Ruins of Empire: Blood on the Stars III Read online

  She took a few steps inside, stopping again and looking around. It was a hanger of some kind, that much was apparent. A row of cradles extended in out from where she stood, all of them empty. All save one.

  Her eyes fixed intently on the sole remaining craft. It was small, at least by the standards of the giant vessel in which it lay, though as she jogged forward to it, she began to realize it was nearly as large as Pegasus.

  A shuttle? Lifeboat?

  The absence of any bodies or signs of a crew in any of the corridors began to make sense as she counted the almost two dozen empty docking cradles. Whatever had happened centuries before, the great vessel’s crew appeared to have abandoned ship. For all she knew, there were a dozen bays like this scattered throughout the ship, each of them as empty as the one in which she now stood.

  She stared at the remaining shuttle. It looked fine, but she knew there were a hundred technical problems that could ground a ship, only a few of which would be readily apparent on cursory inspection. She guessed it had malfunctioned somehow all those centuries before.

  “I wonder why the crew left,” she said, not really expecting an answer.

  “I suppose there could have been a lot of reasons.” Merrick paused. “But the ship seems sound, and it’s still here after all these years, with functioning life support…so it doesn’t seem like it could have been anything dire.”

  “I don’t suppose it really matters. A lot of bizarre things probably happened near the end of the Cataclysm.” She turned and looked back at her friend. “This was probably a warship of some kind. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  “I didn’t see any gun emplacements along the hull, but who knows how a pre-Cataclysmic ship was designed. It doesn’t look like any kind of freight hauler, so what else could something this big have been? Especially with those energy readings.”

  “Speaking of which…let’s try and find that energy source.” She had come to realize she’d have to let the Confederation authorities handle this one…as much as it hurt to give up something so incalculably valuable. But she wasn’t about to leave without something. She might not be able to haul back a giant ancient battleship, but she was damned sure going to stuff Pegasus’s hold full of anything portable she could find. And if that included anything related to the tremendous energy readings her scanner had detected, so much the better.

  Merrick pulled a scanner from his belt, looking down at its small screen for a few seconds. “It’s below us, Andi. About two hundred meters. We need to find some way down.”

  “Okay, let’s…”

  “Andi…” It was Rina Strand’s voice on her comm unit. The instant Lafarge heard the tone, she knew something was wrong.

  “What is it, Rina?” she snapped, ripping the small unit from her belt and bringing it to her face.

  “We’ve got a contact moving toward the vessel. Still too far out for positive ID, but I’d bet a good pile it’s military. A frigate, maybe.”

  “Confederation?”

  “Too far to tell, but it’s not broadcasting any beacon.”

  Lafarge’s gut clenched. The lack of a beacon was hardly conclusive evidence, but Confederation vessels usually followed international protocols. And if that wasn’t a Confederation ship out there, that probably meant…”

  “Rina, get the hell out of here.”

  “We can’t leave without you, Andi!”

  “It will take us too long to get back.” She shot a glance over at Merrick. There was fear in his expression, but he gave her a slight nod of agreement. “Get that ship out of here. Before it’s too late. Get back to the Confederation and report this.”

  “Andi…”

  “Now! We’ll be fine. This is a big damned ship, and we’ll find someplace to hide. Go! You’ve got to get some help.”

  There was a short pause. “Yes, Captain,” Strand finally replied miserably.

  Lafarge cut the line, looking again at Merrick. “Shugart sold us out. It’s the only answer.” Her voice dripped with menace.

  “You think so?”

  Rolf Shugart was a provider of…information, one with whom she had worked before. He’d come to her with the sketchy data that had led her to this find, and she’d paid him well for the scraps of information he possessed. She didn’t trust him, but she was still surprised he would have double dealed her so blatantly…and even more so if that was a Union ship out there as she feared.

  Lafarge was a profiteer, certainly, and one who had violated a law or two in her time. But she’d never sell the Confederation out to the Union. And she wouldn’t have thought Shugart would either.

