The Ghost Fleet

by Trevor Wyatt

  I don’t reply. I only double back some more.

  Captain Joana straightens up. “Well, I suggest you prepare yourself for this, Commander,” she says, officious one more time. “Because it’s going down one way or the other. Dismissed.”

  The first place I go to when I leave the CNC is Tadius’s office, which is at the armory.

  I barge into his tiny office without knocking. The man sits behind a workstation going over some files when I come in,

  He looks up at me. After examining me for a few seconds, he says, “Calm down, Jake. Take a sit.” He motions to the seat against the wall on his right.

  “I can’t sit, Tadius, not while we are headed to our deaths at the moment,” I reply. I look up and say, “Computer, how long until we get to Azukene colony?”

  “Twenty minutes, Commander,” the computer replies.

  Tadius shuts down his workstation and gives me his full attention now. “Why are we going to Azukene? Isn’t that where the corps manufacture parts for our starships?” His frown deepens. “And isn’t that way inside Terran Union space?”

  “Yes and yes,” I reply. “I don’t know if we have a spy in our ranks or if the Sonali somehow managed to crack our secure communications network, but they must somehow have figured it out. Now they’ve sent a dreadnought to destroy the planet.”

  Tadius comes to his feet with a stifled cry. “They want us to take it out alone?”

  “No,” I reply. “They want us to keep the dreadnought busy until the cavalry arrives. A battle fleet of ten ships was sent to protect the planet. The dreadnought destroyed eight.”

  “If we go there, they’ll make short work of us,” Tadius replies. “We have no tactical or significant advantage against the dreadnought. Why send us?”

  “To buy time,” I say. “See what I’ve been saying? It’s all happening. They want us to buy time.”

  “You don’t buy time with human lives,” Tadius replies, angry.

  “First Officer,” says the communications officer over the intercom. “Report to the CNC.”

  I switch gears immediately. “How many men are loyal to you?”

  Tadius is thrown off by my question. He doesn’t reply.

  “Come one, Tadius!” I say. “How many? Do you want to die?”

  “I don’t know,” he says, yielding. “The ones on the CNC are loyal to me. About three quarter are, I guess. The rest, I don’t know.”

  “That’s enough,” I say. “Let’s go.”

  I hop into the armory and grab a laser blaster, concealing it in my pants, under my jumpsuit top. Then I march out of the office, with Tadius in close tow.

  “What are you planning to do?” Tadius says, hurrying up to catch up with me.

  “Trying to save our asses.”

  “You’re gonna get us jailed,” Tadius replies.

  “Better in a cell than floating around in space, dead.”

  Back in the CNC, I take my place at my workstation, while Tadius takes his place at one of the workstations in the back. Commander Chen, who is at the science officer’s station glances at me. I give him a slight, knowing nod and he nods back. Then I see him sending a message to Hadley down.

  At that exact time, the ship drops out of FTL. We arrive just in time to see the last standing vessel go up in an explosion. Between us and the dreadnought is a vast network of debris and bodies, spreading across space.

  The dreadnought is impossibly large, larger than any Sonali ship I’ve ever seen. It has visible cannons and gun ports.

  “Ma’am,” I say, “There’s no way we make it out of this alive.”

  Captain Joana doesn’t reply. She’s engrossed with the readout on the view screen.

  “Navigator, plot a course for the dreadnought,” she says. “Go through the debris. It should hide us long enough for us to sneak up on them.”

  “Aye, Captain,” replies the navigator.

  “Ma’am, after that, what’s next?” I say. “You read the reports. Ten ships specially designed for war could not bring that thing down. They barely made a scratch. What does a small frigate like ours stand a chance?”

  Captain Joana says, “First Officer Jake, I find your speech to be demoralizing for the crew. Refrain from speaking like that any longer. Otherwise, I will have you removed from the CNC.”

  I hold her glare with one of my own.

  She looks away. “Perhaps I have a plan.”

  “What plan?” I blurt out.

  She doesn’t reply.

