The Belt Loop (Book Three) - End of an Empire

by Robert B. Jones

  “Sir?”

  “What part of my command did you not hear, admiral?”

  “Are you ordering me to bring weapons to bear on the Deception, sir?”

  The bridge was as quiet as stone in deep water. Only the mild background radio chatter interrupted the deadly lack of voices. All eyes were on the admiral. Some wondered if he had a death wish.

  “Lieutenant Manciir, bring me the duty roster for this ship. Tell me who is the next senior officer. Admiral Reegid is hereby relieved of command.” Phatie snapped his fingers and pointed to the bewildered admiral. “Take him below and put him under guard. If it were not for his knowledge of the new antimatter weapon, I would end his miserable life this very minute.”

  Two of Phatie’s personal guards stepped up to the admiral and relieved him of his sword. He cast a baleful look at the Piru Torgud and silently left the bridge with his escorts.

  “Sir, Captain Onduure is next on the seniority list,” Manciir said. “He is off shift at this time.”

  “Summon him to the bridge immediately. Mister Yaggaar, bring this ship about one five zero degrees. Mister Heevie, prepare to target the Deception.”

  The bridge responded sluggishly, not believing what they were being ordered to do. Yaggaar slowly pivoted the boat and Heevie started punching up targeting resolutions with the speed of a man asleep. “Sir, Captain Onduure on the way,” Manciir said, stepping away from the comm console. All the while Phatie was on the prowl, the admiral’s crew reluctantly oriented the ship as they had been instructed. Once Captain Onduure arrived, Phatie told him what his orders were. He did a double-take and pounded his chest. “Yes, my eminence,” the captain said without emotion. He started barking orders at once and within thirty seconds he had the ship in proper position and the Deception in his cross-hairs. “Awaiting your orders, sir,” Onduure said.

  “Destroy that ship, Mister Onduure. Fire at will.”

  Instinct would have had him say something first. If the ship was defective and had to be destroyed to prevent compromising the mission, that was one thing. But, really, to include the crew as defective as well, that was another thing entirely. Only the love of living prompted Onduure not to protest the order. “Mister Heevie, fire your weapons. Concentrate on the aft quarter, make it a swift kill.”

  The weapons officer punched in the commands and the Decimator shuddered briefly. Lieutenant Sheerd had notified the rest of the flotilla to depart the space around the doomed ship. Phatie watched the blister with morbid fascination as the excited light energy tore through the port flank on the hobbled ship aft of the centerline and worked its destructive stitchery back to the containment coil bulge. Twenty seconds after the first laser struck the Deception she was on fire and breaking up. Once the hydrogen bottles surrendered their integrity to the powerful lasers the entire ship blossomed into an elliptical fireball of almost invisible blue flame. Seconds later the largest piece of the ship could fit in one’s breast pocket.

  “Put me on command frequency, Mister Sheerd,” Phatie barked. The comm officer nodded and Phatie spoke to his battle group. “The Deception has malfunctioned and her engines have exploded. Make ready to resume our mission. We will make the jump to Wilkes without further delay. All commands prepare your boats for departure.”

  Phatie’s captains reported their readiness. He knew now they would report green boards no matter what the indicators told them. He was growing impatient to get this next strike finished. He gathered Manciir and his guards and headed for the hatch. On his way past the wide-eyed Captain Onduure, he paused and said, “Prepare us for the jump, captain. Once we unfold at Wilkes, I will have the logs updated to reflect your new position, Admiral Onduure. Carry on.”

  Onduure pounded his chest and was thankful his jelly legs had held him up long enough for the Piru Torgud to depart the bridge.

  Chapter 39

  A weary Lieutenant Commander Niki Mols slumped in one of the wing chairs in her uncle’s office. It was 1645 hours and she had just made it back from Narid and the farmhouse belonging to Coni Berger, now deceased.

  “And, you’re sure this blood belonged to this Nood Teeluur? What did you have to compare it to?”

