“Well,” replied Lee. “More mouths to feed.”
Henry nodded and looked back across the cabin. He spotted the man who had identified himself as Lieutenant Commander Patrick Marin of the Lubira. The man’s dense curly hair was matted to his head and he looked near exhaustion. He had settled into a seat near Wellick and his friend, but was not listening to the two entertaining themselves. Instead, he seemed to have drifted off to sleep despite the noise and confusion around him.
“Do you think he was telling the truth, Lee?” Henry asked. “I mean, about Zeus and the other fleet.”
“I think so, Henry,” Lee replied, looking reflective for a moment. “Zeus was the last ship I was on before the Princess found me in space. She had been blasted all to hell, but she was still flying through M-space. If there is even the smallest chance that she is still out there, I think we need to go after it.”
“What about Heyerdahl?” Henry asked. “Chang has set the highest priority on finding and retrieving him.”
Lee turned his head and looked out the small window as the atmosphere of Alzerack fell away beneath them. In the year since he had been in command of Resolute, the ship had been sent out in pursuit of the missing high energy scientist, finding a few clues but never actually discovering the man’s location. Three times, they had heard of humans being kept as slaves or servants on distant worlds and had gone to rescue them. The last time, they had barely escaped and several of the rescued humans had died from injuries sustained during the rescue.
“I am beginning to think the Tuxor is right and that the man is dead,” said Lee. “I think what we are doing here is far more important anyway.”
Henry Moore nodded to his captain and looked away. They may have sustained losses during the rescues, but each time the Resolute brought home Terra’s lost children, the morale of the fleet improved. Lee felt deeply that gathering these people and trying to restore the human race to their home world should be their priority, not chasing some mysterious super weapon that may or may not help them.
The ship suddenly bucked under Lee. He turned back to the window in time to see a sleek Alzerack patrol fighter race past the shuttle. Lee could see that the shuttle’s shields had been turned on and were absorbing the plasma impacts properly. The patrol ship turned in a wide arc and returned to its prey, guns firing out a stream of red plasma fire.
“What’s going on, Jackal?” Lee called to the pilot through the open door to the cockpit. “It looks like they were waiting, Captain,” said the Asian woman, trying to evade the enemy patrol. “I count six of these guys. Princess and Aztec have each taken two so that leaves us with this one and another. The other one is hanging back, though.”
Lee pulled himself out of his seat and stepped up into the cockpit. The shuttle had been designed to hold two pilots, but they rarely used more than one on their rescue runs. Lee pushed a stack of papers from the co-pilots seat and sat down. He needed to talk to Jackal about keeping her ship clean in the future. Right now, however, he had better things to do.
He checked the scanner built between the two pilots seats. He saw the attacking ship closing again and felt the ship shudder as plasma impacted the improved shields. A quick check of power levels showed him that they were in no danger from the weapon however. It was a lower power bolt designed to disable and not destroy. These were planetary police, not military fighter vessels.
“Take us in tight to the largest moon,” Lee ordered. “Let’s see how tough they are.”
Jackal grunted her assent to the maneuver and pushed the throttle hard. The shuttle leapt forward and turned towards the larger of the planet’s two moons. The two pursuers fell into formation and followed, not able to close due to the shuttles increased speed. Lee had a thought. He checked the scanner again and saw that the two Demon fighters had not yet fully engaged the patrol ships.
“Flyboy to Princess,” Lee called over the radio. “Fire to disable only, Demons. These are civilians under orders. I see no need to destroy. I repeat, fire to disable only.”
“I figured as much,” replied the voice of Alice on the speaker. “You are too much of a softy. I’ll relay to Aztec, Princess out.”
“You two are just too cute, Captain,” said Jackal, maneuvering the shuttle towards the moon. “But what about us? It’s not exactly like we can shoot back.”
“Take us in tight to the moon, Jackal,” replied Lee with a grin. “I mean really tight.”
“I can take us all the way down to the ground if you want,” she replied. “If you don’t mind if I scrape the paint.”
“Permission granted, Lieutenant Hu,” replied Lee, using Jackals real name. “I didn’t like this shade anyway.”
Jackal smiled a maniacal smile and pushed her throttle forward. The patrol ships were still on their tail and falling behind fast. As the moon continued to grow larger in the forward view screen, Lee heard a few gasps and a cry from the rear of the shuttle. He looked back to see the refugees staring out the small windows frightened about the rapidly approaching body.
“Don’t worry, folks,” Lee yelled back to the cabin. “Just sit back and enjoy the ride. We just need to get rid of the local police. I would really recommend you sit back down, though. It’s about to get bumpy.”
With that, he closed the door and turned his attention back to the view screen.
Jackal had turned the nose of the shuttle straight at the surface of the moon. She was pulling back on the throttle, though, allowing the pursuit craft to get closer. Just before the shuttle would have slammed into the surface of the moon, Jackal pulled the nose back up hard, leveling out their flight. The ship bucked as Lee heard impacts from small rocks on the underside of their hull. The pilot pushed the shuttle lower, increasing the vibrations as small rocks and sand were pulled up behind the ship in its magnetic wake.
