Janz rubbed his chin. “But there’s no way to prove that, commander. Perhaps it was just on some kind of routine patrol. We know they still have ships out in the Fringes and as long as they don’t enter the restricted space, who cares?”
Yorn stood and walked around the table. He put both hands in his back pockets and stared at Janz. “Then tell me what they’re doing with a battle cruiser? A new one? The fact they’re building ships should be a warning in and of itself. This is critical information, Gary, and I think we should at least —”
The comm stack exploded with warning squawks and chatter. “Captain to the bridge, captain to the bridge!”
Janz jumped up and hit the comm stack. “What do you have, Mister Reardon?” Janz asked his XO.
Captain, we have about twenty ships unfolding 134,000 klicks abaft of our starboard quarter. They’re not ours, sir.”
Janz looked at Yorn. “On the way, Mister Reardon. Go to battle stations.”
The rising and falling alarm sirens blasted from every comm stack on the Puget Sound and Janz and Yorn left the wardroom at a trot.
Once on his bridge, Janz looked at the images streaming across his forward blister. “Have we been seen, Mister Bordi?” he asked his communications officer. “Any scans or pings?”
“Negative, sir, they’re still decelerating from the fold. That’s the weird thing, sir, those ships are showing fold signatures, not the standard jump tracks they usually show. If they are Varson ships, they’ve upgraded their technology quite a bit.”
“Captain, I’m looking at four Varsonian battle cruisers, ten destroyers, two frigates and the rest are their associated tenders,” from the science console.
“Helm, come about, heading one six seven degrees. Take her down at fifteen. Put everything we have into our Higgs, Mister Orth, and get us out of here.”
Yorn looked at the screen, figured the course in his head. “You’re making a run for Bayliss?” he asked Janz.
Captain Janz held up his hand in a stop sign. “Mister Reardon, how long to the fold? Maximum speed?”
The XO said, “Seventeen minutes, captain.”
Lieutenant Bordi shouted, “We’re being painted, captain! They’ve seen us.”
“Get us to the Dyson threshold, Mister Orth. On my mark, bring us up ten and tack to port, make it one five five.”
“Aye, aye, captain. Waiting for your mark. Course locked in.”
Yorn was fascinated at how Janz was “flapping” the boat, making the returns seem larger than they actually were, giving the pursuer the impression of many ships instead of one. Buying time. Of course, he thought, as soon as they got within visual range the deception would fall apart.
“Three, two, one. . . Mark!” Janz said.
“The last of their vessels just made it out of the fold, captain. Lead ships powering up engines.”
“Thank you, Mister Bordi,” Janz said. He hopped the rail and landed behind his control console and took up his seat in the captain’s chair. Reports were flooding the bridge and the captain handled the ones he needed to and passed the rest off to his XO and his bridge crew. Then he turned to Yorn.
“Bayliss is the nearest safe harbor, Commander Yorn. We should be able to outrun them and alert the Second Fleet in time to meet them head on should they elect to chase us. That’s the only thing I can do. One against twenty is not exactly the best odds in the book.”
Yorn nodded and returned his eyes to the blister. The Varson flotilla was starting to diminish in size.
“Dyson threshold in eight mikes, sir,” Reardon said.
“Two of the frigates breaking off from the formation, sir.”
“Weapons, prepare your torpedoes. Let’s give them something to write home about.”
“Incoming scans aft quarter, sir.”
“Batteries four and six, fire at will!”
“Fish away, captain,” from the weapons alcove.
“Incoming laser fire! Brace for impact!”
Janz kept his cool. “Keep the Higgs at maximum. How far to the fold, Mister Reardon? Mister Orth, evasive maneuvers.”
Yorn watched as the helmsman showed the enemy his belly and then jounced the boat two times. The Puget Sound took the first volley from the speeding frigates near the hangar decks and the ship shuddered and vibrated as the Higgs Field absorbed the incoming light energy.
“Dyson threshold in two minutes, skipper.”
