by Blaze Ward
“Will do,” he said, standing and nodding.
Denis smiled as he left Keller’s office. Time to go hunt pirates.
Ξ
Jessica watched her executive officer depart and realized how tired she felt.
It wasn’t just the daily grind of paperwork. That had become second nature after so many years. It was the people.
Moirrey’s parents were lovely people. They did remind her, in a way, of her own. She could see why Marcelle had suggested she introduce the engineering gnome to her family.
No, it was what had originally started out as a small welcome home dinner for Moirrey and had morphed into an Event, where Jessica had brought a GunShip and a DropShip, plus twenty heavily armed marines.
That was how you crashed a party.
The Kermodes had, in turn, invited all the cousins and neighbors to a massive, spur–of–the–moment potluck that had ended up turning into a dance in the middle of a recently–harvested wheat field, entertained by a random seven–piece band that changed membership every other song.
It had been a rousing success, as parties go.
Gods, but she hated parties.
They just drained the energy out of her, like a fuel cell on full discharge. She had spent nearly an entire day hiding in her office, sending Marcelle for coffee and food occasionally, just so she didn’t have to deal with anyone.
Jessica stretched again, working out kinks in her thighs and butt. Right now, she needed a hot shower to loosen everything thing up, and then maybe forty minutes with the fighting robot.
The damned paperwork could wait.
Ξ
Jessica held both blades loosely and let her muscles flow. In her left hand, she held a long, straight, single–edged sword, what the combatants called a saber. Instead of something more exotic, it was made of simple steel. Tradition. In her right hand was a much shorter blade, also steel, but heavier, and with a reinforced cross–guard instead of the saber’s basket protecting her fingers, the main–gauche.
Valse d’Glaive.
The Sword Dance.
The robot across the mat from her fought as her mirror today. Normally, it was right–handed, since most people were as well. Being left–handed gave her an advantage. But she had learned over the years not to be predictable, a lesson brought home by one of her own pilots during the Long Raid on the Empire last year.
That was what the news media had taking to calling it. The Long Raid. Which was much better than Keller’s Raid, although she suspected that historians would gravitate toward the latter, eventually.
She shrugged and dropped into a fast squat once, bouncing back up to make sure everything was still flexible.
“Fighting Robot activate,” she called across the space. “Challenge Rating Four.”
The bipedal machine came to life. Its swords were the same length as hers, but made of a blunt plastic that would leave welts and bruises. And did.
“Combat Mode initiated,” a soothing woman’s voice replied. “Challenge Rating Four confirmed.”
Jessica’s bodysuit was already beginning to wick sweat from her skin. The deck boots would maintain traction, even if she did sweat too much, although her hair was back and a long piece of cloth had been tied around her forehead to keep everything out of her eyes.
Challenge Rating Four was enough today. On her best days, she could take the machine nine falls in fifteen on Rating Six. Five was when she had slept well and was relaxed. Four was when she had spent two days on her ass, moping and recovering.
She shifted to her right quickly. Humans were mostly right–handed, so to track her was to pivot against the grain of their own body. Today, it brought her closer to the saber.
The robot’s long blade flickered out, almost a kiss as the smaller blade came at her low.
Jessica let thought drain out of her.
Thinking slowed you down when blade dancing.
She rolled with the attack, letting her saber block the other blade, both points towards the floor, and turned an aerial cartwheel over the other sword.
Jessica landed lightly and slashed backwards with the main–gauche at shoulder height.
Her blade thumped loudly off the machine’s chest.
“Contact: Keller. Score 1 to 0,” the woman’s voice announced.
Jessica watched the robot step back and reset.
Yes. This was what she needed. To beat the living hell out of the fighting robot for a while.
It would be a good warm–up.
SARMARSH IV
Chapter X
Date of the Republic September 30, 393 1829 Bharani System
It felt odd having everyone present on her flag bridge, rather than talking to each of the commanders on their own bridges, wired in and displayed on the big hologram projector. It was less efficient this way, but more personal.
