Winds of Vengeance (2 page)

“Double check the reactor valves, Lieutenant. I’d swear I could feel a shimmy on that last transit.” It was busy work for the crew more than anything. Heflin was a young captain, and like all the new generation of officers and spacers, he had no real combat experience. But he knew his people were better off being busy, with no time to fear the unknown…or nurse growing grievances.

“Yes, sir.” Ventnor turned toward the station next to her. “Ensign Talbot, prepare to initiate reactor diagnostic.”

“Yes, Lieutenant.” Talbot extended the last word in a tone that could have been perceived as surly, mocking. It wasn’t quite disrespectful, at least not clearly enough for Heflin to intervene. But he felt a tightening in his stomach. Things had been bad on Earth Two when they’d left…and months in deep space had done nothing to ease the tensions on
Hurley
.

Heflin was watching as the engineering officer flashed a glance at Ventnor. He didn’t like it, but he caught himself before he said anything. Ventnor hadn’t seen it, and he figured he’d do more harm than good by making an issue of it.

He watched Ventnor working the controls, her hands moving quickly…almost too swiftly.
Hurley’s
tactical officer was a Tank, and her status as the ship’s second in command had created a lot of resentment. Heflin was an NB like most of his crew. Not all the Natural Borns resented the Tanks—and their resistance to disease and generally superior strength and reflexes—but enough did. Including Ensign Talbot.

There were hundreds of Tanks in the Marine Corps, more in that branch of service than NBs, but the clones were few in the navy. The fleet remained the province of men and women conceived and born the old-fashioned way, and there generally weren’t more than half a dozen Tanks on any one ship. There were four on
Hurley
. Including her first officer.

“Reactor diagnostic complete, Captain. All systems green.”

“Very well, Lieutenant.” Heflin paused for a few seconds. Then: “Engines engage, one-half power. Forty gees.”

Heflin leaned back slightly, anticipating the slight lurch he knew was coming. His father had told him stories of the original ships of the fleet—and of course he’d seen
Midway
a dozen times. Admiral Compton’s flagship was a museum now, and a bit of a shrine for anyone seeking a career in the navy. The old ships had struggled to exert 35g thrust on maximum power, and the crews could only survive high gee maneuvers by injecting a cocktail of drugs to strengthen their cell walls and then packing themselves in coffin-like canisters, floating in viscous gel. It all seemed surreal to think of, a procedure so primitive it felt little removed from wooden galleys and bows and arrows.

Heflin didn’t tend to think in terms of First Imperium technology versus human. By the time he was old enough to go to the Academy, people had unlocked many of the secrets of the ancient race’s technology. What seemed like an unending series of wonders to his parents and those of their generation was normal to him.

“Insertion in forty seconds, Captain. All systems green for transit.”

“Very well, Lieutenant. You may proceed.”

One more system. One more empty expanse of space, with a few rocks circling another sun…

*    *    *

The probe was silent, unmoving. It had one purpose…to monitor the warp gate, to detect any ships passing through. It had served that purpose for more than twenty-five of the time units its memory banks identified as years. And it had detected nothing.

Until now.

Its sensors picked up the energy burst, and its programming identified it as a transit in progress. It tracked each passing millisecond, subroutine after subroutine gathering data, calculating. It determined that it was indeed a ship coming through, and it analyzed the energy spike, estimated the vessel’s mass at forty to sixty thousand tons. All in the few milliseconds before the intruder emerged into normal space.

Then the vessel appeared. Its heading would bring it within one thirtieth of a light year of the probe.

The probe’s active scanners were shut down, and its stealth mode was fully activated. The passive scanners read the data coming in. The contact was fifty-four thousand, three hundred tons. Its energy emissions and drive signature were similar to Imperial vessels…but there was enough variation to preclude the possibility that is was a friendly ship.

The probe’s AI analyzed the data. The ship wasn’t one of the new vessels, and it wasn’t an old imperial ship either. The AI reached its conclusion.

It was the enemy.

It activated its communications array, maintaining stealth mode, slowly building power. Its purpose had been realized…and the AI knew what it had to do.

