Edge of the Vortex Read online

  Dinalis’s mouth was still open in awe of the power he had just seen displayed. Shaking his head to get his senses back, he rose from the chair and moved towards Soturi. “I hope you are right.”

  Soturi nodded. “First get off the bottom of this fridged ocean, then take back the planet. My powers are growing with every day that passes. We just need to be ready for when the time comes to strike, and when it does, we shall take back this planet, then we will take back control of the Alliance from those that have led us astray.”

  “You trust that the Epsilon and the Alliance along with the humans are plotting our rescue?”

  “I have faith that Colonel Hunt will stop at nothing to take back this planet.” Soturi said with a smile. “He’s a fighter.” There was a pause where the Jin-Mona seemed in deep thought. “In order to put the Alliance and the Etelainen right, we must start with liberating this planet from the clutches of the Coalition.”

  35

  Mella II/Ames

  9 February

  It took longer than Joe expected to get a face to face meeting with Commodore Smid than he had initially expected. It helped that he had the ear of Admiral Taark and a dedicated staff that had been assigned to assist him in helping arrange a meeting with the Commodore who was off inspecting some of his 3rd Reconnaissance Squadron's ships in the field. It required Joe to get transit aboard a jump capable ship from Mella II and travel back to Traxis where he discovered the Commodore was out on inspections. From there, Joe had to jump to the Tekori system, which was in disputed territory inside the Core, where he located the Commodore’s own ship.

  “Well?” The Commodore said, sitting back in his command seat on the bridge of his ship.

  “I need to recon Earth. Find out what’s going on there.” Joe said. He felt awkward standing in the middle of the large bridge speaking to a senior officer in front of the bridge crew, but he didn’t have any other options.

  “You want me to give you assets to recon Earth?” The Commodore asked, looking at Joe.

  “Yes.”

  “Colonel.” He paused and picked up a datapad that was in the arm of the command chair. “Our intelligence suggests that the Coalition jumped into the system with overwhelming force. It is my assumption that they have a plan to keep the system. Now,” he put the datapad back down. “there are two ways they could plan to do that: hold the system with enough ships so that any attack would meet with heavy losses, but I do not see this as the most probable course of action because of the number of ships that would require, and the needs of ships elsewhere. Option two is they have some method we’re not aware of to hold the planet against invasion.” He shook his head. “I don’t know what that would involve, but I bet they have some system to restrict access to the planet, and it would be controlled from the surface since that is the only way that it would be impervious to external assault.” Smid ran the back of his hand over his mouth gently. “Regardless of what they’ve done to secure the planet, I doubt very much that my unit would be the best tool for the job.” He pulled out another datapad and handed it to Joe. “You need to contact Dynamic Operations.”

  Joe shook his head as to indicate that he wasn’t sure what Smid was talking about.

  “It’s on the verge of being shut down, the entire branch.” He said. “What you would call special forces. There aren’t many of them left. Some are assigned to train your Terran Strike Group, the rest are used sparingly by fleet command.” He pointed at the pad.

  Joe activated the unit and watched as the image on the front panel came to life.

  “They are headquartered at Standish Out-Post on Ames. If you go there, you might have some luck.” Smid said. “Look, I need to jump out of the system. I suggest you try the D-O boys, see what they can do for you.”

  Joe took the hint and made his way back to the airlock that was connected to the ship he had arrived in. Another step closer to solving the problem, he thought to himself.

  The jump to the Ames required one stop to refuel at a pre-staged tanker. It didn’t delay his journey too much, and when Joe completed the second jump, the Ship Master of the transport he had requisitioned informed him that they would be landing at Standish Out-Post shortly.

  Smiling, Joe quickly sent off a transmission back to Mella II and Taark’s headquarters on Traxis letting him know of his progress. The attaché that had been assigned to Hunt was unfamiliar with Standish Outpost, but acknowledged that if anyone could conduct a recce of Terra, it would be the teams at Dynamic Operations.

