Ep.#14 - "The Weak and the Innocent" (The Frontiers Saga) (28 page)

“That depends on what your intentions are, going forward,” Navarro replied.

“We simply wish to run our system in peace, and continue with our current business relationships with others in the Pentaurus sector,” Lord Ganna explained.

“And you have no dreams of expansion?” Navarro wondered, in obvious disbelief.

“I cannot speak for each and every lords’ personal desires, but as a collective, we have no imperial designs, I assure you.”

“You assure me?” The captain had to fight from laughing. “You brought me all the way to Haven to lie to me?”

“I am not lying to you, Lord Navarro, and it was your idea to meet on this desolate rock, not ours.”

“That part
is
true.”

“We were hoping you might pledge your loyalty to us,” Lord Ganna stated. “It would put a great many noble hearts at ease, not to mention the Takaran people as a whole.”

Captain Navarro leaned forward, his eyes narrowing as he looked into Lord Ganna’s eyes. “I have pledged my ship to Deliza Ta’Akar. Fortunately for you, she has no interest in reclaiming her family’s rightful title and holdings. Her only interest is in upholding her father’s promise of support to the Alliance.”

“I find that rather hard to believe.”

A small laugh escaped the captain’s lips. He leaned back and took a breath. “Believe me, Ganna, if Deliza Ta’Akar wanted you all dead, you would not be sitting here fouling the air and insulting my senses.”

“Really, Navarro…”

Captain Navarro suddenly leaned forward, startling Lord Ganna, his second, and his bodyguard standing under the canopy pretending to be a waiter. Both the second and third men moved their gun hands toward their jackets but stopped short. Lord Ganna glanced at his body guard as the man’s gun hand slowly lowered, this time flashing two fingers. He then turned to look at the captain once more.

Captain Navarro’s eyes squinted again, taking on a sinister quality, one seething with controlled rage. “If you wish peaceful coexistence, so be it. However, be warned. The eyes of the Avendahl…my eyes…shall be forever upon you. Should even one of your warships leave the Takaran system, I will consider it an act of aggression, and I will act accordingly. Furthermore, should your own forces grow beyond that which is reasonably necessary to defend Takara, I shall also consider that an act of aggression… One that shall
also
be met with deadly force.”

Lord Ganna did not budge and did not look away. He kept his eyes squarely focused on Lord Navarro’s as he spoke. “Are you sure it’s wise to make such overt threats, Lord Navarro?”

Suvan Navarro leaned back slowly, a confident smile forming at the corner of his mouth. “My dear Lord Ganna. I have the most powerful ship in the entire sector, with enough firepower to destroy your pitiful fleet several times over. The only thing that prevented me from doing so, nine days ago, was a promise I made to the most honorable man I have ever known. A man whose daughter the so-called nobles of Takara had murdered. A man who himself was murdered by the same nobles you choose to associate with.” The captain paused a moment, as he received a transmission in his hidden earpiece. His smile broadened. “Those are the terms of Deliza Ta’Akar, and they are not negotiable. Now, I suggest you and your friends depart while you still can. It seems my men have run out of targets on which to practice.”

Lord Ganna glanced over to his bodyguard. The man had a concerned look on his face and did not hold up any fingers. He looked at Suvan Navarro once more. “Good day to you, Lord Navarro,” he said hurriedly as he rose from his seat and rushed out of the cafe.

Captain Navarro leaned back in his seat, feeling quite pleased with himself.

A man dressed in local attire, with mussed hair and many days worth of whiskers on his cheeks strolled up to Captain Navarro. “You do have a way with words, Captain.”

Navarro smiled. “I have to admit, that was far more satisfying than I had anticipated.”

* * *

One of Gerard’s men burst through the front door, panting. “They are coming, from the north and west.”

“How long?” Gerard asked as he leapt from his seat at the table.

“Fifteen minutes at the most.”

“You and Marten head south. We will go east. They know not our number and I will blow this cabin after we depart. With any luck, they will follow only one of us. Now go and good luck to you.”

“Good luck to you as well,” the man replied as he turned and headed back out the door.

Naralena slowly rose from her seat, fear evident on her face. “We have to send a message to the Alliance, let them know what has happened. They might be able to help.”

“There is no time,” Gerard told her. “Besides, they likely do not know which cabin the transmission was coming from. If we send a message now, they will be upon us even more rapidly.”

“But you said you were going to blow up the cabin. Surely that will alert them as to which cabin the transmissions came from?”

