Ep.#4 - Rebellion (The Frontiers Saga - Part 2: Rogue Castes)

by Ryk Brown

  “You don’t really believe all of this, Captain?” the officer at the door protested, moving toward Captain Rainey to plead his case. “We don’t even know these people.”

  “I assure you, we’re telling the truth. We have videos from the attacks, and the subsequent actions taken by the Dusahn to control the populations. One of those actions was to round up the families of the captains of all jump-capable ships that were not in port at the time of the attack. They broadcasted a message threatening to execute the hostages if the ships did not return within two weeks. The captain of the Glendanon lost his wife. We rescued his daughter, along with the rest of the families being held on Corinair.”

  “What about Takara?” the other officer asked.

  Nathan looked at the officer. “Who are you, sir?”

  “This is my first officer, Mister Sorgey.”

  “What about Takara?” the officer repeated. “I have family on Takara.”

  “I don’t know,” Nathan replied. “I assume they did the same thing there, but it is our understanding they were only rounding up the families of ship captains.”

  “If that doesn’t work, they’ll likely go for the families of first officers, next,” Captain Rainey surmised.

  “You may be right.”

  “Why didn’t you rescue the Takaran families?” Mister Sorgey demanded angrily.

  “We were barely able to pull off a rescue on Corinair,” Jessica defended. “It’s not just Takara and Corinair, you know. They glassed our world.”

  “They what?” Mister Sorgey asked, unable to imagine such an act.

  “Ybara as well,” Nathan added. “Just because the Ybaran minister refused to pay respects to the Dusahn.”

  “What was your world?” Captain Rainey asked Jessica, his eyes full of empathy.

  “Burgess.”

  “In the Sherma system?” Captain Rainey couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “But Burgess is a small, peaceful place. No more than a few hundred thousand people. They’re not a threat to anyone. Why would they go all the way to Sherma to destroy Burgess?”

  “Because the Ghatazhak were based there,” Jessica replied. “We fought them, but there were too many.”

  “How many did you lose?” the captain asked.

  “Several hundred Ghatazhak died defending Burgess. Only a few hundred made it out alive,” Jessica replied.

  “But we managed to evacuate a few thousand of the Burgeans,” Nathan added. “Which is why we’re here.”

  “But there were several hundred thousand people on Burgess.”

  “And several million on Ybara,” Jessica reminded him.

  Captain Rainey sat quietly for a minute, rubbing his forehead as he thought. “What do the…”

  “Dusahn,” Nathan repeated.

  “Dusahn. What do they want with the Pentaurus cluster?”

  “We believe they wish to use its technology, and its industrial base as a means to grow their fleet and expand their empire. If they are allowed to do so, the entire sector will be next to fall.”

  “What about the Alliance?” Mister Sorgey asked. “They will send ships to help, will they not?”

  “They have their own problems,” Jessica explained. “Jung ships have been showing up deep inside Alliance space in the Sol sector. The Alliance was forced to retaliate with KKV strikes. The entire sector is on the verge of a renewed conflict.”

  “What do you intend to do?” Captain Rainey wondered.

  “We intend to fight them any way we can,” Nathan replied with conviction.

  “But the Glendanon is a cargo ship, not a warship. How can you take on twenty ships?”

  A mischievous smile crept onto Nathan’s lips. “We have the Aurora.”

  * * *

  “Vlad,” Loki called, a worried tone in his voice. “I’m picking up something on sensors.”

  Vladimir quickly climbed the ladder into the Seiiki’s cockpit and moved to the auxiliary station behind Loki.

  “Could it be another sensor ghost?” Josh wondered.

  “Maybe an echo off a dense region of the cloud?” Loki suggested.

  “It’s possible,” Vladimir replied, as he studied the sensor display, making adjustments to the sensors. “It’s hard to tell while we’re in passive mode.”

  “Maybe we should go active?” Josh suggested. “Just to be sure?”

  “And if it’s a Dusahn ship?” Vladimir replied.

  “Is it?” Loki asked.

  “I do not believe so,” Vladimir said. “It is too small to be a frigate, and too big to be a gunship.”

  “An interceptor?” Josh suggested.

  “They would not send a lone interceptor into this cloud,” Vladimir insisted. “Their sensors are not powerful enough. They’d be flying completely blind. Our sensors can barely see past twenty thousand kilometers in this cloud.”

  “Then what is it?” Josh wondered.

  Vladimir squinted a moment, studying the screen. “It may be the same contact as before… I do not know.” Vladimir’s eyes widened. “Oh bozhe,” he muttered. “Nye harasho.”

  “In English, Vlad!” Josh exclaimed. “In English!”

  “It is changing course,” he said, turning to look at Josh and Loki. “It is headed directly for the Mystic Empress.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Captain Rainey looked skeptical. “The Aurora. If the Sol sector is on the verge of another war with the Jung, why would they send their most renowned ship a thousand light years away?”

  “They didn’t,” Nathan replied. “The Aurora is here without authorization.”

  “You went rogue,” Captain Rainey realized, one eyebrow popping up. “You stole the Aurora and went rogue.” The captain laughed. “You’re more reckless than I heard, Captain Scott…assuming you really are Nathan Scott.”

