A Charter for the Commonwealth

by Richard F. Weyand

  The Earth and the Independence sent out ‘All Ships’ messages to their respective navies announcing the treaty, announcing the halt of hostilities, and recalling all their ships to their own systems.

  What the Commonwealth would call the War Of Independence, and the Earth would call the Insurrection, was over.

  But the news would take some time to propagate.

  The ESN Expeditionary Fleet

  Sixteen Commonwealth battleships waited in hyperspace. On the northern approaches of Jablonka it was:

  - the Pioneer, the Pathfinder, the Explorer, and the Trailblazer;

  - the Dominant, the Gallant, the Brilliant, and the Luminant.

  On the southern approaches it was:

  - the Peacekeeper, the Equalizer, the Empower, and the Endanger;

  - the Thunder, the Specter, the Encounter, and the Troublemaker.

  Admiral Holcomb flew his flag on the Thunder.

  “We’re all in position for them whenever they decide to show up, Sir,” said Captain Darryl Hadfield, Admiral Holcomb’s chief of staff. “We have two divisions here on the southern approaches waiting in hyperspace, and two divisions waiting in hyperspace on the northern approaches. And we have eyes in normal space at system periphery plus twenty percent.”

  “Excellent,” Admiral Brian Holcomb said. “I was worried about hovering around in hyperspace so long, and Captain Taylor said, ‘Why? We spend weeks in hyperspace in transit.’ And he’s right. It just seems weird to be sitting in hyperspace and not going anywhere.”

  “It is counterintuitive, Sir. It’s the space equivalent of crouching behind concealment.”

  “The problem always was, you didn’t know when to jump up and yell ‘Gotcha!’ But now we can communicate in hyperspace, so we just hunker down here and wait for the call.”

  “All right,” Admiral Holcomb said to the video conference of his captains. “They could show up any time in the next two weeks. We need to be ready to space on half an hour’s notice. We’re going to want the divisions on the other side from the attackers to maneuver around the system in hyperspace so we can consolidate our forces. That’ll take time, but I want the ESN ships to build up speed headed into the system, which they have to burn off, then build up speed again in the other direction to get out, so we’ve got the time.

  “They’re going to be accelerating in, with all the guns on their lighter units pointing with their bows. Since the ship velocity and the projectile velocity add up, we want to get them turned around. Then the ship velocity will actually subtract from the projectile velocity. So we’ll hit them from behind first, and get them to turn around before we bring in the other two divisions.

  “We also want to hit their heavier units first. Some of those are combat units and some are fleet auxiliaries. Those bigger combat units have full-sphere coverage on their offensive weapons, so we need to take them out right off. Rather than taking time to figure out which is which, we’ll take out all the heavy units, both combat units and auxiliaries. If it’s big, shoot it first. That also leaves them trapped here, because Doma to Jablonka is a long haul and without reaction mass and supplies, they aren’t going anywhere.

  “That’s the rationale behind Firing Plan Gamma. Half our guns in the first attack should be at the big stuff. That’s thirty-two beams spread across ten units for the first two divisions. The other half will all be on individual lighter units. The second two divisions will hit the lighter units.

  “Any questions?”

  The ESN ships from Doma, which could not communicate while in hyperspace, dropped out of hyperspace on the northern approaches of Jablonka over the course of several hours. There were now a total of one hundred frigates, three light cruisers, a heavy cruiser, and six fleet freighters in the fleet. They organized themselves into their formation.

  “Well, we’re here,” said Rear Admiral Michael Antoniewicz, Admiral Bruneau’s chief of staff, on the flag bridge of the heavy cruiser ENS Fury of Space.

  “Yes. And I don’t expect they’ll be stupid enough to come out after us,” Admiral Philippe Bruneau said.

  “I expect not, Sir. Which means we have to go in after them.”

  “We didn’t come all this way to sit out here and wave. Still, it bothers me we don’t see our opponent. I would think there would be a large concentration of warships here at the capital.”

