The Honour of the Knights (First Edition) (39 page)

“
Yes, sir. It arrived just before the meeting.” Weathers
seemed as surprised as he was.

“
Thank you, Lieutenant. I’ll take it in my private
office.”

Weathers
nodded and left Parks to ponder the speed at which the
Confederation Stellar Navy had succeeded in pinpointing his
location, so soon after their recent accident.

* * *

Compared to the rest of the ship, Parks’ private office was
far more lavishly decorated. Wood panelling covered much of the
cold, grey steel and a number of colourful ornaments were scattered
here and there. A handful of small paintings hung on the walls,
depicting
Griffin
and other vessels. Parks’ eyes strayed to the painting
of
Dragon
a
s he made his way to his
desk
and the commodore caught himself
wondering
of how different things might
have been had their mission been a success.

Activating the computer screen at his desk, he saw the CSN
message. The screen read,

Encrypted Message Received

FTAO:
Commodore Elliott F. Parks

On
either side of the greeting resided an image of a padlock, further
emphasising that the message was secured. Parks tapped “Read” with
his finger tip and was duly challenged to authentic his identity to
the system, prompting him for a password, iris scan, and voice
recognition. Both the iris scan and voice recognition took a number
of attempts to verify. It appeared the system was still suffering.
After a time, the message playback started.

“
I hope this message finds you well, Elliott,” a grating voice
began.

Parks was stunned to see that he was looking at a video
recorded by Admiral Turner. The picture and audio were suffering;
he guessed it was a result of the damage to
Griffin
,
rather than the message itself. He moved closer to the
display, to listen carefully to what the Fleet Admiral had to say:
right now, he could do with all the advice he could get.

Turner went on. “After you failed to return to Spirit with
Commodore Hawke or Captain Meyers, we immediately began a
galaxy-wide sweep. Luckily for us, it did not take very long to
locate you. Since you arrived within a formerly inhabited Imperial
system, we were able to detect
Griffin
quite quickly. In case you
do not already know, you are in the Phylent system, close to the
Imperial-Independent border.

“
First of all, do not concern yourself with
the outcome of your mission to retake
Dragon
. We both knew that this was
never going to be an easy task to accomplish, and once again we
have both been given a truly unpleasant reminder of the kind of
enemy we are up against.”

Parks was in total agreement. He recalled how, when he had
mentioned the appearance of
Dragon
within Independent World space and his plans to
ambush and retake the massive battleship, the admiral had warned
him of the risks. Though the admiral had given him his full backing
at the time, Parks wished he hadn’t been so hasty.

“
Secondly, I understand that
Griffin
has been heavily
damaged in battle,” the video message continued. “I have dispatched
Meyers to your position, along with a number of repair and medical
vessels. They will not be with you for several hours yet, so I need
you and your boys to sit tight. Imperial space is certainly not a
place you wish to find yourself adrift and defenceless.

“
I shouldn
’
t have to remind you either that
whilst you are close to Independent World space, there will be no
help coming from those frontier systems, since you should be more
than aware that they have already been evacuated. Even if they
could help, there would be great reluctance to do so, given the
tremendous loss of life resulting from the destruction of the
carrier support they laid on for us. I advise that we not seek to
involve the UNF any further at this point. So, until Meyers arrives
you
’
re on your
own out there and will just have to wait it out.”

Parks
nodded once more, relieved to hear that Meyers would soon be there
to assist them. He then noticed Turner sit more upright, leaning
forward in his chair. Parks had seen that look on the man’s face
before; he swallowed.

“
But having said that, your current
location could not be more convenient. Regarding matters within the
Temper system some seventy-two hours ago: intelligence have managed
to locate the raider who fled the
Cardinal
just before its destruction
and discovered him to be travelling around the Imperial frontier
systems. He arrived in Phylent some time ago, so it’s likely he
won’t be hanging around too much longer.

“
Special agent Barber has followed the man
to Arlos starport, where he has been attempting to offload various
items of his
stock
. This whole thing could have
ended up as a wild goose chase, which would have been all the
better for us, but unfortunately Barber has confirmed to me that
the man does indeed have the entire dump of
Cardinal
’
s
databanks in his possession. And
that means he has the ATAF plans.

“
At least we now know he has them and they
haven
’
t
already fallen into unwanted hands. Right now, he is struggling to
find a buyer and Barber is currently attempting to verify whether
he has them about his person or has stowed them some place
else.

“
She planned to make her own way back to
Confederation space once she has secured the data, but
I
imagine
this could prove a lot trickier than she thinks. And
that
’
s not a
gamble I’m willing to take. I don
’
t know whether to call your
accidental winding up in the Phylent system luck or fate, but I
know that we need to get those plans back, ASAP.”

Parks was getting a bad feeling about what the admiral was
about to suggest. He began scratching at the stubble on his chin as
Turner
’
s request
continued to unfold.

