Legion in exile, p.23
Legion in Exile, page 23
“I believe you just said that stupid was good,” Jin snorted at her brother.
“There’s youth stupid, and then there’s just brain-dead stupid,” Carmine winked at her, eliciting a glare of annoyance from his younger sister. “Trust me, there’s a difference… even if it can be really hard to spot sometimes.”
“If the pair of you are done flirting,” Eryn interjected dryly, earning himself a squawk from the princess, and an amused glower from Carmine. “We have work to do, and I’m guessing not much time to do it in.”
Carmine stared for a moment before responding, “So, Sylban didn’t manage to wring all the humor out of his cute little apprentice. Good to know… but you’re right, we’ll talk while we work. There are things you should know before we get going.”
*****
Orion Command Carrier, Delaware
“New FLASHTraffic, skipper.”
Hidan nodded, accepting the message as it was handed off from the comms officer. “Thank you, Lieutenant.”
He watched the young officer leave briefly before thumbing the ident card and opening the message.
“Anything interesting?” Commander Grave asked idly.
“Just last-minute updates for the Diplomatic outreach,” Hidan said. “Eight Cluster worlds are sending representatives now.”
“That’s two more added since the last update, what, twelve hours ago?” Grave asked.
“About that,” Hidan nodded.
While a full-on shooting war had thus far been avoided since the Orions had taken advantage of the Imperium’s moves to retake a couple smaller colonies that had been ‘stolen’ by Libation over the decades, there had been more than a few shooting instances along the border. Most of that had likely been pirates flying false flags, but Hidan was aware of several that had been confirmed as legitimate shooting incidents with the local authorities.
At the moment, Congress was wavering on whether pushing the advantage was the right play or not. The Imperium was unlikely to turn their attention away from the Cluster anytime soon, there were too many things to demand their attention. That left many members of the congressional sitting thinking that now was the time to press on several disputed systems, but just as many were of the opinion that now was not the time to be splitting the Cluster’s attention.
Hidan was like as not inclined to sit this one out, if he could. Moving quickly to retake the small colonies they had, well it made sense at the time. No one had predicted Orson’s Reef, so he couldn’t really fault the decision. With the atrocity at the Reef, however, the equations had changed.
If the Empire was willing to stoop to that level, there was no predicting them, and that made them far more dangerous than they had initially appeared to be. If someone else had done it, which he considered likely, that was going to be a mess if and when it came out and he didn’t want to wind up on the same side as monsters like that just by some kind of default thinking.
“We’ll be taking on Diplomats before proceeding to the Embassy location,” Hidan noted, unsurprised. “I wonder who Congress have elected to send; it doesn’t say here.”
“Security, I presume,” Grave shrugged. “Our encryption and FlashTraffic protocols are good, but nothing is impregnable.”
“True enough,” Hidan said, setting the computer down. “Not much else to be done then, as soon as the diplomatic team is on board, we’ll be moving.”
“I’ll pass the word.”
*****
Nova Caledonia
“That’s it, other than fuel, we’re loaded.” Eryn said as he slumped into a seat that was inset in the back of the ship.
“You sure you don’t need a top off?” Carmine asked curiously.
“No, we have enough to get up there plus a reasonable safety margin. Anything you put in now will just be more weight to push,” Eryn replied. “As long as we can tank in orbit, we’re good.”
“Already cleared. The Embassy meet will be in a couple days time,” Carmine said. “Should have more than enough time to get there, but we do need to be moving.”
“Are you travelling with us?” Jinsha asked of her brother.
“No, I’ll be in one of the Diplomatic cruisers,” Carmine chuckled as he said that. “In other words, a former heavy cruiser that’s mostly been refit for local mukity mucks to fly around in.”
“More comfortable than this heap,” Eryn laughed.
“True, but trust me when I say that the company isn’t going to be nearly as pleasant,” Carmine sighed. “Getting that many diplomats together in one place is never a good time, and it’s worse when it’s mostly Cluster diplomats. Oh God the arguments…”
Eryn just laughed, but Jinsha actually shuddered.
“I’ve sat in with mother on meetings like that, they’re horrible. I don’t see how they get anything done.”
“They don’t,” Carmine said flatly. “These meetings are for the cameras. The real dealing will be done off to the side, before, during, and after the embassy meeting itself. What you see in those types of meetings is always staged. A show for their voters, or whoever their bosses are.”
Jin grimaced, “Is it always so… illicit and inefficient?”
