Battlespace (The Stars Aflame Book 1) Read online

  He took a deep drink of the glass of vodka sitting on the bar, draining the last dregs away, then gestured for the bartender to set up another. He looked out of the window, snow falling in sheets outside, and contemplated sitting out the storm right here, rather than braving the streets to the two-credit hotel the network had booked him into. Irkutsk was a dire town at the best of times, and this was far from the best of times. A flash of light swept outside, a car pulling up, and he turned back to the screen, barely able to stomach watching himself on display.

  The bartender poured him a full measure of vodka, correctly guessing his mood, and he tossed a credit chit onto the counter with a nod. Before he could take another drink, the doors slid open, a pulse of cold air sweeping into the room, and he glanced across with surprise to see two people walking into the bar, both wearing the dress uniform of the Commonwealth Navy. One with the gold braid of an Admiral’s aide, and the other a face he’d once known all too well.

  “You’re too late,” he said. “Happy hour ended ages ago.” Raising his glass, he said, “Though I’ll be happy to buy you a drink, Admiral. Anyone desperate enough to walk the streets at this hour must need one.” He smiled, shook his head, and said, “Five years, right? I remember it well. You fired me.”

  “That was then,” Admiral Katherine Singh replied. “This is now. I’ll take that drink.”

  “On me,” Scott said, tossing another credit chit onto the bar. “I warn you. This is the worst stuff in town. I think Sergei brews it out of old socks and potato skins.”

  “You wish I could afford potato skins,” the bartender replied with a chuckle, pouring two more glasses of vodka. Scott smiled as he saw the look the aide gave the brimming glass, but Singh took it to her lips without a pause.

  “Nostrovia,” she said, taking a sip.

  “Your Russian’s no better than it ever was,” Scott said. “Cheers, though.”

  “Cheers,” she replied.

  “Now, Admiral, what is all of this about? Have I finally managed to antagonize the politicians sufficiently that they decided to send you down to silence me? It’s not going to work.” He paused, then said, “Though given that the primary audience for today’s interview consisted of people who couldn’t be bothered to change the channel, that seems rather unlikely.”

  “Don’t underrate yourself,” she said. “You’re still held in surprisingly high esteem, especially in the fleet. The man who fought the Three Week War, pretty much single handed. Your book’s still required reading at the Academy.”

  “I still say they’d be better with some Raymond Chandler.” Shaking his head, he said, “You didn’t come out here to pitch me a book deal. What’s all this about?”

  “Can we talk in private?” she asked.

  “Like any good bartender, Sergei and I have no secrets from each other.”

  Turning to Sergei, Singh asked, “Do you have a private booth we can use?”

  “In the back, with a security screen,” Sergei replied. “You want some snacks?”

  “That won’t be necessary. Close the bar.”

  “What?”

  “Close the bar. The Navy will cover your losses for tonight, and then some.”

  Sergei glanced at Scott, who replied, “One thing you can count on, old friend, is that she’ll keep her side of a bargain. No matter which devil she makes it with.” He walked over to the booth, taking the couch for himself, drink in hand, and Singh sat opposite, careful to avoid the stains left by the last occupant, looking Scott square in the face.

  “Mike…”

  “Five years, Kat. Five years without a word.”

  “You didn’t exactly leave me much choice. Setting yourself up as an opponent of the Navy…”

  “What Navy would that be, exactly? A dozen cruisers flying around the outer rim? The real Navy’s in mothballs out at UV Ceti, and most of your best officers and men are scattered all across space, probably propping up bars of their own on half-pay. You betrayed everything we stood for, and you expected me to just go along with it like a good soldier.”

  “I fought, didn’t I?”

  “Hard enough to get you an Admiral’s star. Are you enjoying it?”

  “Not especially,” she replied. Taking a deep breath, she said, “We need you back, Mike.”

  “You’re joking. What possible reason could you give me for going back on active duty?”