  “What else could it be? A coincidence? We’re twenty transits from the nearest inhabited system…you think that ship just happened by?”

  Merrick shook his head. Then he asked, “You think it’s a Union ship, don’t you?”

  “I think there’s a good chance…which makes it all the more important for Rina and the others to get away.” Lafarge suspected she knew a little more about how the Union handled captives than the rest of her people did, but they all had enough knowledge to generate a healthy fear.

  Merrick stood silently for a moment. Then he said, “What are we going to do now?”

  “We’re going to find a place to hide, my old friend. A damned good place…and then we hope for the best.” It wasn’t the kind of well-thought out plan she liked. It was far from that. But it was also the only one she had. “Let’s go. This ship is huge, and if that’s a frigate out there, they only have a maybe a hundred, hundred fifty crew, not enough to search this monster very quickly.”

  She looked across the shuttle bay. “This way,” she said, pointing across the vast open space. “There must be some passages at the other end.” She was speculating that the Union ship—if it was a Union ship—would dock where Pegasus had, probably assuming her people had some knowledge of where to board the ancient vessel. And if they did that, she wanted to head in the opposite direction.

  She nodded to Merrick and started across the bay. She wasn’t running, but it wasn’t exactly a walk either. Time was suddenly a precious resource.

  She didn’t know what she was going to do yet, except hide. Her mind was working as quickly as possible, trying to come up with a course of action, but the realization was beginning to sink in. She and Vig were in trouble.

  She did have one plan, though it wasn’t useful, not for surviving the next days and weeks, nor for getting her out of this mess. But if she got back to Dannith, and if she found out that Rolf Shugart had sold the information for which she’d paid him so handsomely to the Union…there would be a reckoning, and that gun she cared for so meticulously would see use. She would put the slimy bastard in the ground for sure.

  * * *

  “The small ship has broken free of its docking, Captain. They’re running.”

  Captain Nicolas Pierre nodded. “Pursue, Lieutenant. Full thrust.”

  “Yes, sir,” replied the tactical officer.

  “Captain, a word?”

  Pierre turned his head, looking across bridge toward the new voice. Jean Laussanne was Chasseur’s political officer. As far as Pierre was concerned, he was also a colossal pain in the ass. Most Union captains viewed their political minders with at least some level of suspicion and disdain, but Pierre couldn’t imagine most of his peers had to deal with officers involving themselves as constantly in routine matters as Laussanne did. Pierre would have ignored the fool each time he opened his mouth, but every helpful-sounding suggestion carried the implied threat of Pierre being labeled “unreliable” if he didn’t offer at least a show of compliance. A few words from a well-placed political officer could derail a naval career. Or worse.

  “Yes, Commissar?” It took considerable energy to maintain tone that suggested he gave a shit what Laussanne wanted.

  “I don’t like to interfere with your command decisions, Captain, but…”

  You like nothing more than interfering, you pompous ass…

  “Do you t
hink pursuing the small vessel is a reason to move away from the artifact? We have been seeking this find for some time, and the implications are…”

  “Commissar Laussanne, I appreciate your perspective…” He didn’t. He also knew interrupting the political officer was probably stupid, something that would bite him later, but he did it anyway. “But it’s very unlikely this massive structure is going anywhere. It’s probably been stationary for centuries, since before the Cataclysm. But allowing an unidentified ship to escape is highly problematic. We need to maintain secrecy until we can get word back to headquarters. I remind you, we are closer to Confederation space than we are to our own. Until reinforcements arrive, we have no chance of moving the artifact…and little hope of defending it against any significant Confederation force.” He paused, telling himself he should shut up. But he didn’t. “So, unless you think you can fly that thing, we’re going to need a lot more resources to get it home with us.”

  Laussanne glared back at Pierre, his gaze a vague promise of future retribution. But he just nodded his acceptance of the captain’s rationale.

