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Chapter Five

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Day 080/2553

Senior Lieutenant Rolf Schimdt watched the shuttle taxi into the Hangar Bay and come to a stop. By the time he reached it, the CO had already exited, and Schmidt only caught a brief glimpse of the man as he rushed for the hatch leading to the elevators and presumably the Bridge. Lieutenant Abernathy, the shuttle’s Pilot, stepped down onto the deck just as Schmidt came up.

“What’s with the Old Man, Mandy? I’ve never seen him move so fast,” said Schmidt.

Abernathy took her time answering. Schmidt noticed that she had a puzzled look on her face.

“Something weird is going on, Lieutenant,” she said in a slow voice. “The Old Man wasn’t the only commander ordered down to the Majestic Complex on short notice. They were all there, all the commanders of warships, plus Nagumo. They went inside and didn’t come out for almost four hours. Then they came out as a group, and they all had this pained expression on their faces.”

“Aw come on, you must be exaggerating.”

Abernathy shook her head. “Hell no, I’m not exaggerating. It was a damn strange sight, but that’s not the worst of it. On the way back up here, I switched on the video camera in the passenger section to check to see if the Old Man was okay, and I saw him writhing in pain and holding the back of his neck with both hands. I asked him if he needed assistance, and after a few seconds he said no and ordered me to turn the camera off.”

Schmidt shrugged. “So the Old Man had a headache. I would too if I’d been ordered out of bed in the middle of the night for a four hour powwow with the Emperor.” He was about to say more when he saw Abernathy shake her head again, this time more emphatically.

“That was no headache. Headaches don’t make you writhe in pain like that. The expression he had when he came out of the Complex jives with what Lieutenant Tulo told me about Conqueror’s Weapons Officer, Evanka Nolan. He told me that she had a pained expression, that’s the phrase he used, when she came back to the ship from a trip to the Complex to visit her brother. I’m telling ya, Lieutenant, there’s something about this that’s setting off alarm bells in my head.”

“Okay. I agree with you, that does sound strange, but I don’t see what I can do about it.” Before Abernathy could respond, they both heard the two-tone signal for a ship-wide announcement.

“Attention all hands. This ship will leave orbit in two minutes. Astrogator and Helm Officers to the Bridge. That is all.”

Schmidt looked at Abernathy with a frown on his face. “We’ve still got some crew on shore leave on the planet. What’s the Old Man doing leaving them behind?” Abernathy shrugged but said nothing.

When Schmidt was on his way to his duty station in Damage Control, he came across Molitor, the Executive Officer, in the corridor. Schmidt stopped her and told her what Abernathy had told him. He expected her to be skeptical and was surprised when she didn’t try to come up with a more prosaic explanation. When they parted company, she had a thoughtful expression on her face.

When the ship was safely in hyper-space and the Bridge Watch was set, Molitor went down to the CO’s cabin and rang the buzzer. She heard the CO’s voice telling her to enter. She entered and heard the sound of water running in the washroom.

“What is it, XO?” The CO’s voice came from the washroom and sounded tired.

“I just wanted to inform you that I checked our store of consumables. We won’t have enough to last us past Hiesenburg, Skipper. I thought you should know.” As she talked, she walked up to an upholstered chair where the CO’s shirt was laying. The inside of the light blue collar had a red spot that looked to her like blood, and fresh blood at that.

“Not a problem, XO. We’ll requisition what we need when we get to Midgard. Anything else on your mind?”

Molitor was now looking through the open washroom door. She couldn’t see the CO directly, but she could see his left shoulder in the mirror on the far wall. She moved over just in time to get a good look at the reflected image of the CO’s naked back and neck. There was a metal something visible just below the hairline, and a trickle of blood was slowly making its way down his back.

“Ah...no, Skipper, nothing else. Are you feeling okay? Lieutenant Abernathy thought you might be having a bad headache.”

After a slight pause, she heard what sounded like a whimper, but she decided it was likely her imagination as he said, “Just tired, XO. I intend to catch up on my lost sleep. Thanks for your concern. If there’s nothing else, then I’ll let you get back to your duties.”

