Chapter 120

Admiral Dyson was livid when I opened negotiations. I wasn’t sure why he hadn’t stationed any of his fleets out here to protect the gas mining platform. My best guess was he didn’t have enough loyal crews to spare. Things didn’t go much better when I requested the admiral send the seven men and women we had identified in exchange for not destroying the gas mining platform. Knowing this negotiation would not go my way until the approaching stealth corvette was revealed, I launched both of our fighters while the admiral continued ranting. My fighters went dark and moved to engage the corvette.

The admiral couldn’t stop screaming and making demands, so I cut communications and had the fighters engage. I was surprised when I found Zoe was piloting one of the fighters. Well, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. They managed to disable the primary engine without destroying the vessel, which was limping slowly back toward the planet. Zoe was probably one of the best fighter pilots in all of human space. I know the psych evaluation performed on her by Doc indicated she was prone to risk her life because she didn’t value it. She had little self-worth and valued her comrades’ lives more. Doc said she was slowly getting better and had restored her reproductive capabilities, which were suppressed by the Union Navy. Doc thought once she had a child, she would think of herself more positively, valuing herself.

With the admiral’s sneak attack thwarted again, I opened comms. I found I was now talking with an older woman in a Union commander’s uniform. Her name was Commander Adriana Jaques. Personally, I thought they should have abandoned the Union uniforms. They were way too gaudy, and the Union was scattered and recognized as weak in human space.

At least the woman was more reasonable than the admiral. She said she was identifying the people we were seeking and hoped to have them on a transport in six hours. Over the next four fours, Suruchi and Abby worked out the exchange of the men and women in exchange for our withdrawal from the gas refinery. All seven of these people would be under quarantine and vetted thoroughly once on board the Void Phoenix. Four were related to my current crew, and the other three were vouched for by members of the crew. It would take a few months before they would be allowed to work unsupervised, but I did need more crew, especially if I took the Squirrel up on the offer for a cruiser when we returned to this region of space.

Julie was still tied into their communications and security systems as the six-hour timer ticked to zero. No transport shuttle departed the station. Julie confirmed Adriana was playing us straight from what video she could access. Admiral Dyson, on the other hand, was meeting with his captains and fighter pilots. Their plan was to launch 36 fighters, nine wings of four fighters each. These fighters were to create a hidden envelope on our likely retreat vector to subspace. They, for some reason, thought they could stop us. The admiral was not willing to let us go on our way peacefully. They hid the launch of the fighters from the carrier behind the planet.

When the transport was due to launch, they announced a delay. They couldn’t find one of the people we requested. Our sensors clearly showed they had eight people waiting in eight separate rooms on the large ship-station. Julie confirmed seven of those people were the people we were seeking. The eighth person was also identified by Julie, it was Commander Jaques’ daughter. I set Julie and Edmund to sort out the politics of the station. Why was the commander’s daughter queued with our requested crew?

I examined the plan for the fighters theJulie had obtained. The fighters were going to take nearly two days on a cold coast to reach positions, so I was curious how they were going to stall us for that long. Those pilots would be stuck in those single-seat fighter crafts for that long approach. The answer to how they planned to delay us was clear three hours past the expected departure time of the shuttle and our fourth inquiry.

The admiral came back to the holotank with a smug expression. He professed they found the missing person, but they were being held on criminal charges. The admiral expected the paperwork would take a day or two to clear up. When I asked him to send the shuttle with the other six, he said he didn’t want to waste the fuel making two trips. I cut comms and asked for suggestions from my staff.

Julie said she could keep all communications with the fighters from being sent by the fleet. She was into all communication systems remotely now. Edmund said Admiral Dyson was in a power struggle with Commander Jaques. The internal communication among the Union personnel showed about a 50-50 split in support. So if either of them made to oust the other, it would cause a breakout of fighting. Also, the original colony had some dormant cells of resistance. The colony tried a few times to fight back before going into hiding about a year ago. Edmund described the whole situation as a powder keg.

Abby wanted to intervene. She wanted to send two shuttles with marines and oust the admiral and lend our support to the commander. The commander wanted to work with the original colonists, while the admiral wanted to rule them. I told Abby the Void Phoenix was not in the business of saving the universe. She retorted, asking just what business we were in then. I started to speak but couldn’t come up with a good answer, so I kept my mouth shut.

Edmund supported Abby by saying he had uncovered numerous heavy-handed tactics the admiral had used to remain in power. The admiral had consolidated his loyal men on the large station and pushed all the suspect naval personnel down on the planet. Francis added a surprise by saying the admiral was the uncle of Asher Dyson. From his last name, I had assumed he was related to my old enemy—now that brought back memories. Asher Dyson was the boy who had made my life miserable at the naval academy. I had caught up to Asher on a prison planet when saving Abby and freed him, only to deposit him on a Sapphire world with no funds. Freeing him was a compromise for having Francis join our crew, as Asher and his crew had been terrorizing the other captured Union prisoners.

Francis didn’t want me to kill Asher. Francis’ rigid moral code had slowly eroded during his time on board the Void Phoenix. It had to do with his constant interaction with Edmund, my Brotherhood agent. Being exposed on a daily basis to the workings of the Brotherhood had shown him the seediest nature of humanity. Edmund and Francis had gone through thousands of Brotherhood documents. I was sent the highlights of the most relevant things they had found. The Brotherhoood had orchestrated the downfall of the Union because it had become too weak due to the corporate control of the state. I believed this as I had seen firsthand how poor the Union Navy was educated and how cheap the technology was on the warships.

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I didn’t realize my crew was a democracy. I thought for a while and said we would be rescuing the seven people we had identified. Too many things could go wrong with the transfer, and I didn’t trust the admiral. We would also take the eighth person because I was guessing that was the admiral’s leverage on the commander. This got everyone working on the plan.

