"Volley three, volley four away," Pixie said, sending seeker micro missiles in a fan of death behind them.
"Load a decoy," Traveller said as he kept the ship moving across a broad landscape of old hull, between antennae, observation towers, outrigged homes and all kinds of wonderful obstacles sticking up from the surface of Freeground Alpha. He was looking for a way in after glimpsing a big transit corridor in the scan Damon took. "Just need a hole big enough, maybe an old hangar," he muttered to himself.
"Good idea," Pixie purred.
"What? Into the station? Aren't we going a little fast for that? Isn't this ship too big?" asked one of his gunners, Tagger, practically shrieking.
"Muting Tagger," Pixie said with a snicker. "Make one kill and I'll unmute you, 'kay, hon?"
A Ramiel fighter's shields went down, missiles impacting on its left side, then one of the rear gunners - not Tagger - rattled it with a tattoo of rounds, bursting the cockpit wide open. Another failed to avoid the missiles on his tail. They struck him almost all at once, destroying his shields and sending his fighter spinning until it collided with a tower. There were only three Ramiels left, but the trio of Uriels were coming back after evading the missiles Pixie sent after them.
"Found entry and it leads to a nice transit system," Traveller said, using his whole pilot console to manually manipulate the Jester's thrusters, fine-tuning his course until he was sure they would enter an old hangar through its open upper door. It was connected to an old freight transit hall that split off to several sections of the station. "Get ready to jack our cloaking systems all the way up. We're going to ground."
"Nope, too fast," Damon said, shaking his head as he looked over Traveller's shoulder. "You're going way too fast. We're about to become part of the station."
"Shhh, no backseat flying," Traveller said as he made a final adjustment to their course.
Pixie reduced the radius of their shields as much as she could, and it was a good thing too. As they passed through the open door, an alarm beeped, notifying them of a collision alert.
"Whoa! Damn that was close!" one of the gunners said as two or three more shouted expletives.
The map of Freeground Alpha's interior stretched in front of Traveller as he slowed the Jester down as much as he could, two of the Uriels veered off along with the Ramiels instead of following him in, but one followed. They made it into the transit corridor, and he wasn't so proud that he resisted activating the course assist features of the piloting system, so he had a little help. It showed him viable paths through the station and what relative speed he needed to get under to make turns. "Everything seemed a lot bigger in my head," he breathed as he concentrated.
"Shields are down to forty-nine percent," Pixie said. "I'm drawing as much power as I can from the quad drives, but that Uriel is lighting us up from behind."
"Gunners! What the hell are you doing? Blast that Citadel ass-hat to pieces!"
"He keeps ducking behind metal every time we turn," replied Dig, the only Nafalli crewmember aboard for the trip.
"Well, then," Traveller said, planning a course for another landing bay. He increased thrust until he could barely keep up with the turns. "Get ready, I'm giving you your shot, guys."
"Okay, maybe you want to slow down," Pixie muttered with a cringe.
"One sec," Traveller said as he turned the ship towards the hangar entrance. Its nose smashed through the transit doors, setting alarms off and inviting more expletives from his gunners. It didn't reduce their shields more than a few percentage points but they were slowed to the point where he could bring the ship to a stop, turning it sideways. The Uriel followed them in then stopped. Traveller could swear he could see the pilot's startled expression through the cockpit.
A second later the gunners let loose, eleven of them blasting through the fighter's shields then reducing the hull to hot rubble. "Hey, Tagger helped make that kill," Pixie said, unmuting him. "Welcome back."
"Thanks, sorry I panicked," he replied.
"All right," Traveller said. "Cloaking systems to max, we're going to hide in here until Fleet has another job for us." He dropped the decoy. It would look like a perfect copy of the Jester as it tried to hide. Only a direct high-powered scan or visual inspection would break the illusion. He guided the ship deeper into the station towards another launch bay further down the transit line, hoping their cloaking systems and the heavy metal would keep the rest of the fighters from finding them.
"Good flying," Pixie said. "I don't know if I could do better."
"Thanks." That was high praise. Traveller would celebrate if he didn't have to concentrate on flying a ship through a square tunnel made for freight cars.
Eleven
Orders Down Range
* * *
Aboard the Ascendant, Admiral Scanlon's new flagship, a vision of a vast walkway stretching across the sky played around Admiral Olivia Scanlon. Her jog took her past tall white and yellow spires and people wrapped in terrestrial clothing that looked like they were taken from the Greek city states of ancient times. Small and medium ships of a vast variety of types flew far overhead.
Classic music from a five-piece band played in her ears, encouraging her to push through an early morning sweat. Jogging wasn't one of her favourite activities by far, but exercise was good for clear thinking and she needed as much of that as she could get. Technology could only give her so many advantages. As the metal walkway passed under her feet, she thought of the problems awaiting her in the Cluster. It was a relatively small part of the galaxy, but she was still discovering the civilized worlds and features of that bright gathering of stars.
The solar systems were close enough to each other so the propaganda sent out by Haven Fleet some time ago reached every one of them. As time passed, more people looked at the history of the Order of Eden as it was presented by the Haven Government. Their version of events was devastating, especially since it was true.
