The Terran Gambit

by Nick Webb

  The man stopped struggling. A last wheeze escaped his mouth. The doctor motioned to one of the nurses and pointed at the body, and the harried man came to lift the deceased away. It was like some surreal dream, like Jake was watching something from above his own head and from a distance.

  “There. It’s free now,” he said to Jake, pointing at the table. “Quickly.” Jake focused, and laid Ben down on the blood-stained examination table and Nichols peered down to look at him, waving his data pad over his neck.

  “He’s knocked cold. Probably a concussion. Minor nerve damage in his spine, but with a quick treatment he’ll be fine.” He glanced back up at Jake. “You wasted my time for this?” Doc Nichols waved the nurse back over and pointed at the man. “Get Commander Jemez up and running. He’s needed on the bridge,” and, turning to Jake said, “Come with me. There’s someone who wants to see one of you.”

  Perplexed, Jake followed the doctor back to his office, where lying on a make-shift examination table was the Captain. His eyes were open, and he struggled for quick, shallow breaths. Jake glanced at his abdomen and saw a stack of white cloths pressed against his skin, tinged throughout with dark, crusted blood. Doc mumbled in Jake’s ear. “He’s got massive internal bleeding. Nearly every organ’s got contusions and lacerations up the ass. Go talk to him. He’s not going to make it.”

  He leaned over the Captain, who looked up into his eyes. “I asked for Jemez,” Watson said, through gritted teeth.

  “Sorry, sir, Jemez is out cold. He’ll live, though.”

  The Captain looked more relaxed with the news. “Is the ship safe?”

  “No, sir. We’ve still got an Imperial fleet out there that’s about to board us. We’re working out a plan now.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Jake saw the doctor hover nearby, listening to his friend’s last moments. The old man’s mouth curled into a tight frown, as if willing himself not to cry.

  Watson’s voice gurgled, “Get the ship to safety. Find Pritchard. He’s out there. I know. Find him. Get the ship to safety, Jemez. That’s your final order.” Jake wondered if the man was entirely lucid, having called him Jemez.

  He coughed, spewing up a mouthful of blood onto his heaving chest. He reached up to his lapel and ripped off his captain’s insignia. He looked back at Jake and tried to focus. He frowned when he saw who it was. “Here. Mercer, take these. They’re for.…” He wheezed again.

  “I’ll do my best sir.”

  “Give them to Jemez. By fleet standing order nine, I hereby advance Ben Jemez to the rank of Captain, and transfer command of the Phoenix to him.” He coughed blood again. “Get the ship to safety.” His breathing quickened, his eyes widened, and he reached out his other hand to Nichols, who grasped it. “Oh my …”

  His hands stiffened, then fell limp. Nichols reached down to close the man’s eyes.

  “See ya, Dick, you old bastard.” Nichols reached up to wipe an eye.

  Give them to Jemez. The man’s last words echoed through Jake’s mind. And transfer command of the Phoenix to him. To Ben Jemez.

  Not Ben. His best friend was capable, smart, trustworthy … but not Ben. Jake knew, without a doubt, that Ben was not the one to lead them out of the emergency. There was no manual for chaos.

  He staggered back to sit on a bench by the wall. Nichols glanced over at him, then approached and looked at the floor. Silence pervaded the office, punctuated only by the occasional scream of some patient in the adjacent room.

  “I can’t do that. He’s—he’s good, but …” Jake couldn’t even put into words what he felt. If there was a rule or a regulation or a ship schematic ever written, Ben knew it. But he didn’t know people. He didn’t know strategy, and he didn’t know how to win. To do whatever it took. He didn’t have that drive. Not like Jake. He’d learned it from watching his father. From deciding he’d never, ever end up like that drunk bastard.

  “You know what you have to do.”

  Jake looked up at him, scrutinizing the doctor’s face, trying to read the expression he’d used in his voice. “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. We both know what has to be done.”

  Jake slowly nodded. “Will you support me?”

