Instead he held back his emotions, and tried to mollify her instead.
“Commander, you really shouldn’t have been so hard on Captain Gotlieb. I mean, he was just trying to…”
“Shut up, Perkins, before I decide to court-martial you next! You have been a great help to the Alliance so far, despite the fact you have a horrible memory. I will see you are punished too, if necessary! Do you understand?” Thompson asked sternly.
“Yes, I do, Commander.”
Word quickly spread throughout the Alliance. The near-universal reaction was shock, astonishment, and nobody was more upset than Johnson. While Ray received his dressing down from Thompson, the scientist/commander quietly reviewed some unexpected, enormously upsetting information from an important source. The information left him stunned, incredulous, barely believing the evidence of his eyes and ears. His eyes became misty as he made the fateful call to security. How could he tell his wife? She’d be heartbroken.
He steeled himself for an unpleasant encounter, and contacted Thompson on a specially encrypted radio band, ordering her into a private session, via viewscreen.
Ray was quickly dismissed from Thompson’s command center and glumly walked through the large ship’s passageways towards the docking bay, where his fighter was being serviced. His dark and angry mood dominated all other feelings. He knew Thompson was being unreasonable. He couldn’t believe the Alliance’s top command let her get away with it. He entered his ship and sat in the pilot’s chair, silent.
He knew now he must return to Earth. Something about that private session between Johnson and Thompson didn’t sit right with him. He broke his fighter off from the formation and flew, back towards Earth.
He knew that his departure and destination were obvious to the Alliance command, but he didn’t care. He knew where he had to go. To his surprise, nobody made any attempt to stop him.
* * *
Thompson sat alone in her quarters after dismissing her security guards. Johnson greeted her with a strange formality, referring to her strictly by her rank. She stared at him carefully on the viewscreen. Johnson’s face evinced absolute anger. She could see his hands shaking as he prepared to speak.
“You called for me, sir?” Thompson quickly saluted him, but her eyes betrayed her reluctance. Johnson could see it even on his viewscreen. She resented the intrusion. She wasn’t through with Gotlieb and Perkins, and was about ready to pounce on Grant as well. Maybe Johnson would finally show his appreciation for her work at getting such incompetents out of the fleet. Maybe that long-sought promotion and its higher pay were about to be hers. She knew she deserved it. He seemed furious right now, so she wouldn’t ask, at least this time.
She had never before tried to use her friendship with Johnson to get a promotion—at least not after he got her into the Alliance Academy when her father died. Even then, she figured she would soon get the position anyway.
Meanwhile, four security guards entered her command room and surrounded her.
“Commander Thompson, recently your behavior has become more and more erratic. Your actions against Captains Perkins and Gotlieb are particularly unacceptable. I have decided to overrule you on your decisions about them.”
Thompson stared, without expression, into the viewscreen. She saw the security detail closing in around her, hands on their holstered weapons. Her eyes revealed her shock, yet there was a grim smile on her lips.
“We have also discovered you still have ties to the RECOM Corporation, even though you agreed to shed them when you joined the service. We have signed confessions from the Alliance officials who received kickbacks to accept the contracts to construct more of those defective super battleships, and sell them to the Ilsad Confederation despite evidence of design flaws. The officials at RECOM were duped into believing the flaws had been fixed…obviously they weren’t.”
The revelation clearly shocked Thompson to the core. She had concealed her connection with RECOM, setting up a secret account to handle the financial and business transactions. She swore she’d kill whoever those moronic beam-spillers were. She never believed her cost-cutting measures would have such dire consequences on those new battle ships. Surely they couldn’t blame her….
Johnson continued, without interruption, face determined, voice steady. “We also now know the truth about the battle of Dorton, Commander. You can’t hide anything from us any longer. We know while you claimed to have severed your ties with RECOM, you still control a five percent economic interest in the company. You’ve retained more than a third of the voting power. We know you used that financial power to make sure RECOM’s executives did your bidding. With RECOM’s core spaceship construction business facing massive losses due to disarmament throughout the Alliance, you staged an unprovoked assault against the Rockoids. You deliberately massacred the population of Dorton in order to start a galactic war, where RECOM would stand to benefit greatly.”
Thompson finally managed to stammer a response, “Henry, you know that’s not true. I had no motive to attack the Rockoids. They’re nothing more than fanatics who have a history of invading and conquering the territories of races they call inferior...”
“Ah, but y’all did have a reason to attack the Rockoids, Commander. We were lucky to find that out, too.”
Thompson seemed about to faint but then her voice regained control, and she shouted, “Did Perkins tell you?”
“Perkins helped me see the truth, and prompted us to do a thorough investigation, that’s all. I should have seen the warning signs long ago. The evidence was there, plain as day. Did you think you could keep me in the dark forever?”
Thompson seemed about to stammer a response, but stopped in mid-sentence, as Johnson continued to detail the charges and specifications.
