Earth Fleet (Rebel Fleet Series Book 4), page 30
“The enemy ships are opening their gun-ports, sir,” Chang said, adding to the tension. “Should we open ours in response?”
“No,” I said firmly. “Stay on course.”
“They’re hailing us again,” Chang said. “Shall I—?”
“No. We can’t respond now that they’ve laid bare a new threat. We have to wait a bit longer.”
Everyone on the bridge looked like they were doomed. I couldn’t fault them for that. Perhaps we were about to die.
“Listen up,” I said loudly. “They’ve got us. If they want to fire, they can. We’ve got to make it look like we just don’t care.”
“But all that talk about bombing their homeworld is bullshit, sir,” Samson said. “They know that.”
“Do they?” I asked suddenly, turning on him. “Do you know we don’t have ships in place?”
He frowned back at me. “I suppose… it could be possible.”
I threw my hands wide and languished in my chair.
“Exactly,” I said. “They can’t be sure. Shug, Fex and that whole crew have one awful weakness: they like to be charge. They don’t like to operate on emotion, they prefer logic and outsmarting opponents. But in this case, they can’t take the chance we’ve positioned phase-ships in their system. To destroy Devilfish now would be very satisfying, but they can’t risk their home world just to indulge their rage on us.”
Another few minutes passed. At last, one of the cruisers nosed around and began sliding closer to us, blocking our path.
“Our shields will come into contact soon, sir,” Samson warned.
“They might be planning to board us,” Hagen suggested. “We could take them out easily with a hard shot to the engines.”
“But then we’d be promptly annihilated,” I said, and I stretched in my chair. “All right. Open a channel, Chang. I’ll take it privately with my sym.”
Getting up and walking down the ship’s main passage, I saw Dr. Shug glimmer into life at my side. He looked around in surprise, but then he fell into step.
He wasn’t a tall ape, but he was a genius. He moved as if he was really walking at my side, even though we both knew he was only a holographic projection.
“The Kwok want to destroy your ship, Blake,” Shug told me. “You have to give me a good reason why I shouldn’t let them do it. The level of disrespect you’re showing here is—”
“Is nothing,” I said suddenly. “We found it quite disrespectful to have fusion bombs dropped on our cities back on Earth. They’ll soon feel the same way.”
“So that’s it? Petty revenge? I don’t get you humans. This isn’t the Kher way.”
“Explain it to me,” I suggested.
“You can’t win against more advanced fleets. Fex has dozens of capital ships remaining, despite your victories. The Grefs are still his servants and now—now he’s got the Terrapinians as well.”
This last tidbit surprised me. “So the turtles surrendered, did they?”
“In the end, yes. I’ve studied your planet over recent years. There’s very little written on it, you know. But what we do know is that humans have an unusual political hierarchy.”
“We’re quite advanced in that department.”
He laughed. “If you call aping the Imperials advanced, then maybe so. Normal Kher know how to behave. We vary in physiology, but we have very similar social traits. Among species on your own world, you’d say: we operate like a wolf pack.”
“Right. One dominates until it is taken out by a stronger wolf. You’re telling me Fex is the Alpha-dog in this part of space, and we should bend a knee to him.”
He spread his hands. They were a leathery, wrinkled brown.
“Exactly! Would that be so hard? When you’re beaten, you make an honorable show then give up. The alpha species leads until they weaken—but no one has to die out over dominance. It would be a horrible waste.”
The funny thing was I could actually see his point. To the Rebel Kher, my threats and tricks didn’t entirely make sense. They were faster to surrender and accept being dominated when they were beaten. Humans tended to fight to the death—an unusual trait among our brothers and sisters from the stars.
“Hmm…” I said. “I don’t want to kill Rebel Kher. That’s not my goal. Note that we didn’t drop our bomb on the Grefs directly—it was only a warning shot.”
He snorted. “Quite a warning. You scared the hell out of those dummies.”
“They had to know we’re dangerous. Fex needs to understand the same thing. We’ll destroy his planet if he keeps pushing.”
Shug stopped walking and turned to face me angrily.
“What gives you the right?” he demanded. “You of all humans know the Kher way! You’re facing a dominating force. Destroying that force—and yourselves—is treasonous. The real enemies are the Imperials and the Nomads. Save your giant bombs for them!”
“We will,” I said agreeably. “But we won’t bow and scrape the floor with our knuckles to placate the Kwok. It’s just not going to happen. Tell Fex to go away and bother some other less stubborn planet.”
“And what would you offer in return?” Shug demanded.
For a few seconds, I allowed myself to feel a surge of triumph. This is where I’d wanted the conversation to go all along—to the negotiating phase.
Without a hint of elation on my face, I nodded as if carefully considering his words.
“A diplomatic solution, huh?” I asked, as if I’d never thought of the idea. “It seems almost dishonorable…”
“Oh, come on,” Shug demanded. “You’re the one behaving dishonorably in Fex’s eyes. You have to see that.”
“In an intellectual sense, I can understand his point of view. But I’m not the only human on Earth. Others must be convinced. Tell me, what is Fex willing to offer?”