  “Two weeks ago, Cybertronics lost contact with their research station on Chi Draconis. They sent one of their ships to investigate, with a couple of our people on board as observers, and that ship went missing as well. No signal, no sign of trouble, nothing. I was putting together a task force here at Sol, getting Monitor and a couple of others ready to go out and take a look.” She took a deep swig of her drink, and said, “Damn it, Mike, I reckon I need this more than you do.”

  “Go easy on that stuff. It’s pretty damned strong.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “All those plans got thrown out when we lost contact with the research station at Ross 248, Gagarin Station. They had enough time to send out a distress signal, so we sent the closest ship to investigate. Vanguard, Captain Wallace commanding.”

  “Bob Wallace?” Scott said, eyes widening. “Someone gave Bob Wallace a command? Christ, you really are scraping the bottom of the barrel these days, aren’t you.” He paused, then said, “Go on.”

  “I’m forced to agree with your assessment of his command abilities. As far as we can tell, Vanguard was lost with all hands within a few moments of entering the system. The telemetry we got suggests that it was destroyed by some sort of devastating super-weapon, a pulsar cannon hundreds of times more powerful than anything we know.” She pulled out a datapad, placing it on the table between them, and said, “You know Boreas?”

  “Ice world.”

  “Not anymore.” She tapped a display, and an image of a volcanic world, rent with flaming craters and pools of lava appeared. “That’s what it looks like today, and all signs of life have been extinguished. Just wiped clean. Burned away.”

  Scott’s mouth dropped, and he said, “Tell me this is some sort of bad joke.”

  “Ten thousand people are dead, Mike. They died on our watch. I don’t find that funny.”

  “Your watch.”

  Raising her hands, she said, “Fine, yes, my watch. My responsibility. You’ve had your pound of flesh. In fact, you’ve had a damn sight more than that.” She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and said, “That’s why we need you back. I’m recalling everyone I can find, and I’m trying to get the battle fleet back into operation.”

  “With no notice, no warning, and no time,” Scott replied.

  “Theoretically, I should be able to get the ships back to full operational condition within a few days.” She cracked a smile, and added, “We weren’t quite asleep at the wheel, despite what you kept claiming. Our engineering teams have kept those ships as close to combat ready as we could. Four days. Four days, and I can have the fleet functional again, even if I have to man them with skeleton crews.”

  “And you want me to help?” he replied. “Damn it, Kat, it’s been five years since I stood on the bridge of a starship. Do you really think that I’m the right man for the job?”

  “You’re the only commander I’ve got with combat experience. Hell, we haven’t fought a real war for generations. I need someone who knows what battle is like and knows how to win. That’s you. Whether you realize it or not.” She paused, then said, “Technically, under the Emergency Powers Act, I can just recall you. I don’t need your permission. And I know you well enough to know that if I put you on the bridge of a ship, you’ll give your very best and then some.”

  Scott sighed, then said, “How many people know about this?”

  “We’ve locked down all interstellar communications. The cover story is a systems failure at the Triton Relay. I don’t know how long that’s going to hold, but I suspect that it doesn’t have to last for very long. Not given the circumstances. If that
ship can move as fast as one of ours, it might be in Earth orbit in less than a week.” With a sigh, she said, “We just don’t know enough about what we’re dealing with, Mike. Vanguard died before it could send us only the most rudimentary sensor data.”

  “I have a horrible feeling that I know where this is going.” With a smile, he said, “Let me put the pieces together. Just for the sake of practice, if nothing else. You want me to go out there and take a look. A reconnaissance in force, to gather the information you’re going to need if you are to stand a chance against whatever it is you are facing out there, as well as to buy you time to get the fleet together.”

  “Not bad,” Singh replied. “Not bad at all.” Leaning forward, she said, “We both know that there’s only one man in the fleet who stands even a chance of pulling off a mission like that, and I’m looking at him right now. I wouldn’t be here talking to you unless the crisis was so grave that I didn’t have a choice. I reckon you already know that much.”

