Alliance: The Orion War

by Kali Altsoba

  Livy is a temperate planet that’s densely-populated and highly prosperous. That makes Harsa rather like a satellite town outside the boundaries of a metropolis, the poor country mouse outshone by Livy’s richer and urbane town mouse. Harsa can’t even compete for tourists, lacking sophisticated amenities of the planet it orbits. It’s quiet and sparsely populated as a result. That’s exactly why it was selected by the twin governments on Kars and Caspia as one of five small worlds set aside as sanctuaries for Krevan refugees. Harsans have few votes and less influence in Union politics. They try but fail to stop the Lok Sabra declaring them a formal sanctuary. Other moons had better political connections, and used every one.

  An extraordinary range and collage of ship types scrambled to flee Krevo as the civilian transport net capsized across Krevan space right after the initial five invasions. Then the War Government took shape and took charge, organizing and mobilizing ships large and small under strict military authority. They commandeered anything that could make bohr, adding to a vast emergency shuttle service of ships ranging from cargo carriers to fast yachts. It couldn’t be done across all systems of the United Planets of Krevo, so each planetary authority was told to act as it saw fit, get however many off-world that it could. That’s when General Amiya Constance gave her last speech to the population and fighters of Toruń, and told Magda Aklyan to prepare to fly.

  Refugees are still hurrying to sanctuary as Alpha arrives, carried in swarming fleets of small, private craft that keep going back into danger in contested systems, over and over. The trickle became a tide as the War Government anticipated next invasions and moved people first. As more systems came under assault and LPs were eliminated or staked by Kaigun phantoms and Zerstörers, the last KRN warships were told to make their top priority escort of troopships first, but any and all civilian craft after that. Three weeks after Alpha pulls in to space dock at Harsa in Nova Cincinnatus, the last warship escorts will be released to make their Exodus runs.

  There was no time to shuttle civilians off Genève, with its sole spaceport of Toruń so easily blockaded so early on. Tens of thousands of the ‘Little Ships,’ as Krevans affectionately dub the all-out and all-civilian shuttle service, race back-and-forth out of the eastern systems which were more secure for longer than Genève. They’ll keep doing it until the very last world falls, which everyone thinks will be Krakoya, as it’s the farthest from Pyotr’s reach. No one yet knows a second betrayal is near, by another neighbor. It will close down the last escape routes.

  Barely a million from Genève made it out, the smallest group from the first five Krevan worlds attacked in the first wave invasions. The fighters and crews on Alpha made it, joining a few hundred thousand strays who were off-world on private business or away at school, and a handful more Genèvens out-of-system when the locust swarms arrived. There’s rumint making the rounds on Harsa that some warships from the original system squadron survived after fleeing with extensive damage from the lost ‘Battle of Genève System’ and moons. It’s not confirmed.

  Aral did better, holding the Kaigun at its outer ice-moons while hundreds of millions of civilians fled on the Little Ships, including two dozen old troop transports that made the Exodus run over and over from the heavily protected L3 on the farside of Aral’s sun. Chemin des Dames also managed to get a lot more people off before it fell. Most fled helter-skelter to the border systems then on to the nearest Calmari world. Only a fraction headed right for sanctuary. Some on Kars and Caspia opposed Exodus. Others ensured NCU border patrols let them all in.

  Of all those who reached the five sanctuaries the majority were fighters who arrived on troopships and warships, on KRA transports and converted liners like Alpha’s. All warships are now under strict orders from the War Government to stay put. It needs them, to continue the struggle. They’re heavily-armed and determined to fight on, so it’s hard to watch the last of the Little Ships return unescorted on the last Exodus runs. None that leave for Krakoya make it back.

  Nearly 260 million Krevans made it to the five sanctuaries, each of the other four as small and oddly hobbled in some other way, and politically weak, as cracked-egg Harsa. Three are not nearly as nice. Most of the late arrivals are KRA, heavily armed and with a grudge to scratch. The flood of civilians arriving over the past several months is down to a trickle from Krakoya I and II and the last remaining, unconquered easternmost systems. In all, another 675 million made it out in a hundred thousand Exodus ships, big or small, lined with passenger seats from a different life or just packed into cargo holds. They’re scattered over 73 more worlds.