I asked this final question in a tone of vague interest—but Shug wasn’t fooled.
He narrowed his eyes, and his nostrils flared. If he had actually been present in the flesh, I got the feeling he would have sniffed out my lies. Humans had long ago lost the ability to sense mood and intent with their noses, but most of the Rebel Kher had retained these skills.
Telling myself it didn’t matter, I was determined to play this out to the bitter end. After all, the stakes were very high.
We stopped walking and eyed one another expectantly. Finally, Shug broke first.
“You’re stalling for time,” he said. “I can only surmise that’s what this is all about. Perhaps your ships aren’t quite in position yet… It almost makes me want to give the order to fire on your vessel now, while we still can.”
I shrugged disinterestedly. “It’s up to you. I’ve done all I can. I’m here to talk, but if you aren’t interested…”
“Very well. Go back to Earth. Take your dishonorable navy with you—we’ll give you two days to clear out. Fex will stand down and move to a range of a million kilometers. Once you’ve slunk away back into your hole, close the rift. Fex will swear not to attack Earth again—but you must vow to leave this star system and that owned by the Grefs alone in return.”
Making a great show of considering it, I nodded at last. “I find your terms almost acceptable. Here are my stipulated changes: We’ll take a week to pull out, and Fex must withdraw to a range of thirty million kilometers—and he must drop his shields.”
“Absurd!” Shug raged immediately.
The negotiations were on. I couldn’t just agree to their first offer, of course, despite the fact it was quite acceptable. The Rebel Kher were naturally paranoid. They’d suspect I was full of treachery and deceit if I gave in too soon—and they’d be right.
=59=
Heading back to Earth was a lengthy process. After all, we had to pretend we were shepherding a flotilla of ghostly ships.
Standing off at a great distance, Fex’s watchful fleet drifted and peered at us. We saw their pinging sensor arrays, but ignored them. It was only natural that the Kwok captains were curious.
After three days, I decided the charade had gone on long enough and we slowly, gently, slid into the rift. The trip home was oddly long. It felt like four full hours before the return trip ended and we arrived near Earth.
“Now all we have to do is shut down that rift,” Hagen said, smiling. “You did it, Captain. You pulled off the heist of the century!”
I smiled weakly and nodded. Internally, however, I was worried.
“What’s wrong, sir?” Hagen asked. Then he lowered his voice and added: “Did all our phase-ships escape?”
I glanced at him in surprise, but I recovered quickly. He apparently had bought into my bluff. That was a good thing, as a fantasy the crew believed in could only make the whole thing more real to the enemy.
“They’re all back in home space,” I assured him. “What I’m worried about now is our final part of the bargain. That rift… we didn’t create it ourselves—and I have no idea how we’re going to shut it down.”
He blinked at me, uncertain. He hadn’t been at Cheyenne Station when the Imperials had hauled away Godwin and his mysterious box. He knew nothing about those events, and they were classified.
“If not us…” Hagen asked in a near whisper. “Then who did create that rift, sir?”
“That’s a secret. But don’t worry about a thing. We’ll sort it out.”
Hagen gave me a nervous laugh and left, shaking his head. I took a quick transmat trip down to Space Command where I was promptly met by Admiral Clemens.
Clemens looked stern and red-faced. Behind him stood no less than six armed marines. No one was smiling.
“Hello sir,” I said. “Where’s Admiral Vega?”
“He’s under arrest. You are too. This way to your debriefing, Blake.”
I followed him docilely enough. I didn’t have much choice.
The debriefing was long, thorough and rude. Somehow, Godwin’s efforts to influence Vega hadn’t gone unnoticed. He’d managed to give me the orders and cover-story, and I’d gone off through the rift.
But when Clemens had heard about it, he’d returned from Europe in a rage. He’d ordered everything shut down until he had control of matters again. Godwin himself, naturally, was nowhere to be found.
I played the part of an innocent dupe, and it almost worked.
“So…” Clemens said, “you received surprise orders from Vega to go through the rift. And this seemed acceptable to you? Out of the blue? No alarms sounded inside your otherwise fully-functional mind?”
“No sir. It seemed quite rational that we would explore this final, long term rift. How could we know what might be coming at us if we didn’t?”
“That wasn’t your call to make, Blake!”
“Of course not, Admiral Clemens. It was Admiral Vega’s. He was in charge of Space Command at the time.”
“You’re not going to get away with this, Blake. You’re not a one-man government. Speaking of which, let’s move on to your next overreach. Who gave you the authority to negotiate a peace treaty with the Kwok?”
“I operated under my own initiative. But don’t worry, if we can’t get that rift closed, the deal is off anyway. Sir, do we have a way to close the rift?”
“Not yet,” he admitted. “We’re working on it. We were doing so even before your little jaunt into the wilds—and all the time you were gone as well. I could have lost an excellent cruiser if you hadn’t returned when you did.”
Clemens was all love and cookies when you skirted his authority.
He grumbled and carried on for hours, but eventually, since I continued to stick to my story, he grew tired of the game.
I was removed from active duty aboard Devilfish and given my old desk job back.
Stepping out of a late shower in my apartment, I was startled to run into Godwin.
