by M. D. Cooper
Admiral Fenton turned to him and nodded. “Colonel Kent, I’m glad you could join us. Our probes have shown increased activity in the Transcend’s watchpoint, and Thresa thinks that whatever is going to happen will happen very soon.”
“Thank you for inviting me, sir,” Kent replied and stood behind Admiral Fenton, just to his left. It put him close to the Hegemony’s president-clone and she cast him a curious look with her deep eyes. He noticed her irises gleamed with refracted color to match her diamond accessories. It certainly was foppery, but impressive foppery nonetheless.
He was certain now that she was putting on this display to remind them that the Hegemony was not some alliance of backwater worlds, but a power that should not be underestimated.
“You’ve never fought against the Transcend, colonel,” Fenton continued. “You haven’t seen the lengths they will go to when it comes to protecting their place in the galaxy.”
Kent hadn’t, but he had heard tales of horrible acts performed by the Transcend in past battles. Amongst the crew and soldiers aboard the Britannica, speculation was rife as to what atrocity the watchpoint would commit against the AST ships. Some believed they would engage the AST fleet, others that they would run. Still more were certain that they would destroy the stars, or maybe just the moons and worlds where their installations were placed.
“There,” Garza called out, pointing at a signal picked up near the AST fleet. It was moving fast, probably a relativistic missile. Then, more signals appeared on the holodisplay, and then the Transcend’s actions became clear.
Kent watched in amazement as the scene before him unfolded.
“Now you see the depravity of the Transcend,” General Garza said to the president. “Not only have they seeded the Inner Stars with these secret bases, but look what they’ll do to protect them. Those are antimatter weapons obliterating the armada.”
“You said that they would destroy the stars,” Uriel said with a frown. “This seems a lot less concerning—against all laws and treaties—but I suppose there are no treaties with the Transcend.”
“You’d be surprised,” Admiral Fenton replied. “We have one with them, as do a number of Inner Stars nations. They all include the standard descriptions of what are illegal war acts dating back to the Solar Wars.”
“So, by their own laws, they just committed a war crime?” President Uriel asked.
Kent saw the president-clone’s eyes narrow, but she did not appear to be as upset as he was certain his superiors hoped she would be.
General Garza nodded. “They have, but that’s not the most important point. Those missiles did not fly there undetected. They used a Ford-Svaiter mirror. They sent them through jump-space.”
He watched realization dawn on Uriel’s face. “You’re saying that they could send antimatter weapons, or worse, through one of these Ford-Svaiter mirrors, right to Earth?”
“If by worse, you’re thinking a black hole, then no, it’s not possible to send a black hole through jump-space. But how many antimatter warheads would it take to obliterate High Terra and Earth?” General Garza asked.
“Less than what they just used on that fleet,” Admiral Jerra said with a shake of her head.
“Then you understand why the Transcend must be stopped,” Garza replied. “They have inflicted their great plan on humanity for too long.”
President Uriel frowned. “What you’ve just shown me is a reason not to get engaged in this war you want me to wage. By using AST hulls, you’ve painted a target on Earth. If anything, I should sue for peace with the Transcend after this.”
“You have nothing to fear,” General Garza replied. “As we speak, Guard ships are already seeding devices beyond Sol’s heliopause to disrupt jump-space transitions. The Transcend may be powerful, but even they are not prepared to expend the forces necessary for a direct assault on Sol—not to mention the political capital it would cost them to assault what many of them still consider to be their homeworld.”
President Uriel nodded slowly. “I hope what you say is true. Please return me to Earth with all haste; I must relay this news to my otherself. There is much to consider.”
She turned on her gleaming heel and left the bridge with her aides and Admiral Jerra.
“I hope this works, Garza,” Admiral Fenton muttered. “We’re putting a lot on the line pushing the timetable like this.”
“We have to,” Garza replied. “The early arrival of the Intrepid has changed everything.”
The general turned to Kent and gave him an appraising look. Kent held his posture and returned Garza’s look with calm assurance.
“Are you ready, Lieutenant Colonel Kent?” Garza asked with a deep frown.
“General, Sir, I am always ready,” Kent replied. He didn’t say it to be smart. He was ready, more than ever. He saw what they were up against, how they had to both corral and cajole the powers of the Inner Stars to do what was right, while also keeping the Transcend from destroying them all.
