The Star Cross

by Raymond L. Weil

  “I’ll add in more Profiteers,” Creed promised. It would be simple enough to bring in four or five hundred more at a low pay grade to find the gold and other items of interest on Earth.

  Cade nodded his satisfaction and left the cargo hold.

  High Profiteer Creed sighed a deep breath of frustration. Every time he turned around, this venture became more expensive. Walking to one of the crates filled with gemstones, he reached down and filled his hand with diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and other precious stones. After a moment he allowed them to fall back into the crate. In just this room alone was enough wealth to pay for this entire venture a hundred times over. Turning, he left the cargo hold, sealing the hatch behind him.

  -

  President Mayfield sat once more in the situation room, listening to defensive coordinator Colonel Stidham brief him and the others on Captain Nathan Aldrich’s report.

  “Three hundred bars of gold and fifty thousand carats of gemstones!” Mayfield echoed, as he heard the numbers from the colonel. His eyes bulged and showed growing anger. “If we pay that next month, then what will they want next time? A thousand bars of gold?”

  “It’s possible,” replied General Braid with a deep frown. “We can make the payment, but it’s as you suggested. If we do, they’ll doubtlessly raise it again. They’re becoming more aggressive across the planet. There are unconfirmed reports that a number of civilians have been killed in recent days, while resisting the Profiteers’ demands for admittance to their private homes to conduct searches.”

  President Mayfield went silent for several long moments, as he thought over his options. “We have four weeks,” he finally said, his eyes shifting to Fleet Admiral Tomalson. “Send word on the Newton Princess that Fleet Admiral Vickers must move on the Profiteers as soon as possible, or the situation here on Earth may turn into a firestorm. If the people revolt, he might not have a world to come back to.”

  “If he hits some of their convoys, it may shift some of their attention from us,” suggested Tomalson, knowing things on Earth were reaching a tipping point. “He hurt them badly at Newton. They lost five ships, and several of the Dacroni battleships showed battle damage. From the reports we received from the stealth shuttle pilots, Kurt lost one destroyer and a light cruiser in the battle.”

  “But he sacrificed four valuable cargo ships to achieve that victory,” pointed out General Braid. “He can’t use that tactic too often, or he’ll run out of ships.”

  “I hate to push him, if he isn’t ready, but we can’t wait much longer,” responded Mayfield with deep worry lines etched across his forehead. “I’m afraid that, at any time, some of our troops will take matters into their own hands.”

  “I agree,” said General Braid. “The dissent is growing, since we’re not allowing them to fight back. Keep in mind that the majority of our general army and Marine units were sent home to be with their families during this crisis. Most of them have weapons they could use at a moment’s notice. The president’s right. This could blow up in our faces any day, from both the civilian and military fronts.”

  “I’ll send the message,” Tomalson replied. “The Newton Princess is scheduled to return to Newton with her load of fleet personnel in a few more days.”

  “That should be soon enough,” Mayfield said, as he looked at the red threat icons circling Earth.

  True, not quite as many enemy ships were in Earth orbit as before the Profiteers and the Dacroni had attacked Newton, but there were still enough to keep Earth in submission. Mayfield just hoped they could hold out until Fleet Admiral Vickers figured out some way to free Earth of its tormentors.

  -

  Captain Henry Watkins reread the message the communications officer had just handed him. He let out a deep breath and looked up at the main viewscreen in the Vindication’s Command Center. The passenger liner, Newton Princess, floated in a sea of black under the steady light of countless stars.

  “Bad news?” asked Lieutenant Anthony Dries, the executive officer.

  “Events have taken a turn for the worse on Earth,” answered Henry, as he crumbled up the paper and stuffed it into his pants pocket. “The Profiteers are increasing their tribute demand.”

  Dries shook his head. “If this keeps up, there won’t be any gold or much of anything else of value left on Earth shortly. What do they want us to do?”

  Henry gestured toward the passenger liner on the viewscreen. “Fleet Admiral Tomalson wants Kurt to begin hitting the Profiteer convoys. He hopes that will divert some of the pressure off the home planet.”

