Shadow of the Blue Ring (2 page)

The noise inside his head had been deafening. The fear, the anxiety and the pain that he had felt that day were all so vivid, as if no time had passed at all and he was still trapped inside that fearful day. No more though… the sound had disappeared and was once more replaced by the peace and quiet of his quarters. The only sound within the room was the faint beeping of James’s desk console. It was likely that one of his superiors was attempting to contact him.

Time alone in the past years had been very hard to come by, therefore making it all the more welcome when it eventually did come around, however brief that it may be. Ever since his admission into the fleet, James had barely had a moments rest. With the races of the newly formed Freedom alliance committing most of their resources to the rebuilding effort, it was up to the few remaining captains in the alliance fleets to keep the peace. Much of his time aboard his new ship, the Centaur, had been spent either on patrol duty, raid protection or courier duty between alliance worlds. No matter how many tasks he completed for his superiors, they always seemed to be able to find just one more thing for him to have to do. It was thankless and unglamorous work, almost unworthy of a captain with such a reputation as James now had since his legendary crusade against the Vulian empire. Everywhere he went, his name was known to the people there, spoken as if he was one of the greatest heroes in the history of the alliance.

James had often found that his new life and his new career as a captain in the newly formed Earth Nations Fleet had not quite been what he had expected. While he had once been able to act as he wished and go wherever he wanted without worrying about rules and consequences, he was now bound by the regulations of the fleet. Because he had not been subjected to the proper training courses at one of the top academies back home on Earth, he often found himself at odds with his superiors when his choices and his actions did not agree with the code he was supposed to abide by. He had received no less than six reprimands during his career with the fleet, the first of which came less than five weeks into his command when instead of making a routine patrol on the border of Dunian space, he decided to make a trip to the Naleyna system, to the planet Anduria.

During that unauthorised trip, James had been reunited with Ishamira Cavallera, the girl whom he had fallen for during his time aboard the Morning Star. He further upset the chain of command when the two of them refused to be parted, requesting that they both be allowed to return to Earth together. After heated debate between the Human and Andurian admirals, it was agreed that it was better for all parties involved if the two were allowed to remain together. At first, the two of them were assigned to serve on separate ships, only getting to spend time together between missions but once this began to put a strain on their relationship, they requested that they both be assigned to the same ship. Again, many in the fleet were opposed to this course of action but it was eventually approved by the admirals, resigned to the fact that the two of them simply operated so much better as a team than when separated.

With both James and Isha happily serving together aboard the Centaur, the two of them had been able to take their relationship to the next level. After a year and a half together, James presented Isha with a ring and, six months later, the two of them were married. It was not the celebrity wedding that many in the alliance had predicted, or in some cases hoped for, it was a quiet ceremony with close friends and family held in James’s home city of London followed by a short honeymoon on the Mediterranean.

In general, life had been good for the newlywed couple, despite the situation in the galaxy around them. None of the alliance races had come out unscathed from the Vulian occupation. The luckiest worlds had been able to recover within a year or two and begin focusing their efforts on assisting the less fortunate alliance races with their efforts where the need for resources was much greater. With the old Tolian alliance effectively dead, these races were helping each other mostly out of goodwill and the friendships that had been formed from being allies for almost a century. It was not until almost four years after the end of the occupation that the old alliance races were officially brought together by Jovan Artennes, Tasos Artennes’s father and the head of the Tolian republic. The new union was named the Freedom alliance, representing the union between all the free races of the galaxy. The only old alliance race that had not yet rejoined, unsurprisingly, was Akris, while negotiations to bring the Myazins back to the alliance had also failed. They, along with both the Shaarians and the Kulayites had decided to remain independent, likely to attempt to remain on the side of the Vulian empire should there be another galactic war at any time during the future.

As for the Vulians themselves, they had withdrawn back to the Varduran sector and had been keeping a very low profile ever since the end of the occupation. Whatever Darien had been doing in his new position as emperor of his people, he had at least kept the peace that he had promised the members of the Freedom alliance when he ended the occupation of their worlds. James still found that he had mixed feelings on the actions of his former crew member. While his actions had resulted in the murder of the Vulian hierarchy, the death of James’s close friend Amario Richards and the destruction of the Morning Star, he had also ended the many years of war between the old alliance and the Vulian empire, resulting in the first years of truce between the two sides in decades and likely saved many tens of thousands of lives in doing so. While he could appreciate the ends that Darien achieved, the means by which he had acquired them meant that James could never properly trust him again.

Shaking the memories from his mind, James pulled himself from his bed and groggily made his way over to his desk where his private terminal was continuing to interrupt the silence in his quarters. At this time in the night, it was almost always admiral Robert Jamerson, the admiral whom he answered to in the fleet. As much as he would have liked to ignore this and go back to sleep, he knew that when the admirals called him directly, there was no getting out of whatever task they had in place for him. Taking a seat at his desk, James pushed the button on his console, bringing the view-screen to life. As he did, he was pleasantly surprised to see that it was not Jamerson on the other end, but instead, the face of his old friend, admiral Michael Davidson.

With the old fleets all wiped out and none of the former admirals having survived the war, Davidson was one of the lucky few chosen to form a new board of admirals. It was quite the promotion from his former position as a colonel but his service record during the occupation years, as well as his leadership skills, was enough to make him a worthy candidate and his part in setting the revolution in motion almost assured him of his place as one of the new admirals. With very few candidates to choose from, the respective governments of Earth had been forced to choose their new admirals from some interesting places. Jamerson, James’s superior, had been part of the Board of Human Interests that made up the joint Human-Vulian government during the occupation while fleet admiral Dmitry Sytchev had formerly worked at St. Petersburg academy as an expert in war studies and officer training.

