She leaned back against the bulkhead and crossed her arms, head down as though in thought. He waited patiently until she looked up.
“Captain, have you ever been in combat?”
Halloran shook his head slowly. “Not like what’s happening in this time. I’ve been in the Navy most of my adult life, and we had a number of close scrapes in the last few years with the Chinese. But no, I haven’t had combat casualties…” He swallowed, feeling the sudden constriction in his throat. “…Until all this happened.”
She wouldn’t break his stare. “I’ve lost a lot of crewmates. Friends. This place,” she waved a hand around her, “is a graveyard. There are many. Those red killers,” she pointed toward the bridge where Axxa was, “Are relentless. Merciless. They blow our ships to pieces and kill the survivors in the pods afterward. It’s a sport to them!” Her naturally pale face was colored with anger now. “Captain, all I’ve ever known is combat. And my father before me.”
There didn’t seem anything to say. He’d had to counsel men under him who’d lost loved ones while under his command, and even a few who’d lost friends on other boats when accidents happened. But, Halloran realized, nothing approached the level of ferocity that these future humans had had to endure.
She apparently noticed the softening in Halloran’s eyes. “Don’t go all sentimental on me, Captain. I’m telling you this because you seem to exist in a bubble where the Prax brutality and the death hasn’t happened. But it has.” She pointed at his chest with her finger. “You need to keep us alive and use this ship to hit them where it hurts.”
He nodded. “I did promise that.”
“You did.”
For a moment their eyes lingered on each other before she shrugged off the moment. “Anything else, Captain?” She asked as she gathered up her hair and knotted it.
“No. Thank you.”
She glanced at him again, then turned and went back to the bridge entrance, leaving him alone in the passage.
Chapter 9
“Tell me more about this planet.” Halloran sat back in his chair at the conference table, arms crossed, looking around at those assembled from under his brown eyebrows.
“Not much to tell, Captain.” Lieutenant Travers shifted in his seat under the older man’s gaze. “I personally haven’t been there. They say Tavar is one of the coldest planets that are inhabited. It’s all underground.”
“It’s a mining colony?” Halloran looked at Kendra.
“Yes, one of the first systems visited during the expansion.”
“The expansion?”
Travers shrugged. “That’s what we call it. When humanity began to explore the systems. 300.”
“Is that a year reference?”
Travers looked patient. “Yes. The beginning.”
“Of what?”
Okay, the patience was wearing. “Of the expansion, Captain.”
Halloran nodded. They’d all noticed the use of terms like ‘year,’ ‘week’ and ‘day’ in this future lexicon, which gave them some comfort even if it was obvious that there were differences in the definitions. Halloran had noticed that a ‘week’ meant six days aboard ship. And that a day was three shifts of six hours; all familiar for the most part. But the actual year had eluded them so far. Here, Travers was referring to a beginning year of 300. But what did that signify?
The young officer was continuing. “Tavar was inhospitable, but while doing planetary scans they discovered the material. The element that became Tavarran steel.”
Halloran was interested and leaned forward and placed his elbows on the table. “They refine it there as well?”
Travers nodded. “The Fleet has stationed a perpetual guard flotilla in the inner system since the battle. I image it’s still there, but with the war going on everywhere else the Fleet may have pulled them away.”
“Chief, how much of this steel do we need?”
Reyes tapped the table, remembering. “Figure on fifty square meters at thirty centimeters thickness.”
Halloran had heard these figures before from Antonov’s report a few days prior, but wanted to lay everything out. “That’s a lot of material. How do we get it from the surface to the ship in orbit, without being picked up by the Fleet sentinels and surface monitoring?”
“The ship’s shuttle is tiny, but I think we could tow it up. I wish we still had the shuttle Captain Kendra and Travers came in. Much bigger.” After those two had crash-landed in the shuttle bay during the action with the Prax raiding ships, that shuttle had been dislodged through the blasted bay door and lost.
“Does it have the horsepower to lift that much steel, Chief?”
Reyes glanced at Travers. “Sir, tell him what you told me.”
“The Prax engine on the shuttle is small; it’s really only sized to carry several of them to a planet or station and back. This ship wasn’t intended to have a detail of troops aboard, apparently.” Travers pursed his lips. “But I told the Chief that we could tweak the power of that thing a bit and use it as a lifting force to get the material through the atmosphere. However we’d be under the eye of every sensor within the gravitational well of the planet.”
“No way to extend the Hidden Claw somehow to cover the shuttle?”
Kendra said, “The shuttle is tiny and I don’t think you’d be spotted dropping in, as long as the ship is undetected to that point. It’d be almost like a meteor falling into the atmosphere. Once it fell into the lower airspace it would be only seconds until you touched down. Of course, then you’ve got to get inside the facility somehow without freezing to death.”
Antonov spoke up from the other side of the table. “A happy thought.”
Kendra ignored him. “Let’s assume you retrieved the metal and managed to attach it to the shuttle. The moment you popped into the upper atmosphere, every ship in the area would pick you up. And, the moment you re-entered the shuttle bay and secured the metal our position would be revealed.”
Reyes said, “We’d be cloaked.”
