To the Strongest
By C.J. Carella
“There, where I have passed, the grass will never grow again.”
- Attila the Hun
“And behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him; and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.”
- Book of Revelations
Prologue: Hegira
Beyond the Known Galaxy, 196 AFC
High Warlord Fann of the Crimson Sun Clan watched his ships burn and despaired.
My people die today, he thought as he observed one of his proud battle carracks be consumed by subatomic flames.
The Nemeses, the relentless foes who had hunted the Host for millions of years, had cornered Fann’s people in a fallow system. His entire fleet huddled near the cold light of a neutron star, hoping that the twisted spacetime around it would provide an escape from the invincible force besetting it. Fann’s people, a hundred million strong, were now little more than penned cattle, to be slaughtered at leisure.
“Send the order to all fighting vessels,” he ordered his chief herald. “Nay, not just them. Anything that can generate thrust and has a plasma gun mounted on its hull! We fly towards the center of the Nemeses’ fleet, to exact the maximum price for our lives!”
The lesser warlords voiced their agreement with a chorus of high-pitched battle yells and Fann felt briefly transported to the glories of the distant past, when his ancestors had ridden to battle atop war-beasts and used spear and bow to best all lesser peoples and unify their native planet under its red-and-gold banner. Centuries later, Fann’s people had ventured beyond the system’s confines and conquered distant stars. An empire had risen – and then the Nemeses had come. The Host had fought and lost. The survivors had fled, embarking on an eternal journey through the galactic arms, never staying in one place long enough to attract the Nemeses’ attention. Along the way they’d plundered others for the goods they needed to continue their voyage. Time and again, their flight path through Chaos had led them back towards areas the Nemeses had conquered; the lucky had been able to flee again while the rest perished. The Oracles kept the past alive even as they helped the Clans of the Star Host navigate new paths between the stars. In their dreams, the history of the wandering people lived on.
It was a pity that the Oracles would be no more. The Crimson Sun Clan would lose everything after this battle was over: its past glories would be forgotten when the last warrior and herald were as cold and dead as the pitiless vacuum that filled the universe. His ships, built from bits and pieces of loot stolen along the way or equipment purchased from those too powerful to steal from, were mighty indeed but they were as helpless as unblooded children against the might of the nameless monsters who had cornered them. He spared a moment to grieve his people before preparing to offer battle.
“Warlord!” a minor herald shouted. “I bring word from the Oracles! They have found a Chaos Road!”
“Belay my last order!” Fann shouted. Hope burned hot within his chest. “Escape is found! The Clan shall live!”
If we can survive long enough to enter the Sea of Chaos, that is, he reminded himself.
He surveyed the Home Fleet’s condition reports with the calculating engine mounted on his brow; the tiny machine buzzed and drew figures and vessel depictions in the air in front of his eyes. Eighteen war carracks and a Battle Mountain had already engaged the enemy at long range in a futile attempt to delay the inevitable. They would do for a sacrificial rear guard to keep the Nemeses away from the Clan as it made its escape.
“All chosen vessels: advance towards the enemy,” he declared on the War Cry channel. “Today you die so the Clan may live. Your names will be written on the great walls of our Homes. You will never be forgotten as long as a clansman still draws breath!”
A chorus of roars signaled the commanders’ agreement. The nineteen warships broke away from the Clan’s formation and made speed towards the approaching Nemeses. If the Fates were kind, their shields would hold long enough for their weapons to bite on the enemy vessels and their deaths would buy enough time for the Oracles to open the Chaos Road they had discovered.