  “Ma’am,” the navigator says. “The dreadnought has started an approach for the planet.”

  “The ship is acquiring specific firing solutions for facilities on the planet, captain,” the science officer says. “We have to stop it.”

  “Course plotted, Captain,” says the navigator.

  “Engage the sub light drives,” she says. “Full speed ahead. We are going to ram them. That should give Captain Jeryl and the others enough time to get here.”

  The navigator pauses, turning to look at me for help. I don’t respond because I am overwhelmed with confusion.

  “I gave you an order, Lieutenant!” Captain Joana screamed.

  The navigator hesitates again. Then he stutters and engages the sub light drives. The ship leaps into motion and races for the dreadnought.

  “We are being targeted by the dreadnought,” Chen says, sneaking a glance at me.

  “Red alert,” the captain says. “Shields up. Battle stations everyone.”

  Alarms go off all across the ship. The CNC takes on a reddish tint.

  We emerge from the debris field, the dreadnought filling our entire screen. I rush to the navigator.

  “Break course!” I yell. “Break course.”

  The navigator doesn’t need to be told twice. He twisted the controller, and the ship bent to starboard, throwing me into the air. The dreadnought fires, missing us by yards.

  “Security, confine Mr. Jake to the Brig!” Captain Joana screams.

  I swivel to face her, pulling my gun out.

  She shoots to her feet, enraged. “This is mutiny! Security!”

  The security officers converge on me. I look to Tadius in the back.

  “Stand down,” he orders his officers.

  At first, they just pause, unsure of what to do. One of them asks, “Sir?”

  “Stand down, I said,” Tadius says again with more force to his words.

  Captain Joana is stunned, her mouth hanging agape.

  I walk towards her, my gun on her head. “You would sacrifice the life of your crew? For what? You think this is a game? You think this is some kind of dissertation?”

  “You will pay for what you’re doing!” she says then she taps the red button on her chair, and another kind of alarm goes off.

  The computer says, “Security to the CNC. The Captain is under attack.”

  I smack the captain across the head with my laser, sending her into a swoon.

  “Chen, disable that alarm. Navigator, get us the fuck out of here!”

  “Aye, sir!” they both respond in unison.

  I walk over to the captain’s chair and drag her off. “Computer, open a ship wide channel.”

  “Affirmative,” says the computer.

  “Crew of the TUS Terror,” I say. “This is Captain Jake Craig. Several moments ago, Captain Joana issued an order to ram a Sonali dreadnought, which would have destroyed this ship and everyone on it, while rendering little damage to the starship.

  “She violated everyone on board this ship, which led me to take control of this ship forcefully. I am in control of this ship, and I assure you, you are safe. Remain calm and go about your duties. That is all.”

  “Computer cut channel.”

  “Affirmative,” replies the computer.

  “Come on,” I say to Tadius and the three security operative. “Let’s go handle the dissenter.

  At first, there was silence—and then chaos fills the ship. Some of the crew who doesn’t agree with the decisi
on starts attacking us. A bloody fight occurs, leading to the loss of a third of the crew. Our faces are full of blood, scratches and bruises. Panic brewed in our eyes.

  I motion at the officers to help me do something about the beat-up crew. We’re able to lock up all loyalists in the brig, including Captain Joana.

  Once that’s done, I meet back on the CNC with Chen, Tadius, and Hadley.

  “You’ve led a mutiny,” Tadius says, his voice bitter and cruel. “Now what?”

  We are speaking in hushed tones. We are also at FTL headed deeper into Terran Space…into safety. We haven’t heard from Edoris Space Station, but we did get information about the planet. Captain Montgomery arrived in time and dispatched the dreadnought, with the help of five other heavy cruisers. In the end, no one needed to die. I have told the crew this, so they know that Joana’s actions were inexcusable.

  However, I know that mine would be inexcusable.

  “We can’t very well go back to the Armada,” I say. “We’ll be found guilty and jailed, and that’s not if we are not executed.”