As she left the CO’s cabin, she realized that her hands were trembling slightly. She’d heard rumors about some kind of communication device implanted in the necks of the support staff at the Majestic Complex. Why the hell did a ship commander need a communication device implanted when it couldn’t possibly work over interstellar distances or even if the ship was still in orbit over Hadley? If Conqueror’s Weapons Officer had something implanted in her neck, could that explain why she transmitted those orders to launch nukes on Earth? Those orders were a mystery, and now Molitor’s CO was acting strangely, leaving orbit with crew still on the ground when there didn’t seem to be any good reason to leave so quickly. She had to find Schmidt and tell him what she had just seen.

74 days later:

Molitor stepped onto the Bridge and looked around carefully. No one was looking in her direction. She had a medical injection pistol inside her uniform jacket and was worried that someone would see the bulge and say something to attract the CO’s attention. No one seemed to notice it, though, as she walked over to stand slightly behind and a little to one side of the Command Station chair where the CO was seated. The tactical image on the main display showed Midgard’s moon with the ship only a couple of minutes away from the orbital reconnaissance that their mission plan called for. The CO had briefed his officers about this mission. Majestic was convinced that the attack on Hadley had been carried out by the SSU Brain Trust, but in order to cover all possibilities, every planet, moon or asteroid that was known to have high concentrations of metals was to be looked over very carefully. And since Midgard’s moon had already been used once to build rebel warships, it was the first mission target on their list.

Molitor didn’t know what, if anything, they’d find here, but she knew what she was going to do if they did find something. Over the past 85 days, she, Schmidt, Abernathy and several other officers who had been brought up to speed had seen enough unusual behaviour by the CO to confirm their suspicions that the metal device on his neck was affecting his behavior and possibly his judgement too. Casual remarks by the CO in the Officer’s Lounge about needing to ‘thin out the herd with nukes’ clashed with the almost pacifist attitude that, prior to the midnight visit to the Complex, he had generally displayed regarding the subject of attacks on civilians. Plus, he was now taking deliberate actions to avoid letting anyone see the back of his neck when previously he had exercised in the recreation area bare-chested. Each anomaly by itself could be explained away harmlessly, but when all the pieces were put together, it was clear to her and the others that the CO was not in control of himself, and she was convinced he hadn’t let that happen voluntarily. As worthy a goal as the Empire might be, there was no justification for abusing individuals like that. She shivered with the thought that if ship COs could be forced to accept those implants, then so could ship XOs.

So she would wait to see if they found any unusual mining or extraction activity on Midgard’s moon, and if they did, and if the CO wanted to nuke it, she would stop him with a knockout drug.

The first complete pass over the moon took less than 30 minutes. It revealed only one spot that had suspicious activity worthy of a second, closer look. As the ship hovered over that spot at an altitude of a couple of hundred kilometers, its optical sensors zoomed in and noticed regular plumes of hot gases spewing from the ground. Spectral analysis of the gases showed them to be the by-product of smelting activity rather than something that occurred naturally.

“Weps, prepare to launch a missile with a ground-penetrating, Mark 5 warhead,” ordered the CO. Molitor looked at the Weapons Officer, who returned the gaze. He was part of her cadre of in-the-know officers. She shook her head ever so slightly. He nodded just as slightly and pretended to manipulate his weapons console.

As the Weapons Officer reported that the missile was ready for launch, Molitor quickly pulled the injection pistol from her jacket pocket and held it a centimeter from the exposed part of the CO’s neck. She pressed the trigger and the pistol fired tiny ice crystals at a high enough speed to penetrate the skin. The CO reacted instantly, so fast in fact that it caught Molitor by surprise. He jumped up and spun around to face her. Before she could react, he slapped the pistol from her hand and grabbed her by the throat. Her second surprise was how strong his grip was. With that much strength he could snap my neck! Just as she gave existence to that thought, the grip slackened quickly and the CO sagged to the floor.

As she massaged her bruised throat, she looked around the Bridge. Everyone was looking at her with shocked expressions, even the Weapons Officer, although his shock was not for what happened but rather for how quickly it happened.

