The Dotari Salvation (Terran Strike Marines Book 1)

by Richard Fox

  “Sir, the Breitenfeld has come to a complete stop within the Crucible,” Lancer said.

  “XO, status report,” he said to Egan, standing to his right.

  “Yes, of course, Admiral. Right away.” Egan’s hands flew across his control panel. The view screen showed only one part of the Crucible and the Barca, a recently refitted corvette now attached to the Breitenfeld’s hull, blocked a corner of this particular camera view. “The Barca sends that she’s secure against the hull.”

  A small fleet of escort ships sped away from the Crucible. The timing of this jump would send the Breitenfeld into deep space while the gate orbited on the far side of Ceres, blocking line of sight from Earth and Luna. So far as the solar system knew, Valdar’s ship was still somewhere around Saturn on maneuvers. The mission was still largely a secret.

  “We’ll miss the Terra Nova mission,” Egan said. “Just occurred to me.”

  “Such is our duty,” Valdar said. “I had the chance to see Hale and his family a few days ago and say my goodbyes.”

  “You told him about this?” the XO asked.

  “He still has his clearance. And who’s he going to tell in the Canis Major dwarf galaxy? He gets to lead a lucky group of colonists to some untouched garden world beyond the reach of all the problems in the Milky Way. But if there’s anyone on Earth that deserves such a break, it’s him,” Valdar said.

  “You could have gone with him,” Egan said.

  “And who would take care of the Breitenfeld? Speaking of, double-check the atmo seals on deck nineteen. They’ve been sending bad readings for weeks.”

  “Admiral Valdar,” said Ensign Nichols, the communications officer, “we have a confirmed IR link for President Garret’s message.”

  “Very good, Ensign Nichols. Send the transmission to my tank.”

  The president of the Terran Union came up on a screen in the holo tank, looking healthier and a bit more robust than during the final years of the Ember War. “Valdar, nice to see you back in action,” Garret said. “Couldn’t risk you or your ship on the front lines after the war ended. But this mission suits you.”

  “It’s been some time since we made a jump. The engineers swear the enormous amount of mass we’re carrying on the flight decks won’t affect our transit, but we’ll maneuver like a barge with a fishing boat’s engine until we can unload the Grinder. Bad enough I had to leave my fighters behind to make the thing fit in the hull. I’ve been training officers for years, and I would never teach them to jump into an unknown situation like this.”

  “The Dotari will be tickled pink to see you,” Garret said, “or your Dotari advisors at any rate. This is a milk run, Valdar. Don’t overcomplicate it. Besides, Earth needs the good press after the fight on Cygnus.”

  “Yes, Mr. President,” Valdar said.

  “See you soon.” Garret cut the transmission.

  Valdar returned to his command chair and the bridge but did not sit down. He felt the eyes of his crew as he looked out the windows to the massive basalt-colored spikes that made up the jump gate. It had been a long time since he and his ship had made a journey like this. Memories of Takeni—where the Breitenfeld had jumped into the planet’s upper atmosphere and right into a battle—grasped at the edge of his mind.

  I may be too old for this, he thought.

  “Admiral, Keeper sends the gate is ready,” Egan said.

  Valdar nodded slowly.

  “All stations make ready for jump.” Valdar buckled himself into his seat and donned his helmet. Doubts were for him alone. He would never let his crew see him waver.

  “Once more unto the breach, dear friend.” Valdar tapped his armrest and watched as the Crucible’s spikes shifted against each other and a field of white light engulfed his ship.

  ****

  “That was a rough one,” Ensign Lancer said as his hands moved across two control panels and his eyes tracked data from a holo screen. “My apologies, Admiral.”

  Valdar massaged the back of his neck as he got out of his seat a bit slower than usual and went to the holo tank. “No need, Conn. I’m still a blue-navy man at heart, but I have it on good authority that not even veteran spacers get used to the feeling.”

  Smiling despite the sour taste in his mouth, nodding despite the transitional vertigo, he maintained the air of authority while ignoring the gut-wrenching feeling that lingered after every wormhole jump. The years since his last experience with quantum wormholes had not made the experience any more pleasant.

