On his way through the double airlock he heard his name called on the comm stack nearest the outer hatch. Before he could reach for the stud, loud alarm sirens blared. “Battle stations! All hands, battle stations!”
“Captain Janz, Davi Yorn here,” he said. “What’s happening, sir?”
Yorn heard streams and streams of chatter and shouting from the bridge. “Commander, they beat us here! We’ve got fifteen of those ships coming out of the sun!”
How could that be? The Varson’s rudimentary jump engines couldn’t make fold speeds! “Copy, sir. Are you going to engage them?”
“Six destroyers closing, commander. We’re running on empty, no way to hold them off. Get into that lifeboat, commander, get as many out with you as you can. . . putting aux power to the Higgs!”
“Aye, aye, captain. I’ll prep the boat, I’m still at the hangar —”
“Brace for impact, brace for —”
The deck jolted and Yorn had to grab the lever on the hatch to remain upright. Something forward exploded and the ship buckled again.
He worked his way back through the hatch and ran to the lifeboat. As he was slapping the door controls to open the ship he saw a huge fiery piece of the Puget Sound’s superstructure careen aft of the hangar, spewing sparks and electrical fire as it wheeled away.
Yorn had to hurry. He closed the sliding door from the inside and ran to the forward cabin, flipping control switches and slapping activation pads as he went. The hangar deck shuddered again, this time with the rumble of return fire, drum-beats of high-energy pulses unleashed from the Puget’s own weapons bay. At least they were getting some shots off, he thought.
As soon as he had the boat’s engines primed and the fields in place, Yorn lifted off from the deck a few meters and turned his nose toward the gaping hole in the rear of the hangar. He fired two bursts of plasma energy at the opening and burned a small hole in the mother ship’s Higgs Field. He pushed the throttle sticks all the way forward and locked them down.
The boat shot out of the ruined hangar just as the enemy fire tore through the Puget Sound’s hull behind him. A few minutes later the concussion of the exploding hydrogen bottle pushed his boat into a pinwheeling spiral and he fought the control yoke for what seemed like an eternity. Through his forward screens he saw the Navy ship he had just left in alternating light/dark images of fire and stars. Yorn finally brought the lifeboat under control when he was 7,000 meters off her aft quarter and he executed a high-gee turn and watched in horror as the Puget Sound erupted into a huge fireball of light blue flame and shattered gray metal. From this distance he imagined the smaller particles swirling through the flames were dying sailors.
Something at the edge of his peripheral vision flashed. A Varson frigate closing on his boat!
Yorn pulled back on the control yoke and pushed it hard over to port. The little ship groaned in protest at the additional stress he was putting on its structure. But she held. He was rocketing away from the heavier, slower frigate when the first lance hit the side of the boat.
His Higgs Field deflected most of the ray, but the impact threw him into another spin.
For the next ten minutes he eluded the enemy ship, all the while working his tack toward Bayliss. The planet was looming larger in his screens and he piloted the lifeboat with measured skill. The Varson frigate was still firing random bursts at him but they were so far away by now that he easily evaded further hits. He was 2,000 kilometers from the docking port when he saw the blooms of blue fire arcing up from the planet. Seven CNS hulls pushed away from Bayliss on huge cones of explosive rocket thrust! He let out a cheer and urged his mates onward and upward.
He hit his radio and broadcast his position and identity, armed his transponder to answer IFF scans, pushed the nose of the boat over and eased off the throttle levers. Maybe he would make it after all, he rejoiced.
The bump of the airfoils extending was reassuring. He decided to make a risky steep-angle approach onto the airfield at the Navy Base instead of attempting a high-speed docking maneuver at the Port Authority hub. He was an expert pilot and considered the reward of being on the ground worth the risk of bringing the boat down at speed.
He switched to the standard air operations frequency and was just about to broadcast his intentions when a spear of alien fire hit his boat abaft of his centerline and walked its way back to his engines.
