CHAPTER 5
Admiral Sergei Fallon Gower, Seventh Viscount of Hallen Hall, Fleet Admiral of the Royal Sandarian Navy, and by appointment of his Majesty, John-Philip Walkirk VI, commander of His Majesty’s forces assigned to penetrate the Antares Nebula, sat in his office onboard his flagship and scowled at the viewscreen in front of him. The picture was a view of New Providence relayed from the nose camera of an unmanned scout cruising three hundred meters above the ruins of the one-time capital city of the planet. The scene was not a pleasant one. Here a twisted, rusted skeleton showed where a glass-and-steel tower had once stood; there a pile of blast marked rubble was all that remained of the concrete walls of a government building; elsewhere stood the blackened stick figures of a grove of trees. The colors of the scene were black, gray, tan, and brown. Conspicuously absent were the green of living chlorophyll, or any of the other colors of life.
More than a century after the last, catastrophic Ryall raid on New Providence; the surface of the planet remained a barren wasteland. So far as could be seen from orbit, not a single blade of grass grew on the world’s land masses; nor was there evidence of life in the planet’s oceans – although the Sandarian ships were ill equipped to probe the most extreme depths, and therefore may well have missed seeing a few isolated pockets of protoplasm.
The Ryall attacks on New Providence had been responsible for vast destruction. They had killed forty million people and destroyed more than a thousand metropolitan centers around the globe. Yet, not even that race of belligerent centaurs could have wrought destruction on so vast a scale. When the black Ryall ships finally broke through New Providence’s defenses, they had rained fire on a doomed world. For the true slayer of New Providence – and of all life in the Napier system – had been the Antares Supernova.
The dwellers of New Providence had known something was amiss when they lost contact with their colony in the Valeria system in August 2512. Their concern turned to worry when several ships known to be in transit across the Antares system failed to arrive on schedule. Worry turned to fear when the vessels dispatched to check the whereabouts of the missing ships had themselves failed to return at the appointed time.
The enormity of the disaster had become clear when New Providence’s astronomers concluded that only a nearby supernova of unprecedented power could explain what had happened to their universe. With the realization that it had been Antares that had exploded came the knowledge that New Providence was a doomed planet. For throughout the history of the colony, Antares had been the brightest star in the sky. On those nights when the red supergiant was above the horizon, its ocher gleam was nearly bright enough to read by. The fact that their system was physically close to the giant star had always been a source of pride to the inhabitants of New Providence. However, once the astronomers calculated the quantity of radiation that would soon be sleeting through the Napier system, the giant star’s proximity became a source of despair.
Human nature being what it is, the news had not been well received. At first people refused to believe that they would soon be forced to abandon their homes. Eventually, however, the reality of their predicament began to sink in. An evacuation program was organized. By the end of the first year, the whole of the New Providential industrial complex had been converted to the task of resettling three billion people to a different star system. Shipyards rushed to build the evacuation fleet while teams of pioneers worked to ready new homes for New Providence’s masses on Sandarson’s World.
While the engineers raced to build an evacuation fleet, the New Providential scientists had studied the changes the nova had wrought to the structure of foldspace. The study began with a survey of the gravitational gradient throughout the Napier system. Upon analyzing their data, the scientists were surprised to discover the presence of a foldpoint where no such had been previously. Further analysis showed the foldpoint a temporary phenomenon, the result of long-range focusing of a foldline by the expanding nova shockwave. Once the wave front reached Napier, the new foldpoint would disappear.
The scientists were in favor of exploring the new foldpoint immediately. Those whose job it was to transplant the population to another star system were not keen on anything that would divert precious resources from the evacuation effort. The scientists were persistent and were eventually given a three-ship armada with which to explore the foldpoint.
Two of the ships had jumped to the system beyond the foldpoint immediately after arrival while the third remained behind to make precise measurements of the foldpoint’s gravitational gradient. Twelve days later, the surveyors who had stayed behind reported a dozen starships of unknown type materializing in the nearby foldpoint. The report had cut off abruptly as the invaders destroyed the survey ship and then turned for New Providence.
