Counterstrike (Black Fleet Trilogy, Book 3) (22 page)

Marcum had first suspected that Jackson had simply not come along on the trip and had turned the ship over to Jillian Davis, a decently talented young officer but certainly not someone he wanted in command of one of his most capable ships in a pitched battle. But then he’d remembered that the
Icarus
, captained by Wolfe acolyte Celesta Wright, had turned back with mechanical trouble and his blood ran cold. Could the man really be so brazen?

“Scans coming in, Admiral,” the ensign at one of the support stations said.

“Send it over there,” Marcum pointed to one of the generic, configurable stations that dotted the
Amsterdam
’s expansive bridge. He rushed over and allowed the biometric scanner to validate his credentials and log him in just in time for the only slightly blurry images of the Ninth to come scrolling across. As expected there were three ships, all gleaming white and flying in a trailing column towards their next jump point. The images were far too grainy due to the distance and quality of the imager used for him to actually make out the names of the ships painted in two-meter-tall letters along both sides of their prows, but after a few more minutes one detail did stand out and hit him like a punch to the gut.

“Fucking Wolfe!” he roared, slamming his fist down onto the console.

“Admiral?” the concerned officer of the watch hustled over to where Marcum still sat.

“Commander, what do you see in this image?” Marcum stood up.

“Three ships,” the commander squinted at the monitor. “
Starwolf
-class … is this the Ninth?”

“It is,” Marcum nodded. “Notice how pristine the lead ship is?”

“I do, Admiral,” the commander frowned. “The
Ares
, I would assume. I’m afraid I still don’t see the problem. There doesn’t appear to even be a scratch on the hull finish.”

“Very good, Commander,” Marcum said. “Except that the
Ares
has had one of her main engines replaced and never went back into dock to have it, or the pylons, coated before we departed. That ship should have at least one bare main engine.”

“I don’t—”

“That ship isn’t the
Ares
. You’re looking at the
Icarus
flying the transponder codes from the other ship,” Marcum sighed. “Call up Captain Epson and have him find me. Also, send a message to the ‘
Ares
’ and tell Captain Wright she is to fall out of formation and rendezvous with the
Amsterdam
immediately
.
”

“Aye aye, Admiral.” The commander retreated, appearing more than happy to escape to a safe distance when Marcum was in a barely contained rage.

****

“I expect this sort of idiotic bullshit from him! But what the fuck is your excuse,
Captain?”
Marcum was barely in control of himself as he gripped the table. Spittle flew from his mouth as he screamed and raved while Celesta, restrained and anchored to the chair across from him in the
Amsterdam
’s brig, sat impassively, almost serene, which only served to piss off Marcum all the more.

“I offer no excuse, Admiral,” Celesta said.

“Captain, you are in serious trouble here.” Marcum forced himself to calm down. “I’m not sure you appreciate just what you could be facing depending on how I feel this initial questioning goes.”

“I actually do, Admiral,” Celesta said. “I’m doing what I feel I must. I think we’re on the wrong course and that we’re about to throw away a lot of lives needlessly. Captain Wolfe and Colonel Blake put together a compelling case and the absence of their ships will not turn the tide of battle one way or another.”

“You can’t possibly know that!” Marcum slapped the table. “The Battle of Nuovo Patria—”

“Admiral! I am not some wide-eyed Academy cadet that you’re giving a pep talk to,” Celesta fired back. “Do not treat me like a fool. The Battle of Nuovo Patria was a fluke and you know it. That Phage swarm could have taken out every Terran ship at any time, but that wasn’t their goal. They were running a diversionary operation while they destroyed our capital along with some sort of game they were playing with Captain Wolfe. Even then it would have been a resounding defeat had Colonel Blake not shown up when he did.”

“So we should just give up?” Marcum spat at her, frustrated because she was right.

“Absolutely not,” Celesta said firmly. “I agree with you that we need an offensive response. But I also see the logic in allowing a small expeditionary force to verify the other target just in case.”

“Just in case?” Marcum frowned. “Captain … Celesta, level with me here. What exactly are you doing out here? If you truly believed that this was a no-win waste of ships and people, why not just take the entire Ninth off the table and at least have those ships available in case we do fail?”

Celesta looked conflicted, looking at the admiral long and hard before continuing.

“I had my own mission,” she said finally. “I was going to take out as much of the swarm as I could before the main fleet arrived.”

“With one ship—”

“I have the communication node from the Super Alpha aboard the
Icarus
,” she explained. “I also have half of the remaining gravity bombs that the Vruahn gave to Captain Wolfe. My intention was to skip the last staging stop, sneak into the system with the piece of the Phage we killed in the Zulu System, and deploy all of those charges as far down into the system as I could, ideally taking out as many of their heavy units as possible.”

