“Reductive point system?” Alice said, looking it up on her comm unit.
“We all get one hundred points, mistakes and under performance cost us. If we run out of points, we are out of the program. You didn’t get the orientation package?”
Alice couldn’t find it in her personal files. “Nope, nothing there. I thought we’d get that at orientation.”
Iruuk checked his comm unit then nodded to himself. “I’m sorry, I think my father pulled a few whiskers and got me a copy earlier than I was meant to.”
“I like that, pulled a few whiskers,” Alice said with a chuckle.
A candidate sitting near the front shushed her loudly.
“What do humans say?” Iruuk asked quietly.
“We pull a few strings,” Alice said. “I guess that actually makes less sense than your version.”
“That’s true, I’ve never met a human who carried string with them.”
“It refers to how bureaucracy is connected to everything, I think. Pull the right string, and you’ll get what you need out of the system its tied to.”
“Humans like things complicated,” Iruuk said.
“Not all of us,” Alice replied.
“My father says that’s why you’re all so good at inventing things, so it’s good.”
A tall, dark woman who may have only been a year or two older than Alice sat in a seat facing them, her comm unit blinking with the welcome message. “You’re Alaka’s son?”
“I am, my name is Iruuk,” he told her.
“Nivee Izen, future Captain of the Revenge,” she said with a confident smile. “Your dad’s going to outgrow that ship sometime in the next two years, I bet, and I want the command,” she told Alice.
“You might get it,” Alice said, surprised at the declaration.
“What? You wouldn’t want it?”
“I don’t know what kind of command I’ll want by the time we’re finished here,” Alice said.
“Good point, maybe I should keep my options more open. Have you looked at the stats on our class yet?” she said a little louder, competing with the clatter of a dozen students hurriedly boarding the shuttle. The doors closed and the repulsors began to warm up.
“No, I haven’t even tried, really,” Iruuk said. “Now we don’t have to compete, just graduate well. I’ve been told there are many more posts coming up than there are officers.”
“That’s the truth. We’re down thirty-eight in our class already.”
“What?” Alice asked, earning another shush from somewhere on the transport.
“Yeah, between the last test, the combat qualifier and the obstacle course, a lot of the candidates have been cut,” Nivee said. “I wonder how many more we’ll lose by the time intake interviews are finished.”
“Intake interviews?” Alice asked, a new wave of anxiety threatening to rush in.
“We are all going to be interviewed,” Iruuk said, as though that was a complete answer. “I am ready.”
“No offense, but you’re sixteen standard years old, adult for a Nafalli, sure, but what kind of history do you have to account for? Really lucky, if you ask me,” Nivee said. “I’m twenty-six, and I think I’ve spent time in nineteen solar systems since I was your age. I bet I’ll be in there answering questions about my history for eight hours.”
“Okay, now I’m worried,” Alice said. “I’m not sure of what I can remember half the time.”
“Sorry,” Nivee said, cringing. “This could be rough. There’s no criteria for success or failure posted either, so I think it’s really like a job interview. Maybe you can just push through with can-do attitude talk.”
That brought a sudden bark of laughter from Alice. She was thankful for the noise of the shuttle lifting off. Most of the other students were working feverishly to finish the engineering and technology qualifier. “No one told me about this, and I’m glad. I think if I knew in advance I would have lost so much sleep that I wouldn’t have made it this far.”
“That’s a good way of looking at it,” Nivee said. “But you’re worried now?”
“Oh, yeah,” Alice said. The blue sky filled the windows as they shuttle followed its course to the top of the Everin building. The trio were quiet until it set down on one of the landing pads there. The sounds of one wiry-thin recruit punching the headrest of the seat in front of him when the timer on his Engineering and Technology Qualifier test ran out cut through the buzz of students around them. He was the first one off. “See you in the ranks, looks like I’m applying for grunt level fleet,” he said as he shoved his way to the front and stepped off the shuttle.
