Command Authority, page 4
part #5 of Last Hunter Series
It had now been a month, so they should be far past that. Still, if they’d been damaged, they might’ve stopped for repairs, and there could be evidence of their presence.
Trying to figure out exactly where a ship like that would go was just a guessing game, but it helped pass the time. When they were about twenty minutes away from the edge of the zone where he could start using the hyperdrive, he rose from his station and walked over to the command chair.
Romanoff smiled at him. “I’ve been thinking about it, and we can at least do a couple of jumps out into that area. I want to have your itinerary sent to the exploration ship. If we don’t come back within two hours, they’re to come looking for us. Now, what do you have in mind?”
Derek explained his plan of jumping to the location where the Novarites might have exited hyperspace the first time. Then, he mentioned three or four areas they could search that might give them a reading. The odds of discovering anything were vanishingly small, and he admitted that.
If they did find something, it would be a lopsided fight because they’d gotten a lot of their weapons back online, and unless there was a mobile shipyard of some kind out there, he doubted the fleeing warship would’ve done more than make crude repairs to the damage they’d suffered during the fight.
“That sounds like an excellent test pattern, so make it happen,” Romanoff said. “When we reach the earliest point that we can jump into hyperspace, go ahead and execute that, and then pop us out when you can use the independent quantum drive. I want a least time execution on that, but it needs to be safe. Don’t take any chances trying to do everything too quickly.”
“Understood, sir. It won’t take us but a second to drop out of hyperspace and head into a quantum jump. I’ll take as much time as I need to make that safe, but once it’s a practiced move, we should be able to do it with no more than half a second interval between exit and jump. Unless somebody’s right on top of us, we can get away. Heck, we can spend five seconds in normal space, and they’d have to be right there to tag us.”
“Let’s split the difference for this first test. Don’t make it any less than three seconds from exit to jump. Once we arrive at the first search location, you can take us back into hyperspace, drop us out, and practice jumping again. Let’s do that at every exit point unless we pick up something useful on the hyperspace detector.”
“Sounds good, sir.”
Derek resumed his station and plotted the hyperspace entry and the quantum jump once they exited. It was a straightforward process to engage the hyperdrive and travel to the area where they could safely make a quantum jump. He counted off the seconds they were in normal space and executed the jump while holding his breath. If anything was going to go wrong, it would happen now.
It worked flawlessly. It took a few seconds for him to locate the nearest stars after they’d exited and verify they’d jumped about a light-week away from New Copenhagen. At that distance, the star looked like all the rest.
He engaged the active sensors and put a call in to the team in engineering. They didn’t have a direct interface with the hyperspace detector, so several crew members had received training to run the system. The answer came back a few seconds later. There was nothing in hyperspace. Not a shock, but disappointing.
“The hyperspace detector is clear, sir,” he said. “I’m running the sensors to see if I pick anything up, but out in deep space, I think the odds are low.”
And just after he’d said that, the passive sensors picked something up. It wasn’t big enough to be a ship, but it was artificial. He took a few moments to go over the readings. It was probably debris.
“I’m picking up a scattering of artificial material, sir,” he said. “There’s not enough mass to be a ship, but it might be debris left over after some hasty repairs. If so, we might have damaged them more than we suspected.”
“Set a course to bring us closer to the debris,” Romanoff said, leaning forward slightly. “Let’s go to battle stations just in case. They might have set up some kind of booby trap just in case anyone came looking for them, and I’d rather be ready than get surprised.”
Derek engaged the fusion drives and set course for the debris after calling the ship to battle stations. He moved at a relatively slow pace and kept examining the debris, trying to figure out what he was looking at. They’d arrive at the location in roughly half an hour at the current speed. He could cut that down drastically with a short blip in hyperspace, but he’d rather save that for once he figured out what they were looking at.
It took about ten minutes for the active sensors to start getting returns to be confident about what he was looking at. It was definitely battle debris. If the vessel had serious damage and had chosen to stop here for repairs, they might’ve cut out sections of the ship wholesale simply because they were too wrecked to provide any use whatsoever.
That likely meant many pieces of internal equipment had been jettisoned along with damaged hull plates. There probably wouldn’t be anything overly exciting in the debris, but its nature would indicate how badly they’d hit the other vessel and where.
He took a moment to report to the commodore what he’d found. “If you want us to get closer to it more quickly, I can blip us into hyperspace.”
The older man grinned. “I can’t begin to tell you how much I like this new capability. It’s not as good as our independent quantum drive for long distances, but it gives us a short-range advantage that we couldn’t have dreamed of before. At least as long as we’re away from the heavy gravity zones around a star or planet. Do it.”
Derek laid in a course and then double-checked it. Thus far, he hadn’t been that accurate in calculating exit points from hyperspace, and he wanted to correct that. Every time they tried it, he gathered more data, which made the next trip safer. With sufficient practice, he should be able to pinpoint where he wanted to exit hyperspace and make it happen every time. It was a lofty goal and one that he would eventually achieve.