The Interstellar Council had dispatched a flotilla of warships and auxiliaries. This flotilla had gone out to meet the invading aliens. The battle was joined in deep space and the human forces were largely successful. Even so, a single alien ship managed to evade destruction long enough to launch a spread of six missiles at New Providence. Six missiles, six cities, and ten million dead in the ruins!
A second raid followed the first by eighteen months. This time the human defenders were ready and the invading Ryall ships were destroyed before they could get beyond the foldpoint.
There followed a long period of peace in the Napier system. The years in which no Ryall ship appeared in the new foldpoint lulled the New Providential government into a false sense of security while they wrestled with the problems of evacuation. By the twelfth year following the supernova, they had succeeded in evacuating eighty percent of the population. The end of the de facto truce with the Ryall had come as a surprise as three dozen starships materialized in the disputed foldpoint. They swept aside the few human guard units and raced for New Providence. The defenders were sluggish to respond. Even so, they managed to throw a respectable number of ships into the path of the oncoming marauders. The battle had been both brutal and short. When it was over, ten of the Ryall attackers were still in shape to deliver their cargo of death to New Providence. What followed became known as the Great Burning.
Sergei Gower gazed at the ruins and remembered the chilling stories his great-grandfather had told of that last desperate fight for a doomed world. Nor had that been the last of the fighting. Gower stared at the destruction and thought of the millions who had died violently in the century since humans had abandoned New Providence. He thought of his father, killed aboard his ship during the first expedition to wrest control of the Aezer system from the centaurs; of his younger brother, slaughtered a decade past with the second Aezer armada; and of his son, killed only two years before at the Battle of Sandar. He thought of all those he had lost to the centaurs and made a silent vow as he gazed at the ruins of a once prosperous world.
This time things would be different!
* * *
The sixteen-ship Sandarian contingent to the Helldiver Fleet had left parking orbit more than a month earlier. The flagship was the Blastship Royal Avenger, veteran of a hundred long patrols and two major space battles. With a complement of six hundred, Royal Avenger mounted sufficient armament to lay waste an entire world, or to win a slugging match with half-a-dozen lesser warships. She carried in her holds a variety of armed auxiliaries.
In addition to the flagship, the Sandarian fleet included the heavy battle cruisers Terra and Victory, and His Majesty’s Destroyers Arrow, Mace, and Scimitar. Completing the force was His Majesty’s Armed Transport Saskatoon; onboard which were the men and equipment of the 33rd Regiment, 2nd Battalion, 6th Division, Royal Space Marines. Supporting the warcraft were nine noncombatants – three freighters, five cryogen tankers, and the mother ship for a series of communications relay craft. The latter were small starships with oversize fuel tanks that would be dropped in each foldpoint along the way. It would be their task to relay radio messages between the Helldiver Fleet and Sandar. They would do so by shuttling periodically between the two ends of each active foldline link and passing whatever messages they had accumulated to the next relay craft along the line. All vessels and major auxiliaries had been equipped with the new anti-radiation field and were provisioned for a long voyage.
The run from Sandar out to the Hellsgate-Napier foldpoint had taken ten days at one-half gravity of acceleration. The fleet arrived at the foldpoint and underwent foldspace transition without incident. The Sandarian ships had spent the next two weeks traversing the six billion kilometers of vacuum that lay between the foldpoint and New Providence. Once they arrived at the one-time capital planet of the Napier system, the Sandarians had settled into a parking orbit to await the arrival of the Altan contingent.
On the sixth day following the fleet’s arrival at New Providence, Admiral Gower found himself in his sanctum sanctorum situated at the rear of Royal Avenger’s Combat Control Center. The office cum command center was a glass walled cubicle with a panoramic view of the CCC, its two dozen weapons consoles and their operators. Arrayed across the opposite bulkhead were several oversize screens on which all aspects of fleet operations could be displayed. Sergei Gower sat at his command desk and gazed thoughtfully at the activity going on in the compartment below.
One main viewscreen showed a view of New Providence as seen by one of the blastship’s hull cameras. White cyclone patterns of clouds reflected Napier’s G8 rays, giving the planet the blue-white marbled look of any terrestrial world. An adjacent screen showed the corresponding electronic map of the planet. A series of green sparks shifted on the surface of the planet as Gower watched. These marked the spot where Saskatoon’s Marines were engaged in a landing exercise against a simulated Ryall strong point. He contemplated the shifting alphanumeric display for long seconds before keying for Avenger’s communications center.
