Blood on the Stars Collection 1

by Jay Allan

  “If this vessel is what you believe it to be, Minister, it would seem we have little choice but to move forward at once. Not only to harness its power for our own uses, but also to deny it to the Confederation. I must commend your intelligence operation for discovering word of this find and for getting our people there before the Confederation.”

  “Thank you, Honorable First. The urgency we face is the reason I called for this emergency meeting. I must ask for immediate authorization to proceed, including an order for our forces to attack across the line.”

  The First looked out across the room. “I do not believe we have any choice. We will authorize Minister Villieneuve to direct our military forces in an immediate full scale offensive. Further, the minister or his designate will have full viceregal authority in the Badlands, and shall act in the name of the Presidium in all actions undertaken in that area of space.” The First looked down the polished granite table at the twelve other men and eight women who ruled the Union. “All in favor?” Procedure required calling for the vote, but it seemed unlikely anyone would object. A “no” would be more than a rejection of the motion…it would be a direct challenge to the First, now that he had so forcefully stated his desire.

  A few hands rose, followed by others, then all those present. A round of ayes followed. It was unanimous.

  “The motion is passed by acclamation.” The First turned back toward Villieneuve. “You have your authorization, Minister. You understand the enormity of the authority this body had invested in you, I trust.

  “I understand. I assure you the resources you have granted me—and all those possessed by Sector Nine—will be utilized with the greatest focus and forethought.” He turned back toward the First. “With your permission, Honorable First, I propose we adjourn this meeting so that I may return to Sector Nine headquarters at once and commence operations.”

  “Agreed, Minister. If there are no objections…” The First paused, waiting a few seconds before continuing. “The meeting is adjourned. Good luck, Minister Villieneuve. I trust you will keep the Presidium informed as your operations progress.”

  “Certainly, Honorable First.” I will tell you everything I want you to know…

  Villieneuve stood up and nodded toward the assembled ministers. Then he turned and walked briskly through the heavy bronze double doors and out of the Presidium Chamber.

  Chapter Six

  The Promenade

  Spacer’s District

  Port Royal City, Planet Dannith, Ventica III

  309 AC

  Tyler Barron pushed aside the strings of cheap plastic beads hanging down over the entry and stepped into the room. The bar was dark, most of its meager illumination coming from small lamps on the tables. Their reddish glow reminded him a bit too much of Dauntless’s battlestations lamps. There was a vaguely unpleasant smell in the air, a disagreeable combination of cheap perfume and spilled liquor, mixed with some highly questionable scents emanating from the kitchen. The establishment looked like just what it was—a place where people came for clandestine meetings—and it by no means served the high end of its particular market.

  Barron stifled a frown. He’d seen enough spacer’s bars, an unavoidable aspect of his profession, and many of them were far worse than this place. But there was an honesty to a watering hole catering to visiting spacers, even down to the smell of alcohol-tinged vomit and the occasional blood stain on the floor. This place seemed to have pretensions beyond its place in the scheme of things, and that grated on him somehow.

  He was wearing a civilian suit, as per the strange request he’d received, but he still felt out of place. The Barrons were a wealthy family, and while his small non-military wardrobe tended toward the basic and conservative, it was all of extremely high quality, so much so that he suspected he couldn’t have stood out more if he’d been wearing a plume of feathers on his head.

  He’d have questioned the odd summons that had brought him to this strange place, and probably disregarded it entirely, save for two things. One, it had come on the Priority One line and, two, it had been sent by Gary Holsten.

  The Barrons and the Holstens had been acquainted for a long time, and the two families had been involved in a number of business transactions together. But that wasn’t why Barron had come. Though he was the senior member of his family’s main branch, he’d always been content to allow his cousins to tend to the Barron business interests, focusing almost entirely on his military career. Still, he was sufficiently well-connected to be privy to Gary Holsten’s other, far less well-known, vocation. That as the head of Confederation Intelligence.

  Barron shared at least a measure of the mistrust of intelligence services so common in the military, but though he’d never met Holsten, he’d heard good things about the man. Details were sketchy of course, but he was fairly certain Holsten had been heavily involved in the replacement of Admiral Winston with Admiral Striker. The move had been one Barron agreed with wholeheartedly, and one to which he almost certainly owed his own life, and the lives of his crew.

  Not that his opinion about Holsten mattered. Though the strange message was an abnormal use of the chain of command to say the least, he didn’t doubt that the intelligence chief had the authority to demand his presence anywhere, at any time.

  “Tyler, welcome.” A tall man called softly from a booth in the corner, waving for him to come over. He had a companion seated next to him, but Barron couldn’t get a look at the man’s face. “I want to thank you for meeting me here. I know it’s an…irregular…place for such a conference, and I appreciate your indulgence.” The man stood up and took a few steps from the table, leaning in toward Barron and whispering, “Please excuse my familiarity, but I would prefer to keep rank and military status under wraps, if possible. I’m Gary.”

  Barron took the hand Holsten offered, and he shook it briefly. “I’m pleased to meet you, Gary. I find it a bit surprising we’ve never encountered each other before.”

