by G J Ogden
“The Obsidian Soldiers are not your concern, Captain,” Griffin hit back. Her cold blue eyes had sharpened and her posture had stiffened. It was clear to Sterling that the topic of conversation was now closed. “We are here to talk about the next phase of your mission.”
Sterling straightened to attention. He still had more to say, but he knew the Admiral well enough to understand when to talk and when to just shut up and listen.
“With James Colicos gone, we can no longer devise a method to reverse the effects of the Sa’Nerran neural control weapon,” Griffin continued. “While Lieutenant Razor may glean something of value from Colicos’ PDA, the chances of success are slim. As such, I am compelled to move to the next phase of my contingency plan.”
Griffin stepped up to the central computer in the CIC and activated it. A holo-schematic of the space station and adjacent docking scaffold was then projected from it. Sterling and Banks stepped up to the console and examined the image, seeing the full scale of Griffin’s installation for the first time.
“How did you get all of this equipment out here without anyone noticing, Admiral?” said Sterling, marveling at the scale and complexity of the installation.
“Everything you see here is built from decommissioned or salvaged Fleet vessels and space-installations,” Griffin replied. “My position allowed me to select which ships and crews were responsible for the mothball operations. As far as Fleet and the official records were concerned, everything here was recycled or scrapped.”
“Presumably you had help, Admiral?” Sterling added. “You couldn’t possibly have done all this alone?”
Griffin had always hinted that she had other allies, besides Sterling and McQueen, at least prior to her ascension to Emissary. However, the Admiral had also always been cagey about who these people were. Now that all of her cards were on the table, Sterling was hoping that Griffin would finally drop her veil of secrecy.
“I did not do this alone,” Griffin eventually replied, after a moment of pause to consider how much she was willing to reveal. “However, all those who assisted in this endeavor are now dead, except for one.”
“Captain Blake of the Hammer, right?” Sterling had always assumed Blake was in on Griffin’s plot, though he’d never had it confirmed.
“Correct, Captain.”
Sterling nodded, grateful for a straight answer for once. However, Griffin’s unexpected candor had revealed another darker possibility. She had explicitly said that her co-conspirators were all dead. Not dead or turned – just plain dead. In ordinary circumstances, he wouldn’t have pressed Griffin on the matter. However, these were far from ordinary circumstances, he realized.
“If Captain Blake is the only one left, how did the others die?” Sterling asked, feeling his pulse race as the words escaped his lips.
“Most died in battle, but some were neutralized on my order,” Griffin said, without hesitation or a flicker of remorse. The frank and sudden response caught Sterling off-guard and he was momentarily lost for words. “That is what you actually meant to ask, isn’t it Captain?”
“Yes, Admiral, it was,” Sterling admitted. He wasn’t surprised by Griffin’s answer, though he wasn’t quite sure how he felt about it either. If she was willing to kill members of her own Omega Taskforce then it meant even his own crew wasn’t safe. Then again, that is the whole point of the Omega Directive… Sterling considered. The needs of the mission come first, no matter the cost.
“As you know, the needs of the mission must come before all else, Captain,” Griffin said, as if she’d just read Sterling’s mind. “You know this better than anyone. Those who threatened to expose my plan and reveal the existence of this installation had to be eliminated. It was not desirable, but it was necessary.”
Sterling sighed and nodded. As unpalatable as Griffin’s admission had been, he understood it. In fact, he accepted and even agreed with it. The question of whether it was possible to do good through prosecuting acts of evil was one that Sterling had always wrestled with. It was the classic case of “the ends justifying the means”. Moralizing was something best left to historians. If future generations viewed Sterling and Griffin as figures to be despised and vilified then so be it. At least that would mean humanity had survived. There was, however, still one question Sterling needed an answer to.
“And what about us, Admiral?” Sterling said, deciding he’d pushed Griffin so far that he may as well push her the whole way. “Is there an Omega Directive for me and my crew too?”
