by Nick Webb
“Why? What good will that do?”
“I need to find out what their plans are, and how their forces are arranged up near the bridge—if they’re all even up there.” She stood up and grabbed the tool bag Galba had used as he wandered the ship, passing as a technician.
“What, are you just going to ask? Don’t forget to say pretty please.” His tone was mocking, and it irritated her. He really had no idea what she was capable of. He had no idea how much information she’d already managed to extract from him—a Senator of the Corsican Empire, just by being in the same room with him.
Just by touching him.
“No. I’m going to interrogate him.” She flashed a small smile at Galba. “You know I can be very persuasive.”
***
“How many have we got down here on the planet? And who is still up there?” Jake pressed the cloth up against his left forearm, which was still bleeding from sliding over the pavement. Or was it blood from the bullet that had grazed his shoulder?
Ben tapped on the shuttle’s dashboard and brought up the roster. “Over three quarters of the crew is on the planet. Of the bridge crew and senior officers we’ve still got Ensigns Ayala, Szabo, Falstaff, Jackson, and Prescott on the ship. And the doctor. Most of the marines are down on the planet, except for the ones guarding the 51st brigade.”
Jake shook his head. “Yeah, I hope they’re still alive. Looks like Tomaga was just biding his time for the right moment.”
“Yeah, looks that way, Captain.” Ben’s tone was icy. He stared at the display in front of him, and continued. “We should get back to the Opera House and meet up with the others.”
Jake ignored his friend’s tone, and ran through the possible scenarios in his head. “Yeah, and let’s get Brand there. Maybe he can help get us back to the Phoenix.” He paused. “And help us find Po.”
Anya Grace pounded the dashboard. “Still no reading on the Phoenix. They could be dozens of lightyears away by now.”
“They could be out of the Void entirely,” added Ben.
Ayala finished his thought. “Yeah, we could be stuck here for awhile.”
“Unacceptable.” Jake shook his head. “No, they’re here. In the Void. Tomaga doesn’t even know how we got here. He doesn’t know about the gravitic beacon signal we used to shift into the system. And I assume there’s a similar method of exiting the system when we want to leave. He can’t have known about it.”
The shuttle soared over the neighborhood Jake had just sped through on the motorcycle and shot towards the more well-to-do area of the city where the Ashari Opera House was situated. Rather than set down in the designated parking area for shuttles Ben steered the craft directly for the top of the steps of the opera house and lowered the shuttle until the clunk of the landing plates rang through the walls. An ambulance was parked nearby along with dozens of law-enforcement vehicles, their lights blazing.
“Contact all the crew on the planet and order them to come to the opera house immediately,” Jake said to Ben and Anya as he stood up. “I’ll go track down Brand and see what he can do for us.” Jake wrenched the doors open, shot down the ramp, and nearly ran straight into the Prime Minister.
“Captain Mercer, I demand an explanation! I’m hearing reports that you’re responsible for over a dozen crashes on the roads between here and the city center. Your recklessness has caused injuries and property damage and—”
That was the last straw for Jake, and he shoved past the man, walking towards someone he recognized as one of Brand’s deputies who was busy talking to security officers.
“Captain, you will not walk away from me when I’m talking to you—”
Jake spun around and reared upon the little man. “Prime Minister, I am the least of your concerns at the moment. In case you weren’t watching, a Vikorhov strike force just assassinated your chief of staff, killed or wounded dozens of others, and kidnapped my XO. Now unless you’re prepared to offer me help in tracking them down I suggest you stay out of my way.” He turned again to leave but the Prime Minister huffed and hawed.
“Now just a moment, Captain. As I’ve said all along your very presence here is a direct provocation of the Vikorhov Federation, and my words have proved true. If not for your aggression towards them upon arrival in the system and you parking your battleship in our city then none of this would have happened. It is you, sir, who are at fault, and why my chief of staff is dead.”
