by CJ Williams
The answer shocked Luke. The last thing he expected was a third party. “What others?” he demanded angrily.
“I don’t know,” Dracci pleaded again. He tried to caress his wounded knee but was afraid to touch it. “Haejeog, made the arrangement. I never met them. I don’t care about Haejeog’s conspiracies.”
“Was it the Bakkui?” Luke prodded.
“No!” Dracci cried, barely able to speak. “Haejeog needed the other’s help to fight the Bakkui. That’s why he worked with them.”
Luke questioned the man again and again, digging the pistol barrel into the open wound, even jamming it threateningly against Dracci’s temple. Dracci started spouting conspiracy theories. His ministers were at fault; his servants did it; anyone his mind could conjure up was responsible. It was evident, the man knew nothing else. Finally, Luke stepped back and holstered his weapon, glaring at the defeated king.
After a moment, he mounted the dais once more and gazed out at the terrified officials. Astonishment creased their frightened faces. The room was filled with thoroughly cowed men.
In a savage voice Luke said, “I hereby strip the former King Dracci of all titles, privileges and property. The Fourth Family is no more. All that was his, now belongs to me. In his place, I now appoint a governor who shall rule over all the stars and planets that were once known as Fourth Family space. That governor speaks for me and rules in my name. Any slight to your new governor will be dealt with as treason to my crown. Does anyone here have an objection?”
It wasn’t really a question. No one in the room stirred.
“Governor Dale!” Luke shouted. “Come forward.”
One of the faceless uniformed soldiers of Luke’s personal guard stepped from the ranks and marched to the dais. Katrina pulled off her helmet, tucked it under her arm and bowed low to Luke before straightening and standing beside him.
“This is Governor Katrina Dale,” Luke said. “I suggest you treat her well.”
Katrina stepped forward, pointing at two of her soldiers and inclined her head toward the former king. They ran to his chair and dragged him away, leaving a trail of blood on the floor as he moaned piteously. Luke ignored the spectacle and returned to his throne.
When Dracci was gone from the room and the echo of his cries faded away, Katrina faced the crowd as the planet’s new sovereign ruler. “I will meet with each of you to assess your complicity in the treason we have just witnessed. You will be called when I am ready. For now, leave this room.”
The ministers started shuffling uncertainly toward the exit.
“Quickly!” she shouted.
The crowed of robed figures surged away from the dais and in no time the room was empty, save for Luke, Katrina and their soldiers.
Luke smiled. His features were relaxed as though it was a Saturday afternoon. “Have your ground commander establish palace security. I’ll keep my own guards at my side. Let’s get you situated in your new quarters.”
*.*.*.*
Luke, Katrina and Grant sat at the head table in the palace banquet hall discussing the day’s events. Except for a fresh set of guards, they were alone.
“Anyway,” Luke said. “Dracci was a royal. With his implant, that knee will heal in time. Might take a while.”
“You scared me to death with that stunt, Luke,” Grant complained.
“Sorry. But that was not the time and place to show mercy. I wanted to make it clear that there is a new game in town.”
“I think you did that,” Grant agreed.
Luke shifted to face Grant directly and his expression darkened. “And one more thing, Grant. Don’t ever question me in the middle of a battle again. If I felt it was necessary, I would have blown his head off; I would have killed every minister in that room if it meant getting Annie back. If you can’t stomach that, then tell me right now. You can bow out and go back to Moonbase; no harm, no foul. But don’t ever put yourself in my path again.”
Grant held Luke’s gaze for a second only before backing down. “I wasn’t challenging you, Luke. It just caught me off guard. But are you sure? I know you’re a man on a mission, but don’t you think a personal check might be a good idea now and then?”
“Not in battle,” Luke said emphatically. “But now? While we’re sitting around the dinner table? You can argue as much as you like. I want your input. But never in the face of the enemy.”
“Fair enough,” Grant conceded. “That’s a valid point and I apologize. I just don’t want you to lose your humanity in all this. Don’t become one of the people you despise.”
