Witch Of The Federation (Federal Histories Book 2)

by Michael Anderle

  Stephanie rubbed her face and groaned. She put her pen down and leaned back to bring her cup of coffee to her lips. There were so many variables to it, and she had walked into the whole thing without the right mindset to find the answers.

  “Okay. Suddenly, one thousand tons of organic transfer doesn’t seem enough. I have to worry about how many pounds of engineers I have allotted and how much each of them weighs versus whether or not I’ll need a potter, a seamstress, a weaver, and maybe someone who knows how to cook a decent meal.”

  She leaned forward and studied the storm pattern on her screen. “Not to mention the fact that we don’t know what kind of diseases lurk in those tall grasses or what kind of insects and wild animals will hunt us while we attempt to build a civilization. We’d have to start with perimeters while getting shelter up as quickly as possible to avoid storms.”

  Lars stared at the walls and at the very familiar-looking planet around him. “We could always ride the storms out in whatever ship we took to get there. Even if we had to fly it out of the atmosphere and back down.”

  “That’s a lot of battery power,” Frog pointed out. “Not to mention the weight of those damn things.”

  “And fuel,” Johnny added from his corner. “I’d suggest finding a cave system, but many animals hide out in caves and that might not be the safest option, either.”

  Stephanie put her hand out. “Then we have cross-training to think about. It would only be smart to bring someone if they can be used in a multitude of ways. They may start with being a laborer and then become a harvester. Or a scientist, or a doctor. We can’t bring a person who is capable of only one task unless no one else does it and they are irreplaceable. If it is a female, she can double duty for procreation, but yeah, we have an issue with the general topic of how much testosterone is in a human. That can play a huge role in things.”

  Lars laughed. “That basically plays a huge role in everything. Women can be builders, harvesters, and everything else, but there are some primary natural traits that make it smarter to bring a big, burly, strong man instead. If something breaks, we need to know the woman is as efficient in moving things with brute strength as the man would be. It sucks but we’re talking about evolutionary traits here for the masses, not a select few.”

  She wanted to argue with him, but it was science. Men were naturally made to manage and sustain more physical labor than women, even though she knew more than a few women and men who didn’t fit that mold. It didn’t mean that women on Earth couldn’t do the same job. Given an unlimited amount of weight, they wouldn’t consider sex, but with the weight limits, they had to make sure they got the biggest bang for their buck.

  “And killing can be a concern too,” Frog said and raised his hands in defensively. “Women can be great soldiers and hunters, but many are not. Men are bred to be protectors. It’s in our DNA. Like you said, we have to pick the best choice, not the one that makes a political statement. Once we are safely functioning on the planet is when we will be able to start cross-training to put people in jobs they’re best at or want to work.”

  Stephanie rolled her eyes at him but then shrugged. “You’re right. I want to argue but I won’t. We need to add that to our list in order to be able to get what we need. We must develop tests for those individual skills. People will have to show their abilities, strength, health, vigor, and everything between. It won’t be a fun ride and there’s a good chance people will die. We have to account for that.”

  Lars shook his head. “My brain hurts.”

  While the team worked through the difficulties of choosing their settlers, the Dreamer’s Engine Room had gotten noisy. The thrum of working drives vibrated around the engineers who tended them.

  The rumble was louder now the ship no longer idled at the dockside or traveled through normal space. The transition drives were bigger than the other engines and much, much louder.

  The engineers monitored them carefully and constantly scrutinized the read-outs attached to each observation panel. A faulty engine or battery was incredibly dangerous when sliding the ship from one dimension to the next. If the measurements weren’t correct, they could end up somewhere completely different with no way to get home.

  Roger stood at the front of the room and checked things off on his tablet. One of the guys walked up and nodded his head. “Hey, are we redoing all the checks twice or three times?”

  He looked up, his face thoughtful. “Only twice unless the readings are different. The first slip went really smoothly, and we have a few hours before we need to make the second.” He smiled. “We were exactly on target when we came through, but you know slipping can be hard on the engines so use double checks to make sure everything’s running smoothly as we travel through the local space quadrant. Once that’s done, we’ll use the travel time to make sure the slip drives are ready for the next transition.”

  The guy nodded. “Any word of when we’ll be underway?”

  Roger shook his head. “No. We won’t know until Navigation confirms it has the heading, then they’ll want us to haul ass like they usually do. As long as we have a smooth flow and the batteries glow, I’ll be happy.”

  As he spoke, the entire ship shuddered. The crew grabbed the nearest handholds and some clipped safety lines to their harnesses.

  The engineer had been rocked off his feet and pulled himself up slowly. He noted the slightly higher readings and pushed his hardhat off his forehead as he glanced around and muttered, “I don’t know what that was, but I doubt it was a good thing.”

  On the bridge, the crew strapped in and waited for the juddering to stop. Dreamers’ captain, Harlan Pensman, took hold of his console and looked at his crew who strained to see their monitors.

