The quiet of his small medical ward was stifling at times, and when he discovered that there were over three hundred trainees aboard the Solar Forge, he was relieved. Two days passed and he only saw them when he was on his way to the training room he’d come to call the pillbox. They were in Triton Fleet uniforms, and were specifically being trained to service the busy ship building vessel by the vessel itself and a few Lorander guides. Jake was convinced that this was another way for the Lorander Corporation to observe members of Triton Fleet, but, again, what they were trading for the opportunity was worth it. To Jake’s surprise, all the issyrians who were once in the service of Clark Patterson were among the trainees. He had to wonder if Lorander foresaw that they would take an interest in the construction ship. It was a way for the group of issyrians to join Triton Fleet as non-combatants, a way around the agreement that won them safe Haven on Tamber.
The medical centre aboard was still empty, and it was where he spent much of his time. Even though he knew so much was going on aboard, he still felt separated from everything, a growing sensation that set Jacob Valent on edge.
It didn’t take long before he broke down and called a map of recent patrols outside the Rega Gain system. The circular paths of British Alliance and Triton Fleet patrols hung in the air above him, traced by lines coloured blue, yellow, green and red. The red line was always furthest out, that was his ship and Minh-Chu’s Samurai wing. Samurai Wing wasn’t out there with the Warlord more than a third of the time, the mission didn’t always require them.
“Engagement history for the period since Stephanie Vega has been Acting Captian,” he told the computer. To his surprise there were five encounters. The first two occurred while Warlord was on high speed patrol, moving so fast that, when they returned to orbit around Tamber, an extra half hour had passed there. What amazed Jake was that one of the encounters were engaged and concluded at that speed.
The Warlord detected a weak signal that didn’t match anything on the British Alliance’s frontier. Within seconds the Warlord determined exactly where it came from, matched the shape of the ship with a Regent Galactic scout ship, and then the Warlord fired her main rail guns, destroying the scout ship completely. The whole engagement took less than two minutes to resolve.
During the second engagement the Warlord had time to slow down and follow the scout ship they found, and offered surrender terms. The ship self destructed, but transmitted an encrypted stream of data first. “Okay, there’s something there,” Jake said to himself. The data still hadn’t been decrypted, but Triton Fleet was still working on it. He suspected they’d find sensor data from the scout ship along with a short log from whoever was aboard. What Jake found interesting was that it transmitted anything at all. That meant there was something else within range to receive the data. There was something launching these scouts, and it was within a light year of the Rega Gain system.
From then on at least part of the Samurai Squadron was present on the Warlord. Jake didn’t have to check Stephanie’s log to figure out why. She had come to the same conclusion he did.
“The next thing they came up on was three days later, the first Regent Galactic Cruiser we’ve seen,” Minh-Chu said from the door. “You and Ayan review way too much of your data in hologram,” he said. “Almost every time I visit she’s looking at something in mid-air.”
“Something like?” Jake asked.
“Reports, or she’s building a database, or something for the skitters to put together,” Minh-Chu replied, sitting on Jake’s bed.
“What happened here?” Jake said, pointing at the third engagement on the map. A rogue planetary body had drifted past the Rega Gain system, and a tiny graphic of an explosion marked it as a combat encounter.
“Like I said, the Warlord was swinging by that rogue planet, and we found a Regent Galactic Cruiser hiding there. Me and two members of the Samurai squadron were already out of the hangar, following behind the Warlord to get our scans of the planet finished faster, and the cruiser came at us firing. To us, it came out of nowhere, but Stephanie’s report includes a scan that broke through the cruiser’s cloaking systems, and it bolted the moment it realized it was detected. We didn’t even know they were using cloaking until then.”
“What happened next?”
“I hid behind the Warlord,” Minh-Chu said with a shrug. “I’m not proud to admit it, but I ordered my squadron to scatter, the cruiser threw everything at the fighters, I guess they thought they could get past the Warlord, but the fighters could be a problem.”