Marcum was speechless as she explained her plan to him. He could only gape at her in open-mouthed horror once she’d finished.

“The odds of coming away from that mission alive are quite long,” he finally said quietly.

“I have faith that Captain Wolfe is not only correct, but that he will succeed,” she said. “My only hope was to save as many ships and lives as possible in the coming battle. We have no idea what will happen when the core mind is destroyed, so it’s entirely possible that a battle with this swarm is inevitable. If so, the
Icarus
wasn’t going to survive anyway; the numbers just aren’t on our side even if every missile, every shot took out a Phage ship.”

“At least Wolfe was smart enough to pass on the Alpha fragment and the Vruahn munitions before bolting,” Marcum said to the ceiling, rubbing at his temples with the palms of both hands. “So … who else is going along with him? The
Ares
can’t make the trip alone.”

“Colonel Blake’s ship and a CIS
Broadhead
are flying escort,” she said after another moment’s hesitation.

“That fucking Pike,” Marcum almost snarled. “I’d have his ass tossed into the darkest hole I could find if I thought he wouldn’t just escape.”

A slight smile flashed across Celesta’s face as she continued to sit calmly, allowing the admiral to come to the obvious conclusion on his own.

“I can’t let this go unpunished, Captain Wright,” he said with a sigh. “Wolfe has a long history of insubordinate behavior and now it seems he’s passing that legacy on. It has to stop. Now. Rogue captains disappearing with starships over gut feelings and others deciding a Kamikaze-style mission is better than following orders is not good for Starfleet.”

“I understand, sir,” she said. “I also agree with you.”

“Don’t patronize me,” Marcum sneered. “You know as well as I do that I can’t afford to have the
Icarus
out of commission and there isn’t anyone else qualified to take your place right now. My hands are tied … you’ll be going back to your ship along with an observer, but I think we both know that should we make it out of this alive your days in Starfleet are over.”

“A sacrifice I’m ready to make, Admiral,” Celesta nodded, her voice catching. “I want you to know that this isn’t a reflection on you, sir. I have the utmost respect for you and wish that things had worked out differently.”

“But your first loyalty is to Wolfe,” Marcum nodded.

“No, sir,” she shook her head. “Had he not convinced me with the evidence he had I would have come straight to you. Blindly following orders will never be something I’m able to do, and I will accept the consequences of my actions regardless of outcome. I know that you’ll have no choice but to replace me if we ever return to Terran space.”

“I wish I had ten more like you, Captain,” Marcum sighed before banging on the hatch behind him. “Marine! Release the prisoner from her restraints and escort her back to her shuttle.”

“We’re going through expendables at a lot lower rate than I’d anticipated,” Singh said as he and Jackson walked through the cargo hold. Once they’d hatched their plan to more or less steal the destroyer they'd loaded her up with as much extra equipment and expendables as they could, even some items to make sure the
Broadhead
would be able to make the extended journey.

“I hadn’t realized that Colonel Blake would be able to replenish the
Ares
from his ship when we originally drew up the manifest,” Jackson said. “He’s pumped over water and air at every stop so far so we’ve not had to dip into the reserves.”

“At this rate we’ll have enough to get there, operate for a few weeks, and even make the flight back home,” Singh said as he worked the numbers on his tile. Jackson gave him an odd look but said nothing. “I do wish that you’d not given so many of the advanced Vruahn munitions to Celesta before we left.”

“We still have fifteen charges,” Jackson said. “If we need more than that we’re already screwed. She’s in a position to use them in a more meaningful way … assuming she isn’t discovered before they actually get there.”

“I cannot even fathom how Admiral Marcum will react when he finds out,” Singh said. “That transponder trick won’t fool him long.”

“I know,” Jackson sighed.

“Regrets, Captain?”

“I do wish we were flying this mission with his blessing,” Jackson said. “I don’t like having to do it this way.”

“But you know that you’re right and he’s wrong.” Singh’s voice didn’t hold any sarcasm, so Jackson decided to not take the comment as a cheap shot.

“It’s not about egos and being right or wrong,” Jackson said. “It’s about taking every precaution possible in the face of an enemy that could wipe us out within a generation if it had a mind to.”

“You don’t have to sell me,” Singh said. “I’ll follow you to the end, Jack … you know that.”

“I do.”

The three ships of the small strike group were drifting in close formation deep in interstellar space. It was a planned stop just before they would make the last, short flight to just outside the suspected target system. So far the two Terran ships had performed admirably, with only the
Broadhead
giving them a little bit of trouble as the minor support systems were taxed on the long flight.

