Jahandar: The Orion War

by Kali Altsoba

  LeClerc says: “They’ll rip the sky apart!”

  “They know.” Maçon says dourly. “They did it already on Genève.”

  LeClerc clarifies: “The tokamaks on Genève were much smaller. The ones I inspected on Krakoya I are massive. They will rip up the sky.”

  Maçon says what everyone is thinking: “Jahandar has decided to pluck low-hanging fruit along his frontier while we’re pulled south into war with the Imperium. Krevo’s finished now.”

  “Wait, wait ... no, it cannot be. It cannot!” It’s Virgiliu, who’s been listening to a secure SGR dot-com as he regains breath and composure. He’s about to lose both again, fast. The pretty blond ACU aide is looking down at him with real worry on her face. She pats his heavily beaded brow with a cold cloth she dips in ice-water. He feebly tries to brush it away. She’s persistent.

  Briand cuts in: “Nunavut reports to MoD that it’s under assault by a Dauran drop fleet!”

  “What?” The universal exclamation fills the room. Dozens of shocked voices merge into a crescendo, a single syllable of stunned and fearful disbelief.

  Briand again: “Confirmed. It’s Nunavut. One of our eastern systems is under attack by a Dauran fleet. It has no home flotilla in-system. Transports are unopposed and disgorging drop-ships.” The news of a second great treachery against peace, and against the ‘Auld Alliance, ripples around the Briefing Room.

  Briand says it to all assembled: “So it’s war, with Pyotr and Jahandar!” A pause, then he launches a stream of relayed updates. MoD on Kars has better intel and coms than SGR, but it’s more than that. This is his great moment under Time’s Arrow. Already, he’s taking charge.

  All the Joint Cabinet surround him now. LeClerc sees the movement, and reinforces: “Georges, tell us what’s happening on Nunavut?” The general knows that people always think leaders have answers, though they seldom do.

  “There’s no system flotilla there to defend against planetfall, so they’re already landing. Popovs are down on the ice 1,200 klics from Iqaluit, outside garrison battery range. They’re disembarking several hundred thousand infantry and unknown numbers of supporting skycraft and ground assault vehicles.”

  “What do we have on the ground there?” Maçon asks.

  “Gardes Nunavut, 10,000 light infantry, that’s it. They’re mobilized and moving to pre-dug trenches along a ridgeline above Iqaluit. They’ve met and repulsed the first probes but expect a major ground assault at any hour. The commander says he expects no survivors.”

  Nunavut is a lightly-defended and underpopulated border system, sitting in the vulnerable hinge between the Union, the Dauran Commons, and the Dead Zone. It’s little more than an ice-ball, but as the most recent world to join the confederation it has a special place in popular affection, including among many gathered in the Briefing Room.

  It’s like they heard someone is viciously beating up their kid sister but they can’t get to her. They feel helpless and enraged all at once. And shaken. War with the Imperium is one thing, but with Daura as well?

  Prime Minister Hoare is speechless. His usually smug and superior political aides stand meekly by, like schoolboys caught in a lie, stolen chocolate still darkly smeared on their hands. To be fair, they’re young, which is why they were so cocky until 10 minutes ago. Now they look young, dazed and confused and frightened. None know what to say or do, so they wisely do and say nothing. At least they know that their time, the time of politics, is over. This is war.

  Briand speaks over his dot-link: “Yes, yes. OK. You’re sure? Get back to me with the details ASAP. Find out what’s happening on all our frontier systems. Yes, I mean all border worlds, those across from the Dauran Commons as well as the Imperium. And call all Neutrals.”

  He turns to address Robert Hoare directly. The shaken PM is sitting, stunned and dazed, in a softly cooing chair right beside collapsed Virgiliu Nicolescu. ‘Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.’

  He can’t stop the thought as he looks at two defeated fools collapsed into dashed idealism and plush chairs. ‘And now there comes the galumphing Jabberwock with eyes of flame, and the Bandersnatch on carbyne-wings and fusion-drives, with tokamaks and vorpal blades ... One mad Jabberwock we can handle, but two?’

