Sol (The Silver Ships Book 5) (21 page)

The three men were led away amid a now silent courtroom. Nikki’s statements had provoked a great deal of thought. The rebels, who were ecstatic at the light sentence, realized their ex-leader was the one who argued for the harsher sentence, but Captain Shimada’s plea for mercy carried the day. For others, it had been a drama laying bare the underlying feelings that many had to work through if the station would continue to function once the Harakens were gone.

A week after the rebels’ conviction, a fully recovered Shimada gave up one of her patrol craft for the president’s demonstration to Admiral Portland. The captain of the patrol ship wasn’t pleased by Shimada’s order to dedicate his ship to some bizarre demonstration, but he insisted on commanding it to the required destination point. The copilot and bosun volunteered to join him, and the three men were startled when Captain Shimada wanted to affirm they were EVA certified.

A small group of Haraken ships exited the station to join the UE patrol craft and head inward toward the approaching fleet, still more than two days out.

Captain Shimada had shared with Tatia an indication of the battleship’s telemetry quality, which gave the Haraken admiral an idea of how close to the fleet the demonstration must take place for Admiral Portland to understand what he was observing.

“An invigorating day, is it not?” Captain José Cordova announced to his guests, Ellie Thompson, Mickey, and Z, on the bridge of the
Rêveur
, the Méridien liner where Julien used to reside for the better part of two centuries. Tatia intended to ask Alex if he was going to request the elderly captain excuse himself from the upcoming mission, but then reconsidered.
Foolish question,
she thought.

Once the
Rêveur
, the accompanying squadron of travelers, and the UE patrol ship were headed inward, Julien used the station’s comms systems to contact Admiral Portland aboard the battleship
Guardian
.

“Captain, Idona Station is calling,” the comms officer of the
Guardian
announced.

Captain Shelley glanced at Admiral Portland, who nodded his assent, but before the comms officer could transfer the signal, the battleship’s primary screen lit with a view of an enormous man, surrounded by a collection of both wide and slender people.

“This is Admiral Portland of the battleship
Guardian
. Whom am I addressing?”

“Greetings, Admiral. I’m Alex Racine, Haraken’s president, and we know well who you are. Your poor reputation precedes you. I’m forbidding you to come any closer to Idona. In fact, I advise you to reverse course to Saturn. I believe your superiors, who I’ve recently spoken with, wish to have a word or two with you, Admiral. It seems your little foray toward our station is unauthorized.”

“Let me point out to you, President Racine, that Idona Station is UE property. Now, I will give you one opportunity to vacate the station and exit our system, before I demonstrate the might of a UE fleet.”

“I thought that might be your attitude, Admiral. I suggest you bring your fleet to a halt. A small group of my ships is headed your way from Idona. We’ve prepared a minor demonstration of Haraken technology for you. Do not allow your ships to come within 300K kilometers of this demonstration unless you want to lose them. Watch carefully, Admiral. It’s my sincere hope that you are a more intelligent man than your superiors have indicated.” Alex cut the comm.

Aboard the
Rêveur
, Mickey and his engineers loaded Ellie’s Dagger with missiles armed with Z’s latest invention, nanites minelettes. Harakens might be forgiven, thinking it was odd that a wing commander was flying the mission, but few of the planet’s pilots were trained on the original New Terran Dagger, which Ellie learned on before escaping Libre.

Mickey signaled Ellie when all was ready, and the flight chief and crew helped load her into Dagger-1’s cockpit. The bay was depressurized, and everyone aboard the liner awaited the mission’s go signal. When the
Rêveur
reached its target point, Z signaled Ellie and the flight crew to launch the Dagger. Simultaneously, the UE patrol ship eased away from the shadow of the liner as both ships came to a halt.

Z signaled the patrol ship. “Captain, prepare your men to abandon ship.”

“Seems a stupid idea to abandon a perfectly good vessel,” the captain grumped.

“Captain,” Z repeated.

“We’re going, we’re going.”

