Vindication

by Ken Wolfson

  "Then begin on my mark, and may your patron deity give you strength." He released his grip and retreated to the wall. "Begin!"

  Adrian lunged first with a gladius' standard haymaker. Autumn casually leaned back to evade, then struck overhand with her longer blade. Adrian blocked high to test her strength and the blow rattled him to his core. All his old wounds cried out with fresh aching at their seams. He stumbled back, and Autumn attacked.

  She unleashed a deluge of cuts, one slash flowing into the next with dizzying speed. Adrian stood fast and parried as best he could, but he could barely reach without being battered away. He gave ground, step by step. His back slammed into a console's cold plastic. The Hullen cheered, sensing a kill.

  Adrian threw himself into open ground. Nano steel bit through a gap in his armor, his muscle beneath, and nicked the bone in his right shoulder. He gasped as white-hot agony shot through his side and he stumbled back. The cheers rose into bloodthirsty baying.

  Autumn pivoted and caught her breath; she didn't need to tire out when her opponent was wounded and out of his range. Adrian took the precious heartbeats to address his injuries. His arm still had motion, but raising above chest-height turned into crippling agony. He took a deep breath to drive the pain back into its wound, and struck.

  Autumn caught his left hook inches from her throat. Adrian lowered his injured shoulder and charged. She withdrew, barely deflecting each of his blows, as the cheering faded. If he could get her back against the wall, he could get in proper range. Then she parried him high, grabbed her sword's flat edge halfway down, and riposted with a quick half-slice. Nano steel scoured along Adrian's belly, scraping a faint gash through. He gritted his teeth and withdrew as blood flowed from the second wound. A hole opened over his heart for a quick stab.

  Autumn slashed at his chest. Adrian let his momentum carry him out of range. So, she couldn't stab with that hatchet point, at least not efficiently. That was a weakness he could exploit. They reset their guards and faced, panting. Autumn was drenched with sweat; Adrian bled hard. It was enough time to cobble a plan together.

  He let her attack, and the deluge resumed. This time he gave ground begrudgingly but willingly, backing up just as far as needed to keep his defense ahead of her. She swung hard at his injured side; then, when he overcompensated to cover, pulled up and reversed. Adrian barely kept his sword in his fingertips, and her next slice was a quick one that opened a cut in his forehead. He withdrew and once again his back hit a wall. He doubled over like he'd run out of strength to continue. Anything to get her in range. The Hullen bayed for blood.

  "Come on, Commander!" Alenkot bellowed.

  Through a curtain of his blood, Adrian watched Autumn approach. He swung diagonally to cut from his ruined right flank armor down into his heart.

  He straightened up and charged into her attack. He half-parried before the lunge. Heavy nano-alloy buried halfway through his shoulder, severing knitted muscle and bone. In turn his gladius bit down through her armor, skin, and sternum. They both screamed.

  Silence fell across the arena. For the first time, his troops cheered.

  Adrian stepped back, and wrenched his faithful old blade free. His wobbling legs couldn't hold him, but he drove the pain away and stood anyways.

  Autumn placed a hand over the hole in her chest. She opened her mouth, and blood trickled out. The fight drained from her. Some injuries were too big to recover from.

  "Do you yield?" Adrian said. Autumn gritted her teeth and reset her stance. More blood dripped from her lips. He danced forward and kicked her knees from under her. She crumpled like a rag doll and vomited up red. "Do you yield?"

  "I yield.” The Hullen surrounded her. Adrian’s troopers howled and stomped their boots in makeshift thunder.

  "Oh, come on," Julien said and opened his comp.

  He squeaked and collapsed like an empty sack.

  "I didn't believe you had the spine to try it," Meironara said, and slipped the dripping knife back into his jacket. "Get the Commander medical aid, somebody. You kill him with your gratitude."

  #

  Chapter Twenty: Intel

  Avrile 11:

  12th Day of the War

  "I can't believe you pulled that off."

  Adrian's right arm was held to his body by industrial grade staples and three millimeters of bone, and the hospital had run dry on painkillers. No problem; pain was a happy reminder he'd won. He sat shirtless in a hospital cot behind a blue sheet, with a radio link to Mirra on Serpentia and Meironara directing salvaging of parts on the anchorage.