“With the way your wing has been loading your ships, I don’t blame them. You’ve managed to turn Uriels into full on gunships.”
“Yeah, that’s a necessary evil,” Minh-Chu said. “With our patrols spread out so thin, even with a hundred eighty British Alliance ships out there at all times, we’ve got to fill the high risk spots, so we take half of what’s on the deck before we go. That’s what happens when a big government like the British Alliance plans on putting a grand frontier defence up and they fail right out of the gate.”
Jake activated the recording of what happened to the cruiser in the last moments of the engagement. “I’m guessing the cruiser’s decision to ignore the Warlord was a mistake.”
“Oh yeah,” Minh-Chu said. “Just play that section there.” He gestured towards the graphic of the Warlord and the cruiser frozen in space. The Regent Galactic Cruiser was trying to leave the planet’s orbit, its engines and beam weapons firing brightly. The ship was only two hundred eighty metres long, compared to a full sized destroyer, that was small. It was still larger than the Warlord in the space it took up, but it was half the Warlord’s mass. “What did they do here?” Jake asked, pointing to the underbelly of the ship.
“They managed to fit turrets firing high speed rounds into your mine launching positions. They can be removed so you can launch mines too, but Captain Vega has been sticking with her configuration since the Warlord was fixed by the Solar Forge.”
“Is it working?” Jake asked.
“For what we’re doing out there? Absolutely. Watch, she ordered armour piercing screwhead rounds this time.” Minh-Chu twitched his finger to the right and the playback began.
The Warlord fired her main weapons – the large railguns at the front of the ship and her new pulse cannons mounted across the top. The railguns fired once, partially bursting through the enemy ship’s shields and showering the bridge with white-hot shrapnel. The pulse guns overloaded the enemies’ shields, raking white beams of pure energy across their invisible barriers. By the time the cruiser was alongside the Warlord, the bottom half of Jake’s ship was turned towards it, and those new turrets rained hard rounds down on the enemy ship’s hull, breaking thrusters and compartments open.
“Surrender or die,” Jake’s voice said as the guns stopped, the power levels of the enemy ship dropped, and the Warlord took a position right above the cruiser, making it obvious that they were getting ready to make the kill.
“Yup, everything that comes out of that ship while it’s in patrol sounds like you,” Minh-Chu said. “Captain Vega’s orders. They even have a stand-in who is your height and build wearing armour that looks exactly the same. He boards and debarks from the ship whenever it’s with the fleet.”
“I’m alive and well everywhere except for in this room,” Jake said.
“That’s a dark way to look at it,” Minh-Chu muttered.
The playback continued with the cruiser signalling its surrender. The report summary said that the Warlord latched onto it with the maxjack and hauled it all the way back home, to Tamber orbit. Teams from the Triton stripped it after the crew were placed in British Alliance custody, and the hull was processed for raw materials by the Solar Forge.
“That was the last cruiser that surrendered. The Warlord was forced to destroy the other two. There wasn’t much to bring back.”
“They fought to the last man,” Jake said.
“That’s exactly how Frost put it,” Minh-Ch
u said, bringing the lights up to daylight level in the room.
“So the Warlord is doing fine without me,” Jake said.
“I wouldn’t put it that way,” Minh-Chu said. “You are like the main gravitational force in the middle of that ship. When you’re gone, things start floating away. Alice left for the Rangers, Agameg and Finn have been taking time to help with other parts of Triton Fleet, and other officers from your bridge are sharing what they’ve learned from close encounters with the Order and Regent Galactic. It’s not the same ship, Jake. Sure, Steph is doing an incredible job. She tells people she learned from the best instead of taking credit for thinking past your style, but she can’t keep the crew together like you can. She wants to see what you do with your ship next, not take your place.”
“Maybe it’s time for her to get her own command,” Jake said. “There’s this destroyer we have, Warlord still has the claim, technically.”