“Everyone stay where you are and remain calm,” she said in what she hoped was a calm but firm voice. “The Skipper has been under control of a device that was implanted at the back of his neck. I’ll show you.” She put one knee on the CO’s back to make sure he didn’t jump up again and folded back his jacket collar. The metal device was plainly visible, and the tiny lights were blinking furiously. She made sure that everyone on the Bridge was able to see the implant before ordering the Com Technician to call two Marines with restraints to the Bridge. After being briefed on why the ship’s CO was unconscious on the floor and seeing the implant, the marines applied the restraints to the CO and carried him off the Bridge and on to Sick Bay. There the ship’s Chief Medical Officer, who already knew what to expect, was waiting to see if the implant could be removed safely.

“Listen up, people,” said Molitor. “I’m assuming command of this ship. What you’ve just seen is an attempt by rogue forces within the command structure to hijack the Empire for their own selfish purposes. Every ship CO now has one of those implants in their necks. I believe they were forced to accept them, and I’m convinced that if we return to Hadley, I and eventually all of you will be forced to accept an implant as well. Therefore returning to Hadley is not an option for us. If we’re going to stop this hideous threat, we’ll need help. Right now the only organized military force not under Empire control that I know of seems to be in this star system. I intend to make contact with them and ask for their help. Does anyone have a problem with that?” She slowly looked at everyone and saw them all shake their heads in the negative.

“Good! Then let’s head for Midgard. That’s where they have to be building ships.”

It was almost 24 hours before they were able to identify a location on Midgard where there seemed to be some kind of industrial activity that the locals were attempting to hide. It was inside an extinct volcano. Whoever was responsible for that operation had gone to great lengths to keep it from being detected. There were no visible lights at night, and the level of heat radiating out of the volcano was barely higher than the ambient temperature. The giveaway was a small air vehicle that was tracked flying into the volcano in the middle of the night and not coming out for several hours. Based on that suspicious activity, Molitor ordered the ship to hover almost 50 kilometers over the volcano and wait until the local sun was at its highest point in the sky. The ship’s opticals were able to zoom in enough to see movement inside the volcano. With that confirmation, Molitor ordered the ship to drop down to the same height as the top of the volcano and hover about 100 meters away. They then settled down to wait.

Murphy climbed aboard the air-bus with the rest of the people who were due some R&R and settled down in a seat for the 89 minute ride. He wasn’t going into the city to have fun. There were logistical matters that required face-to-face meetings between him and several city officials. Once those were taken care of, he intended to spend a few more hours getting a good night’s sleep in a comfortable hotel bed before coming back. Living quarters at the Base were utilitarian at best. Making the Base personnel comfortable hadn’t been a high priority for Admiral Chenko and General Masterson when they were supervising the operation, and now it was even lower. When everyone was aboard and seated, Murphy leaned forward, looked towards the flight deck, and said, “Okay, Lieutenant, we’re ready back here.”

The air-bus started to rise vertically. Murphy could tell by the brightness of the outside light through the cabin windows that they were getting near the top of the volcano. Just as the vehicle reached the top, he heard the Pilot exclaim in a shocked voice, “Oh shit!” The air-bus stopped moving. Before Murphy could ask what the problem was, the Pilot shouted to him in a voice that was on the verge of panic. “Commander, you better get up here right now!”

Murphy sprinted for the open flight deck door. The Pilot was pointing to the right, and as Murphy entered the flight deck, he saw what the Pilot was pointing at. It was a very large and very menacing-looking spaceship that had multiple flat sides similar to the Sorcerer. Oh, God, they’ve found us! He instinctively closed his eyes and clenched his muscles in anticipation of the laser fire that was surely about to cut through the air-bus’s thin aluminum skin any second now.

“Son-of-a-bitch, they’re opening their Hangar Bay!” said the Pilot. Murphy opened his eyes and saw that the Pilot was right. He looked at the Pilot who looked back at him.

“It seems they want us to fly inside,” said Murphy in what he hoped was a calm voice.

“Sounds like a good idea to me,” came the less panic-stricken reply.

