First Command kb-2

by Rodney L. Smith

  The man laughed and said, “Come with me. We were just getting ready for breakfast. You look like you could use a meal.”

  Alistair, realizing he had no local currency, tried to beg off. “I can’t afford to eat here and I never accept a gift when I can’t give one back.”

  The young man held out his hand, “I’m Russell. I work here and my woman is the chef. Breakfast is on the owner, who is probably sleeping off last night’s drinking. What he don’t know won’t hurt him.”

  Alistair went with the young man into the restaurant, not knowing how to get away without raising further suspicions than he had already.

  Inside he was introduced to Sally, the chef. She asked him where he was from.

  Alistair answered truthfully, that he was from Archimedes. This elicited a strong reaction from Sally.

  “So you’re from the lost settlement?”

  Alistair answered that he was.

  She asked, “What was it like to quickly go from the 19th Century to the 23rd?”

  He responded that it was easy for some, not so easy for others. Some embraced it. Others ran from it. Those that couldn’t make the transition were allowed to stay on Archimedes in a nineteenth century enclave, protected from the outside universe. He occasionally heard of people leaving the enclave and of others entering the enclave who could no longer cope with outside. Himself, he enjoyed the future.

  She asked him how he got here on Barataria and he changed the subject by saying that he had been invited in for breakfast, not twenty questions. Sally apologized and started heating three skillets. A handful of eggs were set next to the first. Bacon went in the second. Potatoes went into the third.

  Alistair asked if there was someplace he could wash up and was directed to the staff restroom. He closed the door behind him, pulled out his communicator, uploaded the report, and sent it. After he put away his communicator and washed his hands, he went out to the smells of glorious food cooking. It was real food, not anything processed or manufactured.

  “My, but that smells wonderful. I haven’t had real food since I left Archimedes.”

  Sally spoke up, “Well, that’s all you’ll get here. We don’t use replicators or ready-made meals. Everything is made fresh.”

  Sally moved over to a prep table, scooped out equal quantities of eggs, bacon, and potatoes onto three plates. Alistair was handed a plate and flatware and they all sat down at a small table in the kitchen. She let Alistair get his first fork full of eggs then asked, “Now who are you really? You may be from Archimedes, but you sure as hell aren’t from here. Are you from security checking up on us?”

  Alistair took a bite of bacon chewed it and asked, “What makes you think I’m not from here?”

  She looked at him like he was an idiot, pointed at her neck, and said, “First thing, you don’t have a scar on your Adams apple where they put the chip in. This means you are either slumming or from security. Which are ya?”

  “Neither. Let me ask you something. Do you like it here living in slavery?”

  Sally exploded, “Do I like it? Do I like it? What are you, a moron? Of course I don’t like it. Who the hell would like being someone else’s property?”

  Alistair let her calm down some and said, “I’m with the cavalry. In a day or two all hell is going to break loose. This pirates’ den is going to be turned upside down.”

  She looked at him with wariness in her eyes, “What are you trying to pull?”

  “I’m not trying to pull anything. These pirates thought they were invulnerable in this star cluster. That is no longer the case. The Galactic Republic is tired of their raids and retribution is coming. You say you have a chip. Show me where.”

  Sally put down her fork and stood up. She pointed to where her Adam’s apple would be if she were a man. “See the scar?”

  Alistair pulled his hand sensor from his pocket and waved it at Sally’s throat. He did the same for Russell.

  “I don’t know what they told you, but there is no chip in your neck. I bet it hurt like hell when they poked you, too.”

  “What do you mean there is no chip? If I didn’t have a chip I couldn’t travel to the moon and I’ve been there twice.”

  “There is no chip in your neck.”

  “But I could feel it after they put it in!”

  “What you felt was probably a grain of rice or the scar from them poking you with a big damn needle.”

  Russell said, “Wave that thing at my neck again.”

  Alistair did the same for him and said, “No chip.”

