The Mutineer's Daughter

by Chris Kennedy

  The only problem was no one had shown up. Not one frigate, not one rescue cutter, not even a curious merchant, much less the squadron or strike group they expected. After their carrier dropped off the ground assault company and left the Annapolis behind to oversee and help with fire support, their orders had been clear: take the colony and hold it as long as possible, but be ready to pull out quickly when the inevitable Alliance force appeared.

  After more than a month in operation, though, their ground troops began wondering if the assault was going to become a full-on occupation. They had sufficient firepower and supplies to sustain a long siege, and the colonists were mostly passive rather than rebellious. In orbit, the crew of the Annapolis had a running pool on who would arrive first: an Alliance Navy fleet, their own resupply forces, or a government bean-counter trying to collect taxes after they established a permanent residence.

  Their answer finally appeared in a burst of blue Cerenkov radiation and gravity waves—but it was not what any of them anticipated.

  It was a lone Alliance destroyer, the ACV Puller.

  * * *

  The Puller returned to ordinary baryonic reality an instant after leaving it in its previous system 6.2 light-years away. In the intervening moment of non-time, the destroyer had picked up a slow yaw, pitch, and roll, which caused them to feel a sudden jerk and increasing nausea. On their screens, the static star field of one firmament was instantly replaced by a freewheeling, unknown starscape.

  “Stabilizing,” the helmsman announced from the bridge, unbidden.

  Benno nodded, realized the helmsman could not see him with his full vacuum suit helmet on, and keyed his mic. “Roger. Navigation, report when you get our fix.”

  “Calculating nav fix now, Skipper,” the young quartermaster third class answered.

  Benno looked around the bridge. Like him, they were all dressed in full vac armor, tied into ship’s air, but otherwise isolated from each other. This was not the norm. The chances of a bad jump were significantly higher than the possibility they would re-enter normality inside another significant mass. Thus, most times when ships activated their DEC drives, they did so in regular shipboard attire.

  But this time was different. This time they were dropping into unknown enemy territory.

  The chances of an enemy being in weapons range when they re-emerged were extremely small but, depending on how many ships the Terrans had, the odds couldn’t be ignored. So, for this transit, they had weapons hot, passive sensors at max sensitivity, and active sensors at the ready. They were prepared for their hulls to be pierced and evacuated of all air.

  On the central, shared display screen, the now-static, unfamiliar star field began to fill in with pale, white constellation lines. Other colored vectors appeared, swooping through the compressed 360-degree view, signifying moving objects and celestial orbits. Electromagnetic energy sources were highlighted, along with counter-detection ranges and possible threat sectors around each one. Until the computers figured out what might be a threat or what was likely benign, it all shone in shades of lurid, ‘hostile’ red.

  “Sir, we have a fix. We are in the Gliese 902 system, positioned 47 degrees above the ecliptic, near the orbit of and preceding the third planet by approximately 55 degrees, 0.4 AU from the central star. We have an inward-falling vector aimed toward Gliese at 7 kilometers per second, no orbital component yet. Paradiso is the fourth planet out from Gliese and is currently 0.6 AU from us.”

  Benno nodded. In their transit, they had re-emerged in the inner system, one planet in from Paradiso, headed toward the star—a not-uncommon result during medium distance transits, though being so far above the plane in which the planets revolved was unusual. “Very well. Give me course options: one for a least-time fast fly-by of Paradiso, and one for a zero-relative-velocity/zero-distance arrival in low orbit around the world. Coordinate with CIC and brief me.”

  He turned in his seat, still restrained by a harness so he would not float out. It was the CO’s old acceleration couch. He felt like a fraud in that role, but someone had to sit there… “Combat, Bridge,” he said into his suit mic, automatically connecting him with the Combat Information Center. “I need course options for getting to Paradiso. Break. Also waiting for a tactical report. We only have a few minutes before anything in orbit over Paradiso picks up our transit signature.”

