The Gathering Storm Read online

  He tugged on his right ear lobe as he considered his orders. He had to stand down until his fleet was back up to at least eighty percent. He was hanging onto some of the capital ships until replacements arrived. Once they did, he would send back the worst damaged ships to Protodon. If the repair facilities there were saturated then the worst of the damaged ships would have to sail on to Antigua.

  He checked the status board and pursed his lips with a puttering sound. He had sent a DD to collect the minelayers in B-94e1. A second DD had been sent to scout to Nuevo Madrid.

  Once the scouts in B-97a returned, he should be ready to move cautiously forward.

  Hopefully, maybe, he thought. John knew the importance of keeping the enemy running now that they were in that state. They couldn't afford to give the enemy time to react, prepare, and move larger forces in to block him. But, he also knew that John was subject to other pressures as president. Now that the threat was over, plenty of people would want the new Federation to return to business as usual and reprioritize things to match their own needs.

  He shook his head and kept his fingers mentally crossed that he'd get the ships he needed to continue the offense … and soon.

  The sooner the better.

  :::{)(}:::

  Ensign Leopold didn't mind processing information while the fleet waited and licked its wounds. It beat sitting there doing nothing. For an A.I., especially a smart A.I., there had to be something going on to occupy their minds.

  As ship A.I. of the rebuilt dreadnought Bismark, current flagship of Second Fleet, he had plenty to do managing the ship and personnel on board. But, he didn't mind helping the admiral out. He too was curious about the enemy. The more they learned, the more they could use against them in the next engagement he knew.

  That and his curiosity about who he was shooting at and who was shooting at him helped him while away the time it took to break into a captured enemy database. This one had been carefully copied before he'd started his investigation. His last two attempts had taught him to be careful about what booby traps he tripped. Someone had gotten cute with self-erasing viruses. The reports from other captured databases hadn't mentioned them, so they must be a new innovation.

  And it was just his luck to run into it. He was a ship A.I. not a code cracker. He'd almost given up on the project but a stinging rebuke about giving up on a challenge had stopped him.

  What he found when he opened the files was the Sword of Retribution's war book. He copied the contents and then set up a script to compare it to their own copy of the Horathian war book database while he delved in deeper.

  Files were cross-referenced in a small corner of his mind as he accessed a list of personnel on some of the ships. There were lists of command staff, something of interest to the resident spook he knew.

  One thought hit him right off. He set up a script to compare the names of the ships to those they had confirmed destroyed and those they suspected.

  He almost bypassed the names of the destroyed ships, but he did his duty and performed a quick scan just to be thorough. One name came to the A.I.'s attention right off. The A.I. passed it on to Lieutenant Guadino, the staff intelligence officer. He knew it would make the lieutenant's evening.

  :::{)(}:::

  First Lieutenant Kelly Guadino grinned a triumphant tight-lipped smile as she passed on the information to the staff during the following morning's meeting. “So, you are telling me that we gutted the Horathian's First BC Squadron, and one of the officers who was killed was none other than …,” First Lieutenant Jojo, the admiral's Neochimp female chief of staff, stumbled to a stop in shock as the idea penetrated through to her.

  “Commander and Prince Adam Ramichov. Yes,” Kelly replied with a broader grin. “Leopold found it; I just independently confirmed it last night.”

  “Hot damn,” Lieutenant Commander Garfield, the staff tactical officer, murmured with a shit-eating grin. “The boys and girls back home are going to love it.”

  “And the enemy is going to be pissed when they find out,” Second Lieutenant Aleck Rowland, the staff navigational officer replied. He had been injured in the aftermath of the battle while volunteering for SAR duty. His right arm was in a sling.

  “Oh, it gets better. One of our guards reported a conversation. Recorded it actually,” the Neogorilla stated. All eyes turned to her. “I didn't have the time to process the conversation then. But, when I ran a search on Ramichov it popped up. It turns out we've got a prisoner—Mason Ramichov, lieutenant in their marines and junior prince.” Many of the officers sat up straight with wide eyes as they stared at her in shock. She nodded with a grin. “He's third in line for their throne. Well, he was,” she said.

  “Hot diggity damn!” Garfield said with a raised paw. That earned a chuckle from the assembly.

  “I've passed orders to have him segregated. He's not one of the injured so he's still here. He's one of the leaders, so we'd have to do that anyway.”

  “Agreed,” Admiral White rumbled with a nod. “He'll need special handling. I think we'll have to use a stasis pod in his case.”

  “I … agree, sir,” Kelly replied slowly. She didn't want to blow the opportunity of turning or at least getting more intelligence out of the young man.

  “How are we with their implants?” he asked. She turned to the doctor.

  “Well, we know a bit more. They are making some. But, the ones they have 'salvaged,'” the doctor grimaced, “are interesting. They got them out in one piece, surprisingly. Then they purged the data to the basic OS and reinstalled it in another user.”

  “I'm curious what the prince has in his,” Jojo said. “We could find all sorts of things buried in there,” she said, turning to Kelly who nodded along with her.

