The Emeritus Conveyor’s captain was spooked by the comm silence of the orbital. It should have been buzzing with signals. Even the automated hails and warnings from the stationbrain, the usual chatter one received first on approaching an orbital, were missing, either shut off or destroyed by the Ajaxians.
The thoroughness of the slaughter had shocked More. That everyone had been slain except for a few dazed souls who’d managed to hide in the crevices of the orbital proved that it had not been a case of out-of-control troops running amok a space station with guns drawn. There had been no resistance. There was no way that anyone could argue that the Ajaxians had done this when their blood was up. It was premeditated murder on a massive scale. The whole of the extermination had taken two weeks. The blood was still drying when More arrived inside a corpse-choked landing bay.
The beastliness of the intruders had been incomprehensible to More. Terror had been their goal, but the murder had been inflicted in such a wanton, sometimes gleeful, manner that bespoke something beyond barbarism. It was pure evil.
More typically recoiled from making such moralistic judgments. It was easy to ascribe wicked motives to an enemy, while at the same time persuading oneself that one's own motives were pure and noble. That day on Corinth Station had taught him otherwise.
Something was desperately wrong with Ajax and its twisted culture. Sociologists labeled it a militaristic tyranny. That didn't go far enough. There was something fundamentally deranged about Ajaxian society. It started with the so-called emperor, and the poison seeped its way down through the aristocracy into the lower-classes who imitated their betters by being beastly to the serfs and slaves below them. In this context, the horrendous treatment of those who existed outside the Ajaxian hierarchy could be understood. Outsiders could only either be slaves or enemies. The Corinthians had refused to become the former, and were treated as enemies to be exterminated.
More had not been the first to board the orbital after the atrocity, but he had been among the earliest. When the media arrived shortly after he did, he escorted them through the abattoir that the Ajaxian army had left behind. He made sure that they found and cast an image of every horrific scene. The carnage was mindboggling. No one had been spared. Neither young nor old, nor babes in arms. Men, women, all had been killed at close range. Some had died inside elevators and others in confined spaces, herded there by the invaders who tossed plasma grenades among them. Others had been gruesomely culled by neurotoxic gas. Most had died by gunshot, gauss rifles scything them down by the score.
He had stayed long enough to hand off the clean-up duties to teams from other worlds in the system. The media had by that time had disseminated the images and story of the Corinth Station Massacre all across the Great Sphere. More picked up the responses on his way home to Halifax. His own opinion had been sought by the news outlets once that they knew he had been one of the first on the scene. The question that was asked again and again by nearly everyone who learned of the atrocity? Why?
After Corinth Station, More knew that was a question asked by a rational mind for whom murder was not an end in itself. The Ajaxians were bent on conquest, and spreading terror via indiscriminate bloodshed was not only a tool in their arsenal, it was part of their mental makeup.
More returned to Halifax a changed man. His studies, which he had paid only cursory attention to before his sojourn abroad, received much more. He put aside all thoughts of becoming an academic. He would make a difference. He also decided, much to his father's surprise, to submit an application to Cold Bay for admission into the next class of cadets. He was given a seat, and there could be no doubt that his family lineage had helped. That being the case, the strength of his own application was such that he rightly believed that he would have earned a spot no matter who his parents were. To forestall any sniping by jealous cadets, he worked harder than he ever had before, finishing ninth in his graduating class.
After graduation, he was assigned to RHS Upholder, just in time for the war that put the Ajaxians in their place. He was responsible for the weapons on the light cruiser, and he took a particular relish in smoking the DN ships unlucky enough to cross paths with her. The skipper, Captain Tracy Paneth, was everything that a Republican naval officer should be: patient, analytical, aggressive, and circumspect. It was hard to find an officer who had each of these qualities in sufficient quantity. Paneth did, and he would later model his own command style on hers.