Jessica was trying to bring this group to the same level of team functionality she had with her old destroyer squadron, but she had only been with them for a year so far, rather than the three she’d on Brightoak. Still, they were getting close.
Marcelle had outdone herself. There was fresh coffee for everyone, and Chef Aoiki had come very close to replicating Mrs. Kermode’s recipe for chocolate chip cookies. The smell on the flag bridge was amazing. She might yet develop a taste for freshly–baked cookies. There were smiles on all sides, even normally–dour Command Centurion d’Maine of Rajput.
Jessica rapped her coffee mug on the table top to get everyone’s attention.
“I have never sailed this close to the edge of known space,” she began, “and the Gazette is remarkably thin on details about the Sarmarsh system. What does anybody know that might help?”
There were a lot of confused faces and shrugs around the table: Her Flag Centurion Enej Zivkovic; Denis Jež, her second in command; Tamara Strnad, his tactical officer; Command Centurions Alber’ d’Maine from Rajput and Tomas Kigali off of the escort CR–264.
“I have some very old navigation charts,” Kigali finally spoke up, “dating back a couple of centuries. Enough to be able to calculate orbits and such. Nothing new enough to say who lives there.”
“Centuries?” Jež asked incredulously.
Kigali shrugged a second time. “It’s a weird hobby, I admit,” he said, “but I was looking for places to solo a yacht through heavy hazards. Never ended up taking that vacation, but found some of the old notes.”
He called up a file and displayed it over the table.
“Sarmarsh is a young, hot, metal–poor star,” he said, highlighting things as he spoke. “Two small, uninhabitable planets close in. Then an incredibly broad asteroid belt that looks like it would have a been a nice place to live, had it coalesced into a single planet, maybe two. Instead, the belt runs almost out to the orbit of IV.”
Three spots lit up, buried deep in the thick asteroid belt.
“Sarmarsh III turns out to only be one of three dwarf planets tucked in there,” he continued. “The other two, IIIb and IIIc, were found later and named oddly, since IV and V were already in the navigation files.”
An orbital movement ring appeared just beyond the belt, with a single, orangish–red gas giant displayed.
“Nobody has ever bothered to study the place much,” Kigali said, “but the current theory is that the gravity from IV ripped the proto–planet ring at III apart. It is, as you can see, a navigation mess. Nice place for pirates to hide. Hard to root them out. A plethora of small moons orbiting IV, plus one big one, far enough out and large enough that it has its own moon in turn.”
Jessica froze the projection in place and rose. She thought better walking around it, trying to find the best place to arrive.
She stopped opposite Kigali and speared him with a look. “How thick is the belt?”
He smiled back at her. “A belt like this is a psychological hazard, sir,” he said, “rather than a physical one. There is a lot of space between the big rocks, and most of them are moving like a shoal of fish, same g
eneral direction, same speed.”
She raised one eyebrow silently at him.
“Shields up, scanners maxed, small movements. Safe to transit. The challenge in a solo is to spend several days in there, having to plot a course before napping, then not sleeping much for a week.”
She nodded and returned to her chair. The coffee was getting cool. The cookies were long since gone, although their ghosts would stay as long as the air filtration system would let them.
“So landing deeper in and sneaking out wouldn’t work?” she confirmed.
“If they are the least bit awake, they’ll be able to run before we can get clear and give chase,” he agreed.
“On the other hand,” Denis spoke up, “that thing is likely to be a wall in their minds, since nobody would run in there at speed, especially not being chased by us, unless they were extremely desperate.”
Jessica nodded and looked at Auberon’s tactical officer. “Tamara,” she said, “Blue Team/Gold Team exercise. You’re Blue. Alber’, you’re Gold.”
