The Memnon Incident: Part 4 of 4 (A Serial Novel)

by Marc DeSantis

  The bridge of Triumph was enormous, at least as such things went on spacegoing warships. It had none of the claustrophobic feel that bridges on smaller vessels often had. As was standard on nearly all naval ships, at the front was a large viewscreen, while banks of smaller monitors studded the duty stations of the crewmen that lined the sides of the bridge. There were close to three dozen people, inclusive of the captain, on the bridge at any one time. That was about three times what might be found on a lesser ship. Battleships were so complex that, despite the assistance of a shipbrain to handle most routine functions, such as monitoring life support, ensuring that artificial gravity was working, and determining that power was distributed to all parts of the ship, human brains were required to keep track of several dynamic ship systems. The human mind had never been replaced by artificially intelligent entities in situations where facts, and the relationships between those facts, changed rapidly and without warning, and a nuanced understanding of reality was critical.

  The bridge was deathly quiet when Donner stepped off the lift. He looked around and was greeted with polite but disinterested glances by Captain Acton and his executive officer, Commander Fumiko Levine. Their attention left Donner almost immediately and went now to the viewscreen. The scene it showed was one of destruction on a vast scale.

  "Magnify ten times," Captain Action ordered. The image zoomed in on the severed yellow and gold bow section of a Memnonian ship. In black lettering was written RMNS ROYAL ALBERT."

  Where the rest of the craft was none could say. The volume of space in which the Triumph and the rest of the Engagement Force traveled was strewn with the unmistakable debris of a battle.

  "What could have done that?" Levine asked. "They had to have been attacked by a fleet from one of the major navies."

  "Perhaps it was the unknown ship that Snow Tiger encountered," suggested Captain Acton.

  Donner came up to stand beside the captain's chair. "This was waiting for us so close to where we displaced?"

  "Not quite. We displaced in proximity to the coordinates given to us by the crew of the Snow Tiger. We had no wish to jump on top of something unpleasant. We found something terrible anyway."

  The shipbrain of Triumph was called Tricia by her crew. "Remnants found of an estimated seventy to eighty ships, Captain Action," she announced. "There are some remains of Memnonian atomic mines, captain. Residual radiation levels in the entire volume are fifty million times above background normal.

  "Any non-Memnonian ships present?" Acton asked.

  "None, captain."

  "That must be about the whole of their fleet," Levine said. "The RMN doesn't have many more than ninety ships."

  "Whatever did this was powerful enough to take out a major navy in one go, and lose none of its own ships," Acton said. "This is worse than anticipated. We can't remain here. The RMN might not be up to our standards, but anything that can defeat several dozen ships can take us out too." Acton keyed the holo on the arm of his command chair. "Engineering," he said. "How long before we can safely displace again?"

  A thin voice responded. "About six hours, captain," it said. "The drive's been taxed by four weeks in hyperspace."

  "Understood. Have it ready to go in six. We'll make a stop along the way if any of our drives needs a rest."

  "Could this have been done by the Halifaxians?" Donner inquired. Such slaughter was hardly characteristic of the Great Sphere's leading democracy. Nevertheless, it was one of the few navies, apart from the Armada itself, that wielded the power to destroy the whole of the Memnonian navy in a single battle. "We did suspect that Halifax might retaliate against Memnon for the mining."

  Levine shook her head. "Then where are the remnants of Halifax's warships? They would have surely lost some ships if they had to fight the RMN in a battle this big."

  "If the Halifaxians were here they would have left some busted ships behind," Acton agreed. "Tricia, he called out, 'do another sweep just to make sure everything here is Memnonian. Make sure to make note of any anomalies."

  Tricia complied, engaging the Triumph's extensive sensor suite in a scan of the battlespace. Again, Tricia discovered nothing beside the remains of the RMN. "Run it once more," Acton commanded.

  "It seems that our mission to Memnon will be a brief one," Acton told Donner. "We will not have much to report to Admiral Otis once we get home."