  “It’s confirmed, Prime Minister. MoD authenticates all initial reports. This great star nation is now at war with both the Imperium and Daura. You are now a wartime prime minister, sir. We await your orders.”

  “How can this be?” Hoare recovers enough to query Briand, if not yet to lead or even stand up, as he’s asked by every set of pleading eyes around the Briefing Room, as he will be asked by hundreds of billions within the hour.

  “They have conspired against us, sir.”

  “But I have here in my pocket the personal assurance of Tennō Pyotr! He says he wants peace with our Union, to work with me to preserve the Peace of Orion for all time.”

  Briand replies matter-of-factly: “Prime Minister, you have been lied to. How and when I don’t know, but it is certain now that Pyotr and Jahandar have formed a league of tyrants against us, against all the free peoples of Orion. It’s a nexus of aggression unparalleled in all histories.”

  The Briefing Room breaks into frantic bedlam all around the slumping PM and sweaty, paling Director. Ministers shout at aides who are so afraid they shout right back. Briand listens to his dot-channel link again, for nearly half-a-minute. He stops the rising hubbub with a curt wave.

  “MoD is receiving governors’ reports. Pyotr is blocking our political channels. He issued ultimata directly to twelve of our border governors, calling on them to surrender to his forces arriving simultaneously in each system. More of our systems are under attack by Jahandar’s hermit troops. It is well-planned and coordinated by Nalchik and Kestino. We are taken by surprise.”

  Maçon reports: “NCU confirms that Kaigun warships are violating our space at will and at multiple breakthrough points. Seventy-two phantom attacks verified, so far. Hundreds more are suspected as ships are overdue: liners, cargo haulers, at least seven isolated warships. Three heavy base attacks were made by phantoms already inside the perimeters of our star ports. There has been internal, local ground-based sabotage attacks on seven other bases.”

  “Those bases..?”

  “Yes, the same ones where we caught the SDF spies.” He looks long knives at Nicolescu and Pradip, then looks away. It doesn’t matter anymore. They don’t matter anymore.

  Briand breaks into the torrent of bad news, like he’s practicing mercury ball hand-off drills with Gaétan Maçon and the ball is already overheating and becoming unstable, so that each man tosses it back as soon as he can.

  “Confirmed. Daurans are bombarding two more of our systems in the northeast, Portus Cale and Jocasta.” He looks at LeClerc. “Regret, Gaspard François. Regrets, my old friend.”

  Jocasta is a quiet agro-planet. It’s also LeClerc’s homeworld, and he has family there. The general shrugs and says simply: “Il faut en fenir. We must put an end to hope.”

  “Yes.” Briand agrees. “It is necessary to do what we must. We shall do what we can and whatever we must, my friend. Your home and family will fall, but they will not go unavenged.”

  Maçon makes the last report. “Harsa calling. The Krevan ambassador says Jahandar’s legions are moving on all exposed eastern systems. Krakoya we knew about, but now Delphi and Chemin des Dames report DRN assault fleets have appeared at their outer LPs.”

  Prime Minister Robert Hoare finally manages to stand up, ready at last to make an announcement to the assembled Joint Cabinet and to his people. He knows that as the leader of vast confederation that now finds itself at war, everyone is waiting for him to say something.

  He manages: “This is a catastrophe. An unmitigated catastrophe.” He sits back down.

  The room looks at him in disbelief. Then in dejection beyond disappointment. Only his chair purrs with delight, having caught him for a second time. Unlike the one straining under the gross poundage of, rotund-is-a-
very-polite-way-to-say-it, SGR Director Virgiliu Nicolescu. That one gives a long-and-low wooden and mockleather groan that only its fellow furniture can hear.

  There’s a long minute of total silence after the PM speaks. Then a bustle of activity as Briand starts giving orders. Without checking with the PM or once questioning his authority, everyone starts to carry them out.

  General LeClerc stands to leave. As he departs he pauses in the door and looks around the room, taking in all the stunned and frightened faces of the elected civilian leadership of the Calmar Union. They, too, pause for a moment, wondering at his departure in a moment of political turmoil and looming war.

