Resolute Alliance (The War for Terra Book 6) Page 24

  “What the…?” Jakes said from behind Lee.

  “Sir,” Goldstein announced from the pilot’s chair. “We’ve got incoming M-space signals.”

  “The fleet?” Lee asked, involuntarily standing and looking at the big screen.

  “I think so. I’m getting Alliance transponders.”

  “It’s Zeus,” cried Farthing in an uncharacteristic show of emotion. “They’ve brought the Tonal, the Vadne … dozens of ships, sir.”

  “How many of the Gizzeen have crossed?” Admiral Chang asked calmly. “Did Dalton bring enough?”

  “We have forty Alliance vessels and eleven of the Gizzeen.”

  “It won’t be enough,” Chang said, again the eye of the storm.” Pearce, get the civilians and get out of here, fast.”

  “Admiral, with all due respect, it’s better than four to one out there,” Lee replied, looking at the holo-display around him. “When Zeus launches fighters it’s going to be all over for the Gizzeen. We can help.”

  “You can help by evacuating these refugees to a safe place. You have no idea the firepower these ships carry and how brutal their history is.”

  “Sir,” Farthing said, regaining his composure but shooting down his crest. “I have a hail from Captain Dalton.”

  “I hope he’s not going to say I’m under arrest again,” Lee said with a grin. “Give me a split screen and put him on the left.”

  “Franklin Dalton’s dark face replaced the scene outside on one side of the screen. He was sweating and Lee could see the ship rumbling around him. A quick check of the heads-up showed Zeus had already come under fire from the Gizzeen ships and was launching fighters. The man looked confident and in command, but the sheen of perspiration on his face revealed the lie.

  “Pearce,” Dalton began. “Get these people out of here and get them out fast. I’m under orders to cover your escape and rendezvous at rally point alpha.”

  “Orders from who?” Lee asked. “Dalton, we’re coming in to help.”

  “Captain Pearce, if you approach our position, I will re-task my ship to destroy you. By the looks of it, you aren’t going to be much help anyway. You have your orders, now go!”

  The image snapped off, leaving Lee staring at a scene of carnage. The Gizzeen ships had resolved into long, organic-looking vessels with massive firepower. Lee was reminded of a crustacean with a flexible tail which had armor plates over a living body. As he watched, two Tonal ships were ripped apart by thin streaks of blue energy. Zeus’ fighters were not faring well either. As they approached the ships, projections of energy lashed out and tore the little ships apart. Shields seemed to be useless against the exotic power of the alien ships, and Lee felt helplessness rise in him again.

  “Josh,” ordered Lee. “Send out a signal to the civilian armada. We’re getting out of here now. Admiral, I assume you know rally point alpha?”

  “Right back where we started, Captain,” Chang said, stepping into the command well and pressing the controls on the pilot’s station. “We know where they can’t come through and that’s where we’re going—the dead space where we waited during the war for you to signal.”

  “Alright then. You heard the man,” Lee ordered. “Let’s get these people out of here. Relay those coordinates and start moving out.”

  Lee watched as the refugee ships began to open M-space portals. One by one, the ships moved out of sight into the blue-brown swirls of color. In the end, he slaved the navigational system of Mars into his own and opened a large portal. As they moved into the open maw of the portal, Lee swiveled his heads-up around to watch the carnage behind them. Zeus was taking heavy damage; plumes of bright orange plasma fire were jetting into space. At least ten ships of the Alliance fleet were already destroyed under the Gizzeen attack. The enemy, however, appeared unharmed by the efforts of the Alliance. One massive hit by the blue energy seemed to ripple plasma energy along the port flank of Zeus just before the view was obscured and Resolute moved into M-space.

  He hoped the sacrifice was worth it.

  29

  Lee’s father held no answers for him now. The placid face was frozen in the same expression he’d held when his son had last visited. Lee’s expressions of love for Alice, his revelations of doubt, his confessions of rage, were lost on the man as he rested in the stasis tube. Lee had come down here while the ship was in M-space because he had nowhere else to go. It was impossible to know if the other ships were still following, except for Mars, whose telemetry still dutifully obeyed Resolute’s navigational commands. The rest of the refugee fleet was surrounded by liquid spheres of energy, blending with the surrounding miasma of M-space. He had come down here to be alone for the first time in a long while. As expected, it didn’t last.

  “Captain Pearce,” Ronald Chang said as the door opened. “I’m sorry to interrupt. I thought we might talk now.”

  Lee was sitting on the floor with his back pressed against the steel legs of the stasis tube. He had been staring at the floor, trying to determine what the next move would be when they arrived. As soon as the ship was clear, Lee had left the bridge without speaking to anyone. His ship was in pieces and he had to see the damage firsthand. Booth had filled him in and given him an estimated repair time of weeks, unless they could get to an Alliance facility. Since then, he had been roaming the halls, visiting sickbay and the injured and avoiding the conversation he was about to have.

  “Come in, Ron.”

  “Lee, I never had a real chance to say how—”

  “If you’re about to tell me how sorry you are, save it,” Lee spat back, pushing away from the table and standing to look at the admiral. “You set this whole thing up, didn’t you?”

