Rebel Fleet (19 page)

=30=

The following two weeks were exciting. The Rebel Fleet continued to grow. I now respected the Kher’s use of Mongol Horde tactics. There had to be representative crews from a thousand unique planets. Most of those planets had sent a small group, perhaps five or fifteen individuals. The low-status crews like ours were only allowed to fly fighters.

But there were bigger outfits as well. Some planets had sent a full squadron of cruisers. These forces came from advanced worlds capable of building ships on their own.

The most advanced worlds had built and manned the carriers. Shaw came from one of these planets, as had Commander Tand.

Earth, being sort of a wilderness preserve, had no ships of her own. We had to be content with the single fighter we’d been provided. It soon became clear
Hammerhead
was the equivalent of army surplus. It was cast-off equipment. I confronted Shaw about this as we gathered on the hangar deck for an inspection.

“This fighter of mine,” I said, “you’re saying it’s been in service since the last time this fleet gathered? So it’s a thousand years old?”

“Yes,” he said, “but it’s been stored for the vast majority of that time. Kept in stasis, it’s as fresh as when it was built.”

I shook my head. “But surely there are newer, better designs?”

“Of course, but no one would give their best spacecraft to an unproven militia.”

On my own world, I knew, it was common practice among superpowers to sell off old equipment to poor nations to fight bush wars. I guess that thinking wasn’t unique to Earth.

“How can we win a war against the Imperials with old junk?” I asked.

He looked startled. “Your words are so disjointed as to be rendered almost meaningless. We don’t
war
with the Imperials—not really. We wouldn’t want to. We’re here to resist them. To wear them down until they decide they’ve had enough, at which point they’ll withdraw.”

I stared at him. “So… we’re not expected to win?”

He laughed. “We can’t
win
. We can only survive. That is our goal—to keep as many of our planets intact as possible.”

I thought about the flesh-beetles. They’d had it pretty rough. I’d seen their cities destroyed. Even if they were cheaters and grimly hideous, I had no wish to see such devastation on any planet.

“If this isn’t actually a war,” I said, “then it’s abuse by a superior power. Is that more accurate?”

“Yes. We’re like animals to the Imperial Kher. We share common genetics, but they don’t care about that.”

“So… they don’t plan to conquer us?” I asked. “What’s the point of all this then, from their view?”

“They do more than just kill us when it suits them,” he explained. “Sometimes, they may decide to keep a planet they’ve cleansed of wild Kher and colonize it permanently with so-called civilized Imperials. But that sort of thing is rare. They come into our space to cull our numbers, and to prove themselves to one another. We also believe they wish to sharpen their skills against other enemies from beyond the rim.”

“Beyond the rim? You mean the rim of the galaxy?”

Shaw looked at me with bleariness.

“Of course the rim of the galaxy,” he said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me Blake, there’s an admiral coming aboard. Try not to embarrass my ship.”

I stepped back into line. My team was arrayed in front of our ship, looking proud and attentive. In every pit, a similar crew stood with their fighter.

Shaw’s words rang in my head. I’d gotten this same impression before, but never so clearly. The Imperial Kher were just toying with us. We were animals to them—or worse—fish in the sea. We were only worthy of being hunted for sport.

The more I thought about it, the more this situation pissed me off. These Rebels were no sweethearts, but they’d come to Earth and given us a shot at participating in this war. When Earth had beaten rival crews, they’d given us respect.

In contrast, the Imperials were heartless monsters. They’d been coming into our space periodically for target-practice for countless years. If anyone was asking me, we were definitely fighting on the more reasonable team—even if we weren’t expected to win.

After having observed the Rebels in action, I wasn’t surprised they’d always been on the losing side. They flew ramshackle ships that were centuries old. They fought each other at least as often as they did the enemy, and from what I’d seen of their behavior in battle, they were far from organized.

Military history had been an interest of mine, back in my days in the U. S. navy. I recalled there’d been many battles of the past between uneven opponents. Actually, most wars in history had been very unfair contests. Logically, few countries would attack their neighbors if they thought they might lose.

The Kher situation reminded me most of the era of the Roman Empire. Rome had conquered numerous neighboring villages, tribes and nations. Most of those battles had been easily won. The victims had fielded ill-equipped and badly trained forces. They’d possessed inferior technology, poor discipline and barely understood tactics more complex than massing up and charging. The professional legions of Rome had smashed them by the thousands.

