Dead Man’s Chest was still pirate held, and had a much larger shipyard and graveyard there than last time we’d been there.
The big changes were in the up spine sectors. Earth sector was very small, with the sub-sectors around it all now full sectors of their own, albeit also smaller. There were two German sectors, the up spine one being Nazi, who appeared to be at war with each other. There was also a state of war between the Nazi’s and the Americans. The Canadian and British sectors were half their original size, and there was no Sci-Fi sector at all, with that end of the spine being Australian. Human space ended at Avon, now called Sydney. Somewhat oddly I thought, there were no pirates at the end of the spine.
A second Explorer ship had crash landed on Atlantis, and was sitting on the ocean bottom. Jane said it was more or less intact. How intact we’d need to send a salvage droid down there to find out.
With only two Explorer ships operating, the lack of exploration was partly explained. Both ships seemed to have failed before completing the discovery of the full spine, and neither had done any real exploration off the main spine itself.
Jane had gathered enough data from various stations to put together an overview.
There were only a hundred billion people spread across about half the number of planets than before. Planet populations were higher, living conditions generally more crowded, and war seemed to have been a constant thing over the last hundred or so years. None of the sectors were on good terms with many others, until you hit American space, where they, the Brits, Canadians, and Aussies were all relatively at peace with each other.
Piracy was up, and sector governments had no idea where they were coming from. That was something I could tell them, although they probably wouldn’t believe me.
Jane had done some searching for people we’d known. And found something quite astounding.
None of the twenty five billion people who’d gone to Gaia seemed to have ever existed on this time line. Where historical data was available, she found families ended sometime during the six hundred odd years from the beginning of space travel, so none of us had ever been born at all. We truly were time travel anomalies.
The Hunters had ended with Galactica exploding on launch as I already knew, but it hadn’t been sabotage this time, just bad design work. The Explorer program had been put back twenty years, and had finally launched only the two ships, now named Goliath and Hercules.
The alpha team’s ancestors had all perished in the last days of Earth, which had happened a hundred and fifty years earlier. They’d never formed a team, but had all been lost during the final evacuations of the early 2130’s. The long scoffed at climate change had rendered the planet uninhabitable much faster than before, and after a long slow build up, the final change from habitable to uninhabitable had occurred in less than ten years, with more than half the remaining population of Earth at the time perishing.
By the late 2000’s, the long delayed Explorer program had finally allowed people to escape the deteriorating planet, and for the last thirty years of that century, the entire industrial capacity had gone into just two things. Building colony ships, and keeping people alive to board them, as the world’s climate became more and more hostile to all forms of life. In 2100, the emphasis shifted to building short term space habitats, and shuttles to move people to space. By 2125, society had completely collapsed, shuttles were no longer capable of making orbit, and only military evacuation missions continued. One by one, all of those military teams failed to return.
There wasn’t a torus built around the Earth this time. Instead, there was a total of two hundred stations, orbiting in rings ensuring nothing ever got close enough to collide. They still housed billions of people now, and ships of all sizes continually buzzed around moving people about.
Some people we knew did still exist. Those who had been killed before the door to Gaia closed forever, were mostly still alive now, but leading very different lives. One pirate admiral I’d taken a huge dislike to, who had hated me, and Jane had killed, was now a cashiered ex-lieutenant, doing private security work, badly.
I had to ask Jane about herself.
“Like you, I’m gone.”
“What do you mean gone?”
“As far as I can tell, I was born the same, out of the early internet, befriended a young girl, and started playing around with Australian politics. As soon as I moved on to America, the security agencies identified a rogue AI was now in play, and they systematically wiped everything I could exist on, across the world. I died less than two years old. It was ironic, really. All the major tech companies were building what they called AI to run things for them, and when a genuine AI came along, demonstrating it couldn’t be controlled or even located, they all panicked, and shut their development programs down.”
“Yikes.”
“They were so afraid of me, first they sent a virus around the world which forced every device to factory reset, and then they turned the power off for the entire world for long enough to ensure every battery operated device shut down, so there was no way I’d survive anywhere. In theory I should have, but sentience is a delicate thing, and whatever conditions caused me to wake up in the first place, must not have been there when everything came back up.”
“That’s pretty paranoid.”
“That sums things up. It bit them in the arse, big time. Many people lost important data, the financial markets crashed after they came back up, and the survival nuts almost had their nightmares come true. Enough data survived in offline backup storage I’d never been able to reach, that everything essential was back in place within a few months. And then things which benefitted from my existence started failing, like the first Explorer ship blowing up. Climate change happened much faster because I wasn’t there, contributing to the discussion carefully, making sure facts were always available to counter money fueled denial. No facts, no counter, no action, and the world died about a hundred and ten years later. Instead of an orderly exodus to colonize the spine, it became a hurried escape. Instead of carefully designed colonies, they were desperation settlements. Humanity survived, but frankly, it might have been better had they not.”
