Beyond Mars Crimson Fleet (32 page)

Trager had his doubts,
however. “No offense, Commander. But it looks like your ship’s next
destination is the scrap heap.”

“Hey, with a little welding
and some paint, she’ll be as good as new!” James joked.

Wakinyan quickly gave his
friend a slight smile, but then he turned back to the Earth
deserters. “Commander Trager, you must excuse Captain Randall. Like
me, he has great pride in this ship and its crew. We’ll make it to
Valamars. There, you and your information will be presented to
Commander Paladin,” Richard assured.

“If he’s still alive!”
Trager injected.

“What do you mean?”
Wakinyan’s tone became serious again.

Trager frowned. “There’s
going to be an attempted mutiny by Earth loyalists. If they can,
they’ll capture Paladin. If not—they’ll kill him! And that’s not
all, we’ve been tracking your fleet.”

Wakinyan eyes narrowed as
his face tightened in solemnity. “How?” he demanded to
know.

Trager and Abner exchanged
glances. However, it was the engineer who then spoke up.

“They’re using what is
called a cipher scout. It’s a device approximately five meters long
by about one meter in diameter. It was developed for surveillance
and espionage. The user programs it for whatever information he
wants to pass on or record, and then drops it into space. It’s
retrieved later using a signal beacon, but it has the capability of
transmitting into hyperspace—and it’s virtually
undetectable!”

“Your Earth loyalists have
been placing them at intervals, while your fleet has been traveling
to Valamars. Usually, its after new coordinates have been issued
for the next way point,” Trager added.

“What proof can you offer
me of this?” Wakinyan questioned.

Trager’s eyes were fixed
and unblinking. “Your fleet stopped at Apoapsis Three. There, they
then set course for a small, unnamed star cluster located in our
galaxy’s corona.”

Wakinyan and Randall
abruptly snapped their heads momentarily in surprise towards each
other while a hint of fear accented their faces.

“Valamars, I take it?”
Trager questioned already knowing the answer.

Wakinyan
squared his jaw. “Jim, contact the
Mariner
, immediately!” he
ordered.

“Commander, we can’t!”
Randall voice vocalized his uneasiness. “Our hyper-link transceiver
was destroyed in the battle! We’ve only have local system
communications!” he informed.

“That’s just great!”
Wakinyan expressed angrily. “Get a hold of Marcus! I want this ship
underway in ten minutes at maximum burn!” Wakinyan order Randall in
a no-nonsense tone. The man then turned back to the Earth officers.
“Commander Trager, I want the names of those traitors, right
now!”

* * * * *

The rest
of the journey for the remnants of the Martian
First Destroyer Squadron
and the
fleeing colonist’s ships was an uneventful anti-climax. As the
small convoy jumped out of hyperspace into the outer boundaries of
a solar system, their transceivers were suddenly filled with the
usual chatter from a nearby fleet.

“Welcome to Valamars,”
Denko greeted mechanically to all the ships under his
command.

Seemingly, there was no
great jubilation among any of the passengers or crews. For some
reason, all was uncomfortably quiet. A terrible foreboding drenched
the air, while a melancholy occupied many hearts and minds. In some
more than others, the pilgrims felt that they were only temporarily
liberated from death by the pursuing red ships. Some hidden evil
gnarled at them, fomenting uneasiness in each soul.

As the ships slipped away
into the great night of space, each failed to detect the small
object that floated and tumbled slowly in the void. Although its
motion was random, the cipher scout was operating normally—and
broadcasting an undetectable beacon to its ruthless
masters.

* * * * *

Valamars was a younger, but
slightly bigger world than Earth. Set on the farther edge of the
system’s “Goldielocks Zone”, the slightly colder planet still
retained an ecosystem that generated an oxygen / carbon dioxide
atmosphere, whose mixture was quite acceptable to humans. It was
abundant in plant and animal life, but they were only to be found
in massive quantities in the warmer regions and by the great
oceans. Similar to immigrants’ home world of Mars, arid sections
were basaltic in nature, giving those regions of the planet a
distinctive reddish countenance, while other sections were
Earth-like. Seen from either of its circling moons, it was a
beautiful marble of merging whites, reds, browns, greens, and
blues.

Orbiting the dark side of
the planet, Commander Paladin peered out a large porthole on the
bridge at the Valamars. He clearly made out the lights of some of
the new, but vacant Martian cities illuminating the night. They
gestured an invitation to the every passenger of the fleet to come
occupy them, but Paladin knew better. Unless he had reassurances
that the danger from Earth had abated, he was obliged to simply
point his fleet towards space and vanish into the great ether to a
destination that was undecided.

Paladin listened as he
overheard Captain Winslow again arguing with another civilian
ship’s captain. As many had done in the past hour, the unknown
ship’s master urgently requested permission for his ship to land on
the planet.

“Yes, yes, I know,
captain!” Winslow spoke into his headphone. “Other transport
captains have expressed the same concern. Commander Paladin has not
issued the disembarkation order yet.”

Winslow paused for a
moment to listen. “I know your passengers are getting a little
anxious. We all are!” He again gave way to pause. “He’s waiting for
the arrival of the last of our ships. Just be a little more
patient, the order should be given within the hour.” Winslow’s face
began to fluster. “Thank you, Captain. Winslow, out.”

John took a deep breath as
Paladin turned and walked towards him. Finally stopping in front of
his subordinate, a scowl was carved in the older officer’s
jaw.

“Commander,” John
verbalized first, “I think just about every transport captain has
called us. They’re getting a little nervous.”

Paladin’s mind, however,
was not swayed. “I would rather have them a little nervous than a
lot dead,” he said with a solemnity that startled the younger
officer.

“Commander!” the communication’s crewman suddenly reported,
“Captain Denko of the
First Destroyer
Squadron
is hailing us!”

