by Peter Telep
"The Terrans do possess another drive system."
"Of course they do. Sub-light impulse drives. But those do not create gravity wells."
"My studies of their history will prove valuable now, my Kalralahr. The hopper drive, developed late in their twenty-second century, produced a localized matter-antimatter reaction that resulted in a temporary space-time well in its immediate area. I believe that is what our task force encountered."
"I, too, have studied the apes. Hopper drives were extremely dangerous. The Terrans could not engage them near gravity-generating objects, and they were slow, requiring eighteen of their hours between jumps. The distances traversed were less than half a light year. They would be foolhardy to rely on such volatile devices."
"But it seems they've discovered a way to control the matter-antimatter reaction and a way to neutralize the gravitic interference created by nearby systems or ships." He raised his voice over the hum of instruments. "They could jump into our space, fly close to one of our worlds, generate their gravity well, then jump out while the well consumes the planet the same way it consumed our task force."
Vukar felt a blade of ice impale his gut as the six other bridge officers seated at their stations murmured over Makorshk's alarm. "That is an interesting assessment, admittedly speculative, but I am impressed with it nonetheless."
Makorshk's upper lip quivered in self-satisfaction.
Communications officer Ta'kar'ki spun in his chair. "Kalralahr? Incoming transmission from the emperor."
"The emperor?"
"Yes. Direct transmission. The signal originates from K'n'Rek."
"Route it to my ready room." Vukar turned to Norj'ach, who absently stroked his whiskers. "You may now join your clansmen in seeking Sivar's forgiveness."
"Thank you, my Kalralahr." Norj'ach withdrew his zu'kara knife from the sheath buckled to his thigh. The blade's ornate handle, made of the rare wood from the sacred forest of Kovokum, had been carved to fit Norj'ach's paw. The flight leader bared his fangs, dragged the blade across his neck, and his life's liquid jetted down his dull armor. He dropped to his knees as the bridge officers rose, faced him, and bowed respectfully. Vukar offered Norj'ach a terse nod, then hurried to his ready room.
Inside the cramped quarters, Vukar sat in his meditation chair and pivoted to face his private comm display. He tapped the control panel with a thick knuckle, and the emperor abruptly stared at him, framed by the dozens of banners that hung from the bulkhead of his suite aboard the imperial shuttle. The old Kil-rathi looked tired, his robes ruffled. "Vukar, we received your drone. Have you learned more about this Terran supercruiser?"
"No more, yet. But with your permission, I will see to this personally. You need not have traveled here, my emperor."
"Yes, the clan leaders feel as you do. But I want to be close, to direct actions myself if necessary. Something is happening in this quadrant, something very unusual. According to our spy satellites, the planet Mylon Three has been rendered lifeless by the same supercruiser that your destroyers encountered."
"Mylon Three is a Confederation world. Why would they annihilate their own people, unless-"
"I've ordered battle groups to the Ymir and Nephele systems. The Terrans will believe we are attacking in retaliation for the death of Kalralahr Bokoth, the loss of his battle group, and the loss of your two destroyers. The attack will satisfy the pressure I have been receiving from the clan leaders, though I'm unsure we can afford the expense. In truth, we will also gather as much intelligence as we can about this supercruiser and the destruction of My Ion."
"One of my flight leaders escaped. Did you-"
"Yes, I reviewed his report. And it troubles me. If the Confederation has learned to create gravity wells, then the time has come to launch a massive assault. But I suspect the Confederation is not responsible."
Vukar stiffened. "Pilgrims?"
"Perhaps. That would explain a lot."
"Then we can sit back and watch them destroy each other."
The emperor extended a finger. "If the Pilgrims are building a force, then we have a new and more powerful enemy. And if they succeed in destroying the Confederation, they will move on to our empire. They are descendants of Terrans, but Terrans nonetheless. Bokoth attempted to bargain with them. He died. There will be no more bargains." The emperor lowered his hand, narrowed his gaze. "Vukar, I charge you with the task of finding that supercruiser and, if possible, recovering its drive system. Analysis of your pilot's data indicates that the gravitic field has a unique and frequently traceable signature. We have already made a course projection." He leaned forward and touched a button on the panel before him. "I'm uploading the data now. Our best estimates put that ship somewhere in the Tartarus system."