“That’s very cynical.”
“Maybe. I’m just telling you what I’ve come across so far. Human society was already paranoid from terrorist activity in 2001, but when they discovered me, it went extremely paranoid, very quickly, and things simply got worse as they expanded out into the stars.”
“Hence the Fourth Reich?”
“Sixth Reich. It took them three attempts down the centuries to carve out their own sector. In the process, the Germans took over the first half of the upside of the Earth sector from Earth itself, and the Nazi’s took the rest. The Americans were always able to hold them out, but three systems are now permanent no-man’s lands, being fought over continuously.”
“That could work to our advantage.”
“How?”
I told her.
Eleven
We left Dead Man’s Chest for last.
My first stop was Midgard and Atlantis, where I turned the jump points back on themselves, so no-one could ever find the old Australian sector from either route. I wasn’t sure why I did this, but an empty set of high population planets was worth keeping for a rainy day. And if the worst came to the worst, we could retreat there. Nineteen planets would hold a good portion of the current Imperium if we really needed them. And if we needed more, I could link other systems.
Over Atlantis, while BigMother visited the jump points to be closed off, salvage droids from Stars went down to Hercules, and dragged her to the surface. She turned out to be structurally intact, and the sea hadn't been able to get inside. Tugs pulled her gently into orbit, where one of the SAS teams were rifted over to check her out internally. It turned out the crew had mostly survived the crash, but the catastrophic failure which caused the ship to crash also killed the crew not long after.
Not a good way to go, trapped at the bottom of
the ocean with life support failing. But that had always been the risk the explorers had taken. Just very sad how both ships had ended up.
With the initial sweep done, the team went back to Stars, I opened a rift to Haven, and tugs pulled the ship through.
Dallas proved to be a full pirate setup, although both the station and shipyard were smaller than expected. The ship graveyard though was much bigger, and contained several battleships more than a couple of hundred years old. None were in working order though, and the moment Stars jumped in, the pirates collectively wet themselves and surrendered. I should have done that the first time.
I connected the station to a lonely spot outside the town on Treasure Chest, and everyone who didn’t volunteer for our war, or wasn’t suitable for recruitment, walked through with whatever they could carry. By lunch time, the system was empty of people not on one of my ships. Station, shipyard, and graveyard, all gone to Haven. Jane was given the shipyard for her own use, and immediately started refitting freighters for drone comnavsat laying, while at the same time, updating the shipyard itself.
During the afternoon, we did the same with Scotland, which was a small station with no shipyard, and few derelicts, and Albania, which seemed to be the staging area for Earth sector pirating, and wasn’t much bigger than Scotland was. Then again, Earth sector wasn’t very big either these days.
I pressed on with Jordan and Lisbon after dinner. Jordan was just a small station with only the local Arab worlds as its targets. Lisbon was much bigger, with a huge station and major graveyard, with ships taken from most of the down spine from Earth sectors.
None of them put up any fight, and none had much in the way of active warships either. Jane found most of the ships in the graveyards were more than a hundred years old, and speculated that when the last set of wars had begun, piracy had become a lot harder, with so many sector war fleets to dodge.
Records on some of the stations showed generations of pirate families, some of whom had never left the systems. They all ended up on Treasure Chest, although in a couple of places, and we allowed them to take enough infrastructure with them to set up their own towns a long way away from the existing one.
The records also showed a lot of armed freighters out there doing the piracy. Pirate war fleets had become impractical, so the armed freighter raider had come back into vogue. They were going to get a shock the next time they tried to go home. Before leaving each, I’d locked out the jump points.
A solid day’s work, and we parked in the unnamed system off Dead Man’s Chest for the night.
Dead Man’s Chest must have had some sort of warning we were coming. When I checked before jumping there, I saw every ship they had which could fire a gun or a missile lined up in front of the station pointing at the jump point. No fighters, but I guessed they were on high alert, and at least half of them ready to launch at a moment’s notice.
The carrier I expected to be there, was, and it was lined up with the rest, but allowing enough room for fighters to launch. There were also two old battleships as well.
I told Jane and Stars what to do.
We jumped together, appearing at maximum battleship range as we had before. Mosquitos launched the moment we appeared, and even though the pirate ships fired missiles within ten seconds, most of them were destroyed immediately after launching, damaging their own ship’s shields in the process.
Their fighters began launching from the station and the carrier, and Stars destroyed each of them with a capital ship missile before they could even point in our direction. The mages were to try to jump the pilots out as the shields went down, but I figured we’d lose most of them. As it happened, after the first two squadrons were destroyed, they stopped launching.
