Resolve of Steel (Halloran's War Book 2)

by J. R. Geoghan

  The Russian paused with his hands on the bridge entrance rim and looked in his direction. “No one…yet.” Then he was gone.

  Chapter 6

  Kendra sat in the corner of the officer’s wardroom, arms crossed tightly and reveling in the solitude of the empty space. Like a steel coffin…knowing that the prior crew had been decimated by some unknown disease had given Kendra some uneasy moments when pondering their fate in the few weeks since she’d ended up aboard.

  The ship was mid-sized, perhaps frigate-class in the Prax fleet. Not a design configuration that she immediately recognized, though. For a ship this small it packed a significant weapons punch, more than she’d ever heard of in the alien warship roster. The advanced jumpdrive and sensor-masking device made it a formidable tool in the hands of…Tomalloran. No, the man’s name was two words—very odd—Thomas. Halloran. Like the rest of these odd military people from some other time. Two names.

  Kendra frowned at the idea.

  The man Halloran was hard to read; intense and stubborn one moment, then relaxed and thoughtful the next. For a human he was very tall, almost able to talk eye-to-eye with the Prax aboard. He had a cloud of mystery about him even though seeming completely approachable. Slightly graying brown moppy hair that had grown unkempt for a senior officer. But those eyes. She could get sucked into them…golden blue with a twinkle deep within their depths that seemed to be laughing at you—good naturedly. The man could command the respect of a crew; that much was true.

  Kendra closed her own eyes. Travers and her had unwittingly hitched a ride with this crew following their abortive attempt to negotiate with Halloran under the direction of Captain Heres of the Valor. Heres—her old crewmate and rival—had basically sent Kendra on a suicide mission, rather than one of his own crew members. Then their shuttle had crash-landed aboard this ship as a surprise attack on the Agra colony had commenced, both her and Travers barely escaping becoming casualties themselves.

  Then the most perplexing thing of all had happened; the moment the human ships had defeated the Prax, Heres had opened fire on this ship, knowing that not only was it crewed by humans—even if their loyalty was in question—and that two Fleet officers were potentially aboard. At the very least, he should have opened communications with Halloran to arrange a truce to continue the negotiation. But he’d apologized, veered off and fired a broadside instead.

  Something was wrong. Within the Fleet. She didn’t know what, but that hadn’t been protocol for a ship’s Captain—Heres had been acting on orders that made no sense.

  Happily, one of Halloran’s crew had unwittingly activated the sensor-masking device and they’d managed to get away from the larger Fleet cruiser without further damage. Now she found herself confined in a ship that wasn’t hers, was commanded by little more than a rogue, and for good measure housed a Prax! Kendra felt the urge to vomit at the idea. And, to add more misery to the situation, they needed to go to the Struve system.

  She felt the memories coursing through her brain yet again at the name…Struve Six. The tearing of metal. Bodies—pieces of them floating on the shattered bridge of the Goliath. The silence of lonely death, more deafening within her soul as all the violence of the action had been. Her resolve to not be among the dead…

  Kendra’s eyes popped open, and she wiped her hair back from her face where a slight sheen of perspiration had started. She hated the Struve system.

  With a sigh and a dabbed tear from her cheek she realized that she had to be a part of this crew of humans who claimed to be from another time. Wherever they really came from, they were human and working hard to learn this ship and keep themselves alive. Travers had certainly seemed to integrate into their family well enough…but he loves his engines, she reminded herself. It’s a universal language among that group. Kendra herself knew as much about modern engine systems as almost any engineer in the Fleet; it was what she came up in. Something had changed within her, she realized. Since the loss of her last ship in action in the Sol system, and her unfortunate decision to go to Engineering rather than stay on her bridge, she’d resolved to stay the course consistent with her rank. There was no going back.

