“No doubt orbiting home-world will give them the experience they’ll need to fight the Humans,” NGark droned politely. “It will be a lesson in patience, if nothing else.”
“Their duties are no longer your concern,” PShelt replied, eyes wide and skin slightly darker. “If you had been properly vigilant and your forces more competently led…” He stopped in mid tirade to look to the side. A voice in the background was too low for NGark to make out.
“Boarders?” PShelt sounded incredulous. “How can there be Humans on this ship?”
NGark nearly chuckled. He’d come close over the last few millennia but never so close as this. He’d almost been startled into it by the absurdity of PShelt’s sudden predicament. In the midst of lecturing him about vigilance and preparedness, the fool had let the enemy sneak aboard one of the Quorum’s two greatest vessels?
“Perhaps you could finish your discourse on the value of vigilance after you resolve your current problems?” NGark suggested. “Though I fear duty allows only one outcome when a ship is being over-run.”
PShelt had always been quick to blame other leaders for allowing their ships to fall into enemy hands. He turned back to face NGark. “I will show you what preparedness means, Grand Ballista. I am fully prepared to do my duty.” He turned his gaze slightly to look at one of his tactical officers. “Initiate the self-destruct.”
There was the briefest of pauses which then grew into an uncomfortable moment before finally achieving its full potential as an outright disaster. PShelt cast his gaze about his own bridge, his complexion growing very light.
“Not as prepared as you might have thought,” NGark offered helpfully. “My only regret is that your shame will have to be posthumous.”
PShelt didn’t appear to have heard him and he seemed as though he’d lost the ability to make decisions. He simply stood there, the nictitating membranes flicking sideways across his eyes in denial until his head suddenly lurched toward NGark.
The Grand Ballista nearly reacted to the sudden motion before reminding himself that he was only watching a hologram. His nemesis tumbled out of sight and a Human stepped into view, looking down at PShelt for a moment before facing NGark.
NGark gave the man a polite nod. “I should thank you,” he said politely. “You’ve taken one of our capital ships, but you’ve also removed an imbecile from our ranks. Given the damage he could have caused, I believe the Quorum has the better of the deal."
Flashpoint
“Distortion alert!” The sensor coordinator grabbed the sides of his station, leaning back from the display in alarm. “Only two traces but one is gonna be big. They’re bringing a planet killer!”
“Beat to quarters!” Julia broke off her discussion with the quartermaster, stepping into the pickup circle for the central holo system. She shot an angry look to the left. “Tactical, my display shows no indicators.”
The tactical officer’s head lowered as if he thought he could hide it between his shoulders. “Sorry, ma’am. Linking through now.”
She’d had to train her privateer bridge crews and thought she’d catch a break, now that she had commissioned Imperial officers to work with, but these were all engineers. The sooner she got her dragoons back aboard the Sucker Punch, the better.
“If this is an attack run,” she mused to nobody in particular, “they’re awfully far out, and why such a small escort for a capital ship?” She activated the fleet-wide channel. “Nobody fires, unless the inbounds fire first.”
“Wei!” The sensor coordinator leaned in to squint at the image. “Tianxiaode what’s going on, but that’s the same hunk of goushi that made fools of us at Nidaveller!”
Julia couldn’t help but laugh. Right in the middle of her wishing for her beloved dragoons, they showed up.
And they brought their general a present!
***
“Hand to the gods!” Paul insisted, grinning at the senior officers assembled in Julia’s quarters. She kept a few couches arranged around a low table in one corner of the large room. It made for a good think tank. A place where officers could think more freely than they could in a formalized setting. “We think he was the guy in charge of defense at Nurazhal and he told me we’d removed an imbecile from their chain of command.”
“He actually thanked you?” Windemere grinned. “Didn’t think the Grays had a sense of humor.”
“Technically, he said he should thank us,” Daffyd corrected. “But he considered the ship to be an adequate trade.”
