Alpha Fleet (Rebel Fleet Series Book 3)

by B. V. Larson

  “I’ve done it,” he said. “I can get us out there.”

  “And back?” I asked.

  “Maybe. We’ll have to make the first jump to know for sure.”

  “Do it. Right away. I don’t want to have a meeting or even think—”

  “It’s already done,” he said.

  “What?”

  “We’re in the countdown now. I assumed your permission had been given in advance, and since time is of the essence—”

  “Fine,” I said. “Let’s go to the bridge and ride it out.”

  By the time we got there, the rift was already opening in front of Devilfish. We nosed toward it, and everyone aboard gasped to see the spiraling lights.

  “Get strapped in,” I ordered. “Samson, sound the alarm.”

  The klaxons began to howl all over the ship. The wailing sounds echoed down every metallic passageway, and no one could have missed what was coming.

  Still, it seemed to take a long time. The rift got bigger. It was slightly ovoid in shape, rather than perfectly circular. I had no idea why, and didn’t feel like enduring Abrams’ scorn if I admitted any kind of ignorance.

  The minutes turned into seconds, and at last, we merged with the rift.

  The ride through hyperspace was brief, but bumpy. We soon slid out the far side, with every crewman aboard complaining about the experience.

  “Oh, spare me,” Abrams said. “Can your crew be so spoiled? They want humanity’s first rift to not only deliver them to Heaven’s Gate, they don’t want to experience any jiggling along the way.”

  “They’re just scared,” I told him.

  “They should have a little faith,” Abrams sniffed.

  We arrived at last. I looked at the incoming data pouring from the sensors. Stars were being painted pixel-by-pixel—but the stars were wrong. All wrong.

  “We’ve scattered!” I said.

  “That’s impossible!” Abrams replied.

  I walked over to him, and it was all I could do not to grab him and shake him.

  “That’s not Alpha-Centauri out there. It’s not even a tri-star system.”

  He looked worried, but he was putting on a good front. “Allow me to work in peace, please,” he huffed.

  “I did that the last time—for six hours. You brought us here—wherever here is!”

  He lowered his tablet and glared at me. “You forced me to jump before I was fully ready.”

  “I didn’t force you to do anything.”

  “You ordered me to intercept that ship. We had to jump now in order to complete the operation.”

  Taking a deep breath, I looked around the scenery. “Where are we, Devilfish?”

  The ship’s AI didn’t answer for nearly ten seconds. Dalton slapped the side of his console. “Has this thing locked up?”

  But then, the AI came back. “Cygnus beacon star identified. Ninety-nine percent probability achieved.”

  We all swept our eyes to the central holo-projection, which zoomed out with sickening speed. We now saw our location in green, and Earth’s in blue. A yellow line interconnected them.

  “We’re approximately three thousand seven hundred lightyears from Earth,” the ship said calmly, “significantly outside the galactic mainstream of stars.”

  “Three thousand…” I breathed. “Abrams?”

  I turned to him, but for once he was speechless. His face was slack, his mouth open, his skin drained of color. He stared at the map in abject horror.

  The arms of the Milky Way were clearly visible in the image. We were so far out, you could see much of it on the map. After all, our entire galaxy was only about a hundred thousand lightyears across.

  “Abrams!” I roared at him.

  Still, he did not respond. He stared in shock.

  “What do we do?” Commander Hagen asked. “Sir, the rift we came through is already fading.”

  “Go back through,” I said. “Turn around, helm, and go back through. With luck, we’ll get home.”

  Dalton spun the ship, and he applied full braking thrust. We’d been moving at a good clip, and it took nearly twenty minutes to turn around and get back to the rift. By then, it had dimmed and was beginning to fade away.

  “Are we going to risk it, Captain?” Dalton asked me. “A decaying rift… We might not make it out again.”

  “We’re clearly not going to get home with an easy jump. We’re out in the middle of fucking nowhere—literally. Do it.”

  We plunged into the rift again, and as the swirl of darkening colors closed over us once again, everyone’s heart was pounding.

  =17=

  The maiden hyper-jump ended with a small success. We were right back where we started, and no one had died. That put it in the category of a sub-disaster, and I kept up a tight smile no matter what I was thinking on the inside.

  No one spoke for a time. They simply verified we were in our home star system and groaned aloud with relief.

  “What happened out there?” Abrams croaked at last.

  “We scattered, Doc,” I said. “We went out to neverland, but we managed to get back in one piece.”

  “Scattered…? Impossible. Not to such a degree. The AI—it must be compromised.” He turned to me, his eyes bloodshot and bulging. His voice lowered to a paranoid whisper. “Is that Nomad creature of yours aboard? Could he have done this?”

  I would have laughed, but I could tell he was serious.

  “Doc,” I said gently, “we scattered—badly. But we all lived. We got back home in one piece. Even Kher ships scatter now and then. They’ve been working these navigational problems for a thousand years, and they still make mistakes. It’s acceptable to screw up your first time out.”

  “I made no mistake!” he shouted.

  Furious, he stormed off the bridge. Dalton’s mocking laughter followed him. It was a cackle, really. Dalton was gifted when it came to producing an irritating sound of mirth.

