Black Dawn (27 page)

Coy was interrupted in the middle of its dinner by its screamer
followed by Venn’s voice.
“Sir, we have a distress call from this very system!”
The commodore dashed out of its cabin even while speaking
into its wrist com. “What kind of ship and attackers are we dealing
with?’
“It seems to be a military craft. Their message is somewhat
fuzzy, but I believe they are saying that they were escorting another
ship. They both seemed to be severely damaged, but I can’t tell by
whom.”
“Rally the troops, Lieutenant. Our vacation is over. Lamont to
Butler. Prepare all ships for immediate departure on my command.”
“Butler. All ships, aye, sir.”
At the sound of the screamer, BlackFleet personnel, new and
old, raced to their primary positions. Still not knowing what type of
situation they faced, troopers and
Talon
crew alike prepared. By the
time Coy reached Tac Com, three officers were in their places to
communicate directly with the ships each was assigned to. Bon arrived
and slid into his
Fleet engineering station and Kefski dashed into place to complete the
Tac Com team as Vennefron took over I & S from him.
“We have coordinates?” Lamont asked.
“Transmitting to all ships,” Venn acknowledged.
“Captain,” Lamont said to Butler on the bridge of the
Raven
,
“move the Fleet.”
“Aye, sir, moving out.”
Coy turned to the Tac Com personnel. “All ships on alert.”
One by one the officers reported the shield and weapon status
of their charge. Coy looked in satisfaction around the room. The discipline of each person at the stations gave no indication that this was
the first the team had functioned together in an actual battle situation.
It also felt good just to have enough people to do the job correctly.
Score one for Butler.
As I & S had indicated, it took very little time to reach the site
of the emergency.
And an emergency it was. A lone vessel drifted, apparently
without power, its exterior pocked with holes. It was a Destroyer class
ship with definite military markings on the hull. The space surrounding it was filled with debris.
“What the ..?!” Butler’s voice came over Coy’s command
com.
“There’s junk everywhere!” Rebel exclaimed from the
Rook
.
“Enough for an entire other ship. At least one. And bodies.”
“Get someone on the line,” Lamont commanded. “And find
out where to start.”
“Aye, sir, I’m trying,” Aziza answered. “I’m not getting
any…wait a minute. Damn, lost him.”
Coy waited for the lieutenant to regain the signal, which it had
no doubts about whatsoever. Meanwhile, Bon was recording scans of
everything floating in space around them.
“Rebel was right. It looks as if another ship exploded from the
inside out. From the marks on the remaining one I’m guessing it was
shrapnel from the exploding ship that tore it apart, rather than a battle.”
Coy frowned deeply. “What would make a ship blow apart that
totally?”
“Sir, I’ve got someone,” Aziza interrupted. “Visual is pretty
degraded, though. On your vid, now.”
The image of a young man in uniform appeared on Coy’s display. His uniform was filthy, blood ran down his face from cuts and he
was holding his right arm at a peculiar angle.
“This is Commodore Coy Lamont of the BlackFleet Mer…”
“I don’t care who you are, we need to get people off of this
ship before it blows to pieces, too!”
Coy’s mouth was still open from the aborted introduction, and
now its brows shot up to complete the stunned image. Despite what the
officer deemed a tearing emergency, it took a second to compose its
voice and features. “How many shuttles do you have that can transport
your people to our Fleet?”
“None.”
“Excuse me?”
“Our shuttles were docked on the other ship.”
“I see. So how many people are we talking about?” it asked,
while motioning Bon to start working on the evacuation procedures.
The ship was smaller even than the
Nighthawk
, which would preclude
their landing in their bay with the size of BlackFleet shuttles. That
meant externally docking- hatchway to hatchway.
“How many? I don’t know. We had a crew of 60. Half, maybe more are alive. I’m not in communication with the whole ship. And
we picked up maybe 25 or 30 survivors from the other ship that had
made it to lifeboats.”
Bon relayed the information to the shuttle bays of all three
ships. Drake and his team got the
BlackBird
ready to launch from the
Raven
. Within minutes there were teams of space armored troops
ready on the
Rook
and
Nighthawk
as well. Byars prepped Sick Bay for
a possible 60-70 incoming wounded.
“Aid is on the way, ah Captain…” Coy informed the bedraggled image.
“Lieutenant. All of the senior officers are dead. They were
over on there. That’s why the shuttles…” his voice cracked, and he
cradled the broken arm. “We really want off of this ship, Commodore.”
“Hang on Lieutenant. We’ll have you safe and sound in our
Sick Bay as soon as possible.” Coy tried to project as much calmness
and firmness as possible. “What exactly happened?”
