Into the Darkness: Crimson Worlds Refugees I (7 page)

Compton was well aware his fleet was not an Alliance force, but a conglomeration made up of vessels from nine different Superpowers. Many of the spacers and soldiers under his command had been enemies for years, and they’d been thrown together only by the threat of annihilation at the hands of the First Imperium. It had been a difficult situation even under the auspices of the Grand Pact, humanity’s alliance against the enemy. But now, lost in the depths of space, he knew it was only a matter of time before he faced dissent and challenges to his authority. His success in saving the fleet from certain destruction had bought him some time, but he knew enough about people to understand that wouldn’t last long. The threat of the enemy stifled dissent and solidified his power, but with each system they passed without pursuit, he knew the other voices would grow bolder…and more would listen to them.

“Admiral Compton, I have good news.” The sound of John Duke’s deep voice blasted from the bridge speakers.

“Well we could sure use some, John,” Compton replied. “So let’s hear it.”

Compton had sent Duke’s fast attack ships out to scout the systems around the fleet, looking for a gas giant with large tritium resources. It had been a matter of economy as well as caution to send the small ships out while the main force waited. The fleet was already dangerously low on fuel—stopping and looking for resupply hadn’t seemed a priority when the First Imperium forces were still on their tail. But now Compton’s ships had barely enough reserves for a last fight if one came upon them. He wasn’t about to burn that up dragging 226 ships all over uncharted space looking for a tritium source when Duke’s ships could do the job.

“The fifth planet in X18 looks like a great prospect. The probe readings were phenomenal for tritium concentrations…and there’s plenty of helium-3 too. And planet four looks like a paradise. I’d say it might be a place to check out for any potential foodstuffs.”

Compton nodded, more to himself than anything.
We’ve got to come up with something better than numbering these new systems X-whatever.
“That is good news, John. We need that tritium.” He paused then added, with somewhat lesser enthusiasm, “And we’ll check out planet four too. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

He wasn’t optimistic about finding naturally-occurring edibles in any significant quantity. When man had first burst out into space, he found that habitable worlds were far more common than anyone had expected. Many of these were teeming with plant life, and a fair percentage had a considerable range of animal species as well. But few of these proved viable as human food sources, and most colony worlds produced the bulk of their sustenance from transplanted Earth species. The fleet had the seed stores to plant over a large area, but that meant remaining in one place for a planet’s growing season, and that was out of the question right now.

“Transmitting probe data to
Midway
now, sir,” Duke said.

“That’s fine, John. Excellent job. Let’s wait until the rest of your scouts return. If they haven’t found anything more promising—and it seems unlikely they can top this—I want you to take your whole task force back to X18, along with enough support ships to start constructing a refinery to harvest that tritium. You can scout the system more closely while the engineering teams complete their work. Also, I want you to send scouts into X18’s warp gates. Make sure the neighboring systems are clear before I bring the rest of the fleet through.

“Yes, Admiral.”

“And once again, John, you did a tremendous job. Please pass my gratitude along to your people. Compton out.” He turned toward Cortez. “Commander, send a message to Commander Davies. Advise him we have found what appears to be a suitable tritium source. He is to be ready to move out with his team in two days.”

“Yes, sir,” Cortez answered.

“And let’s take the fleet off a battle footing, at least for a while. This system looks clear, and we’ve got scouts in the adjacent ones.” He paused, letting out a long exhale. “And it’s high time our people got a chance to relax…even if it’s only a few hours.”

The fleet’s battle status had essentially restricted the crews to duty, eating, and sleeping. But he knew his people needed to have some downtime or they’d go crazy. If there was one thing a lifetime of war had taught Compton, it was to take whatever chances he could to let his people recover. Otherwise they became more and more frazzled, and their combat readiness began to decline.

With any luck, he figured, he could top off the fleet’s fuel supplies and move on before the enemy found them. But he had to make sure that when they continued, they’d all be together, that no dissension pulled them apart. Because when they set out again, the direction was going to away from home, and deeper into the vastness of unexplored space…into the darkness.

