Star Destroyers

by Tony Daniel

  “That’s sweet of you, Ship-Lord, but we’re not dead yet. Hold on to your tail down there.”

  “Shit, incoming,” Ophelia snarled. “Three, four, five, incoming warheads. Using the laser.”

  “Taking us down their throats,” David said, his lips curled back into a snarl in his flight helmet. “Only gonna get one pass. Hang on!”

  My Dearest Emily,

  I hope this message finds you well. I apologize for it having been so long since you’ve heard from me, probably months, local time. I do hope that you haven’t been worrying too much. Please tell everyone that I’m fine, all things considered.

  By now, you’ve probably heard about what happened over Magnolia, at least, the official version of what happened. Many details are still classified, but a lot of it was impossible for even the Alliance to keep secret. A ship from the Wanderer race requested asylum in Alliance space, telling of another race attempting to exterminate them. Those aliens, the ones we’re calling Crabbies now, made first contact with us and threatened the colony if we didn’t comply with their demands. Captain Akua determined that he would not allow a hostile alien race to dictate terms in an Alliance system, to an Alliance warship. Really, he only had one choice.

  Magnolia is safe, as is the Wanderer ship. The Crabby ship did not survive the engagement. You’ve probably heard that the Independence was lost defending the colony; this much is certainly true. What is not commonly known is just how magnificently my ship and her crew performed. She was heavily damaged, trailing atmosphere, about to experience critical reactor failure, and riddled with holes. At full afterburn, she was able to intercept the Crabby ship, for which she was no match, and ram it.

  There were no survivors from either ship, except for myself and six others. I was in a Raven, and unable to catch up with the Indy, we peeled off to help defend the Wanderer ship from a pair of attacking parasite craft launched by the Crabby warship.

  It was such a momentous day: an unprecedented establishment of peaceful relations with an alien species. First contact with an unknown race. The Navy defending a colony at all costs.

  Some are calling the loss of the Independence a tragedy. It is indeed a personal tragedy for me. My ship, my crewmates, my second family, all gone. Worse, I wasn’t there with them. I survived by a lucky turn of fate. I know it’s not rational, but I feel ashamed. As if I let my comrades down by not dying with them. Worse, I’m relieved that I survived and I feel like a coward for that.

  I know this sounds crazy to you. I shouldn’t even be telling you this, but the therapist they’ve assigned me tells me that talking about it, even if I’m just writing it in a letter to you, will help. Truthfully it does.

  The last time I wrote you, I told you that sometimes the Alliance does things I don’t like. There are times, though, when I couldn’t be more proud of what we’ve done, and this is one of those times. The crew of the Independence died as heroes, in battle, and that is why I cannot call their loss a tragedy. A tragedy implies being victimized. No one on the Independence was a victim. They met their death head-on, without flinching, defending the citizens of Magnolia from a hostile alien incursion.

  Things are changing quickly now. The Wanderers, having witnessed the sacrifice of my shipmates, have pledged their allegiance to the Interstellar Alliance. The measure is still being hammered out, but they will likely be the first nonhuman species to gain admittance to the organization. There were only ten thousand of them on the refugee ship, but they have asked for help in finding a suitable world to call home, and may become permanent members of the Alliance.

  I, personally, had a hand in all of this. I was the envoy who met with the aliens, and by that happenstance I was spared a hero’s death with my ship. By rights I should have died with them, but they tell me the best way to honor them is to keep on. I’ve been chosen to be a special envoy to the Wanderers, and have been told I’ve been put in for both a medal and a promotion. I don’t want medals or promotions. I just want the sacrifice of my ship to mean something. If that means helping the Wanderers find a home, and defending humanity from the Crabbies, then that is what I must do.

  I wrote June Darrow and told her I won’t be coming home anytime soon. I have my duty, and my duty is more important than trying to be a respectable family man back home. She has no shortage of suitors, so I’m sure she’ll find someone else before too long. The real hell of it is, I don’t even feel sad about that. Nothing is the same now, and I would have made a terrible husband for her. Home will always be home, but it’s not where I need to be right now.

