The Catherine Kimbridge Chronicles #4, Retribution Read online

  The moment came and the first of the Modos invasion force arrived. As per normal in transdimension hyperjumps, their arrival was preceded by a massively energetic backwash. If the Modos where hoping to catch any of the GCP vessels unaware by it they were sorely disappointed.

  A continuous stream of ships emerged from the maelstrom. As fast as the first ships appeared, they moved forward and began to fire their energy beam weapons at seemingly random angles. It might have been a sound strategy, but given the sheer volume of three-dimensional space the likelihood of actually hitting something was vanishingly small. Still, several of Jason’s fleet took glancing blows which their shields easily absorbed.

  “Like a butterfly Mr. Washburn… coordinate movement with the fleet,” Jason said from his command chair.

  “Sting like a bee,” the weapons officer confirmed, while launching a series of Sandies into the onslaught.

  The Sandies were hyperjump-enabled missiles that carried a payload of nanites designed to tear apart anything solid they ran into that did not offer a properly encoded friend signal. The result was often sand-sized particles floating free in space, which was where they got their name.

  The first several ships encountered the Sandies and the microscopic machines began their gruesome work. Immediately the ships in question began to come apart. Any feeling of elation within the GCP forces was short-lived. The Modos had seen this weapons system before, and they had a response. Ships from the second wave immediately began to sweep the area surrounding the first wave with high-intensity plasma beams. Their captains made no attempt to avoid their own ships and the area was soon filled with the lifeless hulks of several hundred vessels destroyed by both the GCP Sandies and what would loosely be termed‘friendly fire’.

  Jason watched as powerful energy beams from the Modos invasion force gutted their own ships. He shook his head. He had thought the KayBees of Kepler-47 had been cavalier about the destruction of their own fighters,but they were at least a hive mind and survived the destruction of individuals. These captains were destroying sentient individuals by the shipload, and they were ostensibly on the same side!

  “Target the second wave with SJs!” Jason barked.“Swing us around to mark 214.8… positive ascension of 0.1 AU. Weapons-fire full spread plasma for effect. Navigation,the moment those beams are done discharging, micro-jump us another 10 AU out.”

  “Roger that, sir!” the various stations acknowledged.

  “I have multiple new jump-points forming!” Ensign Riker yelled.

  “How many?” The XO responded while assisting with the targeting systems.

  “Hundreds, sir. They are bracketing our ships!”

  Jason hit the fleet-wide comm.“This is Commodore Ruck. Go to Rabbit Hole Beta! All ships engage at will. AIs are to coordinate randomized microjumps. I don’t want anybody lost to friendly fire. Butterflies and bees, people. Butterflies and bees. Ruck out.”

  “Ensign Riker… I want a count every five minutes. How many ships are we facing? Work with the XO and report any of our ships that are taking serious damage or are disabled.”

  “Understood, sir. No GCP causalities to report, as of this time.” He checked his sensor display and paled.“Sir… We are currently facing something on the order of nine thousand enemy vessels.”

  “Confirm nine thousand!” Commander Decker barked from his forward station.

  “Nine thousand confirmed, sir.”

  “And it is just beginning,” Commodore Ruck mumbled.

  Suddenly the ship bucked wildly. The lights flickered and resumed. The battle klaxon signaled a damage alert.

  “Kill the Klaxon!” Jason yelled.“Report!”

  Dexter, the ship’s AI, responded.“The Mador was caught in a secondary backwash. A Modos dreadnaught microjumped at the same time an SJ round from the Rutledge was deployed.”

  “And the dreadnaught?”

  “Disabled, sir. Multiple escape pods have been launched. The Modos fleet is maneuvering to avoid them.”

  “Scan the escape pods. Any signs of life on any of them?”

  “Negative,” the AI responded.“I am, however, detecting fissionable material consistent with a low-yield nuclear device.”

  Jason slammed his palm onto the fleet-wide intercom.“Attention fleet… scan for survivors before picking…”

  “SIR!” Ensign Riker interrupted.“The Timkim... It's gone!”