He sighed wearily. “We don’t know. The captain and exec
went over to have this fancy dinner with the commander of the colony
ship, and then all of a sudden it just blew up! We didn’t have battle
shields up. Pieces of it ripped right through us. “
Coy and Bon looked at each other with identical frowns.
“There must have been some warning,” Bon speculated. “A
surge in power, a rupture…something.”
“You weren’t here!” the young man snapped in anger. “You
asked what happened. That’s what happened. My
captain
was over
there. If I knew it was gonna blow up don’t you think I, we would have
done something!”
Coy couldn’t tell from its position on the
Raven
whether the
lieutenant was seriously wounded, seriously overwhelmed or seriously
lacking in protocol. It suspected a rather newly commissioned officer
in charge of the bridge for the first time getting hit with a situation like
this. He was as riddled with guilt as his ship was with holes. In any
case this conversation was doing nothing to calm him down.

“You’re absolutely right, Lieutenant,”
Coy told him. “Perhaps
we should let you get on with the evacuation and we will talk to you
when you are on board. Our shuttles will be mating with your ship
momentarily.”

With that the lieutenant reached out and cut the com. Coy
blinked in surprise at the blank vid. Then it looked up to see the five
faces around the Tac center registering the same surprise.

“Overflowing with gratitude, ain’t he?”
LaRue drawled.
“We don’t make judgment calls on people in horrific situations,” Lamont told him, all the while thinking much the same
thoughts. “Let’s get him and his people over here and put as much distance between this mess and the Fleet as we can until we know for sure
that whatever happened to the first ship isn’t going to happen to the
other.”
Vennefron came on the command com at that. “Are you thinking sabotage, sir?”
Coy started to answer then stopped. “We won’t know until we
investigate. But I think it’s a possibility.”
“It certainly would account for an explosion big enough to
completely destroy the ship but have no forewarning,” Bon agreed.
“Except that it would take an awfully well camouflaged bomb to be
that powerful and not be detected by someone in some scan.”
Coy nodded agreement and then mentally tabled its thoughts
on the subject until the immediate situation was dealt with. “Launch
the rescue parties. Medical standing by?”
“Standing by, Commodore,” Ceal spoke for the entire Fleet’s
medical staff.
The
BlackBird
and the shuttles launched into space. One by
one they mated with the damaged vessel, transported as many of the
desperate people as they could, then detached and headed back to their
mother ship. As it turned out, there were more survivors on the destroyer than the lieutenant was aware of. In all 93 people were ferried
back to the waiting Sick Bays.
Elite Forces and Schiff’s troopers were drafted as corpsmen as
a large percentage of the rescuees had physical wounds ranging from
bumps and bruises to life threatening injuries, and nearly all were emotionally distraught. A great help, however, was the fact that there were
four
medically trained people among the survivors. One, an actual doctor,
was injured himself but oversaw some of the first aid while propped on
a stretcher pushed along by a trooper.
Ceal started to object, but realized the frustration the physician
would feel at being helpless in the midst of his own people’s suffering.
She vowed to get him settled and resting as soon as the crush of work
subsided, however, even if it took sedation.
Meanwhile, once the ship was totally evacuated, the entire
BlackFleet moved to what Coy deemed a safe distance- with shields
up. The destroyer and the remains of the other ship were thoroughly
scanned, and analyzed, as the engineering staff tried to uncover the
reason for the devastation.
With the medical and engineering departments busy with their
areas of expertise, Coy, Butler and Vennefron sat down with Lieutenant Conrad-Kurita, arm in cast, and some other representatives of both
ships.
“You mentioned the term colony ship,” Coy opened, after
proper introductions were given.
“Yes. My company was sponsoring the resettling of these
people to Esperanza. It is not a new world as such, but it still has quite
a bit of land open to a form of homesteading and had advertised for
emigrants,” Mr. Lin-Speidel explained. “We had settlers from both
Katsu and DeGaulle.”
“My family was some of them,” the other representative said
bitterly. He was an older man who had definite signs of Earth Asian
ancestry, as did most denizens of Katsu. The only thing keeping the
sorrow out of his eyes was the anger that was there. “I want to know
what caused this. Was the ship faulty? Should we be suing somebody?”
“No, and no,” Lin-Speidel, answered quickly. “The ship was
fine. We’re a new company, yes, but we stand by our product...”
“Excuse me,” Coy interrupted, “A new shipping company?”
“Fairly new, yes. Passengers, commercial trade, we do it all.
The competition among the ship making industry is stiffer than you
think. It took us several years to get this product out of design and into
the market. We knew it had to be the best,” he turned from Coy back to
the settler. “And it is.”
“Was,” the man corrected.
Lamont looked at Vennefron with a very distinct ‘write that
down’ expression. It needn’t have bothered. The intelligence officer
was busy making several notes. Coy gave Butler a grim smile.
