Crusade (Exile Book 3)

by Glynn Stewart

  “Sivar-Two, Sivar-Three and Sivar-Five only possessed spaceborne infrastructure,” DG-12 told her. “Sivar-Four and Sivar-Six both had inhabitable worlds. Sivar-Six’s inhabited planet appeared to be marginally habitable and represents a midsized colony world. Sivar-Four was near to Constructed World standards and heavily populated.

  “At the distances the nodes were surveying from, it is impossible to be certain if either world possessed an indigenous population, but the probability of such a population existing on Sivar-Four is approximately four times that of one existing on Sivar-Six.”

  “So, that’s seven systems and four inhabited planets,” Amelie concluded. “That’s a hell of a lot more population and industry than any of our other allies. Do we have a basis for identifying other systems? Or, hell, detecting the star-lanes themselves?”

  “Partial,” DG-12 replied. “Our recon nodes are engaging in extended surveillance to localize similar transition points as were identified in Sivar-One. The nodes following Commandant Ackahl had the advantage of seeing the route her fleet took.”

  “We have confirmed that the star-lanes follow the entry vector of ships using them,” WK interjected. “They travel along that vector to the nearest star and then stop. Knowing that, it only takes a small number of transits into a star-lane for us to localize its destination.”

  “Any progress?” she asked.

  “We have localized and identified eleven Sivar star systems,” DG-12 told her. “Six inhabited planets have been identified.”

  Amelie inhaled sharply. The alliance’s four members only had five worlds if you stretched the definition to include the Vistans’ original shattered home.

  Even if that was all they found, the Sivar controlled more star systems and more inhabited planets than all four of the species she’d painstakingly convinced to stand together against the Matrices.

  “We have made no progress on being able to detect the star-lanes themselves,” WK noted. “What we’re seeing so far suggests that the Sivar may have difficulties detecting the entry points themselves. None of the systems connected to Sivar-One except Sivar-Two appear to have further connections. It is a reasonable postulation that the Sivar have not expanded more than four star-lanes out from their homeworld in any direction.

  “Once we have located the other star-lanes leaving Sivar-Prime, we should be able to identify the entirety of their territory in relatively short order.”

  “We’re already looking at a nation that might rival the Terran Confederacy,” Amelie replied. “They’d be powerful allies, but they could easily end up overwhelming us by sheer numbers.”

  “We have insufficient data to estimate a probability of their full territory,” DG-12 said. “The Terran Confederacy was able to access all of the stars inside its declared space. Their access to resources and potential habitable worlds was significantly greater than any power in this region except the Matrices themselves.”

  That was true, Amelie supposed. It was easy to just match up inhabited worlds against inhabited worlds without realizing just how poorly the Confederacy had really done at expanding in an organized or coherent fashion.

  First corruption and then totalitarian corruption had held humanity back for a long time. The technology and industry available to the Confederacy would have allowed them to steamroll any of the allies humanity had made out here.

  Assuming they’d bothered. The new ESF was almost a match for the CSF in numbers. It was only looking back that Amelie realized just how intentionally limited the CSF had always been—and how much that had depended on the fact that the Confederacy could stop any of the member systems from building their own ships long before they became a threat.

  “How much firepower are we looking at?” she finally asked.

  “The majority of the surveys are from too great a distance to identify individual vessels,” DG-12 replied. “Our node following Commandant Ackahl identified an additional battleship group in each of Sivar-Two and Sivar-Six.

  “Sivar-Prime was initially surveyed from sufficient distance to identify its nature. No closer intrusion has been planned.”

  “Nor should it,” Amelie agreed. “Keep me updated as you locate new star-lanes and scout their systems. But…if we can locate a star-lane that isn’t currently in major use by the Sivar, it would be worth its weight in gold if we can work out how to pick them up.”

  There was a pause.

  “The star-lane entry points do not appear to have any mass,” DG-12 noted. “If they had weight, they would be detectable.”

