Baldwin's Legacy: The Complete Series

by Hystad, Nathan

  He slid the ship out, sending it through the barrier and into space. They were still a few thousand kilometers from the planet, and he stared at his target through the viewer, seeing nothing but dense fog or cloud cover.

  It was a simple mission. In and out. If there was nothing to see, he’d quickly make the trek back to Constantine. Cedric raced toward the world, his blood pumping harder than he’d expected it to. The news of the virus spreading on the ship was disconcerting. The twenty-five slaves had showed no sign of illness, so there were other implications behind it.

  It lingered in his mind as he entered orbit, letting his ship ride along with the gravitational trajectory, and lowered slowly while orbiting around the planet. Cedric thought about Reeve Daak as he waited to enter the atmosphere, and he rubbed his jaw, recalling where she’d punched him. He’d deserved it. He’d been younger then, more interested in a quick relationship than anything long-standing, and Reeve wasn’t supposed to find him with the other girl. Cedric tried to remember the fling’s name, and he was drawing a blank. This made him laugh. “Bridge, can you read me?” he asked.

  “This is Constantine; read you loud and clear,” Brax replied.

  “I’m about to make my descent past the clouds. I’ll try to stay in touch as I break through.” Cedric hadn’t felt this free in a long time. He’d always been stuck on guard assignment during his previous posting and recently couldn’t escape bridge duty. Part of him felt like he was meant to fly, and that had always been his biggest draw to joining the Concord.

  The trip was going smoothly, and he checked his elevation. Ten thousand meters and lowering. The clouds were thickening, and he suspected it would be this way until he broke free around two thousand meters, below the stratus cover. “Can you read me?” he asked, and heard no reply. His contact had been disrupted.

  Cedric pushed all thoughts from his mind, not worrying about postings or the Daaks; just the task at hand. He visualized the flame. The flame is life.

  His fighter shook and rumbled as he kept the thrusters at three-quarter power, easing up slightly in his descent. The ship beeped, and he saw there were finally items appearing on his radar. His nerves jolted as he erupted from the cover, unable to stop staring at the radar screen, where dozens of lights were flashing. He glanced up from it, and there they were. Tubers. At least thirty of them, hovering near a giant warship.

  “Constantine. The Statu are here. I repeat, they’re here. I see…” His gaze went distant as he saw another warship on the horizon. He zoomed out on the radar, and his breath caught in his throat. How many were there? And this was only one section of the planet, the one he’d randomly selected to poke his nose into. He needed to spread the word!

  Cedric began to turn around, but the Tubers had caught sight of him. Ten of them broke formation and began the chase. Cedric considered fighting them off, but even his own ego didn’t convince him it was possible. No, he had to escape. That was top priority.

  The thrusters burned hotly as he swung the fighter away from the warship ten kilometers away, but just when he thought he might be able to outrun his tails, he noticed another ten lights blinking toward him from the other direction. They were on a direct course to intercept.

  He slammed a gloved hand onto the dash in anger and made a decision. If he couldn’t escape, he could at least take down as many of them as possible. He set his sights on the closest warship and raced toward it, remembering that the most vulnerable stop on it was at the very bottom, where the drive met the thrusters.

  Tubers surrounded him, and Cedric shouted a primal war cry, the sound loud in the compact cockpit. His ship was hit, sending him reeling sideways, but he recovered, his grip tight on the controls. He urged himself on as another struck, the wing cut in half. He was close.

  He was lowering to the ground, but Cedric pulled up, bringing his nose to face the center of the warship. Gravity would do the rest. He fired everything he had, the first few shots running errant, but the torpedoes hit with a satisfying detonation, and Cedric closed his eyes, letting go of the controls as he neared the gargantuan vessel. He’d woken up that day expecting a far different outcome, but he welcomed the Vastness now. A calm encircled him as another Tuber blast struck the rear of his ship, but it was too late. His target was in line.

  Freedom is not to be taken for granted. Sometimes one must fight to have peace. Cedric mouthed the words to the relevant Code saying as he crashed into the warship.

