“It wasn’t meant for this sort of high-altitude information gathering,” Jackson sighed. “We’re going to have to move it. Go ahead and coordinate with Flight OPS and set a mission profile that will allow me to get high-res imagery of the western coast and the ocean along that side of the continent. The sooner the better.”
“Aye, sir,” Dole said and slid his headset on, pulling up his com panel as he did.
“Let me know when—”
“Captain, another incoming transmission from the Relentless,” Epsen interrupted loudly. “This one is directly to you … text only.”
“Send it to my station,” Jackson said, walking quickly back to the command chair.
Captain Wolfe,
In your status update I see that you haven’t yet deployed your drop shuttles despite being in-system for days. Please explain. Your failure to accomplish the Aludra Star’s primary mission puts the entire taskforce at risk. I will not authorize the 508th to remain here indefinitely while you remain in the outer system apparently unwilling to risk an encounter with what you yourself described as a collection of derelicts.
I was given overall command of this mission and I intend to see it done with as little collateral damage as possible. Starfleet cannot afford to lose any more destroyers attempting to liberate a single star system. Please send me your planned course back to Juwel and your projected timetable. My ships will remain in the outer system to provide cover for your withdraw.
Senior Captain Rawls
CO, TFS Relentless
Jackson just blinked at the message as he read it a second time. He’d provided Rawls with specifics in a synopsis and all the raw data from his encounter; he should know exactly why they didn’t deploy. What the hell was he talking about having his ships remain in the outer system? Not only were they more vulnerable out there to attack from the Darshik cruisers, but that wasn’t why they were sent in the first place. They were to provide escort and clear the way for the assault carrier as a destroyer is meant to do, but Rawls had made it clear he had no intention of risking his ships with unnecessary contact with the enemy. He actually planned to just fly circles near the jump point and wait to see if the Star could deliver her cargo or was destroyed in the effort.
“Un-fucking-believable,” Jackson muttered a bit too loudly and drew concerned looks from some of the crew.
“Sir?” Simmons asked quietly.
“Our escort has arrived,” Jackson said, struggling to figure out how to inform his crew their destroyer escort was being commanded by a feckless coward. “Senior Captain Rawls is … unsure … of how to proceed in order to ensure the Star can safely deploy the drop shuttles.”
“I understand, sir,” Simmons said with a nod. “What do you plan to do?”
“We have time for one more exchange given the com lag before we have to begin our course correction back for the planet,” Jackson said, already typing on his monitor. “We’ve been drifting cold for too long and the Darshik had a decent idea of our course vector when we aborted our approach the first time. Too much longer and we risk sitting helpless and their ships have demonstrated an uncanny ability to sneak up on Terran ships trying to sit dark.”
“Yes, sir,” Simmons said. Jackson ignored the questioning look from his XO and continued to type.
Senior Captain Rawls,
The explanation for our launch abort is clearly spelled out in both my synopsis brief and the mission data we forwarded. Given that you have tactical authority over the mission and your ships, I can only suggest that you begin steaming for Juwel at best possible speed. You are highly vulnerable in the outer system and will be unable to clear any enemy ships from our flight path from your current patrol location. Additionally, the com lag will put us at a significant disadvantage given the Darshik ability to warp-hop within the system.
We will be firing main engines within the hour and will begin our second and final run on the planet before we will have no choice but to abort and push for an escape jump point.
Senior Captain Wolfe
CO, TFS Aludra Star
Jackson read through the message twice, rejected the idea of softening the language and encrypted it himself and tagged it with the classification of “EYES ONLY: COMMANDING OFFICER.”
“Coms, I’m sending an encrypted packet to you,” he said over his shoulder. “Send it immediately, tight-beam burst to the same target area as the last. Address it to all ships in the 508th taskforce.” He said this last part as almost an afterthought. It was petty to be sure, but there was no reason that the other captains shouldn’t be aware of Rawls’s decision since it would affect them as well. At least that was the thin justification he used when in reality he just wanted to expose the squadron commander’s cowardice in the face of the enemy. It was a serious accusation, but after some of the things he’d witnessed unqualified COs do in the last war to save their own skin it was something he had zero tolerance for.
“Transmission sent, sir,” the ensign that had replaced Lieutenant Epsen said.
“OPS, tell Engineering it’s time,” Jackson said. “Prepare to fire the mains and begin bringing our primary flight systems online. Tactical, make sure you’re coordinating closely with CIC and watching the passives for even the slightest hint that something is sneaking up on us.”
“CIC has doubled their watch and is using the auxiliary stations to ensure there is always a redundant set of eyes on each passive system, sir,” Simmons said with confidence. “If it’s able to be seen, we’ll see it.”
“Was that your idea?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good man,” Jackson said with approval. “Let them know down there that I appreciate the extra effort and the people of Juwel damn sure do as well.”
“Yes, sir … I’ll pass that on.” Simmons sounded somewhat surprised. Praise of any kind from Captain Wolfe was rare so an overt expression of pleasure with something they did was unheard of.
