by M. R. Forbes
At the same time, there was Millie. He had spent time with her, had sex with her, wrapped his arms around her when they went to sleep. He cared for her, but there was something missing. It was as if his heart was already committed to Katherine.
"Clearing orbit," Germaine said next to him. "Hyperspace engines are online. Jumping in five. Four. Three."
Mitchell opened his eyes to watch the universe change around them. At least his mission on Hell had been successful though the casualties had been higher than he ever would have guessed. He also had the coordinates to something locked into his brain, a gift from Origin that was important enough that it had been erased from all memory.
He couldn't wait to get back to Millie and the Goliath. To the war against the Tetron. He was more resolved than ever to send them all into oblivion.
48
"That's all I can tell you," Steven said, pouring Admiral Hohn another cup of tea.
It felt odd to Steven that he should be having tea with the Federation officer while John was scrambling to get the wounded cared for, the dead counted, and the damage reports consolidated. He should have been out there with his First Mate, talking to his crew and doing his best to get things back to some kind of normalcy.
Except there was no normal anymore, was there?
"So you decided to believe that your brother's message was important, despite the fact that is was contrary to your orders?"
Steven nodded. He had told his counterpart more than he could ever imagine the Alliance approving of. It was just another rule he had broken. "They told us FD-09 was a weapon's manufacturing facility, and that it would be lightly guarded. When I heard the way you reacted to our attack, I had a bad feeling. Our sensor readings only confirmed it."
"You attacked and killed civilians. I want to hate you for it, Admiral. In some ways, I do. I understand you were following orders."
"I never would have if I had known," Steven said, feeling the guilt threatening him. He fought to keep his emotions under control. "The enemy has been playing me for weeks. Who knows how many other fleets are being manipulated this way?"
"My experience was similar. Our redeployment to FD-09 was unexpected. Very unexpected. It came directly from our Defense Council, a top priority mission. I admit I was confused by it at the time. The Samurai has only recently been commissioned. It was intended to spend six months patrolling low incident areas for break-in."
"Both of our fleets being sent to the same planet to arrive at almost the same time?" Steven said. "It can't possibly be a coincidence."
"No," Hohn agreed. "It seems that we are being moved into position by an unseen hand."
"Judging by how quickly the enemy arrived after you did, I would say that it was attempting to bring us closer together so it could take control of both our fleets at the same time."
"I agree, Admiral."
Steven smiled. "Call me Steven."
Hohn hesitated.
"I'm not your enemy," Steven said. "Not anymore. Your enemy is out there, and it took control of your entire fleet, save for you and your men who were on my other ships. Even if I was your enemy, I think we can still be civil to one another. My fight isn't against you as an individual."
"Nor mine against you, Steven," Hohn said. "You can call me Calvin, or Cal if you prefer."
"Okay, Cal. Here's what I'm thinking. We were supposed to arrive together at nearly the same time, and I think the enemy was planning to arrive there with us. But it didn't. It was late to the party. Because it was late, it gave me a chance to decrypt and listen to Mitchell's warning and escape."
"I agree with your assessment."
"We weren't supposed to get away. We were supposed to be slaves by now. What I don't get is why they went through so much trouble to pull us together first? If they can control people remotely, what chance would we have to resist? Why combine the fleets and risk the potential altercation?"
"Perhaps they knew of your brother's message, and were trying to cut you off before you could hear it?"
"That's the thing. The timestamp on the message was only a few days old. He said he used the enemy to send the warning. That means they have FTL message transmission capabilities. Maybe even real-time. I received my orders weeks ago."
Hohn was quiet as he sipped his tea. He remained calm and composed, leaving Steven to wonder how he did it. He had just lost all of his ships and most of his soldiers to the enemy, and he didn't seem bothered at all. Steven was doing everything he could to keep himself under control, to not break down from the insanity of it all. What he wanted to do was leave Calvin stewing while he did his best to lift the morale of his crew. He couldn't risk alienating the Federation Admiral. Not when the Carver and the rest of his battle group were on a direct course to another Federation planet.
"Another possibility," Hohn said, waving the cup as he spoke. "Your brother clearly knows who they are, and how they are using our reliance on the neural implants against us. He has also clearly overcome this problem and is able to fight back against them. Perhaps they wanted to lure you in to use as a weapon."
"That makes sense, but how would they do that?"
"Take control of you and send you to him? Perhaps they could have fooled him into letting you get close enough to kill him."
Steven felt a chill at the thought. "Why would they go through that much trouble for one person?"
"I don't know. Maybe I'm completely wrong. Steven, we must tell our governments about this situation."
It was the logical course to take. It was also the wrong one.
"Our orders came from our governments," Steven said. "If they've infiltrated military command, we have to assume they've gotten deeper. The question is how?"
"I'm certain your brother can answer that question for us. He recited a long series of numbers. I take it the coordinates to his position are buried within?"
"Yes. Another game we used to play. Who knew it would be so useful now?"
