Resolute Victory (The War for Terra) Page 6

  The video feed cut out and Lee was left looking at an empty projector wall. Farthing quickly switched the projection to a tactical view of the surrounding space. Lee could make out four Vadne ships, each roughly the same size as Resolute, closing on the Terran Hope. He turned back to his comm officer.

  “Farthing, open a channel to Ortiz,” Lee ordered.

  “Acknowledged, hailing the Hope,” Farthing replied. “I am getting audio feed only, sir. They seem to be busy. The captain has opened up the line between himself and the Vadne fleet.”

  “…repeating hail. This is the Alliance vessel Terran Hope requesting emergency clearance for orbit of Vadne. Please respond.”

  Lee was surprised to hear Kama Yu’s voice echoing from the bridge speakers. The Japanese woman had been the voice of Perigee station for the last three years. She had originally been the communications officer for the Terran Hope when the ship was a cruise vessel. That she was now back on board the Hope was not a good sign for the Alliance.

  “Terran Hope, this is Vadne Central Command,” the voice of the brindle ambassador responded to Kama’s dulcet tones with anger. “You are to stand down and prepare to be boarded. You are in violation of Vadne controlled space and will be fired upon if you do not comply.”

  “Vadne Command, we will comply,” responded Kama. “We are registering a full stop. I repeat: we are an unarmed transport vessel evacuating refugees from Perigee station. We are requesting asylum and refuge for our passengers and crew.”

  “Lieutenant,” Lee ordered, turning to Josh Goldstein. “Can you get us somewhere where we can get to them if they need help?”

  Lee was looking at the tactical readout projected on the screen. Two of the ships flanking Resolute had turned and moved away to cover the Hope. That left Resolute staring across space at the command ship and two more of the Vadne battleships. There was a small opening if they dropped below the plane of engagement, but the move would have to be made quickly and without warning if it was to succeed. Josh plotted the course and projected it on the screen. It took only a few moments, though, for the Vadne ships to redeploy and cover even that escape.

  “How the hell did they know?” Lee muttered.

  “Captain,” Farthing announced. “I am receiving a hail from the Terran Hope. It’s Captain Ortiz.”

  “On my screen,” Lee ordered.

  The signal resolved into an image of Alfredo Ortiz. The man had developed new lines around his eyes and mouth, but still retained the easy smile that Lee remembered. He could just make out the clear wall that separated the main bridge from the captain’s office in back. Ortiz was seated in his command chair overseeing the operation of the former cruise ship. It made Lee happy to see his friend back on the bridge of his ship. He had missed speaking to him during his term in prison.

  “Lee, stand down,” Ortiz said across the signal. “I’ve got this under control.”

  “Captain, we can maneuver to assist,” Lee said, glancing at Goldstein, who was shaking his head.

  “Don’t,” Ortiz responded. “This is all how it’s supposed to be, Lee. Stand down and back off.”

  The signal cut out again and Lee was left speechless. The octopod gurgled a noncommittal sound that usually meant confusion, while Lee looked around his bridge. He felt helpless and unable to act. After so long a break from action, he had been ready for a fight, and now that had been denied him.

  “Captain, new contact bearing one-four mark sixteen,” announced the octopod at tactical. “It just appeared there, sir. No entry point.”

  “Where did it come from?” Lee asked, looking to Goldstein and Stowe. “It couldn’t have just appeared out of nowhere?”

  “No sir,” relied Stowe, tapping keys to bring the big display around to face the object. “It’s been there all along. It’s small, like debris, and we didn’t detect it until it powered up and started moving away.”

  “Can you magnify?” Lee asked. “Is it one of ours?”

  The image began to expand. The object was very small, not much bigger than an escape pod and moving fast right to left. As the image began to clarify, Lee recognized the familiar insect-like shape of a Ch’Tauk vessel. He had not seen one that small before, but his experience was limited to fighters and capital ships. If the ship was a reconnaissance vessel, it made some sense to make it small and fast.

