Contents
Cover
Also by Bennett R. Coles
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Dramatis Personae
Glossary
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Acknowledgements
About the Author
Also Available from Titan Books
ALSO BY BENNETT R. COLES
AND AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS
Ghosts of War (March 2016)
March of War (January 2017)
Virtues of War
Print edition ISBN: 9781783294206
Electronic edition ISBN: 9781783294220
Published by Titan Books
A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd
144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP
First Titan Books edition: June 2015
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This is a work of fiction. Names, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by Bennett R. Coles. All Rights Reserved.
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No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
TO MY FATHER
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Lieutenant Katja Emmes (operations officer of Rapier)
Lieutenant Charity Brisebois (navigation officer of Rapier, known as “Breeze”)
Lieutenant Commander Thomas Kane (commanding officer of Rapier)
Sublieutenant Jack Mallory (pilot of a Hawk anti-stealth warfare craft)
RAPIER STRIKE TEAM
Lieutenant Katja Emmes (Alpha-One)
Squad Leader Assad (Alpha-Two)
Trooper Hernandez (Alpha-Three)
Trooper Jackson (Alpha-Four)
Trooper Cohen (Alpha-Five) strike pod pilot
Sergeant Suleiman Chang (Bravo-One)
Squad Leader Lu Chen (Bravo-Two)
Squad Leader McKevitt (Bravo-Three)
Trooper Sakiyama (Bravo-Four)
Trooper Alayan (Bravo-Five) strike pod pilot
KRISTIANSAND CREW MEMBERS
Commander Kristine Avernell (commanding officer)
Lieutenant Sean Duncan (executive officer)
Lieutenant Dan “Stripes” Trifunov (pilot)
Lieutenant Carmen Hathaway (supply officer)
Lieutenant Makatiani (ASW director)
OTHER TERRAN MILITARY PERSONNEL
Captain Eric Chandler (commanding officer of Normandy)
Colonel Alexander Korolev (commander of the Levantine Regiment)
Commander Cassandra Vici (commander of the Saracen troop)
Saracen platoon commanders Lieutenant Scott Lahko
Sublieutenant Wei Hu
Lieutenant Serge Wicki
Lieutenant Sven Pletsers
First Lieutenant Gopal Sung
Warrant Ali al-Jamil (Astral Intelligence)
Sergeant Rao (Saracens, Fifth Platoon)
GLOSSARY
AAR anti-armor robot
AAW anti-attack warfare
AF Astral Force
AG artificial gravity
APR anti-personnel robot
ASW anti-stealth warfare
AVW anti-vessel warfare
CO commanding officer (or captain)
DR dead reckoning
EF expeditionary force
EF 15 Expeditionary Force 15
EM electromagnetic
FAC fast-attack craft
NavO navigating officer (or navigator)
OOW officer of the watch
OpsO operations officer
SOA speed of advance
SF special forces
SupplyO supply officer
TLA three-letter abbreviation
UNREP underway replenishment
VOI vessel of interest
XO executive officer
OFFICER TRADES
Line officer in charge of the general operations of the Astral Force warships, this trade is exclusive to the Fleet
Strike officer commanding AF ground operations, this trade is exclusive to the Corps
Pilot officer operators of the Astral Force small craft, this trade exists in both Fleet and Corps depending on the craft being piloted
Support officer divided into three distinct sub-trades—Supply, Engineering and Intelligence—this trade fulfills the Astral Force non-combat roles for both Fleet and Corps
EXTRA-DIMENSIONAL
Brane a region of spacetime which consists of three spatial dimensions and one time dimension; humans exist in one of several known branes
Bulk an area of spacetime which consists of four spatial dimensions and one time dimension
Ctholian Deep a region of the Bulk more than 16 peets away from the brane in which humans exist
Peet the unit of measurement to describe how far into the fourth dimension something is, in relation to the brane in which humans exist
Tenebral implosion Weakbrane a specific effect inside the Ctholian Deep another three-dimensional region of spacetime displaced from humans within the Bulk
SHIPBOARD
Aft toward the back of the ship
Bow front of the ship
Bridge the command center of the ship
Bulkhead wall
Deck floor
Deckhead ceiling
Forward toward the front of the ship
Flats corridor
Frame an air-tight bulkhead which divides one section of the ship from another
Galley kitchen
Hatch a permanent access point built into a deck (as opposed to a door which is built into a bulkhead)
Hardpoint a small mounting on the outer hull which holds a weapon until the weapon is launched
Heads toilet
Ladder a steep stairway leading from one deck to another
Main cave main cafeteria
Passageway corridor
Port left
Rack bed; also a verb meaning to sleep
Starboard right
Stern back of the ship
Washplace sink, shower
1
Size doesn’t matter in zero-g. But
if in doubt, carry an automatic weapon.
