by Andrew Beery
He turned from the mirror and strolled into his office. His aid, a young female commander named McMillian was straightening the cushions on his couch. His desk he noted had already been cleaned. Each item placed just right. He liked a meticulously organized work space. The commander was sensitive to this need and excelled at keeping his office and staff up to his standards.
“Sir,” Commander McMillian began. “The Grand Senate has sent over their finalized orders. It matches the draft proposal very closely.”
“Excellent,” Imera said with relish. “Please raise the GCP Yorktown and get me Fleet Admiral Kimbridge. It’s time we established a proper chain of command.
Like any good aid, Commander McMillian had anticipated his orders. “I have the Yorktown on standby. A comm-link is coming up now.
A partial view of the Yorktown’s bridge shimmered into view. Admiral Imera stood in front of his massive oak desk. He wanted the crew of the Yorktown to have a clear and unrestricted view of the changes to his uniform. He could see Captain Kirkland seated in his command chair. Behind him was Admiral Kimbridge. Apparently his 3D image was just appearing on their screens. The look of shock on Kirkland’s face was priceless. Imera had to work hard to suppress the urge to smile.
“Ad… Admiral Imera,” Ken said as he stood at attention. Admiral Kimbridge was only a moment behind him in standing.
“As you were,” Admiral Imera said crisply. “Admiral Kimbridge, as I’m sure you are aware our relative ranks and seniority has been a matter of some concern for the Grand Senate. I am now a ‘Senior Fleet Admiral’. I wish to convey the sentiments of the Grand Senate that this action is in no way a reflection on you or your service to the Galactic Coalition. It is simply an acknowledgment in these tumultuous times that I have a better intrinsic understanding of current events and the desires of the Grand Senate in addressing them. I’m sure you understand.”
“Absolutely Sir,” Cat said politely, if a little coldly.
Now Admiral Imera did smile. “Cat, we have a problem at Mardarus III and I’m afraid the Grand Senate feels the need to send a message.”
“And the nature of this problem?” Cat asked.
“Oh nothing you and your taskforce will have any problem dealing with. There is a moon in orbit around one of the primaries called Ciru. It is a major source of readily available Tritium. It is also the site of civil unrest that has recently exploded into civil disobedience and vandalism.” Admiral Imera paused and looked directly at Cat. “Even more disturbing are reports that Pirate factions are aiding the dissidents. This cannot be allowed to continue. The precedence that is being set here could determine the fate of the sector and surrounding sectors for years to come.”
“I understand Admiral,” Cat said. “What are my specific orders?”
“The Senate has invoked a zero-tolerance mandate. You are to eliminate the civilian unrest with extreme prejudice. Your orders are to sterilize Ciru city lunar base and surrounding infrastructure. The BCI will contract with approved vendors to rebuild the mining concern once the current malcontents have been neutralized.”
***
“Why would they issue such an order?” Ben asked himself as much as anyone else when he, Captain Kirkland and a holographic Admiral Melbourne met in Cat’s office onboard the Yorktown a few minutes after the meeting with Senior Fleet Admiral Imera ended.
The holographic image of Admiral Melbourne sighed. “It’s unfortunately completely consistent with the GCP as it has developed over the years. Because the Grand Senate is a permanent appointment there is no need for accountability to the masses. The phrase ‘absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely’ could never be closer to the truth.”
Cat clasped her hands behind her back as she stared out the viewport. “By asking the Yorktown to do this they remove any notion that we will be a force for change. That may, in and of itself, be more damning than anything we may do to the people of Ciru.”
“You’re not seriously considering the wholesale slaughter of innocent civilians,” Ken protested softly.
Cat shook her head. “Of course not,” she answered resolutely. Her eyes took on a faraway look as if recalling something.
