Worlds at War (A Captain's Crucible Book 5) Read online

  “Yes,” Miko said. “We thought we were preserving our species by expanding to the stars, planning for the time when the Earth would one day become inhabitable, her star transforming into a red giant. Instead, it turns out, reaching for the stars only led to our doom.”

  “An unsettling thought,” Jonathan said.

  “I’ll say,” Robert added. “It would mean we’re among the last human survivors. Us, and the fleets we left behind in Vega 951 and Raakarr-1.”

  “I don’t believe it’s true,” Jonathan said. “That the Earth is gone, and that the other seats of human government throughout our space have fallen. We haven’t been gone that long.”

  “Haven’t we?” Miko said.

  “You’re wrong,” Jonathan said. “I have hope for humanity yet.”

  “What’s troubling throughout all of this,” Robert said. “Is that they’ve always left the way to Earth open. Always left at least one Gate still in place, allowing us to continue toward our homeworld if we should so desire. Is it a coincidence that once again the only Gate remaining leads to a system that is one jump away from Earth?”

  “Probably not,” Jonathan said. “I definitely get the feeling we’re being herded. Someone wants to prove a very big point.”

  “The Elder?” Robert asked.

  “Honestly, I have no idea,” Jonathan said. “How can any of us really know at this point? Though I suspect we’ll learn who’s behind all of this when we reach Earth.”

  “If we reach Earth...” Miko said.

  Jonathan began to nod in agreement, but then caught himself.

  I refuse to show anything but hope. The crew needs to see hope in their CO, otherwise what reason do they have to get up in the morning and report to their station?

  What reason do I have?

  “We’ll reach Earth,” Jonathan said grimly.

  THE FLEET WAITED another five days for the existing telemetry drones to return, but nothing else was discovered in Beta Ursae Majoris. During that time, the Raptor continued to monitor the state of the neighboring system via its own probes, but nothing changed.

  And so it was with heavy hearts and much trepidation that the members of the fleet moved into the next system, Gliese 581. Once more, the first action the battle group performed after passing through was to launch fresh telemetry drones. The admiral ordered more of the drones deployed this time, given the extensive contents of the system.

  Gliese 581 was a two star system. The star at the center of the system was a red dwarf—by far the most common star in the galaxy, especially in the vicinity of Earth’s solar system. On the outskirts of Gliese 581, a bit farther than where Pluto resided in relation to Earth’s sun, was a low-mass brown dwarf, glowing in the infrared spectrum, revolving around the main star. Nearer to the red dwarf were three more planets. The closest to the sun was Hades, so named because its extreme proximity to the crimson star had boiled away the atmosphere and created a lava ocean that migrated depending on which side of the planet faced the sun. The second planet was Rius, whose powerful magnetosphere protected the planet from both the radiation of the red and the X-rays of the brown. The third was a gas giant, Helios, located midway between the two suns, with a massive triple ring system that put Saturn to shame. Thick asteroid belts resided on either side of the gas giant in orbit around the red giant.

  The extra telemetry drones were dispatched toward the asteroid belts and the gas giant with its ring systems; Jonathan didn’t think the scouts would help all that much. There was no way those probes were going to be able to pick up everything that could be hiding in there.

  The admiral didn’t wait long to order the fleet to set course for the only intact Gate.

  About four days into the journey, Jonathan found himself in his office arguing with Maxwell about the cause of the current state of affairs in human space. It was a variation of an ongoing disagreement he had had with the machine for months now.

  “What we did to the Elk homeworld was wrong,” Jonathan said. “That’s all there is to it. We should have never detonated the planet killer. Even when we thought it was just a colony world.”

  “We have eliminated an enemy of humanity,” Maxwell said. “Or at least, greatly weakened them. By logic alone, the action was right, and just.”

  “There is no justice when billions of innocent lives are lost,” Jonathan said.

  “How could they truly be innocent?” Maxwell said. “When they represented members of a hostile alien race? They were not human, or AIs built by humans. They had no rights. They were part of the alien industry that churned out war machines meant to conquer humanity.”