Lee switched a small portion of his side of the screen to rear view. The pursuing ships had tried to keep up with the shuttle, not wanting to let their quarry get away. They had pulled out of the nose dive with admirable skill, but could not maintain such a low altitude over the moon’s surface. Assuming a height several meters higher than the shuttle, the two craft probably thought that they would be safe in their pursuit. Behind the shuttle, however, momentum and inertia had propelled the rocky debris behind the shuttle up into a fishtail of soot.
The two ships were pelted with the minute particles. Lee saw one of the ships pull away, but the other cut its engines and tried to soft land on the moon. His ship skidded nearly half a kilometer on the soft surface of the moon. The other ship sputtered to a stop high above the moon, breaking off pursuit as its engines failed under the damaging plume of debris.
Jackal continued her course over the moon’s surface, rounding the equator and using the gravity to propel the shuttle faster. They reached breakaway speed and shot off into space again, angling for the second moon of Alzerack. It was a smaller planetoid, dark with rich mineral deposits that the Alzerack had ignored for years. Lee checked the scanners and saw the other two ships speeding to rejoin the shuttle. The police pursuers had been left far behind, intact but disabled.
“Captain,” said Jackal. “I am receiving a transmission from Alzerack, but I don’t think it was meant for us.”
“Can you jam it, Jackal?” Lee asked the pilot.
“No,” she replied. “It’s already past us heading for a relay in the outer system.”
“What does it say?” Lee asked, tapping the radio keys to put the message on the speakers.
A crackle of static came over the speaker and then settled down into a series of chirps and clicks. The blood in Lee’s veins froze as he listened to the transmission. He had heard the language a few times before and it always signaled death and destruction for him. The language was Ch’Tauk.
4
“This whole idea is insane,” Captain Ronald Chang said. “We cannot send you off to find some missing fleet that may or may not even exist. We have to keep our priorities straight, Lee.�
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“Ron,” Lee replied. “I am keeping my priorities straight. This Heyerdahl person is a ghost. We need to be setting ourselves up to retake Earth.”
Captain Chang pushed himself away from the large round table and pulled his hands back through his jet black hair. The conference room was circular and set deep inside Perigee station’s central hub. After they had reached the station and gotten it operational, this room had become the de-facto government center for the remains of humanity. Around the table sat representatives from the major vessels, including the Terran Hope and all of the support and logistics vessels that orbited the dead planet below.
“Captain Pearce,” said Captain Browning from the cruiser Mars. “I understand your desire to return to Earth. It is our home, but we have civilians to consider now. If we go on the warpath, trying to retake that planet, we could lose everything.”
“If we don’t,” Lee said angrily. “We will lose everything that makes us unique in the galaxy.”
The assembly of captains began to raise their objections in a heated shouting match. There was one man at the table, however, who sat quietly near Captain Chang. Banu Rao had become, in the last year, the representative of the civilian population on the station. He raised his hand among the military officers and waited to be allowed to speak. The Captain of the Ceres class vessel Gaia finally quieted his colleagues and allowed the dark skinned human to speak.
“My friends,” he said. “I do not think that Captain Pearce has any desire to take civilians into battle. I think we need to hear the man out. After all, he has been away from Perigee for a long time now. He may not understand the way things are being done now.”
Lee stared at the man in confusion. Although his absences from the station had been long, he had not realized that the civilians had organized themselves in such numbers as to need representation on this council. Additionally, he did not expect his one defender to be Banu Rao. The two men had barely spoken, but Lee had always thought the man disliked him and harbored some paranoid suspicion that Lee had been involved in a series of murders years before.
“Thank you, Mr. Rao,” Lee said, standing up to be sure he was being heard. “Captains, and representatives, I have been away from the station. But while you have been here setting up a government and repairing your ships, I have been out there searching for the lost children of Terra. I know that my mission has been to look for this Heyerdahl person, but I have learned so much more about what has been going on out there.”
As he looked around the table, he spotted Melaina Petros with her arms crossed across her chest. She had kept her curly hair long and she was now wearing it tied up behind her head. She was staring at him intensely as he made his case. She was the chief motivator behind his mission and it would be her who would decide if he was to continue looking for her colleague, or something else.
“In the four years since the invasion of the Terran Confederacy, the Ch’Tauk have been on a campaign to not only round up stray humans, but make sure that any who escape their notice are hunted down and enslaved. The human race is being converted into the trash of our own former empire. If we don’t set down a plan to retake our home planet now, we may never have the chance again. I believe that the only way we can win the war for Terra is to gather our forces and strike in one quick blow.”
Lee sat back down in his seat, allowing his words to sink in to the assembly. He noticed his friend, Captain Alfredo Ortiz, rubbing the beard that he had grown sometime in the last year and looking back at Lee with concern. The other captains looked to each other in an uncomprehending jumble of emotions. Once again, the only person in the room not muttering or fidgeting in his seat was Banu Rao.
“Thank you, Captain Pearce,” said the man, rising from his seat once again. “I am sure that you have seen some very bad things in your travels, but I fear that if we send you out to find this lost fleet of ships, our own safety will be compromised.”
