Tears of Kerberos Read Online Free PDF Page B

broadsides of the battle between the two massive capital ships. This meant the warship had lost over half of her crew, though many of the injured were still manning their posts as she limped home. The ship was now more a slow moving memorial to the dead and injured than a deadly warship capable of facing any known vessel.
    Until two days ago, Admiral Jarvis had still been aboard helping to organise the evacuation of the damaged and crippled warships. The Admiral had not been happy at sending the heavily damaged ship away, but with leaks in the reactor there was a chance the ship would lose power and end up dead in space. More ships were on their way from the rest of the Confederacy but it would be days before anything the size of the heavy cruiser or a battleship would arrive. Vessels of this size could conduct all kinds of missions from orbital bombardments to blockade management as well as the job they were mainly built for, combat against other vessels.
    With space operations now focused on the blockade of Prime and the transport of personnel to the surface she had since transferred her flag to the escort carrier CCS Wasp. This vessel was almost as large as the Crusader but it was optimised as an escort carrier. As well as being able to handle the heavy gunboats used to escort shuttles and landing craft, it was also designed to operate as a command ship for amphibious operations. From there the Admiral could work alongside General Rivers in coordinating the action on and around Prime.
    Hovering around the battered ship like a swarm of angry flies were gunboats of the Kerberos Squadron. This unit had already sent most of its warships to assist in operations at Prime. A number of the smaller vessels had remained, as well as the scores of gunboats that helped protect the infrastructure and ships orbiting the planet. The gunboats were tiny when compared to the warship but their size was deceptive. Each craft contained masses of weapons and electronic jamming equipment. In sufficient numbers they could take on small warships like cutters and frigates. Against civilian craft just one or two was enough to force a course change or demand inspections.
    On board the Crusader lights started to flash on the communication panel. Lieutenant Nilsson, a dark brown haired officer with distinctive, green tinted brown eyes, examined the data coming from her communication desk. At first she thought it was one of the many malfunctions stemming from the damage they had sustained in battle. It quickly became clear that the indications were pointing to a narrow band burst transmission from the planet’s surface. She turned to the Executive Officer.
    “Sir, I’m picking up encoded traffic on narrow band from the planet below.”
    The Commander walked towards her desk and examined the data himself. His face contorted in confusion.
    “I don’t understand. Narrow band is focused at a specific point. How are we picking it up unless it is meant for us?”
    “It must be, Sir, unless it’s an accident.”
    “I don’t think so. There’s a lot of space out here and the odds are miniscule. If it weren’t for us then who would it be for in this orbit? Can you decode it?”
    I’m working on it, Sir, just give me a moment…” she replied, as she worked fervently on the system.
    A series of coloured bars flashed on the display until a group of visual locks were removed to reveal a final security layer. Lieutenant Nilsson sighed before turning back to him.
    “The message is encoded in a book-based cipher, only part of it makes sense without the code book, I have forwarded it to your datapad.”
    Commander Anderson picked his pad up and entered his security code to gain access. He was surprised to find just a few lines of information from a source he didn’t recognise. There were details of several civilian ships and something or somebody called ‘The One’ and a list of nine buildings on the planet below. He recognised one of them as the