Tree of Liberty

by Wayne Basta

  “No, I can’t, but, then, I can’t be certain of anyone—not really,” Saracasi admitted. “That’s where trust comes in. I never really believed you were a traitor. But we knew someone was. That, combined with General Dustlighter’s warning, left me with little choice. Now, I have one again. And I’m choosing to trust you.”

  Davidus gave her another considering look. For a moment, she felt like a child again, sitting around while Maarkean hung out with his older friends from the navy. Davidus had always been older and more experienced. He had given her much of her instruction on how to be a naval officer. Now, because of a decision she had made, she held authority over him. And it didn’t feel right.

  But she wouldn’t let it stop her from doing her duty. He and Maarkean had taught her that. Personal feelings had to be put aside by those in command.

  “Thank you… Commodore,” Davidus said, the word sounding strange coming from him.

  “Major Needa can fill you in on what has occurred and what the status of the fleet is. We’ll need backup on Irod as soon as possible, but let me stress this: unlike Audacious, this fleet cannot withstand an assault from a superior Alliance force. Come together, or don’t come at all. Right now, the cutters are the only thing ready to fly, and they’ll just be cannon fodder by themselves.”

  Davidus frowned but didn’t say anything more. She got the impression he disapproved of the order, but he didn’t say anything, which she felt grateful for. He was not someone she wanted to argue with in front of others.

  “Commodore, I must protest,” Jerik said. “This ship, as advanced as she may be, cannot take on an entire task group by herself. We can’t even be sure the hyperdrive will function all the way to Irod. Wait for the rest of the fleet.”

  Even though she felt some irritation at needing to argue with Jerik, she felt a bit of relief that he was challenging her. Ever since their first encounter, where she had burned a hole in his leg with a plasma torch, he had been far too obsequious. Most of the time, though, she felt confident he had genuinely agreed with her, and it was good to know now that he was capable of voicing his concern if she was doing something stupid.

  Unfortunately, this time she had no choice but to do something stupid. Not if she wanted to have any reasonable chance of protecting the people on Irod. “I appreciate your concern, Major. But I left the people of Irod defenseless. I relied too much on secrecy to protect them, and that’s gone now.”

  Davidus’s frown deepened, but he still said nothing. Jerik looked like he wanted to continue the debate, but she cut him off. “See to your ship, Major. We’ll need the Defiant Glory ready to go as soon as possible. I’ve already tasked Chief Tadashio with a special assignment to check for possible viruses left by Kaars. Be sure to complete that before departing.”

  The possibility that Defiant Glory might be compromised did the trick in getting Jerik to stop. She didn’t think they would find anything. Rigging a power surge and causing the comm to transmit an unauthorized message as a result was not the most nefarious of sabotage. But it was far easier to hide that than anything that might be affecting the ship’s main systems.

  “Commodore, may I have a word before I depart? I have a lot of catching up to do,” Davidus asked.

  Saracasi felt sure his “word” would be more along the lines of a berating. But she had locked him up for several months. She owed him the chance to speak his mind.

  “Of course,” Saracasi said. She turned to Jerik and Deja’z’reth. “Major, good luck. Master Sergeant, keep up the hunt, but also expand your search to look for other possible sabotage Kaars might have left behind.”

  The two men nodded and then departed the bridge in front of her and Davidus. She led him a short distance down the corridor off the bridge to the CO’s office. Arzesaeth had done nothing to personalize it during his time aboard, easing some of her guilt for usurping command.

  “All right, Dav. Let me have it,” Saracasi said once the door had shut behind them. “I’m sorry for locking you up. And I know this is a crazy, foolhardy mission to be taking.”

  Davidus just shrugged. “I can’t say I enjoyed being in a prison cell for the last few months. I was pretty mad at you at first, but I also had plenty of time to think about it. Given the circumstances, I expect I would have made the same decision.”

