Reavers (Book 3) (39 page)

At the center of the growing debris field was a sporadic glint of light.  It was a reflection, much stronger than another fragment in the field.  It was much larger than the small chucks that had been the fake ship, but too small to be a ship.  It glinted brilliantly, its smooth white surface reflecting a nearby sun.  Six large bulges at one end of the object looked like an oddly curved hexagon.  The bulges sleekly narrowed down into a single point at the opposite end of the object.

It vaguely reminded her of a stick of metal cauliflower that had been reduced to purely geometric shapes.  Blinking her eyes broke her fascination with the object momentarily.  Looking about the bridge, she realized every crewmember was equally mesmerized by the odd, white object.  A blinking light on the tactical officer’s console pulled her back to reality.

“Report!” Rosalyn shouted in her most commanding voice.

The crew slowly snapped out of their trance-like state.  Tardos nearly jumped as he glanced down at the console in front of him.

“Power spike!” the short man shouted as he bit his lower lip.  “It’s off the chart and coming from that . . .
thing
!”

“What kind of . . .”

Before Rosalyn could complete her sentence, the glinting white cauliflower took on a deep blue hue.  Sparks and small arcs of bluish lightning danced around the six bulges.  The hue rapidly grew brighter and more pronounced.  The arcs expanded and finally touched the point at the opposite end of the object.  The arcs danced and shimmied as they surged from the bulges to the narrow point, linking the two edges of the object via brilliant shifting streams of light.

Abruptly, the blue hue disappeared, and out of the narrow edge of the object a massive burst of blue light sped outward.  Everything it touched melted into nothingness.  The blue column of light sliced cleanly through one of the larger pirate ships.  As the blue light faded, a massive hole was left in the pirate ship.  Secondary explosions and flames burst out of the damaged ship until it ignited in a massive explosion.

“That thing targeted their main reactor,” the tactical officer said in a panic.  “They didn’t stand a chance.”

“It’s powering up again!” Tardos screamed.

“Get us out of here!” Rosalyn ordered.

The navigation’s officer quickly worked at the controls, demanding the ship turn its slender profile to the attacking object.

“Jump drives at the ready,” the navigation officer reported.

“Then what are you waiting for?” Tardos pleaded.

“Not yet!” Andreas shouted.  “We’ll be sitting ducks for that thing if we jump now.  We need to wait until it’s distracted by someone else jumping.”

As Andreas spoke, the glinting white object unleashed a second burst of blue light, carving a pirate ship in two.

“If we wait too long, there won’t be anyone else left!” Tardos said.

“It’s powering up again!” the tactical officer said as a large bead of sweat rolled down his face.

“Who’s it targeting?” Rosalyn asked.

“It’s turning this way!” the navigation officer screamed.

“Give it a salvo of our best,” Andreas shouted over the screams.  “If it wants us, it’s going to have to work for its meal.”

Almost instantly, several missiles launched toward the white object.

“That was fast,” Tardos marveled.

“It wasn’t me,” the tactical officer shouted in glee.  “The other pirates, they’re fighting back!”

Flashes of light and missile impacts lit up the sides of the white object as it turned.  It paused its rotation and started to turn toward a different ship, the first to have fired on it.  Despite the number of weapon impacts, the object was still going.  The white was scraped off and singed in the small explosions coating it, but no serious damage was evident.

“Should we lend a hand?” Andreas asked.

“Seems right,” Rosalyn said with a balled fist.  “Give them a free sample of our mystery missiles.”

“Understood!”  The tactical officer acknowledged the order.

A moment later a spread of missiles left Rosalyn’s ship and danced around the debris as they zeroed in on the semi-white object.

“Forget that!” Longin shouted.  “Get us out of here!”

Rosalyn stood and ordered him to stand down, but it was too late.  Longin had already knocked the navigations officer unconscious and was commencing a jump.  Andreas quickly pushed the man out of the chair and examined the console.

“It’s no good.  He’s set the jump sequence.”  Andreas slammed his fist down on the console.  “We can’t abort now.”

Rosalyn sighed deeply as she sat back in her chair.  The other pirates had come to her aid and now it looked like she was abandoning them.  At least they had gotten off a salvo before Longin had interfered.  As the jump drive started to open a window, the first of the mystery missiles impacted against the hull of the white object.  A tremendous explosion engulfed the entire debris field, wiping it from existence.

The content smile on Rosalyn’s face instantly disappeared as a blue cylinder of light burst out of the explosion, annihilating another of the pirate ships.  As the explosion collapsed, it revealed the metal cauliflower.  Its hull was a scarred silver-gray mess, but it was still intact.  Another burst of blue light launched out of the object in a fraction of the time it had taken before.

“These energy reading are . . . impossible,” Tardos said in awe.  “At this rate, it will completely destroy every single pirate ship in another two minutes.”

The object rotated in place, launching out one blue spear of death after another.  Pirate ships burst into flame as they attempted to flee.  The object turned to face Rosalyn’s ship.  It fired its death at her.  As the blue beam hurled toward her ship, the final sections cleared the Wall.  The blue pulse continued into the void, missing completely.  The object had failed to claim Rosalyn’s ship, but it had claimed all the others.

Isabella stormed down the hallways of MI headquarters.  Agents and analysts saluted as they cleared a path for the clearly angry woman.  Renoff had gone too far.  The situation at Lintilä had escalated beyond their worst fears.  This was not the time for their leader to be distracted.

As she marched into his grand office, she found the man staring out the window.  He didn’t seem to notice her as he continued to stare out at the pristine core world below them.  She slammed down her pad on his desk.  The momentary outburst felt amazingly good.  He glanced over his shoulder, oblivious to her fury.

