Counterstrike (Black Fleet Trilogy, Book 3) (25 page)

“And take care of that,” he said gruffly. “It has a loaded magazine but no round in the chamber. You’ll probably want to look up what that means before handling it.”

“I’ll hold it until you get back,” Davis said. Jackson turned and looked at her, noticed her red-rimmed eyes, and again was forced to face the conflicting and wildly inappropriate feelings he had for his subordinate.

“I guess that about does it,” he said. “You know what to do. Just try to keep everyone safe and maybe we’ll find a way to get the crew back to Terran space alive.”

“I will.” She mirrored his movements so that they met at the side of the desk. “But you stay alive too. We need you.” Before he could stick out his hand for the intended handshake, Jillian moved inside his arm, wrapped hers around his neck, and kissed him savagely on the lips. Too shocked to protest, all he could do was put his hands on her hips and let his body respond how it would to her. She broke the kiss with a gasp and pulled away.

“I’m … I’m so sorry, sir,” she said. “I didn’t intend for that to happen.”

“We really did kiss on the bridge of the
Blue Jacket
that time, didn’t we?” he asked. “I’ve always thought I imagined that.”

“I suppose I’ve been acting unprofessionally for some time,” she mumbled, looking embarrassed.

“Given the circumstances on both occasions, I think we’ll go ahead and forego the court martial,” Jackson joked lamely.

“Is there—” she left her question hanging.

“There is,” he said softly. “Let’s both do what we need to do here … and if we both survive we can talk about it then.”

“Even if I’m under your command again?” she joked with a half-smile.

“Jillian, this is the second ship I’ve lost in less than ten years and my fifth major insubordination incident … I think we can safely say that if we make it back I won’t be in command of anything,” Jackson said. “I’d actually be thrilled if I just avoided any serious jail time.”

****

“All the cargo is transferred to Colonel Blake’s ship.” Hayashi handed Jackson a tile with all the pertinent information. “Major Ortiz and his entire detachment are loaded up and over there as well. Your gear is stowed in your quarters … Colonel Blake said you’d know where that was.”

“Very good.” Jackson handed the tile back to his OPS officer. “Now get your ass back up to the bridge and back up Lieutenant Davis as best you can. No heroics … just keep our people safe and try to keep your heads down.”

“Understood, Captain.” Hayashi actually did bow this time. “It was an honor, sir.”

“Hopefully it will be again,” Jackson said. “Until then, keep her together.”

“
ARES
DEPARTING!” Chief Green’s voice thundered across the bay, his bellow triggering hundreds of boot heels to snap together as the throng of assembled spacers popped to attention and saluted. With a lump in his throat, Jackson came to attention and returned the salute before turning and striding through the hatchway and into the waiting Vruahn warship.

“Was that Green?” Pike called when Jackson emerged into the main corridor. “I could hear him all the way up by the flight deck.”

“He’s very proud of his voice,” Jackson nodded. “We ready?”

“Locked and loaded, Captain,” Pike said. “One last ride?”

“I wish everyone would quit looking at this as a death march,” Jackson quipped. “I do have every intention of walking away from this.”

“I’ve heard that before,” Pike said over his shoulder as he walked back up the corridor.

Once the
Broadhead
had disengaged and thrusted away the Vruahn ship unlocked from the
Ares
and slid over and above her. Jackson looked on the thermals and felt a raw, burning rage as the imagers played over his crippled ship, thin jets of gas escaping into space through at least three dozen micro breaches. After Blake had engaged the drive and turned them away from the stricken destroyer, Jackson left the flight deck to go and check on his cargo and men.

The NOVAs had already made the ship their temporary home and were busy idly talking and going through gear checks, most nodding politely to Jackson when he walked into the large bay. He left them to make sure Major Ortiz and his Marine detachment was settling in equally well. While the NOVAs were trained to handle almost any scenario, he was completely confident that his Marines would adapt quickly to the conditions on the small moon. They were mostly trained for shipboard combat but they were all pros.

