Andy found Pol sitting on her couch on the bridge staring at the wall. Her holographic console was not even activated.
‘I miss him too,’ he said, guessing the reason for her melancholy.
She looked up and half smiled.
‘D’you think they took the body to ensure he couldn’t be reborn?’ she said, sniffing and wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
‘No, I don’t, Pol,’ he replied. ‘Very few know about that technology and whoever is behind all this certainly wouldn’t.’
‘You think there was another reason?’
‘I’ve looked closely at the released footage of the attack in the cell and something doesn’t ring right with me. Sure, there’s a lot of blood everywhere, and it all looks very convincing, but where are the wounds? To have that amount of blood, there would have to be some pretty serious holes in them.’
‘But wouldn’t that mean it was staged?’
‘Whatever’s going on here is getting weirder and weirder. So, I don’t rule anything out. I also don’t trust anyone or anything to do with this mess and staying dark is our best plan and the only way of remaining safe.’
Pol took a deep breath and sighed.
‘I need to get a grip, don’t I?’
Andy smirked at Pol’s use of an English term.
‘You’re doing fine, Pol,’ he said. ‘The trauma you’ve just been through, it’s quite understandable you’re a bit wobbly.’
‘Who’s wobbly?’ asked Bache, as he appeared on the tube lift.
‘Pol’s missing Ed,’ said Andy.
‘We all are,’ said Bache. ‘And talking of Ed, I believe that footage from the prison cell has been faked.’
Pol and Andy exchanged a glance.
‘You as well?’ said Andy, sliding onto his control couch.
‘Yeah,’ he said, raising his eyebrows. ‘Loads of blood, no obvious wounds, plus the bodies vanishing. Doesn’t add up, does it?’
Cleo appeared suddenly, startling them.
‘We’re about to jump into Alpha Centauri, peeps. I’ve woken the others. Action stations and all that jazz,’ she said and promptly disappeared again.
‘I wish she wouldn’t do that,’ said Bache.
‘Ah, you get used to it,’ Andy replied.
The Gabriel snapped into existence concealed behind Proxima Centauri, the red dwarf and smallest of the three stars in the Alpha Centauri system.
Everyone was on the bridge staring at the holomap as the cloaked ship cruised out of the star’s shadow and the array was able to provide a clear view of Uskrre.
‘They’ve been busy,’ said Groxl, sitting at the side of the bridge. ‘How many ships is that commissioned and in space?’
‘Almost thirteen hundred,’ said Rayl. ‘That new Klatt warship is amongst them now, it’s not hiding anymore.’
‘There seems to be a lot of activity around it,’ said Bache. ‘Is it still having repairs?’
‘Yeah, looks that way,’ said Phil, staring at his console. ‘Main jump drive still offline, armaments offline, communications offline.’
‘We did it more damage than we thought!’ exclaimed Bache, giving Groxl a sly smile. ‘Shoddy design.’
‘Typical of the Spleeta,’ Groxl mumbled.
‘We also have a faint and recent large jump signature,’ said Rayl.
‘Where?’ asked Bache.
‘There, very close to the big star,’ she said, pointing at Rigil Kentaurus in the centre of the system.
‘Someone else was hiding too,’ said Bache.
‘Could’ve been the 28 if it’s a large signature,’ said Imeres, also sitting on one of the side chairs. ‘Pickyrd always hides the ship in the lee of stars.’
‘Indeed, he would,’ said Bache. ‘I taught him to.’
‘Do we know the jump destination?’ Andy asked, swapping his gaze between Phil and Rayl.
‘Unfortunately, not,’ said Rayl. ‘It is very faint and the jump will most definitely have been embedded.’
Suddenly, one of the larger cruisers fired several laser cannons towards them. The distance was extreme and by the time the bolts of energy reached them, they were well wide and much of their potency had been lost.
‘Fuck,’ said Andy. ‘How do they know we’re here?’
Before he got an answer a second ship did the same and Andy, piloting at the time, quickly moved the ship away. As before, the shots missed by a huge margin.
‘It’s okay,’ said Groxl, holding his hands up. ‘Don’t panic – it’s standard procedure. They’re just test firing the weapons towards the star. It’s always done after a recommission or refit.’
Sure enough, now they were well clear, the occasional Klatt ship continued to discharge its weapons towards the red star.
