by T. R. Harris
Wydor relaxed back in his satisfied reverie as Overlord Enulic took an incoming link over his wrist comm. The moment didn’t last long as Enulic concluded his link: “Our forward units have detected fast-moving ships directly ahead,” Enulic reported.
“How many? Source?”
“Only two, spread over a wide vector; origin unknown.”
“Is there more to report; you appear worried.”
“The vessels are traveling at five times our maximum speed, and the track they follow is from deep within the Void, away from Elision.”
“I understand your concern, Lord Enulic. We must endeavor to avoid these ships; their gravity-wells must be highly disruptive.”
“Curiously, my Lord, they are not. I must leave now to investigate further. I am placing the fleet on full alert.”
“Very good, Command-Overlord. I wish to assume my presence on your bridge.”
“As you wish.”
Chapter 36
“Holy crap! Do you see that, Steve?”
“How can I miss it? That looks like a whole damn fleet.” Lieutenant Steve Kimball couldn’t take his eyes off his regional scan screen, now alight with hundreds—if not thousands—of contacts. The pilot of the other scout ship, Lieutenant Junior Grade Evan March, and he were in direct comm link, aboard two of the swift-effect scouts sent out ahead of the fleet. Two other scouts were also on patrol, but they hadn’t reported the mass of contacts—not yet.
“They’ve seen us! We were right on top of them before we knew it,” Kimball continued.
“This wasn’t what we were expecting to run into,” March said in their defense. “I’m dumping a burst to the fleet, then we’ve gotta get out of here.”
“I’m seeing about thirty contacts breaking my way; the same for you!” Kimball pulled the stick over and made a wide loop—made wider by the incredible speed at which he was traveling.
“Incoming!” March cried out, himself in a wide bank away from the cluster of contacts. “Shit!”
The spread of deadly flash bolts closed off the loop that March was executing. He tried to compensate, yet it was too late. The bolts were designed to penetrate the defenses of huge capital ships, so they made quick work of March’s lightly-armored scout.
Lt. Kimball saw the green contact light wink out on his board, yet he didn’t have time to mourn the loss of his friend, not if he was to avoid suffering the same fate. He dumped a burst link to the fleet as well, and then rather than line up directly with the Human fleet, he bolted out at a forty degree vector, plus-twenty. He was a scout, and the last thing he wanted to do was lead this massive alien force to back to his own. If he was lucky, they would follow him, allowing the Humans to approach this hostile fleet on their six.
Yet as Lt. Kimball watched the view-encompassing pale pink glow of the Shield spread out before him—a constant in any direction one looked within the Void—he knew that the presence of this many apparently active and undamaged starships within the area meant that plans would have to be revised. They were not supposed to be here.
********
“This is not a drill, General Quarters, General Quarters! All hands man your battle stations!” The GQ claxon shocked Adam out of a light slumber in the small officer’s stateroom he’d been assigned.
The accommodations aboard The Trident were not the best—nor the worst—he’d experienced, but space aboard the starship was limited. The giant flying saucer was operating so far from any possible friendly base that every square inch aboard had to be used for critical missions. And sleeping arrangements weren’t deemed as critical a mission as others.
Wearing one of the new steel gray uniform pants and white tee shirt, he quickly slipped on his shoes and stepped out into the passageway. He was so new to the ship that he had yet to be assigned a GQ station, so he stood for a moment wondering which direction to go.
Just then the door to another of the small staterooms opened down the passageway and Riyad Tarazi stepped out. He was wearing matching pants, but was bare-chested and carrying a tee shirt. He stopped abruptly in the doorway when he saw Adam—his mouth forming an ‘O’—while someone ran into him from behind.
“What the fuck, Riyad!” a female voice cried out. And then Sherri Valentine shoved her way around him, buttoning up her steel-gray blouse as she did.
The three of them stood in stunned silence staring at one another....
