Trail of Evil

by Travis S. Taylor

  “Sir, it is out of my hands now. The ship’s SIFs are building up huge EM fields on five of the eight generator sites throughout the ship,” Buckley explained. He sounded defeated.

  “What do you mean, out of your hands, Joe? Give me a better sitrep than that.” Moore feared that he already knew what his chief engineer was telling him.

  “Yes, sir.” Buckley started again. “The generators are out of my control and building power. If that power is rerouted in the next ten minutes the Madira is gonna blow, sir. It is beyond my ability to stop it now.”

  “Understood, Joe. I guess it is time to abandon her.” Moore thought through the best plan of action. Perhaps the wounded and medical staff first.

  “XO to CO!”

  “Hold on, CHENG.” Moore thought that tactics from the bridge were most likely moot at this point. Getting everybody off the ship was now the priority. “Go, XO!”

  “Sir, we’ve got serious company in system with us!” the XO said very unnerved.

  “What kind of company, Firestorm?”

  “A fleet of ships just teleported just beyond the planetoid. Sensors show forty-seven full-sized battleships.”

  “Shit! From where? Are they bots?” Moore couldn’t believe that. They were too far out to be attacked by, well, anybody but the remains of these bots. He couldn’t believe there was any way that Copernicus or Elle Ahmi had been able to create another fleet this far out.

  “No, sir. They appear to be Separatist-class ships. There is too much EM all around us to get better sensor readings. Systems are starting to go nuts up here, sir.”

  Alexander! I’m in contact with Allison. It is DeathRay’s team, Abigail said into his mind.

  Open a channel to them now!

  “Hold on, XO.” Moore waited a brief second before a connection opened.

  “Moore to Boland. DeathRay, is that you?” Moore held his breath unconsciously.

  “Hello, General. Guess what we found?” DeathRay’s voice came through the com. “What’s going on here, sir!”

  “The Madira has been overrun by bots and is sabotaged. She will blow in less than ten minutes. I need to abandon ship.” Moore paused and wet his lips. “Please tell me that you can help somehow.”

  “Yes, sir!” DeathRay replied. “We can help more than you can imagine.”

  “How, Boland?”

  “Sir, Nancy tells me that she has already detected the crew’s snap-back signatures. With your permission we will teleport them onboard the flagship of this fleet we found,” DeathRay reported. “It’s a long story, sir, and we’ll brief you later, but this is the best thing I’ve got.”

  “Damned good, Jack. Do it, but keep the wounded and the med staff together if you can. We’ve taken on a lot of casualties, including Dee,” Moore ordered.

  “Understood, sir. Understood.”

  Moore waited for more from DeathRay but only heard the sizzle of bacon and saw flashing light. The next thing he knew he was standing on the bridge of a starship staring at DeathRay and Penzington. The bridge crew of the Madira was materializing in the room as well.

  “Talk to me, folks,” Moore said to Jack and Nancy.

  “I put people where I thought they should be, or rather where Allison thought they should be, sir,” Nancy explained. Moore trusted the former spy’s AIC.

  “Good enough. We have everybody?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir. Allison has the entire crew accounted for. A lot of them are in bad shape, sir. As far as I can tell, this ship has a full medbay, but I’m not sure about supply stocks.”

  “Understood. It will have to do for now.” Moore looked at his XO and bridge crew then at DeathRay. “With your permission, Captain, I’d like to put my crew at stations.”

  “Uh, sorry, sir. Yes, and please take command,” DeathRay said hesitantly and Moore could see him glance unsurely at Penzington. She winked at her husband, Moore wasn’t quite sure why, and then DeathRay stepped down from the command chair.

  “Crew, take your stations or someplace that looks like your station, and get to work!” he ordered. “Somebody get me the status of the Madira. And get an order to the medbay that if someone is critical and we can’t find what we need, for them to QMT to Earth.”

  “I’m on it, Captain,” the XO replied.

  “Where’s Buckley?” Moore asked aloud. Almost instantly Abigail popped a map of the ship in his DTM and showed the CHENG’s blue dot.

