Counterstrike (Black Fleet Trilogy, Book 3) (9 page)

“I really thought the Vruahn help would be a little more … helpful,” Jackson sighed as he sat down. “OPS, maintain stealth protocols for now. Any light or EM emissions are to be carefully controlled. Nav! Let’s set a course that takes us on a more direct flightpath down the hill. We can waste a lot of time searching the outer system and sneaking around, but we all know that larger Phage formations prefer to be close to a system’s primary star.”

“Course plotted, Captain,” Accari said. “I have a direct course and one that will swing the formation around the seventh planet for a grav assist without having to fire the mains for too long.”

“What’s the time differential between the two courses for crossing the orbit of the fourth planet?” Jackson studied the most recent diagram of the Zulu System.

“Approximately thirty-seven hours, sir,” Accari said.

Jackson squinted his eyes at the display and ran the pros and cons of each through his head.

“Option two it is, Specialist,” he said after half a moment’s contemplation. “Helm, come onto the new course and program your burn as directed by Navigation. Coms, make sure the rest of the squadron knows the plan … tight-beam laser coms, no order confirmation, and keep them stacked single file between us … standard intervals.”

“Aye, sir, sending the order now,” Keller said and began programming the short laser burst from the aft of the
Ares
that would disseminate Jackson’s orders to the other four ships in the formation.

“Helm answering new course, Captain,” the helmsman said. “Seventeen percent burn on the mains for nine hours.”

“Acknowledged,” Jackson said. “Let’s look alive! We have a long flight down the well, but make no mistake: we are now on the hunt. Tactical and OPS, I want six-hour rotations at your stations to keep fresh eyes on the passive arrays. We can’t fully trust the Vruahn equipment just yet, so we will rely on our own eyes and ears and verify with the help of the two monitor teams.”

“Aye aye, sir,” Hayashi and Barrett said almost simultaneously.

“XO … make sure that they’re rotating out.” Jackson didn’t bother to lower his voice to make sure Barrett heard him loud and clear. “You’re authorized to man the OPS station for a rotation if any departments are short-staffed from propping up the monitoring crews in the hold.”

“Yes, sir,” Davis nodded.

The mission proceeded at a nice, boring clip for the majority of the flight. The
Ares
maintained the lead position in the formation the entire time and her passive sensors were unable to detect any of the Phage that the Vruahn equipment insisted were there. By the time the destroyer was swinging around a dull, brown/gray gas giant for their one and only gravity assist Jackson had become concerned that either the Vruahn gear was faulty or his own was, since they’d routinely been able to pick up Phage ships at a greater range with just the optical and thermal sensors. He’d debated deploying the laser interferometer network each ship carried to try and detect the presence of any anomalous masses large enough to be an Alpha, but the network broadcast on standard radio frequencies and would announce their presence like a carnival barker while they tried to sneak down into the system.

Just as he was coming back on the bridge prior to First Watch officially starting, an odd flicker, almost like interference, ran through the main display. He frowned and watched the enormous screen as a few more pixilated lines ran through. Before he could ask the Second Watch OPS officer if they were having trouble with the system, strange and alien icons began appearing all over the tactical overlay.

“Sir! I’ve lost control of our sensors!” the officer at Tactical cried shrilly. “Active array is coming online!”

“Shut it down!” Jackson roared, dropping his coffee mug and lunging for the station.

“It won’t respond!”

“Captain! The helm is no longer answering commands! We’re changing course and—”

“Engines are running up to full output!”

“Everyone quiet!” Jackson shouted. “Who has control of their equipment?”

“Coms is still fully operational, sir,” Keller said as he relieved his Second Watch counterpart.

“Find out if the other ships are experiencing a similar failure and do it quickly,” Jackson said. “No point trying to maintain radio silence at this point.”

“What do these symbols mean?” Davis pointed at the strange symbols that were still dancing across the screen.

“I have no idea,” Jackson said. “If we’ve picked up some malicious software it would at least help if it was in Standard.” He stared in shock, mouth hanging open, as the symbols quickly rearranged themselves into Standard with Fleet-familiar iconography.

“Sir?” Davis almost whispered.

“Captain, all other ships report no unusual malfunctions,” Keller said. “Captain Wright wants to know if you want the rest of the formation to break stealth protocols and follow the
Ares
.”

“No,” Jackson said. “They’re to maintain speed and course. We’ll call if we need them, but for now they’re to remain hidden.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Captain, these target brackets, along with our new course, are indicating there are three Alphas on the far edge of the system,” Barrett stood next to Jackson and Davis while the lieutenant sitting at Tactical tried futilely to reassert control over his systems. “We’re on an intercept course and the targeting data is being updated in real-time.”

“That’s impossible, Lieutenant,” Jackson scoffed. “Our radar can’t reach that far with that degree of accuracy in less than ten minutes.”

“I know that, sir,” Barrett said. “But
Ares
thinks there’s something there and we’re flying right at it.”

“Okay! Enough of the fun,” Jackson said. “Everyone get a hold of your backshops and get this ship back under control. You have five minutes.”

Five minutes came and went and the only answer from the ship was to ignore the crew’s every effort, run the engines up beyond accepted full power, and bring the weapons online. Jackson held his tongue as his crew frantically talked back and forth with their respective backshops trying to figure out how a dozen independent systems were all acting in an autonomous, coordinated fashion. It was a scenario that should have been impossible and was, in fact, a built-in design feature to prevent sabotaged or defective software from compromising the entire ship.

“Sir, I’m picking up some faint returns on the radar,” Barrett said. “They’re consistent with what’s being displayed up on the main. We could actually be looking at three Alphas.”