  “Which is why I want him in stasis. Don't even let him have the chance to activate some sort of suicide protocol,” Admiral White ordered, turning to Kelly. She sobered and nodded.

  She grimaced as the conversation turned back to the doctor's report. She stilled as she realized that they might never wake the prince up. He might be a bargaining chip, sure, but she doubted he'd ever get back to his people. No, they'd keep him, like a trophy.

  Or, going down the rabbit hole, they'd take him apart. They'd strip his mind, copy it, and then go through his memories to sift out the nuggets of information they could. It would be ugly, but it could happen.

  A part of her wanted to shiver at the thought of doing that to another living being. But, a darker part reminded her about who it would be used on. Pirates didn't deserve any sort of sympathy, especially from someone like her she reminded herself sternly.

  :::{)(}:::

  Lieutenant and Prince Mason Ramichov sat quietly in the brig with the others. A few of the marines played a card game. Two of the squids did their best to sleep, despite the lights in the compartment being on. There were only so many racks to go around; they were crowded and annoyed. A prison ship, even a derelict, would have been preferable. Apparently, the enemy hadn't thought of it or had and discarded the idea.

  He had managed to quietly convince everyone with him that he was a marine lieutenant, not someone important. They had garbled his name, but he was sure it was a minor delaying tactic. No doubt, his lie would be uncovered soon enough. His name was in the computer systems somewhere after all.

  He frowned, mentally curling his lip when a squid nudged him and nodded to the view out the door. His face went impassive as he saw alien species interacting with a human guard. There had been some trouble with that, but the threat of being gassed had reined in his people. At least, for the moment it had.

  Technically, they should have segregated him as an officer, not that he was going to complain. He had thought about being locked in a room and had come to realize he'd rather have some company than to be locked up alone. At least he had someone to share his misery with.

  They had the one toilet, no privacy, but the guard allowed one or two at a time out to use other facilities from time to time. They were
always carefully controlled. He'd seen a burly PO try to test a Neogorilla. A single gape tooth yawn and flex of his massive biceps had stopped the PO cold before he could mix it up. He hadn't tried anything after that.

  Mason couldn't really blame him. It was one thing to shoot or torment Neos when you had weapons, quite another to deal with them when the situation was reversed. It was a bitter yet humbling experience.

  “This is like a damn nightmare,” he muttered softly to himself.

  “If you find a way to wake up, let me know so I can do it too,” a squid muttered.

  He was surprised when after lunch he was called out and then escorted to sickbay for another checkup. He sat on the gurney and waited. A nurse came over and before he could react she pressed a hypo spray to his exposed arm. Within a second, his body slumped. He was barely aware of someone catching him and then oblivion took him.

  :::{)(}:::

  The news of the capture and killing of the Ramichovs hit the Second Fleet scuttlebutt grapevine within hours. Morale picked up noticeably, Amadeus noted with a shake of his head. He was gratified to see that the junior prince had been sedated and scanned. He had no suicide protocols. He'd been put in stasis anyway. There was no point taking chances.

  He glanced at the status board. The ansible platform was about to be put together now that the ship had arrived at the right gravitational anchor for it. It would take several weeks to set up and tune before it could be used. That was fine. But, it had opened up a fresh dilemma for him.

  The star system was a crossroads. They controlled the Protodon leg, and Nuevo Madrid was a dead end, though the enemy might have tucked in a couple raiders there to get behind his lines. But, that left two other jump points, one of which his forces were arrayed around. But, the other led to a jump chain that led to Senka as well and forked north to the Sigma sector and the now-dead hyperbridges to and from the Alpha sector.

  He'd intended to leave Shepard and her division mate as a picket, but with the ansible platform in place, that changed things. He had to keep it secure, which meant he had to leave a reinforced picket. That sucked.

  He'd toyed with staging his reinforcements through the star system, but doing so through Protodon made more sense. They could get repairs there after all. John had mentioned a mobile shipyard, but it would be months before it got to him.

  Any picket he left behind would be less forces he could bring to bear against the enemy. And they had to be strong enough to picket the other jump points and take on anything that came their way. Not a pleasant thought considering it lead to Sigma sector. It was strongly tempting to send a picket up the jump chain to B-92c. From there the picket could watch the Sigma sector and protect not only his back but also Protodon's and Senka's. But, there was nothing in that star system, much like the one he was currently occupying—no water ice, nothing to fuel ships off of.

  He grimaced and then wrote an email to John to pass it off to him. Maybe he could squeeze off the forces from the Senka picket? Rotate them through there? That would be the better option he thought.

  There was no telling what forces were in hyper now he knew. If a ship was in the low octaves of Alpha band, they could spend months or even years moving across the sector. He'd heard about the one civilian ship Pelican from John. He shook his head as Leopold's avatar came onto his desk.

  “Yes?” he asked the Tauren A.I.

  “I'm farming the databases and material we've uncovered. I've copied everything relevant, but the little niggling details are taking too much of my processing power, sir. Permission to pass on that?”

  “Try to keep on some of it if you've got the free processors available, but the niggling material as you mentioned isn't a priority. At least, I don't think it is, is it?”

