Conqueror

by Richard Tongue

  “What cavalry would that be?” Grimacing, Nguyen said, “We should be able to get down in one piece, but just how are you going to do it without them spotting us and tracking us to the surface? Those ships are supposed to carry a half-regiment of heavily-armed troops between them. I don’t even have a sidearm with me.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ve got a plan.”

  “Great. Now I’m really scared.”

  “Just fire up the short-range terrain scanner. We’re going to do some low-level flying.” He guided the fighter down, trying to ignore the flashing red lights and klaxons that warned him that he was attempting a maneuver the designers had written off as certain death, and looked up at the terrain overview on the heads-up display. There was a beautiful mountain range, three thousand feet high, nicely between his fighter and the incoming enemy ships. If he hustled, he might be able to get into shadow for just long enough to pull off his maneuver.

  “Christ, we’re down to…,” Nguyen began.

  “Never mind that now. Prepare to eject when I give the word.”

  “Don’t worry, my hand’s been on the switch for the last three minutes.”

  The fighter was shaking as Winter pushed the tiny craft to its limits, feeling a pang of regret that he would be the only man to ever fly it, likely wrecking any chances of the prototype being put into service. All that mattered was surviving to warn Caledonia about what had happened to Archimedes, what might happen to any other ship that came out this way. Up ahead, the mountains loomed large, and finally, a purple light flashed on, his systems notifying him that he had passed out of the zone of visibility of the enemy craft.

  “Now!” he yelled, and Nguyen worked the switch. The cockpit of the fighter had been designed as a sealed pod, and as the engineer threw the control, explosive bolts fired to detach it from the rest of the ship, leaving the bulky engines and avionics behind, as well as most of the lifesystem, a pair of thrusters firing to first properly separate it from the fighter, then again to guide them down to a landing. Winter watched the monitors, waiting for the warning that the enemy ships had spotted them, finally breathing a sigh of relief as they landed safely on the surface, the dust kicked up by the landing jets settling down on the canopy, masking them from easy detection. Up above, there was a brief flash as the fighter slammed into the mountain, the battle over before it could begin.

  “Well,” Winter said, “I guess that’s that. How far to the base?”

  “About four miles. Probably a good idea to wait a bit before starting out.” The engineer paused, then asked, “What do we do when we get there?”

  “Hope like hell help arrives before we run out of supplies. What about the distress call? Did anyone hear it?”

  “If they did, there wasn’t enough time for them to let us know.”

  “Then I guess we wait. And pray.” He cracked a smile, and added, “Cheer up. At least I packed a deck of cards. I can win your next month’s flight pay while we’re waiting.”

  “If I were you,” Nguyen replied, “I’d plan on playing Solitaire.”

  Chapter 1

  “Squadron Leader?” the aide said, “They’re ready for you to come back in now.”

  “Thank you,” Winter replied, rising from his seat, putting the magazine he’d been trying and failing to read to one side. He smoothed out the creases in his trousers, somehow resisting to urge to scratch the small of his back where his dress uniform caught, and walked back into the briefing room, where the Combined Chiefs, the three senior officers of the Caledonian armed forces, waited for him, along with a pair of lower-ranked field commanders, including Wing Commander Bill Floyd, his direct senior officer, who curtly shook his head in warning at Winter’s approach.

  The military was small enough that he’d already known everyone in the room, and they him. Sky Commodore Tyler, the head of the Aerospace Force, nodded at his approach, but Commodore Maddox, the senior officer of the Caledonian Orbital Patrol, simply stared down at the datapad in front of him. Colonel Bouchard, commander of the Territorial Guard, was the only one who seemed sympathetic at all, though Winter ascribed that more as a wish to see some action that might provide much-needed funding and support for his service. For as long as he remembered, there’d been talk of downgrading the Guard to a mere garrison force, subordinating it to the Patrol. Talk that was growing stronger due to the constant need to find efficiencies in a military biting off more than it could easily chew.

