The Terran Privateer (4 page)

“Vice Admiral Katherine Harrison,” the tall white-haired woman introduced herself, offering her hand. “We’ve never actually met, though I spent several days reviewing your reports on Captain Bowman prior to the Admirals’ Board a few years back.”

Annette felt the cold mask settle over her face. While the Admirals’ Board
had
voted to prosecute Bowman in the end, she hadn’t been privy to their discussions and doubted the margin had been broad—the
Captains’
Board had voted ‘lack of evidence to charge,’ after all.

“Bad memories, I apologize,” Harrison said after a moment of awkward silence. “Between you and me,” she murmured, glancing around to make sure no one overheard her, “let’s just say that I think it’s about damned
time
we found a way to put you back in uniform. Whole thing was a mess and you deserved better.”

“If you say so, ma’am,” Annette said flatly, and the older woman laughed.

“I
do
say so, Captain Bond,” she replied. “Someday, you’ll believe me. Until then, just do the job.”

“That’s what I do,” she said. “That’s what I did that cost me the job.”

“Yes,” Harrison agreed flatly. “And that’s why you had your pick of enlisted spacers for
Tornado
. Some Captains tried to hold their people back, but there wasn’t a Chief in the Force who wasn’t going to back the woman who saved Bowman’s people from that sick bastard.

“I don’t know if you’ve been advised, but my Alpha Squadron’s battlewagons have picked up the first wave of stopgap upgrades,” the Admiral told Annette. “I’m going to need to pick your brain on interface missiles and compressed-matter armor when you have a free hour later. I’ll even buy the beer.”

“I don’t drink beer,” Annette pointed out. Certainly, after everything that had happened, she wasn’t going to drink with
Space Force
officers.

“Then I’ll buy tea,” Harrison said calmly. “We’ll talk later, Captain. I hear a buffet table calling my name.”

With a firm nod, Alpha Squadron’s Admiral moved on, leaving Annette Bond gazing after her in confusion. She didn’t know any of the Force’s Admirals except Villeneuve by anything more than reputation, but Harrison was not what she’d expected of the Canadian contribution to the UESF Admiralty.

If she hadn’t been distracted by Harrison’s surprising charm, she’d probably have been able to dodge the reporter. As it was, she turned around and found herself facing down the stereotypically perfect, immaculately coiffed features of a tall black-haired woman in a long black dress and a media headset.

The headset faked being a decorative headband well, but not perfectly enough to fool a practiced eye that could identify the “stones” that were actually cameras. Everything the woman saw and heard was recorded, though
probably
not transmitted live.

If it was being transmitted live, Annette would make sure heads rolled.

“Captain Bond, the people of Earth need to hear from the woman of the hour,” the reporter said fiercely, her eyes flashing conviction. “Many have questions as to how a woman who hasn’t been a Space Force officer in over four years now holds what we are told is suddenly the premier command in the Force!”

“Technically, I have always been a reserve officer,” Annette pointed out, swallowing her anger. Recorded or live, punching out a news reporter on camera was a
bad
idea. “Who are you?” she demanded.

“Jess Robin, Global News Network,” the woman replied crisply. “Reserve or not, you haven’t been an active duty officer in years, and have suddenly leapt past officers with years of experience to command this unique vessel. Many of our viewers wonder just
how
a woman such as yourself got the role.”

Annette stepped forward into Robin’s space, pushing the taller and more conventionally attractive woman back a step.

“Are you really going there, Miss Robin?” she asked. “Last time I checked, this was the twenty-second century. Isn’t it a little out of date to imply I’m sleeping with someone to get my job?”

The reporter, to her credit, actually looked embarrassed.
That
stinker had to have been fed to her in advance, and she’d managed it with aplomb.

“Then explain to our viewers why you were selected for this command over so many experienced officers?” she finally managed to recover and ask.

Annette sighed. Her options had narrowed down to punching the woman or answering her question. Annoying as the affair was, she couldn’t gracefully extract herself now.

