“OPS, prep one of the Jacobson drones for flight.” Jackson carefully weighed his options. “I want a decaying orbit toward the primary at maximum acceleration. Full active package including high-power radar, and I want it chirping in constant telemetry mode.”
“Aye, sir,” Davis said. “Drone is being prepped now. Flight OPS say it will be ready for launch in fifteen minutes.”
“Very well,” Jackson said. “In the meantime, retract and stow the warp nacelles and prepare to fire the mains. We’ll be creeping up a little closer once the drone gets in there and starts raising hell.”
“I take it we’re abandoning subtle, sir?” Celesta asked, leaning in as she spoke so that the rest of the bridge crew couldn’t overhear.
“Partially, Commander,” Jackson said. “We’ll keep the Ares hidden as long as possible, but any intel we gather by letting the light and radio waves trickle into the passives will be useless by the time we get it. If there’s anything actionable in this system, we need to know now.”
“I’ll be down in CIC monitoring the telemetry stream.” She grabbed her coffee and stretched her legs.
“Excellent idea,” Jackson said. “Go ahead and firewall the raw feed there, and only send anything of interest to the bridge.”
“Yes, sir.” She hustled off the bridge in order to get to CIC and settled by the time the drone was launched.
“Flight OPS reports drone is in the forward launch tube and ready for launch, sir,” Davis said after another ten minutes had passed.
“Launch the drone,” Jackson said.
A few seconds later, the bright flare of the drone’s plasma engine streaked away from the Ares, disappearing within seconds among the background light of the stars. The Jacobson drone, named for someone important that Jackson had never bothered to learn about, was the most advanced unmanned vehicle the Tsuyo Corporation had available to put on the Starwolf-class ship when they’d launched. They could be configured per use with mission modules that allowed him to cater to whatever need he had, including weapons delivery. All in all, not a bad bit of tech to have.
“Drone is away,” Davis said. “Telemetry stream expected in another ninety minutes. Active sensors will come on shortly after.”
The drone had been programmed to delay reporting back until it was well within the system. It didn’t do a whole lot of good to try hiding when the drone transmitting from their position would basically roll out the welcome mat.
“I want everyone rotating out to get something to eat and stretch their legs,” Jackson said. “You have one hour before I want all of first watch back on duty and ready to begin receiving data from the drone.”
There was a burst of hushed conversation as some specialists called up their backups while others, like OPS and Tactical, negotiated who would go for the first thirty minutes, as their positions were somewhat interchangeable.
Jackson forced himself to remain calm as the clock on the main display counted down to when they should begin receiving data from the drone. If there was anything in the X-ray System, and if the drone was able to find it, it probably wouldn’t be in the first few minutes of the radar being powered up.
Lieutenant Davis walked back onto the bridge after being gone for less than twenty minutes, handing him a fresh coffee before relieving Lieutenant Commander Barrett. Jackson nodded his thanks, noted from the smell that she’d correctly guessed which of the coffee brands stocked on the ship he preferred, and continued watching the clock and listening to the hushed voices of his crew.
“Mark!” Lieutenant Davis said as the clock reached zero and began counting back up. “We should begin receiving data any minute.”
The bridge remained deathly silent as the clock ticked up past one minute, then two, and eventually five minutes with still no telemetry signal from the drone. Worry began to gnaw at Jackson’s stomach lining until, eight minutes past when it should have began transmitting, the status light next to the drone’s name on the main display winked from red to flashing yellow, then went solid green to indicate they were getting a valid signal.
“CIC confirms we’re receiving valid data,” Davis said. “Signal strength is excellent, and the drone’s active sensors are already transmitting.”
“Tell Engineering to prep the mains for restart,” Jackson said. “Send the drone’s course through the outer boundary debris to Nav so we can get a course plotted into the system.”
“Understood, sir,” the specialist at Nav confirmed without having to be specifically ordered.
Jackson looked up his name and made a note to commend his attentiveness to his department head.
“Nav, once you have a course that lets us fly up through all this, send it to the helm,” he ordered. “We’re going to begin a nice, slow creep into the system and wait to see if the drone sees anything worth investigating. Settle in, everyone… This may be a long, boring watch.”
****
“Two more anomalies detected,” Davis said. “Analysts are scrubbing the data now.”
Jackson didn’t bother to respond. It had been nearly nine hours since the drone had begun actively scanning the system, and there had been an average of ten anomalies an hour. So far, none had resulted in anything more interesting than an asteroid that was flying against the orbital direction of its neighbors. He’d known it was going to be a long watch, but now he was faced with a choice: rotate personnel out and hope that the drone continued on without finding anything, or keep first watch on duty and risk them being utterly exhausted if it did find something.
“Contact!” Davis barked, almost causing him to jump. “One of the last anomalies is an eighty-five percent match for an Alpha and a sixty percent match for the one that fled Xi’an.”
“OPS, tell Engineering to prepare the Ares for normal flight mode,” Jackson said. “Coms, call down to Flight OPS, and have them redirect the drone for a closer look at this anomaly.”
