The Legacy of the Iron Dragon: An Alternate History Viking Epic

by Robert Kroese

  “We have twenty-two warships in system, sir. All frigate class. Twelve are already in Geneva orbit. Four are scheduled for launch within forty-eight hours. The others are en route to Geneva and are scheduled to arrive before the seedships. The seedships may take a few hits, but I think we can eliminate the threat, sir.”

  “And if another fifty ships come through the gate tomorrow?”

  For a moment, Lee was speechless. He’d been so busy working out the implications of the known variables that he’d forgotten about the huge unknown lurking at the edge of the system. “Do you think that’s possible, sir?”

  “I haven’t a clue, Mr. Lee. That’s the problem. There are hundreds of Cho-ta’an warships out there in the black, somewhere. How many of them are within a few million klicks of a hyperspace gate—either their own or ours? We know the group that took out Gliese is within a few days of a gate, and there are probably others a few days or weeks out. Geneva is the last big target for the Cho-ta’an. We have to assume this group is just the first wave.”

  “We’ve got ships out there too, sir.”

  “Not enough of them. We have to assume the Mobi-COM group is lost, along with Admiral Chiang’s group in the Procyon system. Most of the ships that could make it here have already done so. A few IDL destroyers straggling through the gate over the next week aren’t going to tip the balance. What’s the status of the failsafe?” All of the jumpgates had been equipped with nuclear charges that could be triggered by an encoded message sent via a tight-beam communication in case the gate ever fell into enemy hands. At this point, the IDL had far more to lose than gain by keeping the gate open.

  “Unresponsive, sir. That field the Choties have deployed is distorting everything within a few hundred klicks of the gate, across the entire spectrum. No way to get a signal through.”

  “Son of a bitch.” The Cho-ta’an were going too fast to seize the gate immediately upon emerging into the Geneva system, so they deployed the jamming device to keep the IDL from blowing up the gate while they decelerated and circled back. There had been discussions at high levels in the IDL about putting the gate self-destruct mechanisms on a deadman’s switch, but it was deemed too risky: nobody wanted to lose a jumpgate because a communication glitch prevented the transmission of an “all clear” signal.

  “Assume the worst-case scenario,” Huiskamp said. “A swarm of ships comes through that gate in the next five minutes. How soon can they get to Geneva?”

  “We’re still looking at close to a hundred hours,” Lee said. “Either they come in hot like this group and waste time arcing around the sun, or they come in a little slower and take longer to get here. The Choties could shave off a few hours by really pushing the gees, but we know they hate traveling at more than one point five for long.”

  “All right, then we’ll figure the party starts in about a hundred hours. Let’s just hope that twenty-four ships are all we have to deal with.”

  Chapter Three

  “How the hell did this happen?” the soft, ruddy face of President Blake Adams demanded from the screen over the desk in Admiral Huiskamp’s office. Along the bottom of the screen were insets of video feeds of several other Geneva bureaucrats, mostly members of President Adams’s cabinet.

  “We’re at war, Mr. President,” Huiskamp said flatly. “Enemy attacks are bound to happen.” The disdain of the IDL brass for the civilian leadership of the various planets under their protection was legendary. Huiskamp tried to maintain a veneer of respect, but Adams didn’t make it easy. He was a populist buffoon who had lucked into his position as the result of a stalemate between the two main political factions on Geneva, and in Huiskamp’s opinion he was exactly the wrong person to shepherd the population through the current crisis. Not that anyone else in his position could have achieved a different result: the war was lost, and Geneva was going to fall into chaos and eventually Cho-ta’an subjugation. Still, Huiskamp would have preferred someone who could manage the process with a little dignity.

  “I think you know what I mean, Admiral. How could the Cho-ta’an possibly have gotten here so quickly, without any warning? Don’t you have beacons at the edge of the solar system for this sort of thing?”

  “We do,” Huiskamp said. “Their ships didn’t trip the beacons.”

  “You’re saying they have some new stealth technology that you didn’t know about? That hardly paints you in a better light, Admiral.”

