by G J Ogden
“Yes sir, I am,” replied Shade, in a matter-of-fact tone that was bordering on standoffish.
Sterling waited for the unsociable officer to say more, but it quickly became apparent that four words was to be the full extent of her response. Not that he minded. Sterling had grown accustomed to his weapons officer’s unique ways in the few short months they’d served together, so he took no offence at the curt response. The Lieutenant shared his own dislike of small talk, though idle banter was just one on a very long list of things that Opal Shade didn’t like. And number one on that list was the United Governments Fleet itself.
Opal Shade’s file detailed how she had been recruited by Griffin directly from Grimaldi Military Prison. Thirteen months earlier, the Lieutenant had been court-martialed and incarcerated for fighting while she had been posted to the Fleet Heavy Cruiser Magellan. However, such was the Admiral’s considerable influence, Griffin had managed to have her freed and assigned to the taskforce. As such, unlike the other bridge officers on the Invictus – Sterling included – Opal Shade had not undergone an Omega Directive test. She had been appointed directly by Admiral Griffin herself. Quite what the relationship was between the Admiral and his weapon’s officer, Sterling didn’t know. However, while Shade was cold and standoffish, even for an Omega officer, she had always shown him respect. More importantly, she had also kept her fighting focused purely on the enemy. And when it came to combat, both in space and on the ground, Shade didn’t disappoint. It was what she lived for.
“Stand ready, Lieutenant, I expect to be heading into the heart of the lion’s den again very soon,” said Sterling.
“I’m always ready, Captain,” replied Lieutenant Shade, as bluntly as ever.
Sterling continued into his ready room, which was little bigger than a box room, with space for a desk and three chairs. He remembered how Captain Blake’s ready room on the Hammer had been larger than his own quarters on the Invictus. However, the room served its purpose, and while getting used to a smaller ship had taken time, Sterling now preferred the Invictus to the expansive interior of a Dreadnaught.
Sitting down at the desk, Sterling activated his personal console. “Computer, you can put the Admiral through, now,” he said, straightening his tunic and sitting as upright as possible.
“Affirmative, Captain,” replied the breezy voice of the computer. “I should warn you, however, that Fleet Admiral Griffin is a bit crabby today.”
Sterling snorted a laugh. “She’s always crabby,” he muttered before realizing that the image of Admiral Griffin was already staring back at him on the screen. Her silver-grey eyebrows immediately sharpened into a vee.
“Who is always crabby, Captain?” asked Griffin, locking her sharp eyes onto Sterling through the screen.
“Oh, I was just talking to myself about Lieutenant Shade,” replied Sterling, hoping that he sounded convincing, despite inventing the lie on the spot. He silently cursed the computer for not warning him it had already connected the call, and resolved to have a quiet word with his quirky gen-fourteen AI.
“You’re on a warship, captain, not a pleasure cruiser,” Griffin hit back, eyes still burrowing into him like lasers. “So long as she does her job, she can be as crabby as she likes.” Then the Admiral paused as if for effect and added, “and so can I, Captain.”
Sterling almost smiled, but managed to maintain a suitably stoic expression. Despite the Admiral having more prickles than a porcupine, he liked her. There was no pretense with Admiral Griffin – what you saw was what you got.
“What is it with you two, anyway?” Sterling asked, taking the opportunity to press the Admiral for more information about his weapons officer, since he’d inadvertently raised the subject. “How come she was spared your fun little Omega Directive test to get on-board?”
Griffin sat back and folded her arms. “How many stars do you see on my collar, Captain?” Griffin asked, curtly.
“Four, Admiral,” replied Sterling. He already knew what was coming and braced himself for it. While he and Griffin had developed a franker relationship than most Fleet crew enjoyed with a flag officer of Griffin’s repute, on account of his distinctive status as an Omega Captain, the admiral was still as testy and stern as ever.
“Correct, Captain,” replied Griffin, smartly. “And remind me again what these four stars mean?”
