by John F. Carr
“Explain that in language I can understand.” Basov demanded.
“It’s possible that Betelgeuse is blowing off huge amounts of mass and our gravitation wave detectors are picking this up.”
Basov nodded. “Okay. And just why might a giant star like Betelgeuse suddenly be going through those contortions?”
“I don’t know, Chief. It’s an unusual phenomenon and this gravitational flux might well be the signature of this pre-nova event.”
“Now you’re scaring me,” he replied. “How safe are we at Wayforth if this Betelgeuse does explode?”
The fat man shook his head, spraying droplets into the air which slowly floated to the nearest surface. “We’re not next door, but even two hundred light-years away is too damn close. If the Betelgeuse goes nova, there’s no telling what damage might result.”
“What do you mean exactly, Panagos? How worried should I be?”
“No human being has ever been that close to an actual supernova, Chief. The nearest nova to any of the Empire of Man’s habitable worlds is the white dwarf, T Pyxidis, in the constellation Pyxis. The white dwarf is part of a close binary system with a sun, and the pair are well over three-thousand light-years from Earth, and no closer than two-thousand light-years away from any other Imperial world. The white dwarf is a recurrent nova, which means it undergoes nova, which is thermonuclear, eruptions roughly every few decades or more. There have been a dozen such known events since 1890. Before then we don’t have good records. However, these explosions are nova rather than supernova events; they did not destroy the star, and have no effect on any known worlds.”
Information overload, Basov concluded. “Let’s keep it simple. Didn’t you just say that Betelgeuse will be a supernova? Isn’t that a different class of animal all together?”
Panagos nodded. “A supernova releases some ten million times the energy of a nova. The closest one in modern times was Supernova 1987A. It happened in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy that orbits our own galaxy some one-hundred-and-sixty-thousand light-years away. Astronomers think supernova explosions closer than a hundred light years from an inhabited world could be catastrophic; however, the effects of events further away are unclear and would depend on how powerful the supernova is. No one’s ever been close to one. And, of course, that assumes you’re actually on a world with an atmosphere; not in a tin can in deep space, like we are!”
“Now, you’re worrying me. Maybe we ought to contact Commodore Hofstadter, the Wayforth Squadron commanding officer, and evacuate Wayforth System.”
“What and be shot for deserting our posts? Don’t you read your own memos, Chief?”
Basov wiped his brow. “Of course I do, but I certainly don’t want to die in this ‘tin can’ as you call it.”
“Neither do I,” the fat man added loudly, his voice taking on an edge of hysteria.
“Do you have any credible evidence that the station is in danger?”
“No, of course not! Nothing we can go to the Navy with, and that’s what is going to keep me awake at nights. The problem is that by the time we receive the first gamma-ray bursts; it will already be too late.”
Part One
THE FACE OF THE ENEMY
Chapter One
I
“The universe exists in chaos:
Man is the measure of the universe.
The ultimate chaos of man’s existence
Is the human endeavor called War.
By mastering War we master the universe.”
Children’s song taught at Sauron primary schools, translated by Nigel McKeegan, Director of Imperial Forces of Occupation, Secession Wars Historical Task Force, 2643
Tanith, 2640
“What are we?”
The question was directed toward the viewport of the Sauron heavy cruiser SNS Fomoria, hiding in the Tanith System’s asteroid belt, but was addressed to the figure behind the speaker who blinked in surprise at the words.
The officer at the viewport stood with hands clasped behind his back, watching the immensity of interstellar space before him as if he might actually discern something amidst all that blackness. If any human-spawned eyes were capable of it, his were. Vessel First Rank Galen Diettinger turned away from the viewport and fixed the young Soldier before him with a piercing glare. “I asked you: ‘What are we,’ Fighter Rank Severin?”
“Your pardon, First Rank, but the question is out of context. Are you referring to this ship and her crew, or to you and me…or is the nature of the question metaphysical?”
Diettinger nodded slightly, seemingly satisfied and disappointed at the same time. “The context is immaterial, Fighter Rank Severin. You have answered the question.”
Diettinger took his seat at the desk. “Sit.”
Severin sat.
“You commanded the reconnaissance flight that returned from Tanith this morning. Report your impressions of the situation there.”
Diettinger noted the tenseness in Fighter Rank Severin’s posture and the disapproval tugging at his lips. He was part of that group of younger Saurons, born since the start of the Secession Wars, who believed personal interpretation of data to be at best an outdated tradition, and at worst a dangerous indulgence. Accurate information in sufficient quantities made it unnecessary to “read” the enemy’s intentions; whatever his intentions might be, his actions would be dictated by the actions of the Saurons.
Diettinger was of an older school, one that held prudence to be as crucial as boldness; an idea that Severin’s generation could barely understand, let alone embrace. Diettinger even had an Old Earth antique in his office, a sampler from the Peninsular Campaign of the Sauron role model, Wellington, which read: “Discretion is the better part of valor.”
“First Rank, enemy fleet dispositions at Tanith are three Chinthe-class destroyers, the light cruiser Strela and Königsberg and the Imperial battlecruiser Canada.”
