Starcruiser Polaris: Nothing Left To Lose

by Richard Tongue

   Morgan walked up, and said, “We're not getting much information down here. Just what we get from the official channels, but reading between the lines, Polaris is the flagship of a revolt.”

   “Only ship would be more accurate, especially now,” Kani replied, leading the way down the corridor, Voronova still looking nervously at Morgan. “Though we've certainly got ambitions.” He walked back into the cramped room, the freighter crewmen and his fighter pilots stirring as they approached, and said, “I think we can start the briefing now. This is Major Morgan, commander of the local irregular forces, and Doctor Ransom, latterly of Sinaloa Station.”

   “They're cleared for this?” Jones asked, a frown on her face.

   “Why not?” Kani replied, perching precariously on a crate. “Normally, I'd have a holoprojector on hand for this, but internal power seems to be out at the moment. Nevertheless, given that our equipment is intact, we can start our preparations for Phase Three.”

   “Phase Three?” Ransom asked.

   “Commander Curtis has been working on a somewhat...involved battle plan for the last few weeks. He took me into his confidence a few days ago, before this part of our mission started. Phase One was the capture of Montevideo, both as a decoy raid to make it appear as though Polaris planned to concentrate on commerce raiding for a while, and to allow us to hammer our way through the defenses right here at Sinaloa.”

   “Won't that have tipped our hand?” Voronova asked.

   Looking around the room, he said, “That's the idea.”

   “What?” Nguyen asked.

   “Sooner or later, we're going to come up against serious opposition from the Federation.” He glanced at his watch, and said, “We know that a Starcruiser has been sent to hunt Polaris down. The Commander's goal is two-fold. First, to capture Sinaloa Station and turn it into a secure base for the resistance...”

   “That's more like it,” a beaming Morgan said.

   “And second, to destroy that Starcruiser. By drawing it into battle at a time and place of our choosing. Which is where we come in.” Looking around the room, he continued, “In a little under nine hours, Polaris will jump into the system and launch her assault. They'll be up against a fighter squadron, but without any other distractions, it should be a fairly even fight. Strike teams will board the station and seize control of the defense network, suborning it and bringing it under our control. With a little help from Saxon.”

   “Saxon?” Morgan interrupted, his face turning into a scowl. “She's the one who exiled us to the surface.”

   “And she's working with the underground, Major,” Kani replied. “Commander Curtis trusts her, and I trust him. That's going to have to do. Suffice that we're clear all the way to that part of the operation.” A smile spread on the pilot's face, and he continued, “Once Polaris is in position and the defense network is secured, we anticipate that Canopus will arrive in relatively short order.” Pulling out a datapad, he added, “Before we landed, I received a final tactical update. Polaris completed a hit-and-run decoy raid on a nearby system, intending to learn just what we were up against. One Starcruiser, thirty-six fighters.”

   “We've got seven.” Nguyen replied. “Those crates. Booster stages?”

   “For the fighters and for the shuttle,” Kani answered with a nod. “Our next job is to fit them. That's the other reason we needed to ride this beast down to the ground. They aren't going to come and investigate until the storm we created passes, and by that time, Polaris will be in orbit. When Canopus arrives, we're going to be the nice little surprise. While Curtis draws away the enemy fighters, we can launch a strike on the capital ship itself. End game, people. Not only do we secure Sinaloa Station, but we take down an enemy cruiser at the same time.”

   Voronova whistled, and said, “If we pull this off...”

   “If being the right word for it,” Nguyen replied. “I can think of a couple of thousand ways this can go very, very wrong, Win. Most of which end up with our deaths.”

   “Not necessarily,” Kani said. “If Polaris arrives at Sinaloa and the enemy forces are greater than expected, we launch anyway on a long, hard burn to intercept our ship and leave the system. Not a certainty, but we do have abort options if we need them. Certainly Polaris can get clear if it has to, and in the event we were stranded here, I'm sure Major Morgan could find a use for twelve trained spacers.”