Just then more sailors began to fill the passageway; Adam was forced to join a group heading forward, while Riyad and Sherri chose to go aft. With his mind slightly numb, Adam found himself entering the CIC. There was a professional, yet frenetic buzz filling the space, although it still took Adam another moment or two to focus on his surroundings.
What had he just seen? Was it what it looked like?
A pair of hands was placed on his shoulders and Captain Adam Cain was gently pushed out of the way. “Excuse me sir, but I need this station,” said the petty officer 2nd class.
“Oh, sorry,” was all he managed to say.
“Captain, glad you’re here,” a voice said off to his right. His eyes were just now adjusting to the dimness of the CIC and he recognized Admiral Christian Bergmann.
“Thank you, sir; what’s going on?”
“Scouts just picked up a massive fleet heading this way coming from the Elision region.”
It took Adam a moment for the news to sink in. I really need to concentrate!
“Kracori?”
“Unknown at this point; the techs are analyzing the burst data that just came in. We should have a reading on the grav-sigs pretty soon. Care to join me on the bridge?”
The bridge of The Trident was a study in organized chaos. There were uniformed sailors darting back and forth, and yet everyone seemed to know where they were going and what they had to do. Fleet Admiral Jacob Nash was just now slipping into his command seat at the portside of the bridge and noticed Adam and Bergmann enter from the CIC.
“Best laid plans....” he said as the two officers approached his station. “This thing is huge, and apparently fully intact.”
All three scanned the data streams crossing the various screens in front of them. None of this made sense, Adam thought. There shouldn’t be an intact fleet this size operating within the Void—except that of the Humans.
“Preliminary readings are in, sirs,” a chief petty officer called out from a nearby workstation. “Sigs match those of Juirean capital ships. Estimated fleet size over four thousand vessels.”
“Roger that, Chief,” Bergmann acknowledged. Then both the admirals turned to stare at Adam.
“The Kracori and Nebula forces were set to strike the Juireans just as Sherri—Ms. Valentine—initiated her rescue maneuvers, sir. After that all hell broke loose. But this ... this doesn’t make sense. This appears to be the entire Juirean fleet.”
“That’s exactly what it is, Captain,” Nash said sternly. “How they got past the defenders is anyone’s guess, but right now they’re here and heading straight for us.”
“How could they have known—”
“One scout reported lost, Admiral,” said the chief. “Eyes three, two and four are scrambling. Lt. Kimball and the others are attempting to lead the fleet away from our location.”
“Plot the location of the main fleet and put it on the board, Chief. Let me know the moment we learn if Kimball’s plan is working.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Well, this changes everything,” Bergmann said turning his attention back to the other two officers. “With Kimball and his scouts scrambling, we’re going to lose any reliable eyes we have out there. And if the Juireans have emerged from that pending clash at the head of the Corridor unscathed, what’s the state of the Kracori fleet?”
“Chris, get my senior staff to my ready room in ten minutes with all the data they can gather about the capabilities of both fleets. We’ll have to rework our game plan, and apparently on a grand scale.”
“Admiral Nash, let me take the Pegasus
back toward Elision,” Adam said. “I know the lay of the land better than anyone—even though that’s not saying much. We need to know the status of the Kracori fleet and what really happened at the Corridor.”
“Go, Captain,” Nash said without hesitation. “Without competent intel, it’s going to be hard to continue with this mission. Contingency plans had us going up against an intact Kracori defense, but never against two fleets. And then the Klin are mucking things up, too. I need intel, Cain; get it for me.”
“Will do, sir.”
Adam nearly sprinted from the bridge and headed back to his stateroom. He would grab his gear and commandeer a shuttle for the flit out to the Pegasus. Presently, there were four aliens residing aboard the small starship. Now Adam ran through his mind who else he needed to bring on the flight. Admiral Andy Tobias would be one, as would the Master Chief. And Sherri and Riyad? They would insist on going, but in light of the encounter in the passageway, Adam wasn’t quite sure how he felt about that. He knew he shouldn’t let personal factors weigh in his decision, but that was easier said than done.
