Heart of Steel: Book II of the Jonathan Pavel Series (24 page)

Fools, Ames thought as a he smiled.

The Solarians had saved this sector from itself. They had brought security prosperity and order, while keeping the League tied together with duct tape and glue. This was what happened when people were allowed freedom. They forgot who to be grateful to. They became greedy, never satisfied with what was. Only wanting what more or what could be. Ames sensed movement in the crowd, and then he saw him standing not two feet away. A grey eyed man in a plain civilian jacket and trousers who looked like any one of the thousands of independent spacers or longshoremen on Freeport, but his eyes and his posture gave him away. Ames saw himself in those eyes. Ames didn't move, even as he sensed the two large men also in civilian clothes come up behind him, and ever so gently seize him by the arms.

“I suppose I am under arrest then,” Ames said to the grey eyed man.

The man smiled, “I suppose you are, I don’t think we’ve had the pleasure, Colonel Garrett Special Branch, and you are?”

Ames thought about using his cover name, but no.

“They call me Ames,” he said calmly.

Garrett's face remained blank.

“Ames what?”

“Just Ames. Creatures such as myself are a resource. Rank and position is wasteful. You wouldn’t give your gun a promotion or title would you?”

“Well at least you know not to try to lie,” Garrett  said his tone unchanged.

Ames smiled, “No point it lying when the game is over.”

“It’s not over yet. The coups have been crushed and order will be restored. The whole thing will be presented as a plot by fanatical nationalists with the support of Colonial Intelligence. It was a valiant effort I will give you that. Tell me how did you manage to organize coups in five League systems and convince them they were taking directions from OMI?”

“I didn’t organize anything Colonel. History is a river that carves out its own course, all I did was nudge it. A word here, a bribe there and you can divert the flow just enough to wash away whatever you want.”

Garrett blinked his face still blank.

“A philosopher I see. Well, that should make this interesting. You're coming with us.”

“Oh but Colonel don't you want to see the final act?”

“The final…” Confusion crossed Garrett's face then he saw Ames was looking past him. He turned and his eyes followed the creature’s gaze. Ames was looking at one of the Solarian Marines on the top of the embassy's outer wall.

“No..” Garrett said reaching for his com, but it was too late. 

The parapet came up to the waist level of the Marines who were on guard in their light combat armor and fully armed. On the parapet right beneath where one of the Marines stood, Ames had used a micro drone to install a slick. It was a small hole which contained a device of his own. A tube which could fire one shot of the same make and caliber as a Solarian Marine’s battle rifle. The device had a nanite camera and was able to tilt itself slightly. Once its tiny computer brain processed that there were enough people outside the embassy, it fired. Upon being exposed to the heat and gas, a gel that coated the device became an acid which ate through metal dissolving it in seconds and sealing the small hole it had fired from. As if it had never existed. The bullet meanwhile flew straight and true into the head of a megaphone wielding man, the leader of a popular Turkic Nationalist Group. People screamed as they were splattered with blood. Some ran and others pointed to where the shot had come from directly at the Solarian Marine.

Personal firearms were not illegal on Freeport. The Galt delegation had seen to that because of their ridiculous notion that letting people go around armed defended their freedom. As a result, several members of the crowd had weapons and began firing at the embassy. The Marines in their confusion acted on orders to defend the embassy and started shooting back. Panic spread, people screamed, and ran every which way trampling each other.

Ames laughed as he looked up at the News drones hovering overhead. With the collapse of the putsch on Freeport, the networks had been airing everything overtime. Now, suddenly the whole League would bear witness to Solarian soldiers firing on a crowd of civilians. Time for Ames to make his exit. In an instant, the unnatural fingernails on his hands grew long and thick like claws sliding out. Ames stabbed downward, his enhanced muscles letting him break his captors hold easily. People always worried about their throats but one of the biggest human arteries was in the thigh.

Ames punctured both his captors in an instance. They fell screaming only to be trampled by the crowd. Ames grabbed Garrett and pulled him into an alleyway as the crowd ran away, or as some did. Others were running toward the embassy, bricks, molotov cocktails, and other crude weapons in hand. Ames smiled as he pointed his sharped finger at the man.

“I win,” he said.

Garrett looked at him, his face...blank. There was none of the fear, anguish, or pleading Ames had expected or wanted.

“Well played,” Garrett said hitting a switch in his jacket. The Nexten self defense system was marketed as a guard against sexual assault and mugging. It was a vest that when activated shocked  anyone making unwanted contact with the wearer with 10,000 volts of electricity. Even with all his enhancements it was enough to stun Ames. Garrett kneeing him in the balls at the same time caused him to fall to the ground in the fetal position. Ames’s vision blurred and he began to lose consciousness, as Garrett disappeared into the crowd.
 

Chapter XI

Abreu System, Solarian Republic

On board
RSNS Sound of Fury

November 5th 844 AE

Jonathan’s face grew still as he read the latest communication print out the Yeoman had handed him. Silently, he passed it to George whose own face grew ashen as he read. Over the last several days as the convoy transitioned first from Solaria to Yimir then from Yimir to Abreu, they had begun receiving a flurry of transmissions. At first it was just vague reports that the war had begun. From there, the messages and their content had begun to paint a grim picture. The 3rd Fleet had been badly mauled and the 5th was falling back to Cylira, and the League was in chaos.
The Colonials had also managed to get a sizable force of raiders into Solarian territory, and were inflicting considerable damage on Solarian commerce and infrastructure. The messages from Fleet command had not been very informative to
Fury’s
current situation. Jonathan supposed they had a lot on their plate back at
Macran
. A message from the 1st Admiral ordered all Solarian navy ships to remain on alert, and local commanders to exercise their own initiative.

