Archangel One

by Evan Currie

  “No, Your Highness, I know this. The shipyard slips . . .”

  “Bah!” she spat, waving her hand impatiently to silence him. “A minor loss, at most. Antiquated, costing almost as much in maintenance by this point as they would to replace. The loss of actual production is a security concern, I suppose, as that sector will be light on replacement vessels for some time, but the real cost is to the Imperial reputation. Spies have already delivered the news of your defeat, and the manner of it, to every adversary we have in all galactic vectors. Predators have smelled a touch of blood now, Jesan. Not enough to make them believe we are weak, but enough that the thought will be entertained.”

  “The Empire is as strong today as it has ever been. We are at the peak of our power.”

  “Exactly,” she practically whispered. “Once you are at your peak, there is nowhere to go but down . . . and many of our enemies know this and are watching for the signs of decline.”

  “They must be taught the error of misconception, then.”

  The empress smiled slowly. “Exactly right. Your fleet will not be reinforced, Jesan, but it remains your own. Take it and instruct the more belligerent of our neighbors in the errors of their ways.”

  Jesan nodded. “Including the . . . Priminae?”

  “No. They and their allies are now off-limits to you.” The empress’ tone was sharp and left no room for interpretation. “Others have been assigned to that task, specifically the Eighth Fleet.”

  Jesan looked up sharply, forgetting himself in his surprise, before ducking his head again.

  The Eighth Fleet was the only Imperial Navy organization that was not specifically a combat group. They certainly could wage war if forced into a corner, but their task was generally in-depth intelligence gathering on an order rarely required by the Empire.

  It left the Eighth with a reputation of being near worthless, and from his experience, Jesan knew that they were often underequipped for their job because of that. If the empress was sending them, she was making a point to the court and sector governors. Jesan suspected that the Eighth would not be looked upon in the same way for long, not if those in positions of influence had any brains.

  He could see the gravity well changing.

  I wonder how many will be foolish enough to miss Her Highness’ point on this? And how many will live to regret their mistake?

  “Dismissed,” the empress said, a gleam in her eye as she saw the expression on Jesan’s face and expected that he had seen what others might overlook. “Before you go, however . . .”

  “Yes, Your Highness?” Jesan hadn’t budged from his position.

  “Cooperate with the Eighth when they come to you.”

  “With zero hesitation, Your Highness, on my oath of service.”

  Chapter 1

  NACS Odysseus, Earth Orbit

  Eric Weston looked down on the round of the Earth, hands clasped behind his back as he stood in front of the observation deck of the Odysseus. The blue-white ball still looked better from orbit than it ever did from the battlefield, in his opinion at least, but the black of space didn’t seem so pure any longer either.

  Only a few light-seconds from where he stood, he’d called down the fire of the gods . . . in a very literal sense of the word . . . and torched an alien warship in seconds. It had been a strange moment in time, one he still regarded almost as though he had been standing in front of a blackboard, lecturing a particularly stubborn student.

  I hope the lesson sunk in.

  Eric smiled, amused.

  “Do you believe that is likely?”

  Eric glanced sideways, now used to the particular nuances of the entity that existed as part of his ship.

  “Honestly?” he asked the young armored entity. “No, I rather doubt it did. The Imperials we’ve met don’t strike me as particularly good students.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “Don’t you know?” Eric asked. “Being in our heads, after all?”

  “I don’t live that way, Captain,” Odysseus told him. “I’m not surprised you thought that, but it’s more complicated. I cannot access everything you know, only those things you actively think while in my presence.”

  “Your presence is the entire ship,” Eric said.

  “Plus a significant volume surrounding the vessel, yes. However”—Odysseus frowned—“just because you think something doesn’t mean you reflect on the full context of what makes that thought meaningful to you. Sometimes I know only that you believe something, not why you believe it.”

