by Jay Allan
“Yes, sir.” Ming struggled to keep his voice firm as his hand grasped the small device in his pocket. “They attempted to recruit me.”
“Recruit you?” Chen looked confused. “Why would they want to suborn you? You are assigned to my staff on Tang.” The admiral’s face hardened. “Is there a plot even on the flagship? Under my very nose?”
Ming inhaled deeply. “Yes, Admiral,” he said, as he pulled the cylinder from his pocket. “I’m afraid there is.” He pointed the small tube at Chen and pressed the button. It fired a small dart, striking the side of the admiral’s neck. It was tiny, almost invisible from a few feet away. But it was deadly all the same.
Chen stared back at his aide, his eyes wide with shock and horror. “Why…” he stammered, struggling for air as he slipped from the sofa, falling to his knees for a few seconds before he collapsed to the floor.
Ming sat still, staring down at Chen Min’s body. He started shaking, and he felt sick, like he was going to vomit any second. He felt a wave of regret, of guilt for what he had just done. Chen had been nothing but supportive of him. But he knew if he had it all to do over he wouldn’t change his action. He respected the admiral, but he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life—however short a time that might be—lost in the depths of enemy space. And the only way to get home, to try to get home at least, was to take Chen and his sense of honor out of the equation.
He breathed deeply, slowly, trying to center himself, to regain enough calm to finish. He knew the longer he stayed, the greater the chance he had of being caught. The poison would be almost impossible to detect, and its effects simulated heart failure. But if he was caught in the admiral’s quarters, he was as good as dead.
He stood up and leaned down over Chen’s body, reaching under the admiral’s arms. He pulled up, muscling the corpse back onto the sofa. When it was discovered, the ship’s doctor would find nothing. No ordinary tox scan would identify the poison. The cause of death would be a mystery, most likely ruled heart failure resulting from some previously undetected weakness. A more in-depth analysis might suggest foul play, but before then Zhang would be in command of the task force…and he would have had ample time to get reliable people in crucial positions.
Ming took one last look at Chen’s body, and a wave of panic almost took him. Then he took a deep breath and fought it off, turning slowly to walk back toward the door.
* * *
“Let’s go. You all have your orders, and there is no time to waste.” Major Ang Wu watched as his armed and armored shock troops poured out of the shuttle. He was nervous, more than he usually was before a mission. He’d fought in a dozen battles, and he had advanced as high up the ranks a man with no political sponsorship could go. His soldiers were the elite of the CAC ground forces, but this was a very different mission than those they had undertaken before, one taking place on over a dozen ships at once.
They were moving to secure control of the fleet’s vessels until Admiral Chen’s death was investigated and his successor took command. Or at least that’s what they thought…all of them except Ang himself. The major knew what was actually happening. He was part of the cabal that had assassinated Chen, and he already knew the admiral’s death would be ruled as heart failure. His soldiers were there as an insurance policy, to provide security in the event Admiral Zhang ran into any problems when he took command and broke with Admiral Compton.
He swallowed hard, trying to force away the acidy feeling in his throat. For the first time in his career, Ang felt confusion about his mission. He’d fought human enemies, and the deadly robot warriors of the First Imperium, but this was something entirely different. In a few minutes, he and his soldiers would become part of a coup, a power struggle within the CAC contingent of the fleet. If they moved quickly and decisively enough, they might score a fait accompli, discouraging anyone from attempting to resist Zhang’s disengagement order. But if there was fighting, they had no illusions about what that meant. They would be killing their own people.
Ang suspected his younger self would be appalled by his actions, about being part of something like this. He had been an idealistic young soldier once, with a strong sense of honor and a rigid code of conduct. That was before his wife and unborn son had died in childbirth, a tragedy that had been entirely preventable with the right care. But medical service in the CAC was strictly rationed, and Ang’s wife had needed a higher medical rating than that she’d had as a young sergeant’s spouse.