“A great theologian by the name of Martin Luther had a patron named Friedrich der Weise – literally, Fredrick the wise… he once said: ‘There are two ways to say no to someone you believe to be stronger than yourself… the first is to say nothing and go on merrily doing what you were doing before… pretend that you never heard… allow time and inertia to be your allies… and the second is to say ‘no’ in such a kind and thoughtful way it befuddles them… if both these fail there is nothing to do but relent … or to fight.’”
Cat looked at the others, “We will say no in as kind and thoughtful a way as possible.” She looked over at Sherry’s holographic imagine. “But understand, in the end, if need be, we will fight.”
Ken stood and faced his friend. “You know we will stand with you. What the Grand Senate is proposing is nothing short of tyranny.”
Cat hit her comm-link. “Bridge, this is the Admiral. Contact the other ships in the taskforce. Tell them to expect new orders shortly. Kimbridge out.”
She turned to face Admiral Melbourne. “Sherry, I’m transferring the balance of the taskforce to your command. The Yorktown will head to the Mardarian system alone. Find Admiral Faragon; revive him and bring him home.”
Chapter 11: Mardarus III
Cat was seated in the Yorktown’s command chair. She, Ken and Commander Ben were each taking an eight hour duty shift. Ostensibly, this was to keep the bridge occupied by their most experienced officers. In reality, it was so they would be the only ones held accountable should the situation between the Yorktown and the Grand Senate deteriorate.
The Yorktown had been on course to the jump-point leading to Mardarian system for the better part of three days. The jump-point was now less than a single AU away. The 150 million kilometers was roughly eight light minutes. The Yorktown’s massive VASIMR sublight drives could bring the ship to 0.6c which meant they were a short fifteen minutes from jumping.
Cat toggled her comm-link and spoke to the ship’s AI.
“Yorky, page the Captain and advise him we are approaching the proximal jump terminus. I’d like him to have the chair when we jump.”
Less than five minutes later Ken entered the bridge. Cat stood up and yielded the command chair. Ken nodded his thanks and immediately started barking orders.
“Helm, bring our heading to port three degrees. Minus Z two thousand kilometers. Engineering, prepare for jump in six minutes. Bring fusion reactors to one hundred and ten percent. Weapons, charge the rail guns and auxiliary storage cells. I want everything on hot standby.”
Ken looked over towards Cat. “What do you think Admiral… a full spread of Peek-a-Boos?”
Cat nodded.
Peek-a-Boos were hyper-jump enabled miniature cloaked probes that were designed to jump into (and then immediately out of) a jump point destination. By launching a full spread of twenty or so widely dispersed probes, none of which remained at the jump site for more than a fraction of a second… a ship could get a good idea of what was within a few light seconds of any given jump destination. Those seconds could prove critical during an enemy engagement.
Ken looked over towards his sensor officer. “Mr. Colson, if you please. Launch twenty Peek-a-Boos on a sixty degree arc from our proposed entry point. Maximum acceleration and dispersion.”
“Aye Captain,” the lieutenant responded. “Probes away accelerating to 0.85C. They should reach the jump point four minutes ahead of us. We should have about that much warning of what’s on the other side.”
A passing ensign held a tray with cups of coffee and tea. He made the rounds of the bridge, stopping first by Admiral Cat. She took a cup and nodded her thanks. It had been a long and uneventful shift. The caffeine would be welcome. She took a sip and placed the cup in a specially designed holder on her chair. Her finger absently traced a circ
le across the rim of the cup. The cups were auto-sealing and only opened when sensors build into the lid detected they were being held near a person’s lips. It seemed strange to be thinking about such things as the ship was getting ready to go into battle but Cat really had very little to do other than watch and be ready to react. Her senior staff had reviewed every ounce of data they had on the situation at Mardarus III and considered every contingency they could conceive of. There was really very little more they could do until the situation began to unfold.
“Peep-a-Boos are beginning to report back,” Lieutenant Colson reported from his sensor station. “Confirmed we have just under a four light second field that is clear… beyond that we just don’t know.”
“Very good Mr. Colson,” Captain Kirkland said. “Begin recovery operations on the probes and prepare to jump when ready.”
