New Frontiers (Expansion Wars Trilogy, Book 1)

by Joshua Dalzelle

  “Yes, ma’am. My apologies, ma’am,” Accari said, recognizing his captain’s peculiar sense of humor and not sounding the least bit contrite. Ensign Idris Accari, formerly Specialist Second Class Accari, had been the first watch nav station operator on the Ares under Captain Jackson Wolfe. Jackson had recognized early how sharp the young man was, and in one of his last actions before he’d officially retired from Fleet he had lobbied to get Accari a commission, dependent upon him completing Officer Candidate Training (OCT) as well as the subsequent command schools. Accari had breezed through them without trouble and had been one of the few selected from his class of enlisted candidates for a commission. Those that didn’t receive a direct commission were given the option to return to the enlisted ranks or go through the Academy. Since the Academy was typically a five-year stint, most just went back to their previous commands.

  Celesta Wright, having been Accari’s superior on the Ares, made sure she was kept aware of his progress every step of the way through his training. The file entry for his rank change had barely cleared Admin when she submitted her request to have him transferred to the Icarus. After training he’d been serving as her first watch OPS officer since and, like when he was at the nav station, he seemed to have a knack for the OPS position, instinctively knowing what information needed to flow up to the captain and what could be pushed back or rerouted. Celesta wished that she was still in contact with Jackson Wolfe if for no other reason than to let him know how his protégée was excelling, but it was like he’d just disappeared without a trace.

  “But while we’re discussing what you may or may not have heard through your backchannel sources, Ensign, what else might I find interesting?” she asked while he vacated the command chair.

  “The negotiations aren’t going well,” Accari said seriously. “Apparently this new species, they call themselves Ushin, are either masters of the runaround, are hiding something, or the communication methods R&S devised aren’t as flawless as they claimed. These are some of the things the admiral would like to discuss with you in person.”

  “I see,” Celesta said neutrally. “While I thank you for your trust in me, Ensign, I feel I would be remiss if I didn’t offer some warning to you.”

  “Ma’am?”

  “Even on the bridge of a Fleet destroyer, that is some fairly sensitive information you’re bandying about,” Celesta went on. “My office is always available and just remember, there are ears everywhere and not all of them friendly.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Accari was no wilting flower. He accepted the criticism like the professional he was and offered neither an excuse nor an apology. Celesta found it refreshing and hoped that she’d be able to mentor him around all the pitfalls many officers fell prey to that tended to stunt their careers. More and more, Ensign Accari showed himself to have the raw talent and grit to command a starship of his own someday, and it’d be a shame if that potential was cut short because he was trying to pass on a bit of intel to his captain and the wrong people overheard him.

  She’d only just begun to get herself organized when a sharp, staccato alarm began chirping from the com station behind her. That particular alarm meant that a com drone had appeared in local space and was broadcasting a general alert for any Terran ship within range and could mean anything from a threat detected in the area to a recall order. She resisted the urge to get up and check on the message herself while her com officer decrypted whatever data the drone was sending.

  “Captain, authenticated emergency message from CENTCOM,” the second watch com officer called out. “Your eyes only, ma’am. Where would you like it routed?”

  “I’ll take it in my office, Lieutenant Moll.” Celesta stood calmly despite her rising anxiety. “Mr. Accari, you have the bridge until Commander Barrett arrives.”

  “I have the bridge, aye,” Accari said.

  It took Celesta less than a minute to go the short distance to her office on the command deck, lock the hatch, and validate her credentials so the computer would allow her access to the secure servers. When she began reading the flash message header she could only shake her head in amazement, unsure what it meant for her immediate mission and Starfleet as a whole. By the time the accompanying video was done, her mouth hung open in shock.

  “Have Commander Barrett report to my office,” she said conversationally. The computer beeped twice in acknowledgement that she’d been heard and understood. Barrett must have been close by because there was a loud, single knock on the hatchway a few seconds later. She rose to unlock it and let her XO in, motioning to one of the seats in front of her desk before reclaiming her own.

  “You’ll need to be aware of this,” she said, spinning the monitor around and restarted the video without explanation.

  “This is Fleet Admiral Pitt, speaking on behalf of CENTCOM Chief of Staff Marcum during his absence on an undisclosed, classified mission.

  “I am not a politician nor do I claim to be particularly eloquent, so I’ll just come out and say what’s happening here on New Sierra: The Terran Confederacy has been dissolved and is no longer the governing body controlling the worlds outside of the Eastern Star Alliance. The decision was made to permanently disband the Confederacy after no accords could be reached within the remainder of the Senate and the absence of our duly elected President, Caleb McKellar.

  “I will not bore any of you with the details because, honestly, there aren’t any. Delegations from each enclave will begin arriving on New Sierra in the following months to decide what should happen next. As of right now, each enclave is responsible for governance on their member worlds, but all Fleet ships will now report directly to CENTCOM and will ignore any and all orders from local authorities no matter how mundane. I expect this to be sorted quickly and I will not tolerate any of my ships exchanging fire with each other due to planetary governments deciding it’s time to settle some old scores. I have the newest warships here at my disposal and I will not hesitate to use them should I hear of any extracurricular activities from my deployed units.

