by Kal Spriggs
“You're assuming that they aren't based out of the Ghornath home system,” Commander Bowder said.
Daniel waved a hand at that, “In that case, we'll already face them when we emerge in the system. All that the late Lieutenant Busch accomplished was to give them some advanced warning to our arrival. But I think that highly unlikely, in any case. These attackers utilized human technology, not Ghornath. They would have had access to at least some Ghornath technology if they took over their home system, right?”
Commander Bowder nodded. “What if they have a psychic navigator? They might still be able to get into place to ambush us.”
“Then there's absolutely nothing we can do about it,” Daniel said. “I hate to put it this way and I certainly don't want it leaving this room, but if they are able to get into position, then deciding to turn back now won't save us. As soon as we emerge in the Gates of Hallidas they'll be in position to hit us.” It was a somber thought, but if these mysterious enemies had been able to ambush an entire fleet, then the Constellation and Goronto by themselves stood little chance.
“No,” Daniel said, “we're left with no choice. We'll be at battle stations when we emerge from shadow space, but we're not turning around. Furthermore, I intend to move with speed. We can't afford any delay now that the Ghornath's enemies know we're moving.”
Commander Bowder nodded slowly, “If we're going to do this, best to do it fast, sir, I understand the logic.” He frowned, “I hate to even bring this up, but what if Lieutenant Busch had succeeded and killed the Emperor's sister?”
Daniel scowled, “Then we'd do our duty regardless, Commander.” And I'd have to explain to Lucius afterwards about how I got his sister killed.
***
The whole way down to the Marine barracks Alannis fought the urge to turn and run away.
What can I say to them, she wondered. Her stomach dropped in dread. They would hate her, after this. They'd lost their leader in an attack meant for her.
The fact that she'd managed to avenge Ashtar did little to assuage her guilt. Ashtar should still be alive. She would have been far safer if she'd had nothing to do with Alannis. The damned Giovanni curse, she thought, only it's even worse for me, everyone I touch ends up dead.
As she opened the hatch and stepped into the Marine Lounge, she didn't know what to expect.
She found a somber group. Other than those Marines assigned to duty, the entire platoon had gathered. She saw at least two bottles of alcohol, a clear violation of shipboard regulations but not one that she felt any temptation to call them on. All of the gathered Marines froze as she stepped through the hatch.
“Platoon, attention on deck!” Gunnery Sergeant Tam snapped.
All of the Marines snapped to their feet. Gunny Tam snapped off a sharp salute, “Ma'am.”
“As you were,” Alannis said, feeling self-conscious. As the Marines went from rigid attention to slightly relaxed, she cleared her throat. “Captain Beeson, uh, instructed me to come down. He's assigned me as the platoon commander for now.”
Gunny Tam stared at her for a long, quiet moment. “Yes, ma'am,” he finally said. He spun to Staff Sergeant Witzke, “have someone bring up a chair for the Ensign.”
Alannis stood there awkwardly as they waited. A moment later she sat as Lance Corporal Sutton brought her a chair. The other Marines sat only after she did. The room was oddly quiet, until at last, Lance Corporal Sutton spoke. “We heard that you killed Lieutenant Busch after she shot the LT... Is it true, ma'am?”
Alannis felt her throat tighten. For just a moment her mind flashed back to the struggle in the dark, the loud sound of gunshots and then the hot splash of blood across her hands and face. She nodded, “Yes. She tried to kill me, we struggled.” She cleared her throat, “I tried to get the gun away from her and it went off.”
Alannis awaited recriminations. They couldn't say anything about her that she hadn't been thinkin already. She should have been faster, she should have been the one at the hatch. She should have been more alert...
“I'm glad you killed the bitch,” Lance Corporal Sutton said.
“Lance Corporal!” Gunny Tam snapped. “Lieutenant Busch was an officer. You can't refer to her as a bitch until after the investigation is complete.”
“Sorry, Gunny,” Sutton said. “Well, then I'm glad that she got a bad case of dead.”
