“Make sure the assault units all fire at the same target,” Captain Natara reminded them as she counted down from twenty in her head. “No half measures, just destroy them.”
They entered firing range, and in that instant each cruiser fired its primary batteries, a quartet of forward-pointing one hundred and twenty centimeters plasma lasers specially designed to burn through an enemy's hull in no time. Sixteen massive beams licked the destroyers' hull, scorching and boring through ceramics and metal alike, turning interior compartments into furnaces where they struck. One of the cruisers took a nuclear missile fired by the Sunchaser, its bow erupting into a miniature sun, but not before she and her sisters had turned the two destroyers into floating clouds of gas.
“New target,” Natara rattled off, blocking her mind from thinking about the hundreds of her own people that nuke must have killed. “Go for the scout cruiser! Fire when ready.”
“Distance ten thousand and closing!” Torok Sen warned.
Outnumbered and outgunned the Dominion warship nonetheless fought on ferociously, filling the blackness of space with nuclear warheads and streaking plasma beams reaching out towards the Republican cruisers and frigates. Lashing out like a mad animal it broke through their formation even as the Érenni weapons battered its own hull. One of the frigates popped like a balloon.
“He's trying to outrun us,” Batal said not without a strange sense of appreciation. Not having an Ashani go for a murder-suicide charge was a welcome change to him.
“But not fast enough,” Torok Sen added. “We've got him.”
The other Republican cruiser, its bow still spewing flaming plasma and atmosphere, had fallen back. Heavily damaged from a warhead several hundred megatons strong, her sides were still intact, as were the weapons mounted there. She rolled wildly around her own axis, her lasers darting out at the passing enemy cruiser in quick succession, some of them punching right through it. The Sunchaser raced on for a few seconds, seemingly unfazed. Then its hull bucked like a horse in half a dozen directions at the same time. Geysers of liquid flame pierced it from the inside, pouring out into the void as a fiery trail.
It flew on for a few long seconds that felt like hours to Natara as she watched the strange beauty of it all play out in her displays aboard PERISAI's bridge. The enemy cruiser was still a dozen million kilometers away from the outer boundaries of the minefields when it blew apart in a silent explosion. “Well done, everybody,” she said calmly.
“We're been recalled,” Torok Sen nodded towards the communications officer. “And high command sends congratulations on a job well done.”
Natara acknowledged the signal without any emotion. A few weeks ago she would have been disturbed at being applauded for killing what must have been at least a thousand living creatures. But after what she and the people aboard PERISAI had experienced at the Battle of Senfina, the Érenni mindset had shifted dramatically. And while their core beliefs might remain the same, they had been superseded by a stronger imperative: the need to survive. The defense of their home system would be more active and aggressive than the actions at Senfina. With whatever advice the Tuathaan had to offer, and with the cold knowledge of what was at stake for them, the Érenni were ready to face the Ashani a second time. They would not be surprised twice.
Akvô, Home world of the Érenni Republics.
“I'll be sorry to leave,” Tarek Winters face was heavy with fatigue as he spoke. “But I've got to think of my crew. I wish there was more we could do.”
“Understood, IRON MAIDEN,” a voice replied in the traditional female tones of the Érenni.
Tarek had been out here a year and only ever met a handful of males.
“Tell your people what is happening here. Make them understand.”
“We'll try,” Tarek replied solemnly. “We'll give our stories to the newsfeed agencies, to everybody willing to listen. What's happened out here is terrifying, Control. The galaxy needs to know the peril they are all in.”
“Be safe,”" the traffic controller said. “We've heard you risked yourselves at Senfina for some of our civilians. Captain Natara of the cruiser PERISAI told us the story.”
