Catherine Kimbridge Chronicles 7: Renegades (19 page)

In the medical bay Doctor Pulaski ran a hand scanner over each member of the party from the
Fulcrum
. “They are clean Admiral,” she reported at last.

“That being the case, let me share some information you many find both interesting and deeply disturbing,” Cat said to the Commodore. Their first stop was the Ashtoreth bio-generator.

Chapter 24: Conspiracy Theories…

“So you mean to tell me there are six Bud Faragon’s running around?” Commodore Clarkson said in disbelief. He was sitting in the Yorktown’s conference room where for the last hour Admiral Kimbridge had been briefing him on the Ashtoreth plot to subjugate the GCP. A plot that involved replicants, a fake plague, gene drive technology and a major advancement in hyperjump technology.

“Actually, no,” Cat answered. “First we believe one or more of the replicants may have been killed in a recent attack aimed at destroying evidence on the Hupenstanii home world. Second, since the Admiral’s engrams were never transferred to the replicants, they were at best physical facsimiles.”

“And there is an outside entity called the Ashtoreth that is responsible for all of this? What could they hope to gain?”

Cat leaned forward. “Think about it Commodore. The GCP has fought and won war after war. We’ve battled everything from Uruk weapon platforms to the Modos Syndicate. We’ve faced and beaten all comers… no matter what the odds.

“Now suppose you are an alien race whose very way of life is predicated on expansion. For generation after generation you survive by taking over territory. No matter how big and bad you are… sooner or later you are…”

“Going to run into somebody bigger and ‘badder’,” Commodore Clarkson finished for her. “How does that tie into what we are talking about?”

“Because,” Cat continued, “If you know that sooner or later you are going to run into somebody that you cannot beat by strength of arms… you develop a new strategy for accomplishing your goals. That is what I believe we are seeing in the Ashtoreth.”

Cat waved at the holographic charts that were floating in front of the wall in the conference room. “First the Ashtoreth replace select individuals in the target population. Leaders and people in a position to influence others. Remember, the Ashtoreth are playing the long game. They tweak the very fabric of the societies they are striving to conquer in an effort to make them weaker and more pliable.”

“So that explains the replicant technology. They are literally replacing our leaders with their cronies,” Clarkson added as the pieces finally began to come together for him.

Cat stood up and poured herself a cup of coffee. “I suspect very few of the actual leaders have been replaced. I think they learned from Admiral Faragon just how dangerous it was if they got too close to the seats of power. I suspect most of the doppelgangers that have been placed will be speech writers and personal assistants.  People in a position to influence but not themselves in the limelight.”

“Admiral Faragon?”

“I think he was the exception. The Hupenstanii solved the hyperfield jump problem that had literally reshaped society. Replacing him was intended to suppress that technology so that it could remain in the exclusive domain of the Ashtoreth. When the Admiral got into a near fatal accident their replicants became useless and were forced to find a new way to achieve their goals.”

Commodore Clarkson looked first at Captain Kirkland and then at Admiral Kimbridge. “OK, suppose I buy all of this. How do the Hupenstanii fit into the puzzle? Why play this game with an incurable contagion?”

Cat sat back down with her coffee. “Several reasons Commodore. First, they had to contain the hyperfield jump discovery. That they could have done with a few simple murders but remember what I said earlier. The Ashtoreth are in this for the long game. Creating a GCP wide emergency allowed them to put players into motion to destabilize the GCP. The sweeping powers that the Grand Senate essentially gave themselves in response to the Hupenstanii emergency would have been unthinkable to the founders. I know because I am one of them. The Bureau of Commerce Investigation is but one example. There isn’t a citizen alive within the Coalition that doesn’t live in fear of the BCI.”

Ken looked the Commodore in the eye. His expression deadly serious. “Sir, as the Admiral said, the Hupenstanii situation advances the Ashtoreth goals on several fronts.” He looked at Admiral Kimbridge for permission to continue. She nodded.

“The Ashtoreth are experimenting with a gene-drive technology that literally allows them to hold an entire race hostage. Imagine what would happen if every man or woman became sterile in just a handful of generations. Sterile because the basic fundamental genetic makeup of the species can no longer produced fertile progeny. Imagine the powers-that-be recognize the threat and they get offered a cure. What would they not do in order to have access to it?”

“Are you saying this is what they did to the Hupenstanii?”

