by Darold Higa
Only one significant threat existed to the beachhead at Newport, and that was the four fleets gathered at New Boston. Still, the 7th Fleet was a fleet in name only, with the AIs projecting that only a few hundred ships remained. Linodan Fleet had been bloodied by the Northern Taskforce and had lost a large number of fighters. He also doubted if the Spincorans had established a deep logistical network, so the Princess would be low on ammunition and other supplies. Even with the firepower added by Sokolov Fleet and the 10th Fleet, and whatever other Planetary Guard ships they might add from New Boston, there was no chance that they could stage an appreciable attack against Newport. But it also meant that any further advances into Renspan space would require leaving behind a garrison at Newport. Overall, things were proceeding quite well, and there was little else that could be done until the ceasefire was over.
General Tsai turned his attention to the Spincoran-Narthian border. Banner Red and Banner Gold were still not in position to strike Spincora directly. Some of the political warfare did pay off, however. Several worlds in the Marginals had shifted their allegiance to Narthia. New Marine, in particular, was engaged in outright civil war. Benjamin brought up the data for New Marine. The facilities there would be critical to resupply ships staging to invade Spincora. The contingency plans for circumventing New Marine meant longer supply lines, and longer supply lines always meant more garrisons and more resources not expended at the frontlines. New Marine also had a fairly well developed Navy for a small power with a full carrier group. As Ben delved deeper into the intel reports it looked like the Spincorans had sold some older carriers to New Marine, which served as the core of their Navy. Having those forces on the Narthian side of the equation would certainly be useful, he thought to himself.
4563 July 05
Central Newport City
Newport
Federal Republic of Renspa
Rachel Kelso always thought that her apartment had been an incredible find. As a project manager she made decent money and of course Newport Cybernetics paid very well, but even with a generous salary she never imagined she could afford a place near the Skyhook Terminal. Most of the apartment units in that prime real estate were very expensive. Almost every building along central Skyhook Lane were luxury hotels for offworld travelers like the Newport Oceanside or posh multi-use archologies, combining expensive condos, virtual workspaces and entertainment centers. Large urban infrastructure like the Skyhook facility were some of the few geographic features that mattered in determining real estate prices anymore. Rachel had found a real find however. It was an older stretch of Skyhook Lane, probably dating back a few hundred years, built at the tail end of the Long Dark Night. Without the resources of a vast starfaring society at its disposal, some of the colossal civil engineering feats of the United Earth Government could not be maintained properly. Fear about elevators falling off of the skyhooks meant city planners had zoned certain areas around the skyhook as hazard zones. As interstellar civilization rebuilt, the costly technology to maintain these vast bridges into the sky became practical again, and higher margin safety measures reinstated. As a result, most of the safety zones were no longer needed. Still, when developers decided to put up multi-billion credit facilities on Skyhook lane, in order to avoid all of the extra expense associated with the modern safety compliance zoning laws still on the books meant that most of the safety zones were bypassed for new development. Amidst some of the most expensive real estate in Renspa were patches of old buildings that became the havens of artists and other city dwellers that sought housing that was both at the center of the city and anachronistic at the same time.
Rachel had an apartment in one such building. The building had managed to survive several hundred hundred years of land developers. Now, the building was a pile of rubble. Central Newport City had turned into a battlefield, and her apartment building had been an unfortunate casualty. Now she was standing outside, a backpack slung on one shoulder, wearing a t-shirt and baggy pants, holding onto a portable datatank. She was shocked that the warning had come from the Narthian military and not the Federal Ground Patrol. She had been logged into the datanet helping with everyone else at Newport Cybernetics to fend off the massive data attacks against the Newport AI core when a priority message came up telling her that she had 3 minutes to leave her building. Grabbing her portable datatank, she ran outside just in time. The Renspan army was disorganized, but they had launched a desperate attack against the Narthian forces holding the Skyhook and her apartment building was about to be caught in the crossfire. Finding shelter in a nearby building, she didn’t witness the battle. All she heard was the deafening roar of e-mag rifles and explosions as the giant humanoid weapons waged a life and death struggle outside. Once the noise had subsided, she felt brave enough to venture out. Several burning Renspan power armors that littered on the street were an indication of how the battle had went. Her own building was apparently the center of the battle, and was a smoking pile of rubble. Narthian infantry in powersuits were patrolling the streets. The datanet was down in the central city, so the Narthians were broadcasting over loudspeakers that President Devon had surrendered and that the provisional occupation authority had set up refugee collection points at the edge of the city. “I guess I’m a refugee,” she said to no one in particular. Shrugging, she shouldered her backpack and started walking.