Lastly he went to check on his cargo: twenty Vruahn gravity bombs and one cylindrical tank that was attached to a sort of oversized loadbearing harness that would fit over a combat EVA suit. The tank also had a long, thin appendage attached to it via a shielded line. The tank had been fabricated by his Engineering crew and filled with a substance that was synthesized by Commander Owens’s people. The original sample had come from a cryogenically stored capsule that Pike had been carrying on his
Broadhead
. It was a nasty little something from Fleet Research and Science that had never been weaponized until now … Jackson just hoped it wouldn’t come down to that, as it was very much an option of last resort.

“Pike should be over the moon.” Blake turned his head as Jackson walked onto the flight deck. “We’ve got another nine hours until we make orbit so he’ll have plenty of time to map out the surface.”

“Or find out what sort of orbital defenses there are,” Amiri Essa said from the copilot’s seat.

“Let’s hope not,” Jackson said. “I’m going to head down and start getting everything ready. We’ll be at the threshold for deployment before we know it.”

“I’ll walk with you.” Essa climbed out of his seat. “I’m just taking up space here and I need to get my men ready.”

“Already?” Jackson asked.

“We don’t know what might be in place around this moon,” Essa said. “I was half-joking about Pike triggering a defensive response, but I would rather my men already be in their EVA rigs and ready to go on internal life support in case there is something there to meet us.”

“Not a bad idea,” Jackson said. “I’ll get Major Ortiz moving along with his people as well.”

“So is this really it, Captain?” Essa asked, stopping at the corridor that would lead him down to where his NOVAs were berthed. “The end of the war?”

“That’s the idea, Lieutenant Commander,” Jackson nodded. “We can put an end to the Phage right here and now with a successful operation. There can be no other considerations except the destruction of whatever is on that moon.”

“Understood, sir.” Essa nodded and walked off down the side corridor.

“It’s definitely more than one contact, sir,” the
Amsterdam
’s XO said quietly to Marcum. “But whatever it is, it’s still at the outer edge of our detection range.”

“So it isn’t the
Icarus
,” Marcum said. “Captain Wright would have already announced her arrival over the Link.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Sound the general alert to the fleet, Commander, and wake your captain up,” Marcum said grimly. “The Phage have found us.”

“Aye aye, Admiral.”

“Fucking Wolfe,” Marcum muttered for the hundredth time since leaving New Sierra.

****

“The moon is small enough that we can land, disembark, and then have the ship move back up into low orbit and wait for us,” Blake said as he hefted his helmet.

“I still don’t understand why you’re coming, Colonel,” Amiri Essa said pointedly.

“Because without the stasis cube or the controller that’s still aboard the
Ares
you can’t arm the gravity bombs without me,” Blake said. “They’re coded to respond to me or my team, but just any ol' human won’t do it.”

“I can’t believe we came all this way and forgot the fucking detonator,” Major Ortiz growled. “Definitely a Fleet operation.”

“It’s not quite that simple, Major,” Blake smiled. “The controller was built into the rack and integrated into the
Ares
’s tactical avionics suite. The only way to use it would have been to move the
Ares
into orbit.”

“Why can’t this ship control them remotely?” Jackson asked.

“That is a good question, Captain,” Blake frowned. “But I’ve tried. I can’t even get a status update on the weapons from the flight deck, but if I just walk down and directly interface with them there’s no issue.”

“Design flaw,” Essa shrugged. “Fine. The colonel comes with us. Rat, Samson … you’re on protection detail.”

The ship flew itself in a slow, lazy arc that would put them in a one-meter hover over the erratically tumbling moon within the next thirty minutes. Jackson was again struck at how much the interior of the ship was very much for appearances only. Blake was more or less a glorified passenger for much of the time, only stepping in to provide the final go-ahead to pull the trigger when the time came for the ship to be used as a weapon.

They had received the data from Pike when they were on final approach, now so close that they were no longer quite so worried about stealth since the odds that they were undetected were almost none. After quickly analyzing the multi-spectrum surface mapping performed by the
Broadhead,
they determined that a shallow crater with a sheer face on one side showed signs of having been disturbed. More to the point, there appeared to be definite drag marks in the settled dust of the airless moon.

“
We are in position
,” the computer announced over the common channel in their helmets. “
Stand by for hatch opening. You will have forty seconds to depart before the ship will need to be moved
.”

“Final gear check!” Ortiz called. “Check yourself, check your buddies!” There was a flurry of activity as they all did one final check on all the joints and fittings of their equipment along with those of the people around them. Jackson reached up and cinched the straps of the canister hooked to his back a bit tighter and made sure the attached cylinder was secured to the bracket on his belt. He sure as hell didn’t want that damn thing firing off early.

