Rebel Fleet (29 page)

“Yes Mr. Secretary,” I heard Fex say. “I’m so sorry, sir.”

“Save it, Admiral,” Thoth said. He indicated me with a head gesture, which I could see through my half-closed eyes. “Don’t screw this up, Dr. Shug.”

“No, Mr. Secretary. That’s not my habit.”

Then the group shuffled out. I let myself dangle in my straps, as limp as a wet dishtowel.

After a full minute, I felt a hairy presence under me. It breathed, and it stank, forcing me to finally crack one eye.

Dr. Shug grinned up at me.

“I knew you were faking,” he said. “You
are
the best of our breed, Blake. Every trait is present in your genes, outlined in glorious detail. Devious, resourceful—it’s going to be a shame to toss your corpse into the furnace.”

Then he followed the rest of them. He made a tsking sound as he shambled off.

=46=

My next play wasn’t going to be an easy one. Rebel tech wasn’t like Imperial tech. It was built to keep devious types out.

But I had experience now, as did my sym. The symbiotic was really the key to the whole thing. It was, as far as I could tell, the single biggest advance the Rebels had made that went beyond what the Imperials could do. The ironic thing was that they hadn’t invented it to break into security systems. It was built to influence emotions and provide a standard interface for countless people from many different planets.

It performed with nearly flawless precision on those accounts—but it was the extra, unexpected ability I was interested in now.

“Sym, my old friend,” I said, talking to the loose collective of cells that resided in my body with me. “I need some magic now. Get me out of this harness.”

Fortunately, even the Rebels worked with high tech gadgetry in their labs. They didn’t use mechanical locks with keys or combinations. They used electronics.

Tight bands of metal wire were inside the straps that had me bound. They were very strong. Not even the biggest primate could have broken them.

But I didn’t have to use brute force. I simply gave my sym the order and waited. Now and then, it tossed back a report that printed on the inside of my retina. It was trying out combinations of signals to hack the locks on my wrists.

This went on for more time than I felt was reasonable. I tried not to look nervous or to fidget while waiting, but it was difficult.

My life might very well depend on some sentient slime that coursed through my veins. That was pretty much what a brain was, of course, but somehow this time around it felt different because I wasn’t in conscious control of what the sym was doing. It was like having to depend on your subconscious to solve your problems.

After nearly an hour, I was beginning to despair. I told myself I should get some sleep, that maybe I’d get a chance to break free in a more conventional fashion in the morning.

But there was no way I could do that. My body was humming with adrenaline. I was hungry, my limbs ached, and I wanted to get the hell out of here immediately.

At some point during the second hour, I heard a familiar shuffling gait. Dr. Shug was coming back.

Shit
, I thought. Could it be morning already? Could I have misjudged the time, or perhaps they were on a different schedule in this star system? I had no idea, but I knew I didn’t want to be marched to my execution yet.

When I saw him, he looked me up and down, and a new worry gripped me. Did he know what I was up to? Was he monitoring net traffic and therefore been alerted to the clumsy efforts of my sym? It was perfectly possible. These guys were far more sophisticated when it came to security compared to the Imperials.

He put his hands on his hips, which I found to be a very human gesture.

“Disappointing,” he said.

“Who? Me?”

“Yes. I’ve gambled and lost this time.”

He sighed and began working on a panel off to one side of the room. I saw numbers flash up, but I had no idea what they might indicate.

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“Of course you don’t. You got lucky out there against the Imperials, that’s all. I’m a fool.”

It was right about at this point in the conversation that my left wrist came free. I almost blew it by yelping aloud as it fell and dangled.
Damn
it was sore, and a little bit numb. I drew a sharp breath, trying not to hiss.

“Yes,” Dr. Shug said, “I see these clumsy transmissions. Simply repeating codes until you get the right one? The stuff of amateurs. This log of access-attempts is a disgrace.”

My left arm was operating now, but it was still sore and weak. I reached to unbuckle the central strap that held my chest, and it fell away in my hands. It had already been unlocked.

