Earth Fleet (Rebel Fleet Series Book 4), page 4
Six hours later, I got the word I’d been waiting for.
“Blake?” Admiral Vega said in my ear. “Brussels just called me.”
“That was quick. What’s the story, sir?”
“They want to send a task force back to Terrapin with Captain Urgh.”
“Really? A task force? How many cruisers?”
“One.”
I frowned for a few seconds, but I soon got over it. After all, our five cruisers were each precious gems. They were the core of Earth’s tiny fleet.
“How many phase-ships?” I asked.
“None.”
“Oh…” I said, getting the picture. “Who’s commanding that single cruiser?”
“Have you got a mirror handy, Blake?” Vega asked.
I laughed, then I sighed. “I see, sir. I guess I did shoot my mouth off too much.”
“Bingo. When can you leave?”
Looking around thoughtfully at my torn-up bridge, I shrugged. “Twenty-four hours, sir, give or take.”
“Well then, give, don’t take. I’m sending you a crew. Use them wisely. We’ve already alerted Urgh, and he’s pulling around to your side of the Moon to pick you up.”
Frowning, I thought I’d better come clean about the state of my command.
“Devilfish isn’t really ready to ship out, sir,” I admitted. “Abrams went crazy and tore into every system aboard, updating everything he could.”
“Techs love to do that,” Vega complained. “I don’t know why, but they can never leave well enough alone.”
“I hear you, Admiral.”
“Just get life-support and your basic drive operating. You’ll have to fix the rest on the way.”
“Um… what about weapons, sir?”
“This is supposed to be a diplomatic mission, Blake. Remember?”
“Right sir, but—”
Admiral Vega’s voice rose almost to a shout. “You wanted this, Blake! You asked for it! Do you want to know what Clemens said when he passed down the order?”
“Probably not—”
“He said: ‘If Blake loves his damned turtles so much, he can sit on their eggs for them.’ That’s a quote.”
“They don’t actually lay eggs, Admiral,” I said. “But I get the message.”
“Good. The alien ship will form the rift for you. All you have to do is tag along and look tough. Maybe you’ll scare some sense into old Fex.”
“Anything’s possible, sir.”
He signed off, and I looked around in concern. The ship was buzzing with activity, but there weren’t enough workers. Not by a long shot.
Vega had said he was sending me a crew, but I hadn’t quite gotten the message at that point. I’d assumed all my own hands would be recalled and sent to Devilfish on an emergency basis—but I was wrong.
Many of my people made it back aboard, but not all. Hundreds had been reassigned. It only took me a few hours and a brief perusal of the rosters to figure it out.
“We’re expendable,” Commander Hagen, announced as he reviewed the data. He was my XO and a good one. I felt glad I had him with me, at least.
“It looks that way,” I admitted.
“They’ve taken most of our hotshots off the rolls and put them aboard other ships. They’ve left behind your command staff—minus a few key names. But it’s the support people that are really going to hurt us. These new names… the officers are cadets, and enlisted crewmen are trainees right out of school.”
“I couldn’t help but notice that, too.”
Hagen lowered the computer scroll and stared at me. “These are all people they don’t mind losing too much. You’re an officer who’s annoying—and so am I, sir… No offense meant.”
“None taken.”
“Good,” Hagen finished. “You know, I bet there are more than a few among the brass who will cry if we do ever make it back to Earth.”
Heaving a sigh, I couldn’t find a flaw in Hagen’s logic. I’d come to all the same conclusions, but orders were orders.
They’d filled my ship with wide-eyed rookies, cantankerous veterans and a surly pack of officers to ride herd over the rest. We made the best of it, working around the clock to patch up the ship.
All too soon, Urgh’s vessel generated a green-flecked rift. My ship hobbled after the battlecruiser, heading into the unknown.
Were we lambs being led to the slaughter? We could only guess.
As only one of Devilfish’s three thrusters was operating at one hundred percent, we were barely able to keep up with the bigger ship. A full minute passed after the Terrapinian battlecruiser vanished before we finally slipped into the rift and left our home star behind.
=7=
The journey to the far end of the wormhole was a quick one. Sometimes, such trips took hours—even days.
But not this time. We exited hyperspace only a few minutes after we’d entered.
The first thing our sensors and our eyes detected was Urgh’s battlecruiser. It glided quietly nearby. They’d waited for us to come through.
Looking around visually, I saw we were in a star system—which was a good thing. Occasionally, when making an interstellar jump, ships “scattered” which meant they got lost. They came out somewhere—but not at the targeted destination.
Since we’d entered Urgh’s rift rather than making our own, we were at least certain we’d come out at the same spot. When a larger fleet traveled together, multiple rifts were required, and any one of them could lose their way.
As space was, for the most part, empty, the odds that lost ships would come out near a star were slim. In this case, we were within the gravitational tug of a single bright star.
The central sun was distant, however. Had we scattered… just a little? I wasn’t sure. The distant sun, white in hue and registering as an F-class dwarf, hung low in the distance. It was something like fifty AU away from us—about the distance between Pluto and our own sun back home.
“Why are we so far from the inner planets?” I demanded. “Assuming there are any… Navigation? What have you got for me?”
