UnArcana Stars

by Glynn Stewart

  “It’s possible,” Damien said. “But unlikely, I agree. There’s something else going on here, and frankly, they have duplicated other magical feats with technology in the past.”

  “Like what?” Jakab asked.

  “Antimatter production, for one,” the Hand reminded him. “They may have built a particle accelerator that wraps around an entire gas giant to do it, but Legatus was one of the largest antimatter producers in the Protectorate before the Secession.

  “I believe they could find a technological solution.” Damien shook his head. “I just don’t see why they’d then go to war with us. We don’t want to fight them.”

  “They’re afraid,” Jakab said quietly. “They think we’ll want to reconquer them, to ‘put the mundanes back in their place.’”

  “I wish all I had to do was tell them we don’t want them.” Damien chuckled sadly. “But they won’t believe me.”

  “No.” The two men were silent for a moment, and then the Mage-Lieutenant from the flag deck came back onto the channel.

  “Sirs? We got into the flag deck.”

  The Marine was in contact far too quickly. There was no way it had been that easy, and Damien sighed.

  “He was already dead?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir. Suicide charge built into the implants.” The Marine coughed. “Hard to say, but it may have been remotely triggered.”

  “It might have been,” Damien conceded. “But I wouldn’t bet on it. Legatus has always had a supply of fanatics. I can’t imagine they went away when they founded the Republic.”

  The feed from the bridge was quiet and Damien met Jakab’s gaze.

  “Have the body autopsied,” he ordered. “And see if we can track down his FTL com. I’m guessing it was wired to the same signal that killed him, but the pieces will at least tell us how large the device is.”

  “And then, my lord?” Jakab asked.

  “Then we get ourselves back to Ardennes,” Damien replied. “If things are as bad as I fear, Ardennes just became the last possible launch pad for operations against Legatus.”

  23

  Damien was reviewing the damage reports and casualty lists when they finally made it back to Ardennes. None of the ships he’d taken to Santiago with him were undamaged, but Duke of Magnificence had taken the worst of it.

  A hundred and fifty-six people had died. All but ten of those had been aboard Duke, but for all that, the battlecruiser was still almost entirely combat-capable. She was missing a lot of armor and had large chunks of several decks open to vacuum, but all of the missile launchers save one were online, and her offensive and defensive lasers were intact.

  The ASDF ships had damaged armor and that was it. Some wounded, but the remaining dead were aboard the Navy destroyers. The casualty list was far shorter than it could have been, but each entry was a new scar on Damien’s soul.

  A lot of men and women had died at his orders over the years, but it had been over a year since the last time he’d dealt with it. Some of the necessary calluses of his work had faded, and the new losses were a punch in the gut.

  Still…he’d also forgotten just how unbelievably tough a Royal Martian Navy battlecruiser was. The report Jakab had sent him said the cruiser had taken seventeen hits while Damien had been fighting off his would-be assassin.

  Seventeen two-gigaton warheads had detonated within a hundred meters of Duke’s armor. There were ablative-armor sections and energy-dispersal networks and electromagnetic fields designed to reduce that damage, but it was still a mind-boggling amount of energy that the ship had effectively shrugged off.

  Of course, the Republic ships had taken just as much of a hammering, and Damien wasn’t sure they’d been any more damaged by it.

  “My lord.” Romanov’s voice pierced his thoughts.

  Damien looked up and Persephone took advantage of his relaxed attention to leap onto his lap and demand pets. Chuckling, he looked over to his bodyguard.

  Three Secret Service agents were in the room with him and Romanov now, the head of his detail clearly feeling grimly paranoid after the assassination attempt.

  “Agent?” Damien asked, carefully petting Persephone’s head.

  “The system is on full alert. We’ve got an ASDF cruiser group headed our way, demanding IDs and IFFs.”

  “That’s…good,” Damien allowed, tapping a command with his non-cat-occupied hand. “That’s a war footing,” he realized aloud.

