by Ken Lozito
Noah went over, sat down at the comms station, and put on the headset. Captain Benson enabled the new encryption protocols and then left him. Noah opened a comms channel and waited for it to connect. Once the link was established, Noah saw Connor’s face appear on his screen. He was stone-faced, with a burning intensity in his eyes.
“Reporting in, sir. Escape pods are being loaded onto the Chmiel as we speak. Captain Benson had me brought to the bridge to contact you,” Noah said.
“I’m glad you made it out of there. I have a job for you,” Connor replied.
“I’ll do whatever you need me to.”
“I need you to update the targeting capabilities used on the defense platforms. After that, they must be fully engaged for danger close-fire configuration. Do you understand what I’m telling you to do?” Connor said.
Noah swallowed hard. Danger close-fire configuration would enable the defense platform to prioritize enemy ships regardless of whether there were friendlies in the area. “I do, sir,” Noah said, knowing better than to waste time questioning Connor about his own orders.
“Good. We need to prevent as much of the Vemus fleet from getting to New Earth as we can. I’ve told Captain Benson he’s to head back there using best speed,” Connor said.
“Major Roberts is heading to Engineering to try and increase the speed once we get underway,” Noah said.
“How long before you’re underway?” Connor asked.
Noah had no idea. He glanced over toward Captain Benson and repeated the question.
“They’re loading the escape pods now, but it could be another thirty minutes before they’re all on board,” Noah said.
Connor looked away from the screen for a moment. “Call Captain Benson over to you.”
Captain Benson joined Noah at the comms station.
“Captain, the Vemus fleet is reeling from the destruction of Titan Space Station. I appreciate what you’re doing, but there’s a tough call to be made,” Connor said.
Noah’s insides went cold.
“I cannot abandon those pods, sir,” Captain Benson replied.
“Keep loading as many as you can, but if you receive a signal from us that the Vemus forces are on the move, you’re to cut and run. The top priority is for you to make it back to New Earth and for Noah to update the defense platforms. We’ve had no confirmation that COMCENT even knows the attack has begun. We believe this has to do with the Vemus, but we’re not sure. Preparation is key, and the survival of the colony is at stake,” Connor said.
Noah’s mouth hung open as he watched Captain Benson struggle with what Connor had just told him. The cargo carrier captain walked away and began shouting orders.
Noah looked back at the screen. “He’s gone, sir,” he said.
“Sending over the updated parameters for targeting. This includes the PRADIS update in case active scans cannot detect the remaining Vemus fleet,” Connor said.
A progress window appeared. “Data received, sir,” Noah said.
“Noah, if Captain Benson won’t leave, I need you to take control of the ship,” Connor said.
“Sir, I have no idea how to fly a cargo carrier. How am I supposed to fly the ship?” Noah asked and glanced around to check if he’d been overheard.
“Calm down. I’m sending you my authorization codes that will give you master control of the Chmiel’s systems. We checked, and Captain Benson already has a course plotted back to New Earth. All you need to do is execute it. Can I count on you?”
Noah frowned. “What if he overrides it?”
Connor leveled a look at the screen and Noah felt as if he were training with Search and Rescue all those years ago. “Don’t let him. This is more important.”
The thought of leaving CDF personnel behind made his throat thick. He hated it and glared at the screen.
“Hate me if you need to, but everything is counting on it,” Connor said.
“Sir, where are you?” Noah asked.
“Our time is just about up. We’re going to try and slow down the enemy as much as we can and get them to chase us right into the kill zone of the defense platforms,” Connor said.
At last Noah understood. This could be the last time he ever spoke to his friend, his mentor, and he didn’t know what to say.
“Stay focused and get it done,” Connor said.
The comms channel was severed, and Noah stared at the blank screen. He sucked in a deep breath and glanced over at Captain Benson. Had the captain heard what Connor told him about taking control of the ship? Noah hoped it wouldn’t come to that. In fact, he silently pleaded that it wouldn’t come to that.
He opened the data cache and checked the updated PRADIS configuration. He’d have to wait until they were much closer to the defense platforms before uploading the update. It was the only way to confirm that the updates had been accepted by the defense platforms’ onboard targeting AI. If he sent the updates out now and they were rejected, the defense platforms’ systems could fail to target anything. He’d been part of the team that worked on the original operating code for those defense platforms, so he had a good idea how fragile they could be. Noah started to think about contingency plans if the updates failed to install. The Chmiel was a civilian ship and wasn’t capable of doing anything but sending transmissions and getting them where they needed to go. There was no cyber warfare suite loaded onto a secondary computer system that was capable of running targeting analyses, and this wasn’t something Noah could perform on the fly.
A comms alert from the Vigilant appeared on his holoscreen. Noah looked up and saw the same alert appear on the main holoscreen. The Vemus were starting to regroup. Noah’s gaze darted to Captain Benson.
The captain returned to the command chair and Noah watched as a video feed from the main cargo doors was brought up. There was still a long line of escape pods from Titan Space Station waiting to board the ship.
Captain Benson looked over at Noah with a pained expression. They had to leave, and they were going to leave people behind.