The
Ares
hummed along like she was built for extended voyages, so much so that Commander Singh began griping that he could have stayed back on New Sierra and saved himself the court martial since the ship apparently didn’t need him. Colonel Blake’s Vruahn warship, as expected, performed flawlessly and Lieutenant Commander Amiri Essa’s NOVA team was living in comparable luxury aboard the advanced vessel. Jackson had no idea what to expect when they arrived, so he had contacted the NOVA team commander right after Blake had come to him with his theory of the core mind’s actual location.

Essa and Jackson had developed a cordial relationship during a previous operation on the New Sierra Shipyards and had kept in touch in the years after. When Jackson had discovered the team was actually stationed on the facility during the buildup for Marcum’s campaign, he had approached the spec ops officer about taking a chance on an unauthorized mission into unknown space. Surprisingly, Essa had agreed almost immediately and went about sneaking his men, one at a time, into tenders and maintenance shuttles and ferried them over to Pike’s
Broadhead
to be transferred to Blake’s ship.

There were so many moving parts to the plan, any one of which could have easily broken down and landed them all in a Fleet brig, that Jackson could hardly believe that they were only one more warp flight from beginning the actual mission. Just positioning the force had been no mean feat, as it required the two Terran ships to fly at maximum warp velocity for weeks on end, stopping only long enough to replenish and do minor maintenance before transitioning out again, chasing Blake’s ship to the objective.

Jackson left Singh in Engineering and walked along back up the starboard access tube. He was alone, having shot down Major Ortiz’s request to assign a full-time guard to him, the mutiny attempt on the
Blue Jacket
still gnawing at the Marine officer. By the time he got back to the bridge second watch was coming on duty and would continue all the loose tasks left over from first watch that needed to be accomplished before the ship departed the area. Jackson milled around long enough to make sure all his bridge officers were actually going off duty. He resisted the urge to tell them to get themselves fed and into their racks; they didn’t need him to be their mother, and once Barrett walked off the bridge towards the lifts Jackson made his own way back to his quarters to try and at least get a few hours of rack time before the
Ares
made her final warp flight before potential enemy contact.

****

“Position confirmed, sir,” Specialist Accari said after the
Ares
shuddered back into real space. Like everyone else on the bridge, Accari was speaking at just over a whisper. Jackson would have laughed if he hadn’t caught himself doing the exact same thing, their hard-wired instincts causing them to react oddly so close to potential danger despite the illogical fear that they might somehow be overheard.

“Let’s just become a hole in space,” Jackson said. “Colonel Blake will find us and then we’ll wait for the
Broadhead
to make an appearance.”

“Pulsed LF-band transmission received,” Ensign Hayashi said a mere twenty minutes later. “Coms?”

“Stand by,” Keller held up a finger. “Encryption verified. Colonel Blake is sitting eight thousand kilometers dead ahead.”

“Send no response,” Jackson said unnecessarily. “Let’s just wait for Agent Pike and try to not even disturb the interstellar particles around us.”

They had to wait another three hours before the flash of a warp transition was picked up forty thousand kilometers off their starboard bow. The
Ares
may have been the faster of the two, but Jackson was stunned at how accurately the
Broadhead
had been able to navigate the uncharted space on their way to the system that was now just ahead of them. Even the warp flash from the
Broadhead
’s drive was muted, a testament to her engineering since the ship was over twenty years old.

“Colonel Blake has verified the
Broadhead
via passive sensors,” Keller said. “He’s asking for the go-ahead to begin the operation.”

“Send it,” Jackson leaned forward. “OPS, start the clock as soon as the pulse fires.” According to the Vruahn, the Phage didn’t closely monitor wavelengths over one thousand meters, a frequency the
Ares
’s com suite was able to produce with an extendable antenna. It was such a low cycle signal that it wasn’t suitable for large amounts of data, but for extremely low-power simple communications it was perfect. Colonel Blake had argued for the more traditional com laser, which was an ultraviolet device, but Jackson was worried that there might be an extensive passive detection grid across the entire system.

“Clock started,” Hayashi said.

“Passive sensors have lost Colonel Blake’s ship,” Barrett said. “She’s running silent, almost zero emissions.”

“Nothing on the accelerometers?” Jackson was surprised. The Vruahn ships utilized a reactionless drive that was similar to what the Phage used in that it distorted local space in order to propel the ship. Even though there weren’t byproducts of heat and light like the Terran ships produced, their gravity distortion was usually detectable by their passive sensors.

“Nothing for certain,” Barrett said. “He must be running at extremely low power.”