  “Squadron Leader,” Tyler began, “I have to say that I found your testimony extremely exciting. Something out of a story. Unfortunately, you’ll be aware that the sensor data does not wholeheartedly support your story.” She tapped her datapad, and said, “Your readings were corrupted, and our best interpretation has struggled to come up with anything other than a series of ghost images that may or may not be the starships you describe.”

  “That seems unfair,” Bouchard interrupted. “Squadron Leader Winter is an experienced combat pilot, and Flight Officer Nguyen is one of our best sensor technicians, as well as a skilled engineer. I’d be willing to accept their testimony as an accurate analysis of the situation.” Turning to Winter, he added, “You were able to discern more details from the live readings than from the recordings we recovered, yes?”

  “That is correct, sir,” Winter replied. “Unfortunately the cockpit recordings were degraded, a design flaw in the Merlin fighter that we have already reported to the manufacturers.” He paused, then asked, “If you are not willing to accept my story, Commodore, then what about Archimedes?”

  Frowning, Tyler said, “This isn’t a question of accepting or rejecting your report, Squadron Leader. Nobody in this room doubts your word, certainly not based on your service record. I’m willing to concede that Archimedes was destroyed by enemy action, but I find it hard to believe that it was by the ships you describe. Neither class of starship has been reported anywhere in known space for a century, aside from a few badly damaged examples in museums, or wrecks floating in free space. The entire Terrestrial Fleet was wiped out in the Civil War.”

  “These were new ships, Commodore, not old ones.”

  “Come on,” Maddox barked. “We’ve got some of the best shipyards in space, and we couldn’t build those ships, not without a massive expansion program. If someone else attempted such a project, it would be impossible to keep it a secret. And why would they use them on a mission such as this anyway? I don’t think we can rule out industrial sabotage, and I have instructed Patrol Intelligence to begin a full investigation along those lines.”

  “This is a matter for the Aerospace Force, Commodore,” Tyler replied, glaring at her counterpart. “We will take the lead in any investigation.” She turned back to Winter, and said, “I am forced to agree to some degree with Commodore Maddox. Your own report suggests that they were after the prototype, and I concur. We endorse your actions in destroying the ship before it could be captured. A fighter could be duplicated easily enough, and we are strongly considering putting the Merlin into full production, after completion of testing with a new prototype.”

  “That’s good news, ma’am. She’s a good ship.”

  Frowning, Maddox replied, “Though hardly a replacement for one of our corvettes, ships that serve the same function but with far greater flexibility.” He paused, then continued, “I dispatched the Ariadne to conduct a follow-up sweep of the area around Eusebius, in the wake of your rescue.” Turning to the officer standing next to him, he said, “Commander Murphy, if you would give us your report?”

  “Certainly, sir,” she replied. “We spent thirty-six hours in the vicinity of the moon, conducting a full-spectrum survey of the area. We found the debris field of Archimedes, and our analysis does suggest that it was destroyed by weapons fire, but we were unable to find any trace of any enemy vessel, either in space or on the surface. Nor did we find any distress beacons or useful debris from Archimedes. My Operations Officer did suggest, however, that any aggressor could have located and removed them before o
ur arrival. Commodore, I cannot, based on the evidence, either support or reject Squadron Leader Winter’s report at this time.”

  “That’s hardly surprising,” Bouchard said. “They’d have covered their tracks. I would, in the same circumstances.”

  “Be that as it may, Colonel, the fact remains that there have been no further reports of any such ships in the six weeks since the attack,” Tyler replied. “Neither Hibernia nor Tartarus have reported any such activity, and the naval attaches stationed on the homeworlds of our neighbors have made quiet inquiries and come up with nothing. My assumption, gentlemen, is that this is a case of an intelligence raid gone wrong, that some other group, perhaps a rival state, perhaps a corporation, wished to seize a valuable prototype and was willing to destroy Archimedes to do it.”

  “I concur,” Maddox said, “though I would not rule out a domestic protagonist at this point. Further investigation is needed on a covert level. I certainly do not believe that a state of general alert is recommended at this time.”

