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Day 151/2549
A courier arrived in Zanzibar orbit from Sparta and immediately began transmitting a text message. It was so shocking that Drake had to read it twice.
Janicot to Drake. All, repeat all, missile boats have been destroyed by radar invisible FED warships using stealthy missiles. It’s only a matter of time before they land troops. All our cruisers are on their way to the Rally Point. You are now the Acting Chief of Space Operations for the System States Union. Operation Blowback is now our only hope. Proceed as you think best. Good luck. Janicot.
He didn’t want to believe that over a hundred missile boats could be wiped out that easily, but if the FEDs were using stealthy missiles, then that would explain it. The news still hurt. He knew many of the officers and crew on those boats personally. Now he was the ACSO in charge of Blowback. He shook his head. What a stupid name for a military operation, especially a desperate one like this. If it had been up to him, he would have called it Operation Payback! God damn the Federation for imposing their will on his planet! In spite of his anger, he managed to become aware of a rational thought. If he didn’t like the name of the Operation, then he could just change it. He was the new ACSO after all. So Payback it was. That decision made him feel a bit better. He checked the ship status display on the wall of his small office. One carrier had been converted to the new hyper-drive and was already ferrying the first batch of engineers and technicians to the colony on Vril, where they would set up temporary accommodations for the rest of the Brain Trust. Two more carriers were next in line for conversion, and the other two were on their way here. Two freighters were also waiting for their turn to be upgraded, and Drake knew there were more coming, along with 11 cruisers. That was a lot of ships that had to be upgraded before the FEDs got here, not to mention the conversion of courier ships. But he wasn’t so concerned about them. Upgrading their hyper-drives took a lot less time than modifying the bigger ships.
He checked the projected timetable again. As more and more cargo-carrying ships were converted, the pace of the operation would pick up speed. In three more months, all the scientists, technicians and their families would be on Vril, or on their way there. His Space Force people would stay on Zanzibar until the last possible moment to arrange for the transfer of all the equipment and supplies that they’d need to set up a brand new colony somewhere from scratch. That brought his thinking back to where they would go. P2 had made a recommendation that was stunning in its audacity. It was a surveyed planet that was mostly too cold, with only a small amount of land where the climate was adequate for farming. That lack of expansion potential was the reason why it had never been colonized. What was audacious about this particular planet was that it was in a star system deep inside Federation territory. That meant that P2 was essentially proposing a variation of the Midgard strategy. That made Drake uneasy. Checking all surveyed but supposedly uninhabited planets within Federation territory might not be Majestic’s first priority, but Drake had to believe that the giant brain would get around to it sooner or later, and the new colony needed lots and lots of time to develop the technology and then build the infrastructure needed to take on the Federation militarily again. Some of the time estimates were so long that Drake himself wouldn’t live to see that war. In any event, gambling on the hide-in-plain-sight strategy again was just too risky in his opinion. As soon as more couriers were converted, the plan was to send them out beyond the limits of Human Explored Space to do some scouting. His Astrogation people had identified a cluster of stars part way into the void between this spiral arm and the neighboring Sagittarius Arm that contained a higher than normal percentage of yellow or white stars where an Earth-like planet would be the most comfortable. That cluster was a long way away, even with the new technology, but it was also highly unlikely that the Federation would explore that far out with their older technology for perhaps a century or more. If and when a courier found a planet that seemed to be colonisable, it would bring word back to Vril, and a detailed survey mission would be sent. If that checked out, then one huge fleet of ships would transport the entire Brain Trust and all their equipment and supplies to the new planet. It was going to be an all or nothing endeavour. Either everyone in the Brain Trust would get away or no one would, but that wouldn’t be the end of the evacuation.