  “Lee, you have to understand what I was doing was for the best and—”

  “Don’t give me that greater good bullshit, Ron. I want you to tell me the truth once and for all,” Lee said, advancing on the older man with menace. “You sent us out here on a wild goose chase to find what? Data you already had? Did you make us a target so we would lead the Alliance to the Ixloab? Why, Ron?”

  “During the war, the Engineers came to me and told me about the Gizzeen. I had to do something to get the galaxy ready, Lee,” Chang said, backing away from Lee’s fury. “I never meant for this to get to you. It was supposed to be Liberty, but—”

  Did they tell you in prison?” Lee said, now inches from Chang’s face. “Did they tell you what they did to the Ixloab? Those people weren’t a threat to the Alliance, Admiral. They were fanatical, but no threat. Why did they have to die?”

  “The Gizzeen represented the threat, Lee, and I needed to get rid of anything which might break up the Alliance and give them a—”

  Lee grabbed Chang by his lapels and pulled the man up from the floor. Chang made no sound, but the look of fear Lee saw was enough. He shoved the admiral back against the wall, hard. Chang’s head hit the metal bulkhead and the man shook his head.

  “You sentenced these people to death to make the Alliance stronger?” Lee said. “That wasn’t what we fought for, Ron. We were supposed to make the Alliance a place for the races of the galaxy to be free. That kind of thinking isn’t freedom. It’s fascism.”

  “Lee, sometimes you have to make a decision to sacrifice in order to win,” Chang replied. “The plan wasn’t to destroy them, only minimize them. Any dissent needed to be controlled so when the Gizzeen crossed over we would be unified against a common enemy.”

  Lee looked into the admiral’s eyes. The last time he had been this close to the man, he had been drunk and apologizing for the bombing and for the loss of Everett. A realization swept over Lee. It was the thought he hadn’t allowed himself during the entire mission, but in the face of Chang’s explanation he needed to hear the truth. He turned, dragging Chang with him as he moved to the coffin. As his father’s face came into view, Lee lifted Chang up and pressed the man’s face to the clear glass.

  “Did you kill my father?” Lee said, pressing hard on Chang’s shoulders
and making him look. “Did you order the death of those people?”

  “Lee, I—”

  “No more lies! Tell me the truth, Ron. Did you plant the bomb at the Peace Conference on Vadne in order to frame the separatists?”

  “It wasn’t supposed to be you, Lee—”

  “Tell me,” Lee said, turning the man and looking into his face. “Did you kill my father?”

  Chang looked back at Lee, a thin trickle of blood flowing from his nose. Nestled in Lee’s peripheral vision was his father’s face, peaceful despite the war going on around him. Chang tried to take a breath and coughed, but Lee refused to let him up. Instead of letting him answer, Lee threw the man to the floor. Chang landed on his hands and knees, coughing spittle and blood. He turned and sat down, looking up at Lee with a pitiable expression.

  “I’m sorry, Lee,” Chang said. “You weren’t supposed to be there.”

  “What?” Lee asked, trying to make sense of the comment. “I was receiving an award from the Alliance I believed in, Ron. Tell me what you mean.”

  “You were late, Lee,” Chang said, wiping the blood from his nose. “You were supposed to be out of that room with your father and Alice and the rest. The whole thing was supposed to have been over, but you were late.”

  The revelation stunned Lee. He had expected the admission of guilt … but not … this. Chang looked back with a steady gaze, daring Lee to act. They had been late to the conference. Had they arrived on time, they would have been gone when the bomb went off. Chang’s confession that the mission was supposed to have been Trinity’s rang true in his ears as he stared back.

  “No,” Lee said softly. “You will not blame me for my father’s death, you bastard. This whole thing—all those deaths—is on your head. You could have shared this information with the whole Alliance, but instead you kept it to yourself. You could have had all of us ready, but instead you hid the Gizzeen under a veil of national security.”

  “I didn’t want to, Lee. I was under orders to—”

  “Under orders? You were the head of the Alliance Combined Military Services, Ron. Who could give you orders?”

  “There’s one person on my data list you haven’t figured out, isn’t there?” Chang said, pushing off from the ground to stand and face Lee. “You still haven’t figured out who Bugs is?”

  “Cut it out and just tell me, Admiral,” Lee said. “I’m more in the mood to lock you in an airlock than play these games anymore.”

  “The chancellor.”

  It made sense. Lee had been looking for a military man who could command the operation, but he had kept running into Chang being the highest ranking man. With him in prison, the chancellor would have been the one to order the attack on the Ixloab. He would have controlled the flow of information to the press, he would have been responsible for ordering the arrival of Zeus at Jupiter. Lee realized he had been complicit in the deception. After the explosion, he had gone to see if the chancellor was alright. The explosion had given cover to the man in the end, had made him seem less of a target and more of a victim. The whole scheme defied logic, but made sense.

  Lee’s thoughts were interrupted by a signal from Farthing. He stepped past the admiral and pressed a hand to the panel. When he looked back, he saw Chang’s head bow as he approached the casket.

