by T. J. Jones
“Friendly bunch,” Adrian said dryly. “Tia, I need some good news.”
The chief engineer of the ship shifted a little with a soft expression. “The power relays are half and half. I’ve had some luck getting some of them back online, but it’s still a mess. I’ve also got a team working on realigning the warp core. That should be back up very soon. Once we got power back online, the rest of the process was pretty easy. They just needed to not be shot at while doing their jobs. I can give you full warp capability back within a few hours.”
“I need everything you can give me in half the time.” He glanced out the window trying to see past the nebula they were in and get a glimpse of the diamond-shaped White Empire vessel. “What else,” he asked her.
“Well, we’ve got force fields plugging the hull breaches they created with their boarding craft. And the QT drive should be serviceable about the same time the warp engines come back to full too.”
That got him to perk up. It gave him an option. He could get his people home. Save what he could. Fleet protocol demanded that he make a retreat in the face of an overwhelming enemy. The needs of the many vs. the needs of the few. But the thought of running made him sick. He caught the look Dekav gave him just now.
“I’ve got weapons back. Shields, however, took a pretty nasty beating. I’m coordinating with damage control teams to get them back up as quickly as possible,” Jarod reported. “I’ve also got the marines and security coordinating through me for the time being. Security took a beating as well. They are at about half capacity.”
Adrian scratched his head. That was not the best news he’d gotten. “Thanks, Jarod.” He turned to Mr. Zezai, the ship’s Commander Air Group officer. In ways, he envied Ben having his old position. It would have been easier to have someone else making the decisions he was having to make. To get the reports he was getting. For it to be someone else’s mess. To say he was feeling a little overwhelmed was an understatement, and the prospect of making a jump for home was appealing.
“My birds are fine. Their ship didn’t seem ready to handle targeting them, never mind engaging them. Most of us were just ignored. The bombers had a field day on their ship. Our capital ship strike packages did a number on their engines. I’ll bet my commission it’s why they let us limp away without any protest.”
Adrian perked up. Ok, that was good news. “So they are currently dead in the water?”
Ben nodded. “Like a beached shark.”
“Whale. It’s Beached Whale. It’s occurring to me that we need to have a class on idioms later,” Adrian replied impulsively. He caught the look Jarod was giving him. Another time, Adrian. Right. “That’s great news. Dekav, how long would it take their engineering teams to get their ship mobile again?”
Dekav’s silver lips pursed together in thought. “If the Truth’s battlegroup were present? No time at all. Isolated out this far from them? As long as it would take for you to effect the repairs to your own vessel if not longer. The Truth is too big for its own staff. It depends on smaller dedicated service vessels to keep its maintenance up.”
“Sir, given the tactical situation I believe it’s prudent that we adhere to fleet doctrine and make an RTB as soon as the QT drive comes online.” Jarod suggested with a hint of hesitation.
Dr. Dorren, Mary Jo, Tia and Ben all seemed to disagree. “Sir, we can’t just leave. Half the crew has family on that ship.”
“I must confess that your tactical situation is not the best. The ideal solution would be to make a run for home space before the Truth and Jubilation repairs its subluminal drives and makes for a pursuit.” Dekav added.
“We can’t leave them behind!” Dr. Dorren shouted.
“And do what? Huh? Risk the rest of this crew? Damn everyone to go down? My job is to save who I can, not kill everyone.” Adrian protested. He had to entertain all options.
“I can’t stand for this.” Dr. Dorren stood up and stormed out.
Adrian drifted to the window. “You’re dismissed.”
Everyone quietly stood up and filtered out, leaving him alone in the meeting room. The captain’s last order to him was to get the ship and crew home. But now he was faced with a difficult choice. Did he save who he could? Or risk it all for everyone.
“It’s a difficult thing to ponder. The fate of others. It’s what eventually drove me from the empire. The way they falsely chose to speak for the gods,” Dekav said smoothly behind him.
