Renegades (Dark Seas Book 3)

by Damon Alan

  “The drive is functional?” Orson asked, keying his commlink to the colony ship.

  Stornbeck’s voice seemed tinny on the Gaia’s ancient radio. “Fully, sir. Heinrich is in the captain’s station, the singularity is spun up, we have navigational data in the computer, and we can jump anytime you like.”

  This was Orson’s least favorite part of the plan. He and Heinrich… Esmerra, that was her first name, they were building something Orson had never experienced before. The drug was part of it, sure, but it felt like she cared for him. She wasn’t the cold Heinrich of years past when they were alone. She was his lover, his confidant, and his ace in the hole. And for the duration of their search for a new home, she’d be on a different ship than him.

  “I’m handing over navigational control of the Schein to you, tell Heinrich that she is to execute Plan Alpha. Because Sarah Dayson is alive. Once our last bit of hate is on its way to Refuge, we jump.”

  “Copy our orders, Schein,” Stornbeck answered. “Commander Heinrich is preparing the procedure now. Do not be alarmed when your maneuvering thrusters fire.”

  Orson savored the sensation of movement as the ships took their positions.

  The operation would take thirty minutes to complete. The warship orbited the massive colony ship, seeming to visually inspect it from every angle. As the smaller ship did its thing, the larger ship was accelerating away from Halvi on a course that would align it on the proper jump vector.

  It was Orson’s hope that the Seventh Fleet would see the maneuver and assume that the Schein was simply inspecting the Gaia for pre-jump problems. And they were doing that, but thanks to the tactical genius of Heinrich, they were doing something else as well. They were aligning the ships for a sneak attack on the Brainers. Loyal crews manned the guns, and would fire on his command.

  “You will be in position in thirty seconds,” Stornbeck informed him.

  Orson activated the intercom to the gunnery stations. “All crews will fire in thirty seconds as we come out of the shadow of the colony ship.”

  “Three… two… one… You are in position,” Stornbeck said.

  “FIRE!” Orson yelled.

  The ship vibrated continuously as the railguns opened up. The anti-ship and the ground attack guns fired, on the assumed positions of the Seventh Fleet as well as random spots on Refuge. He had considered using his missiles in the attack, but Heinrich believed the twelve grapplers protecting the moon would stop most if not all of them.

  No, railguns would have to do. He wouldn’t be around to see the results anyway, the act was no more than a stab at Dayson. He savored the thought of leaving her with more wounded ships and a heart filled with a rage she could never abate. He would be gone and she would be marooned in the Oasis system for the rest of her life.

  Sarah’s fleet was probably just now figuring out what had happened. They still had FTL missiles available, and would return fire if they thought he’d already fired on them.

  It was time to go. Before any retaliation could reach them.

  “The jump drive is green?” Orson asked Stornbeck.

  “We are ready,” was the answer.

  “Tell Heinrich to jump the fleet, and to be ready for me when we drop out of highspace.”

  “She says she will be ready,” Stornbeck replied. “Jumping now.”

  The universe went dark as his fleet jumped away from Oasis.

  Now to go see how the imprinting of that young marine was going.

  He had no plans to spend the jump alone.

  Chapter 53 - Spite

  02 Huni 15329

  “They’re gone,” Thea observed. “It’s over.”

  “That’s not all. Look at this.” Thea’s tactical officer put a magnified image of the enemy ships on the screen, viewed in infrared. The timestamp indicated just seconds before the Gaia jumped.

  As the Schein moved from behind the colony ship, heat blooms appeared along its length.

  “They fired on us,” Thea spat out. “I knew it.”

  “I’m calculating the incoming ordinance now based on the duration of the fire and the location of the gun emplacements,” the officer said.

  “Missiles?”

  “We didn’t see any launch blooms, so none fired facing us, but he could fire from the opposite side and we’d not see anything until the missiles got close enough to show up on active scan,” was the answer as he accessed the computer. “Just over fourteen hours until the first projectiles arrive.”

