Wings of Steele 3: Revenge and Retribution

by Jeffrey Burger

  “Sir,” said TESS, “It appears Mr. Mercury's comms are down. His signal is coming directly from his TESS unit and she does not have the power to generate a signal greater than the power fields of the transition tunnel. This is the best we will get at this distance.”

  “Will he receive what we send?”

  “Yes, Commander. Since our signal is boosted by the ship he will receive a clean signal.”

  “Good.” Brian plucked the holo-screen from TESS and moved it freely, setting it next to one of the monitors on his chair. Since it was well within its six-foot radius from the wrist unit, it floated motionless where it was placed despite the use of his hands on his command keyboards. “Jack, I know you can hear me,” he spoke to the screen, “we have received your distress call and we've reduced speed to allow you to catch up. Your signal is too weak for video and audio. Ping my TESS every two minutes, she'll be able to tell when we have a solid signal...” The static and garble ended, with a single ping as a response. Brian sat back, pensive, deep in thought. “What's the status on the yacht?”

  Raulya glanced over her shoulder, “It is moving up but her gain on our lead is slow...”

  “We shouldn't have pulled so far ahead,” Brian lamented.

  “You were following protocol, Brian,” reminded Maria from the first officer's seat. “We needed to be far enough ahead to exit the gate first and deal with any unknowns before an unprotected ship was exposed to a possible enemy engagement.”

  The bridge door swept open and Lisa tromped in at a trot past the Marines standing guard. “What's going on? I got a distress call from Jack but then nothing...”

  “We don't know yet. He can hear us but not the other way around,” replied Brian.

  “But...”

  Brian stayed her question with an open hand, an idea popping into his head. “Mr. Ragnaar, is there a speed differential between the Raven and the Remora in the transition? If so, what would it be?”

  “There is,” nodded the big man. “There is an equation of weight, physical size and overall mass that determines minimum speed for a ship in transition. A jump tunnel is created by the gates which are stable worm-hole generators. The tunnel is basically an electronic fabric tube, too slow or heavy and you tear a hole and fall through. But lighter ships can go slower without creating that stress.”

  “Can you calculate that speed for both the Remora and the yacht, please?”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Brian turned to Lisa, “Suit up lady...”

  “I'll go with her,” said Maria, sliding out of her seat.

  “No. You won't,” said Brian, cutting her short with a wave. He looked at Lisa, “Take Draza Mac for your rear seat.”

  “But...” objected Maria.

  “I need you here, Lieutenant. And she'll need someone to walk her back in for recovery.” Maria sat back down without saying a word, looking like she'd bit into a lemon.

  “Listen up, lady,” said Brian, looking Lisa square in the eyes. “This is dangerous and you need to follow exactly what I'm telling you. Under no circumstances do you allow your bird to fall below the numbers Mr. Ragnaar gives you. And under no circumstances do you turn around to change direction. You must maintain forward speed and allow him to catch up to you. If he falls below his speed, don't be near him or you'll both drop out. Understand?”

  “I understand. Where do you go if you drop out?”

  “Null space.”

  “What's null space?”

  Brian pursed his lips and shook his head, “Another system, uncharted space...” he shrugged, “nobody knows. But it's pretty certain we'll never see you again. Whether you live or not is anyone's guess.”

  “Swell,” she sighed, “thanks for clearing that up.”

  ■ ■ ■

  Nina was scraping frost off of the inside of the cockpit glass with something that looked like a spatula she found in the ship's small galley. D-d-d-damm,” she shivered, “how much f-f-fucking colder can it get?”

  “More than a hundred degrees below zero,” replied Jack through clenched teeth, his breath hanging in the air.

  “I don't want to die like this...”

  “We're not gonna' die, we're gonna' make it.” Jack had TESS' screen sitting up on the dash, the only light in the cockpit, most of the other electronics dead or offline. “TESS are you broadcasting?” He pulled the cuffs of his jacket down over his hands.

