by Marko Kloos
I sit down and bring up my console screens, as pointless as it is without any tactical assets in the air. Most of our drop ships are back on Ottawa. There’s a flight of four ships coming up from Arcadia and almost in the docking pattern, but nothing else is showing in orbit other than the fleet anchorage and its docked ships. None of the situational screens in front of me give any hints about the nature of the emergency. All ship systems are in the green, the plot shows only NAC ships, and we’re not at combat stations, so the problem is somewhere in that wide swath of possible scenarios between “utter calm” and “Lankies in weapons range.”
Ten minutes later, the drop ships are on the deck, and the orbital plot is clear of traffic.
“All air assets are back in the barn, ma’am,” the flight-ops officer says. “All personnel present and accounted for.”
“Helm, bring us about for a least-time course to the Alcubierre point,” Colonel Yamin says. “Go to full military power.”
I try to not hold my breath when she picks up her headset and puts it on.
“1MC line.”
“You are go on 1MC, ma’am.”
“Attention, all hands,” Colonel Yamin says. She pauses and takes a deep breath before continuing.
“I regret having to cancel shore liberty for all personnel, but we have an emergency. Two hours ago, the cruiser Durandal entered the Leonidas system and transmitted a Fleet priority message to us directly. Three days ago, a NAC Fleet supply ship, the Concord, entered the solar system to relay an emergency message from the colony of New Svalbard. It seems that after three years of relative quiet, our enemy is once again on the offensive. Concord reports that the long-range sensors at New Svalbard picked up several approaching seed ships with direct course for the colony. Concord was in orbit above New Svalbard at the time and immediately did a hard burn for the Alcubierre node to send warning to the rest of the Fleet. Their escort, the destroyer Michael P. Murphy, remained behind to defend the colony despite orders from the task force commander to remain with Concord and vacate the system.”
I have a sudden and heavy sense of dread in the pit of my stomach. A single destroyer doesn’t stand much of a chance against a Lanky seed ship, never mind several of them. If that action took place three days ago, that destroyer is likely a debris field by now. I bring up the data sheet for the Michael P. Murphy: “BLUE-CLASS DESTROYER, 9,500 TONS, TROOP COMPLEMENT 358 OFFICERS AND ENLISTED.”
“I will get right down to it,” Colonel Yamin continues. “The Fleet has ordered us to return to the solar system and immediately proceed to the Alcubierre transition point at best speed. We are to enter the Fomalhaut system and engage and destroy any Lanky presence there. There are more than three thousand civilians remaining on New Svalbard, along with a battalion of SI in the garrison at Camp Frostbite. They will hold the line while they wait for the Fleet to send reinforcements, and we will make sure they will not wait and fight in vain.”
She pauses again, and I imagine that the total silence in CIC is echoed in every other compartment of the ship.
“Ottawa is the only ship on the board right now that can stand up to Lanky ships in battle. Arkhangelsk can’t make Alcubierre journeys, and she’s tasked with the protection of Earth. None of the other Avengers are fully ready yet. So this is all on us. If we don’t come to their aid, the colony will fall, and the SI troops on that moon will be wiped out. We will come to their aid, because that’s exactly what this ship was intended to do. I realize that this is one hell of an end to a shakedown cruise, and I wish we had a few more weeks to tighten the bolts, but almost four thousand lives depend on us having our act together. We’ll just have to accelerate the honeymoon a little.”
Colonel Yamin studies the plot in front of her while she is speaking, and she looks as grim as I’ve ever seen her. I remember that she was in command of a cruiser at the First Battle of Mars, when the Lankies jumped the orbital garrison and wiped out most of the Fleet ships there. I don’t have to wonder if the ghosts of that event are still haunting her sleep regularly.