Jackson leaned back and began to worry about all the things he wasn’t aware of. What were they missing on the planet that Beck seemed sure existed? What was the full strength of the Darshik fleet presence in the system? Would Captain Rawls suck it up and do what he needed to do in order to accomplish the mission and get them all home safely?
It was the nagging of a thousand important little details that aged starship captains prematurely. While he still looked fit and trim with just a touch of gray at the temples, Jackson very much felt the weight of responsibility pressing down on him. Stranger yet he found the weight comforting. He’d missed it while sitting behind a desk pretending he was an administrator of a research project in one of the most secure systems of the Federation. He could lie to his wife, Jillian, all he liked, but the truth was he never felt more alive than at times like this.
He felt power thrum through the ship as the reactors began feeding power to the Star’s flight systems, and his resolve strengthened. He would find a way to accomplish his mission and get his crew back home to see their families again … he would get back home to see his wife and children again.
15
“You look like shit … when did you get back in?”
“A little over an hour ago and then I saw your message to come straight here the moment I did,” Pike said. The CIS agent was drawn-looking and had the sunken-eyed look of someone who hadn’t had much sleep lately.
“I know you’ll be filing a full report later with Director Sala, but did you get anything?” President Augustus Wellington asked. Pike was technically on permanent detached duty to Wellington and had been since the current President was a senator in the now-defunct Terran Confederacy. When the current head of the CENTCOM Intelligence Section approached Wellington and asked that Pike be brought back into the fold for an extended mission he had approved reluctantly. Pike had an uncanny ability to show up where he was least expected and a knack for gaining intel on things that powerful people tried very hard to keep hidden.
“Despite all the rumors I just can’t f
ind anything in the ESA that suggests they’ve made some great technological leap in ship design,” Pike said. “I’ve been to every shipyard I could find, including the four they tried to keep hidden in the old Confederacy days, and the new hulls are slightly derivative from what they already had in service when their numbered fleets were part of CENTCOM.
“Energy readings, thermal signatures, warp transition flashes … it’s all the same. Since they’re not shooting at each other I can’t say for certain their weapons are unchanged, but it would be a safe bet. Sorry, boss, the rumors of advanced starships streaming out of ESA shipyards appears to be unfounded.”
Wellington stiffened as Pike casually called him boss, something he utterly hated, but didn’t bother correcting him this time. “Damn,” he said, turning around to face the sidebar. “Sala made such a compelling case for it too. Had defector testimony from three people who were apparently not connected to each other and their stories held up to scrutiny.”
“May I remind the esteemed President of the United Terran Federation that I always was highly suspect of the good director’s claims?” Pike yawned and accepted a glass of what he assumed was Scotch from the President.
“You never made a clear case why,” Wellington said.
“Three defectors out of the ESA, all arriving separately and all claiming to have worked on highly secret ship building projects?” Pike scoffed. “No way. And then to claim they have no idea where the secret shipyards are? Then how the hell did they leave? Navigating through space requires you know where you were and where you’re going. And how the hell did they get out of the ESA? There are no more starliner flights and Fed ships are forbidden. They’re either plants by the ESA or they’re working for Sala.”
“I don’t think it was Sala,” Wellington shook his head so hard his jowls kept on after his head stopped. “If they’re ESA agents what was the goal?”
“Who knows?” Pike shrugged. “Could have been to catch someone like me snooping around the locations we were given. It’d be a convenient excuse to start a war and they know the Fed is weakened and distracted with the Darshik problem at the moment.”
“It would be nice if the intel flowed both ways,” Wellington snarled. “They know every detail about what’s happening on New Sierra and we don’t even know who the fuck is in charge over there. Amazing.”
“They control their media and communications a lot more strictly than we do,” Pike said, stifling another yawn. “Is that all?”
“That’s all … get out of here and get some sleep,” Wellington said. “Don’t get too comfortable. I might be calling on you soon.”
“Better prod the Tsuyo techies to get the Broadhead back up to snuff.” Pike rose. “Five months of constant operation has her a little beat up.”
“Not to mention you being stuck in those confines the whole time,” Wellington waved him off. “They’ll probably have to strip the upholstery out and fumigate it.”
Pike laughed over his shoulder as he walked out of the Presidential office. It was the one in Haven Hill, the residence of the Federation’s leader, rather than the executive suite at the Praetorsta, the building where the parliament convened. Wellington rarely used that one, convinced it was being monitored at all times. Pike had never found any evidence that it was, but he wasn’t a tech expert by any means. His skill was getting in someplace, gaining the information he needed, and leaving without a trace.
The ride back up to the New Sierra Platform was unusually smooth as the scheduled shuttle, lightly loaded this late in the evening, climbed effortlessly into the night sky. Pike reflected back on the mission he’d been sent out for and still couldn’t figure out if he’d been played, and if so, by whom? The premise of advanced starships coming out of Eastern Star Alliance yards was thin at best, but Wellington seemed to have swallowed it whole and sent him on a very long, very boring, and ultimately pointless fact-finding mission deep into ESA space.