“Yeah? Don’t suppose your gods have anything to say about what I should do here?”
Dekav shook his head, placing a hand on Adrian’s shoulder. “These are your crew. Your command. I am merely a guest. A refugee. You must decide in your heart what is right.”
“That’s just it, though. I don’t know what is? I’m duty sworn to everyone’s safety. Yet, I know if we try and engage that ship again we won’t be limping away from that fight as easily as we got off this time.”
Dekav nodded. “You are right to fear and respect the power the empire wields. They are dangerous — to you, your crew, and all the member worlds you come from. If they were to discover the home planets you all hail from, they would invade your quadrant of the galaxy and there would be a war for centuries until they wore you down and subjugated all of them too.”
Adrian turned back to Dekav. “You really believe that?”
“I have seen it happen several times in my own lifetime. My belief in the facts is not required for them to be facts.”
“Do you think they could really do that?”
“Well, once the docent decides upon that course of action, it’s likely he’ll want to attempt to access your computer network for your astrogation charts.”
“Which means at some point he’s going to come back after us,” Adrian mused.
“Unless, of course, you repair your ship and run now,” Dekav offered.
Adrian frowned. This was not giving him a lot of options. Go now, save the Alliance, but lose his crews’ families. Risk staying to save the crews’ families and risk the fate of the Alliance. The smart decision was to cut his losses and run. It would ruin the lives of almost everyone on the ship and would likely become known as some kind of textbook study in the difficult choices class in leadership. He ran a hand through his hair. “Ugh. I need some tea.”
Dekav bowed his head. “I’ll give you some time to think. Should you need me, I’ll be in your ship’s lounge. It’s empty and offers a nice view.”
Adrian turned, bowing his head, as Dekav bowed back. His gaze drifted back to the nebula. There were a lot of colors swirling within it. Amber, crimson, oranges and yellows. It reminded him a lot of the Briar Patch nebula back in his corner of space. It was called the briar patch because ships traveling through it were often slowed because of the gaseous density of the nebula and the havoc it played with subluminal drives. There was even a famous battle fought in the briar patch.
The Alliance commander used the ramscoops of his ship to collect the gas and vent it behind his ship to snag them in a makeshift snare and then circled about to hit them in a weak point. Unknown to the commander, the gas became volatile outside of the nebula and created a point-to-point explosion that collapsed the shields of the enemy ship, causing extreme damage to their hull.
They had visual cover and time for the moment. Finally, it seemed like they’d had the luxury since arrival. No, they really didn’t. They just had cover. Eventually, he was going to have to face a choice. Run now, or fight later. Either way, lives were going to be on the line. The only question was what stakes he felt comfortable betting on.
He left the meeting room and drifted in a daze back to his quarters. He got a chai tea from the food printer and sat down with a tablet in his hands. He was looking at everything he could think of to help make his decision. He didn’t want the first big choice he made as a captain to be the most infamous one he made. Somehow he didn’t think fate was going to offer him much slack on that. This was going to become his legacy.
Nor
mally he would just do whatever he felt was best. But he was the captain of the ship now. He had to act like it. Do the right thing. But what was the right thing? What his experiences and training told him to do? Or his gut? Who was right and who was wrong? Did right and wrong even matter? He was holding a floppy hand. Sooner or later he was going to have to either call the enemy’s bluff, this Docent fella, or fold. Something else was still nagging at him.
The enemy had a weak anti-fighter screen. That was the kink in their armor. Dekav didn’t admit to as much because he probably wasn’t even aware of it himself. Terran naval warfare started with big ships too, but once man mastered the skies, that changed everything. What he wouldn’t give to have the Independence right now. Six full wings, two recon wings and a few bombers wings, he’d be digging in that diamond ship’s ass so deep they’d feel him tickling their throat.
“Ok, so that’s great, Rain, but how do you use it?”
