Retribution (The Long Haul Book 2)

by Geoff North

  Chapter 12

  “He should be dead.”

  “According to the shuttle’s emergency rations supply list, yes, you’re correct.” Dr. Penelope Strong stepped away from the observation window overlooking the sickbay’s single patient sleeping in his bed. She went to a computer and began listing off the facts to Commander Edmund. “One hundred twenty-four vacuum sealed food packs. Fifty liters of drinking water. The Exodus wasn’t designed to travel far in space. It was meant as a final short transport of Ambition’s senior six officers from the mother ship to a habitable planetary surface.”

  “Pega,” Edmund added. “Exodus was supposed to land on Pega.”

  Strong continued. “The water obviously lasted him—fifty liters spread out over three hundred days is a little less than two hundred milliliters a day. But a hundred and twenty-four food packs? That would’ve barely kept him sustained for the first half of his ordeal.”

  “Perhaps he loaded the shuttle with more food and water than the supply list reads.”

  “That’s one logical conclusion.”

  “You have another one?”

  Strong bit lightly at her lower lip without giving him an answer. She returned to the window. “Captain Agle abandoned Ambition with no intention of trying to reach Pega.”

  Edmund raised a single eyebrow towards her. “Abandoned? That’s a harsh word, Pen.”

  “A ship’s commanding officer stays with his vessel until the very end. I know the old saying. But you heard what he said. ‘Everyone else dead. I’m alive.’ If no one else survived, it’s reasonable to assume Ambition was totally destroyed.”

  “I’m sick of assuming what might have become of Ambition. Wake him up, and let’s get some answers.”

  “He’s been through an extremely difficult physical and mental ordeal. Agle needs rest more than anything right now.”

  “There isn’t time, doctor,” Edmund snapped. “This was supposed to be a simple rescue mission. We’ve destroyed thousands of Pegan fighters, and blasted the second largest planet in this system out of existence. The fact Shain Agle is still alive at all gives me some hope we might be able to limp out of this in one piece. I need him awake. I need to find out what he knows, now.”

  Strong sighed. “You’re the commander.” She went back to the computer terminal and grabbed a small med-kit sitting next to the keyboard.

  Edmund followed her from the observation room to the side of Agle’s bed. She produced a chemical syringe from the kit and placed it against Agle’s neck. “This will definitely bring him back to consciousness, but I can’t guarantee anything he says will make much sense.”

  “I just need him awake.”

  Strong pressed the single button located on the opposite end of the syringe. A red light appeared on the device. “A hundred milligrams of Andaphrox,” she explained, half-expecting Edmund to ask what drug she was administering. He didn’t ask. The red light began to blink, then turned a steady green. Agle’s chest hitched upwards, his head started moving slowly from side to side. Strong removed the spent syringe and placed it back in her kit. “He’s all yours.”

  Commander Edmund hovered over him. “Captain Agle… Captain Shain Agle… Can you hear me?”

  Agle’s eyes fluttered open. He stared up at the soft white medical bay lights. “Captain Agle? When did I… become captain?”

  Edmund looked at Strong questioningly. The doctor shrugged. “I warned you. He’s extremely disorientated. I wouldn’t put much validity into what he says.”

  Agle blinked rapidly a few times. He focused in on Edmund and Strong. “Yes. That’s right. I’m the captain of Ambition. Of course I am.”

  “You’re no longer on Ambition, Captain,” Edmund started. “You’re aboard the warship Retribution. We found your shuttle in high orbit around the planet once called Taranis.”

  Agle brought a hand to his face. He felt at his long beard, and poked at the hollows of his cheeks. “I must look terrible to you. I used to be quite… chunky.” He rubbed his eyes, blinked some more, and stared at Edmund. “Taranis, yes, I remember Taranis. Those Pegan bastards were on my tail. I attempted to shake them off in the planet’s magnetic field. What do you mean… once was?”

  “Taranis was destroyed,” Edmund admitted. “Those same Pegan ships after you came after my vessel. It was the only way.”

