Warpath (30 page)

“What can we spare to
help them?” Governor Anderson asked.

“You can spare
everything but time and the Governor,” Admiral Charon said. “As I
said, two more carrier groups are on their way, they will be here
soon, so orbital defence will not be an issue. I need someone
competent to coordinate with on the ground, however, and I submit
that it should be you, Governor, even though it’s not my place to
do so.”

“She’s right,” Oz
said. “I wouldn’t expect anyone to defend Haven Shore better.”

“I was outcast by
Freeground,” Governor Anderson said. “Not officially, but it’s
true. As much as I want to help, I think the better choice is to send
the Triton and the Barricade.”

“No, the Barricade is
a perfect heavy defence and patrol ship,” Jake said. “It’s
going to take a couple days, but when we’re finished with the
Blessed Mission, it’s going to be a good ship for fighting in a
large nebula. It’s more manoeuvrable, and I can add hangar space
under the extra armour she already has on her sides. Keep the
Barricade here, those interdiction systems are useful, and worth
studying. Keep training her crew, their response time was too slow
yesterday for anything more intense.”

“You have more than
one good point,” Governor Anderson said. “We’ll keep it here,
and by the time you get back, her crew will be ready for anything.”

“I am sorry to bring
you this news,” Admiral Charon said. “But the cooperation we’ve
had in just the last two days has led us to important intelligence,
open communication, and a renewed sense of purpose for everyone here.
Aside from the approximate location of Freeground Alpha and the
fleet, we also have recent deployment reports and ship movements from
the Order of Eden. We also have confirmation that Citadel has formed
an alliance with them, and that their queen bee is nearby. Our plan
is to help you shore up the defence here so you can help Freeground
Alpha, then to join you in fighting the Order of Eden. As a show of
good faith, I’m sending two destroyers and a drone ship with you.
They are under your command, Admiral McPatrick. Their only agenda is
to assist you in your mission to aid Freeground Alpha. Take care of
them, these ships are under the command of my best Captains.”

“Thank you, Admiral,”
Oz said, surprised.

“Other affairs are
calling me away, and I think it’s a good time for me to let you
start working out the details of your next mission, so good hunting,”
Admiral Charon said, ending the transmission with a salute.

Jake’s command and control unit
chirped at him with a message from Stephanie:

DID YOU JUST FIRE FINN AND AGAMEG THEN REPLACE THEM WITH AYAN?

He couldn’t help but snicker,
drawing the attention of everyone virtually and physically at the
table. “Sorry, I think there was a mix up in the new crew,” Jake
said. “A couple people are out of jobs until I fix it.” He
hurriedly tapped a reply.

MAJOR MEETING. WILL FIX IT AS SOON AS I’M OUT.

“Carl,” Oz said,
addressing Governor Anderson. “How big was the population of
Freeground when you were there last?”

“Anyone who could get
a pass off the station to another world that wasn’t hit hard by the
Holocaust was doing it, unless they were part of the political
movement in charge. Last I heard, the military was about to take
charge. I’d guess that about half of the people left could fit into
the Alpha ring. If people kept leaving afterwards, maybe they fit
them all. I can’t be sure.”

“The decrypted data
is coming through now, starting with the Freeground Alpha package,”
Ayan said as she motioned to spread the information across the table.
“There’s a lot here, I think.”

“Freeground Alpha is
in hiding,” Jake said as he sifted through the Order of Eden patrol
logs inside the nebula. “It’s not all here, this ship wasn’t
privy to all the details, but it did run with two patrols. There have
been skirmishes, but they’ve only seen Freeground Alpha inside the
nebula once. The ship that saw it, the Sacred Redeemer, was destroyed
shortly after sighting it by Freeground ships.”

“The Alpha ring moved
since,” Oz said, summarizing another set of log entries. “This
log is only four days old, and it says they’re starting their
search from scratch. Ayan, could Freeground Alpha open wormholes
inside the nebula?”

“Not far reaching
ones,” Ayan said. “I’m sure they open them whenever they find
large pockets of clear space inside the nebula, but from what I’m
seeing, the Order is guarding as many of those pockets as they can.
Without someone to clear the way, it’s going to take them years to
get through.”

