In Death's Shadow

by S. F. Edwards

“No, too much interference between the settlement and the jump point. It’s transmitting to the cluster relay station a couple systems away. That’s what that half cent lag was. Not to worry, though, it was probably just a meteor that took out the antenna again. It’ll be up next cycle.”

  “True, but hey, if we’re done, let’s get out of here for a bit.”

  UCSB DATE: 1001.077

  Star System: Classified, UCSBA-13, Admiral Sares’ Office

  For Admiral Sares, the cycle had progressed like any other. Sitting behind the desk in his massive office, he read over the intelligence reports of the cycle. He scanned through them not only to find new scenarios to use on his cadets, but to prepare for his cyclic brief to the academy.

  Classification level too high, importance too low, good content, he considered each report, adding those that met his requirements to the list, then stopped. What’s the point? How many cadets actually listen to this? He resisted the urge to check the stats on how many cadets had just deleted his cyclic brief without playing it. The dirt-side academies make these mandatory. I remember my own academy general even tested us on them. I won’t do that to my cadets, nor my officers, they have real work to do.

  An urgent intelligence brief popped up over his desk. Hovering over the table like that told him the priority was high, for immediate reading. Such articles were only for major attacks occurring inside UCSB space and other news of similar importance. He opened the brief and the data presented turned his stomach. The images that accompanied it were no better.

  The after-action summary filled out in haste by one of the UCSB’s forensic analysis teams concerned the backwater Ferelias Post, of all places. The admiral scrolled through pictures of the remains of the decimated orbital station, an older outpost of little military value, in an out of the way system. Pictures of Galactic Federation fighters and capital ships appeared in the brief as they assumed control of the space around Ferelias. It was an uninhabited orb, rich in natural resources, which had served as a mining world for generations.

  Soon a blurry image of a massive blood-red Barker class carrier lit up before him. He felt his blood go cold in recognition. The splotchy blood-red and stygian-black paint adorning its hull made it that much more menacing to behold. The Satan, he thought, referring to the GFS Barker by its more common nickname, one of the most feared starships in space.

  The images alone told the story. Ferelias had been lost, and the chances that anyone had survived were remote. Reading through the briefing, the Admiral saw the small size of the outpost’s defensive militia. Even if they’d put up the most valiant of efforts, they could never have stood against the might of the Barker and its battle group. But why attack Ferelias Post? Was it a target of opportunity? Did bad intel guide them there? The report didn’t say.

  Reports had arrived from all over the UCSB for half an annura that the Barker had been making lightning raids. It rushed in and out of systems, leaving a swath of destruction in its wake, but it never stayed long. This had caused intelligence analysts to try and guess where or what the Barker’s next objective would be. Admiral Sares felt sure no one would have expected that it could have been Ferelias Post, and he was just as sure that Ferelias would not be its last stop.

  “Chief,” the Admiral said, pressing the call button to his secretary.

  “Yes, Admiral?” a crisp female voice replied.

  “Do we have any cadets or staff from Ferelias Post?” he inquired, hoping the outpost had sent no cadets his way.

  “We have four cadets and three staff. Those three are two enlisted and an officer from Ferelias.”

  “Damn,” the Admiral replied, his hand off the call button, preferring not to let any of his subordinates hear him curse. “Page them all and have them report to my office straight away.”

  “Yes sir, anything else?”

  “Patch me through to the link center.”

  “Yes sir,” she responded.

  Moments later, a hologram lit up with the face of the enlisted operator on duty at the station’s main telecommunications center.

  “Admiral Sares, what can we do for you, sir?”

  “Who is the officer on duty?”

  “Mister Gorick, sir, but he doubles as a psi-comm operator,” the enlisted man commented. He motioned towards a row of lounges in the back, where two tree-trunk shaped Donvarions and a Drashig wore the interface helmets that tapped them into the academy’s main telecommunications grid. “I can bring him up, but it will take a few pulses. He’s always groggy when he unplugs.”

