Another laser impact rocked Zach’s vessel, and, though the computer voice was supposedly muted, it reported nonetheless: “Warning—shields down. Hull integrity at 72%.”
Zach cursed under his breath, but checked his scanner readouts to find that the Corvette’s shields were down as well. Not a bad trade, he thought.
“You ready to do this?” asked Zach, curving his ship around for another pass. “Lay down covering fire. I’m going for the bridge.”
“Aye, Wolfpack Commander. Watch the dorsal turrets.”
Zach drove the thruster handle as far forward as it would go, and the engines responded, filling the cabin with their resonating hum and surging the ZF-575 to great speed. The inventory display showed three missiles left—plus the single Hellfire missile—and Zach keyed the weapons control for group targeting.
“Targeting control inoperative,” warned the voice of the computer.
“I thought I shut you up?” asked Zach rhetorically, keying the switch for manual fire control. Clustering all four missiles on the bridge at this speed was probably impossible.
Of course, to Zach, that only meant that it had never been done.
The two fighters approached the Corvette, and Raven’s lasers began to rake the underbelly of the vessel just before Zach opened fire on the bridge. Using his lasers to target, he fired all four missiles as soon as his shots began to impact the critical bridge area. By the time they had exploded, he and Raven had completed their run, and sped away from the dangerous vessel.
A great explosion shot forth from the bottom of the Corvette, cracking the ship’s hull in two. The broken pieces slowly began to drift apart, inert and lifeless. Zach checked his tactical display to see that the remaining pirate fighters were evacuating the area.
“Wolfpack squadron, report.”
As the voices of each of his pilots reported over the intercom, Zach looked down to the status board, almost completely covered with red and amber warning lights. “Damn, I’m good,” he said, smiling. “Score one more for the Wolfpack.”
. . . . .
“Can we start her up now, Captain?”
Anastasia looked to her pilot, and it took her mind a moment to fully realize that it was no longer the cocky Lieutenant Zach Wallace at the controls. Lieutenant Cody Matthews, like Zach was then, was an ex-fighter pilot, and, similarly, appeared to Anastasia far too young to be aboard a Confederation starcraft. His record, however, which included stints on both fighters and Corvettes, was unblemished, and included several commendations, not only for piloting skill, but for bravery in combat as well.
“Yes, Lieutenant Matthews,” she replied, smiling at the slender helmsman. “Go ahead.”
The bridge, which had been almost silent a moment ago, was suddenly filled with the pervasive hum of energy as the ship’s systems powered up from standby mode. Lights on status boards all around the perimeter of the bridge flickered to life, and a projection appeared in the front of the bridge, displayed by the viewscreen’s hidden holo-vid projectors.
“Welcome,” began the voice of the computer. “This is the MP-724 semi-sentient control system computer. You are on board the ZX-999 Inferno. Please prepare to complete the preflight checklist prior to—”
Anastasia flipped a switch and cut short the computer’s introduction. She did not need a computer to tell her how to captain a ship. Especially not this one.
“Okay, Lieutenant Matthews,” she said, “take her out of port. Ariyana,” she added, turning to her navigation officer, “inform flight control of our departure and chart a course for the Pacifica System.”
“Captain,” interjected Byron, her tactical officer, “shouldn’t we complete the preflight checklist before we head out?”
Byron’s reputation seemed to be well deserved, Anastasia thought. She had been told that the older man was a stickler for details, and she hoped his by-the-book approach served to keep her in line rather than to get on her nerves. She also hoped Lieutenant Commander Johnson’s reputation as a top-notch tactical officer was equally well deserved.
“It’s fine, Commander,” she explained. “They ran those same status checks half a dozen times before we even got on board, believe me.”
Ariyana turned from her navigation console to look at them, wisps of light brown hair snaking down her back. “Don’t worry, Commander—Captain Mason knows this ship like the back of her hand. After all, she was on the Apocalypse for almost ten years.”
