by Terry Mixon
“There are normal flip points exiting from there, but the admiral decided that they didn’t need to be examined at this time. Omega’s map does show some of the potential of that new branch, however.
“One thing the map does not explore is the potential for other destinations through the weak flip points. Doctor Leonard still believes that fine-tuning the flip drive’s output might generate a different outcome. Thus far, though, he hasn’t tested his hypothesis.”
“That would certainly change things, if he’s right,” Jared said. “It’s not applicable to us at this moment, though. Are we ready?”
“All ships ready to flip, Admiral. Commencing in thirty seconds.”
Less than a minute later, they were in Pentagaran space. A number of Old Empire ships that they’d gifted to the Pentagarans were on guard duty at the new flip point. Jared thought that was a prudent precaution.
“Incoming signal, Admiral,” one of his staff members said, turning in her seat. “Admiral Sanders.”
Walter Sanders had been a Pentagaran commodore when Jared and Kelsey had first arrived, but after the attempted coup, Elise’s father had speedily promoted him and put him in command of the Pentagaran fleet.
“Put him on,” Jared said.
The main screen switched from a strategic map of the Pentagar system to a view of a bridge identical to the one Jared was on. The older man in the center seat grinned like a boy. “It’s good to see you again so soon, Lord Admiral Mertz.”
“I thought we were on a first name basis, Walter.”
“Well, I thought after your recent social promotion that a little formality couldn’t hurt. After all, you’re now engaged to the heir to the Pentagaran Crown! Perhaps I should call you Highness.”
Jared grimaced. “I’d rather you didn’t. I’m already tired of the bowing and scraping when I leave the ship. Seriously, how do you people manage?”
“We somehow get by. Fine, I’ll call you Jared. In private. At least until you become the prince consort. Then we’ll have to fight about it some more.
“Meanwhile, I’d like to thank you for this fine new ship. Her name is Resolute and she’s a superdreadnought just like Invincible. I’m in love, by the way.”
Jared smiled. “They make nice flagships, don’t they? You’re very welcome. It’s the least we could do after you helped us so much.”
“I seem to recall the help being a bit tilted toward you helping us. In any case, you’re going to want to head to Pentagar, so I’ll accompany you. We need to sit down and plan the ambush in more detail. We have forces in place at Erorsi, so there’s no danger the Rebel Empire will sneak in like they did last time.”
That, too, had been Wallace Breckenridge’s fault. The man had had an absolute talent for doing the wrong thing. If he’d just followed the plans Jared and Sanders had worked out, they’d have caught that first freighter with its pants down.
“Maybe so,” Jared said, “but I’m not going to feel comfortable until we have everything securely locked down. Right now, the flip point blocker can keep us safe, but we could really use some Marine Raiders. With the supplies from that freighter, we’ll be able to keep Kelsey out of the fighting.”
The other man smiled. “Good luck with that. She seems like the lead by example kind of woman, heir or not. I’ll have to congratulate her on her promotion as well.”
“Well, we’d at least have Talbot and the rest to help defend her,” Jared sighed. “Actually, I’m going to send Elise over to one of your ships to get to Pentagar. We’re all heading for the Erorsi flip point.”
Sanders nodded sharply. “Of course. You’re in command of the operation, and I’ll feel better when we’re ready, too. I’m not sure Princess Elise will feel the same way. She has a wedding to plan, and you’re one of the mandatory attendees.”
“I suspect more goes into organizing and executing a state wedding than we’ve put into the ambush.”
“I’m not sure Her Highness will appreciate the comparison of her upcoming nuptials to an ambush,” Sanders said dryly. “Yet your point about the planning is well taken. I’m sure many details will take time to work out and get into place. With such an important event, no one will want to see any aspect left to chance.
“I’ll hop in a cutter and make my way over. We can review the plan and current positioning of the assets over dinner.”
“That sounds excellent,” Jared said. “My new rank comes with a very talented steward who will make certain we don’t starve.”
“It’s a good thing you have a lot of space on that ship,” the other man said with a gleam in his eye. “One steward might do for an admiral, but the prince consort of Pentagar will have a few more servants to keep around. We monarchists just love to have hangers-on.”
Jared sighed helplessly. “I’ll never understand that. They’d better not try to help me get dressed or I’ll space someone. I’ll see you in about half an hour. And Walter, it’s good to see you again. It isn’t very often we get a chance to correct a serious blunder. Let’s make everyone proud.”
The older man’s smile widened. “Then we’re in complete accord. I’ll see you shortly, Jared.”
* * * * *
Kelsey walked into the briefing room on board Persephone with a purposeful stride. The men seated at the table rose as she stepped to the head of the table.
She smiled. “Gentlemen, as you’ve probably already guessed, I’m Kelsey Bandar. For simplicity, let’s set aside any excess formality. We’re all here to carry out a very difficult mission, and I don’t want anything to trip us up. Are we good with that?”
The men glanced at one another and nodded.
A group that looked less like military personnel was hard to imagine. None of the men wore uniforms of any kind. In fact, most had never served in any branch of the Imperial service. Their elite status came from the other side of the sheets, so to speak.