Early in the planning for Operation Blowback, it had become very clear that if everyone in the new colony was a scientist or technician or family member, then the colony would soon be in trouble. There was a limit to how much storable food the ships could carry. The colony had to start farming in order to have a locally grown food supply ready by the time they ran out of low-bulk, long shelf-life food. That was one reason why he picked Vril for the temporary stop. Most of the farmland was owned by Earth-chartered companies, and a lot of the people doing the actual farming didn’t own any farmland of their own. Once the new colony was established, he would send ships to Vril to bring back volunteers, and not just farmers either. The new colony would need a lot of skills that the Brain Trust didn’t have. He would risk one more massive evacuation with the whole fleet. If there happened to be a FED cruiser at Vril, his cruisers should be able to take it out.
He reminded himself that the crews of the ferry ships would be sworn to secrecy regarding the trips to Vril. Security had to be absolute. There was no point in temporarily shifting the Brain Trust to Vril if the FEDs found out about it as soon as they arrived here at Zanzibar. He had come to terms with the knowledge that if the FEDs couldn’t follow them to Vril, then Lorelei wouldn’t be able to either, even assuming that she would try to find him. And he wasn’t sure if she would. The odds of her making it to Vril in time for the second and last evacuation was so small that he didn’t even want to think about it, but he was determined to wait until the chance was zero before allowing himself to be open to another relationship. He chided himself for letting his focus drift to something that would not be resolved for quite some time. He had to get his mind back to more immediate concerns.
Day 151/2549
To her surprise, Stevens insisted that Remington accompany him down to Hadley and witness the transfer of command from Trojan to himself. She was a savvy enough Navy officer to understand that lower ranked officers like herself should try to not get involved in what could turn out to be a nasty political confrontation between two flag officers, but she had no choice in the matter. Their shuttle was ordered to land right in front of the hidden entrance to the Majestic Complex. As she followed Stevens down the boarding steps, she was surprised to see a substantial welcoming party that included a platoon of armed infantry and two officers, one of whom she recognized as General Trojan. Part of the surprise was the fact that Trojan, the other officer and the platoon were all wearing jet black uniforms rather than the standard navy and army uniforms.
As Stevens approached the entrance with Remington off to one side and a half step back, the platoon came to attention with impressive precision. She could tell that even Stevens was impressed. He acknowledged the act with a quick nod of his head. He stopped roughly a meter from Trojan and the two men looked at each other. Remington suddenly realized two things. One was that while Stevens was relieving Trojan as Commander-in-Chief/First Fleet/Army Force, Trojan had three stars on his collar and Stevens only had two, which meant that Stevens should salute Trojan first. The other thing she noticed was that the other officer, whose collar had the insignia of an Army Colonel, was wearing a handgun with the covering flap open.
Stevens finally offered Trojan the salute that protocol required of him, and Trojan returned it with what Remington couldn’t help thinking was an amused smile.
“General Trojan, I’m here on specific orders from the Council to relieve you of your post as CINC/1FAF. I’m also instructed to tell you that you are ordered to accompany Commander Remington,” Stevens turned in her direction, “to her ship for immediate transport back to Earth where a Disciplinary Hearing will be convened to determine if your actions here have exceeded your authority.”
Trojan’s amused expression didn’t change one iota, much to Remington’s surprise. After about three seconds of silence, Trojan turned to look at the Colonel. “Well, Colonel Ericson, the Council wants to relieve me of command here. What do you think of that?”
Remington watched in horror as the Colonel took out his handgun, pointed it at Stevens’ head and pulled the trigger. She jumped to one side as Stevens’ now headless body hit the ground. She glanced up and froze when she saw the Colonel’s gun pointed at her head.
“Not her, Colonel. We can always use another ship commander.” The Colonel put away his gun and Remington started to breathe again. “You can dismiss the Honor Guard, Colonel. Commander, come with me please.” As Trojan turned to go back inside the Complex, Ericson brought his right fist up against his chest and said in a loud voice, “Long Live The Empire!” Remington jumped when the platoon immediately did the same thing in perfect unison. Trojan acknowledged their salute with a wave of his hand.
