by Robert Boren
“Okay.” I left the conference room.
I grabbed a tin can, getting to the stateroom in a few minutes.
“Butch, be ready with the codes, so I can relay them to Bryce.”
“Thanks,” I said as I pulled the Skipjack’s token out of my safe. I put it into the comm device and paged Bryce.
“Trey?”
“Hi, Bryce. We’ve got a video conference going with Simone’s team. Care to join us? I can send you the codes to get on securely. You won’t be traceable.”
“Yes, that would be great, thanks.”
“You should be getting the codes in a moment.”
“How did Simone react when you told her we were talking?”
“She sounded relieved,” I said. “Kaleb suggested we bring you in.”
“Kaleb. One of my oldest friends. Glad to hear he’s still alive.”
“Hamilton Zenos is on the call as well,” I said.
“You’re kidding. Used to think he was a crackpot. Not so much anymore. Why’d you bring him in?”
“He knows which worlds have agreed to enforce the mandatory PA law. We’ll have to disable that before we attack the Clan.”
“How big of a problem do we have?” Bryce asked.
“From a percentage standpoint, very small, but it’s still multiple billions of people at risk. Roughly 6300 worlds, according to Hamilton’s sources, including Devonia Axxiom.”
“Not Earth, I hope.”
I chuckled. “You know how we are. No way, and we control it from our ground stations. They’d have to get boots on the ground to turn it back on.”
“Just got the codes. I’ll attempt to get on.”
“Great, then I’ll go back to the conference room and shut this call down. See you in a few minutes.”
I ended the call, put the token away, and rushed back to the conference room.
“You got him?” Vermillion asked.
“Yep, he should be on any second. It takes a few minutes if you haven’t been a participant before.”
Bryce’s face came onto the screen.
Kaleb grinned. “How the hell are you, Bryce?”
“Better now that I can see your ugly mug. I was afraid you’d been iced.”
“Not yet, but give it time. Mr. Chairman, so great to see you. Wish we could have a drink.”
“We’ll do that again, I hope,” Vermillion said.
“Hello, Bryce,” Simone said.
“Simone. Sorry we thought you were the enemy. So glad you aren’t.”
She smiled. “We were victims of a plot, and we all fell for it. Now it’s time for some payback.”
“First article of business is to turn off that stun capability,” Vermillion said. “There’s too many humans at risk to put that off.”
“Agreed, Mr. Chairman,” Simone said.
“Yes, please do that,” Hamilton said. “Especially on Devonia Axxiom. There’s too much there of use to the enemy if all the civilians are gone.”
“Yes, that is a great risk,” Simone said.
“The timing of the PA system neutralization and the attack on the Clan ships will be critical,” Nolan said. “We don’t want to shut the PA system down too far ahead, or they might be able to re-connect it.”
“As soon as we get that shut down, we need to send out instructions for hardening the ground stations,” Vermillion said, “like we did on Earth.”
“Earth is safe?” Kaleb asked.
“Yes, the enemy would have to get to the surface to undo what we did there,” Vermillion said. “Unfortunately, we have boots on the ground in Devonia Axxiom, so we might need to destroy the hardware.”
“I agree,” I said. “We’ll plan that hit. I’ve already got some ideas. How about the tuning?”
“You guys can cloak,” Simone said. “Is that something we can use?”
I glanced at Vermillion, who nodded. “I don’t know, Simone, but we could have our engineers look at it. It’s a software change to our shield system. You know it’s very likely the Clan buried bugs in the Razor ships, though. It might be better to rely on the tuning of your weapons and shields. Nothing is worse than cloaking technology that almost works.”
Bryce chuckled. “That’s a fact. Not much we can do with the Centurion Class ships, I suspect. Not enough power. We were able to team up and destroy a couple Razor ships during our last battle, but it was expensive.”
“We can give you some improvement,” Nolan said. “Might be enough, since we’ll have surprise on our side.”
I laughed. “You know, we thought you were fighting Overlords Razors when we heard about that battle.”
Simon smiled. “We were pleasantly surprised at how well the Central Authority Fleet did in that battle. Kudos. We would’ve joined in if we could have.”
“We would’ve considered you the enemy and attacked,” Bryce said. “I’m glad you didn’t try.”
“Okay, we have a lot to do,” I said. “We’ll send instructions on how to tune weapons and shields. If there’s something we can do to move you towards having cloaking capability, we’ll help with that. I suspect we’ll find out as the tuning is done.”