Tamara nodded and spun the projection a quarter. “I’m camped on the big moon,” she said slowly. “With an observation post on the smaller moon orbiting. Call the big one Alpha and the small one Gamma for now. The spotter crews on Gamma are unhappy being separated from what entertainment is available on Alpha. I have to have a taskmaster to keep people on track, but we’re pirates, and we’re safe in our bolthole, so discipline is a little loose and lax.”
She reached out and spun the projection again.
“I agree that the asteroids are a wall, but I’m watching in case somebody tries to sneak up, or drive us into a trap like the Fribourg Empire tried to do to Auberon last year. IV creates a big blind spot, but radiation is too heavy for a satellite to operate indefinitely, and would be expensive, so I rely on Alpha’s orbit to carry me around. I would drop probes out a ways to watch the open–space approaches, but that’s about it.”
Jessica nodded. “Solid, creative. Good pirate thinking. Alber’?”
D'Maine was a dark, serious man. He scowled furiously as he thought. “We hop well short,” he growled. “Clear at the edge of the system so we can watch the orbital mechanics of the IV moons for a bit. Then we hop closer to confirm things, maybe a light–hour out, so we can hear near–real–time comm traffic.”
He slurped at his coffee and squinted. With one hand, he zoomed the projection until the gas giant was a giant marble taking up one whole edge.
Suddenly, he smiled. It was a feral event that seemed to take over his entire body as he started to type.
A set of red arrows appeared inside the projection.
“Depending on where the moons are, and where they are headed,” he said, “one of these vectors should drop us right on the back side of a base on Alpha, just below a fading horizon. Then we sneak up on them. We should have overwhelming firepower.”
“It’s still a base on a planetary surface,” Denis interjected. “That means the possibility of Primaries, and maybe even a Type–IV beam.”
Jessica considered the chances. Primaries were likely, at least a few of them. Would anyone sell pirates a beam–weapon emplacement that big? Probably. It would have been sold to a legitimate buyer as part of a planetary defense array, or stolen while in route. Probably only one, since they were so big and required so much power, but they could force a battleship to keep a respectful distance.
Even the enormous Fleet HQ at Ladaux had only eight of them, protecting the points of an imaginary cube. Regional bases often had only two or three. Still, best to be prepared.
“Alber’,” she said, “can you do the same thing here that you did at Qui–Ping? When IFV Amsel was chasing us?”
He stared at her blankly for a second. “While dropping into low orbit?”
“Forget the orbit at this moment,” she replied. “At full speed blasting through.”
“Absolutely, commander,” he replied with a shark smile. “We practice that maneuver regularly.”
“Perfect,” she said. “Here’s how we’ll handle the approach…”
Chapter XI
Date of the Republic October 3, 393 Sarmarsh IV
“Commander, you’re sure this isn’t a mockup someone made as a training exercise?” her first officer asked with a trace of surprise in his voice.
“No,” Jessica shook her head as the projection sharpened and revealed the base.
Auberon and her squadron had been able to see very little from the edge of the system. Jumping to just under forty light minutes out had helped. They had been able to identify the base and listen to the traffic and the sensors the place was running.
They obviously weren’t expecting trouble, as several scanners were active. Not hostile, but sending pulses out and listening, as if they belonged here.
The last jump had dropped them close enough to fire a probe over the horizon as they closed.
The base was a monster.
Jessica’s sensor centurion, Daniel Giroux, quickly began highlighting gun emplacements, turrets, missile launchers, scanner towers, and an entire flight bay ready to send fighters up to engage them.
“I’ve seen Regional Fleet Bases less well armed,” the projection of Tomas Kigali said from his bridge.
“Somebody’s awake over there,” Giroux said. “We’re being hailed by a representative of the government of Corynthe.”
Giroux paused for a moment as he listened.
“And we’re apparently trespassing, Commander.”
Jessica nodded to herself. This had just gotten much bigger than a simple case of highwaymen.
“Launch the flight wing,” she said.