  “Initial scans confirm we’re in deep space,” Ensign Lancer said. “Would you look at that? We’re a hundred light years from the nearest star with a Crucible gate.”

  “Right on target, then,” Valdar said.

  Polite laughter rippled through the bridge crew.

  “We’re pulling the pulsar feed now,” Ensign Lancer said.

  “Go hot on all sensors. We’re not here to be subtle. Find the Dotari fleet. Spare me the science tour of the void. If we’re in the right place—and it’ll be a long day if we’re not—those ships should be the only thing out here that are remotely interesting,” Valdar said. He pulled data feeds up on his control panels and brought them into the holo tank with a swipe of his fingers.

  “XO? Report.”

  Egan cleared his throat as he called up various readouts on his holo workstation. “She took a fair amount of stress coming through. We’re carrying a high amount of mass in addition to the corvette, and if we’d made that jump anywhere near a gravity well, the hull might have sheared apart. We really did jump a long way.”

  “How bad?” Valdar asked.

  “Some buckling to the frame around the flight decks…damage-control teams are looking it over, but it looks like the ship can handle some acceleration. Say half ahead with all engines. We push any faster, something could buckle.”

  “Weapons?”

  “Rail cannons are online. We need to run some simulations against the stress a broadside would put against the ship. I don’t recommend getting into a fight just yet,” Egan said.

  Elevator doors opened and the Dotari ambassador, Bol’gan, moved awkwardly onto the bridge. Valdar could spot someone unused to vac suits easily enough, even if they weren’t human.

  “Didn’t I tell you to keep him off my bridge?” Valdar signed at Egan.

  “Diplomatic immunity.” Egan shrugged.

  Bol’gan came up to Valdar and pressed the side of his body against the admiral’s. Of all the cultural quirks he’d encountered with the Dotari, it was their concept of personal space—or lack thereof—that bothered him. The ambassador spoke rapidly, his words muffled by his helmet. Valdar removed his helmet and the Dotari’s eyes widened. The ambassador struggled with his helmet for a moment before Valdar unlatched it from the neck ring for him.

  “My apologies to your security soldiers, Admiral. They kept nagging me about remaining in my seat until you called for me. I may have used a few untranslatable euphemisms as I made my way past them. As if I’d miss this glorious event. A Golden Fleet! One of the first to leave Dotari and I simply must be here to speak with them. I’ve been brushing up on the old higher-caste dialects…where is the fleet?” Bol’gan reached into the holo tank and began moving data feeds around. Valdar grabbed him by the wrist and put his hand onto the edge of the tank.

  “We’re still doing the initial sensor intake,” Valdar said through gritted teeth, regretting that he couldn’t have the ambassador thrown off his bridge nor break his fingers for fooling with the displays. “That’s why I wanted you to wait before coming onto the bridge. My bridge.”

  “Admiral,” Ensign Lancer said. “We’ve got something. Putting it on the main holo now.”

  Bol’gan let off a high trill that made Valdar wince. In the tank, tiny green icons came up. A dozen ships appeared…then almost twenty more. Valdar frowned. The Dotari said the Golden Fleets numbered barely ten ships.

  “How fast are the contacts moving?” Valdar asked.

  “So many
ships!” Bol’gan’s quills jumped up like the hair on the back of a startled cat. He smoothed them down with a swipe of his hand and tapped on the control panel with the other. One icon grew larger, forming into a wire diagram of a vessel of Dotari design. “Many more than our records promised. That…that ship is larger than the Canticle of Reason! There must be hundreds of thousands of Dotari. Many times more than on the home world. This is a glorious and welcome surprise!”

  “I’ve never had a surprise I liked during a mission,” Valdar said. “XO, get the Grinder lead engineer up here now.”

  “Aye aye.” Egan ran fingertips down a panel and put his other hand to an earpiece.

  The elevator opened again and a contingent of Dotari hustled onto the bridge. They spoke to each other in their native language, which struck Valdar as birdsong mixed with lizard hisses. They crowded around Valdar and patted him on the back, shaking his arms in happiness.

  “Gentlemen…” Valdar elbowed the Dotari away, but they pressed in closer. “Gentle—son of a bitch.” He pulled one hand up, clamped it onto Bol’gan’s shoulder, and looked into the ambassador’s eyes.