That was the situation here, in my estimation. The Imperials had much better ships and organization. They were a single coherent force. In comparison, the Rebels were a loose confederation of competing states. They were cooperating right now—but only because they had to.

Interrupting my thoughts, two high-level officers appeared on the main deck.

The first of them was Captain Ursahn. She was a creature I’d seen in ship-wide briefings but never met up close. She had a tanned body with tufts of hair at her shoulders that poked out of her uniform. Her face was alien-looking, but only to a human.

She was physically imposing like most officers. Strength accounted for a lot when it came to defeating challengers in personal combat. Her shoulders were well-rounded, and her neck was more of a sloping affair that connected her thick shoulders to a heavy skull.

The second creature walking alongside the captain had to be an admiral. He appeared to be from an entirely different branch of our shared genetic tree.

He was thinly built, but capable-looking. He eyed everything with quick, darting glances. His arms were overly long—far longer than any human’s—but otherwise he looked almost like a gangly Earthman.

The admiral stopped suddenly when he came to our fighter. The captain stopped her continuous talk when she noticed his distraction, and they both looked at my crew.

“Ah yes,” she said, “these are humans, Admiral Fex. A minor group from the Cygnus Carina region. They’ve done well for themselves.”

Admiral Fex gave us a flickering a smile.

“I like the look,” he said, clearly indicating we were close to him in appearance, which was true. His voice was nasally and slightly high-pitched. He addressed me specifically. “Primates, I assume?”

“Yes sir,” I said, standing at attention.

Fex frowned and turned to Captain Ursahn. “Why does it present itself with an odd stance?” he asked. “Is this a display of petulance or false-superiority?”

I was taken by surprise. My stance was typical for a lower-level officer under inspection by a high-ranking one. Of course, I had to remind myself, this wasn’t Earth and this was no Earthman. My training didn’t match up with their culture. For the most part, the rebels were quite informal. They were the barbarians, I reminded myself, not the Romans.

With an effort, I tried to loosen up. I forced a slight smile to appear on my lips.

“Sorry sir,” I said. “It’s Earth custom to avoid eye-contact and familiarity with our superiors during an inspection.”

“Interesting,” the admiral said. “For a primate, you’re very stiff and disciplined.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said.

Fex snorted and shook his head. He’d clearly not meant his comments as complimentary—but I didn’t care. I was getting a little tired of living by everyone else’s rules.

“What do you plan to do in the upcoming battle?” the admiral asked me.

“Kill the enemy, sir,” I said. “All of them, if possible.”

This finally made him happy.

“I understand!” he shouted. “Honor sits atop a
vicious
anger in your species. Has your home world been burned yet?”

Startled, I shook my head.

“Still, I can see it in your eyes. You simmer with rage and battle lust. All that motivation combined with ape cunning… Yes, these humans will go far. Keep raging!”

Before I could object, he turned his back and looked back at Captain Ursahn, who was eyeing me dubiously.

“Show me more misfits!” Admiral Fex ordered. “I find them amusing.”

Ursahn led him away, and my crew looked after the odd pair in confusion. Samson stepped up and spoke over my shoulder.

“I think we’ve just been insulted,” he said.

“I’m sure of it.”

Gwen spoke next. “You see? We’re pawns to them. Jokes.”

She walked away and went back to working on
Hammerhead’s
landing sensors.

I was left to ponder our status and my actions thus far. Was I proudly representing Earth—or playing the fool?

=31=

The Rebel Fleet had been occupying the binary system with seventy-one planets for days. They’d set up shop between the twin white suns, waiting.

More and more Rebel starships arrived every day, and our numbers swelled into the hundreds. Only the largest ships were capable of ripping a hole in space and wriggling through, otherwise known as performing an interstellar jump. At least ninety of the starships were carriers, with around twenty battle ships and three hundred cruiser-class vessels forming the balance.

Smaller, screening ships consisted of destroyers, gunboats and fighters. There were literally thousands of them in our massive, haphazard formation.

Altogether, we covered a region of space that was about ten million miles in diameter. Unlike surface fleets on planetary oceans, starship captains liked to have plenty of elbow room. At this distance, a fusion blast on one vessel wouldn’t affect any neighboring ships—at least, that was what our commanders had told us.

My theory was different. I didn’t think the rebel ships from various planets were all that fond of one another.

“See that group over there, closer to the Alpha star?” I asked my team, displaying my perception data on the walls of our fighter with the help of my sym-link.

“What about it?” Samson asked.

