Second Fleet, the final reserve force, had been saddled with the rejected light vessels, which were being refitted as quickly as the shipyards on Earth and Wolf 1061 could do the work. Hopefully those jury-rigged warships wouldn’t be needed at all. Of course, if Second Fleet deployed, that would meant Seventh had fallen and Kerensky wouldn’t be around to see how well his successors would do.
The unglamorous but indispensable support and supply ships, fifty-four in number, rounded up Seventh Fleet’s number to one hundred and ninety-four vessels of all classes. Over a third of a million Spacers and Marines would sail and fight those ships. Win or lose, many of those men and women would not come back from this cruise. It was Kerensky’s job to make sure their sacrifice mattered.
He watched his forces as the Odin flew by, clustered together in a tight review formation, where distances could be measured in meters rather than thousands of kilometers. During actual operations, the fleet would spread out over a radius of half a light second or more, arranged into a vertical ‘wall of battle.’ Space warfare was waged over vast distances, made possible only through technological aids that shrunk everything into images and diagrams the human mind could process. In the flag bridge’s holotank display, those vessels would appear as closely-spaced icons, belying the reality of tiny beacons in the dark, fighting alone for the most part. Seeing those gleaming hulls in real life was a rare luxury, and meant mostly for the benefit of the civilians at home, who even after doing a few years in uniform understood little of the way things really worked.
A side-window in Kerensky’s field of vision displayed personnel files, providing quick summaries about the officers aboard any ship he looked at. He’d reviewed those before, but it was always nice to match faces and ships, to serve as a reminder of the man or woman in charge of a given vessel, squadron or combat group. That would help give him a sense of who to send off on independent missions, who to hold back for a determined defense, and who to unleash for an all-out attack. Many of them were officers who had served under or alongside him in previous assignments. Most of them brought back fond memories; those who didn’t appeared to have mended their ways at some point in their careers. Every command slot was filled with people who had seen combat and given a good accounting of themselves.
As it should be, Kerensky thought proudly. The US Space Navy had been dominated by fighting officers from its inception, and a century and a half of continuous conflict had kept it that way. One didn’t get very far in the Senior Service without direct experience in its primary purpose: to engage the enemies of the Republic in battle. That wasn’t all to the good, of course: the Navy had an institutional disdain for ‘bean counting’ that had resulted in often severe deficiencies in logistics and administration. Computers helped remedy some of this, but gifted bureaucrats who lacked the stomach for combat soon discovered they couldn’t rise very high in the ranks and left for greener pastures. For all that, the admiral was convinced that it was a far better state of affairs than what would result from having remfies in control.
He found very little to complain about: the fleet was in fine fettle. His superiors had given him everything he could reasonably expect to do his job. The job might still be beyond anyone’s power to accomplish, but he was sailing into battle with the full support of the United Stars of America.
One of the many pre-Contact quotes that Admiral Carruthers was so fond of spouting came to mind:
“It is the function of the Navy to carry the war to the enemy so that it is not fought on US soil.”
Chester W. Nimitz’s words summarized his mission perfectly.
* * *
Transition.
Gus and his Fourth Squadron buddies played pool and drank beer in a virtual lounge while the rest of Seventh Fleet shivered alone in warp space.
Sure, the beer wasn’t real, but it tasted just like the real thing. The shared illusion was better than the best virtual reality system money could buy. In some ways, it was better than the real thing; they could get blotto in the world their minds created, but as soon as they left warp space they’d be perfectly sober.
Gus hadn’t experimented much with the ability to dream up stuff inside warp space, but what little he’d seen made him wonder if staying there for good wouldn’t be preferable to what awaited him in the real world.
Maybe this is where we go after we die.
A Heaven where you could create your own reality sounded pretty good to him. On the other hand, a lot of people thought that going into warp involved tip-toeing around the gates of Hell. He wouldn’t be surprised if both were true.
There were limits to the shared dreams, though. ‘Creating’ inanimate stuff was easy enough, especially if a bunch of pilots joined forces and concentrated on the same thing. The lounge and all its contents were just about perfect. When it came down to living things, though…
About three seconds after warp fighter pilots had discovered they could control what they experienced while in null-space, somebody had tried to call up a virtual girlfriend to spend some quality time with. Rumor was that the pioneering Marine in question had used a popular VR-porn star for inspiration.
The results had been… suboptimal.
Dreaming up objects and places was okay. Anything alive seemed to attract the attention of the Foos, however. The porn star had supposedly turned into a monster at the worst possible time. The jarhead had managed to escape with his life, but he ended up quitting Aviation and going back into Infantry. The story had spread around, reinforced by similar experiences. A couple other pilots had vanished in transit, and the general consensus was that they hadn’t been as lucky as the leatherneck.
Don’t try to dream up living things. A simple rule, and as important as remembering to check your suit seals before going extra-vehicular into hard vacuum. Friends, family, or even a beloved pet could turn on you; those illusions opened a door the Foos could use to drop by for a most unwelcome visit.
All of which lent a little more weight to the theory that this was Hell.
“Your shot, Bingo.”
His mind wasn’t on the game; he sank the eight-ball, to the amusement of all.