“Gather the officers George, best they hear it from us before I make the announcement,” Jonathan said as his XO put down the paper.

“Aye sir,” George replied.

Fifteen minutes later, the
Fury’s
senior officers assembled in the wardroom. One of the benefits Jonathan realized of a larger ship like Fury was the room for junior officers in departments. While Jonathan was holding his staff meeting, Lieutenants Sing and Hilper remained on duty, which put a junior officer on the bridge and in engineering, respectively two of the most critical parts of a warship in the event a situation occurred. The rest of the staff had assembled as ordered. They were all curious and a bit nervous. Scuttlebutt about the conflict had no doubt already begun to circulate. One Fleet Admiral about a hundred years ago had somewhat accurately noted, ‘rumor aboard ship had broken the light speed barrier, sadly the Navy could never harness it’s power to transmit accurate information.’

“At ease,” Jonathan said as his officers snapped to attention when he came in.

“No doubt by now you’ll have heard rumblings of what's been going on. Well, the picture is pretty incomplete but here’s what we know for sure. One, we are now at war with the Colonial Confederacy. Two, the Free Worlds League has collapsed into civil war so we won’t be getting any aide material or otherwise from there. Three, with the League in chaos Kratos Naval station has evacuated, so our original mission is scrubbed. Instead, we're going to escort this convoy to the Matosa system. Once there, we’ll leave the transports under the protection of the local garrison, and proceed to Cylira to join up with the 5th.” Jonathan paused before continuing.

“It appears we, which is to say the entirety of the Republic's armed forces, underestimated the Colonials. We were mistaken in believing a nation at peace so long would be unready for all out war. Apparently they were not. They have used their advantage of having a smaller more easily defensible territory to concentrate their offensive forces against us. In all likelihood as the Admiralty begins to redeploy our forces to compensate for the changing conditions of the conflict, we will find ourselves in one of a variety of missions. Till then, I will make an all ship announcement informing the crew of what has happened, and I expect you to brief each of your departments in detail. Many of our crew are reservists who spent a long time on the active duty roster. They’ll all have friends and comrades on ships that have been lost.  A complete casualty list will be posted in the mess hall and rec rooms. Mr. Heath...”

“Yes sir?” the communication officers answered.

“You’ll be in charge of keeping those lists up to date and accurate.”

“Aye sir.”

Jonathan noted the huff in the man’s voice. He probably thought he was being singled out for scut work because of the earlier incident involving the Gremlin, and his other bad attitude. Jonathan didn't have time to register his BS right now.

“Moving on,” Jonathan said. “We need to focus on our mission at the moment, which is to get this convoy safely to Matosa, something that may now prove more difficult. The Colonials have deployed wolf packs all through this sector and are hunting convoys like ours, as well as blowing as many rings and stations as they can. For that reason, we will make a direct run to Matosa, which has a sizeable picket force. Mr. Tang how long to plot a direct course to Matosa?”

“Sir,” Lt. Tang said his New Bali accent coming out thickly as he spoke. “It will take me a few hours. From here, Matosa is a ten day trip through Linux, and then Casaopia. We could make the run in seven days, but with these slug a bug transports in tow we’ll be lucky to make ten days, more likely twelve.”

“It’s going to be hot zone for raiders sir,” Ben Elman, the ship's tactical officer said. “Both Casaopia and Linux are relatively undefended. As I recall, neither have habitable worlds, Casaopia has a penal colony on a desolate moon and some heavy industry, but Linux is pretty sparsely populated mostly water miners, scientists, and rogue traders.  Sir, it occurs to me that we could make better time if we deposit the transports here,” Elman said. “Lagosa, Abreu’s habitable world, may be an agrarian world, but she has a good size militia, and I am sure they’d appreciate a combat brigade and the supplies. We can then make a speed run to Matosa.”

“I don't doubt you're wrong, Mr. Elman,” Jonathan replied. “The problem is one of proximity. If we leave the convoy here, they’ll be stuck here until another convoy can come fetch them, and this area of space is too remote for the supplies and troops they are carrying to make an impact on the coming campaign. On the other hand, Matosa is anything but remote.  She’s a daughter colony and was previously the edge of the northern frontier. She’s got two inhabited worlds, half a dozen asteroids, local shipyards and orbital elevators. The system is also only one jump away from Cyrila and three jumps from the Colonial border. It will be a critical link in preparing for the counter attack that is going to come. The supplies, transports and troops we are keeping safe along with our own firepower will be helpful to that counter attack.”

Elman nodded as did the other officers. Jonathan smiled internally. Solarian officers had a rigid adherence to discipline, but they were trained to think and adapt. They could see the logic in moving a supply convoy to a staging area rather than leaving it in a remote system. Armies and fleets moved on their stomachs after all.  The victor in any war in human history was rarely the side with the biggest guns. It was the side with the best logistics operation. 

“It’s going to be a hot run to Matosa though,” Tai Heath said. “We have had reports of hostile activity throughout this whole sector, specifically life pods from client and Solarian flagged merchant ships being picked up after their vessels are destroyed. Information is sketchy of course, but there's at least one wolf pack between us and our objective.” The communications officer Heath also doubled as the intelligence officer, and despite his frequent attitude, Jonathan had to admit he wasn't a bad one.

“Now if I was a commerce raider, Casaopia would be an ideal system to target,” George said pulling up a holo of the system.

“Yup, three big gas giants, lots of moons and debris. Plenty of places to hide. Even in peacetime, we had to operate a constant anti-piracy patrol. Of course commerce raiders are use to hitting convoys that have a couple of destroyers. If they see a light cruiser they’ll bolt, or they’ll try to hit us then bolt before we can catch them.”