Birthright: Battle for the Confederation- Turmoil (2 page)

The newly married
couple faced Captain Elco.  Merritt got a firm handshake and a slug on the
shoulder, while Cory wrapped the captain up in a great bear hug.

After that, they
made their way to the front row of guests and received brief congratulations
from everyone.  There would be a small reception in that same park shortly, but
it was considered the best of luck if good wishes were made as soon as possible
by all those in attendance.

Loren's wife Cassie
stood with him as Cory and Merritt approached.  Hugs were traded all around,
and for one carefree afternoon nobody worried about the war.

Avenger hung in
orbit above Lavarra in the clutches of the Confederation Navy's Lavarran
Armory.  It was a large orbiting repair yard that specialized in the
manufacture, servicing, storage, and installation of weaponry for Confederation
ships.  As the Primans had slashed their way through Confed space, the navy had
begun dispersing many of the support services required to keep it running. 
There were a few monster shipyards that were as heavily guarded as the capital
system of Delos itself; there were many more smaller facilities scattered
through Confed space to reduce the risk of a crushing loss of too much capacity
if the Primans managed to take or destroy a system.

The Lavarra Armory
had been in existence for decades, but in the last few months had more than
doubled in size.  Now, as ships needed weapons refit or torpedoes resupplied,
they stopped by a facility like the armory.

Avenger was there
for final replenishment of weapons for herself as well as her fighter
squadrons, as well as fitting out a half dozen of her main laser batteries. 
She was powered down to standby now as final power connections were made in
anticipation of a return to active duty in a day or two. 

Cory and Merritt had
been planning their wedding to take place during Avenger's two month long refit
after the horrendous damage taken during the ambush over the planet Anderson. 
Interior decks had been rebuilt, the entire port side engine pod had been
removed and substituted with another one off a salvaged Crusader that was being
torn apart for parts, and plenty of her external armor plates had been
replaced.  The couple had unexpectedly lucked out when they'd seen the orders
for Avenger to make her last stop above Cory's homeworld.  They'd quickly
adjusted the wedding plans to take place while they were there so her family
could attend.  What with the Confederation in chaos, they had worried many of
their friends and family might not be able to make it, but if the ceremony was
right on their home planet there really weren't any good reasons not to have it
right there.

On the bridge of the
ship, Captain Sirian Elco sat in his chair, drink in hand, staring out of the
forward display screen, which happened to be showing a view of the planet
below.  He was a bit lost in thought, he had to admit.  He'd originally come up
to the ship after the wedding reception to catch up on some of the
administrative paperwork he'd complained good-naturedly about during the
ceremony, but despite his best efforts couldn't concentrate on it.  Instead,
he'd poured himself a drink and found his chair on the bridge.  The crew was
all on leave, and even the yard techs were scarce since it was late at night
and many of the ship's systems were in standby while the final connections were
made to the newly-installed laser batteries.

He heard voices from
the starboard escape trunk.  It seemed like they were coming from the stairs
that lead down to the Combat Control Center; C3 for short.  He wondered if he
should go see who was making the racket, but after a few seconds he recognized
one of the voices.

He heard the clank
of feet on the metal stairs, and soon enough he saw Loren and Cassie emerge
from the escape trunk onto the bridge proper.

"Captain,"
Loren said with a smile and a quick salute which Elco waved off.

"XO.  No need
for the pleasantries tonight.  I won't tell if you won't.  Agreed?"

"Sounds fine
with me," Loren replied.

"Evening,
Cassie," Elco continued as he addressed Loren's wife, the person his XO
had almost killed himself several times over to get back to.  "How was the
party going after I left?"

"Slowing
down," she replied.  "A lot of the guests are from Avenger, I'm told,
and despite the elaborate plans Web was putting together, everyone seems to
have behaved themselves."

"Good to
know," Elco replied thoughtfully, then smiled good-naturedly at Loren. 
"I suppose there's probably some rule we're breaking with a civilian on
the bridge, eh?"

"Says the man
with a drink in his hand," Loren pointed out with a chuckle.