*  *  *

“I want to thank you all for coming here. I apologize about the cloak and dagger feel of it, but you are all officers I trust completely.” Compton sat behind his desk, looking out over the group crowded together in his quarters. “For a variety of reasons I did not want to conduct this meeting over the fleet’s normal com systems…or even in the conference room.”

He could see the confusion on most of their faces, though it looked like a few of them had an idea of what was on his mind. At least some of it. He doubted anyone else had reached the same level of concern he had.

“Speak your mind, Terrance. There’s nobody here who thinks your caution is unwarranted.” Barret Dumont’s voice was deep and gravelly. Everyone present knew he was likely to cut through the nonsense and come right to the point. He had another distinction—he was the only person in the fleet who had once outranked Terrance Compton.

“Thank you, Barret. I intend to.” Compton looked around the room. “I doubt that surprises anyone here.”

A wave of subdued laugher rippled through the room, but everyone was too nervous to sustain it. They’d been expecting Compton to address longer term plans for weeks now, and the fact that he sought to do it among his closest supporters suggested he suspected trouble of some kind.

“I’m not sure how many of you know that Admiral Dumont was my CO back in the day.” Compton smiled and glanced around again at the group he had assembled. “For you youngsters out there, back in the day means during the Second Frontier War—and the admiral here was in command of both Augustus Garret and me. And I can tell you, he used to scare the hell out of us.”

Another round of laughter, stronger this time. Compton suspected few of the officers in the room could imagine Admiral Garret cringing before anyone.

“Okay, here it is…straight shot.” He paused for a second. “We’re not going to try to find a way back to human space.” His eyes moved back and forth, trying to get a read on how many of them were surprised by his statement. Fifty-fifty, he figured, though he knew a few of those present had pretty good poker faces. “We can’t. There’s just no way to be sure where the enemy can track us—or however close behind us, or ahead of us they are. And one mistake, one little bit of carelessness, and we could lead the First Imperium back to Earth. You all saw the forces arrayed in the X2 system. Allowing them to follow us back to human space—assuming we could even find our way home, which is a considerable supposition—would be catastrophic. We would be responsible for destroying the human race.”

Compton sighed softly. He’d been carrying these thoughts for weeks now, keeping them to himself and wondering what the thousands on the fleet were thinking. The rush to escape from imminent destruction had occupied everyone’s minds at first, but now that the fleet was enjoying a respite, he knew the discussions would begin—whether or not he started them. And if he ceded the initiative to others, he risked losing control.

“I know that may be difficult for many to accept. Indeed, it is a harsh reality for all of us. There are few men and women on this fleet without at least some connections back home—friends, family, loved ones. But it is for them we must remain strong…and never weaken in our resolve. Trying to find a way home would be an act of pure selfishness, of reckless disregard for the potential consequences. And we wouldn’t have to actually discover a way home to cause disaster. Simply diverting First Imperium resources toward systems more likely to lead to human space could be disastrous. We could cause the enemy to find the route home without ever discovering it ourselves.”

The room was silent, and every eye was on Compton. He suspected most of them realized he was right and that they had been harboring similar thoughts, even if they’d held them in check. But he didn’t underestimate how difficult it was to give up any hope of returning home, however slim that chance might have been. Hope, even false hope, could sustain a man. And he was stripping that from them, enlisting them to support his position, to resolve now and forever to stay firm.

“I have been choosing warp gates I believe are leading us farther away from human space. Indeed, I have been doing this since we left system X2. But now that we have at least temporarily eluded our enemy, I must address this with the fleet at large.” Compton paused for a few seconds before finishing his comment. “And I simply do not know what to expect. Dissension in the fleet could destroy our survival chances as surely as a First Imperium fleet.”

“Perhaps we should deploy Marines to the ships of the fleet…just to be safe.” Connor Frasier was the commander of the Black Highlanders, a rump battalion of commandoes and one of the most elite units in the history of the Corps.