Diettinger waited until the silence began to discomfort the Fighter Rank. “Ground force deployments.”
“Deployments, sir?”
Diettinger could see the Fighter Rank was confused. “Yes.”
“Sensors indicated one battalion of mechanized infantry, one of heavy armor and four of foot armor, with assumed attendant support units and an unidentified concentration presumed to be a special operations brigade. Standard for Imperial ground forces of this size, sir.”
“You seem unconcerned, Fighter Rank.”
Severin shrugged. “Their lack of armor support or infantry vehicles suggests overall poor combat readiness.”
“How low was your reconnaissance pass, Fighter Rank Severin?”
The Fighter Rank’s eyes widened. “Low, sir?”
Doctrine directed that reconnaissance ops be conducted from high altitude, to allow the maximum spread of the sophisticated sensor gear aboard the fighters. “Yes, how low?”
“Standard, First Rank. A hundred and fifty kilometers.”
Diettinger almost smiled. “While you were optimizing the scanning equipment on board your fighter, did you make any use of the scanning equipment in your head?”
“First Rank, Tanith is under almost perpetual cloud cover, I saw no reason—”
“Tanith is under such cloud cover, Fighter Rank, because it is extremely hot. It is a veritable jungle every place above sea level where it is not swamp, or sheer cliff or broken ground. That is the reason for the low vehicle-to-infantry ratio. With very few exceptions, armored vehicles are worthless on Tanith, while infantry with air support, and particularly Special Forces, comprise the dominant forces of battle. Your failure to provide accurate disposition of these enemy forces has endangered the success of our mission and the lives of hundreds of your fellow Soldiers.”
“But, First Rank, they’re only human norms!”
Now it was Diettinger’s turn to be surprised. Recovering, he looked down at Severin. “What have you learned since release from your training crèche, Fighter Rank? Have you forgotten that it
has been ‘human norms’ across known space who have bled Sauron white in this war?”
He noted that Severin’s body was rigid with tension. Severin was of the Home World mindset that believed this kind of conversation was perilously close to treason: Sauron’s reverses in the last years of the war could clearly be attributed to the manpower and material superiority of the enemy forces; even at that, such Imperial victories as had been won were, to say the least, pyrrhic. The situation at Tanith was a classroom exercise: a Sauron heavy cruiser that could not utterly destroy such a meager opposing force as Severin had reported was not worthy of the name.
The human norms had an expression for this kind of thinking: it was called “Whistling in the dark.”
“Your squadron will immediately make necessary reconnaissance sweeps and report directly to me. Those will allow low altitude passes, a hundred kilometers or less, with augmented visual recording gear. If your second report is satisfactory, you and your squadron will not be remanded to combat overwatch during the battle to come. Dismissed.”
Diettinger watched the young Soldier leave. The new ones arrive filled with the invincibility of Sauron, he reflected. Their historical training is being neglected, or they would know that only losing armies do that to their young warriors.
Diettinger reviewed his orders once more. They read: “Massive quantities of pharmaceuticals on Tanith awaiting convoy for off-world shipment,” followed by a single imperative—“Secure.”
Pharmaceuticals on Tanith meant one thing: borloi. While an addictive vice among the human norms that comprised the Empire, borloi in its most concentrated form was the only drug capable of anesthetizing a Sauron for surgery. With the fearful weapons both sides were employing in this war of secession, more and more Soldiers were being wounded and maimed every day. Although their superior healing ability and resistance to trauma increased their survivability vis a vis their Imperial counterparts, they couldn’t grow back lost limbs or organs without help.
At least, Diettinger thought, not yet. Until the Breedmasters perfect that capability; we cannot fight the empire with paraplegics. Regeneration might be an exact science, but grafts and regrowth implantation were not painless, particularly for burn victims. Sauron needed that borloi and the Fomoria was the closest available ship to Tanith for the mission.
He accessed the data on the vessels Severin had reported while in orbit: three cruisers, three destroyers, two light-cruisers and the original of the Canada-class of battlecruisers. The Canada would be over fifty Standard Years old; perhaps the Empire was straining in this war as well.
Sauron ship designations were derived from weaponry and mission profiles, rather than tonnage, but the Fomoria was more than a match for the Imperial battlecruiser. The other ships would be dangerous inasmuch as Fomoria would have to ignore them while she engaged the Canada. During which time all the Imperial vessels would be firing on her, attempting to overload her Langston Fields with energy weapons and slip missiles past her point defense systems.
Space was the only battlefield where the Imperials could engage Sauron forces on something like an even footing. Diettinger himself had developed tactics to redress that problem, tactics which were now standard procedure whenever Sauron ships faced the Imperial Navy. The naval aspect of the raid was thus the least crucial. The real problem was the raid on Tanith herself.
Library data gave him the general layout of Tanith’s main spaceport, but it was only accurate to ten years before, making Severin’s reconnaissance update crucial. Still, until he knew more, the First Rank would work with what he had. After a few minutes of planning, he had arrived at what he believed was an acceptable battle outline.
He scheduled the staff meeting for one hour after the return of Severin’s squadron in approximately four days.