With no discernable sensation of deceleration or even a change in engine sound the red lights that lined the walls began flashing slowly and, with no further warning from the ship, the hatch popped open and swung down into position. They all quickly moved to the edge and hopped off, the sudden change in gravity making Jackson queasy. He bounced off the surface of the moon and turned in mid-hop to see the Marines sliding the gravity bombs out, the powerful weapons bouncing haphazardly across the surface. Despite Blake’s assurances that the weapons didn’t actually “explode,” the sight of munitions tumbling out of an open hatch still caused Jackson to clench up.

Exactly forty seconds after the hatch opened the ship began to rise from the surface and quickly disappeared into the pitch black sky. Without prompting, everyone activated their suit lights and under radio silence began going about their tasks. Most of the Marines bounced around in the low gravity, gathering up the scattered weapons and rolling them into a loose formation at the bottom of the crater.

Jackson, Blake, and Essa shuffled off to the sheer face of the crater that had caught their eye in the mapping data. The “drag” marks they’d thought they could identify from the orbital imagery were now much less pronounced as they saw them in poor lighting and at ground level. In fact, the more he looked around, the more Jackson thought he was just looking at a natural formation and his confidence that they were in the right place began to fade.

“Well, we’re already here,” Essa said as they looked around at the base of the wall formation. “May as well make this thorough.”

Over the next two hours all seventy members of the assault team poked around at the base of the wall, the mood darkening as it looked like they had gone through a lot of trouble for nothing. Jackson shuffled up close to the wall and put his hand against it, pushing in frustration at the impenetrable rock. The evidence for this mission had always been thin, but his conviction was so strong that he'd taken more than a few leaps of faith to connect the dots that this was the place. It was beginning to look like all he had done was take a ship off the line and get his crew killed in the process. While he wasn’t a man obsessed with legacy, he couldn’t help but shudder at how history would likely remember him.

“Sir! Here!”

“Who said that?” Ortiz shouted. “Raise your hand, you idiot … we can’t tell who’s talking over the open channel.”

Far down the line a Marine raised his hand and waved frantically. Jackson and Essa bounded over to him to see what he’d found.

“What do you have, Marine?” Ortiz beat them there. “It looks like more rock.”

“Look at it through your thermals, sir,” the Marine said. “Make sure your IR lights are on.”

“What in the hell?” Ortiz murmured just as Jackson got there, already activating his thermal optics.

“Indeed,” Jackson said, the thermal imagery showing a faint, roughly semi-circle shape on the rock face. He walked up to it and slapped his glove against it. It just felt like all the other rock. “Blake, any idea what this is?”

“It’s similar in makeup to a Phage ship hull.” Blake’s excitement was evident. “Not an identical match, but it definitely isn’t rock. I can’t give you a more definite answer with this instrument. I’d have to take a sample.”

“Not necessary,” Jackson said. “Breaching team!”

Ten Marines hustled over and, after a brief consultation with Blake, began placing charges in a specific pattern in an area near the middle of the surface anomaly. Jackson noted the color and saw that they were using thermite charges, not concussive explosives, and nodded his silent approval. Once ignited, the thermite would burn at 2,500°C and couldn’t be put out. The testing they’d done on recovered Phage units confirmed that the thermite could burn through it, but the process took too long for it to be an effective weapon against a moving ship.

“Do it,” he said when Ortiz looked to him for confirmation. An instant later their visors auto-dimmed as the thermite charges burst to life. The wall began to slough off almost immediately, burning away in chunks rather than liquefying. Before long, large gaps began appearing but they couldn’t see past the brilliant flare of the burning metals.

“Step back!” Ortiz ordered. A ragged opening had been torn into the wall and a large cavern could be made out beyond, their lights failing to pierce the gloom to the far wall.

“Second team! Finish making us an entry,” he called as the edges of the ragged hole cooled. “First team! Weapons ready to cover.”

Using simple tools, and in some cases their gloved hands, the Marines tore the charred chunks of the wall away until there was a hole big enough for three people to walk through shoulder-to-shoulder.

“We can burn more away if you think we need it, Captain,” Ortiz said after they’d cleared all the damaged material away, unable to go any further.

