“Archer, Fisher,” Williams indicated to the two men closest the entrance to enter first. One after the other they ran in, shining their torches around the immediate area. They determined that the corridor was empty, but even so they stalked forward cautiously, still met by neither opposition nor crew members.
“Clear,” Fisher declared. The rest of the team entered the thin corridor. Another member removed a device from his belt and scanned the area.
“Minimal power on this deck; gravity and life support are functioning as usual. There does appear to be more power in the direction of the upper decks, though,” he reported.
Williams nodded. “Pair up and spread out. Get in touch as soon you encounter survivors or hostile forces.”
The group paired off as ordered and proceeded to explore the darkened lower deck of the ship, carefully checking possible hiding places in various rooms and ensuring they illuminated all unreachable areas well. With the exception of a hacked airlock door - which they assumed the invaders must have used to get inside - they once again came up empty-handed. The team soon regrouped by the lift to the upper deck and found the doors burnt and pock-marked by multiple weapon blasts.
“Lift is operational, sir,” reported Kate and, at the request of Williams, pressed the call button. The lift arrived and the doors parted, greeting the team with the slumped body of a dead man. Blood was splattered over his clothes and interior of the lift. The multiple lights of the investigators fell upon a shotgun the man still grasped.
“This is Williams: we've found a body. Judging by the way this guy is dressed, it isn't one of the crew,” Williams reported to the Merekat. “If the state of the lift is anything to go by, there has been one hell of a firefight in here.”
“What're we looking at?” the captain asked.
“Definitely a raiding party,” Williams said, edging forward and examining the dead man's body. He pushed aside the beaded dreadlocks that covered part of the raider's face, revealing a tattoo of a spider's web on his left cheek. “Cheap body armour. Didn't do him any good,” Williams muttered, then, “We're proceeding to the upper deck.”
The upper deck of the ship told a different story to the lower. Bodies, trails of blood and other clear signs of battle were in evidence throughout. Shorting electronics lit the dark corridors with bright bursts of spark light.
“Be careful of those,” Williams pointed out some wires that hung inconspicuously from the ceiling.
Williams divided the team, instructing one half to accompany him towards the bridge, and the other to spread out along the upper deck and continue to search for any survivors. They moved with care, ensuring they ducked under the loose wires. The team encountered yet more bodies as they went, none of whom displayed any signs of life. A scattering of clothing styles suggested that the crew and their attackers had taken an equal number of casualties.
The team discovered most of the bodies on the bridge, some appearing to have died as a result of close quarters combat; the unfortunate crew of the Cardinal marred by stab wounds all over their bodies, some having had their throats cut. It was a horrific scene.
“Looks like the crew tried to barricade themselves inside the bridge,” Williams reported once more to Merekat.
“Any sign of what they could have been looking for?” came the reply in his earpiece.
“Nothing yet, but I'm guessing they may have been scavengers. Looks like the Cardinal was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Williams and his team pressed on into the bridge in an attempt to gather more information. Following a short inspection of the bridge area, Kate began examining the ship's logs.
“Some data has been downloaded from the computers,” she said, running through them. As she spoke a screen next to her sprang into life and began churning out information.
* * *
Estelle's eyes flashed down to her radar.
“Estelle!” Dodds started.
“I see it!” Estelle said.
From beneath the Cardinal a small craft emerged. Being so close to the ship it had escaped notice by both the radar systems and the Knights' own eyes. But with the activation of shielding, computer system and engines, the vessel announced its presence to all in the vicinity as it accelerated away from the Cardinal, keeping in line with the ship's original heading.
Estelle cursed herself for not performing a proper sweep of the Cardinal.
“I'm going after it,” Dodds said.
“Stay put, Dodds,” Estelle answered.
“I can catch it,” Dodds insisted, manoeuvring his TAF toward the escaping craft and preparing to give chase.
“Lieutenant, you will hold your position. That's an order!” Estelle barked. With her own orders and duties clear in her head she was not prepared to allow Dodds to play the hero. Dodds had met with disaster the last time he had done so and Estelle was not about to let him go through all that again; for his sake as well as her own.
Dodds backed down, though not without further grumbling.
Estelle contacted Merekat. “Merekat, this is de Winter. Unidentified craft has been spotted departing Cardinal. Please advise.” After destroying the Dart earlier, she was not prepared to allow another error of judgement lead to an action that she would later come to regret.
As she awaited the answer from Merekat, the space ahead of the escaping craft began to distort and twist. The distortion quickly began to subside, leaving behind a steady rotating swirl. The craft sped into the swirling mass, disappearing from sight, whereupon the portal vanished and the surrounding space returned to normal.
Estelle blinked in disbelief. “What the hell just happened?”
“I don't know,” Dodds said, taken aback. “Did that ship just open a jump point?”
“No, that's impossible,” Kelly said. “It's far too small to be equipped with jump engines.”
Estelle looked from her radar to the Cardinal and back again, trying to make sense of what she had just seen.
