The crew of my new ship weren’t a cohesive unit yet, but the basics were in place. Jen had taken the helm position without any discussion. Sasha was in the XO's position, and I wondered why, since Jen should be there, technically being the captain of the ship. But Jen was first and foremost a pilot, so I guess she saw her best role in combat, being at the helm. Jess was at the engineering station, and Lea was at coms. Tasha of course, was at the ship's weapons console. Behind her and along one wall, was the other six weapon consoles, and a supervisory chair overseeing them.
The fleet was in a three one three formation. The battlecruiser was in the middle, with three alien ships in a line above and below. I was mildly surprised to find we all jumped at the same time, and it was the first time I made any connection with how big the jump zone was.
In front of us, and already firing, were the six ships I'd known were there. My force wall went up ahead of the fleet, and as all ships began firing on the lead enemy, I concentrated on making sure no missiles made it around the wall.
Missiles and pulses tore into the first alien ship, as its shields went down. But before it took too much damage, Sasha bellowed to switch target, and I changed the direction of all the missiles still aimed at it. It wasn’t firing back anymore. The crew were mostly still alive, and focused on staying that way.
One by one, we battered down the shields of each ship, damaged it to the point where it stopped firing, and moved on to the next.
When the firing stopped, I nodded to Lea, and she opened a channel to all six ships, with Bill's new translator sending in their language. I split my sight up, to check how many were actually receiving, and found all of them were. I concentrated on the lead ship.
"Attention enemy ships. You've been left alive so we can discuss a cease fire in this war. Please respond."
The lead ship exploded. I immediately moved the remaining five to a point just in front of their other fleet, only now coming into range of the jump point on the other side of the system. Ships made violent course changes to avoid collisions, and one more of the moved ships exploded, peppering the shields of their own ships with debris.
I gathered up all of them, and moved them back to where I’d first moved them. Now twenty two strong, but I figured four damaged ships would slow them down. I was wrong. They simply left them behind.
"That went well," said Jen, rising from the helm position, and being replaced by someone else. "I told you they routinely blew themselves up rather than being taken."
"So you did. It didn’t cost us anything trying though."
"True. Onwards to the planet?"
"Yes. We'll see what they do there."
Jen stood down the primary shift, and took Sasha's place, as she went off to drill her troops. I was hoping not to have to send them in, but at the least, they would need to secure the station.
Lea and Jess joined us.
"I thought of a name for this ship," announced Lea.
"What?" asked Jen.
"Thorn's Chariot."
"I love it!" yelled Jess, and the rest of the bridge crew turned to find out what the noise was about.
I didn’t see the need to name the ship. If Jen's ship had a name, I still didn’t know it. Nor wanted to. Back home, some people named their horses, but they were considered eccentric. I'd never had my own horse, or anything else I’d have wanted to name. So never started the practice. My second life hadn't changed this, although they named things a great deal more.
"You don’t like it?" Lea asked me.
"I don’t dislike it. But naming things isn’t something my people did much."
"I thought 'chariot' might be appropriate, given your origins."
"I guess. But there's no wheels on this thing anywhere, and it’s a bit big for a horse to pull."
"He loves it," said Jen, and they all laughed, so I joined in.
I still didn’t see the point, but these three laughing at anything was a good thing, and I didn’t want to dull the moment. I let the chuckles die down, before I raised the next issue I had.
"Do we have nav charts for beyond the next jump point?"
"No," answered Jen. "But the alien ships ought to have them. What are you after?"
"Their homeworld."
"Are you thinking what I think you're thinking?" asked Jess.
"What's he thinking?" asked Lea.
"I figured as much," said Jen.
"What?" demanded Lea.
"He wants to go there," said Jess.
"What the hell for?"
"Because this war won't stop itself."
"Thorn," said Jen, "we've never had communication with them before. What makes you think they'll talk to us?"
"We have to try."
"So you're going to their homeworld with seven warships?" asked Jess.
"It should help make the point."
"What point?" asked Lea.
"That we can move through their space at will, and there is nothing they can do to stop us."
"Won't they react badly?"
"Possibly. But I think I know how to handle it."
"How?"
I tapped a finger against my nose.
Thirty Three
The planet was on the far side of the sun, so I had the choice of moving us there, or taking the long way. In the end, it was still needing time to forge the crew into a unit which had me decide to do it the normal way. Tasha hadn't been happy with the way the other ships had performed, and all of the weapon's officers had been drilled into exhaustion.
The whole basis of the war made no sense to me. So I spent the time sitting in the center chair, ignoring what was going on around me, as I tried to figure it out.
Our Admirals expected to lose more systems, and weren't worried about it.
There had been no communication between the sides, for as long as anyone remembered.
No-one knew what had started the war, or why.
No-one had made any attempt to stop it.
