by Chris Hechtl
Less than a minute later the CIC rating yelped. “IFF challenge! We're being pinged and hit by active sensors! They've got us locked up!” she said over the tumult.
“Frack, all hands, battle stations. Comm, broadcast our IFF. Nav, prep for an emergency jump,” the captain barked.
“Broadcast a hail on all frequencies,” the XO said. “We'll try to buy some time,” she said, turning to the skipper for support.
The captain nodded. “Do it.”
“Sir, we're getting a return hail. “Long live the Federation. It is followed by Admiral Iron's challenge.”
“Give them the counter sign,” the captain said, exhaling a long held breath. His ship wasn't quite set for a fight, not with everything stacked to the deckheads with snivel gear and gifts to the Bekian people. He surveyed the bridge under coveted eyes. The tension was still there but … with any luck …
CIC was still populating the plot when he glanced at it. From what he could see, Bek was teaming with life. Dozens of sublight ships and instillations were all over the star system. Dozens of ships were around the jump point. There were also shoals of dense mine fields around the jump point, along with massive asteroid and artificial fortresses, OWP's missile packs, and all sorts of nasty toys to make anyone piss themselves silly he thought.
“I think I should have gotten into my skin suit and hooked my catheter up. I'm glad we're the good guys,” he said wryly.
“Definitely, sir,” Angie echoed with a lot of feeling in her tone of voice.
As the data flowed in, he noted that the ships and facilities were crude and not familiar Federation designs. Were they Federation at all he wondered?
“We're getting a second hail, sir,” the comm rating said just as the CIC rating clacked for attention.
“The fortresses are standing down active sensors, sir,” CPO Zz'vv reported.
“Very well. I think we've had enough surprises,” the captain said with a shake of his head.
“I think we've got more to come, sir. Audio transmission coming in,” the XO said, looking at his board.
“Oh?” The captain squared his shoulders. “Put it through.”
“We've been expecting you. It has been a long, long time. We'd almost given up hope,” a rough voice said over the PA speakers. Everyone looked up to them.
“Better late than never I suppose,” the captain said sheepishly. “This is Captain Perth of the Federation starship Caroline. We've got a lot to talk about. I'm in awe of what you've got here.”
“I'm looking forward to this discussion,” Admiral Toronto said as the main viewer blinked and an image of a silverback gorilla appeared on the screen. He had a cybernetic left arm, but it appeared to be crude. So did the background behind him. “Let's meet up,” he said.
Captain Perth noted the uniform was similar to his own, but not quite perfect. Still he nodded. “Yes, sir,” he replied
* * * *
Caroline drifted at the center of balefully watching fortresses of immense size and magnitude. Some were asteroid fortresses; two were nearly the size of a dwarf planet. One was the command fortress at what he considered the Z+ axis.
No less than twenty fortresses formed a shell around the jump point. They could see an additional four more outside the shell in various stages of construction.
What got to them weren't just the orbital fortresses, but also the shoals of mines, missile pods, weapon platforms, and the distant IFF codes of ships. Dozens of ships. Dozens of armed warships ready and waiting to pounce on anyone who was stupid enough to jump into the star system in within the shell or outside it.
It spoke of a lot of investment in time, personnel, and machinery, which in a way made sense. They'd had seven centuries to build it all up. And with the Xenos on the rampage outside their isolated nexus, they had plenty of incentive to make certain they never got in to harm the worlds orbiting the quartet of stars.
“What price liberty?” Captain Perth murmured softly, echoing a long ago quote. His XO glanced at him sharply. He was momentarily oblivious to her inquiring look.
“Sir, we're receiving another signal from the command fortress,” the communication's rating said.
“By all means, put it through,” the captain ordered.
“This is Admiral Toronto. We're still waiting on a reply from Command One.”
“Understood, Admiral.”