  “Get. Them. Away from me,” Valdar said.

  Bol’gan nodded quickly and made a quick trill. The rest of the Dotari lined up on the bulkhead.

  Valdar kept his grip on the alien and looked at Egan.

  “How fast are they moving, XO?”

  “Calculating the velocity now,” Egan said. “Fast. Almost three kilometers a second relative to us. We’re close to their projected course and could make intercept in…now the math gets tricky.”

  “Hail them,” Valdar said. “Use the frequencies the Dotari gave us and first-contact protocols as well.”

  “My apologies, Admiral,” Bol’gan said, bowing his head slightly. He faced the team of scientists and Dotari VIPs. “What we’ve found is beyond our wildest expectations. Imagine if you came across an island full of humans that survived the Xaros occupation of Earth. This is an incredible moment.”

  “There were no survivors,” Valdar said. “And on Earth, we advise not to count chickens before they’ve hatched. If we can’t get those ships to stop, we’ll never get them back to Dotari.”

  “My greatest apologies, Admiral Valdar,” Bol’gan said. He rattled off stern Dotari words until the others looked chastened.

  “Conn, set us on course to merge with the fleet, best speed as the ship’s frame can handle,” Valdar said.

  “Aye aye. It’ll take three days before they’re within visual range,” Ensign Lancer said.

  “XO, give me an update,” Valdar said.

  “The Dotari fleet is not responding to our hails,” Egan said.

  Silence gripped the humans and Dotari. The only sounds for several seconds were the mechanical whispering of the Breitenfeld’s computers, grav plates, and atmosphere regulators.

  Bol’gan shifted restlessly, then spread his hands before talking. “The crew and passengers are in stasis. The ship’s computers should awaken an emergency response team to anything that could affect the fleet.”

  “I assume getting hailed by a warship in the middle of deep space qualifies,” Valdar said.

  “Being hailed by an alien fleet certainly meets the criteria.” Bol’gan held Valdar’s gaze almost defensively, as though he didn’t want to make eye contact with his own team. “It may take them some time to respond.”

  “Egan, prep the corvette. Maybe the Dotari will stop hitting the snooze button before the Barca is ready. Maybe they won’t,” Valdar said.

  As Bol’gan looked at the other Dotari and chattered with them, Valdar picked up the word “snooze” being bandied back and forth, but he pretended not to hear.

  He faced Egan and the other officers of the Breitenfeld. “We still have lots of work to do. First priority is to make contact.”

  Chapter 7

  Hoffman led the way into the access tube connecting the Breitenfeld to the corvette. His team was silent—everyone gazing through the small portals at the exterior of the carrier as they left her. Few ships had seen more action or earned greater honors, though none of the battle scars remained.

  The Barca looked much worse for wear. Scuttlebutt was that the ship had come off the line from fighting around Cygnus, given quick repairs in orbit around Ceres, then attached to the rescue mission before the weary crew could enjoy shore leave after a combat deployment. Hoffman and his Marines could relate.

  His team followed him through the final coupling and into the wonky gravity of the corvette. The lighting felt grim and the paint had a gray texture of antiquity. Hoffman shrugged as the straps of his pack pressed against his shoulder. He and his team carried a fair amount of gear, as there was no way to tell what exactly they’d need once the Barca left the Breitenfeld.

  Hoffman felt his stomach twist and decided he needed to relax. He and his team were made for this, he thought, as the details of Bradford’s quick briefing a few hours ago still ran through his mind. The Breitenfeld would merge with the unresponsive Dotari fleet in a few days. In the meantime, the Barca would cross the gap, burning hard to catch the silent derelicts and board the largest vessel to make contact with the crew.

  King had been riding the team hard. Every spare moment was filled with ship-boarding drills, close-quarters tactics, and constant equipment checks. Hoffman had heard his Marines grumble that they were looking forward to the acceleration chairs; at least then they could finally sleep. For the first time since New Bastion, Hoffman detected signs of unit cohesion. Misery had that effect on Marines.

