Birthright: Battle for the Confederation- Pursuit Read online

  Operating solo, without the presence of a well rounded task force, was not the nerve wracking experience to Loren that it would have been if he'd been the XO of a different class of ship. While every other Confed design was geared towards filling a specific role and creating a well-rounded fleet, the Crusader class hunter/killers were meant to roam alone, sneaking up on targets and hitting them where they felt safe. Loren felt back in his element.

  Finally, his travels brought him back to C3, the Combat Control Center of Avenger. From here, he helped the captain fight the ship. Loren was in charge of making sure the laser batteries fired on the appropriate targets, torpedoes were launched and guided true, damage control was organized and the twenty-four fighter craft aboard were put to good use. C3 was also the secondary control point for the ship; should the bridge be destroyed, he could seamlessly take over command from his station.

  He nodded to Lieutenant Commander Sarria Mastruk, the talented Drisk woman who served as his own XO and ran the place in his absence. He turned and stepped down off the command platform and headed towards the aft of the command tower, the rear of his little domain. There was contained a briefing room that spanned the full width of the space; it was where the captain or anyone else went to conduct in-person briefings, and also where the senior officers could get a little peace and quiet if decisions needed to be made.

  "Commander," Loren heard as he entered the space and saw Captain Elco at his customary port-side conference table.

  Captain Elco gestured him over and pointed to a seat across from him, which Loren occupied with a weary thud.

  "Thinking longingly of the days when our biggest worry was what kind of parking orbit we'd get for planetary shore leave?" Elco mused.

  "Yeah," Loren replied with a grin, "when I was just a lowly old CAG and only had a few dozen people to worry about."

  "Welcome to my world." Elco returned the grin. "Anything on your mind?"

  "Just wondering if we've heard back from the folks in the Reshing system yet."

  Captain Elco pursed his lips and nodded absently as he searched for a data pad among the small collection by him on the table. "I find it amusing at the least that we needed to file an itinerary with Naval Command for the benefit of our political overseers," Elco grumbled as he glanced at the pads, obviously looking for something specific. "I can see how it would help grease the wheels with the politicians to hear that we'll be calling on them, but it's a big galaxy out there and foreign parties show up at other people's borders all the time and ask for an audience. It's going to make it a little bit difficult to explain to the elected officials why we might be lingering in any particular place if we're covertly running down a lead for the Admiral."

  "How are the engines?" Loren wanted to know, changing the subject. Running at 100% for days on end was not exactly the norm.

  "Chief Fyr is mildly perturbed," Elco replied, "but he assures me the engines can take it for as long as we need to."

  Elco finally found the pad he was looking for and handed it to Loren.

  "Latest readiness reports and FITREPs to be filled out for those that are due," Elco said with a smile. "I didn't want you to get bored in the next four days, so you can just have a ball with that."

  Loren looked at the data pad as if it were covered in something particularly toxic. "I strive to be useful, Captain," he said with a straight face.

  Halley had filled Web in on their mission, and it was going to be interesting to say the least. That was two days ago, and now Web stood at the crew hatch that connected the massive deep space transport to the orbital station he was standing on.

  "We need to get to Callidor," Halley had said in their hotel room as she sorted through a few duffel bags of gear. "Military transport is obviously out of the question; they have that place locked down as tight as the first year female cadet dorms at the Academy. They're still letting some civilians in and out, mostly at the Primans' own beck and call, but there is low volume civilian traffic to and from the planet. Still, their checks on those passengers are incredibly thorough these days. So, we're going to try something similar to the last time you dropped by Callidor; we're going in as crew on a ship."

  That brought Web here, to the cargo and commercial transport levels of the giant orbital station. He'd been given a very convincing fake ID package and gotten a job as a cargo loadmaster's apprentice aboard a deep space freighter. These monstrous vessels carried all manner of goods and services across the emptiness between inhabited systems. They were long; comparable to a Sabre class fleet carrier. The ships featured a relatively thin and spindly main body connecting a large bridge and habitation module in front to the mass of engines stuck on the aft. In between, the ship was ringed with lozenge-shaped cargo pods. When in port, the cargo pods were simply grabbed and removed by the yard cranes and then sent on their way. They were then quickly replaced with another cargo pod which the ship would carry on to wherever it needed to go. Some companies, such as the one Web was now working for, were complete operations; they carried the cargo in deep space and then had their own infrastructure to take the pods down to wherever their delivery point was, be it a planet, outpost, or in-orbit transfer.

  "You going to stand there eye-humping that ship," Web heard a voice growl behind him, "or are you going to get moving?"

  "Just a minute; almost done," Web replied with a straight face. "Ah. Ok, I'm ready now." He turned to look the disagreeable arrival in the eyes and saw the grizzled face and stained uniform of what he knew to be one of the lead mechanics onboard the Solar Venturer, the ship he was about to board.