“It was good to meet you, Alice,” Iruuk said. “I’m sure we can help each other through the rest of the training.”
“Good to meet you too,” Alice said, shaking his long fingered hand. She shook Nivee’s hand next. “I’ll see you soon, I’m sure.”
“You’ll do fine in the interview,” Nivee said. “I mean, I don’t know for sure, but from what I’ve heard about you, I can’t see you not getting into this program.”
“Thanks, I’m sure you’ll make it too.” Alice stood and joined the short line of people who lived in the Everin building along with Iruuk. “Where do you live?” she asked Nivee.
“Oh, I have everything I’ll need on me. I was staying in one of the refugee intake centres for the last few months. Until last week I was on a construction work crew in the wastes, putting a new military base together.” She patted a shoulder bag she had with her, Alice couldn’t imagine that she had more than a spare vacsuit and a couple small personal effects in there. “Fleet’s my home now.”
Chapter 22
The True Leadership
Clark Patterson could not believe his eyes as he watched a single Edxian raid ship, the size of a destroyer, emerge from the side of a wall of drifting iron dust. “That is not supposed to be there,” he said to a commander who watched him as much as the holographic display in the Tactical Command Centre.
“We have three destroyers who can jump there in ninety-three seconds, Overlord,” the Commander, who reeked of fear, said.
“Do it,” the Overlord replied. “Dispatch them immediately. They are to force that ship into surrendering or destroy it completely.”
“Hold that order,” Admiral Lodds said as she entered the bridge. “The Order Fleet was made aware that the Edxians are scouting that area.”
“I have seen no record of an expedition, and that is a part of a larger raid ship. Judging from the damage, it ran into something with a great deal of firepower. We need to know where its mothership is and, if it was destroyed, what could have done so.”
“It was a ship piloted by Nadir or one of his followers. Possibly automated, since the ship that destroyed the Edxian Raider vessel did so by ramming into it and setting off its reactor. We have no more information on it. There’s nothing to worry about, the Edxians don’t blame us for the incident.”
“Why was I not made aware of any of this?” He couldn’t sense any fear from Admiral Lodds. She stared at him, unmoved by his anger.
“It wasn’t necessary for you to know any of this.” She moved up the steps to the top of his command dais and his body perfectly moved him down to the bottom, taking the steps as though someone else was in control. “You’re a figurehead in this organization, and it is time that you knew it, Overlord. Admiral Dron and Order Command are taking control of this fleet.”
“What have you done to me?” Clark Patterson asked. His arms were trapped at his sides, and his legs wouldn’t move.
“We added some nano scale biological robots to your physiology made from your own tissues so they wouldn’t be rejected. They’ve finished building a control node into your nervous system, so we can control you like any other framework. Don’t worry, this organization still has a use for a frontline banner bearer, and the Edxian Matriarchy is fully aware of the development.”
An attempt to connect to the Order of Eden network using his uplink failed, and he
could feel the node they used to control him. He attempted to force it out, to flex the delicate tissue around it in his neck, but incredible pain was his only reward. “You can’t hold me, you can’t force me to do anything.”
“I’m returning you to your resting pool now. We will call on you when we want you,” Admiral Lodds said. “Order the three destroyers in range of the raider ship to separate and begin mapping that area. We don’t have anything on that iron cloud.”
Every attempt the Overlord made to fight his own body as it casually walked him to his quarters and slipped into the viscus pool there failed. Once he was there he was forced into a black sleep.
Chapter 23
The Pursuer Lives
“I can’t believe this ship is running again,” Hot Chow said as he monitored the sensor readouts of the area.
Minh-Chu guided the ship out of a cloud of iron particles that had gathered around them while repairs were being made. “The responsiveness is up,” he said over his shoulder to Finn, who was watching the interconnectivity between systems on the terminal behind him.
“That’s because they’re directly connected, no buggy software version between you and the vital sections of the ship. Shields are working normally, by the way. The readings I’m getting from our external monitoring buoy match what our systems are set to put out.”