Byron silently nodded his head, surely aware that Ariyana knew Anastasia’s history well, as she had served as her navigator and astrometric technician for the last six years. In fact, Anastasia noted with a hint of chagrin, Lieutenant Romano, now in her late thirties, was the only member of her new crew that she had served with before.
“Of course,” Byron apologized, casting his gaze downward. “I was just reminding the Captain of standard procedure.”
“You go ahead and keep quoting standard procedure,” Anastasia offered. “I could use the reminders sometimes.” She looked up and smiled. “Just don’t expect me to follow them too often.”
Byron smiled back at her, obviously relieved.
“So what was it like?” interrupted Lieutenant Matthews, spinning around in his pilot’s chair to face them. “What was it like being on board the Apocalypse and stopping the Lucani Ibron?”
Anastasia’s head tilted to one side as she thought back to that ship and that crew, so similar to this one, yet so completely different. “The best way I could describe it, Cody, is to say that it was the most exhilarating, terrifying, rewarding time in my entire life. I was proud, exhausted, relieved. Most of all, I felt fortunate. Fortunate that fate and planning and pure dumb luck had come together to put the right man in the right place at the right time.” She paused for a long moment. “I don’t know how else to describe it than that.”
“Not just the right man,” Commander Zeeman interjected. “The right crew.”
“Maybe,” Anastasia said, shaking her head, seemingly unconvinced. “But I don’t think Earth would still be here if not for Daniel Atgard. Whatever the rest of us did, we were able to do because of him.”
The bridge was silent for several seconds.
“Do you know what I think, Anastasia?” asked Ariyana softly. “I think you don’t give yourself enough credit. I think, that in a thousand years, historians will look back and point to that moment and say: ‘That was our finest hour.’”
That thought brought a deep smile to Anastasia’s lips. Our finest hour, she thought, contentedly. Our finest hour, indeed.
* * * * *
CHAPTER 2
Though Anastasia’s service to the Confederation spanned half a dozen ships and almost 40 years, the surge that slipped the Inferno from her moorings had an effect on her like few other things could. Though Captain Mason had called the inside of a starship home for over half her life, the moment when the Inferno embarked on her maiden voyage brought back memories of her first assignment as an Ensign under a man who—even then—was widely regarded as one of the most esteemed people in the Sector. A shiver ran through Anastasia’s body, and the smile that always accompanied her reveries involving Daniel Atgard spread across her lips.
For a long moment, the Inferno simply hovered just outside the massive gates of the shipyard. The viewscreen showed empty space, punctuated now and again by bright plumes of engine exhaust as small ships darted about seemingly at random. Though some were military vessels, most sported the characteristic yellow drive trails that represented civilian ships, probably transports ferrying passengers between Earth’s moon and the planet itself. Anastasia flicked a switch on her console and the viewscreen changed to show the shipyard they had just departed, visible in silhouette against the bright face of the moon below. The shipyard had taken just over a year to produce the Inferno, a feat that would have been remarkable had the ship not been based on the now-retired Apocalypse, the vessel that had, single-handedly, saved humanity from outright annihilation at th
e hands of the Lucani Ibron ten years ago.
Though it lacked the awful Omega Cannon of its predecessor, the Inferno was designed not to merely equal the unmatched formidability of the Apocalypse, but to exceed it. Of course, Anastasia noted, the Inferno, having just been completed, had nearly 20 years of new technology under its exquisite hull. Though it was just a tiny fraction the size of many larger warships, it was quite probably the single most dangerous vessel in the known galaxy.
The thought sent a fresh shiver down the Captain’s spine.
“Should I head for the jump point, Captain?” asked Lieutenant Matthews, jolting Anastasia back to the present. “I can’t wait to see what she can do.”
“Certainly, Cody,” she replied. “Just try to keep her at sublight speed for a while, okay?”