“They mean that you don’t have to explain a damn thing to me, Admiral,” replied Sterling, parroting the message he’d heard from Griffin a dozen times already since taking command of the Invictus. Even so, he always liked to try his luck. Occasionally, the cantankerous admiral had been known to say more than she had intended to.
“Correct again, Captain,” replied Griffin. “Now, let’s get to work, shall we? Access Omega Directive Griffin Delta Zero Four.”
Sterling nodded then placed his hand onto the authenticator panel on his desk.
“Omega Directive Griffin Delta Zero Four. Unlock,” said Sterling, annunciating each word clearly and loudly. The panel on the desk illuminated to scan Sterling’s hand print, and at the same time a retinal scanner on his personal console probed his eye to confirm his identity.
“Identity confirmed: Sterling, Lucas. Omega Captain. Omega Directive Griffin Delta Zero Four unlocked,” the computer announced.
Sterling scanned the information that then flowed onto his secondary screen. It was a neutralization order for Colony Vega Two, a planetary settlement situated mid-way into the Fleet side of the Void. It was in quadrant two, zone two, Sterling noted, which was not especially deep into the Void, but still deep enough to make it an easy target for the Sa’Nerra.
Vega Two, like many other human colonies and outposts, had ended up cut-off from Fleet space when the Earth-Sa’Nerra war began and the Void was established. The Void was the name given to the treacherous and near lawless expanse between Fleet and Sa’Nerran space that acted as a buffer between the two territories. The colonies that had found themselves abandoned inside the Void were often subjected to Sa’Nerran raids, but more often than not they just fought amongst themselves. The only arbiters of disputes were the Marshals, a group of self-proclaimed peacemakers who travelled from colony to colony in ships salvaged from battles fought in the early stages of the war. However, the peacemakers exacted a toll for their services, which was often paid in blood, as well as silver.
Sterling cleared his head of thoughts of the Marshals and continued to read the mission brief, his brow furrowing more deeply as he did so. There was nothing about Vega Two that appeared to suggest it was of any importance. It was a small and unremarkable settlement of little more than five hundred people.
“What is so significant about this little colony?” asked Sterling, turning back to the Admiral. “It doesn’t appear to have any tactical value.”
“It didn’t used to have any, but our probes have detected Sa’Nerran ships arriving and departing the colony world like clockwork for the past six weeks,” replied Griffin. She then sent Sterling a recent recon report from one of the long-range probes that had been sent to the planet. Sterling looked at the data and quickly understood the reason for Griffin’s directive.
“They’re manufacturing weapons and power cells for the Sa’Nerra,” said Sterling. “That must mean the whole damn colony has been turned, or at least enough of them to maintain order.”
Griffin nodded. “Our belief is that the entire colony is under Sa’Nerran neural control,” she confirmed. “As such, your orders are clear. Neutralize the colony at once. No survivors. Is that clear, Captain?”
“Perfectly clear, Admiral,” replied Sterling. He knew his job well, as distasteful as it was. Then he had a thought. “Weapons manufacturing is intricate work, Admiral. Are you sure that everyone on that colony has been turned? If that were the case, I would have expected the turned colonists to have blown their little backwater outpost sky high before now.”
“I had a similar thought, Captain,” replied Griffin. However, the Admiral did not elab
orate on what these thoughts were, and this time Sterling decided to heed the computer’s warning and not push the crabby flag officer for more. “Find out what you can about the colony, but regardless of what you find that colony must be neutralized, or the Sa’Nerra will simply start using it again.”
“I understand, Admiral,” said Sterling. “I’ll report back when it’s done.” He was about to sever the connection when the Admiral unexpectedly spoke up.
“And you need not worry about Lieutenant Shade,” Griffin added, taking on an almost defensive tone. The sudden reintroduction of his weapons officer into the conversation took Sterling by surprise, but he remained quiet, eagerly waiting to hear what the Admiral was about to say. “She may seem like she doesn’t care or want to be there, but she will do her job well. You can trust her.”
“I’ll take your word for it, Admiral,” replied Sterling. If he’d learned one thing about the Admiral, it was that she never overpromised, and never underdelivered.
