Jess breathed a sigh of relief as the Wanderer dropped out of jump space near to Admiral North’s fleet. The journey back had been difficult because he’d pushed the Wanderer as fast as was possible within jump space.
Part of his relief came from finding the fleet intact, and where it should be. Holding the fleet together was a massive achievement and Jess was sure that only a few people could have managed it. Somehow Admiral North was managing the feat… so far at least.
It took less than a minute for the Wanderer to receive a video call from the admiral.
“Jess!” said Admiral North. “Did you find them?”
Jess didn’t answer for a moment. He was too shocked by the Admiral’s appearance. He’d looked tired before, but now his skin was more grey than pale and his eyes were sunken. He didn’t look as if he’d slept at all since the Wanderer had left. Maybe he hadn’t.
“Yes, Admiral, we found them,” said Ali, stepping in when Jess failed to answer. “Lucien was telling the truth, about the fleet and about what they’re doing. We found them in the process of converting the crews of a whole bunch of ships.”
“Enough that we can’t beat them?”
“No,” said Clay. “Most of them were civilian ships. The few navy ships will make our job harder, but not impossible.”
“Good. We’re ready to go so we can leave immediately.”
“Admiral, you look… tired,” said Jess. “I think you should come over to the Wanderer to get checked out.”
“Nonsense! I’m fine and we don’t have time to mess around. We’ll be leaving in twenty-five minutes. Will you be ready?”
Jess understood the unspoken question… will you go with us?
“Yes,” he replied. “We’ll be ready.”
“Good.”
The transmission terminated abruptly. Jess had to query the Wanderer to be sure it had been terminated cleanly rather than the connection being broken, but it had. Admiral North had hung up on them.
“He really doesn’t look well,” said Jess.
“He doesn’t look like he’s slept in days,” added Ali.
“Maybe he hasn’t,” replied Clay. “Holding this fleet together is an amazing achievement, and one which will take a huge amount of time and energy. Without him I doubt we’d have returned to even find a fleet, or one anywhere near this size at least.
“Once this is over he’ll be able to rest more,” said Jess. “We just have to get him, and everyone else, through the battle.”
“And then we leave,” said Ali firmly.
Jess smiled tiredly at her.
“Yes. Then we leave! No matter what.”
“What if we don’t manage to destroy that fleet?” asked Clay.
“I… I don’t know. If it’s just a case of it trying to flee then the Wanderer can destroy most of the ships while they’re in jump space without the others even being aware, then we can lead our fleet to take out what remains. If our fleet is beaten… if that happens then there’ll be nothing we can do. We run. What else could we do?”
Clay sat for a few moments, then his shoulders slumped.
“Nothing,” he said. “If that happens there’ll be nothing we can do. The Wanderer can’t begin to destroy that fleet on its own, at best you could only wear down the smaller ships over time.
“We could try to put together another fleet but that would take months or even years, even if it was possible, and in that time the Imperial fleet would have been growing massively as it consumed more and more systems and ships. No fleet we could build would ever be big enough to challenge them.”
“So it would be hopeless?” asked Ali.
“Only if we lose,” said Jess firmly. “And I don’t intend to let that happen. I’d much rather we spent the rest of our lives exploring knowing we’d eliminated the threat of an ever-increasing number of Limited than spend it running knowing the horror was expanding exponentially behind us.”
“Not exponentially,” said Clay. “That’s the one advantage of them keeping everything locked into one place. It would be terrible but it wouldn’t be like the Taint. It wouldn’t be able to just keep on expanding in every direction. They’d need to slow down as their sphere of influence grew… but it would still be horrific.”
“Unless they finally decided to split the ability to create Limited amongst a few fleets instead of one. In that case…”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Ali. “We’re going to do everything we can to win. If we fail it won’t be down to lack of effort on our part. If we fail then we’ll make sure we stay well ahead of the spread of the Limited, and the Universe can wait for another set of heroes to save it.
“We’ve done more than our share just making sure there is a universe to be saved. Now, that’s enough gloominess. The fleet will be ready to go soon. We need to be ready too.”
Ali was wrong about the fleet being ready to go. Or Jess guessed it was more accurate to say Admiral North had been. The twenty-five minutes came and went twice over and still the fleet wasn’t ready to leave.
At first the excuses for delays seemed reasonable. Engines suffering overloads after so much time fighting on the run followed by a long downtime, repair work which had been started before the Wanderer returned and needed to be patched so it could be finished with quickly. Crew out of position, again because the Wanderer’s arrival had been unexpected.
The excuses were reasonable but Jess was starting to get angry at the fact so many of them hinged on the Wanderer’s sudden arrival. He and Ali were on the flight deck but Clay was elsewhere in the ship, so Jess only had Ali to vent his frustrations to.
“What was I supposed to do?” he snapped. “Send a message ahead, even though that’s impossible? How could our arrival not have been unexpected?”
“They’ve been caught out and they want to try and shift some of the blame,” said Ali. “You’ve heard Admiral North’s reaction to the delays. Would you want to be on the receiving end of that?”
