Aggressor (Strike Commander Book 3) Read online

   “It's not possible...” she said.

   “You can keep the datapad. Consider it bedtime reading. On it is our assessment of your father's activities for the last few years, the official and unofficial versions. I suppose it is only fair that you have a chance to get to know him, even at this late date.” He paused, and said, “If you choose to help us, then you will still have a chance to serve the Confederation.”

   “You killed John,” she replied, looking up with hatred in her eyes.

   “All of those wearing the uniform know the moment they enlist that they might be called upon to sacrifice their lives. That doesn't always mean a glorious death on the battlefield. Though I must confess he didn't end badly. He was trying to save your life.” The smile returned to his lips, and he added, “As did the two Triplanetary Intelligence operatives who were shadowing you. Now I wonder what they were doing there, and what someone like yourself was doing in a place like the Two For One. Making contact with someone, perhaps? Maybe Cadet Clarke was involved as well. A pity we won't get to question him.”

   “There's nothing going on,” she protested. “None of this is true. You're making all of this up to trick me!” Her voice rose, and she said, “I don't know anything about your paranoid fantasies!”

   Shaking his head, he said, “I'm having serious trouble believing you, Cadet. There is far more at stake here than you can possibly imagine, and if you think I'll allow a spoiled brat to get in the way of our mission, you have another think coming.” He tapped a control, and the door slid open, a black-uniformed guard standing in the threshold. “Take her back to her cell. She needs to grow up a little, and I don't think she's going to do that here.”

   She looked back at him defiantly, and replied, “I'll never help you. Never.”

   “Read the information on the datapad,” he said. “We will talk again tomorrow. I hope by then you will have changed your attitude.” With a sigh, he added, “There are other methods I can use to learn what you know, but I don't think you will find them particularly pleasant.” Gesturing to the guard, he said, “Take her.”

   “Yes, sir,” the man said, and Susan rose from her chair, walking out of the room, her head hung low. For the last three days it had been the same trip, down the corridor, turning twice, a long passage until she finally reached her cell. She'd memorized the route, every turning, and managed quick glances away when the guard wasn't looking. Aside from the interrogator and the guard, she'd seen no one else in the facility since she had arrived.

   Everything was new, fresh, polished, no sign of any wear at all. Wherever she was, it was new. Not that she'd seen anything of it. She'd woken up in a cell on a transport, a pile of emergency rations dumped in a corner, and had been left alone until they'd arrived here, three days ago. Then an escort down the corridor, and the daily interrogations, the questioning growing fiercer every time.

   Turning down the familiar passage, they came to the same nondescript door, and she stepped inside, the usual stack of rations waiting for her, sufficient to last her until the next scheduled session. She paused at the door for a moment, and the guard gave her a quick push to move her inside, the door slamming shut behind her.

   She looked down at the datapad in her shaking hands, and started to scroll through the data, tears forming in her eyes as she followed her father's service record, from his first days of training through to the final court-martial. During the War, it was a litany of praise, littered with commendations for his performance in battle, one promotion after another as he sped through the ranks to command his squadron, a role he held for three years, one of the youngest to ever attain the post.

   Then the Armistice, and everything had fallen away, glowing records reduced to curt complaints, a portrait of a fallen man. Until finally the last report, that of his court-martial, a hearing at which he had instantly admitted his guilt, and offered no defense, despite the efforts of several of the officers present to encourage him to give them grounds for mitigation. The file ended with his dishonorable discharge, a notation that he was unfit for further combat duty.

   Finally another, smaller file, listed as Top Secret and yet open for her to view, acclaiming him as a Lieutenant-Captain in the Triplanetary Fleet, commanding squadron based on a carrier, the Churchill, a name she didn't recognize from the official registries, with summaries of recent combat actions. She looked down at the new file image of her father, trying to reconcile it with her few memories of those days, long-suppressed thoughts of the past bubbling to life once again.

   Her mother's file, familiar to her until the latest entries, only a few months old, listing her promotion to Lieutenant-Captain, her new assignment to command the ship on which her father was serving. She'd had letters from her as recently as a month ago, none of which had so much as mentioned a change of assignment, still less that she'd earned three combat stars, all with command certifications. The greatest goal of her career, and she hadn't seen fit to tell her daughter.

   The words of the interrogator burned into her, ripping through her soul. Had the last fourteen years of her life been a lie, had her mother deceived her all of this time? She'd grown up to hate the memory of her father, to despise him. Were those thoughts false?

   Tears flowed freely from her eyes, despite her knowledge that her interrogator was almost certainly watching, approving of what she was going through, plotting and planning to turn it to his advantage. She looked down at her shoulder, the tiny cadet insignia attached to her uniform. Another lie. Something else she had done because it was expected of her, the daughter of two glorious heroes of the War, following in their blazing trails to the stars.

   Reaching up, she ripped the insignia free, tossing them to the floor, one of them bouncing and coming to rest by the door. At least she could bring that lie to an end, if nothing more than that. She looked around the cell, fury on her face, and hurled the datapad at the wall, watching it with satisfaction as it smashed into a thousand pieces on the hard surface.

