by Chris Hechtl
“I think a lot of people on board all the ships are in agreement with you on that score,” the chief said. She set her stein down. “Any idea why they didn't capture that ship?”
“Veraxin,” the captain replied. “From what we've gathered, the entire crew was bug. That didn't sit well with the damn pirates, so they must have decided to have some fun with them instead of their usual loot, plunder and such.”
“Yeah,” Cynthia said. “Skip, if we do find them, I want to be in on the kill,” she growled. Shelby nodded.
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“Well, well, well, looky what we have here,” Shelby said after they made jump into Nightingale space. She nodded as the sensor officer finished the plot update. CIC was still refining orbits and numbers, but she recognized the two drive signatures in orbit. She'd seen both before. One was a freighter judging from her mass and ion trail; the other was most definitely a warship.
“Captain Logan, we need to take them out,” Captain Levinson urged over the tight whisker laser between the ships. “My tactical department just reported that one of the ships fired on the planet,” he said grimly.
Shelby glanced at her sensor officer, then to the CIC feed. She played back the feed, and caught the trace that Oscar mentioned. “I see,” she said. “We can't just go in swinging; they will just run. We need to finish this, here and now before they do this to another world,” she said.
“Agreed,” Oscar said grimly. “How though?”
“Whatever we're going to do, we've got four days to do it,” Lieutenant Zeb said, indicating the plot. It blinked with a status change. Shelby pursed her lips as she noted the warship had broken orbit and was now setting a course for them.
“Interesting, and I think we can use this. I doubt they have readings on all our ships, so we're going to use that to our advantage,” Shelby said. “Remember our first sim?” She asked. Captain Yu and Levinson nodded. “Well, we're going to use a variant of it. Prometheus and Bertha will be the bait. You two tuck in our shadow and let's see if we can draw them in.”
“It's risky, Ma'am. That's a tin can from the readings,” Lieutenant Zeb said. “If she gets a big enough piece of us or our escorts, we're all in trouble,” he warned.
“I realize that. Get me more info on them. Passives only for the next two days, then we'll go to civilian actives. Be creative, but make sure to step down to civilian grade emissions. I don't want them to know what we are and what we've got,” she ordered. “Once we know that they know that we know that they are coming for us here's what we're going to do...”
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Three days into their tense journey the second act of their little drama began. When they were certain the enemy knew they had had seen it, the ships changed course to the Epsilon Triangula jump point and away from them.
It was a long shot; one lumbering ships like the large tanker and freighter weren't going to luck out on. Both ships had stepped down their drives to civilian levels to keep the pirate from realizing what their true prey was.
“Captain, they will be in extreme missile range shortly,” Ensign Murray reported.
Shelby nodded. Her crew were buttoned up in their skinsuits and ready for battle. She had just finished her lunch and a trip to the head. She was as ready as she would ever be, she thought. “Tell Descartes not to put the horse out too soon,” she said.
Silverfish turned to her and rolled his golden eyes. “You've been wanting to say that for months I bet,” he said.
She grinned. “Not quite the way I'd planned, but it works,” she said with a shrug. “Time?”
“Two minutes until point Baker, Ma'am,” the AI reported. “We're passing our sensor feeds to the escorts now,” he reported.
Shelby nodded. For this to work she'd have to hold back and cover Bertha while the warships duked it out on their own. She didn't like it, didn't like being some damsel in distress, but that was what her orders specified.
“Point Bakerm Ma'am,” the AI said.
She nodded. “Very well. Execute,” she said simply, then sat back to watch the show.
The two frigates had used the two larger ships as a cover until the Arboth was almost in range, then on Prometheus's signal they swung around and took the lead, putting themselves in harm's way between the marauding destroyer and her intended prey.
“Surprise,” Shelby murmured as she heard Captain Levinson's voice over the open channel.
“This is the Federation Naval frigates Descartes and Loch to hostile vessel. Stand down and prepare to be boarded or you will be destroyed,” he said.
“That boy has been rehearsing that for a while,” Shelby said softly. Zeb clacked in agreement.