  Hearing that eased one strand of guilt that Saracasi had been forcing herself to ignore for a while. She didn’t like the idea of imprisoning a man without a trial or evidence, but it had been necessary, and hearing Davidus agree with that did ease some of the guilt.

  “And I don’t know enough about the present situation with the fleet, the war, or this ship to say whether or not your plan is crazy, stupid, unnecessary, or none of the above,” Davidus continued. “But I do have to be sure you know why you’re doing it. Back there, you said, ‘I left the people of Irod defenseless.’ That sounds a lot like guilt making your decisions for you.”

  Saracasi considered that. She had been the one to order the cutters away from Irod and Cardine. Irod, especially, was defenseless because of that order. That was her fault, without a doubt. Did she feel guilty about that now that they were in danger?

  Surprisingly, she felt confident that the answer was “no.” This had been the kind of thing she had once worried about doing, back when she had tried to avoid getting more involved in the war, but the decision had been necessary, and she had known the possible consequences.

  Looking back at Davidus, she shook her head. “No, I’m not doing this because I feel guilty. I removed the ships defending Irod for a reason. Now I’m merely responding to the consequences of that decision. It’s my duty to try to protect the people on that moon.”

  Davidus considered her for a long moment and then nodded his head. “As long as you’re sure.” He let out a loud sigh and shook his head. “I have no idea how you ended up in command of this fleet. If someone had asked me if you could do it, I probably would have said ‘no.’ But the Alliance hasn’t won yet, and that’s not nothing.”

  “No, they haven’t. And as long as I have something to say about it, they won’t.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Zeric staggered into the army command building. The small room buzzed with activity and everyone seemed to be talking at once. People rushed around like they didn’t know what to do. Others stood cradling weapons, as if they expected Alliance troops to come through the door at any moment.

  The orbital bombardment had continued after the transport had blown up. Fortunately for everyone with him, they had been able to make it under Lost Hope’s protective shield barrier before any fire found them. The existence of the shield itself had been an unexpected discovery for him.

  The chaos in the command center annoyed Zeric more than anything he could remember being annoyed at. He had just witnessed the death of over a thousand people and was not in the mood to deal with it. People were already dead because someone hadn’t been doing their job.

  “Everyone shut the hell up!” Zeric shouted.

  Unshaven, covered in mud, and breathing heavily from a long run, Zeric imagined he looked quite disconcerting. He decided to roll with that. He snarled at the group, “Who’s in command here?”

  A short Notha woman stepped forward. “Colonel Pendergra, sir. I was on watch.”

  “What’s the situation?” Zeric asked, mellowing his tone just slightly.

  “A task force of Alliance vessels appeared in orbit a few minutes ago. They were already firing their weapons by the time we detected them. After destroying two of the incoming transports, they shifted fire to one of military camps that are outside the shield perimeter. We’ve lost contact with the camp,” Pendergra said.

  “I assume the other camps are already moving under the shield,” Zeric asked, coming forward to look at the holographic map of the area on the central table.

  “They’re moving, but it’s a fair distance between us and some of the camps,” Pendergra explained.

  “Why aren’t they
all under the shield envelope?” Zeric asked.

  “It’s not a very big shield, sir. It was decided to use it to protect the main part of town and as much of the civilian population as possible.”

  Zeric nodded in response, studying the map. The land around Lost Hope tended mostly toward trees. The city itself had cleared much of that away, as had the actual camps. But between them was still mostly forest.

  The majority of the camps were within a few kilometers of the protective shield bubble. Most of those troops would have made it underneath by now, Zeric thought, if their camp commanders were even halfway competent. One camp stuck out to him.

  “Why is this camp so far away?” Zeric asked.

  “They’re mostly Camari. They wanted to be close to the water,” Pendergra said.

  A sinking feeling weighed on him as he studied the map. The lake they had set up near put the Camari camp over ten kilometers away from the safety of the shield. Camari had also been the vast majority of those killed aboard the two destroyed transports.

