Warpath (8 page)

“What happened here?”
Jake said, pointing at the third engagement on the map. A rogue
planetary body had drifted past the Rega Gain system, and a tiny
graphic of an explosion marked it as a combat encounter.

“Like I said, the
Warlord was swinging by that rogue planet, and we found a Regent
Galactic Cruiser hiding there. Me and two members of the Samurai
squadron were already out of the hangar, following behind the Warlord
to get our scans of the planet finished faster, and the cruiser came
at us firing. To us, it came out of nowhere, but Stephanie’s report
includes a scan that broke through the cruiser’s cloaking systems,
and it bolted the moment it realized it was detected. We didn’t
even know they were using cloaking until then.”

“What happened next?”

“I hid behind the
Warlord,” Minh-Chu said with a shrug. “I’m not proud to admit
it, but I ordered my squadron to scatter, the cruiser threw
everything at the fighters, I guess they thought they could get past
the Warlord, but the fighters could be a problem.”

“With the way your
wing has been loading your ships, I don’t blame them. You’ve
managed to turn Uriels into full on gunships.”

“Yeah, that’s a
necessary evil,” Minh-Chu said. “With our patrols spread out so
thin, even with a hundred eighty British Alliance ships out there at
all times, we’ve got to fill the high risk spots, so we take half
of what’s on the deck before we go. That’s what happens when a
big government like the British Alliance plans on putting a grand
frontier defence up and they fail right out of the gate.”

Jake activated the
recording of what happened to the cruiser in the last moments of the
engagement. “I’m guessing the cruiser’s decision to ignore the
Warlord was a mistake.”

“Oh yeah,” Minh-Chu
said. “Just play that section there.” He gestured towards the
graphic of the Warlord and the cruiser frozen in space. The Regent
Galactic Cruiser was trying to leave the planet’s orbit, its
engines and beam weapons firing brightly. The ship was only two
hundred eighty metres long, compared to a full sized destroyer, that
was small. It was still larger than the Warlord in the space it took
up, but it was half the Warlord’s mass. “What did they do here?”
Jake asked, pointing to the underbelly of the ship.

“They managed to fit
turrets firing high speed rounds into your mine launching positions.
They can be removed so you can launch mines too, but Captain Vega has
been sticking with her configuration since the Warlord was fixed by
the Solar Forge.”

“Is it working?”
Jake asked.

“For what we’re
doing out there? Absolutely. Watch, she ordered armour piercing
screwhead rounds this time.” Minh-Chu twitched his finger to the
right and the playback began.

The Warlord fired her
main weapons – the large railguns at the front of the ship and her
new pulse cannons mounted across the top. The railguns fired once,
partially bursting through the enemy ship’s shields and showering
the bridge with white-hot shrapnel. The pulse guns overloaded the
enemies’ shields, raking white beams of pure energy across their
invisible barriers. By the time the cruiser was alongside the
Warlord, the bottom half of Jake’s ship was turned towards it, and
those new turrets rained hard rounds down on the enemy ship’s hull,
breaking thrusters and compartments open.

“Surrender or die,”
Jake’s voice said as the guns stopped, the power levels of the
enemy ship dropped, and the Warlord took a position right above the
cruiser, making it obvious that they were getting ready to make the
kill.

“Yup, everything that
comes out of that ship while it’s in patrol sounds like you,”
Minh-Chu said. “Captain Vega’s orders. They even have a stand-in
who is your height and build wearing armour that looks exactly the
same. He boards and debarks from the ship whenever it’s with the
fleet.”

“I’m alive and well
everywhere except for in this room,” Jake said.

“That’s a dark way
to look at it,” Minh-Chu muttered.

The playback continued
with the cruiser signalling its surrender. The report summary said
that the Warlord latched onto it with the maxjack and hauled it all
the way back home, to Tamber orbit. Teams from the Triton stripped it
after the crew were placed in British Alliance custody, and the hull
was processed for raw materials by the Solar Forge.

“That was the last
cruiser that surrendered. The Warlord was forced to destroy the other
two. There wasn’t much to bring back.”

“They fought to the
last man,” Jake said.