  As if in answer, Nichols turned back to the body of his friend. “Dammit, Dick, I love ya, but not even you were the best man to get us out of this mess. And certainly not your protégé.” He glanced back at Jake. “Go. There’s a ship to save. And maybe a planet.”

  Feeling as if the whole situation were completely unreal, Jake stood up, squeezing the bloody Captain’s insignia in his hand, and strode out of the office. It was like he was walking in slow motion, like the sights and smells and sounds around him were something he was watching from afar, like a videogame. He walked past the rows of bloodied men and women and made for the exit.

  “Jake?” a voice croaked out at him.

  He turned. Ben had woken up. He walked over to his friend.

  “The Captain?” his friend continued.

  “Dead.”

  “Did he say anything? Before he died, I mean?”

  “He did.” He looked down at his friend. He touched the man’s shoulder. “He promoted me, gave me command of the ship.”

  “You?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was he fully awake? Did you make sure?” Ben started to push himself up from the table to a sitting position, but winced.

  “He was, Ben. The Doc was there and everything. He mentioned you. Said you were one of the finest officers he’d ever met. But at the last moment, he, well, he said what he said.” He glanced back at the exit. The troop carriers from the Caligula would be arriving any moment now, he knew, and he had to get ready. “Look, Ben. We’ve got to move. If we have any hope at all of getting out of here, we need to move now. You with me?”

  Ben pursed his lips, looking down at the table, and the floor beyond. “I’m ready. What do we do?”

  Jake smiled, and grabbed his friend by the hand, steadying him as he took his first steps. “First, we beat the shit out of this boarding party, then, we beat the shit out of the Caligula.”

  “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  Jake nodded, pulling Ben toward the exit. “So do I.”

  ***

  Lieutenant Anya Grace knew danger. She’d grown up with it, living with parents who thought the best way to raise their rebellious daughter was to throw her into the cold Alaskan wilderness for two weeks with nothing but a shirt, pants, and a pair of her brother’s old leather boots.

  With her parent’s newfound devotion to the Emperor’s religion came a host of other trials as the zealous couple tried to indoctrinate their daughter, but Anya would have none of it. Even after her brothers had tried to implement their parents’ wishes by force. A few broken noses later, they soon wished they hadn’t.

  This was different, but only in the sense that those coming after her had guns and ion cannons rather than spiteful words, guilt, and fists.

  “Everybody move! Clear the deck. All techs report to deck thirty, aft, and all pilots and gunners bugger out of here before I kick your asses. Let’s move people, we’ve got some special guests coming!” She ripped open the gun locker and selected an assault rifle and a small sidearm before locking it back up. As she turned, she was forced to stop suddenly to avoid colliding with her gunner. “Nivens? Get the hell out.”

  “No,” said the young man. “I’m coming with you, whatever you’re doing.” He looked down at her, noticing her donned flight suit and helmet under one arm.

  “I said get out. This deck is about to be crawling with Imperial troops. Move!” She pointed at the door.

  “You’re getting in your bird. And if you are, then so am I. And … you … you can’t stop me.” He walked over to the equipment locker and pulled out another helmet.

  “Watch me.” She pulled the sidearm out of the holster strapped to her chest and pointed it at the young man. “Get the fuck out.”

  He steeled his chin, but di
dn’t move. “No, sir. You’ll have to shoot me.”

  She stared into his eyes for about five seconds, then smiled, pushing the gun back into the holster. “I like you. Let’s go.”

  He followed on her tail, weaving around fallen equipment and debris that littered the floor from the explosions of battle. “What’s the plan, Lieutenant?”

  She explained what Jake had told her over the comm. “Holy shit!” he said. “What’s the point of all that?”

  “Actually, it makes perfect sense, Ensign. Mercer told me we have to buy time for engineering to get us the hell out of here, but if we refuse to be boarded, they blast us out of the sky. If we start firing once they get here, they’ll leave and then blast us out of the sky.” She wrenched the door to their cockpit open and began climbing up. “But if we let them land on the deck and make it look like their last carrier to enter suffered some kind of gravitic malfunction, a hiccup, and at the same time arrange for said hiccup to force a closure of the bay doors so that no more carriers can enter, or leave for that matter, well then, that buys us some time.”

