Warpath (29 page)

That only brought on
feigned sympathy, a hug, and an extended, “aw, poor thing,” from
Ayan. “Did you get any sleep?”

“The mattress in
there is more like a torture device, but yeah, I was out like a
light,” Jake replied. “We have a meeting. Did you sleep?”

“Better than I have
in months,” Ayan replied, pulling at the collar of her form-fitted
engineering blue uniform. “I busted myself down to the rank of
Captain and put myself in the position of Fleet Engineer, with my
father’s blessing. He’s taking over everything I was slated to do
as Commodore with his staff tomorrow.”

“That’s giving up a
lot,” Jake said. “I know you really enjoyed working on the ship
redesign with me last night, but are you sure you want to get clear
of everything associated with Tamber?”

“I’ve never been so
sure,” Ayan said. “I’ll have to spend time on different ships
though, I can’t just remain aboard one all the time, but I know
this is something I want to do. Overseeing the condition of Triton
Fleet and helping all the Chiefs keep their ships in shape is really
exciting. I honestly think this is where I can do the most good. You
don’t seem very happy for me.”

“Oh, no, I am, I’m
really happy, it sounds perfect, and I know everyone wants you in
that position. It just hurts to walk,” he replied.

“Good thing the War
Room is only three frames back from here,” Ayan said with a
chuckle.

Jake noticed that
Ayan’s command and control unit flashed and nodded at it, “What’s
that all about?” his flashed red then, and he looked at it.
PRIORITY LEVEL RED was written over the meeting he was already
trudging towards on his morning schedule. “Okay, something’s up.”

“That’s an alert
from the British,” Ayan said. “There’s no other information.”

The pair hurried down
the busy corridor, work on the ship was beginning under Frost’s
command already. There wasn’t much damage where they were, in the
upper decks of the aft section, so that was the area they were
finishing first.

Several skitters
carrying sealed replacement circuits and extra tools that didn’t
fit under their little silver domes rushed by along the wall. Triton
technicians, trained on Sol Defence technology lagged behind with a
cart carrying several EMP hardened oval computer nodes, a welcome
reminder that every computer aboard the Blessed Mission was being
replaced. The Triton sacrificed its entire store of spare parts so
the Blessed Mission could get a head start, but the computer nodes
would be replenished soon thanks to the secondary fabrication line on
the Solar Forge.

They entered the War
Room, which had a simple, thick round hatch with a Triton Fleet guard
standing to each side. “The locking systems in this section of the
ship are not functioning, Sir,” said one of them.

“All right, if anyone
else wants in, signal me first and I’ll tell you if they’re
cleared. Other than that, no one gets through that door,” Jake
said.

“Yes, Sir,” replied
the guard in heavy black armour.

The war room was far
more well furnished than Jake expected. The ten swivel seats at the
long table were heavily padded, and two short sofas at the rear were
deep and plush. He dared not sit down on either of those, at least
not while important things were happening. Holograms of Governor
Anderson and Oz were already standing at one end of the table. Ayan
took a seat at the other, while Jake sat down beside her with a sigh
of relief.

“He’s a little sore
today,” Ayan explained.

“The price we pay,”
Oz said. “Welcome to the human race.”

“A sign of old age,
Jake,” Admiral Anderson said. “Maybe it’s time for you to lock
your clock, stop aging while you’re in your prime.”

“Not a bad idea,”
Jake said. “But this has nothing to do with age, just muscles doing
what they’re not used to yet. So, why are we at red level?”

“Admiral Charon
elevated the urgency of the mission,” Governor Anderson said. “I’m
putting her through our encrypted channel now.”

“Good morning,
ladies, gentleman,” Admiral Charon said from where her hologram
appeared to the left of the table. All the holograms looked perfectly
real, and the sound was projected from each person’s perceived
location. It looked like all the attendees sat down with Jake and
Ayan. “I understand you have some business to get through before we
share our intelligence, thank you for letting me sit in,” she said.

“I’m surprised
you’re interested,” Jake replied as he projected his notes from
his command and control unit to the table top.

