Har made it a point earlier this afternoon of hunting down Lieutenant Mols and Captain Haad and telling them goodbye and good luck. He’d also offered his expertise at catching aliens should they need further assistance in that endeavor in the days and weeks to come. He reminded Captain Haad, much to his mother’s dismay, that he would only be an hour away and that the War College was even closer. While Haad had taken a rather stiff reaction to the boy, Mols had smiled and hugged him and promised him that she would keep her eyes out for him in the future. He reminded her that she still owed him a peek at her secret stash of scary insignia pieces and that got another curious look from the captain.
But now, with two shore patrolmen riding shotgun in the two seats across the aisle, he was content to just enjoy the rugged scenery of Bayliss and anticipate how much trouble it was going to be to get that military school up to his speed.
When the train erupted from a small tunnel and its speed increased, Max told him they were now in an area she remembered as the “highlands” and the school could not be too far away. He nodded and she pointed out some of the landmarks along the last leg of the trip. She mentioned to Har that his father used to take her on vacations around here before he was born.
He excused himself and got up. One of the SP’s left his seat at the same time, but Har motioned him back down.
“Relax, killer, I’m just going to the head. The door is just over there, if you want to listen,” Har said.
The chief looked at Har, then looked at Max, then looked at the toilet in the middle of the car about five meters away. “No, you go ahead. You can tell me all about it when you get back,” the shore patrolman said with a thin smile.
Har stomped off and headed for the toilet. After he was safely inside, the SP sat back down.
“I told Captain Haad I really didn’t think it necessary for you men to have to do this,” Max said, talking to the men across the aisle.
“Don’t worry yourself none about us, ma’am,” the man said. Then he looked around the cabin in a conspiratorial manner. “Really? I just think the captain wanted to make sure young Harold there didn’t miss his train.”
She laughed in spite of herself. “Yeah, you’re probably right, chief. He has that effect on people.”
“And besides,” the other SP said as he leaned over, “This sure beats sitting at the main gate and waving cars through.”
The three of them shared a few more mild laughs and soon Max saw the door to the toilet open a crack and then close with a bang. She sat forward and stared at the door. What’s this now?
Two minutes later Har sat back down. His attention was riveted on the far end of the train car.
“Hayes School, two minutes. Two minutes. If this is your destination please make sure all of your personal belongings are removed before you exit the train. Hayes in two minutes.”
The announcement served to get a few passengers out of their seats and Max noticed several other mothers reeling in their charges.
“Well, it took you long enough,” she said to Har.
He strained to look into the far reaches of the car, past the toilet. “Mom, I saw him. He’s on this train. You know, the one that’s missing!”
The train started to slow. A tiny chime sounded and the bustle of departing passengers distracted Max for a second. Then Har said it again.
“That tall guy, the goon from the Christi, Mom! Are you even listening?”
She turned on him. “Who, honey? Who are you talking about?”
“That guy sitting in the back of the car. I was coming out of the head, and I opened the door a crack and I saw him!”
She stood and reached for the overhead rack. Then it hit her and she sat back down. “Commander Yorn? You saw Davi Yorn?”
“In the flesh. But, It really didn’t look like him. He was different. . .”
Max signaled to her SP escorts. She whispered something to them and quickly all four of them moved toward the far exit. Max had her bags, and the SP chiefs carried Harold’s. Once on the elevated station platform, one of the chiefs put the bags on a cart, said something to his partner and sprinted back to the train.
“Let’s go ma’am, let’s get to our vehicle,” he said, and Har noticed he had released the strap on his sidearm.
“Mom, are we okay?” Har asked.
“Sure, honey, we’re fine. Let’s get on over to the school and get you squared away,” she said, looking over her shoulder at the train. “They’re expecting you.”
He shuffled his feet and walked toward the station exit.
A small bus was idling at the curb and a sign in the front read: BAYLISS PREP ACADEMY.
Har smiled to himself as the tough-looking shore patrolman helped him stow his gear in the bowels of the bus. He felt the envious eyes on his back as the other kids gathered nearby stepped back as his mother, looking very official in her crisp uniform and smart campaign hat, stepped forward and boarded the bus with him. When the burly SP chief sat next to them on one of the forward bench seats, Har thought he could hear a chorus of groans.
Ha! He was special and he was glad they all knew it.
But he wondered where the other SP guy was. He had headed back on the train and the bus was leaving and he didn’t make it back to them. Oh well, probably going in there to give that Yorn guy a piece of his mind for causing all of that trouble.
Whatever. Har looked at the passing trees and buildings near the station as the bus wound its way north. After a five minute ride the bus made a hard left turn and proceeded down a tree-lined road with a fancy white wooden fence. Through the trees Har could see several large buildings made of black stone and white bricks and glaring relective panels.
He sighed. Home for the next six years.
But he was special, and the time should just fly by, he thought. At least this was better than the cargo hold on that Navy warship. At least he could be around boys his own age.
He sighed again and waited for the bus to come to a complete stop.
There was no turning back.