As a lighter unit, Upholder had been allowed to range ahead of the advancing main bodies of the Eighth and Eleventh Warfleets. During the war, Upholder had taken out four Ajaxian ships, three destroyers, and a light cruiser, each in single ship duels that won the Upholder fame back home, amply stoked by the Halifaxian press. Only Cordelia, to which almost nothing else could compare in sophistication, had a higher tally of enemy warships defeated.
The Domain Navy was on the run. Within a month Ajaxian forces had been expelled from the Stone system. The RHN could easily have moved on to do the same to the occupation forces in the Aquitaine, Praha, and Gato systems. With those stars and a few others shorn from its grip, the Ajax Domain would consist of just a single star system, that of Ajax itself.
Then Ajax made a tentative peace offer and the politicians in Hamilton had accepted it. That the Domain was willing to negotiate at all was a sure sign that they were hurting badly, and that the pressure on it should be kept up. Instead, the Republic signed a treaty, and allowed the Domain to retain its frontier star systems.
The questions kept multiplying as the RHN ships reluctantly departed Stone. All thought, from the admiral on down to the lowliest ensign, that the DN was close to being whipped completely and that all it would have taken was another three or four weeks of campaigning to achieve that goal. That the RHN had been yanked back, on the cusp of total victory, rankled all in the theater.
Their dissatisfaction was easy to understand. Every officer in the RHN was ready and willing to give his or her life on behalf of Halifax. Fainthearts didn’t make it through Cold Bay, and anyone less than utterly determined was not going to win promotion. That made for an aggressive and fearless officer corps.
That innate ferocity came paired with a burning desire to get at the enemy, and not relent until all of his ships were flaming wrecks tumbling through the eternal night of space. Once such men and women had been set loose, it was psychologically jarring for them to be unceremoniously and prematurely called to heel. Some of the fiercer officers had been left spluttering when the ceasefire order was given. One was named Tommasina Carey. Never at a loss for words, especially not salty ones, she had been rendered nearly speechless.
The warship Cordelia, not an officer, but considering herself superior to any in the Navy, had declared that the halt order was “catastrophic, moronic, and an unmitigated act of moral cowardice.” If the human members of the Eighth and Eleventh Warfleets were less blunt in their criticisms, it was only because, unlike Cordelia, they had to worry about dismissal from the service, such was her value to the RHN. Naval officers could always be replaced.
Captain Paneth had handled the matter professionally, and to this day More saw her as the best model to follow. Summoning all of Upholder’s officers together, she explained the reasoning behind their political masters’ decision. She acknowledged that they were reluctant to oversee a long war. Such things were unpredictable, and could always spiral out of control, and might easily bankrupt the Republic if it went on for an extended period of time.
Paneth was also forthright in her acceptance that there was a political reason for the ceasefire order that had little to do with the facts of the war itself. Parliamentary elections were less than five months out, and rare was the government that wanted to chance its survival on the vicissitudes of a war.
Stone had been saved, Paneth reminded them. The mission of the RHN in coming to the system, far outside of the Republic’s borders, had been achieved. It was a sound decision, based (largely) on sound strategic considerations,
to end the war when they did.
Further, Paneth said with some asperity, it was not the place of military officers to debate or criticize their nation’s foreign policy. They existed to execute policy, not make it. If they wished to be part of its creation, and steer the ship of state, they were free to resign their commissions and run for a seat in Parliament.
This last had elicited hearty laughter from all present in the captain’s ready room. After that the ceasefire became a non-issue, at least aboard RHS Upholder. Whenever More had delved into the topic of civil-military relations in his lectures at the naval academy, he sought to channel a little bit of Paneth’s wit and wisdom into them.
Paneth had been one of the best. She had been supportive of More in the earliest days of his career. She had been the finest captain he’d served under. She’d deserved a better fate. Three years later, as captain of the heavy cruiser RHS Dauntless, with the Third Fleet, she was on the Gulf front fighting raiders. An unlucky shot took out the bridge. Few people had died, but one of them had been Tracy Paneth. Her loss was greater than most suspected at the time, More believed. She was destined for the Admiralty, and her foresight and judgment were sorely missed, and would have been a great benefit in the present war.