  “Not unless you want to know someone's fingerprints or maker marks on bits or family members of one deceased sailor, sir.”

  “No, that's not a priority,” the admiral growled, “and not a useful use of your time considering your other duties.”

  “Yes, sir. I've got a lot of unprocessed material backlogging now that we've gotten into their systems.”

  The Neochimp flag officer nodded. “Pass it on to Antigua. They've got the spare warm bodies and processing power. Obviously, we're overwhelmed here.”

  “Aye aye, sir. I understand the lieutenant has some requests for processing already,” he said.

  “Good. Let them deal with it. Status on the fleet?”

  “No change since your last update.”

  “Good. Dismissed.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  :::{)(}:::

  Commodore Dwight Harris grimaced as he moved slowly through the ship. He was technically still recovering from his injuries. He had been lucky to not lose the leg. Regen had cured the injury after surgery, but he was still stuck in therapy getting used to the leg and working in the new muscle tissue.

  He wasn't the only one that needed some rehabilitation therapy. It wasn't just physical therapy too. He'd spent a bit of time with a counselor, trying to come to grips with what he'd seen and experienced on Maine's flag bridge during the battle. He'd lost some good people there. He couldn't put it aside easily, though talking about it had eased the nightmares a bit.

  He had flat-out refused to be sent back behind the lines. “I don't need my legs to shine a seat with my ass and issue orders,” he said in another missive.

  His lips puckered when he remembered a few snorts and Admiral White's response. The Neochimp had also snorted at his crass statement but had not refuted the logic of that statement.

  Which was why he was on Lady Liberty at least until a better ship became available. His eyes cut to Quirinus. The dreadnought had also been damaged in the battle. He knew Trajan had been forced to shift his flag to Illustrious for the time being.

  Which was fine with him. He'd prefer a bit more metal around him for the next engagement but knew he wouldn't be that lucky. Most likely Admiral White would keep him around to manage one of the battle cruiser squadrons or, heaven forbid, one of the screening elements. Hopefully, the BCs given he was on Lady Liberty, but there were no sure things currently.

  First things first, he had to report aboard the flagship for another checkup. Apparently, Admiral White didn't trust him to behave on Lady Liberty. Well, that was fine enough; he could catch up with the latest intel and other information and see some old faces while he was on board. If he had the time before his shuttle left, he might get Leopold into squeezing in a tactical exercise or two like old times. He was fairly certain the A.I. was bored to tears with the fleet just sitting there getting repaired.

  :::{)(}:::

  Commodore Trajan Vargess looked over to the plot and the incoming reinforcements. He nodded to the icon of Shizouka. He'd been in battles before, but up until Renee had entered his life, he hadn't thought much about his own mortality. He'd lost his entire family, his entire world when he'd been time lost. Now though … he had someone to lose. He wondered if Renee thought the same way.

  He also wondered how they were going to deal with their changed status. His newfound rank was like a gulf between them.

  He ran a hand over his short hair. After a moment, he pulled up an email, then thought better of it and opened a message channel to her. “Renee, I'm glad to see you. Once you've settled in, maybe we can have dinner together. I know getting the time will be rough, but we probably should bite the bullet and talk. I know we've got a lot to talk about,” he said with a rough voice. “You know what I'm talking about.” He paused then shrugged. “FYI, I am going to sit on this message until you are back aboard your ship,” he said with a brief tight smile. “I don't want to jog your elbow while you report to Admiral White. See you soon.”

  :::{)(}:::

  Captain Renee Mayweather walked with her escort through Bismark's vast corridors. She liked the dreadnought but preferred her own command. Shizouka had arrived in B-95a3 with the other reinforcements a few days ago. Her ship had managed to get to 90 percent so she h
ad been ordered forward once more to join the fleet. She would most likely swap out with one of the most damaged ships left.

  She was surprised to run into a familiar face in the form of Commodore Harris. The other man was limping as he rounded a corner, and startled when they came face-to-face. “Renee, um …,” he paused as she and her ensign escort came to attention.

  His eyes widened and then he caught on. He nodded slowly. The tables had turned. He wasn't certain if he liked it or not. “Renee, about my new rank. Look I didn't …”

  “It's okay,” she said gruffly, feeling a bit of resentment over it. “Shit happens. Sir.”

  “I want you to know; if it had happened to me, I would have made the same calls and been in the same boat. Lady Luck sure is fickle, isn't she?”

  “Yes, sir,” Renee replied tightly.

  He studied her, then patted her on the shoulder and left without further word. She nodded, straightening her shoulders. Seeing Trajan and Dwight advance in rank bothered her more than she was willing to admit. But, like a lot of things there wasn't a whole hell of a lot she could do about it, so she decided to put it behind her and wish them well.

  She realized there would be problems with Trajan now outranking her as a flag officer in the same chain of command. With a pang, she hoped that they could find a way to work them out. She was glad their relationship was light due to their careers in the service.

  “This way, ma'am,” her escort murmured, indicating the way to the flag bridge and Admiral White's office.

  “Okay,” she said with a nod as they continued on their interrupted journey.