Méridien (The Silver Ships Book 3)
Page 4
“TSF relayed a message from the President that we were to remain outside the system and under no circumstances were we to cross the ice fields—or his fighters would attack our ships,” Alex said. “Later I contacted President Downing directly and explained our city-ship’s emergency. In essence, he responded that he didn’t care.”
“So you’re staying out beyond the ice fields even though that endangers the Méridien citizens with you?” Christie said, carefully emphasizing the word “citizen,” incorporating the subtext that her brother wanted conveyed.
“No, Christie. Our flotilla is on course for New Terra. We will be in orbit within four days. Julien will be sending out requests to New Terran construction firms to complete our work on the Unsere Menschen. Then I intend to reactivate the T-sites and Barren Island for our purposes.”
“But if the President doesn’t want you to do this, aren’t you breaking the law, Admiral?” Christie asked.
“Yes and no, Christie,” Alex replied, knowing he was treading a fine line to include this question, but he needed the populace to understand his intentions. “Am I disobeying the order of the President pro tem, a man who hasn’t been elected by the people? Yes, I am. Do I consider it a lawful order when it might condemn over 122,000 people to death? No, I don’t. And do I believe that we must stop the silver ships before they come to New Terra? Absolutely! Now is the time to go after our common enemy. We’ve discovered we can defeat them, having learned their weaknesses and destroyed many of them.”
“Oh … Mom and Dad wanted me to say hello, and we look forward to your planetfall. And thank you, Admiral, for what you’re trying to do for all of us.” Christie had worked up the closing line herself, wanting her viewers to understand that Alex was trying to save both the Méridiens and the New Terrans.
“See you soon, Christie,” Alex said with a bright smile for his little sister.
Cordelia ended the signal from the Freedom, and the media tech switched to Christie. Charlotte sat hunched in her chair, chewing a fingernail and waiting for Christie’s close. She had just a few moments.
Christie looked into her vid cam and smiled briefly before assuming a pensive countenance. “I hope you’ve enjoyed my chat with my big brother. What he has shown us has given me a lot to think about. In the grand scheme of things, I’m certainly not the best person to understand the ramifications of what he is attempting to accomplish. But I do know my brother is one of the most honest people I know. You can believe what he says has happened and what he intends to do about it. I guess the important question for New Terra is: Are we going to help him and the endangered Méridiens despite the President’s order?” She paused and her serious and thoughtful expression morphed into a sweet, teenager’s smile. “Thank you for joining me this morning.”
Charlotte signaled the tech to close the show and return to their regular programming. She sat back in her chair and slapped her hulking tech on the shoulder, who grinned back at her. It was bonus time for both of them.
* * *
Maria Gonzalez had received notice of Christie’s upcoming broadcast from Julien. She linked her reader to the show along with a few hundred key people she had notified, who in turn had each notified their compatriots, friends, and family. Maria’s personal network was the reason 19,000 people were prepared to view the show before it had even been announced.
After watching the interview, Maria leaned back in her chair. Her home, located on the building’s top floor, allowed her a view of Government House from her window. Slow anger burned deep inside her. Maria felt convinced that President McMorris had been murdered, and somehow the reptile, Downing, had been involved. But days after Downing’s approval by the Assembly, she had been removed from her position and frozen out of her TSF assets, losing her opportunity to investigate. A Downing stooge now sat in her TSF chair.
As she considered Christie’s morning chat, a smile replaced her frown. She had underestimated Alex. Somewhere along the way, the young Captain had developed political skills. Alex was no longer the loner, plying the ice fields. He had become a force of change. Maria recalled Alex’s words which were, “Why, you, General. You’re the next President pro tem, if I have anything to say about it.” At the time, she had thought Alex’s declaration pompous, his title going to his head. But this maneuver, appealing to the populace through a chat with his fourteen-year-old sister, had been delivered as a master stroke. In the next few hours, Maria knew much of the populace would have viewed the show. Now she began giving serious consideration to Alex’s words. Maria didn’t covet the presidency, but she would love to see Clayton Downing and his sycophants out on their collective ears.
* * *
Clayton had been forewarned of the upcoming show by an associate who was being paid to monitor Maria Gonzalez’s friends. He had then notified several trustworthy Ministers and several hundred industry leaders of the program, and finally had sat in his office to watch.
More than one person in Clayton’s inner circle wanted the program shut down, but more temperate heads had prevailed. Media stations were a protected industry on New Terra, and woe unto any government entity that tried to say otherwise. The cooler heads made the point that shutting down the station would start an outcry they couldn’t manage.
