Rebel Fleet

by B. V. Larson

  “Disgusting creature of fur and weak bones,” he said. “I will not hold your tail, except to prevent your escape while I beat you with this club.”

  Rebuffed, Mia backed away, showing her teeth.

  Things were getting out of control, so I threw up my hands.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I know you’ve had a difficult time getting here. We’ll leave you in peace.”

  “No,” said the furious Terrapinian, striding forward and reaching for Mia, who danced away.

  That’s when Samson shot him. His disrupter hummed and the turtle went down, clutching his chest.

  I was shocked to see that the weapon worked, but then I remembered we were on the front lines now. Captain Ursahn must have activated our sidearms.

  “It burns!” the turtle hissed.

  “Dammit, Samson,” I said. “Let’s get out of here before this turns into a bigger shit-storm.”

  The other Terrapinians gathered around their injured leader. They stared at us with hate in their obsidian eyes.

  As we left them, Shaw appeared. He pointed to Samson.

  “Was he authorized to damage my new recruits?” he demanded.

  “No,” I said, “but he acted to defend Mia.”

  Shaw looked from one of us to the other. “Next time, use your hands.”

  “But what if they’re stronger than we are?” Gwen asked.

  “Then you get beaten down, naturally.” Shaw said firmly. “These recruits are of such low status, I’m shocked you even came out to meet them. They’re worth very few points, and you gained nothing by shooting them. In fact, you probably lost a few for the violation.”

  I didn’t bother to try to explain to him what my plan was, or how I’d hoped these Terrapinians would be different.

  There was little logic to that hope, I knew. We were all Kher, and deep down that apparently made us mean, competitive and violent.

  All my life I’d ascribed to the view that aliens, should we ever meet them, would be more civilized than the rowdy people of Earth. What a culture shock the truth was. It appeared that humans were more civilized than most other strains in the cosmos, from what I could see.

  Among the Kher, kindness and consideration were greeted with a suspicious snarl. Friendliness was assumed to be a trick, a pretense to put an enemy off-guard, nothing else.

  The more I thought about it, the less surprising it seemed from an evolutionary standpoint. The strong survived, the weak perished. That was the rule of life. There was no creature more ruthless than a predator who ran down other creatures to eat them. And who might come to dominate a planet and gain technological knowledge, other than a predator?

  Even these Terrapinians appeared to be meat-eaters. They might look like shell-less turtles, but they had rows of sharp teeth in their mouths that had to be overkill when it came to eating lettuce.

  “Befriending them was worth the attempt,” Dr. Chang said to me, as if he could read my mind. “But it was likely to fail.”

  “I just wanted to make a connection.”

  “Think about what they’ve just been through,” he said. “Only a few hours ago, the syms were infecting them with violent passion. Even if they’re normally peaceful, they’ve been at one another’s throats for days building to a climax that ended recently. You didn’t see them at their best.”

  I nodded, thinking that made sense. “But I can’t get the idea out of my head that we could do better, as a group, if we cooperated more.”

  “A noble goal,” he agreed, “but one that goes against our instincts. These turtles are like any Kher-variant from any planet. They’re vicious killers at heart. It was predictable that they wouldn’t be interested in making friends with humans.”

  “I still believe a commitment to teamwork is the best way to accomplish any goal, especially military ones.”

  “Really? That isn’t a historically based perspective. Every military on Earth is a linear dictatorship from the top to the bottom. Ranks are clear. Pecking orders are rigid. The same holds true in other organizations that function well, such as companies.”

  “But this is different,” I said, “we’re not exactly the same. We’re so different in appearance, behavior, and culture.”

  “Like the Golden Horde…” he muttered

  “What?”

  “Over a thousand years ago, Mongolia conquered the majority of Asia, and a good portion of Europe as well. They didn’t start with many soldiers, but they pressed others into service. Each time the Mongols conquered a city or a nation, they added them to the horde. There was no love lost between any of them, believe me, but they were very effective in battle anyway.”

