Ep.#15 - That Which Other Men Cannot Do (The Frontiers Saga)

by Ryk Brown

  “Thirty seconds!” Ensign Kono reported.

  “Firing again!”

  “Have we got a clear jump line?” Cameron asked.

  “Working on it!” her helmsman replied.

  “Eight destroyed!” Luis announced. “Retargeting!”

  “Twenty seconds!”

  “Twelve destroyed!”

  “Get me that jump line!” Cameron demanded.

  “Ten seconds!”

  “Sixteen destroyed!”

  “Mister Hunt!” Cameron begged.

  “Almost there!”

  “Five seconds!”

  “Twenty destroyed!”

  “Three……two……”

  “Clear jump line!” Mister Sperry cried.

  “Jump! Jump! Jump!”

  The jump flash filled the bridge before the captain could finish her orders. Suddenly, the ship was calm again, the violent shaking gone.

  Cameron looked around the bridge, trying not to appear shaken. The image of the planet Niorai was once again positioned neatly across the bottom of the main view screen, stretching from side to side. “Altitude?”

  “Eight hundred and twenty-four kilometers,” Mister Sperry reported. “In stable orbit above Niorai.”

  Cameron turned around and looked at Lieutenant Delaveaga. “How many?”

  “All but three of them, sir,” Luis beamed with pride. “That was some move, Captain. I didn’t know you had it in you.”

  “Neither did I,” Cameron admitted, sighing. “Collateral damage?” she inquired, turning toward her sensor officer to her right.

  “One moment,” Ensign Kono requested, “I’ve got a lot of targets to survey.”

  “Lock onto those two bases and take them out, Lieutenant,” Cameron ordered.

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Comms, tell Bravo Command to pass the word to his men to keep their heads down for the next minute or two.”

  “Collateral damage around the missile launcher sites appears to be minimal, Captain,” Ensign Kono reported happily.

  Cameron relaxed back into her chair, relieved. She tapped her comm-set. “Damage Control, Captain. How are we doing, Master Chief?”

  “No damage reported, Captain,” Master Chief Montrose answered over the comms. “However, I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t shake us up so much. I spilled coffee all over my clean uniform.”

  * * *

  “It seems that the people of Niorai were quite happy to be liberated,” Admiral Dumar told President Scott, as he took his seat in the president’s office. “Our forces on the ground were greeted with open arms, despite the fact that the liberation did cost a few hundred civilian lives.”

  “A few hundred?” President Scott asked, surprised at the low number. “Compared to a population of what?”

  “About three billion,” the admiral replied. “I know the number seems low by comparison, but it is still rather high, in my opinion. Had the Niorains not been as displeased with the Jung, that number might have had greater importance to them.”

  “Then they will be willing to join the Alliance?” one of the president’s advisors asked.

  “It will be at least a few days before any type of provisional government can be put together on Niorai. However, the few local leaders that I have spoken with seem receptive to the idea. It should be noted, Mister President, that the Niorains have nothing to offer in the way of military or industrial capacities.”

  “It was my understanding that we were selecting systems to liberate based on distance from Sol, not potential contributions to the cause,” President Scott said curtly.

  “That is true, Mister President,” Admiral Dumar admitted. “However, what Admiral Galiardi says is true as well. Every world that we liberate places additional responsibilities upon the Alliance, in that we must protect our members equally, regardless of their contributions to our cause, or lack thereof. Taking on such worlds will only help to fuel the admiral’s argument that the Alliance is weakening the security of Earth, rather than increasing it.”

  “You have a point,” President Scott realized, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

  “Especially in light of Admiral Galiardi’s most recent announcement,” Miri added.

  “I apologize. I’ve been so preoccupied with the liberation of Niorai that I haven’t read my morning intelligence briefing.”

  “Galiardi is now circulating a petition amongst the people of Earth,” Miri explained. “He wants to restore the Earth Defense Force.”

  “To what end?”

  “He knows he cannot convince the people to withdraw from the Alliance,” one of the president’s advisors explained, “not while the Jung threat still looms over us.”

  “And restoring the EDF would put ultimate control of both the Aurora and the Celestia in the hands of the EDF,” Admiral Dumar surmised, “and ultimately, his hands.”

  “Ultimately, mine, actually,” President Scott corrected, “but you are otherwise correct.”

  “Galiardi, and many others, want those two ships dedicated to protecting Earth, not other systems,” Miri said, “even if they are our allies. He wants Earth to concentrate on building up its own military assets, and let other worlds worry about their own destinies.”

  “I understand his point,” Admiral Dumar said. “I suspect I would do the same in his shoes.”

  “Galiardi has been trying to get uncontrolled buildup for decades,” the president explained. “When I was chair of the EDF budget oversight committee, we spent many hours in heated debate over such issues.” President Scott shook his head. “The admiral is no stranger to the ways and means of manipulating the hearts and minds of those he wishes to influence. That’s how he got his position as commander of the EDF to begin with. By playing to the emotions of the public after the catastrophic failures of the first two Defender-class ships.”

  “What happened to them?” Admiral Dumar asked.

