Resilience (Warner's World Book 6) (4 page)

He couldn’t move his hands. They were in a restraint too. In fact, now that he applied his wakening sensors he realised they had him in a full harness. “Terrific” he said out loud. He felt incredibly thirsty. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the tubes hanging down from the bag of liquid hanging on his left. His mind deduced that if he was on a drip he shouldn’t be thirsty. But he was nonetheless.

“Water” he called out. He called out several times before a shadow appeared through the curtain that surrounded him and said “Awake are we?”

“Thirsty” he muttered.

“How are you feeling, still got that headache?”

Charles had no idea what she was talking about. “OK I suppose. Can I get a drink.”

The nurse deemed it safe to remove the restraints on his limbs. She was not going to remove the head brace. But she did unclamp it so he could at least raise his head.

Charles appreciated the drink. With his thirst quenched he felt hungry. But the nurse shook her head when he asked about breakfast. “Not until the doctor sees you. That won’t be long.”

Twenty minutes later Charles saw that face again. Merry Li was tired but she managed a smile. She asked him some questions, checked his stats and said “You’re still running a bit of a temperature. We need to monitor that. I’m going to keep you in the ward for another day.”

Somehow that news didn’t worry Charles at all. “Will you be checking up on me?”

“Till 0800 anyway. But another doctor will be on duty then.”

Charles managed a smile. He didn’t even complain when she told him it would be best if he avoids solids for now. She reassured him that the glucose gave him all the energy he needed for now. He wasn’t really paying attention to her words but he enjoyed the sound of her voice. It carried a softness that he liked.

After she left the room he lay there thinking about the sound of her voice as he closed his eyes. ‘No edge to it’ he thought ‘not like mother’s.’

Chapter 6. Resolute over Q2 0610, 7 September

Dave Warner had woken early. John Conrad’s grinning face had haunted him.  Dave forced himself out of bed and meditated for half an hour. This brought him a measure of peace. ‘One hundred percent commitment…zero percent attachment’ Dave had muttered to himself as he came out of meditation.

Normally at this stage he would go to the gym but instead he took the elevator up to A deck and entered the command centre.

“Sir?” queried 1
^st
Lt Val Gomez, the ship’s quartermaster, who had the dog watch. She was surprised to see him at this hour.

“Morning Val” said Dave as he sat down in his commander’s chair. “Nothing’s up” he reassured her as he checked the time on his terminal. “It’s almost dawn.”

Val checked her terminal and confirmed “yes it is, why?”

“How would you like to see it?” Dave had an almost mischievous smile on his face.

“We’ll have to decloak” advised Val.

“Yeah we will.”

Val smiled back at him. “Sure, why not. Allow me.” She hit the control to raise the shields over the circular windows that surrounded the circular command centre. From their current perspective they were looking eastward towards where the sun would rise but the rim of the planet was barely visible. “Lower the nose?” asked Val.

“Yes that would be nice.”

Val adjusted the controls to nudge the angle of the ship down relative to the planet. The ships thrusters compensated to keep the ship in geo stationary orbit over Rollinium. So now the first glow of the morning was appearing in the centre of the planet’s rim in front of them.

They both sat back in their chairs and gazed in awe as the sun appeared to rise over the rim, even though it was the planet that was rotating and with it their ship. But the effect was magical no matter which way you liked to view it.

Dave took a deep breath in, filling his lungs with air as the golden light seemed to fill his vista. He imagined he was back at Terra Fuago on Polaris where he had had his honeymoon with Rihan. Only there he could actually feel his body warm up under the rising sun. The memory of that warmth was good even if he was denied the actual experience of it here.

He closed his eyes and he felt like he was being bathed in energy. It nourished his spirit. ‘And I need nourishing’ he said to himself. ‘How long can I…how long can we sustain this?’ he asked himself. He longed for a break. But he knew there was little prospect at the moment.

He knew that there was a good chance the enemy would return in greater numbers. He had to stay though and defend Q2 till the Combined Fleet arrived at the end of the month. Then he hoped he and his overworked subordinates could get some rest.