“As you said,
Tornado
is unique,” she said quietly, forcing Robin to give up some of the personal space she’d defensively reclaimed to guarantee her recording. “Many details of her specifications are classified, but the key point is one that isn’t:
Tornado
possesses an interface drive.

“Interface drives are reactionless and inertialess—they’re giving physicists a headache across the entire star system. The skills necessary to handle one are entirely different from a fusion torch ship—the ‘experience’ you speak of has now become obsolete.

“No one else in this system has as much experience with the interface drive as my crew does, so the Space Force brought us in to man the first true starship of the United Earth Space Force,” she concluded. “My understanding is that Nova Industries intends to start delivering civilian interface drive ships inside the next four months—before the end of the year.

“It is
necessary
for the Space Force to have ships capable of matching the performance of those civilian vessels to maintain our role as the arbiter of peace in the system.

“That requires a crew and captain experienced with this type of ship. I was not selected over more experienced officers, Miss Robin,” she said flatly. “I was selected because I was the
only
experienced officer.”

Robin made an odd glance aside, and Annette realized she was wearing video contacts linked to the headset.
Someone
was getting a live feed and sending the reporter questions. From the way her face momentarily twisted in disgust, the suggestions they were providing weren’t to her taste.

“Is it true, Captain, that Dark Eye is suggesting we’re going to see alien contact in the next few years?” she finally asked, and Annette stared at her for a long moment. The reporter had acquired a mischievous grin that made her all-too-perfect face suddenly far more human—and
much
more attractive.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said slowly while reminding herself the reporter was at least ten years her junior.

“Please, Captain, the Dark Eye Interstellar Surveillance System is an open secret now,” Robin insisted. “You’d have been briefed on it as a senior Nova Industries employee, let alone as a Space Force Captain!”

“Miss Robin,” Annette said flatly. “
If
some sort of sensor net like you discussed existed, I would not be allowed to talk about it, regardless of whether or not the secret had been compromised.”

Dark Eye was a network of small and mid-sized satellites spread throughout the inner system, a joint Nova–Space Force project. She’d seen the results and agreed with Casimir—
somebody
was out there. She was also bound not to talk about it by both her Nova Industries’ nondisclosure agreement
and
the United Earth Space Force Code of Justice.

“But if aliens
were
coming, they’d have ships like
Tornado
?” Robin asked.

That
was a sensible question. From the way the reporter’s eyes were flickering to read whatever feed was coming to her contacts, it was probably less sensationalized than her bosses liked.

“Most likely,” Annette allowed. “That is why Admiral Villeneuve is seeking funding to upgrade the Space Force as quickly as we can. Our fusion-torch warships are obsolete; they would stand no chance against a fleet of ships similar to
Tornado
.”

Out of view of her headset’s cameras, Robin made a clear “touché” gesture. Whether she’d meant to or not, she’d allowed Annette to bring the conversation around to convincing people to support the Admiral’s expansion plan.

The reporter opened her mouth to ask another question, but she was cut off as
every
Space Force communicator in the room went off with an emergency alert.

Annette pulled hers out and opened the scroll-like device, skimming the text. Dark Eye had detected multiple hyperspace portals forming just inside the asteroid belt. Current estimate was twenty ships had emerged from hyperspace fifteen minutes previously.

Even if all four XC hulls and the new survey flotilla were complete and online—which they
weren’t
—Earth didn’t have twenty hyper-capable starships.

The room exploded into chaos. Annette waved the reporter back and charged into the crowd, forcing her way through to Admiral Villeneuve. The UESF Chief of Operations was surrounded by shouting, swearing, panicking officers

“Admiral!” She tried to get his attention, shoving through the crowd somewhat gently. Villeneuve didn’t seem to hear her, and then someone shoved her back.

She recognized Commodore Anderson about half a second
after
twenty-five years of martial arts training kicked in and dropped the big logistics officer to the ground with a resounding thud.

