by Terry Mixon
As a civilian, Fielding had no reason to be concerned about what the ship scanned. The computers controlling the battle stations might have cared, but they’d receive instructions to allow the destroyer safe passage. If they had any objections to being scanned at point-blank range, they wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.
The battle stations were very similar to the ones they’d encountered in the El Capitan system, only larger and significantly more heavily armed. With three of them in close proximity, it would be difficult to breach their defenses without a serious fight.
Commander Hall turned toward Olivia. “We’re in the flip point, Lady Keaton. Shall I take us through?”
“Do it,” Olivia said.
Moments later, Athena arrived in the target system. Jared noted Commander Brodie stiffening at the tactical station and tapped into the scanner feed via his implants.
While there’d been three battle stations on the outside of the flip point, there were nine here on the inside. All of which were already in the process of bringing their weapons online to deal with the intruder that had appeared so unexpectedly in their midst.
13
Kelsey was still chortling when she arrived on Persephone’s bridge. Talbot’s antics when he’d arrived back at their quarters had been a little sad, but she couldn’t help laughing at him. She had warned him, after all.
With this little bit of stubbornness settled, she’d made certain that both arms were never done at the same time in future Marine Raider procedures. The next group of Marine Raider’s was beginning the process even as Talbot recovered.
She didn’t dare do too many marines at the same time, so she’d decided that a quarter of them would go through the process now. In two weeks, when they were all done, she’d have the next quarter worked on. Then do the last half all at once. In six weeks, she’d have a battalion of Marine Raiders.
Angela turned in her seat and raised an eyebrow at Kelsey’s earlier chuckle. “Something funny?”
Kelsey clapped the other woman on the shoulder. “You bet. The kind of thing only you and I can get right now. Talbot went ahead and had his entire upper torso and both arms done at the same time.”
Angela smile turned into a wide grin. “Damn! He is going to destroy everything he touches. If I were you, I’d put him on the couch for the next week.”
Kelsey gave her friend a mock look of disapproval and crossed her arms over her chest. “Look who we’re talking about here. I’m a Marine Raider. He’s not going to hurt me. Unless, of course, I want him to.”
“Too much information,” Angela said, holding up her hand. “Well, based on my own experience, he’ll get a grip on things—if you’ll forgive the pun—in the next couple of days. Fine motor skills will take another couple of days. He’ll be in good shape before we arrive at Terra.”
Kelsey focused her attention on the main screen. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves just yet. What about getting out of Archibald? Are we going to run into trouble before we get to the far flip point? Are we even going to be able to find it?”
“It might be a little tricky,” Angela said, her expression turning serious. “The Clan warships are searching the outer system looking for that Q-ship. At the moment, we’re still managing to dodge their patterns, but a new deployment could change that real fast.
“Persephone is able to lead the way without much fear of detection, and we have a number of stealthed probes searching ahead of us. Based on what Commander Sommerville told us, we have a decent idea of where the far flip point is. If we can locate it and get there without running into the enemy, I’m thinking we have another six hours or so travel time.”
Kelsey shrugged. “I don’t care if it takes twice that long to evade detection. Hell, if it took days to work our way around to where we need to be, that would be fine with me. At this stage of the game, avoiding detection is everything. Give me a rundown of exactly which groups we’re talking about and what we expect them to be doing over the next six hours.”
Angela ran through what they’d picked up on passive scanners and told her the patterns they been able to discern from the ships searching for the Q-ship that had murdered the frigate.
“The complication, as I see it,” Angela said as she wrapped up, “is that the Clans know about the far flip points. Hell, they know about the multi-flip points too, but they don’t know how they work, at least not yet. Our incursion into the Icebox system is probably going to point them in the right direction as far as research. It’s only a matter of time before they figure out that they can get through it if they have the right technology.”
Kelsey studied the layout of the Archibald system and the search patterns. Something that Jared had once told her tickled at her memory, and she focused on that and tried to remember what he’d said.
When the quote came back to her, she smiled. “We’re going about this all wrong. There’s a much simpler way of getting to our destination without triggering a response from the Clans.”
Angela raised an eyebrow. “And what might that be?”
Kelsey tapped the console display. “You’ve got the system laid out in the plane of the ecliptic. We’re trying to work our way through to get to our destination while dodging the ships searching among the outer planets.
“What about above or below the plane of the ecliptic? All of that empty space isn’t going to be as heavily searched. If we can go out in an arc over the area that’s being searched, our odds of detection go way down.”
Angela studied the display and then rubbed her face. “I never even saw that. It must be a Fleet thing. Why didn’t Commodore Anderson mention it?”
“We’ll have to ask her, but I suspect that it has to do with the speed at which she was promoted into her position. Jared is the one that turned me on to this tactic, and he’s got a lot more command experience than all of us put together.
