Destroyer (Expansion Wars Trilogy, Book 3)

by Joshua Dalzelle

  "Yes, sir," Castillo said again and moved back with the corporal he was standing guard with.

  The NOVA team moved quickly past the storage bay that Bulldog Team had cut into and then began moving inboard at the next cross corridor. The ESA and United Terran Federation had only recently split off from each other, so Essa was operating under the assumption that ship-building philosophy hadn't had time to diverge too much between the two. If his theory held true, he would soon come to a—ah! There it was. A large, uninterrupted corridor that ran the length of the ship that was used to move heavy equipment back and forth. Every Terran ship had two of these, starboard to move forward, port to move aft.

  "Contact!" Joker shouted as he opened fire with his carbine. The rest of the team scattered for cover while the forward element began laying down suppressing fire. The rounds they carried were designed to be lethal to biological beings but not penetrate the bulkheads of a starship. Nobody wanted an errant round hitting something critical and killing everyone by accident.

  "Six hostiles armed with pistols and wearing body armor," Pitch said over the team channel. "They're taken cover behind that cluster of water pipes."

  "Flash bang," Essa ordered. "Front four, move on detonation. Execute."

  Joker pulled a black cylindrical grenade from his tactical harness and pressed the button on top three times, waiting for it to flash red before he threw it. The grenade was a "smart" munition and would wait until it was closest to a bio signature before going off. Joker's overhand throw was a good one and just as the grenade passed the cluster of fresh water supply pipes it detonated. The explosion even in such a cavernous space as a main access tube was stunning, but the NOVAs were ready and braced for it, the ear plugs they wore automatically closing off when they detected the pressure of the blast.

  "Move!" Pitch shouted and took off at a full sprint towards where the six defenders were hiding. As it turned out, it was unnecessary. The grenade blast going off while it was still at head level hadn't left any of them conscious. Upon close inspection Essa could see it actually hadn't left two of them alive.

  "Secure the living," he said. "Check them and bind them." The lights in the tube flickered, went out, then came back on as three of the NOVAs relieved the hostiles of their weaponry and used heavy plastic cuffs to secure them to the pipes. Before they were done there were a few sharp bangs that reverberated through the hull and then the hiss of the air handlers died.

  "Shit," Rat said. "They may be getting ready to let the air out on us. The crew may already be in the emergency shelters or lifeboats and they'll just let us flop around like fish out of water without having to fire a shot."

  "Cheery prospect," Essa said as he keyed his radio. "Bulldog, Vulture … we've lost life support to this section of the ship. Any chance you're able to do anything from Engineering?"

  "If we were in there, possibly," Baer's voice came back over the sound of weapons fire. "We've met some heavy resistance and they've sealed the blast doors. We're backing out and looking for an alternative route."

  "Copy," Essa said before killing the channel and turning to his team. "We're fucked. Let's get back to the—"

  "Attention Federation Marines," a heavily accented voice came over the shipwide PA. "This is Captain Yeung … I hereby surrender the Xiangtan and am returning all Federation prisoners aboard. Please allow my crew safe passage to the aft, starboard cargo hold and reengage all the environmental systems before we all suffocate."

  "What the fuck is he talking about?" Joker asked, but Essa was ignoring him.

  "Nemesis, Vulture … you get all that?" the team commander asked. "I have no idea either … copy that, we'll press ahead to the bridge and let Bulldog handle the crew … copy, Vulture out."

  "Sir?" Pitch asked.

  "Somehow that Vruahn computer took control of the environmental systems through the box we put on that monitoring terminal," Essa said. "It also took control of the powerplant so they couldn't sabotage that to destroy the ship. The captain really had no choice after that. He could fight us all the way to the bridge, but it would be ultimately pointless with a Fed destroyer sitting off his port flank."

  "What was that bullshit about Federation prisoners?" Joker asked.