  Jonathan sighed. “We’ve destroyed homeworlds before in our checkered history. Or tried to, anyway. I’m reminded of the Alien War of seventy years ago. When we nuked the surface of a planet to hell in an effort to eliminate an alien species. We failed in that case, thankfully. It was before we had planet killers. The surviving aliens negotiated a truce with us and we found peace.”

  “For a time,” Maxwell said. “But I must remind the captain, we have fought two wars with them since.”

  “Yes,” Jonathan said. “Because our terms of peace were too constrictive. Humanity would fight, too, if forced to forgo space travel and all the expansion that it entailed. But we’ve finally agreed upon a lasting peace with them.”

  “Lasting?” Maxwell said. “More like a shaky peace. Better that we had destroyed them utterly, so that they could never attack us again.”

  “The cold logic of a machine,” Jonathan muttered. “At least it explains why you’re so happy we did that very thing to the Elk.”

  “But that’s exactly my point,” Maxwell said. “We didn’t destroy the Elk utterly. If humanity truly wants peace, it would be in your best interests to hunt down every last Elk and see them to extinction. The Zarafe seem willing to lend a helping hand...”

  Jonathan nodded slowly. “Hunt them to extinction. Like someone, or some thing, is apparently doing to humankind at this very moment. And that’s another reason, besides the obvious moral one, why we should have never destroyed the Elk homeworld. We’ve offended someone we probably shouldn’t have.”

  “Humanity has made powerful enemies since setting foot outside of the solar system,” Maxwell said. “Enemies that observed a human fleet spread thin. Too many of your vessels were gathered near the borders of Sino-Korean space. Too many sent to dispatch the Elk. Not enough guarding the homeworld, Earth, or the colony worlds. Something that hates humanity saw an opportunity, and used it to strike.”

  “What, you’re blaming all of this on the actions of one individual, or entity?” Jonathan said.

  “All I’m saying,” Maxwell replied. “Is that there are more players involved than you know. Players that work from the shadows, spiders spinning carefully spun webs to snare the unwary.”

  “What do you know, AI?” Jonathan asked suspiciously.

  “I am merely speculating,” Maxwell replied, its voice sounding nonchalant. A little too nonchalant, actually.

  Jonathan sighed. If the AI knew something and didn’t want to tell him—or didn’t have the authorization to tell him—there was no way the captain was going to get Maxwell to reveal it.

  “Do you know,” Jonathan said. “Some philosophers argue it would have been better not to leave our own solar system in the first place, given the calamities that have befallen since then.”

  “Not leave your own solar system?” Maxwell said. “Hide in the equivalent of your basements all your lives? Go against your curious natures? I don’t think humankind is capable of such behavior.”

  “You’re right, of course,” Jonathan said. “Never thought I’d be out-lectured on human behavior by an AI.”

  “Captain,” Ensign Lewis interrupted over the comm. “Better come to the bridge.”

  twelve

  Jonathan pulled up the tactical display on his aReal.

  From behind Hades, eight red dots had emerged. They were on an intercept course wi
th the fleet. The estimated contact time was three days.

  Jonathan left his office and took his place at the Round Table.

  “So what do we know about them?” Jonathan said.

  “They’re scavenger ships,” Robert said.

  Stunned, Jonathan glanced at Robert. “Scavengers? More of them?”

  “Yes,” Robert said. “The exact same ship class as the one we encountered previously.”

  “Well, at least we know why there were no reinforcements,” Jonathan said. “I was beginning to wonder how one single ship dealt with all of our fleets stationed between here and Prius 3. The question is, how the hell did all of these scavengers get here?”

  “Miko suggested these aliens might have probes capable of creating shipyards, like the Raakarr,” Robert said.

  Jonathan sat back in his seat. “Wouldn’t we have detected any shipyards by now? Given that we’ve been launching telemetry drones first thing after arriving in every system?”