  “We’re still looking into how they got so far into the Geneva system undetected,” Huiskamp said. In his opinion there was little to be gained by telling the civilian government about the breach of the gates. It would just provoke more questions that he couldn’t answer and didn’t have time for.

  “Do you expect them to attack Geneva?” asked Calvin Gabor. Lean and square-jawed, with medium-length silver hair that he wore slicked straight back from a hairline that hadn’t dared recede a centimeter in six decades, Calvin Gabor looked very much the head of planetary security. He was, in Huiskamp’s eyes, a glorified policeman. Extra-planetary threats were the responsibility of the IDL, and in any case Gabor had his hands full with the current civil unrest on the surface. Ever since it became impossible to hide the fact that the IDL was losing the war, the entire population of Geneva had been on the verge of revolt, and in the past three weeks there had been dozens of riots and terrorist attacks in hot spots all over the planet. An alien attack at this point might be a relief for Calvin Gabor.

  “They’re coming in too fast to deploy effective attacks to the surface,” Huiskamp said. “They’ll have to swing around the sun first, so there will be no serious threat for the next hundred hours or so.”

  “And after that?” asked the President.

  “We don’t expect them to target the surface.”

  “You mean they’ll be content to starve us out,” the President said.

  “They’re going after the seedships,” interjected a sturdily built but attractive brunette. This was Lauren Foley—not officially a member of the President’s cabinet, but rather the director of a nominally independent organization created specifically to handle the logistics of getting cargo and colonists from the surface to the seedships.

  “Damned seedships,” grumbled the President. His views on the seedship project were well-known. Foley’s presence in these meetings was only tolerated at the insistence of the IDL.

  “That’s our best guess,” Huiskamp said, ignoring the outburst. “We think the Cho-ta’an know what the seedships are for and are determined to keep them from leaving the Geneva system.”

  “Can they do it?” Foley asked.

  “We believe our defenses are adequate to repel the threat with minimal damage to the seedships,” Huiskamp said. “The seedships are heavily shielded to protect them from debris they may encounter during their voyage. It may be necessary to temporarily delay the loading process to prevent losing any cargo or colonists.”

  “Loading the seedships is a complex logistical operation with many interdependencies,” Foley said. “It’s not something we can just pause and then resume a day or a week later.”

  “I realize that, Director,” said Huiskamp. “But you must have contingency plans in case something goes wrong with one of the shipments?”

  “Of course. My point is that a delay of one day may end up costing us two weeks.”

  “Understood. I’m just asking you to do the best you can. I expect any Cho-ta’an who get past our defenses to focus their fire on the seedships, but it’s possible for a shuttlecraft to get caught in the crossfire. I’d hate to lose a load of colonists because we were in a hurry.”

  “If your ETA is accurate, we’d be more likely to lose cargo than colonists,” Foley said. “Passengers aren’t brought onboard until the third week.”

  “In any case, we can’t afford to lose a shuttlecraft,” said Huiskamp.

  “Agreed,” Foley replied.

  “And if a hundred more Chotie ships slip past your sentinels tomorrow?” Calvin Gabor
asked.

  “Our analysis suggests that’s unlikely,” Huiskamp said. “In any case, all IDL resources are being redirected to the Geneva system. Both Admiral Chiang’s group and the Mobi-COM group are en route.” If you’re going to lie, lie big, thought Huiskamp. He had nothing to offer these people but false hope. He just needed Geneva not to implode before the seedships were loaded.

  “Then you believe we can still win this war?” asked Calvin Gabor.

  “Absolutely,” Huiskamp replied. “The Cho-ta’an have backed us into a corner, to be sure, but they’ve also overextended themselves. We forced their hand with the seedships. There’s no way they can overcome the combined might of the entire IDL fleet.” There might be some truth to this if Huiskamp had any way of communicating with and assembling the remaining IDL ships in the Geneva system.

  “So the seedships were just bait all along?” asked the President, unable to hide a smirk.

