The Others

by Jay Allan

  She’d had to tell Holsten about the pregnancy, and now that she’d ventured out in public, showing beyond her ability to hide it, there was little doubt the word would spread. Andi had spent her life in the shadows, prowling around the Badlands and selling her wares mostly in black markets hidden in dingy rooms behind taverns and stores that served as fronts. Her contacts and associates in those days had been even more averse to publicity than she was.

  That had all changed. She’d gathered considerable fame herself in recent years, courtesy of her exploits, but her marriage to the Confederation’s greatest hero had thrust her into a level of scrutiny that made her skin crawl. She’d have walked into hell if that was the only way to stay by Tyler’s side, and standing along the gallery over the Senate floor, that’s about where she felt like she was.

  Andi wasn’t sure who made her angrier, Vaughn arguing that Barron was a fool or a liar, and not to be believed when he warned about the threat he’d discovered, or Avaria, playing the role of his ally, when she was more concerned about feeding fresh military orders to the idled factories all around the Belt and enriching the already grotesquely wealthy oligarchs who backed—and ran—the Red party.

  “What are we going to do, Gary? I don’t care what these fools say, we’ve got to get help to Tyler. If he says there’s a threat, I believe him. We can’t just leave him out there with no support.”

  “I believe him, too, Andi, but if you mean what I think you mean, the Senate Compound is absolutely worst place to discuss it. Let’s wait and see. The Senate is far from dependable, but Tyler and the navy do have allies down there, and there are others who will want to assume the role of defenders of the Confederation. Tyler is a hero. His name is known everywhere, from Megara to the dustiest mining colony on the Fringe. If they do not vote to send the fleet, we have options…some of them far less extreme than others. I know you’re worried about him, Andi, and your…condition…isn’t helping your nerves. But we can’t rush this. The last thing Tyler would want was for us to try to…” He looked around and then lowered his voice. “…do what you’re thinking. At least not while we have other options.”

  Andi knew Holsten was right, at least about what Tyler would want. In spite of all he’d seen, the corruption, the pure foulness of the Confederation’s government so often displayed, he remained, at heart, a believer. He’d been forced to challenge the Senate before, to take things to the verge of armed mutiny. But he bore terrible guilt for those actions, and he’d tried every way possible to avoid a repeat of anything of the sort.

  Andi felt differently. Completely. She had no respect for the Senate, none whatsoever, nor, for that matter, any segment of the government. She’d made payoffs, bought her way out of inspections and out of trouble, seen the putrid underside of the whole creaking machine. She was prepared to line every Senator against a wall if that’s what it took to help Tyler…and she was ready to bet she could find the Marines ready to do it. All she’d have to do was show them Tyler’s message…and maybe add a few tears.

  “We’ll talk later in more detail, but remember, I have some influence in the chamber. My files are a bit thinner than they once were, perhaps, but there are quite a number of things some of our esteemed Senators would prefer remained under a Top Secret ban. Such things have a way of leaking sometimes, especially when people are…uncooperative.” Holsten’s voice sounded calm and pleasant, but Andi could hear the sinister tone, hidden to most, but clear to her ears.

  And she loved every bit of it.

  * * *

  “Fleet exercises? By whose command?”

  “By my command, Captain. Do you have a problem with that?” Clint Winters voice, his very tone defied anyone to answer that question in the affirmative.

  “No, Admiral…of course not. It’s just that, well, so soon after the war. I just thought…”

  “You thought the lesson of the conflict we just fought—and barely survived—was to allow our forces’ readiness to atrophy?”

  “No, Admiral, of course not. But we still have a large number of people on extended leave, and…”

  “All leaves are canceled, Captain. Effective immediately. We may be at peace again, but the navy is still a military organization, and discipline is paramount. You will issue the orders I have given you, and you will personally see that all personnel on leave are recalled to their posts without further delay. Or I will find someone else to do it. Your chief aide, perhaps.”

  “That will not be necessary, Admiral.” A pause. “But this list of ships, it’s almost eighty percent of the entire fleet. Are you sure it is wise to commit such a large percentage of our available strength to wargames? We’ll be pulling forces in from everywhere, even the units stationed to defend Colossus.”

  “Do you think I would have ordered it if I didn’t believe it was wise? Do you think I am a fool, Captain?”

  “No, Admiral, certainly not. I will see to this at once. But, at the very least, we will need Senatorial approval to redeploy the new Home Fleet units to…Dannith? The games are to be held around Dannith? It would be much easier to assemble the forces someplace closer to the Core, or even the Iron Belt.”

  “Do I seem like ‘ease’ is my primary consideration, Captain? Perhaps the decay is worse than I thought. Where did the Hegemony come from? Where is our next conflict likely to arise? We live in a changed reality now, with billions of humans living far coreward, where we long believed no one had survived. What location could be better for military preparation exercises than the location most likely to be attacked one day?

  “You’re right, of course, Admiral. I will dispatch the fleet orders immediately…except for the specified Home Fleet units, of course. I will see to those personally as soon as we have authorization from the Senate.”

