TFS Guardian: The Terran Fleet Command Saga – Book 5

by Tori Harris

  “I see it sir, go ahead.”

  “I’m not sure precisely what, if anything, he was about to do, but I need eyes on Echo 1 and TFS Guardian as quickly as possible. Are your low-observable systems still operational?”

  “Yes, they are, sir. Although we’ll still be emitting quite a bit of heat from our main gun for the next few minutes.”

  “We’ll have to risk it for now. Argus is showing no new transitions in the area. So unless I miss my guess, you’re not going to find either of those ships. Go ahead and begin a general reconnaissance of the area surrounding the last known position of TFS Scythian, then continue to widen your search until you’re confident there are no Pelaran ships of any sort in the system.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  TFS Fugitive, Sol System

  (2.93x105 km from Earth)

  “What are you seeing, Lieutenant Lee?” Prescott asked the young officer at the Science and Engineering console.

  Upon TFS Fugitive’s arrival at the location where the Navajo-class cruiser Scythian had been destroyed, Prescott had immediately risked a full scan of the area using his ship’s entire suite of active and passive sensors. Finding nothing, he had begun the painstaking process of traversing the former battlespace from one side to the other, looking for any indications one of the Guardians or the Envoy-class spacecraft might have survived.

  “Almost exactly the same thing we saw in the area where the Gresav took out Golf 2, Captain,” Lee replied. “There’s some ultra-fine debris here, and a much higher than normal concentration of antimatter particles, but really nothing else to speak of.”

  “Whatever Griffin did, it must have been …”

  “Epic, yes, sir,” Lee nodded. “The only thing I can figure is that he transitioned into close proximity to Echo 1 and then triggered some sort of overload of his powerplant. We don’t know a lot about how the Pelaran ships are powered, so I’m really just speculating based on what our sensors are telling us.”

  “I don’t think you’re speculating Lieutenant. There were no additional transitions, and yet there’s nothing out here larger than a grain of rice for tens of thousands of kilometers,” Reynolds observed in an almost reverent tone. “TFS Scythian, Griffin, the Envoy’s ship — they’re all just … gone.”

  “Sir,” Dubashi reported, turning around in her chair to address her captain and first officer, “I wasn’t sure if you wanted to see this, but the Gresav is moments away from impact. There are several fighters in the area now providing video coverage.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant. The Gresav has a complement of three hundred or so, including Prince Naftur, and all of them sacrificed their lives to save ours. So, yes, I think it’s important for us to see it. Helm, Tactical, Science, continue the search and speak up immediately if you find anything.”

  “Aye, sir,” all three officers replied somberly.

  Seconds later, Dubashi placed a large window in the center of the bridge view screen. Two separate video feeds appeared in a split-screen configuration, each displaying the huge, six-hundred-meter-long Wek destroyer from a different angle. Although both feeds were obviously being transmitted from chase aircraft, the right-hand image provided additional data near the bottom of the screen including the ship’s current velocity and time to impact — now just over one minute away.

  “There’s no doubt she had several hull breaches around those points of impact, but she’s still remarkably intact otherwise,” Reynolds commented in a low voice intended only for Prescott. “Do you think anyone aboard is still alive?”

  “I’m trying not to think about it,” Prescott replied, “but, yes, I’m afraid so. The Gresav’s a big ship, and the Wek build them to take a lot of abuse and keep on fighting. I’m guessing she hit Golf 2 with her first shot and did some damage, then probably finished it off with the second or third shot. But at some point, the GCS still managed to get off at least one salvo of its own.”

  “Fleet Science and Engineering just updated the various tsunami warning centers with new damage estimates, by the way,” Reynolds continued, feeling an almost desperate need to fill the silence. “It’s bad, of course, but the direction of the impact and the distance from the nearest land mass is helping things a bit. Right now, it looks like most of the wave energy will reach shore in relatively unpopulated areas. We’ve already got ships on the ground working to evacuate as many people as possible.”

