Vindication

by Ken Wolfson

  "Do your duty!" Adrian pushed her back towards her station. Instead of obeying, she seized his hand in both of hers, and squeezed it tight in a soft yet solid grip. Like iron wrapped in foam.

  "Your first responsibility is to your crew. You're their commander. You need to get them out alive and back home to their families."

  Cage's first salvo lost half its weight on Molyneux's weapons grid. The other half slammed home, straining the carrier's barriers. Molitor had noticed Adrian. Molyneux's interceptors raced back to screen her.

  "All fighter-bombers, begin your attack runs," Adrian ordered.

  "There are twelve-thousand people aboard this ship, including a girl cowering under your desk. They trust you, and you're going to kill them all," Amelie said.

  "Molyneux's barriers are 70% and dropping hard. The bombers will be hitting armor in seconds. We're going to kill her!" Cage cried out with fury. A dreadnought opened fire, and Vindication's barriers plummeted.

  "Range, ten-k kilometers, CBDR," Grissom said.

  "Dammit, who the fuck is going to save Alyssa if you die here? She's waiting for you!" Amelie screamed.

  Alyssa sat on the roof of their building, alone, watching the shipping. Blue banners fluttered in the cutting fall breeze. She lay back, and convinced herself each engine trail was him returning. Decades passed; she grew up and moved on, but the blue banners never changed.

  "Recall all fighters. Helm, adjust course one-hundred and eighty degrees. Request fleet command for a withdrawal vector." Adrian slapped his brow. Anger had won; for once he'd been wrong.

  All ships, withdraw in good order along vector seven-seven-two delta. BC units to the rear to protect the carriers. We will regroup at home base; Vervunder isn't lost yet.

  Lady Rear Admiral Velda Silver.

  "That's our vector. Take it, emergency acceleration!" Adrian shouted to cover up his frustration.

  "Yes, sir, adjusting vector to two-two-seven-delta-zero. No glory run today," Grissom said. Vindication's brick nose swung about to point at the great yellow sea.

  Adrian stared into Molyneux's signature until he pictured Molitor towering on the bridge, grinning like the smug bastard he was. He was probably lighting that victory cigar, and grinning as his old comrades were vented, one ship at a time. Amelie distracted him by slipping an arm around his shoulders.

  "We'll meet him again. Next time, he dies," she said.

  Silver regrouped the remains of the fleet in high orbit of Vervunder IV, in the darkness beyond the yellow sea. Adrian didn't count; the blue blob was maybe half the size of the one that'd set out with twelve hours ago.

  The enemy numbers are too great; system is lost. This armada will not be pinned down in a siege and destroyed. We will extract our material from the orbital infrastructure and withdraw to a new defensible position to await reinforcement.

  Lady Rear Admiral Silver.

  "Comms, ask Lady Silver if we're going to Volantis," Adrian said. "That's the nearest system with actual defenses."

  "Oh, no," Amelie gasped.

  Adrian was rewarded with an audio summons straight from Olajuwon.

  "Commander Huxton, that information stays within this channel," Silver said. "The false prophet's supply lines will be stretched to the breaking point, he’ll need weeks to build his way to Volantis. Weeks we need to prepare. Now rejoin the general officer’s chat.”

  "Copy," Adrian said. He nodded at Zoey, who switched frequencies. Lady Silver was already firing off orders.

  "The remains of Fourth BC squadron will fold with third under Lord Baxter, and then take point on evacuation. Vindication will join them to replace their carrier losses. There are currently dozens of auxiliary fleet ships, and thousands of FTL-capable refugee ships docked in Vervunder. The Hullen marauders roaming the space between planet and Systems fleets keep them sheltered under the station. Open an escape vector to the planet. Evac the auxiliaries first, then the civilians. You and the other warships will take on civilians from sublight ships, copy?"

  "Copy."

  "Don't take unnecessary risks. I need you and your carrier more than the refugees."

  "I understand. Vindication-actual out."

  A new, deeper male voice crackled over his headpiece as the radio nest received a new hail.

  "Commander Huxton, this is Lord Flank Admiral of Seventh squadron Baxter. Your carrier will take point. Do not let your sympathies to your fellow lowborn blind you to your fleet duties. Evacuate the military assets first, then the civilians."