  “Order the camp to disperse,” Zeric said. “Tell them to spread out as far apart as they can. They won’t make it back here before the Alliance can bombard them. A wide net will make it harder for them to get targeted.”

  Pendergra relayed the order, and then Zeric finally allowed himself to ask, “What happened to the other transport?”

  “They were on their approach, but still in a higher orbit, when the Alliance appeared. They had enough time to alter course and head toward the curve of the planet. They were being pursued by an Alliance corvette when we lost contact with them.”

  Zeric wanted to curse but knew there wasn’t anything he could do to help the transport. If she had a good captain, they might make it to hyperspace before getting caught. Might.

  Before Zeric could start to think any more about their present situation, one of the watch standers shouted out, “Contact! Alliance drop ships on approach vector!”

  Four icons appeared a moment later over the map, showing the approaching ships. The ships moved quickly toward the city. Zeric looked at Pendergra. “I don’t suppose that shield came with some air defense weapons or anti-orbital batteries?”

  She shook her head. “No, sir. That’s all we’ve got.”

  “And no troops in the area,” Zeric said. The drop ships were coming in on a shallow vector that would put them down outside the shield, furthest away from any of his troops. To make matters worse, that part of town was on the other side of a river from most of the troops. The closest bridge over the river lay outside the shield cover. To get there, his troops would need to cross the river, exposing themselves to orbital fire, or go the long way around.

  “Start moving these units”—Zeric pointed to icons on the map—“down to this river crossing.” Something about the area of the city struck him as familiar. As he stared at the map while his orders were relayed, it clicked. Ceta’s home was in that district. His daughter would be there.

  “Tell them I’ll be joining the troops there,” Zeric said, stepping away from the map.

  “No.”

  The sudden refusal brought Zeric up short. It took him a second to realize that it had come from Lei-mey and not Pendergra. He had completely forgotten that the Ronid woman was with him. “What?” he said.

  “Your place is here,” Lei-mey said. “Not in the front lines.”

  “Listen, lady, my daughter and your sister are over there. I’m not sitting here when I can help them,” Zeric growled.

  “And those troops will get them out. You have a whole city to protect,” Lei-mey said, her tone steady.

  Zeric was tired of her always interfering with his actions—especially since she was almost always right—but he didn’t care about that now. The rest of the city be damned—he had a daughter to protect.

  He was about to tell Lei-mey to shove off when Gu’od spoke. “I’ll go. I’ll make sure they get out.”

  Zeric looked up at Gu’od. He’d made a promise to bring Gu’od home safe as well. Gamaly deserved to have her husband returned to her alive and well. But Gu’od was an adult, and this wouldn’t be the first time he had gone into danger. If anyone could get Ciara out, it was him.

  “Thank you, my friend,” Zeric said, relieved. “I already owe you my life a dozen times over. I’ll never be able to repay you.”

  Gu’od shook his head. “You would do the same for my child.” With a quick slap on Zeric’s back, Gu’od turned and ran out of the room.

  Zeric still wanted to follow his friend. Not only to look after his daughter, but also because he could do more good out there than he could in here. He was a soldier, not a leader.

  The next half hour passed slowly for Zeric. The holographic tactical map turned out to be mostly just a map. Techs would add details as reports came in, but it was far from real time. That left Zeric with even less to do on a minute-by-minute basis.

  As time dragged on, he started to regret the loss of the rest of his alcohol stash aboard the transport. It would have made this waiting a lot easier.

  In his spare moments, he took to staring at the display that showed the portion of the battle where Gu’od had gone. After a while, reports came in about several Alliance forces breaking through their lines. The attacks caused major disruptions to the rescue efforts, costing lives of many rescuers and civilians alike. Could Gu’od, Ceta, or Ciara be among those?

  Zeric ordered Union troops positioned along the bridge over the river to begin fanning out from there into the Alliance-controlled parts of the city. They directed all the civilians back across and eventually managed to push the Alliance to a half kilometer from the edge of the shield. For a change, the Union forces actually had numerical superiority.

