Stepping out of the transport the Knights were met by an enormous crowd of people, all eager to meet the mysterious fighter pilots that had fought back against almost impossible odds. With some hesitance the White Knights walked towards the throng as hands thrust forward to be shook, whilst others clapped them on the back in thanks and congratulations.
* * *
Parks watched the scene unfold from an observation room, reluctantly aware he would not be able to keep the Knights a secret forever. Whether he had brought them off first or last it was doubtful that someone would not have recognised them. He watched as the coast guards – the orbital's security staff - that had been assigned to clear the flight deck and sneak the Knights away were overwhelmed by the crowd. One looked up towards Parks, a defeated expression on her face. She shrugged. Parks made no gesture. At least the Knights were safe.
Turner stood behind Parks, at the back of the room away from the windows, waiting for Parks to present him with the data card the Knights had retrieved from Barber. Turner had waited at Spirit for his return, so that he too could confirm the plans were safe before at last notifying the President and her Office. Aside from the two senior officers, the only other occupants of the observation room were a team of six other coast guards, five of whom were well armed, the sixth holding a large metal case.
“How the hell did we miss Hawke?” Turner asked, sounding angry at both himself, Parks, and the CSN in general.
“None of the signs were present to begin with, sir,” Parks said, turning away from the window towards the admiral. “They only appear to have fully manifested themselves within the past few hours. It may well have been a result of being in a combat situation with the Enemy, although it could have been some kind of dormant sleeper system.”
“If that is so then it's very worrying. How many more could there be who have slipped through the net?”
“All the standard tests came back negative. There was nothing in his blood and the retina and brain scans were as expected. There was nothing unusual about him; he was perfectly normal,” Parks said, repeating a belief the two men had at one time held.
Turner tutted and shook his head. “When we pulled him out of that escape pod my gut feeling was to suspend him immediately or, at the very least, hold him back from direct involvement in critical operations. But as you know we need every good man we can get our hands on and I couldn't risk removing someone like that from service.” The admiral started to pace, looking down at the floor. “Aside from his refusal to co-operate during the operation, did he do anything else to rouse suspicions?”
“No, he even went as far as to destroy an Imperial frigate commanded by the Enemy,” Parks said.
“Did you get a good look at that frigate?”
“There wasn't much time. Hawke destroyed it almost as soon as it arrived.”
“Then it was probably part of the ruse. I'd bet good money that it was worthless to them anyway. Was probably completely unmanned, in a poor state of repairs, and ready to fall apart any day now. You're going to have to sharpen up about these sorts of issues, Elliott.” Turner continued pacing back and forth in a small area. “Was Hawke acting alone on Ifrit? Was anyone else involved?”
“It's difficult to be certain. From what we've been told by the survivors, Hawke surrendered Ifrit to the Enemy and allowed them to come aboard. After that the Enemy started to systematically kill off the crew. We found the survivors hiding in the ventilation units near the power cores. They weren't even aware that Hawke had survived.”
Turner grunted his dismissal of the survivors' statements.
Parks went on. “The Enemy abandoned the carrier when Zackaria and Hawke were spaced. They picked both of them up in transports and fled Phylent, along with Dragon and the frigates that had joined it. It looks like he's been held in high regard for quite some time; certainly up there with Rissard.”
“You didn't think to destroy the transport before Hawke and the admiral could escape?” Turner stopped pacing and looked up.
“I... hesitated, sir,” Parks apologised. He had indeed held back on destroying the transport since, leaving both men to escape was, in his opinion, the lesser of two evils. Allowing Zackaria to live would permit him to continue with the anticipated assault against the rest of the galaxy, whilst killing him would extinguish all hope of halting to Enemy's advance for good. At the end of the day, it came down to numbers.
Turner nodded. “I'm sure it was not without good reason, Commodore. I may have acted in exactly the same way had I been in your place. Whilst there is no reason to believe that upon capturing Zackaria we could expect him to cooperate, there is no harm in trying. It would have made everything that much easier though. For now it is important that we establish whether or not Hawke was acting of his own free will.”
“I will have a full background check made against him immediately, as well as the survivors from Ifrit,” Parks said.
“We need every detail, Commodore. If there is even the slightest shred of evidence to suggest that this thing no longer affects pure bred Imperials then everything changes: we'll have a full blown galactic pandemic on our hands and we need to be sure that we are able to control this thing.”
Both Parks and Turner looked to the six other men occupying the room, aware they should conduct the rest of the conversation in more private and secure surroundings.
“Someone should probably tell his wife too,” Turner added.
Parks nodded and glanced back down to the flight deck where the Knights were still receiving praise and admiration for their day's work, the five pilots having twice overcome next to impossible odds in the space of just a few hours.
“I never doubted their potential, Elliott,” Turner commented behind him.
“Neither did I.” Parks turned his back on the scene below him and walked over to Turner, fishing the data card out of a pocket and presenting it. Turner picked up a portal device that lay on a table next to him and inserted the card into a slot in the base. The device jingled and the screen informed him that it was accessing the card, then set about decrypting the data. Before long it displayed the card's content.
Several dozen text options ran the length of the screen, along with options to manipulate the card and its data. The device itself was little more than a screen, the surface touch sensitive. With his finger tip Turner tapped the only piece of text that mattered to him,
Operation Sudarberg
More words filled the screen. Amongst the text present were sections entitled “ATAF”, with subsections detailing “Overview”, “Schemas”, “Phase Analysis” and “Implementation”.
