“Chaz, Gambell here.” It was the captain of the other surviving cruiser, Sinopa. “What’s the plan?”
“No plan, Aaron, or not much of one. When we arrive at the objective, Goshawk and Brigand are with Tempest, Banshee and Rasiel are with Sinopa. Captain Gambell, you approach from the enemy’s eleven o’clock low and we’ll go in at one o’clock low. I want to keep on their underside so that we can exploit the damage caused by that explosion. Try your best to stay under the firing arc of their forward batteries. Let’s move! Pettigrew out.”
Adams walked over from her XO station. “A headlong charge into the enemy? Not quite your style,” she said in a voice meant only for his ears.
“Style won’t cut it today, Taylin. We need to attack before they can reactivate those shields. Besides,” Pettigrew said with a wink, “Admiral Getchell once told me that I think too much.”
The six Union warships hurtled toward Imperial Wrath traveling nearly sixty thousand kilometers per second, and still it took almost twenty-five minutes to reach their objective. The Rhuzari titan was in a bad way, as various explosions continued to rock the behemoth. That was the problem however, it was gigantic and even severely wounded it was a dangerous beast.
“Any movement on those three enemy bandits near the shipyard?” asked Pettigrew, his ships maneuvering into attack positions.
“No movement, sir,” Adams responded. “They’re sticking close to the yard.”
“And the main body of their fleet?”
“ETA in eighty-eight minutes.”
Pettigrew nodded. “Should be enough time. We’re going to make our attack run, then double-jump. We’ll pop outside the system, recharge the jump engines, and then back to the tankers to refuel. Even with our recharge time, the enemy fleet will be too far away from Jupiter by then to catch us. After that, we’ll head for home. There’s no way we can take on those other twelve enemy ships and win, but I’ll be damned if we’re going to let this titan survive while we have a chance to kill it.”
Adams looked uncomfortable as she checked something on her console. “Sir, if we double-jump, Goshawk and Banshee won’t have enough hyperdrive fuel to make the translation back to Jupiter.”
“Then we’ll abandon those ships outside the system and take their crews aboard the remainder of the fleet.”
The half-dozen Sarissan vessels were almost in attack position and Pettigrew was studying his displays. “Mr. Swoboda, are Sinopa’s missiles slaved to your station?”
“Aye, Captain, and we’re entering the firing envelope… now.”
“Fire all missiles.”
“Missiles away.”
The smaller warships had expended their supply of missiles during the first attack on the enemy titan. Only Tempest and Sinopa had any remaining, and Pettigrew meant to make them count. The missiles took a preprogrammed track forward and underneath Imperial Wrath, where most of the ship’s defensive weaponry had been damaged or destroyed. Then, like a flock of lethal birds, they turned in unison and headed up and over the port side of the enemy vessel. Without its shields, the Wrath’s defenses were overwhelmed as nearly a hundred Union warheads slammed into the dorsal side of the mighty warship.
On the bridge of Task Force 19’s new flagship, there was no time to celebrate the well-executed strike. “Tempest squadron, Sinopa squadron—commence strafing run.”
On the underside of the titan, a huge cavity stretched seventy meters wide, belching debris, gases, and the occasional body from the bowels of Imperial Wrath. Whatever exploded to cause this destruction had been incredibly powerful.
The Union warships, three on each side of the huge gash, proceeded underneath the enemy’s hull. They used their pulse cannons to repeatedly blast at the injured enemy vessel. Damaged though it was, the rival ship managed to strike back, like a wounded animal defending its last breath of life. Two focused plasma beam batteries struck at Banshee, digging deep into the destroyer’s armor until the beams broke through the outside plating. Another blast sliced completely through amidships, a fatal blow as Banshee heaved and ripped apart, ending the lives of more than two hundred souls.
As the five remaining ships passed under the stern of the titan, enemy missile batteries lashed out at Tempest and Sinopa. Pettigrew’s ship, with its full complement of anti-missile missiles and point defense arrays, got off with light damage. Her sister was not as fortunate. Four missiles broke through Sinopa’s defenses, slamming into the vessel and severely damaging it.
