by Nick Webb
Jake shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “You do realize, Captain Brand, that we are not here to choose sides in your war. I only came because an old friend suggested Oberon as a safe haven for us to restock and regroup as we figure out our next moves against the Corsican Empire.”
“An old friend?” Brand’s eyebrows lit up. “Tell me, who outside of the Oberon sector would suggest Oberon as safe haven?”
“A man called Tovra. We met in the mines on Destiny. I tell you, you become fast friends with people who share in your captivity.”
Brand’s mouth hung agape. “Tovra? Really?” He looked at Po and Ben, and then back to Jake, as if he couldn’t believe his ears. “I … I had no idea he was still alive. He went missing years ago. Before I took over as Commander in Chief, he was legendary as a Sons of Oberon Captain. You say he’s on Destiny? I’m not familiar with the world.”
Jake grimaced, and lowered his tone. “I’m sorry, Brand, but I mean to say he was on Destiny.” He took a deep breath. “He died, just last week, in an escape attempt. He would have made it here with us, but….” Jake trailed off, not wanting to describe the final deadly encounter with the sniper’s bullet.
“Dead?” Captain Brand stared at him momentarily, before silently swearing. “And just last week, you say? This is horrible news indeed, not only that he died, but that he lived his final years as a slave in some god-forsaken mine.”
No one spoke for several moments. Finally, Po broke the silence. “I’m sorry, Captain. I can see he was a good friend.”
“For what it’s worth,” Jake began, “he most likely saved my life. And probably all our lives,” he added, indicating the other two officers. “He was a true hero. I’m glad we were able to help his people in some fashion.”
Brand nodded, finally finding his voice. “As am I. And to your earlier statement, Captain, I know full well this is not your war. Believe me, the supplies I’m delivering to you are to express our thanks, not to just curry favor in order to ask more of you.”
Jake heard his tone, and understood it to mean that, indeed, Brand was not going to ask any more of the Phoenix, but that if offered help he surely wouldn’t decline. The Oberanians were in the fight for their freedom. Most of the planet didn’t yet realize it, but in Brand he recognized a kindred spirit. One that would not bow to a foreign dictator, no matter how benevolent it claimed to be or how much force it used to compel obedience.
“Captain Brand, as I said, this is not our war. But if we can help in a way that does not involve the Phoenix going into battle again, I would be happy to. I’ve seen your situation before. Old Earth, where we come from, suffers under the Empire just as you would suffer under the Vikorhov Federation if it weren’t for the Sons of Oberon. Count me in as someone that loves kicking oppressors in their ass.”
With a grin, Captain Brand touched a few buttons on his pad, and the map displayed on the wall turned to a video feed. “I was hoping you’d ask, Captain Mercer. And in fact, I do know a way you can help.” He turned back to the video feed, and they all watched.
It was the battle they had just fought with the Vikorhov strike force. Jake watched as several enemy vessels veered towards the Phoenix and pummeled her with their energy weapons. The large capital ship fired back, only to find its weapons stopped nearly cold as they came within a few dozen meters of the aggressors.
Fighters from the Phoenix began swarming the inbound ships, and Jake winced as he saw one of their own erupt into a brief fireball before crashing into one of the Vikorhov vessels. One more dead. One more family he’d have to inform—if he ever got back to Earth—that their loved one would never come home. Dammit.
“This, Captain. This is what I would ask of you,” said Captain Brand, indicating the projected video on the wall. At that moment, a fighter from the Phoenix entered into a tight, dizzying orbit around one of the Vikorhov ships, pummeling it with blinding amounts of fire that the hapless other ship could never maneuver away from, and the thing exploded.
And then the fighter disappeared.
It reappeared, closing fast on another Vikorhov ship, raining fire down on it faster than it could react. Jake grinned. This was Gavin Ashdown’s handiwork. Newbie, as his fellow pilots called him.
“You want our fighters? Or just our pilots?” Jake quipped, knowing full well Brand wanted neither. He hoped.
