Tree of Liberty

by Wayne Basta

  Sartori stood up and left the room without another word.

  Lahkaba took in a deep breath. He could still change his mind. Once Lohcja was free, he could refuse to say anything more to the Alliance. He would be their prisoner, but Lohcja would be free. That was still a net positive.

  An eternity passed while Lahkaba continued to go back and forth about what he would do. When Sartori returned to the room, he still hadn’t decided. But then, she might have changed her mind as well.

  She placed a datapad on the table before him. It showed the familiar figure of Lohcja. As he watched, his Ronid friend was marched down the boarding ramp of a shuttle and left in an abandoned street.

  “There, we’re prepared to release your friend,” Sartori said.

  Lahkaba nodded. “Good. Give me a comm unit.”

  Sartori showed a suspicious look but handed him a comm.

  Tuning it to the frequency he had arranged beforehand, he called Zeric. “I’ve reached an agreement with the Admiral. You can release the prisoner.”

  He could almost feel Zeric wanting to reply, but they had agreed he wouldn’t give any response. Sartori likely already knew that Zeric was back on Sulas, but if she didn’t, there was no reason to confirm it for her.

  Lahkaba turned to Sartori. “Train your satellites to downtown Ciread, Blueth Park,” he said.

  She issued the order and Lahkaba watched as an image appeared. The park was an open field in the center of Ciread. At this time of day, the place was mostly empty. It took them only a few moments to identify the figure of Dolan standing there.

  A look of profound relief crossed the admiral’s face. “You’re as good as your word, it seems,” Sartori said. “Now, about this Dotran invasion?”

  “As soon as the shuttle takes off again, I’ll talk,” Lahkaba said. He thought Sartori was someone he could take at her word, but you didn’t get very far in politics if you assumed that too often.

  She gave him a slight nod of what almost looked like begrudging respect and then keyed a button on the datapad. “Return to the ship.”

  The image on the screen switched to what must have been an external cam on the shuttle. It showed Lohcja still standing in the street, looking confused. Then a wave of dust brushed past him, and he started to shrink as the shuttle took off. At that, Lohcja must have decided to take his chances—he started running into the darkness.

  Lahkaba let out a big sigh. Now was the time to decide. Had he sacrificed himself merely for the safety of his oldest friend, or to betray the Union’s trust to avenge the lives of his native people?

  “A Dotran fleet will be launching an attack against Ailleroc in fifteen days,” Lahkaba began and then proceeded to lay out the composition of the strike force and every detail he could remember from Bryel’s briefings.

  Sartori listened to him explain everything, only asking a few clarifying questions. Once he was done, she sat there for several long minutes.

  “Your rebels made a treaty with the Confederacy. And now you’re betraying them. It wasn’t for your friend’s life, and it wasn’t to end the war—you knew I would never accept that demand. So I ask, why are you doing this? And you better answer sincerely, or I might decide to send that shuttle back down to the surface to hunt down Mr. Cargon,” Sartori said, her tone calm but serious.

  Lahkaba took a deep breath and decided that since he had said this much, he might as well tell the whole story. “As part of our deal with the Confederacy, we became involved in helping them identify elements within a Kowwok resistance movement. This led to the deaths of several thousand Kowwok resistance fighters, which we hadn’t anticipated happening. Now, the fleet that’s headed to attack Ailleroc has been stripped of all Kowwok crew members. Allowing you to destroy it would exact retribution for that atrocity.”

  As he spoke, he found his voice growing colder and angrier. When he finished, Sartori merely nodded and then left the room without another word.

  Following Josserand proved harder than Solyss had originally thought. Bypassing a security checkpoint without the aid of his virus meant taking out any turrets the hard way and then hacking through the security door. They didn’t have enough high-yield explosive to punch through more than one door, as they were built specifically to withstand explosives.