  Thea sighed. “There’s nothing we can do, we can’t shoot down railgun projectiles. Adjust our orbit so we’re on the far side of Refuge when the barrage arrives. Launch a sensor bird into geosynchronous orbit on the incoming side, and have it scan for missiles. If it detects any, we’ll use countermeasures as the situation warrants.”

  “Yes sir, working on that now.”

  “And Lieutenant…”

  “Yes, Captain?”

  “Have the satellite scan the surface of Refuge as well. We’ll want to know all the impact sites.”

  “Understood.”

  “Now we wait,” Thea whispered.

  She closed her eyes. She’d told Alarin she’d defend his people. But there was nothing to be done.

  * * *

  “The first ordinance will be here any moment.”

  Most of the incoming ordinance was anti-ship, much of which would burn up in the atmosphere of Refuge. But two ground attack railguns had fired for a minute each. These larger weapons fire slower, but hundreds of four kilogram railgun slugs were going to impact the surface. Fortunately at the range the ordinance was fired, accuracy would be low if Orson had ground targets in mind. Unfortunately they would pack no less of a punch.

  The remnants of the fleet were on the far side of Refuge as planned, and in no danger.

  “On screen,” Thea said.

  A strategic map of Refuge popped up on the screen, a globe indicating landmasses, cities, and any other relevant targets such as the Great Hall outside the crater at Zeffult.

  The first impacts began. Most in the ocean near New Korvand. He had picked a target.

  “Are the evacuations complete?” she asked to confirm. Officially the last settler in Jerna City was evacuated yesterday. But with operations as fast and urgent as this one was, there was always room for error.

  Her comm officer checked her databanks for current information. “The roster still says evacuated, Captain.”

  “Do we have a video feed from Jerna City?”

  The young woman shook her head. “No sir. Nobody thought we’d need one.”

  They wouldn’t know what the situation was until they went back down there or passed directly overhead to take good images.

  “You know what?” Thea asked rhetorically, “It doesn’t matter. He can knock down our buildings. He got away, but at least he’s not here wreaking havoc anymore.” She smiled wanly. “Everyone here is still alive, and we can rebuild. We will rebuild. Whatever hold Orson had on his crews that made them behave as they did, he’s gone.”

  The half-hearted smiles of her bridge crew told her what she needed to know about morale.

  “We are the Seventh Fleet,” she said. “We have always pulled ourselves out of the fire. We have always turned tragedy into opportunity.”

  “I’m sure we will again,” was the half hearted reply.

  That irritated Thea a bit. She needed morale to be high. Much of the fleet would be just as down on themselves because of the current situation. She let her disappointment morph into angry passion. “Damned right. If I have to drag you all to it kicking and screaming, we’re going to build a home here for our children. Your children.”

  A glimmer of hope crossed the young faces in front of her.

  That’s all Thea needed at the moment.

  Chapter 54 - Sacrifice

  03 Huni 15329

  Nartek hefted a second nuclear weapon onto the reaction sled. The bombs were weightless, but they still had mass and getting it where he want
ed it took some doing.

  The Fleet was supposed to have called him by now to set up the salvage operation with him. Nobody had, and he didn’t have the means to reestablish long range contact on his own. It had to be from their end. Maybe he was all that was left.

  Still, he had a job to do.

  He cinched the load straps down tight. He’d take care of this himself. If the asteroid fell any deeper into the gravitational grip of Ember, there’d be no chance of pushing it back out into a stable orbit.

  After stopping by the electronics shop to set the nuclear detonators to explode when a proper radio code was delivered, he relayed that code to the last known location of the Fyurigan. With no laser lock, he had no idea if they’d get it or not. If they did, and contacted him soon enough, they’d launch a shuttle to detonate the weapons and evacuate him.