"Well, you've
got me there,"  Elco replied, then turned somber.  "I'm not the type
for theatrics, but I have to say I came up here to work but couldn't get my
mind into the game, and then it hit me.  After all the toasts tonight at the
dinner, I realized I needed to come make a toast to all the crew who weren't
with us anymore."

"A good
idea," Loren agreed.

"So what brings
you up to Avenger?"  Elco continued.  "Taking a tour, planning on
testing out my chair for fit, something like that?"

Loren laughed a
bit.  "I still have no aspirations to your chair, Captain."

"You
should," Elco countered pointedly.  "You can't have mine, though, but
you should get your own some day soon."

Loren changed the
subject.  "Actually, I just came aboard because Cassie heard my quarters
were somewhat the worse for wear."

Cassie held up a
large bag which looked bulky but didn't seem to be too heavy.  "I brought
some tableware and a few touches of home to redecorate.  I heard the place was
trashed long before it took actual battle damage."

"Yes, leave it
to Loren to blame the Primans for the sad state of his quarters," Elco
smiled.  "Well, don't let me interrupt you.  I'm just going to sit here
and brood for a while."         

"Best wishes on
your brooding, then, Captain," said Loren as he put his hand on Cassie's
back and direct her to the rear lift on the starboard side of the bridge.  He
couldn't help but stop by the last display screen and call up a quick update on
the in-progress work orders, which earned him a smack on the arm from Cassie.  

"Decorating
tonight, work tomorrow," she chided.  Loren gave in and followed her to
the lift.

Loren and Cassie
took their time strolling the corridors of Avenger.  The ship was quiet and
dimly lit, and while at first Loren had felt uneasy, he soon felt peaceful. 
The ship itself seemed at peace.  There was just the soft whoosh of air from
the ducts, the barely perceptible thrum of the engines in the deck plates as
the powerplants operated at minimum output.  They only saw one other person, a
yard tech putting the finishing touches on a power junction mounted on the
ceiling as they walked past.

They arrived at his
quarters, fully repaired now, though the place seemed cold and sterile with few
furnishings and fresh Confed Gray paint.

"Wow,"
Cassie said in mock astonishment at the bare quarters, "I didn't know it
was this bad in here."  She set the bag she'd been carrying on the
countertop in the kitchenette and began taking boxes out and stacking them next
to the bag.

"War is
hell," he said with a grin, though he kept from her the dark thoughts that
had danced through his mind as he'd decided what he would be willing to do to
save her and the population of Toral.  "A bunch of the furniture was
damaged, the hatch and most of the bulkhead were replaced, and a lot of the
glasses and dishes you got me broke."

"The XO's
quarters are pretty nice, though," she commented as she looked around. 
She knew Loren and the former XO, Delgin Marks, had been longtime friends
before Marks had been killed in the opening days of the war.  She'd met him a
few times and could see why he and Loren got along so well.

"I'll give you
a quick tour," he replied.  He took her hand and led her to the small
kitchenette.  "This is the kitchen, where I prepare a gourmet assortment
of flavored ration bars."  He pointed to an empty space where a small
table had recently been.  "That's where I used to do paperwork instead of
sleeping.  Over there is the living area."  He pointed to the small
bedroom, just big enough for a bed, some built in drawers, and a small closet. 
"That's the bedroom- nothing ever happens in there."

"Oh, I think we
could fix that," Cassie said with a smile as she turned and walked through
the doorway.  "It looks like a tight fit, but I think we can make
do."

"We can
certainly try," Loren agreed.

Senator Zek Dennix,
representative of the planet Toral and head of the Governing Committee of the
Confederation, sighed as his least favorite person in the entire galaxy entered
his office.  These visits were too frequent for his tastes, and no longer
carried even the feigned equality of their initial engagements.  No, now his
visitor merely called on him to give him his latest orders and demand
information.  If it weren't for their arrangement, he would have sought a way
to eliminate her long ago.  Well, that plus the fact that she could destroy him
politically as well as personally if he got out of line.

His visitor was a
striking woman by the name of Tana Starr.  She looked like an extremely fit,
taller-than-average humanoid woman, attractive by the standards of most species
in the Confederation.  The only hang-up was that she was really a Priman
operative, tasked to be his liason to the Priman conquerors swarming through
the galaxy.