“More than adequate.” Paul leaned forward to snag a mug and the carafe of coffee. “He said the Quorum had come out ahead in the deal.”
Julia snorted. “Did you kill him?”
Paul set the carafe down and enjoyed a sip. “Ahh! That’s good! We ran out a week ago.” He cradled the hot mug in his hands. “We would have killed the little bastard but, if he’s as bad as that commander seems to think, and he’s connected enough to get a planet killer…”
“…then he’s of more use to us alive and serving the Quorum than he is dead?” Julia flashed him a grin.
“How do we know the commander at Nurazhal didn’t just have an axe to grind?” Pulver asked.
“Oh, he probably has more than a few axes to grind,” Eddie assured him. The dragoon squadron commander nodded at the coffee tray and Daffyd pushed it across the table.
“For one thing,” Eddie continued as he poured, “we translated the intercepts after the fact and it sounded like our prisoner was coming to relieve the commander of the Nurazhal defenses.”
“For what?” Ava leaned forward slightly to see the dragoon officer. “He pulled off a clever and highly unorthodox defense. We never got a single shot on target and we lost people for nothing.”
“Might want to re-evaluate that,” Eddie replied mildly.
“When we got there,” Paul told her, “half the station was already down in the atmosphere and the rest was trailing in behind it. Something must have made it through.”
“Wo de ma!” Ava was on the edge of her seat. “I have no idea how that happened, but it’s a win and we’ll take it!”
“A big win,” Julia emphasized. “If we could find a way to match it at Govi Darkhan, we could seize the place instead of destroying it.” It was a major logistics center for the Grays, serving most of the sectors on the Rim border, and it allowed their reach into the colonies as well, but they’d also learned from Brother N’Zim that a major research project had been set up there.
“Not with the kind of ground troops we have,” Ava cut her off. “You know they’re suited for lightning raids, not stand-up fights against heavy armor.”
“I know,” Julia conceded, “but you can’t blame a Marine for wanting a stand-up fight against the only Gray ground forces we’ve found, so far.” She waved it off. “Fine. We let them launch one raid across the Rim and then we’ll try out our new planet killer on Govi Darkhan, even if it is in the perfect spot to support our own push against the Grays. Just destroying that planet would scare the Grays. Actually taking it…”
She shook her head. “I know, I keep coming back to it. Let’s just get the crew transfer handled and we can get ourselves back across the Rim before the Grays come.”
Windemere looked as if he’d swallowed a live rat. “Why don’t we just take shuttles? The wormhole will put us next to Roanoke; why bother taking that piece of…?”
Julia held up a hand. “Remember, Vance; that ship has a special place in my heart as well as the hearts of the dragoons who made her and served in her. Park the Rope a Dope in a stable orbit and keep an anchor watch aboard. The accommodations are actually quite nice, if you can ignore the musty smell.”
“It’s just the anchor watch that’ll be staying on the ship,” Ava added. “For you, it’s a short hop through the wormhole and a shuttle down to the surface.” She handed Windemere a chip. “Go to my house and give this to Edward. He’ll arrange lodging for your team as well as office and lab space.”
�
�We’re all staking you, General.” Paul paused. “Perhaps we should start calling you ‘Chairman’? Anyway, we’re anxious to see a return on our investments, so the sooner you get set up on Roanoke and cranking out armor, the better.”
Julia looked around the room. “Any other concerns before we get back to work?”
“Dmitry could use a few privateers to back up our skeleton crew on the Mictlan,” Eddie replied.
“You named her after a prison?”
Eddie shrugged. “We named her after the same ancient underworld that the prison got its name from. And it makes ApRhys feel at home, seeing as he spent so much time in lockup…”
“How many do you need to run that thing?”
He activated a holo in the middle of the table. “Planet killers have even more automation, ton for ton, than their cruisers but she still needs another twenty-five crew.” He waved at the list hovering over the carafe. “The specialties are all broken out by division.”
