Ep.#11 - A Rock and a Hard Place (The Frontiers Saga - Part 2: Rogue Castes)

by Ryk Brown

  “What the hell,” Jessica exclaimed, “did everyone go crazy while I was gone? Josh and Loki got shot down, remember?”

  “Which is why we’re trying to figure out a way to increase their odds of success,” Nathan replied.

  “Did anyone ever consider that it may be time to cut and run?” Jessica insisted.

  “Commander Andreola,” Nathan interrupted, “I’m sure you and your daughter are tired after your adventure.” Nathan signaled to the guard at the door. “If you will follow this man, he will take you to the appropriate accommodations.”

  “What?” Jessica exclaimed.

  “Lieutenant Commander,” Nathan continued, speaking to Jessica, “please see to their needs.”

  “Captain,” Jessica began to object.

  “We will speak later,” Nathan stated in no uncertain terms.

  Jessica glared at him for a moment, then replied, “Yes, sir,” before rising to depart.

  Those remaining waited patiently until Jessica and the guard had escorted Commander Andreola and his daughter out of the command briefing room.

  General Telles was the first to speak. “It is worth considering, Captain.”

  “I know,” Nathan replied. “I’m just not there, yet.”

  “Yet, you are ready to sacrifice yourself to save Rakuen,” Cameron stated.

  “I don’t know that I’m there either,” Nathan admitted. “Both are options.”

  “Well, you’ve got about a day and a half to decide,” Cameron said.

  “So, no pressure,” Nathan joked.

  * * *

  General Telles appeared at the entrance to the captain’s ready room on the Aurora. “You were a little short with Lieutenant Commander Nash, earlier.”

  “I’ve found that it’s not wise to give her too much rope.”

  “I’m not familiar with that expression,” the general admitted, closing the hatch behind him.

  “Enough rope to hang herself?”

  “I see,” the general replied, taking a seat across the desk from Nathan. “Quite applicable, in her case.”

  “Mostly, I just didn’t think it was appropriate to have the argument in front of the commander and his daughter,” Nathan explained. “Did you review the intel she brought back?”

  “Indeed, I did,” the general replied. “Quite interesting. The Dusahn have spread themselves dangerously thin on Orswella, giving us an opportunity that is difficult to ignore. However, Captain Taylor’s concerns are valid. The defense of the Rogen system is a higher priority.”

  “I know.”

  The general studied Nathan for a moment. “That is not what is bothering you, is it.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “You are considering General Hesson’s idea.”

  “It does give the Aurora and the Rogen system the greatest chance of survival.”

  “Perhaps, but it also will result in your death.”

  “I’m already supposed to be dead,” Nathan pointed out. “Maybe this is why I was saved?”

  “When you sacrificed yourself to save the Sol sector, all you did was buy us time. Eventually, the problem returned. Sacrificing yourself, yet again, would only do the same.”

  “I could have Doctor Sato scan me again; clone me again,” Nathan suggested.

  “That is an option, yes,” the general agreed. “But, again, that is not a guarantee of resurrection. Many things could go wrong, and your long-term strategy cannot be to continue getting yourself killed with the assumption that you will be revived.”

  “But we are talking about millions of lives,” Nathan reminded the general.

  “We are always talking about millions of lives, Nathan.”

  Nathan leaned back, sighing. “Five battleships.”

  “Captain, Intel,” Lieutenant Commander Shinoda called over the intercom.

  Nathan’s eyes rolled back. “Nothing good ever comes over that thing. Go ahead.”

  “We just received an urgent message from one of our operatives on Takara. General Hesson is dead.”

  “What?” Nathan exclaimed. “How?”

  “Executed in his home…by Lord Dusahn.”

  Nathan sighed again. “Understood,” he replied, turning off the intercom.

  “It appears your decision has been made for you,” General Telles said.

  Nathan looked at the General. “Do you think Jess was right?”

