Vindication

by Ken Wolfson

  "Emoche hired a Wendago tribe to attack Vykhor. Have they joined his blue banner?" The satisfaction faded as he imagined the Wendago marching captives, naked and raped, then paraded through their slave markets.

  "He has looked to the Wendago for support, but there's nothing definite at this time." Molitor's expression clouded, and told Adrian all he needed to know.

  His vision grew blurry, and he had to wipe his eyes on camera.

  "A politician's answer is a yes to me." What had you done, Molitor? He understood the logic of how Molitor had bought into this, but he still didn't understand why.

  "I need you. What's an anvil without its hammer?" Molitor pleaded.

  "I don't join them. I bleed them."

  Amelie pointed at TACNET. Red signatures were appearing; distance was 500,000-1mil klicks. There were Wendago Dragoons amongst them. They'd undoubtedly been powered down to minimal and drifting with the spreading wreckage. In normal space, a dedicated scan probe grid would've picked them up, but the radiation masked that reduced sensor profile entirely.

  Adrian weighed his options. Treason was unacceptable. Fighting with one damaged supercarrier against what was now 25 hostile ships was impossible.

  "Condition one, prepare for battle," he ordered. Three klaxons wailed.

  "Adrian. Please don't do this," Molitor said. TACNET exploded with red signatures.

  "All I did was let Emoche escape Vykhor. You did the rest," Adrian said.

  Molitor pulled off his jacket. Beneath he wore another uniform—of royal blue with golden trim. "I won't pursue you, but I can't stop the rest of my fleet from doing it. I'm so sorry."

  "Don't be. I'll rectify my mistake. And then we'll talk about getting you off from treason charges."

  "You are so bullheaded."

  "Kill the channel," Adrian said. He ripped the knife from his heart, tearing muscle and arteries. A giant fist crushed his chest.

  "Lot of hostile incoming," Amelie said.

  "How many dragoons?" Adrian gasped.

  "Count seven, gaining acceleration rapidly," Amelie said.

  Twenty years of friendship went spinning down the toilet vortex and was dragged through the recycling pads.

  "Sir?" Amelie said for the third time. "Full power to the weapons grid. Fighter control launch now!"

  Vindication's signature blossomed as she launched her fighters.

  Adrian slid into combat time. "Helm, burn for the jump shelf, emergency acceleration!"

  #

  Chapter Fourteen: Run and Gun

  "All hands, brace for high-gravitational maneuvers."

  Adrian strapped himself in just in time. The thrumming underfoot became a roar as Vindication dumped plasma from her reactors into her drives.

  Refocus, refocus. The war is right here.

  "Cage, target analysis. What are we fighting?" Adrian said. The bridge slowed down in increments as he dragged himself into combat focus.

  "Nothing is in range at the moment. There's 25 hulls total. 18 are fleet ships. The rest—well, the Wendago didn't learn their lesson last time they fucked with us. Count seven dragoons." Cage's words were cavalier, even while he white-knuckled the lip of the TACNET table.

  "How many carriers, and standoff cruisers?" Adrian said.

  "Count two CVEs and the Mountain's CVS. There's also two STAs." Standoff cruisers; mass launch missile boats.

  Adrian studied the ship icons and vector lines crossing TACNET to impale his supercarrier. The escort carriers were keeping pace at a range of ten million kilometers. Each carried 500 fighter craft, and could keep up steady harassment even at that long range. However, their firepower had to re-arm and could be permanently destroyed at range. Adrian's real concern was the standoff cruisers. Those were at a range of 200,000 kilometers and already painting Vindication with their mammoth targeting computers. In her state, a couple salvos from each would bring the barriers down.

  Within seconds, he had a combat plan.

  "Put all EWAR on the STAs. Ignore the other fleet oathbreakers; they won't beat our acceleration curve." Carriers had higher acceleration, due to their partly hollow hulls, and therefore superior mass-thrust ratio. "Launch all fighters and hold in escort. Helm, watch the range on those RRDs.

