The Cruel Stars

by Christopher Nuttall

  Abigail took a moment to consider. “In what way?”

  “In being so blunt,” Alan said. “And in ...”

  He didn't seem to know how to finish the sentence. Abigail gave in - this time - to the temptation to roll her eyes. Groundpounders were so ... strange.

  “The belt is a blunt place,” she said. “There can be no room for misunderstandings. We speak the same language in all respects ... yes, we’re blunt, because anything less could lead to tragedy. And we can't afford to pussy-foot around. Sex ... no one cares who fucks who, or how they do it, as long as it’s between consenting adults in private. No one back home will give a damn that we fucked. They will care if our relationship buggers up the mission.”

  Alan frowned. “Why?”

  “Because we’re adults,” Abigail said. “And we’re supposed to be responsible.”

  She frowned. “Do your daughters not work now?”

  Alan blinked in surprise. “Jeanette is twelve!”

  “Old enough to learn the basics,” Abigail said. “I shipped out when I was fourteen.”

  She sighed. She’d watched a handful of dramas set on Earth, but she’d never really believed they were real. There were only so many shows about adults acting like oversized children one could take before deciding there was no intelligent life on the planet. She dreaded to think what her parents would have said, if she’d acted like a five-year-old when she’d been fifteen. She’d be lucky not to be unceremoniously disowned for irredeemable idiocy. Her uncle had always said that stupidity killed and she knew, from bitter experience, that he’d been right.

  “Jeanette is too young to work,” Alan said. “She won’t even be able to take on an apprenticeship until she turns sixteen ... and only then if she leaves school.”

  “And is she learning anything useful at school?” Abigail found it hard to comprehend how anyone could send their child to a groundpounder school. “What will she be when she finally grows up?”

  “I don’t know,” Alan said. “I haven’t heard from her in years. I ...”

  He shook his head, slowly. “I was in jail,” he reminded her. “We lost touch.”

  Abigail winced. She wasn't sure if she should feel sorry for him or slap him. Hard. Family was family. And while Alan’s daughters had every right to hate their father, they were still family. He shouldn't abandon his child.

  It wouldn't happen in the belt, she thought, tartly. None of this would happen in the belt.

  “Write to her,” she said. “Write to both of them. Give them a chance to get back in touch with their father.”

  Alan looked at her as if she’d said something really stupid. “Do you think they want to get in touch with me? I killed their mother!”

  “Give them the choice,” Abigail urged. She found it hard to imagine how Jeanette and her sister felt about their father. But then, she couldn't imagine her father killing her mother either. “At the very least, they deserve a chance to hear your side of the story.”

  “I killed your mother in a fit of rage,” Alan said, dryly. “I don’t think they’ll want to hear that.”

  He laughed, humourlessly. “Do you know what would have happened if I’d filed for divorce?”

  Abigail shrugged. She had no idea.

  “She would have been hammered by the courts,” Alan told her. “There are laws against adultery, if one partner is in the military. It was bad for morale, apparently, when a man’s wife cheated on him while he was at the front. And socially? She would have been crucified. It wouldn't have been hard for her to wait until I got home, then ask for a separation. No one would have blamed her for that.”

  “Except you,” Abigail said.

  “But I was too angry to care,” Alan said. He looked down at his hands, perhaps imagining them covered with blood. “And I killed her. And I ...”

  “And nothing,” Abigail said. She met his eyes, daring him to say something. “You groundpounders and your warped ideas about sex.”

  She glanced at her wristcom, again. “Be an adult. Do your job. And while you’re at it, record a message for your daughters. The next mission might kill you. Give them a fucking chance to get back in touch before it’s too late.”

  “Thank you,” Alan said, sourly.

  “You’re welcome,” Abigail told him. She rose. “I’ll see you for dinner. Until then, go write that letter. Or record a v-mail. Or something.”

  “If you wish,” Alan said.

  Abigail shrugged. “I’m not telling you this for my sake,” she said, although she knew that wasn't entirely true. “I’m doing it so you’ll be in a better state when we go back to war.”

  “How ruthlessly practical,” Alan said.

  “That’s the belt in a nutshell,” Abigail said, bluntly. It was the way she’d lived, right from the start. Her family wouldn't have accepted anything else. “Ruthlessly practical is how we live.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “We’re being called to the station,” Bennett said. “Grab your jacket and let’s go.”

  Alan nodded in relief as he sat up. He’d spent the last two hours in his cabin, trying to write a letter to the girls. Abigail had been right, he acknowledged, but he had no idea what to say to them. The in-laws had probably poisoned their minds against him. Not, he supposed as he reached for his jacket, that they'd have to work very hard. There was no denying that the reason his daughters were growing up without a mother was that their father had killed their mother.

  And they never liked me anyway, he reminded himself. They thought I wasn't good enough for their daughter.

