"I don't know yet," Jake said, looking at the other lines leading away from Nuaji and the Kedan System. They represented ships that either headed to Dulo or parts unknown. There was a lot less data to go on there, thus those lines were fading as the map aged. Over sixty ships refused to join Haven Fleet, and he understood why. Ayan's hologram followed his eye line to the fading red course lines. "When do you think you'll rejoin the rest of the fleet?" she asked.
"As soon as I know that it's the right move for the Merciless. I ordered the Excalibur to the next rendezvous to fill the gap. They need some help from fleet, too. They have the lowest efficiency and morale rating."
"I know, we're just having trouble moving people around," Ayan said. "Oz is considering turning the Excalibur into a training ship, keeping the adequate members of the crew there as they train up under new leadership while we pull the rest back to the War Forge so they can start all over again."
"Good," Jake said. He was horrified at the reports coming from the Excalibur. There was evidence that everyone from the First Officer down were making reports that didn't match the accident record in the ship's computer. They were averaging nine major accidents aboard per week, ranging from overloaded capacitor banks to a hangar hatch opening while technicians were working in the bay, resulting in several people being spaced. One of them didn't make it back on board. Getting that crew broken up, reassessed and retrained was the only solution as far as Jake was concerned, and he was happy to hear that it would be in Oz's hands. The Rassaaga, in contrast, had one accident worthy of note on file - a fire in the galley - with no casualties and every report on the incident lined up perfectly. Their efficiency had room for improvement, but Jake had no doubt that the ship, captain and crew were ready for combat.
Those fading red lines leading from Nuaji to several other points recalled his attention, though. He straightened his sleeves, gathering his thoughts. "What's up, Jake?" Minh-Chu asked.
"Most of the people who wouldn't join us were fighters. Every one of those departure points probably represents a resistance cell. The Order let them get away, probably because the notion of fighting us when they didn't have a battlegroup nearby didn't make sense when they have a good chance of catching those cells further down the line."
"A lot about Nuaji doesn't make sense," Minh-Chu said. "I shouldn't have been able to drop a bomb on that cruiser, and when I did, I shouldn't have been able to get away."
"You were being studied," Ayan said. "It's the only thing that answers all the outstanding questions."
"You're right, I've had that thought too. That's one of the reasons why the Merciless hasn't moved on. I want to see what they do with Nuaji next, and if they send bots out to repair or replace the sensor sites we destroyed."
"They haven't repaired anything," Minh-Chu said. "So they were for us. They were trying to detect us."
"Now they've either assumed we've gone, which is mostly true, since the merciless is watching from outside the solar system, or they have the data they needed," Ayan concluded.
"Either way, watching us cost them," Minh-Chu said, dropping into a chair, letting it swivel all the way around, stopping when he was facing the hologram again.
The courses of the resistance ships that went their own way were wiped out as Jake updated the map. "So, the Merciless will move on in a couple hours. Finn is almost finished looping the rest of our quad drives in, so we should be able to re-join the fleet soon." He shook his head at the travel pattern he saw. The Fleet was only getting further away from the Haven System. "The crew on my ship feel like we're running away. It looks like that from here."
"We are, but only to find a foothold in a more defensible area," Ayan said. "The Mergillians are great allies, but they can't afford to publicly harbour us. More Nafalli will be joining us soon, several thousand fighters who want to train, but they don't have territory or modern fighting ships. The fleet is growing even faster than expected, but it's still going to take time for us to take the Haven System back, if we ever do. We're being forced to look for a longer term solution, for all we know that could be where we settle for a long time."
"What about the people we left behind in Haven?" Jake asked, keeping a level head. It wasn't an argument, it was a strategic meeting, he reminded himself.
"Maybe SOCU could work with Phase Seven and create a plan?" Minh-Chu asked. "Admiral Rice has five Sunspire Class ships ready within an hour of the Haven System along with manned corvettes and nine destroyers. With a battlegroup like that she could do a lot."