That
got everyone’s attention, a circle of space appearing around her and allowing Admiral Villeneuve to turn his gaze on her.

“Captain Bond?” he asked slowly.

“Sir,
Tornado
has eight interface drive shuttles aboard,” she told him crisply. “If everyone can
calm down
, we can send the civilians to Orbit One on the torch shuttles and have all of the Space Force officers back to their ships in under ten minutes.”

Villeneuve’s gaze flickered to where Anderson was groaning to his feet, but even the man Annette had just floored was looking at her with a degree of surprised respect—and hope.

“Make it happen,” the Admiral ordered. “I’ll stay aboard
Tornado
.”

“With respect, sir, your place is on Orbit One,” Annette told him quietly, stepping closer to the Admiral as she gestured to Kurzman to start corralling people. “Someone has to take overall command of Earth’s defense. You can’t be at the tip of the spear—and we both know
Tornado
has to be the tip of the spear.”

For a moment, the senior uniformed officer of Earth’s defenses looked rebellious, but then Villeneuve sighed and nodded.

“You’re right, of course,” he confessed. “I’ll coordinate the civilians and be available by communicator until I’m in Command.” Villeneuve glanced around. “I’m placing you under Harrison’s command, with Alpha Squadron. She’ll have her orders by the time she’s aboard
Challenger
.”

“Yes, sir,” Annette told him. “We won’t fail you.”

“I’m not worried about you failing me,” Villeneuve said quietly. “I’m worried that we’ve already failed Earth.”

#

Annette reached her bridge as the last of the interface drive shuttles exited the launch bay. That part was done on
chemical
rockets, not even fusion thrusters, to keep the mothership safe. Once the shuttle was a kilometer or so clear of
Tornado
, their smaller drives turned on and they whisked away at forty percent of the speed of light.

Their courses amidst the cluster of warships in high earth orbit were
very
carefully calculated. Each flight between ships lasted seconds at most. They were spending more time docking and offloading passengers than they were flying at full speed.

Beneath the fleet, rapidly dropping away toward Earth and the geostationary orbit of Orbit One, Earth’s largest space station and the Space Force’s command center, were the old-style shuttles that had originally brought the Captains. It would have taken forty-five minutes or more for those ships to get their passengers home.

Ahead of the rest of the shuttles was the one carrying Admiral Villeneuve, pushing the limits of what its artificial gravity could handle to get the Admiral to the command center before everything came apart.

“What are our visitors doing?” Annette asked as she dropped into the command chair at the center of the horseshoe-shaped bridge and put on her command headset.

“They spent five minutes sorting out their formation and started heading our way,” Harold Rolfson, now
Lieutenant Commander
Rolfson and her tactical officer, reported. “Definitely interface drive ships, but either their tech is
behind
ours or they’re taking it slow. Inbound at point one cee.”

“Any idea on the size?”

“Dark Eye is trying to resolve, but the sensors weren’t built for that,” Rolfson told her. The new rank had put the man in Space Force blue working fatigues, but so far they hadn’t managed to convince him to trim his shaggy red hair or beard. Annette had quietly squished one complaint from a regular Force officer already.

“They were built to sweep everything within a hundred light-years, not give us shiny pictures of ships inside the Belt,” Annette agreed. “Check with Solar Traffic Control—
their
sensors should be able to give us a better idea.”

“Yes, ma’am!” Rolfson replied. “I didn’t think of that.”

“We’re all trying not to panic, Harold,” she reminded him. “It’s going to be a rough day.”

“Ma’am, we have a signal from
Challenger
,” said Annette’s new com officer, a Space Force regular named Yahui Chan. She was a tiny Chinese woman, delicate-boned and dark-haired, and seemed to know her job inside and out. “Admiral Harrison sends her compliments and says that Alpha Squadron and escorts are moving out to intercept the unknowns. She requests that we accompany her.”

Annette nodded. She guessed that Harrison wasn’t sure whether Villeneuve had had a chance to tell Annette she was under the Admiral’s command.