“I'm glad you are so understanding. Sometimes these things go slow; it's not just the light speed delay. They'll buck it up the chain of command and then over to the civilian side. You could be here a while.”
“We're fine, sir. I'm glad to see you and your fortresses here. You nearly gave us a heart attack though,” he admitted wryly. That earned a chuff from the Neogorilla.
“I have got to ask the burning question before I explode,” the Neogorilla admiral said, making the captain smile slightly. “What the hell took so long?”
“Sorry we're late. As some would say, we had a spot of bother along the way,” Captain Perth said.
The admiral's brown eyes narrowed. “Not funny. Explain.”
“Now, sir?” the captain said, now sobered. “Okay.” The captain settled himself. “Where to start. Okay, our mission was to contact you. To that end Admiral Irons as provisional president sent us.”
“Is he a descendant of the Irons?” the admiral broke in.
“Sir?”
“Rear Admiral John Henry Irons. I imagine he's long dead by now but …”
“Actually, no, sir. They are one and the same. It's a long story, but he was promoted and recently woke up. On a mission a few years ago, he uncovered a message making him the provisional president and leader of the reborn Federation.” Captain Perth said.
He could see the Neogorilla seemed a bit confused, then indignant. “Are you telling me that Irons has been alive all this time? And he left us here high and dry? What about the war? Why the devil did he leave us out in the cold so long?”
The captain fought from squirming under that intense brown gaze. He was secretly glad he was dealing with the admiral over a video transmission; the massive ape would have been really unnerving in person. “Well, sir, it's a bit of a story. Admiral Irons was temporarily lost in Senka when the ship he had been traveling on was ambushed by Xenos and destroyed. His stasis pod was found about twelve years ago.”
“And no one else came in this time period?” the ape demanded. “Wait, was he the only one to know about our predicament? Is that what happened?”
“To be honest, until the admiral was found there wasn't a Federation, at least in this sector, sir,” Captain Perth explained.
The admiral blinked. His massive nostrils inhaled and then exhaled slowly. Captain Perth could hear a distant gasp in the background on the admiral's side. The admiral glanced over his shoulder then back to the image of the human. After a moment of studying him, he nodded once. “Go on,” he said in a deep rumbling bass.
“The Xenos tore the guts out of the old Federation, and then stomped on anything that tried to step in as the new capital. It was ugly. We still don't know the full story. What we do know is that the Fleet got word of where the Xeno homeworlds were. They gathered every scrap they could after the core worlds were obliterated and launched a strike at the Xeno home galaxy in order to draw them away from our own. They left us completely unguarded in doing so. I don't honestly know if it worked or not. Certainly here, since we never saw the Xeno's return to finish the job in this or neighboring sectors. But they'd done enough damage in the process,” he shook his head. “Civilization was effectively dead or localized for a long time. No one built ships. The ships we had were barely held together over time, and tech has regressed to the animal power and hand to mouth on many, too many worlds,” he said, closing his eyes in pain briefly. He opened them after a moment and looked directly into the brown eyes of the Neogorilla senior officer. “The entire galaxy is in what the admiral termed 'the dark ages.' The pirates have made it even harder to rebuild. Their maraudin
g has torn apart anyone who attempts to rebuild.” The admiral froze. “Then there is the lack of replicators, keys …,” he shook his head.
The admiral nodded slowly. “I see it is a long story.”
“Yes, sir. We have the downloads available for your perusal. A brief synopsis, Fleet Admiral Irons was found by scavengers on a scavenged naval ship. They were being chased by pirates at the time, and he helped them survive. He had to bootstrap a new navy from what volunteers and what ships and personnel he could find, all the while fending off fleets of pirates that are tearing the sectors apart.”
“So there is a war outside this nexus?” the admiral asked carefully. The captain nodded. “And the Xenos?”
“The Xenos are one big question mark, sir. One among many. But yes, we're at war with the Horathian Empire.”
“Horath …,” the admiral frowned.
