Garlan hit the stud on his console. “Hey, is that you, Cam? Wane Garlan on the Lake Tahoe.”
Silence from the comm stack.
“Mister Nagal, send them a transponder signal. I think we might be a few hours early.”
“Aye, aye, captain. IFF active.”
More Silence.
“Captain, the Varson escort boat peeling off to starboard at a high rate of speed.”
“Mister Hale, take us to general quarters. Something’s not right,” the captain said.
The warning klaxons sounded and the emergency lighting came on, washing the bridge in wan yellow light.
“Captain, what are they doing this far out? I thought the picket ships were supposed to be —”
“Hold that thought, Mister Nagal. Get me a shot of that ship on screen.”
“Weapons bay reports ready, sir,” Lieutenant Tapps reported.
“Mister Garland, look up the operational frequencies of the Nautilus River and see —”
“Ships unfolding off our forward port quarter, captain.”
“Sir, according to my archives, the Nautilus is in drydock on Canno.”
“Battle stations, Mister Tapps. Activate batteries two through eight in bay four. Bring up the helio-spasm torpedoes as soon as you have targeting solutions,” Garlan said, regretting his thoughts earlier about how dull this cruise was.
The captain hit the stud for the intraship comm link. “This is the captain speaking. There is an unidentified ship closing on the Lake Tahoe and several more ships have just left the fold and they are all unidentified. Until we can ascertain their intentions and identify them precisely, you are to maintain your battle stations. That is all.”
“Sir, getting a return from the Nautilus and even though the code is proper, sir, it’s years out of date,” Lieutenant Nagal said over the noise.
“Image coming through, sir,” his helmsman said.
Garlan stood and looked at the forward blister. That was definitely a Colonial Navy warship, but it was certainly not the Nautilus River. In fact, if the markings were correct, and it was CCV-311, that meant it was the Mobile Bay and that couldn’t be possible, because the Mobile Bay was lost during the war with all hands aboard!
“Another message from her, captain.”
“This better be good. Let’s hear it.”
“This is Captain Giuure of the Malguur Domain. You are completely surrounded. If you will check your scans of your aft quarters you will find an additional four battle cruisers on your tail. Prepare to receive boarding party on your hangar deck number three. Any resistance on your part will result in your total annihilation. This is not an idle threat. I repeat, this is Captain. . .”
The only thing Captain Garlan could utter was, “What the fuck?”
* * *
“Tell me about Dad again,” Har said.
He was curled up on his mother’s lap and while the rest of the passengers on the courier boat slept, the two of them were engaged in quiet conversation. Max Hansen had slipped away from Ken Royal while he napped and used the little toilet behind the aft partition. Har had heard her and he stirred. When she walked past him, she naturally looked down at her son, rearranged his pillow and blanket and tried not to wake him.
He had grabbed her hand and they’d been talking ever since.
“I think I’ve told you everthing there is to tell. And you’ve seen all of the recording we made.”
“I mean, tell me about the accident. Why he had to die.”
She tousled his hair and looked down at him. “Oh, honey, haven’t we talked about that enough? It was a horrible accident at one of the mines your dad was working. I don’t know why it happened, I just know it did.”
“But, that’s not fair, Mom. I need my dad. . .”
Max shifted her weight in the seat. Har was getting so tall that she inched over some so that his legs weren’t scrunched up against the inner hull of the little boat. “Son, life isn’t fair in a lot of things. We just have to learn to live with what happens to us until it’s our turn to experience the ultimate finality of it all.”
Har stirred. He needed a better explanation than that. What did that even mean? “So, you’re saying I should just forget about him and move on? I can’t do that, Mom.”
She stroked the side of his head. “No, I’m not telling you to forget about him, Har, not at all. What I want you to concentrate on is living the life you have to the fullest, that’s what your father would have wanted you to do.”
“See,” he said through building gloom, “that’s what’s so confusing. How can I live my life to it’s fullest when that part of my life is gone and will never come back?”
Warm tears spilled from his eyes. “You just have to accept it, Har. No amount of sadness and tears can bring him back to us. I should know, because I cried myself to sleep for months after he died.”
He reached up and wiped his eyes on the palms of his hands. “You’re trying to tell me to grow up, aren’t you, Mom?”
She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. “Only if you want to, Harold. You’ll know when it’s time to let go.”
He hugged her closer and stopped crying.
As a matter of fact, Harold Hansen never cried again in his life.
Chapter 31
The faux Davi Yorn exited the spaceport terminal without trouble. He hailed a ground-car and told the driver to take him to the best hotel on the outskirts of the big Navy Base. The driver looked him over and agreed promptly. Many of his passengers elected to stay in a civilian residence prior to reporting for duty at the base. Or maybe this guy was just on a layover until he caught the ferry to North Central City and the War College near Nardin. As long as he paid the fare, what did it matter? Teeluur was silent as the cab made the half-hour trip into Weyring and the budding downtown area. Bayliss was a mining colony and most of the mining was done near the equatorial rift, a deep chasm that extended some 2,200 kilometers around its girth. Many cities had sprung up near the rift and Weyring was the largest of them.