An hour later, Remington stepped back aboard her shuttle, which proceeded to lift off on its way back to Trafalgar. She was deeply conflicted. Trojan had shown her the Majestic computer in all its awesome size and let her read Majestic’s prediction of the future of Human Civilization with and without a single, all-powerful, central authority. The evidence was compelling. The machine’s impeccable logic was impossible to refute, but even that might not have been enough to convince her to abandon her oath to the Federation if Trojan hadn’t also told her about the new stealth technology and Majestic’s prediction that Commodore Romanov’s three stealthy cruisers would sweep rebel defenses from Sparta’s orbit. The war was effectively over, he told her. All that was left to do was to land troops on the main rebel planets and pacify them. He needed her cruiser to escort the troop transports in case the troops needed orbital bombardment support when they landed. Could he count on her to see where her greater duty lay? Her conscience fought a losing battle to convince her to keep her honor and refuse. The prospect of centuries of chaos and anarchy among hundreds of planets, including Earth, was just too horrible to ignore. It was the fanaticism that Trojan was actively promoting that caused her the most anxiety. She was enough of a student of history to understand how easily that kind of movement could take on a life of its own, and she was certain that she didn’t want to be a part of that. He could have her co-operation, but not her soul.
Three days later, Trafalgar received new orders from Majestic. Word had come back from Sparta that Romanov’s ships were in total control of Sparta’s orbitals, and the coast was clear to send troops there. Trafalgar would be one of two conventional cruisers escorting the troop transports. This was her moment of decision. So far she hadn’t disobeyed any orders from Navy Chief of Staff Chenko, but if she obeyed Majestic via Trojan, she’d be committing treason, no ifs, ands or buts. She gave the orders that would take Trafalgar to Sparta. The die was now cast.
Day 206/2549
As Trafalgar’s shuttle carried Remington down to Sparta’s Capital, she reviewed the events of the past 24 hours. With the arrival of his troops, Romanov had demanded Sparta’s surrender, explaining that if the rebels resisted, he would order orbital bombardment of cities, with the attendant risk of collateral damage to civilian structures, and civilian casualties. The surrender demand also included a thinly veiled threat that his troops would shoot first and ask questions later if there was resistance of any kind. The Sparta Chancellor surrendered the planet and promised that there would be no resistance. Remington was relieved to hear that Trafalgar would not be ordered to fire on the planet. If Drake was down there, she would never forgive herself if he died while stationed at a military facility targeted by her ship. When it became clear that the Spartans would not resist, Romanov had ordered Trafalgar and the other escorting cruiser to stand down from Battle Stations, and the status change opened up the window for her to go down to the surface. If questioned, she would claim that she was gathering information for her own After Action report to Majestic and General Trojan. In fact, she was hoping to find Drake and escort him personally into FED custody to avoid the possibility that some trigger-happy, black-uniformed fanatic would shoot him for ‘acting in a suspicious manner’. Her contemplation was interrupted by the shuttle pilot’s voice.
“Commander, we’ve been ordered by Assault Ops to stay in a holding pattern until the rest of their troops are on the ground and the landing zone is clear.”
Remington shook her head in dismay. Why did everything have to be so damned difficult? “Stand by, I’m coming up to the flight deck,” she said. When she entered the cockpit and was standing behind the pilot’s right shoulder, she asked, “Where are we now?” All she could see out the windscreen were clouds.
“We’re about three klicks out from their spaceport at an altitude of 2500 meters,” answered the pilot.
“Can we at least drop down below these clouds?” asked Remington.
The pilot nodded. “THAT we can do. Here we go.”
The shuttle dropped quickly until they were below the cloud cover. The city was now laid out before her. In the distance, she could see multiple tiny dots moving down to the spaceport landing sites. More troops were coming in by anti-gravity troop carriers. The nose of the shuttle started to swing away from the spaceport in what Remington knew would be a curving path around it.
“Bring us over the city center and lower too if you can. I’d like to see how our troops are doing for my report to General Trojan,” said Remington. Might as well give some support to my excuse, she thought to herself.
