Everyone at the table laughed at that. There really was nothing the Imperials could do if the Council decided to do anything to them. Pallion wanted to stay on their good side, but it was more important to figure out what they were up to. And of course they would never really find out what happened to their crewmember. They might have their suspicions, but that’s all they would be.
* * *
“Welcome aboard, Polasar,” said Commander Laaksonen in greeting as the Klavarta Alpha came aboard the Nina, exiting from shuttle that was returning from delivering crew to the surface of the moon and bringing back some others for their duty shifts.
“Thank you, Commander,” said the Klavarta, reaching out a hand that was still phasing in and out of sight.
“You might want to turn off your invisibility field,” said the Exec with a smile.
“Oh,” said the Alpha, his eyes widening. He fumbled with something under his cloak and the invisibility field snapped off. “I’m unfamiliar with your equipment, and thought I had turned it off after I had boarded your shuttle. It’s no wonder your people kept staring at me, and laughing. I thought they might consider my appearance strange in and of itself.”
“You’re not that strange looking to us,” said Laaksonen with a laugh, glancing back at the big Phlistaran Marine who stood about ten meters to the side. “In fact, you look downright normal to us.”
“That is so refreshing,” said Polasar, his lips stretching into a smile. “It is nice to meet a human such as yourself.”
And I hope you still feel that way when we are done here, thought the Exec. He had been filled in on the mission, at least as much as the Commodore had to give him, and it still bothered him. They had come here to make new friends and allies, not to mess with their self-determination. Unfortunately, they really had no self-determination.
“Are you ready? Or would you like to take some time to refresh yourself?”
“I am ready,” said the Alpha, nodding his head. “I want you to get the information while it is fresh in my mind.”
“And you realize that mind upload is not the most pleasant experience?” he asked the Alpha. “Not dangerous. At least not as long as you don’t resist the process.” I hope, thought the Exec. Mind upload, or uplink, was a standard method of imparting information quickly, as well as gathering it. But they needed to know the psycho-physiology of the mind in question in order to use it, and there could be little or no resistance involved if they wanted a safe and efficient loading. And frankly, though the Alphas were of modified human stock, the part that worried him was modified.
“I must admit I am a little nervous. Not that the upload was all that odious, but still not something I would enjoy going through for fun.”
“Then let’s get to it,” suggested Laaksonen, leading the way from the shuttle deck.
The Alpha was seated in the chair in medical to undergo the process while the Exec monitored him, along with the medical staff and an Intelligence specialist. He monitored some of the information on a viewer as it flowed out of the mind of the messenger. This is exactly what we need, he thought as he watched images fly across the screen. It was really too much for him to comprehend in its entirety. But the snippets he saw were enough to let him know they had what they needed, or at least most of it.
And this is interesting, he thought as the image of Thallia Thrann appeared on the screen for a fleeting moment. So that’s where the information came from, or at least a portion of it. So that is the contact within the government.
The Alpha was shown to quarters after the upload, plainly exhausted from his ordeal, while Laaksonen went to talk to the Commodore. Just before leaving he sent orders to the bridge to transmit their take back to the Empire, where they could use it to plan the operation that no one really wanted to implement.
* * *
“This is going to be a hard nut to crack,” said Laaksonen, standing next to the Commodore’s command chair on the bridge. “I’m not really sure how they’re going to pull it off.”
“And that is not for us to determine, Exec,” said Sung, staring at the holo that showed their general surroundings, the gas giant system and everything in orbit within. There were a lot of ships on that holo, and many more closer to her command than there had been Including a squadron of five million ton warships, the largest they had seen to date for the Klavarta, within close proximity to her ships. There were twelve of the ships, newly arrive to the system, sixty million tons of vessels, that were most probably a match for her three explorers. “That’s for the Emperor and whomever he puts in charge of the mission to decide. Now, what do you think is going on out there?”
“Looks to me like they’re making sure we can’t go anywhere without permission,” said Laaksonen, his eyes narrowing.
“That was my thought. I’m beginning to think that the only way we are leaving this system is if we enforce a change of management.”
“Then it’s a good thing that the change of management is going ahead as planned,” said the Exec.
“So, what did you learn from the messenger?”
“Only that, as I said, this is going to be a hard nut to crack. These people are as paranoid as any I’ve ever heard of. There are so many redundant systems to protect their consciousnesses from destruction. Each had multiple bodies in cryo, fully grown adult bodies. Kill one of the Council or one of their clone subordinates, and they’ll be walking the streets again before the day is out.”
“I was afraid of that. Well, something else for command to think about.” She looked back at the holo, which was showing another group of the five million ton ships, what she was thinking of as small battle cruisers, moving around the curve of one of the other moons, looking to be on a path to eventually enter the orbit of this moon. “What about their fleet command?”