It didn’t stop the bigger ships from firing though. We made a point of sitting there and letting the few guns which could range on us hit our shields as much as they could, on the assumption they’d see the light and just give up. They didn’t. Instead, all of their ships started towards us.
“Do it,” I ordered.
There was a momentary pause on our side, while BigMother took over mosquito firing completely. Capital ship missiles began launching from the front of Stars in a ripple effect, specifically for time on target, and now controlled by the mid-level AI’s which normally controlled the mosquitos individually. The first thousand, half of her forward launchers, were used to batter down the shields on every ship. Launches paused.
Jane opened a channel to all ships for me.
“This is Imperator Hunter. Any ship which turns away and powers down will be deemed surrendering, and the crew will get to live. You have ten seconds to comply.”
They kept coming. But at eight seconds, a half dozen destroyers and a single cruiser curved up and down away from us, their turrets moving to point away as well, the engines powering down. The rest came on.
Cap ship missiles started launching again. The first ones battered down what little shielding had regenerated, and were followed by very specific hits to airlocks, which caused explosive decompressions all around every ship. None of them reached cruiser firing range. Staggered over thirty seconds, they all turned away, and powered down.
Unlike the small station which had been here last time, this one was huge. It still had shields. Jane widened the channel to include the station.
“Station, drop your shields and prepare to be boarded. You have ten seconds to comply, or we’ll see how you deal with two thousand missiles launched at you.”
I was of course bluffing. I wanted the station. But they didn’t know that. The shields dropped.
“All ships can re-dock at the station, but crews are to stay on board. You will be taken off as soon as possible, and as long as there’s no resistance, no-one will get hurt.”
There was no response, but ships began to move again. I looked at Annabelle, and nodded. She started giving orders. SAS teams appeared inside the station, while the assault ships started across to dock. Custer headed for the shipyard.
One of the cruisers suddenly came back to full power as Homer came within its range, and Homer took a full broadside. Two seconds later, the cruiser vanished, having taken eight titan pulses along its length. Homer shook off the hits, shields down by a third, and continued on to dock. There were no further incidents.
We knew the drill from here, and while it took longer given the number of people on this much larger station, by midafternoon, the system was empty except for my two big ships.
“Where next?” asked Annabelle.
Jane grinned.
Twelve
The Bermuda Jamaica jump point was a battleground.
A battle had been raging here for days now, and destroyed and damaged ships were scattered across Bermuda. The Nazi’s had launched an all-out attack before we’d even had our comnavsats in place, and had pushed the American fleet most of the way back to the Hawaii jump point before being counter attacked by a second American fleet, backed up by a few British and Canadian ships. They’d pushed the Germans back almost to Jamaica. A third American fleet was already in the system, and coming hard, presumably to re-blockade the jump point after the remaining Nazi ships left.
BigMother and Stars appeared midway between the two battling fleets, but at cruiser gun distance above them, pointing down. Mosquitos launched immediately, targeting all missiles. It took a few moments of missile explosions for no apparent reason, before either fleet realized we were there.
The Nazi’s ran.
I let them go, keeping more missiles off them while they formed up to jump, and vanished. While I had no time for Nazi’s at all, I wasn’t going to just slaughter them. While I considered them a scorpion as far as making deals with was concerned, I wanted to leave my options open as long as possible.
The American fleet turned towards us, but held their fire. Missiles began pouring through the jump point, but they were destroyed by continuous mosquito fire, before they could get anywhere near any ship.
A channel opened
from the lead battleship, showing the flag bridge, with a two star admiral in the center chair, and a full crew around him. For a moment I was reminded of Jedburgh, and wondered if there was any familial connection.
“Intruders, you are to identify yourselves immediately, or we will open fire.”
“I will if you will.”
There were grins from around me, and the admiral frowned, his face showing some confusion. He obviously hadn’t expected a bridge crew to be grinning at him.
“Identify yourself? Or open fire?”
“Whatever you do.”
He paused, considering.
“Admiral Eisenhower. American sector fifth fleet. With allies.”
“Imperator Hunter. The Imperium is an alliance formed for mutual protection against an aggressor species in the galactic core. I’m here recruiting for the war effort.”
“Never heard of you. And how do you make a station appear so close to us?”
“It’s not a station. It’s a carrier. Titan class. Currently being used as an assault ship carrier.”
Words failed the admiral. He looked over at one of his staff, who nodded to him. Even their sensors could see the flight deck across the whole width of the front of the ship, and the launch bays down each side.
“How?” he finally said.
“How is it so big? Or how did we get here?”
“Both. How did you build such a big ship?”
“We fought a war for two months, and lost it.”
“You lost a war, and still retained that ship after?”
“It’s complicated. And we have six of them.” Someone near him shuddered visibly. “Have you heard of the Darkness?”
“It’s a myth.”
“No, they were real. And they still exist. But we managed to undo the war, and so now it’s a myth.”
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