The Fates were rarely kind, but this time they were sated with the destruction of the heroic rear guard. Fann watched the duel on one of the war maps in the Command Room. The doomed warriors tried their best, but the Nemeses’ chaos shields withstood their attacks with ease. Their return fire blasted the proud ships into drifting, burning debris. One by one they fell without inflicting significant damage on the relentless enemy. Only the War Mountain endured long enough to open fire at close range, unleashing the full wrath of its Heart unto the Nemeses. One of the enemy ship’s energy signatures vanished, but the War Mountain slowly melted away under a relentless barrage. It was very hard to kill a War Mountain, a five-kilometer-long iron-nickel asteroid, reinforced with force fields and fielding thousands of firing points. Even the Nemeses would take some time to do so, time that would save the rest of the Clan.
Fann had lived over a thousand years and ruled the Crimson Sun Clan for half as long, but he never had seen the Nemeses at such close ranges, a mere handful of light seconds away. The sight of the vast, monstrous shapes was a stark reminder of why the Host must always remain on the move. The old Chaos Roads the Clan had relied on were now choked off by the enemy. His people’s only hope was to venture somewhere new.
“The Way is open, Lord of Hosts. A long Road – twenty-five hours in the Chaos Sea.”
Many would die during a trip of that length. The old, the very young, and anyone too weak to endure the long exposure to the wildling energies of pure Chaos. Death was still a better fate than what awaited them at the hands of the Nemeses.
“To all ships: Go into Chaos Mode. May we all meet on the other side.”
The remnants of Crimson Sun Clan fled into the Chaos Sea. The spirits of the dead greeted Fann. They seemed angry and afraid. He ignored them while he pondered what the future might bring.
Will they follow us? Yes. Not right away, however. They lack the Oracles’ skill at finding Chaos Roads. Following our tracks will take years. Perhaps even decades. Time enough to flee deeper into the Chaos Roads beyond. Maybe one of them will lead to a different part of the galaxy, one the Nemeses has not infected.
If Fann could feel any pity for those outside the Host, he would save it for the dirt-siders at the other end of the Chaos Road, for they would eventually come to grips with the Nemeses and know true terror before their inevitable demise.
Kunah System, Crab Oligarchy, 196 AFC
It was amazing how quickly things could go from boring to terrifying.
Captain Hiram J. Kimball, commander of CRURON-88, had been looking forward to saying goodbye to his alien hosts and sailing towards American space. The show-the-flag cruise had gone as well as could be expected – the Crabs weren’t fans of the US, but that was par for the course – but he was tired of having to deal with all the annoying minutia of conducting fleet ops in non-human space. His XO had done the bulk of the work, but some always found its way to the top.
There’d been plenty of annoyances to go around: the latest one had involved the discovery that the cruiser squadron’s latest shipment of consumables had been contaminated. Determining if the damage had been accidental or intentional had taken a great deal of effort. It’d been the former, thankfully, just some Crab techie who hadn’t figured out the proper oxygen-nitrogen mix for human-breathable air and added a couple of elements that would have sickened everyone aboard his twelve-ship formation. The Crabs – their name for themselves was unpronounceable by humans so they accepted being called by their nickname – were properly apologetic, replaced the supplies at their expense, and were giving the American squadron a roya
l sendoff. The provincial governor of Kunah System led the festivities.
The US and the Crabs’ Star Oligarchy had fought a brief but intense war back in AFC 65, a couple of decades after America had established itself among the ranks of starfaring nations. The conflict had ended with the annihilation of an entire Oligarchic fleet and the return of the status quo ante bellum. Since then, the two civilizations had given each other a wide berth, except when the Oligarchy had allowed the Galactic Imperium free passage to attack the US during the unpleasantness known as the Great Galactic War. Reprisals had left two Crab star systems in ruins and led to a number of reparation payments and other concessions. In the three decades that followed, relations between the two polities had been ‘correct.’
“Pretty ships,” Kimball commented as the Crab flotilla onscreen began their 15-gun salute, an honorific normally reserved for the Crab’s allies, not a neutral nation that was far more feared than loved. It was good to be top dog; nobody in the known galaxy was in a position to threaten the United Stars of America. Those too stupid to know that had been schooled the hard way.
