Captive Embers (The Wardens' Game Book 1)

by Brian Mansur

  Wilkinson didn’t want to think about what his superiors would do to him if his mission fell apart. There was only so much he could accomplish given his tenuous position. Without a military presence at Belia, the Celesians couldn’t bully Lilith into making them full partners in her operation. She needed them less than they needed her and her special toys.

  The page left Wilkinson in an office with a secured communications terminal. The comandante reached out to accept the waiting connection.

  His fingers shook. He withdrew them quickly and closed his eyes. It wasn’t only fatigue and pressure that had him uneasy. He disliked torturing people. Such necessary evils, he felt, were best left to robots and psychopaths—decent patriots like himself shouldn’t be burdened by them.

  Accepting that he couldn’t delay speaking with Lilith further, he switched on the viewer. Her eyes shot to the camera with a hunter’s intensity. She was cool… collected. Those eyes, so young, seeped with some ageless quality. He could hardly believe she hadn’t reached her third decade yet.

  “Well, Henry?” she said. The words were laced with sultriness but stern. Again, the vigor of a young woman but…

  Stormy aura today, he mused internally. Aloud, he told her, “He’s almost ready for you.”

  “And has he said anything useful yet?”

  “No. He believes time is on his side.”

  Lilith leaned forward to ensure the Celesian saw every nuance of her displeased features. “I cannot stress enough how much this Baylor fiasco has annoyed me, Henry.”

  Something inside Henry snapped. “Don’t try to deflect your blame in this,” he said with an upraised finger. “I warned you about your security issues from the beginning, but you didn't want my help until it was too late. Thanks to your amateur detectives, Baylor alerted the Mykonians to the shipments.”

  Lilith’s gaze did not falter. “Your lack of imagination for less dramatic solutions exposed us further. Why didn’t you follow the Mykonian with a drone? Or shoot him when you caught up with him? Instead, you put a Warden into play! You know the Wardens only gave me one emergency assistance command in the weapon cache!”

  Henry recoiled in his chair. He searched Lilith’s fury-marred face for any sign of deception. “I thought you somehow ordered that enforcer into the alley. I’d never be so stupid as to risk someone seeing….” His voice faltered as he drew an unpleasant conclusion.

  Lilith said, “What are you talking about Henry? I told you that lifeline can only be activated locally.”

  The Celesian ignored her remark, saying, “I had to redirect the enforcer to take out Mr. Hastings.”

  “So?”

  Henry realized she was probably too angry to think the implications through. He said, “The Warden put itself at my disposal without any prompting. Lilith, what is going on here? First, they offer you that cache of treasures, and now this?”

  Lilith quickly brought her surprised expression under control. “We’ll have to sort that out later. At least you didn’t spend our single lifeline.” After an audible sigh, she said, “I’m moving up the schedule.”

  Henry brought his hands together, interlocking the fingers so tightly they blanched. “I thought we’d agreed to wait until after you interviewed Mr. Hastings before deciding that.”

  “We have to assume the worst.”

  “We must minimize the damage, Lilith, but not panic. Are the Mykonians sending any special patrols?”

  Lilith laughed. “Are you kidding? Since you started on our guest, they’ve launched half their fleet to chase flights out of Lakshmi. The battleship Typhoon will catch one of our packages before it reaches New Calcutta. And the Tsunami left Zeus an hour ago. Headed straight for us.”

  The man in black nodded in contemplation. “That means they can’t have many, if any of the container numbers to trace. Otherwise, they would have targeted more of the packages in transit.”

  Lilith sneered. “That’s recklessly optimistic, Henry.”

  “You mean like the security controls you had in place before this fell apart?”

  Lilith ignored the barb. "We should begin the next phase now.”

  “For star’s sake… let’s not be hasty.”

  A long moment passed before Lilith said, “Fine. What do you have in mind?”

  “Based on Baylor’s conversation with Hastings, I think the Mykonians only have some blurry photos of the pods’ outer markings: their color, big scratches and such. That, and maybe which flights they left on. Since one pod looks very much like another, they’ll be lucky to find any of our packages. We should hunker down, weather this storm, and pick up again after things die down.”

  “You are underplaying our risk, Henry.”

