Phantom Fleet Read online

  Phantom Fleet

  Assault Squadron Book 2

  By D K Evans

  LEGAL

  Copyright D K Evans, All rights reserved.

  Reproduction of any kind is prohibited unless done so with written permission from the original author.

  The places, persons, entities and events depicted in this work are fictional and figments of the author's imagination/used in a fictitious context. Any resemblance to actual events, people or organizations is purely coincidental.

  Cover/promotional images used under license from DepositPhoto.com

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Author's Notes

  CHAPTER ONE

  "Arriving imminently, sir," the young navigation officer nervously announced as a shudder ran through the vessel. Commodore Horsk had seen at least a thousand jumps during his service with the Federation navy, but every one of them carried a slight level of risk. Especially when jumping into potential combat. Not that the Rebels had proven themselves to be particularly worthy adversaries so far.

  "Exiting jump space," announced one of the bridge crew.

  The view screen was momentarily filled with the washed-out light of the Ovlapis system's dwarf star before the scene in front of them came into focus. Horsk let out a whistling breath as he gritted his teeth. In front of them was a gigantic construction of some sort, silhouetted against the nearby star. If he had to guess, the thing was a deep space sensor array of some kind. Emphasis on the 'was' – the machinery was in the process of tearing itself apart. A gutted Federation fighter drifted past them as more friendly ships jumped in. There'd been a battle here. And Horsk had just missed it.

  "Sensors? What have you got for me?" he asked one of his crewmen.

  "I'm reading multiple distress beacons near the station itself," came the reply, "Plus a residual jump signature of a ship leaving the system."

  "You have a fix on their destination?"

  "Negative, sir. But I'm working on it."

  Horsk nodded in reply and watched as the other ships in his flotilla moved past them. He'd been with the Federation Navy for almost twenty five years and enjoyed a relatively stable rise through the ranks, though the recent insurrection had considerably improved his career prospects. He'd found that there'd been no end of opportunities to fill the shoes of officers who proved themselves to be demonstrably incompetent. And at last, he'd been given a group command of his own, leading a team of four quick response frigates, plus his own cruiser – the Labrys – on a long-range patrol mission. The patrols would be good addition to his record and the best part was that they were typically uneventful. Answering this distress call, however, had changed all that.

  Horsk turned his attention to his communications officer, "Tell the Marilla and the Austin's Pride to start search and rescue operations. The rest of us will take up a defensive footing. Have fighters ready to scramble at a moment's notice."

  "Aye, aye."

  A few moments later, two of the frigates in his group made a beeline for the wreckage of the station. Cold blue lights appeared along their rear quarters as their hangar bays opened up, ready to launch shuttles and recovery teams. He shook his head as he wondered just what he'd gotten himself into.

  "Sir," the sensor officer spoke up, "We have another group of ships approaching, their transponders read as friendly."

  Horsk smiled, glad to have some backup. His face fell as soon as their new acquaintances jumped in.

  An Adjudicator-class battleship appeared on the view screen. Precisely seventy of the hulking ships had been built shortly after the Federation's founding, designed to transport and protect the highest-ranking members of government. That could only mean one thing.

  "This is Councilor Volurm of the High Chamber," an imperious voice drawled over the communication link, "Identify yourself and explain your presence here."

  Horsk saw his bridge crew exchange worried glances. For a member of the High Chamber to be out here, this place must be very important indeed. And the act of merely displeasing a person so powerful could be a death sentence for their careers. If not a literal death sentence.

  "This is Commodore Horsk of the 134th Patrol Group reporting to the office of..."

  "Spare me the details, Commodore," Volurm replied with feigned weariness, "Why are you here? This area is restricted."

  "My apologies sir," Horsk replied, treading carefully, "We answered a distress call and arrived to find the station had been... raided."

  "Very well, recall your ships."

  "Sir, those vessels are trying to reach survivors. There could be limited time before they..."

  "I told you to recall your ships, Commodore," Councilor Volurm's voice grew colder, "This station is none of your concern. You have a new mission; hunt down and destroy those responsible for this. There are to be no survivors. Do you understand me?"

  "Absolutely, sir," Horsk replied, snapping his fingers for his communications officer to recall the other vessels.

  "Good," Volurm breathed, "Now get after them before I lose my patience."

  The sensor officer sent across some coordinates to the navigator and the flotilla regrouped and realigned, quickly jumping out and following the jump-trail that the attackers had left behind. After a few minutes, the ships abruptly arrived in open space. A brief flash came from off the Labrys' port bow. Their quarry had just jumped again.

  "It's a dummy waypoint!" the navigator called, "They were waiting to see if anyone would pursue, trying to throw us off the trail!"

  "Get a fix on their next destination," Horsk ordered, "And stay cautious – whoever we're up against, they're absolute professionals."

  -

  "You fucking idiot!" Hubbard roared, "You let them follow us! Why not just leave a note telling them where we're going next?"

  "Oh shut your mouth!" Duuven shouted back, "I doubt you could steer a shopping cart, let alone a ship this size!"

