Rebel Fleet

by B. V. Larson

  It was at just this distance that the Rebel Fleet had decided to build their battle station. The dust cloud had solid debris in it, some chunks which were as big as asteroids. Mining this region produced all the components required to manufacture a new station in space.

  Parked around the station were several hundred ships. Seeing Imperial designs among them at first made me jump—but then I recalled they’d been captured.

  The guns on the battle station had been salvaged from the Imperial battleship I’d helped deliver to our side. One would think that after such a great victory, I’d be rewarded—but then, the Rebel culture was different than that of my Earth.

  When Captain Ursahn landed her shuttle and we climbed out, we were immediately set upon by a gang of dockyard thugs.

  This event, in and of itself, wasn’t too unusual. Rebels were, by definition, a rowdy group. Even in Earth’s history, rebel nations had rarely been full of the most generous and forgiving souls.

  Two of the ruffians grabbed Ursahn as she was the first to exit. Two more reached for me—but they got a surprise. My disruptor was out and blazing.

  Unlike the practice weapons I’d used in the hangar deck arena back on Killer, my sidearm was fully charged and set to deliver maximum pain.

  The first of my attackers went down in a fetal ball almost immediately. He didn’t even scream, but he did shiver and wet the deck.

  The second man—if I could even call him that as he had scales running up and down his thick arms—ripped my disruptor from my hands and tried to use it on me.

  That was an error. My human team was tricky, just like the predators aboard were always claiming. We’d added a safety feature to our disruptors, so they were able to distinguish friend from foe.

  In this case, anyone who wasn’t a member of my crew had been designated a foe. We rigged our disruptors to detect a significant change in the body temperature or the DNA sequence of whoever used it. The gun would short out if it a non-human grabbed it, giving him a jolt of power.

  His teeth set to clacking, and his eyes popped open comically wide. I kicked him once, and he toppled onto his back.

  Captain Ursahn was faring worse. She was stronger than either of her assailants, but she was outnumbered and weighed down. She had a firm grip on two clumps of fur—something that grew disgustingly from between the scales on the arms of the attackers.

  Still, they held onto her and wouldn’t let go. Snarling and roaring, she flailed, knocking them about until I came up behind them and bashed them on the head.

  All four of the yard dogs soon lay in a heap on the deck.

  “Who do you think sent them?” I asked her.

  She looked at me in surprise. “No one sent them. They want status, that’s all. The question is, who tipped them off? Who told them the hero of the Fleet was on his way over here?”

  I looked at her in alarm. “You mean they attacked us because I did well in the last battle?”

  “Of course. Think about it: now that the war might well be over, how is anyone going to achieve a rapid rise in rank? There are no more enemies to kill. Everyone is turning on one another with hungry eyes.”

  This was a stunning concept for me. These people understood nothing of peace, let alone fair play. They had their rules, but it seemed to me they were the rules of the Dark Ages. Crazy, vicious tribesmen, loyal only to themselves and their immediate circle of companions.

  “How can the Rebel Fleet stay intact if we’re all going to start attacking each other?” I asked her.

  “It can’t,” she admitted. “It never does. Once it serves its purpose, which is to get the Imperials to grow tired of their sport, we always disband. Once every millennium, the process is repeated.”

  “But what if we’re wrong this time?” I demanded. “What if the Imperials are only taking a break, or refitting their ships?”

  “Ah-ha!” she said, throwing one long finger upward. “Now, you have divined why we’re still cooperating. We aren’t yet certain that the Imperials have left our region of space.”

  Feeling another headache coming on as I followed her into the battle station’s labyrinth of passages, I wondered what was coming next.

  =49=

  We didn’t alert the Secretary about our visit, but somehow he already knew we were coming.

  Instead of greeting us personally, he sent Admiral Fex to do the job in his stead.

  “I’m sure you’ll understand that the Secretary Thoth is a busy man,” Fex said smoothly. “He’s wrapped up in declaring this war to be a success as soon as today.”

