Alpha Fleet (Rebel Fleet Series Book 3)

by B. V. Larson

  “We’re not doing that,” I said. “Not yet. First, we’re boarding the Terrapinian ship to find out what happened over there.”

  They all looked surprised at this idea.

  “What can possibly be gained—?” Abrams began.

  “I’m the captain here, Doc,” I told him. “There’s a lot we might learn.”

  “But they might repel any such invasion with deadly force.”

  I shrugged. “You’ve got me there.”

  “Sir,” Hagen said, stepping forward. “Allow me to lead the exploration team.”

  I glanced at him. I knew immediately he was right. I was the captain, and I was banged up. He was the best candidate if I was going to send a senior officer at all.

  “The trouble is,” I said, “they only respect me. I’m a bona fide Rebel Fleet officer. None of you have any recognized status as the Kher see it.”

  Hagen sighed and shook his head.

  “I’ve got status,” Samson interjected.

  We all looked at him.

  “I’m an officer in the Rebel Fleet,” he continued. “The equivalent of an ensign. I could put on my old insignia and lead the team.”

  I glanced at him approvingly. “Yes… all right. I’m not in any condition to argue. Hagen will be in command, but Samson will do the introductions and appear to be in charge. Do you think you’re up to that, Samson?”

  Dalton gave a rude laugh. “Samson fooling someone? Will there be a live feed? I want to watch this cock-up in the making.”

  Samson gave him a dirty look, but then he turned back to me. “I can do it.”

  “All right then. Hagen, saddle up your team.”

  He looked upset. “Captain, this is absurd. If I’m in command I should be in command, period.”

  “Normally, I’d agree with you. But these Kher don’t think the way we do. Have you read up on the Age of Exploration on Earth?”

  He shook his head.

  “I believe I recommended a reading list weeks ago.”

  “I’m sorry sir, we had to get up to speed very fast…”

  “I guess that’s true… Well, when the entire world was mapped out by people from Europe over a period of several centuries, there were many cultural conflicts. The explorers and missionaries of the past became adept at learning local customs to avoid disastrous misunderstandings.”

  “Excuse me, Captain,” Hagen said, “but I don’t think this is the time or the place to—”

  “Then you’re thinking incorrectly,” Abrams said, interrupting him. “Listen, for all our benefits.”

  Hagen shot him an unpleasant stare, but Abrams seemed immune to such things. He either didn’t notice when he annoyed others, or he didn’t care. Either way, the effect was the same—most people hated him. I was glad for once, however, that he was actively supporting me.

  “Anyway,” I continued, “explorers learned to use interpreters and guides, and they always arrived with gifts for chieftains. The point is, they learned to fit into the expectations of the people they were trying to impress. We’re going to employ some of that guile now. We’re going to play the part of Rebel Fleet personnel.”

  “I don’t like it,” Hagen said, “but I know how to follow orders. I’ll take Lt. Rousseau with me. She’ll be our tech. Just the three of us.”

  I felt a pang at that. I kind of liked Rousseau.

  “Is she really the best choice?” I asked.

  “Of my shift crew? Yes.”

  At that moment, for some reason, I glanced over my shoulder and saw Mia staring at me. She knew I had a small thing going on for Rousseau. I wasn’t sure how she knew—but she knew.

  Without so much as a nod in Mia’s direction, I turned back to my screens. “That will be fine, Hagen. Three will fit easily in the shuttle. Proceed.”

  Commander Hagen grumbled about Samson all the way down to the airlocks. I understood how he felt. This was his first boarding action, his first chance to lead a party in space of any kind, and I was having him play second banana to a junior officer.

  But I didn’t care about his feelings. This mission had to succeed. Devilfish was in danger, and I wasn’t going to let her be destroyed by a flock of gravity-drones without at least making an attempt to find a way out of this trap.

  When they’d gone, I turned to Chang. “Set up a feed from their body-cams. We’ll monitor their progress from here.”

  “On it, sir.”

