The transfer was mostly flawless. The captain of the tanker was both curious and amused. He was curious as to why he was delivering fuel to a ship which was in a storage berthing, while the rest of the fleet was off in combat, and he was amused that Dr. Taiki Sato wasn’t willing to come out and talk with him.
“Please, just load the fuel?” Sato finally asked. “The procedure is identical to Pegasus.”
“Dr. Sato,” the captain, a woman he’d never met, said, “the request is unusual. These ships are logged as hulks and not capable of flight.”
“They aren’t capable of flight,” he agreed. “I need the fuel to power the reactors in order to do tests, as authorized by Colonel Cromwell.” There was a pause. “I’m sure you checked my authorization before bringing the fuel?”
“I’ll begin the transfer, Dr. Sato.”
He waited until well after the tanker was gone before having a bot float over to the tankage controls to manually turn the valve that would allow it to flow into the system. Nothing happened for a long moment, then the reactor’s status light changed to active.
“Hah,” he said and laughed. More and more status indicators lit up as the ship came back to life, and the overhead lights came on. Shortly thereafter, a number of the robots on the bulkhead detached and began flying about. That gave him pause for a moment. He wanted to check a few things, not bring the ship fully back online. “I need to get some data and shut this down,” he said.
Sato left one bot in engineering, waiting patiently next to the main fuel feed, and had the other one tow him forward to the CIC. With only one bot, the pace was slower. The Mk 7 CASPer was heavy and cumbersome, and he was being careful to avoid leaving so much as a scuff on the walls. On the way, two of the ship’s bots raced past, under no constraints against hurrying. The one condolence he had was they took no notice of him.
Finally, he reached the CIC entrance. None of the bots were there, and the welds were untouched. He heaved a sigh of relief and stuck his camera in the Tri-V box.
“PROGRAM INITIATED.”
“Oh…” he said as he was pushed sideways into the corridor wall. He was confused until he realized he was feeling acceleration. The ship was moving. “No, no, no, no!” he said and immediately linked with the bot in engineering, ordering it to turn off the fuel feed.
He watched the remote telemetry of the bot moving to the valve and beginning to turn it off, but then a laser cut it in half.
Sato tried to think, desperately, his powerful mind working for a solution. He had another bot, but they’d do the same thing with that one, probably. Acceleration was building. He looked in the Tri-V again.
“NAVIGATION INITIATED—DESTINATION BETA CEPHEI.”
“POWERING INTERNAL HYPERSPACE GENERATORS.”
Well, he thought, that explains why no hyperspace generators were visible. At least there’s no way the stargate will activate for it. He jerked like an electric line had hit him.
“It has hyperspace shunts!” As fast as his pinplants would let him, Sato contacted New Warsaw traffic control. “Oh, Alexis is going to be mad.”
* * *
Winged Hussars Prime Base, New Warsaw System
“Say again?” Commander Lech Kowalczy asked. “The ship did what?”
“This is Comms,” the voice repeated. “We just got a message from one of the Egleesius ships that Commander Cromwell brought back. It’s very strange.”
“Which one of the ships?” Kowalczy asked.
“Well, that’s the strange part. It isn’t one of the named ones; it’s one of the weird ones that hasn’t been named yet. I didn’t think they were operational, but it just got underway. When we queried it, the only person aboard was Doctor Sato.”
“What? How? How did he get into it?”
“I don’t know sir, but he’s asking for help. He did something, and the ship activated itself and got underway. He says he’s not in control of the ship—it’s operating on its own without his input. It’s currently headed for the stargate, and he says he can’t stop it.”
“Well, make sure the stargate personnel know not to activate the stargate. We’ll at least be able to keep him in-system.”
“Yes, sir, I will contact—it did what?” Comms was interrupted, and Kowalczy could hear yelling in the background. “Commander, the ship just jumped to hyperspace on its own! Apparently, the ship has shunts, and they just activated. He’s gone, sir! The ship is gone!”
