Embers of War (Adventures of the Starship Satori Book 8)

by Kevin McLaughlin

  "Majel, can you give Hereford a ping and tell him I'd like a word, please?" Beth asked aloud.

  "Of course. What's up?"

  "I'm thinking that we haven't been given all of the details about this mission, and I have a few pointed questions to ask," Beth replied.

  "Curious. I see what you're saying. Scanning the manifests, the supply lists seem strange given the mission," Majel said. "Oh - something else. I think we have an unexpected guest on board."

  "Who? Is he a threat?" Beth asked. She scanned the cargo bay, looking for a sign that someone had snuck aboard without authorization. The base was as secure as they could make it, but one person could make a hell of a lot of trouble for them all once they were in space. One saboteur could do enormous damage.

  “I don't think he's a threat,” Majel said. “I’m uncertain why he is here, though. Look at the worker carrying the oval crate to your three o'clock.”

  Beth glanced where Majel had directed her eyes. Two people were hauling the crate, but one of them was not a man. Majel had said ‘he’, so that left her out. That left the other one. As Beth watched, he helped the woman set the box down and then stood again, keeping his eyes cast low, head tilted down. Between that and the cap he wore, she couldn't get a good look at his face. He was trying to avoid the cameras getting a good look at him, too. Not a good sign.

  ”He's good, but not as good as I am,” Majel said, sounding almost smug. “You can tell him that when you go talk to him.”

  “I think I'm going to call security first. No sense taking chances,” Beth said.

  “Oh, I think we should talk to him ourselves first,” Majel replied.

  Beth was about to ask why, but before she could open her mouth the man's head turned just enough for her to get a quick glimpse of his face. She gasped.

  “Yeah, it’s Andy,” Majel said.

  “What the hell is he doing here? Why not just come up and say hello? Why all the cloak and dagger?” Beth asked aloud.

  “All good questions,” Majel said.

  “Time for some answers,” Beth replied. She started toward Andy. He didn’t notice her at first. He was busy making his way back toward the ramp, presumably to grab the next load. She went closer, coming up alongside him where he wouldn't be apt to see her right away.

  “You there, come with me. I need your help with something upstairs,” Beth said. She snagged Andy not too gently by the arm as she spoke. “Right now.”

  He looked into her eyes before darting a glance around the room at the other workers. But none of them seemed to notice anything amiss. Yet. If he made a fuss it would draw attention, and they both knew it. Andy nodded, not saying a word, and followed Beth to the ladder.

  Six

  Beth hauled Andy aside, leading him into the lift. No sense taking the ladder this time. She wanted to attract as little attention as possible until she knew what he was up to. He’d gone to lengths disguising himself. Andy’s usually close-cropped hair was about three inches long now, and he’d gone from clean-shaven to a short beard. The workman’s cap completed the disguise. Anyone who didn’t know the man well would never have placed him as the head of a multi-billion-dollar conglomerate. Whatever he was up to, Andy didn’t want anyone to know about it. Beth trusted him - they’d been through enough together for him to earn that. But she needed to know what this was about.

  As soon as the elevator doors slid shut, she rounded on him. “You want to tell me what the hell is going on?”

  “You have somewhere secure?” Andy asked.

  “Majel?” Beth said to the air.

  “Full security lockdown in place on the conference room. I’ve cut all lines and recordings except my own memories, and those are as secure as I can make them,” Majel replied.

  “Good enough?” Beth asked.

  Andy nodded. The elevator stopped, the doors sliding open. Beth peered down the hall, but there was no one present. She hustled Andy down the corridor and into the meeting room, then locked the door behind her.

  “OK, we’re secure. What is this about?” Beth said. “Why are you sneaking aboard my ship?”

  Andy sighed and settled into a seat. “I should have known you’d spot me.”

  “Majel spotted you first,” Beth said. “Stop changing the subject.”

