by Aer-ki Jyr
“Bear in mind,” Davis said, almost in a whisper, “the long term consequences resulting from a full ban. You’ve seen the effect it’s had on the Chinese.”
“If we have to go our own way, so be it. It wouldn’t be the first time…it’s also my understanding that a permanent ban is reserved for those who attack Star Force ships or facilities?”
“That’s our policy.”
“Well then, let me put this on the table. Hit us with your 25 year ban if you must, we’ll take it. I understand your desire, even need to discourage other countries from turning space into a war zone. It’s bad for business and Humanity, and I can honestly say I admire you for it, but sometimes a fight is just plain inevitable and putting it off causes more harm than good. The British made that mistake with Hitler, and I do not intend to make it with them. They’re growing in strength, so we might as well settle this now, while we still have the naval advantage, rather than wait until it’s more of a fair fight. I hope you can understand that.”
“Understand, yes. Approve of, no.”
“Fair enough,” the President said, sitting back. “Enact what penalties you will. We won’t hold it against you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, it seems I have a speech to prepare. Thanks for the 2 hour heads up.”
The President touched a button on his desk and the feed cut out, leaving Davis alone in his office.
He leaned forward, cradling his nose in his hands as he propped his head up via his elbows on his desk, closing his eyes to think for a few minutes.
With a deep breath he straightened up and flexed his hands, resigning himself to weather this storm, now that it had been made painfully clear it couldn’t be avoided. He pulled up a comm prompt and sent a brief text message to Paul in fleet command.
Diplomacy failed. War appears inevitable. Prepare accordingly.
10
March 19, 2107
The British patrol ship hung in space above the American mining outpost attached to the side of a 300m wide asteroid that had a week previously been in the American territorial zone, but given the fluid nature of the belt the valuable rock now found itself on the British side of the imaginary line. A cargo ship sat nearby, its engines destroyed by a British missile as the small patrol ship waited for one of their own cargo ships to arrive to transfer over the cargo and reclaim the mineral wealth that was rightfully theirs.
A tiny shuttle from the patrol ship had already docked and seized control of the mining station via a pair of armed guards, stopping any further mining from occurring until the Americans and their facility could be properly removed, but given the fact that this asteroid was well within the outer half of their territory it was going to take days to get the proper ships and engineers out to them.
The patrol ship, cutter-class, stayed on station guarding both the asteroid and the captured ship until an American counterpart arrived, with the British warship moving off to engage the approaching frigate, which began the attack with a pair of long range missile launches.
While the smaller of the two ships, the cutter was the only one that had any missile defense systems, which opened up with a hail of metallic shrapnel that succeeded in catching and destroying both of the larger missiles before they could reach the ship.
The cutter responded at medium range with its solitary cannon, belting a 115mm slug towards the larger American cross section. The frigate had a prominent prow compartment, linked to the engine bank at the rear through a narrow, but sturdy shaft around which slowly rotated two blocky artificial gravity sections, giving the bold white ship an oscillating look in an otherwise static backdrop. Beneath the white paint job were layers of armor plating, thin compared to Star Force standards, but twice as thick as the British patrol ship carried.
The American ship also sported two cannons, each placed on opposite ends of the prow. The top mounted one rotated slightly to the side and fired a 105mm shell in return, quickly followed by a second from below as the British cutter flew laterally, trying to get a broadside angle against the American, and given that it was the lighter and faster vessel of the two it succeeded in doing just that, then curving around to face head on, crossing the ‘T’ so to speak, and reducing its own cross section to just the angled nose that ran up to the top-mounted cannon, obscuring the rest of the ship behind that tiny target.
The cutter’s own artificial gravity section was essentially a hamster wheel imbedded into the hull just below the cannon. It housed a few compartments in the small ship, but didn’t have any visibly moving parts from outside. Instead its hull was a smooth, dark tinted blue that both American shells missed cleanly.
The aim of the British was better, and the first shell hit the frigate’s prow, crumpling on impact and putting a large gash in the composite armor as pieces of the protective layers flaked off and flew into space, but did little hull damage beneath. It wasn’t until several British shots hit around the same section of hull did the first clean shot get through, resulting in a plume of debris propelled by the internal atmosphere of the ship escaping through the hole in the hull.
Shortly thereafter the Americans got their first hit…a deflection off the angled prow that dented a section of the cutter’s armor but did not penetrate. Using her superior maneuvering ability, the British crew kept the ship at a perpendicular angle to the American vessel as they closed to short range and fired off a series of small missiles that landed square against the rotating section of the hull, blasting the armor off the nearer section and exposing parts of it to space.
The two American cannons kept firing nonstop, winging the cutter a few times without ever making a square hit. They tried another missile attack, launching 4 forward firing missiles in a wide arc to bring them back around at the British ship, which gave the anti-missile system enough time to swat them all down. Unlike the cutter, the American ship was only equipped with big, long range missiles, used to snipe at distant targets or even larger ships than itself, while the British missiles were small and short range only, and far more useful in this situation where the longer ranged armaments didn’t have time to build up attack speed.
