by James Edward
“Dog, you didn’t say there was a platform,” Baldy shouted over his radio. “A platform and three ships that aren’t here now.”
“Who cares,” Blondie snarled back. “We are going to engage them. If we take the platform, we claim it.”
“Fool, something isn’t right here,” Bear said as he switched coms to just his ships. “All ships stay in the back and be prepared for a trap. Something isn’t right here.”
“Bear, Blondie’s ships are moving to engage the platform. Baldy is starting to move to the starboard of Dog’s group,” the tactical operator said. “There goes Dog; he’s moving to catch up with Blondie.”
“Let them. They can take a frontal attack. We will move around on the port side and board that station,” Bear said. “Tell Baldy to stay on his side and swing around the station.”
“By all that’s holy, look!” the tactical operator said in a strained voice.
Bear was watching the screens as the platform opened fire on the first two ships leading the attack. In just ten seconds, both ships were shredded into scrap metal. A heavy laser gun opened up on Dog’s ship, tearing the side open, venting water, bodies, and atmosphere. Another laser opened up on Blondie’s third ship, and Bear watched as the whole ship exploded in a flash of brilliant light. He could hear Blondie screaming over the speaker to help him, but Dog was getting mauled too. Baldy opened up on the platform with all four of his ships, and lasers beams, rail guns, and missiles started to crisscross the distance as countermeasures were activated.
Bear order his ships to fire on his side of the platform and ordered the ships to swing around in a wide arch toward the gate. He was satisfied when he saw the missile tracks of his ships head toward the station. He ordered his tactical to target the control center of the platform and fire everything at it. As he watched, he heard that two of his ships were taking heavy damage. Puzzled, he studied his screen to see what was causing the damage to his ships when his ship bucked under him and started shuddering. It was all he could do to hold onto his seat when he felt another explosion rock his ship. Alarms began to flash, and sirens started to ring out. Finally a sensor operator shout out, “Mines!” Shit, we have run right into a minefield, he thought.
Shouting at the helm to come about, he was knocked backward by an explosion at the bow of the ship. The ship was on fire when the ship killer found it. No one was paying attention to it as sensors and communications had been knocked out. No one lived through the explosion either. Bear died by the very violence that he had perpetrated on so many others.
Baldy was cursing and screaming at his crew as he saw Bear explode in a flash of glory. Five minutes into the fight, and Blondie, all his ships, and Bear with three of his were gone. He was doing his best to counter the deadly laser fire from the platform and didn’t realize that he too was in a minefield. His surprise was short-lived when his was the first ship to explode, followed by his other three either exploding or breaking apart.
Dog was desperate. His three ships all were damaged. He wanted to head back to the gate, but that would put him in harm’s way of those withering guns. His ships even with the shields were hammered harder than even the Fleet could do. Dog saw an opening where Bear had gone. He could use Bear’s wrecks as a screen and run for the gate. He tried to order his ships about, but they didn’t respond to his orders. Giving them up, he ordered the helm to go on the starboard of the remains of Bear’s smoldering wrecks and head for the gate. His ship was climbing into a flank speed when the first mine blew the bow off the ship. The ship lost power, and its shields dropped, so it was a broken, unshielded ship that flew into the second mine. This mine for some reason was just properly situated that it was sucked deep into the damaged bow before exploding. Dog joined his fellow pirates in whatever hell was reserved for them, and his ship tore itself apart. The last remaining ships surrendered, totally demoralized and shell-shocked.
Of the twelve ships in the attack, five remained intact, although all were badly damaged. In all, 250 pirates were taken prisoner. The pirates lost the four faction leaders, all their ships, and approximately two thousand crewmen. There were only three captains left, and none of them had even had a chance to see the waiting cruisers or a look into the system. They were stripped down like they did when they captured slaves and herded into a freighter for transport to Omicron 2. Even if they weren’t prosecuted by the AGW, they were penniless and couldn’t go back to pirating, as the pirates that were left would not look upon them with much favor. Besides, they had no way of getting back to Last Run. One day you were a tough old pirate that everyone cowered to, and the next you were a sniveling beggar on a street in some system. Jail was preferable.
