by C H Gideon
“Not to our knowledge.” Li scowled.
“Colonel,” Jenkins put in, “we’ve got a narrowing window here. Surviving final approach was a concern from the outset of this operation’s planning phase. Even with Jem’s proposed virtual takeover of Luna One’s sensor grid, we’re still looking at no better than a coin-flip chance of the Bonhoeffer reaching the drop point. This stuff might just push the numbers far enough in our favor to put Legion tracks in virgin regolith.”
Li rubbed his forehead irritably but eventually relented. “Fine. Tell them to get started. But I need all the technical data regarding this stuff. We’ll need to adapt to our new mass profile, and also shut down the rotating compartments so they can worm this…stuff into every exterior nook and cranny. That means zero-gee aboard this vessel for the duration of this operation…and probably for the rest of the Bonhoeffer’s service.”
Xi winced, knowing he was right. Once the Zeen coated the Bonhoeffer with the nano-resin, it would turn the ship into a mobile brick with just engine ports, sensor arrays, and drop bays exposed. Not even the Bonhoeffer’s weapons could be left exposed since doing so would compromise the ship’s ability to deploy its mechs. Besides, if they got into a shooting war with Luna One before they were treads down on the Moon’s surface, the operation was already a failure.
One way or another, the Dietrich Bonhoeffer was about to end its storied service to the Terran Republic. Even though Xi had briefly bounced back and forth between Elvira and Devil Crab earlier in her career, she had still formed a profound attachment to the Scorpion-class—and she had only been with the Legion for a couple of years. Colonel Li had served the Terran Armor Corps with distinction for half a century, the vast majority of which had been aboard the Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
Xi shuddered to think of the emotional turmoil he must have been going through. “Thank you, Colonel.” Xi nodded, handing him the data slate she had prepared. “Tight-beam your acknowledgment on the indicated channel and the Zeen will commence the work.”
Li reviewed the slate’s contents before affixing his signature to it and transmitting as Xi had suggested. He turned to her. “I think it’s time you filled us in on what you saw aboard that…base, Captain Xi.”
Jenkins nodded in agreement, and Xi felt the eyes of Sergeant Major Trapper and also those of Colonel Moon, the Bonhoeffer’s Commander Intercept Group, the CIG, as she prepared to deliver her report…which contained some undeniably disturbing news.
“They only let me see a little bit of the structure’s interior, but every single compartment I saw was filled with Zeen insectaurs,” she explained. “They let me tour what they called a ‘small sub-hive,’ that contained no fewer than fifty warships.”
“When you say ‘warships…’” Trapper said leadingly.
Xi nodded direly. “Most were between one hundred fifty and two hundred meters from bow to stern, but they were nowhere near as uniform as the vehicles we saw back on Shiva’s Wrath. I asked why that was, but got a stonewall in reply. One thing I did manage to get out of them is that they claim not to have an extensive ground force. They developed the vehicles we encountered on Shiva’s Wrath primarily because the Vorr requested them to, but it seems there’s some hesitation on the Zeen’s part to give that particular project maximum support.”
Li cocked his head dubiously. “You’re saying that the majority of the Zeen military assets are spacecraft and that their worldship is stuffed full of them?”
“That’s the impression I got, sir,” Xi agreed. “But again, I was only exposed to what they wanted me to see, and they weren’t exactly forthcoming on my lines of inquiry.”
“You make it sound like they’re distrustful of us,” Jenkins mused.
“That’s one way to look at it.” Xi nodded grimly. “Another way would be to say they were ready to declare humanity was subservient to Jemmin and worthy of being ‘eaten’ for supporting Jemmin, knowingly or otherwise. They might have made good on that threat if I hadn’t presented the ‘credentials’ I received from the Zeen back on Shiva’s Wrath.”
A pin drop would have been deafening in the seconds that followed. Xi knew it wasn’t what anyone wanted to hear, but her job was to report events to the best of her ability so that her superiors could make the most informed decisions possible.
“That’s,” Colonel Moon mused, “not exactly encouraging.”
“It’s what we’ve got.” Jenkins shrugged. “And it’s more than we had. A lot more. Good work, Captain,” he said with feeling. “Is there anything else of note you’d like to report?”