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “We didn’t tell them yet, so someone else made it here,” Damien concluded. “That’s good, I suppose.”

  The observation deck office was silent for a minute or so, both men watching the approaching cruiser group. The course and posture change from “intercept” to “escort in” was subtle, but it was one Damien knew enough to recognize.

  “How bad is it, my lord?” Romanov finally asked.

  Damien didn’t answer him initially. He’d noticed a new IFF and was pulling it in.

  “That’s Stand in Righteousness,” he told the Marine quietly. “The Commandant touched base with me when they sent Miss Chambers on her Ensign cruise—that’s her ship.”

  “My lord?”

  “Stand should have been doing anti-pirate patrols out of Nia Kriti,” Damien told Romanov. “A system that should have two squadrons of cruisers. If a lone destroyer is here…”

  He sighed.

  “If Stand in Righteousness is here, alone, and Nia Kriti’s RTA is offline, then I think the entire border is now in Republic hands.”

  “Nia Kriti is confirmed to have fallen to the enemy,” Commodore Cruyssen said grimly over the multi-point link. “As has the Hoisin System. You’ve confirmed the Santiago System. This…this does not look good.”

  “I think we can assume that the Tormanda System and, sadly, everywhere else within about fifteen light-years of the Republic has also fallen,” Damien told the rest of the call.

  The two Navy Commodores looked tired. Probably for different reasons—Cruyssen wasn’t a Mage, so he wouldn’t have been jumping his ships around. On the other hand, he’d been the one staring down a potential invasion with only a dozen RMN destroyers and a System Militia.

  “Those losses make Ardennes the closest remaining Protectorate system to key Republic positions, including Legatus,” Damien continued. “This means that, even more so than our regular standard, Ardennes must not fall.”

  Governor Riordan and Julia Amiri looked somewhat reassured by his statement. Julia, at least, should have known Damien well enough to realize there wasn’t going to be much chance of that at all.

  Admiral Forrest Vasilev, the commanding officer of the ASDF, looked less reassured. Unlike his political masters, Vasilev probably understood just what Damien was about to ask of him.

  “I need to touch base with His Majesty and RMN High Command to see what resources we can deploy to reinforce this system,” Damien told them. “We need to make certain that Duke of Magnificence and the other ships that went to Santiago are repaired as quickly as possible.

  “We also need, much as I hate the potential consequences of this, to make sure there are no further saboteurs or FTL communicators aboard our starships.” He shook his head. “It’s going to be a witch hunt, people, but we had an Augment assassin with a direct link to the Republic Interstellar Navy aboard my flagship. We don’t have a choice.”

  “That is going to be a pain in the ass,” Cruyssen agreed. “We’ll need to clear our MPs first, then have them carry out the investigation.”

  “We have a few teams of space-experienced personnel on Ardennes that I’d trust beyond reason,” Riordan offered. “We can use them as a starting point to sweep the MPs aboard all of our ships.”

  “We have a few reliable teams ourselves,” Damien said, “but the more people we start with, the better.” He shook his head. “Admiral Vasilev, what does your munitions production look like?”

  “We have the production lines to turn out roughly a hundred Phoenix VIIs a day,
” Vasilev replied. “It’s not much versus the ammunition needs of our combined forces.”

  “No, and we’ll need to retool it for Phoenix VIIIs,” Damien confirmed. “Commodore Cruyssen, Mage-Commodore Jakab, I want you to get your staffs on pulling together every piece of logistics infrastructure we have.

  “If we can’t triple that production number in Phoenix VIIIs with a few days’ work, I don’t know Navy engineers as well as I think I do.”

  “We’ll make it happen,” Cruyssen promised. “We also do have a major stockpile of Phoenix VIIIs here still. Ardennes always was a logistics base, so we have those supplies on hand.”

  “We’re going to need them,” Damien said. “We’re going to be moving a lot of ships into Ardennes, people. What we have can’t hold against one of these damn carrier groups, and if I were the Republic, I’d be pulling multiple groups together as soon as I realized we knew they were coming.”

