New Frontiers (Expansion Wars Trilogy, Book 1) (11 page)

“No change in the Ushin formation,” Accari said. “Ship is still on heightened alert and FMC. We’re also tracking the
Amsterdam
’s navigation beacon as it moves out to meet the alien formation.”

“We’re still on com lockdown?”

“Partially, ma’am,” Ellison said. “The local area channels have been opened up and Fleet is instructing us to limit all radio calls to essential navigation traffic only. All ships are still being told to hold their current positions … no direct inquiries to us as to why we left orbit over DeLonges yet.”

“Very good.” Celesta sat down in her chair and logged into the terminal by pressing her thumb on the screen for a biometric reading. She had to go through two more security checks before accessing her private server and retrieving a set of codes Pike had given her directly following the Phage War. At first she thought he was trying to gain her favor as he had openly professed his interest in her, but she then learned that he often would pass on the same type of information to Jackson Wolfe if he thought it would be useful.

She then accessed the
Icarus’
com array from her terminal and punched in a specific frequency, one that wasn’t normally used in Fleet com protocols. The expected data stream was there, so she applied the CIS decryption codes to it and the stream resolved into a continuous broadcast that her terminal couldn’t decipher.

“OPS, I’m routing a data stream to your station,” she said. “Run it through the grav-detection network’s subroutines and then pipe the results to the main display.”

“Aye, ma’am.” Accari sounded confused but went to work as soon as Celesta included his terminal in the subnetwork she’d created to isolate the highly classified broadcast.

Near the end of the Phage War the researchers at Tsuyo Corp had begun to crack open the vault and release some of the technology they’d been working on, one of which was a detection grid that used six satellites deployed from a starship to detect gravimetric waves and allow them to detect the presence of a Phage combat unit without having to paint it with an active radar signal. It cut the detection time at least by half since all they had to do was wait for the signal from the detection grid as opposed to transmitting a high power radar signal, waiting for the returns, and then waiting further as the computers processed it all.

The downside was that the grid, while accurate, had a relatively small range of detection due to the need for each satellite to be connected to the others via a laser. After the loss of Haven it was decided that the DeLonges System had to be protected at all costs and the system was implemented on a grand scale, hundreds of individual detection grids set up to cover all the spots that the tracking stations weren’t, basically anywhere there wasn’t a jump point. The data was all sent directly to a discreet new addition to the com drone platform where the information was processed and then rebroadcast as an encrypted data stream. With the former Warsaw Alliance and Asianic Union planets breaking off it was decided to keep the system’s existence classified for the time being.

“I had to make some adjustments, but the feed from the interferometer network you sent me is now live, ma’am,” Accari gestured to the main display where gravimetric anomalies were being displayed and cataloged. “We aren’t able to access the database they’re using to identify known signatures so everything will be coming up as an unknown … I’ll begin filling in what we know from the contacts we know from either passive sensors or nav beacons.”

“Good work, Ensign,” Celesta nodded. “Tactical! While OPS is busy filling in the blanks, I want you watching that feed for any newcomers, specifically someone that appears deep in the system and didn’t come from any known jump point. Alert me the instant you have anything.”

“Aye, ma’am,” the lieutenant, junior grade said from the tactical station. Celesta made a mental note to ask where Lieutenant Commander Adler was since it was still in the middle of first watch. As her crew busied themselves with her orders, she pulled up all the ship’s logs for the time she was on the New Sierra Platform and began reading through all the entries Commander Barrett had submitted. It didn’t take her long to see that not only had Barrett performed well in her absence but the crew had been steadily increasing the readiness of the ship, not just sitting idle in orbit. After reading one of the last entries regarding the reintegration of the reactionless drive system she debated back and forth in her head for a moment before issuing her next order.

“OPS, inform Engineering we’ll be switching over to the RDS,” she said. “Helm, secure main engines from flight mode but do not purge the plasma chambers, just lower the pressure to twenty percent above minimum.”

“Securing main engines, aye,” the helmswoman said. “Purging the plasma overcharge once the RDS comes up green, Captain.”

Celesta felt a twinge of nerves as she watched her ship switch over to the new prototype drive system, but she had complete faith in Commander Graham and his team. If they said they had a way to mitigate the risk from employing the RDS then she would take that as absolute truth.

Now all she had to look forward to was the most despised and inevitable part of space warfare: the interminable waiting.

“Have you located the
Icarus
yet?” Admiral Marcum asked as he paced the bridge like a caged animal. He’d tried to locate Celesta Wright when the Ushin showed up, intent on having her with him on the bridge of the
Amsterdam
to observe Captain Everett and advise him at the unexpected appearance of their new … friends … though he supposed that friendship was tenuous at best.

