by Evan Currie
Iwo Jima was twice blessed or, as some said, twice cursed. The sands of that forsaken ground had soaked up the blood of Marines and Japanese twice. Once while killing each other, once while fighting shoulder to shoulder.
After the war, the island had largely been forgotten again, but Gib had been right about one thing.
It was holy ground.
“Yeah,” Eric said aloud as the shuttle taxied out to the launch position. “Yeah, it was. Sanctified in blood.”
Hadrian nodded as he settled the engines into standby and waited for clearance. “I went once. It’s nothing official, but graduating classes from the depot bribed Navy pilots to fly us out there.”
“Yeah, I know.” Eric smiled. “The pilots still making a show of not wanting to fly out to a worthless rock for a bunch of green Marines?”
“Making a show?” Hadrian looked over at him curiously, almost missing the clearance to take off. “That was a show?”
Eric laughed softly. “Lot of Navy boys left their blood to soak those sands too, Lieutenant. They run a quiet raffle to see who gets to let the Marines pay them to visit. Fleet authorizes the fuel every year using a discretionary account.”
“I did not know that,” Hadrian admitted as he engaged the engines, throwing white-hot plasma at the blast plates that had been raised behind the shuttle.
“You’re not supposed to,” Eric said as the shuttle leapt forward, pushing him down into the seat cushion. “It’s better if you think you’re risking something to pay your respects. That’s why the Marines plant someone every year to ‘suggest’ it, usually a guest speaker who quietly reminisces about his own off-the-books trip.”
“Son of a . . .” Hadrian just managed to keep from cursing as they left the station and blasted out into the black. “He was a plant?”
Eric laughed openly as he settled back and let the comforting thrust of the shuttle flow through him. “The Corps is populated by sneaky officers, Lieutenant, and even sneakier NCOs. Don’t ever forget it, because you have to live up to it yourself.”
The lieutenant shook his head, a chagrined look on his face as he used thrusters to pivot and glide the shuttle around the bulk of the space station. In the distance, he and the commodore could see the Odysseus rising over the station habitat, the big ship gleaming white in the reflected light of the sun.
With the ship in sight, Hadrian brought the main power plant up and sent them rocketing forward as they cleared the station.
“I can hardly believe that, sir,” he admitted after a moment. “Are you sure?”
Eric just smiled. “Do something to get the generals’ recognition and find out when they ask you to visit and give the new guys a talk. In the meantime—watch the road, son!”
“What?” Hadrian looked forward and let out a yelp, jerking the stick hard to the left as a blur flashed past far closer than he was comfortable with. “What the hell was that?!”
“That,” Eric said, twisting his head and leaning forward to keep the object in sight, “was a showoff in one of the new Black Navy fighters. Probably figured buzzing a Marine shuttle was good for a laugh.”
He sat back, chuckling. “What can I say? He was right.”
The lieutenant managed to not quite send a death glare at his commanding officer, but it was a close call.
► “Did you enjoy giving that Marine reason to change his underwear?” Alexandra asked dryly from the rear of the trainer, easing her hands back from where she’d almost taken control of the fighter from the man in the front seat.
Steph just chuckled softly.
“You know what,” he said after a moment. “I’ll give you this much: these Vorpals of yours are hot rides, Lieutenant. Faster and more responsive than even my Archangel.”
“They’re the best fighters ever developed,” Alexandra said, smug pride making its way into her voice.
“Don’t get cocky, Lieutenant. I said they’re faster and more responsive, and they are, but they’re nowhere near as precise in their responsiveness. One-on-one, I’d still favor the Double A platform. NICS is one hell of a force multiplier.”
Alexandra was glad he was ahead of her and couldn’t see the scowl on her face. NICS, the Neural Interface Connection System, was the technology that made the Archangels so damn deadly—not their weapons, not their engines. From what she knew, during the war with the Block, the enemy Mantis fighters actually edged the Archangels out in pure performance in several categories.
The neural interface allowed by NICS, however, turned the plane into a literal extension of the pilot. It made dodging an incoming missile by inches not only possible but standard operating procedure. Flying right into the teeth of your enemy, dancing between the bullets and missiles like something out of myth, was one hell of a way to catch even the best pilot flat-footed.
Unfortunately, the number of people both willing and, more importantly, capable of properly interfacing with NICS had always been extremely low. A lot of people had issues with shoving needles into their necks, and more couldn’t reach the level of inner Zen needed to allow the computer to properly read user intent through the normal noise of being alive.
Over the years, computers had gotten better and the system a little less intrusive, but NICS had always been a high-cost, relatively low-payout program. With most of the Double A pilots now assigned to starship helms, it was pretty much a dead aviation program.
What galled Alexandra most, however, was that she had only just become NICS qualified before the invasion.
“Yeah, well,” she said after a moment, “the Vorpals still exist.”
She was both pleased and a little angry with herself when the commander had no comeback for that.