  “This is what they use in some prisons to cut down on escape attempts. They’re cheaper than using real chips that prisoners sometimes cut out.”

  Sally asked him, “Okay, now that that is settled, why are you here?”

  “I’m looking for three recent captives. These are three women that are worth a lot of credits in the form of ransom.”

  Sally and Russell looked at each other and exclaimed at the same time, “That’s what that was.”

  Alistair looked at them and said, “That’s what ‘what’ was?”

  Sally started off. “We got three special orders in here a few days ago. One of the orders was for pearlfish fillets. I thought, what moron thinks we can get pearlfish here? It had to be someone new and rich or showing off. I substituted another local fish and fixed the meals. The guards were in a big hurry, so I had to drop everything and make those meals. Well, we plated and packaged the meals, but the Ascetics guards were scared they would spill them, so they took Russell along to wrangle the meals. Russell, you take it from here.”

  “They took me to this big house up on the ridgeline. This house looks like something out of Pride and Prejudice. It comes complete with liveried servants in powdered wigs and the long coats and short pants. I spoke to one of them and he told me there were three important women there.”

  Can you show me on this screen where the house is?”

  Russell looked at the hand sensor screen and pointed to the general vicinity. Alistair zoomed in until Russell was pointing at the exact house.

  Alistair finished his breakfast and thanked them for saving him a lot of useless walking. He warned them to stay away from military facilities for the next few days and wished them luck. He would look them up after this was over.

  Alistair set off to the northeast in search of the big house. He stuck to the alleyways as much as possible. While the chips were a fraud, the neck scars were not and he didn’t have one. When he left the northern outskirts of town he sat behind a tree and sent out a special report. He told the Vigilant that he had probably found the women, but he was going to verify they were there.

  Captain Ben Alden arranged his ships in the formation he wanted for the initial assault on the pirate world. He led with five missile boats, followed by the two corvettes. The fighter carrier came next, followed by the medium gunboats. The armed cargo ships with their troops trailed in the rear, protected by the remaining missile boats. His four special operatives were on the fighter carrier, ready to ride in the jump seat behind the pilots.

  His plan was to go in and just tear things up. He assumed there would be additional patrols, seeing as how the scout ship had gone in and kicked over the hornet’s nest. He needed to tear up their defenses so the fighters could get his operatives down on the planet. He needed them to find the women.

  Once he had them arranged and briefed on his plan, they were ready to go. He came up on his communicator and said, “Tally Ho.” He didn’t know what it meant, but it sounded cool to say it.

  The formation accelerated slowly and entered into the star cluster. He had given instructions to the missile boats to kill the early warning sensors as the came up on them. They did their job and the first dissolved into a cloud of debris.

  One of the lead missile boats called out, “We got company — twelve ships dead ahead, coming in fast. These are probably those torpedo ships. We’ll launch on them when they come in range.”

  Ben looked ahead
, but saw nothing. He saw one of the missile boats turn into a fireball.

  Another called out, “They have active mines deployed out here on the flanks. Keep your eyes open. Range on the torpedo ships in five seconds. Prepare to fire.”

  Ben saw twelve missiles streak away from the missile boats ahead of them.

  One of the missile boats reported, “Missiles away, but they have fired on us, too. I count 22 torpedoes inbound. I’m switching to guns.”

  All the missile boats switched to guns and fire bursts reached out toward the speeding torpedoes. Ben added his long-range fire to the missile boats’ gunfire.

  Success against missiles and torpedoes was measured in black clouds of smoke, failure for manned ships a short blossoming of orange flames, before the breached atmosphere dissipated in space’s vacuum. Ben counted two missiles boats taken out by torpedoes and 16 torpedoes destroyed. He saw that the two destroyed boats had ripple-fired their missiles before they were hit. Those had been good pilots. He kept up his fire and looked over to Captain Mac’s ship, whose corvette was matching fire with his. He watched the massed missiles hit the torpedo squadron and saw eight ships burst into orange flames, as their internal atmosphere fueled their demise. That left only two missile boats to sweep the path clear and four torpedo boats left in their way.