“Unlike the previous
Officer in charge of maintaining ties with your people, I have a real
interest. I believe Triton Fleet is a legitimate entity here, and can
have a significant impact on the sector, given the right support.
Now, please, go ahead.”

“Oz?” Jake said,
motioning for his friend to begin.

“There are three
major missions running from the Triton’s flight deck right now.
First, we are sending repair crews to the Norridge, Gambit’s Pledge
and the Fallen Star. Second, we are assisting the Rangers with rescue
operations near Kambis. Several ships were caught in the flash when
the planet was attacked. We estimate that there are over three
hundred small ships and escape pods in or near Kambis orbit. Thirdly
and lastly, our squadrons are coordinating with the British Alliance
in maintaining a patrol. Minh-Chu would be here, but he is leading
the first patrol with Samurai Squadron. Other than some light repairs
on the Triton which will wrap up this afternoon, and our continual
scanning of the area for more survivors, there’s nothing worth
reporting.”

Governor Anderson stood
and began his report. “The Rangers are doing everything they can on
the surface of Tamber to rescue people in remote areas that still
have no power, but we could use some assistance from the British
Alliance. With the removal of Kambis from our supply trade network,
we will have to look further for our supplies and step up our own
production. Three manufacturing grade fabricators are in need of
parts, we might be able to keep them going for another two days, but
after that we’ll be down to one materializing fabricator. I have
people in Haven Shore who are native to this sector trying to contact
potential suppliers from nearby solar systems so we can get trade
going quickly, but we don’t have the ships we need to transport the
amount of supplies we’ll need.”

“I may have some
contacts for you,” Jake said. “And I know of three shipping
companies that are against the Order of Eden. They’re small, but
they take trade as payment, and they can be trusted.”

“Thank you, I’ll
take you up on that,” Governor Anderson said. “Food is not going
to be a problem for Haven Shore and our military bases, our third
growing tower just finished delivering its first crop, but the rest
of Tamber is going to start running out in a week or less. Warlords
and gang bosses, the people who have taken control of most of the
cities on Tamber, don’t keep a large stockpile, and most of them
were trading with or stealing from Kambis. We’re in for a rough
time unless trade is made top priority after defence,” Governor
Anderson took a moment to look at another document and continued. “If
we manage to grow and import enough supplies, we may be able to take
people in as high crime areas run out of food. If not, those areas
will only get much worse.”

“Haven Shore, our
military bases, and the equipment we have are running well, but I’m
putting a hold on recruiting for now. It comes back to maintaining
our stockpile of food. We have a month’s worth in storage already
thanks to a bumper crop in the jungle, but we can’t sacrifice our
security to save people. As our stores grow, we’ll start bringing
more people in.”

“The Council was
eager to hear my plans this morning, that’s my next meeting. They
seemed more open to my leadership than before, so I expect relations
will be good, considering I’m putting their people first. With
regards to leadership, my daughter, Ayan has stepped down from her
rank as Commodore, and fully dedicated herself to the maintenance and
progress of Triton Fleet, as the new Fleet Engineer. There are other
details to operations on Tamber, but those are the highlights. I’m
submitting a report compiled by my staff detailing everything else
this week. Your turn, Jake, I hear the Blessed Mission is a busy ship
today.”

Jake was not looking
forward to his part in the meeting. He decided to get the grim news
out of the way first. “At oh-three-hundred hours last night, we
received an emergency signal from the Fallen Star, a Freeground
research ship delivered to us from former allies to Clark Patterson,
one of the Order of Eden leaders. We were the closest ship in the
area, so we dispatched the Clever Dream for a closer look. Emergency
boarding teams discovered that the ship had been damaged in Kambis’
flash. None of the crew noticed the damage because it took place in a
sealed, experimental system, which was inside the main lab’s vault.
All we know at this point is that this faster than light system may
have been overloaded, and it released something inside the ship that
killed all organic life instantly before powering down. All but one
of the issyrians who brought this ship to us were killed. We haven’t
been able to determine why so many issyrians were aboard. Two of
Doctor Messana’s medical team survived because they were sleeping
aboard the Triton, but the rest, and the Doctor herself are all dead.
A lab in which she was doing research we only found out about this
morning is still sealed, and there is a faint life sign inside. It is
a vault, so we can’t even tell you want kind of life it is other
than it has a pulse, and a human body temperature.”

