A Call to Arms

by Bradley Hutchinson

  Van Lam made the notation on her virtual-array and uploaded it, turning around and moving over to the next patient. More than forty people had been injured when the shields had failed – and at least that many had been killed outright – and Lê and her staff had managed to triage most of them. Most could be saved… some, like Frost, couldn’t.

  “Guess even the senior officers aren’t immune to dying, eh, Captain Hunter?”

  Being unconscious, Hunter remained silent as Van Lam ran her scanner over his torso, taking note of the damage. His injuries were similar to Lieutenant Frost, only not as severe… and he was still alive.

  “Weak but steady pulse, strong cortical activity…” Van Lam frowned as she reassessed his condition. He’d probably need a stay in the Burn Unit, and there was a real possibility that he’d have to have some organs or limbs cloned… but his odds of surviving the next few hours were good, if not great. “Get him into a Rejuv chamber, stat. If we can get him stable, he may be able to hook into the ships mainframe and assist the bridge.”

  “Yes, doctor.”

  *

  “Why the hell are you getting dressed up for?”

  Samantha had kept her sister waiting for the bathroom for nearly forty minutes – half of that time had been spent in the shower. Amanda stood in the doorway to her twin’s room, watching as Samantha fiddled with her hologram: she was using a holographic model of herself to try out different garments and hair-styles.

  “Mum said we weren’t to go out tonight,” Amanda continued when Samantha pretended she hadn’t heard her.

  “Yeah, well, I’m bored,” Samantha muttered, waving her sister away. “Not much to do except sit around here and be bored… or worse, worry about… what’s going on.”

  “I suppose,” Amanda murmured, tossing up between tattling on her sister or keeping her silence – given Samantha’s sketchy mood, it was probably better if Amanda kept her mouth shut; Samantha’s temper had improved in recent years, but she could still throw a tantrum that would put a toddler to shame. “Well, I’ll be staying in.”

  “Playing Heaven, or whatever it’s called, no doubt?”

  Amanda scowled as she crossed the hallway into the bathroom. “What else would I be doing?”

  *

  “Have I missed anything?”

  “You took your sweet-ass time,” David Garret said, smiling as a hologram of James Hunter shimmered into existence next to him. Captain Numberi offered his own salutation before returning to his own tasks. “Sickbay had your condition listed as stable twenty minutes ago, and we’ve been on the Ravager for over an hour.”

  James shrugged, scowling. “I had a little trouble figuring out how to do this... and then I had to find out where you were. I’ve never been in a coma before… and the Vindicator’s systems aren’t exactly in prime condition.”

  “What’s it like?” The question slipped out of David before he could stop himself – aside from not being very tactful, the middle of a battle was not the place to ask such a question.

  “You mean, what’s it like being not-quite-dead, not-quite-alive, while also being stuck inside a computer?” James asked sardonically. “It’s… different. Very different… I’m aware of the pain in my body… but I’m able to dismiss it more easily than if I was actually conscious…” He shook the thought away. “Give me a status update, David, so I can get to work. The N’xin almost killed me, and I want to return the favour.”

  *

  “Damage report!”

  The Nagano had found itself in the way of a salvo intended for the Vindicator. Its shields, never meant to withstand such an onslaught, had been shredded swiftly, daggers of plasma energy stabbing deep into her starboard side.

  The bridge had survived, but power spikes had blown through half a dozen consoles, filling the bridge with bodies and acrid smoke. Yuen knew that her helmsman, who had copped a face full of shrapnel, was dead, at least. The lights had failed, and the stabilizer systems had failed, meaning it felt like a minor earthquake was rocking the ship.

  “Damage report!” Yuen repeated as she coughed, getting shakily to her feet. Her right arm was wet from blood, and she could feel it trickling from a wound on her scalp, from where a support beam had clipped her as it collapsed.

  “Engineering to bridge! We have major damage done here. We’ve got a coolant leak and –” but the comm went dead before Lieutenant Commander Meloni could finish. But a coolant leak was bad enough – without sufficient coolant, the power plant would spike, causing more power disruptions.