Teeluur paid the fare and gathered his things. He had no trouble getting a room on one of the upper floors. As a matter of fact, the Hotel Burtle was practically empty. That suited him just fine. Once in his room he cleared the place of any potential dangers and checked the four rooms for listening or recording devices. Satisfied that he had a clear exit route and a clean room, he headed for the head and the lure of a nice hot shower.
Once done with his toilet routine, Teeluur turned on the comm stack in the sitting room of his suite. Local news and sports dominated the coverage and he found nothing of interest to keep him watching past the dinner hour.
Gathering his personal items and donning civilian attire, he left his room and headed for the restaurant on the top floor of the hotel. The little placard they’d left on his dresser promised him the best dining experience on all of Bayliss, with fresh vegetables and home-cooked delicacies. For him, home was very, very far away so he didn’t really anticipate any food worthy of that advertisement.
Before getting to the top deck of the hotel he checked the little weapon in his jacket pocket, one he had reassembled from plastic parts just moments before. All seemed to be in order and he stepped off the lift on the twenty-seventh floor and followed the signs to the restaurant, aptly named THE TOP OF THE TOWN. The view was magnificent. Once he was seated at a single table near the edge of the curved glass wall, he was surprised that he hadn’t felt the slow revolution of the dining room floor as he walked behind the hostess.
It was only after he saw the scenery crawling by beneath him that he noticed his own proper motion. Intrigued, he figured the approximate speed based on what he could see of known distances on the ground, such as the widths of streets, the heights of surrounding buildings, the length of the runways at the Navy Base, the —
No! It couldn’t be. Even the Deliverer in his Divine wisdom could not have arranged this!
As he was scanning the restaurant trying to figure its rot
ational speed his eye found a familiar face, one he knew well, sitting at a table not more than twenty meters away.
Galuud. Here on Bayliss.
This was going to be interesting, Teeluur thought.
* * *
“Are you healthy, Colonel Yaguud?”
Inskaap looked up. The man who had called himself Commander Vaun was looking down at him with a strange look on his featureless human face. “I’m sorry, commander, can you repeat what you just said? Sometimes my Elberese is not too good.”
Vaun smiled and repeated his question. “I just wanted to know if you are in good health, sir. We are approaching Bayliss and instead of taking you through the cumbersome Port Authority dock, we’ve been cleared for a direct landing at the Navy Base at Weyring.”
“Oh, yes, I see.”
“Sometimes these steep-angled high-gravity landings are mildly upsetting to those not in top physical condition. As a courtesy to you I can offer you a pressure suit, colonel.”
“No, I mean, yes. I consider myself in good physical condition, Commander Vaun, but just to be on the safe side, why don’t I suit up just the same.”
“All righty, then. I’ll get my copilot down here to assist you in a few minutes. ETA Bayliss in, oh, forty-five minutes. We’re in our final spiral now.”
Inskaap nodded and sat up straighter in his seat. He had not felt the boat slow, had not felt the jump inertia bleed away. Whatever this “fold” technology these humans possessed, it sure beat the hell out of the ancient jump science practiced by the Malguur. Of course, he knew that the two technologies had been combined and he had many coded messages to prove it.
“Thank you, commander. I think that is the proper term.”
“I’m curious, Colonel Yaguud, as to where you learned your Elberese. You speak almost like a native.”
Inskaap thought about his answer. He didn’t want to reveal too much about himself too quickly. Even though his human escorts had been plenty accommodating thus far, he was still leery of them. “I studied it from the tapes. From the war, commander. From the war.”
Vaun nodded and moved away. He turned at the little ramp heading for the cockpit. “Just relax and enjoy the ride, sir. Lieutenant Hardy will come down shortly. And don’t be alarmed when you hear a loud thump on the hull, that’ll just be the airframe reconfiguration for atmosphere.”
He waved the man away and stared at the blank observation port, closed and sealed with an opaque blast shield. It was pretty evident they were not going to let him see anything until he touched the ground and was safely in the arms of their intelligence people. He knew that was par for the course even though he didn’t really know what that phrase actually meant. Just one more thing to ponder during this trip into the hands of his sworn enemies. These humans that had destroyed three Domain worlds and over a billion Malguur citizens.
He hoped he had picked the right side in all of this.
Suddenly he felt the ship begin to slow.
A high-gee descent awaited him.
* * *
Commander Yorn decided it was time to decelerate and abandon the jump space. He only had his wits and his dead-reckoning ability to guide him, but he figured roughly ten hours of jump time should have been enough to get him clear of any pursuers. While he was wiling away his time in jump space he tried to get as familiar with the little alien ship as humanly possible. He’d also gone back to the little cargo bay and retrieved one of the alien evo suits and discovered how to get the oxygen flowing in the helmet.
Now he was sitting in the control cabin in a silverized Varson spacesuit, helmet at hand, contemplating his next move. He grabbed the throttle handles and tried to disengage them from their locked forward position. No go. He pushed, he pulled, he slapped the handles from side to side. Nothing.
