Rebel Fleet (30 page)

After the eleventh kill, the Imperials figured out something had gone horribly wrong. They turned on their queen, and they tried to kill her.

This greatly disrupted their formation. Our Rebel ships, many of which had been about to flee, suddenly took heart. They joined the fight in earnest, hitting the confused Imperials from two sides at once.

As I watched, other Imperial cruisers occasionally switched allegiances to join us. Others I’d trained had gotten into the act and managed to commandeer more ships.

The hacked ships ejected their crews, and then turncoat vessels began to pour fire into their former allies.

It was a sweeping victory. Less than one Imperial ship in five managed to escape. When it was over, we were left with more ships than we’d started with, due to our numerous captures.

Transmitted cheering went on and on after the battle had ended. It wasn’t just my crew making a racket, either. It seemed that every Rebel in the fleet was hooting and screeching at once.

Letting
Hammerhead
drift, I surveyed the situation. I felt good—how could I not?

But I was worried, too. The Imperials wouldn’t like this. They weren’t used to losing. How would they react?

It was anyone’s guess.

=48=

After the destruction of their core fleet, the Imperials stopped coming into our region space. The Orion Front fell silent. A thousand inhabited planets were spared destruction, but many others hadn’t survived. Nearly two hundred islands of life had been left smoldering and devastated in the enemy’s wake.

“Looks like they’ve given up and gone home,” I said to Shaw several months later.

We were near Epsilon Aurigae, a beacon star in the Orion Spur. It was closer to the front lines than Rigel, and the fact we were able to stand guard here demonstrated how far we’d driven the enemy back.

“Yes, they’ve pulled back,” Shaw said. “But if you read our histories, the situation is unprecedented.”

I shrugged off his fears, but in truth, I felt uneasy as well. It would be easy to assume the enemy had been permanently beaten, but I knew they might not be. They were back inside their cluster licking their wounds.

“But—” I began to argue with him. An incoming call on my sym stopped me.

“Blake?” Captain Ursahn said. “Get up here.”

“Got to go,” I told Shaw.

He nodded thoughtfully and watched me head for the lifts. I could only imagine what he was thinking. He might be jealous, or he might be overjoyed. Either reaction was justified.

I’d garnered a lot of points for old Shaw by the end of the war. He was up for a promotion to lieutenant commander. It was even possible I’d make lieutenant myself, but I had to go through officer training first in order for it to become official.

When I arrived at Ursahn’s office, I found she wasn’t there. A burly member of her species directed me toward the command module.

I headed up the final set of broad steps with banging boots. All these big Kher seemed to walk with a heavy step. It was my turn to be heard at a distance.

Captain Ursahn was on her bridge, standing in the middle of a team of Fleet officers. They were going over a vid file.

I stopped dead in my tracks. I considered doing a U-turn and heading back to the hangar. Only the fact I couldn’t come up with a viable excuse for dodging her kept me from doing it.

Projected in the air in front of her like a misty dream was a three-dimensional representation of Dr. Shug’s laboratory. I was hanging spread-eagle in the middle of the scene.

Damn, I looked awful. I had bags under my eyes, puckered needle-tracks on my limbs and back, and not enough straps to hide anything important.

The only consoling detail was that fact that while my junk was hanging low, my head was held high.

“There you are, Blake,” Ursahn said over her broad shoulder. “Get up here and explain this.”

Reluctantly, I joined the throng on the bridge. This wasn’t the imagery I’d hoped to see on display when I finally was summoned to
Killer’s
nerve-center.

“What do you want to know, sir?” I asked her.

She stared and frowned at me for a moment.

“This is abuse,” she said at last. “This is unsanctioned. Did you offer some kind of offense to the Secretary or his team?”

I shrugged. “You arrested me and took me up there yourself, Captain,” I pointed out. “Don’t you know what the charges were? Don’t you know why they tormented me in Shug’s laboratory?”

She narrowed her eyes. “No, I don’t. That’s why I’m concerned. This isn’t a contest. This isn’t a chance to advance in rank. Neither is this an interrogation of an enemy combatant.”

“It’s illegal, then?” I asked hopefully.

“As far as I’m concerned it is.”

“Well, what are you going to do about it?” I demanded suddenly.

“Do?” she asked as if startled. “I’m going to seek the truth.”

“That’s all? You were duped into playing a part in a crime. All you want is an investigation? Maybe you should send them a strongly worded text.”

She looked at me curiously. “How did you get out of that situation, anyway?”