  He took a deep breath. “Think of these inspections as a test of our capabilities. We scrub the shipment scheduled for today. We leave all other packages where they are. Keep bribing the right customs officials at Zeus to make sure nothing important gets opened. If the Mykonians don’t see through the counter-measures, then we’ve won.”

  Lilith shook her head. “I doubt very much the pods in Zeus’s holding yards will remain untouched for that long.”

  Henry made an exasperated noise. “We’ve always had the contingency of launching early if they discover their little gift. We’ll take out Zeus one way or the other. If our protection works, however, the Mykonians will eventually lose interest. Then we shift the rest of the packages and make our move.”

  “The Mykonians will start a massive investigation,” Lilith said. “They’ll insist on taking over screening operations at Lakshmi.”

  Henry flicked a finger. “Use your pull with Prime Minister Dalip to ensure that the Mykonians aren’t permitted aboard Lakshmi in force. The man has to be good for something.”

  Lilith’s nostrils flared. “Once word gets out there are Arbiters on the loose, people will be tearing apart the system, not to protect anyone, but to find the single most expensive item in the industrial catalog. It will be impossible to move anything in secret.”

  “That’s what your Warden-made counter-measures are for.”

  “Those gifts from the Wardens have limits, Commandante. And until we go to the next phase, most won’t help if someone decides to open the boxes and dig deep enough.”

  Henry remained resolute. “You’ve sent hundreds out, and no one has done that yet. Even if the Mykonians find any Arbiters en route, that shouldn’t be an automatic trigger to start Phase Two.”

  Lilith appeared to consider Henry’s words. He waited, wondering if her drive to remain safe would win out over her ambition. At last, she said, “I will have one of today’s shipments for Jasmine Colony repackaged with something special.”

  “What would that be?” Henry demanded.

  “Some added insurance. You’ll see when the time comes.”

  Henry opened his mouth to object, but Lilith said, “Don’t worry, you’ll like it. The rest of the flights can go on as planned. I promise I’ll speak to this Rafe Hastings before I make my final decision.”

  Henry inclined his head at the crime boss’s acquiescence. “I appreciate that, Lilith.” He saw her contemplating something else too. The woman’s features grew softer. Within seconds, all severity had drained away, and only a beautiful, unassuming woman gazed back at him.

  She said, “I hate it when we fight. We’ve seen so little of each other since that raid.”

  Despite Henry’s awareness of her intentions, despite being married to another woman, and despite his exhaustion, memories of what they’d done together beckoned. He let a smile draw his cheeks upward. “We’ll have our way with this system, my dear. It’s only a question of details.” He moved closer to the camera. “Perhaps a little relaxation is what we need to refresh our minds?”

  “Yes,” Lilith replied, a sly smile growing. “Perhaps we need a break to help us think more productively. Let our guest have an uncomfortable night to reconsider his position. I’ll be expecting you in an hour.”

  7
<
br />   Location: Combat Information Center (CIC), MSV Tsunami, Belian Space, en route to Lakshmi Colony_

  Half a day out of Zeus Station and Sean Merrick found himself encased in an armored pressure suit and strapped into the watch officer’s chair. He rolled his neck. Intelligence had diverted the Tsunami to inspect a pair of freighters with ties to Lilith’s Cartel. On his helmet’s visor shone a telescopic image of the Tsunami’s nearest quarry—a cargo hauler designated Lima Juliet 12. Sean liked how it floated neatly behind the scope’s crosshairs.

  Lima Juliet 12 was a standard lightship—an eighty-thousand—ton bulk freighter tethered to an impossibly thin three-hundred—kilometer-wide reflective parachute. A five-hundred-tera-watt laser shining from the Wardens’ solar power collectors near the system’s star, Cervantes, provided the ship’s propulsion.

  How many of that thing’s cargo boxes are makeshift missile silos? His fist clenched as if to strangle the unsettling memory of Commander Blake’s intel brief.

  Sean said, “Scopes. Status on the target, please.”

