Exodus: The Orion War

by Kali Altsoba

  ‘Quantum-drive’ is a deeply misleading term, but it is in such common use today there is just no avoiding it. A quantum-drive is actually a gravity echo detector more than it is a type of engine or drive. That proved the final felix culpa, the happy fault, in Einsteinian spacetime itself. For it is inconceivable even in our advanced technological era that we could build artificial engines of sufficient power to move the mass of a ship close to lightspeed to traverse interstellar space. For centuries, it never occurred to ask if the special features of LPs might permit near instant or quantum speeds. Yet that is what Nature itself provides us.

  Quantum navigation became possible with manufacture of liquid magnetism, or Quantum Spin Liquid (QSL), which allows for computation of grand-entanglements at interstellar distances. QSL computers broke the old qubit barrier with magnetized matter, a rare type of molecular bonding existing naturally only in the atmospheres of white dwarfs or neutron stars. Intense magnetic fields adjust molecular binding to store or erase two-state quantum or qubit memory. In a calm LP, quantum stadimeters (‘stardrives’) map local gravity wave disturbances, or ‘hybrid singularities,’ that wrinkle up the surface of much deeper gravity equilibrium of flat-yet-crinkled spacetime, a bit like a water strider on a taut pond surface...

  …even with today’s quantum stadimeters, hybrid singularities remain hidden except at bohr-zones, where gravity equilibrium is highest and spacetime’s surface skin calmest. Only there does a ‘quantum-drive’ permit a stadimeter to read the map of surface folds in not-so-flat spacetime. That is, map ‘hybrid’ singularities. Then calculation of ‘wrinkle’ or ‘ripple’ or ‘fold’ features (navigators use such terms interchangeably) allows a ship to ride the fold. As a ship’s mass engages a fold identified as linked to where it wants to go, it’s pulled, not driven, there by folded space-time itself, simply by finding this truly weird quantum grand-entanglement.

  …complementarity is far more than a philosophical garnish sprinkled over quantum mechanics five centuries before the first stardrive was invented. The notion of complementarity is more than a principle of the epistemology of observation and measurement, as cosmologists long thought. It also has real-world effects at the grand as well as the quantum levels of mass-energy. That gave new meaning to Einstein’s uneasy notion of ‘spooky action at a distance.’

  A singularity detectible at a bohr-zone must not be confused with speculative singular conditions said to exist in the interior of black holes, nor with the merely metaphysical starting point previously posited as the origin of the ‘Big Bang.’ A singularity it is, nevertheless. That insight and reality led to spectacular effects and advances that old general relativity did not foresee or encompass, which Einstein famously dismissed once as God “playing dice with the universe.” Instead, adjacent singularities are linked at the level of grand-complementarity. In short, the dice are loaded.

  Quantum-drives utilizing grand-complementarity of hybrid singularities, created by the mass of stars interacting spookily at a distance and detectible in three-body systems, may only navigate at the five stable LPs or bohr-zones. Such a jump made from one stellar linked LP to another is called a “bohr” by captains, navigators, and cosmologists alike. It is not known who first used the term. Yet it is widely agreed that Niels Bohr, the great thinker whose core idea of fundamental indeterminacy toppled Einstein’s terrible and limiting deity and made FTL drive thinkable and feasible, would have appreciated and applauded the irony. For he is remembered today all across Orion in a standard navigation unit of vast distance and instantaneous qubit travel that always emerges differently from a quantum stadimeter each time it is measured.

  Alpha

  Magda Aklyan strains against the hard G-forces pushing down on her chest, slamming her deep into the command chair on the Bridge of Alpha’s flagship, the older and patched-up destroyer Resolve. She calls her flotilla captains, checking ship-to-ship relays as Alpha breaks out of the lower atmosphere. It’s drawing closer by the second to a descending Kaigun patrol.

