The Valhalla Call (Warrior's Wings) (19 page)

“That’s because there isn’t one,” Mathew said, shaking his head. “The speed difference is entirely in the software. The hardware is about as perfect a device as we can build based on the alien technology. Unfortunately, the one thing we’ve never been able to reverse engineer was their software. We can’t even tell how their computers work, let alone what runs on them, so the one area we have a lot of room to improve is the software.”

“That’s interesting. I would have expected room for improvement in the hardware as well.”

“We basically copied the enemy design. Honestly, we don’t fully understand it yet,” Mathew admitted.

That brought a grimace to Brooke’s face. “That isn’t something that brings confidence to mind.”

“Those are the cards we’re dealt, Nadine,” he told her with a troubled look. “Either play them or fold.”

“I’m all in,” she said simply after considering it for a moment.

“Rather suspected that you were.”

*****

USV Legendary

Sorilla had to pull herself out of the hulking bot before she could finish settling to go another round with the infernal contraption.

“What’s going on?” she demanded, glaring down at the men and equipment who were now surrounding her.

“Orders, ma’am,” one of them, the chief of the deck, told her. “Packing this thing up.”

“Packing it up? I need to train!” she growled. “This op is going to be insane enough as it stands.”

“Sorry, ma’am. As I understand it, you’re being shipped out.”

“Again?”

Sorilla dropped down from the thirty-foot back of the machine, landing easily with just a little flex in her legs. She walked over to the chief. “Where the hell am I being shipped off to this time?”

“We’re moving our part of this to the Socrates.”

Sorilla turned to look at Raymond Hearse, who had just stepped in, confused, though it didn’t show to anyone watching because of her personal armor. “The Socrates? That’s an old Explorer Class ship, isn’t it?”

“It is a refitted Explorer Class ship,” Hearse answered, “one with all the room we need. We’ll train there, then you will return to use the Legendary as your base of operations. Now, be a good girl and let the help here pack things up.”

Sorilla scowled at Hearse, but it was nothing compared to the looks the “help” shot in his direction.

She bit down on her annoyance, however, and waved a hand.

“Fine. I’ll pack my kit and see you in the shuttle bay.”

Some fights weren’t worth starting.

USV Terra

The battle was over by the time Master of Ships Parath carefully eyed the two lines of Lucians arrayed before him as he stepped down lightly onto the uneven deck of the captured starship.

So this is what the enemy ships look like inside.

Pedestrian, surprisingly, for machines capable of such destruction. They were aligned differently than he’d expected after examining them from the outside. From what he could see of their design, externally, he had expected them to have aligned around the inner core rather than the bow of the ship.

Gravity was really just a matter of perspective in space, so there was little advantage to the decision they’d made, but he had seen odder choices in the past and likely would find stranger ones in the future. At least they’d picked a consistent alignment, he supposed; it made them easier to understand than the Ross, if nothing else.

The re-solidified molten metal from their hull did little to add to the impressiveness of the interior, and neither did the blast marks and bodily fluids spattered over the decks.

“Hard fought?” he observed more than asked as his group walked.

“Yes, Master. We lost several dozen Lucians in the assault, most in the dirty fighting along the ship’s internal structures.”

Parath winced, that was a significant loss.

“Prisoners?”

“Isolated toward the lower decks of the ship, where there were larger areas to keep them in. We don’t have the guards or facilities to house them apart from one another.”

“Yes, that’s fine. What of those in authority?”

“Still working out which ones those were, exactly, but we have several candidate groups that we’ve kept apart from the rest.”

Parath nodded. “Excellent.”

“We’ve secured the ship and disarmed the crew, Master, but it’s still an unwarranted risk for you to be here…”

“Shortly the Master of Fleets will be in this system with the main bulk of our forces,” Parath said grimly. “When he arrives, I will have to explain how it is that we have been stopped dead in our courses by two enemy ships who did not even have to fire a shot at us to do so.”

Parath sneered, not at his officers, but at the situation itself.

