Fletcher removed it by reaching into a pocket, pulling up a memory stick. He slid the stick into a computer slot. He’d dreaded this moment for some time but had expected it nonetheless. The trick today was to keep the Grand Fleet operative as a unit, not letting it fall apart into its component pieces. That would be a disaster in the making. Nor could he let command pass to the cunning third admiral.
“I like your idea of courier vessels,” Fletcher said. “We will divide the fleet to move but be ready to unite in a day or so to meet the New Men with our combined forces.”
The earl studied Fletcher. At last, he smiled. “You anticipated me, I see. That is a good thing, is it not?” he asked the sub-commander?
“I suppose,” Ko growled.
“It is indeed,” Bishop said, “for it implies a strategic mind of some scope. Please, show us our new marching orders, Admiral.”
Fletcher picked up a clicker, switching on a holomap of “C” Quadrant. It would appear he still had nominal command of the Grand Fleet. One step back to take two forward, as the old saying went. The trick would be to prove to the others that he was right about remaining united without losing too many vessels in the coming object lesson. It was a mistake of the first order to split the Grand Fleet against the New Men. Fletcher knew that all too well. The New Men were going to make them pay for doing it. It was simply a matter of where and how.
Fletcher pushed the thought aside. He would give the riskiest assignments to the most troublesome commander. That was Third Admiral Bishop, of course. Sub-commander Ko merely followed the earl’s lead. As he told them their new travel routes, Fletcher recalled the monitors he’d lost in the Battle of Caria 323. The Windsor League hammerships were critical to the Grand Fleet. Vessel for vessel, they were the toughest ships they had. He couldn’t afford to lose too many of them.
How many star cruisers do the New Men have left? What is their plan?
Fletcher continued to show the others their new paths as he worried about the future encounter. The New Men were out here, waiting, plotting and preparing. The realization brought a cold knot of doubt to the admiral’s gut, one that he worked hard to keep off his face.
Bishop was right about one thing. Fear was contagious. But so was courage.
Fletcher had to make sure the New Men’s coming trick didn’t steal the courage the Grand Fleet already possessed due to its exalted size. That’s what Bishop and Ko didn’t seem to understand. Humanity needed a giant fleet to give the soldiers enough courage to come out here in the shadows and face the impossible New Men.
-3-
Three weeks later, Fletcher scowled at a holoimage in his ready room. It showed the city of Caracas on New Venezuela III. Unlike anything else they’d seen in “C” Quadrant, the buildings were intact.
“This is from a strikefighter skirting the planetary atmosphere,” the briefing officer explained.
Fletcher made a pass in the air, bringing the holoimage closer. He spread two fingers, zooming in on the ground.
“There aren’t any bomb craters,” he said.
“No, sir,” the briefing officer said.
Fletcher continued to study the city. “I don’t see any traffic.”
“There wasn’t any, sir.”
“No?”
“According to the pilots—the Excalibur’s commander ordered a second pass. According to them, nothing moves on the ground.”
“Not even animals?” the admiral asked.
“Nothing, sir. It’s a ghost town.”
“I wonder why the New Men didn’t drop any hell-burners here. What’s different about New Venezuela III?”
The briefing officer shook her head, clearly not knowing.
Fletcher looked up. “What about the planet’s other cities?”
“They’re all like this, sir. Nothing stirs anywhere but there’s no sign of destruction.”
“Right,” Fletcher said. “I’m sending down a landing party. I want them to scour Caracas. I want to know what happened. I want to speak to a survivor. As far as I know, no one has survived a New Men-conquered planet. We may have just had our first breakthrough.”
***
The majority of the Star Watch warships in the Grand Fleet were presently in the New Venezuela System. There were three Laumer-Points here, all of them spread out. It meant days of normal space travel for the vessels to go from one wormhole entrance to another.