“We learned that while y’all claimed to be on a mission of peaceful exploration around the independent worlds between the Alliance and the Rockoids during those two years, you were really traveling to those planets on behalf of RECOM to negotiate military contracts. When the Rockoid intelligence network learned what you were up to, the Rockoid High Command decided to stop you right in your tracks and negotiate mutual defense pacts with most of these races. In one fell swoop, they eliminated the need to buy weapons from RECOM.
“Then, during the last few weeks of the mission, you learned the Rockoid royal family was enjoying a holiday on Dorton, that they had minimal defenses, since they were in friendly territory. You took that opportunity to launch an unprovoked attack on the colony, killing millions, including the Emperor and Empress. The only reason you got away with this for so long was because you paid off all the right people and your hand-picked crew didn’t fully comprehend what they had done until it was too late. Thank God some of them had a conscience, and confessed their crimes when confronted.”
Johnson’s face turned red with anger.
Thompson glared. “You have no proof of any of this, Henry. Whoever told you this lied! Those cowards were only trying to protect themselves. I swear on my father’s grave, I never attacked the Rockoids! I would never do that to the Alliance!”
“Don’t sully Rex’s reputation with your lies. In addition to crew members from the ships under your command, forty-five different RECOM executives, who faced execution for high treason if they lied, signed confessions telling us the real facts. Our lie detectors said they all told us the truth. We suspected what you did for a long time—they gave us the evidence we needed to prove it.”
“What evidence would that be, besides fruitless and unsubstantiated lies?”
Johnson’s look turned to a fierce, infuriated stare. “Maybe this excerpt from your command log during the battle of Dorton will remind you of your deceit.”
Thompson’s eyes widened in fear. She had destroyed those logs long ago. There was no possible way anyone could have retrieved them. Even she no longer had access to a copy. The memories remained only in the darkest depths of her mind.
”Yes, I’m sure you’re wondering how
we did it. You thought you could hide those logs from us forever, didn’t you? Well, thank God we managed to locate Captain Darbol, your old security officer from the Star of Terra. We subjected him to a Brain TV scan and discovered he was the only one besides you who had seen those logs. We managed to extract his memories of the logs and we have those images here for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy.”
Johnson’s face was replaced by the image of an all-too-familiar command deck on a warship…none other than the Star of Terra, Thompson’s flagship at the battle of Dorton. The events transpired just as she remembered them.
* * *
There, standing before her on the bridge of the heavy cruiser, was a tall, young, muscular man with light brown hair and hazel eyes, her second in command, Colonel Jeffrey Grant….
A heated argument ensued between the two. Colonel Grant’s face was twisted in anger and frustration.
“We can’t do this, sir. By firing on the alien ships, we violate one of our most sacred edicts. It could be considered grounds for a court martial!”
Thompson’s steel blue eyes narrowed, her face taking on a dark look. “If we do not fire, they will destroy us. Would you risk genocide? How dare you suggest….”
“Sir, you’re not listening…”
“That’s enough! If you continue with this insubordination, I will remove you from the bridge and throw you into the brig. Is that clear?”
Sweat poured down Grant’s face. His eyes widened, and his face twitched nervously. He did not answer for a moment, but then finally responded with almost no expression at all, “Yes, sir.”
“Excellent, I’m glad you see it my way,” Thompson said, with the hint of a sneer.
Without a sideways glance, the command was given in Thompson’s loud, imperious voice. “Weapons officer, target the primary enemy ship and fire!”
The weapons officer looked nervous for a second, but she nodded and complied with Thompson’s orders.
Thompson watched, as the command ship moved slowly, deliberately, to the front of the huge Alliance fleet, and closed in on what appeared to be the Rockoid flagship. As soon as it came within range, the weapons officer, tears streaming down her eyes, opened fire on the unsuspecting opponents. Lasers of bright green and yellow shot forth, hitting their targets relentlessly.
* * *
As soon as the recreated log entry left the screen, Johnson reappeared, a grim, accusing look on his face. Thompson had been rendered speechless, her eyes vacant, lips pressed tightly together. Thompson seemed to get increasingly angry at each word Johnson spoke; her eyes seemed to blaze with fire. She knew she had been caught red-handed, and there was no turning back.
Johnson wouldn’t give her the opportunity to think about her future plans, as he announced, “There is one last thing I must show you, another excerpt from your personal log as viewed by your security officer.”
Thompson’s entire life seemed to pass before her eyes as she listened to Johnson.
“How could you? How could you do such a terrible thing to Jennifer Grant? You said her husband died from wounds sustained shortly after the battle, while trying to recover wounded soldiers from a damaged ship. The logs betray you.”
For a moment, it seemed to Thompson as if her heart had stopped. Her breathing came in quick gasps; she had trouble
keeping her -balance.
This isn’t happening to me, this isn’t happening, this isn’t happening…
* * *
Johnson’s image was replaced once again, this time by a scene of Thompson’s private quarters aboard her flagship. She sat in a chair, seemingly calm and collected. Colonel Grant stood before her, a stern look of disapproval on his face.
“General Thompson, launching an unprovoked attack against an innocent civilian colony warrants drastic consequences. You had no reason to attack those aliens first. When we return to Earth, I will be reporting you to the Alliance High Command. Until then, I am hereby relieving you of command and taking control of this fleet.”
