by Dan Worth
‘Shit!’ Isaacs swore as he looked up and saw the warship, bristling with anti-fighter turrets, now sitting in their path. ‘Quick! Evasive manoeuvres while I override the safety lockouts on the drive so we can jump in the control zone. Pull us out of the shipping lane and hit the throttle.’
‘You don’t say?’ said Anna, wrenching the controls and looping the ship over and down away from the reach of the cruiser’s guns which were already coming to bear. She noted grimly that a number of police corvettes were already launching from Venice High.
‘Falsely designated vessel, Brass Monkey. This is the Commonwealth Navy cruiser Casilinum. You are ordered to cut power and heave-to immediately. Fail to do so and you will be fired upon.’
‘Oh this brings back such fond memories,’ said Isaacs as he pored over his console. ‘Just keep us moving, boost power to the shields.’
‘Yeah, I know. Fuck!’ Anna replied as a warning shot from the cruiser’s main gun stitched a line of superheated particles in front of the bows. She twisted the Jilted Lover away and stabbed at the afterburners.
Now the police were on the comm.
‘Fugitive vessel, this is Lieutenant Hsu of Venice High Port Authority Police. You are in violation of Commonwealth shipping laws regarding the declaration of vessel idents and cargo. You are wanted in connection with illegal trafficking in classified military information. Power down and surrender your vessel. We have your accomplice Nikolai Ivanisovic in custody.’
‘Tell them to go fuck themselves,’ said Isaacs. ‘Jesus, this fucking drive computer of yours is an awkward son of a bitch, I need your pass-codes.’
Anna threw the ship in another direction as a storm of rapid laser fire suddenly battered the aft shields.
‘Mine and your birthdays, day, month, year. God damn it!’ Another flurry of blows knocked the ship sideways as she pulled up hard. Even though they were at the edge of the anti-fighter guns’ range, the weapons were still doing serious damage to the shields.
‘Almost got it,’ muttered Isaacs. ‘Try and get us further away from that cruiser!’
‘Oh, you think? Do you want to fly this thing yourself!?’
‘Well… Hmm almost there.’
‘Jesus, how the hell did they find out so quickly!?’
‘I guess we’re just lucky we left when we did. Someone must have just realised who we were after we left the dock and called for back-up, either that or they were watching us the whole time. I suppose that cruiser ‘just happened’ to be in the vicinity?’
‘Poor Nikolai.’
Another blow caught the looping yacht’s belly and shook it violently as the interior lights and console displays flickered. A particle beam lanced over the starboard wing, missing the Jilted Lover by only a few metres. Warning lights indicated that the ventral shields had collapsed.
‘Yeah. They must have been watching him I guess. Okay got it! Jump us out!’
‘I’m trying, nothing’s happening. Wait, the navigation computer’s offline. Shit, those cops are closing in now!’
‘What? Oh fucking hell!’
‘That hit must have fried something. Wait… yeah the back-up batteries have gone. The electrical discharge must have fried something. The system got knocked off line to protect it.’
‘Oh. Wonderful. You know you ought to take this thing back to where you bought it.’
The ship shook once more.
‘Think I might have invalidated the warranty. Ah hell, we lost aft shields. Another hit like that and we’ll be dead in the water. How long till the navi-comp reboots?’
‘Another minute or so. I’ll see if I can re-route some power to those aft shields.’
‘Okay. Let’s see if I can find us some cover.’
Anna rolled the ship and came about so that the oceans and clouds of Venice now filled the screen. A line of massive vessels stitched a pattern across its face. Isaacs realised that she was taking them towards the freighter lane into the space surrounding the station. Around a dozen behemoths of various types were plodding their way to and from parking orbit positions around the station where an army of loader tugs waiting to load and unload their cargos. Anna powered towards one inbound vessel heavily laden with house sized cargo containers.