“That’s exactly how
Frost put it,” Minh-Chu said, bringing the lights up to daylight
level in the room.

“So the Warlord is
doing fine without me,” Jake said.

“I wouldn’t put it
that way,” Minh-Chu said. “You are like the main gravitational
force in the middle of that ship. When you’re gone, things start
floating away. Alice left for the Rangers, Agameg and Finn have been
taking time to help with other parts of Triton Fleet, and other
officers from your bridge are sharing what they’ve learned from
close encounters with the Order and Regent Galactic. It’s not the
same ship, Jake. Sure, Steph is doing an incredible job. She tells
people she learned from the best instead of taking credit for
thinking past your style, but she can’t keep the crew together like
you can. She wants to see what you do with your ship next, not take
your place.”

“Maybe it’s time
for her to get her own command,” Jake said. “There’s this
destroyer we have, Warlord still has the claim, technically.”

“She won’t take it
unless you order her to,” Minh-Chu said. “Her and Frost are your
people, they don’t want to leave your ship. Now, if you took
command of the Barricade, they’d follow you in a second.”

“I didn’t even
think about that,” Jake said.

“Oz sure has,”
Minh-Chu said. “Just don’t tell him I told you.”

Jake was overwhelmed by
a sinking feeling when he thought about the bridge of that ship.
“No,” he said.

“You like the agility
of the Warlord, I get it,” Minh-Chu said. “You should still think
about it though.”

Jake thought about
commanding the ship and was filled with dread. “Chinese whispers,”
he muttered, not knowing where the words came from.

“Bad memories from
that bridge,” Minh-Chu said, nodding. “I think Oz will
understand.”

“What do you mean?”
Jake asked. “I don’t remember getting to the bridge, I’ve
thought about it, trying to get there, but I just remember the
hallway in the middle of the ship.”

The colour drained from
Minh-Chu’s face, he looked as though he was seeing a foe he could
not defeat or escape.

“What happened there?
Did I die there for a while or-“

“You murdered someone
there, Jake,” Minh-Chu said quietly. “You menaced a junior member
of the bridge staff in front of his mates when you couldn’t find
the captain and killed him to make a point.”

Jake immediately
gestured for the light in the room to be reduced and tried to call up
the records of combat aboard the Barricade’s bridge, but discovered
he was locked out of that file. “What? I don’t have access?”
Jake exclaimed. “Bring it up, Minh, I need to see what happened.”

Minh-Chu wordlessly
accessed the file. “I’m coming to terms with this, Jake.
Recruitment is down across the Order of Eden, especially on this side
of the Iron Head Nebula. You did this to show that you’ll give no
quarter to your enemy, to scare people off.”

“Play it,” Jake
said, “I need to know why I feel like the bridge of that ship is
the worst place I’ve ever been, and that I’ve done something I’ll
regret for the rest of my life.”

Minh-Chu stared at him
a moment, then nodded. The playback began. Jake had a young officer
in hand, and burned him with the heated end of his Violator Handgun
as a form of torture, to get his attention. “We’re going to play
a game – it’s called Chinese Whispers, only it’ll be a short
one.” His recorded self said to his young captive. The boy was
terrified, shaking, crying. The devil was at his back and there was
no promise of mercy.

Jake could feel his
heart racing, he didn’t remember any of what he was seeing, but
somehow knew it was true. “Don’t do it,” he whispered to the
recorded image of himself. The recorded Jake threatened his captives,
told them what would happen if the Captain or the codes for the ship
wasn’t revealed to him, then ordered the young officer to begin
counting.

A tear rolled down
Jake’s cheek as the countdown continued, and he flinched so hard
when the gun went off that he almost fell out of his seat. “No!”
Jake shouted, “that’s not me!”

He fell from his seat,
trying to remember that moment and failing in the midst of a
remorseful panic. “I can’t remember, that can’t be me!” he
cried. Minh-Chu was on the floor with him, picking him up in his
arms. Over his shoulder Jake caught a glimpse of his recorded self
taking a young woman up by her pony tail and said; “stop playback.”
The computer froze the image there.