“She won’t take it unless you order her to,” Minh-Chu said. “Her and Frost are your people, they don’t want to leave your ship. Now, if you took command of the Barricade, they’d follow you in a second.”
“I didn’t even think about that,” Jake said.
“Oz sure has,” Minh-Chu said. “Just don’t tell him I told you.”
Jake was overwhelmed by a sinking feeling when he thought about the bridge of that ship. “No,” he said.
“You like the agility of the Warlord, I get it,” Minh-Chu said. “You should still think about it though.”
Jake thought about commanding the ship and was filled with dread. “Chinese whispers,” he muttered, not knowing where the words came from.
“Bad memories from that bridge,” Minh-Chu said, nodding. “I think Oz will understand.”
“What do you mean?” Jake asked. “I don’t remember getting to the bridge, I’ve thought about it, trying to get there, but I just remember the hallway in the middle of the ship.”
The colour drained from Minh-Chu’s face, he looked as though he was seeing a foe he could not defeat or escape.
“What happened there? Did I die there for a while or-“
“You murdered someone there, Jake,” Minh-Chu said quietly. “You menaced a junior member of the bridge staff in front of his mates when you couldn’t find the captain and killed him to make a point.”
Jake immediately gestured for the light in the room to be reduced and tried to call up the records of combat aboard the Barricade’s bridge, but discovered he was locked out of that file. “What? I don’t have access?” Jake exclaimed. “Bring it up, Minh, I need to see what happened.”
Minh-Chu wordlessly accessed the file. “I’m coming to terms with this, Jake. Recruitment is down across the Order of Eden, especially on this side of the Iron Head Nebula. You did this to show that you’ll give no quarter to your enemy, to scare people off.”
“Play it,” Jake said, “I need to know why I feel like the bridge of that ship is the worst place I’ve ever been, and that I’ve done something I’ll regret for the rest of my life.”
Minh-Chu stared at him a moment, then nodded. The playback began. Jake had a young officer in hand, and burned him with the heated end of his Violator Handgun as a form of torture, to get his attention. “We’re going to play a game – it’s called Chinese Whispers, only it’ll be a short one.” His recorded self said to his young captive. The boy was terrified, shaking, crying. The devil was at his back and there was no promise of mercy.
Jake could feel his heart racing, he didn’t remember any of what he was seeing, but somehow knew it was true. “Don’t do it,” he whispered to the recorded image of himself. The recorded Jake threatened his captives, told them what would happen if the Captain or the codes for the ship wasn’t revealed to him, then ordered the young officer to begin counting.
A tear rolled down Jake’s cheek as the countdown continued, and he flinched so hard when the gun went off that he almost fell out of his seat. “No!” Jake shouted, “that’s not me!”
He fell from his seat, trying to remember that moment and failing in the midst of a remorseful panic. “I can’t remember, that can’t be me!” he cried. Minh-Chu was on the floor with him, picking him up in his arms. Over his shoulder Jake caught a glimpse of his recorded self taking a young woman up by her pony tail and said; “stop playback.” The computer froze the image there.
“You killed the one, the others survived and are in custody,” Minh-Chu said.
“How did I do that?” Jake said, letting Minh-Chu hold him. “Why did I do that? I don’t remember anything before that that could-“ his meeting with an agent of the British Alliance returned to him. He was ordered to use fear, intimidation, but he was not ordered to murder. That was the way of the barbarian, the quick route that led your enemies to a feeling of being justified in standing against you. That could not have been his way, but he knew that it was for a while.
“That’s not me,” Jake said. “You’ve got to know that’s not me now.”
“I know, old friend,” Minh-Chu said. “I’m glad to have you back, you don’t know how much.”
Chapter 7
Long Range Communications
Governor Tate did not know how Wheeler found an Echo Corp communications device, or how he knew Clark Patterson, known as the Beast to most of his forces, had one. He did not know how Wheeler got his hands on the Beast’s schedule, or how he could predict where the primary Order of Eden fleet would be next, but he had done that too.
