Archangel One

by Evan Currie

  “Send to all ships,” he decided finally. “Operation is cleared to proceed.”

  “Yes Admiral. Sending now.”

  Mir sighed. I hope this wasn’t a mistake.

  Berine Gael

  I hope this is not a mistake.

  Auran found very little to like in the current situation, though he saw few options more palatable than the one on which they’d embarked. The mercenary squadron had agreed to the trial employment, and after a negotiation that still left him feeling slightly dirty and wrung out like he’d been physically beaten, he had put Lord Peruma’s plan into action.

  “Sir, the lead mercenary vessel Gaia’s Revenge is signalling,” his communications officer announced.

  “Put Captain Teach through here,” he ordered, frowning slightly. Who, or what, is Gaia, I wonder?

  It was a name that spoke of a past story, one that he hoped to hear sometime if the current situation worked out in his favor.

  In the meantime, however . . .

  He turned to the display as it came to life. “Captain Teach, is everything in position?”

  “According to the plan as laid out, yes Commander,” Teach said. “My squadron is at your service.”

  “Thank you for that, Captain. If you are being honest with us, the Star Kingdom is in your debt,” Auran said before his expression turned to stone. “If, however, this is a planned betrayal, my final act will be to see that you join us in the abyss.”

  Teach just smiled at him.

  “I believe that you and I, Commander, are going to get along just fine.”

  The display went dead a moment later, leaving Auran staring at it blankly for a long moment. He didn’t know if he liked the man who had been on the other end of the discussion or was beginning to loathe him. In either case, Auran supposed it didn’t matter.

  They had a task to accomplish.

  All else would have to wait.

  The galaxy is a massive place by any human scale imaginable.

  Within a fifty-light-year sphere, there are roughly two thousand stars that contain around three hundred potentially habitable planets. Actual habitation varies wildly, of course, depending on factors impossible to predict without detailed surveys of practically every star within the sphere.

  In areas such as the Empire, where populations had grown up and expanded out of their homeworlds, factors like terraforming and general geo-genesis technology resulted in a considerably higher-than-average population density. People expanded, pushing through boundaries, by their nature.

  The Empire encompassed a mere two hundred habitable worlds, but it was considerably higher in population density than the average section of stars in the galaxy. Instead of occupying fifty light-years in diameter, the Empire occupied a section of the galaxy barely twenty-five across.

  The section of space containing the pocket empires that had attempted to break away from the Empire had fewer methods for maximizing use of resources, however, and actually occupied a larger section of space than the Empire itself. Across almost forty light-years, sprawling worlds of multiple stellar polities made up the loosely associated worlds of the Free Stars.

  Thousands of stars, hundreds of planets, and—one would think—more than sufficient resources for a hundred times the population that existed there.

  One would think.

  Over more generations than most could count, the Empire had been pitting the so-called Free Stars against one another. The pressurized nature of the wars the Empire fed from one side to another ate away at the resources of the polities within the Free Stars, and century after century of wars slowly left each successive generation with just a little less than their birthright.

  As each generation began to realize that they would inherit less than their fathers had, they inevitably grew angry. Angry at their fathers, angry at the Empire, and angry at each other—most of all, at each other. Their fathers were gone, and the Empire was too big to truly comprehend, but everyone understood that when their neighbors got a little more, it meant a little less for them.

  The cycle of war had casualties well beyond those who merely died.

  Belj Fleet

  “Telemetry from our pickets confirm that the Star Kingdom destroyers are departing their capital system as expected, Admiral.”

  Mir nodded. “What of the unidentified squadron reported by Hirik?”

  “No sign of them at all, Admiral.”

  “I do not like this,” Hirik replied. “Continue tracking the Kingdom’s destroyers, and find those unidentified vessels!”

  “Yes Admiral.”

  So far, Mir had to admit that the plan was running almost exactly to expectations. He just wished they had more information on the unknown squadron. They bothered him. They were something new. He’d not seen anything new in a long, long time.

  Mir examined the data that had been sent over from Hirik’s squadron, trying to learn more about the enemy. They fit the expected in some ways, defied it in others. The strange mix bugged him.

  No one is building smaller and faster like this. Everyone is following the Imperial standard. Larger, more powerful vessels are the standard. There’s nothing in any reports that match this. No one is fielding ships even close to what Hirik ran into.

  In his experience, keeping a secret on the scale of a Navy construction project was impossible. With so many people involved, someone would leak the secret, or some aspect of it at least.

  And yet he had nothing on this squadron.

  It makes no sense. Who are they? Where have they come from? Combat ships of this power do not appear fully formed from the emptiness of the abyss. Someone had to have built them.

  Mir shook his head.

  “Maybe Hirik was fooled,” he muttered. “Maybe they are not what they seem.”

  That made more sense. Perhaps the Kingdom was running some sort of bluff, or perhaps they had managed to refit some smaller ships with military specification reactors and weapons.

  It made more sense than an entire squadron of unknown ships coming out of nowhere.

