Counterstrike (Black Fleet Trilogy, Book 3) (2 page)

“I see,” Jackson said carefully. “Any particular reason you’re offering up this random fact?”

“I’m serious, Captain,” Blake said. “I know what’s being whispered about in this building. Understand that those ships, the seventh generation since we began our work, entrusted to us, are not simply tools to be wielded by whoever is in possession. I cannot even begin to explain the complexities of the Vruahn’s artificial intelligence that each carries.”

“Why such rigid safeguards?” Jackson asked, dropping the pretense of ignorance.

“We’re useful to the Vruahn,” Blake said after a few moments of silence. “But they don’t entirely trust us, and for the very reason that we’re useful. Our violent and unpredictable nature has made them leery of simply handing over the keys to ships capable of sterilizing planets.”

“I suppose that’s understandable, but it doesn’t bode well for our species having any sort of relationship with them,” Jackson said.

“Would you simply hand over an armed tactical nuke to a playground bully?” Blake said. “No matter what they’ve said before, I have no doubt that’s how they see us. As absurd as it sounds, I’m not sure we’re much different than the Phage in their eyes.”

“That’s … distressing,” Jackson said. “What happens if you defeat the Phage? They hire a new bully to deal with us?”

“They’re not genocidal lunatics if that’s what you’re asking, but I will admit that I’m never fully certain of their motivations or intentions,” Blake said. “But that’s neither here nor there. I asked you here for a different reason.”

“Oh?”

“I need to talk to you, privately,” Blake said. “I’ve found and disabled much of the surveillance equipment in this suite, but I need to be absolutely sure we won’t be overheard. Can you arrange that in a way that doesn’t arouse suspicion?”

“I believe I can,” Jackson said. “But definitely not here. Not in the Council’s seat of power.”

“Then where?”

“How would you like to visit what used to be America, Colonel?” Jackson asked.

“I thought you’d never ask,” Blake said with a wide smile.

As one of the shuttles assigned to the
Ares
banked gently over the coast of Florida, the first twinges of anxious excitement crept up from Jackson’s gut. He’d been twenty years old when he had left and now, twenty-two years later, it would be the first time he’d been back to North America. He looked around the cabin of the small tactical shuttle and saw Robert Blake squirming in his seat as he looked out over the Florida coast. Gillian Davis, a citizen of New America, looked on with polite interest.

Jackson had lobbied one of the lower-level bureaucrats at the facility in Geneva to allow members of the
Ares
’ crew to visit the areas of Earth that held significant cultural importance to their respective enclaves. It had been a ruse, of course, and one that the administrator couldn’t resist. Despite all their protests to the contrary, many of the policy makers of Earth were desperate for approval from the powerful Confederacy, and the chance to show off the planet was readily agreed to. Then, as if an afterthought, Jackson had mentioned that it would only be right to take Colonel Blake back to Florida as well. Since the colonel wasn’t a prisoner, the official had little grounds to deny the request and, after failing to seek higher approval, allowed it so long as strict schedules and regular check-ins were adhered to.

It seemed pathetically transparent, but Jackson knew he had him when the man bristled at the suggestion that he contact someone with the authority to let them leave the compound. Not wanting to be seen as inconsequential, the administrator put in word with the dockmaster that two shuttles would be departing the
Ares
and landing at the airfield near the outskirts of the small city, with passengers cleared for travel within Earth’s atmosphere.

“While I’m thrilled to be back home, I fail to see how this will be any more secure than finding a dark broom closet in Geneva.” Blake stared out the window as the shuttle banked gently into a descending turn over the Florida coast.

“You might be surprised,” Jackson said. “The Council’s influence wanes greatly once you cross the Atlantic. There may be a lot of lip service paid to a unified Earth, but there are many that still recognize the old borders even if they no longer officially exist. You’ll even meet quite a few people here in the NAU that identify as ‘American.’ Besides that, it was a good excuse to get out from under CN security and visit North America again.”