  “What happened?”

  “They were rescuing jettisoned escape pods and one just exploded.”

  Jason shook his head and continued his fleet-wide message.“Scan for life signs before attempting to pick up escape pods. Some, if not all, appear to be booby-trapped.”

  Jason looked at his XO.“It appears our enemy knows our weaknesses.”

  Chapter Five– Unseen Eyes...

  Debbu hopped toward the front screen of his classroom. Like all members of the freedom fighters on Naanac, and especially within the city of Harromog, he had an official position assigned by their Modos overlords. His was that of an instructor– specifically economics, with a subspecialty in forced acquisitions. He held the equivalent of what his new allies in the GCP would call a doctorate. He taught at multiple campuses, but they were all part of a larger system called Blue Devil University. Blue Devils were an especially aggressive fish that were known for their fight. Debbu took comfort in the irony and symbolism provided by working at BDU.

  He tapped a series of homework assignments on the screen. Turning to face his students, he bowed to the twenty-three young Modos who occupied their respective seats. They were well behaved in class because their parents dealt with disrespect most harshly, but Debbu was under no illusions. If he encountered most of his pupils off campus they would delight in any shame and humiliation they could bring to bear. He thought“most” because there were two who seemed less inclined to follow the official party line than the others. One of his teaching techniques was the use of ethical debates. Invariably these two would argue the contra-syndicate position more passionately than the pro-syndicate.

  “Please be aware,” he said to the listening students,“that your‘eminent domain’ reports are due this fourth-day. The winning paper will be entered in the Chairman’s Bowl for a chance to attend an actual board meeting of the Syndicate. Let that be your incentive to excel at this most important task.”

  He paused and looked at his students and assumed what he hoped was a properly respectful expression.

  “May profit guide you in all your endeavors. Class dismissed,” he said, using the traditional benediction required by the school.

  As the students filed their way out of the classroom, Debbu reached into his desk and pulled out a special pair of reading glasses. His people, an amphibious race, generally had perfect eyesight and he was no exception. That said, his eyes, like all those of his race were designed to focus close up while under water and at a longer distance while on dry land. In order to have near-field vision for reading while on land, glasses needed to be worn.

  These particular glasses were very special. The lens in his eyes had been surgically replaced by doctors sympathetic to the resistance. They were now selectively polarized. The glasses themselves were also polarized. The interesting thing about the combination was that neither could be used without the other. Combined they allowed messages to be transmitted on special computer displays. These displays seemed completely white without both sets of polarizing lens. This allowed messages to be seen in plain daylight without their Modos oppressors ever knowing they were there.

  The stems of the glasses even included miniature bone-conducting speakers, so covert audio could also be received. The audio was broadcast at a frequency that was well beyond what most races within the Syndicate could hear. This included Debbu’s people. However, by offsetting the signal to each side of the head and taking advantage of the specific bone-conduction delays unique to each wearer, an audible interference pattern could be established that the wearer of the glasses alone could hear. Th
e audio data itself was encoded in a polarized video feed that the operative wearing the glasses would be looking at. In this case the computer display/whiteboard in the front of the class was the source of this feed.

  Once Debbu donned the glasses, he could see a young female’s face on what had been an unused and blank section of the whiteboard. The person’s lips were moving, so Debbu tapped the side of his glasses to activate the embedded audio feed electronics.

  “…out time you put your glasses on! Didn’t you get my signal that we needed to talk immediately?” The signal in question was a bowl of dried Cuecak bugs on his desk. They were a favorite delicacy for his people… a delicacy the Modos were allergic to. The three bugs in the bowl meant a conference was desired ASAP.

  “I had a class full of students whose parents are senior executives within the Syndicate. I was not about to risk a meeting with them in the room.”

  Debbu used hand signals to sign his response to the whiteboard’s camera silently. Anybody watching who didn’t know how to read the hand signs might confuse them for random movements of his eight finger digits. They were subtle and not altogether easy to spot– designed as they were for covert communications.

