Alpha Fleet (Rebel Fleet Series Book 3)

by B. V. Larson

  “I’m sorry Captain, but Commander Hagen said—”

  “—never mind, I’ve got it… and I’m in agreement. You can interview Lael, or test her reflexes, or whatever else you want. I’ll sign the order.”

  Grateful and excited, Dr. Williams left the bridge with signed orders. I knew how she must feel. She’d been close to the Nomad, Godwin, but gotten nothing out of him. Lael represented a second shot at exercising her skills.

  Abrams came through about an hour later with a coordinate estimation. It was hard to do, so close to the center of the galaxy, but he’d managed to get a fix.

  “We’re about here,” he said, stabbing his fingers into a cloud of dust on our charts. “There are several quasars with measurable output pulses in the region. That helped me triangulate our position.”

  “How close are your guesses?”

  He looked offended. “They’re hardly guesses, Captain. They’re based on empirical data which—”

  “Okay, okay. What kind of precision do you have?”

  He shrugged. “Within a hundred lightyears.”

  I nodded, impressed. “That’s hardly pinpointing it, but I’ll take it. Have you got a good beacon for a jump?”

  “Yes. We’ll make three short hops, no more than a thousand lightyears each. This will take us out of this clouded region to where we can clearly spot our home stars. With luck, we can be home in less than a week.”

  My teeth bared themselves. “Not good enough.”

  “What, Captain?”

  “We’ve been gone for days already. I want to get home as quickly as possible. I’m willing to take some risks to do it.”

  He eyed me thoughtfully. “Really…? Such as?”

  “Assume you’re right about our current position. Take the biggest leap in the right direction that you can. We’ll come out somewhere easy—like near Rigel. Using that fix, we can get home in one more jump. I want two jumps, not three or four.”

  “Why take a risk now?” he asked me. “We have time. We have control. We’ve lost the gravity drones, and we should be able to prevent all risk of scattering if—”

  “We’re taking the risk,” I said, turning away from him. “Run the numbers, and give them to me.”

  Frowning, he side-stepped until he was within my field of vision again. The man could be incredibly irritating at times.

  “Captain?” he asked. “Can I inquire as to your reasoning? We took a risk before because we were under fire. What is the excuse on this occasion?”

  “No excuses, this is a precaution. Think, Doctor: What if Fex returned to the Solar System yesterday? Or the day before? What’s he doing to Earth right now while we’re out here roaming the stars and sightseeing?”

  He stared for a second, then nodded. He clasped his hands behind his back.

  “I see. I’ll do what I can, Captain.”

  With that, he left the bridge. I hoped to hell and back he could come up with good numbers this time. I didn’t trust the AI, and his science team was made up of smart people—but they weren’t quite geniuses.

  Sometimes you really needed a genius… no matter how big of an ass he was.

  =51=

  The next jump went well. We hauled Lael’s phase-ship with us successfully. All her others seemed to have been lost, either to the Nomad drones or to the maelstrom surrounding the black hole. Once again, I was impressed with her ability to out-survive her own underlings. I suspected this was due to her habit of sending others into harm’s way first. Lael’s crew didn’t seem to be happy about their status as our sidekick ship—but it was better than having been left to die in a radioactive dust cloud at the center of the galaxy.

  “Where are we now?” I asked the moment we came out of the rift.

  “That’s uncertain…” Chang said as he tried to get fresh readings.

  “We’re in the Rigel system,” the AI said.

  Several of the bridge crew whooped, and I joined them after the assertion was confirmed. Immediately, I contacted Dr. Abrams.

  “I knew you had it in you, Doc,” I said. “They said you were a crackpot, past your prime and winging it—but I knew you could do it!”

  Abrams made a choking sound. “Who uttered these slanders?”

  “Ah, you know… pretty much everybody. But they’re eating crow now. You got us into home space.”

