Opening Moves (60 page)

August, 2797 C.E.

Nobody had ever given the pale red sun a name, and chances were that nobody ever would, unremarkable as it was. The deep red glow of the red dwarf star swirled through JOHNSTON's bridge, emanating from the cruiser's central holotank. The system was only locked in the cruiser's navigational databanks as an alphanumeric code, and the reason for that was readily apparent for everybody who even glimpsed at its holographic representation: it had no planets. Its only companion was a wide asteroid belt comprised largely of carbon-heavy gravel pits and ice, making it uninteresting even as a mining prospect.

Still, there had been some reports of pirate activity in the region, and the system's obscurity made it precisely the reason why Captain Beaufort had decided to pay it a visit. After the first slump in interstellar commerce, due to the opening of the war between the Dominion on the one side and the Érenni Republics and the Clanholds on the other, the great cartels and conglomerates of Earth's great nations had come back to exploit the situation with a vengeance. Commercial traffic through Van Halen's Star and the periphery of human settled space had risen by nearly twenty percent in the past months as nations wary of a spread of the hostilities hurried to acquire on the interstellar markets what their own industries couldn't provide.

Out on patrol, ships like the JOHNSTON were a bit out of the loop regarding the news cycle, but Beaufort had registered with an appreciation for the irony of the situation that none of the EMC or PRA registered merchantmen that crossed their paths seemed unhappy about their presence, no matter what the politicians at home said.

“
Sweeps show no signs of activity, Captain,” Commander Ranaissa intoned from her post at the front of the bridge. “If pirates are indeed using some of the bigger rocks for hideouts they're lying pretty low right now. No thermal or radio activity, no metallic or mass anomalies we can detect. Scopes are clear.”

“
Alors
, it was worth a try,
non
?” he nodded cheerily. “Helm, get us on an outbound course and prepare the warpfield generators.”

“
Aye, aye, sir. Changing course to new heading. Approximately seventy minutes to the edge of the grav well.”

“
Excellent. Ah, a quiet day in the service,
c'est bon
. All that's needed to perfect it now would be a good cup of coffee and a croissant.”

Ranaissa smiled to herself and kept focused on her console. Captain Beaufort hated coffee and had never eaten a croissant in his whole life, as he had once confessed to her, but the man loved to play up the French stereotype.

A low vibration ran through the ship as its engines accelerated it towards the transition limit, and on towards the next waypoint in their patrol pattern. Normalcy reigned on JONHNSTON's bridge for the next few minutes until an alert from the comm officer's station in the form of three sharp buzzes in three intervals broke the usual subdued cacophony.

“
Receiving priority message from OFCOM. Running it through decryption now.”

Orion Fleet Command or OFCOM was responsible for all Union military operations in a two hundred light-year vicinity of Van Halen's star. A priority message usually meant something unexpected had happened, and in a military context 'unexpected' translated all too easily into 'bad'. JOHNSTON could receive messages sent via tachyon boosters even when she was hundreds of light-years away from the next base, but she had no means to respond directly to them. Only dreadnought-sized vessels carried the necessary space and generated the needed power to communicate over interstellar distances.

“There's a second encryption level here,” the comm officer frowned and looked back at Beaufort. “It's a command level message, sir. Text-based, your eyes only.”

“
Understood, comm. Relay it to my quarters.”

Beaufort slipped out of his command chair and left the bridge, his usually jovial face all business. The lower gravity aboard the warship helped to speed up his steps as he made his way to his personal quarters not far away. A captain should always be close to his ship's bridge.

He was barely gone more than five minutes when his voice reached Ranaissa over the bridge's intercom. “Commander, please meet me in my quarters. Beaufort out.”

She felt all eyes on her as she rose to leave the bridge, the question plain on every face: just what had they gotten themselves into this time?

* * * * * * *

Having twelve square meters all to oneself was a blessing. Having
twenty
was the true definition of luxury aboard a warship, Commander Ranaissa thought as the intercom chimed to let her into Beaufort's quarters. Warships, long-endurance cruisers especially, conserved space wherever they could for stores, reaction mass and spares. Officers below the rank of commander shared their cabins with another crew member of equivalent rank. Noncoms were bunked as quartets. And enlisted really didn't have any personal space to speak of.

As such Therese Ranaissa had become consciously aware of the little privileges she and the Captain enjoyed.

A thick, soft carpet covered parts of the floor, and physical copies of books occupied a small shelf behind Beaufort's desk, right next to a changing vista that showed the confluence of the Saint Lawrence and Ottawa Rivers throughout a year from an elevated point in his home town of Montreal.

Beaufort nodded curtly as she entered and produced two glasses and a vintage looking bottle of cognac, filling them both as wide as a finger.

She took a seat opposite his desk and raised both eyebrows. “That bad, skipper? What is it? It can't be war,” despite herself she sounded anxious. “You wouldn't keep the crew waiting if that was the case. So, how bad is it?”

Beaufort pushed a glass towards her and raised his in a silent cheer. He took a small sip from his and sighed, the honey-colored liquid burning down his throat and seemingly relaxing the captain.

“Not really bad, in the true sense of the word,” he breathed. “More like complicated, Therese. And ironically that is because someone back home finally beat some sense into the politicians,” he chuckled wryly. “But that's about the only good news the message holds for us.” He stared into his glass for a moment.

“
Sir?”