He wasn’t sure what pissed him off more: the fact he couldn’t find her or the fact he was actually surprised when he’d been told the
Icarus
was last spotted moving out of orbit and thrusting hard towards the outer system. Marcum wasn’t sure how she’d gotten off New Sierra during the lockdown, but he was certain that little shit, Pike, was instrumental in helping. When he’d confronted the damn spook the man had the gall to stay in character as Wellington’s aide and act like he had no idea what he was talking about, sneering at the admiral in front of the entire staff as he did so. Marcum made a vow to make the weasel pay dearly for that when he had the opportunity.

“No, Admiral,” one of the sensor operators on the big battleship said, almost fearfully. “She’s running dark and the—”

“Just keep at it, son,” Marcum growled before walking up beside Captain Everett and lowering his voice to just above a whisper. “You’re comfortable bringing her out here with all the damage?”

“As I said, Admiral, we’re the only ship that it makes sense to send out,” Everett said. “The
New York
would have likely taken nearly two days to get back underway. We’ll be okay, sir. She’s still got most of her teeth and an intrasystem skirmish won’t tax our remaining main engine.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.” Marcum shook his head. “What in the hell are they doing here?”

“If I were to guess, sir, I’d say that this could only have something to do with the attack during our initial negotiations, not to mention the ambush of our taskforce in the Xi’an System,” Everett said. “I noticed their translations are getting easier to understand.”

“That should help the ambassador,” Marcum muttered. “The most important diplomatic event in the last four centuries and they send an idiot I wouldn’t trust to negotiate my next divorce settlement.”

“I, uh—”

“Forget I said anything,” Marcum said.

“Of course, Admiral,” Everett said with a nod. One of the main reasons Marcum liked Captain Everett was that, in addition to proving to be an extremely capable captain, he was someone who knew how to keep his mouth shut. Marcum was often blowing off steam and saying things that should not be uttered by flag officers about elected politicians or the Commander in Chief while in the presence of a subordinate officer, but in all the time the
Amsterdam
had been flying his flag not a single one of those comments had been spit back out by the rumor mill. The fact Everett could be trusted to allow his boss to vent without fearing the shipboard gossip kicked him up quite a few notches in Marcum’s esteem.

Captain Wright, however, was another matter. Despite the fact he liked her personally, her tendency to follow in her former commander’s footsteps and buck the chain of command was something he would not tolerate. He had put up with Wolfe all those years because he had been red meat for the bleeding hearts in the Senate and had been put in a place he couldn’t really do any damage: the bridge of an obsolete starship that served as little more than a courier and was crewed by troublemakers and rejects. But, it had been one of the few successes of the Earth Commissioning Program the politicians could wave around and Wolfe himself had been largely ignored by CENTCOM and Fleet Operations until the damn Phage happened to show up in the middle of his patrol route.

Once that happened all Wolfe’s unsavory habits became a constant nuisance. He would habitually disobey direct orders, take Fleet property and personnel wherever he wanted, whenever he wanted on missions that made sense to nobody but him, and the damnable hell of it all was that because he was part lucky, part good, and had killed so many Phage, the civilian oversight of Starfleet would have drummed him out had he even suggested that Wolfe was not only
not
a hero but should be prosecuted.

Captain Celesta Wright, Wolfe’s former executive officer, seemed to have picked up some of his less-admirable qualities but, like her boss, she was almost untouchable due to her actions near the end of the war. Almost. His blood burned at how casually she had ignored his orders and taken a ship, that had also been ordered to stay put, off to any damn place she pleased and now they had no idea where the
Icarus
was. For all he knew she’d warped out of the system and was flying off for a vacation. When this was over he’d make sure she never commanded so much as a transfer shuttle for her remaining days in Starfleet.

“Enjoy this last little jaunt, Wright,” he said quietly to himself. “I’ll yank you off the bridge of that ship so fast your head will spin.”

“Sir?”

“It’s nothing, Captain,” Marcum said to Everett. “I’ll get out of your way up here. Let me know if something comes up.”

“Of course, Admiral,” Everett said, almost managing to not look relieved the flag officer was leaving his bridge.  

****

“We’re approaching our holding point, boss,” Pike said, leaning back in his seat. “I’m also getting an update that the evacuation of the Senate—sorry,
Parliament—
is proceeding in an orderly fashion. The four Fourth Fleet cruisers are standing by and the shuttles should be landing momentarily.”

“Pike,” Wellington said in a pained voice, “I don’t have an enormous ego, but do you really think it’s appropriate to call the President of the United Terran Federation
boss?
”

“I thought it was just the Terran Federation.” Pike ignored the question, not wanting to get into a discussion about Wellington’s ego. “When did we get united?”

“Just fly the damn ship.” Wellington was rubbing the bridge of his nose. “When will we be able to break into the
Amsterdam
’s secure link?”

“I can do that anytime,” Pike said. “But this does beg the question, why did you send Ambassador Cole back out here when you, as President, are in the system?”