Ξ
Senior Flight Centurion Milos Pavlovic, callsign Jouster, still lived for that surge of acceleration as his little M–5 Harpoon fighter leapt clear of Auberon’s bow. Across the way, Ainsley Barret, da Vinci, came clear as well, although her P–4 Outrider was a scout and not a knife–fighter. And this would be a knife–fight. But he wanted eyes out here right now. Guns and missiles would come along soon enough.
Jouster took charge as the rest of the Flight Wing launched. A Strike Carrier like Auberon was supposed to have three wings of fighters. On every other vessel in her class, that was nine identical fighters, usually M–5’s or M–6’s. Auberon was special.
Instead of three full wings, she only had two, so six Harpoons. Instead of the third wing, she had two big S–11 Orca–class fighter–bombers and da Vinci in her little scout. They had less dog–fighting capability than an Imperial squadron, which was normally twelve fighters, but far greater overall firepower when the Orcas opened up.
To top all that off, someone, somewhere along the way, had removed the three administrative shuttles that the ship was originally issued and replaced them with a GunShip and a DropShip. Nose–on, the Flight had enough firepower to take on a heavy cruiser.
Today, they lined up in what Jouster called a Scorpion formation. His wing on the left, three fighters stacked up and back like stairs, with his second in command, Southbound, and her two wingmates on the right. In the middle, the GunShip Necromancer, flanked by the two Orcas, with da Vinci over the top keeping watch.
It was finally time to fly. No more briefings. No more simulators. It had been seven months since the last time he had flown into combat, against the Imperial Battleship Amsel at Qui–Ping. He was ready. His team was ready. Even the newbie, fresh out of flight school, was ready.
They had been very lucky during the last campaign. The only casualty had been Gustav Papp, Ironside. Considering what they had done, and the odds, a lesser wing wouldn’t have held up so well. And the new kid, Hànchén, aka Flight Coronet Murali Ma, seemed to be fitting in with Southbound and Bitter Kitten.. Still wet behind the ears, but a serious student of military history. Today, he was very likely to discover military history first hand.
Time to act like a commander.
“Da Vinci, this is Jouster,” he said as the fighters all settled into place, “what’s the
enemy status?”
“Zero encryption, Jouster,” Ainsley Barrett, da Vinci, replied quickly, “but some seriously strange code words going back and forth. And not nearly enough panic in their voices to suit me.”
“Roger that,” he said.
Pirates were always expecting the law to show up. When it did, they would fight like cornered rats. It was his job to be the weasel. Behind and above him, the hunters.
“Flag, this is Jouster,” he said, keying the message to Commander Keller and her staff. “Flight wing is ready to make our run.”
“Confirmed, Jouster,” he heard Keller reply immediately. “Assume we did not surprise them as much as we hope and that they will start shooting as soon as you come over the horizon. Stand by to redline your engines for the final approach. Missile impact is set to time–on–target in thirty seconds.”
Milos smiled. Standard Republic tactics called for them to come in low on the horizon, fast, but slow enough to maneuver. Bad guys over there would be ready to fire as soon they came into sight, guided by passive scanners using directed beam communication to relay telemetry data.
Right now, two stealth missiles were sneaking in ahead of the wing. One was aimed right at a big cluster of towers on Gamma’s moon. Another had been fired blind at the back–side of Alpha, set to home in on anything broadcasting. Since there were no friendlies and no civilians around here, any loud signal was probably another sensor base, trying to hide.
“Flight wing, this is Jouster,” he said as the countdown clock reached fifteen seconds. “Redline everything now. Go go go!”
He put words to deeds and slammed the throttle forward to the last stop. The surge of power drove him backwards into the seat in an embrace he found almost carnal. Over there, everything should be blue–shifting something fierce as they picked up his jump in speed.
And then, the surprise.
Da Vinci had the best sensors, and was relaying her boards to everyone else on a tight beam. The back side of Alpha and the base on Gamma both lit up within a second of each other as Auberon’s two stealth missiles, launched during the noisy chaos of the wing coming out, impacted.
