Embers of Rebellion, page 61
Except… a small part of him wasn’t so sure. And Alexander hated that part. There was no way their friendship had been real, as Caleb claimed, Alexander argued. He is fighting for nothing but greed. Their cry of freedom is just a smokescreen!
And yet, the anguish in Caleb’s voice had felt real to Alexander. His former friend was sorry that they were fighting one another. And he believes in the cause he is fighting for.
Memories of what they had both seen on Beowulf’s Ring came back to Alexander. What would he do if he thought that was the future that awaited his family and friends? He knew he would fight too.
But it is still treason! Alexander told himself. Caleb is a traitor trying to manipulate you. That is all!
“Record a reply,” Alexander said, straining to keep his voice neutral.
“Captain Hawthorne,” Alexander said formally. “You are a rebel and a traitor. I demand that you cut your engines and surrender now, or I will be forced to destroy your ship.” Alexander paused for a moment and leaned in. “If you do not, I must inform you that we have all the prisoners from Swan on board. If you fire upon us, you will be firing upon Lieutenant Armitage and all of his rebels too.
Alexander leaned back again and tried to sound conciliatory despite the anger churning within him. “If you do surrender, then I will offer you the same deal I made Armitage. You and your officers will all face trial on Beowulf, after which you will likely be executed for treason. The rest of your crew will be spared, however. Instead, they will be exiled to a penal colony, where they may live a long, productive life and work off the debt they have incurred to the Republic.”
Alexander softened his tone very slightly. “If any of the friendship you claim we once had meant anything to you, and if you are half the man you once portrayed yourself as, you will accept this deal and spare your crew.”
With a glance at his comms officer, Alexander let her know he was finished.
You will not manipulate me, he thought toward Caleb. But will you see sense?
*
Falcon
Caleb listened to Alexander’s words along with his officers. The coldness in Alexander’s tone hurt. So too did the fire he saw in his friend’s eyes. Yet he understood it.
When Alexander was done, Caleb looked around Concord’s bridge. “Well, what do you all think? Should we consider such a deal?”
“No way,” Freya said fiercely. “It’s a lie. They will kill all our crew.”
“Armitage clearly thought otherwise,” Caleb pointed out.
“He had no choice. He had no hope of escape,” Freya responded.
Caleb nodded. That was true. But Armitage could have forced Alexander to destroy Swan.
He didn’t want to see his crew killed, Caleb was sure. The question was, did he?
“Are you sure he is lying?” Santiago asked. “You know him best, Captain.”
Caleb considered it for a moment. “I don’t believe so. He clearly hates me. But I have known him for a long time. If he gives his word, it’s because he means it.”
“That is not the question to ask,” Sarah said, drawing everyone’s attention to her.
“Sorry for intruding, Captain,” she added when Caleb’s eyes met hers. “But it is not Captain Decimus we need to worry about. It is his father, and his fellow Senators. Do any of you think they will honor the word of a lowly naval captain? Even if he is Senator Decimus’ son?”
Sarah shook her head. “No. If it is politically expedient, they will do whatever they please—which will include executing all the people Captain Armitage surrendered.” Sarah paused as she looked around. “Now ask yourselves, what kind of message will the Senate want to send to the rest of their worlds? That you can join a rebellion, raid many worlds, cause trillions of credits worth of damage, and then just be sent to a penal colony? Or, will they want to make it clear that anyone who rebels will be put to death?”
Heads around the bridge nodded. Caleb’s was among them. He could easily remember the venom and derision Senator Decimus had shown his father on Beowulf.
“Councilor Shackleton is right, I’m afraid,” Caleb said. “As much as I would like to trust Alexander, he does not have the authority to ensure that his word is kept. Even if he thinks he does.”
He is a good man, Caleb thought, remembering the earnestness in Alexander’s voice despite the hate in his eyes. Caleb was certain that if he could, Alexander would keep his word. As desperate as he is to kill me, he doesn’t want to kill any more than necessary.
That thought, and the memory of Alexander’s eyes, sparked something in Caleb. He turned around to Freya. “Lieutenant, the extra power we were using to charge the railgun—we haven’t diverted it to the engines yet, have we?”
“I was just about to, Captain,” Freya replied.
“Don’t,” Caleb said. “I think there is something else we can try. Begin charging a capacitor we can use to power the engines instead.”
“Okay, I can do that easily.” Freya tapped on her console, then looked up at Caleb. “Done. Capacitor is charging. So, what are you thinking?”
Caleb smiled. “We use Alexander’s anger at me against him.”
Before he could explain, Nashville interrupted.
“Sorry, Captain, but I have Maguire on a comm channel. He sounds excited.”
“Put him through,” Caleb said.
“Captain, I have some good news. We’re ready to try upping the reactor’s power by another ten percent.”
“Ten percent at once?” Caleb asked in surprise.
“Over the space of just a couple of minutes,” Maguire confirmed. “If it works, it should increase our thrust by another nine percent.”
Caleb glanced at the display showing Prometheus. Nine percent still wasn’t enough, but it would buy them at least half an hour more before Prometheus was likely to open fire.
