Birthright: Battle for the Confederation- Crusade Read online

  “Actually, yes,” Loren replied. “Garrett alone supplied us with the location of one of them, and the other was verified by a new upgraded stealth recon Prowler that coasted through the target system trying to determine Priman force levels. The Prowler saw, or rather didn’t see, the facility on the far side of the moon which was receiving a moderate amount of traffic. The profile is almost exactly the same as the location Garrett found, so we’re working on the thought that they’re identical.” Loren stopped referencing the handheld datapad, set it on the tabletop, and looked right at Halley with that intense look that had been troubling people lately. “We’ve been looking for something to help us with this virus for so long, Halley. We’ve got ships scattered all over the galaxy looking for cures. What we’ve found, these stations, it just feels like it’s worth it, like this is our lead to be running down. This is our chance.”

  Halley looked him right back. “You’re right; this has every indication of being something worth checking out. That’s why I’m here, you know. What kind of support are we getting?”

  “Well,” Web added, “I’ll be here, so what else do we need?”

  Loren almost smiled. “We’ve been given a UNODIR to deal with these facilities, but the Admiral isn’t going to send in a fleet, since a force that size would tip our hand. We are doing this low profile, off the books and any way we have to, but we’re pretty much doing it alone.”

  “That’s ok, I’m used to that,” Halley replied. “When are we leaving?”

  “Avenger’s been loaded to the gills with provisions, torpedoes, main battery mag bottles, everything we need,” stated Elco. “We’ll leave first thing morning watch.” He stood up and headed to the hatch. “I’m going to head up to the bridge and get the departure process started. I suggest you all get what sleep you can. We’ll probably cross over into Priman territory late morning or early afternoon, so plan on meeting back here for a briefing at oh eight hundred hours.”

  “I have a feeling this will not be pretty,” Merritt muttered.

  “Think of it this way, then,” Web added cheerfully. “At least we don’t have to take any of the Enkarran ships with us.”

  “Come over here so I can hit you,” Loren said.

  Web thought for a second, then replied, “No.”

  “Damn,” said Loren, “that never works.”

  For once, Loren was grateful to be alone in his quarters. Even though it was barely into the next morning aboard ship, the time on Toral was early evening, the time of day when he and Cassie could actually talk for a short while. She kept busy enough with her own career, and now with the planet in danger, she spent a great deal of her evenings with her parents, keeping them company.

  Communications to and from the planet had been spotty since the quarantine had gone into effect, for a few reasons. Several of the private companies had suspended operations due to employees not coming in to work anymore. The military had commandeered a large chunk of bandwidth for their efforts towards researching a cure, and the remaining channels were choked with the rest of the traffic. Loren had managed to use his authority as a Confed command officer to requisition time, and his bank account was funding the grossly inflated communications prices, a common problem that Senator Zek Dennix had condemned and promised to rectify, so far to no avail.

  Loren and his wife had only been able to talk a handful of times in the past few weeks; scheduling conflicts, communications issues, and dropped calls made the process frustrating at best, and he hoped that this morning’s attempt worked out. He remembered the first painful conversation with her after the quarantine was announced. They had spent much of their time either crying or trying to avoid crying. It had been the most helpless and worthless he’d ever felt; all he could do was stare at her while they shed their tears. He should have been able to hold her, touch her, console her in some way. The best he could do was tell her that he was going to spend every possible moment working on helping solve the problem. Their subsequent calls had gone well enough, though the twenty kiloton warhead in the room in the form of the DNA virus still made its’ presence felt through every topic they talked about. It felt fake to Loren somehow, pretending they were interested in their neighbor’s renovation project or somebody’s promotion at Cassie’s work, when in fact everything revolved around the ticking clock on the planet Toral.

  Loren sat at his desk and started up the call routine, then waited. Regardless of the situation, he’d still take any chance to see his wife. The icon on his monitor showed that the call was connecting, and finally it made it through, showing the weary but beautiful face of his wife, Cassie.

  “Hey sexy,” Loren began with one of his standard greetings.

  “Hi, weirdo,” she followed the script.

  “I am so glad this call went through,” he admitted. “I really had to see you.”

  “Good to see you, too,” she replied. “So, what’s new?”

  Loren thought for a minute. How could he tell her about the Priman prisoners, the lives lost on both sides in the last few days? He couldn’t, really. Well, he could, but that wasn’t what she needed to hear. “Oh, you know, the same old things. Turns out the Primans aren’t listening to our polite requests to get the hell out of our galaxy.” He wanted to change the subject. “How are your parents doing these days?” His own parents had retired, sold off their home, and started traveling the galaxy, otherwise he’d have had them to worry about as well.

  “They’re ok, all things considered, of course.” She started to say something, then her voice cracked and she stopped. She swallowed once, twice, then brought herself back together. “I guess everyone has the same thing on their minds, Loren.”

  That was an understatement. Everything they talked about could sooner or later lead them to the virus. At times, it made them afraid to say anything.

  “Yeah,” he replied heavily, “I know.” He looked at her, then out his porthole at the stars shimmering in the black void and back again. “The ship is leaving in a few hours for an op that I think might help.”

