Resolve of Steel (Halloran's War Book 2)

by J. R. Geoghan

  “Sir?”

  “Have them gather up the remains and hide them. Make it look as normal as possible before dawn.”

  Hester nodded gravely. “Ain’t no normal around here, sir.”

  When the Missile Technician had gone, Chen got their attention. “This is a communications tablet of some sort.” He held up the device in his hand.

  Chandler remembered seeing something like it when they had been making their group escape from the enemy headquarters monstrosity. He took the tablet and examined the edges. “No buttons.”

  Brown reached out. “May I, sir?”

  Chandler handed it over.

  “Like this, sir, if I had to bet.” Brown grasped the edges of the tablet naturally as if he was about to read from it. Immediately, the ceiling was bathed in the light from the device’s screen.

  Singletary burst out, “Don’t set off any alarms!”

  Chandler took it back from Brown with a raised eyebrow at Singletary. He tapped the screen. “Looks like it’s unlocked at least. Maybe they don’t do that sort of thing now. On the other hand, I can’t read a thing.”

  Chen said, “Perhaps Commander Singletary is right; we should avoid inadvertently alerting them to our presence.”

  Chandler nodded and put the tablet on a shelf. “So, we are holed up in an outpost. Didn’t we come for a weapons cache?”

  Granno nodded enthusiastically.

  “Well, let’s find it.”

  Fifteen minutes later they found it.

  The heaviest door in the toughest-looking of the four structures was judged to be the likeliest location. And, the magic tablet, when held up against the lock, turned the mechanism. The door swung open lightly, and the group stepped inside. Brown found a light switch.

  “Wow,” exhaled Hester.

  Row upon row of Prax pulse rifles lined one wall. Racks of smaller weapons and equipment were arrayed along the opposite side. Chandler stepped to a rifle and pulled it from its cradle with a popping sound. He examined it.

  “Dusty.” He blew and the stuff coating the weapon exploded into a small cloud. “Can’t keep the sand and earth out even if you wanted to.”

  “This equipment has been here for a long time,” observed Brown as he handled a weapon himself.

  “Will it still function?” Asked Singletary. “These are energy weapons.”

  “You’re the expert, Weps,” Chandler pointed out. You’ve got an hour to figure all this out and report before we have to deal with the coming dawn.”

  “They aren’t Mark 48 torpedoes but I’ll see what I can do.”

  Brown set the weapon back and stared at the officers grimly. “Sirs, something’s got to give. We need a break.”

  Chandler tossed him his rifle. “We might have just gotten it, Chief.”

  Prax Sol Center - Detention Area

  Xylan paced his cell relentlessly, ignoring the hard cot offered to the prisoner and opting instead to stay on his feet. Dozens and dozens of cycles spent pacing ship bridges had steeled him to the activity, and in fact the movement put him in a frame of mind to think best, to analyze.

  He found himself reliving the death of Hrodax in the Prime’s office again and again. The senselessness of it. The glory of the Empire seemed to be crumbling in front of the old officer. The glory of the Conquest.

  Or was it? Talxen and his father’s clan were nothing if not warlike. There was no doubt that their leadership of the Empire would portend a renewal of the war against the humans. A war that had dragged on longer than any other in Xylan’s memory. The tenacious aliens were resourceful and determined; witness their fervor to reclaim the very planet he was currently interned on. The other species that the Prax had vanquished had eventually given up the fight and capitulated…or been extinguished.

  That was the difference under Krex’s Premiership. Krex was a hard Prax, but loyal and true to those he served the Conquest with and…to those he vanquished. Honor lived with Krex. Xylan reminded himself of all that he owed to Krex. All that his family owed to both Krex and his consort Sar’yana for their support of his career in the military.

  Xylan stopped by the cell door and regarded it. No, he would not join the clan of Terxan and its head the megalomaniac Talxen. My only Premier is Krex, he announced to himself as though to cement his loyalties.

  He resumed pacing.

