Rescue at Waverly

by T J Mott

  “Captain, I really don’t know how to handle this. Admiral Marcell, to me, seems delusional, and he’s undeniably an alcoholic. Even if I ignore his Earth-centric beliefs, it’s obvious that his recent drinking binges have left him both mentally and physically unfit for combat and he refuses to see reason on that!”

  “There’s no such thing as stopping Admiral Marcell, Doctor,” the captain replied, his voice calm and collected compared to the doctor’s flustered tone. “He’s a force of nature. When he gets his heart this set on something, all you can do is stand by and watch.”

  The doctor sighed again, and Reynolds started to realize how much trouble Janssen was having with adjusting to life in Marcell’s eccentric organization. “I can’t find any kind of psych profile in our medical records. Without anything to help me understand his mental state, I really have to wonder how clouded his judgment is, and if he poses any risks to the rest of the group.”

  “We aren’t a military,” Reynolds said. “We don’t answer to any government or populace, we don’t have a strict set of regulations, and the chain of command is incredibly simple. Marcell owns this organization, and the truth is that none of us have any authority to countermand him—under any circumstances. We all accepted the risks when we signed up—or stayed on after he took control. Anyone who thinks he poses too much risk to the organization is completely free to leave.”

  “I understand that, but I’m just not comfortable with the double-standard here. He’s hung over, unrested, his temper is running short, and his vital signs are all over the place due to dehydration and alcohol abuse. We would never allow one of his Marines in that condition to join a boarding party, but he gets away with it because he’s in charge.”

  Now Reynolds was unable to hold back a smile. Janssen’s observation was true. “That’s one of the perks of being the owner of the group,” he said matter-of-factly. Many of the real militaries in the galaxy fought hard to deny any allegations of internal hypocrisy or double-standards while often doing nothing to actually prevent them. But in Marcell’s organization, any hypocrisy by the leadership—Admiral Marcell and some of his subordinate Commodores—was completely out in the open for all to see. Raising the topic with Marcell would typically get him to nod in agreement and then respond with complete disinterest in correcting it unless it was severely interfering with the organization’s operations.

  Janssen slowly shook his head in disbelief, obviously disturbed by Reynolds’ nonchalance. Caring people often made the best doctors, but Reynolds wondered if perhaps Janssen cared about the situation too much. Reynolds had long ago realized that letting go, and allowing Marcell to be Marcell, was far less stressful than trying to control him. “I haven’t been on the Caracal that long, and this mission is the first time I’ve ever really met the Admiral. And the other thing that worries me is this: what happens after the mission? When Marcell finds out that this woman isn’t who he thinks? As obsessive as he is, what state will that put him in, and how do we deal with it? Again, I have no meaningful psych profile to predict him by.”

  Reynolds nodded slightly. Nobody had said as much, not aloud anyway, but he knew that the private, unspoken consensus among the Caracal’s officers was that this woman Adelia could not possibly be from Earth. Earth was nothing more than a fable, although some people believed it may have existed many millennia ago. But either way, Marcell was clearly making a mistake—although he paid well enough that most of his crew was willing to overlook that and join him even if they thought his quest was a farce.

  “I’ve worked with him for years, Doctor. I’ve accompanied him on enough of his Earth-seeking missions to know how this will turn out. He will be mistaken or misled, as always. Afterwards, he’ll withdraw to his cabin, sulk, and crawl into a bottle until we return to Headquarters. The trip home will be quiet.”

  “I hope you’re right, Captain.” He lowered his voice. “And while I may not have much input in our briefings, I can sense the general mood there. What happens if the raid doesn’t go well? Is he even capable of ordering a retreat when he’s so set on accomplishing his goal at any cost?”

