Ep.#5 - "Rise of the Corinari" (26 page)

“I didn’t ask for any of this!” Nathan reminded him.

“Tough! Since when does life ask you what you want? Do you think I asked to lead a thirty-year rebellion? Do you think I asked to have my wife and my home taken from me? You arrogant little ass!” Tug spouted, finally losing his temper. “There are two hundred people on this ship and another hundred on their way, and they are all expecting
you
to lead them into battle. The captain of the ship does not carry out the wounded, and he does not cry over the dead, not even in private. He cannot afford to.”

“Those people died waiting for rescue,” Nathan pleaded, “a rescue that never came. That’s my fault.”

“Perhaps,” Tug conceded, “but in the fog of war we make mistakes. That is why we train. That is why we drill, over and over again. So that when we are under fire, we do our jobs without thinking about the how, only the result. Your crew never had that training, Nathan, and neither did you. Just make sure that your new crew is as ready as you can make them.”

Nathan stared at Tug for what seemed like an eternity to them both. Finally, Nathan picked up the body bags from the table and turned toward the exit. After two steps, he stopped and, without looking back, said, “My biggest regret is that those four did not get buried with the same honors as the rest of their shipmates.”

As Nathan started for the exit again, Tug responded. “My biggest
fear
is that there will be many more opportunities to bury our bravely fallen, and much sooner than any of us would like.”

Nathan paused and looked back at Tug. “Arrogant little ass, huh?” Nathan smiled. “That’s what my sister, Miri, used to call me.”

Nathan stepped through the hatch and continued the last ten meters to the entrance to the forward section. A team of four technicians were already in the compartment on the other side of the hatch. “Ensign,” Nathan called to the one technician that was also a member of the Aurora’s original crew, “take these bags forward and see to the bodies of our four crewmen,” Nathan instructed, handing him the body bags.

“Yes, sir,” the ensign answered.

“Take good care of them,” Nathan added.

“Yes, sir, I will. I promise.”

Nathan could tell by the look in the ensign’s eyes that he would do just that. Satisfied by the ensign’s response, he turned and started walking back toward the main ramps near the center of the ship, tapping his comm-set to open a channel. “Comms, Captain. Tell the COB break time’s over. Have Deliza load up another simulation. I’ll be there shortly.”

* * *

“Mister Dumar,” Jessica greeted as she entered the storage room, where he was going through the belongings collected from the dead Takaran soldiers earlier, “find anything interesting?”

“Possibly,” he admitted. “Takaran boarding parties generally do not carry anything on them that would be of any use to the enemy. And most of the bodies were no exception. The body of the officer, however, might have provided something of use. I do not believe he was a member of the boarding party, at least not under normal circumstances. His unit patch was different than the others. He was a member of the support group, I believe you call them ‘quartermasters’. I doubt he had any training in boarding actions. He was probably just the closest officer to the action at the time.”

“Yeah, I helped fight them off,” Jessica explained. “They didn’t seem very organized. More like a ‘Hey everybody, grab a gun and join us’ kind of group.”

“You may be right, Lieutenant Commander, and you should be thankful. Takaran boarding parties are not known for their failures.”

“You see, that’s useful intel. Why didn’t you tell me that before?” she asked.

“You did not ask,” Dumar responded.

Jessica grunted. “Yeah, you’re an intelligence officer; that’s for sure. So what
did
you find?”

“This,” Dumar answered, holding up a small flat device not much bigger than the palm of his hand.

“What’s this,” she asked, “a data pad of some sort?”

“More of a communication pad. It is used for sending and receiving personal messages.”

“You mean, like to friends and family?”

“Possibly, yes.”

“But not for military messages?”

“Definitely not. The empire has a far more sophisticated messaging system than this. They use point-to-point messaging. These devices use broadcast topologies.”

“Meaning they send it out to everyone, but only the person with the right address bothers to receive it.”

“Precisely,” Dumar confirmed.

“Yeah, not very secure. What do you make of it?”

