Accord of Honor (4 page)

A lot of protests and a few small wars later, things settled down, and the small lunar colony became a key part of the Earth’s energy supply. People hadn’t even been sure there was uranium on the moon until 2009, but it turned out there was, and quite a lot of it. That first colony was wholly owned by a US corporation. A few other countries tried to get small operations started, but the strong base already in place at the colony plus the expense of setting up a new one resulted in a resurgence of the failing American hegemony.

In retrospect, of course, war over the moon was inevitable. Too much power – literally – in the hands of one nation. When it finally happened, things stayed on Earth for the first bit. Most spacefaring nations had a small official Navy in space, but it was pretty toothless. So the fighting stayed in the atmosphere. Until it didn’t. The APAC Alliance headed by China was losing the fight and decided to take the fighting back to the source. They loaded a set of nukes onto a ship and hit the lunar colony, which was more of a city by then. Over a hundred thousand people were either instantly vaporized or died in the decompression, explosions, and shock waves after the blasts. Then they took the remaining nukes and got ready to launch them at the United States.

One US Navy captain was in space when this all happened, and his ship was near enough to watch as friends and some of his family were obliterated on Luna. He managed to disable the engines of the Chinese ship, personally board it and seize the vessel. Then he refit the engines enough to get back to Earth. He programmed the ship’s computer to go back home, broadcasting a faked message about damage taken during the attack.

He sent it back and remotely detonated all the remaining missiles above one of the largest spaceports on Earth, a few miles outside Beijing. While missile defense systems would have stopped most of the damage from any nuclear missile launch, there was no defense against a ship they thought was their own. The damage was incalculable.

That pretty much ended the war in one shot. No one had the stomach for more destruction after that, and the loss of the Lunar Colony threatened everyone’s energy supply. No energy, no heat, no transport, no modern farming techniques – with a net result of mass starvation. It almost reached that point, but collectively the governments of the Earth got together and built a new mining colony again. And they all signed the Lunar Accord, an historic treaty.

The Treaty was signed by every nation on Earth – by force and threat of force, the major powers got everyone on board. It barred for all time any weapon capable of being used to damage any ship, station, colony, or planetary structure from space. No more armed spacecraft. No weapons platforms on satellites or space stations. No armaments at the new Lunar city, or on the colonies which would spring up on Mars or around the larger asteroids. No weapons in space – ever. The resources in space were too vital to ever risk losing them again to a military action. On pain of mandatory death sentence to all involved if anyone tried to violate the Accord. An international commission was created to ensure all space faring nations remained in compliance.

The officer who had basically ended the war single-handedly was billed as a hero. His side had won, so he was accorded a great deal of respect for someone who had blown up one of the largest cities on the planet. Big parades, promotion to admiral, and a nice desk job as far from possible action as they could dump someone of that rank. But he didn’t like the Lunar Accord. What was publicly hailed as a great step forward for the peace process, he saw as a disaster brewing. And he said so – loudly and publicly, using his new notoriety to get his message out. He advocated building a new international space force, designed to protect our facilities in space from attack and armed well enough to be able to do so. There were some powerful political figured who’d staked their careers on the success of the Accord though, so he made some powerful political enemies. They took the offensive, billed him as the ‘Mad Bomber’, turning his wartime actions into something darker. The press played along, and suddenly the war hero found himself on the news as a mass murderer and advocate of senseless killing.

That was my father, of course. He argued long enough for the UN to agree to fund a space force – the two toothless ships in orbit around Earth now. Then he retired from the Navy and used his own money and contacts he had made in the Navy to establish a business in space. His – our – family company founded the first human settlement on Mars after surveys he funded found that the planet had more fissionable materials than Earth and Luna together. His ships were among the first sent out to the asteroids to mine metals there for industry on Earth and Mars. And in time, Stein Space Industries became one of the more prosperous companies in the solar system.

“I told them this would happen,” he said. “Figured it wouldn’t take too long before someone would want to take advantage of all the power and wealth space represented, all with nothing out here to protect it.”

“How’d you get around the export protocols?” I asked. But I figured I already knew the answer. Most of the best shipbuilders in the solar system were living on Mars now, not Earth. And a good chunk of them worked for us.

“I wasn’t the only person who felt the way I did about the Accord,” he said as we jetted gently against the airlock. “Just the most vocal. When I resigned my commission in protest, a few other folks joined me. Others followed within the next year or two and helped form the nexus of the company.” He smiled. “Some of those folks are here on this station today.”