“Good guess, Captain, but no.” Brand continued watching the aftermath of Gavin’s handiwork—the second, and then the third Vikorhov ship shuddered with explosions before erupting into debris. “We were of course elated that shortly after you arrived you started returning fire on the Vikorhovs, yet we doubted you could hold on for very long at the center of their concentrated firepower. But then we started watching your fighters. They have the ability to effect a short-range gravitic shift. That is remarkable, Captain. Nothing short of amazing. Do you realize how this could turn the tide of a space battle?”
A lopsided smile spread over Jake’s face. “Yeah, I’ve had a few ideas….”
“A few? I watched your people fly Captain, and I’ve never seen anything like it. The Vikorhovs were totally and utterly unprepared for it.” Brand finally turned away from the projected video on the wall and faced Jake. “Captain, I’ll come right to the point. I want that technology. And I’ll do whatever you ask, I’ll pay whatever you want, I’ll restock your ship anytime you require it, I’ll even eat my own socks if it’ll help. But if the Sons of Oberon can field that tech, then our planet will be safe for the next hundred years. The Vikorhov Federation won’t dare ever attack us again.”
Jake fell silent. He knew Brand was leading up to this, but now that it came out, he found himself reluctant. The short-range grav-shift tech was still top-secret. As far as he knew, only a handful of crew members on each of the Nine had known about it, and most of those were dead. It was a secret thousands had died for.
Except now the Empire had it. The battles over Destiny made that very clear, not to mention the final battle with the Roc just a few days ago.
And his thought drifted back to Crash. Crash Jackson—his good friend, the man that had rescued his ass in more dogfights than he could count—was either executed, or locked away to rot in some hellhole Imperial prison somewhere. Was he just going to die in prison for nothing?
“Let me think about it,” he finally said.
***
“Let me think about it?” said Ben, as they watched the airlock hatch close behind Captain Brand. He spun around to face Jake. “Captain, you can’t seriously be considering this. Giving classified technology to a vigilante group we’ve just met?”
“I am considering it,” said Jake, and he turned back down the hall to return to the bridge. Po and Ben followed in step. That was another thing he liked about the Phoenix: the hallways were wide. You could walk in them without feeling constrained. Even the ship’s architecture spoke of freedom. No, he knew in his gut this was the right move. Brand was a freedom fighter. He could see it in the man’s eyes.
Ben stomped along beside, walking straight without looking at him. “It goes against every regulation. In what universe is this the right thing to do? It’s abso-fucking-lutely crazy!”
Jake did a double take. He almost never heard his friend swear. He made a point to ask Doc Nichols if he’d managed to run any more tests on the damn bots inside Ben’s brain.
“Against regulation? Which fleet?”
“Both,” retorted Ben. “Imperial, Resistance, North American, you name it. No organization would ever, ever, just hand out their secrets to unknown players.”
Jake shook his head and turned the corner to the elevator. Po walked beside him in silence. He wondered if she’d recovered yet from him having woken her up early after sleeping so little the past few weeks. “Look, Ben, first of all, the Imperials have the short range grav-shift. You saw it yourself in the battle with the Roc a few days ago. I imagine that the entire Imperial fleet will have the capability within a few months. Second, these aren�
�t just some pirates like on Destiny. This is an organization funded by the central government of Oberon, a world of at least a hundred million people. And they’re fighting for freedom from tyranny, just like us. Not for money or power or what have you. But freedom. That’s something I can respect. And you can too, if you’re still the same Ben that I used to know.”
Ben snapped his head towards him as they entered the elevator. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
Well, damn. Jake hadn’t meant to imply the experience on Destiny had changed him, but he could tell that’s what Ben took it to mean, and he could also tell by his friend’s defensiveness that he knew he was different. That meant he might know about those damn bots in his head. Or not. There was no way to be sure without asking.