“I can get us over the center but not much lower. However, we can use our nose camera to zoom in on anything you’d like to get a good look at, Commander.”
“That’ll be fine, Lieutenant.”
It wasn’t long before the shuttle was nearing the administrative center of the city. Remington recognized the building where the rebel government had its offices. The flat top seemed to be crowded with people.
“Okay, can we zoom in on the top of that gold-colored tower?” asked Remington.
The pilot nodded. “Take the flight controls, Shooter. I’ll operate the zoom,” he said to the co-pilot. Remington watched the video screen in the center of the cockpit console. The image zoomed in, and she gasped as she recognized who was standing in a line at the edge of the roof and what was about to happen. The SSU Chancellor and a dozen others who were probably his cabinet were standing right at the edge of the roof with their hands behind their backs. In front of them was a line of Colonel Ericson’s black-uniformed troops holding weapons that were pointed at the rebel leaders.
“My God, that’s a firing squad,” said Remington in shock. She could tell by the recoil that the troops had fired. The Chancellor and all his people spun around and fell over the edge. As she tried to understand why Ericson would feel the need to conduct summary executions after a peaceful surrender, her peripheral vision detected the pilot turning to look at her. She looked at him and saw that he was also disturbed by what they had just seen.
“Going to put that in your report, Commander?” said the pilot in a low voice. It wasn’t so much a question as a challenge and was borderline insubordinate. She could tell that he was expecting to be chastised for it, and when that didn’t happen, she saw both men relax.
“I won’t need the zoom anymore, Lieutenant,” said Remington finally. The pilot turned the screen off and took back control of the shuttle.
Remington was about to turn around and go back to her seat when a thought came to her. “Listen, you two,” she said as she turned back to the two men. “I suggest you watch what you say when we’re down there. Those black-uniformed troopers are fanatics, and I don’t think you want to draw their attention. Got it?”
The pilot looked over at his co-pilot and then at her. “Oh, yeah, Commander, we definitely got that.”
It was almost an hour before the shuttle was finally allowed to land and she could disembark. Two assault troopers were standing beside a commandeered vehicle as she stepped off the shuttle. As they approached her, the one on the left spoke.
“By what authorization are you on Sparta, Commander Remington?”
She gave him her cover story. The troopers looked at each other. The GENERAL’S orders were not to be disobeyed or questioned. Challenging her right to be here might be considered as questioning the Big Guy’s orders. Better to play it safe and let her go ahead. All of this had passed between the two troopers non-verbally, and Remington understood it completely.
“In that case, welcome to newly-liberated Federation territory, sir. Can we give you a lift somewhere?”
She decided that it would be less suspicious looking if she let them give her a ride. “I’ll accept your kind offer, trooper. I’d like to see the Ops Center for planetary defense, if you happen to know where that is.”
Both men relaxed visibly. This Navy Commander looked like she’d be easy to get along with. “No we don’t, but we’ll find it for you if you hop in, Commander.”
They were as good as their word. Fifteen minutes later, she was standing in the huge Ops Center looking up at the three-story high main display, which was dark now. The room was empty of people. Most of the consoles were turned off. She was hoping to find someone who could tell her where Drake was assigned or at least point her in the right direction of someone who would know, but clearly she wasn’t going to find any answers here.
“Remington, is that you?” said a female voice from behind her. There was a hardness in the tone that made her reach for her handgun as she spun around. She saw a woman wearing the rebel uniform of an army Major, with her hands up. Remington lowered her weapon but didn’t put it away. There was something vaguely familiar about this major. The woman stepped closer, and Remington read her name tag. Foster. Suddenly her memory clicked.
“You’re Cate Foster, the spy who was in Trojan’s planning group on Earth,” said Remington.
