JOHNSTON's shuttle softly descended onto the hangar bay's deck and shut down its engines. A tube connected with the small craft's hatch, and Beaufort and Ranaissa got up and moved into the European ship. The first thing they noticed was that even the airlock spoke of old glory. A real, if worn, carpet covered the floor, and polished wood paneling hid the metal surfaces of the walls. The only things missing were soft lounge music, cocktails and dim lights.
But the age of the large liners had come to an end a long time ago. With interstellar travel becoming more and more the province of everybody with the ability to put some cash aside, and with the emergence of superluminal communication technology, liners like the STAR OF GRANADA had slowly but steadily lost the niche that guaranteed their existence as commercially viable vessels. What had saved her from being scrapped was the fact that ships didn't really structurally age in space. Sure, their technology eventually became outdated and there simply were parts that needed constant maintenance and replacement, but the hull didn't truly age, in the common sense of the word.
And much of the STAR's interior and technology, age notwithstanding, was apparently old school quality workmanship, a fact proven by the reality of the ship being reactivated and sent half a thousand light-years away in virtually no time.
She was old, true. But she was fast. My god, was she fast. Beaufort had mused over her technical specs from the moment he had gotten the word which ships would accompany JOHNSTON on her journey, and the European liner could outrun all but the fastest warships with its massive acceleration. Back in her heyday she had been a record holder for several lines between Earth and some of the colonies, something commemorated by bronze plaques adorning the corridors Captain Beaufort and Commander Ranaissa now walked. Between these, the stale air he and Therese breathed as they walked along, lights above flashing into existence along their path and shutting down again behind them the ship had the eerie feel of one of the ghost ships Beaufort's grandfather used to scare him with when he was still a little boy.
The truth, he knew, was a bit less romantic. Even with the vast advances in energy generation that had happened ever since the invention of the steam engine a thousand years ago, it was simple prudence to conserve energy wherever one could. The air was stale because the air scrubbers were offline in parts of the ship that saw little use. The lights flashed on and off again because they were triggered by motion sensors. No ghosts, just technology.
They took an elevator to a place a dozen decks upwards, guided by the ship's computers. Two EMC marines – the correct designation would have been Naval Infantry Troopers – wearing body armor and full harnesses under open helmets snapped to attention when they entered. The same scene repeated itself when the lift stopped and ejected Beaufort and Ranaissa into a wide hall.
The two stepped into the twilight, and diodes in the ceiling at least two meters above their heads blinked into action, showering them with a soft light. Nearly a hundred paces away four people stood waiting next to a table and a set of chairs under a cone of much harsher light. That's where they needed to be. Their eyes still adjusting to the changes in brightness, Beaufort spotted a label on a nearby marble-style pillar that read Panorama Deck 2. He squinted his eyes and looked to each side of the elevator. The darkness around him, amplified by the lights above, nearly hid the sight. But a hundred and fifty meters to each side the deck didn't end in solid metal plating, but in armorplast, a transparent wall running alongside the ship's port-side and starboard hull for nearly half its length.
The knowledge made the portly man feel strangely naked. Windows, in the broadest sense of the word, were a structural weakness on every space-faring vessel, and a feeling in his not insubstantial gut told him a design like this was a disaster waiting to happen. A panorama deck, probably used as a ball room, restaurant and casino, stuffed with thousands of people at peak times... All it needed was a single blown window and they'd surely all die. But the STAR OF GRANADA had operated for longer than he had been alive without a single casualty, and the armorplast was said to be tough enough to withstand the impact of micro-asteroids at speeds of tens of thousands of kilometers per hours.
Therese Ranaissa seemed to share his thoughts as he caught her gazing doubtfully into the twilight.
They arrived at the cone of light and came to attention, using the brief pause to get a first look at the other officers.
