Warpath (14 page)

“We have the Fallen
Star on the end, the Malcontent on link twelve, Eva Grey on link two,
and five heavy gunships armed and ready for launch down the dorsal
line,” she replied. “We have the Warlord hard docked to dorsal
mooring seven, and the Morrigan is on her way out of the primary
landing bay. Captain Moira McFadden has offered the assistance of her
ship and crew.”

Oz had forgotten that
Jake was already aboard the Triton, for some reason he thought the
reception was going to be later, but he double checked the time and
realized that almost all the new captains in the Triton Fleet were on
their way to the Triton or were already aboard to meet Valent. His
nervousness at having to tell Alaka and his entire team of nafali
that they weren’t going to be serving aboard the Triton had him
thoroughly distracted through the entire morning. “Order all
captains to their ships immediately. If they don’t get off the
Triton in ten minutes, they’ll be stuck here for the duration of
this alert.”

“What’s going on,
Admiral?” asked a small holographic image of Governor Anderson.

“We have reason to
believe that there is a Regent Galactic and Citadel presence
in-system and I’m readying the Triton for a response,” Oz said.
“Can you direct the defence of Tamber from the Barricade? We still
don’t have a captain for her, the crew is still training, but the
ship’s ready.”

“How long do I have?”
Governor Anderson asked.

Being able to order a
man he once called ‘Doctor’ aboard the First Light was still
strange, but Oz pressed through it. “As fast as a combat shuttle
will take you there. Most of the temporary crew are Rangers, you
should feel right at home.”

“Give me fifteen
minutes and I’ll be there,” Governor Anderson said. The
transmission ended.

“Who are we dropping
from the umbilical?” Chief Paula Mendle asked. She had the hologram
of the Triton’s new tail floating between them. It was part of the
ship’s original design, but never added. It was a long, black
multi-purpose appendage at the rear of the ship that could serve as
an extended docking section, large antenna, or a focusing tube for
energetic fields or beams. “Are the Fallen Star and Eva Grey ready
to drop?”

“Yes, the crews have
checked in,” Chief Mendle replied.

“Good, decouple and
send them into the standby area. Tell them they will receive further
instructions from the Barricade,” Oz replied.

“From Governor
Anderson,” she said. “He’s going to take that ship for the
Rangers, you know,” she muttered disapprovingly.

“I know,” Oz
replied. “We have to leave something here when we go off to fight
this war.”

“With it’s
interdiction tech?” Chief Mendle said, shaking her head. “We
haven’t finished figuring out how to adapt that to the Triton.”

“I know,” Oz said.
It was a discussion they’d had before, but they didn’t have any
other ships that could even hope to assist in the defence of Tamber
if the British Alliance were to leave. That, and the Triton was
ready, several other smaller ships were ready, if they remained
behind to train the crew of the Barricade, they would spend weeks or
months more out of the war. Oz had come to the conclusion that
letting the Rangers take the Battlecruiser was best for everyone.

He looked upwards to
the bridge and the communications system automatically routed his
voice to the Captain’s seat above. “Are we ready for departure?”

“We are,” Commander
Davis replied. “More data coming in, a report from Wing Commander
Buu.”

“Looking at it here,”
Oz said as he watched the data from Minh-Chu’s report arrive and
his crew of analysts and strategists dig into it like a ravenous
pack. “Hold one minute.”

“Admiral,” said an
image of Jacob Valent as it came up on screen. Alice was helping him
into combat armour. “Warlord command, checking in. If you don’t
need him, I’d like Agameg back.”

Oz couldn’t help but
smile at the sight of his friend in armour aboard his ship. “I’m
afraid he’s busy on my bridge, Jake. My system says you have Finn
aboard, don’t get greedy on me, Captain.”

“We’ll talk about
this later. Should the Warlord decouple? We’ll be ready in two
minutes,” he said.

“Piggyback through
our wormhole in stealth mode. I’m linking you to our Flight Deck.
Looks like the Samurai just found us a fight.”

