by Trevor Wyatt
We’ve gone mad as a race.
Losing billions of people will do that to you.
“What are we doing here, you think?” one of the Captains, a Gonçalo Richard asks.
“I heard we’re going to lead a full-frontal assault during Wolf Offensive,” another captain responds.
My ears perk up and I lean forward. It’s a rather optimistic tone from someone who’s been in a sector that has seen the heights of the war that no other area of the Terran Union has experienced. There’s been a lot of fighting. Entire worlds have been laid to waste, more than anything that ever happened to Earth. It took almost a year and a half for Armada scientists to catch up with the Sonali in all offensive capabilities. Theoretical concepts went to battle. They were tested with blood. Colony worlds that were around at least one or more generations fell. To the point where Edoris station became for a while the last bulwark to prevent the Sonali from overrunning this sector and starting to threaten the Inner Union worlds.
By the third year of the war the Union was catching up and the Armada began to become more resourceful. Those theoretical concepts? Began to be deployed in the field. Those same weapons that we looked at and scratched our heads as we puzzled over how they could destroy The Mariner? Standard offensive capabilities on all Armada starships now.
I realize that I have lost myself once again in thoughts about the war and I shake myself awake.
But really you can’t fault me for reflecting back on these last five years.
If there was ever any conflict in the history of humanity that was worse than the Third World war, then this would be it.
4 billion people… Dead.
It’s almost too large a number to comprehend. Add to that the countless Sonali dead and the last five years have been brutal.
Entire colony worlds that have been around for generations, some with populations that numbered in the hundreds of millions—glassed.
The Sonali followed our lead in bombarding planets. They didn’t even bother to invade or send any sort of ground forces after a while. They came, they bombarded, they destroyed all life on the surface, and then they retreated.
But they learned from the best. When we didn’t have the capabilities to engage them in deep space the first years of the war, we struck back in other ways.
We used pirates to smuggle thermonuclear packages into their worlds.
We sent suicide runs of ships who took out entire worlds.
We’ve attacked their star bases, their planets, and their shipping lines.
But all that wanton destruction aside, for the first two years of the war, it seriously was a losing battle. Edoris Sector saw the worst of it. Colonies fell, and bases were destroyed. Deep space stations that didn’t have any planetary support were extremely vulnerable within the sector and were gone within the first year of the war. It got to the point where the Sonali were attacking Edoris station over several engagements—although nothing like a concentrated attack, thank God.
I know Admiral Flynn has a whole hell of a lot to deal with. He's seen so many captains reporting to him that are no longer around. He’s probably never going to live down the death of the billions of people whose blood he has on his hands.
But even with those theoretical weapons we’ve developed, we are at best fighting to a stalemate.
It used to take several Armada ships to bring down a Sonali. Now, it only takes two armada vessels to be destroyed to bring down one Sonali cruiser.
Sorry. Do I sound bitter?
You fucking bet I do.
It’s gotten to the point where failure is not an option. Because if you fail, you die. There’s no other way to put it except this is the defining conflict of our lives.
That part of your brain that you don’t want give you ideas and asking you questions? That’s the part that makes me laugh right about now in a morbid sort of way. Because, I’m thinking back to the people who served on The Seeker.
No one, to a man, including me, had ever fought in a war this large and this devastating. But entire classes in the Academy today are graduating having only known war. The Sonali are relentless. They come at you and attack with a ferocity that you would never expect.
Sadly, it took a no time for humanity to match that ferocity.
The one thing that’s come out of this I think that may be some sort of fucked up silver lining is that the technology advancements that we’ve gotten through the war have really expedited the rebuilding of much of Earth.
Not that that really matters if the Sonali come into orbit of the Terran home system and begin bombardment of our cities.
Makes World War III look like a walk in the park.
I worry about Earth. Every day.
My crew feels it.
They all think about their home plants. You can see it in their faces as well. Every time a colony world falls, we get word that a settlement has been attacked; you see it in the faces of everyone. Did they know anyone there? Do they have any family there? Do they have any friends? Could it happen to their home planet?
It keeps you up at night and doesn’t let you sleep. But sometimes that’s a good thing. Because when you sleep those thoughts turn into nightmares.
Surprisingly the morale has been pretty good within the Armada. Armada Command has seen fit to reorganize along much better lines of command than anything we’ve ever had before. We got a new president of the Union who actually seems to want to prosecute this war and preserve humanity. He campaigned during the second year of the war on a platform that both morbid and made you chuckle--‘Preserve Humanity’.
Of course, that means more corporate involvement. I wonder what new corporate shingle will be hanging outside the briefing room on the Edoris Station Promenade when I go out.
Maybe another Trinidec Pleasure Palace?
Or a billboard from the Astra Corporation?
Will it even matter if the Sonali come out of nowhere and vaporize this station in a coordinated assault? Before they break through the lines and go destroy humanity?
Sounds kind of melodramatic doesn’t it?
Well, that’s what a lot of people are worried about. That these are the last days of the human race.