  “Maybe they figured we wouldn’t go straight to the capital, we wouldn’t go for a straight-up fight,” Antoniewicz said.

  “Westlake is here. He’s the one organizing this little party. They had to know Andrews would send us here to deal with him.”

  Bruneau looked at the scans, which showed one small craft sitting well out from the system periphery.

  “I also don’t like this guy sitting out here. And where did his friend go? There were two when we got here,” Bruneau said.

  “We’re pulling newsfeeds and mail right now, Sir. We’ll see if that tells us anything.”

  “You’re going to love this. The newsfeeds are full of news about the trial of an Earth agent who made an assassination attempt on Westlake sixteen weeks ago,” Antoniewicz said.

  Bruneau shook his head.

  “Mr. Andrews just can’t leave any stone unturned in antagonizing someone, can he?” Bruneau asked.

  “Oh, it gets worse, Sir. The assassin missed Westlake, and instead shot and killed a Professor Gerald Ansen, who wrote the Charter of the Commonwealth they’re all excited about. He actually saw the attempt coming, and put himself between the assassin and Westlake as the assassin fired.”

  “And now he’s a martyr, and Westlake is still in place.”

  “You got it, Sir,” Antoniewicz said. “And they call Andrews, you, and the ESN war criminals for the destruction of Doma.”

  Bruneau closed his eyes and sighed. That one hurt, mostly because, he supposed, it was largely true.

  “They’ve been organizing big relief efforts to Doma out of Jablonka, and that may be where their battleships went. They converted freighters to build them, and they are still capable of carrying freight.

  “The other thing we got was mail. Andrews apparently has a spy ring here. They sent a mail “To Any ESN Ships” that documented four divisions of battleships under Admiral Holcomb leaving here, one division at a time, over the last three weeks.”

  “Brian Holcomb?” Bruneau asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Wonderful.”

  Antoniewicz looked at Bruneau quizzically.

  “Holcomb was Sigurdsen’s chief of staff before they both retired.”

  “That could be bad.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” Bruneau said. “Well, let’s get us under way. And make sure the cruisers are at combat stations. He’ll try to come in behind us if he can. The sooner we can get off the system periphery and away from the possibility of him jumping us from hyperspace, the better I’ll like it.”

  Holcomb’s Thunder and Peacekeeper divisions were making their best speed around the system in hyperspace to join the Pioneer and Dominant divisions on Jablonka’s northern approaches.

  “It’s going to be about eight hours to get into place, Sir,” Hadfield said.

  “That’s OK,” Holcomb said. “He’ll be well within the system periphery by then, he’ll think, but only a quarter of the way across our little extra cushion. That’ll be about perfect, actually. It’ll take him another eight hours to stop and eight more hours to get out.”

  “Unless he decides if we can do it, he can do it, Sir.”

  “But he doesn’t know we’re not doing something different. We could have some new hyperspace technology, and if he tries to hyperspace transition, all his ships will break up. And the deeper he gets, the more likely he is to think that.”

  “Good point.”

  “I think what we want to do on the way is spell our first-shift crews so they’re fresh when the action starts. Let everybody get some food and sleep.”

  “I’ll pass that around as a sugg
estion, Sir.”

  “This is kind of eerie,” Bruneau said.

  “I know what you mean. But we are seeing some action around those four big ships in orbit. They’re the same type as the Commonwealth battleships,” Antoniewicz said.

  “Yes, or they’re freighters. If they were battleships, you’d think they’d want to keep the big, bad war criminals away from the planet.”

  “Well, something’s going to happen sooner or later.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of. Make sure the gunners on the cruisers aren’t sloughing off as we get deeper.”

  “OK, here are the latest scans, Sir,” Hadfield said.

  “Is everybody in position?” Holcomb asked.

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Well, let’s kick this off, then.”