The Casilinum was still pursuing, its main engines glowing blue at full burn, but with the Jilted Lover now out of the effective range of its guns it appeared to be merely directing the pursuing police corvettes who had fanned out in a claw like formation. Their turreted weapons were now raking the rear and flanks of Anna’s ship with pulses of laser fire.
They were close to the looming bulk of the freighter now. Anna looped the Jilted Lover around the stream of charged particles vomiting from the engine nozzles and brought the small ship over and down into the central corridor made by the dual rows of containers, the tips of the yacht’s fuselage almost scraping the plated metal on both sides. Then she slammed on the reverse thrusters and brought the ship to a stop relative to the moving freighter, parking the Jilted Lover in the shadowy depths close to the deck.
‘Nice flying,’ commented Isaacs. ‘I can see you’ve been paying attention.’
‘Ha!’ she snorted derisively. ‘I’m entirely self-taught. Anyway, this should buy us a minute until the computer’s back online. They won’t dare fire on us in here.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because this freighter is loaded with mining explosives. I saw the warning logos on the containers. One of these babies goes off and it’s goodnight to everything in a ten kilometre radius.’
‘Oh. Great. You know I’d forgotten that you’re fucking nuts.’
‘Thought that was why you loved me?’
‘Well, you have a point. Okay the computer’s back on-line. Looks like the police ships are holding station around the freighter, which incidentally is now coming to a halt. That cruiser’s still on the way though. I’m re-entering the co-ordinates, get ready to jump.’
‘Got it,’ Anna replied and angled the Jilted Lover upwards from the deck of the freighter.
‘Okay, now!’ said Isaacs and he entered the last co-ordinates. Anna hit the main engines and powered the ship forward at maximum burn. As the Jilted Lover shot out from between the rows of containers like a bullet from a gun, the turrets of both the Casilinum and the police vessels opened fire. Too late. The Jilted Lover vanished in a ripple of distorted space-time as laser and particle beams intersected across empty space.
Chapter 32
Earth. Chen watched her home planet fill the cockpit window of the small shuttle as it began to descend towards the upper atmosphere. The greens and browns of the American western seaboard contrasted sharply with the brilliant blues of the Pacific Ocean and brilliant white of the cloud systems gathering over the Sierra Nevada.
It had been a long time since she’d last seen the planet of her birth and the home planet of her species. The last time she’d set foot here had been over two years ago for a disciplinary hearing after her involvement in the destruction of Highpoint Station for which, she reflected, she had gotten off rather lightly considering the death toll. She had only won her reprieve because Haines had realised her combat potential in the forthcoming war and because the powers that be had recognised that sending a warship to negotiate with protestors had been an enormous error of judgement.
Nevertheless it had had been a brief, unpleasant visit. She had not visited her family or lingered in the system. Instead she had returned to her ship, been re-assigned a new XO and new orders and left immediately. An awful lot had happened since then. She wore Admiral’s pips on her uniform now, for one. That was something she had thought impossible the last time she had been here, having fully expected to be stripped of her command.
However, she doubted that this visit would any more pleasant. Despite being the glittering jewel at the heart of the Commonwealth, wrapped in wealth, power, history and culture, Earth lay under a shadow of political intrigue, infighting and paranoia as her politicians squabbled over t
he ruins of the government, many of whose former members now languished in prison or under house arrest. It was still unclear who was actually in charge, as so many of the chain of command had been removed at a stroke that no-one was sure who was entitled to assume the Presidency. For the meantime, a coalition of formerly junior ministers and aides ran a cobbled together interim administration. The Commonwealth was dangerously vulnerable. She doubted that any news that Haines had for her was going to be encouraging.
The shuttle was descending towards the scattering of clouds that partially hid the unmistakable outline of San Francisco bay. The atmospheric friction caused a pale orange glow around the small craft’s shields as the pilot kept them at the optimum re-entry angle. The craft was one of hers from the Churchill, the carrier itself having been parked in a cislunar orbit well away from the multitude of shipping lanes that spiralled about and radiated from Earth and its moon. Haines was waiting for her below, having arrived a day previously with the Abraham Lincoln and her battle-group. They had much to discuss.