  “Why do we need to talk so urgently?”

  “The East-Tree brigade is planning to move tonight. They plan to take over the Syndicate Center. You need to let our new allies know that the timetable for Operation Clean Sweep has been moved up.”

  Debbu glanced toward the door to his classroom. His sensitive ears had sensed a noise but he didn’t see anyone. Turning back toward the screen he signed a quick response.

  “Why the change? Why the Syndicate Center and why tonight? The humans are going to want to know.”

  The young female he was talking with looked exasperated.“Who really ever knows why the East-Trees do what they do? It has something to do with the new Chairman leaving to join the invasion force. Some hothead has decided that they want to take over the facility while there is a partial power vacuum.”

  Debbu considered that. It made a certain amount of sense. While the Chairman was in the dimensional hyperfold conduit between universes, he would be out of contact. Given his recent appointment to the chairmanship, it was unlikely there would be many close associates empowered to step in to fill his place while he was incommunicado. That type of trust took years to develop and there clearly had not been enough time.

  He leaned forward and signaled a final response. That simple movement might have saved his life. “I will go to our safe house and let them know immediately.”

  ***

  Breakwater pulled her little mirror back. She had been using it to watch her Economics professor hand sign. Normally she would be on a tram heading back to her Covert Counter-Intelligence (CCI) offices in Syndicate Center, but she had spotted that bowl of revolting Cuecak bugs on his desk. The CCI had embedded spies in a number of locations. Her assignment had been to follow the activities of student dissidents. Sometimes, however, her intelligence gathering activities turned up unexpected motes of festering rebellion. The bugs on Professor Debbu’s desk was an unexpected dividend. Her training had taught her to look for such things. They were potential markers for subversive activities—and so she watched. She didn’t have to wait long. Debbu had started making convert hand signals. They were not much to see but to the trained eye they were everything.

  Her training had taught her how to read the little amphibians’ hand signals. Although she was only observing one half of the conversation she nonetheless caught the threat against the headquarters complex. Unfortunately she missed the professor’s last response as he leaned little bit forward. With what she knew, her choices were simple: continue to monitor her professor or get word to her superiors.

  Had she seen the last part of the conversation, she might have chosen differently. She might have chosen to follow Debbu. But... as it was she had not, and so she chose to leave him unattended while she found some privacy to report to her superiors. He was of course gone when she returned with orders to take her professor into custody.

  ***

  Ricky Valen swore with an intensity befitting a man who viewed his ability to swear in multiple obscure dialects and languages as a sacred trust. Honey, for her part, adjusted her skin’s color to reflect a subtle blush. It was an automated subroutine she had put in place many months ago to provide Ricky with a visual cue that he might be engaging in the dissemination of excessive verbal dross.

  Captain Hikaro Takei waited patiently for the other captain to finish. In his short association with the man he had heard an occasional outburst but nothing approaching what he was hearing now. To be honest, he was fascinated by the lengths to which the other man was able to go to in order to describe the potential ancestral origins of their new friends on Naanac. Finally, he judged it was time to retake control of the conversation.

  “As fascinating as this discussion of speculative anatomy is, we still have a mission. How do we adjust our plans to deal with this situation?”

  “The situation,” as Takei put it, was the recent discovery, reported by a Naanac informant named Debbu, that the local rebel forces were not going to wait to coordinate their efforts with other resistance factions within Modos-controlled space.

  Ricky turned to the others. The look of exasperation and frustration on his face was plain for all to see. He and Honey had spent weeks establishing a network on Naanac. Hard work had extended that network via a loose association of independent rebels to dozens, if not hundreds, of enslaved worlds. The plan the GCP was developing depended on destabilizing a small but significant percentage of the Modos Syndicate. This had to take place in a well-orchestrated way so the Modos would not be able to mount a concentrated counter offensive.

  Honey rested a hand on his and smiled. That seemed to break him out of his rage.

