Starbound (37 page)

We were nine minutes away from engaging
Vixis
, which was busy spooling up her Hoagland hyperdimensional drives to jump, when Duane Longer at Propulsion called me down to his station.

“I think I have an option, sir,” he said to me and Babayan as we leaned on the railing looking down on his station.

“Explain,” I answered.

“I think we can use the hybrid drive, a controlled intermix detonation like the one at the Jenarus jump space tunnel, to jump ahead and engage
Vixis
early. Surprise her, sir,” he said.

“You
think
?” questioned Babayan. I held up my hand to allow Longer to finish.

“It will be hard to calculate exactly, and we're much closer to
Vixis
than we were to normal space at Jenarus, but if I can use that detonation to calculate how much of an intermix we need, it could jump us into firing range early,” said Longer.

“Or blast us completely out of range.” The voice came from behind us. We all turned to find Serosian had returned to the bridge.

“I'd be glad to have your help, Historian,” I said formally.

“And I've come to offer it,” he replied. “The odds are slim we can control the intermix that precisely, but if you are willing to turn the process over to me . . .” He trailed off. I looked to George Layton.

“How long until
Vixis
is ready to jump, Lieutenant?” I asked.

“Looks like seven minutes, sir. They're not rushing,” he said.

“Prince Arin has a flair for the dramatic. He wants us to get close before he jumps out. Show us his superiority,” I said. I nodded to Serosian.

“Go,” I said. “Everyone prepare for the intermix jump. Lock down the ship, XO,” I ordered.

“Aye, sir,” she replied, a skeptical look on her face.

I took my seat and commed in to Serosian at his station, speaking quietly. “Can our inertial dampers handle this kind of force?” I asked.

“Likely,” he said. “They are designed for much greater stresses than this. I can't guarantee that you won't be thrown around your bridge a bit like in those popular Tri-Vee dramas you liked so much growing up, but
Starboun
d
should hold together.”

“That's comforting,” I said. Then I asked the real question on my mind.

“Why are you back on my bridge?”

He didn't break from his preparations while answering. “Your use of the gravity weapons on the battlefield has been a great escalation and marked a moral compromise against other human beings which I could not condone. I have no such moral compunctions where Prince Arin is concerned.”

I took his answer as an honest one.

“Seven minutes to attack range. Five until
Vixis
can jump,” announced Babayan.

“It's now or never, Historian,” I said into the com. A few seconds
passed until he said, “Ready,” then stood down from his station. He came and took the third chair next to me.

“Mr. Longer?” I asked.

“Intermix calculated and fed into the impellers, sir,” he reported.

“Status, XO.”

“Locked as tight as she'll go, Captain,” she said.

I pulled up the gravity plasma projector weapon on my station panel. It was still warm and ready.

“You'll only get one chance at this,” said Serosian. I nodded.

“Understood. Commander Layton, as soon as we complete the intermix jump, I'll need firing coordinates on
Vixis
,” I said.

“You'll have them in five seconds, Captain,” he said. I looked back down at Longer.

“Count us down from ten,” I ordered.

He did.

There was a good deal of thrashing about the cabin as the inertial dampening system tried to compensate for our violent acceleration. After a few seconds we were stable again and Layton quickly fed me
Vixis
's location.

“We're less than a hundred clicks from her!” said Babayan.

“Understood, XO,” I plugged in Layton's calculations and fired the gravity plasma. Then I stood up, watching the tactical display with the rest of the crew as the plasma expanded.

“Are you sure this will work through an active Hoagland Field?” I asked Serosian.

“There is no greater force in the universe than gravity,” he said by way of answering.

“Report, Commander Layton,” I demanded.

“
Vix
is
is running, on full impellers, sir, straining to keep her distance from the plasma,” Layton said.

“He'll lose,” said Serosian. Something, my intuition, told me that wasn't so sure a thing.

“Sir,” cut in Babayan, urgency in her voice. “
Vi
xis
is raising her HD frequency modulation much faster than she should be able to. She's almost ready to—”

“Jump,” I cut her off. And with that
Vixis
was gone from our dimension, her destination unknown. The plasma field intersected with her last known position a few seconds later, heading out into open space, there to harmlessly dissipate.

I sat back down. “He was playing with us,” I said.

“But, sir,” insisted Longer, “I swear he didn't have time to spool the HD drive enough to create a working torsion field!”

“I'll take you at your word, Lieutenant. Apparently the empire's new jump technology has more features than we anticipated,” I said.

And with that, I ordered us into geostationary orbit above New Vienna. There was much to do there, first and foremost to convince the survivors of the atomic holocaust that the Union was not their enemy.

Prince Arin would have to wait for another day.

O
nce we
established orbit,
we began to see the
damage done to Carin
thia firsthand. High
Station One was com
pletely destroyed. A
lmost every usable l
ow-orbit military pl
atform or station ha
d been ripped apart.
Three major cities
had been destroyed b
y atomic attack.