  Peacekeeper, Equalizer, Empower, and Endanger dropped out of hyperspace at one thirty five mark zero on the ESN formation, behind the ESN ships and to starboard, while Thunder, Specter, Encounter, and Troublemaker dropped out of hyperspace at two hundred twenty five mark zero on the ESN formation, behind the ESN ships and to port, at a distance of three-quarter light-seconds.

  “Flip ships and engage the enemy,” Bruneau said.

  The Commonwealth battleships poured fire into the ESN fleet. All ten of the larger ESN vessels took multiple hits in the first few seconds of fire, and several of them exploded. The smaller ships were also disappearing as the second console gunnery officer had control of half the forward guns on each Commonwealth ship and was free to fire at the smaller ships.

  Admiral Philippe Bruneau had just enough time to appreciate that he would have no more nightmares of being trapped in a burning house before ENS Fury of Space broke up and then exploded.

  Ten seconds after the Thunder and Peacekeeper divisions, with the ESN ships flipping back against their velocity and their command structure gone, Pioneer, Pathfinder, Explorer, and Trailblazer made hyperspace transition at zero mark forty five on the ESN ships, ahead and above their velocity vector, and Dominant, Gallant, Brilliant, and Luminant made hyperspace transition at zero minus forty five on the ESN ships, in front and below their velocity vector, at a distance of three-quarter light-seconds. The angles were picked carefully so no Commonwealth ships would be in the line of another’s fire.

  In fifteen more seconds it was over. There had never been any time for anyone to surrender.

  The Earth Expeditionary Fleet, which had firebombed Doma at Arlan Andrews’ orders, had been destroyed to the last man.

  Celebrations

  It was late Saturday morning in Jezgra when the news came in from Admiral Holcomb’s fleet that the Earth Space Navy that had firebombed Doma had been destroyed in Jablonka space. There would be no invasion, no firebombing of Jezgra.

  The Chairman’s office made the news public immediately. When the news hit the newsfeeds, crowds spilled out into the streets and the parks and the party was on.

  “I told you they had nothing that could match our firepower,” Orlov said. “We designed our navy to fight another navy, they designed their navy to enforce the commerce rules against unarmed freighters. Against unarmed freighters they would have done fine.”

  “That’s pretty harsh.”

  “Not really. Their doctrine was built around projectile weapons, with their time-of-flight issues. They simply weren’t prepared for light-speed weapons. Or for our ability to maneuver and communicate in hyperspace.”

  “It could be different at Earth. There we’re the attacking force, and they’re the defending force,” Westlake said.

  “They still don’t have anything with the reach or speed of the beam cutters, and they don’t know how to coordinate maneuvers by communicating with each other in hyperspace.”

  “You know they’re going to, though. Assuming we win at Earth, they will rebuild their navy, and this time they’re going to build it to fight another navy. Including all your bells and whistles.”

  “Yup,” Orlov said. “And we’re going to have to stay ahead of them, which will not be a big deal, because we’ll be a free society and they still won’t be. I’m not worried, Jim.”

  “I wish I had your optimism, Georgy.”

  “No, you don’t. One of us has to run the brakes while the other runs the throttle, or we never would have gotten this far.”

  Mike Skibbe, the military liaison, came in.

  “Sorry to interrupt, sir. High-priority message for your eyes only.”

  He handed the message, which was in a sealed envelope from the communications center, to Westlake. Westlake opened the envelope and took out the message. He read it twice, and when he looked up at Georgy his eyes were full of tears.

  “Sigurdsen defeated the Earth Home Fleet. They didn’t have to bomb the planet. Earth has signed the treaty and recognized the Commonwealth. It’s over. We won.”

  Westlake handed the message to Orlov, who read it carefully.

  “Well, they mostly didn’t have to bomb the planet. That was smart to give Arlan Andrews’ home address to Sigurdsen.”

  “He was a war criminal. His life was forfeit.”

  “And removing him simplified Earth’s power structure.”

  Westlake nodded. He reached out and Orlov handed back the message. Westlake wrote ‘For Immediate Release. JAW’ on the message, and handed it back to Skibbe.