“Goshawk and Brigand—move to protect Sinopa,” ordered Pettigrew as the five Union ships limped further away from the enemy titan, which appeared to be making an attempt at coming about.
Adams spotted it. “Captain, they’re trying to maneuver.”
Pettigrew glanced at his tactical display. “Well, we can’t have that. Commander Swoboda, are all of our ships far enough away yet?”
“Aye, sir, we have good distance.”
“Very well—detonate the mines.”
As Tempest and Sinopa were passing beneath the enemy ship, hitting her with pulse cannon blasts, they were also disgorging their entire complement of remote mines. As the manta-shaped Imperial Wrath tried to maneuver to pursue its opponents, a sea of force and fire erupted beneath the ship. The tip of Wrath’s port side ‘wing’ broke off and began to drift away. A cloud of debris engulfed the mighty vessel, spewing upward from underneath the ship, pushed in that direction by the force of the mine explosions.
It was amazing that the Imperial Wrath still existed in any form. Considering the damage it had sustained, the warship should have been destroyed a hundred times. The grand ship was a remarkable feat of engineering and construction. But no matter what humans build, other humans can destroy, and now life pods were beginning to eject from the shattered main body of Wrath—a great many of them.
“Comm, get me Sinopa,” ordered Pettigrew, as he watched data streaming across his command console. “Aaron, what does it look like over there?”
Sinopa’s bridge appeared on the main viewscreen. Captain Gambell was strapped into his command chair as crewmembers and objects floated around him. “We’ve been better. Twenty-three dead and more wounded. As you can see, we’ve gone zero-G, but right now our biggest problem is that our jump engines are off-line.” Gambell paused as an ensign said something to him as she floated by. “Chaz let me get back to you in five. Gambell out.”
It would be around fifty minutes before the main force of the Rhuzari fleet arrived. If Sinopa couldn’t get their jump engines up and running before then…
“Commander Adams, what is the status of those three enemy vessels nearby? Have they moved away from the shipyard?”
“No, sir—still hugging mama.”
Pettigrew rubbed his chin. “That’s really odd. If anything, you’d think one or two of them would break away to pick up those life pods.”
“About those pods, sir,” spoke up Swoboda from his tactical station. “They don’t appear to have any kind of thrusters. They’re just drifting out there.”
“Spit it out, David,” said Adams. Swoboda was a fine officer, but he tended to prevaricate.
“The problem is we’re so close to Earth that some of those pods are starting to feel the gravitational pull. If someone doesn’t recover them soon, they’ll start to fall into the atmosphere. And without heat shielding…” Swoboda didn’t have to continue.
At the helm, Sephora Nyondo was staring straight ahead, but Pettigrew could tell from her rigid posture that she was straining to listen for his response. Rojas, Davis, all of them were going about their business, but their minds were focused on him.
He had chosen this life, with the burdens of command and the crush of the gray areas. Balancing the right thing and the best thing was never an easy task. Few could do it and even fewer could do it well. That could just as easily be my crew out there.
He opened the comm to the rest of the fleet. “This is Captain Pettigrew. Goshawk, Rasiel, and Brigand—you are to move
immediately to pick up the enemy life pods. Goshawk and Brigand, concentrate on recovering those pods closest to Earth’s atmosphere. Pettigrew out.”
“You know, it’s funny,” said Adams, standing beside him.
He cocked an eyebrow her way. “Funny?”
“Not funny ha, ha,” she said hastily. “It’s just that, a few minutes ago, we were trying our hardest to kill those people and now we’re trying to save their lives.”
He leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath. “Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.”
Adams paused to absorb the words. “From one of your old books, sir?”
“Yeah, from an old book,” Pettigrew said wearily. “Those people aren’t the enemy anymore. Now, they’re just helpless victims, people hoping to stay alive and see tomorrow. Burning up in Earth’s atmosphere—nobody deserves to die like that.”
“A lot of people died here today, on both sides, and they didn’t deserve it. What a way for humanity to return to Earth.”
“I know. It’s like we never left.”
