by Kali Altsoba
“Pyotr is too arrogant to take care, perhaps. But we have no information suggesting either of the still neutral Great Powers will act, even in their own interest. We’re on our own out here.”
“I understand ma’am. It’s just that Krakoya is on the edge of our northernmost territory, the farthest system of them all from Kestino. I thought Krakoya would be the last of our worlds to fall. I still do, frankly. It’s why months ago we pulled out every ship that could make bohr.”
“MI on Genève thinks the same. Thought the same.” The self-correction hangs out there. They both know that Toruń must have fallen by now, that it burns along with most of Genève.
“So why not head to Krakoya ma’am, to refit and escort any civy ships on the run from there to sanctuary? There’ll be more strength in numbers, something like a real fleet.”
“We need speed and stealth now, not fighting strength. Not yet anyway. Besides, General Constance confirmed in the hour of our departure that heavy fighting in the outer reaches of Aral has turned bad to worse. Selene 1 and 2, the smaller of Aral’s three beta ice-moons, are overrun.”
“Is there any good news at all?”
“Selene 3 will hold awhile, the biggest of the ice moons. There’s a large KRA garrison there and we had a little better fortune. In fact, the whole of the RIK’s so-called ‘Light Patrol’ was wiped out on the first day.”
“Light Patrol?”
“One of their special forces divisions, Supposed to be elite.”
“Arrogant bâtards charged our rapidos. One attack and that ‘elite’ unit was done, 1,500 dead in one crater alone! And there were over 30 craters”
“Glad to hear it, captain. What about free system passage?”
“So far, the naval battle is confined to the asteroid defense zone. Aral’s not been hit, yet. But enemy squadrons are all over the outer system. Only three inner bohr-zones are still open.”
“It’s what we thought. The War Government will stay on Aral until the last day, holding down the enemy’s attention while the Exodus fleets move our people to exile in the sanctuaries.”
“Yes. Aral fleet is holding out while civilian liners and even the merchant marine shuttle as many as possible off Aral and Selene 3, using the inner LPs. Aral system has two hot jupiters in tight inner orbits, as you know. That gives them fewer bohr-zones, since the L1s and L3s are too close to the star for poorly shielded civilian vessels. Still, they’ve moved a lot of folks, more than we got off Genève. And not just fighters. Whole families are leaving, whole communities.”
“They have more ships.”
“And more time. There’s a real chance they could get several hundred million away.”
“Good. We’ll need people to fight for out here, not just alongside.”
“Agreed. But there’s more bad news. Constance confirmed that a Kaigun task force is headed for Lwów, which already fell. It’ll pick up Rikugun now planetside and move into a split invasion of Amphitrite and Acis.” Amphitrite is an ocean world, 90% sea with one small, boreal continent. It’s sparsely populated and won’t hold out. Acis is a smaller agro-world, like Genève.
“Acis has some tough fighters. Still, so many locusts will make quick work eating out those quiet places. They’re hardly even garrisoned.” Émile has friends on Amphitrite.
“They have a lot of ships, the bâtards.” Magda rarely swears.
“More than we ever knew.”
“Pyotr and his military must have planned this invasion for years. That means they have enough ships, especially phantoms, to invest all our LPs. They’ll sit in stealth mode and wait for ships to jump in. No, it’s time Alpha left home space behind. All of it. There’s no turning back.”
Émile isn’t surprised by all the bad news. Alpha is on the move precisely because Aral, Krakoya, Lwów, and eventually all 24 free worlds of the Krevan Republic are expected to fall. It’s just that sooner got here much faster than later.
‘We’re truly on our own.’
“I’m not taking any chances with the transports. We have precious and unusual cargo on the troopships, Mr. Fontaine. And let’s not forget that we escorts are carrying more of the same. No, we’re going to avoid any more fighting if we can. We’re taking the long way to sanctuary.”
“Beta took the high road, we’ll take the low road. I wonder who’ll get to Scotland first?”