  "Enough!" Ellery snapped as she stalked onto the bridge, still in her flight suit and with Ford trailing behind her, "We need to get these guys off our tail and then find somewhere to lay low. Any ideas on that front?"

  The makeshift carrier's bridge fell quiet. The crew looked down at their consoles, no-one wanting to be the person to speak up first.

  "Well we can't stick around these parts," Ford broke the silence, "Since our base was destroyed, that pretty much ends the Rebel presence in this sector. We'd be well and truly on our own if we stayed."

  "We're on our own now," Duuven grumbled.

  "What about Colaris?" Hubbard suggested, "It's a system pretty far out on the edge of Federation space. We might be able to lie low there for a while."

  "Emphasis on 'might'. If we run into so much as a single picket ship, the game will be up," Duuven rolled his eyes.

  "Got a better suggestion?"

  "Yeah," Duuven looked up, "I say we get the hell out of the Federation. They won't chase us beyond their borders."

  "And what then? You think we'll be treated well by anyone else?"

  "It's better than being blasted into pieces!"

  "Alright," Ellery brought them both to heel again, "Let's try the best of both worlds – we set a course for Colaris. It's remote, so if we get rumbled, we'll be able to cross the border easily anyway."

  The two men nodded, settling for an uneasy peace. Though Duuven, as the acting captain of the ship, seemed to have had his feathers just a little ruffled.

  Ford opened his mouth to speak but quickly thought better of it.

  "What?" Duuven asked, "You thi
nk you got a better idea?"

  "Just seems futile, is all," Ford shrugged as both Hubbard and Duuven turned to scowl at him, both the engineers drawing themselves up to their full height as he kept talking, "We can't fight all by ourselves, so I get why you might want to run..."

  "Nobody's saying anything about running away," Hubbard growled.

  "Just a figure of speech," Ford reassured him, "What I mean is that we just pulled off a serious raid. Destroying that station put us in the big leagues. We can't just go and hide out forever."

  "And your idea is?" Ellery asked impatiently.

  "We link up with the Rebel fleet. They're out there somewhere – if we can join them, we'll be safe from pretty much anybody who's chasing us!"

  "Ok," she nodded, "And just how do you propose we find them? Their location is secret. Even I – a full-blown commander – don't have access to that kind of information."

  "I was just thinking out loud," Ford shrugged.

  Ellery walked over to one of the bridge terminals, leaning over the sensor officer's shoulder and taking a good look at his screen.

  "You get anything before we jumped out?" she asked.

  "A few seconds of footage," the crewman answered, "But nothing in a good quality – I'll bring up the clearest stills."

  He tapped a few buttons and some heavily pixelated images popped up on his screen. Taken just before they had left their pursuers behind, the pictures were heavy with interference from the jump drive.

  "You make anything of this?" Ellery queried as Ford walked over to take a look.

  "Not much to say about most of them," he leaned forward and closed a few of the images, leaving two blurry shapes remaining, "These on the other hand..."

  He manually resized the pictures, shrinking them down until the pixels started to somewhat fade together.

  "Well?" Ellery sighed.

  "Looks like a pair of Conciliator-class frigates," he murmured, pointing to two lighter streaks of pixels on each blob where they caught the light, "You can see the forward missile modules here. Odd for there to only be two of them."

  "There won't be," Ellery breathed as her mind worked fast, "They always travel in larger squadrons for mutual support. Could be a pain in the ass to avoid them. I'll keep a log if we see anything else, compare it to known Federation navy units – that should give us a clearer picture of what's hunting us."

  "Ok," Ford nodded.

  If nothing else, Ellery always managed to be thorough. Most of the guys found her to be a tough and often intimidating boss, but Ford had to admit, she was always keeping track of all the moving pieces. Hopefully that mind of hers would be enough to get them out of this mess.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Ford decided to take a walk to clear his head. The destination that they'd chosen didn't sit well with him. Running away now wasn't a viable course of action in his eyes. Not when they'd finally put their motley band of outlaws on the map at last. He wracked his brains as he walked, trying to come up with some way that they could locate the Rebel fleet.

  As he took a staircase down into the lower levels of the ship, he dismissed the idea of stealing intelligence from another Federation base. They'd all be on high alert now – much tougher targets than the one they had taken by surprise not long ago. Besides, even if they survived the initial fight, they'd have to contend with any reinforcements.

  Ford passed one of the ship's small maintenance hangars, where a team were beavering away at trying to patch up some minor damage on one of the fighters. The carrier wasn't purpose built. It was a stolen corvette that had been crudely converted into its present role – as such, the maintenance spaces were few and crowded. But watching the mechanics at work, Ford could see their determination to get the job done. He walked on, dead set on finding an answer.

  As he passed the infirmary, a voice called his name.

  Ford backtracked and stuck his head through one of the doorways. A familiar face was sat on one of the examination benches watching an action movie on his tablet as a doctor stood next to him, tutting over a chart.

  "Must think you're pretty tough, coming down here," Pim grimaced through a black eye, "If I wasn't concussed, I'd walk over there and bust your face!"

  Ford frowned. Just a few hours before, he'd knocked Pim unconscious in order to steal his ship. They'd never gotten along well, but Ford almost felt guilty for taking the fighter without permission. Not for punching him though. He was pretty happy with that.