  “I teleported him directly to engineering, General, uh, Captain,” Nancy said.

  “CO to Buckley! Copy?” Moore said into the com channel Allison opened up for him through the ship’s system. He made a mental note that he’d have to ask how she set up coms so quickly.

  “Buckley here, sir! Where the hell are we?”

  “Joe, you are in the engine room of a flagship of a fleet that . . . hell, I don’t know how to explain it. This is our ship for now. Get into it. Understand it. And figure out if there is a way we can stop the Madira from exploding. She’s off the port bow about five hundred thousand kilometers,” Moore ordered the CHENG.

  “Uh, understood, sir. I think.”

  “Sir,” the Science and Technology Officer Navy Commander Monte Freeman interrupted him.

  “What ya got, STO?” Moore asked.

  “I don’t think the ship is going to blow. It looks like it is coming around toward us.”

  “Suicide run?” the XO offered.

  “What kind of arms and shields we have on this thing?” He looked at Penzington and Boland.

  “We’ve only been on these things a couple hours, sir. Not sure.” DeathRay replied with a shrug.

  “We have a full contingent of DEGs, missiles, and SIFS that could be found on any supercarrier or Separatist hauler from the Mars Separation era,” Penzington said.

  “Okay, Nancy, until we can train this crew, you drive, or point to the right things to do so we can fly this ship.” Moore turned to his Navigation Officer. “Penny, you stay on her shoulder and do anything she tells you to.”

  “Aye, sir!”

  “STO. How about the Madira? What’s going on?” he asked.

  “Unsure, sir, that is, other than it does appear to be headed in our general direction,” Freeman replied.

  “I don’t like it, sir,” the XO added. “Kamikaze, or they are trying to get close enough to get the bots on here with us.”

  “Right. We can’t let that happen.” Moore thought about the best plan here. He hated to lose the ship but there might not be any choice.

  Sir, Abigail said. Uncle Timmy is trying to reach you.

  Patch him through on audio.

  Yes, sir.

  “General Moore! This is Uncle Timmy,” the Sienna Madira’s AIC’s voice came through the bridge intercom speakers.

  “What can I do to help you, Timmy?” Moore wasn’t sure what the call was about. Clearly the AIC was stuck on the Madira and he knew the pending fate of the ship.

  “The SIFS and the hyperdrive conduit are all being interconnected, sir,” Timmy explained. “As far as I can tell the bots are turning the ship into a super-bomb that will wipe out a large volume in this system. You have minutes before it goes. I’m doing what I can to stall and thwart them but they have full run of the ship, sir.”

  “Thank you, Timmy! I wish there was something more I could do for you. You have always performed your duties commensurate with the highest traditions of the service,” Moore said. “I will put in for a posthumous medal in your honor. Any other requests, please log them with my AIC.”

  “Thank you, sir. It was an honor serving with you. Good luck,” Timmy said.

  “You too. Moore out.”

  “He’s right, sir,” Nancy said. “Sensors are showing a massive buildup of energy and a spacetime distortion around the hyperspace projector.”

  “STO?” Moore turned to his science officer.

  “Yes, sir,” the STO replied. “I’m working it but still getting used to the control panels on this bridge. It looks lik
e the projector is spinning up. The bots must’ve somehow bypassed the power conduit that was blown out.”

  “If they get that hyperdrive spun up they could jaunt into us, sir,” the Nav officer added.

  “Right, Penny. Let’s not let that happen.” Moore rubbed his chin in thought. “Alright, we need to take out the Madira. Penzington, you know how to operate the guns on this thing?”

  “Yes, General, I do.” Nancy replied. “I already have it targeted and can fire on your order.”

  “Fire at will,” Moore ordered. “STO, keep a watch on the hyperdrive system and see if we are knocking it out.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “I hate to lose all of our stuff on that ship.” Moore leaned back in the oversized captain’s chair that had been designed to allow for powered armor. That crossed his mind. No other ships he’d been in before were designed that way. This ship was designed for war, a serious war. He crossed his arms while making eye contact with each member of the bridge crew. “But we can’t take a chance of getting blown up or having more bots invade this ship.”