  Just a stride or two behind him, the grumbling started. He performed one of a platoon leader’s greatest magic tricks…watching and listening without appearing to watch or listen. Hoffman led the team into the cargo bay of the Barca, which was full of acceleration chairs arrayed around a hatch in the middle of the deck, affectionately known as the hellhole.

  “I always liked the idea of corvettes,” Adams said, not quite smacking her gum as she talked. “Just big enough to get out into space and get lost.”

  Garrison grunted. “I told you I don’t like the ship-to-ship stuff.”

  “Dude, you never tell a fellow Marine your deepest, darkest fears.” Max moved around each seat in the infantry deployment bay of the corvette conducting a safety check on harness, digital readouts, and general wear and tear. “This bucket of bolts should’ve been retired years ago.” He held up a strap. “Gunney, does this look frayed to you?”

  King grunted and shook his head. “Put Opal or Garrison in that one.”

  “Opal hold Garrison inside,” Opal said.

  “Forget about that,” Garrison said. “I’m more worried about that ugly-looking hatch. Don’t lie and say you’re not.”

  Adams sauntered closer to the heavily armored hatch. “Just a hellhole. Like one on an air-assault-configured Mule. Don’t you like to fast-rope into hot landing zones?”

  Hoffman shuddered at the memory of his last grav-cushioned landing. He felt King look at him even though he was facing away from the gunnery sergeant.

  “Fast-rope into an LZ, you’ve got something to stop your fall. Screw the pooch on a void assault, you’re floating in nothing, contemplating your poor life decisions until your air runs out. You keep floating after that. Then maybe aliens find your body millions of years later and they wonder what kind of a dumbass decided to go for a walk in space,” Garrison said, needlessly checking his gear for the tenth time.

  “You think too much,” Adams said.

  “That’s never occurred to you?” Garrison asked.

  “Not until now. Asshole.”

  Other Strike Marine teams moved into the bay, checking seats and equipment with about the same amount of foul language and nervous banter.

  Hoffman continued into a cramped hallway that connected the habitable compartments of the Barca, pausing until the door shut behind him.

  “Welcome to hell in a tin can,” he muttered.

  Reinforced bulkheads should have offered co
mfort; instead, they emphasized the deadly consequences of a hull breach. Rows of insulated, armored pipes lined the corners near the floor and ceiling. Scuffed paint designated this four-meter-long hallway the “blue corridor,” which connected to the “green corridor.”

  Everything led to the tactical command center just behind the cockpit and engineering center/engine room.

  As Captain Bradford and the other three platoon leaders—Fallon, Camp, and Eisenbeis—waited impatiently, sweat beaded on Bradford’s forehead. The aristocratic powerhouse held Hoffman’s gaze for a time, his mouth a perpetual frown that meant he was addressing his least favorite officer in the Terran Strike Marines. “Your team is taking this mission seriously, I hope?”

  “They’re Marines,” Hoffman responded.

  “That’s arguable,” Fallon said.

  Captain Bradford snorted.

  Eisenbeis remained stoically neutral. As far as Hoffman could tell, the captain neither loved nor hated them. It was an easy arrangement, since all the crap jobs on this deployment went to Hoffman and his team by default.

  Hoffman watched the other officers and catalogued every detail of the room.

  “Problem?” Eisenbeis asked Camp.

  “I’d feel better in a Breitenfeld acceleration seat for the first high-G burn,” Camp said.

  “Can that ship pull g’s that high? That may be an option for you, but wait for the briefing. I’m not going through this twice if I can help it. The Barca has plenty of crash seats…” Eisenbeis said.

  Standing next to Bradford was a short Dotari, the captain’s high-ranking aide, who shuddered in relief, his quills rippling like a wave. “Why are they called ‘crash seats’? Crash seats do not seem fortuitous.” His gear was new and meticulously set up. “I am both nervous and excited to be part of this historic mission, especially since good fortune has assigned me to you, Captain Bradford.”

  Hoffman politely ignored the captain’s Dotari aide and focused on his fellow team leaders. He didn’t disagree with Camp—or Garrison, for that matter—on this one. Corvettes were big enough to run missions on their own and often got left behind to take care of this or that. Strike Marines often hitched a ride on the small ships.