“More like decades,”
Jake said. “The Iron Head nebula is huge, and every effort I’ve
heard of to create a lane through it has been abandoned because of
the war.”

“So, are you sure you
don’t want to take the Barricade?” Oz asked Jake.

“Yes, there are Sol
Defence systems in the Blessed Mission, so it’ll take a quarter the
time it would to train people, and I’ll have more room for gunships
after we add two hangars.”

“That’s going to
deplete the Solar Forge’s raw materials, we’ll have almost
nothing left,” Governor Anderson said.

“Drag what’s left
of that Order carrier over to the Solar Forge, you’ll be good for a
while,” Jake replied flatly.

‘You’re right,”
Governor Anderson replied. “I’m going to review this data while I
keep things going down here. We’ll coordinate through the secure
network.” He disappeared before anyone could say farewell.

“Blunt,” Ayan said.

“Sorry, we need to
keep our priorities straight,” Jake replied.

“I meant him,” she
replied. “I agree with you. This ship and her crew has to be ready
by the end of the week, and if we’re going into the Iron Head
Nebula, we’ll need to make more modifications using more
materials.”

“If we cut back on
some of the modifications you’re planning, we could be out there in
three days,” Oz replied.

“Let’s compromise,”
Jake said, bringing up the redesign for the Blessed Mission he’d
worked on the night before with Ayan. “We’ll build these two
hangars, make sure they’re spaceworthy, but all the systems inside
will be set up so we can build the interiors while we’re under way.
We’ll save tons of materials if we skip making fresh mattresses,”
he cringed visibly. “Computers get a complete refit, something we
can’t avoid because none of the Regent Galactic components can be
trusted, and the essential defence and offense modifications get
finished, but no cloaking systems get installed. That’ll save us an
entire day.”

“Are you sure?” Oz
asked.

“Cloaking systems are
defeated easily in a nebula anyway, so we’ll have filters and hull
maintenance droids added to every ship going instead. Those will keep
any particles that get through our shields from wearing us down too
much. We can do that ourselves while other things are going on.
There, just with those cuts, I’ve got this ship ready in three
days, nine hours.”

“If you gave up on
moving the bridge, you’d save twenty three hours.”

“No, I’m not riding
up front like an idiot, that’s the worst part of this ship, the
bridge is right on the nose, the sooner I get that turned into a
leisure area, the better.” Jake said.

Oz laughed and nodded.
“I get it, don’t worry. All right, that’s a compromise to the
good for me. I’ll break down and give you four days to customize
your ship, and I want to be listening in when you tell your crew that
they’ll have to build those hangar interiors the old fashioned
way.”

“If you let us borrow
a dozen heavy suits, you have a deal,” Jake said.

“You got it,” Oz
said. “I’m going to keep studying this, but I have to get to work
on the Triton.”

“All right, talk to
you later, Oz,” Ayan said.

“Good luck,” Jake
added. “Damn, I should have asked for forty suits.”

Oz’s hologram faded
out, and Ayan turned to Jake and asked; “Why ‘good luck?’”

“Oh, because I’m
hiring Agameg and Finn as co-Chiefs on my staff right now,” Jake
replied, making the crew changes on his command and control unit.
“They were mine in the beginning, and he can’t keep ‘em now.”

“Greedy,” Ayan
teased.

“Needy,” Jake
replied. “I’ll need them both working together to streamline
things on the ship.”

He finished making his
adjustments, then helped Ayan look through patrol reports and
encounter logs from the Iron Head nebula. The Blessed Mission was
with one of the carrier groups that escorted Eve’s Command Carrier
through the clearest part of the nebula. It broke off to assist with
patrols, and Jake was just starting to take a closer look at the
navigational data when he noticed that Ayan was just staring off into
space.

He lightly brushed her
cheek. She responded with a smile, but she looked worried.

“Hey, are you all
right?” Jake asked.

“Yeah, I just can’t
stop thinking like Freeground is still home,“ she said. “But
that’s an illusion, they’re transplanted memories. I’m still
technically from there, I was made with their equipment, Carl is my
father, but I didn’t have a childhood there. I replaced someone
they lost.”

“You’re more than a
replacement,” Jake told her quietly.