Only one carrier—the Excalibur—orbited New Venezuela III, along with several destroyers and two escorts. The rest of the fleet waited in the middle of the star system, ready to accelerate to a needed Laumer-Point in case a courier ship popped through and told them the enemy fleet had made its move against a different detachment.
The splitting of the Grand Fleet three weeks ago had begun in a high state of anxiety for the admiral. Every day, Fletcher had expected the enemy to pounce on the weakest element of the Grand Fleet. Instead, the combined fleets moved faster through “C” Quadrant, gathering information at five times the previous rate. Despite that, the admiral kept a tight reign over the movement schedules. It didn’t take a genius to see the New Men were going to let them get overconfident and then sloppy. Fletcher was determined to prevent that.
Now, though, the holoimages he’d seen… Could Bishop have been right? By traveling faster, scouting more systems at an accelerated rate, could that have pressured the New Men into making a mistake?
Fletcher wanted more information before he made that decision. Where were the people of New Venezuela III? He had to know.
The admiral clicked on an intercom. “Any word yet from the landing party?”
“No, sir,” Antietam’s captain said.
The bulk of the warships were over one point five billion kilometers away from New Venezuela III. Messages took time to travel the distance. Launching shuttles from Excalibur took more time. So did actually traveling down to the planet and then walking around, recording whatever there was to see.
Fletcher forced himself to sit back. The data would arrive when it came and no faster. He wasn’t going to hurry it like this. Instead, he was showing the captain and her bridge crew that the admiral was anxious. No, that wouldn’t do.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Yes, sir.”
Fletcher put his hands over his stomach. He hated waiting. It was always the worst part. When would he know what had happened to the people of Caracas? This was driving him crazy.
***
Finally, the landing party sent its data packet to Excalibur. The carrier’s intelligence officer beamed it via the laser lightguide link to Antietam. Soon, the flagship’s briefing officer knocked on the ready room door.
“Enter,” Fletcher said.
“I have the Caracas report, sir,” she said.
The admiral waved her inside. Soon, he studied the holoimages of empty stores, empty houses and unmade beds. Everywhere the landing party went, it was the same. The people had obviously left in a hurry. The landing party had not found anyone to interrogate.
“What’s this?” Fletcher said, spying movement in the holo-vid.
A second later, as the landing party person zoomed in, a red and white cat hissed. Then, it disappeared around a corner.
“Did you notice that?” Fletcher asked.
“I did, sir.”
“Well? What do you think?”
“I-I don’t know, sir,” the briefing officer said, looking confused.
“I was referring to the cat’s collar. You did see that, right?”
“Oh,” she said, “the collar. Why, yes, of course.” A moment passed. “Sir, I must admit that I didn’t notice the collar.”
“Hmmm,” Fletcher said, thinking. “It was a house cat. I’m certain. I suspect it means the New Men did not gas the city.”
“Sir?”
“That will be all,” the admiral said.
The briefing officer nodded before saluting, turning sharply and leaving.
Fletcher waited another minute, co
llecting his thoughts. Then, he told the captain to send a message to the Excalibur. The landing party was to search for mass graves.
“May I ask a question, Admiral?” the captain said.
“The cat could have been away when the New Men gassed the others.”
“Sir?” the captain asked, confused.
“Send the message. The sooner the landing parties start searching, the sooner I’ll know the truth.”
“Yes, sir,” the captain said. “I will send the message.”
***
Two days later, Fletcher ordered the fleet out of the New Venezuela System. He was behind his own maneuver schedule, having given the landing parties more time to hunt for mass graves. They had found nothing. As far as anyone knew, no people were on New Venezuela III. It was a ghost planet.
Fletcher was stretched on his cot in his quarters. He had his hands behind his head as he stared up at the ceiling bulkhead.
The landing parties had found no traces of gas. That theory seemed wrong. Could the New Men have forced everyone onto shuttles, carrying them into waiting cargo haulers? The implication was too…staggering. Moving several million people would take a vast logistical effort. Yes, New Venezuela had been under the enemy’s control for almost two years. Yet, that would imply the New Men had been moving people from the beginning. Did that make sense?