  The landing pad at Standish Out Post was windswept and covered with a thin layer of sand. The wind outside the ship was blowing hard, and Joe could barely see twenty metres from the end of the ramp that lowered down at the rear of the transport. He looked at the aide that had been assigned to him with a confused look on his face.

  “Where are we supposed to go?”

  The aide pulled a device from his pocket and pointed it out the rear of the ship. 10 centimetres from the end of the device a holographic image of what was actually to their front appeared showing a large building not more the fifty metres away.

  Joe looked at the image, then back towards the sand swept landing zone. “Great.”

  The duo moved off into the stiff breeze, arms trying to keep the sand out of their mouths and eyes. They walked quickly and covered the fifty metres almost without looking up. Reaching a large door, the aide pounded his fist on a large entry pad next to the door, and the pair watched as a hatch ten metres wide slid open, allowing them to slip into the structure.

  The interior of the first room was barren. Metal, featureless walls painted in grey along with a few lights suspended from the ceiling were the only features. Another large door opposite the one they entered presented the only course out of the room.

  Walking away from the entrance, Joe took off his leather flight jacket and shook it a few times trying to get the sand off. Bending forward as he walked he brushed his hair and watched the grains of sand fall to the ground, leaving a trail from the door they had entered.

  By the time they reached the second door, the first was closing. The second door was opened in the same manner as the first, a simple access pad which worked on contact. The next room was roughly the same size as the first, but once the hatch was open, Joe saw that it housed a number of small, nimble looking craft of several different shapes and designs.

  The hangar was just as quiet as the first room, so Joe and the Alliance officer continued to the far side of the room, and repeated the same action as they had to get into the hangar. The hatch was much smaller, just large enough for a Sentinel to get through, and popped open quickly, revealing a small compartment with a set of stairs going up, and a corridor continuing forward.

  “What do you think?” Joe asked the aide.

  “Up.” He said with a slight shrug.

  Joe looked at the stairs, which were comprised of a simple metal planks that were coming out of the wall. “Up it is.” He said and moved towards the steps.

  It took them over two minutes until they reached the next level, which had a buzz coming from down the hallway. There were several lights running down the centre of the ceiling, and at the far end of the corridor which looked thirty metres long, Joe could tell that it opened up into a larger space. Not waiting for a discussion, he started walking down the hallway towards the commotion. Along the way, they passed several doors with Universal writing on them. It gave Joe a feeling of an office block, which he hoped meant they were on the right path to find someone who they could pitch his plan to.

  When they reached the large space at the end of the hall, they found a room that was abuzz with monitors, three-dimensional holograms, charts and several video displays of what looked like real-world operations to Joe. Joe couldn’t believe how easy it had been to access the room. No guards, no bio-scanners anywhere. It was pretty shambolic.

  Manning the stations in the large room were about a dozen individuals dressed in various uniforms that seemed to have no
commonality, but they all had a pistol and a knife on their hips. Joe had seen warriors that had given off the same kind of look back on Earth. This was the epicentre of the point of the spear. They were the best. Joe could smell it in the air. This was like home.

  The liaison officer that was with Joe signalled him to stay at the entrance to the room while he went in search of someone for them to speak with. He returned quickly with an angry looking alien from a species that Joe hadn’t seen before.

  “This is Dynamic Operator Grade Two Hubtar.” The liaison said.

  Joe looked at the angry, and scruffy looking warrior with a smile on his face. The expression was not returned in kind. “Greetings. We need to speak to someone about a mission.” Joe said.

  The operator nodded. “Sanctioned by whom?”

  Joe pulled a small datapad out of flight jacket, activated it and handed it to the operator.

  The operator took the pad, looked at the image on the screen, read it quickly, then handed it back to Joe. “Follow me.” He turned and started to walk through the room at a great pace with Joe and the liaison struggling to keep pace without jogging lightly.