Wearing scarlet-trimmed, collar-less khaki tailcoats over white shirts and khaki trousers stuffed into polished black laced boots the two Alliance navy officers were as distinct from each other as day and night. The older one sported a twirled mustache and was small and dark-skinned, probably hailing from the Pakistani or Indian territories. The younger one towered over him, broad-shouldered and dark-haired with a Northeast Asian look to him.
The two Euro officers were equally distinct from one another. Wearing the white uniform of the medical corps, with the a red winged caduceus embroidered on the right side of the chest, a more than two meters tall black man of unascertainable age, his eyes replaced by cybernetic implants, stood waiting next to an only slightly smaller, pale woman with a grandmotherly look to her face, who wore the peaked gray cap and plain uniform of the C.M.M., the Confederate Merchant Marine.
She returned the two Union officers' salute, then extended her hand with a smile.
“Captain Beaufort, Commander Ranaissa, welcome aboard the STAR OF GRANADA. I'd say, before we start, introductions are in order. I'm Captain Annegret Summers, the CO of this ship for the duration of our mission. With me is Surgeon Commander Jean Bakop,” the tall, white-clad man tilted his head slightly in what might have gone through as a nod, “who is in charge of the humanitarian aspects of the evacuation.”
“A pleasure,” Beaufort shook the offered hand and moved to the next pair.
“Commander Subhash Kapila, CO of the Long March 46-class missile destroyer No. 721,” the small man's handshake was firm. His eyes studied Beaufort and Ranaissa intently. “My executive officer, Lieutenant-Commander Jin-ho Kim.”
After the introductions were done Captain Summers ushered them to a conference table and a set of chairs that stood just outside the cone of light. Against the vast emptiness of the deck around them the arrangement had a slightly surreal air to it. A silver tray holding real porcelain cups and a pot of coffee stood in one corner and the European CO poured each of them a cup of the steaming liquid.
“The boons of commandeering an old liner are that sometimes they hold treasures equally as old,” she smiled and held her cup with both her hands. “I'd say now that we're all settled we might just as well get down to business. I'm not giving away any secrets when I say that each of us has been handed a less than ideal task pretty much on the fly. My crew restored the STAR to full functionality more or less during the trip, with as much help from Surgeon Commander Bakop's people as they could offer. Still, I can say we're about as ready as you can get a ship of her age. Not that the ah, should I say, rather sudden schedule has helped anyone of us, I presume,” Summers cheerfully took a sip from her cup and sighed. “Ah, now that's some good coffee! So, in summation, we have three ships and crews who usually only see one another from the other end of a targeting sensor, a hasty preparation – if we could even call it that – the barest of objectives and no chance in hell to make things easier by actually learning to work as a team. Is that about right?”
She put her cup down again and focused on each of them in turn. Jean Bakop kept sipping his coffee as if it had merely the temperature of lemonade, not boiling water. The Alliance and Union officers exchanged weary glances.
“I take your awkward silence for acquiescence.” Annegret Summers still looked cheery, but her voice was all business now. “Well, since it seems I've got your full attention, I might as well continue. The STAR OF GRANADA was built to accommodate seven thousand passengers, half of them in first class suites. Bare-boned as she is now we can transport and keep alive around three times as many for a time of five weeks. It won't b
e the Ritz – bunk beds, canned food and emergency rations – but it surely ought to be better than sitting in the line of fire of the Dominion.”
Bakop nodded. The lack of real eyes made his face strangely expressionless. “After that the water filtration and air scrubbers will give up. But for the duration of the mission they should hold. Our field hospital can house and treat around three hundred people simultaneously. We've set up shop in a different part of the ship and have devised a screening procedure for all newcomers to guarantee the segregation of potential plague bearers and those carrying other harmful afflictions. I believe we can process at least two to three hundred people per hour that way.”
“If you need any additional help I'll make sure my medical staff gives you all the support we have to offer,” Beaufort nodded, closely followed by a similar declaration by Commander Subhash Kapila.
“I'll prepare a list and have it ready when we depart,” Bakop said and leaned back.
