Randolph Lalonde - Spinward Fringe Broadcast 08 - Renegades (40 page)

“A transmission from
Ayan to the Carthans on public bands,” Agameg said as he brought up
a hologram of Ayan in full heavy armour. Her headgear was retracted,
her face framed by a thick, curly red mane.

“I am giving the
Carthan Government one more chance to cease firing on Haven Shore’s
energy shield and outbuildings before we retaliate. In a moment, it
will be too late for negotiations. You have thirty seconds to reply,”
she said. “I plead on behalf of your soldiers, and your remaining
citizens in the service. The loss of life you stand to suffer goes
far beyond your expectations.”

“They really should
trust her,” Oz said under his breath.

“She is charitable,”
Triton told him telepathically. “I wonder if she’s buying time,
or if she really wants this to be resolved peacefully?”

“She wants peace,”
Oz said. “We’re going to be spending resources that should be
reserved for an Order of Eden attack, or even an Edxi incursion. She
knows how pointless this is more than anyone.”

“You are right,”
Agameg replied, not realizing that Oz was actually speaking to
someone in his mind. “I’ve always admired the Triton Crew and
Ayan’s people for how much they consider the lives of the people
around them, but this battle is a tactical error that we cannot
prevent.”

The response from the
Carthans came before the thirty seconds was up. “This is Cory
Greene, representative to Haven Shore for the Carthan Defence Force,”
said the hologram of the well-groomed official. His uniform featured
a fine coat loosely held together by dangling jewellery chains.
“Sovereign Ayan and her people have built a significant military
force, a stronghold with significant combat potential, and are
claiming more territory every month. If this wasn’t threat enough
to peace on Tamber and the rest of the solar system, we’ve also
observed a recruiting drive which allowed known criminals to join
their ranks, as well as many unknown persons who could have Order of
Eden leanings. It is also known that the Triton Fleet openly colludes
with the Warlord and its captain: Jacob Valent, a suspected
terrorist. In light of the destabilizing potential of this situation,
we have no choice but to assume control of all Haven Shore and Triton
Fleet assets. We ask that you surrender your arms and surrender to
the nearest Carthan military officer. Thank you for your time.” The
holographic bust of the official disappeared and Oz couldn’t help
but chuckle.

“Please give us a
moment to consider your offer,” Ayan replied on all public bands.

Everyone on the bridge
was shocked, except for Agameg, who regarded Oz with an amused
expression. “She is endeavouring to draw the Carthans in?”

“Oh yeah,” Oz said.
His personal comm unit presented him with a simple message from Ayan
that said, ‘HIT THEM HARD ALREADY.’ “Attention,” he said to
everyone on the bridge. “I just got confirmation from Ayan that our
assault is going forward. She’s just buying us an opportunity to
get closer, so we’re going to signal a surrender. Drop cloaking
shields, send out a white flag message, and start heading for a
navnet flight pattern that will get us close to that command
carrier.”

Panloo seemed oddly
pleased at the turn of events as she plotted a course towards a route
reserved for large ships entering Tamber’s orbit. The cloaking
system deactivated, but their shields were fully charged.

“Triton Command, we
see your white flag signal,” announced a voice broadcast from the
Carthan command carrier. “Please follow your navnet approved course
and prepare to be boarded. Please drop all but manoeuvring shields
and proceed along that course.”

“We’re
undermanned,” Oz explained in response. “As you may have heard.
It’ll take a moment for my helmswoman and tactical controllers to
make the changes you’re requesting. Please be patient.”

That seemed to satisfy
the command team aboard the carrier, which had stopped firing on
Haven Shore from high orbit. Oz watched as Triton managed to follow a
different navnet course from the one that had been suggested. They
were indirectly closing on the command carrier, already less than
sixty thousand kilometres away. Oz checked their torpedo bay status.
Thanks to Triton’s directions in advanced manufacturing and repair,
they’d managed to manufacture enough antimatter torpedoes to fire
every bay three times.