  They passed through the centre of the chamber, and reach an open door off the primary room, and followed Hubtar inside where they found a single female sitting behind a very sleek looking desk with a single monitor on top of it.

  Hubtar waited until Joe and his associate stopped before speaking. “They have an authorization from Admiral Taark, 7th Fleet commander for a reconnaissance mission, beyond the Reach.”

  The female swivelled in her chair until she was facing Joe. “Are you a human?” She asked.

  “I am.” Joe replied, almost moving to the position of attention.

  “We have some of your people on Jax 2R AR with Kol Fine for training.” She said.

  “That is correct.” He said.

  “What’s the mission request?”

  “My homeworld has been taken by the Coalition. I am planning a counterattack and need a reconnaissance before proceeding with the planning stage.” Joe suddenly felt a bead of sweat on his forehead.

  The female nodded. “You know that Dynamic Operations are spread thin? Each fleet sends requests daily for our services. Some have even requisitioned teams to be permanently assigned to them.” She shifted in her seat. “The training program is producing a fraction of what it once did, but you want assets made available for a recce mission to help you plan a mission that might not even happen?” She stopped and locked her silver eyes on Joe.

  “I think we have a good chance.”

  She cut him off. “There is no chance that Fleet command will give you the assets to retake Terra.” She looked at her monitor, scrolled down, then looked back to Joe. “No chance. Spread too thin.”

  Joe relaxed his posture, then took a step towards the desk. “Even if there is the slightest chance, I need that reconnaissance data. We need to know what we’re up against.”

  The female smiled. “Let me tell you something.” She stood up from her desk and walked to the rear wall of the office and pointed at a massive map of the Etelainen and Pohjois. “This is the areas that my command are responsible for. There are subordinate commands scattered around, but this headquarters now plans and operates all major operations. It hasn’t always been like that though.” She paused, then put her finger on the map. “This is Jax 2R AR. This is where your humans are.” She lowered her arm and walked back to the desk. “Did you know that Kol Fine has agreed to lead them in an assault on Terra?”

  Joe shook his head.

  “What? Are there forty humans there? Plus Fine and his team.” She laughed. “They’re all going to get themselves killed you know. No matter how good Kol Fine is, he’s going to attempt too much.” She looked at Hubtar. “I suppose even if you never get support for a rescue mission, Fine could use the reconnaissance data to assist in his assault.”

  She sat back down and punched the monitor a few times. “I can release Operator Hubtar here to you, plus one ship that is suited to this task.” She looked at Hubtar. “Pick anyone you need for your flight team that isn’t busy.” She looked back at Joe. “You have 36 hours.”

  Joe opened his mouth to thank her, but Hubtar was already directing him and the liaison out of the room. “We need to start prepping now.” He said in his deep voice.

  Joe looked at the liaison officer. “Can you get word to Taark and Kol Fine that we’ve been green-lit for a recon?”

  “Of course.”

  “Thank you.” Joe said, then looked to Hubtar. “What’s the plan?”

  “We need a pilot and a navigator. Then we need to get you kitted up. After that, we go to the hangar and select a craft for this mission. Once that is done, we prep the ship, then look at the system we are heading to and plan our movements.”

  Joe nodded. Sounded about right. He followed Hubtar back through the busy nerve centre, then back down the corridor he had passed through earlier until they reached a closed door, where he pounded his fist twice.

  The door slid open and revealed a half-dressed female exercising in the middle of the room. “What?!”

  “Rasser.” We’ve got an operation.” Hubtar said, leaning against the door frame. “Get dressed and meet me in the hangar as soon as you can.” He stepped back from the opening and continued down the hallway. Looking at Joe, he smiled. “Our navigator.”

  Joe nodded. “Are you the pilot?” He asked.

  “Negative. I’m a specialist in ground combat. I suspect our pilot will be in the hangar.” Hubtar replied. Looking over his shoulder, he looked at the liaison. “I can take the human on this op, you, no room.”