Chapter 35
It took Inskaap two hours to spill his guts. He drank two bottles of water, paced around the little interrogation room, shouted at times, and almost broke down on a few occasions. In the end he was spent, his emotions washed away by the tide of relief he felt. Maybe the long nightmare was finally over.
“Excuse us for a minute, Colonel Inskaap. We’ll give you a few minutes to compose yourself while we go over your code book. If what you said is true, I’ll know in a matter of minutes,” Lieutenant Mols said. She wagged a finger at Haad and together they left the room.
“How about it, lieutenant, do you believe him?”
Mols walked to an adjacent room and buzzed herself in. “I don’t have anything to really disbelieve. He was pretty effective,” she said over her shoulder to Haad.
When the door closed she walked to the large observation window and looked in on her Varson guest. The adjoining room was full of recording machines, electronic voice analyzers, biometric monitors and one wall was loaded with rack after rack of telecommunications gear. Two ensigns and a lieutenant (j.g.) manned the various machines.
Mols held up the code book. “If all he said was true, I’ll be able to tell as soon as I feed his random double-substitution key through my Varson algorithm. Without the exact key, those intercepted codes I was telling you guys about take hours, sometimes days to decipher and even then we only get partial translations.”
She handed the book to one of her ensigns and gave the officer a few simple instructions. Haad watched the Varson officer through the glass.
“Do we really need his help, lieutenant? What if this whole thing is an elaborate smoke screen? What if he was sent here to infiltrate your network and compromise our efforts to eavesdrop on his side?”
“I thought of that. That’s why I purposely had him pretty much invisible when he came in. He got to see nothing, I revealed nothing. His claims will be easily verified, one way or another. If
he’s misrepresented himself in any way, I’ll personally go back in there and put two rounds into the back of his head and call it a day.”
Haad raised an eyebrow and looked at her. She was deadly serious.
“So, if you broke the original Varson codes during the war — what? ten years ago? — how is this new information so different? Why the need of a code book? Don’t you already have them figured out?”
She turned to him and put one hand on her narrow hip. “That was then, this is now. I’m pretty sure they’ve beefed up their security since then. I know they figured out their penetrated messages turned the tide in their defeat. The news flashes went like an epidemic through the colonies, what we did.”
“You mean, what you did. As far as I can tell, the only person that was not totally in awe of your accomplishments during the war was Coni Berger. But I think that was political. She has her own Wunderkind in the person of Captain Fraze. I know she’d wanted him to oversee the whole NIS operation before your Uncle Vincent stepped in.”
“Maybe so. But I just got lucky. Some say I just have an affinity for this kind of thing but, really? Take a look behind you, captain. If it were not for those super machines back there and all of the listening posts I’ve been able to set up around the Fringes, none of this stuff would even be happening.”
Something chimed behind her and she walked back to the young lieutenant sitting in front of a large display screen. Varson code marched across the screen in long columns of strange spider-like numbers.
“What’ll it be, lieutenant? Pass or Fail?”
He looked up at her and pushed one of his earphones aside. “Oh, definitely a ‘Pass’, Lieutenant Mols, ma’am. I’d say you’ve landed the Holy Grail of code books. It’s got all of the rotating double-double subs, the quit routines, the redundancy triggers and also keys for high-capacity data encryption. Machine to machine.”
Thanks, Rand. Just what I thought,” she said to the beaming operator. “Okay, get busy and run everything we have through the new algorithms. With any luck we can get clear text on over a thousand messages we’ve intercepted this past month alone. This is a high-priority, lieutenant, triple shift saturation. Got me?”
“Aye, aye, ma’am. I’ll call in the geeks.”
She smiled and turned back to Haad. “Okay, then, he checks out. In another few hours I should have clean messages translated, stuff we picked up leaving Bayliss, Elber Prime, Canno and Wilkes. That’ll pin it down for sure, captain. If we have a spy infestation, at least we’ll be able to tell what they’ve been up to.”
“What do we do about our guest? I have some questions I’d like to put to him, lieutenant. Like, what’d he do with my XO? And he needs to tell me more about this ‘Project Decimation’ thing he’s so afraid of.”
“I agree. While we wait for the first messages to be decoded, why don’t we take a break for dinner? I’ll have the mess send something over for Inskaap.”
“Deal,” Haad said. “No need in pushing him too hard at the outset.”
“Oh, captain, trust me, I haven’t even begun to push him. He’s been on the up slope of this roller coaster ride. The hard part is coming after the first turn. Then the high-gee rubber hose shit starts,” she chuckled.
They were both laughing when they left the control room.
* * *
“Let Phase Two commence,” Bale Phatie said to his war room. “Assemble all of the ships, get all of the scouts and all of those blockade runners back on this side of the border. We will amass our fleets and completely overrun the human blockade and take the battle to one of their worlds. Bayliss is the closest one to the frontier and that will be our prime target. After Bayliss falls, then it’s on to Canno, Wilkes and then we burn Elber Prime. If you have any questions or concerns, now is not the time to broach them. The Deliverer is in superior conjunction with their Morris-126 at this very moment. The sign to strike could not be any clearer. When you leave this room and assemble your fleets, you will be heading out into the void with one single purpose in mind: Death To All Humans.” Phatie pounded his fist into the palm of his outstretched hand for emphasis after his stormy declaration.