  “How?” Nivens did not look convinced.

  “Leave that to the commander. That’s his job.” He climbed in after her and sat at the gunner’s station. “Ready?” she asked.

  “Whenever you are, sir.”

  “Good. Here they come.”

  Anya sealed the hatch and remotely keyed the bay doors to open. With a roar that reminded her briefly of a tornado, the air rushed out of the flight deck, and the doors slowly ground away from each other, revealing several distant carriers on an approach vector. She entered in the coordinates, double checking the numbers to make sure no part of the ship would be stuck outside the bay doors when they began their emergency shut function.

  “Get down. They can’t see us,” she said, ducking under the console herself. No rumble indicated the passing of the carriers, but their shadows darkened the viewport of their fighter as they floated by. Anya peered up through the rear viewport, watching as the last carrier approached the bay doors.

  “Almost there. Brace yourself, Nivens.” She held her breath. As the last ship passed the threshold, she pressed the button on her console, entering the command to shift.

  In the blink of an eye, the view outside the viewports changed, and a catastrophic clang ripped through the cabin. Outside, Anya saw debris from the flight deck where they had landed fly up past the viewports, and klaxons began to sound through the speakers, indicating the hull breach they had likely caused in the wall next to their landing zone. As expected, the bay doors began to shut automatically.

  Anya blew the hair out of her eyes. “Would you look at that, Nivens. We’re alive.”

  ***

  The bridge of the Caligula hummed along with quiet Corsican efficiency. The battle had gone exceedingly well, and, in spite of the loss of the Honorius, Captain Titus nodded approvingly at his readout as he watched the situational progress. Six of the nine Terran battleships had been consumed in blinding explosions. Six. He’d never seen such a thing, and he couldn’t help but be in terrified awe of Trajan. He was a genius, certainly, but a mad, psychopathic one.

  They’d lost eight ships now, six of them new, top of the line heavy cruisers. And all just to defeat the Earth Resistance? He wasn’t sure it had been worth it.

  “Sir,” said the officer manning the sensor station.

  Admiral Trajan looked up from his command station. “Yes, sensor officer?”

  “My readings indicate a gravitic signal from the Phoenix, sir. It was just a blip.” He studied his board some more, and Admiral Trajan approached the tactical station, his head cocked.

  “What do you mean, a blip?” The Admiral’s eye danced over the sensor officer’s board.

  “Well sir, I was reading the gravitic signals from our carriers entering their flight deck, when all of the sudden the gravitic readings spiked, but just for a fraction of a second.” He tapped a few more buttons. “And there appears to be damage to the flight deck, sir. I’d wager a guess that one of our carriers’ gravitic drives malfunctioned and either crashed or disrupted the localized gravitic field and damaged the Phoenix somehow.”

  Trajan stroked his chin and nodded slowly. “Perhaps. You’re still reading the Phoenix’s gravitic drive is down, are you not?”

  The officer glanced at his readout. “Yes, sir.”

  “Any gravitic signals from any of the Phoenix’s fighters?”

  “No sir. And sir? The fighter bay door is closing—it looks like it’s an emergency-shut operation.”

  The Admiral paced back to the command console, still stroking his chin, apparently lost in thought.

  “Problem, sir?” Titus asked.

  “Possibly, Captain.”

  “Gravitic drives often experience blips such as these.”

  Trajan pierced Captain Titus with an icy one-eyed glare. “I am aware of the flight specifications of our gravitic drives, Captain.” He turned back to his console. “But what are the odds of it happening right now?” Trajan tapped a few buttons on his readout, his face turning more studious.

  “Comm officer,” he said, pointing to Evans. “Patch me through to the carriers.”

  “Aye, sir. Channel is open.”