  “I am.”

  “More reckless than I heard, or you are Nathan Scott?”

  “Both, I suppose. And it’s a bit more complicated than you might think.”

  “Of that, I am sure,” Captain Rainey agreed. “You still haven’t told me why you are here, Captain.”

  “To warn you,” Nathan replied. “If you jump back to Takara, the Dusahn will seize this ship, just as they have seized every other jump ship they can find, since their invasion of the cluster nineteen days ago.”

  “This is a luxury cruise ship, Captain. I doubt the Dusahn will see us as much of a threat.”

  “True enough,” Nathan agreed. “However, the owners of this ship will suffer a substantial financial loss. Furthermore, you and your crew will be out of work, likely imprisoned for failing to adhere to a Dusahn mandate within the required time, and possibly executed…as examples to anyone who might entertain the thought of resisting Dusahn occupation.”

  “Preposterous,” Mister Sorgey exclaimed. “We’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “Tell that to the people of Ybara and Burgess,” Jessica replied.

  “We’ve been out of communication the entire time!” Mister Sorgey argued. “We couldn’t possibly have known!”

  “Jump capable ships are way too important to the Dusahn. They are unlikely to give you the benefit of the doubt. They are better served by making an example of you and your crew, just as they did with the people of Ybara and Burgess. You are all worth more to them dead, than alive.”

  “How could you possibly know that?” Mister Sorgey challenged.

  “Because I spent two years of my life fighting the Jung!” Nathan exclaimed. “Then another forty-five days as their prisoner, being poked, prodded, tortured, and finally paraded about for all their citizens to see in a circus of a trial! That’s how I fucking know!”

  “What is it you’re proposing we do?” Captain Rainey asked quietly. “
Hide out in the cloud indefinitely?”

  “Join us,” Nathan urged. “Help us fight them.”

  “We’re a luxury liner,” Captain Rainey reminded him. “Not a warship.”

  “We don’t need a warship,” Nathan replied. “Well, we do, but that’s not why we want your ship. We need a place to house the refugees from Burgess. We need a place for our people to live. Right now, they’re packed like sardines in cargo pods, stacked inside the Glendanon’s cargo bay.”

  “Sardines?” Mister Sorgey wondered, unfamiliar with the word.

  “Why can’t you just put them on the surface of some other world?” Captain Rainey asked.

  “That would put the residents of that world in jeopardy,” Nathan explained. “We can’t risk another Burgess.”

  “Then find one that isn’t inhabited.”

  “There are none within five hundred light years of the cluster. That would create an additional logistical burden. Even if there were an inhabitable planet nearby, it would take weeks, if not months, to settle the refugees and get them to a point where their survival would be guaranteed, let alone to a point where they would become an asset. Besides, if the Dusahn managed to track us back to that world, it would be all over. We have to stay mobile. It’s the only way.”

  “And what are we supposed to do with our passengers?” Captain Rainey asked.

  “I’m sure we could arrange transportation of anyone who wishes to return to their homeworld,” Nathan assured the captain. “It might take time, but…”

  “Our passengers are the upper crust of Takaran and Corinairan society,” Captain Rainey reminded Nathan. “They will not take kindly to being packed into military shuttles like…what did you call them? Sardines?”

  “You have escape pods, don’t you?” Nathan said. “Jump-enabled escape pods?”

  “Of course,” Captain Rainey assured him. “No one would be willing to travel with us if we did not.”

  “Where do they jump to when ejected?” Nathan asked.

  “Back to Takara,” Captain Rainey answered. “You’re suggesting we order the wealthiest, most powerful and influential families of the Pentaurus cluster, into their escape pods, for a perilous jump across three hundred light years of space?” Captain Rainey stared at Nathan. “And if we don’t?”

  Nathan shook his head. “I don’t follow.”

  “Is that why you rescued my family?” Captain Rainey asked directly. “To get me to kick three thousand and seventy-four passengers off my ship and hand it over to you?”

  “We rescued all of the hostages on Corinair, Captain,” Nathan replied, annoyed by the captain’s accusations. “Over two hundred of them, I believe. We didn’t even know your family was among them at the time.”

  “But once you learned that they were, you saw an opportunity.”

  Nathan took a deep breath, remaining calm as he stared at Captain Rainey. “Regardless of what you decide to do, Captain, your family will be returned to you, unharmed. The question you have to ask yourself, is what their, and your chances of survival will be, whichever path you choose to take.”

  A hailing tone sounded. “Captain, Comms. Incoming message from the Seiiki, sir,” a voice called over the intercom.

  “What’s the message?” the captain asked.

  “Seiiki reports two contacts on an intercept course with this ship. ETA one minute.”

  “Security!” Mister Sorgey yelled, stepping out of the way.

  “Sound the alert!” Captain Rainey instructed the communications officer. “Level three. All passengers to their cabins. Button up the ship!”

  Four armed security officers burst into the room from the doors on either side of the cabin.

  Jessica immediately went into a combat stance, ready to attack the onrushing guards.

  “Arrest them!” Mister Sorgey ordered.