They’ve had plenty of time to burn us down by now if they were going to do that. The fucking Empire has finally won. The bitterness of that realization was hard to swallow. The Pilot was obviously waiting for instructions. Murphy bowed his head and said in a low voice, “Might as well fly us in, Lieutenant.”

As the air-bus flew slowly into the cavernous Hangar Bay, Murphy saw a row of armed troopers and several unarmed individuals standing in front of them. The landing area where the vehicle was to set down was lit up with landing lights. Before Murphy could tell the Pilot to land there, the Pilot said, “I see it, Commander.”

As the air-bus landed, Murphy went back into the passenger compartment and told the others that they might as well accept the fact that they were now Empire prisoners. The cabin door folded down to provide steps, and before Murphy had a chance to exit the vehicle, a woman wearing a uniform with the rank insignia of a Lt. Commander quickly entered the compartment. Her expression threw him off guard. It seemed to be a mixture of friendliness and relief! The name tag on her uniform read R. Molitor. She spoke first.

“Commander...Murphy? Rachel Molitor, Acting CO of the Tigershark. Don’t be alarmed, Commander. This isn’t what you think, and I’m not going to demand your surrender. I’m here to talk.” She paused for half a second and then said in a surprisingly desperate voice, “I...we, need your help.”

An hour later Murphy was standing in Tigershark’s Sick Bay looking into a quarantine room where the body of the ship’s former commanding officer was strapped face down to a medical table. His upper torso was bare, and the automated examination equipment was scanning the metal device at the back of the patient’s neck. A screen was showing a computer enhanced image of the interior of the man’s neck and brain. Red lines were leading from the device into his brain.

“Those red lines are extremely thin wires that have been pushed into the sections of the brain where speech and cognition originate,” said the Chief Medical Officer standing next to Murphy. “The device is capable of sensing when the host is doing or saying something it’s not supposed to be doing or saying, and then the wires give enough of an electrical jolt to cause severe pain. It apparently can also sense when someone is trying to remove it, and if that happens, it gives the host a big enough jolt to induce death. We found that out the hard way.”

“My God, that’s monstrous,” said Murphy in a low voice. He turned to look at Molitor. “No wonder you didn’t go back. I’d have done the same thing in your boots.”

Molitor sighed and shook her head. “Frankly that endorsement doesn’t help much. I still feel like I’m on the wrong side here. What that damned computer is doing to our people doesn’t change the fact that Civilization is doomed to centuries of chaos and anarchy unless there’s a strong central government that’s willing and able to keep the peace.” She looked at Murphy’s face carefully. “You’re not convinced of that, are you?” she asked.

“No, at least not completely. I consider myself a student of history. They taught us the basics at the Academy, and I’ve continued studying history since graduation. Empires work for a few generations, and then they break down just like any other political system. Human Explored Space is just too big to be controlled from one central point. Regardless of how well-meaning the Emperor might be, eventually one of his Admirals or Governors will succumb to the temptation to set up his or her own mini-empire, and then you’ll have the same kind of civil war that we’re having now. A group of smaller polities might work for a while too, but there’ll always be the risk of trade or other areas of potential conflict boiling over into a shooting war.”

“But Majestic calculated that a strong central government could keep the peace indefinitely. The machine is too computationally powerful to be wrong,” said Molitor.

“Unless it was thinking in terms of this kind of mind control of key individuals. If every ship CO, admiral, general, planetary governor and senior bureaucrat were under Majestic’s direct control via devices like this, then I can see an Empire lasting centuries. Having said that, I’d also expect Majestic to slow down the pace of technological progress to a crawl. After all, some unexpected breakthrough just might loosen its grip on Humanity.” He paused and then added, “There’s another possibility. What if Majestic doesn’t have Humanity’s best interest at heart at all. What if it sees us as useful tools, properly controlled of course, to serve its agenda. Would it still need hundreds of billions of us living on hundreds of planets? A few million living on Hadley would probably be just as useful and a lot easier to control. That would explain why it ordered Romanov’s W.O. to nuke Earth.”

Molitor’s eyes opened wide with horror. “You’re not suggesting...my God! Do you really think Majestic would order the Empire’s Fleet to systematically exterminate all humans except for the ones on Hadley?”