Embarrassment was to follow for the Republic. With Halifax having made peace with Ajax, King Evander stepped in, pulverized the DN in the Eleven Minutes Battle, ousted the Ajaxians from Nakajima, and then ‘liberated’ Gato. Since Aquitaine and Praha were too far away for the Armada of Tartarus to attack successfully, they remained in the emperor's grasp.
The officers of the RHN could only look on in disgust at the adulation that the Sphinx received from across the Great Sphere. He was hailed as a liberator, this being a man who ran one of the most authoritarian regimes in known space, while the RHN had been held back from dealing a crippling blow to a repulsive enemy. Since Corinth Station, there had been another, equally horrifying massacre at Leiden, and that was followed by an appalling atrocity at Cawnpore. Ajax was a bully that everyone in the Great Sphere wanted to see knocked out. The Republic, ever fearful of what war would do to public opinion, had been content to merely punch that bully in the nose. The Sphinx had broken its arms and legs.
The aftermath of the Ajax War was not without its positive developments. The Imperial presence in the Aquitaine system had been so reduced because of the need to shore up defenses in other, more immediately threatened sectors, that an uprising there, covertly supplied by Halifaxian intelligence services, succeeded in ejecting the limited Domain forces left behind. It had been ugly, with the Ajaxians conducting several more atrocities on their way out, including one at the asteroid science station of Miramar, but Aquitaine had been freed.
Unfortunately, the Republic received scant credit for this, since what the public at large saw was a popular uprising on the part of the plucky Aquitainians against their wicked overlords, not RHN ships harrying DN vessels as they fled the system. Since it had also taken so much more time to accomplish, it also cost more in lives than it otherwise might have.
All this ran through More’s mind as he studied the admiral’s craggy, unhappy face. What do you want with me, Sven Mallory? He swiped to accept the call. The tarrying holo came to life.
“What can I do for you, Admiral Mallory?” he asked.
“It’s not what you can do for me. It’s what you can do for Halifax.”
“And what is that?”
“I’m offering you a spacegoing command. You’re going to take it.”
This was unexpected. “What?”
“The war is not going well. We’re not losing. We’re not winning, either. We’re stalemated everywhere. Memnon of course, but also at Dora, Vert, and Anchor. Both sides have been hurt and have been having trouble getting new builds out of the yards and into the fight. This means we’ve been spread very thin. We’ve drawn our forces in uncontested systems down to a bare minimum, or nothing at all. This has opened the door for Ajax to pop back into Aquitaine. The latest intel has it that they’re intending to move against Stone too.”
“What’s happened in Aquitaine? Tommasina Carey’s ship was assigned there.”
“Yes, and she sent a courier capsule a week ago to report that the Ajaxians have mounted a full scale invasion of Pessac. She took out over a dozen enemy ships, including a destroyer, by pouncing on them while they were themselves hitting the Aquitainians. The problem is that there were far too many of them for Tommasina to handle on her own, and she took damage herself. She displaced and Matt Heyward and Inigo Yao went to help out. The system has been flooded with DN ships of all kinds. We can’t afford to dispatch a full fleet to eject them, but we can keep them occupied with a small flotilla waging a strike and fade campaign. We can’t afford to keep experienced officers on the sidelines, so. . . you’re getting command of the 34th Strike Squadron back.”
More was stunned. “I will do whatever the Navy asks of me.”
Mallory’s eyes narrowed. “Of course you will. You’re still a naval officer. You shouldn’t forget that, or that you’re still part of the chain of command. We don’t want to see you getting any more bright ideas. You undertook the Victory Base operation without sanction. I think it’s a travesty that you're still in the service, but that’s only my opinion. Admiral Warner thinks otherwise and that’s what matters most. I also know you’re an excellent fighting officer, and we have to send someone to harass the Ajaxians so that they can’t slaughter everyone in Aquitaine. So, pack your bags. You are to report to the RHS Albacore. It’s in orbit taking on its crew.”