“Pretty big, too,” LCDR Marina Castro-Cheng said. The XO had a point: each of the six Crabs’ Snapper-class battlecruisers in the local quadrant-defense flotilla out-massed his flagship by a considerable margin.
“It’s not the size of the dog in the fight,” Kimball said with a smile.
The lieutenant commander grinned back. “But the size of the fight in the dog that matters, aye aye, sir.”
The USS Pershing’s high-intensity grav cannon gave it twice the ‘throw weight’ of any of those ships despite having half the number of gun batteries. And that was just the tip of the iceberg: most of CRURON-88 total firepower came from the two light carriers that formed the core of his formation. Its twenty-four fighters could wipe out the Crabs’ entire flotilla in one or two passes from well beyond the maximum range of its guns. Carrier-based fighters were the main reason the usually-arrogant Crabs were willing to eat crow for making a mistake. The two battlecruisers, two cruisers and six frigates of the squadron were there mainly to protect the carriers and to help mop up any survivors of their fighter sorties. The Great Galactic War had driven that lesson home, some twenty-odd years ago, and a few minor conflicts in the following years had confirmed it. Peace had followed and would remain as long as the US Navy kept reminding the aliens that humans were the meanest dogs in the yard.
Time to give a brief speech thanking the Crabs before heading for the warp gateway that would take them back to America – to Conway System, to be exact; three more jumps would get the cruiser squadron to Starbase Malta, where a new assignment awaited.
“I thank you for this honor, Illustrious Provincial Governor Ooh-chat,” he began. “In the name of the United Stars of America, I…”
A sensor tech cut him off: “Multiple warp emergences! Ninety-eight light minutes from the primary exits. Dozens – belay that – no, hundreds of ships!”
“Sound general quarters,” Captain Kimball said in a calm tone that disguised the shock he was feeling Nobody emerged from warp so far away from the gravity wells where warp entry and exit points existed, not unless their intentions were hostile. And hundreds of ships? That wasn’t a raid or a probe: that was an act of war.
The Crabs are at peace with everyone. Pirates don’t go after provincial seats and can’t field fleets of that size. Who are they?
“Those are Horde energy signatures,” Castro-Cheng said as the first bits of analysis appeared on the command center’s main display.
Kimball grimaced. The Horde was a nomadic species. Raiders and scavengers, they drifted across the known galaxy in dribs and drabs, ravaging settled peoples wherever they went. Their flotillas were rarely large enough to threaten major systems, however; the last time they’d done so had been almost a century ago. The Horde War had been the first time the US had joined other Starfarers in battle; a loose alliance of civilized star nations had confronted a large Horde invasion. Over two years, a series of battles and a hunt for landing forces that infested several planets ended with the extermination of tens of millions of the violent aliens. Since then, the Horde had been a continuous low-level nuisance. You never knew when they would show up next. They came from the galactic ‘northwest’ and used undiscovered warp lines to drop in unannounced. And they’d decided to show up here, on Kimball’s watch, and in greater numbers than ever before.
“Admiral Kimball,” Governor Ooh-Chat said. “We are not allies, your nation and mine, but I beseech you, in the name of civilization and compassion: will you aid us to contain this invasion?”
Task force and fleet commanders were granted a lot of discretion when outside US space; the only way to communicate with their superiors was through courier ships. QE-telegrams, the only method to send instant messages, were hideously expensive and impossible to use aboard ships. The decision to help or not was Kimball’s alone; so was the responsibility for the outcome.
He didn’t hesitate. “Of course, Governor. We will lend you all the aid and support we can provide.”
The Crabs weren’t friends and probably would never be, but helping crush a Horde incursion would earn the US some good will. Since the most common nickname for humans in the known galaxy was ‘those damned warp demons,’ the US could use some positive press. Besides, helping one’s neighbors wasn’t just Kimball’s Christian duty; the Horde would happily plunder any American systems further down the warp chain after they were done with the Crabs. Better to stop them here.