Tarek had never met the controller, had never even spoken to her before, and yet she knew what they had done. Strangely enough, it must be what stars felt when they experienced their fame for the first time. The difference for Tarek being that he was known for surviving a horrific battle which – if he had had a choice – he'd have been nowhere near. It struck him that if they hadn't stayed for that one last job those two thousand refugees would still have been on Senfina and would be dead by now. He'd regretted that decision to stay because it cost him a fortune in repair bills and almost got them killed, but it had also saved a lot of lives. He finally started to recognize that maybe it had been the best thing he had ever done in his long life. “We were just in the right place at the wrong time,” he answered. “It wasn't anything special.”
“Captain Natara has put you forward for the Republican Star, the highest award of our people,” he controller continued as calmly as before. “It is a true honor.”
“Well, I mean, thanks,” Tarek stumbled over his tongue. Jesus, he was just a freight hauler! How the hell did he end up an Érenni national hero? “It's kinda, well, surprising.” It made him feel awkward. He just wanted to get the hell out of there.
“It'll be here, waiting for you and your crew,” the officer replied in that same calm tone. “We've plotted a course for you through the minefield. Follow our guide beam.”
“Thanks, Control, and good luck to you,” Tarek spoke evenly, but he was beginning to feel the weight of the situation creep up on him. “We'll be back here one day.”
“We'll be here, waiting. Akvô Control out.”
For a full minute Tarek said nothing. He had heard the slight tremble in that last exchange and knew what it meant. Akvô would be waiting. But would there still be an Érenni people to welcome them back?
Beside him Rául was also quiet as the IRON MAIDEN left orbit and headed for the gate, its engines groaning but obeying. The whole ship stank of adhesives, of ozone and lubricants. Some sections were still sealed off, being open to space. Still, overall the ship was operational again. Llyr had returned with the freighter's cargo shuttle and a few spares he had acquired. Even so they would need a long stop at Tanith to make the journey back to Earth. And there they would have to put in some serious yard time to get the old lady back to form.
“So, they're going to give us medals?” Rául finally said to start a conversation.
“Guess so,” Tarek said curtly, in no mood to talk. His face remained hard as stone to mask his inner turmoil.
“So we'll have to come back this way, to collect them?”
Tarek sighed in resignation. “I know you want to stay and help, but this isn't the time. Anyone who stays here is going to die.”
“What? No way!” Rául protested. “They can't!”
“Tell that to the Dominion,” Tarek growled, running a harried hand through his curly hair. He sure had taken on some gray during the past weeks. “You've seen up close what the Ashani are like. They're going to send a hell of a lot more ships here than they did at Senfina, and you know how they handled that planet: nukes and germs. The Érenni might hold out longer, bleed them more, but in the end they just can't win this fight.” It was a conclusion he had come to almost as soon as they had arrived but refused to accept until just a few hours ago. He liked the Érenni. They were good people. He had worked and lived with them this past year, made friends with them, helped them in their time of need. And yet, the simple reality was that if the Dominion showed up here in force they would crush the forces arrayed around Akvô, and then the Érenni race would die.
“And that's it? We just leave?”
“Haven't you heard anything I've said?” Tarek snapped, tired and frustrated. “We stay, we die. Period. This whole system is going to be a slaughterhouse and we aren't going to be in it!”
&n
bsp; “We leave them to die, then?” Rául said angrily. “Is that the sort of people we are?”
“Damn straight, that's who we are!” Tarek laughed, a sound tinged not with mirth but with loathing. “We run, we hide, we stay the hell out of the firing line because we aren't heroes, no matter what medals they throw at us! We are here for the money, not to throw away our lives in a gesture! We're going home.”
“We can't just leave them to die, not after helping them before!” Rául replied. “We aren't completely powerless here!”
“Wrong, that's exactly what we are!” Tarek slammed his fist on the chair, surprising Rául. “We're completely powerless; there is absolutely nothing we can do to change this, not a damn thing!” He stared ahead, the red line marking the end of the star's inner gravity well creeping closer in his main plot. “If I could wave a wand and make the Ashani go away I would. And you know something? Even if it cost my life, if it meant saving that planet I'd do it in a heartbeat. But it wouldn't, we can't do a damn thing and it's burning me up to just walk away from this but: we don't have a choice. You want to go and die with them out of sympathy? You know, that's just plain stupid and I won't allow it.”