  But there is some good news. I have been working with a woman named Ophelia Cruz. She was with me through the whole ordeal. We watched our ship get destroyed together, and that level of personal tragedy has a way of bringing people together. I can’t say that we’re getting married or anything, but it’s been interesting.

  She’s a psychic with the Office of Naval Intelligence. So, very interesting.

  I’m at my word-count limit, little sister. I love you very much, and miss you terribly. I will be home on leave in a matter of months. Everything I’ve told you, aside from the personal stuff, is a matter of public record, so you can remind your teacher of all of this the next time she goes on one of her anti-military rants.

  Take care and be safe. I will write again as soon as I can.

  Yours (always),

  David

  Mike Kupari is the author of debut science fiction novel Her Brother’s Keeper, as well as coauthor, with Larry Correia, of the best-selling Dead Six military adventure series including Dead Six, Swords of Exodus, and Alliance of Shadows. Mike grew up in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and enlisted at the age of seventeen. Mike is recently returned from his second active duty overseas with the US Air Force, where he was an Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technician in the US Air Force. Mike also served six years in the Army National Guard. He has worked as a security contractor with several firms, did a tour in Southwest Asia with a private military company, and is an NRA-certified firearms instructor.

  A HELPING HAND

  Jody Lynn Nye

  Boomer: US Navy submarine jargon for a ballistic-missile submarine. One of the great descriptive terms of all time, in our opinion. When speaking of big ships blowing things up, you have to include the great fleet submarines in the overall picture. And who is to say such a stealthy, deadly, and beautiful vessel won’t find a useful spot in future conflict on other planets? In fact, considering the longevity and capacity for upgrade of some US military weapons platforms (and the budgetary constraints that dog peacetime preparation), it may be the very same boomers fighting the good fight on other planets in a future not so very far away.

  Captain Petrilla Nurys mopped her forehead and around the collar of her uniform with her handkerchief. The long, graying braid wound up at the nape of her neck was damp, too. The radio room of the USS Colorado felt hot and cramped in the tropical waters of Kepler-69c’s Monaday Ocean. She fixed a stern gaze at the round-faced, chocolate-furred alien on the comm screen.

  “And I am telling you one last time, please have all of your personnel on the beach and ready for extraction, Healer Corkan,” she said, her tone all business. It did not impress the being on the other side of the transmission. “We are on our way to you, and time is short. We’ll only be able to surface long enough to bring you on board. We must remove you from Sokoiri. It’s going to be overrun with Hornets soon. We only have nine days before the Giliks lift, with or without us, so please be ready.”

  “I have tried to tell you many times, we can’t leave,” the Littoral chief medic said in her warm, musical voice. Corkan peered into the video bubble, so close that her already large brown eyes bulged unnaturally. The difficult machinations that the techs had had to go through to make sure that Earth equipment could talk to Lit transmitters had not resulted in perfect images at either end. “We will speak to you when you arrive. We welcome you, but there will be no departure while there are still Deep young to be de
livered.”

  Nurys stifled a groan. The Lits found human groans similar to their own cries while mating, and that embarrassed both sides of the equation. That would only have blurred the issue. She had begun to hate dealing with Lits. The Littoral species, or so they were called in Earth spacer-lingo, never understood urgency or anything else that was important to humans. In this case, their own lives were at stake, and she still couldn’t get a rise out of them.

  “I can send you images of the scans we took from space, Healer,” she said. “There are at least three dozen enemy ships and flyers spread out over Monaday, looking for you.”

  “Images or not, Captain, this is calving season, here and now, not later. There has been a high incidence of stillbirths among the Deeps because of the toxic compounds released into the water by all those offworlders’ refineries. They need us. We can feel their thoughts. They are grateful because they know we are here to help.”

