Jayce Hunter stood quietly in the shadowy expanse of her vessel’s flight deck. The Starship Fury had been docked and her crew had been ordered rotated to alternative temporary assignments at the Allegheny Fleet Base. Only a minimal maintenance and security crew remained aboard. A handful of men and women were busy putting the last of Fury’s shuttles and their maintenance packs into storage.
It was clear by the current state of affairs the commander would have limited access to her flagship for some time.
Although the flight operations aboard a cruiser were far less involved than those aboard a ship like DSS Argent or a full-sized fleet carrier, all the necessary facilities were present to launch non-combatant boats like shuttles and the occasional corvette. All Skywatch starship-class vessels had at least some form of flight deck. Fury’s capabilities had been improved from her original design, however. Along with her recent upgrades, advanced strike cruiser 704 had been provided with a reinforced aft-facing magnetic shielding apparatus that allowed her space doors to become adaptive instead of necessary to pressurize the vessel interior. Now it was possible to leave the spacedoors open while deck operations were underway. This sped up launch and recovery ops considerably, as it was no longer necessary to evacuate and repressurize the deck each time the spacedoors were operated.
The sound of regulation officer’s shoes echoed gently against the deck in the gloom. Jayce was gazing “out the back door” so to speak, looking at a magnificent view of the service tug Clover as it gradually moved into position next to a half-unloaded fuel tender. The other two ships were scarcely a few hundred yards off Fury’s aft quarter. Life was quite different for non-combat vessels. Rarely did they have to get from one place to the next in much of a hurry. Clover was no different. It’s pace was positively glacial compared to the pace Commander Hunter preferred.
“Ma’am.”
Hunter recognized the voice. She looked back.
“Sabrina, what brings you back to your old home?”
“I guess with everyone being assigned to garage sales and kitchen duty I figured I would take a walk, and Fury was the closest destination.”
“Good to see you.” The two women hugged each other. “I’m supervising the last six people doing the last five jobs.”
Mallory hesitated. “I wanted to tell you I–”
Hunter noticed her former second officer was having more than a little trouble speaking her mind, which was unusual.
“I’m sorry about your brother.” Sabrina looked up, as if longing for some kind of forgiveness from the one person who could grant it: Jason Hunter’s sister.
“I read your report,” Jayce replied. “And I logged him missing in action.”
“Jayce, I know what you’re trying to do–”
“Sabrina, listen. What you described has all the hallmarks of one of my brother’s famous ‘look over there’ maneuvers. His favorite thing in all the world is tripping people up with an unexpected shout or gesture before doing something juvenile and uncalled for. It just about cost him an extra year at the Academy from all the extra PT and canceled weekend passes.”
“There’s no way he could have escaped,” Mallory said. “Every night that explosion goes off in my mind again, and when I wake up, I– I mean he–”
“He’s up to something, commander.” The certitude in Jayce’s voice confused the battleship Argent’s Executive Officer. “The fact you got an ID on the Shrike only makes it more likely. If there’s one thing I know about Cerylia L’Orleans is she doesn’t allow her ships to be identified unless she’s leaving a calling card.”
“He wouldn’t answer us. We hailed him over and over.”
“There may have been a threat to the ship you didn’t know about. Going off on his own sounds like something he would do to protect the crew, even if it was some kind of hare-brained last minute gesture of futility. He takes big risks. The reason he got promoted faster than the rest of us is because they pay off.”
“They had riflecutters, Jayce. On heavier platforms they could have destroyed the Argent.”
“Agreed. We picked up residuals and were in the process of tracking them when we engaged the Sai Kee. Atwell is behind it, and I’ve got pretty good evidence he’s in league with the Sarn and whatever species is manning the ships that scored mission kills on Revenge and Dunkerque. What is eating me alive is why Constellation didn’t stay in-system. She could have carved up those cruisers like Sunday pheasants.”
“I’m not following you.”
“Recall my medieval battlefield metaphor. Riflecutter-equipped warships are infantry. Constellation is a company of archers. Long as she stayed at range, our enemy wouldn’t have had a chance.”
“We didn’t have time to track down what happened to the Bayone interdiction force. Exeter is missing as well.”
Hunter handed Sabrina a keydisc.
“Activate this when it’s appropriate. I’m establishing a special forces command effective immediately.”
“Ma’am?”
“Orders or not, we’re going back to Bayone, commander. This time we’re traveling light and quiet. I’m going to find out what happened to my task force, and then I’m going to go find my brother so I have someone to hold Colonel Atwell by the nose while I kick his ass.”
