“Sir, do you have any idea of how they’ll react?” Riddell asked.
“Not yet. I’m going to try to find out. The Alliance skipper asked the same question. I won’t try to guess which of their options they’ll go with.”
“Sir, what are their options?” Howe was curious.
“Self-destruct, return to their base, abandon ship, attack the planet, fix their computers, try to find and attack us—including Wasp and Defender—or some combination of these. So, all is possible. I suppose they could send for help—which would be a tremendous loss of face. As their systems progressively degrade, some of those options disappear, of course.”
“Any likely option?” Riddell asked.
“No, Sergeant. I’m planning to discover more. Keep an eye on the bridge for me, while I head to my cabin. I’ve some work to do.”
“Yes, sir.”
*****
Chapter 40
Steg was stressed. He imagined everyone else on board the shuttle was in a similar status, except, perhaps, his dealing with the Xesset added another level. At least, in his opinion. He decided to stop feeling sorry for himself and lay on his bunk, preparing to communicate with the Xesset admiral. Just as he had done before when he contacted the Xesset starship trying to attack Djamu, he rehearsed the language structure he should use when addressing the admiral. He had identified the names of the ship and the admiral when he released the virus. Now he needed to link to the admiral.
“I am calling Admiral Trelonth of Hammer of Gods. I have an urgent message for him. Put me through to the admiral, immediately.”
The Xesset at the dreadnought’s master comunit ignored his request. Steg widened the communication to include every comunit on the alien dreadnought’s bridge and repeated his message.
“I am calling Admiral Trelonth of Hammer of Gods. I have an urgent message for him. Put me through to the admiral immediately.”
“This is Under-Admiral Mabast. Who are you to dare call Admiral Trelonth?”
“Put me through to the admiral or I’ll override every comunit on Hammer of Gods with my next message.”
“Evil drach, remove yourself from our ship or suffer the wrath of the gods.”
Steg linked to every operative comunit on the dreadnought.
“I have an urgent message for Admiral Trelonth. I am in control of your computer systems, which will continue to degrade until your puny ship collapses under its own weight. By the god K’Harnat, I promise this.”
“This is Thabot, the Admiral’s Champion. You have been sentenced to death, drach. Surrender yourself immediately, so the altar of K’Harnat can run with your blood.”
Steg smiled to himself, his determination building. He adjusted every Xesset comunit, except those on the Xesset bridge, to transmit a continuously varying high-pitched sine wave, which would block all internal transmissions; the ship crew would be unable to communicate beyond their immediate fellows. He sent his next message.
“Admiral Trelonth. Hammer of Gods is doomed. Leave this system now and you may have a small chance of survival. Remain and your ship will be destroyed. You have no other alternative—depart now or die.”
Three or four Xesset attempted to reply, simultaneously, each overriding the other, so that all Steg heard was a jumble of words. A stentorian roar cut through the confusion.
“Silence. I am Admiral Trelonth. Release our communication systems immediately and report to the bridge.”
“Admiral, I am not on board your ship. Your ship is doomed, a suitable end for those who assist pirates. The same fate will befall any Xesset ship that penetrates Eos space. Go now, while your drive commands still work.”
While the Xesset admiral was digesting his message, Steg reached for the comunit he’d used to communicate with Captain Montrose. He typed in a short message.
“Captain, we saw you dropped off a missile pod. I suggest you fire a couple of those missiles at the Xesset dreadnought. It’s called Hammer of Gods, by the way. I know, they may be able to find you—highly unlikely, given the current degraded state of their systems.”
The Xesset admiral spoke. “Who are you? What gives you the right to threaten me and my ship?”
“What right did you have to destroy the way station and kill thousands of people, without reason?”
“Pah—we have the right to destroy whatever we want; the gods are on our side.” The admiral retained his conviction of invincibility.
“You have failed your gods. They have deserted you. Your ship is stalled, your weapons useless. You can be destroyed now by our smallest warships. Depart while you still have enough control to achieve an s-t jump.”