“
In a surprise showing of common sense, both our elected government and the leadership of the Pacific Rim Alliance have decided to bury the hatchet for the time being and try and do something decent.” He punched a few keys on his personal console and a holographic map of known space blinked into existence. “We're behind the curve with regards to the war between the Dominion and, well, whoever they've chosen to attack now. So we don't know the actual frontlines as they exist now. Still, there's the world of Tanith, located here at a junction between some of the Pact powers.” A star magnified and pulsed red. “Independent star system, trade hub, El Dorado for those who haven't made it back home or who just want to start a new. The planet has a sizable expat community, and a quick scan of our databases suggests there's at least something approaching a consulate there. Anyway,” he shook himself. “The point is, as things stand now it's barely eighty light-years away from the fighting, and as a precaution every human who wants to leave and is a Union, PRA or EMC citizen will be given a lift.”

“
Oh, I see where that's going,” Ranaissa muttered darkly, then blushed and took a quick sip when she realized she had spoken aloud.

“
I suppose you do,” Beaufort gave her an almost cheerful smile before his face turned serious again. “We're to return to Orion Station and meet up with an Alliance destroyer and a passenger liner the Euros have chartered. From there we're to proceed directly to Tanith, evacuate the civvies and return to Van Halen's Star.”

“
A multinational effort?” Ranaissa frowned. “Can't remember the last time we had one of these.”

“
Neither can I. That's why this is so... complicated.” He took another sip and gathered his thoughts for a few seconds. “Who's effectively in command? Should it be necessary to fight, do we integrate either of the other ships into BattleCom? What about humans on Tanith who aren't citizens of any of our three nations? What about other aliens who want to flee? What are the rules of engagement? And what about Tanith itself? Has anybody bothered to tell them three warships are coming their way? They are a sovereign nation after all!” He sighed.

“
I guess that means we won't be home for Christmas after all,” she said quietly.

Beaufort gave her a sympathetic look. “I'm sorry, Therese. I know you were looking forward to celebrating with your kids.”

Ranaissa slowly shook her head and muttered. “Well, I suppose it can't be helped. Best be about it,” she gulped down the rest of the cognac. “I'll get us back to Orion Station asap.”

“
I know you will, Therese,” he nodded gratefully. “Dismissed.”

Tanith, Independent Star System, Pact of Ten Suns.

Late August 2797 C.E.

Sunlight glittered off white wisps of clouds that raced across the lilac plains of Tanith as the planet's main continent was greeted from the light of day by its own rotation and one after another the tens of thousands of small light bulbs, each of them a city, went out. After the near constant danger and fear Tarek and his crew had lived under for the past two months, the colorful globe beneath them was a beacon of stability and much needed respite.

An important trade hub located at the junction between three far larger nations, the planet of Tanith, and the star system of the same name, were bee hives of commercial activity, especially nowadays with the nearby war raging on. Local space around the dozen large dockyards and orbital transfer stations, as well as the dozens of smaller orbital warehouses, was extremely busy, with hundreds of large freighters and passenger liners and thousands of smaller craft joined in a constant coming and going. The war had rapidly changed the types of goods primarily being shipped to and from Tanith. Consumer goods and wealthy cruise line passengers had been replaced by medical supplies, military items and supplies. Warships of all classes, ages and backgrounds were being bought by the Érenni consulate, using vast sums of the greatly devalued Republican Credit as long as there still was a currency of that name. The orbitals and the cities around the prominent space ports were crawling with mercenaries, too, looking to make a quick buck from the Érenni misfortune.

A lot of these ships brought refugees from Republican space. Most of those people only owned what they wore on their bodies. Too fast and crushing had been the Dominion's advance into Érenni space for most of them to organize their escape, and they had been willing to pay any price to flee the slaughter.

And yet, compared to what the crew of the MAIDEN had been through, this was as close to normal as it got. The frontline was far away, money was to be made, and they had found a spot of their own to breathe and go about their business again.

Still, there were people who apparently believed this to be nothing but the quiet before the storm. The local System Defense Force, mostly patrol ships and light warships purchased from their neighbors, was kept busy regulating the traffic, but lurking around the system were some far larger and more formidable warships.

The MAIDEN's sensors had spotted warships squawking official IFF codes of at least four different races. By far the largest contingent hailed from the Komerco Timocracry, twenty cruisers in the typical angled modular design, all white with sharp black lines designating the different modules. They were led by a single battle cruiser that looked simply like a bigger version of the cruisers, but Tarek could be mistaken there. The MAIDEN's commercial sensors neither had the sophistication to look beneath the hull nor access to military databases. The more imposing sight, however, was the singular Imperial dreadnought that slowly circled the planet at an orbit of almost one hundred thousand kilometers. Superficially, the Rasenni warship shared some eerie similarities with that of human warships of its class. The form of the hull and the visible layout were almost identical, but the Imperial ship was slightly larger, its lines were more elegant and smooth, its sensor towers shorter – and it was painted in a bright red, with its name and serial number written across its hull in golden letters higher than a two storied house. It outmassed the Komerco battle cruiser by a factor of 2.5.

Tarek didn't believe the dreadnought would win in a hypothetical fight with the Komerco squadron, but its punch and slightly superior technology would make sure that at the end of that fight nothing worthy of being called a
squadron
would be left.

But, the proximity of all these warships belonging to powers the Ashani weren't at war with and, if they were smart, didn't
want
to go to war with, gave the captain of the IRON MAIDEN a sense of security he hadn't felt for a long time. He leaned back in his chair and placed his feet on his console, feeling the fatigue of long weeks of narrowly escaping death creep up on him. He'd welcome the sleep once it came.

“
I've got someone from the spacers' guild on the comm, boss,” Llyr spoke up, his voice a gravelly rumble.