  Otherwise, he’d make the final decision. He was an engineer. It was his job to save this ship. And regardless of personal risk, that’s how it was going to be. To achieve his goal he built a new detonation system for the bombs, independent of the Alliance designed safety locks. It was ingenious, if he dared say so himself.

  It was crunch time now. With it looking more and more like he’d have to take care of the entire business from his end, he got underway.

  Nartek fired up the sled and rode it to an airlock. The massive cover that sealed the Stennis into the drydock had a separate lock system, which he passed through without difficulty. Until the shuttle that picked up the other crewmen had arrived, he’d been concerned the external locks might be fused shut. They did show signs of blast damage, but still functioned.

  Gliding through the airlock, he looked around. It was the first time in a long time he’d seen the stars. He had a small navigation unit on the sled, and he put in the coordinates the engineers on the Fyurigan had suggested after Captain Jannis had cleared his attempt at this.

  The sled pushed away from the lock and toward the horizon, completely automated as it moved toward the first detonation point. Ember rose ahead of him, and he gasped as the tendrils of the gas giant’s black atmosphere writhed in splendid detail. Eddies of yellow and orange seethed to the surface, conveying a sense of anger Nartek knew a planet could not possess.

  Still, inside, he understood why the locals considered this something worthy of worship. The animal inside him was both cowed and elated by the majesty of the class IV gas giant. Despite never having had a superstitious moment in his life, he felt it was appropriate to confide in her. Maybe it was the nature of those who undertook danger alone to embrace the supernatural. Whatever. He was alone, and had nothing to justify to anyone.

  Why Ember was a “her” he didn’t know, except maybe because the locals referred to it as the Great Mother, Em’ Jalai.

  “You look angry today, Goddess. I’d be angry too if someone had done to me what that adept did to you,” he shared. “You’re even more violent looking now than when we arrived. I hope you don’t blame us.” He felt her heat through the face shield of his spacesuit. “The last thing I need right now is a mother, angry and scolding.”

  She didn’t answer him in any way.

  Of course not.

  “What I could use is a living person to talk to, to be honest.”

  The sound echoed in his suit, the glass and composite helmet wasn’t designed for heavy conversation. Yet he continued to speak to her as he progressed toward his destination. He shared his life, his fears. His hopes, his regrets. All the while staring into the eye of an orange and black cyclone the size of a hundred Refuges.

  His sentimentality was being recorded on the Stennis, he knew that. He didn’t care. Alone, nobody else within several million kilometers…he was the king of this rock at the moment. He’d do as he pleased.

  He reached the first detonation point and the sled stopped on its own thanks to the positioning system onboard. He unhooked from the vehicle’s oxygen supply, switching to his suit reserves.

  After unstrapping one of the bombs, he hefted it into a crevice a few dozen meters deep. Maybe the open ravine would concentrate the blast upwards, help to direct the energy toward Ember and propel the asteroid in the opposite direction.

  It took him half an hour. The installation of the first fusion bomb was problem free.

  Back at the sled, he entered the coordinates for the second device. It only took a few minutes to get there. After recharging his suit air supply, he unstrapped the bomb and moved it toward a fractured hill.

  There was a crack in the solid rock of the monolith, undoubtedly a scar from the first attack on the asteroid. He’d put the bomb in there. The entire mass of the hill would be above it, and again, hopefully that would add to the counter-reaction that he believed would save the Stennis.

  He crawled down into the broken recesses, dragging the device with him. Sixty meters under the surface a rupture in the rock ran sideways. He crawled inside with the weapon, pushing it ahead of him.

  Disaster struck moments later. The mass above him shifted, and the crevice partially closed. Probably due to the tidal stresses from the gas giant looming ever closer.

  He wasn’t harmed, but rushed back to the exit. His head fit through a small opening into the larger vertical ravine, but his shoulders wouldn’t pass. After struggling for several minutes, he stopped and rested.

