The Belt Loop_Book Two_Revenge of the Varson

by Robert B. Jones

Pushing her way through the crowd, Max finally made it to a bank of elevators, waited for an available car, elbowed her way in.

  She got off on the fifth floor and went to the right, reversed course and found the right room number.

  Captain Haad was standing in the center of the room with many of his assembled Corpus Christi crewmen. He was in heavy conversation with Commander Mason while a yeoman with a portable reader was circulating among the crowd, checking off names. Max hugged the wall and made her way deeper into the large conference room. The comm stack near the door was set at low volume and a continuous stream of base radio traffic provided a hissing background noise to the susurration of overlapping human shop talk.

  She spotted Ken Royal in a far corner and smiled. Since landing on Bayliss and dealing with getting Har trundled off to school, she had almost completely forgotten about him. He saw her approaching and met her half way.

  “Well, Max, fancy meeting you here,” he said.

  “Hello, Ken. Look, I’m sorry I haven’t been available these past few days, but, with getting Har off to school and all of this other stuff going on, well, you can imagine how busy I’ve been.”

  He waved a hand at her. “You don’t have to apologize. I understand,” he said, bending his head so she could hear him better. “This place is a madhouse.”

  “What are you doing here? I mean, with the Navy types.”

  “Liaising. I guess that’s a word. Your Captain Haad was very insistent that I stick around. You know, there’s been another murder, right here on Bayliss.”

  “What? Who?”

  He looked around the room before answering. “Remember that cabbie you were wondering about? The one that picked you up at the spaceport? He’s dead. Your boy Yorn killed him. He was identified from surveillance vids.”

  Max put her hand to her chest. Yorn? On Bayliss? Was that the officer Har was going on about at the train station? Harold! What if —

  Ken saw the look of panic sweep across her face and he gently grabbed her by her upper arms. “Now, don’t get upset. It’s been handled. Admiral Paine sent a contingent of SP’s up to Hayes to protect him. They went up by flyer and should already be on scene.”

  She blew out a sigh of relief. “What’s this thing all about, Ken? Has anyone figured this mess out yet? What does all of this have to do with us? Harold and myself?”

  Sergeant Ken Royal led her to a quiet corner and brought her up to speed as best he could. Then they compared notes for ten minutes and finally she thought she understood most of it.

  The door opened and Lieutenant Commander Milli Gertz pushed into the room. She bumped and pushed her way to the center and interrupted Captain Haad. He looked at her and she said something to him. He looked down at the floor first then looked toward the window. It took her five minutes to tell him.

  Haad raised his hands over his head and clapped them three times. “Attention, attention,” he said, trying to be heard over the noise in the room. Commander Mason helped him out by yelling, “Attention! Captain on the deck!”

  The room quieted instantly. “Mister Washoe, you’re closest, kill that comm tower for a second,” Haad said. When the squawk died out Haad continued. “Stand at ease, ladies and gentlemen. I have just been informed by Lieutenant Commander Gertz that Commander Yorn is out of danger. He’s recovering over at the Base Hospital in the ICU. Doctor, doctor —”

  “Jamison,” Gertz supplied.

  “Doctor Jamison expects him to make a full recovery. He’ll be out of action for a few weeks, but considering what he’s gone through, that’s really good news. I would like to thank each and every one of you that expressed your concern to me. If you know any, say a few prayers that he will join us as soon as possible.”

  A thin ripple of quiet conversation started, followed by a smattering of applause.

  “We are still on hold here until Admiral Paine can make all of the ship assignments, and I expect that to be done in the next few hours. Some of us will be going off to new ships, some of us will still crew together. No matter what happens, take your Christi pride with you; may it serve you well. That is all,” Haad finished.

  Immediately, the room was awash with conversation again. Someone near the door reactivated the comm stack and radio traffic bounced just beneath the human voices. Max turned to Ken Royal again and asked, “Was he talking about the real Davi Yorn?”

