Launch Sequence (Genesis Book 2)

by Travis Hill

“No, but it’s no surprise. The Empire doesn’t like schoolyard fights on its playground.”

  “Incoming message, Admiral,” Lt. Ken said before Irina could reply.

  “Put it on the board,” Huang said to the comm officer.

  Irina wasn’t surprised the message was a text-only translation. The Rathala were not only proud and aggressive, they were vain and secretive. Rathalans had been viewed by human eyes less than fifty times since mankind’s tether to Earth was broken by FTL transit. Irina tried to recall what they looked like, having seen images of them during her training. Her best memory was a blurry image of a large, furry, biped with multiple eyes and too many teeth.

  “‘Exit or face destruction’ is right to the point,” Meyer said after reading the translation.

  “Reply, Admiral?” Lt. Ken asked.

  “Nah,” Huang said. “They’re duking it out with the Kai, and we’ve jumped enough to force them to focus on the Kai first instead of wasting more ammo on us. We’ll spectate for a bit and stay out of it if we can while watching the clock. Five more hours for the seedships to hit the pocket. This fight could last half a day or more. Once they’re in the pocket, we’re out.”

  “Sir, we should at least draft a reply to the Rathalans,” Irina said. “We can say we’re on an urgent escape mission now that the Kai have defeated us. Last of our race, all that, and we have no intention of staying in the Empire’s territory. Once we’re gone, they’ll never see another human again.”

  “Take care of it, Drazek,” Huang said without any hint of annoyance. “Be diplomatic and try to grovel a little, but not too much. If their hailing message changes, we’ll send it.”

  Irina’s fingers raced over the virtual keyboard. After ten minutes of editing, deletion, and alteration, she felt confident her plea for safe passage would at least stall the Rathala from attacking them for an hour or two while they replied and waited for a response.

  ***

  “FTL contacts!” Aweke shouted excitedly two hours later.

  “What the fuck?” Meyer asked absently.

  Irina’s fear returned. She’d spent the last hour watching the Rathalans slowly pick apart the Kai fleet, losing almost as many ships themselves. Huang had rescinded the seven-minute FTL translations soon after receiving the Rathalans’ message, choosing to keep his distance but allow the sensors to capture the battle uninterrupted. The crews on each ship in Silver Fleet were tense, unable to relax after almost fifteen hours. The fighter and bomber jocks were likely furious at being forced to watch the battle from their craft while locked in the launch bays of their carriers.

  “Another eighty signatures,” Aweke announced. “Likely another Rathalan fleet. Wait. Holy shit. More FTL contacts!”

  “Admiral…” Meyer said on the private command channel.

  “I hear you, Rickus,” Huang replied. “This is bad. We’ve got three more hours until the seedships are away.”

  “Yeah, but…” Meyer said. “If this is another Rathalan fleet and another Kai fleet…”

  “Or two Rathalan fleets,” Huang said.

  Admiral Huang didn’t have to explain how two new Rathalan fleets were worse. The fact that Silver Fleet hadn’t jumped away, instead staying within fifteen light-minutes of the ongoing fight, meant the Rathalans wouldn’t buy Irina’s message asking for safe passage. The new fleets would make a beeline toward the humans and force them to stand and fight, or flee before the seedships were officially away.

  “Admiral, if it helps your decision, I believe the Kai have lost this battle and we can safely exit this region,” Irina said, hoping the man wouldn’t snap at her for butting in.

  “You sure about that, Drazek?” he asked.

  “My only worry was the Kai going after the Genesis ships instead of us. You kept them busy long enough for the Rathalans to arrive and engage. If these new contacts are indeed more Rathalans, they’ll wipe the Kai completely. Unless they somehow know about Nightfall’s objectives, they have no clue why we’re here other than running from the Kai.”

  “What if it’s a Kai fleet and another Rathalan fleet?” Meyer asked.

  “Then unfortunately, we’ll have to stay just to be sure,” Irina answered. “Any of the initial Kai ships could transmit the information to their reinforcements. I seriously doubt the seedships could be caught at this stage, but the Kai are superior foes and we can’t take that chance.”