“We’ll put out a call to the fleet.” Julia grinned. “But I don’t think there’ll be any shortage of volunteers to work with 1GD.”
Julia stood. “Eddie, let me know the instant our boys are aboard. We’ll send our new engineering firm to their new home first and then it’s back to the Imperium for us.”
They had a war to spark.
The officers filed out as Paul set his coffee down and moved over to his pile of gear. He was moving to the Sucker Punch with the dragoons, while Julia would remain in the flag quarters aboard the INV Dark Star.
For the moment, though, they were in the same room and there was nobody else with them. When the door whispered shut behind Windemere, Paul dropped the bag he’d been looking through and turned, eyes widening in surprise as Julia pounced.
They fell onto the bed but she wrinkled her nose, sitting up astride him. “You smell like a mouldy old dragoon ship. I move we start with a shower.” She deactivated the seams on her underarmor suit, smiling at the obvious hunger in his eyes. “Unless there are any objections?”
The motion carried.
Reinforcements
Julia walked onto the bridge, gripping her mug of coffee as a talisman against the monotony. Nearly two weeks of waiting for the Grays to show up at Santa Clara had left them wondering if they’d missed something. A quick glance at the status display showed that the Hasty Ferrets of 3rd squadron were currently out screening the fleet and keeping an eye on the Imperial world from an undetectable distance.
Though she missed Paul, it felt good to be living on a Human-designed ship. No matter how much time she spent on the Gray warships, they always felt alien. The ceilings were too low, even though they were designed around the same standard bulkhead panels and components used in the export market, and she didn’t want to even mention the engineering needed to make Gray bathroom facilities accommodate Human digestive systems.
Captain Liu gave her a nod as she walked past him to the chair reserved for admirals, generals and other such nuisances.
“Anything new tonight, Captain?”
A nod. “A carrier group jumped in, right about the middle of the last dog watch. Looks like Marines and they came in ready for trouble. Had a combat air patrol outside the ship during distortion, tucked up next to the nacelles, and they spread out the instant the envelope collapsed.”
She looked over at Liu. Like most Navy officers, he would only grudgingly admit that the Marines might have a sound reason for acquiring carriers of their own and he doubtless felt such an asset was wasted on them. Still, despite the way he’d pronounced the word ‘carrier’, she thought she’d detected a hint of admiration at the way they’d arrived in system.
More importantly, the presence of properly led Marines was unusual. She looked back at the display. They’d sent drones back to the Imperium from Uruk, detailing the atrocities committed by the Grays. The public would be in an uproar and His Majesty’s government couldn’t just ignore it without damaging the illusion of a democratic constitutional monarchy.
A force would have to be sent to investigate, even if just along the Rim, and a senator would have to put on his uniform and lead the effort as a praetor. Julia could think of very few senators who could be trusted to carry out the task and only one that would please the angry mob.
Time to stop hiding.
“Captain, please be so good as to hail the Marine carrier group.”
Liu turned his head her way a tiny bit before mastering his surprise. “Aye, ma’am. Comms, open the channel.”
Julia waited for the green icon in her holo. “IMC Xipe Totec, this is General Julia Urbica aboard the INV Dark Star, over.”
There was a pause, long enough that she began to wonder if the transmission had been picked up, but the answer finally came.
“Dark Star, this is Totec Actual. I have to say, I expected to find you, just not right here, over.”
Julia grinned. It was good to hear Tony’s voice. “Tony, we’ve got enough Ferrets out to act as repeaters. Switch over to holo.”
Tony shimmered into view in front of her. The newest leader of the powerful Nathaniel senatorial dynasty gave her a happy smile. “Good to see you, Julia. You’ve been busy, haven’t you?”
“Well, CentCom sent me out there, so they can’t complain about what I found, now, can they?”
“They sure tried,” Tony said happily. “Blew up in their faces, though, so here I am.” His face took on an expression of mock solemnity. “They’ve determined, in all their wisdom, that the Grays might decide we’re pissed at them and that they might just attempt a pre-emptive attack on a few of our weak points.”
