Birthright: Battle for the Confederation- Crusade Read online

  Elco nodded as he digested Loren’s report. He felt a little off for having to hide the exact nature of their mission from Lazaf, but he knew the other man would understand.

  “Are these Keeper ships targets worth capturing, then?” asked Lazaf.

  “Most definitely,” replied Elco. “As my XO said, they not only carry information; it sounds like they have free reign to investigate anything that might help their cause.”

  “Might I ask if there’s a chance I may ask for a copy of whatever’s on their databanks?”

  Elco hadn’t considered whether Lazaf would ask such a question. In retrospect, he would have done the same.

  “I have to say,” Elco replied apologetically, “as of right now, our clock is ticking and we need to be on with the next leg of our own mission. However, I have no qualms about getting you a copy soon enough.” He stopped the do some mental math. “Where will you be in three or four days?”

  “Other than somewhere in this part of the galaxy, no firm plans.”

  “Are you familiar with the planet we refer to as the ‘Waterpark’?”

  “I am,” was the reply, Lazaf doing a gallant job of holding himself back so as not to look too eager.

  “We’ll swing past there in four days, or else leave a courier or other word. I’ll have that memory dump for you. Sound acceptable?”

  “Captain, you are really not obligated to give me anything at all, so that is most definitely acceptable.”

  Lazaf extended his hand, which Elco shook firmly.

  “It seems you are in a hurry,” Lazaf continued, “and I have mayhem to make for some Primans. I’ll take my leave if that is acceptable?”

  “By all means. Hope to see you soon.”

  Lazaf nodded to Elco and Loren, then turned and headed back towards his shuttle, taking a long look at the sleek Keeper ship on the way. He boarded, powered up, and was off the deck in a minute flat. The blast doors at each end of the hangar had remained open, and Lazaf eased on the thrust as he accelerated through the energy field keeping the emptiness of space from sucking the air out of the hangar. Elco and Loren watched the shuttle disappear in silence.

  “Are we going to meet him for that exchange, Captain?” asked Loren. There would be plenty of ways to back out of it, but he suspected the captain had his reasons for the offer and would hold true to his word.

  “Yes we are, XO.” Elco replied grimly. “I learned some very disturbing information from Captain Lazaf. I’ll have to verify it myself, of course, which is exactly what I’m going to go do right now.” He glanced sideways to catch the curious look that Loren was giving him. “It seems as though our Senator Dennix might have just broken off a centuries-old relationship with the Talarans.”

  Loren walked back to his quarters in a daze. Before they’d even left the hangar, Captain Elco had given word to the bridge to lay in a course for the Gartha system, planning to revert out of hyperspace far enough out to launch the Keeper ship. Avenger was noticeably faster than the Keeper vessel, so they’d race ahead and use the extra time on station near the Gartha system to plan their next move. It would be a day before they got to where they were going, and Loren didn’t think he’d be able to handle the waiting; the people of Toral had thirteen days to live. Add to that the fact that Senator Dennix just might be shredding the one alliance Confed had- the Talarans- which was worth any military value, and Loren worried for not just Toral’s future, but Confed’s as well.

  He walked for a good ten minutes before he was at the hatch to his quarters. His berthing space was on the outside of the hull, affording him a window much like he’d enjoyed as CAG of Avenger’s fighters. Inside, he slapped the plate that raised the lights. He walked through the entry area, past the little kitchenette, and into the living space.

  With a sigh, he laboriously peeled off his gear, starting with his SSK. The gun and holster were tossed in a chair, soon covered by his uniform top. Boots landed on the floor below the chair, and Loren dropped heavily into the small loveseat and put his legs up on the end table Cassie had bought him when he became Avenger’s CAG.

  He was bone tired, fatigued both mentally and physically from constantly being ‘on’ the last few days. And yet, he dreaded what sleep would bring. He expected the nightmares again, something he wouldn’t ever tell anyone about. Not that he didn’t feel like he could tell Cory or the ship’s Surgeon, but the problem was he knew what was causing them, knew there was nothing he could do to make them stop save finishing this ordeal with the Priman data stations. He knew no amount of talking with anyone would change what had to be done to save Cassie as well as possibly himself.

  Logic finally won out, and, knowing that tomorrow would be another long day, he finally accepted his fate and trudged to his bunk, dreading the night but knowing he had to try to sleep.

  Elsewhere on Avenger, there was a lighter mood. Cory and Merritt, along with Web and Halley, were eating a late meal in the Aft Quarter.

  “…and so I just said, ‘Look, I’m Merritt, this is how it goes’, and he saw the light,” Merritt was telling the group.

  “So he just let you pass?” asked Halley skeptically.

  “Well, there was a little bit of discussion. It took some convincing, but I think I won in the end.”

  “Wait,” said Cory suddenly, “was this a few shore leaves ago when you got in that brawl with the security guy at that casino?”

  Merritt nodded solemnly.

  “Was this the same shore leave where Loren had to bail you out of the local lockup and cover for you so the captain didn’t find out?”

  Merritt paused. “Maybe,” he said slowly.