  “For now, follow the chain of command, continue on your missions, and if any of you are religious … pray that when the delegations meet here on New Sierra in the coming months this can be quickly resolved. I shouldn’t have to say this but I will: This brief is classified at the highest level. Pitt out.”

  “What in the fuck?” Barrett blurted. “I know there was a bit of chaos after the war and the loss of Haven, but dissolving the Confederacy? This is lunacy!”

  “Calm yourself, Commander,” Celesta said. “You need to read between the lines. This has been in the works since the Asianic Union and Warsaw Alliance broke off and closed their borders, though I will admit to some surprise that they made the announcement this early. It was supposed to be accompanying the restructuring agreement between the enclaves. Someone at CENTCOM must have found out that wasn’t supposed to and forced Admiral Pitt to release that cryptic order.”

  “How could you possibly know all of that, ma’am?” Barrett asked before his eyes widened in realization. “Never mind … Pike let you know, didn’t he?”

  “Agent Pike of the Confederate Intelligence Section did not send me an unauthorized transmission of the classified internal, behind the scenes political wrangling at work, Commander,” Celesta said primly. “However, senior aide to the Honorable Augustus Wellington, a Mr. Aston Lynch, did happen to mention it to me at the reception on the planet before we departed.”

  “Those are the same person,” Barrett rolled his eyes.

  “He claims otherwise,” Celesta shrugged. “I don’t pretend to understand it but he’s quite adamant that he is not Aston Lynch when he is Pike.”

  Pike, the only name he’d ever given, was an operative in the Confederate Intelligence Section (CIS). He wasn’t just an operative but a full-blown agent and had been instrumental in assisting Jackson Wolfe during the Phage War by feeding him critical intel on some of the internal wrangling happening on the Confederate capital world. One of his dis
guises was a man named Aston Lynch, aide to the powerful Chairman of Fleet Operations, Senator Augustus Wellington. He’d originally been placed on Wellington’s staff by the Director of the CIS to dig up some dirt to be used as leverage if needed, but the senator was no fool and he’d somehow figured out who Pike was.

  Rather than lodge a protest or make a scene, he somehow managed to get Pike permanently assigned to him. Celesta never got the details on that, but she suspected Wellington threatened to expose the fact that the Director was infiltrating the staffs of elected officials with his own operatives and offered to keep quiet in exchange for Pike. Since then the slippery agent worked to make sure there wasn’t anything that happened within the Confederacy that Wellington didn’t know about.

  “That still doesn’t make any—” Barrett was cut off by the computer chirping, followed by the first watch com officer’s voice.

  “Captain, priority Two-Alpha channel request coming in from the Amsterdam,” she said.

  “Put it through, Lieutenant.”

  “Aye aye, ma’am.”

  Celesta pulled her monitor back around and put her finger to her lips, indicating to Barrett to remain silent before hitting the accept icon flashing on the screen.

  “We’ve got a situation, Captain Wright,” Admiral Marcum said harshly.

  “Yes, Admiral,” she nodded. “I just finished going through the video—”

  “Shut up and listen, Captain!” Marcum snapped, startling Celesta. Barrett’s eyes widened but he maintained his composure and didn’t utter a sound. “This has nothing to do with those bullshit games the politicians are playing on New Sierra. There’s been a development along the Frontier. Something has been … detected … in the Xi’an System.”

  Celesta’s blood ran cold at the name and she immediately forgot Marcum’s outburst.

  “The Phage?” she almost whispered.

  “No,” Marcum shook his head. “At least not that we’ve detected. The brief I received when the com drone buzzed through the system was light on details, but it was enough that I’m ordering you out of the system. As of right now your current orders are to take the Icarus and make best speed directly to Xi’an. You’ll rendezvous there with a CIS Prowler that’s been monitoring the system.”

  “Can you give me a bit more than that, Admiral?” Celesta asked.

  “I could, but I’m not,” Marcum said. “You’re being deployed on a recon mission, Captain. I need you to investigate what this might be and I’m afraid that if I give you too much detail you’ll be inclined to jump to conclusions that may lead to rash action when you finally arrive in Xi’an. The short answer is that despite the Xi’an System being off limits we have reason to believe a Fleet warship may be stranded there.”

  “But—” Celesta tried to interject.

  “Your orders are being transmitted as we speak,” Marcum waved her off. “I’m verbally ordering your ship out of orbit; you can go over the data packet on your way to the jump point. No arguments. The next words out of your mouth had better be ‘aye aye, sir.’”

  “Aye aye, sir,” Celesta said automatically, but she was staring at the logo for Seventh Fleet as Marcum had killed the channel before she had even opened her mouth.

  Chapter 3

  Starship captains were given a lot of leeway when it came to how they executed their orders. CENTCOM knew it was fairly pointless to try and micromanage the operations of vessels that were lightyears away with no way to reach them except dispatching a comparatively slow and costly message via one of Tsuyo Corp’s com drones. As such, Celesta Wright was accustomed to orders that could almost be vague suggestions that CENTCOM would appreciate it if her ship were in a certain area at roughly the time they required.

