The Honour of the Knights (First Edition) (27 page)

Dodds
felt the man’s gaze come in his and Enrique’s direction as he spoke
the last two sentences. He watched the commodore as he began pacing
in a small area, hands behind his back.

Parks went on, “As soon as we are up to our full complement,
we will jump to the Aster system, where we will rendezvous with the
UNF
’
s charmingly
named twin carriers,
Grendel
and
Grendel
’
s
Mother
.

“
From there, we will await the arrival
of
Dragon
and then immediately commence
Operation Menelaus
. Primary defence
and Initial Run teams should be prepared to depart the moment we
arrive at our destination. Secondary defence teams,” - his eyes
once again flicked in the direction of the
White Knights
- “should await
further instructions. Squadron leaders will be briefed further
before our arrival. Additionally, a full breakfast is being
prepared for all serving crew, so there is no need to worry about
going into this on an empty stomach. For now, prepare yourselves
for jump.”

With his
introduction and points made, Parks departed the flight deck, and
the attendants began clearing personnel as part of the jump
preparations.

“
Have you ever seen
Dragon
in real life?”
Enrique asked Dodds as they were escorted to
Griffin
‘s
crew quarters.

“
Not in real life, only video footage.”
Dodds said. “The only thing I know about it is that
it
’
s big
and has a lot of guns.”

“
I
’
ve seen it,” Kelly piped up,
trotting up alongside the pair, in an attempt to keep up with the
long strides the two men were making to match speed with the
officer leading the way. “And yes, it
’
s big. My father arranged for me to
be given a flyby before I joined up.”

“
Yes, we know, Kelly,” Dodds said, putting a hand up to his
temple. “You’ve told us about a million and one times.”

“
Mate, don’t bite her head off,” Enrique jumped in.

Dodds
looked at Kelly, seeing her a little incensed by his comment.
“Sorry, Kelly. My bloody head is killing me. That shuttle ride
didn’t help at all.”

“
It’s your own fault,” Kelly said.

“
Yes, I know,” Dodds said. “Okay, so,
anything else you can tell us about
Dragon
?”

“
No,” Kelly shook her head. “Nothing that you don’t already
know.”

“
I hope we
’
ll be given a bit more information
other than “it
’
s
big”, before we get to Aster and have to face off against it,”
Estelle complained. “A basic strategy would be a good
start.”

“
If you’re talking basics, then how about
that
Dragon
has a maximum crew complement of just under fifty thousand,
including starfighter pilots,” a man
’
s voice stated. “And that it can
also comfortably accommodate over a thousand fighters in its
hangers, without any concessions for type.”

Heads
spun around, stunned to discover that Chaz was the one offering up
the information.

Dodds
caught Estelle’s eye, before she looked back at the big man. “What
about its weaponry? Defences?” she asked.

“
Numerous enhanced plasma and laser turrets and batteries,”
Chaz said. “And the entire ship is protected by multiple
high-powered shield generators; far more efficient than a carrier’s
or a frigate’s.”

“
Still wishing you’d asked?” Kelly said to Estelle.

Estelle
ignored Kelly and pressed for more information. “What
else?”

“
It’s secondary offensive armament consists of eight plasma
accelerators,” Chaz said.

Estelle almost stopped walking. “
Eight
accelerators?”

Chaz
nodded. “Three on the port and starboard, two on the
bow.”

Dodds
and Enrique swore simultaneously.

Chaz added, “I’d suggest that if you
’
re going to attack that thing you
should aim to do it from the maximum possible distance, to counter
its defensive capabilities; and unless you can apply sheer strength
of numbers, attempting to take it on with starfighters alone would
prove next to impossible.”

The other four
Knights
exchanged disquieted looks.

“
How many fighters are we talking?” Enrique wanted to
know.

“
More than we
’
re taking,” Chaz answered, almost
inaudibly.

They had arrived at the quarters where they would be spending
the next few hours, whilst
Griffin
made the jump to Aster.

“
How do you know all this?” Estelle asked.

“
Let
’
s just say a little knowledge is a
dangerous thing, Lieutenant,” Chaz said, pulling himself up onto a
nearby bunk and lying back.

Dodds
spied one of quarters’ beds past the others and made for it,
slumping down onto the mattress. It was far from the most
comfortable thing he had ever sat on – even the beds at Spirit
offered more – but right now, it met his needs. He sat for a
moment, before stretching out across its length and closing his
eyes, grateful that he could start on recuperating. What he really
needed now was to get his hands on some painkillers.

“
I can see why it would be best to disable it before we
attempt to retake it now,” Kelly commented, settling down at the
foot of a bed that Enrique had also taken to.

“
Wait,” Estelle said. “You said the
accelerators were it’s
secondary
defence
system.”

“
I did,” Chaz said.

“
So, what’s its first?”

“
An anti-matter cannon. Only vessel in existence to be kitted
out with one.”

“
Oh. I’d forgotten about that,” Kelly said.

“
It’s got a
what
?” Enrique said.

“
Dragon
‘s
main offensive weapon is a
high-powered cannon, that is capable of directing a concentration
of anti-matter at any frontal target,” Chaz said.

