Warpath (13 page)

The wormhole closed
behind Dent and the jamming signals that came through with he and
Minh-Chu ended. “-Base, to Uriel fighters. You are on approach to
Anchor Station at high speeds, please state your intentions.”

“This is Ronin, from
Triton Fleet Samurai Squadron,” Minh-Chu said as his thrusters
fired at maximum in an effort to guide the ship into a smooth course
past the station during his deceleration. He saw Dent slowly drift
past, his ship looked like a white hot fireball with all of its
thrusters firing. “There is at least one Regent Galactic Carrier
and group on their way into the system, or getting ready to escape.”

“Ronin, we recognize
your ship ident. So this fleet is poising to attack or retreat? You
couldn’t tell which?” The British Alliance officer on the other
end asked, sounding a little amused.

“I didn’t stick
around long enough to clarify, there was some weapons’ fire
involved. Transmit my sensor data and short automatic report to your
command centre and Triton Fleet.”

“I’ll review the
data and see if it rates high enough for priority transmission,”
replied the officer.

“You’ll transmit
this now. Do not take time to review them before you pass them on,
this is not easy reading material, it is not bathroom data for your
perusal, and it’s not a field trip report.”

“Sorry, that’s not
policy,” the officer replied.

“Dent, do you still
have enough juice in your cells to get a high compression wormhole
transmission out?” Minh-Chu asked.

“Sure, I’ve been
charging since we caught something on scanners,” he replied. “I’ll
transmit that report from here.”

“You are prohibited
from opening any wormholes in the safe Navnet zone,” another
Officer from the station said sternly.

“Wait, are you just
talking to me?” Minh-Chu said. “Because I was the one talking to
your officer, and I’m the senior commander for Samurai Squadron,
so-“ Minh-Chu watched as Dent’s micro wormhole opened, the
transmission was sent, and it closed.

“We are talking to
Dent! Your wingman! The one that just broke our harbour laws!”
replied the second officer.

“Now, when you say
‘We’, is that the royal ‘We’ or are you representing a
collective of some kind?” Minh-Chu asked.

“Oh, you were talking
to me?” Dent asked, his voice loaded down with false regret. “I’m
sorry, that won’t happen again. I’m just used to reporting to my
superiors as soon as I can when there’s an invasion force in the
area. Again, really sorry, won’t happen again.”

Minh-Chu reviewed the
data himself. If the fleet decided to attack, they would be within
range of the Anchor Station in just over an hour. He started a
systems check.

Oz had learned to say
‘no’ early on in his training. It was one of the first things
they broke into him when his real military training at the Junior
Academy began. Freeground soldiers were all trained as problem
solvers first. That meant looking at a problem from multiple angles,
considering your options then being decisive. Normally, that meant
denying a request was easy for Oz, but facing Alaka, who he had come
to respect and like overall, was difficult.

“Why can’t I join
Triton Fleet?” Alaka pressed. His normally passive expression was
drawn into a scowl. Oz swore he could see more grey around his
pointed snout. Eleven new born nafali must have been taking their
toll.

“You are one of the
only truly trustworthy people on the ground who I can be sure will
train new crewmembers on Tamber,” Oz replied. “You’re just too
important there. I know Governor Anderson has been trying to get you
into the Rangers, you’d see mixed action there. You’d train
people, lead ground missions, boarding missions.”

“Iloona and my
daughters are taking care of the children, if that’s what you’re
truly worried about, and I stay out of the Rangers so I can train
people to live on Tamber, not just fight or survive there,” Alaka
said, his dark brown and blonde muzzle twitching. The time he’d
spent in the outdoors on Tamber had done the Nafalli a lot of good,
he had time to train people in the jungle there, most of it was spent
with the children he had who weren’t occupied with taking care of
Illoona. As Oz understood it, that came to an end several weeks
before, when Iloona gave birth to a brood of eleven tiny Nafalli
children. Alaka was constantly at her side, despite what he was
telling Oz. The logs were clear, Alaka spent less than four hours a
day away from Iloona on average. “She would rather I go on a long
hunt than spend any more time with her and our new borns. She is not
accustomed to me being with her all the time. She tells me I’m
‘under foot’ or ‘always over head,’ whatever that’s
supposed to mean.”