“You’ll have to explain that to me some day, Mr. Fontaine. I have no idea what or where that is.” He’s about to explain, but she waves him off.
“For now, let’s move Alpha windward to the L4. The second jump is to RCW-142. Let the captains and Bridge crews know. Keep a double battle-watch for any arriving Zerstörers. In three hours we leave the LP then the umbra, for two days and more of total light-secure transit.”
She steps down from the raised command chair. “You’re in charge for the next hour here on the Combat Bridge. I don’t think there’ll be any pursuit, but keep all our aft sensors zeroed on the leeside LP as we pull away. Time to drop those seeker mines. Put some in our wake as well.”
As she walks past two officers in the Combat Information Center to exit the Bridge, she pauses. She says it sotto voce over her shoulder, without looking to Émile in his alcove Chart House. “I’m going to visit our wounded and make arrangements for ... the recently departed.”
“Understood, ma’am. Permission to attend the ceremony?”
“Granted, XO. Just see to your relief at the proper time. The Combat Bridge stays fully crewed at all times.”
Émile knows that Resolve’s dead will be wrapped in white shrouds and ‘buried at sea,’ committed bodily to the stars, to spend all time in silent space. The ceremony is set for just before they leave the umbra. The dead will be spoken over by Magda Aklyan, then piped to eternity by a full dress honor guard as each shroud silently catapults in turn down one of Resolve’s missile tubes.
‘Aimed into the interstellar medium. Piped in the old way, then vaulted down and out our forward tubes. Not a bad way to leave the Universe. I can think of far worse. I’ve seen worse.’
The tradition of ‘burial at sea’ is another wooly naval anachronism that Émile Fontaine much admires. An honored turn of phrase and practice, an ancient tradition he respects as a naval officer and as a good naval historian. Only one thing puzzles him. The navy never uses aft tubes.
“That would send our warriors into the past,” Magda explained, the first time he attended a burial from Resolve, just after the fight for the Genèven moons. “We send them out the forward tubes to show us the way ahead, and because we may need their brave company in the future.”
The tubes will fire empty before the first burial and after the last shrouded body departs, outer doors held open so that a burst of steam mixed with sodium releases as fine salt-ice crystals from the catapult. The ice path will accompany and uphold the dead. The sodium recalls ships of sail and ancient salt seas, while the water ice symbolizes elusive aqua vitae, the physical but also mystical link between water and all known life. As the salt mixture and the shrouds are fired down the tubes, ship’s captains will call out: “Here leave those whose names are writ in water.”
As Magda leaves the Bridge she hesitates again, then stops and turns to look right at him. “I’ll be glad to have you there, Émile.” She’s never called him by his name before. “Just be sure the Combat Bridge is properly officered and crewed and Nav and Weps stations are covered. We may not be clear of the enemy just yet.”
Émile snaps his heels together and salutes sharply, with palm turned down in the old-fashioned navy style. Magda returns his salute, although as his commander she need not do so. He turns back to plotting a course around the shadowed horizon to the L4 of the gas giant, while Navigation starts to work quantum coordinates for the jump to RCW-142. Neither the originating nor target system is on the portolan chart. Since Resolve was the first ship to ever bohr into Boca do Inferno, no one has ever mapped or made a bohr-jump out either.
Same with
RCW-142, if the portolan charts are right. Navigation will make a virgin analysis of its singularities en route to the L4. Not an easy task even for a military-issue quantum nav-computer. It’ll take at least 1.5 Universal Standard Days.
‘We better get it right, too, because the captain’s taking us into another strange place, even more odd than Boca do Inferno.’
When he’s satisfied with the way calculations are running on the nav-computer, Émile loads, sets and locks Alpha’s course. As he does so he hears a Ships’ Bell signal that it’s time for all free hands to assemble and pay last respects. He heads down to the Quarterdeck. Standing still and somber in full dress uniform, Captain Magda Aklyan is already there. So is most of the crew.