“It was a test of sorts,” I explained. “They wanted to know if I could hack my way out of my bonds. I did so, and they were so impressed they backed my attack plans.”

“Hmm…” she said, and I could see she was thinking hard.

“You’re not actually going to do anything, are you?” I demanded. “Are you afraid you’ll lose status points?”

“Not at all,” she said, her hackles rising visibly on her neck. “I plan to
gain
points. I’m trying to figure out a way to use this to my advantage. Perhaps you could aid me in this matter instead of hurling insults.”

I smiled. “If it screws this bunch of primates, I’d be happy to help.”

She led me to a shuttle, and we cast off a few minutes later. We traveled to the battle station in orbit around Epsilon Aurigae. 

The star itself was quite far away as the station had been built at a safe distance. The central star was a white, F-class supergiant. It had a strange companion which I’d learned had puzzled human astronomers for years.

Every twenty-seven years the main star dimmed. This had been observed from Earth for centuries. For about two years, the star’s brightness dropped a great deal, causing humans to classify it as a “variable” star.

The truth was quite interesting. The orbital companion that dimmed the central star had turned out to be a sphere of heavy dust that was forming a large planet over time. When this dust-ball happened to get in between Earth and the star, Epsilon Aurigae appeared to dim from our perspective.

It was at just this distance that the Rebel Fleet had decided to build their battle station. The dust cloud had solid debris in it, some chunks which were as big as asteroids. Mining this region produced all the components required to manufacture a new station in space.

Parked around the station were several hundred ships. Seeing Imperial designs among them at first made me jump—but then I recalled they’d been captured.

The guns on the battle station had been salvaged from the Imperial battleship I’d helped deliver to our side. One would think that after such a great victory, I’d be rewarded—but then, the Rebel culture was different than that of my Earth.

When Captain Ursahn landed her shuttle and we climbed out, we were immediately set upon by a gang of dockyard thugs.

This event, in and of itself, wasn’t too unusual. Rebels were, by definition, a rowdy group. Even in Earth’s history, rebel nations had rarely been full of the most generous and forgiving souls.

Two of the ruffians grabbed Ursahn as she was the first to exit. Two more reached for me—but they got a surprise. My disruptor was out and blazing.

Unlike the practice weapons I’d used in the hangar deck arena back on
Killer
, my sidearm was fully charged and set to deliver maximum pain.

The first of my attackers went down in a fetal ball almost immediately. He didn’t even scream, but he did shiver and wet the deck.

The second man—if I could even call him that as he had scales running up and down his thick arms—ripped my disruptor from my hands and tried to use it on me.

That was an error. My human team was tricky, just like the predators aboard were always claiming. We’d added a safety feature to our disruptors, so they were able to distinguish friend from foe.

In this case, anyone who wasn’t a member of my crew had been designated a foe. We rigged our disruptors to detect a significant change in the body temperature or the DNA sequence of whoever used it. The gun would short out if it a non-human grabbed it, giving him a jolt of power.

His teeth set to clacking, and his eyes popped open comically wide. I kicked him once, and he toppled onto his back.

Captain Ursahn was faring worse. She was stronger than either of her assailants, but she was outnumbered and weighed down. She had a firm grip on two clumps of fur—something that grew disgustingly from between the scales on the arms of the attackers.

Still, they held onto her and wouldn’t let go. Snarling and roaring, she flailed, knocking them about until I came up behind them and bashed them on the head.

All four of the yard dogs soon lay in a heap on the deck.

“Who do you think sent them?” I asked her.

She looked at me in surprise. “No one
sent
them. They want status, that’s all. The question is, who tipped them off? Who told them the hero of the Fleet was on his way over here?”

I looked at her in alarm. “You mean they attacked us because I did well in the last battle?”

“Of course. Think about it: now that the war might well be over, how is anyone going to achieve a rapid rise in rank? There are no more enemies to kill. Everyone is turning on one another with hungry eyes.”

This was a stunning concept for me. These people understood nothing of peace, let alone fair play. They had their rules, but it seemed to me they were the rules of the Dark Ages. Crazy, vicious tribesmen, loyal only to themselves and their immediate circle of companions.

“How can the Rebel Fleet stay intact if we’re all going to start attacking each other?” I asked her.

“It can’t,” she admitted. “It never does. Once it serves its purpose, which is to get the Imperials to grow tired of their sport, we always disband. Once every millennium, the process is repeated.”

“But what if we’re wrong this time?” I demanded. “What if the Imperials are only taking a break, or refitting their ships?”