  “What an insufferable wanker…” he muttered after Abrams disappeared.

  I didn’t admonish Dalton. He was more than correct.

  Commander Hagen came to stand near my station. My smile was still pasted in place, but I was lost in thought.

  “I don’t know if we have enough time for a second attempt,” he said. “But even if we do, I’d advise against trying it.”

  I glanced at him, then back at the maps. They depicted Sol, and our local planets. Two triangles of different colors raced together on converging courses. One was our ship, the other belonged to the invader. The only trouble was, the invader was going to reach Earth before we could reach them.

  “We lost all our momentum with that jaunt into the blue,” I said. “Even if we hadn’t, we still couldn’t have caught them. I’m thinking we have to try the two-jump strategy again.”

  Commander Hagen looked pained. “You think Abrams can get the numbers right this time?”

  “Maybe. If we get lucky twice, we can still do it.”

  Hagen leaned closer. “I’m with you, Captain, but it’s a long shot. Two long-shots. I mean, if he does a dramatically better job, he might get us to Alpha Centauri then pop us back home just beyond the orbit of Pluto.”

  I nodded, unable to deny the charge. “Really, I should have expected this.”

  “How so, Captain?”

  “I’m accepting the truth as I review the situation. This ship is experimental. She needs months of shakedown cruises, testing and recalibration. Abrams isn’t really to blame. Our technology is all new, and he’s had no time to work out the kinks. It’s really not fair to expect perfection.”

  “Yeah…” Hagen said, thinking it over. “When you put it that way, I see your point. It’s amazing this ship hasn’t sprung a leak and killed us all.”

  “The day is still young, Commander.”

  A dismal half-hour passed. We heard nothing from Abrams. Sighing, I got up from my command chair, intending to go down to his lab personally and pep-talk him. Mostly, I’d been feeling out the odds we’d h
ave time to take another stab at it.

  But I never made it to the hatch.

  “Sir?” Chang said suddenly.

  Something in his voice made me turn around and move to his station. Chang was an unflappable guy. He didn’t sound concerned unless there was a damned good reason.

  He sounded worried now.

  “Sir…look at this, Captain.”

  He made a sweeping gesture that caused his console interface to throw his current view up to the central holo-projection system. Everyone on the bridge turned to look at what he was displaying publicly.

  It wasn’t an image of stars or rifts. Instead, it was a streak of moving light. As I watched, the light went from being a straight line to a gently arcing curve.

  “Is that what I think it is?” Commander Hagen asked.

  “That’s right,” Chang said. “It’s the ship we’re trying to intercept—she’s changing course.”

  “Plot it,” I said, “project it!”

  “It’s still changing, sir.”

  “AI,” I said loudly. “Put up a predictive arc. Shade the possible course variations yellow.”

  “Unable to comply.”

  “Why not?”

  “The vessel in question could go anywhere.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Assume it’s made ninety percent of its course change. Project on that basis. Assume it will only change course on one axis—the one it’s shifting on now.”

  The imagery shimmered and fuzzed. After a few seconds, it came back. A swath of yellow shot out like a widening ray between the orbital paths of Mars and Earth.

  “We’re inside that region, Captain,” Commander Hagen said.

  “That’s right. We’re right in the middle of it.” Slowly, I began to smile. “Gentlemen, we’ve been given a gift. The enemy has taken interest in our activities. Maybe they’re wondering why we opened a rift, went through it, then came back. Maybe they want to know if Earth has such technology, or if we’re from somewhere else. In short, we’ve made them curious about us.”

  Dalton laughed. “Curiosity will kill this cat,” he said with certainty.

  Mia growled a little at that.

  I wasn’t so sure we would win the coming encounter, but I was certain of one thing: we were going to intercept the vessel after all. For good or for worse, the encounter was going to happen.

  =18=

  Less than twenty minutes later, as our two ships drove toward one another on a definite intercept course, the game changed again.

  “Captain? Earth Command is calling us.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  Honestly, I expected to hear a marveling message. One full of praise at our cleverness. They had to be watching, and they’d seen our two ships turn together and converge.

  I was proud of that. We’d not only managed to get the interloper onto an intercept course, we’d also delayed its arrival at Earth. If nothing else, even if we’d failed to stop the invader, we’d given Earth more time to prepare her defenses.

  But the message was entirely devoid of praise. It was voice-only, and it spoke with the familiar tones of Admiral Vega.

  “Captain Blake,” he said, “what are you doing? The enemy is no longer heading for Earth. Don’t try to take it on alone if you don’t have to. Let them chase you around a little. Devilfish is the only starship we have—don’t lose it in a blaze glory!”

  “Talk about ingratitude,” Dalton complained.

  “Yes… it’s more than that, though. Commander Hagen? What do you think?”

  “Me sir?”

  “Tactical analysis, please.”

  He looked at the charts and squinted. He shook his head.

  “I don’t like the idea of breaking off now. That ship could just as easily turn back toward Earth. We couldn’t catch her if she did so now—but that window is closing. Soon, we’ll be able to force the encounter by altering our course to match them.”

