Alpha Fleet (Rebel Fleet Series Book 3)

by B. V. Larson

  “Radio, sir. From outside the ship. Sir… they’re using an Imperial code.”

  “Open the channel,” I said, figuring we had nothing to lose.

  A voice came into my mind. It was a familiar voice, and it was extremely angry.

  “…did you know? You’re a sorcerer, Blake. A rodent with a dozen lives to live, all the while tormenting your betters.”

  “Lael?” I asked, shocked. “Is that you? Where are you?”

  “Playing the ignoramus to the last, Blake? Well, I don’t believe it now. You brought us here on purpose. You lured us into following you into that rift, and flew straight into a black hole. How can you be so cruel?”

  “Um…” I said, trying to think. “So, you followed us into the rift?”

  “Of course we did. We had no choice. Most of my captains didn’t make it, naturally. Good women all. The Imperial Kher owe you a thousand bloody deaths. You’ve harmed so many with your unscrupulous tricks.”

  I tried to visualize the situation. Lael had to be close by. She’d followed us through hyperspace, much as smaller ships in any fleet followed a designated starship. We’d opened a path, and she’d taken it to avoid the gravity-drones. She’d made the same split-second decisions we’d made moments before her.

  “You should be glad,” I said. “We could have left you to die in the Diva System. The gravity drones—according to Godwin—would have destroyed all your ships.”

  “Just as they destroyed ill-fated Diva,” she finished for me. “We know that. That’s why we’re here. But to call this a favor on your part—that’s a stretch. You must know there are only two of us left, and we’re in no condition to fight you.”

  I glanced at Chang, who was listening in. We traded surprised glances. Our sensors weren’t even operating this close to an event horizon, and we couldn’t see Lael. We were effectively flying blind.

  “Of course,” I said. “Are your drives strong enough to escape the pull of the black hole?”

  “It is a losing battle. We’re gratified, however, to see that you’re losing ground as well. You’ll soon fall into the abyss of time and space with us. Hell will make us good neighbors, Blake.”

  “I don’t think so,” I told her. “We’ll be gone by then. We’re charging up for another jump.”

  “A blind jump? Insanity… but I guess you have no choice.”

  “Hmm,” I said, thinking over the situation. “You can’t escape. You can’t do battle with us—it would seem that you should be very polite to us, your human hosts.”

  “Why?” she demanded. “For your further amusement? I will not grovel. I will not beg. I would rather cease to exist than do so.”

  “Very well,” I said. “I respect your decision. You’re an honorable foe, and I’ll write a suitable epitaph to your memory when I get home. Possibly, if peace is ever reached between the Empire and Earth, I’ll be able to inform your people of your chosen fate.”

  “We chose nothing!” she raged. “We were tricked, taken out into a field to be shot like meat-animals!”

  “Of course you are making a choice,” I told her. “I said we’re leaving. I informed you of this, but you’ve clearly stated you’re not interested in salvation. I respect that choice utterly. I wouldn’t dream of asking you to—”

  “What do you want?” she demanded. “I draw the line at slavery. I would never submit to it.”

  My eyebrows did a speculative up-down motion. Chang grinned at me.

  “That’s too bad,” I said. “I was rather looking forward—well, never mind. You’ve made your choice. As I said, highly respectable.”

  “You monster!” she howled. “Very well, I will become your captive again. I knew that would be your requirement. You’re smitten by me, like your crewmen before you. I have some shred of pride left, I want you to know. I’ll never—”

  We went back and forth bartering like this for quite a while. Each cycle she’d construct a barrier which I accepted immediately, then expressed my regrets at her imminent doom. That move immediately caused her resolve to collapse all over again.

  I was simply enjoying myself at her expense, of course. I wasn’t planning to enslave her—for one thing, Mia would never allow it. She could understand a human rival, but to share our bed with an Imperial? No, that would be asking too much.

  After five or ten minutes of wrangling, I almost had her down to begging me. That was a fine thing. She’d personally overseen the deaths of millions of Rebel Kher. She was callous, selfish and downright evil at times.