   “Probably, but I'd rather get my boots onto Sinaloa Station's deck,” he replied. “How many can you fit on that shuttle.”

   “If they're very friendly,” Hammond replied, “and aren't wearing suits or carrying much gear, I think we can squeeze thirty on board. We kept the biggest personnel shuttle we had, and it was already atmospheric-capable. Not a problem.” She frowned, then said, “Though I wouldn't like our chances of getting through the defensive perimeter.”

   “Leave that to your fighter escort,” Kani said, looking around the room again. “I'm sure that Polaris will be more than happy with the idea of throwing an additional thirty men into the assault, especially if Canopus manages to get any its strike teams across.” He paused, then added, “This is a gamble, and I think everyone involved is well aware of that. We're taking a pretty big risk, but the potential payout is huge.”

   Nodding, Morgan replied, “I can see that. If we can make some sort of really major victory, it'll inspire resistance fighters all across the Federation. We could have uprisings launching everywhere, and that will give us much more freedom of action.” Rubbing his chin, he said, “I've been stuck down here for three years. I never thought I'd even get onto a spaceship again. Most of the settlements on the surface are exile camps.”

   “That isn't in the official records,” a suspicious Voronova said.

   “Lots of things aren't in the records,” Montgomery replied. “I remember hearing something about this, a few years ago. We occasionally got signals from the surface, scrambled messages we could never decode. The Captain told us to ignore it.” Grimacing as he recalled his erstwhile commander's treachery, he added, “I can understand why, now.”

   “Eight and a half hours,” Kani said. “It'll take us most of that time to fit and test the booster stages. Major, I presume I can count on you and your men to provide us with a little bit of help?”

   “Certainly,” Morgan said. “I'll have them assemble their kit and report on board in an hour.”

   “Keep it light,” Hammond warned. “We're going to be flying like a brick as it is with that much mass on board. And I'll have to calculate the fuel precisely. It's a one way hop.”

   “All of my people know the risk, Captain, and all of them are volunteers,” Morgan replied. “I can assure you that they will do their job.”

   “I hope so,” she replied, nervously. “We're taking a big gamble, here.”

   “We all know what we have to do. Voronova, Monty, go aft and start unshipping the boosters. Hammond, you and your technical team can assist. Mel, you and the others head down to the fighters and get them all booted up and ready. We're going to have to input all the atmospheric data we can gather in the time we have.” As a thunderclap echoed overhead, he added, “It's going to be a rough enough ride as it is. Dismissed.”

   As the crew filed out of the room, Kani looked up through the cracks in the ceiling, watching the clouds rolling overhead, rain washing down in endless torrents, a constant drip onto the deck below. He'd read about rain in books, but this was the first time he'd ever experienced it for himself. His life had been spent moving from one artificial environment to the next, stations, colony domes and spaceships, the only greenery that of the hydroponic tanks or the small, aging parks at the heart of the older settlements, struggling vegetation fighting for its life in alien soil.

   This was an alien world. The atmosphere mix was wrong, a respirator required for him to take more than a single breath, but still it felt more like home than anywhere he had ever been. Even Khiva Station
, the city in the clouds that served as the capital of the Commonwealth in exile, had nothing to match this place. Endless, rolling oceans, broken only by desperate rocks jutting out of the water, fighting to remain above the surface, erosion raging a constant battle to diminish and destroy them.

   Somehow, it seemed an appropriate metaphor. Up above, in a matter of hours, a battle would be raging overhead. Another storm, one that might yet sweep away the Federation. Bring an end to decades of undeclared war, to the tyranny that had overwhelmed human space for so long. It seemed strange to consider that a world like this, a lost blue ball in the middle of nowhere, inhabited only by an assortment of fugitives and political prisoners, could be the place where history was made. And odder still, perhaps, that he was the one who would make it.

  Chapter 15

   Mike always liked to walk the lower decks of his ship before a battle. There was no better way to determine the mood of a crew, the true readiness of a vessel, than to make a personal inspection of the little-visited areas, those where commanding officers rarely went. He'd spent his entire adult life on ships like this, on the now-destroyed Borealis as a raw Midshipman, a long tour as a Lieutenant on Arcturus, second-in-command of Antares, and now here, on Canopus, as her commanding officer.

