New Frontiers (Expansion Wars Trilogy, Book 1) (26 page)

“Warp drive deploying, emitters and transition capacitors fully charged,” Accari said. “Turning over control to Nav.”

“Stand by for warp transition!” the chief at Nav practically bellowed. With a hard shudder the destroyer vanished from the Darshik system without waiting to see what havoc they’d wrought.

****

“
Your aggression is unwarranted. Your attacks were unprovoked. We will not allow you to continue. Like the Phage, you will learn a hard lesson of what happens when you attack humans
.
This will be your only warning
.”

The Jacobson drone was still cheerfully broadcasting its message as its active sensors detected a Darshik ship crossing the pre-programmed threshold. It sent a burst transmission of its entire flight log to the waiting com drone and initiated a self-destruct, the powerful explosives it normally carried having been swapped out for a fusion warhead. The blast wasn’t enough to damage the ships closing on its position, but it was more than enough to ensure the Darshik wouldn’t be collecting anything big enough to study.

The second Jacobson drone, the primary, had all sensors trained on the small flotilla and lattice structure that surrounded the Super Alpha when three Shrikes slammed into the organic hull of the Phage combat unit. The tertiary boosters flared briefly to further imbed the warheads before the powerful nuclear devices detonated, annihilating the Super Alpha. In turn, everything in the vicinity was also destroyed. The drone transmitted everything it had recorded and then began a real-time telemetry stream to the com drone until a Darshik ship finally came around and began to bear down on it. The Jacobson sent one last confirmation and then self-destructed.

Once it received the final confirmation from the remaining Jacobson drone, the com drone, flying under an entirely new set of operational parameters, fired its plasma engine. The tiny spacecraft streaked up to transition velocity in less than three minutes and vanished in a little wink of light, leaving behind a system roiling with chaos and weapons fire.

****

“Transition complete, position verified. We’re in the Juwel System.”

The words were met with an almost audible sigh of relief on the bridge. It had been a long, long flight fleeing from the Darshik system. They’d entered the Tango system and had an easy enough time outrunning the three cruisers still there, skirting around the periphery without them being able to get even close. Celesta had fired her remaining Shrikes on the way out, but they’d already hit the Juwel jump point before the weapons intercepted the Darshik ships. What had alarmed her was that they seemed to already be putting the trap back together; three dummy formations had been flying around the target planet’s orbit just like those that had lured them in.

“OPS, go ahead and fire up all our transponders and reconfigure the
Icarus
for normal flight,” Celesta ordered. “Coms, get a sitrep as soon as you can.”

“Aye, ma’am,” the two officers said in unison.

Celesta was mentally and physically exhausted and they weren’t even close to being back to home port. The com drone should have passed through here already as it was much faster than a starship, but there was no way to know since once it hit the platform and forwarded its data package it would be reprogrammed, refueled, and deployed to wherever the automated system sent it. She knew it wasn’t even worth the trouble to try and see if their particular drone had hit the platform.

“Ma’am, we have a message coming in from CENTCOM,” Lieutenant Ellison said. “They must have sent it as soon as they received our transponder signal. It’s text only.”

“That’s never good,” Barrett mumbled, rubbing his bloodshot eyes.

“Send it to my terminal,” Celesta said, pulling her monitor around. The message was short and to the point and left little doubt that her com drone had indeed managed to get its content out of Darshik space.

Senior Captain Wright – you are ordered to proceed to New Sierra Platform at maximum sustainable speed. No contact is to be made with Fleet personnel in the Juwel System unless emergency technical assistance is required. –CENTCOM Routing Office.

The message was properly formatted, if terse. While the Fleet com section wasn’t known for its eloquence when dispatching orders, the next part of the message cleared things up a bit more.

Wright … get your ass back here immediately. The data you sent has leadership concerned, to put it mildly. You are ordered to talk to NO ONE about your mission. –Marcum

“OPS, does the
Icarus
have enough consumables aboard to make it directly to the DeLonges System?” Celesta asked, rubbing at her temples.

“Yes, ma’am,” Accari said after a moment. “We’re well within our operational envelope to make it all the way back with air, water, food, and propellant to spare.”