  “Alert the Vadne!” Lee ordered. “Let them see it.”

  “They are already moving to intercept, sir,” Goldstein said, ending a projection to Lee’s chair that showed ship movements.

  The tactical display outlined the Ch’Tauk ship in gold to distinguish it from orbital debris. The Vadne ships were moving around to intercept, but the little ship was speeding away from the planet too fast. It was apparent they would not catch the recon ship in time for it to clear the area and open an M-space portal. More ships raced from the far side of the planet, but it was too late. The blue-brown swirl of a small exit blossomed into view and the ship was gone.

  “Damn!” Lee exclaimed as the portal closed. “Why didn’t they see it sooner?”

  “Captain,” Farthing said calmly from his station. “We are receiving a hail from the Vadne command ship that I think may explain the situation.”

  Lee looked to his first officer. Since his “resurrection,” he had noticed Farthing was acting strangely when asked for information. He had assumed it had something to do with the medication that Reeves had given him on the station, but now it seemed there was far more to it.

  “Put it on the big screen,” Lee ordered. “I want to hear this.”

  The image snapped back to show the brindle ambassador looking back at Lee. His crest was raised and a wisp of pure white fur could be seen behind his ears. Lee had only seen that particular color fur once before. He glanced back at his first officer again with a suspicious tilt. The other man stared impassively back at him.

  “Captain Pearce,” the ambassador said. “I would like to apologize. We have been aware of the presence of the recon ship for a few days. The Ch’Tauk have been monitoring communications and incoming vessels for any sign of Alliance activity.”

  “Wait one moment, Ambassador,” Lee exclaimed, standing from his chair. “You mean you knew they were there all along and didn’t tell us?”

  “It was necessary, Captain Pearce,” the felinoid replied. “And you are free to call me Sterling. I am not an ambassador, but I am pleased that you thought my deception was effective.”

  “Captain, the Hope is hailing,” announced Farthing. “I will split screen.”

  The face of Captain Ortiz returned to the screen, sharing the tight projection with Sterling. The older man looked uncomfortable. Lee stared at his friend until the man looked away.

  “What in the hell is going on?”

  “I’m sorry, Captain Pearce,” Sterling said again. “We received a signal from your Admiral Chang almost twenty hours ago. He needed to distract the Ch’Tauk by giving the impression that the Alliance was falling apart.”

  “Ron had to convince the Ch’Tauk that we were weak and disbanding the only strength we had,” Ortiz added, looking back at Lee. “Your arrival was timed carefully so that it would look like you were our advance escort and we were being rejected by the Vadne.”

  “But you announced the evacuation of Perigee over an open channel,” Lee said, staring down Ortiz. This time the other man did not look away. “They know where we are, Alfredo.”

  “That part was not meant as a ruse, Captain Pearce,” Sterling answered. “The Alliance is evacuating the station. The Hope is the first ship to arrive.”

  “Why are you evacuating Perigee?” Lee asked Ortiz. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “For the last few months, Chang has been fighting a battle to distract the Ch’Tauk,” Ortiz replied. “If we can keep them busy running all over the galaxy looking for us, they aren’t concentrating on Earth.”

  The pieces began to fall into place for Lee. Melaina had said that a signal had been sent t
o Earth to let the teams know the counter-invasion had begun. If Chang had been keeping the fleet busy running the Ch’Tauk ragged, then the enemy would be less likely to be watching their prize. Lee didn’t like being played as bait by the Vadne, but at least he began to understand the scheme.

  “Just one thing, Captain Ortiz,” Lee began. “Why us? I mean, the Ch’Tauk know this ship. If they come looking for us, the Vadne are in danger too.”

  “Admiral Chang thought adding Resolute to the mix might make the Ch’Tauk careless and willing to attack the Vadne.”

  “They would not dare attack our world, Captain,” Sterling added. “Our fleet can defend this system from an attack force, and the Ch’Tauk no longer have an invasion force capable of taking this planet.”

