Barbarians at the Gates

by Nuttall, Christopher

  The hatch hissed open and his friend Vaughn stepped in, coming over to stand beside him. Marius didn’t turn around, as he’d programmed the hatch to admit only Vaughn, once he’d personally swept the Observation Blister for surveillance devices. It seemed unlikely that anyone would bother bugging the entire ship, but he knew that the ship’s computers covertly monitored internal conversation and occasionally flagged something for Security. This way, the computers would know where they were—their implants would see to that—but they wouldn’t be able to listen in.

  “You seem to have developed an attack of paranoia,” Vaughn observed mildly.

  Marius knew it was that very mildness that had caused many people to underestimate Vaughn. The Federation Marines were the Federation’s shock troops, the most powerful and capable rapid reaction force in history: they boarded enemy starships, landed on enemy planets and were generally feared by the Federation’s enemies. But Vaughn didn’t seem like the type to do anything violent.

  Before Marius could answer, Vaughn went on. “Do you honestly think anyone would dare to bug the second-in-command of the Retribution Fleet?”

  “I don’t know,” Marius admitted. “Considering all that’s happened so far…”

  He started to outline everything that had happened since he’d learned that he wouldn’t be commanding the Retribution Fleet, just so Vaughn could check his thinking. Despite his objections, Parkinson had split the fleet into three sections, just as Parkinson had said he’d do in the first place. Marius had even pointed out that this put Parkinson’s life at risk, but Parkinson hadn’t wanted to hear it.

  But the stupidity didn’t end there. A quick check had revealed that the Fleet Train had been joined by several luxury liners, which carried the new governors of Harmony Sector. The files had been sealed, but with the aid of a couple of intelligence officers, Marius had managed to work out a list of the potential candidates. They had all been men with very strong political connections.

  None of them seemed to care that they were flying straight into a war zone.

  “Honestly, Vaughn, what do you think of all this?” Marius asked. “Because this really doesn’t look good, not from where I’m standing.”

  Vaughn considered it for a long moment. His thoughtful expression reminded Marius of when they’d first met, when he’d been the young commanding officer of a light cruiser and Vaughn had been the CO of the ship’s Marine detachment. As the Marines reported only to the ship’s captain—him—he and Vaughn had become fast friends, serving together as their careers advanced. When he’d been sent to the Rim to take command, there had been no other choice for Marine CO. He trusted Vaughn with his life.

  “The Brotherhood’s involvement is worrying,” Vaughn said finally. “You never know who might be working for the Brotherhood, or reporting back to them. They’ve always been very well represented in the Navy, and nothing has ever managed to change that, so...”

  He shrugged. “Watch your back, that’s all I can think of right now. Though I wish I had better advice to give.”

  “Everyone seems to be telling me to watch my back,” Marius said. He smiled, ruefully. “Perhaps I should wear body armor under my uniform, and sleep with a pistol under my pillow.”

  “Good idea,” Vaughn agreed. “And make sure you carry a weapon at all times, not just in simulations.”

  Marius nodded reluctantly.

  Centuries ago, the Snakes had attacked and occupied a handful of human worlds. They’d discovered that the inhabitants, once they’d gotten over their shock at being invaded by hostile aliens, were more than capable of fighting back against their alien overlords. By the time the nascent Federation Navy had retaken the occupied worlds, the Snakes had resorted to mass murder and genocide to eliminate the insurgents. Even then, they’d failed to make a clean sweep and thousands of humans had survived the bombings. The Federation Navy had rescued them and transported the survivors to a refugee camp on Terra Nova.

  One of the resistance leaders had been a political genius as well as an unrivalled tactician. He’d convinced the remainder of the other groups to form the Brotherhood of Humanity, a society that would have only one objective—to ensure that no alien race could ever threaten humanity again. They’d begun life as a political pressure group, but they’d rapidly become one of the Federation’s strongest supporters and proponents of a hard line towards aliens in the Federation. Rumor had it that two alien races that hadn’t survived their encounter with humanity had been deliberately exterminated by the Brotherhood.

