Ep.#4 - "Freedom's Dawn" (The Frontiers Saga) (6 page)

Captain de Winter stared at the arrogant young sergeant. “I out rank you, sergeant.”

“I’m not under your command, sir. So while I do have to show you the proper respect, I do not have to follow
your
orders. If you have a problem with that, you can take it up with
my
CO back at AI command… in ten minutes.”

The captain continued to stare at Andre as the extraction birds came down and landed behind them. “Very well, Sergeant. You have your victory… this time,” he added as he moved past Andre toward the waiting airships.

Andre didn’t turn to watch the captain and his staff board the airships. He had listened to many a story from his commander about the arrogance of Ta’Akar nobility. He had always figured they were the exaggerations of a bitter, aging commander on his last assignment. Now he knew otherwise.

“The vehicles are rigged and ready to blow,” his partner reported to Andre.

“Great. Let’s withdraw and head back to base,” he told him.

The extraction airships were already taking off as his own airship came down to pick them up. Andre walked back to idling Kalibri, stepping over the still smoldering bodies of the men from the rear vehicle. He was the last one to arrive at his airship, and stopped to turn around and take one last look at the devastation his team had caused. Satisfied that their mission was complete, he sat down on the edge of the airship’s deck and slapped the side of the canopy three times. Once again he leaned back slightly and felt the restraint system lock him against the tiny airship as it leapt off the ground and into the evening sky.

They circled around the area to provide cover while the shooters were recovered by Strike Two. Once everyone was clear of the scene, Andre activated his remote detonator and the entire corridor containing the four armored vehicles and the dead guardsmen erupted in a massive white-hot fireball as the plasma charges planted by his team detonated. It would take forensic teams months to figure out who or what had been destroyed by that explosion, and considering all that was going on lately, he doubted that anyone would ever take the time.

Andre had been in the service for over a decade now, and this had been the first real combat action in which he had been involved. He had always heard that until you were under fire, you could not know for sure how you would react. Some men had it, some did not; and no matter how hard you trained you never knew until the moment came. Today had been Andre’s moment, and it had been far more enjoyable than he had anticipated.

* * *

Marcus’s eyes nervously darted back and forth between the auto-flight status and the near-space traffic display. The shuttle had reached orbit a few minutes ago, and as best he could tell, they were rapidly approaching the Aurora. Finally, his guilt got the best of him and forced him to speak. “Uh, we may have a slight problem here,” he admitted sheepishly.

Enrique had been aware of Marcus’s increasing concerns. “What kind of problem?”

“We’re closing on the Aurora, but the auto-flight system isn’t locking onto her control signal.”

“What are you talking about? What’s an auto-flight system? Is that like some kind of autopilot?” Enrique asked.

“Well it’s what pilots the ship, if that’s what you mean.”

“And it’s not working?”

“It’s working fine. It’s just not receiving a control signal from your damned ship.”

“What kind of control signal?” Enrique asked.

“The kind that tells the ship what to do! Without it, the ship doesn’t know how to land!”

“Well can’t it be flown manually?” Enrique was sure he was stating the obvious. The fact that Marcus was getting so concerned was beginning to worry him as well.

“Yeah, I suppose—”

“You suppose? I thought you said you could fly this thing.”

“I can, when everything is working right. I mean, it’s all automated and stuff. You just push some buttons, tell it where you want to go, and it takes you there: takeoff, landing… the whole deal from start to finish.”

“Did you or did you not tell Jalea you could fly this thing?”

Marcus grimaced, not wanting to answer. “Well, I may have overstated my abilities just a wee bit.” Marcus looked over at Enrique, whose expression was none to favorable. “Oh, come on. Can you blame me? She’s a real looker, that one!”

“Oh great!”

“No worries!” Marcus defended. “Just call up your ship and tell them to turn on their auto-flight control system so we can land, simple as that.”

“Well why didn’t you say that in the first place?” Enrique asked, rolling his eyes as he activated his comm-set. “You had me thinking we were gonna crash and burn on our own flight deck.”

