Vindication

by Ken Wolfson

  "Go on," Adrian said. Amelie glared at the black smoke wafting off the cancer stick.

  Meironara pulled up a file on his comp and displayed. "I received a message from one of my contacts on Hervigetter. The drone only arrived as we were withdrawing from Farrigan, and so it wasn't lost with everything else in my headquarters," Meironara said. Hervigetter was the capitol of the Tyrant's Crescent. It was a nominal capitol; the world was an overgrown ruin of a pre-dark age planet-encompassing metropolis. The two-hundred million residents lived in the uppermost level of the ruins. The only reason they had importance was because their location made them a trade hub between wild space and the rest systems, and of all the trade hubs their royal family had sworn allegiance to the systems first. Adrian held out his wrist, computer screen glowing. Meironara bit his lip, then threw over a data file. Adrian read the text file.

  I received a memo from a contact within the bank of Vychos. Sashes held a meeting in Hervigetter's flagship branch yesterday. Big money transaction. A Ministry base in Gehenna is being sold to House Artreyas. The Disavowed Artreyas daughter was the signer in person, which means this doesn't involve the main branch of the family. Could be a power play. No idea what base or who else is involved.

  -HCL

  "Righteous's battlegroup spent two weeks of shore leave on Hervigetter. This must've been what they're doing," Adrian said. House Artreyas was based in Gehenna.

  "I don't know the full workings of House Artreyas' civil war, but I do know having a secret base is an advantage," Meironara said.

  "Tarly has joined forces with Emoche Hulle. He's giving her her family title back, after I denied her," Adrian said.

  "You've got a blood feud with a noble house? The Tarlys are kinda big," Mirra said incredulously.

  "She's got a feud. I've got more important problems," Adrian said. A grin spread across Mirra's face.

  "Shit. Either you're stupid, or gossip from the admiralty was all wrong."

  Adrian shrugged. "What do you think? I'm just going to carry on this war."

  The young Major's grin widened. "Yes, sir."

  Adrian grabbed a beer and took a drink. "I must thank both of you. Your carrier and intel have drastically altered my plans. We're setting course for IPY-2202, and repair for both our ships." Both officers nodded. "Roverra, I'll need every piece of intelligence you've got; we need every advantage we can get with these odds stacked against us."

  "Teamwork. A tasty proposition after being alone for so long," Meironara said. He offered a cigar. Adrian took it, and slipped it into his concealed carry pocket, beside the combat knife.

  "For when we defeat Emoche in battle," he said. "Dismissed; return to your ships."

  Mirra and Amelie stood first. Amelie had Mirra by the shoulder and was chatting with her as they slipped through the door together. She'd be doing her part to ease the COS' mistrust. Adrian remained fixated on Meironara.

  "I've got a request," Meironara said.

  "I know," Adrian said. "Everyone always wants something extra in the bargain.”

  "You’ve always placed survival first. I've seen your MoI file. I just want you to know what we’ve got on you."

  "And what's in it?" Adrian would play his game.

  "Are you sure you want to know?"

  "Drop the games and tell me what you're giddy to say."

  "Lord Mathias Venko saved your life."

  “Venko the Lesser wouldn’t get out of his chair to save his microwave dinner from overcooking. How do you know what goes on in Tollyon?"

  "The Ministry gathers intel everywhere, sometimes for security and sometimes for internal factions." Meironara shrugged at the implications.

  Adrian nodded for him to continue.

  "Venko the Mother had decided that Vindication group would be used in a spoiler attack to drive the Wendago from their traditional rendezvous. Given the services you'd provided for House Venko and subsequent humiliation, she considered you a loose end that needed tying up. And Mathias Venko protested. He sent her a long letter about how you were clearly stunted by your upbringing, but remained a loyal dog and an asset to be used in the future. So instead you were allowed to participate at Vykhor, with the idea being that either your old supercarrier died, or you helped redeem Venko's lost honor."

  "Anything else?" Adrian had no affection for Mathias. The decision to save his life and ship had been a business call. And 17,000 people could've paid for it.