  “I’m forced to disagree,” Bouchard replied. “I think we need to bring our forces to enhanced alert, and begin to call up reserve formations into the line. We’ll regret it later if we don’t take such actions right away. Should nothing materialize, then we can easily write it off as a preparedness exercise, something else we sorely need.”

  “In theory, Colonel, I might go along with you,” Tyler said, “though in practice, you’re talking about millions of credits for a threat that may or may not exist.” She paused, then said, “I propose a compromise. Each of our services will go over our reserve mobilization plans again, and determine how we might speed their deployment in the event of an emergency, and all of our field commanders will be briefed on the situation, with instructions to run battle simulations with Terran opponents.”

  Maddox nodded, and added, “We’ve got the annual exercises coming up soon. I’m willing to use simulated Terran opposition this year also. It’ll be an interesting change of pace for our crews in any case.” He cracked a smile, and added, “I’ll have my top intelligence officer liaise with your people on the investigation, Commodore. I think we need to work together on this one.”

  “Agreed. As for you, Squadron Leader, both you and Flight Officer Nguyen are to be formerly commended for your actions at Eusebius. Your depositions will be used in the forthcoming investigation, and both of you are to remain available for questioning should it prove necessary. I further recommend that you be placed on indefinite leave, to allow you a chance to recover from your ordeal.”

  “Ma’am, speaking for myself, I’m happy to report for duty right away. I spent the last six weeks kicking my heels on a beaten-up old outpost with nothing to do.”

  With a thin smile, she replied, “Noted. I’ll leave the details to Wing Commander Floyd. I’m sure an assignment of some sort can be provided for you, perhaps working in the training cadre for a time.”

  Bouchard said, “Commodore, I wish it to be placed on the formal record that I am opposed to this course of action, and that I strongly advocate mobilization of our forces, and that they be placed on a state of alert. If there are Terran warships out there, our only chance of stopping them would be to have all our strength ready and prepared. Even then, I am far from sanguine about our chances of success.”

  “Century-old warships?” Maddox retorted. “They’d be falling to pieces. No match for our corvettes, Colonel, I assure you. Though if you want to put your neck on the line, that’s your business.”

  “Your objection will be formally noted for the record, Colonel,” Tyler said. “This inquiry is adjourned.” She hammered her gavel on the desk three times, then rose from her seat, stalking out of the room, Maddox and Murphy following behind her, leaving only Bouchard and Floyd remaining with Winter. The door slammed shut, and the soldier shook his head, a scowl on his face.

  “We’re going to regret this,” he said. “To hell with the budget. And to hell with Commodore Tyler. I’m bringing my forces to enhanced readiness as of tonight. I should have enough in my discretionary funds to cover that for a while, and I’d like to get some of my reserves out of mothballs to see how they stand up to actual battle.” Turning to Winter, he added, “For whatever it is worth, Squadron Leader, I believe you, and I believe your report. I can’t help but think that Maddox would have been a lot happier if it had come from a Patrol officer, but…”

  “They’re playing games,” Winter said, “with the security of the Republic. I just hope they’re right and I’m wrong.” He paused, then added, “To be fair, given that there haven’t been any other sightings for six weeks, perhaps there is no current threat. A couple of ships that might have been salvaged, perhaps, or someone playing games with the sensors. I couldn’t rule out the possibility that someone played some games with the software, and if this is an intelligence coup…”

  “That’s possible,” Floyd replied. “Though I don’t feel like taking unnecessary chances.” Shaking his head, he said, “Incidentally, we’ve both been transferred out of Flight Test. As of last week, I’m heading up Third Patrol Wing, and you’re coming with me as one of my subordinate officers. I think Tyler had in mind that I’d put you on my staff, but instead I’m going to go one better and assign you to a training command.”

  “Come on, Bill,” Winter protested. “This is hardly the time to send me off to play nursemaid to a lot of rookies.”

