Read New Frontiers (Expansion Wars Trilogy, Book 1) Online
Authors: Joshua Dalzelle
“Aye aye, ma’am.”
Celesta discreetly popped a few stim tabs into her mouth and washed them down with a healthy swig of coffee. The ship’s chief medical officer would lose her mind if she knew what the captain was doing, but Celesta instinctually knew that things were in motion that wouldn’t allow her to leave the bridge for any length of time. It also meant that she would be required to stay for an extremely long watch since all the players were spread out across the system. The com delays alone were just over an hour between the
Icarus
and where the rest of the fleet was deploying.
“OPS, keep an eye on the Link feed,” she said. “I want to know when the
New York
arrives and I want to know when the Ushin fleet gets here.”
“Aye, ma’am,” Accari said. “How many ships are the Ushin sending?”
“Unknown,” Celesta said. “I wouldn’t expect more than a token amount, and then I wouldn’t expect them to actually do much. From what I understand about the treaty agreement we’ve signed onto, neither CENTCOM nor the Ushin expect their fleet to do any real fighting.”
“You’d think they’d be willing to put a bit more effort into liberating their own star system,” Barrett grumbled while rubbing his bloodshot eyes.
“You’d think,” Celesta nodded slowly.
“Good morning, Director Wolfe.” Jackson looked up in irritation, saw who it was, and just nodded as he continued eating his breakfast. Some people were simply incapable of using his given name apparently.
“What can I do for you?” he asked politely after swallowing.
“I was told you’d want this.” The orderly handed him a sealed hardcopy envelope. “It was from that special analysis you had the Cube running that Danilo brought down.”
“Ah! Thank you.” Jackson placed the envelope beside his tray and continued eating, making no move to open it. The orderly took an awkward step back before turning and walking out, almost looking like he was retreating. Jackson shrugged and kept eating. Although the
Pontiac
had all her galleys in operation, and Jackson had taken to using the same quarters he’d occupied aboard her sister ship, the
Blue Jacket
, he’d been taking his morning and afternoon meals in the aft enlisted mess hall. Dinner he still took in the officers’ mess up in the superstructure.
“He served aboard your old ship, that’s why he’s so nervous around you,” Danilo Jovanović said as he sat his tray across from him. “If I’d known you were eating breakfast so late I would have hand-delivered those results.”
“Do you remember which ship?” Jackson asked, thoroughly chagrinned that he didn’t recognize one of his own spacers even if modern starships did house anywhere from five hundred to a few thousand people.
“Apparently he was aboard the
Blue Jacket
for a short time,” Danilo said. “I think he might have actually been a Marine … he talked about someone named Major Ortiz.”
“That would now be Brigadier General Ortiz of the United Terran Federation Marine Corps,” Jackson said. “Same person, though. I’ll have to talk to him later as there were some interesting events on the old ship that I’d probably like to know if he was involved in. Was there anything interesting in the analysis?”
“Nothing I understood.” Danilo began eating. “I only just glanced at it though.”
Jackson opened the envelope and began reading through the cover sheet summary while his assistant and only real source of companionship aboard the ship ate in silence.
Jackson saw right away that it was extremely dry reading so it was likely he was looking at something the Cube itself had actually written. The machine still seemed to have a strange affinity for Jackson even after all the artificial intelligence specialists and behavioral scientists that spent time with it all day and all night, fussing over it and trying to understand it. They cringed when Jackson walked in the room and treated it like an unwelcome houseguest, barking requests at it. He still had bad memories of where the thing came from and who had sent it, and he wasn’t entirely sure he trusted the story of how it came to be sentient, if it really even was. He’d seen a lot of interfaces on Arcadia that gave a more realistic simulation of intelligence than the Cube.
“This damn thing,” Jackson muttered in frustration. “For being so intelligent it certainly seems to have a hard time with such simple requests. These conclusions make no sense.”
“Dr. Allen thinks it does that on purpose so you’ll have to go down to the cargo hold yourself and talk to it.” Danilo said around a mouthful.
“Absurd,” Jackson scoffed. “But it looks like I’ll be taking a trip to the cargo hold to talk to the damn thing anyway.”
Danilo just waved as he got up and deposited his tray in the recycling chute.