“You see that squadron? They have six cruisers, all tightly grouped, all from the same planet. If those ships are content to be within five miles of one another, why is the next group ten thousand miles behind them?”

“Well…” Samson said. “Maybe they have different missions.”

“What missions?” I snorted. “We’re all just floating around, hoping a small Imperial patrol shows up so we can jump them.”

Our entire fleet was, in effect, a baited trap. Twice Imperial freighters had drifted by, only to be set upon by the massed ships and quickly destroyed.

“Everyone in this fleet hates everyone else,” Gwen said. “Or at least, they don’t trust one another. That’s why they watch each other with their instruments at least as much as they search for Imperials.”

“Exactly,” I said, staring around the Fleet by turning my head. I felt disgusted by the lax discipline. “That smart-ass admiral who inspected us was no tactical genius, let me tell you. He was the worst kind of military officer.”

“Maybe he gained his rank through some kind of underhanded deal,” Mia said. “Let me assure you, primates everywhere are famous for that.”

“Whatever the case,” Dr. Chang said. “These Rebels are clearly more worried about their personal status than they are the safety of the Fleet.”

“Yeah,” I said, “that’s how I see it, too.”

No one said anything else for a time. There was little we could do about the situation, so we checked our instruments and waited. We’d been placed on scramble-alert, ready to fire out of
Killer’s
launch bays the second we got the word.

It came at last, during the final hour of our shift. I’d almost nodded off when Mia sank a single, curved claw into my shoulder to wake me up.

I saw right away that the Rebel bait had worked—better than we’d expected. We’d been picking off local Imperial shipping in hopes of luring a full patrol here to defend them. We’d gotten our wish and then some.

“Chief!” Gwen shouted from her station at the main scanner interface. “Ships are pouring into the system—and they aren’t ours!”

She gave me the coordinates while Samson geared up
Hammerhead
for launch.

“All fighters,” Captain Ursahn’s voice rang in our skulls, “prepare for launch. Signal your readiness to the CAG.”

I glanced at Samson, who’d finished a final check. I signaled the CAG and leaned back.

Automatically, our pit folded open underneath us. We weren’t using the big doors at the end of the hangar bay, but the launch tubes instead. We were lowered into the tube, lights flashing all around us.

Shaw contacted me as we sank into the floor. “Blake, I see you’re eager as always. Please wait at your designated CP point until the full squadron can join you.”

He didn’t have to tell me that, but I acknowledged his order anyway. I’d begun to realize my crew’s effectiveness in battle had gained us a reputation for being hard-charging and eager. I could have told them we were actually better disciplined than most—but that wouldn’t have impressed this bunch, so I didn’t waste my breath.

My heart pounded in my chest as we were shunted into the breach of what amounted to a giant cannon. The anti-grav systems were active, or we would have been crushed by the G-forces the cannon was about to apply to our tiny fighter.

The lights stopped whisking by for a second, and soon we were inside the barrel. Effectively, the launch system was a giant rail gun. Using powerful magnetics on
Hammerhead
’s tiny hull, it was designed to accelerate us to around twenty thousand miles per hour in about a second.

I knew we shouldn’t feel anything when the launch system went off, but I braced myself anyway. My crewmen around me did the same, baring their teeth and squinching their eyes down to slits.

There was shaking, then a rumbling sound filled the fighter. For a split-second, everything went black. We were used to being able to see through the walls of the fighter, and the change was alarming.

We knew from experience it was because the barrel of the rail gun launcher didn’t have any lights inside of it.

The barrel was rifled slightly for accurate fire, so we came out spinning hard. We were spinning so fast the stars resembled streaks of fire. I tried not to look as the twin white blazing suns which flashed around us in a corkscrew pattern.

“Counter that spin!” I shouted at Samson unnecessarily. He’d already activated the appropriate automated stabilizers.

He made no comment, other than to work his virtual touchscreens. We all had touchscreens—or what we sometimes called air-screens, because they appeared to hang in space around us.

Laying in a course toward our designated rendezvous point, I watched as our fighter slowed its corkscrew motion and arced gently toward our designated position. Behind me, I saw more fighters come out of an array of four stubby barrels. They fired in a rapid succession, like a Gatling gun.

Glowing blue streaks trailed each fighter as it poured out. Each tiny craft swung onto a new course as soon as it was able, banking to join its squadron at our checkpoint.

I made sure I applied no additional thrust, other than what the rail-gun had given me. We were one of the first fighters out of the gate, and I was going to have to linger and give the rest a chance to catch up.