  “Right,” I said. “Get the navigational team on it. We’ll drive straight toward them until they can’t escape, then turn away to delay matters.”

  Commander Hagen shook his head and tapped at his screens.

  I frowned. I trusted his judgment. Over his career, I’d been told that he’d been an accomplished navigator and tactician.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked him.

  “Too many unknowns. We know how fast they can go, but we don’t know if we’ve seen their best speed yet. If they turn away and accelerate… they could still slip past us.”

  Blinking, I considered what he was saying. Chang and the navigational team worked the projections with the help of the AI. It bore out. We couldn’t be certain the plan would succeed.

  There were other issues bothering me as well. Psychological ones.

  “I know the Rebel Kher,” I told them. “Hell, I know the Imperials pretty well, too. They aren’t robots. If anything, they’re more emotionally driven than we are. They might turn away just because they realize we’re toying with them.”

  “No captain from my planet would accept such an insult,” Mia said, confirming my statement. “They’d turn away in disgust, considering your cowardly ship to be without honor, and therefore with no value as a kill.”

  “Not worth any status points…” I said thoughtfully. “Hagen, formulate a message to Vega explaining our concerns. Let him know why we’re not breaking off—yet.”

  “Me, sir?”

  “I think he likes you better than he likes me.”

  Commander Hagen looked baffled at that, but he was too good of an officer, too accustomed to following commands, to argue with me about it.

  Twenty quiet minutes here followed before Vega’s response came in. It took that long for the radio message to reach Earth and his response to make the round trip.

  Wisely, I took the message privately this time.

  “Blake, I appreciate your concerns. But we have concerns of our own. Turn away from that ship! Drive a parallel course and see what he does. You can always correct if things go wrong—that’s an order!”

  That last part was the thing I’d been hoping not to hear. I was stuck now.

  We changed our course, and we waited tensely to see what the enemy ship did. It took a few minutes—then we saw what I’d feared. They turned too, going back to their initial trajectory. They were now heading straight toward Earth again.

  “Speed?” I demanded. “Timing? Will they beat us home?”

  “Calculating…” Chang said.

  It was then that Abrams made a fresh appearance on the command deck. He looked wilder than he had before—even less sane than usual.

  “Blake? Why are you dodging and weaving my ship all over the cosmos?” he demanded.

  “We’ve been ordered to break off by Earth Command.”

  He looked at me with a mad stare for a time. His mind was racing through all the ramifications.

  “Good,” he said at last. “Vega is an idiot—but I approve.”

  He did an about face and went below again.

  I frowned after him in irritation. He knew the Kher would probably evade as well. Either calling our bluff or deciding we weren’t worth it. Either way, this ship would survive another day.

  That didn’t sit right with me, however.

  “Come about again,” I ordered. “Helm, return to our original course.”

  “But sir… that won’t intercept them anymore. They’re on a new heading.”

  “I know that! Make the change.”

  They did so, and the navigational people shook their heads, muttering. The ship was run by a pack of madmen, as far as they were concerned. I couldn’t argue against them, so I didn’t try. I just watched and waited.

  Ten tense minutes passed. I knew Vega had probably already sent off a barrage of complaints, but I intended to fully enjoy the grace-period before they reached my ears.

  Before Vega’s first squawk of complaint rolled into my inbox, the tactical situation shifted again.

  “They’ve shifted cours
e again,” Chang said. There was a hint of a marveling tone in his voice. “We’re going to intercept them again.”

  I nodded, and I couldn’t help letting a smug smile appear on my lips.

  “Captain?” Hagen asked me privately a few minutes later. “Why did that happen?”

  “They’re Kher,” I said simply. “Most breeds can’t back down from a challenge. They saw us return to our exact same course. That meant that if they didn’t match us, they were now the cowards, not us.”

  He mulled that over for a few minutes. “So… you’re saying we’re out here in space playing an elaborate game of chicken with these aliens?”

  “Yes. That’s a pretty good analogy. The Kher would like that game—but they might all slam into one another and die every time they played.”

  Bemused, Hagen wandered off and went back to his station. He had a lot to learn about our rivals, but I had high hopes for him.

  =19=

  The following day, we approached the intercept point. Admiral Vega had given up on trying to get me to turn away—various xenopsychologists had managed to convince him I was playing it right.

  The trouble was cultural, as always. When two peoples—much less two distantly related species—met one another for the first time, there were invariably misunderstandings. Sometimes, these misunderstanding ended in disaster for one side or both. Any number of explorers and missionaries who had ended their existence in stew-pots or propped up on spear points could attest to that.

  “We really should study our own history more,” Commander Hagen told me as we approached the point of no return—we were close to it now.

  “How so?” I asked him.

  “I’m sure there are valid parallels,” he said. “How to greet native populations—people with widely varied societal norms.”

  “We have people to study such things in Space Command,” I told him. “The trouble is, we’ve moved forward so fast, and with an understandable sense of paranoia, we haven’t been able to let them have the room they need to learn.”

  He nodded slowly. “The stakes are always too high. We’re talking extinction, not a clash with swords on a beach.”