  “Very well, Captain.” Winters almost argued further, but it would be too suspicious if he ordered the officer to disregard Senate directives, to, in effect, commit treason. And the last thing he needed was to make a lot of noise about the whole thing. He needed the Senate watching what he was doing like he needed two heads.

  Or two of a few other things.

  Besides, maybe Gary Holsten can help with this…a bit more quietly than you can.

  * * *

  Anya Fritz stared at the screen, her face emotionless for a few seconds, before a wide grin spread across her cheeks…and a laugh even escaped her lips. There were those in the Confederation service—a good number of them—who would have sworn the normally grim and serious engineer had never shown the slightest sign of amusement at anything. But those who knew her well, like Tyler Barron, realized she had quite a strong sense of humor, if a sophisticated one with somewhat of a slow burn.

  Barron’s words still floated in her mind. “I know the last thing you want or think you need is a group of Hegemony technicians telling you what to do…but I went to a lot of trouble to get them sent to you, so I would consider it a personal favor if you would be nice and diplomatic while you’re draining them dry of any useful information. Also, by all means, please try to send them back whole, with none of them having seen the business end of an airlock.”

  Fritz nodded at how well Barron knew her, how he’d seen her reaction weeks before she’d had it. Still, it was hard to hold back the resentment, to accept that anyone could help her, speed her efforts to get Colossus up and running with a Confederation crew.

  At least until she heard Barron’s next words.

  “Anya…I’m afraid I’m in big trouble out here. This new enemy is real, and from what I’ve seen—and my gut—I think we’re going to have to join the fight, however much it sickens us to stand alongside the Hegemony. I don’t know if we can defeat the enemy, even if the Senate does as I ask and send the entire fleet. We need Colossus, Anya. I need Colossus. You know I have absolute confidence in you and your work, but, on your own, you’ll need to discover all kinds of things the Hegemony techs already know. Bleed them for information, use them to get what you need—for Colossus, and f
or our overall technological development—and know you’re doing it for the Confederation…and because I asked you, because I need you to do it.”

  Fritz felt her doubts and resentments slip away, and she suddenly realized, the threat Barron had gone to investigate was real. Another war was coming, more death and destruction, and Barron needed her help as he had so many times before, no less at that moment than in all those other instances, when he’d been on the bridge and she down in engineering, frantically struggling to restore power or get engines back online.

  She watched the rest of the message, and then she tapped at the comm unit, calling up Eric Kalmut.

  “Yes, Commodore?”

  “Eric, I know it’s one of your all too rare off-duty periods, but I’m afraid I need you now. Assemble the rest of the department heads and meet me down in landing bay twelve. We’ve got visitors coming…important visitors.”

  “Yes, Commodore. I’ll take care of it immediately.”

  “And, Eric…”

  “Yes, Commodore?”

  “Advise the others I expect the very best behavior from every one of them, no matter what they see or hear. These guests will be…controversial…but no one will be anything but utterly courteous and respectful. Is that understood?”

  “Understood, Commodore.” The officer’s voice was close to normal, but Fritz could pick up something different, a combination of concern and curiosity. She almost explained, but then she held her tongue.

  Let them all find out together…

  “And, Eric…tell them all, if they’ve ever been scared of me, now is the time they should be, if any of them acts like anything other than exemplary officers of the Confederation.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  HWS Leonidor

  Orbiting Planet Pharsalon

  Ettara-Mordlin III

  Year of Renewal 267 (322 AC)

  The Battle of Pharsalon - Prelude

  Chronos stared at the display, at the large blue and white sphere covering more than half of the screen. Pharsalon was the third planet in the system, a pleasant enough world, one covered almost ninety percent by a single massive ocean. Its inhabitants lived on two small continents, each surrounded by archipelagoes of hundreds of tiny islands. Its population was small for a world this far into Hegemony space, just under three hundred million. It produced a number of valuable products, and was, by all reasonable standards, a prosperous world.

  It was also irrelevant, and neither its quarter billion people, nor the bounty of its seas had played any part at all in the tactical decision to attempt to hold the line there. Ettara-Mordlin III would have been sacrificed without hesitation—though Chronos would have added the guilt for its hundreds of millions to the stockpile building in the back of his mind.

  The fleet was there for another reason, one far more material, but also more important than a few hundred million lives, at least in the context of the war effort.

  Ettara-Nordlin VII was nothing like Pharsalon. Its dark and pitted surface was ugly, its atmosphere thick and caustic. It was hot, a raging inferno, despite its significant distance from the star it orbited. The planet was a textbook demonstration of out of control volcanic activity, and all across its scarred surface, rivers of molten rock flowed almost like water. Poisonous steam billowed out of cracks in the ground, and the shifting of its unstable continental plates caused tremors a hundred times more severe than the most catastrophic quakes seen on a more typical world.

  It was a manifestation of hell, an image close to that depicted by artists of some fiery pit for the doomed. But it was one of the most valuable places in the Hegemony.

  Ettara-Nordlin VII, it had a number of informal names, but nothing official, save the military designation, ‘AM-1,’ had the distinction of being one of the two places in the Hegemony where antimatter was produced in militarily useful quantities.

