“Srexx,” Cole said, “I think the courier vessel has served its purpose. Can you pilot it?”
“Of course, Cole.”
Cole nodded. “If you would please, send it home.”
“And what of the individuals working to access the ship?”
“Do what you need to do to make sure they’re aware it’s taking off,” Cole advised, “and give them ample time to reach a safe distance. As long as you do that, anyone who hasn’t reached a safe distance is not our problem.”
“Yes, Cole.”
“Missile launch!” the spacer at the tactical station announced. “We have multiple surface-to-air launches!”
“Let the missiles reach a safe altitude, and then have the closest ship use their point defense to destroy them. Do you have a location on the launchers?”
“Orders sent via TacNet,” the spacer replied, “and yes, sir. We have a very accurate location on the launchers.”
“What is our risk for collateral damage?” Cole asked.
“None, sir. Those launchers are on the side of a hill out in the boonies. The closest residence is over a hundred miles away.”
Cole nodded. “Very well, detail the nearest ship with bombardment platforms to eliminate the launch site.”
A few minutes later, the spacer announced, “The launch site is now a crater, sir.”
“Comms,” Cole said, “patch me through to the Vance residence, please.”
Mere seconds later, the comms tech replied, “Sir, there seems to be some tightly targeted jamming at that location. I can punch through it, but there’s a good chance they’d hear the call in Zurich.”
Cole didn’t want to alert the people watching the Vances and Jed Hanson to what was happening, even though it was unlikely they didn’t know Cole had come for his people.
“Hold on that, then,” Cole said. “If you would please, contact Pre-Flight and ask the CAG and colonel to divert one squadron and assault shuttle to secure the Vance residence and offer our hospitality.”
“Aye, sir.”
The minutes passed in silence, and the more minutes that passed, the more Cole itched to be piloting one of the assault shuttles. He knew his place was on the bridge. He understood that. But it galled him that he wasn’t out there with his people, leading from the front.
“Sir,” the spacer at Flight Ops spoke at long last, “Assault Shuttle One reports landing at the detention facility; the squadron has shifted to area patrol.”
“The marines have entered the facility, sir,” the PFC at Marine Ops reported. “They report light resistance.”
“Sir, Assault Shuttle Two has landed at the Vance residence,” the spacer at Flight Ops announced.
The minutes continued to pass.
After what seemed like an eternity to Cole, the spacer at Flight Ops said, “Assault Shuttle One reports all parties back aboard, and they are lifting off. Mr. Vance, Colonel Hanson, and Mr. Stone appear to be unharmed. And now, Assault Shuttle Two reports lift-off with three passengers.”
“The marines report no casualties among our people, sir,” the PFC at Marine Ops reported, “but they also report leaving several facility guards and SDF personnel unconscious under heavy stun.”
“Okay,” Cole said, forcing himself not to show any of the relief he felt. “As soon as they clear the atmosphere, stand down from battle-stations.”
Soon, the retrieval teams cleared the planet’s atmosphere, and shortly after that, everyone was aboard. However, that only solved one of Cole’s problems. As soon as Paol and Mira arrived, he’d break the news about Nathyn.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Battle-Carrier Haven
Orbiting Tristan’s World
Tristan’s Gate
19 September 3003, 08:35 GST
Cole stood outside the hatch to the bridge briefing room. He was not looking forward to what was going to happen when he walked inside.
Paol and Mira Thyrray had arrived late last night, and Cole had arranged quarters for them to sleep off the urgent travel. Mira’s parents, Carl and Lindsey Vance, spent the night in the flag officer’s quarters, resting up from their period of home confinement. Jed Hanson spent the night in the captain’s quarters and had already begged Cole on three separate occasions for a tour.
Forty minutes ago, Cole had asked Sasha to gather her sister, her parents, and her grandparents in the bridge briefing room for a meeting at zero-eight-thirty.