“Helio-spasm detonation, sir, both torpedoes on the money.”
Yorn looked at the screen. The image turned blindingly white for two or three seconds before settling down. The Varson flotilla was still coming but several destroyers were falling behind the lead cruiser. The helio-spasm blast and it’s accompanying electromagnetic pulse would disable most unshielded ships that were operated by micro-chips.
“Dyson fold in one minute, captain,” Commander Reardon said.
“Steady as she goes, Mister Orth. Make sure you hit the fold at one six seven.”
“Helm, aye.”
Lieutenant Bordi shouted, “Lead cruiser, captain, she’s throwing something I’ve never seen before! Painting our aft quarter, electrical discharge surrounding a zanith-laser, sir!”
Dyson limit, captain, in three, two, one. . .”
Mister Orth slapped the Dyson Drive control just as the energized Varson weapon tore through the rear of the Puget Sound, rupturing ten of the cargo holds and blowing out twelve internal pressure doors. Fourteen of her crew were lost but luck was on her side. The new Varson energy weapon missed the critical hydrogen containment bottle with its magnetic collar by mere meters. Her Dyson Drive kicked in at the precise moment of the strike and she hit the fold trailing shards of plastisteel hull plates, foodstuffs, and most of her lifeboats.
But she made it.
PART SIX: Bayliss Battle Royal
Chapter 37
“Why is the front of the building all mirrors, Mom?”
“Well, it’s really not mirrors, son, they just coated the front of the building with an epoxy resin to lessen the harsh light some.” She explained to Harold how the small two-degree axial tilt of Bayliss made for almost no seasonal variances in the climate and how the lower sunlight in the northern latitudes made for harsh lighting in some places for the entire year. He nodded and thought he understood. Man, every planet he was on had a different set of rules, and he wondered out loud why they couldn’t all be more consistent.
Max smiled at him. “What fun would that be, Har, if they were all the same? They’re billions of planets in the galaxy and they’re no two alike. That’s just like us, honey. No two beings are exactly alike. Even twins have small differences in appearance: a mole here, a pimple there.”
“Okay, I see what you’re saying.” He looked up at the building again. It was to be his home for the next six years or so. He was sitting on a bench with his mother and they were just going over a few things before she departed for the War College. He was all set: registered, immunized, issued uniforms. Those articles were stowed in his dormitory room on the second floor of this building and Har wondered when his roommate would show up. Orientation was scheduled to begin in two days and his first classes would follow in three.
“You guys should paint that stuff on your ships, Mom. Didn’t you say that they used mirrors to deflect those laser beams in those secret laboratories?”
“Why, yes they do. But I’m sure the weapons the Fleet uses would burn right through that epoxy.”
“Oh, yeah. Well, I don’t see why they don’t try it. I read in one of my books where the aliens had this ray, and like, it was so powerful that the Space Rangers had to invent this kind of invisibility thing? They couldn’t hit what they couldn’t see, Mom.”
She looked at Har. Twelve years old and a mind full of wild stories and wilder thoughts. But, she concluded, why not? He has seen more things at his age than the average person sees in a lifetime. It would be hard to get the imagination part of him to recede when each and every day he found new
things to arouse his curiosity. She hoped this school would ground him at last and turn some of that imaginative energy into solid academic insights.
“Well, once you start taking your science courses, you’ll get the feeling for what’s really possible and what’s just the figment of some writer’s imagination. You’ve got a whole world waiting to open up for you, Har. Be receptive to what they’re going to teach you here and you’ll come out the other end just fine.”
He scuffed his toe on the sidewalk. The big SP chief, the guy named Pace, was heading their way across the quadrangle. It was time for her to go. “I guess this is it, then, Mom,” he said in a grown-up voice.
Max stood. “One hug for the road?”
He jumped from the bench and surrendered to her arms. She held him close for a few seconds and let him go. Without further ado, he gave her a smart salute, turned and whipped another one at Chief Pace, then ran across the quad. His mother watched him disappear into his dorm building and wiped a salty tear from her cheek. When Pace made it to her side, she returned his salute.