New Vienna was spared, perhaps for only the reason that Arin intended to return there one day to rule. Radiation levels were too high on the planet, and there was a dense cloud of debris in the lower atmosphere, obscuring many of the major cities. The prime agricultural areas of the planet had been scorched by coil cannon fire and small-yield atomics. Casualties would undoubtedly be in the millions.

Carinthia had been devastated.

We had boots on the ground inside an hour, targeting major infrastructure hubs around the remaining cities, staring with New Vee. Power, water, food, it was all about the basics now.

At first the military and police resisted us, and there were a good number of skirmishes. But we began broadcasting the truth to the Carinthian people over low-band frequencies, and slowly they began
to accept our help. It was in our favor that many of the voices telling people the truth were Carinthian, including Prince Benn, Karina, and their sovereign, the grand duke.

Admiral Wesley had the Union fleet mobilize all the forces at their disposal to help Carinthia. Four worlds, Earth, Quantar, Pendax, and Levant, reached out to help their brothers and sisters in need. It did not go unnoticed by the people, or their rulers. Indeed, Arin's plan seemed to have had the opposite effect on the morale of his planet than what he had intended. But it was clear to me that his first aim had been to cripple Carinthia, the industrial giant of the Union, and he had achieved that. His political goals were secondary, and I suspected he believed achieving them in the near future with the help of the empire was a foregone conclusion.

Within a week, Admar Harrington had antiparticle ships from Pendax scooping the atmosphere clean of contaminated debris. It was something they had to do regularly on their own world, with its frequent volcanic eruptions. It went on this way for weeks, the Union worlds rallying to aid Carinthia, and it made a difference. My time was consumed in humanitarian efforts. I coordinated Quantar's aid program to Carinthia at my father's request, focusing on rebuilding critical infrastructure such as salvageable utility and industrial plants. It was daunting and exhausting work.

Then one day I was called back to the capital, to the New Hofburg palace. I washed and slept, something none of us had done much of in weeks, all under orders of the Admiralty. The next morning I was escorted downstairs into the palace's huge drawing room, and there found it full of dignitaries.

The Grand Duke Henrik, my father, Prince Benn, Wesley, Karina, Dobrina, Serosian, Harrington, Zander. . . .

They all greeted me and thanked me for what I had done. I had been through so much though that I felt completely disassociated
from them and from my royal responsibilities. I was first and foremost in my mind a Lightship captain. Everything else came second.

After a few minutes of idle chatter I found myself drifting into a corner chair by a fireplace, drinking tea in the cold morning sun and staring out the window.

Then Dobrina came up and joined me, tapping me on the shoulder before sitting in an adjacent chair.

“How are you, Peter?” she asked.

“Numb, I think,” I replied with a weak smile. Numb was a good word, but underneath that numbness was a searing pain. I felt deeply depressed at what had happened. I'd lost thirty-three marines under my command and taken fifty thousand lives destroying the dreadnoughts. Enemy or not, that was a heavy burden, and not what I'd thought would happen in my navy career.

Dobrina took my hand and rubbed at my wedding band, bringing me back to reality.

“I'd almost hoped it wasn't true, these stories of your wedding to the princess. But I understand. It's my folly for believing the daughter of a soldier could ever marry a prince.”

I sat up. “It was no folly,” I said. Dobrina smiled bravely.

“We both know that it is. And right now both our worlds need you and Princess Karina to inspire hope again,” she said, “and they need me in command of
Impulse II
. No regrets, Peter. We had our time.”

“We did,” I agreed. I focused hard on her, this brave woman who had touched my heart, who I would never be able to be with again except on the battlefield. Those emotions were all raw and right on the surface. I couldn't hide them anymore. I didn't want to.

“I love you, Dobrina,” I said. She squeezed my hand.

“I know. And I love you. But that's not enough in this world, this Union. Not now,” she said. “In a different reality, perhaps . . .”

“Nothing will ever change how I feel about you,” I said. And that
was true. If I'd been born a navy brat, instead of in a royal house, we could have been together.

“Goodbye, Peter,” she said. “I'll always treasure what we had.” Then she rose, and in a moment she was gone into the milling crowd. I stood and went to the window again, staring out at the still-frozen back gardens of the palace, teacup in hand, trying hard to keep my eyes dry. My emotions had been rubbed raw, right to the surface, and they were hard to contain. A gentle hand on my shoulder brought me back to reality.

I turned. Karina, my wife, reached out to me. She put her arms around my waist as she pulled me close to her and held me.

“It will be all right, Peter,” she whispered. “Everything will be all right, in time.”

The next day, after a much-needed night of rest, I was feeling more myself. There was a series of meetings, one cluster with the leaders of the Union: Prince Benn, the grand duke, my father, Harrington, Serosian. I even caught a glimpse of Sunil Katara of Levant through an open door. He waved at me and I waved back, but I was headed for another meeting, one I was much more comfortable with, a military council with Grand Admiral Wesley and the Lightship captains.

