Birthright: Battle for the Confederation- Pursuit Read online

  "I was attacked on the surface of Faaria by Priman agents," Loren began. "How am I to blame for that?"

  "Because you weren't there on a diplomatic mission," Shae countered. "Let's look at the footage, shall we?" Shae then went on to commit his biggest mistake yet; showing Loren video camera footage that could only have come from a Priman source. The camera angles of the night club shootout and Merritt and Cory at the collector's mansion, the resulting explosion; by paying attention to what the footage showed or omitted it was clear that it was provided to him by the Primans. Proving it, of course, was impossible, but nothing discussed here was for the courts anyway.

  "I want to use your crew's talents," Shae said, trying to calm down and look reasonable. "I want Avenger and select other senior officers to come to Delos and help take charge of the Confederation."

  "In what capacity?" asked Loren, fearing the answer.

  "You, Commander Stone, specifically, can help hold the Confederation together. Captain Elco is too old-fashioned to see that we need a new type of leadership in the military, so this offer is yours, not his. If we can get our house in order, the Primans will leave us alone. But the citizens are getting restless with us and the war; we need someone to impose order. The offer is this: you run a military-controlled pacification program in the Confederation and keep the populace in line. In exchange, Senator Dennix, his Committee and I stay in office. We get to run Confed as we all see fit while the Primans can go burn down the galaxy around us. But we'll be ok, Commander. We'll share that power with you, but that's the only offer you'll receive."

  Loren couldn't even begin to react. Dennix and Shae wanted to run a military dictatorship in Confed? Worse yet, they felt confident enough of that plan to simply tell him that? "You know," Loren finally replied, "that's the second time in the last few days that someone has offered to let me run a chunk of the galaxy. It's sort of scary, really."

  "But maybe you're the right person, then!" Shae replied. "Imagine reshaping Confed the way you know it needs to be! You could set things right. We'll have peace in the Confederation."

  "I don't know what's best for everyone; no one person does. And if the population is on the edge of revolt, maybe that's a sign you're doing something wrong. Besides, you call this collaboration a peace?"

  Shae didn't take Loren's refusal well. He face turned darker, his eyes narrowed and his lips pulled tight over his teeth. "Peace is what happens when one side is too strong to fight back against," he scoffed. "The Primans are too strong to beat, Commander. So call it an order, then. Avenger returns to Delos and her crew is disbanded. You, Captain Elco and others will work directly under my supervision and you'll do what we just talked about anyway, except now you'll be under orders. And if you don't follow orders, we have ways of dealing with that as well."

  "Respectfully, sir," Loren replied with all the remaining composure he had, "if you order me to use force on the population of the Confederation, I will refuse. You can put me in prison or discharge me, whatever you like, but I will not betray the Confederation. I serve it, not you."

  "Then I will brand Avenger as a renegade ship," Shae threatened. "We'll declare you terrorists and level charges of sedition and treason on every last person on your crew. Do you want to be responsible for almost a thousand people's lives being ruined by your refusal to follow orders?"

  "Did the Primans put you up to this," Loren asked, finally deciding there was no point in continuing the charade of this being a legitimate conversation, "or is this personal? You and me, that sort of thing?"

  "You and your ship stand in the way of what we need to accomplish," Shae fairly yelled. "And it sounds like your decision is made. So be it. You won't find safe harbor anywhere in this galaxy, Loren Stone. Confed will have orders to apprehend or kill. The secessionists won't want you because you started out loyal. The Talarans are done for. No other government stands a chance against the Primans and so won't take the risk of helping you. You'll be alone. And I'll burn everyone that's working with you as well. I've read the reports; you have your own Fixer and pet SAR operative as well. They're done as much as you are. And in case you wanted to know, one of the best parts about this channel is that it can't be recorded. I can manipulate the signal in all manner of ways so that our discussions can stay secret. You'll never prove anything. Good riddance, Loren."

  With that, the connection dropped, as did Loren's stomach. He turned and started tapping commands onto the display, dazed.