The grumbles from the other Marines suggested that “bitch” was the least of the words they'd been slinging around before Alannis had come in. While that didn't surprise her, the pats on the back and the nods of appreciation for her dealing with Ashtar's killer certainly did.
The Marines went back to their quiet conversations and that left Alannis to come to grips with a startling realization. They don't hate me, she thought in shock. In fact, they seemed oddly welcoming.
“It's rough, losing someone like that.” Staff Sergeant Witzke said taking a seat next to her and passing over a small glass. The scent of raw alcohol made Alannis's nose burn. It was a pointed reminder that she hadn't drunk anything since the bottle of wine that Reese had presented her as part of an apology.
“Ensign Shan respected you, she'd be happy to know the platoon is in good hands,” Staff Sergeant Witzke said.
Alannis's shoulders straightened a bit and she took the glass. “I miss her. It's my fault, it's all my fault,” Alannis said. She downed the contents in a single gulp and the raw liquor burned all the way down to her stomach.
“No,” Staff Sergeant Witzke said, “it isn't. No more than it was her fault for getting shot. Lieutenant Busch pulled the trigger.”
As the alcohol began to burn its way into her system, Alannis nodded a bit. She couldn't let go of her guilt, not yet, but she could feel the tense, horrible sensation of doom lift a bit.
“Tonight, we drink for Ensign Ashtar Shan, a Fleet Officer good enough to be a Marine!” Gunny Tam barked. Glasses were raised and Alannis raised her own empty cup.
One of the Marines passed her another glass and Alannis knocked it back with them. For Ashtar, she thought, my friend.
***
“Lieutenant?” A gruff voice spoke over Forrest Perkin's comm unit.
“Yeah?” he asked as he rubbed sleep out of his eyes. A glance at the display showed it was very early morning. With the death of Lieutenant Commander Douglass, Forrest had become the Tactical Officer. The Constellation's normal crew suggested a Lieutenant Commander, two Lieutenants, and two Ensigns for the department's officers.
Forrest only had Ensign Yamahito to help him out and they were short crew for the enlisted billets too. That meant he was pulling twelve hour shifts plus all the additional duties. Add to that the stress of having a fellow officer murdered and he was feeling pretty ragged.
“This is Gunny Tam,” the voice said, “I, uh, need your help and I know I can trust you.”
Forrest was quite suddenly awake. He'd been a point of contact for the counter-coup conspiracy and Forrest had dealt with Gunny Tam during that time and after the Dreyfus Mutiny. “What's the problem?” Please, he thought, let all that stuff be in the past. He knew they'd missed a handful of conspirators, but surely this didn't have anything to do with that...
“We, uh, had a ceremony for Ensign Shan. Ensign Giovanni joined us, as our new Platoon Commander, you see,” Gunnery Sergeant Tam said. Is it just me, Forrest wondered, or is the Gunny picking his words very carefully?
“She's very... tired and I'd appreciate an officer getting her back to her quarters,” Gunny Tam said.
“Ah,” Forrest said, putting things together. It would be very much against regulations for the Marines to have smuggled alcohol aboard, much less for them to drink it. Yet this was the kind of situation where the Captain might turn a blind eye... to a point. “Very tired, you say?”
“Very, sir,” Gunny Tam said.
“I'll get down there right away,” Forrest said with a sigh. He could well imagine that a drunken officer stumbling her way back to her quarters after slumming
it with Marines would be the kind of thing to draw official attention. It shouldn't take more than fifteen minutes, he told himself.
***
Forrest opened the hatch to the Marine Lounge to find Ensign Giovanni standing on a table, “To Ashtar Shan!” She called out and knocked back a glass.
A handful of Marines matched her toast. Most of them, however, were passed out on the floor or across and under tables.
“Sir,” Gunny Tam gave Forrest a nod as he reached up to grab Ensign Giovanni by the arm. He started to help her down from the table, “Ma'am, the Lieutenant is here to help you back to your quarters.”
“Right, right,” she gave him a nod. Then, to Forrest's amusement, she actually winked at him. “We wouldn't want anyone getting in trouble.”
