Wing Commander #07 False Color by William Forstchen (best books to read in life .txt) 📕

Ukar dai Ragark turned to face the speaker. "What is it, Communications Officer?" he asked, glowering. He was beginning to feel frustrated and impatient at the annoying problems that had cropped up over and over since the task force had departed from Baka Kar.

They had made a round-about voyage of it, traveling by way of Dharkyll, Khrovat, and Preesg to pick up additional ships for the strike group, including the escort carrier Larq, which replaced Klarran in his tactical dispositions. The idea had been to move slowly enough to let the Landreichers know they were coming, yet quickly enough to hit Ilios ahead of any possible response, but in practice it hadn't worked that way. First there had been the delay in assembling the reinforcements, including Larq, at Khrovat, where the ships had recently been involved in the suppression of a rebellion. They had reported resistance completely ended on the colony, when it fact they had still been in the last stages of putting it down when the task force jumped in. He would have left them to their work and gone on, but Ragark had found that the falsely optimistic reports weren't the only thing wrong at Khrovat. He suspected the System Administrator of entertaining notions of making his own bid for power within the province and using the rebellion as an excuse to retain those ships under his own command, so Ragark had been forced to intervene directly and clean out the corrupt administration before carrying on. It would not have been wise to take the fleet onward leaving a nest of traitors behind him.

Then the Hravik had developed jump drive problems at Preesg, which necessitated hasty repairs. Over an eight-day behind schedule, they had finally arrived at the designated staging area here at Gorkhos. Ragark had decided to hold back for a few hours longer, though, and send a scout ship ahead through the jump point to Ilios. Even if the Landreich had mustered a fleet to meet him, he calculated that he had the strength to defeat it, but Ukar dai Ragark was not the kil to leave things to chance. He wanted to know his opposition, rather than allow himself to be taken by surprise as Thrakhath, curse his name, had been time and again in battle against these unpredictable humans. But the petty frustrations had been building, and he was feeling less than patient.

"Lord Admiral, a report from Vordran. The picket there. Captain Ian Vharr has reported the arrival of the carrier Karga, believed lost over a year ago. It apparently was damaged and had to make repairs deep behind the human frontier, and is now on the way to Baka Kar for a more thorough refit at the docks." The Flag Communications Officer gave him a triumphant upraised fist. "Yet another addition to our strength, Lord Admiral! Karga is one of the newer supercarriers . . ." Ragark raised a hand and made a slashing motion, cutting off the report. Karga . . . he seemed to remember the name. Yes, a carrier . . . he had used Baka Kar as a staging area for a raid by a small battle group. One of Thrakhath's worthless sideshow campaigns, intended to exact vengeance for the Landreich leader's support of the Terrans in the Battle of Earth. The entire battle group had disappeared across the border, never heard from again.

That wasn't quite right. There had been one contact, he remembered. One final message . . .

The admiral in command had announced that he was sacrificing the carrier for the glory of the Empire! That was it . . . that was why he remembered the whole affair so well. The hypercast had been distorted by static, but he could still remember listening and saying a death-chant over the loss of so many brave Warriors. So how could Karga still be alive today? No admiral would dare withdraw a self-destruct command at the risk of honor and hrai. Could it be a trick of some kind? But the captain of the picket ship had apparently been satisfied that it really was Karga.

Ragark remembered something else, something that made him bare his teeth. The admiral commanding the Karga battle group had been Cakg dai Nokhtak. A cousin of Thrakhath's . . . a member of the Imperial House.

A possible claimant to the throne . . . certainly a tanist with better credentials than Ragark's own. What if he had avoided the destruction of his ship, and survived until now? Would Cakg dai Nokhtak be content to join Ragark . . . or would he seek to replace him? Imperial blood would have a strong lure for many of his followers, possibly even Dawx Jhorrad. Especially if it was backed by a carrier and a story of heroism in the war.

He had been held back by the possibly disloyalty of the Administrator at Khrovat. This could be far more dangerous. He could return to Baka Kar to find his entire position undermined . . .

Ragark leapt to decision. "Transmit new orders to the task force," he said. "We will move to the jump point to Vordran and investigate this story in more detail. The move on Ilios is postponed. See that all captains are aware of the change of plan. We get under way immediately!"

If Karga was a friend, he could afford the delay. After all, his move on Rios had been designed to draw the humans away from threatening the repairs to Vorghath, and he was sure he had already accomplished that through the threat he had posed.

But if Karga was an enemy, his four carriers, combined with the two at Baka Kar, would crush him.

Operations Planning Center, FRLS Independence Orbiting Ilios, Ilios System 0845 hours (CST)

The single figure sitting at the big triangular table in OPC looked very much alone when Kevin Tolwyn entered the compartment. Max Kruger was hunched over his computer terminal,