Thompson stood up, catching Grant by surprise, a fierce glare on her face. That glare was suddenly replaced by an evil smile. “I’m very sorry, Colonel Grant, I am afraid you won’t be able to do that.”
A suspicious look came over the Grant’s face. “Why is that?”
“I am afraid you will be taking a leave of absence from your service in the Alliance military…a permanent leave of absence.”
Without warning, Thompson pulled a laser pistol out of her pocket and aimed it at Grant’s heart.
The move came swift, unexpected. Grant had no time to defend himself, no time to pull out his own weapon and fire. Thompson’s face took on an evil sneer as she fired.
There was a loud thud as Grant’s lifeless body fell to the floor…
* * *
Thompson nearly fainted, her eyes glazed over.
Johnson’s face returned to the viewscreen for the last time. In a strong, authoritative voice, he said, “I promised your father I’d take care of you. I also took an oath when I agreed to serve the Alliance, to put aside personal considerations when the circumstances required it.”
Despite his almost overwhelming sadness over this turn of events, Johnson gritted his teeth firmly as he recited his decision in his rich, baritone voice.
“It is my sad duty to inform you I am relieving you of your command. I have asked the security detail to take you to Bethesda Memorial Hospital and submit you to a psychiatric examination. When the examination is over, you will face a court-martial for high treason, conspiracy to commit treason, war crimes, conspiracy to commit war crimes, murder, conspiracy to commit murder and bribery. In addition, there are hundreds of other minor charges, which you can find in the indictment I just sent to the Alliance Court of Justice on Qveran. Due to the extreme nature of these crimes, you will face a death sentence if you are found guilty. We’re also going to investigate the possibility you may have been collaborating with enemies of the Alliance to plan and execute this present attack. I’m sure we’d very much like to know everything you been hiding from us all these years.”
Johnson paused long enough for the impact of these pronouncements to sink in. He was simply amazed that he managed to keep his emotions in check under such painful circumstances. Just when he thought he had succeeded completely in blanking them out, he found himself wiping a small tear from his eye.
“Now take her away!”
As Johnson spoke, Thompson’s face remained frozen with disdain. As the security detail prepared to escort her from the command center, she twirled around and kicked the security chief in the face with a speed and force that seemed almost inhuman. As the officer fell unconscious, she grabbed his weapon and pressed it against the forehead of another guard. “If you and your associates do not come with me, I will make sure you do not leave this room alive.”
Thompson glared at Johnson.
“I’m sorry, Henry, but I cannot let you do this,” she said in a measured voice. “I am not going to let you and the others destroy my career. I should have been supreme commander, not you. What I did to destroy the Rockoid colony proved that! And Grant? He was the guilty one, trying to usurp my authority. His death was too simple, too fast. He should have been tortured, slowly, painfully…and now I’m terribly sorry, but it is time for me to leave.”
With the weapon still snug against the officer’s head, Thompson directed the still-conscious security guards to a small freighter she had kept in waiting should she ever need to stage a fast getaway from her command ship. In just a few minutes, the renegade commander had taken her hostages and boarded her freighter. There had been no warning. Before the Alliance commanders could act, her vessel jumped into hyperspace and sped off to an unknown destination.
Chapter 17
The destruction of the Alliance super battleships and Rockoid heavy cruisers did little to reduce the intensity of the battle. If anything, each side redoubled its efforts to defeat its adversary.
The Alliance, however, had no
t been badly hurt by the destruction of their battleships. Most of the crew members managed to leave in escape pods before explosions claimed their ships. In a sense, the Alliance actually benefited from the experience. They knew now those cruisers weren’t capable of functioning in a combat situation, and took steps to get other classes of warships into combat as fast as possible.
The Rockoids had been dealt a heavier blow than anticipated. The Alliance commanders optimistically estimated that over ten percent of the Rockoids’ heavy cruisers had been destroyed in the collision, when in reality only five ships had been lost.
The Rockoids were not deterred by their losses. If anything, they seemed much more determined to gain the upper hand as the battle quickly intensified. They threw all they had against the Alliance fleet.
Over each of the three threatened Alliance worlds, the atmosphere was filled with fire, smoke and the deafening sounds of explosions. Metal fragments fell randomly across the landscape. Had it not been for the fire-repellent materials developed as a result of World War III and the Jintorian wars, flying debris would have caused serious damage.
Despite these precautions, there was structural damage to some smaller buildings, though most of the affected cities had been evacuated long before the attackers arrived.
While many more Alliance cruisers and armed freighters went down in the first stages of the Rockoid attack, the Alliance started to learn how to deal with their enemy’s weapons.
Ray remembered many of the most intimate details about the Rockoid ships, information he had always seemed to know, now pouring into his consciousness. The dream sequences had become so vivid that he was now able to recall many specifics at will. He was certain the source of those dreams was close, that he could tap that knowledge somehow.
No doubt it was his inexplicable mental link with Zanther that caused him to see the battle of Dorton from the perspective of a Rockoid.
Attack of the Rockoids Page 21