  "Just be glad you're not working in my department," the man grumbled as he brushed past Web. They were standing at the large viewport by the gangway hatch which gained them access to the forward boarding tube. With the nose of the giant ship nestled into the docking claw, the rear of the ship was pointed out and away from the circular station's core as it was tended by tugs that carried cargo pods, fuel cells, and personnel around the area. Web could see the ships on either side of the Solar Venturer, and they were even larger than his own vessel. And he was glad, in fact, that he wasn't working in the disagreeable man's department.

  Web eyed the hull of the vessel through the viewports as he walked down the gangway to the main boarding hatch. While the ship was obviously a working vessel and carried its share of pitted hull plates and patched panels, it also appeared that the captain and owners paid some attention to keeping her in good shape. Registry numbers were freshly painted, all the external lighting worked, and as he walked into the main airlock his first impression of the interior was that it was clean and tidy.

  After checking in with the First Officer, he made his way to his bunk. As a junior loadmaster, he had to share a cabin with one other person, who wasn't around when he got to his quarters. Web picked the bare bunk, seeing that one side of the room was very obviously lived in, and stored his few things on his side. That accomplished, he left the compartment and started the long walk to the main cargo control center in the middle of the ship's spine.

  As he walked, he realized his first impression of the ship was accurate. The Solar Venturer was a worn but cared-for ship, whose crew was for the most part professional and competent; at least, that was the opinion he formed based on the behaviors and attitudes of the various people he passed.

  Eventually, he found the cargo control center. He found a crewwoman who pointed him to the department head, and after introductions Web was given a brief tour. Crew normally turned over a bit at major ports due to work rules, schedules, and contracts that were just signed or expiring. The tour was well rehearsed and gave Web the high points. Most of the cargo work was automated, and they were not expected to care for the contents of the containers themselves, just decide how the pods would be arranged and supervise loading and unloading.

  "The only thing I should tell you that wasn't in the standard everything-is-wonderful employee handbook is the pirate threat," finished the department head.

/>   "Pirates?" Web asked curiously. He'd dealt with the issue several times as a Confed officer and was accustomed to the concept, though the senior crewman must have taken Web's tone for mild fear.

  "Don't worry," he replied. "They haven't hit this company yet." The man cleared his throat as he stopped walking to inspect the readouts on a systems monitor mounted to the bulkhead. "There have been more sightings and a couple of attacks these last few weeks," he continued. "The problem is this damn civil war among Confed. Both sides are more worried about keeping an eye on each other than holding up their end of the security we were promised in the Confed charter, and system patrols are almost nonexistent. So, the pirates have moved in and they occasionally pick off a transport on the outskirts of a solar system when we revert to real space to link up with inbound traffic routes."

  Web just nodded, trying to go through what he remembered of his briefing on this part of space. There was no major player here, no one big cartel that ran things, which made the threat more unpredictable. Were the players out there after ransoms, theft of merchandise, recruiting? "What about system security forces?" he asked.

  "They try, but most systems have more than one arrival spacelane and to be honest, Confed usually dealt with that. They had destroyers all over the place scaring off the likes of them, and most local systems just don't have the homegrown resources to cover that need yet."

  "Are we vulnerable?"

  "No worse than anyone else," the department head replied. "We have a pair of laser cannons, one on top and one on the bottom. A real warship probably wouldn't even raise shields if they saw those things. Hell, they'd probably be insulted. But legally it's all we can carry, and financially it's all we can manage. We'll have to damn near take them apart before we get to Callidor, too, or the Primans will blow us away before we get past the first nav beacon. But don't worry," he said in closing, tapping the monitor and resuming his inspection, "there are a lot of targets out there, and we're not even the biggest ship in the sector."

  A Priman task force hung motionless in space, drives silent, passive sensors straining to pick up anything of interest. The ships straddled a trade route, and while they could have cared less about commercial traffic, they were always on the lookout for Confederation warships to attack. To that end, they'd seeded the area with gravity-generating mines, designed to destabilize hyperspace fields and forcibly yank ships into real-space.

  "The sector is still quiet," Captain Vol said to the woman sitting in the chair next to him. She was middle aged, and attractive in a severe sort of way. She was also next in line to become Commander, so he was always under the microscope, always being evaluated.

  "Hopefully that will change soon," Representative Ravine replied. She relished the idea of striking some more hulls from the Confed register, no matter which side of this ridiculous civil war they were on. It really wasn't even much of a war; the warriors on both sides had taken great pains to not enter decisive engagements, much to the chagrin of their high leadership. She shook her head again at the nature of these beings. If only they'd accept the guidance her people had to offer, waste like this would be a thing of the past.

  Ravine was about to say more when her private message buffer beeped, signaling new orders for her. She noticed that Captain Vol's was clamoring for attention as well. She read through the orders twice just to be sure she hadn't made a mistake, then turned to her captain to see the devious smile on his face.

  "All we had to do was ask, it seems," said Captain Vol as he sat up straighter in his chair.

  "If I were allowed to write my own orders," agreed Ravine, "this is what I would command us to do." She looked at her screen to review the message that she knew had to have been obtained by their spies and agents inside the Confederation government. CSS Avenger on diplomatic mission outside of Confederation space with mission duration at captain's discretion. Avenger required to file itinerary. Time at each location is indeterminate, but ship is expected to follow filed route. Observe at least one port visit to verify routing, then destroy with all hands. Verification required by Psychological Operations Department for use in Confederation.