Dr. Shug scrolled down the data listed in front of him. I knew now that he was looking at a sequential log of attempted security hacking. The work my sym had been doing over the last hour or so.

“Hmm…” he said, pausing. “This is different. It’s advanced several notches. The data from the earlier responses is being used as feedback… Could it be learning from its mistakes?”

I didn’t answer. I was too busy struggling with the last major buckles. All the locks were off and dangling. If Shug had been looking at current data instead of an old log, he would have surely noticed this. But like many technical people, he was lost in the details.

The next thing that happened was very painful. I’d forgotten about the needles and tubes stuck into my body. When the harness let me go, these all ripped out in a wave of pain. It was like being stabbed by a dozen long forks at once from every angle.

I landed on my face with a meaty slap. Summoning what I had left in the way of physical prowess, I forced myself to my feet, grabbed one of these dripping, pencil-thick metal needles and approached the doctor.

He’d turned around by now. He stood there, mouth agape, transfixed by what he saw. I must have looked pretty scary. After all, he was a small primate.

My right hand jabbed forward. He caught it in both of his. He was quick and strong—stronger than he looked. If there was one trait a primate typically possessed, it was physical power.

My left hand jabbed then. My right had been a fake. It no longer held the needle. I got him in the belly.

I felt a pang of sorrow about all this. I kind of liked Shug—but I liked breathing even more.

He gasped and made a choking sound. He looked down in disbelief.

Then, he did something I wasn’t expecting at all. He looked up at me and smiled.

“Well done, you tricky savage! Well done! There is hope!”

I heard clapping behind me. I whirled around, almost falling as I was still off-balance from spending hours in those dangling straps. The needle in my hand glinted with a splash of fresh, red blood dribbling from the tip.

There was the gaggle of other apes. Two of the guardians were with them, stunners leveled.

Everyone but the guardians seemed happy about the situation.

“Tell me,” Dr. Shug said, hobbling around to face me again, “why did you wait so long to make your move? Did you want a hostage? I’m intrigued as to the cunning details of your plans.”

I gaped at him, then at the delegation. The Secretary was among them. I addressed him first.

“What the hell is wrong with you people?” I demanded. “Was this all some kind of joke?”

“No,” Secretary Thoth said. “Not at all. As you can see, we’re not laughing. We had to test you. It’s our way.”

“Yeah,” I said, seeking a chair and sinking into it. “So, you’re not going to execute me at dawn?”

There were a few twitters from the group at that. Apparently, some of them had a sense of humor.

“No, of course not,” Secretary Thoth said. “We owe you an apology, but you have to understand, if we follow your methods in a large battle, we’re risking all of our home worlds. You can understand how serious this is, can’t you?”

“I guess…” I muttered in irritation.

Dr. Shug had been working a healing patch onto his skin where I’d stabbed him, but now approached me. He had another handful of patches, so I let him do his work. He sealed up the holes the needles had left in my skin, and I soon felt better.

“You’re one tricky fur-ball yourself,” I told him. “Did you turn your back on me to encourage me to make my move?”

“Yes. We’ve all been watching for about two hours while you did virtually nothing. We were growing bored, so we came up with this charade to get you moving.”

Every complaint about primates I’d heard for months echoed in my mind. I was beginning to really get why the other groups found them irritating.

The Secretary stepped closer and smiled at me. “You did perform in the end, Blake. Admirably. We locked you up with standard hardware, no cheating. To pass the test, you had to successfully escape this room.”

“That’s great…” I mumbled, rubbing my head. “They told me during my training that primates were tricky, but I had no idea.”

“Now, now, don’t sell yourself short,” Shug said. “That switch of the weapon from one hand to the other—that was masterful.”

“Glad you liked it,” I said. “I also enjoyed sinking that icepick into you as payback.”

His face faltered for a second, and that brought me a small tickle of happiness. I didn’t want these clowns thinking they could relax completely around me.

Shug shuffled back a few steps, and I knew I’d earned his respect.