  He pulled on his jacket and followed Bennett down to the shuttle. Abigail met them there, looking disgustingly fresh for someone who’d been on the bridge for at least two hours, perhaps longer. Alan nodded to her - he didn't have time to sort out his feelings - as they stepped through the hatch and into the shuttle. The pilot undocked as soon as they were onboard, taking the shuttle directly to the asteroid base. Alan glanced at the scanner and saw five other converted freighters - and a pair of frigates - holding position near the station. The Royal Navy had clearly decided to do something.

  The shuttle docked with a loud clang, the hatch hissing open a second later. A pair of Royal Marines met them, checking their IDs before hurrying them into the briefing room. Alan looked around, spotting a handful of military and civilian personal waiting for them. He couldn't help wondering what crimes the military personnel might have committed, if they’d been assigned to the escort carriers. There weren't many possibilities. Someone considered to be a permanent risk would never be let out of jail, if he hadn't simply been hanged. Society wasn't kind to serious criminals.

  Perhaps they just fiddled their expenses, Alan thought, as he sat down next to Abigail. Or some other harmless little prank like talking back to a senior officer.

  He looked up as a man strode into the room, the lights dimming as he took the podium. “Thank you for coming,” he said, briskly. “For those of you who don’t know me, I am Commodore Sidney Jameson, currently in command of Task Force Woodbine. You and your ships have been assigned to my command.”

  Woodbine, Alan thought, amused. The MOD assigned operational code names at random - unlike the Americans, who tried to be dramatic - but he felt the Admiralty might prefer something a little more purposeful. And yet, being dramatic had its disadvantages. I suppose the Yanks always did tip off their enemies when the names became public.

  He studied Jameson for a long moment. The brown-haired officer looked young, suspiciously young, to be a commodore. Good genes or the Old Boys Network? Alan was inclined to think the latter. An older man would have given an impression of being more mature, even if his face appeared young. Jameson probably had friends in high places. The name was common enough not to suggest any aristocratic ties, but that meant nothing. There was no shortage of aristocrats who insisted on serving under false names.

  “You’ll receive a complete set of briefing notes once this meeting is over,” Jameson informed
them. “However, I will go over the basics to make sure we are all caterwauling off the same song-sheet.”

  And to prove you love to hear yourself talk, Alan thought, rudely. Are you ever going to get to the point?

  “The Admiralty has conducted an extensive analysis of the records from New Russia,” Jameson continued. “It is their conclusion that we are dangerously outmatched in space combat.”

  “No shit, Sherlock,” someone muttered from the back.

  Jameson showed no visible reaction. “The plasma weapons are just one part of the problem,” he added. “Our analysis suggests that the aliens entered the New Russia system through a weak tramline, one of the gravitational lines we believed was too weak to allow starships to transit. We are not entirely sure of this, I should admit, but their attack force did come in on a vector that leads back to the weak tramline.”

  Alan glanced at Abigail, who looked as stunned as he felt. The analysts could be wrong, of course. He certainly wanted to believe they were wrong. There was no reason the aliens couldn't have jumped through any of the usable tramlines, then sneaked around the system until finally selecting their attack vector and moving in for the kill. And yet, the longer they delayed before the attack, the greater the chance of being spotted. Sheer practicality alone suggested that the analysts might be right.

  And there’s no sign the aliens think that differently from us, he told himself. Technology aside, their tactics are entirely conventional.

  “If this is accurate, the situation is grave,” Jameson warned. “I don’t believe I have to explain the implications.”

  He tapped a switch, activating the holographic starchart. A network of tramlines appeared in front of them, a handful shaded in red. Alan felt a chill run down his spine as he picked out the tramlines that had been supposed to be inaccessible. If the aliens really could use them, they could outflank the defenders and thrust straight at Earth. Gasps echoed around the room as the audience worked it out for themselves. They were all experienced spacers, they knew the realities of spaceflight. The new tramlines would change the universe once again.

  “We may be wrong about this,” Jameson cautioned. “But there is enough evidence to back up the analysis.”

  Alan gritted his teeth. The nature of the tramlines made it impossible to fortify them. None of the Great Powers - or all of them working together - could hope to line a single tramline with orbital battlestations. The costs would be staggering, the requirements utterly incomprehensible ... and even if they fortified one tramline to the point where any intrusion could be detected and destroyed, the others could still be used. That was one of the realities of interstellar spaceflight. They all understood how the tramlines shaped interstellar commerce - and war.

  But if the aliens could use inaccessible tramlines, they could evade most of the outer colonies and make their way directly to Earth without fear of interception. That alone limited humanity. There was no way they could spare forces for the outer colonies if Earth itself might be attacked at any moment. But the deeper implications were worse. No one knew where the aliens were based, save for a rough idea of their general location. And yet, if the only link between human and alien space was an inaccessible tramline ...