“It’s about propriety,” President Augustus Wellington said, slouching in the copilot seat and wearing a suit that Pike knew likely cost more than half a year’s salary for him. “They have arrived in our system uninvited and unwelcomed … a small delegation with a handful of ships and likely led by some unimportant Ushin diplomatic corps lackey, or whatever they call them. It would be inappropriate for the Terran President to come out personally to meet them.”

“I think I get—”

“And to answer your other sarcastic question,” Wellington rolled right over top of Pike’s comment, “we’re now the
United
Terran Federation because we want to present a unified front to the Eastern Star Alliance. They’ve now cut off all official channels of communication and have sent notice that Fed ships are no longer guaranteed safe passage through their territory.”

“I hadn’t realized it’d gone that far,” Pike said quietly. “Shall I break into the
Amsterdam
’s secure com array and begin recording?”

“If you please,” Wellington nodded.

Pike reached over and pressed the icon flashing on the large, curved display that would execute a script that would allow the Broadhead II’s intrusion avionics to force their way into the
Amsterdam
’s secure com array.

“You make that look so easy,” Wellington said idly.

“To be honest, the job is getting a little boring,” Pike admitted as the system reached out and negotiated through a secret “back door” into the battleship’s com system. “Tsuyo has built in so many failsafes that I don’t do much more than run automated sequences to get intel. It’s coming up now … looks like Cole is speaking directly to the Ushin delegation.”

****

“While we’re always happy to see our Ushin friends, you must understand that your appearance in this star system has caused this process some … complications,” Ambassador Cole said. He was sitting in a dedicated room that was completely isolated save for the direct connections to the secure com array.

“
Our sincerest apologies, Ambassador, but events have unfolded in such a way that we feel an acceleration in our negotiations is necessary
,” the disembodied voice came in over the speakers. Cole couldn’t help but notice that the Ushin real-time translation matrix had evolved rapidly to be just about perfect. Actually, the improvement was more than a little suspicious when compared to the open channel broadcasts, but he put it out of his mind. He was also grateful that the audio from their actual vocalizations was not being transmitted. Their image was distressing enough but their voices caused an irrational spike in his anxiety levels. But he was a lifelong bureaucrat and a trained diplomat so he could hide his stress and fear in order to get the job done.

“Please elaborate, if you will, Ambassador,” he said. Cole had no idea if that was the proper title or not, but it was the one they used so he assumed the translation would work the other way. The more complete translation matrix was aboard his ship, the
John Arden
, but the
Amsterdam
’s more powerful computers were picking up the slack nicely and adapting to what it saw on the Ushin side.

“
The Darshik attacks on our respective delegations, your ships in one of your own star systems, and our cargo fleet is a common concern we share
,” the Ushin ambassador stated. “
As was briefly talked about in our opening talks, we have no martial force capable of repelling the Darshik’s most recent aggression. Our defensive screens are obsolete and in poor repair. We know that your mighty navy was not only victorious over the Phage, but your warships can defeat Darshik vessels in single combat
.”

“You seek protection?” Cole asked simply.

“
We seek an alliance
,” the Ushin corrected. “
One that will be mutually beneficial to the both of us. To demonstrate our commitment to this we are transmitting a series of stellar coordinates … they are for two planets not far from your own boundaries that are perfectly suited for Terran colonization. In exchange for you extending your fleet’s sphere of influence, we will make available all of our survey data that pertains to systems of use to your species
.”

“Just so I have something to approach my government about … how many habitable planets are we talking about?” Cole asked, his eyes narrowing slightly and his breathing increasing a tick. Planets that were already habitable were highly prized and exceedingly rare. In fact, there had only been two discovered in all the years after humanity’s initial push out from the Solar System when they had found dozens of planets all in the same relative stellar neighborhood. A group of new worlds would be a valuable prize to the Terran Federation, but would it be worth going to war over?

“
According to the preliminary results of our query there are twenty-six planets within practical distance of your territory that we would be willing to relinquish control of
,” the Ushin ambassador pressed, and Cole couldn’t help but wonder if the alien had been able to read his involuntary response at the mention of new habitable worlds.

“Not an insignificant number,” Cole nodded slowly, regaining control over his reactions even though his heart was beating heavy in his chest.
Twenty-six new planets?!
“But please understand, Ambassador, that we’ve just come out of a costly war that has not only strained our resources but has weighed heavily on the spirit of our people,” Cole continued. “I can offer no guarantees that my government will be willing to provide what you’re asking for.”

“
Of course you will need to consult with your peoples’ government
,” the Ushin said. “
Bear in mind, the offer of surveyed and available worlds is not all we offer. While your prowess in the art of war far exceeds our own, we have technological advancements that we would be willing to share for the mutual benefit of all
.” 

“I would suggest that we now—” Cole broke off as the video and sound disappeared, leaving him staring at a blank, silent terminal. “What the hell?” Before he could move over to ask the technician outside what happened, alarms began blaring through the ship.

“Oh, shit.”