‘Well, thank fuck for that,’ said Andy, looking a little sheepish. ‘I really thought they’d developed an anti-cloak system for a moment.’
Bache leaned over and patted him on the back.
‘If it’s any consolation, so did I,’ he said. ‘Shall we get on with some sabotage planning?’ he added, glancing around the room.
A circle of nodding heads gave him his answer.
‘Okay, the way I see it, is we don’t want to do stuff that they’ll discover and just fix before they deploy,’ he said. ‘We need to concentrate on the ships that are fully commissioned and all ready to go. Then they’ll arrive in theatre, systems will fail and leave them as sitting ducks, I think the Earth term is, making them wide open to being plundered and repurposed as an Earth defence force.’
‘Bloody hell,’ said Andy, his eyes wide. ‘I’d never thought of that. It would save the planet trillions. Dewey would be over the moon.’
‘Which moon?’ Pol asked.
‘English expression for very pleased,’ whispered Rayl.
‘Oh, right,’ she said, her face colouring.
‘How do you intend boarding so many vessels and not getting caught?’ asked Xutan, speaking for the first time. ‘I believe there’s going to be three thousand of them when they’re all prepped.’
‘I’d like to know that too?’ said Groxl.
‘That’s where I come in,’ said Cleo, appearing in the centre of the room and morphing into a senior Spleeta officer. She, or rather he, turned and faced Groxl. ‘Does the uniform pass muster, Captain?’ he asked, raising his eyebrows.
Groxl, his face a picture of surprise, stood and circled the officer, inspecting the uniform closely.
‘You have a single captain’s pin stripe down the trouser leg and colonel’s arm insignia,’ he said. ‘You need two pin stripes on the trouser leg for a colonel. Other than that, very good,’ he continued. ‘I wouldn’t have known you weren’t an inspecting senior officer.’
A second pin stripe became visible down the right trouser leg, Groxl nodded and retook his seat.
The Klatt officer turned back into Cleo again.
‘How are you getting from ship to ship?’ Xutan asked. ‘Surely it’ll take the best part of a day to do fifty of them?’
‘Utilise the Klatt ships’ holo emitters,’ she said. ‘They’re actually quite good.’
‘And do what while you’re there?’
A green container appeared in her hands.
Groxl laughed.
‘What’re you going to do with a fire extinguisher?’ he said.
‘It’s actually a powerful EMP device,’ she said, giving him a grin back. ‘If I position one of these near each ship’s central electronics suite, it’ll fry most systems. No one will give it a second look. I have estimated I could do around ten an hour.’
‘Two hundred and forty a day,’ said Andy. ‘That won’t get round them all before they deploy though.’
‘If I start with the biggest warships first and ignore the unarmed support ships, I anticipate covering around seventy percent of the armed vessels.’
‘Hmm,’ grunted Phil. ‘Still leaves a few hundred with teeth.’
‘Only the smaller less effective fighters and troop carriers,’ she countered.
‘And let’s not forget the fully operational 28 is out there somewhere,’ said Bache. ‘Knowing Captain Pickyrd as I do, he’s a smart and resourceful man and I’d be disappointed if he wasn’t aware of the situation. He certainly wouldn’t want to miss this party. That cruiser has a formidable built-in arsenal, three hundred of the GDA’s latest fighters, two hundred other assorted armed vessels and hundreds of lethal drones. So, I don’t believe we’ll be left to sort this mess on our own.’
Xutan leaned back and chuckled, causing everyone to glance at him. Noticing the sudden attention he was getting, he spoke.
‘I’m just thinking back to the young fresh-faced teenager I sponsored for the officer academy a few decades ago and then thank the ancients I did,’ he said. ‘It turns out one of the best decisions I ever made.’
‘Hear, hear,’ said Andy. ‘Top bloke. Now can we get on with crippling this bunch of pricks?’ he said a little irritatedly, pointing at the hundreds of Klatt warships surrounding Uskrre. ‘Plenty of time to reminisce and back-slap when they’re out of the picture.’
Rayl winced at her husband’s disrespect and glanced nervously at President Xutan, watching as the corners of his eyes crinkled into a smile.
‘Andrew is quite correct,’ he said. ‘We have a planet to save.’