Act of War

by R. L. Giddings

  Ardent had worried at first that Meyer would prove difficult to work with on the SAR mission – fearing that her recent loss of status might have diminished her in his eyes - but the opposite had proven to be true. Meyer had seemed resigned to what had to be done, whilst showing no desire to actually get involved himself, he had at least had the good grace not to interfere. Ardent had proven her worth by utilising her knowledge of the system to increase the effectiveness of the Renheim’s search parameters. She had been able to persuade a whole range of operators both civil and commercial to allow her to piggy back their communications equipment, thereby significantly broadening the range of their search.

  So far, they had recovered eighteen escape pods. It didn’t seem like much until you compared the figures to the computer’s projections of twelve. But still, the whole thing seemed to be taking forever and with the Da’al fast approaching, they were running out of time. With Parnashikan at the helm on Blackthorn, the evacuation of Blackthorn had begun in earnest. Casting aside any concerns about the possibility of ships being tracked back to Lincoln, they’d started loading the cruise liners first. She’d lost count of the number of ships which had struck out towards the Henrietta Gate in the last few days but they must figure in the hundreds.

  And who could blame them? With the umbilical to the planet lost, they had little alternative.

  Previously, Blackthorn had been facing a limited threat which they had every hope of containing but now, with the arrival of the Da’al fleet, all that had changed

  Which was why she herself had decided on a separate course of action. She needed to start drumming up support for an armed resistance force. Her reasoning was simple: if she could persuade just a handful of ships’ captains to agree to set up a rallying line between Iscaria and Tigris, then they might be able to pressurise Captain Mahbarat into joining them. She didn’t know what his relationship with Parnashikan was like but she hoped to use what little influence she still retained to try and influence him into some positive action.

  Mahbarat had come to their aid once before so, she reasoned, there was every chance that he might do so again.

  This was, of course, well beyond her current remit and there was no question that, if Meyer got even a whiff of what she was trying to do, he would shut her down in a heartbeat. Still, she had to try. All she needed to do was recruit a number of die-hard ship owners and captains to her cause. The majority of commercial transports had already left but a large number of ancillary vessels, working ships, had stayed behind, along with a few of the industrial crews. A lot of them had family on Blackthorn and she knew that they’d be keen to see their loved ones make good their escape. If nothing else, their actions would help to buy the refugees some time.

  They were probably thinking the same thing she was.

  If everyone chose to cut and run then it would only make the Da’al’s work easier. With their superior propulsion systems they would make short work of a ragtag fleet of largely civilian vessels. They could pick them off at their leisure.

  But if she could get the roughnecks to work together, they might well be able to at least hamper the aliens’ plans.

  She waited until Farnese was coming to the end of his duty before requesting permission to contact the first person on her list. She sold it to Farnese as a courtesy call. Bud Selig was captain and owner of The Sundowner and Ardent knew him from wayback. They hadn’t always seen eye to eye in the past, Selig had a habit of sailing close to the wind with his interpretation of various interplanetary laws but Ardent also knew him to be a man of his word.

  If she could get him to commit to her cause then there was no telling who else he might be able to bring onboard.

  “Tell me again who this guy is?” Farnese was having to juggle far too many commitments and the strain was starting to show.

  Ardent had persuaded him to make the call to Selig from his ward room where he would feel less self-conscious. While she was confident in Farnese’s skills on the bridge, she still felt he had a lot to learn about public relations.

  “Frans Jacobs was the one who persuaded the mining concerns to free up their comms to help our search for those pods. So far they’ve identified twenty seven for us to follow up on.”

  “Okay, I get that. Name’s Jacobs, right?”

  “That’s right. I think it’s important that we thank him for all his help. He’d prefer that coming from you, plus there’s no telling what else he might be able to help us with. Would you like me to handle the rest?”

  “As long as you’re careful not to promise him anything, fine.”

  Jacobs, when he appeared, looked annoyed as if they’d caught him in the middle of something. Completely bald, he nonetheless sported a very impressive set of white side burns.

  “Good day to you, commander. What can I be doing for you?”

  “Oh nothing, really. I think you’ve done quite enough already, Captain Jacobs, I just wanted to say thank you for all your help.”

  Ardent said, “So far, you’ve helped us to identify twenty seven escape pods.”

  “Six of which we’ve been able to recover.”

  “Oh, it’s the least we could do. We owe you people a great deal. Can I just ask: is that you, Governor Ardent?”

  She was suddenly uncomfortable. “I’m afraid it’s ex-Governor Ardent now.”

  “Hah, it is you,” he signalled to someone off screen. “It was a damned shame what that Draadtrekker Parnashikan did to you: stabbing you in the back like that. That’s no way to deal with people. Not that it did him much good in the end, mind.”

  Ardent couldn’t help herself. “Not done him much good?”