Well trust me, this is a pretty fucking valid concern. I think by now I’ve counted at least 100 engagements with the enemy. I’ve seen ships destroyed in front of my eyes. The frigate that had the name The Seeker is gone. We got most of the crew out alive. We’re lucky that we got out alive.
Will we continue to be lucky much longer?
Sure, there been technological advancements. Sure, we’ve encountered other alien races as we jumpstarted our exploration through the sector. Multiple contact with multiple species as a result of war.
Thank God we didn’t get into more conflicts with them.
And, actually, perhaps one of the biggest things ever—the Terran Union and the Armada finally looking outward rather than just inward. Sure, we got our backs to the wall. Today we're fighting for survival. But there is a chance that maybe we get out of this alive and not go extinct as a species. I know that sounds pretty gloomy. But there’s nothing rosy about this war and the devastation it’s caused.
And that’s when Admiral Flynn walks in. The sliding doors close and he takes the dais.
“Thank you for being here, gentlemen,” he says as he looks into each of our faces. “We are here today to discuss your role in the Wolf Offensive. A campaign we hope that will turn the tide and end this war.”
Admiral Flynn continues. “Within several days time, a fleet of over 400 starships from the Armada will be amassing at this station. We will be striking at the heart of the Sonali defenses in this sector. You will not be a part of it.”
My eyes open wide and I lean forward. If we’re not going to be part of one of the greatest offenses in the history of human warfare than I want to know what we’re going to be doing.
I know that Admiral Flynn will tell us in time. I also know that he’s going to keep as much in
formation as he’s not allowed to share to himself. But I know this as well—Admiral Flynn wants this war to be over. He’s right there with me when I think about how it started. Not with the demands back and forth to re-compensate us for the destruction of The Mariner. Not the speeches by the politicians who tried to whip the crowd into a frenzy for war. Not even from the decision within Armada Command to make the first strike. That first strike was not the start of this conflict.
The first salvo in this conflict, the first conversation about a potential war, all that occurred over one coded slipstream frequency when I reported back on the state of The Mariner debris to Admiral Flynn.
Earlier I said there is a lot of things I could’ve done, remember? Well, I bet you that Admiral Flynn thinks that there’s a lot of things he could’ve done as well. I think he goes over his actions five years ago with a fine tooth comb.
There is a half-dozen orders just within the few hours of discovering the wreckage that would’ve altered today and the state that were in.
If he had given those orders I know he’s thinking that none of this would’ve happened. But I know that he’s thinking that. And not just me. Other people are probably thinking something similar as well.
It looks like all of us will pay for any mistakes that I made. After watching humans die and being forced to kill Sonali I don’t really know if I have the ability to care anymore. It’s like you go numb inside after the first billion deaths, you know?
It’s like with every death that I see or that I cause another part of my soul is on its one-way trip to hell.
“Your target,” the Admiral continues and I raise my eyes to shake myself awake and pay attention.
“Is none other than the central planet of all Sonali religion,” he finishes.
Well, this should be interesting.
Chapter 18
Ashley
“The best I can do is 26 hours,” the Edoris station engineer says to me.
“26 hours is too long. That’s just way too long to repair the deflector screens,” I say back to him. His gray eyes bore into me trying to look into my soul.
“Look, Commander Gaines,” he says. “You’re not the first person who’s come up to me telling me that my repairs take too long. You’re not even the highest ranking person who’s come up to me telling me my repairs take too long. Let me ask you this. You want me to put together a half ass job so that when you go out there and fight the blue skins you end up falling apart faster and having to limp back and I got do this job all over again?”
I’m silent.
“Or … you want me to do a good job, get you good deflector screen upgrades, so that when you fight those fuckers you kick their ass you don’t have to come crawling back to the station—if it’s even around—to get an upgrade,” he finishes.
A part of me has to be absolutely honest. He makes a very good point. But the key statement in that whole long diatribe that sticks out of me is whether the station is still going to be around the next time we come back.
It’s been a long war. The destruction over the last five years has been unprecedented. Even The Seeker. We’re doing with an upgraded battle cruiser using the name v nowadays. An encounter at New Sydney in the first six months of the war led to the destruction of the old frigate. Can’t say that I don’t like the new ship, but a part of me sometimes misses the old one. It sort of became home after a lot of years.
“16 hours is fine,” I say. “There’s a problem with the inertial dampers too. Think you could take a look at that while you’re under the hood?”
“You got it,” he says to me and starts inputting orders into his tablet.
“How many ships are in the queue?” I ask. He looks at me and gives me a rueful smile.
“You don’t even want to know,” he says with a chuckle. “Fixup one, another three get in line. But I guess it’s better that they come back damaged than they don’t come back at all.”
The engineers got a point. At the very beginning of the war the number of Terran Union ships that it took to bring down one Sonali vessel was staggering. It seemed like every ship that we had was ill-equipped to fight the graceful and superior design of the Sonali. I remember encounters where it took five ships to bring down one Sonali vessel.