  “Yeah…” I said with a grunt. The good doctor was kicking my ass in this argument, and I wanted out. “Well, we’ll see how this organization behaves when we meet the enemy.”

  “I suspect it will do quite well,” Dr. Chang said, “but it all depends on the strength of the enemy. If they outnumber or outgun us, we’ll lose.”

  I had nothing further to offer.

  He shrugged and headed for bed. I lay down and Mia lay next to me, curling herself up. She was hot to the touch, and her breath was warm and moist.

  I stayed awake for a long time, pondering this Fleet of strangers I’d signed on with. Was I going to live or die at their side? Would I ever get to meet or talk to the real enemy in the ships on the other side? Or would we die in the cold of space, never even knowing what hit us?

  There was no way of telling, and that fact made it difficult to sleep.

  =23=

  We flew onward for two months. Every week or so, we hopped to another star system and picked up a fresh crew for another fighter.

  In all that time, we’d never seen an enemy vessel. But they were out there. I could almost feel them as we got closer and closer to the Orion Spur.

  The Rebel Fleet had come from far away, close to the hub of the galaxy. There, vast glowing nebulae obscured everything. The nearness of the stars in clusters, along with the hanging dust and gases, made that corner of the universe a bright one.

  When they’d launched probes from these innermost star systems toward places like Earth, we’d seen bright rips in the sky because they’d come from more luminous areas of the galaxy. Now, however, as we drove onward, ever farther away from the central hub, it seemed to be growing ever darker.

  Then came another a big jump, two thousand lightyears across an abyss that was thinly populated by either stars or life. That’s when things went badly.

  At first, the stellar flux seemed like any other. We were veterans of the process by now.

  “Checklist complete, Chief,” Gwen said, reporting to me.

  I’d earned the title of “chief” very recently. Essentially, it allowed me to fly my fighter without onboard supervision from a higher-ranking individual.

  Everyone in the chain of command labored hard to turn one member of each fighter crew into a chief, that way they could send us out on our own. Each successful chief, in turn, raised his officer’s status in the Fleet.

  “Anti-grav on,” Samson said, activating the sub-system without being told to.

  We were working more like a team now. We were infinitely more competent and confident. Instead of relying entirely on my earthly military training and what I’d learned from Tand, I felt my own people had become dependable. I’d steadily shelled off tasks to them after I’d mastered new techniques during training flights.

  Tand and Shaw hadn’t seen fit to give me any orders in that regard. I was free to run my ship the way I wanted, as long as I accomplished the goals of my mission. That was refreshing, and unusual in any military organization I knew of.

  I suspected they operated that way because each crew was so different. What might work well for a family of cats might turn into a disastrous mess for a group of hard-headed turtles. Whatever the case, I was free to operate Hammerhead as I liked.

  So as not to be overwhelmed, I’d delegated responsibilities. I now did li
ttle other than pilot the vehicle and give coordinating commands. The others handled everything else. Dr. Chang was my navigator and support-system specialist. He’d taken plenty of mathematics in his time, and he could operate machinery like a pro.

  Gwen was my computer wizard. She monitored the AI, managing the continuous incoming data-streams. Her main job was to relay a stream-lined version of key information to me.

  Mia had turned out to be a good weapons operator. Our armament was sophisticated, but not terribly technical. You pretty much chose a target and ordered the ship to destroy it. Mia’s reaction time was the best on the crew, and she seemed to have a natural flair for the destruction of targets during training.

  Samson had been the hardest to place. Brawn had its usefulness, but it generally didn’t apply when flying a spaceship. I’d decided to make him my co-pilot, and I’d given him direct responsibility over secondary elements such as the ship’s hatches, defenses and safety systems. If there was ever going to be a fire aboard, he was going to be critical—but until then, frankly I hoped he could stay out of the way.

  “I’m seeing power-spikes from the reactors,” Gwen warned.