“Fantastic,” Celesta said, her voice completely flat. “Nav, set a course for the DeLonges jump point and clear it with Juwel’s flight control. Helm, you’re clear to execute new course when you receive it, all ahead full. We need to be through this system as quickly as possible.”

“Our com drone made it through?” Barrett asked.

“I have to assume so looking at the message Admiral Marcum sent,” Celesta said. “What I can’t tell is what sort of welcome we’ll receive when we step off the gangway.”

“Well … at least we have the long flight back home to think it over,” Barrett said sourly.

“That’s the spirit, Commander,” Celesta said.

“Welcome aboard the
Pontiac
, Admiral.”

“Director,” Marcum said with a nod as he took Jackson Wolfe’s proffered hand.

“I’ll admit to some surprise that you’re here personally,” Jackson said carefully. “Was there something in particular you’re wanting from Prometheus?”

Marcum just smiled at Jackson in a way that made his stomach drop. The Chief of Staff held his hand out and his too-young aide put a tile in it.

“Jackson Wolfe,” Marcum said, reading off the tile, “you are hereby relieved as Director of Project Prometheus. You will forfeit all pay and privileges associated with your assimilated rank and are terminated from civil service, effective immediately.”

“I suppose I should have expected this,” Jackson said. “You must really be taking some perverse pleasure in this seeing as how you’ve flown here personally to fire me.”

“I’m not done,” Marcum said, flicking his finger over the tile to bring up another document. “Jackson Wolfe, under the war powers authority vested in the President of the United Terran Federation, you are hereby recalled to active military service. Your last-held rank of Senior Captain is reinstated and you will report immediately to CENTCOM HQ, New Sierra Platform, for assignment and orders. There’s some other technical stuff in here about bringing you back into the fold, but you get the point … Captain.”

It took a full second for what Marcum was saying to sink in.

“This isn’t possible,” Jackson shook his head. “I retired. I’m not subject to recall.”

“The Devil is in the details,” Marcum said with the same oily smile. “Your retirement was under the old Confederacy charter. The Federation has had much more foresight in drafting its new relationship with CENTCOM and Starfleet. It’s also retroactive. Come on, Wolfe … you’re too young to be retired anyway.”

“You think this is funny?”

“No, Captain, I don’t,” Marcum said, his voice hard. “But let’s both face facts for a moment; you’re not a researcher, you’re not a scientist, and you’re a mediocre civilian administrator at best. This project isn’t where you belong and it no longer needs you now that the damn Vruahn machine is talking to your assistants. What you are is a starship captain and, as much as it causes me physical pain to say this, you were a damn good one. At least so far as fighting your ship in a war was concerned.” He stopped himself in what looked like mid-tirade and blew out a slow breath.

“We’re against the ropes again, Wolfe,” he went on. “With the ESA planets breaking away and refusing any contact from Fed-loyal worlds we’re in a bad way. Drafting you back in to take you away from your family isn’t something we would do if we felt it wasn’t absolutely necessary. Arcadia isn’t invulnerable. The Darshik could pop up here just as easily as they did in the DeLonges System.”

“Low blow, but your point is well taken,” Jackson said. “What do you need me for?”

“I’d like you to start analyzing the Darshik engagements,” Marcum said. “If we could—”

“No,” Jackson said, holding up his hand. “I could do that here and, more to the point, the Cube would be faster and better at it than I would be … as it’s already proved if anybody would bother reading the reports I send out. I know that legally I could fight this, so if my conditions aren’t met I’ll simply refuse your orders and tie it up with lawyers so neither of us gets what we want.”

“What are your conditions?” Marcum asked suspiciously.

“I actually have only one,” Jackson said. “If you really think you need to drag me back into service then there’s only one place that makes sense for me to be. You said so yourself: It’s what I am.”

“I suspected as much,” Marcum sighed. “Very well, Captain Wolfe … you will be reassigned to Black Fleet and put on the bridge of a starship again. You’ve got a couple weeks here and then I need you on your way to New Sierra. There’s a lot you need to be brought up to speed on, and I want you there to meet the
Icarus
when she finally makes it back so you can debrief Captain Wright. She’s kicked up a hell of a storm and it won’t be long before the Darshik come at us again.”