Clayton’s inner circle, though, was striving to get him elected as President by popular vote so they could begin to consolidate their power and create what they had always wanted—a government controlled by the elite … the deserving.
-5-
Eric Stroheim and Captain Reinhold worked diligently with Z, the Unsere Menschen’s SADE, to update their ship’s status. So much work had been done and undone in the days before the ship’s launch with no time to correct Z’s records, and since the launch, work had continued to shore up the overtaxed environmental systems. It took several hundred workers thirty-two work hours to communicate the status of all systems and construction. Afterward it took Z only moments to compare the city-ship’s design plans with the crews’ updates to catalog the work that still needed to be accomplished.
Alex halted his cabin’s holo-vid, on which he was examining their course for New Terra that would intersect Niomedes. In the days since his sister’s interview, he had rearranged his flotilla, placing the Rêveur and the Money Maker forward. The other three liners came next, and the two city-ships with the second freighter trailed behind by several hours. The SADEs had located five Strikers stationed in a shuttle hangar near the Habitat Experiments. Alex had considered taking a wide path around the planet, but an update from Eric and Z convinced him time was of the essence. Within a half-day, the flotilla would come within range of Niomedes’ fighters.
Just the slightest pause ensued before Julien replied,
Alex smiled to himself, imagining the conversation that would take place. Eric Stroheim was still getting accustomed to treating a SADE as an equal. Now, the “Admiral’s friend” would be pointing out to Eric that he had failed to request Z prioritize the list into emergency repairs and secondary priorities. It wasn’t Z’s fault; he was as literal a SADE as you could find—you got what you asked for, little more, unless you happened to be Alex. For some reason, Z reserved the right to expand his responses for Alex, even attempting to anticipate his needs as if he was a unique event.
As Alex spoke with Julien, Renée entered the cabin, blew him a kiss, and left to use the refresher.
* * *
“Five Strikers are lifting from Niomedes, Admiral,” Julien announced to Alex and Andrea on the bridge. “Estimate contact in 4.3 hours if they achieve maximum acceleration to meet us.”
The Rêveur’s holo-vid was duplicated on the Money Maker’s bridge, courtesy of Julien and Mutter. Tatia had transferred back to the Money Maker to support the squadron’s actions. She, Sheila, and Captain Menlo were tied into the conference link via the freighter’s FTL comm.
Alex had placed the Money Maker 200 kilometers forward of the Rêveur’s starboard quarter.
In a comm meeting earlier, Tatia had emphasized some tactics to Alex and Andrea.
Both Alex and Andrea had shared resigned looks since each one felt this tactic should have occurred to them. “She’s still our devious one, Admiral,” Andrea had admitted.
Commander Reynard readied her squadron aboard the fighter-carrier. She had paired up sixteen Dagger pilots from the freighter under her but felt nervous about some of the trainees’ skills. Sheila earnestly hoped that the intelligence was accurate and that a show of force would scare the Striker pilots off. Lieutenant Hatsuto Tanaka and his two wings were sitting in their Daggers aboard the Rêveur. The ships’ flight crews had opened all pilots’ bay doors and released the fighters’ skids.
The Rêveur’s three Daggers slid out of its twin bays and accelerated at only one-fifth power. Their course aimed straight for the five approaching Strikers.
There followed tense moments for Andrea while she waited for an update from Julien, hoping the Strikers veered off and returned to Niomedes. A glance at Alex revealed him sitting quietly in the other command chair, a bored expression on his face.
“You don’t appear to be concerned whether those fighters come on or not, Admiral,” Andrea said.
“They will or they won’t, Captain. Do I want to see five New Terrans killed for the stupidity of their President? Absolutely not. Am I willing to send them to the deep dark if they attempt to prevent our preparations to return to Libre? Absolutely.”
Sheila acknowledged her flight order and seventeen Daggers exited the Money Maker. She was the only pilot without a wing, but then again she had the most experience, short as it was. Her squadron merged with Flight-1, and per their Commander’s orders, the twenty Daggers spread out to produce an intimidating array of force.
* * *
Lieutenant Damien Hunsader couldn’t believe his good fortune. His flight of Strikers had circled Niomedes to intercept the oncoming flotilla of the interlopers. It would be his five against the enemy’s four at worst, perhaps even better if the so-called Admiral had lost a fighter or two. According to his uncle, Samuel Hunsader, the refugees were disobeying a presidential order. Damien and his fellow pilots had been informed that the ships were full of potentially diseased aliens, and he, for one, was not going to let them contaminate his home world.