“Wouldn’t everyone in the North American Union be
American?
” Jillian Davis asked. She was seated across the aisle from Jackson and watching the approaching coastline with interest.

“People who lived in the United States were universally called Americans,” Jackson explained. He wasn’t entirely certain why Davis had come down from the
Ares,
nor why she'd asked to accompany him and Colonel Blake. She’d never before expressed any real interest in Earth or the original nation that founded her native enclave.

The air shuttle’s engines whined as the pilot flared the craft into a gentle landing, rolling off the pad and up to the waiting ground car. As Jackson unbuckled his restraints and stood to leave, the woman he’d assumed to be the crew chief grabbed his arm and placed a device into his palm.

“CN Security, Captain Wolfe,” she said respectfully. “This device can be triggered by you, or anyone in your party, and we’ll be anywhere on the continent in a few minutes.” Jackson felt her words could be taken a few ways, and he was getting the distinct feeling that they were meant more as a warning than any helpful advice.

“I appreciate that,” Jackson said, palming the device. “We’ll not be long. I just wanted to see home again and show the colonel the monument that was built in honor of his mission.”

“Just press the button on top twice,” she brushed off his explanation. “Twice and we’ll come charging in. We can also come to your position should the device lose contact with the satellite.”

“Good to know,” Jackson said. “Now … if you’ll excuse me.” He reached past her and palmed the control to pop and lower the hatch so they could all disembark. There was no doubt that the rest of his crew that had come down from the
Ares
were being followed just as closely, nor was there any doubt that the driver of his waiting ground car was also a member of CN Security. He wasn’t especially worried. While he was sure the CN Security forces were good, he knew the CIS was likely better. With a slight smile he slipped the device he’d been given into his right pocket while discreetly patting a similarly sized device that was resting in his left.

****

The trio made a slow, solemn walk through the grounds of the former Cape Canaveral Launch Facility, looking at the plaques and ancient fixtures that held no meaning to any of them save for one. Colonel Blake’s face remained fixed in a grim stare as he looked over the ruins of one of the marvels of the twentieth century. Jackson felt for him. The last time he had stood there the Cape had been a hub of activity and a beacon of hope for a bright future. Now it was just a collection of rusting, decrepit structures with some plaques scattered haphazardly around to drive the point home. The starship captain began to wonder if the Air Force colonel had truly come to terms with his situation before being confronted, literally, with the ruins of his previous life.

“I wonder if I have any relatives alive. Or descendants, to be more precise,” Blake said softly as he looked out over where the two most famous launch pads had stood for over a century, now just overgrown marsh with chunks of concrete stabbing obscenely into the bright Florida sky.

“Not a lot is known about you or your past, Colonel Blake,” a new voice said from behind them. “Tsuyo made sure to allow your name to slip through the cracks, but I’m sure I can dig something up if you’re really interested.”

“Who are you?” Blake asked.

“Colonel Blake, allow me to introduce … who are you supposed to be at this moment?” Jackson asked.

“Agent Pike, Confederate Intelligence Service, at your service, Colonel,” Pike said with a sarcastic bow. “That sounded oddly redundant. Anyway … thanks for sending the signal that you’d broken away, Captain. May I?” Wordlessly, Jackson handed over the small device that the CN Security agent had given him and watched as Pike scanned it and then dropped it into a small cylinder before pocketing it.

“The bug will keep pinging the satellite but won’t be able to transmit any clear audio,” Pike continued. “Actually, I’ve been jamming it since you got out of the car. So what can I do for you?”

“You summoned him here?” Blake asked.

“I did,” Jackson confirmed. “I think any conversation we have that you don’t want the CN overhearing is likely something Pike needs to know about. Not to mention he’d just find out anyway.”