*    *    *

“Captain…”

Heflin turned toward the tactical station. “What is it, Lieutenant?”

“I’m not sure, sir…” Ventnor stared down at her workstation. “It was fleeting, but I was sure…” Her fingers moved quickly over the controls. “Yes, there was definitely an energy spike. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was…”

“Was what, Lieutenant?”

“Sorry, sir. It can’t be.” She paused. “But its profile matches a hypercom transmission.”

“Hypercom? But we haven’t got any ships out this far. How could it be…” He hesitated. Then he snapped his head toward Ventnor. “Active scanners on full, Lieutenant. If there’s an old imperial vessel hiding out here somewhere, we need to know.”

“An imperial vessel? But there hasn’t been an imperial ship sighted in more than twenty years, sir.”

“I’m well aware of that, Lieutenant. But if that reading is a communication of some kind, it has to be an imperial ship.” He hesitated. “Or a completely new contact.”

“Active scanners on full, Captain. Forty seconds to complete full sweep.”

Heflin nodded. A few seconds later: “Launch a spread of probes.”
Hurley’s
captain had never encountered a hostile spaceship; he’d never been in combat. But he was cautious…and he wasn’t about to take any chances.

“Yes, Captain. Launching probes now.” There was a hint of skepticism in Ventnor’s voice, but Heflin disregarded it. His mind drifted back to the Academy, to the instructors, combat veterans all, pounding away over and over again at the same thing. Carelessness loses more battles than anything else.

“Probes reporting back, sir. No conta…” Ventnor’s head snapped around. “Contact at 324.121.089. Low energy output, jamming pattern…”

Heflin felt his stomach tighten.

“Captain, scanning profile suggests a stealth probe. The AI assigns a forty-three percent probability it is the database entry for First Imperium type 171A stealth unit.”

Heflin could feel the tension on the bridge. The fear.

The First Imperium was history to officers his age, stories told to frighten children. He’d seen the monuments, read the accounts of the great journey to Earth Two. He knew two-thirds of those who were trapped behind the Barrier died before the Regent was defeated.

Enemy ships had continued to attack for years after the Regent’s destruction, surviving flotillas that had never gotten the final destruct command, following the last orders they had received. But even these battles petered out after four or five years…and the last one had occurred twenty years before.

“Get me a lock on that probe, Lieutenant.” Heflin’s voice was firm, tough. “And bring the ship to battlestations.”

“Yes, sir.” She punched a few keys, and an instant later, the lamps on
Hurley’s
bridge bathed the bridge in a glowing red light. A few seconds later: “Captain, we have a firing solution.”

Heflin stared straight ahead. He felt an urge to try and capture the probe, to study it.

But that thing is scanning us even now, sending information to some force somewhere. I need to stop it now.

“Main batteries…prepare to fire.”

*    *    *

Discovery. The stealth function had failed. The enemy vessel had changed course…it was moving to intercept. And it was powering up its weapons.

The AI’s routines activated as data came in. The stealth directives were overruled. The probe was unarmed. There was no doubt. It would be destroyed or captured. And capture wasn’t an option its directives allowed.

It prepped the self-destruct procedure, preparing to release containment in the small reactor that powered it. But there was one directive to complete first.

It powered up the reactor, increasing output well beyond the base maintenance levels the stealth mode had allowed. It prepped the message, a wide area communique to the ships hiding in the periphery of the system…waiting for this very warning.

The reactor hummed to full power, and the AI directed the entire output into the transmission. The signal was strong, powerful. It would reach the waiting ships within hours…and then they would respond.

The AI moved through its routines, the designated procedure for enemy contact. It launched a series of small drones. They weren’t weapons. But they would blanket this area of space with a dense jamming signal. They were antimatter-powered, capable of operating indefinitely…and following the target ship if it moved. They were tiny, difficult to locate and target. And there were dozens of them.

The AI wasn’t sentient, but it felt something akin to satisfaction. Though it knew its own destruction was imminent, it was completing the task it had been created to perform. It didn’t
feel
, and the routines now running didn’t experience satisfaction as sentient beings knew the sensation. But it was a close approximation.