  Moore watched as Nancy continued to fire directed-energy weapons repeatedly at the supercarrier that had been the hero of humanity for several decades. The starship had been their home for the better part of the last eighteen months as well. The brilliant green directed-energy beams cut out across space and tore into the hull plating of the supercarrier.

  “Focus on the SIF generator locations,” the STO told her. Moore considered that and was just beginning to wonder if the bots had full control of the ship when the DEG beams from the Madira tore into the hull of their newly-acquired command ship.

  “Evasive action! SIFS at full!” Moore brought up the DTM battlescape of the fleet and the ships.

  Abby! What is the complement of this fleet? he thought.

  I am in contact with the ships, all of them. Between Allison and I we can control the entire fleet as we need to, sir, Abigail said.

  “Penzington, you have forty-seven ships here. Don’t they have weapons too?” Moore said.

  “Of course, General!” Nancy immediately turned from her console to another station. “Commander Swain, here is the targeting of this ship. I’m handing fire control over to you.”

  Sir, Allison wants to tie into your DTM battlescape view.

  Very well. Instantly he could hear Penzington and her AIC’s mindvoice. Symbols for the fleet overlaid into his view. Layers of weapons, maneuverability, and command functions for each ship popped up as a blue ship icon.

  “CO, we’ve got fire alerts on several decks,” the XO warned.

  “COB!” Moore shouted.

  “Sir, Chief of the Boat Coates was wounded and is in the medbay,” the XO explained.

  “Well, hell, Firestorm! Get me somebody on those fires.” As soon as they got out of this and things settled down, he was going to have to get people up to speed on the new ship or decide whether or not just to go home.

  “Fleet is targeting the Madira now, sir,” Nancy said. “Fire at will?”

  “Fire!” Moore replied without hesitation.

  “We’ve got incoming missiles!” Commander Penny Swain said from her gunnery position. “Sensors show them as nukes!”

  “Continue evasive maneuvers and target those missiles,” Moore ordered. “Pull this main ship in behind the rest of the fleet and let them block for us.”

  “Aye, sir!”

  The missiles showed in the DTM view in Alexander and Nancy’s minds as the priority threat. It looked like the bots had fired the entire contingent of missiles onboard the supercarrier and they were all headed straight for them. Moore thought through tactics and what to do. For the moment he was a quarterback trapped in the pocket while a blitz was coming. He needed to throw the long ball for a touchdown just like he would have decades ago when he played for Mississippi State.

  “Penzington, can we take those kinds of hits?”

  “I don’t think so, sir. These ships are a lot like the Seppy haulers of two decades ago. They are seriously tough and big, but that many nukes would cause a problem,” Nancy said.

  “Give me an impact countdown on the viewer,” he ordered. One of the bridge crew tapped controls at their station, and a trajectory overlay of the missiles and the fleet ships appeared on the screen with a timer counting down. Currently they had about thirty seconds before the missiles were close enough to detonate and do damage.

  DeathRay stepped in front of Nancy and reached into the open air between them as if he was grabbing something. Moore noted that three of the blue fleet ship icons in his DTM began to move. He realized that DeathRay was tied into Penzington’s DTM link and was moving the ships.

  “Great idea, DeathRay.” Moore realized what he was doing. He was using the three fleet ships as shields. They would block the oncoming blitz. Alexander just hoped they got in front of the missiles in time.

  The DEG of the fleet continued to fire on the Sienna Madira, bringing down upon her a rain of energy beams each with the impact energy of a small tactical nuclear weapon. Several of the SIF generators blew on the supercarrier. The blast wave clearly shook the ship.

  “Ten seconds to missile detonation!” Commander Swain announced.

  “XO, give an all hands brace!” Moore ordered.

  “Aye, sir.”