Ten minutes later Chen’s shuttle touched down carefully onto one of the hexagonal military landing pads at Alameida -the old United States naval base long ago converted into a Commonwealth Navy spaceport for small in-system vessels. Across the bay, the skyline of San Francisco - carefully preserved despite the San Andreas Fault upon which it stood - glittered in the morning sunlight. The slender, suspended arc of the Golden Gate Bridge was partially visible in the far distance through a veil of mist.
Chen stepped from the shuttle onto the windswept landing pad that was noisy with the sound of engines as another shuttle lifted off from the adjacent pad. She paused to glance across the water at the city of her birth which rumbled and whined with the sounds of traffic. Somewhere beyond the forest of towers and slender pyramids - between which airborne vehicles moved like industrious bees - was her old family home at the end of Geary Street where her parents still lived. She was home at last. She smelled the air, rich with the tang of the sea. It had been so long since she’d been back, but alas she doubted that there would be any time for reunions, except one.
Fleet Admiral George Haines stepped forward briskly across the landing pad and extended a leathery hand, his scarred, craggy face wearing a satisfied smile. Chen saluted and he returned the gesture
‘Good to see you again Admiral,’ he said and he shook her hand firmly.
‘You too sir,’ Chen replied.
‘It’s good to know that we still have people of your calibre on our side. By God, I’ll never forget what you did to those K’Soth bastards. Damn near won us the war all by yourself. But I need your talents now more than ever.’
‘Morgan and Cox.’
‘And the rest. This betrayal now runs deeper and further than we could ever have imagined. Come on, we have a lot to talk about.’ He glanced around. ‘Somewhere more private,’ he added, darkly.
Somewhere more private turned out to be a small windowless room that had once been a basement storage area for the original naval base and had long since fallen into neglect. A desk and a couple of folding chairs had been placed amid the mouldering piles of stationery and antiquated computer equipment that had been hastily moved out of the way. The air smelled damp and stale, as if un-breathed by others for some time. Chen noticed the remains of a paper desk calendar atop one of the piles: its rat gnawed pages showed it to date from over a century ago.
‘Nice office, sir,’ she commented with a touch of humour. ‘Who says that rank has no perks?’
‘It’ll do,’ Haines commented gruffly. ‘No-one will bother us down here, and more importantly it’s much harder to bug. No electronics in the walls, no windows, nothing. Smells like something died in here though, unfortunately.’
They sat down on the creaking chairs and Haines produced a data-pad from a locked case within one of the desk drawers, activated it, and then placed it on the desk.
‘War Marshal Mentith was good enough to brief me on your report just after I arrived. It was a shock, I can tell you. I’ve known Morgan for over seventy years - the man made Admiral just after I got my first command and I served under him for the rest of my career. I… I don’t know how they could have got to him.’ She noticed anger and sadness in those hard features for a moment.
‘We don’t know how long they’ve been planning this sir,’ Chen replied. ‘Maybe the man you knew all along was one of them, an alien parasite peering out through the eyes of a man.’
‘Maybe. It seems he’s not the only one. Things are bad Michelle, very bad. Only two days ago whilst you were in transit to Earth, Morgan came out openly against the government, showed everyone the Shaper ship and claimed that the President, the cabinet, the rest of the Joint Chiefs, plus myself and others in senior positions were under their influence. He’s assumed command of Southern Fleet Headquarters and rallied over two dozen systems to his cause so far and more declare for him every day. I’m sorry to report that there’s been very little dissent from those under his command.’
‘He turned it around, made us the traitors.’
‘Yeah, it was a smart move. Most of the men under his command won’t rebel because they think they’re remaining loyal to the Commonwealth, that Morgan is rushing the rescue and ridding us of the Shaper threat. Of course we’ve already ordered them to disregard his orders but it isn’t having much effect. The government, or what’s left of it, is trying to reason with the rebels but their credibility ain’t what it used to be and their response has been badly organised. I’d say it’s only a matter of time before Morgan moves against Earth.’