  "Copy," Adrian said through gritted teeth.

  The remains of two squadrons achieved orbit at 50,000 kilometers.

  "Attention, refugee captains. Fear not, we are here to evacuate you," Baxter said. "Ready your ships. If your ship is not FTL-capable, then notify my staff in advance on this channel, and we'll arrange passage for you on a fleet warship. My fleet will start with the military redoubt at the north pole and work across the planet. When we reach your evac vector, burn for the fleet hard as possible. We'll cover you against the Wendago scum."

  The civilians didn't answer. They didn't budge, either. The fleet's supply tenders pulled away in convoy formation and burned for sixth squadron's perimeter alone. The Hullen destroyers turned up the acceleration and raced for their side of the planet. Baxter threw up his destroyer screen and trained the guns of his BC wings on their approach vector, waiting for them to close to optimal range. Adrian filled out the gaps with his newly replenished fighter wings.

  He exchanged a worried stare with Amelie. Something was up; civvies should have been running for cover of the fleet's fighter screens.

  "We're being target-locked by Vervunder's sentry batteries!" Cage said. Adrian didn't ask for clarification; the intent of whoever commended the guns was blatant. He opened his mouth to warn the rest of the squadron..

  Vervunder V spat tungstanium at a terrifying rate. These were the same sentry guns as those on Tollyon Anchorage: massive in size. Since they were wired into Vervunder's power grid, they pumped out far greater power per slug. These guns, aimed and calculated by the planet-wide sensor network, took seconds to land. Vindication's barriers rippled under the multi-vector assault.

  The military freighters, equipped with tissue paper armor and token anti-radiation barriers, shattered. One after another they winked out of TACNET. Their radio operators screamed out distress calls and were silenced mid-sentence.

  "Redirecting all EWAR to cover the freighters," Cage said. This had zero effect. In fifteen minutes, they'd all been swept away. Three million personnel and several billion metric tons of fleet material deleted from existence.

  "Debris field," Grissom warned. Proximity alarms wailed.

  "Pull back the fighters into our shadow. PD grid, anti-collision screen," Adrian said.

  "All ships, withdraw to 100,000 klicks," Ballard said. Adrian relayed the command.

  "Yes, sir." Grissom spun her about and burned hard. The railgun hits slackened off as he gained range and evasive maneuvers. A decent number of destroyers and battlecruisers didn't make it, and were hammered into twisted ruins by repeated strikes.

  "Torpedoes are closing on us—fire control, splash them!" Adrian said.

  Amelie was distracted by the first salvo from the torpedo batteries guarding the planet. These swung straight for Vindication. Her defenses stopped the entire wave. The second wave met a similar fate.

  "We're being targeted exclusively—no other ships are reporting hot boxing," Amelie said.

  "Put us at the rear of the formation, drag the torps through everyone's firing solutions," Adrian said. "Captain Marlay, get me the Ardech Corporation’s private comms channel."

  "Right here," Zoey said. Adrian's headset buzzed as the connection fused.

  "Vervunder command, you've gone over the line," Adrian said. He pointed at Cage, who computed a firing solution for the headquarters tower. The spindly structure mounted a single collision aversion railgun and a meter of lead armor for radiation purposes. A couple A
tlatls would tear it open.

  “HR has relieved Director Krennig of duty for being a poor team player. Hello and welcome to Ardech Industries. I'm Lady Tarly Artreyas, and I'm the new goddess of Vervunder." Smugness permeated every word.

  "Hello, Tarly," Adrian said. The last combat transport went up, venting a couple thousand SOPs into the void. The civvies remained locked in the anchorage, trembling with fear.

  “Ah Commander we meet again. And once again you’re running.” Adrian spotted Righteous tucked under the command tower, sporting her old fleet ID.

  “Are you going to release the civilians?”

  “Emoche Hulle’s golden age isn’t a choice, either you are led to him we take you by force.” Adrian pointed at Zoey, who relayed the information to Baxter.

  “Did you get what you wanted from him?”

  “I am now the Lady Tarly of Artreyas, protector of the Notsun Fortresses and Sponsor of Carver Enterprises. Emoche kept his promise, so I believe in him.” She sounded so proud of that too.