  “Yes, Mr. Mercury. We are not in sufficient range yet to communicate.”

  “Dammit,” he breathed. Steele thought about his wife and son, his parents, friends, extended family, God and Voorlak. Were they one in the same? He wasn't sure it mattered at that particular point. “I sure hope you didn't bring me all the way out here just for this.”

  “D-d-did you say something?” chattered Nina.

  Jack wasn't even aware he'd said it out loud. “No, nothing, just thinking out loud.”

  “Well if it's how to g-g-get us someplace warm, I'm all ears.”

  TESS' face appeared on her holo-screen, “I am getting a; clear to broadcast, message...”

  “Then broadcast dammit, broadcast!”

  Lisa's face appeared on the screen, her face framed in a helmet, the visor up. “How's it going big brother?”

  “Lisa? Where are you?”

  “Keep going straight, Jack. I'm ahead of you.” She looked away for a moment. “We're sending you some adjusted performance numbers for the yacht...”

  “Ship's computer is offline, I won't get it.”

  “It's coming through TESS,” replied Lisa. “What's going on?”

  “We're f-f-freezing our asses off!” shouted Nina. “That's what's going on!”

  “Cascade failure,” explained Jack. “System by system. The engine is still running, the oxygen system is still running, but nearly everything the computer controls has gone offline one at a time. We're cold and blind.”

  “Can you reboot or something?” asked Lisa.

  “If I do and it affects the propulsion system, we're dead.”

  “Hmm. How's your fuel?”

  “No idea. Last reading was about twenty percent before that system went dark.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  Jack checked TESS. “TESS says it was an hour and thirty-seven minutes ago.”

  Lisa turned away from the screen to consult Draza Mac in the back seat who was running the calculations. She turned back to the screen, “You're going through your fuel faster than we had calculated...”

  “How much longer do we have?”

  “About an hour. You should make the gate, no problem...” she lied.

  “Should?”

  Lisa reached through her visor and rubbed her forehead. “Well we don't know exactly what fuel you have left and what you're burning or losing, so it's not concrete. But Mac figured in the difference from what was originally estimated earlier and what you actually had an hour and thirty-seven minutes ago. Is your power still at seventy-three-and-a-half percent?”

  “No, I'm up at ninety percent trying to catch up.”

  “Alright,” nodded Lisa, “let's get you an info feed... I'm linking my TESS with yours, she's going to feed you telemetry, navigation and scans so you can see. You may need to widen her screen so you can see it all. Let's get you back down to about seventy-five percent power and see if we can milk some more mileage out of that crate.”

  “Got it. Nice, thanks.” Steele eased the throttle back, finally feeling a little ray of hope, praying the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel wasn't an oncoming train.

  ■ ■ ■

  Fifteen minutes passed before Jack's battered ship finally slid alongside Lisa's unarmed Remora. She matched the speed of the yacht, slowly completing a circuit around it for damage assessment. With more than a third of the hull scorched, she was surprised it was still intact without a major hull failure of some kind. The extensive damage to the tail, stabilizers, their associated maneuvering jets and hull where the right engine used to be, re
vealed structural ribs and internal components.

  “Well I think I've found the problem...”

  “Really? Can we fix it?”

  Lisa's mind drew a blank for a moment. “What? No! How would you fix... Never mind...” She realized he was pulling her leg when she heard him laughing. “Ass.” She glanced over at the cockpit of the yacht, a dull glow inside. “I'm glad you still have your sense of humor...”

  “And not much else...” he quipped.

  While Draza Mac forwarded all communications and telemetry to the Raven, Lisa kept an eye on Jack via TESS' live video feed. He looked exhausted. She imagined the cold would compound that and his eyes looked heavy, so she did her best to keep him engaged. TESS's sensors were feeding Lisa atmospheric data from the yacht; oxygen supply was right where it should be but the temperature was down to twenty-two degrees and falling.

  Draza Mac reached over his console and tapped on Lisa's seat back, “ Raven has just entered Aegeron Pass,” he said quietly.