  “Alert level three, aye!” the comms officer replied.

  Jessica quickly evaluated the approaching guards, who had their weapons drawn. She could see fear and uncertainty in at least two of their faces, and none of their movements indicated advanced training. With her assistive bodysuit, she could withstand at least two, possibly three blasts from their low-power weapons, as long as none of them were directly to her head. In that split second, Jessica calculated that she had an eighty percent chance of taking all four of them out, as long as Nathan could handle Captain Rainey and his first officer.

  “Is this part of your plan, Scott?” Captain Rainey accused him. “If that’s even who you are.”

  “Wait,” Nathan ordered Jessica, putting his hand on her shoulder as she tensed up to strike.

  Four more men burst into the cabin from the front door, moving in behind Nathan and Jessica, surrounding them. Jessica froze, scanning and re-evaluating the situation.

  It was too late. There were now eight weapons trained on her and Nathan.

  “This is not of our doing,” Nathan assured Captain Rainey.

  Captain Rainey headed for the exit, pausing momentarily to look directly into Nathan’s eyes, only centimeters away from his face. “If you harm a single hair on either of their heads,” he began, his voice seething with anger, “I will kill you myself.”

  Captain Rainey turned and continued out the door without saying another word.

  “Lock them up!” Mister Sorgey ordered.

  * * *

  “I’ve got three contacts now!” Loki exclaimed. “Wait! Four!”

  “I’ve got another one! Directly in front of the Mystic!” Vladimir said.

  “That makes five,” Josh said.

  “General quarters!” Vladimir called over comm-sets.

  “This isn’t a warship,” Josh reminded Vladimir. “We don’t do general quarters.”

  “They know what I mean!”

  “What the fuck is going on?” Marcus called over the comm-sets.

  “Man the guns!” Vladimir ordered. “Josh! Set course back to the Mystic!”

  Master Sergeant Anwar climbed up the ladder into the Seiiki’s cockpit. “What’s the situation, Commander?”

  “Five contacts. One large, at least twice our size, has moved into position directly ahead of the Mystic. The other four are headed toward her from all sides.”

  “How big are the smaller contacts?” the master sergeant asked.

  “Twelve to fifteen meters, maybe,” Vladimir replied. “About the size of a utility shuttle.”

  “Too big for Dusahn landers,” the master sergeant decided, looking over Vladimir’s shoulder at the sensor display. “The contact in front of the Mystic; I have seen that profile before, in the Pentaurus sector.”

  “Who are they?” Vladimir wondered.

  “I do not know,” the master sergeant admitted. “But I believe the smaller contacts are breach boxes.”

  All along the Mystic’s massive windows, armored panels slid into place, one by one, locking together to form barriers that blocked the panoramic views normally afforded to the paying passengers inside.

  As the cruise ship closed itself up, four twelve-meter-long tubes, each roughly octagonal in shape, raced toward the luxury liner. As they closed, they flipped over and fired their engines, decelerating rapidly, continuing on their collision courses with the defenseless vessel.

  Long, articulated legs came out of opposing faces of the four tubes, in between each of their engines. The legs reached their fully extended positions, just as they made contact with the Mystic Empress’s hull, giving just enough to absorb nearly all of the momentum.

  One by one, the pods slammed into the Mystic Empress’s four docking clamp bay doors, their claws penetrating the doors to anchor the pods in place.

  Captain Rainey entered the bridge of the Mystic Empress, as reports from all over the ship streamed into th
e communications station. “Report!” he beckoned as he came to stand behind the helmsman.

  “Four objects have made impact with us!” the officer of the deck reported. “Each of them with our docking bay doors! I believe they are some kind of boarding pod, Captain!”

  “Security! Captain! All forces to the docking clamp bays! Prepare to repel boarders!”

  “Captain! Security! Aye!”

  “Engineering reports main propulsion, power generation, and environmental are all locked down, Captain!” the comms officer added.

  “How many cabins have been secured?” the captain asked.

  “Passengers are at fifty percent lockdown.”

  “Helm, plot a jump out of the cloud, I want long-range communications and sensors back.”

  “Aye, sir!” the helmsman replied.

  “New contact!” the sensor officer reported. “Large; ten thousand kilometers; moving into our flight path!” The sensor officer turned toward the captain. “I think they mean to block our jump path, sir!”

  “Helm, be ready to maneuver once you have a jump plot,” the captain ordered.

  “Sir, I’ll have to recalculate the plot if we change course,” the helmsman warned him.

  “The captain of that ship likely knows that,” Mister Sorgey commented.

  “Calculate a blind jump. Just enough to get us out of the cloud,” Captain Rainey ordered.

  “But captain,” the helmsman began to protest.

  “Just do it!”

  Nathan and Jessica were led down the Mystic’s corridors, their hands bound by security ties, as the alert lights flashed and the warning tones blared. In front of them were three armed guards, and behind them three more.

  “You sure you’ve got enough men on us, Skippy?” Jessica taunted.

  “I think we’ll be alright,” the guard replied confidently.

  “All teams, prepare to repel boarders,” a voice squawked over one of the guard’s comm-unit. “Teams one through four, move to secure docking clamp bays.”