  We might not be able to get at them, he thought.

  Someone coughed for attention. “Do the boffins have any theories about how this could be done?”

  “Not as yet,” Jameson said. “I’ve been given to understand that research is underway, but beyond that ... I know nothing.”

  He cleared his throat. “Precisely how we stack up against them on the ground is unknown, but unlikely to matter. As long as they control the high orbitals, they can smash resistance with ease. We believe that it is only a matter of time before the aliens mount an offensive against Earth itself. The defenders are scrambling to get ready for the attack - the boffins have identified a number of ways to minimise the alien advantages - but we need time. That’s where we come in.”

  Of course, Alan thought. The Admiralty wants us to go out and commit suicide to buy time.

  “Intelligence has been doing its level best to watch the aliens,” Jameson informed them. “We do not - as yet - know anything about their physical form, let alone their language, internal politics and, most importantly of all, the reason they started the war. Infiltrating their society is obviously impossible as we know next to nothing about them. However, we have been tracking their movements as best as we can and we have uncovered something interesting. It may give us a chance to take the offensive and score a victory of our own.”

  He altered the starchart, zeroing in on a single system near New Russia. “Our analysis of their tramlines is not yet complete,” he said. “However, we believe they’re running supplies through this system. To us, the system is on the far end of a tramline chain and thus useless for anything other than a black colony; to them, the system is potentially a transit point. If our analysis is correct, they’re using the system to support their offensive.”

  Alan frowned, stroking his chin as he studied the display. It made sense, he supposed, if one accepted that the aliens could ride previously-inaccessible tramlines. The unnamed system - no one had bothered to give it any more than a numerical designation - was only two jumps from New Russia, if one used the weaker tramlines. Coming to think of it, the alien attack force might well have come through the system itself. It was certainly on the right vector.

  And it would allow them to outflank our scouts, he thought. If, of course, they can use the weaker tramlines.

  “Our mission is to get into the system, then intercept and destroy any alien convoys that pass through the tramlines,” Jameson said. “We believe that they will feel reasonably safe, as the system is of very limited use to us. Hitting their convoys will give them a nasty surprise and force them to reassess their tactics. It will also, hopefully, slow their preparations for an assault on Earth.”

  “Makes sense,” Abigail muttered.

  Alan nodded in agreement. Few civilians understood the logistics of interstellar spaceflight - and interstellar war - either. The alien fleet would require replenishing before it proceeded onwards, unless they’d brought their fleet train with them. But that would have been very dangerous, if the battle for New Russia had gone the other way. No, the aliens would need to run everything from freighters to troop transports through the tramline chain before they advanced towards Earth. The plan made sense.

  “Ideally, we’ll try to capture their freighters, rather than destroy them,” Jameson added. “I don’t think I need to tell you just how important it is to capture samples of alien technology for the boffins to study. But, if worse comes to worst, aim to destroy the ships instead of letting them go. We must buy time for Earth to prepare for the coming storm.”

  There was a long pause. “Are there any questions?”

  Abigail leaned forward. “The quickest route to this system would take us within a jump of New Russia,” she said. “Would we not be running the risk of encountering the aliens before we reached our destination?”

  “Yes, we will,” Jameson said. He nodded at the starchart. “Our last reports - which are about a week out of date - suggest that the aliens have occupied all the star systems within a jump of New Russia. So far, there’s been no reports that they have landed on Clement or Oswego, but they smashed asteroid habitats in both the Oswego and Carissa systems. The remaining settlements in the systems have gone dark.”

  He took a long breath. “Yes, there is a very good chance that we will encounter the aliens prior to reaching our target. But there is very little we can do about that, save for sneaking around the edge of the systems rather than trying to get close to them.”

  “It will add several days to our journey, at best,” Alan pointed out.

  “I know,” Jameson said. “And so does the Admiralty.

  “Something - I haven't been told what - will also take place at roughly the same time, hopefully distracting the aliens. But the time delay alone may
make it difficult for the aliens to realise that they’re meant to be distracted. The timing is very far from precise, so we’ll do everything in our power to avoid a confrontation until we reach our destination.”

  And if you’re wrong, we die, Alan thought.

  He looked at the starchart, trying to gather his thoughts. He’d been expendable as a starfighter pilot, but now ... he shook his head. Losing the escort carriers wouldn't materially affect the balance of power, as far as anyone knew. The odds were already stacked against humanity. If they could distract the aliens, throw them back on their heels ... it would be worth any price. He didn't like the thought of dying, but it would be worth it ...

  And it isn't like I have much of a future anyway, he thought. If he couldn't put together a letter to his daughters, why in the name of God Almighty should he be able to slip back into their lives? Better I die amidst the stars then go home, even as a war hero. My past will haunt me wherever I go.