The Belt Loop_Book Three_End of an Empire

by Robert B. Jones

  “All’s quiet back here, captain,” Guardo said. “We’re ready for them in any case.”

  Dryfus had his flotilla in a defensive posture with the two unmanned targets floating aimlessly in the center of a cordon of armed and ready Colonial Navy ships, well enough away so as not to give the enemy any indication of their presence. If this new strategy worked with the coated ships and the Varson attacks diminished in frequency and severity it would only be a matter of time before the Colonial Navy Fleet was given the orders to pursue the attackers back into Varson Empire space. The ships from the Third were due on station any hour now and that would put a decisive Colonial Navy thumb on the scales of battle and finally take the fight to the Varson core systems once again.

  “Steady as she goes, Mister Norman,” Dryfus said.

  “Helm, aye. Station keeping per your orders, captain. Proper motion at zero zero, Higgs at nine one.”

  Dryfus looked at his chronometer again. Where were they? He was getting anxious to engage. After years of performing simple picket duty out in the Fringes and an occasional cruise into the Belt Loop, this current situation triggered his adrenal glands to the point of distraction. He was itching for a fight. Word had come to the Mississippi by courier boat that Canno, the Yellin Base, and portions of the facilities on Luna-II had suffered major destruction at the hands of the Varson Empire. It was time for a little payback.

  “Mister Michaels, get status reports from the rest of the captains. Make sure we are all on the same page strategy wise. I refer to op code two two blue fire. See to it.”

  The comm officer acknowledged the order and began hailing the rest of the ships under Dryfus’s command. They were spread out in a circular formation some 300,000 kilometers from the two target frigates. The “blue fire” operational guidelines set basic strategic initiatives for the battle group and prevented mishaps from friendly fire. Operating almost two dozen ships in a giant empty fishbowl was problematic if each participant had no idea what the other members of the group were thinking.

  After some minutes Lieutenant Michaels reported all ships committed to two two blue fire and all captains green across the boards.

  Dryfus stood and watched his forward blister. Commander Guardo approached from the CIC.

  “Not much more we can do, Skip. If they show, we’re ready for them,” Guardo said.

  “So it seems, Hue. Those bastards have been right on schedule for the last weeks, and they pick today to go on holiday. I wonder if they —”

  “Incoming ships, captain!” from Mister Michaels. “I’m counting six, seven, eight ships breaking fold at our three four four. Thirty second intervals, two destroyers, six fast boats. Make it nine, sir, nine ships, down one two degrees at our three four four.”

  “Battle stations, Mister Guardo. Mister Norman, tight beam to the group. Incoming Varson ships at our eleven.”

  “Aye, aye, captain.”

  “Battle stations,” Hue Guardo said over the intraship annunciator and Mister Norman slapped the comm panel to activate the warning klaxons. The lights on the bridge dimmed and the soft glow of yellow diffuse lighting replaced the harsh white LED illumination. The lights flickered momentarily as the various field generators kicked in.

  “Mister Wells, bring our weapons array online. Mister Burgis, start plotting solutions. Figure them to head straight for the decoys. Mister Michaels, monitor their frequencies and look for any detection beams.”

  Acknowledgements from around the bridge. Guardo went back to the CIC and conferred with the three officers in the alcove. The screens in the Combat Information Center were alive with varying plots and trajectories of both Navy and Varson ships displayed on the panels. Each ship carried an identifying tag in a neat little box that moved with the ship’s proper motion. Currently, nine blips and their accompanying tags moved swiftly from the upper left to the lower right. Two stationary blips were right in their path.

  “They’re heading for the decoys, captain. So far, no indication they even see them. Wait, standby one —” Lieutenant Commander Norman reported.

  “Helm, bring the M/AM online. Don’t light it up until I give the order,” Dryfus said.

  “Helm, aye.”

  “Captain, weapons bays two, four, six, all report ready. Forward and aft tubes one through eight loaded and locked. I have port bays one, three, five and seven available in two seven seconds,” Wells said. After a pause, he added, “All boards in the green, sir. She’s armed and dangerous.”