  It could even go critical and detonate.

  “We’re dead in the water,” Yuen finished under her breath.

  The viewscreen was still working, albeit flickering wildly. It showed the elongated prow of the N’xin dreadnaught – the last one left in this theatre – arcing over the top of the drifting Nagano.

  “We still have thrusters,” Lieutenant Ayala, the engineering officer on the bridge, said. “No shields or weapons.”

  Yuen grimaced, then smiled wanly as an idea occurred to her – a crazy idea, to be sure, but, at this point, the battle may only be able to be saved by a crazy idea. She patched into the ships helm via her virtual-array, even as she triggered the order to abandon ship.

  As the surviving bridge crew scrambled for the lifeboats – after looking at her in alarmed concern, even as she serenely waved them on – she remained on her bridge – as she should have done all those years ago at New Haven. My, the tedious boredom I would have save myself from if I had done that. The novelty of the thought amused her.

  Gradually she turned the Nagano around, angling it so that its bulk shielded the fleeing escape pods, and lined its blackened bow up somewhat squarely against the N’xin dreadnaught, some ten thousand kilometres away.

  Then she hit the throttle. It was time to right a wrong.

  *

  The damage the weapons of the Nagano could have done to a dreadnaught was insignificant in the grand scheme of things… what was not insignificant was its mass, which, when accelerated to a nearly a sixth the speed-of-light, was more powerful than anything in the Commonwealth or N’xin arsenals.

  The pointed prow of the ship plunged into the nose of the N’xin dreadnaught, driving towards its heart, overloading and collapsing its shields as explosions rippled along its bow in advance of the physical projectile. Despite the severity of the damage, it was not a killing blow – the killing blow was a series of insect bites, thousands of them, that poured in seconds later, from the hundreds of fighters and nearby Commonwealth vessels in proximity. Golden fire stitched its way from the bow of the final N’xin dreadnaught – having survived nearly six hours of near-constant battle – reaching up to its stern swiftly, hurling chunks of debris and bodies into the cold vacuum of space.

  Admiral Hawthorne, now situated on the bridge of the Ravager – identical in layout to the bridge of the Vindicator, only not blackened and burned – watched with baited breath as a collective hesitation filtered down to the disorientated remnants of the N’xin fleet. One by one, some of them not making it in time, the surviving N’xin ships slowly turned from the battle…

  … And with a flicker of pseudo-motion, they fled into FTL. Within seconds of disappearing, a chorus of cheers was spreading from ship to ship in the Commonwealth fleet: not only had they won, they had completely routed the N’xin from the system, despite the N’xin putting up one hell of a fight.

  It may have taken them six hours of gruelling battle, but the Commonwealth was now able to claim its prize: neither side had ever had such a comprehensive win during the war – even when Sacramento, and New Baltimore, had fallen in 2429, scarcely a dozen N’xin ships had survived to sing of the victories there. Here, barely half that number had survived to flee, their comrades choosing to fight quite literally to the last breath, the last ship.

  “Good job, everyone,” Hawthorne said proudly, silently relieved that this gambit seemed to have paid off. His virtual-array was being bombarded with dam
age and casualty reports from the fleet. He ignored the casualty list – mourning would come later – instead focusing on the status of his ships and fighter squadrons. “Post-battle briefing in one hour.”

  Privately, he made a notation in his log to award a medal to Captain Celina Yuen, who, it seemed, had finally redeemed herself.

  *

  It was well after midnight by the time Jennifer got back to her apartment, the automatic lights once again defying her requests to not be so damn bright as she stepped in from the darkened hallway that connected the elevator to the front door.

  “Is that you, mum?”

  “Yeah, it’s just me, Sam,” Jennifer called out, hoping she got the name right – her daughters sounded exactly the same, and Jennifer had to rely on their differing styles – and differing attitudes – to tell them apart these days.

  The exasperated sigh that poured out her offspring told Jennifer she had the wrong daughter in mind. “It’s Amanda, mother… seriously…”

  Abashed, Jennifer smiled. “Oops, sorry Mandy.”

