by M. R. Forbes
"Fine," Millie said, still fighting to return herself to calm.
"Time is of the essence, Tio," Mitchell said.
"Understood, Colonel. You're free to leave as soon as the Avalon is loaded and ready. This is your mission now. Your crew."
Teal and Germaine both bowed to him again. "At your service, Colonel," Teal said.
"Tio, can you give me a moment with my crew?" Millie asked.
"Of course." He led Teal and Germaine away from them while they huddled together.
"Mitch, I have a feeling Tio isn't going to let me out of his sight. You need to get a message to Origin."
"I don't have a p-rat."
"I do," Cormac said. "Watson fixed me up."
"When?"
"A couple of days ago."
"You were under orders not to have your p-rat repaired."
"I know, but I was getting bored, and I have this collection of superhero vids-"
Mitchell glared at him. Cormac stopped talking.
"Does it matter now?" Millie asked. "What's done is done, and in this case, it will come in handy. Get Cormac to the array. Get the message out to Origin."
"What about everything Tio was just saying about working together? Shouldn't we ask him?"
"No. Just do it. Find out if we can send a stream the way Watson suggested. If there's any chance we can warn the inner galaxy, if we can warn Earth, we have to take it."
"Yes, ma'am," Mitchell said.
"Good luck to all of you. You'd better come back safe."
"I always come back safe," Cormac said. "I will until I don't come back at all." He followed with a short laugh, stopping when nobody laughed with him.
"Riiigg-ahh," Millie said quietly.
"Riiigg-ahh," they replied.
Millie and Watson approached Tio. "I have a request," Millie said.
"Yes, Admiral?"
"We need to speak to Origin, but the rock is too dense here for our p-rat signals to get through."
"Yes, I know."
"According to Watson, the stone around the antenna array is thin enough to allow us to communicate."
Tio paused for a moment. "I'm afraid that's not possible, Admiral. We don't transmit out of Asimov. We only receive. It's safer that way."
"The Tetron already know where we are. Even if there were someone out there listening, I don't see what harm it can do."
"I wouldn't expect you to. I have spent the last thirty years of my life being hunted, Admiral. Trust me when I say that I know how to protect myself and my family. A short-range comm signal may seem innocuous to you, but we've built our entire settlement and my entire pool of resources by being unwavering concerning security. I'm tolerating the continued use of your augmented reality receivers as a show of good faith, and for the very reason that the signals can't escape this shell."
"Tio-" Millie began to say.
"No," Tio replied. "No external transmissions."
"What if it means getting a message to Earth?" Watson said.
Millie turned her head, glaring at him for revealing their plan. She barely tolerated his continued breathing already.
Tio raised his eyebrows. "Is that what you're thinking, Admiral?"
Millie nodded.
Tio didn't look convinced. Mitchell wondered what it was the Knife thought they really wanted to do.
"I've already told you how we can save Earth. There is no form of transmission that can travel faster than a ship in hyperspace, and if the Tetron possess one, I would imagine only they carry the equipment to receive it."
"Yes, that's-" Watson stopped speaking when Millie grabbed his arm.
Mitchell glanced over at Cormac. Millie had been right about the Knife. He was either trying to intentionally prevent them from communicating with the Goliath or he was beyond paranoid. The Tetron already knew they were here. Nothing Tio did could stop that. Was he still hoping they weren't able to see Asimov? That when they did arrive it would evade their detection?
"Your stubbornness is going to cost us this war," Millie said.
"My stubbornness is going to keep my people alive."
"Don't you mean your daughter?"
Tio's face flushed. "I mean all of my people, but yes, her especially. Unlike the Alliance, I would never spare my daughter from the frying pan just to throw her into a fire."
"Admiral," Mitchell said, starting towards them before Millie's temper got the best of her.
She put her hand out towards him. "It's okay, Colonel. Just forget it. Get your crew ready. I want you on your way to Hell within the next eight hours."