Foster nodded. “And you’re Lorelei Remington, Roland Drake’s long lost love. Let me guess why you’re here. You’re looking for him, right?” There was a sad smile on her face. While Remington was still making up her mind how to answer that question, Foster asked, “Can I put my hands down without getting shot?” Remington nodded. Foster stopped approaching when they were roughly two meters apart. They looked each other in the eye and said nothing for several seconds.
Remington was just about to give Foster her cover story when on a sudden impulse she said, “Yes, I’m here to look for Roland. Do you happen to know where he is?”
Foster gave her a calculating look. “I don’t know exactly where he is, but I can tell you where he isn’t. He’s not here on Sparta anymore.” Remington’s disappointment must have shown on her face, because Foster continued in a less harsh, even slightly sympathetic voice. “I can see how that news affects you. It’s been how many years since you’ve seen him?”
“Too many,” whispered Remington.
“Yes, a long time without the man you love, and now you’re faced with the prospect that you’ll never see him again. I know what that feels like, Lorelei. My husband was on Midgard when FED forces raided our operation there. He’s almost certainly dead, but I’ll never know for sure.”
After a period of silence, Remington said, “I’m sorry about your husband. I hate this war. I hate what it’s made us become and do. Trojan’s turned his troopers into fanatics, and a little while ago I saw them shoot your leadership off the top of the gold tower. Whatever happened to honor, Cate?”
“It was never here to begin with, Lorelei. We only had rumors of honor, that’s all.” Foster looked like she wanted to say more, and Remington waited. Stepping over to the nearest console, Foster sat down on the edge, folded her arms, and continued.
“I’ve got a proposition for you, Lorelei, and it’s not as one officer to another, but rather as one woman to another. You want to join up with your man, and I want to join up with mine. I’ll help you if you promise me, on your...honor, that you’ll help me.”
There was something about her tone that made the hairs on Remington’s neck stand up. “You want my help to get to Midgard?” she asked.
Foster shook her head. “Bret’s not there anymore. Oh, his body may be, but his soul has moved on, and I need your help to follow him wherever he is now.”
“I don’t understand, Cate. Do you want me to help you commit suicide?”
“I’ll explain everything, but only after you agree to the deal. I help you find Drake, and you help me with what I need to do.”
“One question first. You said you don’t know where Drake is now, so how can you help me find him?”
Foster thought for a moment and then said, “I didn’t lie to you, Lorelei. I don’t know for certain where he is right now, but I can point you in the right direction. If you’re clever enough, you can pick up his trail and follow it. That’s all I’m prepared to say at this point.”
Remington didn’t know what to say to that. Cate clearly had something other than simple suicide in mind, and Remington had a hunch that if her help came to light, it would be bad for her career, maybe even bad enough to get her booted out of the Navy altogether. Then she remembered that by following Trojan, she had already crossed a line. Maybe being able to take her uniform off for good wasn’t such a bad prospect. Unless Cate was lying to her, this might be her only clue to Drake’s whereabouts, and her intuition was telling her that Cate wasn’t lying. She made a decision.
“I give you my word that I’ll help you in return for pointing me in the right direction to find Roland.”
“Good! Good. Here’s what I need from you. Do you know who was in charge of the raid on Midgard?” asked Cate.
“Yes. Commodore Romanov was in charge of the fleet component, and Colonel Ericson was in charge of the ground operation.”
“Is Ericson here on Sparta now?”
“I know he’s in charge of the troops, but I don’t know for certain if he’s on the ground or not.”
“Then I need you to find out if he’s down here, and if so, arrange for me to be taken to him. Then your part’s done, Lorelei.”
Remington frowned. “What exactly are you planning on doing, Cate?”
Foster stood up and undid the front of her uniform jacket. When she opened it, Foster saw that she was wearing a harness containing flat bricks of what had to be plastic explosives.
“I’m going to get as close to him as I can, and then I’ll blow both of us sky high,” said Foster.
Remington’s first impulse was to say no, but then she remembered how Ericson had murdered Stevens in cold blood, and the firing squad on the top of the gold tower looked like the kind of thing that he would be capable of ordering.