Seeing that this was simply a reconnaissance mission, he opted not to call them. Instead, he called Tobias and Rutledge from his stateroom and then headed for the landing bay.
What he hadn’t counted on was that Sherri and Riyad would be with Tobias when he made his brief call. By the time Adam reached the landing bay, all four of the others were there—including Riyad and Sherri.
Adam noticed a concerned look on Riyad’s face, yet Sherri was livid. “You were just going to cut us out? What’s wrong with you, dickhead; we’re a fucking team.”
“It’s just a quick in and out for intel. We’re not going to be engaging anyone.”
“I don’t care,” Sherri said as she snatched up her go-bag and began to step on the shuttle.
“You have a lot to learn about chain-of-command and command protocols, Valentine!” Adam yelled after her.
“Like I said, I don’t care,” was the echoed reply from inside the shuttle.
Riyad stepped up to Adam. “I’d really like to go, too, my friend,” he said sheepishly.
Adam sighed deeply. “Get onboard, but we’ll probably have to send some of the aliens back with the shuttle. The Pegasus wasn’t built for a crew of nine.”
There was a moment of eye contact between the two men, as they both understood that crew capacity of the Pegasus had nothing to do with Adam’s decision not to call him.
There was a look of extreme sadness on the face of Riyad Tarazi.
********
“We’re going!” Jym said as he bounded toward Adam. “And we have the ATD’s. They might come in handy.”
The little bear was right. He, Kaylor and Trimen still had functioning ATD’s under their skin—as did Sherri Valentine. And although Adam wasn’t expecting any actual combat where the artificial telepathy devices might be needed, he did see a need for the communications capabilities of the units.
He turned to Ruszel Crin.
The Tel’oran looked at all the other eyes staring at him. “Well, I do know the politics of the Nebula better than all of you. And if what you say is true about a pending clash between the Human and Juirean fleets, then being out with you, Adam Cain, may prove to be the safer course to take. I will go.”
Adam sent him a curt nod. “Kaylor, take the pilotseat,” Adam commanded. “Jym, Ruszel: navigation; Trimen: the comm station. The rest of you lay to the common room and standby for when we have actual intel to analyze and relay back to the fleet. I’ll be here, in the pilothouse. Now everyone ... to your stations; Kaylor, take us out of here.”
“Yes sir!” Kaylor said with a thin smile. After all these years, he had finally learned to say sir.
********
“The three ships—there are now three of them—have merged and are following a track right of our present course and about twenty degrees up,” a Guard-tech was informing Command-Overlord Enulic. Wydor could hear the report from his command chair. “There is no chance of catching them; their drives are too deep.”
“And yet no undue disruptions?”
“No, my Lord, very minimal and very contained.”
Enulic nodded to the tech, who then turned and left. “How can they travel at such speeds and not send gravity wakes all around them?” he asked more rhetorically than expecting the Juirean Elder to provide an answer.
“They are scouts, Lord Enulic. Perhaps they are built for such high-speed to enhance their mission. And yet if the technology exists for these vessels ... then why not more?”
“Precisely, my Lord. The only race with the capability to build such ships—with a breakthrough in technology—would be the Humans.”
“Or the Klin.” Wydor added.
The comment stopped Enulic in his tracks. For so long the Command-Overlord had been preparing for a military clash with both the Kracori and the Humans, that he had almost completely disregarded the Klin as a viable threat in that regard.
“They are technologically superior to every other race in the galaxy. It would not be unusual for them to have advanced gravity-drive technology. It would also explain why we have not been able to locate any substantial Klin concentrations in space.”
Wydor smiled. He hated to play such what-if games with his fleet commander, but it was the Elder’s job to assess all sides of an issue and then select the best course of action for the Juirean people. “However, Enulic, if the Humans did possess such technology, then the presence of these odd ships could be explained.”
“My Lord?” Enulic said with a frown.