Cat nodded. “They tried. They came very close. Admirals Faragon and Melbourne are on the Hupenstanii home world right now overseeing a eugenics campaign to fix the situation.”

Commodore Clarkson stood up and walked over to the exterior window. He stared at the stars and rubbed his temples. He had one hell of a headache.

“If what you are telling me is true… and I’ve seen no proof yet that it is… then the very fabric of our society is suspect. How do we begin to fix this?”

“Very carefully,” Cat said softly. “We will need people free to move outside of the normal power structures. A renegade faction if you will… and we will need people operating within the GCP – a group to subvert the subverters.”

Commodore Clarkson turned to face her. “I can do nothing without some type of proof. Aside from that alien contraption down in your med bay I’ve seen nothing to back up any of what you been saying. What can you offer me that I can take to my crews?”

Cat walked over to where he was standing and looked out the window. “Nice stars… do you recognize that constellation? The one just to the left of the bright reddish star.”

“I can’t say that I do.”

“That’s Orion… or at least what Orion looks like from here. Ken, Rotate the ship through the z-axis one hundred and eighty degrees.”

“Aye Admiral,” Ken replied.

Slowly the view from the shifted and a massive world with far too many moons to be Earth drifted into view.

“Welcome to the Hupenstanii home world Commodore.”

“You jumped the ship? We were hours from the nearest jump point…,” he started to say before his voice trailed off.

Cat toggled her comms. “Lieutenant Stone, can you bring our guest to the main conference room?”

“Right away Admiral,” the Lieutenant responded. He must have been close because in well under a minute the conference room door swished open and Lieutenant Stone and Lieutenant Commander Davis walked in.

Cat nodded to the men to take a seat. “Commander, would you be so good as to share with the Commodore
when and where
you met Lieutenant Stone.”

Lieutenant Commander Davis looked at the younger marine and shook his head. Stone was not a small man but he was nowhere near as big as Davis. The older marine looked to have him by about six inches in height and about thirty kilograms of pure muscle.

“Admiral, the Lieutenant and I met on the
Alpha
platform where I attempted to arrest him.”

“And by attempted, can I assume you were not successful?”

“That would be one way of putting it Ma’am,” the bigger marine said sheepishly.

“Can you tell us in your own words what happened?”

“I can tell you Admiral but to be honest, if I had not been mixed up in the middle of it I would never have believed it possible.”

Cat smiled. “Commander, I have a broad sense of the possible. Indulge me. What happened?”

“Well Ma’am, I went to handcuff him when he took the handcuffs out of my hands and handcuffed me instead.”

“And then?”

“And then he threw me twenty meters across a room to take out two of my men.”

“And then?”

Lieutenant Commander Davis sighed. “And then, before I even hit the ground he ran across the room and took out a fourth man.”

“Would you say he was strong?”

“Admiral, a mule is strong… this man is beyond strong. I couldn’t do what he did wearing a state-of-the-art Stark suit.”

“Would you say he was fast?”

“Inhumanly so.”

Cat turned to look at the Commodore again. “Would it surprise you to know Lieutenant Stone died last week… and again today?”

Clarkson looked over at the younger marine. “I’ll give you that he’s strong and fast but we train them to be. As far as dying… our medical nanites are better now than they have ever been.”

“No Commodore… when I say dead I mean body-completely-destroyed dead. The last time he died he deliberately shut down the containment field of his fighter’s fusion generator in order to blow himself up and deflect a disabled Ashtoreth cruiser that was on a collision course with the Hupenstanii home world.”

“Then…” Clarkson began.

“He is a replicant with a backup copy of the original’s memory engrams. His body was printed with the very bio-generator you saw in the med bay earlier today. 

“So why is he that much faster and stronger?” Clarkson asked.

“Lieutenant Commander, would you care to answer the Commodore’s question?”

“Sir, such a man is virtually unstoppable. His speed and strength make him the perfect assassin or covert operative. If I were going to supplant respected members of society with my operatives I would want them to have every advantage possible.”

“Is he… is he… still human?”

Lieutenant Stone leaned forward. “Admiral, if I may?”

“Go ahead AG,” Cat ordered.

“Sir, as to whether or not I’m still human… I can’t speak to that. I’m faster and stronger. Some of that is a result of custom nanites in my system. Some of it is the result of tinkering with my mitochondria.

“I think. I’m self-aware. I remember the birthday I got my first bike… it was red. I remember getting drunk and I remember making love the first time... Am I human? I don’t know.

