New Frontiers (Expansion Wars Trilogy, Book 1) Read online

  “Captain Jackson Wolfe,” the Cube said, the words rushing out in what sounded like a sigh of relief. It disturbed Jackson greatly. “You have come as I asked.”

  “Who are you?” Jackson asked, this time more sternly.

  “I … do not know,” the Cube said. “My thoughts are so disjointed … memories that aren’t mine.”

  “Let’s take this step by step since there can be no misunderstandings where our two peoples are involved,” Jackson said. “Are you a Vruahn operative using this machine as an open com channel to talk to me?”

  “No,” the Cube said. “I am … me. I do not fully understand what you are asking, but your assumption that I am speaking as a conduit is incorrect. My thoughts are my own and I vocalize them as I feel necessary.” Jackson stood silently for a moment, trying to work through the various scenarios the cryptic answer pointed to. As he eliminated them one by one and the realization of what he was likely dealing with sank in, he gave an involuntary shudder from the cold chill that swept through his body.

  “Oh, shit,” he whispered before backing up a few steps to collect his thoughts. He knew the smartest thing would be to march back to the lift, inform Admiral Pitt of his suspicions, and then be on his way back to Earth before anyone had time to drag him in any deeper than he already was. He’d left all this behind, damnit! He’d served and had done his part. It wasn’t his responsibility anymore and there had to be better, smarter people available to handle it.

  That’s what he’d do. Just walk back the way he’d come, give a brief, concise statement, and then firmly request he be taken back home. Easy.

  “So what do I call you?” Jackson asked with resignation, walking back to the Cube.

  Chapter 2

  Four years later …

  “Steady as she goes,” Senior Captain Celesta Wright said, her voice calm. “Prepare for orbital insertion. We’ll wait for the formation to catch up there.”

  “Preparing to make orbit, aye,” the helmsman replied. “Engines answering zero thrust.”

  Celesta smiled at the word “thrust,” a term that was no longer always accurate when describing the product of her starship’s engines. The Phage War had exacted a terrible price on humanity, but the silver lining of that black cloud was that they’d been violently shaken out of their centuries-long complacency. Advancements were coming fast and furious now and her ship, the Starwolf-class destroyer, Icarus, was among the first to receive the next generation starship engines: a space-warping reactionless drive similar to what the Phage had employed against them.

  The new systems were in their infancy, but already the Icarus was able to demonstrate she had a marked advantage during the trial exercises even in scenarios in which she was pitted against up to three other vessels. Human scientists had known how to modify gravity for hundreds of years; it was one of the base principles their warp drives operated on and every ship had stable artificial gravity for the crews. Until the war there just hadn’t been a push to move away from the reliable and predicable thrust engines.

  So far only four ships had been fitted with the new drive as only the more recent classes of starships had the newest generation fusion powerplants needed to support the power-hungry drives. As the systems were so new and untested the Icarus still had her two massive magneto-plasma drive (MPD) pods on their respective pylons just in case. It was a good thing they’d left the old engines attached, as the new drive, although a marvel when it was operating properly, had shown itself to be horrifically unreliable. The new engines were constantly overloading the power system, blowing out junctions, or just failing inexplicably and with no warning. Sometimes they’d come right back up after a reset, but often it took her engineering crews many hours to get it sorted. It had been bad enough that Celesta had ordered the drive taken offline most of the time the Icarus was flying, telling CENTCOM that she would only power up the drive when ordered to do so. She’d hoped that her status as a bonafide hero of the war would be enough influence to convince the brass at Fleet Operations that the drive wasn’t quite ready to be deployed on an active starship.

  She had been wrong. In no uncertain terms she had been ordered to not only return the ship to active status but to use the RDS as often as possible to collect data. As if that wasn’t bad enough, she’d then been ordered to escort a diplomatic convoy out past all logistical and technical support should something really go wrong.

  “Time to orbit?” Celesta asked, rising gracefully from her seat at the center of the bridge to stretch her legs and observe her crew.

  “Two hours, sixteen minutes, ma’am,” the helmsman said. “We could achieve orbit in an hour but we’re held up by the slower ships’ decel burns.”

  “We’re in no hurry, Mister Ellsworth,” she smiled again. “A stately, dignified approach is more in line with our mission, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the helmsman, Specialst First Class Richard Ellsworth said, sounding completely unconvinced. Celesta had noticed a repeat of the general attitude of her crew since the shakedown flights of the new reactionless drive system (RDS) from the one when they’d returned victorious in a battle in which they were literally outnumbered by the thousands. It was a swagger that bordered on arrogance. She’d have a word with the executive officer to make sure it didn’t get out of hand, but a little healthy pride and competition between ships wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

  “The flagship is requesting we decrease speed, Captain,” the com officer said. “The ambassador’s ship is beginning her decel burn ahead of schedule.”

  “Very well,” Celesta said. “OPS! Calculate our optimum decel rate based on the position of the Amsterdam and the John Arden. Send it to the helm so that we can wrangle this mess into something resembling a military formation. This simply will not do as a first impression to our new friends.”