  “We want to talk about our status,” Captain Ursahn said. “We’ve received no points for winning this war.”

  Admiral Fex blinked in astonishment. “Winning…? You?” He laughed then, long, loud, and from the depths of his belly. “Come now, Ursahn, no one enjoys a good joke as much as I do, but—”

  Captain Ursahn moved quickly. She gripped him around the throat with steel-like fingers.

  Admiral Fex hadn’t gotten to his vaulted rank by being slow, however. He had a weapon out and aimed at her midriff.

  They both stood there, growling at one another for a moment.

  “Perhaps I can be of service,” I said in a light tone. “It seems to me that there should be plenty of status points to go around for all of us. Isn’t that the way it works?”

  “No,” Captain Ursahn said without taking her eyes off the admiral or his wicked-looking weapon. “Not exactly. The trouble here must be that there isn’t a direct chain of command to the Secretary. Am I right, Admiral?”

  He looked at both of us with hate. “Let go of my throat or I’ll gut you, Ursahn,” he rasped. “No one will question it. I’ll even get a few extra points—not much, but something.”

  “I don’t get it,” I said to him. “Why do you care? I came up with a winning plan and we took down the Imperial Fleet. As Ursahn here is my captain, she shares in the glory. As you are her admiral, you get a piece of that too. Isn’t that good enough?”

  “And what about the Secretary?” Admiral Fex asked. “Is he to be left out in the cold? Shug is his subordinate, which makes you his creature, his discovery. If you’d only followed orders, he’d have gotten the majority of the credit for all this. But no! The military is claiming it all!”

  Frowning, I tried to puzzle it through. I gently waved for Captain Ursahn to release the tall bastard, and she did so reluctantly.

  “Now,” I said reasonably, “why don’t you lower that weapon, Admiral? You can always shoot us later.”

  He did so, fractionally.

  “Don’t try any of your tricks on me, human,” he said, rubbing at his throat. “I was sending arrogant fools like you to their deaths before you were born.”

  It was a surprising statement, but one I calculated could well be true. I filed it away and continued talking to my two barbarians in calm, low tones.

  “Listen,” I said, “there has to be a way to work this out. Just tell us what you need, Admiral. Why do you care so much that the Secretary cashes in big?”

  “Because he has aspirations to enter public service,” Captain Ursahn said.

  “You mean you want to become a politician?” I demanded. “You want the Secretary’s job?”

  Admiral Fex shrugged. “What of it? After the rank of admiral, there’s nowhere to go in the Fleet. Worse, now that you ended the war, we’re all stuck where we are for the rest of our careers.”

  I was beginning to catch on. “Basically,” I said, “now that the Imperials are gone, you’re all turning on one another. It’s a dog-eat-dog system, and you all want to be at the top of the food chain.”

  “Crudely stated, but those are the essentials,” the admiral admitted.

  I rubbed at my chin for a moment, thinking hard.

  Admiral Fex reacted with alarm. He raised his weapon again. “Are you trying to hack my personal equipment?”

  “What? No! I’m thinking. Please sir, settle down.”

  They let
me think. I stared at one, then the other. Finally, I had an angle.

  “As I see it, the problem here is the Secretary. He’s causing all this friction between three military people. That’s the core of this conflict.”

  Captain Ursahn eyed me speculatively. “A bold plan,” she said. “But I don’t know if I have the guts to follow it through.”

  “Plan?” I asked. As far as I was concerned, I’d yet to lay out a plan.

  “Yes,” Admiral Fex said. “Stop hinting around, Blake. You’re suggesting we kill the Secretary. That will give all of us rank by opening a slot above me. I see the wisdom of it, but I know there are distinct regulations against outright assassination. And just beating him to a pulp won’t do it. That path of advancement is for the military, not—”

  “Hold on!” I said, interrupting. “I didn’t mean we were supposed to knock off the Secretary. “Captain Ursahn here has something that may help.”