How did he use it? Jarod said they had full weapons, but the ship’s shields were pretty flimsy still. That still put him at a disadvantage. Or maybe not? Ben managed to cripple the diamond ship with just the capital package strike bombers. Factor in the fighter bombers, and they could more than go to work on the enemy.
So they had a chance to lay some hurt on the enemy. But if those assholes came looking for a real fight, things would go south fast. There was also the matter of his missing crew and families. They couldn’t just start smashing the enemy ship to pieces without coming up with a plan to fish them out. The boarding party shuttles. Many were still attached to the ship thanks to the stragglers they’d killed with the Nadion pulse.
That gave him an option, but it wasn’t ideal. He’d still only be able to get half the missing personnel back. He sipped at his tea thoughtfully. Assuming for a moment he chose to stay, to not return to the fleet and home space. He was going to need a strike and rescue plan. They could use the enemy’s tactics against them, but they didn’t have the numbers for that. Putting a full landing party on the enemy ship would no doubt raise all kinds of alarms, not to mention draw attention away from the strike. If this was going to work, he needed to slip his people out from under the docent’s nose.
They could jury rig the shuttles to deliver warheads. Then after delivering their payload, the pilots could fly close enough to an entry point created by his fighters and bombers. If they used heavy tricadmium munitions, that would peel the armor back on even toughest of ships back home. One warhead would chew through a third of the decks on any portion of the Odyssey. Between those and Joint Deep Assault Munition ordnance they had for the bombers, they could burrow into that ship like an Alabama tick. The question was would it be enough to keep the empire busy?
The nebula. They hadn’t pursued because they realized the nebula’s composition. That’s why his scout recon ships weren’t molested for falling back here. Would the ramscoops be able to project the nebula gasses that far out? Would they be able to get their fighters and bombers clear in case the gas became volatile? He pursed his lips together. There was still a lot of unknowns working, but he felt like he could make a solid bet on them. As comfortable bet as he was going to get. He keyed his comm device. “Commander Rain to all senior officers. Report to the meeting room ASAP.” He saved his notes and took his tablet with him.
When everyone got to the meeting room, he saved and sent his notes and thoughts to everyone gathered. At first, most of them looked confused. “A proverb from Sun Tzu — Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak?” Tia asked. “Fighting a battle with one’s back to a river? Commander, what is this about?”
Ben was looking over Adrian’s notes on the fighters’ and bombers’ effectiveness and the shuttles left behind from the White Empire troops. “I think I know what he’s aiming at.”
Jarod set his tablet down. “You’re planning an assault and rescue mission.”
Dr. Dorren glanced up, an eyebrow perched. “Just earlier you were looking at turning tail and running. Why the change of heart?”
“It was never a change of heart, Doc. Just a change of priorities. You were right. My obligation is to the whole crew. Yeah, I could leave now and save some of you. Probably become a case study for making the smart choice in an impossible situation. But I’ve never been one to play it safe. Our hand isn’t strong. But I’m willing to call their bluff. It’s risky, but I think we can pull it off.”
“Ok. What do you need from us?” Jarod asked.
“Are you sure you’re ok with this?”
Jarod stiffened. “Commander, I never meant to insinuate I wanted you to take us home. Only that it was what fleet protocol dictates. Frankly, I would say to hell with Fleet in this case.”
Adrian grinned. “Atta boy. Right. Mary Jo, I need you to run the math on daisy chaining a teleporter stream through the shuttles. See if it’ll be strong enough for the Odyssey’s system to start yanking our people back home and what kind of situations you’d need to make it as ideal as possible. Cover all the bases.” He waited for her to give him a north-south to make sure she understood.
“Tia, I need you and Dekav to go over those shuttles. Teach some of our security boys how to read those rigs, you’re the resident language expert. And if you can jury rig some munitions to them. Make it look like we’re desperate.”
“Desperate I can do.”
