All My Sins Remembered (4 page)

“The navy sent you and your crew to investigate the destruction of several vessels in the Deramaar system.  Why don’t you begin your story there?” Hawke stated.  It was not a question, Tasha realized, but a simple matter of fact.  She
would
start there, and she
would
talk.  She idly wondered, for just a moment, what would have happened had she no intention of doing so, but then set aside that curious thought as she began her story.

“Our ship was the
Pripyat
, a standard Gadari Hound class cruiser.  I was the comms officer.” Tasha began, “When we arrived in the Perolsi system, our sensor sweeps detected trace energy readings of weapons fire.” Tasha paused, then shook her head.

“No, that’s not right.  We
assumed
the energy readings were weapons fire, but in truth we only knew that they were trace energy readings found in the vicinity of the debris of a recently destroyed ship, or what was left of it.”  Colonel Bakore nodded, understanding her meaning.  Ship debris was typically propelled through space by the force of the explosion that caused it.  That meant that the debris tended to keep moving unless another force stopped it or changed its direction.  Over time, a debris field could cover quite a large distance, and eventually become nothing more than errant pieces of floating metal.  By that time, the only thing left at the point of origin for the debris field would be trace energy readings, primarily from weapons fire.

“We spent two days studying the debris field, trying to determine what kind of ship it was so that we could compare it against ships known to operate in that region.  We were hoping to identify the name of the ship, her crew, and perhaps even identify her cargo.  On the second day, we-“ Tasha broke off her story as a sudden upwelling of emotion, the first she had felt since that horrible event, threatened to make her begin weeping openly.  Closing her eyes, she bowed her head to hid
e her face from Colonel Bakore as she struggled valiantly to control her wild emotions.  Now was not the time.  Not like this, not in front of someone she barely knew.

“Take your time.” The Colonel rumbled from across the table.  For long moments Tasha struggled, teeth gritted against the sobs that threatened to escape her
, even going so far as to hold her breath.  The torrent of emotions, anger and sorrow, were a sudden change from the numbness she had been feeling for quite some time now.  It was as if talking about what happened reawakened something inside of her that had somehow been detached or disconnected all this time.  As she struggled, she did not hear the Colonel stand and walk around the table, nor did she see the knowing look on his face, but when he placed a hand on her shoulder, it was as if the floodgates were opened, and the battle lost.  A great wail escaped Tasha's throat as she wrapped her arms around Hawke's midsection, and great, wracking sobs shook her.  All the while, Hawke merely stood there, awkwardly patting her on the shoulder as the other held her head to his stomach, allowing her to hide her face.  If she had been able to see his eyes, she would understand that his heart went out to her.  This was the kind of pain and grief he knew all too well.

It was some time l
ater when Hawke emerged from Tasha's hospital room and walked to the lobby carrying the datapad Commander Spears had left for Tasha to sign.  Sitting in one of the uncomfortable chairs that seem to plague medical wards, hospitals, and doctors offices throughout the galaxy, Commander Spears did not look very happy.  Well, Hawke thought, he’s about to become even more unhappy.  Handing Spears the datapad, Hawke just said, “Discharge her.” before walking out of the medical ward.   Commander Spears stared after the departing Hawke with a puzzled expression on his face, then looked at his datapad.  Sure enough, Tasha had signed the document, but what was this?  Another document?  Tapping the screen to open the new document, the Commander read it, and his face turned red as he hurled his datapad viciously across the room to slam in into the wall.  Hawke had signed Tasha on to become a Talon!

Nathan walked briskly down the hallway of the barracks and facilities the Talons maintained on the station, ignoring the Talons scrambling to get out of the way as he walked past.  In fact, he barely even noticed them.  Not because he was arrogant, or did not care that he was nearly walking
through
some of the Talons, but because he had received a request that he report to Hawke’s quarters.  The request came through the official Talon’s communications net, which meant work.  That made him angry.  He had a feeling that Spears would manage to get another mission out of Hawke, he was just hoping Hawke would find a way to turn him down.  He was as ready to retire as Hawke was, perhaps even more so.

At ninety
years old, Commander Nathan Schultz had about thirty more years of combat and military experience than Hawke had.  He was good at what he did, and that is fight wars, but he was tired of what he did too.  He planned on telling the Colonel just that.  Granted, if anyone else but him were to try to talk to the Colonel the way he usually did, they’d probably have their walking papers before they were done, along with maybe a court martial for insubordination, since military law still applied to PMC’s.  But Nathan was just a bit over what some would regard middle aged, and he found that he had no patience with candy coating his words so as to not offend anyone.

As it was, he had just stepped off the shuttle from the shipyard where all the navy personnel had inexplicably stopped shuttling supplies into the
Heaven’s Gaze
, and would not provide any kind of explanation as to why.  The idiots left about thirty pallets of frozen goods to thaw right there on the docks.  He lodged an official complaint with Naval Command, but knew it wouldn’t yield any results.  No, the complaint would be shuffled and reshuffled in virtual stacks of electronic reports of like nature from other PMC’s, and most likely would only receive the most cursory attention before being put back on the pile to be dealt with later, by someone else.  By the time they received any response, Nathan would likely be dead of old age.  Nathan was flexing jaw muscles in frustration by the time he had reached Hawke’s door, and took it out on the door by pounding on it solidly.

