The Liberty Fleet Trilogy (War of Alien Aggression, box set two)

by A. D. Bloom

  Bix said, "But why are we leaving if we're buddy-buddy with these aliens?"

  "Skipper even drank their sludge..."

  "Shut up, Annie." He almost couldn't get the words out because his jaw began to clench. The vein at his temple tickled him as it throbbed under the skin. A metallic taste spread over his tongue like he'd just been irradiated, but nobody else complained. "Graves, you've got the bridge. I need some coffee or someth-"

  "We're handshaking for secure messaging with someone's comms module.... It's coming from between the forward arrays. Someone is very close. But I don't see anyone out there. There's no contacts between us and the ships around us - nothing but vacuum."

  "Doxy, Doxy. This is Dana Sellis. Crack your bay doors a meter, please. I'm outside and I'd like to come in."

  "Our bay doors are right on the front of the command module. Why can't I see her?"

  That's the moment she chose to show herself. The stars on the other side of the diamond pane windows at the front of the bridge shimmered and then looked as if they unfolded from around her to reveal Dana Sellis in her vanta black exosuit. "Open the damn door, Foet."

  Garlan let her find her own way up from the bay. "We've got to talk," she said as she entered the bridge.

  Once she'd got round the front of the chair where he could see her, he said, "That was a nice trick. We didn't see you on radar or LiDAR. Why all the sneaking around?"

  "How did you do that?" Singh said.

  She carried something under her arm. She threw it to Singh and at first, it looked like a piece of thin material she'd bunched up that was colored like her black exosuit, but as it flew threw the air of the bridge and unfolded, its coloring and texture changed. Between Dana Sellis' hand and Singh's console it passed in front of the port bulkhead and took on the oxidized chroma of the steel. Passage in front of console lights and the projected displays it landed over made it radiate an imitation of what was on the other side.

  "What have we here?" said Singh as he stroked his hand over the illusion.

  Annie rose from her console fast to grab one edge of it. She looked at the image it made of her hand on the other side. "This isn't ours..."

  "It's Squidy," Captain Sellis said. "That material was recovered from a Squidy special forces sneak craft."

  "The hell is is made of?" Graves didn't seem to want to touch it, but like Garlan he couldn't take his eyes off it. When he looked away even a few degrees, it just seemed to disappear.

  The anger rose hot up Garlan's neck then and across his cheeks. Even he wasn't sure why. "Outside," he said. "We can talk outside."

  One deck down, Xie, Dip, and Tripper saw them enter the mess and left out the far hatch before even making eye contact. They must have smelled trouble. Once they were gone, Garlan closed both hatches and turned to face Dana Sellis. "Don't do that. Don't do that to my crew."

  "The hell you talking about?"

  "I'm talking about you coming here with this stunt and dazzling my crew with alien war relics."

  "What?"

  "You're about to try and talk them into something. You're trying to butter them the hell up with some show and tell - stuff they couldn't possibly have seen before - exotic stuff meant to make them feel great about this and what we're part of and not think too hard about what's coming next. Don't you effing do that to them."

  If she understand what he was talking about, then she hid it well. "Why would I do that?"

  "Because you're about to tell me and them you need something from us. Something dangerous."

  "I came here with that little stunt because that's the only way to get around without being seen. I used the Squidy tech because I don't think Cyning even knows we have it aboard." Sellis shook her head like she was shaking off his paranoia. "You need to know what's going to happen now."

  "We're steaming for the transit like we're going to run. The bugs haven't said word one about it. What did Devlin tell the Shediri?"

  "Devlin told Ix the truth. Hardway and Doxy aren't going anywhere. We're only escorting the weaker ships to the transit before we turn and engage the Imperium and their colonial fleet. And that's no lie."

  Garlan nodded like he understood, but he didn't. The UN ships would leave Devlin here to fight alone and they would die like Cyning said. "What about the UN ships? Are any of them going to stay? What about Guerrero?"