This brief period gave me the opportunity to take stock of the situation directly. Reaching out with my perception system, I saw the bulk of the Fleet off to my starboard side and below us in angle.

The big ships were on the move, just as we were. They looked like a bunch of scrambling soldiers, puffing out fighters, dumping acceleration waves and maneuvering drastically.

Why should such a thing be necessary now? I asked myself in frustration. These captains had been waiting for this outcome, supposedly. Now that they were finally faced with the forceful response they’d hoped for, they seemed surprised and out of position. No Earth Navy would’ve been caught slouching like this.

Ahead of us—that was where it became interesting. Our fighter squadron was being deployed ahead of the main body of the fleet, that much was clear, because the enemy force had begun to appear there.

The stellar rips in space-time were numerous, and they all glowed with red fire. Wherever this opposing fleet was coming from, it had to be a single location.

“Dr. Chang, what are we facing?” I asked.

“I’m seeing two hundred fifty-six breaches. Not a single ship has come through yet in this region.”

I nodded to myself. “They have to be Imperials,” I said. “They know how to read a clock. Samson, all defenses forward.”

“Active.”

“Mia, gun-check.”

“All green,” she said. “Can I fire to be sure?”

I glanced at her. “Sure. Go ahead—but keep it to a short burst.”

A pulsing streak of projectiles ripped ahead of us.

“Main gun ready. Wasps ready—can I fire off a few of them, too?”

“Negative. Let’s save our ordnance for the enemy, huh?”

She pouted a bit, and I laughed.

“Don’t worry,” I said, “if we make it to their line at all, you’ll get to fire every missile we have.”

That brightened her expression.

“The enemy is coming through now, Chief!” Gwen said from the back.

I threw my attention forward again. Looking outside the ship, zooming toward a target with my mind, had become almost second-nature for me. That part of the Rebel training had been effective.

Two hundred and fifty-six rips in space all gave birth at once. Each of them emitted a single cruiser. I doubted a single Imperial ship had scattered. The Imperials didn’t screw up like that.

“What have we got?” I asked Gwen.

“Cruisers, mostly. I’m seeing some bigger ships—battlecruisers. A few carriers are setting up in the back line... Wait a minute… some of the rips are flickering like they’re active, but I don’t see anything coming through.”

“Throw me the coordinates of one of them,” I snapped quickly, already having a suspicion.

She did, and I saw the situation for myself. A rip in space tended to shimmer when a ship passed through it, and every one of the rips were reacting now. But the one she’d sent me wasn’t showing any kind of silhouette slipping through.

“That’s got to be a phase-ship,” I said. “They’re sliding through already phased. I didn’t even know they could do that. Connect me up to Shaw, Gwen.”

She worked the air with her fingertips, and Shaw answered.

“Don’t get impatient, Blake,” Shaw said. “The bulk of my fighters are right behind you.”

“Sir,” I said, “we’ve spotted breach points that show wavering radiation, but no visible ship coming through.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’ll throw you a clip,” I said, nodding to Samson.

He looked alarmed. He worked his fingers, but he shrugged helplessly.

“Dr. Chang?” I called to the back. “Could you pull that out of the stream?”

Dr. Chang did as I asked quickly. I tossed it to Shaw and waited for him to analyze it.

Soon, fighters were streaking by us. I put on a little gas, chasing after them. The latecomers were suddenly eager to get to our checkpoint before we did. Everything was a race with these people.

One fighter, however, didn’t plunge ahead of us. It came up on my wing and stuck there. I didn’t even have to look, knowing it was Ra-tikh.

“Blake?” Shaw asked. “I kicked that file up to the CAG. He said he’s gotten two other reports, fleet-wide, of the phenomenon.”

“It’s a phase-ship, isn’t it, sir?” I asked.

“I think it must be. But our knowledge of phase-ships indicates they can’t do that. They can’t come through a breach already in subspace. That’s very strange—and worrisome.”

“It’s been a while since we’ve fought the Imperials, right Lieutenant?” I asked. “Maybe they’ve improved on their tech.”

“Let’s hope not, by the stars. We’re outclassed as it is.”

“But sir,” I persisted. “We outnumber them by almost two to one. This is what the admirals wanted, isn’t it?”

Shaw didn’t say anything for a second. “We’d hoped for less opposition,” he said at last, then cut the connection.

That last part worried me. Shaw hadn’t sounded confident. He had sounded very concerned.