Ep.#6 - "Head of the Dragon" (The Frontiers Saga) (31 page)

“How long have you known Tug?” Josh asked, as if harmlessly changing the subject. Perhaps if he knew more about their relationship, he would know about Tug’s past. That in itself might be enough to satisfy his curiosity and assuage his concerns.

“You are an inquisitive one,” Dumar chuckled.

“Sorry,” Josh replied, “I didn’t realize it was a secret.”

“No, that’s quite all right. I have known Mister Tugwell for many years,” Dumar explained. “In fact, I have known him since before you were born, although we have been out of touch for nearly that long.”

Josh suddenly got excited. “You’re Karuzari, aren’t you?!”

“In a manner of speaking,” Dumar confessed.

“What, were you some kind of a spy or something?”

“Let us say that I was a purveyor of information and leave it at that.”

“Gotcha,” Josh answered. He sat quietly for a moment, happy to have finally discovered something, especially something that Loki didn’t know. He couldn’t wait to get back to the Aurora and share the tidbit with his friend. “So, did you guys serve together?” he asked, hoping that he had broken the ice and might gain additional insight into both Dumar and Tug.

“We went through flight training together,” Dumar admitted.

“I thought you were an intelligence officer.”

“Later, yes. I was originally an interceptor pilot. In fact, I was Mister Tugwell’s wingman at one point. My transfer to intelligence occurred much later, long after my flying days, and long after Mister Tugwell and I parted company.”

“Then you used to fly one of these,” Josh surmised.

“Indeed I did,” Dumar confirmed.

“So how did you end up working for the Karuzari?”

Dumar’s personal communication unit beeped. “We have received a response,” he announced.

“What does it say?”

“One moment,” Dumar urged. “I am checking his authentication answers.”

Several anxious moments passed, during which Josh could barely contain himself. Without further explanation, Dumar suddenly began tapping a response into the device.

“What did he say?” Josh repeated.

“He merely proved his identity and assured me that he was ready to receive the encrypted message.”

“How the hell did you guys say all that without raising suspicion?” Josh asked. “You know they’ve got super computers that monitor all comm signals looking for this kind of stuff, right?”

“Spy talk,” Dumar said with a smile as he continued tapping.

“What?”

“The art of saying much while seemingly speaking of nothing.”

“What, like code words and stuff?”

“You’ve been watching too many cheap spy vids,” Dumar told him.

“Yeah, you could be right about that,” Josh admitted. “So we have to wait another ten minutes to find out if this guy will help us?”

“I’m afraid so. However, the fact that he is willing to communicate with me in this covert fashion is a very good sign.”

“How so?”

“He knows that I would not be making contact with him in such fashion unless I wanted his help with something, something dangerous. If he did not intend to help, he would’ve simply ignored the message completely.”

“Unless he’s working for the bad guys and he’s trying to learn your plans so he can inform his superiors.”

“I would not have contacted him if I thought that likely,” Dumar assured him. “Again, I think you…”

“I know, too many spy vids.”

“Return message has been sent.”

“So now what?” Josh asked.

“We wait for a reply. This conversation is long from over. Meanwhile, we start calculating a series of jumps to locate the battle group on our way back to Darvano,” Dumar told him.

“Of course,” Josh replied, “how silly of me.” If there was anything that he liked less than recon flights, it was plotting jumps. That was Loki’s job.

* * *

Nathan looked up from his desk as the hatch to his ready room opened and Commander Taylor stepped inside. Although he tried not to appear anxious, he seriously doubted Cameron would not notice his anticipation.

“Nothing yet,” she reported as she took a seat on the opposite side of the desk from him.

“They’ve been gone a while,” Nathan commented. “Shouldn’t they have gotten back by now?”

“Technically, they should have been back an hour ago.”

“Do you think something went wrong?” Nathan asked, trying to hide his concern.

“There could be any number of reasons for the delay,” Cameron assured him. “They may have been forced to coast longer before jumping out in order to avoid alerting the Takarans of their presence. Or maybe it was taking longer to receive word from Dumar’s contact. Maybe they decided to linger in the comm corridor longer. That is why we installed the cold jets in the interceptor’s secondary maneuvering systems.”