  Eighteen

  “What’s happening down there?” Tom asked, standing behind Brax.

  “Sir, there’s no response. We lost him.” Brax kept trying, but nothing was making it through.

  “He should have returned by now,” Rene said from the other end of the bridge.

  “Maybe we should send Basker,” Tom suggested, but Rene shook her head.

  “Send one of the Ugna in,” she said.

  Tom weighed her words and was almost willing to do so, but didn’t want to take the chance. Their relationship with their new partner was already wearing thin, especially after Tom had allowed Triumph to be destroyed by the Assembly.

  He glanced around the bridge, noticing all eyes falling on him. He was the fleet captain, tasked with ending the Statu war; only he hadn’t been expecting any of this to greet them on the other side of the wormhole.

  Anything could have happened to Cedric, but Tom sensed the trap was lying beneath the cloudy atmosphere. “Engineering, this is the captain,” he said, wondering if Reeve could assist.

  “Captain, it’s Reeve.”

  “Reeve, is there a way to disperse the cloud cover from here?” Tom was getting desperate for a solution that didn’t put him in immediate danger.

  Reeve didn’t reply for a moment, but when she did, her voice was full of optimism. “I think it’s worth a shot, Captain. How long do I have?”

  “You’re not going to like my answer,” he told her.

  “I’ll begin immediately, Captain.”

  Tom sat in his chair, staring toward Casonu Two. This was the home of the evil Statu, the same race that had devastated the Concord fifty years ago. This race was the reason Yephion and his friends had fled five hundred years earlier. If Ven was even half correct about his theory that there were far more Statu than they’d ever let the Concord believe, they were down there, hiding below.

  Ina had done a great job of convincing them to head there, and she’d also conveniently brought a deadly virus on board to infiltrate his crew. Tom was growing angrier with each passing heartbeat.

  He had half a mind to blast the world from here. If their entire fleet battered it with an assault, Casonu Two could be wiped from the history books once and for all. Unfortunately, the tiny part of his mind that thought there were slaves below that needed rescuing kept ringing in the recesses of his brain.

  He’d wait and see what Reeve could concoct before making any rash decisions.

  ____________

  “These drones could be too heavy for the task. Once they’re inside the atmosphere, they might not be able to rely on their miniscule thrusters with the added mass of the propellers,” Harry informed Reeve, but of course she’d already taken all of this into account.

  “I’ve tweaked the position of the thrusters by thirty degrees to accommodate the reverse force of the propellers. It’ll work. At least enough to carve a path through these damned clouds,” Reeve said, proud of all she’d been able to accomplish in two hours’ time.

  More of their crew had fallen ill, and Reeve was glad she’d managed to avoid everyone by isolating herself in the boiler room. It was another perk of being in the bowels of the ship.

  “I still think we need something stronger opposing it. Once these propellers are going at full bore, we’re going to have an issue,” Harry advised.

  Reeve ran the numbers, but they were only rough, since this hadn’t been tested before. He was right. “Harry, you’re coming for my job, aren’t you? Fine. We’ll piggyback one of the TEL-1509 drones on the mod
ified ones, programming the thrusters to variable power.”

  Harry grinned and keyed in the new parameters. They received green lights in the basic testing simulator. “I knew you’d figure it out. Come on; we need to start the mods.”

  Reeve followed Harry to the workspace down the corridor on Deck One, and to the right. The room was enormous, workbenches lining the walls along with a full array of manufacturing drones, as well as robotic printers of all sizes. She found various raw materials, choosing an alloy from Nolix that was durable and lightweight. She loaded the sheets using a remote-controlled robotic arm and set the supplies into the second-largest printer they had.

  Harry plugged the keycard in, downloading their schematics, and they gathered the appropriate drones while it created the propellers. By the time they were done, Reeve was sweating, the room smelled like solder and grease, and they had their drones, all four of them in a row.

