by Brown, Ryk
“It shouldn’t be too hard to wire its power and comm gear into the cargo shuttle’s systems, sir,” Master Chief Montrose assured Nathan.
“But it won’t be able to jump,” Jessica pointed out.
“It doesn’t need to,” Cameron reminded her. “The whole point is to have a command post in a fixed position that everyone can jump back to and exchange comm signals. It could also be the point where we would rendezvous with the jump shuttles to refill them with troops.”
“Why not just park a few cargo shuttles out there alongside the CIC shuttle and fill them full of troops?” Master Chief Montrose suggested. “We could fit docking collars on them so the jump shuttles could transfer troops over each time.”
“Might as well join them all together and make a floating logistics station out of it,” Jessica said, half joking.
“That’s not a bad idea either,” Nathan admitted.
“Uh, Captain?” Cameron interrupted. “Who’s going to run this CIC?”
Nathan looked at her. “It was your idea.” He turned back to the others. “I think we have the workings of a decent plan brewing here,” he announced. “However, it will depend on many factors, of which resources are only a small part. If we don’t think we have what we need, we don’t do it. Furthermore, I believe our chances of success increase considerably if we can get some inside assistance from Mister Dumar’s contact. I might even go as far as to say that our plan hinges on inside help. Therefore, I’m going to green-light this plan under four conditions. First, show me an overall plan, complete with timings, order of battle, contingency plans and logistics. Second, prove to me that we have the resources to pull it off. Third, show me we have a weather window over the target that works for us. And finally, make sure we have our inside man lined up.” Nathan looked them over, expecting rebuttal but finding none. “Very well, dismissed.”
As the others began to make their way out of the command briefing room, Cameron just sat there looking dumbfounded.
“Problem?” Nathan asked.
Cameron watched out of the corner of her eye as the last person left the room. “I’m not sure I’m the right person to run the CIC,” she confided.
“Nonsense,” Nathan responded confidently. “Show me someone better.”
“Sir, it’s just…”
“Cam, I know,” Nathan interrupted. “What you went through would’ve shaken up any of us. Hell, we’re all pretty fucked up right now. We’ve just been too busy to deal with it.” Nathan laughed slightly. “Once we get back to Earth, I suspect fleet is going to ground us all and order us to therapy for a few years.”
Cameron’s eyes stared at the table in front of her as she spoke. “How did you know?”
“Anyone who knows you can tell that you haven’t been yourself since you came back on board, Cam—if for no other reason than that you haven’t been chewing anyone’s ass lately.” Nathan got up and moved over toward her, taking the seat next to hers. “You are the only one on board that I can trust with this responsibility; you know that.”
Cameron nodded her head. “Yes, sir.”
“Take whomever you need to fill that floating CIC,” Nathan told her. “Just be sure to leave me a bridge crew,” he added as he rose.
“Sir,” Cameron asked, her eyes coming up from the table to meet his, “are we ever going to get home?”
“One way or another, with or without this Alliance, this ship is getting home,” he promised as he headed for the exit.
“Nathan,” Cameron called after him. Nathan turned to face her from the hatchway. “Thanks,” she told him, a slight smile creeping into her worried expression. Nathan smiled back, waving to her as he stepped through the hatchway.
Chapter Seven
“Thirty seconds to drone intercept,” Mister Willard announced from the back seat of the jump interceptor.
“We’re currently two light days from Takara,” Josh announced from the front seat of the cramped cockpit.
Mister Willard reached up to one of several electronics boxes that had been temporarily secured to the top of the dashboard cowling in front of him and pressed a button. “Transmitting dropout signal.”
“Any idea what’s in the message?” Josh asked.
“I did not ask.”
“How could you not ask?”
“I did not need to know,” Mister Willard stated. “Fifteen seconds to drone intercept.”
“But you’re the one sending the message. Seems like you of all people should know what’s in it.”
“If I had needed to know, they would have told me,” Mister Willard insisted. “Besides, I am not the one sending the message; I am only the one transmitting it to the drone.”
“It still doesn’t seem right.”
The sensor suite beeped at Mister Willard. “New contact,” he stated. “It is the comm-drone. Transmitting message transfer challenge.”
“I would want to know,” Josh stated.
“I’ve heard that about you,” Mister Willard responded. “Message challenge accepted. Transmitting sender ID.”
“Heard what about me?” Josh wondered.
“That you are very curious.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” Josh defended. “That’s how I learn things.”
“You can learn by observation as well,” Mister Willard told him. “Sender ID accepted. The drone believes we are the Yamaro. Transmitting messages.”
“Watching is boring,” Josh told him. “I like to do things or talk about things.”
“I’ve been told that as well.”
“By who? Tug?” Josh asked. “That old man does not want to talk much, except to tell me what I’m doing wrong.”
“Mister Tugwell is a very wise man. I am sure he only wishes to enlighten you and help you improve yourself.”
“I don’t know about wise. I mean, how wise is it to fight for over thirty years, and against the empire no less? It’s like banging your head against the side of a mountain, it is. You’re more likely to knock yourself silly before the mountain crumbles.”