The Pursuer III emerged from the iron cloud into a clear space that led out of the iron rich section of the nebula. “It almost flies like a fighter,” Minh-Chu said. “Any chance at cloaking?”
“None, too much of the outer hull took damage and that software kit was in the extended weapons module,” Finn said. “I could upload something into the system, but it would still have to be calibrated and there’s no guarantee it would work because of the damage we’ve taken.”
“Never mind, let’s get to the rendezvous with the Revenge, we’re already a day late.”
“Could have been a lot worse,” Carnie said from the co-pilot’s seat.
Minh-Chu saw that the edge of the massive iron cloud had moved, they could be out in less than a minute, but the density was so high that their passive sensors weren’t picking up anything from the other side. “Send a sensor pulse through that opening, Hot Chow.”
“Done,” he reported.
Minh-Chu’s heart sank as his tactical map revealed a heavy Order of Eden destroyer and fifteen fighters. He flipped the Pursuer end over end and thrust toward the whirling cloud of iron. There were still electrical storms and masses of particles moving quickly thanks to the energy left behind by the fight they barely survived. “There’s some kind of gravity keeping this cloud together, and another force keeping the particles from bonding to each other. Do you think we could survive it if we got close to it?”
“Well, those electrical storms aren’t a problem anymore, but I’d stay away from some of those funnels,” Finn replied. “We’re talking about abrasive particles moving at thousands of kilometres per second, they’ll take out our shields and grind our hull.”
“Gotcha,” Minh-Chu said, looking at his tactical scanner. The fighters were all following them into the cloud with the destroyer not far behind.
“We have a message coming in,” Hot Chow said, sounding surprised.
“Put it through,” Minh-Chu said.
“Triton Fleet vessel, this is the Order Of Eden Destroyer Collins. You are required to power down, surrender your vessel and crew to us by law. You will do so in the next thirty seconds or be destroyed. This will be your only warning.”
Minh-Chu couldn’t help but snicker a little at the name. “Named after General David Collins. You just painted a big, fat target on your hull. I look forward to watching that ship implode.”
“You know he can hear you?” Hot Chow asked.
“Close the channel,” Minh-Chu said. “Not that I mind taunting him, but I told you to play the message, not open the channel.”
“Sorry, I thought –”
“Never mind,” Minh-Chu said as he guided the ship through a thin wall of iron and ice particles that looked like it was reacting to a large magnetic force. “Carnie, start plotting a wormhole jump that will take us deeper into this cloud. Short range, make sure it doesn’t pass through any of the denser formations. Finn, can you manually program our next four torpedoes to seek that destroyer? Two stages, EMP flash and then a big bang.”
“My pleasure,” he said, starting the job on his terminal right away. “I don’t even have to leave the cockpit.”
An idea struck Minh-Chu then, and he pointed the nose of the ship directly into a moderately thick cloud of iron particles, the largest on his scanner was only a few grams, but most of them were smaller than sand. “How are our shields taking this?”
“Good, barely taxed at all, I’ll try to change the settings so we repel them before they touch our energy barrier though,” Carnie replied.
“No, not yet. I want them to think that we’re panicking and running,” Minh-Chu said, looking for indicators of gravity in the distance. “Hot Chow, turn our scanner gain up as high as you can, we need to see what’s in the middle of this cloud. I have a feeling that we’re missing a big part of the picture.”
“Every ship in the area will see us,” Hot Chow replied.
“Do it.”
“Okay, done, I’m not seeing much yet though.”
“You’re looking for the gravitational influence of at least one planet, or a thick asteroid field. With all this iron there has to be one.”
“Those fighters are coming in after us, doesn’t look like they’re afraid to move through this stuff either,” Carnie said. “They’re catching up.”
“All gun emplacements, fire at will,” Minh-chu said, increasing the ship’s acceleration towards the largest iron particle cloud, it filled his tactical display, extending past their scanning range. “Carnie, set the shields so our port side is positive, starboard is negatively charged then spin that around the ship, we’re creating a spinning wake.”