  "We're receiving transmissions," the Triumph's communications officer announced. They're being bounced back and forth by a handful of ships still outside the time-range of our sensors."

  "What are they saying?" Acton demanded.

  "This one is from Admiral Jonathan Wu of the RMN."

  "I know John Wu," Acton said to Levine. "He's a good man."

  The scratchy transmission, garbled by radiation interference, resolved on the viewscreen. "Admiral. . . Wu. . . Royal. . . Navy. . . tricked by. . . Halifaxian . . . mines headed our way. . . fight to the end."

  "There are several other transmissions swirling around the system," the comm officer said. "They're all saying that the RHN hit them hard with hundreds of thousands of nuclear mines."

  "This makes no sense," Acton said. "If Halifax was involved, how would they have made use of the mines that the Black Moon laid?"

  Levine shrugged her shoulders. "We were worried that Halifax would retaliate against Maurice. Perhaps they found a way to turn the mines against his ships."

  Acton did not appear to be convinced. "I've met several RHN officers in my time. This does not look like something they would do."

  Tricia completed her third scan. "Ships detected, captain," she declared.

  Action sat up in his chair. "And?"

  "They are Halifaxian."

  Aboard Morrigan, Tiryns Orbit

  Jenkins greeted Howell and Chandler with an expression that could almost be construed as one of relief. "I thought you fell through a hole in the hull." The marine raised a gauntleted hand and pointed out to space. The Memnonians are sending assault boats against us. Morrigan's shields are down and she is not responding to us. We've tried battlecode again but that's not working."

  "Morrigan is around," replied Howell. "She's otherwise occupied."

  "What do you mean?"

  "She's playing games of some sort," Chandler said. "She's fighting battles of a kind in some world of knights and castles."

  Jenkins raised an eyebrow, one of the few human gestures a man could make when encased in power armor. "That does not sound good. She's going to be boarded if she does not do something."

  "Morrigan is replaying some traumatic episode from, what I believe, is the Time Before," Howell said.

  "A battle simulation?" asked Jenkins.

  "Of a kind," Howell replied, scratching his head. "It's hard to explain. Morrigan sees herself as a noble warrior queen. She fought hard and honorably, but was betrayed somehow by her captain."

  "Sidwell? He's in the simulation too?"

  "Right, but this isn't a fight in space. She's besieging a city with an army wielding swords and spears. She rides a horse. After sacking it, she becomes furious at Sidwell and usually kills him."

  "She is often badly injured too," added Chandler.

  Jenkins breathed deeply. "Hypotheses?"

  "My expertise is in drive systems," Howell said. "Not psychology. I think though that Morrigan is replaying whatever happened to her over and over in her mind. Each time she tweaks the variables a bit. Maybe to see if things turn out differently."

  "She's looking for a reason for something that shook her so badly in the past that she had not been able to let go of it," Chandler said.

  Jenkins turned to Howell. "Has she ever let on what it was?"

  "No, she hasn't. It has to do with whatever damaged this ship fifty thousand years ago and why her crew left her all alone. But she won't find it," said Howell. "At least not on her own."

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Aboard RHS Steadfast, Memnon System

  "Tartarean fighters running toward us
, very fast, captain," Feeney announced. "Four dozen." She looked back at More. "Warships. Warship contacts!" She checked her screen again. "Reading one battleship, two destroyers, two heavy cruisers, a light carrier, and two couriers."

  "Tyler, I'm going to need you fighters out and about," More said. "Mine are in no shape for a fight right now."

  "On it already, Andrew. Seventy-First Squadron will launch in thirty seconds."

  "We're being hailed, captain," Garand said. "It's the ATS Triumph."

  "On screen."

  Seconds later, the visage of a man in early middle age resolved on the Steadfast's viewscreen. He was flanked by a woman of roughly the same age and a young officer. Acton's face was suffused with rage.

  "Halifaxian captain!" he began angrily, dispensing with ordinary formalities. "What happened here? Why have you destroyed the Memnonian navy? What provocation could they have given you that justified this wholesale massacre?"