  “That’s true, though I don’t believe you spend much time on business pursuits. I’ve met several of your cousins, but I can’t say I know them well. I hope the peripheral members of your clan are less dissolute and useless than mine.”

  “I don’t see too much of my relatives, Mr…Gary. As you said, I don’t focus much attention on the Barron financial investments. The demands of the service, and all.” Barron was less than proud of some branches of his family, as much, he suspected, as Holsten clearly was of his own, but discussing such topics made him uncomfortable. In truth, he hardly knew most of his cousins, but he still felt a vague sense of family loyalty. And he was sure of one thing…Holsten hadn’t called him there to commiserate about black sheep relatives. “So, how can I be of assistance to you, Gary?” He tried to be gentle about pushing the conversation back on topic, but after he spoke, he was afraid it had come out a bit abrupt.

  “I heard you were no nonsense. I see that’s true. So, I’ll take your lead. Let’s not waste any more time.” He gestured toward the table. “Please have a seat.”

  Barron glanced at the faded red leather of the booth. He felt a hesitancy to touch it, a flash of his own slight fastidiousness, but he pushed it aside and sat down. He tried to slide over, to make room for Holsten, but the leather was coated with years’ worth of tacky residue, and he had to shove harder to get any movement at all. He tried to keep the look of disgust from his face, but he wasn’t sure he’d quite pulled it off.

  “I must say, Gary, this isn’t in line with what I’d heard about your tastes.” The young patriarch of the Holsten empire was known for his extravagant lifestyle, and his relentless pursuit of every supermodel—and half the attractive married women—in the capital. Barron didn’t judge. He’d been somewhat of a ladies’ man himself, though the responsibilities that came with the command of a frontline battleship had dulled his ardor somewhat, even before the outbreak of war. He’d become quieter since he’d become Dauntless’s captain, more prone to spending his free time alone, reading�
��or just enjoying the quiet. Still, he had to admit a touch of admiration for Holsten’s abilities to juggle both the burdens of the Confederation’s spy agency and the needs of an apparently endless parade of beautiful women.

  “Well, Tyler, let’s just say that some of my reputation exists because it is useful to me…and all this establishment lacks in, well, shall we say, the finer things, it more than makes up for in discretion. We are not likely to be disturbed—or overheard—here. Most of our neighbors frequent the bar for quiet assignations or petty smuggling transactions, and they are more concerned with not being noticed than with paying attention to what others discuss. That serves our purpose well.”

  “What is our pur…” Barron turned and looked across the table, and as soon as his eyes focused on the other man, he fell silent for an instant. “Admir…”

  The third conspirator held up his hand. “Please, Tyler. I’m also relying on the discretion Gary assured me this…establishment…offers. It will serve our purposes well, I believe. Call me Van.”

  Barron hesitated, caught between surprise at the whole situation and discomfort at calling the officer in command of the Confederation’s combined fleets by his first name. At least the intelligence chief was outside the normal chain of command, but calling the top admiral “Van” felt disrespectful, invitation or no.

  He’d been nervous before, wondering what scheme Holsten wanted to sell him, but Admiral Striker’s presence had just escalated the whole thing. It was not only likely vastly more important than he’d expected, but any chance he’d had of saying “no” was also gone. They could speak as informally as they wanted, but anything that came out of Striker’s mouth was an order as far as Barron was concerned. “Very well, Van,” he managed to say softly, not entirely successful at hiding his discomfort.

  “We have something we want to discuss with you, Tyler. We’ve received some disturbing news about Union activity, and while we have no confirmation our source is reliable, it’s not something we can afford to ignore.”

  “Are they planning another offensive?” There was surprise in Barron’s voice. Since Dauntless had withdrawn for repairs, there had been a few small battles on the front lines, but for the most part, the front had been quiet.

  “No, Tyler. It has nothing to do with the front. As far as we are able to tell, things there are static, and are likely to remain so for at least the near future. Neither side has the strength to mount a major attack, nor the supply capability to sustain it if it succeeds.”

  “Then, if I may ask, what could you possibly want me to do that would require such secrecy?”

  The two men exchanged glances, and then Holsten looked back toward Barron. “Have you wondered why Dauntless was assigned to Dannith for repairs, Tyler?”

  Barron returned Holsten’s gaze, a look of dawning realization on his face. “It occurred to me that it was somewhat out of the way, but with the Confederation on a war footing, I just assumed it was the only base that had capacity. We were sent to Archellia last time, after all, and that’s even farther out.”

  “That’s true, but unfortunately, we’ve had many ships destroyed outright since Dauntless was bumped to Archellia. Shipyard capacity is not the limiting factor on refit schedules now, Captain, a state of affairs you no doubt have deduced for yourself.”

  “You’re saying that you deliberately ordered us to Dannith?”

  “Yes, Tyler. That is precisely what I am saying. You are here because I selected you and your crew, and Admiral Striker concurred. Though when we made that decision, we only suspected we would need you here, based on fairly thin evidence. Now, we know…or at least we know with enough certainty to demand immediate action.”