  “We had DNA samples from Commander Yorn’s house south of Nova Haven, remember? When Yorn was abducted and Teeluur replaced him, he forgot to clean up after himself. No doubt he figured it wasn’t really going to be necessary. If what Inskaap told me is true, the Varson super spy had no intentions of surviving past the destruction of the Nova Haven Base and as many ships as he could if he could have made it to the PA dock.”

  “I assumed these guys were top-notch.”

  She sighed. What was that old saw about assuming? “They were. But in his final preparations to replace Yorn, he forgot to clean out the hair trap in the bathroom. We found enough cellular debris to type him.”

  Admiral Paine leaned back in his chair and stared at his niece. “Yet, he makes the same mistake north of Narid. Either he’s not as accomplished an operative as Inskaap thought he was, or he’s rattled, out of control, and leaving a trail a blind bloodhound could follow. Any idea where he made off to?”

  “Not yet. We found one stolen vehicle in the barn up there, but, judging from the tire tracks around the place, another vehicle was involved. I would guess that would be the ground-car rented earlier by Captain Zane.”

  Paine leaned in and settled on his elbows. This whole business was taking up too damn much of his precious time, he thought. For the first time in his life he was beginning to doubt the efficiency of his niece. Her efforts were noteworthy, if not downright brilliant, but she always seemed to be playing catch-up ball, with the Varson team out in front on every issue. Could it be she needed more help? Maybe an assist from some of the more senior operatives from the Weyring CNIS detachment?

  “Now we have this Varson spy on the loose yet again. And, he’s proven he is ruthless. Berger, Zane and Fraze. Any idea how they all came to be in the same place at the same time?”

  Mols squirmed in her seat and adjusted her cast. “Only speculation so far. The farmhouse was secretly purchased by Berger; it used to belong to the family of her ex-husband. Fraze had been missing, AWOL, for almost four months; whereabouts during that time — unknown. Robi Zane withdrew a large sum of money from a local bank, rented a car and drove to the farmhouse. We were able to place him in a bar, making a voice communication with a ground line receiver before he started out. We assume he called Berger.”

  “And, the incident? How were the bodies found? You think the scene was posed? Why?”

  A four parter. The irritation in his voice was starting to creep through, his inflection going up a notch at the end of his questions, signifying his annoyance. “I have photographs. They should be available on your reader, sir. In my mind, there had been an obvious attempt to arrange the bodies to suggest a circular firing squad. Each of the dead bodies had been shot twice at close range, side of the head double-tap. The only way that could have happened was if they suddenly decided to commit mutual suicide and counted to three. Impossible to account for the second shot. The splatter analysis also suggests the bodies were moved post-mortem. I had one of the CNIS guys digitize the scene and his simulation says something entirely different than what we found. There had to have been someone else in the room. They looked and found traces of Varson blood on a discarded piece of rope. The blood matched this Teeluur spy.”

  Paine was silent for a minute. He reached for his reader, voiced it through several menus and finally had the pictures from Berger’s farmhouse on his screen. He looked at the display for a few minutes. Mols relaxed a bit and waited for him to finish. For a minute she panicked when he kept switching from one particular frame to the previous one. He did that about ten times. What was he looking at? she wondered. Finally, he said, “I see what you mean. No way they killed each other. I’d say our boy Teeluur hadn’t seen many satvid crime shows. My guess is that they had him tied up somewhere and he managed to get loose. Overpower
ed one of them, probably Berger. Got her gun and shot them all. I’ll bet ballistics comes back with the same slugs in each of their heads.”

  “That’s what I’m counting on, sir. We found a secret tunnel from the house to the barn, too. Loaded with Navy gear, uniforms, weapons, electronic publishing machines. One of the printers was still on. I’m figuring Teeluur made himself a set of new credentials. Zane’s cash was nowhere to be found, either. Looks like he’s going to try to buy himself a way off the planet. I have already alerted every airpark within a thousand kilometers of Narid. I’ve also had the CNIS issue a apprehend order for the car. If he’s driving Zane’s rental, we’ll be on to him if he stays on the roads.”

