Birthright: Battle for the Confederation- Pursuit (31 page)

Shae didn't take Loren's refusal well. 
He face turned darker, his eyes narrowed and his lips pulled tight over his
teeth.  "Peace is what happens when one side is too strong to fight back
against," he scoffed.  "The Primans are too strong to beat,
Commander.  So call it an order, then.  Avenger returns to Delos and her crew
is disbanded.  You, Captain Elco and others will work directly under my
supervision and you'll do what we just talked about anyway, except now you'll be
under orders.  And if you don't follow orders, we have ways of dealing with
that as well."

"Respectfully, sir," Loren
replied with all the remaining composure he had, "if you order me to use
force on the population of the Confederation, I will refuse.  You can put me in
prison or discharge me, whatever you like, but I will not betray the
Confederation.  I serve
it
, not
you
."

"Then I will brand Avenger as a
renegade ship," Shae threatened.  "We'll declare you terrorists and
level charges of sedition and treason on every last person on your crew.  Do
you want to be responsible for almost a thousand people's lives being ruined by
your refusal to follow orders?"

"Did the Primans put you up to
this," Loren asked, finally deciding there was no point in continuing the
charade of this being a legitimate conversation, "or is this personal? 
You and me, that sort of thing?"

"You and your ship stand in the way
of what we need to accomplish," Shae fairly yelled.  "And it sounds
like your decision is made.  So be it.  You won't find safe harbor anywhere in
this galaxy, Loren Stone.  Confed will have orders to apprehend or kill.  The
secessionists won't want you because you started out loyal.  The Talarans are
done for.  No other government stands a chance against the Primans and so won't
take the risk of helping you.  You'll be alone.  And I'll burn everyone that's
working with you as well.  I've read the reports; you have your own Fixer and
pet SAR operative as well.  They're done as much as you are.  And in case you wanted
to know, one of the best parts about this channel is that it can't be
recorded.  I can manipulate the signal in all manner of ways so that our
discussions can stay secret.  You'll never prove anything.  Good riddance,
Loren."

With that, the connection dropped, as did
Loren's stomach.  He turned and started tapping commands onto the display,
dazed.

Elco was taking possession of Admiral
Bak's data cube and orders when his comm unit beeped.  "I thought only you
had this number," Elco said with a half smirk to Admiral Bak.

"Elco here," he said as he
activated the unit.

"Captain," Loren's voice rose
from the speaker.  Something was wrong; his XO never sounded like that.  He'd
been through so much, and had stayed so focused and ready for the next crisis. 
Now he sounded like he'd heard the sun was about to go dark.

"What is it, Loren?" Elco
asked.

"Are you somewhere private?"
Loren replied.  Elco quickly stepped over to Admiral Bak's workstation.  The
whole side of the upper bridge was empty, but he set the device on the
workstation's surface and engaged the local audio damping field.  "Just me
and Admiral Bak, Loren.  Anything you've heard can be said to him as
well."

"As long as he's okay with aiding
terrorists," Loren said darkly.

Admiral Bak looked at Elco, who
shrugged.  "Go ahead, XO."

Loren told them everything, in surprising
detail considering the fact that the man sounded like he was suffering from a
mild case of shock.  Bak looked up to Elco and shook his head.

"He's crossed the line, gone stark
raving mad," was Elco's assessment of Shae, to which Bak only nodded in
agreement.

"But he has power," Bak said in
resignation.  "The people don't know any different, and we can't prove
this or anything else.  He's going to have the Confed navy attacking its own
ships to keep any dissent towards the government from leaking out."

"Maybe it's time we eliminate the
bastard," said Elco, and Bak knew he was dead serious.

"We need proof," Bak
countered.  "You know they'll make him into a martyr for their cause if
anything happens to him.  No, we need to out them, show the ring data to the
whole blasted galaxy and make sure nobody in their right mind can conjure up an
argument.  That's the only way we get Avenger's crew their lives back."

Elco, spent, just nodded.  After all the
battles he'd been through, it was his own people that were going to be the end
of him.

"I need to get Majestic out of here,
right now," said Bak suddenly.  "We need to be in hyperspace and gone
from here by the time Shae sends out the orders to capture or kill Avenger.  I
could order Captain Montari to stay with you and help fight, but if Halley and
Web come through we'll need a way to get them to the right people and I only
completely trust about a half dozen people in this sheifah-soaked galaxy right
now."

Elco knew it was the logical argument,
but was already trying to decide how to tell the crew that Confed had turned on
them for not offering to help forcibly make the population comply with the
Governing Committee's orders.

"I'll hurry," Elco said as he
turned to leave.  He felt a hand on his shoulder.  Nodam Bak had his hand out
to shake, and Elco took it.  "I'll be able to give you a day from right
now," the admiral promised.  "If they tell me to come back looking
for you, it will take that long, I can assure you of that.  And I won't be
looking very hard, either, but please, Sirian; stay out of sight.  I'll contact
you somehow.  Good luck."