“The closest we’ll
get using a navnet course is thirty eight thousand kilometres,”
Panloo’s co-pilot, a young man named Colin Sage, announced. He was
a good pilot, but an excellent navigator who got along exceptionally
well with Panloo, and just as importantly, Zoe.

As they closed to forty
thousand kilometres, the command carrier fired its five main dorsal
beam weapons. Most of the intense light was refracted away from
Triton towards Tamber’s atmosphere where it was harmlessly
dispersed, while the heavier particles did minimal damage to the
ship’s shields. “They’re on to us. Fire all missiles, let’s
blind them,” Oz ordered.

All fourteen lower
missile launchers along the bottom of Triton’s hull opened and
fired hundreds of disabler rockets. The white flag gambit got them
clear of most of the orbital traffic, and the majority of the ships
left in the way were able to take evasive action. Oz counted three
vessels that were struck, and marked them for rescue.

The Carthan carrier’s
countermeasure systems fired small, rough projectiles at a rate of
thousands of rounds per minute to blast the incoming rockets to
fragments. Over half were destroyed before they reached their
detonation point, three kilometres away from the carrier. The hundred
and eighty rockets activated, blasting the enemy ship with waves of
light across all spectrums then exploding in a coordinated
electromagnetic pulse.

“Fire all torpedoes,”
Oz said. “That trick won’t blind them for long.”

The sounds of the
clicks and slides of three tonne torpedoes launching from bays above
and beneath the bridge announced the departure of their deadly
projectiles. Oz’s tactical display confirmed that all thirty-six
bays had launched, and that concluded their mission in that area.
“Panloo, take us down.”

“Aye, going
atmospheric,” Panloo said as she guided the ship into a course that
would take them around the command carrier at a safe distance and
into the atmosphere of Tamber.

The command carrier
wasn’t as blind as Oz had hoped the disabler missiles would render
them, and their shields weren’t as taxed. Before all the torpedoes
were in range, the carrier managed to disable or destroy twenty-one
of them, leaving only fifteen to detonate on target. For a moment the
light, force, and heat was too intense for even Triton’s sensors to
adjust to. The entire command carrier was enveloped in a globe of
white-blue fire for several seconds. When it cleared, entire hundred
metre sections of the ship’s outer hull were white-hot and
weakened, but there were few breaches. Two of their main fighter bays
had been destroyed, their bay doors open when the torpedoes
detonated, and the command carrier’s shields were down. “

“Message coming in
sir, high priority,” announced the youngest of the communications
officer, he seemed a little too excited.

“On the main,” Oz
said.

A Carthan commander in
a dark combat uniform looked direct at him from the main holographic
display in the middle of the Triton’s bridge. “I am Colonel
Doherty, and I’m authorized to offer our surrender. We have
sustained significant damage, and will not be able to retreat from
the solar system for several days, however,” she said
emotionlessly.

“Your surrender must
be unconditional. We will determine terms, this will not be a
negotiation,” Oz said.

“I’m afraid we have
no choice,” replied the Colonel. “I either fight and suffer
unacceptable losses, or surrender and spend all our energy repairing
critically damaged systems. You have our unconditional surrender,
Commander McPatrick.”

“I will send officers
to each of your major vessels to accept the codes necessary to
establish our command over your ships within the hour. I wish we
could help with repairs, but our staff is busy here,” Oz said.

“Understood,
Commander.” The transmission closed and the bridge staff cheered.

Farewell

“You may not want to
go in there,” one of the guards standing sentry beside the quarters
reserved for the British Alliance Council Representative, Sunny
Zines. The heavy tropical night rain tapped a tattoo onto the outer
sections of the building, a sound Ayan typically enjoyed. She looked
at Lacey and she nodded, stopping beside the guard.

Ayan had seen gore,
most recently on Pandem. Whatever awaited her in Sunny’s quarters
would not compare. The lights in the room were out, turned off by the
guards who found the scene and sealed it. Through a large section of
transparent metal she could see the winking lights of the surviving
outbuildings. The cloud cover plunged Haven Shore into an even darker
shade of night, turning light into rarefied beacons.

“I’m sorry,” said
the voice of Sunny Zinnes. It was a recording; the real man was dead.