As the crew shook off the lethargy that had settled in during the long watch, Jackson pulled up the raw data from the drone on his terminal and looked at the radar returns. He had to admit, it did look a lot like the stern quarter of an Alpha, but after looking at the feed in continuous frame mode, it appeared the anomaly was in a slow tumble. He frowned, trying to make sense of what he was seeing.
“Engineering has cleared the Ares for normal flight, Captain,” Davis said.
“Helm, engage along the prescribed course. All ahead one half.”
“Ahead one half, aye.”
“Nav, plot a series of contingency courses for the anomaly,” Jackson said. “One standard approach, one stealth approach, and one max performance. I also want an escape course back to our jump point being constantly updated.”
“Aye, sir,” Specialist Accari said.
“The drone is being backtracked along its original course to get updated data on the anomaly,” Davis said. “It will be a full burn, sir. If anything out there is looking, it’s going to light up like a beacon.”
“It’s been thrusting into the system the whole time while broadcasting on multiple bands, Lieutenant,” Jackson said. “If something were going to take notice of it, I would think we’d have seen it by now. Tell Commander Juarez to proceed with his current flight profile.”
“Yes, sir,” Davis said.
It didn’t take long for the lightweight, overpowered drone to come around and accelerate back to where it had last had contact with the anomaly. Jackson was well aware that the data he was seeing was over two hours old, but it didn’t stop him from tensing up as the high-resolution optics of the drone clearly picked up a Phage Alpha, spinning in the space between the orbits of the fifth and sixth planets in the system.
“Which planet was the AU colony on?” Jackson asked.
“First planet, sir,” Davis said. “Does CIC concur with what we’re seeing from the live feed?” Jackson asked her. “Thermographics appear to be showing no activity. All the visible regions of the hull are uniform in temperature.”
Davis spoke quietly into her headset. “Confirmed, sir.”
“Have the drone get close enough to open fire on it with its point defense lasers,” Jackson said.
“Sir?”
“You heard me, Lieutenant.” Jackson leaned, watching the spinning behemoth resolve in greater detail as the unmanned probe continued on its course.
“Updated commands sent, sir,” Davis said. “Might I ask what you’re hoping the results are?”
“My hope is nothing, Lieutenant,” Jackson said. “If it allows the drone to get in close and pepper it with laser fire without any response, we can conclude that it’s likely dead. If it comes about and destroys the drone, we’re still far enough away to prepare ourselves for engagement.”
She didn’t look particularly relieved at his answer but didn’t question him further.
The speedy Jacobson drone closed the distance to the Alpha in less than three hours, decelerating to a full stop relative to the spinning hulk of the Phage ship. Jackson held his breath as the thermal optics showed the drone’s point defense lasers heating up sections of the hull, inflicting absolutely no damage. Part of the problem was the hull was incredibly resilient to thermal energy, and another was the tepid lasers on the drone couldn’t maintain fire on a single spot for very long due to the enemy ship’s tumble. Inflicting damage wasn’t the point of the experiment, however.
“There!” Jackson said as the bottom of the Alpha came into view. “Roll that back a bit and enhance the damaged portion of the hull.”
Davis split the views on the main display, the left jogging backward to the point the captain wanted and the right showing the real-time feed of the drone, still merrily blasting away at the enemy.
“Here, sir?”
“Yes,” Jackson waved. “Have CIC confirm that the area we’re looking at matches up with where our auto-mag shells hit.”
“Confirmed,” she reported quickly.
“Interesting,” Jackson murmured. “Command the drone to cease fire and take up station, keeping near the Alpha. Prepare a com drone with the data we’ve just collected, and send it back to CENTCOM. Flag it priority one-alpha. Make sure to include the drone’s command codes in the message.”
Flagging it at such a high priority would automatically bring it to the attention of the person he most wanted to see it, while keeping within protocols and alerting command of any noteworthy developments on the frontier.
“Com drone ready, sir,” Davis said. “New instructions to the drone are being updated by Flight OPS.”
“Nav, I’m sending you coordinates for a jump point in this system.” Jackson accessed a secure directory on the command server. “I want a course plotted there, best possible speed. Coms, tell Commander Wright I need her back on the bridge as soon as possible.”
“New course laid in, sir,” Accari said, “But I feel I should point out that this jump point does not correspond to an approved warp lane.”
Barrett shook his head as Jackson gave the young specialist a flat stare.
“I am well aware of that, Specialist Accari,” Jackson said. “Helm, engage on new course, ahead full.”
“Ahead full, aye,” the helmsman said.
The Ares turned off her course leading to the inactive Alpha and accelerated toward the jump point across the system, her main engines pushing her along at over seven hundred Gs.
“Change of plans, sir?” Celesta asked as she hustled back onto the bridge. “We’re not checking out the Alpha?”
“It’s dead,” Jackson said. “We’re leaving the drone here, and CIS can come collect it.”
“Dead?” She grimaced, seeming to still be uncomfortable with using terms like “dead” or “alive” to describe the Phage ships. “Might it not be prudent to use one of our Shrikes to be sure before we leave, sir?”
“Normally, yes,” Jackson said. “But I’m more than convinced that I’m correct, and this is an irreplaceable chance for Fleet Science to get their hands on a mostly intact Phage unit.”