  "Yes. At your court martial last year, Lady Tarly apparently wrote a piece saying you should be acquitted. It was supposed to be read exclusively by the jury, but everywhere there's light there's shadows." He winked at Adrian.

  "What did she say?"

  "She said that you acted with the force expected of your position, and justice was done. Though there was a theory among jurors in the know that she wanted you alive so she could exact revenge personally."

  That changed a few things. Adrian didn’t let that show. “Anything else?"

  "That's it, I'm afraid," Meironara said. He stood. "I hope I can help you. I really don't like this Emoche Hulle. Give me an address for my intel."

  "Comp number 7745017323," Adrian said. That was a secured computer, on its own network connected to an independent receiver. Comms department used it to receive sensitive or potentially dangerous data packages.

  "Yes, sir," Meironara muttered. He dispatched the message, and departed.

  "Follow him back to his shuttle, First-Sergeant," Adrian said. Alenkot saluted and slipped out. Adrian made a mental note to have all comms from Serpentia double-checked.

  #

  Chapter Eighteen: Survival

  Avrile 13

  14th Day of the War

  "Regression in sixty seconds," Grissom declared.

  The bridge crew, save Adrian, began the chant.

  "Lord Hallard, he the Founder, he who has guided us from IPX-8 to safety, praise him." The timer counted down.

  "Spool number one, spinning down. Spool number two, spinning..."

  Vindication rocked to her very foundations. A double-klaxon wailed through the bridge, driving terror before it.

  "Can you stabilize?" Adrian said.

  "Negative, total failure in spool number two. Spool number three can't handle to workload. She's overheating!" Grissom said.

  "The tunnel has destabilized. I give us seconds to collapse!" Amelie said. The chanting accelerated.

  "Get us out, now," Adrian said.

  "Copy, emergency egress under way, manipulating magnetic fields...venting negative energy!"

  External thermal readings skyrocketed into the thousands of degrees. Vindication turned into a quantum powered flamethrower for the briefest of seconds as she directed the output of her FTL spools out their heat vents and into the wall of the collapsing warp tunnel. Grissom manipulated the magnetic fields as his adjutants calculated away, guiding negative energy streams until he tore a hole straight through the walls back into space.

  "FTL spool three powering down now!" He yanked the last lever. Then he grabbed the heavy main bar and pulled it all the way back. "Egressing now."

  Adrian felt nothing. "Report?" he demanded.

  "We-we've successfully regressed, all sensors are green," Amelie said. She was even paler than normal, sweat glittering on her forehead..

  "Welcome to IPY-2202," Grissom gasped.

  "Who needs the Founder's protection when you've got an elite navigator. Good work," Adrian said, patting his shoulder. Then he looked to TACNET. "Where's Serpentia?"

  "There! Visual zoom in," Amelie said. The secondary display zoomed in on a region of space twenty-thousand kilometers away, just in time for the smaller CVF to slide from FTL. A blue cone of negative energy trailed off her bow. She was the most comforting sight Adrian had ever seen.

  "Good. Begin combat startup and establish comm link to our friend," Adrian said. He grabbed his phone and dialed engineering. "Bridge to engineering—report?"

  "Well, it took us one FTL jump for the spool
to give out," Ravin said.

  "I know, but we had to," Adrian said.

  "I know; I won't blame you for breaking the ship this time. Spool number two is done. The magnetic coils have been melted and fused with the structure. Three is showing similar damage." An alarm trilled in the background.

  "Casualties?"

  "None, for once."

  "Good. Can we re-enter FTL?" Adrian said.

  "No."

  Adrian looked to Grissom, who nodded.

  Ravin continued. "Theoretically, yes, but we'll get one entry and maybe two light years before number three melts down. And we can't egress with one spool."

  "Copy. Do what you can and let me know if the situation changes," Adrian said. "Bridge out."

  "I contacted Serpentia. They understand our situation but don't have any spares themselves," Zoey said. And Mirra might be plotting her exit, Adrian noted.

  He looked back to Grissom, in the vain hope that he'd have another solution.

