Captain Wong watched from his personal conference room as the task force traveled through the Eris system, their formation arranged in perfect discipline. It was the sort of skill and professionalism that still brought pride to his heart.
The Imperious had taken up her proper position at the center of the fleet, of course. The Supernova-class carrier could hardly have been placed anywhere else; the largest ship by far, she was the command ship for the task force and the only ship with a resonance drive on board. Without her, not a single Directorate ship would be able to leave the system.
The rest of the ships spread out across the void in four distinct clumps. Eight Phalanx-class line cruisers made up the bulk of the fleet, with six of their more-specialized Trojan-class brethren gliding along beside them. Three Stalwart-class warships lurked among the smaller cruisers, their guns and rig bays on full alert. Each Stalwart-class ship could function as a mobile command center in a time of need; to see three of them in one place would have told anyone that the Directorate was taking the pursuit of the Wayfarers very seriously indeed.
Had anyone expressed further doubts, the last ship of the fleet would have dispelled them instantly. It was a Legend-class light cruiser, a small ship capable of devastating impact. Built with the most modern technology available and capable of launching triple S combat rigs, the Legend-class was in the domain of the Special Divisions within the Directorate. The Fisher King was so new that it had not seen combat yet—officially, anyway—and on its first mission, it would help with the hunt.
“A grand sight, is it not, Captain?” Wong turned to see Admiral Nevlin enter the room and made an effort to hide his surprise and annoyance. The man had come into the private command room unannounced, as was his right as the task force commander. Still, there was a tradition of respect between flag captains and their superior officers that would have kept most admirals from sneaking up behind their subordinates. It wasn’t typically the kind of behavior that characterized an effective combat officer, and it surprised Wong that Nevlin acted in such a manner.
“It is indeed, Admiral.”
Admiral Nevlin nodded and reached past Wong to tinker with the controls for the display. Again Wong had to restrain an initial burst of annoyance, but the admiral scarcely seemed to notice. “If only the rest of the situation here were just as inspiring.”
Wong nodded in agreement. The situation on Eris was clearly desperate. “I’ve already ordered the fleet to begin emergency assistance operations, sir. I’m afraid we do not have much practice with them, as we’ve been deployed to the front for quite some time, but we should be able to offer …” He trailed off as the admiral raised a palm.
“Your efforts in that regard are unnecessary, Captain Wong.” Admiral Nevlin offered him a tight smile. “The Council has stressed that our mission to hunt down the Wayfarers takes precedence over all other concerns. Therefore, you will issue new orders to the fleet. We are to follow the Wayfarers immediately—and Eris can take care of itself. Do you understand?”
Fresh shock froze Wong’s mind. Eris was a nightmare. With the Guard forces in the area torn to shreds and the capital city in a state of near-complete destruction, the locals had been completely unable to handle the crisis. Residual clouds of dust and fallout had swept across the atmosphere of the planet, triggering catastrophic weather patterns. Rioting, demonstrations, and other disturbances rocked the planet’s urban centers. It was the closest thing to civil war and anarchy that Wong had ever seen, and he knew that nothing short of outside intervention would stabilize the situation.
Of course, in the darker corners of his heart, Wong had to admit a personal concern as well. If a flag captain were to issue contradictory orders with no obvious change in the situation, it would indicate to the rest of the fleet either a lack of decisiveness and poise on the part of the captain, or a lack of clear direction from the task force commander. As it was the Hero of Riaskat leading them, Wong highly doubted the blame and humiliation would land on Admiral Nevlin’s shoulders—which would not bode well for the rest of the journey.
He realized that the admiral was still waiting for a response of some kind, and he sought to keep his tone appropriately respectful. “Sir, there are still some of the traitors left on Eris. Could we not offer assistance while we deal with them?”
Admiral Nevlin looked at him sharply, and Wong wondered if he had still managed to offend his superior with the question. “The cultists there no longer have any spaceflight capability, Captain Wong. They will not be able to run, and they’ve been isolated in their former stronghold by the remaining ground forces of the Guard. We can tend to them once we’ve hunted down their cowardly brethren.”