“Fuck,” Jackson tried to mutter under his breath. “Start building track profiles; let me know if they’re reliable returns and if they’re reacting to our mad rush.”

“Aye, sir,” Barrett said, his brow already glistening with a sheen of sweat.

It was another hour of teeth-grinding tension when Jackson began to feel the onset of genuine fear. He was no idiot. He knew the Vruahn machinery he’d willingly brought aboard his ship had now exerted control over it in a way that apparently his crew couldn’t understand or reverse. There were some extreme options available to him, but he had a lot of open space ahead of him and he’d rather give his crew the extra time to come through and salvage the mission before he intentionally began dismantling his ship.

“Tracks confirmed, Captain,” Barrett spoke up, his voice tight. “Three Alphas and at least eleven Bravos, all turning toward us and arraying themselves into what appears to be a loose picket.”

“They’re going to let us come to them,” Jackson said over Barrett’s shoulder. “They’re well aware of our limitations with RF-based detection systems. They may think we don’t see them yet.”

“I’ll keep tracking them, sir,” Barrett said.

“Coms! Send a general call out to the rest of the squadron,” Jackson ordered. “Tell them I want all active sensors at full power and to begin accelerating at flank to our current position.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Tactical, let me know the moment there’s a change from the Alphas sitting down there.” Jackson sat back in his seat, forcing himself not to fidget in front of his already stressed crew.

The rest of the squadron blossoming into existence on multiple bands had the desired effect. Three Alphas had enough brain power between them to know that five Terran destroyers would be more than a match for them. Almost immediately they wheeled on the display and began pushing for the outer edge of the system, unsurprisingly near the Zulu jump point.

“Sir, the helm is correcting course to pursue and Engineering reports that the fuel lines to the auxiliary boosters are priming,” Davis said.

“Lieutenant Davis, call Commander Singh and tell him to shut her down,” Jackson sighed. “I want both reactors spooled down and the generators physically decoupled from Main Bus A and B.”

“Captain—”

“I’m well aware of the risks, Lieutenant,” Jackson cut her off. “We have no choice.”

“Yes, sir.”

The
Ares
’ main propulsion and directional thrusters were all electrically fired. Prodigious amounts of current were routed from the main reactors and their associated generators to turn inert argon into a high-energy plasma that could then be directed out of magnetically constricted nozzles, another system that required enormous amounts of electrical power. The powerplant aboard the
Ares
would have been capable of powering at least half of mid-nineteenth century United States with a little bit of juice to spare, well over half a million kilowatts of sustained output, and without it they were reduced to their emergency backup systems, an array of chemical rocket motors and compressed gas jets that were not all that effective now that the ship was roaring down towards the primary star after accelerating at full power for hours.

Jackson was painfully aware that it had been wildly irresponsible to not cut the power when the backups would have had a chance to work or the other ships would have been able to render assistance, but playing the odds was part of the job. It was just too bad that this time he had lost.

“Stand by for main power shutdown,” Davis called out while still talking into her headset. A moment later, Jackson could see their acceleration taper off as Singh vented the plasma from the main engines just before he disengaged the load contactors. These were manual devices, massive electrical conductors mounted to hydraulic rams, and he hoped whatever had taken control of the
Ares
wasn’t able to somehow manipulate them and restore power.

“Coms are up on emergency backup power, Captain,” Keller reported.

“Emergency attitude control is functional,” the helmsman said.

“Tactical?” Jackson asked.

“No active sensors,” Barrett said. “Backup fuel cells will take a few minutes to build enough power to bring the array back up.”

“Monitor teams in the hold are reporting that both Vruahn devices have gone dark,” Davis said.

“Tell them I’m on my way down there.” Jackson stood up. “Do not restore main power until I give the word.”

“Of course, sir,” she said.

With main power being offline the lifts were disabled in order to keep more essential systems like life support and gravity running, so Jackson was forced to run down a series of steep ladders to get down off the command deck and into an access tube so he could sprint for the main cargo hold.

In the dim lighting he could see the frightened faces of his crew, most having nothing to do while the power was disabled. He rushed into the cargo hold and saw both monitor crews walking around both of the huge obsidian cubes that had been delivered to New Sierra by the Vruahn and loaded aboard the
Ares
per their instructions.

“Everyone out!” he ordered without preamble as he ran up to the startled crews. “Out! And close the hatch behind you.”

“You heard the captain,” a specialist third class said. “Let’s move.”

Once the hatch clanged shut Jackson walked around the smaller of the two cubes, the one with the single display embedded in the side, trying to gather his thoughts.

“This is the captain of this vessel,” he said finally, feeling more than a little foolish. “I know you can hear and understand me … just like you did on the bridge. Why did you take control of my ship?”

All that answered him was silence and he began to question his initial instincts about what happened.

“Are you in contact with the Vruahn who created you? With Setsi? Am I able to talk to them through you?”

Silence.

“Last chance,” he said with an exaggerated shrug. “Either we talk about what happened, about what happens next, or I will order my crew to jettison you and have another ship in my squadron hit you with a two-hundred megaton nuclear missile. Anything to say to that?”

“Was I not performing the function I was sent here for?” a voice seemed to emanate from everywhere in the hold and sounded eerily similar to Setsi’s own voice.

“That’s better,” Jackson said. “We’ll begin with a few more questions before I answer any of yours. Are you an intelligence housed within this container? If so, why did you not make yourself known to my crew before now?”

“Yes. My processing matrix is entirely housed within the structure you are standing in front of. My task is very specific: assist a Terran vessel in the subduing and capture of a specific alien construct, referred to as a Phage Alpha by you. I was unaware direct communication was required to perform this task.”