“Good,” Garza replied. “Because we’re sending you into the Transcend.”
FEINT
STELLAR DATE: 10.24.8945 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Watchpoint Command
REGION: Ascella System, Galactic North of the Corona Australis star forming region
Greer studied the data coming back from the probes that were sifting through the wreckage of the AST fleet.
“That can’t be right,” he muttered and turned to the scan officer. “Jens, is this accurate? Is there some malfunction?”
“Sir…I don’t think so. I mean, how could there be a malfunction in all the probes? Unless they have some way of masking organic material…which I don’t see as being possible in the wake of what our bombs did…”
Tsaroff swore. “Core! It was a decoy fleet. There must be another assault coming.”
“We must be vigilant,” Greer nodded. “But we proceed with the evacuation as planned. I don’t think it was a decoy, I think they were proving we were here to someone.”
“Why build such a massive fleet for that purpose?” Tsaroff asked. “Just to watch it get blown up and have no follow-through? It makes no sense.”
“That wasn’t a full fleet,” Greer replied. Those were empty hulls with just enough engines and fuel to get them aligned and on an insystem vector. Hell, those hulls weren’t even re-enforced. They would have crumpled under the first high-g maneuver. We could have built that fleet in a few years.”
“Which explains how no one knew about it,” Tsaroff nodded in understanding. “This was just to draw us out, to expose us—but to who?”
“Who do you think?” Greer asked. “The AST. You can bet that someone high up in the Hegemony was watching this unfold.”
“Shit, we need to get this assessment to Airtha,” Tsaroff replied.
“I will take it myself,” Greer said. “You are in charge of our exodus from Ascella, Tsaroff. Regroup at our fallback site in two months.”
Tsaroff nodded his acceptance of the order. “When will you meet us there?”
“I don’t know, things are afoot. Focus primarily on armament and supply. Stealth is a secondary objective now,” Greer replied.
As he left the CIC, Greer allowed himself a grim smile. Tsaroff was finally going to get his war.
A MIDNIGHT RENDEZVOUS
STELLAR DATE: 02.19.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Bavaria City
REGION: Airtha, Huygens System, Transcend Interstellar Alliance
Elena rolled onto her back and opened her eyes, staring at the darkened bedroom’s ceiling.
Elena grunted. That made sense to her sleepy mind…sort of.
Sera said.
Jutio’s sardonic laugh filled her mind.
Elena laughed in response.
Five minutes later, she stepped out of the unit, cleaned and ready to face whatever Sera may have brought down on herself. She quickly slid into a shimmersuit and configured it to look like a pair of leggings and a tight top. It may end up being just another day at the office, or she might have to launch into a covert mission immediately after meeting Sera.
She pulled on a pair of boots and slid some hard credit and a small flechette pistol into them. After a moment’s thought, she pulled a jacket over top. No need to make it too obvious that she was ready to embark on a covert mission within The Hand’s headquarters. With a final glance in the mirror near her door, she left her apartment while twisting her hair into a tight bun.
Elena took her standard route to the office, which was to say that it was different than the last seven days and randomly assembled from available options. Even though she worked at the heart of the Transcend now, she wasn’t about to get sloppy. Moreover, her experience had taught her that proximity to power made things more dangerous, not less.
It was the middle of the third shift when she arrived, and she greeted the guards and AIs with a casual wave, exchanging her auth tokens, and letting the chem sniffers and nano pull samples of her skin and pheromones. Elena didn’t slow down as she walked through the security arch. She never gave the slightest hint of worry when passing security checkpoints, and especially not at her own workplace.
Getting to the comm hub was going to be a different matter. It was seven levels down and five hundred meters deeper into The Hand’s complex. A dozen more security checks lay ahead, and the last two would be tricky. She would need a reason to pass through.
She logged the inbound communication and her intent to respond over established channels. The op in question had pending outbound data, so the response wouldn’t be singled out by any auditing. The time she was doing it may, but she often worked off hours.
With rationale in place for going to the comm hub, she worked her way through the facility, convivially greeting people she knew, and agreeably nodding to those she didn’t. A minute before her estimated time of arrival, she opened the door to the comm hub.
The hub was a large non-sentient AI node with secure physical terminals for direct Links and the transfer of sensitive data. Information processing for many top-secret ops and key data synchronization was performed in-person in the hub.