  Nine hundred and thirty-five million in exile is a fraction of Krevo’s 24.5 billion citizens, with 343 million dead and the rest living under the RIK boot. But it’s not nothing. It’s an army in waiting, is what it is. Already, boys and girls too young to serve are in training for the long war. Already, a population cognizant of its low numbers is self-consciously and deliberately making babies, future soldiers to fight Pyotr. Forced from their homes to live on overcrowded, cracked and unwanted rocks, these are no whimpering refugees with empty hands out. They’re the hard survivors of a people forged in war, a fierce people determined to make peace no more, forever.

  They obey the War Government, respect what it has done to bring them out. But they have no intention of staying. After they coo small children to sleep, they sing old songs among themselves about old wars and dead heroes and faraway places that their sleeping children may never see. Listen closely and you can hear it. Yes, there. The exile’s lament. The low, slow song of clear blue lakes or ancient woods, of small well-loved places. Of fine cities where they met a life partner, or lost one. Of ice-moons and sweetgrass meadows, ocean vistas and painted deserts.

  What’s that? Listen even deeper? Yes, you’re right! Do they even know they sing it? It’s the exile’s hate. Their outrage at injustice, a constant reminder of people and things left behind that call out for blood revenge. Their rejection of anything that says this is final and forever. The whisper of the knife whetted and sharpened with dreams of sliding it across throats that warrant cutting. Yes, I hear it too! They sing of heroes who will lead them back across starry seas, to home. Hear the calls of white sea birds and broad canvas flapping in a hard wind? Cover your ears! That’s a cannon’s roar and report, booming white-red puffs of iron and broadside revenge!

  Finally, the War Government arrives from Aral with the last Exodus ships. It slips into Harsa a fortnight after Magda and Archambault reunite, a week after the All-Captains briefing on Resolve. It doesn’t wait on official recognition or Calmari approval but immediately sets up bureaus and offices in a street of large hotels, then moves aggressively to effectively take over Harsa and the other sanctuaries. It intends to convert them into de facto Krevan military bases.

  The forceful new government-in-exile has secret support from Admiral Gaétan Maçon and Defense Minister Georges Briand, but its extra-legal claims cause real friction with local authorities. There are several deaths and hundreds of injuries as Harsa police try to disarm the Krevans. Until they learn better after being ‘persuaded’ to back off and leave this heavily armed population of angry farfolk alone, to just let it go about its business of taking over the moon.

  Jan Wysocki’s new 10th Commando Brigade is in the thick of the persuasion, including its commander and three of its battalion majors, one with apple-red hair streaming in the wind as she throws hard punches at two burly police who can’t get her to the ground. Brigade’s medical staff have a pile of records of broken bones and cuts and concussions, but destroy them when the local police chief shows up demanding to be given names. Even Jan has a badly bruised hand.

  He explains it to skeptical cops with a bald lie. “I got it during a scrum in a mercury ball match.” He didn’t, but when they check they find there really was a match. Jan captained one team, which he cheekily called the No Names after the ship that carried Ulysses to war at Troy, to honor his mission and Amiya Constance. He lost to the
Forest Ghosts, an all-Madjenik team. Zofia scored the final two tries, putting the Ghosts over the top, into the victory column. She says to the police chief: “Yeah sure, that’s when I got this black eye.”

  What really stops the cops is a long look at Jan’s hard face when he comes to the station in a crisp colonel’s uniform with a black Q‑carbon knife tucked into his high brown boot. They decide that discretion is the better part of detection, and walk away. They’ve heard queer, bloody stories about the ‘Ghost of Genève.’ They can’t help but hear them, when the War Government propaganda division continues to seed stories about the Ghost over the most popular memexes.