  "You've been my XO four years now. You should know me" Shame he couldn't grab a victory drink; he wasn't up for Veris' bitch fit if he fucked with his medicals. "Now, shadow, do you have some good news?"

  "I have multiple pieces of good news," Meironara said. The Hullen were burning towards the jump shelf with Autumn Nordhammer clinging to life in their medical bay. Adrian had let them go, in part because that had been the terms of their deal, and in part because he wasn't ready to cross the line that was killing defenseless prisoners outside of combat. Even if he expected to meet them again, pointed right back at him.

  "Yes, let’s hear it,” Mirra said.

  "Xezbeth's hold contains enough magnetic rails and other parts to repair Vindication. There's also medical supplies and basic munitions onboard, which we both need," Meironara said. Their room exhaled a sigh of relief. Adrian slapped the bed.

  "Good. I didn't deprive myself of alcohol for nothing," he said. "What's number two?"

  "A flash drone pulled in last night; it’s from Shadow Milar Sibaro, attached to the Third Gehenna Armada. Message reads: all ships loyal to the prophet are to converge on Vervender, in preparation for assault on the loyalist stronghold in the system. The gates of the Great Burn will be opened."

  Vervunder sat at the imaginary border between Gehenna and the Burn. It hadn't hit the celestial lottery and received a habitable planet, or yellow main sequence sun. However, it'd been gifted with massive deposits of heavy earth elements and prime location at the junction of two major shipping routes. Millions of people lived in space borne habitats, owned by noble houses and operated by ore extraction corporations.

  "Will that be our destination?" Mirra said.

  "There's confirmed friendlies there, so yes," Adrian said.

  "There were confirmed friendlies when that drone was dispatched. What if Emoche Hulle's taken over when we arrive?" she said.

  "Then we head for the Great Burn; that's their goal and where we must be. If the Burn's already fallen, then we'll work on deeper contingencies," Adrian said. "Any additional concerns?"

  "All good. We'll be done loading by tomorrow," Meironara said.

  "Nothing to add. I'll relax when we've found friendlies that won't stick us in the back," Mirra said.

  "I've also gotten access to their data vaults, and I've got something for you," Meironara said. "A memo, from Tollyon chapter to the commandant."

  The file was uploaded.

  Priority Crimson: Julien, a new business deal is being struck. Our new client is Emoche Hulle, the prophet of the Golden Age. He is in search of a specific asset crucial to his dominance in the war to come. Search your archives for the Imperial map of the Great Burn. There is at least one copy remaining in existence; if you find it, copy it and dispatch it to the Burn via flash drone.

  A reply:

  Priority Crimson: Apologies, no sign of the map.

  "I've never been to the region, but what's so important about a map?" Meironara said.

  "Before the Great Rebellion, the Burn was the wealthiest region in the Empire. It's loaded with jewel worlds rich in heavy earth elements. During the rebellion the Imperials razed it; scorched ground policy. We had to rebuild all the mining infrastructure from scratch and the Burn is the poorest region in the Systems. Perhaps an Imperial map has some extra intact worlds we haven't rediscovered," Amelie said.

  "That would be feasible, given how big the Burn is,"
Meironara said.

  "So Emoche wants to pillage them. That will get him plenty of money to fund his rebellion,” Adrian said.

  “More likely he’ll sell the mining rights to fund his armies,” Amelie said. “The initial investment would be huge and he’ll have yearly profit cuts to support himself, plus anything else he can wrangle from the bargain.”

  “What kind of corporate lord will negotiate with him?” Mirra said.

  “If there’s money, the corpies and noble houses will find a way. They always do,” Amelie said.

  “This is all speculation,” Meironara said. “Good speculation but speculation nonetheless.”

  “We’ll find out when we get to friendly lines, there’s also always someone who knows the answers” Adrian promised.

  "I'll inform you if I find anything else," Meironara said.

  "Copy. Vindication out," Adrian said. He cut the radio and looked at Amelie. “You’re pretty brilliant, sell the mining rights.”

  “Thank you,” she kissed him. “And you are one hell of a soldier.”