  “—beyond the pale,” he was saying. I’d caught him in mid-complaint. “I’ve explained countless times that any previous errors were unavoidable. The gravity drones—”

  “Oh, now, hold on, Doc,” I said seriously. “Are you admitting you contributed in some small fashion to the errors the last time we jumped?”

  “Not at all!” he sputtered. “I did the best anybody could. No one could have sorted through thousands of tiny gravitational pulls to distinguish a beacon star. It simply couldn’t be done.”

  Mia walked up to me and put a hand on my arm.

  I looked up at her and grinned, but she shook her head. I got the message then: even she thought I was having too much fun with Abrams.

  “You’re right, Doc,” I said. “You did great. You did it right. You saved us all.”

  “—simply unacceptable that… uh… thank you, Captain Blake. I’m glad you’re clear of heart and mind today.”

  A compliment. That was all the guy was looking for. Was that too much to ask after he’d brought us into home space again? I decided it wasn’t, and I spent a few minutes verbally patting him on his bald head.

  Finally, when I’d had enough, I signed off and lounged in my harness.

  “How long until we jump again, Captain?” Samson asked.

  “An hour or so, that’s all.”

  “What about… the Imperials?”

  I glanced at him thoughtfully. “I’m trying to see how they might fit into our near future, but I’m having trouble visualizing it.”

  Commander Hagen approached with his hands clasped behind his back. “Are we ditching them here, Captain? I’d recommend it. This is borderline space, in-between Imperial territory and the Rebel Kher frontier. If we leave them here, they might eventually be picked up by an Imperial ship.”

  “Yeah…” I said. “But eventually could mean years. Or, a Rebel force with a harder heart might find them and destroy them.”

  Hagen nodded. “These are realistic possibilities… what are you going to do?”

  “I’ll talk to Lael about it. After all, it’s her fate.”

  Getting out of my harness, I was surprised to see Hagen standing between me and the hatchway.

  “Uh, sir? Do you think that’s a good idea?” he asked in low tones.

  “I just said it was. Step aside!”

  He did so, and I marched down to the detention facility. This time, there had been no conduct unbecoming with the guards. She sat sullenly in her cell, and she didn’t look at me when I entered.

  “What do you want?” she asked. “It can’t be sex, you’re a eunuch.”

  “A what?”

  “A previously male creature that has been deliberately—”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know what a eunuch is. Why are you calling me names?”

  She sniffed. “All that talk about my personal duties was a joke to you, wasn’t it?”

  I didn’t answer right away, as it had all been a joke, at least to me.

  “Just as I thought,” she said. “Well, if you’ve changed your mind then so have I. I won’t be abused in this dungeon of yours—”

  “That’s not why I’m here. We’ve arrived safely at Rigel. I wanted to know if you would like to be returned to your ship now.”

  She perked up and got to her feet. “Of course I would!”

  “Good,” I said. “We’ll make sure you have supplies enough to last quite a while. There are no local planets, as they must have been consumed by Rigel’s last expansion ages ago.”

  “What? Wait… you’re leaving me?”

  “Of course,” I said. “What did you expect? To be chauffeured to Imperi
al space and dropped off at your uncle’s palace?”

  She blinked in confusion. “I can go back to my ship—but in exile. There are no regular patrols here. It might be years…”

  “Right,” I said, “like I said, plenty of supplies. Are you ready to go now?”

  Lael didn’t budge. “No,” she said. “I’d rather stay on. Take me to your quarters. Make me your woman if you must. I can’t be left here to die aboard a cramped phase-ship.”

  This surprised me. I hadn’t considered the idea that she’d refuse to be dumped here.

  “Uh…” I said, trying to think.

  “You know you’re leaving me to die,” she said. “I’m inconvenient now that you’ve gotten information from me.”

  “You won’t die—”

  “Rebel ships come here much more often than Imperial ones. Most are unfriendly.”

  “You have burned down a number of their homeworlds…” I pointed out. “Hmm, I seem to be making your point for you. Well, what are we to do with you then?”