   Somehow, he'd never quite expected to make it this far. His career hadn't been pointing in that direction as it should. Most ambitious officers did everything they could to stay close to home, greedily taking assignments on Earth, or close to it, anxious to get the attention of the political creatures who controlled the bulk of the appointments. He'd chosen a different, now somewhat unusual path. He'd simple concentrated on doing a good job, completing the mission, and building himself a reputation as a combat officer.

   That road had taken him out to the rim, tours of duty on the frontier with the Commonwealth, dueling with their ships on the rare occasions that they had passed into Federation space. Out to the Halo Stars on a long tour on Arcturus, visiting some systems that had never seen the banner of the Federation. He smiled at the thought of it. The lure of the unknown was powerful, one of the forces that had dragged him into the fleet to begin with.

   Growing up, at home, he'd read stories of the great expeditions of the 22nd century, mighty fleets that had pushed out the frontier, spending years or decades away from Earth, exploring dozens of systems at a time. The legendary Admiral Clarke, who had commanded ten ships that reached far Beta Centauri, four hundred light-years distant. Five thousand men had set out on that expedition. Three hundred had staggered back on a single, crippled scout, but they'd completed their mission. They'd accomplished what they had set out to do.

   He turned a corner, looking at the posters emblazoned on the wall, fresh and new from their last trip to spacedock. One alerting passers-by that dangers were all around them, that traitors walked in their midst and that they must be watched for, reported to the proper authorities. Another simply screaming 'Federation First', over an outstretched fist.

   That was new. Propaganda posters. Slogans painted over doors, meant to inspire the crew. All they inspired within him was dread. Twenty years far from home, on ships that still felt the way the Federation Fleet once did. During the time of his father. He'd heard stories about what happened in the core worlds, but he'd never believed them, considered them exaggerations, wild rumors.

   And two days ago, a pair of criminals were shot dead in a cell because a senior officer wanted to prove a point. No pretense at a fair trial or even the vestige of due process. They were simply murdered. No matter that he hadn't given the order, that he would have stopped it if he could, he still felt responsible for what had happened. The ship had been under his command, and that made it his responsibility. Two more lives on his conscience.

   He'd seen men die before. Had even ordered them to their deaths, during the Battle of Delta Pavonis, four years before, a rogue Commonwealth auxiliary cruiser that had crossed the border, ready to cut a bloody swath through the Federation mining installations of that system. Arcturus, freshly-returned from her cruise, had managed to stop them, but at the cost of the life of her top three officers, killed when the bridge was destroyed, leaving Lieutenant Michael Curtis to save the day. The battle had made his reputation, and given him enough nightmares to last him for the rest of his life.

   He'd seen men die. But always in battle, men who had chosen to give up their lives for their people, or criminals with guns in hand, attempting to kill the people he had sworn his life to defend. Now the blood was on his hands. He was the one who had murdered. And he couldn't quite get past how easy it had been for the Commodore to give that order, and how readily Admiral Yoshida accepted it. As though this was the new norm, the expected rule, brutality as a matter of course rather than an abhorrent last resort.

   Turning another corner, he saw a pair of technicians sitting on the ground, tucked in under one of the auxiliary heat exchangers, a place they could have assumed they could loiter undisturbed. In between them was an unmarked bottle of green liquid, a trio of plastic cups scattered around. Something from one of the ship's stills, a little illicit liquor to provide extra courage before a battle. He coughed, and the two men jumped to their feet, one of them knocking the bottle to its side, spilling its foul-smelling contents onto the desk. They looked at him, wide-eyed, and Mike frowned, surprised at their reaction. Both of them had the red flashes of five-year veterans on their sleeves, one of them a combat stripe. These weren't rookies on their first tour.