   For what seemed like an age, she stared at the shattered device, the fragments of the display glittering in the ceiling lights, the lies it contained now unreadable. Taking a deep breath, she rose to her feet, walking to the door, her mind growing clearer once again. With an effort, she struggled to compose herself, trying to force her emotions back.

   It had been eight days since she had been captured, and her captors had spent most of them asking her questions, not designed to provide them with any information, but to break her, to twist her to their will, to make her see the world her way. There was no way she could escape, not with the monitoring devices everywhere. Nowhere to run.

  Chapter 6

   The light from the cut fiberoptic cable flickered, and Clarke gulped to hold back his nausea as the freighter emerged from hendecaspace. He looked up at Blake, crouched on the far side of their hiding place, who frowned as she saw the ashen look on his face.

   “You all right?”

   “I don't like dimensional transfer.”

   “You get starsick?” she replied, shaking her head. “A Cadet in the Triplanetary Fleet, and you get nausea every time your ship travels to another star?”

   “It's not that bad,” he said. “Not as long as I can take something first.” Taking a deep breath, he added, “Time for us to get moving, I think.”

   “We don't even know where we are.”

   “And I only know one way to find out.” Stretching his cramped muscles, he pushed aside the pile of empty food wrappers, a combination of the contents of Blake's pockets and the product of a raid on the cargo bay, and gently lifted one of the tiles above him, peering into the gloom, waiting for a sign that they had been spotted. He counted to twenty, then eased his way up into the corridor, rolling out onto the floor and looking from side to side.

   The freighter's engines began to fire, a soft purr to guide the ship into orbit around their destination, and he pulled himself to his feet as Blake eme
rged from their cocoon, following him as he made his way down the corridor. She hurried up beside him at a half-jog, her eyes darting from shadow to shadow.

   “Where are we going?”

   “To find a shuttle,” he replied. “If we're in a friendly system, we can use its communicator to call for help. If not, the sensors might tell us something.” He turned with a smile, then said, “It'll work. I got excellent marks as a shuttle pilot.”

   “That's something, at least.”

   “On the simulator, anyway.”

   She closed her eyes, shook her head, and said, “You've never actually flown a shuttle for real, have you.”

   “The training programs are extremely realistic. This way.”

   The pair scampered down the corridor, twisting and turning as they made their way to the main levels of the ship. The bullet wound on Clarke's side was still troubling him, though the pain had reduced to an ever-present irritation, a constant urge to scratch at the wound. As if she could read his mind, Blake shook her head.

   “Leave it alone.”

   “I wasn't going to touch it.”

   “Damn right you aren't.” She slid to the front, and said, “Let me lead. I've spent more time on ships like this than you have.”

   “You promised there was a story there.”

   “Maybe someday I'll trust you enough to tell you about it.”

   A siren sounded from the overhead speaker, briefly freezing the two of them in place, frantically looking around to see who had discovered them, but it died as rapidly as it began, and they looked at each other, Clarke wiping the sweat from his forehead with a greasy hand. Blake reached up to a ceiling hatch, tugging it free and climbing the ladder that dropped to the floor, hand over hand into the darkness above. With one last look at the corridor, Clarke followed, the rungs sticky to the touch, chemical stains running down the sides of the shaft.

   “This ship hasn't got many jumps left in it,” he said. “They're not maintaining it properly.”

   “The lifesystem...”

   “Ordered by someone else, but the crew aren't doing their part of keeping this ship running.” He paused, then said, “That could work out to our advantage.”

   “Optimist,” she replied, pushing open the hatch and climbing into the corridor above. “All clear, but move fast.”

   “No argument here,” he said, pulling himself up. At last there was some signage on the walls to guide their way, and by a miracle, one of them indicated the route to the shuttle dock.

   Shaking her head, she asked, “How are we going to sneak in?”

   “We're not.”

   “What?”

   With a smile, he turned down the corridor, and said, “The crew will spot a stranger in a second, and we don't have the equipment or time for stealth. So we're just going to have to use speed instead.”

   “Speed?” She grabbed his arm, bringing him to a stop, and said, “Your grand plan is to run onto the hangar deck, climb into a shuttle, and fly off into the wild black yonder?”

   “Basically, yes.” Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out his pistol, and said, “This might be involved as well, depending on what we find.”

   “You know something?” she said.

   “What?”

   “I'm beginning to believe you might not be an intelligence agent after all.”

   “I did warn you.”

   The two of them sprinted down the corridor, racing past a startled technician walking out of a room, who paused just long enough for them to get out of sight before alarms began to sound all around them, echoing around the walls. Ahead of them, a blast door started to drop from the ceiling, and the pair dropped and rolled underneath with a second to spare, Clarke reaching back to tug Blake to her feet as they turned to the hangar deck, the door mercifully open.

   A pair of guards were waiting, standing beside one of the shuttles, but before they could react, Clarke fired first, a pair of shots slamming into them, the first collapsing to the deck with blood running down his leg, the other toppling back, a hole dead center in his forehead, his eyes rolling back as he fell. Clarke watched the man die, his eyes widening, mouth dropping open.

   “I killed him,” he said.