“So, then, the mission,” Beaufort sighed. “What do we make of it, operationally?”
“Our mandate is rather explicit in its simplicity, ladies and gentlemen: urge the evacuation of our nationals from Tanith, provide assistance to the local authorities in doing so, and avoid hostilities unless we're fired upon. And that's what I intend to do.” Commander Kapila's voice was calm and cold.
“The devil is always in the details, Commander,” Beaufort said pensively and took a sip of coffee, gauging the other man across the lip of the cup. “Since I've got to assume we've all received largely similar mission briefings, we're all equally blind, and simple orders based on shaky data are something I've never been able to stand.” He put the cup back down.
“It's not our place to formulate policy, Captain,” Kapila stressed.
“Indeed, it isn't. And yet we're the ones burdened with enacting it, which means we are also the ones to prepare ourselves for when that, as you framed it so nicely, explicit simplicity meets the chaotic reality,” Beaufort answered. “Since the local authorities haven't provided us with a census we've got no idea how many of our citizens, let alone humans, live on Tanith. We could be talking about a hundred people just as well as about a hundred thousand. And then what? On which criteria do we decide who gets a spot on the STAR and who doesn't? Nationality? I can see that go down really well with the spirit of peace this mission was supposed to create,” he added wryly. “And what about people who aren't citizens but still are humans and want to leave? How much effort are we willing to spend on pushing people to leave based solely on their nationality when there possibly are others on site willing? Aren't we risking losing both by concentrating on just one side?”
“I'm certainly not going to be the one who'll risk being publicly crucified because I left some Alliance citizens behind in order to rescue a bunch of dirty Indies or even aliens.” Subhash Kapila's voice was still level and cool. “Our people are our priority. Everything else should be secondary to our planning. If we cooperate with the local authorities we should be able to organize an orderly evacuation.”
“You mean the same authorities who weren't able to provide us with a list of residents in the first place?” Annegret Summers asked innocently. “The same ones who have to contend with an influx of probably millions of frightened, wounded and half-starved Érenni right about now? Something tells me they won't be overly receptive of our inquiries.” She faced the Alliance Commander. “It's not my style to play devil's advocate, Commander, but Captain Beaufort has expressed what I do believe are valid concerns. Some more coffee? I've got a feeling this might take us a bit longer...”
Toklamakun, Dominion Occupation Authority Orbital Command Post
Early September, 2797 C.E.
A few months ago the orbit of Toklamakun had been the marshaling yard for the Dominion's great offensive. Today, little was left of the euphoria that had held them all in its grip. Today, the space around the dry, dust-covered world was the largest scrapyard in the galaxy. All of the Navy's ten mobile dockyards were present and working day and night, as were the fixed installations the Dominion had established shortly after its conquest of the world below. Even now the Makani, in their work camps, busily exploited what little was left of the planet's natural resources in return for the illusion of their race's continued survival, measured in a ratio of two kilocalories per day per living – and working! – Makani.
Corr'tane didn't really care for the natives unless he used them for his experiments. What he did care about were the hundreds of wrecks and barely flightworthy ships crowding the space around the large command post. He felt as if the first months of combat had almost entirely bled them off the numerical advantage the Navy had been able to amass during the past ten years. He had seen that coming almost from the first day of combat, and in turn had ordered his own forces to salvage every halfway useful hulk after their engagements, regardless of its original owners. The Navy soon would need more ships than the yards at home could supply, and victory didn't care if it was achieved in a vessel that had been built in the Dominion, the Clanholds or the Érenni Republics.
Most other strategoi had scoffed at the idea. Come to think of it, they had scoffed at a lot of things he had had to say after their failed campaign against Akvô. He hadn't made new friends in that meeting; that much he was certain of. But that was the price one had to pay for shattering illusions. Like the one that this was going to be a short war.
