by Ken Lozito
4
A few hours later, Sean sat in the command chair amid a phalanx of workstations on the bridge of the Vigilant. Newly promoted, Captain Russo sat at the XO’s workstation to his left, and Oriana sat at the science officer’s workstation to his right.
“Colonel Quinn,” Specialist Irina Sansky said, “I have a subspace communications link from Captain Martinez on the Dutchman.”
“Good. Put him on the main holoscreen,” Sean said.
A few moments later, Captain Martinez’s chiseled face and powerful neck appeared on the main holoscreen.
“Right on time, Captain,” Sean said.
“The Dutchman aims to please, Colonel. I heard that we can now talk for longer than five-minute intervals,” Martinez said.
“That’s the claim, although there might be a moment while we reestablish the link. What do you have to report?”
Martinez glanced at someone off-screen. “Upload the report,” he said and then looked at Sean. “It looks like a dead planet, sir. Our high-res images show a landscape that is scarred by bombardment craters. There are significant particulates in the atmosphere that are indicative of either a massive asteroid impact or a super volcano, but my guess is that somebody nuked this planet. We were able to see traces of what might be orbital bombardment platforms and possibly a derelict ship. We haven’t done any active scans, but passive scans don’t indicate any power signatures from known Krake ship types. You should have the images now.”
A series of images appeared on the main holoscreen, which showed a distant view of the planet. Either the planet had been the victim of a massive meteor shower that pelted the surface, essentially scouring it to oblivion, or Martinez's estimation was correct. But the question remained as to why the Krake fifth column would send them here, especially given the time constraint.
“Colonel, I’d like your permission to take a closer look at those bombardment platforms in the derelict ship,” Martinez said.
“Have there been any space gates detected?”
“Negative, sir.”
“I want you to hold your position, Captain,” Sean said. “We’ll organize our timing so we arrive at the planet at the same time. That way, if we have an uninvited guest we’ll be able to deal with it together.”
“Understood, sir,” Martinez said.
“Good work, Captain. We’ll send you our intercept course in just a few minutes,” Sean said, and the comlink severed. “Helm, plot a course to the NEC, best speed.”
“Yes, Colonel, best speed to the NEC,” Lieutenant Edwards said.
“Ops, send a briefing packet to the rest of the battle group, and I want us underway ASAP,” Sean said.
“Aye, sir,” Lieutenant Katherine Burrows said.
Sean looked at Russo. “Thoughts?”
“Either it’s an elaborate trap for us, or they want us to find something, sir,” Russo said.
Sean nodded. “That’s what I was thinking.”
“Sir, why didn’t you have the Dutchman fly closer and do more reconnaissance?”
“If they'd gotten into trouble, we'd have been too far away to help. When we get closer, I’ll have them move in to do more reconnaissance. We’ll need to prep the away teams.”
“Understood, Colonel,” Russo said.
Sean brought the images up on his personal holoscreen and began swiping through them.
“Colonel,” Oriana said, addressing him professionally when on the bridge, “have you thought of showing the Krake prisoners these images? Maybe they’ll have something to say about it.”
Sean rubbed his chin in thought for a few moments. “It’s a good idea, but they haven’t exactly been forthcoming with any information. They’re still convinced that they should be dead,” he said and shook his head. He stood up. “Do you want to observe while I ask them?”
“I’m not sure I can contribute anything,” Oriana replied.
“You might see something the rest of us miss,” Sean said.
“Lead the way, sir.”
Sean smiled and then looked at Russo. “XO, you have the con.”
Sean and Oriana left the bridge. Once they were in the corridor, she glanced at him. “Is there something else you wanted to discuss with me?”
“There’s plenty I’d like to discuss with you, but none of it's relevant to what we’re doing now,” Sean said and then pressed the button for the elevator. “Well, there is one thing. Something Russo said to me earlier. We need to come up with a way to defend ourselves against the Krake attack drones.”