  Even without committing genocide, the Brotherhood—now a secretive group with no visible chain of command—ensured that no alien ever became anything more than a second-class citizen in the Federation. No alien could ever be equal to a human, not in their eyes. It would be the first step towards human extermination.

  And now the Brotherhood is interfering in my life, Marius thought sourly. What did they want?

  Membership in the Brotherhood was hardly forbidden. The vast majority of the human population thoroughly supported the Brotherhood’s stance on aliens and alien rights, or lack of them. Even so, the Brotherhood’s members were generally encouraged to keep it a secret, adding to the society’s mystique—and, he realized, making it easy to develop an exaggerated impression of their abilities. In fact, now that he thought about it, had it been the Brotherhood that had encouraged Earth’s media to turn him into a hero?

  “It seems to me that you have the choice between accepting their help or not,” Vaughn said, breaking into Marius’s train of thought. “And what might they be able to do for you?”

  Marius shook his head. “Let’s concentrate on surviving the next few months first, shall we?”

  “All right,” Vaughn said. “But you’re going to be escorted by armed guards whenever you leave the ship. I don’t think this fleet can afford to lose you.”

  Marius opened his mouth to argue, and then realized that Vaughn was right. Admiral Justinian’s strike on Navy HQ had killed most of the Navy’s high-ranking officers, at least the ones assigned to Earth. The officers stationed away from Earth seemed to have incurred the Senate’s suspicion merely because they hadn’t been on Earth or in the Core Worlds when the attack took place. And the remaining officers in the fleet, the Commodores who commanded the squadrons that had been assigned to the Retribution Force, were hopelessly junior to Parkinson.

  “At least I convinced him to use recon drones first before we enter the Asimov Points closer to the Harmony Sector,” he said bitterly, hoping Vaughn would understand. Recon drones that were capable of transiting through an Asimov Point were expensive, and the bean counters complained heavily whenever they were deployed. The Senate would not be amused when the Federation Navy presented them with a bill for a few hundred recon drones to replace the lost ones. “We might not be caught on the Asimov Point.”

  For a bare second, he was back on the Matterhorn, back when the superdreadnaught had flown right into a point-blank ambush. Admiral Parkinson wouldn’t make that mistake, thankfully, but what was running through Admiral Justinian’s head? It didn’t take a tactical genius to deduce the Retribution Force’s planned advance, not given the topography of the Asimov Points. Hell, Justinian could just keep his fleet in Jefferson and wait until his scouts revealed that the Retribution Fleet was advancing, and then move forward to meet the Senate’s counterstroke.

  “We both know that if your plan is going perfectly, you’re about to lose,” Vaughn pointed out. “I think you’d better be prepared to relieve Parkinson, if necessary.”

  Marius blinked at him. Vaughn was plain-spoken, but he was rarely that blunt.

  “Think about it,” Vaughn said. “Whatever criteria the Senate used to pick him, it wasn’t tactical skill or imagination. He doesn’t even have the imagination to make you do all the work and take all the credit. And I’ve met Justinian. He’ll run rings around the poor political appointee and his noble benefactors.”

  He looked out at the unblinking
stars. “I think you’d better be prepared for the worst,” Vaughn added. “Someone has to be thinking about what could go wrong.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Before the discovery of the continuous displacement stardrive, Asimov Points were the only way to travel between star systems. Even with the stardrive, Asimov Points are still quicker and more efficient. Having more than two Asimov Points in a system can ensure that the system has a bright economic future.

  But if that hadn’t been true of Sapphire, there might never have been a Blue Star War.

  -An Irreverent Guide to the Federation, 4000 A.D.

  FNS Enterprise/Magnificent, Sol System/In Transit, 4092

  There was nothing to see as Enterprise approached the Asimov Point. There was no swirling wormhole of bright light and twisted colors, no sense they were approaching a gravitationally-distorted region of space. The stars seemed motionless, despite the fact that the carrier was travelling at one-tenth of the speed of light.