The war had stopped on its own for a while, and started up again without any known provocation.
None of this made any sense.
I noticed Lea sitting there looking bored, and waved her over.
"Can you pull up a history of the war for me, for as far back as records go?"
"Sure. What are you looking for?"
"An overview which makes some sort of sense."
"Why?"
I looked at her. She looked serious. There was no curiosity about the origins of the war at all in her.
"There are two ways to end a war. You crush the enemy completely, and force them to end the war. Or you address the issues which started it, and broker a treaty."
"Option one please."
"Why?"
"Because you can?"
I closed my eyes, and shook my head. She really did think that way. But then, they all did, seemingly on both sides. I really did need to know how far back this war reached. If it went all the way back to first contact, there might not be anything to fix. But when was that? And what happened? Or did it come after?
"Just get me an overview history please."
"It'll take a while."
"We have a while."
She nodded, and went back to her console.
I started thinking of all the reasons why two civilizations would go to war. Expansion was the obvious one, where one or both wanted the systems the other had. On this side of it, there was no reason for it. None of the systems I’d been to had any overt signs of overpopulation. And the planet we were headed for was hardly even a colony. Of course I had no way of knowing what state the enemy systems were in. I looked across to Lea. She caught my eye immediately.
"You want the same from the enemy database? Already on it."
I nodded to her, and went back to musing. Which proved to be a frustrating exercise, with no real data.
I'd left when we arrived at the planet to Jen and Sasha. Sasha would want her teams rested, and Jen would want her best crew on the bridge. I didn�
�t really care. But as it happened, I did like the sleep, and I preferred my sleep uninterrupted.
The planet, station, and its three protectors, showed up on the scanners well after breakfast the next morning. The three ships immediately changed course to intercept us, and there was no attempt to communicate with us. I tried to contact them, but they ignored the coms.
I thought for a moment, and turned to Jen.
"Your bridge Jen. I'll be back shortly."
I stood, wrapped myself in invisible, and jumped, without letting her ask the obvious question.
The bridge of the alien ship was familiar to me now, and I stood to one side and in front of the captain, looking at him. Surprisingly, all the bridge crew were male. I didn't know if this was normal or not, as when I’d buried the dead crews, I'd not paid any attention to sexes at the time. Just move and bury, and forget. Most of the time, one person in uniform, with military grooming regulations, looks the same as the next.
"…they're not our ships?" asked the captain.
"No transponder captain," said the engineer. "They look like our ships, but don’t register as ours."
"Could they've been captured?"
"It's possible, but not likely. The transponders are the first to be destroyed if the ship even looks like it might be taken. Everyone knows that. We sign our life blood to the oath."
"What if the transponder was destroyed, but the scuttling charges failed to go off?"
"Never happened before. I could understand it happening maybe once, but six ships? No."
"Speculate then."
"We know we lost four. The ship which escaped the ambush told us that. They left four hulks behind, and said the remote detonators failed to work. But these can't be them."
"Why not?"
"They'd have needed a shipyard to get them operational again. We know they don’t have a shipyard in range to repair them, and get them back here now. It's not possible."
"Could they have taken a ship we didn’t know about in one of the earlier battles? Fixed it up, and reverse engineered it?"
"Not in this short a time. No, something else is going on."
"Shouldn't we talk to them?" asked the young man at the coms station.
"Get off my bridge!" growled the captain, and the man leapt to his feet, and hurried out.
Another took his place.
"I'll get on it captain," said the man at the XO position. "Recruit indoctrination must be slipping."
The captain nodded, but said nothing. I looked around the bridge more closely, and found every crewman had a sidearm. Marines stood at each entrance to the bridge, heavy rifles held ready to shoot. I cast my sight around. Half platoons of marines were at each airlock. Every crewman everywhere, was wearing a sidearm. This was a ship for which any boarding party would be met with extreme resistance. They assumed an enemy would try.
The implication was a simple one. This was a militaristic society. It explained nothing about why they were attacking us though. I'd need to find someone further up the food chain.
I gathered the three ships, and moved them to just ahead of their main fleet. And gathered all of them, and moved the lot back to where the four damaged ships still were.
"What the hell was that?" yelled the captain.
"We moved," said the helm.
"I can see that you idiot. How?"
"Unknown sir."
"Admiral on ship to ship captain," said coms.
He didn’t wait for any command, but put the Admiral up on a screen immediately.
"What happened?"
"We've no idea Admiral. The enemy made it through the blockade force, and we were heading to engage them. Suddenly we were here. I barely believe it happened, let alone know how."
"What force were you opposing?"
"One of their battlecruisers, and six of our cruisers. And before you ask, we don’t know how they have six of ours, but they didn't have the transponders on them. I don't believe they were our ships taken. More likely they've had an almost destroyed one for a long time now, and finally started making them."