“Shipping,” Butler whispered the word.
“Mr. Kaneta, I tend to agree with the assessment of the ship.
Our fleet engineer tells me that a defect large enough to cause this
could not have gotten past the most cursory inspection.”
“Then what? What killed my sons?” Tragedy had hit him hard
and he needed a target to strike back at. Coy desperately wished it
could give it to him, even though it knew from experience it didn’t really help.
“We have some theories, but they will have to wait for my
people to finish their examination of the site. We have also been in
contact with your government and they are sending their own team of
investigators. Between us we should discover the answer.”
The older man accepted this, but did not pretend to be satisfied. He sat back in his seat with a resigned sigh.
“What will you do now?” Butler asked him out of honest curiosity. “Go back to Katsu?”
Kaneta shook his head. “I really don’t know. I sold everything. I have nothing to go back to. And I have nothing to start with on
Esperanza. My eldest son and I had an accounting firm. We were going to help the others get their businesses established.” He sighed sadly. “I can’t go forward and I can’t go back.”
“Ah, Mr. Kaneta,” Coy said carefully, glancing at Butler just
to witness the reaction, “that does leave one obvious possibility.”
“I don’t see what…”
“Staying here.”
The man stared at him. For several minutes. “Join the military? At my age?”
“Not the military, as you know it. But this crew, yes. There
are a lot of different types of jobs that need done on this ship as well as
my others. I realize that you and your fellow countrymen have just
experienced a horrible situation. But if anyone needs somewhere to
belong for awhile…Well, think about it anyway.”
Butler was gawking openmouthed. Vennefron nudged him to
get him to start breathing normally again.
Coy asked Conrad-Kurita a few more pertinent questions then
all three men were allowed to retire to the quarters assigned to them.
Vennefron also hurried off to I&S with his notes, leaving Butler and
Lamont alone.
“There’s a lot of people down there, Skipper,” the captain finally managed. “What if they all want to stay?”
“Realistically, all 90 will not stay. Many are crew from the
destroyer, after all. But even if a large number do, we have the room
and the jobs for them. According to my Exec’s notes.”
Butler shook his head as if to clear it. “I said this once before
for a diametrically opposite reason: make me understand.”
Lamont, who had been standing, ready to leave, sat back down
at the table. “I can’t even begin to explain the differences in my head,
Ken.
I’ve spent a lot of time lately trying to analyze the new information
they ‘gave’ me”
“Your cascade.”
Coy nodded. There were things I had always wanted to do
and couldn’t. I’m…I’ve always thought I was supposed to stay quiet,
in the shadows…”
“A good spy,” Ken interrupted.
“Exactly. At least up until…” it thought back. “About the time
I joined Corbett. I signed on pretty low in the crew. But something
made me not want to stay there. I’d have these…bursts…of initiative
and do something to get promoted. I didn’t know where they came
from. If I’d had normal human emotions I’d have been terrified. As it
was I was merely confused.
“I think,” said Ken, “that we’ve seen some of those bursts.”
Again, Coy nodded agreement. “That’s how the BlackFleet
came into existence. Then the burst was over and I was left holding a
ship and crew I didn’t know what to do with.”
“I didn’t help there, did I,” Ken began in an apologetic tone.
Coy waved it away. “How could you? I didn’t even know what
the hell was happening.”
“And now?”
Coy sighed. “It’s no longer bursts. It’s all the time. Except
that the old feelings are not gone. It’s both. It’s…” it was at a loss.
“Melding?” Ken offered. “Combining the two drives?”
Coy looked at him gratefully. “Maybe. But I still don’t know
why or how.”
“Why Riga made you two different people? Or why you’re
becoming one?”
Now Coy looked at him in amazement. Ken Butler, sarcastic,
argumentative Ken Butler had put his finger on it exactly. “Two people. Why would they make me with two different personalities?”
“I have no idea. Unless it was to accomplish two different
goals – which didn’t happen..”
“Hence the meltdown.”
“At least you rebooted sane,” Ken grinned. “Ceal and I were
kinda worried you’d wake up this completely different person.”
“In a way I am. I’m not who I used to be . Literally. I don’t
even know if you’ll want to work for who I end up being.” Coy said it
casually, but Ken could tell it was a thought that bothered it quite a bit.
“On the contrary, I like the new aggressive Lamont.” Another
grin. “It likes bigger fleets than the old one did.”
Coy raised a brow. “Is that a fact?”
“You didn’t even bat an eye at the changes I had made in
your…absence.” He nodded for emphasis. “Yep, I like it. And speaking of bigger fleets. I was wondering if you could make it big enough
to be an admiral so I could be commodore full time?”
Coy appeared to think about that for second, laughed a little,
but did not, Butler noticed, answer.