“You won't allow it?” Rául scoffed. “What gives you the right to tell me when and where I'll die?”
“Because you're my crew. That's all the right I need,” Tarek said calmly. “I've got a responsibility as captain to get this ship and everyone on it to safety, and that includes you, Rául.”
Rául didn't answer straight away. The silence returned to hang heavy over the freighter's bridge.
“I appreciate you looking out for us,” Rául said finally. “But we can make our own decisions, you know. I'd like to stay and help the Érenni.”
“I know, but you're what? Twenty, twenty five? You've got a lifetime ahead of you and you deserve it. It's better this way, and if the Érenni will let us leave then we should just go. They won't want our deaths on their hands."
The IRON MAIDEN crossed the unseen threshold. Mechanically Tarek entered the commands for the transition sequence into foldspace. The freighter groaned as its Malenkov-Okudas sprang to life.
“Do you want to see Akvô one more time?” Rául looked out of his thick armorplast side window, the distant world glistening behind them barely distinguishable from a star. “Might be the last time we ever see it.”
Tarek Winters stared right ahead.
“The life of spies is to know, not to be known.”
- George Herbert
C H A P T E R 1 2
The Pyramid, Chicago, North American Union, Earth.
August, 2797 C.E.
Snow drifted through the air, dancing across the deep green and blue waves of Lake Michigan and the air defense systems hidden right beneath the water's surface. On the few terraces of the Pyramid and in the streets of Chicago people pulled their coat collars higher and their hats deeper to evade as much of the crisp breeze as possible. Winter drew near across the northern hemisphere. As far down as the highlands of Guatemala the first frosts had settled in. The frosty weather had been accompanied by a slow but steady cool-down of the relations between the Big Three, and by a growing disquiet about the far away war everybody knew far too little about. Everybody was too far behind the pace of events, and the instability in the far away reaches on the outer edge of the Orion Spur was sending ripples through space that were felt everywhere. The stars stirred.
The Pact of Ten Suns was in turmoil, with one part trying to put up enough resolve to join the fight, one wanting nothing to do with it, and one wishing their star systems could be moved to a place half a galaxy away. What little factual news could be gathered from Ukhuri Prime and the Rasenni upper echelons gave conflicting signals about what course of events could be expected there. No news was bad news. No news meant instability, and instability all too often was the precursor to war. The Union did a good deal of trade with both alien powers. If they were to exchange hostilities how would that affect the Union's economy –- and the safety of its merchantmen? Closer to home, piracy around the periphery of human settled space had experienced a boom, despite intensified patrols.
And still closer to home a new round of combat had flared up between the Starkingdom of Pegasus and the Republic of Skyrise over the control of Elysium and its foldspace junction. Both sides used the black market and backdoor channels to buy military hardware from each of the Big Three, and the Euros even had military advisers in the Pegasus system. Their little war had been a convenient way for the larger players to see their new hardware in action. Never so much that anybody could have pointed fingers and drawn them into it: a missile seeker here, a tachyon sensor subsystem there, and always under the unshakeable understanding that they were trading down to a tech base that was, at best, second rate. But if his sources were to be believed, the EMC's suits in Pegasus had been quite shocked when they got hold of the stats of their navy's new long range missiles. And Nouveau Milan, the capital of the Republic of Skyrise, had tacitly turned down an ONI front's offer to supply them with a limited number of the latest generation of the Eclipse EW suite. The implications there were... troubling.
But not as troubling as the increased military activity of all three great powers. There now were more human warships buzzing through space than at any point in peacetime during the past one hundred years. The usual peacetime operation mode of a navy – any navy worth the name, really –was to have one third of its strength on active duty, one third in training and maneuvers, and one third undergoing maintenance or refits. All across the board, yard time had been cut, training had been postponed. Nobody had yet called up their reserves, and the media kept strangely silent on the matter as well, as if their quiet demeanor could help calm the waves. But against all logic and reason forces in every camp were convinced that the other side was just waiting to make its move.
