Flagship (A Captain's Crucible #1) (9 page)

Jonathan stood on the mountain. The sky was clear, and he could see the peaks and valleys of the surrounding range. Such a pristine, beautiful day. Or it would have been pristine, were it not for the frozen bodies of the
Dominion's
crew protruding from the snow around him, their porcelain-colored faces staring at him with dead, accusing eyes. Famina was there, too. Laughing shrilly.

Jonathan awoke, drenched in sweat.

He had returned to his quarters shortly after the battle, intending to review the missive he had received from the admiral right before the enemy ship turned up. He had decided to take a quick nap first, but apparently he'd fallen fast asleep.

He rubbed his eyes, feeling more exhausted than he had before he'd lain down.

He donned his aReal spectacles. The system scanned his retina and logged him in. The bare steel wall beside him was replaced immediately by the lapping waves of a white sand beach, the tropical sun beating down from a clear blue sky. The bed had become a hammock tied between two lush palm trees. Seagulls periodically screeched overhead.

In that moment he envied those who installed Implants. To be able to feel the breeze, smell the humid air, feel the sun on his face... that was the ultimate immersion. Still, he sighed contentedly nonetheless. There was nothing like augmented reality for cabin fever. It certainly helped one keep their sanity aboard a cramped starship like the
Callaway
. And the sound of those waves worked wonders on the frayed nerves the nightmare had caused.

He reluctantly turned his back on the beach, muted the gulls, and activated the tactical overlay.

Seven hours had passed since the encounter. The task unit was in orbit around Achilles I, searching for survivors of the
Dominion
, whose wreckage remained in a decaying orbit above the moon.

About two hours ago, the officer on watch reported a flash in the lower thermosphere of the gas giant, coinciding with the loss of the enemy ship from active sensors. The CDC believed it had burned up.

What a way to go.

His attention was drawn to the red dot indicating where the second enemy ship had returned to the sensor readings. The vessel was well on its way to Contessa Gate, the only exit from the system.

What are you up to?

His gaze drifted to Task Unit One, which had diverted from the terrestrial planets and was now well on its way toward 3-Vega, the third Slipstream in the system. If Jonathan had been the admiral of the task group, he would have been racing back to rejoin the attacked unit, with plans to surround and capture the remaining alien vessel, not heading toward that wormhole. There was only one reason for the unit to steer toward 3-Vega. He prayed he was wrong about that, though.

Jonathan stared at the flashing alert icon in the lower left of the display. The inbox contained several new messages from the admiral. He wasn't in the mood to deal with the politically-motivated puppet of NAVCENT but he needed to confirm his suspicions.

He started with the earliest message, the one he had received shortly before the battle. The image of Admiral Knox materialized, appearing to be seated in the chair across from the captain, and began to speak.

When Jonathan finished reviewing all six messages he sat back. The first communication had been the gist, while the remaining five were requests, in order of growing irritation, that he confirm his receipt of the orders and his intention to follow them.

He had paused the final holo-recording before it clicked off, and he stared at the frozen image of the balding admiral before him. It was hard not to cringe, looking at that lined face.

I should've retired the moment you were promoted over me
, Jonathan thought.

He dismissed the hologram and closed his eyes a moment. He needed more time to digest what the admiral had said before he decided what to do.

"Any news?" he sent to Robert, whose current position was indicated as on the bridge.

A holographic display request from Robert appeared on the aReal. Jonathan ignored it, opting for voice-only.

"So far the rescue drones have recovered four hundred
Dominion
crew," Robert answered. "Most from lifepods."

Though the
Dominion
had been cut in half lengthwise, because of the compartmental nature of the ship the affected decks were sealed off and several hundred crew had been able to reach the lifepods. They had landed on the moon. Meanwhile those survivors stranded aboard the floating wreckage were retrieved by salvage robots.

"Coordinate with your equivalents in the task unit to assign suitable berths and crew positions for the survivors," Jonathan instructed the commander. "Staff up the
Selene
first. I'll expect to see your recommendations for acting first officer and captain by oh nine hundred."

"Understood," Robert returned.

