by Peter Nealen
The tight formation of Caractacans marched the Valdekan officers to the sleds and boarded. There was no formality. The sleds simply rose on their fans, spun about, and roared up the road toward the Keep.
Brother Legate Kranjick was waiting in the Great Hall, along with Centurions Soon, Costigan, and Dunstan, all in armor sans helmets. It was a standard ceremony when receiving supplicants looking for the Caractacans’ assistance. If battle was in the offing, a Caractacan had best be in his armor.
Scalas and Cobb flanked Horvaset and her first mate as they crossed the hall to come before Kranjick’s imposing bulk. His armor was the same as all the rest, aside from its size. He wore the same magazine pouches, comm units, and sidearm, and his chameleonic coating was currently the same vague gray as the stone of the Great Hall. The only difference was that his armor was more scarred and battered than that of his subordinates. Kranjick had worn the same armor for a very long time.
Century XXXII’s honor guard came to a halt precisely twenty meters from the dais with a thunderous crash of thirty armored boots striking the pavement at once. The Caractacans were generally ascetic when it came to ceremony, but when dealing with outsiders, they knew the value of display. The Caractacans were known as the most disciplined and effective of the military brotherhoods in the galaxy, and it was sometimes necessary to remind their visitors of that fact.
In time they would be sure to make that fact known in much more violent ways.
Scalas, Cobb, Horvaset, and the first mate, whose name Scalas could not recall, continued forward. They stopped at the base of the steps, and Horvaset clicked her heels together and bowed to Kranjick. Now out of her armor, she was revealed to be a slender, dark-haired woman with dark, almond-shaped eyes.
The Brother Legate solemnly returned the salute with an open palm over the heart. Strangers rarely saw the weapon salutes that were standard within the Brotherhood.
“On behalf of the Royal Court of the Sovereign System of Valdek,” Horvaset intoned solemnly in accented Trade Cant, “I offer greetings to the Caractacan Brotherhood, and bring this plea for aid.” She held out a palm-sized holo projector and thumbed it on.
The projector lit, and a regal figure in a square-shouldered tunic appeared.
“To the Caractacan Brotherhood and its leadership, greetings,” the man began. Scalas could see little detail, especially as the holo was facing Kranjick. “I am Bozhidar Rehenek, General-Regent of Valdek. I have sent this message out of grave necessity. We are an old world and a proud one, but we are now faced with a menace that is beyond our strength.
“Three weeks ago, as I record this, our system came under attack. A fleet of unprecedented size came from Rimward unannounced and struck at our space facilities before landing ground troops in overwhelming numbers. The outer colonies have fallen, and Valdek itself is besieged. What’s left of our fleet is grounded. The rest is now floating debris in space.
“The attacking force, in its demand for our surrender, identified itself as the ‘Galactic Unity.’ We know nothing about them, aside from their overwhelming numbers and suicidal swarming tactics. That there is no such ‘Galactic Unity’ should be of no news to the Brotherhood. I fear that we are the victims of a megalomaniac. A megalomaniac with resources we cannot hope to match. To field the forces they have thrown against us, either they must have hundreds, if not thousands, of systems at their command, or else they have completely stripped their own. Our people are reeling, and our defenses are slowly being battered to dust.
“I have sent similar messages to every friend and ally we have within a hundred parsecs, and I have attached to this message the little intelligence we’ve managed to gather in the chaos of battle. Though it pains me as a sovereign to do this, I place my people at your mercy, Caractacans. Without aid from off-world, we shall surely fall.”
The figure bowed stiffly, and the holo winked out, replaced by a montage of recordings, none with any great detail. It seemed that in most cases whoever had recorded them had sacrificed high-definition imagery in favor of enough distance to survive.
The first holo showed a massed cone of ships following a veritable blizzard of missiles and powergun fire toward a deep space station. There were more starships in that one field of view than the Brotherhood had in the entire Spinward Reach. The station disappeared in a glowing sphere of debris, and the recording winked out.