I shook hands with Devin Tannace, new captain of the Levant Lightship,
Resolution
. I met Wynn Scott of Earth, a tall, sinewy, African man. The captain of
Avenger
was there as well, Air Marshal Von Zimmerman's son, Dietar. And of course Dobrina and Maclintock.

Wesley cleared his throat and we all sat down at the table. “Let's get down to business. The first item is assignments. We currently have six captains, but only five in-service Lightships,” he said. I assumed this was where I would lose my field command. “But that problem will soon be rectified. The Historians have informed us that
three new Lightships will be delivered to the Union Navy within a month.”

“Can they build them that fast?” Captain Tannace asked. Wesley smiled.

“Apparently we've been a bit misinformed on that front. The ships to be delivered have been completed for some time. Seems the Earthmen were just humoring us, letting us build them ourselves. One each will be delivered to Quantar, Carinthia, and Pendax, as a condition of her joining the Union. Counting Levant and Earth, our fledgling Union now has five members, and many more resources. But we'll need three more captains,” he said. “Permanent captains.”

I tried to stay calm, and he continued, turning to me. “Mr. Cochrane, your performance aboard
Starbound
as her acting captain was exemplary, no other way to put it. You made very difficult decisions, but ultimately it is my judgment and the judgment of the Union Council that you saved lives, which you seem to have a knack for.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I appreciate that. But I couldn't save Carinthia from attack.”

“Not your job, Captain,” he said gruffly. “You did all you could. Let any guilt over Carinthia go, that's an order.”

“Yes, Admiral,” I replied. That would be a hard thing. Wesley continued.

“Now, getting on with business, I'm afraid Captain Maclintock here wants his ship back, so I'm ordering you to give
Sta
rbound
up. But I'm prepared to offer you one of the new Lightships in her place. Will you take permanent command of
Defi
ant
, Captain?”

Defia
nt
. If ever there was a name that matched how I felt right now. “I will, Admiral, and I hope to do her name honor as her commander.”

Wesley nodded, then continued. “Carinthia will be receiving her new ship, designated
Fe
arless,
from the Earthmen. Air Marshal Von Zimmerman will be making the call on that assignment. The third
new Lightship captain was chosen by Admar Harrington, who speaks for the government of Pendax. He's requested that their new ship,
V
anguard
, be captained by none other than Lucius Zander.”

We all had a good laugh at that. “He'll be impossible to deal with!” said Maclintock. Wesley nodded again, smiling.

“I had a good long drink when I heard that request, but I can't blame them. He's as experienced as they get, and he'll be an asset to this team.” He paused before continuing. “Now there is one more assignment that I need to announce. Since we will soon be eight in number, and not all orders can come from my office, I've decided to name a fleet captain. Jonas Maclintock will be your new commanding officer and take up the permanent rank of Commodore, reporting only to me. He will be in charge of all fleet assignments from here on out. Jonas?”

At that Wesley stood and shook hands with Maclintock, handing him a pair of crown insignia for his collar. We all stood and applauded. Wesley then went through the other changes being made. All the members of the Union would be mass-producing more Wasp-class frigates on a war footing, and they would be in charge of defending the home planets. There would be new First Contact missions to Jenarus, Sandosa, and places I'd only read about in history classes: Minara, Pharsalus, Ceta, Veridian, Spartak, Skondar, and Caledonia, plus one more.

“We've got to grow this Union, ladies and gentlemen. Make it stronger, more able to confront the revived empire. And there's one more mission that's only in the planning stages. I'm sending
Resoluti
on
home to Levant, where she'll commence work on repairing the jump gate ring. We're going to Altos, people, there to find out if our enemy still lives there, and if she's left us a gateway to Corant,” Wesley said.

“We're taking the war to the Imperial home world?” I asked.

“Not tomorrow, lad,” he said. “But soon enough. Soon enough indeed.”

After two days of meetings, the leaders of the Union emerged united and set to one purpose: confronting the enemy wherever we found them, and making them pay for what they had done to Carinthia.

The next day I stood behind the curtains in an upper room of the palace, dressed in my finest princely regalia. Navy blue tunic, sash of orange, family crest and a cluster of honorary medals I was sure I hadn't earned. It wasn't something I wore often, and I was definitely more comfortable in my navy uniform. But today I wasn't merely a Lightship captain. Today I was also to be a prince.

In the square below, a hundred thousand people had gathered on a sunny but brisk winter day. They were still hurting, still shell-shocked over what had happened to their world. But they had come here to see their sovereign, and their princess and her new husband. We were here for one reason, to give them hope.

I stood on one side of the grand duke, Karina on the other. Together we each took him on one arm and helped him pass through the curtains and on to the balcony of the palace. The people in the square cheered their duke boisterously. He smiled and waved, accepting the adulation of the crowd. Once we had him safely to the podium, Karina and I stepped back as he spoke in German to the crowd. I didn't understand a word of it. I could have used a translator module for my ear com, but I knew the gist of what he was saying: words of healing, words of prayer for his world. He was weak, of that there was no doubt, but he forged on, and I admired him for it.