  "I honestly don't know what Captain Chun is going to do. And as for the rest of the Privateers on this joyride, I'm about to visit the captains of the railgun monitors and find out. You will say nothing of this. If Cyning gets wind of what we're planning, he might attempt to stop us somehow. He's always got one more hand than you've got eyes on," she said. "Remember that about him."

  Garlan nodded like he understood and this time he wasn't pretending. "Do you expect me to keep this conversation from my crew?"

  "For now, yes. There aren't going to be any debates, Captain Foet. You're going to give orders and your crew are going to follow them. We can't risk Cyning hearing some internal chatter while they wag their tongues about this. I'm sorry."

  "But...," he said, "if I could tell them what was happening... What would I say we're doing this for, Captain Sellis? Are we doing it for the Shediri?"

  "I'll tell you a secret, Foet. I don't like bugs one bit. I've killed my share and seen them kill my crew. Just looking at Shediri reminds me of that and they always will. Fuck the bugs, Foet. I'm doing this for us. If we don't defend our only ally, then we won't have any allies. Period. We've got to do this because its what we promised them we'd do. That makes it about who we humans are, Garlan. That includes you. Action is truth; you are what you do. The bugs got that part right. See...you're in this for more than the money, Captain Foet. Devlin saw it in your record and I saw it in your eyes back at Deimos Lagrange." She didn't say another word before she left...like she didn't have to...like she knew she was right. He hated her a little for that.

  SCS Hardway

  Thirty minutes from the transit, Anton Cyning arrived on Hardway without warning.

  "I've helped myself to your scotch," the company man said when Ram met him inside the counter-surveillance cage and closed the door. Cyning smirked at him, thin-lipped. The ageless skin at the corners of his mouth wrinkled as the company man held the glass up for Ram to see. "Have I ever mentioned to you how I can't taste the difference between good and bad liquor?"

  "Is it wasted on you, then, Mr. Cyning?"

  "No. Not at all. No. I think the deficiency in my palate has taught me valuable lessons."

  "If you're only here to gloat over the orders from the Secretary General's Office, then I'm needed elsewhere."

  "We both know you plan to stay and fight, and without the support of Chun's monstrous battleship you will die. But I'm not here to gloat over your demise and the fact that you've brought it upon yourself. No, Mr. Devlin, I'm here to tell you everything else that's about to happen. Because all of it has been driven by your vanity. All of it is your fault."

  "My fault?"

  "You've grown too close to the Shediri. Or they've grown too close to you. Either way, neither Staas nor the Secretary General's Office is comfortable with you in this position. You ended up with too much power here, Commodore Devlin. Others want that power. And they're willing to watch you die and let Shedir-4 burn to have it. I had a better deal worked out with Hive Hrt'ee, but you interfered. What could have been a simple coup has now become something far more unpleasant."

  "How do you see this playing out?"

  "You will stay and defend your bugs, perishing with your ship and the abomination of a converted carrier the Shediri have made. You will do this believing that this demonstration has value - for the rest of Humanity, for the Shediri, and lastly, for the eyes of the neighboring civilizations who will be able to say we didn't completely abandon the Shediri in their hour of need. After you and the Hive Regent Kesik are dead, a combined UN and Privateer battlegroup twice the size of this one will arrive to save the rebel Hive Hrt'ee and pu
t her on the throne. She's more than willing to go home to a scorched planet and build a new palace."

  "Send those ships now."

  "Never become a threat to your superiors, Devlin. It can only come to a nasty end."

  "This isn't about me. This is about the course we take as a species, Cyning. If partnership between Staas Company and the Secretary General's Office gets its way, Earth will take the Imperium's place. Don't say this is about me, Cyning. This is about us becoming an empire."

  The company man stood then. "Goodbye, Commodore Devlin. Thank you for staying and making it appear we're not savages for just a bit longer." He let himself out of the cage. At the hatch to the passageway, he said, "I'm going to go and draft the press release announcing your death myself. I want you to know you'll be remembered as a hero." Cyning pressed his lips together in thin imitation of a smile and was gone.

