The Rings of Haven (17 page)

“Thank you,” He watched Tug walk back toward the main house. “Looks like you’ve got yourself an FTL tutor.”

Vladimir said nothing. He just kept eating.

* * *

Tobin’s ship kicked up dust in all directions as it hovered a few meters off the ground, slowly rotating to point its nose back in the direction it had come before it settled to the ground in the middle of Tug’s compound. Nathan, Jessica, Jalea, and Tug all huddled behind Tug’s vehicle to shield themselves from the whirling dust and debris as Tobin’s ship settled to the ground and its engines began to spin down. Nathan looked around, noticing that the dust was slow to disperse.

“This is why I don’t usually fly purchases out!” Tug yelled over the declining sound of Tobin’s engines. “It takes forever for the dust to clear! One of the disadvantages of living in a big hole!” Tug pulled his shirt up to cover his mouth and nose to avoid breathing in the dust as he rose from behind the vehicle. Nathan did the same as he followed.

The large cargo hatch on the starboard side of Tobin’s ship swung down until it touched the dirt, becoming a loading ramp on which Tobin quickly descended. “Captain! It’s good to see you safe.”

“Why wouldn’t we be?” he asked.

“This is Haven, Captain.
Safe
describes very little on this world,” he smiled. “Shall we begin loading?”

“Tobin, this is Tug,” Nathan introduced. “I believe we should first settle our bill with him.”

“Yes, of course,” Tobin agreed, feigning forgetfulness. Tobin produced a small bag from under his cloak. “This should more than cover it,” he told them as he handed the bag to Tug.

Tug took the bag from Tobin. Surprised by the excessive weight, he opened the bag to look inside and found many more credit chips than he had expected. “This is too generous, Captain.”

“Consider it a bonus for all your hospitality,” Nathan told him.

“But Captain, this is nearly twice what the molo is worth at market.”

“Yeah, well, we did almost blow your head off last night,” Nathan chuckled. “So I think you deserve it. Maybe it will get your wife off your back for letting a bunch of strangers stay for dinner.”

“Indeed it might,” he agreed as he tucked the bag of credit chips into his pants pocket.

“We should get going as soon as possible,” Tobin insisted, seeming a bit anxious.

“Of course.” Nathan turned to the others and signaled them to start loading the bundles of molo.

They quickly hauled the carefully tied bundles up into Tobin’s ship, stacking them down the middle of the small passenger area.

“Stack them wall to wall, Captain,” Tobin advised.

“How are we all going to fit on board if we do that?”

“I would prefer to take the cargo up separately,” Tobin explained. “It would be safer as there is no good way to secure the load. If we were to hit some turbulence, someone could become injured by flying bundles.”

Nathan looked about the cabin, comparing the available space with the amount of cargo still to load. Although he figured there would be enough room to squeeze them all in along with the cargo, he figured it was better to follow Tobin’s advice and err on the side of caution. And since Vladimir had not completed his study of the FTL systems on Tug’s fighter, the additional time would not be wasted. “Okay, wall to wall it is.”

Ten minutes later, the ship was loaded and ready to go. “Very well, Captain,” Tobin announced. “I will run this load up to your ship, and return for you in just over an hour.” Tobin waived as he climbed back up into his ship, the loading ramp swinging up behind him and filling in the hatch as it sealed shut.

Nathan and the others again moved behind the vehicle as Tobin’s ship began to spin up its engines. Within minutes, the whine of the turbines was replaced by the roar of the thrusters as it lifted off, ascending vertically until it was well above the top of the sinkhole before it began to turn and accelerate forward. They could no longer see it through the cloud of dust that enveloped them, but the sound of his engines quickly disappeared.

“My wife will be complaining about the dust for days,” Tug groaned as he brushed himself off.

“Jess, contact the ship and tell them that Tobin is on his way with the first load. And let her know we’ll be back on board in a couple hours. I’m going to go check on Vlad.”

* * *

“Commander?” Ensign Yosef said. “One of the cargo shuttles just departed on another run to Haven.”