“This is interesting…” said the Secretary. “You’re a predator
and
a primate. That’s a rare combination. I can see why you’ve climbed our hierarchy so rapidly.”

“Listen,” I said, “is there any chance I can get some sleep in a real bed now? And where the hell is my crew?”

“There will be a few hours for rest before the next phase. As to your crew, they’re all in cells awaiting the outcome of this test.”

“What would have happened if I’d failed?”

“Well…” the Secretary said, fidgeting with his hairy, overly-long thumbs. “It’s best not to think about that... The good news is that you
didn’t
fail. You won through, and we’ve all agreed to give your plan another try on a much bigger scale.”

“What’s my part in this Charley-Foxtrot going to be?” I asked him.

He looked confused. “What’s the meaning of that idiom? The translation system has failed.”

“Never mind,” I told him with a grin. “What do you want to do next?”

He told me then, and before the end of his explanation, I had a fresh headache to contend with.

=47=

We spent the next several weeks training others how to use their syms to take over an Imperial network. One of the problems we had was the requirement of getting in close enough to the enemy to subvert their security systems. The only viable ships we had that could do it were fighters.

“Here’s the core of the plan,” Shaw said, marching back and forth in front of the fighter crews. “Our big gunships are going to knock down the shields on every tenth enemy vessel. Then, a group of five fighters with trained crews from
Killer
will do the hacking attack.

“What will prevent the enemy from wiping us out?” Ra-tikh demanded.

“A full squadron from another carrier will lead the way,” Shaw explained.

“Ah…” Ra-tikh said happily. “I like that. They will be lifting our tails for us, killing themselves to keep us safe.”

Shaw didn’t answer, he merely shrugged and went on outlining the plan. I hardly listened as I knew the details by heart—hell, I’d come up with a lot of them.

Before long, we were strapping in and getting ready to launch. Extending my perception, I reached out with my sym and saw the Rebel Fleet begin to create rifts and plunge through them.

A dozen cruisers vanished, then fifty more. The battleships followed—we only had six of those left. Last in line, the carriers exited the system.
Killer
was the very last ship to vanish from this part of the universe, and a moment later we reappeared somewhere else.

When the carrier exited the rift I relaxed at first. There was no incoming fire, and I was glad we hadn’t jumped into the middle of a pitched battle.

But as I scanned our surroundings with my sym, I realized we were far from anything at all…

“We’ve scattered!” I shouted in disbelief.

“Are you sure?” Samson asked.

Gwen and Dr. Chang worked at their screens.

“It’s true,” Dr. Chang said at last. “I’m getting a direct feed from
Killer’s
external array. There isn’t anything out here. Not even a star.”

My heart pounded, and I contacted Shaw. I wasn’t supposed to do that yet, but this was too big.

“Lieutenant?” I asked. “We’ve scattered. You know that, don’t you?”

“No shit, Blake,” he said, although I was sure he’d said it differently in his own language. “The pilots are panicking.
Killer
is trying to build up a charge to jump again. It will take several minutes, even if nothing goes wrong.”

“Several minutes? Without our secret weapon? Can’t we tell the other ships to pull out? To withdraw from battle?”

“No,” he said. “We’re too far away. A couple of lightyears at least. The rest of the fleet jumped in close to the enemy in order to get the fighters into hacking range—but
Killer’s
fighters won’t be there.”

“They all know the theory,” I said. “Maybe they’ll be able to work it out in the heat of battle.”

Shaw shook his head. “I doubt it. Even on this ship, your crew is the best at this particular bit of sabotage.”

He was right, I knew. I’d been surprised how poorly the Kher Rebels did when it came to hacking with their syms. I supposed every sub-race had their specialties. Some had better reaction times than we did. Others could take more injuries and stress. The cat-people, for example, couldn’t even use basic perception tricks. Their syms served mostly as communication devices.

But there was something about our human brains that was different when they combined us with symbiotic slime.