  “A hurting soldier.” He settled back into his chair, and gritted his teeth as the agony returned through his shoulder. This would be a long night.

  #

  Chapter Twenty-One: Vervunder

  Avrile 24

  25th Day of the War

  Adrian didn’t pass the journey idle. He ran battle stations drills at the start of every shift, did crew quarters inspections after lunch hours, and played a bit of war games with Serpentia before turning in for the night. Battles were won in the details, and the superior crew generally won. He marched the ship, energetically exhorting his crew back into form.

  This was training to finally strike back the enemy, he told them in person and through announcement boards. With full bellies, healed wounds, and a solid seven hours per night of bunk time, their morale pulled back from the brink.

  "Welcome to Vervunder," Grissom said. He calculated egress physics while the assistant navigator seated on either side of him maintained the warp tunnel. He pulled the lever and Vindication punched through her tunnel into the universe. A thud resounded, like something heavy hitting the ground. Vindication rocked like a rowboat on stormy seas. "FTL spools stable, no deletion this time."

  The bridge let out an audible sigh of relief.

  "Launch sensor probes and combat patrol; don't hail system auth," Adrian ordered. He took a long drink of coffee. The Quartermaster's office had run out of coffee mix. This batch was grey water with caffeine and a hint of belonberry flavoring. Adrian still swallowed it smoothly. Amelie had given up on coffee and was sipping water from a flask. Cage had abandoned all caffeine a week ago was growing grumpier by the minute.

  "System scan has resolved. Putting it on TACNET,” Cage said.

  Vervunder had young yellow sun. Sub one billion years. Orbiting it were forty rocky and one gas planet, while thousands of asteroids filled out the gaps. Every few hundred years they slammed into each other. The outermost rock planet was due to obliterate a planetoid one-third its size in eighty years; it would be quite a show, and already emissaries from the long-lived Duphains and some human noble houses were purchasing tourism passes.

  All of this paled before the gas giant. The planet itself was a yellow ball with a diameter of 350,000 kilometers. Nothing special in the cosmic order. Her rings stretched before Vindication, a sea of yellow 400 million klicks in diameter. The planets and sun were dark specks silhouetted in the camera feeds of the approaching carrier.

  Adrian focused on the innermost planet: a rock world with a diameter of one hundred thousand kilometers and five times standard gravity, perpetually in shadow beneath those rings. This was the only population center in the system. Vindication's preliminary scans told him that the grid of orbital towers was fully active and choked with refugee traffic. Yet drones still mined ore in the surface rock fields and shipped it down lonely roads to the space elevators, who continued to lift produce into the sky.

  Three-hundred years ago, an Imperial survey cruiser had made an emergency landing on Vervunder-III. In the hours before succumbing to the high gravity, her crew made a final transmission back into space, carrying their sensor data of the newly discovered planet below. Included in that data was a seismic scan showing massive veins of rare earth elements. The Empire had launched another survey mission, and discovered that many of the Burn's otherwise uninhabitable worlds were rich beyond comprehension in ore, and untapped save for pre-dark age ruins. And so they annexed the region. Due to its remoteness, when the rebellion went down and the retreating Imperials went scorched-earth, Vervunder was one of the few systems to be spared self-immolation. Now, sponsored by Houses Nessella and Eturo, an international conglomerate called Ardech Extraction mined its surface, paying a cut of the profit to the Systems.

  "I'm reading 12,619 transponder signals within the jump shelf limits," Pask said. "That includes civilian, Hullen, and Armada signatures.” Hope flickered on the bridge like a lit match in a high-oxygen enviro.

  "Map them on TACNET," Adrian said. Boom. There was a mix of red, blue, and grey signatures in the system. There was an even amount of blue and red. The red was concentrated around the inner system mining world and inside the gas giant's rings. The blue in the outer system. The grey were red-shifted towards the mining world.

  "The fleet is holding strong," Cage noted.

  "For now. Look at those deployments," Amelie said. She walked into the center of the hologram and pointed out the fleets on TACNET. "There's about to be a battle."