Jess grimaced. “No. No, I wouldn’t. But blaming the Wanderer…”
“Blaming the Wanderer lets them try and divert a bit of the blame, and the Admiral sets them straight every time.”
“He’s definitely running short on patience. Wait… he’s making another announcement…”
“Enough time has passed,” started the message. “We need to leave and leave now. I will not accept any further delays. You all agreed to take part in this fight, trying to weasel your way out of it is not acceptable. You have six minutes from now to report that you’re ready. By the stars, if anyone reports they aren’t ready to go when that time is up I’ll be ordering the Spindrift to open fire on them!”
The message ended and Jess sat for a moment, taking in the threat before he spoke.
“Do you think he’ll really go through with his threat to open fire on them if they don’t hurry up?”
“I doubt it,” replied Ali. “But I’m not totally sure and nor are they. I think it was more about stopping the issues which kept being ‘discovered’ just before each new launch time. I’m no engineer but I’m sure most of the recent ones should have been obvious from the start, and reported then. Those captains are stalling.”
“If they’re stalling then might they simply decide not to go at all, or to head off in a different direction without us?” asked Jess.
Ali smiled at him. “No, Jess. They won’t do that. Because of you. Because of the Wanderer. They all know that you can spot them in jump space, that you’d know whether they’d left or not and if they deviated. And they know you’re ruthless enough to destroy them if they do.”
“Ruthless? Ruthless?”
Ali laughed at his distress, but put a hand to the side of his face to soften the impact.
“Oh Jess! Yes, ruthless. I’m not saying you are, just that they believe it. For all you’re this almighty hero you’re also a figure they fear. Maybe that’s always the way with heroes. Right now it works to our advantage… but only because they don’t know you.”
“Well if you’re right then we’ll find out for sure in about five minutes when the latest deadline Admiral North set runs out. I really hope none of them call his bluff. I’m not sure what would be worse… seeing him fire on his own fleet, or him failing to see through his threat. Either could split the fleet into fragments.”
“Maybe we can help,” said Ali. “We could fly the Wanderer around menacingly near the ships which seem most likely to push their luck.”
“Menacingly?”
“Like this…”
She sent the details over their shared link with the Wanderer. Jess had to smile at the deviousness of what she proposed, and immediately told the Wanderer to follow the plan.
“Menacingly it is,” he said with a smile. “Let’s just hope it’s enough.”
Over the next five minutes Jess kept the Wanderer dropping in and out of jump space. Each time it reappeared it was facing one of the ships that seemed most likely to stall. The Wanderer made no aggressive moves, it just sat there for a few seconds before disappearing into jump space again.
That proved to be more than enough. When the Wanderer was in normal space Jess heard the complaints from the targeted ships, complaints sent in the direction of Admiral North whose only reply was to call out each minute of his countdown.
For the last thirty seconds of the countdown Jess had the Wanderer reappear near the Spindrift and hold position there. He turned in his seat and grinned at Ali.
“Menacingly seems to have worked!” he said.
She smiled back. “I’m happy to keep coming up with ideas. You just make sure you keep listening to them!”
Jess went to answer but a two word message from the Spindrift, sent only to the Wanderer, came in.
Well done!
It wasn’t signed but it was clear it was from Admiral North.
“Your genius has been recognised!” said Jess.
“Don’t push it! Besides, we don’t know if it’s worked yet.”
“We will in a few seconds… hold on, ships are already calling in their status.”
They sat for a moment, their minds accelerated by their implants so they could process the rush of status updates from the ships. Those which the Wanderer had targeted menacingly were amongst the first, and every one of them reported that it was ready.
Ali’s smile widened as the reports came in. The ploy had worked. The Wanderer had appeared menacing enough to intimidate anyone who’d been wavering.
Only a single ship reported not being ready, and it wasn’t one which had done so before. The Stalata reported a major explosion when one of its damaged engines was restarted. They’d managed to shut it down before the explosion which had saved the ship, but they’d still lost several crew.
“I’m going to check that out,” said Jess. “I don’t want Admiral North firing on them if it’s a genuine problem.”
“And if it’s not? If you back off then the bluff will be called.”
Jess hesitated, then spat out a curse. “Nothing’s ever easy, is it? I’ll risk that. My gut tells me this is genuine, and if it’s not… if it’s not I’ll check with Admiral North before doing anything. If he wants us to open fire then I’ll aim to damage the ship, not destroy it.”
“Firing on our own fleet…” Ali shook her head. “Damn but I’ll be glad when we’re through with all this. The politics is worse than the fighting most of the time.”
Jess grunted in agreement, then sent the Wanderer into jump space. Almost immediately he felt Ali reaching out to the ship with her implants, asking it to change how it would appear back in normal space. Asking because her link didn’t allow her to override the ship, especially when it was obeying Jess’s orders.