The two of them watched the viewscreen, which showed the Union destroyer and her frigate companions moving off to carry out their assigned task.
“Once we retrieve them, what are we going to do with them?” Adams asked.
“I don’t know,” confessed Pettigrew.
30: Challenge
Government Compound
Bakkoa, Earth
In the back of the militia vehicle returning to Bakkoa, they actually fell asleep. The pair had been captured so many times by so many people over the past few days that fatigue overcame fear. Just to look at them, they could have been back on Sarissa, riding home in a friend’s car after a party—or a date. Sanchez rested her head on Carr’s shoulder with her arm wrapped around his. It might even have been romantic, had it not been for the handcuffs.
Denlora and her friends had been loaded into another vehicle. If Korab got word of what transpired, and Carr had no doubt that he would, perhaps the Underground leader could mount a rescue operation. Maybe they had put those kids’ lives at risk for nothing. The Sarissan fleet looked in rough shape, and the Rhuzari forces could be too much for them to handle even without the titan. The whole thing could have been a futile gesture. Hell, after Denlora’s squad dropped them off, he and Sanchez should have just climbed into Kite and flown away—to anywhere.
The time display in the foyer of Governor Sheel’s office said it was 04:04. Despite the earliness of the hour, the Government Compound was teeming with activity. Taken inside Sheel’s huge office, both were pushed into chairs and told not to get up. Three greenshirt guards remained with them, each man looking anxious to use his gun.
“We must have stirred them up,” quipped Carr.
“Must have,” Sanchez replied. “Wonder if they’re serving breakfast—I’m starving.”
“Shut up!” yelled the guard in charge. “You two keep quiet and wait for the Lord Governor.”
They didn’t have to wait long. Sheel entered wearing one of his tunic suits. To look at him, one would think it was four o’clock in the afternoon instead of the morning. He was followed closely by Naar, who had obviously been on a sleepover, as she was donning a blue-flowered yukata-like robe and bedroom slippers.
“I should have known,” said Sheel as he sat down behind his desk. “As soon as the first reports came in, I should have known you two were the source of this mischief.” A staff member entered the office with glasses of some sort of juice for the governor and his paramour. As the staffer left, Carr noticed that another man had slid into the room. Standing quietly in the back was the guy with the high forehead, the one Sheel referred to as Deputy Governor Goran.
Sipping his juice, the Lord Governor looked at the Sarissans. “According to reports coming in from the captain of the Imperial Wrath, you two have nearly destroyed the flagship of my fleet,” he stated matter-of-factly, then moaned, “I really wanted that titan.”
“Maybe they can repair it,” suggested Naar.
“Don’t be obtuse!” Sheel thundered. “You know, this is entirely your fault. It was your bright idea to let these two escape, and what—”
Sheel was cut off by a disturbance in the foyer. Just as Goran moved to check on the trouble, the door burst open as armed men in black uniforms flooded in. Sheel’s protest of “What is the meaning of this?” went unnoticed as his own guards were quickly disarmed and removed, replaced by the grim looking soldiers in black. It all happened so quickly that Sheel barely had time to stand up, but as soon as he saw Fleetmaster Haldryn and High Captain Balasi enter the office, he fell back into his chair.
“Well, well,” bellowed the fleetmaster, “look Balasi, everyone’s already here. It’s so convenient.” Haldryn and Balasi’s uniforms looked dirty and disheveled, as were the uniforms of many of their soldiers. Carr silently congratulated himself. We must have caused a real mess up there…
Sheel rallied and stood back up, discreetly cracking open one of his desk drawers as he did. “I’ll ask again, Fleetmaster, what is the meaning of this? Shouldn’t you be trying to save what’s left of my flagship?”
Haldryn smiled and gave a short chuckle. If Sheel didn’t realize he was in trouble, Carr did. Haldryn had reached his breaking point and then some. “You have no further power here, Sheel,” Haldryn spat out, with special emphasis on not using the older man’s title. “I am hereby removing you as Lord Governor and appointing myself to that position.”
“On what grounds?” snapped Sheel, fire in his normally composed eyes.
