by C. F. Harris
At least his tone was neutral. He had that much control. There was a fine line between resisting command and outright insubordination, and everyone in this command center was an expert at walking that line.
“I believe you have work to do at your station?” I asked.
“What, monitoring the hunks of rock and ice out there that were mapped centuries ago?” he asked. “Some job that is. Everything out there has been on the same path for thousands or millions of years. It’s not like their orbits changed or anything in the last ten minutes.”
I arched an eyebrow. That did come dangerously close to insubordination. They might walk the line, but everyone in this command center knew that I would come down on them with all the authority I had. It might not be much, but it would be enough to severely ruin their next week, at least.
“Right, I’ll get back to my station captain,” he said.
“You will,” I replied. “Monitoring your station is doing your job even if there isn’t necessarily anything out there. You never know when the universe might throw an unpleasant surprise your way.”
I knew a thing or two about the universe throwing unpleasant surprises around. Like finding a full Livisk battlecruiser with the imperial seal emblazoned on the side guarding what should’ve been a backwater station with minimal crew. I still wondered what the hell that cruiser was doing there. What the hell he was doing there.
I shook my head. There I went again thinking of things I couldn’t change, damn it.
I paused and looked at every officer in the command center in turn to make sure the lesson sank in. I wanted it to be absolutely clear that I was talking to all of them, and not just a wayward lieutenant who was more interested in getting his rocks off with the communications officer after his watch was over than he was in actually doing his job.
Everyone turned back to their screens. I knew from experience that it would last for maybe a half hour, tops, before they started relaxing their discipline again. I shuddered to think what the command center looked like when I wasn’t on duty and they really let loose. I wasn’t going to go so far as to check the recordings and reprimand them, though. There was only so far I was willing to go. Especially since doing that would likely leave me without a functional command crew which would have command breathing down my neck from Earth just for doing my job.
They’d done that a lot since I lost my ship. It made it difficult to maintain any sort of discipline when the crew knew I didn’t have any pull back home.
I sighed as I leaned back in my chair. At least that was comfortable. Sort of. It had probably been replaced in at least the past decade.
I looked down at the summary readout on my chair. Everything that was happening on or around the ship was summarized there, and it all amounted to about what it always did out here. Absolutely nothing.
That was the problem being out here in the backwater of the home sector. We were close to home, sure, but we were also paradoxically far enough out in the system that we weren’t anywhere near where the action happened. Closer in near the habitable zones it was all admirals and generals having high level meetings talking about how they planned on prosecuting the seemingly never ending war with the Livisk. That was the fast track to promotion.
Out here guarding humanity from balls of ice and dust leftover from the early days when the solar system first formed? Out here where the most exciting mission was tracking down comet tug captains when they were skirting regulations and throwing their balls of ice into orbits that would come dangerously close to the inhabited worlds on Earth, Mars, or Ganymede?
Yeah, that was the fast track to a career dead end.
“Do you really think it’s necessary to be that hard on them Talia?” a voice whispered from next to me.
I turned to regard Commander Kehn with what I hoped was a baleful stare. Not that it bothered him in the least. He kept up that concerned look, though I knew it was concern for the crew and not for me. Concern that I was being too strict.
“What have I told you about using my first name when we’re on duty?”
“Sorry, captain. I think maybe you’re being a little too hard on them. Look at the monitor. Look at all the information coming in from the sensor sweeps. What do you see out there?”
“Nothing,” I said, clenching my teeth. William was getting close to dangerous territory, and he had to know it.
“Exactly. There’s nothing out there but rocks and chunks of ice. There’s definitely not a Livisk ship out there that will threaten the Sol system. They haven’t made an attack on the home system in decades. They know it’s too hard a nut to crack, so why bother?”
“It wouldn’t be too hard a nut to crack if they ran into us,” I growled just barely above a whisper. I always thought it was unseemly for the command staff to argue in public, and I didn’t want to start that bad habit now. No matter how irritated I got listening to Commander Kehn prattle on about going too hard on such a disgraceful crew.
“Well yes, but that’s not going to happen, so why worry?”
“You’re supposed to back me up on these things, William,” I said.
“And I will, but it’s also my job to point out when I think you’re making a mistake. Nothing’s happening out here. Let these people enjoy the last few months of their fleet careers on life support before they die out,” he replied.
I closed my eyes and suppressed a growl. I wasn’t supposed to let emotion rule me when I was in the command chair. A good captain was cool under pressure. Calculating. A good captain didn’t give in to the desire to claw at her subordinates when they were insubordinate. That sort of angry outburst and inability to watch my tongue probably had as much to do with landing me in this backwater as losing a ship. This backwater that was all the more frustrating because it was so tantalizingly close to the shining center of the Combined Galactic Fleet universe.