“Calm down,” Kowalczy ordered, thinking fast. Alexis would be pissed with either of the losses. If he lost both Sato and the Egleesius, he didn’t think there was an arm of the galaxy he could hide in where she wouldn’t track him down to kick his ass. “Okay, did he say anything else? Where he was going? How he got into the ship? What he did to activate it? Anything?” Kowalczy realized he was getting as panicky as the comms tech and forced himself to take a deep breath.
“Yes, sir, right before he jumped, he said the ship was jumping to the Beta Cephei star system.”
“Did he say why it was going there?”
“No sir, he did not.”
“Got it. Contact Captain Teenge on the Arion and Captain Jormungd on the Phaeton, and let them know they need to make preparations for an immediate departure. Let me know if you find out anything else. Kowalczy out.”
Kowalczy took another deep breath. He needed to get Sato and the ship back, but his options for doing so were few. Worse, he needed a ship that could chase down a ship that was equipped with an internal hyperspace shunt. With all of the forces gone for the assault, there were only two major combatants in-system that could do it. He would have to send the two new Egleesius ships that were still being repaired and put back into service.
Neither of the ships was fully operational, though…not that he wanted to destroy the ship—not with Sato aboard, anyway. Of course, once Sato was off, he didn’t want it to fall into enemy hands, either…but how was he going to get Sato off?
He had more questions than he had answers. The only thing he knew for certain was he didn’t have the forces under his command at the moment required to get his wayward ship safely home again.
Kowalczy needed a boarding force and a means to get them there…Got it! He remembered seeing a report earlier in the morning about a SalSha breaking one of the traffic control rules within the shipyard again. It was a near-daily occurrence with them, and he had gotten tired of yelling at their commander, Lieutenant Colonel Walker, every day. The Golden Horde leader had his hands full with the new SalSha pilots, to the point he’d given up yelling at them. All they did was smile at him and agree to do better, then they went out and did the same thing again. When taken to task, their only defense was, “Oops?”
Still, Walker was a starting point. He commed the Golden Horde officer, and was greeted with a sigh once the connection was made. “Yeah?” Walker asked without even a greeting. “What did they do now?”
* * *
Walker sighed as the call from the acting head of the Winged Hussars came in. He’d been part of the flight this morning that broke the speed limit in the shipyard. Although it hadn’t been by much—the pilot of the second bomber had been trying to catch up with Thorb as he raced off—Walker had seen the readout and knew they’d done it…again. Still, he didn’t want to admit it if they didn’t have the data. “What did they do now?” he asked.
“Actually, I’m not calling about the SalSha,” Kowalczy replied. Walker’s eyebrows went up—this was different. “They did break the speed limit within the shipyard again this morning,” Kowalczy continued, “but I have bigger problems on my hands at the moment. One of the Egleesius ships just got underway on its own.”
“Those ships that look like Pegasus? On its own?” Walker asked. “How is that possible?”
“Dr. Sato was onboard at the time…” The Hussars officer raised his hands plaintively.
“Oh,” Walker replied. He’d seen the scatter-brained genius in action. He chuckled. “Okay, I understand how it got unde
rway. He was probably playing with a system, trying to figure out what it did, and he pushed the wrong button or something. Not sure what I can do to help you, though…Do you need me to have a SalSha chase the ship down with one of our bombers so you can take a command crew out to bring the ship back home?”
“Well, actually, it’s a little more complicated than that. The ship just jumped to hyperspace—”
“It what?”
“It has its own hyperspace shunts, and it jumped to hyperspace. We got a couple of messages from Sato before it did. Apparently, he’s not in control of the ship—the craft is operating on its own without his input. He did say, however, where it was headed. It jumped to the Beta Cephei star system.”
“You better send someone after it,” Walker said, shaking his head. “Alexis is going to be pissed. I’m glad I won’t be on the receiving end of that ‘discussion.’”