  “Or it could make it worse,” Dries quickly pointed out. “It could further anger the Profiteers, and they could redouble their efforts to strip the planet.”

  Henry remained silent, knowing Dries was right. The defense grid and the new warships should be arriving shortly at Newton. Once the grid was operational, and the warships crewed and made ready for combat, it would be a different situation. However, it didn’t sound as if President Mayfield felt they could wait that long.

  “How many more passengers do we need to fill the space on the Newton Princess?”

  “One hundred and ten,” Dries answered promptly. “Three more days and we should have the liner at 100 percent capacity.”

  “Tell Captain Mertz I’ll have a personal message for him to deliver to Fleet Admiral Vickers when he returns the Newton Princess to Newton.”

  Dries nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  Henry leaned back in his command chair, oblivious to the activity going on in the Command Center. He knew the enemy had suffered in their attack on Newton and had called it off before incurring even more losses. He also knew that, if the aliens had pushed the attack, the Dacroni battleships would have blown right through Kurt’s ships. Every day the situation on Earth was becoming more desperate.

  Henry had hoped they would have more time to prepare Newton’s defenses and shake out the bugs in the new warships. They had sent some of their own construction engineers to help ensure the ships were properly equipped and ready for human crews. However, they needed several months for the crews to familiarize themselves with the new warships. It sounded as if that preferred time frame was out of the question and it would be more like several weeks instead.

  -

  A few days later on Newton, Kurt was inspecting a laser battery set up on the outskirts of the capital. “Does it have enough power to reach low orbit?”

  “Yes,” General Mclusky replied. They stood in a small field several kilometers from the city. “It’s completely computer-controlled and will fire upon any missile it detects entering the atmosphere.”

  Taking a deep breath, Kurt gazed about. The laser turret sat upon a twenty-meter tower with gleaming twin barrels pointed upward. “What about a hypermissile?” Kurt was deeply concerned about the Profiteers using hypermissiles to bombard the surface of Newton.

  “Hypermissiles won’t work through an atmosphere,” Mclusky replied. “They’re designed to operate in space, and, upon hitting any obstacle, they instantly lose their high intrinsic velocity. That’s why they explode with such violence when they hit a ship’s energy screen.”

  Kurt wondered why he hadn’t been made aware of this before. That explained why the Profiteers had used regular missiles in their attacks against Earth. “How many of these towers do you have?”

  “Ten around the capital and a few more protecting some of the other major cities.”

  “If our luck holds, and the defense grid gets here in time, we may never have to worry about being bombed from orbit.” In the distance, Kurt could see several large birds, circling high in the air, looking for prey. There was a light breeze, and it seemed so peaceful out here in the country. “Let me know if you need anything else. We have quite a bit of military construction capability with the manufacturing section we added to Newton Station.”

  “Yes, sir,” replied Mclusky.

  -

  A short time later Kurt headed back in a shuttle to the Star Cross.
He had wanted time to see Keera and his sister’s family, but Andrew had sent him a message saying the Newton Princess, escorted by the destroyer Sultan, was inbound and would shortly be docking at Newton Station. Andrew had mentioned that Captain Stephen Mertz had an urgent message from Captain Watkins.

  As the shuttle rose through the atmosphere, Kurt couldn’t help but wonder about the message. Sometime in the next week or two, he was expecting the ships containing the defense grid to arrive. From what he understood in his original conversations with the arms dealers, they maintained a special fleet capable of moving large constructs and which would set up the grid. Of course all this came with a cost, as stated in the signed contract registered with the Controllers on Kubitz. Dolman and Grantz had both assured Kurt that the contract would be fulfilled, and he had nothing to fear from the crews assembling the grid. Dolman had also mentioned that a Controller would be on one of the ships, to ensure the contract was strictly adhered to. Of course neither Grantz nor Dolman knew about the warships. They had been purchased on a separate contract, which those two knew nothing about.