  “If we get caught in a major battle between three hundred ships, we’re done,” Huang said.

  “We’ll have completed four-fifths of our mission,” Irina countered.

  “I guess that’s better than any of us hoped for,” he grumbled. “Once tactical updates, we’ll decide.”

  NINE

  Irina refused to leave the bridge no matter how many times Huang, Meyer, and even Sawalha first asked, then ordered her to. She knew she would crash hard after the six stim tabs finally wore off. By the time Silver Fleet aligned and exited the Rathalan Outback, the Kai were down to a battlecruiser and a battleship. The Rathalans, on the other hand, continued to pour ships into the system. ALVIN’s last update pegged their capital ship strength alone at over four hundred.

  “I have to wonder if the Rathalans didn’t do their best to make good on their promises of destruction,” Irina said over the command channel. She noticed her words beginning to slur.

  “Goddammit, Drazek,” Huang rumbled. “Just shut the fuck up and go to sleep already since you won’t leave my bridge.”

  “Soon, Mattias,” she said, her thoughts jumbling together as exhaustion began to overpower her resolve to stay awake. “Just humor me for a minute.”

  “Fine,” he muttered. “What do you want to talk about? The Rathalans? Personally, I think they were happy enough to wipe out an entire Kai battle group.”

  “They barely fired at us,” Sawalha offered from her soak tube on Gold Deck. “Come on, Ma’am, come down and have a drink with me.”

  “So tempting,” Irina said, her eyes heavy. She hoped she closed her mouth before anything embarrassing came out.

  “Maybe they felt sorry for us,” Meyer said.

  Irina hated Meyer at that moment. The man had been awake almost thirty hours yet sounded as if he had just woken up from a ten-year nap.

  “At least we’re sure the seedships hit the pocket,” Huang said. “I hate to jinx us, but so far so good.”

  A chorus of groans met his ears, some of the bridge crew overhearing his voice from his command chair even though they were locked out of the command channel. Huang smiled behind his visor, then turned it into a chuckle. Commander Drazek was finally out cold. He authorized an order forbidding anyone to wake her up before she’d had a full eight hours of sleep.

  ***

  “Why Alpha Point?” Meyer asked when Irina was fully awake and refreshed again. “I mean, why any of these launch points leading into the deep black, but more so, why Alpha Point?”

  “I think it’s because the deep black is so… deep,” Irina said before sipping from her coffee pouch.

  “How very quaintly humorous of you,” Huang said, doing his best to keep up his front of dislike for the woman across from him.

  “Thank you, Sir,” she said, then took another sip. “Command wanted to give the ships a chance. Sending them through regular stellar neighborhoods might inadvertently interrupt their journey by finding new alien civilizations along the way.”

  “Aliens who would still be too close to the Kai’s territory,” Huang said with a nod of his head.

  “There might be aliens who are ten times more powerful than the Kai who would be sympathetic to us,” Irina continued. “But then there might be aliens who kill everything on sight, or maybe they would be far weaker than the Kai and be forced to help hasten our final demise. We know very little about the Kai after half a century, while there’s a good chance they know every civilization within ten thousand light-years and keep close tabs on them during their exterminations just to make sure everyone plays by the rules.�
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  “But there might be aliens just as bad as the Kai on the other side of the deep black,” Meyer persisted, unsure why he was suddenly so interested in Command’s strategy.

  “Likely so based on our own stellar neighborhood,” Irina said. “But then again, maybe not, since it’s a lot closer to the galactic core. Maybe we’ve doomed the people we’ve sent that way. Maybe the ones we’ve sent to the outer arm will simply keep traveling right on through and out of the galaxy.”

  “You’re just a big bucket of optimism today,” Huang said.

  “To be honest, Admiral, I have no real insight into why Command chose the way they did. My personal belief is that they had plans for something much more grand—on the order of a hundred, if not hundreds of seedships—that factions within the Coalition bitterly fought every step of the way. But they couldn’t authorize Project Genesis openly as it would have likely caused a panic when the public realized the implications of needing seedships.”