Wong nodded. Privately he wondered how much those ground forces were needed by cities plagued with riots and disorder, but it was not his place to suggest such a thing. He turned his attention away from Eris, focusing on the task force once more. “Our personnel are already analyzing the system for resonance burst signatures, sir. Once we’ve isolated them, we can pursue these traitors and track down Susan Delacourt.”
Nevlin appeared to tense at the name of their prey, but then the man relaxed. “Of course, Captain. I am glad to hear that you and your staff are so diligent in your efforts to find these traitors. Rest assured that we will bring them to justice, no matter what the cost.”
Wong nodded, and the admiral turned away. He watched his commanding officer leave the conference room, and then turned back to issue the orders to avoid the planet. The task force obeyed without comment or hesitation. Yet as they abandoned Eris, Wong couldn’t help but wonder what sort of mission he’d been handed this time.
Chapter Four
The buzz of the message alert woke Susan from a deep sleep. She jumped, letting a pocket computer fall from her hands. A report on the various systems the Council planned to scout still scrolled across the screen. Before that, she’d been studying the schematics of the Concord again, trying to determine what lay in that unmapped area and why the planners of the Directorate had taken such great pains to conceal it. Between those two issues, she’d been more than weary enough to fall asleep in her chair.
Straightening her rumpled uniform, she pressed a button to open the communications channel. “Admiral Delacourt speaking. What’s going on?”
Commander Mesic’s voice came back to her, full of worry. “Admiral, the sensors have detected a resonance burst. A large one, coming into the system.”
Susan sat back, suddenly alert. An incoming burst would tell them that someone had arrived, but not who, and not precisely where. Worse, it wouldn’t tell them where they were coming from, which meant that it could be anyone from smugglers running along the border to a Directorate task force. It could even be something even less expected—Gabriel’s aliens, for example.
One thing was for certain, however. No matter who had just entered the system, they presented an irrevocable danger to the fleet. She was needed again.
“I’ll be on the bridge immediately, Commander. Prep the alert RSRs for a scouting flight, and let me know if anything else shows up on the sensors.”
“Of course, Admiral.” As the channel shut down, Susan stood and moved for the door. It looked as if the Wayfarers’ time in this system might be coming to a close.
By the time she reached the bridge, the dots representing the RSR scouts were already in motion, heading toward the general direction of the burst. It wasn’t likely that their visitors would be sitting at the burst point waiting for scouts to arrive, but it was a better starting location than anywhere else. Susan glanced at Mesic, who stood and came to attention. She nodded; it never hurt to see a remnant of their shared experience in the Directorate come out. “Commander. There have been no other contacts with the new arrivals?”
“No, sir.” Mesic’s face was professional and stoic, but his eyes revealed a trace of concern. “There have been no signals, no definitive ship sightings, and no evidence of any other presence in the system.”
&n
bsp; Susan kept her own expression calm. Inside, she started to feel a slow burn of fear. If the newcomers had been friendly, they likely would have broadcast some sort of message. A trader or other benign visitor probably would not have had combat shields up either, and a determined scan would have revealed them. Of course, they could be just a pack of criminals trying to avoid detection, but if they weren’t … She watched the RSRs continue their journey and made a decision. “Bring the fleet up to alert status. I want all rig pilots ready for launch before the RSRs reach the burst point, and the Defense Force ships should take up a blocking position between the burst point and the rest of the fleet.”
Her gaze drifted to the mercenary ships still crewed by prisoners and a handful of armed guards. The situation would leave them an opportunity to abandon the fleet, or perhaps even to attack the Defense Forces from behind, but there was no way around it. “Inform the garrison troops on board the captured ships to be on full alert. They should secure their positions and prevent any attempts at mutiny with deadly force.”
As the fleet began to move, the watchstander at the communications console looked up. “Admiral, we have a signal from the Summer Rain. They’re asking what is going on.”
“Respond with a description of the situation, and tell them to alert the rest of the refugee fleet as well. They need to be ready for an emergency evacuation.” Susan reached her own console and brought up the displays with a flourish. The alarms began to sound as the ship prepared itself for battle, and her eyes narrowed as the scouts closed in.