Oz recognized Lacey’s
terminology right away and couldn’t help but smile a little. The
woman didn’t meddle, she was a great help to Iloona, but she did
know how to help people find the right words. “The problem is not
that you’ll be separated from your family, not in this case,” Oz
said. “I really do want you on Tamber training people, watching
them to make sure we’re not taking our enemies in. You’ve already
caught nine people who joined up for the wrong reasons.”

“It’s easy when
you’re paying attention,” Alaka said, “The Rangers have rooted
out ten times as many in a month. They are better at training people
for security and law enforcement.”

“Not for the Triton,
not for the extended fleet we’re building,” Oz said, gesturing
out the transparent bulkhead behind him to the Barricade, a ship that
wouldn’t be properly crewed for another two weeks at least. “If
it makes you feel better, you’re going to have to move trainees
there while they train on the Barricade’s systems, so you can get a
couple weeks away that way. You can even bring your two eldest if you
want them to get some technical training.”

“I will argue this
with you, Oz,” Alaka growled. “I belong on the Triton. The fight
you fly to is mine, the memory of my friends demand that I make
myself part of it. Some of your people visited Pandem after it fell,
but I lived there, my family lived there. I remember how alive it
was, and all the friends who I couldn’t save. Now I can join you in
avenging them and stopping the people responsible from taking control
of more territory, killing more people.”

“What would your
friends say about you leaving your family and an opportunity to train
hundreds of people? I know you train fighters, and pickers, and
people who study Tamber to live there without disturbing life there.
The people in this fleet may not see it, but they’re important to
our survival, they help provide a home for us to go back to, and
people like you make sure it’s secure. You’re a born hunter, I’ve
seen you in action, and, yes, I’ll miss you in a fight, but I’d
rather have a thousand people you trained and have you guarding Haven
Shore on the ground than have just one of you aboard. You can argue
all you want, Alaka, but my answer won’t change.”

“I belong at the
front,” Alaka said. “I am a warrior in my prime. The squad of
nafalia I brought for your inspection are all great hunters.”

“Don’t get me
wrong, I would be proud to have your squad aboard, representing this
ship on missions, but you are needed on Tamber, “ Oz was
interrupted by the alert alarm as it sounded once and the lighting
tinted slightly red. “You and your squad are on a shuttle back home
from the dorsal launch deck in two minutes, Alaka. You’re my
friend, but you still have to follow orders.”

The Nafalli was
obviously irritated, and looked around before sighing and nodding.
“After the alert,” he said. “My people will be disappointed.”

“All right, let’s
see what this is,” Oz said as he left the room for the bridge.
Hausgeist didn’t have to communicate how urgent the situation was
with more than an emotion that Oz recognized immediately. He mentally
put the entire fleet on alert and sent an advisory to Kambis Navnet.

The moment the doorway
to the bridge slid open he had the lead communications officer,
Lieutenant Commander Liara Erron at his side. Oz was always struck at
how much she looked like his mother. Her long brown hair, soft
features and a usually passive manner that made her easy to talk to.
She looked much younger, in her early twenties if he had to guess,
but the resemblance almost had him staring from time to time. She
walked with him as he walked to the command seat at the centre of the
bridge. “The patrol we sent to investigate the asteroids drifting
through the system may have made an attempt to contact us, but their
micro-wormhole burst was jammed. All we have is noise. We’re
analysing it now.”

“Signal all orbital
patrols, they are to coordinate with Tamber Defence to set up a
defensive screen. Contact all our in-system assets, find out who is
in range of that jamming signal, and if we can scramble stealthed
scouts to that location in the next fifteen minutes. I want pilots
and support crews in our new gunships, and our alert wing ready to
launch in five minutes. This is not a drill.”

