Void Dragon

by William Kephart

  Though a city, Aolin was no less purple. It had been built in the days when the old home world was polluted beyond measure, and barely livable. Great care was taken in maintaining the ecological balance and building permits here were harder to get than colonial charters for new worlds. It made rent hideously expensive, but this was the capitol of the Gongyue Government itself, a polity with dozens of planets under its rule.

  Wen turned over and looked out the window. There was nothing but spider-thin towers connected with webs of vacuum train tubes. Even these sported gardened walls and careful cultivations. The surface, Wen knew from childhood, was mostly parkland. Her parents were together then and there was no war. She could remember being happy, but not really because of her family. No, as a child her concerns were decidedly more parochial. It was all about the parks and the animals.

  Mountain though it was, Olympus Mons was really a giant shield volcano with a gentle slope, barely perceptible in places. The parks were stocked full of wonderful places to explore and get lost in, and the Gongyue Government made sure the children of its elite spent plenty of time in nature.

  Sometimes Wen wondered if she had ever really been that little girl. She was so different these days. This was her home, or at least the address listed on her military I.D. The Central Committee wanted her for something and all she could think about was sleep. Maybe it was just Harbin. She’d never been on a mission like that before. Was life in the Marines Corps always like that? If so, she was glad she went Navy.

  Speaking of which, half the Navy must've been overhead, perhaps more now. A great fleet was massed over Zhongxing; she saw it on her way to the surface. The most interesting thing? Hundreds of Void Dragon class frigates, or more than she could count from the space elevator, anyway, were flying openly right alongside the dreadnoughts. I suppose one of them has my name on it.

  The dreadnoughts were easier to eyeball, forty, perhaps fifty. She didn’t know how many they had total, but that was a significant chunk for sure.

  Wen smiled. There was no way she was being punished this time, despite a few mistakes she made along the way, she’d gotten just what High Command wanted and ended the Mei general strike. Admiral Song had assured her of that much. It would feel good to be in a fighting ship again, and in a fleet like that. She’d never seen so many ships in one place. It was the “big push” they’d talked about. It had to be. With that many frigates they’d tear the Enemy apart.

  She would never underestimate the Void Dragon, or any ship of its class. That little frigate had gotten her out of and through more messes than she could casually count. With so many, just about anything was possible.

  Watch out, ‘Kui-Tang’, Captain Wen is coming for you!

  “Heh, Kui-Tang. So funny.” Wen had been endlessly fascinated by Professor Montjoie and his expertise on the Enemy and their language, even with as little time as she actually got to speak with him. To put a name to what, to whom she’d been fighting, made everything so much more clear.

  “Like ants,” he’d said, “but like cats too, especially the big extinct kind from the old home world.” Wen would’ve liked to know all this in xenostudies back at the Academy. Of course, knowing herself at the time, she’d have only really been interested in whether Ren could eat their food. She couldn’t even keep herself from asking Montjoie that very question.

  They could, as a matter of fact, though the Kui’Tang diet was mostly fish, something about being semi-aquatic. They’re like us in every way that matters. Food, climate, gravity, all tolerances within the same range. They just reproduce more quickly. No wonder they want our planets.

  Let them breed as fast as they like, Wen thought viciously. The tables have turned now.

  ***

  On the third day home Wen found herself going just a little stir crazy. “I just can’t ever be happy, can I?”

  At some point the grind of her life had become normal, and ease just felt like a waste. She wanted to being doing something. The People’s Central Committee was sure taking their time.

  It wasn’t like there was nothing to do, but Wen had been gone so long she didn’t even know where to start. The restaurants her parents had taken her to as a child were all gone, and nothing was exactly where she remembered it. It would’ve been depressing to go there alone in any case. The simple fact was she didn’t know anyone here and hadn’t had anything close to real friends since the Academy. The whole planet had changed. Half the people on the vacuum trains were in military uniforms and more than half the people had grim, unsmiling faces. The Long War had touched even old Zhongxing, with not a shot fired in system or even close by. It was all so depressing.