“I don’t see how I could get you near him. I’m not on his staff you know.”
Foster closed her jacket and smiled. “I can tell that you’re shocked by this. You’re desperately looking for a way out of your obligation to me. The answer is quite simple really. You take me at the point of your gun to the nearest trooper officer. Then you explain that you’ve stumbled on the rebel spy who used to be on General Trojan’s staff on Earth and that Colonel Ericson would definitely want to have a little chat with me, which I’m sure is absolutely the case. We know that Trojan was embarrassed by having a rebel spy on his staff all that time. What do you want to bet that he didn’t order Ericson to try to find me?”
“What if his troops search you first?”
Foster shrugged. “It’s a risk I’ll just have to take. I’d rather take Ericson with me, but if I have to, I’ll take a couple of black-uniformed troopers with me instead. I can detonate this stuff pretty damned quick, even with my hands tied or cuffed.” After a pause she asked. “Will you do it?”
Remington surprised herself by saying yes and meaning it. “Obviously you have to tell me how to find Roland before I turn you over to Ericson’s goons,” she said with an apologetic smile.
Foster smiled back. “Obviously. How you do it is up to you, but you need to get yourself to Zanzibar. I doubt if Drake will still be there, but that’s where you can start following his trail.”
Remington was now a little annoyed. Zanzibar? What would Drake be doing on a backwater colony like Zanzibar?
“What’s the SSU been doing on Zanzibar?” she asked.
Foster sighed. “That is the kind of question that a Federation Navy Commander asks of a rebel Major during interrogation. I may be a woman consumed by fury, but I’m not a traitor. That kind of information wasn’t part of the deal, Lorelei.”
“Damn, you’re right, Cate. I’m sorry. I had no right to ask you that. I just don’t understand why Roland would go there,” said Remington. To her surprise, Foster laughed.
“Think about what you’ve just said, Lorelei, and you’ll be able to answer your own question.”
Before Remington could respond, she heard voices that sounded like people were coming closer to the room. Foster stepped forward and produced a pair of handcuffs that she held out to Remington. “Here, put these on me quick and point your gun at me before someone comes in here and gets the wrong idea.”
They were ready by the time three men in black uniforms entered the room. One of them was, in fact, an officer. Remington told them who the rebel Major was and why Colonel Ericson would want to interrogate her personally. The trooper officer laughed a vicious laugh.
“Oh yes, the Colonel will definitely want to interrogate your prisoner himself. I know where the Colonel is, so my boys and I will relieve you of this burden, Commander. We’ll escort her to him right now, won’t we boys?” His men agreed heartily. Remington wondered if Cate would make it to Ericson.
As the two troopers took Foster by her arms and pulled her away, Foster spoke without looking back. “Good luck, Commander.” The officer turned away without saluting. Remington breathed a sigh of relief. She hadn’t seen him look at her name tag, so maybe her involvement with Foster would not come back to haunt her. She decided that staying here on the ground any longer would be pushing her luck. She would head back to the shuttle and then to her ship. As she was about to leave the now empty room, she looked back to the exit the troopers and Foster had used. “Good luck to you too, Major,” she said softly.
Foster’s initial fear that the troopers would first strip-search her for their own amusement turned out to be unfounded. The officer in charge seemed to be more interested in boosting his career than in simple rape. Maybe he thought the Colonel would give her back to him and his men after Ericson was finished with her. Then he’d get the recognition AND the fun. In any case, it didn’t take long before they ushered her into what had been a large conference room. There were a dozen black-uniformed officers huddled around an oval table. Her escorting officer whispered something to a lieutenant who must have been Ericson’s aide. The lieutenant passed on the information to one of the huddled men who then stood up and came over to her. His name tag did say Ericson and he was a Colonel.