“When we get to the solar system, we will rendezvous with a Fleet supply ship to take on fuel and offload the civilian contractors and Eurocorps trainees. Once we have topped off our tanks and restocked our necessary supplies, we will use a shortest-time trajectory to the Alcubierre node. None of the other ships in the Fleet can keep pace with Ottawa at top speed, so we will be entirely on our own. But that is what this ship was built for, after all. Use the transit time to train hard. The next time you hear the Combat Stations alert, it will not be a drill.”
The situational plot in front of me mirrors the tactical view on the holotable display in the center of CIC. I don’t feel any acceleration, but Ottawa is already burning hard to leave orbit. Our course trajectory curves right back to the Alcubierre node a few hours away. We are heading back to the solar system with our foot firmly on the accelerator.
“I have utter confidence in this ship and her crew. Three years ago, Agincourt and Arkhangelsk destroyed several seed ships in direct combat. Ottawa has twice as much firepower and five times the armor protection of that class. This ship was made to blow apart seed ships and kill Lankies. So let’s go do just that. CO out.”
Colonel Yamin taps the side of her headset and pulls it off her head. It was a good motivational speech, but I can tell from her expression that she may not feel quite as confident as she just sounded. But the CO’s worries are her own, and I look away and focus on my screens again before she can notice that I’m looking at her.
“Six more months,” she says to the XO.
“Ma’am?”
“Six more months, and we would have had another Avenger ready. I’d love to have Washington on our starboard when we get to Fomalhaut. Hell, even Moskva or Beijing.” She sighs and shakes her head. “Well, no point standing here and wishing, I guess. Put a Ready Five on the deck, nuclear-strike package. I want all departments reporting combat ready by 1800. Let’s go to war.”
We enter the Alcubierre chute to the solar system three hours and thirteen minutes later at maximum safe speed. In regular space, Ottawa is several times faster than the next-fastest ship in the Fleet, and she can keep up her full-throttle burn for much longer than any other ship because of her multiple reactors and immense fuel tanks. But an Alcubierre transition can’t be accelerated, so we’ll be in transit back to the solar system for almost twenty-four hours, a whole day lost to the physics of interstellar travel.
My watch in CIC ends at 1800. Before I gather my stuff and leave the station, I send a message to all special tactics team members to call them in for a briefing in two hours. Then I leave CIC to get a shower and some chow. The knowledge of our upcoming battle adds to the discomfort I’m already feeling from the Alcubierre transition, which makes even the good food in the officers’ wardroom taste more bland somehow.
“Well, I have good news for those of you looking to add to your combat drop total,” I say when everyone is assembled in the briefing room. Some of the troops chuckle at this, but the younger staff NCOs can’t work up more than nervous smiles.
“Those of you who have dropped against Lankies before, you know the dance. If New Svalbard is crawling with Lankies already and we get the seed ships out of the way, we’ll most likely do a pod launch. There’s a garrison on the ground, but the Lankies were on approach to the moon three days ago already, and I don’t know how long the battalion at Camp Frostbite will hold out against landings from multiple seed ships.” I don’t mention Michael P. Murphy, because everyone but a starry-eyed optimist already knows the destroyer is gone by now if they stood and fought.
“Question, sir.”
“Yes, Master Sergeant Garcia.”
“Are we keeping the same unit assignments we had for the exercise drop? Might be good to drop with company sections we’re already familiar with.”
“I don’t see any problem with that, unless any of you have objections.”
The STT members all murmur their assent.
“Well, that’s decided, then. Company assignments remain the same as before. Who here has been on New Svalbard before?” I ask.
Only Master Sergeant Taggart’s hand goes up.
“I did a rotation at Camp Frostbite when I was right out of Combat Controller School, sir.”
“So you know the environment. For the rest of you—picture Antarctica, only slightly less hospitable in the winter.”
I bring up some orbital recon pictures of the SI facility at Camp Frostbite and the nearby town of New Longyearbyen.
“The good news is that this is the most fortified colony we have out there, from a physical point of view. Most of their essential infrastructure is underground. They built it that way because of the weather, not because they expected Lankies at the time. But everything there is built tough. The admin building is the only Class Five colonial hard shelter in existence, for example. That’ll be a really tough nut for the Lankies to crack.”