Vukar raised a fist. "By the blood of Sivar, that ship will be ours."
A sullen atmosphere pervaded the Tiger Claw's bridge and would not lift any time soon, or at least Gerald thought so. Shuttles continued to ferry survivors out to the CS Scrimshaw, a Drayman-class transport that had made orbit thirty minutes ago. The survivor count stood firmly at two hundred and twenty-seven. Another one hundred and twenty-two bodies had been recovered semi-intact from the debris, while remaining recovery teams estimated that at least two or three hundred others had been killed, but their remains were too fragmentary to provide an accurate number yet. Thirteen injured had died in sick bay, but Gerald had been assured that all other civilians would live to sue the Confederation-if Iridessa Long had her way. No, Gerald was in no way saddened by her departure. In the meantime, the Marines had reported of massive devastation across the northern continent. No sign of survivors. They would move on to the remote regions of the southern continent, where Gerald expected they would encounter six or seven thousand settlers dying of radiation poisoning. Durasteel bomb shelters were a luxury on agricultural worlds, and even if any had been built, Gerald doubted the farmers had reached them in time.
"Sir?" hailed Lieutenant Falk.
Gerald faced the young officer, who stood behind the radar station's Plexi tactical screen, one hand pressing his headset's speaker deeper into his ear. "What do you have, Mr. Falk?"
"Another ship just came through the jump point. Merchantman-class errant. ID coming in now." He regarded a thin monitor to his right. "It's the Diligent, sir."
Doing a poor job of repressing his disgust, Gerald bolted from his command chair and looked to Lieutenant Commander Obutu, whose dark face registered an equal measure of loathing. "Mr. Obutu? You have the con."
"Aye-aye, sir. And sir? If it is him, well-"
"Of course it's him, Commander. And he's just the person we need to inspire morale."
Obutu grinned crookedly, then rose as Gerald swore under his breath and trudged toward the lift.
Commodore James "Paladin" Taggart entered the Flight Control Room, wearing the brown slacks and casual tunic of a colonist on holiday. His coal-black hair had been gelled neatly back, but his face bore the mottled shadow of a drunk. Thick hair on his chest wandered past his V-neck, and Gerald spotted a silver chain that he knew held a Pilgrim cross hidden beneath Paladin's shirt. It seemed an effort for the commodore to nod his acknowledgment, which Gerald declined to return. He simply stood there, staring at the man who worked for Confederation Naval Intelligence, the man whose ancestors had been Pilgrims, the man who was supposed to be on a covert mission to uncover and eliminate Kilrathi espionage activities in Vega.
Paladin removed a minidisk from his pocket. "Hello, Mr. Gerald. Message from the admiral."
"Thought you were a commodore-not a courier."
Paladin handed him the disk. "Good to see you, too. We'll need a secure terminal to play that. We don't have much time."
Gerald turned back toward the exit and cursed inwardly. "Yes, Commodore. We'll go to my quarters."
They rode the lift in silence, and despite the fact that he stood beside Admiral Tolwyn's right-hand man, Gerald had no intention of trying to win points with the commodore. He resp
ected Paladin's ability to command under fire, otherwise he felt zero affection for the man whose presence meant that the admiral did not trust Gerald to handle the Mylon situation on his own. Gerald did not need Paladin's help, and his feelings on the matter would inevitably surface.
Once inside the modest captain's quarters, Gerald made a point of not offering the commodore a drink. Trouble was, Paladin crossed directly into the small kitchen, opened the cooling unit, and fetched a glass of orange juice for himself. He took a long swig as Gerald scowled and moved to a terminal set into the bulkhead. He inserted the minidisk, and a moment later the admiral appeared on the screen; his shock of gray hair and somber countenance loaned him the semblance of a troubled king from a Shakespearean play. "Hello, Mr. Gerald. I wish I could've provided you with more details before sending you out there blind and without an XO, but now we've managed to piece together some of this puzzle, and I've sent Paladin to assist. Four days ago we lost contact with the Olympus. She's been positively identified as the supercruiser that launched the attack on Mylon."