“Yes, sir?” the communicator on duty responded.
“Get me Colonel Valdis aboard Saskatoon.”
“It will take a few moments, Admiral. Colonel Valdis is currently issuing operational orders to one of his landing craft.”
“Break in as soon as he is free.”
“Yes, sir!”
Nothing in Gower’s orders from the Sandarian High Command called for the use of ground forces either before or after the fleet had penetrated the nebula. Even so, a lifetime of fighting the centaurs had taught the admiral caution, and had caused him to insist that the expedition have access to ground forces. Having received them, he did not intend to let pass any opportunity to hone their skills.
“You wanted to speak to me, Admiral?” a gruff looking man asked from Gower’s screen.
“Report status of your exercise, Colonel.”
“All ships are now down without mishap. The two strike forces are converging on the objective as planned. They will link up…” The colonel’s eyes flicked toward something beyond the field of view of the screen camera. “… In exactly seventeen minutes.”
Are you watching your schedule?”
“Yes, sir. If anything, we are a little ahead of our planned timeline. We should have everything wrapped up and all the men back under radiation shielding at least one hour before local nebula rise.”
Gower nodded. “See that you do. I want the name, service number, and dosimeter reading of the man with the maximum exposure reported directly to me as soon as you get it.”
“Will do, Admiral.”
Gower cut the connection and turned to other problems. He scanned his workscreen and requested that he be put through to the captain of one of the cryogen tankers. That worthy seemed surprised by the summons.
“What may I do for you, sir?”
“Your morning report shows that you detected a leak in your primary fuel tank, Captain. What have you done about it?”
“Uh, we have men out in suits checking the hull, sir.”
“What is your prediction for time to make repairs?”
“Two hours at the outside, Admiral.”
“Very well. I want to hear that you have found the leak and have sealed it in no more than three hours’ time. If you cannot assure me that your vessel is again pressure tight by then, I will dispatch a repair crew to assist you. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
The screen went blank and Gower was about to proceed to the next trouble item on his list when it lit again to show an earnest young ensign in the corridor just beyond Gower’s office. The admiral’s scowl softened perceptibly as he studied the handsome features peering out of the screen at him. The high cheekbones, aristocratic nose, and square chin were a younger version of the features of His Majesty, John-Philip Walkirk VI, whose official portrait adorned the bulkhead over Gower’s computer terminal.
“Ensign Philip Walkirk, reporting for scheduled instruction, sir!” the young man said as quickly as Gower acknowledged his presence.
“Very well, Ensign,” Admiral Gower answered formally, “You have my permission to enter.”
The hatch opened and the crown prince of Sandar strode across the metal deck to stand at attention in front of the admiral’s desk.
“Please be seated, Your Highness.”
“Thank you, sir,” the prince responded.
“Shall I ring for refreshments?”
“No thank you, sir. I have just come from the officers’ mess.”
“Very well,” Gower replied. “What have you learned since last we spoke, Your Highness?”
“Among other things, sir, that I don’t think I care for sitting and waiting when we could be doing something useful.”
“Oh?” Gower asked, lifting his right eyebrow in a gesture that would have had any other subordinate in a cold sweat. “Do you have some criticism to offer concerning the way I command this fleet?”
“I meant to imply no such criticism, Admiral.”
“Then what did you mean to imply, Ensign?”
The prince hesitated, obviously casting about for the most politic way of explaining himself. Gower gave him no chance.
“Come now, Your Highness. An officer must be quick on his feet and a future king even more so. You have stated that you are unhappy with the way this expedition is being run. Defend your position, and quickly!”
“Yes, sir. There is a lot of talk in the mess about how we are wasting time. We could be out at the Napier-Antares foldpoint mapping the nebula instead of sitting here in parking orbit waiting for the Altans to arrive.”
“Yes, we could,” Gower agreed.
“Then why are we orbiting this dead world?”
“You tell me,” the admiral responded.