  Even as he spoke, the Dragoons piled on 100gs, far more than anyone else’. The Wendago were sealed into their inertial dampening gel suits, plugged directly into their ships through lost technology. They raced to their prey, chanting for blood in a dead language. Their skeletal attack craft, barely 200 meters each, were trembling under the force of their over-sized engines.

  The first railgun slugs struck Vindication's barriers and glanced off into space. Torpedoes followed from several directions. TACNET blitzed red. Adrian wasn't worried about the conventional railgun-based hulls, which made up the majority of Molitor's war band. They'd landed a few well-aimed hits, but they were out of optimal, and Vindication's hot start ensured they'd only lose range.

  "Put the interceptors on full defensive posture. Cage, those STAs aren't screened; order a full fire mission against them, sort targets by range, fire six salvos," Adrian said. The first volley of atlatls was intercepted and neutralized. The second was barely thirty seconds out.

  "We're out of nuclear warheads," Cage warned.

  "With the defenses on those STAs, standard High-ex warheads should be enough," Adrian said.

  "Copy, fire mission underway."

  Vindication cut loose with her own torpedoes. Whoever was commanding the STA's must've been pleading for help the moment they launched. Both CVEs immediately shifted part of their fighter support to cover the lightly armored tubes that were standoff cruisers. Cage killed the first with two coordinated volleys. The first fanned out and hammered the cruiser at four different vectors to collapse her barriers. The second impacted her midsection and split her in half. The enemy fighter screen closed around the remaining cruiser.

  "Hold fire and await further orders," Adrian said. Cage had done enough. His EWAR was completely scrambling the second STA, rendering her inert for the remainder of the fight. Now the biggest threat was the streaking escort carriers, who were easily keeping pace with Vindication.

  "The RRDs will be in range in sixty seconds," Amelie said. "I'm ordering our Jotunns to engage."

  "Hold that," Adrian said. The Wendago were shrouded in a cloud of fighters, 200 total. That would absorb the majority of his fighter screen, and leave the dragoons free to engage. "Full Jotunn strike on the CVE bearing vector seven seven seven alpha zero, range 200,000 kilometers. She's left herself exposed. Task Fury wings one and two to run cover, keep all remaining Furies on defensive posture. Cage, full fire mission on the dragoons. Use EWAR warheads."

  Red signatures crawled across TACNET towards the big blue. Molitor didn't withdraw fighters to screen the targeted CVE’s bared hull. She accepted the Knights' fury square in her face. Heedless of incoming auto cannon fire, the Knights circled and dove, spitting torpedoes before breaking off back towards Vindication. The carrier's barriers crumpled under the multi-vector assault, and exposed her armor to a barrage of white-hot impacts. She dropped back. Yet her interceptors kept up the screen and absorbed their missile strike.

  Molitor launched his own assault at the same time. The Dragoons broke straight through Vindication’s screen. Cage threw the weapons grid onto them. Fire erupted between the squadron and the supercarrier. The supercarrier lost; the Dragoons broke above and below, raking her end over end with those overpowered railgun batteries.

  An earthquake struck the bridge. Several displays shattered, showering screaming officers with quartz fragments accelerated by 5g. Diagnostics showed barriers at 15% and holding, and scattered impactors punching through around the engineering sector.

  "Divert power from sensors to barriers!" Adrian bellowed.

  Seconds later, the bomber wing landed. The aftershocks sent cracks running along the ceiling and under the floor. Adrian's desk shifted and the screen died.

  "Barrier
s are down. We won't survive another combined assault," Amelie said.

  "Forgot who I was fighting," Adrian spat. Gravity blew his bloody saliva back in his face. He'd never faced Molitor outside the dueling arena. The big man would've known Vindication was hurting, and without a doubt would've sacrificed a crippled escort carrier to deliver the killing blows.

  "Better think of something quick. I give us five minutes until the Wendago come about," Cage said.

  What was Molitor's weakness? Arrogance. Not attack without screening my motherships arrogance, but I know how everything goes my way arrogance.

  "Recall all fighters and hold them on the landing bay," Adrian said. Amelie worked her jaw, but nothing came out. "Listen up. As soon as the Wendago open fire, I want one torpedo salvo launched, and detonated immediately outside the tubes. Helm, engineering, you will cut total power and let Vinny drift. Captain Marlay, cut the communications and cook up an EWAR package. We're playing dead, do you copy?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Good. Do it," Adrian said.