  “It is a metaphor, DG-12,” WK told the other AI. “It would be extremely valuable if we can establish the ability to detect star-lanes.”

  “We’ll need those lanes if we’re going to bring the Sivar fleet to war against the Matrices,” Amelie said. “Plus, you said you don’t think they can easily detect them. A faster method of finding the star-lanes could make a useful trading point.”

  “We will attempt to carry out close-range analysis,” DG-12 promised. “This unit is not convinced the star-lanes are detectable without attempting to take a ship through them.”

  “That must make surveying a pain in the ass,” Amelie noted.

  “It would be difficult,” WK interjected before DG-12 could respond. “We may be able to fabricate a star-lane transition system for tests, but it would, of course, be easier with schematics of a Sivar system.”

  She snorted.

  “I’ll see what I can get my hands on, but I suspect they’re going to want weapons pretty damned quickly,” Amelie said quietly. “And I’m not trading these people gamma-ray lasers or particle cannon until I know them much better.”

  “We’ll drop out in a few minutes,” Captain Holmwood told Amelie in place of a greeting as the ambassador stepped onto the bridge. “Anything I can help you with, Minister?”

  “You can reassure me on something, Captain,” Amelie told the officer. “Everything I’m hearing says that Ackahl beat us here, probably by quite a margin. So, they’re faster than us. Can we fight them?”

  “We got some pretty detailed scans of Ackahl’s ships,” Holmwood replied. “Riker? Want to field the Minister’s concern?”

  “It’s a straightforward-enough answer,” the tactical officer replied. He left his station behind and leaned against one of the displays near the command seat. “Two parts to it, but clear enough.”

  “And the answer is?” Amelie asked. “Be clearer than a Recon Matrix that’s never talked to humans before, please. It’s been a long day.”

  Riker chuckled.

  “First part of the answer: Ackahl’s battleship has exactly one hundred missile launchers. Her entire hull layout, engine positions, defenses…everything is predicated around pointing those hundred missile tubes at whoever she’s fighting.

  “Their sublight engines are an older system that the Confederacy discontinued in favor of impulse microthrusters a generation ago,” he continued. “They use a series of large fusion engines. They’re effective enough, but if you can build effective impulse engines, you can get more efficiency out of the same fuel.

  “So, they’ve almost eighty percent of our acceleration but at half again the fuel consumption. Doesn’t matter so much for a warship…but it matters a lot for a missile.”

  “So, their missiles suck, is that what you’re saying?” she asked.

  “Basically,” Riker confirmed. “They’re short-ranged and slow by our standards…and we built our defenses around shooting down Matrix missiles for years now. WK, what’s Watchtower’s capacity for engaging incoming cee-fractional warheads?”

  “Assuming a worst-case scenario with zero warning from other vessels or scanner platforms, Watchtower would be able to neutralize between four and six hundred incoming cee-fractional weapons,” the AI replied. “Assuming standard defensive drone nets, that could easily be increased by a factor of three or more. This ship was designed to stand against heavy Matrix battle groups and defeat their missile armament.”


  “So, yeah,” Riker continued. “Their missiles suck, and even we can’t build missiles that are actually a threat to this ship. They, on the other hand, have built their heavy combat platform entirely around mass missile fire.”

  “And the other half of the answer?” Amelie asked.

  “WK, how much exotic matter is included in Watchtower’s weapons alone?” the Commander asked.

  “Minus three point six tons,” the AI answered. “The heavy particle cannon alone requires minus seventeen hundred and eighty kilograms. Each of the light particle cannon requires minus two hundred and twelve kilograms. The pulse guns and lasers require nominal amounts apiece.”

  “Whatever the key to the star-lanes is, it doesn’t involve exotic matter,” Riker told Amelie. “Every FTL drive the Confederacy used did, so the Confederacy had exotic matter in quantity. To build our warp drives, we needed even more—so we have a mass-production facility that would feed three Confed systems providing the supply for four million people.