In the second holo, dropships fell toward a dusty planetary surface, as seen from a vantage point just outside a small cluster of domed habitats. The ships landed hard in combat landings that threw up clouds of scorched dust, and swarms of troops spilled out, following angular armored vehicles on crude-looking tracks. In seconds, an entire regiment surrounded the tiny settlement. Some of the troops apparently noticed the person recording, and closed in, weapons leveled. Scalas saw that their armor actually amounted to little more than a chest plate over a plain spacesuit. Then a rifle butt was swung savagely, and the image disappeared.
Horvaset stopped the playback. “There is more,” she said, her chin held high, “but I expect that the full reports are not for this time or place.”
“Perhaps not,” Kranjick said. His face expressionless, he looked to either side of him. “Centurions? Opinions?”
“There has never been an interstellar empire in the entire history of the Great Diaspora that ever amounted to more than a handful of closely spaced systems,” Centurion Soon said. He was extremely tall, with the wiry build of a low-gravity worlder who had worked hard to build the muscle to be a Caractacan. “And those soon fell apart, collapsing under the weight of sheer distance and complexity.”
“And yet, from those recordings, it appears that someone has at least managed to put together enough resources to suggest that they command such an empire,” Scalas pointed out. He was wondering if he had been the only one to notice the apparent cheapness of the infantry’s equipment. Even Kranjick had not spoken of it. But this was neither the time nor the place for such analysis.
“Does it matter?” Costigan asked quietly. Lantern-jawed and brown-haired, Costigan even looked like the kind of hero that statues were made of. “Someone has demonstrated the power, ability, and willingness to attack one of the most important systems on the Rimward edge of the Avar Sector. That alone should merit our attention.”
“Should it?” Dunstan asked. “If I recall correctly, Valdek is arguably at the very edge of the Sector; practically outside our patrol area. Are there not other systems closer by, weaker, that would be stripped of protection against the M’tait and pirates, such as the yeheri that Centurion Scalas so ably defeated a few days ago, if we respond with all the force available to us? And if this General-Regent has indeed appealed to every system within a hundred parsecs, well… that is a considerable relief force. Perhaps we should wait and see, rather than plunge headlong into a war we do not necessarily have a vested interest in.”
Horvaset looked suddenly nervous. Scalas suspected she hadn’t imagined her request would be met with such skepticism, much less a suggestion that it be ignored outright.
But Kranjick didn’t even bother to look at Dunstan; he fixed his gaze on the Valdekan. “You will accompany me aboard the Boanerges, Captain.”
The woman nearly wilted with relief. Kranjick had just answered her prayers.
“We will lift by nightfall tonight,” Kranjick continued. He turned to Scalas. “Centurion Scalas.”
“Yes, Brother Legate.”
“When we are finished here, seek out Elder Nakamura.” His voice was a deep, dry monotone. “You have two days to select nine men from his senior novices to bring your century back up to full strength. Once that is done and the Dauntless is fully refitted, you will follow us.”
“Yes, sir.”
Kranjick then turned his attention to Costigan. “Centurion Costigan. How long until the Challenger is ready for lift?”
“We can be ready in six hours, sir.”
Kranjick shook his head ponderously. “No. You will not b
e fully refitted and rearmed in six hours, though your enthusiasm is commendable. I give you two days, until Centurion Scalas has selected his replacements.”
“Yes, sir.”
Once again Kranjick addressed Scalas. “You are in command in my absence, Centurion, until we rendezvous in the Valdek system. Understood?”
“Yes, Brother Legate.” Scalas was proud that he had not even stammered. He could feel Dunstan’s eyes on him, but didn’t dare look at either Dunstan or Costigan.
Kranjick straightened, towering over his centurions. “We will meet in the war room to go over the rest of Captain Horvaset’s intelligence before I leave. Legio!” His voice boomed out like a thunderclap. “Dismissed!”
The rest of the intelligence report was a jumbled collection of raw reports and imagery, clearly assembled in haste, that turned out to be hardly more informative than Horvaset’s initial message. There was little in the way of a coherent picture to be gained from it, aside from a very basic idea of the strength of the fleet and army that the Valdekans were facing.