The Arboth turned to run but the two frigates and the drones Shelby released to their control hammered the pirate ship in a swarm of missiles.
The tin can rolled to present her keel to the unexpected threat and then thundered back her defiance. Missiles crossed space at extreme range, some intersected and exploded. Prometheus had released two of her defensive drones and two of her weapons drones to the frigates. The defensive platforms, coupled with their upgraded defensive systems kept the small warships alive. The Arboth wasn't so fortunate. But before it exploded it hammered the two gallant smaller ships back in return. Loch escaped with only slight damage to her shields and the loss of all her drones and missile pods. Descartes had taken the lead and she was pounded. Her shields failed and some of her exterior hull works were wiped away before the nuclear warheads dissipated.
Descartes had also taken drive damage, so she couldn't chase down the Zanzibar freighter when it lumbered to flee. Captain Yu took Loch after the other ship and ran her down ten million kilometers away from the jump point to Epsilon Triangula while Prometheus rendered aide to Descartes and launched search and rescue shuttles to look for survivors from the destroyer.
"It's times like these that I regret that extra squadron of tugs and shuttles. Dad was right; I should have waited a month and taken the squadron of fighters instead," Shelby murmured.
"You didn't know, Ma'am," Prometheus said. "And it would have delayed us even further. Command wasn't willing to hand over a veteran unit, and they didn't want to give us a green unit either."
"Hindsight's twenty-twenty," Shelby said, looking away. "I'm definitely putting in for one when we get back to Pyrax though," she vowed.
The freighter refused to surrender so Loch fired on it, disabling her drive with a salvo at long range. The freighter's engines sputtered then died, after a moment she was adrift. She was boarded and towed back to orbit. Captain Yu grimly reported the crew was dead, the hit had destroyed her bridge and most of the prisoners had been shot before the Horathians had killed themselves.
Descartes crew had also taken a beating, Lieutenant Eddington had been killed, as well as four engineering ratings. Six others were laid up in sickbay. Captain Levinson had been battered with a head wound and missing teeth when a strut had come loose and nearly taken his head off. He was alive, and apparently cursing through his battered mouth.
Shelby stopped by sickbay to check up on him. Levinson muttered something and clutched at his stomach. “What'd he say?” Shelby demanded, turning to the doctor.
“Something about swallowing teeth,” the Veraxin doctor said. Shelby winced. “I can get them later or grow more. But he's not a priority, he's stable.”
Shelby nodded. She had to admire Oscar; despite his suit breech and head wound, he'd kept his faculties and fought on well. He'd also seen to his crew first before requesting medical attention. She liked that.
“Status on repairs?” Shelby asked, turning to Cynthia.
“I'm working with Vlad and his DCC people to get it sorted out. I just sent over a shuttle of our own DCC people. Descartes is a mess, but her essentials are intact. We'll know more in a couple hours, Skipper,” she said.
Shelby nodded.
Damage control parties worked around the clock to assess and repair the frigates. In between pa
rt runs, Cynthia had already planned on having Oz squeeze in replacement missiles for the pods the two frigates had used. That meant the captain had to be on hand with her implants codes to authorize them. According to the report the busy Chief had filed to the captain's email they'd have Descartes back to normal within three days. Two if they had more material.
Nightingale had also lost her gas giant refinery. The pirates had apparently tanked up on the thing then blown it up out of stupidity or spite. Shelby didn't care which; she just hated the loss of resources. Then again, it might have been a blessing, she mused darkly. Had they left it adrift she would never had trusted it. They could have booby trapped it like the derelict. She shook her head. Either way, it was a cloud of debris now.
“The natives are restless, Ma'am,” Lieutenant Silverfish reported. He was her new acting XO now that Zeb had taken temporary command of the freighter. The cat was nervous, but he was adjusting to the roll. “Some sound grateful to our hails and reports of the battle, but not all. I'm getting an odd undercurrent ,Ma'am,” he said.