It all came down to our brain structure. The syms worked with the materials they were given, and they synched best with our brains. They didn’t replace our intellect, but they worked to enhance what we could already do. In the case of individuals like the turtles or the beetles, you couldn’t do much for them. It was like putting a turbo engine on a skateboard. Small wheels could only spin so fast before they melted.

Despite the fact they weren’t well-suited for it, I’d done my best to train the others. Those few who were primate-related did the best, along with the wolf-packs. Those were the only sub-groups with minds capable of doing this kind of gymnastics.

We waited for long minutes while
Killer
recharged and formed a new rift. When we dove through the rip in space-time at last, we were prepared to encounter the worst, and we weren’t disappointed.

Our Rebel Fleet was half the size of the enemy flotilla, and it was immediately obvious their ships were better organized.

The only piece of good news was we’d taken the Imperials by surprise. We’d rammed right into the midst of their fleet, causing confusion.

While we’d been lightyears away, the Rebels had fought hard and done fairly well all things considered. But the superior weight of the Imperial Fleet was beginning to change the tide of the battle.

At first, the Imperials had been startled by the ferocity of the Rebel attack, and they’d retreated into a defensive sphere formation. Then they’d realized there weren’t another thousand ships coming in behind the first few hundred that had assailed them, and they’d begun to counterattack.

That’s when
Killer
finally showed up.

“Launch!” Shaw shouted, his voice almost cracking. “Open the bay doors! Launch everything we’ve got right now!”

The ships had been lining up to be fired out of the launch cannon, but that approach would have taken several minutes. Instead, the big doors yawned, and a growing rectangle of black space stretched between them.

Sucked out with the ship’s venting air, we were lifted up and tossed out into space with the rest. We did our best to avoid slamming into other fighters before we were outside and able to fire up our engines.

Instead of moving directly to the predetermined rally points, I shot upward, away from the central mass of fighters. A moment later I executed a hard banking turn and poured on the power. We were flying toward the battle at maximum acceleration.

Only a few pilots had matched my move. Most of them trailed behind us.

“Chief,” Samson said, “Ra-tikh is requesting that we wait for him and follow the plan.”

“Imagine that,” I said, “a tiger begging to follow my orders. He just wants to get in on the glory. That bunch couldn’t hack a joystick—no offense, Mia.”

She shot me a look and lifted her lip to show me a fang. “None taken,” she said.

“They’ve got Dalton aboard that ship,” Gwen said from the back.

I cranked my head around to look at her. “Yeah… they do. All right, but tell them to catch up fast.”

Easing off on the throttle, I allowed a group of fighters to straggle closer. They’d all been assigned to me, and I knew they couldn’t do much without my help. All the same, waiting for them to catch up was almost unbearable.

By the time we fired up our afterburners and accelerated on our attack approach, two more cruisers had blown up in the distance. Both of them were Rebel ships.

Unfortunately, I knew our Rebels by now. They would soon break and run if things didn’t improve. That would result in a rout, and further losses.

At last my group was ready, and we were accelerating at full throttle toward the battle.

“Blake, you’re out of position,” Shaw called to me a few minutes later.

“Negative, sir,” I said. “We’re going for the nearest enemy ship that has her shields down.”

“Dammit, that’s not the plan!”

“None of this is going as planned, Lieutenant,” I said in exasperation.

“You’re going to cost me every status point I have, aren’t you?” he demanded. “Before this is over, I’ll be playing support-man on that fighter with you. Is that your secret plan for revenge?”

That made me laugh. “I’ll assign you to cleaning out the black-water tanks, sir.”

He didn’t seem to think it was funny, and he closed the channel. I was glad to have gotten the last laugh.

We plunged on in silence for a full minute before enemy defensive guns began to strike along our line. One of our fighters blew up—I wasn’t sure if it had run into a mine, or been caught by a lucky hit from the target ship. Either way, the whole crew had died instantly.

I kept pouring on the power, pushing
Hammerhead
to her limits. We weren’t close enough, not yet.