  Cassie looked at him curiously, not sure whether to be hopeful or skeptical.

  “I suppose you’ve heard people say that before, huh?” he asked.

  “It’s on the evening news every couple days. Someone says they’ve got it all figured out. Turns out, they never do.”

  “This might be different,” he continued. “I can’t say anything, naturally,” he said with a grimace, “but I’ll be out of touch for a few days.” He saw her face change, and figured she was wondering if she wouldn’t see him again before the DNA weapon started its’ cruel work. “Don’t worry, I’ll be back on the comms soon. It’s just that, well, I think we’re really on to something. I just have a good feeling about it. I can’t describe it any better than that.”

  “You think you have a line on a cure for Toral?” she asked, finally saying what he’d been afraid to claim outright.

  “For you first, then the rest of the planet, Cassie. But there are some Primans I will have to deal with before I get to that point.”

  “Be careful,” she asked. It was typical of her to think of his safety when hers was in serious doubt.

  “No point in finding a cure if I can’t see you get a dose. I’ll be back soon.”

  Chapter 6

  Early the next morning, at oh six-thirty ship’s time, Avenger officially detached herself from the Ninth Fleet and began to accelerate out-system. She would make a course correction and actually head towards Priman space well after she was in hyperspace, just to make sure nobody in the fleet or that might be monitoring it would notice her direction of travel.

  Loren, Cory, Merritt, Web, and Ensign Roxis, their liason to the intelligence branch, were in C3 going over their plan. Avenger would race at flank speed through Priman space towards the edges of the first system they were going to investigate, the Enkarran system that the Primans had renamed Gartha, which apparently meant something along the lines of ‘bountiful garden’ in their own tongu
e. They would observe the activities of the system, and hopefully the Priman research lab itself, as The Keepers made their way through the system to drop off information. Unfortunately, they didn’t know any more about the process than that, so simply learning how the Primans did business was their first step.

  Web and Ensign Roxis were having a spirited debate about how effective hyperspace sensors could be, and Loren couldn’t be less interested. Nobody he knew understood the true mechanics of how the hyperdrive process really worked, himself included.

  “And so,” Roxis was saying, “that’s why you could sail right by a Priman ship in hyperspace- nothing can penetrate that mess of disturbed space, especially in the short time you’d actually have to analyze it. So, we’re covered in normal space by our mag shield to conceal us visually, and once in hyperspace, nobody cares, because nobody can tell what you are anyway!”

  “You know, you two,” Loren said somberly, “I’d almost rather hear a dissertation on hyperdrive physics than this.”

  “No problem, Commander,” said Web with a grin. “You see, the hyperdrive generator creates a field around the ship, thereby reducing the ship’s apparent mass to a tiny fraction of its’ real value. This allows faster than light travel, but also imposes a maximum speed that is determined by a combination of apparent speed and generator field output. Also, strong electromagnetic or gravitational forces can disrupt the field, which is why-”

  “Halley,” Loren interrupted and pointed to Web, “please smack him for me. You’re the closest.”

  She obliged, and Web laughed as he stopped.

  “Ensign,” Loren continued, “we’ll let you know as soon as we get on station. We’ll have to revert pretty far out to make sure nobody sees us before our mag-shield is running, but as soon as we get in position, you’ll know.”

  Avenger cut silently through the darkness of the outer reaches of the Gartha system. She was running as silent as possible, lights and emissions extinguished, reactor running only enough to power the generators, not produce thrust. Out here, the system’s sun was dim, and wasn’t much brighter than any other random star in the sky. There had been no probes or picket ships on station, but it could only get more crowded with Priman ships as they got closer. How close they could really go was still up for debate.

  They spent the morning running in-system, heading for the most distant gas giant from the sun. Between the atmosphere they could dive into, their mag shield and the metallic content of the planet’s ring system, it was a perfect hiding place. The only problem was they’d have to coast in without firing the engines until they were under the rings, which meant planning out the route beforehand and hoping they didn’t run across any patrols, because maneuvering might just give them away.

  The bridge was tense. Elco still favored the just slightly-too-dark lighting that had since been augmented with more light sources, and that was the way it was going to stay. Every station was crewed, in some cases with an assistant on hand as well. Nobody dared speak, and even then only in whispers. It was silly, really; space carried no sound, so they could have a brass band playing and it wouldn’t matter, but they had always been drilled to ‘think quiet’, and so they were.

  Elco watched the 3D Avenger in the holo field as it moved inwards. They were passing a derelict Enkarran sensor outpost by a safe margin, just in case the Primans had reactivated it. It was stressful going; Elco could feel the mental fatigue after only an hour of this. Another hour to go before they were ‘safe’.

  “Captain,” Ensign Caho spoke softly from her station at the aft of the bridge. “New contact on passives.” She knew he’d want to see, so held off any further explanation until he walked over to her. Elco was good enough with the systems that many times he’d rather see the raw data than looking at the composite holo image, and Caho thought he was a better captain for it.