  “About abandoning the Rogen system?” General Telles thought for a moment. “Right is not the word I would use. However, it is true that it may become necessary.”

  “How can we do that?” Nathan asked. “How can we expect any worlds to join us if they know that we cut and run when the odds are bad?”

  “If we are defeated in the defense of the Rogen system, the Dusahn will rapidly become the greatest force in all the galaxy. If we cut and run, as you put it, the Rogen system may be doomed, but we will still be alive to continue the fight. How we will do that, I do not know.”

  “He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day,” Nathan said, remembering the idiom.

  “An age-old strategy,” the general said, “and for good reason.”

  “This is not going the way I’d hoped,” Nathan admitted. “I was planning on liberating the Orswellans with the shipyards intact, giving us another valuable ally. With our new long-range jump system, we could defend both systems, and we’d finally have the ability to grow our own fleet.”

  “The result would be an arms race,” General Telles pointed out. “One that we would lose. The Pentaurus cluster has far greater resources and infrastructure.”

  “But they don’t have a working shipyard,” Nathan argued.

  “If we gained a shipyard, the Dusahn would be forced to increase their efforts at building their own shipyard in the Takar system. Our advantage would diminish quickly.”

  “We could harass them, slow them down, and keep them from completing it.”

  “As could they.”

  “But we have the jump range advantage,” Nathan argued.

  “They can still send swarms of smaller ships back to the Orswellan system in less than a day,” the general pointed out. “Escalation is not always the answer. If they fear they are about to lose what they have, they will only fight harder.”

  “What are we supposed to do, then?” Nathan wondered. “Continue to hide out in the Rogen system, and wait for them to attack again?”

  “You speak of battles, Captain. I speak of wars. You must force the Dusahn to do what you want them to do,” the general explained. “That is how wars are won.”

  * * *

  “We’re getting awfully close to home,” Ensign Lassen warned from the Super Falcon’s copilot’s seat.

  “If they changed track…” Sergeant Nama started.

  “They didn’t change track,” Lieutenant Teison interrupted.

  “If they didn’t, then we should’ve found them by now,” Sergeant Nama insisted.

  “We’ve still got one search zone left,” the lieutenant said. “If we don’t find them, we’ll switch tracks, as well.”

  “Which way, is the question,” Ensign Lassen said.

  “I’ll make that decision when the time comes,” Lieutenant Teison replied.

  “End of grid coming up in ten seconds,” Ensign Lassen warned.

  “Give it an extra minute,” the lieutenant instructed. “They’ve got to be in one of these last few grids.”

  “Jas, that isn’t…”

  “Humor me, Tomi.”

  “Whatever you want, Lieutenant,” the ensign replied.

  “Nothing behind us, Riko?” the lieutenant wondered.

  “Negative,” the sergeant replied from the back station. “This would be a lot easier if we went active, though.”

  “You kn
ow the drill, Sarge,” the lieutenant said.

  “Sometimes this stealth stuff sucks,” Ensign Lassen complained. “I’m re-plotting the jump for a minute later.”

  “Thank you,” the lieutenant said.

  Sergeant Nama’s eyes squinted as a trace appeared on his sensor display, then immediately disappeared. “That’s weird.”

  “What’s weird?” Lieutenant Teison wondered.

  “I thought I had something, but then it was gone.”

  “An echo?” Ensign Lassen suggested.

  “Could have been an area of dust or a rogue body of some sort,” the sergeant admitted. The trace appeared again, disappearing a moment later. “There it is again.”

  “Coming up on the jump point,” Ensign Lassen warned.

  “Lieutenant,” the sergeant called, “can you turn twenty to starboard and come up twenty?”

  “We’ll have to re-plot,” Ensign Lassen warned.

  “Sarge?” the lieutenant asked.

  “It could be nothing, then again…”

  “Scrub the jump,” the lieutenant instructed.

  “Lieutenant,” the ensign complained.