  In Nurys’s opinion, the Deeps weren’t that intelligent. The hundred-meter animals looked like a cross between whales and cucumbers, with brains averaging toward the latter. “They might need you, but our gen is that the Serene Samawa is in danger. We need to pull him out before the enemy moves in to capture him. The situation is urgent.”

  The Lit waggled her head from side to side, the equivalent of a human shrug.

  “And what does that mean to a mother attempting to expel a fetal pouch? He is willing to remain here until the end of season. He knew the risks.” She hissed, a Lit chuckle. “The Hornets can’t find us. There are too many other islands like this one.”

  Nurys saw the argument going around in circles.

  “At least keep this channel open,” she said. “It’s vital that we don’t lose touch with you. The enemy is on the move.”

  “As you please,” Corkan said, showing her mouthful of razor-sharp teeth in the approximation of a smile. The Lits had taken a shine to humans’ method of showing friendliness. It never ceased to creep Nurys out. “This fuss is all so unnecessary. We will welcome you. And we will keep Sarawa safe.”

  The transmission ended. Nurys stood up and wiped her face again. David Furuki, the radio operator—they still called them that, even after communication had changed so much—dared to give her a sympathetic grimace.

  Keep him safe. That wouldn’t be enough, and Nurys knew it. One way or another, they’d have to pull out Sarawa and the rest of the Interstellar Medical Volunteers, even if they had to be dragged into the sub. Not that she disagreed with their mission, far from it, but their timing was unfortunate, to understate the problem to a quantum level.

  Humankind was so new to this interplanetary diplomacy thing. Space travel—real space travel, not a mission to the outer planets of Sol or weekend tourist trips to the Moon—was under a century old. Who could have guessed that the first time a warpknot ship had made it through a wormhole to what they called a Goldilocks planet that they’d find another intelligent species? And not just one, but half a dozen races, all with technology capable of jumping to Earth and back in a matter of weeks. A hundred years was ancient history to Nurys, but the reality still blew her mind. She had joined the Space Navy to get out there and meet aliens. She’d been a part of crews traveling on early sublight ships, but had retired to a teaching post at the Naval Academy long before that amazing first contact. Thrilled and wanting desperately to be involved, Nurys had applied for berths on the new ships, to no avail. They wanted young crew, with fast reflexes and long lifespans, just in case a warpknot cruiser broke down in the spaceways. She was thanked for her service, and advised to enjoy her retirement.

  And yet, there she was, in the same big old tub where she had done her first training rotation, the USS Colorado.

  The huge nuclear-powered sub, just a hair under 115 meters long, had been launched a century before, as part of the Virginia class of attack submarines in Groton, North America. She had seen honorable duty through a number of terrestrial battles, then retired to the naval yard at Annapolis, where she had seen class after class of cadets through their initiation into deep-space warfare. Underwater training was seen as a practical and realistic environment for learning to operate in three dimensions in full protective gear while still within easy range of breathable atmosphere. Her graduates were assigned to interplanetary and interstellar craft all over what humankind’s new allies called Earthzone.

  This ship’s predecessor, a surface battleship, had last been assigned to what was known as “magic carpet duty,” restoring service members to their families at the end of the Second World War. This ship was about to perform similar duty, sweeping noncombatants out of harm’s way. The mission would do a lot to polish humankind’s image in the eyes and other optical receptors of their new colleagues in space.

  That honor, unfortunately, provided cold comfort to the last class of cadets who had recently graduated from their rotation aboard Colorado. Nurys completely understood the disappointment, but the necessity overrode all their hopes of flying on a warpknot ship. A rescue needed to be mounted on an ocean world, and their new allies had no similar craft to undertake it.