Forrest snorted, “No, we wouldn't. So, let's just head this way...”
For all of her drunken loudness in the Marine Lounge, she became remarkably quiet as Forrest led her down the corridors towards officer country. She wasn't steady, by any means, but she maintained enough of an outward appearance to pass.
As he led her off the lift and paused outside her quarters, though, she froze. “She died, right there,” Alannis said.
Forrest cleared his throat, “Sorry.”
“My fault,” she muttered. She seemed to have sobered up, either from the walk or the cooler air in the corridor. “It's my fault.”
“Look,” Forrest said, “let's get you inside.” He toggled the hatch and led the way inside. The quarters looked oddly sterile. His own shared quarters had pictures, at least. Lieutenant Cassat had pictures of his kids and parents. Forrest didn't have any surviving pictures of his wife and daughter, but at least he had some things he'd picked up to remind him of home.
When they'd collected Ensign Shan's possessions, they'd left very little. It seemed that either Alannis Giovanni traveled very light or she had little of her past that she wanted remembered. Forrest felt oddly sympathetic.
“Here you are,” Forrest said helping her to her chair. “Right as rain. I'll just be going...”
“No, please stay,” Alannis almost sobbed. “I can't be here alone, not after...”
“Right,” Forrest said. He sat, feeling awkward. “I'm sorry,” he said, searching for words to make it hurt less. “I know what it's like, to lose people.”
“Yeah,” she nodded, “but this time... she was trying to kill me, did you know that?”
Forrest shook his head, “I didn't. I'm sorry... but it's not your fault, you know that right?”
“Of course it's my fault,” she snapped in reply. She wiped away hot tears, “I know it's my fault. I should be the dead one, not Ashtar.” She shook her head, “My family is cursed, you know.” She said the last in a calm, conversational tone.
“No,” Forrest said.
“It's true,” she said in a conspiratory whisper. She leaned in close, “Anyone who gets close to us ends up dead. Lucius has lost dozens of friends. He nearly lost his daughter. The only woman he ever loved is in hiding. And then there's me... the handful of friends I had on Nova Roma died helping me to escape. Then, Reese, he helped Admiral Mannetti and it's my fault...”
“Look,” Forrest said, “I don't know about any of that, but you're taking too much on yourself. I don't believe in curses and whoever this Reese guy is, he sounds like a jerk.”
She recoiled from him, “He's the father of my son.”
“Oh,” Forrest flushed, “Sorry, I didn't know.”
“You wouldn't,” Alannis replied. She buried her face in her hands. “God, I don't even know, sometimes. How do I relate to the child of a man I hate so much?”
Forrest said the first thing that popped into his head. “At least your son is alive. My daughter died on Saragossa.” Crap, he thought, great job, play that card. The words had slipped out, but he couldn't help it. He had lost his wife and daughter on Saragossa. The familiar ache ambushed him and he buried his own face in his hands, “Shit, I'm sorry.”
“No, I'm sorry,” Alannis shook her head. “I'm drunk and I lost my friend, but I know that half the personnel in the Fleet have been there. We've all lost people.” She had an odd look on her face, “I just want to say thank you for staying with me.”
She put her hand on his and Forrest's arm tingled all the way up to his shoulder. Her small hand felt warm and Forrest suddenly realized just how close they were. I should not be thinking this kind of thing about the Emperor's sister, he thought.
“Ashtar was right,” Alannis said, “you are kind of cute.” Before Forrest could think up a response to that she passed out.
***
The spy sighed as he considered the outcome of his little maneuver. Lieutenant Busch had never been a particularly notable tool. In fact, he had never planned to use her for much more than passing an occasional message or perhaps blackmailing an officer with a convenient cut-out if things went wrong. Certainly her clumsy method of seduction hadn't been intended to succeed.
He had however, hoped she would at least prove competent enough to kill the right target. He had nothing against Ensign Shan. In fact, he had nothing in particular against Ensign Giovanni, she did her duty and worked hard.