  “Oh, the things you’re learning about each other,” Halley said with a smile. “Marriage will be an adventure.”

  “It will be great,” Merritt replied. “For one thing, I’ll have access to Cory’s bank accounts.”

  “The ones you know about, at least,” she replied quickly.

  “So, have you been able to make any real plans?” asked Web.

  “We’ve decided on a place, type of ceremony, even the color of Merritt’s costume.”

  “Costume?” Merritt said, startled.

  “Just checking to see if you were still paying attention,” Cory replied. She turned to Web and Halley again. “The only problem is finding the time. There is a chance one of us could get leave, but the odds of us both getting any time away are slim. Not much point in worrying about the schedule until we can sneak away for a bit.”

  “Thinking about a getaway in Pair of Aces?” Halley asked. Cory knew the woman was proud of her gift to them, even if there was still a question of whether somebody in Confed’s accounting department would ask for it back someday.

  “Yes, I think we are. Plenty of terrific places we’ve only flown past over the years, planets people tell you that you should visit someday, that sort of thing, so I think we’ll find somewhere to go.”

  “Plus, we’ll have to test out those modifications you and Loren are forcing on us,” Merritt said with a knowing grin to Web.

  “You could probably get work from Garrett to help pay for them, too,” Halley offered.

  “I still get the impression he doesn’t like us all that much,” Merritt replied.

  “It’s not about liking you. I think he trusts you and your word, and that’s what counts. In any case, I thought I’d mention it. And now, we’ll just go and finish off those troublesome Primans and end the war,” Halley finished. “That should get you your free time, right?”

  “Yeah, get back to us on that.”

  Senator Dennix sat in his office in the unnerving presence of Tana Starr. She’d wormed her way onto his staff after their first meeting, though in retrospect it wasn’t as though he had much choice in the matter. It was pretty clear that either she got access to him, or the Primans were going to out the Senator using every information channel in the galaxy. Even if it didn’t stick, it would probably end his aspirations to just about any elected position in the
galaxy, so he’d gone along with the new game plan.

  The problem was, the new game plan wasn’t his at all; it was Tana’s. He had been forced to draft a document formally ending Confed’s alliance with the Talaran Collection, something that he’d actually considered early on himself but dropped as being too politically risky. It had in fact caused problems at first, and the polling numbers showed it wasn’t a popular move, but he and Tana had been orchestrating enough other issues to keep the public’s attention where they wanted it to be.

  “And so,” Tana was saying in a pleased tone, “with the Talarans officially isolated, we can move our forces to where they’ll do us the most good.”

  “Does that mean you’ll be reducing your forces in Confed space?” asked Dennix hopefully.

  “That’s not really something I can tell you, Senator, you should realize that,” she admonished.

  “My apologies,” he said, but they both knew he didn’t mean it, “I’m confused. I assumed that if we were working under an agreement between our peoples, you wouldn’t be pressing your military campaign as hard here. Was I mistaken?”

  “Senator,” Tana replied with a hard look. “You and I both know that our arrangement is far from official, and that in fact it can’t be anything other than a closely held secret. While I regret that Confederation soldiers must perish, we need to push the campaign far enough that your public will be ready to accept our terms when you announce them. They must feel like they have no choice but to agree to a cease-fire, and only under those conditions will your power and our required needs be attainable. You do still wish to rule the Confederation as our Governor once we take over, correct?”

  “Of course, but not for the reasons you think.”

  The Senator could tell himself whatever he wanted, but Tana knew what he truly desired, so she let him have his moment and didn’t interrupt the posturing.

  “Perhaps,” she added gently, “in about thirteen days from now, when people on Toral start dying, you will have your chance to reshape the Confederation in the image you’ve been striving for. Surely it is not a painless sacrifice, but if it gives you the means to help- along with our leadership- stabilize the galaxy and bring peace to all of civilization, would you consider it a worthy price to pay?”

  “I’ll make my own justifications; I don’t need you to feed them to me.”

  “Then you can content yourself with knowing you had no choice in the matter,” she said in a darker tone. “We have two more items to discuss tonight. The first is whether the Enkarrans are completely integrated into your Navy in appropriately volatile situations, the second is the matter of your clandestine mission program, which needs to come to a halt along with your high yield weapons program.”

  Tana was not at liberty to elaborate much on the reasons behind her orders, but they would have shocked the Senator. They knew that Confed, like most other militaries, had a dangerous cadre of unconventional warriors, and the Commander attributed several key failures in the Priman campaign to their efforts, though Tana was not privy to the evidence. There was also the Priman weapons program, which had aimed to adapt successful Confed and Talaran technology for their own use. They couldn’t have the Confeds in their heels with their own versions of the new Priman weapons, after all.