“Come.” Hawke’s voice echoed through the door. Opening the door and stepping inside, Nathan saw a tired looking Hawke sitting at his desk, a hand absently rubbing his head as he leaned back in his chair and looked at him.  Nathan noticed the stress lines around Hawke’s eyes and knew something was up.  The colonel looked as tired as he felt.

“You were right.” Was all Hawke said.  Nathan snorted, and took a chair across the desk from Hawke.  That was no surprise.  They both knew something was up.  No, it was more than that, otherwise the shuttles would still be loading supplies onto
Heaven’s Gaze
, and he wouldn’t be here instead of overseeing the loading operations.  Hawke sighed heavily, and then leaned forward into a sitting position as he tapped a few commands into the holographic keyboard of his terminal.  In response, the holodisplay pulled up a file, which Hawke then had projected in the air above his desk.  Using his hand, he flipped the image around so Nathan could read it.  Nathan quickly saw that the file was a composition of Naval reports.  The reports listed Navy frigates, transports, supply ships, and asteroid mining barges.  The list went on at length, each ship listed as destroyed or missing.  Nathan forgot his troubles at the shipyard for a moment as he took a closer, more detailed look at the report.  The method of destruction for the ships seemed to bear evidence of the same kind of energy signature, though that isn’t saying much.  It could simply be residual energy from their weapons, from a nebula they travelled through...anything.  There were no survivors in each case, except one.  Even the lifepods had been destroyed.

“What is this?” Nathan asked curiously.

“This is a compilation of reports detailing ships that have been destroyed in the Farstar Sector.  Until they got their hands on a survivor, the Navy didn’t even know what was going on, but now we know it is a ship.  We now believe that the same ship, over the course of two months, has destroyed all of the ships listed in these reports.” Hawke replied.  Nathan’s eyebrows shot up.

“Two months?  That many ships?” Nathan asked in disbelief.  Hawke nodded his head, a grim expression on his face.  Nathan understood.  A lot of innocents died, in some cases women and children.  In another life the horror of it would have made him weep, but now?  Now it was a lesser horror.  It was a minor travesty in a long list of travesties that their government had grown used to turning a blind eye to.

“The Navy is still working on getting intel for the ship in question, but it’s a rabid dog that has to be put down.” Hawke said.  Nathan nodded as he realized what that meant.  Commander Spears had strong armed them into another mission, but really this was the kind of mission the Talons would have done for free.

“Does anyone have a clue as to
why
this ship is going around destroying other ships?” Nathan asked.  Hawke shook his head and rubbed tired eyes with the heels of his palms.  He had been going over the reports all day since visiting Tasha in the medical ward.  He was tired, and his eyes ached.

“Not yet.” Hawke sighed. “Of course the Navy, in their typical short-sightedness simply wants us to go hunt it down and destroy it, but someone doesn’t go around destroying ships and killing all of the crew and passengers, unless they have something specific in mind, or are doing something no one else wants them to know about.  I think it would be prudent to find out.”  Nodding in agreement, Nathan idly scratched his neatly trimmed beard as he looked over the reports thoughtfully.  Hawke pensively looked at his longtime friend and mentor.  He looked his old irritable self, but he could tell that age was finally beginning to catch up to this indomitable man.   He was still a big man, standing a full inch taller than Hawke’s own six foot five inch frame, but Nathan’s shoulders were no longer quite as square as they used to be, as if age had weighed them down a bit.  His black hair and beard showed heavy streaks of gray, and his blue eyes were beginning to show more than a few creases around them.  Hawke suddenly felt guilty for bringing Nathan along, and for the first time feared that he would lose a pillar in his life should Nathan court death on the battlefield one time too many, only to have death finally take him at last.  Shaking off his morbid thoughts, he gruffly cleared his throat and leaned into his desk, bringing up rosters and fleet availability.

“We’re going to need a ship with some teeth on it, and at least two fire teams of Marines.” Nathan said, thinking aloud. “I’d suggest a full squad from Company C, 1
st
Platoon,
The Helljumpers
.  They are the best Marines we have when we have when it comes to boarding tactics and close quarters combat.”

“And I was thinking about the
Black Wave
. It is newly refitted, and has all of the latest military hardware credits can buy, and a few that it can’t.  With its armament it should be able to kill anything short of a battleship.” Hawke added.  Nathan shook his head.

“Don’t you think we should bring
The Fury
instead?  Taking a battleship to the fight would be a little more comforting.” He asked.  Hawke considered Nathan’s question.  It
would
be nice.  After all, a Nightstar class battleship could hold two wings of four light fighters, a full platoon of forty Marines, along with their power armor and other supplies needed to field them, not to mention the considerable firepower the Nightstar’s six cruise missile launchers would be, but then he sighed and shook his head.