  Wen had spent the first two days catching up on all the sleep she missed on the Harbin mission. She enjoyed it well enough until, lying awake, she had an awful thought. She probably destroyed Harbin’s ability to sustain life, at least for a generation. Shifting out directly from the surface with the Void Dragon’s damaged and unstable core would’ve released xinium radiation sufficient to render most of the planet uninhabitable.

  Never killed a planet before, she thought. But it was them or me, and I chose me. That’s what she told herself, at any rate.

  On the fourth day (so unlucky) she finally received her summons to appear before the Central Committee. Her dress uniform had been cleaned and laid out days ago and she didn’t waste any time.

  She thought she cut a pretty dashing figure as she admired her reflection. The uniform was white with golden epaulets, braids, and piping. Wen hadn’t worn anything this fancy since graduation, and best of all, the insignia for captain was right there for all to see.

  Wen tucked her cap under her arm and made for the train station attached to her building. Of course, “train” was something of a misnomer since individual cars typically made trips unattached. Only extremely dense cities used real trains, and none of those existed on pristine Zhongxing.

  The ticket computer automatically waived her fare since she was technically on official military business, so she just sat down. It was the middle of the afternoon and well past lunch so there were only three other people on board for this run, and they all sat far enough away from Wen that she didn’t get a good look at them.

  Once all were aboard a massive light relativistic stability field spread over the car and they shot into the tube. Wen averted her eyes from the window, an instinct she thought long forgotten. The sudden blurring of everything around made her sick as a child and a part of her remembered, somehow.

  Aolin city was nearly a thousand kilometers from end to end and the trains had to be fast. Wen wondered why they bothered with windows since with the speed, the imperfectly transparent vacuum tube, and the distortion from the stability field you couldn’t really see anything.

  They stopped twice and everyone but her got off. The trains here kept no fixed schedule and could be sent pretty much anywhere on the transportation grid as passengers demanded. It was really quite convenient. The perks of living on the home world.

  The view stabilized as the car stopped at a fortified checkpoint tower. One couldn’t simply take a commuter train directly into the inner sanctum of the Gongyue Government. She’d have to go through security and change to the military train that would take her to the Great Gongyue Hall.

  The guards, Ren marines all, were more polite than Colonel Xia ever was, at least. The saluted at her approach and everything was carried out pretty quickly. The secure car had just one other passenger.

  “Ha! So you’re the girl, huh?”

  Wen bristled a bit at being called a girl at her age and looked around for the offender, unsuccessfully.

  A head peaked out from around one of the car’s benches and Wen narrowed her eyes.

  He looked more like a gnarled tree stump than a man. Half his face was burned and ruined, and the other half tanned and leathery like an old pair of combat boots.

  “Combat boots” was an apt comparison. Wen looked down at this old Mei man and noticed he was
wearing a Marine Corps uniform (of course he was) but that wasn’t all. The rank insignia on his shoulders meant marshal.

  “Marshal!?” she gasped.

  He smiled with a mouthful of shiny artificial teeth. “So you’ve heard of me?”

  “Can’t say I have, sir,” she replied lightly. “I didn’t know they were still giving out that rank.”

  He motioned for her to sit down next to him. Wen thought it must’ve looked a bit comical, since she was easily twice his height, though with the breadth of him the old marshal probably weighed more.

  “It’s not usual, I’ll admit, but we’ve got something big planned,” he replied.

  Interesting. “Can you tell me about it?”

  He winked at her with his good eye, or the eye she thought was the good one. “I could. But wouldn’t you want to hear it from the big shots up top? I heard Chairwoman Cao is gonna be there, complete with all the officious crap you types love, pomp and circumstance and all that.”

  That big? Wen thought she was just getting a medal and a new ship! A promotion to commodore at the most!

  “What do you mean?”

  “Look up,” he said.