  Elco was taking possession of Admiral Bak's data cube and orders when his comm unit beeped. "I thought only you had this number," Elco said with a half smirk to Admiral Bak.

  "Elco here," he said as he activated the unit.

  "Captain," Loren's voice rose from the speaker. Something was wrong; his XO never sounded like that. He'd been through so much, and had stayed so focused and ready for the next crisis. Now he sounded like he'd heard the sun was about to go dark.

  "What is it, Loren?" Elco asked.

  "Are you somewhere private?" Loren replied. Elco quickly stepped over to Admiral Bak's workstation. The whole side of the upper bridge was empty, but he set the device on the workstation's surface and engaged the local audio damping field. "Just me and Admiral Bak, Loren. Anything you've heard can be said to him as well."

  "As long as he's okay with aiding terrorists," Loren said darkly.

  Admiral Bak looked at Elco, who shrugged. "Go ahead, XO."

  Loren told them everything, in surprising detail considering the fact that the man sounded like he was suffering from a mild case of shock. Bak looked up to Elco and shook his head.

  "He's crossed the line, gone stark raving mad," was Elco's assessment of Shae, to which Bak only nodded in agreement.

  "But he has power," Bak said in resignation. "The people don't know any different, and we can't prove this or anything else. He's going to have the Confed navy attacking its own ships to keep any dissent towards the government from leaking out."

  "Maybe it's time we eliminate the bastard," said Elco, and Bak knew he was dead serious.

  "We need proof," Bak countered. "You know they'll make him into a martyr for their cause if anything happens to him. No, we need to out them, show the ring data to the whole blasted galaxy and make sure nobody in their right mind can conjure up an argument. That's the only way we get Avenger's crew their lives back."

  Elco, spent, just nodded. After all the battles he'd been through, it was his own people that were going to be the end of him.

  "I need to get Majestic out of here, right now," said Bak suddenly. "We need to be in hyperspace and gone from here by the time Shae sends out the orders to capture or kill Avenger. I could order Captain Montari to stay with you and help fight, but if Halley and Web come through we'll need a way to get them to the right people and I only completely trust about a half dozen people in this sheifah-soaked galaxy right now."

  Elco knew it was the logical argument, but was already trying to decide how to tell the crew that Confed had turned on them for not offering to help forcibly make the population comply with the Governing Committee's orders.

  "I'll hurry," Elco said as he turned to leave. He felt a hand on his shoulder. Nodam Bak had his hand out to shake, and Elco took it. "I'll be able to give you a day from right now," the admiral promised. "If they tell me to come back looking for you, it will take that long, I can assure you of that. And I won't be looking very hard, either, but please, Sirian; stay out of sight. I'll contact you somehow. Good luck."

  Elco let Bak's hand go and returned the crisp salute the Admiral was offering. Elco turned in his best parade ground pivot and strode from the bridge as fast as decorum would allow. He needed to get off the ship so Admiral Bak could get out of here and not have to make more excuses why he wasn't attacking a fellow Confederation vessel.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Halley sat in her and Web's meeting place, a small furnished rental unit, dejected. She knew it was bad tradecraft to go to a location that Web could be forced t
o give up under interrogation, but at the rate they zapped him with those stun sticks he'd be incoherent for a while. She had to retrieve a few things from the place and sanitize it anyway.

  She'd finished, then suddenly lost the will to keep moving. She'd sat down and realized that she loved him. Really, truly loved the man. And she blamed herself completely for putting him in the situation he was now in. Well, he gets partial blame because the love struck goofball would have agreed to anything she asked, she realized, and she felt better for a minute as she thought of him.

  But she had finally come to the point where she had to admit that her life would be less meaningful if he wasn't in it any more. She'd lost friends and comrades-in-arms, but this was different. He filled a different portion of her life, and she admitted that it had taken his being captured by a ruthless enemy to make her see the depth of her feelings for him.