  Fortunately, Asheerah and her marines had trained for this. When Zeric had first organized her platoon, he had set them up as a space assault force, intended to perform missions exactly like this one. Their armor wouldn’t hold up against sustained fire forever, but it lasted long enough to take the necessary shots at the automated turrets. Working in conjunction, one would draw fire while the other two dropped the turrets with combined fire.

  Hacking through the security doors took far longer, but there were less of those. The biggest obstacle Solyss faced proved to be simply not knowing where Josserand was headed. At first, assuming he hadn’t reboarded the elevator, there had only been one possible direction. From there, they avoided any turn that showed signs of being guarded by people—the one obstacle Josserand’s program would not let him bypass. But that still left them choosing between several turns.

  After fifteen minutes of not finding any sign of him, Solyss called a halt. Time was not on their side. Activating his comm gear, he said, “We’re going to have to break radio silence.”

  He opened a link to Davidus, who was with the team moving toward the engine room. Without Josserand, they had to face the defensive emplacements, though they had more marines with them. Unfortunately, now that Josserand had gone rogue, getting to engineering would not help their efforts to take the ship. If the crew were halfway competent, they would lock out the computers. The plan had been for Josserand to override those lock-outs from the bridge and restore control.

  “Commander,” Solyss said, “our companion has gone rogue and slipped away. He’s not headed for the bridge. Any idea of a location he might be headed that would be important?”

  Solyss had originally been against Davidus coming on this mission. This plan had been Solyss’s. Sending a superior officer along had seemed like an insult. Now, considering Davidus’s knowledge of this class of ship, Solyss was glad to have him.

  “The closest equally useful location would be auxiliary control, but that’s two decks above you,” Davidus replied, making Solyss want to curse. Moving between decks would take even more time.

  Davidus continued, “However, this Fox has done a lot of retrofitting. It wouldn’t be surprising if he’d set up his own personal auxiliary control center. The easiest place to do that would be on the same deck as the bridge. Aft of frame forty-seven on the starboard side. A lot of the network control links run through that section.”

  Solyss looked around for a sign. After a second, he spotted one—frame fifty-two—and knew where he was. They would need to backtrack some but were at least already on the starboard side of the ship.

  “Let’s go,” he said to Asheerah and the others.

  Moving back the way they had come at least allowed them to go through areas devoid of defensive emplacements. They narrowly avoided a firefight with another team of guards but reached frame forty-seven without incident. Solyss suspected that reinforcements would be headed toward them shortly.

  Moving around the area, Asheerah spotted a pair of dead bodies. Neither was one their team had killed. Moving cautiously, they approached the door next to the bodies.

  The door, while locked, was not one of the heavy security barriers. Not wanting to wait for a hack through it, Solyss ordered Asheerah to place some of their explosives. Even though her helmet obscured her face, he could sense her smile.

  Asheerah placed a stick of explosive, and then they all backed away a short distance. Solyss started to back around the corridor, expecting any explosive Asheerah placed to be dangerous to anyone within twenty meters, but she shook her head. Apparently, they needed whomever, or whatever, was on the other side of the door intact.

  There was a small pop, and a puff of smoke appe
ared, and then the door slid open. As soon as it did, the marines moved, two pushing the door wide enough for people to get through and the last one running into the room, rifle ready. Solyss and Kard hung back until all the marines were inside and then followed.

  The inside of the room surprised him. It was spacious. Clearly, several sections of the ship had been retrofitted to be one large area. Beautiful paintings and tapestries hung from the walls, representing art from many different worlds. A large fish tank took up one entire wall.

  Not every part of the room was given over to opulent luxuries. One section of wall was full of control panels and holographic displays. A holo-communicator took up one corner.

  In the chair of the communicator sat a wizened old Liw’kel with a light bluish skin. The color had faded with age compared to the brightness of Asheerah and other Liw’kel Solyss knew. The old man had his eyes locked onto the figure of Josserand, who stood before him, holding a rifle aimed at him.

  “Josserand!” Solyss shouted. “Put the gun down.”