Lieutenant Katja Emmes reached down her armored spacesuit, suddenly wanting the reassurance of the assault rifle tethered to her waist. The suit bulked out her petite frame, but without gravity she glided unencumbered along the hexagonally shaped central passageway.
Most of Rapier’s crew were already in position for the strike, hunkered down in their turrets and damage control stations. Katja confirmed that her troopers were ready in the two strike pods and made her way forward for the descent.
Rapier was tiny by Terran warship standards, barely thirty meters from stem to stern. In her short time as a strike leader, however, Katja had come to admire the formidable little craft and her crew. Say what she might about the Fleet in general, the fast-attack crews were well chosen.
Alone in the passageway, Katja paused, suddenly feeling the weight of responsibility on her shoulders. Today was the real thing, not a simulation. She was leading nine troopers into a hot zone with no Corps backup. Once they were on the ground, there was no higher authority to help her—she was all the authority they’d have.
She pulled up her helmet and looked at her reflection in the faceplate. Was that a suitable war face? Would it inspire her troopers and intimidate her enemy? She absently ran a gloved hand through her close-cropped blonde hair and stared into her own dark eyes. There could be no hesitation, no uncertainty. She’d always wanted the chance to prove herself.
This was it.
The six-sided passageway ended at a heavy hatch. Katja hooked one foot into a nearby handhold, turned the lock on the hatch, and swung it open. Dazzling light flooded outward. She closed her eyes and continued blind, releasing her foot, swinging through the opening, and then pulling the hatch shut behind her. As she heard it clamp she opened her eyes slowly and spun around.
The glare streaming through the windows was painfully bright, but her eyes adjusted enough to make out the world of Cerberus, looming huge before her. The white clouds and small blue seas were particularly brilliant, but even the ruddy land masses shone vividly under the scorching glare of Sirius. It was little wonder most of the people who lived under the light of the Dog Star went mad.
Katja strapped into her seat and secured her rifle.
Rapier’s bridge was just large enough for two pairs of seats and accompanying control panels. In the lower front pair sat the ship’s cox’n, Chief Petty Officer Rishi Tamma, and the navigator, Lieutenant Charity “call me Breeze” Brisebois. All eyes and hands were busy—neither looked back at Katja’s arrival.
On her right, Rapier’s commanding officer, Lieutenant Commander Thomas Kane, glanced at her with brows raised in query. The military-issue spacesuit he wore was no different from those of the other crew members. Although still young, he possessed the eyes of a man who had experienced much.
“Troopers ready,” she said without ceremony.
Thomas nodded, his eyes hard as he stared out at the looming planet. Even after five hundred years of space travel, atmosphere penetration was still a risky maneuver.
In the front row, Chief Tamma keyed his speaker to ship-wide broadcast.
“Rapier is go for strike, Captain.”
“Rapier is go for strike,” Thomas repeated on the broadcast. Then, “Pilot, start descent.”
“Yes, sir,” Tamma replied.
The ship had already completed two orbits, both to reconnoiter the site and to bleed off velocity, and was “hovering” in a near-geosynchronous perch. Lost among the scatter of satellites and orbital dhows, Rapier’s presence hadn’t yet incurred any interest from the local warlords.
That was about to change.
The looming edge of Cerberus’s visible horizon slid out of view to the left as Tamma banked the fast-attack craft into her sharp dive, and the planet’s massive, reddish surface filled the bridge windows. Faint shifts in her seat’s local artificial gravity field confirmed to Katja that they were descending. Nose down in the still tenuous atmosphere, Rapier saved her fuel and let the planet’s gravity well do the work.
The first moments of the fall were uneventful, the tapestry of land, lakes, and cloud far below, virtually unchanging. Then the first flickers of super-heated air wisped past Rapier’s nose, and Katja felt her harness pressing uncomfortably against her chest.
The pressure increased as an orange cone of gas shrouded the craft’s nose. Katja labored to keep her breathing steady, forcing air into her flattened lungs.
It was Thomas who spotted trouble first. “Viper, three-one-five mark zero-four-zero, two hundred-k, archons one-five-zero. Desig Tango-One.”
Katja strained to read her 3-D display, picking out the craft off their relative port bow, already one hundred kilometers up and climbing to intercept. Rapier was plunging past the two hundred kilometer mark, and was at her most vulnerable. This was not a good place to get caught.
Thomas’s voice carried firmly over the roar of re-entry. “Full power dive.”
The constriction in Katja’s chest immediately eased as Rapier accelerated downward. Unease kept her breathing tight, however—they would need to slow down before rendezvousing with the surface. She flicked a glance at Thomas, who appeared unfazed.