This time Griffin did hesitate before answering, if only for a moment. “If it should ever become necessary, Captain, then yes,” she admitted. “But it cuts both ways,” she was quick to add. “The mission comes first. It comes before you and it comes before me. Should I ever become compromised, the Omega Directive remains in effect, and I expect you to do your duty. Is that understood?”
“Perfectly, Admiral,” Sterling replied, straightening to attention.
Griffin sighed then pressed her hands to the small of her back. “Now, is that enough answers for you, Captain? Shall we continue?”
Sterling nodded. He appreciated the Admiral’s honesty. In a world where trust was in scant supply, perhaps their shared honesty – no matter how harsh or unpalatable the truth happened to be – was the only bond that mattered.
“So, what is our next mission, Admiral?” Sterling asked, moving the discussion on. He’d heard all he’d needed to hear.
“Now we strike back, Captain,” Griffin said, appearing to grow by several inches as she spoke.
Sterling frowned. “You want to mount a counter-offensive?”
“The original intention of the Obsidian Project was to create a strike force capable of hitting at the heart of the Sa’Nerran empire,” Griffin went on. “This has not changed.”
“Admiral, fifty robot-piloted ships plus the Invictus are not enough of a force to attack Sa’Nerra itself,” Sterling pointed out. “There must be another option.”
“No, this is the only move we have left,” Griffin replied, flatly. “Let me be clear, Captain,” the admiral continued, her eyes sharpening further, so that Sterling could almost feel them cutting into him. “Whether Earth stands or falls is out of our hands. Adding the Obsidian Ships to our current Fleet will make no difference to the outcome. The Sa’Nerran armada will reach Earth and Fleet will make its last stand.”
“You believe the Sa’Nerra will win?” said Commander Banks.
From her tone, Sterling knew that his first-officer was surprised by Griffin’s statement, and Sterling understood why. Griffin was pugnacious almost to a fault. However, while she had no love for the political classes, including some of the other Admirals – Wessel most of all – she was fiercely proud of the officers who fought on the front lines. To believe Fleet would fail was perhaps the most shocking admission Griffin had yet made.
“Without a defense against the neural control weapon, our defeat is all but assured,” Griffin replied, turning her sharp eyes to Banks. “Remember that our forces will not only be fighting the Sa’Nerra, but also all of the Fleet ships that they have captured and turned against us. Eventually, Fleet will be fighting against itself. It is a no-win situation, Commander. It is foolish to believe otherwise.”
Banks nodded, though Sterling could see that hearing Griffin’s clinical analysis had been difficult. However, as hard it had been to hear, it was again simply the truth, unvarnished and laid bare.
“Fine, so we attack Sa’Nerra and to hell with the odds,” Sterling said, deciding to embrace their new destiny with open arms. “There’s only one problem, Admiral. We don’t actually know where the Sa’Nerran homeworld is.”
Sterling hated to put a downer on the occasion, but he considered this to be a fairly sizable fly in the ointment.
“That was the case, but it is not any longer,” Griffin replied, coolly, managing, not for the first time, to shock Sterling into silence. “The location of their planet was contained within the data you retriev
ed from the Sa’Nerran gatekeeper. I now know exactly where it is, and how to get there.”
Chapter 24
Home sweet homeworld
Admiral Griffin’s bombshell that she knew the location of the Sa’Nerran home planet had given Sterling a renewed sense of hope. He had believed that all hope of winning the war against the Sa’Nerra had died with James Colicos. However, while it may no longer have been possible to stop the aliens’ invasion of Earth, Griffin’s contingency plan still provided the possibility of victory. Even if that victory came at a terrible cost.
“If we can launch an assault against the Sa’Nerran home world while the aliens are still amassed in Fleet space, we can give those bastards a moment of pause,” Sterling said, balling his hands into fists. “It might even be enough to make them turn for home.”
“Whether our attack forces the Sa’Nerra to withdraw from Fleet space or not, makes no difference,” Griffin replied with feeling. “We’ll hit them hard and we won’t stop hitting them until there’s nothing left of the Sa’Nerran empire but a memory.”