Dumar studied the device for a moment. “My first concern was why he was carrying it on him. These are generally used while a ship is in port, and mostly only when they are in their home port of Takara to keep in touch with their families. Usually one would stow this in their personal locker for safe keeping. However, if he had only recently left port, he might have kept it on him for sentimental reasons, as they also store pictures and video clips to remind them of home. Many will do so for at least a few weeks, until they get over missing their families.”

“But this happened in Taroa,” Jessica pointed out. “That’s, what, four light years from Takara? It would take months to make that journey.”

“Three point nine light years, to be exact, and it would take approximately one hundred and forty-two days at top speed.”

“So why was he carrying it on him?” Jessica wondered.

“The more important question would be: why was it encrypted?” Dumar asked. Jessica looked at him. “And not just any civilian encryption,” Dumar added, “floating point, floating key, ten-thousand bit encryption.”

“I’m not a crypto-geek,” Jessica admitted, “but that sounds like some serious encryption to me.”

“It is,” Dumar assured her, “very much so.”

Jessica continued studying the device as she spoke. “So why was a junior officer in a support unit, carrying around an encrypted personal messaging device while on a boarding action for which he was not trained, almost five months from home.”

“My best guess is that he expected to send or receive a message from someone at any moment.”

“But as I understood it, the Campaglia came out of FTL and went straight into her attack on the Karuzari encampment. That suggests that she was sent there from Takara for that express purpose.”

“Agreed.”

“The Karuzari?” Jessica wondered. “Maybe he was a mole, or a double agent.”

“It is possible,” Dumar agreed, “but it is also possible that he was planning on sending a message to friends or relatives, or even a mistress in the Taroa system. That is also a common practice among the nobles in Ta’Akar society.”

“One in every port, huh?” Jessica joked.

“Excuse me?”

“An old Earth expression. Then you don’t think it looks suspicious?”

“If it were not for the encryption, I would say no.”

“Yeah, that makes you wonder, doesn’t it? I’ll have Ensign Willard take a crack at the encryption on this thing,” she said. “Maybe there will be some messages still on it that will tell us something.”

“Ensign Willard?” Dumar asked, trying to hide his curiosity. He remembered the late Captain de Winter mentioning the young mutineer before the captain had departed on his attempt to recapture his ship and take possession of the Aurora by force. “I do not remember seeing his name on the crew roster.”

“He’s not,” Jessica explained. “He’s the guy who led the mutiny on the Yamaro.”

“A noble led a mutiny?” Dumar said, doing his best to sound surprised.

“Not a noble, a common officer. He’s Corinairan, actually. He’s been helping us out, providing us with intel and such.”

“I see. What were his duties on the Yamaro?”

“Comms and crypto.”

“Interesting, I can see how he might be of service. I would like to meet him someday and thank him for his brave actions. I am sure he saved countless Corinairan lives on that day—perhaps even my own.”

“Listen,” Jessica interrupted, suddenly having an idea, “you used to work in intel and mission planning and such, back when you served the Ta’Akar, right?”

“Yes, but that was many years ago.”

“Tell me what you think of this idea. The Yamaro was due to stop in the Savoy system in a few weeks to pick up some inductees and ferry them back to Takara. Willard suggested that we use the Yamaro’s transponders and pretend to be the Yamaro, go to the Savoy system and make the pick up using the Yamaro’s shuttles. The captain thinks it could buy us some additional time to put together our little alliance before the Ta’Akar come a knockin’.”

“Interesting idea,” Dumar admitted.

“Do you think it’ll work?”

“Yes, it might,” Dumar agreed. “In Savoy it might. They are not as industrialized as the Darvano system.”

“Yeah, that’s what Willard said.”

“But it is not without risk,” Dumar warned. “If you
are
successful, it might buy you the extra time your captain seeks, but if unsuccessful, you could be losing time as well.”

“Would you recommend it?” Jessica wondered as she picked up Mister Dumar’s data pad and scanned the list of items found on the dead Takaran soldiers.