They popped out within a dozen kilometers of his target zone. Not bad. He ran the active sensors across the debris from the closer vantage point, confirming everything he’d guessed. There were hull plates, lots of what could be equipment and furnishings from inside the damaged vessel, and what were obviously corpses.
He grimaced in distaste. “I can now confirm that it’s battle damage, sir. It looks like we’re seeing everything they cut away. Also, lots of internal furnishings and bodies.”
“Well, aren’t these people just the sweetest things?” Romanoff asked rhetorically. “Find a good place to hold station, and we’ll send the Marines in to go through everything. It’s always possible they threw out something important with the trash. At the very least, we’ll recover their dead. They may not care what happens to the bodies, but we’ll see they’re treated appropriately.”
Just to be sure there weren’t any ugly surprises, Derek scanned the debris multiple times, looking for anything that might be a weapon. While he did detect at least one weapons array, it looked like it was a phased packet plasma gun. Without an active fusion plant, it wasn’t capable of firing. He was more concerned about hidden explosives or missiles lying there, waiting for an opportunity to shoot at one of the small craft.
Colonel Turner obviously had the same thoughts because they sent several pinnaces ahead. Those volunteers were taking their lives into their hands, but if something went wrong, they’d save many of their comrades.
The Marines had lost so many of their own fighting the Locusts. Or, the Tardans, if one wanted to be more specific. In the time since the ground war had ended, most of the injured Marines had recovered, though some had to be discharged because their injuries were too severe. The losses had been made good by volunteers from the Planetary Defense Force. Now that they’d taken their planet back from the invaders, the people of New Copenhagen were more than willing to put their lives on the line to do the same on other worlds.
That had brought their Marine complement up to the full standards for a ship of Hunter’s size. A battalion of Marines was a lot, but they’d already proven they needed every single person. The fresh people’s training had been focused on combat-oriented tasks, and the word in the staff briefings was that the new Marines were shaping up.
It took about two hours to go through the debris, looking for any traps or tricks and then sorting through everything looking for interesting bits of refuse. The phased packet plasma gun had been recovered, though it likely wasn’t repairable. That was Amanda’s call. The bodies had been gathered and would be handed over to the medical professionals, whose number had been bolstered by volunteers from New Copenhagen.
They already had a lot of Novarite bodies, so he wasn’t sure what the new ones would tell them, but that was why he wasn’t a forensic pathologist.
Once the pinnaces had returned, he reported Hunter ready to travel. Romanoff asked a few questions about his search pattern, then approved it for immediate execution.
It took hours to visit the various locations he thought would be interesting to examine. Each time they emerged from the quantum jump, they used the hyperspace detector to look for the fleeing vessel. Each time they came up blank.
The attempts proved they could jump a full light month out from a stellar system, and he was reluctant to push things much more. That would be useful at some point, he was sure.
“Looks like we’re not going to get lucky,” Romanoff said. “Pity. I’d have rather taken them out of play. Maybe once things are more settled, we can try sending the exploration ships out to search for them along their flight path home. Right now, we’ll have to settle for getting to Port Royale and stocking up on all the parts that Kelly Danek has been demanding. We also need to make sure that the orbital weapons platforms are ready to start coming to New Copenhagen.”
The orbital weapons platforms were small asteroids modified to hold missile and laser batteries. The rate of fire and the number of shots that could be taken were limited, but the things were almost invisible unless one knew what to look for. They’d be transported to New Copenhagen by one of the exploration vessels, which would carry them in the jump bubble just like they’d brought the wrecked Tardan vessel to Port Royale. The goal was to put them in the orbital space around New Copenhagen and provide an unexpected surprise for any hostiles that might come in for a visit.
As Derek was laying in the course, he had an idea. “If you don’t mind, sir, I’d like to drop out on the course a ship would take from the initial point to Port Royale and give one final scan. It is the closest system, and if they’re hurt, the enemy might decide it would make a good place to hole up for repairs. They can’t know it’s occupied.”
Romanoff pursed his lips for a few seconds and then nodded. “Can’t hurt to try. Change approved.”
The odds of the Novarites going toward Port Royale were low, but they weren’t zero. Once he’d calculated the location that they’d be in, he executed the jump.
Within a couple of seconds, his comm went off. It was the operator for the hyperspace detector. “We’ve got a hit. Looks like a single source, and it’s about two light-hours behind us.”
He turned in his seat and grinned like a shark at the commodore. “We found them, sir. It looks like they’re headed for Port Royale. Based on their current location, they’ll arrive at their next hold point in roughly six days.”
“It’s a good thing you checked,” the flag officer said with a grin. “Now that we have them localized, we can catch them once they drop out of hyperspace. Take us to Port Royale, and we’ll start loading parts. We’ll check on them when they’re closer to returning to normal space.”
Derek turned back to his console, set the course, and initiated the quantum jump. Port Royale appeared very close to them as they exited, and he was pleased that they were near the enormous space station orbiting the gas giant. They had six days to prepare a surprise party, and he knew everyone would want to get in on the celebration.