Oriana frowned. “Again, I don’t think I have much to offer there.”
Sean arched an eyebrow. “For a scientist, I thought you’d be more open to tackling this particular issue.”
Oriana’s eyes flashed. “These are the drones that, when armed, can melt through the hull of our ship?”
“They also fly pretty fast, are extremely agile, and are resistant to direct energy countermeasures. Point defense systems with mag cannons can stop them, but they can also be overwhelmed, and we don’t have an endless supply of ammunition. One of the things that’s been effective is utilizing the fusion warhead of a HADES V missile. It seems to overwhelm their sensors, and they lose formation. What we’ve done is detonate a few missiles in their vicinity and then mop up as many drones as we can before they go active again.”
They rode the elevator down several decks. Oriana was quiet for a few moments while she considered the problem.
“So, the attack drone is vulnerable to either densely solid metals or a powerful fusion warhead?”
Sean nodded. “We can slow them down, but if enough of them are fired at us, it will overwhelm our defenses. We’ve run the numbers, and Gabriel has done the analysis. So far, I’ve used clever tactics to avoid a direct confrontation, or I've at least given us an escape so we didn't end up in a shooting match. At least I tried not to.”
Oriana looked as though she was about to say something a couple of times, and Sean waited her out, but she just looked at him regretfully. “I don’t think this is something I can really think about while we walk down a corridor, but I’ll try and work it with my team. In order to generate the heat required to quickly melt through not only the hull of the ship but the decks in between would mean . . .” she said and paused for a moment.
“They’re as hot as a yellow dwarf star burning at five thousand kelvins.”
“I wonder what they use to fuel those combat drones.”
Sean considered it for a few moments. “That’s not a bad question, and I think that given enough time, we could actually build one of these drones. The other thing is that the Krake seem to have limited themselves to combat drones as their main weapon of war, at least as far as we’ve seen. So, if we can come up with a way to beat their offensive, we'd gain a significant advantage over them.”
“This isn’t the first time we’ve talked about their attack drones.”
“I've been banging my head against it, and so have a lot of the other senior officers. I’ll make the data available to you and your team, and if you think there’s anyone else who can help come up with a way to defend against them, let me know and I’ll clear them as well. And if you can have that to me by tomorrow morning, that would be really great,” Sean said dryly and smiled.
Oriana grinned. “No problem. I’ll get right on that for you. If you want, I can also invent an instantaneous FTL engine as well.”
“Teleportation would be good too.”
Oriana shook her head in exasperation. “There’s a reason the mysteries of the universe are mysteries. They’re not so easy to solve.”
“And yet we utilize the space gate to transition between universes, which makes me wonder how many of these universes there are.”
“More than a little and less than too much.”
“Is that an exact number?” Sean asked, feigning seriousness.
“It’s not infinite,” she said and paused for a moment. “Sean, I don’t know if I’ll be able to help
with the attack drones. It’s like they’re flinging miniature stars at us. About the only thing they react to aside from a solid piece of metal is an even bigger, more powerful star, and then only for a little bit.”
“That’s because once the warhead is detonated, it quickly disperses in space,” Sean said.
Oriana’s brows knitted together in intense concentration, and Sean didn’t want to interrupt her thoughts. After a few moments, she looked at him.
“What?” he asked.
“I’m just thinking about stars. I’m going to need time with this, but I’ll let you know if I come up with something.”
Sean suspected she’d just thought of something but wouldn’t discuss it until she’d given it a thorough analysis. He’d worked with other scientists who were the direct opposite, sharing every single thought they had whether or not it panned out. Over time, he’d come to prefer Oriana’s approach. Life didn’t always give a person what they wanted, but sometimes it did give them what they had to have. He just hoped they could come up with a solution sooner rather than later.
