The Legend of Corinair (22 page)

Now that he had seen the footage of the near biblical destruction at the hands of the forces of Caius Ta’Akar, he well understood the evil of which the unknown woman had spoken. The evil was Caius the Great, as he liked to call himself. But even more so, the evil was in any one man being able to tell others how they
must
believe. The one truth he knew above all else was that faith had no power unless it was chosen freely.

All that evening he wrestled with his thoughts, with his conscience, and with his beliefs. His wife knew that something was troubling him. Normally a hearty eater, he had barely touched his dinner. And when queried about his thoughts, he simply assured her it was nothing of concern—which usually guaranteed the exact opposite was the case. But she also knew that during such times, it was best to let him sort it all out on his own. As always, in time, he would share with her what troubled him. What she couldn’t figure out was why he kept checking the time.

Around twenty-seven thirty, his conscience overcame his disbelief, and he locked himself in his study. He immediately began making calls to others he knew in the Order, instructing them to watch the sky around twenty-eight thirty this night, as well as the quadrant to monitor. He even contacted one of his worshipers who worked at a local observatory and convinced him to not only monitor that area of the night sky, but to record everything around the appointed time. By twenty-eight fifteen, he had more eyes and devices monitoring the quadrant in question than he could count and each of them in turn had promised to contact others. And contact others they had. By twenty-eight twenty, the net was already abuzz about the upcoming event. A new net frenzy had been created before the event had even happened.

One thing was certain. If there were to be a sign this night, he would not be its only witness. By the night’s end, in the eyes of his world, he would either be a prophet or a fool.

* * *

“Yes, sir. I have already locked all sensors on the target area,” the equipment operator assured his boss over the comm-unit. “Yes, I have sent out verification requests to any and all observatories with a clear line of sight to that area to monitor for any and all anomalies as well. Yes, they have. At least twelve on Corinair alone. Sir, might I ask what it is that we’re looking for? Well, can I at least inquire as to why you think something is going to happen? It just seems odd to be looking in that exact location at that exact of a time. No, sir. I don’t mean to question your— Sir?”

The equipment operator looked at his comm-panel in disbelief when he realized that his supervisor had hung up on him. He still had no idea why he had been instructed at the last moment to train all sensors on a small area in the northern sky at twenty-eight thirty hours. At this point, he only hoped that nothing would show up. At least then he might have a chance of keeping his job, despite his having questioned the director of the facility.

He looked up a digital readout of the local time. Twenty-eight twenty-nine. On his network monitor, requests were coming in from all over the planet from other observatories wanting to know more details about the strange confirmation request he had been forced to send out earlier. He quickly composed a response and prepared to send it in bulk to everyone currently online. It read ‘Never mind.’ He was confident that in just a few minutes, he would be able to send it out and the evening’s circus would be over and done.

He looked back at the time readout. Twenty-eight thirty exactly. He stared at the screen for a full minute, the smile of satisfaction on his face growing wider with each passing second. Once the time readout changed to twenty-eight thirty-one, he reached over to click ‘send’, but his hand instinctively withdrew when he heard an event alert alarm beeping at him. His eyes quickly drew to the display from the visible light telescope. There was a sudden, bright, bluish white flash of light. It was at least four times bigger than the biggest star in the night sky, and it was gone as quickly as it had come.

His satisfied smirk having fallen off his face, he reached over and changed his message to read, ‘Did anyone else see that?’ and then clicked ‘send’. It was going to be a long night.

Within an hour, the event had been verified by at least ten of the twelve Corinairian observatories that had been monitoring the target coordinates as requested. All had described it as a sudden flash of blue-white light. Sensors had shown it to be a massive burst of pure energy that, like the visible light, had come and gone in only an instant. One of the science stations on one of the moons of an outer planet had already dispatched an automated probe to the location of the event. But it would take days for the probe to reach the location, and even then it was doubtful that anything of consequence would be found.