  I told him then about the recorded vids. That we thought they were proof of illegal practices, and that they could be used to bring down the Secretary politically.

  “Huh,” Admiral Fex said, eyeing me. “You are a schemer. A true brother of the trees. I’ll tell you what, if this works, I’ll see that Earth is taken off the menu the next time around. The Rebel cause could use a race like yours.”

  “What menu?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “We always try to lead the Imperials toward certain troublesome planets when the next hunting party comes along. That way, we rid ourselves of irritants and sate their bloodlust at the same time.”

  I almost shivered, but I managed to maintain my composure. These people were ruthless. To them, planets could be won and lost without a qualm. Only their own personal advancement mattered.

  “Do we have an agreement?” I asked him. “We take down Thoth, then the military gets all the credit for this victory. That’s who really deserves it, anyway.”

  After some grumbling, they finally agreed.

  “Just one question,” Admiral Fex asked us afterward. “Who gave you those vid files, Captain?”

  She eyed him for a moment. “They appeared in my workspace without a traceable source.”

  Admiral Fex narrowed his eyes and walked away. We followed him, and I hoped this fragile alliance would last.

  * * *

  The takedown of Secretary Thoth turned out to be more difficult than expected. He was as slippery as an eel and much better connected.

  Nevertheless, new evidence kept appearing to support our case at critical moments. Some of his indiscretions didn’t even make sense to me, but they created a firestorm of excitement among the Secretary’s peers.

  I gathered he wasn’t all that well-liked in administrative circles. Either that, or someone really wanted to stomp him flat in the courtroom of bureaucrats.

  It wasn’t until two months later that I figured out who was behind it all.

  We were still docked at the battle station. My role had morphed into one based around teaching hacking techniques. I had no doubt the brass would throw me back onto the front lines the second the Imperials showed up again—but so far, the Orion Front had stayed quiet.

  After a long day of technical training, I happened to run into Dr. Shug. I had a soft spot for the fuzzy guy, even though he’d pretty much tortured me on the rack when we’d first met.

  “Hey Shug!” I shouted, and he spun around to look at me.

  He hesitated as I marched toward him. He looked like he wanted to bolt, but then he straightened and stood as tall as he was able.

  “Well met, Ensign Blake,” he said. “I’m glad to see you’re still healthy.”

  I eyed him for a second. “Any reason I shouldn’t be?”

  “A man like you has many enemies,” he said. “You’ll always attract the ambitious, the vengeful. Take care.”

  He turned to go, but somehow I had a flash of intuition.

  “It was you, wasn’t it?” I asked him.

  He froze then glanced back. “I have no idea what—”

  “The secret communications. The vid files. All the incriminating evidence against Secretary Thoth. You helped us take him down. Why?”

  Dr. Shug’s mouth twitched, and his ears seem to widen on their own. “I’d appreciate it if you would keep such wild speculations to yourself, Human,” he said stiffly.

  I laughed. “No chance. You did it. I can see it in your face.”

  He appeared alarmed. “Have you taught your sym to perform facial analysis?”

  “No, I can do that on my own.”

  “Fascinating... I really should have dissected you the first time we met. Perhaps there will be another opportunity in the future.”

  “No, I don’t think so. In fact, talk like that makes a man like me want to expose the ape behind the scenes.”

  We eyed one another sternly for several seconds. Finally, he showed me his teeth, and I did the same. I hoped he was smiling—it was sometimes hard to be sure.

  “Very amusing,” he said at last, giving me the hint I needed. “Yes, I provided you with certain details. You did the rest, however.”

  “As you knew we would. You know, when I first came aboard Killer, everyone told me they hated our kind—the primates. They said that we were sneaky and always ended up on top of the organization no matter what anyone else did. Now I can see their point.”

  He clasped his hands in front of himself. “Someone wise once said that it isn’t the deed that counts. What matters is who gets the credit afterwards.”

