by Ryk Brown
Admiral Toliva’s eyes squinted slightly as he considered the general’s words. “The nearest forces would be in the Tau Ceti system,” he finally said. “Then you expect him to attack there next?”
“He will attack whatever forces represent the most immediate threats to Earth. His world is in shambles, their infrastructure all but ruined. Without infrastructure, he cannot wage war, especially not against so many ships. It is only logical that he would attempt to clear as wide a sphere of safety as possible about his homeworld.”
“I see your point,” the admiral admitted.
Finally, the general thought.
“Of course, their ships have no shields, and therefore they are quite easy to damage, even when they employ such hit and run tactics. It was merely a matter of throwing enough mines in their possible paths, and this station can produce such mines by the thousands.”
“They are not alone, Admiral,” the general reminded.
“Ah, yes, these ‘Takarans’ you spoke of in your reports. They are nearly a thousand light years away, are they not? Surely you don’t believe they can be an effective ally?”
“I believe that if they cannot, then their technology most likely can. Remember, it only took two months for the Aurora to jump her way back to Earth from the Pentaurus cluster.”
“But the logistics alone would make support of an ally so distant all but impossible.”
“Not impossible, only more difficult. And when you compare their logistical timetables with their friends in the Pentaurus cluster with the empire’s timetables within only one hundred light years, they still have a significant logistical advantage. That is why they must be stopped now, before the Earth has a chance to rebuild, and before their allies can provide the assistance they need.”
Admiral Toliva’s left eyebrow shot up suspiciously. “You are suggesting that I move this platform to the Sol system,” he said as he set his cup down on the service tray on the small serving table between them. “I should tell you, General, that my orders do not include attacking the Sol system.”
“The Ton-Gar’s desire to make Earth their seat of power has been known by all Jung commanders for several decades now,” the general reminded the admiral, “since we first began picking up emissions from Earth once again.”
“Of course.”
“Therefore, it is the duty of every field commander to do whatever he feels will best serve the Ton-Gar’s needs. I believe that if any of the Ton-Gar were here with us, their orders would be to capture or destroy the Aurora, and to retake the Earth, destroying all human life on the surface if necessary. I was unable to accomplish that task with the forces at my disposal, and shall carry the shame of that failure for the rest of my days.” The general looked the admiral in the eyes as he spoke. “You, Admiral, are in the rather envious position of having not only the opportunity, but the power to give the Ton-Gar that which they most desire.”
General Bacca continued to watch Admiral Toliva’s face as the reality of his situation began to set in. As he had always suspected, the administrator in him prevented the admiral from thinking in such terms. Military conquest and imperial respect were not the goals of administrators. Theirs were of position and control… More importantly, of maintaining that which they had acquired. It was to this side of the admiral that General Bacca had appealed.
Admiral Toliva’s eyes began to sparkle. “And what of the Jar-Pontahk?”
“Sacrifices must be made, Admiral,” General Bacca replied coldly, “for the greater good of the empire.”
* * *
The odd-looking, old ship coasted toward the massive storage array orbiting on the outer edge of the Takaran system. It had four massive engine pods sitting at the ends of four truss-like structures, all emanating from a central fuselage with a small housing sitting atop its center.
Despite its impressive size, the ship was dwarfed by the approaching storage array. Rows of cargo pods of varying sizes and shapes, lined the array’s many arms. Despite their variety, they all bore the same distinctive markings… that of the Ghatazhak.
The ship fired its maneuvering thrusters, slowing its approach to the storage array. Minutes later, it fired them again, reducing its closure rate to nearly an indiscernible rate to the human eye. Minutes after that, it made gentle contact with the nearest pod on the array. The gangly looking ship inserted its clamps into the cargo pod’s recessed mooring points, pulling the pod into its underside to hold it firm for the long voyage that lay ahead.
Another blast of its thrusters moved the old cargo ship and its now-attached cargo pod away from the storage array. Thrusters facing aft caused it to accelerate laterally from the storage array. It fired its main engines and made a slow, graceful turn back in the direction from which it had come. Minutes later, the ship, and its cargo, disappeared in a brilliant blue-white flash.
* * *
“Look me in the eyes and tell me you haven’t thought about it,” Vladimir insisted, pointing his loaded fork at Nathan.
Nathan looked at his friend sitting across the table from him in the captain’s mess. “I’ve never even thought about it.”
“Liar,” Vladimir responded as he put the fork full of food into his mouth.
“Are sex and food the only things you think about?”
“Mostly,” Vladimir answered, still chewing. “And the ship… Oh, and sleep… Which I get very little of these days, thanks to you.”
“What ever happened to ‘I can fix anything’?” Nathan retorted.
“What ever happened to ‘quick and clean,’ or ‘in and out as quickly as possible’?”
“File your complaints with the Jung high command,” Nathan said, “if you can find them.”
“Da, da, da! What is that all about? How can no one know where the Jung homeworld is located?”
“From what Telles tells me, not even the Jung commanders know its location. At least that’s what the prisoners he has interrogated tell him.”