Put your big boy pants on and get in there, Cole thought to himself. Heaving one last sigh, Cole stepped close enough for the hatch sensor to detect him, and it irised open. He entered the briefing room to the sounds of an impromptu family reunion, but the conversations faded as everyone turned to look his way.
Cole nodded and walked to his seat at the head of the table.
“Apologies for being late,” Cole said as he eased into his chair. “So…I have some information I feel duty-bound to provide you, and once you’ve processed it, you can decide how we should best proceed.”
“You make it sound like someone’s dying,” Paol remarked. “What’s going on?”
“Srexx,” Cole said, “would you please present the data you reported to me that led to this meeting?”
“Of course, Cole,” Srexx replied via the overhead speakers. “The short summary of the data is that Nathyn Thyrray is conspiring with Coalition agents to secure Tristan’s Gate for the Coalition through a non-violent coup masquerading as a normal election cycle.”
Everyone at the table gaped and turned to Cole. Cole held up his hand to stave off any interruptions.
“If you will direct your attention to the hologram, I am currently displaying communications in which Nathyn negotiated with the Coalition agents via an encrypted message application. Once you’ve read those, please inform me, and we’ll proceed to the next piece of evidence.”
Cole noticed Paol and Mira looked rather pale, as did Sasha, Talia, and Lindsey Vance. Carl, on the other hand, just looked angry.
The presentation progressed until Srexx displayed the communications Nathyn had between the people from whom he obtained support for his candidates. A string of messages caught Carl’s eyes, and his nostrils flared as his hands clenched the table in a white-knuckle grip.
“He used my name? My own grandson implicated me in this treason?”
“Dad,” Mira interjected, “please, don’t call it treason.”
“Why not?” Carl shot back. “That’s what this is.”
“Treason’s a capital crime, Dad,” Mira replied. “Do you want your grandson executed?”
Carl slowly turned to face his daughter. “Mira, I understand; he’s your son and you love him, but he has betrayed everything the Vances and Hansons and all the other families of Tristan’s Gate have worked for across centuries. I have half a mind to kill him myself; I am certainly disowning him. Be angry at me if you want, but I refuse to countenance these actions. He used our family name, Mira. Look at those messages! Half the people who supported or endorsed these candidates only did so because Nathyn implied that I supported them, too.”
“Maybe he was manipulated,” Mira countered, her voice soft, almost a whimper.
“Forgive me,” Srexx said, “but the data does not support that conclusion. Nathyn initiated contact with the Coalition agents. He apparently recognized them from the time your family was in the Commonwealth.”
Mira broke out in tears, and she leaned against Paol, putting an arm around him as she placed her head on his left shoulder.
“Cole, I’m sorry,” Paol said, “but I think we’re going to need some time.”
Cole nodded. “Srexx, put up all the data you have, and then, let’s give them some privacy.”
“Yes, Cole.”
Cole stepped outside the briefing room and headed for his office when a thought occurred to him.
“Srexx,” Cole began, “what happened to the SDF ships?”
“They are still thirty light-minutes away on minimal power,” Srexx replied. “They have y
et to defeat the encryption I placed on the engineering controls. I ensured life support is fully powered along with the Attitude Control System, which permits them to maintain position. They have signaled for tugs several times, but the tug operators seem reticent to risk our wrath…at least according to the replies they sent the SDF.”
Cole chuckled. “I’ll bet they’re a bit peeved.”
“Data suggests such a statement is what you would term an understatement. General Trumball has been placed on medical stand-down for stress-related heart complications; current records indicate she is sedated in the infirmary aboard the SDF flagship.”
“Ouch,” Cole vocalized, grimacing. “I never liked her, but I don’t wish her ill.”
“I understand, Cole, but the likelihood of no hostilities if we permit them to bring their reactors back online is vanishingly remote.”
Cole sighed. “I know, buddy. I know. I just wish things could’ve turned out differently, that’s all.”
Hours later, Cole was working through some reports on the battlegroup when the hatch irised open. Cole looked up and smiled upon seeing Sasha.