  “Know what? What is it you want me to do?”

  “You have served in the Badlands before, Tyler, have you not?” Striker was speaking now.

  “Yes, sir…Van. My second assignment was aboard Hydra. We did a year’s patrol duty in the near Badlands. But I suspect you know that already.”

  “Yes, we do.” It was Holsten this time. He took a nonchalant glance around the room, confirming that no one had any undue interest in the conversation the three men were having. “Hydra spent most of that time patrolling the Restricted Zones. You had several encounters with poachers and smugglers.”

  “Yes, we did. We confiscated some old tech, but it was nothing all that rare. Nothing that seems important enough to bring me here now.”

  “You are correct, to a point. We didn’t bring you here to chase after old tech trinkets, nor to hunt down unauthorized archeological activity. However, your experience, and your track record of service in the Badlands—as well as your overall performance history and the level of reliability and tactical capability you have shown—were central to our decision. Even the fact that you’ve had encounters with poachers is useful.” Holsten paused. “There’s something going on in the Badlands, Tyler, something we fear could impact the course of the war. We need you to go in, to find out if we are right…and if we are, to put a stop to it.”

  “Find what? Put a stop to what? And what do poachers have to do with this?”

  “You mentioned yourself that most of the artifacts found in the Badlands are either small items or scraps from larger ones. Have you ever considered the implications if something more significant was discovered? An ancient weapon, for example…one that may still be operable.”

  Barron felt a tightness in his gut. He’d have disregarded such talk as rumor and gossip if he’d heard it anywhere else. But the navy’s ranking admiral and the head of Confederation Intelligence hadn’t brought him here because of vague spacers’ tales. “That would depend on the specifics, but I’m inclined to think if one side found and deployed such technology, the impact on the war would be…significant.”

  “And if the weapon in question was one created during the final stages of the Cataclysm?”

  Barron looked back across the table, wordless at first. Finally, he just said, “It would be a disaster if the Union to gain control of such a weapon. Even if they only had one, if it was beyond their ability to replicate it, such a resource would easily tip the war in their favor. If they were able to replicate it, all space in this sector would fall to them.”

  “You agree with our assessments.” Holsten slid a small data chip across the table. “This is a copy of…for lack of a better term, let’s call it a treasure map. It was sold to a Union agent…one my people were unfortunately unable to apprehend in time to prevent the transmission of the data. We must therefore assume that Sector Nine has the map, and that they have already dispatched teams to recover the artifact.”

  Barron reached out and put his hand over the data chip, sliding it across the table and putting it unobtrusively in his pocket. “You want Dauntless to go after this artifact?”

  “Simply put, yes.”

  “Isn’t that a violation of the Abandoned Zone Treaty? I thought warships over a certain tonnage were forbidden to enter the zone.”

  “It is a blatant violation. One I suspect the Union has already committed.”

  “I don’t take the violation of international law any more lightly than you do, Tyler,” Striker interjected after Holsten had spoken. “But some things are more important to me…things like saving the Confederation from utter destruction, for example.”

  “Do you believe the situation is really that serious?” Barron was still trying to decide if he thought the whole thing was an overblown panic…or the greatest threat the Confederation had ever faced.

  “I do,” the admiral replied. “Or, let me say more specifically, I believe we may face an almost incalculable danger. We cannot be sure this data is accurate, but neither can we afford to simply assume it’s a fraud. The consequences of the Union obtaining such a weapon are simply too catastrophic.”

  “I must agree with Van,” Holsten said softly. “If we are wrong—and we are caught—we risk considerable international condemnation. If we’re right, and we do nothing, we face utter and co
mplete defeat. We simply can’t afford to wait.”

  “We want you to take Dauntless into the Badlands, Tyler, to the system specified on the map we have provided you. Once there, you will explore every centimeter of the space around the designated planet, and you will confirm if there is indeed a significant ancient spaceship present there.” Striker’s eyes were fixed on Barron’s as he spoke. “And if you encounter Union forces, you are to prevent them from gaining possession of the artifact…whatever it takes.” The admiral paused. “Will you accept the mission?”

  “Of course, sir…Van.”

  “This is not an order, Tyler…it’s a request. Had we known all we do now, we would have pulled more ships back from the line, organized a whole fleet to investigate. But there’s no time now. We’ve already waited too long.” Striker’s voice was strained. It was clear he hated sending Barron and Dauntless into the Badlands alone. “This could be like Santis all over again, Tyler. Your people will be on their own, far from any support. Though this time you may end up facing more than one enemy ship.” He paused again, and when he continued his voice was softer, more subdued. “And you must keep the enemy from gaining control of the artifact.”

  He thinks he’s sending us on a suicide mission. But he doesn’t know just how hard it is to kill Dauntless and her crew. And he has no idea just how much tougher an Alliance ship under a captain like Katrine Rigellus is than the typical Union line ship…

  “I accept.” As you knew I would.