  “If it comes to that, he’ll make the right call. He always has before.” He didn’t admit it, but Reynolds held some reservations this time. He’d worked under Marcell for years now, and he had definitely noticed how uncharacteristically frantic the Admiral was for success on this particular mission. During their daily planning briefings, any comment which suggested that the raid was far too risky or had a low probability of success was met with instant anger. Reynolds still held out hope that the raid would not be necessary, after all, the Cassandra was carrying cargo that was presumably for sale. Their very first course of action once contacting the Cassandra would be to simply try to purchase Adelia from them, and if that happened, the mission would end very smoothly.

  But slavery was illegal in the Waverly system. For that matter, slavery was illegal in most of the states wtihin the Independent Regions, and slave ship captains could be notoriously paranoid when operating outside of the empires that openly allowed it. The risk was high that the Cassandra’s crew would view Marcell’s offer to purchase Adelia as some kind of sting operation, and so refuse. Or their cargo of slaves might already be sold, and so they’d refuse to sell Adelia because she was already promised to another buyer. The officers had brainstormed several other similar scenarios where the task force would be forced to take Adelia by force in order to achieve Marcell’s goal.

  “You have more faith in him than I do,” said the doctor, who looked rather unconvinced. “Right now, I must admit I’m starting to second-guess my employment here.”

  Reynolds kept his face blank, hiding his disappointment from Janssen. Turnover was not rare in Blue Fleet. Of all the fleets in the organization, it was the only one that worked closely with Marcell, and usually the only one which went on missions directly related to his search for Earth. Some people—especially those with military experience, not so much the small-time pirates, smugglers, and mercenaries who signed up—just couldn’t cope with the man or his unusual beliefs. Janssen, though he was a very competent ship’s doctor, would be just one more in a long list of crew members who had departed after meeting Marcell.

  “Let me ask you this, Commander. What brought you here? To the Organization, that is. You clearly don’t share in his quest.”

  “Well, to be frank, I’m here because of his pay grades,” Janssen stated. “He pays so much that I originally thought it would be worth the stress.”

  Reynolds nodded. “That is a common motive among our crew,” Reynolds pointed out. “And Marcell does realize that. He won’t push too hard. He’s only one man, and he’s way too reliant on his people to alienate them completely.”

  Janssen seemed at least slightly relieved, and slowly bobbed his head in agreement a few seconds later. “Still…things are easier when he isn’t around.” He paused, as if he had more but wasn’t sure whether to continue. “If you don’t mind me asking, Captain…why are you here?”

  Reynolds smiled devilishly. “Boredom.”

  “Boredom?” he echoed, shaking his head. “You’re willing to help search for Earth of all things, out of boredom?”

  Reynolds, still smiling, nodded. “I spent most of my life in the Keide Defense Force. That was before the sector was absorbed by the Norma Empire. Everything we did there was by-the-book, strictly following protocol a hundred percent of the way. Missions were planned, replanned, planned again, with every possible contingency and option and variation plotted out months in advance by committees of analysts. Simple freighter escort missions followed thousand-page documents, complete with hundreds of flowcharts and dozens of appendices. I spent so much of my life mindlessly following meticulous checklists, and it was utterly boring. By the end of my career, I felt like my life didn’t matter.” He also hadn’t been very surprised when Norma had taken over Keide. The KDF had, in its strict adherence to protocol, missed the forest for the trees, and the force’s top c
ommanders had never planned a contingency for that scenario, despite all of the Empire’s recent takeovers of many of its neighbors. Without a year to plan their defense in advance, Keide had felt helpless and simply acquiesced to the Empire’s control rather than fight an unprepared, unplanned defense.

  “I retired as a Captain. My wife had died years before, the kids were grown up, and so I set out to find some excitement for a change. I joined here just before Marcell took over the organization. I watched him outperform all his peers and unwittingly stumble his way to the top. Almost as if by accident. Watching him has been entertaining, and I actually find it fun working for him.”

  “Fun? You like working for a lun—for him because it’s fun?”

