by David Tatum
Rachel flushed, but kept her cool nonetheless. Returning fire with a teasing wrinkle of her nose, she replied coquettishly, “I’d love to, Mr. Desaix, but I’m afraid I’m just a bit too busy for ogling at the moment.”
Chris laughed, then winced as his laughter pulled on one of the temporary surgical seals holding him together. Ignoring the pain to get the last word in, he sent out a parting shot. “Another time, then?”
Ehrlich rolled her eyes. “Okay, you two, flirt later. We’ve all got a lot of work to do, and I’d really like to get it done in time to rest up before our next crisis.”
——————————
Two hours later, Chris had been cleared to attend the tactical meeting. Stiff, temporary surgical patches had been replaced with more flexible ones that supposedly allowed him to move as if he hadn’t been injured, but he still wasn’t feeling well. He was having trouble focusing on the briefing, but he had already guessed the gist of it.
“Just like you,” Burkhard said, wrapping things up. “The Commodore and I remain skeptical of our Cygni ‘ally’s’ intentions, but the plan is solid enough. We are concerned about the reliance on silent running for stealth, but we don’t have the same technology they used in the assault on Earth, so it’s the best we can do. We did come up with a contingency plan... of sorts. You can read the briefing materials for the specifics, but it mostly consists of running away at top speed and maybe throwing a few potshots at the enemy along the way. If we get to that point, it’s mission failure, so let’s do our best to make the silent running work. Any other questions? No? Good. Dismissed, everyone, and head to your posts. Mr. Desaix, could I see you for a moment before you leave?”
“ I’m extremely busy with the repairs, so...” Chris winced. Rachel, who had stood up, was holding her leg a little oddly... possibly because she was standing on his foot. She shot him a pointed glare. “...so I’d be grateful we can keep it brief.” Another wince as Rachel shifted her weight. “Sir.”
Rachel smiled prettily for him, patting him approvingly on the shoulder, and turned to follow the other officers leaving the room. Chris watched her leave until the door closed behind her, and then turned his attention to his captain.
“This won’t take long,” the Captain said, moving to sit closer to the younger man. “Mostly, I want to talk with you about that incident on the bridge earlier.”
Chris frowned. “I knew what I was doing, there. I wasn’t in the wrong. And I was within my authority as acting Chief Engineer.”
Burkhard grimaced a little. “Perhaps, perhaps not. The rules that govern what constitutes an ‘engineering crisis’ are a lot more vague then the rules for a ‘medical crisis.’ It is also rare that such an incident would normally be overlooked by the courts, even if you really did have that authority.” He paused. “You’re a good officer, Chris. In many ways, one of the best on the ship. However, you simply must learn enough about the formalities of Navy life that you don’t get yourself thrown in a prison ship for insubordination. I’m known as a maverick because I usually think I know better than my bosses... and I usually do. It’s held me back from promotion for years. The thing is, though, I never let my ‘maverick’ tendencies go so far as to constitute criminal insubordination. I won’t always be your Captain, and your next commanding officer may not be as understanding about the fact that you didn’t have more than a semester and a half at the Academy.”
“I—”
“No, let me finish,” Burkhard replied. “You aren’t ready to be an officer in this Navy. With another three years or so of schooling, you probably would have been, but you aren’t now. The problem is, whether you’re ready or not, you are one... and you’re going to have to act like it. A good officer never contradicts his captain the way you did on the bridge. As an officer and as Chief Engineer, acting or otherwise, you can argue with him... up to a point. You have to go about it a certain way, though, at the very least.”
The younger man shook his head. “In a crisis, I need to be able to think and act quickly.”
Burkhard nodded. “I agree, but you also need to avoid those arguments so that you can act quickly. If we had been attacked while we were bickering, you and I might have gotten our ship killed. Naval discipline is sometimes a bit strict, but it also prevents situations like that from happening. Unfortunately, while otherwise a very fine officer, it is clear that you still need to learn that discipline, and imperative you do so.” He paused. “Fortunately, I’ve come up with a solution.”
“You have?” Chris’ curiosity was peaked.
“I know you have been tutoring Ms. Katz in engineering for quite some time during your off hours and during your engineering work together,” Burkhard said. “Well, she’ll now be returning the favor. I’m assigning Ms. Katz to teach you proper Navy protocol.”
“I—”
“So, get going,” he gestured to the door. “You’ve got a lesson with her in ten minutes... which will be spent on the engineering deck while you resume your duties as our Acting-Chief Engineer.”
“I... I...”
“The response you’re supposed to give, by the way,” Burkhard mentioned, “Is ‘yes, sir.’”
There was a very, very long pause. Finally, Chris grinned, saluted and said, “Yes, sir.”
“Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” the Captain laughed. “Dismissed.”
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The captured enemy ships were being sent, with prize crews, to act as the escort fleet taking the science ships back home by way of the Barnard’s Star System hospital. Barnard’s Star was, technically, no longer part of the Earth Alliance, having long since severed political ties. However, its neutrality was mostly theoretical, providing just enough political protection to keep unarmed ships such as the science ships from immediate danger... although perhaps the King of Barnard’s Star would be reluctant to release the captured warships once he got a hold of them.