“Yes, but everyone would have our last known coordinates. Unless we broke orbit within a minute, their targeting computers would have all they need to let them fire on us.” She stared at the Chief. “And they would, without hesitation. The Fleet is dead serious about defending that planet.”
Halloran said, “Tell us about the Tavarrans.”
“I don’t know much; haven’t actually been there either. They’re miners. Fiercely independent. Don’t take much assistance from the Fleet or outsiders.”
“They manage to be self-sufficient somehow, on that inhospitable planet,” Travers added.
“Don’t they profit from the sale of the steel?” Antonov asked.
“They do receive funding from the Fleet and mercantile companies that trade with them, yes. The Fleet protection is in part a form of payment itself,” Kendra answered.
Halloran steepled his fingers and touched them to his chin, noticing the grizzled beard underneath them. “We know they’re independent and make the final product. What do we offer them? Or do we try to steal it?” He found himself remembering Antonov reporting on the state of the weakened hull, the assessment by both Axxa and Travers that the weakness if not patched would lead to a catastrophic failure in an inopportune moment. He sighed. “I don’t want to steal anything, but what do we have to offer?” He looked around the table.
Reyes said, “We’ve been talking about that, sir. Other than the stealth tech—which is substantial but not particularly desirable to a planet—there isn’t anything aboard of perceived value to them.”
“We could give them the Prax,” Kendra offered.
“Would they find that useful?”
She shrugged. Clearly ridding herself of Axxa was the priority in her mind.
He looked around. “Would bringing Axxa have value?”
Travers frowned. “I think that would send the impression we’re a Prax raiding party of some sort.”
Halloran exhaled. Stealing the metal was soundin
g more and more likely. “Could we offer them the blueprints of the Hidden Claw system?”
Reyes nodded. “We do have access to those files in the computer.”
A plan began to form inside Halloran’s mind. “So we don’t know how much ground defense we’d be dealing with?”
Travers replied, “Since this is a Prax ship the computer records are pretty much useless.” He took his turn looking around the table. “Still, the fact remains that this ship was manufactured with Tavarran steel.”
“And there're no references to that fact in the ship’s logs or records?”
Antonov shook his head. “I’ve leveraged Axxa heavily in translation of the files we have access to. Nothing on the construction phase. There are sealed records that are eyes-only for the prior Captain, could be orders or perhaps those directories. No way of knowing.”
“But the fact remains that either the Prax found an alternate source of a remarkably similar material for their construction, or they have access to the material located within Tavar.”
Reyes spoke up. “Sir. What if the Tavarrans have gone over to the other side?”
No one spoke for a minute as everyone digested the possibility of humans turning traitor to their own race.
At length Halloran sighed. “No way to know until we’re boots on the ground.”
“Not much of a plan so far,” Kendra muttered to the tabletop.
“I wish we had some Marines along, Chief. Sorry.”
Reyes snorted, but nodded all the same. “We’re already shorthanded aboard ship, sir.”
“Can we scan for possible entry points, Travers? Once we’re in orbit.”
“Yes, sir. Should be able to.”
The plan was fully formed in Halloran’s head now.
“Captain, sensors are now picking up warships in orbit around Tavar,” Carruthers announced.
Halloran leaned forward in the command station. “Give me the bad news.”
Travers’ voice filtered up from Engineering through the comm unit at his elbow. “I recognize the signatures. There are six light cruisers and two patrol-class frigates.” His low whistle carried across the bridge. “Lot of firepower.”
Carruthers spoke up. “Sensors also read an additional three of the smaller configuration ships outside the Tavarran orbital plane. They appear to be acting as pickets, stationed approximately four hundred thousand kilometers away at spaced intervals.”
Travers added, “Those are probably sensor-enhanced frigates. We employ those in defensive schemas.”
“So I should be glad we engaged the Hidden Claw earlier, you’re saying, Lieutenant.”
Yes, sir. I’m sure they could have picked us up by now.”
Axxa spoke from the rear of the bridge. “Do we have assurance that they have indeed not scanned us as of yet?”
Halloran said, “What about it, Lieutenants?”
Carruthers shook her head. “I don’t know, sir.”
“Sir,” Travers called, “I’m watching their plot tracks now and they don’t appear to be on any sort of heightened state of awareness or alert.”
Halloran looked for Kendra, but remembered she had asked to be moved to Engineering instead of the bridge for their approach. “And this is…good?”
A moment’s silence on the comm, then, “I don’t think their commander would be this cool a customer if he knew that Prax ship was approaching from the outer system.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant.”
Halloran nodded Antonov, who in turn spoke to Djembe. “Proceed on your current course and speed to the planet, Pilot.”
“Proceeding, sir. Expect to reach orbit entry in three hours, twenty-five minutes.”
“Thank you,” replied Antonov. “Everyone keep on their guard; we’re now officially on silent running until this mission is over.”
Travers had left the comm line open and now Halloran heard his voice, speaking to someone else with him. “‘Silent running?’”
“Act like a hole in the water, Lieutenant,” Wyatt’s voice answered.
Halloran grinned and close the comm channel, leaving those two to finish their discussion down belowdecks.