“A few stayed on Earth, and with their help I was able to acquire any materials that we couldn’t just manufacture outright on Mars. Mostly though, we just produced the ships ourselves.” He stood up – we’d picked up spin from the station so we had an up and down again – and headed for the hatch just aft of the control deck. I got up to follow him while he opened the hatch and yanked down the ladder stored there.

I was torn between feeling horrified and bemused. Dad had known precisely what he was talking about when he’d told Turrell how easy breaking the Accord would be, back on Mars Station. He’d managed all this – the station, the ships, everything – without the United Nations ever guessing what he was up to.

The station was set up as a wheel, with the aired sections in the ring around the outside edge and a huge solar array in the center. The hangars were sitting in the lee of the station, away from the Sun, and the station had a nice spin that gave it something which felt like gravity. Mars equivalent, I noticed, not Earth. Had to grin inwardly at that. Nobody who’d been on Mars for any length of time enjoyed being dumped back into Earth’s higher gravity much.

We marched down a long corridor, following the rim of the wheel. The place had a pretty spartan feel to it. No frills, just the essentials. It was clean and everything looked well maintained. I’d been around places where ex military hung out often enough to notice the signs.

I was starting to feel uncomfortable with the silence, so I asked, “What’s the plan then, Dad?”

He didn’t answer. We came up to a door. He pressed his palm against the door lock, which glowed a moment before opening the hatch. He gestured me through the doorway.

“Welcome to our Command Center,” he said.

T
he room was smaller
than the command hub of Mars Station, which was my main basis for comparison. It seemed tighter but more active at the same time. It had a dome shape with a ring of consoles running around the entire outside except the doorway and a large monitor opposite. Looked like six stations in all, but none were in use. In the center of the room was a holotank, the same sort of three dimensional display system Mars Station had, and frightfully expensive. Right now it showed a plot of local space around Mars. Two men and a woman all looked up at us from the tank as we stepped in. I spotted at least one set of raised eyebrows when they saw me.

Glenn Chandler and Margaret Llyons went back to being busy at the plot. They were old crew from some of the company’s earliest shipping runs. Dad had yanked them from the line for his special projects division years ago. Now I knew why.

“Dunno that this is the best time for tours, Nick,” said the third man. That was Master Chief Matthew Acres, USN, retired, keeper of the raised eyebrows. One of Dad’s old Navy friends, and another founding member of the company. The guy had to be as old as the moon and twice as crusty, and he had a quiet but forceful Texas drawl that had sent shivers down the spine of new company spacers for decades. I knew from experience. He worked engineering and basically ran most of the ship when I did my own apprentice voyage.

Now? Yeah. The man was still scary. I stepped forward anyway and said, “Wouldn’t need a tour to find you, Chief. I’d just follow the bodies of the apprentices you’d frightened to death.”

He laughed a big, rolling belly laugh. “Well kid, you picked a hell of a time to come on board. But I guess the Old Man was pretty much always planning on bringing you in, sooner or later. He said you had the temperament.” I raised my eyebrows, looked at Dad. He ignored the banter, striding forward to check the holographic plot.

“Status,” he said coolly, that one word carrying enough weight to quiet all of us.

Glenn tapped a few keystrokes, and the projection switched to a view of the second ship I had seen, the warship. “ISS Defender is ready for action, sir. Full weapons load, and I’ve already ordered crew aboard. I thought it wise to be ready.” He looked at Dad, who nodded. “She can ship out as soon as is needed.” He looked at me, then continued for my benefit, “She has a compliment of thirty crew. There are four anti missile mounts, and sixteen missile tubes. She’s well stocked with sixteen hundred missiles – enough for over an hour of continuous fire. Also, six anti-missile missile tubes, linked to the same computer system as the guns to stop incoming shots.” He paused for a breath. “And the new drive is capable of a sustained twenty-five gravities, although I wouldn’t recommend holding that acceleration too long. The crew won’t handle it as well as the ship will.”

I didn’t know a lot about weapon mounts, but engines were another story. “Twenty-five Gs?” I said. “Sustained how long?” That was an incredible acceleration rate. I recalled my recent experience at being squashed under fifteen gravities. Twenty five was faster than even the best couriers we had.

“Forever, pretty much.” Glenn grinned now. “We’ve been busy out here. These engines function on the same principle as the standard ion engine, but they are a lot more powerful. We’ve got ablative seating and fluid-pressurized suits to help the crew handle that sort of accel, but even so, that’s the weak point. You’ll have people passing out if you hold that sort of boost too long. You should be able to go days at half that in a pinch, though.”