  “The Defender was plagued with problems from the start,” President Scott remembered. “Structural failures, computer problems, you name it. It was simply too big a leap for us at the time, going from building a handful of scout ships to building massive warships. Those ships were supposed to be FTL capable, by the way.”

  “I was not aware of that.”

  “The first ship was eventually scrapped before she completed flight trials. There were just too many problems. It was a massive failure that cost President Baumgarten his career.”

  “They scrapped an entire starship?” Admiral Dumar asked in surprise.

  “They salvaged as much of her as possible to put into the second ship, the Valiant,” President Scott continued. “Unfortunately, her antimatter reactors experienced problems during her FTL tests. As a result, her mass-cancelling fields become unstable, and the ship came apart in transit, killing most of her crew.”

  “And Galiardi used these events to take command of the EDF?”

  “He had argued all along that we were wasting time and resources trying to build FTL ships before we were truly ready. He proposed building sub-light ships instead. Bigger, more heavily armored, and with far more firepower. ‘Defense before offense’ has always been his motto.” President Scott took a breath before continuing. “Admiral Jarlmasson was forced to step down as leader of the EDF, and Galiardi took his place. Ten years later, we had four redesigned Defender-class ships patrolling our system, and the people felt ‘safe’.” President Scott chuckled. “They had no idea.”

  “But the Explorer-class ships,” Dumar wondered. “They came about under Galiardi’s watch.”

  “Galiardi wanted to keep building Defender-class ships, but the anti-military crowd wanted us to reach out to the Jung in peace. We couldn’t very well do that by arriving in heavily-armed warships, so the Explorer-class was developed.”

  “But Galiardi used them both as test ships for the jump drive,” Dumar recalled.

  “The jump drive came about later,” the president explained. “Galiardi had been running concurrent devel
opment projects on the STS idea for nearly a decade. After all, before he took over as commander of the EDF, he was in charge of special projects. That’s why he didn’t oppose the Explorer-class idea too strongly, as he didn’t want to risk trying the jump drive out on a Defender-class ship. They were far too precious to him.”

  “And now, he is using the same tactics to get the people to side with him, and his desire for a massive military buildup,” Dumar said, putting the pieces together.

  “Precisely.” President Scott leaned back in his seat. “Honestly, I sometimes wonder if Galiardi didn’t know all along what was going to happen. Perhaps he even wanted it to play out this way. After all, he’s closer to getting what he wants now more than ever before. Unrestrained military buildup.”

  “You can’t be serious?” Miri said in disbelief.

  “I’m not suggesting that he planned it that way,” the president said. “Too many variables that you simply cannot predict. What I’m saying is that I wouldn’t put it past him.” President Scott looked around at everyone gathered. “That never leaves this room, by the way.”

  Admiral Dumar thought for a moment. “I may not care for his methods, but if the end result is a bigger, more powerful military…”

  “One that he controls…”

  “With your oversight…”

  “With my oversight, and that he will eventually use as his stepping stone to greater power.”

  “You believe he seeks to gain political power as well?” Admiral Dumar asked, surprised.

  “It is the nature of such men,” President Scott said. “I have seen it my entire life. I have walked the halls, shared the floor, and engaged in debate with such men. Hell, some would say I am such a man.”

  Admiral Dumar paused for a moment, contemplating the situation. “This petition, will it succeed?”

  “We believe so,” the president said. “It’s just a matter of time before he gets enough signatures and submits it to the World Congress.”

  “How much time?”

  “A month or two? It would have taken considerably longer had we not gotten our global networks back online so quickly,” he mused. “After that, depending on the level of public support, Congress could act upon the petition in as little as a few days, to a few weeks.”

  “Recommendations?”

  “Liberate as many worlds as possible, before Congress ties our hands.”

  Dumar sighed. “That may not be possible. I had hoped to wait until upgrades on the Jar-Benakh were completed, before liberating any more worlds.”

  “You liberated 82 Eridani just fine without the Jar-Benakh,” the president reminded him.

  “82 Eridani had no Jung ships to defend her.”

  “What about the jump KKVs?” the president asked.

  “We only have nineteen of them at the moment, and it takes at least three to four of them to take down a battle platform alone.”

  “But we are making more of them.”

  “Indeed we are,” the admiral confirmed, “at a rate of one every other day, in fact. But that still might not be enough to complete the job in such a short time. There are still two more Jung-held systems that lie within twenty light years of Sol, and another nine that lie between twenty and thirty light years. That is why I wanted to wait until the Jar-Benakh was ready for action. As long as a single jump KKV has hit a battle platform and brought down a full fifteen percent of its shields, the Jar-Benakh can defeat her. In addition, with her new armaments and jump systems, she can defeat another Jung battleship without the use of jump KKVs.”

  “Perhaps Galiardi is right,” President Scott mused, frustration in his tone. “Maybe we should be concentrating all our efforts on building self-propelled jump KKVs, and park them all around us for protection.”