The alien screamed his reply. The words he used were beyond the extent of Steg’s High Xesset language ability. He thought he’d been introduced to a fine example of Xesset swearing, probably describable as Low Xesset. Steg was curious how the crew on board the dreadnought were communicating while he was running the signal-generating sine wave. He tried to visualize the undoubtedly thorough search that was under way as the alien crew tried to find him. Their search would conflict with the attempts to combat the virus and recover from the system failures, which he expected were spreading with hurricane force through the huge starship. He read the “missiles away” message from Montrose.
“Admiral, we have launched missiles targeting your control center. If you cannot detect them, I give my assurance, we only launched two. That is all we need to destroy your ship. Go, leave this system.”
Steg used his knowledge of the layout of the Xesset starship and refined the course of the two Alliance missiles now accelerating towards the dreadnought. They should, he estimated, be able to penetrate the now unshielded location of the Admiral’s command and control center.
###
“Captain Montrose, our missiles altered course.” The Tac team was monitoring everything that moved in their vicinity. The tension on Defender’s bridge was extremely high.
“Still targeting the dreadnought?”
“Yes, sir. It must have been a refinement. I assume de Coeur has a target in mind.”
“Tac, remind me at some stage in the future, assuming we survive this experience, to never wage war against de Coeur. I wonder where he’s from?”
“Sir?”
“Well, imagine a whole shipload of de Coeurs.”
“I like that idea, sir.” Julie’s eyes sparkled.
Montrose put on a gloomy expression. “I thought you might.”
“Sir, the missiles have impacted the dreadnought. Their shields must have been down. We should attack now?”
The skipper held up his hand. “Wait. Give me a damage report. I assume de Coeur targeted the bridge or a command deck. The loss of command plus the loss of systems should trigger a major reaction.”
“Sir, there’s quite a breach. The missiles chewed into Hammer of Gods like she was made of butter. I think one missile hit a munitions store. The explosion was far more powerful than we’d expect from our missile warheads. We’ve detected a substantial loss of atmosphere and a significant stream of debris. Too far away to assess casualties.”
“I suspect their options are down to self-destruction or they’ll head out and make an s-t jump.”
“Sir?”
“Well, they don’t have many options left. We’ve demonstrated we can stand off and blow them to tiny pieces.”
“We have, sir?”
“All right, I stand corrected—Captain de Coeur has demonstrated. With our missiles, I’d like to point out.”
“Yes, sir.”
###
Steg used his links to the dreadnought’s bridge systems and copied the exchange of messages between him and Hammer of Gods into a file for transmission. He included a recording taken from the Xesset bridge of their failed defense against the two Alliance missiles. He accessed a dreadnought-based s-t communication unit—barely functioning—and sent the combined files to the Xesset High Command. It was a warning the Xesset should understand, he th
ought. He withdrew his link to the Xesset ship and returned his focus to the shuttle. While he waited for the Xesset ship to depart or self-destruct, he needed to plan their next steps. He headed to the bridge.
“Captain, quickly!” He could almost feel the excitement from Sergeant Riddell, Aadan, and others on watch. They were focused intently on the main shuttle viewscreen. “The Xesset dreadnought—it’s started to move.”
He looked at the screen, which displayed a constructed image of the huge starship. It was a hundred thousand or more klicks away, and the shuttle’s sensors were not strong enough to provide the detail that Steg would have preferred.
“Sir, it started from here,” Aadan said, indicating a position on the screen. “It moved almost erratically along this course.” She drew a jagged line. “It’s now reversing direction.”
“They must be experiencing system difficulties,” Riddell suggested.
“If the missiles killed their admiral, they may have a conflict of command,” Steg said as he watched. “I have no idea how they’d resolve that. They have someone called the Admiral’s Champion, and the admiral’s successor may have to do battle with him. Or perhaps the Champion is also dead.” He shook his head. “It’s all guesswork.”