Days spent weighing four hundred kilos didn’t sound like much fun to me, no matter how good the seats and suits were. But I nodded – I could see the advantage. I did some quick math in my head. Boosting at that speed was about two hundred and fifty meters per second per second, which meant you could get to over three million kilometers per hour in about an hour of acceleration. That meant a jump from Mars to Earth would take a day or two tops, instead of weeks or months.

“And the drive is the main issue with the Indefatigable,” Margaret broke in. “Just mounting the new drive has been a less than stellar experience, but we’re nearly there. The problem is that she was never meant to handle those sorts of accelerations. I’ve been working on plans for reinforcing her structure, but at this point the danger is that her drives can give more acceleration than her structure can handle.”

She was talking directly to Dad now. “She’s just not going to hold together long under those stresses, Nick. I wish you would let me tear her down and rebuild those supports properly!”

Dad held her gaze a few moments, until her glare vanished and she looked down. “I know she’s your baby, Meg,” he said softly. “And if we had the time, I’d let your tear her down. But we’re up against an unknown number of enemy ships with unknown capabilities. If I’d known we were going to run into trouble just now, I’d never have authorized the new drive for the Indie at all.”

He tapped the console at the screen, and the Indefatigable’s profile popped up. “Right now,” he said, “the Indie mounts only two anti missile batteries and six tubes. Fully loaded, she has twelve hundred missiles. She’s also got a forward mounted railgun that can push out over a thousand rounds of high velocity charged slugs per minute.”

“Why no railguns on Defender?” I asked.

“We dropped them from the design,” he replied. “Our more recent tactical analysis has suggested that fighting will be a stand off affair of missile engagements, which is why we added more tubes and anti missile systems to Defender. The system was already built into Indefatigable though, and it’s tied into the ship’s structure enough that removal would be a real problem. We didn’t want Indie out of commission that long until Defender was proved spaceworthy.”

Dad looked back at Margaret. “How long until Indie can head into action? Minimum time.”

She bit her lip. “Bare essentials, just to get the engine install finished and some minimal structure reinforcement in place, a week. Maybe a bit less, if we push hard.”

“Push hard, Meg,” he replied. “I don’t think they’re going to give us a week.”

D
ad’s arrival
really stepped up the pace. He wanted the Defender out in space, preferably yesterday. The folks at the station hadn’t been slacking, even before we arrived on the scene. Dad had sent them the scoop before we left Mars, so they knew what was up. Before we arrived, Defender was pretty much ready to fire up her engines and go. Dad spent a couple of hours in his office working on...something... while the crew did last minute pre-flight and pre-combat checks on the ship.

Shortly before the ship was due to leave, my father called me into his office.

“Thomas,” he began, “Do you understand what is happening here today?”

“You’re flying off in an untested ship to fight off an unknown number of enemies whose location and base of operations you don’t even know?” I had stopped calling him “sir” about six years ago, and had no plans to start again now, even if everyone else on the station seemed to use the word like breathing.

He sighed and stood up from his desk. The room had a simple, almost spartan look typical of my father. A desk, a comfortable but plain chair behind it, and two identical chairs in front. A pair of bookcases, stacked with the paper books which had always been a soft spot of my father’s. He had always preferred paper books to tablet formats, and had a penchant for hunting down old history books from Earth.

There was a round window to the outside in the room as well. Windows like that were expensive. Obviously, another foible of my father’s, to have a window into the stars. He walked over to that porthole now and stared out, hands clasped in the small of his back. I waited.

“We are on a precipice of history, Thomas. What happens next will determine what happens to mankind for the next hundred years or more.”

He turned back to face me. “Clarke’s analysis was mostly right. What he missed is that right now Earth has no effective defense against space based attack. Missile defense, sure. But nothing to stop someone from dropping a small asteroid on a city, for instance. Or threatening to. Nothing that will defend Lunar City or the other moon bases. Nothing to protect the satellites and stations in orbit from attack.”

His eyes had a sharp intensity to them. “If the enemy chooses, they can do more than interdict trade. They can destroy every object mankind has in space, stop Earth and Mars from ever launching another spacecraft without their permission, and use threat of attack from space to force the planets to submit.”

“But Dad,” I said, “They’re just pirates. They’re doing some damage with these smash and grabs, but do you really think they plan on more than that?”

