A Galaxy Unknown 10: Azula Carver (28 page)

~ August 6
^nd
, 2289 ~

"No, sir, nothing yet," Commander Gates said when Gavin contacted the bridge after dinner to learn if there had been any sign of a mothership or any sightings that might point to a Denubbewa base. There was little doubt now that the Denubbewa were responsible for the freighter attacks, and those ten-kilometer-long cargo sections had to be hidden somewhere.

"Very well, XO. Let's swing around and head back to the derelict. We need to keep an eye on those Denubbewa ships until the second SDB gets here."

"Aye, sir. We'll change course immediately."

"Maintain maximum DeTect distance when we locate them and don't drop our envelope for any reason."

"Aye, sir."

~

"No sign of the Denubbewa warships, sir," Gates said when he contacted Gavin after the
Ares
arrived back at the derelict.

"I don't want to begin a rescue operation for our missing people and have it interrupted by their return, so let's perform a thorough sweep of the area out to a hundred billion kilometers. Drop Distant DeTect sensor buoys at key locations to increase our DeTect range. If the space is clear, we'll go get our people off that derelict."

"Aye, Captain. We'll begin a full sweep of the area."

"Alert the next two pilots on rotation to be ready and standing by."

"Aye, Captain."

"Out," Gavin said.

"Out," Gates acknowledged, then passed on the captain's orders to the helm to begin the sweep and instructed the tac officer to alert the next two shuttle pilots on the rotation list.

~

Four hours later, a thorough sweep of the area confirmed that no Denubbewa warships were within a hundred billion kilometers. If any did return, the DeTect sensor buoys would alert the
Ares
in sufficient time to complete the rescue and evacuate the area.

Two shuttles were launched, one empty but for the pilot. The other contained two Marine fire teams, a staff sergeant, and a second lieutenant. The Marines would attempt to locate and recover the
Ares
crewmembers from the first boarding party.

Gavin had come to the bridge as soon as the shuttles were launched. Gates had moved to the XO chair, but Gavin didn't assume control of the bridge. He let his XO continue as commander.

As the Marines entered the derelict, the front monitor on the
Ares
bridge showed the image from each of the ten helmet cams. The Marines started with the escape pods, but all were empty, so they moved to the sick bay. There had been four stasis beds there, but all were missing.

"I'm not liking this," Gavin mumbled under his breath.

"
Ares
, this is Lieutenant Dayner. No joy in either the escape pods or sick bay. Any suggestions?"

"Are you picking up any signs of life with your monitors?" Gates asked.

"Nothing indicated."

"Dayner, perform as thorough a search of the ship as possible, seeking signs of any of our people or any other sign of life."

"Aye, sir."

An hour later, the exhaustive search had been completed with negative results. If the
Ares
crewmembers had been aboard the freighter, the Marines would have found them. Freighters were not that large that they could have missed them even if the Marines hadn't had search sensors that could pick up the heartbeat of a mouse. The shuttles returned to the
Ares
empty but for the crewmen that had gone on the recovery mission.

"In my office, XO," Gavin said to Gates after the shuttles had returned and the
Ares
had once again built its temporal envelope. Gates gave temporary command to the helmsman as he climbed down from his chair.

"Dammit," Gavin said as the doors of his office closed behind Gates. "The Denubbewa must have taken them."

"It would seem so, sir."

"What's the name of that ship?" Gavin asked.

"According to its logs, it's called the
Galada Tomestora
. The cargo on this run was listed as foodstuffs and unprocessed ores."

"What registry?"

"Centrasia."

"How long has it been missing?"

"It hasn't been reported as missing yet."

Talking aloud as he thought, Gavin said, "So it's a very recent kill. The Denubbewa had already taken the cargo, and there was nothing worth salvaging in the freighter. So why were they returning?"

"I don't know, sir."

"Perhaps they weren't returning, XO."

"They weren't returning to the
Galada Tomestora
? "

"I'm thinking now that perhaps we went the wrong way."

"The wrong way, sir?"

"When we went in search of the mothership I believed the warships had launched from, perhaps they were actually returning to their mothership, not coming from it. Their course just happened to take them near one of their kills."

"So the mothership might be on the course they were traveling?"