“Oh, also, Mary Jo, I’m giving you Jarod. I want him to work on studying the properties of this nebula. See if we can’t use the ramscoops on the shuttles and the ship to make some kind of nebula extension. If this one is anything like the Briar Patch back home, we might be able to make it work for us.”
“Got it,” Jarod said.
“Ben, get your birds ready. Full strike package. Fit those interceptors with the JDAMs and get your bombers reloaded for round two. We’re going to give those bastards hell.”
“Bet on it.” Ben grinned.
“That’s what I’m planning to do.” He paused, looking at everyone squarely for a moment. “I won’t lie, folks. There’s a high chance of this turning south on us real fast. That diamond ship out guns us by a notch or two, and it’s in better condition than we are.”
Tia snarled. He gestured for her to relax. He didn’t blame her for their current condition. “Our backs are to the river.” He pointed out the window to the nebula. “So we’ve got to give this our all. Giving up isn’t an option. And letting those bastards win isn’t an option either because if we do, they’ll head for our homes and destroy everything we’ve worked so hard to build. This is it, folks. The line in the sand is here. Not an inch farther. They may have bloodied our noses. I’ll bet they are probably feeling pretty cocky about it too.”
He stood up and glanced out the window before turning back to them, leaning braced on his chair. “But I’ll promise you this, we’re getting our people and going home together. Any other outcome is unacceptable. Dismissed.”
Chapter Ten
Docent Vay confirmed the prisoner was ready to speak. His forehead antennae twitched slightly as he tried not to breathe too closely near them. Even their scent almost made him ill. The male standing before him had a few weapons burns. He stood before the others, who were cowering and mewling like terrified livestock.
“Can you understand me?” Vay asked.
“Yes,” the male replied.
“I am Docent Vay of the Holy White Empire. Identify yourself.”
“Lt. Solamen Kaine, Chief Security Officer aboard the USS Odyssey, of the United Stellar Alliance. Service number DNV843.”
The docent straightened up when he discovered they’d captured the enemy ship’s security officer. That made things interesting. If he wouldn’t yield them any useful intel, they could rip the access codes from his mind and take the information they wanted from the pink skins’ ship by force. Then he could subjugate all their worlds and his name would become etched in the pantheon of the gods.
“I hail from the planet Loeria, one of the capital worlds of the Holy White
Empire. You do not look like any of the native races in or near our empire. Where do you hail from?”
“I am Lt. Solamen Kaine. Chief Security Officer of the USS Odyssey, of the United Stellar Alliance. Service Number DNV843.”
Vay’s lip curled into a snarl. This pink skin was either being coy or rude. The subjugate could understand him but refused to converse with him. No matter. If he disliked using words, there were other ways of extracting information. He gestured for the guards to come to his side.
“Prepare this one for interrogation.”
“Yes, Your Holiness.”
The two guards removed Lt. Kaine from the cages. Sol struggled a little but it was a token show of resistance. He walked behind the trio as they moved deeper into the bowels of the vessel to the interrogation chamber adjacent to the subjugate pens. He was thrown into the chamber alone.
“Leave him in there for a full cycle with no food, full illumination and play a low phase sonic wave to prevent him from sleeping as well.”
“Yes, Your Holiness.” As the guards input the commands into a control terminal near the entrance, he watched through a reflective barrier field. He would have his information soon enough. All he would need to do was wear this man down and break his mind. Then he could sift through all the pieces at his leisure. The technique coupled with the Neural Interface and Scan device was capable of obtaining all the most closely guarded secrets within a cycle or two.
He doubted the male in the chamber had the mental fortitude to withstand the punishment for more than three cycles. From behind the reflective screen, Kaine could be seen taking a seat and crossing his legs. He closed his eyes. It made Vay scoff. Sleep was impossible within the chamber. All his bravado would get him was a broken mind soon enough. And Vay would have the roadmap to expanding the empire’s glory and greatness.
“Report to me at once if the prisoner does anything of note.”
“Understood, Docent.”