  “It only takes a degree of course change for them to end up on the far edge of our sensor range,” the lieutenant defended as he changed course.

  “My dessert says its nothing,” Ensign Lassen challenged.

  “I’ll take that bet,” Sergeant Nama agreed.

  “You want us to jump ahead?” the lieutenant asked the sergeant behind him.

  “We’re already going faster than they should be,” the sergeant replied. “Just give it a minute or two.”

  “You got it,” the lieutenant replied. “What is the dessert tonight, anyway?”

  “Boca cake, baby,” Ensign Lassen replied enthusiastically.

  “Oh, shit!” Sergeant Nama exclaimed. “Go cold! Go cold!” he added as he quickly began shutting down all of his systems.

  “Emergency shutdown!” the lieutenant ordered as he, too, starting shutting off the Super Falcon’s systems. Within seconds, the ship was completely dark.

  “Talk to me, Riko,” the lieutenant ordered.

  “Two octos jumped in about four hundred clicks to port,” the sergeant said, his voice low.

  “They can’t hear us,” Ensign Lassen teased.

  “I can’t help it,” the sergeant said, still whispering.

  “Did they see us?” the lieutenant asked.

  “I don’t think so,” the sergeant replied. “They were traveling away from us.”

  “If that trace was a battleship on a recharge layover…” Ensign Lassen began.

  “Then those octos are flying a BARCAP, and we’re inside it,” the lieutenant finished.

  “We need to get the hell out of here,” Ensign Lassen urged.

  “We can’t,” the lieutenant reminded his copilot. “We’re under strict orders to avoid detection, at all costs.”

  “How the hell are we even going to know if they spot us?” Ensign Lassen argued.

  “Oh, we’ll know, trust me,” the lieutenant replied.

  “Not funny, Jasser,” Ensign Lassen said.

  “I’ve got the low-power passive pointed in their direction,” Sergeant Nama told them. “If they sweep us, I’ll know.”

  “If they paint us, I’ll tie the jump drive energy banks into the shields, to buy us a minute of use, while we spin the reactor back up,” Lieutenant Teison explained.

  “What do I do?” Ensign Lassen wondered.

  “You get that damned reactor up as fast as you can,” the lieutenant replied. “And Riko, you throw every countermeasure we’ve got at them. We’ll have to move fast. If we’re not gone in a minute, we’ll be dead, and that battle group will move, and command will never know.”

  “I really hate this part,” Ensign Lassen stated as he nervously waited. “If they’re flying a standard BARCAP, then they jumped right under us. If we hadn’t changed course, they would’ve slammed right into us.”

  “That’s why he wears the bars,” Sergeant Nama said.

  “Damn, Tomi,” Ensign Lassen exclaimed. “If we get out of this alive, you get all our desserts.”

  “I’ll take them,” the lieutenant replied as he sat staring at his dark console.

  “You see anything, Riko?” Ensign Lassen asked the sergeant.

  “Nope.”

  “Are they still heading away from us?”

  “I don’t know,” the sergeant replied. “This thing will only tell me if we’re being painted.”

  “How are we even going to know if they’re gone?” Ensign Lassen wondered.

  “You know the drill, Tomi,” the lieutenant reminded him. “We go dark, and if there is no contact in five minutes, we bring up the passive suite and take a peek.”

  “Five fucking minutes,” the ensign complained.

  “Three and a half, now,” Lieutenant Teison pointed out.

  “This is not your first time, Jasser,” Sergeant Nama chuckled.

  “And I didn’t like any of the other times either,” the Ensign assured him.

  “You could always apply for work on one of the shuttles.”

  “No way,” the ensign protested. “At least we have weapons, although we rarely get to use them.”

  “I much prefer to not need them,” Lieutenant Teison said. “When you do, there’s usually someone shooting back.”

  “At least we’d know what they’re doing, instead of sitting on our hands, blind,” the ensign complained.