“Ah-ha!” she said, throwing one long finger upward. “Now, you have divined why we’re still cooperating. We aren’t yet
certain
that the Imperials have left our region of space.”

Feeling another headache coming on as I followed her into the battle station’s labyrinth of passages, I wondered what was coming next.

=49=

We didn’t alert the Secretary about our visit, but somehow he already knew we were coming.

Instead of greeting us personally, he sent Admiral Fex to do the job in his stead.

“I’m sure you’ll understand that the Secretary Thoth is a busy man,” Fex said smoothly. “He’s wrapped up in declaring this war to be a success as soon as today.”

“We want to talk about our status,” Captain Ursahn said. “We’ve received no points for winning this war.”

Admiral Fex blinked in astonishment. “Winning…? You?” He laughed then, long, loud, and from the depths of his belly. “Come now, Ursahn, no one enjoys a good joke as much as I do, but—”

Captain Ursahn moved quickly. She gripped him around the throat with steel-like fingers.

Admiral Fex hadn’t gotten to his vaulted rank by being slow, however. He had a weapon out and aimed at her midriff.

They both stood there, growling at one another for a moment.

“Perhaps I can be of service,” I said in a light tone. “It seems to me that there should be plenty of status points to go around for all of us. Isn’t that the way it works?”

“No,” Captain Ursahn said without taking her eyes off the admiral or his wicked-looking weapon. “Not exactly. The trouble here must be that there isn’t a direct chain of command to the Secretary. Am I right, Admiral?”

He looked at both of us with hate. “Let go of my throat or I’ll gut you, Ursahn,” he rasped. “No one will question it. I’ll even get a few extra points—not much, but something.”

“I don’t get it,” I said to him. “Why do you care? I came up with a winning plan and we took down the Imperial Fleet. As Ursahn here is my captain, she shares in the glory. As you are her admiral, you get a piece of that too. Isn’t that good enough?”

“And what about the Secretary?” Admiral Fex asked. “Is he to be left out in the cold? Shug is his subordinate, which makes you his creature, his discovery. If you’d only followed orders, he’d have gotten the majority of the credit for all this. But no! The military is claiming it all!”

Frowning, I tried to puzzle it through. I gently waved for Captain Ursahn to release the tall bastard, and she did so reluctantly.

“Now,” I said reasonably, “why don’t you lower that weapon, Admiral? You can always shoot us later.”

He did so, fractionally.

“Don’t try any of your tricks on me, human,” he said, rubbing at his throat. “I was sending arrogant fools like you to their deaths before you were born.”

It was a surprising statement, but one I calculated could well be true. I filed it away and continued talking to my two barbarians in calm, low tones.

“Listen,” I said, “there has to be a way to work this out. Just tell us what you need, Admiral. Why do you care so much that the Secretary cashes in big?”

“Because he has aspirations to enter public service,” Captain Ursahn said.

“You mean you want to become a politician?” I demanded. “You want the Secretary’s job?”

Admiral Fex shrugged. “What of it? After the rank of admiral, there’s nowhere to go in the Fleet. Worse, now that you ended the war, we’re all stuck where we are for the rest of our careers.”

I was beginning to catch on. “Basically,” I said, “now that the Imperials are gone, you’re all turning on one another. It’s a dog-eat-dog system, and you all want to be at the top of the food chain.”

“Crudely stated, but those are the essentials,” the admiral admitted.

I rubbed at my chin for a moment, thinking hard.

Admiral Fex reacted with alarm. He raised his weapon again. “Are you trying to hack my personal equipment?”

“What? No! I’m thinking. Please sir, settle down.”

They let me think. I stared at one, then the other. Finally, I had an angle.

“As I see it, the problem here is the Secretary. He’s causing all this friction between three military people. That’s the core of this conflict.”

Captain Ursahn eyed me speculatively. “A bold plan,” she said. “But I don’t know if I have the guts to follow it through.”

“Plan?” I asked. As far as I was concerned, I’d yet to lay out a plan.

“Yes,” Admiral Fex said. “Stop hinting around, Blake. You’re suggesting we kill the Secretary. That will give all of us rank by opening a slot above me. I see the wisdom of it, but I know there are distinct regulations against outright assassination. And just beating him to a pulp won’t do it. That path of advancement is for the military, not—”

“Hold on!” I said, interrupting. “I didn’t mean we were supposed to knock off the Secretary. “Captain Ursahn here has something that may help.”