  “I figured that,” he said. “It’s not as though you and I parted on the best of terms.” Folding his hands together, he added, “Granted that you could force me into this, I still have some non-negotiable demands before I consider accepting this assignment.”

  “I can’t work miracles, but I’m listening.”

  “I want my ship back.”

  “Oddly enough, I instructed the engineering teams to prioritize Leonidas. She should be back at full operational status within eighteen hours. I’ve got a shuttle waiting at the local spaceport, and a transit transport on standby in orbit. You can be at UV Ceti in plenty of time.”

  “I haven’t finished. I want as many members of my old crew as you can manage in the time. I appreciate that you’ve got only a short window of opportunity, but nevertheless, I want my own people. Rochford, Garcia and Santoro at the very least. As well as anyone they recommend for their departments. I’ll let you pick the rest yourself.”

  “I’ll see what I can do. No promises, but I’ll see what I can do.”

  “One more stipulation, and you really aren’t going to like this one.”

  “I’m still listening, Mike.”

  “I’m in charge of my mission. I don’t want a herd of paper-pushers and bureaucrats second-guessing my every move. You’ve told me what you want me to do. I’ll work out how best to do it myself. No hidden agents reporting back, no interruptions to talk to the President every five minutes. I’m in command. Master and commander under God. Or I stay home.”

  She paused, then said, “The Ministry of State wants to send an Ambassador with you.” Before he could protest, she continued, “There’s still the very real chance that there has been some sort of terrible misunderstanding. Given the odds, we’ve got to explore any possible opportunity to end this without further bloodshed. She’ll be accompanying you on this mission.”

  Scott frowned, then said, “What I said still goes. I’ll take some passengers along for the ride, as long as it is made quite clear to them that I am in command, and that my authority overrides theirs. And I want this Ambassador to have the absolute minimum staff. Keep it light. Again, I don’t want to spend all my time trying to herd a gang of civilians in the middle of a war zone.”

  “I’ll have to talk to the Minister, but given the circumstances…”

  “Given that you intend to use the fact that you’ve sent the best-known combat commander in the Navy out to face the aliens as soon as the news breaks, neither of you really have that much choice, do you?”

  “When you put it that way, I suppose we don’t.” She paused, then asked, “Am I that obvious?”

  “You’re more politician than officer these days, Kat. Which is a shame, because you used to be a damned good officer, back when that actually meant something. Do we have a deal?”

  “The Ambassador and a single aide. Will that suffice?”

  “That should be fine,” he replied. “Just make it quite clear that I’m in charge, and don’t forget that yourself, either.” Sliding his glass across the table, he said, “One for the road?”

  “Why not,” she said. “Tell me something. If I’d turned down your stipulations, made you go on a ship of my choice with a crew of my choice, what would you have done?”

  Taking a deep breath, he replied, “I swore an oath to defend the enemies of the Commonwealth from all enemies, external and internal. That still means something to me, and as far as I am concerned, I have never broken that oath, nor do I ever intend to. I’d have gone on the mission if you’d given me a broken shuttle and a cadet and told me to walk to Ross 248.” He smiled, then added, “This way, though, I might actually make it back in once piece.” Waving at the bar, he said, “Let’s break out the good vodka, huh? It might be the last chance.”

  “Why not,” she replied. “You haven’t changed, have you.”

  “Not a bit, thank God.”

  “I’ll drink to that.”

  Chapter 2

  The escape pod drifted through the tumbling asteroid, still and silent, only a single emergency light illuminating the cramped confines of the cabin. After a while, Novak had risked turning on the life support systems, but had kept the power levels to a minimum. That they had not yet been destroyed by the alien ship was proof that her plan was working, but she was scrambling to work out what to do next. She wasn’t even sure that Vanguard had sent a distress signal at all, and given the likely consequences of another ship entering the system, she almost hoped they hadn’t.