“Yeah, you may be right,” Nathan said. “How long do you think we should wait?”

“Until what?” Cameron asked.

“Until we declare them as missing or lost?”

“Assume that they may have been forced to change their flight plan and instead chose to do a full recon coast through in order to avoid jumping in and out of the middle of the system. That would take them upwards of twenty hours, even if they were coasting a little slower than usual. We should give them at least that much time.”

“And if they don’t show up then?” Nathan wondered. It wasn’t so much a question as it was a confession that he really didn’t see any way of proceeding with their current battle plan without the confirmation of assistance from Mister Dumar’s contact on Takara.

“How long until another imperial ship shows up here?” Cameron wondered.

“That could take months,” Nathan warned. “We can’t stay here that long. At some point, we have to cut our losses and head home.”

“What about Corinair? What about the Alliance?”

“You know, Cam, the Alliance was my idea, remember? But at what point does our duty to Earth outweigh our promise to these people? Three months? Six months? A year? For all we know, we might already be too late. For all we know, those ships that jumped us outside our own system might have been the advance recon for a larger invasion force that was already on its way to Earth.”

“You remember Captain Roberts announcement just before our first test jump, don’t you? When we were still in orbit around Jupiter? Fleet intelligence estimated an attack would occur within a year or two, not a few months.”

“Yeah, I remember,” Nathan told her. “But you know how wrong fleet intel can be. Most of what we know of the Jung, we learned through signals intelligence, and most of those signals were decades old at best. They’re just guessing based on old, outdated notions of warfare logistics taught to them at the War College at the Academy. The fact is none of them have ever fought such a war. Hell, right now you and I have more space combat experience than any of them, if you can imagine that.”

“Think it through, Nathan,” Cameron reminded him. “Think of the resources necessary to invade an entire world. I’m not talking about glassing it from orbit like the Ta’Akar. I’m talking about capturing it with its resources, infrastructure, and population largely intact. The reports from Alpha Centauri were not through signals intel. They were from operatives on the ground. The Centauri put up a good fight, and it cost the Jung dearly. Either they underestimated the amount of resistance to be expected, or they had committed as many ships as they could spare to the invasion. Either way, they wouldn’t be making that same mistake with Earth.”

“So you agree with fleet intel’s timeline?”

“Yes, I do.”

Nathan leaned back in his chair, letting out a slow breath. “Nevertheless, we do need to get back at some point. They need the jump drive technology, and we’ve got the only one.”

“Actually, I’m not so sure that’s true,” Cameron told him.

“Why?”

“Think about it, Nathan. They had to know the importance of the technology. Why would they risk losing the only prototype they had in a test run? It makes no sense.”

“I don’t know,” Nathan disagreed. “You don’t know how politicians are. They live in different realities.”

“Maybe, but I still think they would be stupid not to at least have a backup copy of the development data stored somewhere.”

“If that were the case, why tell us we had the only one? I mean, even Abby believes that. Captain Roberts died believing that.”

“In case we were captured?”

“If we were captured, the Jung would already
have
the jump drive technology, Cam.”

“I don’t know, Nathan,” Cameron defended in frustration. “I just know that it all seems rather implausible; that’s all.”

“Everything that has happened to us so far seems implausible, Cam!”

Cameron had nothing to say for several seconds. “You’re right,” she giggled. “Nobody’s going to believe us when we get back.”

“Nobody’s going to believe what?” Vladimir asked from the hatchway.

“That I was dumb enough to make you chief engineer,” Nathan joked. “You finish fixing my ship yet?”

“I am an amazing engineer; this is true,” Vladimir boasted as he sat down on the end of the couch, “but I am not a miracle worker.” Vladimir stretched out his legs and arms, finally settling into the couch and getting comfortable. “However, your ship is as good as I can make it, given the circumstances. So you may commence getting it shot up again.”

“Thank you,” Nathan told him. “Then I guess you can keep your rank, Lieutenant Commander.”