An hour later, Jayce Hunter arrived at the Core Three combined Fleet Trauma Center. She signed in at the ground floor nurse’s station and walked along the lightly populated corridors with her hands in the pockets of her black leather jacket. She had chosen to disguise herself as anything but a ship’s captain or a high-ranking officer for this visit, as the trauma hospital was a Skywatch installation and everyone in the building would be required to stand at attention every time she entered a room. With the exception of the doctors, there was never anyone posted to a hospital station with a rank above petty officer, Even the most ambitious M.D. working a night shift would still be little more than a highly decorated fleet lieutenant. Line officers were the only medical personnel eligible for a command rank, which essentially meant as a full commander, Jayce outranked everyone in the building, including most of the patients.
She knew having to drop everything and stand at attention tended to be more than a little annoying for people trying to do their job, so Jayce chose the incognito approach to let them be. There were times when she needed to make an entrance. This wasn’t one of them.
She stood at the door to the intensive care unit. A cybernetic attendant was treating the plasma burn on Pat Enright’s arm. The former skipper of the starship Revenge was still in a coma. He was one of only a few survivors plucked from what remained of their assault cruiser after the battle of Bayone Three. The ship itself had been dragged back to base and was unlikely to be repaired. At best, Revenge would require six months of refits before it could re-enter service, and most of the engineers who would be assigned to the task were in elementary school when she was commissioned. Her crew had been virtually wiped out. Jayce suspected that knowledge would have been more painful for Enright than the fourth-degree burns and radiation exposure he had suffered. Revenge was among the first to encounter the alien riflecutter weapons first-hand.
The magnitude of Enright’s injuries made one thing certain. He would never command a starship again.
Hunter remembered well her cruiser commander’s patience when she was trying to pass her tactical and strategic batteries. Enright was one of those officers who recognized well the place he would be most useful. Even though he had been offered a promotion to captain, Enright declined and kept his temporary chair at Skywatch Academy. His position gave him a chance to mentor the brightest young officers, and he recognized the promise in the Hunters early in their careers.
Although he had the years to achieve a flag rank, Enright invested as much of his battlefield knowledge as he could in training the next generation of captains. As things turned out, his sage wisdom could not have come at a more crucial time. Scarcely weeks after Jayce Hunter’s academy class graduated, the events known as the “alarmist schism” kicked into high gear. In an interval of little more than a few weeks, more than three dozen experienced line officers had been forced out. Their ships were either grounded or re-assigned, and their crews broken up to prevent any loyalists from organizing resistance. With their power fully consolidated, the anti-alarmist flag officers put a plan in motion to cut the head off their rivals’ plans, which was the event that touched off the Gitairn campaign. Jayce was certain Hughes had been set up, and she also suspected her brother might have paid the price.
Hunter knew what he would say if he could. “A Skywatch captain is always evaluating, Jayce. She knows the strengths and weaknesses of her command, and she isn’t afraid of abandoning the less effective approach for a chance at victory. Always remember to attack the problem, not your failures to solve it right away.”
She remembered his face the day she graduated. The first official salute she had ever received in her life was from a commander wearing the Skywatch Cross. It was a moment she would never forget.
Hunter fought the fire that had burned inside her since Fury received word of the ambush executed by the Atlantis 12 contacts. It seemed her enemy was always one step ahead, and it also seemed that enemy knew exactly what kind of weapon to bring to the fight. Perseus, Argent, her brother and her crews always seemed to be playing catch-up. The commander fought her instincts. Part of her screamed for vengeance, but her experience restrained her more aggressive instincts.
The Hunters were fighters, descended from several generations of fighters. They didn’t favor the subtle, mild approach to conflict. Both of the twins subscribed to the doctrine of an ancient Earth armor commander. “A good plan violently executed right now is better than a perfect plan next week.” The two officers’ particular brand of warfare had earned them numerous decorations and more than a few prestigious commands. But now with one of her mentors near death and her brother missing, Jayce found herself working against the clock and her own limitations. There was only so much one officer could do. That was one of the reasons she had made the decision to recruit some new and rather dangerous comrades for her next mission.
Jayce placed her hand on the window and took one last look at Commander Enright’s battered and bandaged face. Then she turned and moved quickly back to the lobby. Once outside, she turned towards the base quarters, mentally sifting through risky and dangerous ideas as she walked.