“Inform Admiral Harrison we will take up high escort position above
Challenger
and that
Tornado
has been placed under her command,” she ordered Chan. “Lieutenant Commander Amandine”—she turned to the pale-skinned navigator—“please drop us into that position. We’ll stay in formation with the torch ships until ordered otherwise.”

“That’s going to be a bit of a headache, ma’am,” Amandine told her. “Our engines just don’t…
work
like that.”

“I know. Do your best,” she ordered.

“Ma’am.” Chan called for her attention again. “We’re receiving a transmission—it’s on the Space Force emergency frequency, using our encryption and file format, but the feed is just…weird.”

“Who’s transmitting?” Annette demanded. This was a bad time for
anyone
to be playing games with the emergency frequencies.

“I think…the aliens, ma’am.”

#

The image Chan put on the bridge’s main viewscreen sent shivers of atavistic fear down Annette’s spine. Without anything familiar to compare the creature to, there was no certainty to its size, but her hindbrain insisted that it was some giant monster from the deep, here to overturn fishing boats and eat primitive fishermen.

The alien was an immense, multi-armed, squid-like being. As Annette forced down her fear, she identified the four largest tentacles acting as legs, supporting the soft-skinned mass of the creature’s main body. Easily over a dozen smaller tentacles waved around the being, manipulating controls and moving screens. Strips of cloth wrapped around the body contained pockets and what she guessed to be insignia.

Four jet-black, unblinking, eyes were focused on the camera, and as the creature shifted, a hard black beak came into view. The beak opened and a series of sibilant hisses with an occasional beak snap came out.

It went untranslated long enough for Annette to think they were truly doomed, and then a voice overlay came onto the video—along with a scrolling text translation at the bottom of the screen.

“I am Tan!Shallegh, Fleet Lord for the A!Tol Imperium,” the alien commander told them. The voice it had presumably chosen was a soft male baritone with a crisp British Received Pronunciation accent. Both its name and the name of its empire included a strange beak-snapping sound that came surprisingly close to the clicks Annette had once heard a Xhosa junior officer use when calling home.

“Your system has fallen into my region of authority for some time. While my preference was to allow you to develop naturally, emissions from your new hyperdrives have drawn the attention of our enemies. It would be a failure in my responsibility to my Empress to allow your world to fall into the hands of those enemies.”

The creature paused, the hisses fading to silence. All of its tentacles twitched in the same direction in a gesture reminiscent of a shrug. Annette wondered if that was intentional—and if so, how long
had
this Tan!Shallegh been studying Earth?

“It is my responsibility to inform you that your system has now been annexed as a Class Four Dependent World of the Imperium,” the translation continued a moment after it started speaking again. “A planetary administration will be assembled over the next few five-cycles under an Imperial Governor. If you cooperate, elements of your existing government structures will be incorporated and a swift and peaceful transition will be achieved.”

The tentacles shivered again, in a gesture that did
nothing
for Annette’s calm.

“Resistance will be met with overwhelming force,” Tan!Shallegh told them flatly. “Your fate is decided. Yield and you will benefit. Fight and you will be crushed. I expect the full stand-down of your fleet within one twentieth-cycle of your receipt of this message.”

The image froze, though not before the text translation helpfully converted “one twentieth-cycle” into “seventy minutes”.

Silence reigned on
Tornado
’s
bridge. An alert buzzed in Annette’s ear, and she tapped a command that linked Kurzman into her headset.

“What do we do, Captain?” her executive officer asked.

The same question was on all of her people’s faces as she glanced around her bridge, and she pitched her voice loud enough that everyone could hear.

“For now, we proceed on plan,” she told them. “Fall into formation on Alpha Squadron and move out to meet our tentacled friends. Responding to that
bullshit
is the Governing Council’s job.”

The Governing Council might not rule Earth—but its members commanded the Space Force. If they told Annette and her fellows to fight, they’d fight. If they told the United Earth Space Force to surrender…the Force would surrender.