If it weren’t for Wheeler, the Governor would not be able to press a button and have the immediate attention of the Overlord of the Order of Eden Fleet in front of him holographically. “Governor Tate,” Overlord Clark Patterson said. “I have been looking forward to meeting you, but I did not expect you to find me through the Echo network. We only captured the module two weeks ago.”
“My sources informed me that you have one yesterday, it is a pleasure to finally address you outside of my weekly reports. I am impressed with how you have commanded the fleet since the coup, Overlord, but I didn’t go to these lengths to contact you for praise alone, I’m afraid.”
“Thank you for getting to the point, Governor,” the Beast said.
The holographic image of his face was blurry, but that exoskeletal skull with its shifting, scraping plates made Governor Tate’s skin crawl. “I am concerned about the impending arrival of our High Priestess, as her people have begun to call her, Eve. My branch of your military does not run on faith like her coterie does, they are military trained and believe that their service will improve their quality of life. This religious zeal that she inspires, it seems fickle, dangerous. It even seems difficult to direct.”
“She inspires millions,” Clark Patterson said in defence of Eve. That was unexpected.
“It all hinges on her, and her ability to deliver immortality and paradise. I have difficulty believing in her, and I can’t help but suppose that a great number of her followers are sceptics who are going along for the ride because they see little alternative at the moment. They’ll break away the moment they see an opportunity.”
“You are one of the wealthiest people in four sectors,” the Overlord said. “If I’m not mistaken. Paradise is within your grasp, even though you have responsibilities. How could you understand the struggle of people who were stranded, accosted by the Holocaust Virus? You cannot. At the same time I have to admit that you have a point, one that I’ve been thinking about for a while. My own fleet is performing exceptionally well without constant exposure to the religious side of the Order of Eden. Their gratitude for a place in this wounded galaxy and the camaraderie they feel towards each other keeps them in line. I concede one point to her, however. The ideas of immortality and paradise are intoxicating. I am in the process of founding my own paradise world right now, and have made many of my soldiers immortal by implanting them with framework technology and making them Knights of the Order. These things are enough to motivate my soldiers like nothing I’ve ever seen, even though a num
ber of Order Knights have been destroyed. They are hailed as great heroes and few question that earning a place as a Knight is the best way to survive this war.”
“But that’s not religious zeal,” the Governor pressed gently. “That’s presenting your servicemen and women with rewards for improving themselves, for proving themselves. I award my top people in similar ways.”
“Ah, but not in our ways,” Overlord Patterson said, “Paradise and immortality do not have to be connected to religion any longer. Not when our control of high technology can make us seem like Gods. We don’t have to call ourselves Gods, just leaders, but the result is the same. They will lay their lives at our feet. The difference is that we don’t try to trick our people into thinking that we are somehow supernaturally superior, or some chosen prophet.”
Wheeler had warned him about getting too deep into a debate. The Governor was to befriend the Beast, not argue with him, or try to change him. “You are absolutely right, Grand Admiral. I find myself wondering if I should follow your example in elevating some of my men to Order Knight status.”
“You should. In fact, if you have a personal guard, I’d begin there,” Grand Admiral Patterson said. “You should also create propaganda that promises your best and brightest an eventual place in paradise.”
“Do I have to sacrifice a world for that purpose? Every place I govern has at least a little of its territory used for production,” Governor Tate asked, hoping that he wouldn’t have to ruin the balance he’d worked so hard to create across his Regent Galactic worlds.
“No, you are fortunate in that regard. Knowing that I will eventually lead my fleet around the Ironhead Nebula, I have studied your worlds. I am impressed at how money in Regent Galactic territory can change lives. So few people have a surplus of credit, and the few who do live like kings and queens. Offer them near limitless credit in your little Empire, then they can decide where paradise is for them, on one of your worlds.”
Governor Tate was taken aback by the suggestion, it made so much sense and it was so simple. “I’m embarrassed that I didn’t think of that myself, thank you, Grand Admiral.”
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