He felt slightly guilty at how short his temper was with the Cube, but it seemed like the project had run its course, at least as far as he was concerned. When it had asked for him specifically he’d been there to coax it through its “infancy” until it was able to comfortably communicate with anybody that tried to talk to it. Now, nearly five years later, he felt it was unnecessary for him to be stuck on the
Pontiac
and away from his wife and children. Even the novelty of being back aboard a
Raptor
-class ship had given way to frustration and anger as his children took their first steps and began talking, all while not really having any connection to him other than Jillian telling them he was their father. He’d petition Marcum again to be let off the project and, if that failed, he would take more drastic action and simply resign. The pay as an assimilated O-7 was nice, the civilian equivalent of a brigadier general, but he felt it was no longer worth the hardship.
The other factor was that the Cube was no longer producing results at the breakneck speed it had during the early years of the project. It had developed practical applications and techniques for much of what they only knew in theory, as well as reviewing and improving the designs of five new classes of Terran starships. Now it spent its days trying to convey concepts and theories to scientists, most of whom seemed unable to grasp even the base concepts. The application engineers fared no better as the Cube was now trying to describe technologies to them that they couldn’t duplicate.
“I need to speak with it alone,” Jackson announced as he strode across the rough textured deck of the cargo hold. “I won’t be long. Thank you.” There were some grumbles and hostile looks, but people had learned early on that the director was not a man who enjoyed having his orders questioned or ignored.
“Hello, Director Wolfe,” the Cube said simply.
“You ran an analysis on all the information that was on that data card?” Jackson asked.
“Of course,” it said. “That is what you asked, was it not?”
“Then how come I’m looking at the results of a single incident?” Jackson flipped through the report. “This is all just the raw data from one engagement ... looks like maybe Celesta’s run-in at Xi’an. Where is the data for the Ushin ships that were destroyed in the DeLonges System?”
“I was afraid you would not understand the context,” the Cube said in its condescending tone that made Jackson want to kick it. “Your own CIS did an admirably thorough job of the individual post-incident analyses. After a cursory check I saw nothing to be gained by repeating their work. Instead, I concentrated on finding correlation between all the separate engagements.”
“Since they all involved Darshik cruiser-class warships I wouldn’t think that’d be especially interesting,” Jackson said.
“You would be incorrect in that assumption,” the Cube said.
“Wait! You’re certain about this?” Jackson asked, holding his hand up to silence the machine now that he knew what he was looking for in the report. It was all there, spelled out plain as day.
“I am as certain as I can be working with evidence I did not procure,” it said. “Would you like me to further explain my conclusions?”
Jackson was already walking away and pulling his comlink out.
“Danilo, it’s Wolfe,” he said, looking back at the Cube one more time. “We need to send a priority message to New Sierra. Access the com drone platform and have one of the new point-to-point drones standing by. Use my personal access codes if you need to.”
****
“Still no reaction from the enemy fleet,” Adler said. Celesta just nodded and shifted uncomfortably in her seat. The stimulants she’d been popping were tearing her stomach up and she was struggling to find a seated position that helped.
“Something’s wrong,” Barrett shook his head. “We shouldn’t be here with so little—”
“Stow that,” Celesta almost hissed. Her entire bridge crew was becoming increasingly on edge as the Darshik flew their lazy patrol below them and the Terran fleet amassed up near the system boundary, just inside the heliopause as the cruisers flared out from the jump point.
The
New York
had finally made an appearance and Celesta had risked a burst transmission to Admiral Wilton requesting an orderly withdrawal until they could determine what the hell they were looking at, or at least wait until the Ushin arrived for additional confirmation. He’d berated her for wanting to flee in the face of victory and in no uncertain terms told her he thought Admiral Marcum was right and the stress of commanding the Ninth might be too much for her.
She had ground her teeth as she read the message, but sent no reply. It apparently didn’t matter that she had more combat experience than all of the flag officers combined when they smelled an easy victory and the chance to fly back home a hero.
