened, here. “Get me comms to the station,” Bob told the freighter’s captain, “I need to know what just happened.”
***
Chapter 14
Time: 1600 22 February 292 G.D.
Location: En Route to Vagyr
“You should have consulted us!” Marcus Keller interrupted Mel as she laid out her plan. “This is putting all of us in far too much danger—”
“I am the commander of this vessel,” Mel snapped. She looked around at all of them. She’d called them together in the ship’s lounge to brief them and as she looked at their faces, she wondered if this was the beginning of the end. Lace had left, Bob had too. Aldera looked totally withdrawn and distant, Mel doubted the woman had even heard what Mel had been talking about. Brian just looked bored. Swaim looked excited, his mother had a resigned expression. We’re falling apart.
“Look,” Mel began, “we’re in a tough position. The Guard Fleet elements want to kill Admiral Rao. The renegade Harmony Protectorate forces want to capture him and either use him as leverage or kill him. The only advantage we have is that neither of them trust one another, so if we can play them against each other—”
“Not a bad plan,” A calm voice spoke from the hatch.
Mel spun, her eyes going wide in shock. Admiral Nashim Rao stood in the doorway, his hands raised in a placating gesture. “Sorry to interrupt. Your pilot commed me and told me there was a discussion underway that I should be a part of.”
“Fenris?” Mel demanded.
“He can help,” the warship answered.
“Fine,” Mel snapped. She looked the officer up and down, “I take it you heard some or all of the overall plan?”
“Your pilot filled me in on the details on my way, a most capable fellow,” Admiral Rao nodded. “Not particularly friendly, but very capable.”
Fenris didn’t answer, but Mel didn’t really expect him to. After all, this was putting them all at risk, Admiral Rao was certainly sharp enough to notice the lack of other crew and to begin drawing some conclusions.
“Our plan would work better if you were involved,” Mel told him. “If you were present on the surface, there’s less of a chance they’d try to board the ship while my team goes down.”
“This is absurd.” Marcus scoffed. “We shouldn’t be doing any of this. Dump him in an escape pod and as soon as we hit Vagyr, we eject him. Let the Guard and Harmony forces fight over him if they want him that much. We don’t even need to be in the system!”
“Sure, that’ll work great,” Mel leveled an angry gaze on her former lover. Now that she saw him as he was --as he truly was-- she was glad that it was over. He truly didn’t care about morality. Everything in his world was about the easiest route to getting what he wanted. It doesn’t even matter that what he wants is my safety… he’d kill anyone, destroy anyone, to get it.
Marcus was becoming a problem. “We’re then in violation of our Mercenary contract. So then we go back to Harmony and tell them we jettisoned the VIP they ordered us to protect. Then the HIPPIEs win the election and Harmony goes over to Guard Free Now. That sounds wonderful… especially since the Mercenary Guild would have it out for us and we’d alienate two of the potential systems that might take us in: Century and the MCA. Where do you propose we run, then? Drakkus? I’m sure they’ll be really nice to us, they totally won’t seize this ship and use it for their own purposes.”
Marcus’s expression went hard. “You worry too much about what people will think and do. We have to focus on what we can do… and we can’t fight the Guard.”
“You’ll be putting us up against them,” Mel told him. “And like I told you. Fenris ran a background check on this Captain Ortega, all the data he could pull from Tremaine Station and that we had on file. He and his ‘Task Group’ are little better than thugs for hire. They’re a special purpose assignment, which means they clean up messes and they provide the Guard with some deniability. All those ships are on the rolls as reserve vessels. I bet you that they don’t even have written orders. They’re probably tied back to Major General Tibault and whoever she worked with. They’re corrupt. If we get them and Admiral Mizra’s people fighting, then we’re in the clear.”
“The kinds of people who can send Task Groups to contain a situation aren’t the type to forgive and forget,” Marcus snarled. He rose, “But I can see that you’ve made up your mind. So why do I bother to say anything.” He stalked past Admiral Rao and out into the corridor.