   “Clean up that mess,” he said, “on the double.” He reached into his pocket, pulling out a vial of pills and tossed it to the nearest of them. “Take those. Special design. You'll sober up in a hurry but the hangover will be ten times worse than it should be. I'll be watching both of you very closely, and if I so much as smell something odd on your breath, the two of you will be walking home. Is that understood?”

   “Yes, sir,” the said, both in unison.

   “Then snap to it.”

   He turned from them leaving them to conceal the evidence. That encounter hadn't gone at all as he'd expected. Those men hadn't been embarrassed or ashamed of being caught. They were terrified. Scared to death. Technically, they were committing an offense, but off duty, the worst punishment on the books was a fine, perhaps the loss of seniority if they were particularly egregious about it. And ship-side, drunken behavior was common enough these days that most commanders turned a blind eye, so long as everyone was sober when they reported to their posts. Most of the medical staff had a thriving trade in wake-up pills, passed quietly to those in need, usually at the expense of a considerable fraction of the drunkard's pay.

   Frowning, he turned to the elevator, walking down the long corridor that would lead him back to the bridge. Something else that had changed since his father's day. Crewmen terrified of their commander, obeying through fear rather than respect? That bred nothing but slavish obedience at best, would discourage the grit and determination that had beaten back the Commonwealth during the Revolution.

   Stopping for a moment in the corridor, he turned to look at his reflection in a viewscreen. When had it happened? When had he started to accept that this was the norm, decide that he had to tolerate it rather than make an attempt to change it? A good portion of his crew would probably only be fit for duty because of chemical aids. That shouldn't be acceptable behavior, not for a warship. Not for a garbage scow. A part of him was tempted to turn back to the crewmen, question them further, try and find out who was supplying their liquor, but he stopped himself, turning instead back to the elevator, knowing it could do no good.

   It wasn't a question of one crewman, or even one ship. There was something fundamentally wrong with the system. He caught himself wondering whether his father had the same problem on Polaris, and came quickly to the conclusion that he didn't. His crew were volunteers, whereas Mike was lumbered with a shipload of draftees, many assigned because they didn't fit in back on Earth, some administrator decid
ing they needed military discipline to straighten them out. Not that they could realistically provide it, not any more. Those days were ebbing, drowned under a tide of political appointments and bureaucratic corruption.

   Maybe there was something he could do about it. If Petrova was telling the truth, that there were still people in the hierarchy willing to make the attempt, to try and undo the damage that had been done. Assuming that it wasn't too late. He stepped into the waiting elevator, tapping controls for his quarters, glancing up at the chronometer on the wall. Less than an hour before his squadron arrived at Sinaloa Station. Plenty of time for him to change his uniform, get himself prepared for battle.

   For a battle in which, all being well, he would kill his father.

   He understood why Yoshida had pushed him into this position. Any other course of action would have meant the immediate end of his career, possibly even his life, and that was perhaps one more sign of the deteriorating state of the Federation. That an officer who had dedicated his life to his duty could be threatened with arrest because he had the wrong last name was a disgrace. Even if he was a little biased in this particular case. He remembered old friends from the past, some that had transferred to the Core, sometimes never heard from again. Had they simply dropped out of touch, or were they now languishing in a prison camp? Or resting beneath the soils of some alien world, lost and forgotten?

   The doors slid open, and he walked quietly down the corridor, lost in thought. He looked down at his uniform jacket again, the decorations neatly under his name badge, awards for battles fought across this part of the galaxy. That few of them were the meaningless awards given for political maneuvering was a matter of pride to him. Many officers of his rank could boast more medals, but few of them had any real meaning. One thing more that had gone missing.

   Up ahead, he heard a voice whispering, “No.” He paused, moving to the wall, peering into the gloom. Petrova and Schmidt were standing outside the latter's cabin, engaged in what looked to be a serious argument, both of them red-faced, Petrova waving an arm in the air to emphasize some point. He couldn't quite hear what they had to say, and when Schmidt looked to the side, seeing him standing in the corridor, he lost his chance. Before she could launch into an attack, he made the first move, striding towards the two of them with all the decorum he could muster.