“What kind of
research was she doing, if I’m permitted to know?” asked Admiral
Charon.

“Doctor Messana was
conducting research on framework technology using the first lab in
which it was developed. She was trying to find a way to safely
extract framework technology from any person. Her plan was to use a
different regeneration technology to replace the voids left behind by
the correct living tissue during the extraction.”

“I’m sorry, Captain
Valent. Your daughter has framework technology, as I understand it,
this must have been important to you.”

“I didn’t know she
was pursuing that line of research,” Jake said, keeping a stiff
upper lip. “But I think it will be important to us all, so I’m
sending a team of my best, most experienced officers with someone who
has had a great deal of experience aboard the Fallen Star to
investigate this morning. They will enter as soon as the Triton’s
cutting crew is finished getting through the airlock and determining
that all systems are down.”

“Please keep me in
the loop,” Admiral Charon said. “The British Alliance, and
British Security Forces will be very grateful for any information
regarding framework systems.”

“I will,” Jake
said, taking the full meaning of her words. There was a trade to be
had there. “Moving on, there isn’t much else going on with the
Blessed Mission. A full examination of her systems is under way. We
expect to be finished today, thanks to the Solar Forge. The refit
begins tomorrow, and continues for one more day before she gets
re-christened.”

“My turn, then,”
Admiral Charon said. “Recovery operations continue on the Order of
Eden ships that were wrecked during the battle. We are willing to
give you any ships that can be restored. We expect that you will have
one destroyer and the Blessed Mission’s sister ship in your
possession by the end of he week . We have captured nine enemy
combatants, twenty-four enemy service men and women, and killed three
Order Knights with no losses.”

“Thank you,” Oz
said. “With those ships we may really become a significant force in
the area.”

“You’re welcome,
Admiral McPatrick, and the British Alliance only wants your continued
cooperation in return. On to the next item, two more carrier fleets
are now en-route to the Rega Gain system. They will be here soon,
exactly when, and where they are coming from are details I cannot
reveal. Now, on to the matter of cooperation, the British Defence
Force is officially grateful to Captain Jacob Valent and his valiant
crew for his sacrifice in battle, and for turning the entire contents
of the computer systems of the Blessed Mission over to us for
analysis. We finished decrypting all of the files twenty-eight
minutes ago, and will share everything with you if you agree that the
possession of this data remains secret, accessible only to trusted
officers. We invite you to check the contents of the file system
against the raw file tables to make sure everything is there.”

“We will, thank you,”
Ayan said.

“Before I disclose
the nature of the information we recovered, I have to relay a message
from the British Alliance Central Command. They approve of our
alliance, but I’ve been asked to confirm that Captain Valent’s
new ship is following the same laws as the Triton.”

Considering that his
crew was about to swell past two thousand, he was a little
embarrassed that it wasn’t something he’d considered. “Yes,
we’re using the same ranking system, regulations and laws. We’re
all one fleet,” he replied. “I thought that was obvious.”

“I’m sorry, I just
needed it on record. Central Command is having me report back on your
conduct, it’s always like this with new allies. Now, on to the most
important discovery of this morning. The Order of Eden have
determined the location of Freeground Alpha, the central hub of
Freeground Station,” Admiral Charon pressed on, delivering the
information she had as quickly and as clearly as possible despite the
dropped jaws and gaping eyes at the table. “We determined, without
a doubt that Freeground Alpha was forced to abandon the rest of the
station because they were increasingly under attack by a force who
had been given an incentive to destroy Freeground by the Order of
Eden. Freeground Alpha and a fleet of ships escaped through a
wormhole that led them as close to the Rega Gain system as they could
manage. From the data we recovered we were able to determine their
approximate location, which is somewhere half way through the
coreward side of the Iron Head Nebula.”