"It's a possibility. Let's head that same way and see if we can pick up their trail."

"Aye, sir. Should we recover the sensor buoys first?"

"No. Leave them in place. We'll be alerted if they return here. That's all, XO."

"Aye, sir."

~

Ninety-six minutes later, the
Ares
passed the Denubbewa warships. They were still on the same course they had been following when they were spotted approaching the
Galada Tomestora
. At Light-9790, the
Ares
passed the small task force of Denubbewa ships in the blink of an eye, and it's doubtful the warships even realized why a blip had appeared momentarily on their screens and then disappeared just as quickly. Gavin had retired for the evening but would be on the bridge in minutes if called. Gates decided not to call him just yet and had the battleship continue on course. The Denubbewa warships were headed somewhere, and Space Command needed to know where.

~

When Captain Gavin arrived on the bridge at the beginning of first watch, Lt. Commander Eliza Carver had the bridge. She briefed Gavin on the situation and then was relieved.

Gavin settled into the command chair and focused on the front monitor as he thought. In almost half a day they had traveled some twelve light-years. It would take the Denubbewa more than twelve days to cover that same distance. Since Gavin was following up on the only lead they had, he made up his mind to follow the present course for no more than five days total.

Since the first destruction of a Denubbewa warship, it had been known that the cyborgs had a mechanical body with an organic brain, but no one knew anything about their thought processes. It had always been assumed that the cyborg race acted like computers, and indeed all previous evidence seemed to point to this conclusion. Since the shortest distance between two points was a straight line, it was logical to assume that the Denubbewa course would take the
Ares
directly to a place of importance, whether that was a base or a mothership. But how far was that place?

~     ~     ~

Gavin got his answer when he was awakened two days later at 0325.

"Captain," he said sleepily.

"Lt. Commander Carver, sir. We've found them."

Gavin was instantly awake. "A mothership?"

"It appears to be four motherships, sir, but we only got a momentary glimpse before we were past them. We're currently holding at ten billion kilometers beyond the cluster of ships."

"I'll be on the bridge within five minutes, Commander."

"Aye, sir."

"Out."

Eliza leaned back in the command chair and looked at the blurry image on the front monitor. The great distance and incredible speed had combined to make the single frame all but unrecognizable. But there wasn't anything else it could be.

As Gavin stepped onto the bridge a few minutes later, he stopped well short of his command chair as he stared at the front monitor. "Damn," was all he said before heading to his office to compose a message to Space Command.

When Gavin returned, he climbed into the command chair as Eliza moved to the XO chair. "Where are we, Commander?"

"The middle of nowhere, sir. The nearest star is sixteen light-years from here, and we're not on any normally traveled trade routes. The Denubbewa picked the perfect place to hide their motherships."

"Okay. Good job, Commander. Now I have another job for you. I want you take the
Pechora
and get some better images of those motherships. Then I want you perform a daily flyby at maximum range on different vectors to verify they are still there each day until we can assemble a task force of SDBs. The
Ares
will move off to a rendezvous location ten light-years away to await the arrival of our other ships."

"Aye, sir. When should I leave?"

"Now. You're relieved of bridge duty for the rest of the watch. As we speak, an SDB crew is being notified by the computer to report to the ship."

"Aye, sir," Eliza said as she hopped out of the XO chair.

"I have the bridge, Commander. Good luck."

"Thank you, sir."

In twenty minutes, Eliza had picked up the things she would need from her quarters and was entering the
Pechora
via the docking collar hatch. In an emergency, a Scout-Destroyer could launch within five minutes, but launch time wasn't critical on this occasion so the bridge team prepped the ship according to standard launch protocols. Even so, the SDB with a full crew of one hundred eighty-five aboard dropped from beneath the
Ares
within thirty minutes from the time Eliza entered the ship.

Eliza didn't waste any time. She knew the captain wanted— nay needed— detailed images of the Denubbewa motherships to plan an attack once the SDBs arrived.

So as not to compromise the current location of the
Ares
, Eliza had the navigator plot an approach vector that couldn't be associated with the location of the
Ares
if it had been noticed as it flew by earlier. Before beginning the run, Eliza addressed the crew and explained what they were doing and why, as well as the overall mission.

