Call to Arms (Black Fleet Trilogy, Book 2) (8 page)

“Sounds relatively minor,” Jackson said. “Let me know what you find.”

Even after trying to sit for a meal and calm himself down, Jackson was still wired, buzzed on adrenaline and fear. He’d left the bridge shortly after the
Ares
had broken orbit for the outer system, so the crew wouldn’t see that his hands were shaking after the encounter with the Alpha. They seemed to have all the confidence in the universe in his ability to get them through alive. Some of the crew aboard that had served on the
Blue Jacket
even seemed to look forward to the chance to kick some more alien ass.

But the truth ate at him: eventually his luck was going to run out. The Phage adapted and learned from each encounter at a frightening rate, and he still relied on panic-fueled inspiration to find workarounds for the inadequacies of human weaponry against the Phage’s true big guns like the Alphas. To make matters worse, even after four years, much of what they thought they knew about their enemy was just best guess. Destroyed Phage ships offered little in the way of useful intel, other than that they were all crewless and were either a form of automaton or, more terrifyingly, were some sort of living machines.

Jackson left that sort of speculation for the eggheads at Fleet Science and Engineering. He’d worked with CIS and CENTCOM to develop a set of tactics and standard operating procedures when engaging the Phage based on his own experience, but it all went out the window with every battle as they seemed to demonstrate a new ability or completely different behavior. The fact that the two Alphas seemed to have been mimicking Terran missiles and kinetic weapons instead of their usual directed plasma bursts was yet another wrinkle in trying to understand the Phage.

His comlink chirping made him stop midstride, just before he got to the hatch leading onto his bridge, a soft whine of protest coming from his left leg as he planted all his momentum on the prosthetic. The screen on the unit was a text only message informing him that Captain Forrest wanted to debrief him as soon as possible. He debated making her wait, but he had nothing pressing going on other than trying to come up with a plausible story in his head to explain to his superiors how in the fuck he lost two irreplaceable, top-of-the-line warships in their first real engagement with the enemy.

He spun on the ball of his right foot and quickly made his way back to his office, confirming the request on his comlink and letting Captain Forrest know he’d be available within the next five minutes.

“Senior Captain Wolfe.” Captain Olivia Forrest nodded respectfully, her entire demeanor much changed from all the other interactions Jackson had ever had with her. “Thank you for taking my request on such short notice, sir.”

“Not a problem, Captain.” Jackson shifted in his seat. “Is there a particular reason you wanted a face to face? We’ll compile all of the
Artemis
’
s
mission data with our own when we submit the final mission report to CENTCOM.”

“Yes, sir,” she said. “I wanted to apologize for allowing the Alpha to escape the system and for allowing my ship to be so badly damaged.”

Jackson was surprised for a second time in as many minutes. Olivia Forrest apologized for nothing, especially her own mistakes. The more at fault she was, the more aggressive she became.

“I think we were all taken by surprise, Captain,” he said carefully. “I’m not ascribing blame to anyone in particular for any of the missteps we made from the time those two Alphas appeared. We’ll parse through the data with a dispassionate eye and make adjustments so next time we don’t repeat our mistakes.”

“That is very gracious of you, sir,” she said with no hint that she was being anything but sincere. “Your tactics against the other Alpha were inspired, if I may say.” She seemed to hesitate a moment before she continued, looking at each of the other captains before she did. “I also wished to speak with you so I could request permission to withdraw the
Artemis
back to uncontested space.”

Jackson leaned back in his chair as he considered her request. The
Artemis
was banged up but still combat capable. Having her pull out of the system before he knew what had happened to the
Icarus
or
Atlas
might be foolish on his part.

“Request denied, Captain,” he said. “We’re still missing two ships, and I’d rather keep the
Artemis
here in case we need her resources in the search… or the recovery. As soon as we locate them and ascertain their condition, I will revisit your request.”

“Understood, sir.” Forrest’s mouth pinched. “
Artemis
out.”