  The shuttle cleared the atmosphere, and, glancing out the viewport next to him, he could see the darkness of space studded with numerous unblinking stars. A few days earlier he had paid a visit to the medical center where Private Dulcet was recovering, and she had recognized him. Much of her memory was still jumbled, but she had known who he was. While there, he had spoken at length with Keera about Lucy’s future treatment. Keera was certain that Lucy would, in time, make a full recovery, though treating her mental state—in regard to her “work” at the pleasure house—might take some long sessions with several doctors who dealt in that type of trauma.

  A few minutes later the shuttle neared the Star Cross, which was in orbit close to Newton Station. Gazing at the shipyard, Kurt could see flashes of white light where welding arcs occasionally flared. Workers were busy on the new flight bay, installing the new weapons systems: defensive laser batteries, particle beam cannons, and the tubes for the hypermissiles. The destroyer Callisto was still attached to one section of the flight bay, just in case the shipyard needed to activate the energy shield again. Colonel Hayworth had indicated in their last meeting that, in another two to three weeks, the outer hull of the flight bay would be fully installed, plus the emitters for the energy screen. At that point the Callisto could be returned to its regular duty.

  “We’ll be docking in a few minutes,” the pilot announced over the comm system.

  Kurt leaned back and allowed himself to relax. He was alone in the passenger compartment of the small shuttle, feeling curious about what was in the message Henry had brought. It almost certainly concerned Earth and the Profiteers. He felt a cold chill run across his back. He strongly suspected that whatever was in the message wouldn’t be good news.

  Chapter Twenty

  Kurt sat in his quarters, staring, worried about the message Henry had sent him. Henry was one of Kurt’s oldest friends, and, from the contents of the message, Henry was very concerned about what was going on down on Earth. It looked to Kurt as if the Profiteers were intensifying their search for the planet’s hidden wealth, most of which was safely hidden on Newton.

  “So what’s the plan?” asked Andrew, sitting in front of Kurt’s desk.

  “President Mayfield wants us to attack the convoys immediately,” answered Kurt, with a deep sigh. “He’s afraid that the situation on Earth is about to go down the tubes.”

  “We knew it would steadily get worse, particularly when they realized much of the gold and other valuables on the planet had been removed,” responded Andrew. “What do you want to do?”

  “I’m not sure. The only problem is, a lot of the remaining gold and other valuables are still in the hands of some of the governments and particularly in the homes of numerous civilians.” Kurt leaned back, closed his eyes, and then opened them. He didn’t really want to leave Newton until the defense grid arrived. “Some civilians have massive art collections and probably millions in hidden gold and jewelry.”

  “The Carlsbad ’s conversion from exploration ship to battlecruiser will be done in another week,” Andrew commented. “Once she’s out, we could afford to send one of our battlecruisers to hit a convoy.”

  “I wish we didn’t have to weaponize all those exploration ships,” uttered Kurt despondently “Someday we might need them again for their original purpose. We never dreamed something like the Gothan Empire might be out there.” It saddened Kurt immensely, since he had always wanted to command an exploration ship and explore the galaxy with wonder and optimism, not fear.

  “When that day comes, we can build more,” Andrew answered. “They will serve us better as battlecruisers for now.”

  Kurt nodded and looked intently at Andrew. “If we were to hit a convoy and make it disappear, how would High Profiteer Creed respond?”

  After a moment of thought, Andrew said, “He’d freak out. He would want to know what happened to the convoy.”

  “Yes,” Kurt said in agreement. “He might be just concerned enough to send some of his ships orbiting Earth to search space for it.”

  “The fewer ships around Earth, the less pressure from the Profiteers in their pillaging of the planet. But how do we find the convoy once it enters hyperspace? The hyperspace buoys we’ve put around Newton and Earth can only detect a ship in hyperspace for a distance of five light-years.”

  “As you know, we partially disassembled one and integrated it into our own sensors on the Star Cross,” Kurt answered, as he tried to come up with a solution. “Ships in hyperspace can only communicate if they’re very close to one another.”