“Are you insane?” Jake could hardly believe his ears. The man’s defeatist, blame-the-victim mentality was almost nauseating. “Do you honestly believe that anything you do has any affect on what the aggressors will do? Believe me, Prime Minister, I know all too well what happens when a conquerer wielding overwhelming force wants your world. They come, and they take it. Done. And walking on eggshells around them, hoping that if you behave they’ll play nice just doesn’t fucking work. If anything, it emboldens them. So shut the fuck up and help me find my XO and the bastards that took her, and if you do I promise I’ll teach those assholes a lesson they won’t soon forget.”
He turned again, leaving the Prime Minister fuming and red in the face, but Jake didn’t care. They’d stocked up on the railgun slugs—the most important part of their resupply mission—and as soon as he could find his ship they’d leave immediately. As nice as it had been to finally eat real food and step into a tavern and relax for even just a few minutes, it was aggravating to be such an ill-received guest. And besides, it was high time to finally take the fight to the enemy. He still had one Admiral to rescue and one Admiral to kill.
Captain Brand’s deputy, who’d been talking to two security officers, turned to face Jake as he approached. “Captain Mercer. Did you find her? Your XO?”
Jake shook his head. “No. They escaped to a freighter and shifted out of orbit.”
“Damn.” The deputy turned to the security officers and nodded. “Excuse me, ma’am.”
After the officers had left he turned to Jake. “Captain Brand is assembling the fleet. At least, the ships based on Oberon. We’re prepared to give you all the assistance you need to rescue your officer, Captain. Anything to repay our debt for saving us a few days ago.”
Jake nodded. “I can’t accept the offer of an entire fleet to help save my XO, but the gesture is appreciated.
The deputy shook his head. “No. The honor is ours. The Sons of Oberon repay their debts, and are bound by honor to serve those who serve us. We will find your officer, Captain.” He smiled.
“That is very kind of you. But the situation is worse than you know. Our ship is gone.”
The deputy did a double-take. “Gone?”
“Yes. Gone. We think some guests of ours on the Phoenix have commandeered the ship and made off with it while we were occupied down here.”
The deputy grimaced, but extended his hand towards a ground car waiting nearby. “Come. I’ll take you to HQ. Brand is there, and you can brief him as he finishes assembling the fleet.”
Before he could leave with the deputy, Ben and Anya caught up with them. “Any luck?” said Jake.
“Every crew member on the planet will be here within two hours. Several marines decided to go on a hike in the mountains south of here, and several people are in one of the other cities nearby. But they’re all on their way.”
Jake nodded, and started to follow the deputy. “Good. Ben, assemble them here and wait for me. I’m going to Brand at Sons of Oberon Headquarters. Anya, you’re with me.” He figured he could use another tactical mind as he planned the rescue of the Phoenix with Brand, assuming the other Captain could even help them find their ship.
***
Deck fifteen, the entertainment deck, was deserted, given that all of the 51st brigade was otherwise disposed, and Ayala marched across the common area to duck her head into a few of the rooms to make sure.
“Anyone over there?” she called out to Galba, who’d wandered into the entertainment deck’s mess area.
“Willow, we knew there would
be no one here. Honestly, this is madness! There’s no point in resisting an entire brigade of heavily armed Imperial marines! We should just take a shuttle while we still can and get out of here.” He looked askance at the scattered remains of food and cutlery still littering the mess area, as if wondering why the service staff hadn’t been on duty during the insurrection.
“There must be one or two of them not up on decks one, two, or three.” Ayala ignored Galba, letting her eyes wander across the recreation area.
“Wait,” she said. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?” Galba paused by a table, and listened.
Ayala strained to hear, trying to discriminate the noise she thought she’d heard against the regular thrum and pulse of the ship’s engines and power systems. “A thumping.”
She turned around and paced to the small food preparation area, stopping occasionally to listen.
There it was again. Louder. Thumping.
