Counterstrike (Black Fleet Trilogy, Book 3) (10 page)

“Who authorized you to assume control of this vessel?” Jackson asked.

“The detection systems of this vessel are inadequate for proper targeting and deployment of weapons at ranges over five hundred thousand kilometers,” the cube said.

“That doesn’t answer the question. Who authorized you to assume control of my ship?” Jackson said firmly.

“The assumption was that authority was granted when an agreement was made with a Vruahn representative to the human species. Is that incorrect?”

“It is,” Jackson said. “You are here to assist us. Not grab the helm and take us for a ride without warning. In this instance you are subordinate to me.”

“This is not an optimal configuration,” the cube said after a moment of hesitation. “This decreased the odds of a successful mission outcome by an order of magnitude.”

“I think we might surprise you.” Jackson flexed his shoulders to relive the tension that had been building there. “Are you willing to accept new mission parameters so long as they don’t conflict with your primary task?”

“I am.”

“If there is a conflict, will you let me know here, now … before it becomes an issue?” Jackson asked. “Like in the middle of stalking a fucking Alpha?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” Jackson sighed. “See? We’re already becoming friends.” His joking was wildly out of character and more than a little inappropriate given the circumstances, but he couldn’t help it as relief flooded into him and replaced the dread he’d been feeling since he realized what had been influencing his ship. “Are you a sentient being?”

“That question has little bearing on my mission. I have the requisite abilities to fulfill my tasking,” the cube said.

“So then I don’t suppose you have a name?”

“I do not.”

“Very well,” Jackson smoothed out the front of his Fleet utilities. “To avoid any … confusion … you will report directly to whoever is in command on the bridge and
only
to that person. No direct communication with anyone else on the crew of this ship and no more unauthorized actions. You are cleared to use the ship’s intercom system to contact the bridge, but all else will need to be approved. Agreed?”

“Agreed with protest,” the cube said. “This is highly inefficient—”

“I heard you the first time,” Jackson said. “Normally I would agree, but these are hardly normal circumstances. Now, since we’re on speaking terms … what’s in the other cube?”

****

“Captain! What the hell is going on?” Daya Singh shouted over the din in Engineering when he saw Jackson walk in.

“There were some interface issues with the Vruahn equipment we took on,” Jackson shouted back. “Why is it so steamy in here?”

“One of the coolant jacket bypass lines blew,” Singh waved his arm back to where a group of spacers were pulling out a portable welder. “Reactor One. No big deal, it’s clean water.”

“You’re clear to bring main power back up.” Jackson shielded his eyes as the group of technicians began welding a prefab angle onto a pipe in preparation for repairing the coolant line. “Try to move it along quickly if you can.”

“I always do.” Singh was already walking over to another console and began issuing orders to run Reactor Two back up to full power and to reengage all the load contactors for the main power busses.

Jackson slipped out of Engineering so he wasn’t a distraction or in the way as his chief engineer brought everything back up after the emergency shutdown. He hustled back up the starboard access tube to the set of ladders that would take him all the way back up to the command deck. By the time he was walking up the corridor that led to the bridge he could feel the harsh thumps through the deck of load contactors being engaged for different areas and could feel his ears pop from the pressure change as the environmental systems came back online.

The bridge was still somewhat chaotic, but his people weren’t panicking and he could see that they were working together to maintain what control they could before main power came back completely.

“Both reactors are coming back up, Captain,” Davis said when she saw him. “Engineering is telling me it will be another thirty minutes after that before the turbines are fully reengaged and they can begin switching over to normal power modes.”

“Did they happen to say how long before we’ll have propulsion?” Jackson asked.

“From ninety minutes to two hours after Main Bus A is energized,” she apologized. “They had to vent the plasma chambers completely on both main engines before de-energizing the power MUX.”

“Understood,” Jackson nodded. “It is what it is. Let’s just make sure we’re ready on our end once power is available again. Nav! What’s our position?”

“We’re in a stable ballistic trajectory towards the inner system, Captain,” Accari said. “Without engines we’re being affected by the star’s gravity and we’ve been pulled off course by .013 degrees. No navigational hazards along our present course, and the nearest stellar body is two hundred and fifteen million kilometers and increasing.”

“Very good, Specialist,” Jackson nodded. “Keep tracking our position and let me know if anything changes. Coms! How long until the rest of the squadron rendezvous with us?”

“Just over six hours, sir,” Keller said. “Captain Wright has already ordered a braking maneuver so they don’t overshoot us if we don’t have engines available within the next few hours.”

“Tell Captain Wright I want the
Atlas
and the
Hyperion
to push ahead along the escape vector taken by the Phage,” Jackson said. “We’ll want as much early warning as we can get if they decide to come back.”

“Aye, sir.”

“OPS, make sure the two monitor teams are back on watch in the cargo hold and keeping close tabs on our guest,” Jackson said.

“Uh, yes, sir,” Hayashi said.

“Guest?” Davis asked quietly.