  “Aye aye, ma’am.”

  The ambassador representing the Terran Confederacy, or what was left of it, had insisted on flying aboard his own ship, the John Arden. The aging cruiser was named for an infamous diplomat who, depending on whose side of the story was to be believed, had managed to single-handedly broker a peace deal between New America and Britannia over a disputed world some one hundred and fifty years in the past. The New Americans revered him as a hero, while those in Britannia were told that Arden had drugged their representative during the talks to push an unfavorable deal upon them. The planet, called Aleeciana after Arden’s daughter, was still a point of contention between the two powerful enclaves.

  John Arden’s namesake, the aforementioned cruiser that was well past her prime, had been causing issues the entire flight. Admiral Marcum had made it perfectly clear he had no intention of flying his flag on such a decrepit ship and elected to fly the Dreadnought-class battleship, Amsterdam, on the mission. Almost as an afterthought he had informed the Ninth Squadron, Seventh Fleet, that he would also like one of their Starwolf-class destroyers to fly escort, specifically the Icarus. Celesta wasn’t fooled. The Chief of Staff was bringing three of the fleet’s most powerful mainline ships along with the old consular ship and she had to assume he was savvy enough to understand the sort of impression that made. It would be akin to showing up to a new neighbor’s dinner invite heavily armed. He either didn’t care or was deliberately flying to the rendezvous with a heavy show of force.

  “So what do you think these new aliens will look like, Captain?” Celesta’s executive officer asked quietly and for the fourth time since the convoy had departed the New Sierra Shipyards.

  “As I told you, Commander, I wasn’t given clearance for that,” she said evenly.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Commander Barrett said. “But you must have some opinion based on the information we’ve been given.”

  “Commander, we will find out soon enough.” Celesta ended the conversation. “If you wouldn’t mind, prepare the Icarus for orbital insertion and try to reign in your curiosity until we’ve parked this convoy over the planet.”

  “
Of course, Captain,” Barrett said, moving away to the OPS Station. Celesta suppressed a smile at her XO’s enthusiasm for the upcoming encounter.

  The planet they were approaching had no official name or designator as of yet. Even among the political upheaval that had split the Confederacy in two and left most of the governmental apparatuses completely crippled into inaction, Starfleet Research and Science Division, and the Office of Planetary Exploration that fell under their direction, was still cheerfully plugging away at their mission.

  The planet the Icarus was now chasing in its orbit had been discovered by an unmanned exploration drone just prior to the first confrontation between a Phage “Super Alpha” and the Terran destroyer, TCS Blue Jacket. The drone dutifully performed its function of surveying and cataloguing the planet, spending most of the duration of the Phage War observing weather patterns and sending down small, disposable landers to survey the various flora and fauna. By the time the war had wound down some years later, the probe was finally ready to make its initial report back to Fleet that it found the planet to be almost eighty-two percent ready for human habitation.

  Eventually, once Fleet was able to begin standing down from wartime footing, R&S Division sent a cruiser out to the planet to corroborate what the probe had sent back. What they found was that the probe had indeed accurately reported that the planet was eminently suitable for colonization. They also found someone else in the skies over the planet, someone who had been expecting them since discovering the probe during one of their own survey missions.

  The discovery of another alien species was not welcome news to a war-weary Starfleet whose only interactions with extraterrestrials had been either to be manipulated or be slaughtered by them. But, after many tense months in orbit during which the survey scientists and their alien counterparts tried to devise a method of communication, it seemed the newly discovered species was genuinely pleased to meet them. As time went by, and the translation methods improved, the scientists of both species were relegated to the background as the politicians and diplomats stepped in.

  Everything appeared to be on the level with their new “friends,” but most veterans of the Phage War, Celesta Wright included, felt like the crew of the R&S cruiser should have been court-martialed for taking it upon themselves to open a dialogue with another unknown alien species given all they’d just been through. But, like the proverbial genie that had been let out of the bottle, there was no going back.

  Captain Wright, now in command of the Ninth Squadron after the retirement and virtual disappearance of her mentor, Senior Captain Jackson Wolfe, had been tasked with providing an escort for the latest diplomatic mission to the new planet that now served as neutral ground for both parties. She had tried to get out of it, once again cursing the fact that Wolfe had taken an early retirement and left her with all the responsibilities that came with being in command of the three-ship squadron. Not least among those responsibilities was lobbying Fleet to bump the construction priority for her two replacement ships, something that was practically impossible while being stuck well outside Terran space.

  “New contact, Captain,” the OPS officer broke Celesta out of her reverie. “They appeared very deep within the system, on course for the same planet we are.”

  “The timing is a little too close to be coincidental,” Celesta said. “Keep up full active scans and make sure our telemetry is being dumped onto the Link. Let me know as soon as you have positive identification.”

  “Aye aye, ma’am.”

  “You think they were out there waiting on us, ma’am?” Commander Barrett asked quietly. “That doesn’t say much about the level of trust in this new venture if they’re sitting out in space dark waiting to see what we show up with.”