Ang had been devastated and, ironically, the loss propelled him into the officers’ ranks. He’d been lost, broken, seeking death on the battlefield when he led eighteen soldiers on a desperate charge…a hopeless assault that somehow succeeded. He and the four survivors from his team occupied a key hill, and the positioning of heavy ordnance on that vantage point turned the fighting on Gliese 878 II from a stalemate to a glorious victory—and earned the heartsick sergeant a battlefield commission. He’d risen quickly through the ranks as the years of the Third Frontier War ticked by, but he’d been a major for ten years now—and he knew that was as high as he would go. At least without a patron of considerable influence…like Admiral Zhang.
Ang had lost his idealism, and his loyalty to the CAC leadership as well, the day his wife and baby died, and now he’d accepted Zhang’s offer of support—and the promise of a pair of general’s stars—in return for deploying his soldiers to the vessels the rebellious admiral did not already control. He had trusted junior officers in command of the other detachments, but he’d elected to lead the team on the flagship himself.
He moved down the corridor, following his lead units toward the central lift. Most CAC ships had a symmetrical design, with a central access point leading to all levels. It was an efficient layout, but it had the unintended effect of making things easier for boarders seeking to seize control. That hadn’t been much of a problem since such actions were extremely rare in space combat. But rare doesn’t mean never, Ang thought, as he looked ahead and saw the first of his troops climbing up one of the access ladders surrounding the main lift column.
He was listening to reports coming in from his teams as they spread out throughout Tang, monitoring the operation closely. The flagship had a crew of almost 900, of whom perhaps twenty were part of the conspiracy. His troops were armed with stun guns, and they had firm orders to avoid any kind of force unless it was absolutely necessary. They weren’t here as invaders, at least not for public consumption. As far as anyone outside the inner circle knew, Admiral Chen had died, and Zhang had ordered the ships of the task force locked down until a cause of death had been established. Ang was the only one of his men who knew the cause of Chen’s death had been assassination, arranged by Zhang to facilitate the takeover.
He glanced down at his chronometer. Zhang’s shuttle would land in another twenty minutes. And less than two hours after that, the vessels of the CAC contingent—along with the Caliphate, Europan, and RIC task forces—would make their move.
* * *
Max Harmon was exhausted. Between inspecting supposed issues with Petersburg’s ammunition supply and trying to hang around the officers gleaning what information he could, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten more than a couple hours of sleep. And trying to keep up with the way Petersburg’s officers drank wasn’t helping. Harmon wasn’t averse to wine with dinner or the occasional scotch or brandy, but guzzling rough homebrew vodka like it was water was wearing him down even more than the fatigue. Still, he’d had no choice. He wanted to fit in, make them relax—and the only way he knew to do that was to act as they did. To become one of them.
For all the effort, though, he’d gotten surprisingly little from his new acquaintances. There had been a moderate amount of grousing about Compton’s decree that the fleet would not try to return home, but otherwise, the conversation had been an innocuous combination of slightly exaggerated battle tales and stories of epic shore leaves—usually involving even greater consumption of, admittedly superior, vodk
a.
Still, Harmon hadn’t given up. Now he was looking in another direction. He’d been finished with his inspections and looking for a reason to stay and continue to snoop around a bit. Before he’d been able to make up an excuse, Captain Rostov had asked him to remain for a few extra days, saving him the trouble. The stated purpose had been the discovery of a defect in one of Petersburg’s primary missile designs that compromised the usability of half the ship’s firepower.
It had seemed plausible at first, but as time passed, and ever more coincidental discoveries extended his job on the RIC flagship, Harmon began to suspect he was being deliberately kept on Petersburg. That could mean only one thing. Udinov knew he was spying for Compton…or at least he suspected. And that meant he wasn’t going to get any more information. There was clearly something going on, and Harmon knew he had only one course of action. He had to alert Admiral Compton immediately…and then he had to get the hell off Petersburg. He’d go down to his shuttle and ready it for launch. Then he would say there was an emergency on Midway or that Compton had ordered him to address another problem elsewhere in the fleet. Anything. But he suspected if he gave Rostov any significant warning of his departure, he’d never be allowed to leave the ship.