The Earth Alliance was a particularly complex political structure. It was, in principle, a collection of hundreds of independent political systems which shared a unified military defense and guaranteed free trade between systems, but had little or no common civilian authority. In practice, however, the structure of the treaty dictated much of the political structure each member state must use, and the council heading the alliance had complete control over “new” colonies (meaning most of them).
Initially, the terms of the treaty that solidified the interstellar superpower known as the Earth Alliance were quite limited. Every nation which signed the treaty would agree to unrestricted free trade between the signers, to provide council members to serve on a governing body known as the ‘Alliance Council,’ and to subordinate all interstellar-capable military forces to said council (although planetary defense forces, such as civilian-run militias, sublight warships, orbital guard, and the like could be developed locally). The Alliance Council was given control of the power to issue currency, develop a military, devise a system for the induction of new members, and launch new colonial expeditions. In return, each member planet would be required to turn over thirty percent of all tax income to fund the Alliance. This arrangement, for most planets, worked out to be cheaper than building and running their own independent military force. In theory, any member state could leave the Alliance for any reason, at least during peacetime. In wartime, it was another story, but the Alliance had not intended itself to be an interstellar government when it was originally formed. It was instead formed to be a commonwealth of mutual defense and free trade.
The Alliance Council, however, had gradually expanded its powers. The original six systems – Sol, Epsilon Eridani, Epsilon Indi, Barnard’s Star, Tau Ceti, and Vega – hadn’t initially cared about such things as what style of government the member systems used, nor did they care about bills of rights or any other such things. The Council started expanding, however – initially by founding colonies in Castor and Pi Mensei. The Council had decided it needed colonies on which it
could conduct Alliance Council work such as the construction of naval bases and shipyards, and so debate began as to how best to establish those colonies. Two opposing factions arose, and the debate nearly tore the fledgling alliance apart.
One faction, lead by the Kingdom on Barnard’s Star, felt each member system should receive responsibility for one colony, each, with the rights to govern and tax said colonies falling squarely on the member system. Another, led by Earth itself, said each colony should be regarded as an equally ‘independent’ system as the member colonies, with an interim constitution and economic structure for each system set up by the Alliance Council for later revision once the colony was well established. Barnard’s Star left the Alliance in protest when Earth’s plan won. Many years after that incident, they tried to rejoin, but in the intervening years the Alliance had established new membership requirements that, it was claimed, Barnard’s Star failed to meet. Barnard’s Star and Earth found themselves at odds for decades until a separate treaty between the Alliance Council and Barnard’s Star was settled upon, which only opened the borders for free trade purposes but left them independent from the standpoint of defense, colonization, and every other aspect of Alliance membership.
The Alliance and Barnard’s Star were now strong economic partners, but on other fronts the relationship remained rather tense. Sending them the prize ships almost certainly meant losing them. But at least, since it was an independent power, it wasn’t likely that the unarmed science ships were being sent into a war zone. Which meant Kimiko Beccera was safe.
And that was the only comfort Acting Commodore Andrew Beccera could take as he led the remaining fleet of warships into the first Naval battle of his life.
CHAPTER XXVIII
EAS Chihuahua
“They don’t seem to have noticed us yet, sir,” Emily Mumford whispered from her station. “The plan’s holding up so far.”
Burkhard chuckled. “‘Running silently’ means to deactivate anything that can produce detectable emissions, including the engines, and to reduce our power generators to minimum. It may even require some ships to take parts of life support off line, like the artificial gravity systems. It does not, however, require actual silence. Sound doesn’t usually travel through the vacuum of space, so you don’t have to whisper, Ms. Mumford.”
She flushed slightly. “Yes sir.”
Burkhard turned to his tactical officers. “Time to the launch of Phase II?”
“Twenty three minutes, sir,” Cohen answered from the backup tactical station. “It’s too late to do much about it now, sir, but the squadron will be a few hundred kilometers out of position at the start of Phase II, and about three thousand kilometers when the third phase begins. We have no way of correcting course before Phase III begins without giving away our position.”
Burkhard took in a deep breath, and then let it out slowly. “Well, I’ve never been on a mission where everything went according to plan. If that’s the worst issue we have to deal with, today, we’ll be in luck. Ms. Katz, how is it going with the passive sensors?”
“Too many false positives to be sure of anything. Alcyone has multiple stars that are heavily active with sunspots, solar flares, and the like. It’s causing a lot of interference,” Rachel replied. She glanced over at the Engineering station before remembering that Chris and Lt. Rappaport had switched places. “Mr. Desaix made the suggestion that we attempt some sort of visual identification through still snapshot images of the system upon entry, but there will be significant delays before any ship sightings are confirmed until we can start using active sensors.”
“Keep me informed,” Burkhard said. “How about the rest of our forces?”
“Despite the course correction problem, which appears to have originated with the navigational data provided by the Natsugumo, approach should be relatively safe. No danger of collision from anyone during our transit under inertia. We aren’t going to maintain a perfect formation, however, due to poorly charted gravity effects from smaller local planetoids.”
