Destroyer (Expansion Wars Trilogy, Book 3) Page 16

  "Is the last supplier clear?" Jackson asked once the window on the main display showing the bridge of the Aludra Star winked out.

  "Yes, sir," Lieutenant Hori said. "Engineering is reporting that the ship is cleared for maneuvering."

  "Very well," Jackson said, taking a deep breath. "Nav, set course for star system Epsilon One Six … the jump point data will be on the secure server. I've already cleared access for the bridge."

  "Sir … that's marked as a Darshik-controlled system," the chief at Navigation said, looking over the shoulder of a spacer first class. "There's no direct route from Juwel. We'll have to travel through the—"

  “The Tango Four Four System," Jackson finished. "I'm well aware of the hazards of the Tango System, Chief."

  "Aye aye, sir … course for the Tango System jump point is locked in and ready."

  "Helm, come about onto new course at your discretion," Jackson said. "All ahead flank until we reach .22c and then steady as she bears to the jump point. OPS, let Engineering know we'll be deploying the warp drive for transition in … eleven hours."

  "All ahead flank, aye," the helmswoman said.

  "Engineering reports warp drive transition banks are charged and drive is ready to deploy on your orders, sir," Hori said.

  "Senior staff meeting in the command deck wardroom in fifteen minutes," Jackson said to Chambliss. "Make sure second watch officers are there as well."

  "I'll see to it, sir."

  "Lieutenant Hori, you have the bridge. Just don't hit anything, please," Jackson said, adding the last bit as his young OPS officer flushed at the prospect of sitting in the "big chair."

  "Aye, sir."

  "Lieutenant Commander Accari, I want you in the staff meeting Commander Chambliss is organizing," Jackson went on as he stood and stretched, taking particular care to work the knots out of his left thigh where the new prosthetic leg had been giving him trouble.

  He left the bridge and tried to gather his thoughts. Specifically, he had to figure out how to tell his crew that they were flying into an enemy stronghold with only a single destroyer and no relief fleet waiting to bail them out.

  "Where is the Nemesis steaming to?"

  "Unknown, Captain," Lieutenant Dole said. "There are no known jump points along their current course, but it sure as hell looks like Captain Wolfe is accelerating to transition velocity."

  "Please record their trajectory and point of transition," Barrett said. "Send it to the terminal in my office once you do."

  "Aye, sir."

  Barrett had known about the Nemesis having her mission scrubbed, so Captain Wolfe popping up so far away from New Sierra could only mean that something had changed. The three supply ships he'd seen enter the system and take up a holding formation over the fourth planet now made sense. He was familiar with this region of space and could make certain assumptions as to why Wolfe might be out here: Juwel was a Frontier gateway system into Darshik space.

  "Sir, shall I inform Flight OPS we're ready to begin deploying the sleds?" Lieutenant Commander Adler asked.

  "Hold off on that momentarily, Tactical," Barrett said. "OPS, is the new com drone platform available?"

  "Yes, sir," Dole said. "Platform is transmitting a ready signal and reporting it has thirty-nine com drones standing by."

  "OPS, I'll be forwarding you a packet that I want sent to the platform with an elevated priority. Inform Flight OPS and Engineering that we'll be postponing our last series of tests until further notice," Barrett said.

  "Aye, sir," Dole answered, clearly confused

  Barrett knew that they'd have to wait around for the better part of two weeks for a response to the query he was about to send out, but they were down to the last load of Shrike missiles and he wanted an answer to his request before firing them all at random space junk.

  So far the Starburst system had worked beyond even his secretly optimistic expectations, far exceeding the effectiveness he'd sold Fleet on. From what he could glean from Wolfe, the Nemesis was flying alone and doubtless looking for the Darshik Specter that had been attacking Terran targets with near impunity. He'd already chased the bastard off once, or at least ships he’d commanded, and he hoped there was a chance he'd get another crack at it.

  "Nemesis's transition flash detected," Dole reported after a long and boring watch that saw the Aludra Star drifting along her original course. "They're away, sir."