The navigator turned to face me, and I realized in surprise that she was none other than Commander Langston.
“You’ve been assigned to my crew?” I demanded.
Langston looked flustered. “I—yes sir. I was reassigned from Cheyenne Station. I can do the job, let me assure you.”
I eyed the redhead for a few seconds. She appeared to be uncomfortable. She wasn’t all that bad-looking, if the truth were told. I hadn’t noticed that before, as she’d worn a scowl the entire time I’d been down in the control center in Colorado.
But her looks didn’t concern me today. What I needed was competence.
“Where’s Chang?” I asked.
“He’s been assigned to the off-shift,” she said.
I was relieved to learn that Chang hadn’t been stolen from me entirely. I opened my mouth, and I almost ordered her off the bridge to go find Chang—but I didn’t do it. She was a rookie, no matter what she thought of herself, but I figured I could give her a chance.
“Have you served in space before, Langston?” I demanded.
“No sir—I mean… yes sir.”
“Which is it?”
“I… I’ve piloted tugs and miners all over the outer planets, Captain.”
My eyes narrowed. “So… you’re one of those new commercial pilots?”
“That’s right, Captain.”
“Huh…” I said, pacing around and circling her. “No military experience?”
“None in battle, if that’s what you mean, Captain. Not yet.”
That wasn’t anything unusual in Earth’s new navy. Only the original crew of Devilfish and various phase-ships had served in actual combat. The rest of our crews were hopelessly green.
“All right, Langston,” I said resignedly. “Everyone has to start somewhere. But you only get one screw-up. That’s the limit on my bridge. After that, you’re switching to the off-shift.”
Her mouth formed a tight spot of pink, but she didn’t complain. She nodded instead.
“What’s your analysis tell us so far?” I asked. “Where are we?”
“This appears to be the Terrapinian home system,” she said with certainty. “There are nine inner planets and six large gas giants out here near the fringe. We’re just past those.”
“Why did we exit the rift out here, then?”
“You’d have to ask the Terrapinians that yourself, Captain.”
I glanced at her sharply. Was she being a smart-mouth already? Her face was a blank, and I was left unsure.
“Speculate,” I ordered.
Her eyes darted over the screens. “Uh… perhaps we’re here to give us safe distance to get organized. Urgh said Fex was in-system sieging his homeworld—that’s the fifth planet out from their sun.”
“Right…” I said, but I thought I had a better answer off the top of my head. “That’s a possibility. But Urgh also said his homeworld was doomed, and that it was under attack. What do you use to attack a target the size of a planet?”
“I’m not sure, Captain,” she admitted.
“Chunks of other planets make good projectiles,” I said. “Big chunks have enough mass to release vast amounts of kinetic energy on impact.”
“On impact?” she asked. Then, slowly, she looked around at the screens surrounding us. Every external viewport on the bridge was showing star-speckled blackness. “The only thing out this far in any star system is a field of debris: Ice, rocks, comets… that sort of thing.”
“Exactly. Work your sensor-arrays. I want to see if there is any activity out here—anything like a water-miner in operation.”
She turned away smartly and moved to marshal her team. She looked stern, and I had no doubt she’d ride herd on those poor bastards until their work produced results.
Hagen, my XO, moved to my side the second she was gone.
“Sorry about that, Captain,” he said.
“Sorry about what?”
“The whole thing with the bridge crew. I tried to hang onto as many key hands as I could, but word came in while you were down there on the mountain that we were shipping out immediately. There wasn’t much time to argue with what Command gave us. In their infinite wisdom, they spit a large number of rookies through the transmat.”
“I understand. We’ll make the best of it. How’s Devilfish doing? What’s our real level of preparedness?”
Hagen shook his head. “We’re fine as long as we don’t have to run—or fight.”
“That’s great… Until I need you, I want you below decks. Oversee the damage control and systems checks personally.”
He nodded, understanding I was giving him a critical job, not shunting him aside. “I’ll ride herd on every dog aboard, sir.”
He left, and I knew he meant what he said. If there was a single crewman slumped in a bunk one second past his eight hours, he’d better cover his tailbone. Hagen wore heavy boots, and he didn’t mind using them.
“Sir?” the comms officer called. “Captain Urgh is online.”
“I’ll take it privately—with my sym.”
Directing my symbiotic to patch the call through to my nervous system, I was able to speak with the Terrapinian as if he was standing in front of me, even though he was a good ten thousand kilometers off our port bow.
“Captain Blake?” the turtle said. “We’re baffled by your behavior. It’s customary for a subordinate to close ranks and follow the lead ship.”
“Yeah…” I said, not wanting to admit we could barely fly. “We, uh, sustained some damage in the rift. We’ve got new engines, and they aren’t operating at one hundred percent efficiency.”
Urgh’s black eyes shifted. “I see…” he said. “This is very unfortunate.”
“What is?”
“You’re either demonstrating dishonesty, cowardice or actual weakness. None of these is acceptable in an underling.”
We’d only been working together for an hour, but good old Urgh was already getting on my nerves.
“None of these are accurate characterizations,” I told him. “Where do you plan to lead us?”
