Free Frontiers Saga 12: Rise of the Alliance by Ryk Brown

eye.”
    “Triple-check our timings,” Commander Dumar ordered, “and find out why we came out short to begin with.”
    “Better short than long, sir,” Mister Bryant said under his breath so that only he and the commander could hear.
    “We still have many jumps ahead of us, Mister Bryant. If we continue to come up short, we will consume those buffer pauses more quickly than you might imagine.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Contact!” the sensor operator announced. “It’s the four zero two. They’ve caught up with us.”
    “Message coming in,” the comm officer reported. “Command eyes only.”
    “Send it to my pad,” Commander Dumar ordered.
    “Yes sir.”
    Commander Dumar looked at his data pad as the encrypted message appeared on his screen. He placed his thumb on the screen. A moment later the message decrypted before his eyes, the meaningless jumble of letters, numbers, and symbols morphing into a coherent message. He smiled.
    “Good news?” Mister Bryant inquired.
    “It seems Prince Casimir is finally putting the nobles in their place.”
    “If by their place you mean a prison cell, then that is good news,” Mister Bryant agreed.
    “I said good news , Mister Bryant,” Commander Dumar said as he turned to head to his office, “not wonderful .”
    * * *
    General Bacca’s head still ached from the effects of the sleep chamber. It had takenmore than four months for his personal FTL ship to reach the Alpha Centauri system. It was not the longest amount of time he had spent in cryo-sleep, but it left him feeling not himself nonetheless.
    He marched down the corridor toward the battle platform’s command center, escorted by four of the platform’s security guards as well as his own personal aide. They entered the observation mezzanine that ran along the back side of the massive control room. Rows of consoles filled the room below as hundreds of technicians and their supervisory officers monitored every facet of the platform’s operations. It was truly a fortress in space, one that could be moved wherever it was needed. They were the most powerful weapons system that the Jung Empire had ever built, each of them taking decades to construct. It was all part of the empire’s thousand-year plan of galactic dominance, of which they were only a few centuries into.
    “General Bacca,” the admiral greeted as he entered the observation deck to join the general. “I see you escaped the liberation of Earth unharmed?”
    General Bacca looked sternly at the admiral. “Some of us are burdened with greater responsibility than simply fighting to our death in the name of the empire.”
    “Of course,” the admiral acquiesced. “I take it you bear important information?”
    “Your clearance level?”
    “I am the commander of a battle platform, my dear General. What do you think my clearance level should be?”
    “Your clearance level,” the general repeated sternly.
    The admiral held up his hand to summon his aide, who stepped forth with the admiral’s clearance card.
    General Bacca took the admiral’s card and inserted it into his data pad. His eyebrow raised, and he handed the card back to the admiral’s aide, all without showing the slightest hint of emotion. “As we feared, the Superluminal Transition System is no longer in development. In fact, it has been in use for nearly a Terran year.”
    “How many ships are equipped with this system?” the admiral wondered.
    “As far as we know, only one… The Aurora.”
    “I thought the Aurora was destroyed, by your own trap, was it not?”
    “Her destruction was never verified,” General Bacca admitted. “There was even evidence that she escaped the trap at the very moment it was sprung.”
    “Why is it we are only hearing of this now?” the admiral challenged.
    “The evidence was inconclusive at best.”
    “You are saying that one ship was able to liberate the Earth? That one ship destroyed your entire fleet?”
    “One ship equipped with the STS,”