  Grissom sighed. "We could get that one jump in, but there are five systems within ten light years and all are barren. Theoretically I could also fire up the drives and accelerate at eight-g until we reach relativistic speeds. According to imperial records, Lady V reached .98c during her shakedown trials five-sixty years ago. We'd reach Tollyon in 12 years, Farrigan in 24. We'd experience maybe five years. That's the best I got, unless this redoubt has enough parts to repair the drives."

  "Unacceptable," Adrian said. Alyssa would be twenty-six by the time he found her, if she survived. She's have gone through her teenage years, graduated high school without him, graduated college, found a job in the fashion industry, probably married and had kids. And after promising he'd never leave again, he'd have missed all that. That was not an option.

  "We'd better find something worth it in this redoubt," Grissom said what everyone was thinking.

  "Launch fighter patrol and sensor probes. No surprises this time,” Adrian said. "And comms, establish a secure link to Serpentia actual. Patch it to my personal headset."

  "Vindication, Serpentia, do you copy?" Mirra's voice crackled in his ear.

  "Vindication here, I copy. Status report?" he replied.

  "All good, sir. Our FTL spools are the one thing that have been spared damage." Lucky bastards, Adrian thought to himself.

  "Copy. Stand by and await orders."

  Recon painted the Tychos system across TACNET. Tychos herself was an orange main-sequence sun. She had three medium sized gas giants in orbit. None were slated for hydrogen harvesting. Though together they had near eighty moons, none of those were habitable or minerally rich. Another barren system on the road back to civilization.

  Perfect for a Ministry outpost, Adrian would admit. There were thousands of these systems within the borders of the United Systems. The chances of a ship stumbling in and performing a sensor sweep powerful enough to detect a shielded base, or stranded supercarrier, were next to none. There'd been a program implemented once to stock every system with a cache of flash drones and emergency supplies, but that had failed somewhere along the way from senate approval to execution.

  With Meironara providing the data, recon found the base within the hour. A great blue diamond appeared on TACNET around the innermost gas giant. It sat in geosynchronous orbit just above the raging blue cloud tops of the world's magnetic north pole. A great wind sail plunged into the center of the storm to provide stability and power generation.

  "Serpentia, verify the contact," Adrian said.

  "That's your prize girl," Meironara replied. "Xezbeth starship redoubt and intel repository. Mass of 22 million tons and a crew of 50. A treasure trove of everything two crippled carriers could ever want. And according to our sensors, there's no ships in orbit. The oathbreakers haven't reached her yet."

  "They'll be awfully disappointed when they do," Adrian said. Then to his own bridge: "Helm, take us into low orbit of that giant. Launch the combat patrol and maintain double sensor watches. I doubt the ministry or the Hullen will let us just walk in and take their property." There would be confrontation, he didn't doubt it. The Hullen had been everywhere so far; why not here?

  And as he'd learned in the fires of Wild Space long ago, the universe didn't just give nice things up to its occupants. There was always a catch.

  Adrian ate a full meal, slept a full night, shat, did paperwork, ate again, slept a full night again, and then shat again while Vindication closed the distance. 48 hours later, he set condition two shipwide and returned to the bridge.

  "Range to Xezbeh base is one million kilometers CBDR," Grissom announced.

  "Vindication, Serpentia, how much security do we have to deal with?"

  "You'll be facing twin capitol-grade sentry guns and 14 atlatl torpedo tubes. Unless you possess the clearance password. Which I do."

  "Pass them over," Adrian said.

  The shadow groaned deliberately loudly enough for Adrian to discern. "Yes, sir."

  "Visual," Adrian said. The telescoped bow cameras zoomed in on their prize.

  The design was clearly not of the Armada Munitorium. The trademark bulky hull and corrugated armor plates were absent. Instead, the station was a spindly five-armed skeleton. A solitary infrared torch perched at the tip of each armature. Adrian made out the missile tubes at the end of one arm, and the sentry batteries protruding like chopsticks from another. One of the remaining arms held the sail. The last two housed docking collars large enough to handle supercarriers.