"Any news on the
Aegis?
"

Robert hesitated.

"What is it?" Jonathan said.

"Four hours ago the recon drones discovered the wreckage of the
Aegis
on the surface of Achilles I, about three hundred kilometers to the east of the Elder vessel. Eighty frozen bodies were recovered. The rest were incinerated on impact. None of the lifepods were launched. No survivors."

Jonathan pressed his lips together. He was slightly angry that Robert hadn't awakened him to tell him of the news, but then again, it was probably for the best: there was nothing he would have been able to do, anyway.

"I'm sorry to hear that," Jonathan said. "Were any of the
Selene's
original crew accounted for among the dead?"

"No. At this point, best guess is that the crew members of the
Selene
are hostages aboard the second alien vessel."

Jonathan cringed. If it were true, he could only imagine what terrible experiments were taking place on the
Selene's
crew. Mind probes. Drug injections. Live dissections...

"Robert, organize the funeral service for the crew of the
Aegis
. And all those who died on the
Dominion
."

"Would you like to speak at the service?" Robert asked him.

Jonathan compressed his lips. "No. I won't be able to hold it together. You do it, Robert."

"As if I'll be able to hold it together any better than you."

Jonathan quickly changed the subject. "So what else do you have for me?"

"The other recon drones we sent to explore the remaining Achilles moons recently reported back. There don't seem to be any other alien vessels hiding in the area. Now, in regards to the second alien ship that we
do
currently know about..."

Jonathan unconsciously leaned forward. "Yes?"

"About two hours ago we detected a gamma ray burst from her aft quarter," Robert said. "This one directed toward 2-Vega, the uncharted Slipstream on the far side of the sun."

"Calling home, no doubt," Jonathan muttered. Another reason why the admiral should have been hurrying to rejoin them rather than venturing deeper into the system.

"That's my feeling, too. Oh and, you remember that Dragonfly we dispatched to the moon before the attack?"

"The one we lost communication with after the EMP?"

"The same. Well, it docked with the
Callaway
a few hours ago. Turns out the EMP only fried the external communication layer. The shuttle was able to land and complete its mission: the HS4s completely mapped the Elder ruins, inside and out."

Jonathan splayed the fingers of his right hand and tapped his lips. "Did they find anything of interest?"

"Not really. Similar to the Elder ship discovered during the Lotus Expedition, there are no obvious control panels or stations, or anything remotely resembling the specialized compartments found on human ships or bases. It's just one big, hollow Möbius strip. That said, the HS4s did record some odd readings in certain sections."

"Odd?"

"Yes. It's as if tiny wormholes had existed at some point, warping the surrounding alloy. But whatever caused that warping is long gone."

While an interesting bit of Elder trivia, Jonathan wasn't sure how that knowledge pertained to their current situation. "Any other news?"

"Only that the admiral called for you at least six times."

"Yes. I listened to his messages."

"Anything important?" Robert asked.

"He expects us to rejoin the task group as soon as we've recovered all survivors. Task Unit One is currently headed toward 3-Vega."

"I noticed that," Robert said.

Jonathan glanced at the tactical display overlaying his vision. He ran some calculations. Given the current positions of the two units, if his flotilla departed the moon within the next eight hours, barring engine problems they'd rendezvous with the remainder of the fleet a few days out from the Slipstream.

"Keep me apprised of the rescue operation," Jonathan said. "And notify me when we're ready to leave orbit."

"Will do."

"Captain out."

Jonathan opened his inbox and stared at the messages from the admiral. He still wasn't ready to make his decision, not yet.

He reviewed the status reports from the department heads and ship captains, approving various repairs, upgrades and promotions as necessary.

He took a long shower in his private head, grabbed an apple and banana from the wardroom, then made his way to the bridge.

"Captain on the bridge!" the first watch ensign, Tara Lewis announced.

"As you were." He entered his private office adjoining the bridge and sat down behind the desk. Unlike his quarters he had applied few virtual augmentations and none so distracting as the white sand beach. He'd limited himself to a bookshelf, a painting, and a false window showing deep space.