  Eric nodded. “I suppose that makes sense. The reason I don’t believe they learned their lesson is because I’m familiar with how these sorts think. I’ve fought against, and served with, more than a few who thought just like them.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Some people believe that there’s no such thing as overkill, that all problems can be solved by power,” Eric said. “A common belief that stems from people who aren’t capable of adjusting their preconceptions as the job changes. A grunt on the ground sees only the problem in front of him, and those sorts of problems can almost always be solved by a greater application of force. As you get to see the bigger picture, though, force becomes less ideal. Small-picture people try to solve every problem with a bigger hammer, but it never works out the way they think.”

  “How? As long as the problem is eliminated . . .”

  “There, that’s the issue,” Eric said. “It’s not about eliminating problems. It’s about solving them. Violence is spectacular at eliminating problems, but it is entirely incapable of solving them on any level. When you employ violence, there are inevitably collateral issues.”

  Odysseus frowned, looking puzzled and disturbed. “How so?”

  “You have a terrorist, about to destroy a building,” Eric said, unconsciously dropping into a lecturing tone. “To stop him, you kill the man. Problem eliminated, correct?”

  The entity nodded slowly.

  “But by killing the man you’ve now angered his family and friends, maybe motivated them to action, or possibly done the same for strangers who were previously uncommitted to the terrorist’s cause. So in the future, you now have two or three or more terrorists whose direct call to action was the violence you committed to stop one terrorist.”

  “Does that mean one shouldn’t stop a terror act with violence?” Odysseus asked in puzzlement.

  “Of course not. If you have someone threatening lives, you must take action,” Eric said. “However, you need to be cognizant of the results of that action beyond the immediate good. If you ignore the consequences, you will make things worse.”

  “I . . . I don’t know how to handle or process that,” Odysseus admitted. “I am . . . In a very real way, I am a warship. I am equipped to deliver violence by nature. I thought that we were solving problems facing my crew.”

  “Sadly, no,” Eric said, shaking his head. “Violence doesn’t solve problems; it just isn’t a solution.”

  “Then why do I exist?”

  “That’s a weighty question,” Eric said and smiled softly. “Why do any of us? But that isn’t the question you really mean to ask. It’s not why you exist, but why do we do what we do if violence isn’t a solution, right?”

  Odysseus was silent, processing.

  “Perhaps,” the entity finally said.

  “Violence may not be a solution, but it is an important currency,” Eric said. “Ideally, we employ violence to buy time for real solutions to be put into action.”

  Odysseus frowned. “If we’re not the problem solvers, but only buy time for them . . . who solves the problems?”

  Eric laughed cynically. “The way the system is currently set up? Politicians, diplomats . . .”

  “I . . . am not encouraged by that answer,” Odysseus admitted.

  “Yeah, well, if the system worked, we wouldn’t have a job,” Eric joked, though he quickly sobered. “Nothing is perfect, not when humans are involved. The diplomats and politicia
ns sure as hell aren’t, but neither are we. We do our jobs, buy them time, and we trust them to do theirs and hunt for real solutions.”

  “This feels like something worse than merely imperfect,” Odysseus said. “It is also very inefficient.”

  “That’s not a bug, ’Diss,” Eric said firmly. “That’s the feature.”

  Odysseus stared at him. “And again I do not understand the context needed to process that.”

  “Efficient governments and systems are possible,” Eric said with a shrug. “They’ve been done in the past. They can accomplish amazing things in short times, but they also, inevitably, do horrifying things as well. The inefficiency is the check that gives sane people time to put a stop to growing power before it can be concentrated in too few hands. Beware an efficient government, or any such organization. People in groups give up their morality in exchange for the goals of the group, so if the group is efficient, you would be horrified by how quickly you can become mired in an absolutely immoral situation.”

  Odysseus looked down on the planet below, considering that, before he finally spoke again.

  “What do we do if that happens here?”

  “We’re soldiers, Odysseus,” Eric said softly. “We follow orders as long as they are legal. If you wear the uniform, you follow the chain of command for any and all lawful orders.”