The numbers were truly unprecedented. No conflict had ever involved fleets anywhere close to the size being suggested by the Valdekan reports—at least not since the Qinglong Wars that had led to the destruction of Earth, and it was widely believed that the accounts of the Qinglong Wars had been inflated over time, as history had become legend. It was clear that the Caractacans would not be able to relieve Valdek by themselves—but it was equally clear that their help was needed. And so it would be offered. At the very least, they could buy the Valdekans time.
It was with that conclusion that Kranjick took up his helmet and strode out of the war room, headed for the distant pad where the blunt spearhead of the Boanerges pointed at the sky. Kranjick rarely took his war gear out of the starship when at the Keep, allowing for a speedy redeployment when needed. It was a habit that Scalas had tried to emulate.
Soon and Dunstan took their leave as well, Dunstan stiffly refusing to look at Scalas. Horvaset looked uncertain what to do until Costigan quietly suggested that she should probably follow Brother Legate Kranjick if she wished to board the Boanerges before she lifted. The captain, looking as lost and flustered as a first-year novice, hurried out, leaving only Scalas and Costigan.
“Congratulations, Erekan,” Costigan said after an awkward silence. “I can’t think of anyone else Kranjick could have picked among us.”
Scalas had still been studying Horvaset’s imagery, but now he looked up at Costigan. “Really?” He tried to keep his voice light. “Not even the hero of Tide’s Point Station?”
Costigan snorted. “You set in for one suicidal last stand, and by some miracle you survive, and all of a sudden you’re a god of war.” He shook his head. “I thought you knew me better than that.”
“Well, we haven’t had much time to catch up since then.” Scalas straightened from the display. “People change, Virgil. Warriors grow into roles they might not have foreseen for themselves.”
Costigan shook his head. “I’m a fighter, not a leader. Tide’s Point Station only happened because I figured I was already dead anyway, so I may as well take as many of the M’tait with me as I could. And it really didn’t take much in the way of leadership or tactical acumen, either. It was a holding action in a confined corridor for most of it. ‘Bad guys that way—shoot there.’ Besides, now I’m a cavalry centurion. My tanks, combat sleds, and assault guns will probably have less to do in a defensive action than your infantry shooters.”
Scalas chuckled and felt some of his tension draining away. He’d known Costigan since they had both been novices, Costigan a year ahead of Scalas. But their diverging responsibilities as centurions, coupled with Costigan’s growing legend as the hero of Tide’s Point Station, had made Scalas wonder if the other man had surpassed him to the extent that they could no longer truly be friends. The fact that Costigan certainly didn’t think so was heartening, and it relieved some of the leaden weight that Scalas had felt in his chest ever since Kranjick had placed him in command of the legio still in the Avar Sector Keep.
“Don’t tell Dunstan that,” he said. “He’s already insufferable enough as it is.” He realized as soon as the words left his lips that he shouldn’t speak ill of a fellow centurion, and with shame he resolved to speak to Father Corinus.
Costigan frowned. He hadn’t been around Dunstan much since accepting command of Century XXXV and the Challenger. “What was that all about back there? Was he honestly suggesting that the Brotherhood refuse a request for aid?”
Scalas sighed. “He’s become something of a ‘New School pragmatist’ over the last couple of years. I think it started back at the Brotherhood Citadel on Caerfaon. It seems that some of the younger generations of Brothers no longer consider the Code to be ‘relevant.’”
Costigan’s frown deepened. “I’d heard that such ideas were floating around, but I hadn’t expected to find them in the Avar Sector Legio.”
“Brother Legate Kranjick is well aware of it,” Scalas assured him. “We’ve… spoken about it.”
Costigan glanced toward the door where Soon and Dunstan had disappeared. “Can we trust him?”
“Trust this,” Scalas said. “Dunstan is a competent soldier, and he’s ambitious. I don’t think he would willingly endanger his position by stepping too far out of line. He pushes boundaries, but he’s not willing to break them entirely. Not yet.”
“Well, I’ll take your word for it. You are acting legate, after all.” Costigan cracked a half-grin at his old friend. “Speaking of which, any instructions before I start to work making sure the logisticians load the right powergun charges back aboard the Challenger, Acting Legate?”