  Agle shifted uncomfortably in the bed. He attempted to shift his emaciated body into a sitting position. Strong assisted him, propping the pillow up behind his back. “What is this place?” He asked. “What is Retribution?”

  “Retribution is a ROSP vessel,” Edmund answered. “That stands for the Republic of Sol Planets. We set out from the Sol system for Alderamin eleven years ago. We received your distress signal on the way.”

  Agle flinched. “Alderamin. Why in Sol’s name would you be going there? They’re aligned with the Pegans. They’re filthy, grey-skinned monsters that get inside your head, read your thoughts.”

  Edmund glanced at Strong with a look that confirmed waking their patient had already begun to pay off. “What happened to your ship, Captain? Where is Ambition?”

  Agle opened his mouth, paused, then pursed his lips shut again. His bushy eyebrows furrowed together, as if he were trying to remember, or perhaps searching for the right words to say. He didn’t answer either of Edmund’s questions—he asked more of his own instead. “You set out from the Sol system eleven years ago? That’s fifty light years from here. They figured a way to crack light speed back on Earth?”

  “Nothing can travel faster than light.” Edmund said. He was becoming agitated with the man, but remained patient. Seven centuries of human history were missing for Shane Agle—seven hundred years in which he and dozens of generations of Ambition crew members had lived their own history. There would be questions, thousands of them. “We’ve discovered a way to transform matter into a tachyon energy stream while traveling in fold drive.”

  “Are you saying we’re not actually here?” Agle looked at his hands. He turned them over slowly, clenching and unclenching his fingers. “That we’ve been converted from solid objects into pure energy? How can we be here? How is it possible we’re even speaking to each other?”

  Edmund sighed, and scratched thoughtfully at his chin. Dr. Strong tried to expand on the science further. “The commander didn’t explain it all that gracefully, I’m afraid. The three of us, everyone aboard Retribution, and the very ship itself, are suspended in what’s called a tachyon knot as the stream moves. The knot rolls within the fold, allowing us to retain physical existence because we’re not actually moving at all.”

  Agle stared at her uncomprehendingly. “We’re not moving?”

  “You call that graceful?” Edmund asked the doctor. “If I’d known we were going to have to explain advanced inter-stellar travel, I’d have brought Weldheim along.” He turned his attention back to Agle. “The truth is, Captain, we’re not traveling in a tachyon knot at the moment. We’re not even in fold drive. Most of Retribution’s advanced propulsion systems were overloaded and burned out in the magnetic shockwave from the planet’s destruction. We’ve resumed our original course for the Alderamin system, but we may not get far if the Pegans find us again.”

  Strong watched Agle closely as Edmund spoke. His breathing became more relaxed, his pupils had dilated slightly. She glanced up at the vitals readout on the medical panel above his head. Red lines indicating high blood pressure and the understandable levels of stress had started to drop. Confusion and fear caused from the Andaphrox were slipping away and being replaced with more stable readings. Mentally, Shain Agle was adjusting to his new environment very well. Strong was more concerned with some of the physical anomalies she’d detected since bringing him to the sickbay. The doctor hadn’t mentioned these anomalies to her commander. Not yet. She needed to be sure.

  “You asked what became of my ship,” Agle said calmly.

  Finally, Edmund thought, they were about to get some answers from the man. “Yo
u said you were the only one left alive, Captain. Was Ambition destroyed?”

  “Destroyed? … Well, yes, I assume she was in the end. We were on the verge of being overrun by alien forces. The cap—my command second had betrayed me by negotiating with the enemy. Most of the crew went with him, but there were some that remained loyal. I ordered them to evacuate to the surface of Pega… to fight for their survival.” Tears had sprung up in the corners of Agle’s wrinkled eyes. He dabbed at them with the back of his hand. “I pray to Sol some of them made it.”

  “Your shuttle wasn’t anywhere near the planet of Pega when we found you,” Edmund pointed out. “Where were you going this far out all on your own?”

  “I’d fully intended to join up with them again, but I had to take care of Sulafat and Admiral Lennix first. They’d stolen the ship from me, and I wasn’t going to let that stand.”

  “Lennix,” Dr. Strong repeated. “That name seems familiar.”