“How’s everyone holding up?” Cole asked.
Sasha walked across the compartment and almost flopped into one of the two guest chairs. She shook her head, saying, “Not well. Grandma eventually stopped crying, and she and Dad are holding Mom. Mom…she’s not handling this well at all.”
“How about you and your sister?”
Sasha shrugged. “Tallie’s a little shell-shocked; she always looked up to Nathyn. I haven’t really spoken with him since the blow-up before we went to Centauri, so I was kind of out of touch. Yeah…I wish he hadn’t done this, but what’s done is done. All that’s left now is to clean it up. Dad and Grandpa are asking for you. Given what you survived in Centauri, they’d like your thoughts on the best response.”
Cole nodded as he stood. “All right then. Let’s go talk this out.”
Cole led Sasha back to the briefing room, where everyone discussed multiple options. Mira never got past trying to get Nathyn out of the situation, but Carl refused to protect him from the storm that was coming. In the end, they settled on a plan, and Carl asked Cole to prepare everything.
Theater Four
Recreation Deck, Battle-Carrier Haven
Tristan’s Gate
19 September 3003, 19:00 GST
Theater Four was the venue that possessed an actual stage for plays, musical performances, and the like. The stage was currently configured for a speech, with a podium placed front and center, and a line of chairs stretched out across the stage a few feet behind the podium. The venue could seat almost two thousand people, but there wasn’t even a tenth of that number present. Everyone in the audience was a journalist, with every network in Tristan’s Gate and quite a few interstellar networks represented.
At nineteen-fifteen hours, Carl Vance and Cole led Lindsey, Paol, Mira, Sasha, and Talia out onto the stage. Carl and Cole walked to the podium; everyone else took a seat.
Cole approached the podium first, Carl standing at his side.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Cole began, “I’d like to thank you for taking the time to shuttle up to Haven this evening. Mr. Vance has a statement he’d like to deliver uninterrupted, so please hold your questions until he’s finished. At the end of the conference, my people will provide data crystals with all the information discussed here today. Mr. Vance?”
Cole stepped aside for Carl and took the empty seat beside Sasha.
“I’d like to thank Cole—that is, Mr. Coleson—for his hospitality these past couple of days and his continued friendship with my family. What I am about to discuss would not have been discovered as soon as it was, were it not for his people,” Carl said, starting his prepared remarks. “Ladies and gentlemen, I am here today to inform the public that a fraud has been committed against the people of Tristan’s Gate, and I regret to say that my family’s reputation was crucial to the fraud’s success. I have in my possession irrefutable evidence that my grandson Nathyn Thyrray conspired with Coalition agents to elect a group of people whose sole purpose in office is to ensure a peaceful, quiet transfer of power from our established government to the Coalition.
“I deeply regret my grandson’s conduct, and I wish to make it known now that I neither had knowledge of nor gave support to his actions in this matter. I apologize that I did not learn of it in time to prevent the use of my family’s name and reputation, and I stand ready to offer my support to any reasonable initiative intended to rectify the situation. Now, ask your questions, please.”
Carl’s statement took at most two minutes to deliver. The assembled journalists asked questions for over five hours.
By noon the next day, the evidence of Nathyn’s actions and intentions had spread throughout the system. The citizens of Tristan’s Gate demanded a new set of elections after a public vote of No Confidence reported ninety-two-point-seven percent of voting adults in the system had no confidence in the present government. Fortunately, the public did not hold the Vances responsible for Nathyn’s actions; in fact, the Vance clan enjoyed an upswing in popular favor and support…both for Carl’s prompt disclosure of the situation and in sympathy over how Nathyn must’ve hurt his family.
Nathyn attempted to commandeer a runabout and flee the system, but at the request of the provisional system president, Cole dispatched a frigate to chase down the runabout and bring it—and Nathyn—back to The Gate. When the frigate delivered the runabout to its dock, system police were waiting at the airlock with a warrant for Nathyn’s arrest on a charge of treason. Nathyn’s Coalition agents had already been arrested on charges of espionage.