  Halley didn't fall in love; not really, at least. She'd had a few lovers, some relationships, but nothing that she would in retrospect call love, or even deep attachment. It was always a relationship of convenience for her, and without having had the experience she'd spent a lot of time wondering if that's what love was. Was it being used to a person's presence, their behaviors and smell? Was it getting a thrill when they touched you a certain way?

  But now she knew those were simple physical reactions; what she felt for Web was emotional, something deep in her mind or soul and she knew that from now on she just needed to be with him. That's what love was, then; the discovery of a person who made you feel great, completed your unfinished half, and would make you feel like less of a person if you lost them.

  She vowed she wouldn't lose Web. She needed to tell him how she felt. She knew what he thought about them as a couple, but he'd been so patient in never demanding anything more from her. What if her procrastination had caused her to miss her one chance to tell him her side? What if he never knew she felt the same way about him? She was just simply going to have to get to him and let him know; it was only a matter of time anyway before she could put something together.

  The beeps of two separate comm devices at almost the exact same time made her jump out of her reverie. Startled and disappointed at her lack of discipline, she checked the comm units. One was from Loren, a burner unit that he'd set up to contact her and Web and vice versa. She'd been delaying the call to him because she just didn't know how to tell him she'd lost Web to the Primans. The other was from an address that could only be someone up her chain of command. It was unusual but not unheard-of to get a communication from a commanding officer, especially during an operation where last-second intel might make the difference between life and death. She'd have to answer one and let the other go to message.

  She picked her commanding officer. It was a cop-out, but she didn't want to tell Loren what had happened to Web yet.

  "Pascal," she said simply as the voice-only call connected.

  "Are you in an operation at this moment?" the voice asked.

  "No," she replied simply.

  "Authentication Brave-Under-three-five-zero," was the businesslike reply. The authentication code was valid for the next two days, Halley knew, so she had to treat the call as authentic.

  "What are your orders?" she asked.

  "Abort any current mission and prepare for exfil," came the reply. What in the hell? she thought. Why would her commanders call off the mission? Only Admiral Bak supposedly knew the details; she was on loan to him through detached status, so why would she even be getting a recall from the home office?

  "Is something compromised?" she asked, something within her rights while on active status.

  "Just sit tight; we have your location. There are assets on the ground from other ops already being redirected to you. Prepare to move out and follow their lead. More to come." And the connection was dead.

  Halley was dumbfounded. Nobody should have even known she was there. Admiral Bak might have had to log a rough itinerary for her, but unless somebody at damn near the top of the food chain wanted to know, her whereabouts should have been somewhere beyond top secret. And now people were being pulled off their own operations to come get her? It didn't make sense.

  Perplexed, she checked her other comm unit to see what Loren had to say. She now regretted missing his call; rather than ignore him and get some insane recall order, she should have talked to him over the live net and admitted what happened with Web. She tapped one more key, listened to the message, and it was all suddenly very clear.

  We've all been burned, the message said in Loren's urgent voice. You and Web need to get out and get off the grid. You're in charge of contacting Avenger and Garrett. Don't trust any orders. Halley, Web; run!

  And then it all made sense. The ridiculous orders to stay put, the cryptic communication from some unidentified player high in the food chain; it had to be Dennix, or that little boot licker of his Enric Shae. Somehow they'd realized what was going on with one or more of Loren and Admiral Bak's operations and were trying to take everyone out of play.

  Without a second thought, she attached her data cube to the comm unit and sent the contents to Loren's burner comm unit. While hers might be tracked on-planet, once it hit the Galactic Data Net and started bouncing around off satellites and relay stations it would be untraceable. Loren would be safe and also have all the damning evidence the ring data contained. She also attached a brief apology detailing Web's capture in an effort to save her as well as her decision to stay and attempt a rescue. She was staying on Callidor.

  Halley had business to attend to. She grabbed the duffels she'd already packed and made for the door. Down the stairs, out the back entrance, over a parking barricade and out on the next block over, then up to the next higher level of above-ground structures and traffic lanes where she hailed a hovercab.