“Oh, well,” he said, letting a couple other guys have the table; he grabbed another beer instead. It tasted just like the first time he’d actually enjoyed downing a cold one, as opposed to just drinking to be part of the group. It brought back memories of baseball games while on leave at home, of the familiar green-blue skies on New Maryland-Two, of feeling at peace. He loved the Navy, but he loved the idea of going home even more. When the war was over, he’d take off the uniform for good. Get a job flying something, if he could: National Guard if he still had any fight left in him, or a civvie trash-hauler otherwise.
For a moment, he pictured home so vividly it was like he was already there. His parents’ house, looking just like it had the last time he’d gone to visit them. The front door opened and he stepped inside eagerly, knowing they’d be waiting for him. He smiled and…
“Watch it, Bingo.”
Grinner Genovisi was behind him. Her voice snapped him out of his daze as if she’d poured a glass of ice-cold water over his head. They were still on the front porch of the family house, the sky of New Maryland-Two shimmering under the brightness of its white sun.
“What..? Where...?”
“You were about to say hi to your parents,” Commander Genovisi said. “Except they wouldn’t be your parents. They might have looked like them at first, but not for long.”
“Shit.”
They were back on the lounge a moment later, but an empty version. Grinner’s doing, Gus figured. The witch wanted some alone time with him.
“You’ve been warned about this,” she told him. “You let your mind wander in warp, and it will take you places you won’t like. You have to focus on the same thing everyone is picturing, or you’ll drift off and get in trouble. Either that, or stay in the dark for the duration of the trip. A lot of pilots do just that. It’s a lot safer.”
“I hear you,” he said, mostly meaning it. It was hard not being angry at her, at her know-it-all attitude, but he knew that if she hadn’t stopped him something would have happened. Probably nothing permanent: a bad scare, maybe, a nightmare realistic enough to leave him shaken for a while. But there was always a chance that a Foo would have shown up.
A chance he wouldn’t have come out of warp at all, in other words.
“Fucking sucks,” he said.
“That it does. Whatever this place is, it’s full of things that don’t like us. I’ve been trying to figure it out for years and I still have no idea what it all means.”
“The Foos, you mean.”
Grinner grimaced; she didn’t like the word. “Make fun of Warplings all you want. Just don’t forget they aren’t a joke.”
Gus shrugged. “Thanks for pulling me out of there. I’ll be more careful.”
“I hope so.”
He was still pissed off, at her or the universe. Or maybe at both.
Capricorn System, 167 AFC
King-Admiral Grace Under Pressure watched the emerging American fleet while hope warred with the despondent morass that had been her constant companion since her flotilla’s ignominious retreat from Wyrashat space.
Since her battered formation had arrived to Capricorn, the local defenders – one cruiser and two destroyer squadrons – had been joined by the Greater Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere’s Grand Fleet. The wordy title was hardly fitting to the reality, unfortunately: four battleships, eighteen battlecruisers and twenty-four frigates, all near-obsolete cast-offs from the US Navy or even older Hrauwah models, imperfectly refitted to satisfy human life support needs. She had been in no position to begrudge them, however. Along with the remains of the HEF and the system’s twenty STL planetary monitors, those ships were the only thing forces guarding the gateway to human space, a gateway accessible to both the Lhan Arkh and the Imperium. Having seen a much larger fleet fall before the Imperium, she had feared the worst.
For once, the worst had not come to pass: the Wyrashat’s gallant, doomed resistance had kept the Gal-Imps from arriving before Seventh Fleet. The largest collection of vessels humankind had ever sent into battle was in place, ready to fight.
The data was impressive enough. The sight of the American superdreadnoughts emerging into normal space was awe-inspiring. Smaller than the Imperium capital ships they might be, but the discrepancy in firepower and defense was much narrower, and when you added warp shields that rendered most direct energy attacks harmless, the difference vanished altogether. The Hrauwah Royal Navy would have to combine half of its formations to put together a fleet as impressive as this one.
The humans have outstripped us in a mere century and a half.
There was pride in that thought, but an equal amount of worry. How long would it be before the Kingdom went from being an American friend and potential ally to a mere client? The seizure of Xanadu System gave the US a border with the Hrauwah, something that hadn’t been the case ever since the realignment that had left Earth to her own devices after First Contact. If humanity survived this conflict and some evil circumstance put the United Stars at odds with the Hrauwah Kingdom, she doubted her people would prevail.
On the other hand, vanquishing the Imperium and the Lhan Arkh Congress would provide plenty of spoils for the winners, and even the Hrauwah’s lukewarm support would be rewarded: systems would change hands, along with warp lines that would open up trade routes and access to natural resources. The Kingdom could use them. Over the centuries it had found itself hemmed in by assorted rivals; no new colonies had been founded in a long time, and several systems had been lost on the treaty table or the field of war. Sooner or later, one of its neighbors would grow strong enough to do more than merely encroach on the Kingdom’s borders, and existential war would follow. A few defeats later, and the Hrauwah could well end up suffering the ultimate fate of the losers in the game of stars.
