-Thomas Anderson. An Unbiased Look at the UNPF. Baen Historical Press, 2500.
Problems, I had come to realise, only happened when I was off the bridge. Captain Harriman had probably felt the same way. They found me in my cabin, or inspecting part of the ship, or even in the head. I was never on the bridge when something went badly wrong, but I was always in touch through my terminal. I could reach the bridge very quickly if I was needed.
“Report,” I snapped, as I strode onto the bridge. The crew didn’t turn to salute me as I entered, something that proved that the situation was serious. “Number One, what’s happening?”
“System Command has declared a Code Red One alert,” Muna said, from the tactical console. I felt my face freeze for a second. Code Red One meant a direct attack on Earth itself, nothing less. I couldn’t believe it. Who would dare to attack Earth? I remembered what we’d done at Heinlein and shivered. I knew one answer to that question. “I have placed the ship on alert in response.”
“Confirmed,” I said. It was good thinking, even though I knew that there were Captains who would have been horrified at any display of initiative by their crews. I’d learned better from a master teacher. “Status report?”
“The ship is at battle stations and at your command,” Muna said. “System Command has not yet updated their original warning.”
I scowled. The defenders of the planet would receive a direct download from EarthStar One, the coordinating entity, instead of using their own systems. Years ago, that had made sense, but now, with advances in technology, it was useless. I keyed my access code into my console and brought up what little we had. Gravimetric sensors had detected wormholes opening close to the planet, dangerously close, but nothing had apparently emerged. That didn’t bode well.
“Engineering, this is the Captain,” I said. “Power up the drive and prepare for combat operations. Pilot, seal the link to Orbit Nine and prepare to cast off.”
“Yes, sir,” the Pilot said. Two of the Ensigns had been running drills when the alarm sounded and they now stood by his console, unsure of what to do. I knew just how they felt. I felt the same way too. “Airlock release in twenty seconds.”
I scowled inwardly. That wasn't fast enough. If the enemy had planned to take out Orbit Nine, they might well have taken us out as well…and that would have been a disaster. If, of course, there actually was an enemy out there. System Command could be jumping at shadows, or perhaps it was all a drill. I hadn’t known System Command to be imaginative enough to run drills, but perhaps some new officer had been promoted into a position of power and…no, I’d have heard of that. The sensors might well be having flights of fancy.
“Take us to one hundred kilometres separation as soon as the airlock is clear,” I ordered, tightly. That would be far away enough to use our weapons without fear of accidentally harming Orbit Nine. We needed those stations, desperately. It didn’t help that the UN had accidentally stranded thousands of involuntary colonists in the upper levels of the orbital towers and the orbiting asteroids because the transporting situation had become dire. I’d heard rumours of riots and Marines being sent in to crack heads, but nothing concrete. “Tactical?”
“Nothing new across the board,” Muna said. “I’m picking up no trace of hostile activity.”
I brooded as the Pilot took us away from Orbit Nine. Could it be a trap intended to catch us? It was possible, yet why would they put us on alert? I could open a wormhole and escape now, along with half the starships orbiting Earth, if I decided to move. We might even be able to launch our coup and succeed, even now. I looked at the firepower orbiting Earth, the twenty-seven starships and hundreds of orbital installations, and frowned again. No one in their right mind would want to challenge those defences, surely?
That's not very bright, I reproved myself, irritated. You’re planning to challenge those defences, idiot.
I looked back at the iron representing EarthStar One, surrounded by enough smaller icons to make up a galaxy, and wondered just what was going on over there. The alert had sounded, and yet no one was issuing further orders, or even telling us to stand down and relax. The Admirals were probably arguing over what was going on and wondering if it was nothing, but a glitch in the scanners. Someone was probably going to get the blame…
“Wormholes,” Muna snapped. “Multiple wormholes!”
The display flickered to life as three wormholes opened on the other side of the planet. We couldn’t pick them up directly, but we could see them through the live feed from the orbital defences. Three Heinlein Resistance starships flew out of the wormholes, drive fields already powering up, and drove down towards the planet. I watched in dismay, nothing their acceleration rates – faster than anything UN starships could pull – before orders finally started to come in from System Command. We were to remain where we were, on patrol. Other starships would have the honour of engaging the intruders.
“My God,” the Pilot said, from his console. “I want one of them.”
I couldn’t disagree with him. Starship acceleration rates decrease sharply as the mass of the starship rises. The battleships the UN had wasted time and money building moved like wallowing hogs…and Devastator and her sisters weren't much better. The nimble cruisers were still the mainstays of the fleet, and yet the Heinlein starships seemed to have them effortlessly outclassed. If I hadn’t read the reports carefully, and recognised the weaknesses inherent in their designs, I would have known that nemesis was looming.