  She has nine ships in her little command, seven small warship escorts and two former tourist liners mostly pretending to be troopships. The whole flotilla is pushing hard past orbit with boost assists. The liners carry the huge majority of 165,000 KRA fighters onboard Alpha.

  Each bears a freshly etched naval escutcheon on its stern, a silver anchor with a falcon perched in the crown, between seaweed-draped flukes. In one outstretched claw the fierce bird grips a lightning bolt promising war and resistance, in the other a golden wheat sheaf offering peaceful commerce and signifying membership in Genève Squadron. The lightening bolt is held forward so that it’s dominant over the wheat sheaf, for this isn’t the first war fought in Orion.

  The troopships don’t fit any normal naval classification, but they’re crewed by KRN tars and captains and refitted with light cruiser fusion drives for a direct run to the L2 leeward of the cold gas giant, Wasp 2B. Each mounts a single, forward-shooting plasma-cannon along its top center beam. Warsaw is a bigger and better built ship, so it also has a destroyer-caliber kinetic rail gun mounted aft, laser welded and reeved with carbon-fiber cabling to the lower hull. That’s as much firepower as could be added in the time available. And all the civilian hulls can bear.

  The intention is to flat-out run rather than fight. But it’s a proud little flotilla. If it comes to fighting, Magda hopes that any armaments at all on what still look from the outside like fat and slow civilian liners will prove a real surprise to any Kaigun daisa who has a go at them.

  The Bridge on Resolve smells of fresh white paint newly applied in Toruń Shipyard, but it looks old and second-rate underneath. It’s pocked and micro-pitted, too rounded by decades of routine wear to be mistaken for new. Actually, all nine ships in Alpha reek of fresh paint on their Bridges, Weapons and Navigation stations. And hasty arc-welds and emergency repair to a thousand carbon-bindings. Happily, other ships’ stations smell of new cut, green wood.

  “All ships’ coms and weapons stations, status check. Check.”

  Normally these confirmations would be handled by her XO. But these are not normal conditions and Lieutenant-Commander Émile Fontaine is busy calculating live interception angles and fusion boost rates for two key maneuvers making up Phase I of the escape plan.

  “Tyco Brae here. We’re good to go.” One of the two small frigates, reporting in first.

  “Captain Tura Dan on KRN Warsaw. All systems check. Glad to part of Alpha and under your command.” It’s the larger of the two converted troopships, the one with the brand new captain and the aft-mounted ice-gun.

  ‘That’s an auxiliary crew proud of its military commissioning and its new KRN name and official naval status. Captain Dan is too ambitious for her age, but also very good.’

  “Resolute checking in. All coms are good. Thrusters good. Weapons primed.”

  Resolute is the first destroyer to status check. Zofia is onboard, along with most but not all of greatly expanded Madjenik Battalion. Resolute is boosting hard, right alongside her sister ship Resolve. Both destroyers ride tight behind the troopships to start, just as Magda ordered.

  ‘A solid crew under a good captain, with years of service. OK, peacetime service.’

  “KRN Le Terrible here. Coms good. Fore-and-aft cannon warmed and ready, ma’am.”

  “Good to hear, Captain Archambault. But let’s hope we don’t have to engage weapons. First, we rely on our extra boost speed to see if we can’t get through without real trouble.”

  “Right you are. Shall we race to see who gets there first, Magda?”

  François Archambault is an old friend who usually likes to gently tweak Magda’s too stern looks and tough command style. But now is not the time or place, and he should know better. His tone and salutation are much too familiar for combat. He needs to show respect for her as flotilla commander. He must use her formal title over the ship-to-ship com-link, at least.

  “That’s captain, captain.”

  “Ahh yes. Of co
urse, ma’am.”

  It’s an odd but long respected tradition in every military (except for the misogynist, all-male Rikugun and Kaigun) that whenever ranks are set aside women generals are called “sir” but ship’s commanders and even admirals are called “ma’am.” Émile Fontaine tried to find out why once, but he could never track it down. And he’s a pretty good amateur naval historian.

