How Far the Stars (The Star Scout Saga Book 5)
Page 27
Everyone turned to stare at him and in response, he shrugged. “You know, kinda like when you pass gas, and you flap your hand behind you to dissipate the smell.”
“Sami,” TJ pointed out in a tart voice, “that’s not only gross but nonsensical as well.”
“Might be to you,” Sami insisted. “Makes perfect sense to me.”
Nase stepped forward to stare at Sami before turning to the others. “Much as I hate to agree with him, he actually has a point.”
“I do?” Sami replied in a surprised tone.
“How so?” Rosberg asked. “I fail to see the connection.”
“May I suggest,” Nase answered, “that we’ve been looking at this from the wrong perspective? We’ve been considering the problem as one from the outside in. Perhaps, we should reverse our point of view.”
“You mean, look at it from the inside out?” Jadar questioned.
“That’s right,” Nase answered.
Dason peered at Nase with a questioning expression before it dawned on him what Nase was suggesting. He turned to his father, and the two stared at each other before both spoke almost in perfect unison. “Of course, inside out.”
His father was nodding and smiling at Nase. “Inside out,” Deklon repeated in an excited voice, “and with one big wind.”
Dason slapped Nase on the back. “Great job, great idea, scout.”
He spun around to Sami. “Sami,” he remarked with a grin, “I have no idea how that brain of yours works, but sometimes you come up with the most brilliant ideas.”
“I do?” Sami again asked with a blank look.
“Sorry to interrupt the back slapping,” Rosberg spoke up in a testy voice, “but would one of you care to explain it to the two of us?”
“Sorry, sir,” Deklon replied and pulled Dason with him. The two stepped up to Rosberg and Stannick and quietly laid out their idea.
Rosberg and Stannick listened with intent expressions, Rosberg’s eyes flashing from Deklon to Dason.
When they finished, Rosberg stared at the two of them before running a hand through his silver gray hair. “In another time and place I’d say that was about the most cockamamie idea I’ve ever heard and chew you both out for wasting my time.
“However, I admit, it’s the best cockamamie idea that I’ve heard yet.”
He glanced over at Stannick. “What do you think, Cait? Everything would depend on whether or not your ships can blast a hole big enough through the Mongan interdiction screen.”
“Not only that,” Stannick answered dryly, “but we’d have to protect her practically all the way down to the planet’s surface.”
“Even if you succeeded in doing that,” Rosberg replied, “you’d have to fight your way out, and you’d be racing against the clock.”
The two old friends stared at each other for several seconds, each knowing what was at stake, each recognizing the sacrifices that would have to be made for the plan to succeed.
“Well then,” Stannick sighed, “I guess I best get my battle staff working. We’ve got a lot to do in the meantime for this to work.”
She started to turn away but stopped. “You’ll let me if you come up with something better, right?”
Rosberg’s tiny smile lifted one corner of his mouth. “Of course, Cait, you’ll be the first to know. And I’ll brief the SlipSter, give them time to work out their end of things.”
She gave them a curt nod and strode away. Rosberg turned and a fond expression crossed his face as he gazed at his scouts.
He started to speak and then stopped. His eyes glistened and his mouth seemed to quiver before he managed to swallow, and took several steps so that he stood close to the assembled scouts.
In unison, they moved forward so that they ringed him, a sign of their respect and admiration for this man who had dedicated his life, his very being to the Scout Corps and to the Oath.
“Well,” he began in a raspy voice, “it’s about time for us to load up. I suppose that a great leader would have a rousing or inspirational speech to give that would fire the troops up, but I’m afraid I don’t have such a speech ready.”
He stopped and drew in a deep breath, his eyes going from one solemn but affectionate face to another. “I guess what I really want to say is how proud I am of all of you.
“I don’t know if what happens today will ever be known, ever be recorded, or passed on to the generations to come. But what I do know is that we will know that no matter what happened, we stayed true to ourselves, to each other, and to the Oath.
“Star Scouts to the very end, walking one Last Trail together.”
He reached out his hand, and all the other scouts clasped a hand over his. “Good hunting,” he whispered. “Scouts Out.”
With one voice the group sang out, “Scouts Out, sir,” and began filing away to board the waiting Zephyrs. Dason motioned for his team to make their way to their ship. “I’ll be along in a second,” he commented.
He waited for his father and uncle to join him in the passageway. The two approached Dason with warm eyes. Jadar stepped up first, gave Dason a firm hug. “Remember, when this is all over, you and I have a lot of catching up to do.”
Dason warmly hugged his uncle back. “Yes sir, a lot of catching up to do,” Dason murmured. Jadar gave Dason a quick slap on the back and slipped away.
Dason turned to his father who stepped close and smiled, his eyes full of affection. “Seems as though we’re always saying goodbye, going this way and that.”
“I know, Dad,” Dason answered, his voice choking on his words.
Deklon met Dason’s eyes. “Dason, I am so sorry that we’ve never had the time to—”
“It’s okay, Dad,” Dason answered. “Sometimes, even when you think you’re doing all the right things, life isn’t always fair.”
Deklon nodded understandably. “No, it isn’t.”