Jake nodded. "Our plan to return to the Haven System when the Order's coverage thins out isn't looking as good now, because Wheeler has his own battlegroup with two more for support, and nothing's moving. Admiral Rice's fleet is big, powerful, maybe a few ships could join her and we could get our own people out of Haven Shore if we were quick."
"Stephanie's still hidden, she hasn't missed a check-in with the Sunspire yet," Ayan said. "She says organizing a resistance is slow, though. The Order has a stranglehold on Haven Shore. Outlying cities are being emptied, their people are being taken off world if they pledge to the Order with the leftovers getting moved to Haven Shore so the Order can monitor them more easily," Ayan said.
"So, no matter what we do we'll be abandoning people in the Haven System," Jake said. "I see the wisdom in getting as many people as we can and getting out before we take too many casualties, but the whole fleet could lose heart if it looks like we're leaving the Haven System behind."
"Unless we plant our feet somewhere else, somewhere we can mount a real defence and wave a flag so the galaxy knows the Order can't wipe us out," Ayan said.
With a gesture, Jake brought up the report he just received from Noah Lucas. Using recordings of a conflict with some pirates, and the gratefulness of the family aboard the hauler he saved, Noah explained what his arrival in the Doxan system was like and what he planned to do. Angel's Landing looked like a hundred different drift stations that Jake had seen in his travels, and he was fairly sure Noah could take care of himself. The report ended and Minh-Chu laughed for a moment, clapping his hands a few times. "That's Carnie; gets into the system with instructions to take a look around while he waits for backup and he ends up making an enemy while he makes a save. The whole system will be talking about that by now."
"Oh, his new artificial intelligence forwarded a local news feature," Jake said, bringing up the Hart News recording. The Corsair flew close to an observation satellite, which recorded him firing at the pirate destroyer, a ship with mismatched armour plating and weapons. Another satellite picked the action up from the opposite angle and zoomed in as the Clever Class Corvette began pursuit of one of the fighters with surprising agility. "This ship, the Corsair, came to the rescue of the Freighter Honopu. Stenob's Pride, a Shlaki pirate ship that has been spotted harassing and capturing ships coming in to the end of the deceleration zones on the edge of the Doxan System, was effectively destroyed thanks to some good shooting by the Corsair using some kind of armour piercing weapon. The Honopu was repaired by drones launched by the Corsair, who helped the freighter get underway. The Stenob's Pride has been abandoned and will be tagged for salvage if it isn't removed in three hours from the time of this broadcast. Hart News had the ship scanned and we can confirm that only the main reactors have been destroyed, effectively scrapping the ship, but there should be plenty of salvage for anyone brave enough to claim it. Stenob's Pride isn't the only destroyer owned by the Shlaki, so this Newscaster advises caution to anyone who wants to board the destroyer. In other news, a Flesh Tech Bio Fabrication Facility inside the Coreward Sector of Obun has been raided, its employees taken. A ransom demand has been issued by an unknown party. If the current pattern holds. This is the third such raid and ransom act in two weeks, with estimated damages near the trillion credit mark. A representative from Flesh Tech had…" the holographic feed cut out there.
"So, that was Hart News, but for what area?" Ayan asked.
"Local to Doxan. Ot
her affiliates might pick it up," Minh-Chu replied. "One more rescue like that and he'll be famous if a news agency broadcasts it wide."
"Wait, this tells us something about the Doxan system," Jake said. "If answering a distress call and defeating pirates there is so unusual that Hart News covers it for a couple minutes, then that whole system must be a mess. People will be watching him, those pirates are going to be gunning for him, whatever he does next will be noticed."
"Yeah," Minh-Chu said. "His artificial intelligence, Elise, says he's going to a local bar so he can start looking for a resistance group. I would have let things cool down, waited for Alice to get there first."
"You know, I'd like to think I would too, but…" Jake shook his head.
"But you'd do exactly what Noah's doing, start exploring," Ayan said. "Because you'd be restless after getting turned around a few times by command."