“How do they get home?” Vladimir wondered.
“Apparently, very few of them are actually from the Jung homeworld. Most were born and raised on Jung-conquered worlds… worlds that have been under Jung control for so long that no one alive knows anything else.”
“How do you hide a world?”
“I really don’t know,” Nathan admitted.
“Where do their ships come from?”
“We don’t know a lot about that. So far, Telles has learned that there are many Jung shipyards located all over the core, and even a few in the fringe. It makes sense, when you think about it. Keep your production capacity spread out instead of all in one place,” Nathan explained. “Makes it more difficult to put a significant dent in their production capabilities.”
Vladimir nodded to the side, indicating partial agreement. “Not so much, when you have jump drives.”
“Jump drives just get you there more quickly,” Nathan said.
“And they get you past defensive perimeters.”
“But you still have to put yourself into the kill zone in order to do any damage.”
“Da, da, da,” Vladimir agreed. “Ya znaioo. The reason I get so little sleep.”
“We need shields, Vlad,” Nathan urged.
“I know, Nathan, I know,” Vladimir assured his captain. “But the only way I can give you shields now is if we use the jump emitters to generate those shields. If you want to have shields up and jump at the same time, we need not only an entirely separate emitter array, but a dedicated power source as well. All of that takes time, and preferably a shipyard, which we do not have at the moment.”
“We only use two reactors to charge the jump drive, right? And in battle, we’re not even using those reactors. We’re using the power already stored in the jump drive’s energy banks.”
“Shields and jump drives are not the only things using power,” Vladimir reminded him. “Main propulsion, maneuvering, weapons… Are you aware of how much power it takes to fire a plasma cannon? In battl
e, I have one reactor running the entire ship, another running propulsion and maneuvering, and the other two powering weapons.”
“I’ve read the reports, Vlad,” Nathan countered. “Ship’s systems, propulsion, and maneuvering could all be run from a single reactor.”
“If I run that reactor at eighty to ninety percent!” Vladimir argued. “Not a good level for a reactor during battle, my friend. And if one reactor goes down, what are you going to give up? Weapons, flight, or shields?”
“Systems can be run on the backup fusion reactors,” Nathan said. “You told me so yourself.”
“Da, that was a mistake,” Vladimir mumbled as he took another bite of his breakfast.
“What, it can’t?”
“No, they can,” Vladimir corrected. “I meant it was a mistake to tell you that.”
“What?”
“It is just like the one hour rule.”
“Okay, you’ve lost me now.”
“Lieutenant Commander Patel taught me to always estimate an hour for something you can do in ten minutes. Then your captain will think you are a miracle worker.”
“Or that you suck at estimating task completion times,” Nathan countered. “So, is that what you’ve been doing? Padding your estimates?”
“Actually, no. I usually forget to do this.” Vladimir grinned. “Mostly.”
“Captain, Comms,” Naralena’s voice called over Nathan’s comm-set.
Nathan tapped the side of his comm-set. “Go ahead.”
“Incoming message from Karuzara, sir.”
Nathan looked at the wall clock. “I thought the comm-drone wasn’t due back for two more hours?”
“The message comes via a new drone,” Naralena explained. “The message explains that this drone will serve as a dedicated link between Sol and Corinair. There are several production reports and resource availability estimates from Karuzara as well.”
“Very, well,” Nathan answered. “Queue them up in my ready room. I’ll read them when I get there.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And pass the word to the XO. He’ll probably want to let our Corinairan crew members know that they can now communicate with their families back home.”
“Yes, sir.”
“That will make most of the crew very happy,” Vladimir commented.
“Yes, it will,” Nathan agreed, “and they deserve it.”
* * *
“How did we get stuck with this job again?” Josh inquired from the front of their Falcon’s cockpit.
“Everyone else has done it, why not us?” Loki answered as he watched his sensor displays.
“Oh, yeah.” Josh thought for a moment. “But I thought we were supposed to be going through training?”
“You brought your data pad, didn’t you?”
“Always.”
“Then start studying.”
“I already have been, and I’m already bored. This cold-coasting stuff sucks.”
“Josh, we’ve only been at it for six and a half hours,” Loki exclaimed.
“Only? You call six and a half hours of sitting on our asses, only?”
“Compared to the estimated eighteen hours this mission is expected to last, yes.”
“God, shoot me now,” Josh groaned.
“I am armed, you know.”
“Funny.” Josh lifted his visor and rubbed his eyes. “I can’t read these training manuals anymore.”
“We’re supposed to stay on suit systems during cold-coasts, Josh,” Loki reminded him. “That means visor closed. We don’t want your body heat increasing the canopy’s thermal signature.”
“I had an itch, okay!” Josh exclaimed as he closed his visor again. “It’s closed! You happy?”
“Delighted. If you’re tired of reading the Corinari flight training manuals, then call up the broadcast bands and watch some of the media stuff coming from Kent.”
“I already did that as well. It’s just news and stuff. You know, they actually had some interesting stuff on there the last time we coasted through here. Not any more, though. Now the only thing people are talking about is how the Jung got their asses handed to them by a couple of unknown ships.”