“I meant that I will rig the cabin to blow when they enter,” Gerard explained. “If we are lucky, ours will not be the first cabin they search. Now quickly, gather your things and follow me. We must cross the meadow before they are within scanning range. We have only minutes at best!”

“But where will we go?” Naralena asked as she grabbed her jacket and her bag.

“We have other hideouts, other cabins.”

“Are they far?” Naralena asked as they headed for the exit.

“Yes, but they will get no closer until we start walking toward them.” Gerard grabbed Naralena’s hands pulling them up to his heart as he looked into her eyes. “Do not be afraid, Naralena. I will protect you.”

Naralena said nothing, only nodding and following him quickly out the door.

CHAPTER EIGHT

“We now have fifty Tannan technicians on board, as well as Kamenetskiy and his team,” Com
mander Ellison r
eported, as he studied his data pad in the poorly lit ready room on the Jar-Benakh.

“So, not including all the Ghatazhak, that gives us what, sixty-two?” Captain Roselle concluded.

“Sixty-three.”

“Hardly enough to run a five kilometer long battleship.”

“About a tenth of what we really need, not including flight operations personnel.”

“Yeah, well, I have a feeling about the only thing we’re going to be flying off our decks are shuttles,” the captain replied. “At least for the immediate future, that is.”

“That’s fine by me, sir,” the commander agreed. “The last thing we need are a couple hundred more roles to fill.”

“And fighter pilots, no less. Cocky fucking bunch.”

The main lighting suddenly flickered, panels popping to life one by one.

“
Captain,
” Vladimir called over the intercom, “
I’m happy to report that main power has been restored.
”

“No shit,” the captain muttered as he reached for his intercom control panel. “Nicely done, Lieutenant Commander. How are the engines looking?”

“
As best we can tell, propulsion was undamaged, sir. We should be able to get underway at any time. However, I would not advise using the FTL fields until we have had more time to evaluate those systems.
”

“How much time are we talking?”

“
Several days, at least,
” Vladimir warned.

“Very well. Get on it.”

“
Aye, Captain.
”

Roselle looked at his XO. “Them Tannan boys figure out how to fly this thing yet?”

“They already knew,” the commander replied. “Seems the Tannans that served on the Jar-Keurog kept pretty detailed records. Captain Scott insisted on keeping a copy on board the Aurora, just in case. Even had it updated several times a day.”

“Guess he isn’t as dumb as he looks,” Roselle commented. “Where are we in relation to Sol right now?”

“We’re on the opposite side of the Tau Ceti system from Sol, off to starboard a bit and a little low, relative.”

“And Kohara? She on our way to Sol?”

“Yes, sir. More or less. What did you have in mind, Gil?”

“Well, I figure Dumar is going to send us one of two places. Either back to Sol, or to the Cetian orbital shipyards, assuming he finally decides to take them by force. Both are on about the same line, so why don’t we turn this thing around and make way for Kohara for now.”

“Beats the hell out of coasting in the wrong direction,” the commander agreed.

“And make it nice and slow, Marty. No need to push the engines any harder than we have to. Not until the Cheng sounds a little more confident in his assessments of all these Jung systems.”

* * *

Captain Nash entered the hanger, making his way to the small stage along the wall. Once a bay that had housed s
everal Jung fighters, it had recently been converted into a training facility for the Tannan gunship crews. It was a little small for their needs, but it was one of the last remaining buildings on the old Jung airbase that wasn’t being used in support of gunship production.

He stepped up onto the stage and made his way to the podium, pausing to look out at the eighty faces staring back at him. These men and women were the most qualified volunteers that Tanna had to offer. Unfortunately, none of them had ever served in a military environment and none of them had ever been in space. Even worse, none of them were pilots. Most of their qualifications were based on basic assessment scores, experience with technology, and the fact that they spoke English…barely.

“Good morning,” Captain Nash began. “Welcome to your first day of training. I am Captain Robert Nash, and I will be in charge of your training. You will be learning to operate the new Cobra class fast-attack gunships currently being assembled here on this base. You will also be learning how to behave in military service, how to follow the orders of your commanding officer, and how to work as a team. Most importantly, you will be learning how to
fight
, using your new gunships.”

Captain Nash paused before continuing, scanning their faces for any signs of confusion. He knew that some of their English skills were sub-par, thus it was important for him to speak clearly and deliberately. “Your training will be divided into four categories. Military procedures and protocols, flight operations, weapons and systems, and battle tactics. While each of you will specialize in certain tasks, all of you will receive the same basic instruction. Everyone will learn to fly the gunships, everyone will learn to operate its weapons and systems, and everyone will learn battle tactics. The reason for this is simple… Redundancy.”