The captain, second lieutenant, and bosun climbed into their EVA suits and cycled through the ship’s small airlock, which barely accommodated the three men in their suits. The fourteen-year veteran bosun kept his eye on the junior lieutenant, who admitted that his spacewalk experience was limited to academy training. Tethered together, the three UE men eased out of the airlock. Once clear of the ship, they activated their suit jets, and the captain led his men toward the lights of the
Rêveur
’s open bay.

Gaining the bay, the UE men were drawn down to the bay’s grav-activated deck. When the bay doors closed, pressurization quickly followed. The three UE men were debating whether to strip off their suits when the bay’s airlock hissed open and three huge men came hurrying toward them. The young lieutenant went so far as to put up his hands in surrender.

“Welcome aboard the
Rêveur
, Sers, you may call me Mickey. Come, let us help you out of these suits and get to the bridge.”

The patrol ship captain was surprised by the invitation. He expected to sit out the mission in some dim room, isolated and unable to inspect the Haraken ship. Instead, he and his men were escorted to the bridge, able to admire the corridors’ clean lines and spacious width along the way.

On the bridge, the UE men were introduced to the Harakens. Isolated aboard their destroyer from before the Harakens took over Idona, this was their first view of the strangers’ mix of body types — ultra-large, near Earth normal, and super slender.

“Why are there so many human types in your worlds?” the captain asked.

“There are only two types,” replied Z, “Mickey’s and Captain Cordova’s.

“You’re not a Haraken?” the bosun asked.

“I’m not human,” Z replied. “I’m a SADE.”

At that moment, Captain Cordova activated the holo-vid, displaying the nearby space, and the bridge’s central screen, which showed Dagger-1 beside the liner.

“Where’s our ship?” the lieutenant asked, staring into the holo-vid.

“We’re 105K kilometers from your ship, Sers,” Z stated.

The UE men exchanged astonished looks. There was no sensation of acceleration to indicate the Haraken vessel was accelerating that quickly.

Z signaled Julien that the demonstration was beginning.

Admiral Portland observed the small group of ships come close to his fleet, stop, and then retreat, leaving a UE patrol ship in their wake. Then a single fighter eased away from what appeared to a passenger liner and lined up on the patrol ship.

“Captain Shelley, I want eyes on that patrol boat and that fighter,” Portland ordered. The monitoring screens of the battleship’s bridge filled with images of the fighter and patrol ship in closeup, and a third screen contained an image of both craft, appearing as small dots.

“A twin missile launch from the fighter, Captain,” a commander called out.

Portland eased away from the bulkhead where he was standing to peer closely at the third monitor. Two bright spots erupted from the dark, where the fighter was positioned and traced bright lines toward the UE ship.

“The missiles exploded,” the commander announced. “Negligible energy recorded.”

“That’s it?” Portland asked, laughing.

“The president indicated we should watch carefully,” Captain Shelley said.

“Continue observing, Captain. Call me if anything interesting develops. Otherwise, hold position.”

A couple of hours later, long after the Haraken ships retreated toward the station, a first lieutenant called out, “Captain, there’s something wrong with the patrol ship.”

“Explain,” Shelley commanded, coming awake from a snooze in his command chair.

“Here, here, and here,” the first mate said, leaving his position to indicate various points on the ship on the screen, showing the vessel closeup.

Shelley left his command chair to peer at the monitor’s image. “What are those?” he asked.

“I think they’re holes, Captain. At first, I thought it was a glitch with our sensors, but everything checks out. Then I noticed that these dark spots were growing faster and faster like … like something’s feeding on that ship.”

“Comms, get Admiral Portland up here, now,” Shelley ordered.

In the time it took Portland to gain the bridge, the holes in the UE patrol ship doubled in diameter, and where tens of holes were visible when the first mate noticed them, hundreds could now be seen, and more were appearing with the passing of minutes.

Shelley pointed to the screen when Portland came up beside him, saying, “Those two puny missiles that you laughed at seeded the space around that patrol vessel. Something in those missiles is eating that ship.” While they watched, small pieces of the ship began floating away, and starlight began showing through the remaining hulk of the hull.

