Frontiers 05 Rise of the Corinari

by Ryk Brown

  “Good thinking.” Nathan looked around the bridge, fighting the urge to make some witty remark, knowing that if he did so he would catch hell from Tug.

  “Captain,” Jessica called, “I suggest we set general quarters before jumping.”

  “I thought the scans showed no hostiles in the system?” Nathan asked.

  “Yes, sir, but that data is twelve hours old. For all we know, a battleship could’ve arrived during that time,” she explained. “Better safe than sorry.”

  “Very well,” Nathan agreed. “Comms, set general quarters.”

  Naralena keyed up the ship-wide alert system. A moment later, the lighting in the bridge changed, taking on a red hue, and the alert klaxon sounded. Another moment later a prerecorded voice announced “General quarters! General quarters! All hands, man your battle stations!”

  Nathan glanced at his watch and waited patiently, knowing that, throughout the ship, his new crew of Corinairan volunteers were rushing to their assigned stations. Weapons stations would be manned. Damage control parties would be positioned throughout key areas of the ship. Additional staff would report to the engineering, power generation, and life support compartments. Even medical would swing into action, sending quick response teams to strategic locations throughout the ship. In a few more weeks, they’d even have fighters preparing for quick-shot launches in the fighter alleys on either side of the main hangar bay. After operating with only thirty some odd crew for nearly a month, it felt good to have at least one full shift available.

  “All compartments report manned and ready, Captain,” Jessica reported. “All four reactors are online and are running at fifty percent. Chief of the boat is in Damage Control.”

  “Very well,” Nathan answered. He looked at his watch. One minute even. Much better than their time on the last drill. “Doctor, jump the ship to Savoy.”

  “Attention all hands. Prepare to jump,” Abby announced ship-wide. “Jumping in three……two……one……jump.”

  The bridge instantly filled with the blue-white flash of the jump, disappearing just as quickly. The reddish-orange gas giant, Deikon, suddenly filled the port side of the main view screen as the planet streaked past them at rather close range, momentarily filling the bridge with an eerie reddish-orange cast.

  “Whoa,” Dumar exclaimed with a start, flinching slightly as the massive planet slid past. His eyes were wide, having never witnessed a jump before. Until recently, he had only known linear faster-than-light propulsion, which required months to traverse the relatively short distances between the star systems of the empire. “Incredible,” Dumar mumbled to himself.

  “Yes, it is,” Tug responded under his breath.

  “Cutting it a little close, aren’t you, Doctor?” Nathan stated.

  “The new emitters are quite precise, Captain,” Abby defended. “And we were trying to hide our jump flash, were we not?”

  “Yes, but maybe a few more kilometers next time,” Nathan said. “Or at least warn us first.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  “It’s okay, sir,” Loki reported. “We’re plenty far away. Deikon is just a really big gas giant.”

  “Yeah, I can see that,” Nathan agreed.

  “Coming up on insertion point for stellar orbit,” Josh reported. “Beginning deceleration.”

  “Remember, you’re a Takaran warship, so try not to burn any more fuel than necessary, just in case anyone is watching. You have to protect Captain de Winter’s reputation,” Nathan mused.

  “Uh, you mean the guy who shot me, right?” Josh remarked.

  Nathan recognized the sarcasm in Josh’s voice and patted him on the shoulder. “Yeah, that guy.”

  “What do we do if someone calls us?” Jessica asked.

  “Ensign Willard assured me that no one in the system would hail the Yamaro first. They would only answer if the Yamaro called them,” Nathan explained. “I guess the residents prefer not to call attention to themselves. We will have to contact the garrison on Ancot before we launch our shuttles, however.”

  “Ensign Willard has briefed me on the proper frequencies and protocols, sir,” Naralena announced. “However, Mister Tugwell will handle the communications, as there would not be a female serving aboard a Ta’Akar warship.”

  “Understood,” Nathan acknowledged. “Helm, time to orbit?”

  “Five minutes, sir,” Loki responded.