“In any case, this isn’t the time to start looking for why someone didn’t think of something. Now that we have this option in our toolbox, how can we use it to our advantage?”
Angela performed the calculations. “It’s going to just about double our travel time, but the odds of any of the Clan warships detecting us before we arrive drop to almost zero. I’ll pass word back to the other ships, and we’ll see about getting farther off the beaten path before someone turns in our direction.”
Jevon McLeod turned away from the tactical console. “We might be too late. A trio of Clan ships off to port just turned directly toward us. They’ll be in range to detect Audacious and the rest of the ships in less than an hour.”
Olivia shifted a little in her seat when she saw all the firepower arrayed against them, and the fact that the battle stations were arming weapons, but Jared put a hand on her shoulder. The implication was clear: hold up and do nothing for the moment.
How could he be so calm?
Fielding once again interfaced with the helm console and sent a signal. The battle stations that had been powering their weapons and targeting the destroyer subsided.
That wasn’t to say that they stopped bringing their weapons into a state of readiness, but the active targeting scanners turned off. In a situation like this, that was definitely better than nothing.
Fielding turned toward Olivia. “We are cleared to enter the system. The Lord is stationed in the innermost of two asteroid belts. I’m transferring the general location to your helm.”
As soon as the man stood up, Commander Hall resumed her seat. “I have the course, Lady Keaton. Shall I initiate?”
Olivia gave Fielding a long look. When he didn’t say or do anything, she nodded. “Take us in slowly until we’re out of range of these battle stations. I’d prefer not to do anything that spooks them into shooting us.”
The Fleet officer tapped on her console, and the destroyer began moving away from the battle stations surrounding the flip point. Olivia knew it was unrealistic to hold her breath, but she didn’t exactly breathe easily until they finally were outsi
de missile range.
“Take us up to eighty percent acceleration,” Olivia said. “How long will it take to put us in the general vicinity of the System Lord?”
Hall shrugged slightly. “Anywhere from seven to nine hours. The sphere of space where the System Lord might be in residence is significant. I’m heading towards the center of it but can adjust course as soon as we have any indication of a precise destination.”
Olivia turn toward Fielding. “You don’t know precisely where the System Lord is located?”
The man shook his head slightly. “The station the Lord occupies is mobile. One of its mandates is to stay near the primary refinery in the system, so it’s not going to be far away from the center of the area I marked, but the Lord’s paranoia causes it to shift its location on a fairly regular basis. Until we get some kind of response to the signal I’m going to send, we won’t know exactly where to go.”
Jared cleared his throat. “How do we know that we’re going to get a response that we like? If the System Lord is as paranoid as you say, it may dispatch warships to make certain that we never reach it. I doubt your codes will get us past anything directly under the control of the Lord.”
“That’s a risk,” Fielding agreed. “The System Lord that sent us seems to believe that the information I’m supposed to send will be sufficient to grant us an audience. At that point, I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to convince the Lord to allow the repair team aboard.”
“You don’t really have a plan,” Olivia elaborated.
The man grinned. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that. There’s no way I would come into a situation such as this without having a plan to execute. I’m not suicidal, after all. I have every confidence that the Lord here will allow us to carry out our mission.
“After all, if it doesn’t, I’m just as dead as you are. Even though I have a ship that could take me and my guards away, it’s incapable of flipping. I’d be trapped in the system with you. That’s even assuming, of course, that you’d allow me to depart, which I seriously doubt.”
Olivia considered the man’s words and slowly nodded. “So you do have a plan, but you’re not willing to share it with us until you carry it out. Did I mention how annoying that is?”
That actually got a laugh out of the nobleman. “I do believe it’s come up once or twice. Lady Keaton, you’re just going to have to trust that I fully intend to see this particular mission accomplished and get us all to Terra. That’s the only way that I’m going to save my own life as well as that of my nephew.”
She raised a finger and waggled it in the air between them. “And that’s where your subtlety isn’t as deep as you think it is. You might very well intend for us to succeed here in this particular aspect of the mission while leaving us high and dry on the second portion.
“I don’t know you, Lord Fielding, and I don’t trust you. I’m going to keep my eye on you, and you can rest assured that my people will do the same. If you have a plan that involves sneaking away at some point before we reach Terra and taking your nephew with you, I suggest you abandon it right now.”
For once, Olivia saw just a little bit of uncertainty in the man’s eyes before he covered it. What she’d just said had him worried. That meant he did have some kind of side plan.
Since she wasn’t really a Rebel Empire noble, not anymore, she honestly didn’t care what his side plan was, so long as it allowed them to continue on their mission to Terra.
“If you have a message to send to the System Lord, I suggest you send it now,” she said. “If the Lord has been building ships, I absolutely do not want to see any of them come out and attempt to subdue us. Let’s stop that particular response right now.”
Once again, Fielding exchanged places with Commander Hall. The man seemed to be quite familiar with the communication systems on board the destroyer. She wondered briefly if he’d had to study up on it for this mission.