  “Coalition citizens would definitely see that as the end of the line for humanity,” Meyer agreed. “Not to mention the furor over how they likely knew the futility of war against the Kai as long as four decades ago, yet kept everyone in the dark under the guise of patriotism or survival or whatever they labeled it.”

  “In any other circumstance, I’d have both of you thrown out the airlocks for such pessimistic, quasi-treasonous talk,” Huang said, though his voice sounded tired and weary.

  “You just hate that I’m usually right,” Irina said, without a hint of sarcasm.

  Huang gave her a paranoid look, his mind scrambling to the conclusion that as a Special Forces spook, she probably had his comm bugged. He discarded that idea as foolish. The woman was a professional soldier, one of the last of her kind. From his interactions with her so far, he knew she was more serious than anyone about the need to make sure humanity survived total collapse. He hated thinking that humanity was already gone, that Silver Fleet and the passengers of the Genesis ships were all that was left of a once-proud, scrappy, extremely adaptable species.

  “Don’t think about it too much, Admiral,” Irina said. “It only makes it harder to accept.”

  “Get the fuck out of my head, Drazek,” he said, standing up in a huff. “I’m off to the bridge. See you for shift change at 1200, Captain,” he said to Meyer. “Commander,” he muttered, giving her a nod before leaving the small meeting room.

  “Pleasant man,” Irina said, finishing the last of her coffee pouch.

  “He really doesn’t like you,” Meyer said with a laugh.

  “What about you?”

  “Me?” Meyer asked, surprised by the question but also worried about whether he should answer honestly.

  “No, the guy sitting behind you.”

  “Well…”

  “It’s okay, Rickus. Let it out. We’re all going to die soon since there’s no way we can keep up this kind of luck.”

  “There’s only one more seedship, then we’re done,” he countered, evading her request to speak his mind.

  “Don’t avoid the question, and don’t believe for a second the Kai will make the same mistakes twice.”

  “Fine,” he said with a sigh. “I wanted you in the brig for the first few days. Matty hates spooks only slightly more than I do. You assholes have fucked up too many of our operations with your bullshit. I can’t count the number of men and ships I’ve lost because one of you needed me to stay in the pocket a few more minutes—or needed the fleet to translate to some bullshit coordinates to save one of your own while tens of thousands of civilians were slaughtered.”

  “I understand,” Irina said softly.

  “No, I don’t think you do,” Meyer said, worried he might not be able to control his temper now that the vents were open. “It’s a fucking shame Command ever gave you life. I don’t know how anyone can justify the extraction of six SpecOps agents instead of helping us evacuate a million civilians. And that’s the biggest fucking problem I have with you and your types. I never know! Because you people live in a secret world and we’re only told where to take you and how long to wait for you to return, never what the fuck we’re actually helping you with.”

  “Like your crews would fire off a message to the Kai to tell them exactly what we were doing, right?” Irina said with a smile, hoping to defuse the captain before he said something he regretted—even though she had given him permission to speak freely.

  “Very funny.” He took a deep breath. “But as much as I hated you and your goddamn branch of the military, the instant we found Genesis-1 and -2, I hated you a lot less.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe because for the first time, I wondered if all the other missions we’d been forced to alter for Special Forces might have been important after all. For the most part, I don’t believe they were. The Coalition and Command are mostly competent when separate, but when the Coalition starts pressuring Command in terms of strategy or logistics, it usually ends in disaster.”

  “Unless success means saving a Senator’s extended family,” Irina said, remembering a particularly disgraceful use of political influence that rocked the Coalition.

  “Sure,” Meyer said, knowing exactly what she referred to. “Only sixty thousand or so died so two nieces and a stepson could get a ride back to Earth.”

  “So now you don’t exactly hate me, you’re just in a holding pattern of contempt and loathing?”

  “I don’t know if hate or contempt or loathing are good descriptors. I guess as this mission has gone on, I’ve seen enough of you to know you care more about it than anyone else. You’re not the scary, crazy assassin everyone thinks you are.”

  Irina raised one eyebrow and gave him a dark look.

  “Okay,” he admitted. “I’m sure you’re every bit as murderous as the rumors claim. But I am pretty sure you are a real, feeling, breathing human being under that spook uniform.”