  "We're in a bad position. Look, Emoche's followers are between us and our forces," Adrian said. The idea that open space was un-guardable was a fantasy of the dark ages, when most societies had regressed to pre-space travel and forgotten the infinite maneuverability afforded in space. The technique was known as gridline. With a sensor probe every ten million miles in a 3-dimensional grid, and a decent fleet deployment utilizing decentralized light attack forces and a heavy core of dreads, a commander could lock a star system down. With a grid. Like the Hullen were doing now.

  "Aw, shit," Amelie muttered. Their hope died in a wisp of smoke.

  "We can run through them. The shortest vector passes 10 million klicks from any Hullen capitol ships," Grissom said. Vindication and Serpentia would have to cut their way through the patrolling destroyer platoons while dodging intercept projectiles from the capitol ships. It could be done; he'd run blockades before. Grissom was already plotting out a course. Straight shot through the blockade, between the planets, and slingshotting around the sun before skimming along the endless yellow sea.

  "That's a horrible idea," someone said; Adrian didn't care who.

  "We're doing it. Grissom, add some secondary paths and launch decoy drones along them," Adrian said.

  "The probe bays are empty, sir," Grissom said.

  "Then do your job. Fly straight and true," Adrian said.

  Grissom said, in a dreamy voice, "I've always wanted to be a blockade runner."

  "Brace for high-gravity maneuvers."

  #

  Chapter Twenty-Two: Chain of Command

  The Hullen scattered across a variety of orbits and ran back towards their mobile depots in the outer rock and ice cloud. Their Wendago scouts milled about, miffed at their escaped quarry. Gehenna Sixth Armada took potshots at their exhaust trails. A handful of destroyers formed up around Adrian's two carriers and guided them in at the rear of the loyalist formation. Vindication was a red signature on the tail of a river of lava.

  "Second's standard bearer is the dreadnought Olajuwon," Adrian said. "Comms hail her and dispatch the usual greetings traffic."

  "Positive contact. They're demanding an audio channel," Zoey said.

  "Intercom."

  "Sixth fleet command to unidentified carriers, dispatch your identification," the Olajuwon's radio woman said. Not even a returning transponder ID. Adrian glowered at the flagship's signature on TACNET. She was one million kilometers distant and flaring he
r plasma drives to reclaim orbit of the yellow giant. Gehenna Sixth and noble house allies matched her maneuver.

  "Send our traffic again," Adrian said. Vindication rattled beneath his feet. She'd taken a few more hits through her weakened barriers to her hull. Ravin's repairs had held up just enough.

  Olajuwon's reply was broadcast to both carriers. "Command to Serpentia, you are cleared to rejoin the fleet. A drydock in orbit of Vervunder-I will be made available for you. Have your requisitions forms in order." Serpentia picked up acceleration.

  "Command to carrier identifying as Vindication. You have not been cleared. You will cut power to your drives, disarm all sensors, strike your banners, and send your command staff aboard the flagship in an unescorted shuttlecraft for interrogation."

  A warship only powered down her barriers and struck her banners when she surrendered. Fire ignited in Adrian's chest. He felt the frustration flare across the bridge in the glares of his crew. They'd not crawled across four regions just to be disrespected by some random admiral.

  "Fleet command, this is Commander Adrian Huxton, serial number seven-seven-four, six-four-two-two, who has survived Tollyon and clawed his way through Emoche's armada and will be damned if he surrenders and comes aboard in a shuttle. If you want to inspect the Lady V, come aboard and do it yourself," he said. Protocol could go fuck itself. Demanding his crew throw up their hands and bend over was too far.

  "Unidentified COS, your defiance is a far greater insult to the Systems and the Fleet. Vindication has been declared KIA by both the enemy and independent news sources. It's well known that no loyalists survived Tollyon. Power down and come aboard our flagship, or you will be treated as hostile." Olajuwon flickered yellow and the accompanying alarm followed. Fighters emerged from nearby carriers in great navy swarms and closed range.

  “Radio Serpentia, tell them to confirm our identity,” Adrian said. Minutes passed.

  “Negative reply,” Zoey said. “Serpentia is ignoring our hails.” The other carrier was burning off towards the planet at a healthy 24g. Fine. He’d convince them himself.