  “With all due respect, Sterling,” Lee protested. “I think the danger was too high to you and your people. I don’t like being used as bait on the admiral’s hook if I am not at least told I’m the worm.”

  “Lee, there was another reason for asking you here,” Ortiz interjected. “We might want to talk in private, though.”

  “There’s nothing I can’t share with my crew, Captain. We’ve been through too much together,” Lee replied.

  “The Vadne Intelligence Command has recently acquired images from a Ch’Tauk detention camp,” Sterling said, taking the attention from Ortiz. “The admiral thought you would want to receive them personally.”

  “We are receiving data from the Vadne ship, sir,” Farthing said, tapping keys. “I can send it to your chair.”

  “No,” Lee said. “Put it on the main viewer.”

  As the still images snapped into focus, Lee nearly fell back into his seat. The bridge crew turned to look at their captain, stunned at the projected image. Lee fought to control his breathing as he struggled to comprehend what he was seeing.

  “The camp was being moved, and that allowed us to take these images,” Sterling added. “As soon as we identified the prisoners, we sent the data to Admiral Chang.”

  Lee stared at the grainy holograph. The grainy image brought feelings to the surface he had almost forgotten. He had always believed her to be alive but to actually see her was startling. Bruised, dirty, and thin, the woman was looking straight at the camera when the image was taken. Her deep eyes and pale skin were as familiar to Lee as his own. She had been tortured and starved, but the eyes that stared back were as strong as ever, and bored into Lee’s soul with their intensity to survive.

  “Alice…”

  7

  Ch’Tauk Prison Facility

  The woman had forgotten her name. In the octagonal cage she was being held in, she never heard another human voice. It had been so long since she had felt the warmth of another body, heard another human voice, that she had almost forgotten what a human looked like. There were no mirrors in the cell, only a sheet of metal between two angles, and a basin that served as both toilet and bath. There were no doors, and no way out but up.

  In her first week in the cell, she tried to figure out how the Ch’Tauk could control gravity with such precision that they could raise and lower a prisoner up the five meter cell without releasing all of them. After that week, she gave up after realizing she was probably the only prisoner in these hive-like cells. After four weeks, she gave up caring about looking upwards at the feet of her jailers. The cell door was a clear plexi sheet that taunted her with a dim light.

  It was the third cell of its type she could remember being dropped into. This one, she felt, was on board a ship in space. Since she had so little else to concentrate on, she felt the walls and floor when she could, trying to understand the small world she lived in. Gauging the speed at which the ship was moving based on the subtle vibrations of the deck had become like a game to her. The ship was in M-space, she was sure. The smoothness of the ride and the strange, liquid flow of the vibrations told her that much.

  She tried lying down on the slim plank of steel that was her bed. In the two meter space she lived in, the fat piece of metal was the only comfort she could take. It extended from one angle, across another and into the wall at a third. She could not lay out flat on the plank. She was forced to curl into a fetal position on her right side to sleep. She had once tried to stand on the plank and find purchase to climb out of the cell, but that too defeated her.

  A flash of memory lanced across her vision. It was a man. A human male looked back at her with such passion it made her tear up against the hard, cool metal. The human male was shorter than her by a few centimeters, so she could see him from an angle looking down. His eyes were dark, as was his short hair. He had a long, slightly-curved nose which gave his face a hawkish appearance.

  “Not a hawk,” a voice whispered in her ear. “A silver eagle…”

  An explosion of images flashed across her mind. She was in a ship in space, but not the prison. She was flying a sleek ship with silver wings and the number two painted on the side. A red devil stared back from under the nose of the fighter craft and she remembered pride. She was proud of her talents in that ship. Once, she had been not much more than a mechanic on a civilian ship. In this vehicle, though, she was a warrior. There was a fight, and she was in the middle of it. Her ship bobbed and struck against the insect enemy that swarmed around her.