  “Lawful does not mean moral.”

  “No,” Eric said, his voice dropping more. “No, it does not. But you do it anyway as long as you wear the uniform.”

  “I . . . I cannot process that,” Odysseus admitted. “How can you do what is wrong, even if it’s legal?”

  “Every man has a line, son,” Eric said. “One they will not cross. My government has never ordered me into disgrace, though there have been times I felt I was closer to that line than I ever wanted to be. If they do order me to cross it, then I hope I have the strength to take the uniform off. I’ll march into hell for my world, ’Diss—I’ll march anywhere for my allegiance, even hell—anywhere except into disgrace.”

  The entity fell silent, having nothing more to say as he considered the words. Eric decided that he had said his piece and fell silent as well. The pair remained that way, looking out on the quiet of the black beyond the observation bubble, meditating on the blue-white pearl floating in its midst.

  Miram Heath examined the status board on the bridge, mostly out of habit, since the ship had been essentially at anchor or station-keeping while much of the crew were on leave. The Odysseus had completed primary repairs in a relatively short time, but now they were in the queue for major refits through the Star Forge, and that was taking longer than projected.

  Because of course it is.

  With major refits on the board, they were officially off the rotation for new missions, and that meant Miram was willing to take any duty shift she could in a failing attempt to avoid her paperwork.

  The Odysseus was spooky with only a couple skeleton shifts on board, all the more so since she was well aware that the ship was, in fact, haunted.

  “I am not a ghost, Commander.”

  Miram barely managed to keep from uttering a decidedly unprofessional squeak of surprise as she jumped and twisted around.

  “Don’t do that!”

  “I apologize, Commander. I did not mean to surprise you.”

  “The hell you didn’t.” Miram scowled at the armored teen. “You do it too often for it not to be intentional.”

  The entity shrugged slightly in his armor but said nothing.

  Miram rolled her eyes. “If you were enlisted, I’d put you on report. As it is, I’m telling the captain on you.”

  The teen’s eyes widened and he took a step back. “I would prefer if you did not.”

  “I have no doubt you would,” she said, “but you still keep this nonsense up.”

  The boy looked abashed, an amusing look for someone dressed in ancient Greek combat armor, Miram had to note. She sighed. “Why are you here, Odysseus?”

  “You were bored,” the entity said with simple honesty, “and you fed me a good entry line.”

  Miram scowled. “You spent far too much time with Commander Michaels.”

  Odysseus perked up. “When will the commander be back?”

  She gestured uncertainly but with little concern. “He’s on detached assignment. Nothing new has come over the reports. But, of course, you know that. I don’t know why you insist on asking.”

  Odysseus turned slowly around, walking away from her to stand in the central command station.

  “The captain told me that speaking with the crew is vital,” he said, obviously quoting. “Without communication, confusion reigns . . . and communication is a two-way street.”

  Miram nodded. “That does sound like something the captain would say, and it’s true enough too. So why are you sneaking up on me?”

  “Commander Michaels said it would be funny.”

  Miram could only groan.

  Sol System, Inside the Orbit of Mercury

  Two sleek vessels accelerated hard past the dull gray orb of a planet, blue flashes of Cerenkov radiation visible as they sped past light-speed. The lead decelerated sharply and arced hard into Mercury’s orbit, dipping deep enough into thin atmosphere for the heat of friction to ignite the hydrogen and oxygen present, sending flickering flames in their wake.

  “Angel Lead, Angel One.”

  “Go for Angel Lead, Angel One.”

  “Back off, Stephanos, you’re pushing the system too hard,” Black said as she eased up slightly on the follow craft and lifted the nose to get a bit more minimum safe altitude from Mercury’s surface.

  “I need to know what it can do, Noire,” Steph replied easily, increasing speed and dropping closer to the surface. “The new system is a quantum leap over NICS, but there are differences I need to map out.”

