The doors slid open, and the gaggle of rebels burst out onto the bridge, weapons aimed and at the ready, crewmen turning from their posts as they moved into position, Curtis stepping out last, trying to muster as much decorum as was possible for a man who hadn't shaved in a week.
“What is the meaning of this, Rojek,” the woman sitting at the heart of the bridge said.
Curtis took a deep breath, and said, “My name is Commander Edward Curtis, and in the name of the Democratic Underground and of the Rebellion, I am assuming command of this ship as of now. Duty officer is at liberty to note time and date in the log. Captain Hunter, I ask you to surrender your vessel and your crew, and spare unnecessary bloodshed.”
A man sitting at the engineering console, turned, a pistol in his hand, but before he could fire, a bolt of electric flame lanced into his chest, dropping him dazed to the floor. Curtis turned to see the officer at the helm, a raven-haired woman with a deep scar running down the side of her face, taser in hand.
“Roxy, what are you doing?” Sokolov, a technician at the communications station asked, as one of Rojek's people raced forward to secure his pistol.
“What I have to do, Alexei,” she replied.
“You're with them as well, Norton?” Hunter asked, with a deep sigh. “Commander Curtis, what are you intentions with my crew?”
“Those who don't join the revolt will be put ashore at the first safe port we reach. Nobody will be harmed unless they attempt resistance.” Taking a step forward, he added, “We're somewhat pressed for time, Captain, and I'm afraid I must insist.”
“Very well,” she replied, reaching down to a microphone clipped to the side of her chair. “Armstrong, connect me through to the entire ship.”
“Aye, ma'am,” a young technician replied, glancing to Rojek for a brief nod of confirmation. “You're on, Captain.”
“This is Captain Hunter. This ship has been taken by forces of the Democratic Underground. All hands will report to their quarters on the double. No resistance is to be shown, no attempt made to sabotage this vessel. I remind those of your considering acts of unnecessary heroism that this ship is valued at almost a billion credits, including her cargo, and that the Commerce Directorate will not look kindly on anyone making any attempt to damage its property. This order is final. That is all.” Looking up at Curtis, she clipped the microphone back into position, and added, “Is that sufficient, Commander?”
“More than, Captain, and I very much hope that this is temporary. Felix, have your people clear anyone not part of our little mutiny from the bridge, and lock them in their quarters for the moment. Be sure to search them for weapons, as well.” Glancing at the still staggering Randall, he added, “That one had better be taken down to Sickbay. Is the Doctor...”
“Haggard is on our side,” Rojek replied. “She lost both her kids in the Purges. Committee made far more rebels than it found that year.”
Hunter rose from her chair, moving with two of the rebels as they escorted the command crew from the bridge, only Montgomery and Norton remaining at their posts. Curtis looked at the vacant seat, took a deep breath, and settled down into it, running his hands over the console before him, looking over the unfamiliar controls. Rojek settled down at the communications station, the other consoles on the cramped bridge taken by the other rebels.
“Engineering is secured, Commander,” Rojek said, looking over his controls. “We are ready to proceed at your discretion.”
“Can you give me a tactical view, Montgomery?” Curtis asked.
“Of course, sir, and please, call me Monty.”
A smile curled Curtis' lips, and he replied, “I'll remember that, Spaceman.”
“No Service discipline here, Commander,” Rojek said. “You'd better remember that.”
“Tactical view coming on now, sir,” Montgomery said, throwing a control to display a map of local space on the viewscreen. Cygnus was still holding station, her fighters swarming around it like angry hornets, and a pair of shuttles heading in their direction, bound for their docking bay.
“I guess they got our message,” Curtis said. “Helm, clear all moorings, and proceed at best speed to the gravitational threshold.”
“Aye, sir,” Norton replied, nimble fingers dancing over her controls. “Moorings are cleared, umbilicals retracted, and we are free and clear to navigate. Course already plotted, engaging engines now at maximum thrust.”
“Cygnus will be able to overtake us in a matter of seconds, Commander,” Rojek warned.