  “Very good, Mister Wells. Standby for orders.”

  “I make them lighting up impulse drives, sir, heading for our targets at six six thousand. Estimated time on target two one mikes,” Norman said.

  “Roger, helm. Standby.”

  “Getting probes from the lead ships. They’re finally painting our decoys. Took them long enough.”

  “Stow the editorializing, Mister Michaels, keep your eyes on your screens. They should be shifting bands right about now. Trying to get a lock,” the captain cautioned.

  “Comm, aye. Running the table, sir. They don’t seem to see the decoys!”

  “Mister Norman, take the boat up four thousand with the keel thrusters. Slow and steady. When you make four thousand, come hard to starboard and put our port flank on the intruders.”

  “Aye, captain, four thousand kilometers.”

  Commander Hue Guardo looked at his displays. The captain was moving the Mississippi River to a point above the attack plane of the incoming Varson battle group and when in position he would turn the ship to present the port array of weapons toward the inbound Varson ships. The intruders offered no change in course, their tracks still converged on the two target decoys. From what he heard from the comm alcove, they knew something was there, but they were having trouble resolving it.

  “Up four thousand, now at zero nine zero,” the helmsman announced. “Standing by.”

  Dryfus looked at his screen. “I’m freeing the boat, helm. Be prepared for evasive maneuvers.”

  “Helm, aye. Control stack active, awaiting your orders.”

  “Now, Mister Burgis. Fire up the decoys. Ahead at one third,” Dryfus ordered.

  “Roger. Both target ships going live. Moving along zero nine zero at one third impulse.”

  On the CIC screens the Varson flotilla took the bait. All eight of the warships started executing a long, lazy left turn. Only the trailing tender ship stayed on the original course, but it slowed appreciably. “The fish are on the hook, captain. All nine are in pursuit of the decoys. They’re lighting up the sky with every kind of detection beam they have; I’m still not convinced they have lock yet. Those decoys are scattering the incoming beams back at the intruders and from the looks of it, they’re ready to break formation and go after unseen targets,” Guardo said into his headset.

  Commander Guardo left the CIC alcove and returned to the main bridge deck. When he was abreast of the captain he pointed at the blister. “They’re scattering, sir.”

  “Weapons, light them up. Fire at will,” Dryfus said. “When they run, they’ll have an even bigger surprise waiting for them.”

  The Mississippi shuddered slightly as the big zanith lasers burned their way through the Higgs containment field. Sustained fire from bays one through seven lit up the void and the forward blister flared out for a second or two. When the image resolved again it showed four Varson ships in various stages of destruction and three more trailing fire and heading off into the waiting arms of his hidden battle group. Only one destroyer looked unscathed.

  “Comm, get Captain Mouk to go after that last boat. Let none of these ships escape,” Dryfus ordered.

  In the twenty minutes of mop-up action, Dryfus was as pleased as a captain could be. The Varson ships had all been destroyed and with the exception of the trailing tender boat, not one of them had even fired a single blast at the Navy battle group. The plan had worked flawlessly, the epoxy coatings had safely hidden his ships and as soon as the Klamath Falls chased down the light
ly-armed tender boat, the battle would be over.

  Dryfus congratulated his bridge crew for a job well done and made his entries into his log. Next he made a copy of the battle footage and got his quartermaster to arrange for a courier. He had to get the news back to Bayliss. This could be the turning point in the war.

  Chapter 19

  “Keep walking, and don’t turn around, Berger.”

  Nood Teeluur had slipped up behind Coni Berger just as she was leaving the pawn shop and put his small caliber projectile weapon into the small of her back. She stiffened slightly but kept her pace. “Who are you and how do you know my name?” she asked over her right shoulder.

  He pushed her back harder with the gun. “Shut your face and just keep walking. Up there, just around the corner, the second building to the right.”

