On the tactical map, Jakes saw one of the Ch’Tauk ships, a corvette analog by its size, had peeled away from the pursuit and locked on to the pirate ship. Bonnie juked the ship left and right even as the enemy fired energy bolts at their shield. The view shifted again and Jakes was forced to hold on. Vertigo washed over him as the ship seemed to shoot straight up and then back over. The roll had occurred so suddenly Connor hadn’t even had time to register the maneuver.
On his tactical screen, the corvette was attempting to follow, but Liberty was too fast. Mendel let out a whoop as he fired his cannons into the banded metal hull. Strips of metal and plasma rolled away from the enemy hull as Bonnie spiraled away.
“Are we close enough?” Connor called, his hands tight on the control console. “Can we blow it?”
“Almost there,” Parker called back. “I need to let some of our ships get away first or we won’t have much left.”
“Hey, that’s fine with me,” Connor called. “Those things’re expensive you know. I can’t keep losin’ ships like this. I may run outta money to repaint this ship.”
“Two more seconds … one … now!”
On the screen, Trinity appeared at the center of a swarm of insects. Ch’Tauk ships of all size were surrounding the vessel, trying to lock on to the imposter ships defending it. For a long moment, Jakes thought the plan had failed, but then he saw it. Trinity’s silver hull began to bulge and expand. Crafted by workers from the three major shipbuilding races in the galaxy, the ship had been constructed to stand up to massive punishment, and it had. The explosives were taking out key structural supports and plasma lines around the ship. Like an overinflated balloon, she was building pressure.
In one blinding flash, the hull ruptured. Shrapnel and superheated metal were flung into space in all directions. Ships too close were vaporized instantly, and others attempting to escape were caught by the debris. Even some of Jakes’ ships were destroyed in the soundless explosion.
“Damn!” Connor exclaimed to the bridge crew. “That’s good work. How many did we get?”
“We thinned them out, but not enough,” Bonnie called. “And now we’ve got another problem. The Gizzeen are in weapons range. There’s a battle group heading towards the moon.”
“Alright,” Connor said. “Signal the control ships that they’ve got incoming and set course for the Gizzeen. It’s time we went huntin’.”
32
Battleship Resolute
“Why are you here, Ronald?”
The question hung in the air between the two men as Lee braced himself against a chair. Chang had come to see him in his old quarters. Lee has showered and shaved but was physically weak from his torture at the hands of the enemy. Mentally, he wasn’t much better, but this time he was strong enough to see his former commander. Chang was still dressed in the duty uniform he’d had on when they had greeted Lee in the launch bay, and now Lee had a fresh uniform of his own. The only thing missing were his boots, which the Gizzeen had taken from him. On the floor lay an old pair, scuffed and missing the rubber coating, but the question seemed more important.
“I wanted to check on you,” the admiral said. “I thought we could—”
“Not what I meant and you know it,” Lee said, gripping the chair harder. “Why are you leading this mission?’
“This ship needed a captain and I was the only one not needed back home.”
“Bullshit. They needed you back in the real galaxy and we didn’t, plain and simple,” Lee replied. “Stop trying to tell everyone else your version of things and tell me the truth. Why are you here?”
Chang stared at Lee for a long moment before stepping further into the room. The lights in the cabin were lowered to save power, and one bank flickered. It gave the admiral a slightly demonic look as he passed under its intermittent light. The man stepped to a panel near the wall and activated the screen. Outside, the dark sky beyond was unnerving. Veterans of space knew to look into the blackness and see the light of stars. In this reality, those stars had long since burned out. The faint light of the red sun barely touched anything as there was nothing left to touch.
“Fleet Captain Dalton can handle things back home,” Chang said quietly. “I’ve been holding him back for too long anyway. He has my orders and he is smart enough to ignore them when he needs to.”
“You’re still ducking the question,” Lee said, pushing away from the chair towards the bed and the old pair of boots. “This whole mission is crazy, Ron. Why risk yourself for me? In the vast scheme of things, I’m not that important.”
“Every man is important,” Chang replied. “Every life is important. You have lived where too many others have died. Do you know how many good soldiers I have buried?”
The question stopped Lee as he reached for his boots. It was a question any commander who had seen battle has asked himself. The lives of the men under your command were a trust, and every death felt like a betrayal of that trust.
Chang turned and looked back to Lee with a haunted expression on his face. “I came for you because I thought I could save one life instead of costing one,” Chang said. “You made the sacrifice I should have made years ago, and I owed you that.”
“You never owed me anything,” Lee said, staring at the scuffed boots he held in his hands. “You were the one who gave all of us a fighting chance to live.”
“And in return you gave me your loyalty,” Chang said, stepping back closer to Lee. “I never deserved that from you or anyone. The only reason I was made an admiral was because I was on Resolute when everyone on board Baal died. It’s that simple. I ran away and they died and that put me in command.”
“You were in command of this ship when Hathaway lost his mind,” Lee replied, standing and looking at the admiral. “You can’t be carrying around guilt from that long ago. You were the one who took us back to Earth and gave us all the Alliance.”