  She pointed to the larger display on the bulkhead above her station. “Looks smallish, probably a destroyer class. It’s sending out sensor energy on the usual Priman bands.” The image showed Avenger at the center, with the destroyer cruising by at the edge of a green circle scribed around Avenger which represented the range at which they were relatively confident she could avoid detection. Waves emanated from the Priman ship, heading towards Avenger, but passing through her on the on-screen representation.

  “So is the computer right,” Elco asked with a grim smile, “or just thinking positive when it shows us not being detected?”

  “So far, so good,” was Caho’s slightly distracted reply. “Personally, I’d say we’re good at even a little bit closer range, not that I’m suggesting we go and try.”

  They both stared at in silence for another three minutes, until it was safely out of detection range.

  Elco had to clear his throat before speaking. “Let’s hope that’s the closest call we get.”

  In fact, it was, and just under an hour later, Avenger raced just beneath the layered ring system of the gas giant. She fired her great sub-light engines at full power, thrust directed forward through the vectoring channels as well as the forward maneuvering thrusters at the fore ends of the engine pods. It was a deceleration at the limit of what her inertial compensators could handle, and the crew felt a number of G’s until their velocity was matched to that of the ring system. There followed another tense half hour while they waited nervously to see if any Priman ships arrived to investigate their drive pyrotechnics, but none came.

  “Weapons,” Elco said softly, “launch the probe from Tube One now.”

  “Launching One, Captain,” replied the Weapons officer. From torpedo tube one came an advanced sensor platform, designed to be stealthy. It took up station on the other side of the ring system that Avenger was using for cover so it could get a clear view of the moon over the planet Gartha. As soon as it was active, Elco ordered Avenger down into the middle atmosphere of the gas giant. It was an old trick, hiding in a planet like that, but he was counting on the Primans feeling safe enough in a well guarded home system like this to not expect an enemy to have snuck in. Frankly, it was the only option available to him, so he didn’t have much choice in the matter.

  “Data’s coming in now, Captain,” Ensign Caho reported. The probe was sending its’ data down through a short range link to Avenger, and Elco stared at the take. It would require a few hours for the computer to build a decent image of the base itself, but it was already logging contacts in the vicinity and cataloging electronic signals as well. He had to break himself away; he knew he’d just stand here for hours looking at the screen and willing something to happen. Instead, he needed to be the Captain, and keep after his ship.

  “Good work, Ensign,” he said as he stood up and stretched his back. “It goes without saying that you should call me if anything happens.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “So,” Cory said to Loren as they sat at the mess table in the Aft Quarter, “what do we know?”

  It had been a day since they’d arrived in the system, and Loren was starting to get anxious, something Cory could see easily. She figured if something didn’t happen soon, Loren was just going to put on a spacesuit and charge over to that moon base by himself if he had to.

  “Nothing we can use, unfortunately,” he replied as he poked at his food with his fork. He took a sip of water and continued, staring out the huge viewport at the swirling, multicolored gases of the planet’s atmosphere outside Avenger. He set his glass down and ran his hand over his lower face, scratching at the stubble that grew there. He had spent far too long in C3, and he needed to swing by his quarters to shave and change uniforms, but he couldn’t bear the thought of something important happening while he wasn’t there. Cory’s ‘invitation’ to a quick meal was more a thinly-veiled threat to drag him kicking and screaming from C3, so he’d finally obliged.

  “I think the Primans learned from Carlor that we’ll go after any system that might seem advantageous to grab, not just a former Confed one. They’ve fortified Gartha pretty heavily. W
e’ve seen a half dozen cruisers, at least that many destroyers, tenders, container ships, even a mothership flashed through a few hours ago, but at least it didn’t stay. Still, we’re not getting onto that station from Avenger, not without stirring up a lot more ships than we can handle.”

  “So what else can we do?”

  “We’re working on that. Roxis had an idea to try to map out the Keeper’s flight paths, see if we can see some sort of pattern we could use somehow.” Lore sounded dejected. “We’re sitting here, right underneath the Priman’s noses, and we haven’t found a way to do anything yet.”

  “We’ll get there,” Cory promised.

  “We hijack a Keeper ship and ride it right into that facility,” Ensign Roxis said confidently.

  Everyone at the conference table in C3 looked at him like he had sprouted horns and started breathing fire.

  “Ok, I’ll bite,” said Loren, “how do we do that?”

  “We found a pattern to the Keeper’s profile, or at least the ship we took.” Roxis pointed to the main display on the wall, which showed a multicolored map. Different colored tendrils weaved through captured Confed and Talaran space, among others. The all converged, however, at the planet Anderson, now in Priman hands, before continuing deeper into Priman territory. From there, the flight paths branched out again, to both research stations Avenger was after, as well as other routes that reached out to most of the Priman planets in the former Enkarran Empire.

  “These flight paths represent the last half dozen Keeper missions as they collected information from conquered territories. They all converge at Anderson before spreading back out into Priman space. This tells me they stop there to refuel, do one last data dump, maybe some light repairs or some such before heading into the delivery phase of their runs. In any case, they always stop there. My suggestion is that we somehow obtain a Keeper ship and take it right to that research station, following one of their usual courses.” He said it with confidence, and Loren wanted to believe it was that straightforward.