I told him then about the recorded vids. That we thought they were proof of illegal practices, and that they could be used to bring down the Secretary politically.

“Huh,” Admiral Fex said, eyeing me. “You
are
a schemer. A true brother of the trees. I’ll tell you what, if this works, I’ll see that Earth is taken off the menu the next time around. The Rebel cause could use a race like yours.”

“What menu?” I asked.

He shrugged. “We always try to lead the Imperials toward certain troublesome planets when the next hunting party comes along. That way, we rid ourselves of irritants and sate their bloodlust at the same time.”

I almost shivered, but I managed to maintain my composure. These people were ruthless. To them, planets could be won and lost without a qualm. Only their own personal advancement mattered.

“Do we have an agreement?” I asked him. “We take down Thoth, then the military gets all the credit for this victory. That’s who really deserves it, anyway.”

After some grumbling, they finally agreed.

“Just one question,” Admiral Fex asked us afterward. “Who gave you those vid files, Captain?”

She eyed him for a moment. “They appeared in my workspace without a traceable source.”

Admiral Fex narrowed his eyes and walked away. We followed him, and I hoped this fragile alliance would last.

* * *

The takedown of Secretary Thoth turned out to be more difficult than expected. He was as slippery as an eel and much better connected.

Nevertheless, new evidence kept appearing to support our case at critical moments. Some of his indiscretions didn’t even make sense to me, but they created a firestorm of excitement among the Secretary’s peers.

I gathered he wasn’t all that well-liked in administrative circles. Either that, or someone really wanted to stomp him flat in the courtroom of bureaucrats.

It wasn’t until two months later that I figured out who was behind it all.

We were still docked at the battle station. My role had morphed into one based around teaching hacking techniques. I had no doubt the brass would throw me back onto the front lines the second the Imperials showed up again—but so far, the Orion Front had stayed quiet.

After a long day of technical training, I happened to run into Dr. Shug. I had a soft spot for the fuzzy guy, even though he’d pretty much tortured me on the rack when we’d first met.

“Hey Shug!” I shouted, and he spun around to look at me.

He hesitated as I marched toward him. He looked like he wanted to bolt, but then he straightened and stood as tall as he was able.

“Well met, Ensign Blake,” he said. “I’m glad to see you’re still healthy.”

I eyed him for a second. “Any reason I shouldn’t be?”

“A man like you has many enemies,” he said. “You’ll always attract the ambitious, the vengeful. Take care.”

He turned to go, but somehow I had a flash of intuition.

“It was you, wasn’t it?” I asked him.

He froze then glanced back. “I have no idea what—”

“The secret communications. The vid files. All the incriminating evidence against Secretary Thoth. You helped us take him down. Why?”

Dr. Shug’s mouth twitched, and his ears seem to widen on their own. “I’d appreciate it if you would keep such wild speculations to yourself, Human,” he said stiffly.

I laughed. “No chance. You did it. I can see it in your face.”

He appeared alarmed. “Have you taught your sym to perform facial analysis?”

“No, I can do that on my own.”

“Fascinating... I really should have dissected you the first time we met. Perhaps there will be another opportunity in the future.”

“No, I don’t think so. In fact, talk like that makes a man like me want to expose the ape behind the scenes.”

We eyed one another sternly for several seconds. Finally, he showed me his teeth, and I did the same. I hoped he was smiling—it was sometimes hard to be sure.

“Very amusing,” he said at last, giving me the hint I needed. “Yes, I provided you with certain details. You did the rest, however.”

“As you knew we would. You know, when I first came aboard
Killer
, everyone told me they hated our kind—the primates. They said that we were sneaky and always ended up on top of the organization no matter what anyone else did. Now I can see their point.”

He clasped his hands in front of himself. “Someone wise once said that it isn’t the deed that counts. What matters is who gets the credit afterwards.”

“Right… but you still haven’t answered my question. Why take out the Secretary?”

He shrugged. “Perhaps you should look at an organizational chart sometime. There are only so many paths to advancement. I’m on the scientific track, but I’ve topped out my steps.”

“You don’t mean—you want to be the new Mr. Secretary? Is that possible?”

“Why not?” he asked me. “I’m just as clever as anyone else at the top, and I’ve been close to the heart of this project from the beginning.”

“Says who?”

He gave me another flickering smile. “You military types aren’t the only ones who receive anonymous packages of information now and then.”

Shug left me then, standing in the passageway. I watched him go, marveling at how smooth and low-key he’d played it from the very beginning.

I would have to keep my eyes on that guy in the future.