  The three fleet ships moved in between the missiles and the flagship with literally two seconds to spare. The outermost of the three ships took on the majority of the missiles and was first torn in half before the secondary explosions and follow on missiles turned it completely to vapor and debris. The second and third ships were hit almost simultaneously. The first explosion tore parts of the bridge free and flung them careening through space at the flagship, impacting somewhere on the starboard side. Impact alarms sounded and fire warning icons popped into Moore’s mindview.

  They had lost three ships, but none of the missiles had made it through. DeathRay’s sacrifice run had worked. And it looked as if there would be very little else from the supercarrier coming in the way of a threat. It was falling apart.

  “Keep firing at the Madira. I want those bots vaporized.” Moore looked through their arsenal and realized that he had plenty of weapons to choose from. But he didn’t want to waste them and they had already lost three ships. The DEGs would do. They were renewable; as long as they got power, they fired. Missiles weren’t, and they might need them for some reason in the future.

  The green beams continued to cut through the strong ship, but it was clear it was on its last legs. One of the beams cut a swath across the midsection on the port side through to the interior. Power conduits ruptured and exploded and then a second green beam cut into the same spot, penetrating the hyperdrive projector. There was a wave of white and then purple light released in a sphere about the ship, and then the ship vaporized in an orange plasma ball of hull plating. The great supercarrier was no more. Alexander relaxed back into his seat with a sigh of disbelief.

  Abby, where are Sehera and Dee?

  I’m highlighting a path to them in your shipview DTM, sir, his AIC responded. A view of the interior of the flagship popped up in his mindview with a path marked leading to the middecks of the ship.

  Very good, he thought.

  “XO, you have the bridge. Penzington, Boland, on me.”

  “Aye sir!”

  Chapter 21

  November 7, 2406 AD

  27 Light-years from the Sol System

  Monday, 7:23 PM, Expeditionary Mission Standard Time

  “So this fleet was just there, free for the taking?” Moore couldn’t believe it. The whole thing sounded too good to be true. “You reckon anybody is going to miss them?”

  “They were hidden away in a system with no planets. It was a blue star with a preplanetary accretion disc. Nobody lived there,” DeathRay explained as they walked down the corridor to the main elevator shaft.

  “I believe that Copernicus was building them for the war and once the war was over, he stuffed them o
ff in space somewhere out of the way.” Nancy didn’t sound really sure of that, and Moore was used to hearing complete confidence from the former spy.

  “Alright, we have them now. We need to find out as much as we can about them and make sure there are no surprises hidden away.” Moore didn’t want to wake up in his cabin, wherever that would be, surrounded by bots.

  “Uh, sir, there is one more thing.” Jack sounded hesitant too.

  “Spit it out, DeathRay.” Moore tapped the button on the elevator. The ship was laid out pretty much like any other starship and the path in his mind led him down a couple decks and toward the midsection. There was the medical bay where his wife and daughter were. He could tell by the casualty reports that there would be a whole lot more wounded that he should speak to as well.

  “Well, sir, Nancy found the ships.”

  “Yeah, I know, that’s great work.” It wasn’t like Nancy to want credit for anything. In fact, as a former spy, she pretty much preferred that nobody know anything about anything that she had ever done.

  “Uh, yes, sir, but . . .” DeathRay hesitated again.

  “Spit it out, Boland.” Moore was getting just slightly more than edgy.

  “She claimed them under salvage rights, sir,” Jack said. “They belong to her.”

  “What?” Moore was at first startled by that. How could anybody claim something on a mission?

  Sir, Nancy is here as a guest civilian and is under no requirement to go on missions. She is purely a volunteer, Abigail explained. Legally, the ships are hers if nobody shows up to claim them.

  “Penzington?”

  “Yes, General. I found them and they are mine.” Nancy grinned at Alexander. “I plan to take at least one of them as my living quarters.”

  “You want to do what?” Moore was confused. “So what are we to do? Pay rent?”

  “Oh, no, sir. I don’t really care about them all, on the other hand, I do deserve compensation for my property. You’ve already destroyed three of them in combat, but I’ll let those slide.”