The patrol ship exhausted its offensive missiles against the flank of the American frigate, damaging the rotating section so much that the entire ship began to list as the balancing mechanism was thrown off. The superior British gunners also managed to clip the American’s top cannon, taking it out and leaving the frigate with a massive blind spot which they quickly exploited, flying up over the back of the American and pummeling her hull with close ranged shells, slowly tearing it apart, bit by bit, over the course of a half hour.
The Americans continued to shoot off arcing missiles, but to no effect. They didn’t have the mass fire capability of the smaller missiles needed to overwhelm the defensive flack, nor could they get decent acceleration at this close range, giving the British ship a nice wide circling arc to fire at before the missiles even faced towards the enemy, though they kept trying until their racks ran empty.
The patrol ship continued firing shells into the prow of the American ship until they were certain to have penetrated all the way into the bridge, then the Brits left the wreck of the ship below them to drift in the asteroid belt as they returned to the captured asteroid, missile racks empty, with only a few shells remaining and several damaged spots on their hull, but with the first clear victory in the conflict, images of which would be transmitted back to British fleet command and immediately released to the media as proof that the mighty American fleet wasn’t unbeatable. They might have more ships, the UK press would spout, but the British had better ones with better trained crews and tactics.
After that both sides scrambled to reposition their fleets within the belt to engage vulnerable targets along a wide campaign zone, with no hope whatsoever of delaying a war that had been decades in the making.
“You were a second behind that lap,” Wilson told Davis as they passed the start/finish line on one of the many tracks inside Atlantis. “You’ve got 3 seconds of cushion
left, don’t burn it off now. Grind this one out a bit.”
“Trying,” Davis said, ever so slightly increasing his pace. Running had never been his forte, but had become a staple of his training, with Wilson closely monitoring his progress and jumping in with him on workouts where he felt he needed an extra boost of confidence.
Davis was nearing his 136th birthday, and had the distinction of not only being the richest man on Earth, but the oldest as well, having to color his hair gray to downplay the ever present questions regarding his longevity, though truth be told, it was due mainly to the man running beside him…the constant thorn in his side that kept him steadily improving his workouts while supplementing his body with small doses of ambrosia. As it was, Wilson had worked him up to running 8:00 min miles, and had him on the clock so each lap he ran had to be kept at a cumulative 7:59.9 pace…which was a killer.
He’d gone two and a half miles already, a nice 10 laps around the track and had built up a 7 second lead on the clock, some of which he’d surrendered the past two laps as his legs began to tire more than he realized. The goal for today was to get 4 miles in, which mean 6 more laps without dropping behind pace, otherwise he’d have to stop, rest, then finish the remainder at speed, knowing he’d screwed up his perfect workout.
He didn’t want that to happen. He had a 17-day streak going, but when the body complained the clock had a tendency to slip and you’d find yourself in trouble without enough time to make it up save for a sprint…and he knew from experience how bad it felt the next lap if he had to sprint on one of the middle ones to keep pace.
“Come on,” Wilson prompted, “work the backstretch with me. Shave off a few tenths here so you don’t have to make it up later.”
Davis responded a little, again, not feeling like he had much to work with today. Wilson accelerated a little bit ahead of him and Davis forced himself to speed up enough to bring his right shoulder back even with the trainer’s left. By the time they got back around to the start line he’d succeeded in adding .3 seconds to his time cushion, meaning that lap had been just under pace.
“Good, now stay on top of it. Don’t relax or you’ll give it all away and then some. Focus on one lap at a time,” Wilson said, pressing ahead of him again.
Another man on the track came up behind them fast and moved around the outside of Wilson to where Davis could see him, then in typically cocky Archon fashion moved in front of Davis and began running backwards so he could talk to him face on.
“It’s started,” Jason told him, jogging backwards with little effort. “The British seized an American mining base that drifted across the territory line, captured the cargo ship with it, and destroyed the American warship that responded. The British took out a frigate with a cutter, and are plastering the newscasts with the results. Roger says both fleets are redeploying for combat across the border, but so far it looks like they’re keeping away from any of our facilities, and we’re moving ships into the gaps to keep them away.”
“Any movement…elsewhere?” Davis asked between heavy breaths.
“None yet. Paul’s keeping a close watch and said he’ll let me know the minute someone twitches.”
Davis nodded and Jason ran off annoying fast. Frustration boiling up inside at how events were deteriorating with him unable to do anything about it, Davis unconsciously started running harder and got back around to the start line where Wilson was happy to report that they’d ran that last lap 4 seconds under pace.
He would eventually finish up his run 22 seconds ahead of pace, extending his workout streak to 18 days as he distractedly headed off to arrange a meeting of all the nations’ Ambassadors who had assets within the belt, intent on making it crystal clear that their countries needed to keep out of this conflict rather than picking sides and escalating it to insane levels.