  Temporarily overcome with emotion, Prescott stared down at the floor and took in a long breath as he struggled to prepare himself to witness the final moments of the Gresav, her crew, and the Wek Crown Prince who had become his friend. Strangely, the Human psyche had a way of insulating itself from the emotional impact of large-scale disasters, even those affecting thousands or even millions of people. When there was even a single personal connection to the same disaster, however, the mind conspired to create a sense the event was far more real … impactful …tragic.

  “What the hell are those?” he heard Reynolds say in a tone of voice that seemed strangely out of synch with the current atmosphere on the bridge.

  Glancing up at the screen, Prescott saw nothing unusual at first. The Gresav, now completely awash in flame from bow to stern, seemed to have taken on more of a nose-down attitude. The ship’s hull, however, in spite of being subjected to tremendous thermal and aerodynamic stresses, had stubbornly refused to yield, remaining in a single piece throughout her uncontrolled descent to the surface.

  Tracing what he could still see of the ship’s hull with the eyes of a captain and engineer, it took Prescott a few seconds to notice what Reynolds had been referring to. Flying in formation alongside the doomed destroyer was a group of brightly glowing, greenish-white orbs. The ships — assuming that’s what they were — had no visible structure beyond their spherical shape. At first glance, Prescott counted seven of the strange craft, but their erratic flight paths around the Gresav’s hull made it impossible to determine how many were present.

  “You’re seeing these … whatever they are … fireballs, I guess, right?” Reynolds asked.

  “I see ‘em, ma’am,” Fisher spoke up excitedly. “I’ve read about something like these before, Commander. Back in the day, people used to call them ‘foo fighters.’”

  “I don’t know about that, Ensign, I’m just glad I’m not the only one who sees them,” she replied absently, transfixed by what was taking place on the view screen.

  “I have absolutely no idea what those are,” Prescott finally added, echoing the question on everyone’s mind.

  After a few more seconds, each of the orbs in turn adjusted its course slightly away from the Wek ship before flaring brightly and disappearing from view. At the bottom of the right-hand image, the time-to-impact timer had reached fifteen seconds. Although both video feeds remained remarkably clear, the two pursuing fighter aircraft were obviously now departing the area at high speed to avoid being destroyed in the massive, twenty-five-kilometer-wide fireball expected when the ship finally made contact with the surface of the ocean.

  Now, with only seconds remaining before impact, the deep, cobalt-blue background of the South Pacific Ocean — or, more accurately, the space immediately above it — seemed to tear itself asunder, opening in a yawning black maw before their eyes. Before any of the bridge crew even had the time to gasp in disbelief, the massive hulk that had been SCS Gresav passed directly into the dark, hovering void and disappeared without a trace.

  Seconds later, as the black chasm collapsed into nothingness and was gone, a portion of the rapidly moving mass of air that had been traveling alongside the huge warship reached the surface. Although accounting for only a tiny fraction of the energy that would have been released had the ship reached the surface, the results were still impressive to behold. As if struck by the hand of an invisible giant, a huge section of the ocean’s surface was hammered from above. In the direction of the impact, a tremendous wall of water erupted skyward, reminiscent of the massive mushroom clouds created by underwate
r nuclear testing in the mid twentieth century.

  In response to what they had just seen, every crewmember on TFS Fugitive’s bridge turned to look at their captain, astonishment bordering on fear registering on their faces.

  “No idea …” Prescott repeated quietly, then lapsed back into silence. A moment later, his reverie was interrupted by a series of urgent-sounding tones issuing from the Comm/Nav console. “Look alive, Lieutenant,” he prompted, causing his still-stunned comm officer to jump involuntarily.

  “Sorry, Captain,” Dubashi said, gathering her wits as she tended to the incoming transmission. “It’s Rick aboard the Ethereal, sir.”

  “Why am I not surprised?” Reynolds commented.

  “On-screen, Lieutenant,” Prescott ordered.

  “You were the first Terrans we spoke with when we arrived, so I thought it made the most sense for you to be our last contact before we depart,” the Grey said as soon as his image appeared on the view screen. “I assume you saw what just happened with the Gresav?”