  She did as she was told. The slight accent led her mind on a wild chase into her memory banks. Could this be the missing Varson spy? The one they called Inskaap? Had he managed to escape the blockade as well? No, she thought, this had to be someone else, someone trained in conversational Elberese, someone familiar with local jargon. The “shut your face” phrasing was the tip-off. Berger shot a glance to her left and tried to get a look at her abductor in the reflections from store-front plate glass. The shadows were too severe. All she could glimpse of the man behind her was his overall stature and his steady gait. At least he was not in uniform with an SP brassard on his coat.

  The strange pair of fugitives turned the corner and, after traveling twenty silent meters, he put his hand on her shoulder and directed her to a set of crumbling steps to her right. “Up there,” the man said in her ear. They climbed the three-step threshold and she found herself in a decaying lobby of a small flop house. Teeluur said simply “Climb.”

  A quick backward kick could catch the man off guard, she thought idly as she rose. Put a heel right in his sternum and grab the stair tread. Even if he got off a shot, maybe it would go wild and she could get away. The only place she could go was up and the dark stairway held no promise of escape to the roof. So she just relaxed and did as she was told. At her age, advanced hand-to-hand was not something she relished even though it had been easy to overpower that silly matron in that ground-car a few hours ago.

  “Okay, stop at the next landing and keep your hands where I can see them. No funny endeavors on your part, understood?”

  She grunted a reply. So, the man had finally broken his training. What he meant to say was “no funny business” or its equivalent. This man was one of the Varson spies, she concluded.

  He came up behind her and fished out a set of keys and opened the door with his left hand, the small weapon held tight with his right. When the door finished its inward swing he gave her a gentle push in the back and she stumbled into a threadbare room with fading wallpaper, two swayback chairs, a sagging bed, a nightstand, two cheap lamps and a rickety dresser with a spotted and cracked mirror.

  Teeluur closed the door with his foot and motioned her deeper into his apartment. She saw only one other door in the L-shaped room and that must have led to a small toilet. She steadied herself on the worn carpet and noted the small window in the front of the room. Then she turned to face her captor.

  “You must be Teeluur,” she said, assaying his face. He was the spitting image of Commander Davi Yorn, a Yorn with a full beard.

  “How astute, Berger. You might want to thank me for getting you off the streets. When I was in the diner across the street from that pawn shop, the video screens had your lovely picture displayed quite prominently. It wouldn’t surprise me any if that shopkeeper you visited had not seen your picture as well. They said in the voice-over that you put some old biddy in the hospital with a broken arm.”

  “Bully for you, Teeluur. The old bitch had it coming to her. I had to requisition her vehicle to get off the Navy Base and she tried to hold on to the doorframe as I sped away. The door slammed on her arm and she had to let go.”

  Teeluur shifted his gun from hand to hand as he eased out of his top coat. His room was spartan but the heat registers were top-notch. He carefully laid his coat on his bed and motioned Berger into one of the chairs. “How did you get her to stop in the first place?”

  Berger cracked a thin smile. “I stretched out in the middle of the road. When she screeched to a halt and came out to see what was wrong with me, I jumped her.”

  He raised an eyebrow. The old girl still had some fight left in her. That was a good thing to know. He didn’t need a rusty anchor like her to drag around if he was going to get off Bayliss. “Aren’t we the warrior queen. You’re lucky the old bag didn’t run you over.”

  “Can I open my jacket? No weapons in there or anything,” she said, “it’s pretty warm in here. This coat is a little tight. I did have to pick the skinniest old hag on the base.”

  He nodded his assent. When the light green jacket with the fleece collar was down around her shoulders he asked, “What did you trade in at the pawn shop?”

  “Just some of the old lady’s costume jewelry. It wasn’t worth much and I only got nine credit notes for it. She had about a hundred in her purse on the front seat and I took that too. Not enough to book passage anywhere but enough that I won’t have to starve up here.”

  He bent his head to the side. The next question was obvious. “Where is the ground-car? Where did you stash it?”