* * *
“Cardinal just opened a timed jump point,” Kate informed Williams. The man walked over to investigate the screens the woman was looking at. He relayed the information to Merekat's captain.
“Try and determine what the destination was,” the captain answered. “And be careful; an unidentified craft just departed the Cardinal and escaped via that jump point. If it was hostile then there may still be others on the ship. Be on your guard and take extra precautions.”
* * *
In another part of the Cardinal's upper deck, Archer had found a number of men and women lying on the floor of a room up ahead, all bound and gagged. They all appeared to be unconscious; or perhaps dead.
“This is Archer, I may have found survivors,” he radioed. “Looks like someone's tied them all up. I'm going to check the bodies and then help anyone still alive off the ship.”
He started forward. The people opened their eyes as they became aware of his approach and started shaking their heads and screaming at him through their gags. It did not occur to him what they were trying to tell him until he stepped through the doorway.
Too late he saw the thin red beams of the lasers break as his hand passed through them.
“Aw, hell...” Archer began.
The explosives went off, the blasts ripping their way through the ship. A wall of fire squeezed itself down the corridors, engulfing everything in its path.
* * *
Chaz and Enrique were amongst the first to hear the sound, but it was not until fire burst forth from the bridge, forcing glass, ship parts and bodies ahead of it, that they realised what they had heard and became aware of the crisis.
“Get to a safe distance! Move! Move! Move!” Estelle shouted to her wingmates. The Knights swung their fighters around and pulled away from the Cardinal as quickly as they could, retreating back away from the ship they had been called in to help.
Merekat was not so lucky. The Cardinal's midsection exploded, damaging the search and rescue vessel that
was still attached to it. Before long the explosion that Archer had triggered found its way to the Cardinal's reactor and the two ships were torn apart by the tremendous force of the blast.
The Knights sat motionless for a moment, watching a section of one of the ships tumbling before them. Not long after Estelle was contacted by the second rescue ship, which identified itself as CSN Buffalo.
Together the five craft set about searching for signs of any possible survivors amongst the carnage, no matter how futile it seemed. None were found. As had been feared, no-one aboard Merekat had been able to get to the escape pods in time, or had a chance to protect themselves against the cold vacuum of space. The search for survivors changed to a search for bodies and, after picking up all that they could find, Buffalo called an end to the sweep. Finally, after recovering the black boxes from the Cardinal and Merekat, Buffalo signalled to the Knights it was ready to leave.
“There's nothing more for us to do here,” Estelle informed her team. “We'll escort Buffalo back to Spirit.”
* * *
“This is an utter disaster!” Turner grated, holding his head in his hands as he read the reports detailing the fates of the Cardinal and Merekat. Though they had yet to be fully sorted and collated, it had not proven difficult to piece together a picture of exactly what had happened earlier that evening.
Parks had returned to Xalan upon hearing the news. He now stood before Turner, waiting as the admiral went over each of the reports, knowing that they did not make for pleasant reading.
“What the hell was Cardinal doing there without some sort of escort?” Turner growled.
“According to Spirit Orbital they had reported a suspected case of Shizaru's Fever aboard and had performed an emergency jump into Temper.”
Turner stared at him incredulously. “Shizaru's Fever? The disease that induces deaf-blindness?”
“Yes, sir,” Parks said, though he found himself sharing Turner's scepticism.
“There's not been a confirmed or even reported case of that for over one hundred years. They should have followed proper procedure instead of trying to handle it themselves,” Turner grumbled. “Just our damned luck that raiders would choose a research ship to hit. This is precisely why we need to step up patrols in all sectors. This event could have been easily avoided if we'd simply had more manpower.”
Parks nodded, even though he knew that it wasn't a real solution; Turner was clutching at straws. The bigger issue was what had been taken from Cardinal. The moment word had reached him that the ship had been attacked and destroyed, Parks prayed that was all that had happened. As the reports from the various witnesses had come in, he had heard that a craft had fled the scene moments before the ship's destruction. But not before a dump had been taken from the computer systems, copied onto a data card and then, presumably, taken on board the fleeing vessel.
Parks mused. As a mobile research facility Cardinal had held much of the Confederation's project work, acting as an extreme kind of disaster recovery service. It therefore held a lot of important data; though none as important as those pertaining to the ATAF project, as both he and Turner knew full well. It was all there: every schema, blueprint, theory, problem, solution, purpose; the list went on.
The Cardinal's black box had proven to be a treasure trove of information, detailing all the events leading up to the ship's untimely destruction. As well as letting the CSN know the nature of the data that had been downloaded onto the data card, it had also revealed the destination of the jump point the thief had used to escape. And Parks had almost despaired when he had discovered it led into Imperial space. Of all the places the thief could have chosen to go.
Upon hearing the news Turner had conversed with the Confederate Administration, who had been quick to assign a number of agents to the task of recovering the assumed stolen data. The investigation was then placed at the top of the Navy's priority list and Turner had summoned Parks to Xalan.