“Nothing, Ben,” he pressed the button for the bridge, and the doors slid shut. “Just that ever since I’ve met you, I’ve never known you to back down from a worthy cause. And this seems as worthy as they come. And it’s not like we’re giving them a fighter or anything like that. We’ll just have Bernoulli transfer some specs over and let their scientists figure out how to equip their ships. We won’t do it for them.”
Ben grit his teeth, as if conflicted about something. But the door slid open before anyone could say anything more, and Ensign Falstaff jumped up from the captain’s chair and spun around. “Sir! A Vikorhov cruiser just shifted into orbit!”
Jake sprang over the railing to his chair and glanced at his console. Sure enough, a massive cruiser, bristling with weapons, hung overhead in high orbit. Not visible to the naked eye, but definitely close enough to track with sensors.
“Battle stations!” yelled Jake. “Po, I want those railgun slugs loaded NOW.” He jabbed a finger towards her, and she sprang into action, rushing over to her comm to issue the orders. “Full power to ion beam cannons and laser turrets. Bernoulli!” he yelled into his console, “We need our engines right now!”
Bernoulli hesitated, and sounded flustered. “Give me a minute, friend. They’re in diagnostic mode. It’ll take a minute to restart the—”
“Whatever. Just DO IT.” He punched the comm off and swiveled to the tactical octagon. “Where the hell is Ayala?”
The lone occupant of the octagon shook his head. “Probably in her quarters, sir.”
He’d only just called the battle stations order, so it was only natural she wasn’t there yet. “Fine. Get a lock on the Vikorhov ship and don’t lose it. Lock at least four different cannons or beams on it. Have at least four locked on at all times, no matter which side of the ship it’s on. Got it?”
“Aye, sir.”
He felt a distant rumble beneath the deck plate as the engines roared to life. “What about the umbilical, sir? It’ll snap off if we just pull away.” Ben yelled out across the bridge from his station where he was directing the staffing of battle stations.
“Screw it. No time. Let it fall.” He spun around towards navigation. “Ensign, get us the hell out of the city. We can’t have weapons fire raining down on the civilians.”
“Course, sir?” said Ensign Roshenko.
“Up.”
She turned and began punching in the numbers. Suddenly, a voice called from behind Jake.
“Captain! They’re gone!”
He spun around to face Po. “Gone? What do you mean, gone?”
“They shifted away.” She was still studying her console, scanning for evidence that the intruder ship had truly left. “Confirmed. We can detect the gravitic wake left behind.” She looked up at him, utterly confused. “They’re gone, sir.”
He turned back to the viewscreen, which before had displayed the zoomed-in profile of the other ship high up above in orbit, now displayed only the vague blue shimmer of the upper atmosphere.
Jake shook his head and leaned on his command console. “What they hell are they trying to pull?”
***
Jake peered out the window of the grav-car the Prime Minister’s office had arranged to take him and his senior officers to the Ashari Opera House, watching the buildings below fly by. Once they’d flown beyond the skyscraper-packed city center he could see out in all directions at Dezreel City, gawking at its size and variety. On Earth, he’d flown over most of the major cities in North America, and they all seemed more or less homogenous, each with a city center and semi-urban or suburban neighborhoods sprawling out beyond, but Dezreel City was a patchwork of different architectural styles, socioeconomic levels, and aesthetics, as if someone had jammed a dozen different cultures into one city. Which he guessed wasn’t far from the truth.
“What people settled Oberon originally?” he asked their government-provided guide, a frizzy-haired middle-aged woman who also served as their navigator.
“You don’t know?” she asked absentmindedly, keeping her eye on the navigation board, monitoring the autopilot.
“No. That’s why I’m asking you.” Jake thought his reply was a touch too snarky, but he didn’t care—he was too preoccupied with yesterday’s surprise appearance and subsequent disappearance of the Vikorhov cruiser in orbit. In the fifty-five seconds it appeared on their scopes, it had apparently done nothing. It just hovered there, floating some four hundred kilometers away from Dezreel City under gravitic thrust before shifting away. Damn peculiar.