  “Right,” I said. “I see the rip forming now. We’re going to fly into it about ninety seconds.”

  “Chief?” Gwen called. “I’m picking up a strange radiation reading.”

  I scanned my instruments, and used my distance perception to reach beyond the ship. I didn’t see anything dangerous.

  “I’m not getting it.”

  “It’s internal aboard Killer,” she said, “relaying it to your input.”

  I could see the problem now. One of the reactor cores had gone cold. There were eight, normally, but now there were only seven operating.

  “We’ve had a failure,” I said. “Everyone strap in.”

  “Report it to the bridge, Leo!” Mia said in concern.

  “I already did,” Gwen said, “they’re well aware of the difficulty.”

  In my earpiece, I listened to the high command channel. They were trying to get the reactor online and failing.

  “They have to abort—don’t they?” Gwen asked.

  “I don’t know,” Dr. Chang said. As our navigator, he knew the most about jumping through space. “We’ll be behind the rest if we delay. They don’t think they can repair the reactor for hours. Worse, if we fly late, we’ll scatter for sure.”

  They all looked worried, and I couldn’t blame them. It was moments like this that reminded us we were stuck in space with little control over our own fates.

  What if we were separated from our adopted pack of predators?

  Listening in, I soon got the directive from on-high.

  “We’re going to fly,” I said. “Half the Fleet has already shipped out. If we don’t go now, we’ll scatter anyway. Hang on, everyone.”

  We winked out, plunging into the iris of the rip that had been spiraling in front of us. We tumbled through hyperspace into the unknown.

  When we came into being again, we were in a spin.

  No one else could feel this as the internals of Hammerhead were shielded from external physics such as centrifugal force.

  But I could see it. I could reach out with my sym’s eyes, beyond Killer’s hull, to see the universe swirling around. I had to pull my focus back aboard my own ship quickly in order to keep from becoming nauseous.

  “Hang on, everyone,” I said. “We’re in a spin.”

  “What do we do?” Gwen asked.

  “We wait for orders.”

  “Shouldn’t we try to get out?” Mia asked.

  I glanced at her, then pointed out the see-through walls of Hammerhead. “Where do we go? The hangar deck is sealed.”

  “We’re trapped in here!” she said in a frightened voice that cracked high.

  “Relax, crew,” I said. “I doubt things are that bad—”

  “Abandon ship!” came a booming voice penetrating everyone’s skull via our syms. “All crews, we’re opening the aft doors. Abandon ship!”

  I looked at Samson. “Release the clamps,” I said.

  “Releasing, Chief!” he boomed. “It’s done!”

  We drifted off the deck, and the hangar deck began to spin around us.

  “Matching spin.”

  Some of the crews around us had attempted to climb out of the ship, possibly to head for the lifeboats. I could have told them that it was suicide, but I didn’t have the clearance to make announcements or even the time to do it.

  By lifting off from the deck, I was able to get our ship above the rest. The other fighters were beginning to slide and smash into one another. We were above them, looking down at the chaos.

  A few other ships followed my lead. I couldn’t identify them—there wasn’t time, and it was all I could do to keep my craft from crashing into others.

  The big doors at the far end of the hangar began to yawn open. People, fighters and equipment were sucked out into the void. They smashed into one another and died with gushes of flame and blood as they were jettisoned out the opening.

  “Look,” Mia said, “that fighter is tangled up.”

  I barely had time to glance in that direction. It took all my focus to keep Hammerhead heading in a more or less straight direction toward the exit. As the entire hangar depressurized, this grew easier. Then I only had to match the external ship’s spin to get her under a steady keel.

  “Leo,” Mia said to me. “Let me help them. I can shoot a tow cable out there and pull them after us.”

  “I can’t risk that,” I said. “We’ll be fouled up.”

  “It won’t help. They’re hung up on cables anyway,” Samson said.

  We glided out after a half-dozen others. The black velvet of space had never looked so good to me.