  She stared at the bulkhead, crossing her arms.

  I wasn’t used to being in charge of a prisoner. Her life was in my hands, and it felt odd to know that. I didn’t want to kick her out, but she would be hard to explain back on Earth.

  “We’re jumping to Earth next,” I told her. “I don’t think you’d like it there.”

  “If it’s full of humans, you’re probably right. Make your decision, Captain.”

  Lael still didn’t look at me. I took in a deep breath and let it out with a sigh.

  “All right. I’ll jump with you one more time. If we reach Earth, they can decide what to do with you. I would warn you, however, you might end up as a prisoner of war on my homeworld.”

  She shrugged and seemed unconcerned. I found her attitude somewhat baffling, but I left her in her cell and returned to the bridge.

  “Captain?” Chang asked. “Could I have a word?”

  “Is it important?”

  “No, just a local sensor anomaly.”

  “Well then, for safety’s sake, it’s time to move out. We’re jumping again. Abrams has coughed up the numbers and recharged the coil—any reason we shouldn’t leave?”

  He shook his head. “No, sir.”

  Less than twenty minutes later, we entered a fresh rift. It felt good this time. Every other time we’d jumped in this ship, I’d had my heart in my mouth.

  About an hour after we were underway and relaxed for what should be a two hour journey, Chang approached me again.

  “Ah yes, your sensor anomaly,” I said. “What have you figured out?”

  “Well sir… I’ve been working on it ever since we left Rigel. I’ve isolated the problem.”

  “What is it?”

  “A chemical trail, sir. Particulate matter, slightly radioactive. I haven’t come up with the exact composition, but I have identified the source.”

  “What source?” I asked him, frowning.

  “It’s Lael’s phase-ship, sir. She’s trailing something. It could be innocent, of course. They were damaged and haven’t had a chance to dock safely for repairs. But…”

  “But what?” I demanded, becoming increasingly alert with every word he spoke.

  “Well, it might not be innocent. What if it’s some kind of signal? I’m not sure how it could be anything useful… I mean, what could you encode into a radioactive cloud?”

  I stared at him, and I suddenly recalled Godwin’s words about tracing radioactive isotopes to their source.

  “A message…” I said. “Or just a simple trail of radioactive breadcrumbs to trace us. It could be the Nomads—it could even be the Imperials.”

  “Or,” Chang added, “it could be nothing.”

  I shook my head slowly. “No… Lael wanted to jump again. She really wanted me to take her to Earth. She insisted upon it… Why?”

  Getting up in a hurry, I left the bridge and trotted down the passageways. My magnetic boots clanked and snapped as I ran.

  I had a sick feeling in my gut, the kind of sensation I’d learned to trust with my life while traveling among the cold-hearted stars.

  Straight-arming the door, I barged into Abrams lair.

  “How long has this been going on?” I asked him, breathing hard.

  “About seven seconds,” he responded crisply.

  I blinked in confusion. “What?”

  “That’s how long it’s been since I’ve felt a sensation of irritation with you as its source,” he said.

  “Same here—listen, we might be in trouble.”

  That got his attention. “The radiation leaks?” he asked unprompted.

  “You knew about that? You didn’t say anything.”

  He shrugged. “I assumed the rest of the crew was doing their jobs. How foolish of me.”

  “Right… well, Chang thinks it might be a traceable amount of leaked radiation. He said something about a message.”

  Abrams squinted at me. “Really…? A message? What an intriguing idea… There is some support for the hypothesis. The Imperial ships we’ve been dragging along in our wake with such merciful intentions have been trailing radiation of a peculiar sort, in a peculiar pattern…”

  “A pattern?”

  He showed me diagrams. There were indeed pulsing patterns. The radiation wasn’t just dribbled out at a regular rate. It was cutting in and out periodically.

  “That’s odd…”

  “Not if you’re trying to leave a message behind.”

  I thought it over. “How did you get all this data? I only just got down here with the news.”