  “No need for that now. I need you to initiate a total blackout for unclassified external links until further notice, is that understood?”

  “Yes sir. It will only take me a few pulses. Should I blackout all links, sir or just news and communication?”

  “All channels for now.”

  “Yes sir,” the young comm tech replied, eyes wide.

  The Admiral did not offer an explanation and shut down the link before the comm tech could ask; remembering something an old commander once told him. “Even if they want to, an Admiral doesn’t have to and should not explain all their actions.” The Admiral’s reasoning was simple though. He would rather that those under his command, from Ferelias Post, learn of its loss from him, not from some cold, impersonal newscaster with an unscrupulous source in UCSB intelligence or onboard the survey ship that had found the station.

  ***

  Half a hect later, Gavit and Matt arrived in the waiting room outside the Admiral’s office, the last of those summoned by the Admiral. “Any idea why they called us in?” Gavit wondered aloud as they took their seats. The stern face of the Admiral’s secretary revealed nothing.

  “None. Are you two from Ferelias?” a female Corporal with red sci/med stripes asked.

  “Yeah,” Matt replied. “Although this one was transplanted a while back. How’d you know?”

  The woman held up her hand, revealing her full marriage tattoo. “Always have to recognize.”

  “Where have you served?” Matt asked, and the woman quickly reeled off a list of assignments. The Tech Chief with the white flight ops stripes next to her did the same after revealing that he hailed from Ferelias Post as well.

  “We’re from Ferelias too,” a cadet commented, pointing a thumb at the man next to him.

  Everyone looked at the officer next to her. She nodded and Matt spun on the secretary, his stomach feeling like a black hole.

  “This has something to do with the link blackout doesn’t it?” Matt demanded.

  The gruff lady chief locked Matt in a hard stare. Before she could reply, a light on her desk blinked to life.

  “The Admiral will see you all now,” she responded and, with a tap of a button, the door opened.

  Matt took note of the soft light emerging through the open door. The holograms that normally adorned the walls were off. This isn’t good, he mused. Everyone shuffled into the chamber in silence. Fears of the worst danced through Matt’s mind. Was the damage worse than I thought? Could the main reactor have been damaged? Did an ore freighter go off course and collide with the station?

  “Be seated,” the Admiral ordered from the head of the massive conference table.

  Everyone took seats near the head of the table, and the door closed behind them. The Admiral’s face remained grim.

  The Admiral waited a moment, took a deep breath to calm himself, and began in a warm, personable tone. “As you may know, two cycles ago, contact was lost with Ferelias Post. When contact was not restored by last cycle, a local patrol cruiser was dispatched to investigate. According to intelligence estimates, at or around 21:65 standard clock time on 1001.075, Ferelias Post came under attack by a Galactic Federation battle group,” the Admiral announced.

  Everyone tensed in response. Matt felt his eyes go wide as he searched his memory. It was 21:64 when the link to Lademine cut out.

  “We have no idea at this time what transpired during the attack,” he said, throwing a series
of virtual folders to them all across the table top. “These images are graphic, and some of you might not want to see them, but the survey team took these upon arrival.”

  Matt tapped open the data packet to look at the images. He felt the blood drain from his face with each shot. The blurry red streak of the GFS Barker in the final image set his blood aboil.

  “As you can see, the orbital outpost over Ferelias was all but completely destroyed. You all have my deepest regrets.”

  “The Satan,” Matt growled, staring at the image under his hand.

  “Yes, it appears that the Satan Battle Group was responsible for the attack. No one in the intelligence community guessed the Galactic Federation would attack Ferelias.”

  “Is the high command planning a retaliation strike or sending any forces to take Ferelias back?” the officer asked, looking at a picture of the decimated station, the main module no more than a blackened and crumpled bit of debris laying before him.

  “A strike group is being assembled to retake the system. If the Satan remains there, though, it is unlikely that they will be able to do anything more than harass them.”