II
Captain William Adderly of the INSS Canada and commander of the Tanith patrol fleet launched his pen across the room toward the dartboard for another bull’s-eye. It was something he did to relieve tension, and it had become second nature to him now.
He read the reports again, hoping they would say something different this time, but it was not to be. The Talon-class Sauron heavy cruiser Fomoria was still in-system. A ship as fearsome as the reputation of her commander. Sauron heavy cruisers were designed to be all-purpose vessels, carrying fighters, ground troops and far more armament than their Imperial naval counterparts. They were an admiral’s dream, the first ships in human history truly able to “outfight what they could not outrun, and outrun what they could not outfight.”
Adderly launched another pen. Unfortunately, the very flexibility of such a ship made it almost impossible for him to guess what it might be doing here. A force of transports and battleships meant siege and invasion, a force of carriers meant a strike…but one heavy cruiser only meant trouble.
The Saurons had arrived in the Tanith System three standard (or Earth) weeks ago. As usual in this war, they had been preceeded by automated bombs, high-yield nukes on simple clockwork timers, sent ahead through the Alderson Point to soften up anybody waiting on the other end. The disorientation effects of Jump Lag made such a tactic mandatory, since all humans—including Saurons—were so debilitated by the phenomenon that a monitor ship close to a tramline exit could destroy an arriving ship with ease. Computers fared worse, but even Jump Lag couldn’t disrupt a spring and a handful of gears.
Immediately upon Jump Lag recovery, the Saurons had engaged the converted asteroid sentry base, which was still recovering from the nukes that had preceded the Fomoria’s arrival. In less than a day the asteroid base was reduced to rubble.
Since then—nothing! The Fomoria had made no move against his meager task force and he still did not dare engage her until the convoy arrived with its escort of reinforcements.
The Saurons had been probing this sector off and on for four years and, despite being bloodied in three major naval engagements, they were still far from beaten. It was only by the grace of long travel times between Alderson Points that the Empire had survived the initial Sauron victories of the war. The following decades had been filled with the constant struggle to push the Saurons and their allies back. Now it appeared as if the Saurons were on the wane.
Since the tide of war had turned, the Imperial General Staff had twice launched offensives against Sauron strongholds. Both times the carefully garnered reserves and precious resources of Imperial men and ships had been obliterated, when everything in the Staff’s plans had predicted otherwise. Now the Saurons were at Tanith, one of the Alderson crossroads into the heart of the Empire. From Tanith, it was only a short trip to Gaea, or Covenant; even the Imperial Capital, Sparta, would be in range of a Sauron Fleet based on Tanith. If the enemy got a foothold here…
Adderly’s constant requests for reinforcements had gone unanswered; however, he’d been promised that a portion of the convoy escort would be turned over to his command. But he couldn’t leave the Fomoria out there, unmolested, to welcome the convoy when it arrived helpless in the throes of Jump Lag. Adderly recalled the old military adage, when Saurons still provided loyal troops for the Empire, before the Secession Wars: “No battle plan survives contact with a Sauron.” Too true, perhaps even more so of this Sauron.
Adderly rechecked the slim Intel file on Galen Diettinger, commander of the Fomoria. At least he’s an old warhorse like me, he thought.
One problem with being at war for generations was that details on the enemy’s up-and-comers became almost impossible to obtain. There were simply no Sauron defectors and human norms who tried to impersonate Saurons never succeeded.
It wasn’t all that tough for a Sauron to tone down his abilities and pass for a human norm. Rumor had it they did not look all that different. For all the racial supremacist bilge water the Imperial Propaganda Committee put out about them, the Saurons differed in physiognomy as much as human norms; they were, after all, “purpose-bred people.” They also possessed a number of human allied worlds with allies from whic
h to draw their human espionage community. On the other hand, there seemed to be no end to the opportunists and bureaucrats willing to betray the Empire for a few feeble promises of neutrality, special treatment…or just plain credits.
And what does that say about the state of the Imperial Society I’m risking my neck to preserve?
Adderly dismissed the memory of his wife’s voice. Alysha would never understand. She never had, although she had promised she would. They’d married during his midshipman days at the Academy, when no one had yet dared to label the Empire’s ongoing skirmishes as what they actually were; the opening battles of a war of secession. He had promised to join her father’s merchant fleet as soon as those skirmishes were resolved.
But the Saurons had emerged to lead the Secessionist Cause and the skirmishes had become a war. Four years of required service became a lifelong career, despite his influential father-in-law’s offers to get him out of the Navy for “critical civilian service.” His refusals had led to battles with Alysha that had rivaled those with the Secessionists.
Adderly sighed. At least this Galen Diettinger was more or less a known quantity. The file called him resourceful and innovative, with a flag on the last word. Sauron discipline and aggressiveness tended to make them somewhat predicable; nevertheless, they possessed their share of daring commanders. Being perhaps the ultimate military pragmatists, Saurons were quick to place these exemplars where they would do the most good.
He’d read of engagements in which the Fomoria took part under Diettinger; none of the accounts gave him cause for rejoicing. The Fomoria had typically been used to engage numerically superior forces, once even during the Battle of Tanith.
Soon to be renamed the First Battle of Tanith, no doubt, he mused.