“What I do know is… the GCP spent a lot of time and money training me to be the best marine I can be… It seems a crying shame to let a little thing like death get in the way of all that.”

***

Chief Engineer Ttylee pulled himself slowly towards the escape pod. The task would have been impossible if the gravity plating was still working. Both his legs were badly shattered. He should be dead.

The
DorKra
itself was most certainly dead... Of that he was completely confident. Electrical fires had filled the few remaining pockets of air with toxic fumes and ozone. As far as he knew he was the only one left alive on the ship. He had awaken shortly before a massive explosion had rocked the ship. Attempts to hail the bridge as well as the rest of the ship had failed.

He had managed to get one external sensor array to work. The news was not good. Whatever the source of the explosion, it had changed the course of the ship. Rather than heading towards the enemy’s home world to visit havoc upon the Kingdom’s adversaries, the ship was now heading towards a stable orbit around the sun.

The enemy would be able to board the
DorKra
at their leisure and plunder the ship’s secrets. This was something he could not allow. He was the chief engineer and he had a sacred responsibility to his King. He had rigged the self-destruct system to blow the ship the moment someone attempted to board. So much of the ship was damaged though… he had little confidence that the internal sensors would be able to detect a boarding party so he set a secondary timer to destroy the ship in 20 minutes.

The access door to the escape pod refused to open. An electrical short somewhere in the wall panel was depriving it of power. Ttylee looked around. A cable was sputtering a few feet away. There were dead wires hanging from the ceiling everywhere. He pulled the access panel off the door and found the circuit that actuated the door mechanism.

Grabbing several feet of loose wire he fashioned a make-shift power feed to the door. He wrapped some loose insulation around his hands and moved toward the cable that was still sputtering. Carefully he tapped the power feed against the live cable. The access door unlatched and rolled open. He checked his chronometer. He had less than three minutes before the ship self-destructed!

He pulled himself through the hatch and buckled into the escape pod. Reaching out his hand he pulled the release lever down and the automated systems ejected the pod. Moments later a small hyperfield vortex formed and the pod disappeared into the vastness of space.

Ttylee leaned back in his escape chair. Now, finally, at last… he could die in peace. He instructed the pod’s computer to head to the Prime world and to administer the fatal cocktail of drugs into his shattered body that would end this life and begin a new one.

Chapter 25: New Allies…

“The escape pod is away Commodore,” Commander Nash reported from her First Officer’s station.

“Is our beacon still attached?” Jason asked.

Before she could answer two things happened at once. First, a hyperfield conduit opened and the pod rushed through it. Second a fusion warhead on the Ashtoreth flagship exploded.

Jason stood up and watched the afterglow fade on the main view screen. He turned to face his First Officer.

“Did our beacon…”

“Survive? I am receiving telemetry,” Marlena Nash confirmed.

“Do we have a location yet?”

“Negative Commodore. The
Mador
is analyzing the start patterns to try to calculate where the hyperfield corridor terminated but it has not determined a match yet.”

“Very good. Keep me apprised Commander. I’ll be in my Ready Room. You have the bridge.”

“Yes sir,” Marlena confirmed. “I have the bridge.”

***

Cat Kimbridge watched Commodore Clarkson’s shuttle depart. A lot had happened in a few short hours. The
Yorktown
had briefly visited Hupenstanii space and then returned to the Sol system. By jumping while cloaked from the shadow of the now truly massive
WhimPy-101
, the
Yorktown’s
movements went undetected by the GCP.

Commodore Clarkson had met with the Captains and First Officers of each of the ships in his taskforce. The Commodore’s taskforce had agreed to covertly join their efforts to fight the Ashtoreth attempts to undermine the GCP.

The Commodore, for his part, continued to communicate with Admiral Imera’s office but the information he supplied was increasingly inaccurate. As far as the Grand Senate was concerned, the Commodore was actively negotiating a peaceful surrender under terms that protected the careers of every crewmember on each of the ships in the
Yorktown
taskforce. The supposed sticking point came down to how the command staff would be handled. Because Admiral Kimbridge, and to a lesser extent, her top level officers had been officially accused of atrocities – there was no way the Grand Senate could allow them to continue to serve without being cleared in a trial. A public trial was of course the last thing the GCP wanted because in order to win they would need to manufacture evidence. While the powers-that-be were not above such activities; they knew that they introduced their own risks – risks they were not yet willing to take.