  The Dragoons flipped around and burned until their velocity had passed relative zero, and they were racing back towards Vindication.

  "EWAR package ready, sir. I'm imitating a distress signal to hide that I'm scrambling their passive sensors," Zoey said.

  "Very good," Adrian said. The Wendago opened fire.

  "Launch the EWAR. Cage, fire mission engage," Adrian said. Cage keyed in the command with one hand. "Grissom, execute."

  The atlatls launched and detonated so close they blast-scorched their launch bays. The debris field rattled Vindication. The supercarrier slewed around and drifted off towards deep space, her hulk steadily going dark and radiation emissions spiking. The blue sun's immense gravity well provided a steady deceleration, but her initial velocity was so great she'd have no problem drifting clear to the outer limits of the system. Her structure groaned in agony. Adrian grabbed a structural beam to reassure his girl.

  The Wendago fired into her hulk as they passed, before peeling off in a gentle arc.

  "Continue emissions blackout," Adrian said. "We are dead according to the enemy's sensor beams. We'll drift away to safety," he said. He let out a long sigh. Safe, for now.

  "We ran and hid," Cage said.

  Adrian knew blind anger, and how it could undermine his authority.

  "They wanted to kill us. We survived. Therefore we have won," he said.

  "Yes, sir," Cage muttered.

  They were alive. That was enough for the time being.

  #

  Chapter Fifteen: Down Time

  Avrile 5:

  6th Day of the War

  "What the fuck Molitor?" Adrian said. He slumped at his kitchen counter, vodka clutched in his hands. What the fuck was the best he could do. Twenty years of mutual trust on everything had broken in half and the serrated knife was buried through his spine, into his heart.

  "What happened to us?" Amelie said, and sat down beside him. She yawned and hung her head. Her silver liner was smudged over her brow, and her eyes beneath were half-shut.

  "We got our asses kicked really fucking bad, and then stabbed in the back by my best friend for good measure," Adrian said. He replayed his last meeting with Molitor on the Anchorage in his mind, over and over. Had the Mountain been plotting the whole time? Had he been plotting as he congratulated Adrian on his retirement? Who was he plotting with?

  “Adrian you don’t trust anyone, how were you so thoroughly blindsided?” Amelie said.

  “Eight years ago I got a letter from an old hookup saying I had a daughter. It was fucking terrifying, I’d never had family in my life how was I going to raise a six-year old? I only told him. And I brought him with me to meet Alyssa.” Adrian glared at her. “I trust two people absolutely, he was one. And I told him Alyssa was still on the Anchorage, fuck!”

  “Ah shit, I didn’t even think you’d have a friend that close. I’m sorry.”

  “Had.” Wait a second, he’d mentioned Aly…

  "Mother protect us." She shook her head with a flurry of loose red strands.

  "Oh fuck I told him I didn’t have Alyssa, he knows I can’t protect her,” Adrian said.

  “We’ll find her,” Amelie promised. She took his hand and he squeezed until their bones groaned.

  “My daughter is trapped, alone, on a station full of traitors looking for her. And I told him that.” He grabbed his glass and chugged the rest. They were coming for her. And he couldn’t do anything without getting himself and his ship killed.

  “And she’s a smart one, remember? She’ll figure it out,” Amelie promised. Adrian wasn’t satisfied in the least. He poured another shot and chugged that one.

  “I’ve done this rodeo before, intelligence means nothing before religious zealotry, that’s why the bad guys always win and we got to go in and stop them.”

  "You think Emoche Hulle's the real thing, then? He's got a god on the other end and they're going to take over the human race together?"

  "I don't know for sure. I know he's a true believer, though," Adrian said.

  The speaker at Tollyon was a true believer of a fiery kind rarely seen in politics. And how had he infiltrated the fleet so thoroughly? How had he gone from a nobody to a defeated warlord to commanding the best intel network in the Systems? Adrian didn't like being surprised by 'impossibility.'

  "The Wendago wouldn't jump on his bandwagon unless he had something to offer them,” he said. “You pay them in more than credits."