  Pierre knew this was no time to humor the political officer’s pretensions. This was the most important mission of his life. He hadn’t really believed he would find anything…apparently, no one had, or they would have sent a far stronger force to investigate.

  You know you’ll end up in the sub-basement of Sector Nine headquarters if you end up losing this thing…and no one’s going to listen when you say you botched the job doing what Laussanne told you to do…

  “Very well,” Pierre said simply, trying to mask the disdain in his voice. He turned back toward the tactical officer, who was staring back motionless, like a startled animal unsure which way to run.

  “You have your orders, Lieutenant.” Pierre’s words were terse, but not hostile. He didn’t expect a junior officer to have the guts to stand up to a commissar. He barely did himself.

  “Yes, sir. Engaging thrusters now.”

  Chasseur was a frigate, a light escort when she served with the fleet, typically assigned to scouting duty or to supporting one of the battleships in combat. But on a mission like this, there was no capital ship to fall back on, no reinforcements. Chasseur and her sister ship had been sent on an expedition that had almost certainly been a waste of time…until suddenly it wasn’t. He was still trying to come to terms with how important the mission had suddenly become. The computer was reviewing the scanner data, trying to offer a hypothesis on the massive structure’s purpose. But it didn’t take an AI’s review for Pierre to realize that he had stumbled onto the greatest old tech discovery in history…he’d found a ship of some kind, almost certainly some kind of warship, one that looked very much like it was intact.

  As the senior of the two ship captains in the minuscule task force, he’d dispatched Arbalete back to Union space to report the discovery. Captain Rouget was a reliable officer, and Pierre knew his colleague would drive his ship to the limit to get home and return with reinforcements. Until then there was nothing he could do. Nothing but stop this freebooter’s ship from getting away.

  His frigate was more than enough to handle a smuggler’s vessel like the one he was pursuing. All he had to do was catch it. But as he watched the scanner, he felt the tightness in his stomach worsen. His prey was an adventurer’s ship, probably a modified trader or freighter, scouring the Badlands for scraps of ancient technology to sell on the black market. But the thrust level he was seeing was worrisome. His target had a head start, and she was blasting away with nearly as much thrust as his own ship. Given enough time, he could catch her…but the transit point was too close.

  He could follow his target into the next system, chase her down and destroy her. There wasn’t much doubt about that. But pursuing a ship across this system was one thing. Leaving the artifact entirely was quite another. His rational mind told him the ancient ship would be just fine, as it had for the centuries it had remained in orbit around this silent world. But then his eyes connected with Laussanne’s…and he saw flashes of himself in a Sector Nine interrogation cell, answering questions about why he left the greatest discovery in history completely unguarded.

  “I want full thrust, Lieutenant.” He glared over at the tactical officer. “Take the reactor to one hundred five percent output.”

  He could hear the uncomfortable silence on the bridge. He knew his Confederation foes frequently drove their equipment beyond rated capacities in battle. But Union manufacturing wasn’t the same, and he knew the components that made up his vessel weren’t as good as those in the Confed ships. Overpowering his reactor was dangerous, with a meaningful chance of catastrophic failure, one he didn’t care to try and calculate.

  “Yes, Captain.” The young officer’s reply had come slowly, and when it did, the edginess in it was apparent.

  “I want the forward laser batteries ready…they are to open fire as soon as we enter range.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  A hit at long range would be a wild stroke of luck, but he had to do whatever he could. All he could do was hope for a lucky shot, one that disabled the fleeing ship. Then he’d have to return to the planet and take position next to the artifact. And hope the Union forces got there before the Confeds.

  Pierre just sat quietly, leaning back in his chair, waiting for the g forces he knew were coming. Chasseur’s dampeners and force compensators weren’t up to handling the pressure from her full thrust, much less the added acceleration from her overpowered reactor. It would hit hard when it came, but Pierre and his people were veterans, they could take it. He fought back a smile, thinking about the fact that Laussanne would be the one hardest hit. Then the engines kicked in on full, and he felt the force slam into him. It was uncomfortable, painful even, but the piteous sound of Laussanne grunting behind him offset it all…and the grin he’d been fighting to hold back won its way out onto his lips.