Damien’s Striker force rounded the planet’s curve, and his telemetry displayed the flotilla and the liner’s launch of three fighters from the Rêveur. “Striker force, it’s going to be five against three!” Damien sent via comms.
Unfortunately for Damien, his fellow pilots didn’t share their leader’s elation. They had signed up to defend the system from aliens, not human refugees.
“Striker-2 and Striker-3, you target the Dagger on the left,” Damien ordered. ‘Striker-4 and Striker-5, you have the Dagger on the right. I’ll take the center one.”
“Leader, Striker-2. Shouldn’t we see if they fail to engage … give them an opportunity to turn around?”
“Negative, Striker-2,” Damien replied. “We do our duty. If we eliminate these fighters, those contaminated ships will be forced to turn around.”
“Leader, Striker-5. I heard from my brother that one of those large ships is in danger of environmental systems failure. We’re talking about the potential death of over a hundred thousand people.”
“Then they shouldn’t have come this way!” Damien replied. “Now cut the noise, Striker force. Only maneuver comms from now on.”
Damien Hunsader and his father had never been close, which is why as a boy Damien had focused on his successful and attentive uncle, Samuel Hunsader. His uncle had no children of his own, and Damien was happy to fill the role of adopted son. When he told his father he was joining the Barren Island cadet program, his father had tried to dissuade him, but his uncle had encouraged him. Now Damien would prove to his father that he had made the right decision. He would protect his world and become a hero.
While Damien was imagining the celebration that would surely follow their successful action, the three approaching Daggers suddenly expanded into twenty. Anger boiled up inside Damien. His dream of a hero’s reception was being snatched from him.
“Leader, Striker-2. We can’t take on twenty Daggers. It would be suicide. We have to pull back.”
“Negative, Striker-2. We have to defend our home world. This applies to each and every one of you. We take as many of them with us as we can,” Damien yelled into his helmet comm.
As the intervening distance between the fighters closed, Damien noticed his Striker formation drifting. “Striker-3 and Striker-5, tighten up on your leads. You’re drifting.” When he received no response and telemetry showed an even greater gap forming, he was about to comm the two pilots again when both fighters pulled out of formation and headed back to base.
“Get back here, you cowards!” Damien yelled.
Then suddenly he was alone. His other two pilots had veered off as well and were hurrying to catch the first two deserters.
Fear crawled up Damien’s spine and into his mind. At least that’s the way it felt. He couldn’t think. Despite his overwhelming fear, it never occurred to him to turn around. He sat frozen while the twenty Daggers raced toward him.
* * *
Sheila was happy when two of the Strikers about-faced and then happier still when two more left formation. She wasn’t anxious to kill New Terrans, but over 122,000 people were depending on her and the squadron to remove this obstacle, and the entire Confederation waited on them, even if they didn’t know it.
Sheila was tempted to launch her missiles and be don
e with it. Julien’s information had revealed that the Strikers carried single-stage missiles, which were far less effective than the Dagger’s present armaments. Two missiles from her Dagger would launch sixteen powerful Libre-X second-stage missiles, ensuring the Striker’s destruction.
The squadron was well-conditioned to Sheila’s leadership and executed their maneuvers without thinking, even Hatsuto.
Alex’s bored expression left his face, and he leaned forward to examine the holo-vid as he watched the nineteen icons of Sheila’s squadron sheer away from their original vector. Sheila’s Dagger was advancing alone against the remaining Striker.
As the fighters raced at one another, Sheila’s controller pinged her helmet—she was in missile range. Still, she held her fire. What do you want to do today, my young friend … live or die? Sheila wondered.
* * *
Damien’s fear still held him in its grip even though all but one Dagger remained in front of him. One part of his mind screamed at him to launch his missiles; the other part wailed at his predicament. At any moment, he was sure the Dagger would launch its missiles. One small thought leaked through the white noise in his mind that both fighters were inside their missile envelopes.
In an instant, Damien was past the Dagger. He hadn’t even attempted to maneuver his fighter from what should have been a head-on collision. At the last moment, the Dagger had flipped on its side and shot past him. In the fraction of time they had, it seemed an impossible feat. But as his fear faded, the thought surfaced that he was still alive, which he realized was what he wanted first and foremost. Damien turned his Striker back for Niomedes. As he tried to think of what he would say to his uncle, he began to cry.
* * *