Luke turned his back to Grant and faced Katrina. “You still up for this? I’m not sure I did you any favors in there. You’ll have to sort through any lingering resentment and I’m sure there will be plenty. I’d suggest you be ruthless during your review of the ministers. But don’t forget; even as the sovereign, you need a bureaucracy; you can’t kill everyone. One thing I would emphasize is setting up distribution of medical implants. It’s a crime that Dracci never did that.”
“Already in progress, Commander and I absolutely am up for this,” Katrina said. “You still intend to leave me three hundred guards?” Luke nodded and she continued, “That’s little enough to take over a kingdom, but I’ll make it work.”
“See that you do,” Grant urged, obviously trying to regain some lost pride. He turned to Luke. “What do you make of that talk of others? You think it’s the Bakkui or a different family?”
“I don’t know,” Luke admitted. “It has to be one or the other. My big fear has always been that someone would start sharing technology with the Bakkui. We did that inadvertently last year when they captured one of our Ambrosia-class warships. Came close to paying for it in a big way.”
“We did it twice,” Grant pointed out. “These Booker ships are a nightmare.”
“That’s a good point. Yulae, send out an executive order. From this moment on, all Booker ships are illegal.”
“Understood Your Majesty,” Yulae, replied. “May I make an observation?”
“Sure,” Luke said. “Go ahead.”
“Such proclamations from Your Majesty, are normally called royal decrees. Do you wish to change that designation?”
Grant burst out laughing and Katrina politely stifled a snigger. Luke gave both of them a wry look. “Yulae is making me look bad. All right, Yulae. Issue that as a royal decree. Keep me honest, I guess.”
“Understood,” Yulae responded. “And secondly, please be advised that there are two royal shipyards on this planet that each week are producing in excess of two hundred of what you call Booker ships. They are highly prized as export items.”
Luke turned his glare on Katrina.
“I’m on it,” she stated, rising to her feet. “If you gentlemen will excuse me. Yulae, please have Tabitha pick me up on the front steps and let her know where these shipyards are. Ask General Holt if he can spare me ten Phantoms as an escort.”
“Acknowledged. General Holt asks for fifteen minutes. He is finishing a debriefing with subordinate commanders, but wishes to accompany you.”
Once Katrina had departed, Grant offered a suggestion. “Might want to offer a bounty on those Bookers. Anyone who turns in a Booker gets a Nobility AI replacement vessel, ton-for-ton or better. Let’s keep our battles to a minimum.”
“Good idea,” Luke agreed. “Yulae, make that an adjustment to the decree.”
“Acknowledged.”
Luke stood up and stretched. “I’m heading back to Valentine. I want to get out of this blood-stained gear and back into a flight suit. You coming?”
“Right with you, boss.” Grant groaned as he rose to his feet. “Man, I’m not getting any younger, you know?”
“What are you talking about?” Luke teased. “All you did was sit on the bridge and criticize. I was doing all the work.
*.*.*.*
Luke fidgeted while he waited in Valentine’s conference room. Dracci had fallen from grace four days ago and Luke desperately w
anted to get to the Haiyanas system. He was sure that Annie was being held there.
Otherwise, why would King Haejeog abduct her if they were not going to take care of her? She was only valuable as a bargaining chip if she were healthy. And if she wasn’t healthy, no amount of negotiating would save whoever was behind her kidnapping.
The senior staff began to enter the room and Luke shook himself mentally to focus on the tasks at hand.
Grant started the meeting. “All right, listen up. Communications?”
Communications officer, Lieutenant Sandy Fitzgerald, said, “We have established post office modules on six of this system’s moons. Those have already linked into the communication arrays that we established on Japurnam Five and Ebene Three. As of yesterday, we are receiving inbound traffic.”
“I got a dozen messages from Dean Stone yesterday,” Grant confirmed. He looked at Luke. “You saw that? Standard stuff.”
Luke nodded. The communication system was working satisfactorily.