  Turning his head slightly, Josserand gave them one of his characteristic sleazy smiles. “I see you managed to catch up with me. Good for you. I was wondering what was taking so long.”

  “What was taking so long was that you ran off,” Solyss growled. “Now put down the weapon. We’re only using lethal force when necessary. This man is unarmed and unarmored.”

  “This man,” Josserand sneered, “is the most powerful crime lord in the history of the galaxy. This is the mighty Fox. Don’t imagine for a second that he’s not dangerous.” He turned back to face the Fox. “And I’ve beaten him. Once I kill him, I take over his ship and take over his empire.”

  The man identified as the Fox said nothing in reply.

  Solyss cast a glance toward Asheerah. He gave her a small nod, and she returned it. He then holstered his pistol, gesturing to Kard to do the same. The marines followed suit, lowering their rifles.

  “All right, Joss, you’ve beaten him, but we’re not here to kill him. You heard Saracasi’s order: the Fox is not to be killed, nor his people, unless necessary. Put the gun down, and let’s unlock the systems so our teams can get control of the ship.”

  Josserand considered him for a second and then said, “Very well. We can access everything from here. This old shut-in never left this room.” He started to lower the rifle but then shook his head. “No. Before we do that, he needs to die. No one throws me off this ship. Not anymore.”

  As Josserand started to re-aim his rifle at the Fox, Asheerah fired a blast from her own rifle, hitting Josserand with full-power bolts. His body fell to the ground at the Fox’s feet.

  “Asheerah!” Solyss shouted. “You were supposed to stun him.”

  “I couldn’t risk that he was wearing stun-resistant clothing, and I only had enough time for one shot,” she said, her tone making it sound like she was stating the obvious.

  Solyss frowned but didn’t say anything in response. He wanted to reprimand her. Not because he cared that Josserand was dead, but because they had needed the criminal to take over the ship, and because Solyss didn’t like unnecessary killing.

  But he thought back to the incident aboard the Gallant when they had taken the ship from the Alliance. There, he had killed the ship’s Alliance captain because he wore a stun-resistant uniform. Because Asheerah and the other marines had their weapons on stun, the captain had almost had time to get off a distress signal, which would have caused the mission to fail.

  Now, doing the opposite had been the quick, necessary action that had saved the Fox’s life, though it still might end the mission in failure. Without Josserand, gaining control of the ship’s systems with the small strike force would be difficult, if not impossible. They would need more skilled code-breakers and technicians from the fleet. But they couldn’t signal the fleet to jump in closer until they could guarantee control over the ship’s weapons.

  There was only one option available to him now. “Mr. Fox, I’m Major Solyss Novastar of the Union Navy.”

  “Oh, I know who you are, Major,” the old Liw’kel said with a smile. “Your reputation extends from here to the Trepon sector. Liberator of worlds, hero of the people. I suppose you’re here to ‘liberate’ my ship?”

  Solyss frowned at the sarcastic comment but said, “Yes, sir, we are. In the interest of preserving the freedom of the people of this sector, we have need of your ship. You’ve made it clear that you’re unwilling to negotiate with us. As distasteful as it is, we need this ship.”

  “I can applaud your resolve,” the Fox said. “But I’m afraid I can’t just let you have it.”

  Solyss sighed. He found he liked this old man. He had never liked the idea of taking the ship by force—people should join the cause of righteousness willingly. But that was an idealistic notion, not the real world.

  “However,” the Fox continued, a sly smile crossing his face, “I would be willing to let you borrow her. For the right price.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “Thoughts?” Katerina asked.

  Across from her, Major Anderson looked contemplative. The wall monitor beside them still showed Lahkaba sitting in the interrogation cell. After finishing her discussion with the Kowwok rebel, Katerina had left to consider her options.

  “It appears incredibly convenient that a Confederate fleet would be coming to attack Ailleroc right now. Especially after we just learned from our intelligence branch that the rebels are planning a major uprising on Sulas. Lahkaba said specifically in that meeting that he would remove our fleet from the equation,” Anderson speculated, a hint of nervousness in her voice. “And now he’s here, with talk about a sudden Dotran attack force requiring our departure from this planet.”