  “We’re clear!” Mia shouted. “Let me give it a try!”

  I glanced at her. “Okay. But we have to get farther away from Killer in case she blows up. Gwen, are the reactors critical yet?”

  “No, but they’re shutting down. If I didn’t know better, I’d say the carrier had been hit.”

  Those words ran a thrill of worry through me. I’d yet to consider the possibility we were in battle. I’d assumed some kind of technical glitch was at the root of this disaster.

  “Mia, take your shot. Samson, be ready to reel them in.”

  The two worked together for once. I felt a tremble and heard a whoosh. The tow cable fired out, lanced the fighter with a magnetic harpoon-head, and the line went taut.

  “Lighting up the engines,” I said, goosing the throttle gently.

  The tiny ship roared, then shook. At last, we broke free. I wasn’t sure if the cable had snapped, or if we’d been successful. I was too busy dodging debris to check.

  Two furry arms came up and wrapped themselves around me.

  “We got them,” she said. “We saved them. You’re the best!”

  I frowned, wondering why she cared so damned much. It wasn’t like her to be the rescuing type. Then I noticed the insignia on the fighter that was drifting and bucking behind us.

  “That’s Ra-tikh’s ship?” I asked, incredulous.

  “That’s right, Chief,” Samson said with a laugh. “You just saved Ra-tikh, Dalton and their three cat-ladies. I wonder if you’ll live to regret it.”

  I had to wonder the same, but with Mia nuzzling me, I didn’t worry about it.

  “Back to your station, Mia,” I said. “Pouring on more power. We have to get clear. Gwen, tell me what’s going on out there.”

  “Running sensor scans, but they don’t make any sense.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, I’m picking up a lot of large ships—too many, in fact. Do you think we’ve merged up our group with another group from the main fleet?”

  Deciding we were safe enough to take a look at the big picture, I used my perception of space around us to look deeply in random directions. I saw a cluster of large vessels, and I zoomed in on it.

  They weren’t carrier shi
ps. Or if they were, they weren’t our own Rebel ships.

  “I think we’ve found the Imperial Kher,” I said. “If I don’t miss my guess, I’m looking at enemy cruisers.”

  “But we still haven’t reached enemy territory,” Gwen objected.

  “Maybe not, but this is technically the Orion Front zone. Maybe they’ve invaded farther into our space. You can take a look for yourselves.”

  There were gasps as I relayed my visuals to the rest of the crew. They watched in astonishment.

  “What do we do?” Mia asked, voicing the question on everyone’s mind.

  I took a moment to assess Killer before I answered her. The big carrier was slowing down, but she was still spinning. She clearly wasn’t in any state for battle. The CAG wasn’t online, and even the automated traffic control systems were dead.

  It left me with an odd, hollow feeling. These people had stolen me from Earth. They’d pressed me into service and forced me to fight like a dog in a pit. But, they’d also trained me and shown me they had their own code of honor. Seeing Killer in her death-throes behind me didn’t make me happy, and that wasn’t just because without her I’d be stranded in an unknown hostile star system.

  “We can’t run to Earth,” I said at last. “We can’t run anywhere. I say it’s time to find out if Hammerhead can fight or not.”

  No one answered me for a stunned moment, but then Samson grinned.

  “Good thinking,” he said. “I wanted to kill something anyway. It’s been months!”

  “That’s the spirit!” I told him, and I meant it.

  What the hell else could we do?

  =24=

  We cut Ra-tikh’s fighter loose and accelerated. There was a battle ahead, well within our flight range.

  Using my perception to its limits, I reached out to see what we were up against. It didn’t look good. A dozen of our ships were embroiled with a row of enemy vessels.

  The enemy cruisers were ugly. They were angular things with a wide flange dipping low—or high, depending on your perspective. The ships reminded me of hump-backed fish. Misshapen and so lacking in aerodynamic lines you could tell they were never meant to enter an atmosphere.