“Dad,” Dason murmured, “I’ve never told you this, but I want you to know that Mom never stopped loving you, never gave up on you, and never stopped believing in you.”
Dason grabbed Deklon, held him tight. “In the end, her last words were that she would always love you and that she would always love me. And so do I.”
With that, Dason spun away and sprinted for his Zephyr. Once inside the ship, he found his team waiting for him. He glanced around at their questioning eyes. “No speeches from me either, it’s time to go to work.”
As he passed by Alena, she stopped him and jutted her chin toward Shanon. “LT, I think this time around that Scout Hsu should be your copilot, don’t you think?”
Dason and Shanon’s eyes met, hers hopeful, his full of affection. He nodded toward Alena and answered in a husky voice, “You’re right, I think that’s a great idea.”
Shanon slipped from her seat and joined him in the pilot’s pod. Neither spoke as they brought the Zephyr up to flight mode.
Dason finished his last preflight checks and turned to her. “Ready?” he asked.
She tapped on several controls, waited for the results, and then sat back. “Green across the board, pilot,” she answered and turned toward him.
Dason leaned toward her and whispered, “I wish you weren’t here, I wish you were someplace safe. But for this moment in time, I wouldn’t want anyone else beside me.”
“And,” she answered in a small voice, “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else but here.”
Over the ship’s communicator, a female voice spoke from the Dauntless’ bridge. “All Zephyrs, stand by for egress; exiting n-space in sixty seconds.”
Within moments, they heard another voice, a strong and proud voice. “To all ships and crew, this is Admiral Stannick. By now, you know that we face a daunting task and confront a formidable enemy.
“I do not know what the end of this day may bring, what I do know is that you are brave and fearless crews, led by courageous officers.
“You have demonstrated that bravery before, and now I must ask that you show it one more time.
“I cannot think of a more time-honored tradition of naval warriors than that they stand beside their fellow sailors and repeat those words as they go into battle.
“And so, my fellow sailors, I will proudly stand with you today and when this battle is over, let it be said of us that we ‘have not yet begun to fight’ against tyranny, injustice, and suppression.
“And let it be said of us that today, through our blood and our sacrifice, that others, throughout our civilization will once again realize that freedom, true freedom is never free.
“It must always be bought and paid for by standing against those who would rob of our rights as human beings.
“And so my fellow warriors, I stand proudly with you and declare for all to hear that we free citizens of the Imperium have not—yet—begun—to—fight!”
With that, there was a slight shudder as the Dauntless came out of n-space. Seconds later the hangar bay doors slid aside, and Dason and Shanon could see the Helix Nebula’s mighty dark-green ramparts dead ahead.
Shanon turned to Dason and asked in a tender voice, “Dason, when this is over, do you think that we’ll have time for each other?”
Dason reached over and squeezed her hand while peering deep into her warm eyes. “We’ll have forever,” he replied.
At that, the little fleet of Zephyrs shot from their hangars and dove into the giant gas cloud.
Seconds later, Stannick’s warships sliced through the wispy clouds, leaving spinning whirlpools of gas in their wake to mark their passage.
Together they sped through the churning, dark nebula toward the mighty Mongan fleet that lay waiting like a horde of ravenous devil dogs awaiting their prey.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Star date: 2443.116
Aboard the War Thunder, Peller’s Flagship
Adiak Peller paced the bridge of the War Thunder as if he were a caged black leopard who can see its quarry but no matter how far it thrusts its paws through the bars fails to sink its claws deep into its victim.
His mouth burned from the taste of raw bile and his insides churned from agonizing frustration. Peller knew his chances of obtaining his personal retribution were slipping away.
Seething like a boiling cauldron, he had watched as the rebel warships passed into the nebula and out of sight. He had been furious and berated his commanders on their inability to catch the rebels as they pursued them across galactic space to this point.
Now he whirled once again to Admiral Rovinsky. “Are you absolutely sure that was the SlipShip?”
“Yes, sir,” Rovinsky returned, holding his irritation in check from being asked the same question repeatedly by Peller.
“The images are crystal clear, the communications intercept matches perfectly. There is no doubt. The nova device is aboard the SlipShip.”
“And it’s taken to hiding inside the nebula,” Peller spat.
Turning to the vu-screen, he stared with a dark scowl at the soaring, coiled, dark ramparts that composed the nebula’s outer rim.
He had brought his massive fleet of warships to a complete standstill just outside the intergalactic gas cloud, knowing that numbers alone might not be sufficient in a deadly cosmic game of hide‘n seek.
One where he could lose even more ships than he already had.
He wouldn’t dare admit that it had been his own bumbling and ill-advised actions that had caused them to lose close to a third of their fleet in the battles around Sarpens Two.
Instead, he had pointed the finger of blame on the supposed incompetence of the captains who had not only lost their commands, but their lives as well, during the fight.
“Sir,” Rovinsky spoke in a hesitant voice, “it might not be as much hiding as it is attempting to link up with the remaining rebel fleet.”
Hesitating, he put forth the obvious, though he knew with Peller that the obvious had now become lost in an irrational thirst for revenge.
Quietly, he murmured, “They might be planning an attack with the device and using the nebula to cover their activity.”
