Olympus (Rise of the Empire Book 1)

by Ivan Kal

  “You heard?” he asked the room.

  Elias put his hand up and was nodding in a way he always did when he was talking with someone via his implant. Two minutes later, he closed his eyes, then opened them and looked right at Tomas.

  “They are lying,” Elias said.

  “I know that! I just don’t know about what!” Tomas yelled, frustrated.

  “I got in contact with my people on the Concordis station. The ship Concordis claims is hijacked was boarded by its original crew in secret. There are no dissidents on that ship,” Elias said.

  “What the hell are they up to?” Tomas asked.

  “Do your people know the reason behind this?” Laura asked.

  “No, but they did say that there was an arrest made a few days ago. A dissident cell, which was kept secret.”

  “What do they think they could get from this? They must be after our technology, but I have no idea how they plan to get away with this. We know that there are no rebels on that ship,” Nadia asked.

  Tomas grimaced. “No, we don’t,” he said sourly.

  “What do you mean we don’t know?” Seo-yun asked incredulously.

  “If we know, then that means we have spies in their ranks. And if we have spies in their ranks, that means that they will have grounds against us. They played this perfectly. If we say we know, they tell the world we have been spying on them, and if we do nothing, they will save us and be regarded as heroes. Not to mention what they will recover from the station,” Tomas said bitingly.

  “They know that Cloud station has no technology that they ca—”

  “Damn!” Tomas interrupted Seo-yun. “Yes, there is technology. The servers. They hold all of our files on our tech, including those on the alien ship and everything we translated from it. There is no technology on the station worth recovering, but they will get everything from the files. It will only be a matter of time until they manage to make sense of the tech.”

  Seo-yun’s eyes widened. “We can’t allow them to get that. This just proves that you were right. They are not ready for that,” she said.

  “I don’t see what we can do to stop them,” Elias said slowly.

  “Where is our closest warship?” Tomas asked Laura.

  “It’s on a patrol between Mars and the belt,” she said. “It would take it at least a week at full burn to get here.”

  “Wait, isn’t there a ship docked here?” Elias asked.

  Laura’s expression turned surprised for a moment, but she quickly hid it behind her professional mask.

  “It’s undergoing upgrades; we were putting in the new FTL comms. And the crew is on leave; the Ship Master and other officers are visiting their families on Mars,” she said.

  “But it has crew?” Tomas asked.

  “The ship is crewed by those that passed from the Academy. We gave them some time to get acquainted with the ship before more experienced officers returned. They are kids, Tomas,” Laura said.

  “You told me that some of those kids were even better than the officers we had in command,” Tomas said.

  “In simulations, yes; they have no experience in real situations,” Laura said weakly.

  “Who did you put in command?” Tomas asked with a hard look in his eyes.

  “Adrian,” she responded, closing her eyes.

  Tomas’s eyes softened when he heard and recognized the name.

  “I know that you care about the boy, Laura, but I need Laura the Fleets Master now. Not Laura the mother. Can he command that ship?” Tomas asked. Laura had told him that she felt as if Adrian was her son, and that she hoped to recognize him as such in time, if he was willing.

  “Yes,” she said softly.

  Tomas moved around his desk and hugged Laura. He moved his head back and looked in her eyes.

  “You once told me that he had the potential to become something great. Trust in him now,” he said.

  Laura nodded and swiped her hand across her eyes. A moment later, she regained her composure.

  “Alright. What are your orders?” she asked.

  “I want them to get there as fast as they can. That ship can’t be allowed to go back with our files,” Tomas said. Then he turned to Elias. “Tell our people on station to try and stall them, but not to endanger their lives.”

  Elias nodded and closed his eyes, sending orders through the implant to be relayed to the station. Laura walked to Tomas’s desk and started giving orders to the people working on upgrading the ship to stop their work, and then she opened the channel to Athena and her commanding officer.

  ***

  Adrian was lying in bed inside the Ship Master’s quarters reading a book. It was a good book. About humanity’s first contact with alien life. He was quickly adapting to the life on a ship. He held the first watch, then let Bethany take over the second, and Noah the third watch. He was the one of two their teammates that had been assigned to this ship with Bethany and Adrian. He’d gained the rank of Adjutant and served as the ship’s third officer. Alexander was in the med bay serving and learning under Chief Medical Officer John Lightman, who was one of the two people that didn’t go on leave with the rest of the crew. The other being Chief Engineer Belinda Martinez; she remained to oversee the upgrades to the ship. They were supposed to install a new type of a communication device, apparently one that was faster than light, though it had the ordinary laser comms and radio capability as well, and there were also some minor adjustments to their drives, but those had been finished two days ago. Now the only thing that was left was the comms device, and that should be done in about a day or so.

  Just as he was getting to a good part of the book, his comms started beeping. It was the one on his desk which had the video capability. Implants could send, receive, and play video, but they didn’t support live video chat for obvious reasons. They couldn’t transmit the user’s face.