  When they transitioned from faster than light travel, there was a signature burst of blue Cerenkov radiation—the shockwave effect produced by any object moving faster than the speed of light through a medium—and a sharp, distinct pulse of gravity waves, both of which propagated outward at the speed of light to announce that something had transited. It was impossible to mask. Thus, no ship could arrive by DEC transit stealthily. Sensors would key on their emergence point, followed immediately by infrared finger-printing and electro-optical passive targeting. There was almost no hiding in space, especially not for an invading party.

  Their only advantage was that their signature appeared in one spot, then moved outward to alert the rest of the system, light speed lag growing more significant as the distance increased. But the photons emitted or reflected by defenders already in the system had already been propagating outward before the invaders’ arrival and were there regardless, available for view and analysis immediately. Not that it mattered much when detection ranges were likely to be far, far beyond weapons range, but the Puller would have a few minutes warning of where the Terrans were before the Turds knew they had arrived in the system.

  “Bridge, CIC, you should see recommended courses on the fusion plot now,” Operations Specialist Chief Amir Rajput, the Tactical Action Officer in CIC, said over the comm. Indeed, an array of labeled, blue, dashed lines appeared on the central screen. Some made a long, looping curve around the system, halting in orbit around Paradiso. Others looked almost straight at this scale, turning sharply at the planet, then zooming off past it. At the same time, many of the emission sources went from red to yellow, minimizing on the screen. Two contacts remained an angry, pulsing red, however. “Sir, we’ve also characterized the emitters in the system. We’ve declared commercial or Alliance emitters as unknown, assumed neutral. We have also fingerprinted two likely Terran sources, but only in the vicinity of Paradiso.”

  “Bridge, aye. Yes, we see them. It looks like one is on the planet and one is up in orbit. Any details?” Benno asked. The system had found no threat emitters near them. That was a relief, but it was too early to remove their helmets. One never knew what surprises might lay in waiting, cold and dormant until they set them off inadvertently.

  The TAO answered, “On the planet, we see Turd air & space defense radar, but no targeting sensors yet. If they have an anti-orbit missile battery, it’s in passive mode right now. We’re too far out to discriminate between small IR contacts in the air or orbit and the heat load in the atmosphere, but they could be there. We’re picking up encrypted comms and data chatter on known Terran freqs.”

  Benno nodded. “Roger. And their ship?”

  “Yes, sir. We can’t confirm who or what it is via IR or sensors right now. They aren’t maneuvering, so there’s no way to get kinematics, and they likely have a low waste-heat load, with their reactor in a housekeeping power state. But they have long-range search radar equipped on their frigates, destroyers, and light cruisers. It’s probably somebody like us.”

  “Okay, Chief Rajput,” Benno replied. “The lighter and smaller, the better. At least it’s the only one we see. Even if it’s a half-again or double-our-size light cruiser, we still have a shot at winning. If it was a squadron, I don’t know what we’d do.”

  Benno had spent the last week studying as they moved from system to system, skirting the major Alliance worlds where their presence might lead to too many questions. Pained by his lack of preparedness to direct the upcoming battle, he dove head first into the tactical employment library maintained in the XO’s stateroom, studying everything he could get his hands on and role-playing engage
ments in his head.

  Of course, the more he learned, the more apparent it was that he was out of his depth. He had therefore stacked the deck as much as he could, putting Chief Rajput in charge in CIC, along with other tactical employment heavy hitters. The Officer of the Deck’s chair on one side of the CO’s chair was empty. Benno had taken the Deck as OOD, and the ship answered to him directly. Chief Dufresne was in her now usual spot at his side in the XO’s seat. The Master at Arms chief would have little to add to their success in the battle, given her training, but she was a reliable and loyal presence, and that counted for a lot. Still, even with the right people supporting him, as the XO had advised, Benno knew he was operating at a disadvantage.