He stared out of the wide panorama viewport, lost in thought. Tens of thousands of tugs and repair drones were buzzing around between the wounded ships. Like skyscrapers in space, the mobile dockyards towered over all of them, visible even from a hundred kilometers and more away. Encompassing almost twenty cubic kilometers and massing thirty million tons they were the largest artificial constructs in known space ever to be moved between systems. They shared nothing with the predatory aesthetics of the warships that crowded around them.
Swirling the old, amber brandy in his glass in one hand, the other hand balled into a fist behind his back, Corr'tane's eyes followed the battered hulk of a cruiser as half a dozen tugs pulled it past the station and towards one of the yards. The damage to it didn't give him much hope that more than a handful of the crew had survived its last encounter with the enemy. His face tightened. So much waste...
Turning from the view of the wreckage outside, his eyes pierced the twilight of the large suite he called his own. Captain Pryatan sat in a cushioned leather armchair, a glass of brandy in her hand, too. She studied him curiously.
The two of them got along rather well, Corr'tane had realized. She was intelligent, dutiful, capable, and an independent thinker; a quality he had found to be lacking in too many of her – and his – peers as of late. That she was easy on the eyes was something that only gradually found its way into his focus. He took a sip of the golden liquid. It burned down the back of his throat with sweet intensity, and he momentarily closed his eyes to savor the feeling.
“Isn't it a mystery? Life?”
“Sir?” Pryatan tilted her head.
“The people who made this drink for their own kind evolved on a world close to three hundred light-years away from our own home. Their sun is different from ours. They are herbivores, accustomed to a life by and in the sea. Their bodies have two stomachs; their whole physiology is different from ours. And still, we omnivores who evolved on sunbaked plains over a quite different period of time, can enjoy their neatly distilled drinks, their food even.” He raised his glass. “Life always finds a way, it seems. You know, when I was younger I put all my efforts into unlocking ways to enhance our people's lifespans. I looked for ways to eliminate diseases, to help people.”
Corr'tane stared out at the husks of ships in which thousands had perished. Strangely enough, they symbolized his greatest triumphs, as they had been there when he had unleashed his creations into enemy biospheres. He had twisted his efforts and desires to serve different needs, and he enjoyed the intellectual challenges. “Strange, given what I've been doin
g these past ten years, don't you think? But to master death one needs to find an appreciation for life and its mysteries first.”
Pryatan remained silent and he took another sip of Érenni brandy, closing his eyes again. When he finally exhaled and opened his eyes again his shoulders sagged.
“What a mess,” he sighed wearily, feeling the burden and fatigue of the past months. “No plan survives first contact with the enemy. It's one of the basic tenets of military planning. Or rather, should've been. What a mess,” he repeated, looking over his shoulder at the floating scrapyard. “The biggest offensive in history, the most important task ever to be started for our people, and we've already almost bungled it.”
“Sir?” Pryatan's eyebrows rose in surprise. “We stand deep inside the Clanholds' territories and have almost eliminated the Republics as a nation. With all due respect, sir: that doesn't look like a botched operation to me.”
Corr'tane gave her a tired but appreciative smile. “True, but there are degrees of failure. Our overconfidence has cost us dearly. Too many of our commanders have started to believe the legends of superiority and invincibility our own propaganda has fed our people during the past decade. And you can see the results of that all around us here,” he pointed towards the view port. “Three and a half million dead and twenty-five hundred vessels lost or out of action in the span of five months aren't the signs of a well-executed campaign. Even had we been as successful as our far too optimistic designs had suggested, these kinds of losses should have given us pause. But the reality is worse: even now, with the war still in flux, nobody seems to care!” he scoffed. “Apparently the only way for this to change is to wait until the idiots have all killed themselves in their own little glorious charges, something I couldn't care less about if it wasn't for the thousands of good men and women they'll take with them. Fighters acting as living missile interceptors, headlong attacks into nigh impenetrable defenses; the incompetence is stunning!” He was getting angrier with every sentence and he knew it. It all brought up the memories of his stubborn, stupid sister again!
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