  That idiot Hirik walked into a trap. It’s the only answer that makes sense.

  Gaia’s Revenge (Formerly Archangel One)

  “We are prepared for battle, Stephan.”

  Steph nodded. “Thank you, Milla. How has everything been going?”

  Milla took a seat at the small table in the ship’s miniscule cafeteria space. “It is . . . a very different experience. I built these ships, designed them, but I did not realize how small they really were, I believe.”

  Steph looked around. “It’s a monster compared to my original Archangel, but that was an air superiority fighter. This is really more of a gunboat.”

  “I am not certain I really understand the difference,” Milla confessed.

  “Honestly? Not much, really,” Steph said. “It used to be about maneuverability and speed. Smaller was faster, and speed is life. Technology has put paid to that rule, though, so now we have this.”

  He looked around the small, cramped quarters of the cafeteria.

  “It’s an older concept than we’re used to,” he said. “But it was effective in its day, and I think its day has come again.”

  “Tell me more about ‘its day,’” Milla said.

  “The best version I can think of was World War Two,” Steph said. “PT boats were powerful heavy hitters for their size. They were used in all theaters but were really famous in the Pacific. Fast, obscenely powerful for their size, but vulnerable too because they were so lightly armored.”

  He laughed. “Back in the day, you wouldn’t believe how often a PT boat would fight a battle and then just bob around afterward, hoping their side won, because they were out of fuel and needed a tow back to port.”

  Milla grimaced slightly. “I believe I can promise that, at least, will not happen to us.”

  “I’ve seen the reactor specs. I believe you.” Steph laughed briefly before sobering somewhat. “We’re pretty lightly armored compared to what
we’re likely to run into, though, especially as we get closer to the Empire.”

  “There is little that can be done to stand up against the energy of a warship’s lasers,” Milla said, “especially not on a vessel this size.”

  “Which is why we try not to get hit.”

  That, Steph was aware, would be easier said than done, but so far the tactic had worked well in their favor. It seemed like the influence of the Empire on the region had been much as the brass had predicted. He was certainly relieved that they’d gotten that much right, the nature of things being what they were.

  The Empire, like the Priminae, favored big and powerful ships. They didn’t have anything that matched the new-generation Archangels, let alone the space superiority version that his original fighter had been converted to. They didn’t have the doctrine to counter that sort of tactic, and for as long as that held, Steph was fully planning on using every advantage it gave him.

  Sooner or later, though, they would adapt. Humans always did. It was what made them human.

  I wonder what Eric will do when that happens? Steph wondered briefly, thinking about how quickly his mentor had been able to improvise new tactics when thrown into the situations that demanded them. I suppose I’m going to find out if I can walk the walk as well as he did.

  “Commander Michaels to the flight deck. Commander Michaels, please report to the flight deck.”

  Steph looked up sharply, pushing his coffee away as he got up.

  “Time to go to work.”

  Milla nodded, following him out and splitting off to head for the engineering section of the small craft as he headed forward to the flight control deck.

  “What is it?” Steph asked, swinging himself into the rounded room that housed the gunboat’s flight control system.

  “Contact,” Tyke said from where he was monitoring the systems.

  Steph saw that Tyke hadn’t activated the tactical control system yet and relaxed marginally; that meant they weren’t looking at instant action, for the moment at least. He stepped up behind the other pilot and looked over his shoulder at the telemetry.

  “Hmm,” he murmured. “Eight signals, light destroyers, all trailing far enough back that I’m surprised we spotted them. Do the locals have them on scopes?”

  “I doubt it,” Tyke said. “They’re not giving any sign of it, and you’d think they’d at least contact us.”

  “Maybe. Either way, looks like they were right,” Steph said, sweeping his finger across the telemetry map and highlighting all the enemy signals. “The attack was probably designed to make them panic and reveal the location of their strategic reserves. Not a bad plan, I suppose. Leaves a bit much to chance, or to the enemy, but I’ve seen worse.”

  “You’ve pulled off worse, Crown,” Tyke said.

  Steph grinned. “We all did. Beam the others, tell them to stay on plan. Let them close the trap, for now at least.”

  Tyke nodded. “Wilco. Should we warn the locals?”

  Steph shook his head. “Not yet. Not in the contract anyway, and better for us if they react naturally when they do cotton on to the situation.”

  “Cold-blooded, Commander.”

  “We’re pirates now, Tyke,” Steph said, winking. “Cold-blooded is the name of the game, until it turns hot. Then damn the torpedoes and full steam ahead.”

  “I think you’re mixing your metaphors. Pick a time period and stick to it, boss.”

  “You’re just jealous that I get to be a pirate, Captain.”

  “Until you get a cool old-timey naval hat, you’re just Crown to me, Crown.”

  “Don’t you think I won’t make one.”

  Tyke burst out laughing.

  “What?” Steph protested. “I can sew!”

  Berine Gael

  “Commander, we’re detecting echoes in the gravity trap scans.”

  Auran walked over to the scanner technician, looking down from the command bridge to the pit where the system display was located.