“Nothing about the two Jung ships that are still there?” Loki wondered.
“Nope.”
“Kind of odd, don’t you think?”
“Well, I mean, there’s some talk about them. People are wondering what they’re doing, why there hasn’t been a single shuttle going between the Jung ships and Kent. Some people think the Jung are getting ready to leave, while others think they’re just taking care of the damaged battleship, and they’ll start sending shuttles back down to Kent sometime soon.”
“They still got forces on the surface of Kent though, don’t they?”
“Yeah, but nowhere near as many as before. Apparently, the Jung used to censor the media broadcasts pretty tightly. Now they aren’t censoring anything. That’s why a lot of people think the Jung are getting ready to pull out.”
“Then they should be happy,” Loki observed.
“You’d think, but they aren’t,” Josh explained. “I mean, they are. Most of them, anyway. But a lot of them are scared. They talk about how the Jung don’t leave worlds behind. When they finish with them, they destroy them.”
“How do they know this?”
“I don’t know. They argue about that as well. They accuse the people predicting that the Jung will destroy them all before they leave of spreading fear for their own purposes.”
“I don’t know,” Loki said, “it sounds pretty interesting to me.”
“It was, for about the first two hours. Now it’s all the same arguments, over and over.”
“You can always watch the sensor displays,” Loki suggested. “There’s an endless stream of shuttles going back and forth between the battle platform and the battleship.”
“Yeah, I saw that. Not too surprising, either. My guess is that they’re trying to repair her… Get her under way again.”
“Not a chance,” Loki disagreed. “Her main propulsion is shot. She has damage all over her hull, including several breaches, and at least seventy percent of her emitters are down. She’s not going anywhere. If anything, they’re stripping her so that they don’t leave anything of use behind.”
“How long have they been doing that?” Josh wondered.
“According to the logs from Falcons Two and Three, more than thirty hours now,” Loki explained.
“Well, it is a big ship,” Josh decided. “There’s got to be a lot of useful stuff on board, right?”
“Sure, but some of those cargo shuttles are pretty big, maybe three times the size of our cargo shuttles.”
“Like I said, a lot of stuff.” Josh stretched slightly, then shifted in his seat. “Maybe I’ll take a nap. You’re wide awake, right? You’ve got all that fascinating sensor data to keep your eyes open, right?”
“Uh…”
“I’ll set my suit alarm for four hours, then you can take a nap.”
“Josh…”
“Come on, Loki. It’s not like I’m going anywhere. You can buzz me if you need me. You like that, buzzing me.”
“Josh, the platform is moving.”
“What?”
“It’s moving. It’s moving away from Kent and Rigel.”
“Where’s it going?” Josh wondered, sitting up straight and looking at his own sensor displays. “Sol?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t think so. The trajectory is wrong. I mean, it’s close, but it’s wrong.”
“Maybe they’re going to turn before they go to FTL.”
“A ship that size doesn’t turn unless it has to, Josh, and it doesn’t have to. It would just start its departure burn at the right moment to put it on the course it wanted. It takes a ton of energy to…”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember. Energy, momentum, blah, blah, blah. Should we jump back and tell the Aurora?”
“We can’t leave until she goes to FTL,” Loki remind
ed him, “otherwise we’ll have no idea what direction she’s headed.”
“That could take hours.” Josh continued looking at the sensor displays. “There’s still shuttles going back and forth, though.”
“There are some coming up from the surface as well,” Loki added, “but they’re not going to the battleship. They’re headed for the platform.”
“But she’s leaving.”
“Those shuttles will still be able to reach her for a while. Probably right up until she goes into FTL.”
“But they’re not headed for Sol, right?” Josh asked.
“No, at least not directly.”
“What do you mean, not directly?”
“They’re headed in that general direction, but not actually toward Sol. More like halfway between Eta Cassiopeiae and Mu Cassiopeiae.”
“Eta Cassiopeiae is sixteen light years away, Loki. Why the hell would they be going there?”
“How am I supposed to know? It doesn’t matter anyway. Either way, we have to sit here and track that thing until they go to FTL. Then we jump back to Sol and report in.”
* * *
“Lieutenant,” Jessica greeted as she strolled up to the group of Ghatazhak assembled in the Aurora’s main hangar deck.
Lieutenant Telles looked the lieutenant commander up and down, taking note of the fact that she was dressed in her standard combat gear, and was armed. “Going somewhere, sir?”
“With you,” Jessica answered. “Thought I could use some fresh sea air, maybe a walk on the beach.”
“In full combat gear?”
“Yeah, well, a bikini didn’t seem appropriate, what with half the planet being in ruins and all.”
“I am assuming that Captain Scott knows that you are coming along,” the lieutenant said.
“His idea, actually,” she told him as she checked her weapons. “I guess he’s afraid you and your boys will scare the locals. Friendly face, and all that.”
“And he chose you?”
“Hey, I can do friendly,” she exclaimed as she brushed past the lieutenant to board the waiting shuttle.