  He pivots and salutes.

  Robert Hoare asks plaintively: “Where are you going, general?”

  “Prime Minister, I go now to do the bloody business of my profession.”

  ***

  Pyotr Shaka III plays out the full charade as invasion fleets dispatch over the borders. He sends his message of peace to Prime Minister Hoare knowing that it must take at least 2.9 hours to travel by hyperspace relay up from Kestino then down to Kars. And longer for his deceitful vagaries to be decoded, discussed, analyzed, and a government-to-government reply made ready.

  He has that much time before Kars discovers that fleets are moving, heading to jumps into attack position against a dozen Calmari border systems.

  Even as he misleads befuddled Robert Hoare he sends direct ultimata to the governors of Amasia, Narym, Novaya Bator and nine other border systems, claiming them all as the Grün Imperium’s Verloren Kinder, his “Lost Children” worlds. The ultimata expire at 9:00 UST, a scant 30 minutes before coordinated fleets reach their designated jump zones and bohr into the invaded systems. The short window leaves local governors no time to consult Kars or Caspia, or to receive a return light-speed message. Or to organize effective resistance.

  All are expected by Pyotr to reject his abject terms. Indeed, he wants defiance. He wants war, not just conquest and dominion. He believes in war. Only war will affirm his nihilistic worlds-vision. Affirm the vigor and greatness of his lineage, his destiny, and the destiny of his Oetkert and Shaka loins. He’s not disappointed. All governors reject his ultimata, call stunned local garrisons out, order frontier flotillas to engage the green-painted fleets and invasion transports popping into their system bohr-zones all at once.

  At Novaya Bator and Narym, where the LPs are close-in to the parent stars, the flotillas are blown aside or blown apart by vastly superior Kaigun fleets. Heavy assault landings begin two hours into the war. Elsewhere, the invasion fleets head sunward toward the warm zones and inhabited worlds, where more flotillas and hasty ground defenses are being prepared. Fighting on New Mecca will be especially vicious. Meccans harbor an ancient grudge against the heretic and blasphemous Broderbund for an act of religious rape they haven’t forgiven in 1,800 years. The Broderbund no longer rule the Imperium, but Meccans hate all armed men in green weaves.

  In the Waldstätte Palast, Pyotr Shaka stands in the ancient battle dress of his maternal Zulu ancestors. His headdress is an explosion of ostrich plumes and eagle feathers. He’s naked to the waistline, exposing his heavy breasts and extruding gut. Not an inspiring image or physique.

  Across his chest rides a real-leather band hung with long tufts of lion’s fur. His loins are girded with real-leather and lion mane, as are his ankles, half-way to his knees. His feet are bare, which bothers him as the marble is cold. Pyotr holds a short and lethal assegai in his right hand. A true-leather, Kudu-hide shield is steadied by his left, standing tall on a thin shaft or mgobo.

  He feels and looks ridiculous. The Admitted think so, seeing him rarely out of his blue ermine robe. Takeshi Watanabe is among them, concealing his true thought, which is the same question all Admitted ask themselves as they wait for war: ‘Will this man bring us to victory, to tragedy, or to farce?’

  Everyone waits fitfully for the ancient clock tower rising over the Great Seminary of Novaya Uda to chime the appointed hour of 9:00 UST, signaling the start of a war with the old Calmari enemy to swamp Pyotr’s little war against the last holdout Krevan worlds. When the great clock clangs the fatal moment, everyone sharply inhales. And nothing happens. The Great War of the Kali Age arrives not with heroic clamor but a nervous silence. It’s terribly anti-climactic.

  Comic, actually.

  Gaudy canaries of the Royal Palast Wache, household troops who have guarded the Imperial Family for 1,800 years, know this is a historic moment for the Oetkerts. So they change out of bright yellow cloth into full yellow armor kit, the ancient ultrasteel type dating to the last Grün Foundation Wars, long before the First Orion War.

