by Jay Allan
He stared intently at the young Mule. A naturally-born human would still be a child at her age, but Freya was fully grown, the equivalent of about twenty for an NB, her dark, almost black hair contrasting with the silvery-blonde so prevalent among the first generation of Mules. She was beautiful, by every measure generally accorded to such a designation, and she was very likely the most intelligent creature ever to spawn from human DNA. He was impressed by her, excited to see what she would become, given the years to develop her mind and become the being she could be. He thought he’d gotten through to her, hoped at least, but he wasn’t sure.
Not until she looked him right in the eye and told him so.
“You are correct. It would be foolish to act on wounded pride when a greater danger threatens us all.” She paused for a moment. “But, one day, Achilles…one day the Mules will stand together, and we will take what should rightfully be ours.” She stared toward him with an expectant look.
Achilles paused for a few seconds, and then he nodded his assent.
“One day,” he said softly. “One day.”
Chapter Fifteen
Flag Bridge, E2S Garret
System G24
Earth Two Date 01.27.43
“Task Force 2, all ships forward to the warp gate. Transit as soon as in position.” Erika West had received the message from Strand’s drone. The advance force had encountered First Imperium ships. West had known her forces would run into the enemy before they got to G48—it had been almost a certainty—but, she had hoped to get a lot closer.
If we have to fight our way through every system from here…
No, that wasn’t likely. The Regent’s forces were considerable, but they weren’t infinite. But, the presence of a First Imperium fleet in G25, a system that had long been devoid of enemy activity, suggested it was aware of the danger.
Her suspicions flared, and she thought for a moment—just a moment—about recalling Strand’s ships and canceling the operation. But, then she remembered her original rationale. However difficult the campaign was, it still offered a better chance for success than sitting on Earth Two, waiting for the day a drone slipped through one of the warp gates…and gave the signal for the final battle.
“Task Force 2 reports all ships accelerating to the gate. Transits projected commencing in six minutes.”
“Very well.” West felt the urge to order the entire fleet forward immediately, but she held back. Strand hadn’t reported anything her ships couldn’t handle, and even if more enemy forces appeared from some hiding place, Task Force 2 would provide a significant reinforcement to the fleet’s lead elements.
Erika West despised sitting back, waiting while her people fought, but she knew there was no choice. She could risk the entire fleet to destroy the enemy’s antimatter production…but not for anything less decisive. She was already walking into a trap, one she hoped to turn around on the enemy. Stumbling into another ambush eight transits from the target system would be an unmitigated disaster.
“Prepare a communication drone for launch. Advise Admiral Strand that I want updates every…”
“Admiral, we’re picking up something transiting…I think it’s a…”
A drone. West allowed herself the first smile in as along as she could remember. Josie Strand was the best of the new generation…and she felt a bit of rare and welcome satisfaction at the thought that when she was gone, she would have left the navy in such good hands.
“Receiving a transmission now. Admiral Strand reports her forces have exchanged missile volleys with the enemy and are now closing to energy weapons range.” A pause. She also reports contact with twenty-three enemy ships, of various classes, including two Colossus’s. The rest of the system appears to be clear as far as she has been able to detect.”
West understood that last part perfectly. Josie Strand knew as well as anyone else in the fleet that transiting and going right into battle had left her almost no time to truly scan the system. There could be a hundred First Imperium ships sitting powered down or hiding in dust clouds or asteroid belts, just waiting for the right time to strike. But, West suddenly felt an unexpected calm. She believed in Admiral Strand…she trusted her subordinate.
The advance guard was in good hands…and, for as much as she hated the idea of Strand and the forward vessels running into a crisis they couldn’t manage, that was their mission after all…to root out dangers before the entire fleet was hopelessly ensnared.
They were doing that job now.
And, West’s was to sit and wait and keep the rest of the fleet out of jeopardy…no matter how much it drove her crazy.
* * *
Strand sat silently on Midway’s bridge, as the massive ship pitched wildly. The damage wasn’t as bad as it seemed, she was pretty sure of that. Most of the gyrating had been caused by some hull blowouts, and the expulsion of atmospheric gases from the stricken sections. One of the enemy missiles had gotten a little close for comfort, and while the AI had reported no structural or crippling damage, it was pretty clear the control bots, and the skeleton crew of engineers supervising them, had their hands full sealing hull breaches and patching fractured conduits.
The barrage had inflicted damage all along her line, though, with the exception of the cruiser, Sandoval, none of the hits appeared to be critical. The stricken cruiser had been unfortunate enough to be within four hundred meters of an exploding warhead.
The fireworks of the enemy barrage’s detonations had assured Strand of one thing she’d suspected.
All the warheads were antimatter armed.
Strand had already issued orders for Sandoval to cut thrust—a pointless order for a ship that just lost most, if not all, of its engine power—and fall back out of the line. She’d asked Captain Gregorian if he was prepared to abandon ship, but he’d responded that he felt there was a fifty percent chance of saving the vessel. Strand thought that was a rather optimistic estimate, but she’d given him the chance to get it done.