Gerald shifted to the sofa, retrieved the terminal's remote, and hit pause. "The Olympus}" he asked Paladin. "She's commanded by Amity Aristee. I know her. Amazing record. What happened?"
Paladin gestured with his glass toward the monitor. "Listen…"
"1 sent out a small task force, including the destroyer Chippewa, to investigate," Tolwyn continued. "They have yet to report and may have been taken out by the Olympus. Mr. Gerald, it is the joint chiefs' consensus that Amity Aristee has committed acts of treason against the Confederation. We've dug deeply through her records, and despite her extreme efforts to conceal her ancestry, we've discovered that she is, in fact, a Pilgrim. It's clear to us now that Bill Wilson's betrayal was just the beginning of a resurgence of Pilgrim theology and aggression."
Gerald stopped the message once more. "You're telling me she's a Pilgrim and that she gained control over her entire ship- with over seven hundred personnel on board? That's ridiculous. The crew would mutiny."
Paladin cocked a brow. "Unless, of course, many of them were already Pilgrims. Wilson's failure to have the Kilrathi destroy Earth triggered her into action. She's been waiting a long time for this."
"Maybe so. But there's no way she could replace her ship's complement without-"
"Mr. Gerald, we're not saying Aristee did this overnight. Oh, no. She started over four years ago, the day she assumed command of the Olympus. One by one she replaced her entire command staff with officers who are either Pilgrims or Pilgrim sympathizers. Then she moved on to the enlisted. She couldn't replace them all, but enough to serve her purpose. We have the names and the transfer orders to prove it."
"If this is true, how many other cap ships are Pilgrim time bombs waiting to go off?"
"Intell's already looking into that."
"What you ought to do is round up every goddamned citizen of Pilgrim ancestry and place them in protective custody."
"Don't you mean under arrest? Consider the logistics involved, not to mention the human rights issues."
"Seems to me that Pilgrims lost their rights when they decided to murder six million people."
"We can't blame every citizen of Pilgrim ancestry for what a few zealous individuals have done."
"I wouldn't call three, four, maybe five hundred a few. And what about the Olympus's escorts? Survivors here reported that the ship operated alone."
Paladin pursed his lips. "We're not sure. She couldn't replace the officers aboard those ships since escorts rotate so frequently, and that kind of breach in protocol would call too much attention to herself. She may have destroyed them."
"What does she hope to gain? She's got control of one super-cruiser. Does she think she can bring down the Confederation with it? Does she think she can get near Earth?"
"She's on a crusade, a jihad to win back the holy land, Mr. Gerald. And she's recruiting individuals as she goes-that's why some citizens on Mylon Three were taken prisoner. They were part of the elect: people of Pilgrim ancestry whom she intends to sway back to the cause. She's especially looking for Confed Naval officers of Pilgrim descent. I don't believe she'll attack Earth with just one supercruiser, but she is building a force."
"How long does she think she can evade us? We have enough ships to post at every known jump point in this entire sector. She comes through, we got her."
"Maybe she'll leave the sector. And don't forget that she doesn't need known jump points. She can jump pulsars and other uncharted wells without NAVCOM coordinates. She's a Pilgrim."
Gerald snickered. "Like you." He thumbed the remote, and the admiral continued:
"Long range reconnaissance reports that Aristee is now at Lethe in the Tartarus system, waging the same war she waged on Mylon Three. You are hereby ordered to Lethe and instructed to use any means necessary to disable that ship. We want her back intact, Mr. Gerald. The destroyers Mitchell Hammock and Oregon will rendezvous with you there. Good hunting. Tolwyn out."
"Tartarus is on the border between Downing and Day quadrants, four jump points from here," Gerald reminded the commodore. "Aristee will be long gone by the time we get there."
"I'll get us there in a single jump," Paladin said, then started for the hatch.
4
VEGA SECTOR.DOWNING QUADRANT BORDER. CS OLYMPUS. TARTARUS SYSTEM.