Peller spun around and for an instant stood frozen in place as sheer fear gripped his mind and body.
In his mindless wrath at having lost the device, and failing to destroy not only the Star Scouts but even more, the Marrels, he hadn’t even considered the thought that the rebels would have the audacity to strike back at him.
He ran a bony hand across his pasty, thin face and considered the implications. The rebels would never use the device to destroy Earth, of course, or for that matter, any of the Inner Worlds.
But in their desperation, they might be tempted to strike at other targets, planetary systems where his Faction base had grown powerful enough that their loss would be a considerable blow to him and his power.
Peller’s thoughts flitted back and forth. He was finding it hard to think coherently as he was so gripped in his bloodlust for the Marrels and what they had done to him.
To him!
He forced his mind away from the Marrels and once concentrated on the admiral’s notion.
If the rebels used the device on one of his Faction controlled systems, he not only would see the planets he controlled obliterated, it would substantially weaken his power, even among the Faction.
The enormous loss of life didn’t faze or move Peller one iota; that was inconsequential and meaningless to him.
But, the loss of power . . . That he could not, would not chance. He never would let it happen, not now, not ever.
He spun around and with hard-set eyes that matched his voice, ordered, “Admiral Rovinsky, take your fleet into the nebula.
“Search out and destroy every rebel ship you find. Take no prisoners. And above all, capture the SlipShip. I want what is mine, Admiral, is that clear?”
Rovinsky stood ramrod straight at attention. “Without question, sir. We will carry out your orders to perfection.”
Peller thrust a clawlike finger at him. “Then I will hold you to that standard, and your life depends on your fulfilling that promise.”
Rovinsky turned to his personal console and issued the necessary orders. And with that, Peller’s personal armada, the Imperium’s Grand Fleet slipped into the nebula’s dark mass on their mission of complete destruction of the rebel flotilla.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Star date: 2443.116
In the Helix Nebula
Whipping by on each side of the Zephyr, the wispy gray-green gas flowed over and around the little ship. To Dason the thick, dense cloud wall seemed to stretch on forever. Moreover, the dark and gloomy clouds seemed to foreshadow their immediate future.
“You know,” he muttered to Shanon, “in this soup, if it weren’t for our instrumentation that shows our flight profile and orientation, we could be flying upside down and backward for all I know.”
Shanon gave him a little smile. “I’ll take that as ‘I forgot that in deep space, without an orientation point there is no up, down, frontward, or backward’.”
“Right,” he agreed. “That’s what I meant.”
After a few more minutes of pushing through the darkness, Dason leaned toward Shanon and asked, “Anything on your scope?”
Her eyes trained on her sensor array, Shanon shook her head in answer. “Nothing so far.”
“No grav waves, no ships?” Dason asked.
“No,” she replied. “But this soup’s getting thicker, I’m having trouble even tracking the Z’s on each side of us.”
“Stay on it,” Dason instructed. “The last thing we need is for us to ram one of our own. I know it’s going to be difficult to find what we’re looking for, but we’ve got to. A lot is riding on this.”
“I understand,” Shanon replied and leaned over to run her fin
gers over the controls, trying to fine-tune the sensor readings even though the nebula’s particle flows and magnetic anomalies made obtaining accurate readings almost impossible.
Several minutes later, Alena stood in the doorway and asked quietly, “How’s it going?”
“I feel as if I’m in the rerun of a virtual movie,” Dason replied. “As they say, seen that and . . . seen that.”
“Anything on the scope?” she asked Shanon.
“Clear so far,” Shanon replied and then suddenly jerked forward to stare at her sensors. “Dason,” she ordered, “slide five degrees to starboard and slow.”
Without questioning his copilot, Dason immediately steered the Zephyr slightly to the right.
A few seconds later, Shanon called out quietly, “Coming up on our port side.”
Dason and Alena leaned forward, their eyes peering intently at the gas vapors that rushed past. The Zephyr abruptly broke into clear space. Floating serenely in the distance was a dark gray sphere, one of the Mongan detonator orbs.
“Is that what we’re looking for?” Alena asked.
“Yes,” Dason answered quietly.
“Amazing,” Alena murmured. “That thing looks so harmless and tranquil as it drifts along. Yet, that’s the trigger that could lead to the death of billions and billions and billions of people.”
Seconds later, Dason brought the Zephyr to a dead stop at a safe distance from the deadly ball. An occasional gust of cloud flowed over and around the Zephyr. Dason opened his comm's channel. “Zephyr Four to Zephyr Command.”
Rosberg's voice crackled over the transmitter, distorted due to the nebula’s powerful magneto-waves. “I read you,” he answered.
“We’re in position,” Dason replied.
“Roger, stand by,” Rosberg returned.
Staring straight ahead, Dason said with little emotion in his voice, “Randor doesn’t have weather controllers, and once I saw a tornado from far away. The swirling vortex had an incredible symmetrical beauty, even a sense of serenity.”
Moistening his lips, he went on. “The twister tore through a small village. It left nothing standing, every home and every tree completely sheared to the ground. Fifty people lived in that village. Ten survived.”