“No.  It is being refitted with docking mechanisms so that it can dock with
Heaven’s Gaze
for jumps.” Hawke reminded Nathan.  It was an ingenious design made possible by James “Gordy” Gordon, who usually served as both the chief engineer for whatever ship Hawke happened to be on, as well as the company’s head of engineering.  Since battleships were too big to fit in the carrier’s hangars, docking mechanisms would be installed onto the dorsal beam of
The Fury
that would then link up with docking mechanisms located on the ventral sections of the
Heaven’s Gaze
.  Once docked, the carrier could jump with the battleship safely in tow.  Since a battleship was a little less cumbersome to maneuver than a carrier, though not much, the idea was to have the battleship detach from the carrier to carry out the exploration missions that a capital class ship could not otherwise perform.  Of course, having a fully armed Battleship for defense wasn’t too bad either.  After all, they didn’t know what they might encounter when exploring the edges of the known universe.

“The
Black Wave
it is, then.” Agreed Nathan.

“I also want Raijan as tactical officer, and Gordy as Chief Engineer.” Hawke paused a moment before adding, “I’m sorry, Nate.  You told me not to meet with Spears.”  Nathan shrugged.

“It happened.  Nothing you can do now but put your head down so it doesn’t get shot off, and get through it.” Nathan said, and then added, “I’ll see to the personnel assignments.  When do we leave?”  Hawke stared at the information in front of him for a long while, and for a moment Nathan thought Hawke hadn’t heard his question, then Hawke finally answered.

“As soon as our new communications officer finishes orientation.” Hawke replied.  With a smile, Hawke slid his datapad across his desk towards Nathan.  Curious, Nathan picked it up and began to read.  It was a few long moments before he too began to smile, and then laugh.

***

The next morning, after having to endure the typical orientation that all new hires had to go through, Tasha stood on the bridge of The
Black Wave
, a heavy assault cruiser.  On a dais sat the captain’s chair, facing the carbosteel windows towards the front of the bridge through which you could see the station docks.  Around the captain’s chair, and slightly below it, stood the various bridge stations.  Weapons, helm, communications and sensors, and engineering.  Tasha had never seen such a modern ship, which was rare among PMC’s.  After all, you can only get equipment that you can afford to maintain, and it was difficult to gain the kind of success the Talons had achieved.  In her old outfit, The Regulars, their sole ship, the
Pripyat,
was an aged Hound class cruiser bearing only the standard armaments.  In comparison, it seemed that the
Black Wave
was outfitted with all the latest in electronics, weapons, and other hardware important for the running of a ship.  Plus, she was a Hellhound class heavy assault cruiser, which made all the difference.

Hellhound class
Heavy Assault Cruisers share the same frame as a Hound class cruiser, but all of its systems were far more advanced.  They were specialized for the single purpose of combat, whereas the Hound class cruiser was capable of filling multiple roles, and carrying out a larger variety of missions from disaster relief to combat duty.  Like all heavy assault cruisers, the
Black Wave
carried on it nearly twice the armament, better shields, and more powerful sub-light drives than that of a typical cruiser.  In the hands of a skilled captain and crew, such a ship could bring even a battleship to its knees, though not without some difficulty.

Sliding into the seat at the coms station, Tasha brought up a diagnostic display to see what kind of communications and sensors hardware she would be running. 
Though holographically projected displays were typical of most modern electronic devices, displays aboard combat ships often used screens because they tended to be more durable during a firefight. 

As she read
the display, her eyes widened in shock.  All of the communications and sensors were Navy grade.  The Navy never openly sells their particular hardware on the PMC market, much less their most current technologies, with which the
Black Wave
seems to have been outfitted!  Tasha shook her head, thinking what she could have done with a ship like this one when they were under attack in the
Pripyat.
  But then, she doubted any PMC had a ship like this, other than the Talons.

“I was told a greenfoot sauntered onto ship.” Tasha jumped from her seat as if it were on fire, and spun to face the speaker.  She was unsure if she should have been accessing anything on the bridge, and suddenly felt embarrassed at having so presumptuously done so.  A tall man stood at the door to the bridge with a neatly trimmed black beard
that was streaked with gray, and a large scar running around his right eye.  He waved Tasha away dismissively.

“You’re fine, girl.  I just came to see who all the fuss was about.  The
Colonel told me he signed you.” The man said. “I’m Commander Nathan Schultz.” Looking around the bridge, Commander Schultz showed a ghost of a smile that Tasha thought looked a little feral.

“You like her?” The Commander asked
, indicating the bridge around them. “She’s got big, sharp teeth.” Tasha looked around the bridge once more, taking it in.  She never understood why a vessel was always referred to as being female.

“It’s impressive, Commander.” Tasha replied. “I am surprised by how cutting edge your systems seem to be.”  Nathan snorted, which Tasha took to be somewhere between a laugh and a dismissive gesture.

“The better equipment we have, the more likely it is that more of us will survive.” Nathan replied gruffly.  Stepping onto the dais where the Captain’s chair sat, his eyes became unfocused as they seemed to stare beyond the confines of the ship’s bridge, and into distant memories.