  “I’m not so sure if we would have detected them,” Miko said. “There are a lot of places to hide in any given system. It’s also possible that the shipyard was consumed with the creation of the ship, or became part of it. You remember those large drill holes we detected on some of the colonies? Could be that special types of nano or microbots were dispatched to the surface, carved the ships out of the raw resources, and the ship took flight.”

  “Well, that would certainly be the first time we’ve ever encountered a species capable of such streamlined ship creation,” Jonathan said. “And if it’s true, the implications are disturbing.”

  “There’s also a possibility the Elder changed the Slipstream endpoints in whatever region of space the scavengers live,” Robert said. “And they’ve been slowly trickling through into our galaxy.”

  “And why, do you think, would the Elder have reason to do that?” Jonathan asked sarcastically.

  “Yeah, I wonder,” Robert replied, equally ironic.

  “Good old NAVCENT,” Jonathan said. “Can never take a warning from a far more advanced alien race at face value. Well, however they got here, we have to deal with them. Eight scavengers. If they’re anywhere as capable as the last we fought, we’re in for the fight of our lives.”

  “Eight ships to our sixty-seven?” Robert said. “You’re right about the fight of our lives. Considering it cost eighteen ships to take down one of theirs the last time.”

  “In theory we’re more experienced now,” Miko said. “And will suffer fewer losses.”

  “Are we?” Jonathan glanced at the tactical officer. “As you say, we’ve only fought one. We haven’t seen what kind of fleet tactics they might implement when there are eight of them. What are our strategic options? Is there any way we can reach the Gate before contact?”

  Miko pursed his lips, and his eyes defocused as if he was accessing something on his aReal. “Based on their current speed, if we loop around Helios and use the gas giant as a gravitational slingshot, we should be able to make it to the next Gate about two days ahead of them.”

  “Two days,” Jonathan said. “That’s not bad.”

  “Yes,” Miko said. “We could mine the entrance with nukes on the other side, and leave an attack force to slow them down, allowing the rest of us to escape.”

  “Assuming it’s safe to pass through in the first place,” Robert said. “We’ll have to send the Raakarr ahead of us to confirm.”

  Miko nodded. “It would be a good idea.”

  Jonathan raised his noise canceler about the three of them, and the captain, commander, and lieutenant continued brainstorming their options, with Maxwell adding the occasional input. He knew the admiral was having similar discussions with her own advisers, a tight-knit group no doubt just as capable as Jonathan’s own. Still, he wanted to be prepared for whatever plan she came up with, so that he could make suggestions, if appropriate, when she presented it.

  The three concluded their discussions and Jonathan decided that the slingshot-boosted sprint to the Gate was likely the best option for the fleet, at least in terms of making it back to Earth with the most ships. But he would follow whatever course of action the admiral chose, of course.

  Apparently the admiral and her advisers had come to the same conclusion, because that afternoon at the captain’s conference, she gave the order to make a close flyby of Helios as part of a run for the Gate.

  When she was done, one of the captains immediately spoke up.

  “This is a great plan, it really is,” Captain Tabari said. A grizzled man with a chest more like a MOTH than a captain, his vessel, the destroyer Atlantis, had suffered major damage in the last attack. “But what about those of us aboard the more damaged ships? Our already weak hulls will be pulled apart by the intense gravitational forces that close to Helios. At the very least, we’ll develop several new hull breaches. We have enough cosmic radiation leakage as it is.”

  “I plan to send extra repair teams aboard the most vulnerable vessels,” the admiral said. “To shore up and reinforce your hulls. And as for radiation leakage, you’ll just have to ensure your medics implant the appropriate anti-rads in the entire crew. We’ll send the necessary subdermal supplies if you don’t have enough.”

  Tabari looked like he was about to say something, then he shut his mouth. Finally: “Yes, Admiral.”