But, that’s not to say that the scientists and the corporations didn’t do their damnedest to try to even those odds. Right about three years ago during one of their largest offensives we finally began to hold our lines. Not just hold our lines, but turned the tide.
But the cost of resources? The cost of manpower? All those people for 2 ½ years who died just to halt an invasion?
That treasure can never be recovered.
Like I said, it’s been a long war. For the first time ever, the rebuilding of the planet Earth was put on hold to ensure the survival of humanity.
Not that there hasn’t been some good that’s come out of this. For the first time the Outer Colonies, seeing us at the losing end of a war and facing extinction finally began moving toward a path and toward meaningful diplomatic contact. It’s surprising to say to someone like me who’s always only known the Outer Colonies as belligerent, isolationist, and not interested in anything to do with the Terran Union. But for the first time emissaries are arriving on Earth to begin the process of opening a dialogue.
Where’s that dialogue going to go? I don’t know. That’s beyond my pay grade. But what I do know is that if there is some meaningful progress on that front maybe there’s hope for us as a species in surviving this.
“I’ll start working with the dock master to get the ship detailed and ready to go in the next two days with all the things we talked about,” the engineer says to me. I nod. My mission while we’re docked at the station is to make sure that the battle damage that The Seeker suffered while out on it’s missions gets repaired to the best of this station’ abilities.
I know that not everything’s gonna get fixed. The inertial dampers, like I said, are shot. The molecular resequensor only works at limited capacity. The captain has diverted all nonessential energy toward weapons and critical ships functions. The last firefight that we were in ravaged the sick bay but we’re making do. In order to repair it, we need a full crew to detail out the sick bay and that would shelve us for at least two weeks.
We don’t have two weeks.
We need to be out there. In space. Fighting the Sonali. Defending the innocent. Before they ravage us anymore.
I’m about to end my impromptu meeting with the stations engineer when I spy Jeryl walking toward me. His face is careworn. You can tell the weight of the galaxy is hanging on his shoulders. It sounds like an exaggeration but it really does seem like that.
This war has been particularly hard on him. Being the captain that carries out the first contact with an alien race who then sees his direct actions lead to five years of brutal war can’t be easy.
I tried to talk to him about it several times but he never opened up to me.
Jeryl walks up to me and the engineer salutes. I realize that I’ve gotten used to having him as my husband and some of these considerations I forget when were out amongst others.
But then again this is an impromptu meeting. I saw the engineer walking and I sidelined him, dragging him toward the bay windows overlooking deep space. That’s where I started hounding him and harassing him on when we would get the repairs done. It’s a good thing I did, or else we’d be here for three or four days getting critical repairs done… Or like some ships I know would be sent back out without being able to get anything fixed.
“How’d it go?” I ask as Jeryl looks at me.
“We have new orders,” he says to me.
“Anything fun?” I ask trying to put a mischievous smile on my face. I need to try to lighten his mood. There’s too much gloom and doom going around lately.
No surprise there with several billion dead staring down at you.
Although, just between you and me… I need to let you know that a part of me i
s a little bit happy.
Why is that?
Now, for the first time in a long time the Armada is looking outwards.
It’s upgrading.
The infrastructure of the fighting force is getting a retrofit. Were finally starting to take exploration and defense seriously. And we’re becoming leaner, and meaner. It’s an evolutionary process. Only the strong amongst us are surviving.
For the longest time, no one in the Armada knew what a real conflict was like. Sure, little border skirmishes with the Outers. Helping some corporations chase down some pirates. But the real war?
This is going to stay with us for life. And sure, that’s a bad thing. But that’s also a good thing. It teaches us to treasure the time that we do have.
What does that do internally?
What damage to the democratic institutions and the things that the Terran Union has enshrined in its society?
Our president is elected every six years. Three years ago, we had a new one who was elected at the height of defeat. Three years from now and it’s time for him to step down, if this war is still going on, will he?
Will there be a peaceful transition of power at the highest halls of the Terran Union?
Sighing, I let my gaze fall down to my hands, and then down to the golden band on my finger. It catches the bright lights of the hangar, and I see my distorted reflection in there, as if my soul was trapped inside.
It’s been a long war. But at least we’re together.
There’s no more awkwardness about what happened back in New Sydney. That went away once we got married, after all.
But how will this war test our marriage? What will I do if Jeryl dies?
“Depends what you think is fun, Ashley,” Jeryl says bringing me back from my reverie.
“The Seeker’s gonna be leading a group of starships as part of a new offensive,” Jeryl says. “We’re going to be making a major offensive. This is the Wolf Offensive the people been waiting for and our ship’s gonna play a critical role.”
I can see the engineer and his ears perk up. The last couple of weeks all anyone can talk about has been the Wolf Offensive. Designed by Mortimer Wolf of Armada Intelligence this offensive is supposed to be something big. No one knows what it is but they do know that it’s supposed to be a game changer.