***
Alpha is moving across the disk of the immense, captured nomad, readying to cross from the lee umbra into the terrible light of Hell’s Mouth. But first, five ships flying in line abreast cut their engines. They rotate 180˚ on vertical axes until they’re flying in reverse position with a line of parallel prows facing the interstellar medium.
An honor guard in ‘dress oaks’ with canary-belts lines the outer casing of the centermost of Resolve’s three forward missile tubes. The scene is repeated on all five ships. It’s improvised on Warsaw and Jutlandia, which took no casualties and have no tubes. Still, it’s that important.
Only 13 bodies were found in the turret wreckage on Resolve. They’re wrapped in plain, white sheets for shooting down the frictionless forward tubes. Only 13 bodies but 17 white packets will pass out as Resolve sails on in silence. A baker’s-dozen of swaddled bodies, four more shrouds wrapped around personal mementos and small belongings of missing children. All 17 jacks and jennies from the smashed-up turret are recalled name-by-name, then 13 bodies and four white shells are piped-off the ship. ‘Buried at sea’ in salt water and silent solemnity.
All 17 dead youths are honored with two minutes of absolute silence. Then the captain says the naval prayer and some awkward words no one later remembers. The ship’s piper plays a haunting tune that sounds like a mountain wind whipping above an ancient sea. It’s whistled and blown on a simple wooden flute made of Toruń cedar. It’s hard not to tear up, but no one does.
The shrouds are aimed out of system, pushed with escape velocity so that the crew knows some distant day the white-cloth packets must clear the heliopause of the mad binary called Boca do Inferno. Sailing ahead of them forever, until reaching an ethereal tomb in interstellar space.
On the other Alpha ships more dead and missing are recalled. Jacks and jennies, young marines and soldiers, two officers. Their corpses or simple effects are shot into space. On the troopships tens of thousands stand still while others lie confined to bunks in overcrowded rooms, most recalling lost friends from earlier battles. Along the MDL, in the Old Forests, over months of fighting before Toruń’s battered berm. Some dream of fights to come and taking red revenge.
From Asimov’s only working tubes, in her prow, 63 shrouded figures are catapulted into space. Forty-two are elite infantry from Wysocki’s Wreckers, crushed all at once by a collapsing bulwark. Fourteen are gunners from the aft torpedo room. It’s gone now, a smashed ruin sealed off by ship’s engineers. There hasn’t been enough time yet to weld a simple plaque.
The others were killed by chance in odd places where Asimov took slicing laser cuts, burned or scalded to death, or just missing. ‘Gone drifting,’ as the old tars say, pushed out some sudden hole, are Asimov’s purser’s mate, master chief petty officer, two windjammer old-timers, and three simple ratings, a young jack and two pert, college-age jennies. Also, a solitary fighter from Madjenik. He missed his designated ride and berthed on Asimov at the last minute. He was alone in his bunk when a brilliant green light from a Zerstörer laser opened a fatal hole in the hull above him, and he left Asimov in a gush of air and wood and steel splinters. Empty white shrouds, tightly wrapped and marked for him and all the MIA whoosh! out the tubes.
The honor guard is mixed-service, KRN down one side, KRA along the other. Colonel Jan Wysocki is there in new, sticky, sap-stained beige. His pastel is soft against the dull gun-metal gray of the Torpedo Room walls. Samara sits silently at his feet, wondering why everyone is lined up like trees in Lakeside Park. He speaks few and halting words when it’s his turn. Privately, he remembers hundreds of lives lost under his command and inevitably blames himself once more: ‘Dead through my fault at the MDL, in the forests, again at The Crater.’
Captain Tiva wears an impeccable oak-and-canary dress uniform, which makes him look like a symphony conductor deep in the woods overseeing a summer festival. He recites the naval prayer with a solemnity few anticipate from so happy a jokester.
“Wrapped in a white shroud we send you
to search out far stars that lie before us.