  “I wasn’t trying to cause trouble. What do you know about this mission you’re going on?” he asked.

  “We’re dropping off a survey team to Dust,” Beth replied. Even as she said the words, she doubted their accuracy. The stuff being loaded onto the Satori wasn’t the usual equipment for a short survey mission. The gear list was way to comprehensive. Large food supplies, the 3D printer, the amount of weapons and medical gear…it all said that this mission was planned for a lot more than a week or two.

  “The look on your face alone tells me that you don’t really believe that,” Andy said.

  “So why don’t you tell us what’s actually going on?” Majel asked.

  “I’ve been keeping myself busy getting John’s company humming along, you know?” Andy asked. “But that also meant staying involved in what the government was doing about space. We’re supplying a lot of the parts for the new space fleet, for example. That’s given me a lot of contacts in places where decisions are being made.”

  “When I heard about a mission proposed for Dust, my ears perked up and I went diving for more information. I found out that Charline was involved in the mission, and that got me very interested,” Andy said.

  Not really a shock. Andy and Charline weren’t precisely an item, but Beth had seen the way the two of them looked at one another. They were the next best thing. If Beth heard that Dan was potentially headed off on some sort of dangerous mission, she’d be more than a little interested - even though their relationship pretty much defined ‘complicated’.

  “So you snuck aboard the Satori to find out more?” Beth asked.

  “No. I found out more on my own. This isn’t a survey mission,” Andy said, confirming what Beth already supposed. “They’re building an alpha site.”

  “A what?” Beth asked.

  “Alpha site. That’s what the project is called, anyway. A backup for the Earth,” Andy explained. “Or for humanity, anyway. Tucked away on another planet. That run-in with the Naga scared the shit out of Earth’s leaders. We almost lost everything there. We almost lost all eight billion people on the planet. If John hadn’t saved the day at the last minute, it would have meant humanity’s extinction.”

  “It is a colony site, then,” Majel said. “The quantity and type of materials being loaded suggested that as a possibility.”

  “A colony. A backup. A way for humans to survive even if the Earth is wiped out entirely,” Andy said.

  “But why Dust? Why right in the Naga’s back yard?” Beth asked.

  It didn’t make a lot of sense. Dust was about as inhospitable as you could get. The planet was a desert. The oceans had been covered with a black goo bio-weapon - a living bacterium which reproduced rapidly in water and covered the entire ocean surface with a mat of dark, sticky stuff. The result was the utter demolition of the planetary ecosystem. Without oceanic evaporation, rainfall shut down. Without rain, the planet just dried up and became a dust-bowl. Thus the name.

  Once upon a time, there had been a civilization of some sort thriving on the planet. There were ruins on the surface. But a long time ago the Naga had shelled the cities, blasting most of them to bits. They’d used the bio-weapon to effectively ‘salt the earth’ of the world, ensuring that nothing would be able to come back again. Then they’d built an array of satellites over the world, armed to the teeth and ready to blow up anything which tried to come near.

  “How many planets do we know for sure have a breathable atmosphere?” Andy said.

  “Not many,” Beth admitted. It still seemed like a terrible risk, to place the ‘back up’ colony right in the middle of a tightly controlled Naga world. Even if there were no Naga there, the satellites would still be ab
le to pick up any energy emissions from the planet’s surface.

  "The Naga don't seem to go there often," Andy said. "They circled it with satellites, but they've never moved onto the planet themselves. It's like they want to maintain it as a no-fly zone, but don't want to actually colonize it themselves. So a hidden human colony there might just work."

  “They plan to dig in, don’t they?” Majel asked.

  Andy nodded. “Precisely. Dig down, build subterranean complexes, and create a hive colony right under the Nagas’ noses. If the worst happens, it gives humanity a second chance at survival. Plus, they’re hoping the planet might be better now if the black crap is gone.”

  “It’s one hell of a slim chance,” Beth said. “We don’t even know if the stuff we spread there worked or not.”

