were seeking revenge for the ship that was destroyed. The Alliance will then send all kinds of emissaries to patch up our troubles, which will be fine by us because by then we’ll have the information we seek on their ships’ capabilities.”
“Send me the details. I’ll set up the two ships immediately. What size of ship are you going to attack this time?”
“I’m going after the same ship. We owe them something. Our revenge explanation is partially true; however, our revenge is directed at the ship that destroyed our cruisers.”
The ambassador almost felt pity for the Earth ship. Then he looked forward to hearing of its destruction.
Captain Kosiev sat across the table from General Masseem, the commanding officer of Earth Station Seven. On one side of the general sat the Directorate ambassador and on the other Colonel Solerio, who represented the military board from Earth headquarters. This was not a meeting that Kosiev wanted to be in. “I hope I survive this,” he thought. He looked out the window in the conference room from Earth Station Seven, hanging in space against the background of the horse nebula, and wondered if humans were ever going to be able to go outside the twenty- light-year limit to explore those far stars. The light from that nebula that he was seeing had left when humans were primitive cave dwellers. Then he thought, “I’d be happy to just make it outside of this room.” The officers conducting the board of inquiry filed into the room and took their seats.
General Masseem looked at Kosiev and said, “Captain, we’ve gone over your recordings of the battle and have examined the commands you issued. Tell us why you made the decision not to run.”
“Yes sir. When I discovered the Cainth cruiser attempting to hide from our sensors, I went to investigate. As soon as I turned toward their location and had gone a very short distance, sensors picked up a star drive breaking into normal space.”
“We know all that, Captain.”
“Yes sir. I immediately turned and accelerated away from the ship entering normal space. It was my intent to leave, but the ship that emerged challenged me to stop and lower my screens for boarding. As you well know, primary order one prohibits me from allowing any other race access to the technology of our ships. So I continued to run and answered their communication, informing them I was contacting the Alliance ambassador to determine what the ships were doing in our zone. They then fired ten high-speed missiles at my ship.”
“You could have still run. Your screens should have been able to handle those missiles.”
“Do you know that for certain, General? It’s my understanding that our screens have never been tested in combat, and particularly against that many missiles. However, that’s not the reason I took the actions I chose.”
“To answer your question, Captain, no, we have not tested the screen to that level, but when I questioned them, the engineers that designed it felt like it would have withstood the impact. But you’re right, we don’t know for certain. Go on with your explanation.”
“Sir, I’m of the belief that the attack was staged to determine what the capabilities are of our ships. They were going to learn how fast our ships are because I had to accelerate to stay ahead of the missiles, and if I had let those missiles impact our screens they would have learned a tremendous amount about our screen technology. I also feel that if I had fled after they had this information, the next attack would not be by a single ship. I decided that the only way to avoid having those missiles hit my screens was to run close by the ship that was hiding and see if the missiles would lock on them. That plan worked; however, as I passed, the Cainth cruiser released their entire magazine of thirty missiles at me. I decided at that point that if these missiles could destroy the other ship it would look like they killed each other, and they would not have any information about our capabilities. Sir, I take full responsibility for what happened. My crew responded marvelously and conducted themselves in such a way as to make the service proud. In the heat of combat I was trying to make decisions that were in the best interest of the Directorate.”
The ambassador spoke for the first time. “So you destroyed two cruisers, using their own missiles, and suffered no damage to yourself.”
“Yes sir.”
“You also prevented the Cainth from obtaining information about our weapons technology.”
“Yes sir,” he said. “Here’s where I get the ax,” he thought.
“Then you contacted the Alliance ambassador about the battle these two ships had fought. It might interest you to know that the Alliance investigation concluded that the two ships had killed each other.”
“I did not know that, sir.”
The ambassador then turned to General Masseem and asked, “What do you plan to do with Captain Kosiev?”
“What else can I do? I’m going to award him the solar star, promote him to commodore, and give his ship and crew the order of fleet recognition. Captain, under the heat of combat you also responded marvelously. You have bought us some time until the next attack.”
Kosiev was stunned. “Thank you, sir, and I speak for my crew that your support of our actions means a great deal to all of us.”
“Commodore, you will be given command of a heavy cruiser with three support destroyers. You’ve bought us time, but I think you’re right that there’s going to be another attack. Whoever planned this didn’t get what they were looking for. They also know that their ships didn’t kill each other. So they will rightly infer that two cruisers aren’t enough. The next attack will be with much heavier vessels.”
“Where do you think it will happen, sir?”
That’s when Colonel Solerio spoke. “We have collected all the information we can on the current commander in chief of the Cainth Armed Forces. His grandfather was killed in the battle with one of our ships a hundred years ago. He wants revenge in the worst possible way. Our experts feel that part of his motivation is revenge, and you just destroyed two ships he sent into action. Captain Kosiev, it’s our opinion that your ship will be the target of the next attack.”
“So what course of action should I take next time, sir?”
“That’s what we’re here to discuss. We need to look at all possibilities and decide what we should do. One thing for certain, the chain of command agrees that peaceful coexistence is over. Now let’s discuss what to do next time. It’s my feeling that it shouldn’t be long before they make their move.” Kosiev looked out the window again at the nebula and thought it never looked as far away as it did at that moment.
Chapter 9
“W hat do you mean, make himself invisible?” Esa asked.
“After taking manual control of the cameras and tracking the big man into the building where we lost him,” Major Daniel said, “I instructed my monitors to collect all the video we had on where those six people came from. We were able to backtrack those five men to the three buildings you see just down the boulevard south of here. We’re in the process now of looking at the tapes from inside those buildings to try and track them back to where they live. It’s not going to be easy, because they exited the buildings while a shift change was taking place and there were literally thousands of people moving through the corridors. We know where the five attackers came from, where they met, and the pattern they used to set up their attack. That’s the good news.”
“What’s the bad news?” John Sinclair asked, taking the bait.
“The man sitting with his back against the wall does not appear on any of our surveillance tapes. We cannot determine how he got to that wall, and we can’t find where he went when he left. He literally disappeared. He also never showed his face while he was on that camera at the scene of the fight.”
“Wait a minute,” Esa said. “Show me that video again.”
Major Daniel pressed a button on his display, and immediately it showed the camera swinging and the video of the six men at the wall.
“Freeze it,” Esa said.
They all moved to look closer at the video screen. Whoever it was sitting against the wall had his hands on each side of his head as he looked down into the concrete, away from the camera.
Major Daniels then moved the video tighter, but it was obvious that there just wasn’t any detail to the