“Again? That’s their fourth load today,” Cameron said. “How much stuff is he buying down there?” Cameron twisted from side to side in the command chair. It had been a long night, and her attempts to take naps on the ready room couch had left her a bit stiff. “Any sign of Tobin yet?”

“He left Haven spaceport about an hour ago. He set down on the surface about thirty kilometers outside of the city for about fifteen minutes. I’m assuming that’s the landing party’s current location, as Ensign Nash contacted us just after Tobin lifted off again, to inform us he was inbound with cargo—something called molo. He should be arriving in a few minutes. I show him entering the rings now—”

Kaylah’s voice suddenly stopped in mid sentence, drawing Cameron’s attention. “What is it?”

“That’s odd,” Kaylah said. She double checked her readings before continuing. “I could’ve sworn I saw a rather large contact. But it’s gone now.”

“Did you get an ID on it?”

“No, sir. It was only on my screen for an instant before it disappeared. The system didn’t even have time to generate a track log for it.”

“A ghost? A false contact of some sort, maybe?” Cameron theorized.

“Possibly. But I’m pretty sure it was a legitimate contact.” Kaylah turned to face Cameron. “It might have slipped behind the planet, dropping out of our line of sight before we could get a fix on it.”

“Is that possible?”

“I’ve seen a few contacts come out from behind the planet that I didn’t see going in. I just assumed they had arrived on the far side.”

“How long until it would come out from behind and be visible again?”

“About an hour at normal orbital velocities,” Kaylah reported.

“Well, it’s not like we can go and investigate,” Cameron said. “Keep an eye peeled in case it comes back.”

“Yes, sir.”

* * *

“How much longer are you going to hide?” Jalea pleaded. She and Tug stood in the middle of the bunkhouse, arguing.

“For the rest of my life!” Tug insisted. “The rebellion is over, Jalea. You just refuse to accept defeat.”

“You once said that as long as you could still hold a weapon, you would continue to fight! What has changed?”

“We no longer
hold
a weapon!” he told her. “We have no ships, and maybe twenty surviving members who have scattered to the winds! And if they are successful with their new power source, there will be no stopping them!”

“We have a weapon!” Jalea insisted. “Their ship! With their jump drive, we can appear within range of key targets, destroy them, and then disappear before they even have a chance to defend themselves!

“And how do you propose to attack with a broken ship? You said yourself it was badly damaged in its recent engagements. It has no energy weapons, no shields. It isn’t even completed.”

“We can fix their ship,” she pleaded. “We can use our technology, give them energy weapons, improve their shields—”

“And how will you do this? With what army?” he asked.

“We can find our people. And when news of our magical victories begins to spread, more will join us and our ranks will swell once again.

“And why, Jalea? Tell me, why would
they
want to help our cause?” Tug asked, pointing outside.

“They
need
that power source. Without it, it will take them months to get home instead of weeks. And their world is also in dire need of their jump drive. Helping us will help them.”

Tug stared at Jalea a moment. “You may be right. But still I cannot join you. I made a promise to Ranni and my children.”

“You made a promise to your people, as well.”

“Do not go there, Jalea. I fought as much as any man—more so! I was fighting when you were still in braided-tails and studying Angla with your father. I have shed as much blood as any man could and still live to tell. This last battle was nearly my undoing. My wounds are still not yet fully healed. If I was to leave yet again, I do not think I would have a home to return to should I survive.” Tug dropped to sit on the edge of one of the beds. “My days as a Karuzari are over, Jalea. It is time for another to pick up the flag in my place.”

Jalea moved to sit on the bed next to him. She picked up his hand and held it in her own. “I do not mean to cast disrespect on all that you have done for our people, you know that. No man has fought more bravely than you. You have been an inspiration to many for more than two decades. And you will not be soon forgotten.

* * *

Tobin nervously paced the hangar deck while Ensign Mendez and a few members of the Aurora’s crew finished unloading the molo from his ship. The ensign noticed Tobin’s anxiety and stopped to inquire. “Everything all right, Tobin?”

“Yes, yes, everything is fine. Why do you ask?”

“You seem a little anxious,” Mendez told him.

“I’m just in a hurry to retrieve your crew from the surface,” Tobin insisted.