“Well, well, well, what do we have here? Major Foster. Yes, it is you. I recognize your face from photos, Major. General Trojan asked me to keep an eye out for you.” He stepped close to her and lifted her chin with his hand so that his face was almost close enough to kiss her. She didn’t think he would do that in front of his subordinates, but then again, she wouldn’t put anything past this bastard. Her hands were still cuffed, and both troopers still held her arms. The officer who escorted her here was standing right behind her. All four of them! Can’t ask for more than that. I’m coming home, babe. With that thought, she closed her eyes and tapped her heels together two times.
As Remington stepped off the shuttle inside Trafalgar’s hangar bay, the pilot called to her. “Commander? Shooter and I heard some interesting chatter over the assault Ops frequency that I think you might appreciate knowing.”
“What is it, Lieutenant?”
“Well, apparently a rebel officer got close enough to the top ground force commander to blow the two of them plus three more troopers to hell with hidden explosives. If that force commander ordered the firing squad, then the rebels got a little payback, wouldn’t you say, Commander?”
Not saying anything, Remington just nodded and continued on her way.
She had to wait another 89 hours before an opportunity came to follow up on Foster’s information. During that time, she pondered Foster’s answer to her query on why Zanzibar, and she thought she had figured out what Foster had been hinting at. Zanzibar really was a backwater colony on the very edge of explored space. There was no good military reason for the Rebels to do anything there, and therefore it was highly likely that it would be a long time before Earth or Majestic, depending on which side came out on top, would get around to sending a ship there. And that made it the perfect place to hide something or to hide out for a while. Foster had said that she doubted Drake would still be there. That meant that Zanzibar was a temporary stop leading to something or somewhere else.
Remington kept asking herself what Drake could be involved in that would require that kind of secrecy. It couldn’t be a secret fleet. That made no sense. If the Rebels had a secret fleet, then why not use it to defend Sparta? But if not a fleet of warships, then what? Could it be a fleet of freighters...carrying important equipment...or important people? They couldn’t be political leaders. She had recognized Chancellor Belloc before the gunfire pushed him off the top of the tower. So if not leaders, then who? The only answer that made any sense was that a small group of hard core fanatics, who refused to accept defeat, were trying to find or set up a hidden outpost or colony in order to what...fight again another day, or just live beyond the Federation? Maybe they were refugees looking for a peaceful place to call home. Maybe. A peaceful place to call home sounded pretty good to her right now, especially if Drake was with her.
By the time Trafalgar’s new orders arrived, she knew what she was going to do. Romanov had decided to speed up the process by taking two troop transports escorted by one cruiser with his stealth squadron to Hekla. Remington waited until they were ten minutes from jumping to Hekla in formation with Romanov’s ships. She then called the Astrogator and the XO out into the corridor outside the Bridge.
“We’re not going to Hekla,” she announced in a calm voice. “I have very good reason to believe that the Rebels are conducting a secret operation that’s based on Zanzibar, but I don’t have any evidence to support it, and Vice-Admiral Romanov has refused to change his plans. I’m prepared to go out on a limb and take Trafalgar to Zanzibar on my own initiative. If it turns out to be a wild goose chase, then I’ll take the blame. So I’m not asking for your consent, but I am explaining why I’m disobeying Romanov’s order. AO, I want you to adjust our planned jump for a short, micro-jump, after which we’ll line up for a jump to Zanzibar. We’ll continue with the same vector so as not to tip our hand to the Admiral. They won’t know that anything’s amiss until we fail to show up at Hekla. I order both of you to keep this information to yourselves for now. I’ll inform the crew after we’re on our way to Zanzibar. Let’s get back to our jump stations.”
As they broke up the meeting, she went over to the Communications Station and leaned over to speak with the Com Tech privately.
“As of right now, no transmissions of any kind leaves this ship until after we jump, understood? Not even if it’s from the XO.” The Com Tech’s eyes widened. This sounded very dramatic and a little bit ominous. Was there some kind of private power play going on?
“Understood, Skipper, no transmissions of any kind.”
“Good man,” she said as she patted him on the shoulder and headed back to her Command Station.