Xi shook her head confidently. “Only to say that the Zeen really, really dislike Jemmin. I think their entire preoccupation with symmetry and asymmetry stems from the fact that the Jem’un were biologically asymmetrical, and given the history between the Jem’un and the Zeen, asymmetry was elevated from an ugly or discordant feature to one worthy of eradication. Their hatred of the Jem’un, and Jemmin, over the destruction of their homeworld is so driving…so all-consuming that even if I did understand it fully, I’d have no way to express it with words. Destroying Jemmin might be the fundamental purpose of their existence. It seems to inform every facet of Zeen society to one degree or another.”
Trapper turned to Moon and Li. “Hatred like that is irrational. It doesn’t just pop up and persist without a whole lot of help.”
“Agreed,” Li nodded. “Someone is manipulating them against Jemmin.”
“Are the Vorr behind it?” Moon asked, prompting Xi to shake her head.
“I don’t think so,” she said firmly. “They say they didn’t even know about the Vorr until a few decades ago, which tracks with the Vorr’s account and with Jem’s. It’s possible they’re all in on some major deception, but—”
“Occam’s Razor,” Jenkins interrupted, agreeing with Xi. “The most likely scenario here is the simplest one: they’re all telling the truth to a significant degree, or at least that they’re not actively conspiring to mislead us.”
“For all their social peculiarities,” Xi nodded deferentially to her CO, “the Zeen are remarkably forthright about most things. I guess you could consider some of my rebuffed inquiries to have related to their equivalent of national security.”
“We’ve all got to keep those cards close to the chest,” Trapper grudgingly allowed.
Colonel Li turned to Sergeant Major Trapper. “Sergeant Major, I would be remiss in my duties if I did not formally request that you board the general’s yacht. Your name and reputation hold a lot of weight in the TAF, and I can think of no one better to debrief the Joint Chiefs than you.”
“Fat fucking chance, Li.” Trapper scoffed. “There’s a very good reason I stuck at sergeant major, and it had nothing to do with my aptitude or lack of opportunity for advancement. The pay bump wasn’t worth the cost of shaking hands with those bastards on a monthly basis. I’ve avoided debriefings of that type for fifty-two years, and I am not about to surrender that particular patch of high ground.”
“Luna One is the most heavily-fortified installation in human history,” Li argued.
“Which is why we’re sneaking in the back door,” Trapper countered. “Only a fool would go head-on against the Moon after Luna One knocked the Canary Islands out with mass drivers and wiped out the entire eastern seaboard of North America. Even a century and a half ago, facing literally everything the Yanks could throw at it, Luna One didn’t suffer so much as a single scratch before that tsunami erased half of the American civilization. The next day, Luna One pummeled half of California into the ocean, bringing the death toll to nearly one out of every two men, women, and children in the Americas.” His bushy brows lowered thunderously. “Fuckers made Mao’s Great Leap Forward look like riot control with rubber bullets and tear gas in comparison to the hell they unleashed on the Old West.”
“Which is why forty more Terran soldiers can hardly be expected to make the difference,” Li pressed, and for some reason, Xi felt an unexpected twinge of shame as Tra
pper accurately outlined the events of America’s last days as a sovereign nation. She knew she’d done nothing, said nothing, and even thought nothing in support of the atrocity that had secured China’s victory in Earth’s last World War, but for reasons not immediately clear to her, she felt a measure of guilt for those events.
“It’s not about the body count, Colonel.” Trapper smirked, snapping her focus back to the present. “It’s about having the right soldier in the right place at the right time. My people won’t break, and they won’t bend. We’re going down there, so cut the yacht loose and let’s get to work.”
“Hear, hear,” Colonel Moon agreed.
“Agreed.” Xi nodded, drawing a scowl from Li before the Bonhoeffer’s CO finally relented.
“All right.” Li sighed. “Cut the yacht loose.”