But thanks to the work of the Priest of the Order that had originally contacted his worshiper who just happened to be the director of one of the most prestigious observatories on the planet, the word was already spreading like wildfire across the net. And if this Prophet Priest was correct, a gift sent to deliver them from evil would arrive within a day.

CHAPTER 8

Since the Aurora was tucked away, safely moored to the Karuzari base deep inside the asteroid, the bridge was not fully staffed. Other than the comm-officer and the marine at the entrance, the only other people on the bridge were Abby and Deliza, both of whom were busy working out the bugs in the new jump plotting system.

“Good morning, sir,” the comm-officer greeted as Nathan entered the bridge.

“Good morning. Any news?”

“Shuttle is on its way back to Corinair. They should be landing shortly. Other than that, nothing.”

“Where’s Kaylah?” he asked, noticing her absence. Of the few bridge staff he actually had, Kaylah had been the most dependable. She had been at her station every waking hour since the crisis began. Cameron had commented that Kaylah was perhaps the one person on the ship that slept even less than she did. Nathan hoped the ensign’s long hours hadn’t finally caught up.

“She’s crashed out in the break room. She was up most of the night tying in her console with the asteroid’s external sensor array.”

“Did she get it working?”

“Yes, but it’s only a passive system. I guess the Karuzari don’t want to advertise their position. I’ve got her primary display up on my auxiliary here,” he added, pointing to one of his smaller side screens. “I’m supposed to wake her if we pick up anything out of the ordinary. Would you like me to wake her?”

“No, let her sleep awhile. She’s earned the rest, I’m sure.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Who’s the duty officer?” he wondered, not seeing any command staff nearby.

“Ensign Nash, sir. She’s in your ready room.” The comm-officer made a face indicating that she too was probably sleeping.

Nathan nodded once his understanding as he turned his attention to the tactical station in front of him. He stood for a moment, looking over the displays. The same passive sensor readings that were currently displayed on the comm-officer’s side screen were also displayed on one of the tactical screens. There was plenty of traffic being tracked. But it was all standard civilian traffic, and it was all at a considerable distance from them without a single track bound anywhere near them. All in all, Nathan felt safer than he had in days. If a suspicious ship were to suddenly appear in the vicinity, unless they had sensors that could penetrate several kilometers of solid rock, their asteroid would appear to be just another abandoned mining camp, one of hundreds floating in the belt of the Darvano system. And should something go horribly wrong, he was confident they could exit the underground base, clear the belt, and jump away, all before sustaining any significant damage.

Satisfied that everything was in order, he turned his attention to the upgrade project being conducted by Abby and Deliza. “How’s it going, ladies?”

Deliza quickly stood, youthful exuberance and excitement in their little project evident in her demeanor. “Very well, Captain,” she announced proudly. “The shuttle’s computer core is much more powerful than the ones in this console.”

“That’s great news,” Nathan said, sensing that Deliza needed some confirmation. He looked to Abby for some sort of confirmation as to the young girl’s claims.

“She’s not exaggerating, sir,” Abby assured him. “Not only will this computer greatly decrease the time necessary to calculate a jump plot, but it will also significantly increase the accuracy of the jump as well.”

“How so?” Nathan asked. He didn’t for a moment expect to understand any of what he was sure she was about to tell him, but he was feeling unusually optimistic this morning.

“The calculations are far more precise than our own computers. Ours have a fixed number of digits available to either side of the decimal point. Granted, there are many. And in almost all cases they are more than adequate. But their computers use a floating point system that can accommodate a nearly infinite number size.” She could see that he did not understand what she was talking about. “The gist of it is that we can calculate most jumps in less than a minute. And the increased accuracy means that we can arrive as close as a few hundred meters without fear of merging with a nearby object.”

“Merging?” Nathan shuddered. “That doesn’t sound like something we would want to do.”

“No,” she agreed. “It does not. However, I should point out that we have no idea what the effects of such a ‘close-in-arrival’ would be, to us or to any nearby objects.”

“Don’t worry, Doctor. I have no intention of finding out,” he assured her as he turned to go to his ready room.