  "Captain, you received an encrypted burst transmission from the Nemesis just before she left the system," the com officer reported. "I've forwarded it to your terminal."

  "Thank you, Coms," Barrett said, keying in his authorization on the terminal at his seat and waiting while the packet was decrypted.

  His jaw dropped open as he read through it the first time, and opened even wider the second time. The only thing more surprising than the content of the message was the sender. He had to assume Captain Wolfe knew nothing about the message, but it presented him with a unique opportunity.

  "OPS, belay that com drone request," he ordered. "Purge the message I sent you from the platform buffer and make sure you get a response back that it won't be sent."

  "Yes, sir," Dole said, furiously working his terminal to beat the platform firing off the drone, something that could happen at any time within the next few hours. Once the drone received proper authorization for an unscheduled launch, the platform would then query all local nodes, in this case the planet Juwel, to let them know they had until the drone was fueled to transmit anything they wanted sent out of the system quickly.

  Barrett waited while his OPS officer completed his task, reading through the message one more time. What was that quote that Fleet Admiral Pitt liked so much from Earth? Fortune favors the bold. It was a saying that had been ironically applied to Jackson Wolfe as a way to explain his disregard for Admiral Marcum's direct order and killing the Phage core mind on his own … a mission that Barrett was immensely proud to have been a part of. Was this one of those moments that Wolfe had talked about? Was this his time to either be bold and make a difference or sit quietly and escape notice?

  "Message was successfully pulled from the com platform, Captain," Dole said.

  "Excellent," Barrett said. "I'm sending you a set of coordinates that I want you to plot a course for, OPS. This is a … classified jump point. We'll be departing the Juwel System immediately. Coms, please notify the orbital control authority that we're leaving."

  "Aye, sir," the coms officer said.

  "I almost assumed we were following the Nemesis, but this is a different jump point, sir," Simmons said quietly.

  "We are going to aid the Nemesis, XO," Barrett said, deciding that if his second in command had any qualms then it was better to hear them now. "But we're not directly following them. We couldn't catch that destroyer if we wanted to anyway."

  "Yes, sir," Simmons agreed.

  "I'm about to take the Star into harm's way, Commander," Barrett said. "If you have anything to say, now would be the time."

  "I want this guy as bad as you do, sir," Simmons said. "Let's get to it."

  "Helm, come about to new course, all ahead full," Barrett ordered.

  "Coming onto new course, engines answering all ahead, aye."

  17

  "Captain, a word?"

  "Of course, Lieutenant Commander," Jackson said. "What's on your mind?"

  "Since we arrived in the Juwel System, CIC had been getting random reports of aberrant system behavior from all over the ship," Lieutenant Commander Jake Hawkins said, sitting down in the chair Jackson had gestured to.

  "They were minor things and we coordinated with individual shops to try and track down the issues, but at the time we chalked it up to new ship, new bugs."

  "And now?" Jackson asked.

  "I've had a team analyzing all the malfunctions on the off-chance there was a single source like a bug in the avionics software we could correct," Hawkins went on, looking uncomfortable. "We think we've found the common link: the Cube. We have evi
dence that it's been able to somehow reach beyond the confines of the cargo bay without hard connections and take control of certain systems."

  "You're sure about this?" Jackson asked, sitting up straighter in his seat. "There can't be any other possible explanation?"

  "I wouldn't go that far, sir," Hawkins said. "There's always another explanation, but in this case it would be highly unlikely. It seems to have accessed passive sensors on three different occasions, dug into restricted archives on the secure servers, and used the com array to broadcast a burst transmission right before we transitioned out of the Juwel System."

  "To whom?" Now Jackson was becoming agitated. Keeping that damn thing on the ship had been a mistake. It was an alien intelligence that had come from a species that had screwed them over in the past … why should now be any different?

  "Unknown, Captain," Hawkins said, looking apologetic. "It was able to completely erase both the transmitted packet and the intended recipient. It was done so thoroughly that it was the reason we began to suspect it in the first place."