Suddenly an adjacent viewscreen lit up with a larger image, far more detailed. “It’s from Destroyer, sir, a live stream. Their skipper thought you might be interested. He said it’s from passive drones they launched when the Xesset scout ship came and went.” The speaker was Beagle; she was on bridge duty.
“Send a thank you message.” Steg was entranced with the detail of the relayed image. The Alliance destroyer had impressive equipment.
Hammer of Gods was leaking atmosphere and debris. One of the missile impact areas glowed red where the warhead apparently had set off secondary explosions, and fires were still burning. As he watched, the dreadnought stilled its movement. Red streaks, which he realized were fracture lines in the alien starship’s hull, were spreading across its surface, creating numerous zigzags that slowly opened to space. Atmosphere sprayed out with a flare of flames, which reduced to red glows as oxygen was consumed or dissipated into space. Finally, Hammer of Gods broke into numerous fragments as its entire body fell apart, with lumps of starship heading in all directions.
“They self-destructed,” Steg pronounced. “There’ll be no survivors.” They stood for minutes, silent, watching the spreading debris that had been the largest warship they had ever seen.
Steg said, “I’m glad that’s over. Aadan, set course for the way station. We need to check if there are any survivors; they’ll need help. Let’s go. Beagle, get me the commander. Also, send a message to Captain Montrose. Let him know.”
“The commander is on comlink, sir,” said Beagle.
Steg connected his headset to the shuttle’s communication link with Wasp. “Commander.”
“Steg, did you see the Xesset ship break apart?”
“Yes, Commander. I suspect they hit the self-destruct button. It seems to be a Xesset tradition.”
“You caused their problem?”
“I wanted to persuade them to leave.”
“The Alliance people helped you? We detected two missiles.”
“I borrowed those. Fortunately I don’t have to return them. The Xesset shields were down, and I thought a display of missile power would persuade them to leave. I think one impacted their admiral’s control center and presumably killed him and perhaps other senior officers. As a result their command structure, controls, and computer systems probably had degraded too much to get them to a jump point. The second missile hit a munitions store, I think.”
“It was well done.”
“Thank you. We’re heading to the way station to see if we can help with survivors.”
“We’ll join you. They’ll also need assistance with rebuilding.”
“Good. I’ll try to contact the Eos president. Howe and Beagle are going to help restore the planet’s data centers. They set the virus loose, they can clear the systems.”
*****
Chapter 41
The shuttle crew found a section of a docking arm that appeared to have escaped the Xesset warship’s firing program. Aadan nosed the shuttle up to an airlock, and Steg and Riddell volunteered to check the condition of the section of the way station. They wore exo-armor in case the area was not as safe as it seemed. Before exiting the shuttle, Steg had directed the two computer experts to make contact with systems on Eos to check the status of the virus and to commence cleaning the data centers. He had not been able to contact the president; the computer virus apparently had disrupted dirtside communications.
Riddell led the way through the airlock into an empty portion of the docking arm. One end of the wide transit tube was sealed off by a heavy emergency bulkhead. The other end led towards the center of the station and appeared to be blocked by debris. Steg assumed a heavy bulkhead was behind the broken structure and had sealed that end. There was no lighting although there was atmosphere of breathable quality.
“We can run power leads out when Wasp docks,” said Riddell. “That will give us lights.”
“Get your men; they can start to explore a way through to the station center. When Wasp arrives, Dean can set up search and rescue teams. If there are survivors on the station, they’ll need air and food and medical treatment.” Steg watched as Riddell pushed aside a section of a side wall to check the underlying structure. He continued, “The station should have repair bots. If Beagle’s virus killed the station systems, the bots will be inoperative.”
“At least we know this part seems solid. Okay, I’ll talk to Dean, see what we can commence with.”
They returned through the airlock back to the shuttle. Riddell headed off to talk to Dean on board Wasp while Steg went to the bridge.
“Beagle, leave Howe to carry out the system assessment, dirtside. I want you to clean the computers on the station. We need to get repair bots running and station utilities back on line,” Steg instructed.