“Can I do that?” Carne asked Finn.
“Yes, or I could do it for you?”
“Please, I have no idea how you do that, sorry Ronin.”
“No problem,” Minh-Chu said as he spotted a chain of heavy iron asteroids and directed the ship in their direction. The iron cloud would thicken as he approached, but the Pursuer was still performing almost normally as far as he could tell. A beam of light pierced the cloud above them and Minh-Chu took evasive action. The second beam weapon shot struck the top of the ship, taxing their shields.
“That brought us down to thirty two percent on our dorsal section, recharge time will be twelve seconds,” Finn announced. “Rotating the magnetic polarity now.”
“Those fighters are coming into range,” Sticky announced over the intercom from her position in the aft turret.
Minh-Chu smiled a little as he watched the iron particles spin behind their ship, creating a funnel of quickly spinning abrasive particulates. He pitched the ship down, directly towards a massive iron asteroid.
“Weird, really weird,” Hot Chow said. “I’m detecting a thick nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere a few light minutes away. That explains why this iron cloud is red, but how is this here at all?”
“Ships, a whole tribe’s worth of Nafalli ships,” Carnie said as he looked at the sensor data above the main displays at his station beside Minh-Chu.
Minh-Chu guided the into a tight turn, sending it away from the Nafalli ships. To his relief, the fighters followed, and the bow of the enemy destroyer started turning as well after a few seconds.
“Where are we going?” Hot Chow asked.
“I’m not going to drag our trouble through a fleet of by standing ships. At a glance, half those ships didn’t look armed. Fire torpedoes, program our missiles to strike those destroyers.”
“Two torpedoes away,” Carnie announced. “Firing main gun.” The heavy particle weapon fired from the nose of the ship, lashing out at the enemy destroyer as it tried to strike them with their
beam weapons. Two of the enemy fighters were caught in the whirling storm of particles the Pursuer created behind it. Three more were too busy avoiding the wake to evade their turret fire, and were torn apart by the Pursuers guns.
“Should I send the Nafalli a message? Oops, never mind, they want to talk to us.”
Two beam weapons stroked the Pursuer’s shields, draining them and heating a section of their hull on the port side.
“Two torpedoes ready,” Carnie announced. “Tracked and locked. The other torpedoes are manoeuvring to the target.”
“I have all the missiles programmed to go after that destroyer, but they won’t get through the grit between us and them,” Finn said. “Port shields are down to twelve percent.”
Minh-Chu manoeuvred the ship so their shield would have time to recharge and used an asteroid for cover as he started turning towards the destroyer. “Get ready to dump everything you have into our forward shields.” Two more fighters were destroyed by their gunners, the rest were angling for a shot as Minh-Chu wove between heavy iron asteroids. “Give me control of the missiles, but don’t open the launch bays until we’re within one hundred kilometres of that destroyer. I can’t let it see what’s behind us. Turn the sensor jammers up to maximum.”
“But, the Nafalli want to talk, I think they want to help,” Hot Chow said.
“If we even talk to them on an open channel, the Order will know they’re here, and I’m just guessing that these people are hiding from them.”
“Jamming,” Hot Chow said. “Sensors aren’t picking up any more Order forces, by the way.”
“Good, let’s make an impression. Fire the main gun right at the destroyer’s sensor array,” Minh-Chu said, watching the white particle accelerator weapon bolts cut through the red particle filled space between the destroyer and the Pursuer. “Gunnery crew: take those fighters out now, we need them off our backs.”
Minh-Chu used every bit of the ship’s thruster power and fighter pilot experience to send the Pursuer along a flight path that was so erratic that the beam weapons of the opposing ship were having difficulty keeping up. They suffered several minor strikes, but their shields were holding. “One hundred thousand kilometres away from the destroyer,” Finn said. “Shields holding.”
Spinward Fringe Broadcast 10 Page 19