  “What is it?” Lee asked the panel.

  “We’re translating out of M-space, Captain. We’ve monitored several breaches ahead of us. It looks like the armada made it.”

  “I’ll be on the bridge in a minute. Pearce out.”

  He slapped the panel, ending the transmission. Chang was standing near the casket now, bowing his head and whispering quietly. He pressed the panel and the door opened. Lee waved a guard into the room and told him to wait. When he turned back, Chang had ceased his prayer and turned back to face the captain, his expression neutral despite the blood smeared below his nose. Lee stepped closer.

  “Ronald Chang,” Lee said to his friend. “You are under arrest for high crimes against humanity and the Alliance. Take him to the brig.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  The guard moved to take Chang’s arm. Chang shrugged away the man’s hand and stepped to Lee. As he opened his mouth to speak, another signal from the panel cut him off. Lee held up a hand and stayed the guard before pressing the comm panel again.

  “Yes?”

  “Captain, translation was successful but…”

  “What is it, Commander?”

  “The Ch’Tauk are here. They have the fleet surrounded and are requesting communication with the admiral.”

  A thin, cold finger of dread stabbed down Lee’s back. He looked to Chang, whose expression had returned to being in control rather than custody.

  “What have you done?”

  Epilogue

  Earth

  The woman looked up to the sky. There were no stars anymore. She was not looking for a light in the sky; for she knew there would be none, and the lights she did see would likely bring death. She had lived too long under the threat of death from invasion and knew better to hope for rescue from above. She wasn’t even sure whether it was day or night out there. She only knew longing and pain as she looked up.

  A hand passed over her abdomen. She was starting to show and she missed her husband. During the war, he had come to her like a miracle from above and she had seduced him with the violence and passion of her need. Now he was out there somewhere and she was alone again. All she had was the love he shared and the child they had made between them. It would be enough until he returned, and she knew he would return. He had promised and he had never broken a promise to her. If whatever had created the blue mud that crossed the sky stood in his way, she pitied it. That is what she now believed in.

  “Get back here, you old fool,” was all she had to say to the sky. “I thought I would never need anyone, but I need you. We need you.”

  The sky refused to answer.

  The Saga of the Battleship Resolute will continue in…

  Resolute Strike

  Look for it December-January

  Authors Note

  So it ended; what happened?

  Alright, I would like to acknowledge a mistake here. AS I was finishing Resolute Victory, I had an idea for how to expand the Resolute universe. My original ending would have been final. Lots of death and depression. I just couldn’t do that. We had been through so much together. I started looking for a way out. I had set up the ending that you saw in the book a while back so I went with it. It was not the exciting end I had originally written but it was good. By that time, I was entering a period where I wanted to get rid of some of the silliness of the earlier books and needed to exhaust myself of it. I wrote the Adventures of Connor Jakes to help me regain some perspective on the series and blow out some of the sci-fi adventure silliness I had always stuffed into my books. Don’t get me wrong, it is a wonderful book and there will be more, but I wanted to write an homage to the 1940’s pulp novels and that’s what I did, and it is goof.

  The thing is, I finished Connor Jakes and I had been writing continuously for twelve months and wanted to take a break. I sent it to the editor and went to bed hoping to take a few weeks off. I woke up at 4 a.m. with an idea and sat down immediately to write it. I pounded out 5 chapters that weekend. I couldn’t stop until writers block hit. I slowed down but didn’t stop. What you hold in your hand is the result. A renewal of the series and a chance to write some more serious military science fiction. Alliance is a more tightly plotted book that stays within the boundaries of the Resolute saga and opens it up to more adventures to come. I am working on some book or another as you read this. The next book in the series is Resolute Strike which is turning out much darker than I expected. If it is out, read it. If not, wait for it. I hope you all have fun reading these as I have had writing them.

  James

  Acknowledgements

  I wanted to say thank you to a few people who helped get the whole saga on its feet. Most of them p
robably don’t know they were involved so this will likely be a bit of a surprise for them.

  First and foremost to my editor; I brought Resolute Command to you when it was already out there and selling but it had issues. You made it better. Please, folks, don’t blame Lee, he was polishing as fast as he could and many hundreds of copies were sold without his tender care. Since then, he has given me advice and made my books better. Thank you.

  To my students; I wouldn’t let you know what these books were but you kept asking and searching until you found them. You are all my inspiration to keep going despite everything we have gone through together.

  To Walter Holsonger; you and I used to sit on the hood of your car and look at the stars and watch rockets go. You created the character that was the inspiration for Farthing and the whole darn Vadne race.

  To my friends from high school who used to run around in the woods and hit me with sticks. Alright, that might not sound right but you know exactly what I’m talking about. Without that, I probably would have never gone outside. Most of you have gone on to serve in one way or another and for that I thank you as well.

  I have dedicated these books to my father, mother and wife (twice), but not to my dear sister. Don’t give up hope, someday, I’ll come around. In any case, thank you for being my sister and giving the world my lovely niece.

  To Becky for all the encouragement and the whole gang at the library…ahem…media center. If not for you, the kids wouldn’t even know there were books there.