  “Request permission to join the strike group,” Matt called out, jumping to his feet.

  “Permission denied, Cadet. No one here is joining that strike group.”

  “Then I’ll turn in my form 618-G,” Matt retorted, his breath heavy with rage.

  “Matt, no,” Gavit responded, looking up at his friend.

  “And I won’t accept it,” the Admiral replied. “You will forfeit any chance of becoming an officer if you do so. Any attempt to leave this facility to join the strike group will be considered a court-martial offense.”

  “My fiancée was on Ferelias,” Matt declared, hitting the table hard enough to make the massive wooden edifice bounce. “As was my family. I can’t just sit here and do nothing.”

  “We may have all lost friends and loved ones on Ferelias,” the enlisted woman replied, her face red and eyes moist as she held back tears. “But going there now, facing the Satan under-trained and ill-prepared, is suicide, regardless of our prior service.”

  “Thank you,” the Admiral said to her.

  Matt still seethed with rage as he stood by his overturned seat. He looked up at the two newbie cadets, their faces flushed and pale, unable to speak. Those pups don’t look like they could have completed basic yet, let alone but in their three annura needed before attending the academy.

  “Cadet, please be seated.”

  Matt looked at the Admiral, then back at the two silent cadets, and finally to Gavit. With nothing more than his eyes, Gavit pleaded to his friend to sit.

  Without a word, Matt sat back down. The reality of the situation bore down on him like a falling space station. He found the same in the eyes of the others.

  “I called you all here because I wanted to be the first to let you know this, not some damned reporter or a rash of rumors. We think Ferelias is a target of opportunity, nothing more. The Barker Battle Group under its new commander, Admiral Hackeron, has been staging raids throughout Confed space. It’s diving through opportune jump points and creating havoc on the trade lanes. We feel that it might be an attempt to find the Confed homeworlds or major inner systems.”

  “Have they found a back door into the homeworlds?” the officer asked.

  “Not as yet, we believe, and all the homeworlds have been put on alert, as has every system with an opportune jump point to a home system in hyperspace. They slipped up attacking Ferelias, I think. The outpost is far enough from the jump point that it will give us time to catch up with them.”

  “Do we have a casualty estimate?” Matt asked.

  The admiral looked at the report. “Unknown at this time since we have only the basic imagery taken by the investigating cruiser, but it is anticipated to be high. I will keep you apprised of any developments, and my door is open if you need anything.”

  UCSB DATE: 1001.132

  Star System: Classified, UCSBA-13, Mendrick’s Bar and Grill

  Another semester had come to a close, and Marda sat in Mendrick’s considering a new minor, namely Xeno-Biology. She had no particular desire to study the field more than her normal coursework entailed, but after this semester of Special Operations training it made a certain sense.

  Most of the semester had focused on close combat, weapons training, tactics, and the biology of their enemies. They had learned countless vulnerable points on the physiology of the species that made up the Galactic Federation, and how best to exploit them. Sparring matches with robotic drones were commonplace, as were ambush attacks, between classes, by robots made to look like one of the Geffer races. It kept the Special Ops cadets on alert, ever vigilant to attack.

  For now, however, she just relaxed and nursed her drink.

  With the break upon them, most cadets were off on ship visits and base tours, shadowing officers whose specialty they were considering. Most of the Special Ops cadets opted out of such visits, too fatigued by the semester’s work. Instead, the academy brought in a guest lecturer, former special operations medic and retired Admiral, Admir Sadrick, Blazer’s grandfather. He regaled the cadets on his time in Special Operations Command, as well as gave general talks on leadership, the war, and the direction the Confederation had to take in order to win. Such guest lectures were common. Though the lectures were not technically mandatory, drill sergeants tended to roust out idle cadets and bring them if they remained on station.

