The Rampant Storm

by J. Alan Field

  “Why is that?”

  “Because I think if I had, we’d both be dead right now.”

  They took a commercial shuttlecraft from the planet’s surface to the Halcyon Starport. Like the Arisugawa Starport back home at Sarissa, Halcyon was the main interstellar transportation hub for Gerrha. Most of the people and many of the goods that came and went to the planet moved through the vast station hanging in orbit above the Commonwealth’s prime world. This is where Carr and Sanchez would catch the passenger liner to planet Kition—the ship containing Hanley Pascoe and any hope they had of rescuing Dr. Acree. First, however, a small matter needed to be resolved.

  “By my count, we still have to shake two tails,” said Sanchez as they moved through the Halcyon station promenade.

  Carr gave a subtle nod of his head. “I agree with your math. My guess is they’re waiting for us to meet Pascoe so they can grab us all at once.”

  A woman and man had picked them up somewhere down on Gerrha—probably in the ground spaceport terminal—and had followed them up to Halcyon. The two were walking along holding hands, looking somewhat like newlyweds heading for a honeymoon destination. However, newlyweds usually didn’t have plasma pistols bulging under their shirts. Carr was thankful that Lucky had showed them his tricks for sneaking weapons aboard the station or the two Sarissans would have been seriously outgunned. As it was, both he and Sanchez were carrying their small slug pistols with built-in silencers, and Etta had several mini-explosives hidden in her travel bag.

  A shootout was the last thing on Carr’s mind, however. “How do you want to handle this?” he asked Sanchez.

  “Ooh! I get to pick?” she said with mock glee.

  “Sure, why not.”

  “All right,” said Sanchez, pausing to think. “The bathrooms.”

  “Men’s or women’s?”

  “Women’s,” she answered, immediately peeling away from him, walking toward the nearest restroom.

  As he sat in one of the many waiting areas along the concourse, out of the corner of his eye Carr could see the two Gerrhan agents, their attention divided between him and the ladies’ room Sanchez had entered. As time passed, she did not return, and the two Gerrhans grew anxious. Now, they noticed that women were entering the restroom and almost immediately coming out of it again, many with very odd expressions on their faces.

  The female tail decided to go have a look for herself. As she entered the ladies’ room, the man kept an eye on Carr, who sat quietly. Minutes passed without the return of either woman. The male agent was now noticeably agitated, pressing a hand to an earbud and speaking to no one in particular—clearly trying to communicate with his colleague.

  No use, pal—she’s indisposed…

  Finally, the male tail got on his feet and headed toward the ladies’ room. As he went in, Carr knew he wasn’t going to come back out. Seeing a nearby custodian’s cart, Frank grabbed an ‘Out of Order’ sign and headed to the restroom, slapping the sign on the door as he entered. Inside, he found the two Gerrhan agents splayed on the floor and Sanchez standing over the male, vigorously shaking her open right hand.

  “Son of a bitch, that hurt!” she bellowed. “That guy must have a jaw made of tungsten.”

  Carr smiled as he reached into his pocket, producing two pieces of plastic resembling small adhesive bandages. Carefully, he peeled off the backing and applied the transdermal patches to the necks of both enemy agents.

  “There are enough sedatives in those patches to hold them for a few hours,” he said as Sanchez still fussed over her hand. “You know, I could have handled this for you.”

  Sanchez smiled—the savage, feral smile he loved so much. “Not nearly as much fun,” she said.

  As they walked away from the recently closed bathroom, Carr was curious. “What did you do to chase everyone out of the rest room?”

  “You don’t want to know,” she said with a devilish look.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Nah, you really don’t.”

  “Seriously, I do…” Carr called from behind her as they passed into the boarding area.

  * * * *

  The Moonglow Princess was pulling away from Gerrha as travelers were still making their way to their assigned compartments. It would be a three-hour transit to Kition, the only other inhabited planet in the Eupraxa system. Even though the ship left at midnight Beresford time, the flight was packed with workers returning home from vacation.