  "We're about to find out," Essa said. "Let's get moving … Nemesis just sent detailed layouts of the ship to my tac-computer. Captain Wolfe has ordered us to proceed as if this is a ploy by Yeung but not to engage unless fired upon."

  The team redeployed without complaint or questions and began pressing forward again towards the bridge. As Essa jogged with his men, he couldn't shake the feeling of dread that had come over him when the ESA captain had announced he had Fed prisoners.

  "Captain, it may not be the wisest—"

  "I've already heard enough from my executive officer, Commander Essa," Jackson cut off the NOVA team leader. "I'm already here and I'm not leaving. Where are these prisoners?"

  "There's a secure section of the ship with living quarters and work spaces," Essa said. "That's where they all are. Sixty-seven Federation researchers … all taken by the Specter off of highly secured and classified installations."

  "Did the captain of this ship have any comment on it?" Jackson asked.

  "Only that he was following orders and that there were two other ships that were rotated into this system to relieve them of the prisoners so they could fly back to ESA space."

  "Have Captain Yeung brought down," Jackson said.

  "Yes, sir."

  Jackson had been taken by surprise when the captain had surrendered the ship with only a few exchanges of fire with the boarding parties. He'd later learned the Cube had pulled a fast one and had been able to fool the crew into thinking they would die of lack of oxygen if they didn't give up.

  Like most Terran warships, the control systems of the Xiangtan were compartmentalized and isolated from each other rather than being one monolithic computer that managed everything. It was done for ease of maintenance, safety, and to prevent the sort of sabotage the Federation crew had been attempting. The monitoring terminal the NOVA team had attached the network repeater on hadn't allowed the Cube direct access to any critical systems, but it did allow it to make the crew think it did. The monitoring and alert sub-systems were all networked together and then tied in at certain points to critical systems, so even though it couldn't command the air handlers off, it could ask politely. With the duct blowers disabled, the Cube then crafted all the properly formatted system failure warnings and sent them to crew stations. Had the crew simply dug down a bit into the control screen they could have switched all the fans back on themselves, but the confusion and panic set in and Captain Yeung made a snap decision to surrender.

  The Cube also created the illusion that it was in control of the powerplant and a dozen other critical systems so that by the time Yeung made his announcement the rest of the crew readily accepted that there was little they could do to repel the boarders. With the ship adrift and powerless and Federation special forces roaming the corridors, the Xiangtan's crew had quietly given up with only a few holdouts needing to be neutralized.

  Before Jackson came over to the frigate himself, Commander Chambliss made sure more network repeaters were hardwired into all the critical systems the Cube would need to control to make sure some enterprising young spacer didn't find a way to scuttle the ship with Captain Wolfe aboard.

  "They're all sitting in the common area waiting on you, sir," Major Baer said, snapping to attention when Jackson walked around the corner. "We're in the process of positively identifying all of them now."

  "Thank you, Major," Jackson said and walked in through the hatchway, pausing to look at the downtrodden group of people slouched over the ubiquitous white plastic tables found on every starship.

  "Who's in charge here?"

  "I guess that would be me, Captain Wolfe," a woman near the hatchway stood, recognizing him immediately. "I've been acting as the go-between for the Fed prisoners and our ESA jailors. My name is
Doctor Ella Marcum."

  "Doctor Marcum," Jackson greeted her while containing his own surprise. "Your father is going to be very relieved to find out that you're still alive."

  24

  The next seven days were a slog of interviewing rescued prisoners, confirming their identity as best they could with the records aboard the ship, and securing the crew of the Xiangtan. The Aludra Star had moved in and, as an assault carrier that was capable of transporting a full division of Marines, she had plenty of empty beds that were hastily converted to living quarters for Fed personnel and a secure detention area for the ESA crew.