  The lectures for this cycle were long since over, and for now, the retired Admiral had joined his grandson and future granddaughter-in-law for dinner. Marda remarked about her attack by a robotic Krad stand-in during her biology final two cycles before. “It came out of nowhere, and all I had was my light pen. So when it came close, I tackled it and jammed the light pen in its eye. Everyone looked at me like I was crazy, except the other Special Ops cadets. They clapped and one of them offered me his spare light pen since I’d ruined mine.”

  Arion soon arrived, but seeing Marda with the Admiral and the orbs floating about, waved in at them and left. The Admiral raised a curious eyebrow to that. “What’s going on there?”

  Blazer sighed. “I don’t know. I mean, he had an issue with Marda at first, but after she joined our team, he actually warmed to her.”

  “He was downright friendly through our initial Special Operations training,” Marda continued. “The thing is, ever since, especially when we’re out and about, he’s gotten more moody.”

  “Never in the sims, though,” Blazer remarked. “And more when the orbs are about, I’ve noticed.”

  “Yeah, it’s like he’d like to see me shoved out an airlock some cycle. Right after you gave me your family ring, he gave me this huge bear hug, like he was saying welcome to the family. Then he went dark around me again. It’s weird.”

  The Admiral nodded. “You’ve had a lot of change over the last annura, maybe Arion is just having trouble coping.”

  “Maybe,” Blazer remarked, shrugging his shoulders. “I just wish whatever was bugging him he’d get over, you know?”

  “Honestly, I think he just needs to get laid,” Marda laughed, and then covered her mouth, her face flushed with embarrassment. “I’ve been spending too much time with guys.”

  Blazer gave her a quick peck on the cheek. “You’re not getting it from me,” Blazer joked, and the Admiral looked on, pleased.

  “So Marda, how’s your training in the medical corps going? I know a few of your instructors from my service there.”

  They both raised eyebrows at him. It was an interesting revelation.

  “Yes, even Tadeh Qudas, but that’s a story for another time.”

  Blazer and Marda exchanged a look, both of them sure that story must be an interesting one.

  “We served with each other a long while.”

  That caused them both to stare in awe at him. “Wait,” Blazer commented. “You always told me that you had conducted operations with Telshin Tadeh Qudas Command.
I figured out a while ago that you’d met the commander, but never that you’d served with him on your own squad.”

  “I didn’t, well, yes. He was a member of my unit for over an annura after we’d first met.”

  No way, Marda couldn’t believe it. Tadeh Qudas was such an enigma, and to find out that he and Blazer’s grandfather were once squadmates was too much. It made the universe feel much smaller knowing how close their lives were intertwined.

  “But I’ve been talking far too much this cycle, how are you two doing?”

  They looked at each other.

  “We’re doing well,” Marda explained.

  “Take care of that ring, young lady. It’s been passed down the Vaughnt family line now for generations. It’s special. I still remember when Jorden proposed to Laresse with it. So when are you planning the nuptials?”

  Marda fitted Blazer with a gaze that sent him shrinking away. “We’ve tried to set the date but can’t settle on one. The regs said we couldn’t marry until after our first annura was complete.”

  The Admiral nodded, having quoted that very reg to them on their last break.

  “Which it is, now,” she went on. “But we’ve had precious little time to plan. Maybe next break?”

  “If you really think we’ll have time to plan between now and then, sure,” Blazer chortled. “I can’t imagine Tadeh Qudas going any easier on us.”

  The Admiral nodded and turned to the two orbs flitting about. “Are those two still bugging you?”

  Blazer nodded. “Yeah, they found Marda when we were still on the transport to the academy and have been enamored with her ever since.”

  “It doesn’t hurt that they keep telling me how enamored you are with me,” Marda shot back.

  Blazer blushed. “Well, it was almost love at first sight.”

  “Almost?” she asked.

  He shrugged, smiling, and she leaned over to give him a quick kiss, the Admiral smiling at them both.

  “Yeah, well, your grandmother keeps telling me,” she stopped before she could say more, pulling away and covering her mouth. Shreg!