I didn’t like being reminded that I was in a dead end. This is not what I wanted when I got into the command track at the academy. Reminding me of that was a good way to get extra work. I opened my eyes and looked down at the readout. I saw something nice and big off in the distance that would do nicely.
“Unknown object spotted at ninety degrees x-axis, seventy degrees Y-axis, forty degrees Zed. Weapons, I need you to calculate a firing solution for the unknown bogey. Navigation, work out a course that will take us around the object allowing for maximum observation opportunity while we decide what to do with it. Communications, prepare hails in all known languages and prepare emergency beacon torpedoes to be sent out in case things go pear shaped.”
I barked out the orders in rapid fire. I didn’t want them to think these were orders they could ignore. The command center crew had been known to do that when they were feeling particularly salty and they knew I was setting them up with a drill.
As it was all I got was a collective groan that I decided to ignore and a couple of rolled eyes from officers who thought I wasn’t paying attention. I died a little inside every time I saw something like that. We were in the home system. We were supposed to be the Fleet’s finest. There was a war on out there, and I was supposed to be surrounded by people who at least had a little warrior’s spirit in them.
Not the dregs of the Fleet that had been assigned to this duty because the higher ups knew there wasn’t a chance anyone working this detail would actually be pulled into combat.
“Plot laid in, captain,” Olsen said from his station. “Moving us on a course around the object.”
“Firing solution locked in, captain,” Lieutenant Commander Smith said from her station above and slightly behind my command chair. “Ready to destroy it if it shows any sign of trouble.”
I pursed my lips together. Something told me that wasn’t the case. I’d seen her proficiency marks when it came to using these older weapons systems. They weren’t great. Shooting at an ancient comet that was on a path around the sun that took thousands of years might actually do her some good.
The object final
ly came within visual range and the image popped up on several screens around the command center including the display on my chair. It was unremarkable. A bit of ice and dirt that had been floating out here for billions of years. One of millions of chunks that had been out here on a long lazy course around the sun for that long. Well it was time to do something about that.
I pulled up a part of the system that only I had access to. I did a couple of taps on the large object and a moment later it lit up with various readings as though it was a Livisk warship. A moment later blasts of energy lanced out from the thing on all the view screens and I was gratified to hear a couple of the command center crew cry out in surprise.
Of course there was no impact as the energy blasts “hit” the ship because there were no energy blasts in the first place. It was all a ghost in the machine. It was all me using my overrides to make it seem like there was something dangerous out there. A little toy that was used at captain’s discretion for training purposes.
I looked around the command center. Everyone stared at me in annoyance.
“If that had been a Livisk ship rather than a chunk of rock? What would have happened then?” I asked.
“We’d be dead,” William muttered.
“That’s right. And that’s why we always need to be prepared. Just because it’s been a couple of decades since the Livisk attacked the home system doesn’t mean they won’t do it again. If that was a real attack we’d be dead and we’d deserve it.”
William looked at me and arched an eyebrow. It was obvious he didn’t approve of me getting so angry, but I didn’t need him to approve. He’d seen me manipulating the sensors. He knew what was coming before it happened, but at least he’d played along.
I hit a button to lock out my chair. I was irritated. I needed to blow off some steam before I got too angry. Before I lost it in front of the crew. I was not going to let that happen again. That’s what got me here in the first place, damn it.
“Commander Kehn, you have the conn,” I said.
“Where are you going captain?” he asked.
“Down to the recreation area. I need to work off some pent up energy. Be sure to notify me if a comet runs off course or we get notice that we need to arrest some daring ice miner who’s skimming enough off the company books to get noticed.”
“Will do, captain,” Kehn said.
I turned and headed for the exit. If I said anything else it wasn’t going to be pretty. Better to leave things as they were. I almost told them to run a simulation of an attack while I was away but didn’t bother. They wouldn’t bother and then I’d have to get even more worked up.
I stalked down the corridors to the recreation room, and any crew who saw me very quickly got out of my way. Oh to be out among the stars where the real action happened and not stuck out here with the dregs of the Fleet protecting the home system from an attack that probably was never coming.
4: Preparation
Jorav:
I sat on my command throne and looked at the hum of activity all around me. This was a good crew. This was a good ship. It was a pity that my disgrace had brought them all out here with me, but there wasn’t anything I could do about that now.
I stared at the screen being projected from one of the external monitors. A star glowed off in the distance. Only slightly brighter than all the other stars in the area to indicate we were much closer. Nothing about the star indicated that it was the home to the mortal enemy of the Livisk.
“Are you detecting anything on their emergency channels?” he asked, turning to the communications officer.
“No indication that they’ve detected us, General,” he said. “If they’ve picked us up then they’re lying in wait rather than letting us know.”
I leaned back and adjusted myself. Very interesting. If I were the commander running defense of the home system, a position I would likely never ascend to now thanks to my unendurable shame, then I would allow someone to think they were in the clear. That they hadn’t been detected. I wouldn’t spring my trap until the very moment my enemy thought he was victorious.