Gabe stumbled out of his quarters and started a half-hobbling run toward the rig bays. The alarm had caught him at the end of another nightmare about the strange rigs, and his dream had left a lingering taste of fear that spurred him forward. In his mind’s eye, he saw hundreds of those slender forms whirling through the perimeter of the fleet, tearing into the refugee ships with otherworldly weapons and then vanishing. Fortunately, there were no explosions, but he wasn’t about to relax yet.
Allen joined him halfway down the corridor; his wingman looked a little stunned. “Gabe, what’s going on?”
“No idea. Maybe it’s just a drill.” Gabe tried to stay casual, but the words still sounded too tense. Allen nodded, and they ran for the bays.
An hour had passed since the report had woken her, and Susan was starting to feel the fatigue caused by her interrupted sleep. The RSRs had reached the burst point, their little rigs skittering across the void in search of the new arrivals, but nothing appeared on the projection. She listened to the idle chatter of the scout pilots, her mind struggling to stay focused.
“Eyes-Four. I’m not seeing anything in this direction. Repeat, no trace of any sort over here.”
“Eyes-Seven. I’m getting a small gravitic effect here and there, but it’s mostly just the background interference from the nearby planets. Continuing sweep.”
“Eyes-Ten. Still no sign of anything. Kind of wishing I was still asleep.”
“Eyes-One. I wish you had stayed home too, Ten. Keep looking.”
Susan shook her head. She glanced at Mesic and found him watching her. He shrugged. “It’s possible that it was just a fluke reading from the instruments, Admiral. Or maybe just a local trader skirting the border to avoid tax patrols.”
Those were possible explanations, but something inside Susan rejected them out of instinct. The burst point had indicated a large number of vessels; that sort of reading meant a convoy of some sort, not an individual craft. Besides, a trader wouldn’t have been able to gain enough distance from the burst point to evade detection now. A trade vessel’s tetherdrive was designed for cost-effectiveness and reliability, not raw power.
The other options rose in her mind again. A pirate force would have already cleared the burst point, but they wouldn’t dare attack a fleet so much larger than them. Bennett Securities had been an exception, not the rule; most pirates relied on cost-effectiveness almost as much as a trader. It wouldn’t be profitable to face a fleet of warships, not even if it meant taking the entire remainder of the Wayfarer fleet. If they had any clue what was waiting for them, they would run and flee the system at the first opportunity.
A mercenary group, hired to hunt them, would make a similar calculation and abandon their contract. Scout vessels were just as unlikely to have left so large a burst-point signature. Gabriel’s imaginary aliens—if they even existed—were apparently stealthy enough to avoid detection on a regular basis. They wouldn’t have revealed themselves so easily if they were out there. A fleet from the Wild Colonies was a possibility, but the chance that an entire task force would have fought all the way through the Known Worlds to reach this desolate border system was remote.
Which left one final option to consider. Susan motioned to Commander Mesic. “Commander, has Directorate burst-point discipline changed in the past few years?”
Mesic’s expression grew terribly grave. He turned back to the main display. “Not particularly. When a Directorate task force leaves a resonance cascade in a contested system, they break vertically away from the burst point. When they’ve risen above the plane of the system, they begin to launch scouts in order to find enemy forces.”
Susan nodded. “That’s what I expected.” She began to plug variables into her console. “They haven’t upgraded the speed of the Phalanx-class cruiser since I was discharged?”
Mesic shook his head.
“Good.” Another light appeared on the display; it represented the possible point of contact that the RSRs would have with a theoretical Directorate task force. It continued to move upward, and Susan watched closely as two RSRs closed in on the location. Eyes-Nine and Eyes-Ten had not reported any problems, but if the display was correct, they would be seeing something quite soon.
She felt tension creep up her spine as the scouts neared that mark. As the two bright specks dove through that area, her breath caught. Then Susan felt her muscles begin to relax as the two RSRs failed to report anything. Neither signal blacked out, and both continued to accelerate upwards relative to the burst point.