“Good,” Griffin said, appearing satisfied by Sterling’s prompt, affirmative response. “Report back when the colony is neutralized. Griffin out.”
The image of Admiral Griffin faded and the console returned to the standard Fleet interface, displaying the spinning UG Fleet logo. Sterling rested back in his seat then tapped his neural interface. “Mercedes, we have new orders. Plot a course for Colony Vega Two, quadrant two, Void zone two.”
The sound of Commander Banks’ voice then filled his head. “It’ll take us six surges to reach that location from our current position,” his second-in-command replied. “But I’ll see if Keller can impress me by finding a shorter series of aperture links.”
Sterling smiled, realizing that Banks was about to go all “Bad Cop” on the ensign in an effort to spur him on. Despite his already exceptional piloting and navigational abilities, Banks got a kick out of pushing Keller – along with the rest of the crew – to excel. “I’ll give you a couple of minutes to work on him, then I’ll come out and play my role,” he replied.
Sterling raised his finger to his neural interface and was about to end the link when Banks spoke again. “How many is it this time?” she asked. To anyone else, Commander Banks’ voice would have sounded the same as it always did – strong, confident, and full of verve. However, neural communication was far more intimate than spoken words. It revealed more about the person than if the same words had been spoken out loud. It was akin to reading someone’s body language, and just as instinctual. On this occasion, Sterling had detected a touch of melancholy in the Commander’s voice. It wasn’t much, like a dash of lemon in a glass of water, but it was definitely there.
“Five hundred colonists, give or take,” replied Sterling, wondering if his own neural voice gave anything away about himself.
“That’s not so bad,” replied Banks, sounding buoyed by the news. “Not too many to add to our rapidly growing butcher’s bill.”
“No, not so many,” said Sterling. It was true that five hundred was fewer casualties than their missions would normally rack up, though to him, five hundred was no different to fifty thousand. Anyone who was 'turned' was the enemy, and the enemy had to be destroyed, or humanity would fall. “I’ll see you on the bridge in five,” Sterling ended, tapping a finger to his interface and severing the neural link to Commander Banks. He then sat back in his chair, one hand gripping the knuckles of the other, staring at the logo swirling on the screen in front of him.
Chapter 5
She’s one of our own
Sterling watched the flashing beacons that surrounded the jump aperture draw closer on the viewscreen. Stationed to the side of the aperture was the Fleet Gatekeeper Cerberus, a mobile defense platform the size of a heavy cruiser. Despite being four times the size of the Invictus, the Cerberus was a slug. It had enough maneuvering capability to travel through space and through the apertures unaided, but it did so slowly. Most of the vessel’s bulk was given over to weapons systems, armor and power generation. The intention was that when a Gatekeeper reached its assigned position, it wouldn’t leave it again, until it was decommissioned. The Cerberus was a case in point – it had guarded the Void aperture in quadrant two, Sector-G for the last ten years, and had never let a Sa’Nerran vessel slip through its net.
“We’re in position to surge, Captain,” said Ensign Keller, looking over his shoulder at Sterling, who stood at his captain’s console in the center of the bridge.
“How many more after this one until we reach zone two in the Void, Ensign?” asked Sterling.
“This is the last surge, Captain,” replied Keller, smartly.
Sterling could tell from the subtle curvature of the Ensign’s mouth and the brightness with which he’d answered the question that his helmsman had bested Commander Banks’ estimate of six surges to reach their destination.
“How many was that in total?” asked Sterling, cocking an eyebrow in the direction of his first officer, who was at her console next to his.
“This last surge will be the fourth, Captain,” Keller replied, even more brightly than before.
“Only four surges, that’s impressive work, Ensign,” said Sterling, though he was looking at Banks when he said this. The Commander then tapped her neural interface and spoke to Sterling through their neural link.
“What can I say, I’m just good at motivating the crew, that’s all,” Banks said, folding her arms with her thumbs pointing up. Sterling thought she couldn’t have looked smugger if she’d tried.