“I think we’re fine with this,” Jackson said, anxious to get going. “We’re not taking more than fifteen people in so we won’t need it any bigger if we have to egress quickly. I do want the breaching team constantly monitoring this, though. We know their ship hulls can heal, and I’d rather not get trapped in there if we can help it.”

“Of course, sir,” Ortiz said. Jackson could tell the major was disappointed that his Marines were being left out to guard the opening, but this sort of mission was more suited to the NOVAs' training and he didn’t want to mix and match dissimilar units when the situation was so fluid.

“Lieutenant Commander, shall we?” Jackson asked.

“NOVAs, let’s move,” Essa barked. “Secure the immediate access point and begin fanning out, two-man teams.” Without a word the NOVA team quickly streamed into the cavern through the jagged hole, followed by Jackson and Blake.

Once they were inside and began working their way forward, Jackson realized that they weren’t in a cavern, but an enormous, smooth-walled tunnel. It was definitely not a natural formation and Jackson was much surer that they were in the right place. He just hoped they hadn’t found some long-abandoned Phage depot.

“It’s narrowing down sharply,” Essa radioed from up ahead. “It looks like it might split up ahead too.”

“That’s not good,” Jackson said. “Any readings that indicate one way might be more interesting than another?”

There was a short burst of static and then nothing over the radio.

“Lieutenant Commander?” He turned to look at Blake and saw that there was nobody behind him. When he spun around to grab the NOVA in front of him, he was also gone. Jackson spun quickly in a full circle and saw that he was completely alone in the tunnel. Fighting down the panic, he saw that there was a soft, red glow coming from the smaller tunnel up on the left. He hoped it was his team and shuffled off towards it, knowing that it would probably be smarter to head back to the wall opening since his radio had apparently died.

The tunnel spiraled down and to the left, the glow becoming ever brighter as he continued along, now suspecting that whatever was ahead of him was not his team. He couldn’t tell what was causing the glow as there appeared to be no obvious light source; it was just something that was always tantalizingly ahead of him, but never there whenever he rounded another corner.

“Com check, com check … this is Wolfe. Does anyone copy?” Jackson continued forward, now feeling that whatever was going to happen was going to happen no matter what he did. The feeling of being “herded” was pronounced as he chased the glowing red light like a simple animal.

He had to check his helmet display to verify that he’d only been walking for less than thirty minutes, the trip down the tunnel feeling like it was taking forever, when it opened up into an vast chamber. The walls of the cavern glowed a soft red and his instruments were measuring a spike in temperature as well as a thick atmosphere. He was in the middle of letting the onboard processor analyze it when the voice came out of nowhere and everywhere all at once.

“You may remove your helmet, Captain,” it said. “I require much the same type of atmosphere that you do.”

Jackson could feel his heart pounding in his ears and felt his mouth dry out as panic gripped him.

“Are you … it?” he managed to get out.

“It?”

“The core mind?” Jackson said more clearly. “The intelligence that controls the Phage?”

“I’ve never liked that name …
Phage
,” the voice said. “But your question implies a separation that does not exist. I am me.”

“A distinction without a difference,” Jackson said, now back in control of his reactions. “I think you know exactly what I’m asking. Are you the processing apparatus that has sent Phage ships into Terran space to kill humans, as you have countless other species?”

“Yes,” it said simply. “To put it in terms you understand, my physical form here is the neural mass that houses the controlling intelligence of the species you have crudely called the
Phage.
”

“And yet you sit here in a dark cave without any protection other than whatever it was you hit my ship with?” Jackson asked, now doubting what he was being told.

“It was the only logical answer to a problem of my own creating,” the core said. “So many species wanting to eradicate me in misguided notions of vengeance … there was no amount of combat units I could hide behind that wouldn’t eventually be overcome. So here I sit, silent and isolated in a system that is of no importance to anyone. It was a calculated risk, but also a perfectly elegant solution. Had there been any obvious presence at all here the system would have been investigated and I would eventually be found.”

“And the swarm amassed in the other system?”

“Is doing exactly what it is supposed to do: be the irresistible target,” the core replied. “All the time and energy wasted as species smash themselves into a system they assume must be where this neural mass is located, and all the focus removed from finding an alternative answer.”