“That is excellent, Chief,” Caleb said. “We’re still going to need more power, I fear, but it’s a big help. You can divert the power to Freya’s capacitor for now.”
“Will do, Captain,” Maguire said. “We will begin raising the reactor in thirty seconds or so.”
“Thank you, Chief,” Caleb said before the channel closed. He then turned back to his officers. “Here’s what I’m thinking. We’re going to charge up Freya’s capacitor for as long as we can. Then we’ll feed it into the engines for a significant increase in thrust. It will appear like we have found a lot more power.”
Sarah was the first to catch on. “Captain Decimus will think you’re going to escape. He’ll be desperate and push his ship too hard.”
Caleb nodded. “I know it’s a long shot. But we’re already trying everything else.”
“I like it,” Freya said. “At least it won’t hurt us too much to try it. How long do you think we’ll need the extra thrust for?”
Caleb considered the question. Every second they didn’t divert their extra energy to Concord’s engines meant they were losing momentum they could otherwise be building. Yet if they were going to try this, they would have to maintain their higher thrust long enough for Alexander to push his ship harder—and for something to break.
“I think we would need twenty minutes at least,” Caleb said. “Let’s aim for that and see how we get on.”
“Reactor power is starting to climb,” Santiago reported. “Maguire is doing it.”
Everyone watched a secondary display as the power readings from Concord’s one functional reactor began to climb. Over the next three minutes, they climbed even higher than Maguire had promised.
“With these new levels, I’ll have enough energy to maintain a forty percent increase in thrust for twenty minutes in just another thirty-eight minutes,” Freya reported.
“Then that is what we’ll do,” Caleb said. “Let’s get ready.”
As Caleb’s officers continued to work—cutting away hull fragments, shutting down unnecessary systems, and boosting Concord’s reactor further—it only ended up taking thirty-three minutes for Freya to be ready.
“I have enough stored power to begin the burn now, Captain,” she reported.
“Do it,” Caleb said with a nod. “Here goes,” he added for the rest of his officers.
With the touch of a button, Freya increased Concord’s thrust by forty percent. It only brought the destroyer up to eleven percent of the thrust she had been rated for before the battle, but it was significant, nonetheless. Crucially, the plot that showed Concord and Prometheus updated to show Concord would reach the system’s mass shadow before Prometheus would have a realistic chance to open fire on her.
Everyone on the bridge held their breath as they watched the image of Prometheus. Beside it, Freya put up a timer for how long her extended thrust would last.
Time felt like it began to drag as nothing happened. Prometheus simply continued on unabated. Alexander didn’t give up the chase, yet nor did he try to increase his own thrust.
Caleb felt strange as he willed his friend to chase him. He wanted Alexander to hate him. He wanted that hate to drive Alexander into a mistake.
Just as Caleb started to feel like he had failed, the image of Prometheus flashed.
“That was an energy surge,” Gomez reported. “It came from a reactor starting up!”
Seconds later, Prometheus began to accelerate harder. Over the course of thirty seconds, her thrust went up by over fifty percent. Suddenly, she was projected to catch Concord again.
“He took your bait, Captain,” Sarah observed.
Caleb only nodded in reply. He was suddenly thinking he might have made a mistake. He had obviously goaded Alexander into starting up one of his damaged reactors. That hadn’t been what he had in mind. He had wanted Alexander to push the systems he already had working too hard, not repair damaged ones!
I might have just sealed our fate, he told himself.
A glance at Freya and Santiago suggested they were thinking something similar.
Before anyone voiced their concerns, Prometheus flashed again several times. Then her thrust suddenly stopped completely.
“That first energy push looked like a reactor almost overloading,” Gomez shouted as she updated everyone. “The next ones were reactors going into emergency shutdown. I think Prometheus just lost all power!”
Shouts and cheers filled the bridge. Officers jumped from their seats to grasp one another and punch the air. Freya and Santiago hugged each other.
Caleb slumped into his command chair as a massive amount of tension drained from him. His body felt like it had just been beaten up by two prize fighters. When Freya and Santiago turned to him, he shared their delighted smiles, nonetheless.
“Congratulations, Captain,” Sarah said once the noise on the bridge began to die down. “You played that perfectly.”
“Thank you, Councilor,” Caleb said as Sarah’s look and smile caused his cheeks to redden again. “We’re not quite out of the woods just yet,” he said loud enough for all of his officers to hear. “But if they don’t get at least one reactor started up again in the next ten minutes, then I think we’re going to make it… assuming our slipstream drive is working by now,” Caleb added as he remembered he hadn’t checked in with Maguire for some time.
“It is, Captain,” Santiago updated him. “Maguire is confident that he can jump us into hyperspace when we reach the mass shadow.”
Caleb smiled at Sarah. “Then we just need ten minutes.”
“I am sure you have won it for us,” Sarah said.
She was quickly proved right. For once, the wait seemed to fly by.
“That’s it,” Freya said. “Even if they start accelerating again, they can’t catch us.” She turned to Caleb and gave him a small bow. “You did it, Captain. You saved us.”
“We all did it,” Caleb corrected loudly. “It may have been my idea to take Concord, but it wouldn’t have been possible without all of you.”