"Yes, ma'am," Mitchell said, making eye contact with her. He could almost hear her voice in his head as though he still had his p-rat.
"Get the message to Origin."
He wasn't sure how he would manage that while he was helping to organize an assault team.
He would have to figure it out.
22
"Dropping in sixty, Admiral," Captain Rock said.
Steven stared out of the viewport on the bridge of the Carver at the empty white nothing of hyperspace beyond. He thought back to his early days in the Academy, remembering that the nothing wasn't really nothing, but the blur of the light of millions of stars being folded and compressed on top of one another ahead of the ship. If the Carver had a rearview mirror, they would see more of a fisheye shape to the space behind.
He shook his head. He'd grown up with starships and hyperspace, and the seeming impossibility of it all still kept him in awe. He was such a sap.
Of course, he was probably thinking about it to take his mind off that other thing. The thing he would have to face in less than sixty seconds.
He opened a channel on his p-rat, connecting him to the entire battle group.
"We don't know what we're going to run into out here. Be ready."
The whole fleet was on high alert, all starfighters primed and ready to go as soon as they dropped into hyperdeath. They were deep in Federation space, deeper than he had ever been. Deeper than he had ever thought the Alliance would dare go. They had bypassed the border planets that would normally see the bulk of any friction between the two nations, diving far behind enemy lines alone.
Their target was designated FD-09. According to the further instructions Steven had received from Command, it was a military outpost disguised as a farming colony. An E-type planet that was ninety-five percent fresh water and five percent highly enriched soil. Gravity was a little less than Earth, but it was livable, and home to over a million farmers and the requisite supply pipelines.
He had been ordered to destroy it.
Of course, Command didn't know if the planet was defended. The reports on FD-09 were six months old - more than enough time for the Federation to determine if the true nature of the site had been learned by Alliance spies.
More than enough time to send a force large enough to obliterate Steven and his fleet.
It had happened before. More than once. He had known Admiral Colloway. They had met at an Officer's party back on Earth a couple of years earlier. He had been a good man who had wound up in the wrong place at the worst time. They had lost two dozen ships, hundreds of fighters, and more importantly, a lot of good men and women.
Which is why he was thinking about hyperspace. He didn't want to think about losing the thousands in his battle group. It was better to react to whatever they discovered when they dropped and not worry about it for even a second before then. There was nothing they could do about it anyway. Coordinates had been set, and they were only thirty seconds out.
Those remaining seconds felt like they took an eternity. Steven counted each one of them in his mind, matching them to his breath. His heart was pounding, and he could feel the heat of his anxiety on his cheeks. He glanced over at Rock. His First Mate wasn't as visibly nervous, but he could see it in the furrow of his brow.
Steven knew he wasn't supposed to be nervous. Not outwardly, anyway. He was the Admiral. He was supposed to set the example for his cr
ew. He'd always been bad at hiding his emotions. At least the people on the bridge were used to it. He knew they trusted him.
"Ten seconds," Rock said. He didn't need to count it out loud, they could all see the countdown on their p-rats if they wanted. It seemed to remove some of the surreal feeling of it all to break the silence.
Steven felt the tug as the hyperspace engines powered down. The stars spread out in front of them, separating to reveal the large blue planet ahead, a small dot of green the only indication of land.
"Status," Steven said, squinting his eyes to look ahead at the planet. No red had popped up behind his vision. No alert tones were sounding.
"Not reading any enemy spacecraft," Rock said. "It looks like they didn't know we were coming. Locking onto the surface."
"Prepare the nukes," Steven said.
The Carver and the other battleships carried the space-to-surface weapons in their bellies, more than enough to dive deep into the underground passages where their operatives had said the Federation was building starfighters and mechs.
"Daedalus' nukes are armed and ready," Captain Cheng said.
"Victoria's nukes are armed and ready," Captain Mustafa said.