“Aye Captain,” several stations acknowledged at the same time.
A few minutes later Ben stood and walked over to the Captain’s chair. “All probes are stowed. Engineering reports collectors are fully charged and the ship is ready to jump on your command.”
Ken swiveled his chair to look at Cat. She nodded.
“Very well Commander. Go to yellow alert and jump us to Mardarus III.”
***
The GCP Yorktown emerged from a hyperfield vortex sixteen AU from the Mardarus primary. Unfortunately, their destination, Mardarus III was on the far side of the star. The safest route to the planet meant a trip of some twenty-five AU. At their current speed that put them some six hours from planetary orbit.
“Mr. Colson, launch a full flight of stealth probes. I want to know what’s out there before they know it themselves.”
“Aye Captain. Probes away.”
“Ben, let the CAG know we may need his birds in the air on short notice. Tell them to keep half the seats warm and the others on quick deploy standby until further notice.”
Ben acknowledged the order and spoke briefly into his comm-link.
Ken was about to pass the con so he could grab a quick breakfast and talk in private with Cat when Lieutenant Zimmerman yelled “Captain!”
“What is it Lieutenant?”
“I’ve got old fashion radio chatter on an FM band. It’s heavily coded. Yorky’s working on decrypting now.”
“Odd,” Cat said. “If the ship’s AI is having to work on decrypting it must be some pretty serious encryption.”
“Sitting on top of a pretty old communication technology,” Ken added.
“Could actually be pretty smart,” Ben said. “Very few people would be monitoring those old frequencies and if they did who knows what they’d make of the heavily encrypted traffic.”
“Good point Commander,” Cat acknowledged. “Ziggy can you get a fix on a location?”
“Not yet Admiral. I think it’s coming from the far side of the sun. I only caught a reflection off the ionosphere of one of the gas giants just coming around the sun.”
“It’s a good bet the signal came from the rebel factions,” Ken said.
“The local authorities would have no need to take such covert measures,” Cat agreed.
“Yorky,” Ken said out loud, “Status of the translation?”
The Yorktown’s AI responded in a crisp voice. “A partial decryption is complete Captain. The signal we intercepted was heavily fragmented.”
“What did the fragment we received say?” Cat asked.
“They are killing us… Thousands… dead… need… already gone.”
***
Lieutenant Commander “Jax” Jackson sat in the seat of his Scorpion class attack fighter. The design was something new that the Yorktown’s fabrication systems had just put into production. The control interfaces were essentially identical to the fighters he had been flying during the Modos Syndicate wars but the performance specs represented three hundred years of refinement. The entire aft compartment was dedicated to an incredibly powerful super capacitor and fusion charging plant. The thrusters were mounted on the exterior and could boost the fighter to almost 0.1c on their own. Of course the Scorpions were designed to operate at a full twenty-five percent of the speed of light. This little trick was possible due to some seriously enhanced inertial compensators and a souped-up linear acceleration launch bay.
At those types of speed, Scorpions were very hard to hit. Special hyperfield emitter nodes encasing the outside of the small craft allowed the fighter to change the direction of its inertial field so that it could literally reverse direction without sacrificing its velocity. The downside was this ability reduced the number of emitter nodes available for shielding. A Scorpion could take a punch or two from another fighter easily enough but anything larger could pose a serious problem. Weapons-wise the Scorpion packed quite a sting. He had access to two wing-mounted plasma turrets that could each swivel in a forty-degree arc. This meant his combat systems could engage two simultaneous targets. In addition the Scorpions could be outfitted with an array of missile ordinance. In addition to the standard Sandie-nanite round, he carried twenty kinetic impact weapons called KIMs and a cloaked tactical nuke.
His comm-link beeped for his attention.
“Jax here,” he said quietly.