"Ms.
Starr," Dennix began in a deadpan tone, "a pleasure as always."

"The pleasure
is entirely yours, Senator, I assure you," she replied as she walked
purposefully up to his desk and sat in the overstuffed chair in front of it. 
She reached into the small case she carried and withdrew several data cubes, about
the size of playing dice, and placed them on his desk between them.  The desk
was entirely too large, the affectation of someone who desperately wanted to
feel important and clutched to himself anything that could help with that
imagery.  In her own workspace, she had a workstation at counter height; there
were no chairs, for her or any of the few visitors she might call to her.  She
believed that she was in her office to work, and inviting too much comfort for
herself or others detracted from the purpose of being there.

"And these
would be?" asked Dennix, still showing no emotion as he picked up the
cubes one by one.

"Your latest
orders and opinions," Starr countered reasonably.  "Fleet directives
plus some policy and opinion matters you should be pushing on the
Confederation."

"I wasn't aware
my opinions had changed overnight," he replied dryly.

"You know how
this works."

He said nothing,
instead choosing to simmer quietly.  He had no idea making a deal with the
devil would be this cumbersome.

"We have one
very specific request for the navy," Starr continued.  "I followed
the paperwork we had you submit for court-martial proceedings for Commander
Loren Stone and others on Avenger for various irregularities during their last
deployment."

Dennix almost
chuckled.  Their 'last deployment' was such a sterile way to describe it.  No,
their previous deployment had single-handedly saved the population of an entire
planet from a Priman DNA virus and cemented their spot at the top of the
enemy's most-wanted list.

"Yes," he
replied, "the paperwork seems to have been misdirected or lost by the
administrative staff in the navy."

"Twice,"
she growled.  "It appears you have a ship full of heroes that their
fellows have chosen to worship."

"You can't
blame them, can you?" Dennix replied.  "They saved a planet, and that
plus their combat record so far accords them a lot of attention and therefore
consideration."

"I realize
this, so I have a way to deal with it."  She shifted in her seat, the
first subtle sign Dennix had yet seen that might be considered a show of being
uncomfortable.  "You need to order Avenger off the front lines.  We know
she's just coming back from trials after her refit, so that's a fine excuse to
keep her sidelined.  You can even say you're doing it to keep the heroes of the
Confederation out of the line of fire for a while.  In any case, you need to
order the navy to find them a far-off, out of the way hole to banish them to. 
Keep them out of our business for a while, or our methods towards them will
become much more direct and make you look more suspicious."

Without anything
else to add, she got up and took her leave.

Dennix blew his
breath out in a rush.  He was caught between two forces in his desire to shape
the future of the Confederation.

On one side were the
Primans.  They had promised he would rule as their governor after they had
pacified the Confederation.  The problem was, they couldn't come to an
agreement on what constituted 'pacified'.  Dennix was willing to give them some
leeway, as long as his vision of Confed would come to pass.  The biggest factor
working in their favor was the simple truth that he thought they were going to
succeed.  They wanted the entire galaxy, and had been doing a stellar job in
this spiral arm of it so far.  Even if they didn't make it all the way, he
didn't see how they would ever relinquish their hold on this region of space.

On the other side
was the Confed military.  The navy had managed some spectacular victories,
often against bad odds and fought at a disadvantage.  There was the slimmest of
chances that the navy could pull it off and push the Primans out of their
space.  If the navy won, he could still rule Confed by capitalizing on the
victory with himself at the helm.  The problem there was that the navy had the
means to discover the game he'd been playing. If they managed a victory, he'd
need to find a way to cement his control and de-fang them so they didn't try to
oppose him.  The crew of Avenger in particular had shown a knack for having
their way with directives but always succeeding in their goals, and the
brilliant but disgraced Admiral Nodam Bak saw his duty to the ideals of the
Confederation above all else, including his own career and life.  He'd need to
convince them to follow him, but he had no idea how.  It was important, though,
that he was the one to steer the Confederation.  He was the one who knew best;
he was the one who deserved to be in charge.