Director William Campbell found a park bench all to himself. Centuries prior the heart of Chicago's downtown district had been right where he sat. Nowadays a wide strip of public parks along the lake's shore and the small canals leading into the roiling waters to the north divided the looming obsidian pyramid out there from Congress and the teeming metropolis to his south. Depending on the prevailing wind direction it was peacefully quiet out here, quite the achievement in the face of twenty million people.
He came out here rather often, he realized: to breathe, to think, to relax. Maybe also to indulge in a thin illusion of leading a completely normal life where he was just a man among many others, one who fed bread crumbs to the park's ducks.
Of course, that was all it ever was: an illusion. William Campbell was too important a persona to receive the blessings of a normal nine to five life, complete with neighbors and friends and trips to the local bar or sports event. In a way he had less of a personal life than the President. Even now, sitting on that bench a few meters away from the stylized metal railing near one of the small canals, with ducks cruising through the dark, cold waters and a few ravens in the sky above and in the bare trees around him, he was not alone. His security entourage held itself in the background, but it was there, out of sight, strewn across the park. Nobody with a weapon, concealed or not, would make it even within sight of him.
He didn't really mind. Not the lack of a personal life, and not the danger to that very life either. People wanted him dead. Had, did, and always would. That certainty came with the job, and it either broke you or you learned to live with it. Campbell had learned to live with it up to the point of wholly ignoring it. He wasn't a superstitious man, but one couldn't trick fate.
White clouds rose into the air as he sniffed and exhaled. He didn't really mind the weather. In fact, as a child of the Eastern Seaboard Metroplex, he found the crisp cold a lot like the weather he had known as a young man. But that had been decades ago. Since then he had been to the coldest places on Earth and beyond, from ice planets to burning deserts under binary suns, always striving to build up a network of agents and disgruntled nationals in ev
ery major empire, faction and group in known space to serve the interests of the Union. His peers in Beijing and Brussels had done very much the same even though he liked to entertain the thought that he had a qualitative edge on them. Still, it was weirdly ironic that in a cosmos of dozens of known races, hundreds of colonies and tens of thousands of outposts, he probably had more active assets on this one planet he called home than in the rest of known space combined.
Wearing a charcoal black Galvin overcoat with bronze buttons below a deep crimson scarf a tall Caucasian man approached on the gravel path and stopped opposite Campbell, his back towards the Central Security Directorate's director as he leaned on the metal railings, staring into the dark waters below. The wind plucked at the man's auburn hair and he absentmindedly rubbed his fingers against the cold.
“The north wind blows, here on the river it's cold,” the stranger's voice suddenly disrupted the quiet.
Campbell consciously concentrated on the bag of breadcrumbs in his hands before he spoke, too.
“And darkness falls beside the level sea.” He leaned forward towards the waddling ducks. “I'm glad you could make it, Mr. Chen.”
The man – Chen – looked down at his fingers. “Do you know how much hassle it is, changing back every time I get back to my family?” he asked quietly, as if the question was meant only for his own ears.
“I can only imagine. I suppose you're lucky then that your body has no immune response to the changes,” Campbell replied evenly. Changing a man's appearance so completely, as done with Liao Chen, was usually something reserved for reconstructive surgery and genetic treatments for those who had suffered the most jarring injuries. Chen looked as American as any man named Miller would have: white, with some freckles, close to two meters tall and with a shock of auburn hair he was ordinary, but not unattractive. The images in a secure file in Campbell's computers showed Chen as he really was: Cantonese, black-haired and barely one hundred and eighty centimeters tall. The miracles of modern medicine, human endurance and national demands. The director also knew that Chen didn't have any family, but he wasn't inclined to let that slip. Information was a currency, and this was no auction house. But Chen was a conduit for what he had to say, a conduit to his master. “You know why I asked for this meeting?”
Opening Moves Page 36