“Very well, surge when ready,” said Sterling. Then he turned to Lieutenant Shade. “Arm everything we have, Lieutenant. Let’s be ready for anything.” Shade nodded then set to work, arming the Invictus’ formidable array of plasma rail cannons, in addition to its secondary turrets. Sterling was about to reach for his neural implant to make an announcement to the entire crew when Commander Banks suddenly spoke up.
“Captain, I’m picking up a distress call through the aperture relay,” said Banks, frowning down at her console. “It’s a Fleet ship under attack in the Void, zone one. It looks like it’s coming from the aperture near Artemis Colony, a former UG mining depot.”
Sterling glanced at the distress signal on his own console. The location was within their surge radius, but it would require them to return to their current aperture again before moving on to Colony Vega Two. He tapped his fingers on his console, hammering out a repetitive pattern that helped him to think, then shook his head.
“Let the regular Fleet ships respond to it,” Sterling said, announcing his decision. “Our Omega Directive takes precedence over all other orders, including Fleet distress calls.” This was just part of being a cold-hearted Omega Captain, Sterling thought to himself. Running to the aid of this ship could allow the Sa’Nerra to reinforce Vega Two, or collect another shipment from the planet. If this happened, the weapons would be used to kill far more people than were about to perish on the unfortunate Fleet vessel. Sterling again reached for his neural implant to make a ship-wide announcement when Banks interrupted him for a second time.
“It’s the Imperium, Captain,” said Banks. All eyes on the bridge then turned to Sterling and Banks at the command platform. “It’s our sister ship, sir.”
Sterling’s hands balled into fists. It was an entirely involuntary reaction and he cursed himself for doing it. He never liked the crew to see him react in an emotional manner. Due to the confidential and deeply controversial nature of their mission, Sterling believed the crew had to see his decisions as being reasoned, necessary and not driven by sentiment. However, his automatic reaction to Banks’ announcement had betrayed his feelings. It wasn’t just that the Imperium was their sister ship and only other Omega Taskforce vessel. It was Lana McQueen’ ship, and he and Lana went back a long way. Sterling tapped his fingers on his console again, eyes flicking to each of his bridge crew members in turn. All of them were still watching him, eagerly awaiting his order. His crew hadn’t been together long, but their intense shared experiences had caus
ed them to quickly form a strong bond. And he knew exactly what his unique group of officers were thinking. The rest of the Fleet wasn’t their concern – but Lana and the Imperium was one of their own. More than this, if the Imperium was captured, it would fall to Sterling and the crew of the Invictus to take it down under the Omega Directive. One way or another, Lana McQueen’s fate would fall to him to decide. Sterling stopped tapping his finger on the console and straightened his tunic.
“Ensign Keller, realign our surge vector and plot an intercept course for the Imperium, maximum speed,” ordered Sterling.
“Yes, Captain,” the young ensign replied, though he had already started working on the computations before Sterling even finished speaking.
“I expect you to impress me with your piloting skills again, Ensign. They may not have long,” Sterling added.
“Surge computations already complete, sir,” Keller replied, taking Sterling completely by surprise. However, this time there was no smug curl to the ensign’s lips. His expression had hardened. He was ready for battle. “I’m moving us in to position now,” Keller continued, maneuvering the small but powerful vessel toward the aperture.
Sterling sucked in a deep lungful of air then glanced at Lieutenant Shade and Commander Banks in turn. Their faces were a mirror of Keller’s. His officers were all ready for battle, and this time it was personal. Sterling touched his finger to his neural implant, and opened a link to the seventy-strong crew of the Fleet Marauder Invictus.
“All hands, this is the Captain. Battle stations.”
Chapter 6
We stand and fight
Ensign Kieran Keller powered the Fleet Marauder Invictus into the sub-dimensional aperture, then for a moment time seemed to stand still. Whatever reality existed between the mouths of the interstellar tunnels, it was one that the human mind could not fully process or interpret. It was a strangely peaceful place, Sterling thought, allowing the absence of everything to wash over him like a cool breeze. However, he knew that the peace would soon be shattered by what lay in wait for them on the other side.