If the guide cared about his attitude she gave no indication. “Oberon was originally settled from New Leeds, a British Commonwealth world just outside the Void. Back in the twenty-third century the North American Confederation of Worlds was still in a tiff with the Russian Planetary Union, and New Leeds was getting dragged into it so a whole bunch of people just up and left. Word got out in the Cygnus sector nearby of a safe haven from the skirmishes, and within twenty years we had ten million immigrants on our doorsteps. They built up the city quickly in just a few years before spreading out and colonizing the northern continent and the other major cities and towns. Mainly folk from Nandura, New Warsaw, and Hunan. Peaceful folk—don’t want to fight in other people’s wars.”
Jake nodded. He understood why the Prime Minister was so intent on avoiding the appearance of militarization—the woman’s voice hinted of loathing as she talked of other people’s wars. He glanced over at Po, Ben, and Anya Grace, who was uncharacteristically quiet since her mishap in the fighter a few days ago, and asked, “What do you want to bet Bernoulli changes his mind about coming, barges down here, and interrupts whatever reception they’ve got planned for us?”
Po shifted her gaze to him from looking out the window and grinned. “I’ll just be happy if he can restore full power.”
“What are we up to now?”
She shrugged. “Early this morning it was up to fifty percent capacity. He planned on taking the mains offline and doing a major repair job to see if he can’t bump it up to eighty or so by the end of the day.”
Jake’s eyes narrowed. “Offline?”
“Don’t worry,” she said, seemingly reading his thoughts, “the caps are all charged up and we can make at least one grav-shift out of here if need be.”
“Good,” he replied. He didn’t want to get caught with their pants down again.
The rest of the short flight passed in silence as the crew watched the sights below—apparently none of them had been away from the Sol system, and so this was one of the few planets they’d seen other than Earth. Jake ticked them off—Mars, Jupiter, its moons Ganymede and Callisto where he’d been stationed for several months during his academy training, Saturn, Iapetus, Destiny, and now Oberon. Hell, he hadn’t even been to Sagitarria, the tropical vacation world just lightyears from Earth.
All he’d seen since joining the Resistance was the inside of a fighter, half a dozen pubs, and the blank sterile walls of briefing rooms. All the action had come in fits and spurts, paced by long stretches of training, briefings, and drinking.
Just like his father. Except while his drunk father wallowed in a filthy apartment, at least he was out drowning his blues in alcohol after long days of work—day
s spent planning Earth’s freedom. That was something, wasn’t it?
“This way, Captain Mercer,” said the guide as he, Po, Ben, and Anya Grace followed her out of the car, which had parked on the street below the Ashari Opera House. The traffic of ground cars rumbled by. Jake saw that the Opera House was in a ritzier area of town, surrounded by upscale restaurants, apartment buildings, mid-sized office towers, museums, and all the other buildings one would expect in a well-to-do area of a vast metropolitan city.
Ben walked at his left side, and Jake felt an unexpected nudge in his ribs.
“Look,” said Ben, pointing down the street a few dozen meters.
Jake followed his arm and saw six or seven beautiful blue motorcycles parked at the curb, all identical, and all looking blazing fast.
“What, you want to go for a spin?” Jake asked, glad that Ben was finally talking to him of his own accord.
His friend shot him an annoyed look. “Of course not. I’m just wondering why there are six identical motorcycles parked outside the Opera House. Just thinking like your Chief of Security, Captain.” Ben’s tone sounded as icy as ever, though perhaps softened in the presence of their guide.
“Oh. I don’t know, but I want to ride one. Maybe after the reception we can come out and wait for the owners to show up and exchange a ride in a battleship for a turn at one of those babies. Po, you in? Grace?” He turned to his companions as they climbed the steps.
“I think I’ll bow out this time,” Po said with a grimace. “The last time I rode I think I spent more time dragging you out of a ravine than I spent on the bike itself.”
Jake shrugged, but didn’t have time to respond since at the top of the stairs the Prime Minister was waiting, accompanied by his usual entourage of aides and congresspeople.