He’d forgotten how much he hated taking the “cattle car” to get down and back from the surface. Usually his Broadhead would automatically dock in its secure, private berth and he’d be on the station without so much as waving his ID to a Marine sentry or submitting a biometric scan. Now he was in line behind seven other people as two Marines and one dweeb from Fleet Security patted down and questioned every person coming aboard as if they were a threat, never mind the fact they’d gone through an identical procedure just to get on the shuttle on the surface.
Once through the dehumanizing ordeal, his false credentials passing scrutiny, he made his way to the cramped office he had down in the intel section that he suspected used to actually be a janitorial closet and logged into his terminal. After sifting through his messages to see what his workload would be like the next few days he looked up the docking schedule for the platform to check on the off chance the Icarus was currently docked to the station. It wasn’t. In fact, it hadn’t been back to the DeLonges System since it had left with Ambassador Cole for the unnamed world on the Frontier.
“Strange,” he murmured, checking the schedule and seeing that the destroyer was long overdue and nobody had seemed to flag an official inquiry about it. He began to dig deeper, at first out of idle curiosity and a desire to see if it would be convenient to see Celesta Wright, but the further he went the more concerned he became.
The first warning that something was off was that he was forced to keep digging deeper into his bag of credentials to provide the necessary security clearances to proceed. Eventually he had to enter in a set of access codes he’d only used twice before that came from the authority of the President himself. As far as he could tell he was reading mission data for the Icarus that even Fleet Admiral Pitt would have trouble accessing, so he knew he had to tread carefully. He was under no delusions that he was immune to the consequences of abusing his access. As long as he was useful to Wellington he was protected, but if he stepped in it and became an embarrassment to the administration he would find his ass flapping in the breeze.
He sucked in a breath when he saw that the Icarus had been dispatched with Ambassador Cole aboard to meet with the Ushin again at their behest. The destroyer went out alone. No escort, no resupply convoy to meet it halfway … that was a long flight for a ship of that class. Even the logistics of the mission aside, it made little sense to send a mainline warship as a consular ship if trying to vie for peaceful relations was the goal. Pike was about to close out the files when he saw the date the mission started; it was long enough that he was certain the ship must have run into trouble.
The next file he dug into set his mind at ease, but only slightly. A point-to-point com drone had been received by the DeLonges com platform from Celesta’s ship giving a post-mission brief. He saw that the captain reported her overall mission a failure but sent back loads of sensor data regarding some unknown class of Darshik ship that had seemingly appeared out of nowhere and taken out the Ushin delegation before she could make contact. The Icarus had sustained minor damage and the strange ship had fled the engagement before Celesta could come about and return fire.
“This is strange,” Pike said aloud in his closet/office. He had memorized all the attempts by Fleet R&S and Tsuyo Research Division to develop predictive models and psychological profiles of the new enemy. While most were beyond useless, there were some analysts that had provided some useful information when it came to Darshik military strategy, and the engagement Celesta was reporting didn’t match. A single ship, skillfully commanded, nimble and stealthy … it flew in the face of the bludgeon the Darshik preferred when facing a Terran force.
The sensor imagery from the Icarus during the single pass the enemy ship made didn’t do much to clear up the confusion for Pike. It looked nothing like the blocky cruisers they’d faced from the Darshik so far. In fact, it seemed to be a strange hodgepodge of dissimilar shipbuilding philosophies. The decorative hash marks along the prow seemed to be just another indicator that this was no ordinary Darshik fleet cruiser.
�
��A rogue?” Pike asked, flipping through the imagery. “Or some sort of specialized strike unit?”
The screen suddenly flickered and went out, a warning bar stating that he was accessing restricted material flashed, and the system forcibly booted his terminal off the secure network. He shrugged and reached over, unplugging the processing unit from the network spoofer he had sitting on the floor and slipping it into his pocket. After making a note of which set of false access credentials had been compromised he stood and left the office.
He wasn’t overly worried about being caught snooping around. The warning message had been a response from the secure network’s automated protection system when it decided it didn’t like the tenacity with which he was digging into sensitive material. He could have bypassed the lockout, but he had what he needed. With any luck the intrusion would be logged and never looked at by anyone in Fleet Security. His network spoofer and CIS-issued credentials would ensure they’d have a virtually impossible time tracing the access back to his little office or him in particular. He’d toss the terminal processor into the recyclers to eliminate the hardcoded serial number it transmitted with any network request and he’d take that particular set of credentials out of rotation.
Whatever Celesta had decided to do after the encounter with this Darshik hotshot, it hadn’t been to return to New Sierra. The failure to report back hadn’t triggered an investigation or a search and rescue operation yet, so either CENTCOM knew exactly where the Icarus was or they’d decided the ship was likely lost and didn’t want the sensitive mission to see the Ushin public knowledge by announcing it through normal channels. The hell of it was that even with all his resources Pike couldn’t think of whom to ask discreetly. Chief of Staff Marcum despised him, Fleet Admiral Pitt wasn’t a huge admirer either, and President Wellington wouldn’t be too pleased he’d gone on a fishing expedition through classified data because his maybe-girlfriend was possibly missing.
Iron & Blood: Book Two of The Expansion Wars Trilogy Page 14