  She didn't even look back; the safehouse was clean; she had what she needed. She had to consider all her Confed-established covers and resources to be gone, burned by the traitors in their midst. Any operative worth their salt had unofficial resources they'd established over the years, and Halley was better than most. She had plenty of money and everything else required to do the job she had in mind. There was no way on this green planet she was leaving without Web. She had work to do.

  Starship Ballistics and Effects

  Capital warship weaponry generally falls into two classes: energy weapon and projectile/missile.

  Energy weapons fire magnetically contained energy packets or traditional laser-style highly charged rapid pulses of excited electromagnetic radiation. These weapons have a high success rate in hitting their targets due to their high speed and lack of guidance systems to defeat, but they expend all their energy on the face of their target, usually failing to penetrate very far unless the area is subjected to multiple, rapid hits. Energy shields also serve to scatter the charge and dissipate the energy contained in the beams. Lasers are still considered a main battery weapon because of their relatively high rate of fire, no need to store consumable ordinance, and general reliability.

  Torpedoes and missiles comprise the other half of a capital ship's armaments. At first glance, it would seem torpedoes have some serious drawbacks. They rely on guidance systems which may be confused or decoyed. They require storage space aboard ship and therefore the quantity available for use is limited. They must steer during flight, so can eventually run out of fuel if subjected to a long enough flight path.

  The positives, though, outweigh the negatives. They have the potential to inflict ship-killing damage with a single weapon strike, though to get that effect requires an understanding of how the weapon operates.

  Without an atmosphere, explosion effects are not carried far in space. An atmosphere is the most favorable means to convey an explosion's effects; shockwaves and heat energy from conventional explosives are carried through an atmosphere, which is obviously not available in a vacuum.

  In addition, anti-matter and nuclear weapons are outlawed through most of explored space and cr
eate an entirely new set of political problems if deployed. Anti-matter weaponry is still widely considered unstable and incredibly expensive to produce, while nuclear weapons rely more on radiation effects and compete with conventional explosives that come close to matching their energy output. In addition, armor technology being what it is, doctrine favors a weapon that can reach deep inside a ship rather than detonate in a sphere on the surface of a target like a nuclear charge would.

  So, to create a truly destructive weapon, torpedoes act like shaped charges. The payload is a self-forging penetrator explosive, backed up by a shaped charge that creates a hot jet of plasma that reaches far into the target vessel and creates hot spall effects as well as, more importantly, igniting the oxygen inside the vessel and starting fires. Shockwaves and concussion effects are also suffered by the target.

  The counter is armor plating. Confederation armor doctrine is to use thick, external plates to detonate the torpedo and force the charge to detonate as close to the outer hull as possible versus allowing the weapon to penetrate deep inside the vessel before detonating and causing extensive internal damage. In any oxygen-filled environment such as inside a ship, it's best to keep the explosion at the surface where damage control is easier.

  This is also why certain parts of Confed ships, such as the sublight engine pods, don't carry the extra external plates. First, ship design always involves a tradeoff between protection and weight. Since the engine pods are mostly machinery with almost no habitable space other than the occasional hangar, the insides of the pods are unpressurized. With no oxygen to catch fire, this allows the ship to not need to armor the engine pods and carry tens of thousands of tons of extra mass. The chance of secondary damage from a torpedo is much smaller without an atmosphere, and as a result there is lower risk in letting a torpedo detonate inside an unpressurized engine pod than to fully armor it and keep an oxygen environment inside. The decision was made that it was less dangerous to let the penetrator detonate and destroy machinery than to try to stop it entirely. Any fires would be snuffed out instantly, and the deliberately dispersed machinery helps to mitigate the chances of severe damage. In addition, the ship can survive without a sublight engine. The hyperdrive engines, in contrast, are buried deep within the ship's hull and are considered critical to survival due to the ability to allow the ship to jump into hyperspace.