  Reynolds chuckled lightly, ignoring the doctor’s insults against their employer, at least for now, and continued. “Marcell is the complete antithesis of my career with KDF. He doesn’t care much for protocol and procedure. He prefers to jump into things headfirst, with minimal planning, and then fight his way out of the mess by the seat of his pants. And, somehow, he’s actually very good at it. He has a habit of creating unorthodox and unpredictable solutions to problems, right when you think he’s finally lost. I believe he’s the greatest tactical genius of the century. I’ve learned a lot from him, and I’m writing a tactical textbook based on our experiences.”

  His expression sobered up. “He has made many enemies though, and his luck has to run out eventually. Someday, someone will catch up with him and this wild ride will end.” He sighed. “Then I’ll publish my work and retire for real. And for the next couple hundred years, my tactics manual will be required reading in every military academy in the galaxy. Then I’ll have left my mark on the universe.”

  “If you live to publish it, that is.”

  Reynolds chuckled again as he opened the door to leave.

  ***

  The Marine platoon was divided into four squads and loaded aboard their two transports which sat ready on the deck of the Caracal’s hangar. Despite his rank, Thaddeus was not taking command of the platoon. His Marines were a well-trained force recruited from among the galaxy’s military elite, and he was just a former engineer turned mercenary commander. For this mission, he was simply joining as another soldier, subordinate to Rossell and Weber and even the corporal who was assigned as his squad leader, though of course he reserved the right to override their orders if he absolutely thought it was necessary. These men were seasoned and well-disciplined though. It was unlikely that he’d have to assert his rank.

  He was assigned to Squad Two. His squad was oversized compared to the platoon’s other three squads because of his presence as well as the four extra medics Doctor Janssen had assigned to the mission to help deal with Adelia once they located her. The entire platoon wore vacuum-rated armored combat suits designed for hostile boarding actions. The medics, besides their standard field kits, also carried enough suit parts among them to outfit Adelia.

  Thad sat among the other Marines, seated in the starboard row of jumpseats with his carbine cradled between his knees, and listened to the nervous murmurs of a squad mostly composed of former military special forces soldiers who were unaccustomed to having an Admiral join them on a boarding party. Years ago, he would often accompany the Marines on missions, but not so much since getting the Headquarters asteroid facility built and operational. He was no longer a soldier or a starship captain. Now he was an administrator, and his efforts to keep his organization aligned on its many fronts—intelligence-gathering, stockpiling technology, general mercenary work, and of course the ongoing search for Earth—meant he rarely had the time to personally join his forces on missions anymore.

  “One minute till hyperspace exit,” Captain Bennett’s voice informed over the comm system inside Thad’s helmet. A minute later, Thad felt and heard the massive thunk of the frigate’s hyperdrive disengaging. He felt no acceleration as the ship’s precisely-tuned artificial gravity system did its job of keeping everyone from leaving their seat at several million G’s. “Hyperspace reversion completed.”

  “Radiators extended,” announced Commander Allen. The heads-up display inside Thad’s helmet indicated this was not a general broadcast, but came from the frigate’s operations channel which he’d subscribed to. The rest of the Marines would not hear these messages; it would be a distraction to them, but Thad needed to maintain an awareness of the entire task force beyond the Marine platoon. “Heat pumps and exchangers are operating at full capacity; commencing hyperdrive quick-charge.”

  “Sensors, any sign of the Cassandra?” asked Thaddeus.

  “Our sensors are syncing up with the Depot’s network…Negative, Admiral, the Cassandra is not here.”

  “As expected,” Captain Reynolds said. “Her arrival window has not yet ended. She’s probably performing an approach jump. Helm, once the Panther forms up on us, begin approaching the station, but take your time. We don’t actually want to arrive there.”

  Thad’s heart accelerated, pounding painfully within his chest and temples, occasionally skipping a beat or doubling up with extra ones. Never before in his search had he come this close to a real, tangible clue about Earth. He’d found so many vague leads before, but every single one had turned out to be nothing. Most were mere rumors, and the rest were scams by con artists hoping to take advantage of gullible treasure hunters or wealthy collectors. He had gone after many such leads in the past, knowing they’d turn up nothing, but still clinging to the tiniest of hopes that he might find something.