  “That’s it.” Reeve stood, wiping her hands on her pants, leaving black streaks over the thighs. “They’re not pretty, but they’ll do the job.” She assessed the devices and almost laughed at the absurdity of their function. “Dispersing clouds.”

  “Dispersing clouds for the safety of the Concord, may I remind you,” Harry said, patting her on the back. “Let’s get them outside.”

  With the assistance of four more crew members, the drones were powered up and sent through a probe release hatch under Constantine. The moment they were out, Reeve activated them, sending them toward Casonu Two.

  Now all they could do was give it a try and see what was hidden below the planet’s dense atmosphere.

  ____________

  Ven waited for the results to come in. “Captain, the clouds are indeed artificially created.” He wasn’t convinced at first, but the probes had gathered the data at the peak of the ice crystals and water droplets. He ran it against all known data points on various planets’ cloud composition and found too much metal inside. It would be possible on a metal-dense world, one with little greenspace and tree cover, but the brief images captured from their initial spin into the system showed Casonu Two to be as lush as its twin.

  “That’s what I thought,” Captain Baldwin said. “Reeve, what’s our update?”

  Reeve’s voice carried from far below, thanks to her choice to stay away from the possibly infected areas of the ship. “Captain, we’re breaching the atmosphere and have visual.” The viewer cut in half, with feeds from the four drones centering on the left side of the screen.

  They moved smoothly, ever toward the wispy white cover, and already Ven saw the propellers begin to swirl. The drones shook more and more as the speed increased, and eventually, they were in position.

  “Come on; all we need is a window,” the captain said, and Ven found himself clenching his hands.

  He’d only just met Executive Lieutenant Cedric, but the man shared a rank with himself, and he’d hoped to become allies at some point. Ven vowed to make someone pay for the man’s death, because he was positive the fighter had been destroyed.

  The clouds began to dissipate as the fans blew. Reeve directed them closer to the ground as they broke through the sky, and Ven sat at the edge of his seat as they advised the bridge that the drones were at three thousand meters.

  “Give us a vantage point…” Captain Baldwin was standing too close to the viewer, his hands at his sides.

  Ven saw it: the ground, a forest of treetops like garden vegetation, all blending into one. “There it is, sir.”

  “Keep gusting, Reeve. We’re almost there.” The captain leaned forward, and Ven thought the man was holding his breath. The entire bridge seemed to be, and Ven took a deep inhale, as if to counter them.

  A surge of emotion, so angry, so strong, sent his mind reeling. Ven pushed away from his helm console, striking the ground and landing on his side.

  “Ven!” Brax shouted, rushing to his aid, but the pain was too much. Ven could sense thousands of minds, each solely focused on the destruction of all Concord affiliates. He groaned, pointing toward the viewer as the clouds spread apart, revealing the tiny forms of Tubers. Behind them was a warship.

  “Warship…” he croaked, and all eyes left Ven and settled on the viewer.

  Captain Thomas Baldwin moved swiftly to his seat, reaching out to the other ships, as Brax helped Ven to his position. “This is Fleet Commander Thomas Baldwin. Abort. I repeat, abort. Rendezvous thirty thousand kilometers out, at our muster position.”

  Captain Rene marched over to him, hands on hips. “I think we should reconsider. They killed Cedric. We can take them, Captain, we can…”

  Ven noticed Captain Baldwin point to the screen, and the right edge of the viewer where a section of the planet was magnified. Warships were rising from the clouds, at least twenty of them. Once they had passed by the safety of their interference, the radar began to chime as each warship entered nearby space.

  The onslaught of emotion was gone, replaced by a steady determination from the Statu, and Ven did his best to block it out and concentrate. He urged Constantine away, moving as fast as the Star Drive would allow.

  “Captain Bouchard, I agree we’ll fight them, but we have to know what we’re up against first,” Captain Baldwin said.

  Ven was glad they hadn’t been lowering through the atmosphere when they discovered the Statu had a veritable fleet hidden below. Ina had to answer to her betrayal, but the captain didn’t have time for that now.