“More than likely,” Pike shrugged. “I’ve recently learned that my work is much easier if I just loiter in the area around Wolfe and wait for the shit to hit the fan. So, here we are. The area is clear of long-range surveillance and there won’t be any satellite coverage that will be able to tell you’ve gained a member of your party for another fifty minutes. So … what’s going on?”

“You were saying that the Vruahn had a pretty tight grip on the ships your crew is flying,” Jackson prompted when Blake looked as if he was confused and unsure where to start.

“Yes,” Blake nodded. “The reason I bring that up first and foremost is that I have reason to believe that there are at least two separate factions that intend to either persuade me to turn them over or try and take them by force.”

“Interesting.” Pike narrowed his eyes. “And just how did you come by such information?”

Blake coughed uncomfortably before answering. “The Vruahn are quite familiar with human languages and engineering methodology thanks to the examination of my crew and I as well as the
Carl Sagan
,” he said. “My ship has been monitoring communications here on Earth since we arrived and forwarding me the pertinent information.”

“It’s so easily able to defeat the encryption routines?” Pike asked.

“Almost in real-time,” Blake nodded. “The more chatter there is about obtaining my squadron, the more … concerned, for lack of a better word, the AI aboard becomes. I can’t overstate how dangerous it would be to try and coerce the ships from someone the Vruahn designated.”

“The most obvious answer is to remove the temptation,” Jackson said. “More ships are arriving every day now that the news of Haven is becoming widespread. The skies are filled with panicky, irrational representatives from all the enclaves that may do something foolish before too long.”

“Not only them. The government here on Earth likely wouldn’t mind leap-frogging over the Confederacy in terms of firepower and technology,” Pike said.

“There’s something else I needed to talk to you about I didn’t want to be general knowledge just yet,” Blake said. “That warning you got, Captain … the transmission from the Alpha. That’s never happened to the best of our knowledge. I’ve passed it on to my Vruahn contacts, but the initial response is that this is something new.”

“While that’s interesting—”

“You’re not seeing the full picture,” Blake ran over top of Pike. “We have access to very specific predictive models of the Phage based on centuries of observation and interaction by multiple species that have encountered them. The fact they’ve decided to communicate with you, with Wolfe specifically, throws all of that out the window. I can no longer tell you with certainty that you have any time before they swarm through human space in force and wipe you out. Equally, I can’t tell you if the message was meant to tell you that you’d be left alone. The shift in behavior swings the needle so far off the norm that I’m basically as much of a bystander now as all of you.”

“If this species has been wreaking havoc across the galaxy for as long as you say, I somehow doubt that we’re the first ones they’ve decided to talk to,” Jackson said. “Hell, we didn’t even really put up that much of a fight.”

“You did better than you give yourself credit for,” Blake said. “But the facts stand. In all the recorded encounters known to the Vruahn, which are a lot, there has been no attempt of communication from the Phage.”

“Well … this puts an interesting spin on things.” Pike looked as his watch, a stainless steel timepiece that was meant to resemble an ancient chronometer. “But we need to wrap this up. You continue on with your sightseeing expedition and I’ll start putting this information in the ears of the people that need it. I’ll be in touch soon.” The agent tossed the small CN device back to Wolfe and headed off into the scrub behind one of the squat launch support structures.

“So what is this area called?” Jillian Davis asked as Jackson piloted the borrowed aircraft down to their designating landing spot.

“Lexington,” he said. “It’s a city in an area called Kentucky. From what I understand, it used to be a nation state within the old United States of America.” Blake, having had his conversation with Jackson, had decided to go back to Geneva. Jackson decided to press on and visit his former home since he was certain this would be the last time he would ever set foot on Earth again. Davis had decided to come with him and now that it was just the two of them, out of uniform, she’d adopted an alarmingly casual manner when talking to her captain. “It’ll be just a short train ride from here up to Louisville. I grew up on the outskirts there.”

Jackson breathed in slowly and deeply, enjoying the almost sickly sweet smell of Kentucky in early summer. It had taken the humans that had remained behind on Earth centuries to rethink their stewardship of the planet and make a concerted effort to employ the new technologies available to not only live with less impact but to reverse much of the damage caused by the carelessness of the early industrial era.