  Pascoe has set this up well, thought Carr. Late night flight, crowded ship—all good cover for getting off Gerrha. Eden Southwell had painted Pascoe as a crafty but unstable person. Carr sensed that the man was just clever enough to be dangerous. In a few minutes, he could judge for himself.

  “Compartment Epsilon Twenty-two. Here it is,” said Sanchez as she and Carr moved aside to let a family of corpulent adults and their equally plump children squeeze by in the narrow passageway.

  As Etta threw open the compartment door, they found a slight, fiftyish man sitting in one of the four seats. He looked like he had been sleeping as he opened his eyes and glanced in their direction. They entered and moved to the two seats opposite the man. Sanchez sat down in the one closest to the faux window—an ultra-def monitor with pictures of the receding planet Gerrha moving across it. Passengers could change the display to any number of image sets—rolling hills, cityscapes, waves on a beach—but the default picture was what was outside the ship.

  As Carr sat down, the man opposite them smiled, nodded a brief greeting to the newcomers, and then closed his eyes again, leaning back against the headrest of his seat. Carr and Sanchez looked at each other, both thinking that perhaps there had been a mix-up in the tickets. A few more minutes passed, and Carr’s curiosity got the better of him.

  “Excuse me, sir?”

  The man opened his eyes, but just barely.

  “My name is Paul Groom, and this is my sister—”

  “Save it, Mr. Carr,” said the man, closing his eyes again but continuing to speak, “I know who you and Ms. Sanchez are. After all, I invited you here.”

  “And for that we are grateful, Mr. Pascoe,” chimed in Sanchez.

  The man opened his eyes again, looking over at Sanchez. “I’m sure you are.”

  “Pascoe, do you know if you were followed on board?” asked Carr. “We were practically leading a parade of Gerrhan Intelligence agents at one point, but I think we shook them all. How about you?”

  “I’m good,” Pascoe said confidently. “Back at the office, they think they have me locked out of everything, but I set up back doors to all of our software weeks ago.” He held up his mobile. “Just before I left my house, I changed some orders. The agents meant to follow me are now all keeping an eye on the manager of my local supermarket.” Pascoe was obviously pleased with himself, adding, “I always hated that guy.”

  “That’s clever,” said Sanchez. Carr knew she wasn’t particularly impressed, but she was trying to get on this man’s good side. “You’re a very resourceful man, Hanley. May I call you Hanley?”

  “You may,” he said, “but you don’t have to butter me up, Ms. Sanchez.”

  “I just want to be cordial—after all, we’re comrades now.”

  Pascoe scowled. “No, we are not, Ms. Sanchez. When we arrive at Kition, I will take you to Dr. Acree because that was the deal. In return, you get Eden and me out of Commonwealth space and safely to Galba. But you’re not my comrades, you’re not my colleagues, and you’re not my friends.”

  “That may all be true,” said Carr, “but we’re also not your enemies.”

  “That remains to be seen,” responded Pascoe.

  The tense exchange gave way to silence. Carr wanted information, but he didn’t want to push this man. Eden was right—Pascoe was on the edge. His initial cool demeanor was slowly unraveling into the man’s true self—an anxious, desperate person who was taking the gamble of his life.

  They had a lot of time together before the liner arrived at Kition. Abou
t an hour into the flight, Sanchez got Pascoe talking. It was mostly stuff about his family, whom he claimed to despise but went on and on about.

  “My worthless kid, getting his girl pregnant! How does someone do that in the twenty-sixth century?”

  “Maybe they’re in love,” said Sanchez. “Maybe they wanted a child.”

  Pascoe scoffed. “Willie can barely take care of himself, let alone a wife and child,” he sighed before taking a long breath. “Still, I’m going to be a grandfather,” he said wistfully. “I suppose I’ll never see the child, never even know if it’s a boy or girl…”

  This is NOT what we want to be discussing, thought Carr. “Eden has a great many contacts,” Carr pointed out, trying to focus him back on the prize. “I’m sure while you two are enjoying yourselves on the Galban beaches, she can get that sort of information for you. She’s looking forward to seeing you again.”

  Pascoe’s mood seemed to lift. “She said you guys had found us a place on Galba. She didn’t mention that it was near a beach.”