Z’s missile warheads had sprayed hundreds of thousands of tiny globules of nanites surrounded by oxygen-impregnated thermite gel. When the globules struck the hull, the thermite compound was activated, aided by the embedded oxygen-transport compound. Once energized, the nanites began replicating by consuming the metal of the ship, creating an exothermic reaction, which supplied the nanites with additional energy. The process would continue as long as the nanites found native metal. To protect any other ship traffic, Julien and Z programmed the nanites with a short lifespan.

“Commander, get me Captain Tankerling on the
Dauntless
,” Portland ordered the fleet comms officer.

“Captain Tankerling, Admiral.”

“Captain, take your destroyer close to that UE patrol ship and ascertain what we’re looking at. I need to know whether this is some sort of visual hoax or a weapon. Keep your ship at a distance of 10 kilometers from the vessel. That should be a safe distance.” Portland ignored the glances aimed his way.

“Understood, Admiral, we’re underway.”

The
Dauntless
had closed to within 100K kilometers when the
Guardian
’s central screen lit up with an image of Alex. “I’m curious, Admiral. How many people are aboard that destroyer you’re sending to investigate our demonstration?”

Portland briefly glared at the battleship’s comms officer, angry that the Harakens were able to link full comms, audio and visual, at will. The harassed comms officer could only shrug an apology and work to regain control of his comms panel.

“I have plenty of destroyers,” Portland replied arrogantly. “And I don’t accept demonstrations at face value from anyone, especially not aberrant humans.”

Alex didn’t bother to reply and cut the comm.

Portland never left the bridge while the
Dauntless
reached the UE patrol ship or what was left of it. It was little more than pieces of non-metal material left floating in an ungainly clump.

“Admiral, call from the
Dauntless
,” the comms commander announced. When Portland nodded, the connection was transferred to his bridge display.

“Go ahead, Captain.”

“As best we can tell, Admiral, there was some sort of process at work on this vessel’s metal, but we can’t confirm whether the active material came from those missiles or was implanted on board the patrol ship before it was left here. It’s our best techs’ thoughts that it was the latter condition. It would have been easy for the Harakens to have sprayed the outside and inside with a compound that began breaking down the ship’s metal components. The fact that we seem to be fine is probably a good argument for the techs’ opinions.”

“Understood, Captain. Good job. Return to formation.” Portland chuckled to himself and then said to no one in particular, “And you thought you had me fooled, Haraken, with your weak magic show.”

Portland assumed his command chair to develop scenarios for his assault on Idona, using the latest telemetry information on the Harakens when the commander signaled him of an urgent call from the
Dauntless
. On the monitor, a harried Captain Tankerling was issuing orders, while the sound of horns wailed the signal to abandon the destroyer.

“Report, Captain,” Portland ordered.

“We were wrong, Admiral. The space around the patrol ship was seeded with the Harakens’ weapon. We have tens of compartment breaches to vacuum and more happening every minute. I’m reversing course so that we don’t contaminate the fleet. I intend to halt 100K kilometers spinward of the patrol ship’s debris. My crew is filling the survival pods now. It’s my hope that these aren’t contaminated too. I have no idea when it will be safe to retrieve us, Admiral. I hate to suggest this, but maybe the Harakens can help.”

Aboard the
Guardian
, they heard a voice on the destroyer bridge yell, “Captain, the bridge is about to be breached. We have to go now.” Seconds after the destroyer’s bridge was seen to empty, the comms signal was lost.

Over the next few hours, Portland, Shelley, and the bridge crew of the
Guardian
witnessed the destroyer and its survival pods fall apart. Cries for help from the crew could be heard by the comms officers across the fleet. After the pods broke apart, the nanites destroyed the metal rings on the crew’s environment suits. Less than an hour later, when it was too late for any crew member, the nanites became inactive.

“Shall we continue to make for the station, Admiral?” Captain Shelley asked as neutrally as he could.

Portland swore under his breath. He had been anxious to teach the Harakens a lesson in UE military power. Now, his strategy needed rethinking. “Commander, what civilian ships are behind us?”

The commander consulted his screens. “We have three freighters and two liners on approach for Idona. They are spread about three and a half days apart.”