Cody nodded and eagerly grasped the control stick in his right hand. With his left, he gently inched the thruster handle forward, and the ship, with an effortless power that seemed to propel them from within, began to move.
The viewscreen reverted to a frontal view as the ship turned, and as the slowly-pinwheeling stars glided across the screen, the Categorical Imperative came into view.
“My God,” gasped Lieutenant Romano. “What a monster.”
And a monster was precisely what it looked like. More accurately, the skeleton of a monster—impossibly long bands of braided composite alloy, joined every so often where they converged at a nexus, hovered naked in space. Several disembodied segments floated about the beast’s massive form, tethered to the main mass by slim, unseen cables, waiting to be welded to the main body. At one end, the beginnings of a hull had begun to form, a bulbous skin that wrapped around the girders and gave the ship some semblance of a shape. That shape, when completed, would form the largest starship in existence.
Anastasia found that she had been unconsciously shaking her head, in disbelief not so much at the ship, but at the insane mind-set that had caused it to come into being.
She had disapproved of the ship from the start, back when it was conceived in 3041. Do you not remember the Indomitable? she wondered. How could you be willing to risk that again?
Anastasia, for one, would never forget the Indomitable. She could never forget what transpired in the early hours of March 15, 3040. The ghastly image from that morning was burned eternally in her mind. After all, she had been there when it happened. She was, in fact, one of the few eyewitnesses to survive.
“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” Commander Zeeman asked, breaking into her thoughts. “It seems as if they keep making it bigger … maybe that’s why it’s taking them so long to build the damned thing.”
“Maybe,” Anastasia replied, but she suspected the real reason was that everyone did remember the Indomitable, and that the delay was caused by the desire to create a truly invincible ship.
Anastasia had served long enough to know that such a ship would never exist.
“We certainly need it,” Byron put in. “With the way things have gone for the Confederation lately, it—and its Omega Cannon—can’t be finished too soon.”
“But Commander,” Ariyana interjected, “that ship is precisely what caused most of those problems. The pirate activity, terrorist attacks, open rebellion, talk of secession in the Council—they’ve all tripled since they began building that thing.”
“That stuff had been going on before they started the ship,” Byron replied. “But I doubt much of it will continue once she’s finished.”
Anastasia slowly shook her head. “The Categorical Imperative won’t solve our problems, Byron. Look at the Indomitable. It wasn’t the end of our problems; it was just the beginning.”
Byron was silent.
“We’ve always been good at creating weapons of war,” Anastasia continued, speaking as much to herself as to her crew. “And those weapons helped humanity ascend to its place as the most powerful species in the sector. But with that ascension came a price. First the Lucani Ibron, and now the revolt, the rebellion, the war. Humanity is very good at creating weapons, but has been very poor at using them. Einstein once said that our technology had exceeded our humanity, and that was in the twentieth century. Since then, our technology has only grown. Our humanity—our morality—however, has not. And, as we see now, with every ascension, there comes a declination.”
The crew was silent for several moments as they each absorbed Anastasia’s words. They each knew that they were words that came not from an abstract philosopher or a misinformed idealist. They were words that came from a seasoned veteran, a true hero of the Confederation whose loyalty and bravery were beyond question.
Captain Mason looked to her crew, and, though she did not know most of them personally, she had studied them. Each had emerged from a rigorous selection process and had been chosen to serve on the Inferno. But, more than that, Anastasia had studied their histories, trying to glean what she could, not of their aptitudes and abilities, but of their character, of their emotion, of their humanity. The crew they had assembled was a good one, she thought. But it would take more—on a ship like this one, at a time like this one, it would take more—much more than a “good” crew. If the rising tide of resentment that accompanied the truth about the Korgian Annihilation were to be stemmed, it would take something truly extraordinary. And it would take truly extraordinary people to do it.
Anastasia silently hoped she was up to the challenge. She hoped all of them were.
. . . . .