  Edmund was nodding. “It should. Admiral Neil Lennix was the commanding officer when Ambition departed from the Sol system back in 2329. He would’ve entered a cryonic state of suspension shortly thereafter, and been revived seven decades later when they’d arrived at Pega. Events didn’t exactly play out that way, did they Captain? If Lennix was alive less than a year ago, that means he’d remained frozen for more than seven centuries. Ambition had finally made it to Pega… ten times later than expected.”

  “That’s correct, Commander.” Agle’s boney shoulders shuddered. “Being frozen for so long must have damaged the Admiral’s brain in some way. He was irrational, unpredictable and dangerous. He convinced my command second to hand the ship over to the enemy.”

  Strong was still monitoring the panel above him closely. “Your second in command, the one named Sulafat?”

  His eyes narrowed. “Ly Sulafat. A traitorous, cowardly bastard. I was going to launch the Exodus shuttle’s single nuclear missile into the heart of Ambition when its shields were down. The ship was already lost, her remaining crew overtaken by Turnbacks and aliens. My orders were clear—the ship had fallen into enemy hands. It was my duty to destroy Ambition.”

  Alexander Edmund stood there, his arms crossed over his chest, one knuckle pressed up against his chin, listening to Agle’s story. He was about to ask what a turnback was when Ada’s soft voice sounded throughout the sickbay. “Commander Edmund, please report to the bridge. New alien contacts have been detected.”

  Chapter 13

  SIC Corwin Barret stood in the sections ring, staring at the growing pinpoint of light on the battle screen before him. The tips of his fingers rested gently on the bridge’s wraparound handrail. His thumbs tapped rapidly against the cool metal. It was the only subtle, and extremely silent sign, that the ship was in any trouble at all. “How much time do we have?”

  The other bridge officers were finding it more difficult to hide their growing anxiety. “They’ll be on us within two minutes,” Helm-Master Mara replied. The tone of Marie’s voice was an octave or two higher than normal, Barret noticed.

  Lieutenant Gertsen reported in next. “I have a hundred and twelve rippers loaded in the aft tubes, sir, and three more rounds waiting after that. We might not be able to outrun them, but with that kind of firepower, we may not have to.”

  The tone of Bennoit’s voice didn’t alter, the SIC thought, but the boy did have a tendency to shout under stress. Barret looked over his shoulder at Lornay Simmons. The navigation colonel would only speak out if she had reason, or answer to a directional command, and since there was nowhere for them to run, she remained silent. Her fingers moved quickly over the navigation screens, searching for possible escape routes, predicting enemy positions.

  Simmons may have held the rank of colonel, but she had little combat experience. None of the bridge officers serving under Barret and Edmund had much. But they’d all signed on to this suicide mission, sacrificing their careers—and in most cases—not even being able to say goodbye to their families and friends. He was damn proud of each and every one of them. They wouldn’t fulfil the Alderamin objective, he was almost convinced of that now, but at least they would go down fighting. To an old warhorse like Barret, that was all that mattered in the end.

  Commander Edmund exited the lift onto the bridge between the sciences and weapons sections. “How bad is it, SIC?”

  Barret nodded at the bright light ahead. “It’s one of their bigger ones. We’re about three minutes from engagement. Nothing Retribution can’t handle.”

  Edmund gripped the rail next to him. “But?”

  “But we can’t run forever on chemical fuel. Lieutenant Gertsen has informed me we can take them out with our aft weapons alone, but there will be more.”

  Ada spoke out as if on cue. “Three more Pegan battleships have been picked up on the long-range sensors. Estimated time of arrival in six minutes.”

  “They can run circles around us, Commander. With almost zero mobility, the shields will eventually wear down, and we don’t have a limitless supply of weapons to fire back with.”

  “Incoming weapons discharge from the lead Pegan warship,” Ada stated dispassionately. “Impact in two minutes, eleven seconds.”

  “Why would they fire from so far out?” Edmund asked no one in particular.

  Major Weldheim spoke up from his sciences section. “They’ve been watching us… probably picked up the emissions of our chemical engines. They know we can’t move any faster.”