  “Very well. Comms, tell the shuttles to prepare for launch.”

  “Yes, sir,” Naralena answered.

  “Tug, are you ready?” Nathan asked.

  Tug stepped up next to Naralena at the comm station. “I am ready,” he said confidently.

  Naralena finished updating the shuttle pilots and Ensign Willard. She then set up the frequency and encryption according to the instructions given to her by Ensign Willard, who had been a communications technician aboard the Yamaro right up until the moment he had led the mutiny that resulted in her surrender. “Frequency selected; encryption activated. Opening channel,” she stated in routine fashion. “Waiting for encryption lock.”

  Nathan looked at Tug, concern on his face. “For this deception to be successful,” Tug explained, “the communications system at the garrison on Ancot must accept our encryption challenge and create a secure communications link. The Ta’Akar do not transmit anything in the clear.”

  “And if they don’t?” Nathan asked.

  “Then you have two choices,” Tug continued. “You can send the shuttles down and hope the officer in charge at the spaceport will accept the shuttles into his airspace without proper clearance, or we can send a message stating that, if they fail to respond, we will depart without picking up the conscripts and they can answer to command for their failure.”

  “You think that would work?” Nathan asked.

  “Which one?”

  “Either one.”

  “Sending the shuttles down without clearance might still work, but sending a message threatening to leave would be a safer tactic, as it has less chance of repercussions,” Tug observed. “However, it would fail to get our intelligence asset on the surface of Ancot.”

  “What’s taking so long?” Josh said.

  “The Savoy system may be small, Josh,” Tug said, “but we are still a considerable distance from Ancot. It will take at least ten minutes for our request to reach the planet, and another ten minutes for their answer to reach us.”

  “That’s an extra half hour with our butts hanging out just waiting for some backyard astronomer to find us with his telescope,” Jessica complained.

  “Possible, but highly unlikely,” Tug commented.

  “Captain,” Mister Dumar said, “it would be acceptable practice to launch the shuttles before receiving confirmation back from the garrison. Such an action would not be abnormal for an arrogant nobleman in command of a warship. After all, they are not known for their patience.”

  “You’re just telling me this now?” Nathan asked, somewhat annoyed.

  “I was not included in the original planning of this mission, Captain,” Mister Dumar stated.

  “What do you think?” Nathan asked Tug.

  “There is little risk,” Tug agreed. “And it would reduce the amount of time that we are at risk of exposure. Besides, you can always recall them if necessary.”

  “Very well. Launch the shuttles,” Nathan ordered Naralena.

  * * *

  Ensign Willard sat in his rear-facing seat at the front of the passenger area of one of the Yamaro’s two shuttles. The shuttles were quite large, and could easily seat over one hundred men each. For now, there were only nine men in the passenger area, including himself. Soon, every seat would be full of fresh young inductees snatched from their lives on the farms of Ancot, forced to serve in the Ta’Akar military.

  “Stand by for departure,” the voice crackled over the loudspeakers.

  Finally, he thought. They had been sitting on the flight apron outside of the Aurora’s transfer airlocks for nearly thi
rty minutes. As dangerous as their mission was, he very much wanted to get it over and done with.

  The shuttle jolted slightly as the pilot fired his ascent thrusters just enough to push away from the mild artificial gravity generated by the Aurora’s flight apron. Firing again, the shuttle increased its rate of separation, climbing up above the height of the topside of the Aurora before thrusting forward.

  Ensign Willard and his men all looked out the windows of the shuttle as it skimmed along the top of the Aurora. She was a sleek ship with graceful lines, far more graceful than Takaran ships which tended to pay more attention to function than aesthetics. He remembered his conversations with Lieutenant Commander Nash, who had explained that the Aurora and her sister ship, the Celestia, were intended to act as peace envoys first. He could see how her overall design would appear less threatening than the ships of the empire.

  As they continued coasting forward, Ensign Willard could make out the various doors that covered the ship’s numerous rail guns and other weapons emplacements. He noticed that the ship’s light gray topsides seemed to have a shine to them, with little bits of light from the Savoyan Sun glistening off her finish.