“We should be getting back to the station, ma’am,” the SP said.
“Roger, that,” Max said and followed him to the waiting bus.
* * *
Round Two with Inskaap got off to a rocky start. Haad wanted to extract as much information as he could from the Varson colonel but his approach was either too hostile or he didn’t have the nuance of language to elicit the needed responses. Lieutenant Mols suggested that she take over and Haad agreed and retreated to the far wall and just watched.
“I’m sorry for my captain, colonel, but you can see why he’s terribly upset about all of this. Your network of spies on these human colonies has caused the death of his crewman. Now his XO is missing and you seem reluctant to tell him what he wants to know. Do you see the problem?”
Inskaap stiffened in the chair. While not as loud or confrontational as the captain, this lieutenant was good at sliding her probing questions under his fingernails with the lightest of touches. “You must understand, lieutenant, I am doing the best that I can. There are some parts of this plan of Phatie’s I am not privy to. He was a very secretive man and I know for a fact he had others, people I had never come in contact with, people operating at a level higher than my own. He had to have had someone on one of your worlds feeding him more information than I ever could. He was always one step ahead of even myself and I was supposed to be running things for him.”
“So, tell me about Commander Yorn. Why him?”
Inskaap looked past her to Captain Haad. If he revealed the reasoning behind Bale Phatie’s vendetta would this man explode and kill him on the spot? He was leary of the ship captain and actually wished he would leave the interrogation room.
“Colonel Inskaap?”
“The Piru Torgud had a recording. From the war, and he used to watch it all the time.”
“A recording of what, colonel?” Mols asked.
Haad moved from behind her and walked to the end of the table.
“The garrison on Riindin. Where we kept the hostages, the prisoners.”
Haad reached up and rubbed the side of his face. “Go on, colonel. What was on that recording?” Haad said.
“You were, captain. You and that commander. Only, back then, he was just a lieutenant, and I believe you were a lieutenant commander.”
The Mobile Bay disaster. That was over ten years ago. “And what did this recording show?” Haad wanted to know.
“It was the security recordings made on one of our cameras. You remember Riindin don’t you Captain Haad? That little rocky moon, the star you humans call Galena-221?”
How could he ever forget? That rescue mission had pretty much made his career. “Keep going,” he told his captive.
When you rescued Lieutenant Yorn, and that soldier shot you through your back? Your men cut that guard in two, captain. That soldier was Bale Phatie’s younger brother. Your men executed him for doing his duty.”
Haad slammed a fist down on the table. “That was fucking war, colonel! Doesn’t that madman realize that? People get killed. That guard shot me in the back! When I turned to face him, he discharged his weapon in my face! He got what he deserved, Colonel Inskaap. And after ten years, your Pity Turd guy can go straight to hell if he’s still carrying around that hollow grudge.”
Inskaap was silent.
“But, you still haven’t explained what happened to Commander Yorn. Present tense, back on Elber Prime.”
“First, lieutenant, I must have some kind of assurances that what I am about to divulge to you will not result in my immediate death. On Canuure, that’s the way bad news is handled by Bale Phatie. Not only is the messenger killed, but his entire family as well.”
“I’ll put it in writing, colonel. You have my word that no matter what, if your information proves to be accurate, you have nothing to fear from me, Captain Haad, or the entirety of the Colonial Navy.”
“Your word is sufficient, Lieutenant Mols. Now if I could have the same assurances from Captain Haad, I will tell you.”
Uriel Haad gave him the word of an officer and a gentleman. It seemed to mollify Inskaap but he leaned back in his chair and still hesitated. After a minute he leaned forward and whispered, “You have a traitor in your ranks, in your highest ranks, captain. Someone on your Fleet staff. I know this for a fact.”
A speaker on the comm stack went live at that moment. “Lieutenant Mols, this is Lieutenant Rand. Ma’am, I need to see you soonest.”