A few seconds later, the general’s yacht disembarked, loaded with the Bonhoeffer’s engineers, gunners, and other personnel made unnecessary by the Zeen resin shell. Only a skeleton command crew remained to operate the warship’s systems. Along with Chief Rimmer’s First and Second Shifts, Colonel Moon’s top twenty pilots, Trapper’s forty troopers, and the Metal Legion mech crews, one hundred twenty-three Terrans remained aboard the venerable warship as the Zeen began the process of encasing the battered but still mighty vessel in a thick coat of nano-resin.
Two dozen ships, appearing like bulbous puffer-fish to Xi’s eyes, slowly encircled the Bonhoeffer and rained a steady stream of the material onto its hull. Their application was extremely precise, leaving just drop decks, engine ports, and a few key sensor systems exposed.
The process took several hours to complete, during which time Admiral Wallace’s people remained surprisingly silent while standing off just beyond the Bonhoeffer’s nominal engagement range.
Of course, had the quartet of Sleipnir corvettes chosen to attack, the Bonhoeffer would have been totally defenseless against them.
Thankfully, no one felt the need to inform Admiral Wallace of that fact.
2
Fleet Commands
“This is Admiral Wallace of the Terran Republic’s 8th Fleet,” Wallace’s commanding voice stated over all major hailing frequencies. “Bonhoeffer Actual is hereby ordered to disengage from the foreign planetoid and its ships. This is sovereign Terran territory, and as the local commander of Terran military assets, it is my duty to secure that sovereignty by any and all means at my disposal. Unidentified alien vessels are ordered to disengage from Terran assets and return to their moorings. Failure to comply will be met with deadly force. All Terran assets are ordered to assist 8th Fleet in securing the foreign planetoid and its attachments. Wallace out.”
Li and Jenkins exchanged looks of uncertainty, and both men kept an eye on the secure comm line. When no priority message came over that line, Jenkins’ confusion grew.
“Why would he broadcast a general hail?” Jenkins asked. “If he really wants us to participate, he would have transmitted direct orders via P2P.”
“He might think we’re too close to the Zeen worldship to risk a secure link being intercepted,” Li mused. “Besides, we’ve still got a dozen of those spunk-throwers out there coating my hull.”
“Wallace is a prick,” Trapper opined, “but he’s not a fool. He’s working an angle.”
“But what?” Colonel Moon cocked his head skeptically.
“You’d have to ask him.” Trapper inclined his chin to the priority comm station.
“If he didn’t initiate, we shouldn’t either,” Jenkins replied. “Let’s just play along and see where he’s going with this.”
“That means answering.” Li grunted, picking up the mic and keying into the hailing frequencies. “8th Fleet, this is Bonhoeffer Actual. We cannot comply with your orders at this time. We—”
“This is Deep Currents of Radiant Warmth.” The Vorr’s distinctly feminine, auto-translated voice overrode Li’s on the comm, cutting him off mid-sentence. “As a duly-appointed ambassador for the Vorr government, I am authorized to contribute to this conflict in the hope of facilitating its peaceful resolution. We mean the Terran Republic no harm, and in fact seek to forge an alliance with your government so that our nations might navigate this perilous time to a mutually beneficial conclusion. I am willing to come aboard one of your ships as a gesture of good faith so that we might initiate a productive dialogue.”
Seconds ticked by, during which time the Sleipnir-class corvettes surged toward the moon base. “Vorr ambassador, this is Admiral Wallace.” The admiral’s voice was full of contempt. “If the Vorr played a part in this moon base’s violation of Terran sovereign space, then that is anything but an act of ‘good faith.’ And I can assure you that my government has authorized me to employ deadly force in defense of Terran sovereignty.”
In reply to the oncoming corvettes, a swarm of Zeen warships emerged from the worldship. A dozen, then two dozen…three dozen…fifty…finally, eighty-one distinct Zeen signatures emerged from the worldship’s surface.
“Admiral Wallace,” Deep Currents serenely replied, “there is no need for a threat display. The Vorr make no claim that would violate Terran sovereignty. On the contrary, we seek to bolster your Republic’s position against hostile agents, chief among them, the Jemmin. But if a demonstration of force is necessary to establish a productive dialogue between us…” her voice trailed off as the eighty-one Zeen warships adopted a picture-perfect offset diamond formation, “we can assure you that such a demonstration will not require what your people call an ‘encore.’”