  Doctor Marcum was especially helpful in weeding out the ESA infiltrators from the Xiangtan crew that tried to claim they were Federation scientists as well as trying to give Jackson a better understanding of why the Darshik had enlisted the ESA to hold a group of researchers whose specialties weren't necessarily unique or related to each other. As it turns out, it had nothing to do with their current projects. The thread that tied all of these scientists together was that they were all heavily involved in researching Phage physiology and technology during the war.

  Marcum said they never actually saw or directly communicated with the Darshik, but the records aboard the Xiangtan clearly showed that the Specter was the one giving the orders. The nature of the task they'd been given was how to perfect a process of integrating dissimilar biologies within a Phage unit using an interface. The implications were as clear as they were terrifying.

  "The Specter is the last Darshik commander left, but he was also the one that started it all," Marcum explained. "He's always been the driving force behind the entire movement. Here, now, at the end he wants to become Phage."

  "But the Phage are dead," Chambliss insisted. "There's nothing to become."

  "Not technically correct, Commander," Marcum said. "Captain Wolfe destroyed the core mind, but individual units that weren't outright destroyed are still out there wholly intact. There's nothing to animate them so we've largely ignored them as they weren't a threat."

  "And with Captain Wright destroying the only phage unit they had here in this system, he could be anywhere trying to find another one," Chambliss said, nodding.

  "I know where he went," Jackson said. "It's the only place that makes sense: the system Celesta Wright left behind with hundreds of intact Phage units, including Super Alphas."

  "My thoughts as well, Captain," Marcum said. "You may find that Captain Yeung is more helpful in a one-on-one situation rather than in front of his crew where he needs to save face. I got the feeling that he was less than enthusiastic about how far his government had gone to help the Darshik."

  While Captain Yeung hadn't necessarily been forthcoming during the subsequent talks, he was willing to provide context for the data that Jackson's intel specialists had mined off the Xiangtan's servers. It was clear from the direction the Specter wanted the research to go that he was attempting to reactivate an Alpha or Super Alpha and be able to control it via a computer interface. Since those units still had their armament and power systems intact, there was a real risk if he was able to pull it off.

  The Specter had been at this task for years and his people had made several leaps on their own towards the goal, but the final pieces of the puzzle were the work that human scientists had done regarding the aggregate control systems and input attenuation once they'd realized the Phage was actually a singular intelligence. Trying to control something like a Super Alpha with a single point interface was virtually impossible. But, if you could interface at just the right spot and correctly mimic the input signal the core mind had used for individual units, you just might be able to convince the Super Alpha to do your bidding.

  The problem the Darshik had was that they very nearly deified the Phage and much of what they knew about the individual units and their makeup was based as much in superstition as it was hard fact. Humans, on the other hand, knew that the Phage was a malfunctioning weapon system designed by the Vruahn and treated it as such. It was biologic and adaptive in nature, but it was still a system that operated within a set of parameters. Unfortunately the Federation scientists who had been captured were more than willing to work on the problem in exchange for their lives and had developed a set of protocols that would—in theory—allow a properly interfaced computer to give commands to a Phage combat unit. The caveat was that the interface would have to also provide the correct carrier signal at all times or the unit would simply return to its dormant state, and that signal wasn't something the human team fully understood.

  "We were looking at the Specter destroying this planet all wrong," Jackson said while he, Chambliss, and Accari ate dinner one night. "If what we're assuming is true and he's trying to somehow merge with a Phage unit, then he's likely gotten everything he needs. What does surprise me is that he left the ESA frigate intact."

  "So he's already got a Super Alpha that he's probably been working on and prepping for integration," Accari said. "What's his next move?"

  "If he can gain control of it well enough to fight with it he'll likely head straight for the Ushin capital world and turn the surface to slag," Chambliss said.

  "Likely," Jackson agreed. "Or, equally plausible, he'll come after humanity again."

  "So where do we go first?" Chambliss asked.

  "I think we stick with the plan and try to intercept him before he has a chance to get one of those damn things moving and shooting again," Jackson said. "He's not had enough of a head start since we left the Tango System to get one fully ready for integration according to what the kidnapped scientists are telling us. Hopefully the Cube knows a shortcut back to that system."