“Another problem. While the Klavarta are the battle commanders, the ones with the actual control are more of the clone subordinates, people who were either among the survivors that made it here, or of the next generation aboard the Exodus IV. Five in total in this system, all with the ability to power up or shut down any ship in the fleet.
“There’s one of them on this station here,” he continued, pointing toward a large space platform in orbit around the moon. “Another on this space dock. Two are aboard these modified small battle cruisers. One is an actual battlewagon, while the other is a small attack craft carrier, similar to our own light fleet carriers, but holding a much larger attack vessel, in the five thousand ton range.”
“What about the other two fleet leaders?” asked Sung, trying to refocus her Exec, who, like most naval combat officers, was always fascinated by ships and weapons.
“One is on the planet, in their ground defense headquarters under this mountain,” said Laaksonen, pointing to a blinking point on the globe of the moon. He swept the holo out with his hand until it was centered on a large station in the second of the system’s belts. “The other is out here, where their actual overall fleet headquarters is housed.”
“Crap. I don’t think command was expecting that. So we have to take out all of these people at essentially the same time. Just wonderful.” Sung sat there, looking at the wide spread of targets. If they didn’t get all of them, whomever was left would simply shut down any rebellious ships, while activating all the weapons on those they could still trust. The rebellion side of the operation would be over before it started.
“What did he have to say about the Klavarta? How many will come in on our side, and how many will they have to fight against?”
“We will probably get a third of them on our side,” said Laaksonen, holding up a hand to hold his Commodore’s protest. “That’s the bad news. The good news is about a quarter of them will probably just sit it out. Among the leadership we can count on about seventy-five percent on our side.”
“Which means that our side will still face considerable resistance, especially if we can’t shut down the loyalist ships. And what about their ground forces?”
“Their weapons will still work, no matter what happens to the fleet. So we can expect some ground combat, unless we can take out the top leadership quickly, and not leave anyone around for them to rally behind. Maybe command might want to rethink this operation,” said Laaksonen in a hushed voice. “It’s not really something I’m comfortable with.”
Sung looked at her Exec, one who had been chosen as her second in command because of his track record as both a combat officer and an explorer. Her track had been somewhat different. She had started off as an intelligence officer, and had run operations, mostly information gathering, in several of the star nations around the Empire. After over a decade, she had gotten burned out playing in the shadows. All of her assignments had been at embassies, so she had gotten some skill at diplomacy rubbed off on her. The Fleet had wanted her to continue in intelligence, but she had requested Exploration Command, with the veiled threat of resigning her commission. She had even agreed to a reduction in rank so she could serve as a tactical officer on a Command cruiser.
And this was not an operation that she felt particularly comfortable about. Her government was trying to topple a government through covert military action, supporting a revolution that could not succeed on its own, with a series of attacks that had to go through with pinpoint timing. All from over thirty thousand light years away. Of course the wormholes negated much of the distance, but it still added psychological complexity to the operation.
“Ma’am,” came the voice of the Com Officer to interrupt her thought. “Pinta is reporting that one of their crew has not reported in on schedule, and the team they were with didn’t notice that she was gone until she had been missing for some minutes.”
“How in the hell did that happen?” growled Sung, glaring at the Com Officer as if she were responsible.
“They were in a restaurant, and Ensign Garmin went to use the restroom,” said the Com Officer after listening to the com for a moment.
“Shit. They were ordered to never allow one of their team to get out of sight. I don’t care if they have to go to the bathroom, they are to take someone along with them.” She looked over at Laaksonen. “Make sure that order gets out to all of our people on the moon, and to everyone before they go down.”
“And what are we going to do about it, Ma’am?” asked the Exec.
“What can we do about it? Report it to the Council. And then sit here and listen as they deny having anything to do with it. And then I’m left with the choice of either going along with their lie, or calling them on it. Neither of which will do us any good.”
“At least Ensign Garmin knows nothing about this operation,” said Laaksonen.
“But she knows plenty of other things we really don’t want the Council to know. Like the existence of the wormholes connecting us to the Empire. Hopefully her psych protocols will let her resist long enough.” She looked over at the Com Officer. “We need to let command know immediately that we might have a compromise on our hands.”
The Com Officer nodded and turned back to his board, while Sung looked back at the holo for a moment, then at her Exec. “I think this operation is going to go off sooner than we planned. That, or it won’t go off at all.”
* * *
SUPERSYSTEM SPACE: MAY 24TH, 1002.
“And here are our targets,” said the Briefing Officer to the chamber filled with lower ranking officers. “I know they are widely scattered, and they will be heavily guarded. But it is imperative that they all be taken simultaneously.”
This is fucking crazy, thought Major Cornelius Walborski, staring in disbelief at the holo. And I’m just a damned ground pounder, not a Fleet Commando. How in the hell did I get into something like this?
The promotion had come with the transfer to this special ops unit, which, as far as he knew, was so black it didn’t even have a name. Cornelius wasn’t sure he had the time in grade to warrant another promotion, but everyone who had transferred in had been bumped up at least one rank, permanently.
