Echoes of the Storm

Chapter 31

Us. Jon didn't mean Galilei, didn't mean the Grand Emperor. When all this ended, the Grand Emperor would be dead. He and Jon would rule.

* * *

"Pride at system's edge, sir," Lieutenant Droga reported.

Norse sat stoically in his command chair. The battlecruiser would jump to deep space within minutes, leaving the defense of Torredo to a handful of crusader wings and the firepower of the ODPs.

He eyed the SITS Board, anticipating the blip of a Riga space force. With a tap, he updated the status readouts. The board split to show interior and exterior shots of the ODPs, the spaceport, and the system. He glanced at his digipad and asked, "Is that freighter still in space dock?"

"Yes, sir," Droga replied. "Sounds like it may be there for a while."

Something about the freighter grated on Norse's nerves. "Her crew?"

"Latest logs show a few of them are here, on the surface, but Nightstorm is habitable while in the repair bays."

Nightstorm. Had he missed something? Norse's instincts were strong. He scrolled through the captain's profile. Ben Stone. Clean, except for a barroom brawl four years earlier on New Mars. Long term crew to a man, except for one he'd locked in the brig. Same time two men were reported killed on board. No explanation. Mercenaries were known for dispensing their own brand of justice. If Stone's prisoner had killed his shipmates, Stone could've spaced him, but the records didn't tie the two incidents together. The crew deaths had occurred on a run between Sacarra and Argolas...the same day of the Riga invasion.

That was interesting. Norse brought up coordinates for both worlds in relation to Torredo and splashed them on the SITS Board. Same day. Was there a connection?

Droga interrupted Norse's thought. "Tech reports have been submitted on those power fluctuations on ODP-1. And the Pride has just jumped to lightspeed."

Norse acknowledged Droga, but kept reading Stone's file. Nightstorm ran cargo for dozens of companies—all above board—each year for the past six, but before that... Just a few entries.

This wasn't right.

A second later Norse ran Stone's image against iGal, the massive compilation of "i"—intel—maintained by Galilei. And there he was. Ben Chase, Maileb War College, senior fighter pilot, number one in class. Served three years. Spec Ops. Resigned. Further down, duty stations, missions, commendations, parents' names—both deceased—and a brother.

"Have security find Captain Stone." Stone, rather Chase, had been inserted in a dozen bloody operations, received the Grand Emperor's Freedom Medal, not once, but twice, and then resigned his commission. Such a waste.

Norse's eyes caught on the word brother. Never ignore the little things.

He clicked the entry and Matthew Chase, deserter, appeared on his screen. No known activities. What if...?

"Stone just returned to ODP-1, sir," Droga reported.

Norse glared. "Then he shouldn't be hard to find. Get him. Hold him." He started to turn away, but... Returned to ODP? Had Stone been meeting with someone from the resistance?

He jerked toward the SITS Board, then furiously punched possible flight trajectories for the transport that had whisked Jack Gamble away the day of the invasion. He could hardly hear himself think. "Have security find out where Stone was, and who he met with. Now."

Recognition of Norse's suspicions dawned on Droga's face in a holy-mother-of-colonists moment. He cleared his head with a shake and sent security an alert. "Sir," he said, "you might want to look at the issues the techs identified at ODP-1. Upgraded couplings and power generators were installed when the missile bays were rebuilt after the Riga attack. They're overloading the entire system."