  Then I turned back to Abrams. He looked irritated.

  “In the meantime, Doc,” I told him, “I want you to work on a jumping strategy. If you opened a rift now, check to see if you could target it more precisely than you did last time.”

  “That was a miscalculation, not an error,” he complained.

  I failed to see the distinction, but I let it slide. Dr. Abrams didn’t handle criticism very well.

  We got down to humping and bumping after that. The away-team loaded onto a shuttle and began the short flight toward the Terrapinian cruiser.

  “Any sign of a reaction?” I asked Chang. The scopes and boards were quiet, but his sensory data was much more in-depth than my overview screen.

  “Nothing yet, sir. No energy readings, no defensive measures—the ship looks as dead as ever.”

  Glancing over at him, I pulled up a screen full of numbers from his station. He was right, the ship did look dead.

  “These life support numbers,” I said, “I’ve paged back, and there’s been no venting for hours.”

  “We did just repair their systems,” Chang said.

  “Yes, but even our systems, using carbon-scrubbers designed for this ship, occasionally puff out a little gas. The heat numbers, the energy readings… So flat for so long... Wouldn’t a normal crew operating a ship for days cause fluctuations?”

  Chang shrugged. “I would suppose so, but we’re new to examining alien ships and studying their behavior. Maybe the crew or their ship is more efficient than ours.”

  “Hmm…” I said, unconvinced.

  What I was sure of was that something was wrong over there. I couldn’t even get a contact point with Captain Verr anymore. I’d tried every hour or two for a long time. He hadn’t spoken to me since he’d given me an oddly vague reply about the Imperials.

  Feeling tense, I watched Commander Hagen float toward the other ship. I had misgivings about the entire mission. I even felt an urge to call it off—but I didn’t.

  At last, they slid up close and gently nudged their way through the overlapping force shields. That was a trick you didn’t want to try at home. The slightest adjustment by a single crewmen could cause the shields to shift, and the tiny shuttle would be torn apart.

  But nothing changed. They slid through and drifted in close until they touched the hull. There was no welcoming main hold to yawn open and swallow them. Instead, they had to mount the hull directly next to an external hatch.

  Climbing out manually as we watched, the team worked tools and tried to break in. I thought I saw Samson’s form among those on the skin of the ship, and after checking the individual feeds, I realized I was right.

  “Careful out there,” I said. “There’s no telling—”

  A gush of vapor shot up in the midst of my men right then. One figure was lifted up, his magnetic boots having broken free. He did a flip, but Samson’s arm grabbed him by the fabric of his suit and hauled him back down again.

  I wanted to shout orders and encouragement, but I kept quiet. They were on the spot, dealing with the situation. Distractions could be deadly.

  After a few moments, the venting stopped and they climbed into the airlock. Apparently, they hadn’t managed to get the ship to cycle the air out of the chamber, but they’d at least gotten the outer hatch open.

  Stuffing themselves into the space inside, the trio shut the outer hatch over themselves.

  “They’re going to die,” Mia said in a flat tone.

  No one else argued or agreed, and she might well be right.

  For a few moments,
the vid feed went dark. The signal was blocked by the ship’s hull. Then, it flickered back into life.

  “…getting this, Devilfish?” Hagen’s voice asked us.

  Video came in after that. The video frames were stuttering and blurring, but we could make it out—barely. The ship’s interior was dark, but at least it wasn’t glazed over with frost like the first time I’d entered.

  “Try that passage,” I said, “the central one. That should lead to the bridge.”

  “Let’s go,” Hagen said, his breath blowing over the audio pickup.

  The body cameras moved and rolled as I watched. The cameras turned as they turned, moving slowly and hampered by their heavy suits.

  Another minute passed—and then they found their first body.

  =34=

  Samson knelt to examine a slumped form on the deck. It was surrounded by a black stain. The shape was undeniable, as was the state of the victim.

  “Terrapinian’s bleed black, don’t they sir?” Samson asked me.

