The Ascent

Chapter 40

We approached the transit station and established a communication link with the representatives of Black Mesa by beaming a communication's laser through the gate. The delegation's avatars appeared in spotty pixilated form in the v-space conference room. "We assured them your fleet had not authorized the action," their leader said after we had exchanged brief greetings. "They were offering to return the bodies of your dead when a group of your ships attacked and destroyed them. We were only barely able to escape."

I took a slow breath and forced myself to remain calms despite the angry pounding of my heart. "Were you able to identify the attackers?"

"Not much more than gravimetric logs and AM engine energy signatures. We did capture some long-range optical on a few of the ships though."

Several files showed up in my queue. I opened a grainy image of a ship which looked like a smeared time-lapse photo. "I'll give this to our signals processing people to see if they can identify the ships."

"Would you like us to send you your dead?"

"That would be very—"

An alert sounded. Our alert status jumped to FAS Delta, attack imminent.

"Do what you can for them," I said hurriedly, "We'll trust you to deal with them appropriately." I shut the com connection and switched over to the Situational Awareness Display, whishing I were in C&C instead of my quarters.

A handful of Solarian ships in attack formation had left Legion traveling at 8C heading straight for us. The merchant ships, which normally preyed on the traffic passing in and out of the transit station, apparently alerted by station security, began fleeing to the neighboring system. As I watched, one panicked ship collided with another trying to line up for the exit, spreading debris across the lane. The other ships ignored them, and traffic control, and hurried through the gate as quickly as they could.

I bypassed the tac officer and flashed Commander Brennon directly. "Commander, this is C&C. Put the Phoenix between the fleeing merchants and the attacking ships. Deploy all drones and FACs."

"Sir?" came the startled reply.

"Do not let them fire on the merchants or the station. If they fire missiles, take the missiles out. If they move in with particle emission weapons, take the ships out!" I killed the connection and stewed, wishing someone would invent an EPR transceiver that wouldn't lose connection when the H-drive was activated. I sent the gravimetric info to the communication's laser targeting systems. It wouldn't do any good trying to establish a signal until they dropped back into conventional reaction drives, but I wanted to lock onto them the second they did. After nearly half an hour of helpless waiting, the ships switched off their H-drives and began accelerating towards us at three gravities.

"This is Fleet-Commander Phon," I said the second I got confirmation of signal on the com lasers. "Cease your attack immediately!" I glanced at my SAD to confirm my FACs and drones were in place and ready. The attackers didn't answer and I tried to calculate the response time based on the distance and the natural surprise at finding me here.

"Commander Phon, is that you?" Commander West said.

"Yes! Stand down!"

"Yes, sir," Commander Wilkerson said.

"Are we sure that's him?" Commander Moulthrop asked.

"Check your transponder codes," Commander Hunsicker said.

"Didn't he order us to attack?" Commander Noss said.

"Who's in charge here?" I demanded, cutting into their chatter.