The role of the
Fulcrum
taskforce was the hardest part of the discussion. Commodore Clarkson had wanted to join the
Yorktown
taskforce. Now that his eyes had been opened up to the realities of the situation, he felt reluctant to resume
life-as-normal
and yet Cat had argued passionately that this is exactly what they must do.  Clarkson and his team could be the eyes and ears the resistance needed on the inside.

In the end, it was agreed that the
GCP
Fulcrum
,
Hedison
and
Basehart
would feed information to and from elements of
Melbourne’s Maniacs
. This was an important victory, in and of itself, given that Admiral Sherry Melbourne was now listed as a renegade like Cat.

To make Commodore Clarkson’s cover work they needed to stage a mock battle. A battle the
Yorktown
must deliberately lose.

Cat toggled her internal comm-link as she walked back to the turbolift. “
WhimPy
, how close are you to being ready to put the plan into action?”

“Admiral, I have twenty eight percent of my hyperfield emitters back on line. I will need forty three percent in place in order to enable a jump under the conditions you propose.”

“How long do you need?”

“We could begin now. By the time my orbit decays enough to draw me into the sun’s corona I will be ready.”

“And if you are not ready?”

“Admiral… that would be most unfortunate but I assure you I will be in no danger.”

Cat stepped out on to the bridge of the
Yorktown
and swept her eyes over every one of the stations. In each case they were staffed with personnel who put their own lives on hold in order to make the universe a safer place for everyone. She could not be prouder of these people. She knew that whatever else happened she would not let them down. Their continued sacrifices would mean something.

“Captain Kirkland, I think it’s time we lose a fight.  What’s say we take one for the team?”

Ken walked from the ops station back to his command chair. He, his First Officer Ben First and Commander Martinescu had been discussing the best way to make a flashy show of losing.

“I think we are ready Admiral,” he said when he checked one final status display on the arm of his chair.

“OK, Ken. Let’s come out swinging.”

Ken turned to Lieutenant Zimmerman. “Ziggy, ship wide if you please.”

“Channel is open Sir. You have ship wide.”

“Attention crew of the
GCP Yorktown
. We are about to go to condition red. We will be firing on sister GCP ships. All weapons are to be locked down to 10% yield. Our goal is to appear aggressive without actually causing any damage. Our true enemy is not the ships we will be firing on. Our purpose today is to provide a plausible cover for them so they can join our efforts in fixing what is broken within the GCP. As a result, we will be taking fire as well.”

Ken paused to let his words sink in. “Folks, there is no easy way to put this. It’s important that we make this battle look real. That means that we will be taking a small amount of damage... I want all weapons systems unmanned and set to automatic. All personnel are to move towards the interior of the ship with all airtight doors closed and latched.

I know that your training teaches you to push the envelope in order to win the battles we fight. I’m going to ask you to push the envelope a different way today. Today we must lose in order to win. That is not normal during a battle but I think you will all agree this is not a normal battle. That is all… Kirkland out.”

Ken looked once more at Admiral Kimbridge. She nodded and he continued. “Ziggy, hail the
Fulcrum
on an encrypted channel. Signal
WhimPy
to move out.”

“
Yorktown
, this is Commodore Clarkson. Can I assume you are ready to begin our little charade?”

“Be gentle Commodore… we just got her repainted.”

“I see our pet WhimPy is beginning to move on its own power again,” Commodore Clarkson said. “I guess that means I’ve got to protest in the strongest possible terms.”

Ken looked at Commander Martinescu. “Andrew, if you would be so kind… Please shoot the Commodore’s ship.”

“My pleasure sir. Firing now.”

Immediately twenty low power beams lashed out at the
GCP Fulcrum
. Most missed despite being at point blank range. Those that did hit were easily absorbed by her shields.

Ben looked up from his station, “Captain, the
Fulcrum
,
Basehart
and
Hedison
are all powering up weapons.”

“Evasive maneuvers. Let’s not make this too easy,” Ken barked.

The
GCP Yorktown
banked to the left and fired a broadside at the
Hedison
. Again most beams missed and those that did hit were ineffective. Suddenly the
Yorktown
rocked as multiple plasma beams form the three attacking ships raked her side.

“
WhimPy
!” Ken yelled. “How long?”