  The ships—how many had survived the purge? What was their disposition now? Had the humans seen the disarray around Earth? So many questions.

  He counted off the Commanders in his mind, ticking each one and considering if they had been able to use the warning given in time to stop the mutiny. He came up with a best-case of eleven. His most loyal officer was Commander Loxanna of the dreadnought Dexellan; the two had served together for a generation and Loxanna was incredibly cunning. There had been times when Xylan himself had wondered about the Commander’s loyalty. But the Prax was true. Then there were a number of junior ship captains who either Xylan or Loxanna had groomed over the cycles. Some were more adept than others. It was anyone’s guess which had managed to forestall the predicted takeover attempts from their ranks aboard ship.

  Then there were the planetary defenses. Earth’s population had long ago been pacified. Had the prior Premier been in power, every last human subjugate would have been either executed or shipped to the mining planets and the planet razed. But Krex had notoriously chosen to spare the human homeworld from annihilation. Those on Prax speculated. Was it natural resources? A slave labor source? Certainly, many millions had already been shipped off to other systems destined for hard service in untold numbers of “project planets” claimed by the Empire. Those that remained had posed little threat. An ongoing program of pacification had blunted any budding attempts on behalf of aggressive humans to organize. The planet had been a training site for Xu recently—including the Prime’s own son, Xylan remembered—and human life was cheap.

  This planet, among all others in his memory, had proven the single largest stumbling block in the Conquest. He paused, nodding to the resilience of the humans and granting those who faced him across space their due of honor.

  His thoughts returned to the problem of Talxen and his loyal forces. He weighed his options and evaluated possible scenarios, but much was hard to ascertain since he’d been imprisoned very shortly after the revolt. He found himself wondering if Krex and Sar’yana yet lived.

  How long had he been in this cell? Other than the occasional use of the waste removal system mounted in the wall, all he’d done is pace. No food, but that mattered little. Xylan was accustomed to hardship; once he’d been trapped in a chunk of destroyed frigate, the only survivor, for long enough that by the time he was rescued he’d lost much of his weight. But he’d stayed alive be keeping his focus on persevering and he would do so again, unless the traitors—the true traitors to the Empire—came to execute him. And if so, then he would face them with honor.

  Chapter 37

  Perses System - Telos Station

  Telos stood. “Follow me.”

  Halloran looked over to where Reyes was watching them like a hawk. The Chief knew something was being said of importance to his Captain. “Are we going far?”

  Telos followed the direction of his nod. “Not far.” The old man hesitated. “Captain, I hesitate to share this information with any of your subordinates before you have had your own time to ponder its significance.”

  Halloran caught Reyes’ gaze and tapped his chest, indicating Telos and holding up five fingers twice. He almost chuckled at the suddenly narrowed look the Cuban shot Telos. With a shake of his head he stepped over to where the door was being held for him. “A good COB is hard to find.”

  “He is a senior non-commissioned officer, yes?” Telos let Halloran past him.

  “He is the senior non-commissioned officer, yes.”

  Telos led the way in the passage. “In my time in the Fleet, we relied upon such men in battle.”

  “Then not much has changed.” Halloran no
ticed the Prax guards standing at the lift nearby, watching them with narrowed eyes. “Are you under some sort of house arrest here?”

  Telos paused at another entrance, looking at Halloran with furrowed brow. “‘House Arrest?’ I have not that expression, I think. But if the English terminology connotes what I believe it to, then it would be an accurate assessment.”

  Halloran smiled tightly. “So, that’s a yes.”

  Telos frowned as he held open the door. “I believe that I said that. Am I conveying my English correctly? I have so little practice.”

  Halloran shook his head as he followed the stooped man into the room.

  In marked contrast to the spaciousness of the lounge across the way, this compartment was low-overhead and packed with equipment and storage containers. Telos threaded his way between two large crates and motioned for Halloran to follow. It was clear that he knew the layout of the maze well as he led them down a series of twists and turns through piles of metal boxes and racks holding bins made from some sort of yellow plastic. Eventually they came out into what appeared to be a central station where a series of work monitors and chairs were arrayed in a circle.