  “The seedship program was always a sensible strategy,” Huiskamp said. “It was sold as a last-ditch survival plan for the human race, but it’s better seen as a long-term plan to expand human civilization beyond the reach of the Cho-ta’an and any other threats. The Cho-ta’an haven’t mastered stasis and their physiology is not well-adapted to heavy acceleration over long periods of time. It makes sense to use our technological and physiological advantages to expand outside the Cho-ta’an area of influence.”

  “There’s a downside to that strategy,” said a bronze-skinned young woman Huiskamp recognized as Althea Jordan, the secretary of interplanetary affairs. “You’re not just talking about saving civilization or the human race. You’re talking about creating isolated branches of humanity. After a thousand years, each of these branches will have developed its own version, or versions, of civilization, which may be incompatible with ours. In other words, perhaps the descendants of the seedship colonists will someday be a greater threat to us than the Cho-ta’an.”

  It was not a new argument, and Huiskamp wasn’t interested in entertaining it. “That may well be, Ms. Jordan, but my job is to defend humanity against threats we currently face, not threats we may face in a thousand years. I will also point out that even if two branches of our descendants do end up going to war with each other, at least the victors of that war will be human. Now if there are no other remote philosophical questions to consider, I’ve got an alien fleet to keep track of.”

  *****

  Over the next four days, the twenty-four Cho-ta’an ships acted more-or-less as Lee had predicted. Fifty-one hours after they were first spotted, the enemy ships overtook the three seedships, passing within two million kilometers. Everyone on GODCOM as well as the crews of the seedships breathed a collective sigh of relief when the distance between the two groups of ships began to grow again. No missiles were fired; the Cho-ta’an were saving their ammunition for when they had a better chance to do some damage.

  By this time, it was a near-certainty that the Cho-ta’an were not going to try to get within missile range of Geneva or GODCOM on this pass. They were moving too fast, on a trajectory that would cause them to miss Geneva by some two hundred million kilometers. Still, Huiskamp was once again relieved when the ships passed harmlessly through Geneva’s orbital elliptic. As expected, the ships decelerated hard, using the sun’s gravity to help them travel in a wide arc around the sun. As they began this arc, the three seedships attained orbit around Geneva. Admiral Huiskamp watched all this unfold on the various overhead screens in the command center. To his great relief, no additional enemy ships came through the Geneva gate.

  News from Geneva, however, was not good. Somehow, word got out among the general population that a Cho-ta’an fleet had been spotted in-system, and this information served as the spark in the proverbial tinderbox. Rioting broke out in every major city, and the president was moved to a secure underground facility. Director Foley had possessed the foresight to house the aspiring colonists in a temporary camp near a shuttle launch facility many kilometers from any major cities. Even so, the place was under siege by thousands of people who were desperate to get off planet, or at least prevent anyone else from leaving. Security had been tripled, and several people had already been shot trying to scale the twenty-meter-high fence that ringed the facility.

  The loading process began, with the three seedships being loaded with equipment and supplies in parallel by an endless stream of small shuttlecraft taking off from various locations all along Geneva’s equator. The process was intended to take three weeks, with the twelve hundred colonists brought aboard last, so despite Huiskamp’s remark in his meeting with the President, it was unlikely any colonists would be caught in the crossfire. If the Cho-ta’an acted as Lee had predicted, any fighting would begin about two days into loading and would in all likelihood be finished within a few hours.

  At forty hours past perihelion—one hundred eight hours after they entered the system—the Cho-ta’an ships began to diverge from the course Commander Lee had predicted. Instead of arcing back toward Geneva, the ships continued on their trajectory back out toward the outskirts of the system. Huiskamp stood next to Lee on the command deck watching a dot representing the group of Cho-ta’an ships. Puzzlement spread across Lee’s youthful face as the enemy ships’ course diverged from the expected route.

  “So the seedships aren’t their primary target,” he said, unnecessarily.

  “Cocky bastards,” Huiskamp replied. “They’re going to blockade the gate.”