"Gallant's nukes armed and ready," Vice Admiral Josephs said.
"Carver armed and ready," Steven said. "Fire on my mark."
He watched the overlay on his p-rat with one eye, and the real-time view of the planet with the other. They needed to get the fleet into the proper placement before they could launch, and they would have only a few seconds to fire. The whole thing could have been left to automated systems, but Steven wouldn't allow it. If they were going to take human lives, they were going to be responsible for it, not leave it to a machine.
The Carver's main engines came back online, and the ships began to move in unison across the vast emptiness of space, angling perpendicular to and in opposition of the planet's rotation. A red outline appeared around the planet in the p-rat, slowly shifting towards orange as they approached firing position.
"Get ready," Steven said.
A red dot appeared on the overlay behind them.
Then another, and another.
"Federation battleships," Captain Rock shouted.
"Evasive maneuvers," Steven said, breaking his concentration on the planet.
"We almost have it," Cheng said from on board the Daedalus.
"I said evasive," Steven said.
"This is Admiral Calvin Hohn of the Federation battleship Samurai. Your presence in Frontier Federation space is unauthorized. Withdraw immediately, or this incident will be passed to our council as a blatant act of all-out war."
The Alliance ships began spreading apart into a standard defensive formation, even as the planet's rotation brought it closer to firing range.
"Admiral, what are we going to do?" Rock asked.
Steven surveyed the battle grid. His fleet had twenty ships to the Federation's ten, but the Federation force was almost uniformly battleships, leaving him way outgunned even if he wasn't outnumbered. If he launched the nukes or attacked the enemy fleet, not only would he and his entire fleet of soldiers die, but they would be starting a direct, overt confrontation with the Federation.
"Admiral?" Rock asked again.
"Our orders are clear, Admiral," Josephs said from the Gallant. "We're to destroy the assembly station at any cost."
Steven felt his heart thudding even harder. He knew what their orders were, but this was straight out suicide. Why would Command send them out here to die like this? They were the newest battle group in the fleet. It didn't make sense.
"Admiral?" Josephs said.
"Alliance fleet, you have ten seconds to begin powering up your hyperspace engines," Admiral Hohn said.
Ten seconds. Steven checked his p-rat. They would be in range in fifteen. He had no time left.
He clenched his jaw. He knew what he had to do. That didn't mean he liked it.
"Gallant, Daedalus, fire when ready. All other ships, launch fighters and prepare to engage. If you believe in God, now is a good time." He closed his eyes. "Forgive me for what I'm about to do."
A thought switched his p-rat away from the surface nukes to spaceborne weapons. A second thought fired the first shot.
23
Teal and Germaine brought Mitchell, Cormac, and Long back towards the massive internal docks, taking an alternate route that circumvented the station's operations center. As they neared the docks, they turned down a secondary corridor, pausing at a secure hatch while Teal placed his hand against the biometric scanner. The hatch opened, finally revealing the larger truth behind Asimov, and the real power of the Knife.
A loading hangar, placed behind half a dozen of the docking clamps and hidden from outside view by heavy blast shielding. A hundred or more people moved about the hangar, guiding all kinds of ordinance from large lifts in the rear of the space towards the joined airlock of a starship.
A small cruiser. Almost certainly the Avalon.
Mitchell couldn't see the outside of the starship. He could see what was being loaded onto it. Crates of munitions and supplies along with a number of heavy lifter trucks and a pair of large mechs that Mitchell didn't recognize.
"Wow," Cormac said, feasting his eyes on the scene.
Mitchell held back his smile. It had likely been years since the Rigger had seen what a true military preparing for war looked like. It had been a while for himself as well, but he had seen it plenty of times before at Alliance stations throughout the galaxy. Only those times, the ordnance was being loaded into the Greylock.