“Just making sure you’re still awake,” a soft female voice said. The voice belonged to Lieutenant Commander Madison. She commanded the Blue wing while Jackson commanded the Gold wing. Green and Red where currently on sleep rotation. They were due to cycle in in a little less than an hour.
“This is Madi. You ready for this, Jax?”
“Born ready darl’n,” Jax replied. “When do you think our new CAG will pull the trigger?
“CAM will pull that trigger when the Captain or more likely the Admiral tells him to. Until then you and I have the easiest job in the world,” Madi replied. Their new CAG was the recently promoted Commander Andrew Martinescu. The pilots had taken to calling him CAM because his rank and initials… that and the fact that he had a photographic memory even without an AI link.
Before either could say another word the lights in the launch bay switched from yellow to red. A ship-wide intercom began blaring.
“All hands go to Red Alert… repeat condition is now Red Alert. Hostile forces have de-cloaked and are entering engagement range.”
“Blue and Gold, you are a go for launch!” Commander Martinescu ordered on the fighters command channel. The other wings will be joining you shortly. We have no idea what the opposition is going to bring to the party so keep your eyes and ears on swivels. CAG out.”
Jax toggled his wing channel open. “You heard the CAG. It’s party time boys and girls. Stay with your wing man and let your AIs help with targeting. This is going to be the first time the universe sees what a Scorpion can do in actual combat. Let’s not disappoint! Jax out.”
***
Cat followed the action from her seat on the bridge of the Yorktown. As far as she could tell Ken had the situation well in hand. In response to the partial message Ziggy had intercepted Cat had asked Ken to push the VASIMR sublight drives. Commander Thais in engineering had not been happy but they got and additional five percent out of the engines.
The probes Ken had launched several hours earlier had done their job. The Yorktown now had a fairly complete picture of the situation.
Twenty eight ships orbited the planet designated Mardarus III. The planet itself was a fraction larger than Earth but with much less iron in its core. As a result, the surface gravity was just about nine tenths that of Earth. There were two large land masses that occupied a combined thirty present of the surface area. The rest was a briny salt ocean. The largest moon, called Ciru was in a geostationary orbit around the planet which meant it cast a permanent shadow on the larger of the two continents. Over a dozen smaller moons orbited the planet as well as two much smaller bodies that orbited the largest moon Ciru.
General Hull Dynamics ran a mining operation on Ciru. Because piracy was a growing problem in the sector, the company had converted a number
of the small moons into orbiting weapons platforms. These platforms were part of a three-way fray that had erupted in orbit above the planet. Two poorly defined groups of spaceships were firing on one another with the orbital platforms taking their own shots as they came into range of enemy combatants. In the middle of all of this were several dozen fighter aircraft that seemed to be a hodge-podge mix of technologies from across the GCP.
“It looks like a melee with no one in overall command of either side,” Ben observed dryly.
“I can’t even tell who’s on which side or what the objective is,” Ken added. “Yorky, color code the display. Try to identify defenders and aggressors.”
“Color coding now. Green ships are licensed to General Hull Dynamics,” the Yorktown’s AI responded. Six of the larger more capable ships were now being followed by green triangles on the display. At the same time fourteen of the remaining ships, typically the smallest, were tagged with yellow. The remaining eight ships were tagged red.
“Yorky, explain the color coding difference between the red and yellow designations,” Ken ordered.
The ship’s AI responded in a voice that Cat swore was tinged with regret. “The red designates are not transmitting ident-code and are presumed to be pirate vessels. As far as the others… I am reluctant to designate the yellow combatants as hostiles. Their ident-codes show them to be residents of the Qua’tee province on the planet’s surface.”
Ken leaned forward. “They appear to be fighting the GHD alongside the pirate ships.”
Yorky overlaid a color-coded battle schematic on the screen. It was immediately obvious that while the yellow and red ships were indeed both attacking the green ships; it was also obvious that the two groups were not coordinating their efforts. On several occasions a yellow ship would take damage from a red ship firing at a green target because it wandered into the flight path of a missile meant for other target.