“Hold position,” I ordered. The enemy were racing right into the teeth of our defences. I doubted that they would be doing something so stupid unless they had a plan of some kind. The Heinlein Resistance wasn’t composed of fanatics from New Kabul or Living God. They wouldn’t throw their lives away for nothing. “Keep a close eye on them and…”
I smiled inwardly as starships moved to intercept, only to be greeted with a spread of missiles from each of the interlopers. The starships twisted, spun effortlessly in space, and launched a second salvo, just before opening fresh wormholes and vanishing into them. I listened to the communications between the UN starships as they struggled to take out as many of the incoming missiles as possible, discovering for themselves how devious the Heinlein weapons-makers were. Some of the missiles had standard nuclear warheads, others had multiple missiles concealed inside the mother missile and several had specialist warheads. A bomb-pumped laser warhead gave several UN cruisers a hard time. Two more detonated near an orbital weapons platform and wiped it out of existence.
“They’re going to be back,” I said, when Muna glanced at me. I was sure of it. They wouldn’t have caused so much trouble for nothing. All they had to do was wormhole in, launch a few missiles, and vanish again, tying Earth’s defenders up in knots. They’d get away with it too. As long as they used a certain amount of caution, they’d be bound to avoid being targeted and killed. “Set our lasers on proximity trigger and power up the jump drive. Engineering?”
The Engineer sounded grim when he answered. “Yes, sir?”
“Keep the Jump Drive at maximum readiness,” I said, shortly. He argued, of course. Keeping the Jump Drive powered up like that would place a serious amount of wear and tear on the components, perhaps even risking a burnout. It might even have been what the Heinlein Resistance hoped to achieve. If they knew that their compatriots had been sabotaging our starships, they might intend to force us to burn out the components and lost starships to the yards. Could they coordinate their plans like that?
I shook my head. It didn’t seem possible. “Three new targets,” Muna said, into the silence. “Three new starships, coming in directly towards Orbit One!”
“They’re probably not new starships,” I said. The UN had been reporting that the Heinlein Resistance either had no starships or hundreds of starships, but I knew it wasn't the former and if it had been the latter, the UN Invasion Force would never have reached Heinlein alive. They’d have been dictating terms to us, not the other way around. “Ten g
ets you twenty they’re the same starships with slightly altered drive patterns.”
Muna scowled down at her console. “No bet,” she said, finally. “They’re firing!”
The next hour brought us all to the verge of collapse. The attack seemed endless; they jumped in, fired off a few salvos of missiles, and jumped out again. Only a couple of starships were damaged – a dozen gunboats were destroyed – but the crews were rapidly reaching the end of their endurance. If it hadn’t been for Captain Harriman’s – and mine – insistence on endless drills, we’d have been in the same boat. As it was, we were stretched to the limit. The attacks seemed largely pointless to the Admirals – I could hear some of their chatter over the communications network – but I could see the point, all right. They intended to wear us all down and then launch their final blow.
I keyed my intercom tiredly. “Chef, have coffee served to the men on duty, including the bridge,” I ordered. Captain Harriman had banned food and drink from his bridge, except on Last Night, but I knew there was little choice. I felt tired and drained and knew that the rest of the crew probably felt the same way too. “Make up several pots of your extra-strong coffee and have it served up here.”
My gaze swept to the Ensigns. “You two go help him,” I ordered. They looked relieved to have something to do, even if it were something simple. I had a mad impulse to put one of them on the helm and the other on tactical, but pushed it back down into my mind. They weren't ready for that, with the possible exception of Sally. Hell, she’d have been perfect, if she had Lieutenant’s rank. “Tell the remaining Ensigns to assist as well.”
They left the bridge without looking back, much to my mild surprise. When I’d been an Ensign, I had been involved in battles, but that had been a happier, more innocent time. The young officers who’d come onto my starship after I assumed command might be the last Ensigns to graduate, even if my plan didn’t work. How long could the UN maintain this kind of military effort?
“Coffee?” Muna asked, very quietly. “Do you really want hot drink on the bridge?”
I looked at her. Her black skin was shining with sweat. “I don’t think we have a choice,” I said, grimly. I envied, just for a moment, the Marines. They didn’t have to worry about battles in space. They could continue to study the plans of EarthStar One in peace. “We’re not in a good state here.”
“Neither are they,” Muna said. I watched as another missile burst open to reveal a shower of smaller missiles, which raced towards their target. “They might be in just as bad a state as we are…”
She broke off as the hatch opened and the Chef entered with a small tray of coffee in spacer’s mugs. I’d hated them when I’d first seen them – they reassembled nothing more than baby beakers – but I could see the value now. If we dropped them on the deck, they wouldn’t break and splash hot coffee everywhere. I imagined that that would be quite a distraction for my crew.