  “We saw it,” Prescott replied. “We don’t understand it, but we saw it.”

  “It’s understandable you don’t understand,” Rick replied with a pleased look on his face. “In fact, I’m not sure Miguel and I together could offer a technically accurate explanation for the physics involved, so I’m afraid you’re going to have to settle for the radically simplified version.”

  “Fair enough. Let’s hear it.”

  “The lights you probably noticed around the ship’s hull? That was nothing more than an electroluminescent phenomenon that accompanies multiple, simultaneous uses of our matter transference equipment. You Terrans have seen it many times in the past, although I suppose none who have seen it had even the slightest notion of what was causing it.”

  “You were beaming the crew off the Gresav!” Reynolds exclaimed.

  “There’s that word again. Nope, no ‘beams’ of any kind were involved, Commander, but, yes, we were able to evacuate the Wek crew. All things considered, casualties appear to be fairly light, and I’m sure you’ll be pleased to hear that Prince Naftur is fine … well … he will be anyway. I’ll get to that in a moment.”

  “What happened to the ship, Rick?” Prescott asked impatiently.

  “Ah, yes, as to that … Miguel and I are probably in a lot of trouble for that one. Rescuing the crew of a damaged starship is permitted under certain circumstances, and, now that I think about it, after there was no crew aboard, the ship might technically have been considered abandoned …”

  “Did you save the ship or not?”

  “The Gresav? Hah! No, I’m afraid she’s gone for good. What you saw, my friends, was an eminently practical application of a system that has been banned for a long time where we’re from. It generates a sort of dimensional rift — a bit like the one generated by your ship’s hyperdrive. The difference is that this particular field transports anything that enters into it to … I guess you could say nowhere. In this case, however, it did prevent a significant amount of damage to your planet, so there is that.”

  “It did indeed, and we very much appreciate it, just as we appreciate your rescuing the Gresav’s crew.”

  “Yes, we should probably discuss that subject for a moment. Obviously, we didn’t have room for all of those Wek aboard the Ethereal, so we landed them on a sparsely populated section of the Chilean coastline, just south of a small town called Guayusca. They shouldn’t be too hard to find, and some of them do require medical attention, so I recommend you get your people to them as quickly as possible.”

  “We’ll find them,” Prescott said, nodding to Dubashi to get the effort underway.

  “One more thing,” Rick continued. “We didn’t have a lot of time to spare during the evacuation, so the technique we were forced to use has a tendency to cause a few additional side effects.”

  “What kinds of side effects?”

  “Eh, it varies. Most of them will be a little disoriented for a few hours. Some may experience an illusion you might have heard referred to as ‘missing time,’ which, of course, tends to add to their disorientation. A few may even remain unconscious for several hours. One thing’s for sure, though, they’re all likely to be more than a little irritable, so I recommend taking along some tranquilizer guns, just in case,” Rick said, erupting in a fit of his usual squeaking laughter. “Anyway, as for us, Miguel thinks he may have come up with a way to make it look like we’ve been somewhere else for the past week or so, and that means we need to be on our way.”

  “You’re leaving? Right now?”

  “Like I said, we’ve done far more than we should here, Captain. And now, in addition to all of the other complications we’ve created for ourselves, we’ve also managed to fall far behind schedule on the next part of our mission.”

  “I see. I’m not sure what to say, other than thank you. You’re obviously welcome here any time.”

  “But please warn us in advance next time,” Reynolds interjected.

  “Oh, we’ll be around, Commander,” Rick replied. “We’ve always been around.”

  Epilogue

  Earth, TFC Yucca Mountain Shipyard Facility

  (Nine months later)

  “Good morning, Admiral,” Kevin Patterson said brightly as he approached Prescott from behind.

  Rear Admiral Prescott, doing his level best to hide the fact that his boss had just startled him half out of his wits, turned to face the approaching Chief of Naval Operations, whom, he immediately noticed, was already holding a salute and waiting patiently for the newly minted rear admiral to return the courtesy.