  It was small wonder, Roman thought from a seat at the rear of the bridge, that primitive space travelers had been so reluctant to believe in the Asimov Points. They wanted something more impressive than an invisible hole in space.

  He looked around, trying not to gawk like a civilian. Enterprise had no less than three command centers—the main bridge, the flag bridge and the secondary bridge—but the main bridge was impressive. The captain’s chair—almost a throne—dominated the compartment, which was crammed with consoles and occupied by the best crew in the fleet. It was hard to imagine that they would ever meet their match.

  “Now hear this,” Commander Duggan said, her words echoing throughout the ship. “All hands prepare for transit. I say again, all hands prepare for transit.”

  Roman settled back into his seat and winked at Sultana. For once, neither of the two newcomers had anything to do onboard Enterprise. The captain, for reasons that hadn’t been shared with his junior officers, had decreed that they could watch from the bridge as Enterprise went through the Asimov Point. Granted, doing so was nothing new for either of them, as they’d had to go through at least one Asimov Point to get to Luna Academy in the first place, but it was their first transit as commissioned officers.

  “Humanity’s gateway to the stars,” Sultana said, so quietly that only Roman could hear.

  Roman nodded. Back during the First Expansion Era, so long ago that far too much had faded into legend, a brilliant researcher into gravitational oddities—Irene Asimov—had theorised that wormhole links ran between objects with vast gravity fields, such as stars. Her research had allowed her to deduce that lines of gravitational force should have endpoints within the Solar System and, eventually, to pinpoint the Dead End. It had taken another year to develop the gravitational pulse generator that allowed a starship to transit through the Asimov Point, but once the first ship had made it through, there was no shortage of resources to pinpoint the Gateway. The Dead End might have been a colossal disappointment, yet the Gateway had given humanity the stars.

  “All stations report ready, sir,” Commander Duggan said. She looked over at the captain. “We are ready for transit.”

  Roman looked up at the holographic display, shaking his head in awe. The Gateway was surrounded by enough fortresses to give anyone who tried to poke his nose into the Sol System a very bad day. During the First Interstellar War, every Asimov Point humanity had discovered was then heavily fortified—allowing them to be used as choke points to bleed the Snakes white—and the Federation had never relaxed its defense of Earth. Other Asimov Points in the Core Worlds might be unfortified—and barely charted Asimov Points along the Rim might not even be included in the Federation Navy’s database—but Earth itself would be protected. The logic hadn’t changed, even when the stardrive had opened inaccessible territories to human expansion. Asimov Points were still the quickest way to hop from star system to star system.

  “Gateway Command confirms that we are clear to pass through the Gateway,” the communications officer, Lieutenant Nicolas, injected. Nicolas had served on one of the fortresses defending Earth before she’d been transferred to Enterprise as part of the Retribution Force. Roman rather liked her, although their paths rarely crossed outside of the mess. “They’re wishing us good luck.”

  The captain settled back in his command chair. “Take us into the Gateway,” he ordered. “Spin up the transit drive and jump us out on my command.”

  “Aye, captain,” the helmsman said. “We are within the Gateway.”

  On the display, Enterprise crawled past the armored fortresses and entered the sphere they guarded. It crossed Roman’s mind—very briefly—that if the fortresses opened fire at effectively point-blank range, there would be nothing left of the massive carrier apart from free-floating atoms in space.

  After all, they were currently in what amounted to a civil war. Who could you trust?

  But, despite that thought, Roman still felt a thrill of anticipation as the captain issued the order.

  “Jump.”

  There was a faint flicker of unease—gone almost as soon as he noticed it—and the displays flickered. And little else. But, despite the lack of drama, they had just hopped thirty light years in a split-second. The scientists swore blind that the transit wasn’t actually instantaneous, but it took less than a picosecond, a time period that no human mind could measure. Roman was almost disappointed. Surely, his first jump as a commissioned officer should be more exciting.