  “Can you drop this with the press office for me, Mike?”

  “Of course, sir.”

  When the news of the defeat of the Earth Home Fleet and the signing of the peace treaty hit the street, the party really kicked into high gear. Planetary Governor Westlake sent an entire refrigerator truck full of beer down to Jezgra City Park, and the Jablonka Protective Service served free beer to everyone.

  If anyone thought it was weird for the police to be serving free beer in the city park, no one mentioned it. It became a tradition that was repeated every Treaty Day, as this day would come to be known.

  There was one more bit of good news that miracle Saturday. Westlake and Orlov received mail from Edmond and Anastasiya Fournier. They had just gotten the radio connection to the Doma mail relays back up and running. Not only had Edmond and Anastasiya survived, but they had gotten everyone out of the cities. There had been no mass casualties in the firebombing of Doma.

  The Westlakes and the Orlovs had dinner together that evening, and gave thanks for the survival of their relatives and the other millions of people on Doma. After dinner, they all went out to the park, and Westlake and Orlov took their turn serving free beer.

  Edmond Fournier never did find out who sent him advance warning of the ESN’s orders, but Claude Fournier did. To his shock, Hopalong Ginsberg received a small, elegant Thank You card containing the number of a private Swiss bank account and personally signed by Messrs. Claude Fournier, Stepan Orlov, and James Allen Westlake V.

  Planning The Future

  “Now that we won the war, I feel like the dog who was always chasing ground cars. I caught it, now what do I do with it?” Westlake asked.

  Orlov laughed.

  “We need to do several things at once, I think,” Orlov said. “You need to fill out the Cabinet. We need to build a fleet base with training and headquarters facilities and all that. We need to start designing a real navy, with keel-out designs. We need to build a capital complex for the Council. You know, Council chamber, offices for Council members and their staffs, offices for the Cabinet ministers and their staffs.”

  “And continue the relief of Doma.”

  “And continue the relief of Doma.”

  “On the Cabinet, I have some ideas,” Westlake said. “I’m waiting to hear from the other planetary governors, hear what their plans are.”

  “Don’t be surprised if a couple of them decide to split off and become a little duchy of their own.”

  “That wouldn’t be wise. I think we’re going to be stationing a couple of battleships at each of the potential problem colonies for a while, just as a reminder.”

  “That’s sma
rt,” Orlov said. “You can probably get away with one at every colony whose planetary governor can count to eleven with his shoes on. Mcenroe on Bahay, for example.”

  “Yeah, he’s OK. There’s probably two dozen planetary governors, now the issue is decided, who will get with the program. They didn’t get to where they are, for the most part, by being stupid. As for the fleet base, it should probably be here to keep the command loop short. Somewhere close to Jezgra.”

  “I have a couple hundred square miles on the coast twenty miles south of downtown you can have. I’m not using it, and I can’t think of a better purpose for it.”

  “That would be perfect,” Westlake said. “Jablonka Fleet Base. Who do we have design it?”

  “Let Jarl Sigurdsen run it all. Design the base, design the training, all that. I mean he would have lots of help, but he would be the administrator for the whole effort. I think I’ll make him Chief of Naval Operations and ask Rick Ewald to be Chief of Naval Research. Rick likes all the engineering side of things.”

  “Which brings us to keel-out designs.”

  “I bet there’s a bunch of retirees around who wish they could have stayed in their jobs with the big shipbuilders. We can ask around. Have them train some of the younger people.” Orlov thought a few seconds. “Oh, wait, even better. Ask University of Jablonka to put some naval engineering curricula together, and we can get the retirees to teach a whole new generation of naval engineers.”

  “That sounds really good.”

  “What about money for all this?”

  “That’s waiting for a Finance Minister,” Westlake said. “I’m talking to Shelly Stewart this afternoon. But when Earth ceded sovereignty, they also ceded the ability to tax. We’ll have more money than we know what to do with on all the colony planets. The Council has to pass a head tax, but there’s plenty of money.”