“Unknown spacecraft.” A scratchy, heavily accented voice, speaking in English, came over the civilian frequency. “This is Cerberan Orbital Authority. Terminate your approach and move to low orbit.”
Katja watched the symbol on her display as the warlord patrol ship closed rapidly, highlighted with a red diamond indicating Breeze’s weapons-lock.
“Authority!” Thomas screamed into the radio, in his best imitation of panic. “Mayday! Mayday! We’re going down! We’ve lost thruster control—we’re trying to air brake! Keep clear! Keep clear!”
Instantly the symbol on Katja’s display changed vector as the patrol craft altered course. It was close enough now to have a visual on Rapier, streaking through the sky like a meteor. Most likely the Cerberans were saying prayers already for this doomed interloper.
It was a brilliant maneuver.
At sixty kilometers altitude, Thomas ordered the engines reversed. It was like deploying a parachute, and Rapier shuddered with the strain of deceleration. Katja heard a groan escape her own lips as her vision faded to red. The roar of the atmosphere was drowned out by the screech of the engines. The orange gas on the nose faded, replaced by a larger cone of tortured air that was instantly superheated by the forward exhaust of Rapier’s accretion-thrust drive. The entire ship was enshrouded in a massive fireball.
“Ready morningstar, salvo size one,” Thomas ordered. “Target surface, dead ahead.”
Breeze’s fingers fumbled across the weapons console. “Ready!”
Rapier’s speed faded fast as the engines countered the ship’s suicidal dive, but the orange-hot canopy grew even larger, fueled now by Rapier’s own reverse-thrust. To the eyes on the patrol craft, she still appeared to be plummeting to her doom. Detailed tracking analysis would reveal her speed as well below safe atmospheric levels—but it was doubtful the Cerberans were paying such close attention.
Katja’s system still showed the patrol craft loitering more than a hundred kilometers from the surface.
“Stand by to fire,” Thomas ordered. “And stand by to cut engines on my mark.”
Rapier dropped through thirty kilometers. Twenty… Ten…
“Mark!”
Katja lurched in her seat as the engines died. The flare of superheated air faded instantly, to be replaced by a dazzling sunburst that rocketed ahead from the starboard wing. The morningstar missile took its name from the fiery nature of its fusion makeup, and for a few shining moments it burned as a second sun in the Cerberan sky.
Rapier rolled into inverted flight as the morningstar struck the surface. The explosion tore out a small chunk of the planet and hurled it into the sky in an impressive cloud of smoke and debris. Katja, looking “up” through the bridge windows, watched the explosion with no small amount of professional respect.
/> Another glance at her 3-D display confirmed that the ruse had fooled the Cerberan craft, which continued its patrol high above.
The ruddy landscape seemed to close in over their heads as Rapier descended. The inverted flight plan allowed the bridge crew a good visual appreciation of the terrain. Tamma maintained the hypersonic flight path with the ground almost close enough to touch.
Thomas keyed commands into the console between their seats, and brought up a real-time image of the strike site. Katja peered intently at the cluster of buildings and the long, low greenhouses that stretched away in all directions. It was a large farming complex, remarkably industrialized for this part of Cerberus. The Doppler-shift of the image reduced clarity, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
The site certainly wasn’t expecting visitors.
“Commencing circle,” Tamma said.
Rapier banked into a long, circular path around the site, maintaining five kilometers distance.
“No comms traffic,” Breeze reported. “No fire-control radars.”
Katja nodded.
Thomas keyed the ship’s intercom. “Prepare for insertion.”
At his order, Tamma flipped Rapier into an upright bank, maintaining her circular path.
Katja unstrapped and clambered out of her seat. As she retrieved her rifle, Thomas put a firm, gloved hand on her wrist.
“Good luck.”
Flushed with adrenaline, she nodded curtly and made for the hatch.
Rapier’s main passageway was hexagonal for strength. And thanks to its configuration, Katja was able to walk swiftly down one of the angled bulkheads, despite the banking maneuver. The interior was dim after the brilliant sunlight of the cockpit, but she moved confidently through the shadows and quickly reached the port-side hatch.
It was open, and she climbed into the small strike pod.
Four troopers were strapped into their seats in the pod, armored spacesuits locked down and ready. Katja took a few seconds to visually inspect their gear before settling into the left front seat, next to the pilot. The engine’s rumble was barely audible through the ship’s frame. Gazing out through the windshield, past the bulk of Rapier’s lean, dark fuselage, she saw the broad port wing where the mighty cylinder of the port engine perched impossibly on its tip. As she watched, the red and blue landscape of rural Cerberus flashed silently past.
Virtues of War Page 1