Dumar was very careful not to recommend Ensign Willard’s plan with too much enthusiasm. A trip to the Savoy system might present him with a golden opportunity, but if he was too eager, the lieutenant commander might become suspicious of him as well. “The success of the mission hinges on two things. First, you must have a convincing officer and guards for the trip to Savoy. That will be key, as they will be speaking with the garrison staff directly when they pick up the conscripts. Second, if another Ta’Akar warship enters the system, you will be instantly exposed, as they
will
scan you to verify your identity, regardless of the ID codes your transponder is sending out.”

“You didn’t answer the question,” Jessica said.

“I do not believe it is my place to make that call,” Dumar defended. “However, the plan is sound and it could work. But, ultimately, it is up to the captain to decide if it is worth the risk.”

“Nice. I like the way you worded your answer—again, like a true intelligence agent.”

“It comes not from my work in intelligence,” he assured her. “It is more from my work as a commodities speculator. It is never a good idea to tell a client where they should invest their money, but rather one should tell them the risks and rewards and let the client come to their own conclusions.”

Jessica smiled. “Hey, I noticed that Takaran officer had an empty gun holster. They didn’t find his weapon anywhere?”

“Not to my knowledge, no. I assumed it fell out of his hand as he was sucked out into space. As I said, he was not really trained for a boarding action.”

“Right,” Jessica remembered.

Chapter Seven

“Attention on deck,” the guard called as Nathan entered the ready room.

“As you were,” Nathan ordered as he made his way to his seat. “I trust you’ve all read Ensign Willard’s proposal. I’d like to know if anyone has a problem with the idea.”

“Sir, are you saying that we
are
going to do this?” Jessica asked.

“I’m seriously considering it,” Nathan admitted. “Unless one of you can give me a good enough reason not to.”

“How much more time do you really think it will give us?” Jessica wondered.

“Ensign Willard?” Nathan asked.

“It is impossible to say for sure, Captain. However, assuming that the Yamaro did not show up, and assuming another patrol ship arrived relatively soon afterward, it would only take that second ship one of your months to reach the Darvano system.”

“Is there any way to know when the next patrol ship
will
show up in the Savoy system?” Nathan wondered.

“We’ve been monitoring communications from all over the cluster, sir,” Jessica reported. “The Corinairans have also shared all their arrival and departure records. The Ta’Akar appear to keep at least one fairly regular patrol schedule. However, they also like to maintain a random patrol, surprising the systems within the cluster with irregular visits. They’ve even been known to double back a few days later just to check. Our best guess is that the Savoy system is due for a visit within the next month.”

“Tug?” Nathan asked, wanting to get the opinion of the Karuzari leader.

“Lieutenant Commander Nash’s assessment is accurate, at least as much as is possible.”

“So, if the Yamaro doesn’t show up, the worst-case scenario is that we get a visit one month later,” Nathan surmised. “That would be about five to six weeks from now. What if a patrol ship doesn’t show up,
and
they don’t believe we’re the Yamaro? How long do we have then?”

“It would take about two weeks for a message to reach Ta’Akar command,” Ensign Willard stated. “At that point, they would either dispatch a ship from Takara—which would take about six months—or contact a ship that is already in the area which, again, could arrive within a month—even less if they happen to be close by.”

“Sir, what bothers me is that we won’t really know either way,” Jessica pointed out. “Knowing we have to be ready to fight in a month requires a completely different build up than knowing we’ve got six months.”

“I see your point,” Nathan agreed, “but what can we do?”

“We could put a spy in the Savoy system,” Jalea suggested. “We have been talking about trying to make contact with Karuzari that might be hiding out in the Savoy system. We just have not had a way to get anyone in place.”

“What good would a spy be?” Jessica asked. “It would take a year for a message to reach us.”

“Not if you jumped into close proximity to the system,” Jalea suggested.

“She may be right, Captain,” Tug concluded. “We could set up regular contact appointments. We could jump in, wait for a broadcast from the agent on the surface, and then respond appropriately if a message is received.”

“We don’t know that the Aurora is always going to be available for such missions,” Nathan warned.