For ‘we shall grow old as you will not,’
wrapped in sailcloth, brine and our grace.
We shall follow you out among the stars
anon, your last domain and final sea.
We will look for you there, sailing Orion,
charting the way one day we too shall take.
Go now, tack the Argo Navis to see the Twins.
Run with the Hunter, touch Ursa’s great paws.
Ride the Black Tortoise, mount an Azure Dragon,
tame the White Tiger and fly the Vermillion Bird.
In Three Enclosures and Twenty-Eight Mansions
you may rest. Wait for us there, where no sun sets.
Wait and remember us, for we will remember you,
Argonauts of all our once-and-future voyaging.”
Alpha pivots back on course and leaves the umbra cone into lethal brilliance, running hard for the windward side of the cold giant and a second jump far away from Genève. It trails little white packets, moving in silent rows like strung peals hung over a gown of sparkling ice.
Among the empty shrouds shooting toward the interstellar medium one is marked in plain script, Pvt. Jarred Whitmore, Madjenik Battalion, Wysocki’s Wreckers. Jan wrote him up officially in the 10th Commando Brigade log, beside the known dead from the collapsed bulwark, as Missing, presumed dead. They looked hard all over the ship, but they never found the body. No one knows where or why he’s gone. His old bunk room is sealed in the damaged area at the rear of the ship. No one knows it has its own hole, and that he fell through it to eternity.
Or that he’s the only son and extinguished daily light of gentle Janine Whitmore, née Ambrosio. A simple, good-hearted woman who loved to tend her small garden at 7 Lotus Street, Portwen, Northland, before she became Sedition Detainee #472856 under Rikugun Occupation Forces, Genève. She lives with Anne-Marie Wysocki, Sedition Detainee #875463, in a plain hut in a rough, rude detention camp. And with her husband, Tadeusz, Sedition Detainee #472857.
She’ll lose him soon as well, to an execution squad when he sneaks from camp to bring her baked bread and to find news of their beloved, missing-in-action Jarred. Then two grieving mothers will keep nightly company and vigil by a small turf fire, talking for hours about their lost husbands and sons until they feel forever ‘old and gray and full of sleep’ and quietly nod off.
There are several hundred thousand more military mothers and widows like Janine and Anne-Marie scattered across Genève. Grieving fathers too, and siblings and orphans. And nearly four million ash corpses in the Old Forest and on the scoured plains. One hundred million dead across the burning United Planets. It’s a start on billions of dead to come in this expanding war.
For vain Pyotr’s not done with battle. His lion’s loins thrust at still more stars. The silent Hermit Empire is also stirring, strangely and to a clock and secret purpose all its own. Perhaps Jahandar is uneasy at sudden changes beyond his frontier, or is hungry to feast on defenseless worlds himself? Even the somnolent Calmar Union and globular cluster Neutrals are arming, a belated effort to deter what’s already here. Are they bluffing yet again, or making ready to fight?
Behind the kempeitai and ea
ger grays of SAC stands Pyotr Shaka III, Emperor of Fear, while murderous Shishi from Daura answer to a bestial leader, Jahandar the Dread, Emperor of Death. Each is whipping immense armies into frenzy, with exhortations of farfolk hate. They don’t know it yet, but everyone in Orion is already trapped. Mass murder ahead of them and mass murderers behind. There’s nowhere to run or hide. From now on, it’s fight or die.
All Orion is piled with dry tinder of hate and memory, waiting on a spark to set off a vast war the like of which Humanity never saw before. Ordinary folk are called to arms, bewildered by their shifting times and changing lives. Arrogant yet also frightened elites gather fleets and call up armies, while Pyotr and Jahandar light torches in the dark to plot out maps of war.
Nor will Krevans put down the rough swords forced into their hands. They’re agreed to make peace no more, forever. They will fight until stolen homeworlds reduce to cinders or are set free. With allies or without. With hope or none at all, Krevans will fight until none are left.
