Chapter 25

A beep from Bill's comm terminal interrupted his conversation with Perry.

"Hold on Perry, I got an incoming call listed as 'High priority'."

The Silk Terrier on the other end gave Bill a look of intrigue. "All right. Let me know what it says."

"Sure thing."

Bill switched to his second channel, to be faced with a black screen. A mechanical voice said "State name, rank and position for identity verification."

"Command… er… Colonel Bill Grey, Husky Leader, Katina Starfighter Command." Bill replied.

"Voiceprint confirmed." Replied the message, then Admiral Hendrix appeared on the screen. He was wearing a tuxedo, which suggested he had recently been to a formal gathering, though from what Bill could see behind the lion, Hendrix was obviously at his office on Katina's main spacedock.

"Colonel Grey, good to see you. I have a matter which requires your urgent attention. Report to my office here by 2000 hours."

Bill blinked. "Woah, Slow down there Admiral. What's going on?"

"You will be briefed on the situation at my office. Come quickly, or it will be out of my hands." Hendrix hung up, and the screen went to static.

Bill remained quiet for a moment out of surprise and confusion, then he went back to Perry.

"Who was it?" Asked Perry.

"Hendrix." Bill replied. "He wants me to meet him on the double. Guess I'd better go."

"Wait up!" Said Perry. "I may as well come too!"

Bill gave him a wry look. "Hey, you're on leave. Don't you have some bar to trash?"

"Sorry. Been there, done that three nights in a row. I think I'll skip the hangover tonight and come with you."

Bill reached for his Husky Squadron jacket. "All right then. Meet me at the Starport terminal in an hour."

Bill glanced out the viewport of the Orbital Fleet Dock. Most of the Katinian Fleet was there, sporting pressurized scaffolding where there would be holes or gashes along the side of the ships. The Archangel, Bill could see, was receiving extra special attention from the repair crews, with nearly twice as much scaffolding and repair ships buzzing around than the next-biggest ship in the fleet, the Decklon. A Cornerian Battleship was also in dock, with its crew on shore leave on Katina.

The dull-grey droid at the desk beeped twice. "Colonel Grey? The Admiral will see you now." It said in a monotone voice.

Bill nodded and left Perry with the droid. When he walked into the office, he found Hendrix consulting some notes on a holographic display.

"Colonel Grey, welcome. Take a seat- um, someone 'appropriated' my good chairs while we were on deployment so I apologize in advance."

"None necessary, sir." Bill said, though he squirmed as he sat on a ridiculously small wooden stool before the Admiral.

"Now Colonel, to business-" Said the admiral, "-Which is entirely unofficial and at this moment between you and me."

Bill nodded warily. "All right, at this moment, between you and me."

"Very well." The Admiral hit a button on his desk and a video replay appeared on the hologram suspended to Bill's left.

Bill's eyes widened.

"Keeler?!"

"Flyer Keeler, yes. We received this message twenty-two hours ago."

"He's alive?!"

"It gets better. Watch." Replied Hendrix.

Bill listened to the recording. Keeler had been trying to contact someone in authority, and was now giving his name, rank and position to the listener.

"… I flew with Husky Squadron over Macbeth, but was shot down. I found Blaze Walters, Husky Seven…"

Bill grinned. I had a small suspicion he might have made it.

"… and we happened upon the memory core of a Cornerian spyship. It's intact, and we suspect it might hold vital information. I'm sending the data to you through a downed enemy fighter."

"Stand by, we are readying to receive." Said a voice on the other end of the line. "OK! Go now!"

Keeler pressed some buttons and data stream started pouring down the left margin of the transmission. After a few moments he said "Upload 50% complete."

That's when Bill heard a grinding noise.

"That- that sounds like a tank!" He commented.

Blaze's voice suddenly came through clearly, though he was nowhere to be seen in the picture. "KEELER! GET OUT!!!"

Keeler looked away in surprise and he quickly pulled a lever, activating the rear ejector seat. He vanished from the picture, still clutching the memory core, and as the wires he had used to connect the core to the ship came loose, the data stream ceased and the word "error" replaced it. A moment later there was a bright flash and the transmission was cut off completely.

Hendrix closed the replay. "The portion of the download we did receive proved very useful. It explained the whole invasion plan of the enemy in detail and was accurate to the words right up until our first clash at Macbeth."

"What changed?"

"We got away. That wasn't meant to happen. So the whole debacle that occurred there the second time was something of a re-plan. Still, the intelligence package detailed two incursions into Allied space and a large-scale occupation of Zoness. You may not have heard it, but the two incursions were halted by the Cornerians, and Zoness was indeed invaded a few hours ago. The resistance is strong, thanks to the early warning, but I'm afraid it too is likely to fall soon."

But Bill had other thoughts on his mind. The Admiral could see this.

"Colonel, I am sorry, but I cannot put resources and men towards the rescue of two of your pilots from an enemy fortress world. We could lose a whole fleet doing that."

Bill sighed. "Admiral, is there nothing you can do?"

"As your Admiral I must safeguard everyone- and that means everyone available to us. Those two are far away, and not available to us."

Bill nodded reluctantly.

"However, though we are of different rank, I am still a combatant, and I understand what this must mean to you, and probably to your squadron too. I feel perhaps your people may need a morale boost. So though I have responsibility to you, I could turn a blind eye just this once…"

"What do you mean?" Asked Bill excitedly.

"Take it easy, Bill." The Admiral lowered his voice. "This is classified information. All spyship memory cores have a tracker beacon, which broadcasts using a form of radiation that is undetectable except by highly specialized scanners. Using these scanners you could track down your downed pilots- and retrieve what information we did not receive from the memory core." The admiral pulled out a small black card from his pocket; a miniature datapad, and began reading from it.

"Tomorrow, there will be two unattended transports fuelled and ready at Bay 22-K, Katina City Base. The guards for the armory will be, distracted, shall we say? The armory will contain one of these tracking scanners for the memory core, as well as enough weapons for a small band to mount a covert rescue.

All of your fighters will be fueled and combat ready for an extra-long mission, and again, unattended. This is all from 0900 to 1100 hours, which is when I have a friend on air traffic duty willing to overlook a small matter such as a pair of combat transports and some starfighters making an unannounced departure."

Hendrix paused, letting Bill soak it all in, then continued. "The travel time of a combat transport to Macbeth from here is roughly 44 hours in warp. So, in three day's time there is a long-range bomber strike on Macbeth, which will busy the invaders for about four hours. Do you understand?"

Bill smiled. "Fully, sir. And I know that we never had this conversation."

The lion grinned in return. "Of course. It wouldn't do to order you off on a suicide mission, but if you took it upon yourselves, well nobody could be held responsible if you failed. And if you succeed, well, you'll all be heroes."