  “Seventy thousand kilometers,” Andrew replied. “That’s as far as our communications and short-range sensors will function. Any farther and communication becomes impossible, plus the sensor data is nonsense. Long-range sensors don’t work at all.”

  Kurt looked down at the message from Henry. “The Profiteers normally send one cargo ship, two detainee ships, one battlecruiser, two escort cruisers and one Dacroni battleship in each convoy.”

  “From what Fleet Admiral Tomalson has relayed to us through the stealth shuttles we have operating, a convoy leaves each month,” Andrew said, his brow creasing in a frown. “That should be any day now. Should we try for that one? Not only would we be throwing a wrench into High Profiteer Creed’s plans but we’d be getting some of our gold back.”

  “We don’t know if they monitor hyperspace for potential threats,” Kurt said, as he unconsciously drummed the fingers of his right hand on his desk. “We would have to follow them, wait until they drop from hyperspace, then jump in, disable the drives on the cargo ship and the detainee ships.”

  “What about the warships?” Andrew asked with a frown. “They won’t be all that easy to take out.”

  “Hypermissiles,” Kurt answered. “If we can hit them before their shields come online, we could take them out.”

  “That’s a big if,” Andrew said, shaking his head doubtfully. “If I were to lay money on it, I would say the Dacroni battleship is bound to have some type of hyperspace sensors. It may also be several days before they drop from hyperspace. How far do we follow them?”

  “I think it’s a risk we have to take,” answered Kurt, reaching a decision. “We’ll take the Dallas and the Johnas with us, and, if necessary, we’ll follow them clear back to the Gothan Empire.”

  “What about the Profiteers’ cargo ship and the detainee ships?” asked Andrew, realizing Kurt intended to take the Star Cross. “If we succeed in taking out their hyperspace drives, they’ll be stuck in whatever system they’re in.”

  “Once we’ve secured the enemy ships, we send back one of our light cruisers to return with our own cargo ship and several passenger liners for the captives.”

  Andrew was silent as he mulled over Kurt’s plan. “I don’t see anything else we can do,” he said finally. “If the warships get their shields up, we could lose the Star Cross and the two light cruisers
.”

  “I know,” answered Kurt in a solemn voice. “I’ll contact Rear Admiral Wilson and tell him of my decision, and I’ll also speak with Governor Spalding. If you want to go to Newton for the rest of the day to be with your family, you have my permission to do so.” Kurt knew that Andrew had been spending as much time as possible with his wife and daughter. They’d found a house close to where Denise and her family lived.

  “If we’re leaving tomorrow, I have too much work that needs to be taken care of,” replied Andrew, shaking his head. “Emily will understand. I know Lieutenant Mays could probably handle it, but I’d feel better if I took care of the details.”

  “At least give them a call,” Kurt suggested. “We may be gone for a week or two.” Kurt intended on speaking to Denise and, of course, Bryan. Anytime Kurt called, the inquisitive six-year-old demanded to be part of the conversation. He would also talk to Keera and let her know he would be gone for a while.

  -

  “Let me go with you,” suggested Keera over the private comm channel Kurt had set up in his quarters. “With my medical history I could be useful in case of casualties.”

  “Thanks for the offer,” Kurt replied, “but we have a shipboard doctor, and he’s pretty protective of his turf.”

  “I can understand that,” Keera responded. “But has he ever treated injuries from the weapons the Profiteers and the Dacroni mercenaries have? I’m talking about energy weapons that will burn completely through a body. I’ve treated those injuries before.”

  Kurt was very tempted to agree to Keera going, but the Star Cross was a warship and no place for civilians. “No, Keera,” he said firmly. “I want you here, helping Lucy. When we return, if your medical expertise is needed, I’ll give you a call.”

  The comm was silent for a moment, and then Keera spoke. “I thought you would say that. I’ll be here when you get back. Just be careful and don’t do anything too daring. Keep in mind that the Dacroni are trained mercenaries and know how to fight.”