  “Understood.” The liaison replied.

  Joe looked at the operator. “Thank you.”

  Hubtar dipped his head slightly. “It’s your party. Best you get your eyes on it.”

  Joe smiled in agreement, and followed the operator to the end of the hallway, then down the stairs they had come up earlier, and then through a side hatch into a long hangar bay with a long row of small ships along the right side of the space. The room was almost one hundred yards long, and Joe could tell that there were just under ten ships in the space of various configurations and colours, but all roughly the same size.

  The trio walked past the first four ships then stopped at the fifth, a low-slung craft with very sharp features. A long, pointed nose leading to wings with an almost flat looking rear. The ship was only six or seven metres wide at the rear and less than fifteen metres long. Black in colour, the triangle shaped craft looked fast, or at least that was the impression that Joe got.

  Hubtar stopped at the nose of the ship and banged on the hull with his fist. The thudding noise was enough to solicit a yell from inside the ship, followed by a large section of the top of the ship rotating up to reveal the flight compartment for the crew, and in the centre of it an angry looking alien wearing a skin fight-suit dark blue jumpsuit holding a set of tools in each hand.

  “Yes?” The alien demanded.

  “Mission.” Hubtar said, then looked at Joe. “Our pilot.” He looked back at the ship, then to the pilot. “How long until you’d be ready to launch?”

  The alien put the tools down, then walked to the side of the flight compartment, sat down, swung his legs over the side, then slid down to the hangar floor.

  “One hour for fuel and ordnance load. One hour for pre-flight. Half an hour for shit happens.” He looked at Joe. “Call it three hours. Passenger?” He took a step closer to Joe and examined his human features.

  Hubtar put his hand on the pilot's shoulder and gently pulled him away from Joe. “Client.”

  The pilot took a step back, then put his hand on his chest. “Sasa.”

  Joe nodded. “Pleasure.”

  “Who’s is navigating” Sasa asked.

  “Rasser.” Hubtar replied.

  Sasa smiled. “Getting the old team back together?”

  Hubtar smiled. “Just get working on pre-flight.”

  Sa
sa nodded and walked off.

  Joe looked at Hubtar. “You’ve worked with both of them in the past?”

  “On many occasions. We used to be assigned to 2nd Fleet together.” He took a step back from Joe and looked him up and down. “We need to get you kitted.”

  Joe was shown to the supply locker and issued with a skin-tight suit similar to the one the pilot had been wearing. Hubtar had noticed Joe’s artificial leg and asked how he had come by it. He was shocked to hear that the human had been in combat against Sentinel’s and walked away, or been carried away alive.

  “You don’t see many Sentinel’s anymore.” Hubtar said. “Mainly in assault units and shock troops. Sometimes they deploy with Insertion Teams, but that’s about it.”

  Joe mentioned that he had been to the Alliance Sentinel factory on Darjk and how things were looking very grim there. Hubtar agreed. There used to be a special model of Sentinel designed for use in conjunction with the Dynamic Operators, but there hadn’t been any new ones built in years. He looked around the kit room they were in. It was in need of a fresh coat of paint.

  “Things weren’t always this way.”

  “Decay.” Joe said with a hint of pain in his voice. “The Empire died, and now the Coalition and Alliance are killing themselves over the remnants.” Standing up, Joe fastened the front of the jumpsuit.

  “Here.” Hubtar handed Joe a belt with an empty holster on the right side. Joe put the belt on and clipped it secure. “I can offer you an energy weapon.”

  Joe shook his head and pulled out his Kimber from his flight jacket. “I always travel with protection.”

  Hubtar smiled and looked at the weapon. “What does it fire?”

  “Lead-based projectile.” Joe replied, slipping the weapon into the holster.

  “Good against shields, not against armour.”

  Joe shook his head. “Why is that? I’d have thought that shielding would be able to defect all sorts of projectiles. Why do they only work as protection against energy weapons?”