  As the men reached for their keyboards in preparation to find the source of the problem, Pensman did the same, but when he hit the first key, he realized what was wrong.

  The display was frozen, and when he pressed the emergency override, it began to skip wildly around like it was on the fritz.

  He looked at the comms console. The crewman stationed to it was under it, already working on the panel, but the captain shouted, anyway. “Jeven!”

  Jeven didn’t even look at him as he examined what lay behind the panel. “On it, sir.”

  Before the captain could respond, the forward viewscreen went black and the signature logo of the Dreth pirates appeared.

  “Security! Talk to me and it better be good,” Pensman said and spoke quietly into his headset. “Kelly, tell me I have shields. Jeven, when do I get my comms back? I need them three years ago.”

  “On it, Captain.” As soon as he replied, the tech nudged the mic in his collar tabs and began to speak in a low, urgent voice.

  The captain watched as the comms officer waited, listened, and spoke again.

  “Well?” he demanded when Jeven had finished.

  “They’ve hacked the system, sir, but Rampart and Trillion have launched the Yelpers and some of them made the slip into Federation space. Hargan is working with the concierge and they’ve enacted the Level-One protocol.”

  Sending Yelpers—droid emergency capsules that could take an SOS to the nearest Navy vessel—had been next on the captain’s list of demands.

  “Very good, Jeven. Now, get me—” He stopped as the forward viewscreen cleared and they could once again look out on a field of stars. “Thank you, Jeven.”

  Stare as he might, Captain Pensman saw no sign of a pirate ship—and nor should he. This was the second dimension, a place they passed through on the way back to their own dimension. It wasn’t somewhere mapped out in case of attack.

  Maybe it should be.

  He frowned and glared at the screen until his console beeped and drew his attention. His screen had returned to life, which confirmed that the system was rebooting and would soon be back online. He was about to sit when Jeven’s voice sounded in his earpiece.

  “Navy says they’ve sent a seeker, but they can’t send anything heavier u
ntil they have a target.” They both looked at the scan console but its operator shook her head.

  “How long?” Pensman demanded.

  “They say it’ll take at least…uh…” Jeven typed hurriedly “It’s…”

  “Yes? Spit it out,” he ordered, his voice tight with tension.

  “It’s fourteen hours, sir, before it gets here,” the man replied and cast him a nervous glance.

  The captain gritted his teeth and nodded before he keyed in the public address system. He cleared his throat, centered himself, and prepared to speak to the passengers and crew.

  He knew what was going on outside the quiet of the command center. It would be orderly chaos—and that was if he was lucky. The Level-One Emergency Protocol would sound and a calm female voice would direct all passengers to their cabins.

  Every corridor would be lit with amber lights, and the stasis pods in each cabin would come online. Through all that, he had to project calm and control and make sure his passengers did exactly as they were asked. Now was not the time for heroes.

  His purpose defined, he cleared his throat one more time, took a deep breath, and made the broadcast. “Good evening, passengers. This is your captain speaking. We are experiencing some technical difficulties and will suffer a slight delay. To ensure your safety and to allow the crew to carry out their duties unimpeded, please stay in your cabins until further notice. I repeat, we are experiencing some technical difficulties. Please remain in your cabins until further notice.”

  He ended the broadcast and switched to Security Central.

  “Make sure the decks are clear and lock the passenger compartments. If we’re boarded, I don’t want them to have access and I don’t want any strays to become hostages.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  The captain ended the transmission and sat heavily. His mind raced as he tried to decide what to do next. It didn’t help that he knew Security would have its hands full.

  Most of the richies on the ship would either ignore him or lose their damn minds. He knew that as surely as he knew he would have to fill out reports for the next six months.

  His tablet pinged, and he caught the defense officer’s glance and nodded to let the man know he’d received the communication. He activated the message and watched the scan feed magnify to show the Dreamer’s outer hull and the star field beyond it.

  “They’re coming in on our starboard side,” the officer said. “It looks like a standard hard-dock approach to use the atrium and passenger entrance.”

  The scene on the tablet adjusted to show a projected course before it returned to the pirates. “You will see these two ships are currently locked together. When they detach, I’ll let you know. Likewise, if we pick up any other signals.”

  “Good.” Pensman nodded. “Watch them like a hawk. The moment anything changes, let me know.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The captain made another call to Security Central. “Pensman here. Put me through to the commander.”

  The call was transferred and Commander Charles Wayforth came online.

  “Captain?”

  “It’s not good, Charlie. There are two Dreth incoming. They’re currently interlocked but I want—” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his screen bubble and fritz until an image of a worm eating invisible streams of data came up. “Of all the goat-sucking—Jeven!”

  “I’m working on it.”

  On the open comms line, he heard Charles give a startled bark of laughter and then swear.

  “You got it, too, Charlie?”

  “Big purple worm looking like it’s eating its way out the top of the screen? Yeah. I’ll get the Hats onto it right away.”