The Zeen ships accelerated even faster than the Sleipnirs as they tore across the void at greater than fifty gees of acceleration. Jenkins quickly realized that they were not aiming to intercept the four Sleipnir-class corvettes, but were instead burning straight toward the wormhole where the majority of 8th Fleet elements were presently deployed.
Including both Republican-class Terran dreadnoughts, which loomed just behind the gate where they could best deploy their mass drivers against enemies coming through the wormhole.
Every ship that traversed the wormholes needed to do so by precisely matching its rotation, velocity, and angle of approach so as to survive the unthinkable forces that warped the very fabric of space-time until two points practically became one.
This meant that any ship emerging through a wormhole gate would do so with a specific and predictable trajectory, making them vulnerable to carefully positioned defensive assets.
But the Illumination League’s founding charter pertaining to wormhole use outlawed the emplacing fixed assets, requiring that any sentinel platforms be capable of a minimum degree of motive power. To Jenkins, the reasons for that particular limitation had only grown clearer in recent weeks as he came to accept the truth of Jemmin’s hostility toward any and all non-Jemmin spacefaring races.
Jemmin used the wormhole gates like a slaughterhouse uses a chute. Younger, less technologically advanced, and frankly less intelligent species were herded into the chutes, where they blindly proceeded into the kill box. Before they understood the danger, the hammer came down, and it was lights out for the unsuspecting younger race. Nobody knew how many times Jemmin had done this, but it seemed like a fairly refined system. Refinement required practice, and in this case, each practice session required a new, unsuspecting race to test its refinements on.
Part of how Jemmin achieved this was by convincing everyone in the so-called ‘Illumination League’ to agree to certain ground rules in order to take advantage of FTL access via the Nexus and its myriad linked gates.
Some of these ground rules greatly limited how effectively individual nations could secure their own interests at the wormhole gates. This was why the Arh’Kel scourge had been a constant thorn in the Terran Republic’s side: because IL law prevented Terrans from proactively defending themselves at the Nexus, where weapons fire was strictly forbidden, and it also limited just how heavily they could fortify their wormhole gates on the Terran side of the system.
Theref
ore, optimal firing angles found just behind the rim of the wormhole gates were taken up by Terran dreadnoughts and their support ships standing sentinel. When Arh’Kel invasion fleets came through a gate, ninety percent of their ships were destroyed outright by Terran fire before they could adopt anything approaching a coordinated battle-ready posture. The rest would generally try to slip through and hit Terran interests as hard as possible, and those few survivors had wrought sheer havoc on the Terran Republic in the years leading up to Jenkins’ transfer to Armor Corps.
And with eighty-one Zeen warships on an intercept course with the 8th Fleet elements standing guard at the wormhole gate, it seemed the Terran dreadnoughts were about to prove their worth yet again.
The Sleipnir corvettes faltered just as they crossed into engagement range of the Bonhoeffer, and to Jenkins’ mild surprise they banked and assumed a flanking trajectory on the Zeen formation. They were already in firing range, but their weapons remained silent as they carefully maneuvered for an advantageous arc. Their course would loop them wide of the Zeen formation before dropping them into a slot on the Zeen’s stern quarter precisely as the Zeen warships were scheduled to reach engagement range of the 8th Fleet dreadnoughts.
“This isn’t good,” Jenkins muttered.
“We can’t give away anything more than we already have,” Li said darkly, and the Terran Armor Corps’ most senior officers watched in grim anticipation of what seemed inevitable: live fire exchanged by Zeen and Terran forces.
Xi was busily scrambling through Elvira’s exterior, with her Wrench following close behind to update her on the mech’s various systems.
“We’ve still got some issues around Five Leg,” Gordon explained as she came to inspect that particular limb’s hull joint. The welds were ragged, heavy, and downright ugly. “Not only does it look like ass, but we’re also at fifty percent integrity on the armor there,” Gordon continued as she ducked beneath the joint to visually inspect the chassis. “The joint itself is spotless, though. She’ll sprint just fine.”