"You know me too well," Jake snickered. He sobered then, there was a good idea behind what Noah was doing. "All this could get him in a position to be known, to start his arms dealing career. The most reckless rebels will approach him first, and he can sell them everything they can afford. Maybe even cut them a deal since he's just getting into the trade. They'll hit Order targets using new firepower, maybe tell him what their next target is."
"Once they trust him, the more strategic groups may approach him," Ayan said.
"Right." Jake brought up the map outlining the departure routes of the ships from Nuaji carrying people who didn't want to join Haven Fleet. "No matter what Alaka told them, they weren't sticking around to join us. They wanted to fight in their own way, going after targets that they chose. We didn't stop them, it’s not our place, but we could have armed them better than we did. Sure, we sent them off with a few hundred guns that were a few generations behind, a couple thousand armoured vacsuits, but we could have done more. Real armour, a few ships missing our proprietary tech, and some real firepower that has been out there for ages. Most of the stuff they were fighting with wasn't military grade." He pulled a shield disc from his pocket and put it on the railing's edge. "This tech is easy for us to reproduce, but it'll burn the fabrication heads out on non-Haven ships after getting through most of one. Even still, there isn't a bit of tech in this little shield emitter disc that isn't known."
"But the difficulty in making them makes them expensive," Minh-Chu said. "Unless the fabricator on the Corsair is churning them out. He could probably do twenty an hour using some water and a few ounces of heavy metal, right?"
"Easily, and it wouldn't wear out the heads on his fabrication system because they'll regenerate for months," Ayan said. "But I think you have a bigger point to make?"
"Right. There will always be a certain type of freedom fighter who wants to sign up with Haven Fleet," Jake said. "They'll come looking for us if we score a major public victory against the Order soon. More importantly to Carnie are the people who want to fight, but don't want to sign up. Sure, we won't get to control them, but if he and Alice could work as a team, they could find resistance groups who are fighting the Order for the right reasons and equip them for a discount. The rest, well, Noah doesn't have to deal with them. If Noah and Alice do this right, there could be tens of thousands or more very dangerous rebels tearing the Order apart. Imagine hundreds of groups with real firepower going after their own Order targets, raiding, destroying, disrupting their operations in ways that are more difficult to predict than anything we do."
"Maybe we could even coordinate with a few after a while," Ayan said.
"Exactly, and there's a good chance that Mary Reed will surface eventually. If Noah and Alice become the best arms dealers in the sector, she'll have to meet with them sometime, especially if we send Remmy Sands to work with them. Let him be a visible figure," Jake said. "I'll build SOCU up from within while they're gone so it's a full-fledged unit and I'll make sure they have support."
"This operation is getting bigger by the second," Ayan said, sounding unsure.
"It'll cost the fleet one destroyer," Jake said. "One with a full fabrication system installed so it can make a few fighters at a time or even a corvette class ship, just not one of ours. We'll rip off a good manufacturer's design or use one of the last designs Freeground put out before they merged with our fleet."
"I can spare that, we have a destroyer with no crew in the War Forge. It would take about eight hours to build the kind of fabrication system you need inside and we can rig it to have a crew of nine, minimum," Ayan said, brightening a little. "You'll want more, though. I'm sure Oz can send us some promising trainees who won't take advantage of a command structure with a relaxed attitude."
"All right, if you could get someone on that, Minh and I can put some kind of plan together for Alice and Noah. I want them to run this their way, it's their boots on the ground, but it'll help if they know what kind of backup they can get if they need it. While we wait for their destroyer, I'll have someone brief Remmy and the Merciless will…" A red bloom appeared on the holographic map in orbit around Nuaji. "Wait, there's a trans-dimensional gate opening in orbit around Nuaji right now," Jake said.
"I see it, but that's not our signature, it's not Edxian either," Ayan said. Five ships nearly half a kilometre long emerged, three of them increased speed towards the surface of the planet. Each of the ships was heavily armoured, their scanners were high powered, reaching out in all directions. "We're checking their profiles now, but I think I know what they are. We found a ship similar to those near an abandoned moon base in the system we just left. It sent encrypted transmissions though wormholes, but it was old, dormant for well over a century as far as we could tell."