“Fenris?” Mel asked.
“I’ll monitor him,” the warship answered.
“Great,” Mel adopted a fake smile, “Anyone else have any comments?”
“You’re going to need more people down on the planet, especially protecting your VIP,” Samantha Yewell noted. “That’s a four man team at a minimum. Which leaves your ship almost undefended.”
“Suscinct tactical analysis,” Brian noted, “for a media star.”
“I wasn’t born a media star,” Yewell answered idly. “Which still begs the question, who goes on the ground team?”
“Are you asking from curiosity or because you really want to know?” Mel asked.
“I’ve a personal interest, obviously,” she answered. “My son has no need to be mixed up in this sort of thing.”
“Mom!” Swaim protested.
“It’s okay, darling, we know you’re brave enough,” she said it in such a tone of resignation that Mel had to hide a smile.
“I’d planned on Johnny, Marcus, and Brian,” Mel admitted. She worried that Marcus might try something, something like shooting Admiral Rao out of hand, but she hoped he wouldn’t be that stupid and short-sighted. “Johnny, you’d be there primarily as a medic in case someone is injured, but also for backup.”
He tensed up, “Captain, if you’re staying with the ship—”
“I should go with your ground team,” Yewell interrupted. “And my son, as well.”
“Swaim?” Mel asked in shock.
“A four-man team would be best, with Admiral Rao having a bodyguard, two people for the outer perimeter, and one more as a scout.” Yewell made a face, “it would be best if we had someone in position in the enemy’s forces, as well, but that’s unfeasible.”
Mel thought suddenly of Lace. The woman would have been perfect at that.
“I can handle guarding Admiral Rao,” Yewell went on, “and I have extensive medical training. That leaves Mr Woodard to assist with defense of the ship, should it prove necessary.” She didn’t even mention Aldera, who still wore her distracted expression. I need to talk to her, try to get her out of her shell.
“There shouldn’t be anyone—” Mel began.
“It doesn’t hurt to have backup,” Johnny rumbled. “Someone up here that you can trust.”
Admiral Rao gave a nod as well. “Admiral Mizra might have gone with the plan on the surface, but I served with him for thirty years or more. He will be looking for any advantage, including trying to take the ship.”
Mel gave him a level look, “We’re going to be sitting with our warp drive active. They can’t very well send a shuttle through that, sir.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Will you be launching and retrieving your shuttle with the drive up? Will you r
etain your drive online if Vagyr Traffic Control demands you shut it down as a navigational hazard while in orbit of the planet? What if the Guard Fleet elements at Vagyr order you to drop your drive?”
Mel grimaced, but she could see his point. “Very well. Tank, you’re staying with me. The rest of you can prep for the ground portion.” She looked around at her crew, “That means you should get to it.” They had another three days until they made orbit of Vagyr, but they all had a lot of prep work to get ready for this. Besides, Mel didn’t want to face any further arguments.
She waited as they all filed out, Yewell and Brian discussing various different equipment loadouts, Swaim tagging along behind offering suggestions as to what he should bring. Johnny Woodard hesitated, clearly looking as if he wanted to say something, but then he followed after them.
Admiral Rao remained. “Do you have anything to add, Admiral?” Mel couldn’t help an icy note to her voice as she spoke.
The officer smiled slightly. There was something different about him from before, when she’d rescued him from his crashed skimmer. Mel couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was. Maybe it was a softness to his eyes or his voice, but it was as if something had changed between then and when they’d left the system. Maybe he’s just let his guard down now that he knows we’re not going to kill him out of hand or turn him over to be killed.
“Sorry, just intrigued,” he noted. “Your crew behaves more like a family than any mercenary or military unit I’ve served with.”
Mel snorted, “If Brian is the homicidal sibling and Tank is trying to be everyone’s older brother and look after everyone, sure.” She frowned. “Of course, that would make Marcus—that is, Nigel, the drunken uncle who says inappropriate things at the wrong time.”
“Which would leave you as the mother,” Admiral Rao snorted.