“
What exactly does that mean?” Estelle asked.

Though
Dodds had his eyes closed, he could tell that for all Estelle’s
knowledge of the ins and outs of Naval protocol, Chaz was now
speaking a language that even she did not understand.

“
It means it can destroy anything in its
path,” Kelly explained. “It is powerful enough to even take down
Spirit Orbital with a single shot. We don
’
t want to be in the way of that if
it happens to get a chance to use it.”

A handful of other pilots had been assigned to the same
quarters as the
Knights
and people began to chatter, discussing what Chaz
had said.

“
So whilst we
’
re all telling stories, does
someone want to tell me what
’
s so special about this Zackaria
guy that Parks wants so badly?” a man
’
s voice said.

“
He
’
s the current Fleet Admiral of the
Imperial Senate
’
s
naval forces,” a voice spoke up.

Dodds thought he recognised it, and tilted his head to look
over to see if it was the same fountain of knowledge from the
previous night; the one that had been spreading rumours and
speculation at their card game. It turned out it wasn’t, but the
conversation did perk Dodds
’
interest somewhat. Even so, whilst the others,
with the usual exception of Chaz, turned to give their attention to
the speaker, Dodds was happy to lie back and listen where he
was.

“
Yes, I know he
’
s the admiral of the fleet,” the
first man said. “I was awake for that part of the
briefing.”

“
Right, so how much do you know about the civil
war?”

“
Well, there’s a lot of a dead people as a result. As well as
a huge influx of asylum seekers and illegal immigrants, that I’m
having to prop up with my taxes.”

“
Apart from that.”

“
Nothing.”

“
Not how it started or
who
’
s
involved or anything?”

“
The Senate and the Emperor, wasn’t it? Actually no, nothing,”
the first man said.

A few other answers of
no
followed thereafter.

“
All right, well, basically there are two
main sides in the Imperial civil war: those fighting for the
Imperial Senate and those fighting for Emperor Lorenzo III,” the
storyteller started. “The civil war began when the Senate disagreed
with the Emperor
’
s decision to grant independence to
two Imperial star systems, and having another three under
consideration. The Emperor was extremely popular with his people
for things like that, as well as improving relationships with other
Independent worlds and the Confederation. You probably already know
that until recently the Imperium was very prosperous and actually
envied throughout the galaxy.”

“
No,” the first man scoffed.
“Can
’
t say
I
’
ve really ever
cared. What happens over there is their problem, not
mine.”

“
Stop interrupting and let him finish. No, really, shut up!
That’s an order,” Estelle said. There was a pause. Dodds glanced
over to see Estelle glaring at a man. For once, he was glad to hear
Estelle pulling rank. Political yarns tended to bore him, but this
one was intriguing enough to make him want to hear what had
happened.

Estelle
looked back to the storyteller, a thin, lanky-looking man, with a
bowl haircut. He closed his eyes as she said, “Go on, what
happened? Who was the instigator?”

“
Most believe it was the Senate,” the
storyteller resumed. “One day, the Senate, led by the senior
magistrate, upped and left, setting up house in an Imperial star
system that held a majority interest in the
Senate
’
s
position, and was as far away from the Emperor
’
s Seat as they could get. They felt
that the Emperor
’
s actions were a threat to the continued prosperity of the
Imperium and that the Emperor could one day bring about the
collapse of the Empire. They said it was becoming too diluted and
the constant undermining of the core strengths would make it appear
to be growing weak to the Independent worlds and the Confederacy.
At the time, the Senate was backed by something like ten percent of
the Imperium.”

“
Ten percent?
That
’
s not
a lot,” a woman interrupted the speaker. “That
’
s like those minority parties you
get, the fascists and the ones obsessed with trivial matters. I
mean what exactly did they plan to do?”

“
Hold on, I
’
m getting there,” the storyteller
said. “Ten percent is still quite a lot when you think about it:
it’s several hundred million people at least. And with those behind
them, they attacked all the worlds that had split from the Empire
and then attempted to assassinate the Emperor himself.”

“
Wow.”

“
Yeah, but they failed. And the Emperor, as
was his nature, invited them to an open dialogue to resolve the
issues between the two. The Senate refused and then attempted to
assassinate him again. The second time they were a little more
successful, although they didn
’
t actually manage to kill him. The
assassin ended up killing the Emperor
’
s wife and injuring the Emperor
very badly, before he himself was killed.”

Dodds
opened his eyes to see all attention was on the speaker, listening
to what he had to say. Although the information he was providing to
them could have been garnered by anyone who had taken the time to
follow the news over the last few years, to many in the room this
was new information; hot off the presses. Some others, outside the
quarters, had stopped on their way past, hovering in the doorway to
listen in to what the man had to say.

The
storyteller continued, “Following that attempt on his life, the
Emperor didn’t hold back and launched a full scale assault on the
Senate, deploying a massive strike force to the systems they had
moved to. They completely overwhelmed the forces the Senate had
mustered to defend themselves, but the Emperor fell short of wiping
them out completely. He gave them one last chance to yield, rejoin
the Empire and accept his rule, rather than completely destroying
them. And for a time it appeared that they were preparing to do so,
but then one day…”