  Most aristos entering the military via the Academy on Centralis, or one of the many university training cadres, were steeped in tactical training, history, and logistics. They were brought up from nothing to become the paragons of academic tactical know-how and zero actual experience that typified your average ensign. Later, as they got to know and lead their enlisted crews, and they learned the real depth of complexity, insane perversity, and bloody-minded oddity of reality, they remolded their book learning and naiveté into something resembling wisdom and competence. This was just in time to take command themselves and realize they still did not know everything. Benno imagined it was much the same in the Terran Union Navy.

  He was a different case. He came up in the service from nothing, learning the lessons about the strangeness and irregularities of the Navy. He learned there were standard operating procedures that had to be followed to keep from damaging equipment or injuring people worth much more than their sorry necks. SOPs were written in the blood of past mistakes, but they were edited to apply broadly to more than the specific circumstances they had been written to avoid. Then, they were rewritten by civilians and retirees much removed from the original problem, overwritten to conform to and incorporate other lessons learned, then tailored so they—maybe—applied to you and your ship. SOPs were the starting point from which every sailor deviated, even though they were never, ever, ever supposed to deviate from them. Over time, he had learned tactics and plans were developed much the same way.

  Aristo cadets and ensigns learned Sun Tzu and Von Clausewitz, formations and weapons employment first, then they learned how to make them work. Benno had learned early how to make things work, then discovered later why they were designed the way they were and how they were intended to be employed. Essentially, he had developed wisdom before knowledge, rather than the other way around. He was a generalist now applying himself to a set of specifics with which he had little experience, going against masters of the details that might or might not have the battle experience to inform and shape their competence.

  Only time would tell which method would be victorious.

  * * *

  “Transit alert!” the Terran destroyer sensor operator cried. Moments later, the General Quarters alarm sounded throughout the ship.

  Within 60 seconds, Commander Steve Rzasa—captain of TNV Annapolis—flew into the bridge and went straight to his seat in front of the shared data tank. A single orange triangle pulsed in the inner system. “Report!” he demanded.

  His Officer of the Deck, Lieutenant Junior Grade Ted Nulty, spoke up. “Sir, we have a single, point-source emergence in-system. Nothing else has shown since we picked up the Cerenkov pulse. Grav burst analysis indicates we’re dealing with a vessel near our own mass, with a slight red-shift, heading away from us. The ship has come about and stabilized, but we haven’t been able to capture enough data for kinematics yet.”

  “Caught you napping, Ted?”

  “No, sir! We slewed sensors in time, but their position didn’t let us get a down-the-throat image of their thrusters. We picked up their spin rates, but don’t have enough IR or thrust data to go with it to calculate their mass distribution or agility.”

  Rzasa smiled to soften his inadvertent chastisement. “I was mostly kidding, OOD. So, we don’t know who or what it is yet. Roger. We’ll stay at GQ for now. It’ll at least wake everyone up. Call down to the garrison and tell them to stand by for possible incursion, but I’m less worried about one ship. Probably a merchant or supply vessel. When the Apes do show, it won’t be anything less than a full squadron.”

  “What if this is a scout, though?”

  His captain shrugged. “Not much we can do about that. We don’t have enough assets in system to stop any scout outside our immediate vicinity. They could maneuver for jump long before we got to them. Let’s just wait and see. We have our orders. Just getting the Apes to respond to all our incursions is enough to weaken their numbers, brunt their assault, and sow sufficient discord at home. If they show with sufficient force to overwhelm us, we pull chocks and get out of here. We who flee may fight again another day.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  * * *

  “No movement yet, Benno,” Chief Rajput called up from CIC.

  There had been sufficient time for the Terran destroyer to see them. The ship in orbit around Paradiso had not left orbit, though they had brought their reactor up from maintenance state to full power. They took a bit longer to accomplish that than the Puller crew might have, but whether that meant they were less practiced, less capable, or just more relaxed and assured, Benno didn’t know.