“We’re looking at a significant transmission lag at this range,” Fielding said as soon as he finished sending the message. “Once we get a response, my suspicion is that there will be several back and forth sessions before the matter is settled.
“If the Lord does have warships available, which seems completely reasonable considering that it has a total of twelve battle stations in operation here, then I would expect them to come and take us into custody very quickly.”
“Why do you think it didn’t station any ships at the flip point?” Jared asked. “Wouldn’t it have made sense to have some there?”
Fielding shrugged. “I’ve learned over the years that the ways of the Lords are sometimes obtuse. I’m sure that it has its reasons.”
A few minutes later, a signal came from the area they were heading toward. There was no video component, as the Lords tended to ignore such. It wasn’t as if they had physical bodies or that they cared about what the people who they were speaking with looked like.
“Permission to approach is denied. Your authorization to be inside this system is revoked. Depart before I destroy you.”
“Well, that’s direct,” Olivia said. “I have to say that I’m sure your response is going to be fascinating, but I’m uncertain that you’re going to be able to change its mind.”
“We shall see,” Fielding said as he initiated another transmission.
“I’m detecting grav drives moving at high acceleration,” Commander Brodie said. “They’re coming toward us from several areas of the system. Assuming that they’re destroyer sized, we have somewhere between six and eight vessels inbound. The closest will be in firing range in just over two hours.”
“Then let’s hope that I have this settled before they arrive,” Fielding said. “I’m sending an encrypted file that my Lord instructed me to send.”
Olivia turned her head slightly and looked at Jared. He nodded slightly. Whatever it was that the man was sending, Jared would capture it.
This time, there was a slightly longer delay. The System Lord was pondering how to respond to what Fielding had sent.
At long last, another message came in. “I acknowledge the validity of your order. Reluctantly, I will comply. That said, be advised that any deviation from the expected protocols will result in your immediate termination.”
“No pressure,” Olivia said. “What about those ships?”
“No change in their course or speed,” Brodie said. “If they intend to attack, we’ve just about run out of time to turn around.”
Olivia focused her attention to Fielding. “Is the Lord going to betray us?”
The man shrugged. “The System Lords are more than capable of lying. I believe that the command I sent is sufficient to grant us the access required, but until we get there and attempt to carry out our instructions, we won’t know for sure.”
To say that watching the AI-controlled destroyers close with them made her heart race was something of an understatement. At long last, the ships were in weapons range. Eight destroyers were more than capable of eliminating them in one salvo if the AI decided that they should do so.
To her relief, the new ships fell into an echelon around Athena and began escorting the destroyer toward where the System Lord waited.
“Stage one of this mission is now complete,” Fielding said. “The System Lord will allow us to approach and then send a small team of specialists to conduct repairs. If it didn’t intend to allow that to happen, it would have already opened fire.
“I suggest that everyone involved get some sleep, because things are going to get quite busy before much longer.”
Olivia nodded. “And you still intend to send Lady Oldfield and your nephew to do the work? Who will supervise them? I insist that one of my senior people accompany them at the very least.”
Fielding smiled as if he were enjoying what he was about to say. “Oh, by all means, send one of your people. I suggest Lord Gust, here. In addition, I will accompany the repair team along with two of my people. You see, we have a separate task to perform.”
That las
t came as no surprise to Olivia. She’d known that something was up all along. Now she just hoped they could figure out what the man was playing at before he double-crossed them.
14
Angela begin edging their ships away from the approaching Clan vessels. The enemy scanners were at full power, so they’d need to be well clear of the area before the trio of warships got close enough to see them.
Her plan tried to achieve that by diving directly below the plane of the ecliptic. She’d also changed their course to be about a forty-five-degree angle away from the approaching ships path of approach. That added valuable time to open the distance.
When the ships entered detection range, the New Terran Empire vessels were far below the normal traffic inside the system. They were still within scanner range but traveling slow and doing everything they could to remain undetected.
Only when the Clan vessels continued on their way without deviating toward them did Angela start to relax. They’d managed to avoid detection this time.
She rose from her command chair and walked over to the helm console. “That was far too close for my taste, Jack. Tell me you have a plan for getting us where we need to go without getting anywhere near more people like that.”
Thompson nodded. “Let me lay it out on my console for you, Major. We’ve dropped below the plane of the ecliptic here, and I’d like for us to get even further away from the normal traffic zones. If we continue along the arc we’re following and then curve back into the system near where we expect to find the far flip point, that’s going to minimize the chances that anyone will be close enough to detect us. It’s going to add at least another seven hours to our trip, though.”
“Better it takes twice that long than we get caught,” she said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Good work. Pass the new course on to all the other ships, and let’s get the hell out of here. Once we’re well clear, I want you and the rest of the primary bridge crew to take a couple of hours to get something to eat and relax.