I could only assume that my human opponents would think in much the same way. They were crafty, these humans. That was part of the reason why the Livisk Ascendancy had to be so wary of the humans. They were crafty. It was entirely possible we were about to run straight into a trap.
“Everything is prepared at weapons,” a voice called out.
“Damage control reports ready to go,” another voice rang out.
I grunted. I wanted to smile, but I couldn’t show emotion like that in front of the men. I was supposed to be the stoic general. Assured of victory and ready to strike fear into the hearts of our enemies. I wasn’t supposed to smile because of the pride I felt at how well my men ran the ship. Generals didn’t show emotion. That was how this worked. The men drew their strength from me just as I drew my strength from their confidence and the way they carried on in their jobs in a manner that made me swell with pride.
This was what it meant to be in command. This was what it meant to be a General of the Livisk Ascendency. And soon enough I would teach that lesson to the humans through sheer brute force.
I looked at the instruments again. I could see the telltale signs of chatter on all bands of the spectrum from radio to the hyperspace bands. Humanity’s tendency to broadcast themselves indiscriminately into the cosmos had been the thing that originally drew the imperial eye towards their system.
Would that we had never tried conquering them, but that was a decision made long ago by a different emperor long dead. It was too late to second guess my brother’s decisions now. Particularly not since my disgrace.
The star didn’t look all that different from our own. Of course that was the illusion of distance. The star was larger and burned brighter and hotter than our own, though the view from their home world would feel about the same as what we had on Livisk, I imagined. The habitable zone was the habitable zone no matter what star system you were in.
I grunted. This star would burn itself out in several billion years. It almost would have been better to let it burn out, though of course that wasn’t a real solution. Humanity’s rapid expansion meant they would be a problem for us to deal with long before nature burned their home world.
“I want everyone to stand ready,” I said, flipping a switch so that my voice was broadcast across the entire ship. “We don’t know what defenses the humans have at their disposal, and I don’t intend for this raid to end because we weren’t prepared for a surprise attack from one of their wily captains. Remember that the humans are masters of deception and surprise and we may just get out of this with our hides intact and some spoils of war!”
The men around me in the command center stood a little straighter at that. Blue skinned warriors with tattoos running up and down their bodies denoting their rank, they were all ready for the dangers. All had volunteered for this out of a love for their general.
Again it was almost enough to bring me to an unseemly show of emotion in the middle of the command center. Almost.
I stared forward at the monitor again. As I did the screen suddenly lit up with all sorts of electronic signatures. Something was out there at the edge of the star system, and it had suddenly moved to all sorts of active scanning via the hyperspace and FTL bands. I cursed as I slammed my hand down on the display, not that it would do any good.
“Active scanning on hyperspace bands General,” the ELINT officer called out, his voice calm despite the fact that the outer part of the human star system that was supposed to be filled with nothing but ancient rock and ice had suddenly lit up with the distinct signature of a ship.
The humans were out here, and if that sudden active pinging was any indication then they knew we were out here as well.
“I’ve isolated the signal sir,” the ELINT officer said. “Seems to be a human cruiser. Unable to determine size and complement from the signals, but it can’t be that big based on how much power it’s putting out.�
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“That or the wily human captain is only putting out at partial power in an attempt to lure us in,” I growled. “Never forget that they are notoriously tricky.”
That was a lesson I’d learned the hard way. The lesson that cost me my wife, my sister, and my honor. The lesson I was attempting to atone for today.
“I have a solution on the ship’s position,” navigation said.
“Sir, for the moment it appears they’re not firing their scanners in our direction. If they’re looking for us then they’re looking in the wrong direction,” ELINT said.
I smiled. “So they know we’re out here but they don’t know where we are. Odd, that, but I’m not going to pass up an opportunity like this. Spool up the FTL and take us into hyperspace. Prepare for battle soldiers!”
I gripped my command chair and felt the familiar hum as the ship purred underneath me. The hum was palpable and everyone around me tensed. The screens around us went blank and then we were operating on scanners alone. I still hated how we were blinded in hyperspace, but then again I suppose it was difficult to see anything when there wasn’t actually anything to see in the space between real space.
At least that’s what the science types told me. I’d never been one for understanding all that unless it could be used to wage war.
The faster than light trip was much shorter this time around than on the flight out here to the human home system. Instruments came back on and I saw a human cruiser out there slicing between the stars with its lights running. Sloppy, that. The human star was still far enough out that it didn’t look much brighter than the other stars, and there certainly wouldn’t be enough light for us to see the ship visually.
Then again none of that mattered. We had the ship in sight in our scanners, and that was all that was really needed.
“Status report ELINT,” I barked out, the rush of battle pumping through my veins. This was when you knew you were truly alive, out here in the space between the stars proving yourself and risking certain death in the cold of the void.