He was back to his usual guise: An average-looking guy who wouldn’t stand out in any crowd.
“Godwin?” I asked. “Where have you been?”
“I’ve been… busy…” he said vaguely. “The Imperials are troubling us, Blake. You unleashed something horrid when you gave them our technology.”
“I hardly had a choice,” I said. “They came down here in force and seized your little box. Did they find your projectors?”
“Yes, of course. They took all of it to their home stars. They’ve already begun experimenting with their own long term rifts.”
“Experimenting? To what purpose?”
He glanced at me reproachfully. “Do you really need to ask? They’re setting up to attack our worlds. We only have a handful, Blake. We’re on the run again.”
I almost smiled, but I managed not to gloat. It was a close thing. Godwin had lorded it over humanity for years, treating us like toys. It was kind of nice to know they had their own deadly enemies to deal with now.
“That’s a terrible, terrible thing, Godwin,” I said. “I truly wish there was something I could do about that.”
“Yeah, well… you can’t. Your local planets are barely colonized. Your biggest ships are light cruisers, and you’ve got precious few of those. Even if you had a serious fleet, your tech is pathetically backward.”
“All true, all true,” I said in a mournful tone. “We can barely help our friends in need. But… maybe you could help us?”
He looked at me warily. “How?”
I quickly told him about the deal I’d made to shut down the long term rift. He snorted.
“That’s easy,” he said.
“You mean you’ve got more equipment? Something we can use to—?”
“Not frigging likely,” he complained. “The original projectors are gone, remember? The Imperials found them and confiscated them as they left. Without them, another control box would be useless.”
“Hmm…” I said. “Perhaps if we…?
He waved away my words and sighed. “There is a technique. It’s simple enough—maybe you can do it on your own, since you’ve made such a mess of everything we’ve given you.”
“And that technique would be…?” I prompted.
He eyed me with anger and distrust. “I should let you fight the Kwok. They’ll eventually come through and attack, you know. It might take another week for them to become angry enough, but eventually they’ll do it.”
“Just tell me, Godwin, or melt away. I’m busy.”
Still, he stared at me for a time. At last he managed to grunt out a few important words.
The process was simplicity itself. When he’d finished explaining it, I thanked him.
At last, he disappeared. When I was sure he couldn’t still be watching me, I sprinted down to the labs.
I had to talk to Dr. Abrams immediately.
=60=
The next day, Abrams brought up the solution to the Joint Chiefs. They grumbled and eyed him with disdain, but they let him try his grand experiment in the end.
The key was that we presented the idea as if it had come from Abrams—not me. Not Godwin, either.
Dr. Abrams was more than glad to take all the credit, naturally.
He gathered all five of our light cruisers, as they were the only vessels with operating rift projectors. We flew them to the rift and encircled it. On a signal from Abrams, we lit up the rift with a larger one of our own.
The process to remove a long term rift was intuitive, but frightening. Essentially, we had to create another, larger rift that encompassed the original one. When the larger rift grew unstable and faded away, it would take both down together.
At least, that was the theory. Dr. Abrams took the theory and ran with it, the chief problem being one of using all our starships together to create a large rift in unison.
It wasn’t an easy task. Every engineer involved, whether they were on Earth or aboard those five starships, held their collective breaths.
Abrams had rigged up a real-time control network to coordinate the projectors, but something of this scale had never been attempted before.
Seeing the ring of ships placed at five equidistant points in high orbit, I was struck by how precise everything had to be. If one of those ships was a few feet off…
Finally, the big moment came. Abrams did the honors himself, and I let him take all the glory.
He paused with his hand on a large lever. He’d rigged it up to trigger the final sequence. The lever didn’t have to be large, black and intimidating, but I figured Abrams liked it that way. He’d always had a flare for the dramatic.
“This is a significant moment in history,” he said, addressing everyone who was involved in the project. “We, as humans, are taking charge of yet another facet of our technological pathway to the stars. If we—”
“Just get on with it, man!” Clemens shouted. “What if the Kwok officers decide they’ve waited long enough and try to come through? You’re wasting time!”
Abrams gave him a hateful look, but at last, with poor grace, he reached out and pulled on his long, black lever.
For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then at last, the starships began to glimmer. Their front projectors sparked blue, wove a pattern of light—and a singularity of shocking size spun into life.
It dwarfed the long term rift in its midst. The odd thing was I could see through it for a moment. I thought… yes, I was fairly certain. I knew the beacon star in the midst of that swirl.
“Antares? Antares itself?” I asked aloud. “But that’s in Imperial territory!”
A buzz went up all around the War Room. We were shocked. To create a rift which connected our system to the Imperials, even if it only existed briefly… That might be suicide.
“Abrams, what are you thinking, man?” I demanded, and I walked up to him, reaching for his long black lever.
He fought me. He gripped it firmly, and he pulled with all his strength. I was surprised as I tried to pry him away.
He was such a skinny old man. He shouldn’t have this kind of power in his limbs. Then I knew the truth, and I struck him down with a flurry of blows.
He fell to the unforgiving deck, and he seemed to keep falling. He folded into himself and melted away to nothing.