He folded his hands and stared at the metal entry hatch.

He had come to a decision.

He pinged his commander. "Robert, my office."

Jonathan grabbed the sole embellishment from his desk: a non-virtual deck of animated playing cards. Diamonds rotated. Spades fluttered. The King laughed. The Queen winked. He began shuffling the deck.

Robert entered. "Yes, sir?"

"Have a seat, Commander." Jonathan continued rearranging the deck. He instructed Maxwell to cease audio and video data capture. He disabled local logging on his aReal, too, and extended his noise canceler around Robert. He didn't want the ship's AI to record what he was about to say: its programmed loyalty was first and foremost to the admiral.

"Commander, if you wouldn't mind turning off local a/v logging on your aReal, we can proceed." The captain set down the card deck.

"It's done," Robert said a moment later.

Jonathan nodded slowly. "What I'm about to tell you is considered highly classified, and is not to be repeated outside this room. Do you understand?"

Robert shifted uncomfortably. "I do, sir."

"Good." Jonathan smiled briefly. "Did you know, contrary to popular belief, the United Systems has manufactured a planet killer?"

Jonathan stared at Robert, searching his features, trying to discern the impact of his words.

The commander definitely seemed stunned. It took him a few moments to answer. "No, Captain, I did not."

"Yes. We've only scrounged enough geronium to construct a single one. It's contained inside a specially designed destroyer whose unique construction shields the thermal and radiation signature of the bomb, passing it off as an ordinary, if somewhat extensive, geronium reactor. It's the only planet killer in the possession of the entire United Systems. The navy originally built the thing to serve only as a deterrent. But plans change, I suppose.

"When the Builder ships completed the Contessa Gate, allowing us to open up the system for exploration, the first probes that returned gave us a vague idea where the two additional Slipstreams in the system terminated. 2-Vega led to an uncharted brown dwarf about forty-eight lightyears coreward. 3-Vega, meanwhile, looped back into human territory, opening into Sino-Korean space."

"I wasn't aware Slipstreams could be probed like that," Robert said. "I guess I always thought you had to travel through a Slipstream before you could determine where it went."

"That used to be the case," Jonathan said. "But the scientists have come up with a way to estimate the position from one side with a surprising degree of accuracy. I'm not sure precisely how they do it, but it has something to do with measuring the shifting star patterns at the wormhole's entrance. In any case, as I said, preliminary data from the probes indicated that 3-Vega opened into Sino-Korean space, specifically the Tau Ceti system. Or, even more precisely, inside her sun."

Robert raised an eyebrow. "3-Vega terminates in the middle of a star?"

"I know," Jonathan said. "It makes no sense that the Elders would construct such a Slipstream. What's the point of creating a wormhole to the heart of a star?

"More probes further solidified the data, and scientists concluded that without a doubt the Slipstream terminated in the Tau Ceti sun. NAVCENT, excited by the possibilities of such a wormhole, immediately assigned a task group to this system. Us.

"Ostensibly, we were here to perform the usual exploration tasks, keeping up the pretense for the Sino-Korean moles in our midst, and their cyberwarfare specialists who would no doubt hack into our mission logs. But we were actually deployed for another purpose entirely. To act as a reserve strike team."

Robert furrowed his brow. "A strike team? Against whom?"

Jonathan nodded patiently. "That destroyer I mentioned? The one designed to carry the planet killer? It's with Task Unit One."

"But this system is unpopulated. What benefit..." Robert's eyes widened in understanding. "They want to send the bomb through 3-Vega, into the Tau Ceti sun. Turn the weapon into a star killer."

Jonathan nodded. "A Builder ship has spent the past six months constructing a Gate around 3-Vega. The scientists aren't even sure it's going to work, but they've theorized that if we could deploy the bomb into the core of the star, in what fleet is calling Operation Darkstar, that much geronium will cause a runaway nuclear reaction, rapidly depleting the hydrogen in the core, causing gravitational collapse and triggering a supernova.