He closed his eyes for a moment, remembering. Elle, with her short hair and wild, confident smile, welcoming him to the company. He had been cocky then, much, much more than he was now. He had said something stupid, she had chewed him out, and thus his career with the most highly decorated company in the UPA Space Marines had been born.
It was a good memory. A sad one. He opened his eyes. "I don't recognize those mechs," he said.
Teal laughed. "No, you wouldn't, Colonel. We call them Franks, short for Frankensteins. Digger, he's the head of mechanical, he takes the pieces we salvage and somehow manages to turn them into something else that usually works even better than what he started with." He turned backward in the pod, making a face that Mitchell assumed was supposed to be Digger. "Alliance machines are shit, Teal. Pure shit. It's like they want to lose the galaxy to the Federation." He said it in a high, nasally voice that drew a laugh from Germaine.
"I've had that thought before," Mitchell said. "You've seen the Dart?"
Teal shook his head. "Oh, man, Colonel. Don't ever mention that thing around Digger."
"So, what's the deal with Tio, anyway?" Long said. Mitchell hadn't gotten a full understanding of the drugs Singh had set him up with, but Long still seemed a little too relaxed for his liking.
"What do you mean?" Germaine said, the smile fading.
"He seems like he's always got an angle."
"Major," Mitchell said to silence him.
"No, it's okay, Colonel," Teal said. He met Long's eyes with his own. "Tio's been through a lot of shit, and he's survived because of what he believes in."
"Which is?"
"Freedom," Germaine said. "Believe it or not. Mr. Tio is convinced that over-reliance on AI will lead to our destruction. He told me what you were doing here. It seems that he was pretty right on, though the whole time travel thing is a serious mind-frig if you know what I'm saying. So yeah, I can tell your Admiral doesn't like him, and it's obvious you don't trust him, but considering that he did predict the future and has spent years working to keep it from happening, my blunt opinion is that you should all shut the frig up and go with the flow. Tio is a smart man. He can be cold, he can be calculating, but he knows what he's doing."
It was a straightforward opinion, and Mitchell appreciated it. "That would have been easier to do if he hadn't held a gun to our heads to get us to agree to his plan."
"You try watching your g
reatest fear come true," Teal said. "Between this and his daughter, its been a rough couple of months."
The pod continued towards the large lifts, slipping between the Franks. Mitchell stared up at them as they did, taking stock of the arm-mounted lasers, the missile launchers, the railguns. It was more armament than any Alliance mech typically carried.
"Does Digger have a secret to managing the heat?" he asked.
"Yeah," Teal said. "Don't shoot everything at once. He's got a bit of a thing for guns."
They hit the lift, sitting idle while the large doors slid closed. Mitchell traced their steps back, committing them to memory. It was going to be tough to sneak away from here. There had to be an alternate route towards the array, and he had a feeling he was going to need clearance to get there.
He sat back in the pod, wondering if he should bother. Germaine had a point about the Knife. The man had been lobbying Alliance politicians for years and had succeeded in getting a few anti-AI measures passed. Maybe their resistance was going to cause more problems than it was going to solve?
"Since you brought it up," Germaine said while the lift descended. "What's with your Admiral? I mean, she's sexy, seriously sexy, especially with that metal hand, but I think her panties are on a little too tight."
Mitchell's head snapped towards the pilot. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" he said.
Germaine's face froze. "Uh. I. Uh."
"He didn't mean any harm, Colonel," Teal said, putting a large arm between them. "Germaine here isn't always the most... diplomatic... speaker. He was just saying that she's pretty. And pretty intense."
Mitchell continued glaring at Germaine, who wouldn't make eye contact. "You would be too if you were in charge of the only military in the Alliance that was immune to the enemy threat, and your total headcount was less than a hundred. This is serious business, Teal. She's taking it seriously."
"Just like Tio," Teal said. "It seems when two personalities like that get together it always gets hot for everyone involved."
"Yeah," Mitchell said. "Then there's the fact that he blew up a civilian cruiser and her mother with it."