Captain Nash reached down and pressed a button on the control panel built into the podium. A massive view screen came to life behind and above him, on it, an exploded engineering plan of the Cobra Gunship.

“This is the Cobra class, fast-attack gunship,” he began. “They are based on the old scout class ships built on Earth more than twenty years ago. We chose this design because it is rugged, easy to build, and has decades of performance experience behind it. More importantly, all the engineering has already been worked out, and tested in battle, so there are no surprises awaiting us. All we needed to figure out was how to modify her to better suit her new mission profiles. Those profiles are to defend the Tannan system, to recon Jung controlled systems, to perform deep space detection patrols, and to conduct wolf-pack style attacks against larger ships.”

Captain Nash pressed the control button to change the image on the view screen. “The Cobra gunship will not be terribly fast, but she will be maneuverable. She will have a jump drive with a single-jump range of one light year, and will be able to jump repeatedly without recharging, giving her a theoretically unlimited jump range. In addition, her jump drive control systems will be more automated, allowing the use of preset jump distances, and automated series jumping, using a system of pre-determined way points. This will allow you to utilize the jump system more rapidly, since the jump navigation computer will only need to calculate the jump parameters necessary to get you to the nearest way point.”

Captain Nash paused for a moment, taking a drink of water to clear his throat. “The Cobra gunship will have advanced sensors of Takaran design, and will have an additional sensor module that can be swapped out according to mission profiles. She will be manned by a crew of six, whose positions shall be pilot, copilot, weapons systems, systems engineer, and two gunners. Her primary weapon will be four, independently powered, variable output, forward facing, mark three plasma torpedo cannons. At maximum output, these cannons can fire at a rate of once every ten seconds. At minimum output, they can fire once per second up to one hundred shots before reaching critical heat levels. The Cobra’s secondary weapons will be two, quad-barreled, mark two plasma cannon turrets. They will be mounted on either side amidships, and will be manually operated. They will be mounted in tunnels that allow the weapon to extend outward several meters, giving them overlapping fields of fire. In other words, a target would have to be pretty damned close to
not
be in their field of fire. And lastly, there are four, double-barreled, mark one plasma cannon turrets mounted on the main drive section, fore and aft, and port and starboard, on both the top and the bottom, for a total of eight turrets. These turrets are operated by the weapons systems officer on the action deck, and can be assigned to operate in zones as point-defense weapons.”

Captain Nash paused to take another breath before continuing. “In addition to all this firepower, the Cobra gunships are designed to use external hard-points to carry any number of external weapons systems, such as long and medium range intercept missiles, anti-ship missiles, and can even be used to deploy kinetic kill vehicles. In short, there is little that the Cobra Gunship will
not
be able to do. All
you
must do is learn how to operate her. Are there any questions?”

Captain Nash looked out across the room and sighed as a few dozen hands shot up.

* * *

After a quick dash across the meadow, Gerard and Naralena had been working their way up the rugged, steep terrain
for several hours. The pace had been frantic, but steady, but it was wearing heavily on both of them.

“I need to rest,” Naralena begged.

“We are almost to the top,” Gerard urged. “Just a few more minutes. Once we reach the summit, we will be better able to assess our situation. Perhaps then we can afford to slow our pace a bit.”

Naralena groaned but continued up the trail behind him, nonetheless. The trees had begun to thin out twenty minutes ago and now they were becoming even more sparse as the ground became more rocky near the summit.

As promised, they stopped a few minutes later. Naralena immediately found the nearest large boulder on which to sit and rest, while Gerard scanned the valley behind them with a small pair of electronic binoculars that he carried in his pack.

“We may have been lucky,” he said as he continued his scan. “It appears they have not yet reached our cabin. As I suspected, the Jung only knew the origin of the signal was somewhere around the lake.”

“Maybe we should find somewhere to hide?” Naralena suggested. “The Alliance must know what area we are in. Perhaps they will come and search for us?”

“To do so would invite even more Jung patrols, as it would only verify what they already suspect,” Gerard explained. “That is why your people did not simply send in an evac ship when contact was first made. They did not know the proximity of the Jung to our location. Based on the short amount of time it took for them to respond, we must assume that they have more men in this area than we anticipated.”

“Couldn’t they have just flown in recently?” Naralena wondered.

“The Alliance managed to clear the skies of Jung ships prior to their withdrawal. I do not believe they have any ships left, at least not in this area.”

“What are we going to do, then?”