  Lisa gave him an abrupt wave to acknowledge she'd heard him. “So, Jack, I'm thinking steaks for dinner... what do you think?”

  Jack nodded slowly, “Mmm, nice... medium well. Blackened on the outside to seal in the juices... a little pink on the inside. And some nice big steak fries...”

  “I really want a nice tall cocktail,” volunteered Lisa.

  “Hot chocolate,” countered Jack. “In a mug I can wrap my hands around...”

  “I vote for the hot chocolate too,” mumbled Nina, readjusting the blanket wrapped around her. “It would be great if I could drink it in a nice hot shower...”

  It was subtle, but Lisa realized Jack's ship was falling back from her abreast position. Telemetry confirmed the yacht was slowing down. “Jack, have you adjusted your throttle setting?”

  “No, I haven't touched it.”

  “You're dropping back, my speed is constant.”

  Steele adjusted the throttle, adding a little power to maintain his position. “I don't hear anything different, she sounds OK.” He cocked his head to one side, listening intently, the growl of the engine droning on as before. “Maybe she's got a blocked injector or two.”

  “It's alright,” said Lisa reassuringly, “the gate is coming up.” She could see the gate's beacon on her scope, the gate itself not physically visible yet.

  Draza Mac reached over his console again and tapped on Lisa's seat back, “ Raven says Aegeron Pass is clear. They expect the Conquest and Westwind to be on time.”

  “Excellent...”

  “What's excellent?” asked Jack.

  “Ageron Pass is clear, we're good to go. Everything's running as plan...” She watched her brother spin in his seat. “What's going on?”

  “I don't know, I just heard a boom.”

  “Hold on...” Lisa inched her throttle back, allowing the yacht to slide by as she eased past behind it, around to the other side. “Shit,” she breathed.

  “What? What?”

  “You have a flameout. See if she'll restart.”

  She watched her brother on TESS' holo-screen, stab at the igniter switch. There was a sudden belch of flame from the engine as it relit, providing power for a moment, raising her hopes, before dashing them again as the engine went dark once more. After several tries the engine refused to relight even its igniter.

  “He's out of fuel,” said Draza Mac.

  “How long can he coast at speed?”

  “According to the computer calculations, he won't make the gate. They'll drop out of the transition tunnel at less than three minutes to the gate...”

  “No. No! No that's not going to happen... we're so close. No I refuse to...”

  “I don't think there's anything you can do about it, Skipper,” offered Draza Mac. “It's not like we can refuel him.”

  ■ ■ ■

  The conference call over, Lieutenant Commander Brian carter and Lieutenant Maria Arroyo stared at TESS' blank holo-screen sitting on the desk in Brian's office. The Commander didn't want to go back out onto the bridge, he felt sick to his stomach. Death wasn't even certain in null space, not immediately anyway. The reality was no one knew. Or if they did they weren't talking about it. Was it like limbo? What happened next? Was it just a void, or were you dropped into an unknown system? If your ship was well supplied maybe you'd survive a while. Brian thought about his Catholic upbringing, maybe it was like Purgatory. He shook it off, he hadn't thought about that for years. It seemed so intangible when he was a kid. He wasn't sure it felt any more real now. What he was sure about, was that he was about to lose a friend he'd known for nearly a decade.

  “There's got to be something we can do,” sniffed Maria, fighting her emotions.

  “I'm all ears if you have any ideas.”

  She shook her head without answering. “Oh my God, what are we going to tell Fritz?”

  “Fritz? What are we going to tell Alité?”

  ■ ■ ■

  Having nothing to lose, the systems reboot restored a couple of the yacht's systems, mainly climate control. The cabin was a balmy fifty degrees now. Without propulsion, uneven or otherwise, the ship needed no guidance, coasting along on its momentum. Steele sat with his arms folded and his feet up on the copilot's seat, Nina sitting in the salon with Ruby and the other girls. He stared out at the gate, so close yet so far. He glanced at what little readouts had been restored, the speed slowly ticking down as the ship lost momentum. Another minute and they would tear through the electronic fabric of the tunnel and disappear.