5
A pair of brilliant cerulean eyes regarded Connor from the holoscreen. Her long, auburn hair had a natural curl that seemed to complement her delicate cheekbones, although delicate was the furthest word from how Connor would describe his wife. Lenora was among the most beautiful women he’d ever seen. He hadn't sputtered incoherent sentences when they’d first met—he wasn’t a foolish boy after all—but sometimes he was foolish when it came to her.
“I dare you,” Lenora said.
“It’s not like that at all.”
“Connor,” Lenora said, cramming volumes of meanings into that one word.
“You’re sick, remember?”
Lenora narrowed her gaze. “I have a cold. I’m not dying.”
“Colds don’t normally come with nausea,” Connor replied.
Lenora’s slightly pink nose leaned closer to the screen. “I’m not pregnant either.”
“I didn’t—”
Lenora shook her head. “Ever since that whole bridge incident, you’ve slipped back into some old habits. I don’t need your permission to see the Ovarrow.”
“I never said you did.”
“No, of course not. You just engineer events that make doing so incredibly inconvenient.”
“Lenora, you’re sick. Take a few days to get better and then go. I don’t like it any more than you do.”
Connor knew she wasn’t really angry with him. He’d seen her angry before, and this was just mild frustration in comparison. Sometimes people just needed to rant, even if there wasn’t much anyone could do about it. “I wish I could be home with you right now, but I have to do this.”
Lenora inhaled deeply and sighed. “How bad is it?”
“They put Nathan in charge of the CDF.”
“How does that change anything?”
“It’s hard to say, really. I’m still focusing on finding out as much as I can about the Krake. And getting the Ovarrow to help is still our best shot at that.”
Lenora was quiet for a few moments. “So, they demoted you and put Nathan in charge. You don’t think it’s going to simply stop at that, do you?”
Connor shook his head. “No,” he admitted. “But Dana is still behind what we’re trying to do.”
“Okay, I forgive you for not being here to take care of me in my time of need. I’ll just have to tough it out on my own without you,” she said, her eyes narrowing playfully.
“Thanks,” Connor said, smiling. “I’ll make it up to you.”
“Oh, I know you will. With interest,” Lenora said, smiling, but then the smile seemed to disappear. “Be careful.”
“I will, I promise,” he answered.
Lenora looked away for a moment, pursing her lips in thought. “I know how you get. Just hurry up and get back here.”
The holoscreen flickered off as she severed the connection, and Connor stared at it for a few moments. He was sitting in an isolated alcove on a troop carrier alpha. He heard the heavy stomp of footsteps approaching the area, and Samson leaned around the corner. Connor stood up.
“You sure you don’t want to bring more men? The rest of the 7th will meet us at the waypoint, but we only have two squads with us here,” Samson said.
“I just want to talk to them. If we bring too many soldiers with us, they probably won't talk to us at all,” Connor said.
A few weeks earlier, diplomatic relations had been stretched thin between the CDF and the Ovarrow. A decisive show of force had been called for, and some lives had been lost. The Ovarrow needed to be shown that the CDF wasn’t weak. Connor would’ve preferred a more diplomatic solution, but at the time and with colonial lives in danger, he couldn’t afford it.
While in an Ovarrow city, Lenora had been trapped under the wreckage of a large bridge that had been sabotaged by a rogue colonial group. However, there was evidence showing that the support structures had already been eroded by a group of Ovarrow who lived in the city. As far as Connor knew, they hadn’t received any updates about whether the Ovarrow had tracked down who the saboteurs were.
“If you say so,” Samson said.
“I do.”
“The Security Council is going to have kittens when they find out that you didn’t bring a diplomatic envoy with you.”
“We have Dash. He’s done enough work with them in the past two years to fill that role for us.”
Samson chuckled, and his deep voice sounded like it was coming from the base of his barrel chest. “That’s thin, and you know it.”
“I like to run a lean operation,” Connor replied.
Dash DeWitt walked over to them. He was the only noncombatant among them, but he was in excellent shape due to the rigors of working outdoors, either exploring archaeological sites or just being active. Though he wasn’t a soldier, he was weapons qualified for basic hunting rifles and powerful sidearms.
