Heart of Steel: Book II of the Jonathan Pavel Series

by J. S. Hawn

  “God told me to...” she seemed to tense up after she said the phrase no doubt expecting ridicule, or Jonathan to smile and nod as he slowly backed away.

  Instead, Jonathan just remained silent his expression blank waiting for the rest of the explanation.

  “Not directly, I’m not crazy or anything,” Hightower said. “It's just with the war brewing I prayed on what I should do and it came to me. I needed to join the military, and help those who were going to put their lives on the line, and if I’m being honest it finally gave me a chance to get out of Hyunia Valley.”

  Hightower slumped in her seat. “I’m 26 years old. I entered the seminary at 20 and spent the last three years as the Deacon of the church in my home town. The Seminary which was fifteen miles away was the farthest I’ve ever been before now, and I don't know if I’ve made any difference. Skipper maybe I ought to resign. Take the first civilian ship from Xifeng back to Solaria and back home.”

  Jonathan looked at her for a minute, then he spoke.

  “You don't drink do you Reverend?” Jonathan asked.

  “Uh no Captain, just wine and beer. Spirits are prohibited.”

  “Right. Well normally I’d suggest a good glass of whiskey, but I think I know another way to cure what ails ya. Follow me.”

  Jonathan took hold of her wrist and pulled her to her feet. He led her down the corridors to an access tube just forward of the main turret.

  “This way, mind your head,” Jonathan said scaling the ladder.

  Hightower followed behind him at a slower pace. They scaled the vertical tunnel till they reached a hatch marked with great red letters which said. Warning Zero G.

  Jonathan opened it.

  “Up we go,” he said climbing past the doorway and floating freely within the empty chamber. Looking behind he could see Hightower at the edge of the ladder her face fearful.

  “Sir I really don't think...” she started to say.

  “What did I say about siring me Reverend. Now come on, it’ll be good for ya.”

  She tentatively let go of the ladder and floated into the darkened chamber.

  “Now what is it your good book said, oh right let there be light.”

  Jonathan flicked a switch and the armoured plating over the domed ceiling above them slowly slid back to reveal the clear hexplate windows looking out to the void beyond. Outside the windows, the other ships in the convoy sat. They were great monoliths against the stars as their nuclear engines flared, the exhaust forming a rainbow of colors. Further beyond, the stars shown too numerous to count. They blazed like candles in the light reflecting the great clouds of gas which marked galaxies and nebulas.

  “Oh..my...” Hightower was almost speechless staring out at it in wonder.

  “Now Reverend I’m what you call a religious person of the non denominational variety. I’ve followed the Stellanauta tenets since I was 16, my brother is a Hindu and my parents were both Catholics. I’ve met men and women of every stripe and creed, but I’ve yet to meet one who didn't feel the awe of all creation when they looked out at it. You are doing great work here Reverend don't doubt yourself. Your pews have been full because men this far from the firmness of solid ground need something to hold on to. They want to reassure themselves that they matter in the vast nothingness just beyond the hull. I can't give you the sun or a cooling breeze, but whenever you're feeling claustrophobic come up here and take a look. Just be careful going down, it's a long drop.”

  Hightower nodded her gaze still fixed outward, her expression one of awe.

  “I’ll leave you to it then Reverend,” Jonathan said heading back to the ladder.

  “Jonathan,” she called after him. “Thank you.”

  Jonathan smiled, “It's what I am here for. Just keep up the good work.”

  As he descended the ladder glancing back, he saw Hightower take hold of the patch on her neck and tear it off letting it float free. Who needed a anti-nausea patch when you had the whole universe unfolding before you. Jonathan resumed his focus on descending down the ladder. It wasn't long before they would be at Xifeng, and Jonathan and his crew would find out what else awaited them. Until then, the Captain's job was to keep honing the crew from a blunt instrument of war into a sleek and deadly weapon. A ship, after all, was only as good as its crew and a crew was only as good as their captain. Jonathan whistled to himself as he headed down the ladder once more.

