“Battle stations, people,” Parks ordered. “Full power to shields, charge accelerators. Recall the intercept teams and prepare to move out of range of that ship. The drop teams will have to meet us across the other side of the planet.”
“Sir, the Sandwalker is attempting to establish communications,” Weathers interrupted.
A fleeting memory of Anthony Hawke went through Parks’ mind, reminding him of his past encounters with the man. Each time, he recalled, Hawke had taken the opportunity to crow and assert his confidence of victory over the engagement, before the two had clashed, twice in starships, once in person. But Anthony was dead, and unless some sort of electrical apparition of the former commodore was about to appear in the holographic projection, a ghostly spectre from years gone by, Parks knew he had nothing to fear from ever seeing the man again. Though had the Sandwalker actually been a resurrected Ifrit, Parks might well have been more than willing to accept it. Who else could be wanting to contact them? With Zackaria gone, the only other man who might want to speak to him was Rissard, and the Imperial commodore only ever did so to order his opponents to surrender their vessels.
From my cold dead hands, Parks thought. “Grant it,” he said to Weathers. The holographic screen sprang up, but the image that greeted him was not one he had expected at all. Lovejoy?
“Elliott! What a surprise it is to find you here!” the captain of the Sandwalker said.
“I could say the very same about you, Vincent,” Parks said. He felt himself relax, if only a little, the other occupants of the bridge doing likewise, the mood lifting as people exhaled breaths they had been holding in. The dreadnought was friendly, commanded by one of their long-term comrades in arms. Captain Vincent Lovejoy had stood by Parks on a number of occasions, moving the dreadnought that he so often commanded up the field to assist the warships that needed some extra muscle to achieve their goals. Or, as was most often the case, defending them as they made a retreat.
“I thought you were dead,” Parks said.
“So did a lot of people,” Lovejoy grinned, “which was the general idea.”
Parks smiled uncertainly. He wasn’t really sure what to believe now. Not really speaking to a ghost, was he? Sock puppetry, Anthony?
“Don’t worry, Admiral,” Lovejoy added, as if reading his mind. “It’s a long story, but it really is me.”
It certainly did look like Lovejoy. The man had saved Parks’ life on more than one occasion in the past, Parks quite certain that several of those had come during Black Widow. He knew what the ship was that he was looking at now – Cratos, one of the most powerful vessels in the United Naval Forces. About half the size of Griffin, practically every inch of the vessel had some kind of gun sticking out of it. Like the many Imperial dreadnoughts he had seen over the years, Parks could well believe that during its inception the ship might’ve been hollowed out of a single, enormous lump of metal. Only two weak points seemed to exist anywhere about its body – the engines at the rear and the hangar, which otherwise remained sealed shut whenever it was in combat. Which was pretty much all the time these days.
“What brings you to Kethlan?” Parks wanted to know.
“We’re searching for Admiral Zackaria,” Lovejoy said. “Though after we jumped into the middle of this,” his holographic image nodded ahead and around itself, to the multitude of vessels that surrounded them, “we wondered if we’d even manage to make it into high orbit around the planet.”
“You’re not alone in having thought that,” Parks said. “When I first saw this lot I was wondering what was going to get me first – them or a heart attack.”
Lovejoy chuckled at that. He’d clearly experienced the same gut wrenching terror upon his arrival.
“And then, after we think we’re in the clear, you show up in your ghost ship,” Parks added. “Cratos was said to have been destroyed years ago, all hands lost.”
“What you’re looking at here is a little trick that we picked up from the Pandorans in Coyote,” Lovejoy said. “After Cratos’ apparent destruction, we decided that we had been presented with an ideal opportunity to attempt some covert operations against the Enemy. Unfortunately, it meant that we had to maintain the ruse of the ship’s destruction and so decided to re-brand ourselves as the Sandwalker. We made repairs that leaned more towards Imperial design, updated our USID and then painted the new of name on the side of the ship. After that, we simply prayed that we wouldn’t get caught out.”