  He nodded and keyed his mic. “Roger that, TAO. Guess we’ll make the first move. Let’s start off with the orbital Paradiso intercept trajectory with full burn. We can alter as they react.” That maneuver would have them apply a full gravity of thrust the entire way, with maximum velocity at the midpoint, whereupon they would turn about and accelerate in the opposite direction for the rest of the trip, at essentially “zero” range, “zero” velocity, in low orbit over the planet.

  “Zero/zero Paradiso, standard burn, aye aye, Bridge.” Instantly, they felt their normal weight return as the drives expended energy to turn dark matter to hot reaction mass. “Bridge, estimate making orbit over Paradiso in approximately 43 hours.”

  Ellen Dufresne laid her hand on his arm. “Sir, we have time. Recommend securing from GQ, rotating everyone out for chow and sleep, and getting back on station tomorrow. Unless and until the situation changes, the Terrans won’t be able to touch us for another 21 hours, near the max-speed turnover point.”

  She was right. “Okay, Chief. Let’s start normal watch rotations and return to GQ in approximately 18 hours, after third section comes off. Unless something changes.” It felt odd to be forced to relax the crew when everyone could see where they were going and knew where the fight would go down long before it happened, but that was the nature of space warfare at such extreme ranges. No one could maintain perfect vigilance for so long before a battle.

  Benno unstrapped, removed his helmet, and turned the deck over to Chief Dufresne. As he left the bridge, he jumped slightly. Outside the door, Ortiz waited in his own space suit, helmet held at his side, exuding an air of nonchalance. Benno nodded to him. “Raoul, how are you?”

  Ortiz shrugged. “I’m good enough. I’ll be better if we survive this battle with the Turds.”

  Benno scowled and stomped past him.

  Ortiz followed along, pleading. “Wait, wait, wait. Just hold on, Benno. That wasn’t a dig on you. Okay, we keep on clashing, and, I’ll admit, I’ve been a thorn in your side. That’s because you and I have a fundamental disagreement on how we should be approaching this. But I lost that battle, Benno, and here we are, and it’s in my own best interests to make sure we make it out alive. So, I’m offering up my services.”

  Benno stopped. He turned and looked at Ortiz, an incredulous look on his face. “Your services? What services would those be, exactly?”

  “Next to you, I’m the best Fire Controlman on this here tub. Plus, the crew talks. We notice. Everyone has seen you walking around the ship reading those tactical doctrine books. And now we’re about to walk into battle with you holding down the deck, directing the battle, and trying not to shit your own pa
nts. You’ve been surrounding yourself with talent, so I should be on that list. I’m OOD qualified, so give me the Deck when we go back on.”

  “You’re a good FC1, Raoul, but you’re also a pain in my ass. Why wouldn’t I just have you run maintenance, where your current GQ station is?”

  Ortiz smiled. “Last time I was on battle maintenance, I ducked out and tried to steal an escape pod. This way you get my skills, and you can keep an eye on me.”

  “And you get to tell your cronies that, assuming we survive, you led the battle and you’re who should be in charge.”

  “C’mon, Benno. Not everything I do is some calculation or power-play. I want to survive. That’s always been my only motivator. And you need someone assisting you directly who knows weapons employment. You’ve stocked CIC, but on the bridge, you just have junior watches and Chief Dufresne. She’s an excellent, loyal chief petty officer, but she can’t do squat for fighting this ship. I can. Take my offer, sir.”

  Benno looked at him, his eyes narrowing.

  * * *

  “They’re coming at us, sir, thrusting at one g. Based on the course, I’d say they intend to flip at the halfway point and make orbit. Still no comms and passive sensors only, so no fingerprinting the unit, but based on kinematics, thrust-to-acceleration profile, heat load, and what we can see of her aspect, I’d say it was an Alliance Navy destroyer.”

  Commander Rzasa shook his head. “No scout would do that. They’d stay as far out as possible. But I can’t imagine the Apes sending just one ship in after us. It makes no sense, especially not with parity in hulls or size. That’s just a bad strategy. Too much of a crap-shoot.”