  Moments later, they passed forward of the Aurora, her gray image disappearing behind them quickly as the shuttle pilot fired their main engines and sped away. While larger interplanetary cargo ships might still use transfer orbits to navigate between worlds, ships with more power used brute force, acceleration and deceleration to traverse the vast distances of interplanetary space. Transfer orbits took time, too much time, and that was something they did not have.

  * * *

  “Encryption request acknowledge, Captain,” Naralena announced. “We have an open channel with the Ancot garrison.”

  “Excellent,” Nathan exclaimed, a wave of relief coming over the bridge.

  “We are ready to transmit,” she told Tug.

  “Ancot garrison, Ancot garrison, this is the Imperial Warship Yamaro,” Tug announced in Takaran over his comm-set. “We have dispatched shuttles to Ancot spaceport for scheduled pick up of inductees headed for training on Takara. You are instructed to have all passengers ready for boarding.”

  “That was straight to the point,” Jessica commented, “not that I understood any of it.”

  “It was very concise,” Naralena assured Jessica.

  “I thought it best not to give them any reason to doubt our veracity,” Tug stated.

  “So now we wait another twenty minutes to see if they believe us,” Nathan stated.

  “Unfortunately, yes,” Tug admitted.

  “Captain, if they don’t, we’re barely going to have enough time to send an abort message to those shuttles,” Jessica warned.

  “I’m well aware of that, thanks,” Nathan replied.

  * * *

  The intercom next to Ensign Willard buzzed twice. He picked up the handset and listened for a moment. “Understood.” After hanging the handset back up, he turned his attention to the eight men sitting in front of him. “Listen up!” he called out. “We just got our go signal, which means so far the garrison believes that the Yamaro is in the system and is sending her shuttles down for a pick up. It is up to us now. Remember, you are security troops of the Ta’Akar. Do as we rehearsed, and watch me for instructions.”

  Willard looked at the faces of his men, none of which appeared confident about the outcome of their mission. “Get it together!” he snapped. “We hit the atmosphere in five minutes!”

  The men tightened their harnesses in preparation for the turbulent ride through the upper atmosphere of Ancot. In ten minutes, they would be landing at the spaceport, and they would either succeed or perish.

  * * *

  The Yamaro’s two shuttles came in low over the spaceport, their engines screaming as they came to a hover just beyond the rows of inductees waiting on the tarmac. They rotated slowly, bringing their port sides to face their waiting passengers as they descended to the tarmac, settling gently onto their landing gear.

  As their engines spun down, the boarding ramp on the first shuttle began to deploy and its boarding hatch swung open. Shortly after, the boarding ramp and hatch on the second shuttle also deployed and opened.

  The eight volunteers, all clad in the uniforms and body armor of the Ta’Akar security division, came marching confidently down the ramp with their heavy weapons held close across their chests. Their helmets and chin straps were taut and their body armor glistened in the afternoon Savoyan sun as they split into two lines and fanned out, four men per side in either direction. Once in position, they turned to face the inductees lined up in eight rows of fifty. The volunteers stared straight ahead, their eyes locked on seemingly nothing.

  Ensign Willard, now dressed as a lieutenant of the Ta’Akar and wearing the sash of a noble house, came down the boarding ramp with all the arrogance and charm expected of Takaran nobility. The two dozen guards from the Ancot garrison tasked with delivering the inductees to the Yamaro snapped to attention at the sight of a nobleman coming down the ramp. Reluctantly, so did the elder sergeant major in charge of the detail.

  Other than the few officers in charge at the Ancot garrison, very few nobles set foot on Ancot. Most considered the world a backward system with little to offer someone of noble blood. In fact, the sergeant major was surprised to see even a lower-ranking lieutenant of noble lineage setting foot on their dusty world. The officers of most ships that passed through the system sent down their functionaries to do their bidding on the surface of Ancot, not wanting their noses fouled by the smell of dirt and raw crops.