  “I completely agree, which is why I have no intention of so doing,” Floyd said with a smile.

  “Just what do you have in mind?” Bouchard asked, folding his arms. “If a humble Guard officer can ask.”

  “Simple. I’m reactivating the Twenty-Second as a nominal training squadron. Though I don’t intend to give you more than a handful of rookies for the moment. You get the command, Jack, and no matter what it might be on paper, the Double-Deuce is still an attack squadron, and I expect it to be run accordingly.”

  Nodding, Winter replied, “Thanks, Bill.”

  “Don’t thank me yet. I’m not going to be able to give you most of the normal bells and whistles. You’ll have to make do with whatever I can justify sending out to you.” He paused, then said, “You can operate out of Mitchell Station. There are a couple of dozen old Javelin IIs in storage out there, and you shouldn’t have too much trouble bringing them back on the line. You mind flying those old beasts?”

  “Far as I’m concerned, they never should have retired them in the first place. I couldn’t take to the upgrade.”

  “You and nobody else stuck with them,” Floyd replied. “There’s a fast shuttle heading out that way tomorrow morning. I’ve already booked passage for you. Third Class, I’m afraid, but I had to pay for it out of my own pocket to keep it off the record. I don’t think it’s a good idea for Tyler to know I’ve put you in command of a front-line squadron right now. An out of the way training command will be a lot easier to explain away.”

  Winter paused, then said, “I want Danny Nguyen as my Flight Engineer. He cut his teeth on the Javelin IIs, and I’m going to need someone good handling the maintenance routine.”

  “Not a problem. I figured as much.”

  “And Cassie Dubois as my Exec.”

  With raised eyebrows, Floyd replied, “I suppose she’s technically available, but…”

  “I know she’s got a somewhat questionable record, Bill, but she’s the best damned pilot I’ve ever seen, present company included, and a natural flight leader. She just doesn’t do so well under peacetime conditions, but if we’re going to end up in a shooting war, then she’s the best we’ve got.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.” He paused, then said, “I can throw someone else your way. You heard of Dave Cohen?”

  Frowning, Bouchard replied, “I have. He’s attached to my staff right now.”

  “About that, I’d like to take him back,” Floyd said with a grin.

  “Didn’t he win the Sword of Honor five years back?” Winter asked.

  With a nod, Floyd repl
ied, “That’s the man. A natural pilot, good combat instincts, he was in Ninth Patrol during the last spot of trouble with the Lemurians. Unfortunately he also has a tendency to speak his mind, especially to senior officers.” He looked at the red-faced Bouchard, and added, “I see he is continuing to live up to his reputation.”

  “That’s putting it mildly. He’s a pain in the ass,” the soldier replied. “He does know his stuff, though.”

  “I’ll take him,” Winter said. “I guess this is going to be the general rule with everyone I get.”

  “Pretty much. I can’t even give you a full squadron at the moment. Five’s the best I can manage, including yourself, along with the support staff. I’ll funnel some more pilots to you when I can, but at present, the idea is that you’re setting up a training operation, getting the framework in place. It may even end up being the truth. If this does blow over, then I’ll have to send you some actual rookies and we’ll make it official. You’d be stuck out there for at least a year.”

  “I’ll take that risk,” Winter replied. “What about support personnel?”

  “There are a couple of reservists on the station already. I’ll have them activated and assigned to your command.” He paused, then said, “Just get yourself ready at this stage, Jack. Get your fighters operational, get your pilots ready, and start working out patrol sectors. And don’t do anything that can’t be explained away as part of a training routine. If that means you have to get creative, well, that’s what you’re paid for. I don’t think we’re going to get any help from the Patrol, so don’t count on anything.”

  “I can probably help you a little,” Bouchard said, rubbing his chin. “I’ll have to check the records, but if it’s like any other outpost, half the staff probably hold reserve positions for the salary bump. I can probably rustle together a light platoon for you, and I’ll make sure someone half-decent is out there to command it.”