And from what I see, none of us have ever done anything like this. When he asked why he was picked for something like this, with his lack of experience, he was told that these was no one with the experience for something like this. So they had gotten together a bunch of special ops people, Rangers, Marine Recon, Naval Commandos, and a number of operatives from the intelligence services. As far as he could tell, everyone on this op was augmented. And all had some military training, if not exactly the kind he would have thought necessary for an operation on spaceships and stations. The only parts that weren’t in space, on planets, were either in underground complexes or dense cities.
“And what if we aren’t able to carry all of the targets at once?” asked a man wearing the comets of a Naval Commando, the rank insignia of a full commander on his left collar. “I don’t know about the planners of this, thing, but my experience is that nothing ever goes according to plan, and timetables are made to be broken.”
“If everything goes according to plan,” said the young looking woman standing at the front of the room, “then we carry off the operation without significant loss, always a worthy objective. If things go into the crapper, then that is why we have people like you carrying out the mission. We have faith that you will do whatever it takes to win.”
Meaning that we’re here to shed whatever blood is needed to nourish a victory, thought Cornelius, shaking his head.
“Once we have taken out the targets, it is expected that the Klavarta will rebel against their remaining government,” continued the Briefing Officer.
Expected, thought Cornelius. And if it doesn’t go off, as expected, we will be dead meat. Unless we have a fleet waiting to enter the system.
“We are scheduled to go in two weeks. I know that’s not a lot of time, but it’s probably all Commodore Sung’s squadron has before the Klavarta government starts demanding action from us.”
And I think it would take two months just to prepare us to work in space, and another two months to learn how to use all of this special equipment they have for us to use. He wasn’t really sure how much he agreed with the use of some of that equipment. After all, he had made promises, and he didn’t think what command had in mind was really in the spirit of those promises.
Chapter Twenty
Death solves all problems - no man, no problem.
Joseph Stalin.
NEW EARTH SPACE.
“I am sorry, Commodore,” said Chairwoman Pallion, her cold face looking out over the holo. “We have found no trace of your crewwoman.”
And why don’t I believe you are being completely honest with me? thought Sung, fighting to keep a neutral expression on her face. “I wish you would take me up on my offer to use my own people to aid in the search, Madam Chairwoman.”
“And again, I must refuse,” said the Chairwoman. “Until we can find out who is behind this, crime, I must insist that we put no more of your people in danger.”
And now that you have your subject for interrogation, you don’t want a bunch of us wandering on the surface of your moon, trying to develop our own intelligence. We have to play your game, for the moment.
“I am so sorry that this has happened, Commodore. But rest assured that we will get to the bottom of this.”
This is like something out of a bad vid, where everyone knows who the bad guys are, but they still act as if everything is, good. And this bitch is like a caricature of a bad guy. “I know you are doing everything in your power to find Ensign Garmin, and I appreciate your efforts, and concern.” And if you believe that, you are just as gullible as I am pretending to be.
“And when will your ship leave for your Empire?”
“I would still like to take all of my ships with me, Madam Chairwoman. It would increase our likelihood of making it home.”
“And that is why I must now insist that you leave two of your ships here,” said Pallion. “We still have so much to learn from you.”
And you want to retain your hostages, thoug
ht Sung, her eyes narrowing. She caught herself before her face betrayed her. And two of them is it? Like one ship of hostages won’t do. “Then I plan to leave in two weeks. I must make sure that the ship I send knows all of my thoughts.”
“Then you will not be going yourself?”
“This is my squadron, and I should stay with the bulk of it, Madam Chairwoman.”
“Very well. I must get back to the business of running the government, and the war. It’s a never-ending task, but someone has to do it.”
The holo died, leaving Sung to sit with her own thoughts. After a moment she activated the ship com and reached the engineering section.
“Ma’am,” came the acknowledgement of Commander Alexandru Ionesco.
“How goes it, Commander. Will everything be ready in time?”
“All of the wormhole gates will be ready within the next couple of days, ma’am. I know you didn’t specify that they be ready until a couple of days before the op, but I would rather be too early than too late.”
“But we’ll still be able to use the com to contact the Empire?”
“No, problem, ma’am. The gates will be minimized within the ship until we actually need to deploy them. I just wish we had more of the little guys.”
Each of the ships had a pair of wormholes aboard, a primary for both com and to bring supplies aboard, and a secondary that was inside engineering to refuel the ship if necessary. A total of six wormholes, and they couldn’t bring more into the system unless it was brought across the thirty thousand light years by another ship.
“We’ll just have to make do with what we have,” Sung told the Chief Engineer of the squadron. “At least they’ll help us bring across what we need to carry out the op. A few years ago even that wouldn’t be possible.”
Exodus: Empires at War: Book 9: Second Front Page 27