  The last time the Satori visited Dust had been over seven months prior. They’d brought with them a possible cure for the bacterial mats covering the oceans. It looked like it might work, like the bug they’d engineered might be able to chew through the stuff and release the water into the atmosphere again. If it worked, who knew what the world might look like now? But it was a long shot. They’d only had a small sample to release and no way to spread it widely.

  “They’re desperate. Anything that might stop the Naga from wiping out humanity by tossing another rock at Earth is worth a try, from their point of view,” Andy said. “Even if it means potentially throwing away two hundred people on a colony that has a snowball’s chance in hell of surviving.”

  “Two hundred?” Beth exclaimed. How was she going to transport all of those…? She thought about the math for a moment. They could do it. Just barely, but they could squeeze everyone aboard for a short jump and landing. If anything went wrong, if the ship was attacked or damaged in any way, it could result in catastrophic casualties though.

  "You're here for Charline, aren't you," Majel said. It wasn't phrased as a question.

  Andy nodded. "She's been assigned as mission commander. Once she gets there, she'll open sealed orders which will appoint her governor for the new colony, at least until she is replaced. I couldn't...I can’t..."

  "You can't just let her go there alone," Beth finished for him. "But Andy, what about John's companies? Without you to run them, what happens to them?"

  Andy laughed. "They pretty much run themselves with or without me. I've handled all of the major issues with the transition, and the teams in place are doing a good job. I could use the vacation."

  "I doubt very much that living on Dust is going to be a vacation, even if it turns out to be for a short time," Beth said. "If things go bad, and you end up stuck there?"

  "Then I'll be alive, and helping Charline stay that way," Andy said. "I can't let them send her off into this kind of danger without helping."

  Beth leaned back, tapping her chin in thought. Would she do the same thing for Dan, if she knew that he was headed into trouble? She rather thought that she would. In fact, when he'd been captured she'd risked losing the Satori trying to save him.

  "I get where you're coming from, but the risk is insane," Beth said.

  "Charline will be risking it. Let me be there to share it with her," Andy said.

  Beth sighed. "Majel, what do you think?"

  "Having Andy alone improves Charline's odds of surviving the experience," Majel said. "I like her. I like him. They like each other. I think it makes sense for them to want to be together."

  The matter-of-fact way Majel made sense of the whole thing, cutting through all of the questions with simple facts, made Beth chuckle. Trust Majel to know just what to say.

  "All right, Andy. You can come. I'll stick you in my quarters for now. You'll be safe there. If you keep hanging out with the loading crews, someone is going to recognize you sooner or later," Beth said. "Best to stay out of sight."

  "Thanks," Andy said. He stood up from the table. "You won't regret this."

  "Are you kidding? I'm already regretting it," Beth said with a laugh. "But it won't be the first time I've done something under the radar, and I doubt it will be the last. Just be careful out there."

  "I will."

  Beth stood. She would lead him down to her room, lock the door to keep anyone but herself out. She'd been planning to go have a chat with General Hereford about the nature of the mission after seeing what was being loaded aboard the Satori. Now she'd need to keep her mouth shut. No sense spilling to Hereford that Andy had told her more than she could have known about the proposed colony. Beth play along with it for the moment at least. But there was no way she would abandon her friends out there.

  Seven

  Dan crossed his arms, watching the timer count down to the moment when he would have to reply to the Naga. While many of the Air Force staff who'd worked on repairing and refitting the battlecruisers had gained some basic familiarity with the alien language, no human could speak it. Yet, anyway. Dan had already decided he was going to practice as often as he could, using Majel's translation software as a learning tool. They couldn't afford to rely just on tech. He needed to be able to speak to the Naga with his voice, too.

  But he had little grasp of the language beyond a few simple words. The translator would have to do for this first message. What precisely that message ought to be was under discussion. Dan swore there had to be a committee down at the capitol working on new ways to make this more frustrating for him.