“Ingenious.”
Lovejoy chuckled. “Well, I can only take partial credit. The ideas and direction mostly came from Natalia Grace. She had experience of what the Enemy would be looking for and how they thought, and so was best placed to suggest how to survive such close encounters with the Enemy.”
You don’t say, Parks thought to himself, must have been quite effective if you spent most of your time running away. “Did it work?” He heard the scepticism in his own voice, clearly a result of hearing of Grace’s involvement in the idea.
“Mostly,” Lovejoy said. “The results varied a lot, depending on which system we came to and we never really discovered a reason why. Some ships ignored us, as if we were on their side. Some followed us like lost puppies and others went straight for us. Then we arrive here,” he once again nodded to the clutter of surrounding vessels, “and I have no idea what’s going on. We’re reading energy signatures from every ship in the region, but they’re not doing anything. Did you actually jump in that close to Kethlan, or did you arrive further out?”
“Further out,” Parks confirmed, “and then moved the fleet up gradually.”
“And you’ve not been attacked at all?”
“No. The only thing that ever got a bead on us were the ODPs, and the White Knights took them out in the ATAFs. It’s a long story, Captain,” Parks added, fully appreciating the baffled look on the man’s face, “suffice to say that you needn’t worry about attacks coming from any of those ships any more. Ever. We discovered something several hours ago that you need to hear.”
“I would certainly appreciate being brought up to speed, Admiral,” Lovejoy said. “As soon as we have sent our away teams to the planet surface, I will come aboard.”
“If you’re sending a team to Kethlan to look for Zackaria, then I’m afraid you just missed him,” Parks said. “He jumped out of the system just before you contacted us.”
“So it was a shuttle that jumped,” Lovejoy said. “Ha, the Imperials finally managed to perfect minimised jump drive technology. I’d say it was a good job they didn’t manage to get it into starfighters, but I’m not sure it’d have made a difference,” he muttered.
Parks nodded his agreement. “We are just waiting for our own drop teams to return from the surface. I suggest you come aboard immediately, as there is much we need to discuss. We are also intending to jump to Sol as soon as possible.”
“Sol?” Lovejoy was silent for a moment, then said, “I guess that means we lost Alpha Centauri, then.”
“It does,” Parks said.
“Casualties?”
“I don’t have exact numbers, but of the significant entities, we lost Talos, the Vortex of Justice, Ragnar, the Winter Prince and of course an entire planet.”
“In that case, there’s nothing more that can be done,” Lovejoy said. “I’ll prepare a delegation to make its way over to you, consisting of at least myself, Charlie Wingrove, Mau Chowdary, Liam Sung and Natalia Grace. We shall see you shortly.”
Grace? So, she was still with them. Little matter that she may have concocted the whole Sandwalker ruse, Parks wasn’t too sure he wanted that troublemaker on his ship. He moved to say something, but Lovejoy had already closed the connection.
*
“You know, I think I’ve seen this one before,” Lovejoy said, as he watched the playback of Sky being engulfed by the firestorm set in motion by CSN Dragon’s antimatter cannon.
“Who shot the footage?” Grace asked, as Parks stopped the recording.
�
��Leviathan, just before it jumped out of the system,” Parks said.
“Do we have any estimation of the size of the fleet that entered the system?” Lovejoy asked.
“We’re not sure,” Parks said. “Most of it, by the looks of things.”
“Is it me, or were some of the enemy fighters flying a little … sloppily?” Grace then asked.
“You’re not the first person to notice,” Parks said, starting up another piece of film and seeking through the stream to a particular portion of the footage. “You’ll notice here that several of the enemy fighter complement were hit by friendly fire.” The video played, showing a number of Imperial starfighters being struck by a beam that was targeting one of the allied frigates.