The fourteen men around her specialized in recovering spacecraft that someone had either stolen or that had failed to maintain their payments. Recovery agents were what they called themselves. The next best thing to pirates, but staying on the legal side of things. Mostly.
Talbot’s original plan for capturing the freighter was predicated on boarding with marines and shooting everything in sight. While she’d become a big fan of that kind of thing, they absolutely had to capture the freighter—and its cargo—intact.
That included the computer and crew. Lieutenant Commander Michael Richards, the Rebel Fleet officer they’d captured, thought he knew where they’d picked up the cargo of Raider implants and gear, but it would be best to have independent confirmation.
It would be even better to have people that had been inside the facility, and she intended to get those people, no matter what it took. With that in mind, she’d already decided to speak with her father about including Richards on the mission, even though Admiral Yeats disapproved Jared’s request.
They still had time to make that happen, so she’d get her hands on the freighter first. The follow up mission would flow from what they learned.
“Before we get started,” she continued as she sat, “I’d appreciate it if you’d introduce yourselves and tell me a little about what you do.”
Everyone resumed their seats. A taller man with brown hair going grey at the temples spoke up. “I’ll take the lead on that, then. My name is Cain Hopwood and I’m the lead partner of Recovery Incorporated. Been getting ships back from folks that shouldn’t have them for twenty-five years. Most of these fine folk have been with me since I started.
“And I’m not sure a listing of skills would be much help. We’re jacks-of-all-trades sorts. You kind of have to be. You might find yourself needing to do all sorts of things on a recovery operation. Just assume we can all handle any aspect of hijacking this ship you can think of, and plenty you can’t.”
She smiled. “I like the sound of that. The wrinkle that concerns me most is that this ship will have implant-capable equipment. You’ve all
received corresponding implants, but you’ve never had to anticipate the kind of security obstacles they might entail.”
An equally tall man, this one pale of skin with dirty blond hair, shook his head. “Jason Young. That probably won’t be much of an obstacle. The crew will feel all safe and secure. The first hint of trouble they’ll have will be someone stunning them. Great things, those stunners. Beats the heck out of darts.”
A tall, balding man shook his head. “Best not to get too cocky. What if someone wipes the computer or sets off a self-destruct charge? Oh, I’m Alan Barnes. I usually pilot the skiff.”
“That’s the kind of thing we absolutely have to prevent,” Kelsey said. “Mainly to keep from dying, but also to be sure the Empire keeps breathing.”
A tall, bookish-looking man with brown hair smiled. “Bob Noble. I usually secure the target’s computers. I’ve been working with Sir Carl and we’ve modified some of our standard tools to do the same kind of thing on the new technology.
“That might not be good enough for a military system, but it should be fine on a civilian freighter. Once we’re in, they won’t be able to wipe the computers.”
“I can say the same about the engineering spaces,” an average sized man with a receding hairline said. “If I can get to the engine room, I can lock them out of propulsion. Michael Falkner here.”
A redheaded man spoke up from the other side of the table. “Dale Thompson. I’ll take the lead in searching for and locking out any demolition charges.”
“Very good,” she said.
A tall, white-haired man half-raised his hand. “I guess I’m next. Bill Smith. I’m an intrusion specialist. If anyone locks themselves into the bridge or other space, I’ll blow the hatch and get us in.”
An older, slightly balding man cleared his throat. “I’m Jon Paul Olivier and the young man beside me is my son, Andrew. We’re takedown specialists.”
She smiled at the two men. “What does that mean?”
The father smiled. “We sneak even better than the rest. Have you ever seen a vid where someone gets whisked away right out from under the noses of his friends? That’s what we do.”
Hopwood nodded. “And let me introduce the rest of my team. Raise your hands when I you’re your name. Tracy Bodine, Michael Goad, Kristopher Neidecker, John Naiser, and Tom Stoecklein.”
“Well, I’m sure you’re all good at what you do,” Kelsey said. “You have a stellar reputation for success. Rather than me telling you what the plan is, why don’t you tell me the best way to make this work?”
Hopwood nodded. “The challenge here is that the freighter might have an escort. That makes sneaking up on it very hard to do without the warship spotting us. That would probably be fatal.
“We’re lucky that your ship has very stealthy pinnaces. If the warship isn’t on a heightened state of alert, we should be able to lay in wait for the freighter and slowly match course and speed. Space is big. If they don’t see us, we’ll be able to attach to their hull. If they do see us, we’ll have blown everything and need to run like hell.”
“Let’s assume we manage to succeed, because failure drops the ball into Admiral Mertz’s lap. Once we attach, what next?”
The man grinned. “We bypass an airlock and let ourselves in. The men split up and head for the critical areas of the ship: the bridge, engineering, and the computer room. Once we’re in position, we seize control of everything. The details vary and sometimes the execution is tricky, but if we get onboard that ship, we’ll get things locked down very quickly.”
She nodded. “We’ll have a team of Marines in the pinnace to back us up with armor and heavy weapons, if needed. They’ll make sure everything stays friendly once we gain control.