"Now can you imagine how excited Fleet was at the sudden opportunity that had presented itself? The ability to deploy a bomb directly into the heart of Tau Ceti, most heavily guarded system in Sino-Korean space, home of their treasured geronium source? A chance, if the need arose, to cut off their supply of starship fuel at the source in one fell swoop. Of course NAVCENT was going to deploy a reserve task group. And as an added bonus, the supernova could even be blamed on natural phenomena. At least for a little while, with the careful management of misinformation to Sino-Korean moles and hackers."

"This is why you asked me earlier if I'd sacrifice five billion human lives to stop the Sino-Korean Navy."

Jonathan nodded. "It is. Though in this case, the sacrifice is closer to a hundred million, not five billion."

"Still..."

"I know." Jonathan sighed. "I always believed the bomb was meant to act as a deterrent. Never in my worst nightmares did I think NAVCENT would actually order the bomb deployed. And yet here we are."

Robert cocked his head. "You're talking about the classified message from NAVCENT we detected shortly before the attack? It contained bomb deployment orders for the admiral?"

"Among other things. The content of that message is what the admiral has been trying to relay to me for the past six hours." Jonathan folded his hands on the desk. "Apparently the rogue elements in the SK government we talked about earlier have returned to the forefront of Fleet concerns. Not only has that rogue faction hijacked an SK supercarrier, but they've now seized control of Aurora Prime, the seat of the Sino-Korean government."

Robert sat up in his chair. "Then they've successfully staged a coup?"

"It would seem so. That was the worst possible outcome, as far as NAVCENT was concerned. A rogue faction in control of all the nukes, planet killers, and warships the Sino-Koreans possess? A faction that has publicly called for the United Systems to give up control of several disputed border systems, or face the consequences? I can see the spooked generals of Central Command even now, calling for a vote on Operation Darkstar, all hands voting yea for the preemptive strike."

Robert leaned back. "What's our role in all of this?"

"We're to rendezvous with Task Unit One on the way to 3-Vega and provide protection in the case of another SK attack."

Robert shook his head in obvious disbelief. "The admiral believes our attackers were mere Sino-Koreans?"

Jonathan nodded. "This despite the fact we haven't seen any evidence of the usual SK armaments, which are similar to our own. No kinetic kill missiles, no nukes, no Vipers. Only particle beam weapons, something neither of our navies have developed with any success. The admiral simply can't fathom that we may be encroaching upon the territorial borders of another spacefaring race. He's convinced this is a new type of SK warship, nothing more."

"A warship whose design we've never seen before," Robert said flatly. "Deployed on the fringes of unexplored space."

"Yes," Jonathan said. "He believes the uncharted system at the end of 2-Vega has another Slipstream that loops back to SK space, just like 3-Vega."

"And what do you believe?" Robert asked.

"The same as you," Jonathan said. "That this is an alien race, of unknown intent and motivation. And that this is the worst time for us to be deploying a bomb that could inflict serious damage on potential allies, and lead to civil war. Humanity needs to remain united. While that bomb might handicap the SKs, it's a knee-jerk reaction to the coup, because their navy will still have hundreds of combat-worthy ships out there with several years worth of geronium fuel and propellant to use against us.

"If there were any doubters among the Sino-Koreans as to the validity of the new government, our attack will serve only to banish these doubters, uniting their people against us and solidifying the hold of their new masters. And the new government won't take our attack idly. They'll want to prove to the citizens that they can lead in a time of crisis. If the United Systems has to fight a war on two fronts, especially when one of those fronts is against an alien species whose technological capabilities are entirely unknown, the human race could face extermination."

Robert rubbed his earlobe. "Losing communication makes it hard for NAVCENT to issue a retraction order, doesn't it?"

Jonathan absently retrieved three cards from the top of the deck, and set them face-up on the table. "The inability to communicate with NAVCENT is the final reason why this operation can't be allowed to proceed."

Robert nodded very slowly. "So you plan to disobey the admiral."

"More than that," Jonathan said. "I plan to replace him."

Robert was quiet for a moment. "What you're talking about is mutiny on a grand scale. If we fail, the admiral will have us tried for high treason."