“Sir, are you sure?
This jammed signal doesn’t conclusively indicate that we are
dealing with anything serious, it could be smugglers, or illegal
salvaging teams working on a wreck in that asteroid drift. Maybe one
of our patrols tripped across someone trying to do something
questionable, and they’re being jammed so the perpetrators can buy
time to get away,” the Lieutenant Commander countered.

“That’s very
specific,” Oz replied. “Do you know something I don’t,
Lieutenant Commander?”

“It used to happen
all the time in Soroluna, smugglers and other interesting travellers
meeting with people in shadow ports, trying to make contact with
people on the edge of the core world cluster.”

“Better safe than
sorry, Liara,” Oz said.

“Relaying orders to
Flight, Sir,” Liara said as she started back for the communications
section of the bridge, a semi-circle of stations to the right of the
command seating. “And I’ll keep looking at that jamming signal,
I’m pretty sure the transmitter used was Regent Galactic, but a lot
of neutral ships use their comm systems.”

Oz took a moment to
allow Hausgiest, the Triton’s first inhabitant, to elaborate on the
feeling of alarm. His voice came through the audio system on the
bridge. The crew knew Hausgiest as the ship’s newly active
artificial intelligence, and had no idea that it was a biological
being. “Admiral, there is an unmistakable set of signatures in this
jamming signal. One is Regent Galactic, just as the Lieutenant
Commander has already determined, the other is Citadel, there is no
doubting it.”

“Citadel?” Oz
asked.

“There is a Citadel
ship in that asteroid field, and it is issuing commands. There is no
doubt,” the normally warm male voice of Hausgiest was strained,
beyond concerned. “Somehow, the last functioning branch of Citadel
has allied with Regent Galactic or the Order of Eden. There is no
other explanation.”

“But that’s still a
good guess,” Lieutenant Commander Erron said. “Not certain.”

“There is no other
likely explanation for this combination of technologies and methods,”
replied Hausgiest.

“So we are facing
Earth technology?” Victor Davis asked. He had taken the place of
First Officer aboard the Triton.

“A true Sol System
vessel would have been able to stop any transmission at the source,
so there is a doubt that there is a Sol System ship here, but whoever
jammed that transmission is certainly using Sol System software. I
cannot determine how old it is, or any other details, however.”
Hausgiest replied. “The signal is mostly noise, there is little
encoded within it.”

“Are our updates all
ready to go online?” Oz asked as he took a seat in the command
chair. All eyes were on him, all the crew knew were the rumours of a
Citadel assassin killing people aboard before he could be stopped.
Most of them feared Citadel, and were in awe of Earth.

“Anti-Gravity
shielding, the new point defence systems, particle beams, and
everything else except for the experimental D-Transit Drive are
ready,” Agameg replied. “We are still weeks away from completing
construction and testing.”

“Well, we have what’s
important for now,” Commander Davis said. “I’ll work on putting
our course together. Contact Governor Anderson, we might need him.”

“I’ll be on the
Flight Deck,” Oz said, standing and starting for the ramp leading
down into the flight control and Mission Centre. He stopped and
looked to Alaka, who seemed stranded between the bridge entrance and
the command seats. “Why don’t you make sure your team is geared
up? Go see Chief Glassner in the armoury, your team’s custom armour
may be the challenge he’s been looking for. Oh, and there are some
large class weapons you might like there, just in case you need them
while you’re working on Tamber.”

“A consolation for
not getting my team’s chosen assignment,” Alaka said, nodding. “I
accept.”

“It’s not like
we’ll have time to drop you off if Citadel is in the system,” Oz
said.

“Yes, Admiral,”
Alaka said, even more pleased than Oz expected.

Oz continued down to
the Flight Control Deck where the crew were directing ship recovery
and pre-launch operations. The crew of seventy people who directed
traffic and watched the status of everything in scanning range
through all the hours of the day had become a group of well trained
experts. At any given time a little less than a third of them were on
shift, but during combat operations, fifty crowded the large,
protected area. Paula Mendle, one of three Flight Operations Chiefs,
stepped down from the central command seat and moved to a display
station seamlessly as Oz took his place there. “Who do we have on
the umbilical right now?” he asked.