He turned the corner, heading toward the bay. He was abandoning everything behind in his quarters. There was no point in alerting anyone he was leaving the ship. Suddenly he stopped. For an instant, though he hadn’t yet heard or seen anything, he felt a rush of adrenalin. Perhaps it was intuition, but he knew something was wrong. Then, a second or two later, three RIC spacers came around the corner.
“Max,” Anton Stanovich said, his voice friendly, relaxed. “How are you today? You look tired, my friend.”
There was nothing in the Russian officer’s voice that suggested anything but a chance meeting, but Harmon noticed that the two spacers with Stanovich were still moving forward.
“I am tired, Anton. In fact, I was planning to go to my quarters and rest for a while.”
“Indeed,” the Russian replied. “It appears you are lost. Your quarters are on deck four. What are you doing all the way down here?”
“I am coming from the magazine,” Harmon replied, trying not to be obvious as he kept an eye on the two spacers. Something is definitely going on, he thought. I have to make a break for it.
“Then you are going the wrong way.” Stanovich nodded slightly, and the two spacers closed around Harmon. “Come, we will escort you.”
“Thank you, Anton, but that won’t be necessary. I’m just very tired.” He turned to walk back the way he had come, but the spacers moved into his way.
“I’m afraid I must insist, my friend. We will take good care of you.”
Harmon saw the two men begin to close on him, and he swung to the side, launching a hard roundhouse kick as he did. One of the spacers fell to the floor with a shout as Harmon’s kick took him in the gut. The Alliance officer took off at a run, trying to get around the corner. But it was too far, and his opponents were ready.
He felt a jolt tear through his body. There was pain. And disorientation. His legs buckled, and he fell forward, landing on his hands and knees. A stun gun. He struggled to stay conscious, to drive the cloudiness from his thoughts and to push his stricken body to keep up the fight. He gritted his teeth and lunged forward, half-crawling, half-walking for a few more steps.
“Please, Max.” Stanovich’s voice seemed quiet, far away. “Do not resist. We do not wish to harm you. But we must keep you with us for a few more hours.”
Harmon wanted to give up, to let his aching body collapse, to cease his hopeless attempts at escape. But that wasn’t in his blood. His mother was an Alliance admiral, known throughout the fleet as one of the toughest and grittiest to ever hold command rank. And his father had been a decorated Marine officer, killed in the terrible battle on Tau Ceti III. Surrender was unnatural to him, unthinkable. He staggered up to his feet, his blurry vision targeted on the corner just ahead.
He was almost there…and then an instant later he was face down, his nerves alive with the pain of a second blast from the stun gun. He tried to ignore it, to get back to his feet, but his body didn’t respond. He lay there, paralyzed, barely able to remain conscious.
He was vaguely aware of the shadows looming over him. There was a voice, hushed, distant.
“I truly am sorry, Max, but as I said, we must detain you. No harm will come to you, and we will release you soon. You have my word.”
Harmon’s mind screamed with a primal ‘no,’ but there was nothing he could do. Regardless of his indomitable spirit, the martial relentlessness bred into him, his body was still only human. Few people could get back to their feet after a blast from a stun gun, but none could endure two shots and still function.
He felt himself fading, and the darkness took him.
Chapter Eleven
Research Notes of Dr. Hieronymus Cutter
We are approaching the First Imperium vessel, and I find myself quite nervous…scared even. Ana and I have updated our algorithms, and to the best of our current state of knowledge about the enemy, they should have the same effect on the vastly more sophisticated intelligences we expect to find in the ship. But there is no way to know for sure, not until we have examined them. Even then, there is a limit to what we can ascertain from a non-functioning unit. Eventually, we are going to have to take the risk of activating the intelligence, assuming we are even capable of doing so.