  Enric Shae sat in the outer office of Senator Dennix as he had his meeting with that Starr woman. Enric didn’t approve of her presence one bit, and not just because she was taking away his own face time with the Senator. Ever since she’d appeared and been granted a staff position, she had been trying to take over for Enric. He could see she was trying to shut him out, and also that whatever power she had over the Senator was a considerable one. He’d changed several of his stated positions under her influence, and it was making Enric nervous. He and the Senator had put together such a carefully constructed plan, and this woman was taking it all apart. And yes, he admitted, there was still the matter of his own personal fortunes which would rise with Dennix’s stature, fortunes that would languish if Tana Starr cut him out of the loop. Perhaps it was time to do some of his own digging into her data, and see if there was a way he could find out what made her presence so necessary…

  Loren spent the day anticipating the evening hours. He got up at a reasonable hour, exercised in the gym, attended two meetings and conducted one surprise inspection in the forward torpedo room, all before lunch. It all went by in a daze, and in retrospect he hoped none of the crew had noticed.

  He had to do something to keep his mind occupied, and he could only spend so much time at the shooting range before the range officer kicked him out so others could have their time as well. He’d conducted an inspection of the aft torpedo room after lunch, just so that crew didn’t feel left out. Avenger’s eight torpedo tubes were highly automated, but still required a small crew to supervise, repair, and make decisions or manually shoot if the computers suffered any sort of damage. Since the torpedo batteries comprised Avenger’s primary armament, the crews were highly trained and their positions sought after, and the career path of a capable torpedo officer was a bright one.

  He knew he was probably a bit too close to the ship’s crew, and had looked for something to chastise the torpedo room folks on, lest they think he was giving them a pass, but they were on top of their game. Everything from the software updates to the torpedo carriages that brought the seven foot wide, nineteen foot long missiles up from the storage magazines was in better than new condition, and he’d finally given up and told the crews he was going to leave them alone to go about their business, a comment that they had taken with great pride.

  That left Loren the supper hour and early evening to fill, and he tried to keep busy. He spent some time in the Talon simulator, trying to knock the rust off his flying skills against a plethora of Priman fighter craft. He successfully lost himself in the simulator, and emerged an hour later coated in a thin sheen of sweat and sporting a satisfied smile. He’d knocked Web back out of the number one spot in several of the most popular missions, and he figured he should leave before Web got wind of it and hit the sims with a vengeance to reclaim his throne.

  Along those lines, he’d been very pleased with the new profiles Merritt had put together. Merritt, as new commander of the Vipers, was doing a great job. He’d polished up some of Loren’s lessons, and even created a few new profiles in the sims to reflect changing Confed doctrine and Priman abilities. Loren had actually sent several of them up to Confed Training Command with the recommendation of including them in all squadron’s simulators.

  Just after a light supper that he made in the kitchenette of his quarters, Loren went to the ships’ brig and looked up the Priman Krenis.

  As he passed through the hatch, he caught sight of one of the Marines that he had ordered out of the maintenance bay when he was threatening the first group of Priman Keeper prisoners. The man probably wondered if Loren was planning on taking any more trips with the Primans, and Loren couldn’t say he’d blame the man for being a little nervous about it.

  “I’m here to see the Priman Krenis,” Loren told the duty officer as he handed his holstered SSK over the desk to him. “We can leave him in his cell, we’re not going anywhere and I’m not worried about a physical risk.”

  The officer tried his best to not look skeptical, but eventually nodded to Loren and indicated with a point of the chin the right cell block to look in. “Cell 327, Commander,” the officer replied dutifully.

  Loren walked down the short corridor and arrived at the indicated cell. He used his XO’s access code to activate the monitor on the wall, which showed a view of the interior, along with the ability to switch to various other camera modes and spectrums to inspect body chemistry, stress, and more. Loren just wanted to look at the man before he entered. The plain, smooth, almost incomplete looking Priman features still got to him. He wondered how much of his own appearance came from them. He accepted what the Primans claimed, that they were the benefactors that had tweaked dozens of advanced civilizati
ons in this part of the galaxy. He just didn’t agree with their assertion that it gave them the right to lay claim to the whole galaxy as a result.

  Finally, he keyed in the code that opened the door and entered, letting it close and lock behind him. The cell was small, only about ten feet on a side. It had a toilet area, a chair that was bolted to the wall, and a small table that was bolted to the floor.

  “Commander,” Krenis said curtly as Loren entered. He had been standing near his table contemplating a datapad that had been left for him to use, and made no moves as Loren approached.

  “Are you enjoying the reading?” Loren asked.

  “Your propaganda, you mean?” Krenis held up and indicated the datapad.

  “You broadcast your message on a planetary scale when you take a world from someone else; what’s wrong with a little fair play?”

  The datapad had been a collaboration between Loren and Ensign Roxis, with the approval of Captain Elco. It had been their idea to provide a relatively detailed history of the galaxy since the Primans had been vanquished all those thousands of years ago, albeit scrubbed of any sensitive data. They’d hoped that perhaps it would help Krenis open up to the idea that not only were the inhabitants capable of deciding their fates for themselves, but also that they had done well enough for themselves in the Primans’ absence.

  “The problem is that I have no idea what part of this is real and what is fiction,” Krenis replied reasonably. “You have to know that as an examiner of data, I must question information until its’ accuracy can be verified. This information is from a single source; that of my adversary.”

  “So you’re saying you don’t trust me?” Loren said with a hurt look as he sat down on the chair and crossed his legs. “I feel sad.”