by Brown, Ryk
“What’s your plan if something should happen to the shuttle?”
“Sir?”
“What if she is damaged somehow? What if she loses power or life support? What is your backup survival plan?”
“Well, the C2 can be buttoned up and pressurized. It does have its own power plant and life support system. But it isn’t really designed to be space-worthy, if that’s what you mean.”
“You might want to wear pressure suits when you’re deployed,” Nathan suggested.
“That’s going to make it a bit difficult to work in here.”
“You’re not using a full crew,” Nathan said. “Rip out a few seats on either side to give them a bit more elbow room.”
“Do you really think that’s necessary, sir?”
“Does the shuttle’s flight crew wear pressure suits?” Nathan asked.
“Understood.”
Nathan took Cameron’s arm and gestured for her to move forward into the short corridor that led to the cab, wanting to move out of earshot of the other technicians in the room. “Cam, why didn’t you tell me about the test jumps?”
“You didn’t need to know,” she defended.
“I didn’t need to know that one man died and another was badly injured?”
“Would it have made a difference?” she challenged. “Would you have ordered them to stop testing?”
“They could’ve done more computer modeling…”
“They did, Nathan,” Cameron interrupted. “But you know as well as I that all the computer modeling in the world is meaningless without some test jumps.”
“I just don’t want anyone to die unnecessarily,” Nathan defended.
“He didn’t, sir. Those men tested the rig because they knew that nearly a hundred more of them were going to be jumping into the heart of the empire in a few days wearing those very same rigs. They knew that, for the mission to succeed, the majority of those men needed to reach the ground alive and on target. No one ordered them to go; they volunteered.”
Nathan sighed. He knew she was right. He also knew she was doing her job, managing all of the infinite details that went into not only running the Aurora, but also preparing for what was no less than an outright invasion. She might not have had the same swagger, the same confident stride that she had originally come aboard with, but she was still capable of doing her job. “You’re right, Commander,” he admitted, sighing yet again. It was yet one more thing about command that he did not enjoy. “Carry on.”
* * *
“Jump complete,” Dumar announced. “Searching for contacts using passive sensors only.”
Josh looked about nervously. Jumping into an enemy system—instead of coasting through it at near relativistic speeds in a cold and dark interceptor—did not set easy with him. Jump flashes might be brief, but they were bright. They were easy to miss if you weren’t looking directly at them, but he had little doubt that most of Takaran space was closely monitored. “Did they see us?” he asked. “Are there any ships nearby?”
“Relax, Josh,” Mister Dumar told him. “If any come for us, we’ll see them in plenty of time to jump away.”
“Unless they fire an energy weapon at us from our passive sensor range,” Josh pointed out. “Then we’d only have seconds, if we even saw it coming.”
“They will not fire blindly within Takara space,” Dumar insisted. “Doing so would risk hitting a friendly ship. Besides, they would not expect us to be so bold as to jump into their system.”
“But by now they know all about us from the Loranoi’s comm-drone, right?”
“The Loranoi’s message contained very little useful data about the Aurora.”
“You know what the message said?” Josh asked.
“Yes, I do. It informed command of the Corinairan’s secession from the empire, and it said they were under attack by a mysterious ship that was able to disappear and reappear at will, possibly even able to relocate instantly over several thousand kilometers at a time.”
“That’s it?” Josh asked, his nerves beginning to relax somewhat.
“Nothing more,” Dumar promised. “However, combined with previous reports collected by the empire about the Aurora’s exploits in and around the Pentaurus cluster, it is safe to assume that the Ta’Akar are already aware of the Aurora and her jump drive.”
“Great,” Josh replied, suddenly feeling nervous again. “You know, you could’ve left out that last part. I would’ve been okay without it.”
“I have multiple contacts, multiple bearings,” Dumar announced.
“Where?” Josh asked, his head swiveling about.
“All around us. This is a rather busy system, you know.”
“Are they coming toward us?”
“Not directly, no,” Dumar assured him, “but several of them will pass within a few hundred kilometers.”
“Are they warships?”
“The ones that will pass close to us, no, but there are warships in the system.”
“Obviously,” Josh answered, a touch of sarcasm in his tone.
“Our current course is slightly wide of Takara,” Dumar explained. “We should be able to transmit our hail, exchange messages with my contact, and jump away again, all long before we reach the Takaran homeworld.”
“How is it we can transmit a message without being detected?”
“Using the personal comm-unit we retrieved from the dead officer from the Campaglia,” Dumar explained, “the one we found in our bow. If we transmit from our current position, the message will appear to be coming from a ship in transit between Takara and one of her many sister worlds within the system.”
“So, you’re just going to place a call. ‘Hey buddy, how ya been? Got any plans tomorrow?’”
“It will be a text-based communication.”
“Then how can you be sure you’re speaking to the right person?” Josh wondered.
“Because he would be the only one who could understand the original message.”