The provisional system president even went so far as to publicly rescind the orders for the seizure of Sev Vance and Harlon Hanson, offering a public apology for the actions of his predecessor and sending orders to the SDF to stand down from a hostile posture toward Haven and her battlegroup.
As soon as the SDF acknowledged those orders, Srexx decrypted the engineering systems of the ships so the SDF could bring their reactors back online. He also notified Cole in private of a message sent to the SDF flagship under seal: General Trumball had the choice of resignation or facing charges for her complicity in the whole affair.
With nothing left to accomplish in Tristan’s Gate, Cole order the battlegroup back to Beta Magellan.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Conference Room, Citadel Station
Beta Magellan
5 October 3003, 10:07 GST
Cole looked up from his tablet when the hatch irised open and smiled as Painter led the group into the conference room. He stood and walked over to her, extending his hand. Painter returned the handshake and gave him a mock glare for a moment.
“You could’ve warned a girl she was an ambassador,” Painter said.
“Why?” Sev asked from behind her.
“Yeah,” Harlon said. “He didn’t warn us…and we ended up spending time in a cell.”
Painter grimaced. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that, but if it makes you feel any better, you made the news in Zurich.”
“I’m pretty sure they made the news everywhere,” Paol said, stepping around the traffic jam at the hatch to find a seat. “It’s not often star system officials arrest and detain accredited diplomats.”
Cole shifted his attention back to Painter. “Welcome home. You did an excellent job in Zurich.”
“Thank you, sir,” Painter said as she moved to a seat at the conference table.
Returning to his seat, Cole watched the rest of his group enter the conference room and find seats. Sasha, Sev, Harlon, Sato, Paol, and Painter looked at him. Just then, the hatch irised open once more to admit Garrett and Mattias Stone. Cole looked to Garrett and quirked an eyebrow in a questioning expression.
Garrett nodded. “He passed.”
Cole smiled. “Mr. Stone—”
“Please, call me Mattias. Every time I hear ‘Mr. Stone,’ I start looking
for my father.”
“Mattias, then,” Cole resumed, “have you given any thought to your future prospects? Do you want to return to Tristan’s Gate?”
Stone sat beside Painter, and Garrett assumed his normal spot at the opposite end of the table from Cole.
“No, I really haven’t,” Stone replied. “I do know that I have no interest in returning to Tristan’s Gate, and my family is of the same mind. Don’t get me wrong; Tristan’s Gate wants me back. So far, they’ve sent a total of fifteen apologies outright begging me to come back…to my old job, even. But we’d been discussing a possible move to Beta Magellan for a while, and since we’re here, why leave? We just hope there’s something for us to do.”
Cole grinned. “Oh, I think you’ll find your talents well utilized. The system has slightly over a million-and-a-half people, and there are still about one-point-five jobs for every person. It’s a buyer’s market.”
“Oh, well then,” Stone said. “I guess it’s just a matter of finding something that suits me.”
“Did you like being Defense Minister in Tristan’s Gate?” Paol asked.
“I did,” Stone answered. “I felt like I was contributing.”
“Want the job?” Cole asked.
Stone blinked. “Excuse me?”
“I need a defense minister. Until you arrived, my two best candidates for the spot also happen to excel as fleet commanders. I’m not saying they couldn’t have done the job, just that they’re far better suited to line command. Fair warning, you’ll have to build the Ministry of Defense yourself; it’s a little bit of a ghost town right now.”
Stone broke out into a huge smile. “I’d love to be your defense minister.”
“You’re hired. Okay. There are more ‘minister’ titles in the works, but the guy who’s going to be my foreign minister still hasn’t finished Beta Magellan’s constitution yet,” Cole said, adding a sidelong look at Paol. “Sev, can you arrange for Mattias to have a tour of our system infrastructure? I’m thinking the shipyards, especially, and our system forts.”
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