  ***

  The newly-designated Wildfire under Captain Aklyan is told to take Wysocki’s Wreckers and the ready-half of a new KRA 1st Division to Orestes. After three weeks at Harsa, Wreckers are getting antsy, and in too much local trouble. So they climb back into refurbished troopships Warsaw and Jutlandia to be escorted by a much expanded Aklyan command, heading to its new naval base shared with the NCU at Orestes. There the Brigade will complete commando training while Wildfire conducts “joint training missions” with the NCU. It’s not a concession wrung from the Hoare government by the War Hawks. It’s arranged off-the-books by Admiral Gaétan Maçon at MoD. He bypasses CIS entirely, and neither Maçon nor Briand even inform the PM.

  The Wreckers ship out on fully refitted troopships, along with 18,000 fighters from virgin KRA 1st Division. That unit gets tagged as the ‘Rusty Buckles’ on its last day on Harsa, after a less-than-stellar parade. Scruffy and mostly drunk troopers shamble past all the Harsa civilian dignitaries and KRA and ACU brass. The raggedy ranks shuffle along the review grounds right onto waiting elevator cabs, told to sleep-it-off onboard the troopships. ACU brass in stiff blue uniforms are shocked, but senior officers in rumpled beige stand proud and grinning broadly.

  No one in the review stand or stamping past in staggering ranks knows what’s coming. There’s just a week to go, one week more to endure the unendurable Peace of Orion. For Pyotr has given the order to his many fleets and armies: “Assemble at forward assault positions across from the Calmari border. Prepare for battle. Long live Purity and the Imperium. Sonnō jōi.”

  Back on Kars, the Joint Cabinet is meeting in a prolonged emergency sitting. Briand and the War Hawks are pushing hard for preparedness legislation and for more frontier naval patrols and larger ACU garrisons. Prime Minister Robert Hoare is secretly in contact with Pyotr, trying to arrange direct leader-to-leader talks on the deep crisis in relations caused by the Krevan War. Jahandar is brooding over his starmap and thinking on war and aloneness, and about immortality. His fleets and armies are also moving to the frontiers, to a rendezvous with total war and destiny.

  The common people still believe in the Peace of Orion, can’t take seriously dire warnings from the War Hawks about a rising threat in the east. Worry about bellicose preparations. Don’t understand why there are so many youth cohort call-ups and ship departures from the central and western worlds when the PM tells them: “Peace is at hand. Go home and get a good night’s rest.”

  The peoples yearn for peace, yet the stars prepare for war.

  Data search: fusion.

  Result: Type-3 drive, navies.

  Historia Humana,

  Volume VI, Part XVII (d)

  [Entry currently under editorial review. Do not cite.]

  With quantum-drives and coms systems that we moderns take for granted, it is difficult to imagine the devotion, toughness, and spirit of endurance of lifetimes confined and cut-off inside a primitive colony ship. Or to be suspended in a stasis pod to awake decades or centuries later, when everyone you knew or cared about and left behind was dead. Yet that is exactly what the earliest pioneers accepted and did. We owe them much. Even those who were passed en route by much faster fusion-drive and then lighting-fast quantum ships that left decades or centuries later.

  The search for speed was underway even as the last lightsail colonists left Old Earth. The first voyages to the Jovian moons relied on Hohmann transfer orbits that took six OE Years. New VASIMR drives (Variable Specific Impulse Magneto-plasma Rockets) reduced that overnight. Imagine being on a raft caught in a strong current. You cannot control speed or course or reach the shore. Now, swap your raft for a rowboat and steer to shore, though not against the river’s strong flow. VASIMRs thus began the plasma propulsion revolution, employing basic three-part thrusters discharging ionized gas, or hydrogen plasma. True fusion-drive then allowed direct ship routes, or crossing that stream in a fast power-boat and in any direction you like.

  Z-pinch fusion or Type-1 ‘hot drives’ came from commercial demand for fast, capacious transports for inner-system trade with outer system colonies. That spurred fresh combinations of extant technologies. Superconducting metamaterials, magnetic plasma chambers, nano-ceramic insulators, and carbyne and nitrobon-shields for Z-pinch reactors were the most important. The first Type-1 fusion drives were built just a few decades after the last lightsail-ark departed Sol’s heliopause. Invented for fast-commerce rather than slow-motion exploration, they reduced in-system trade and travel time but did not promise an interstellar capability or breakthrough.