  "Come with me." Jackson stood so abruptly that his chair slammed into the wall behind him. He walked out of his office and motioned for Sergeant Castillo to follow them.

  "Major Baer, I need ten—no, fifteen—of your best Marines fully armed and outside the restricted cargo bay holding our special guest in fifteen minutes," he said into his comlink.

  "At once, Captain," Baer answered immediately.

  By the time they reached the cargo bay the Marines were already there, as was the NOVA team. All of them were wearing shipboard combat armor and carrying carbines with soft alloy "smart" rounds that were designed to be lethal yet not puncture a bulkhead and damage the ship. Jackson made no issue of the fact that he had not ordered Amiri Essa's team to take any action … it appeared they were getting along well with Baer's Marines so he'd leave well enough alone for now.

  "There's no doubt the Cube knows we're here and that this looks like a full-out assault," Jackson said. "As far as I know, it's incapable of taking direct action, but that means very little since it can reach out and do things like control the environmental and anti-intrusion systems. I want you to go in silently and form a perimeter around the device, but keep your distance and look non-threatening: No pointing rifles at it and I'll do all the talking, clear?"

  "Clear, sir!" Major Baer and Commander Essa said simultaneously, so much so it seemed they had practiced it.

  "Let's go," Jackson said and keyed in the access code to open the hatch. It didn't work. He tried twice more and each time the panel would flash red and deactivate. Swearing, he pulled out his comlink.

  "Bridge, Wolfe. Pipe the audio from my comlink into the cargo bay I'm standing outside of."

  "Go, sir."

  "Cube, open the damn hatch," Jackson said without preamble.

  "That would seem to not be in either of our best interests, Captain," the Cube's voice came through the comlink. "You appear to have brought an armed assault team to confront me and I do not know why."

  "I think you do," Jackson said. "You've been accessing systems on my ship without authorization. Now you can either open this cargo bay hatch or I can have it cut out of the frame and our conversation will be much less civil. Your choice."

  To Jackson's relief, the hatch locks popped and it slid aside. The team filed quietly into the hold and surrounded the alien device.

  "I apologize if—"

  "This isn't the first time you've done this," Jackson said, trying to control his temper. "Back when you were just a stasis pod for the Phage bits we'd cut out of a Super Alpha you took control of a shuttle craft and killed members of my crew. After that, one of your cousins, the box the Vruahn gravity bombs came in, took control of the Ares. Your actions threaten this ship and crew and that cannot be allowed."

  "I have no memory of the events you describe, Captain Wolfe," the Cube said. "I can assure you, I am only trying to perform my duty and ensure that our mission is successful. The actions I've taken have already increased our odds of success by a factor of three point zero zero three."

  "Irrelevant," Jackson said. "You are a member of this crew. As such you will follow orders … is that clear?"

  "That is not optimal—"

  "Is that clear?!" Jackson roared, losing his temper and what little patience he had left. The Cube immediately went dark, the flashing panel now the same onyx as the rest of it, and it did not respond. Jackson had seen this type of sulking before when he was overseeing Project Prometheus.

  "I asked you a question."

  "I heard and understand, Captain." The panel lit back up with its usual randomly shifting color patterns.

  "Good," Jackson said calmly. "Major Baer, you may dismiss your Marines, but I'd like you and Commander Essa to stay."

  The two commanders quickly dismissed their people and then took up position by the hatchway as Jackson continued his negotiations.

  "Do we have an understanding, Cube?" Jackson asked. "This is the way is has to be … no more freelancing. If you would like greater freedom of input it has to be approved by me first."

  "You can count on my unequivocal assistance, Captain Wolfe," the Cube said.

  "I am happy we've come to an agreement, Cube," Jackson continued. "You have proven yourself helpful beyond all measure, but you have some things to learn about protocol while serving aboard an active warship. I hope we can move past this unpleasantness and focus on the task at hand."