  "Well it's a fairly small ship, if you wanna try your luck, I won't be hard to find," he replied.

  "You won't be such a smartass when I report your ass to Ellery," said Pim, "Doubt she'll put up with your bullshit this time."

  "She already knows. Doesn't care, either. There's more important shit to worry about at the moment."

  "Like what?" Pim batted the doctor's torch away from his eye.

  "Like the fact that we're flying solo with half the Federation navy after us."

  "So why not just join up with the fleet?"

  "I already suggested that – I guess small minds think alike," Ford relished Pim's look of irritation, "Apparently their location's so secret that nobody has a damn idea where the hell they are."

  "What are you, stupid? Just send out an open message to them!"

  "Great idea, dumbass," Ford shook his head, "So we not only have no idea if whoever replies is for real, but we also reveal our location to the whole galaxy by breaking radio silence? Real smart!"

  "Ah fuck you, Ford. Like you've got any better ideas."

  "I might not have, but at least my head isn't filled with dumbass action movies I downloaded off the InfoNet," Ford gestured to the tablet in Pim's hand, "But I guess you fighter jocks have to get inspiration from some..." His voice trailed off as something lit up in the back of his mind.

  "What, cat finally got your tongue?" Pim asked as he grew silent.

  Ford ignored him and marched back the way he had come.

  "Hey! I'm not done talking to you!" Pim shouted after him, "Asshole!"

  -

  "I know how we can find the fleet," Ford gasped as he came to a stop outside the entrance to the bridge.

  "Oh?" Ellery looked up skeptically from her work as a few crewmembers stopped to see what all the fuss was about.

  "We don't have contact with Command, right? Meaning that the only information we can get is the same news that everyone else in the Federation hears."

  "Tell me something I don't already know," Ellery went back to her typing.

  "So that's how we narrow down their location – we take a look at the news."

  "Very funny, Ford. If you're bored, I hear that there's plenty of routine maintenance to be done."

  "I'm dead serious," he said as he sat down in an empty seat and awkwardly swiveled to face her, "Think about it: every time our guys do a mission, execute a raid, steal some hardware... it gets plastered all over the InfoNet. Our supporters can't wait to celebrate it and the Federation propaganda departments can't wait to condemn it. It's a trail of breadcrumbs leading across space!"

  "And you think that the Federation Navy won't be in the same area, trying to blast them out of the firmament?"

  "Yeah, yeah, I know," Ford said tactically, "But that's where you come in."

  Ellery stopped typing and looked up at him. Now he had her attention.

  "You're the most senior person on this ship. You've been with the Rebellion as long as any of us." Ford continued, "And you came up through the ranks with a good number of the Captains in the fleet. You know their strategies, how they think. If we take a look at what they've been doing over the past few weeks, I'm sure that you could figure out what they'll be planning next."

  "I'd need to get some hard data," she said undecidedly, "And it'd take time to go through it..."

  "Ellery, if anyone can get the bare facts, it's you," Ford smiled.

  She sat back in her seat and gazed at the ceiling.

  "Fine," she said at last, "But in cas
e you haven't noticed, we're being chased by God-knows how many Federation ships. If we're going to make a stop, it'll have to be fast."

  "That's ok," Ford nodded, "When we find a suitable InfoNet satellite we won't need much time – we'll just copy over as much data as possible and get the hell out of there. We can comb through it afterwards."

  "'We'?" she answered with a skeptical drawl.

  "Ok, you can comb through it afterwards."

  "That's what I thought," she rolled her eyes, "If we're going to be doing a full data dump from the satellite, we'll need to get some storage space cleared on the ship's computer. I hope you know what you're doing – if you mess this up, you could cause some serious software problems."

  "Nah, it's fine," Ford batted a hand melodramatically, "Hubbard will help out."

  "You even asked him yet?"

  "No, but I'll bet that he'll prefer risking his life on a spacewalk to spending another minute cooped up on this ship with Duuven."

  CHAPTER THREE

  Horsk was in the engine room, speaking with the Labrys' chief engineer. Even on a battlecruiser of this size, Horsk always felt it was best to use the frequent periods of downtime to get to know his crew a bit better. It gave him a direct feel for how the departments were running, where the strong performers were and where the weak links were beginning to show. It was halfway through one of his regular visits to the tail end of the ship when a flustered-looking junior rating appeared in one of the hatchways, holding a data pad out in front of him as if trying to make amends for the interruption. Wordlessly, Horsk took it from him and glanced over the screen.

  The Marilla was in the vanguard of their pursuit of the Rebel fugitives and had reported that the enemy had made an abrupt change in their course. The Marilla's captain reported that the enemy's new jump signature was remarkably low-powered. Horsk didn't hesitate before bringing up the star chart attached to the message. It clearly denoted the rough area of space that the Rebels probably end up in. The only problem was that it was deserted. As far as he could tell, there was nothing at all there. No planets, no stations. Horsk frowned and with a few more wordless strokes across the screen, he sent a new message to the bridge telling them to have the flotilla converge on the Rebel's estimated destination from multiple angles.