“Yes, sir,” Celesta said, dropping her argument to fire upon the Alpha. “What to you think killed it?”
“Another lucky shot,” Jackson said. “Those shells we managed to get up inside the missile ports must have hit something vital. Not only was the thing cold as space, none of the hull damage had begun to heal. It must have limped this far and died. So, since we know it was unlikely this was its ultimate destination, we’re going to find out what’s hiding beyond this system. We’re not steaming full bore toward the Zulu jump point.”
“I see,” she said noncommittally. “The AU has been evasive about their colony in this system, but they’ve been adamant that they’ve never explored past this point.”
“And yet our mutual friend has found otherwise.” Jackson gave her a tight smile. “While Agent Pike was never able to confirm that the AU had used the Zulu warp lane, he was able to verify the coordinates. It’s going to be the same drill: hop in, take a peek, hop out.”
“I’ll prepare a brief for the command section.” Celesta pulled her terminal around.
“Prepare a general brief for the entire crew as well, if you would,” Jackson said. “The information is highly classified, but they need to be ready for the worst.”
“Yes, sir.”
Chapter 6
The Ares transitioned back into real-space after warping 14.7 light-years from the X-ray System. A quick star fix by Nav verified that they’d arrived in the Zulu System, but they’d transitioned in far closer than Jackson had wanted. They were actually within the orbit of the outermost planet.
“Nav, get with CIC and find out why we’re so far into the system,” Jackson ordered. “OPS, get the main engines up, and stow the warp drive. Tactical, begin passive sweeps of the system.”
“Any idea why we missed our target so badly?” Celesta asked quietly.
“My first guess would be that we had faulty intel from CIS as to the precise location of this system,” Jackson said. “We’ll update our position here so the trip back won’t have a repeat.”
“Contact!” Barrett said sharply. “Captain, we have a multitude of thermal contacts, some quite massive, moving about within the inner system.”
“Any chance they’re natural phenomenon?” Jackson asked.
“There’s a chance, sir, but the computer is giving a seventy-eight percent probability that they’re artificial constructs,” Barrett said.
“Phage ships don’t normally have such dramatic heat signatures.” Celesta looked over Barrett’s shoulder.
“No they don’t,” Jackson drummed his fingers on the armrest of his chair. “At least not when they’ve been actively trying to hide, but I don’t think that’s what we’re seeing here. Look at these three larger contacts… The scale is off the charts. I think we’re getting our first look at a Phage base of operations. I’ll bet those larger contacts are production facilities.”
“You’re not going to like this, Captain,” Barrett said. “I’m now able to roughly determine size and mass for the other, less pronounced contacts… In addition to the three suspected production facilities, the computer estimates twenty-one Alphas and over three hundred Bravos. The smaller contacts are harder to track because they’re interacting too closely with the larger ones.”
Jackson tried to respond, but his mouth had gone completely dry. There were over three hundred Phage units—twenty-one of them Alphas, and three of unknown specifications other than enormous on a scale that defied logic. This was not good. He had flown his ship right into the lion’s den.
“Okay,” he managed to say eventually. “We came out here to find what the Phage were up to, and I’d say we’ve done just that. This might be the beginnings of a full invasion force. They’re staging up right outside of Terran space, and we need to accomplish two very important goals: gather as much detail as we can about what’s here and then get the hell out of here without being spotted… if we haven’t been already.”
“How would you like to go
about this, sir?” Celesta said, her voice and posture tense.
“That is a very good question, Commander,” Jackson said. “Nav, what’s our position and relative velocity?”
“Thirty-one point six astronomical units from the primary star, fourteen degrees declination off the ecliptic, ninety-eight thousand, four hundred meters per second forward velocity carried over from transition,” Accari said.
“I’m open to suggestions, everyone,” Jackson said. “This is a situation without precedence, and we’ve got a little time before we need to light the mains and then likely be detected.”
“Given the acceleration those Bravos have demonstrated in past engagements, I don’t think it’s realistic to try and stop and accelerate back out to the jump point.” Celesta kept her eyes trained on the computer as it began to populate the threat board with the best extrapolations it could manage, given the very limited information it had so far. “These are just the units showing high heat signatures. There could be hundreds, even thousands, more sitting cold in this system.”
“That’s a disturbing prospect, ma’am,” Barrett said. “If they have any deep patrols running cold, we could be crossing their paths very soon if we haven’t already.”
“OPS, I want this ship as cold as possible,” Jackson said. “Tell Engineering I want the lowest power mode they can manage while keeping in mind we may need to bring the engines and weapons up very quickly if we’re spotted.”
“So turning and running is out,” Celesta said. “We’re also now quite possibly the farthest beyond the frontier that any human ship has ever been, so there’s no vetted and cleared jump point waiting for us somewhere else in the system.”
“Engineering is running both reactors down to twenty-one percent, sir,” Lieutenant Davis said. “Commander Singh said he’ll need three minutes to bring them back up to full power and another five to get the mains started.”
Call to Arms (Black Fleet Trilogy, Book 2) Page 8