  When will we be leaving, sir?"

  "Captain Wolfe to the bridge! Captain Wolfe, please report to the bridge."

  "Hold that thought," Jackson told Accari as he slid off his seat and jogged out of the ward room, his exec and tactical officer on his heels.

  "Report!"

  "Two CIS Prowlers just transitioned in, sir," Lieutenant Hori. "We received their broadcast at almost the same time we detected their transition flash."

  "And what are our good friends from the CIS saying?" Jackson asked.

  "They're ordering us to heave to and await their arrival, sir," Lieutenant Makers said. "Nothing more specific than that."

  "They knew we were here," Chambliss said quietly. "They began transmitting as soon as they were back into real space."

  "Agreed," Jackson said. "OPS, please send our mission logs to the lead Prowler beginning from the moment we detected an ESA frigate up until now. Standard encryption."

  "Aye, sir," Hori said.

  "Coms, tell Flight OPS I want our drones back aboard ASAP and to coordinate transferring the last of the rescued scientists and ESA prisoners over to the Aludra Star," Jackson said. "Tell Captain Barrett he'll be responsible for getting them all back to New Sierra."

  For the next five hours one Prowler continued to broadcast the vague demands while another maintained a tight patrol up near the jump point. It wasn't making any effort to hide, but Jackson didn't really care either way. There was no possible way the small recon ship could actually stop the Nemesis if she wanted to leave via that jump point.

  Jackson ignored the squawking by the CIS ships and continued getting the right people where they needed to be while preparing the Nemesis for departure. He had an unexplainable feeling that time was running short if they wanted to stop the Specter before he succeeded in reanimating a Phage Super Alpha. The units were stoppable, but not easily and not without a healthy dose of luck on their side. A single Super Alpha might not be the dire threat they once were since they were designed to fight against now-obsolete generations of Terran starships, but it still wasn't something to be taken lightly. He had some other, more exotic fears about what might happen if the Specter was allowed to continue unchecked, but he forced them out of his mind and concentrated on the task at hand.

  "Lead Prowler has sent a new message, sir," Makers reported after the c
lock showed the CIS crew had had their mission log for the last forty minutes.

  "They're asking our intentions regarding the ESA frigate and her crew."

  "How soon until we can use a two-way channel with them?" Jackson asked.

  "Another two hours and the delay will be down to ten minutes each way," Makers said.

  "Tell them that in two hours I'll contact them with all the information they'll need," Jackson said. "In the meantime, tell them the crew is secured aboard the Aludra Star and we have made no decisions regarding the frigate herself. Also let them know that as of right now the Darshik cruisers clustered near the fourth planet are not a threat and that the Ushin will need to be contacted ASAP regarding them."

  He leaned back and allowed himself a small grin. The CIS captain had likely been told to tell a rouge Black Fleet captain to get his ass back to Terran space immediately, but now Jackson could dangle something in front of them that was irresistible. He would allow the CIS officer to claim the frigate as their own; he had no interest in it past what he'd already learned, and for the CO of a Prowler it could mean a promotion or transfer they'd been wanting.

  "That's a hell of a story, Captain Wolfe," Commander Sache said over the two-way video channel. Her face was unreadable as he finished a brief recounting of what had happened since they'd arrived in the Tango System.

  "And your contention is that this Specter has the ability to revive a defunct Phage unit based on what these scientists told you?"

  "They were fairly convincing," Jackson said. "I don't think it's a risk we can ignore. The system he's likely heading to still had a number of Super Alphas in it when Captain Wright left. I don't have to tell you that we fought very few of those during the war and they were never easy to bring down. They're still faster than even our newest ships and pack a hell of a punch."

  "I was a sensor officer aboard an older Prowler during the war," Sache said. "So no, Captain, no reminder is necessary of what even a single one of those Supers is capable of. What's your plan?"