  The rare and precious substance had been one of the foundations of the old imperial economy, but the secrets of its production—its economical production at least—had been lost in the Great Death. The Hegemony had rediscovered the techniques, after a sort, and it had begun to adopt antimatter technology in its battlefleets, most specifically in its railgun primary batteries, which used the substance to accelerate the projectiles to the required velocities.

  The recovery of technology and technique had only been a partial one, however, and antimatter production was vastly more expensive than it had been in imperial times. The expense of supplying the warships engaged with the Rim powers had been heavy, and the need to fuel up Colossus had come a hair’s breadth from toppling the entire economy. The fact that the great ship—and its staggeringly expensive fuel—had been lost, surrendered to the Confederation, only made the whole thing seem like a staggering waste.

  If the fleet couldn’t hold, if the Others took Ettara-Nordlin, the Hegemony would lose half its antimatter production, and with it, a substantial part of whatever chance it had of holding on, of driving the enemy back.

  Pharsalon had a few defensive orbital stations. They would be useful if the fighting came near enough for them to engage. More importantly, planet seven was ringed with massive fortresses, a contrast that evidenced Chronos was not the first to realize Pharsalon’s inhabitants were far from the most precious resource in the system.

  He’d brought his flagship into orbit around Pharsalon. He owed that much to the planetary administrator, and the millions looking on with what had to be growing terror. He would address them all, massage the truth enough to make them believe the fleet had come to protect them.

  He would lie.

  Then he would join the rest of his forces farther out in the system. The battle line would be drawn up around planet seven, just within the range of the massive orbital railguns. The greatest force the Hegemony had ever massed in one place, with the exception, perhaps, of Colossus and its supporting fleet, would be waiting for the enemy.

  Even as he discharged his duties to the doomed masses of Pharsalon, his engineering teams were updating the scanner suites on the orbital forts, keying in the most recent targeting routines. The battle would be the first large scale test of the new programming, the first time massive Hegemony firepower would face the Others’ vessels with at least a chance to hit. Chronos wasn’t optimistic, but in a seemingly contradiction, he was determined. He didn’t know if he could stop the Others in Ettara-Mordlin, but he was damned sure about one thing.

  The enemy would get one hell of a fight.

  * * *

  “Admiral, it appears the en…the Hegemony have completed their scanner update to the orbital fortresses.”

  “Very well, Lieutenant.” Barron almost admonished the officer for still thinking of the Hegemony as ‘the enemy.’ It was understandable, even reasonable, but it was also unacceptable given the circumstances. The best chance for the Confederation, the entire Rim, to survive was very likely to fight alongside the Hegemony. That meant learning to cooperate…and it damned sure meant getting past calling them ‘the enemy.’

  But Barron let it go. He would push his people, but he wasn’t going to be unreasonable. And truth be told, he still thought of the Hegemony as the enemy often enough himself. That was something time would change…but he had no idea how long it would take.

  Or, for that matter, how long any of them had.

  He turned back and stared at the ugly gray and black sphere on the display. The seventh planet was so hideous, it almost hurt his eyes to look at it. But he’d instantly known there was something valuable about it when he set eyes on the defense network. Over one hundred orbital forts, each one massive and bristling with weapons. The array made the old Megara defenses look like a tiny picket line. Barron had fought before the Confederation’s capital, and he had assaulted the legendary defenses of Palatia during the Alliance civil war. But he’d never seen anything like the massive display of power and might before him.

  The fixed defenses alone made the system the logical choice to mount a defense…at l
east if the enemy could be drawn close enough to engage.

  Then Barron realized that wouldn’t be a problem. His mind had raced since he’d first spotted the defenses. Rare minerals, helium-3, tritium…there had to be something on that planet, something valuable enough to justify what had to be an unimaginable cost.

  Then, suddenly, he knew. He didn’t have the slightest doubt, but he’d ordered a full scanner sweep anyway, just to confirm it. And his sensors and probes told him exactly what he already knew. Massive energy readings all across the planet.

  Ettara-Mordlin VII was an antimatter factory. And that made it incalculably, almost unimaginably valuable.

  That’s why we’re here. The enemy has to go toward the fixed defenses…they can’t ignore an antimatter production center. And Chronos can’t give it up, either. Not without one hell of a fight.

  Barron felt the resentment again as he realized the antimatter that powered every railgun shot that had torn apart one of his battleships might have come from there. Part of him almost wanted to see the Others blast that planetwide production facility to atoms.

  But we’re going to need that antimatter. Those railguns aren’t pointed at your people anymore, and you’re going to need antimatter from the Hegemony to refuel Colossus. It would take a thousand years production at Confederation levels to replenish that monster.

  “Admiral…Leonidor and its escorts have rejoined the main Hegemony fleet.”

  Barron’s eyes darted back to the display, but it was a pointless gesture. Between his ships and the massive Hegemony fleet, there were more than seven hundred contacts, all represented by symbols so small, the tiny labels next to them were unreadable. It was impossible to pick out Chronos’s flagship, at least until the AI highlighted it with a large white star.