  He read the current draft aloud. "Greetings from Earth. We send this message in the hope of peaceful and harmonious communication between our people. We regret any actions we did which encouraged hostility between our races, and we will offer to give back the Naga we captured as a goodwill gesture in the hopes of peace."

  Dan shook his head slowly. "I don't think they understand the Naga at all."

  "You read that bit of shit, you're going to send the Naga a pretty clear message," Martelle replied, shaking his head. "The Naga are about strength, right? A predator race? You don't show your belly to a predator."

  "If I throw out their 'suggestions', the folks downstairs may not take it well," Dan said.

  "The President ordered you into this seat. Not someone else - you. He put you there because you can do the job best, or he thinks you can, anyway," Martelle said.

  The countdown was about out of time. Replying wasn't something they could stall, either. Not with a threat of another Naga invasion coming at them. Somehow Dan needed to talk their way out of this, but not by sounding weak. He needed to make Earth appear strong.

  Dan tapped the console, and the instrumentation hummed to life. It was human-made computers, connecting to a Naga core system. Somehow the Naga could manage communication which wasn't just faster than light - it was effectively instant. The engineers said it was a quantum entanglement communications protocol. Two atoms with the same quantum state in different locations would both change if either one changed. Change one, and change both. This would in theory allow communication between very distant points.

  But it was a hell of a lot more complex than that, which was why humanity had never managed to get beyond the theoretical point on such devices. How would you dial into a new station? Was there some central hub routing calls out to the ships where they were meant to go?

  For this call understanding the technology didn't matter. Dan had the call-back address for the people who'd sent the ultimatum: reply or they were sending more ships. To Dan, that read like the Naga had figured out that Garul probably wasn't in charge anymore. They wanted him back, though. Enough that they were willing to make threats over it. Dan pressed the button to open the channel.

  "This is Lieutenant Colonel Dan Wynn, captain of the Earth ship Independence. Garul is our prisoner for criminal attacks against our planet. Any further incursions into our solar systems will be met with force. Acknowledge receipt of message."

  Martelle coughed, loud and hard. Dan took his finger off the button, stopping the broadcast.

  "Something stuck in your throat, Colonel?" Dan asked. He let his gri
n leak out one side of his mouth a little.

  "Almost made me inhale my coffee instead of drinking it," Martelle said. "Be interesting to see what they reply with."

  "Oh, for sure," Dan said, leaning back in his seat. The message board lit up like a Christmas tree, but it wasn't the Naga calling. It was Earth. Dan watched as twelve lines all opened up at about the same moment. It looked like someone downstairs was not especially happy. Well, they could deal with it. If they'd wanted to do this job, they should have come up to do it themselves rather than hand it to him.

  He was right, though. Dan had a good sense of how the Naga responded. They would see weakness as a sign that they should strike. Other personnel on the ship could handle the radio traffic from Earth. Dan watched the board for the tell-tale flashing yellow of an incoming quantum signal. Long moments passed. Nothing happened, and Dan began to wonder if he'd blown it after all.

  "Give them time. Some random foot soldier in a Naga base just got a threatening message from a deadly warrior-leader of another planet," Martelle said. "It's gonna take them a few minutes to get the right person on the phone."

  As it turned out, it took more than a few. Dan was left sweating, wondering what their answer would be, for almost ten minutes before a reply came through.

  "I am Warlord Chektak. I assume I am speaking to a mammal of some rank?" The voice was still coming through from the translator in a cultured British accent. Dan was going to have to find a way to reset that. It was messing with his head trying to connect that voice with one of the brutal reptilian people.

  "You are. I am Captain Wynn," he replied. While he was still waiting for the reply, he'd been hoping the Naga would hurry up and say something. Now that they had, he was longing for the silence and calm of a few moments before.

  "Captain Wynn, you are holding some of our people. We demand they be restored to us immediately," Chektak said.