“Councilman Rao,” said Tuxor, standing and spreading his four arms in a gesture of friendship to the assembly. “If you please, I would like to speak.”
“Of course, Mister Tuxor,” the man said, obviously pleased with the use of his official title. “You are always welcome at these meetings.”
“Thank you,” Tuxor replied. “I will try to be brief. While I agree with this council that we need to seek out Erik Heyerdahl in the hopes that he may provide us with the means to defeat the Ch’Tauk, I can also sympathize with Captain Pearce. You may remember, my home world was also attacked during the invasion of the Confederacy and if there is a way to quickly put an end to this war, then I wish it as well, but I have to ask the question; what if Captain Pearce is right and Heyerdahl is already dead. Then we will have spent the last year searching and not rebuilding the means to defeat the Ch’Tauk on our own. Isn’t that worth the risk?”
The council started talking all at once again. Even Rao seemed to lose his composure and engage a nearby Felinoid officer in a heated debate. Lee leaned back in his chair and shook his head. It seemed that the problems that had plagued the Confederacy were still present in this room. He had always felt that the bureaucracy had held back action during the old days.
Just as the argument seemed to reach a crescendo, the door to the conference room opened and a tall, bearded man strode in and grabbed an open chair half way between Chang and Pearce. Lee recognized the man from the prison rescue over a year before. At the time, Lee had assumed that the man was just another refugee as he had told Lee that he would follow him anywhere. In the months after his rescue, however the man had shown himself to be someone entirely different.
“What the hell are all you people yelling about,” the man asked, pulling his long, oily hair from his eyes and throwing it over his shoulder. “Can’t a guy get some sleep around here?”
“Mister Jakes…” began Rao before being interrupted by the man.
“That’s Captain Jakes, Chief.” Conner said, raising his feet up and depositing them on the table with a loud thump.
“Captain Jakes,” Rao continued. “You are not a part of this council. If you would please take your feet off the table and leave while we finish our business. Thank you.”
“Aw, heck, Chief,” replied the man, looking around the room with a smirk. “It seems to me that I am about the only man of captain’s rank on this pinwheel who ain’t been invited. That doesn’t sound fair to me, does it?”
“My name is not Chief, you pirate bastard,” replied Rao, losing his temper completely. Lee wondered what had gone on between the two men in his absence.
“Now there’s no cause for name calling, Councilman Rat,” Conner said, pulling his legs down and sitting forward. “I meant it as a sign of respect.”
“My name is Rao,” yelled Banu. “I have told you many times before. And calling you a pirate isn’t mean; it is underestimating your talents.”
“Gentleman,” said Ortiz, standing and banging his fist down on the table. “Will you all please calm down? Captain Jakes, I apologize for not inviting you to the meeting. I was not aware that you had returned. Mister Rao, the captain is a privateer in the service of this council and will be treated with respect.”
Both men sat back down, but continued to glare at each other across the table. Lee had heard that Jakes had been hired by the Council to go out looking for salvage in nearby systems. Apparently, the former prisoner had been locked up for piracy before the invasion and had interpreted his orders loosely to mean that he could create salvage where none had existed. He had recruited a crew from the other released prisoners and they had stolen a small, fast ship that they called the Sweet Liberty in honor of their freedom. The whole group had decided to call themselves the Corsairs after they had heard about the Demon Squadron.
“Now that’s more like it, Captain,” Jakes said. “Now do you mind telling me what had you folks all riled up when I came in? Maybe ol’ Conner Jakes here can help.”
Captain Ortiz nodded and began to tell the details of Le
e’s plan to Jakes. As he continued, the privateer leaned further forward and took on a serious aspect that Lee had not seen since he was rescued. The re-telling of the story seemed to snap the Council back into focus as Ortiz laid out the plan without any embellishment. Lee was impressed by how the older man could organize facts and place them before the group in a way that made the answer seem simple.
“Well,” Jakes said. “If that is all you folks are arguing about, I think I have the solution. I say let Lee head out in his ship to go find Zeus and her fleet while you send out the Corsairs to track down this Heyerdahl fellow.”
“Absolutely not!” Rao said, standing up again. “We cannot allow the safety of Erik Heyerdahl to fall into the hands of these pirates. I absolutely forbid this action!”
“Now wait just a damn minute, Bunny…” Jakes began, standing to look at Rao.
“Sit Down!” Chang bellowed over the two. “If you two don’t sit, then I will have you both ejected from this meeting, and this council, forever. Is that clear?”
Both men looked to the carrier captain and then back to each other. They sat down in their seats, now looking anywhere in the room but at each other. Chang stood and drew himself to his full height, which was not much taller than Lee, but seemed more impressive as the man got angrier.
“Both of you need to behave,” said Chang. “Now it seems that we have a decision to make. I agree with Councilor Rao that the retrieval of Erik Heyerdahl is a matter best left to the military. However, Captain Pearce has also made a good case for the location and retrieval of Zeus and her fleet. I have the greatest confidence on the Resolute to find her sister ships out there if they still exist.
Resolute Omnibus (The War for Terra) Page 27