When the bridge crew was ready, Eliza ordered the ship forward. The SDB passed within twenty kilometers of the stationary motherships. It appeared and disappeared before the Denubbewa could have even known it was approaching. And the double envelope used to achieve Light-9790 made any DeTect wave reflections appear like erratic neutrinos. If they passed that close on a regular basis, the Denubbewa would eventually learn what was causing the momentary blips, but this was just a special, onetime event. In the future, flybys for the purpose of monitoring their continued presence at the same location would be done at maximum distance. Clarity of later images wouldn't be important. They would only need to verify the continued presence of the Denubbewa mothership fleet.

As the SDB reached the location where they would wait until it was time to perform the next daily flyby, Eliza had the tac officer display the newly recorded images on the front monitor. As the first, incredibly detailed images appeared, Eliza couldn't completely mask her horror. She mumbled, "The captain isn't going to be pleased with this development. Space Command isn't going to be pleased either. Heck, even I'm not pleased."

Jumping up from her command chair, Eliza gave control of the bridge to the helmsman and walked quickly to the office on the larboard side of the SDB bridge. Captain Gavin had to hear the news immediately.

~     ~     ~

"Your Grace," Captain Pwuhvasqu, her chief of security, said when she picked up the phone, "a Space Command vessel has entered orbit around the planet. "They request that they be allowed to send a shuttle down to the palace."

"What ship is it, Captain?"

"The GSC Destroyer
Dublin
, Your Grace."

"Permission granted, Captain."

"Thank you, Your Grace. I shall inform them."

Jenetta had requested that Admiral Platt send two destroyers when the Clidepp refugees began to arrive, but she hadn't expected one to arrive this soon. She checked her appearance in a mirror and then left to greet whoever was arriving. The shuttle might take as long as a half hour to arrive on the palace shuttle pad, but she wanted to be there when it arrived. It was taking her longer and longer to get from place to place these days because she had to move so slowly, but she arrived before the ramp had fully extended.

Jenetta had expected a senior bridge officer, but the person who stepped through the hatch was a medical doctor. Jenetta waited until he stepped off the ramp before saying, "Welcome to Obotymot, Doctor."

Lt. Commander Fabrini stopped, came to attention and saluted.

Jenetta returned the salute, even though she wasn't in uniform.

"Admiral Carver, Admiral Platt sends her regards. She requested that we stop and invite you up to the ship for a complete medical exam. She said there are no Terran doctors on the planet and it's been some months since your last checkup by the doctors aboard the GSC Destroyer
Vancouver
."

"That was very kind of Admiral Platt. I'm about to enter my third trimester soon and the babies have seemed unusually active. I would welcome a checkup."

The arrival of the shuttle had attracted the attention of everyone in the palace. Annette, Regina, Marisa, Arturo, Berl, and the twelve Jumakas had all come hurrying out to see what was going on. The cubs lined up in front of their parents.

Annette stepped forward to stand next to Jenetta and said, "I'm coming up with you."

"It's not necessary, Mama."

"I'm coming."

Jenetta smiled and said, "Okay, Mama."

Cayla and Tayna then stepped forward and Jenetta heard in her CT, "We're coming also, Jenetta."

Jenetta looked at them and said, "Okay, girls, you can come also."

"Can we bring our babies?"

"No, not this time. Your babies should remain here. We'll be back shortly. I'm sure Thor and Nicky can look after them until then."

When Jenetta turned back towards Dr. Fabrini, he smiled and said, "You talk to your pets as if they're people. It was almost like you were having a conversation."

Other people might have been getting tired of responding to that same general remark, but Jenetta was happy to explain the situation to everyone who was interested. It was going to take a lot of effort to get people to accept that the Jumaka race was deserving of sentiency status, and she looked upon this as 'priming the pump.' "They're not my pets, Doctor, they're my friends. And they are sentient creatures who understand several languages. Their larynx doesn't allow them to converse directly with Terrans, but we've developed a translation device like the alien translators in widespread use for interaction with other species. It sends their speech— what seems like growls and mewls to the Terran ear— to the range extender I'm wearing, which sends the converted speech directly to my CT."