  "I think now would be a good time to pull in those mines we have outside," said Captain Vol.

  "The sooner, the better, Captain," Ravine replied. She was already imagining what it would be like to fire a salvo of EMP torpedoes on the troublesome Confed ship and watch it drift helplessly through space as her own ships picked it apart.

  "Aah, sheifah!" yelled Web. He had just gotten a mild electric shock as the panel he'd been working on had apparently decided to conduct current. That was definitely not a factory option, he thought.

  "You swear like a sailor," he heard a gruff voice from behind him. "And I don't mean it as a compliment."

  "I never assumed you'd grace me with praise," Web replied to the grizzly mechanic who'd been giving him a hard time since they'd meet on the gangway of the Solar Venturer almost a week ago. The older man was a Drisk, with graying hair and extra pounds that his normally very health-conscious people would never be carrying around.

  "That's because you're messing with my panel," the man replied, walking up to Web and stepping in front of him, nudging the younger man away from the stubborn part.

  Web held back a biting comment which centered around the fact that he wouldn't be messing with the troublesome panel if the abrasive electrical technician would have addressed it in the last two days. The idea was to blend in, lie low and not endanger the crew by being somebody who was remembered in case the Primans would see fit to go snooping around when they got to Callidor.

  Instead of punching the man in the throat, then, Web simply blew out his breath and walked off down the corridor, thanking every deity he knew that a man like this was not his superior officer on Avenger.

  "All hands," Web heard the captain's voice over the public address system, "we're approaching the Lola orbital platform. Everyone to docking stations."

  Web's step gained some extra bounce at that announcement. Halley was finally coming aboard, after four days and one tedious yet exhausting port call alone. Even with her aboard, he wouldn't see much more of her, since to preserve their cover they weren't supposed to know each other. Still, it would be enough just to see her again.

  Web's station during docking maneuvers was in the cargo control center amidships, where his crucial task was to stare at the monitors which showed the status of the clamps that held the cargo pods to the hull. It was a waste, though, because anyone with a little systems knowledge also knew that the clamps on the ship's side wanted to stay closed, and had to be held open hydraulically to remove a pod. They also failed to the closed position, so Web essentially had nothing to do. He managed to open up a portal into the security system and observe the gangway feeds, watching Halley enter the ship.

  He had given her some grief before they'd left, complaining good-naturedly that while he was sharing a bunk as a cargo loadmaster, she had earned a private stateroom as a hyperdrive engineer, a cover she'd also used when they'd first met aboard the wrecked Confederation survey ship Dyson a couple years earlier.

  If she followed their plan, she'd be in a particular restaurant on the immense orbital cargo station in a couple hours, after the Solar Venturer had offloaded her own cargo pods. Before they could take on their new cargo, the ship had to be fueled, inspected, provisioned, and the incoming pods had to pass through one last security and bio scan. That gave Web just enough time to meet her at their restaurant and catch up before the next leg, which took them another three days closer to Callidor. After that was Callidor itself, and their mission would finally get started.

  Avenger entered the Reshing system on schedule and was escorted to an orbit above the capital planet by one of the small empire's cruisers. A brief diplomatic dinner for Captain Elco followed, during which he did as ordered and presented an overview of the Priman invasion; their tactics, weapons, and a timeline of events. The briefing was fairly grim, considering the Confederatio
n hadn't been able to stop them and after losing a healthy chunk of its own worlds had entered into what Elco considered to be an unholy nonaggression treaty at the urging of Senator Dennix. Afterwards, he was able to convince the locals to allow shore leave for small parties from the ship, which was really the whole point of the exercise.

  "Everyone ready for fun and games?" asked Merritt good-naturedly as he, Cory and Loren were finishing up the final prep on a Freedom class transport.

  "You know, Merritt," Loren began, "I think your idea of fun and games and my idea might differ greatly."

  "I like long walks on the beach and romantic dinners," the younger pilot replied as he nudged Cory's hip with his own. "You like blowing up Primans. I'm sure we can find a way to accommodate both."

  Loren just smiled, then hit the hatch release to close up the small ship. Cory was already up front spooling up the engines, and as soon as she saw Loren and Merritt were bucked in, she gently raised the ship on its repulsor field and nudged it into the empty catapult spot ahead of them. The generations-old script of launching a fighter from a mother ship was repeated once again, and seconds later the transport was out in space, angling away from Avenger as Cory yanked up the gear and headed towards their inbound waypoint. The surface of the planet Reshing awaited them.

  Half an hour later, the trio was walking the streets of one of the larger cities on a southern continent that was just a continuous chain of mountain ranges. There were steppes and the occasional valley, but there wasn't a flat piece of land to be found larger than the landing pads carved out of the outlying areas around the cities.

  It was an old culture on Reshing, and it had buildings that predated the Confederation by centuries. Loren could have spent days just studying the architecture of the single city they'd come to investigate, but the small matter of trying to save the Confederation had to come first.