Elco let Bak's hand go and returned the
crisp salute the Admiral was offering.  Elco turned in his best parade ground
pivot and strode from the bridge as fast as decorum would allow.  He needed to
get off the ship so Admiral Bak could get out of here and not have to make more
excuses why he wasn't attacking a fellow Confederation vessel.

CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN

Halley sat in her and Web's meeting
place, a small furnished rental unit, dejected.  She knew it was bad tradecraft
to go to a location that Web could be forced to give up under interrogation,
but at the rate they zapped him with those stun sticks he'd be incoherent for a
while.  She had to retrieve a few things from the place and sanitize it anyway.

She'd finished, then suddenly lost the
will to keep moving.  She'd sat down and realized that she loved him.  Really,
truly loved the man.  And she blamed herself completely for putting him in the
situation he was now in.  Well, he gets partial blame because the love struck
goofball would have agreed to anything she asked, she realized, and she felt
better for a minute as she thought of him.

But she had finally come to the point
where she had to admit that her life would be less meaningful if he wasn't in
it any more.  She'd lost friends and comrades-in-arms, but this was different. 
He filled a different portion of her life, and she admitted that it had taken
his being captured by a ruthless enemy to make her see the depth of her
feelings for him. 

Halley didn't fall in love; not really,
at least.  She'd had a few lovers, some relationships, but nothing that she
would in retrospect call love, or even deep attachment.  It was always a
relationship of convenience for her, and without having had the experience
she'd spent a lot of time wondering if that's what love was.  Was it being used
to a person's presence, their behaviors and smell?  Was it getting a thrill
when they touched you a certain way?

But now she knew those were simple
physical reactions; what she felt for Web was emotional, something deep in her
mind or soul and she knew that from now on she just needed to be with him.  That's
what love was, then; the discovery of a person who made you feel great,
completed your unfinished half, and would make you feel like less of a person
if you lost them.

She vowed she wouldn't lose Web.  She
needed to tell him how she felt.  She knew what he thought about them as a
couple, but he'd been so patient in never demanding anything more from her. 
What if her procrastination had caused her to miss her one chance to tell him
her side?  What if he never knew she felt the same way about him?  She was just
simply going to have to get to him and let him know; it was only a matter of
time anyway before she could put something together.

The beeps of two separate comm devices at
almost the exact same time made her jump out of her reverie.  Startled and
disappointed at her lack of discipline, she checked the comm units.  One was
from Loren, a burner unit that he'd set up to contact her and Web and vice
versa.  She'd been delaying the call to him because she just didn't know how to
tell him she'd lost Web to the Primans.  The other was from an address that
could only be someone up her chain of command.  It was unusual but not
unheard-of to get a communication from a commanding officer, especially during
an operation where last-second intel might make the difference between life and
death.  She'd have to answer one and let the other go to message. 

She picked her commanding officer.  It
was a cop-out, but she didn't want to tell Loren what had happened to Web yet.

"Pascal," she said simply as
the voice-only call connected.

"Are you in an operation at this
moment?" the voice asked.

"No," she replied simply. 

"Authentication
Brave-Under-three-five-zero," was the businesslike reply.  The
authentication code was valid for the next two days, Halley knew, so she had to
treat the call as authentic.

"What are your orders?" she
asked.

"Abort any current mission and
prepare for exfil," came the reply. 
What in the hell?
she thought. 
Why would her commanders call off the mission?
  Only
Admiral Bak supposedly knew the details; she was on loan to him through
detached status, so why would she even be getting a recall from the home
office?

"Is something compromised?" she
asked, something within her rights while on active status.

"Just sit tight; we have your
location.  There are assets on the ground from other ops already being
redirected to you.  Prepare to move out and follow their lead.  More to
come."  And the connection was dead.

Halley was dumbfounded.  Nobody should
have even known she was there.  Admiral Bak might have had to log a rough
itinerary for her, but unless somebody at damn near the top of the food chain
wanted to know, her whereabouts should have been somewhere beyond top secret. 
And now people were being pulled off their own operations to come get her?  It
didn't make sense.

Perplexed, she checked her other comm
unit to see what Loren had to say.  She now regretted missing his call; rather
than ignore him and get some insane recall order, she should have talked to him
over the live net and admitted what happened with Web.  She tapped one more
key, listened to the message, and it was all suddenly very clear.

We've all been burned
, the message said in Loren's urgent
voice. 
You and Web need to get out and get off the grid.  You're in charge
of contacting Avenger and Garrett.  Don't trust any orders.  Halley, Web; run!

And then it all made sense.  The
ridiculous orders to stay put, the cryptic communication from some unidentified
player high in the food chain; it had to be Dennix, or that little boot licker of
his Enric Shae.  Somehow they'd realized what was going on with one or more of
Loren and Admiral Bak's operations and were trying to take everyone out of
play.