"We need to go to him and learn what is happening to both our nations, as well as the New Terrans, I would assume."
"We will, but not yet," Steven said. "I had to hurry to get the fleet into hyperspace. We had preprogrammed the coordinates of our next drop. I can't pause the jump, or I'll lose track of what's left of my fleet."
"What are the coordinates?" Hohn asked.
"Federation space. A planet we have designated as FD-104. Command said it was a military target."
"Yes." He paused, concerned. "I assume that they didn't tell you it is on the Right to Defense list."
Steven's breath caught in his throat. "What?"
The Right to Defense list was a short list of planets published by each nation, the result of a treaty signed after the first major Alliance-Federation conflict. Planets on the list had standing orders to defend themselves against anything and anyone that came close without permission, and couldn't be held legally accountable for their actions. Intergalactic treaties allowed ten planets on the list per nation, and of course both Earth and Jigu were on it. For a planet flung this far towards the Rim to be included, it had to be a major installation.
Hohn put down his empty teacup, remaining composed. "I suppose the enemy didn't think you would ever get to go there. Let us hope that we arrive soon enough after your fleet to stop the Federation from massacring them."
49
"Is there any chance that the commander of the forces on FD-104 won't listen to you?" Steven asked.
Four days had passed since they had fled FD-09 for the relative, and temporary, safety of hyperspace.
Four long, miserable days.
Steven couldn't communicate with the rest of the fleet during the jump, so he had no idea what the casualties were there. He knew what they were on his own ship, and it wasn't pretty. They had jumped to FD-09 with almost eight hundred souls.
They had left with less than four hundred.
The heaviest casualties had come from the starfighter wings - pilots that had either been destroyed, disabled
or late in returning to the battleship. Out of one hundred starfighters, only fourteen had returned.
The second highest tally of the dead came from engineering and systems, whose decks were commonly targeted by enemy fire due to the intrinsic value of both disabling engines and weapons batteries, and disabling the people who knew how to maintain them.
They had held a memorial service which the Federation Admiral had pleaded to attend, a service that had left Steven, and to his surprise, Calvin Hohn in tears. The commander of the Samurai had turned out to be a compassionate and understanding human being first, a calm and calculating leader second. It still filled Steven with sadness every time his mind drifted to wondering how many people like Calvin had been killed on both sides over things that in the moment seemed so pointless.
After that, they had started the rebuilding process. The remaining fighters were patched as best they could be, the shield and weapons systems damage was prioritized, and mourning was converted to resolve. Steven had shared their destination with the crew, along with what Calvin had told him about it. They had to be ready to defend themselves while he passed word to the other ships in the fleet with the new coordinates, the ones Mitchell had left him.
Mitchell. The days had also left him time to think about his brother, and about his brother's warning. Mitch had saved his life by the skin of his teeth, his impeccable flair for the dramatic delivering salvation yet again. It had been Mitchell who had saved his life that time his repulser bike lost the front sled and had sent him tumbling out into traffic, making some crazy maneuver on his own bike that should have gotten them both killed. Somehow, he had pulled Steven out of the way while his bike had been slammed by the front of a heavy mover, everything happening too quickly for autonomous protection systems to adjust.
It had been Mitchell who had gotten him to talk to Laura, faking an injury that had attracted a lot of attention and found the nurse kneeling at his side along with his older brother. Steven smiled at that memory. Mitchell had always bailed him out of trouble.
"You're the older brother, Steve," Mitchell used to say. "You're supposed to get me out of jail."
That didn't mean Mitchell wasn't reckless, but he always had a way of slipping through on his own, no familial intervention needed.
Well, Mitch had done it again, and he was alive, almost half his crew was alive because of it. He was ashamed of himself for having ever been jealous. If it turned out that everything Mitchell said was true, as hard to accept as it still was, he was damn proud of his little brother.
Admiral Hohn exuded calm confidence whenever he was on the bridge. The same was true now, and he looked Steven in the eye when he spoke.
"I'll transmit my security codes. There is always the possibility that they will assume I've been tortured or otherwise compromised to reveal them. As long as we go in cold and do not approach as a threat, I may have enough time to convince them of my sincerity." He paused, thinking. "Of course, it will also depend on who is leading the planetary defense. I am well-regarded in our military, but that doesn't mean I don't have rivals who would love to remove me from their path."
"They would do that?"
"It wouldn't surprise me. Just by being on this ship with you has put my loyalty and status in question. Command would spare much expense to investigate motives, especially if the events on FD-09 come to light."
Steven held his breath, trying to calm his pounding heart. He had asked Calvin how he managed to stay so composed regardless of the situation. The answer was meditation, apparently, at a level that had taken the Admiral a decade to achieve.
"In Alliance space, they market the Federation as composed of nothing but greedy, capital focused mega-corporations, the people there fueled only by material goods."
The slightest hint of a smile tugged at Calvin's lips. "In the Federation, they say similar things about the Alliance. Except for the mega-corporations. And the social services."