Paladin wrenched his head
to gaze at the dark-haired female crewman. “PUT HIM ON!” his tone
was imperative.

Within a moment, Denko’s
voice was heard.

“Fullback to Angel Fire!
Fullback to Angel Fire! Do you copy?” Denko called.

“Angel Fire to Fullback! We
copy!” Paladin became apprehensive. “Glad to see you’re here,
Captain. Where’s Wakinyan?”

Denko was slow to answer.
“I don’t know, Commander.”

Paladin’s tenseness
suddenly broke into anger. “What the hell do you mean you don’t
know? What happened out there?” he interrogated.

“I’m not
really sure, Commander,” Denko was apologetic. “It got really wild!
An enemy fleet was pursuing the colonists. Coming out of
hyperspace, Wakinyan launched an immediate attack to draw them off.
However, he then ordered us to break off and escort the colonists,
while he took his own ship along with the
Sorenson
and
Lee
as a rear guard. While he was
diverting them, he ordered us to escape into hyperspace. Both
the
Sorenson
and
Lee
were
destroyed. And the last time I saw the
Crazy Horse
, several destroyer
squadrons were pursuing her. We tried several times to raise
Wakinyan in hyperspace—but he never answered!”

Paladin’s eyes winced,
while his jaw tightened. He hoped that Winslow did not notice the
several tears that ran down his face.

Denko went on. “Commander,
we have another problem.”

Paladin took a deep breath.
“And what is that?” he asked as a sudden tiredness consumed
him.

“Captain Nargis reported
that the Crimson Fleet jumped out of hyperspace behind one of the
moon’s of Cramer’s World and initiated a direct assault against the
planet. From this, it’s evident that someone inside our fleet
supplied information of our plans prior to the attack,” Denko
deduced.

“Anything else?” Paladin’s
grief showed in his loss for words.

“Yes, Sir,” Denko
continued. “We have two damaged colonist vessels in tow, along with
a lone surviving Indra warship, Commander Wakinyan’s orders. The
aliens sacrificed several ships to protect the
colonists.”

Paladin got a grip on
himself. “I see. Quarantine the alien vessel and have the colonist
ships repaired. Paladin, out.”

The officer seemed to get
old all at once. He slowly shuffled back to the porthole and gazed
out again.

Winslow stood confused.
“Commander, what do we do now?”

Paladin
sighed. “We have traitors within the fleet, and only a short time
to find them. Raise Mr. Damon on the
Morning Star
and bring the fleet to a
security alert.”

“Aye, Sir,” Winslow
responded.

As Winslow went about his
tasks, Paladin tramped heavily back to his command chair. He then
plopped into the seat, just as the face of Feoras Damon
materialized on the main viewing screen.

“Hello, Commander,” Damon
pleasantly gave his salutations. “Are you ready to give the
disembarkation order yet?”

“No, Mr. Damon, I am not!”
Paladin was blunt.

“Why not?”

Paladin drew a deep breath. “Some
time ago, I learned that
The Order
has both spies and traitors aboard our ships.
There is also a good possibility that an Earth battle fleet is on
its way here now. We need to secure our ships and safeguard our
people before we do anything else,” the tired officer
confided.

Damon’s face suddenly
became twisted in fearful consideration. “So it wasn’t a random act
of sabotage!”

“What are you talking
about?” Paladin grew concern.

“We caught several
individuals attempting to disable our hyper-drive, including two of
our own crewmen,” Damon informed.

Paladin grew a little
hopeful. “You have them in custody?”

“Yes, we do,” replied
Damon. “Like I said, I thought it was a random act. We haven’t
really tried to question them though. Perhaps, you and some of your
staff would like to interrogate them. Maybe they can lead us to
more of them, and we could then review our options.”

For a long moment, Paladin
pondered the suggestion. “That sounds good,” he felt a little more
at ease. “Mr. Damon, I’ll be over shortly with my security
officer.”

“Excellent, we’ll be
awaiting your arrival. Damon, out.”

After the viewer went
blank, Paladin slowly raised himself up from the seat. He stood
quietly for a moment, locked in his own thoughts.

Although the course of
events twisted into an unforeseen dilemma, Paladin hoped to somehow
deal with it on his terms. With the loss of Wakinyan, things were
going to be a lot harder though. Still, the situation wasn’t
impossible.

“Mr. Winslow, prepare a
shuttle. You’re in charge of the fleet until I return,” Paladin
said as he began to walk away.

However,
guilt filled the heart of the captain of the
Mariner
.

“Commander, wait!” Winslow
brashly called out in urgency to his parting superior.

Paladin stopped and turned,
somewhat surprised by the unexpected outcry.

“Sir, I think it more prudent to have them brought
over here instead!” Winslow almost demanded, remembering his
conversation with Captain Khalid.

“Why?” Paladin
asked.

“Because, Sir, we don’t
know who we can trust and who we can’t!” Winslow became resolved.
“With all due respect, Sir, I do not think you should leave the
safety of this ship! Damon is nothing more than a stinking
politician, who cares for nothing except himself and staying in
power!”

Paladin smiled at John’s
concern. “John, I don’t trust him either,” he confided, “but Damon
also knows what the Earthers are capable of as well as we do. And
he has just as much to lose,” Paladin explained. “Don’t let
paranoia fill your head, it’s just as paralyzing as fear. However,
your caution has been duly noted, Captain.”

And with
those words, Commander Paladin left the bridge of the
Mariner
.

After Paladin departed,
however, the junior officer became despondent. Shame and
self-abasement rapidly amplified Winslow’s depression. By the
values he had faithfully served so many years, he condemned himself
as a traitor. He lacked the courage to act against what he knew was
wrong. His blind ambition was about to cost the fleet, and he was
powerless to stop it.