“That fool of a raider thinks he is going to earn himself a tidy little sum by selling on military secrets,” Turner growled.
“The data is heavily encrypted, sir,” Parks offered.
“That's beside the point, Commodore!” Turner snapped back at him. “With the resources available to them the Enemy could crack it within a matter of months.”
Turner rose from his chair, taking one of the reports with him. Parks glanced over at the cabinet by the wall. The admiral was out of White Label whiskey. Turner started to pace, mumbling aloud the summarised timeline of events, as detailed by Spirit Orbital station,
1710 hours – CSN Cardinal has made an emergency jump into the Temper system and reported a suspected case of Shizaru's Fever.
1749 hours – Received distress call from CSN Cardinal. Vessel under attack by raiders.
1751 hours – Contacted nearest patrol group, White Knights, and requested they assist Cardinal.
1753 hours – Dispatched Merekat and Buffalo for search and rescue operation.
1811 hours – CSN Cardinal reports that attacking vessels have been completely destroyed but raiding party has boarded.
“First Dragon and now this,” Turner stopped reading the log of the events and tossed the report back onto the desk to join the rest. He stood staring out the window, contemplating.
“They'd still need to build the ATAFs,” said Parks, once again attempting to reassure the admiral. “That would take them several months, even after they'd deciphered the data. And as far as we have been able to determine the Enemy don't retain any knowledge of starfighter construction.”
“No, they could do it much quicker than that,” Turner said as he picked up another report and began going over it. “Unlike us the Enemy do not require sign-offs, approvals, security, money... They don't have to justify an enormous military budget; they don't have to gloss over expenditure or attempt to keep the project under wraps; they don't have to sit in a boardroom full of suits trying to explain, in basic terms, the long-term implications of non-action. It doesn't matter that they might not understand starfighter engineering; with the information about the ATAFs in their hands they'll certainly make the effort to learn. And damn quickly at that, too.”
“If...”
“You've seen first hand what that fighter is capable of,” Turner went on, ignoring the commodore. “Imagine facing several dozen of those in combat. Combine that with the Enemy's abilities and we might as well arm everyone with low-grade particle cannons for all the good it would do. Then there's all the other information they will have become privy to. We would have to step up the final phase of the project without any guarantees.”
Turner picked up another report, reading it to himself for a time before glancing up at Parks and quoting a passage out loud. “Upon resuming our patrol we were contacted by Spirit Orbital who requested that we assist CSN Cardinal, which had come under attack. We arrived to find signs of recent combat and the Cardinal damaged. I ordered that the area be made secure until the search and rescue teams could arrive.
“I see the White Knights were at the scene.”
“Yes, sir. They were patrolling the area when they received the request to aid Cardinal.”
“And they were unable to take down a single escaping craft?” Turner demanded to know.
“Those details are sketchy, sir. The wing leader believed she was acting within a support capacity and did not act because she was not ordered to.”
“de Winter was leading the wing?”
“Yes, sir.”
“She should have had that ship blown to pieces the moment it was clear of Cardinal,” Turner growled, flipping backwards through the pages. He had received the reports less than an hour before Parks' arrival and there was much in them that he had skipped over, turning straight to the most important parts. “Apparently they also encountered some unknown hostilities on their patrol... What the hell's this?!”
“Sir?”
“This part of about some transmission!”
“The Knights recei
ved an unusual message that they thought was report-worthy,” Parks explained, recalling reading it himself on the journey over.
Turner read back to get the full details of the transmission. Displeasure etched deeper into his face as he read on. Parks knew without having to be told what the admiral was thinking: this shouldn't be here. It all had to go. The pilot's words would lead to questions; questions which would then lead to truths; and truths that would lead to panic on quite literally a galactic scale. And then the Enemy would win.
“Remove it,” Turner said, dropping the report back onto his desk. “As far as anyone is concerned those men were Imperial asylum seekers fleeing their system's civil war. They stole three ships and ran the check points in the Alba system before jumping to Temper. Their ships were destroyed after they failed to identify themselves upon request to a Naval patrol unit, which they had also attacked.”
“Yes, sir. I'll have that updated for the final report,” Parks assured him.
“Ensure it is, as well as the traffic and activity record at Alba.”
Parks nodded.
“And have someone take the Knights aside and ensure they do not repeat what they heard. I don't care who you get to do it: yourself, Meyers, Hawke, or whoever. Just make sure the message is clear. We need all our bases covered on this one.”
Parks nodded again. “I'll have it done as soon as we've wrapped this up, admiral.”
“Good. I have to leave soon to meet with those clowns in Office and I don't wish to spend any more time with damage control,” Turner growled once again, as if blaming Parks for the presence of the offending sentences. “Now, before all of this crap started, I believe you said that you had some news for me?”
“I do,” Parks said with a wry smile.
Turner scowled at the commodore's sudden bright face. “I hope it's good news, Commodore.”
The Honour of the Knights (First Edition) (The Battle for the Solar System) Page 12