  An enlisted crewman at the tracking station responded over the CIC’s communications net. “Distance to Lima Juliet 12 now three-hundred-eighteen kilometers, bearing two-seventy-eight by ninety-seven. She’s steady on a point three grav transfer trajectory to Jasmine Colony. Relative closing velocity is eight meters per second with closest approach estimated at two-hundred-ninety-seven klicks from their southern aspect.”

  “Very well,” Sean answered.

  He could have accessed the information himself but having it announced kept everyone in the CIC situationally aware. Forcing a calm tone, Sean said, “Comms, any response to our signals?”

  A young lady said, “Negative, sir.”

  Sean reviewed the tactical concerns one last time. The transponder on Lima Juliet 12 said she had a crew of six. Its manifest included a mishmash of manufactured goods, processed chemicals, textiles, and foodstuffs from Lakshmi Colony. The chances of that being everything onboard, however, were dropping faster than a junior astronaut’s bank account on mid-tour liberty.

  He flicked a switch on the chair’s armrest and said, “Captain, Officer of the Watch. We’re in position.”

  A few moments later, Claire announced, “Captain in the CIC.”

  Paulson cut the A.I. off with a firm, “Carry on. Report please, Mr. Merrick.” The stereo in Sean’s earphones made the captain’s response seem like it had come from her physical location—a useful feature since they had pumped away most of the ship’s air for possible combat.

  Sean swiveled his chair. “Ma’am, Lima Juliet 12 is still ignoring us.” He watched Paulson’s white-suited form grab hold of a nearby seat.

  While strapping into place, she said, “And what do you think we ought to do about that?”

  “Ma’am, I plan to use lasers to sever two of their sail cables. If no response, I’ll send over the marines and inspection team via MAC 58.”

  “Very well.”

  Sean’s brow furrowed. The captain noticed and said, “Something on your mind?”

  Sean delayed his response by a fraction of a second. “It’s nothing, ma’am.”

  “Out with it, Sean.”

  The lieutenant hesitated an instant more before saying, “I was thinking earlier that three-hundred klicks of jumping distance gives us only a minute or so to react against missiles.”

  Paulson nodded. “True, but there must be an advantage to our position or else I wouldn’t have ordered us here, right?”

  Sean offered a weak grin and said, “Well, the close range does let us quickly launch and recover jumpships.”

  “Isn’t that alone worth the risk?” Paulson asked. “Lima Juliet 19, is almost ten-thousand klicks behind LJ 12. We need to hurry.”

  Reluctant to disparage his commander’s judgment, Sean replied, “I agree we don’t want to be stuck long on the first couple of haulers when more keep launching from Lakshmi. But we could have sent the swifter MACs ahead before we got into position. As it is, we’ll have to work fast before the other freighters move too far off.”

  Paulson radiated amusement. “You do realize, Sean, that as my operations officer you’re supposed to point out possible mistakes before I make them?”

  “Noted, ma’am,” he replied.

  “Good. Now, lighten up a bit. You’ll kill everyone’s morale if you bury all sense of humor.” She slapped both hands soundlessly on her armored thighs. “Of course, I parked us so close because intimidation is called for.”

  “Aye, ma’am,” Sean replied, neutrally.

  “Now, it’s time to ride this bull into the ring,” she said.

  Sean nodded and returned his gaze to the tactical plot. It wouldn’t be like what happened on his last tour. He’d sworn to never let something like that happen again.

  “Lieutenant?” the captain said.

  Sean blinked and squelched his dark thoughts. He drew his shoulders back and said in a commanding octave, “Helm, slow-turn toward the target. Comms, send to Lima Juliet 12: ‘This is your final warning. Signal your compliance or we will fire upon you.’ Weapons, plot laser targeting solution to slice through their northern and southern-most shroud lines.”

  He exulted in the emotional rush the moment gave him. As the crew relayed and executed his orders, the captain said, “The only thing missing from that was a saber in your hand.” She thrust an imaginary hilt forward.

  Sean glanced at Paulson. “I need to bleed off some of the frustration being around Claire creates.”

  The captain grunted. “Speaking of Claire, I think we’re overdue for some practice in the A.I. mode. Don’t you?”

  Sean slumped. He almost said, “Hell no, I don’t,” but he knew better than to contradict his boss over a merely irritating directive. Instead, he sucked in a deep breath and murmured, “Et tu, ma’am?” Then he switched a control on his armchair. “Attention all hands, rig the ship for A.I. mode.”