“
Therefore, I will need you to bring her
home with you or, at the very least, the data. If you cannot bring
her, don
’
t
worry. You and I both know she is more than capable of getting out
of there herself. I would rather this is done whilst you await the
arrival of Meyers, so you can depart the Phylent system as quickly
as possible. We cannot risk losing yet another of our most powerful
weapons to the Enemy and as such this should now be your number one
priority. I
’
m
sure that I shouldn
’
t have to remind you that those plans are worth far more than
every life on that ship.”

Parks
groaned as the admiral’s request set him on very awkward
footing.

“
This may be an opportunity to kill two
birds with one stone, Elliott. We can gain twice from this
situation. With the
Red
Devils
dead, we have to play catch up and
an opportunity like this may not come by again any time soon, if
ever. I have taken the liberty of transmitting the coordinates of
Arlos starport to you, as well as extended intelligence concerning
the Phylent system. I
’
m hoping you have all the information you need, since I do
not recommend that you respond to this message. Although we still
have a handful of comm relay points secreted around Imperial
frontier systems, communications fed through sub-space are minimal.
Any increase in the tachyon streams could expose you to hostile
tracking systems.”

Just as
Parks began to wonder what had happened to Hawke in all of this,
Turner answered his question.

“
As for Commodore Hawke, he is much closer
to your location than Meyers is. When he saw
Griffin
disappear into
the jump point, with no clue as to your destination, Hawke took it
upon himself to assume command. He ordered Meyers to return to
Spirit to search for you there, whilst he took
Ifrit
to search all the star systems
adjacent to Aster. He, like Meyers, is aware of your situation and
that I have requested you perform a little errand for us before you
are ready to return home. Neither of them, however, are privy to
the full details of that errand, as I
’
m sure you can appreciate. Unless
he runs into difficulties, or delivery of my instructions are
delayed, you should expect Hawke to arrive at your location sooner
than Meyers. If you are able, you should return to Spirit with him.
Don
’
t wait for
Meyers, he will understand that you had to leave as soon as you
were able. In such an event, we will let him know that you have
been found and are returning home.

“
There is more information attached in the
brief I have included with this message. You will need to relay
this information to the
Knights
. I realise that it does not
paint the rosiest of pictures, but we need to make sure our bases
are covered for all eventualities.

“
Take care of yourself, Elliott.
We
’
ll see
you soon,” Turner concluded. The message playback ended, and the
screen displayed a number of icons, detailing the additional
information that Turner had transmitted.

Parks sighed. At least one of his questions had been
answered: the Confederation
’
s comm points had sent information
about
Griffin
‘s
arrival in the system back to CSN
HQ, via sub-space channels - Turner had sent a message to the
carrier in the same way. Though messages travelled far quicker
through jump space than ships themselves, Parks was willing to bet
that
Griffin
‘s
most recent jump would give them a run for their money.

He stood up and paced beside the window. He knew what he had
to do and didn’t like it one bit. As the admiral had said, the ATAF
plans were far more important than all of the lives aboard
Griffin
- in fact, more
so than
Griffin
,
Ifrit
and
Leviathan
combined - and that fact terrified him.

He stared out the window at the endless void of space. Now
that the blast screens had come down from the
carrier
’
s
windows, Parks was able to make out a dull grey planet hanging all
alone, not too far off. He did not need to consult a system map to
know that that was where Turner needed him to go.

“
Dammit,”
he said in a low voice, placing a fist on the window and
leaning against the glass. “
There
must
be another way;
there has to be a way for Barber to come to me, instead of
us
having to go
to
her
.”

He racked his brains, giving full consideration to every
possibility that he could think of, all the while staring towards
the dull grey planet. But his attempts to find a workable solution
all hit dead ends. Turner was right: he had little choice in the
matter, and whether he liked it or not he was going to have to send
the
ATAFs
and
the
Knights
to
Arlos alone, and leave
Griffin
all but
defenceless. And
the sooner that was done, the sooner they could all get
home.

With his
mind made up, he turned back to the console and closed the message,
before rounding his desk and striding out the door to make for the
bridge.

XVII

—
Of Cloaks —

C
haz continued watching the security
team that guarded the entrance to the cargo bay. He had noticed a
new face arrive earlier. The head of the security team had
exchanged some brief words with the man before the pair had
departed together. It did not seem to Chaz that anyone else had
noticed; little details such as that were apparently lost on
them.

Estelle
was staring at the floor, looking quite glum, though he suspected
that her current state owed more to sorrow than to being restricted
to the hold.

“
… gonna be a lot of weeping mothers
after this one, I can tell ya,” one of the
team
’
s
conversations had carried to the hold
’
s current occupants.

“
Tell me about it. They pulled out this one
girl who had been buried under a collapsed ceiling. Legs were a
complete mess. Even if she
’
d lived through that, she certainly
wouldn
’
t be using
those again.”