“Ah, captain James Tavarez,” Davidson said cheerily, “it has been too long has it not?”

“Far too long,” James agreed, “but you chose your hour to call in, it’s the middle of the night.”

“It’s only just gone midday on my end,” said Davidson, “I do apologise though, I forget the differences between time zones across the galaxy sometimes.”

“So what is it you want admiral?” James asked, still half asleep and still a little more irritable than he might usually be when fully awake, “has Jamerson finally got tired of me and asked you to take over as my superior officer?”

“I’m just calling in on an old friend James,” Davidson replied, “I was hearing from the other admirals that you were having a hard time and I wanted to check in to see how you were doing.”

“I guess life in the fleet just never turned out to be what I thought it would be,” James sighed, “all this running around escorting cargo ships, patrolling borders… it’s just not the sort of thing I had imagined I would be doing when I agreed to join the fleet.”

“I understand it can be frustrating,” said Davidson, “but I’m afraid we really need those supplies. With the Shaarians hijacking three of our freighters already this year, we really can’t afford to send them out undefended. You know that if we had any daring and dangerous missions that needed undertaking, we would be coming to you first. For now, just be happy that we are no longer at war and our people are free from oppression.”

James supposed that he should at least be thankful for what he had. He was captain of his own ship, he had the reputation of an alliance war hero, he had an excellent crew made up of some of the best Earth had to offer and he had a wife that would make most of the men back home on Earth rather jealous. He had it better than most if he was really honest, it was almost a little selfish of him to want more.

“So how are things on your end, admiral?” James asked, “I know how the board works, there is always just one more thing that they need doing. Why do I get the feeling that you’re calling because have something lined up for me?”

“Well yes,” said Davidson, “there is a matter I could use your help with now that you mention it. The alliance council is attempting to open peace talks with the planet Myazar again. We’re tired of the hostilities between our two races and we want to further strengthen the peace in the galaxy by ending the needless fighting. Someone with your reputation could be a huge asset to us in this undertaking.”

“I thought out last attempt to make peace barely got off the ground,” James pointed out, “why try again so soon?”

“We need all the allies we can get,” said Davidson, “even with the peace, we know that things could come apart again very quickly. The Akrians are still shunning our attempts to bring them back into the alliance while the former allies of Vulia are continuing to disrupt our operations throughout the region at every chance they get.”

James wasn’t surprised to hear of the situation with Akris. He had seen first hand how the corruption of the Vulian empire had spread among their leaders, turning their loyalty away from those who had been their allies for many decades. The Akrian government had even gone as far as to exile everyone who had remained loyal to the Freedom alliance, James’s former crew member Nemika Kristea among them. Her location was now unknown although it was rumoured that she and the remaining Akrians loyal to the cause of the Freedom alliance had taken refuge on Tolis.

“The council has been even more desperate to consolidate the peace these past few weeks,” Davidson continued, “ever since those ships went missing out in the Blue Ring sector, a lot of people have been on edge around here.”

“Did they ever find out what happened to those ships?” James asked. He knew of the incident in question, a group of Churian exploration ships had gone missing out in the uncharted Blue Ring sector and these was no explanation forthcoming as to why or how. He had to wonder exactly what the Churians were doing out there in the first place. It wasn’t like it was anyone’s priority to explore the area, especially with large areas even in the central Valoran and Galante sectors still mostly uncharted.

“We’ll know soon enough,” said Davidson, “the council has dispatched a couple of Tolian battleships to the region and they should arrive within the day. They’ll track them down and bring them back and hopefully we will be able to stop this from happening again. Back to other matters though, can I convince you to join the efforts on Myazar?”

“Admiral, you know I would…” James began, “. . . but, you see, it’s general Ravenn’s retirement party coming up and I’m to be one of the guests of honour. It really isn’t something I can miss, regardless of whatever else is going on within the alliance.”

“Oh yes, of course, how could I forget,” Davidson chuckled, “blimey, I didn’t think it was for another month, time flies eh? But of course you’re right, this isn’t something you should miss. I’m guessing admiral Jamerson wasn’t too happy about this though?”

“He’s never happy,” said James, “he’s been denying my request for a holiday for months now. I guess a personal invite from Ravenn himself didn’t leave him with too many options so he had to approve it. Isha and I now get to spend a week in a galaxy class hotel in the city of Lahara, all expense paid.”

“I can’t deny that I’m jealous,” said Davidson, “when you’re a member of the board of admirals, time off becomes very sparse indeed.”

“I’m surprised they didn’t invite you,” said James, “you played your part in the events all right, we wouldn’t have got far if you hadn’t have set everything up for us to leave Earth and get to Tolis.”

“One of the general’s contacts did enquire about my availability however the fleet needs me here,” said Davidson, “besides, it was you and your crew who overthrew the occupation, this celebration is for you. I’ll be following the events from the Titan though, I’ll be staying here just incase anything comes up. You know how the unexpected always tends to pop up when you least expect it.”

Since his promotion, Davidson now served on one of the largest and most powerful ships that Earth possessed, the Titan. It was one the triumvirate of massive battlecruisers that had been left behind after the Vulian occupation. With the planet free of Vulian occupation, the Human forces recovered the ships and completed their construction, giving the Earth Nations Fleet a major offensive force in the galaxy. It had certainly forced one or two of the races who tended to look down on Humans to rethink their position.

“Well then, I wont keep you,” said Davidson, “you and Isha deserve your time off, I hope you enjoy your time in Lahara. One more thing… I will see if I can convince the rest of the admirals to look kindly on your request for some time away from the fleet. I appreciate the need to keep our best captains on top of their game.”