Regent Galactic was Olivia Scanlon's type of organization. Corporate military made her what she was, from orphan to an expert in technology and modern strategy who was better than most of her comrades because she worked smarter, sometimes harder, but with her wits first. Her opponent in the Cluster was Ayan Anderson. She recognized some of herself in that woman. Ayan had an underutilized propaganda machine in her hands, and Olivia didn't look forward to the day when she really put it to work. The Mergillians were looking to her and Haven Fleet for hope.
If she didn't have the Order of Eden rhetoric to consider, Olivia would use franchising and advertising to get a firm foothold in their territory. There would be a Spacerwares on every second corner and a Fabulous Forma in-between. Those amphibians would worship a lifestyle brought by commerce; one of convenience and disposable, bio-degradable luxury. Instead, the Order had to conquer with guns. That was her last resort, and she was good at that kind of heavy handed measure, but it wasn't how she liked to begin.
Ayan built a society that freed her people. That was admirable, and something people talked about no matter how far from the Haven System they were pushed, it was something they remembered. Against the Order of Eden that kind of thing was poison. The propaganda wasn't the worst of it, though. Haven Fleet had strength. Unlike most resistance groups, they used military technology, some of which was beyond comprehension to her top engineers. They had to buy sample systems from British companies who dealt in Haven technology that was several generations behind. That might work, but Overlord Dron hated being behind in anything, especially technology.
That was why Dron put Admiral Scanlon in charge of the Cluster. She could understand the finer points of technological development, knew how to assemble teams and how to motivate them to find solutions. Her military and commercial victories made her even more important to him and he saw the Cluster as the greatest seed for dissent in the galaxy. The Haven System - she refused to call it the Rega Gain System - was right in the middle.
There were a lot of factors to worry a military mind whe
re Haven Fleet was concerned, but, shortly after her teams cracked their cloaking technology, she started wondering if the key was patience, not action. In that spirit, she sought out members of her development group to work on a pet project, one they found exciting whether they were die-hard Order of Eden ladder climbers or not. She told them to develop a communications system that used some of the temporal technology that was in the Victory Machine, something she knew her counterpart, Ayan Anderson was fascinated with.
Hours later they had a breakthrough. Without any risk of creating temporal radiation, they found a way to use it as a listening system that allowed them to receive messages from their hyper transmitter network faster. It couldn't be used to transmit, but it helped in the gathering of information immensely. Her jog was a result of that. There was a break in communications from the Haven System. The stream was running normally, then it just stopped.
Her fleet was on its way there, to a position in the neighbouring solar system where she would establish a base of her own. It was important that she knew what was going on before they arrived. Admiral Scanlon waited, even visiting the bridge and the communications departments before giving up and retreating to her quarters, where she started jogging to clear her head. The holographic program had her mind fooled well enough. The sun was beginning to set, painting the clouds and buildings around her in hues of yellow, orange and red. The smell of the local delicacy, a chip made from flat bread with cinnamon, was being prepared somewhere nearby, and it filled her nostrils. Onbu would be their home when they arrived in the Cluster. Their government didn't know they'd be surrendering control of their world to them yet, but they would. It was the only reasonable reaction.
"Ma'am?" asked Lieutenant Keets. He was a disembodied voice, the hologram wrapped around her hid him entirely.
With a tap and a flick of her finger, the illusion was deactivated, the rolling section of floor slowed with her steps, and she accepted a towel from the Lieutenant, who was like many Order officers - in a perfect uniform, in great shape, and coiffed to perfection - and she wondered if she'd remembered his name if she didn't have special training to do so. Most of the officers looked the same to her. "Yes, Lieutenant?"
"I apologize for interrupting your run, but you turned your communicator off," he said, almost scolding.
"That's because I knew you or someone just like you would come and tell me the moment something important happened. So, something has?" she asked, treating him like a little bird. That was the last step before putting him in his place, which could cost him millions of credits in penalties.
Clearing his throat, he clasped his hands behind his back and began his report. "Yes, the new temporal receiver has picked up an emergency transmission from the Haven System. The Kambis' second moon, Tamber, is being invaded."
"Not the Haven System, but Tamber specifically?" she asked, patting her neck and brow dry.
"Yes, that's correct."
"All right, don't spoon feed me, tell me the rest."
"Yes, Ma'am. The beginning of the invasion was timed to coincide with a gathering in the square that was called by Admiral Wheeler. A prison break occurred at the same time, but we think that was a minor event, since only one person escaped. There are reports of resistance fighters with Haven equipment in Haven Shore. Hundreds of small ships are flying towards two areas on the ground; Haven Shore and the Nafalli settlements."
"Do we know who is leading the invasion?"
"The Merciless broke atmosphere and seems to be leading the attack. There is another group of five…"
"Never mind. At this rate you'll be unravelling the details all morning. You're a disgrace," she grabbed his arm, looked at the data scrolling on his uniform sleeve and sent it to the imaging system in her grand quarters. It wasn't uncommon for new Officers under her command to treat her like she was a slow minded outsider, unravelling details in an order that they thought was helpful because it would lead her to the same conclusions they made. Some of them only saw the corporate side of her service record, ignoring her military experience, and they made the erroneous assumption that she might not understand the intricacies of combat situations, or wasn't ready for them.