  “Good for you.”

  “Adrian, we’re more alike than you think.” Adrian waited silently for her to continue. We were both wronged by the Systems. We’ve both suffered to our careers and families because of the greed around us. And we both only want what’s fair, justice. Why are we still fighting?” Adrian did a few calculations.

  “You made it personal, you spent the last decade taking potshots at me, remember?”

  “What does that matter now with the scope of what’s going on here? Don’t you want freedom? Surrender and you’ll have it.” Of course, to her it must have been all in the game.

  “Surrender hell. I’ve got a long list of crimes I’m going to burn your despot for,” Adrian said.

  “What about the crimes your senate is guilty of? There’s a lot of them and we both know the extents they’re capable of,” Tarly said. Her offer was so delicious he could taste it from here. “The debtors are being taken off their eternal debt structure, and placed on actual repayment plans. Their children will free. Your parents were debtors of the forge, weren’t they?”

  “Ask the Wendago why I won’t be joining.”

  “Emoche welcomes all humans who convert. I thought you won by any means necessary?” she said.

  “You can’t convert monsters,” Adrian said. Amelie nodded beside him.

  “Suite yourself.” Tarly ended the call. Adrian scanned the bridge. There were two-hundred of these new contacts, all sizes, but still no identified hull types. The pursuers were a million miles distant and losing ground. Third was in the clear, Vindication intact. Molitor and Tarly owned Vervunder, and the Great Burn, the richest region in the system, was wide open.

  "On to Volantis," Cage said. "I passed through there once. At least it's a damn fortress. Makes Vervunder look like a pebble with a peashooter."

  Adrian slid over to Amelie. “You alright?”

  "I'm going home, and not how I wanted to," Amelie said. She forced a smile, “at least it’s familiar ground.”

  "Than you’re ready for that homecoming?" Adrian said. He told Pask to grab a couple ensigns and save a separate copy of the combat data, for a second opinion.

  "The Mother doesn't call on us at a moment we've chosen. I'm ready for this," she said. She got to work double-checking Vindication's damage reports to ensure none of their duct-tape repairs had burst. "It'll be late spring when we arrive; the ice-caps will be melting and the sailfleet going out. Mom'll cook us some fresh fish, and Dad's going to be digging his fermenting barrels out for the fresh sacre."

  She wasn't alright. Adrian would talk to her later.

  "Enough for the entire ship?" Cage said.

  "I can serve us all a fine meal." She gave him a wink.

  "No way," Cage said. He shook his head with incredulity.

  "Honey, you've never seen old money, I take it. Trust me, I can serve enough even for you."

  "She can," Adrian said. He sat down. If we have to pick a battlefield to stop the tide, Volantis couldn't be more beautiful."

  "Hear, hear," they said.

  Part III: Part 3: War For Volantis

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: Arrival

  Mayzon 15

  46th Day of the War

  Vindication egressed with a thud. Adrian glanced warily at his feet but reality didn’t collapse. He let the bridge crew finished their chanting. "Welcome to Volantis: the great ice ball, Hallard's chosen capitol of the Burn, and XO's homecoming.”

  Amelie nodded. A Mother Winter protect slipped from her lips with a wisp.

  "Begin combat routine startup. Don't trust anything until we're ready to go and Sixth is all in," Adrian said. They went through the usual procedure. By the time Vindication was ready for action, 300 friendly transponders drifted about her. They spread in combat formation, at 500 kilometer intervals. Flight control launched the CSG, but with a destroyer screen they could sit back and count the engine trails.

  "I've never been here, but they better have a hell of a fortress prepped," Grissom said.

  "Oh, we do. She's our last, best hope to turn the tide," Amelie said. Adrian had to back up that tactical analysis. Volantis had a white sun, brighter and more luminescent than the yellow suns most of the precious garden worlds orbited. The capitol of the Great Burn was a ball of ice mottled blue and white, with a belt of pale green and blue in the 30 degrees latitude on either side of her equator. It matched Tollyon’s diameter, but with a denser core gravity was one-fifth greater. In the nighttime, sparkling cities dotted its green band and spread beyond that, up to seventy degrees latitude into the ice caps. They nestled in the shadows of mountains or around volcanoes for warmth in year-round winter.