“I would prefer to have answers available for him at that time,” Parath said. “Wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Good. I want interrogation teams brought on board. Focus on the ones we believe to be non-officers first. I want language information, vocabulary, structure, idioms. When we begin on the Master of Ships for this vessel, I want
nothing
to be missed. Am I clear?”

“Yes, Master. Teams are already onboard. I will issue your commands to them directly.”

“Good, now, where is the Lucian in charge?”

“This way, Master. Sentinel Prime Kris is the Lucian in charge. He awaits you in the next section.”

Parath gestured ahead of them. “Then let us be on our way.”

*****

“Tell me the charges worked.”

“They did, sir. I was in the computer room when they busted in. You blew the cores while they were securing us.”

Pierce nodded, thankful. He didn’t know if the aliens would be able to read the technology; lord knows, from what he knew, it was almost impossible to read the aliens’ own tech. With luck, they’d have such completely different technology that it would take years, if not decades, to decode the interface medium, but he couldn’t count on that.

“Did anyone see where they locked up the crew?” he asked softly, eyes on the squat grey aliens holding weapons on them.

“Cargo deck, sir. They had to drag me past there.”

“Well, they’ve got some idea of who are the officers on board, I suppose.”

“We probably should have worn the fancy uniforms, sir.”

Pierce chuckled softly, glancing over the mussed up and somewhat bloodied uniform of the engineer who’d spoke. “You probably have a point, Lieutenant.”

“You suppose they’re recording us, sir?” Commander Riggs asked, eyes flicking over to the guards.

“I would.”

That was enough said as far as Pierce was concerned, and the look in his eye made the point. No one was going to be talking about anything classified.

“If they didn’t,” a bloodied and battered Marine officer offered up, “they probably would object to us speaking. Only reason I let prisoners talk amongst themselves before an interrogation is if I’m hoping they’ll say something I can use.”

“You think they can understand us, sir?” a younger officer asked quietly.

“No telling.” Pierce shook his head. “They’ve had prisoners before, but the ones we recovered said they never asked questions, never even really interacted with them at all. Just gave them water and that was it.”

“Water but no food. Sadistic bastards, want to watch us waste away,” the Marine said. “It takes weeks to go like that.”

“Belay that talk,” Pierce growled.

Just because it was true was no cause to bring it up and put it dead center in everyone’s minds. A lot could happen in a few weeks, so he didn’t want his people becoming demoralized before they could even look for a way out.

They may now be Persons Under Control, but that just narrowed the scope of their duty.

The Terra was crippled, by his own hand, but she wasn’t dead in space. The trick wouldn’t be getting the ship moving again, it would be finding the right time to throw that switch and getting the guards out of the way when the time came.

Pierce looked over at the guards, recognizing them from the descriptions he’d read from Sergeant Aida’s detailed reports.

They were clearly the ones she referred to as the Alien Operators. Squat and grey-skinned, like the Ghoulies, but the resemblance ended right there. These creatures, people, whatever they were, had hard, chorded muscles, practically like twisted ropes just under the skin, and they moved with a precision that he recognized.

Whether or not they were of operator quality, that he didn’t know, but they were soldiers. Disciplined and determined, of that he had no doubt whatsoever. That would make his job distinctly more difficult, but that was the way of things.

“One duty,” he said aloud, looking around.

The Marine officer, a major, nodded instantly, and it only took seconds for the rest to agree. They all understood.

One duty left.

Escape.

*****

“These are the officers?”

“Yes, Master.”

Parath looked over the somewhat bedraggled assembly in the relative small room on the other side of his view. “Which is the Master of Ships?”

“We do not know yet, they haven’t made any obvious addresses to a superior.”

“Keep watching. They will.”

“Yes, Master.”

They watched the figures beyond, listened to them as they spoke softly to one another. Parath couldn’t identify the Master of this Ship, but if he wasn’t in this group, he would be in another. They would find him, but for now it was a low priority. There was no point, after all, until they could understand and make themselves understood.

“What do you think they are saying, Master?”