CHAPTER 2
Priminae Space
► Drey Marina, captain of the Priminae battle cruiser Tetanna, stood quietly at the observation portal and looked out over the system they had just transitioned into.
The captain, like every sane person he had ever heard of, despised the Terran transition technology. The method of transport was incredibly disturbing, but no one could deny the utility of near-instantaneous travel between stars. The faint odor of vomit that lingered for hours after a transition was so very off-putting, however, and his sensibilities were rather offended that his ship was put through such a process.
The times were changing, and unfortunately or not, he had no say in the changes. It was a matter of adapting or dying, and while he might personally have chosen to fade away while clinging to the old, Drey would not demand the same of his culture. Extinction was not preferable to change, however distasteful the change was.
That his vessel bristled with weapons was one of the more distasteful of those changes. To his knowledge, the Priminae had never had a class of ship that could be termed a “battle cruiser,” but the Tetanna could assume no other name. Normal vessels carried weapons, of course, but they were primarily multipurpose tools, their ability to inflict harm a distant secondary concern.
Carrying lasers well beyond the old class design that had been disgorged by Central at the peak of the Drasin threat, the Tetanna could slag a continent with little trouble. Drey snorted to himself at the thought. Given a bit of time to plan, he could annihilate a continent with far less than the total output of the Tetanna’s lasers. As a former mining chief, he was well aware of the dangers of supervolcanos and tectonic stress fractures.
Unlike the designs that had originated from Central, however, the lasers were not the only teeth the Tetanna mounted. Terran transition cannons could deposit gigaton-level nuclear devices anywhere within three light-minutes in an instant, and the massive kinetic-kill missiles loaded into the ship’s magazines were capable of destabilizing the orbit of a small moon.
Worse than all that, even, was the fact that sometimes, just sometimes, Drey found himself looking out into the abyss of the black and wishing he had more weaponry loaded into his ship.
The Drasin had been a nightmare, but they were almost a natural disaster. In
many ways, there was no real point fearing them. They would come when they came, and you would live or not based almost entirely on the Fates themselves. The legends of those things were like stories of black holes and gamma-ray bursts coming out of the void.
If it happened, you were dead. No point in panicking about it.
The Terrans changed that, and while Drey was grateful, he was still adjusting to the state of his universe.
“Captain, system is clear. Transponders from all mining vessels have been checked. No unexpected signals.”
Drey turned to his second, who was approaching from the main command deck.
“Thank you, Hara,” he said. “Schedule our departure according to protocol. We will need to check the new colony systems next.”
“Yes Captain,” Hara Kanith said, tapping a few commands into her personal system. “The Lenata System next?”
Drey considered the question briefly and nodded. “That is fine.”
Since the Drasin assault on Ranquil had torn through the major population center, there had been a significant upsurge of interest in colonial programs. Normally the programs saw a steady but slow trickle that served primarily as a safety valve for those less than satisfied with life on the core worlds and all the restrictions needed when billions of people lived within a few hundred kilometers of one another.
Now, the demand was probably a hundred times the norm as people had a sudden desire to spread out.
It wasn’t the most logical of urges in his mind. The Colonies faced with the Drasin had all vanished into the abyss of time and space, while Ranquil had not. On the other hand, everyone knew it was almost entirely the intervention of the Terrans that had prevented Ranquil from vanishing as well.
The Priminae High Council were all rather happy with the current situation, particularly given the loss of several major food-production colonies. If people wanted to move to a rougher life—granted, one that provided many more personal freedoms—that was perfectly fine with them. Drey was personally happy that the fleet had seen a similar increase in recruiting, since clearly the old system of patrols would no longer be acceptable.
That didn’t, however, take away from the very real dangers that had abruptly emerged from the black.
First the Drasin and now this Empire had been seen encroaching on Priminae territories, even engaging the Terrans in an all-out battle in one Priminae system.
It was as if some higher power had decided the Priminae had enjoyed peace for far too long and was intent on making up for lost time.
Even the Terrans, for all they have done for us, would have been considered a plague if they would have appeared just five years earlier.
Drey was under no illusions about that.
The Terrans were the most terrifying of the monsters inflicted on the Priminae. With technical development far below that of the Colonies, they barely had faster-than-light communication. Their ships were slow and had practically no power to speak of. And yet they were clearly the deadliest species when measured against the Priminae and the Drasin.
The attitude among the Priminae traditionalists—by far the most powerful political entity even now, during the waning days of their power—was clear. The Terrans might be allies, but they were no less monstrous than the things they had defeated.
For Drey, who had been a traditionalist most of his career but now considered himself too much of a realist to continue that path, the Terrans were clearly monsters, but they were Allied monsters.
Better the beast at your side than the one at your throat.
“Course has been calculated, Captain,” Hara announced as she returned. “We await your final command.”
“Jump us.”
Imperial Task Group
► Captain Aymes looked over the stars dotting the dark tapestry ahead of his ship, barely noting the drive flares of the other ships in the division as he buried himself in his thoughts.