‘You do?’
‘Yeah, it’s what I’d do. He’ll try for a coup and the way to do that is to cut off the head of government and replace it. He has the assets to do it too if he moves quickly and he’s already massing his forces in the Spica system. It looks like he’s assembling a major strike force.’
‘But surely we’d outnumber him? We have the other three commands at our disposal.’
‘True. But most of Northern command - my ships - are currently dispersed across the remains of the K’Soth Empire. It’ll take a fortnight to recall them to Earth and a good number of them are being refitted following combat damage. Eastern command is likewise dispersed as they’ve been filling in for Northern command’s duties in the Commonwealth and they’re mainly fielding second-line equipment. Western command, as I’m sure you’re aware, is a joke; since we don’t anticipate any threat from our Arkari friends along our western borders. They’ve few carriers, not enough battleships and what they have is, again, outdated and poorly maintained. Morgan may have fewer ships, but Southern command was second in line for equipment upgrades, given the volume they have to cover and the volatile nature of those outlying regions. Space beyond our southern border is less well explored and we wanted to be ready in case anything came out of the darkness for us. I don’t think we anticipated this though.
On top of that, we don’t have this sector entirely secure. Plenty of ships under Morgan’s command are within the core systems, including this one, and we don’t know how many traitors are within our midst. If it came to a fight right now, I think we’d be on an equal footing. We might have more ships, but they’re far too dispersed and many just aren’t up to scratch.’
‘We have to make those under his command see the truth,’ said Chen. ‘We have to speak directly to the men and women on those ships rather than the politicians. Surely sir, your reputation will count for much. Many may have even served under you.’
‘True, but it won’t be easy. From your report it seems possible that those ships that were under Cox’s command in the Hadar system may have been taken over by the enemy. Plus I doubt most of the men and women under Morgan are aware the bigger picture. Even they do have doubts they may be just following orders and hoping to ride this out. Meanwhile we have other business to attend to, namely; rescuing Rheinhold and restoring the government. Crooked or no, somebody has to be in charge, and I’m damned if I’m going to
set up a military dictatorship. Whatever he might have done, we need his political experience and that of his cabinet. We do have a slight problem, however.’
‘Sir?’
‘Following Morgan’s announcement, he ordered Rheinhold and those cabinet members already in jail to be moved to secure a military facility on Chiron.’
‘Chiron, sir?’
‘It’s an asteroid in an irregular orbit around the Sun and currently lies out near the orbit of Uranus.’ He turned the data-pad towards her, showing an irregular globe of dimly lit rock. ‘We built a black ops training facility there about a century ago. Rheinhold and his cabinet are being held in the brig on the site by forces still loyal to Morgan. There’s a contingent of marines on the surface and a force of four destroyers on station in the local volume keeping watch. Your mission will be to get rid of those ships by whatever means and then land a Special Forces team on the surface and rescue the prisoners.’
‘By whatever means, sir?’
‘Try to reason with them and get them to see sense if you can, but if they won’t back down you’ll have to put them out of action one way or another. It’s not a pleasant thought, having to fire on our own people, but bear in mind that they may no longer be just that.’
‘Yes sir. I’ll get the job done. The Churchill is more than capable of taking down those ships if we have to.’
‘Glad to hear it. You’ll also have to reduce the base defences before landing. Fortunately we’ve managed to retrieve schematics of its defences as well as the layout of the complex, but be prepared for the fact that Morgan’s people may have beefed them up since then.’
‘I’ll bear that in mind.’
‘Good. You leave at oh-six-hundred in the morning, by which time the Special Forces extraction team will have transferred to your ship. On your return to Earth following this operation I’ll be placing you in charge of defending the home system in the event of Morgan making a sudden move. I’ll be exploring options for a pre-emptive move against him, once we have sufficient intelligence on his deployments and when we have assets in place for a strike without leaving our core systems undefended.’