The image of the sun’s glow now imprinted onto his retinas reclaimed his focus and he rested in the space. It was just like in some of his meditations when the inner eye was filled with grace’s golden light. He revelled in it for a good two minutes.

He opened his eyes and the sun was well and truly above the rim now. It was quite bright and he moved his hand to shield his eyes.

“You missed most of it” observed Val.

Dave smiled at her. “I got what I needed.”

Chapter 7. Kiev to Q2 2100, 7 September

Phil was on his third beer for the night. He felt guilty but justified it on the grounds that it had been a hard day. He was lounging in the officers mess when Greta came in. She nodded and came over to him.

“Message in from Pious” she said, referring to political officer Commodore Julian Pious.

“And?”

“He left for Cheklin in the Phantom four days ago when he got Evie’s message. Says he’s going to make the necessary arrangements…”

Phil cut in “what necessary arrangements?”

“I’m getting to that” she said a little irritated. “He says he’s going to make the necessary arrangements for the subordination of Federation assets in a combined Fleet under Resistance authority.”

“Has he indeed” said Phil and took another swallow of his beer. “There was a time I thought I was the boss around here.”

Greta was a mature woman blessed with good humour. She smiled as she gave a tilt of her head.

“Anything more?” asked Phil.

“Oh just that the Phantom has transferred all its remaining missiles to the Spectre and Raptor.”

“Oh terrific, we are sending our most powerful frigate into harm’s way without any teeth.”

“But it makes sense Sir. This is purely a non-combat mission and Q2 is the defensive priority, right?”

“Yeah, yeah” said Phil. “Thank you and good night” he said with a wave of his hand. He got a frown from Greta in response. She turned and left.

Phil took another swallow from his beer glass and leaned back into the lounge. ‘You get days like these’ he reminded himself. ‘It will pass.’

Chapter 8. Phantom over Cheklin 0400, 8 September

Commander Aubrey Bellard had made sure her ship, the FFS Phantom, would arrive on the far side of Cheklin from its sun so they could take advantage of the dark to insert Cdre Julian Pious. He was a political officer and not her operational superior, but even in his combat gear, which seemed incongruous with the man she had come to know quite well, he still cut a commanding figure.

They were here deep in enemy space, over a rogan home world no less, so the Commodore could negotiate a deal with the Cheklin Resistance. Two rogan capital and two light ships patrolled the space above the planet along with the massive Dogon space station and its missiles batteries and fighter squadrons.

This was not a good place to be for a single frigate, especially one carrying only two of its normal 100 missiles. It did have one advantage over its adversaries and it was a big advantage. The Phantom was one of the new third generation stealth ships. It had warped in cloaked and would remain cloaked till they left.

While cloaked they were invisible to enemy radar and could only be detected by enemy ladar if they were directly looking at the craft. They could launch their stealth shuttles, known affectionately as warthogs, but otherwise they could not fire missiles, beam or pulse weapons or send radio signals, other than tight band, or emit any other emissions. Doing so would expose them to detection and most likely destruction.

Aubrey’s blond ponytail bobbed at the back of her head as she entered the hangar bay walking briskly. She looked across at Julian as he yawned. 1
^st
Lt Tola Puchanski was next to him doing a pre mission check with Sergeant (Sgt) Madge Soderberg, leader of Bravo Team – the marines that would accompany them.

“Don’t worry Sir we’ll be hanging around for the duration” said Aubrey.

“That’s reassuring Aubrey” he said.

It was at that moment that Aubrey was hailed. “Yes, what is it.”

“You and the Commodore should see this before you go” said 2
^nd
Lt Neo Kone, the ships communications and intelligence (CI) officer. “It’s important.”

“Sir, we have to go back up” conveyed Aubrey. Julian nodded without asking why. If the truth be known he was still trying to wake up. He yawned several times as they ascended the elevator to A deck.

In the command centre Neo drew their attention to the report just in from Q2. “It’s from LCmd Simons” he said.

Aubrey felt a gnawing pain in her gut. Five days ago she had left Q2 to deliver the Commodore to Cheklin. Her mission had been, in conjunction with the stealth frigates Spectre and Raptor, to secure Q2, pending the arrival of the rest of the 17
^th
Flotilla.