  For two hours the armored guards clumsily clang and clank about the Palast to the great irritation of everyone present, until in his royal umbrage Pyotr orders them to change back. His assegai smile thrusts straight for the captain of the Palast Wache who spoiled his great moment. The man will lose his life before the clock strikes 10:00 UST.

  The death warrant is merely verbal this time, delivered in Pyotr’s chambers as he strips off his ceremonial Zulu leather-and-lion’s-fur. He stabs his assegai into the nearest wall to stand fat and furious and naked, angrily looking around the changing room for his blue ermine robe.

  Takeshi Watanabe walks steadily and without hesitation across a small outside square to the barracks of the Palast Wache. The captain stands to salute him. He never sees the black blade that slices neatly into his throat, precisely severing his left carotid artery.

  And so war comes.

  And thus it falls to Prime Minister Robert Hoare to be contradicted by the great events of his life and of his times. He is disappointed in his noblest hopes, his belief in peace dashed, his wish for reconciliation frustrated, his faith in the goodness of Humanity exposed. He must preside over a war he does not want, does not believe in, and has no will to win. The people want and need fire from a wartime leader. In Robert Hoare all they have is sad, cooling embers.

  He does not fail because of his vices but from too much virtue. Because his nature is kind and benevolent, because he loves peace and disdains all vainglory. He acted with perfect, guileless sincerity against despicable foes he sadly underestimated, trying to save worlds from devastation. After a lifetime of hope, faith, and exertion for peace he falls into war nonetheless, surprised and overcome by the supreme crisis of his Age. In that he’s a truer representative of most Calmaris than is Briand.

  Briand says to Admiral Maçon and General LeClerc in private, seeing them to the elevator to the shuttle waiting to take them back to Caspia, “Prime Minister Hoare is a good and decent man. He’s deceived by those far more wicked than he understands or deserves.” Maçon and LeClerc think Briand is much too magnanimous. He means it. One politician about another.

  As for Sanjay Pradip, no one listens to him anymore. MoD moves him out of his too comfortable office-with-a-view, but leaves him alone to sip tea at precisely the same hour each morning. He’s bypassed on every issue, taken off every coded file. At least he’s not dismissed in disgrace and publicly reviled, like Virgiliu Nicolescu. Even Briand is astonished at how rapid and complete the former SGR Director’s humiliation is, although he has a strong hand in it. He says to Maçon: “Nothing in physics is so fast as a fall from public grace.”

  The Imperium ambassador and embassy staff on Kars hurriedly wipe all quantum drives and magno-servers and burn state papers in trash bins in the courtyard. The most important codes and information are recorded on paper, the only medium absolutely secure from all digital espionage and penetration, and subject to complete incineration. They consume the last. dusty stocks of finest wines, champagnes and South Orion cognacs from the embassy cellars. They’re all completely wasted when hundreds of troops in blue uniforms arrive to arrest them, sirens wailing atop big military hovers, crashing the gates and tearing up manicured grounds to reach the white stone converted manse.

  Three hours later the diplomats are up the elevator and onboard a civilian
liner heading for the closest bohr-point, expelled and escorted out under tight military escort. Across hundreds of worlds a round-up of millions of Grün tourists, traders, and other untimely visitors begins, as MoD triggers martial law plans Briand and Maçon and their staffs prepared in secret over many months.

  It’s more grim on threatened worlds where armed invaders achieve complete strategic surprise. Ships and assault troops win fast on Narym, Novaya Bator, and eight other assaulted worlds, striking into lightly defended central Orion systems while ACU and NCU main forces are farther south, lured there by the Krevan War and by thousands of false reports of a build-up fed to CIS and SGR. On several worlds the fighting is shockingly violent and bloody, but brief.

  Not on New Mecca. That fight is long and difficult and waged without mercy. An ancient fanaticism resists a new one, and true believers on either side die with God on their lips and shouts of faith crackling the air. As if trial by combat decides whose faith is truer and whose god is greater. As if the gods care whether they’re worshiped by ants or aphids or dying men. When fighting ends, RIK rapes and revenge killings scourge New Mecca.