"I should relieve you of your command for stating such heresy!"
"Relieve me if you must Admiral, but nothing I've seen today makes any sense at all. How is it you are here? You should have passed us days ago."
The Admiral looked troubled for the first time.
"That is the only reason I'm not relieving you. We don’t have an answer either."
"Something has changed Admiral. Either our enemy has new technology which confounds us, or they have a new ally who does."
"Also heresy. But for once, heresy might also be true. We need to step very carefully. If it's true, we may all end up dead before we can prove it."
"What is there to prove? We were there, and now we're here. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it was magic."
"That will get us all killed captain. Keep your big mouth shut. There is no magic. There never has been any."
"Yes, I know. Any much more advanced technology looks like magic, and there is no magic. Which brings us back to an ally with a superior technology."
"We'll work along those lines. We may still end up on the gibbet, but it's much safer than magic. Make sure your crew understand the M word is not to be used at all. Anyone who does is to be shot on sight. Understood?"
"Understood. What are your orders?"
"You'll get formation orders shortly. You join this fleet for now. As soon as the formation is restored, we start back to where you're supposed to be."
"The enemy will be there in a few short hours."
"Their seven ships will not be a match for ours. That system has changed hands so many times over the centuries, one more won't matter. See to your ship, captain."
The captain leapt to his feet, made a fist with his right hand, and brought it up to in front of his face, fingers facing inward. It quivered for a few moments. The Admiral returned what I assumed was a salute. The screen vanished.
"We have formation instructions captain," said helm.
"Put our three ships in position, and be ready to keep station on the flagship."
"Aye captain."
He sat back down again, obviously deep in thought.
I’d seen enough for now, and jumped back.
"Enjoy yourself?" asked Tasha.
Thirty Four
The station assault didn’t go to plan.
There's a shock. Or not. I tried talking Sasha out of doing it the way they always did, but no-one was listening.
The station itself had no defenses. But it was defended. Exactly the same as the ships were, and in bigger numbers.
Our platoons went in different shuttle airlocks, and each was met by a platoon of the enemy. The firefights were brief, but nasty affairs. Our marines had much better armour, and marginally better guns. The enemy fought to the last man, while we lost only a handful of dead, and about a dozen walking wounded.
Which was where things started going predictably pear shaped.
The troops further inside the station started taking hostages, and they didn’t mind gunning people down to prove they were serious.
As the first civilian died, I lost my temper. The shooter moved outside the station in the blink of my eye. But dozens of others all around the station died at almost the same time, and I couldn’t keep up with them. Nor could I protect everyone.
As more civilians died, I rose to my feet.
"No more killing!" I bellowed, and sent a non-lethal force punch through the entire station.
Everyone went down, including me. I dragged myself up, and back into my chair. Jen was looking at me with a horrified expression on her face, and Lea was running out.
I methodically worked my way through the entire station. Our not wounded marines I brought back to the ship. Shooters went out into space. Wounded went to the station medical facility. The remaining enemy troops went into the station's detention cells, minus guns and clothes.
When I’d accounted for everyone, I
checked the medical facilities. The few medical people had no hope of coping with everyone, and they were on the floor with everyone else. Medical was something we didn’t have people for, just automated pods. I thought for a moment, and jumped.
There was a doctor and two nurses in the flagship's medical section. I moved them straight to the station hospital, and went to the com unit on the wall.
"This is Judge Thorn. All medical personnel are to report to medical immediately to treat casualties. Don’t walk. Run!"
I closed the whole ship com, and opened the bridge one.
"Thorn to Captain."
"This is Bentley. What do you need Thorn?"
A doctor rushed in, and I moved him while he was still running.
"The station assault went bad, and the enemy started killing civilians. We have a lot of casualties, and the station hospital staff are all down. I need all medical staff off all the ships. If you can get them to the bridge of each ship, I'll collect them."
"Being done already. Ours are coming to you."
"Thanks. I'll return them when the situation stabilizes."
"The Admiral will want a report."
I'd forgotten there was a new Admiral here now.
"He'll get one."
The com closed.
The room rapidly filled.
"All here," said a doctor, and I moved us all to the station medical.
Whoever was senior took one look at the mass of wounded people, and started issuing tasks to people. I jumped to the other battlecruiser, linked up all the medical uniforms, and jumped back with them. Back and forth I went, until all the medical people were transferred.
The place had a look of order now. All the operating theaters were now in use, and the more minor injuries were being steadily treated.
Everyone was awake now, and a new problem started to emerge. Civilians were angrily looking for the enemy troops now, and as I looked in on them in the cells, the force wall I started putting in place to protect them, fizzled out. I jumped there.
They were all dead.
Thirty Five
It got worse.
A distress message came up from the planet below, just as I settled into a chair in the main command area. Civilians were being rounded up, and shot.
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