  Berger considered her options. If she told him where the car was, he had no further use for her and would likely shoot her; if she didn’t tell him he might get pissed off and shoot her just the same. Either way, she was looking at a no-win situation. Maybe a gambit would help her buy some time.

  “It’s down the hill a ways. Something’s wrong with it, it just quit running. Stalled out. I hope you’re mechanically inclined, Teeluur, so we can get it running again and get away from here. Thirty kilometers up the road I have an emergency stash of food and clothes, weapons, documents and cash.”

  He walked closer to the chair, his aim never wavering from a spot between her eyes. “How much cash, Berger? Enough to bribe our way off this chunk of rock?”

  She took a deep breath and held it. Was he going for it? “It’s enough for one, I don’t think it would cover two people. With the war and all, prices are sure to be jacked up to the overhead. But, once we have the money, we can use it to flash our way onto an outbound rogue ship and commandeer the thing. You do know how to fly, don’t you?”

  He stopped his slow advance when he was a meter in front of her. They were both outlaws, both on the run. He could kill her now and take her credits and try to last until a better deal fell into his lap. He did like the idea of commandeering a ship with her and leaving Bayliss but unless he had a destination to run to, the whole adventure would more than likely end poorly. What if they were stopped by the Colonial Navy on their way out of Bayliss’s gravity well? This was the same woman that had sent him that pompous Captain Fraze, the man who was by now so far into decomp that even the bones would be gnawed into so much powder.

  “I know how to pilot all manner of craft. It was part of my training regimen. I’m certified all the way from flitters and couriers up to and including battle cruisers. Varson and human.”

  “Well, let’s get moving before the locals find the abandoned car. They would surely report it to the Navy.”

  He didn’t move. He had one last thing to try to pry out of her. “Where is this stash, Berger? Where is the safehouse?”

  She threw back her head and laughed out loud. “You really must think me a fool, Teeluur. If I tell you that, you’ll just shoot me now, try to find the car, go to the farm and try to screw me out of my escape. Not going to happen that way. Now put down that silly little gun and let’s talk turkey. You and I want the same thing; we should try to help each other.”

  “Like you tried to help me before by sending your assassin Fraze to meet with me? Is that what you have in mind?”

  Her laughter stopped in mid inhale. Something she had not taken the time t
o consider. Captain Fraze. “I had nothing to do with that. I must assume he is dead. You kill him?”

  “Right between the eyes, Berger. Not only can I pilot a spaceship, but I’m also a crack shot. Your lackey gave me the same ‘let’s work together’ tune and dance before I had to shoot him.”

  “Song and dance,” she corrected him idly.

  “It was me or him, Berger,” he said, ignoring her words. “Now, here you come, the spy master, telling me the same story. You see why I’m skeptical?”

  She stiffened. “You need me. Without me, you wouldn’t know where I dumped the car. You wouldn’t know where my stash is. You wouldn’t have any clue where to go to find someone willing to fly you off the planet.”

  He thought for a moment. Was she correct? Hadn’t she given him enough clues already? And he still had his reader with all of her personal information on it. He just had to draw a circle thirty kilometers in radius and zero in on it using the maps; finding the car on the only road leading into this hamlet would not be a terribly difficult task for him if he could get to it before it was totally dark. If the car had mechanical problems, he could just commandeer another one and save himself the trouble of trying to fix her stolen one. All of these thoughts made sense only if she had told him the truth.

  “I know every airdrome and airpark on this planet. I even speak the language of the pilots. Something you could not do on your own, Berger. If you look at our situation closely, it is you that needs me, not the other way around. Your story is not believable and you are easy to spot. I picked you out as soon as I saw you on the sidewalk across from the diner. How long do you think you’re going to be able to survive out here on your own? You don’t have the tradecraft training; I do.”

  A standoff. He wasn’t buying the story. Oh well, she sighed, it bought me a little more time. She was sure he was going to pull the trigger at any second. A last ditch proposal was in order. “I know how we can get our hands on a lot more money than I have stashed away. Hundreds of thousands more.”