  Adrian got up from his bed and walked to his desk. It was close to 1500 hours, and he wondered who it was. He had just gotten off his watch in the command center an hour ago. He activated the comms and was surprised to see Laura’s face. Judging by her expression, he figured that this wasn’t a social call, so he snapped off a salute.

  “Fleets Master,” Adrian said.

  Laura returned the salute, and Adrian saw approval in her expression before it slipped behind her professional mask.

  “Ship Master Farkas,” Laura said. Immediately, Adrian realized that this was serious, so he turned all his attention to her image.

  “Approximately two hours ago, a Concordis warship was stolen by dissidents—at least that is the official version of the story—and it has since then made its way to Cloud station, where we expect it to dock in four minutes. The truth is that there are no dissidents on board that ship; it is crewed by Concordis personnel, and we believe that this is a scheme on their part in order to acquire our technology. There are two Concordis ships on their way to the station. Your mission is to disconnect from the dock as soon as possible and set course to the Cloud station at maximum speed. We are going to inform Concordis leadership to keep their two ships out of our territory. You are to position your ship between them and the ‘dissident ship.’ Board the vessel if possible. But if they refuse, you can’t under any circumstances allow that ship to go back to Concordis hands. If they don’t surrender to you, you have the authority to destroy that ship. Do you understand your orders?” she asked.

  Adrian’s mouth had gone dry, he looked Laura in the eyes.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Good. I have given you the command code equivalent of a Ship Master and have sent a squad of army forces to the ship. You have the authorization to undock from the station,” Laura said. She looked at him for a moment more. Her expression showed an emotion Adrian hadn’t seen before on her face, and then she terminated the connection.

  Adrian immediately jumped from the chair and dressed, while sending the command to the computer to put the ship on blue alert, meaning that everyone was to go to their
posts. They’d had a few drills in the last few days, so he knew that they would follow the order. Bethany was already on the bridge, as it was her watch. It took him less than thirty seconds from the moment the communication from Fleets Master ended to the moment he stepped in the command center. The command center’s walls were round, and after they reached the height of two and a half meters, they started to curve towards each other, making the room resemble the inside of a dome. All of the walls were also screens.

  Using a type of nanotechnology, any part of the wall could be turned into a screen. It could also project a 360° feed from the ship’s outside cameras. When turned on, it looked as if the command center was on top of the ship and had the view of everything around. It didn’t have any special tactical advantage, but he was told that it looked amazing when the ship was close to a planet, such as Mars. The stations were oriented in a half circle, all facing the same direction. Those were, from left to right: Sensors, Navigation, and Weapons. Behind them was a holodesk; it had been installed just a few days ago and had the ability to show a 3D representation of the ship’s surroundings. It was a smart software that took all the information from the ship’s sensors and then created a virtual representation of the space around them, scaled down, of course. It also showed a lot more information. But Adrian didn’t have a lot of time to get himself familiar with it.

  On the left side of the holodesk was the communication station; it was the only one that was separate from the others, and was oriented towards the “side” instead of the “front” of the ship. Behind the holodesk and on a platform was the Ship Master’s “command chair,” and beside it, on a slightly lower platform, was the High Prime’s chair. Adrian made his way to the command chair currently occupied by Bethany. When she noticed him, she turned to him and scowled, not bothering to get up.

  “Another drill, Adrian? You are taking this position too seriously; you need to relax an—”

  “High Prime, I need a status report from all systems,” he interrupted her. Then he turned to the acting Communication Handler, Gillian Estevez. She was one of the Academy graduates that had chosen to enter service at the rank of cadet and held a temporary rank of Communication Handler. “Contact engineering, they need to prep the drives. And inform the team working on the upgrades to abort any operations they have in progress and return to the ship.” Everyone turned around and just looked at him like he was crazy. Bethany stared at him open-mouthed, still sitting in his chair. Adrian looked at her with a stony face.

  “High Prime, the Ship Master has entered C.C. Why are you still sitting in my chair?” he asked calmly. Something in his voice must have clicked with her, because she got out of the chair. Adrian took his position in the command chair. He looked around and noticed that everyone still just looked at him. Three of the older cadets who were now at the stations for Navigation, Sensors, and Weapons had amused looks and were chuckling amongst themselves. The atmosphere in Olympus was more relaxed than in Earth militaries, but there was still a clear chain of command. And their behavior was inexcusable. They didn’t know that this wasn’t a drill. And even if it was, they needed to take it seriously.

  “I gave you an order. This is not a drill,” he said to the room. Only Communication Handler Estevez listened to him and got on the comms with engineering. Adrian told Iris to remember and remind him about Estevez later. The rest kept looking at him, while the three older cadets resumed their amused chuckling. He knew that they disliked drills, but their behavior was unacceptable. He informed the security that their presence was required in the C.C. via his implant, and sent them his new command codes, the ones Laura had given him. He then informed those from the second and third watch that he knew would follow his orders to the C.C. to replace the ones he was about to kick out.