  “My hovel, Captain. My inner sanctum. Did I convey that correctly?”

  Halloran put his hands on hips and surveyed the messy area. “I get what you’re saying, Telos.” He saw the cot against the bulkhead. “So you sleep here, too.”

  Telos sat at a workstation. “Since they came, yes. Frankly, I was surprised that they let us live.”

  “Us?”

  Telos glanced up. “Yes, I have several assistants here as well. They are being held in chambers beyond yours. I see them daily and there appears to be no overt action taken toward any of us…yet.”

  Halloran came over. “Why are you not with them?”

  “The work, Captain. The work. Here, sit.” The old man held out a chair next to him.

  “What work?” Halloran asked as he dropped down.

  “Backing up the archive, of course.”

  “What?”

  Telos stopped to look at him. “I must attempt to save as much of the digital information as I can, in the event that the Prax elect to destroy us.” He had taken on the officious air of a lecturer, causing Halloran to wince.

  “Tell me what you meant, Telos.”

  “About the war.”

  “Yes.”

  Telos pulled up a screen and pointed to it. Halloran leaned in.

  The news stories flashed before them on the monitor. It was a parade of headlines. The word WAR and DESTROYED figured prominently among the titles.

  “Wait, stop there,” Halloran commanded. Telos stopped and scrolled the display back.

  It was a New York Times article. The headline screamed RUSSIA, CHINA READY FOR RETALIATION. The photo beneath the headline was what had caught the Captain’s eye, though. It was that photo—the one of him looking down at the photographer from the sail of the Bonhomme Richard. The subtitle read, “Nations unable to reach accord in the disappearance of Navy sub. Accusations escalate.”

  Telos tapped the photo. “You.”

  Halloran nodded.

  “Amazing. That here you sit.”

  He exhaled through pursed lips. “I wouldn’t use that word.”

  The archivist tapped the photo again. “The records we have of that period are like this; tension between the old Earth nations. Then the exchange of fire and destruction of military installations. But, within a year—if I remember my dating—one of the nations launched a strike with their nuclear weapons. The dangers of escalation.”

  “Which one?”

  Telos shook his head. “Unknown. The records end abruptly. To the best of my knowledge, the major nations simply ceased to exist in a very short period of time.”

  Halloran sat back, the enormity of it all washing over him like a freezing river.

  Telos said, “I’m sorry, Captain. You can see why I didn’t want to discuss this in front of your crew.”

  Halloran found himself staring at the old man. “And if we go back…can we stop…” He waved at the frozen monitor of headlines. “…This?”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know the answer to that. I’m not even clear on how you came to be in this time.”

  Thoughts came unbidden to Halloran’s mind. The Prax stole my ship from the past and by doing so caused the destruction of much of humanity hundreds of years ago. This same humanity then rebuilt itself and reached into space, thereby encountering the Prax and sparking a war that brought the aliens to Earth. But what if I and my crew hadn’t left? Would humanity have discovered space and traveled beyond the solar system?

  Telos was handing him a glass. Halloran hadn’t noticed him leave.

  “Sorry. You fell into a reverie—is that that correct word in English? I took the liberty of assuring your people that you were safe. Kendra is very insistent, isn’t she?”

  Halloran took the drink and downed it, wincing and nodding. “Yes, she is.”

  “Much like her father.”

  “You know him? Kendall, right?”

  Telos sat in his chair. “Kendall and I were young recruits together. I was a year older than him—twenty, and him nineteen—when the Prax first attacked and the Fleet organized. It all happened very fast, mind you. Before that, no one worried about war. We’d had hundreds of years of peaceful expansion.”

  “There’s that word again.”

  “Expansion? Yes, we called it that, when I was a boy. After the war began, nothing was the same. Kendall and I, we were together at Eridani.” A faraway look came over his face. “Only a few of us got out of that alive.”