  The Lits originated on Galoop, a deepwater world, like Earth but with far fewer land masses, so they naturally sought out similar planets to colonize. Unfortunately for them, so did other races who craved water oceans. Monaday was another Goldilocks world, at just the right distance from its hot white-giant sun and its attendant dwarf blue. The Lits had claimed it only about thirty terrestrial years ago, a stake registered in the Galactic Courts. Because a semi-intelligent species, the Deeps, already inhabited it, the Lits had become benign overlords, putting a few friendly outposts here and there without disturbing the Deeps’ habitats.

  The claim went unchallenged for three decades, until the Truchs, a scaly, eight-limbed, winged species native to a near-desert world and notorious for overreaching when no one was looking, were discovered to be stealing Monaday’s natural resources, pouring tons of pollutants into the oceans and provoking tectonic shocks with their extraction techniques. The Lits brought charges in the Galactic Courts.

  Reprisals began immediately. The Truchs began attacking Lit ships and outposts, starting to move toward dominating all their holdings, including their home planet.

  The assassination of the Mother Queen and the attempted kidnapping of other members of the reigning family frightened the Lits. They recalled all their leaders from outposts and the Galactic Central Congress. Some had the means to evacuate or go into hiding. Others refused to allow the Truchs to scare them.

  One in particular, Samawa, third-born but favorite offspring of the defense minister of the Littorals, had joined the Interstellar Medical Volunteers. Samawa’s charm and wisdom had made him a popular figure on his own world and among other races. On his popular transmitted broadcasts, he publicly condemned the Truchs’ incursions, complaining openly about their practice of damaging the environment of Monaday. His profile made him a direct target. His capture or death would be a blow to the Lits’ cause. People would begin to lose heart if their benevolent outreach to other races was in danger. The IMV refused to divulge his location, but details in his own transmissions had revealed his presence there on Monaday, where a space battle had already broken out over control of the world. They knew he was there, and were looking for him.

  The Lits had no means to retrieve him without being attacked. All their ships, and those belonging to other allied races, were easy to trace and target, thanks to the ion signature that their engines emitted. Unless they sent rowboats, the Truchs would spot the rescue craft. The enemy already suspected the Lits were going to try.

  Step forward humankind. Thanks to a recently signed treaty, Earth formed its first true alliance in space with the Littorals. The current head of Terran government had an idea. He had been in the Space Navy, and remembered his training days. Nuclear vessels didn’t create an ion trail. In other words, their technology was so old, no one was looking for it. They could pass largely unnoticed.

  M
ost other subs had been mothballed, decommissioned, turned into museums or broken up for salvage—but the Colorado was still in use. She was staffed up by officers who were most familiar with her, pulling in Commander Ehud Abram, an XO who was serving in the World Congress, the last class of cadets who had just graduated into the Space Navy, and Petrilla Nurys, still the training officer on duty, as captain.

  She and her fellow officers had voiced plenty of concerns about transporting the old ship into alien waters, but all analyses looked good. Surface gravity approximated Earth’s within five percent. The long, black hull strongly resembled a Deep in size and shape. Two problems: They couldn’t use ship’s sonar, because the supersonics were audible to both Deeps and Truchs; and no Terran spaceship was large enough to transport the Colorado from Earth to Monaday.

  To solve the latter problem, they approached a number of races who had little love for the Truchs. For the right price, which was to open Earth’s markets to them exclusively for six months, the Lits and humans had managed to convince a Gilik merchant to carry her there. The Giliks resembled stick insects, with prickly, ochre-yellow armor all over their bodies, and had prickly personalities to match. Roh, the captain of the Unpronounceable, or so the crew had declared it, landed just off one of Monaday’s volcanic beaches near one of those factories with a hull full of supplies for the Truchs, and to pick up raw minerals as payment.

  Under cover of night, Roh had released the Colorado into the deep, hideously polluted harbor with a warning.

  “Come back twelve sunsets! No wait!”

  Its voice grated on the ear, but Nurys took its word seriously. Twelve local days, and not a minute longer, or they’d miss their ride back to Earth. They were already three days into their journey. The turnaround was going to be rough.