  “Jump KKVs are an offensive weapon,” Dumar explained. “They are only of value when used in a surprise attack, when the targets are not taking aggressive evasive actions. Nothing short of a few battleships can take on a Jung battle platform that is on full alert. Such ships would take several years to build, even if the designs were in hand and the factories were tooled and ready for production. The best we can hope to do now is to capture a few more Jung battleships, and convert them in the same manner as the Jar-Benakh.”

  “How likely is that to happen?” the president wondered.

  “Not as likely as one might think. The Jar-Keurog and the Jar-Benakh were both flukes. We were lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. And in both instances, a lot of good men died securing those assets. It would be unwise to count on our luck continuing in such fashion.”

  It was President Scott’s turn to sigh. “I would never try to tell you how to run your campaigns, Admiral. However, I would strongly suggest that you use whatever means you have at your disposal to liberate as many worlds as possible, while you can.”

  “You believe that strongly that Galiardi will succeed in his efforts?” the Admiral asked.

  “I do.”

  Admiral Dumar looked at the others, then to President Scott. “Might I speak with you alone, Mister President?”

  President Scott looked offended, his eyes narrowing. “These people are my trusted…”

  “I would not ask, were it not necessary,” Dumar replied.

  President Scott stared at the admiral for a moment, taking note of the determined look on his face. He had not known the admiral for long, and certainly did not know him well, but he knew that his son, Nathan, trusted the admiral implicitly. “Very well.” He looked at his staff. “Everyone, please clear the room.”

  The president and the admiral sat quietly as the others rose from their seats without saying a word, and departed the room.

  Once the door closed, the president spoke. “What’s on your mind, Admiral?”

  “How secure is this room?”

  “We are five hundred meters underground. The walls are solid concrete, and there are no internal listening devices,” President Scott explained. “I doubt anywhere on Earth is more secure than this very spot.”

  Admiral Dumar sighed. “I have lived a long time, Mister President,” he began. “I have served three different regimes, four, if you count your new coalition of nations. I have been called upon to do many distasteful things, and I have done them all. Not because I enjoy them, but because they were necessary for the greater good. Furthermore, it is what men such as myself were created to do.”

  “What are you getting at, Admiral?”

  “You have a problem, one that I can make go away, if so ordered.”

  “You’re talking about Admiral Galiardi?”

  Admiral Dumar nodded his head.

  “What are you suggesting? Assassination?”

  “It is a tool, like any other. One used to accomplish a goal.”

  “And how do we explain that to his followers?”

  “He has Corinairan nanites still within him, does he not? It would be relatively easy to command them to cause a heart attack, or a stroke of some sort.”

  “And start more controversy?”

  “There will always be controversy, Mister President.”

  President Scott sighed, displeased with the idea. “I have been the victim of an assassination attempt, Admiral. I can’t say I liked it much. I don’t know that I’m ready to take that step just yet.”

  “I understand.”

  “Besides, having the Alliance involved in the assassination of a Terran citizen would be too risky.”

  “Agreed.”

  “I appreciate your candor, Admiral,” the president said. “If—and that is a big ‘if’—I decide to use that ‘tool’, as you put it, I’m sure I can find someone not affiliated with the military to perform the task.”

  “I would expect so,” the admiral agreed.

  President Scott stood. “I appreciate your time here today, Admiral, and your advice. I will take all of it to heart, I assure you.”

  “As will I, yours, Mister President,” Admiral Dumar replied as he sto
od to depart.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Captain Nash made his way through the nearly completed Cobra Operations Center on the small asteroid moon orbiting Tanna. The caverns themselves had been relatively quick to create, thanks to the engineers provided by the Karuzara asteroid base. The interior structures and equipment had taken a bit longer to fabricate than expected. Due to the demands of the gunship assembly plant, there were few fabricators available.

  Luckily, someone in planning had been smart enough to spend the first few weeks making additional fabricators. Eventually, they got enough of them assembled to not only build the new extension to the old Jung fighter base, but they now had the ability to create spare parts for the Cobra gunships.

  The facility had everything they needed to support the continuous operation of at least twenty-four gunships. It currently had only twelve docking ports, but construction of another row of twelve was under way. In addition, they were also planning on carving out four caverns to be used as dry docks, in order to perform maintenance and repairs in shirt-sleeve, zero-G environments.

  Their hope was to eventually operate a guard fleet of forty-eight ships, using seventy-two crews. This would allow them to maintain an adequate border patrol, while having plenty of ships to defend their system, should the Jung return.

  In a few days, the twelfth gunship would be delivered. Captain Nash’s first four crews were doing well, and had entered the advanced tactical combat phase of their training. The second group of four gunship crews was just finishing up basic flight, and the third group was still in the sims. However, everything seemed to be progressing smoothly, and his staff had finally developed an easily repeatable process of turning wide-eyed young men into well-trained gunship crews.

  Despite his initial disappointment with his assignment, Robert Nash had actually grown to enjoy it. The Tannans were passionate people, willing to study and train hard. They were also polite to a fault, modest, and unassuming. In short, they were a pleasure to be around. More importantly, they believed in what they were doing. The entire planet seemed focused on one goal, to defend their world, and the worlds of the Alliance, against the Jung. Captain Nash had no doubt that if asked, they would fight to the death without hesitation.