“You have forged us into a good team, Captain,” Freya said in response. Everyone on the bridge nodded.
“So, Captain,” Freya continued, “what are your orders?”
Caleb took a breath as he savored the moment. It was bittersweet. He had managed to get his people to safety, but he was all too aware of who he was leaving behind.
“You can reduce our extra thrust; we don’t need to be putting the engines through any more stress than strictly necessary. Then, once we cross the mass shadow, set a course for the rendezvous point to meet up with our fuel freighters and jump us into hyperspace. After that, we’ll see if we can get this bucket of bolts back to Newport.”
More cheers and celebrations filled the bridge.
And then find a way to rescue Armitage and his people, Caleb added to himself.
He had no idea if that was possible, but he did know what fate awaited his friend, and if he could help, he had no intention of letting that happen.
*
Prometheus
At first, Alexander wasn’t angry at himself or his ship. Concord had been accelerating away from him, and so he had to try something. Restarting one of the damaged reactors early had been a big risk. His Chief Engineer had advised against it. Yet Alexander had insisted. Causing a little extra damage was worth the risk if it gave them a chance to catch Concord.
But their attempt had failed. Nothing ventured nothing gained, Alexander told himself as he tried to accept how things had turned out. He was angry Caleb was going to escape. But there was nothing he could have done to catch the faster Concord.
When Concord suddenly dropped her thrust again, Alexander sat up in his command chair. Right away, he knew Caleb had played him.
They didn’t have that extra thrust! He found a way to fake it!
Anger and frustration filled Alexander. If only I had just kept chasing at the acceleration I had been using, he thought. I still would have caught them!
Alexander wanted to scream. It took all of his self-control not to. As he looked around at his officers, none seemed to have figured out what had happened. His pride wanted it to stay that way. To all intents and purposes, it just looked like Concord had slowed simply to avoid overstraining her reactors and engines now that she didn’t have to. Yet Alexander knew the truth. She had slowed because she couldn’t go any faster.
Though his body and even his facial features remained expressionless, Alexander’s eyes shot fiery daggers at the holo image of Concord.
Someday, somehow, I’m going to catch up to you and force you into a fair fight. And when I do, no amount of tricks are going to save you.
Epilogue
Concord, Newport, 25th January 4748 AD, (thirty-eight days later).
The trip back from Solaris to Newport in Concord felt like déjà vu for Caleb. It was as if he were repeating his journey back from Paracel in Ajax. Many of the initial problems were the same. Before making such a long journey through hyperspace, Maguire had insisted on taking apart the destroyer’s one working reactor and putting it back together again. He then did the same with the slipstream drive. After four days of intense work, they were finally ready to begin the journey. With five fuel freighters, each carrying three full tanks between them, the only stops they had to make were to refill Concord’s own tanks.
When Concord jumped out into the Newport system, her bridge was full. Everyone was more than a little relieved that the ship had held together long enough to get them home.
When the first images of Newport appeared on the main holo display, there was a collective sigh of thanksgiving. Newport’s orbitals looked intact, and there were no signs of a Republic fleet. Having been away for more than four months, everyone had begun to worry about what they might find when they finally returned to the system.
They haven’t managed to conquer us just yet, Caleb thought as a smile spread across his face.
“Set course for the colony,” Caleb ordered. “And transmit our ID codes.” He didn’t want to give his father or the rest of the system too much of a fright. They would still be suspicious of a Republic warship entering their system, but hopefully Caleb would be able to assuage their fears.
As expected, Newport’s defenses scrambled. Four armed freighters and one auxiliary freighter raced to intercept them. Only after several comms conversations between Caleb, the captains of his fuel freighters, and the commanders of the defending ships, did things finally calm down. Even then, two armed freighters fell into formation with Concord to escort her to Newport.
As Concord approached the planet, Caleb couldn’t take his eyes off his homeworld. Though he had only spent a few months on the surface since first returning, it truly felt like home.
A beautiful home, he thought as he looked down at the ice-covered poles and green equatorial regions. He smiled as the planet’s rotation brought the Blue Mountains and Newport Landing into view. His father and sister were probably down there, working away. Or maybe they’re getting ready to greet us, Caleb thought, imagining how worried they had both probably been for him and his brother. He had already sent a full report to Aubrey’s fledgling Admiralty, so they would know he and Zach were safe. Still, they would want to see them right away.
And Amelia will want to know all about Rebecca, Caleb was sure. He was just as certain Zach would tell her everything.
Thoughts of Rebecca made Caleb impatient to get to the surface. Without stopping at any systems on the way home, he was completely out of touch. He was hoping a message from her had reached Newport ahead of him, letting them know she was all right.
“It’s beautiful,” Sarah said as she moved from her command chair to stand beside Caleb’s.
“It is,” Caleb agreed.
“You’ll have to show me the sights,” Sarah said. “Once all the politicking is done with.”
“I’m not sure I’ll have the time,” Caleb said slowly. “Concord will never fight again, but there are a lot of her systems we can salvage. I imagine I’ll have a long list of things to do before the day is over.”