Vladimir waved him off. “Blah, you can keep the rank. No, wait. On second thought, I need the extra money. There is this little dacha outside of Moscow that I have always wanted to own. It has this wonderful little pond behind it, perfect for swimming on summer days.” Vladimir closed his eyes, partly to rest them and partly to daydream of the dacha. “Hey,” he exclaimed, his eyes suddenly popping open. “We will get combat pay, yes?”

“Combat pay?” Jessica called from the hatchway, closing it behind her as she entered the room. “Are we getting combat pay?”

“Uh,” Nathan stuttered, realizing their conversation might have carried all the way out onto the bridge.

“Yeah,” Jessica confirmed as she moved toward the couch. “You might want to keep the hatch closed, sir.” She took a seat at the opposite end of the couch, swinging her feet up and placing them on Vladimir’s legs as she settled in as well.

“Comfortable?” Vladimir asked her.

“Yeah, thanks,” Jessica answered. “Now what’s this about combat pay?”

“I’m sure we’ll get combat pay as long as we’re not all brought up on charges, that is,” he said in jest.

The conversation was interrupted by the hailing beep of the comm-set built into Nathan’s desk.
“Captain, comms,”
Naralena called.

“Go ahead,” Nathan answered, his anxiousness returning.

“Sir, the interceptor just jumped back into the system. I have Mister Dumar on a secure channel.”

“Patch him through.”

A moment later, Dumar’s voice came crackling across the speaker.
“Captain, this is Dumar.”

“Go ahead Mister Dumar.”

“I have received confirmation from my contact on Takara. He is willing to help us, and I believe he has an adequate plan on how to do so.”

“That’s good news, Mister Dumar. Could you tell if any ships were dispatched from Takara?”

“Yes, sir. There are now only eleven ships within the Takar system. Once we finished our communications task, we searched for the missing ships. We found a battle group on its way to Darvano. Based on their distance from Takara, I believe they were dispatched approximately one day ago. However, there were only four ships in the group that we found.”

“So one ship is unaccounted for, then.”

“That is correct.”

“Good work, Mister Dumar.” Nathan clicked off the comm-set speaker. “Okay, you heard the man. Let’s get the ball rolling. As soon as the interceptor lands, I want to start jumping pieces out to the combat area. Remember, there’s a battle group headed this way, so let’s use two jumps and steer wide of their last reported position. The last thing we need is for them to spot us and turn back.”

“Man, I was just getting comfortable,” Jessica complained.

Vladimir picked up her feet and tossed them back onto the floor, rising to his feet. “Come on, little girl,” he teased, holding out his hand to help her up off the couch. “Back to work.”

Cameron also stood as Jessica and Vladimir exited the room. She looked at Nathan for a moment.

Nathan noticed her stare, his left eyebrow raising in confused curiosity. “What is it?”

“I was wrong about you, Nathan,” she stated in all seriousness.

“What do you mean?”

“When I first met you, actually, before I even met you, I figured you were just another arrogant, self-centered, little rich boy who used his daddy’s name and money to buy his way through life.”

Nathan pretended to be taken aback, despite the fact that he had always figured that Cameron had held a pretty low opinion of him from day one. “And now?”

“I was wrong. You’re not the man I thought you were.”

Nathan flashed his usual smile, the same one that always got him out of trouble with his mother. “You weren’t wrong, Cam,” he admitted. “I was all that, and probably worse. I’ve just changed. I didn’t really have a choice, did I?”

“Good,” she said, smiling confidently. “I hate being wrong,” she announced as she turned to exit.

Nathan continued to smile. It was the most his XO had behaved like her old self in a long time.

Chapter Eight

Jump complete,” Mister Riley reported from the navigation station on the Aurora’s bridge. “We are in position at the staging point, two light days outside the Takaran system.”

“Mister Navashee,” Nathan called to the new sensor operator that was replacing Ensign Yosef, “Any contacts?”

“Sensors are clear, sir.”

“Helm, reduce speed to flight ops normal and maintain course,” Nathan ordered. “Trim the ship to Takara’s ecliptic and lock the reference.”

“Reducing speed to flight ops normal and maintaining course,” the helmsman, Mister Chiles, reported. “Trimming the ship to match the Takaran system ecliptic plane and saving reference.”