“Toward my homeworld, of course. We’ll destroy Fex and lift the siege—or we’ll die trying.”
I blinked at that statement.
“Hmm…” I said, not liking the sound of his plan. Most Kher tended to be very direct, which was why the Imperials or sneaky bastards like Fex tended to beat them tactically. “How many ships does Fex have in orbit over your home planet?”
“About forty. But only half those are capital ships. The rest are screens.”
“And fighters?” I asked.
He shrugged. “A few hundred. Time is of the essence, Blake. If you would follow my lead—”
“Can you explain your plan of attack, Urgh?” I asked.
“The plan? Yes, it’s quite clever. We arrived far from the inner planets to give us time to gather speed. We’ll use our thrusters on maximum output to charge the enemy fleet. Firing missiles as we go, we’re certain to take out at least two of them by ramming at the glorious finish.”
“Ramming…” I said, finding I was unhappy with the details of his plan. “Could you hold on a second, Urgh?”
I began making a frantic motion toward Langston, summoning her to my side.
She approached, frowning. I shielded my words from Urgh with what amounted to a virtual mute button on my sym.
Urgh protested immediately. “Captain Blake? Has your comm system failed? Are all Earth ships defective?”
I ignored him for a few seconds and locked eyes with Langston.
“I need some facts,” I told her. “What are we up against?”
“We haven’t spotted every ship in orbit over the Terrapinian homeworld, but we’ve found the big ones. There are at least twenty-one vessels identified so far—all with a higher displacement than Devilfish.”
She looked pale, and it wasn’t due to a lack of sunshine.
“Right…” I said. “Urgh expects us to go with him and make a suicidal run at the enemy. We haven’t got a hope of breaking this siege—or of even slowing it down much—with only two ships.”
“There’s something else, sir,” she said. “There are ships out here, too—in the local Oort cloud with us.”
“How many ships?” I asked sharply. “How big?”
“Small tugs, patrol boats. There are maybe a dozen scattered in the region.”
I smiled at last. My mind had begun to formulate a plan.
=8=
Among the Rebel Kher, the most infamous subtypes were those of us descended from primates. We tended to be clever, subtle, and infinitely more devious than the majority.
The run-of-the-mill Kher found these traits disgusting. They liked nothing more than a stand-up fight. They were more interested in honor and decorum than they were interested in victory.
Today, I sensed just such a conundrum facing me and Captain Urgh. I knew he wouldn’t like my plan of attack, even if it had a significantly better chance of succeeding than did his insane charge.
That was the key to dealing with the Kher, unfortunately. You just couldn’t be honest with them—not if you weren’t interested in going out in a blaze of glory. You had to be down-right sneaky instead.
“Captain Urgh,” I said, unmuting my sym and turning my full attention to the Terrapinian who was technically my taskforce leader.
“I’m still here, Blake. What’s taking so long? Is your ship failing under your claws this very second?”
“I am indeed having technical difficulties,” I half-lied. “We’re not able to go to maximum thrust as your plan requires. We’re affecting repairs as quickly as we can.”
“This is disappointing,” Urgh complained. “I had no idea Earth ships were so delicate. Perhaps I shouldn’t have bothered asking for your aid.”
“Well now,” I said, “just wait until you see us in battle. We’ll pull our own weight then.”
Alarmed, Samson made waving-off gestures from his control board. He was monitoring the ship’s status, and he knew we weren’t in any kind of shape to go into battle. Not yet.
I turned my body a half-turn away from Samson, so I couldn’t see him. His hand-wringing was distracting me.
“Listen, Urgh,” I said, “there’s no need to stand here in space doing nothing. We can affect the outcome of this battle from here, even as we make repairs.”
“How so?”
“There are a number of small ships in the region. Are you aware of them?”
“Yes, of course. They’re gathering comets and redirecting their orbits. It’s these falling stones that threaten to break through our planetary shield.”
“In that case, why don’t we attack them to stop the bombardment?”
“We’ve considered it,” Urgh said. “But it won’t break the siege. Fex will only dispatch a squadron of ships to stop us.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yes, but…”
It took me a little work, but I managed to get a few critical points out of Urgh that explained his thinking to me. For one thing, he wanted to make a dramatic charge as soon as possible. He wished to be seen as a self-sacrificing hero by everyone on his planet. Two, he thought that the battle was hopeless anyway, so why not indulge himself?
When Urgh was offline, Hagen moved back to my side. “Same old attitudes. They’re already calling us cowards, and we just got here.”
“You were listening in, huh?”
“I got the gist of it,” he admitted with a shrug.
“It’s just this sort of thing that makes me grind my teeth when dealing with our Kher cousins,” I said. “They really don’t think of war the way that modern humans do.”
“They aren’t into all-out war,” Hagen agreed, “that’s for sure. They never consider doing whatever it takes to win. Why is that, sir?”
“Because they want to conduct every battle in the most honorable way possible. They want to make sure they look and feel good about the outcome—whatever it is. And if poor tactics lose the conflict? Well, at least they can tell themselves they lost with style.”
“Is it always like that? How can they win anything?”