  * * *

  “We can’t leave the captain and Vig behind!” Ross Tarren protested.

  Rina Strand met his gaze, her intensity not a fraction less than his. She stood on the other side of Lafarge’s command chair on the bridge. Neither one of them willing to sit in their beloved leader’s place. “I want to get them back too, Ross, but what the hell do you want to do? That’s a Union frigate. Even with the upgrades Andi’s installed, Pegasus wouldn’t stand a chance. If we let that thing close enough, it will blast us to slag.”

  “So, we just abandon them? Run away, and save ourselves?”

  Strand fought back a surge of deadly rage, her hand shaking as she held it back from the sidearm at her side. If anyone else had said that to her, she’d have put him down without another word, but she knew Tarren hadn’t meant it. He was just distraught, the same as every member of Pegasus’s crew.

  “And what happens to them if we get Pegasus blasted to atoms? Does that rescue them?” Strand felt almost disloyal for being the only one on the ship who was thinking straight. It was just the way she was wired. She felt every bit of the agonizing pain any of her crewmates did, but someone had to hold it together and make good decisions.

  Tarren didn’t answer. He just stared back at her, a helpless expression on his face.

  “We have to get out of here, Ross. We have to warn the Confederation.” She paused. “It’s what Andi would have wanted. It’s what she ordered us to do.” She knew that last statement was powerful, her words almost weaponized. Pegasus’s crew was a difficult group, rogues and scoundrels who’d never fit in anywhere else. Until Andi Lafarge had taken them in. Every one of them loved her unconditionally, and even the thought of losing her was unthinkable.

  She held her gaze on Tarren. Then she said, “The only way we can save Andi is to get help…and the only help available is the navy.” She didn’t mention that it would be weeks before they could return with aid, and she tried not to imagine what could happen to her captain and friend in that time.

  Tarren was still silent, but the defiance was gone from his fac
e. Strand felt the same discomfort she knew he did. Pegasus’s crew had always avoided the authorities like the plague. They were outlaws, at least as far as the navy was concerned. There was considerable bad feeling, and they’d dodged more than one naval patrol in their adventures. The idea of running to a navy base asking for help seemed alien. But she knew it was the only thing they could do. And for all their resentment of the authorities, no one on Pegasus wanted to see the Union gain control of such a powerful weapon. That would be unthinkable.

  No, there was no other choice. They had to run. They had to leave Lafarge and Merrick behind while they went for help. No matter how horrible it felt.

  If we even make it. Her eyes moved to the display, watching the Union ship gain slowly. Lex Righter was down in engineering, squeezing everything he could from Pegasus’s tortured reactor. But there was a limit to what Pegasus’s brilliant engineer could achieve…and running from a military vessel, even a Union one, was no easy feat.

  Strand stood where she was, silent, watching the transwarp link getting closer. They had a decent chance of making the jump before the enemy ship blasted them to bits, but if that frigate followed them through…

  There was no point worrying about that. Not now. All they could do was try to escape, to reach Confederation space and get some help. She felt a sense of urgency, of obligation beyond just the need to save her friends. Lafarge had gotten them all out of close scrapes before…and letting her down now, when she needed them, was unthinkable.

  We’ll be back, Andi…somehow, we’ll get you out of this…

  Chapter Five

  Presidium Chamber

  Liberte City

  Planet Montmirail, Ghassara IV,

  Union Year 213 (309 AC)

  “My fellow members of the Presidium, I make this report to you under the highest level seal. I can’t stress strongly enough how sensitive this information is, or how vital it is that absolutely nothing said in this room is repeated.” Villieneuve’s words carried heavy meaning in the laws of the Union. The highest seal designation made it treason to divulge anything spoken of in the meeting.