Jackson reflected on the exchange for a moment as well as the unexpected request. The crucible of combat, even the sterile type of combat done from the bridge of a starship over vast distances, tended to change a person… and change them almost immediately. It wasn’t that he was unsympathetic. He understood her desire to leave after surviving a firefight, but he didn’t have the luxury of indulging her discomfort.

“
Captain Wolfe to the bridge
.” Celesta’s voice came over the intercom speaker in his office and from his comlink.

“On my way,” he said, climbing out of his seat and slipping his comlink back into his pocket.

****

“The
Atlas
has checked in, sir,” Celesta said as soon as he walked onto the bridge. “Systemic failure with main power is what they’re telling us. Apparently it killed everything: coms, propulsion, steerage… the works.”

“I’m going to assume Captain Caruso didn’t activate the emergency beacon because he wasn’t sure if the enemy was still out there or not.” Jackson stared at the bright green dot representing the
Atlas
on the main display.

“Correct, sir,” Celesta confirmed. “They informed us that they were ready to fire the mains and would be coming our way as soon as they were under power.”

“And the
Icarus
?” Jackson asked.

Celesta motioned for him to approach the terminal she was using at the back of the bridge. Wordlessly, she pointed to a message that had been sent to the
Ares
from Captain Jonathan Caruso, CO of the
Atlas
.

Captain Wolfe,

I am sending this message separate from our official communications regarding the
Atlas’s
power plant failure, as I am not sure how you will want to handle it. While I cannot tell you where the
Icarus
currently is, I can tell you that she is likely still in one piece. When we split from the formation to intercept the Alpha circling around Xi’an, the
Icarus
began to lag back slightly. We sent a message requesting that they get back on the line, but we were engaged by the enemy before we received an answer.

The
Atlas
took a glancing blow from two of the Phage missiles, something I was unaware they even had, and when we tried to energize the forward laser projectors for point defense, the main power bus failed to the forward sections. We accelerated out and past Xi’an and requested that the
Icarus
cover our withdrawal until we could fix the problem. They never answered. A review of the sensor logs shows that as we were fired upon, the
Icarus
turned from the engagement and accelerated away from Xi’an at max burn. Our power plant went into safe mode and shut us down before we could track their trajectory.

I do not know where Captain Levitt and his ship are. All I do know is that he abandoned us as soon as the shooting started. As I said, I am not sure how you will wish to handle this, so I am keeping it off of official records for now.

Captain Caruso

CO, TCS Atlas

“Oh, this isn’t fucking good.” Jackson muttered under his breath, running a hand through his short, dark hair.

“Indeed,” Celesta said just as softly. “Right now, we’re the only two people who have seen this, and I’m sending it to your personal directory.”

“Thank you,” Jackson said. “First, we need to find the damn ship. Once that happens, I can figure out what I’m going to do. Obviously we can’t just let him keep it but I don’t know who I can stick in the chair for the duration of the mission.” Despite the seriousness of what Levitt was being accused of, Jackson couldn’t help but feel enormously relieved that the
Icarus
was intact and not destroyed or captured.

“I’m scanning the entire system with the high-power array,” Celesta said. “Even if they’re running silent, we know exactly what sort of return to look for from the ship’s hull material. It may take a bit, but we’ll find her.”

“That’s assuming she hasn’t already warped out of the system while we were engaged,” Jackson said quietly. “Keep looking, and update me with every detail on my comlink if I’m not on the bridge.”

“Yes, sir.”.

As it turned out, it didn’t take them nearly as long to find the ship as they’d feared it would. It was less than an hour after Jackson and Celesta had spoke when the com beacon for the
Icarus
lit up on their display, chirping out the destroyer’s position and status loud and proud. The beacon was followed shortly by a terse com message from a terrified looking lieutenant commander.

“This is Lieutenant Commander Nimski, tactical officer of the
TCS
Icarus
.” His voice shook. “I’ve assumed command of this ship and have had Captain Levitt and Commander Carlton taken into custody. I would like to speak with whoever is currently commanding Confederate forces in the system.”

“Coms! Tell Commander Nimski to rendezvous with the rest of the squadron.” Jackson leaned forward, vigorously rubbing his temples with the heels of his hands. “Provide coordinates. Let him know if he needs assistance we can help him further.”