  “Haven’t you heard? It all fell apart after you left. He set up some kind of lottery system for tickets on the ships that were leaving. Problem was, only the person with the ticket could go. Meant you had to leave your family behind. And that didn’t go down too well - families getting separated and all that. Then it turned out that the execs were jetting off in virtually empty ships. One law for the rich… Anyway, after that things didn’t go so well for him. I bet you’re glad you’re not down there now. Everyone for themselves I shouldn’t wonder.”

  “Actually, no,” she said, surprising herself. “That’s exactly where I would like to be - if I felt I could do some good.”

  “Well, good for you. I kinda feel the same way myself, if we’re being honest. But no one knows what to do for the best. We’d love to help evacuate the civilians but we’re just not set up for it: no air supply, for a start. It’s frustrating, but what can you do?”

  “You’ve done your best, captain,” Farnese said. “I guess you’re just going to have to leave transportation up to the professionals.”

  Ardent winced at that. Farnese meant well but he wasn’t going to get very far by patronising people although, from his own reaction, he seemed at least to have realised his mistake.

  Ardent cut in. “What the commander is trying to say is that we all have to concentrate on what we’re good at.”

  “That’s right,” Farnese nodded.

  “Although there might be something you could do.”

  Farnese lightly touched her on the arm and said, “I’m not sure this is such a good idea: recruiting civilians, like this. I’m not sure it’s ethical.”

  “Let me decide what’s ethical, commander” Jacobs spat. “We’ve spent a lifetime dragging materiel all over the place. If you don’t think that’s dangerous enough then you’ve obviously never worked in the mining industry. It’s plenty dangerous, let me tell you.”

  “I wasn’t suggesting that you were…”

  Jacobs cut him off before he could say anything else. “You’re talking about some kind of organised resistance, I take it?”

  “We’re looking for ways of slowing down the Da’al’s advance. Make it as difficult for them as possible. Give our people some kind of chance, at least.”

  “Only there’s no guarantees it’ll even work,” Farnese cautioned.
<
br />   “We’re not looking for guarantees. We’re just looking for a little payback after what happened to all those folk on The Merry Widow.”

  No one said anything for a while. The indiscriminate loss of so many lives made it difficult to talk about.

  “I appreciate your concern,” Farnese said, sensing that the conversation was somehow getting away from him. “But I’d like to point out that none of your ships have any armaments of any kind, or even any strategic defences. You’d be going up against an advanced military force which has already demonstrated its destructive capabilities. The best we can hope for at this point is to frustrate them, slow them down at best. We don’t want people throwing their lives away for nothing.”

  “Not for nothing. Also, these aliens you’re talking about: we’re as much a mystery to them as they are to us. They have no way of knowing what armaments we might or might not be carrying. If nothing else, it might force them to rethink their approach.”

  Farnese was struggling with this. He turned to Ardent, lowering his voice.

  “Can you do something to talk him down? We don’t want a massacre on our hands.”

  “Of course, commander. Only, you have to admit: he does have a point. The Da’al have no idea what these ships are capable of.”

  “Granted. But it won’t take them long to find out.”

  “Oh, I’m not so sure.”

  She already had an idea in mind that she thought just might work.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Webster stood with his back against the inner wall of the pressure chamber. The trip back to Dardelion had flown by and now he was starting to have second thoughts about his current plan of action.

  “I don’t know what else I was supposed to do.”

  Silva was standing in the centre of the cramped space, the fingers of one hand interlaced with his.

  “Look, Alex, I’m not saying that this is a bad idea. It’s just that, with a little more time, we might have won Meyer round. Farnese was already sympathetic to what we were trying to do. I just think that with a little more pressure Meyer would have come around to our way of thinking.”

  Webster scowled. “I’m not so sure. He’s a contrary sonofabitch at the best of times but he was in no mood to listen to me.”

  Webster opened his mouth wide as the chamber re-pressurised to match the internal pressure of the Dardelion. Silva watched him, seemingly unaffected.

  “I think we might have under estimated Farnese’s level of influence. Every time he spoke, Meyer listened.”

  “Yeah, well I’m not so sure. Meyer made all the right noises but he’s got no real interest in helping us out. The only thing he’s interested in is saving his own skin. I must have spoken to him for nearly two hours but do you know what really got his attention? The arrival of those Da’al ships. I’m telling you - If it came down to him saving the entire Mantis crew or saving himself, Meyer’d save himself everytime.”

  Green lights flashed, telling them it was safe to leave the airlock. Silva waited a moment until she was absolutely certain that they weren’t about to step into a vacuum before hitting the door release. The Dardelion’s combination of burning machine oil and body odour was strangely comforting. They were surprised to be met by one of the Marine corporals, toting a heavy-duty tablet. The sort that will still work after you’ve rolled an APC over it.

  While Silva attended to the air-lock’s safety programmes, Webster held out a hand.

  “Something I can help you with, corporal?”

  The corporal handed him the tablet. There was a long list of items for Webster to check, none of which he was familiar with.

  “What is all this?” he asked.

  The corporal looked nonplussed. “The second shuttle, sir. The one that transferred all the pods over. Well, it came back, and when it did it was packed with all sorts of stuff we weren’t expecting. Sergeant Markham’s holding off unloading it until you’ve given it the all clear.”