  Pensman sighed. The Hats were the company’s ‘white hat’ hackers employed legitimately to counter hacking threats. They were useful but he wished he didn’t need them.

  He pushed that pointless thought to one side and resumed the brief. “Jeven’s trying to clear the command deck, but you have the rest of the ship.”

  “Understood. Let me know if there’s anything else, Penny. Don’t get killed while I’m not looking.”

  “You too, Charlie-Boy.”

  They ended the call and both men set about their assigned tasks. They’d served together in the Navy and come aboard the Dreamer together, too. With any luck, they’d both make it to retirement.

  First, though, they had to get through this.

  Marcus and Brenden stood guard in the pod room, their backs against the walls. They were supposed to divide their attention between the readouts on Steph’s pod and the door, but Marcus cleaned his nails with his knife and Brenden played Dreth and Damnation on his tablet. He glanced up and his gaze scanned the door and the pods before it came to rest on Brenden. “I wonder if they’re kicking ass in there.”

  His teammate snorted and focused on the tablet as it loaded the next level. “They’re probably getting an exclusive vacation package as a reward and will owe us the big one.”

  He shook his head. “Nah. Lars would never allow it.”

  Brenden glanced up and a sly grin lit his face. “Do you think he’s conning Steph into another dance?”

  Marcus laughed. “The man’s not that lucky.”

  The other man grinned but before he could reply, a jolt rumbled through the ship. If they hadn’t been leaning on the walls, they’d have lost their footing.

  “What the—” Brendan stuffed the tablet into his jacket and leapt for the nearest pod.

  On the other side of the room, Marcus did the same thing.

  Together, they started the emergency eject protocol for each of their teammates. There was no time to lose, especially since they had no idea what the hell was going on.

  In the Virtual World, Stephanie put her feet up on an adjacent chair and lifted her tablet to push through the pictures of the planet. “They appear to have a strong ecological system there. It must be from all the rain.”

  “If they live off rain and not some acidic hellfire.” Lars laughed as he studied the same images. “That would put a real damper on things.”

  Before she could reply, the table flashed out of existence and the dishes fell. The chairs also vanished and dumped them on their asses.

  Startled by the sudden flare that had run through the Virtual World, they picked themselves and glanced around in concern.

  “Everybody ou—” Lars started, but that was as far as he got.

  The AI came over the speakers “Prepare for ejection from the virtual simulation. This is not a drill. Prepare for immediate ejection.”

  “This can’t be our fault,” Frog said and tried to type on a computer that constantly disappeared and reappeared in front of him. “We didn’t do anything crazy. There are enough servers in this ship’s system to support the scenario. We didn’t break nothing.”

  Stephanie looked around when the ground shook beneath her feet. “What’s going on?”

  Lars started to fade. “Nothing good,” he said and in an instant, he had gone.

  Frog vanished next and then Stephanie, Johnny, and Avery. She clenched her eyes shut, afraid that this time would be different and that something terrible would be waiting.

  When she opened her eyes a few moments later she found herself back in the pod with the door wide open.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  “Move in and take control,” the Hormghast Orqtue growled and finished with a roar to get the attention of those under his command. “We make it to Engineering and the Bridge and that’s when we start killing. No hostages.”

  “Hormghast!” the Dreth pirates responded and their deep voices echoed in the hold.

  Orqtue turned to the airlock, snapped his helmet closed, and waited for the hatch to cycle. He was glad to see the umbilical stretched taut between the ships and the outer hatch already open.

  With another roar, he led his men across, trusting the advance party to have already opened the way at the other end and now held the entry secure. Behind him, the Dreth raised
their voices and their howls resounded through their suits and into the liner.

  When they reached the other side, they found the breaching party had not only opened the way and held it, but they had secured the main floor. As expected, the elevators were locked down, but a pirate technician was already working to finalize the access the worm had started.

  Referencing the Dreamer’s schematics via their helmet HUDs, the Dreth hurtled directly toward Engineering. It didn’t take them long to reach the security team that blocked their path.

  “You shall not pa—” was all the security sergeant managed before the Hormghast shot him in the head.

  He walked behind his men, his lip curled in a snarl of pleasure as he wielded the blaster single-handed. It wasn’t pride to say he hadn’t been made Hormghast for nothing. His aim was deadly and he was very, very fast.

  Over his space suit, he wore a layer of thick leather armor adorned with gleaming metal spikes. From his belt hung the skin sections, shrunken skulls, and dried ears he’d taken from his defeated enemies.

  Orqtue looked ahead as the last security guard fell and identified the human he knew to be one of his allies’ inside men. He nodded and smirked slightly to reveal his long, jagged teeth through the visor.

  The traitor did not impress him, and he responded as he should—by soiling himself at the sight of the Dreth charging toward him. As if realizing he had more to do, the man fled at a run.

  “They’re through!” he screamed, grasped a long metal rod from behind a stack of pallets, and rammed it into the security doors to stop them closing after he’d bolted through. “We’ve been breached!”