  Matosa System, In orbit of Xifeng, Solarian Republic

  On board RSNS Triumph, Flag Ship of the 5th Fleet

  November 20th 844 AE

  Jonathan's mood was less chipper as he, William Trendale, and Wu Qin Charon's CO waited outside Triumph’s Combat Information Center. The Colonial war would be a month old in a week, and it was becoming clear that it would have many more anniversaries. The Colonials had not ended their offensive operations. Cylira was now a front line system and Sagus was fully under Colonial occupation. Meanwhile, despite limited success in hunting them down, the Colonial wolf packs had done serious damage to Solaria’s shipping in this region and its infrastructure. Hopper had been madly re-organizing the 5th Fleet, and scuttlebutt was that reinforcements were on their way from the Home Fleet. Until they got here though, the 5th was on its own. Somewhat to Jonathan's annoyance, despite all that was going on, Hopper had found enough time in his busy schedule to summon Jonathan and his colleagues to Triumph. They had been waiting for ten minutes outside CIC as the Admiral finished a meeting. Normally, Jonathan wouldn't have minded waiting except that with them was Commodore Dakota Fong, Hopper’s chief of staff. It was against regulations for an officer to be at ease unless given permission, and Commodore Fong did not seem inclined to stand at ease, which left Jonathan and his two colleagues to stew in a uncomfortable silence.

  Finally the door opened and a group of Navy, Marine and Army officers trooped out, and Fong nodded his head allowing Jonathan and his companions to enter.

  ‘My God’ Jonathan thought, ‘he’s gotten old.’ Hopper was alone in the room sitting in one of the chairs looking at the holo table smoking a fumigin cigar down to the stump. Technically, there was no smoking aboard ship but rank hath its privileges. His hat and jacket were laying next to him, and he looked as if he had aged twenty years from when Jonathan had seen him last. Looking up to see the three officers Hopper rose, cigar still in his mouth, and put on his jacket neglecting to button it. Instead, he came over and saluted all three officers.

  “At ease, gentlemen.”

  Gratefully, Jonathan and his two companions relaxed.

  “I wanted to personally congratulate you on rendering what OMI has now informed us was the Colonial Navy’s Hunter Force-272 combat ineffective, capturing four vessels including the tender and awarding us a wealth of intelligence on Colonial operations in this sector.”

  Hopper puffed on his cigar before continuing,

  “All three of you and your ships are going up for citations, and you Pavel these belong to you.”

  Hopper extended his hand and Jonathan took what he was holding.

  Jonathan's eyes went wide as he looked down at the pair of two closed circle pips of a full Captain of the Solarian Navy.

  “Congratulations Captain Pavel. Now, Lt. Captain Qin you're dismissed. Charon will be joining Destroyer Squadron 7. Commodore Fong will fill you in on the details. Pavel, Trendale I have another job for you,” Hopper said moving to the holo table.

  Qin saluted and briefly shook Jonathan's hand, “It was good working with you Captain congratulations.”

  “Thank you El-Cap, likewise,” Jonathan replied.

  As Qin left, Hopper called up a map of a star system.

  “This is the Tso system. It’s two jumps away and it's currently in a very untenable situation. Tso is rich in helium-3, but short on habitable worlds, so she hosts a civilian population of about one million, and two Naval outposts. Tso Station is the main base and the smaller is Listening Post-785. In recent days, the system has been hit by raids from the Colonials. With
Cylira fallen, the 2nd and 11th Fleet are trying to shore up the border regions, but they are scattered to all hell and gone. The 7th is rushing in reinforcements to us as quick as they can, but they need time to mobilize supply and concentrate. Meanwhile, Colonial wolf packs are running wild and blowing out every com satellite and jump ring they can find. Despite your success and others like it, suppressing these wolf-packs is like playing whack-a-mole. Smash one down and two more pop up. The 2nd and 11th were under strength to begin with, and spread from here to Kelvin the Outbound and beyond. We are throwing scratch wolf pack hunting units together as quick as we can, but casualties and a shortage of yard space is straining our supplies. We need to shorten our lines and holding Tso may not be in the cards. However, that helium-3 is vital to starship fuel, and having such a developed extraction and refining operation this close to the front may prove to be of great strategic value. Your mission is to take Fury and Cronus to reconnoiter the system and determine if it can be defended. If your assessment is that it can not, your orders are to deny the enemy the fuel infrastructure and evacuate Tso station.”