  Ken nodded. He explained what had happened out on the airfield, how close Yorn had come to losing his life.

  “Well, that’s some small measure of relief,” Max said.

  “Captain Uriel Haad, Captain Haad. Incoming message.”

  The room quieted for a moment. “Turn that up, Mister Washoe,” Haad said as he made way for the comm stack.

  Haad pushed the stack controls, entered his command codes and listened. It was Admiral Paine. His new ship was ready for her crew. No space trials, no burn in. Sign here and she’s all yours.

  The message ended and Haad rubbed his face. Hell, that sounded like a used ground-car sales pitch.

  He smiled, pumped his fist and left the room.

  * * *

  After running around the campus a few times and finding no one worthy enough to help him, Har stealthily retreated to his dorm room. Heck, he thought, for his first day, this was not going so well.

  He took the stairs two at a time and once on the second floor, he hurried down the corridor, looking at the numbers above the doors. He had no idea what was behind any of the doors he scooted past and it would not have surprised him if that goon Yorn was lurking behind one of them. When he reached his room, B-212, he paused and put an ear to the door. He heard something rustling around in there.

  Summoning all of his strength and nerve, Har turned the knob, took a deep breath, and slammed the door open, yelling as he entered. Someone was rifling through one of the cupboards! Before the intruder had a chance to react, Har hit him around the waist and brought him down. He had his fist balled up and raised and was just about to launch his attack when he saw the startled face below him.

  It was that Cory Chase kid.

  “Have you lost your freakin’ mind?” Cory yelled at him. “What’re you doing in my room, you maniac!”

  Har eased up and Cory pushed his way off the floor. “What do you mean ‘your’ room. This is MY room!”

  Cory just shook his head and gave Har a shove to the shoulder. “Great. They put me in here with a raving lunatic.”

  “Shut up, spaghetti sauce face,” Har shot back.

  The boys were just about ready to go at it again when a loud voice from the doorway interrupted them.

  “Silence! Both of you!”

  They turned and looked back at the door. One of the upperclassmen was standing in the doorframe in his shorts and shower shoes. He had a towel draped around his neck. To Har, he looked like the prince of darkness in the shadowy light.

  “You newbies need to pipe down so we real sailors can get our rest. In the morning you’ll find out a few things about decorum and discipline. My name is Midshipman Taft. Get to know that name, newbies. I am the Officer of the Deck for the second floor. Dorm monitor, if you will. You both are on report.”

  Holy shit, Har thought. What had he gotten himself into? This almost-a-man clown was busting his chops the first day! He cast a disparaging eye at Cory Chase and hooked a thumb at him. “This idiot started it,” he said.

  “What’s your name, cadet?” Taft said as he took a step closer.

  “Hansen. Harold Hansen.”

  A knowing smile worked Taft’s lips. “So. You’re the one.”

  Har pushed his chest out a few centimeters. Ha! The world has already heard of me! Finally, he thought, assemble the troops, let the parades begin, let —

  “I’ll just add trashing the dining hall to your list of crimes, Mister Hansen. You’ll be pulling extra cleanup details around here for a month. As soon as your orientation assembly is over tomorrow, you need to see —”

  Another booming
voice from the doorway. “Where is Mister Hansen?” The three cadets in the room all turned at the same time. It was Taft that reacted first. “Officer on the deck!” he shouted and snapped to attention.

  Har and Cory exchanged quizzical glances. “That would be me, sir,” Har said to the door.

  A tall muscular SP lieutenant pushed his way into the room. Har could see about ten more armed guys out in the hallway. Midshipman Taft shot him a disparaging look. “Mister Hansen, I am Lieutenant Miles from the SP barracks at Weyring Navy Base. By direct orders of Admiral Vincent Paine, I am here to escort you to the school’s Provost Office. You boys make way for Mister Hansen.”

  As far as shit-eating grins went, Har had one that was a record-breaker. He dipped his head and rotated his shoulders one way as he passed Cory Chase, the other way as he brushed past Mister “details for a month” Taft. “See ya, boys,” he whispered over his shoulder as he followed Lieutenant Miles out.