Her eyes rested on a pantry at the back of the small open kitchen, and gripping the handle she pulled it open.
Sergeant Logan Jayce, hogtied and gagged, glared up at her.
“Took you long enough!” he said as she untied the cloth gagging his mouth.
“Sergeant? What happened?” Ayala grabbed a knife from one of the drawers and cut the straps binding his hands and feet.
Jayce spat. “Knocked me out when I wasn’t looking. Bastard had just lost another game of darts to me too.”
Ayala nodded. “So you woke up in here?”
Jayce shook his head, and rubbed his wrists as the straps fell loose to the floor. “Nah. Woke up just a few minutes after they tied me up, but I made like I was still asleep. Heard their whole plan.”
Ayala raised an eyebrow. “And?”
“Take the bridge. Throw whoever was left up there in the brig, and shift the ship to some out-of-the-way world where they’d try to sell her on the black market and lie low for awhile.”
Ayala swore softly. So the first shift away from Oberon wouldn’t be the last. But she wondered if they knew about the gravitic beacon—the only way to leave the sector. At least, the only way for a vessel as large as the Phoenix. “And they all went up there? Every one of them?”
He thought for a moment. “No. A few were assigned to secure engineering and block out all access to it.”
“How many?”
Jayce shrugged, rubbing the back of his head and squinting. “Oh, I dunno. Three? Maybe four?”
Ayala nodded. “Good. That’s all we need.” Standing up she beckoned to Galba. “Let’s get down there. I only need one.”
Sergeant Jayce got to his feet. “What’s the plan, Ensign?”
“Plan? Take the ship back, of course. And to do that, I need to have a little chat with one of the 51st brigade.” She started walking towards the stairwell, Galba in tow.
“Great. Just give me a gun and point me where to shoot,” Jayce said, cracking his knuckles.
Ensign Ayala looked back before she descended the stairs. “Go find some guns, and round up whoever’s left. Most of the crew is on the planet, but the more bodies the better. Meet us on deck five in three hours.”
***
The ground car sped through the streets of central Dezreel City while Jake interrogated Brand’s deputy. From what he could tell, only a small part of the Sons of Oberon’s fleet was stationed on Oberon itself, with the rest scattered throughout the system around various gas giant planets, space stations, asteroids, and even a few at a location that the deputy would not disclose, only saying the information was classified.
After just a few minutes, the car pulled up in front of a guardhouse by a large steel gate. Brand’s deputy saluted to the guard, who waved them through the gate which swung slowly and noiselessly open, and they drove up towards a diminutive-looking gray building with few windows and nothing that would hint at it being a major military base except for the presence of a few more armed guards posted at the entrances and several tall antennas rising up behind the building.
The guard at the front entrance opened the door for them and gestured inside. “Captain Brand is waiting for you, sir,” he said to the deputy, and nodded at Mercer as they passed through.
The deputy escorted him deep into the building, past barracks and conference rooms and offices, until they reached the command center which was humming with intense activity. Brand was in the center, barking out orders to aides that came and went running, pausing only to speak hurriedly into his comm to issue more orders.
He looked up, noticing Jake’s entrance. “Captain Mercer, welcome. We’re almost ready here. Intelligence reports that the freighter that shuttled your XO off-planet made a gravitic shift soon after entering orbit, and reappeared in the Vikorhov system, around Rastra—one of their gas giants.”
Jake approached Brand’s command station. “There’s more. The Phoenix is gone.”
Brand grinned. “Yeah, I know. Fortunately our intel team has located your ship as well.”
Jake’s heart leaped out, and he wanted to hug the man. “Well that’s a relief. Where?”
“Not far, actually. Whoever is piloting your ship obviously doesn’t know how to leave the Void, and so they shifted first to Fristia—one of Oberon’s gas giant planets, and then to the largest mass in the sector. A star, just a few lightyears away. Crimson 5982. No habitable planets, but we do have a lookout post there to guard against Vikorhov Federation advancement.”