“I’ll await further
orders,” Jake said. “Captain Valent out.”

“Finally, some good
news,” Chief Mendle said. “About time he got back in the chair.”

Oz shot her a warning
look.

“What? He doesn’t
need to walk to take command of a ship. If I can work here with a
belly out to here,” she said, holding her hand almost a metre away
from her middle, “then he can sit in his captain’s chair and get
us a few more ships.”

The Chief may have
lacked in sensitivity, but she was one of the best commanders Oz had
ever seen. Her biggest problem overall was picking the worst time to
start an argument. She rarely knew she was doing it, and Oz knew
better than to be baited. “Hand all Navnet operations over to Haven
Shore, please,” he said.

“Yes, Sir,” she
replied without batting an eye.

“We’ve finished our
analysis of Wing Commander Buu’s scans,” announced his lead
Tactical Analyst, Lieutenant Gwen Yore. She was a thin, bird-like
woman who was ten years his senior, but she didn’t look it. A
refugee of New Australia, she seamlessly brought her expertise to his
crew months before, along with two hundred and three survivors from
their capitol city, Sydney. They came from another in a long list of
great cities and worlds that had been ravaged by the Holocaust Virus,
then taken by Regent Galactic.

“Go ahead,” Oz
said.

“Most of the scans
are inconclusive, but he was right to respond quickly. There is at
least a carrier in there, it’s able to shield its power core from
scans, but close scrutiny of the asteroid field revealed the profile
of a K-103 Class Combat carrier and three destroyers, E-309’s.
Those are two generations older than the Barricade, but they’ve
been modified with low emission shielding, not something we’ve seen
in Regent Galactic technology before.”

“What do you think
about the possibility of Citadel’s involvement?” Oz said.

“Too early to say
conclusively, but there is external technological influence in play.
I believe that this hidden battlegroup is in the solar system to
launch stealth missions, to check on us and the British Alliance. I
expect that they will withdraw if they think they were discovered.”

“Unless there is more
than one carrier group in there,” Oz said.

“I understand your
need to plan for the worst,” Lieutenant Yore said, “But there’s
no indication that there is more than one carrier group from these
scans. While this is not a complete scan of the asteroid field by any
means, I don’t believe we’d find more.”

“Your
recommendation?” Oz asked.

“The British have
confirmed that they are not ready to act yet. This carrier group will
be gone by the time they make a decision and formulate a plan. We are
ready, and the Triton alone has all her combat systems operational
for the first time in her history. The Warlord is ready as well, and
its combat level is that of a heavy destroyer in a stealth-capable
package one eighth her size. With that in play, I recommend we make
the decision for the British Alliance and force their hand. If we
depart to block the escape of this carrier group, they will most
likely order ships to support us. We should disable and capture
everything we can if we find ourselves with the advantage, except for
the carrier at the centre of their group.”

“That gets
destroyed,” Oz said.

“Exactly, in the
first seconds of the engagement if possible. My only other concern is
that there is another carrier group in or near the system standing
by, waiting for the forces protecting Kambis and Tamber to diminish
so they can execute a direct attack. If that were to happen it would
be from Kambis’ daylight side, since most forces are in place to
defend Tamber. I advise you to keep one ear turned its direction,”
Lieutenant Yore said.

“Thank you,
Lieutenant,” Oz said. She didn’t stay at his side for further
praise, but left to re-join her team and continue analysing data.
“Five minute warning, we will be leaving orbit.”

The temptation to
explore the unfettered database of the Warlord for information that
was kept from him while he was out of commission was almost too much
to resist for Jake. He consoled himself with what mattered. The
bridge of the relatively small warship was filled with some of the
people he cared about most.

“I won’t be here
during the action, my job is to take care of what’s going on aboard
the ship and to be ready for incursions,” Alice was telling Ayan to
Jake’s left as she showed her the security console.

Finn was getting Ayan’s
engineering console ready behind the command seat. To Jake’s right
Stephanie was giving Frost a brief kiss. “See you after,” she
told him. He responded by attempting to pinch her bottom, but was
thwarted by her armoured hand.