It didn’t matter much anyway. Even if the ship managed to restore some basic thrust capability, it had no place in the line of battle now, at least not before months of repairs, and probably not even then. All she cared about was not losing a crew she could otherwise save…which meant Gregorian had another twenty minutes, tops. Then, she would issue the orders for the crew to move toward the escape pods.
“More damage control reports coming in, Admiral. All ships besides Sandoval retain a minimum of seventy percent thrust capacity and sixty percent weapons operability.”
She just nodded. The seventy-sixty ratio had long been considered a baseline of combat-readiness, though Strand paid little attention to it. Combat was usually something that presented itself whether one was ready or not. “All fleet units, prepare for energy weapons engagement.”
The forces of the original fleet, and to an extent, even those ships she had served in years later as a young officer, had yielded a considerable range differential to the vessels of the First Imperium. But that was largely no longer the case, at least for the newest and most powerful monsters like Midway. The Mule-led research efforts had resulted in enhanced weapons systems being added to Earth Two’s arsenal every year or two, and now, the gigantic guns mounted on Midway’s hull were a match for the First Imperium batteries in just about every way.
And, if the rumors about the new railguns are really true…we may finally have an actual advantage for once, an area where our stuff is ahead of theirs…
Strand couldn’t imagine how something like that would seem to the Pilgrims, with their memories of combat in ships utterly outclassed by the First Imperium attackers. Her own recollections were similar, of course, if far less severe. Earth Two tech had advanced rapidly during her youth, and the first warships on which she served were hundreds of years of normal development ahead of those that had brought the Pilgrims to Earth Two just two decades earlier. And, Midway was centuries more beyond that first vessel on which she’d reported for duty as a newly-minted li
eutenant.
“Zephyr and Vincennes are to swing out from the ends of the battleline and scout around the perimeters of the enemy fleet.”
“Yes, Admiral.” She could tell that Hercule agreed with her action. Something just wasn’t right about the situation. It might have made sense for the enemy force to engage in a missile duel, hoping the advantage of their antimatter ordnance might make a difference, but the force now advancing into close range had no real chance at all. It was outnumbered and outgunned. The First Imperium almost always enjoyed numerical advantages, and they had still lost many battles to human fleets.
Why are they just throwing away a force like this?
Unless they’re luring us forward…
“All ships, decelerate at full. Bring the fleet to a dead stop.”
Strand hadn’t found any evidence of additional enemy forces…but she wasn’t taking any chances. She wanted to see how the enemy reacted to her fleet halting, rather than allowing itself to be lured farther forward. She’d half expected the First Imperium ships to match her action, to stop themselves…but they continued on, pushing inexorably forward, until their longest ranged guns opened fire.
“All batteries in range…fire.” Strand shifted uncomfortably in her chair, watching the close-range battle commence. She’d almost ordered her ships to accelerate forward again, but the enemy vessels were still closing, and even her smaller ships were coming into range.
She could hear Midway’s giant guns firing, a single shot from just one battery discharging as much energy as the old Midway’s reactors had produced in an entire day. The great beams ripped through the vacuum of space, their range several times as great as the weapons of a generation ago.
The enemy ships conducted evasive maneuvers, just as her ships were doing…but the AI-operated vessels had never been able to match their human-controlled counterparts, not in the wild and random gyrations used to break targeting locks. For all their advanced technology, the First Imperium ships only managed a hit rate of just about two-thirds that of their human adversaries.
Strand watched on the display as Midway’s main guns ripped into one of the enemy Colossus’s. The massive enemy battleships, and the even larger Leviathans, had once struck terror into the hearts of human spacers tasked with fighting them. But, Midway was bigger, even, than the Colossus, and Strand fancied that her shining new flagship even had a chance one on one against one of the monstrous Leviathans. Mankind had been fighting the First Imperium in one form or another for half a century now, and in all that time, the vast legions of the robotic enemy had shown little in the way of technological advancement, at least in their fleet units.
The small icon in the display expanded as Midway’s shot scored its hit, displaying what appeared to be an actual image of the target ship, and the signs of damage the hits had caused. It was all made up, of course, Midway’s AI doing its best job of showing what the damage assessments reported might have happened over eighty thousand kilometers away around the stricken enemy ship. The image wobbled a bit, as the computer updated it continually, taking advantage of every scrap of information that flowed in from the scanners.
Whatever the truth behind the images she was watching, there was no question her flagship had hit the enemy vessel hard. But, a Colossus was a tough ship, and it kept coming on, its thrust reduced by about half, but most of its own guns still firing. Midway gyrated repeatedly, as its evasive maneuvers continued, but then the great ship shuddered hard, and a shower of sparks flew out from a burned-out panel along the far wall.
Her ship had been hit.
Strand was already at the control unit, demanding a damage report from the main AI. A ship commander of the last generation would have been on the comm with the vessel’s chief engineer, but reporting duties had fallen to the automated systems over the past ten years.