  Father would certainly love to hear about my new professional commitment, she smiled to herself. Admiral Kendall commanded the Sol system defenses and found Kendra a source of frustration. Not so his other daughter, Kaela, who stood in the literal center of the intelligence group on Mars and ran the Fleet’s brain, so to speak. Their father had always looked favorably upon her older sister. That had become more obvious after Kendra took her path into the Merchant Arm, preferring immediate space duty to wiping desks in some fancy station for tottering old officers who should’ve retired to Coloran long ago. It had only been a freak accident of being in the wrong place at the wrong time—at Struve Six—that had bumped Kendra into the “real” Fleet and ultimately the Captain’s chair.

  And now, she was a hanger-on in a motley crew on a ship provided by Haulers, no less.

  Kendra found herself chuckling at the idea.

  “What’s so funny?”

  Startled, she looked up to see one of the junior officers staring down at her.

  After a moment, he turned away. “Whatever. Ma’am.”

  “I had the funny vision of your—our—Captain as a Hauler.”

  The man stretched out on a low padded bench along the far bulkhead of the wardroom. “Like those nasty types we got the ship from? Doubt he’d appreciate that. But, you never know.”

  He tapped the base of his head. “These translation devices are pretty cool.”She regarded the prostrate form. “You serve with him long?”

  The man put his hands behind his head, staring up at the ceiling. “The Bonhomme Richard was my first assignment with him. But I knew who he was, of course.”

  “Of course?”

  He lifted his head to look briefly at her. “We all know the Captains in the service.”

  “What service was that again?”

  He put his head back. “Boomers, we call ‘em. Ballistic missile subs. Only twenty-eight.”

  “That’s not much of a fleet.”

  He snorted. “Each of us carried enough firepower to wipe out half a continent. There are only…” he thought a moment, “Seven continents, including our own of course.”

  “On Earth.”

  His eyes flicked her way again. “On Earth. That sounds so weird.”

  “And this ship of yours, it’s on Earth now?”

  “Yep. High and dry with holes cut into her.”

  “’Her?’”

  “Yes, we use that pronoun for ships.”

  Kendra tightened her crossed arms a bit. “Hmmph.”

  “What’s your deal?” The man asked. When she didn’t answer, he looked at her again. “Why are you…like that.?All the time?” He used his eyes to indicate her body posture.

  “You wouldn’t understand. I’m not where I planned to be.”

  He sat up slowly, never taking his eyes off her and resting his hands on the bench in front of him. “Ma’am, I have a wife and three kids. Fifteen, fourteen and nine.” He tapped the bench with one hand. “I haven’t seen them in two months,and have no idea if I will ever see them again. I might as well be dead right now,” his voice cracked a bit, “but I’m not. So guess what, ma’am? This place? It’s basically hell for me…for all of us. We never died back in 2029, we just disappeared.” He made a gesture with his hands, spreading fingers quickly apart. Then he lay back. “So yeah, I get it.”

  She just watched the man, thinking, for a few long moments. Then, “I’m Captain Kendra, by the way.”

  “Is that your first name or last name, Kendra?” He didn’t look at her.

  “Um, neither. We don’t use whatever name you’re referencing.

  ”The man sighed. “Well, I’m Lieutenant Mark Hummel.”

  “I’m sorry about your family, Lieutenant.”

  “Me too, ma’am. Me too.”

  The command station in the center
of the bridge was composed of a seat built into a low bank of display monitors, many of which repeated the view of the crew stations in front and to the sides of the command perch. One of the screens ran through a series of camera views that covered the main compartments and passageways; by toggling a small button below the screen, Halloran could scan back and forth through the feed order, stopping on any given feed in order to focus on it. It was pretty intuitive, which he appreciated.

  He thought again about the alien Captain, Traxxus. The guy had clearly been on a war mission against humanity so Halloran wasn’t broken up that he’d been destroyed. And, the death of the Prax crew at the hands of the unknown illness had seemed so clean and quick that Traxxus had probably gotten off easy. But the Captain of this ship would’ve rather gone out in battle, making a difference, Halloran thought. Easy isn’t the way of the warrior. Now he had the opportunity to leverage this warship against the very enemy who had created it. Halloran was under no misconceptions; whatever would happen next wouldn’t be easy. People were going to die. If there was one thing he’d learned since leaving Earth, it was that life and death in the vacuum of space were balanced much more finely even than life and death in the waters of his home planet.