  Efforts to raise velocities led to asymmetric magnetic coil-vacuum chamber drives, better known as Gas Dynamic Mirror (GDM) thrusters. This was the definitive leap to what we still call efficient Type-2 high density fusion-drives, and to corresponding ship braking systems. Type-2 drives skipped right over the inherent instability of plasma problem by deploying solenoidal magnet, or linear reactor, geometry to a magnetic-mirror vacuum field and charged-particle fraction drive. Accretive rather than revolutionary in concept, Type-2 fusion nevertheless started a revolution in both human transportation tek and the psychology of distance.

  GDM drives achieved nearly complete conversion of D-3 fuel, generating sufficient thrust to trim a 50 OAU trip from six OEY to a modern Standard Day. An oft-cited Old Earth analogy says this was akin to the shift from ships of sail that took two Old Years to circumnavigate the globe, to low-orbital skycraft that made the same circuit in under an hour. The quantitative change of GDM drives made qualitative changes in the nature and psychology of long-distance exploration and colonization. This is perhaps best remembered in the old joke about a Jovian engineer’s exclamation upon the first successful test: ‘GDM means Godsdamn fast!’

  [Editor’s note: This sentence is under review by an editorial committee. It will consult memory experts as to whether this is the best way to remember the history of transportation.]

  Side benefits of Type-2 drives included high flexible exhaust velocities for fast in-system voyages; eliminating radiation hazards for ships and planetside environments and populations; abundant and cheap hydrogen fuel; reduction (by reducing travel time) of bulky food and life-support systems, permitting more cargo space in every ship. In the case of warships, more space was used for more armor and bulkier weapons. Finally, GDM drives led to long-range ship designs; elimination of stress from long-duration confinement; and minimal exposure to cosmic radiation and weightlessness effects on the human body. Get there fast and you get there healthy.

  Superior carbyne-shielding and artificial gravity systems beyond simple spinning lay far in the future, but the fundamental breakthrough had been made. Extra cargo room expanded the luxury goods trade with Sol colonies on and around the Jovian and Saturnine moons. In turn, that greatly increased overall system wealth, feeding back into construction of ubiquitous space elevators to accommodate rising trade (notably including in-system tourism). Elevators remain commonplace today. The breakthrough also meant much larger ships became possible, spurring more research into fast interstellar colonization in a virtuous spiral of technological advance.

  Incremental improvements in magnetic chambers, nano-ceramic insulators, and other key components of GDM engines led to the Type-3 fusion drives in use today. Technically they are just more efficient, faster and more reliable versions of the core GDM idea, not esse
ntially or conceptually different from Type-2 fusion drives. However, Type-3 incorporate a revolution in miniaturization of plasma containment that allows compact fusion reactors in all our modern devices using plasma as a power source. And today, that is everything from walkers to warships.

  [Editor’s note: To the best of our knowledge, there are no fusion-powered personal walkers manufactured in Orion. The contributor appears to have succumbed to alliteration. We apologize. The last sentence is under review and likely will be removed from the next edition.]

  Miniaturization permits diversified design, which had a great impact on warship design. Miniature fusion containment allows diversifying ships away from the original one-size-fits-all standard that led to naval stalemate in the Third Orion War, or ‘battleship war.’ It also allows for compact and powerful plasma weapons, from shells to white blossom missiles, with plasma stored in magnetic chambers as small as a walnut. This means ship-to-ship combat will be with missiles and plasma broadside guns, even fore-and-aft chase guns, of huge destructive power.

  [Editor’s note: The Cross-Disciplinary Editorial Board of Historia Humana does not present or approve interpretive positions. It is strictly dedicated to presenting the facts.]

  [Editor’s note: Upon review, the Board finds the conclusion of this article wanting in facts and objectivity. We are investigating how it found its way into this edition. The Board will report interim findings in the next update of the data base.]