“We will make our way down the far side. There is a resort a few hours walk from here. Many of their guests are people such as us.”

“People running from the Jung?” Naralena wondered, finding it difficult to believe.

Gerard smiled. “Couples hiking the long trails between lakes. It is a common type of vacation this time of year, to hike from resort to resort. It is good exercise…cleanses the soul.”

“I think I’ve had enough exercise for one day,” she commented.

“We should be going,” Gerard said. “It will be dark in a few hours.”

“What about your men?” Naralena wondered as she reluctantly rose to her feet again.

“They know what to do. If we were able to get away, so should they… I hope.”

* * *

“It doesn’t look any different than a standard Falcon’s console,” Josh commented as he looked around the cockpit. H
e turned and looked at Deliza. “Are you sure it’s a ‘Super Falcon’ and not just a regular old ‘Falcon’? I heard they’re easily confused.”

“Are you going to take this seriously?” Deliza scolded, “or should I ask Loki to be my test pilot?”

“I’m just asking.”

“It looks the same because we haven’t changed anything…yet. We’re waiting until after the prototype has flown and the admiral approves.”

“Then, why am I here?”

“We’ve programmed the simulator with the Super Falcon’s performance specifications. It should give us a good idea of how it handles.”

“I’ve flown Falcons plenty,” Josh argued, “I
know
how they fly.”

“Super Falcons are different,” Deliza insisted. “We don’t want you to crash our only prototype, now do we?” she added as she stepped back down the access ladder and signaled the technician to close the simulator hood.

“Crash? Not a chance, princess,” he scoffed as the sim hood came down over the Falcon’s cockpit.

“Don’t call me princess,” she warned him through the crack as the hood closed and locked.

“Alright then,” Josh said as he adjusted his comm-set. “I just love how roomy it is in here when you’re not wearing a pressure suit. Hey, when you redesign the cockpit, can we make it a little roomier? That would be great.”

“
You’ve already got the roomiest cockpit of any fighter,
” Deliza replied over his comm-set. “
In fact, you’re going to have less space, as we’re going to change it to a traditional cockpit instead of tandem.
”

“What? It’s already cramped,” Josh objected.

“
Don’t worry, you won’t be wearing a pressure suit.
”

“You mean I gotta rub elbows with Loki for twelve hours? You know how bad that guy smells by the end of a long mission?”

“
I heard that,
” Loki said.

“Loki! Hey! Glad you could make it!”

“
Uh huh.
”

“Why aren’t you in here with me, Lok?” Josh wondered.

“
They needed someone to run the sim. I’ll do my tasks from here just like I was in the cockpit with you.
”

“But it feels so lonely in here without you,” Josh joked. “Seriously, though. Tandem is better for long missions.”

“
If we keep it tandem, then there won’t be enough room for a cabin,
” Deliza told him.

“A cabin? We get a cabin?”

“
With standing head room, no less,
” Deliza added.

“What?” Josh pretended not to hear her, tapping his comm-set mic. “Did you say you want me to stand on my head?” he tapped the mic again. “I’m not sure this thing is working. Maybe we’d better abort?”

“
Powering up your systems,
” Loki announced as Josh’s console came to life. “
We’ll start you off already in space.
”

“I thought they weren’t changing anything about the space systems?”

“
Your ship’s center of gravity will be different without the atmospheric drives and the lift fans,
” Deliza explained.

“You’re yanking our lift fans?” Josh exclaimed in disbelief. “How the hell are we supposed land?”

“
You’ve heard of runways?
” Loki asked, his tone dripping with sarcasm.

“You ever land on a runway?” Josh retorted.

“
Plenty of times.
”

“Recently?”

“
Well, not recently, but I made a few hundred of them in basic flight.
”

“Congratulations, you are the new Super Falcon test pilot,” Josh announced.

“
I thought your nickname was Hotdog?
” Deliza said.

“Hotdog is my handle, princess, not my nickname…but, point taken.”

“
You ready, Hotdog?
” Loki asked.

“Let her rip, Stretch,” Josh said as he put his hands on the flight controls.

The simulator view screen that wrapped around the outside of the Falcon’s cockpit came to life, displaying a wrap-around view of space, complete with stars and the Earth below.

“
Alright, why don’t you go ahead and put her through some basic maneuvers,
” Loki recommended over his comm-set.

Josh pushed his control stick to the left, initiating a longitudinal roll. “Nose spirals a bit on roll.” He added more roll thrust, increasing the simulated roll rate. “Spiral increases with my roll rate. You want me to try and compensate?”