“I thought I heard someone mention my name,” Dash said.
Samson merely looked at him, but Connor waved him over. A moment later, Samson left with a grunt. Connor watched Dash go a little pale as the much larger man stomped past him.
“That’s one guy I don’t ever want to make angry,” Dash said.
“You should trust those instincts. He’s a little rough around the edges, but in a fight, he’ll keep you safe. I trust him.”
Dash nodded. “That’s good enough for me. So, what exactly do you want me to do once we get to the city?”
“I want to see if they’ll help us find that other group of Ovarrow on the far side of the continent.”
“I know that seems straightforward to you, but for them, it’s actually quite complicated.”
“I know,” Connor said. “That’s why you’re here.”
“I’ll do whatever I can, but are you sure you don’t want to bring in someone like Darius Cohen?”
Connor shook his head. “I can work with Darius, but for this mission, I’d much rather work with you. You know what we’re up against and how important it is. You’ve seen it firsthand. Darius might not be any less dedicated than you are, but he hasn’t seen it like you have.”
“I understand. At least I think I do,” Dash said with a half-smile.
The young man had certainly grown up quite a bit since he’d been Lenora’s student. They’d bumped heads over the years, but growing up wasn’t easy.
“Noah sent me a message saying he’s been trying to get in contact with you.”
Noah had been recovering from a severe head injury that left him in a coma for almost a year. Connor had previously brought him along on a short mission to deal with the rogue group, and Noah had more or less negotiated aggressively that he should also be there this time, but Connor didn’t want to tempt fate twice. “Thanks for the message. I’ll be in touch with Noah.”
“He thinks he’s been left behind,” Dash said.
“He needs time to recover. I don’t want to bring him on a mission like this. He
still needs time to heal, regardless of what he thinks.”
Dash nodded. “No, I get it. Believe me, I understand. But still, maybe you could just send him a short message just to acknowledge . . . him.”
All the kids were growing up, it seemed. “I will, but after. We’re almost there.”
The troop carrier flew to what had been the colonial diplomatic LZ outside the Ovarrow city. The camp had been shut down, but there were still several communication terminals left for the Ovarrow to use.
The pilot flew at an altitude that didn't hide their approach while at the same time giving them a high vantage point from which to survey the Ovarrow city. Only about thirty percent of the city was occupied by the indigenous species, the ones the colonists had brought out of stasis.
Connor peered at the holoscreen image of the Ovarrow city. There was a wide expanse where the Ovarrow looked to be restoring vehicles—land crawlers. It was nothing that could be done quickly, but the Ovarrow certainly built things to last.
“We’ve given them time to see us. Take us to the LZ,” Connor said.
The troop carrier banked into a shallow turn and landed at the abandoned camp. The loading ramp lowered to the ground, and Samson led three squads of soldiers off the aircraft. Connor and Dash followed.
Connor stepped off the ramp and circled around the troop carrier to view the city. The Ovarrow had bolstered their defenses, and he could see multiple places where Ovarrow soldiers, known as Mekaal, were patrolling. They were being watched, and Connor made no move to approach. Instead, he went to one of the consoles and Dash opened the interface.
“Send a message to both the high commissioner and the warlord that I'd like to speak with them,” Connor said.
He watched Dash use the holo-interface to send the message to the terminal that was located inside the city.
“Message has been sent,” Dash said.
“Excellent. Thank you. Now, we wait,” Connor said.
They restricted their movements to stay near the camp, and six hours passed without any kind of reply from the Ovarrow. A few soldiers complained about the lack of acknowledgment. Connor glanced over at the diplomatic consoles and saw that there was no change. It was early in the afternoon, and he was getting a bit tired of waiting. He understood that he wasn’t the Ovarrow's favorite colonist, but there was something to be said for courtesy, and the lack of it was getting on his nerves.