  There was a massive vessel in front of her, like a banded chrysalis from some evil moth. The ship was killing her friends and attacking the man she loved. There were voices in her ear, telling her to turn back and leave the fighting to larger ships, but she could not hear them anymore. Her friends were in danger and only she had the power to save them.

  In the cell, her hands played over the hard metal of the bed, tapping invisible controls to turn the ship hard and accelerate. Her legs jerked in spasms, controlling a rudder that had been destroyed months before. She was awake, but dreaming. It was all she had left.

  A voice floated to her from the dream. “You still owe me an answer.”

  An answer was what she had been looking for out on the battlefield. She wanted the enemy to answer for the death and destruction they had inflicted on her people. She wanted the whole galaxy to answer for what it had done to her and to someone else.

  The eyes of the man stared out at her from the dream. He had lost so much, but then hadn’t she as well? Her mother had been taken from her years ago, and her father soon after; the suicide of the man she thought was the right one, and then him. Those dark eyes stared back at her from the fiery battle in space. She wanted to fly into them, to flee to him for safety.

  A bright flash of red-orange energy crackled across her vision. The image of the man and his beautiful eyes faded as space began to tumble around her. She pressed her control but nothing happened. After all the loss and pain, she would become another thing for the man to endure. She roared in her helmet and slammed her fists against the controls.

  She felt herself being grabbed by armored hands. Her ship stopped tumbling as a grapple was pulled taut against the skin of her ship. She was floating. In the cell, her body had begun to rise from the pallet towards the now open ceiling. In her dream, she was being reeled into an insect ship, trapped in a web of steel and energy. She felt herself being pulled from her ship by four-fingered claws. She was alive, but trapped in a nightmare by the evil creatures that held her. She was a princess being held by an evil sorcerer in a castle made by termites.

  Her fantasy was interrupted by grasping claws around her forearms. She looked to see the jailers, horrible armored creatures, holding her above the cell while the plexi floor slid back into place. She screamed. It had been a while since she had used her voice, so the sound was more of a dry croak that a howl of panic. She began to flail in the arms of her captors, but the strength to break free was not hers. She felt helpless and it made her angry.

  She was being half-dragged, half carried across the smooth ceiling of the prison. She held her head down, looking for others prisoners. She saw no signs of life in the hive. As she lifted her head to look around, she realized the siz
e of the prison. Row on row of octagonal cells were grouped in a beehive pattern in every direction. She could barely see the edge of the prison from her vantage.

  A hole in her soul opened when she realized the cells were all empty. She was alone in the vast complex. The fact made her despair grows deeper.

  A shaft of white light opened ahead of her. She tried to gain her feet, while the jailers forced her faster towards the light. If she was going to face her final end, she wanted to do it on her own feet. The floor was cold and sent stabs of pain up her legs as she tried to keep up. The light grew closer and she could see the outlines of a door.

  An awareness of her appearance began to crawl back into her mind. For some reason, she began to care about how she looked as they pulled her from the hive and into a bright corridor. She wore the remains of the flight suit and uniform she had been wearing when captured. Over the past months, the suit had been torn away from her several times during torture and interrogation, but it was the only clothing she had been allowed to keep. She tried to reach down and cover herself with the scraps of remaining fabric. The guards yanked her arms harder and tore more of her flight suit away from her skin. She gave up trying to cover herself and just tried to stay in step.

  She wanted to rip away from the guards, wanted to run as far and as fast as she could before they shot her down. The image of the man with the dark eyes stopped her. She needed to stay alive for him. He needed her as much as she needed him. She had gotten the impression a long time ago that she was being kept alive for his sake. She was being used as some kind of leverage against him. She realized that even if she tore away, they would not kill her. They needed her alive.

  The corridor seemed to run the entire length of the prison ward. She was carried to an open room at the far end of the hall and placed in a hard metal chair. She had been through this before, several months ago, subjected to visual and auditory torture while strapped to the chair. This time, however, the guards left her alone without pulling the straps on her arms and legs.