  At last, I grew tired of the game. Dr. Abrams came to my rescue, signaling me that he’d recharged our drives enough to allow for another jump into the blue.

  “Use all your thrust,” I told Lael. “Get as close to my vessel as you can. You can sense our hull, right?”

  “Our sensors are built by Imperial workers. They are in every way superior to—”

  “Right, got it. When the rift forms, we’ll have to take our chances together.”

  “You’ll allow us to enter with you?” Lael said in a near whisper. “You will not fire upon us?”

  “You’ve offered me such a fine deal that I can’t refuse. As I know, you’re a woman of your word, and I’ve decided to allow myself to be persuaded.”

  At this point, Mia stepped onto the bridge and came stalking across the chamber to her station. Turning to face me, she slithered into her harness. The look on her face made me clam up. Had someone ratted me out?

  I didn’t know how much of the exchange she’d heard from the doorway, but it was enough. She stared flatly, and her tail was twitching. That was never a good sign.

  I cleared my throat. Perhaps I’d overplayed the slave-girl angle with Lael.

  “You will have to die a thousand times over to pay for today’s sins, Blake,” Lael said, and she signed off.

  “The moment Abrams is ready,” I ordered, “open that breach.”

  A few minutes later, the ship began to shake. The shields were buzzing too, as if they wanted to flicker and die.

  “We’re losing power, Captain,” Hagen said calmly. “We’ve got to go soon. The event horizon is becoming increasingly hazardous.”

  “Radiations levels are spiking,” Samson said unhelpfully. “Soon, we might begin to stretch.”

  I looked at him, then Chang. “Is he right?”

  Chang shrugged. “The gravitational forces are extreme when you’re circling a black hole. We might not survive much longer. A critical point will eventually be reached, after which we’ll be extruded into component molecules, a phenomenon punctuated by a large release of energy.”

  “A release of energy… as in an explosion?”

  “Yes—maybe. It might be more like a contained conversion of a mass into energy. A compression that isn’t allowed release.”

  “Huh,” I said, “Dalton, when that breach forms, drive us into it.”

  “Will do, sir.”

  We waited after that, sliding around uncomfortably in our seats. We were getting heavier, that much was obvious. We had to be under two Gs of force or more. We were supposed to be weighing nothing, but the gravity repellers weren’t able to keep up. We were sinking closer and closer to total annihilation.

  Before we reached three Gs, Abrams gave us the signal. We opened a rift and slid toward it.

  The experience was a strange one. I felt a sick twisting sensation inside my guts.

  Was Lael following us? Maybe. There was no way to tell. The bridge crew could barely hear one another anymore, and our vision was blurring. Gravity waves were rolling through our bodies, making us ill, as our antigravity tried to do battle with the fantastic forces outside the hull.

  It was a losing struggle. Each minute that passed felt like it had to be our last.

  =48=

  We never did learn where we’d been. There was no way to know which black hole we’d visited, although we estimated it had to have been within the boundaries of our own galaxy. We hadn’t traveled in hyperspace long en
ough to reach another, such as Andromeda.

  The lack of detailed information was due to the fact our sensors hadn’t operated properly at the edge of the black star’s event horizon. That was something no one found surprising, but it was disturbing to think about. We hadn’t just been at the edge of death—we’d hovered dangerously close to nonexistence.

  “So that was really a black hole, huh?” Commander Hagen asked me when things settled down. “I’d kind of expected to see something.”

  “They don’t really show up as a dark star,” Chang explained. “Their gravity is so great they warp even light, sucking it up. They can only be detected by the whirlwind of stellar material that orbits them. As it is drawn in and destroyed, the swallowed mass emits a great deal of radiation and warps everything around it.”

  “Yeah…” Hagen mused. “I took the classes, but descriptions in an astrophysics textbook are nothing like the real thing. It’s terrifying to experience one in person. It was like riding out a hurricane in a rowboat.”

  “Agreed,” I said. “Hopefully, we’ll have better luck this time around.”