  A second light had appeared. It grew brighter, filling the battle screen with an angry yellow glare. “Evasive maneuvers, Lornay!” The commander snapped.

  Simmons punched in a sequence of coordinates, and sent the information to helm section. Mara fed the numbers into the ship’s controls, and moments later Retribution lurched starboard.

  “It won’t be enough, son,” Barret warned, clutching the rail to retain his balance. “Look at us—we’ve barely been able to get the gravity and momentum systems to cooperate since Taranis. Their weapons can adjust during flight faster than we can move. Save the power. Bring us to a full stop. Let’s face them head on and finish this off.”

  “A glorious last stand? When did you become such a pessimist?”

  “I didn’t drag us into this sector, Commander. If it comes down to it, at least let us die with some dignity.”

  “Didn’t you say you would’ve risked the ship to rescue that shuttle as well?”

  “I’ve said a lot of things in my life.”

  Edmund pounded on the railing with his fist. He was tempted to drive it square between his father-in-law’s eyes, but knew the old man was right. Barret had warned against the rescue mission, and Edmund had gone through with it anyway.

  “Bring us to a full stop, Marie,” he ordered. “Power up the aft shields, Lieutenant Gertsen. Let’s see how they fare against a direct hit.”

  “Impact in twenty-four seconds… twenty-three… twenty-two…”

  “Be quiet, Ada,” Edmund said as the globe of energy grew on the battle screen. “We don’t need a countdown. How many rippers do we have ready to launch?”

  Gertsen repeated the number he’d given Barret minutes earlier. “One hundred twelve, sir.”

  “Launch a dozen into that plasma ball.”

  Twelve white streaks shot away from the back end of Retribution. They punched into the Pegan weapon simultaneously, unleashing their explosive charges as one. The yellow globe burst apart, throwing tendrils of pure plasma towards Retribution like a thousand snapping whips. They struck at the aft shields, exploding into a million more pellets, each as bright as an exploding star for a fraction of a second.

  Edmund felt a slight vibration run through the hand railing. Their shields were more than a match against the Pegan bombs. But more ships were on the way; sooner or later, one of the bombs would slip through and hit Retribution before the ripper missiles could cut them down to size. The shields would wear down quickly when more hit.

  Barret called out. “Fire the remaining mis
siles at the Pegan ship, Gertsen.”

  “Belay that order,” Edmund said calmly. “Save the rippers for the plasma bombs and smaller fighters, if they send any. Load four nightfall-class missiles into the tubes, one for each of those Pegan ships.”

  The SIC scowled at him. “We don’t have as many nightfalls to spare. They were designed to take out cities, not warships in space.”

  “Do you see any cities out there?”

  “Nightfall missiles loaded, Commander,” the excited Gertsen said. “Targets have been acquired.”

  Barret still wasn’t satisfied. “Nightfalls are destructive, but not particularly fast.”

  “They don’t need to be fast. They only need to find their targets.”

  “They’ll never get close enough,” Weldheim pointed out. “The SIC’s correct, Commander. The nightfalls are slow, and the rockets propelling them forward leave a substantial chemical trail. The Pegans will see them coming seconds after they’re launched.”

  Edmund stepped down from the sections ring to the tactics table. He sat in a stool and clasped his hands together under his chin. “They’ll see them coming only if the warheads are still attached to the rocket casings, correct?”

  Weldheim’s eyebrows shot up. “Yes… that is correct. I see what you’re getting at, Commander. You want to launch the missiles at their targets, and discard the rockets before the Pegan ships can lock onto them.”

  “What the hell good are missiles without rockets propelling them?” Barret argued.

  “That’s only partially true for atmospheric weapons,” Weldheim said. “The nightfalls were designed to launch from planetary orbits and travel into planetary atmospheres. They need the rockets to build and sustain directional speed. But out here in space, they only need that initial push to get them where you want them to go.”

  Barret was beginning to understand. “How fast can we get these missiles to move before discarding the rockets?”

  Weldheim had already turned back to his section panel board. “I’m calculating that now, sir.”