“An eye for an eye,” Banks added, glancing over at Sterling. “Maybe we can’t defeat their armada, but if Earth is going to burn then we can sure as hell make sure that Sa’Nerra burns too.”
Electricity raced down Sterling’s spine. His mission had so far revolved around finding a defense against the Sa’Nerran threat. The Invictus had always been on the back foot, running from the enemy rather than toward it. Like Banks, Sterling preferred a straight-up fight. Now they had an opportunity to strike back and Sterling was itching to take it. Yet, there was another flaw in Griffin’s plan. It irked him to raise it, but if they were going to attack the Sa’Nerran homeworld then he wanted to be sure they had every chance of success.
“We’re all in, Admiral, but it’s still the case that those fifty ships out there plus the Invictus won’t be enough to assault Sa’Nerra,” Sterling pointed out. “We’re going to need a hell of lot more firepower.”
“Astute, as always, Captain,” Griffin said. She almost sounded proud of him, and Sterling couldn’t help but feel his chest swell. “That is precisely why you will not attack Sa’Nerra with just the Obsidian Fleet.”
Not for the first time during the course of the meeting, Sterling frowned at the Admiral. “Unless you’ve developed some sort of cloaking technology, I don’t see any other ships out here, Admiral,” he replied. “At least not ones that aren’t in pieces, anyway.”
“The ship we need is not here, Captain,” Griffin said. She tapped a sequence of commands into the CIC computer. A moment later a holo-image of a Fleet Dreadnaught appeared in front of them.
“You’re giving us the Hammer?” said Banks.
“No, the Hammer is deployed in defense of F-Sector,” replied Griffin. “And even if we could get on-board, Captain Blake does not control the unconditional loyalty of enough of the crew to mount a full insurgency.”
“Then which ship is this?” asked Banks. “The Hammer is the only Dreadnaught in the fleet.”
“Incorrect, Commander,” replied Griffin, stiffly. “This is the Fleet Dreadnaught Vanguard.”
Sterling’s brow was now so tightly furrowed that it was giving him a headache. “But the Vanguard was lost. No-one has seen or heard from it in close to two years.”
“The Vanguard was infiltrated by the Sa’Nerra and captured,” Griffin answered. “Captain Jericho was originally assigned to the Obsidian Project. I ensured he took command of the Vanguard after the project was disbanded. He was, unfortunately, turned during the Sa’Nerran assault.”
Sterling raised his eyebrows and waited patiently for Griffin to continue. It appeared to be the day for secrets to be revealed, he realized.
“The Sa’Nerra succeeded in surging the Vanguard into the Void,” Griffin went on. “However, there was a malfunction in the surge field generator resulting from damage sustained during the battle. The ship ended up lost.”
“Might I assume you’ve now found it again?” Sterling asked, studying the holo-imagine of the powerful warship. It was hard not to be awed by the Dreadnaught-class, Sterling thought. It was the rhino of the warship world, combining imposing size and thick armor plating. More importantly, the mighty ship carried enough armaments to level a planet, which made it ideally suited for their new mission.
“I have known the location of the Vanguard for some time, Captain,” Griffin replied, letting another secret slip out as casually as a hair stylist discussing the weather. “By chance, an aperture relay probe from the Vanguard was discovered in the Void a few months after the vessel disappeared. Unfortunately, its memory storage cells had become heavily corrupted and fragmented. Fleet scientists were unable to recover any useful data from it, and so it was boxed and stored.”
“I’m guessing this probe was another one of your clandestine acquisitions, Admiral?” said Sterling, offering a knowing smile. As much as Griffin irked him and even sometimes scared him, he couldn’t help but admire her gall and tenacity.
“It took over a year to reconstruct the memory cells to a sufficient degree to glean any useful information from the probe,” Griffin went on. “And by the time I learned anything of value, I already knew that the War Council would not countenance a rescue mission.”
“So, what happened to it?” asked Banks, sounding as intrigued as Sterling was to learn the Vanguard’s fate.