  But he knew he should feel fortunate. Only a handful of humans felt anything more than a brief shock when they passed through an Asimov Point, but those who did tended to do poorly in space. And if he’d wanted to stay in one place for the rest of his life, he would have stayed a RockRat.

  “Jump complete,” the helmsman said. “Moving to fleet position now, sir.”

  “Bring up the main drive and prepare to take us out,” the captain ordered calmly.

  Roman sucked in his breath. Enterprise and the remainder of the Retribution Fleet had started their long crawl towards Harmony, a trip that would take more than a month. He looked forward to the journey, but he still felt a strange sense of foreboding. Who knew what was waiting for them out there?

  “Madam Exec?” the captain asked, motioning toward Roman and Sultana.

  Commander Duggan just shook her head, apparently understanding whatever it was the captain refused to say. “Come on, you two,” she said to Roman and Sultana. “Those tactical simulations won’t beat themselves, you know.”

  Roman nodded and stood up, taking one last look at the holographic display. The mighty carrier wasn’t alone. Hundreds of starships followed, flickering through the Asimov Point and into formation. The massed power of the Retribution Force seemed unstoppable. And yet a chill ran down his spine.

  “But if you think you’re unstoppable,” Kratman had said, years ago, “you won’t look for your own weaknesses.”

  * * *

  Marius sat in the sealed observation blister, half-wishing he could see outside, even though he knew it would be unpleasant. Stardrive had many advantages, but it was dangerous to look out into space when it was activated. Instead, he looked down at his terminal, yet his thoughts kept wandering. It was hard to concentrate on anything.

  For the first one thousand years of interstellar exploration, the human race had been forced to follow the Asimov Points if they wanted to cross interstellar distances in a reasonable amount of time. A star that possessed no Asimov Point—or no Asimov Point that linked into human-settled space—was unreachable, at least by Federation starships. Quite a few political renegades and RockRats had built STL colony ships and set out to found a colony somewhere well out of the Federation’s reach. The discovery of the stardrive—allowing limited FTL travel without an Asimov Point—had placed some long-lost colonies back in contact with the Federation, or created new mysteries where colony ships had simply vanished into the darkness of space. Every space cadet knew the stories—the lost treasure ship of Titan, or the da
ughters of the King of the Stars—and dreamed about finding them somewhere in the interstellar void. Like most such myths, they were impossible to prove one way or the other.

  No one was permitted to use the Observation Blister when the stardrive was activated, moving the fleet through an effectively endless series of tiny gravitational distortions. Marius, like most humans, could not have explained how the drive worked to save his life, but he did know that watching the effects on the starlight could cause sickness, perhaps even madness. Instead, he peered down at the latest report from the training exercises and thought dark thoughts about politically-appointed officers. He’d been given command of the massed firepower of seventy superdreadnaughts, which wasn’t enough to deal with the potential problem.

  Admiral Parkinson, to be fair, had agreed to continue with training exercises during the long flight to Harmony. During the first two weeks of transit, Marius had run every simulated drill in the book and several that had never been officially written down. He’d wanted to run some live-fire exercises as well, but Admiral Parkinson had vetoed the idea, citing concerns over cost and delays. But the results hadn’t been encouraging.

  The Retribution Force was shaping up, albeit slowly, yet it wasn’t anything close to ready for combat. Given a few more months, he was confident that every unit would do its duty, but for the moment...he scowled and shook his head. He couldn’t make soldiers out of a bunch of ill-trained reservists overnight. Especially considering that quite a few of the officers had been in the Naval Reserve because a superior officer had wanted to put them somewhere harmless.

  It was easy to understand why. Some of them actually made Admiral Parkinson look competent.

  He glanced down at the latest report and made a face. There was one advantage of dealing with Admiral Parkinson: the man didn’t have the imagination to be dishonest, or even cook the files in his own favor. And Marius would have bet good money that he’d never heard of a Cover Your Ass code, allowing the files to be quietly reedited after the fact.