“I haven’t heard of it.”
“You wouldn’t have. It’s a brand-new ship, Garnet-class, fresh out of the slips. Built at Cardiff Yard.”
More stifled a groan, letting it die inside of him before any sound could escape his lips. The Garnets were a subclass of bargain-basement destroyers hastily built with mostly commercial tech and a limited suite of sensors intended for convoy protection and not much else. It was similar overall to the aging Sapphire-class on which it was based, but was nowhere near as capable. He was being given an assignment in space, which is something he’d never thought he’d get again, but this Albacore was to be a significant comedown for an officer of flag rank who had once helmed a heavy cruiser.
“Yes, I can tell you aren’t happy about it being a Garnet,” Mallory observed sourly. “I don’t think you should be. It’s about one-quarter of the Steadfast in overall combat power. You didn’t think you’d get a plum assignment, did you?”
“Not at all, admiral. I am wondering how I’ll be able to fight the enemy in that ship.”
“If you’re smart, and you are, you won’t try. You are going to make it your flagship and command the other three ships of your old squadron from it. You’ll back them up and support them when necessary. You’re not to lead any more crazy charges across the Sphere. Have you got that?”
“Yes, admiral.”
“Good. Admiral Warner wants you in the war as soon as possible. I’ve cast your classified operational orders over to the Albacore. You’ll open them once you’re underway. All that I can reveal currently is what I have already told you. You are ordered to tie down as many of the Domain Navy’s ships in Aquitaine as you can. Make them hunt you. The more ships they have chasing you the fewer they will have to send against Stone or outlying Republican systems. Am I clear?”
“Yes, admiral. Very much so.”
Mallory nodded. “You’ve got a lot of work ahead of you. There are still a few senior positions that need filling. Most of your crew is going to be drawn from accelerated training programs and the more promising of the cadets, so they’ll be green as grass. Mallory out.” The holo disappeared.
More rose from his seat and threw his tablets, papers, and other personal gear into a small briefcase. He commed to the AI stationbrain that oversaw Cold Bay. “Let my students know that Wednesday’s class is canceled.”
Chapter Four
High Orbit, Cardiff Yard, Hali
fax system
Julius Howell, the former Chief Engineer of the vaunted RHS Cordelia, rested his head in his hands. His friend and mentor, Silas Gates, Chief Overseer of Cardiff Yard, the orbital shipyard that hung in orbit above Halifax, patted him on the arm. “There, there, Julius,” the older man consoled. “It’ll be alright. And I thought I’d be the one taking this the hardest.”
“Sorry, Silas,” apologized Howell. “I didn’t mean to mope so extravagantly. It’s been dull these last few months and I’ve been feeling some serious amount of self-pity.”
“Maybe you had excessively high expectations as to how boring it would be cranking out Garnets like they’re sausages. They don’t require much creative thought or on-the-fly problem solving. Materials go in one end, a ship comes out the other.”
“I shouldn’t complain. At least we’re not having problems with them. They’re easy to put together.”
“Just as the Navy wanted,” Gates said. “They’re meant to be mass-produced, and we’re doing that.”
The Garnets were the simplest ships to emerge from Cardiff Yard in decades. None of the systems in them were either advanced or complicated. They had been chosen for low cost, speed of production, and ease of maintenance.
“We’re delivering,” Howell agreed, pointing to a completed destroyer that was about to be tugged out of the dock. “The fourteenth ship, on time, and on budget. The Navy will be pleased.”
“The Navy will be,” Gates agreed, sitting down beside Howell. “Look, I told you that your talents were being wasted here. The RHN gave you leave to work with me since you know how to construct ships. Better than most, I must add. Nothing you do here will be as interesting as what you might do with the fleet. You still have your commission. Why don’t you ask to be put on a ship? There are many that need a capable engineer.”
The Ajax Incursion Page 5