Ashley was
concentrating on going through the pre-flight checklist with her
temporary co-pilot, Jim Nethidge. He was younger than she was, but
one of the few trained navigators the Rangers had. He was on loan
since her regular navigators were all off ship. The bleach blonde
soldier seemed extremely calm, concentrating on taking everything
that Ashley was telling him in and helping with the checklist without
any extra commentary.

Kadri Dutta, their
communications and scan officer, was relaxing at her station and
noticed Jake looking across the bridge. She offered a warm smile.
“Welcome back, Sir,” she said quietly. “Sorry the reception was
cancelled.”

Jake leaned forward in
his seat, whispering conspiratorially even though he knew everyone on
the bridge would be able to hear him anyway. “I’d rather come
back to this than that crowd waiting for me in the Triton’s rear
observation.”

“Well, we know your
weakness then,” Kadri replied, “Large crowds.”

The mission timer
started counting down from five, and the list of events that would
take place during the countdown appeared in front of him. “I feel
for the people who planned it though, I’m sure they went to a lot
of trouble,” he said as he scanned through the mission timer
details. The only ones that mattered to the Warlord were the orders
to prepare while they remained docked, and the departure time.

“It’s all right,
don’t worry,” Ayan said. “I’m more excited about the welcome
I’ll be giving you when I get you back to quarters.”

“Okay, yuck,” Alice
muttered under her breath.

Jake sobered himself by
looking around the darkened bridge. The stations in front of him as
well as those to his left and right were built more like cockpits,
the seats sliding under the consoles and securing the people working
in. There were extra stools that were stowed on arms underneath the
consoles in between. Behind his command seat there was enough room
for three consoles, two were related to engineering and one was
multi-purposed.

Behind that, facing the
rear wall of the small bridge were three more slide-in consoles, all
spares that weren’t currently in use. Kadri had a plan for
expanding the communications and sciences staff aboard the ship if
the mission required it, and Jake mentally promised himself that he’d
take a closer look later.

He sat in the centre,
upon a slightly raised dais. The Captain’s seat was surprisingly
comfortable despite its simplicity. Most of the displays he saw were
holographically projected in front of him, the rest were at his
crewman’s stations or projected on the hull at the front of the
bridge.

Ayan took her place
behind him at an engineering station. “Thank you for bringing me on
for this, Finn, I hope I’m not crowding you,” she told her.

“Are you kidding?”
Finn asked. “It’s an honour. Besides, you can take care of things
for me here if I have to run off and help with repairs in person.”

The mission counter
ticked down to three minutes and Jake nodded to himself. It didn’t
matter how nervous he was, there were some things all Captain’s had
to do before a major mission, a mission that could land them in the
middle of a major conflict. “Kadri, open a channel ship-wide.”

“Yes, Sir,” she
replied. “Your attention please for an announcement from our
Captain,” she announced gently. A green circle appeared in front of
Jake’s command seat, telling him that there was a channel open to
the entire ship.

“We are at the fast
end of the ‘hurry up and wait’ military paradigm, so this will be
quick. I am proud of how this crew performed in my absence. You’ve
made me proud, and now that I have returned to command, I vow to
guide you through the coming war using all the resources at our
disposal and whatever wisdom I can bring to this command. In two
minutes we will be making a quick transit across the solar system,
responding to a report that Regent Galactic have violated our
borders. The Warlord’s assignment is three fold: to assist the
Triton in securing the area. To capture a military ship and transfer
our command flag to its bridge. To return to Tamber orbital space
with our prize. That is what the Warlord does, it takes from our
enemies, and whatever it cannot take it destroys, so the Order and
its allies are always thinking twice about continuing this conflict.
I am proud to be with you again, there is no better crew.”

Frost whistled loudly
and brought about a brief round of applause on the bridge and down
the pair of narrow hallways leading to it.

“Well done, Captain,”
Ayan said from behind him, only loudly enough for him to hear.