  The orders that had arrived from the Amsterdam as the Icarus made her way out of the unnamed system were different, however. These were the type of orders she’d expect when they were on wartime footing, not a reconnaissance flyby in a system that had no habitable worlds … at least not anymore. The Phage had begun their savage tear through Terran space by first annihilating everything on the surface of Xi’an and then later destroying the planet completely in a display of firepower that still gave the veterans who’d witnessed it nightmares.

  Admiral Marcum’s staff had cut orders that required her ship to hit specific and precise rendezvous at such an aggressive pace that if there was a single maintenance delay with the Icarus they’d miss it completely. The knot that had formed in her stomach at the mention of the Xi’an System refused to go away in the face of these unusually specific orders, at least specific for a time of relative peace. Humanity was in the midst of a post-war upheaval that looked to be a prolonged situation as the remaining enclaves restructured their agreements with each other even as others broke away completely and shunned all contact with the remnants of the Confederacy.

  Celesta read through her orders one more time as the Icarus flew her first warp flight back to the Columbiana System and a new worry began to gnaw at her. They would stop in the New America capital system to be joined by six other ships before pressing on to the Frontier, all of them newer warships with veteran captains. Marcum had specifically said it wasn’t the Phage, but was there a new enemy at the gates that just happened to pick the Xi’an System as well?

  Even as she realized how virtually impossible that scenario was a new, possibly worse fear arose. Xi’an was still under control of the Asianic Union and therefore was within the Eastern Star Alliance, Starfleet ships were not given permission to freely travel there. Could the ESA be ready to capitalize on the Confederacy’s downfall and gain a few more worlds in the confusion? The idea of fighting humans, while it would at least be familiar, seemed repugnant after the horrors of the Phage War. She hoped she was wrong.

  “Commander Barrett,” she said, raising her voice unnecessarily and waiting for the computer to route her intercom request.

  “Barrett here, Captain.”

  “I’m forwarding you our new orders, but from what I see we can tolerate no holdups due to technical trouble with the Icarus,” Celesta said as she began packaging and forwarding a copy of the orders to her department heads. “Please have Commander Graham physically decouple the RDS pod from the main power MUX. Tell him that while I admire his perseverance and skill when it comes to the new drive I cannot afford for it to act up again and delay us. We’ll be flying on the mains while in real-space until further notice.”

  “Understood, ma’am,” Barrett said. “I’ll go down now and speak with him.” She frowned as the intercom beeped softly to tell her the channel was closed. Why would Barrett leave the bridge during his watch to go to Engineering? When she looked at the clock on her office wall that displayed ship’s time she realized that Barrett had likely been in bed and she’d been sitting at her desk for hours longer than she realized. She quickly logged off her terminal and straightened up her desk before heading to her own quarters to catch at least a few hours of sleep before first watch began.

  ****

  By the time the Icarus had reached her final rally point before the warp flight directly to the Xi’an System six different com drones had caught up with them, each providing a little more detail about the political chaos within the former Confederacy and the not-so-secret meeting with a new alien species, but almost nothing about what was awaiting them on the Frontier.

  Celesta was somewhat relieved to learn that Augustus Wellington, formerly Senator Wellington of the Terran Confederate Senate and Chairman of the Fleet Operations Committee, had moved quickly and decisively to consolidate his powerbase and use it as leverage to bring all the other factions to the table. The powerful politician from New America was wasting no time hammering out a restructuring deal while most of the major pieces of the old system were still intact. Despite the loss of Haven, much of the old administrative apparatus had survived as well as a fully functioning CENTCOM along with Starfleet. If he could get everyone to agree quickly there might even be some opportunities opened up fo
r the other enclaves to step in with the loss of the ESA’s production and manufacturing power, something they’d never wanted to compete with in the past. Celesta’s fervent hope was that the politicians did what politicians always did: look out for their own best interests. If they were able to strike a new set of accords quickly and restructure the remaining planets within the Confederacy’s sphere of influence, there was less chance for more splintering and unrest among the civilian population.

  “Captain, we’re receiving a standard hail, no encryption,” the com officer, Lieutenant Ellison, called. “Source is a CIS Prowler.”

  “Respond with our standard countersign, Lieutenant,” Celesta said. “Tactical, am I correct in assuming that we were the first to arrive?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Lieutenant Commander Adler called from the tactical station. “No other transponders in the system active but ours; even the Prowler is quiet.”

  “Very well,” Celesta said. “Ensign Accari, please secure our own transponder and ensure we have no other emissions from the Icarus but the com system.”

  “Aye aye, ma’am.”

  “Burst packet from the Prowler, ma’am,” Ellison said. “They’re asking us to keep the com chatter to a minimum and to form up on them. I’m sending the text from the message to your station now.”

  Celesta looked over it, slightly irritated that she was being given orders from a non-Fleet officer, but tamped it down once she read the full message.

  Senior Captain Wright, please form up on the Prowler and we’ll more easily maintain emission security protocols. We’re deploying an asset deeper near the jump point to greet and route the rest of your task force to the formation. Once all ships are accounted for you will have full operational control over the mission.