  Taft left an open-mouthed Cory in the room and took two steps out into the hall. As he watched Harold being marched away he realized his own mouth was hanging open.

  Chapter 43

  Zuure Inskaap was held in solitary confinement. After the human woman and that Captain Haad left him for the last time, he’d been gathered up by an armed squad of Colonial Marines and force-marched to the detention center. None of his belongings were confiscated, he was neither searched nor interrogated further. The master-at-arms at the booking desk barely looked at him as he was checked in.

  Inskaap realized that emotions were running high. He knew if Bale Phatie had already launched his first strike against the humans he was instantly propelled to the forefront of their suspicions and hatred as if he had fired the first shot himself. No matter. Let them think what they want. He was here to help them and after they got over their initial xenophobia they would be back. Even though he had given them the bulk of his technical and operational knowledge, there were still a couple of things they would be extremely interested in knowing. Like the emotional side of Bale Phatie. What drives him, what makes him tick.

  He was placed in an isolated cell and the door was locked behind him. The marine didn’t treat him roughly, he was not pushed or prodded into his cell from behind. All in all, his treatment by these “barbaric” humans had been better than he had hoped it would be. No torture, no drugs, no threats.

  Maybe Bale Phatie had misjudged the humans. Maybe they were only interested in preserving their own lineage, protecting their own worlds from the Malguur encroachment. Either way, the lines were thinly defined for him. No matter how his affair in this war turned out, win or lose, he could never go home again. He would forever be ostracized for being a traitor by his countrymen. His name would be purged from all official records and documents. And, should the humans come out on the losing side of this latest conflict and he was found and delivered into the hands of Phatie, he would be instantly and painfully killed.

  He stretched out on the little metal cot and put his coat under his head.

  Within minutes he was fast asleep.

  His dreams were of Canuure.

  * * *

  When Captain Haad returned to his crew, he asked for silence and read the list of sailors he expected to report to the Hudson River as soon as the shuttles were ready. He explained the new destroyer had been ferried to the Port Authority dock only hours ago and now that the first wave of fighting was done for the moment, it was a good time to get her underway.

  “For those of you not on this list, return to central control downstairs and await your indiviual orders. I did the best I could to have you all with me on the Hudson River but Fleet has other plans for a lot of you, plans that will help your careers in the long run. I’m sure I will come alongside many of you in the future and I wish you all well, smooth sailing, and Godspeed.”

  A rumble of voices started up again and more than fifty rankings and ratings hustled out of the room with several sailors stopping by to shake the captain’s hand and wish him luck. For the seventy crewmen left in the room, Haad had a few more things to say.

  “Right now, the base and it’s outlying facilities are on lock-down. You will need exit permits or signed orders to board the shuttles, which I believe have been ordered for 0100 hours. That gives you a few hours to contact any friends or relatives you have on Bayliss, or record your mail for off-planet delivery. Use this time well, gentlemen and ladies, because once we hit the decks of the Hudson River we’re going to be in it for the duration.”

  A few questions were tossed at him from members of his crew and he fielded them expertly without any ambiguity. Most of them were concerned with the new duty assignments and the allocation of authority. Haad announced there would be a round of promotions once the ship got underway and several of his crew would be bumped up into new assignments. He reminded his enlisted staff that should their time-in-grade requirements were already satisfied and their fitness reports were reasonably clean, there would be a few promotions there as well. Since the destroyer was a bigger ship than the fast-attack boat they had been used to, he told them about the new crewmen they would meet once they were safely loaded onboard. New weapons meant new weapons controlmen; the new hull configuration meant new hull ratings; new drive physics meant new engineering chiefs and new science officers and so forth.

  Some groans, some cheers. Typical resistance to change for some, typical reaction to new things for others. Haad dismissed the crew but asked that his senior officers remain along with his former bridge crewmen of any stripe. That request included Maxine Hansen.