  “À regret, capitaine. Archambault out.”

  She sighs quietly. It’s who he is. A dear friend and confidante but a man not always in control of his impulses. She also thinks he smells a little salty, like stilled brine trapped on a seashore when the tide recedes. She’s not wrong. He grew up in a seaside village on Southland and has the informality of a village boy to prove it, despite the ancient nobility of his name.

  “Triomphant here. Good to go, ma’am.” An older destroyer but with a veteran crew.

  “Guépard reporting. All systems check.” The fourth and last of the destroyers, counting Resolve. This one under Rutger Metsalaer, a second rookie captain.

  Like Resolve and two other escorts, Guépard rises with patched external damage. Not fully patched either, since Chief Azazi had to pull off repair crews over the last four days to fit extra armor and weapons ordered for Jutlandia and Warsaw by General Constance and herself.

  ‘Another kid in the command chair. Was I right to give him his own ship?’

  Magda is more worried about its new captain than its creaking seams. He was the XO, whom she lifted into the command chair after Guépard’s prewar captain was killed in the first hour of fighting with the Kaigun invasion fleet, off the gas giant’s second moon.

  ‘Well, what choice did I have? I had to promote some junior officer and he was next in line. The crew of Guépard watched their old captain die a hard death. Bringing in an outsider would have demoralized them. And so far, Rutger has done well. He spent all his time back on Toruń running simulations on a refurbished ship, getting a half-replacement crew up to speed.’

  “Very good, Captain Metsalaer.”

  ‘After he took over from a dead captain he booked nearly the same combat hours as me. It’s been so long since the last one we all forget that we’re still learning this thing called war.’

  “Asimov systems check. We’re go over here, patroon.”

  It’s Captain Lev Tiva playfully checking in using an archaic term for captain. She has to smile at Tiva’s cheeky use of “patroon.” She can’t correct him like she just did Archambault because her XO, who’s her regs-and-rules guide, told her the first time Tiva used it that the term may be old fashioned in the extreme but, by the book, it’s still officially in the KRN’s lexicon.

  ‘Tiva must have known that too, researched it. He’s got talent, and would’ve gone a lot further in his career before the war if he instead applied his energies to more important things.’

  She pictures Tiva’s dark eyes dancing under his singularly unkempt eyebrows, bushy as twin raccoons. His eyes are always waltzing. That and his oddball sense of humor cost him a lot in his career. He’s her senior in service by 15 years, yet he still commands only an older frigate.

  “That’s only eight, counting Resolve. Who’s missing, Mr. Fontaine?”

  Lieutenant-Commander Émile Fontaine, her outstanding First Officer or XO, confirms that the roll call is short.

  “Jutlandia, ma’am.”

  “Aklyan to Captain Bromios on Jutlandia, check in now.”

  “Jutlandia, all systems check out A-OK. Sorry ma’am.”

  Lives are at stake. Tens of thousands of lives. Far more than lives: the whole past and future of Genève, and the meaning of all the dying going on at the berm. She comes down hard.

  “Aklyan to Jutlandia. Stay on top of your coms, Bromios. I need instant response times to all orders if we’re going to get you to the system boost point, let alone the Wasp’s farside L2.

  “Jutlandia here again, sincere apologies, ma’am. We think we had a crossover between the new forward weps fire controls and main ship-to-ship coms. It won’t happen again.”

  Before he closes the broadcast side of the ship-to-ship com link Captain Zorba Bromios is heard bullying and thundering at his protesting Weapons Officer, whose shouting loudly back that the crossover problem happened in the Shipyard back on Toruń, and “not on my watch.”

  “Shut up and shut the damn thing down! Coms only! If we make it though the gauntlet you can work on the problem then. Unless I find that you just tried to shift blame when it’s your fault. Then you’ll be working in the Engine Room or maybe in the galley.”