“Yes, sir. We’ve set up our compads as remote terminals, and we’re connected to the main data centers. We made sure to bypass the shuttle’s systems. We’ll soon be able to start booting up some of the major centers. It looks as though the Eos systems operators haven’t worked out how to counter the virus. I can leave Howe to carry on while I work on cleaning the station units.”
“Howe, as you help re-start the banking data centers, I want you to freeze accounts that belong to the rebel leaders—you know, the Joy growers. Create a hidden account with the Eos Central Bank and transfer the balances there. Make sure there are no trails revealing where the funds went.” Steg wanted to isolate the rebel leaders and wiping out their funds would go a long way towards removing their power.
“Yes, sir.”
“Good—just make sure the shuttle’s system doesn’t get infected. Aadan, where is Defender, do you know?”
“Defender is close. They’re sending a shuttle to dock next to us while Defender stands off; it’ll be here in five. Montrose is cautious. He’s invited you to a meeting on board the destroyer. Apparently he’s anxious to organize a search and rescue program and will coordinate with Wasp and our Stingers.”
“Please tell Commander Gillespie I’ve gone visiting. Beagle and Howe, you can update Captain Dean with progress. The repair bots are critical. Get them working.”
“Yes, sir.” There was a chorus of acknowledgments.
Steg boarded the small Alliance craft from another egress point along the docking arm, only thirty or so meters away from their shuttle. The crew welcomed him and departed with a roar of power.
“The skipper wants you on board as quickly as possible, sir,” a rating explained.
There was a small welcoming group of officers inside the destroyer’s lock. Steg recognized one, the security lead who had inspected Wasp, and greeted him. “My turn to inspect,” he commented.
“I think you’ve already managed that, sir,” the young officer repl
ied. “My name’s Roscoe. We had to disconnect and remove the damned AV device that you activated.”
“It was an intriguing anomaly,” Steg said with a grin as he followed his escort.
Roscoe returned his grin. “The Captain’s in his conference room; it’s not far.”
The lieutenant waited at the door for Steg to enter the conference room. About fifteen of the destroyer’s officers were in attendance, and as one, they stood and saluted him. Captain Montrose held out his hand and grasped Steg’s firmly.
“Well done, Captain de Coeur. Please accept our thanks. I was not unhappy to miss going up against that monster.”
“Sir, please call me Steg. I did what was needed for us to survive. I wanted the Xesset to return to their base; they chose self-destruction, instead.”
“Sit, and let me introduce my people. My Tac is ever so eager to meet you. I think she’s a fan. Mind you, she’s not the only one, based on what I’ve heard. Commander Jessie Brent, Captain de Coeur.”
The Tac commander stood and made a small bow to Steg, and he matched her gesture. “Please to meet you, Commander.”
“Jessie, please.”
Montrose took over and called out the names of his officers around the table. “I’m sure you won’t recall all the names, well, apart from Jessie’s, I suppose. They all have name tags, though. Now Steg, what debriefing can you provide?”
“Sir—”
“Richard, please. We can be informal, here.” At the skipper’s signal, a rating proceeded to pour coffee and distribute finger food, first to Steg and then to Defender’s officers.
“Thank you. Richard, I can give you some details. You may or may not find them credible, however.”
“I’ve seen the results.”
“Well, yes. I was impressed with your team’s ability to detect my involvement.”
“So was I. Now, tell us about the Xesset.”
“I learned Xesset—High Xesset—when I was—seconded—to a Special Forces team. They—the Xesset—had taken over a planet and were treating the inhabitants as slaves. I was a friend of the planet’s diplomatic representative to the Empire, and I wanted to help. We—the surviving military force on the planet and our Special Forces—forced the Xesset off the planet. Our team chased and boarded one of the fleeing ships. We had a battle on our hands. We managed to prevent them self-destructing and captured a lot of material.”
Fracture Lines (The Glass Complex Book 2) Page 26