“After what I’ve seen and heard, I wouldn’t put anything past that soulless machine. In any case, it doesn’t really matter what Majestic’s agenda is, we have to destroy it, right?”

“Yes, absolutely. I just don’t know what kind of structure we’ll put in its place. You said it yourself. Eventually, human nature being what it is, someone will try to enforce their will on other planets. It only takes one egomaniac to start a war. Maybe if we eliminated Majestic and kept the Emperor....?” Murphy’s emphatic shaking of his head pre-empted the rest of her sentence.

“You’re not thinking clearly, Rachel. From what you told me earlier, it sounds like Trojan has been implanted too. We know that the host won’t survive any attempt to remove the device, and leaving it on is not an option that I’m prepared to risk. Majestic could have pre-programmed instructions in case it was destroyed. It might order Trojan to wipe out ALL of Humanity out of sheer spite if something happens to the machine. If Trojan dies, then who’s going to be Emperor? Remember what happened to Alexander the Great’s Empire when he died? His empire broke down into squabbling kingdoms all fighting each other.”

Molitor said nothing, and Murphy stayed silent too. At some point the Chief Medical Officer had left, so now it was just the two of them. As both of them continued to look at the body of the dead officer, it was Murphy who broke the silence.

“You didn’t tell me why Tigershark was ordered here to Midgard in the first place. Do you know what your CO was looking for?”

“Majestic calculated that the Rebel Brain Trust had to be behind your attack on Hadley and ordered the Fleet to spread out and search for the Brain Trust Base.”

“Rebel Brain Trust? What the hell is that?” asked Murphy in a puzzled voice.

“You don’t know about the Brain Trust? I would have bet a year’s salary that you knew about the 10,000 scientists, technicians and their families that were sent to Zanzibar to develop breakthroughs in military technology.”

“So that’s what was happening on Zanzibar,” said Murphy. “I heard rumors of some kind of secret project going on there, but I never heard any details. Well, obviously the Empire knows about Zanzibar. Why hasn’t Majestic sent ships there?”

“Because we know that those scientists and their families left Zanzibar before the Empire conquered Sparta. Long story short, we don’t know where they ended up. They’re out there somewhere, and Majestic thinks they have stealth ships and missiles. They’d need resources to build a ship, and Midgard’s moon has those resources in abundance. Tigershark was sent here. Other ships were sent to other planets or asteroids that are known to be rich in metals.” Molitor let Murphy ponder that information for a while.

“I’ll bet my wife had something to do with picking Zanzibar. I don’t know if she was involved in moving them to another location, but based upon discussions with her about other strategic concepts, I’d be surprised if she would recommend that the Brain Trust be moved to any abundant-resource location that Majestic already knows about. Just in case you’re wondering, the Brain Trust didn’t come here, Commander.”

Molitor looked deflated. Murphy realized that she must have been hoping that Murphy would know where the Brain Trust was so that they could combine its R&D breakthroughs with Midgard’s shipbuilding capacity.

“I don’t suppose there’s any way we could find them?” asked Molitor. It suddenly occurred to Murphy that this whole implant scenario might be a ruse to trick him into finding and revealing the Brain Trust’s location. That thought scared him, and he quickly considered his alternatives. Travelling to Zanzibar to try to pick up their trail was the only suggestion he could think of. A former SSU naval officer arriving there might get information from the locals that an Empire officer might not. If he didn’t suggest going to Zanzibar, then there was no further point in Molitor pretending to be hostile to the Empire, and she would show her true colors. If she really was on his side now, he could just wait for her ship to leave and then take Sorcerer to Zanzibar to see what he could find.

“I honestly wouldn’t even know where to begin looking,” said Murphy.

Molitor nodded. “The locals on Zanzibar told the CO of one of Trojan’s ships that they had been told by some of the evacuating officers that the Brain Trust would be temporarily transferred to Freiland. Majestic sent another ship there, but there was no sign that the Brain Trust had ever been there. Those rumors were obviously meant to throw everyone off the trail. I don’t see any point in going back to Zanzibar now. If we can’t find the Brain Trust, then we’ll just have to make the best use of your shipyard on Midgard as we can.”