  “Yeah… you should know. We’ve fought with enough of them.”

  Samson gently rolled the figure onto its back. It was a low-caste member of the crew. No spacesuit, only a harness full of well-used tools adorned the body.

  “Get your weapons out,” Commander Hagen ordered.

  Samson looked up. “I guess I’m not in charge anymore.”

  “You never really were,” Hagen told him.

  Samson nodded and got up with a disruptor in his hand. He cranked up the charge to maximum and let it cycle up for a hard blast. I couldn’t blame him. Something had killed the crew on that ship.

  “Are you getting all this, Captain?” Hagen asked me.

  “I can see enough. Proceed. If things look dangerous, pull out. It’s your discretion.”

  “Roger that. We’ll try to get to the bridge.”

  They walked another dozen paces before Lt. Rousseau spoke up. “Commander? I’m getting a reading… There’s a heat source ahead—through that hatchway.”

  “Let’s check it out. Samson, take point.”

  Samson walked ahead of the rest to the hatch and tried to open it. He couldn’t get it to budge.

  “The bolt’s jammed.”

  “Try the wheel.”

  The Terrapinians believed in redundancy. I thought that was wise of them. If one system gave out, they always seemed to have another, even simpler way of doing things.

  Samson’s gauntlets came away from the wheel. They were smoking. “No dice, sir. The wheel is too hot. It’s expanded.”

  “Let’s get a crowbar or something.”

  “Uh…” Lt Rousseau interrupted. “I don’t know, sir. Maybe we should try another passage. If there’s that much heat, there must be a fire or something on the other side.”

  “A fire? How could it burn for days in spaceship?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted.

  “Are you getting any residual radiation readings?”

  “No… nothing big. No spikes.”

  Dalton was watching with the rest of us. We were in a tense circle a hundred kilometers away, glued to the feed. I noticed he’d been fidgeting more and more as they got deeper into the alien ship.

  “Hagen is a madman,” he said at last. “You should pull them out of there, Captain. He’s only trying to prove he’s got a big dick.”

  “What are you talking about, Dalton?”

  “I’m saying he’s not taking precautions. He saw a body, he found a burning room sealed behind a hatchway—it’s time to get out. It’s clearly a dead ship. Fly a drone through the rest of the ship if you have to see more.”

  “A drone would have trouble with that jammed hatch, don’t you think?”

  Dalton stared at me. “You could pull them out if you wanted to,” he said. “It’s your call.”

  My jaw worked. Mia was looking at me. So was Chang. They all seemed to want me to abort the mission.

  Leaning back, I crossed my arms. “We’re trapped by a swarm of gravity bombs. Just one or two might take us out—and there are thousands. We have to take risks. We have to have answers.”

  Dalton sighed, but he didn’t argue. He hunched over the monitors and frowned.

  I thought it was ironic that he’d started off this mission eager to see Samson in trouble, but now that he was, it seemed he wasn’t happy about it at all. As friendships went, theirs was a strange one.

  Time crawled, as did my away team. They made it through the ship via an alternate route. At last, they found their way to the bridge.

  By that time, they’d found a dozen more bodies and a pile of empty harnesses. These last were a mystery to me. Terrapinians liked it hot, and they wore little in the way of clothing on their native world. The harnesses were like full sets of clothing to us.

  I could understand the dead. Something had killed them, something unknown. But where had the harnesses come from? They were lying in abandoned poses all over the decks. Could they have all gone mad, some ripping off their clothes and killing the rest in a frenzy? The evidence was inconclusive.

  When they reached the bridge, the situation was even stranger. Every seat had a harness draped over it, as if they’d been at their stations when the calamity struck.

  “No bodies?” I demanded. “No fire?”

  “The fire seems to be contained in a neighboring compartment,” Hagen said, panning slowly so I could make out the scene. “As to the bodies—no sir. There’s no one home here.”

  “Move to Verr’s station. Let’s have a look at it.”