Then he remembered the orange light and the control switch contained within. He cautiously pressed the control button and waited. Soon the dashboard of the little flyer lit up like a Christmas tree and the orange button started to flash again.
When he reached for the throttle handles this time, the levers were operational. he pulled them back and instantly noticed the change in the pitch of the engine.
Then he hit the stud to raise the blast shields from the front screens.
Nothing happened.
He bled off more speed and tried again.
The screens started to rise and the inky darkness of deep space crept into the cabin like oil released on standing water.
Yorn busied himself with a few of the other controls and was fumbling with one of the Varson star maps when suddenly a loud wail erupted from the comm stack above his head. He looked up just in time to see another ship looming in his forward screens and he grabbed the yoke and pushed it hard over to the left. The little ship just missed the massive warship by a few tens of meters. The wail was an alien collision alarm.
But what had he just flown past? Was that a Colonial Navy destroyer? An attack boat like the Christi? He held the yoke until he was headed in the opposite direction and after a few minutes, he came about for a quick look. If the ship was indeed a CNS warship, he was finally saved!
Wait. He was in a stolen Varson flyer with no way of communicating his true identity. Did he know enough of the controls on this vessel to hail them? But what if it was a Varson cruiser? What if it was summoned to intercept him based on his assumed trajectory?
Too many ways this thing could go horribly wrong, Yorn thought. He could be captured again by his enemies or blown into dust by his friends performing picket duty in the Fringes.
As if someone on the warship was reading his mind, he heard a radio call on his alien comm stack.
He reached up and increased the volume.
He was not happy with what he heard.
Chapter 32
With all of the different scenarios playing themselves out at this time, Bale Phatie was taking a hard-line position with his senior commanders and captains. He had about twenty of them seated around a big war room holographic display in one of his conference rooms. Hovering a meter or two above the table were hundreds of star systems and the highlighted worlds of the Malguur Domain with their associated outposts and military bases. Fleet movements and other details floated near shimmering splotches of color interspersed throughout the huge quadrant of space.
His mood was not good and his booming voice echoed off the walls and ceiling of the room.
“I don’t see the relationship the same as you do, Admiral Koraath. We could have easily just destroyed the ship and that spy-laden ‘trade delegation’ right on the spot. Why escort them to Rauud Mithie? Now we have to commit to a small task force just to keep them bottled up in our space.”
The admiral cleared his throat and said, “But it gives us hostages, my eminence. And another one of their ships to use against them. The captains have had enough training to master the controls on that human ship since it is similar the one we stole the plans for. If nothing else, it could be used as a training device until more of the hybrid ships come out of the erection yards.”
“That was not your decision to make, admiral. I distinctly told you that I did not want prisoners.”
The room grew quiet. Admiral Koraath felt every eye in the war room landing on him. He hesitated before making his reply. The next words he uttered to the Piru Torgud could well be his last.
“I only did what I thought you would prefer, eminence. No time was lost. If my actions displease you, I will order the immediate destruction of the human ship. After the debacle with the Eliminator and Admiral Janth Resuur, I just thought a suitable trophy to your brilliance would be fitting and proper.”
Phatie paced back and forth. This man at least showed some kind of initiative. “I will ponder what you have just said, admiral. As long as that human ship is docked in Domain space a danger exists. Are you sure that it sent no messages and that no beacons were activated when you took it over?” He paused for a reply but none was forthcoming. “Just as I thought. You d
id not think it through.”
The shot was loud enough to startle everyone in the room with the exception of Admiral Koraath. He never saw it coming. Two of Phatie’s security men rushed over and hauled the dead man toward the door. A thick layer of smoke settled on the holographic display adding realistic nebulae for the tiny stars to excite.
“Is there anyone else here that wants to think for me?” he said as he returned his weapon to the holster beneath his robes. “Anyone?” he repeated.
Silence.
“Then let us continue,” Phatie said, “and the next time you come up with bright ideas as to how to conduct this campaign, please let me know. So I can notify your next of kin.”
The meeting went on.
* * *
The shuttle touched down at 1947 hours, local time, and Captain Haad was first off the boat. Initially annoyed that he had to suffer the indignity of delays at the Port Authority dock a couple of hours ago, he was not in a good mood. This trip was planned and executed at the direct behest of Vice Admiral Geoff and perhaps his command authority didn’t carry as much weight in the outer colonies as he’d thought. It was not the routine of the activity at the dock that pissed him off as much as the time involved. It seemed to Haad that someone had triggered some kind of time-and-motion study at just the right time to keep them off the surface for no good reason. All of their travel orders and permits for the civilians had been prepared and copies had been sent ahead of them so there shouldn’t have been any delays.
It was only after Lieutenant Mols pulled him away from the others — after she’d been paged on the descending shuttle — and had engaged him in a private conversation did he start to relax. She had shared with him the reason for the delay.
Okay. There was a high-priority inbound ship making a direct approach to the Navy Base. All inbound shuttlecraft were held until that ship touched down. Understood. And then Mols told him the rest of it.
The Belt Loop_Book Two_Revenge of the Varson Page 19