“Have you lost your mind?” she asked, suppressing as much anger as she could.

“You forgot to salute,” he said idly, returning his attention to the view.

“Have you read
any
of the reports from commander Yamakawa?”

“Agent Nobue?  Naturally,” he said casually.  “He puts too much faith in the opinions of those under him.”

“That’s it?” she challenged.  “That’s your conclusion?  People died!”

“A pointless display of power against an unknown pirate . . .”

“This wasn’t pirates,” she shouted over him.  “We have the data to prove it.  It doesn’t matter who they bribed to work for them, these results are inhuman.”

“So you believe this nonsense?”

“The craft that attacked our ships moved at speeds exceeding
ten times
our fastest prototype.  That’s not a technological breakthrough - that’s impossible.  Even if you discount everything else, that fact alone is more than enough to warrant taking the situation seriously.”

“I
am
taking the situation seriously,” he said as he finally returned to his desk.  “I am merely not joining the rest of you in being caught up by hysterics.”

“Hysterics?” she seethed.

“I admit the report paints a frightening tale, one worthy of a 3P.  A Weaver incapacitated by something horrific on the rim.  An unknown weapon taking out our strongest ships.  All we need is some sort of creature to be behind it all.  Perhaps a vampire, or better yet, an alien!  Oh, yes.  Something with three eyes and purple skin.”

“Is this just some big joke to you?  That was a
Master
Weaver that was disabled in a matter of seconds.”

“If we have taken steps to protect ourselves against Weavers, who’s to say the pirates haven’t done one better.”  He rubbed his chin in thought.  “Imagine if instead of trying to bock their abilities like we have, they found a way to disable the Weaver directly.”

“You can’t . . .

“Take a deep breath and work this out with me.”  Renoff leaned back in his chair and interlaced his fingers.  “Which is more likely?  That an alien threat managed to enter Commonwealth territory completely undetected and also conquered a rim world without a
single
distress signal getting out.  And then they used that terrifying power to build . . . a moon.”

Renoff shook his head and smiled.

“Or,” he said slowly, “that Lintilä was always a pirate base.  That the few captains that visited the word were bribed to conceal what they found.  That poor captain Johnson and his crew simply refused to keep quiet about what they found.  And that these
inhuman
craft are simply strange missiles using technology the Circle has been developing for years in secret.”

Isabella took a deep breath.  He had made up his mind.  There would be no reasoning with him.

“Even if you are right,” she said, forcing herself to sound open to his idiotic idea, “then your decision to pull
away
resources makes even less sense.”

“You would be completely correct, if this was the only threat the pirates posed.  We could inform the Navy of the situation.  We could rally every warship they have and the entirety of our forces.  As one large assault we could crush the pirates and their new toys.  No doubt of that.  However, we would suffer calamitous losses.  See, I
have
read the report - in detail.  Those craft or missiles or
whatever
they are pose a lethal threat.”

“But, sir . . .”

He raised his hand to quiet her.

“In the end we would stand victorious, but at what cost?  And that is the point of all this.”

“Point, sir?” she asked dreading the answer.

“Right now, as I sit here speaking to you, the Commonwealth is circling the drain.  We don’t have the ships to keep the pirates at bay as it is.  If we were to waste ships dealing with some potential threat, we would lose it all.  They would have full dominion over the Commonwealth.  As long as I draw breath I will not allow that to happen.”  He slammed his fist on his desk.  “I won’t let them take anyone else,” he roared.

Isabella forced her features to remain neutral as she realized the truth about her superior.  As the leader of MI, his personnel file was off limits to everyone.  However, that didn’t stop rumors from circulating.  One that never seemed to fade hinted he had lost a loved one in a pirate raid.

It didn’t matter if she dragged him out to the rim to see the threat with his own eyes.  This man was on a vendetta.  Nothing, regardless of how serious, would deter his mission of wiping out the pirates.  As he relaxed from his outburst, her mind worked at salvaging the situation.

“I see your point, sir,” she lied.  “It is unfortunate that your first raid missed one.”

“I’m glad you . . . what?”

As she retrieved her pad from his desk, he hoped she could use his fixation on petty details against him.  She pulled up the report of the attack and presented it to him.

“The Vanguard managed to get the drop on the pirates lured into the trap,” she said as he poured over the report.  “However, it received fire from an unexpected source.”

Renoff’s eyes widened and his grip on the pad tightened.

“A salvo of missiles was launched that matched up to the payload of prototypes lost in operation Ouroboros,” she said, holding her breath.  “It severely damaged the Vanguard in question.”

“Was the Vanguard able to destroy the pirate?” he pleaded more than asked.

“Negative,” she said, suppressing a smile.  “The ship got away, but not before we were able to get a positive match on the hull configuration.”

“Who?” he shouted as he jumped to his feet.

Isabella leaned over and shifted to another report on the pad.

“Rosalyn Dubois,” he read with unbridled loathing.

Before she could say another word, he stormed out of the office, muttering darkly to himself.  In the privacy of the vacant room she let herself relax and took in several deep breaths.  After she had steadied herself, she leaned over the desk and activated it’s communications terminal.

“Ma’am,” a man answered with a salute.

“I know we haven’t talked much in a while, but I need a favor from you.”

“What is it, Isabella?” he asked in sudden concern.

“In about thirty seconds
Supreme Commander
Renoff is going to storm into operations and start giving orders.  I need you to intercept him and baby-sit him.”

“Why?”