  There was the sound of grinding teeth, and Amanda’s head appeared above the top of the couch that faced away from the front door. Her eyes were a soft golden hue, her virtual-vision obviously still in use… for that matter, her skin offered a slight sheen, suggesting that her entire cybernetics system was in use.

  “Are you still on that game?” Jennifer asked, her curiosity – and concern – piqued. “What’s it called, Haven something?”

  “It’s called Heavens Among Us, mother,” Amanda reminded her patiently, though there was a tinge of snappishness to her voice – after all, it wasn’t the first time Jennifer had reproached her over her virtual gaming habits. “And it’s seriously addictive.”

  “Obviously,” Jennifer said, putting her handbag on the coffee table in front of Amanda, shrugging off her overcoat as she did so – it may have just been Jennifer’s nerves, but tonight seemed awfully chilly. “You spend most of your off time on it.”

  “Everyone my age is, mother. And it isn’t like I have anything better to do, is there?” Amanda asked sullenly. “Sam isn’t here, by the way. She’s out at Nicole’s… or was it Amy?” She frowned, and waved herself off. “Whichever one, they’re all the same.”

  “I know,” Jennifer replied – despite the fact that Jennifer had told Samantha she wasn’t to go out tonight, her daughter had seen fit to message her just before the concert and informed her of her intentions to break that rule.

  Jennifer had relented, simply because she was unwilling to get distracted with such a minor issue – after all, Samantha had at least had the decency to let her know, and Jennifer had had a concert to run. If there was a major issue, Samantha’s VI would alert her… or the authorities, if that was necessary.

  “I assume you’ve had dinner?”

  “I wasn’t hungry.”

  Jennifer sighed inwardly. Amanda had never had much of an appetite, and there had been genuine moments during her upbringing where Jennifer had thought there might be something wrong with her, despite repeated assurances by both Amanda’s grandmother Rebecca that that was not the case. Samantha, on the other hand, has a wonderful appetite… and an appetite for cooking.

  “Are you hungry now?” Jennifer asked. “I’m not quite ready for bed… we could heat up a pizza, watch a holomovie…”

  “Could we eat out, and then go see one? We haven’t done that in ages…”

  “If you want…” Jennifer replied, not overly keen on getting changed into something a bit less casual. But, she had to concede, she had been rather absent of late – the preparations for tonight’s concert had taken up more time than usual, and so she’d hardly been around… which is why she’d wanted Samantha to remain behind tonight.

  That, and I want to be sure that we learn the fate of their father at the same time. The gnawing feeling in her stomach hadn’t abated an iota, and she knew it would be hours still before any news – good or bad – made its way to the civilian news service… the possibility of having to wait days hadn’t escaped her. For what seemed like the hundredth time, Jennifer found herself cursing the day James had signed up… and that she had allowed him to.

  “I’ll get ready then,” Amanda said, though her tone was suspicious; she knew why Jennifer didn’t want to go out, or go to bed.

  But then I would have lost him forever. I knew that if I said no, he’d leave me and go anyway. She found herself staring at Amanda, at her prone form – laid out on the couch, feet dangling off the arm rest. She could never stay mad, though: without her husband, absent though he was, she wouldn’t have these two beautiful girls.

  “What do you fancy? Italian? Chinese? Mexican?”

  “Whatever.” Amanda’s glow disappeared as her cybernetics powered down. She squinted against the light, as if she, too, had just come in from a dark place.

  “You’re playing that game too much,” Jennifer reminded absently as she gave herself a once over, deciding whether to change into something more casual. “Ever thought of spending more time in the real world, Mandy?”

  Amanda scowled at the use of the nickname, which she had come to loathe, and Jennifer felt her mood shift subtly. “What’s so special about the real world, mother? It fucking blows.”