“If I knew the reason it might,” Fletcher told himself.
Why would the enemy drop hell-burners on one planet and take the people from another? Maybe New Venezuela III was an anomaly.
The Grand Fleet was halfway through “C” Quadrant already. More data would soon begin to flow in from the courier ships. He would simply have to bide his time for now.
A grim smile touched the admiral’s lips. Finally, they had found something different, not just a radioactive planet. That would indicate…what exactly?
Fletcher shook his head. He didn’t know. His gut told him it was time to recall all the ships and begin tiptoeing again as a giant group. He hated having the fleet spread out like this among several star systems. Was the enemy trying to lull them?
Yes. I know they are. We’re just going to have to be smarter than that.
He would have to let the enemy strike one of the elements in order for the others to believe his caution was the best course.
Hannibal taught the Romans that, although the Carthaginian almost destroyed them before they learned their lesson. I’m going to have to play this just right.
Thinking about it kept the admiral awake for hours.
-4-
Two weeks after Admiral Fletcher left the New Venezuela System, a cloaked star cruiser observed a Windsor League detachment scouring the Ankara System.
Atmospheric league fighters swept over the skies of Ankara II. The pilots broadcast their findings to the nearest hammership. Shuttles soon left the large warship. They landed with scout teams, searching the planet’s empty cities.
The commander of the cloaked star cruiser, a Methuselah Man by the name of Strand, chuckled upon hearing the landing parties’ reports.
Soon, now, he would implement the third phase of his plan. He had already detected the travel pattern of the dispersed vessels. It indicated that Admiral Fletcher still had nominal command of the Grand Fleet.
Strand had expected no less, but it wasn’t going to matter in the end. Yes, the old-style humans had proven more resilient than he would have believed. That came from four key sources: the hidebound Ludendorff, that infernal Captain Maddox with Starship Victory and the Adok AI, Driving Force Galyan.
None of those sources appeared to be with the Grand Fleet, however. That meant he could proceed with the fleet’s destruction at his leisure. Not that it would be easy to accomplish. Strand could not perceive a quick fix this time. But if the old-style humans would react as predicted—which he had no doubt they would—then he could annihilate the juggernaut Grand Fleet and continue with his overall master plan for the human race.
-5-
In his wind-suit, Pa Kur hurried through the howling gale. The sky was dark red with dust and flashes of intense lightning as if gods dueled. Far away, rain fell onto sand and cracked rocks.
The water moon of Palain IV was the sole inhabitable body in the system. It orbited a gas giant, the source for the moon’s deuterium-run factories.
In Commonwealth terminology, Pa Kur was a New Man, a golden-skinned dominant, Fifth Rank. He wore a protective wind-suit, which included a bubble helmet with fine scratches crisscrossing the tempered glass. He headed into the gale as his long strides ate up the distance to the interior landing field. He could barely make out the field’s blinking lights.
Windsor League subhumans had entered the star system. One of their hammerships headed here while the other seven monster ships maneuvered toward a Laumer-Point six hundred thousand kilometers away.
Pa Kur did not smile, as it was not in his nature to do so. Yet, he was elated. Strand had been right so far. The Methuselah Man truly was a genius, maybe even a prophet concerning the sub-men.
The lower races now dared to send individual contingents to the various systems. Before, the entire Grand Fleet had moved en masse from one star system to another.
The Emperor’s commander of the invasion armada had wished to attack a dispersed arm of the enemy fleet at once. Strand had convinced the commander to wait. Since the Destroyer’s annihilation in the Solar System, the Emperor and Strand had come to terms again. Necessity had predicated it.
The Methuselah Man had instructed the armada commander in his plan. Strand had said the subhumans needed time for boredom to mentally prepare them for the coming shock before the moment was right to psychologically pinprick them.