  Carr realized he had just committed a cardinal sin—volunteering too much information. “Well, we didn’t exactly get it for you…”

  “Our employers made the arrangements,” jumped in Sanchez with a calming smile.

  “Oh, of course,” said Pascoe, looking keenly at both Sarissans and then closing his eyes again.

  The remainder of the trip was uncomfortable. Carr thought the three hours of flight time seemed more like thirty, but finally they were approaching the world of Kition. As they were about twenty minutes from docking at the planetary starport, an alarm sounded on Hanley Pascoe’s mobile.

  “What is it?” asked Carr.

  Pascoe checked the device. “I have this set to let me know if the pilots are communicating with anyone outside of the normal space control operations. Thought it would be a good precaution.”

  “It is,” agreed Sanchez. “Let’s hear what’s going on.”

  “I expected this,” said Carr. “The police are going to be waiting on the starport for us as we depart. They’re notifying the crew that they have three criminals on board.”

  Pascoe put the announcement his mobile was picking up on speaker. It was not the police.

  “…saying again to all commercial shipping in the Eupraxa system—enemy vessels have entered the system. The Commonwealth Space Service is declaring a level five system-wide emergency. All ships are to proceed to the nearest port. If your vessel is hyperdrive capable and no port is within six light minutes of your position, you are to translate out of this system immediately. All non-Commonwealth vessels are hereby ordered to jump out of the system immediately regardless of their position. Under no circumstances is any ship to approach enemy vessels. Repeat…”

  The three looked at each other. “Did you know this was going to happen?” asked Pascoe crossly.

  “No, Hanley—we didn’t know,” replied Sanchez.

  “The hell you didn’t! If you wanted my help the least your people could have done is to wait until Eden and I were away before you brought the war here.”

  Carr spoke in a firm, level voice. “Pascoe—we didn’t know.”

  His words and tone seemed to placate the Gerrhan ever so slightly. “What about Eden? Will she be able to get off the planet?”

  “She’s already on her way to Galba,” lied Carr.

  “Good,” Pascoe said nervously. “That’s… that’s good.” As if he’d just remembered something, he grabbed his mobile again. “Hey, I think I can access one of the military status beacons with this thing,” he said, fumbling around for a few moments.

  The liner was entering its final approach to the Kition spaceport and people were starting to mill about in the passageways. It all sounded routine, which meant that the word wasn’t out to the passengers yet. This kind of thing could quickly escalate into widespread pandemonium.

  Pascoe was eyeing the screen of his mobile as information appeared. His face turned pale as he muttered what Carr thought was “My Gods” under his breath.

  Sanchez leaned forward in her seat. “Hanley? Hanley, what is it?”

  He hit a key on the mobile and a virtual screen appeared above the device. Carr and Sanchez could now see the same thing he was seeing, but they were looking at it backwards.

  “In the last fifteen minutes, over thirty Union warships have translated into the system,” Pascoe said in a horrified voice. “It’s an invasion.”

  27: Forge

  Union flagship Huntress

  Eupraxa system

  Gerrhan Commonwealth

  Operation Bronze Talon had begun. The newest Union battleship, Channa Maxon’s Huntress, led the Sarissan Seventh Fleet into the enemy’s home system. Four battleships, four heavy cruisers, three cruisers, nine destroyers, eleven frigates, and two troop transports made the transition from hyperspace to normal space. More supply ships and fuel tankers—the so-called “oilers”—held position just outside Eupraxa in deep space.

  For centuries, science fiction books and videos had depicted the image of interstellar war as being fought by fleets of hundreds of ships battling it out for supremacy and survival. The reality of Renaissance Sector economics was another thing. Humankind had barely survived its own extinction, and out of the billions of people that once existed on Earth, only around 635 million now lived in all of known human space. Starships were complex, expensive objects—warships even more so. The simple fact was that no starhold had a large enough tax base to support massive fleets. The Gerrhan Commonwealth was the largest and richest starhold, and its entire space navy numbered just over a hundred vessels.

  The use of almost a third of the Sarissan space force in a single operation was a huge gamble, but Fleet Admiral Maxon felt certain it would lead to victory. Surrounding her on the flag bridge of Huntress, her staff shook off the daze of translation and began to evaluate the state of affairs.