  Webster raised an eyebrow at Silva. “Did you know anything about any of this?”

  “Who authorised it?” she asked, taking the tablet and scrolling down to the bottom. “Farnese. See, I told you he was pulling for us.”

  “I’m sure, but I still don’t know what half of this stuff actually is. What’s with this Armoured Infantry marker? Seems to be on everything.”

  Silva pulled a face. “Probably something to do with those new orders of yours.”

  Part of the deal with Meyer was that Webster wouldn’t open his orders until they were back aboard the Dardelion. Silva had urged him to open them while they were still on the shuttle but Webster had been adamant and still had them in a sealed document pouch. Webster had developed a fatalistic attitude as far as the orders were concerned. They were never going to contain good news but he felt that so long as the deal guaranteed the safe recovery of a lot of those pods then it had been worth it. He was just glad that Meyer would be deprived of the pleasure of seeing the look on his face when he opened the envelope.

  “I take it that everything’s been accounted for,” he said to the corporal. “No surprises?”

  “No, sir, no surprises. Checked ‘em all myself, sir. Can’t tell you exactly what they are but it all appears to be there.”

  “Looks like a lot of gear.”

  “That’s right, sir. Crates and crates of the stuff. Just as well we were able to off-load our pods, otherwise I’m not sure where we’d have put it all.”

  “Very well,” Webster scrolled through the list, authorising each one individually before signing off at the end. “Is that everything?”

  The corporal reclaimed his tablet. “Almost everything, sir. Sergeant Markham sends his regards and advises you that your guest is waiting in your cabin.”

  Webster turned towards Silva who just shrugged. “Guest?”

  “That’s right, sir. Sergeant didn’t know where else to put him. Don’t worry though, sir. We’ve put a guard on him, just in case.”

  Webster was growing more and more uncomfortable with each passing minute.

  “Thank you, corporal.”

  “Can I let the sergeant know that we can start unloading? Only he’s keen to get rid of that shuttle.”

  “Yes, yes, yes,” Webster shooed him away, eager to get rid of him.

  The man scuttled off, his tablet tucked under his arm.

  “What the hell is going on!” he said, once the man was out of earshot.

  “Before I answer that, can you do me a favour: can you tell me what time Farnese authorised that shipment.”

  Webster had to take out his own tablet then to track down the information.

  “Just over three and a half hours ago,” he said. “Wait, that can’t be right. We only agreed to this a little over ninety minutes ago.”

  “Which suggests he knew the way this was going to go as soon as those Da’al ships started to appear.

  “He knew Meyer never had any intention of fulfilling his mission brief. Meyer was pretending to hold out knowing that the ticking clock would force our hand.”

  Webster wanted to complain but he had suspected as much. “But why authorise this consignment before the agreement was made, he could get into a lot of trouble for anticipating the orders a senior officer.”

  “Like I said, Farnese was on our side. He did it so that we wouldn’t have to wait around for the consignment to be delivered. He did us a favour.”

  “So why is it that I feel like I’ve been played?”

  The pair of them were moving quickly towards Webster’s cabin. The sooner they got under way then, the better.

  “And what’s this about a guest? I was expecting some kind of payload, but not this. Who in their right minds would want to go to Tigris at a time like this?”

  “You mean, other than ourselves?”

  Markham was waiting for them when they arrived. He’d also posted two Marines on guard duty.

  Webster pulled Markham to one side.

  “So, what have we got here?”<
br />
  “You tell me. Male, mid-thirties. No rank insignia on display though he clearly knows his way around a spaceship.”

  “Some kind of spook, then?”

  “Either that or Special Ops, though he were I’d have expected more of them. That’s why I put him in your cabin. Outside of the flight deck, it’s the only place with a decent lock.”

  “Okay. What about computer access?”

  It didn’t matter where they put him if he could access their systems he’d still pose a major threat.

  “It’s alright, I disabled them.”

  Webster indicated for Markham to open the door. Then the pair of them, with Silva bringing up the rear, stepped inside.

  The visitor was sitting at Webster’s desk looking calm and relaxed. He was contemplating his glass of whisky and only looked up when Webster cleared his throat.

  He got up and came around the table without saluting.

  “Commander Webster. A pleasure.”

  They shook hands.

  “Sergeant Markham and I have already met. So I have to assume that this is Lieutenant Silva.”

  Silva was the calmest of the three of them, both Webster and Markham were tense as though they expected to be attacked at any moment.

  “Pleased to meet you,” Webster said. “But I’m afraid you have us at an advantage.”

  “The name’s --- Nash, I’m attached to Special Weapons at the moment.”

  Some part of Naval Intelligence, then. The fact that he came equipped with no discernible rank suggested he out ranked all of them.

  “I helped myself to a glass of your whisky, commander, hope you don’t mind. I was expecting to be kept in here for a while longer.”

  “You’re quite welcome,” Webster said warily. “Only I thought I’d put that bottle back in the safe.”