“Someone could still intercept the message or pretend to be your friend…”
“The message will be encrypted,” Dumar assured him.
“All encryption can be broken,” Josh reminded him. “Even I know that.”
“True, but it would take several weeks, by which time it will not matter. In addition, I will test the recipient with a series of inquires designed to authenticate his identity.”
“What if the Ta’Akar captured him and scanned his brain or something? Or what if he’s a double agent…”
“Josh, I have been in this business long enough to be able to assess the risks and rewards of such situations.”
“I’m just saying…”
“Perhaps it would be best if you concentrated on flying.”
“What flying? We’re coasting, remember?”
“We are approaching the contact point,” Dumar announced as he began typing on the touch screen’s keyboard on the lower portion of the portable communications device. “I am preparing the initial message.”
Josh looked at his own navigation display. “Yeah, entering contact envelope in thirty seconds.”
Dumar continued typing, preparing to send the message once he was finished. He watched his navigation display as they approached the virtual corridor of space that lay between the Takaran home planet and one of the many other inhabited worlds within the Takar system. As the ship entered the virtual corridor on his display screen, he pressed the send button on the personal communications device in his hands, sending the digital text message off into space. “Message sent.”
“We’re in the comm corridor,” Josh announced. “One hour until we reach the other side of the corridor.”
“It will take approximately five minutes for the first message to reach Takara, so if all goes well, we should receive a response within ten to fifteen minutes.”
“Great. What do we do in the meantime?” Josh asked.
“I will continue to monitor the passive sensors for any signs that m
ight indicate we have been detected. Meanwhile, I suggest that you continually update our escape jump plot, just in case. Remember, we are in the middle of the Ta’Akar home system, and we just transmitted a signal. We are not yet without risk.”
“Good plan,” Josh agreed as he began to plot an escape jump. After a few moments, he had finished entering the destination parameters, and the system was calculating the jump. Deliza had developed a subroutine that would continuously recalculate an updated jump plot based on the ship’s current course and the last entered destination. This allowed the Falcon to be ready to jump away at all times. Depending on the distance of the jump being recalculated, the jump computer could recalculate as often as once per minute if desired. As it was unlikely that any ship could sneak up on them so quickly, Josh had selected five minutes as the recalculation interval.
“I have good news,” Mister Dumar announced.
“Your contact couldn’t have answered already,” Josh stated.
“No, of course not. The Ta’Akar have dispatched a battle group, probably to the Darvano system.”
“How is that good news?”
“That means there will be fewer ships for the Aurora to deal with during the attack.”
“How many ships left?” Josh wondered.
“By my count, five ships have departed. There are only eleven remaining, counting the Avendahl.”
“Eleven imperial warships,” Josh said. “I hardly call that good news.”
“It is better than sixteen,” Dumar insisted.
“So five ships are headed for Corinair?” Josh repeated. He couldn’t help but wonder if the strange Corinairan had forgotten about that fact.
“We will have to locate the battle group to be certain,” Dumar admitted, “but the empire rarely dispatches that many ships at once. Since they have recently received the Loranoi’s message, it is a logical assumption.”
“And you’re not concerned about that? I mean, I know you’re not originally from Corinair, but you do have family there, don’t you?”
“Yes, I have a wife and two children.”
“Aren’t you worried about them?” Josh was beginning to get frustrated. Trying to get answers out of Dumar was much like trying to get Tug to talk about himself.
“I am concerned for their safety,” Dumar insisted, “but I do not believe the battle group will continue on to Darvano once they realize that the empire has been defeated.”
“How can you be so sure?” Josh wondered. He and Loki had discussed this at length during their recon flights, as there had been little else to do for long stretches of time. “What if the commander of the battle group decides to fight on in the name of the empire? Wouldn’t their first course of action be to take revenge on the Darvano system?”
“A ship of war is not an invincible platform,” Dumar stated. “It requires a loyal captain commanding a loyal crew and a reliable infrastructure to supply and maintain her. The very structure of the empire—with its noble and common classes, and its conscripted legions—is also its biggest weakness. Without the support of the empire, and without the promise of reward from Caius, the nobles will no longer be willing to risk their lives in battle. They are more likely to turn tail and retreat, choosing instead to return to their lands posthaste in the hopes of protecting what they already own.”
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Josh argued. “How would they protect their lands? With their warships, right?”
“With what crew? It is true that some might choose to stay on board and serve in exchange for some amount of compensation and the promise of eventual return to their homes, but that would require considerable amounts of assets. So much so, in fact, that any captain who would consider such a fool’s errand would probably end up spending all that he was trying to protect in the attempt. It is no accident that it is this way. Caius, as unbalanced as he is, is not a fool. The entire system is designed to fail if he is removed from the equation. This is how he has protected himself against assassination all these decades.”