  “Our . . . friends?” he asked.

  “No Commander.” The scanner officer shook her head. “Wrong location, and the signature matches Belj destroyers shadowing in the comet shield.”

  Auran nodded, unsurprised by the revelation.

  “Orders, Commander?”

  “Increase scrutiny of the echoes. Inform me when you confirm their identity,” Auran ordered.

  “Yes Commander.”

  Now, I suppose, there is little left to do but to wait.

  Belj Fleet

  “We’re tracking the Kingdom’s destroyers. They’re approaching a small asteroid cluster.”

  “Refocus our scanners on the cluster,” Mir ordered.

  “Yes Admiral.”

  If the plan had worked, which it appeared to have, that cluster would be the target the Kingdom thought his fleet had actually been after, the initial attack intended to draw away forces from the primary target.

  Now they just needed confirmation.

  “Initial scans compiling, Admiral. We’re detecting significant operations around the asteroid cluster. Communications intercepts, highly encrypted, are sourcing from the area.”

  That was promising. High comms traffic meant that there was some heavy activity in the area.

  Governments among the Free Stars jealously guarded their resource discoveries from one another. Space being as big as it was, that was generally a fairly easy task to accomplish. Finding a competing polity’s little nest egg of resources—now, that was tough. Aside from truly ludicrous levels of luck, the only real possible way to track down those resources was via the various types of statecraft that had become part of the way of life in the Free Stars.

  The Belj Empire needs those crystals, far more than the Kingdom has been willing to sell us, if we’re to gain an edge in the current conflict.

  “We’re scanning significant activity, Admiral. It looks like a harvesting site, no question any longer.”

  “Excellent. Order the fleet to close on the cluster.”

  Chapter 14

  Berine Gael

  “Enemy drive signatures showing on long-range scans!”

  Auran strode across the bridge deck, looking down on the pit where the crew were working. “Signal all ships to ready for combat.”

  “Yes, Commander.”

  The alarms started in the distance as Auran examined the telemetry of the enemy ships now that they were running their drives fully in the open. The shadows detected earlier had been confirmed, of course, as the ships slipped out of the cover of the comet cloud and began accelerating down system toward the Kingdom’s destroyers.

  “Eight squadrons.” He whistled, a chill running down his spine. “The Belj are apparently quite serious about this effort.”

  His own defense fleet consisted of considerably less, and Auran knew without question that the Belj had more than enough to walk through what he had on tap with barely any effort.

  It is a good thing we were expecting this, he supposed, but even with all factors considered he was far from certain that he had sufficient advantages to win the day. It would be a close fight.

  That left only one unknown set of factors.

  I suppose we will see just how good these “privateers” truly are, and if they’re worth the promised fee.

  Gaia’s Revenge

  “That’s it, this fight is kicking off,” Tyke said over his shoulder as Steph strode back into the flight control deck, coffee steaming in his hand. “We have what looks like eight full squadrons, assuming they hold to their earlier convention.”

  Steph winced. “That’s forty destroyers?”

  “Confirmed so far, aye.”

  “That’s asking a bit much, even for Archangels,” Steph said idly as he called up a hard-light holo-projection and examined the data being scanned. “Hope the locals have a good plan, or this might be the shortest pirating career in history.”

  Tyke rolled his eyes as he watched the system shrink when Steph widened the display parameter
s. “What are you looking for?”

  “Anything, really,” Steph said. “We have hours before we’re in the fight, and I’m curious.”

  “We are in an alien system, so I guess I can understand that.”

  “That’s sort of what has me curious,” Steph admitted. “It’s a boring system. No habitable worlds, average star, nothing unusual in the scans at all. All very humdrum.”

  Tyke shot a dark look at his old friend. “You’ve spent too much time with Eric, you know that, right? I swear, that man could get used to anything.”

  Steph chuckled. “Yeah, well, there are worse things.” He paused. “Huh. That’s funny.”

  “What?” Tyke looked over.

  “I don’t know,” Steph said. “Some of the numbers are a little off. I think there’s something else out here.”

  “Such as?” Tyke gave in to his curiosity and came over, looking at the telemetry himself.

  “If I knew, I would tell you,” Steph said as he tapped one of the floating hard-light interface switches. “Milla?”

  “Yes, Stephan.” Milla’s inquiring tone came through almost immediately.

  “I want you to look at the telemetry here. Something is off.”

  There was a brief pause. “I will be right there.”

  The connection closed and Tyke paused, raising an eyebrow. “Doesn’t have root access where she is?”

  “Sure, but we’re up here. Why wouldn’t she want to come hang out with us?” Steph asked blithely.

  “Right.”

  It didn’t take long for Milla to appear, the gunboat being as small as it was.

  “What is it?” she asked, approaching the center of the flight control deck, walking through the projections to where the pair were standing.

  “I’m seeing what looks like echoes on the gravity scanners,” Steph said. “I just want to confirm that the enemy doesn’t have more backup than we’re aware of.”

  Milla frowned, moving to his side as she examined the display.