“This new drive could have allowed them to reach the Nebula ahead of schedule, which would explain the screen scouts placed out before a hidden Human fleet.”
“So which is it, my Lord?” Wydor could detect the frustration in Enulic’s voice.
“That is what you must learn, Command-Overlord—and learn quickly.”
********
It was thirty minutes after Lord Enulic dispatched his own forward scouts that reports of unknown contacts began to filter back to the fleet. The contents of the reports only added to Wydor’s confusion and concern.
“That’s impossible,” Wydor could hear Enulic exclaim. “Twenty miles or more? Are you sure they are constructs?”
“Yes my Lord. The mass of the vessels is so great that the scans are undeniable. They are spaceships, five of them.”
“Course?”
“Not directly in our direction, yet about twenty-degrees relative left.”
Wydor was already collating the data in his mind. The scouts they had detected earlier were now traveling away from the fleet to the right. These new contacts were located to the fleet’s left. So either the scouts were attempting to deceive, or else there are two unknown forces operating within the Void. It was Wydor’s conclusion that the scouts and the large spacecraft were of the same origin, otherwise the coincidence was too improbable. And yet who could build spaceships over twenty miles in diameter....
“Forgive the interruption,” Lord Wydor said. All the others nearby stopped and waited in deference to the status of the Council Elder. “Has the shape of these huge ships been yet discerned?”
The question caught the tech off guard. “I have no knowledge of that, my Lord, yet I will ask for an immediate analysis.”
“Very good.”
The tech left, without waiting for Command-Overlord Enulic to dismiss him.
“We shall soon learn, Enulic,” Wydor said, a tinge of excitement building in his tone.
“Could it be possible? Would not the Langril have known?”
“He may have known, and yet did not reveal the truth to me.”
Lord Enulic tightened his jaw. “Deceit on this level—”
“Yes, Command-Overlord,” Wydor interrupted, “could cause our prior agreement to be set aside. And although it was my idea to sequester the fleet in this part of the Void, I feel we may have underestimated Langril Nomar Polimic’s talents at persuasion and
subliminal suggestion.”
“We must beware of a trap, my Lord.”
“Yes. The presence of these massive spaceships, accompanied by the remarkable gravity-drives of the smaller vessels, could prove that we are about to confront something entirely new and unexpected, and possibly for this reason Nomar believed it would spell the end of our fleet and without the massive loses of his own. Send out more scouts and probes. I want to know all that occupies this part of the Void. There is much more here than was originally surmised.”
********
“They cannot be the Kracori,” the Klin Pleabaen Wesselian Velsum exclaimed, “so it must be the Juireans.”
“We concur,” said the senior military strategist for the Klin, Annis Corshum. Velsum was with the main section of the Colony now skirting the wall of the Shield, many light years from the five pods now under surveillance by the Juireans. “There may be an opportunity for a clash between the Juireans and the pursuing Humans.”
“Can you effect a joining, Annis? In the confusion, the pods may be allowed to escape.”
“The Humans are being cautious about closing the gap between their fleet and our pods. They may still be unaware who we are.”
“I could instruct the pods to turn back on the Humans.”
“They could see that as a hostile act and fire upon them,” Velsum said. He thought for a moment, studying the track screen. “Have the pods steer left ninety-degrees. That will force both fleets to turn to follow and they should join up on their flanks. All that is required is a mutual detection on the part of the two great fleets. After that natural forces will take over. And on their new course, the pods should be able to rendezvous with us as the mighty fleets smash each other to atoms.”
“And yet, my Pleabaen, the questions remains: What are the Juireans doing this far into the Void, and seemingly to have suffered no losses to the Kracori and Nebula forces?”
“That I do not know, yet this fortuitous event may serve to save our fellow Klin within the pods. It has indeed been a strange few hours within the Dysion Void, but it is apparent that we Klin are now fighting for our very survival. Of all the forces now moving about the Void, we are the most unprotected. Drastic measures may be needed if we are to escape.”