   Blake turned to him, and replied, “That happens when you shoot someone, Cadet.”

   “I killed him,” he repeated, voice blank. “I...”

   “And you can worry about it later! Come on, we've got to move!” She tugged at his arm, dragging him towards the shuttle, his eyes still locked on the corpse on the deck, the wails of the wounded man drowning out the drone of the klaxon still sounding from the ceiling. Pushing him through the airlock, she reached around to seal the hatch behind them, throwing a bank of switches to deactivate the exterior controls.

   Clarke's head jerked back, and he said, “He's dead.”

   “We'll be joining him if we don't get a move on!” Blake yelled. “Come on, Cadet, damn it!”

   He nodded, then moved into the cockpit, sliding into the pilot's couch and bringing the systems on-line, periodically glancing back out at the hangar bay, the dead guard just in view at the extreme edge of the screen.

   “I've never...” he said. He gulped, then continued, “I've never killed someone before. And I didn't even think about it. I just fired, and he dropped. As though I was on the firing range.” He looked at her, eyes wide, and said, “I just killed a man.”

   Blake put her hand on his shoulder, and said, “You did what you had to do.” Looking up at the view, she added, “Company coming. If you're going to do something, you've got to do it now.”

   He glanced at the swarm of guards storming in, then turned to the communications console, playing up and down the frequencies, an occasional voice fighting through the roar of static from the speakers. His breath began to quicken, and he tried to concentrate on the panel, fighting to keep his focus.

   “Hold it together, Cadet,” she said.

   “Yeah,” he replied. He looked out of the viewscreen again, watched as the injured man was carried away, the dead guard still left where he lay, blood splattered on the floor. Suddenly, he felt ill, bile running into his throat, and he felt a sharp jab in his arm.

   “Mild mood stabilizer,” Blake said, putting the hypodermic back into her pocket, the brief flash of the sterilization cycle filling the air. “Might even be legal out here.”

   Shaking his head, he looked up at the sensor display. “Here we go. Wow.”

   “What's that?” she asked, her eyes fixed on the image at the heart of the screen.

   “The largest space station I've ever seen. That's got to be fifty miles across.” He frowned, then said, “My God.”

   “Now what?”

   “That's a Gilgamesh-class Battlecruiser hanging behind it. Theseus, I think.” Turning to her, he said, “Try and contact them, but I have a feeling they aren't here to help. I'm also picking up a fighter squadron on a sentry orbit.”

   “Options?”

   “I'm working on it.” He reached down to a control, and said, “If I'm doing this right, then they can see what I'm doing but they can't stop us.”

   “What are you doing?”

   “Powering up the main engines. We've got to get out of here.” He looked up at the guards again, eyes wide, and added, “If I ever doubted there was a conspiracy, that's all gone.”

   Blake turned, watching as a trio of men started to assemble a tripod, bringing a large cylinder up to drop into position.

   “That's a plasma cannon,” Clarke said. “Definitely not civilian. Try and find me a headset.”

   “Here,” she said, sliding it into position.

   “This is Shuttle One to whoever is monitoring this frequency. Come in.”

   A sharp voice replied, “Open the doors and we won't kill you.”

   “By now you'll have seen that I've powered up the main engines. Open the elev
ator airlock and release the shuttle.”

   “No.”

   Trying to force a hard tone, he replied, “I'm firing the engines in sixty seconds whether I'm still in the hangar or not. I think you've got a good idea what that will do to your ship. You can't get that cannon charged in the time.”

   “You're bluffing.”

   “In fifty-eight seconds you'll get to find that out.” He ripped off the headset, tossing to the side, and looked at Blake, his face pale. “I can't...”

   “Stay focused,” she said, clutching his arm. “The odds are lousy as it is. Don't make them worse.”

   He nodded, and said, “Engines to one-half power, start-up cycle complete, disabling auto-navigation system,” working through the checklist to keep his mind focused on the task at hand, while she watched with a growing frown as he fumbled at the controls.

   “I thought you said the simulators were accurate.”

   “They were.” His face reddened, and he added, “Though they weren't for this type of shuttle. I think I know what most of the controls do.”

   “You think!”

   A loud noise rumbled from the deck, and he looked down to see the lower hatch opening, the elevator airlock dropping them through the double hatches. Over to the left, he could see the guards abandoning the cannon, making their way to a second shuttle, waiting for launch.

   “We're not safe yet,” he said, reaching up to what he hoped was the lateral thruster control. “They'll come after us, maybe try and shoot us down.” He gestured to a panel, and said, “See what the electronic warfare package is like.”

   She glanced across, then turned back at him with a withering stare, replying, “That's the environmental systems control. This is a civilian shuttle, Cadet! Why would it have electronic warfare systems, and how the hell would I know what to do with them if it did!”

   “Sorry, I guess I've got used to you being the smart one.” With a jolt, the shuttle was tossed clear of the ship, and he ran the engines up to full power, the kick of acceleration pressing him back in the couch. “Hang on. This could be interesting. We're going to make for the station.” He reached across to a control on the copilot's console, disabling the autopilot and placing the ship on manual control.