  The company man was right about one thing, Ram thought. Without the battleship on their side, they'd never win. The fate of Shedir now hung on one man's decision.

  7

  UNS Guerrero

  As Chun's battleship and the rest of the task force crossed the last few thousand K's to the Shedir-Draconis transit, Captain Chun rose from the chair and told his XO to take the bridge. He withdrew to his ready room and closed the hatch where the belt-iron steel of the close bulkheads seemed to ring uncomfortably in the near silence. In a moment, he realized the ringing was in his own ears and he hadn't heard it over the chatter and buzz of his bridge. They needed him out there, but the pounding in his head and the way the ready room spun told him now matter how selfish he thought it was, he needed a moment to collect himself before he did what he was about to do.

  "Captain Chun, sir, this is Colonel Saffir." The voice on comms startled him. "My Marines and the two Special Forces Teams are now deployed around the ship's engineering section and the bridge hatches as you requested."

  He heard the confusion in the man's voice since there was little chance they'd be boarded on the way out of the system. Saffir had to be wondering what was happening, but the Colonel would never ask directly. If Chun wanted Marines stationed across the decks of the ship, then there would be Marines across Guerrero's decks. The Marine Colonel knew how to follow his orders. "Thank you, Colonel. In approximately three minutes, I'm sealing the bridge and engineering hatches. When I do, your Marines' orders are to defend both locations and deny access to any and all personnel not already sealed inside."

  "Understood, Captain Chun."

  No, you don't understand at all, Chun thought. Not yet.

  He withdrew his sidearm from his safe and strapped the six-chambered revolver to his leg. Each of those shells contained a primer charge and a set of coils to create a burst of microwaves. Lensed properly, it was powerful enough to sweep the deck with a blood-boiling beam. He rotated the ring on the barrel to set a narrowly focused lensing and hoped he wouldn't have to use it at all.

  Next to the safe, framed, bolted to the bulkhead, and hanging above his head since the first time he'd sat at that desk, the Monkey King looked back at Captain Chun Ye Men with barred teeth. The poster of China's most legendary hero of myth had been an image printed on chitboard by the thousands. The cheap chemical inks had already begun to fade. The deep reds had gone pink. The blacks showed a green tint that bled where it met the fading yellow and a creosote stain had begun to creep inwards from the burned edges. Even the glue used to adhere silk backing to its tears had left its mark. This burned and battered image had been pulled from the rubble of the Beijing sprawl after the first wave of attacks from the Brazilian Axis and due to the severity of the orbital inertia bombing, it was the only printed image of its kind known to have survived the War of the Americas.

  He remembered that Monkey King vid in particular. It never got released. New ones were made every year, but that one he was going to see with his father, projected over 671 District's square. Instead, bombs screamed out of orbit and trailed fire all the way down to blow up the square and his father and everything else. Chun survived. He grew up hearing how China had saved the NAU and the rest of the world from fascism with their late entry into the war and that every casualty suffered was a sacrifice for the common good. That was the answer young Chun got when he asked where his father was.

  The boy Chun saw China like a hero, like Monkey King flying on a cloud. It was why he'd set to space in uniform, first for China and then for the world - to be that hero. He'd told Admiral Danae that story once in front of that charred and torn poster of the Monkey King where it hung in the Beijing History Museum. And when they gave him this battleship and this command, he found that poster bolted to the bulkhead above his desk.

  Captain Chun Ye Men now met his battered hero's burning, simian eyes, and they cautioned him. Like Monkey, what would come of his actions in the end, he knew he wasn't wise enough to see, but there was only one course to take.

  "Captain's on the bridge!" said the ensign moving from OPs to Tactical as Chun reentered. None of them reacted. They were all too busy.

  "We're beginning our deceleration burn," Whipple said as he rose from the chair." Chun's XO nodded to the projection over the console. It displayed the task force and the last of its ships completing their rotation to point their noses backwards so they could use their main engines to slow down. "All ships, initiate reverse burn at 98% relative V on my mark in 3...2...1..mark."