  And sure enough, the fleet visible over the planet had doubled since the last time she checked.

  She looked down at him, then up again, and back down.

  “Yep,” he said, sounding pleased with himself. “This is the big one, all hands. I’m Marshal Lü by the way.” He offered a hand and Wen shook it. He held on and looked her in the eye. “I heard what you did for Task Force Xuanwu and Montjoie. That was tenacious work. I have a hell of a lot of time for tenacious people,” he said fiercely.

  When he let go Wen shook the numbness out of her hand and didn’t care if he saw. “Thanks. It wasn’t easy.”

  “It never is.”

  The sat in silence for a while. Marshal Lü wasn’t talking and Wen didn’t really know what else to say. Finally she just blurted it out, “Why aren’t we moving?”

  He sat back and smiled again, not even coming up half way the admittedly high-backed seat he was in. “Rank hath its privileges. They’re waiting for me to give the order.”

  “Well, what are you waiting for?”

  “You,” he said, leveling a thick finger right over her heart. “I wanted to see you myself, have a chat, get your measure. After all, I’ll be needing you for my plan.”

  That sounds ominous. “What plan?” she hardly dared to ask.

  “That would be telling.” He smiled again and brought his hand down in a chopping motion.

  Wen wasn’t ready for the sudden acceleration, not at all. The landscape outside the windows became an abstract blur at once and Wen was nearly jarred out of her seat. “Warn me next time, will you?” she said unhappily.

  Lü looked nonplussed. “I thought you were a pilot. This is nothing.”

  “It’s different, trust me.”

  “I suppose I’ll just have to take your word for it, career ground pounder that I am. Speaking of which, let me be the first to welcome you to the Great Gongyue Hall of the People, the beating heart of Aolin city, hell, the whole Gongyue Government!”

  It didn’t look like much, to be honest, just another vacuum train terminal on another tower, commonest sight in the daily life of every Aoliner.

  Lü must’ve been watching her expression because he said, “It’s more impressive on the inside. This is just the working entrance for us high level types. Welcome to the club!”

  The marines on duty recognized Marshal Lü right away and waved them through. Wen made sure to stick close.

  The little atrium beyond the security checkpoint was pretty grand, she had to admit. The plush carpets sported intricate patterns of red and gold. A high ceiling was held up with marble pillars and ornamented with a grid of crystal chandeliers. The staircase at the far end of the room and all the doorways were paneled in a rare wood she didn’t recognize.

  “This way,” he said. “I’m afraid the Great Hall of the Great Hall isn’t our destination today.”

  A side door opened to a wide hallway with a guard every ten paces. The Ren marines just stood silently as they passed.

  “Who are we meeting anyway?” Wen asked.

  “Cao, other big shots, not a full plenary session but everyone that counts will be there, plus a surprise,” he added lightly.

  Wen didn’t have to wait long for her surprise. There was someone waiting for them at the threshold to the Committee chambers, someone Wen hadn’t seen in a long time.

  “Commodore Jiang!” she called out, saluting as an afterthought.

  “Captain Wen,” her old commanding officer greeted. “I heard you had an adventuresome time of it on your last mission.”

  “I’ll let you too get reacquainted,” Lü said, and entered the room.

  Commodore Jiang looked really good in her dress uniform, almost like...almost like her mother. And then she saw it. “Admiral Jiang! You’ve been promoted?”

  “Three whole ranks.” Jiang sat back on her heels and preened. “Had to be, for this.”

  Wen held up a hand. “Wait, what’s this? They still haven’t told me anything.”

  Jiang sighed. “That’s good, I suppose, would be a shame if you spent your R&R time with something like this hanging over you.”

  Wen asked again with her eyes. Jiang pulled her off to the side and began speaking rapidly in a quiet voice.

  “We’re going after them, one large decisive battle. I’m sure you’ve seen the fleet overhead. Since you left Harbin they’ve pulled back to their main staging ground in the old outer colonies, the planet Chengdu. The frigates have done excellent work scouting, by the way. We know the Enemy’s every move just as soon as they make it. With hundreds of those hopping around constantly they can’t hide anything from us for long.”