  Hagen turned and looked at me with wide eyes. “You’re not saying we can justify trying to jump blind again, are you Captain?”

  “Well… if you asked Dr. Abrams that question, he’d assure you we couldn’t. But I know better. There was no good way to navigate out of that singularity mess.”

  “Right… Our instruments weren’t working—I’ll tell him that when he complains.”

  “Our options may not have improved much. That’s the nature of jumping blind. We have no way to know if we’ll have a point of reference, like a beacon star, until we hit the endpoint. Essentially, we may be as lost as ever.”

  “Great…” Hagen said, and he wandered back to his station.

  I’d never seen him so resigned to a grim fate. He was brave beyond the norm when it came to combat, but these random jumps into the darkness seemed to have put him on edge.

  Shrugging, I went back to going over the damage reports. In a way, none of them mattered. We were free again, flying through a tube of radioactive hyperspace. We’d suffered some systems damage, particularly to our delicate external sensors—but that hardly mattered. Who needed to know where you were or where you were going? We were blue-jaunt travelers. We’d flown off all the maps and were hoping for the best.

  The jump was much shorter than the last one. We came out almost abruptly.

  “The tunnel is breaking up—we’re breaching, sir!” Dalton called out.

  I sounded battle stations, ordering everyone to strap in. After the last disastrous exit, we were ready for anything—or so we thought.

  This time, we could see at least. Our sensor arrays still weren’t in perfect order, but they functioned.

  A panoramic view of stars formed. We were in the middle of a tight cluster, if I didn’t miss my guess.

  “Are these all red giants?” I asked. “So close together?”

  The navigational officer gaped. “There are… six of them within a lightyear. All dying suns, and a lot of gaseous debris.”

  “Sir, Lael is trying to contact you.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, I opened the channel privately. I let her come through visually, not just by voice. I wanted to see her face.

  Honestly, I’d expected to see her wreathed in smiles. She was a lovely woman, and after discussing all the personal duties and services she was willing to provide an hour earlier, I’d been daydreaming about her.

  Unfortunately, she didn’t look happy at all.

  “Is this some kind of cruel joke, Blake?” she demanded. “We’re near the center of the galaxy.”

  “Is that bad?”

  She made an irritated sound. “It’s not good. It’s not the home of any Kher. These stars are too close together. They have few planets and those they do have are burnt to ash.”

  “Hmm,” I said. “Well, we escaped the black hole as I offered. Our bargain is almost complete.”

  “Ah-ha!” she shouted, wagging a long finger at me. “I understand now. You brought me here to abuse me. To make certain I’d uphold my end of the bargain before you take us anywhere near our home region of space. What do I have to do to get back to the Perseus Arm of our galaxy, Leo?”

  She stared at me in irritation.

  “Hmm…” I said, unable to flatly deny her offer. Why were women bent on tormenting me lately? Was it because of my new rank of captain? “We should meet in person,” I said aloud, and I immediately regretted it.

  Mia stood up from her post. Her shoulders were hunched tightly, but she didn’t turn to face me.

  “Permission to leave my post, Captain,” she said. “I need a break.”

  “Permission granted,” I said, and I summoned her replacement.

  She stalked past my chair and I lifted my hand toward her in farewell. She didn’t even acknowledge the gesture.

  Lael, in the meantime, had never stopped talking.

  “…and I want it in writing,” she finished up. “There will be no agreement, no sexual favors—nothing without a written document.”

  “Wouldn’t such a thing be unenforceable?” I asked her.

  “Possibly,” she said. “But it will give me a personal excuse for this fraternization to give my superiors.”

  “Ah,” I said. “Covering your ass, are you?”

  She frowned and blinked. “Is that a requirement?”

  “Um… certainly not. It’s an expression. Never mind. Will you come aboard now?”

  “I have no choice. I will do as you demand. There are no starships for a thousand lightyears, as I’m sure you’re well aware. If you leave us, we die in sterile space. My sacrifice will be recorded and presented as evidence at my hearing.”