  “Ground forces?”

  “Yes. The Prax overwhelmed us with their superior numbers. That was before our space fleet had built itself up to reasonable strength to hold their own against those things.”

  Those things. Halloran understood. “You didn’t know.”

  “Know what?” Telos cocked his head.

  Halloran thought of the mother embracing Axxa. “That the Prax had families, too. Sons.”

  Telos snorted.

  “I’m just saying—.”

  Telos held up a hand. “Son, don’t. I might be an old, broken-down soldier but don’t talk to me about them like they were people too!” The fire in the man’s eyes flared.

  Halloran sat back and sighed, regarding his empty glass. After a moment he sat it on the monitor station and crossed his arms. “It’s all so unreal.”

  “It’s very real.” Telos tapped a key and the screen with all the horror stories from the twenty-first century went dark.

  Halloran pointed at it. “I’m going to want to study this. I have several crew members who will want to dig, too. We may find out about our families.”

  “There’s no going back.”

  The flat finality of what Telos said slapped Halloran, and he blinked. “Why do you say that? We don’t know—.”

  “You’re here now. Even if the Prax possess the tech to send you back, they won’t. It’s not their way.” Telos stood up, his small frame looking even frailer than it had when they’d first met. An hour ago?

  Halloran leaned forward, elbows on knees as he thought about that. Finally he looked up. “You may be right. I don’t know.” He got up, stretching. “But I do know that we’ve got the Prax Premier on this station and need to do something about it.”

  “What!” Telos was as shocked as a man could be. He staggered a bit, reaching for the top of the monitor to steady himself. He looked like he was having an attack. “What are you saying, Halloran?”

  Halloran turned away. “Time to request an audience and work some things out.”

  Telos followed. “You can’t be serious. The Prax Premier? On my station?”

  Halloran paused by the nearest bank of equipment, turning back. “Want to meet the ruler of the hated enemy, and his wife and kid? Let’s do it.”

  Chapter 38

  Aboard the Valor - Entering Perses System

  Heres paced
the bridge as Renno checked the scans. “He’s there, sir.”

  The Captain pounded a fist. “Excellent!”

  “But…”

  “What?” They had jumped out the moment that the Fleet command in the Tavar sector had given them clearance. Heres had used the delay to effect as many repairs to the Valor as possible; there was no telling what tricks Halloran had up his sleeve. The crew had located the Telos Archive and Heres had immediately pieced it all together. Now, as they approached the planet Gavin and the station came into range, it was taking everything Heres had to stop short of an all-out assault on the smaller mystery craft.

  “Two decent-sized Prax cruisers, sir. All assembled around the archive.”

  “I knew it. They’re rendezvousing.”

  Renno ran another scan. “Their weapons systems are significant but we have comparable firepower.” She looked up. “If we drive straight in with a strong decel we could hold the initiative.”

  Heres pondered. “It’s three on one. Is the station armed? Missiles?”

  “System doesn’t say, sir. That place is ancient.”

  “Let’s approach cautiously, Renno. Place us on alert status.”

  The alarm sounded through the ship as Heres paced to the weapons station. “If they try any communications drones, target them and shoot them. Clear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Heres lapsed into his hastily rebuilt seat and fidgeted, eyes on the overhead grating. He, like everyone else, had to now wait until they drew close enough to engage.

  Heres was hoping to split the enemy, that Halloran would run and give him an opportunity. An extra ship would have come in handy, but Heres knew he’d been lucky to be even himself detached by the Tavarran command.

  So he fidgeted.

  Finally Renno turned in her seat. “Approaching fire position on the station, sir.”

  Heres sat up. “Range?”

  “Ninety Thousand.”

  “Why haven’t they moved?” Heres had been expecting some repositioning of the enemy units.

  “No signs of engine activity, sir. They’re cold.”

  Heres stood up. “All right, then. Target the closest Prax cruiser first, then move the next plasma salvo to our mystery ship. Then—.”