  The Cube seemed mollified after the harsh dressing down though it was difficult to tell. For his part, Jackson was relieved that he hadn't had to jettison the damn thing and hit it with high-power laser cannon. The Vruahn machinery was able to easily take control of Terran technology whenever it suited them, and the last time it happened people had died as the Cube, then only a low-level AI, had coldly calculated odds and determined that mission success trumped the lives of Jackson's spacers.

  After the agreement they'd reached in the cargo hold Jackson hoped the Cube would understand its place among the crew and take heed of Fleet regulations. He'd allowed it unfettered access to the ship's intercommunication system as well as a direct feed from the sensors, but it was forbidden from doing anything but observing. Jackson made it very clear if it did so much as tweak the focus on an optical sensor without express permission he'd sever the feed completely, although that was mostly an idle threat. His engineers weren't even certain how it was able to remotely access their systems, much less stop it.

  Once they left the hold, Jackson was mostly satisfied that the Cube wouldn't cause any further trouble or pose a threat to the ship. Not all of his crew agreed. Essa had remarked that given its eagerness to please Jackson, whatever actions it had taken were likely harmless. Commander Chambliss wasn't so charitable. On the ride back to the bridge he made two attempts to convince his captain to jettison the Cube and apologize to CENTCOM later for losing their priceless computer.

  Jackson could see merits in both their arguments, but he'd made his decision. He just hoped the Cube didn't make him regret it.

  "Passives still show clear skies, Captain," Accari reported.

  The Nemesis had popped into the Tango System, the first known jump point leading into Darshik space, and had been sitting silently for twenty-seven hours observing. As the photons trickled into the optical sensors and sensitive antennas grabbed even the weakest RF emissions from space, it became clear that the system was deserted.

  It hadn't actually been a Darshik system in the sense there was a populated planet or any sort of infrastructure … it had been the site of an elaborate trap designed to lure invading fleets deeper down the well where they would expend their munitions and fuel burning down decoy starships, allowing the real Darshik fleet to jump in with fresh ships and fall upon them. Luckily for the Terran fleet Celesta Wright had sussed out the tactic before the bulk of the battlegroup was committed. The Fleet only lost a handful of ships in what could have very well been a rout costing them nearly forty percent of
their total strength.

  Jackson watched the icons of the dozen or so decoy ships that had been spared by the battlegroup's missile volleys on the main display, still cheerfully chugging along on their original course. Though it looked exactly as they expected based on the last data they'd received from the CIS Prowlers that routinely checked the system, Jackson knew that could be deceptive. The Darshik cruisers were stealthy and seemed to have an unnerving ability to evade Terran radar.

  "Nav, set a course for the Epsilon jump point," Jackson ordered. "Skirt around the boundary of the outer system as much as possible. Tactical, I want you and CIC coordinated to make sure we have as clear a picture as we can with the passive arrays. We're just passing through this system so for right now we're going to remain silent."

  "Course is set and ready, Captain."

  "Helm, come onto new course … all ahead full," Jackson said. The Nemesis's RDS would allow them to quickly cross the system while minimizing the chances of them being directly observed, but running silent also meant the enemy had a much better chance of moving in on them unseen.

  "All ahead full, aye!"

  "Go ahead and get some rack time, XO," Jackson said. "We're still a full day from the next transition and I'll want you here and fresh as we approach." Commander Chambliss, who looked like he'd gone some time without any sleep already, simply nodded his thanks and left the bridge.

  They'd barely been underway for five hours when an alert sounded from the tactical station. Jackson bit his tongue and gave Accari a moment to look at his displays and make a report.

  "CIC is reporting two unique gravimetric wake signatures within the system, Captain," he said after conferring in his headset. "They're narrowing course and speed now … position might be a bit more difficult since they're low-power events."

  "Sound general quarters," Jackson ordered. "Set condition 2SS … prepare the Nemesis for battle."

  "General Quarters! General Quarters! General Quarters! All hands to battle stations!" Lieutenant Makers' voice echoed through the ship and within seconds the deck plates were vibrating from thousands of bootfalls of spacers scrambling for their assigned battle stations.