“Open a comlink to the main cargo area,” Captain Benson said.
“Main cargo.”
“Deck Officer, you’re to close the cargo doors for immediate departure,” Captain Benson said.
There was a moment of heavy silence. The bridge crew seemed to huddle at their workstations, hunched as if weathering a terrible storm.
“Captain, there are still a lot of life pods out there. We just need some more time—”
“We’re out of time. Close those doors or everyone in the cargo bay will die,” Captain Benson said and cut the comlink.
Noah watched as Captain Benson waited a few moments.
“Captain, cargo bay doors are closing,” said the ops officer.
“Helm, max thrust for engines one and two. Take us back to New Earth,” Captain Benson said.
Noah’s eyes became tight—all those pods still outside, their second chance taken from them. He felt hollow inside, as if he wasn’t worthy of being one of the people who got to leave while other CDF soldiers were being sacrificed.
“Noah Barker, you need to focus. We all have jobs to do,” Captain Benson snapped.
Noah swung his gaze back to his holoscreen. Captain Benson was right. There was work to be done. Deep in Noah’s mind he imagined the screams of the CDF personnel still out there in life pods that were being sentenced to death. He was coming to understand the hardened glint that sometimes showed itself in Connor’s gaze and he hated it. This was an understanding he didn’t want.
A strong hand gripped his shoulder, and Captain Benson leaned down. “Focus, Noah. Make their sacrifice worth something. It will be the only way you’ll find peace in the days to come.”
Noah wiped his eyes and threw himself at his task, directing his anger and frustration at doing his utmost to destroy their enemy. In that moment, Noah left a much younger version of himself behind, and he began to wonder if he would even recognize himself in the days to come—if they survived.
Connor cut the comlink to the Chmiel. He felt bile creep up the back of his throat and forced it down, knowing there was nothing he could do. They had a shuttle on board the Vigilant, but there was no way it could make the trip from the outer star system to New Earth. The call had to be made. The remains of the Vemus fleet were regrouping, and the escape pods from Titan that hadn’t made it onto the cargo carrier would be left behind.
“Sir, the Chmiel has started heading back to New Earth,” Sergeant Browning said.
“Acknowledged,” Connor answered.
Reisman glanced over at him. “Now it’s up to Noah. He has to get that targeting package uploaded to the defense platforms to guarantee they’ll be able to hit the Vemus ships.”
The loss of Titan Space Station exposed a major hole in their defense strategy. The missile-defense platforms could operate autonomously only to a certain degree. Now that Titan Space Station was gone, the platform’s targeting computers couldn’t be updated without getting into close proximity, something Connor hadn’t accounted for in his plans, and now he was mentally kicking himself for the lapse.
Connor looked at the Chmiel’s location on the main holoscreen and noted the increasing velocity. There were still hundreds of escape pods from Titan and there was nothing he could do for them. The occupants on the pods might survive for a few weeks, at best. Ordinarily a few weeks would be more than enough time to mount a rescue mission, but with the Vemus fleet in proximity, Connor had little doubt that the escape pods would be picked up by them. He didn’t know what they would do with the survivors, but it wouldn’t be good.
“Sir, I have the two Vemus battleship carriers on the plot now,” Sergeant Browning said.
Those were his targets. Somehow he had to soften them up so when they did reach the missile-defense platforms, they could finish the job and destroy them. The Vigilant had no more missiles. They had ammunition for their few remaining rail-cannons and grasers that could be used for close-range combat. Range was ever the issue in space warfare. He glanced at the area of the PRADIS output that showed where Titan Space Station had been. The Vigilant’s systems were still trying to make sense of the data in order to put it into some type of output he could use. They didn’t know how many of the Vemus fleet had been destroyed by the Titan Space Station self-destruct sequence, but Connor knew it hadn’t been all of them.
“Helm, plot an intercept course for the two battleship carriers. Keep our approach slow. I want ample time to react if they change course,” Connor said.
“Yes, General, laying in course now,” Sergeant Edwards said.
Major Hayes came onto the bridge and walked over to the command area. He’d been working with the damaged areas of the ship. News of Alec Toro’s assassination attempt had spread throughout the ship. Reisman had raised the question of whether Toro had been working alone. In the end, Connor didn’t know, and given their list of objectives, it wasn’t something he could worry about at the moment. If someone else was trying to kill him while they were fighting the Vemus, then so be it. Sean stood off to the side and listened in.
“By all accounts, Toro completely lost it at the end,” Reisman said.
Connor nodded. “He was becoming desperate because he was dying. I’m not sure it really registered with him that his main reason for killing me was null and void now that the Vemus are here.”
“He cracked under the pressure, and the whole thing could have been avoided if we’d looked for the signs earlier,” Major Hayes said.
“Toro was the one who would have been reporting in on stuff like that. Regardless, we need to focus on the bigger enemy,” Connor said
Major Hayes glanced at their two targets. “How do we destroy something that big?”
Reisman shrugged. “It’s not a matter of whether we can; it’s how we want to go about it.”
“Well, missiles are out. No more HADES IVs. They’d destroy us well before we could destroy them if we used our remaining rail-cannons. That’s even if we had enough ammunition to take the ships out,” Connor said.