Dex pried the weapon from the dead Turian’s hand, turning it over and searching it for any distinguishing marks. The ID chip had, predictably, been removed, but Dex did not necessarily need an ID chip to determine a weapon’s origin.
“Well, it’s definitely not Confederation-issue,” he said to Zip, “though someone went to considerable trouble to make it look as if it were. It’s hard to tell where it’s from, but it may be Salarian.”
“Figures,” said Zip.
“Or,” Dex continued, staring closely at the trigger mechanism, “it could have been produced somewhere else—somewhere with access to Salarian parts.”
“Haven’t the Salarians been supplying the SPACERs for a while now?” Zip asked rhetorically.
“Yeah,” Dex replied.
“But what do the Turians have to do with all this? They haven’t taken any sides in the conflicts.”
“Probably just mercs,” Dex answered. “Just like a Turian to profit from both sides.”
“I don’t think these particular mercenaries profited too much,” said Zip, tapping the Turian’s body with the tip of his boot. “But who would pay a bunch of Turians to start a ruckus out here in the middle of nowhere?”
Dex had to admit that he was stumped on that one. Though space was, by its very nature, desolate and for the most part empty, and habitable planets were often separated by dozens of parsecs, Gertrom III was especially remote. Some people called the Gertrom System “the edge of the Universe,” and the description wasn’t all that far off. Located at the very fringes of the Alpha Sector, two hundred parsecs from the nearest inhabited system, Gertrom III was found at the tip of one of the Milky Way’s spiral arms, and there was nothing inherent in the planet to induce almost anyone to make the trip. Those few humans who did live out here were normally outcasts, criminals, and the mentally unstable. And of course there were the Cartheen. Those bastards would live almost anywhere.
“I don’t know, Zip. Maybe it was just a distraction.”
“Well, if that were the case—”
Zip was cut off by an urgent alarm from Dex’s nanocomputer. Dex keyed for the transmission, and a small projection flashed into the air.
“Dex, get your team topside right away,” barked the Captain. “There’s been some trouble.”
Dex and Zip were already racing back to the retrieval point. “Where, sir?”
The Captain’s face, though Dex’s running caused it to bob comically in the air, took on an undeniably solemn aspect.
“Earth,” he said. “They’
ve hit Earth again.”
. . . . .
Zach raced down the hallway, taking one last sip from his drink and succeeding only in spilling it on the front of his uniform. He tossed the empty cup aside and keyed his nanocomputer to begin the Lone Wolf’s quick startup sequence. The door ahead of him slid open and he raced through the flight room, not even slowing as he grabbed his helmet from atop his locker. The door on the opposite side of the room opened at his approach, and he rushed down another hallway, passing several closed doors on each side. The seventh door on the left whooshed open, and he was in the narrow fighter bay, cradling his helmet under his arm as he headed for his fighter.
Zach hit another key on his wrist-worn encee and the canopy popped open. In one quick, fluid motion, he was in the fighter, with the canopy quickly sealing around him. He donned his helmet and strapped himself in as the ship completed its startup sequence. He wasn’t wearing his flight suit, but his dress uniform, which was more than a bit uncomfortable, would have to do. A splash of green lights lit his alert board, and the fighter bay door began to open. Before it had even finished its motion, Zach punched the throttle and the fighter leapt from the deck and into open space, and Zach quickly checked the heads-up radar display as the ship surged to speed.
Good, he thought. I’m the first one out.
The fleeing vessel had almost twenty thousand kilometers on him, and its red speck was barely visible on the radar display. Zach pushed the thruster handles as far as they would go, and was rewarded by being flattened against his seat as the engines roared in affirmation. He noticed that already some of the lights on his alert board had changed to amber, which was fairly early, even by his standards.
“Warning,” began the computer’s voice, “exceeding 75% thrust after quick startup is not recommended. Engine temperatures are above standard parameters.”
Screw the standard parameters. I’ll fly the damned ship apart if I have to.
Declination Page 2