  “Sir, Tso station has close to 7,500 personnel along with an additional 600 on LP-785. How are we supposed to get those people off if we determine the system isn't defensible?” Will asked before Jonathan could.

  “We are sending the Liberty Prime with you. She’s a fast troop ship currently unloaded,” Hopper replied.

  “If you determine evacuation is necessary, she can take off most of the station’s personnel.”

  Jonathan and Will nodded, “Will there be any other ships with us sir?” Jonathan asked.

  “Unfortunately gentleman as our resources are stretched thin, there are no more to spare,” Hopper replied.

  Hopper took his cigar out of his mouth and ground it out in an ashtray.

  “Godspeed gentlemen,” with that he saluted turned and left.

  Jonathan and Will returned the salute and headed back to the shuttle bay.

  “Why do we always get the bs missions?” Will said sullenly as they walked.

  “Because we’re the lucky ones Will,” Jonathan said.

  “I suppose so, congratulations by the way Captain,” Will said.

  “Thanks Will,” Jonathan replied.

  They discussed their mission a bit more before boarding separate gunships to return to their vessels.

  Fury’s retrofit of its reactor would delay their departure, but not by much. They’d be under way within 24 hours. Jonathan ran his finger over the new rank pins on his collar as the gunship vectored toward Fury. Hopper must be counting his lucky stars to have a Horatio class light cruiser and an Olympian destroyer fall into his lap. If they or rather if Jonathan determined Tso was defensible, he could commit more resources to it. Until then though, he was putting out more fires than he had extinguishers for. Rank had its privileges, but the higher you rose the more your responsibility grew. Jonathan would be lying to himself if he didn't admit that a very small piece of him was scared to death of more responsibility.

  Tso System, In orbit of Whyal, Solarian Republic-Colonial Border Region

  On board RSNS Sound of Fury,

  November 28th 844 AE

  Jonathan grimaced at the final report from Lieutenant-Commander Xipeng acting CO of Tso Naval station. Whyal, the potato shaped planetoid on which the naval station and Tso’s main helium-3 mining settlements and refineries were located, had been hit twice by Colonial raiders. LP-785 had already been evacuated and Tso was holding on by its fingernails. Despite being able to hold off two Colonial Wolf packs, Xipeng had noted that while the raiders had withdrawn from Whyal’s proximity to the edge of the system after Tso ODB defenses had proved too strong for them to break, they had not targeted any of the helium-3 infrastructure. This indicated the Colonials were likely waiting for reinforcements in an effort to seize the resources.

  Jonathan looked over to the holo display of Will and Commander Joan Pence CO of the Liberty Prime. They had made a good run from Matosa to Tso. Prime, as a troop transport, had thankfully been designed for speed though she was short on carrying capacity.

  “What do you think Will?” Jonathan asked.

  Will grimaced, “Jonathan I’ll be honest, even if we sent in a full Task Force there's no way we’ll hold this system. The Colonials have recognized how vital it is. They’ll keep committing resources to securing it till one of us runs out of ships and men. We might beat them back eventually, but it will tie us down for months fighting a naval and ground campaign with no habitable world to secure.”

  Jonathan nodded. Habitable worlds were vital in modern warfare. Just being able to station men and supplies on a planet where life support didn't have to be factored into the equation, often meant the difference between defeat and victory.

  “I am of the same opinion Captain,” Commander Pence said. She was a grey haired woman and an old space dog, thirty years of active service and ten more in the reserve. She had been given special commission to skipper the Prime.

  “Right then. I’ll get George and Alicia Kern my Marine CO to start coordinating evacuation. Will start figuring out what we have to smash up to render the helium-3 extraction useless.”

  “If I may sir,” Will said. “There is the elephant in the room, 250,000 civilians most Solarian citizens live on this rock. A lot of them rely on the helium fields for their livelihood. All of them live near refineries. Getting them to smash it up, is going to be a hard sell.”