  The converted alien carrier fired harder than the ship in front of her and edged uncomfortably close to a pair of Privateer monitors, but they managed to push to port and avoid collision. The alien raiders he saw across the converted carrier's decks seemed unperturbed. Devlin must have already told them they weren't leaving, he thought. He wondered how many knew already what was about to happen.

  Whipple was busy with array data, making sure his ship didn't come under attack from Ekkai hunter-killers. Barthes only concern at NAV looked to be managing the distance between ships across the last ten-thousand Ks to the transit. His weapons officers kept their focus on the capacitor systems for the railguns, making sure no other system borrowed too much power and left them defenseless. They were all doing what they were supposed to do. They were all doing their jobs and following orders. All except Captain Chun Ye Men.

  As the ships of the task force spun on their maneuvering thrusters to face forward again, the breaching ship moved to the head of the formation and began the last phase of capacitor charging while fighters and junks from Hardway's patrol beamed the vacuum bright with active LiDAR and radar bursts, searching for any stealthed marauders that would have had plenty of time to arrive at the transit first and lie quietly in wait.

  "One of the destroyers, UNS Johannesburg, reports possible contacts some 15 million Ks out," said a warrant officer at comms.

  "We'll be long gone down the transit before they get here," Whipple said.

  "Seal the bridge hatches," he said to his XO who only hesitated for a heartbeat. "And tell Burroughs in engineering to button up there, too. Nobody in or out."

  "Yes, sir." Whipple nodded to the two Marines at each of the hatches as they closed. He thought he felt the air pressure increase.

  "Breaching ship reports it will be ready in...just under ten minutes, sir."

  Ten minutes...that was longer than they'd need to decide. When Chun had searched his own heart, it only took moments to realize he'd made today's decision decades ago. He said, "Comms, patch the task force's squack channel to my chair and give me complete control. I want to talk to every ear out there...Privateers, too....and I don't want to be interrupted."

  "Yes, sir." After a few seconds, the shout came over the shoulder, "That line is all yours, Captain Chun."

  They all looked up from their consoles then. He hadn't expected that. The depth of their expectant eyes made his last few drops of spit dry right up. "This is Captain Chun aboard Guerrero. As we prepare to leave this system, the Shediri homeworld is being bombarded, reduced to rubble by the guns of the Ekkai in the Imperium ship's
battlegroup. The casualties are now in the hundreds of millions and perhaps higher. Every minute we do not engage the enemy fleet and help them, their losses increase. However, as you know, I have received orders calling for Task Force Liberty to withdraw from this system. I cannot follow those orders. I do not wish to debate the legality of the orders I have received. They are legal. The Secretary General has every right to give that order and under the Uniform Code of Military Justice I am bound to carry it out or be found in violation of Article 90. But I cannot. I will not. The only honorable course of action for me is to be relieved of my duties and step aside so that another may carry out the orders of the Secretary General. I, like all of you, swore an oath upon my honor. But I have weighed my honor against a billion Shediri lives that believed we would be there to save them and I have found that if I am not willing to sacrifice that honor for their lives, then that honor is selfish vanity. UNS Guerrero will not enter the transit. We will stay here and fight. With the exception of the two freighters and the breaching ship, I'm ordering the UN vessels and the Privateers we contracted to remain here with me. But. I am aware that no military court could convict you for disobeying my orders. I will not use this battleship's guns to stop you, so the captains of the ships in this task force must now decide for themselves. Don't send me your answer over comms; join me," he said. "At Shedir, action is truth." Chun thumbed the button set in the arm of the captain's chair and terminated his transmission. "Helm, separate us from the task force. Move Guerrero away from the other ships and towards the inner system by 10 Ks and then come to a dead stop."

  Chun had to say it twice before the helmsman picked his jaw up off the deck and began to move the battleship to the other side of the imaginary line his captain had drawn in space.