“How long to the threshold?”
“Four and a half minutes, sir.”
“We've just got to buy some time. Who's in charge down in Engineering?”
“Bobbi Moretti. Drive Tech. Pretty sharp.”
“I hope so,” Curtis said, stabbing what he hoped was the intercom control. “Bridge to Moretti. Come in, please.”
“I'm here. Who are you?”
“Commander Curtis, but we'll have to leave the formal introductions until later. I understand you've got some experience with the Tau Drive.”
“Fifteen years and a Masters in Astrophysics. What do you need?”
“Make it look as though someone's disabled the gravitational limiter, and that we're building up to an early warp interface. I want them to think that we're willing to burn the house down.” Turning to Rojek, he added, “Felix, get on the horn to Arcturus, and tell them that rebel forces have taken Engineering, and that we're attempting to get clear of the Titanian gravity well before it's too late. Sound panicked.”
“Hey, Commander, you realize...” Moretti began.
“I know it isn't easy, damn it, but there must be a way to make it happen. You've got thirty seconds. Get moving. Out.” Tapping a control, he looked up at the readings, shaking his head in disbelief at the lethargic acceleration of the ship. “Can't we move any faster?”
“We're almost topped up, sir,” Norton replied, “but even at the best of times, this ship wallows like a damned pig. She's not a warship, Commander.”
“Just get us on trajectory,” he replied. “Out of purely academic curiosity, Felix, where are we going? Major Cordova never did tell me.”
“Sinaloa Station,” he replied. “Ross 248.”
“Lock in that course, Norton.”
“Roxy,” she replied. “Commander.”
“Signal from Cygnus,” Rojek said. “They're asking to speak to Captain Hunter.”
“Tell them she's fighting off the mutineers with her bare hands. Make it sound good.”
“I tried that, but without her authorization code...”
“They're on the move!” Montgomery said. “Not as close as they might be, though. We'll have enough distance to engage the drive, but they'll be within firing range in one minute.”
Frowning, Curtis said, “How much oil do we have on board?”
“Technically, sir,” one of the technicians at the rear said, “We're carrying...”
“Thick slimy liquid, how much?” Curtis barked.
“Just under eight hundred thousand tons,” Norton replied.
“I'm guessing we'll move a little faster if we lighten the load.”
Norton turned to him, eyes widening, and said, “Are you serious?”
Nodding, Curtis said, “Felix, I need a course plot that will allow us to unload our cargo right down their throats. Let's give them something to think about. Fire when ready.”
“Cygnus is closing, sir. Weapons charged,” Montgomery said.
Silence reigned on the bridge, everyone waiting for the Federation warship to close. Rojek frantically threw controls to prepare to eject the cargo, silently cursing as the panel stubbornly rejected one override after another, the on-board systems unwilling to believe what they were about to do. Somehow, Curtis couldn't blame them for that.
“Ready!” Rojek said.
“Release!”
Hanoi lurched forward as all three hundred storage tanks erupted as one, the release of the vast quantities of liquid throwing them towards their goal, the acceleration briefly spiking to a level the gravity field couldn't handle. Behind the ship, the oil froze instantly, a billion shattered crystals fluttering through space, raining on the enemy cruiser, Cygnus forced to lurch to the side in a desperate bid to avoid the unexpected attack. Two of the fighters were braver, diving into the heart of the storm, and a pair of brief flashes of flame highlighted the stupidity of their actions as millions of fragments of crystallized fuel slammed into them.
“We're clear!” Norton said, Hanoi now accelerating ten times faster than before.
“Engage Tau Drive!” Curtis ordered. “Full burn!”
Norton reached down to her right, gripping a cluster of levers and throwing them forward as of one, and the stars ahead raced through the spectrum as the dimensional bubble formed, keeping the ship stable as space warped all around them, Titan and Saturn drifting out of view as Hanoi transcended the light barrier, racing to hyperluminal speeds.
Nodding, Curtis said, “Nice work, everyone.”
“That was the easy part,” Rojek warned. It gets harder from here.”