  “Noted,” Jonathan said. “Let's get the Navy and Marines off world quick as we can. I’ll speak to the Civilian authorities and see what we can do,” Jonathan said.

  As it turned out, the Civil Authorities weren't very cooperative.

  “Blow up the refineries absolutely not!” Commissioner Pun the fat, sweaty balding elected head of Tso civil government cried at Jonathan over the holo display.

  “Mr. Pun as I explained,” Jonathan said.

  Pun wasn't interested though. “The boys at Tso held those Colonial bastards off twice, and now you show up and tell us we have to blow up our refineries and accept occupation by those heathens.”

  “Mr. Pun, as I said, we will try to evacuate as many civilians as possible prioritizing woman and children, but..”

  “Now see here Captain,” Pun interrupted again.

  Jonathan had just about had it.

  “No you see here Mr. Pun! It is my professional military opinion that this colony cannot be held. As such, I will remove as many valuable Navy assets as possible and deny the enemy the use of this system’s helium-3 extraction operations. As Whyal hosts 90% of the systems refinery capacity and 35% of its extraction ability, destroying that infrastructure is the best way to accomplish my mission. I would ask that the patriotic citizens of Whyal do their part for the war effort, and to use their innate knowledge of these facilities to render them inoperable to the enemy. If you refuse, I am going to have to neutralize those installations with a missile barrage. Am I clear?”

  Pun sputtered obviously unsure how to respond.

  “You have one hour to give me your decision Mr. Pun,” Jonathan said severing the link.

  “Making friends I see,” George said coming over to Jonathan as he slumped in his chair.

  “Always, how's the evacuation going?” Jonathan asked.

  George grimaced.

  “More good news I see,” Jonathan said sarcastically.

  “Well, there's good news and bad. The good news is that after stripping everything we could from Prime and triple bunking, we have enough space to accommodate all 7,000 survivors from Tso and about 2,000 women and children from Whyal’s settlements. We also... um... persuaded the fourteen heavy transports and thirty smaller independent merchants to take off as many civilians as they could carry. We had to offer vouchers to cover the transportation costs, and a few of those pirates are still going to charge ridiculous rates. All told, we should be able to get about 40,000 civilians off world.”

  “How are we determining who goes?�
� Jonathan asked.

  “We’ll while you’ve been dealing with Commissioner Pun, I’ve been on the horn with Colonel Joi of the Whyal militia. He’s been working with the staff from Tso to implement Whyal’s emergency protocols. Each citizen has been assigned a priority on the evacuation list,” George said.

  “And the bad news?” Jonathan asked.

  “Evacuation is going alot slower than expected. The Colonials hit the dock yards during the last raid, and that took out about a third of the shuttles and half the mooring posts. So there's a bottleneck in getting people on the transports.”

  Jonathan nodded, “Alright, finish evacuating Tso and then re-task our gunships to help get as many civvies off world as possible.”

  “Sir,” Tai Heath said from his station. “Message from Colonel Joi. Commissioner Pun has resigned due to ill health, and the Whyal Militia has declared martial law and ordered the immediate destruction of all refinery and extraction equipment in the system. He wants you to authorize a writ to reimburse the owners.”

  Jonathan rolled his eyes. Even when war was at their doorstep, people had to keep the solicitors in mind.

  “So ordered, you can inform the Colonel as such,” Jonathan replied.

  Jonathan slumped a bit in his chair as the crew went about their duties around him. This was one of the more challenging parts of command or leadership in general. You had to set your goals, delegate responsibility and then supervise. Supervising sometimes meant doing nothing. Jonathan understood why it didn't pay to micromanage, but still it made him feel a bit helpless.

  “Skipper,” Ben Elman said turning to Jonathan from the tactical console, “Sentry buoy has picked up EM signatures. One Colonial Heavy Cruiser, at least two light cruisers, four to five destroyers or frigates and six to eight transports inbound ETA seven hours.”

  Jonathan sat up, “Thank you Mr. Elman. Please continue to monitor their progress. Mr. Heath inform all the ships. I want civilian ships dusting off in five hours and burning for the nearest wormway. Tell Colonel Joi to start blowing the infrastructure ASAP.”