  “Thank you, sir. I really appreciate that,” Prescott said, coming to attention and saluting crisply.

  “You’ve certainly earned it, son,” Patterson replied with a devious smile, “but you know darn well why I just did that, so let’s have it.”

  “Ah, right, yes, sir,” Prescott replied, fishing in one of his pockets for a shiny new TFS Katana challenge coin.

  “Come on … cough it up, youngster. In fact, unless I miss my guess, I think you probably owe me two of ‘em.”

  Although still a relatively new organization, TFC had adopted a variety of long-standing military customs. One of these involved the exchange of ornate metallic coins to commemorate various special events and promote unit esprit de corps. While there were no hard and fast rules regarding when such coins were to be handed out, it was generally acknowledged that failing to provide one to a senior officer when asked was bad form indeed.

  “Two of them? Come on, sir, you know they don’t pay rear admirals much these days.”

  “Oh, cry me a river, Prescott. I want two of them … one for being the first superior officer to offer you a salute after you pinned on your new rank and another for your new command,” Patterson repeated, nodding to the enormous battlecruiser in the final phases of construction in Berth Twelve.

  “She’s coming along nicely, isn’t she?” Prescott said, handing over the pair of gold-plated coins embossed with the Katana’s coat of arms. “If all continues to go well, she should be ready for space in just a couple of weeks.”

  “I sure hope so. It would be a real shame if you let TFS Khopesh or Talwar beat you to the punch. Talwar in particular, I would think, since she belongs to Abrams.”

  “That’s not gonna happen, Admiral. My flag captain is a helluva lot meaner than his.”

  “Reynolds? You’ll get no argument from me there. She’s as tough as they come. Speaking of Abrams, though, I hear the two of you are heading back to Pelara with most of the Leadership Council in tow.”

  “Yes, sir. Their World Assembly is hosting a big powwow among all of the former members and Regional Partners of the Pelaran Alliance.”

  “Forgive me for being a cynical old man, Prescott, but the last thing I think we ought to be looking to get involved with right now is some kind of ‘Pelaran Alliance 2.0.’”

  “I couldn’t agree more, sir. And every one of our delegates I’ve heard comment on
the subject has said pretty much the same thing. I will say, however, that what little I’ve heard regarding what they intend to propose is nothing like the original Alliance. They’re calling it the ‘United Coalition of Free Worlds,’ and one of its stated goals is to assist its members to avoid the kind of thing that happened on Pelara.”

  “The ‘AI coup,’ you mean? It seems to me that whole thing had a lot more to do with the complacency of the Pelaran people than anything else. But I guess sometimes the most valuable lessons are the ones we learn the hard way.”

  “Doctor Creel has been heavily involved with the reestablishment of the Pelaran government from the beginning. He makes no bones about the fact that what kept their world subjugated for so long had far more to do with good old-fashioned despotism than it ever did the Alliance AI. Thankfully, he and those like him were willing to risk everything to free the Pelaran people.”

  “Humph,” Patterson grunted thoughtfully. “Seems like there’s a lot of that kind of thing going around.”

  Both officers paused, unconsciously returning their gaze to the awe-inspiring warship stretching nearly a kilometer back in the direction of the shipyard’s entrance tunnel. At the time of the ALAI attack, three additional Navajo-class cruisers had been nearing completion, but with several enhancements seen as mission-critical coming into play, Fleet had made the unusual decision to temporarily halt their construction. After an extensive design review, the proposed changes had been deemed so extensive as to warrant an entirely new class designation. Although based on the same basic hull design, the new warships were now designated as battlecruisers, and assigned names based on “legendary blades” as opposed to “indigenous cultures” originating near their construction facilities.

  “Not to take anything away from her,” Admiral Patterson continued, happy to change the subject, “but she just doesn’t look all that different from the Navajo on the surface, does she?”

  “No, sir, not really. But with all due respect to the Navajo class, the ‘blades’ pack a hell of a lot more punch.”