“Here you are, sir,” he said, passing me a beaker. I took it with great dignity and waited until everyone else had one before taking the first sip. It was hot enough to burn my tongue and foul enough to be used to power the starship, but it shocked me awake. Spacer’s Coffee is renowned for being the worst in the universe, which didn’t stop it from becoming the favourite drink on starships. “I’ll brew up more as soon as I return to the gallery.”
“Good,” I said, warmly. I placed the beaker down and turned back to the display. “Pilot…”
“Wormhole,” Muna snapped. “They’re coming in much closer.”
I swore. They were coming in far too close. “Fire if you get a lock,” I snapped. “Pilot, take us on a pursuit course.”
The display updated rapidly, but I was already far ahead of it. If we were lucky, we’d get a solid chance to hit them…and we had to take it. They weren't coming right at us, but if they actually wanted to hit anything, they’d have to pass through our field of fire. My own best guess was that they would open up a wormhole and vanish as soon as they saw us, but we’d at least have a chance of hitting them…
“They’re evading,” the Pilot said.
“And firing,” Muna added. I tensed, expecting to come under attack, but the display told a different story. “They’re firing on EarthStar One!”
Impossible, I thought. Could we be that lucky?
The answer was no, it seemed. The missiles were faster than UN-standard missiles, but not as fast as the simulated missiles we practiced against in the exercise drills, and it seemed that EarthStar One’s defenders had kept up with their own drills. The missiles were swatted out of space before they even got close enough to try for a proximity kill. The Heinlein starship twisted, threw a salvo of missiles at us, and then vanished back into the wormhole.
“Pilot, jump us out of here,” I snapped. The missiles were far too close to hope that the point defence could take them out. A moment later, we fell into our own wormhole. This time, the trip took seconds. “Report!”
“We’ve evaded the missiles,” Muna said, calmly. I felt her presence steadying me and wished, absurdly, that I knew her better. We’d lived together as Cadets and Ensigns, yet I felt I didn’t know her at all. “They’re trying to find new targets before they burn out, but unless they have some completely new drive system it’s unlikely they’ll find anything.”
She broke off, and then snarled a curse in a language I didn’t recognise. “Captain,” she said, “you’d better take a look at this.”
I looked. It was the live feed from the orbital defences. “Shit,” I hissed. “What happened?”
“They hit Asteroid One,” Muna said. “The death toll…”
She broke off. Asteroid One was more than just another asteroid; it was living history. It had been the first asteroid to be moved back to Earth orbit and mined for raw materials, before it had been mined out and converted into the first asteroid colony, high over Earth. It had been the playground of the rich and famous for years before the UN took it over and turned it into residences for people too important to live down on Earth among the scrum. Now…
I breathed another curse under my breath. Asteroid One had been settled before the UN had instigated rigorous safety checks – not that anything had gone wrong, at least for over three hundred years – and it hadn’t been designed to take nuclear hits at close range. The bombs had broken through the rock and atmosphere was streaming out, which would have been bad enough, but the spin was now tearing the asteroid apart. As the damage mounted up, the situation only became worse; the asteroid was shattering in slow motion. I made a silent bet with myself that it wouldn’t be more than an hour before it shattered completely…and I was damn sure that everyone onboard was dead.
“They’re gone,” Muna said, finally. “They did what they came to do.”
I kept the ship at red alert for another hour, but there were no more attacks and I breathed a sigh of relief. The Heinlein Resistance were making a point of their own, one that fitted in with their nature. They'd gone after some of the UN’s leaders and killed them. I wondered if we could use the chaos to aid our own operations. We’d have to move as soon as possible…
“Leave it until Wednesday,” the Senior Chief advised, when I met with him and the Master Sergeant in the evening. I didn’t know if I could wait two days, but they were right. We had to make the final preparations now. “That will give them time to get the power struggle underway. None of the big bosses will be watching what’s happening in orbit until it’s too late.”
I hoped he was right, but I sent the messages anyway. If the UN Security Division knew what was afoot, they’d have time to act, but we’d be ready. Two days…a lot could happen in two days, even with all our planning. If we failed to take EarthStar One quickly, we were going to have to abandon the second part of the plan. I just wished I knew if they knew…
Two days, I reminded myself, thinking of Kitty. Two days…
“I shouldn’t worry too much,” the Master Sergeant added. He started to speak in rhyme. “He either fears
his fate too much, or his deserts are small, that puts it not unto the touch, to win or lose it all.”
I shrugged. I was betting everything.
But then, so was he.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
EarthStar One was originally designed by the United Nations in the wake of the creation of a truly global military force. The original logic was that if the headquarters of that force were in orbit, it would be immune to pressure from the national armed forces or even political influence. This feeling was so strong that everything related to Earth’s defence was relayed through the station. Even when the UN disbanded the remaining national forces, the policy was not changed. The UN’s inertia kept it firmly in place.
Martial Law 1: Patriotic Treason Page 36