  "You know more than I do. I spent most of my career fighting pirates in the Burn," Amelie said, speaking of her home region.

  "Wendago need bio-slaves to increase their gene pool, habitats to wipe the life from, cultures they can carve their legends into, and little girls and boys they can rape and scar for life," Adrian said.

  "How about the greatest conquest in Wendago history?" Amelie said.

  "That would do it. He’ll turn them loose from the Crescent to the Burn. And if the Burn falls he’s got a path into the Metropolis regions and Core worlds. A reckoning for every man, woman, and child.”

  "There will be a reckoning by the cold gods and the true warriors will be justified," Amelie said.

  “Define true warriors.”

  “Those that protect the weak, so those who aren’t the Rayven.” Whatever gave her confidence he’d accept. "And we'll get our girl back." She squeezed his hand. Adrian squeezed back.

  “How?”

  “We’re not normal parents, remember, we have real power. Before Vindication jumps to FTL I’m going to dispatch a flash drone back to Tollyon. My family has two business partners, I’ll put both on the case.”

  “You can do that?” Adrian said.

  “Of course, I can.” If anyone else offered him such a favor for free, he’d be wary. This was Amelie, though.

  "Thank you,” he said. He popped the stopper with his thumb. "In the meantime."

  "Yeah." She held up her glass. He poured hers first, then his own. They raised their glasses. "Bottoms up," Amelie said.

  "Bottoms up." He tipped his back, and let the cheap alcohol run down his throat, stabbing and kicking as it went. The prickling and ensuing buzz were relaxing. Worlds changed and human nations rose and fell, but cheap grain alcohol was a universal constant.

  Amelie's face flushed cherry, and she squeezed her eyes shut. "Ugh."

  Adrian nudged her knee. "Alright?"

  "How do you drink this railgun coolant?”

  Adrian poured a fresh glass for himself. Amelie held out her own with a sigh, and he refilled that too.

  "So I was thinking—every now and then some golden age relic turns up that violates our understanding of science in ways the docs can’t explain; what if Emoche's got himself one of those?"

  Adrian suddenly wasn't thinking about his drink. He nodded for Amelie to continue.

  "What if Emoche found something that let him control people's minds?"

  No one knew how long humanity had been in the stars. Th
e oldest ruins were six-thousand-year-old cities on Varium. Written history went back a thousand years, to the founding of the Human Empire. Any data files before then, extracted from flickering computers in drifting relics, were corrupted beyond repair, and no physical copies of data existed aside from smashed ends. No maps, no signs, not even advertisement billboards. Only the technology remained. The ancient relic swords were the most popular finds. Varium had a terraformer that pulled hydrogen and oxygen from the environment and converted them to water without waste. Then there were the reports of abandoned Dyson shells drifting through wild space.

  “The real explanation is less extreme,” Adrian said. Amelie leaned in, eyes narrowed.

  “What?”

  “When we are desperate, we’ll do anything. I would have murdered a social worker and six prefects to save my daughter and I regret not doing so. The common people are poor and their kids are hungry. They have no future in the old order but decades of labor for a government that shits all over them. Emoche said kill everyone who’s against him including their own neighbors, and he’ll give them a life and their kids a future. So they’ll do it, because they’re desperate and he’s a solution.”

  Amelie gaped, “I, I’ve never been hungry, but I understand.”

  “Good. Remember, we’re not fighting just one man now, we’re fighting an army of desperate people like us.” He patted her shoulder to show he meant no anger at her.

  “I got you, sir,” she said.

  “Now let’s really hope Emoche doesn’t have a pre-dark age weapon.”

  "Agreed, let's hope not. Bottoms up?" The chugged their fresh glasses. Now Adrian's buzz engulfed his entire body. "I think I need something to eat. Comfort food." He stood, and immediately tripped over his own toes. He saved himself on the counter. Amelie stifled a giggle.

  "You want to get it?"

  "I'm not even getting up. Go on," she said, before resuming giggling.

  "Fine, breakfast burritos coming up," Adrian said.

  #

  Chapter Sixteen: Serpentia

  Avrile 7