We would be sending our Brotherhood shuttles with marines. They would be attacking the large station’s engineering sections to disable the shields and weapons. This was to make sure the Brotherhood shuttles could safely escape. The Void Phoenix was going to abandon the gas mining station but Julie was going to add a sensor ghost on the Union Prime’s monitors so they would think we were still guarding the platform. The Void Phoenix would move in close to pick up the shuttles.

If everything went according to plan, Julie would initiate a communications blackout. Our shuttles would land and disable the station and recover the eight targets in twenty-two minutes. No fighters would launch while the shuttles stealthed to rendezvous with the Void Phoenix. Then we would move out of the system under stealth. Secondary objectives were the death of the admiral and the Union data drive. The data drive was not connected to the net Julie had infiltrated but it had information on the rest of the Union fleet. With it, we would have a road map and times where the fleet was headed.

I thought we might be getting a little cocky in trusting the power of our new combat suits, but we had run so many VR sims with even more difficult scenarios the confidence was well placed. Maybe we would travel around and save the galaxy.

The Brotherhood shuttles launched eighty-seven minutes later with almost all our marines. I watched from the bridge and was surprised at how chipper they all were going into battle. Apparently, the Tirani were extremely funny as the human and Squirrel marines kept laughing at something they were saying or doing. I asked Abby at her station, who was monitoring comms. The Tirani males and females were both joking about how much better at sex the bots were than the real thing.

The shuttles were on a seven-hour hard burn. An hour after the shuttles launched the Void Phoenix left the gas station. The thirty-seven civilians on the station were locked in a storage compartment with a thirty-hour lock. The sensor ghost was working, according to Julie.

By shadowing the shuttles we reduced comm lag and were able to send them data with our sensors with minimal delay. The problem they were going to have was disabling the primary and backup power systems. I didn’t like having the Marines divide into teams of five but it was the only way they were going to be able to cover everything.

Thirty seconds after docking the marines made contact, and the main bridge screen was awash with dozens of suit cams as the battle started raging. Each member of the bridge crew had their own team to monitor. I focused on team Zeta. Team Zeta had two Tirani, two humans and a Squirrel scout. They were to make their way to the primary command bridge and retrieve the data archives for the station. I watched as they cut down responding marines and listended to their banter as they moved rapidly. Having the complete ship schematic was extremely helpful as their HUDs guided them.

A heavy drop-down ceiling turret ripped into the lead Tirani. The Tirani was knocked down and his companions toggled their own weapons to heavy fire and melted the turret to slag. Elvis was already scanning the ship and updating HUDs with hidden turrets now that he knew what to look for. I checked the readings on the Tirani suit, not great, but he could still move. The human commander of the squad asked for orders. I told her to have the female Tirani return to the evac waypoint. She would only slow them down.

The Tirani voiced an objection but was already following orders heading to the evac site. She promised to clear a path for her comrades. My remaining four marines moved forward and encountered heavy resistance, and I authorized explosive shells. My team was two minutes behind schedule. I didn’t care about excessive damage.

I heard Nero yell for his team to retreat and flipped to team Gamma. The defending marines were aiming heavy tank weapons down the corridor. Three of Nero’s team were injured. Team Gamma was to secure the flight bay and make sure no fighters could launch. Abby was already sending two other teams to deal with the problem.

I returned to my team, and they destroyed the bridge blast doors. It was taking too long and Admiral Dyson was exiting the bridge. Damn it, he was going to get away. The doors came down, and my team located the archives, tore them out, wrapped it in a protective box to be carried by the remaining Tirani. Elvis was tracking the admiral, but I told him not to bother. He needed to focus on getting all our teams off the station. We had a dozen injured, two seriously.

Team Alpha and Beta had secured the eight targets and were already on board their shuttle. Elias said gunhips were coming from the orbiting fleet. Shit, a quicker response than anticipated. Julie apologized. A crew member had set off exterior explosions on the hull, so the comm blackout didn’t work.

I hit the red alert. All teams were to retreat in haste. We had only hit 48 of 79 targets, but if those gunships got a visual on our shuttles, they would be destroyed. Their stealth would kick in once they got ten clicks from the station. It was very tense for the next eight minutes before everyone was aboard, and the shuttles were launched. It was another 70 seconds before Julie confirmed the shuttles were not spotted. A few turrets on the station fired wildly into space, but they had guessed the completely wrong direction.

I waited and watched a swarm of gunships and fighters launch in a search pattern as they made a fruitless effort to find us. Elvis said the thirty-six fighters sent to stop us were making a hard burn for the gas facility. I had Julie drop the ghost. I didn’t want the fighters to attack the gas refinery and kill the civilians.

I turned to the post-action injury report. The worst injury was a Squirrel who had lost a leg. If he had been wearing the heavier Badger armor instead of the Geko suit, he would have been fine. At least he was alive and could recover. We didn’t have the facility to replace his limb as all our regenerative facilities were for humans, but I was sure Doc could get him a cybernetic until we returned to Squirrel space.

I remained on the bridge as the Void Phoenix moved out of the system. Just before we were about to enter subspace, I commed the station. I was hoping it would be the commander who answered, but it was the admiral. We had removed about one-third of his loyal marines on the station, so I expected him to lose control. I didn’t want to listen to his tirade, so I kept coming to the station until the Commander answered. I told her we had taken her daughter, and she was safe, and we would be taking her back to human space eventually. The massive grin that came on the older woman’s face told me the dominos were about to fall.

We entered subsapce, heading for the Prometheus system. I told the crew all clear, and the party could begin.