  Anderson continued, “However, the two don’t have to be mutually exclusive. The attack could very well be real. From what I saw of Lahkaba, I definitely got a sense of genuine hatred for the Dotran and disgust at this alliance with them. He could be using us to get his revenge and to give the rebels a temporary advantage all at once.”

  Katerina nodded. She missed having Dolan to discuss these matters with and would have preferred waiting for him for this discussion, but it would take some time for the doctors to look him over and for the intelligence officers to debrief him. For now, she had to be content with Anderson. At least her new aide’s thoughts matched her own.

  She didn’t relish being stuck between two equally untenable positions, even though it was a common problem to have in warfare and a familiar feeling. “If we take the fleet to Ailleroc, we can meet and crush the Dotran forces. If we stay here, if the fleet is real and the size Lahkaba says, it will probably overwhelm our defenses there. But if we leave, the rebels have a chance to attack our ground forces without our ability to assist,” Katerina said, thinking aloud.

  “Unfortunately, I think we only really have one choice,” Anderson said. “We have to meet the Confederate fleet. Their involvement in this conflict has been our biggest concern all along. Our ground forces should be adequate to counter the rebel assault, especially if our false intelligence proves successful. We can’t allow Ailleroc to fall to an outside threat.”

  Despite the situation, a smile came to Katerina’s lips. Dolan had been her right hand for several years, and she had come to rely on him. Fortunately, he hadn’t been the only one paying attention among her staff. Anderson saw the situation clearly and had come to the same conclusion as she had.

  “Very well, Major. Signal the fleet to prepare for departure. We won’t take any chances. Send a packet ship to the MEF and have them redeploy to Ailleroc. Tell the ground bases to have their fighters take over blockade duty. If the rebel fleet shows up, the ground weapons should be able to hold them off,” Katerina ordered.

  To herself, she said, assuming the Dotran aren’t really coming here. Then Sulas would fall to them easily. But she doubted this. If Lahkaba was playing them, then the Dotran fleet likely didn’t even exist. If it did, and was planning to attack Sulas, it w
ould be in the rebels’ interest to have her fleet here, caught off guard by a surprise attack and potentially wiped out.

  With luck, she would crush the Dotran fleet at the same time that her ground commanders crushed the rebels on Sulas.

  As useful as the Black Market would be, Saracasi found herself not thrilled about making the ship part of the fleet. Even though she hadn’t wanted to take the ship from the Fox by force, at least then it would have been no different than the Gallant or any other former Alliance ship they had captured. But that mission had failed, and the mighty warship still belonged to a criminal. That disturbed her some.

  Union ships could be counted on to be loyal and fight to the end. Even with Davidus in command, she couldn’t be sure the Black Market would follow all her commands as long as the Fox still had authority onboard.

  What really disturbed her was the deal Solyss had made with the Fox. In exchange for the use of the ship to finish the war, he had agreed not only that it would be repaired and restored, but also that it would be upgraded with the Audacious’s regenerative shield technology.

  Having that power in the hands of a freelance criminal worried her, as it should have worried Solyss. On the up side, she knew that even with the upgrades, the Black Market wouldn’t be nearly as powerful as Audacious had been. It just wasn’t possible to retrofit a ship with the tech very well. Only a ship built from scratch could take full advantage of it. She doubted Solyss had known that when he had made the deal.

  What was done was done, she thought. The fleet was now in hyperspace, about to arrive at Enro. It was time for her to focus her attention on the upcoming battle.

  She had kept her flag aboard Defiant Glory. Not trusting the Black Market, she hadn’t wanted to run the risk of being cut off from the fleet if the Fox decided to renege on the deal. Even with all the retrofitting and changes the Fox had done, the Black Market had a much better equipped CIC, but she liked the familiarity of the old mining ship.