Then a signal came in from Eyes-Ten. “Eyes-Ten, I’m picking something up. Eyes-Nine, can you see—”
Susan looked up to see Mesic staring at her. She saw the horror in his eyes, and understood. The Directorate was hunting them; men and women she might have served with were now her foes. Worse, the safety of the entire refugee fleet depended on the defeat of one of the two most powerful fleets in the known universe.
Eyes-Ten had continued. “Eyes-Ten to Command. We have confirmed contacts up ahead. They look like rigs. If I had to guess, I’d say WGCs. They’re pulling back; we will pursue and monitor them.”
The words broke Susan out of her trance. She sent a return signal with a press of a button. “Command to Eyes-Ten. Get out of there now! They’re drawing you into a trap!”
Her warning reached the RSRs, but the rigs didn’t divert their course. “Eyes-Ten responded with an almost puzzled tone. “Command, are you sure? If we pull back, we’ll lose sight of them.”
Susan had just reached for the control to answer when another signal came in, this time from Eyes-Ten’s wingman. The panic in the rig pilot’s voice was clear. “Eyes-Nine, I have incoming contacts! There are at least a dozen of them. Pull back, pull back!”
The display suddenly flared with new points of light all around the two RSRs, and Susan gripped the armrests of her seat. Both RSRs were retreating now, but the Directorate rigs had planned their ambush exceedingly well. Several of the enemy rigs were waiting below the RSRs, and they closed in rapidly. It wasn’t long before those neutral blips of light flashed red, identifying them as hostile—worse, as hostiles that had opened fire.
“Eyes-Nine, we’re under heavy fire! Assess nine—no ten—World Guard Combat Rigs. We need backup!”
“Eyes-Ten, lots of firepower out here. Nine, pull up!”
Susan looked toward the rig coordination watchstander. The woman was staring at her with wide eyes, but Susan had no
time to reassure her. “Scramble the CTRs. I want a squadron en route to shield the RSRs as they fall back toward the fleet.” She touched the control to signal the rigs already out in space, several of whom were starting to angle toward their fellow pilots who were under attack. “Command to all RSRs, retreat toward the Concord immediately. The enemy is a Directorate task force, and they may be tracking your movements. Do not, repeat, do not engage enemy targets if at all possible. CTR escorts are en route.”
The RSR leader signaled back a moment later. “Eyes-One, copy order. You heard her, guys—get back to the fleet.” Most of the RSRs began to turn back, but four of them did not. Two continued to head for where their friends were being targeted; the other two, led by Eyes-One himself, swept up and around that flock of RSRs and WGCs, aiming for a location further away from the ambush site.
Frustrated, Susan keyed her controls again. “Eyes-One, what are you doing?”
Despite the situation, the RSR pilot’s voice was calm. “Mission profile calls for us to identify the enemy force and assess their strength, ma’am.” Eyes-One and his wingman started to accelerate. “We’re going in for one high-speed pass before we come back. Hopefully we’ll be too fast to catch; maybe we’ll even pull some of the WGCs off the others. Either way, a good look at the enemy is more than worth two scout rigs.”
Susan closed her eyes. It was the kind of cold calculus she’d always hated during her career in the Directorate. Seeing those rig pilots throw themselves into the thick of the enemy would be hard—especially since she knew it could just as easily have been Gabriel hurling himself into harm’s way. Yet she was the force commander, and she could not ignore this chance.
She opened her eyes and kept her voice firm. “Confirmed, Eyes-One. One pass, and then you get back to the fleet. I don’t want any screw-ups.”
“Acknowledged, Command.”
Trying not to feel cold, Susan turned her attention to the scouts who were under attack. The two RSRs who had come to their aid had driven the WGCs back for a moment, and now all four were now retreating together toward the fleet. Even as she watched, CTRs were launching and forming up to go out for them—Paladin Squadron had apparently been the first to scramble. Those rigs moved out toward the retreating RSRs, and she forced herself to relax. The situation was far from over, but at the very least she would know what she was facing.
Broken Halo (Wayfarers) Page 6