  “What do you suggest?” asks Tadius.

  “We leave the Armada,” I say. “We head over to the Outers. We drop the crew on some planet near a highly trafficked space. We head over to the Outer Colony and offer up this Armada vessel in exchange for asylum.”

  “We’ll never be officers again,” says Hadley.

  I pause and think. “But we’ll be free.”

  Part II

  Operation Quake

  Wolf

  Captain Landon Wolf of TUS Exeter wondered what happened to the light their ships created as they navigated through the limitless tarmac of space. Did the cosmos reflect their light, refract it, or was it eaten by the dark matter of space—any imprint they had left eroded forever? His thoughts were mushy; it was this damned conflict and the errand his crew had been sent on.

  The Exeter was a small craft and a mid-level frigate. It was more of a scouting ship, suited for reconnaissance, strategic assistance—rather than heavy fighting. Many of the crew members assumed Wolf envied other captains with more prestigious posts on much bigger ships.

  He laughed at the thought, knowing that it was the voice of naivety, the youthful thoughts of those unsullied by violence.

  Grimly, he recalled the meeting of the commanders where he met Captain Jeryl Montgomery. He was approachable and capable when it came to handling war-time offensives. But Wolf envied him not a whit. Being responsible for his crew was more than enough to occupy his conscience.

  At that meeting, Wolf and his crew were given their current assignment: A covert mission at the edge of Sonali territory.

  The crew’s mission directives were thus: They were to come out of FTL within the half distance it would take them to reach the planet. Immediately upon reaching normal speed, their first order of business was to find the darker of the two moons circling the planet. There, they were to hide while Engineering worked with the Science team to launch stealth satellite probes to orbit the planet.

  If all went well, the probes, which were four in total, would serve as a communications array strong enough to catch the majority of Sonali communications planet-side and send the encoded messages back to Terran Hegemony headquarters. Success was paramount. Wolf felt the weight of the mission pressing upon him as they neared the outer edge of Sonali territory.

  "Captain, approaching Sonali airspace—coming out of FTL in 3, 2, 1…" the navigation officer said.

  Wolf felt the shuddering shift as space released them. Like a floating leaf after a rainstorm, they drifted in their own dark eddy.

  "FTL offline. Sustaining orbit."

  "How soon ‘til we reach the moon, Jensen?" Wolf looked at her as she scrutinized her panel.

  "Less than 15 minutes, sir," Jensen replied.

  "All right, let's hope we reach it before the Sonali notices us." He inhaled sharply but still let a confident smile broaden on his face. Jensen counted backward as they headed towards their concealment.

  The Sonali moon was dull; it hung in the sky like a dead star with seething veins of coal-red embers cutting across its dark husk. It had none of the romance of Earth’s moon. Instead, it looked upon them like a baleful eye, daring them to move within its reach.

  "Take us portside, Jensen, slow and steady," Wolf stood. Adrenaline made him restless, so he walked to the view screen at the fore of the ship. "How long ‘til position?"

  Jensen blew upwards to clear a strand of hair off her face—her eyes never leaving her navigation panel. "I can have us there in 30 minutes, but I'm not sure how long the techs need to set up the probes."

  "You focus on bringing us in cleanly; I'll go have a word with Science and Engineering.” Then, as though Wolf was addressing a great deity, he cocked his eyes upward.

  "SkyPrime?"

  "Yes, Captain," came the cool neutral male voice of the ship's main AI.

  "Please monitor surrounding space, we don't want any unexpected visitors."

  "Yes, Captain."

  Wolf sighed a bit. It was a good thing that their main AI lacked personality, but he often wished it’s a bit more verbose. Though, in truth, he didn't have a complaint against SkyPrime.

  Now, HesterPrime…Wolf thought.

  Seemingly on cue, as he left the CNC, he heard the overly bright voice of HesterPrime.

  "Captain, how are you today?"

  "I'm well," he said, letting his thumbs massage his eyelids.

  "Oh, that's good," she said, "though my sensors detect a spike in your cortisol levels, so perhaps..."