  “Major, this is Admiral Trajan. Our guests inform me that the surviving senior staff will receive you when you arrive. Have you landed, yet?”

  “Yes, sir. Disembarking now, sir,” came the marine’s voice. There’s no sign of the crew, but the bay hasn’t repressurized yet—there seems to be a hull breach somewhere in here.”

  Admiral Trajan glanced knowingly at the Captain. “Very well, Major. When you see the senior staff, your orders are shoot to kill. Place everyone else under arrest.”

  “Acknowledged, sir. Shoot to kill.”

  “Trajan out.” Trajan’s face seemed inscrutable. “And now a hull breach, Captain. Do you know what a hull breach means in the fighter bay? Or anywhere else on the ship for that matter?”

  “Decompression?”

  “Correct, Captain, but the answer I was looking for was emergency bulkheads. This means the boarding party will face a delay as they negotiate the pressure drop between the bay and its adjacent corridors.”

  “So you don’t believe this was an accident, sir?”

  “I do not. Tactical,” he turned to the tactical station. “Prepare the railguns. Do not fire, but be ready on my command.”

  Titus cleared his throat. He’d just about had it with Trajan killing his own men. “But sir, what about our boarding party?”

  “We will give them their chance, Captain, but something tells me the Major and his men might face a little resistance.”

  “Sir! There’s been another explosion on the Phoenix. Looks like a secondary explosion, sir, from a short near their capacitor banks.” The sensor officer studied his readout closer. “And it looks as if it damaged their sensor and communications array. It’s sending out a broad spectrum signal, as if the auxiliary power system just got dumped into the array.”

  “Can we hail the boarding party?”

  “No sir, the new signal is interfering with our communications.”

  Titus came up behind Admiral Trajan. “We did hit them pretty hard, sir. Power surges are to be expected after a battle like this.”

  Trajan snapped his head and skewered him again with his gaze, before turning back to tactical. “Be ready with those guns, Lieutenant.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  JAKE MERCER AND BEN JEMEZ jogged toward the fighter bay, stopping by the marine barracks to check if anyone was still there.

  “I’d imagine they’ve all been recruited for damage control,” said Ben.

  “Probably. But we’re going to need a bigger army than the two of us.” He poked his head into the barracks, and sure enough, it was empty. He keyed open the arms locker using his command code and tossed an assault rifle out to Ben before selecting one for himself.

  “Jake, you realize that if we repel their boarding par
ty, the Caligula will just blow up the ship? This is supposed to be a surrender.”

  “I know. That’s why we need the Caligula to think the surrender is proceeding normally for awhile.” He gave Ben an abbreviated version of his plan, then opened a comm channel to engineering.

  “Alessandro, what’s our status?”

  Bernoulli’s voice crackled over the speaker. “I need another hour, friend. This crystal substrate has taken a beating like a naughty cheap prostitute.” Jake grinned at his friend’s caustic sense of humor. The chaos that had sounded through the speakers from engineering the last time they had spoken had died away, thankfully.

  “Fine, buddy. Take all the time you need,” Jake said sarcastically.

  Alessandro’s voice indicated the humor was lost on him. “Excellent, friend. Bernoulli ou—”

  “Alessandro, if we don’t get the hell out of here within half an hour, we’re screwed. Got it?” Jake yelled into the console. “What’s the status of our communications and sensor array?”

  The quick change of subjects didn’t faze Alessandro—Jake knew that was his modus operandi. “Functional, Jake. Why?”

  “Any way you can make it look like we just had a system failure down there, and send out some white noise as a jamming signal? We need to stop all Imperial communication between their ships and with the soldiers about to land on our fighter deck.”

  A moment’s silence. “I suppose if I dump power from one of the cap banks, it’ll look like a secondary explosion from an overload, and then if I do a direct feed from the auxiliary power line right into the sensor array, it might come across as an accident,” he said, seeming to read Jake’s mind. It had to look like an accident or they’d attract Trajan’s ire. Or rather, more of it.

  “Good, do it.”