"The Merciless is cloaked and well out of scan range. Our relay is sending this information back to us," Jake said.
Minh-Chu got to his feet. "I'll get my guys ready, just in case we have to launch."
"Sir, this is the bridge," Liara said, her hologram appearing on the railing in front of him. "One of the new ships is scanning our sensor relay and breaking off from the main group. Tactical believes it means to capture it."
"Activate the self-destruct," Jake said.
The hologram of Nuaji and the area around it froze as sensor data stopped travelling between the sensor relay. "The signal went through, the probe is destroyed," Liara reported.
"Thank you, it's time for the Merciless to move on."
"I'll link you to the Captain," Liara said.
Agameg appeared in her place. "Sir, should we investigate the ships around Nuaji?"
Jake took a look at the holographic map and zoomed in on the brown and black planet. At the time their sensor relay was destroyed, the ships were entering the atmosphere. Large scoops were opening along the sides, and a broad energy beam was extending to the ground. "What is that for?"
"We have a theory here," Agameg said. "It's a directed gravitational beam. The area of ground its targeting is covered with nanobots that self-destructed."
"The ones that tore the surface of the planet apart," Jake nodded. "They're taking them?"
"We can't tell for certain, but it looks that way," Agameg said. "There is a small chance that they could piece the technology together from the remains of thousands of nanobots."
"Was our scan relay probe cloaked when one of their ships broke off and headed in its direction?"
"Yes, but it was transmitting to us using a micro-wormhole, so the cloak was not at full effectiveness," Agameg replied.
"So, we know they have high-end scanning technology," Jake said.
"And they have multiple high gain antennae," Ayan added. "Just like the ship we encountered at our end. There is a chance that it detected the transmission of a report on Nuaji. It was encrypted, but the Triton was receiving it while they were in pursuit of their old ship. We've confirmed that the configuration is similar enough for them both to be of a similar origin."
"So these could be the same people," Jake said. "Are they using our trans-dimensional technology?"
"No, de
finitely not. Our working theory is that it was stolen or traded from the Edxi," Ayan said. "It's slower, but the fact that they can navigate through trans-dimensional space says something about the sophistication of their science. The Order tried and failed to figure it out and we needed Lorander to get us started. If they did it on their own, or were able to get the Edxi to teach them how to use it, then they could be dangerous. Do you think we should approach them?"
"I'm going to try," Jake said. "But I'm going to be careful. Captain Agameg, put the ship on full alert."
Forty-Three
The Encounter
* * *
Agameg ran the ship from the captain's chair. It was his place, he'd earned it in more than one way. His leadership of a strike-and-fade defence team when the Triton was boarded was still legendary. He guided his own education since then, following everything Jacob and several other captains did as the fleet grew, examining their victories and failures while he completed every qualification examination that he could. If there was a captain Jake hoped to never face off against, it was Captain Agameg Price. He thought like most aquatically based people, in multiple dimensions at once, could keep track of several complex situations at a time for long periods, and he didn't fatigue for weeks, even longer if he had time to rest every day. After being with humans for years, he finally mastered the art of sleeping two to three hours a night so he no longer had to hibernate for several days in one stretch each month. He still enjoyed that kind of deep rejuvenation, but it wasn't necessary anymore.
Looking up to Agameg, where he sat in the best seat on the Merciless' bridge only added to Jake's confidence as he split his attention between the communications and scanning and sciences stations. The Merciless slipped into position several hundreds of thousands of kilometres away from Nuaji, letting the intense scanning pulses from the newcomer's ships do the work for them. The passive scanning systems aboard the Merciless were getting plenty of data from the second hand energy as it penetrated and bounced off everything in that region of the solar system, including one of the newcomer ships. "What facts do we have so far?" Jake asked Kadri as she worked at her console. There were six other scanning crew around her, busy running the data from the sensors through analysis software as it came in, examining the results.
Spinward Fringe Broadcast 13 Page 33