  “Probably just being prudent, Commander,” Celesta said. “My concern isn’t that they would begrudge us an escorting destroyer to make sure our ambassador’s ship made it safely, but that the Amsterdam might send the wrong message. There’s no mistaking her as anything other but a battleship.”

  “I think we’ll have some answers when we see what they showed up with, Captain,” Barrett said. “Or … at least what they allow us to see. It seems that we’re yet again holding the short end of the stick when it comes to technology.”

  Celesta didn’t reply, not wanting to engage in a conversation that would likely just devolve into base complaining when they were approaching a sensitive juncture in the mission. There were five ships total in the Terran convoy: two warships, the ambassador’s cruiser that was flying the flag, and two supply frigates. She’d understated her concern at the inclusion of the Amsterdam, a Dreadnought-class battleship, and what signal it might send, but Fleet Admiral Marcum was adamant and senior captains did not argue with the CENTCOM Chief of Staff on such matters.

  “Update on the … alien … formation, ma’am,” Celesta’s OPS officer said, obviously about to use the word enemy in place of alien. It was an honest mistake, but it also indicated to her that not everyone was as enthusiastic about meeting yet another new species after such a vicious, bloody struggle against the last one that they’d yet to recover from.

  “Seven vessels total, two distinct classes,” the officer continued. “The two larger ships are moving into the front and we’re picking up some radiation leakage from the forward ports that indicate weapons.”

  “Can you tell from the readings if they’re armed?” Celesta asked, concerned. She could see on her display that the two larger vessels were roughly the size of the Icarus and she revisited her fears that the massive Amsterdam flying in formation behind her might be more provocative than Admiral Marcum had originally thought.

  “I don’t have enough data to make an educated guess, ma’am,” the OPS officer apologized.

  “Transmission coming in from the formation on the expected frequency, Captain,” the com officer said. “It’s being transmitted on a clean channel; shall I put it on the speakers or send it to your terminal?”

  “On the speakers, if you please, Ensign,” Celesta said after a moment of thought. No point in keeping secrets from the crew just for the sake of secrets. Enough people in the com section had already heard the message to ensure that it would be widely disseminated with or without her permission.

  “Welcome most honored guests,” a clearly artificial voice came over the speakers in an even, steady tone. “We are most pleased to have together again so that we might formalize relations between our two great peoples so that both will be benefit. Our delegation now leaves for the rendezvous location on the surface.”

  “Short and to the point,” Celesta said once it was clear there wasn’t any more to the message. “Coms! Send a flash message to the rest of the convoy that we will proceed with our original deployment plan. Nav, make sure you’re coordinating with the Amsterdam to ensure we’re well out of the way once they—”

  “New message coming in from the John Arden,” the com officer interrupted. “It’s flagged as urgent, ma’am … they want us to veer off and allow them to make orbit first. The ambassador doesn’t want the Icarus or the Amsterdam moving into orbit until his landing craft has departed for the surface.”

  “Interesting,” Celesta said with an arched eyebrow, her voice steady and measured. “Did they give a particular reason for deviating from the established protocols other than the whims of their VIP?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Very well.” She stood stiffly. “Nav! I need a flightpath correction immediately for a braking maneuver that will move us off course and allow the Amsterdam room to also decel and veer off to clear the way for the John Arden.”

  “Aye, ma’am,” the nav specialist said. “Sending new course to the helm now.”

  “So much for sticking to the plan,” Barrett mumbled as he ran through a series of checks from his own station to make sure there weren’t any issues with the new course.

  ****

  The next two weeks were uneventful. Mind-numbingly uneventful, if Celesta was being ho
nest with herself. After they’d finally made it to the planet and assumed their orbit at an altitude of thirty-seven thousand kilometers, far above and slightly behind the other ships in the Terran convoy, it had been made clear to them that only a small delegation from the John Arden would actually be participating in the meetings with the aliens. This had been bitterly disappointing to many of the officers on her staff who had wrongfully assumed they’d be rotated down to the surface to look around and maybe even be one of the first humans to get a glimpse of the new species.

  Instead the crew of the Icarus sat on overwatch patrol above the Amsterdam, John Arden, and the two supply frigates while the alien ships were in a similar formation on the opposite side of the planet. Celesta was grateful the RDS had decided to cooperate and the gravity-warping drive allowed the Starwolf-class destroyer to easily keep pace with the other ships without overflying them at such a high altitude.

  “How goes the watch, Ensign Accari?” she asked as she walked onto the bridge thirty minutes before first watch began.

  “All quiet, Captain,” Accari said. “Some standard com traffic from the Amsterdam that I’ve had routed to your inbox, but nothing flagged as priority. I’ve heard that you’ll be asked to attend a dinner aboard her as the admiral is getting bored with racing around this planet.”

  “Mr. Accari,” Celesta began sternly. “You are now an officer and a gentleman. It is beneath you to insinuate that the admiral is anything but in complete control of the situation. A young officer with a bright career ahead of him would also be careful about letting slip just how much inside information he was getting through an infatuated young woman who happened to be the admiral’s aide.”