“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea, Major.” Erica West was sitting at the back of the gathering, just inside the door. West was another of the Alliance’s fighting admirals who’d led a number of cruiser squadrons during the battles against the First Imperium. She’d been badly wounded and in sickbay during the flight from X2, but now she was back and cleared for duty, though Compton had kept her on
Midway
without an assignment for over a month now.

“Why not? We don’t have enough manpower to lock down the whole fleet, but we damned sure can cover all the capital ships…and probably the heavy cruisers too. As long as that’s all locked down, what the hell can anyone else do?” James Preston was exactly what one imagined a Marine colonel would be. His face was angular, his features hard and chiseled. His steel gray hair was closely cropped, and a pair of intelligent blue eyes stared out at the gathering.

“It’s not about capability, James,” Compton said. “Though even covering the capital ships would stretch your Marines pretty thin.” He glanced over at Frasier, shifting his gaze between the two Marines as he spoke. He reminded himself to tread softly. The Alliance Marines were one of the greatest fighting forces history had ever seen, but they could be prickly about being told there was something they couldn’t do.

“Admiral West is correct in counseling caution,” he continued. “We must remember…this is not an Alliance fleet.” He glanced over at Captain Kato. “Nor even a combined Alliance-PRC force.” The Pacific Rim Coalition had long been the Alliance’s closest ally, and Compton wasn’t looking to offend Kato and his comrades. “It is comprised of forces provided by every Superpower. There are vessels that have fought each other before, officers who have spent their careers as enemies. How do you think they would react if I sent Marines on to RIC or Europa Federalis ships? Not to mention Caliphate or CAC vessels?”

Preston was staring back, his eyes boring into Compton’s with the usual intensity. Finally, he nodded. “I understand, sir.” His voice was downcast. “But remember, we’re ready when you need us.”

“I would never doubt that. And I am sure I will need all of your people before we are done. Indeed, they are a resource that must be preserved…and used wisely.” Most of the Marines were still back on Sigma 4, where they had defeated the First Imperium ground forces. Compton had only a tithe of that power with him. “Remember, James, we’ve only got 2,400 of your people, and I can’t imagine the number of ways I’m going to need them. Splitting them up into fifty platoons and sending them all over the fleet would take away my only reliable strike force.”

“Excuse me, sir, but then what do we do?” Greta Hurley had been sitting quietly. “If there is a realistic possibility for conflict based on nationalistic lines, should I leave my squadrons mixed? Or should I pull out the Alliance and PRC units? Should I find an excuse to move all the squadrons to Alliance and PRC platforms?” She paused for an instant and continued in a somber tone. “God knows, we’ve got the space.” Her fighters had suffered brutal losses in the protracted fighting in X2, and there wasn’t a fighter bay in the fleet that wasn’t half empty.

Compton looked over at Hurley. “We’ll discuss it later, Admiral. I don’t want to do anything that causes unnecessary suspicion, but perhaps we can come up with a plan to get your birds off some of the more sensitive ships.” He paused then added, “I think you can keep your squadrons together, especially if we can get them on secure platforms, but if you have any personnel you’re uncertain about, by all means do what you feel you have to do. I trust you to maintain your strike force at maximum readiness.”

He turned and looked out over the gathering. “I will speak with each of you individually regarding specific strategies in your areas. My intent for this meeting was simply to share my decision and my concerns with you. So before we adjourn, let me ask one more time. Is there anyone here who disagrees with my plan to attempt to move deeper into unknown space, to apply what limited knowledge we have of warp gate distribution not to finding a way home, but to the opposite…to seeking to flee deeper into the unknown, leading as much of the enemy’s strength away from Earth and not back toward it? If so, please speak now, here among friends and allies…because if no one says anything to the contrary, I will expect all of you to completely support my decision. In public…and also covertly, through whatever actions are necessary to maintain control of this fleet and to ensure that none of its vessels risk leading the First Imperium back to Earth.”

He stared around the room. Every eye was locked on him, but no one uttered a word. “You are all sure?” His tone became darker, more ominous. “Because when I say whatever actions are necessary, that is precisely what I mean. No ship will be allowed to put human space at risk. Not under any circumstances.”