“All the missile barges are deployed,” Accari said. Celesta didn’t bother admonishing his use of the derogatory term for the heavy missile cruisers. “The
New York
has just sent the final alert over the Link; first volley will be away in … eleven minutes ship’s time.” Celesta did the math and saw that the alert must have been sent over four hours ago given the com lag. It also meant that Wilton’s warning was meant for the main body of the fleet and the Ninth Squadron destroyers would have to deal with the incoming fire after the missiles had already left the launchers.
“OPS, plot a projected arc for the incoming missiles and let me know when we’ll need to activate our transponder to keep from being targeted,” she said. “I want a five-hour buffer on that. Coms! Make sure the
Hyperion
and the
Atlas
get the same information.”
“Aye, ma’am,” Ellison said, his speech almost slurring. She looked around at her crew and made a decision based on what they were seeing from the Darshik so far and the fact their fleet’s missiles wouldn’t arrive for some time. She plugged the numbers in at her terminal and, assuming maximum performance of the Shrikes of seven hundred and fifty g’s of acceleration with a maximum velocity of .17c, they were still looking at just over nineteen hours before the first wave arrived.
“XO, stand down first watch,” she said. “That includes you and I. Have CIC send up a qualified bridge officer to take over. Listen up! I want all of you getting down to your quarters for six hours of uninterrupted sleep by way of the mess deck. Go ahead and take the opportunity to get cleaned up and changed and then I want you back on watch in eight hours.”
“The backshops have been rotating people through in split-sixes, ma’am,” Barrett said. Normally under general quarters everyone worked a twelve-hour shift to provide maximum overlap between the three watches, but with not enough work to go around most department heads preferred to divide that further into six-hour shifts to keep the boredom and fatigue at a minimum until the ship was actually in combat.
“Very well,” Celesta nodded. “You have the bridge until the relief from CIC arrives.”
“I have the bridge aye, Captain.” Barrett nodded and stood, walking over to Lieutenant Ellison to assist in getting everyone moving to where they needed to be.
Celesta knew she’d need to take a “downer” to try and counteract the stims enough so that she could actually sleep. That alone was risky given how exposed they were, but the greater risk was having her on the bridge in command without her full faculties. She was already having trouble focusing and her brain seemed to be wrapped in a fog. If she could manage five or six hours of sleep after a full meal it would help tremendously.
She ate with machine-like efficiency, hardly tasting her food, and was lying in her rack, boots still on, within twenty minutes of leaving the bridge. As the sedatives began to gently coax her mind down from the artificial high of the stims and she felt her body relax, she was still dwelling on the tactical situation further down in the system. Admiral Wilton had already committed to the plan, but she felt like there was something more at play that they were missing. Moments later her brain finally unclenched from around that thought and she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
****
Celesta woke with a start, a momentary pang of panic hitting her as she looked around the dark room. But soon the usual hums and pops of her ship underway reached her ears and she heard no alarms so she forced herself to relax, looking at the glowing clock on the far wall. She’d actually managed to sleep for six and a half hours and felt fully charged and ready to go. Gauging that she had about twenty minutes before she needed to get up to the bridge, she pulled a clean uniform from a wall locker and went to her personal head to shower.
Once showered and changed, she took a moment to log into the terminal at the desk in her quarters to check the
Icarus’s
vitals before leaving. She made a mental note to talk to her steward as she ran her hand across the top of the terminal monitor and came back with a healthy layer of dust mixed with the grime that was ever-present on a starship. It was all the aerosolized fine lubricants and coolants that worked their way through the air exchange ducts and were even deposited all the way up in officer country.
All the ship’s major systems were in the green and she saw Commander Barrett had signed off on the last ship’s log entry. She hoped he had just gotten on the bridge in time to sign the log and hadn’t pulled one of his usual stunts, grabbing a twenty-minute power nap before sneaking back on duty after he’d been ordered to his quarters. With a final inspection of her black utilities she exited her quarters and made her way directly to the bridge.
“Report,” she said calmly as first watch was coming back on duty and getting turnover from their counterparts.
“
Still
no reaction from the Darshik formations, Captain,” Barrett said. “They have to be able to detect the incoming missiles at this point with their own sensors even if their range is as limited as our own. Our transponder went active on schedule and Lieutenant Commander Washburn added our drone sensor network telemetry to the Link channel that’s feeding updates to the incoming Shrikes.”