The navarch was now a woman on a quest.
Her defeat in the Oather star system had been a bloody mark against her, one that would never quite be wiped from her record. He knew how the Imperial court worked, though he’d not made it that high in his own career—and most likely never would now—but he’d been forced to navigate the pale shadow of court that was the military officers’ circles.
No matter what she accomplished from this time forward, her enemies would snidely refer back to her defeat whenever the opportunity arose. It was in the nature of the cutthroat politicking of the court. So the navarch was intent now on blunting those future slashes with the most one-sided victory she could possibly muster.
He well understood her desires, even her obsession. He’d been in the same position himself—still was, really. The unknowns, however, bothered him.
Aymes wished they had better information. A war was won or lost on three things: power, logistics, and information.
They had power aplenty. Ships, strategists, tacticians—all those were the cream of the Imperial crop. Few places in the known galaxy could match the division the navarch had gathered to her, and none could significantly exceed it.
Logistics too were unparalleled. With the Empire behind them, they would want for nothing in the pursuit of this war.
It was the third leg of the tripod that worried him. They knew nothing about these anomalies except that they existed. Initially they seemed to use incredibly inferior technology, though some things indicated that was a mask of sorts. Certainly, their effectiveness in battle was a blatant sign their supposed technical inferiority was, in fact, a false front.
Now, however, it seemed the anomalies had thrown off their mask and bared their teeth fully. The ships encountered at the battle in which the Empire had lost so many vessels had not been inferior in any fashion. They matched expected Oather and Imperial signatures in every measurable metric.
Aside from their weapons.
The weapons wielded were enough to leave the Empire drooling. The lasers, while no more powerful than their Imperial counterparts, had managed to tear through ship armor in seconds. Armor that—occasionally, at least—had shrugged off the most powerful of strikes.
Just too many questions. Questions Aymes knew the navarch was asking as well, but questions that had no answers yet.
“Orders just came through, Captain,” his second said quietly from his station. “The navarch has directed us to join the division and make course for Oather territory.”
“By all means,” Aymes said softly in response. “Take us to formation and accelerate past light-speed on the navarch’s signal.”
“Yes Captain.”
Information.
Aymes looked out into space as the universe wavered and the whites of the stars ahead of them tinted slightly blue as the Cohn accelerated past the speed of light. The background radiation of the universe itself shifted, not becoming visible precisely, but altering just enough that the view felt different, less real.
Or, considering how much of his life Aymes had spent plying the void, perhaps he should say that the universe had just become more real. It was a return home for a man who lived in the deep void, as he did.
AEV Odysseus
► Eric stood, as he had quite a lot of late, overlooking the command deck and the spectacular view beyond to where the Earth floated in the black, a blue-and-white marble whose beauty now vexed as much as entranced him.
The Empire, this unknown galactic polity, was certainly his highest-priority problem at the moment, but the Earth herself was near the top. Since he had taken command of the Odyssey—it seemed so long ago now—Eric had found himself thrown into the very center of the struggle for the future of humanity in one conflict after another . . . or perhaps they were all the same conflict. He didn’t know about that, really.
Still, the conflicts were straightforward and solvable. Help the Priminae or run? His military tradition and honor made that choice for him. Face the Drasin head-on or lose Earth? Wasn’t even a choice.
One problem he ha
d encountered, however, had no apparent solution, and unlike the others, he seemed doomed to face it alone. He certainly couldn’t go around telling people that Earth and Ranquil were both haunted by what he could only imagine as deities. Central and Gaia presented a problem Eric didn’t know how to solve, one that left him with no access to resources that might offer a solution.
Central, in particular, was a security breach the likes of which he had never imagined in his worst nightmares. A mind-reading alien intelligence that couldn’t be controlled in any way was a night terror for most intelligence officials. The fact that it was operating as a computer core for their allies was just . . . Well, honestly, he didn’t know if it was good or bad. Central was one breach he could at least reduce. The Confederation knew about Central, even if they were convinced it was a supercomputer of some type. Limiting the classified knowledge available to those assigned to Ranquil was entirely feasible, and Eric had strongly suggested it be done.
His planet’s own counterpart, Gaia, was another story. That entity had full access to the minds of everyone on Earth. The fact that she—if it was a she—was Terran made that breach only slightly better. Eric was reasonably confident Gaia wouldn’t do anything to risk the security of the planet she was bound to, but he had no idea how firm her binding to Earth was.
Because of that, and his own personal issues with the knowledge he held, Eric had avoided returning to Earth this time around. He’d overseen the Odysseus refit, and he’d relaxed at Unity Station, even going so far as to schedule his debrief there under the guise of having shipboard business that was keeping him in orbit.
As best he could tell, Gaia was beneficent, but Eric didn’t trust what he couldn’t reliably see, and an immortal, incorporeal entity that could read the mind of every living being within the magnetic field of a world was . . . well, “discomforting” was so ludicrously understating the feeling as to be ridiculous.