“You've got to work on your inspiring speeches, Felix,” Norton said. “There's something lacking, somehow.” Reaching up for her controls, she said, “Emergence in seventy-nine hours, Commander.”
“Very good, Roxy,” Curtis said. “That should give us time to work out who we can trust.”
“We're going to need a lot longer than that, I fear,” Rojek said.
Chapter 3
Squadron Leader Winston Kani raised his fist in the air in triumph, throwing his fighter into a barrel roll as he celebrated his latest simulated kill. The communication channels were alive with protestations from his opponent, crying foul at his win, but he shut them off with a flick of a switch, stabilizing his fighter as he swooped down towards home, his wingman burning fuel recklessly to catch up to him. Glancing down at his status panel, he smiled. Five kills in one exercise. That had to be a record. And against the best pilots in the Commonwealth Fleet.
He glanced down at the planet below, the huge super-Jovian that held the heart of their empire in exile, Khiva Station. The viewscreen was a blur of orange, green and purple swirls, the result of thousand-mile-an-hour storms permanently raging deep below, into the savage realms of the lower atmosphere that none dared to go. Throwing a control, he extended his wings, biting into the increasing air, diving towards his target, ten thousand miles ahead.
Looking at the picture above his cockpit, he sighed. His grandmother, a ship commander in the Commonwealth Fleet, one of the leaders in their march to exile after the Revolution, dead now five years. His parents had died in a shuttle accident long ago, before he was old enough to have any real memories of them. Now he was alone, the only family remaining the Fleet he had joined at sixteen.
“This one's for you, Ouma. One day I'll get you home.” His pocket held a vial of ashes, the last remnants of his family. All of his ancestors, aside from his lost parents and his grandmother, had been buried in Pretoria, back on Earth. Sooner or later, he'd find a way to get those ashes where they belonged.
“Khiva Station to Grey Leader,” a voice barked. “Cleared for docking. Commodore McKinnon wants to see you as soon as you land.”
“What's old Mac's mood, Hank?” Kani asked.
“Pensive,” the traffic control officer replied. “There's something big going on, Win. Achilles and Ajax have both gone on alert, twenty-hour standby for departure, and we're getting the reserve fighters out of mothballs. Crash program. I think this might be it.”
“You're dreaming, Hank,” his wingman, Flight Lieutenant Melody Nguyen replied. “I've seen the intelligence reports. Nothing's changed. One day we're going to sweep in and bring the Federation down, but not today.”
“Yeah, well, all I know is that everyone's running around in a panic. Probably just as well. Kowalski's mad as hell about that trick you pulled out there.”
“He just doesn't like being beaten,” Kani replied. “Coming in for docking. Have someone standing by to handle post-flight if we're in that much of a hurry. Grey Leader out.”
“You think she's going to have one of her rants, Win?” Nguyen asked.
“I don't think so,” he replied. “Not this time. See you on the deck.”
He pulled back on the throttle, letting the atmosphere slow his fighter down as he dived towards Khiva Station. A five-mile-long aerostat, suspended by gargantuan helium balloons a thousand miles above the inaccessible surface of Golgotha, Khiva had been the greatest secret of the old Commonwealth, a hidden sanctuary to be used should the unthinkable happen, should Earth fall to the rebellion. All of that had been long before his time, back in his grandmother's day, but he still remembered the stories she'd told, families hurrying to transports, escaping the death squads ready to eliminate any of the political undesirables.
Kani was under no illusions about the nature of the old government. They'd been tyrants, had grown corrupt and decadent after a century of unopposed dominance, but for all of their manifold sins, they were far better than the so-called Federation that had replaced them. The Commonwealth had never launched anything like the Purge, the massacre of ten million people, many of them simply because they happened to be the personal enemies of senior figures in the Federation leadership. They'd come close to an intervention then, twenty years before, but the Council had decided that the time was not right.