  Time to give the order.

  “Pilot, ready in all respects?”

  Djembe nodded. “Jumpdrive is available at your command, Captain. Coordinates set as discussed, for the outer edge of the Struve system.”

  “XO, anything I’m forgetting about?” He spared Antonov a glance.

  The Russian was sitting in one of the work tation seats, with Kendra next to him and looking pensive. Antonov checked a panel in front of him. “All compartments report to be as ready as they can make them.” He punctuated the remark with a shrug which succinctly communicated the rest of his emotions.

  Halloran turned back to Carruthers. “Hidden Claw prepared to engage should we meet undesirables upon re-entry into space there?”

  “I’ve got my hand hovering over the red button, sir.” He could hear her forced levity mixed with strain.

  He sighed to himself. “Time to get this ball rolling. Engage the jumpdrive, pilot.”

  “Engaging.”

  Trigg Wyatt was anchored at the main control for the jumpdrive, waiting for the order to engage it. Seated next to him was the new officer, Travers. Wyatt liked the young and nerdy man, easily finding his groove alongside the other as he systematically worked through the foreign—alien—engine systems and cataloged them. Wyatt had been initially completely out of his depth, but made up for it through raw enthusiasm to finally have machines of his own to work on again.

  Poor Bonny Rich, he thought as he glanced around the Engineering space once again. He missed his ship. Everything’s so…weird. His eyes met those of the alien seated against the far bulkhead, whose reddish face revealed no anxiety over the impending engine run. Old hat, Wyatt mused. The thing was certainly not forthcoming with its emotions, even when that freaky confrontation between him and the woman officer happened right here in this compartment. They’d almost shot each other before the Skipper broke it up.

  Travers chuckled next to him. “You worried about him?”

  Wyatt saw him flick his eyes toward the red form. “Nope. I’ve seen enough crazy stuff in the last month to fill two horror movies.”

  “What’s a ‘movie’?”

  Wyatt lifted an eyebrow. “A…movie. I don’t know, it’s a story told on a screen by actors. I like the classics. Top Gun, Hunt For Red October.” He elbowed Travers. “Great sub movie.”

  “Sub, like as in your last ship? You explained about the water.”

  “Yeah. Our Navy was powerful. Is powerful.” Wyatt frowned. “Whatever.”

  “But the ‘sub’ could only travel within the water. How limiting.”

  Wyatt shook his head. “No way, man. The ocean is a true, living thing. A thrill to be immersed in.”

  Travers looked at him. “It is alive? Sentient?”

  “No…sort of. The ocean has a heart…a mind of its own. It could never be tamed. Centuries of manmade travel and nope, never tamed.” He warmed to his topic. “See, our boat—the Bonhomme Richard—it was the absolute greatest oceangoing vessel of all time. Could travel faster at a greater depth than anything ever made by man before. Not counting the bathyspheres that charted the ocean bottom, of course.”

  Travers was trying to keep up. “Bathees—what?”

  “Bathyspheres. They were basically hollowed-out bowling balls with two-foot thick hulls that could touch down in the deepest corners of any ocean. Really cool stuff. But they just basically went straight down and back up, on a cable mostly. Now us, we could burn through the water with our nuclear engines and hit nearly a thousand meters if needed.”

  Travers seemed dubious. That doesn’t sound like much. A thousand meters is not a large distance…”

  Wyatt waved him off. “I get it. But the water pressure, see, it is intense. Like nothing you’ve used to in space, where you have the opposite problem.”

  “So your ship had a thick exo-hull.”

  “Yep, we call it a ‘pressure hull.’ Crazy strong.”

  Travers sat back, crossing his arms. “You love this ocean.” It was a statement, not a question.

  Wyatt blew out an exhalation. “Yep. I surfed it from as young as I can remember. Dove in it. Surfing, now that’s something I’m going to miss.”

  “What is this, a sport or recreation?”

  Wyatt snapped his fingers at Travers. “Exactly!”

  Electronics Technician Jack Stacey poked his head around a nearby partition of instruments. His duty station had been set at the main relays adjoining the reactor space. “What are you two going on about out there?” His voice was tight and his face pinched with stress.