Jake breathed out a sigh of relief. “That’s excellent news. Captain, can you get us there? My team and I?” He indicated to Anya standing next to him.
Brand stood up and started walking towards a side door. Jake and Anya fell into step next to him. “I’ll do what I can.” The door slid open at their approach, to reveal a cramped elevator. Brand pressed the lowest button and the door slid shut.
“What you can?” Anya shot Brand a questioning look.
“Look, sweetie, I’m not a miracle worker. I can get you to your ship, but after that it’s up to you.”
Anya flexed her fist at his patronizing language. Jake met her eyes and gave her a look he hoped said, “You can punch him after he gets us back to the Phoenix. Not before.”
The elevator dropped several floors before the doors opened to reveal a giant bay. To call it giant would be insulting. Rather, it was immense, almost as if it were a natural cavern that had been reappropriated into use as a flight deck. All along the walls Jake and Anya could see dozens of frigates and light cruisers parked in dry-dock, partially suspended by what they guessed was a combination of gravitic parking brakes and rubbered shafts supporting them from underneath.
Each ship must have been one hundred meters long—far smaller than the Phoenix, but each capable of holding at least a hundred crew members and an impressive array of firepower. These were the ships that he’d seen during the battle with the Vikorhov Federation ships several days back, and several of them sported ample carbon scoring on their hulls from the damage sustained during the engagement.
At the end of the bay, which could easily have been two or three kilometers long, was a giant shaft in the roof that Jake surmised led to the surface. In all, he was highly impressed at the arrangement—their fleet was both out of sight, satisfying the central government’s demand for a posture of nonaggression, and highly defended, assuming that the roof of the cavern was at least hundreds of meters thick.
“Come with me,” said Brand, and he jumped into the driver’s seat of a small electric cart. Jake and Anya hopped into the back, and soon they were zooming along the floor of the cavern towards one of the ships, this one somewhat larger than the rest. “My flagship, the Indomitable,” he said, pointing up to its angular, weapons-laden prow. “We’ll fly in that, and we’ll have a dozen more ships accompany us. That was all the crew I could muster on such short notice.” He turned to Jake. “Do you think that will be sufficient?”
A nagging doubt ate at Jake, but he only nodded. “We’ll see.” He hadn’t really consi
dered how exactly they’d get aboard the Phoenix. Brand seemed to be suggesting a full-on frontal assault, but Jake had no desire to damage his own ship, and he doubted that Tomaga would just give up if faced with superior firepower. But thirteen small frigates did not count as superior firepower against the Phoenix.
They jumped out and followed Brand as he ran up the steps of the bridge that connected to a hatch on the ship. Anya grumbled behind Jake. “Wait a second, our plan is just to show up with guns blazing and hope one of our shots blasts Tomaga’s fucking brains out before we have to destroy the rest of the ship?”
“No, that’s not the plan, Lieutenant,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Well then what the hell is?”
Jake watched Brand disappear into the opening hatch up ahead and paused before following, turning back to Anya to retort, “Working on it….”
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE BRIDGE OF THE INDOMITABLE was small, spartan, but efficient. The first thing Jake noticed was the scarcity of chairs. There were four, with the captain’s chair in the center surrounded by the wedge of a semi-circular command console, and the other three chairs arranged facing the captain’s chair with large consoles of their own.
The second thing was the AI. It took him by surprise, since though the bridge was deserted when Brand, Jake, and Anya entered, a disembodied voice announced, “Ship is ready for your command, Captain Brand. Awaiting orders.”
Anya spun around to Brand. “What the hell was that?”
Brand smirked. “Our central ship’s computer.”
“It talks?”
The man sat down in the central chair and indicated two of the other chairs to his guests. “Of course. That’s what AIs do, don’t they?”
“And what about the Taboo? No one has built a self-aware AI for over six hundred years. What the hell gives you the right to risk—” Anya was fuming, but Brand cut her off.