  “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, because I am the baddest motherf...” No hubris he scolded himself. “I will fear no evil, for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou annointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

  He was surprised he wasn't angry. Or disappointed. He was accepting. Voorlak had told him he was special, that his destiny was to become something more than he was. Maybe this was the way it was supposed to be. Maybe this was the path to that destiny. He had no choice but to accept and trust what had been laid out before him. That is not to say he wasn't worried, concerned or fearful. But it was beyond his control. Steele regretted not being able to speak with his wife for a last time. He glanced at the speed and back up at the gate looming ahead... It was hard to believe it was so close...

  He unmuted TESS' mic, the video having continued unabated. “OK Lisa, get clear and hit the gate. I don't want you in here, who knows what will happen... And don't forget to get that video to Alité for me...” He looked out of the right then left side of the cockpit, unable to see the Remora fighter anywhere. “Lisa?” He glanced at the speed sensors as they fell below their minimum speed, his heart skipping a beat, a spike of adrenalin shooting up his back quickening his pulse and his breathing, a sudden cold chill washing over his body as he saw stars through an opening in the tunnel wall.

  “Hold onto something, Jack...”

  “Lisa, where are you, what are you doing? It's time for you to get your bird out of here..!”

  The sudden jolt nearly threw him from the pilot's seat, the slam resounding through the hull followed by a cacophony of squealing metal and screams of the girls in the salon. The sounds of protesting metal was replaced by a severe vibration threatening to tear the ship apart at the seams, the cabinets throughout the ship emptying themselves of their contents, a cascade of noise.

  ■ ■ ■

  Even with her shields up, Lisa watched the nose of her Remora crumple as she shoved the yacht toward the gate, easing the throttle gradually higher.

  “We're below speed protocols, Skipper...”

/>   “I know, Mac. I know...”

  “Sensors indicate an opening in the tunnel wall on our right...”

  Lisa's heart was pounding and she couldn't tell if her hands were shaking or if it was from the vibration in the frame of the Remora from all the thrust she was applying. “Not something I wanted to hear...”

  “Thought you'd want to know.”

  “I don't! How close are we to the gate?”

  “Readings say sixty seconds.”

  “C'mon baby, you can do it...” she panted, near panic.

  “Stars, I can see stars through the opening, it's growing!”

  “Shut up, Mac!”

  “Our trajectory is changing, it's pulling on us!”

  “I swear to God, Mac...”

  The tendrils of color from the gate reached out, dancing across the hull of the crippled yacht and the Remora.

  “We're sliding!”

  “Ain't gonna happen, that way,” hissed Lisa through clenched teeth, “We're going through that fucking gate!” She nudged the throttle, imbedding the nose of her fighter further into the stern of the yacht, crushing one of her own sensor systems, half her dash going dark. The color swirl of the gate enveloped them and just as suddenly they slid violently to one side amongst a spread of stars, the two ships separating, debris and mangled metal floating between them. A surge of panic-induced electricity raced though her body, “What just happened?”

  “Welcome to Ageron Pass, Skipper...”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  FORT GEORGE G. MEADE, NSA HEADQUARTERS, MARYLAND : SPY vs SPY

  The sky was a crystal-clear turquoise blue, the morning mist having burned off, the sun shining brightly at the Fort George G. Meade Museum, a couple miles from the NSA Headquarters building.

  Agent Doug Mooreland walked along the deserted concrete pathway from the nearly empty parking lot, flipping his collar up, a brisk breeze at his back. He was more than a little concerned, on edge, scanning the tree line, and the empty park. Why were they meeting outside like this? Nothing about it felt right. He approached the older man sitting on the park bench on the edge of the walkway facing an assortment of American tanks from various wars. “Deputy Director,” he said, sitting down, his hands in the pockets of his overcoat.