  Willard strode confidently up to the sergeant major, returning the salute offered by the lower-ranked elder in the same irritated manner that most Ta’Akar officers displayed when returning the salutes of those they deemed inferior. “Sergeant Major,” he addressed.

  “Welcome to Ancot, sir,” the Sergeant Major answered.

  “Yes, thank you,” Willard responded, maintaining his arrogant demeanor. “So,” he began, looking over the rows of inductees, “these are Ancot’s latest sacrifices, are they?” Willard strolled down the line a few steps before turning and coming back. “Not very impressive, are they?”

  “No, sir, not yet. But I’m sure the drill instructors on Takara will shape them up in no time,” the sergeant major assured him.

  “Yes,” Willard sighed. He looked up at the burning sun. “Dreadfully hot here, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Jalea came strolling over from the second shuttle. She was beautifully attired in her tight-fitting business suit, and her feminine charms did not go unnoticed by the sergeant major, nor by his men.

  “Lieutenant,” Jalea said as she approached, “did you forget about me?”

  “No, of course not, Miss Devonshire. I was just about to arrange for your transportation into town, as a matter of fact.” Willard turned back to the sergeant major. “Sergeant Major, allow me to introduce Miss Analise Devonshire of the Royal Bank of Takara.”

  “A pleasure, miss,” the sergeant major stated, bowing his head respectfully. “To what do we owe the honor of your visit?”

  “I am here on business,” Jalea stated, “official business,” she added, handing her documents and ident chip over to the sergeant major for inspection. “I am not at liberty to discuss it further.”

  The sergeant major understood her meaning. The Takaran banks loved to perform surprise audits of their business partners in other star systems. Something about being light years away seemed to make people think their inappropriate financial dealings would go unnoticed. Although it was not as heavily populated or industrialized as most worlds within the empire, the sheer volume of food shipped from Ancot made it a breeding ground for financial trickery.

  “I assume you can provide transportation into the city for Miss Devonshire,” Willard insisted.

  “Yes, of course,” the sergeant major promised. “Corporal!” he bellowed. A young corporal stepped forward in response to the sergeant major�
��s call.

  “Yes, sir, Sergeant Major.”

  “Transport Miss Devonshire into town and then meet us back at the garrison,” the sergeant major instructed.

  “Yes, sir,” the corporal acknowledged. “Ma’am,” he said to Jalea, offering to take her bag, “if you’ll follow me.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant Major,” Jalea said. “Pleasant journey, Lieutenant.”

  “To you as well, Miss Devonshire,” Willard replied.

  “Very well,” Willard stated, “let’s get on with it, then.”

  “Excuse me, Lieutenant,” the sergeant major said, “but I will need your orders, sir.”

  “My orders?”

  “The ones authorizing me to turn over two hundred inductees to your charge, sir.”

  “Oh, yes, of course,” Willard said, reaching into the pouch on his belt. He pulled out a data chip and handed it to the sergeant major. “Here you are.”

  “Thank you, sir.” The sergeant major inserted the data chip into his reader and looked over the electronic documents. He examined Willard, then returned his gaze to the reader, continuing to check that everything was in order. Willard waited, feigning impatience to cover his own nervousness. The orders he had given the sergeant major were indeed genuine. However, they had been tampered with by Mister Dumar in order to put Lieutenant Willard’s image, credentials, and bio-scan data into the orders in place of the officer that should have been picking up the inductees. Such forgery was not an easy task, and the readers used by security personnel were quite good at picking up the slightest discrepancy.

  As the seconds ticked away, Willard cursed himself for not reviewing Mister Dumar’s methodology more carefully. How did an old man, a commodities consultant at that, know anything about forging Ta’Akar orders and digital security stamps? So he had once served the Ta’Akar in his youth, just as Ensign Willard, but that was decades ago, and the technology had surely changed since then.

  Just as Willard was sure he was going to have to try and shoot his way out, the sergeant major’s reader beeped, startling him.