Scalas shook his head ruefully. “You know better than that. I have too much work of my own to do to play ‘acting commander’ power games. Get out of here.”
Costigan laughed and clapped Scalas on the shoulder. As ever, it was bruising, but Scalas didn’t mind. In fact he punched his friend back, and Costigan winced and rubbed the impact spot.
“You’ve gotten stronger.”
“I’m a centurion,” Scalas pointed out. “I have to be the strongest in the century.”
Before heading out, he scooped up a copy of the intel report. He wanted to study it more closely. Something about what he’d seen was bothering him, he just couldn’t say for sure what it was. Maybe, some time in between refitting the Dauntless and Century XXXII for launch, and vetting his replacements from among Elder Nakamura’s novices, he’d have time to analyze the data in more detail. But he wouldn’t hold his breath.
6
“Centurion, I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many neutrino emitters around one planet,” Mor said.
The holo-tank was swarming with tiny fireflies centered on the planet Valdek, each glowing dot representing the neutrino signature of a starship’s reactor. Of course, the data they were looking at was ninety minutes old; the Dauntless, along with the Sword of the Brotherhood, Challenger, and Vindicator, was still ninety light-minutes away from Valdek, hovering just above the rings of the most distant gas giant, nearly in the system’s Oort cloud, which meant the ships they were currently monitoring would likely have changed orbits and vectors at least twice.
“The intel was certainly dead-on,” Cobb muttered. The century’s squad sergeants were currently all on the command deck, observing the holo-tank. Scalas had wanted everyone to have a look at what they were facing. “I believe the term was ‘unprecedented.’”
“Are there any more around any of the outer colonies, Captain?” Scalas asked Mor.
The starship captain shook his head grimly. “It looks like all efforts are being focused on Valdek itself. I suspect there isn’t anyone left alive on the outer colonies.”
“Too much trouble to secure while they still had a central axis of resistance,” Kahane speculated. “One thing is certain: whoever this ‘Galactic Unity’ is, they are not exactly honorable combatants.”
“Did anyone really expect th
em to be?” Volscius asked acidly. And since they aren’t, attempting to fight with honor would be folly. He didn’t say it in so many words, but his tone implied it strongly.
Scalas felt that Volscius would do better in Dunstan’s century, but Kranjick knew about Volscius’s attitude—Kranjick knew about nearly everything in the legio—which meant he was deliberately keeping him where he was. Probably to prevent Dunstan from grooming an entirely ‘pragmatist’ century.
“No,” Cobb said coldly. “But there is fighting dirty, and then there’s mass murder. This appears to be the latter.”
“Any sign of the Boanerges?” Scalas asked, forestalling further bickering between his subcommanders.
“Not yet,” Mor replied. “We’ve been looking, but if Brother Legate Kranjick is being cautious, it may take time.”
Almost as if it had been timed, the comm console chimed. “We’re receiving a tight-beam communication from the Boanerges, Captain,” the crewman announced.
Mor grimaced slightly, while Kahane and Solanus chuckled. Scalas permitted himself a half smile. “Of course we are,” Mor muttered. Raising his voice, he said, “Content?”
“Only a rendezvous vector, sir,” the crewman replied. He read off a string of numbers that described a direction, distance, and velocity relative to the ecliptic and the Valdekan sun, Goran 54.
“Navigation?” Mor asked.
The navigator took a moment to calculate the trajectory and where it led. Then he whistled. “Impressive.”
“Just relay the information, Nav,” Mor said testily.
“Sorry, sir. It appears that the Boanerges is presently station-keeping inside the tail of a comet, approximately fifteen light-minutes from Valdek.”
Scalas raised an eyebrow. Staying within a comet’s tail was not only a difficult maneuver, it was only partially effective as camouflage—not at all like the gas giant they were currently orbiting, which was putting out enough radioactive noise to mask their ships’ signatures. A comet was a relatively inert ball of ice and rock, and if someone was really looking, it wouldn’t be nearly sufficient to disguise either the ship’s neutrino signature or its heat emissions. Even so, if it was the only concealment available that close…