  He stood and walked to the window. The base was alive with lights as the winter sun started its slow western descent. Off to the north he saw landing lights from various aircraft waiting their turn to kiss the north end of Runway One Nine. Some were ground support aircraft, others — the larger ones — were shuttles and lifeboats making their way down from the Port Authority dock. “I don’t want that bastard to get off the planet, Niki. This whole spy network thing almost cost me my promotion. Admiral Geoff is literally beside himself with frustration. He wants to do complete bioscans and DNA analysis of everybody in the Fleet. While it’s an excellent idea, we just don’t have the time or the equipment to do such a thing right now.”

  “I’m sure he knew that,” Mols said.

  Paine turned from the window and stared at her. “What was that remark supposed to mean, young lady?”

  “Admiral, Uncle Vinny. Can I be frank? As one Colonial Navy Officer to another? Look, I know you have given me the opportunity of a lifetime, let me pretty much call my own shots ever since the first Varson War. Now I have something I have to figure out, and you’re probably not going to like where I want to go with this.”

  He returned to his desk but instead of sitting in his chair on the business side of the desk, he perched his behind on the front edge and crossed his arms in front of his chest. “What’s on your mind, Niki. Off the record,” he said.

  “Turn off the recorder, Uncle Vinny. I’m serious. This is important.”

  He reached over his desk and pushed a stud on his comm stack. “Okay, done. Now what is it?”

  “It’s Admiral Geoff, sir. I think he’s working for the enemy. He might even be one of them.”

  Chapter 40

  Admiral Haad’s twelve ships left the fold at 2250 hours on 05 March 2790, Earth-Standard Reckoning. The trip from Bayliss had been accomplished in just over 55 hours. All of his ships reported in with green boards and he stationed them around the agreed upon coordinates still some 40 million kilometers above the plane of the ecliptic and 72 million kilometers from Wilkes and her sister planet.

  He stationed his task force a million klicks above and sunward of the coordinates contained in the WIN admiral’s message. He had no idea how accurate their new fold technology was or what effect it had on their navigation systems so he wanted to make sure the WI Fleet didn’t unfold in the middle of his battle group. If his astrogation was accurate, they would appear down about seventeen degrees off his starboard bow. He’d left them plenty of room to maneuver but just to be on the safe side, he instructed his navigation shack to spot-check his positioning using a three-star triangulation. Once the computers took over the task his answer was flashed to his forward blister with the assembly point in the center of the screen and radial lines projecting to three fixed stars. His navigation had been precise.

  “Captain Orr, maintain station keeping this location and at 2400 hours we commence radio silence. No ship-to-ship communications of any kind. Kill all running lights as well.”

  “Aye, aye, sir. Going dark in one hour, on my mark.” The captain of the boat counted down the seconds and marked the passage of 2300 hours. Haad then ordered all blast shields lowered and instructed his respective bridge commanders to use caution and maintain their Higgs Fields to avoid any proper motion in the battle group. Shipboard cameras projected split-screen images on Haad’s blister and he maintained his vigil at the point of the assembled group of darkened ships.

  “These WIN guys are friends, aren’t they, sir?” Captain Orr asked.

  “That they are, captain. This is just standard practice for interfacing with a group of friendlies in unknown space. Prevents a lot of unnecessary tension. Especially out here in the Fringes where the Varson might show up unannounced.”

  Captain Orr nodded. He was one of the newly promoted captains and his background had been in administration. The war and the subsequent loss of command officers had forced a lot of restricted line officers into the front line positions they had to learn on the job. Haad had decided to take the inexperienced captain under his wing on this highly-political voyage and hoped the cruise stayed that way. Should shots come across his bow, Haad had the knowledge and requisite experience to captain the boat and protect his group.

  “Relax, captain and wander over to the CIC and look around the sonarman’s shoulder. When the Great Black Fleet arrives, they’ll no doubt send out transponder codes as soon as they leave the fold.”

  “Roger, sir. How many ships are we expecting?”

  Haad threw up his hands. “Could be a handful, could be hundreds. The message was not clear, but, knowing how the big-brains back on Earth operate, I would probably bet on it being more than 100 and less than one million.”