Fitzgerald continued, “Yesterday we sent thirty post office modules to the Haiyanas system. Eight of them will attempt to land discreetly on local moons to prepare for communication operations. Of those, four will remain silent until contacted by your flagship. The remaining twenty-two modules will assume covert holding orbits. Here’s a map.”
The conference room’s video screen displayed the Haiyanas system with white flashing dots indicating the deployment of the post office drones.
Fitzgerald said, “As you can see, we have them spread out in distance and elevation. Again, those will remain silent until activated. In three days, we’ll send out thirty additional modules. They will hold position at various locations two hundred AUs above the ecliptic. If at any time there are less than four communication units active, one of the spare modules will move inward until it can land on a moon and go active.”
“Expansion beyond that?” Luke asked.
Fitzgerald shook her head. “Nothing planned in the Haiyanas system, however, we did send self-replicating models to nearby star systems. We anticipate linking up with the main Alliance network in pretty short order. They are steadily expanding in this direction. Six months tops, you’ll have one giant communication grid between here and Earth.”
“Sounds good,” Grant approved. “Recon?”
Ensign Sanford took up the narrative. “Sir, essentially we’ve done the same thing as communication, but with reconnaissance drones. We have the Haiyanas system blanketed and we’re being as covert as possible. We also stationed an additional reserve supply outside the system.”
“What about our decoy drones?” Luke asked.
“Engineering promises the design will be complete tomorrow. The day after, we will launch a flight of six decoys.”
“Decoys?” Grant asked looking at Luke.
“Sorry,” Luke replied. “I meant to tell you. It was an idea I had the other night when I couldn’t sleep. Sanford here is whipping up a reconnaissance drone that looks, acts and has the same signature as one of our fighters. I want to send a half-dozen of those into the Haiyanas system before we arrive. I’m still worried about this new weapon of theirs. I’d like to get some data on what it is and how it attacks.”
“Understood,” Grant responded with a shrug. The tightness in his voice reflected his irritation at being left in the dark on new projects.
“Sorry,” Luke said again. Doing an end run around Grant, even for pet projects, made it difficult for the man to manage his forces.
The problem was Luke still wasn’t sleeping well. He lay awake at night until all hours alternately planning for the future and then beating himself up for Annie’s abduction. He would eventually drift off from exhaustion, but even then he’d wake up an hour or two later. It was no wonder he let personal items slip through the crack.
Grant ignored the apology and glanced at Colonel McKenzie, Lenny Holt’s senior ground commander. “Colonel, how is our favorite guest doing?”
“He’s not a happy camper, as you can imagine. The doc said his knee is on the mend, but very slowly. Mr. Dracci is going to have a permanent limp unless he focuses on regeneration.” McKenzie turned to face Luke. “He keeps asking for an audience with you, Commander. Says he has information.”
“Pass,” Luke growled.
McKenzie grinned. “Understood. For the rest, my soldiers are at ninety-nine percent. I’ve never seen kids like these. There’s no barracks fatigue or discipline problems. They study, train and when they’re not training, they coach each other.”
“Well, you know their history. I can’t imagine a tougher environment.”
“I agree,” McKenzie said. “And I was thinking the other day, how many millions of kids are still out there. The Bakkui are still on the march. It would be a good idea to create a children’s rescue effort. Not to make them soldiers, just a humanitarian operation.”
Luke sighed heavily. “I agree Colonel, but our plate is full at the moment. However, I’ll send that idea to Roth as a priority. He can start the program sooner than us. Maybe when we get Annie back she’ll take that on. A program like that would be important to her. Thanks for highlighting the issue.” No one dared comment on Luke’s underlying assumption that he would actually find his wife somewhere in the galaxy.
The staff meeting continued, covering dozens of items. But after forty-five minutes, it was finished. Luke hated long meetings and ran a tight ship. It wasn’t that topics didn’t get discussed, he just kept people focused and cut off extraneous discussions.
When everyone had left, only Grant and Luke sat at the table. “I like your idea of the decoy drones,” Grant admitted. “We have to do something before we run into that weapon again.”