  “Right… but you still haven’t answered my question. Why take out the Secretary?”

  He shrugged. “Perhaps you should look at an organizational chart sometime. There are only so many paths to advancement. I’m on the scientific track, but I’ve topped out my steps.”

  “You don’t mean—you want to be the new Mr. Secretary? Is that possible?”

  “Why not?” he asked me. “I’m just as clever as anyone else at the top, and I’ve been close to the heart of this project from the beginning.”

  “Says who?”

  He gave me another flickering smile. “You military types aren’t the only ones who receive anonymous packages of information now and then.”

  Shug left me then, standing in the passageway. I watched him go, marveling at how smooth and low-key he’d played it from the very beginning.

  I would have to keep my eyes on that guy in the future.

  =50=

  Shaw came to see me a few weeks after I’d run into Dr. Shug on the station. He was all smiles.

  “This is truly a glorious day for both of us, Blake,” he told me. “For your entire crew, in fact.”

  I looked around at my people, and they gathered slowly. We were all wary. Now that we were known as heroes, it was like we had giant “kick-me” signs on our backs. We’d been threatened and attacked several times.

  “That’s great,” I told Shaw, unsure what he was talking about.

  “You want to hear my good news?” he asked us.

  Samson narrowed his eyes. “You were promoted, is that it? I see new squares on your shoulders.”

  “It’s quite true,” he said proudly. “I’ve been moved up in rank. You will now refer to me as Commander. Note that this reflects well on all of you. I wouldn’t have been recognized as an achiever without your help.”

  Gwen put her hands on her hips, and her expression flinched disdainfully. Shaw wasn’t good enough at reading human gestures to catch on.

  “You took all the credit, didn’t you?” Gwen demanded. “Why hasn’t Blake been promoted? Hell, we should all be stepped up in rank!”

  Shaw looked at her in surprise. “Your logic is twisted,” he said. “I’m in command. You followed my orders, and my plan worked. I hardly see how—”

  Samson threw up his hands and took a threatening step toward Shaw. “You mean to tell me we got nothing out of this?”

  “Far from it,” Shaw said. “You’ve been granted the greatest gift the Fleet coul
d spare. You’ve been released from your duties!”

  He clapped his hands over his head oddly. It was a gesture I’d seen repeated several times before. It was a display of excitement and triumph.

  “What a rip-off!” Samson complained. “What do you mean released? Have we been fired?”

  Shaw lowered his arms and blinked in confusion. “I thought you’d be pleased. Killer will transport you back to Earth, where you can live out your days in peace. All the fighter crews are disbanding.”

  “Seriously?” I asked, trying to absorb what he was saying. “The war is over? We’ve won?”

  “No, nothing of the kind,” he laughed, “the Imperials have merely gone to sleep again—or they’ve decided to raid another part of the galaxy full of easier prey.”

  “You’re going to dump us back on Earth?” Mia asked. “What about me?”

  “You’ll go back to Ral, of course.”

  Mia looked disappointed. She glanced at me, and I realized what she was feeling.

  For a brief flash, I considered requesting that she be allowed to accompany me home—but I realized that wasn’t going to work. She would be a freak on Earth. She would be one of a kind and probably very unhappy.

  “Such warrior hearts,” Shaw said, shaking his head. “Most crewmen cheer when they get this news. But you—you can’t spit the blood out of your mouths, can you?”

  “I’ll be happy to go home,” Dr. Chang said, “but it is a shock.”

  “You’ll technically still be in the reserves,” Shaw continued, “but with your extremely short lifespans I’m sure you’ll be dead and gone before the Imperials come here again to hunt.”

  “The reserves?” I asked. “How does that work?”

  “Your syms will keep track of you. They’ll live on until you die yourself. At that point, your service requirements will have officially ended.”

  “Ha,” Samson grunted. “Just like the Marines back home. I’m surprised you don’t just flush us out the garbage chutes into space.”

  “That would be a waste of good training,” Shaw said seriously.