“Hey, I’m under a bit of pressure here too, you know.”

Enrique just ignored him as he tried to raise the Aurora.

* * *

“That is where she wants it installed,” Deliza told him.

“But I do not understand,” Vladimir complained. “Why must it be here? Why not in the patch bay? It would be so much easier.” Vladimir was wedged into the tiny crawl space at least thirty meters in from the main service tunnel. It had taken him nearly five minutes of crawling and wiggling to get into position, and he still didn’t know the purpose of the device he was installing. All he knew was that Nathan had ordered him to install it himself for Doctor Sorenson.

“She did not tell me why, just where,” Deliza told him. “Have you found the junction she indicated?”

“Yes, I found the junction she indicated,” Vladimir responded, mimicking Deliza’s voice.

“Don’t get mad at me,” she scolded. “I’m just doing as I’m told.”

“
Da
,
konyeshna
,” Vladimir muttered. He pulled out his engineering data pad and plugged in a set of analyzing nodes connected to short cables. Unlike most data pads, the engineering units were slightly larger and had several ports with which to connect various cables and scanning devices. Vladimir carried it with him in a tool belt everywhere he went while on duty. The tool belt was equipped with a special pouch specifically tailored for the data pad. Without the data pad, he felt incomplete.

He clipped the probes around the insulation of the first set of wires that he had pulled away from the main bundle and activated his data pad. After tapping his headset, he spoke. “Doctor, I am in position. You may begin transmitting the ID signal.”

“
Transmitting IDS now,
” Abby answered over the headset.

Vladimir watched his screen but saw no change in the waveform being produced by the probe. “Nyet.” He moved the probe to the next wire. “Nyet.” He continued moving the probe from wire to wire, checking for a wave form change on his data pad. “Nyet… Nyet… Nyet yeshyo… Nyet—” Suddenly, the waveform spiked. “Ah. Na konyetsna.” He rechecked the waveform on his data pad until he was satisfied that he had located the correct wire. “You may discontinue ID signal, Doctor. And please, if you would shut down this circuit, I would very much appreciate it.”

Vladimir watched as the waveform returned to the same baseline reading that the other wires had shown. He waited another few seconds until the waveform went completely flat, indicating that the wire was no longer charged and active. The thought had occurred to him that the doctor might use this opportunity to get even with him for all the trouble he had caused her during the initial installation of the jump drive weeks earlier. He could imagine her smile of satisfaction as he received a harmless yet painful electrical shock. However, according to the data pad, revenge was not in the physicist’s plans for today—a fact for which Vladimir was grateful.

He carefully cut away a few centimeters of the outer shielding on the small wire and then attached a small compression splicer onto it. Once the tightening screw was turned, the device sunk its teeth into the wire, penetrating the inner insulation to make contact with the wire inside. He then connected the new wire to the compression splicer.

He reached down to his tool belt and felt around for the can of spray-on insulator, but it was nowhere to be found. “Chort,” he cursed when he realized it was not where he expected it to be. “Deliza!” he called out in frustration. “Is there small blue spray can out there?”

Deliza looked around the room by the entrance to the crawlway but did not see the can in question. “I don’t see anything.” She looked into the tunnel and noticed the small blue can lying on the floor of the tunnel near the intersection into which Vladimir had crawled. “Wait, I see it. It’s in the main tunnel, at the intersection behind you. It must have fallen out of your tool belt.”

“Can you bring it to me?”

“You want me to crawl up in there?” she resisted.

“You are small, it will be easy for you,” he insisted.

Deliza looked down at her only outfit, the one she had been wearing the morning their farm was attacked and they had been forced to run, leaving everything they owned behind, including all of her clothing. “But I’m not really dressed for this,” she pleaded, not wanting to crawl into the dirty tunnel.

“Deliza, please. It will take me forever. You will be fine; I promise.”

Deliza rolled her eyes and exhaled in resignation as she climbed up into the tunnel entrance and began crawling through the narrow space. The floor of the long crawlspace was rough, having been textured to provide traction. The walls and ceiling of the tunnel were lined with countless wires, conduits, pipes, and ducting, and there was a fine soot covering everything.