Parks stood in silence by Turner's side, watching as the admiral continued to tap through various sections and subsections of the data. Images of the ATAF, concepts and blueprints flashed across the device's screen and Turner moved quickly through them, not lingering long on the overview, schemas and phase analysis sections. Neither of the two needed to see it all in detail. They knew what they was looking at, having seen it almost every day for the past four years.
Finally Turner tapped through the “Implementation” section and watched as an animation played on the screen. It showed an overview of Imperial space. Five star systems, Mekel, Carthege, Haylahe, Atlante, and Codexa, were highlighted. They were positioned close to one another and situated near the centre of Imperial controlled space. As the animation played through the galactic map zoomed out to reveal all of Imperial space and a small number of Independent systems, running the border. Five pale yellow spheres expanded from each of the five highlighted Imperial systems, engulfing all of the Imperial occupied territory and the handful of Independent world systems. Statistics and other various items of information began to fill the screen, though Turner did not wait to see it all.
“Good work, Commodore,” he said, powering down the device. He removed the card and placed it into a small plastic container. He then beckoned forward the coast guard holding the large metal case and placed the data card
within it. The size of the case was absurd for the tiny object that it had been brought to carry, but the data was deserving of the protection; for the time being at least. Both Parks and Turner knew that it would be kept safe until its retrieval was confirmed by government officials, after which it would be destroyed. The security officer stood back with the others and awaited further instructions.
“We have also obtained full combat statistics for the ATAFs,” Parks said. “They are currently being correlated on Griffin. I should be able to have them sent to you within a few hours.”
“Everything?” Turner asked in surprise.
“Everything.”
“If that is the case then we have all the information we need,” Turner said, walking over to the window and looking down at the celebrations and cheers that continued below him. He looked over at Parks who had joined him. “We now have only one hurdle left to overcome.”
Parks nodded his understanding and together the two men left the room.
* * *
A man took back a bottle of tequila that he had previously thrust into Dodds' hand. He whooped and waved it around in the air before noticing that the flight deck had fallen quiet. Dodds and Enrique looked over at the parting crowds to see Parks and Turner walking towards them. Personnel stood to attention and saluted the two men that walked between them, the admiral's expression one of slight irritation at the rowdy behaviour of the spontaneous celebration.
“At ease,” Turner muttered, stopping in front of Estelle and her team mates. “Lieutenant de Winter, you and your team have had quite a day from what I've been told.”
“Sir, yes,” Estelle answered, swallowing hard, her eyes straying over to Dodds and Kelly.
“Answering the call to stand in defence of your carrier, your squadron and allied forces against overwhelming and uncertain odds; risking your lives to go well above and beyond the call of duty at a moment's notice...” Turner reached into a small box that Parks held, removing a medal from within it. He fastened it carefully to Estelle's flight suit. “... whilst all the time acting within the full interest of the Confederation Stellar Navy and her government. Congratulations, Lieutenant Commander.” He shook Estelle by the hand.
Kelly gasped. Dodds' jaw dropped and, meeting Enrique's eyes, saw the man mouth the admiral's last two words to him.
It took Estelle a moment for the realisation of her promotion to sink in. “Th... thank you, sir.”
“The paper work will be officially dealt with at Mandelah,” Turner said with a wink and a smile, as the shocked woman shook Parks' hand. The admiral stood back and began clapping, starting applause that ran the length of the deck. Turner then shifted his attention to Dodds and Enrique, presenting each of them with a medal of their own, before shaking their hands and applauding them. They too were promoted to the next highest rank, moving from second to first lieutenant, the rank Estelle had previous held. Kelly followed suit not long thereafter and then the two men came to Chaz.
“Congratulations, Mr Koonan,” Turner said as he affixed the medal to the big man's suit. The applause and cheers grew louder now that the final member of the team had been presented with their promotion. Chaz, however, was not smiling, and as Parks took his hand to shake it Chaz leaned forward.
“I thought you said you had the situation under control, Commodore,” he said in hushed tones. Parks met his eyes and for a brief period there existed some extreme tension between the two men, each of their grips tightening on one another's hands.
“We do, Lieutenant,” Parks answered him. The two men released their handshake and, putting on his best poker face, Parks applauded Chaz along with everybody else.
Turner and Parks stepped aside and people surged forward to hoist the White Knights up on to their shoulders. As he was picked up Chaz glared at Parks, who continued to applaud undeterred, the entire exchange going unnoticed by everyone except for Turner, who had seen it all before.
The bottle of tequila was once again doing the rounds as the merry troop began to make their way from the flight deck and towards the space station's bar. Kelly passed the tequila on without drinking, something playing on her mind. Though she was smiling and feeling rather jubilant in light of her promotion, she was still concerned about seeing one of her father's company's ships docked at a port in Imperial space. She would be speaking to him about it the first chance she got.
But for Dodds, Enrique, and Estelle there was nothing that could bring them down, the thought of a celebratory drink very welcoming indeed.
“Lieutenant Dodds,” Turner called, his voice clear and recognisable above the din of song, applause and chanting.
Those carrying the freshly promoted first lieutenant stopped and turned him around to face the admiral. “Sir?”
“You did a good job today.”
Dodds grinned back at him. “Thank you, sir.”
Acknowledgements
To Mum and Dad, for all their love and support. To Wes, Faye, Ceri and Em for putting up with me over the years. To Ian and Rob for all their encouragement and for being such good friends. To Cheryl for always being there to talk to. And to my brother, Richard, for always being willing to support every project I undertook, no matter how steep or daunting the climb. We always got there in the end.
Table of Contents
The Honour of the Knights (First Edition)
The Honour of the Knights (First Edition) Page 39