Rachel was amazed to see the streets full of people walking around, looking as stunned as she was. Given the datanet most people stayed at home, rarely venturing out beyond their archologies. Only people who took jobs that required physical presence commuted anymore. Rachel’s building didn’t have full datanet infrastructure, so she left her home more often than most. Rachel approached a rental transporter. Unfortunately it looked like the entire civilian VTT control network was down. The vehicle sat there, with the display reading “OUT OF SERVICE.” Since most people didn’t own private vehicles, the streets were empty of vehicle traffic. Everyone was walking. Still, the streets were clogged with people wandering with empty, lost looks on their faces. She didn’t see the Renspan military anywhere. As she walked, she noticed that a few people were clutching bright orange bags that had the words “EMERGENCY KIT – Courtesy of the Narthian Empress” on the side. She walked further. Slowly, a pattern began to emerge. People without the kits would notice them, and ask where they got the kits. The person would lifelessly point in a random direction, which would send the person asking running off in that direction. She began to wonder if she should get a pack too, but decided that instead of running around randomly, her best bet was to get to a refugee center as soon as possible. It would be nighttime soon, and she figured that shelter should be her first priority.
Luckily, it appeared that the power was still active. She ran across an autominimart with drinks and snacks, a rarity in this day and age. She was more amazed that it appeared to still be working. She reached for her bankwand, but realized that the datanet was probably down here too. Instead, she dug out a few credits and bought a few bottles of water and some snackbars. She had been walking for about half an hour when she came across a familiar face. Elsie Manning, one of her junior programmers, was sitting on the street, clutching an orange emergency kit. She was crying.
“Elsie!”
“Rachel? Oh good gaia! Rachel!” The girl stood up, dropped her bag and ran to Rachel, clutching onto her. Her sobbing continued unabated.
“Elsie, are you alright?”
Slowly regaining her composure, the young programmer nodded.
“Have you heard from anyone else?”
Elsie fought back the tears. “We were all defending the AI cores when you dropped off. After you dropped off, Jim and Tracy dropped off. All of your avatars showed a ‘physical link error.’ I…I…I thought that all of you were dead!”
Rachel nodded. The datanet was designed to handle massive interruptions without any disconnects. Usually physical link errors meant the user had died. But there was a time when such disconnects were
a frequent occurrence, particularly to nodes offworld. But Elsie was a bit too young to remember that. Even Rachel had only heard about such things from her parents. Most likely massive damage to the data networks had occurred, as happened in her area that had disrupted communications. Still, she hoped that Jim and Tracy were OK. Jim lived in Safe Harbor, and Tracy lived in Franklin, a small town in the foothills of the Westridge Mountains a few hundred kilometers outside Newport City. If the war had already reached that far away, then things were really bad.
“OK, what happened after Jim and Tracy dropped off?”
“It was really strange. The rest of the team kept helping out the security team. I started to run a trace of the physical network to figure out what had happened to the three of you. About 10 minutes later we got a message from Old Man Sanchez to log out of the system and to please leave home for the emergency centers. I stayed logged in a little longer because I wanted to find out what happened to your link. A progressive memory wipe started. All of the company files just started disappearing. At that point all of the AI cores just shut down and I was booted from the system. That's when I heard that we had surrendered, so I followed the old man’s orders, packed a few things in a backpack and headed out. Oh, its so awful!”
Rachel walked the young programmer over to her bag and the emergency pack, sitting down on the side of the road. “Well, Elsie, I think we should stick together. Let’s see what the Narthians gave us.”
Elsie nodded. The two women sat down and began to sort through the emergency kit. It contained a few bottles of water, some hi-kcal snackbars, three Narthian portameals containing rice, chicken and some pickled vegetables, a pair of emergency blankets, a survival flashlight, personal heater pack and a small set of personal toiletries. All were unfamiliar Narthian brands.
“Well, at least the Narthians are considerate.”
Elsie nodded. The distraction was enough to give her a chance to recover a little. Rachel handed Elsie a bottle of water. “We should do our best to make it to one of these emergency camps.” Elsie nodded again. The pair stood up and joined the large flow of people wandering off towards the outskirts of the city.
4563 July 06
Royal Spincoran Navy, 221st Expeditionary Force, HMS Relentless, Linodan Hall
In Orbit Above New Boston
Free Renspa
Alicia raised the spoonful of raspberry mousse to her lips very slowly. Every one of the four fleet commanders, as well as the Renspan Treasury Secretary, Secretary of Education, head of the Senate and Speaker of the House of Planets seemed to be deep in their own thoughts. Eating provided a useful excuse for everyone to remain silent. Because of the Princess, the Relentless had been equipped with a formal banquet room for entertaining royalty, foreign dignitaries as well as important fleet personnel. Normally Alicia avoided the room, preferring to dine with the other officers in the officer’s mess. However, it seemed to be appropriate to host the first meeting between the allied fleet commanders since arriving at New Boston. News of President Devon’s surrender had only recently arrived, and civil authorities on New Boston were unclear as to their territorial status. To avoid any kind of complication, it was decided that the Relentless made the most sense as a meeting place. The room, which was designed to seat 50, seemed cavernous hosting the single table of leaders and their seconds.