“Because our orders are to do so,” the price replied.
“Correct! And a military man always follows his orders, Your Highness.”
Gower noted the young man’s studied look of irritation that quickly faded from his features. He leaned back in his chair and regarded the prince with something approaching avuncular pride. For most of the time, Philip Walkirk was one of Avenger’s ensigns, treated no different than other officers of his rank, save that he was always addressed by his royal honorific. In the Sandarian Navy, much of an ensign’s day was taken up with studying those things that cannot be taught in a naval academy. Such things were best taught by one’s immediate superiors. Once each week, though, the admiral took it upon himself to teach the heir to the throne those things that would be useful when he became king.
“Besides,” he said, continuing in a less martial vein, “You know enough of the political realities that you should be able to figure out the reason for our orders yourself.”
“Well,” the prince began, “I suppose our Altan partners might object to being left out of the initial explorations.”
Gower nodded. “It would hardly build trust between our two systems if we gave them the idea that we don’t need them.”
“But we don’t need them!” Philip Walkirk replied.
“That is where you are wrong, Your Highness. We need them badly.”
“But why? After more than a century of isolation, they hardly have enough ships to patrol their own system, let alone carry the attack to the Ryall.”
“True,” the admiral replied. “And by the same token, they haven’t been bloodied the way we have. They have not seen their manpower and treasure poured into futile attempts to break the Ryall blockade of Aezer. They have not seen their home world under attack. They do not command a people weary unto death of war.
“The truth is, Highness, that we of Sandar are barely holding our own against the centaurs, and that we can foresee the day when we will go under if we don’t obtain outside aid. Worse, our enemies can foresee that same day. Why else do you think they launched the attack which ended in the Battle of Sandar?”
Two years earlier, shortly after Alta’s Interstellar Expedition One entered the Hellsgate system, Sandar had come under attack from a heavily armed fleet of Ryall warships. The Sandarian navy, having been decimated by three attempts to break the Aezer blockade, had been unable to prevent a breakout from the fortified Hellsgate-Aezer foldpoint. There had followed a pitched space battle in which the Altan battle cruiser Discovery had taken part. Humanity had won the battle that day, but just barely. It gave Gower the shakes to think of how close they had come to disaster.
“Obviously, sir,” the prince replied, “We need allies. However, once we penetrate the nebula, we will have Earth and all the other worlds of human space. We won’t need the Altans.”
“We will need every ally we can get, Highness. After all, Earth is far away and pressed by the aliens, too. We will need a large production capacity to build the weapons we need. Alta has that capacity. To not court our cousins would be criminally negligent and terribly stupid. As you well know, your father is neither of these. Therefore, we wait until the Altans arrive. Only after we have integrated their forces with our own do we undertake our mission.”
“But where are they?”
The admiral shrugged. “The last reports we had were that they were preparing to launch. It is not inconceivable that they have been delayed. We will wait for them.”
“How long do we wait, sir?”
“Until they arrive, or until I become convinced that they aren’t coming,” Gower replied smoothly.
The hooting of an alarm suddenly startled both men. Gower looked up to see a flurry of activity taking place in the combat control center. He keyed for the officer on duty. “What’s happened, Commander Massey?”
“Terra has detected a large number of ships, sir.”
“Where?” Gower asked, his every sense suddenly alert.
“In the Napier-Valeria foldpoint sir.”
“How many?”
“I make it a total of eight.”
“Identification?”
“Stand by a moment, Admiral. Our computer is crunching the data now…Yes, sir, we have positive identification on two of the craft. They are Discovery and City of Alexandria. Neutrino and infrared signatures closely match the readings we took when both ships visited Sandar. A third ship seems to be a heavy cruiser of the Discovery class.”
Gower nodded. “That will be Dagger. What of the other five?”
“No identification possible yet, sir. However, they are definitely of human construction.”
“No need for further identification,” Gower replied. “Please get a message out, Commander. Welcome our allies to the Napier system and ask that they expedite their crossing.” Gower glanced at the crown prince, who was watching the exchange with a new excitement in his eyes. “Tell them that we have some young officers onboard who would like to get started with exploring the nebula.”