* * *

The skies of Corinair were thick with air traffic, as ships of every possible size and design darted back and forth between the surface and her orbital platforms.

“Is it just me, or does it seem like there’s a lot more traffic than there was yesterday?” Loki observed.

“Yeah there is,” Josh agreed. “I’m actually glad they use auto-landing systems today. I’d hate to have to try and navigate through all of this.”

“Yeah, and most of it is outbound,” Loki added. “In fact, nearly all of it is outbound.”

“I don’t like the looks of this,” Marcus commented from behind them. He had been looking between their seats out the front windows for the last few minutes.

Josh looked over his shoulder. Despite the old-timer’s many failings, he had grown to trust the man’s instincts about such matters. “You think something is bugger?”

“When this many people react the same way, it’s usually only one of two things,” Marcus said. “Something really good, or something really bad.” Loki also turned to look at Marcus. “My money’s always on bad.”

* * *

“Yes?” Jalea answered into her comm-unit.

“Jalea?” Loki called through the unit. “Is that you?”

“Yes, go ahead.”

“We’re in the upper atmosphere now. Should be touching down in about half an hour.”

“The supplies are already there waiting for you. We’ll be there by the time you finish loading.”

“Copy that. You got any idea what the hell’s going on down there?”

“What do you mean?”

“Ships are leaving the surface in swarms! But not many are returning by the looks of it.”

“I do not know, but I will attempt to discern the cause.”

“Just be sure you get to the port quickly. I have a feeling that we don’t want to be hanging around when whatever is about to happen actually happens.”

“Agreed,” she said, as she unceremoniously ended the call and replaced the comm-unit into her jacket pocket.

“What was that all about?” Tug asked.

“We need to hasten our departure from Corinair,” she told him, trying not to appear overly concerned.

“Why? What has happened?”

“I do not know. But I suspect we will soon find out,” she told him as she quickly gathered her few things.

* * *

Nathan stepped quietly into the ready room. As the comm-officer had guessed, she was asleep on the couch. Between her, Cameron, and himself, that couch was going to wear out in a hurry. He moved silently over to his desk and sat, after which he activated the small monitor on the corner of the desk itself.

First he checked the reports. As usual, the most thorough and informative reports were the ones submitted by Cameron. As suspected, she had turned out to be a fine executive officer, always staying on top of every detail of the ship’s operation. From her reports, he knew that all of the rail guns were not only operational, but their rate of fire and rail velocities had also been improved. However, with the increased rates of fire, their ammunition levels were more dangerously low than before. The commander’s estimates showed that, given the average length of each engagement thus far, they only had enough point-defense rounds for one engagement, maybe two if they were relatively short. This reality greatly troubled Nathan, since it meant that they could not maintain a toe-to-toe slug-out for long. The good news was that, as far as solid kinetic rounds went, they had plenty. In addition, their relatively simple design meant they could manufacture additional rounds in respectable quantity if needed. Nathan suspected that the raw ores left over from their harvesting operation in the Haven system would provide the materials needed.

The bad news was that, although two of the four torpedo launch tubes were again operational, there were no more torpedoes left for them to shoot. Despite the rather adaptable design of the tubes, they were unlikely to acquire ordnance to launch from them.

With no shields, no long-range standoff weapons, and little more than kinetic rounds for the rail guns, Nathan didn’t see how they could ever hope to take on anything more powerful than a patrol frigate. And even then, only if they were lucky. The only trick he had up his sleeve was the jump drive, and that trick might get old really fast.

Nathan just didn’t see how he could justify involving the Aurora in the fight against the Ta’Akar, despite the potential benefits to Earth should the Karuzari actually win the war. Even worse was that he didn’t know how he was going to break the news to Tug. He could tell that the old warrior was counting on him to at least give them a fighting chance once again. Although they had not yet talked about it, Nathan felt sure that using the Aurora’s jump drive to capture a Ta’Akar vessel of at least the size and firepower of a frigate had to be the rebel leader’s first objective.