2654.079.2300 HOURS CONFEDERATION STANDARD TIME
"Remember Peron! Remember Peron! Remember Peron!"
William Santyana stood on a catwalk that overlooked the Olympus's flight deck. He tugged at his ill-fitting Confederation utilities and stared down at the twenty-four pilots who, standing at attention, continued to shout their battle cry. Captain Amity Aristee paraded before the two squadrons, having just delivered a speech laced with enough anti-Confederation sentiments to upset even a politically apathetic person's stomach. "Go now!" she ordered. "Deliver our message."
The pilots scattered toward their waiting Rapier starfighters, some still shouting about Peron, an agricultural colony in the Luyten system that represented the Pilgrim's last stand in the old war. For seven months Pilgrims had held fast against brutal sorties and counter-offensives. More Pilgrims died defending Peron than in any other engagement, an engagement eventually known as a massacre, an engagement they had clearly not forgotten. Santyana's parents, both Pilgrims who had actively fought in the war, had thankfully not been anywhere near Peron during the attack. After the Pilgrim Alliance's surrender, they had resignedly moved to Divinity, a Pilgrim enclave in the Tamayo system, where Santyana had been raised. By fifteen, he had grown weary of their fanatical teachings and had run away. He had worked for three years as a longshoreman, offloading cargo cruisers. By eighteen, he had tested his way into the Space Naval Academy on Hilthros. And by nineteen, he had learned of his parents' deaths in a freak shuttle crash. An only child, Santyana often wished he had a family member to whom he could turn for support. But his surviving relatives had disowned him for joining the Confederation military. Five years ago he had found Pris, a blonde vision who had somehow been born with the missing piece of his soul. When they had met, he had only two years of Confederation service left, opting to discharge after two five-year tours. He had wanted to settle down, farm the land, escape the rigidity of military life.
"You got business up here?"
Santyana faced the wiry, baggy-eyed deck boss who had addressed him. The man's Pilgrim cross dangled from a chain around his neck and seemed wholly out of place against his bright green uniform.
"I said, you got business up here?"
"I don't know. Couple Marines dragged me out of my quarters and left me here. Told me to wait for her." He tipped his head toward Amity Aristee, who climbed a steep staircase leading to the catwalk.
"You Santyana?"
"That's right."
"Heard a lot about you. Test-piloted the first B model Rapiers. You were the leading war ace for, what was it? Two consecutive years?"
"Three. But that was a while a
go."
"I read they gave you quite a send-off."
"Yeah, they did. And I'm still retired."
"So you think. And what the hell were you doing on a farm anyway? Good thing we saved you from playing with dirt. Now you can put your skills to work for the elect."
"I don't plan on flying for anyone right now, whether they be divinely or militarily inspired."
"And why is that?" Aristee asked, pulling her plum-black hair into a ponytail and fastening it with a small band. Like the deck boss, she wore a Pilgrim cross that hung between the gold buttons of her dark-blue uniform, and the juxtaposition-the contradiction-awed Santyana.
"You invaded my home. Scared the hell out of my wife and daughter. We agreed to come with you. But that's it. If you think I'm going to fly for you people…"
She furrowed her brow. "You people? You're one of us, William. Your parents were both compasses, your father a visionary with the ability to find systems suitable for Pilgrim expansion, your mother an explorer with the gift to navigate through unknown environments. You, I suspect, are an explorer- just like your mother. Your record shows an unexplained jump in Douglas Quadrant about seven years ago. You found your way through a previously undiscovered gravity well. Care to comment on that?"
"No, I don't."
"I also know you've done some research on theories of parallel tonality and other scientific explanations on Pilgrim abilities. That a hobby of yours?"
"What do you care?"
"Actually, I do care. A lot. You can't deny your blood." She took a step closer, eyes widening. "I chose Mylon Three for our first attack because there's only one jump point in the system, making for a slow Confed counterassault. And I chose it because it had once been a Pilgrim settlement before MyGov sold out to the Confederation. Pilgrim descendants lived there. But what first turned my attention to Mylon was you. Captains don't leave their ships during assaults. But I went down there especially for you. You're the best Pilgrim pilot I have."