“What about the Banshee? That ship had a purely offensive armament,” Major Hayes said.
“Whereabouts are unknown. What we need to do is get aboard those ships and take them out from the inside,” Reisman said.
Major Hayes’s eyes widened. “You can’t be serious,” he said.
“Oh, he’s serious,” Connor replied. “And he’s right; that’s exactly what we need to do. Given our current resources, the only way we’re going to stop them is from the inside. They’re in relatively close proximity to each other, so that could work to our advantage.”
Reisman nodded. “I was thinking the same thing—two for one, or at least seriously damaging the second one.”
“All we need are some tactical nukes and a team to take them aboard,” Connor said.
Major Hayes frowned. “We don’t have any tactical nukes. All of our nuclear warheads went out with our missiles.”
Connor was about to answer when his comms officer spoke.
“Sir, I’m picking up a faint transmission. It’s from the Banshee. It sounds like a status loop,” Sergeant Boers said.
“Put it on speakers,” Connor said.
“This is Major Savannah Cross of the Destroyer Banshee. The Vemus have severely damaged our engines. They’re closing in on our ship. I’ve deployed all available weapons to the crew and we’re preparing to make our final stand . . .”
“I’m sorry, General. The message becomes garbled after that. I’ll try to clean it up,” Sergeant Boers said.
“What’s the timestamp for the message?” Connor asked.
Sergeant Boers checked her terminal. “Sixty minutes ago.”
Connor arched an eyebrow and looked at Reisman. “Tactical, can you trace the source of the transmission?”
“I’ll try to isolate the signal, sir,” Lieutenant LaCroix said.
“I’m not following. What’s significant about the time of the message?” Major Hayes said.
“The message was sent out at about the same time self-destruct protocols were initiated on Titan Space Station, which might have affected the Vemus ship stalking the Banshee,” Connor said.
He watched the PRADIS output and waited.
“I have it, sir. It’s a weak signal, but it appears to be coming from one of the battleship carriers. The AI is basing its trace on the highest probability because the signal is so faint,” Lieutenant LaCroix said.
One of the battleship carriers became highlighted on PRADIS.
“I think we have our target, gentlemen,” Connor said.
“You want to catch up to that ship and do what exactly?” Major Hayes asked.
“Determine if the Banshee is still intact, for one thing, and whether the crew is still alive. The primary mission is to take out that ship. The secondary objective is to attempt to rescue the crew that’s been taken by the enemy. Since we don’t have any tactical nukes, we might find some on the Banshee. Either way, we’re going on that ship,” Connor said.
Reisman arched a brow at Connor. “For the record, as your second in command I must advise against you being on the away mission.”
Connor pressed his lips together. “Noted, for the record.”
Major Hayes frowned. “Does that mean you’ll send a team?”
“You bet I will, and I’m going to lead it,” Connor replied.
“Sir, we need you,” Major Hayes said.
“Don’t bother,” Reisman said. “You’ll never talk him out of going.”
Major Hayes frowned.
“We need to get some intelligence on what we’re dealing with. The only way that’s going to happen is if we get down and dirty on that ship. That means a heavily armed away team,” Connor said.
Major Hayes turned toward Reisman. “Colonel, please, I can’t be the only one with these objections.”
“I agree with the objections, and at the same time it will be both of us on the away team,” Reisman said.
Major Hayes’s mouth hung open in surprise. “Why?”
“Because we’re among the few who were actually part of the NA Alliance military. Those ships look different, but underneath, whatever the hell the Vemus have done to those ships, the underlying system is Alliance military. I still have the access protocols in my implants. The same for the colonel,” Connor said.
“And you think that access will still work?” Major Hayes asked.
“Won’t know until we get there. Certain access protocols are contained within the implants themselves. They only come online with the correct challenge protocol. I’m not even aware of what they are, but I know they’re in there. If Wil and I had officially retired from active duty, our implants would have been removed, but since that didn’t happen, it’s a potential advantage that we can’t afford to pass up,” Connor said.
“I hadn’t realized that,” Major Hayes said.
“It’s not common knowledge. Plus, if there’s a chance we can rescue the crew of the Banshee, I’m going to take that chance. I think we’ve left enough of our people behind,” Connor said, thinking about the Wyatt and all of the destroyer’s crew, and now the CDF soldiers who’d served aboard Titan Space Station.
“What about the risk of being exposed to the virus that was mentioned in the last transmission from Earth? I know the combat suits can protect the wearer from biological contagions, but what about the crew of the Banshee?” Major Hayes asked.
Reisman glanced at Connor. “He’s right, General.”
Connor nodded. “I know he is. We’ll need to bring a doctor with us who can help with the assessment. I’m sure Dr. Allen could make a recommendation.”
“Okay, it’s clear you’ve thought this out, so I won’t get in the way. Is it safe to assume you were planning to leave me in command of the Vigilant?” Major Hayes asked.
“I am,” Connor said.
“What do you need us to do while you’re aboard the ship?”
“I’d initially thought of taking the shuttle and finding a place to sneak aboard, but I don’t think that’s a viable option now,” Connor said.