“I know,” Ayan
said. “And I can’t deny that seeing Freeground stranded pulls at
me, but can we really, should we really rush off to save them when
we’ve barely begun to build something here? What if it’s all gone
by the time we get back? Or if one of our ships doesn’t make it
back.”

“What if we find a
way to bring Freeground Alpha here?” Jake said. “What if we
already had access to the technology?”

“The Fallen Star,”
Ayan said. “They barely know how their faster than light system
works, we can’t trust it even though it’s faster than anything
we’ve ever seen. It probably killed everyone aboard that ship.”

“Probably,” Jake
countered. “We don’t know for sure, there are other experiments
in storage aboard that ship that no one has been able to investigate
yet. One of them could have activated because of the flash’s
radiation. Besides, there’s someone else who can understand
technology like their FTL prototype,” Jake said.

“I thought of
Lorander, more than once, weeks ago while you were still out. They’ll
never help us with the war against the Order. At best, they may
permanently deactivate something like that, so us kids don’t hurt
ourselves trying to figure it out.”

“What about a war
with Citadel?” Jake asked. “I think a planet on fire is enough of
a reason for another meeting with Lorander.”

“Okay, but you talk
to them this time,” Ayan said. “I’ve already heard their speech
about keeping advanced technology away from less advanced people four
times.”

“Sounds good,” Jake
said, his eyes widening as his back twitched. “I think it’s time
for a muscle relaxer.”

The Fallen Star’s
secure airlock door was cracked open by the Triton’s technical team
in large powered suits that were more like wearable tanks. The thick,
featureless plate door had slid in place the moment the ship lost
power, welding itself into place. It gave Finn the impression that
they were breaking into a forbidden space, like a tomb.

The team removed the
outer plate, revealing the normal outer airlock door. “All yours,”
the technical team leader announced.

He watched as a medical
technician, marked by his red uniform, pulled himself along the outer
hull and connected a power unit to the airlock. He punched in a code
and was inside in seconds. “Hold up, Ensign Rinett,” Stephanie
said.

“Sorry, I thought I’d
get inside and out of the way so you could dock with the Clever
Dream,” he said.

“All right, go
through the inner airlock, and hold there,’ she said.

The outer airlock doors
closed behind him, and Finn couldn’t help but notice that the
Medical Technician didn’t wait once he was inside. He disappeared
into the ship.

The Clever Dream docked
perfectly only a minute later, and the airlock matched its air
pressure to the ship quickly. The doors opened, revealing the dark
interior of the Fallen Star.

There was no power, no
light, and no gravity. Stephanie led the way, firing a thin
illuminated line at the opposite end of the hull then affixing it to
the inside of the airlock door jamb. “Okay, kids, just head on
through the airlock, grab the line and use it to slowly move towards
the main corridor. From there we’ll follow Remmy.”

“Can’t believe I’m
back in this ship again,” Remmy said as he followed Stephanie. As
they crossed the threshold between the Clever Dream’s round airlock
doors and the Fallen Star, they became nearly weightless in the
microgravity, drifting off the deck. “The first time I was here,
there were dead issyrians, people, frameworks getting fed on by some
kind of edxi bugs,” he sighed. “Now at least there are just some
dead scientists and a few crew. Speaking of scientists, where’s our
Med Tech?”

“Ensign Rinett, why
have you gone ahead to the vault door?” Stephanie asked over their
communications channel.

There was no answer.

“He’s checked into
our channel,” Liara said. “He can hear you.”

“Ensign Rinett,
reply. I will freeze your suit and you will not be able to move if
you do not reply.”

“Don’t worry,
Lieutenant Commander,” Ensign Rinett replied. “I’m just seeing
if I can get some power to the Vault door here, getting a head
start.”

“Stop what you’re
doing,” Stephanie ordered.

“All right, I’ll be
here waiting for you,” he replied.

“Okay, everyone in,
quick,” Stephanie said over her proximity channel so only Alaka,
Remmy, Liara and Finn could hear. “He’s up to something.”

Finn was next to go
through the airlock. He’d had a lot of experience in weightlessness
during repairs, and a little during college, so the transition was
easy. He drifted through the middle of the airlock without a problem.