  He did so, and I stared at the scene. Like the others, he appeared to have vanished without explanation. There was only his harness and his badge of rank.

  “What’s that?” Samson asked. He reached down, off camera, and brought up something in his hand. It looked metallic and circular.

  I knew right off what it was. I’d seen one before.

  “That’s a piece of gear from a Nomad,” I said. “Godwin had one of those—get Abrams up here immediately.”

  While they searched the rest of the bridge, I waited impatiently for my chief scientist. At last, he made an appearance.

  “I predicted this,” he said sternly when I showed him the still video of the circlet.

  “How so, Doc?”

  “The Nomads are not our friends. They’re independent players. Who’s to say they even oppose the Empire as we do?”

  “Well, the Imperials do seem really anxious to kill them,” I pointed out.

  “Yes, but just because your enemy hates sharks, that doesn’t mean you should make one into a pet.”

  I nodded slowly. “Point taken. Godwin has been playing his own strange game from the beginning. Did you examine the first circlet we found back on Earth?”

  Abrams flicked his fingers at me. “I wanted to, but no one gave me the opportunity. They assigned the task to another team, saying that I was stretched too thinly. Absurdity.”

  “Right… Well, how’d you like to get another crack at a circlet? No rules this time, either.”

  For the first time in a long time, I saw Dr. Abrams smile. It was a real smile, the kind that a predator displays when it’s given a tender baby animal to consume.

  “I’d like that, Blake. I’d like that very much. Stretched too thin… fools. I’m glad you’re a man who’s capable of intelligent decision making—upon occasion, at least.”

  “Thanks, Doc. That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me all day.”

  =35=

  Ipulled out the away-team out after that. We’d all seen enough. The whole trip back to the airlock and their tiny ship was stressful for the onlookers. We kept expecting something to nail them—but they made it out eventually.

  Everyone aboard the Terrapinian cruiser was either dead or had vanished. On a hunch, I had them bring back samples of any wet spots they’d found where the harnesses lay, along with a few of the harnesses themselves.

  They bagged and labeled everything like evidence at a murder scene. Gett
ing back to Devilfish took them two full hours.

  When their tiny ship bumped up against ours at last, and they eased it into its berth, I headed down below to greet them. I was proud of them. They’d handled a dangerous mission perfectly.

  When the hatch opened, Commander Hagen stepped through first. He looked pleased when he saw me.

  “Captain! You came down to give it the personal touch, huh? That’s a good sign. I was worried we’d be placed in quarantine or something.”

  “What’s the point?” I asked. “We’re all as good as dead if we don’t figure this out, anyway.”

  “We could still run, sir,” he said seriously. “Jump Devilfish out of here and let Abrams work his figures until he can get us back to Earth.”

  “That’s possible, but have you ever considered that someone might want us to do exactly that? Why else would they have set up this elaborate trap in empty space?”

  He looked troubled. “No sir, that hadn’t occurred to me. You’re saying this is some kind of test? Or some trick to get us out of the way?”

  “I’m hoping we’ll figure that out soon.”

  Hagen gave me the circlet then, and before I even got a good look at it, Abrams appeared at my elbow.

  “You wouldn’t mind if I relieved you of that, would you Blake? It will only confuse you in any case. The control system is quite alien.”

  I glanced at him, but held onto the circlet. “I don’t know…” I said. “I’m the only one who’s seen it in action. I recall Godwin using it... I wonder if—”

  Flipping it over in my hand twice, I was startled by Abrams. He snaked out quick fingers and snatched it away.

  “That’s not a toy, Captain,” he scolded, clucking his tongue. “It’s dangerous.”

  Annoyed, I grabbed it back from him. He tried to pull away, but I was stronger and faster.

  “You’re making me reconsider,” I said, deciding to torment him for a while longer. “Perhaps another team would be best suited—”

  “Really, Captain! You can’t be serious!”

  “Oh, but I am. I’ve already got you working on your calculations for creating a rift to get us out of here safely. It makes no sense to assign you two critical projects at once.”