  “We’ll do everything we can,” Vasilev promised. “We don’t have any ship construction facilities here, though. Just repairs.”

  “You can’t build a fleet in a week, Admiral,” Damien said quietly. “But I’m pretty sure I can find one in a week.”

  “What happens if they don’t give us that much time?” Amiri asked, pointing out the hole in his plans, as always.

  He shook his head at her.

  “Then we do everything we can,” he promised. “But…I can tell you that Ardennes must not fall. I can promise you that I will move the stars themselves to get reinforcements here in time…but if the RIN arrives with three carrier groups tomorrow, we can do nothing but surrender the system.

  “If they give us time, we can assemble a defense to challenge them. If they have the ships to absorb the dozen systems they’d conquered and still throw multiple carrier groups at Ardennes?”

  Damien shrugged.

  “If they have that many of these new ships, people, we may have already lost the damn war.”

  The Ardennes RTA had apparently decided that Alanna O’Malley was going to be Damien’s point of contact. At least, he doubted it was coincidence that it was the same Mage who met him when he landed at the massive black structure and left his assault shuttle.

  She seemed a little taken aback by the Combat Mage and exosuited Marines who exited the shuttle after him, and he gave her a small sad smile.

  “Someone tried to kill me aboard Duke of Magnificence,” he told her. “My security is being paranoid. Shall we?”

  Romanov and his heavily armored companions fell in around Damien and O’Malley as she led the way into the RTA.

  “Usual security procedures are in place,” she told him. “There are recorders running in the secondary receiving chambers, but otherwise, the Array has been evacuated. We’ll review the recordings to make sure they’re sanitized of your conversation.”

  “That’s the standard, yes,” Damien murmured. “Denis?”

  The Secret Service Agent and Marine nodded.

  “We’ll be reviewing the recordings ourselves, Mage O’Malley,” he told the younger woman. “We would prefer to trust your people, but we have evidence that the Republic has agents in places we thought were impossible.”

  O’Malley looked shocked, but she nodded.

  “I understand, Agent Romanov. It’s unusual, but the procedures exist for it. I can show you to the review office now or…?”

  “After the Hand has made his call. We’ll get it sorted.”

  “My liege.”

  “Damien. How bad was it?” Alexander asked bluntly.

  “Bad. Santiago has fallen,” Damien confirmed quietly. “Another five-ship carrier group, like we saw in Korma. Worse: they had an agent aboard Duke of Magnificence with an FTL com of some kind. We random-jumped to evade any possible pursuit, and then they just jumped to right where we were.”

  “What happened to the spy?”

  “He was an Augment and tried to kill me. Suicided when we trapped him and blew up the communicator.” Damien shook his head. “We found the communicator—or what was left of it, anyway. We’re going to have some real nightmares over that, my liege.”

  “Smaller than we feared, I take it?” Alexander said quietly.

  “Fits in a closet, basically.” They’d pulled the shattered wreckage of the device, whatever it was, from a utility closet near the electronics shop where the spy had worked. “No special components that we could see, but it was also laced with about a dozen small explosive charges. No serious damage to Duke, but completely wrecked the com.”

  “So, any of our ships, any of our stations, could have an FTL communicator talking to the Republic at all times,” the Mage-King concluded.

  “Yes.”

  The stone chamber was silent.

  “With Santiago confirmed taken by the Republic, Ardennes is now the flashpoint,” Damien warned his King. “From here, we can strike at Legatus in forty-eight hours. Everywhere closer is now in the hands of the Republic.

  “We have some time. They were still landing troops and fighting on Santiago; I can’t imagine many of our systems rolled over instantly.”

  “I also would not expect our people to fight to the death,” Alexander replied. “This isn’t a war to the last man standing, Damien, and I refuse to let it become one if we can avoid it. You have a plan?”

  “They’re going to hit Ardennes with everything they’ve got. I say we let them. We can concentrate enough ships here to make this system a trap they won’t escape.”