“They were apparently a pirate haven, sir. Refugees flocked there. They've taken on Xenophobic Nazi genocide to sickening levels now that they are coming out into the open. They have been behind the pirates for centuries and are now coming out into the open. They have wiped out any race other than human on their homeworld and are in the process of doing the same on planets they are conquering. Half the sector is currently under their control.”
The admiral inhaled and then exhaled slowly. “I … see.” His massive jaw worked a few times, and then tightened before it relaxed.
“So yes, we've been a bit distracted. And up until just recently we haven't had the spare ships to get to you. I will admit Admiral Irons did attempt to do so several years ago, but he was cut off.” It wasn't the time or place to go into details about how he'd been captured, led a mutiny on the Bounty, and then used the ship and scratch personnel to tear apart a much larger Horathian fleet against all odds. That would come later.
“He tried himself?”
“Yes. He's … different than you may have remembered,” the captain said carefully.
“I never had the honor, I'm not that old.”
“Sorry, sir. I wasn't certain of your age.”
“We do not have anti-geriatric medications, though we do have some treatments to lessen the effects of aging somewhat. The leaf bugs and flea leggers have recreated some of the genetic repair processes, but it is much more than that.”
Captain Perth nodded. “That will change, sir. We've got the downloads and materials to help you catch up. We'll help you get up to speed.”
“I see,” the admiral said cautiously. “I'm looking forward to reading that download. At least I think I am,” he said dubiously.
“I know the feeling, sir. It is a lot to take in at once.”
“Thank you for coming. The risks involved …”
“We all have our duties, sir,” Captain Perth said. “And we're here to help rebuild.”
“Good. I'll take that download. We're assigning you escorts to central command.”
The captain swallowed the urge to say that they didn't need a babysitter; he knew better than to argue. It was after all, their backyard, and he was a new unknown ship.
“Aye aye, sir. We'll wait for them.”
“Do so. We're still waiting on a response from command.” He rolled his brown eyes.
That rare crack in the admiral's armor made the captain smile slightly. “Aye, sir.” He looked off camera to the comm rating. “Comm, see that the admiral gets a full copy of our logs and the historical database to get him up to speed. Anything the admiral wants he is to have.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“It looks like I've got a lot of reading then,” Admiral Toronto said ruefully. “Seven centuries of catching up to do. The politics I'm not looking forward to reading, but the battles …”
Captain Perth nodded in understanding. “The tech databases as well and some videos to watch, sir. Some of Admiral Irons' speeches are in it. He's … got a sense of presence there. He can really inspire people. I understand there are messages for your people there.”
“That he does. I've seen his historical vids. I'm looking forward to them. I'll have my own people send over our historical database when they scare it up. We weren't prepared for your arrival, so forgive us for the time it will take,” the admiral murmured, cutting the signal.
* * * *
Eventually Bek High Command got around to them. He imagined there had been a bit of consternation and wrangling going on, though one would think they would have planned for the contingency. It didn't matter in the long run. Three ships were assigned to escort Caroline to the A component by Admiral Toronto once the orders were cleared.
Captain Perth could understand the precautions in theory. The lack of trust was a bit annoying, if you looked at it with just that viewpoint. He preferred to see it as an honor guard.
It'd be nice if the honor guard would talk though. He knew they had questions; he certainly had many. But apparently they had orders to minimize their communications.
Pity.
Each of the three cruisers were massive. They were not quite battle cruiser in size, though close. They were pretty basic, and from what he'd seen of the massive fleet guarding the jump point, the ships had uniformity in class. Were they glacially slow to change? It seemed so.
Three squadrons of capital ships, dreadnaughts by his assumption, and another forty-five massive carriers. They had to be big; the fighters were quite large as well. Most likely due to their tech imbalance he assumed.