“Work with it. Our SAR are finished?” He nodded. “No survivors from the tin can?” He flicked his ears and then shook his head slowly no. Shelby pursed her lips. “Fine. Get them some downtime, not more than a shift. Then have them report to the planet and help out there. Get me someone in charge there, someone I can talk to who knows what to do and has the authority to act. In the meantime I'll…I'll check in on Folly,” she said. He nodded and turned to his station to get to work.
The Zanzibar class freighter was in the process of being repaired as well. Her drive and hab were a mess, so the prize crew were tucked away in the ship's engineering compartments trying to do the best they could.
She was the Charleston Lake's Folly, an old ship that had recently arrived in the sector from the Tau sector through Airea 3 several years ago. A prize crew detached to man her; Ensign Murray transferred over to be acting XO for Lieutenant Zeb. Shelby was very interested in what the Folly's database had to offer, they had little intel on what was happening outside of the Rho sector.
The tactical officer reported in a day after his transfer that the freighter had been caught with her virtual pants down in orbit of the planet a week before they had arrived in the system.
“A week? That damn tin can made good time from Beta 443 then!” She ran the calculations, then ran them again. They had to be traveling in the high beta octaves at least, possibly the low Gamma bands. She wasn't sure, but that was ominous if it was remotely true. If that was truem intel had to know; that meant a major shift in the enemy’s equipment and tech base. A major shift in a very short time. That didn't bode well for the future.
“It seems that way, Ma'am. I found a journal entry when I ran a scan of the most recent documents. Apparently someone on the crew decided to tuck away some intel they'd picked up. Apparently the tin can was the Rattler, she was part of a task force assigned to, get this, 'investigate leads in the area,'” he said.
“I don't like the sound of that. What investigation? What leads?”
“The journal doesn't say unfortunately.”
“Anything on the size of this task force?” Shelby asked. The Ensign shook his head. “Keep digging then.”
“Ma'am, they came in through B452c and Centennial. They split up, we know one destroyer went north towards Antigua, up that chain. Other ships headed into the New Brunswick spiral, Ma'am. I'm worried about Epsilon Triangula now,” he said. "We have a naval medical facility there according to what Admiral Irons said."
Shelby froze and then nodded slowly. “I see,” she said slowly. “Anything else?” She asked. He shook his head no. Shelby exhaled. “Do what you can to massage those computers. See if you can get anything else out of them. Unfortunately, this Rattler was turned into plasma; we can't get anything out of her computers,” she said. “Not that I'm complaining. Two Frigates taking out a tin can is damn good. But I don't like this. And I really don't like the implications about ET.”
“What do we do, Ma'am?”
“We sit tight. If necessary I'll send the Zanzibar back to Pyrax along the route we came. She's slow; she can't make beta right?” The new XO shook his head. “Frack. Okay, well, we'll figure it out,” she said. He nodded. She cut the link and then thought.
Prometheus was running a little light, with replacements on Descartes and the prize she realized. She now regretted not picking up a few recruits along the way. She'd fully intended to pick up recruits on ET and Gaston since they'd be only a hop and a skip away from Pyrax and could then drop them off to the naval schools in San Diego. Now that was out. She'd have to come up with another plan, one soon. For now she'd have to deal with what she had in front of her.
She looked at the battered blue marble. Probes were already dropping into her atmosphere; satellites were arraying themselves in orbit, dodging the debris left there. It was still beautiful though, but now had fresh scars to go with the old ones from the Xeno war. Terrible ones, from the look of things ,the pirates had dropped rocks indiscriminately on the main continent. She didn't understand why.
“Ma'am, we're getting a transmission. A Mister Shell, he's been selected as spokesman to coordinate the relief efforts with us,” Lieutenant Silverfish reported, looking up and waggling his nose, whiskers, and ears at her.
“Put him on,” she said, settling herself in her chair.
She nodded to the camera as the image appeared. She was surprised they had video transmission. Apparently Nightingale had kept some of her tech base. Or, they'd been recently upgraded by someone. It took her a moment while Mister Shell introduced himself to realize who, Io 11.
“I'm sorry, did you say the Governor is unavailable? Not dead? Is he working to coordinate the relief efforts?” Shelby asked.