****

“
Icarus
departing!” the Marine sentry bellowed from the top of the gangway as Celesta walked through the starboard boarding hatch, drowning out the computer’s identical announcement.

She was dressed impeccably in her dress blacks and had instructed all her officers to do the same as they departed the ship. Once they disembarked, the crews on the New Sierra Platform would probably drag her over to an enclosed heavy maintenance berth so they could begin to address the hull damage. All told, the
Icarus
had come through another battle relatively unscathed save for a missing RDS pod. As she walked off the gangway and stepped onto the platform, she was greeted by Admiral Pitt and a handful of other officers, but no Marine guards or platform security. She took this as a good sign.

“Welcome home,
Icarus
,” Pitt said loudly, walking forward and returning Celesta’s salute before offering his hand. “And congratulations on a successful, if off-script mission, Captain. We’re still reviewing the data your com drone brought back, but we’ll get to all that in debrief.”

“Thank you, Admiral,” she said. “To be perfectly honest, I half-assumed I would be arrested on sight.”

“It was either give you a medal or arrest you,” Pitt said with a straight face. “Obviously the details of your mission have been deemed classified. We’ll discuss it later.”

“Did the
New York
make it back?” Celesta asked.

“Yes … barely,” Pitt nodded, indicating she should follow him. “She’s still being evaluated as to whether it will be easier to fix the damage or scrap her. Captain Lee did a fine job keeping the ship out of Darshik hands and his crew alive. The damage to the ship was nothing short of shocking considering there were so few casualties aboard.”

“That’s something at least,” Celesta said, wanting to say more but not able to as they were walking along an unsecured corridor.

“All I can tell you is that you’re being commended for your quick thinking,” Pitt said. “We’ll debrief you tomorrow to get the missing details from you and your crew while memories are fresh, but then you’ll likely be cooling your heels for a few days. Admiral Marcum wanted to be here when we really started digging through your mission data.”

“Where is the admiral?” Celesta asked idly.

“Recruitment mission,” Pitt said cryptically.

The next week went by in a blur as the bridge crew and officers of the
Icarus
were run through what felt like a criminal interrogation. CENTCOM and CIS plainclothes operatives would ask questions, circle back and try to trip them up, and then present any inconsistencies with the triumph of having caught them in a lie. It was exhausting and enraging, and by the fifth day Celesta had had enough. She calmly asked if she, or any of her crew, were under arrest or under investigation for anything illegal, and when the CIS representative grudgingly answered that they weren’t, she marched out.

Once her officers learned she was refusing to play their games, they also opted out of any further hostile interrogations while ordering their subordinates to not cooperate. Celesta knew this was likely to have further ramifications as the people questioning them would surely complain to her superiors, but after all they’d been through she was more than a little offended at the treatment. Even at the height of the Phage war she couldn’t remember CENTCOM being so adversarial with Fleet personnel.

“I understand you’re no longer cooperating with the debriefing staff,” a voice said from the open door to her temporary office a full day after she’d called off any further sessions. Since the
Icarus
was now fully under control of the repair crews she’d been assigned a temporary block of generic offices so she could handle the administrative duties that didn’t stop just because a ship was in port.

“Are we calling it a debrief, or an inquiry, sir?” Celesta asked, rising to her feet to greet Admiral Marcum.

“It was necessary, but I do apologize.” Marcum walked in, closing the door behind him. “The CIS people in particular seem to forget we’re all on the same side.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, still standing.

“Sit down, Captain,” Marcum said, taking a seat in front of the desk. “I’d like to commend you for your performance in the Tango system. Between you and Admiral Wilton, we managed to save the bulk of the taskforce from that trap the Darshik had set.”

“So what’s the next step, sir?” she asked.