  "HesterPrime," Wolf said, letting the full weight of his exasperation in that one word. The AI didn’t respond. According to ship rumors, she was crafted with human empathy, so Wolf was certain that she was able to measure his full frustration with her needling in that one word.

  He shook out his shoulders as he made his way to Engineering.

  As he rounded the corner, his eyes met Mareesa Anatosas who was talking with Yuang Fa of Engineering. It was just a moment, but he saw the way her lips twitch at the corners before breaking into an amused smile, even while her eyes tracked back to Yuang’s face.

  She had been the lead science officer on The Exeter as long as Wolf had been captain. They didn’t have a relationship outside of their professional ones; however, they had playful exchanges. Wolf liked to make her smile even at his own expense.

  The current mission made him think of a less tense time in the past, before the Sonali, when he and Mareesa had discussed the possibility of other races at The Cerulean Parrot—the one and only watering hole on the ship.

  "I think it’s too arrogant for humans to presume we’re the only intelligent, sentient life in the universe. That’s both thinking too big and too small," she said with her deep accent. Her parents were British though she was born in New India. Her voice was a melodic blend of the two cultures.

  "Well, if other life exists outside of ours," Wolf said, "what sort of evolutionary steps would lead them? How would they evolve? What would their society look like?”

  She set her glass down and waved him off. "Give me a moment."

  "Don't tell me you haven't thought about this, you are the science lead after all," he said with a smile, downing his own drink. Mareesa’s returned smile reached her eyes, pulling him along.

  "Well," she quipped, "I do believe that any race we encounter will likely be more advanced than we are.”

  "I have no evidence to support this theory, it’s only a hunch, but I feel strongly," she added. She traced her finger along the glass’ rim, eyes downcast. Wolf felt like she was waiting for his response—perhaps even a bit wary of it.

  "Makes sense to me, especially if their evolution diverts from our path," Wolf said. Mareesa looked at him with alert eyes.

  "Exactly!" she said happily.

  "You know, in my research with primate species, the more advanced social systems were matriarchal. Female-led, female-ruled, female-guided. I'm not saying we humans have not
come a long way in gender equality but, in these societies, it was always the females in charge, no question."

  "So...you're saying that the likelihood of a species being advanced is that they have the women in charge."

  "Yes," she nodded laughing, her hands waving. "I'm just kidding."

  "Well, not to repeat myself, but that makes sense to me, too," Wolf agreed with a smile, clinking his glass to hers. "Cheers to gender IN-equality."

  "Are you attempting to get on my good side by agreeing with me?" Mareesa asked, eyes dancing.

  "Hmmm...that's a serious question—is ‘yes’ the correct answer?”

  "Yes."

  "Then…yes, I’m attempting to get on your good side, but I do still agree with your theory," Wolf said.

  "You know, you're pretty advanced for a male of our species," she snorted laughing. They clicked glasses again. "To advanced species!"

  Their conversation was no longer theoretical. The Sonali and the humans had made first contact two years ago, and the sum of their knowledge about the species only rested in their understanding of their weapons and defenses.

  In that game, they had to play catch up; would they judge the evolution of a species based on their ability to defend themselves? Wolf considered Earth's apex predators. Many were extinct, the last few residing in zoos or preserves.

  No. As a species, you could become better fighters, or you could become smarter fighters, Wolf thought. Might isn’t the only measure of success.

  Yuang approached him, breaking his reverie. "Captain, the probes are ready, and my team has coordinated their trajectories—they should be masked by The Exeter's emissions."

  Wolf looked at Mareesa for confirmation. Yuang was eager, but he spoke only for Engineering, which was just half of the solution.

  She nodded and added, "Science is satisfied with the telemetry. Everything is ready for launch."

  "Excellent work," Wolf remarked, then he looked up again and said, "SkyPrime."

  "Yes, Captain," SkyPrime replied.

  "I want you to coordinate the operations for this launch with Science and Engineering.”