  “Mr. Barzilli, sitrep, if you please,” requested the Union Supreme Commander.

  Her Chief of Staff, Captain Hector Barzilli, quickly scanned the status boards. “All units have made the translation, Admiral. Support units are in station keeping just outside the system. Enemy forces are on screen.”

  The holoscreens in the center of the flag bridge flashed with updates, showing the disposition of the Commonwealth fleet. Sixteen enemy ships were hugging planet Gerrha, with another eight CSS vessels scattered about the system.

  To Maxon’s right, her flag captain, Dusty Hamilton, appeared in the form of a hologram. In reality, the captain was several decks above her on the bridge of Huntress. Hamilton was a man in his forties with a healthy head of curly brown hair and a square, ruddy face. A former executive officer for Chaz Pettigrew, he had been appointed to the prized command of Huntress only three months earlier.

  “What do you think, Admiral?” asked Hamilton. “They’ve got a few more ships than we thought they would.”

  “Don’t go soft on me now, Captain,” said Maxon with a small grin. “You and I are both Tezrinan, and you know what we say—only the worthy survive Tezrina. We outnumber them, and I know damn well we out tough them, too.”

  “Ma’am,” interrupted Barzilli, “data coming in from the Dijana system.” Another virtual screen sprang up to the admiral’s left, data and images flowing across it. “First reports are encouraging.”

  ‘Encouraging.’ That’s Barzilli’s way of saying things could be going better, thought Maxon.

  Her Chief of Staff continued. “Admiral Sykes reports that both Basara shipyards have been destroyed, but Sixth Fleet is taking heavy damage. He’s requesting reinforcements.”

  “Negative,” said Maxon tersely. “Tell Sykes to make do with what he has. We will need all of Seventh Fleet for the job here.” The admiral punched a few keys and the Dijana information disappeared, replaced by a split screen image of two officers. On the left was Alexander Carson, on the right Admiral Nathari Tovar.

  The usually cool Carson wore a stressed expression. His face d
idn’t seem so youthful anymore—he looked as if he’d aged ten years in the last week. “Admiral Carson,” Maxon began. “This is your plan, so I don’t have to give you any pointers. I will emphasize, however, that speed is of the utmost importance. Strike Force Charybdis should destroy the Zephyros Shipyard and then pivot quickly to take out the Mithra yard. You should only have to deal with a sentry force at each station—Main Seventh will keep the principal enemy force occupied. Good hunting, Admiral.”

  Carson said nothing, fading from the screen with an abrupt nod.

  Maxon turned to Barzilli. “Captain, transmit the evacuation warnings to both of the target shipyards.”

  “Already doing so, ma’am.”

  “Good,” said Maxon as she turned back to the image of Nathari Tovar, who was waiting patiently to speak with her commander. Tovar’s dark brown skin contrasted sharply with her short-cropped bleached hair. A Darracott sycophant if ever there was one.

  “What is your status, Admiral Tovar?”

  “Strike Force Paladin is three hundred thousand klicks from the Leopold Gate, Fleet Admiral—ETA in fifteen standard minutes. Our Marines are ready.”

  Maxon nodded. “You know the plan. Once you get to the Gate, destroy the garrison forces and demand that the Gate personnel surrender. I doubt they will, but we can always hope to get lucky. If they won’t hand over the Gate, use the EMP weapon and send in the Marines.”

  “Copy that, Admiral. Good hunting on your end,” said Tovar.

  “And to you—Maxon out.”

  “Task Force Nineteen has translated in, and Captain Pettigrew is proceeding to the Dijana Gate,” reported Barzilli. Updates were flowing into the fleet CIC quickly now as Union reconnaissance drones were spreading throughout the system. “Do you—”

  “Begging your pardon, Fleet Admiral,” a staff lieutenant spoke up. “We have a recorded message coming in on tight beam from one of the Gerrhan ships. The comm is tagged for your eyes, ma’am.”

  Maxon and Barzilli glanced at each other. “Is it from the Gerrhan flagship, Lieutenant?” asked Barzilli.