  “And why are we attacking them first?” Wen asked.

  “I’ll give it to you straight. They’ve been behaving erratically, almost like they’re desperate. With Montjoie’s analysis of their behavior and biology we think we have a pretty good idea of their motivations. They have a rather serious internal division, worse than our Ren/Mei relations in many ways.”

  “I’m not sure I follow.”

  “One male per planet,” Jiang said. “It explains everything. Whenever a male is born, his mother gathers a fleet and conquers him one. Their strategy never made sense before. They’re fundamentally decentralized, and fleets answering to one Mother-of Son don’t answer to or support another in most cases. They don’t attack unless they have a boy that needs living space. Their offensives are completely disjointed and random as a consequence. I hate to say it, but if they were better organized we’d likely have been defeated a decade ago.”

  That was sobering. “So why the big concentration?”

  “We only have theories, but I think they’ve gone too long without a new conquest. They probably have one or more landless males lying around and we’ve been inflicting too many casualties on their fleets. It’s attack us or risk civil war. They’ve banded together because they don’t think they can win otherwise!

  “Of course they have no idea we have hundreds of Void Dragon class frigates now. The decision has been made to launch a preemptive attack on their fleet. You’ve performed an immeasurable service, Captain. If you hadn’t stuck around and brought back Montjoie after the initial setbacks on Harbin we wouldn’t know a fraction of this. We might very well win the war because of you.”

  Jiang looked proud. Wen just felt embarrassed.

  “Come on, the Chairwoman wants to see you.”

  Jiang took Wen by the shoulder and led her into the council chambers of the People’s Central Committee.

  A digital map of the galaxy as they knew it was fitted on one wall, constantly updating as news trickled in from scout ships. Wen’s eyes immediately drifted to the central constellation of the old outer colonies. There was Chengdu, where the Enemy fleet was massed.

  We’re attacking that. There must’
ve been five or six hundred dreadnoughts at least. She thought the gap was three to one, not five! Would the frigates be enough to tackle that kind of firepower?

  Her gaze drifted across the chamber to an oaken dais with the words Gongyue Systems Republic emblazoned in large characters. The figures seated there were shadowy, illuminated only by the pale light of the galaxy map. There were just a few guards that she could see, but Wen knew that didn’t mean much. It was the guards you didn’t see that you had to worry about, after all.

  Bureaucrats and high officers milled around, worrying at the map and other things. Marshal Lü was holding court over one section, gesticulating animatedly at what Wen could only guess were planned landing zones. It was almost too much to take in. The beating heart of the Gongyue Government.

  Commodore Jiang, no, Admiral Jiang, motioned for her to follow and walked Wen to the dais. Admiral Song was there, though he wasn’t seated with the real big shots. Wen spent a moment trying to catch a glimpse of Professor Bruzio, the Void Dragon’s inventor, but she was nowhere in sight. That was to the good, Wen felt; she didn’t relish having to explain the sorry state she returned the ship in. The mad Mei Montjoie was there, though.

  “She’s here,” a voice said.

  It was the work of a moment to figure out whose voice. Up close like this she could make out the shadowed faces of the Central Committee and recognized at least one. It was Mr. Wu, a bland-looking whiskered official that Wen knew personally to be a ruthless taskmaster.

  “Approach, Captain,” he said.

  She edged forward, not fully trusting her legs to hold her up. A black hole had formed in her belly, pulling down everything. A year ago she never would’ve believed this could happen, that she was here.

  “Quickly now, we don’t have all day,” Wu said, and she was ashamed.

  After all I’ve been through? I cringe in fear from this? No. And Wen forced herself to the dais platform, as boldly as she could manage.

  “I assume you’ve been briefed?” Wu asked.

  Wen nodded, and after a second’s thought replied verbally. “Yes, sir.”