Kimball ignored the governor’s effusive thanks and turned his attention to his squadron. Bored spacers rushed to their battle stations; dormant auxiliary power plants went online and guns began to ‘warm up’ as their crews got them ready. For the first time in its existence, CRURON-88 prepared to go to war. He had done his share of fighting with Sixth Fleet during the Great Galactic War – as a wet-behind-the-ears ensign – but less than a tenth of his crews had seen combat. Training would have to replace experience.
“More warp emergences detected,” the Surveillance Sensor Officer reported. “We have confirmed IDs on targets, designated Sierra One to Sierra Three-Hundred-Eleven.”
Three hundred ships. Heavenly Father protect us.
“Might be a mite too rich for our blood, sir,” the ship’s XO subvocalized so only Kimball could hear her words.
“Well, the Crabs just gave us a fifteen-gun salute. Least we can do is send a few Hordelings to the afterworld for them.”
“Not really the least we can do, sir, but I hear you.”
“Admiral Tee-Hee wishes to speak with you, Captain.”
Kimball suppressed a chuckle. Crab names had a way of being unintentionally hilarious to human ears. The admiral no doubt wanted to work out a plan of action; it wouldn’t do for Kimball to burst out laughing, even if Crabs were unable to read human body language or social cues. In any case, there would be very little to laugh about in the hours to come.
“Onscreen.”
* * *
“Big bastards,” someone muttered in the CCC room.
Kimball let it go; things were unusually tense and some offhand profanity was as good a way as any to relieve some stress. And the guided rocks – some were large enough to qualify as planetoids – that appeared in the tactical holotank were massive by any standard. Twenty-three guided sub-planetary bodies. Most were two to ten kilometers in length and about a third of that in width, but two monster vessels in the center were forty kilometers in length and thirty in diameter, and their ‘flagship’ was a hundred km long and seventy-five wide. They were moving at starship cruising speeds – a few percentage points below one thousandth the speed of light; Kimball had no idea how they could do it. The energy budget required to move any of those monster rocks would surpass power output of both the human and Crab fleets preparing to intercept them.
“The Horde has used powered asteroids before, but never on that scale,” LCMDR Castro-Cheng said.
“Looks like thi
s is the first time we’ve run into their varsity,” Kimball said. “Time to get a feel for what they can do.”
Besides the flying rocks – hammering through kilometers of nickel-iron crust to get at something vital was going to be a job of work – the Horde fleet comprised a hundred warships of roughly battlecruiser to pocket battleship size; the motley armada of jury-rigged hulks bristled with a varied array of heavy weapons. The remaining two hundred vessels appeared to be armed freighters, equally large in size but with much weaker armament, armor and shields. And if that wasn’t bad enough, two hundred corvette-sized lightweights had deployed from the flying rocks when the Horde spotted the combined fleet standing in their way. He now had over five hundred Sierras to deal with. Target-rich environment did not begin to describe it.
Kimball was willing to fight the Horde, as long as the fight didn’t risk the destruction of his command. If things reached that point, he’d skedaddle. The Crabs in this system were doomed, at least those who didn’t evacuate in the week or so it would take the invaders to reach the system’s inhabited worlds and the warp lines around them and the yellow star at its core. All the American and Crab fleets could do was sting the Horde before choosing between flight or death.
“Activate warp shields,” he ordered.
A few seconds later, shimmering multicolor clouds appeared around every ship in the cruiser squadron. They were warp apertures leading to a random point in empty space, designed to swallow any energy or physical attack and spew it far away from the target. The coverage wasn’t complete, but over eighty percent of the surface of the American ships was effectively invulnerable to attack. Back in the day, the price for such protection was a constant psychic pressure that only humans could tolerate. Even among them, prolonged exposure could cause unconsciousness, psychotic breaks or even death; new drugs and meditation techniques had minimized those side effects, but nobody enjoyed having the shields around.
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