  Chapter Five

  “Enemy losses seventeen percent above projections,” James Hunter – or rather, his holographic avatar – announced, tinged with something approaching awe and pride. He was still in the sickbay on the Vindicator, recovering from his injuries and still too sick to move safely. He was linked into the mainframe of the Ravager – and the rest of the fleet – via his virtual array. His injuries – while extensive – weren’t as severe as first thought, and he was expected to be up and about by tomorrow night.

  Hunter was leaving unsaid that their own estimates on the strength of the N’xin presence in this system had been off by almost the same amount – Hawthorne already had Navy Intelligence trying to work out why their intelligence was so wrong. The last thing the Commonwealth needed was faulty intelligence… or worse, a leak.

  It’s just as well we came here with overwhelming force, Admiral Hawthorne thought to himself. If they’d come in with the forces Garret and Shanthi had originally pushed for – and had actually argued quite strongly in favour of, initially – this would have been a rout, in the Hegemony’s favour, and the Commonwealth would have been on the defensive for another year or so until they could replenish their ships and troops.

  Assuming we ever could. The N’xin may not have afforded us that kind of leeway.

  “Thank you for that, Captain Hunter,” Hawthorne said. “By the way, how are you… feeling?”

  Hunter’s avatar frowned as he contemplated an answer. “Almost human, I suppose. I feel no different now than I did when Captain Garret asked… though I can’t say I’m going to rush to repeat this experience.”

  Hawthorne smiled wistfully as he regarded the rest of his staff who were present: Shanthi, Garret, Takagi, who had been made the CO of the Ravager, and Numberi. “So, what now?” He was very curious as to how his junior officers would navigate the maze of options before them… options they hadn’t had until today, and had put off firmly deciding, at least until they had a handle on how well their situation was post-battle. “Where do we go from here?”

  David Garret had perched himself next to the holographic avatar of James Hunter, which didn’t surprise Hawthorne in the slightest: Hunter and Garret had quickly built a rapport as they worked together, and Hawthorne had noticed that their opinions usually aligned completely, far more than any of his other advisors. If one offers an opinion, no doubt the other vetted it.

  “We press our advantage,” Garret said smoothly, after getting an encouraging nod from Hunter. “Their supply depot and mining colonies in System PJA-055 are just itching to be wiped out, and barely five light-years away. We can hit them and be back inside Commonwealth territory inside of 36 hours.”

  “What about the rest of Horus I
II?”

  Everyone turned as one to face Captain Shanthi, who was approaching from the far side of the bridge, her boots clattering heavily on the metal deck as she walked. She handed a datapad to Hawthorne.

  “Intel has identified over a dozen military bases on the surface we could easily dispatch of, adding to the woes the N’xin are feeling right now with the destruction of their orbital infrastructure.”

  Hunter and Garret regarded each other steadily for long moments, Hunter finally shaking his head, his hologram flickering every time he moved abruptly. “It would be like shooting fish in a barrel,” he protested gruffly, running a hand over his holographic short-cropped hair – a trait he practiced frequently in real life – no doubt working through the logistics such an action would entail in his head. “They couldn’t possibly defend themselves against an orbital attack. More to the point, it would slow us down, waste our time and resources... Time the N’xin could use to regroup, maybe even launch a counter-attack.”

  “Unless we try to pacify them,” Hawthorne offered, already dismissing the idea as Hunter bristled visibly. There had yet to be a single case of a N’xin soldier surrendering, meaning the Commonwealth would have to deploy ground troops to secure and pacify the world. The result would be a brutal, bloody campaign with no tangible benefits, as Horus III was a third-rate world in terms of sustaining a human population

  “Don’t be absurd,” Hunter snapped, sneering. “Sir,” he amended quickly, then continued as if the lapse in protocol hadn’t happened. “Waste perfectly good manpower – that we don’t have – and time, which isn’t abundant, on a world we’re not interested in keeping? We don’t want to get bogged down in a ground war over real-estate we don’t want.”

  Hawthorne smiled; he’d gotten used to the acerbic attitude Hunter bestowed on people as frequently as snow in December. At first, it had been off-putting, finding a junior officer more than willing to say exactly what he thought, but Hawthorne had come to appreciate the frankness.