One of the beetle ships exploded next. I actually felt bad about that. Those guys had shaped up since we’d last fought together, and they were close to becoming extinct.

“We’re within range now,” Gwen said. “Someone has knocked the target’s shield down.”

“Samson,” I said, “go all-out with our defensive measures while our syms work the math.”

Mia made a sound of disgust, throwing her hands in the air. She wanted to work her heavy cannon, and I was screwing that up for her. She crossed her arms over her breasts in frustration.

Samson was the busiest of us after that. He was our countermeasures specialist, and he was also the worst of my bunch when it came to hacking. He performed the critical function, however, of keeping my tiny ship in one piece.

Samson was reporting casualties into my ear as we let our syms do their work.

“We’ve lost twenty-two percent of our capital ships,” Samson said. “No enemy interceptors yet in our quadrant—but it’s just matter of time.”

Dalton responded with a nasty chuckle. “Only a matter of minutes before these cowards pull out and run. We’ll be in the soup then, won’t we?”

“Yeah…” Samson said.

I wished they would shut up, but they were doing their jobs.

I could
feel
the target now. It was a small ship—an Imperial destroyer. I hadn’t chosen it for its size, but rather for its availability. As a screening ship, it had been out in front of the Imperial battlewagons.

Our hack went smoothly. I was shocked by how easy it was to complete. Either our syms had gotten better at this through training, or we had. In either case, it was clear the Imperials had no defense against this kind of attack. I suspected they weren’t even aware of the influence we were exerting over them. They must not have gotten any reports indicating what we were capable of.

With contemptuous ease, I flipped the enemy destroyer onto her back. Then I directed her toward the nearest enemy cruiser.

“Wait!” Mia called, gaining my attention.

I looked and saw she was gesturing wildly toward a battleship in the middle of the enemy forces.

“Go for that big bastard, Leo,” she said. “We have to gamble to win this now.”

“The destroyer we’ve gained control of is too small,” I said. “It can’t build up enough velocity in such a short distance to take out such a large—”

She shook her head. “No,” she said. “We won’t kill it. But we could knock down her shields. Just
one
of her shields.”

I thought it over for about a second then went with her plan. The destroyer swerved drunkenly and slewed around to go roaring toward the battleship. We followed directly in the destroyer’s wake, and the rest of our fighters followed me.

In the final moments before impact, the captain of the battleship recognized the danger. He fired on the destroyer that was bearing down on him. Dodging wasn’t going to work—it was all happening too fast.

The destroyer went orange with incoming fire, then flared white. She was breaking up. But such was her velocity and mass that she slammed into the battleship’s prow anyway. The larger ship’s protective shield flickered and died.

“Now,” I told my crew, “it’s time to earn our pay.”

“But we don’t get paid, Chief,” Samson said.

“Shut up and focus.”

He fell silent, and we all reached out to grab hold of the biggest vessel on the battlefield. She was bigger than any of the Imperial ships, even bigger than our battleships.

It took only a half-minute or so. Somehow, I’d expected a larger vessel to be harder to hack, but it really wasn’t. A computer was a computer, no matter what it was attached to.

The big ship became ours, and I didn’t waste any time. It was impolite, but I first had to get rid of the Imperials that were manning her.

“Open the hatches,” I told my crew. “All of them—all at once.”

They did it, and the results were as predictable as they were dramatic. Bodies and debris went spraying out of the big ship in every direction. Tiny flailing forms tumbled into space, ejected explosively.

Then, with her defenders helpless, we took full ownership of the behemoth. We forced her to turn ponderously, focusing all her weapons on the nearest Imperial cruiser. She blasted her ally out of the sky inside the span of three fast heartbeats.

It was wild and glorious—and a little bit sad to watch. One at a time, our treacherous monster blasted her sisters. They were so close and stuck in their formations at point-blank range. It was a disaster they were unprepared for. All their shields were positioned to defend against Rebel ships, not an attack from one of their own. A series of massive shots in the flank took them down one after another in rapid succession.