The Frontier Federation had been founded by the conglomerates who had sent colony ships out to the stars all of those years ago in search of new business opportunities. It was true that the Federation had a culture of capitalism, and that its Council was composed of the CEOs of the largest of the mega-corps. It was also true that those corps spent trillions on research to improve the quality of life of their workers while the Alliance let the poor fall by the wayside, alone and forgotten. Well, excluding the Angelines.
"Freedom isn't free. There are always sacrifices to be made."
In the Federation, while the company you worked for wasn't selected for you, in most cases your occupation was chosen by a highly technical interview process that all recent university graduates had to take unless they joined the military.
"What you call freedom, I call inefficiency."
"Tell that to the janitor who grew up dreaming of being a tech."
"The janitor should have studied harder. The interview can be manipulated."
"Maybe, but how many people know what they want to do for the rest of their life when they're twenty years old?"
"I did."
"Which makes the Federation's process easy to defend."
"Admiral," Captain Rock said, interrupting the banter.
"Yes?"
Both Steven and Calvin responded.
"My apologies," Calvin said with a sheepish smile.
"What is it, Captain?" Steven asked.
"We're dropping in ten."
Steven nodded. Losing his p-rat had forced him to learn a lot of new ways to do things, and some of them didn't come naturally yet. Like checking the time.
"We'll continue the discussion later," Steven said.
"Discussion?" Calvin replied. "That would suggest that there is at least a slim probability that your opinion is correct."
Steven smiled, using it to try to hide his sudden sense of dread.
Ten seconds passed.
The Carver began to slow to a dead stop.
50
"Shut it all down, open a channel to the fleet," Steven said, hoping Calvin didn't notice the quiver in his voice.
"Yes, sir," John said.
Steven scanned the space outside the viewport. Three of his ships had already come through, shields up and weapons ready.
"This is Admiral Steven Williams. Stand down. I repeat. Stand down."
"Admiral, we have incoming," Lieutenant Lewis said, seated on the opposite side of the bridge. "Two cruisers and three squadrons of starfighters."
"Are they hailing us?"
"No, sir."
"Lieutenant," Admiral Hohn said, "Open a channel for general broadcast."
Lewis looked back at Steven, unsure.
"Do as he says," Steven said.
"Done," Lewis said a moment later.
"This is Admiral Calvin Hohn of the battleship Samurai. Identification sequence alpha zero four seven kappa foxtrot nine four seven nine seven seven zero delta. Please respond."
Steven stared out the viewport, watching the Federation ships growing closer. They hadn't opened fire yet, which was a good sign.
There was no response from them, which was bad.
"This is Admiral Calvin Hohn of the battleship Samurai. Identification sequence alpha zero four seven kappa foxtrot nine four seven nine seven seven zero delta. Please respond."
"You opened a general channel?" Steven asked.
"Yes, sir. Confirmed," Lewis replied.
"They're powering up shields and weapons," John said.
"Do we know they aren't under enemy control?" Calvin asked.
"I'm not picking up any other ships."
"Maybe they think we're under enemy control? We have no idea what's happening out here."
"Whatever it is, they're still coming," John said. "We should at least raise our shields."
"No," Steven said. "No signs of confrontation. We won't survive with our damage levels even if we try to defend ourselves."
"This is Admiral Calvin Hohn of the battleship Samurai. Identification sequenc
e alpha zero four seven kappa foxtrot nine four seven nine seven seven zero delta. Please respond."
The fighters shot ahead of the cruisers. Steven watched them approach, waiting to see the first cracks appear in the viewport when they opened fire. The fighters zoomed past, running close to the bridge but not shooting.
"This is Admiral Calvin Hohn of the battleship Samurai. Identification sequence alpha zero four seven kappa foxtrot nine four seven nine seven seven zero delta. Please respond."
"Yes, I heard you the first three times, Admiral," the voice said at the other end of the channel.
"Bayone, is that you?" Hohn asked, his serious expression suddenly vanishing in a smile.
"It is, you old dog. Now, tell me what you're doing on board an Alliance battleship that looks like its about to shudder into space dust and I may be convinced not to do it for you."
"You know him?" Steven whispered to Calvin.
"Rear Admiral Ho-chin Bayone. He served under me for three years. We are fortunate today, Steven."
Steven finally felt like he could breathe again. "Yeah, I guess we are."
The Federation starfighters swung by the bridge a second time. One of them broke off, forward thrusters bringing it steady with the viewport, lining it up less than a kilometer away.
"Wave for my pilot, Admiral," Bayone said.
Hohn raised his hand, giving a curt wave.
"Satisfied, Bayone?"
"For now."
"I need you to call your fighters back, and then I need you to shut down your neural receivers."
"You what? Is this a joke?"
"I wish it were. What is your operational configuration?"
"Admiral, I'm not sure what's happening here-"
"We're at war," Calvin snapped.
"With the Alliance?"
"No. Not anymore. Recall your ships and shut down your receivers immediately, my friend. The lives of every member of your crew may depend on it."