  They were in the small kitchen of the cloaked Honey Dipper, which itself was in orbit around Naanac. It was one of the few places on the shuttle that was big enough for a meeting. When Debbu reported to Takei on the planet below, the cloaked Honey Dipper had already been en route to pick the older GCP officer up. Takei had wisely decided to share what he learned from Debbu after they left the planet surface. There was too great a risk of their cover being blown if Ricky acted hastily on the planet’s surface.

  “There is nothing we can do,” Ricky said, softly.“Our plan was based on the Syndicate having to respond in force in dozens of locations. By jumping the gun, these idiots are going to invite the Syndicate to make an example of them.”

  “No battle plan ever survives first contact,” Honey said, softly, paraphrasing a German Field Marshall from the 19th century.

  Ricky grunted his agreement and added,“Usually that is first contact with the enemy… not one’s allies!”

  “True,” Hikaro agreed.“But we’ve got to play the cards as they get dealt. If the Syndicate tries to make them an example to send a message to others contemplating a Syndicate-wide uprising, then we just need to make sure we control the message. Honey, do you think you can get a request to Admiral Faragon?”

  The ship’s avatar, who once again looked completely human– having discarded her blue Aenar disguise, perked up.“Why, I would be delighted, sir!” she said.“And what would you like to ask him?”

  “She never calls me ‘sir,’” Ricky commented dryly.

  Captain Takei smiled, while winking at Honey.“Ask the Admiral to send in the cavalry.”

  .

  ***

  Cat was jogging around the Yorktown’s quarter-mile track at a leisurely three-minute-per-mile pace when the call from Admiral Faragon came in. Her internal commlink signaled a message, and she told her personal AI to acknowledge it and open the channel.

  “Good morning, Catherine. Did I catch you at a bad time?”

  “Never, sir. I was just getting a morning jog in.”

  “I’ll never understand it. You have the most advanced nanites in the known universes keeping your body in pristine
shape and you still have to jog. Sherry typically has to threaten me with budget meetings in order to get me out on the track.”

  Cat smiled to herself. It was a conversation she’d had many times before and with many people.

  “Commander Melbourne is just looking out after her commanding officer’s well-being. You know she would never trust you with the budget. But seriously, I run not for the exercise but because the running helps my thinking process. Can I assume your call has something to do with our Modos situation?”

  She heard Faragon sigh. Her auditory enhancements had detected the strain in his voice, despite his attempt at casual banter.

  “Indeed, it does. I’ve ordered Jason and his task force to pull back to their secondary positions. We are officially ceding the space around SgrA to the Syndicate forces. We are now defending primary GCP worlds and as many non-affiliated as we can. Unless we can force a withdrawal we are looking at a permanent change in the political landscape of this sector of space.”

  Cat finished her run and grabbed a towel to wipe the sweat from her face.

  “So, that neatly brings up the question: how is our team in the Betaverse doing? Any word from Hikaro or Ricky?”

  “This is actually why I called, Cat. We are going to need to do some creative resource shuffling. The Naans are moving early.”

  “Not completely unexpected,” Cat mumbled, as she toweled off the sweat from her run.“We knew that there was a real chance one or more of the groups we were contacting would not see the wisdom of dividing the Syndicate’s attention. I assume you want me to head up the contingency plan?”

  “Affirmative Cat. I have three mechanized Ranger battalions in route to you now. Your orders are to remain cloaked and assist only if the Syndicate responds in force to the Naan’s efforts to retake their planet.”

  Chapter Six– The Battle for Naanac...

  It had been a long day. Chairman Snatch Bait was just sitting down to dinner in the Admiral’s lounge aboard the Syndicate’s newly commissioned flagship, the MS Typhoon. She was a Conqueror-class dreadnaught with state-of-the-art shields and weapons. In short, she was the perfect stage from which he could direct and view the coming defeat of the Galactic Coalition. As he settled into his seat and began to sip his lightly fermented and spiced squid-ink cocktail, a young lieutenant entered the lounge and looked around. The chairman hoped the young Modos was not so foolish as to interrupt his meal.