  “Recorded?” I asked. “Hearing? I’m not following you.”

  She sniffed loudly. “Imperial Kher aren’t rutting beasts like you Rebels. We require documentation to prove these acts you’ve demanded are indeed carried out, and that no additional abuse was applied.”

  “Uh…” I said, thinking to myself that things had gone too far. It was my own fault, of course. Imperial Kher lacked a sense of humor, other than the joy of laughing at another man’s discomfort.

  “All right,” I said, “come to the main hold alone. I’ll meet you in there.”

  “I will do so—because I must.”

  With a regal air, she got up and headed for the exit. The camera pickup lingered on her moving form, and I felt my heart quicken. Could I go through with this? I told myself no, I had to stick with the plan. Lael was attractive, but she was also very dangerous in a dozen different ways.

  When I met her at the docking bay, I was surprised to see she wasn’t alone. A half-dozen large Imperial troopers exited the tiny shuttle boat in their powered armor. I wondered for a second if this was some kind of trick. Did she think a handful of troops could capture my ship? If she did, she was in for a surprise.

  A full squad of suited marines met her ship and her little entourage. I watched as she exited behind her troops—and one other person walked softly behind her.

  This last person was a young woman. She had a wand of rank as most female Imperial Kher did. She was as lovely as Lael herself, but younger and shorter.

  Lael watched me, and she glanced down at the stranger. “This is my underling, Elsa. She will serve in my place. Just because she is of a lower rank, you’re not to abuse her beyond our agreed upon—”

  Elsa looked at me with a mixture of frank curiosity and a little fear as Lael spoke. Her eyes widened when I interrupted angrily.

  “Hold on,” I said. “This is a classic bait-and-switch, and I won’t stand for it. We had a deal.”

  Both the women looked startled at my outburst.

  “Indeed…” Lael said. “I hadn’t realized… I’d assumed you merely wanted to sate your beastly lusts upon an Imperial female. I didn’t quite understand that you’re obsessed with me personally.”

  Clearing m
y throat, I felt a little embarrassed. The marines around me were casting odd looks to one another. Fortunately, no one laughed aloud.

  “That’s a very rude way to put things,” I said. “The point is that, you, Captain Lael, are to be my prisoner. Not Elsa, or your ship’s cook, or anyone else.”

  “Absurd,” she said. “My ship and crew need me. Who will command in my absence?”

  “I don’t know. Your second officer, I guess. You can put Elsa in charge if you want to.”

  “An obsession…” she said, frowning. “I hadn’t realized… This puts an entirely different light on things.”

  I put my hands on my hips and stood firm. “Well?” I asked. “Are you coming along or not? My ship is ready to jump again. Will your ship be accompanying ours, or are we leaving it behind?”

  Elsa looked up at Lael seriously. “An acceleration of our time schedule is in order, I think,” she said.

  “Agreed,” Lael said, and she touched her thumb to her wand.

  Instantly, my marines and I were jolted with a nerve-shock. We were flattened onto the deck like dead fish.

  =49=

  Fortunately for both me and my crew, we’d dealt with Imperials before. There were no more arrogant, double-dealing creatures to be found among the stars. Not even Godwin and his Nomad buddies could come close in duplicitous behavior.

  Knowing this, I’d taken certain precautions. I hadn’t been certain Lael would try to pull a fast one, but I’d understood it was within the realm of the possible.

  When Lael pulled her little power-play, it worked—for a few seconds. After that, Samson opened the side hatches at both ends of the hold and emerged with two more full squads of marines.

  These men had their weapons out and their shielding active. Lael’s nerve-shock pulse wasn’t going to reach that far, nor was it getting past their shields even if it did.

  “Drop your gear and surrender,” Samson boomed. “I’ve got orders to shoot you all down if you don’t.”

  Lael looked at him sourly. She aimed her wand at my face.

  I’d fallen on my back on the deck, and therefore I could see the scene despite the fact I’d stiffened up as if rigor mortis had already set in.