  “Chang forwarded his findings to me approximately two minutes before he brought up the matter to you. He made no characterization of the data showing a message—but now it seems obvious.”

  “Oh… he wanted corroboration.”

  “Before he tried to explain it all to our physics-challenged captain, yes.”

  Trying not to get mad, I looked over the data. It looked serious.

  “This could be a message…” I said. “A trail. Godwin said ships could be identified by traces like these. That’s why the Nomads set up their trap so far out from Earth and lured us out there—at least, that’s according to him.”

  “Will there be anything else, Captain?”

  I looked at him again. “Yeah, stop acting snooty.”

  He blinked at me. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  Could he really be that clueless? As a good judge of bullshitters, I figured he really didn’t get it. He lived in his own world.

  “Forget it,” I said. “How long until we reach Earth?”

  “We’ll be there very soon, ten minutes to an hour, I should think. The jump from Rigel to Earth is only about eight hundred lightyears.”

  “Right… and there’s no way to tell if this wormhole is a straight-shot or not?”

  He snorted at my imprecision.

  “Wormholes tend to dilate or contract time,” he said, “and they’re never straight lines. That leaves some wiggle-room concerning our perceived departure and our perceived arrival at the end of a given hyper-spatial tube. Sometimes it takes minutes, other times hours—rarely, even days.”

  “I know all that,” I said. “I want to hear your best guess on the exact duration of this trip.”

  “Twenty minutes, give or take.”

  Jumping up, I headed below decks again. I went ever deeper, down to engineering, and farther down still. At last, I found Lael’s cell.

  She seemed surprised to see me.

  “What is it?” she asked, studying my face.

  “We found your trace—the trail you’ve been leaving behind.”

  Lael froze for a second, and I saw her eyes widen. Then, she got herself under control again and studied the bulkhead.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I don’t believe you. Who or what are you leading to Earth? For what purpose?”

  She didn’t answer for a few moments, then she suddenly
stood and smiled at me. “I’ve maintained this charade for too long, it’s unbearable. I don’t care anymore… Your doom, that’s what’s following!”

  Nodding, I looked her over. “Playing upon my pity. Begging for mercy. All to get a little revenge, is that it?”

  “I lost my command because of you,” she said. “Didn’t you notice? I was flying Splendor last time we met. They gave me a squadron of phase-ships instead. It’s been like piloting a swarm of gnats in comparison to my starship.”

  “Hmm,” I said. “Whatever you’ve done, you can be sure you’ll suffer the same fate we humans will.”

  She snorted. “It’ll be worth it. I’d rather die than have it said Lael was defeated by a ship crewed by apes.”

  I left her then, slamming the hatch behind me. Traveling the passages, I felt a familiar tremor run through the ship.

  We’d exited the rift and arrived.

  For once, I really hoped Abrams had screwed up and navigated us right out of the galaxy.

  =52=

  We came out of the rift, and I knew right off we were screwed.

  “Captain!” Samson called to me jubilantly. “We’re home! We made it! Tell Doc Abrams he nailed it—we can’t be more than ten million kilometers from Earth.”

  “I’ll tell him,” I answered, trying not to sound glum.

  I was in the main passage, but I halted in my tracks. My mind was whirling. We were home. If anyone had managed to trace our tracks, they’d be coming here too. Soon.

  What should I do?

  A lovely ensign sauntered by as I stood there. She waved at me with her fingers and gave me a sweet smile.

  “We made it back to home space, Captain,” she said. “I knew you guys could do it.”

  I didn’t even nod to her for a second—but then I realized it and stopped frowning.

  “Is something wrong, sir?”

  Giving myself a little shake and forcing a smile, I turned to her. “No, Ensign. Not at all. Carry on.”

  She walked off, but I didn’t even have the spirit to stare after her.

  Performing a U-turn, spinning around on my heels, I headed back to Abrams’ lab. He was surprised to see me again so soon.