“Um, no, he is…unavailable,” the brown haired man said uncomfortably. He shook his head. “That's all I've been authorized to tell you,” he said, finishing the bald statement in a mumble.
“Okay…” Shelby drawled.
“We don't have any fuel. And our osmium is gone,” Mister Shell said firmly. “They took it all,” he said grimly. "Everything we'd mined since Io 11 came around," he admitted.
“Which explains the traces of Osmium in the tin can's debris field,” the sensor rating sent in a text message to the captain. She glanced his way and then nodded slightly.
“So…the Horathians are gone?”
“Most definitely gone. We've turned them into an expanding ball of plasma,” Shelby said noting his brief relief.
“What if they come back and you’re gone!” He looked off camera when someone murmured something then nodded to someone unseen. “They said there were more coming!”
“That is a concern. We can't stay here forever,” Shelby admitted.
“You brought this on us; this is your fault!” he said, eyes wide. “We've heard stories of your Admiral Irons, you're Navy. It's brought us nothing but trouble and heartache! The stuff we picked up from Io…” he shook his head, face filled with grief. “It was all in Capital city. All gone,” he said. “My family, gone,” he said. “You need to leave,” he said, looking up. “Before they come back. You bring nothing but trouble here, and we don't want it.” He shook his head vehemently.
“That's right!” a woman said. The camera jittered, and then its field of view expanded to see a group of six people near Mister Shell. They all had set faces.
Shelby blinked and then settled herself. “First, may I say I am sorry for your loss. I know it wounds you deeply,” She said, hand over her heart. She paused expecting a nod but he was wooden, a statue. “And ahem, for the record, and to point out the obvious, they were here first. We came in to rescue you. And oh, by the way, you're welcome,” Shelby growled. That shut them up for a moment.
“You are right, we're sorry. But we don't want to be caught in the middle of your war. We have to remain neutral. If we involve ourselves with you or them…if we choose a side we're helpless to the other side. I don't want that
for my children. None of us do.”
“You need to leave,” a voice behind the spokesman growled.
Shelby closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath to cleanse herself. Finally she opened them to stare at the frightened natives. “Even if we hadn't shown up, they were still tearing you apart! You're already involved, whether you like it or not. Now the question is, are you going to continue being a victim or do something about it?” Shelby demanded.
“We'll…we'll think about it. We'll discuss it and get back to you.”
“Yeah, you do that,” Shelby said coldly. “Just remember, we're not going to be here forever. We've got other places to be. So figure out what you want to do.” She shook her head. “You can't hide your head in the sand. It's not going to work.” She put her hands on her hips then moved them to cross her arms. “I know about Centennial. I bet some of you do too. No one is home there anymore. No signs of life. I'm not sure what happened, we'll get there eventually. But do you want your home to be like that?”
“As I said, we'll discuss it,” the delegate said stiffly.
“Right,” Shelby said then turned her back on them.
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Dozens of shuttles swarmed out from Prometheus. Bertha lent her shuttles, as did Loch. Descartes tiny cutter was kept on hand to act as a SAR vehicle while work crews finished wrapping up the repairs to the frigate and freighter.
While crews of volunteers and robots worked tirelessly to help those they could on the planet, the four captains met on Prometheus to discuss the situation and coordinate their efforts. From the look of it, Oscar had gotten some sleep. His face still looked like he'd lost a couple rounds to a heavy world prize fighter, but he was back in action and ready for more. The death of his XO seemed to haunt him a bit, Shelby could see it in his eyes when he glanced over to Lieutenant Zeb. But he'd matured. She nodded. Captain Levinson had definitely come around. It was about time, she thought.
“You look like shit,” Captain Yu said, nodding to Oscar.
“I feel like shit. Thanks for asking,” Oscar said dryly. “But I'm better thanks. A night's sleep can do that for you. That and quick heal,” he said, reaching up to touch his face. “Doc said I'll be in for repairs shortly.” He shook his head. “It has woke me up though,” he said. “I promise,” he said, holding up a hand. “No more bitching about this assignment. I'm all for it now,” he said firmly.