Mols looked at Haad. “Let’s take a break, sir. Colonel Inskaap, excuse us for a moment.”
Haad and Mols left the room. She held a finger up to her lips as they walked the few meters to the room next door. Once inside, she said, “That confirms what we already know, captain.”
“Lieutenant, you have an urgent dispatch from the Base Commander. Your Eyes Only,” Lieutenant Rand said, passing her the sealed document.
She retreated to the far corner and scanned the text. A sudden look of panic crept across her face. She eyeballed Haad and waved him over. “Captain, we have to finish up with Inskaap with deliberate haste. It seems that the Varson Empire has overrun our blockade and are amassing ships around Bayliss. Sir, a state of war has been declared and we are to report to the base command post without delay for assignments.” She looked back at the page in her hand. “They have destroyed thirty ships of the Second, Captain Haad. The planet is in peril.”
Haad looked at her through slitted eyes. What Inskaap had insinuated about the Admiralty was important. Was his information important enough to continue his interrogation or should he make haste to the command center? He shifted his stare to the observation window. The Varson colonel was sitting calmly in his chair looking at his folded hands. What to do?
“Lieutenant, I think we need to go back in there and find out as much as we can about this Operation Decimation. I need to know what happened to Yorn and I need to find out about the fly in the Admiralty’s ointment. That information could be the difference in all of this.”
Mols went to the corner of Rand’s console and shredded the dispatch. She told her little staff what was happening and ordered them to remain on station and continue to decode the alien dispatches they had intercepted. “I’ll be next door for another ten minutes. Mister Rand, hand me your sidearm,” she said.
He passed the weapon to her and she immediately looked into the breech, ejected the shell and caught it before it hit the floor. Next she ejected the clip, looked it over, reinserted the loose bullet, slammed it home. “Let’s go, captain,” she said as she racked back the bolt, “with your permission, of course.”
“Mister Rand,” Haad instructed, “I want you to locate the members of my crew here on Bayliss and have them muster at the base command center.” He gave the lieutenant the names of the personnel he sought. The officer acknowledged his orders without question and turned to his comm console.
Haad checked his own gun and said, “Lead the way, lieutenant
.”
Chapter 38
The Puget Sound erupted from the fold in a stuttering gasp of expended energy. She broke through some 400,000 kilometers from Bayliss and Captain Janz immediately started broadcasting on all standard emergency frequencies. During his thirty-hour trip he had nursed his damaged ship back to reasonable health and had compacted his Higgs Field to the point of having it caress the extreme inner hull of the ruined ship.
Yorn had spent most of the trip belowdecks assisting the damage repairmen and hull repair ratings in their efforts. Fourteen men were dead. Seven of those were vaporized on the spot and another handfull were lost to the void. Two more succumbed in sick bay from third-degree burns. Yorn had never seen such damage from a single laser strike. Whatever the Varson scientists had done in the last ten years to beef up their arsenal certainly made a difference. The first war with the Varson Empire had been decided with superior firepower from the Colonial Navy and a determination to break the enemy’s will to continue. That had been accomplished by the use of nuclear weapons from orbit. Long-range destruction with no regard as to collateral casualties. The best deterrent in war: hit your adversary with enough hellish death to make them lose the will to continue. And do it quickly. Drawn-out battles only served to drain resources and risk retaliation from desperate leaders trying to salvage anything out of an untenable situation.
On the hangar deck Yorn found only one operable lifeboat. The rest had been lost to space. He looked aft through the huge hole caused by the laser strike. A roiling cloud of fine particulate debris trailed the Puget Sound as if she was the corona of a manufactured comet. White hot sparks of ungrounded electricity arced along the shattered bulkheads exposed to vacuum. He shook his head and retreated toward safer locations amidships. In the back of his mind he worried about the Higgs holding out long enough for them to make the docking port.
The Belt Loop (Book Two) - Revenge of the Varson Page 22