Unlike the planet that people fled in droves during the first great exodus to the colony planets, the Earth of the mid-twenty-fifth century had become a model of sustainability. Most notable were the powerful seawater fusion reactors that provided clean, safe, and cheap power to every corner of the globe. With the abundance of clean electricity, they’d been able to not only clean up the first world but bring sanitation and technology to the third world.

In many ways Jackson was still awed at how quickly the planet and her people were able to right the ship. By the time the third great world war was winding down, things looked quite grim for humanity. The world’s mighty superpowers were on the brink of ruin, there was widespread economic depression, and an increasingly toxic environment was having an alarming impact on birthrates. Many academics felt that humanity was in its twilight, as no obvious answers presented themselves and a war-weary population seemed to have little will left to try and salvage what was left of their civilization.

The Tsuyo Corporation had tried to spark the world’s imagination with the announced discovery of an alien spacecraft and the subsequent adaptation of its propulsion system onto a manned, human vessel, but it was to no avail. Shockingly, people reacted to the news of the alien ship, the first firm proof of extraterrestrial life, with the same apathy they applied to every other aspect of their lives. The launch of the
Carl Sagan
came and went to the disinterest of billions. Years later, when the mission had been deemed an expensive and embarrassing failure, Tsuyo quietly began making plans to explore and colonize the handful of suitable planets their automated probes had discovered.

For generations anyone with any education, skill, or even just hope for a better future fled a broken and battered Earth for the promise of a new start for themselves and their families. Those that remained behind watched the lifters haul away their fellow humans with a collective sigh and a shrug as if to say, “What’s the point?”

“It’s so green and vibrant,” Davis said. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but every image or vid I’ve seen of Earth depicted a post-apocalyptic wasteland.”

“I’ve seen those same images,” Jackson shrugged. “Honestly, by the time I was born we were already on the trailing end of what we call the Resurgence. The air and water were clean and society had mostly picked itself up and was moving forward again.”

“So why stay so isolated?” she asked as they walked towards the terminal. “Why didn’t Earth petition the Confederacy for membership?”

“Pride,” Jackson said, unsure why he felt so defensive about the question. “This planet is the birthplace of humanity. To go crawling to the Confederacy and beg membership of the very people who had abandoned us in the first place was never a popular proposal. Earthers aren’t necessarily cheerful isolationists, but most of us just aren’t willing to let go of the old resentments.”

“And you?”

“I’m a bit more pragmatic,” Jackson said. “I understand the motivations of those first waves of colonists. I also had only wanted one thing for my life and that was to go to space and travel between the stars. Since the Sol Defense Force never ventures out past Saturn, the obvious answer was to try and snag one of the slots to the Academy that Fleet set aside each year for Earthers.”

“But it’s always been a struggle, being from here,” she said.

“Nothing worthwhile comes without sacrifice,” Jackson said with a forced smile. “I don’t regret my decision to leave.”

They walked the rest of the way to the transit hub in silence. Jackson wasn’t sure if it was the casual way in which she now addressed him, the stylish civilian attire, or the fact that she insisted on walking so close to him that their hands would sometimes brush together, but he was becoming suddenly aware that Jillian Davis was a very beautiful young woman. He was also quite aware at how inappropriate things had become between them in the short time since leaving Geneva, but he wasn’t sure how to address it without embarrassing her. As her proximity wasn’t especially unpleasant, nor was he in uniform, he decided to let it slide for the time being.

****

Admiral Joseph Marcum replayed the message one more time before leaning back in his plush leather seat and rubbing his temples with the heels of his hands. He’d always considered himself a good officer. The kind that was willing to do what was right even if it meant sacrificing everything he’d worked for. But after watching Jackson Wolfe practically single-handedly usurp half the fleet in order to make a stand for what was right, he had to concede that he’d become the very thing he’d always hated: a politician masquerading as a military officer. The sad part was that it had happened without him even noticing it.