“The information is patchy, but it appears that the Vanguard’s crew mounted a fight-back against the Sa’Nerran boarding party,” said Griffin. The Admiral seemed relieved and even happy to be finally telling another living, breathing human the story. Sterling knew all too well that keeping secrets was a lonely occupation. “The ship’s first-officer, Commander Alicia Cannon, eventually opened all of the ship’s airlocks and docking garages and vented everyone into space. Her own crew included.”
Banks let out a long, low whistle. “That’s dark, especially for someone who wasn’t an Omega officer.”
“It prevented a powerful weapon from being captured by the enemy,” Griffin replied, coolly. “It was not dark, Commander Banks. It was necessary.”
“She would have made an excellent Omega Captain, that’s for sure,” commented Sterling.
“Indeed,” the Admiral replied, wistfully. “Such a waste.”
“So, where is the Vanguard now, Admiral?” Banks added, staring at the image of the vessel like a kid staring at a toy in a shop window. “Can we still reach it from the apertures we have access to?”
“It is adrift, but salvageable,” Griffin replied. “However, the only way to reach it within any reasonable timeframe is from an aperture in F-Sector, close to F-COP.”
Sterling huffed a laugh. “There’s always something,” he commented, mostly to himself. “Heaven forbid something might be easy for a change.”
“I’m afraid that reaching the aperture and successfully surging into the Void is only part of the challenge, captain,” Griffin added. “The vessel has been drifting for a long time. It will take you several weeks to reach it. And even when you do, and even assuming you can bring it back online, you can only return via the established, regular apertures. The Vanguard is far too large to surge through the experimental, long-range gateways.”
Sterling rubbed the back of his neck. It seemed that for every possible solution that presented itself there were two new problems.
“Let’s just assume we can re-take the Vanguard,” Sterling said, erring on the side of optimism. “We don’t have nearly enough crew on the Invictus to man a ship of that size. And it’s also not an easy thing to hide. If we jump back into the Void in a dreadnaught, someone is going to notice.”
Griffin raised an eyebrow. “I have a solution for the first problem, Captain.” She operated the CIC computer and a schematic of an Obsidian Soldier appeared on the holo. Sterling and Banks both shot wide-eyed looks at one another as they realized what Griffin was suggesting.
“You want to crew the Vanguard with these robotic psyc
hopaths?” Sterling dearly hoped he had misinterpreted Griffin’s intentions.
“As ever, Captain, your keen observations are most impressive,” Griffin replied, this time with obvious sarcasm.
“No offense, Admiral, but one of those things almost slit my throat a few minutes ago,” Sterling hit back.
“And as I already explained, they will learn and adapt,” Griffin said. She was clearly not going to take no for an answer. “These machines do not eat or sleep and one unit is capable of performing the functions of three or four human crewmembers. I will assign one hundred Obsidian Soldiers to your command. That will be a sufficient skeleton crew to operate the Vanguard and bring it home.”
Sterling blew out his cheeks and shrugged. “What the hell. I guess getting murdered by these lunatic machines beats spending the rest of my life in Grimaldi.”
“That’s the spirit, Captain,” replied Griffin, deadpan.
“That only leaves the issue of where we hide a four-kilometer-long warship,” Sterling said, feeling the sting of Griffin’s snarky comebacks. “Because as you’ve already highlighted, we can’t use a long-range aperture to surge to this base.”
“Call me crazy, but I think I have a solution,” Commander Banks chipped in. “May I, Admiral?” She pointed to the CIC computer.
Admiral Griffin nodded and Banks set to work on the computer. A few second later the image of a massive space-dock appeared on the holo. It took Sterling a few moments to realize what it was, but then the penny dropped.
“The Sa’Nerran shipyard inside the ring-system at Omega Four?” Sterling asked.
Banks smiled and nodded. “The aperture relays we deployed in the system showed that the shipyard is still there, and there hasn’t been a single Sa’Nerran vessel in or out of the system for weeks.” She shrugged. “It’s the perfect hiding place, and it also has the facilities we need to repair the Vanguard and any other ships we need. We only need to swap out the alien computer system and the whole damn thing is ours.”