  Something of that thin design would rely primarily on barriers for defenses. “Load up the fibos with EMP torps, keep them in the tubes,” he said.

  The codes arrived in a clean data packet. Adrian cleared them for use by his comms department.

  "We're being hailed by the station," Zoey announced. An alarm trilled.

  "And they've locked us up," Amelie said. "Our barriers are at full power. So are Serpentia's. Should we combat launch?" Adrian appreciated the aggression in her tactical planning. However, caution was their current game.

  "They won’t pick a fight with two capitol ships. Relax and they’ll do the same. Maintain current approach and transmit the codes," Adrian said.

  "Yes, sir," Zoey said. Her fingers flitted across the keyboard. "Codes sent." She clasped her hands in prayer. It was a sincere gesture, judging by her sealed eyes and gentle sigh. Adrian made a note; Zoey was religious in some way.

  "Guns in," Adrian muttered in advance.

  "And we're through!" Zoey gasped as her eyes snapped open. "The codes have been accepted by station control. The shadow commandant wishes to speak with you via direct radio comms."

  "Patch him through," Adrian said. Then, to Meironara: "Codes have been accepted."

  "I am a spy of my word," the shadow replied. So far, he was. And against all Ministry pride and protocol, too. Maybe there was something more to him. Adrian filed the note away for a time when he had more evidence to base his judgement of Roverra upon.

  "Xezbeth Actual, Vindication Actual, hello," a man said. His sounded like a text to speech device; zero emotion, carefully pronouncing every syllable with the metallic crinkling of a tin can.

  "Xezbeth Actual, this is Commander Adrian Huxton, Supercarrier Vindication of the Third Wicked Creek fleet, the Anvil and a Platinum Star. Who am I speaking to?" Adrian said.

  "This is Major Julien Ihasz, Ministry of Intelligence. What business brings you to a classified place?"

  "My ship is in a state of emergency and needs repairs. I will be landing shortly," Adrian said. Amelie got a shuttle ready and organized escort.

  "Commander, this is a Ministry anchorage. You don't have legal right to be here and shouldn’t know this location, so you'd better have a good explanation for your task group's presence," Julien replied. Adrian exchanged a look with Amelie.

  " There's a civil war underway, Tollyon and Farrigan have fallen, and I don't have a functioning FTL drive. You are required under regulations—" He looked at Amelie.

  "17-B on giving aide to f
ellow warships."

  "17-B, which requires all ships loyal to Jacob Hallard and his chosen armada to provide aide to a comrade in a true life or death emergency regardless of their current mission and fleet denomination."

  Several long seconds passed while Julien processed.

  "Very well, Commander Adrian Huxton, you may come aboard with a small party and explain to me what the fuck is going on."

  "Thank you for acknowledging my authority. I'm coming," Adrian said. "Tell Serpentia to send the Shadow down; he may bring guards."

  He took a shuttle down with Sergeant Alenkot and a squad of troopers for escort. Zoey provided mission control for their little shore party.

  "Actual, Vindication, Major Meironara has departed alone for the anchorage, and we have his dropship on TACNET.”

  "Good,” Adrian said. At least he’d be in swords’ reach if he tried to betray them.

  Xezbeth's nearest arm loomed on the camera feeds, a double row of flickering red buoys leading down the throat of her main docking bay. The pilot guided his dropship in with a light touch on the throttle. Adrian checked his sword and sheath armor over. The troopers checked each other's equipment. All good; if there was an ambush waiting, they were ready. The dropship's magnetic struts hit the airlock deck with a clang. Then, an elevator dropped them through an airlock and into a friendly atmosphere. A green light flared over the dropship's rear ramp. Adrian undid his harness and stood. His escort was already stacked up at the door, Alenkot at the front and fingering the release lever.

  "We going full hostile, sir?" Alenkot said. As a final touch he tied a black balaclava around his helmet. Skull and crossbones grinned back. Alenkot was from the metropolis regions, he’d enlisted to get far away from home slum as possible, and far away he’d been shipped. He’d picked a fight in every bar on his journey, and tumbled onto Vindication with a long record.