  “The only other option is to stand and fight,” Admiral Ford said. “We could loop around Helios, leave some of our forces behind, and send the rest to orbit around to the other side, and catch the scavengers in a double or triple pincer maneuver. It’s tricky, and we’ve run the simulations, and the odds are that we will win. But the casualties on our side will be immense. It’s simply not worth it, when every vessel lost is a vessel that could have been used in the defense of Earth.” She ran her gaze across the assembled captains. “There’s a time to fight, and a time to run. Our goal now is to make it to our homeworld at all costs. I have a feeling our Terran brothers and sisters will need as many of our ships as we can offer. So we slingshot past Helios, flee through the Gate into the Sirius system, mine the endpoint, and proceed to the next Gate.”

  Tabari cleared his throat. All eyes fell upon him. He bit his lower lip. “When we’re that close to the giant, if the Atlantis is ripped apart by the forces involved, none of the lifepods will be able to achieve escape velocity.”

  “I am well aware of that,” the admiral said quietly.

  THE BATTLE GROUP diverted toward the gas giant Helios. The scavengers updated their course to pursue, but Helios was already exerting its influence, increasing the speed of the human and Raakarr fleet.

  Jonathan wondered if the scavengers were purposely holding back. In theory, if they had reactionless drives, they likely could have moved faster. But they seemed happy to herd the battle group toward the Gate. Jonathan was beginning to dread what the human fleet would find on the other side, and especially when they reached the Earth system.

  As they neared the gas giant, Jonathan zoomed in on the feed provided by one of the forward cameras to observe the upper atmosphere. Helios was a major source of geronium for the United Systems and Franco-Italians, so it was both odd and disturbing at the same time to see no harvesters in orbit.

  All traces of humankind wiped from the stars.

  As expected, during the slingshot maneuver the stresses exerted on the vessels were brutal. During the closest point of the flyby, the bridge deck of the Callaway shook from the competing forces of inertia, thrust and gravity that acted upon the cruiser from different directions.

  Thankfully, all of the ships held out, including the Atlantis. The infrastructure-boosting repair teams obviously made a difference, though there were reports of fresh hull breaches to some of the more damaged vessels.

  After moving well away from the influence of the gravity well, the fleet proceeded toward the destination Slipstream. They were due to reach the Gate two days ahead of the scavengers, as expected.

  Closer to the Gate, the vice admiral tapped in
Jonathan.

  “Time for our Raakarr friends to pull ahead,” Levieson said.

  “Roger that,” Jonathan replied. He tapped in Wethersfield. “Have Valor proceed with the advance scan.”

  Two of the Raakarr dart ships broke away from the main group and accelerated at their full speed toward the Gate. The vessels decelerated roughly half a day later to allow the fleet to catch up, and meanwhile launched their probes to continue toward the Gate.

  By the time the rest of the fleet arrived, the Raakarr had already taken a snapshot of the next system.

  “Not unexpectedly,” Barrick reported. “There is only more destruction to United Systems property. No intact comm nodes, vessels, colonies or bases of any kind await on the other side. The return Gate is gone. And the final Gate leading to Earth is intact. No sign of any scavengers.”

  “I’m sure they’re hiding somewhere out there,” Jonathan said.

  He relayed the news to Levieson, and then his first officer.

  “Well that’s somewhat of a relief,” Robert said. “Knowing that after coming all this way, we won’t be stranded in some system essentially right on Earth’s doorstep.”

  “Yes, but what worries me is where the scavengers will be hiding this time,” Jonathan said. “And whether they’ll attempt some outflanking maneuver with the other scavengers on our tail.”

  “That is definitely worrisome,” Robert agreed.

  The battle group reached the Gate and rushed through without waiting for the existing telemetry drones to return.

  On the other side, the admiral had every ship launch nukes and missiles while underway. The weapons were programmed to assume positions in front of the endpoint, forming a thick, multilayered lattice of smart mines that the enemy would be hard-pressed to navigate unscathed.

  A few unmanned Avengers and Raakarr fighters were also left behind to harry any ships that made it across; the two types of fighters would also use their lasers and slugs to hopefully terminate any smaller trigger craft the scavengers might send through with the intention of clearing the mines.