  “And they’ll know what you’ve assembled and build a force to match it,” the King pointed out. “We can no longer assume that the Republic isn’t watching our every move. We cannot be weak anywhere, Damien.”

  “We cannot be strong everywhere,” he countered. “They have to hit us here. The more force we concentrate at Ardennes, the better chance we have.”

  “That makes sense,” Alexander admitted slowly. “But I’m not a military expert, Damien. Neither are you.”

  That…also made sense.

  “And what are our military experts suggesting?” Damien asked.

  “Reinforce all critical systems as heavily as possible,” the King said. “We have no way to know whether or not they have any greater or lesser strategic flexibility than we do. We have to secure our production lines and shipyards against deep strikes…and the Navy simply isn’t that big.”

  “And only Tau Ceti actually has a significant Militia of the Core Worlds,” Damien concluded.

  “Exactly. And the size of the enemy deployments is terrifying, too,” Alexander admitted. “We’re talking multiple battleships or cruiser squadrons to offset them, and…” The Mage-King sighed. “We only had fifteen cruiser squadrons to begin with, Damien. We didn’t even replace the squadron we lost in Cor’s mutiny in Ardennes.

  “With damaged ships and lost ships and one crisis and another, we’re down to only sixty cruisers. I’m not sure our destroyers are worth anything in this fight—and it would take fifteen of them to match the tonnage of the smallest ship the Republic seems to be deploying!”

  Sixteen battleships. Sixty cruisers. Two-hundred-odd destroyers. Damien knew the numbers almost off the top of his head.

  The carrier groups he’d tangled with had been a carrier, a battleship, and three cruisers. Over a hundred million tons of warships, equal to basically half the entire destroyer fleet of the Protectorate on their own.

  If the Republic had even ten such groups, it was possible the Republic Interstellar Navy outmassed the entire Royal Martian Navy.

  “What about the new construction?” Damien asked quietly.

  “Months for the cruisers. A year for the dreadnoughts. More for the new battleships. We have destroyers rolling out of the yards already, but…”

  He could feel his King’s despair.

  “I didn’t truly expect them to start a war, Damien. We were willing to let them go. If they have a technological FTL drive, what do they even want?”

  “I don’t know,” Damien said quietl
y. “All I know is that my oath to you says I fight. If you can send me a fleet, I’ll hold. If you can’t…I’ll find one. Somehow. But I must fight.”

  “I’ll make sure you get something. A couple of battleships at least.” Desmond Alexander chuckled bitterly. “They may have their opinions and I trust their judgment, but my Admirals do follow my orders.”

  “I’ll find something. Somehow,” Damien promised. “I swear it.”

  “I know. You have my faith, Damien Montgomery, and you bear the platinum hand. You speak with my authority in all things, in all places. I have no intention of jogging my fleet command’s collective elbow as they try and fight a war—or of letting you do so—but anything else…”

  Damien snorted, counting on the magic to carry it to the other star system.

  The only thing he needed was a fleet. If the Royal Martian Navy wasn’t going to get him one, he had no idea what he was going to do.

  “What purpose is our Protectorate if we do not protect people?” he asked his King.

  “I don’t know.” Desmond Michael Alexander was silent for several long seconds. “I just don’t know anymore.”

  24

  This time, Damien had gathered his key players in person at the Ardennes Governor’s House. It was a quiet meeting and he was relatively sure that Amiri was holding Riordan’s hand under the table as a reassurance.

  Two RMN Commodores, an ASDF Admiral, the First Hand of the Mage-King of Mars and two members of the planetary government surrounded the long table. A hologram hung above the table, gently rotating as it showed them the ship strength available to Ardennes defenders.

  Thirteen destroyers and Duke of Magnificence from the Royal Martian Navy. Twelve Lancer-class destroyers and three Phoenix-class cruisers, all Tau Ceti–built, from the Ardennes System Defense Force.