Sirens wailed in the cabin and the control deck.
Fire suppression routines were automatically activated.
When Yorn stood to retrieve an environmental suit from the forward locker, the ship lurched.
The ominous sound of metal tearing filled his ears.
An overhead conduit gave way, striking Yorn on the top of his head.
He went down and out as the boat spiraled to the ground.
* * *
“Last chance, Inskaap. Do you hear those sirens? We are now in a state of war with the Varson Empire. Your Malguurian madman has penetrated the blockade and is heading for Bayliss with hundreds of ships,” Haad snarled.
The Malguur colonel slumped in his chair. “I’ve told you everything you wanted to know, captain. I have been honest with you and Lieutenant Mols. I have given you my code book and have tried to assist you in every way I know how. I told you what was coming, I warned you. Now that the beast is at your door, you still doubt me?”
Haad reached in and grabbed the colonel by his neck and hauled him out of the seat. Mols was so surprised by this action she instinctively raised her weapon. “Where is Commander Yorn, you worthless piece of shit?”
Haad pushed him against the wall and unholstered his gun. Inskaap’s eyes grew wide and a tiny stream of saliva leaked from the corner of his mouth and ran down the side of his massive chin. “He was taken! Phatie wanted him. And you. But you were betrayed from within! I told you that!”
“I need you to be more specific, colonel,” Haad demanded.
“I don’t know. All I know is he had sources inside your Admiralty. He knew about your troubles out in the region you call the Belt Loop. He knew about the ships you were transferring there. He knew everything.”
Haad relaxed. If what this creature was telling him was true, killing Inskaap would not solve his problems. Varson ships were massing on Bayliss. Gena Haslip was murdered. The killer was murdered. All manner of mayhem and madness evolved from a decade-old vendetta. But who was this Bale Phatie character getting his information from? His mind reeled.
“Captain?” Mols said quietly. “We need to go.”
Haad looked at her. She was right. Inskaap had told them everything. He holstered his weapon and back-pedaled to the door. “Lieutenant, can you access Colonial Navy archived records from that terminal next door?”
Her head snapped back a few centimeters. “Well, yes, sir, but why?”
“Have them buzz me in. I have something I need to check,” he said. “Do it now.”
She reached around her back and fumbled something off her belt. She spoke into the little communicator and gave the order. Haad was out the door and had his hand on the door knob next door before she broke the connection.
Chapter 39
“I don’t believe this,” Max Hansen said. “How could you lose him? Tall officer in a commander’s uniform with a bald head. He should have stuck out like a sore thumb with all of those civilians and children running around.”
Petty Officer 2nd Class Norm Bray looked skyward. She was dressing him down in front of a group of tourists and they were having a good laugh at his expense. “I don’t have an excuse, ma’am. He gave me the slip. But he won’t get too far. There’s nothing much around here other than the school. I have alerted the command post and they have the description. They’ll find him.”
“You had better hope so, Mister Bray. Where’s Chief Pace?”
Bray nodded toward the station platform. “He went inside, lieutenant. Got an urgent message on his VOX.”
Max felt the vibration on her hip at the sa
me time the words left his lips. She pulled out her VOX and hit the stud. She listened to the transmission and the blood drained from her face. She turned around in a full circle and felt faint for a moment. Could this be true? What about Harold?
“Lieutenant, are you okay?” Bray asked, reaching out a steadying arm.
Men were running for the train. In the distance she could hear sirens going off in a baleful wail. Her head scanned the skies but she knew she wouldn’t see anything. The action would be hundreds of thousands of kilometers above her head.
The colonies were at war!
“Mister Bray! Go and collect Chief Pace and let’s get out of here. I’ve been ordered to report back to the Navy Base at once. I’m sure you see the other sailors and marines running for the maglev. We’re at war with the Varson Empire.”
He did a double-take and hurried into the station.