“Lights, please,”
Ayan said aloud. In his last moments, Sunny Zinnes lay out on the bed
and recorded a farewell message. She let her comm unit finish a
forensic scan of the room and nodded to herself. He used a
termination tablet to kill himself. The small pill-like device
stopped all his brain function after he held it to the roof of his
mouth for five seconds. He felt nothing, and there was no way for his
government to scan his mind post-mortem for information. “Why did
you do this to us?” Ayan asked in a whisper, anger and sadness
waging a war in her head. He was a good man, not someone she’d
suspect of treachery. Her question triggered the rest of the
recording.

An image of Sunny
Zinnes appeared in the middle of the room. “Hello, Ayan. I’m glad
you were the first officer to find me. Please listen to what I have
to tell you – it’s time for me to be fully forthcoming, something
I haven’t done in years now. As you’ve probably guessed, the
British Alliance Intelligence Division volunteered me as their
observer on the Council, and I was a spy. They thought I was the
perfect man for the job, and I was one of the few agents that they
could run a background check on and clear completely. They thought
I’d lost my entire family when the Holocaust Virus struck, and so
did I.

Three months ago, I was
approached on the street by this man.” An image of a thin faced,
tall man appeared for a moment. “He provided me with evidence that
my son was alive on an Order of Eden reclamation colony. If I didn’t
provide information to their intelligence people, they would send him
to a work camp, where he would perform hard labour until he died.
They didn’t want much information on the British Alliance. They
have their sources embedded in the Alliance already, but they needed
me to collect information on Haven Shore. So I began providing
regular reports, encrypted, sent to an innocent looking space on the
Stellarnet where the Order could covertly download the information.
The contents of my communications are in the details of this message.
Everything was well and good for the first two months, I even
received messages from my son, evidence that he was alive, well, and
that my work was elevating his station in the religious arm of the
Order. Then they began sending me contingency plans, along with
specific instructions to build animosity between you and the Carthan
government. It was surprisingly easy to manipulate them, as if they
were looking for reasons to hate Haven Shore, and more specifically,
you. I eventually began leaking information directly to the Carthan
Fleet warden, becoming something of a triple agent. A month later,
the final part of the Order’s plan was to be put into action. I was
to convince Carthan Command that Haven Shore was getting ready to
attack their people, to make a play for control of Tamber. At first
they didn’t believe me, and I thought I’d made my play too early.

On the one hand, I was
relieved. I didn’t want fighting to break out between you and the
Carthans. On the other, I had to wonder how my failure would affect
my son’s status, his lifestyle. Not two weeks later, the Council
was dissolved and there was a sudden movement of resources, ships,
and troops along with a recruiting drive. The Carthans suddenly
believed everything I said about Haven Shore making a move to push
them off this world, and after I laid out my hypothetical scenario
about how the Rangers and Triton Fleet soldiers would start by
murdering the Carthan officers, well, they didn’t hesitate. That
brings me to today, and this terrible tragedy.

I have no love for the
Carthans, and I truly hoped that Triton Fleet would defeat them with
minimal casualties. I don’t know the Order’s motivation behind
causing friction between your governments, but I truly believe that
Haven Shore is better off without Carthan interference. I thought
everything would go better than planned, and I could sneak off,
finally join my son.

Then three shuttles
left Haven Shore, under a banner of surrender. I tried to stop it,
they were distressed parents and their children, and I told them they
would be escaping into terrible danger. I tried to stop them. I even
held on to two children, clutched them to me until their parents
finally knocked me down and tore them away, loading them into those
defenceless ships. If I had more time I could have sabotaged them so
they’d never take off, but there was nothing I could do in the end.

Two of those shuttles
are gone, taking the civilians who panicked with them. I retreated to
my room, and in pursuit of solace I played back recordings of my son
only to discover, upon playing them all back in succession, that they
are fake. Your Crewcast system, which I never used until today, found
markers that indicated that they were fabricated. Now I know that he
is dead. My actions have cost the community I’ve come to love
several families, and there will be no more good days for me.