“Conspiracy, Sheel. Conspiracy to destroy the property of the Rhuzari Empire, which by definition is property of the Emperor himself. And that crime is considered a personal assault on the Emperor, punishable by death.”
“Have you lost your mind?” the Lord Governor blurted out. “High Captain Balasi, you are hereby promoted to fleetmaster, and your first duty is to place this man under arrest.”
Balasi held fast, loyal to Haldryn. Sheel moved on to the guards, calling on them to arrest both the fleetmaster and the high captain, but they remained motionless.
The Lord Governor then tried a different tack. “There was no conspiracy in the destruction of the Imperial Wrath,” he said calmly, pointing toward Carr and Sanchez. “Right there are your culprits.”
Haldryn acknowledged the Sarissans and walked over to them. “Don’t worry, I’ll get to you two shortly,” he said bitterly, redirecting his attention back to Sheel. “Where were we? Oh, yes, conspiracy to destroy Imperial property.” Haldryn walked to the center of the large office. “I know their crimes, Sheel, but I was speaking of yours.”
Carr noticed that Naar was fidgeting—she had already figured it out. The woman was eyeing the doorway to the garden off to her left as an escape route. Sheel, however, had been completely thrown off his game by this turn of events.
The Lord Governor leaned over, placing his hands on the desktop. “Fleetmaster, I don’t know what you—”
“The Threshold,” said Haldryn.
Naar turned a peculiar shade of pale, while Sheel scrunched up his face, as if he had never heard of the thing before. “The Threshold?” Sheel repeated.
“Bring in our star witness,” Haldryn bellowed. Through the foyer doorway came two soldiers dragging a man. They threw him down near where Carr was seated. It was young Tharp, or what was left of him. The boy had been brutally beaten. Carr also noticed burns on his body, as well as numerous cuts that had probably been made by surgical instruments.
“Behold, Sheel,” roared Haldryn pointing at Tharp, “your weakest link.”
Naar spoke in a peculiar whimper. “Is he…”
“Dead?” Haldryn finished for her. “I’m not sure and the truth is I don’t care. But before he reached this pitiful state, he was very… cooperative.” Haldryn moved to stand in front of Naar, whose composure was collapsing.
“I would find your concern for the boy’s condition touching if I t
hought it was genuine. However, the only thing you’re worried about right now is whether that,” he pointed to what was left of Tharp, “is going to happen to you.”
Naar was trembling. “I didn’t do anything,” she said meekly.
Sheel tried to intervene. “Naar, stop talking.”
Haldryn cupped Naar’s right cheek in his hand. “You know that morning I came to your apartment, I really just wanted to talk about my family and how I would never see them again. I thought a woman would understand my loss. But then you—”
“I didn’t do anything,” Naar repeated in an even weaker voice. A single tear slid down her cheek, which Haldryn’s thumb pushed aside.
“Naar, be quiet!” barked Sheel.
“I just wanted to talk, about my wife and children. But instead, you….”
Naar’s eyes were fixed on the body of Tharp. “I… I…”
“The boy said you planted a bomb on the Threshold,” Haldryn continued, stroking her cheek. “The boy said it was you, that you were the one that separated me from my family—forever.”
“Sheel made me do it. He made me,” she sobbed, her eyes transfixed on the dead Tharp. “You wouldn’t do that to me, would you?”
“She’s lying!” Sheel yelled.
Haldryn ignored the Lord Governor. “My wife, my precious Jenrina. Our son, Ludan, who will grow to be a fine officer in the service of our Emperor, a handsome sight in his uniform. And Sava, my daughter, so much like her beautiful mother.”
Naar was quaking now, as tears rolled down her melting face. Haldryn had stopped stroking her cheek, roughly taking her chin into his hand, pulling her close and making her look him in the eye.
“And I shall never see them again!” he screamed, spittle hitting her face. “Ever!”
“Please,” she cried. “I’ll do anything. It was all Sheel’s idea. I’ll do anything you want—anything. You can have me—take me any way you want. Just please don’t do that to me. You wouldn’t do that to me, would you?”
“Shh, shh. Be calm. No, I would never do that to you.”
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