  Émile glances over ands see a look of sick worry on Aklyan’s face, and that she’s biting her lower lip hard enough that a speckle of blood just appeared. She notices the iron taste and winces. He’s worried, too, not about his vector and boost mathematics or the enemy psychology built into the tactics of her escape plan, but about the sheer youth of some of Alpha’s captains.

  ‘Bromios is flailing already, and we’re not even in first contact with the enemy.’

  He resumes the check list. He’s standing just feet away, so close that Magda picks up his special odor, an antiquarian tinkerer smell. There’s a hint of old tek, of hot solder, silicon, and even copper wire, mixed with mockleather-bound books on the ancient naval history of Orion.

  ”Confirming. All ships checked in. Ship-to-ship coms are good, Jutlandia included. Weapons check: all ships’ guns warm and online, excepting Jutlandia. Her cannon is offline.”

  Magda acknowledges him with a nod. Then coms go silent, turning knuckles on all nine Bridges white as she listens without speaking for a soul-and-ship-groaning-eternity while Alpha completes its searing rise from the surface. It’s heading straight into its first critical maneuver.

  ‘If this doesn’t work its going to be a desperate fight just to escape orbit. And we’re sure to be massively outgunned by capital ships as well as escorts, this close to Genève.’

  “Approaching jibe position.”

  Out the side scuttles white plasma streaks up and far ahead, rising from the huge Toruń naval batteries. They’re shooting blind and hitting nothing, only trying to keep open an exit lane by deterring any ambitious Kaigun daisa from “Crossing the T” above Alpha’s ascent path.

  “Ready to give the order XO.”

  “All ships: Zulu on my mark.”

  Five seconds.

  Ten seconds.

  Fifteen seconds.

  “Alpha is in jibe position ... now.”

  “Zulu! Zulu! Mark!”

  Seven warships maneuver in the upper atmosphere as wake turbulence thins, where the troopships ride behind the sturdier destroyers without getting buffeted by backwash. The seven start to pull around the two old liners right on schedule, cuing tightly off Magda’s mark.

  She’s attempting a severe and dangerous move and formation not found in any prewar KRN tactics or navigation manuals. No one ever imagined, let alone mapped out, a problem of a surface launch of nine ships in a tight window and pattern, facing a much superior enemy force.

  ‘This won’t be the last time we’re required to figure out the impossible on the fly. Gods, in war the real thing is so much faster and harder than it looks in a classroom or simulation!’

  Five seconds.

  Ten seconds.

  Twenty seconds.

  “All ships in position. The troopships are where they’re supposed to be, ma’am, right behind the seven escorts.”

  Nine ships are in a leaf-blade wedge, warships at the top. Émile suggested that she call the wedge Formation Zulu because it looked to him like a short, ancient thrusting spear, just like the assegai made famous by Pyotr Shaka’s ancestors. It’s still carried by Oetkert emperors on ceremonial occasions, most recently by Pyotr when he declared war on the Krevan Republic. It appeals to Émile’s quiet irony that Alpha will brutally stab past a shield patrol of Shaka’s ships.

  “So far, so good on Zulu, Mr. Fontaine.”

  Nine ships are fusing hydrogen at m
aximum capacity, spitting long jets of plasma from main drives, no longer getting extra boost from spent chemical rockets. Those flare full-length with flashes of hundreds of explosive bolts, detach and fall away rapidly from the rising ships.

  Magda has invested a lot in the extra lift she got from the old-tek boosters. The velocity achieved might be just enough extra to fool and get past far more powerful enemy patrol ships already vectoring down from a very high orbit on a too-easy intercept course. If only she has read the thinking of its commanding daisa right. If only he makes a mistake that she can exploit.

  Otherwise, Alpha is flying into a flameout death in a proliferation of expanding plasma blossoms that will briefly light up the hazy horizon below, then disappear from Orion. Alpha will fall back planetside as a hard hail of Genève’s lost ships, lost children, and lost hope.