  Wyatt outranked Stacey but ignored the man’s outburst. “Educating this fine young officer as to the merits of Salt Life.”

  Stacey look from one of them to the other, clearly unsure what to respond. Then he glanced over at Axxa and back to them. He shrugged. “I’m all for reminiscing, but the Captain should be calling for power any moment now.”

  Wyatt waved at him. “You get back there, Jack. I’ll take care of Mr. Travers here while we wait.” His sandy hair, grown long in the past month, fell between his eyes and he flicked it away as Stacey disappeared with a grunt. “Now where was I?”

  Their moment was broken by the short, shrill tone of an incoming command from the bridge. Travers leaned in and tensed. “They’re calling up the jumpdrive.” Now, even his voice had a bit of an edge to it. “Command successfully relayed. The reactor AI is handling the request. Drive powering up.”

  Wyatt rubbed his hands gleefully, smiling widely at the alien. “Here we go, buddy!”

  Chapter 7

  Mars Command

  “I want a full workup as soon as it can dropped on my desk, Commander!” Admiral Kendall stormed from the adjutant’s office, annoyed that the soft-closing entrance door couldn’t be slammed. He wanted to vent his frustration. Even if most of that annoyance would ultimately fall upon the shoulders of his daughter.

  The intelligence group had botched the job of recording the apparently massive nuclear blast on the Earth’s surface. Several of the clandestine Earth-monitoring sensors installed on the Moon had been active and trained properly on the human homeworld, but mysteriously failed to track the moment of the explosion in the western hemisphere…not to mention several critical time segments immediately afterward, as the event faded.

  He barged into his own office atrium, startling his assistant Satra as he marched past, entering his own space and proceeding straight to his desk. As the entrance door softly closed he dropped into his chair and leaned back, rubbing his temples.

  Something was wrong. The explosion was the first of its kind in decades, and no military action was ongoing on the planet surface to warrant an attack. So it was a test.

  He stared at the overhead. Of course it was a test. That Captain Hal
loran had tried to warn him. The ancient weapons somehow brought back from the past. It was all incredible.

  The flotilla sentry ships had all immediately reported the immense vapor cloud rising into the Earth’s upper atmosphere following the magnetic pulse. All cursory indications had confirmed that the explosion was the largest magnitude in recorded history. That history only reached back just over four hundred years. Kendall had no way of knowing what this blast represented in comparison to old-Earth weaponry. Either way, it represented a clear and present danger to the Fleet around Mars.

  He stared at the tablet in the center of his workstation, its notification icon silently blinking yellow to register unfinished files.

  Intelligence. The adjutant had been sent to find out exactly why the moon-based sensors, sophisticated monitoring pieces the size of a small shuttle and mounted discreetly away from the annihilated colony facilities, had failed to operate without warning. Had they been sabotaged by the Prax? After the invasion, the aliens had summarily launched missiles at the Earth satellite that blasted the research facilities and garrison quarters. This was in the early days, when the Fleet had been ill-prepared and far-flung in humanity’s quest to conquer the star routes. Then the close-quarters bombardments and execution of anyone surrendering. By the time the first flotilla arrived in force and retook the Moon, there was nothing—nobody—left to save. The area was abandoned and Mars became the rallying point for the gathering warships. For all the years following, however, the sensors had faithfully recorded the Prax ship movements above the Earth.

  He pushed the tablet away in disgust, then on a second thought pulled it back and picked it up. “Open file Halloran.”

  The device showed a file photo, clearly ancient in nature and complete with evident scratches indicating a scan from another, physical medium. He studied the man’s lean, intense features. The photo was him in uniform of an old Earth military, light-colored shirt with breast decorations that meant nothing to Kendall. Halloran’s cap rode high on his forehead, indicating a slight disregard for dress. He smirked. Some things really never did change… The photo was undated, but the file notes at the bottom had a caption. “Halloran, Thomas Captain USN. Lost at sea old Earth dating 2029-08-21. Image coded date 339.09.09.50, recovered from Telos Archive.”