I paused to gather myself for the next order.This was not an easy command to give, as it meant complete trust inthese men, whom I had never served with before. I looked each oneof them over and was impressed again with the power they radiated.These truly were the best the Empire had ever produced.
“The Empire has good reason to be worriedabout this colony. As of now, they believe the Magi are all on thisplanet. Two weeks after we launch the captain will destroy theplanet, whether we make it off or not. We simply cannot risk themspreading out. This could be our only chance to eliminate them. Whywait two weeks? Well, that is where we come in. Officially we aregoing to make contact with the Magi and attempt to make them partof the Empire. Obviously that is not the real mission, at least notthe orders we will be operating under. Our primary objectives areto learn how they are able to control fear as they do, and to stealone of their plasma cannons. Anyone, alien or not, who gets in ourway is to be eliminated. No attempt at communication will be madewith them. I must stress that these orders are extremely secret.Only the Emperor and ourselves know of them.” I could tell theywere very unhappy with that. They were hard-core military, and tothem the chain of command was sacred. To bypass it completely musthave left a foul taste on their forked tongues.
Now for the hard part. “As you know, I am ina position which gives me access to extremely sensitive informationthat could be very dangerous in the hands of a hostile force. If itshould happen that I am taken prisoner and you are unable to rescueme, you must kill me, even if you have to give your own lives to doit. We cannot risk even the slimmest chance that they mightsuccessfully break me and gain access to what I know.” This broughta look of respect from them.
Now I had to test my shocking little speechto see if it worked. “Men, I know that all of you have more combatexperience than I, and I will have to lean heavily on your skillsand knowledge. However, I must have your one-hundred- per-cent,unconditional loyalty. We are about to leave to penetrate intoextremely deadly territory, and I cannot have anyone questioning myorders at a critical time, even if they seem foolish. If you cannotgive me this loyalty, I will release you from your duty to thismission. I will fly it alone if I must. I will not allow anynegative marks on your records should you decide not to come, butby accepting this mission you are giving your word to follow me,into certain death if need be. I intend to complete our primaryobjective, regardless of the personal cost, and I will acceptnothing less from you. If you are leaving, this is your onlychance. We will be under total communications blackout until wereturn.”
Here I stopped. I knew none of them would bewilling to back down from such a challenge. They were warriors, andhonor was their life. To back down after such a speech would implyfear and weakness. It was a bit of a gamble maneuvering them likethis, but I needed them completely on my side or this really wouldbe a suicide mission.
The squad’s sergeant came forward.Surprisingly, at just over two meters tall he was the smallest ofthem, though not by much. He locked his steel-grey eyes on mine. Imatched his fierce gaze and said, “Speak freely, Sergeant.”
He said, “Sir, the Dark Knights were hesitantabout this mission when we were first briefed. We did not like theidea of following a green leader to try and negotiate with theMagi. Now that the mission parameters have changed to includewiping out the Magi, we no longer have those hesitations. You neednot worry about us; if by death or life we can serve you, we will.”With that he stepped back into place with the rest of theKnights.
“Thank you.” I was very pleased by thatresponse. It was better than the begrudging reaction I hadexpected. “Then, men, complete your preflight. We leave the instantyou’re ready. Operation Quiet Storm is now officiallyunderway.”
“Yes, sir!” was their reply, in perfectunison, and they immediately went to work. I took what little gearI had, stowed it on board and did my best to stay out of theway.
Chapter Eleven
The Dark Talon was a Kessler-class vessel,often referred to as a mini-battleship. It had an impressive arrayof weapons and tactical sensors. It was specifically made for thiskind of solo penetration mission. The bridge crew was made up of amission leader, pilot, tactical officer, and gunner. Each positionoverlapped the others so that there were at least two crewmen ableto handle any given function at any given time. Their stations werefanned out in a half-circle with the mission leader’s position inthe center. This allowed the mission leader to keep on top of whatwas going on and communicate freely with his crew. Once I hadboarded, I took my seat in the mission leader’s chair and asked,“Is all ready for departure?”
“Yes, sir,” was the pilot’s reply.
“Computer, execute program Vydor FinalDeparture, authorization code Victor — Igloo — Nancy — Charlie- Eggplant — Nancy — Tango. Pilot, as soon as the way is clear,launch the ship. There will be no clearance to launch from thecommand, since we do not officially exist. At first possibleinstant, engage full stealth and take us out of the gravity wake ofthe fleet.”
“Yes, sir,” came the reply.
The planet was still almost three days away,but the Dark Talon was equipped with the newest generation ofmicrojump drives and could dramatically reduce that distance.Indeed, we would be in orbit in about an hour.
There was a slight lurch as the craft wasreleased from its moorings, and ahead on the viewing screens Icould see the bay doors opening and a rush of air escaping the bayas the energy screens dropped. The pilot gracefully accelerated usout of the bay and into open space. As we cleared the doors all thecomputer displays dimmed as the shipped slipped into the low-powermode associated with complete stealth.
“We have cleared the bay doors, acceleratingto the tidal exit point now,” reported the pilot.
“As soon as you can, make the jump. Targetthe jump’s exit so that we come out in the moon’s gravitationalshadow,” I ordered.
“Yes, sir, path already laid out. We shouldbe able to jump in twenty minutes,” replied the navigator.
I wanted to get to the planet as soon aspossible to give us the greatest amount of time to complete ourmission and get out of there before the planet was destroyed. This,of course, made the next twenty minutes feel like an eternity.Finally the pilot called out, “Jumping in three, two, one …”
Jumping inside a star system was a trickybusiness, and something only a smaller ship like ours could pulloff. A larger craft like the Dragon Claw, or most of her fleetcould only jump in interstellar space, and even then they needed tobe at least a couple of weeks away from any major gravity well atboth the entrance and exit points.
Long ago it was discovered that the speedlimit of the universe was equal to the speed of light. There was noway to break it, but it needed to be broken or interstellar travelwould be impossible. This brought on the invention of the jumpdrive. It was a very strange technology that I did not fullyunderstand, and I am not sure anyone does. It grew out of thediscovery that gravity could bend time. It seems that everythingthat we know of is affected by gravity, nothing is immune. The jumpdrives take advantage of this by using a gravitational bubble toforce the ship out of time while still moving through space. Sincethe ship stays stationary with respect to time, but moves in space,it effectively bypasses the speed-of-light limit. To say the shipmoves through space is not quite true because it is a half step outof sync with reality while jumping. This technology allowed us totake the most direct route to our destination without worryingabout small things in our path. Big items which create largegravity wells are a real problem and need to be avoided. This iswhy we needed to get out of the gravity wake of the fleet, as anylarge gravity well we passed would pull us back into time, andwould place us directly in the center of mass for that well. Inmost cases this would be catastrophic for all involved.
The jump drives make interstellar travelpossible, but it still takes a very long time to travel. Thedistance each ship can jump is limited by the size of the gravitybubble it can create, which is a function of the amount of energythe ship can generate and the size of the ship’s own gravity well.Fleets of ships can combine their gravity wells and link theirdrives for extremely long jumps, but on the scale of the galaxy itstill takes many jumps, with significant time to recharge thedrives between each jump. A naval fleet is not expected back to herhomeport for several years at a time.
While traveling in jump space time has nomeaning. This has as-yet unexplained effects on matter. Allphysical matter is frozen and unable to be affected by anything.For example, if there was a pot of boiling water at the beginningof the jump, during the jump it looks like it was flash-frozen withall the steam and bubbles trapped in their exact relative positionsuntil the end of the jump when it returns to boiling as if nothinghad happened. That is not