  Cunningham leaned over the sensor controls, the passive detectors looking for any sign of life, none evident anywhere in the system. If any other escape pods had managed to get away, then they were almost certainly doing the same as they were, hiding and waiting for a miracle to save them. She looked across at the lifesystems monitor, tapping a control to bring up a readout. A hundred and nine hours of life support remaining. They might be able to stretch that a little with care and rationing, but there hardly seemed to be any point. Not when they had no realistic hope of rescue.

  In her daydreams, Novak had often wondered about her first command, about the challenges it would pose. Never had she thought that it would consist of two people in an escape pod, tumbling helplessly through space, knowing that certain death was waiting for them at every turn. They didn’t even have a sidearm with them. Captain Wallace had restricted them from carrying weapons as part of the uniform, and there’d been no time to hit the armory before they’d fled the ship.

  She caught another glimpse of the remnants of Vanguard, slowly drifting through the void, nothing but a tangled mass of debris. She’d have thought there was nothing her ship couldn’t handle, but the alien ship had wiped them out in less than a minute. She caught herself, then frowned. First Contact hadn’t exactly gone as they had hoped, either. No welcoming arms of friendship, no invitation to join the Galactic Federation. Instead, the aliens had arrived with genocide on their minds.

  There seemed no other explanation for what they had done to Boreas. Reducing a world to volcanic wasteland simply to eradicate all traces of humanity was extreme, to say the least. They’d only had a few scattered research outposts, studying a biosphere that had itself been eradicated, burned away to the bedrock. Perhaps life might have survived, clinging to some unimaginable refugium, but it would take untold millions of years for it to regain its former glory. It had been a beautiful world, a jewel in the darkness. One more lost dream.

  “Lieutenant,” Cunningham said, “I think I’ve got something interesting. I just picked up a distress signal, but it was on tightbeam, directed right at us. Nobody else could have heard it.” He paused, then said, “That couldn’t come from an escape pod. We don’t have the equipment. Someone must have managed to get clear in a shuttle.”

  “Where?” Novak asked.

  “About eight thousand miles away, on the surface of one of the larger asteroids. It’d be a good place to hide, as well. Lots of craters, ravines, and the alien ship is nowhere close.” He looked at the thruster control
s, and said, “I think we could make it.”

  “Can you land this thing?”

  He shrugged, and replied, “It’s micro-gravity, ma’am. Don’t think of it as landing, think of it as docking, and I’m pretty sure I can bring the ship down in one piece. If there is someone down there, then they must have access to supplies, power, life support. Even if they just managed to take a shuttle, that would give them the means to survive for a lot longer than us.” He paused, then said, “We don’t know how long that alien ship will stay, ma’am, but it’ll leave sooner or later, and when it does, we might just be able to make it to a wormhole.”

  “Keep your thruster burns to a minimum. We don’t want to draw any attention. Not just for our sake, either, but for the sake of whoever’s down there. I doubt they’d thank us for bringing the wrath of that ship out there down upon them.”

  With the first smile she’d seen since the destruction of Vanguard, Cunningham replied, “Aye, aye, ma’am. Initiating first burn.” He reached for the controls, firing a short pulse from the thrusters, sending the pod tumbling towards the asteroid. With one eye on the scanners, watching for any sign of life from the alien ship, he fired again, then again, each burn giving them greater speed, pushing them onto an intercept course for the asteroid.

  While Cunningham worked, Novak checked the scanners, looking over the readouts coming from the surface, then checked the database for any information on the asteroids below. Boreas had been settled for long enough that most of the larger asteroids had been visited at some point, but the information on their target was surprisingly sketchy, just a report of a long-ago visit by an automated probe that reported nothing of interest. No follow-up survey, no mineralogical report. There might not have been anything worth shipping back to Earth, but it was rare that a station wouldn’t attempt to supplement its resource base with a little local mining, and there were always wildcat prospectors eager to find any buried treasure.