Another six squadrons of cruisers like the three that were escorting him; seventeen squadrons of destroyers. Thirty-four squadrons of what looked like some sort of frigate. He shook his head. The lists went on and on with the support and fleet train. The mind boggled at the sheer enormity of their industrial might.
Of course they'd been at it for the past seven centuries he reminded himself.
Those ships were all sublight. He'd found that much out from their readings. Visual inspection of their hulls and a careful analysis of their emissions told CIC they had primitive grav emitter technology. That was odd. It tied in with the lack of hyperdrives however.
It also explained why their ships were angled and of a different design than anything they had in their war book. Obviously they'd started out somewhere and built off of it, attempting to compensate for their lack of tech in one area with additional armor and other things. The ships were all angles and weapon turrets with big massive sublight engines in the rear and sensors and antenna all over.
“They've been busy,” the captain said in wonder, looking at the plot as CIC populated it the closer they got to their destination. They could only see the closest pair of stars in any clarity, but it was still surprising. There was the planet they were expecting, the shipyard which had grown into gargantuan proportions, but there was a shell of orbital fortresses around each as well as the jump point and each star. Each star had its own solar tap as well. “Is that what I think it is?” he asked, pointing to one of the moons and a lot of activity there.
“If you are asking if it is being terraformed, the answer is yes, sir,” the CIC rating replied, clearly gleeful at all the activity. “This place is giving Pyrax and Antigua a run for their money!”
“I'll say. Definitely worth the trip,” the captain murmured.
“It gets better,” the comm rating said, turning to them.
The captain quirked an eyebrow upward. “Do tell.”
“We've been cataloging the radio and lidar signals with CIC, sir. There is regular signal traffic between the two components, A and B. And from what I just picked up, there are several moons that have been terraformed in the B component.”
“Several?” the captain asked eyes wide. “Are you serious?” he asked, leaning forward. He pulled up the 3D model of the B component of the quadruple star system and had it replace the A component. The A component shrank to a small, hand sized patch for the time being as he focused on the new information.
“Yes, sir. Four terraformed dwarf planets from the intel we've received so far.”
>
“Four. One wasn't enough. Wow,” the captain murmured.
“I believe the ancient saying, life finds a way seems to fit here,” Falling Leaf observed.
“Definitely. And that determination, sweat, and a bit of luck can get people past any obstacle.”
“That and patience, sir.”
“I see that. But they didn't have the patience to wait for someone to come along and do it for them like everyone outside the nexus it seems. I'm a bit jealous,” the captain said, shaking his head. “While the rest of the Federation fell apart and fell into the dark ages and wallowed in self-pity and apathy, these people just dug in and moved mountains.”
“Yes, sir. I'm really excited about what they'll do once we help them get back into regular contact with the Federation,” Falling Leaf said. “I bet they'll accelerate the admiral's timetable by a lot.”
“I'm wondering about that since he influenced this in the first place,” the captain murmured. He wondered how much alarm and resentment would be stirred up and how much finger pointing would go on when the news of Bek made its rounds around the media. Sure some might be inspired and try harder but … he wasn't sure cynicism wouldn't have its way, he thought. His fingers flicked to each moon. A karat appeared with stats. The blue or yellow was new data. Lines appeared identifying features on some of them.
“You're getting this from transmissions?” the captain asked, looking up and then over his shoulder to the communication's rating.
The Veraxin flicked his antenna and then rotated two eyestalks to the captain. “Aye, sir. Open transmissions between some of the habitats. There are space habitats as well as terraformed moons,” the bug reported. “The news broadcasts are open transmissions.”
“Fascinating,” Falling Leaf murmured. The captain looked over to her. “They aren't that worried about security then if they are transmitting like that.”
“No, they might believe because it is so hard to get here in the first place they are secure so they can well, not flaunt it, but talk openly,” the comm rating said. “Or, it might be that they know that it will take centuries for the radio transmissions to get to the nearest star outside the nexus, ma'am, if it survives the crap we had to pass through to get there,” he said.