“As long as he gets where he needs to be by the correct time I guess the quieter the better,” Jackson said. “OPS, notify Engineering that we will be getting underway ourselves soon. Configure main engines to low-observability mode … that goes for attitude jets as well.”

“Aye, sir.” Hayashi slipped on his headset.

“Nav, let’s set our first waypoint,” Jackson said. “You know the drill, Specialist. Keep us hidden as much as possible. I want to stick to the big, open patches of sky so don’t worry about any gravity assists as we get going downhill.”

“Aye aye, sir,” Accari said, pulling up one of the plots he’d already been working on and tweaking it to match Jackson’s requests.

The moment the mission clock displayed 03:17:11.5 the main engines throttled up, the magnetic constrictors limiting the escaping plasma from the aft nozzles to a trickle. The destroyer slid ahead silently at a steady twelve G’s, a paltry acceleration compared to the massive bursts she was capable of at full power. But this steady acceleration down into the system would quickly build velocity, and by the time they passed into the inner system she would be carrying enough speed that Jackson felt comfortable he could maneuver her in combat should the system not be as deserted as it appeared.

The plan had been hammered out in broad strokes and, despite complaints from most of the other officers, he had kept it vague intentionally. They were going to be out of contact for most of the mission and he wanted Pike and Blake comfortable with making decisions as information became available instead of feeling the need to rigidly adhere to a plan that may no longer be valid. In a nutshell, Blake was to use his stealth and speed advantage to fly deeper into the system and scout out the area he felt the core mind was likely located. Pike would come down into the system and use his ship’s towed passive array to map out any anomalies along specific parts of the spectrum as he spiraled in, and the
Ares
, the toughest ship to hide, would glide in under minimal power.

The destroyer was the only ship that would be at specific waypoints at specific times as a sort of anchor for the other two smaller ships that were ranging out. The
Broadhead
was so small and had such a minimal energy signature Jackson hadn’t been overly worried about Pike being detected and the Vruahn warship’s unique powerplant meant that under low power modes she was virtually undetectable. The
Ares
, yet again, was the big question mark as Jackson had to decide if it was worth it to shut down one of his reactors in an attempt to mask his power signature.

In the end he decided to keep them both running. Bringing up even the newer generation fusion reactors from a cold start wasn’t something that was done quickly under the best of conditions, much less when under fire and sitting defenseless. The
Starwolf
-class designers at least addressed the exhaust of byproducts from the reactors by routing them through the main engines so that whenever a purge was required under normal conditions it would exit through the plasma nozzles and not as a bright thermal plume from a hull vent.

“Now … where are you hiding, you sneaky, evil bastard,” Jackson muttered under his breath as the
Ares
crawled into the suspect star system. Every hair was standing at attention on the back of his neck. He had already been convinced that Blake was onto something with the evidence he’d presented, but the feeling he was getting sitting right inside the heliopause … he felt,
knew
this was the right system.

****

“Helm! All ahead flank! Everything she’s got!”

“All engines at maximum output, aye!”

The
Icarus
thundered downhill towards the largest cluster of Phage ships, her active sensors singing and the stasis cube in the cargo hold providing telemetry to Celesta’s tactical officer. The Phage communications node had worked perfectly so far and she couldn’t help but feel her luck had to run out sometime.

They’d transitioned into the system and saw that it was still clogged with Phage ships, most unidentifiable. Coming in alone, they had flown a normal course all the way down through the outer system without so much as a second glance, metaphorically speaking, from any of the passing Phage. In fact, many of the lesser units had scrambled in an apparent panic to clear the way for what they must have believed to be a Super Alpha.

Celesta had come all the way to just inside the orbit of the fifth planet, and clear of most of the debris that made up the sparse asteroid belt, before she slipped her mask off. She’d ordered the full active sensor suite brought up right outside a large cluster of standard Alphas just after telling the cube to squelch their fake Phage-call. The response had been immediate, as most came about to face the Terran ship that had inexplicably appeared in their midst while a few broke for the inner system.

“Eleven Alphas, locked on!” her tactical officer called. “Shrikes are loaded and ready.”

“Fire!” Celesta jumped out of her seat, adrenaline coursing through her body. The
Icarus
might not make it out of the system … but what a way to die!

“All birds away! Tracking hot and clean!”

“Shut down the actives! Helm, zero thrust … stealth protocols in place,” Celesta ordered.

“Engines to idle, aye,” the helmswoman said. They’d crept in so close and fired their Alpha-killer Shrikes at such a close range the results were almost inevitable. The space in front of them erupted into a hellish nightmare of strobing, painful bursts of light as the powerful nukes hammered into the Alphas and began detonating. The
Icarus
was carrying so much velocity that she shot by the mayhem just as the last three missiles detonated.