“Captain, do you truly understand the tactical advantage this ship affords you?”
Halloran twisted in his seat to see Axxa. “You mean the Hidden Claw.”
The alien nodded. “If our forces truly possess this technology, the balance of power in the war will be drastically altered.”
“You mean the relative parity of weaponry and ship counts.”
Axxa nodded. “The damage that even a few such vessels as these could do…”
“Fly right in and drop a weapon into a command ship inside the screen. Nuke a planetary base without advance warning. I get it, Axxa.”
“I specifically refer to the weapons your old ship was armed with.”
“The pure fusions.”
Another nod. “One wonders if any other Prax ships are even now arming with your weapons, bound for Mars or even Coloran.”
To Halloran, much of the larger strategic overview was dark. As an outsider in this time, he’d only been exposed to small windows of the bigger picture. A half-destroyed Earth civilization. The protracted engagement between human and Prax fleets in the Sol System. The skirmishes and larger battles scattered through the systems between Sol and Tau Ceti, where a second human homeworld had been established and was unmolested to date. It seemed as though the Prax were overextended from their own home system, wherever that was. The humans more mobile and in force along their systems of influence. But stealth tech like the Serapis possessed would indeed allow for a shift of power favoring the Prax. “Thank you, Axxa. Your insight is…appreciated.”
The Prax dipped his head in response. Halloran still resented the alien deeply for the hand he had played in the killing of Halloran’s best friend back on Earth. But here, millions of kilometers away and in a tense time, he needed him.
Halloran shook his head, rubbing a temple to relax it. “You have the conn, Mr. Antonov. I’ll be in my stateroom.”
“Aye, sir,” the Russian answered from his station. “Captain is leaving the bridge.”
Chapter 10
The dream was particularly vivid this time. As he sat bolt upright on the bed, Halloran tried to recall the details as best he could. Cindy, TJ and Laura were posing in front of a huge waterfall—Yosemite, he recognized. They’d visited the park years ago. 2015? The four had climbed the steep path to the peak above the waterfall. In the dream, they were together, out of breath and laughing, taking in the incredible views of the valley as they ascended. The dream seemed to last forever, while also seeming to end in the blink of eye all the same. It ended with Tom falling from the path, reaching for their grasping hands as he slipped away…feeling the warm, thundering halo of spray enveloping him as he became one with the pounding water flow…expecting and dreading the eventual crush of the bottom as the moments passed and his speed increased.
He sat on the edge of the bed and put his elbows on his knees. Frowning.
The lesson—the message—he was receiving in these dreams was inescapable. His family was lost to him. Like the waterfall, he had been carried inexorably away from them.
He was the one who died on them.
Halloran shook his head to clear it. Cindy had died. Only months before the…whatever this strange trip could be called. In a car accident in the Jetta. He remembered the night, of course. The notification, the tension during the drive to the hospital. Hearing the news, there in the lobby with the smells of sickness and medicine in the air. He remembered it, but somehow those recollections seemed fuzzy, fading.
Then there had been the funeral, the crush of white Navy uniforms, everyone from enlisted crew to the Navy Joint Chief. Cindy had touched them all during Tom’s career. But he realized that only a few people alive—now—actually knew her—had known her. Terry Singletary, his XO. Where was Terry now? Halloran had left him behind on Earth when they got away. It’d been Te
rry’s decision. He would’ve made it for him but his friend had done it himself.
I need to get back and save Terry and the men I left behind.
Halloran felt the familiar wash of helplessness that was the constant companion of a Navy man at sea. The complete inability to influence what happened back home while on duty. Everything from unmowed lawns to dying loved ones…
With a grunt of annoyance, Halloran reached for his boots and slid them on, lacing them up with a sense of renewed purpose.
And there was something else. He found himself thinking about Kendra, what she’d said about losing people in combat with the Prax. There was a flat finality about their anger, these future humans, toward the Prax. Their destiny was set, and it was intertwined with this brutal warrior race.
But he rejected that. As he stood up, Halloran’s mind was resolved toward this time. He would do what was necessary to bring his people home. He would use this ship, and anyone who would help, to force his way into the history yet to be written of this conflict. His military background might not be tinged with the blood of fallen comrades, but he was ready to show them what he was made of.
A tap sounded at the entrance. “Come,” Halloran answered.
The hatch swung open to admit Antonov, who paused halfway in with a hand on the lever. “We’re entering the inner system proper. Just over an hour to Tavar. No signs of enhanced defensive postures among the Fleet units present in orbit.”
“Thank you.” Halloran glanced around for his cap, remembering that he didn’t have one anymore. Then he noticed the steaming mug in the man’s hand. “What is that?” he asked incredulously.
Antonov grinned. “Your Chief Parker got the food processor working, and not a moment too soon. We’ve started it spitting out slabs of something gray that tastes like steak for all hands.”
“Wow.” Halloran was impressed. “Just in time to hopefully raise morale before we go in.”
“He said all we needed now was something called an ‘auto-dog,’ but I didn’t understand the reference.”
Resolve of Steel (Halloran's War Book 2) Page 7