  A chorus of “Aye, aye, sir,” rang from every direction in Sean’s headset. Claire delayed her response just long enough for him to catch her note of enthusiasm.

  He adjusted his radio to the CIC net and added, “Don’t sound so happy about it, Claire.”

  “Aye, sir,” she responded with sobriety. Several chuckles circled the control center, including one from the captain.

  Sean wrinkled his nose and watched as a grid listing the Tsunami’s stations wink from green for manned to blue for locked down. Once the table had fully homogenized, he said, “Captain, the ship is in A.I. mode. All stations secured and automated. Claire and I have control.”

  Paulson raised an admonishing finger. “Remember, she’s more than a backup system, Sean.”

  “I’ll live with it, ma’am. There will always be things only humans are good at.”

  Paulson bowed her head beneath the glare of her helmet’s display. Bolstered by her show of solidarity, Sean said, “Try to keep up, Claire. Do you have those shroud lines targeted?”

  In answer, two pulsing red crosshairs appeared atop a wire-frame graphic of the sail ship. Claire’s obedience pleased Sean. His mood brightened. “Fire laser batteries.”

  Deep within the battleship, several megavolt power sources energized a particle beam accelerator. Its super-cooled magnetic rings pushed and focused a stream of electrons for fifty meters along the Tsunami’s length. A succession of microwave ovens instantly excited the subatomic particles to over ninety-nine point nine nine nine nine percent the speed of light.

  The electrons next entered a “wiggler” whose magnets violently undulated their path. This released a photon cascade in the two-hundred-ninety-nanometer bandwidth. It formed a coherent beam of ultraviolet light one hundred megawatts in strength. The newborn laser beam then passed through a semi-transparent mirror and was directed to a pair of telescope-shaped turrets at the bow shield’s edge. The two-meter diameter optics of each turret concentrated the rays into piercing shafts of light only five centimeters wide at the target.

&n
bsp; Sean bobbed his eyebrows with predatory glee as his tactical plot depicted two razor-thin blue lines reaching out from the Tsunami to Lima Juliet 12.

  Claire reported, “Shroud lines severed.”

  Sean said, “Warn our friends that we will burn through the rest of their cables in one minute if they do not signal permission to be boarded.”

  While Claire relayed the ultimatum, Sean turned to Paulson. “You’d think they would have at least complained by now. I’m starting to wonder if there is really anyone onboard that thing.”

  Paulson said, “The same thought occurred to me.”

  Claire broke in. “Activity on the outer cargo pods.”

  Sean’s eyes snapped to the telescopic feed. The sides of several ten-meter-long cargo boxes blew off. He glimpsed columnar shapes rising out of each. Next, flame, sparks, and debris blasted from the containers.

  “Lima Juliet 12 has fired missiles!” Claire shouted through the crew’s headsets. “Counting twenty-one… correction, thirty flares. Analysis indicates they’re anti-ship missiles on an enveloping track.”

  Sean’s lip twisted, frustrated that he hadn’t caught every syllable from Claire’s rapid report. Stifling his perpetual discontent with her, he said, “Weapons free. Lasers, torch the inbounds. Launch two Reaper missiles on Lima Juliet 12, standard burn. And Claire, talk normally.”

  Speaking slower, Claire said, “Two Reaper missiles fired on bearing two seventy-eight by ninety-seven, target Lima Juliet 12. Birds running hot and normal on active tracking.”

  “Very well,” Sean responded. He studied the tactical plot. The hostile missiles radiated from the cargo ship. They formed an open cone that threatened to swallow the Tsunami. Blue lines representing friendly laser fire lanced through the enemy ordnance. A thunk resounded on the net for every hit.

  “Nice,” Sean said as four missiles disintegrated in rapid succession. “Very nice. Helm, bring us to ninety degrees of target on evasive heading from that shrapnel. Accelerate to point one grav and continue defensive lasing.”

  As the Tsunami’s motion induced a wave of nausea, he found himself gripping his restraints. Annoyed, he pressed a combination of buttons on his right arm to inject a booster shot of motion sickness meds.