“The optimal solution leaves any possible escort in the dark about the change in management. Taking it out is Admiral Mertz’s job. Once we signal him that we’re in control, he’ll kick off stage two of the ambush. He’ll use his ships to separate us from the warship and then defend us from any attempts to shoot us.”
“How likely is that?” Thompson asked.
“The last time, the destroyer abandoned the freighter. It didn’t seem at all concerned about us capturing it. My guess is that this will play out similarly.
“We’ll be over in the Erorsi system in a few hours. Once we’re in position, we’ll use a freighter and destroyer of our own to do test the runs until we have everything working perfectly. Or the bad guys show up and we run out of time.”
She brought up the deck plans for the kind of freighter they’d likely encounter. “While we wait, let’s go over the plans and start making some broad decisions.”
Chapter Fourteen
Zia studied the layout of the system just beyond Erorsi. A white dwarf burned hotly in the center of the system, orbited by uninhabitable rocks and debris. The system was empty of Rebel Empire vessels, which was exactly what she’d expected to find.
That didn’t keep her from taking every precaution. She left two probes in the flip point back to Erorsi to take back word if they found anything. She also had several probes watching the other flip point in the system with passive scanners from a distance. When the freighter arrived, they’d relay a tight beam back to Audacious.
Since the carrier and her escorts were the plug that would keep any Rebel Empire ships from escaping Admiral Mertz’s ambush, she had to make sure they didn’t see her. The single asteroid belt would be more than enough to conceal her ships from any scans that came their way.
The carrier, two cruisers, four light cruisers, and half a dozen destroyers floated in a loose array, powered down to standby and moving with the slow orbit of the belt. She had fighters out to keep an eye for significant debris, but that wasn’t likely to be a problem. Unlike what the vids usually said, objects in an asteroid belt were extremely rare and far apart.
Her carrier group was overkill for a destroyer, or even several cruisers, but she didn’t mind having more than enough force at hand to convince an enemy to surrender.
“How long until we expect the freighter?” Commander Levy asked.
She looked over at where he stood beside her chair. “The time interval is variable. The likeliest timeframe won’t be for another few weeks, but they’ve come early before. Or they might not come until three or four months from now. We might as well settle in.”
He grimaced. “I hate the waiting, but more practice time is useful.”
“How are you adjusting to your implants?”
Levy shrugged. “They aren’t that hard to master, with someone to show me what I need to do. It’s thinking ahead to how best to utilize them with the new equipment that’s hard. I can’t seem to break the habit of doing things by hand.”
She nodded. “That comes with practice. We’re so used to doing things one way that we default to that first. That’s why we keep practicing until it becomes second nature. When the fecal matter hits the rotating oscillator, we’ll do what we’ve wired into our reflexes.
“On another note, I’ve looked over the changes you made to the interdepartmental workflow. I have to confess that was never my strong suit. The interaction seems to be a lot smoother now. Well done.”
He smiled a little. “That comes with time and practice, just like everything else. I’ve been studying the Old Empire map of systems beyond this one. Based on what Commander Richards said, there isn’t a lot of habitation out this way. Not anymore.”
Zia knew that hadn’t been true five hundred years ago. At the height of the Old Empire, almost every system had some kind of population. After the rebellion, the remains of humanity had been concentrated into relatively few systems so the AIs could keep an eye on them.
Commander Michael Richards, the AI specialist they’d snagged on the disastrous mission to capture the last freighter, had some familiarity with this sector of space. Even so, they couldn’t completely trust what he said. The AIs kept their slaves in the dark about a lot of things. It was far better to assume the worst a
nd be pleasantly surprised when things worked out as expected.
That happened rarely enough at the best of time.
“Right. The nearest known inhabited system is three flips toward the Imperial core. We can’t count on all the other places being empty, though. Just because the AI tells them nothing is there doesn’t make it true. Remember the hidden battlecruisers at Harrison’s World.”
Unknown to the inhabitants there, the AIs had placed a facility inside the atmosphere of a gas giant with four computer-controlled battlecruisers in standby mode. Any system could be seeded like that. Even this one.
Which was one of the reasons she’d sent probes all over it as soon as they’d arrived. Since it had never had a real population, she considered the odds of hidden ships low, but in a space battle, the worst surprises weren’t what you didn’t see. They were what you saw that turned out to be a wrong. Lord knows Admiral Mertz had used that fact against any number of opponents while she’d served under him.
She liked to think she’d learned a few things from the experience.
“Status change,” one of the sensor techs said almost two hours later. “The stealthed probes at the other flip point report activity. Two ships have transitioned into the system.”
“They’re early,” Levy said, seemingly a little surprised. “Really early.”
“Good thing we’re already here waiting for them. Another win for the admiral’s cautious streak. Do we have a reading on what kind of ships they are?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the tech said. “A freighter and a destroyer. Just like last time.”
“What’s their ETA to the Erorsi flip point?”
“Eight hours at their current speed.”
“Excellent. Send one of the probes through to Erorsi with the news. The more time that Admiral Mertz has to get into position and hide his ships the better. We’ll shoot the second one through just before they could possibly detect it flipping.”