“The Alliance was a fraud,” Chang said. “The Chancellor created it with the assistance of the Ch’Tauk and I went along because I thought we could use the enemy for our own goals. I was a fool, and now everything is lost.”
“You’re drowning in self-pity, old man,” Lee replied. “It doesn’t become the man you are.”
“Why don’t you see it, Lee?” Chang said. “Why is it everyone else sees me as a traitor and a manipulator of the dead and you still cling to loyalty?”
“Because it’s all I have left to believe in,” Lee said. “I’ve lost my family and my friends and probably my mind, but I still see you as the man to follow. It’s all I have left.”
“You have Alice.”
There was a stunned silence as Lee took in the words. He had survived the capture largely due to his memories of the woman he loved. She had risked her own sanity to save him and taken his ship to a whole other reality, and yet he still clung to Chang as a commander. The woman had been through so much to get to this point, and he had nearly forgotten about her in the conversation. It was further sign of his mental distress and it bothered him.
“I need to ask you something,” Chang said. “I know we have all been worried about you and your recovery, but I need to know how long you have been here.”
“What do you mean?” Lee asked, confused by the sudden change of the conversation. “I’ve been back on board for—”
“Not here on the ship. Here in this place? How long have you been in Gizzeen space?”
Lee paused. After the doctor had checked him out, he had been asked this question. The bizarre dreams and nightmares the aliens had put him through had made his sense of time a little fuzzy, but he had worked it out. That Chang was asking the same question again made him doubt his memories further.
“Maybe about a month or so,” Lee replied, hearing the doubt in his own voice. “I don’t know really.”
Chang moved past Lee to the small desk in the quarters. He tapped a few keys and brought up a record of the ship’s activities since the loss of its captain. Lee noted the breakup of the crew and the decommissi
oning. As he checked the time signature, his face went pale. A quick cross-reference with the Alliance database confirmed the passage of only two weeks since his declared “death” at Sol. He reached up to scratch the space where his thick beard had grown. Everything in his soul told him it had been much longer, but the computer seemed to tell him his senses and his biology were wrong.
“I don’t understand,” Lee said. “I can remember weeks going by. I can’t have dreamed all of that. They tortured me and questioned me. I even talked to one of them for a while. They really hate the Elves, you know. I had a beard, Ron. How is that possible?”
“You accelerated into the vortex at full speed, didn’t you?” Chang asked. “The Silver Eagle went superluminal. You traveled backwards in time, Lee, and survived.”
“That’s not possible,” Lee said. “The ship was fast but not that fast. I could do a fair percentage of light, but—”
“We think the vortex accelerated your journey. When the bridge collapsed, backwash from the explosion destroyed most of the Gizzeen on this side and threw you a few light minutes away. I should say congratulations. You are the galaxy’s first time traveler, except we’re in a different galaxy and time moves differently here anyways.”
Lee backed away from the screen and into the bed. He dropped to the soft mattress and let the boot he was holding fall to the floor. Everything he knew about space and time had just been changed. He had survived the torture and deprivation of the prior months by holding on to his knowledge and memories. Having all of it taken away from him suddenly felt strange.
“How could I have not known?” Lee said to himself. “I should have been able to—”
There was a tone from the computer and Chang activated the comm.
“Admiral?” Kama Yu’s voice drifted from the speaker. “They’re moving.”
“We’ll be right up,” Chang replied, switching the system off. “Come on, Lee. I need you on the bridge. A ship has to have a captain.”
“I don’t think I’m … I’m not much of a captain anymore. I don’t even know what day it is.”
“Tuesday,” Chang said. “Now get your boots on and get to the bridge. Alice is waiting.”
Chang activated the door and left. Lee stared at his boot for a long minute before reaching again for the footwear. Alice had helped him to their former quarters but refused to come in. She had cut her hair short and had a new, hard edge to her look. Even so she was still the most beautiful woman he had ever known. She had tried to talk to him while the doctor checked him out, but it was clear she was distracted. He knew the trans-dimensional geometry she had taken on that had allowed them entry into this universe kept her distracted, but this was different. She had seemed so much more sure of herself than before, and it reinforced his sense that months had passed and not weeks. If she had changed this much in only a few short days, the galaxy he had left must have been far more dangerous than he remembered.
Pulling the boots on over his navy socks, he laced the footwear and stood. The shoes still fit and were as comfortable as they had ever been. As he took his first step, he heard the clack of metal on metal as the magnetic strips on the sole clicked against the deck. Deja-vu swept over him as he touched the door panel and entered the hallway. The corridors were darkened, and had an odor of burnt wiring. He could only imagine how bad the damage had been for the admiral to have condemned the ship.
Then it occurred to him the ship might not have been that bad off. Regardless of his intentions, Chang was still the manipulator. He may have exaggerated the damage to clear up the ship for this mission.
The short walk to the lift and ride changed his opinion. Instead of a smooth operation, the system jerked upwards. The inertial compensators were offline and the whole electric relay unit was badly in need of tuning. When the doors opened, Lee stepped into a corridor cleared of most debris but still smelling of damage. He could just make out the light from the bridge, meaning the bulkhead door was not closing properly. The closer he got, the more concerned he became for the state of his ship. Resolute had been his home for many years, and in his mind it was still his ship despite someone else manning the command chair. Voices drifted from the command deck as he closed the gap. The ship’s systems had produced the quiet noise he hadn’t even realized he’d heard until it wasn’t there anymore.