“Aye, sir,” the young ensign at the com station said.

“You have the bridge, Commander Wright,” Jackson said. “I’ll be in my office. Just get that ship back into the formation so we can get the hell out of this system.”

“Yes, sir.” Celesta slid into the command seat.

****

The single knock at his door made Jackson jump as he was so focused on his task. “Enter!”

“Sir, the
Icarus
has rejoined the formation.” Celesta stepped in through the hatchway. “The
Artemis
has sent over two requests to withdraw since… are you well, sir?”

“Yes, yes.” Jackson waved her off. “Just trying to stitch together all the sensor logs from the squadron into a cohesive picture of the encounter.”

“We have an entire team of analysts down in CIC doing just that.” Celesta frowned. “Is there something in particular you’re looking for?”

“I want an unfiltered view,” Jackson said. “The analysts are always trying to be helpful by excluding what they deem to be extraneous, but you and I both know a small detail that seems unimportant can actually be the key to understanding the thing as a whole.”

“You’re worried about something specific.” She walked in and closed the hatch.

“I had a suspicion,” Jackson said. “I didn’t know for sure until I synced up all the time codes and played the logs from the
Ares
and the
Artemis
simultaneously.

“The reason the
Artemis
never got a killing shot in on their target is that at the exact instant our missiles impacted the first Alpha, the second wheeled and fled at what I previously would have considered an impossible rate of acceleration for that type.”

“Our target warned the other we had new weapons and tactics,” Celesta offered.

“And the other ship fled back beyond the frontier, likely to warn its… people… and analyze the information from the battle the same as we are.” Jackson said with a scowl. “I have a feeling the next Alpha we face will already have modifications to defend against what was observed over Xi’an.”

“Are you certain?” Celesta asked. “Our kinetic weapons were still largely effective.”

“Not entirely.” Jackson spun his monitor. “Watch.”

Celesta sat in one of the unoffered seats and watched the high-resolution thermal imagery of their auto-mag shells impacting the first Alpha they’d engaged. Some obviously punched through the tough organic hull, but just as many smashed against it, exploding against the surface and not penetrating. Jackson had filtered a lot of the flashes out so they were able to clearly see that had two of the shells not flown unimpeded into one of the missile ports, their first salvo wouldn’t have caused near the amount of damage it had.

“Maybe we’re looking at a coincidence?” she asked after watching the opening shots of the engagement multiple times. “We did inflict a lot of damage to that ship before handing it off to the
Artemis
and
Atlas
.”

“Besides the fact that I don’t believe in coincidences like this, we didn’t cause
that
much damage with those two lucky shots.” Jackson shook his head. “It’s certainly something to think about. This is just some preliminary looks at the battle… We’ll do a more comprehensive debrief once the backshops get done with their own analysis.”

“Of course, sir.” Celesta stood and smoothed out her utilities. “What should I tell Captain Forrest?”

“Tell the squadron that they are clear to withdraw,” Jackson said. “They are to follow all randomization protocols with Captain Forrest in overall command. I want them to fly to Neatlantia and wait for us there. Inform Captain Forrest she may replace the
Icarus
’
s
current CO at her discretion but that Levitt and his XO are to remain in custody.”

“Sir?”

“We’re going hunting, Commander.” Jackson’s eyes stayed locked on the video of the nuclear blasts ripping apart the other Alpha. “There’s a reason that other ship ran from two Terran destroyers and there’s a reason the Phage keep coming back to Xi’an. We’re going to find out what that is. Let Commander Singh know that we’ll be departing within the hour.”

****

The four remaining ships of the Ninth Squadron broke out of their orbit around the sixth planet, an impressive Class II gas giant, and began accelerating for their jump point. Jackson had declined Captain Forrest’s request to accompany him once she found out that he intended to track the escaped Alpha. Despite the fact that she had made it clear how much she disliked him since their first meeting nearly ten years prior, he had to grudgingly concede that she’d handled herself very well in her first foray into battle.