  Volantis was a death world. Surface temperatures averaged 0 in the daytime, and -40 at night, chilling even the senators and nobles in their halls. Driven by warm air traveling north from the equator, constant blizzards whipped the already snow-smothered landscape. All the cities had heated walls to stop the snow surges. Outside those walls roamed snow beasts of great variety in size and appearance, but uniformity in their desire for flesh. There were fish, too, in the under-ice oceans and great under-ice fish farms.

  Adrian called Volantis a frozen hell. Amelie called it home.

  "She's just as I remember," Adrian grumbled

  "Even more beautiful. It's been so long Winter's visage is twice as sweet," Amelie said.

  A handful of fleet pickets and PDF corvettes decelerated to greet them, weapons hot. Soon those cooled.

  "Orders from fleet command," Zoey said.

  "Send it here," Adrian said.

  All ships proceed in system, maintain convoy formation. Dockyard assignments will be given by ship class, all will be provided.

  Vindication berth 3C, Cara Anchorage.

  "Helm, we have our destination. Maintain formation until we reach Volantene orbit," Adrian said.

  "Ah, another berth. Hopefully this one won't explode," Grissom said.

  "No guarantees, but at least the Hullen won't knock our door down without warning," Adrian said. The blues were rolling through unprotected territory. The host had split, with half taking the quick road through the Blood River region towards the Metropolis and Core regions.

  The other half of the horde was advancing up the Burn like a fat raptor following a treat trail. Dozens of valuable mining systems and the occasional inhabitable world were being gobbled up, with but flickers of resistance from the militia elements and defenses thrown up in Sixth Gehenna's wake. True to Silver’s prediction their supply lines delayed them. Sixth rearguard estimated 4 weeks until the Wendago outriders reached Volantis. Then, the great battle would begin.

  "Sir, two flash drones just arrived," Zoey said.

  "News from Volantis?" Adrian said. News corps threw out a dozen drones per day to spread the news across the Systems, faster than a human courier could get done.

  "Negative, both messages are for you. One stamped by the Lord Governor's office, and the other by House Nessella."

>   “I think you’re about to get dragged into the game,” Amelie said. Indeed, Volantis’ tourist and fish industries boomed, but its main export would always be politics.

  Wary, Adrian read the Lord Governor’s message.

  To Cmdr. 2nd Bar Adrian Huxton, CoP, CS, People's Commander, The Anvil, Firewalker.

  Well, someone was desperate for his attention, if they'd written his name out in its full formality with all the nicknames and titles. This would be good.

  From: Lord Governor Johnathan Travere.

  My dear Adrian Huxton, I welcome you to my capitol world and thank you for your efforts to protect it. You've come a long way and survived what no one else has to reach Volantis, and I commend you on your effort. You must be weary, and your warship critically damaged from months of combat. Therefore, I've instructed orbital control to give Vindication top priority in a berth, repairs, and resupply.

  Now that you're here, I have a proposal for the benefit of both our stations. In these delicate times, trustworthy allies are both a rarity and an exquisite premium beyond the price of gold or platinum. I have reason to believe that we can make common cause against our enemies, both externally and within the United Systems itself. Our interests in protecting the Systems and our methods align. Therefore, I would like to meet with you tonight at 2400 in my office, in the Hallard Needle, located at the highest peak of Volantis Primary. Refreshments and artisanal treats will be served. If you have any questions, please ask me then.

  Thank you very much

  Lord Governor Johnathan Travere.

  Adrian smirked at the flowery prose and excessive ass-kissing involved. This was a true politician speaking to him. He forwarded the flash to Amelie. She read it, and her eyebrows arched.

  "Is there any politics you need translating?" she said. Adrian knew the basics. Johnathan Travere had been a shock winner of the regional governor's election two years ago. He was a noble, but from a new and relatively poor house in the tomb cities of Varium. Running on a campaign of economic reform through increased wages, stable taxes, and investing in public schools, he'd seized the election from well-connected highborn opponents. And according to economic figures and private media not owned by his rivals, he was doing a damn good job of governing. Adrian had caught one of his speeches last time he’d been on Volantis. He’d been fiery.