“They have to,” he replied grimly. “They have no choice. If they’re smart enough to have organized as well as we’ve seen, then they’re smart enough to know what Earth’s response would be. Oh, they could hurt Earth quite a lot by stopping shipping. But if they leave Earth’s orbital infrastructure alone and just raid commerce, it would only be a year or so before Earth had ships capable of going after them. And then there would be nowhere they could hide. No way to escape.”

He went on, the intensity in his voice going up to a ten. “They must win now by annihilating any chance of Earth or Mars building ships able to fight back, or they will die.”

I chewed on that thought for a moment. It would be much more comfortable to assume that the enemy was stupid, and just out for some easy profit. But multiple armed ships implied planning, careful planning. And deep pockets funding them. Which implied... That quite possibly, Dad was right.

“So what’s your plan to deal with them?” I asked.

“I’m going to take Defender to Mars. We’ll sit out there powered down so they can’t see us, and be ready to jump on any attackers. I think they’ll hit Mars Station soon, but I could be wrong. The other possible sites of interest are Earth and the three major repair and refit stations out in the asteroids. I’m leaving Chief Acres here to continue analysis of our data, and take Indefatigable out when she’s ready.”

I bit my lip, trying to rein in a sense of frustration and disappointment. I’d almost lost my first command not a day before, and in my gut I wanted another shot at these pirates. The Inde was a ship that would give them the shock of their lives, that much was sure. I checked my thoughts there. Indefatigable was a warship. Designed to kill people. Could I command a ship like that? My only ‘battle’ experience was spent running away as fast as my ship could fly.

Then I saw the faces of friends who had been on those lost ships, captured or dead. I thought of Mom, helpless on Earth against these pirates. If they wanted to blow away Michigan, they could do so and no one on Earth could stop them. But Dad could. These ships could. This mission could. Yes, when push came to shove, I thought I could fight. I thought of Kel, wondered if she was even still alive. I’d always hoped to see her again, and now...? The same hot anger I had felt before flared again. Yes, I was sure I could.

Dad must have seen something of my thoughts on my face, because he looked at me oddly a moment. “Thom, I don’t think I want you in on this,” he said.

I froze.

“I’d like you to stay here at the station. It’s well defended, and we need it as a nexus for re-arming and repair.”

“Dad, I -”

“No. I don’t want you in this. Even if we win, the UN will probably want my head. No sense handing them yours too.”

“That, and you’re still worried about Kel and I,” I added bitterly. I looked down. “Dad, I’m not seventeen anymore.”

“I want you safe, Thomas, not dead. That’s the end of it.”

“Right,” I said. I looked him in the eye, glaring. “You may not do it often, Dad. But you’re making a mistake right now.” I turned on my heel and left the office.

I didn’t see him again before Defender left the station, but I watched the ship as it picked up speed toward Mars. Silently, I wished my father luck. “Be careful, Dad,” I whispered.

T
he first day
after Defender launched passed by at a crawl. We could still see the ship as my father captained her back toward Mars, but once he shut down his drives and went ballistic, they vanished from our scans. We only knew where they were because the computers extrapolated their position from their previous course.

In the meantime, most of the folks on the station had plenty to keep them busy. Aunt Meg, as I soon learned everyone here called Margaret, organized nearly everyone on the station into round the clock shifts to get the engine installation and refit done as rapidly as possible. I, however, sat in my cabin. I alternated between staring at the ceiling and going over all the data we had on the pirates. Over and over.

OK, I was sulking. I admit it. I wasn’t just peeved about being left here, I was furious. I had more experience dealing with combat in space than just about anyone alive, courtesy of my recent run in. The fact that one of the only folks on our side with more experience than me wanted me placed in bubblewrap for the duration because he thought I was a still teenager with overactive hormones had me about ready to climb the walls. So I locked myself into my cabin and stayed there. I sat there a long while before Meg buzzed my door.

“Come in,” I said, watching the replay of the attack on my computer console for the hundredth time.

“Thom, the Chief wants you in Control,” she said.

I didn’t look up. “What does he want?”

“Go. Ask. Him.” She was clearly pretty pissed. I sighed, then felt guilty when I looked up at her. Her eyes were sunken, dark from lack of sleep. Grease and dirt stained her face and clothes. Everyone else had been working their asses off. Maybe I could find something useful to do. This was too important to sit out. I wasn’t a little kid anymore.

A few minutes later I was walking into the control room, which seemed abuzz. We had techs at four consoles, and Chief Acres was standing at the holotank, hands on his hips and a dangerous smile on his face. I could almost see canary feathers sticking out of the corner of his mouth, he looked so smug. I wondered what was up.