Parks studied Grace as the footage played. Despite his initial reservations about her presence, the woman had been lending herself well to the discussion, picking up on things that some of the other attendees had failed to notice, sometimes even the tiny details that he had missed himself. Perhaps the last few years had given her a much needed kick up the arse and restored her to the efficient intelligence officer she had once been, rather than the coward she’d become. Now, maybe if she could come up with some sort of solution …
“Interesting,” Lovejoy said, appearing genuinely amazed by what he was seeing. “Do you think it has anything to do with what’s happening out there?” He nodded out the conference room window, to the litter of abandoned warships.
“Without a doubt,” Parks said, indicating Tunstall. “Our head physician believes that the nanomachines in the soldiers are mutating whilst they’re replicating and repairing, and interfering with the Pandorans’ ability to coordinate themselves. It’s causing them to suffer from an advanced form of cellular degeneration. They’re not able to think or react as fast as they once could, and neither think straight or operate as a cohesive unit. In short, it’s having a detrimental effect on their performance, one that is spreading throughout their ranks. Did you encounter any resistance while you were on your way here?”
“We did, yes,” Lovejoy said. “In Tanmere and at Carthege.”
“How did the encounters go?”
“It’s difficult to say,” Lovejoy said. “We were using a dreadnought against a few cruisers and a handful of fighters. Even if their abilities had been at their peak, they had the odds stacked against them from the get go.”
“I did hear one of the gunners comment that either he was getting better at hitting them, or they’re getting worse at flying,” Grace said. “One of his colleagues said the same, which is what led me to believe something might be up.”
“How about yourself, Admiral?” Lovejoy said.
“We met with a large fleet at Krasst,” Parks said, “which we were forced to retreat from.”
“But they didn’t pursue you?”
“No, they didn’t,” he said, after a thought. He paused for a moment longer to wonder about that. Although the enemy had attacked them, had they only been reacting to the appearance of an unknown vessel? Had Griffin dedicated more time to the fight, would they have found themselves with the upper hand? It was possible. The Pandoran fleet was converging on what remained of the Confederacy, so why were there still ships here? Was it to defend Krasst? He doubted it.
“Perhaps they’ve gone feral,” Grace suggested, as if reading his mind. “They’re acting like those on the planet’s surface and simply doing what they think is appropriate to defend themselves and their territory.”
“Sounds possible,” Parks said.
“But it doesn’t seem as though we can count on something like that to help us against the enemy’s frontline forces,” Grace added. “I expect they’ll have weeded out the most dangerous of their ranks and eliminated them. The only way I think we could trigger any sort of anarchy or misconduct within the dying and impressionable soldiers would be some kind of video or audio broadcast. The trick there would be getting them to receive it and listen to it long enough.”
The silence that followed was enough for Parks to appreciate that no one was able to conjure up a workable response to Grace’s proposal. A shame, but at least the woman was again making a thoughtful contribution.
“Lost a lot of ships at Alpha Centauri,” Wingrove, one of Lovejoy’s delegation, muttered. “Captain, might it be worth us either captaining or towing some of the more powerful ships out there back to Sol, to help shore up numbers? I’m certain I saw some UNF capitals on the way over.”
“There are plenty of UNF ships out there,” Lovejoy commented, with a humourless chuckle. “I think this is your call, Admiral,” he said to Parks, after considering the suggestion. “You were clear that jumping to Sol is our number one priority right now.”
“Having more ships would certainly help,” Parks said. “There are a lot of risks attached, though. Sending a team out to take control of one of those ships carries the risk of losing the team should not all the occupants of the vessel be dead. We can’t prove some won’t be walking around inside, waiting to put holes in the first non-Pandoran they see.”
“Hmm, true,” Lovejoy nodded. “We’d need to sweep them all pretty carefully.”
“Which brings us to the greatest risk of all – time,” Parks said. “Getting to the ships, ensuring that they’re in a serviceable and combat worthy condition, checking that there aren’t any nasty surprises waiting for us, and then finally piloting them through jump, using propulsion engines that might not be performing at optimal efficiency …”
“With a journey time of at least twenty hours,” Wingrove added.
Parks suddenly had a thought. “One moment,” he said, calling up the bridge. “Mr Liu, from here, how long do we expect a jump to Sol to take?”