“I’ll fill you in on that in a bit,” Jackson said. “Apparently we got more than we bargained for from our new friends.”

“So in addition to the AI personality that inhabits the tracking cube, the Vruahn also sent a larger container full of specialized munitions that should help us get one of the big Alphas down and out.” Jackson remembered to look at the camera on his terminal and not the screen itself that showed the other four Ninth Squadron captains.

“Is there any sort of failsafe in case things get out of hand once we begin the actual capture attempt?” Captain Oliva Forrest asked. “Something that we can blow the Alpha with if we feel like we’re losing control over it?”

“Nothing from the Vruahn, but I’ve got my own chief engineer working on exactly that sort of device.” Jackson shook his head. “We’ll wire up a few high-yield warheads and put them in place to make sure we have a way to maintain ultimate control.”

“So what’s our next move?” Celesta Wright asked.

“Once the
Ares
is FMC we’ll redeploy into a staggered column and continue on to the Zulu jump point,” Jackson said. “I’m working with the Vruahn computer to develop what I hope will be an operational plan that will keep all five of our ships out of range of their plasma weapons while still accomplishing the mission.

“I decided to brief you like this since every time we use the main conference room the scuttlebutt on the ship spreads like wildfire, and it’s usually distressingly accurate. Please brief your individual crewmembers that will ever be put in a position of commanding your respective vessels. I’m having my XO set up an encrypted data stream through the Link that will allow you access to everything I see and hear from the Vruahn cube. Are there any questions?”

“Not enough information to have any questions,” Forrest quipped quietly. She and Jackson had been engaged in a long-running cold war that went all the way back to when he’d first assumed command of the
Blue Jacket
. He narrowed his eyes slightly, but let the comment go.

“That’s all I have,” he said slowly. “I’ll give you one final update before we transition out and then it’ll be com silence protocols again once we arrive in the Zulu System, at least until I get a feel for the local space. Any questions or requests you have will need to be addressed before we depart. Dismissed.”

“I see Captain Forrest is still as pleasant as ever,” Davis said once the terminal confirmed it was disconnected.

“I think it’s almost done out of habit now,” Jackson said. “She does have a point though. I’m not giving them much information to work with right now.”

“Is there a particular reason for that, sir?” she asked, moving unnecessarily close to him to grab the auxiliary microphone she’d hooked up for the video conference.

“I want the time we have left before the transition to get a better feel for whatever the hell that thing is in my hold,” he said as two sets of ingrained instincts fought each other over what reaction he should have to her proximity, one as a commanding officer and the other as a male that was too close to a beautiful woman. “I also don’t want a lot of second-guessing or arguing when they get their assignments. I’m not fighting this battle by committee.”

“Understood,” she said, finally, mercifully, moving away and back around the desk. “We should be getting close to firing the mains.”

“Hopefully.” Jackson stood and smoothed out his utility top. “Go ahead and relieve Hayashi on the bridge. I’ll be up shortly.”

“Yes, sir.”

****

“Magnetic constrictors are at full power,” Ensign Hayashi reported from the OPS station. “Fields are stable. Engineering is asking for the go ahead to prime the injectors and start generating plasma.”

“Tell Engineering to go ahead.” Jackson sat in his seat. “They’re clear to do whatever Commander Singh feels is necessary to get this ship underway without asking for specific permission.”

“Aye, sir. I’ll let them know.”

It was only another thirty minutes before Jackson could see the plasma chambers on both main engines go hot, and the temperature and pressure began to rapidly climb into operational levels. He checked the status of his ship’s navigation systems, including the attitude jets and thrusters, while his crew continued to get the destroyer ready to fly and fight after the power cutoff.

“Helm, you are clear to stabilize our flight with thrusters only,” he ordered. “Nav! I want a heading that puts us back on course for the Zulu jump point.”

“Sending new course to the helm now, sir,” the petty officer at Nav said. Jackson had never seen her on the bridge before and idly wondered where Specialist Accari was. He checked her course and saw that it was a decent compromise between trying to make up lost time and not having to run the engines too hot just after a cold start.

“OPS, confirm with Engineering that we’re cleared for normal flight,” he said.

“Engineering has turned over control of the engines to the helm,” Ensign Hayashi said. “They’ve cleared us for normal flight mode.”

“Very good.” Jackson spoke up, “Let’s get this mission back on track. Helm, engage along your new course, all ahead two-thirds.”

“All engines ahead two-thirds, aye.”

Jackson grimaced as the loud bangs and pops of the engines smoothing out jolted the deck. The
Ares
was significantly lighter than his old ship, the
Blue Jacket
, and relied much more on exotic materials and clever structural engineering to keep her straight while the stresses of interstellar flight were imparted on her hull. When the mains were brought back up from a cold start all the little burps of the plasma feed smoothing out were felt much more starkly in the lighter ship and always gave Jackson the irrational impression that Tsuyo had sent him out to fight the Phage in a beer can. One could say what they wanted about the low-tech approach to starship construction of a century ago, but they couldn’t deny that the
Blue Jacket
had taken a horrific beating at the hands of a Phage Alpha and kept coming back for more. The
Ares
had never really been tested in the same way and as such Jackson just couldn’t put the same faith in the new
Starwolf
-class that he did in his old command.