“I know she’s going to be angry—I have to get both of them back. We can’t let either Sato or the ship fall into enemy hands…and there isn’t anyone else aboard to stop that from happening if Merc Guild forces should happen to find it. Even worse, the ship may have the coordinates of the New Warsaw system. We cannot allow it to fall into enemy hands. If nothing else, it must be destroyed.”
“What’s your plan?” Walker asked as the magnitude of the situation hit him. “What can I do to help?”
“Well, I have to try and get them both back. I also must let Alexis know what’s happened. I have two of the new Egleesius ships here. While neither of them are fully operational yet, they can both get underway. I am going to send the Phaeton to let Alexis know what’s happened. The Phaeton will take a couple days to get ready, and it won’t have any of its offensive capabilities, but it does have a hyperspace shunt, so it can get safely to the Golara System and back. I’m also going to send the Arion to stop the rogue ship and bring Sato home. Arion is ready to leave today, and it will have an additional ship’s command element onboard, so if you can get them onboard the rogue Egleesius, hopefully they can get the ship turned around and back home safely. If not, it will have to be destroyed. We can’t risk it falling into the Merc Guild’s hands.”
“If I can get them onboard safely?”
“Yes, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask for your help. When last I heard, there wasn’t even a way to get onboard the rogue Egleesius. What I would like you to do is to take your Avenger bombers, crews to operate them, and a sufficient force to land on the ship and force a way into it. Once you make an opening, you can get Sato off and put the command crew onboard. If they can figure out how to operate it, bring it back. If not…”
“Don’t let it fall into enemy hands…or claws as it were.” Kowalczy nodded, while Walker thought. “I’ll give it a go,” Walker finally said. “In general, it seems straightforward enough. We can mount the bombers to the Arion with no problem, and I can get crews onboard pretty quickly, both to fly the bombers and to assault the ship. I think, with your permission, I will also contact Commander Frank Earl of Bert’s Bees. They got mauled pretty badly in the last action, but they’re marine forces—they have the requisite knowledge to get this done. The Horde specializes in facility defense; ship assault normally isn’t our thing. They probably have the tools and knowledge required to figure out how to best penetrate the ship and get your folks aboard. I’ll take a platoon of my troops along as backup, just in case the others have issues getting aboard. My guys and gals are also pretty good at demo, should it come to that.”
Kowalczy shivered at the mention of the Egleesius’ demolition. That would not look good on his resume. He could see it now, “Let special cruiser escape, then blew it up because he couldn’t recover it.” Not good. He nodded. “Take whoever you see fit, but get them aboard the Arion ASAP. There’s no telling what the rogue ship will do once it reaches the Beta Cephei system. If it should jump again before you get there, we won’t have any way to track it. We will likely have lost both it and Sato…maybe forever.”
* * *
Walker watched from the edge of one of the Arion’s cargo compartments as a Bert’s Bees’ CASPer jetted into it with a load of equipment. He dialed up his CASPer’s visual enhancement and could see the name on the chest of the CASPer read “Earl” in green letters. “Are you guys almost done loading?” he asked. “They’re ready to get underway.”
“I’ve got one more load of ammo to bring aboard,” Commander Frank Earl replied. “I don’t go anywhere unarmed.”
“But this isn’t an actual assault mission,” Walker noted, “and they’re in a big hurry to catch up with the ship before it does anything else unexpected.”
“I get all that,” Earl replied, “but what if there’s someone aboard the ship? Ships don’t just ‘start themselves.’ I’m guessing there’s a rogue element onboard. Someone snuck on without that stupid scientist noticing, and it’s their intention to hijack the ship for their own purposes. If I don’t have ammo, it makes it an awful lot harder for me to stop them.”
There was a long pause as Walker processed the information. Earl jetted out of the hold to get the next load while the ship’s crew tied his previous load down.