Burkhard nodded slowly, merely grunting an acknowledgement. He had considered double-checking Captain Meier’s tactical navigation plot during the briefing with Commodore Beccera, but decided he was just being paranoid. Surely, even if Meier were to have made a mistake, the Cygni flag officers would have noticed and made their own corrections. Now, it seemed, he should have had one of his tactical officers (likely Cohen, since both Rachel and Chris had been busy with repairing the ship) confirm the plan’s details after all.
I should have known better, he thought self-reproachfully. Didn’t I just say I’ve never been on a mission where everything went according to plan?
“New data coming in!” Rachel announced. “I’ve completed the optical scan analysis. Total of three blips not accounted for as legitimate sunspots. Two of them can be visually identified. The third item, however... well, I’ll put it on the main screen.”
The ship that appeared on the screen looked sleek, slender, and deadly. It was small – maybe even smaller than the Chihuahua – but it was large enough to be considered a corvette, and it looked as if it might be atmosphere-capable. For a ship of its size, being atmosphere-capable was a shocker.
And it was decidedly unlike any ship anyone in the Earth Alliance had ever seen.
“What the hell kind of a ship is that?” Schubert snapped from his position at the helm. Silence was his only answer.
——————————
Alcyone Star System, Pleiades Alpha, Hexagon Park
Doctor Whitlow Foley couldn’t help but feel like he was marching to his death as he walked through the cavernous hallways of the Pleiades Science Directorate. He had been summoned by Director Karlsson, for reasons that had yet to be explained, but there were a lot of things that were going unexplained right now. The last time he saw the man, Foley had been threatened for having innocently invited foreign scientists to help him investigate an archeological dig as protocol usually demanded. Foley’s latest transgressions were not so innocent.
Anger and curiosity combined had driven Foley to secretly start a private investigation – stretching all of his resources – to determine the real reason why the Director and the ever present WISPR officers were so intent on preventing exploration and analysis of the alien ruins, artifacts, and fossils.
What he had found so shocked him that it left him few choices. Elements of the Pleiades government were making plans not just to keep out those scientists he needed, but to kill them outright, and perhaps even start a war just to cover it up! Through his contacts, Foley found a man he thought had a chance of getting the information off world, working for the 16 Cygni Confederation, and sent him off with a plea to take some action and save the millions of people who would die should such a war break out.
Foley still had no idea if what he had done saved anyone’s life or not. However, he was now being summoned into the private – and isolated – office of the Director of Science, and it seemed likely that said Director of Science was the man behind it all. To refuse the invitation was to give himself away, which would be a disastrous mistake should the Director not already know about Foley’s betrayal. To go, however, was to risk being ‘disappeared,’ which would almost certainly mean he had failed... and millions still might die.
Foley pulled together every scrap of courage he could muster and knocked on the door of Director Karlsson’s office. There was no turning back, now. If he had been found out, he was dead.
“Ah, Whit,” Ian called from his chair. As had become habitual, Skorrjh the WISPR agent was standing at his right, wearing the fully masked power armor of his profession. Foley took note of the fact that on this occasion, he was also wearing a formal-looking but presumably functional sword. This didn’t look good for Foley, if he was any judge of situations, but he had to play it through to the end, and pray for a miracle. “Come in and sit down. We have a lot to talk about.”
“Yes, sir,” Foley replied hesitantly. There was no hiding his n
ervousness, but hopefully that could be explained away.
“So, how have you been since we last talked?” Ian asked casually. “I understand we pulled you away from some sort of family event.”
“I’ve been doing well,” Foley replied as calmly as he could. His voice, at least, wasn’t betraying his nervousness overmuch, although inside he was trembling. “I was having a meeting with some local scientists and their families, hoping to find skilled replacements for the foreign anthropologists and archaeologists I originally planned for on my dig.”
That wasn’t entirely true. He was having a meeting with certain archaeologists and anthropologists, yes, but it had nothing to do with the dig. Rather, it had to do with the fact that those archaeologists and their families were all in danger from the government. They were the close friends and family of Dr. Kimiko Beccera, and he was fairly certain they would be targeted for assassination once Kimiko’s death was confirmed.
“Yes, your dig. That’s what I called you here to talk about.” The Director tapped a few things on a screen in front of him. “I recently received the lab analysis of the fossils discovered on your dig site,” he said.
The dig site? Does this actually have something to do with the dig? “I haven’t received that analysis, myself, yet, sir,” Foley replied, relaxing slightly. “What does it say that I don’t already know?”
“Quit a bit, I’m afraid. According to the radiological analysis, the fossils are a hoax,” Ian replied, turning the screen so that Whit could see it. “Under the circumstances, I feel I have no choice but to pull the funding from your dig.”
Foley read the information on the screen, frowning. The report stated that the fossils were dated to different ages, and that some were ‘fresh’ bones that hadn’t been fossilized. He knew this was a false report – he’d checked for that himself during the preliminary analysis – but it left him even more puzzled. Just why was his dig so important, anyway? What was being covered up?