Unfortunately, since Conrad wasn’t in the AGW, it could not press charges. So eventually after they were processed to see if they had any outstand warrants, 150 were released. The battle was considered hearsay and eventually forgotten for more important things.
The infighting for control of the pirate planet Last Run and its factions still raged. Every day they got weaker as assassinations and inner squabbling took the smarter ones out. There was a general peace in the rim area for a short time.
Ray was hugely satisfied by the results of what was being called the Battle of the Gate. All parties met and dissected the fight second by second, making recommendations and observations. Some modifications were made to the platform, which suffered only superficial damage, except one area that took multiple missile hits. By the time the salvage sleds had removed all the broken ship debris, the nanobots had all but rebuilt that area. The marines asked for more ammo if they were to fight a gate battle again, as they were down to firing the rail guns and beam weapons by the end. They recommended that the station be expanded to store enough ordinances to hold the gate for two days. Engineering and R&D muttered and scratched their heads but got on designing a new station.
The ships were recalled and redistributed around the system—some practicing war games, some patrolling, some getting the last of the refits for the moment. Ray had ordered an accelerated pace to make sure that all ships had the second-generation upgrades. Within the week, Cul Dar was parked outside the Nerve Center. That was what they were calling the ugly assembled boxes and containers that started out as the space station for the entire system. As different sites were developed, those factions and departments left to take over their own bases, planetoids, and moons. The Nerve Center was where the official business of the system took place. Oddly enough, it was also the only piece of habitable metal that wasn’t ceramic or coated. That was because it was just welded together and wouldn’t survive a trip around the sun for hardening. There was on the books a design for a proper space station with the firepower of a fortress, but it was on the back burner for the moment.
Guard Two had been hardened off and now was in orbit with Pandora. Guard Three was being finished in the space yard and would take up orbit with Darcy. In the meetings with the board, the normal complaint was lack of manpower and lack of Fleet people.
Ray met with Lyn before she left to stir up trouble. She and Captain Steadman were both thrilled and impressed with the improvements to the Black ship, now a truly covert ship.
“The ship is great! We can slip in and out of some systems faster now,” Lyn said. “And I love the medibots. That will help if I get into a tight squeeze. They have already fixed some old scars and repaired old knitted bones. The internal scar tissue is gone as well. I can move easier and faster again. A win-win.”
“Glad we could help out.” Ray smiled as he looked closely at her.
“Are you checking me out, Ray?” Lyn laughed. “Naughty boy. I thought we resolved that when we were still planet bound.”
“Bite your tongue!” he responded. “I was just noticing that your scars are gone. Your face looks softer and younger.”
“Yes!” she agreed. “You are checking me out! Don’t get all stiff and formal on me. A girl likes
that every now and then. It’s going to cause a few changes in disguises, and in some places they will wonder what I had done, but for the most part it’s all good.”
“I am considering placing a covert corvette on station in Cappa Tauri,” Ray said, changing the subject. “I think that it would be wise to have a ship that could either pick up our personnel on Cappa or run interference if they have a ship to run with. I believe that in the next six months the situation in the governing worlds is going to start to unravel.”
“Well if you do, I recommend that it is a frigate,” Lyn suggested. “You will need to have something that can run and is big enough to back an over-eager Fleet officer off. I will tell Grandpa that he has a watcher and give him the com codes. I will get the message out to Vixen and Badger too. As things start to go bad, there will be more and more refugees. Most of them will be family member of officials and Fleet, but after that, more and more good people will join us. I think you have a year yet, but I was assigned the pirate problem and not the political one.”
“Okay, a frigate is good,” Ray agreed. “I am hoping that we can be complete here in Conrad by then. Our core expansions are going well, and we have a surprising amount of ore and minerals recovered from the excavation. We have loads of room at Darcy even with the ranch that they have there for fresh meat. I guess it’s just follow the program. Oh by the way, I fully expect a visit from Great Ursa now that the pirates have been eliminated. I won’t let them come in any closer either.
“I fully expect that the PRC will start taxing our installations at Omicron 2 and Sempter when they get in power. I am sure that Great Ursa will make enough waves to either have us shut down or overtax us. Either way, the charges have been built in to the tanks at the tank farm, and when we want, we will destroy them. Our business in the free worlds has more than doubled. We can get supplies and electronics there.