“Yet we are all about to bang our heads against that very same mountain,” Mister Willard commented as he monitored the transmission of the message queue to the Savoy comm-drone.
“Yeah, good point.”
“Messages have been sent.”
“Messages?” Josh wondered. “I thought we were only sending one message.”
“I added the messages that were in the queue from the Yamaro’s comm-system prior to her surrender to make it look more legitimate. I even faked a few dozen comm-log entries to make it look more authentic. If we had transmitted a single message, it would have raised suspicion.”
“Good thinking, but won’t, ‘Hey, I know it has been awhile, but would you be willing to help us overthrow the empire and depose Caius?’ make them even more suspicious?”
“Challenge is closed,” Mister Willard announced. “I’m sure the message is more subtle than that.”
“Subtle? How does one ask something like that subtly?”
“I am sure the message appears routine on the surface, but some words or phrases within the message will alert the sender to look deeper. Is that not how such things usually work?”
“In the vid-flicks, maybe. I wouldn’t know how they do it in the real world.”
“I am sure that Mister Dumar knows what he is doing,” Mister Willard assured Josh.
“I hope so. The guy makes me nervous. He’s always looking at everyone, watching them and stuff.”
“I believe it is the nature of people in his occupation.” Mister Willard looked at his sensor screen. “The comm-drone is going back into FTL.”
“Maybe, but I still don’t trust him,” Josh said as he changed course. “Coming about.”
“You trust Mister Tugwell, do you not?”
“Of course, but he’s laid his ass on the line for us more than once.”
“Well he seems to trust Mister Dumar, as does Lieutenant Commander Nash and Captain Scott.
”
“Lieutenant Commander Nash doesn’t trust anyone,” Josh snickered, “and as far as the captain goes, he doesn’t trust everyone as much as everybody thinks he does. He’s smarter than that.”
“He trusted me,” Mister Willard defended, “and I was not only a member of an enemy crew, but also the leader of a mutiny.”
“The captain likes to give people a little trust, you know, just to see if they’re worth it. That’s what he did with me and Loki.”
“I have read the combat logs,” Mister Willard told him. “In your case, he had little choice.”
“Maybe the first time, but he did trust us enough to let us play in his simulator beforehand.”
“The comm-drone has departed the area. It should arrive in Takara within a few hours. Our mission is complete.”
“Great,” Josh declared. “As soon as we get back, I’m getting cleaned up and locating some food. Me and Loki got two more systems to recon.” Josh yanked the flight control stick to the left, twisting it slightly as he did so. “Coming about.”
Mister Willard shut down the Yamaro’s transponder as well as their communications gear as the jump interceptor completed her turn.
“On course for Darvano,” Josh announced. “Running jump plot now.” Josh punched the new destination into the jump drive’s plotting system. “What are you going to do when you get back?”
“I must begin reprogramming the captured comm-drones,” Mister Willard said. “They must be converted into FTL kinetic kill vehicles.”
“That last one sure did a number on the Wallach,” Josh stated. He had seen the footage from the jump interceptor’s cameras. “Hey, can one of those things really crack a planet in half?”
“I do not believe so. However, when traveling faster than light, they carry staggering amounts of kinetic energy. At the very least, I expect that such an impact would end all life on the target world.”
“Even so, it sure would be something to see,” Josh mumbled. “Five seconds to jump.”
“I hope we never get such an opportunity,” Mister Willard responded as he flipped his auto-darkening visor down to protect his eyes from the jump flash.
“Yeah, let’s hope.” Josh lowered his auto-visor as the two jump fields surrounding the interceptor, one expanding and one contracting, received immense amounts of energy. The two fields intersected just as the additional energy was delivered to them, resulting in the blue-white flash that accompanied every jump. A moment later, the flash cleared. “Jump complete,” Josh announced as he raised his visor. “You know, they really need to come up with an auto-darkening visor that works better. I’m always afraid I’m going to forget to drop this thing in time, and it never gets light enough for me to see my flight displays.”
“Have you spoken to anyone about this problem?” Mister Willard asked.
“Position confirmed,” Josh announced routinely. “We’re back in the Darvano system, coming up fast on Karuzara. Beginning deceleration.” Josh reversed his thrust feed so that all four of his rotating thrust ports had flipped over and were pointing forward, then brought his throttles up to full power in order to avoid slamming into the Karuzara asteroid base. As usual, he was flying with his typical ‘full blast or full stop’ style, as Loki had nicknamed it long ago. “Like who?” Josh asked. “Normally I would ask Marcus, but he’s so busy being chief of the deck, he’s got no time for me.”
“I will speak to one of the Corinairan technicians about this on your behalf, if you’d like,” Mister Willard offered as he tried to hide his nervousness over the speed of their approach.
“Sure, thanks,” Josh answered, calm as could be. “You want to contact Karuzara so they don’t shoot us down first?”
“Of course,” Mister Willard responded as he keyed his comm-set. “Karuzara command, Falcon one. Request clearance to approach and enter Karuzara air space.”