  Ben saw one of his long-range bursts take out another torpedo ship. He swung right and killed another. Captain Mac took out the other two. Ben ordered Captain Cho to launch her fighters and get the operatives on the ground before the next torpedo squadron got between the planet and his fleet.

  Ben watched the four fighters accelerate past him and streak forward to the planet. Now all they had to do was hold on long enough to recover the fighters.

  The message from Alistair caused quite a stir in the 3rd ALG flag country. Kelly’s communicator buzzed during CPT Chen’s briefing. Several scowling eyes stared at Kelly until he read them the message that Alistair thought he had located the Debran women. Kelly interrupted the briefing to take over the holographic projector controls. He found the house that Alistair referred to and centered it in the hologram.

  Instantly the concept briefing became a planning meeting as the admiral started looking for the best place to land the Vigilant. In fifteen minutes, the concept had gone from a plan to an execution order. Kelly instructed LTJG Cortez to dock the Valiant to the Yellow Jacket and prepare to embark a platoon of Marines and their equipment. He instructed her to clear out the starboard stores locker and consolidate anything in it to the port storage locker.

  Just as quickly, everything came to a screeching halt when his emplaced sensors showed combat taking place in the star cluster. No one could figure out just who the pirates were fighting. Admiral Minacci ordered Kelly to get in there and figure out what was going on. Kelly ran for the admiral’s gig’s airlock and made a speedy trip back to the Vigilant. When he was on board and the gig was away, the Vigilant was already moving. LTJG Cortez had taken Kelly literally when he said get us moving as soon as I’m aboard. By the time Kelly sat in the command chair, they were already at FTL Power 3 and accelerating.

  In an hour, the Vigilant was in amongst the brown dwarves, parallel to the main avenue of approach. Their sensors showed the hulls of destroyed torpedo ships, spent torpedoes, and the burnt out hulls of ships Kelly had never seen before. With the exception of a squadron of torpedo ships, no other ships were within sensor range.

  Chief Johnson called to the bridge that he could identify them and he was enroute to the bridge.

  Chief Johnson pulled up his pocket tablet and showed Kelly data and images of an obsolete commercial missile boat. He said they were mostly parked in bone yards or melted down, but there were still a few used by fleets for hire.

  Chief Johnson said, “Kind of makes you wonder who would have the need and enough credits to hire a private fleet, doesn’t it sir?”

  Kelly had already made the connection. It had to be Debran working both ends against the middle. Bastard probably didn’t care about his family. He only wanted to make sure the pirates paid for their affront to him. Kelly considered him a sick individual.

  Kelly had the Vigilant held at their current position while they prepared a report for the admiral and waited for Alistair’s latest report. When Alistair’s report came in and the admiral’s report went out, Kelly made another high-speed dash across the sector.

  A beat up transport ship badly in need of a paint job and TLC moved slowly into the Rigel Aldebaran sector. Its pitiful exterior did not match the interior, which was K’Rang state of the art. The K’Rang research vessel H’Gou moved toward Rigel, having been ordered to provide data on this sector. Its twin, the T’Rak, concentrated on Aldebaran.

  Between the two, they catalogued every vessel within sensor range. The captain of the T’Rak was attempting to resolve a cluster of ships between Aldebaran and the star cluster that he thought might be Fleet warships. The H’Gou was attempting to resolve what appeared to be a dispersed small fleet of corvettes and smaller combatants. Both captains agreed that there were enough warships in this sector for it not to be a backwater. In their judgment, the Humans considered this to be a frontline sector. Their independent reports to the K’Rang Imperial Analytical Cabal and Fleet commander read almost word for word.