As he stepped through the door to the bridge, he suddenly felt as if he was coming home.
“Captain on the bridge,” announced Cal’s voice box. “About time, too.”
Lee watched as Kama and Alice stood. Josh waved over a shoulder as he kept the ship on course. Admiral Chang was standing next to the command chair, not in it. The situation was surreal as Alice came to his side. She took his hand and led him closer to the command well. He leaned in and gave her a quick kiss, no more than a brush of lip to cheek before waving her off. She looked stunned at the show of affection, but obeyed his signal and returned to the engineering console.
“They’re spreading out,” Chang said over his shoulder. “I think they’re going to open another bridge.”
“Why?” Lee asked, not wanting to sound out of the loop but needing to hear the answer. “What’s so special here?”
“Our little friend thinks this is the best remaining site,” Chang said, motioning to a seat near the screen where an Engineer was sitting.
The creature had turned a dark shade of gray. Once nearly opalescent and shining with an internal brilliance, the creature now appeared sunken and sickened. It looked back at Lee and an expression akin to sadness crossed its features. Its eyes, still white-on-white, looked far beyond Lee and through the bulkhead. The sight frightened Lee more than the view of the enemy ships on the screen.
Hundreds of Gizzeen ships, varying in size from smaller than the battleship to ten times larger were arrayed across the shining red sun. There was a shimmery edge to the image that could only come from an M-space inversion event.
“This is a major invasion force,” Lee said, leaning on the nearby rail. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many ships in one place.”
“There’s close to sixteen-hundred on this side. Alice thinks there are as many on the other side we can’t see.”
“I think she’s underestimating the number,” Josh Goldstein said, finally turning to face his captain. “There’s probably close to five thousand just on this plane. I think they have the whole star surrounded.”
“This isn’t an invasion force,” Lee said, looking back at the gray creature. “It’s the rest of them. They’re going to colonize.”
The Engineer nodded and turned to the screen. Its thin arms crossed over the darkened robes as if the creature was dying. He wanted to reach out to help the alien, but knew it would do no good. Whatever afflicted the creature was beyond anything he could do.
“Look,” Josh said, turning back to his console. “It’s beginning.”
It began as an M-space vortex thousands of time larger than any he had ever seen. The Gizzeen ships, each dangling their projection arms on the solar breeze, began to press forward. As the energy from the sun was forced backwards and down the gravity well, it seemed to intensify. Ribbons of energy shot past the wavering energy lines, flinging solar plasma and radiation deeper into space. The whole star appeared to compress and change color. Bright tendrils of plasma and matter leapt from beyond the edges of the M-space wave, accelerating towards the fiery mass at the center of the system.
“They’re trying to re-energize the sun?” Lee asked. “Why would they do that? Where the hell are we?”
“I don’t think they’re trying to re-energize anything,” Alice replied from her engineering console. “I think they’re harnessing it. To open the bridge will require a massive amount of energy.”
“Can we stop it?” Lee asked, dumbfounded at the process taking place ahead of him.
“Shields are down to fifteen percent at best,” Cal called out. “We don’t have the power to go through the bridge anymore. We cannot fight and we cann
ot run.”
“Then we can send a signal,” Lee said. “Once it’s opened, we can send a signal through to whoever is on the other side to warn them. Kama, do you have any idea where we are?”
“Lee,” Alice said, looking straight into his eyes. “I don’t think you understand. That star is Sol.”
“What?” Lee asked, looking back at the rapidly compressing star. “Sol?”
“That’s right, Lee,” Chang said. “They’re opening it up right under our noses. The people we’re calling are us.”
“Earth won’t stand a chance,” Lee said. “There’s no one there who can help.”
“Actually,” Chang said, waving to Kama Yu. “If my orders have been followed carefully, there is.”
33
Alliance Carrier Zeus
His ship was in shambles. Franklin Dalton pushed aside a bundle of cable hanging from the ceiling of the bridge and pulled his command chair upright. It sat into the hole in the floor with a metallic click and wobbled as he sat in it. In front of him, the projection view screen showed only the blue-brown of M-space swirling around the ship in all directions. His crew was sorting out the pieces of the bridge which still worked, patching systems together with nothing more than willpower and dielectric tape. Despite the losses and the damage, though, they had been victorious again, and escaped the brunt of the Gizzeen forces with their hulls intact.
Of the hundred vessels in his assault fleet, barely half were alongside, shrouded in the globular magnetic stuff that made up the membrane of energy. Ship after ship had given its life and the lives of its crew to take out the bridges and their cataracts. In each system, relayed messages of the victories had swelled the number of ships in the fleet. Systems from across the Milky Way had sent vessels, fearful of the expanding influence of the trans-dimensional enemy. A relayed message just before their last success had informed him the Ch’Tauk Empire was on the verge of collapse as news of the death of their Emperor spread.
Resolute Glory (The War for Terra Book 8) Page 26