"I think Central Command, given the new information we're unable to communicate, would agree with us," Jonathan said. "This mission cannot be allowed to proceed."

Robert nodded. "Those are the key words,
we're unable to communicate
. NAVCENT won't factor into the picture if we fail: there's nothing to prevent the admiral from executing us directly. And as far as we know, Central Command might not even exist anymore. The rogue faction of SKs might have launched all their planet killers at us already. Without communications, we have no way of knowing."

"It's not very fun being cut off from the rest of the galaxy, is it?" Jonathan said.

"No, Captain. Not at all."

"But even if we did have full communications," Jonathan said. "And NAVCENT insisted that we complete the mission, we still couldn't allow the admiral to proceed. Causing the death of a hundred million human beings... it's slaughter at an unheard-of scale. Not to mention that destroying a star is a terrible crime against nature. I'd rather be an outlaw who did the right thing than obey those butchers."

"So how do you want to go about stopping the admiral?" Robert said.

"He's planning a fleet-wide virtual conference to discuss the mission when the task units are within realtime communications range. At the conference I will argue that he is acting irrationally given the current circumstances, and I will call for his arrest."

"Call for his arrest?" Robert said. "How?"

"A vote of no confidence."

Robert frowned. "I didn't think there was such a thing in the space navy. This is the military, not a democracy."

"It's not a well-known provision," Jonathan said carefully. "It was added to the naval code a few hundred years back, buried deep in one of the subsections. Very few people actually know about it, but it
is
there. The intention of the provision is to make it easier to dismiss an ineffective commanding officer from duty. In the past, the only thing a captain in the task unit could do was to disobey the CO's illegal order, and perhaps convince the other captains to do likewise. He could also try to persuade the executive officer aboard the flagship to arrest the CO, but if that failed, there were really no other options. Obviously, we needed a provision to change that."

"Make it easier to mutiny, you mean?"

"The provision is what makes mutiny possible, really," Jonathan said. "Because without that line in the naval code, the AIs would never let a mutineer gain control of any ship."

"Are there other hidden provisions I should know about?" Robert asked.

"Probably. Download yourself a copy sometime and study up on it. In any case, if the majority of the captains elect to forcibly remove the admiral and disregard the mission, I will nominate the current captain of the
Hurricane
, William Avis, as his replacement. Avis has to abide by the outcome of the vote. The AI of the
Hurricane
will make sure of that."

"But you would be the logical choice to assume command of the fleet, as commodore of Task Unit Two."

"Yes, except that I don't want our actions to be seen as political. We'll get more of the other captains on our side if I don't have anything to gain by calling for the admiral's removal."

"What if Avis accepts command but then continues the mission anyway?"

"Then we simply call for another vote."

Robert frowned, obviously not happy with that answer. "How are we going to get the other captains to vote against the admiral in the first place?"

"This is where I'll need your help. Communications between two captains are automatically logged by the AIs of the receiving ships. But an encrypted message sent by a commander to a captain, and vice versa, is not."

"Won't the captains grow suspicious when they receive such a message?"

"Perhaps. But they won't have any reason to arrest you, not if you broach the subject properly. Send out general feeler messages to the captains. Don't mention anything about replacing the admiral. Instead, tell them everything we know about the aliens. Send them detailed footage of the battle. Make it clear there is no way in hell those are SK ships. Tell them basically what you and I have been talking about, that we're going to need every ship out there in the days ahead. That without communications, there's no way to know whether NAVCENT would have issued a retraction order based on the arrival of the aliens, or whether they've already sent a retraction. And give every captain you talk to that speech of yours regarding the value of human life."

"I told you I should have recorded that," Robert said.

"I'm sure you'll remember it just fine. When you've talked to all of the captains, report back to me on their general mood, and how likely you think it is that each one will vote in favor of replacing the admiral when I call for a vote of no confidence. Whatever you do, don't ever broach the subject of such a vote directly. Unless you want to be arrested for sedition."

"Not particularly."

"Good. Report back to me in a few days when you have some results."

"And if most of the captains seem against replacing the admiral?" Robert asked.