  Once the room cleared out, the men and women set to crew the Hudson River gathered around the captain. Before he could begin, Ken Royal held up his hand. “What about me, captain?”

  Haad looked surprised. That was a good question. What about the military liaison guy from the NHPD? “You can stay, sergeant, but I’m thinking that we have most of the security arrangements made from this end. I’ll have to check with Admiral Paine on that one and get back to you.”

  Royal nodded and eased out of the crowd. Haad lamented the fact that he was not better prepared. This whole Varson Revenge Tour had caught a lot of people off guard and now that they were waist deep in the shit, answers to routine questions would have to be put on hold until the guys upstairs had a look at them. He also didn’t like the fact that there were no seats for his crew in this makeshift meeting room. But, he realized, two whole floors of rooms like this one were being used by other captains in the same boat as he was. He would just have to improvise and overcome.

  Haad walked among his crew when he talked. “Just so we are all on the same page, there are a few things I want you to be aware of. First, once aboard the Hudson we will be one hundred percent on a wartime footing. That means you must observe all of your security protocols when it comes to talking about ship movements, staff strengths and so on. Secondly, it has been recently discovered that one of our senior officers at the Fleet Level has been compromising our operational structure and supplying our enemies with details as to our various ship locations, ship construction details and other vital information.”

  He held up his hands and gestured for quiet as the voices started to overwhelm the room. “That person is currently being sought at the War College and I would expect her to be apprehended shortly. Under no circumstances are you to take any orders from Rear Admiral Coni Berger without my direct approval. You have to understand that her betrayal has hit the Admiralty hard and eventually the fallout from this will be felt for a long time. Somebody dropped the ball and Berger has been aiding and abetting the Varson for a long period of time. Her motive? Revenge. She lost her daughter in the first Varson War and, apparently, she never got over it.”

  “Sir,” Bill Mason spoke up, “where do we stand with the action that’s going on around Bayliss?”

  “That’s my third point, Bill. We most likely will have to fight out way out of Brophy-21’s gravity well and rendezvous with remnants of the First, ships commandeere
d or recommissioned to help us until the Second can call off its pursuit of the Kreet and make it back from the Belt Loop. I have no idea what shape those old First Fleet ships are in, but many of them will be sent in as diversions, remotely piloted and crewless. It seems the Varson Empire has constructed some new weapon systems since their defeat. New drive mechanisms as well. So, until we get a proper look at them, we’ll have to prepare for any and every eventuality.”

  “How many ships do we have to defend Bayliss, sir,” someone else queried.

  “At the present time? Unknown, Mister Gant. Pax Curton and a new kid named Fuller are taking it to the Varson ships with only a handful of Fleet vessels. Needless to say, right now, we’re outgunned and outnumbered. It’s probably going to take a good week for us to recover from this first probing strike. Also, the Varson Empire is holding one of our ships, the Lake Tahoe. She was taking a trade delegation to Galena-221 for meetings with the Varsons about opening up a peaceful dialogue with the colonies. So much for that shit. There are over 400 sailors and politicians — not to mention a Colonial Navy warship — in enemy hands. Eventually they will have to be rescued. Keep in mind the Varson campaign has already destroyed dozens of our blockade ships as well.”

  Max Hansen spoke next. “Sir, how is it that we have all of this information and is it reliable?”

  “Good question, Mister Hansen. I’m sure all of you remember Lieutenant Niki Mols? Well, she was able to put her hands on one of the Varson Intelligence Officers, a man named Inskaap. We have him locked up down in the brig. Anyway,” Haad said after a brief pause to let the noise settle down, “this Colonel Inskaap is well versed in Elberese and we had a nice long chat with him and he pretty much spilled his guts about this attack and the new madman that’s running things over beyond the Fringes. So far, his info has been entirely accurate. As a matter of fact, he was the one that tipped us off about the possibility of the Admiralty having a traitor on staff. It didn’t take us long to find out about Coni Berger.”