  “We have exotic matter to burn. The Sivar don’t. That battleship had no exotic matter aboard, Minister Lestroud. While that leaves the potential for heavy laser weaponry, it means I can be quite confident they don’t have heavy plasma or particle weaponry.”

  Holmwood turned in her chair to look back at Amelie.

  “In short, I’m not any more scared of Commandant Ackahl now than I was when she was charging at us,” she concluded. “I wouldn’t want to fight their massed battle fleet, but I think it’s a safe bet that we can easily handle being outnumbered a few times over.”

  “Good,” Amelie told her. “Because we’re heading into their capital system, their home. If they had two battleships in Sivar-One, does anyone think they have anything less guarding their homeworld?”

  “Not a bloody chance, Minister,” Holmwood said. “And while I’d prefer to go find some reinforcements if you want me to attack a multistellar empire’s homeworld, you’re in charge of this expedition.”

  That shocked a surprised laugh from Amelie before she let her Ambassador Mask take over her face.

  “We’re here to negotiate today, Captain. I don’t plan on launching any wars…but I want you ready to blast us out of here if things go wrong, understood?”

  “Entirely understood, Minister. If worse comes to worst, well, that’s what I brought Marines for!”

  Even warned that it was coming, the warp bubble always seemed to collapse with surprising suddenness to Amelie. One moment, the entire universe was locked away from Watchtower. The next, the battlecruiser was back in regular space, their little convoy around them.

  “Do we have a location on Ackahl?” Holmwood barked. “Let’s make sure people know who we are and why we’re here before I have to shoot an idiot.”

  Amelie watched as the system appeared around them. Their initial data was coming from the recon nodes currently lurking a light-day away from the Sivar’s home star.

  It was a busy system. Thirteen planets, most of them smaller rocky planets closer to Sol’s Mars than Earth. A single gas giant, a paltry miniature compared to most of the gas giants Amelie was used to, swept around the edge of the star system.

  The fifth planet was the second largest of the worlds and the only planet in the liquid-water zone. Presumably that was the Sivar homeworld, though the spacers around Amelie were focused more on ships and industry than on planets right now.

  There were plenty of those. The next planet out from the habitable one was surrounded by a swarm of stations that radiated more energy than some entire worlds Amelie had seen. Refineries and factories, almost certainly.

  There was more construction around the homeworld and the inevitable cloudscoops on the gas giant. Ships were trawling through the entire star system, ranging from the gas giant at the extreme all the way to the star at the center.

  Watchtower’s crew focused on the warships. They flagged warships in orbit of the three heavily industrialized planets…and, to Amelie’s fascination, four more concentrations of warships at seemingly random points in the system.

  “I think that’s Ackahl in orbit of the homeworld,” Riker reported. “But I’ll admit I’m looking at those fortresses.”

  “Fortresses?” Amelie asked. “Are they near those random warships?”

  “Those aren’t warships at points four through seven,” the tactical officer said, indicating the four random concentrations of ships. “The iconography is similar, I can see the confusion, but only some of those are ships.

  “Most of them are space stations, armed space stations positioned together. I’m guessing they’re covering the star-lane entries.”

  “No wonder Ackahl didn’t like the thought of us being able to dodge around the star-lanes,” Holmwood said. “If they are limited to the star-lanes, they must have thought those forts helped keep their home safe.”

  She shook her head.

  “Send a transmission to the main planet, addressed to Ackahl. We’ll stay out here, a nice ten light-minutes from anything they might get twitchy about, until they clear us in.”

  16

  The planet was apparently named Aris. After the three species that Amelie had spent the last few years negotiating with, it was a strange sensation to be dealing with one where humans could actually pronounce their words and, potentially at least, learn their language.

  Aris triggered an odd pang of almost homesickness as Watchtower gently decelerated into orbit, surrounded by Ackahl’s battle group. The fortress layout, the weird layers-built-on-layers nature of the industrial platforms, the green and blue of the world below…it all reminded Exilium’s Ambassador very much of Earth as she’d last seen it.