I may have understated the risk of such an action when I spoke with Admiral Compton. It wasn’t my intention to mislead him, at least not consciously. But I must admit, at least to myself, that there is some risk of rebooting the intelligence and having the virus fail to establish control. These higher orders systems may have safeguards and protections I have not anticipated. In that case, we may actually activate the vessel, only to have it move to attack the fleet. Or it may simply remain where it is. This particular ship appears to have been deactivated for far longer than the First Imperium’s conflict with humanity has existed. It may not operate under whatever orders have been issued to the imperium’s forces. In that case, it may take no action at all. Or it may seek to destroy those of us who have come aboard. Indeed, that is a highly likely scenario, as we will appear to be an invading force, threatening the vessel from within.
Nevertheless, despite the risks, I believe we have no other choice. Even with Admiral Compton’s unquestioned skills, we face an almost impossible task to survive in our current situation. We cannot even begin to guess at the enemy’s total strength, and we have no data at all on the size of their domains. It appears we are passing through core regions of the imperium itself now, as most of the inhabitable worlds in the last few systems have had extensive ruins. Is it possible to reach the other side? To find an area of space beyond the First Imperium’s borders? Perhaps. But it would take forty or fifty jumps to cross human-occupied space, and we can only imagine that the domains of this ancient empire are far, far vaster. And we face an unending series of challenges—fuel, food, equipment, weapons.
As a scientist, I am troubled at the prospect of putting my research to the test so prematurely. But as a member of this fleet, my fate—and that of all the others—depends almost entirely on making this technology work. If we cannot find a way to meaningfully interfere with the directives driving the imperium’s forces, we will die. It is that simple. And if we are not to succeed, dying now might be vastly more merciful a fate.
AS Saratoga
System X20
Approaching Planet Four
The Fleet: 225 ships, 47,842 crew
“Dr. Cutter, you might want to get your people ready. We’re beginning our final approach to the planet.” Admiral Dumont was standing next to his chair, looking at the Alliance scientist and his RIC cohort. “I want you to know, I understand the enormous importance—and the risk—of what you are doing, and I offer you my true respect and wish you the best of luck.”
“Thank you, Admira
l. We are hopeful of success.” Cutter hoped he managed to sound convincing, but he rather doubted his ability to bullshit someone of Dumont’s age and accomplishments. He could see there was something troubling Dumont too. “What is it, Admiral?”
“I’m not going to lie to you, son.” His voice was soft, but it had great weight to it. “If it appears that you have reactivated the enemy vessel and cannot quickly verify that you have control over it, I am going to have to…” His voice trailed off. Even a veteran like Dumont had trouble facing some of his grimmer duties.
“You will have to attack and attempt to destroy the enemy ship. Before it can fully power up…with both of us, and our team, still aboard.” Cutter had no illusions about the danger of the mission. And he knew Dumont would have no choice. Whether or not his task force could strike quickly and hard enough to destroy the enemy vessel before it struck back was another matter, one Cutter rather doubted. He suspected Dumont doubted it too. But that didn’t mean the grizzled old admiral wouldn’t try like hell.
“Yes, Doctor. That is precisely what I will have to do. If we allow that thing to become fully operational, it could conceivably destroy every ship in the fleet.”
Cutter just nodded. “I understand, Admiral. And agree. Though I have done some force estimation comparing the length and tonnage of the Colossus class to smaller First Imperium warships. It is highly questionable whether your task force alone could prevail against the enemy even if they were less than fully prepared and operational. But I would expect that the entire fleet could destroy it, even if it was at full power. Losses would be enormous, likely more than 50%, but I do not believe one Colossus can defeat the entire fleet, not with Admiral Compton in command.”
“You have more of a grasp of naval warfare than I would have anticipated, Dr. Cutter.” Dumont sounded genuinely impressed and surprised…and that was an extremely rare occurrence.