“That’s my plan,” Luke said. “You saw what it’s capable of. That thing cut my ship right in two and did the same to Slater’s entire squadron. I’m worried that no matter how many ships we have, it could make mincemeat out of us. And at the same time, we can’t shoot back because Annie might be on the ship. I’m not sure what to do, but at the least, we can use more intel.”
“Makes sense,” Grant agreed. “When are we moving out? I know you’re chomping at the bit.”
“Katrina has a handle on the palace and Lenny is ready to go. I want the decoys before we leave. We’ll give them a quick flight test and send them off in front of us. One way or another, we’re out of here in three days, decoy drones or not.”
“The Warlord is on a roll, huh?” Grant teased.
Luke nodded. “I used to hate that nickname,” he said. “But the longer this goes on, the more it fits. One thing I worry about is that I may go off and kill people that don’t need killing. Annie would hate me saying that, but it’s what I feel like these days. I think I’m losing my mind.”
Grant nodded. “I worry about the same thing, frankly. The easy-going Luke Blackburn that I used to know is gone. But I understand…it’s the situation with Annie. Once we get her back, you’ll be fine. In the meantime, we’ll keep an eye on you. In that regard, I’m going to have the doc pay you a visit. Do me a favor. Don’t push back and we’ll get you to Haiyanas Seven in no time.”
Chapter Five – Haiyanas Seven
“This is a weird system,” Luke said, standing at the viewing window on Valentine’s command bridge. The sun of the Haiyanas system was extraordinarily bright from this distance. It looked bigger than most inhabited star systems. And the planets were further out. A year on Haiyanas Seven must be the equivalent of ten or fifteen Earth years.
Grant said, “That’s a huge freaking star to have habitable planets. I guess it pushed everything outward a little.”
“I’m not sure gravity works that way,” Luke suggested.
“What do you know; you’re a history major.”
Luke smiled sardonically. “Well, that much is true. Status?”
Valentine was learning Luke’s foibles and spoke up. “Going sub-light at two hundred fifty AUs. Collecting reconnaissance data at this time.”
“Give me an initial report,” Luke ordered. “We can get into a detailed analysis later.”
“Very well, Your Majesty,” Valentine said. “It appears that in the last three days the Haiyanas authorities have begun a search to locate our recon drones. Ten have been destroyed and our reserve replacements are moving into new positions. None of the post office modules have been spotted by the enemy.”
Luke walked over to the tactical officer’s position where Lieutenant Elaine Cain busily reviewed incoming data.
“What happened three days ago?” Luke asked.
Elaine scanned through the information and reported, “It was the decoy fighters that we sent ahead to this system. They arrived and detected the dreadnought holding between the seventh and eighth planet. Once they began their simulated attack, that tipped the local inhabitants that an enemy force was in the area. They began a search and found some of our prepositioned reconnaissance drones.”
“How did the decoy attack go?”
Elaine finished her preliminary review. “I’m sorry, Commander, but the results are not good.”
“That is true,” Valentine confirmed. “All the decoys were destroyed during their initial approach to the dreadnought. We are receiving additional details at this time.”
“You want to go battle stations?” Grant prompted.
“Not yet,” Luke said, shaking his head. “Let’s keep a low profile until we analyze this new intel but go ahead and deploy our forces as we discussed.”
*.*.*.*
Luke finished watching the video taken during the decoy formation’s flyby of the unidentified dreadnought. He was sitting in Valentine’s conference room with Grant and Elaine, the ship’s tactical officer.
“That sucks,” Luke concluded.
“Well put,” Grant agreed.
Elaine was not deterred. “The dreadnought sort of looks like an upside-down oil tanker back on Earth with that huge bulbous nose protruding out the front.”
“That’s got to be the gun housing,” Grant said.
Elaine continued. “I suspect the nose is like a radar dome for a weather station. There must be a gun mount inside that shoots out the cutting beam. It looks like a whip lashing out, but it’s because the gun mount is on a gimbal. Valentine, play that again please…at one-quarter speed.”