Ever since the Battle of Newport, Commodore Ellen Cadwell had an empty expression. Tonight was no exception. Her 7th Fleet had been reduced to just under 500 ships. Cadwell had absorbed most of the ships from New Boston’s Planetary Guard and Orbital Defense Authority, along with a few auxiliary ships from the 10th Fleet. This had boosted her numbers a little, but the 7th Fleet, at under a thousand ships, remained a shadow of its previous self. Looking at her, Alicia was pretty sure that she had no intention of surrendering her forces over to Narthia. Alicia then looked over at Commodore Pierre Sokolov. A day ago, he had been her superior officer. Now, with her immediate battlefield promotion, Sokolov was her subordinate. As he earnestly attacked his dessert, Alicia knew that Pierre, while he might resent the Princess’ promotion, would be a staunch ally in any decision that she might make. That left Admiral Erin Mitchell. Mitchell was sitting across from Alicia. She had a very sober look, with her eyes darting from one thing to the other. Her face revealed that she was trying to learn as much as possible before saying anything. That left Alicia guessing as to Mitchell’s intent. The Renspan 10th Fleet was completely fresh and unbloodied. In fact, for whatever reason it was slightly over-strength. The rest of the table had two members of Hamilton’s cabinet, representing the Renspan executive branch, along with the Chair of the Senate and Speaker of the House of Planets, the two top legislative officials from the Renspan government. At the moment none of the civilian leadership held any actual authority. The fate of the civilian government had been the reason for the meeting in the first place. The civilian leadership all had sullen faces and ate just as quietly as their military counterparts. The Battle of Newport had been less than a day ago.
Alicia decided that the time for politeness was over. As the servers removed the dessert and brought over cookies, fruit and tea, Alicia decided to speak. Serious decisions would have to be made, and made soon. The 24 hour cease-fire that the Narthians were obliged to honor would be over soon, and New Boston was a logical target once Narthia resumed its offensive operations. Alicia cleared her throat.
“Admiral Mitchell, I wish to assure you that the 221st Expeditionary Force intends to continue fighting against the Narthians. Commodore Cadwell has already expressed to me her desire to place the 7th Fleet under the Command of 221st. My only reservation is that President Devon’s surrender means that any Renspan forces that decide to continue fighting may not be protected by the rules of war until a provisional government is formed.”
Admiral Mitchell nodded. “That is the problem I currently face. Is there any way that the government officials we have under our care can be formed into a legitimate government?”
Alicia shook her head. “Unfortunately, our fleet counsel informed me that by the Treaty of Luna, any provisional authority cannot assert legitimate control over the military while in transit, so the Renspan government officials that we are escorting to Spincoran space cannot establish a new government until they make planetfall. In theory, that could be done anywhere, but…”
“But,” Caldwell continued the princess’ thought, “wherever the provisional government makes planetfall becomes the new capital for the Renspan Federation. So we need it to be established far away where it will be safe.”
“I have been in contact with my mother.” Alicia responded. “She says that Nova Roma is willing to host the government-in-exile. If we establish the government deep in Spincoran space, I assure you it will be well protected.”
Admiral Mitchell nodded. “That makes the most sense. Does that make sense to the provisional government as well?”
Paul Worthington, who was next in line for presidential succession for any provisional government, finally spoke up. “We would most gladly accept the generous offer by her highness the Queen. It makes perfect sense for our allied nations to establish our governmental headquarters in close proximity.” The rest of the civilian leadership nodded.
Admiral Mitchell brushed aside a lock of her long, blonde hair. “I have been in contact with the other fleet commanders. We all agree that surrender is not an option. However, we are spread out all over the Federation. The cease-fire has given us some breathing room, but we remain divided.” Admiral Mitchell activated a datatank built into the middle of the table. “As you can see, we have managed to consolidate into five groups. The 1st, 9th and 12th Fleets have consolidated at Santa Angelica under the command of Admiral Rinaldi. The 5th and 8th Fleets have consolidated at Arlington under Admiral Strong. The 4th and 6th Fleets have gathered at Gardena under Admiral Patterson. The 11th Fleet under Admiral Bingham remains cut off near the Narthian border at Safewater. Because the local Planetary Guard forces are
technically under command of local authorities, we cannot determine how many individual planets will chose to ignore the surrender orders. Because we assume that Admiral Huffington perished with the 101th, and unless we are able to make contact with Admiral Johnson, Admiral Bingham is the most senior field Admiral. The fact that her fleet is completely isolated complicates this issue, and she has already suggested that command of the Joint Chiefs of Staff should then revert to the next-most senior Admiral.” Mitchell paused. “As of one hour ago I assumed command of the Federal Space Patrol.”