As Pa Kur crunched across sand, he squinted at a bullet-fast object coming toward him. He shifted leftward with a cat’s quickness. A thick stalk of ras-grass flew past. If it had struck him, it could have easily breached the wind-suit. The storms here made breathing difficult without aid. He had no time for the theatrics of a torn suit.
Pa Kur had short silver hair and strange eyes even for a New Man. They were glassy like obsidian, showing no emotion. That took some doing on his part. He had never let anyone know that his Fifth Rank status rankled intensely. He desired greater rank with a seething passion. He also wanted to run a starship of his own. Those slots only went to Third Ranks and higher.
His yearning for starship command had been the prime ingredient for his taking so readily to Strand’s plan. The Methuselah Man’s idea was ingenious and subtle. It would also take perfect timing today. Pa Kur knew the others of his sept sneered at Strand’s guarantee of total victory if they would only do as he said. Pa Kur wanted to teach them otherwise.
The obsidian eyes seemed to glitter for just a moment. Pa Kur had studied subhuman psychology, the key reason Strand had chosen him for this task. Pa Kur also had a theory. If one truly wanted to understand greatness—such as that of the New Men—one must first grasp the base stock from which they had come. It would be similar to sub-men studying chimpanzees to learn more about themselves. It was a radical idea, he knew. It also allowed him to understand the subhumans more deeply than his so-called superiors and peers. It never mattered what an inferior believed. Even the enlightened Pa Kur subscribed to that thought.
Despite his fifth rank status, Pa Kur believed he understood Strand’s purpose better than anyone else on Palain IV’s water moon. This pinprick attack would be the first step toward unsettling the subhumans, of teaching them to always doubt themselves.
Within the bubble helmet, a static sound from the implant in his left ear caused Pa Kur to tilt his head.
“Report,” he said, in an emotionless voice.
“We’ve received the coded signal from him,” the scratchy voice said. “The word is: go.”
Pa Kur lowered his head and began to run. He sprinted extraordinarily fast like a humanoid cheetah. No regular human could have hoped to run a quarter of his speed.
The “him” me
ant Strand. The Methuselah Man must be in the system with his cloaked star cruiser. That was interesting.
It was time to ready the Palain sub-men. The coming foray would have to follow an exact procedure. If it worked—
No! Pa Kur refused to sanction the possibility of failure. He would strive and succeed or it would no longer matter because he would be dead. Success would surely elevate him to Fourth Rank. Even better, he would have a starship to command, even if only for a short time.
***
Pa Kur stood inside the interior hangar, watching through one-way glass. Eight subhuman-built shuttles waited on the other side.
He held a comm-unit, studying the approaching hammership. It was round and possessed three layers of shields like an onion. That was unique among the subhumans. The hammership also boasted thick hull armor with heavy ablating underneath.
The Windsor League people did not subscribe to beam weaponry. They trusted in railguns firing multiple types of rounds, the deadliest being thermonuclear warheads. Hammerships were most effective at close range. Their ultra-heavy shielding and hull armor theoretically allowed the vessel to survive distance assaults in order to get in close.
Today, Pa Kur wanted the hammership as close to the water moon as possible.
On his comm-unit, he watched the hammership’s exhaust grow to absurd lengths as it braked hard. The enemy was coming in at combat speed, a wise precaution in most instances.
Pa Kur mentally calculated the braking rate versus the distance left to the water moon. He did not need a computer to make the calculations. Ah. It was time to start moving the Palain sub-men into position.
Raising the comm-unit, Pa Kur said, “Begin the procedure.”
He hooked the comm to his belt afterward, peering through the one-way glass. The seconds ticked away, turning into minutes. Finally, a door into the hangar bay opened. A ragged-looking subhuman peered out. The creature held a stunner. Others behind the first one forced the man into the interior hangar bay. More poured out. They had just made a “successful” escape attempt, killing the hypnotized Palain guards. Likely, these subhumans couldn’t believe their miraculous luck.
The Lost Colony (Lost Starship Series Book 4) Page 2