Jess paused for an instant, then decided to accept her change. There wasn’t time to discuss it, the Wanderer was already breaking back out of jump space. Jess threw power into the jump engines so the Wanderer was turned almost sideways to the Stalata rather than pointing at it.
“Sorry,” said Ali. “I suddenly realised how it would look if we turned up in exactly the way we’d been using to intimidate the waverers. The Stalata might have opened fire on us out of fear.”
“Good catch. I hadn’t even thought of that. They’ve not opened fire so far… let’s see what state they’re in…”
As Jess had the Wanderer scan the Stalata the door at the back of the flight deck opened and Clay entered.
“Is that the Stalata by any chance?” he asked.
“Yep,” said Jess. “You’ve been listening in to what’s happened?”
“I have, thanks to the Wanderer. I really love this ship.”
Clay patted the edge of a console affectionately. Jess was surprised to feel a response from the Wanderer, a warm feeling directed toward Clay.
“The Wanderer seems to have taken a real shine to you too,” said Jess. “Ah… here’s the scan results…”
Jess went to push them onto a console for Clay, but the Wanderer was faster. Jess had to smile at that. The Wanderer had really taken Clay to its heart.
Then he turned his attention to the results. One thing was for sure, the explosion hadn’t been faked. The engine had definitely exploded and had done significant damage to the ship around it. The outer hull was intact but the damage had nearly reached that far.
“That was one hell of an explosion,” said Clay. “They’re damn lucky it didn’t take the whole ship out.”
“Was it lucky?” asked Jess. “Or could it have been rigged?”
Clay thought for a moment, then shook his head. “I doubt it. That wasn’t an explosion set up to simulate an engine blowing, it was the real thing. Could they have managed the explosion down to this level? I doubt it. Did the Wanderer get any readings before the explosion?”
“I was just checking that,” said Ali. “It did. The engine was started and had cycled up to full power, then the output suddenly started to fluctuate. It looks like someone triggered an emergency shutdown which only just got the engine below the critical point before it blew.”
“Most likely whoever did that was right by the engine,” said Clay, his voice quiet. “They wouldn’t have had time to get clear, but they died saving most of the people on the ship.”
“So it wasn’t rigged?” asked Jess.
Clay blew out through his teeth. “I can’t say no for sure but it’s damn unlikely. I can’t think of any way to do it that wouldn’t run the risk of destroying the entire ship.”
“Good enough for me. I’ll send a message to the Admiral telling him this is a real failure.”
“Send it to everyone,” said Ali. “We want everyone to know we aren’t backing down from the threat, we’re making an exception. And that we’ll treat any new engine failures as highly suspicious!”
“Done,” said Jess. “Other than that everyone has reported ready. Let’s hope we can get on our way now. Finally!”
Admiral North accepted the report from Jess, sending the reply for everyone to hear and reinforcing that any other ship claiming the same failure had better actually be destroyed.
It took another ten minutes for the fleet to be ready. Jess was on edge the whole time waiting for someone to push their luck, but no one did. Finally the entire fleet signalled it was ready, and Admiral North gave the order to enter jump.
Jess held the Wanderer back, knowing it could easily catch up with the fleet within jump space. Close to thirty ships didn’t jump on cue, but it only took a few seconds for them to notice the Wanderer was still there and disappear into jump themselves. The Wanderer checked the jump signature from every ship in the fleet and confirmed they were all on the correct heading.
“That’s the biggest hurdle out of the way,” said Jess. “Everyone has jumped and they’re all heading in the right direction. Now we need to check they don’t accidentally drop out of jump too early and shepherd along any that do.”
“Hopefully none will,” said Clay. “You’ve managed to get them all moving and moving in the right direction. Momentum should kick in for most of them now.”
“Most?”
Jess glanced over his shoulder and saw that Clay was grinning.
“Hey,” Clay replied. “I never said this was going to be easy! It might be all, but I’ll believe that when I see it.”
“Only one way to find out,” said Ali.
“True,” said Jess.
He reached out to the Wanderer and had it enter jump space. He used the ship’s ability to change direction and greater speed to fly around the fleet, constantly monitoring for any sign that a ship was dropping out early.
The Wanderer was more than capable of handling that itself but Jess found himself watching closely, tensely waiting for the first ship to deviate from the agreed course.
After a couple of minutes of that he felt Ali’s consciousness join his via the link they shared with the Wanderer, and felt the amusement she was radiating.
If you carry on like this you’ll be a nervous wreck before we’ve even reached the first waypoint. You know the Wanderer can handle this. Hell, the Wanderer will be linked with you and using part of your mind while it does it! Leave it to it. And yes, that is an order Captain Jess.
Jess found himself grinning at her jab, and knew that she was right. He’d never have admitted it to himself, but hearing it from Ali meant he had to acknowledge the truth.
He pulled himself away from monitoring the fleet in jump space. As he did so he felt a wave of satisfaction from the Wanderer as well as from Ali.
Ganging up on me! he sent to both of them.
He received the equivalent of a warm hug from both Ali and the ship, and for a little while at least the tension eased from him and he was able to relax.