“Falcon one, Karuzara Command,” the voice answered in Angla, which was fast becoming the common language of the Alliance, despite the many different tongues spoken by its various members. “You are cleared for Karuzara air space. Contact Aurora flight ops on seven one zero on approach. Welcome back.”
“Hey, Josh, I’ve been meaning to ask you; how did you come up with the name Falcon?”
“It was Captain Scott’s idea,” Josh explained as he flipped the interceptor over. He moved his throttles back to zero and swung his thrust nozzles aft once more, then began maneuvering the interceptor in order to line it up with the trench in the surface of the asteroid that led to the entry tunnel. “It’s some kind of bird back on Earth, supposed to be really fast. A bird of prey, I think. Swoops down out of the sky like lightning to strike its target. Kind of cool, don’t you think?”
“I suppose so.”
* * *
“All comm-drones are currently being reprogrammed with the same code that Mister Willard and I created to destroy the Wallach,” Vladimir announced. “Deliza and I have added some additional subroutines that will allow us to transmit targeting coordinates and conditions when the jump interceptor transmits a launch order.”
“Good,” Nathan remarked from his seat at the head of the briefing table. “That will give us some last second flexibility, which I suspect we will need.” Nathan looked over his last ship’s condition report. “How about our guns?” he asked Vladimir.
“We still have four rail guns down,” he admitted, “but to give us better overall coverage, we pulled parts from some and moved them to another. So instead of having four guns down all on the port side, there is nowhere along the ship’s perimeter where there are two guns out side by side.”
“So instead of one side being weak, all sides are weak?” Nathan wondered. “I’m not so sure that’s a good thing, Vlad.”
“We can alter the firing scripts to make the guns coverage zones wider,” Jessica suggested. “We can also run them at their maximum rate of fire when necessary. That should make up for the missing guns.”
“What about our four quad guns?” Nathan asked. “Did we ever get any ammunition for them?”
“We got a few thousand rounds at best,” Cameron reported. “The Yamaro asteroid started producing slugs a few hours ago. If we’re lucky, we might end up with about ten thousand rounds.”
“That’s about a fifteen second blast if we’re shooting all four quads,” Jessica pointed out.
“While the quads work, they will only work from their topside position,” Vladimir warned. “We had to pull the door motors from their bottom sides and use them to replace the burnt out motors on the doors for the secondary heat exchangers.”
“No sweat,” Nathan assured him. “For a fifteen second blast, I’m sure we can just roll over and bring them to bear. What about the hole in our port side?”
“There is nothing that can be done about that right now,” Vladimir told him. “It will take weeks to repair the damage.”
“Well, at least the port launch bay is still accessible,” Nathan stated.
“Are we still planning on running the flight deck all open?” Major Prechitt asked.
“Once we get all the staging stuff positioned, yes,” Nathan told him. “Expect to go to an open deck about an hour before mission zero.”
“We now have thirty-six deep space fighters and fifty atmospheric fighters, all manned and ready,” Major Prechitt added. “We’re topped off with aviation fuel, and we’ve got enough ordnance onboard for at least four full sorties.”
“What type of ordnance are we talking about?” Nathan wondered.
“Ship to ship, ship to surface, cruise missiles, rail gun rounds… you name it, we’ve got it, thanks to the Ancot raid. We wouldn’t have half that stuff without it.”
“Good to know,” Nathan answered. “How is the floating command center going?” he asked Cameron.
“We’ve put it into one of the cargo shuttles from the Aitkenna spaceport. It’s tight, but we were able to extend the bays completely. They’re hooking it up to the shuttle’s int
ernal power and jacking its comm-array into the shuttle’s array. It’s not going to have much of a workable range, maybe a few hundred thousand kilometers, but that should be plenty for our needs. The whole thing should be up and running in about six hours.”
“Great. How many people do you need to staff it?”
“Besides the flight crew of two, I’ll need six people to man the data processing and comm stations, someone to backstop me, and people to man the staging platform as well.”
“Staging platform?” Nathan asked.
“We took five cargo containers from Aitkenna spaceport,” Master Chief Montrose explained. “They’ve each got their own power plant and environmental and gravity systems. We are docking them together to make enough space to hold the ground assault force. The whole cluster can sit on the flight apron and be jumped out to the staging point outside the Takaran system.”
“How are we going to move it off our deck?” Nathan asked.
“O-M-U,” Master Chief Montrose told him, “Orbital Maneuvering Unit. We use them to transfer cargo pods between interplanetary cargo haulers and the orbital transfer facility, where they wait to be shuttled down to Corinair.”
“Kind of like a space tug, then,” Nathan observed. “Will they be safe in those things?”
“They are heavily shielded to protect against the radiation from the Darvano sun for several days, and they will be considerably farther away from the Takaran sun. They should be fine, especially for the short amount of time that they will be in there.”
“We’d also like to include a few more cargo shuttles at the staging point, loaded with some Kalibri gunships as well as a couple of troop haulers,” Jessica added. “The extra air power could come in handy, especially if the ground battle drags out for long.”
“Can we carry all that stuff out there in a single jump?” Nathan asked.
“No, sir,” Cameron admitted. “In fact, it’s going to take us at least three jumps, maybe four.”