  As his head rested against the back of the helmet, he stared up through the deep recess. The baleful eye of Ember stared back down at him.

  “Proof that prayers are the waste of time I always thought them to be,” he commented to the gas giant.

  He considered his situation. He had eight hours of oxygen. He could wait it out and hope the shuttle from the Fyurigan arrived to save him. That was certainly the option that gave him the best chance of survival.

  But it gave the Stennis the least chance. The asteroid was moving deeper into Ember’s gravity well with each passing second. The mass shift was proof of that in Nartek’s mind.

  He pulled his head back into the sealed underground chamber and inspected the bomb. It was unharmed from the partial collapse of the cave.

  Decision made.

  He stuck his arm through the small hole his head had been in moments ago, and the light that indicated radio contact with the sled turned green.

  Using his sled as a relay, he programmed the first bomb he’d placed. Moments later that device was counting down from five minutes until the moment it would unleash the power of the stars on this asteroid.

  He linked the nuke in the cave with him into the counter, and it indicated its readiness to blow with a green light.

  He synced the detonation times and sat down for a moment. These were his last minutes.

  What do men do when they know they’re about to die?

  He didn’t know.

  He shoved his head back through the small opening and stared up at the Great Mother.

  “I’m back,” he whispered to her. “I didn’t want to die alone.”

  Chapter 55 - The Prophet

  Mid Firstday

  Eislen worked alongside Salla as they pushed grout into the seams of their new house. Sweat poured down his bare back despite the onset of the winter season, and he’d caught Salla looking at him appreciatively more than once. Not that he’d ever tell her that.

  There wasn’t time for that now, anyway. Events called him to action.

  Three cycles prior fire had rained down from the sky in eastern Zeffult. Farmlands now lay in ruins as the weapons of Sarah Dayson’s people slammed into the ground and set the lands ablaze.

  There were deaths.

  But not many, the damage seemed to be random. Still, every life mattered. He wouldn’t accept any more of the carnage the newcomers seemed to create. If they couldn’t live in peace, they couldn’t live here.

  And, random or not, the elders of the villages in the area were visiting Kampana with pledges of allegiance to Eislen if he promised to protect them from more such destruction.

  He knew the story. Sarah Dayson
would never attack his people like that.

  But the elders didn’t, and, honestly, he saw no reason to inform them at this point. Every tool that bolstered loyalty was one more chance at success.

  On the edge of town, where the stables had been before, his men were building a new inn. An inn with common rooms, warm fire pits, and food lockers. People were streaming into town every day from all directions as word of the Prophet began to spread.

  That’s what they were calling him. The Prophet. A man of the old ways, a man to restore the power of the gods. The man who’d gone to Heaven and returned.

  He let them call him what they wanted. Was he the voice or hand of Faroo? Jalai? He didn’t know for sure. But what he was certain about was the path before him was the path of the devout. The path of the priest. He would be… no, he was a bridge between peoples. Those who wanted to cross it, to freedom and peace, were welcome to do so.

  Many did want to cross it.

  All sorts were coming into Kampana. Men who would fight for him. Women who were looking for safety for their families. Priests of all the gods. And, to Eislen’s surprise, two adepts who had sworn to him to uphold the old ways.

  Kalia and Ervin. A married couple that had fled the destruction of the capital city and seen the suffering of the refugees firsthand. The death and despair after the attack was outside the bounds of what was believable. That pivotal moment had changed them. For the better.

  Reports said Sarah Dayson’s people were helping, which is another reason he didn’t suspect her for the sky-fire. He still had hope she would be an ally. Because when word finally reached Alarin about what he was up to, things would quickly come to a head. And either the people would win, or the wicked ways of the modern adepts would win. But the matter would be settled according to the will of the gods.

  “You think too much,” Salla said as she rested her hands on his back. She leaned into him, and her hands slipped under his arms, around his belly.

  “How do you know?” he laughed. “Are you sure you’re not gifted?”