  Gu’od was looking after Ceta and Ciara. Zeric had done what he could. He trusted his friend to do the rest. Now, he just had to do his part and protect the rest of the city. Gu’od had the easier job, he thought.

  “One Alliance corvette,” Arzesaeth said. “Could be worse.”

  “It will be,” Saracasi replied.

  They had come out of hyperspace over Zod. Due to the direction of their travel and the planet’s orbit, they had been forced to either over-shoot and make a second hyperspace jump back toward Irod or exit on the opposite side of the gas giant the moon orbited. She had elected for the long journey around the gas giant. They had already risked enough by even using the hyperdrive. Adding an extra jump would be asking for trouble.

  Despite her concerns, the journey had gone smoothly. Making the trip from Kol to Irod in record time, they had arrived less than three days after departing. But even at that speed, they still hadn’t beaten the Alliance here.

  “One corvette on the wrong side of the moon from the colony means more ships,” Saracasi said. “Helm, give me an estimated time to intercept the corvette and an estimated time to orbit the moon.”

  Saisee Traze, the ship’s Camari helmsman, acknowledged and began the calculations. The corvette was in pursuit of a transport, most likely a Union vessel, though they had failed to respond to hails. She had a duty to protect that ship, but there was likely a need to get to the colony as fast as possible.

  “Twenty minutes to orbit, six to intercept. Twenty-two minutes to orbit, departing from the estimated interception point,” Saisee informed her.

  Saracasi smiled. Only two extra minutes, plus however long the fight lasted. She could live with that delay. Aside from protecting the transport, she didn’t like the idea of leaving a potential threat capable of causing problems for her later.

  “Arz, all weapon batteries target the corvette. Fire for effect,” Saracasi ordered. “Saisee, increase acceleration. They’re lighter than us, so let’s get our speed up now.”

  The time to intercept the corvette dropped for another minute at a rapid pace and then scaled down. Saisee’s calculations had been good, she thought. He’d made an accurate guess on when the corvette would begin fleeing and on their acceleration. They came into effective weapons
range at just about six minutes.

  “Fire,” Saracasi ordered.

  Arzesaeth relayed the orders and firing patterns to the gun batteries. The corvette’s shields quickly lit up from all the energy pouring into them. Blaster bolts flew across space back at them, but with less than a sixth of the heavy firepower, they did nothing to Audacious’s enhanced shields.

  Under normal circumstances, a corvette was no match for a frigate. Frigates killed capital ships like corvettes, and corvettes killed fighters. The enhancements that she had helped make to Solyss’s captured Gallant should have made that ship an equal to a frigate, but this one had nothing along those lines.

  “We’ve disabled the weapon systems,” Arzesaeth announced just a few minutes later. “Reading a few hull breaches. They still have engines and maneuvering.”

  “Continue firing,” Saracasi ordered without hesitation. “We need the Alliance to have no idea what happened to their ships here. That means nothing hyperspace-capable survives.”

  Arzesaeth gave her a startled look but nodded. She didn’t relish destroying disabled enemies any more than he did, but it was necessary. Irod’s best defense had always been secrecy. If no one from the Alliance attack force returned, Admiral Sartori would think long and hard before sending another one.

  “They’re launching escape pods. Sensors mark them as standard style,” Arzesaeth told her.

  Letting out a sigh of relief, Saracasi said, “Let them go. Continue fire on the corvette.”

  Some escape pods carried hyperdrives. Getting off a doomed ship did little good if you were stuck light years away from a habitable planet. But that didn’t happen often. There wasn’t much use in fighting in deep space. So for most pods, the inclusion of a hyperdrive was an unnecessary additional cost.

  It didn’t take much longer to finish destroying the corvette. As soon as it was beyond any hope of repair, Saracasi ordered them to begin the orbit of the moon Irod. She had taken down one Alliance ship easily enough, but she still had no idea what she was up against.