I bring up a schematic of the tunnel network underneath the town.
“This is the underground portion of the facility. It’s under fifty meters of ice and permafrost. Virtually every building has one or more escape shafts that connect to those tunnels. They have food storage and fuel down there to last for a while. But they won’t be able to hold out indefinitely, especially if the Lankies are around for long enough to start digging their own tunnels. I want you to study the layout of that infrastructure and get very familiar with it. Because if we have to go down into those tunnels, you won’t have time to find a local guide or read a map. If their network is down, you won’t get TacLink, either, because you’ll have fifty meters of signal block over your heads, so don’t assume you’ll be able to rely on it. Even the local peer-to-peer link can get spotty down there.”
I bring up a map of Camp Frostbite. I was down there for the last time four years ago, and the place has seen eight deployment cycles since then. The troops we brought on Midway are long off that rock, but many of the civilian colonists I knew are probably still there.
“That’s the garrison. We’ve been keeping a full battalion there for over four years now. It has its own drop ship squadron and attached light-armor company. If New Svalbard is attacked, the mission of Camp Frostbite is to respond and neutralize the attack away from the town if possible. If the town itself is threatened, the garrison will fortify the town and hold the perimeter until the cavalry arrives.”
“What do we do if the garrison is gone?” Staff Sergeant Wilcox asks.
“That’s up to the CO. But I’m guessing they’ll task us with sanitizing the town and establishing a perimeter around the airfield so we can lift out the civvies. That’s what I would do anyway. Assume our mission is going to involve those tunnels one way or another.”
The combat controllers and Spaceborne Rescuemen go over the schematics and ask occasional questions while I explain the layout of the tunnels and the composition of the garrison force. But as they’re taking notes on their PDPs and paying attention to the briefing, I can’t help but think that we are planning a funeral. If the Lankies have landed on New Svalbard, the colony is probably lost unless we can kill every seed ship and every last individual. And if they’ve had time to go underground by the time we arrive, we’ll be lucky to get the colonists out and leave in one piece.
“Once we’re in-system, we’ll know more about the opposition. We don’t know how many Lanky ships are in orbit, or if they’ve landed their pods already. All of this is contingent on in-system recon once we get there. Expect a prebattle briefing, but familiarize yourself with the likely battleground as well as you can before we get to Fomalhaut. The old-timers will be able to confirm that when things start to happen, they’ll happen quickly. Exercise, test and triple-check your gear, and get enough food and rest. If we land, it’ll be the biggest military op in three years. We will jump in with the best gear in the locker, and with the best ship in the Fleet above us in orbit. Let’s put all that to good use and kick the shovel heads off that moon.”
I conclude the briefing, and the NCOs all file out one by one. The younger sergeants, the ones who haven’t been in battle yet except for maybe a few garrison patrols over Mars, look properly somber and pensive. The old salts are most likely worrying, too, but they’ve learned to hide their fears.
I’m the last to leave the briefing room. When I step into the passageway beyond, Halley is leaning against the bulkhead nearby, arms folded.
“I like the way you run your briefings. You’ve turned into someone who really knows his turf. You know I find competence dead sexy?”
“You listened in on the briefing?”
“You left the door open a crack. I was looking for you, and the computer said you were in that compartment. When I heard you talking to your NCOs, I figured I’d listen in while I wait.”
“And what’s your professional assessment?”
“Of the briefing, or of your grasp of the tactical situation?”
“Whichever,” I say.
“I would have had nothing to add. We go by the book regardless of what we find on the other end of that chute and do our best. Do you really think there will be colonists left to save?”
“Have you been to New Svalbard?”
“Three or four times. But only for water stops. I’ve never actually been on the surface.”
“They’re a tough bunch down there. And they have a fortified underground city and a whole battalion of SI to hold off the Lankies. I’d say their odds to hold out for a week or two are better than even.”