  “Sometimes I’m even warm and cuddly,” Irina said with a grin.

  “Is that an offer?” Meyer said, praying his expression showed no signs of hope that it was.

  “Of course it is. I’m not one to beat around the bush, Rickus. But you’ll have to wait until our schedules coincide.”

  “I’m sure I can deal with the wait.”

  ***

  “Jump complete,” Korrigar said over the comm. “If this stellar map is accurate, it could take up to three days for our sensors to show us any kind of picture other than the derelict rogue planet our gravitational sensors picked up about eight light-hours out.”

  “From what I remember, Lieutenant, it would take our entire sensor suite almost a month to pick up the next closest object of any nominal size,” Irina said.

  “We’ll use ALVIN’s nav predictions and the dead planet to align once we’ve picked up Genesis-5,” Meyer said. “How long before we pick up her transponder, by the way?”

  “About sixteen hours,” Irina answered for Lt. Korrigar.

  “Roger that,” Meyer said. “Sawalha, you have the Bridge. We’ll be meeting in the admiral’s quarters. Stay on the command channel. Meyer out.”

  Irina took the cue to disengage herself from the tactical helmet and follow Captain Meyer down to Admiral Huang’s personal quarters. She was curious as to what the discussion would be about. Neither man, nor even Sawalha had hinted there was anything more to discuss other than the final launch sequence for Genesis-5. Instead of hinting or even directly asking Meyer what was up, she silently followed him and made smalltalk until arriving at Huang’s door.

  “Ah, welcome,” Huang said from his chair.

  Meyer and Irina stepped inside. Meyer immediately sat in a chair that Irina assumed was his normal seat whenever he and Huang met. She chose the chair closest to the door just in case she had to make a quick escape. She pushed that thought aside and shot the admiral a jealous look when she noticed his quarters were at least three times the size of hers.

  “Okay, kids,” she said with a grin after everyon
e was settled in and Sawalha had pinged the comm to let them know she was tied into the upcoming conversation. “What’s this about?”

  “Drazek, I think it’s time you explained what ‘All-Stop’ is,” Huang said.

  Irina waited for him to say more, but the admiral remained silent. Meyer looked her in the eye, but his expression was as blank as his CO’s. She sighed.

  “You’re right,” she said. “I do think it’s time to give you the rest of the info. I suppose if you were still unsure about our mission, this will burn away those doubts like nothing else. Both figuratively and literally.” She paused and looked each man in the eye for a few seconds. “All-Stop is the second half of the Coalition’s grand plan to go out with a bang. At least, that’s what we want the Kai to believe, though I’m sure there’s a certain element of delicious revenge for whoever dreamed it up and whoever finally approved it.”

  “Are you going to tell us in ten thousand flowery words what could be said in a dozen?” Huang asked. Irina knew he was doing his best to keep his temper in check. He, like Meyer, hated being left in the dark by Command and the UCSF brass.

  “Very well. All-Stop is the simultaneous activation of almost one hundred thousand nuclear warheads, along with almost ten thousand salted-cobalt neutron warheads, seventeen hundred XBD weapons, and four hundred of the Coalition’s newest party favor, the Compression Collapsar Device—or just CCD for short, since we know the military loves jargon and acronyms.”

  “What the hell?” Meyer asked after a long silence. “What does that mean?”

  Irina held his gaze. “It means that whenever the last of our ground forces have been eliminated, an automated emergency Wire burst will be sent to every weapon the Coalition has seeded across human, Seven, Hanura, and Kai space.”

  “Okay…” Huang said, his tone matching his puzzled expression. “I don’t get it.”

  “As we’ve discussed, the Coalition foresaw the eventual elimination of our allies, then our own species,” Irina said in a calm but mechanical voice. “The first and most important mission is ours. Task Force Nightfall has to succeed, and so far, we’re four for four. The second aspect of it is All-Stop. The simultaneous detonation of every weapon the Coalition has in its inventory is meant to cripple the Kai’s ability to wage war for a period of time—or at least keep them focused on rebuilding or replacing whatever All-Stop destroys instead of worrying about the strange human mission to the edges of known space with Silver Fleet.”