  It took Lee a moment to understand what Huiskamp was saying. “The Choties are already thinking about how they’re going to use this system once humanity is exterminated.”

  Huiskamp nodded. “No point in going to the trouble of building a new gate when there’s already one here they can use. They think they’ve got us right where they want us.”

  “Don’t they, sir?”

  Huiskamp sighed. “Essentially, yes.”

  Lee leaned forward and tapped a series of keys on his console. “Confirmed. Their current trajectory and acceleration puts them on an intercept course. With twenty-four ships clustered around the gate, they can prevent the seedships from getting out and prevent reinforcements from getting in.”

  “The seedships can still get out. It will just take a little longer.”

  “As much as fifty years longer, sir.”

  “Not much on top of a thousand-year voyage. My concern is that the Cho-ta’an can still let their ships through.”

  *****

  Huiskamp’s concern turned out to be well-founded. One hundred eighty hours after the first group entered the system, another forty Cho-ta’an ships—thirty-five interceptors and five destroyers—came through the gate, on an intercept course for Geneva. Traveling at 3,000 kilometers per second and decelerating at one gee, they would reach the planet in a hundred twenty hours. Not long after, video from IDL drones near the jumpgate reported that the first wave of Cho-ta’an ships had decelerated to pass the gate at a distance of only a few kilometers and a speed of less than a hundred klicks per second. As they came within ten thousand kilometers of the gate, the IDL drones patrolling the area opened fire with railguns. Five interceptors were torn to pieces; the others continued to advance toward the gate.

  “They know what they’re doing,” Lee said.

  Huiskamp nodded. “Deploying that many ships, they can overwhelm our defenses with sheer numbers. And with gate comms down, they don’t have to worry about missiles.” Upon detecting the Cho-ta’an ships, the drones should have sent a signal to the gate defenses, triggering the launch of missiles, but the distortion field the Cho-ta’an had set up was preventing the warning from getting through. The gate’s radar detected the ships, but by then it was too late: instead of intercepting the Cho-ta’an vessels as they approached the gate, the missiles launched as the ships passed. The interceptors rocketed away, just out of reach of the missiles.

  “Those aren’t normal interceptors,” Lee said. “They’re clocking acceleration over four gees.”

/>   “Modified for maximum acceleration,” Huiskamp said. “Must be unmanned.”

  The gate-based missiles, which used conventional chemical thrusters, were capable of acceleration much greater than four gees but only carried enough propellant for short bursts. Within a few minutes, they ran out of fuel and drifted out into space, while the interceptors maneuvered out of their way and then began to decelerate to make their way back to the gate. The dance went on for several hours: the Cho-ta’an ships would approach the gate, lose a few ships to railgun fire, outrun the missiles sent at them, and then turn around and do it again. By the third pass, the gate missile batteries had been depleted. By the fifth, every railgun was empty. The Cho-ta’an had neutralized the gate defenses at a cost of fourteen unmanned interceptors. A hefty price, but far cheaper than building a gate of their own.

  The movements of the ships made it clear that the Cho-ta’an didn’t intend to blockade the gate. The interceptors and three destroyers hung back while the remaining destroyer moved in a slow, spiral pattern around the gate.

  “Now what are they doing?” asked Commander Lee.

  “Dropping mines,” replied Huiskamp. Like the IDL, the Cho-ta’an occasionally used smart mines to guard strategic assets. The IDL had minesweepers to deal with these, but clearing a minefield took time—time the Cho-ta’an were betting the humans didn’t have.

  “They’re freeing up their ships to join the others,” Lee said.

  “I’m afraid so. That’s why the others are advancing more slowly. Giving the first group time to catch up. Which, if they finish dropping their mines over the next twenty hours and then accelerate at a full gee or so for two days, they’ll have no trouble doing. They’ll decelerate to match the velocity of the second group and come at Geneva together.”

  “Can Geneva defenses handle fifty Cho-ta’an ships at once?”

  Huiskamp shook his head. “Forget about Geneva. It’s lost.”