  But this time it was real, and he had no doubts whatsoever. He’d seen the image of Adelia in the Cassandra’s manifest. He knew it was her. Even after more than a decade away, hers was still a face he would never forget.

  He lost track of time as he focused on controlling his breathing. Knowing that it was real filled him with a burning, almost toxic anxiety that fueled both an intense desire to succeed and a deep, sickening fear of failure. The stakes were so high this time, unlike with all the uncertain Earth rumors he’d chased around before. This time, failure was unacceptable. His heart continued to pound, and he breathed slowly, counting to five before each exhalation, knowing he could easily hyperventilate if he wasn’t careful. His mouth felt dry, like it was stuffed full of cotton, and he felt the sweat accumulate on his clammy skin despite his suit’s excellent environmental controls.

  “Captain, we have a positive ID on the Cassandra!” the sensor officer exclaimed. “She exited hyperspace two light-seconds away and is now accelerating towards the station.”

  “This is Marcell,” Thad cut in excitedly. “Please confirm ID.”

  “Confirmed, Admiral. This is straight from the station’s traffic feed.” Thad’s body released a fresh surge of adrenaline and his knees began to shake.

  Chapter 7

  “Admiral, we’ve re-established encrypted comms with the Owl and Shrike,” announced Reynolds over the task force’s joint operations channel. “They report that they are in position and have stationed a few plainclothes inside, near the Cassandra’s registered docking port. The target is nearly done decelerating towards the Depot and will likely dock within a half hour.”

  Thad said nothing in response and saved his energy for the boarding action that he still hoped wouldn’t happen. He merely clicked his comm twice in acknowledgement and returned to distracting himself by counting the slow, pulsing vibrations from the transport’s idling fusion reactor.

  The best possible scenario the team had come up with was that Adelia would be disembarked for sale at one of the Depot’s seedier, criminal-connected establishments. Thad’s men would simply purchase her and the mission would be over. No one else would ever know a mission had occurred.

  However, they considered it a long shot. Slavery was outlawed in the Waverly system. Obviously, though, there was a black market where many outlawed goods and services could be traded, but Gray Fleet’s intelligence data on Waverly did not indicate that there was much, if any, black market demand for slaves. T
he system’s biggest industry, deuterium mining and refinement, required a mix of skilled labor and high-tech automation and was not really suitable for slave labor. The black market sex slave trade was likewise very small simply because of the star system’s low population and the relatively low income and standard of living held by most of the citizens. And while that particular black market certainly existed, as it did in nearly every populated system in the galaxy, trade itself was almost certainly not conducted at a high-traffic location like the Waverly Depot.

  Thaddeus waited, sitting as still as he could inside the transport, doing nothing, saying nothing, trying to think nothing, quietly and nervously listening to the operations channel as the ships’ officers reported on their own hyperspace readiness and the maneuvers of their prey. His laser carbine rested with its stock on the deck and the barrel up between his knees, pointing at the transport’s ceiling with the power pack safely locked offline.

  His heart thudded powerfully and erratically inside his chest, and in hindsight he wished he’d taken traditional sleep aids to help him through the journey’s night shifts rather than booze. If Janssen’s men assigned to monitor the platoon’s suit sensors thought his vital signs unusual, they were being timid about it. Janssen was likely afraid to provoke him again, he hoped. His head was pounding, too, and he realized he had left the infirmary without getting the pain medicine he’d gone there for. At least his squad was likely to stay away from most of the action. The Marines were understandably hesitant to put the Admiral and some medics on the front lines, and as ill as he felt, he didn’t want to have to fight anyway, although the personal nature of the mission meant he had to be there. He could not possibly sit back and stay uninvolved when the stakes were this high. Adelia was from Earth, and his personal presence among the boarding party would indicate to the Marines just how important it was that they succeed.