“Lords almighty,” Julia exclaimed. “Who are those people and what have they done with the real CentCom?” She rarely used sarcasm in front of her people, but she had no real intention of returning to the Imperium and neither did the crew of the Dark Star. The few who had loved ones in the Imperium would be arranging to have them brought out to the colonies.
Tony laughed. “So when do you expect the Grays?”
“Any day now. They’re probably just busy discussing the mundane details at the moment. We’ve got Santa Clara covered but Paul could use your help at Irricana.”
“Paul!” Tony nodded, clearly pleased to hear his friend and mentor was still alive. “The Navy has a couple squadrons of heavy gunboats and a pair of frigates there. What does Paul have?”
“He has 1GD, a couple of privateer cruisers and a frigate to help protect the Sucker Punch and a Gray planet-killer.”
“Planet killer?”
“Yeah, but it’s not like it’s a one-shot weapon. It fires a series of huge masses in relatively rapid succession. Destroys a world’s ecosystem, kicks up enough dust and debris to freeze the inhabitants.” She shrugged. “They still have at least one more of the damned things.”
Tony frowned. “Combine that with their source-directed wormhole engine and you’ve got a deadly combination.”
“Which is why we need to hit them hard,” Julia insisted. “If they’re working to revive the wormhole program, they could open a hole over the Imperial palace and dictate terms to us. We need to push them into a corner where they can’t get up to any more mischief.”
“What sort of forces can the colonies bring to the fight?”
“The colonies?” Urbica leaned in. “They’re just a myth, aren’t they?”
Tony laughed. “One of my ancestors advised against abandoning them but he was overruled. We don’t forget about stuff like that.”
“They mostly have converted freighters,” Julia replied. “The Grays have been steering them at each other’s throats for a few decades but it’s backfiring on them now. The colonials have a fair bit of experience at fighting and they’ve been seizing Gray ships and turning them against their former owners.” She suddenly raised a hand, eyes wide.
“I almost forgot. Paul’s sister is one of their foremost privateer leaders.”
“Sister?” Tony stared at her for a moment. “I’ve known Paul for f
ifteen years and I never even knew he had a sister. You’re with him for a year and a half…” He laughed. “No contest, I suppose. You’re way prettier than I am…”
Julia shook her head in mock exasperation. “Get your ass to Irricana, General.”
The holographic Tony bowed. “I defer to the senior officer.”
Julia smiled as he shimmered out of sight. Tony could easily over-rule her by falling back on the title of praetor that the senate had almost certainly bestowed upon him before he came out here, but that wasn’t the Nathaniel style.
If he felt she was wrong, he wouldn’t hesitate to use his title to enforce his decisions, but he agreed with her and so he’d go where she said he was needed. The power of the Nathaniel family didn’t come from their titles but, rather, from their actions.
If the Imperium had more like them, then this war wouldn’t have been necessary.
Ascendancy
Carrier Warfare
The arrival of Tony’s carrier group had changed the nature of Irricana’s defense. Rather than waiting in orbit for a desperate defensive action, they’d been able to move the engagement zone farther out toward Gray territory.
They knew where the enemy force would be resupplying, seeing as Ava and her fleet had left only one option open to the enemy, and so they could predict their attack route with a large degree of confidence. That would let them dictate the location, if not the time, of the battle.
“Daffyd knows a place in Vermillion that makes Arty Sings,” Paul told his holographic friend. “They’re sending out a shuttle-load right now, free of charge, so we’ll be stocked up again in no time.”
Tony chuckled. “I’m almost surprised to hear someone’s making classified gear out here but,” he spread his hands in resigned acceptance, “it’s the Rim.”
The Arty Sings, or artificial singularity generators, were used by the military to force a passing vessel or fleet out of distortion where they could be engaged. The military version was roughly half the size of an adult male.
The Gray Matter (Rebels and Patriots Book 3) Page 26