  “You can do that in space, where there’s more margin for error.”

  “Negative,” Steph said with a bit of a smirk in his voice. “I need to see the difference between the system’s readings and what my eyes see.”

  He floated in the middle of a vista of the world around him, the enhanced view of Mercury lit up like an iridescent digital dream as he flew through it. He glanced over his shoulder, past the full-surround imagery that made him feel like he was flying through space under his own power.

  “You okay back there?”

  Milla Chans was rather pale as she gripped tightly to the straps holding her in place. “I . . . I am fine.”

  Steph chuckled. “You sure? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “I wish I had,” Milla said sourly. “Odysseus would be a safer pilot.”

  “Hey! That hurts,” Steph said.

  “Not so much as that mountain will! Look where we are going!”

  Steph glanced back to the front, noting the approach of the mountain in question.

  A little small for a mountain, but it would do a job on us if we hit it, I suppose.

  He adjusted his approach, climbing the incline up the range and angling through a low pass. Cliff faces flashed by, only meters away from either side of the craft, before it blew out past the mountain into the open space beyond.

  “This new interface you built is a work of art, Milla,” Steph said. “It’s like I’m flying under my own power through open space.”

  He glanced up and over his shoulder, noting that Lieutenant Commander Black was holding above and just behind his position, keeping pace with his lead ship.

  “You holding up okay there, Noire?” he radioed back.

  “Har har, Commander,” Black responded. “Are you done showboating?”

  “Almost,” Steph replied before pulling back sharply and putting his fighter into a steep climb, accelerating as the craft clawed for altitude.

  A deep whine reverberated through the interior as the inertial compensation was pushed to the limit. The imagery flickered at the forward edge of the fighter’s screens as the heat dissipation capacity of the system
was overloaded by the sudden increase in friction.

  “Need to work on this, Milla,” Steph said. “Can’t have my visibility compromised by accelerated maneuvers.”

  “This is not a mere accelerated maneuver!” Milla objected, white faced as she was pushed back hard into her bolstered seat by the acceleration that had overwhelmed the compensators. “You are exposing the forward sensors to extreme heat from friction!”

  “This is a thin atmosphere, Milla,” Steph said as the red haze cleared, the heat burning out as the ship exploded out into Mercury’s orbit. “If it can’t take friction here, then what happens when we take her into a habitable world’s atmosphere, like Earth’s?”

  “Perhaps you shouldn’t be approaching significant percentages of light-speed inside any planetary atmosphere, Stephan!”

  “I need to know the limits,” he said, his tone becoming serious. He ran through the diagnostics as Commander Black’s fighter caught up with them and settled into a tight formation by space standards, holding off a little over a hundred kilometers from his position and course. Steph checked her course on reflex, though it was hardly necessary. “Did you get the telemetry on that, Noire?”

  Black’s response took a moment. “Yeah, I got it, and I also get why you guys had a rep for being insane during the war.”

  Steph laughed openly as he finished the diagnostics, getting green results across every category.

  “Yeah, I’ve heard that before,” he said, his focus now on the computers. “But everything looks good on this side, so I’m inclined to give my stamp of approval pending an outer hull teardown.”

  Black sighed audibly over the network. “Agreed. Lieutenant Commander Chans, my compliments. I’ve never flown anything as responsive, and this new interface is intuitive on a level I’ve never experienced. We do need to war-game these against realistic foes, however, because I’m not certain about reaction times in combat.”

  “We have been simulating that so far, and there have been issues,” Milla admitted. “Primarily, it is extremely difficult to react quickly enough in the event of near-contact combat.”

  Steph snorted. “No kidding. When your weapons travel at light-speed, anything less than a few tens of thousands of kilometers is point-blank—and anything more than that, you still won’t get any warning before a shot lands. I don’t suppose we could use swarm drones, the way the Odysseus did in the battle of Sol?”