The probe shook as the drones launched. The AI waited, monitoring the devices, waiting until they were out of the danger zone. Then, without hesitation, without unnecessary delay or analysis, it dropped the reactor containment field.

*    *    *

“Readings coming in now, sir. That blast was over ten gigatons.” Ventnor was working her controls frenetically, reacting as the data flooded in to
Hurley’s
bridge. She’d reported a strange energy spike from the probe, along with her guess that it was some kind of communication. That assessment was confirmed by the ship’s AI a moment later. Then her scanners picked up more than forty launches from the probe, some type of drones. Her first fear was they were missiles, or some other type of weapon, and she’d reported that to the captain. But then the jamming started.

Heflin watched his tactical officer. He knew her scanners were hit hard by the interference. She could barely detect the probe…and she’d lost the drones entirely. But the massive explosion had come through cleanly, and from the amount of energy discharged, there was little doubt about what had happened. The probe had self-destructed.

“Active scanners on full power, Lieutenant. Advise engineering I want one zero five on the reactor. Now.”

“Yes, Captain.”

Heflin stared straight ahead at the main display. The screen was staticky, the effects of the jamming. He needed more power…and he considered changing his order and directing his engineer to go to one hundred ten percent on the reactor. But he hesitated. There was a threat out there, that seemed obvious…and if he pushed too hard and the reactor scragged,
Hurley
wouldn’t have a chance if it came to a fight.

But a fight against what? Is this really the First Imperium?

“Anything on the scanners, Lieutenant?”

“Negative, sir…but with these jammers, I wouldn’t rely on that too much.”

Heflin held back a sigh. He wanted to know what was out there. But he knew what he had to do, what his duty required. There was
something
out here…the First Imperium, another alien race, even a renegade group within the Republic. Whatever it was, he had to get word back to Earth Two.

“Let’s try to clear this interference, Lieutenant. Engines at fifty percent, 30g. Let’s decelerate and prepare to come around and head back through the warp gate.”

“Yes, sir.” A second later: “Captain, we’re picking something up. Multiple contacts, moving in from the outer system.” She paused, staring down at the readouts. “It’s all pretty spotty, sir, but I’d guess we’ve got a squadron of ships incoming. Fast.”

Heflin felt his blood turn to ice. What had they found?

Or what has found us?

“Numbers? Mass of each contact? Power output? Anything you can get, Lieutenant.”

“It’s hard sir, with the jamming. I think there are nine…no, wait, ten. Mass is tough at this range, but I’d guess roughly similar to our own.” A pause. “They’re coming right at us, Captain.”

Heflin felt himself lose control, to give in to fear, uncertainty. But it only lasted a second. Then the training kicked in. He’d never faced an enemy outside of a simulator, but this was the real thing…this was what all the exercises and the years at the Academy had prepared him for.

You hope it prepared you…

“Full thrust, Lieutenant. Let’s try for 70g. Course 101.184.345…back through the warp gate.”

Chapter Two

Excerpt from President Harmon’s Address on the Thirtieth Anniversary of the Landing

Those of us who undertook the great journey here and, against all odds, made it through the fire to reach our new home, remember the sacrifices that ensured the fleet’s survival. We remember Admiral Hurley and Barret Dumont…and the thousands of others who died in battle so that the fleet might survive. And, of course, we remember Admiral Compton, as we always will. Even the youngest among us must feel as though they’d served at his side. His image looks down on us from the great statue in the common. His exploits are thick in every curriculum in our educational program. More than any one man or woman, we owe our survival to this extraordinary man, and we will never forget the debt we owe to him.

But for this one day, I would like to talk about a different man than the famous admiral we all know. I would like to speak about a man I served closely with, one who was my mentor, my friend. We all know Terrance Compton was a brilliant commander, a man clearly born to lead a warrior’s life. But we must also remember he was a
man
, one with his own emotions. His own thoughts and fears. And desires. Admiral Compton suffered when we were cut off at the Barrier, even as the rest of us did. He left behind a woman he loved…and his greatest friend, a man who had been a brother to him for fifty years, Admiral Augustus Garret. But he never let his emotions interfere with his duty, and always he put the survival of the fleet above all.