  “You’re getting to be as bad as Torwell,” Sergeant Nama laughed.

  Lieutenant Teison checked the clock. “Time’s up, spin up the passive.”

  “Spinning up passive,” Sergeant Nama acknowledged.

  “Well?” Ensign Lassen asked after a few moments.

  “Nothing,” the sergeant replied, “at least not where the octos were.”

  “What about that trace?” the lieutenant asked.

  “It isn’t a trace anymore,” the sergeant replied. “It’s a contact, and a big one. Holy shit, Lieutenant! One, two, three…five battleships, two frigates, and a dozen or so smaller ships that we’re too far out to identify.”

  “How’s our jump line?” the lieutenant asked.

  “It’s clear.”

  “Let’s get the hell out of here while we can, Jasser,” Ensign Lassen urged.

  “Lock down their course and speed, Riko,” the lieutenant ordered. “Tomi, plot a jump to a point ten light minutes behind them. We need to figure out how long they’ve been there.”

  “Christ, Jasser, they’re only five light years from Rogen, they don’t even need a full charge to attack.”

  “I know, Tomi,” the lieutenant replied. “I know.”

  * * *

  The morning air was crisp and frigid, Nathan’s exhalations sending clouds of steam that swirled about briefly, before being swept away by the breeze that always blew across the lake.

  Most of his friends were already on the ice, skating about, trying to take pucks away from each other, and generally assaulting the poor kid unlucky enough to have put on the pads and guard the net.

  During the winter, Nathan looked forward to Saturday mornings all week long. A whole day of pond hockey with his friends. Most Saturdays, they played non-stop, from sunup to sundown, stopping only to munch on whatever sandwiches their parents had prepared for them to get them through the day.

  “Hurry up, Nathan!” his friend Jacob called from the ice.

  Nathan was usually the first one out, but he had been forced to attend one of those boring political rallies with his family, smiling for an endless stream of pictures. Nathan so wanted to make an inappropriate face at every camera pointed in his direction, but he knew that his day of fun would be canceled if he had done so.

&n
bsp; Nathan finished lacing up his skates, grabbed his gloves and stick, and hit the ice; skating out toward the area they usually considered to be center ice.

  “Finally,” Jacob complained as Nathan came to a stop beside him. “Let’s show these shit heads how the game is played!”

  “Dream on,” Landon, the leader of the opposing group of kids, jeered.

  Nathan took his spot at center ice, preparing to take the face-off. He looked around at the five boys on the opposing team, suddenly realizing that each of them was at least twice his size. “What the hell?” he wondered.

  “What?” Landon asked.

  “Who are all these goons?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “What the hell happened to you, Landon?” Nathan wondered. “You have a growth spurt overnight?”

  “Stop stalling, Nathan,” Landon insisted, taking position for the face-off.

  “You guys are all, like, twice our size,” Nathan complained. “What did you do, go down to Pewton and recruit their junior team?”

  “What, are you scared?” Landon accused. “You can always forfeit if you’re afraid of getting hurt.”

  Nathan looked up at Landon, whom he had never remembered being so much taller than him. “I’m not scared of anything,” he replied with a sneer.

  “We’ll see how you feel after the face-off, kid,” Landon challenged as he bent over.

  Nathan also bent over, placing his stick on the ice, with his blade on the opposite side of the puck from his opponents. Landon started the count, one…two…three…with them tapping their sticks above the puck on each count. On three, Nathan went for the puck, but Landon didn’t. Nathan felt the shaft of Landon’s stick as it struck him in the face, just below his nose, knocking him backward.

  There was a loud beeping sound, and Nathan’s eyes snapped open.

  “Captain, Comms,” the B-shift communications officer called over the intercom.

  Nathan blinked several times, regaining his senses.

  “Captain, Comms,” the comms officer called again. “Flash traffic.”

  Nathan rolled over and pressed the intercom button on the nightstand. “Go ahead.”