“Millicent,” he yelled. “Is this P2P for real.”
“Yes, Sir,” he said. “As far as I can tell. The sigs were good. He knew your codes. It’s a Fed military transmission.”
“I don’t trust the source.”
“Then don’t accept. They may just be fishing. If you accept then they’ll know for sure it’s you. They’ll know your location.”
“No one care’s about my location. I’m not the president and this isn’t war time.” He stopped and pondered the irony of that. Lately, things had come out of his mouth that sickened him. He wasn’t a liar. He remembered what the president had said: Our job is to save as many as we can. But this just didn’t feel like saving anything. It felt like betrayal.
And now this. From one of the few men who stood firmly against the unholy alliance with the worms, and paid the price. But I was smarter, thought Filcher.
Against his better judgment he accepted the message from the former one-armed engineer. It was short. A plea for help. Duval and Barc were under attack from the Bakanhe Grana and both planets were going to be destroyed much like Vellos just after the alliance was formed.
The destruction of Vellos was a black mark on the Fed that had been swept away and forgotten, a small footnote, lost in the excitement and hope of peace. After the accord was signed it was as if the core planets all exhaled together, and finally kids playing on the streets again replaced bomb shelters and weapons training. And the destruction of a planet on the edge of known space was a necessary end to a synth threat that had never amounted to much. People saw what they needed to see.
If what Barthelme said was true, then it was sound logic. Duval, as much as it’s forgotten by the commoners, had alacyte, the key to warship production. Barc had water and food. Remove those first. You cannot fight hungry. You cannot fight without weapons. The fancy Fed warship production facilities in the core on Garrett would be rendered useless without the raw materials.
Filcher took a deep breath and slipped his hand into his pocket, unscrewed the metal cap and tipped back the flask. Not too much. He stared at the metal container, rounded just so. The old-timers used to call synth whiskey jet fuel. It dulled the edge. He took another pull and typed a quick message.
Unauthorized usage of a Federation P2P channel is forbidden. Leave the sector immediately or your ship will be seized and your crew will be conscripted.
……
The two gunboats loomed large on the screen, closing fast and railguns hot.
“Captain, they’ll be in range in 10 seconds,” said Koba.
Jolo called down to Barth. “Did we get a reply from Filch?”
There was a long pause, then finally: “He said no. I’m sorry, Jolo.”
“Five seconds, Captain,” said Koba, panic in his voice.
“Hey Barth,” said Jolo. “Maybe we need to talk face to face? Maybe he doesn’t believe its really you?”
“Yeah, much better odds with a face to face, but how you gonna do that?”
“I got an idea,” said Jolo. “Koba, fire up the guns.”
“Huh? We can’t beat all them,” said Koba.
“Exactly, now pull up the guns.” Koba hit the button and the rail guns popped out and instantly the Argossy’s warning klaxon went off. The gunboats were in range and were locked on.
“Barth, can you do a dead fake on this ship?” Then Jolo checked the screen. “Koba, full forward shields.”
“Yeah, Captain. We can do it,” said Barthelme.
“Ok, do it on the first hit.” Jolo put down the comm and thought for a moment. “Greeley, bring a battle suit up here.” No response. Jolo turned and Greeley’s eyes were closed, both boots on the console, his breathing slow and easy. “GREELEY!” Jolo yelled.
Greeley’s eyes popped open and he jerked forward, both feet landing on the deck. “Are we there yet?” he said, rubbing his eyes.
“Greeley, run down and get a pair of mag-boots, two Fed rifles, and you put on the heavy armor.” Then he turned to Koba. “You and Hurley get suited up and wait in the cargo hold. When the Argossy goes dead, y’all sneak outside and wait.”
“Uh, how long?”
“At least until they’ve boarded and scanned.”
“Where you going?”
“Me and Barth and Greeley are gonna pay Filch a visit, but now we gotta convince the gunboats to fire on us.” The gunboats were close enough for a clean look and Jolo could see immediately that one boat was old: burn marks near the forward thrusters, dented hull, other sections had slight ripples in the alacyte panels, the result of multiple patches. “Koba, hail the older boat.”
“This is Captain Marin Trant of the Federation gunboat Nymeria,