  “Brax, how many are we looking at?” Baldwin asked.

  “Captain, I’m counting forty, and there seem to be more,” Brax said.

  “Forty…”

  Ven wished he wasn’t right about his theory. They’d been hiding their numbers from the Concord, and all of their moves felt like an extremely patient trap. And the Concord had played directly into it.

  ____________

  Doctor Nee was glad they’d been able to quarantine the new passengers, as well as the guards who’d come in contact with them, but after that, he knew others on the ship had made some level of secondary interaction. The good news was that no one had died in the last hour.

  The bad news was, they’d lost five since the beginning of the outbreak.

  He was tired, his limbs aching, his mind turning to mush. He poured another cup of Raca and took a long drink, wondering if he should inject something to keep himself focused and on task. Kelli was such a trooper, and Belna and Tarlen had arrived, volunteering to assist in any way they could. He’d only let them in after they’d put themselves in quarantine uniforms, and so far, they’d been a big help.

  Nee watched the magnified sample and recognized how rudimentary the virus really was. The Statu had hoped for an epidemic, and it was strong, transferring quickly, but Nee already had a very similar cure on board, and after several tests, was prepared to experiment on one of the symptomatic patients.

  “I need a volunteer, someone symptomatic and willing to be my test subject,” Nee told everyone in the medical bay. The room was cramped, with over twenty people inside, not including the bodies they’d already disposed of.

  “I’ll do it,” a middle-aged woman from Leria said. So far, only the Zilph’i and humans were showing any kind of effects from the virus, and this particular antidote met the same criteria.

  Doctor Nee motioned for her to enter the private room at the far left corner of the medical bay, and Kelli followed him inside. “Thank you for volunteering…”

  “Zola. I work in on the security team, mostly shift scheduling,” she said, and Nee nodded, preparing the medispray with the proper vial.

  “How are you feeling now?” he asked. Her skin was pasty, her lips dry and cracked, and her eyes were rheumy, just like the rest of those suffering in isolation.

  “Not well. I want to sleep, but I’m too scared to,” she said honestly.

  “Okay. There’s a chance this won’t work, but we need to try it on someone, Zola. We don’t have time to wait,” Nee said, and she nodded her understanding.

&nbs
p; “I’m ready.” Her voice was meek, but she held her head up high as Doctor Nee pressed the device into her neck.

  She slumped instantly, the medication entering her bloodstream. It was powerful, and she was a slight woman: tall and thin. Kelli held her upright, and Nee lifted her eyelids, seeing a slight improvement in the redness. A minute later, she gasped, maybe breathing more evenly than she had been.

  “I… I feel the same,” she said, running a clammy hand over her face.

  Nee smiled, a tired but well-meaning expression. “It needs time to course through your body and work with your immune system.”

  “I’m afraid to sleep.”

  “You’ll be fine, I assure you. When you wake, I’ll be here.” Nee turned from her, facing Kelli. “Let’s get everyone injected and count this one a victory.”

  Kelli helped Zola up, and Nee glanced at the screen on his wall, seeing that Constantine was racing away from the planet they’d only just arrived at. He reached out to the bridge, curious to see what was going on.

  ____________

  Brax should have known better. They’d talked about this for hours, and had all agreed to be cautious. Now they were being chased by a massive fleet of Statu, and time was running out on their options.

  Each of the Ugna were on screen in the meeting room, and Captain Bouchard and Commander Kan Shu were still on board, the other captain having elected to take a medispray antidote back to her ship when the meeting was over, in case any symptoms arose.

  “Do we leave them behind again?” Reeve asked.

  “Not an option,” Tom said firmly. “We were sent to fight them, but things have changed. We’ve never seen a confluence of warships like this before. While I think we’re capable of taking three- or four-to-one odds, I don’t think we should risk it on their terms. Within that planet, they held the upper hand, likely with suborbital defenses in place and numerous other potential traps. We avoided that, but we need to be careful now.