  He looked at the older cadets; one of them returned to what he’d been doing before Adrian had walked in, while others shook their heads and talked ignoring Adrian. A moment later, six security officers entered the C.C. Adrian pointed to the three cadets.

  “Throw those three in the brig. Keep them there until I tell you otherwise,” he told them.

  “Understood, Ship Master,” their leader said. All of them looked as young as anyone else in the C.C., but Adrian knew that they were older. Some even from the time before Olympus had gone into space. They moved professionally and subdued the struggling cadets.

  “Hey! What the hell do you think you are doing?!” one of them yelled. Adrian stood up and glared at him.

  “Did you think I was joking? I told you that this wasn’t a drill! You have cost us precious time we need to accomplish our mission. You are a disgrace; you don’t deserve to be here. Even if this was a drill, your job is to FOLLOW MY ORDERS!” Adrian yelled at them. They grew silent at his outburst, and security took them out. As they were going out, the three other crew members Adrian had called to replace them entered the C.C. One of them was Noah. They had heard his outburst and had a slightly frightened look on their faces. He ordered them to their positions, with Noah taking the Weapons station. He looked at Bethany.

  “High Prime, you have two minutes to get me reports from all systems on my display,” he told her calmly.

  Bethany finally snapped out of her trance and got to work.

  Comms Handler Estevez turned to Adrian.

  “I have Chief Engineer Martinez for you, Ship Master,” she said.

  “Put her through.”

  A moment later, the image on Chief Engineer Martinez showed on the display above his armrest. She had a hard look on her young face, and she had dark hair and brown eyes, which narrowed as she looked at him.

  “I have been ordered to abandon the upgrades and come back inside the ship by Fleet. Do you happen to know why?”

  “Chief Martinez,” Adrian started. “This ship has been ordered to get underway to a hostile situation. You and your people have ten minutes to abort any upgrades you were conducting and get inside the ship. If you are not inside the ship in that period of time, you will be left behind.” He looked at the chief engineer with a stony face.

  “A hostile situation? But—”

  Adrian sent her his command codes. She was one of the ship’s original crew and had much more experience than him, and he knew that she probably didn’t have the habit of questioning her orders and wouldn’t have done so if Athena’s “real” Ship Master had been in command. Adrian was not willing to burn any bridges with her.

  Her eyes widened for a second as her implant authenticated the codes.

  “Yes, Ship Master,” she said, and closed the channel.

  Bethany, who was close enough to overhear all of their exchange, looked at him with a fearful look.

  “A hostile situation?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Adrian said simply. “Comms, put me through the ship wide speakers.”

  Estevez nodded, and a minute later the icon appeared on his display indicating that the ship-wide speakers were on.

  “Attention, crewmembers. Approximately two hours ago, a hostile warship was headed towards Cloud base, followed by two Concordis warships. It is expected to dock with the station any moment now. We have been ordered to intercept and take that warship under our custody, or if that fails, to destroy it. We are not to engage Concordis vessels unless given reason to. This is not a drill.” Adrian took a beat to take another breath. “I know that this is not what you imagined your first true mission to be, but this is it. Remember your training, but keep in mind that this is not a simulation; if you make a mistake, people will die. Trust in yourselves, and we will accomplish our mission together. That is all.” He closed the channel.

  Bethany turned to him with a professional expression. She had managed to push her fear down. Good, I will need her, Adrian thought.

  “Yes, you will.” Iris told him.

  He didn’t have a chance to respond because Bethany sent him the reports on all systems. He looked them over, noting that everything was good to go.

  “The team doing the up
grades is back inside, the drives are operational, and there is a squad of army forces requesting permission to come aboard, Ship Master,” Bethany said.

  “Allow them inside, put them in the cargo bay. Navigation, disconnect us from the dock as soon as they are onboard and set a course for Cloud station, maximum speed,” Adrian said. He left his crew to do the rest; there was nothing else for him to do until they reach the station.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “While we appreciate your offer, Ambassador, the space around Cloud station is Olympus territory under international law, and we are not prepared to let your warships inside our territory,” Tomas said to the ambassador of Concordis. They were speaking over the comms; as usual, the ambassador was on the surface of the Moon.

  “Surely you see that we only want to help? We want to prevent any loss of life, and since it is partially our fault, we would like to be of service. Seeing as you have no assets that can intervene,” the ambassador said. Tomas was grinding his teeth with every word the ambassador said.

  “We respectfully decline. We are well on our way to handle the situation. If your ships enter our territory, we will take that as an enormous breach of our trust,” Tomas said. “Inform your superiors of my decision.”

  “Mr. Klein, you must see th—”

  Tomas cut off the comm, not wanting to listen to the ambassador anymore.

  “Laura, what’s the situation?” Tomas asked.

  “We still don’t have contact with the station, nothing since they docked and sent their list of demands. We have no satellites in Earth orbit to relay a laser signal around the Earth, and Cloud station wasn’t yet equipped with the FTL comms.”

  Tomas grimaced at the mention of the demands. The list was full of crazy demands that no sane person would ask for, only reinforcing their belief that this was a Concordis plan.