“Let’s just hope this ship punches in its advertised weight class, or we won’t even get into orbit,” Halley says. “Did you have chow yet? I’m starving.”
“I’ll join you,” I say, even though I already ate. We have twenty-three hours of Alcubierre and a few days of solar system transit left, and I figure I should seize every chance I have to sit down with Halley, just in case things go sideways in a bad way once we reach Fomalhaut. There’s always coffee in the wardroom, and my evening run can wait thirty minutes.
CHAPTER 17
WAR STORIES
When we come out of the Alcubierre chute on the solar system side, there’s a welcoming committee waiting for us. The supply ship Hampton Beach and the cruiser Excalibur are on station a few thousand kilometers from the transition point. There’s no overhead 1MC message welcoming us back to the solar system. After we take on fuel and supplies here, we won’t be stopping anywhere else until we reach the outbound Alcubierre point beyond the asteroid belt. Our trajectory has us foregoing any gravity assists from Earth or Mars in favor of a shortest-time flight path at full burn. We’ve used up an astonishing amount of reactor fuel already on this shakedown cruise, and it’s amazing to see that even after millions of kilometers at full burn and two 150-light-year transitions, Ottawa’s reactor fuel tanks are still at almost 50 percent.
“Now hear this,” comes the announcement twenty minutes later. “Hampton Beach is coming alongside for replenishment. All CONREP personnel, stand by for connected replenishment operations.”
A few moments later, the XO chimes in on the 1MC.
“This is the XO. All civilian contractors and Eurocorps members, this is your port of call. Report to the OOD at the main transfer lock on deck one if you are looking for transportation back to Gateway and Earth. This will be our one and only transfer stop before we enter the chute to the Fomalhaut system. Anyone who isn’t off this ship by the time we detach from Hampton Beach is going out of system again in four days. I repeat: all civilian and Eurocorps personnel wishing to transfer to Gateway at this time, report to the OOD at the main transfer lock on deck one by 1130 hours. XO out.”
The mood on the ship has flipped dramatically since we left the Leonidas system. It seems that everyone got a sudden and forceful reminder that Ottawa is really a warship. When I go for a run on the track later, it’s noticeably more crowded than before, and most of the newly motivated runners are junior enlisted. Even the chow halls a
nd RecFacs are more subdued than before. I get a grim satisfaction out of the evaporation of some of the more casual attitudes among the Fleet crew, but I can’t help feeling some sympathy for the junior members of the crew. They got four days’ notice of their first battle, and I know from experience that the worst thing about going to war is having time to think about the upcoming fight.
In the middle of my five laps around the nukes, someone hails me from behind.
“On your left,” a familiar voice says. I move all the way onto the right lane of the track, and Hansen pulls even with me.
“You know, we’re probably wasting time out here,” she says.
“How so?” I reply, trying not to pant.
“Never fought a battle where my running stamina made a difference,” she replies. “If you’re tired, the armor servos pick up your slack.”
“Makes me feel better. To know I can still move if I have to. Servos or not.”
We run along at the same speed. Every few dozen meters, we have to switch to single file to pass someone else chugging around the missile silos, but Hansen pulls even with me again every time. Before too long, it’s a wordless competition—we fall into a rhythm of switching formation and reforming, fluid and efficient. Sometimes, the company and staff officers in the SI slack off a little on the fitness training—they tend to be older and burdened with more administrative nonsense, after all—but Hansen is not one of those slackers. When we finally finish our laps and switch to a trot and then a walk into the entrance vestibule, I am out of breath and sweaty.
“We’ve got four days until the ball drops,” Hansen says. “If you’re free this evening right after chow, why don’t you come down to Grunt Country? We can head to the officer RecFac on deck three and grab a drink. Time’s running out for catching up and talking about old times.”
“Yes it is,” I reply. “How about 1800?”
“See you then,” Hansen says. “Deck three, frame one seventy-five.”