“When you’re done spooking around the galaxy, I want you to take over as security chief for Conrad. I am going to need a good security chief.”
“Nope, not me,” Lyn said, shaking her head. “I don’t have the ability or the desire for that type of work. I could give you a couple of names that are excellent for that position. Matter of fact, you have a good one already there, Sean Wheatly. He is a great security boss.”
“Sean is working hard to bring the marines up to speed. He has to check every candidate and screen them. I am not in favor of giving a marine, or anyone else for that matter, access to a critical area only to find out that he or she is a PRC plant.”
“Okay, Ray,” Lyn said. “I will give it some thought, and whoever it is, I will send Dad to look him over. If they pass Dad’s inspection, they will be good. Dad would be another choice, but he is more of an expediter than a security chief.”
Ray and Lyn said good-bye, and Ray watched the Blackship move away from the base and suddenly wink out. Earlier, Ray had insisted that every ship have a locator beacon active so that there weren’t any collisions. Ray stood at the window and watched actually nothing, as with the shields up, they were cloaked. The locator beacon on the Blackship beeped to let them know that they were there even though Ray and the crew couldn’t see them.
CHAPTER 10
Preparing for the fall
RAY WAS IN HIS OFFICE going over the reams of paperwork and data files that it took to run a business. He had decided to hold the Omicron 2 and Sempter enterprises at a steady pace but not expand them. He felt that they were going to be taken over sooner rather than later, and he was not inclined to donate a profitable tank farm to the PRC or Great Ursa.
Ray was surprised when his implant buzzed and Flight Control informed him that a ship was coming in. He was assured that the ship passed all the custom recognition protocols. Ray told Flight Control to direct the ship to park next to the visiting airlock and have a marine guard present when they debarked. They could wait in the visitors’ lounge until properly cleared by Nerve Center security. Ray wasn’t that concerned, as he knew that Guard One wouldn’t have let them pass without ensuring that there was no harm to the system. But security protocols were good to demonstrate to any visitor; it showed a state of preparedness.
The implant thrummed again, and Ray was made aware that the visitors were now in the boardroom. Ray acknowledged and hurried to the boardroom, knowing that Early Landrew wouldn’t pass them into the boardroom unless he knew them personally. He entered the boardroom and was surprised when he saw that Admiral Weatherfew, Charles Redone, and two other men were gathered around a model of the new and much-improved Nerve Center that was right now being constructed in the shipyard.
“Admiral Weatherfew,” Ray said, shaking his hand. “Good to see you again.”
“Ah, Ray,” Weatherfew said. “It’s good to be in a place that you don’t have to watch your every move. You know Charles of course, but I would like to introduce Richard Haldron. Rick is the sub chief of security for the Fleet. He is retiring from the job this month and would like to immigrate here and work as your security chief. The other gentleman here is Gordon Russ; Gordon is a communications engineer. He is credited with five patents in the field of long-range communications and I believe an asset to your organization.”
“Well it’s good to meet you all,” Ray said as he shook their hands. “We are in need of a top security chief to put together the screening of new immigrants, develop a customs program, create a secure refugee area for future arrivals, and develop a system-wide set of programs to ensure loyalty and ferret out PRC spies and plants. We need to ensure that vital areas are secure and protected from sabotage and spying in general. It will be a tall order and a difficult task.
“Mr. Russ, it is a pleasure to meet you as well. We do have a bottleneck with communications and would love to bring you on board. We have a planetoid by the name of Sloman where all walks of engineers are working, and on Pandora, where we have a rather large and aggressive R&D group.”
“Charles, it is so good to see you again. I hope you have some good news for us, but I tend to think that a personal visit bodes more to the ill news.
“Gentlemen, I propose that we retire to the captain’s dining area where we can have a bite to eat and do a bit of talking. We can return here a little later to discuss various avenues with my staff.” Ray chimed the Nerve Center and asked that Lydia, Bev, Early, Sean, Fred, Sergie, and, if he was free, Hammer join them later. After eating, they relaxed until the Nerve Center chimed in that Ray’s officers were in the boardroom. When Sean arrived, he paired him with Reagent Stiles, and they went off to discuss security concerns. When Fred and Sergie arrived, they were introduced to Gordon Russ, and they too went off to discuss communication problems. Ray led Admiral Weatherfew and Charles Redone to the boardroom where they met the rest of the members.