“Why is it so dirty in here?” she complained as she crawled along.

“There was a fire in this part of the ship after our first battle with the Jung,” Vladimir explained. “We tried flushing this space out, but it didn’t get rid of everything.”

“I still don’t understand. Who exactly are the Jung?” she asked as she continued crawling down the tunnel.

“We do not know, really. We haven’t yet had any contact with them. Our only information comes from communications intercepts and some limited off-world intelligence. All we know is that they have conquered pretty much all of the core worlds of Earth.”

“And you think they will attack Earth next?” Deliza stopped and picked up the small blue spray can before continuing.

“We do not know for sure, but it is likely.”

“Can you stop them?”

“Probably not. We only have a few ships, and they have many.”

“But they don’t have a jump drive, do they?”

Vladimir looked at her in amazement as she approached. Not a day went by when her perceptiveness didn’t surprise him. Now, it seemed, she was even thinking strategically.

“No, they do not, which is precisely why we need to get home as quickly as possible. If we could install this same drive on at least a few other ships, we might be able to fend off an invasion.” Vladimir reached out his hand to take the spray can from her. “Thank you.”

“No problem,” she said, a hint of sarcasm in her voice as she tried unsuccessfully to wipe the soot from her hands and knees. “Oh God, I’m a mess. I can’t go back to the bridge looking like this.”

Vladimir smiled. Since Deliza had come on board a few days ago, her father, Tug, had been too busy to spend much time with her despite the fact that her mother had just been killed. Deliza had taken to both Vladimir and Abby right away. Very quickly he had begun to feel like her big brother, which was fine with him. “What is the matter, little one?” he teased. “Might there be someone on the bridge you wish to impress? Perhaps a young pilot or two?”

“Nothing of the sort,” Deliza defended. She had already recognized that Vladimir was the type that enjoyed getting reactions out of people, and she was determined never to let him get the upper hand in such games. “A lady should always look presentable,” she added.

“Of course,” Vladimir conceded. “How silly of me.” He took the spray can and squirted the sealant over the compression splice device. Within seconds, the compounds had mixed and had hardened into solid insulation. He tugged at it a few times to ensure that the connection was solid before plugging the other end of the wire into a small, plain metallic box. He activated the device and buried it amongst the wiring.

“Doctor Sorenson, the installation has been completed according to your instructions,” he said over his comm-set. “Is there anything else you require of me, or may I return to the repair of my ship?”

“
That will be all. Thank you, ensign.
”

“Well, at least she is saying thank you now,” he muttered as he began to crawl back down the tunnel.

Ten minutes later they were both out of the tunnel and back in the maintenance corridor brushing themselves off. Vladimir couldn’t help but chuckle at the sight of Deliza covered with smudges of black soot. “I would not return to the bridge without cleaning up first,” he teased. Her only response was an angry glare as she continued to brush herself off as best she could.

“
Cheng, Comms
,” the voice sounded over his comm-set.

“Go ahead.”

“
Sir, the shuttle is on approach. They’re asking that we turn on our auto-flight system?
”

“Our what?”

“
Auto-flight system, sir. That’s what he said.
”

“Tug asked for that?”

“
No sir. It was Ensign Mendez. Apparently only he and the marines are returning. Marcus is piloting the shuttle.
”

“
What?
” was clearly heard from Josh in the background over Vladimir’s comm-set.

“We don’t have an auto-flight system. We do have an auto-recovery system, but it has not yet been installed. Why would he need such a thing?”

“
Sir, this is Josh. Those shuttles are pretty much automated. You can push a few buttons and go just about anywhere. But because of their design, they’re a bitch to land if you don’t know what you’re doing. And trust me, Marcus does
not
know what he’s doing.
”

“Oy.” Vladimir looked slightly perplexed. His expertise and experience were limited to the ground warfare training from his time as an infantryman in the European Forces, and computer programming and engineering systems which he learned during his four years at the European Fleet Academy.