As Elena stepped through the entrance, she felt her Link to the rest of the building snap off, and the secure Link within the hub requested her tokens. She passed them to the AI monitoring the room and took a look around.
The area around the NSAI node was filled with consoles and duty stations. At this hour, only three were filled, and none by Sera. Elena sat at a console and activated a session to complete the task she had officially come to perform.
Once she was in, the holodisplay—visible only to her—flashed a message in the lower right corner.
“Sorry to get you out of bed, but I need you to go on a special mission,” it read.
“Where to, and what does this have to do with your father?” she typed in response. The message was a direct terminal-to-terminal connection. If Sera had done it correctly, the conversation would not be logged anywhere.
The reply came quickly, almost as though Sera had predicted her question. “First off, to New Canaan. My father intends to send a fleet there very soon to demand they turn over their tech. The incursion at Ascella was just the beginning. The Guard is making moves all along the front.”
Elena knew that all too well. Guard presence had increased in some areas and decreased sharply in others. None of the analysts had made sense of the pattern, but she was certain they would strike soon.
“OK, so you want me to warn Tanis Richards, fair enough, but what’s this about your father tapping all your communication?” Elena responded.
“I don’t know,” the reply said, and Elena could almost hear the hesitation in Sera’s voice. “He’s been acting strangely ever since I suggested the antimatter in Ascella. It was just a day after that when I realized I was being monitored. He won’t be happy about anyone going to New Canaan—it may be a one-way trip for you.”
Elena leaned back in the chair and contemplated her response. Her relationship with Sera had been growing slowly over their years together on Airtha, and now here Sera was, asking her to throw it all away to go on a crazy mission to warn some woman she had only known for a few months.
“This is nuts,” she replied.
“I know…but the Transcend can’t have Canaan’s picotech. No one can, we have to be sure of that,” Sera’s response said.
“And what will Tanis be able to do? If your father is bringing a fleet to Canaan, then they should just hand over the tech. There’s no way they can deny him; they don’t have the strength. I know, I’ve seen the reports. They’ve hardly built any warships since they got there,” Elena replied.
“You don’t know Tanis; she’s prepared for this. I’ve tried to tell my father that he can’t force her hand, but he believes the military’s assessment of Canaan’s strength. It will be a bloodbath if he goes in.”
Elena couldn’t believe what she was reading. “Are you choosing those colonists over your own people?”
“No!” Sera’s one word reply was emphatic. Then, more text appeared. “I am going to try to talk him down from sending an invasion force, while you try to talk Tanis down from annihilating whatever he sends in.”
“Would she do that?” Elena asked.
“If she’s threatened she will. You saw what she did to those AST dre
adnaughts in Bollam’s World. Maybe a Transcend fleet would ultimately overwhelm their forces, but at what cost? I want a zero-bloodshed solution here.”
Elena considered mentioning that a picoswarm left no blood behind, but took Sera’s point. She took a deep breath. “OK, I’ll do it. What’s the plan—I assume you have a plan. You’re really going to have to make this up to me later, and if I get exiled over this, you’re coming with me.”
“Deal. OK, there’s an interstellar pinnace on pad 74234 at High Airtha. I have it booked for a deep jump into the Inner Stars, out near Praxia. You will be able to set a new destination. The ship will have the coordinates to a point within the New Canaan system tucked into its maintenance archive.”
“When is it scheduled to leave?” Elena asked, knowing, from her experiences with Sera, that it would be soon.
“Five hours, but pre-flight is in four.”
“Core-devils, Sera. Four?” Elena typed furiously. “I can barely get up there in four, and I imagine the ship isn’t booked for me. I’m going to have to forge someone’s ident to take it out.”
“You didn’t bring a chem and ident pack?” Sera’s response appeared, and Elena wanted to find her lover and slap her.
“Of course not! I didn’t think I was going to be leaving Airtha. If you knew this, why didn’t you tell me?”
“Sorry,” Sera’s reply read. “I thought I mentioned it. I guess I was distracted.”
“I’ll have to get into Ops Outfitting and get one,” Elena replied. “I have a few stashed around Airtha, but there’s no way I can get one from those caches in time.”
“Too slow,” Sera replied. “You’re going to get an upgrade. Meet me in the lift to level nine.”
The message window closed, and Elena let out a long sigh.