The problem, however, was what she represented. The aristocracy that her brother represented would bring eventual doom to the human race, he knew. Like the others of Admiral Dreyfus's conspiracy, he had seen the visions, he knew exactly how desperate a fight humanity would face. There was no room in that fight for nobles playing at being leaders. They needed strong people in charge, those with the will and cunning to succeed and the strength of character to make the hard decisions.
People like me, he thought.
That was part of why he'd sought so hard to get an assignment to this ship in particular. He knew that Captain Beeson had been behind the counter-coup. He had wanted to take the measure of the man, to taste his dedication and skill... and to learn from him.
One of the reasons Admiral Dreyfus had lost was that he had not fully appreciated his opponents. He hadn't adapted his tactics and he had underestimated the loyalty and charisma that Lucius Giovanni generated. Captain Beeson had been shaped into the officer he was by the example of Lucius Giovanni... and this was as close as he could come to learning directly from the man himself.
It had been educational. In fact, he felt that as far as tactics went, Daniel Beeson was a superior officer. It was the overall strategy where he and Giovanni had gone wrong. They wanted to save all of humanity, which in the face of it was utterly absurd.
They could not fight the Balor on all fronts. Many systems had to be sacrificed, allowed to fall, in order to save a strong core. The vast majority of systems they sought to save would not thank them for it. In fact, in his experience, they'd betray their saviors on the first opportunity they had.
Only by allowing unimportant systems to fall and protecting the core systems would humanity survive. After they gained the upper hand, then they could liberate the worlds that had fallen. The survivors of those worlds would be pathetically grateful for their saviors and if they weren't... well, it would be easy enough to go from liberator to conqueror.
Giovanni and his followers didn't see the lessons learned on Tehran. A world that had been so hostile to the rest of human space had been tamed by their time under the rule of the Chxor. It had cost them dearly, but it was a transition that was worth the blood and loss of lives. Humans could be shaped and molded.
He had tried to shape Lieutenant Busch that way, but he'd seen early on that she only had so much potential. Other candidates had proven to be more amenable and he felt certain that after their return to Faraday, he would be able to integrate his new recruits into his new organization.
Her failure meant that they wouldn't return to Faraday just yet. He would have to accept that and he'd use the extra time to learn more from Captain Beeson. And who knew, perhaps he would find something useful in the Ghornath's Sacred Stars?
***
Gates of Hallidas
>
(Status Unknown)
December 29, 2407
Alannis felt it as soon as they emerged from shadow space. In fact, she'd been feeling something over the past couple days. It had been faint, like a song on the edge of hearing, but she'd known it was there.
As the Constellation emerged into the twin binary system, Alannis felt it deep in her bones. It was like a siren's call, indescribably beautiful... and she wasn't the only one to hear it.
Alannis's head snapped up as Chuni gave an odd cry. Her friend had moved forward, as if drawn to the display. Her hide flickered with colors, too fast and too complex for Alannis to interpret. “Do you hear it?” Chuni asked, her voice thick with emotion.
“I don't hear anything,” Captain Beeson said. “What's going on?”
“Sir,” Lieutenant Forsberg said from navigation, “the navigational computer is going nuts. I don't know what's going on, but even our inertial guidance systems are giving us severely distorted readings.”
Alannis frowned as she noticed signal intercept indicators on her displays. She went to work, even as she listened with some of her attention.
“Sensors?” Captain Beeson asked.
“We're seeing severe electromagnetic, physical, and even gravitational interference, Captain,” Lieutenant Cassat said. “The stars have elliptical baryonic orbits, both stars have serious wakes, dragging cometary debris and a variety of jetsam as well as solar particle tails over ten million kilometers in length. The mix of physical objects of various densities and energy states are giving our active and passive systems fits.”
“Sir,” Alannis said, looking up, “I've picked up a signal... you need to hear this.”
At Captain Beeson's nod, Alannis put it on the speakers. The melodious song was only an echo of what she could feel coming from the stars, but it was enough that the rest of the bridge crew seemed enthralled. “What is that?”
“It is the language of the Protectors,” Chuni said, “or as close to it as physical sounds can come. I can feel it, psychically. It is both welcome and warning.”