Holograms of short videos showing the first engagement with the Merciless, the rush of smaller ships for the surface and scans of Sunspire class vessels played around her. Between them were logs describing every recorded fact in detail along with brief reports from commanders. In the centre was the tactical map, it looped every three minutes. "All this is from a backup hyper transmitter, which they destroyed after about three minutes operation."
"Three minutes and nine seconds," the Lieutenant added.
"Yes, that detail was so helpful," Admiral Scanlon sighed. "Please be quiet. I'll tell you what this data shows us, I can already see you were wrong about the whole situation."
"Yes, Ma'am," he said, standing at attention. He was worse than the last one, Lieutenant Grey. That one put every report in the form of a presentation, including theme music. She made every effort to impress her Admiral, but it resulted in briefings that felt more like 'story time' with frills that only wasted time. It was agonizing.
The tactical map was what Olivia reviewed first, watching as the shock-and-awe attack struck the most important hemisphere of Tamber. In orbit and below, Haven forces dominated the area. The response the Order could send in a few minutes wouldn't turn the tide unless there was a huge blunder on Haven's part. There wouldn't be. The Sunspire was under the command of one of their most experienced commanders, Admiral Rice, Ayan's mother. Her and four other equally powerful ships would take out the heavy cruisers that were on guard, the destroyer group that was sent to back them up and start on the rest of the forces in the Haven System, doing incredible damage unless Order Battlegroups coordinated, coming together then attacking all at once. The strategy of each battlegroup responding as quickly as it could instead of working together would lead to disaster. It would most likely wear the Haven forces down eventually, but that was only if… "This isn't an invasion. It's a rescue," Admiral Scanlon said, certain. "Haven commanders are just as smart and often more experienced that we are. Admiral Rice has over twenty years more experience than I do, and I bet her crew aren't far behind. They are there to smash through the defences around Tamber, take their people, the Nafalli and whoever else they can aboard their ships then leave."
"If you'll pardon me for asking, why?"
"Manpower," Olivia said. "There are thousands of people down there who were training for the Rangers, Haven Fleet, or were already serving but got stranded. Today they get rescued, tomorrow they're manning ships, climbing into fighters, or training more warriors. This is a disaster, and Wheeler is going to make it worse. I bet you a year's salary that he's getting ready to run right now, leaving a Rear Admiral with less experience than you in charge." A glance at the time of the recording told her it was already nine minutes old. "Dismissed. Find a replacement for yourself today. They will be better than you or I will eject you from service." She told the Lieutenant, his name already escaped her.
"Yes, Ma'am," he said curtly.
With a few small gestures, she opened a call to the senior Intelligence Officer on duty. "Yes, Admiral," he said, ready for any order.
"Commander; Send orders to all forces in the Haven System, this is the highest priority. The orders are as follows: No Haven Fleet asset can be allowed to depart the Haven System. Begin interdiction procedures around Kambis. Create a perfect net around the planet and its moons with a focus on Tamber. Accept any ship that surrenders on our terms, destroy any that resist. Order any ships on their way to the Haven System to hold outside the system boundary. Any calls for assistance made by Order forces already within the Haven System are to be disregarded. Those are my orders, please repeat them back to me."
He repeated her words back to her, reading from his station. "Would you like me to make any changes, Admiral?"
"No, send using our highest speed systems," she ordered. "How long b
efore they receive them?"
"Thirty-six minutes," he replied. "Your orders have been sent."
"Thank you, Commander." She closed the channel, pleased with his professionalism. Her attention drifted back to the recording of the Merciless flying through Tamber's atmosphere, firing on the Shard. Their attempt to rescue their people would turn into a trap. Every person they saved would cost them more than they anticipated. That was the best Haven forces could expect. If she got her way, the Order of Eden battlegroups would move as she instructed and trap them. They would be surrounded, forced to fight their way out. Admiral Scanlon hoped some of them would surrender, but it was unlikely.
If Haven Fleet won there would still take high casualties, even lose ships. If they lost, every military asset Haven Fleet had near Kambis would be destroyed or captured. Neither of those outcomes were what she hoped for, however. Admiral Olivia Scanlon wasn't thinking to counter Admiral Rice, or Valent. Her focus was on the real prizes of the fleet; Admiral Ayan Anderson and the War Forge. It was her hope that trapping, defeating so many Haven ships would draw them out, bring them into the fight so Haven Fleet could force a victory.
With a tap on her wrist, she opened a channel to the Rear Admiral in command of the Ascendant, the flag ship that was delivering her to the Cluster. "Yes, Admiral," he said. It was early for him, he'd just come on shift, but he was as ready as ever to carry her orders out.
"We're in it, Gottfried." This was something she'd only said to him one other time since they started coming up together seven years before. He'd been the commander of her flagship for over three years.
Spinward Fringe Broadcast 14 Page 9