“Agreed,” Simone said.
“Count us in too,” Bryce said.
“We’ll send you all the data we have on the PA system,” Simone said. “Locations of hard ware and other data.”
“Perfect,” I said.
“What else?” Vermillion asked.
“We’re short on fuel,” Bryce said.
“I think we can help with that,” Simone said. “We’ve got a Boron mine running.”
“Yes, we’ve got a fuel source as well,” JJ said. “We’ll end up learning each other’s positions if we do that, though.”
“Not necessarily, at least in our case,” Nolan said. “We can use the Zephyrus to send fuel, and it can cloak.”
“The Zephyrus class ships can cloak too?” Simone asked.
“I figured that,” Hamilton said. “How else could they have pulled off the rescue?”
“I was going to ask about that,” Simone said. “What happened there?”
“I was drugged,” Vermillion said. “We planned ahead, though. When the drugs took effect, I was put into an induced coma.”
“How the hell did you do that?” Bryce asked.
“I’d rather not say right now,” Vermillion said.
“Still compartmentalizing,” Simone said.
“Sorry.”
She chuckled. “I know you too well. This is not a problem for me. You are alive because of that tactic, and I use it myself.”
“Let’s schedule another meeting, and go work our tasks,” I said. “If there aren’t more questions.”
“I think this is a great start,” Bryce said. “I’ll get with the other Captains and Admiral Boeraton.”
“He’s still alive?” Vermillion asked. “Good.”
“He’s been in better shape, but yeah, he’s still alive.”
“Shall we meet again in twenty-four hours?” Simone asked.
“Works for me,” Vermillion said.
“Perfect,” Bryce said.
“Okay, we’ll make contact to start with our tasks,” I said. “Please send us contact information for the engineers we can work with.”
“Will do,” Simone said, Bryce nodding in agreement.
“Talk to you soo
n.” I shut down the call.
“Well, there you have it,” JJ said.
“I understand and agree,” I said. “If somebody talked, it could risk the New Jersey and everybody aboard her. No way.”
“The others will have a chance to prove themselves,” Vermillion said, “and hopefully they will.”
“As soon as we find out the position of the PA system central node on Devonia Axxiom, I suggest we send in flight suits with Variant Three Nanos set to full power,” Nolan said.
“Yes, I was thinking the same thing,” I said.
“Hey,” JJ said. “What about those Overlords operatives at the Devonia Axxiom Space Dock? We should ask Simone about them.”
Nolan smiled. “I forgot all about them. Theodora, right?”
Vermillion nodded. “I’ll contact Simone from my office and ask about them. She admitted they were there. She placed them when the Prime Minister started acting suspiciously.”
“Some of them have been there for quite some time,” Nolan said.
“Yes, Simone has had issues with the Prime Minister for a while.”
“Drake, thoughts on this?”
“If these people aren’t technologically savvy, I might have to get on a video call with them,” Nolan said. “We could use PAs for that.”
“The enemy can’t listen in on PA video calls?” I asked.
Nolan chuckled “They’ll be able to listen in until she’s gotten to the second step. Then they’ll be locked out of the PA net. They won’t be able to do anything about it, unless they’ve got guards right there.”
“Let’s try that,” I said, “but bottom line is that the New Jersey is more important than commerce on Devonia Axxiom. If this plan doesn’t work, we go in with Variant Three Nanos and fry the system.”
Vermillion got up. “I’ll go chat with Simone about those operatives.”
“AIs on speaker,” I said.
“Dojo, anything on the tuning question?” I asked.
“We can send that info to Simone and Bryce right away then,” JJ said.
I nodded. “Okay, let’s go do that, then. Want to come along, JJ?”
“Yes,” she said, getting up.
“Dojo, send the data on the weak spots to the Chairman, so he can pass it along to Simone.”
JJ and I left the stateroom.
“Hungry?” she asked.
“Yes, let’s grab something on the way, but fast food only. We’re on a time schedule.”
JJ nodded. We stopped by the snack stand and got food, taking it to the stateroom. I set my food down on the table and went to the comm unit.
“You aren’t going to eat first?”
I glanced at her. “I’m going to eat during the call.”
“You really are on a time schedule,” she said. “What am I missing?”
“The enemy is getting ready to load troop transports. We’ll be lucky if we can pull off this mission in time.”
“Oh. I get it.”
I put the Skipjack token back in the comm unit and turned it on, paging Bryce.
“Hi, Trey.”
“Well, what did you think?”