Starfarers knew of only three possible outcomes marking the end of a polity’s history: grow in numbers, power and technology until Transcendence was attained, to become a lesser client to a greater race and be carried on its shoulders towards the same goal, or be overwhelmed and destroyed. Oblivion. Even when total extinction was avoided, the losers of the galaxy could only hope to control a handful or systems or, worse, live only as small groups of survivors, scattered in isolated communities on foreign planets, existing only at the sufferance of others.
Will humanity – and the choices I made – help us achieve Transcendence? Or did I doom my people when I saved Earth?
Those questions would not likely be answered while she still lived. Unless, that was, the current conflict resolved the human question once and for all.
* * *
“The evacuation is proceeding according to plan,” Kerensky’s chief of staff reported.
Kerensky glanced at the readouts. The details confirmed the overall assessment: Capricorn System would soon be empty of human life. The system was the first US possession beyond Paulus, which had been declared an open system just before the Wyrms surrendered. He’d decided to assemble his combined forces – American, Pan-Asian and Puppy – in Capricorn rather than try to establish a presence in Paulus. For one, the system was still inhabited by Wyrashat citizens, and their loyalty could not be counted on. For another, Capricorn was a backwater and it had a single point of access from outside American space, while Paulus could be reached by both the Lampreys and Gimps. While coordination over stellar distances was difficult at best, the risk of having a second enemy fleet show up while he was engaged in combat was too great; better to wait for the enemy at a place where it could only come from only one direction.
Ideally, the place in question would also be empty of innocents. He couldn’t evacuate the aliens at Paulus. He could remove the civilian population in Capricorn.
Dozens of merchantmen and passenger ships were on their way to the warp exit that would lead them deeper into human space. Their compartments were filled to capacity with refugees. Capricorn-Five and the system’s asteroid belt had held some four hundred thousand inhabitants; the convoy on its way out would reduce that total by nine-tenths. More ships would soon arrive and carry off the last forty-odd thousand people, a mixture of personnel whose skills and duties required them to stay until the last moment – and the small minority of warp-intolerant humans in the system. A mere five percent, in this young colony. Most of them were children, born in-system.
Normally, the fate of those unfortunates was to be abandoned to the tender mercies of the invaders. A recently-developed technology might change things. But at a price. There were no free miracles in the universe.
Melange, the drug issued to warp fighter pilots, had been shown to increase warp tolerance among its subjects. A medical officer had suggested trying it among those who normally couldn’t endure FTL travel, and Kerensky had backed him up. A ‘generic’ dosage – the need to tailor the drug mixture to individuals didn’t apply in this case – had an eighty percent chance of minimizing or eliminating warp-induced trauma on humans. That meant that of the twenty thousand civilians currently being prepared for the trip, a mere four thousand would be driven mad or killed outright by the evacuation. And that assumed there would be enough time to manufacture and distribute the drugs.
Seventh Fleet’s job was to buy the evacuees that time, by making sure no enemy arriving to Capricorn System lived long enough to reach the second planet and interfere with the process.
He looked at his line of battle once more. Neither the Hrauwah nor the Pan-Asian ships were likely to survive a Sun-Blotter barrage, so his plan was to hold them in reserve. If everything worked out as expected, they would play a crucial role in its final phase. If not, they should be able to flee the system and try to mount a defense at New Texas, the next stop in the warp chain. Kerensky had no idea whether those forces, together with anything else the US could scrape together, and he wasn’t planning on being alive long enough to
find out. If things went badly, he would order a retreat, of course, and try to save as many ships in his command as he could. But he and the Odin would be part of the rear guard that protected any such retreat.
No matter what happened here, he was done running.
Five
Redoubt-Five, 167 AFC
There was nobody home, supposedly, but the shuttles still came in hot.
A combat landing is nobody’s idea of fun. Even with inertial dampeners working overtime to ensure the shuttles’ human cargo didn’t get crushed into a thin paste, you still got compressed and stretched, felt your organs being crushed by the massive accel and deccel. Breathing became a chore, and the final pre-landing stop kicked you ass something fierce. Even when you were pretty sure nobody was trying to shoot down your ride, and you weren’t worried that at any moment the compartment could get filled with plasma or hypervelocity fragments, it sucked.
Of course, it could be worse. They could have done a warp drop. Those sucked worse than anything.
The shuttle hit the ground in something closer to a controlled crash than a proper landing, rocking everyone in their seats hard enough to make Russell grunt. The straps holding him down sprang loose a moment later and he was up and moving before the exit ramp slammed open and the squad leader’s shout hammered into everyone’s ears. “Go, go, go!”
They came out by the numbers, nobody tripping on their own feet or slowing down the rush towards the outside. There was a reason you practiced that evolution until you could do it in your sleep. Without all the practice, all it took was a moment’s bad luck and the orderly charge could turn into a traffic jam, the rushing Marines stuck on the ramp, begging for some Echo Tango to slaughter them all with a well-placed burst from a crew-served weapon. The shuttle projected a wide area force field that would stop some artillery and direct fire, but you didn’t want to bet your life on it.
In Dread Silence (Warp Marine Corps Book 4) Page 12