Q2 was the second planet in the Qwantum system. It was in the rogan extended territories, further out from their home world systems, and the scene of the first use of a mass exchanger device. That device had created a massive gravitational anomaly on the outer gas giant, Q4. Q4 was now in the process of pulling the inner frozen giant, Q3, towards itself. It was estimated they had less than 12 months before the systems gravitational state made warping in and out of it unsafe. That would spell the end of the system.

But Phil Yomoto wanted to use Q2 as a staging base, even if only for a year. His combined fleet was in warp to Q2, hence why it was important to keep it secure.

They had already fought one action there against two enemy frigates and all three federation frigates were low on missiles. Against her own better judgement, Aubrey had let the Commodore persuade her to leave the defence of Q2 to the other two stealth frigates, along with all but two of her missiles.

LCmd Art Simons was the political officer left on Q2 to liaise with the Resistance there. He would not be sending a trivial message.

Aubrey read the message with the Commodore. Her worst fears were realised. They were under attack from the Third Rogan Imperial Fleet (3
^rd
RIF). The spaceport at Rollinium along with a good portion of the inner city had been destroyed. Their Control team at the spaceport were dead. Aubrey immediately thought of her friend LCmd Sue Chalker who was in charge of the support droids defending the spaceport. “Fuck it” she said out loud.

“Wait” said Julian as he scrolled down to read more. Aubrey breathed a sigh of relief when she read ‘Sue’s fine.’ But then she felt her neck tighten as she read ‘John and Chad never made it.’ These were all fellow shipmates of hers from FFS Hermes and now they were gone.

“We should have stayed” she said emphatically.

“And done what?” challenged Julian. “Look here” and he pointed to the screen “neither Spectre nor Raptor has engaged. They are still there cloaked and so would you have been. Three frigates, with only 75 missiles, were never going to match it with an enemy fleet. You know that. You made the right decision. Now we need to get on with this.”

Aubrey was fuming. “This is two days old and the Resolute was due in at Q2, a few hours later. They may need our help.”

“Maybe, maybe not. It really doesn’t matter now. That battle has already been won or lost. If it’s been won then you are not needed. If it’s lost then even if we left now we could not possible influence things. What would you do on arrival with just two missiles?”

“Oh!” exclaimed Aubrey exasperated. “It’s impossible to argue with …”

“Sound logic” interjected Julian. “Come on, I need to get going. We can’t afford to lose any more of the night.”

Five minutes later the warthog shot out into the dark fully cloaked. On board Julian sat up front behind the pilot and next to Tola. He tried to relax. There was much to think about in relation to the negotiations he would soon be undertaking with the Cheklin Resistance. But his thoughts kept turning to events now past on Q2. ‘I do pray Dave’ he said to himself, referring to Dave Warner, ‘that you are alive and have prevailed.’ He began to ponder the consequences of failure over Q2 but then caught himself and forced his mind to focus on the task at hand.

Chapter 9. LZ Alpha Cheklin 0510, 8 September

Tola was too busy to look at the warthog as it departed. She was already hailing Evie Plentun, one of the Resistance leaders. Her communicator rang for quite a while before the groggy voice responded with a “Yes.”

It had been a long night for Evie - first the political rally, then the flight back to Neeblo, then all the discussions and planning. It wasn’t until 0200 that she had got into her bed. She was struggling to function but slowly she realised that it was Tola who was hailing her.

“What are you doing here?” She listened as Tola explained. Then she said “Yes I see. But it’s very dangerous right now.”

“It is imperative that the Commodore speak with Meelanda. Now would be good.” Tola was referring to Meelanda Orocash, who was fast becoming the prime leader of the Resistance here on Cheklin.

“Wait. I will have to wake her up. Call back in ten.”

Julian dialled up the temperature setting for his suit as the temperature dropped just before the dawn. A faint glow could be discerned on the horizon. Julian knew there would be no going back before tonight. He really wanted to speak with Meelanda face to face but he doubted there would be enough time for a hopper trip before dawn made it too dangerous.