“Seven to eight hours,” came the answer.
“Seven hours?” Chowdary said. “From Alba to Kethlan took longer than that.” She looked a little confused.
“Ah, you’re forgetting – non-linear transit system,” Parks reminded the conference room. There were nods of agreement, but Parks remained troubled. Eight hours? They were lucky that Zackaria had opted for such a systematic approach to wiping out his opponents. Had he not, he could have hit Sol many years earlier. Perhaps one reason he had not done so was due to lack of a powerful enough force. And now, even after all these years, he still might not have one good enough. If the nanobot-induced cellular degeneration really was affecting the entire Pandoran force, then Zackaria might actually have a tough time battling against the allied force that were amassing at Sol. Maybe. He was really getting ahead of himself there. But, no. Eight hours. That gave them time. He had expected something more like twelve or fifteen.
“Captain,” Liu’s voice continued over the intercom. “I’ve also just received word from the flight deck that all the drop teams have returned safely. They say they have some interesting information concerning events on Kethlan that they wish to share with you, as soon as possible.”
“Sounds like something we should all hear,” Grace said.
Parks nodded. “Have the squad leaders sent up here immediately,” he responded to Liu.
“Yes, sir,” Liu said. “Should I give the go-ahead to begin jump preparations?”
“Not yet. I want to wait a couple more hours while we do some final investigation. We might be bringing some of these ships home with us. I will join you on the bridge when we’re done.” He then turned to Lovejoy. “Captain, if you can have Cratos put together a list of UNF ships that they believe might be combat worthy, then we can look into bringing them back with us. We’ll need vessel schematics and minimal skeleton crews for each.”
“At once,” Lovejoy said.
“I can only offer you two hours at most, though,” Parks said, “so try and favour quality over quantity. After that, we will be jumping immediately to Sol. We’ll shortly be the last line of defence against the possible extinction of the entire human race, and we need every last person we can get hold of. All clear?”
The conference room acknowledged
that they were, and as people disbursed to go about the duties they had been assigned, Parks glanced out the window to the clutter of vessels in view, well aware that it represented only a fraction of what surrounded the planet. A vision of the same sized force surrounding Earth crept into his mind, for a time refusing to leave. He met Lovejoy’s eye as the man turned back from the window, it clear to Parks that Cratos’ captain had also been counting ships. Though not ones he was intending on bringing back to Sol.
X
— The Villains’ Return —
An excerpt from A GIFT FROM THE GODS by Kelly Taylor
24th December 2624
The defeat at Alpha Centauri had a devastating effect on morale. It was hoped that we would be able to hold the Pandoran army in the system for at least a few days. That we lost the battle after only a few hours brought home to many the idea that the war was finally lost.
I recall being quietly confident of victory at the time, due to the information that Enrique had sent me, and I held on to the hope that we might find the task of the defence of such an important system, one so close to Sol, an experience with far less attrition than before. It was, of course, the complete opposite. The Pandoran forces that arrived in the system overran us in one of the shortest battles of the campaign.
I learned of Jennifer Bailey’s sacrifice aboard Leviathan, while on the way to Sol. She had always stressed that, should such a boarding event ever occur, one that she was unable to undo and threatened the capture of Talos, she would detonate the carrier. Many had made similar promises in the past, but few had actually gone through with it. Those that hadn’t had clung desperately to the hope that the Pandorans might this time take them prisoner and that they might be rescued at some point in the future. Others simply couldn’t bring themselves to do it, either for the sake of their own lives or for their pride of the vessel they commanded. Tracy Storm, the acting captain of Phoenix, was perhaps the greatest example of this. Black Widow being the super carrier’s maiden voyage, the man refused to accept that the ship was lost, doing everything he could to bring her home. Senior command were just as guilty of that belief and stubbornness as he, which is why Estelle’s and Parks’ subsequent actions remain so morally ambiguous to many.
The Battle for the Solar System (Complete Trilogy) Page 105