5
Jack watched the screen and was pleased to see they’d come out refreshingly close to the giant space station that held their repair parts. That likely wasn’t reassuring to the defenders, but they knew what Hunter looked like, and there was no need to worry they would fire on them unexpectedly.
Well, probably not, anyway.
“Communications, let them know we’re here and that we’ll settle into orbit around the gas giant. I’m heading over to meet with Connor and Commodore Nastasi. Tell them we’ve got an update on that last Novarite warship and that while it isn’t time sensitive, I’d like to get together on the station.”
The woman at the communications console nodded. “I’ll take care of it, sir.”
Jack considered his next step for just a moment and then smiled slightly. “Amanda, you have the conn. I’m not expecting trouble, but if something comes up, I’m sure you’re more than capable of handling it.”
The young woman rose smoothly to her feet. “I have you covered, sir.”
Jack stood and headed toward the nearest small craft bay. The Marines that Mac insisted he have fell in beside him. It had been a month since they’d dealt with the invasion at New Copenhagen, and he’d almost gotten used to their presence.
He briefly considered if he should take anyone else with him and decided not to. He knew the basic facts of everything they’d discovered thus far, so he could fill them in without assistance.
When he arrived in the small craft bay, he boarded the old-style cutter he’d designated for his personal use. The engineering team had found the time to paint it, and it looked sharp. When it came to decorum and his dignity, it seemed like his crew cared more about it than he did.
He dropped into the pilot’s seat and began bringing the cutter to life while the Marines strapped in. Over the last few weeks, he’d worked hard familiarizing himself with the controls, and Derek had finally agreed he was fit for certification. Not that they had an official process for that yet, but it meant everyone trusted him not to wreck the thing if something went wrong.
Speaking briefly to the controllers who sat in a compartment overlooking the small craft bay, he arranged for permission to lift off and head into the massive tunnel that led through the battleship’s hull and into space.
He flew to the space station, conversed with their traffic control, and then headed into the large landing bay. There were plenty of places to choose from, so he selected something convenient and parked the cutter. Once he’d shut it down, the Marines formed around him, and they exited together, heading straight for the table where the fees were paid.
The person sitting there waved them on, but offering to pay the landing fee was the right thing to do. All the courtesies would be observed because he needed to keep on these people’s good side.
To his surprise, Sara Nastasi was the only person waiting for him. The flag officer representing the Judge Advocate General’s office was in an old-style uniform like his own with a dark navy greatcoat and archaic white peaked hat,and was standing by herself.
He’d seen her since the fighting had ended, but she’d spent most of her time working with the people at Port Royale while he’d been at New Copenhagen getting the repairs on his ship done and interfacing with the government there. There wasn’t a lot of call for her legal acumen, but that would eventually change, he was sure. Right now, he needed someone to act as a neutral third party, and she fit the bill.
“I hope nothing’s gone wrong, but when I got word that you needed to speak with us, I headed right over,” she said. “My people are still working on getting Scorpius converted to housing as many of our spare parts and personnel as possible. We’re making good progress but still have a way to go.”
The engineering section in the other battleship was in terrible condition, and he doubted they’d have her operational anytime soon, but they’d installed a couple of fusion drives, and if necessary, she could leave orbit. At some point, they’d need to bring some of the other battleships back online, but there had been more pressing issues to deal with in the interim.
The fact that they didn’t have enough crew to man two battleships was also a consideration. They were short of trained personnel, and replacing the weapon systems and refurbishing everything would take much longer than they currently had.
“The news isn’t all bad,” Jack said. “Where’s Connor?”
“You caught him on a tour of the belt. I’m sure word of your arrival hasn’t even reached him yet, but if necessary, we can pull in the governing council. He should be back sometime later this evening.”
“That’ll be fine. I was planning on using his office to brief you, but we can head back to Scorpius if that would be better.”
“We can go to my office if you need a confidential environment. If not, we could always get lunch at Handor’s.”
When he’d first come to Port Royale, it was where he’d met with Connor, and their enchiladas were excellent. A cold beer and some food would definitely hit the spot.
“Handor’s is fine. We’ll want a bit of privacy because I don’t want to cause a panic, but as long as we keep our voices down, everything should be okay.”
The two of them made their way to the restaurant and the person manning the front inclined her head as they approached. “Welcome to Handor’s, Commodore Romanoff, Commodore Nastasi. Do you have a seating preference?”
“Do you have a private room?” Sara asked.
“Of course. If you’d follow me.”
The woman grabbed two menus and led them deeper into the restaurant. Rather than going to the wide area with many of the tables, she opened a plain door off to the side and led them down a short hall to a private dining room. It was on the small side, which suited him just fine.
“I can take your drink orders now or come back in a few minutes if you need to consider the menu,” the woman said. “I’ll arrange for you to have a dedicated server, so you don’t have to deal with multiple people coming and going. Here at Handor’s, we appreciate the need for privacy.”