“Yeah, you and the XO, both.” Tobin ignored the ensign’s words, returning to his ship, pretending to inspect one of his thrusters. Mendez watched Tobin as he returned to the ship to carry another load of molo.

A few minutes later, Tobin’s ship was unloaded. “That’s the last of it,” Mendez told Tobin.

“Excellent,” Tobin declared, as he strode back up the ramp to his ship.

“Do you need any fuel or anything?” Mendez asked.

“No thank you, ensign. I have quite enough,” he assured him as he headed for the cockpit.

Mendez headed down the ramp. No sooner had he stepped off the ramp than it began to fold back up into Tobin’s ship. A moment later, his ship began to back up slowly, pivoting to bring its nose facing aft before it began to roll forward toward the transfer airlocks. Ensign Mendez was forced to quicken his stride in order to get clear of Tobin’s ship. “Damn, that guy’s in a hurry,” Mendez exclaimed to the sergeant as he reached the edge of the bay.

* * *

Just offshore, a small, unmarked ship sped toward the coastline. Even though its body never touched the water, its turbulent wake of thrust still parted the waters below as it hurtled across the shoreline and continued inward. Within seconds it reached Haven City, decelerating quickly as it approached the space port. No one challenged its arrival, and no one questioned its purpose. All who noticed it also knew they were better served to look away.

The ship bypassed the usual approach paths, instead skimming over the rows of berths until it reached its destination. Upon reaching its target, it dropped quickly to the deck, its landing gear extruding to full deployment a fraction of a second before the ship touched down, her boarding ramp deploying before she had even landed.

The cargo shuttle from the Aurora’s harvesting crew had just finished off-loading the shipment when the strange ship swooped down and landed next to them in their berth. It had been quite unexpected, and the pilot of the cargo shuttle was more than irritated.

“Who the hell do you think you are?” he hollered as he strode arrogantly toward the unmarked ship’s boarding ramp. This is a private—”

A blast from a well-aimed energy weapon ended both his sentence and his life as it struck him square in the chest, hurtling him backwards at least two meters. He landed in a smoking heap directly in front of the indentured workers he had been ordering about only a few seconds earlier. The workers stared in disbelief at the sizzling chest wound on the body of their pilot.

Their disbelief quickly turned to horror as a dozen assault troops clad in black and gray armor poured out of the unmarked ship, their silenced energy weapons firing in almost inaudible
clicks
as they quickly dispatched their targets with pinpoint accuracy. The attackers quickly fanned out to either side, their weapons quietly clicking as they fired, the grunts and muffled cries of their victims, each one’s life ending with the sound of their own sizzling wounds. Within seconds, the assault was over and the workers lay smoking on the tarmac in much the same condition as their pilot.

“Clear!” the lead soldier called out.

A moment later, their commanding officer stepped out of the ship, surveying the scene from the top of the boarding ramp. “Get rid of the bodies and clean this place up,” he ordered as he descended the ramp. Another dozen troops deployed from the ship behind him. He turned around to see that the rest of his men had disembarked, then signaled to the pilot he was clear to depart. The ships engines, which had not been shutdown, spun back up quickly and the ship lifted off once more, heading off deeper into the countryside.

“Halo flight taking up control station inland,”
the pilot announced over the commander’s comm-set.

“Copy that, Halo flight. Team two will contact you when they are ready for extraction.” The commander strode into the middle of the berth, watching as his men dragged the bodies of the workers into the nearby buildings. “We’ve got ten minutes until the next ship arrives, so let’s get to it!”

A few minutes later, the squad leader approached his commander. “All bodies are secure, sir,” he reported as he snapped a salute.

“And your assault team?”

“Positioned undercover in the service building, sir.”

“Very well,” the commander said, turning to head toward the captured cargo shuttle. “Mount up!” he ordered. The two rows of eight fully armored troops ran up the rear loading ramp of the bulky old cargo shuttle that had belonged to the harvesting team.

The commander touched the comm-band around his neck and began to speak. “Halo flight, Team One.”

“
Go for Halo flight.
”

“Halo flight, Team One. You may start the music.”