“Right, down to business,” Ray said. “Admiral, perhaps you can start with what is happening to the Fleet.”
“Thanks, Ray,” Weatherfew said. “First, I want to say that you have far surpassed our primary objective when we started this project. Second, your R&D has made more strides in the last two years than Fleet has in twenty, thanks to the government restrictions. I would like to thank you all. The Gate Battle has been hushed up, but it sent a ripple through the systems that an upstart system defeated a mass attack by twelve pirate ships.
“We have entered the spiral stage of the present government meltdown. The government is losing power and therefore is capitulating to the demands of the PRC. Next month, the PRC will be taking over administration of all Fleet duties up to and including escorts of ships. With the fleet in PRC hands, you can expect an increasingly hostile reception when you meet with AGW Fleet warships. The AGW managed to retain hold of administration and economic development, both of which are in array, and the presiding government will be blamed for this failure, giving more impetus for the PRC to take over those positions.
“Forecast is for the PRC to completely seize control of the go
vernment in six months to a year. From there it will be a less than a year, unless there are setbacks, before the core worlds to start breaking away from the AGW-controlled PRC. Some systems are even now covertly building warships to protect themselves. The PRC will disband government at that point and attempt to wrest control of the local system governments by force. Their goal is total domination of the core systems and absolute control over all the worlds through violence and suppression. It is the reason they have taken control over the Fleet. They are, as we speak, doing a purge of positions of influence in the Fleet. By the way, Ray, you can expect a heavy cruiser to your arsenal very soon. Old Viking is about to be lost out in the rim. I will get to those details later.
“Your fight with the pirates of Last Run knocked the timeline for the PRC back by about three months. They fully expected to have this system and the fuel that it supplies in their grip. It was one of the reasons they supported the ceding. It gave them access without retribution. You should be aware your tank farms at Omicron 2 and Sempter are under great scrutiny now; expect them to be seized for some trumped-up charge.
“We have managed to infiltrate their computers to the point that we have a team that is watching and reading everything that is sent or received. It is one of the reasons we are able to predict our downfall. Please understand, ladies and gentlemen, the PRC has done nothing of an illegal means on a large enough scale to be able to expose and stop them. They have used coercion, intimidation, and sometimes covert violence to achieve their aims. The civilized veneer will fall off when they are in control; rest assured of that. They are ruthless, clever, and totally dedicated to their aims.
“I believe that I will be indicted and interrogated and removed from office in about four months. I would like a ride before that. Vixen believes that she can survive the fall and still gather and pass on information, but if she is discovered, she will need immediate extraction. As soon as I ‘disappear,’ there will be a purge of my department with Fugs taking over. All loyal Fleet personnel will be isolated and removed. The PRC will need to have access to those warships; it is one of the reasons I posted most of my loyal Fleet to the rim. I have given them a code name of Bararosa. Every captain has, thanks to Reagent Stiles, whom you just met, a complete dossier on who is loyal and who is waiting to take over the ship. Those aligned with the PRC will be dropped off on a rim world before they can act, hopefully. The loyal personnel will be asked whether they want in on this fight or to go home. The ones that want to fight will come here. Their access code name will be Weatherfew for some reason. There are over two thousand ships in the Fleet, I expect that about fifty will actually come here. The rest will attempt to go home to their systems. They will end up fighting the PRC on the way or when they get there. Of the two thousand, I think we can now figure that two to three hundred will side with the AGW. Fugs has done an exemplary job in removing loyal crews. Your system is an example to that effect. We will be looking at 1700 to 1800 ships in a PRC Fleet make up. I figure that we will kill in a range of two to one or even three to one. With that and the fact that they can’t leave the entire empire without patrol ships, our fighting will be with about five hundred warships from dreadnoughts down to corvettes. I hope that you can handle that, Ray. On a further note, you should expect a massive increase in immigration. We are trying to get families and key people out of the way and to safety.