He was beginning to think that the day would never come, that they would sit out on the frontier marshaling their ever more limited resources for the rest of time. Many still hoped that the Federation would collapse of its own volition, without any assistance from Commonwealth forces. Fourteen years as a fighter pilot had convinced him that something more would be needed, the few covert operations he'd been involved with against the Federation Fleet proof to him that they could be defeated. Maybe Hank was right. Maybe the Council had finally decided to make a move.
The docking trapeze dropped down, and he eased his fighter into position on the cradle, light taps on the thrusters to settle it in place as the mechanism jerked into life, dragging him through the elevator airlocks into the heart of the station, rising to the deck within. With a loud report, the hatch underneath him closed, and his cockpit canopy cracked open.
Kowalski was already there, walking towards him with black rage on this face, the rest of his squadron behind him. Most of the deck technicians had moved out of the way, anxious not to involve themselves in their business, but Kani simply dropped to the deck with a smile.
“Got a problem, Joe?”
Pointing a savage finger at him, Kowalski replied, “Cheating won't win you battles, bastard. I've got half a mind...”
“Evidently,” Kani replied. “Yeah, I hacked your systems and locked you out of the simulation. Guess what, Joe. The enemy could do that as well. Except that instead of just flashing pictures of pink ponies onto your viewscreen, they'll knock out your life support systems or detonate the warheads of your missiles before you can launch them. Or fire them at the rest of your squadron. So yes, technically, I didn't play by the rules, but the last time I checked, the Federation wasn't working from the same book. I suggest you take it up with them.”
“Leave it, Joe,” one of the other pilots, a blonde named Voronova said. “He isn't worth it.”
“You'd better watch your back, Win,” Kowalski said.
“Or what?” Nguyen asked. “You're going to shoot him? Isn't that treason? I think that's treason. Maybe we should tell the Commodore when we see her. Give her some advanced warning so she can send Station Security down here to have a word with you.” S
tepping forward, she said, “Don't make threats you can't back up, Joe. It just makes you look like the small man you are.”
“Attention,” a tinny voice said from the wall speakers. “Squadron Leader Kani, Flight Lieutenant Nguyen, Flight Lieutenant Voronova, report to Commodore McKinnon's office on the double. All other fighter pilots, prepare for transfer to Agamemnon in one hour. That is all.”
With a smirk, Kowalski said, “I guess someone knows who the better squadron leader is.”
“Which is why I'm getting a personal briefing from the Flotilla Commander, and you're going to be kicking your keels over on Agamemnon's flight deck,” Kani replied, walking to the elevator. He felt the glares of the other pilots on the back of his neck as he and Nguyen stepped inside, Voronova only just making it after them before the doors close.
“What the hell is his problem?” Nguyen asked, shaking her head.
“He believes in playing by the rules,” Voronova replied. “Something the two of you obviously don't have any regard for.”
Kani glanced at Nguyen, then said, “You've got to know when to follow them and when to break them. And if you don't think that the Federation wouldn't try that trick...”
“They'd never crack through our firewalls.”
“Unless we've got a traitor somewhere inside our security, and I'd say the odds of that are pretty damned high,” Nguyen replied. “Don't ever think that you are safe, Diana. You aren't. Especially not when you are sitting in a cockpit.” She frowned, then added, “I wonder why old Mac wants you, though?”
“We're still waiting on a replacement for Franklin,” Kani said with a shrug. “I guess you got picked, Lieutenant.”
“Serve under you?” she asked with a sneer. “Please.”
“Worse squadrons to fly with,” Nguyen replied. “Ten covert operations in four years. More than any other squadron put together. You want to be where the action is, this is where it's at.”
“That might have been true under Malloy, but...”
The doors slid open, and the three pilots walked into the anteroom, the Commodore's secretary only glancing up for a second, barely acknowledging their presence. Kani looked at the viewport, the image displayed a view from the Commodore's childhood, the city of New Chicago she'd once called hope. One day, maybe, they'd go back. Though he found it hard to imagine actually living on Earth. The thought of being confined to a single planet repelled him.
Starcruiser Polaris: Blood of Patriots Page 4