  “Are we sure these people aren’t talking to the Confederacy?” Holmwood muttered, clearly having much the same feeling. “The fortress setup could be drawn directly from Earth Fortress Command.”

  “That’s because planets are spheres the galaxy over,” Amelie replied. “Offset rings of space stations armed with long-range weapons is a pretty obvious solution.”

  That they had the same four rings of six fortresses apiece as EFC was an eerie coincidence.

  “But yeah. Feels a lot like home and not in an entirely comfortable way, right?” she asked the Captain.

  “Exactly.” Holmwood shook her head. “You could almost hear Commandant Ackahl’s disdain at the speed of the warp drive. That’s a hole you’re going to have to dig out of in the negotiations, Minister.”

  “I can handle that,” Amelie said with a chuckle. “I got forty-six rebel factions talking to each other and moving in the same direction at once. I’m pretty sure I can convince the dictator of a dozen planets that they’d rather not see those planets turned into clean slates for the Matrices’ Construction projects.”

  “Better you than me,” the ESF officer said. “Have you touched base with Major Köhl yet?”

  “Only on the generals,” Amelie replied. Major Lina Köhl was the commanding officer of the Marine contingent attached to the diplomatic expedition. She’d be the one in command of the Marines responsible for Amelie’s security. “I know I’m bringing Marines down with me when I go to the surface.”

  She’d had to leave the extremely well-trained Presidential Security Detail behind at the end of her term, but she had a lot of confidence in the Exilium Marine Corps. Köhl’s older sister ran the SWAT team for Starhaven Watch, the police force of Exilium’s capital, and had been critical in holding things together early on.

  Nothing Amelie had seen yet suggested the younger sibling was any less competent.

  “Is that even a when?” Holmwood asked. “I mean, we did just get escorted into orbit by a battleship and we are very much under the guns of their fortresses. They might want to just chat by radio.”

  “Unless the Sivar are very different from every other race I’ve dealt with, they’ll want to meet face to face,” Amelie noted. “We came all this way to meet with the Intendant. I doubt that worthy plans to leave us sitting in orbit.”

/>   Holmwood snorted.

  “Not forever, anyway,” she pointed out. “I wouldn’t put it past them to leave us hanging.”

  “It’s possible,” Amelie conceded. “But I’d like to think that, if nothing else, the Intendant doesn’t want even neutral warships in orbit of his planet just sitting there, getting grumpy.” She looked at the big display on the bridge.

  “Speaking of which, how confident are you of extracting yourself from this?” She waved at the hologram.

  “Like the battleships, they’re primarily missile platforms,” the Captain noted. “There’s definitely some big lasers of some kind over there, big enough that I’m a little worried based on their tech level.”

  “So?”

  “I’m pretty sure we can get the warships out,” Holmwood admitted. “I’m not so comfortable that we could save the freighters if they started shooting.” She grimaced. “They’d pay for the privilege, but if they take us by surprise, they can gut the freighters before I can stop them.”

  Amelie nodded slowly. That wasn’t really a surprise, even if it wasn’t what she’d been hoping for.

  “I appreciate the honesty,” she told the officer. “It’s good to know where we stand.”

  The call she was waiting for came with surprisingly alacrity. She’d been expecting a degree of “hurry up and wait” once they were in orbit, but the first communication from the surface arrived within the hour.

  The Siva on the screen was less gaunt than Ackahl but still disproportionately tall to human eyes and seated in a very similar throne. Unlike Ackahl, this one hadn’t covered their head, freely revealing the bone carapace of their face. They had somewhat less of the carapace than Ackahl had, with their fur closer to black than the Commandant’s blue, and their eyes edged closer to red.

  Where Ackahl had worn a hooded dark green tunic, this Siva wore a toga-like garment of a delicate-looking translucent fabric. It was wrapped around them in enough layers to be opaque, but loose trails drifted away from the Siva’s breasts and shoulders in an unseen breeze.