“Unless you head back to Hadley and tell Majestic that we’re here,” said Murphy in a deceptively nonchalant voice.

“Even after seeing this,” she gestured at the dead body on the other side of the glass, “you’re still skeptical? Listen, my ship is capable of taking out your volcano base all by itself. I don’t have to go back to Hadley for reinforcements. What more do you need from me to prove that I’m no longer on the Empire’s side? Another attack on Majestic?”

Murphy shook his head. Molitor had already told him that Sorcerer’s attack on Majestic hadn’t inflicted any serious damage. The armored outer shell was just too tough.

“Can you really blame me for being skeptical? Look at it from my point of view. I used to be an SSU officer fighting against the Federation. Now I’m working with them against a rogue Federation General who’s declared himself Emperor, but who may now be a mere puppet controlled by a ruthless computer! If that isn’t a bizarre turn of events, then I don’t know what is. I sometimes wonder if I really died when Romanov attacked Midgard, and all this is just my version of Hell.”

“I know what you mean,” said Molitor. “This damn war is turning into one gigantic clusterfuck. I keep telling myself that we’ll find salvation sooner or later, but every now and then I wonder if it’s only rumors of salvation.”

“Well, let’s see if we can make those rumors a reality. What do you think Trojan or should I say Majestic will do when your ship becomes overdue? Will it send another ship or two here?” asked Murphy.

“I’m convinced of it. Majestic won’t be able to ignore the possibility that Tigershark found the Brain Trust and was destroyed or captured. Taking into consideration the other planets on our target list, we won’t be due back at Hadley for another...17 weeks. If Majestic sends another ship here as soon as we’re overdue, it’ll get here almost 8 weeks after that, so we’ve got at least half a year.”

“Okay. We can have all the refined metal we need to build our second ship by then. When we get close to that point, I’ll order the mining operation on the moon shut down. When Majestic’s reinforcements get here, there’s a good chance that they won’t notice anything unusual and will assume that your ship ran into trouble at another location. Since your ship is too big to fly down into the volcano, you’ll have to hide it somewhere else. You asked me earlier if I wanted you to attack Hadley again. I don’t, but an attack on Makassar would certainly make an impact. That was going to be our next target when Sorcerer’s missile load was replenished, but that’ll be a while yet. Can you hit Makassar without tipping the Empire off that’s it’s your supposedly destroyed ship?”

“Yeah, we can do that, but we’re low on consumables. Can you resupply us before we head for Makassar?”

Murphy wanted to say no. Sorcerer and the Base were buying food and other supplies from the Midgardians with FED currency left over from the first covert operation, but there was a limit to the currency they had. Now that Earth was conquered, some Midgardians were starting to question whether FED currency was still worth taking. If he used some of it to replenish Tigershark, there’d be less available for his own ships. On the other hand, her ship wouldn’t be going anywhere if they didn’t have enough food and other consumables to last that long.”

“Our logistical resources are limited, but I think we can spare enough to get you to Makassar and back.”

After hesitating for a couple of seconds, Molitor said, “If we time it right, the attack on Makassar could take place AFTER Majestic’s reinforcements leave Hadley to come here. That way there’ll be less chance of Tigershark running into other Empire ships during the attack.”

Murphy suddenly had an idea. “You can take that line of thinking one step further. What if you take Tigershark to the other planets on your list, make sure your ship is detected by the locals who will report to the follow-up fleet that a warship did look them over, and after leaving those false clues, head for Makassar, arriving after the reinforcement fleet is likely to leave. That way the reinforcement fleet will be chasing its tail for months before they report back that Tigershark has disappeared without a trace and that the Brain Trust is nowhere to be found. Let Majestic chew on that mystery for a while.”

Molitor grinned. “I love it. If you can give us enough supplies to get to our next destination, we can take care of our logistical needs ourselves from there on.”

Murphy smiled back at her. He was beginning to like her in a strictly professional way. He still felt the loss of his beloved Cate. “Very good. Let’s go somewhere less gruesome and work out the details.”