“Engine output has stabilized, Captain,” Hayashi said after another twenty minutes of powered flight. “ETA to our transition acceleration point is now … thirty-one hours, eighteen minutes.”

“Thank you, Ensign,” Jackson stood up. “Lieutenant Davis, you have the bridge for the remainder of the watch. Split the duty roster up so that First Watch is back on when we’re approaching the jump point. Everyone stay sharp, there is no reason to assume that those three Alphas won’t return, nor are we guaranteed that they were the only enemy forces in this system.”

“Understood, sir,” Davis said to Jackson’s departing back.

****

“Another bust. They’re getting better at hiding.”

“It would appear so.”

“Okay,” Colonel Robert Blake exhaled in one explosive breath. “Report to the rest of the group that grid tango-one-six is clear of any trace of the enemy. Not even as much as an abandoned nesting site or any remnants of a digestive viscid patch.”

“Message sent along with all scan data,” the computer said.

This was the fourth suspected star system that Blake had searched and so far he hadn’t turned up anything. Not even a far ranging patrol or small exploratory construct. He was quickly becoming concerned. Relatively speaking, the section of space they were searching was quite small. There should have been
some
evidence of the Phage in the outlying systems if they were truly getting close to the core mind.

He slammed his palm into the armrest of his seat and began programming in their next waypoint, not bothering to tell the computer he was ready to depart the system. There were six more systems to search on his board while the other seventeen ships of his group also searched multiple systems.

The procedure had been pretty straightforward and Blake had had high hopes of an early success. His ship would hop into a system, wait and listen for any evidence of the carrier signal the Phage used to employ their networked consciousness, and then investigate further if it was detected to see if it was the system they were looking for.

After the first two goose eggs he altered his mission profile and began flying down further into the system, taking active scans of planets, moons, or asteroids that would have been of interest to any Phage force passing through or trying to establish a node. When he found no signs the enemy had ever been in any of those systems he began to fear that the Vruahn liaisons had been mistaken when they told him that the core had been detected in this region of space.

“How many hops to the next objective?”

“Three hops will be required in order to maintain prescribed low-observability protocols,” the computer said.

“Proceed.” Blake leaned back and rubbed his eyes. “Stop just before the final hop into the next system and alert me. I’ll be down in the galley.”

“Acknowledged.”

Blake climbed awkwardly out of the low-slung seat and walked stiffly off the flight deck. He had been taking short naps in the pilot’s seat since setting out from New Sierra, fully confident that he’d be the one to quickly locate the target. He’d carefully pored over the intelligence report his ship had received from the Vruahn and intentionally picked his search location based on the higher likelihood of the core mind location. Not only had he not found the target, he’d not even located the slightest bit of evidence the Phage were even in this region of space, while over half his group had been reporting positive contact with enemy combat units before slinking back out of the system after determining the core mind wasn’t there.

The simple logistics of supporting something as vital as the core mind had to be immense, or so Blake assumed. He’d seen the Phage bring in overwhelming force just to protect one of their production facilities, something that could be recreated within a matter of weeks, so he could not conceive of them leaving the most important single construct of their species without enough defensive firepower to handle anyone they’d pissed off within a two hundred lightyear radius. The fact that he was seeing no sign that they were around told him that they’d been given bad information.

As he sat and mechanically chewed on the grayish lump of whatever the food dispenser had spit out, his thoughts greatly disturbed him. For the first time since waking up after going into hibernation on the
Carl Sagan
he was beginning to have doubts about the Vruahn. Doubts about their honesty and doubts about their true intentions.

He’d observed Jackson Wolfe closely before and after he had gone aboard the cruiser to talk with Setsi. When the starship captain had returned Blake couldn’t help but notice how … off … he was, almost angry, despite having successfully negotiated some measure of aid from the reluctant, near-pacifist species.

The more he idly reflected on Wolfe’s strange, or at least unexpected, reactions, the more he found that what he was really doing was reexamining his own humanity. Where did he fit in? Humans had kept evolving societally for hundreds of years while he and his crew were dead and then later working for the Vruahn. What struck him as especially strange was that he had worked for the better part of a century for the Vruahn, had maintained his own sense of culture and self, but until recently he’d never felt any real desire to return back to his own people. Now that he had been back among large groups of humans and had breathed in the air of Earth he was overcome with an almost uncontrollable need to be back as soon as possible.

With thoughts of what building a life back on Earth could possibly be like once he’d completed this last and easily his most ambitious mission, Colonel Blake trudged back to his quarters. Although exhausted both physically and mentally, sleep did not come easily for him as strange, conflicting visions swam through his consciousness.