“You killed the one,
the others survived and are in custody,” Minh-Chu said.

“How did I do that?”
Jake said, letting Minh-Chu hold him. “Why did I do that? I don’t
remember anything before that that could-“ his meeting with an
agent of the British Alliance returned to him. He was ordered to use
fear, intimidation, but he was not ordered to murder. That was the
way of the barbarian, the quick route that led your enemies to a
feeling of being justified in standing against you. That could not
have been his way, but he knew that it was for a while.

“That’s not me,”
Jake said. “You’ve got to know that’s not me now.”

“I know, old friend,”
Minh-Chu said. “I’m glad to have you back, you don’t know how
much.”

Governor Tate did not
know how Wheeler found an Echo Corp communications device, or how he
knew Clark Patterson, known as the Beast to most of his forces, had
one. He did not know how Wheeler got his hands on the Beast’s
schedule, or how he could predict where the primary Order of Eden
fleet would be next, but he had done that too.

If it weren’t for
Wheeler, the Governor would not be able to press a button and have
the immediate attention of the Overlord of the Order of Eden Fleet in
front of him holographically. “Governor Tate,” Overlord Clark
Patterson said. “I have been looking forward to meeting you, but I
did not expect you to find me through the Echo network. We only
captured the module two weeks ago.”

“My sources informed
me that you have one yesterday, it is a pleasure to finally address
you outside of my weekly reports. I am impressed with how you have
commanded the fleet since the coup, Overlord, but I didn’t go to
these lengths to contact you for praise alone, I’m afraid.”

“Thank you for
getting to the point, Governor,” the Beast said.

The holographic image
of his face was blurry, but that exoskeletal skull with its shifting,
scraping plates made Governor Tate’s skin crawl. “I am concerned
about the impending arrival of our High Priestess, as her people have
begun to call her, Eve. My branch of your military does not run on
faith like her coterie does, they are military trained and believe
that their service will improve their quality of life. This religious
zeal that she inspires, it seems fickle, dangerous. It even seems
difficult to direct.”

“She inspires
millions,” Clark Patterson said in defence of Eve. That was
unexpected.

“It all hinges on
her, and her ability to deliver immortality and paradise. I have
difficulty believing in her, and I can’t help but suppose that a
great number of her followers are sceptics who are going along for
the ride because they see little alternative at the moment. They’ll
break away the moment they see an opportunity.”

“You are one of the
wealthiest people in four sectors,” the Overlord said. “If I’m
not mistaken. Paradise is within your grasp, even though you have
responsibilities. How could you understand the struggle of people who
were stranded, accosted by the Holocaust Virus? You cannot. At the
same time I have to admit that you have a point, one that I’ve been
thinking about for a while. My own fleet is performing exceptionally
well without constant exposure to the religious side of the Order of
Eden. Their gratitude for a place in this wounded galaxy and the
camaraderie they feel towards each other keeps them in line. I
concede one point to her, however. The ideas of immortality and
paradise are intoxicating. I am in the process of founding my own
paradise world right now, and have made many of my soldiers immortal
by implanting them with framework technology and making them Knights
of the Order. These things are enough to motivate my soldiers like
nothing I’ve ever seen, even though a number of Order Knights have
been destroyed. They are hailed as great heroes and few question that
earning a place as a Knight is the best way to survive this war.”

“But that’s not
religious zeal,” the Governor pressed gently. “That’s
presenting your servicemen and women with rewards for improving
themselves, for proving themselves. I award my top people in similar
ways.”

“Ah, but not in our
ways,” Overlord Patterson said, “Paradise and immortality do not
have to be connected to religion any longer. Not when our control of
high technology can make us seem like Gods. We don’t have to call
ourselves Gods, just leaders, but the result is the same. They will
lay their lives at our feet. The difference is that we don’t try to
trick our people into thinking that we are somehow supernaturally
superior, or some chosen prophet.”

Wheeler had warned him
about getting too deep into a debate. The Governor was to befriend
the Beast, not argue with him, or try to change him. “You are
absolutely right, Grand Admiral. I find myself wondering if I should
follow your example in elevating some of my men to Order Knight
status.”