“Plotting escape, I would presume. I would be,” Parath answered simply. There really wasn’t anything else he could say on that, it was as obvious as the beak bone under the skin of his face what they were doing. If they weren’t plotting escape now, they would be soon. That was what people did when they were held prisoner.

“What happened to the one in the lighter uniform?” Parath asked, mostly curious.

“Hmmmm.” His assistant checked the files. “Resisted the Lucians. Surprisingly effectively, given the relative disparity in their strength and weight.”

“How effectively?”

“Broke a Lucian’s parnelia, fractured the bones of another’s leg. It took two of them to secure him while a third put on the restraints.”

“Effective indeed. Check and see if any others in that uniform did similarly.”

“Of course, Master, but why?”

“I want to know if this one is an exception, or if the ones in the lighter uniforms are their security officers.”

“Ah, of course, Master.”

Parath turned away from the view and glanced at the Lucian in charge. “Continue recording. I want to examine the other prisoner locations and reports of the action you took. Translators will be working all shifts until we have some knowledge of their language, please try not to interfere with their work.”

The Lucian Prime nodded his head once and saluted. “It will be as you order, Master of Ships.”

Parath returned the nod and saluted curtly as he walked out.

*****

USV America

Two Jumps out of Hayden

After spending three days scrounging every available hull available to defend Hayden, Fairbairn had finally managed to raise the defenses of the system to a level where he could afford to send a few ships out on a raiding mission deep into contested space.

Losing the Terra and the Canada, hopefully not permanently, had put a distinct pinch into any plans he could make. He couldn’t leave the front door unguarded, not without knowing just how long the gravity pulse devices utilized by the two missing ships would last. There had been no chance to test them before deployment, and even under best circumstances the only answer the researches had given when asked how long they would work was a shrug and a mumbled “dunno.”

For all that, however, he couldn’t afford to leave the back door uncontested either. Shutting the front door had been a desperate play because, while it stopped the enemy in their tracks, it also split the likely and possible paths they may take to get around the block. Splitting the enemy forces was great, but it also meant splitting his own.

Task Force Seven was a powerful fighting force, but it wasn’t up to taking on anything the likes of which the long-range scouts had reported.

Not in a straight up fight, at least, which was what brought him to his current strategy.

Bringing the bulk of TF-7 through the jump point and into contested space would give him a chance to engage the enemy away from Hayden. Fight and retreat, hitting them from extreme range and trying to take them down by a war of attrition was the only feasible strategy he had left.

All he had to do was find them, and then be
perfect
.

One tactical error and he could lose it all.

He could not, would not, make that error. He couldn’t afford it, so he just wouldn’t do it.

“Admiral on deck.”

Fairbairn signaled the men and women on the bridge of the America to return as they were. This wasn’t the time for disrupting their routine.

“Captain,” he said as he walked over to the command station.

“Sir.” Captain Pete Green nodded respectfully before returning his attention to the screen.

“I understand we have a blip in the system?”

“Yes, sir. Fourth planet, some odd readings in space-time.”

“Is it them?” Fairbairn asked, tensing.

“No.” Green shook his head.

“You’re sure?”

“Yes, sir. This is probably another forward scout, maybe a survey group. Looks the same as what hit Hayden the first time around. Three ships, Ghoulie design. No significant support.”

“Okay, hit them,” Fairbairn ordered. “Clean them out of my sky, Captain.”

“Aye, sir,” Green said, looking around. “Give me a go/no-go check on all major systems and tell the boys below decks to make sure the magazines are primed. We’re going in.”

*****

Three ships broke from the main group, altering their trajectories to proceed deeper and faster through the system while the main group skirted a safer route.

The America, the Great Britain, and the Germany accelerated past free fall as they bolted deeper into the system’s gravity well, heading for the fourth planet. The advanced space-time telemetry sensors the Terra Class ships had been constructed with leveled one particular playing field by rendering the enemy’s tactic of flying out of the sun to blind conventional sensors obsolete.