Max was tempted to go back to the school and retrieve her son but she knew that was going to be impossible to manage. A military school with over 500 students and a barracks of hardened sailors and marine instructors should prove to be protection enough for him. At least he was away from the base and any real potential danger, she thought. She couldn’t bring herself to drag him into another situation that could prove deadly.
Her two SP escorts came out of the station at a trot. Pace told her he had received a similar message and that they should board as soon as possible. The train had been cleared all the way to Weyring nonstop. She told him that her captain was expecting her soonest and they boarded the train without further discussion.
That return trip would be the longest fifty minutes of her life. War. The last thing she needed right now. As the train pulled out and silently gained speed, Max thought of the War College a few kilometers beyond Har’s school, thought about the impact all of this would have on her career move, thought about how hostilities would affect her son.
When the train was at last down from the rocky foothills and leveled out on its straight shot to Weyring and the Navy Base, she saw a huge fireball hurtling toward the ground from her window.
A ship on fire.
The action had begun.
* * *
“I guess this is it, then,” Milli Gertz said.
“Oh, spare me the tears, Mildred. You’ll find a way to get along without me. Besides,” Anson Isaacs said, “once the Christi gets out of drydock, she’ll more than likely have a new captain and crew. The scuttlebutt has it that Haad is getting kicked up to a new destroyer.”
Boy, Milli thought, the word gets around fast. “But, we have so much work left to do, sir,” she replied.
“The Colonial Navy got along without me for over three hundred years before I got in so I’m sure they’ll be fine after I leave. I’ve already put in my papers, commander.”
They had been in gentle conversation for twenty minutes or so at the base hospital and Gertz was lamenting the fact that her arguer-in-arms was talking about retirement at the height of his career. She was just about to scold him for deserting her when her VOX started to vibrate on her hip. Then his.
Gertz thumbed the device on and listened. Isaacs was doing the same.
“Holy fucking shit! The Varson Empire?” she screamed.
A sour look crept across Doctor Isaacs’s usually peaceful face. Outside in the corridor doctors and corpsmen were running to and fro. A low frequency wail tumbled out of the comm stacks like the death throes of a wounded animal. Gertz closed her VOX link and turned for the door.
“Get your ass in gear, doc, we’re gonna need some help in here. I’m ordered to the command center, Captain Haad is assembling his crew from the Christi.”
He was about to say something when the door burst open and an excited young doctor rushed in, looked at Gertz’s collar insignia and grabbed her by the arm. “We’ve got a hot one, commander, I need your help!”
“Hey, lieutenant, I’m not an medical doctor. What kind of emergency are you talking about?”
“Go with him, Mildred,” Isaacs urged, “you’re as qualified as any M.D.”
She looked back at Isaacs and nodded. He threw her a triage bag and helped the young lieutenant hustle her out the door.
As they ran for the ambulance garage and the waiting convoy ahead, Lieutenant Jamison said, “Incoming ship, damaged, can’t seem to raise the pilot, commander. She’s going to come down hard.”
They hit the door and practically dove into the waiting ambulance. As soon as the side door wheezed shut the convoy was on the move, heading north toward the runways at the edge of the base. In the distance, she saw a long spiral of smoke following a silver pin-prick of reflected light. “Ground control has it on auto, but she’s been compromised, no flight stability,” someone said from the front.
“What is it, lieutenant?”
Lieutenant Jamison was stuffing medical supplies into his dittybag. “Lifeboat, commander. From the Puget Sound. The survivors. The Sound was destroyed trying to make Port Authority. All hands. . .”
The lead multipurpose vehicles skidded to a halt at the end of the north-south set of runways. Beyond, a huge blanket of foam had been sprayed by the Fire & Rescue brigade and several bright yellow trucks were still lined up on the far side of the field with their warning lights flashing. A small squadron of atmospheric flyers lifted off from an adjacent runway, getting out of potential harm’s way.