Without a second thought, she attached
her data cube to the comm unit and sent the contents to Loren's burner comm
unit.  While hers might be tracked on-planet, once it hit the Galactic Data Net
and started bouncing around off satellites and relay stations it would be
untraceable.  Loren would be safe and also have all the damning evidence the ring
data contained.  She also attached a brief apology detailing Web's capture in
an effort to save her as well as her decision to stay and attempt a rescue. 
She was staying on Callidor.

Halley had business to attend to.  She
grabbed the duffels she'd already packed and made for the door.  Down the
stairs, out the back entrance, over a parking barricade and out on the next
block over, then up to the next higher level of above-ground structures and
traffic lanes where she hailed a hovercab. 

She didn't even look back; the safehouse
was clean; she had what she needed.  She had to consider all her
Confed-established covers and resources to be gone, burned by the traitors in
their midst.  Any operative worth their salt had unofficial resources they'd
established over the years, and Halley was better than most.  She had plenty of
money and everything else required to do the job she had in mind.  There was no
way on this green planet she was leaving without Web.  She had work to do.

Starship
Ballistics and Effects

Capital warship weaponry generally falls
into two classes: energy weapon and projectile/missile.

Energy weapons fire magnetically
contained energy packets or traditional laser-style highly charged rapid pulses
of excited electromagnetic radiation.  These weapons have a high success rate
in hitting their targets due to their high speed and lack of guidance systems
to defeat, but they expend all their energy on the face of their target,
usually failing to penetrate very far unless the area is subjected to multiple,
rapid hits.  Energy shields also serve to scatter the charge and dissipate the
energy contained in the beams.  Lasers are still considered a main battery
weapon because of their relatively high rate of fire, no need to store consumable
ordinance, and general reliability.

Torpedoes and missiles comprise the other
half of a capital ship's armaments.  At first glance, it would seem torpedoes
have some serious drawbacks.  They rely on guidance systems which may be
confused or decoyed.  They require storage space aboard ship and therefore the
quantity available for use is limited.  They must steer during flight, so can
eventually run out of fuel if subjected to a long enough flight path. 

The positives, though, outweigh the
negatives.  They have the potential to inflict ship-killing damage with a
single weapon strike, though to get that effect requires an understanding of
how the weapon operates. 

Without an atmosphere, explosion effects
are not carried far in space.  An atmosphere is the most favorable means to
convey an explosion's effects; shockwaves and heat energy from conventional
explosives are carried through an atmosphere, which is obviously not available
in a vacuum. 

In addition, anti-matter and nuclear
weapons are outlawed through most of explored space and create an entirely new
set of political problems if deployed.  Anti-matter weaponry is still widely
considered unstable and incredibly expensive to produce, while nuclear weapons
rely more on radiation effects and compete with conventional explosives that
come close to matching their energy output.  In addition, armor technology
being what it is, doctrine favors a weapon that can reach deep inside a ship
rather than detonate in a sphere on the surface of a target like a nuclear
charge would.

So, to create a truly destructive weapon,
torpedoes act like shaped charges.  The payload is a self-forging penetrator
explosive, backed up by a shaped charge that creates a hot jet of plasma that
reaches far into the target vessel and creates hot spall effects as well as,
more importantly, igniting the oxygen inside the vessel and starting fires. 
Shockwaves and concussion effects are also suffered by the target.

The counter is armor plating. 
Confederation armor doctrine is to use thick, external plates to detonate the
torpedo and force the charge to detonate as close to the outer hull as possible
versus allowing the weapon to penetrate deep inside the vessel before
detonating and causing extensive internal damage.  In any oxygen-filled environment
such as inside a ship, it's best to keep the explosion at the surface where
damage control is easier.

This is also why certain parts of Confed
ships, such as the sublight engine pods, don't carry the extra external
plates.  First, ship design always involves a tradeoff between protection and
weight.  Since the engine pods are mostly machinery with almost no habitable
space other than the occasional hangar, the insides of the pods are
unpressurized.  With no oxygen to catch fire, this allows the ship to not need
to armor the engine pods and carry tens of thousands of tons of extra mass. 
The chance of secondary damage from a torpedo is much smaller without an
atmosphere, and as a result there is lower risk in letting a torpedo detonate
inside an unpressurized engine pod than to fully armor it and keep an oxygen
environment inside.  The decision was made that it was less dangerous to let
the penetrator detonate and destroy machinery than to try to stop it entirely. 
Any fires would be snuffed out instantly, and the deliberately dispersed
machinery helps to mitigate the chances of severe damage.  In addition, the
ship can survive without a sublight engine.  The hyperdrive engines, in
contrast, are buried deep within the ship's hull and are considered critical to
survival due to the ability to allow the ship to jump into hyperspace.    

Avenger had herself once sustained two
torpedo impacts to her portside sublight engine pod which virtually destroyed
the engine.  The small consolation was that if the engine pod had been fully
pressurized and connected to the rest of the inner hull, the internal damage
would have been much, much worse.