“Two of the port reactors are shut down. I project they will be ready to restart in fifteen minutes. The other ten reactors remain operational, with three of them running at seventy to eighty percent capacity. Two port batteries have been damaged, one badly…”
She listened as the AI went on, trying to decide if she missed having another human at the other end of the comm. A human engineer would have been distracted giving the report, valuable time that could have been spent making repairs expended, as often as not, satisfying the captain’s vanity. But, something had been lost, too, she realized. It was easy for the data-driven types to ignore the value of things like camaraderie in battle, and sometimes hard to explain in practical terms how crucial such amorphous concepts sometimes were.
She turned her head, diverting a portion of her attention, even as the AI continued to recite Midway’s damage in excruciating detail. She’d already decided her flagship was okay. But, she had a fleet to worry about, and a whole battle. It had been more than twelve years since she’d commanded only a single vessel, but somehow, she always felt like a ship’s captain deep down.
Midway lurched again, not as hard as before, and the AI interrupted its report to start again, giving her the most recent information.
The ship was holding up well enough, but she wasn’t thrilled about the enemy’s hit rate. The Colossus Midway had faced off against had definitely taken the worst of the exchange so far, but it still had fight left in it…and as long as it stayed in battle, Strand knew those heavy guns could gut whole sections of her ship.
“Commander…bring engines up to forty percent. All fleet units, advance and maintain fire.” It was time to end the fight…and to flush out any enemy forces that might be lurking somewhere out there.
“Yes, Admiral. All ships engage thrust and advance. Maintain fire.”
Strand watched as another of Midway’s shots slammed into the enemy ship…and then she saw the scanner readings spike as internal explosions answered the impacting beams.
“I want all batteries concentrated on that Colossus…maximum rate of fire.” She was leaning forward, the tension gripping her body from head to toe. She’d never forgotten the experience of battle—she couldn’t imagine anyone who’d endured it ever could—but now the recall poured back into her mind in startlingly vivid detail. Her hands were moist with sweat, tightly gripping the armrests of her chair. He eyes where focused tightly, watching the display as her ships moved forward, pounding at the enemy line.
But, it was the Colossus she was watching most closely, the great enemy battleship lined up opposite Midway. The First Imperium didn’t hesitate to sacrifice ships to achieve tactical objectives. But even the coldly analytical Regent didn’t casually throw away Colossus’s. The enemy battleship, and the second one farther down the line, fighting a cluster of her own ships, could have escaped the system instead of engaging her forces.
Why didn’t they?
If they’ll put two Colossus’s on the line, there must be other ships here. Or…
Her thoughts erupted, distracting her for a few seconds, even from the battle taking place all around. Or…they’re desperate to stop us before we can get to G48.
Was it possible? Had the fleet really found a weakness, an opening? Was the Regent rushing whatever it could to engage the fleet anyplace, any way, in a desperate attempt to stop the attack short of its antimatter production world?
Strand couldn’t quite make herself believe they had gained such an edge against the Regent…but she couldn’t shake the excitement she felt building in her as she considered it either.
Then, her eyes froze on the display as a pair of Midway’s heavy guns hit the Colossus almost simultaneously…and the great battleship vanished in the fury of antimatter annihilation.
Chapter Sixteen
Cutter Research Compound (Home of the Mules)
Ten Kilometers West of Victory City, Earth Two
Earth Two Date 02.08.43
“You called for me?” Achilles stepped into the massive laboratory, ducking under an appendage extending from an odd-looking construct just to the side of the entry. He stopped abruptly, his usual
neutral expression replaced immediately by one of concern. Themistocles was standing a few meters from the door, in the center of the room. The Mule was usually a shining example of the physical health and perfection of his people…but now he was crouched forward, his eyes dull with what Achilles could see was crushing fatigue. “What is it, my friend? You look terrible.”
“How I look is of no consequence my old friend.” Achilles was relieved at the Mule’s tone. His friend was clearly exhausted, but it seemed, at least, that nothing was wrong.
“Well, then, I assume you called me down here for something other than to see what one of us looks like after…” He paused and started at Themistocles. “…six days with no sleep?”
“Seven…I think. But, that is also of no consequence…for I have spent those sleepless nights well, Achilles, my old crèche-mate. I believe I have cured the Plague.”
Achilles just stood still, staring across the room. The best scientists on Earth Two, including a significant contingent of Mules, had studied the deadly disease that struck the Tanks with such devastating suddenness for more than forty years, without success. Themistocles was the most intelligent of all the researchers, so it didn’t surprise Achilles that his friend might have been the one to discover the long-evasive secret of the illness…but the suddenness of the development was still unexpected.
“How sure are you?”
“I am fairly certain…but, of course I would like you to review my notes and give me your thoughts. I am somewhat tired…and I haven’t yet tested it out on a live Tank.”
Achilles moved across the room, his head snapping quickly behind him as he did, taking a longer look at the mysterious device. “I suppose this mad scientist creation has something to do with it.”
“Yes…” Themistocles paused. “With its initial development, at least. But, I believe the final equipment will be much more compact.” Another pause, one Achilles knew was a manifestation of his friend’s exhaustion. “My research was rather widespread in its initial approach. The final solution proved to be much more…straightforward.”