“You couldn’t have mentioned that a little sooner?” Walker finally asked, all of a sudden feeling naked without loaded weapons on his suit.
“I didn’t really think about it when we first spoke,” Earl replied. “The more I thought about it, though, I decided we ought to be prepared for any eventuality. Besides, you never know where we might end up going before we get back. I’d rather be prepared for anything, anywhere, even if it does cost us a little extra time. We’ll be done soon.”
“Okay, gotta go,” Walker transmitted.
“What’s up?”
“I’m going to have to call the captain to get us some extra time, so we can get some of our ammo brought onboard as well.”
* * * * *
Chapter Four
Gray Wolves’ Warehouse, Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Earth
“I just got the word from Lieutenant Colonel Laverno,” Sergeant Kayla Hanson said as she walked into the large bay beneath the main warehouse floor. Ten pairs of eyes focused on the short, dark-haired woman, waiting for her next pronouncement. “We’re a ‘go.’”
The nine other members of her squad gave various displays of approval, although they kept them quiet so they couldn’t be heard on the floor above; the tenth man, a tech, got back to work on the suit he was maintaining. A loud outburst probably wouldn’t have mattered—there usually wasn’t anyone around who wasn’t an integral part of the Gray Wolves’ smuggling organization. Although the Gray Wolves had been spun off from the Golden Horde a number of years prior, when they ‘went legitimate,’ the ties between the two organizations were still strong, including information sharing. Most of the time, intel went from the Horde to the Wolves, although there were times the Wolves’ unique…connections…got them juicy data outside the Horde’s normal sphere of operations. The Wolves could also be counted on to procure ‘difficult-to-acquire’ items or provide shipping to places where a bill of lading might have been problematic.
They also had storage places for items that Earth’s authorities—or the Mercenary Guild, which was currently running things—might have disagreed with, like the material on the floor above. Or the 10 CASPers the squad was prepping for the mission that had just been approved.
“Good,” Corporal Jochi Enkh said. “It’s about time. Those bastards have had it coming for a while.”
“I’ll say,” Corporal Jamison Silinsky agreed. “I had a couple friends in the Maracaibo Marauders. They were off-world when the diseases hit. It wiped out almost the entire company—CASPer pilots, ground crew, everyone. Most of their families were on Earth and were saved, but nearly every merc died.”
“That could have been us,” Sergeant Hanson said. “If the colonel hadn’t made it back in time, we might have been wiped out, too. Today we get payback for the Marauders and anyone else that was a victim of the diseases t
hey put into the paint they sold us.”
The squad quieted at a knock on the door. It was in the correct, coded pattern, so Sergeant Hanson opened it, and a dirty-looking man with long, greasy hair entered the room.
“I just went by the observation post at Nicholas Imports,” the man said. “There are many people at their facility.”
“Perfect,” Silinsky said. “Or as I like to call them, targets.”
The man stared at the corporal a few moments then said, “Be careful what you wish for. There are rumors they are getting their equipment from the Science Guild. If that is true, they may have weapons or technology we are unaware of.” He turned back to Sergeant Hanson. “Be careful, Sergeant.” He started to leave, but then turned back and added, “I left a present by the back door. We’re going to close for the day now. Give me 15 minutes.”
Hanson nodded, then turned back to the squad as the man left. “Okay, let’s get suited up.”
The squad dressed quickly, donning thick wetsuits. They put their clothes and a towel into a plastic bag, sealed it, and stuck it into one of the leg compartments on their CASPers. Getting a thumbs-up from her squad, Hanson said, “Mount up,” and the squad entered their CASPers and jacked in. With lines running from the suit to their extra set of pinplants, they didn’t need the haptic suits other merc organizations required to operate their armor.
The technician walked around, getting all the suits started. Twenty minutes later, the technician pushed a button, and a hidden ramp to the floor above them dropped down. The squad marched up it and onto the main floor of the warehouse. As promised, the warehouse was empty; there was no one there to see their exit.
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