  After they fought off another torpedo ship squadron long enough to recover the four fighters, Ben Alden retired his reduced fleet from the Pleiades star cluster. Upon rallying above Rigel Prime’s pole, he had the ships disperse as before. He had accomplished his goal at the cost of three missile boats and many good men and women. He calculated their death benefit and thought that at least their beneficiaries would live comfortably, cold comfort that it would be for them.

  While he waited for his operatives to do their job, he prepared his report for Mr. Debran.

  Fleet Commander J’Kalt completed his personal inspection of the ships assigned to his command. He caught many discrepancies, improved his command knowledge, and it gave him something to do while awaiting the arrival of the two Shadow Force scout ships. He wouldn’t move without his eyes and ears. The K’Rang could ill afford to waste ships by barging into the unknown; the debacle at G’Dranu taught them that. He would move when he knew what he was up against. This could easily be another Human trap.

  Mr. Debran read Captain Alden’s report with interest. Who would have thought that there was a habitable world in the star cluster? He had anticipated some type of pirate base, an asteroid or moon facility perhaps, but not a living, breathing planet. The scientists for years had said the star cluster was impenetrable. How wrong they were.

  Friedrich Debran saw the possibility of a large profit here. Land equaled credits and an entire world would equal a world full of credits. He called Delphant to arrange for an armored executive transport ship to be brought to Rigel station and kept on stand by. He just might need to visit this pirate world soon.

  Steven Maynard was not having a good week. Yesterday, a mystery ship came in and killed one of his torpedo squadrons. Today, a mystery fleet came in, killed a second, and wounded a third. Fortunately, the damage to the third was only superficial. His ships killed three of a ship type he’d never seen before. What was going on? He couldn’t keep taking losses like this. He only had six squadrons left.

  He notified his Undefeated captains that they would be put onto the shift schedule and one of them would be on patrol around the planet at all times. He would put two torpedo squadrons flying cover at all times. That should give them an edge, being able to support one another.

  He considered that his troubles started when the Debran women were brought in. He discarded that idea as soon as it came into his head. He knew that his pirate brotherhood couldn’t last forever. He knew that the Fleet would come after him, but who owns this other ship and fleet? He had some credits stashed away in various world banks. If he pulled it all together, it made quite a tidy sum. He could live quite comfortably on that sum. He also knew that he would have to sur
vive this current situation before he could even consider that.

  He reviewed his defense plans again and decided to increase the numbers of mines placed by each shift. He also put one torpedo squadron from the next shift on stand by. That would give him 37 ships to defend the planet, if necessary. He also notified the Templar Corps Bishop-Commander that they might have company in the next few days, to pull out his heavy equipment, and start preparing ground defenses. Of course, he would also have to notify the populace and dust off his civil defense plans. Satisfied he had done all he could, he put himself to bed. Sleep did not come easy to him that night.

  The two Shadow Scout Commanders reported into Fleet Commander J’Kalt. “Sir, Shadow Scout Commanders D’Lon and V’Tagg acknowledge your command. How may we serve the Empire?”

  Admiral J’Kalt surveyed them with interest. D’Lon was a poster perfect Shadow Warrior, resplendent in his crimson cape. V’Tagg was something unexpected, a female Shadow Warrior. J’Kalt had known females were being recruited into Shadow Force, but V’Tagg was the first he’d seen. She was a perfect example of a K’Rang female. She was long of limb, sleek of fur, and bore the brow markings that were all the rage at the moment. He would be more than happy to fight for her submission when she came into season.

  Admiral J’Kalt tossed these thoughts from his head and prepared to give these two their patrol orders.

  “Shadow Scout Commanders, you will enter the star cluster at the location where the Human ship appeared. That appears to be an area of low gravity. Advance into the star cluster and determine a path sufficiently broad to allow my fleet to advance in battle formation. Identify all Human defenses, forces, and settlements. Find the path through the star cluster into Human space. Return when you have accomplished these tasks and report to me. Do you have any questions?”

  They both came to attention and answered in unison, “No, Fleet Commander J’Kalt.”