“We bring you fully up to speed on everything we’ve learned so far on the Darshik and the Ushin while the
Icarus
is repaired,” Marcum said. “And there’s a lot. I wouldn’t be overstating things if I said we may have bumbled into a horrifically bad situation here. We’re still unravelling the relationship between the two, but it looks like the Ushin and Darshik have a link to each other that predates even the Phage. One of our outside intelligence projects uncovered that their ships, while different in appearance, are unmistakably from the same source of engineering and materials. The fact the Ushin led us into a Darshik ambush further confirms that.”

“Offshoots of the same species?” she asked.

“We don’t know that for sure yet,” Marcum said. “The organic remains from the battle in this system are still being analyzed by Fleet R&S, but they’re confident that having samples from both an Ushin and Darshik ship will give us a conclusive answer on that.”

“That’s something at least,” Celesta said. “So can we put these ridiculous questioning sessions to rest and get down to business, sir?”

“It’s why I came personally to see you.” Marcum stood up, prompting her to do the same. “Your presence is required down on the surface tomorrow at 0900; you can ride down in the shuttle with me. Have your crew stand down on the station here for R&R.” He shifted around uncomfortably for a moment before simply nodding and exiting the office.

Celesta just shook her head at the odd behavior and wondered what fresh horrors would be revealed at the upcoming briefing. Since it was on the surface, she had to assume members of the new civilian oversight would be in attendance.

****

The uncomfortable ride down to the surface in the Chief of Staff’s personal shuttle was soon forgotten when Celesta saw who was standing on the landing pad waiting for them. Like a ghost from the past, resplendent in his dress blacks, was Senior Captain Jackson Wolfe. She heard a chuckle as Admiral Marcum seemed to be thoroughly enjoying her shock.

“I was going to tell you yesterday but I didn’t want to ruin the surprise,” he said. “I went to Arcadia personally and reactivated him.”

“I bet that pissed him off … sir,” she said, looking at the scowl on her former mentor’s face.

“A safe bet,” Marcum nodded as the shuttle touched down with a bump. They waited until the atmospheric engines spooled down and then the six passengers climbed out and walked towards the greeting party.

“Sir, it’s a pleasure to see you again,” Celesta said, saluting. It wasn’t a necessary courtesy as she was with two fleet admirals and she held the same rank as Wolfe, but she did it anyway as an overt sign of respect. Jackson returned her salute crisply and shook her hand.

“Likewise, Captain Wright,” he said, almost smiling. Any further conversation was interrupted as the flag officers accompanying Marcum wanted to crowd in and talk to the legendary starship captain and have an opportunity for a picture or two. Celesta was reminded of something that Wolfe had said to her as she watched the bizarre spectacle:
All
flag officers were politicians at heart and all had aspirations of higher office, and everything they said or did had to be viewed through that filter. At the time Celesta had just thought her boss was a world class cynic, now she understood what he’d meant.

They were ushered into a secure briefing room that more resembled an arena and, as she’d expected, a dozen Parliament members as well as the President and his staff all entered from the other side. Once they were all seated, Admiral Pitt took to the lectern and began a dry, detailed briefing of the Ushin operation that had ended in disaster.

Little was brought to light that Celesta didn’t know about save for the fact that Jackson Wolfe had been the chief administrator of something called Project Prometheus and that it was responsible for a good portion of the cultural data they had on the Ushin and the Darshik, including the fact that the Darshik likely deified the Phage after their own run-in with that species. It was that very fact she had used when destroying the inert Super Alpha in a warning as equally dramatic as the one they’d received in the Xi’an System. At the Jacobson’s sensor data showing her Shrikes blowing up the Phage unit more than a few high-ranking officials and officers nodded in her direction or gave thumbs up of approval. One thing she saw that she hadn’t been aware of was the fact the Ushin ships in the system were immediately attacked by Darshik cruisers after the
Icarus
had transitioned out. It was glossed over quickly, but Celesta intended to find out what the analysts thought about that interesting aftereffect.

Once Pitt concluded his overview there were a few other presenters, including Wolfe himself, to give a bit more detail as to the nature of the fight they found themselves in. Despite the matter-of-fact presentation, Celesta couldn’t help but feel like she was watching a performance. Something was … off … and she couldn’t put her finger on it. She made a mental note to speak to Wolfe about it after it was over if she could get him alone.