  "This is Captain Andrew More of the RHS Steadfast," More replied. "To whom to I have the honor of speaking?"

  "Ha!" Acton laughed without mirth. "No honor have you shown here! Yet I have forgotten my manners. I am Captain Yuval Acton of the ATS Triumph. You, Captain More, have much to answer for."

  "We had nothing to do with the destruction of the RMN fleet." More would have liked to have explained that Morrigan, a ship surviving from the distant past, had used her unfathomably superior technology to pull hundreds of thousands of nuclear mines from across the void to annihilate the Memnonian fleet, but that would simply amount to a giveaway of information concerning Morrigan. He had no idea where she was, and if Acton learned of her, he would conduct a search for her himself. If Morrigan in the hands of Memnon was wholly unacceptable, it would be disastrous if she should be taken by Tartarus. Seconds passed as More's transmission crossed the tens of thousands of kilometers between the two squadrons.

  "Oh, really?" Acton responded, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "I guess you just wandered in? What are you doing here in the first place? And what were those fighters you were so busy recovering not too long ago doing? You were taking them back aboard so that you can make your getaway, I surmise. We've picked up the good Admiral Wu's last broadcast. He blames you for this crime."

  "You should explain what you are doing here yourself," More countered. "You displaced remarkably close to this area. What is your interest in it?"

  Acton gave him a thin smile. "We were asked to intervene on behalf of the Memnonian government. We were passing through as part of our tour of interstellar trade routes when word came of your presence here. We chose to give aid to our king's brother monarch. Sadly, it seems that we were too late."

  What utter nonsense, More thought. Something had brought the Armada here of its own accord. It had not been simply 'passing through' as Acton insisted. A battleship - the flagship of the Armada, no less - would never have been dispatched on a mission to clear the space lanes of pirates. The Tartareans had expected to find something troubling in Memnon. They may have known it was Morrigan that had destroyed Black Moon, but maybe not. More's mind raced. Ensign Jonah Lawrence had claimed that Black Moon had been waiting to link up with another Armada vessel. If Morrigan had chased that ship away, and it had fled home to Tartarus. . . the Sphinx would want to know exactly what had happened in Memnon. That would explain why the Tartareans had emerged from hyperspace relatively close to where the mines had been strewn.

  He cut the link abruptly with the Triumph. "Bring in Lawrence," More commed.

  Within a few minutes, two naval armsmen marched Ensign Jonah Lawrence onto the bridge. He looked around him, eyes wide. More reestablished the vidlink with Acton so that he could see the Tartarean ensign on the bridge of the Steadfast. "This is much better than the brig." Lawrence said.

  "You'll be going back there if you do not tell Captain Acton of the Armada of Tartarus exactly what you and your ship were up to in this system."

  Lawrence's eyes flicked to the viewscreen. He had not absorbed, until then, that the image on the screen was that of a naval officer of the Armada. "I. . .I. . ." he croaked.

  "Tell him!"

  Lawrence began to perspire, and he mopped his brow. Then it all came out in a rush. "We were laying mines, lots of them, in this system. We. . . I tracked this RHN squadron all the way from Halifax. We had special technology. Serious antiquakraft. We got here ahead of them and laid the mines where we knew they would be emerging. They did, and we took out several of their ships. But we ran into. . ."

  More cut him off abruptly. "That's enough, ensign." He gestured to the armsmen. "Take him back to the brig." Lawrence was pulled off the bridge by the two crewmen.

  Aboard ATS Triumph

  It was Acton's turn to cut the link between the two ships. Aghast, he sank deeply into his chair. "What does our facial recognition software say?" He already knew the answer. Lawrence's accent placed him as Tartarus born and bred. "He's one of ours," Levine said. "Ensign Jonah Lawrence. Sensor systems. His last posting was to the destroyer Halstatt. No information more current than six months ago."

  "They know," Acton said. "They know that the Armada was involved. They have to think it was a plot against them. If we say that this was a rogue operation we look incompetent."