“I think we have a fighting chance.”
“Good, me too. I’m going to leave my comm unit with the Skipjack token on 24/7, so page me and I’ll be on. Might take a few minutes if I’m not near the stateroom, though. This ship is huge.”
“Okay. I’m doing the same. Nothing dangerous about it.”
“I’m sending you a file that details the weak spots we found on the Razor ships. Helped us to destroy several Clan Razors. You guys should work that right away.”
“Great, I’ll pass it along. The Admiral wants to be on the next call, with several other Captains. I think he’s a little pissed that I was the contact point. I’m not one of his top captains.”
“Says him,” I said. “He knows why I called you, though, right?”
“Yes, I brought up that you were the former captain of the Skipjack, and you still had your token. Damn good thing, too, and he realized that right away. It calmed him down fast.”
“Good. I’ll let you know when we have the tuning data. It’ll be harder for the Central Authority fleet than it is for Simone’s ships.”
“Why?”
“We have data from when we fought Simone’s ships,” I said.
Bryce chuckled. “Oh, yeah. I’m glad to be second, then.”
“Talk to you soon. The channel will stay open, and I’ll shoot you a text if I’m gonna be off the ship for more than an hour or two.”
“You can get off the ship?”
“We’re orbiting the planet where our fuel is being mined and refined,” I said.
“Oh. I’ll bet it’s above level five.”
“No comment.”
Bryce laughed. “Always a pirate. Talk to you soon.”
I sat next to JJ and started on my sandwich.
“I didn’t realize you two were so close.”
“We were friends from the academy. I suggested him for the Skipjack.”
“Will Admiral Boeraton be a problem? He sounds like kind of a jerk.”
“Oh, he’s okay, but he’s old-school, and he requires total loyalty. Glad I’m not working under him.”
“He might try to push it.”
“Tough. I’m working with the guy as an equal only. Same with Simone.”
“Excellent,” I said. “Did we receive the data on the PA system?”
“The Chairman might have it already.”
“You’ve got something we need to know,” I said.
“There’s something else.”
“Do we have that choice?” I asked.
“Yes. The other two players need us more than we need them. You’re by far the best commander we have.”
“Thank you, sir. We’ll make ready to move the New Jersey to the outer section of the Earth solar system.”
“Good, I was hoping that would happen,” JJ said.
“Not sure how I feel about it.”
{ 16 }
Timing
T he rest of the day was busy. The Zephyrus made its second run to the surface of Amberis to pick up fuel. We made more arrangements for our rendezvous with the flight suits in the outer sector of Earth’s solar system. Estes kept us updated on his progress. Vermill
ion spend a good part of the day working with Simone and her team, passing Dojo’s recommendations for tuning along to her and Kaleb. I got called to Vermillion’s conference room with Nolan, JJ, Cyrus, Andrea, and Commander Klemperer. We all arrived, coming from different directions.
“Thanks for coming,” Vermillion said, sitting at the head of the table.
We sat on either side of the table near his end.
“How’d it go with Simone?” I asked.
“She reluctantly agreed to bring her space dock operatives to Devonia Axxiom to neutralize the stun capability.”
“Why was she reluctant?” Klemperer asked.
“Her operatives weren’t recruited for military action, and their training for such operations is minimal. She doesn’t want them getting killed because they’re in over their heads.”
“I don’t suppose she had an explanation for the bug they put on the Tristar?” Cyrus asked.
Vermillion chuckled. “We talked about that in our first private call. She knew it was likely the summit was a trap. Remember when Hamilton Zenos went out of his way to warn me against going?”
“I remember that,” Nolan said.
I nodded. “That’s right. It was so strong that I wondered about it at the time.”
“When we didn’t heed the warnings, Simone went to plan B. Contact us directly. She was prepared to mount a rescue operation.”
“No way,” JJ said.
“I didn’t believe her back then,” Vermillion said. “I believe her now.”
“Did you tell her that we’ll zap the system if her operatives fail?” I asked.
“Yes, I told her, and she was fine with it. I think she’d actually prefer that we do that, to be honest.”
“Did you pass the tuning data on to Simone?” Nolan asked.
“I did, a few hours after I gave her the list of weaknesses we found. She was quite alarmed at the weaknesses, by the way.”
“Don’t blame her there,” I said. “Do you think she has the technical expertise to handle the task?”
“She has Kaleb,” Nolan said. “He’s more than capable.”
“Took the words out of my mouth,” Klemperer said.