He was sitting in his well-appointed office aboard the TCS
Amsterdam
, a
Dreadnought
-class battleship, the biggest and baddest thing to ever come out of a Terran shipyard. The mammoth warship was sitting in between the Earth and the Moon while the rest of her squadron had taken up a high orbit over Mars in order to keep the traffic over the blue planet to a minimum.

The latest com drone to buzz through the Solar System had delivered a lengthy message for him from Confederate President McKellar, who was still safely in a bunker on a planet they were calling the Ark. The President was typically pompous, absurdly out of touch, and managed to display a lack of understanding about their current situation that was simply breathtaking. Marcum had to assume that McKellar wasn’t actually a stupid man, he did manage to get himself elected to the highest office in the Confederacy after all, but the fact that he still considered himself to be “in charge” was laughable.

Haven was gone. A smoldering, irregularly shaped ruin spinning through space without enough mass left to even stay in its original orbit. With its loss went any remaining stability within the Terran Confederacy. The more powerful enclaves like New America and Britannia were now declaring their independence, while envoys from the smaller enclaves were now filtering into the Solar System like lost sheep just looking for some sort of direction.

“The man is a complete fucking moron,” Marcum muttered to himself. McKellar had sent a directive that he marshal any forces remaining from Wolfe’s “ill-conceived” effort in Nuovo Patria, take the senior captain into custody, and return to the Ark where they would regroup and discuss their strategy going forward. Marcum was still technically serving as CENTCOM Chief of Staff, but with no Haven, no Jericho Station, and no CENTCOM to speak of he had to wonder what power that title even commanded anymore. What he did know, however, was that any effort to arrest Jackson Wolfe would not only result in further harming a completely demoralized force but may well serve as the spark for a compete mutiny within the ranks. He wasn’t even all that confident that his own captain aboard the
Amsterdam
wouldn’t shoot him in the head if he tried to order an intercept of the
Ares
.

“Orderly! Have our JAG rep haul ass to my office,” he stabbed at the intercom button on his desk.

“At once, Admiral!”

He’d been on the wrong side of every major decision since the Phage had first appeared in the Xi’an System. It was a trend that he very much would like to correct.

****

“So you don’t remember anything leading up to the evacuation of the
Blue Jacket
?” Davis asked.

“Just some fragmented imagery,” Jackson said, sitting down next to her on a bench that overlooked the Ohio River. “The neurologists tell me that anything I remember is likely something my brain is fabricating to try and fill in the gaps, since the head trauma would have made it virtually impossible for my short term memory to transfer to long term. To be honest, maybe it’s best I don’t remember.”

“Why do you say that?” she asked, sounding oddly hurt.

“The decision to ram the ship into that Alpha was one I made out of utter desperation,” he said, eyeing her sidelong, confused by her reaction. “I think that if I vividly remembered everything leading up to the impact it could adversely affect my ability to command now, cause me to second guess every decision.”

“I see,” she said, now looking uncomfortable.

“You seem like you have something on your mind that wants to get out, Lieutenant,” Jacksons said, intentionally addressing her by rank to remind himself that there was a line that could not be crossed.

“Perhaps now isn’t the best time to—” the strident alert tone of Jackson’s comlink interrupted her.

“This is Wolfe,” Jackson said, slipping the earpiece in. “Understood, we’ll be at the pickup location in approximately ninety minutes. Wolfe out.”

“Bad news?” Davis asked, standing and composing herself.

“Fleet-wide emergency recall,” Jackson nodded. “A shuttle will pick us up at the airport here in Louisville and take us directly to the
Ares
. The order came in from Admiral Marcum. What was it you were saying?”

“It will wait, Captain,” she said crisply.

“Then let’s get moving,” he stood. “The shuttle is already on its way.”