  "There certainly is enough of incompetence going around," Levine said. She shot a sidelong glance at Donner. "If only MMI had kept a better lid on all this precious antiquakraft, we would not be sitting here dealing with this turdpile."

  "And if the AT kept better track of its ships none of this would have happened!" Donner rejoined. "Two ships! Two ships used in an unsanctioned mission that has brought us to the brink of war!"

  Acton's eyes narrowed. "Careful, lieutenant." He pointed directly at Donner. "You are not a part of this crew, and I am only allowing you on the bridge as a matter of courtesy. You are here at the insistence of Admiral Otis, someone who has had a string up screws ups occur on his watch. I suggest that you watch your tongue more carefully."

  Donner felt ashamed, but also angry at how Admiral Otis had been maligned. It was unfair to pin all the blame for this affair on him. "I am sorry for my outburst, Captain Acton. It will not happen again."

  Captain Acton reopened communications with the Steadfast. "I don't know who that is," he said to More. "We have no records of an 'Ensign Jonah Lawrence' serving in our navy. We don't know what to make of the outrageous story he has concocted. We deny it completely. In the interest of preserving interstellar peace, however, we want to de-escalate this confrontation. There is no need for it to go any further. If this Lawrence fellow is whom he says he is, I want him returned. Once he is handed over to us I expect you to displace for home."

  There was a delay as Donner waited for the image of the Halifaxian captain to respond to Acton's message. "Not possible," More answered. "Lawrence is our proof that we were the victims in this situation. If Lawrence goes back to you, then he will never be seen again. Not alive at least."

  Acton cut the link once more. "They are certain to have recorded his confession in which he blabs about whatever it was that he and Black Moon did here," Levine said. "I'd rather have him back so I could wring his neck, but he is beside the point now. Memnon's fleet has been crippled. The RHN and we are the only forces present that can assert control over it. If we leave, it falls either to the Republic, or worse, to Ajax, who can always scent a wounded animal and will move in for the kill."

  "My thoughts as well," Acton said. "I don't want a fight here. Not now. We have the advantage in firepower over them, but Memnon is more important than getting into a scrap out here. We head to Tiryns, and take Maurice under our wing. He'll be grateful for our protection, considering that he has no fleet left."

  "It will be a few hours before we can jump again," Levine pointed out. "What if this More has had the same idea and beats us to Tiryns?"

  "He won't," Acton predicted. "Look at the assessments we getting concerning his ships. Our sensors show they've been hit. Not badly, but they've a
ll taken some damage. They've just been in battle. They'll have done their own scans of our ships, and know that we are intact. More won't want to chance it with us. Not with the Triumph present."

  Acton reopened the commlink with Steadfast. "We are recalling our fighters and expect you to do the same. We will be leaving this area and allow you to savor whatever miserable victory you think you have gained here. As of this moment, we have established a protectorate over this system. I hereby demand that you get out of it once you have recovered your fighters. If we find you following us to Tiryns, or discover that you have arrived there ahead of us, we will deem that to be an act of war and will open fire on you." The captain cut the link with Steadfast a final time.

  "We must send word to Tartarus immediately," Donner insisted.

  "Not yet," Acton said. "This is too explosive. We wait."

  "But this is exactly what the Admiralty should know, as soon as possible! We've got two couriers. Send one of them!"

  "You forget your place once again, lieutenant!" Acton rebuked. "We will make a report via one of our couriers only when we have enough data to make a comprehensive one. It is still too early for that."

  "I am sorry, captain," Donner apologized. "I have forgotten myself. But they have one of our people," he protested. "The Armada should know."

  "That will have to wait, lieutenant. The Halifaxians will say whatever they like about this Ensign Lawrence fellow. They will not be able to prove that his story is true. With the RMN smashed, any use they try to make of him will be dismissed as a cover for their own unprovoked strike at Memnon."

  Aboard RHS Steadfast

  More was left staring at the suddenly blank screen. Heyward and Carey's holograms popped in. "Do we follow?" Carey asked.