His twenty senior officers stood in unison and pounded their chests as one. The hollow thumping sound reverberated through the room like midday thunder across a hidden valley. His men were pumped, his message was solid. Take the fight to the humans and don’t look back.
His years and months and weeks and days of planning culminated in this one single second of time. Time to throw off he scourge of human oppression, remove the yoke from his people and most importantly, avenge the deaths of over a billion Malguur citizens.
“And remember your lessons. Remember the polite conversations you must engage in with the minions of the human Navy. We have proved that the deception is enough to throw them off guard for the minutes it takes to close in on their ships. This time we will not be escorting captured Colonial Navy ships back to Malguur space. This time we will lure them in and turn them into dust. No survivors. Total DECIMATION!”
The room went wild. If he had to pick a moment in his life, this one would be the one he was most proud of. All of his anguish over the death of his beloved brother Nuul at the hands of that damned David Yorn, all the time seeing the face of Uriel Haad standing over his dead brother, blood pouring out of his face in dark rivers. Now was the time to make those recorded memories fade, time to put the past behind him and yearn for a more glorious future. Right now. And forever.
Bale Phatie watched his men celebrate for a few more minutes before he left the room. Let them revel in their dreams of conquest. Deep in the back of his mind he knew that half of them would never be coming back. Such were the vagaries of war.
On his way back to his office he had one of his secretaries order in the entertainment and refreshments for his staff. The refreshments would consist of assorted distilled spirits from the bottlers on Rauud Mithie. The entertainment would be supplied by forty nubile Malguurian whores from the docks near Nahboode City. By tomorrow this time these men would be running the human blockade and engaging in open warfare with a much superior adversary. Only their cunning and deception would turn the tide for the Malguur. Only their hidden ships and new weapons would give them half a chance against the Colonial Navy Fleet. But it was a fight that had been long overdue, he thought, quickly mounting the three marble stairs leading to his command suite. A fight that would ultimately be decided by his fleet being able to out think the other side. Much like a game of hynoopt. Only the winner would be able to rejoice in his own cleverness. Only the winner.
The losers would be bombarded back into pre-historic times.
The defeated civilization would cease to exist, become just a bloody stain on the pristine and proper pages of history.
The Piru Torgud went to his office and closed his door softly.
He seated himself behind his desk and reached for one of his little decorative figurines.
It was a small metal figure of a Malguurian soldier in full battle dress.
He held the figure so tightly it was crushed in his hand.
* * *
Vice Admiral Coni Berger looked at her watch and tapped the face of the instrument with the nails of her right hand. Something was wrong, he should have been here by now. She had no intention of compromising her position if he was going to be late. She had entirely too damn much at stake to lose it all now.
She would have to get in touch with Captain Fraze and let him handle the details. She was late for her appointment with Geoff, a man that didn’t tolerate even a second or two of tardiness.
Berger stepped away from the alcove in the front of the library and headed straight for the huge white portico of the building in front of her. She looked over her shoulder one more time and saw nothing to reassure her. She set her jaw and headed up the steps, exchanging a salute with one of the students on his way down.
The chiseled letters on the fascia of the building just above the stately doric
columns read: COLONIAL NAVY WAR COLLEGE - EST. 2452.
She reached the large glass doors, removed her cover, and stepped inside.
Chapter 36
Sitting in the wardroom onboard the Puget Sound enjoying a good solid cup of coffee with Captain Janz made Yorn feel refreshed and renewed. He figured he wasn’t out of the woods by a long shot but at least he was on the foot path leading out of the forest. He described in minute detail the events leading up to his rescue and wanted the captain to assist him in returning to his prior life.
“It’s imperative I get back to Elber, captain,” he said between gulps of coffee.
“I’m sure it is, commander, but I just don’t see how I can break ranks right now and do that for you. My suggestion is you take one of my courier boats and head out on your own.”
The thought of piloting a small craft back into the void did not appeal to Yorn. He had just barely escaped his last solo flight and now wanted the security of a corvette-class attack boat surrounding him. It was obvious to him something was very wrong out here in the Fringes and until he could make it back to a safe harbor and report his adventures to higher authorities, he was skeptical about trying to run all the way to Elber Prime in a courier. He had discovered that the Puget Sound was doing picket duty along the frontier with the Varson Empire and Captain Janz was not overly thrilled at the idea of leaving his assigned station for any reason.
“But without something more than my word to go on, it’ll take days if not weeks to get the brass up to speed. What I’m seeing here is a concerted effort by the Varson to invade our space. Otherwise, why would they have a battle cruiser so far out in the Fringes? That ship I escaped from, let’s think about it for a second. Just using some old-fashioned seat-of-the-pants navigation techniques, calculating back from the point you picked me up, that ship was certainly on a course aimed directly at our blockade.”
The Belt Loop (Book Two) - Revenge of the Varson Page 21