Josh considered Dumar’s claims. While there was a twisted logic to it all, he couldn’t help but question the accuracy of the man’s assertions. Unfortunately, he knew neither the amount of wealth the average Ta’Akar ship captain possessed nor the amount of compensation that might be required to pay each member of his crew in order to ensure loyalty in such a scenario. Without that minimum amount of information, he could only speculate at best, which meant that he and everyone else had to trust that Mister Dumar was indeed correct.
That was the difficult part, as Josh and everyone else knew little about the man. They knew he had been living on Corinair, and they knew he had once served as a Ta’Akar intelligence analyst. There were even rumors that he knew Tug from his days in imperial service. Tug had never alluded to having once been in the imperial service, at least not to Josh or Loki. However, he had to have gotten his combat flight training from somewhere, and the empire was all there was in and around the Pentaurus cluster. The only way he could have received military training outside of the empire would have been by serving in the days before the empire had come into existence. Josh knew very little about those days, as Caius had ordered much of the pre-empire history to be deleted from all the databases within the empire. Still, Tug was not old enough to have served during those times. As difficult as Josh found it to accept the post-empire predictions of Dumar and even Tug, he knew that Captain Scott had at least enough faith in them to commit to the attack plan. That was enough for Josh, as he trusted the captain without question.
“How long have you known Tug?” Josh asked, as if harmlessly changing the subject. Perhaps if he knew more about their relationship, he would know about Tug’s past. That in itself might be enough to satisfy his curiosity and assuage his concerns.
“You are an inquisitive one,” Dumar chuckled.
“Sorry,” Josh replied, “I didn’t realize it was a secret.”
“No, that’s quite all right. I have known Mister Tugwell for many years,” Dumar explained. “In fact, I have known him since before you were born, although we have been out of touch for nearly that long.”
Josh suddenly got excited. “You’re Karuzari, aren’t you?!”
“In a manner of speaking,” Dumar confessed.
“What, were you some kind of a spy or something?”
“Let us say that I was a purveyor of information and leave it at that.”
“Gotcha,” Josh answered. He sat quietly for a moment, happy to have finally discovered something, especially something that Loki didn’t know. He couldn’t wait to get back to the Aurora and share the tidbit with his friend. “So, did you guys serve together?” he asked, hoping that he had broken the ice and might gain additional insight into both Dumar and Tug.
“We went through flight training together,” Dumar admitted.
“I thought you were an intelligence officer.”
“Later, yes. I was originally an interceptor pilot. In fact, I was Mister Tugwell’s wingman at one point. My transfer to intelligence occurred much later, long after my flying days, and long after Mister Tugwell and I parted company.”
“Then you used to fly one of these,” Josh surmised.
“Indeed I did,” Dumar confirmed.
“So how did you end up working for the Karuzari?”
Dumar’s personal communication unit beeped. “We have received a response,” he announced.
“What does it say?”
“One moment,” Dumar urged. “I am checking his authentication answers.”
Several anxious moments passed, during which Josh could barely contain himself. Without further explanation, Dumar suddenly began tapping a response into the device.
“What did he say?” Josh repeated.
“He merely proved his identity and assured me that he was ready to receive the encrypted message.”
“How the hell did you guys say all that without raising suspicion?” Josh asked. “You know they’ve got super computers
that monitor all comm signals looking for this kind of stuff, right?”
“Spy talk,” Dumar said with a smile as he continued tapping.
“What?”
“The art of saying much while seemingly speaking of nothing.”
“What, like code words and stuff?”
“You’ve been watching too many cheap spy vids,” Dumar told him.
“Yeah, you could be right about that,” Josh admitted. “So we have to wait another ten minutes to find out if this guy will help us?”
“I’m afraid so. However, the fact that he is willing to communicate with me in this covert fashion is a very good sign.”
“How so?”
“He knows that I would not be making contact with him in such fashion unless I wanted his help with something, something dangerous. If he did not intend to help, he would’ve simply ignored the message completely.”
“Unless he’s working for the bad guys and he’s trying to learn your plans so he can inform his superiors.”
“I would not have contacted him if I thought that likely,” Dumar assured him. “Again, I think you…”
“I know, too many spy vids.”
“Return message has been sent.”
“So now what?” Josh asked.
“We wait for a reply. This conversation is long from over. Meanwhile, we start calculating a series of jumps to locate the battle group on our way back to Darvano,” Dumar told him.
“Of course,” Josh replied, “how silly of me.” If there was anything that he liked less than recon flights, it was plotting jumps. That was Loki’s job.
* * *
Nathan looked up from his desk as the hatch to his ready room opened and Commander Taylor stepped inside. Although he tried not to appear anxious, he seriously doubted Cameron would not notice his anticipation.
“Nothing yet,” she reported as she took a seat on the opposite side of the desk from him.
“They’ve been gone a while,” Nathan commented. “Shouldn’t they have gotten back by now?”
“Technically, they should have been back an hour ago.”
“Do you think something went wrong?” Nathan asked, trying to hide his concern.