“Here she comes, on final,” from the ambulance driver. Background chatter filled the vehicle and Gertz heard the gritty traffic from the base control tower. They weren’t sounding too optimistic as to the chances of safely landing this boat.
“Any idea how many managed to get off the Puget Sound?” Gertz wanted to know.
“Negative, she broke up pretty quickly. We got the standby op as soon as she unfolded, damaged and trailing fire.”
The small boat grew larger in the windshield. Gertz winced as it appeared to drop straight down for a few seconds but it righted itself and continued its plunge. Just before it hit the foam the control tower managed to get her nose up. The lifeboat flopped onto the runway, slewed left, went up on her side, and finally plowed through the grass berm bordering a taxiway before slamming back down on her belly. The sound the crash made reminded Gertz of the time she had dropped a grocery bag filled with eggs and a milk bottle.
“Let’s go, chief!” Jamison yelled and the driver punched it. When they came to a controlled skidding stop some twenty meters from the burning ship the side door popped and Gertz and Jamison ran flat out to the lifeboat, both wearing breath masks. Ratings from the F&R trucks approached from the other direction, axes, cutting torches and portable fire extinguishers held high. One of the firemen waved them off as they beat down the flames and attacked the side hatch.
Two minutes later the doctors were inside. The ship was empty. One of the rescue chiefs said, “Hey, get up front!” his voice muffled by his breathing gear. “Got a live one, but he’s pretty beat up. Need to know if we should move him or not!”
Gertz was the first one to reach the downed pilot. He must have been trying to get into an evo suit since his outstretched hand held the crumpled, blood-soaked garment in a death grip. She could see a large pool of blood underneath the man. Something wet and metallic was sticking out of his back near his left shoulder blade. Lieutenant Jamison looked at the damage to the man’s back as Gertz stepped over the pilot and slowly felt his neck for a pulse.
Then she saw his face.
It was Davi Yorn!
* * *
Blend in. Don’t call any unwanted attention to yourself, Teeluur thought as he walked the quiet grounds around the Norman Hayes Naval Training School. He had to get the lay of the land and eventually try to make contact with Torgud Berger. Knowing her, she probably bailed on him as soon as he was one minute late. Not his fault. When that nosey SP human started poking around that train car, he had no choice other than to get off and away. From his hiding place in one of the station toilets he’d watched the other SP guy escort tha
t officer and her kid to one of the busses headed for the school. Once they were gone he milled around the station and caught the next bus. No way he could have reboarded the train with them looking for him on the station platform.
This plan was going straight to hell and now he feared being apprehended unless he could blend in. Once the alarm sounded and the message about the conflict was broadcast throughout the campus, he felt more vunerable that ever. So far, so good. His uniform and practiced military bearing served him well as he marched around the campus. The silly human children scurried out of his way and the ones that didn’t were hastily pulled aside by their doting parents. Must be a human thing, he thought, bowing and scraping to unknown persons of rank. A small knot of Navy men approached him as he passed one of the administration buildings and the senior man, a lieutenant commander, saluted him. Teeluur snapped off a smart salute in reply, making a conscious effort to keep his surgically altered hand as rigid as possible. A more glorifying chest thump was out of the question.
The harsh direct sunlight was beginning to wane and he had to find a place to regroup. Maybe he could wander over to the motor pool garage where they kept the busses and steal some transportation, maybe make it back to Weyring where he could fake his way onto an outbound ship.
That move might be problematic after the alarm sirens wailed an hour ago. They would almost certainly have extra men watching everything on the campus. Even though most of these officers and non-coms were instructors, he figured they were still capable of performing their military duties in a time of crisis. That thought was confirmed as he witnessed a squad of armed men marching from the direction of the armory. He knew which building the weapons were stored in. Conveniently, as he’d walked the campus and contemplated his future, he’d stopped at one of those little map kiosks that reminded him YOU ARE HERE with a blinking square of light.
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