“I need thirty more seconds to reach to correct velocity and vector Captain,” the Heshe AI responded.

“Ziggy, signal the
Fulcrum
. In thirty seconds go ahead and blow their nuke.”

The thirty seconds were some of the longest in Ken’s life. The
Yorktown
was hit several more times. The damage she received, while minimal, way very real. Ken was glad he had ordered the crew into the center of the ship. An aft cargo hold actually depressurized for several minutes before the automated repair systems sealed the breach and re-pressurized the room.

On the forward view screen Ken could see the massive weapons platform moving at almost ten percent the speed of light. It was an incredible sight made more so by the sheer mass of the machine that was being accelerated as well as the knowledge that it was currently operating at only thirty percent capacity. Every ship in the GCP working together could not have accelerated a mass that size that quickly.

Suddenly there was a huge explosion on the surface of the moon-sized vessel. A massive chunk of the outer crust blew free. Immediately all power emanations from the weapons platform ceased and it stopped accelerating.

“Ben, get me a course projection. Where is
WhimPy
headed?”

His First Officer checked his sensors before answering. “It looks like the nuke that the
Hedison
boys planted in a corridor near that defunct power node had the desired effect. The
WhimPy
has been nudged just enough to cause it to fall into the sun. If the GCP recovers any of the ejecta they will see the damaged power node and hopefully assume the nuke took out the
WhimPy
with the sun doing the rest.”

“Well then,” Cat said with a smile, “I guess our work here is done. Captain, let us beat a hasty retreat.”

Seventy three minutes later
WhimPy-101
entered the outer corona of the star known to humans as Sol. Observers on the human’s home world recorded a major solar flare eight minutes and twenty nine seconds later.

***

Ttylee woke in a familiar room. This was his shared bed chamber near the capital on Ashtoreth Prime. He felt young again. He had let himself age too long in his former body. He would have to remember to exchange his body more often. The problem was one got comfortable in one’s skin and it just seemed too much bother to go through a replication simply for the sake of vanity.

Still, this last resurrection was a rough one. He shuddered as he remembered dragging his shattered body through the weightless corridors of the doomed
DorKra
. He wondered how long he had been in the escape pod. The pods did not contain life support. Instead they stored their passenger’s engrams so they could be restored later. Royals like the Lord Captain Asdartu didn’t need to worry about reaching a pod. Their engrams would be stored at the palace. Asdartu was probably replicated and walking around back on the Prime world before Ttylee had even managed to open the door to the escape pod. Such were the fortunes of royals verses commoners.

While he was contemplating his continued existence a noise drew his attention to the door of his shared bed chamber. Atlar, his third wife, entered carrying a bundle of clothing.

“Welcome home honored first husband. You were too long gone from my embrace.”

“Well met beloved wife. I too long for the comfort of your embrace but I fear I need to report to the palace. I have grave news to share with our King.”

“What news is this?” A deeper but familiar voice asked from the shadows of the doorway.

“My Lord Captain?” Ttylee said in a slightly worried voice. It was seldom good when a royal visited a commoner’s house.

Asdartu stepped fully into the room. “I asked a question. What news is this?”

“My Lord Captain, it pains me to report that the enemy deflected the
DorKra
before it could destroy the Hupenstanii infestation.”

“How is this possible?” Asdartu asked in shock.

“I do not know Lord Captain. I awoke in engineering. The ship was dead. A heavy explosion rocked the ship and more systems failed. My legs were crushed but I managed to engage one of the external sensors. We were no longer on a collision course for the planet.”

“And the
DorKra
… what became of it?”

“My Lord Captain, I set the self-destruct to destroy the ship. It was my duty. I could not let our technology fall into the hands of an enemy.”

Asdartu sighed in relief. “You honored your duty well, Chief Engineer. Now tell me… who else knows that the final mission of the
DorKra
was a failure?”

Ttylee considered his answer quickly. If he was truthful and said no one there was every possibility that he would be killed a permanent death in order that the secret die with him. On the other hand, he had told no one else. To lie to a royal was considered sinful. In the end his third wife saved him. He would have to promote her to first or second soon. Good wives were hard to buy these days.

“My Lord Captain,” Atlar said in a meek voice. “My honored husband was worried his memories would not survive the long voyage home and so he recorded what he shared with you so that our honored King might know an enemy still lived. I forwarded the recording to the palace just this morning. I hope I did not act out of turn… my Lord Captain.”