  Orr chuckled lightly and walked the raised walkway behind the admiral’s command chair. He headed to the CIC and eased his way into the dimly-lit alcove. Six sailors sat at consoles and a variety of scanners and radars and wave detectors were silently sweeping the space around the battle group. The loose diamond formation of Haad’s group showed up on several screens as pixellated blobs of light spread out fan-like from the center of the screen. The two dimmer blobs in the extreme back of the formation represented the tenders.

  All of the officers and rates on the bridge were in standard dark blue working uniforms with many of the senior men wearing baseball caps with the name and hull number of the ship embroidered on the front. Haad’s cap was additionally decorated with “scrambled eggs” on the bill in bright yellow and gold thread. He had ordered his men and women to come to the party in casual attire and his protocol advisor, a lieutenant commander from Geoff’s office, had told him where in the manuals to find the appropriate section dealing with the upcoming meet and greet. So much bullshit involved with the admiral stuff, Haad thought, it’s a wonder they can find anybody to promote. If the captains knew of all of the BS up front, most would probably elect to stay behind the wheel of a ship.

  He looked at his reader and pulled up names of crewmen he wanted to accompany him on the inspection tour. He needed a few sharp minds beside him and a few officers he could trust to keep their mouths closed and their ears open. He wanted Yorn and Gertz, Mason and Diggs, Henry and Tibbs, a few guys from the science rankings, a contingent from hull maintenance, engineering, engine systems, admin, medical — shit, he thought, he wanted too many men to go with him. He had to narrow his list, or break it up into smaller groups as the situation presented itself.

  He was in the middle of completing his administrative diligence when a series of short beeps from his comm stack interrupted his thoughts.

  “Sir. Contact with a ship unfolding off our port flank. Down six six degrees at our two eight five,” the calm voice from the CIC said.

  “Roger the contact. Send Mister Orr back to the bridge,” Haad said.

  “They’re early, sir,” Captain Orr said as he made his way from the CIC.

  Haad held up one hand. “And, they’re way off course. Comm, you getting any IFF?” Haad wanted to know. The Identify, Friend or Foe was a radar signal designed to identify friendlies; every human ship in the galaxy had the system.

  “Negative on the IFF, sir. Maybe they want to cool down first.”

  “Second contact, sir. One point two mikes behind the first, same down angle,” the CIC lieutenant
commander said.

  Haad ordered the comm tech to put the plots on the blister. The two ships were coming in from the sun side of the system, vectoring away from the fold on a long spiral toward Wilkes. Decelerating and moving away from the egress point. More ships were on the way. If this was the Great Black Fleet, they were almost an hour early and coming in from a direction that would not plot back to Earth.

  “Mister Orr, sound general quarters. If these are the GBF ships, they should have squawked by now. Mister Renteria, send a tight-beam coded message to the rest of the battle group. Have them go to GQ and standby for further orders. Mister Richard, what’s the distance?’

  The science officer punched a few panels on his console. “Those initial returns are from about seven million klicks, sir.”

  “Admiral, could they not know about the IFF frequencies the Colonial Navy uses? Could they —”

  “Make yourself useful, Mister Orr, and shut the hell up. Keep your ears open for my commands and be prepared to second any and all orders.”

  Captain Orr fell silent at once. He felt out of place on this hot-plate of human activity, like a drop of water hitting a hot frying pan. Pulsating alarms permeated the boat and the lights dimmed as Haad punched in the codes for the alert. Something Captain Orr should have done immediately upon hearing the command.

  “Third contact, sir. Same positioning, decelerating and turning away from the entry point.”

  “Bridge, aye, contact three. Mister Hurd, anything?”

  “Negative, sir,” Lieutenant Gale Hurd said. She ran her hand up and down the stack and adjusted her gain controls. “They’re running silent as far as I can tell. Delay time two three seconds. If they were transmitting, we’d have heard them by now.”

  “Keep at it. Double check your archive and make sure your IFF freqs are up to date.”

  Captain Orr started to opine but thought better of it. The admiral had just told him to shut up a few seconds ago.