Carmine considered it for a moment, then shrugged, “Pretty much, yeah.”
“So much waste,” she sighed.
“Don’t look at it like that. T that’s not the bug, it’s the feature,” Carmine assured her.
“How?”
“Power will always tend to wind up in the hands of people who want power, right? Since you’re far less likely to seek it out if you don’t want it and all,” Carmine said, “With me?”
Jin nodded, almost reluctantly.
“And the people who want power are going to tend to be the sorts that you probably don’t really want to have power,” he said firmly. “Another sad truth, but if you want power, it’s because you want to use it. No one collects power and then doesn’t use it… and, frankly, most uses of power are not very nice for at least someone. So, given those two things are true, anything that trips up the people who want power? That’s a feature, Jin, trust me.”
Eryn almost chuckled at the screwed-up face she made there, like she’d just bitten into something particularly unpleasant.
“It just seems so… wrong.”
Carmine shrugged, “Efficient governments can be done, but historically… they don’t end well for anyone involved.”
Jin didn’t have anything to say to that and, after a minute more where he finished off his drink, Carmine got to his feet.
“I need to be going, but I’ll have my itinerary sent to you, and the flight plans will be filed within the hour. Good?”
Eryn nodded, climbing back to his feet, “We’ll be ready.”
“Excellent. I’ll see you on the other side, then.”
*****
Chapter 25
Independent Vessel Genesis Seat
The Seat rumbled a little as it broke free into space, the thrusters adjusting their exhaust geometry to a tighter focus now that the pressure of the planet’s atmosphere wasn’t helping form the plume. Eryn checked the fuel, satisfied that they were where he expected the levels to be.
“Do we have the telemetry for the refueling point?” he asked.
“It’s on the screen,” Jin told him, gesturing. “Looks a little…”
“It’s an old transponder, probably not been maintained for the last decade, that’s why it’s fuzzy,” Eryn assured her. “The measurements should still be accurate, otherwise they’d have done maintenance on it. Check them against our systems anyway.”
“Of course,” Jin replied dryly.
She didn’t need a ton of experience or training to know that trying to dock with an orbital satellite with the wrong numbers in your Nav system was just asking for trouble.
Eryn just grinned, mirroring the Nav data to his pilot’s display. He knew it irritated her to be treated like a neophyte, but he wasn’t willing to risk anything else in some circumstances. Whatever she had been taught, or just learned, from those around her, he was certain that there would be many things she hadn’t picked up. The galaxy was like that.
They lined up on the fueling depot without issue, however, and Jin’s comparison of the numbers they were receiving matched up properly.
Eryn had never imagined one resting this close to a planet, frankly. Normally you only saw them outside a star system, or near an outer system gas giant at most, since the majority of ships that bothered to enter a planetary atmosphere only did so on repulsors which used no reaction mass. They burned their Delta-V on the outward-bound journey, not just getting a few kilometers off the surface of a planet.
Planets without magnetic fields were unusual spots to setup a colony, at least since the Lenz technology had become widespread.
Eryn eased the ship in and got locked up, though, just as he would at any outer system fueler and in a few moments they were pumping in pure local Deuterium for the onboard reactor. He checked their tritium stock quickly as well, but that was far from depleted so once the tanks were filled up of the fuel and reaction mass, they disconnected quickly, and Eryn pointed their nose up-well and fired the main engines.
The old school puddle jumper had a pair of updated mil-spec fusion reactors, either one of which could power the whole ship with some room to spare on the redline. They were far from the best quality reactors available, of course, but they were among the most reliable and easiest to repair. Systems that required electrical power barely drew on the reactor’s strength, however, and if they were sitting in place the ship could happily power itself for decades without refueling.
Flying around the galaxy, however, required more than just power generation. Reaction mass was the only effective way to get a ship moving, despite not being a particularly efficient drive. FTL was far easier on the fuel, but using those drives anywhere too close to a significant gravity source was a good way to tear your ship apart right from under your ass due to relativistic effects of time within a gravity field.
So, Eryn was already plotting a refuel at the edge of the system’s gravity field, just in case they needed some fighting room on the flip side.
*****
Diplomatic Cruiser Bene Deal
Carmine looked out of the large cruiser’s observation windows, a set of horrendously expensive slabs of crystalized aluminum plate that had been added to the ship after it’s re-commissioning in a non-combat role.
It was supposed to be impressive and overawe diplomats and other VIP visitors, he supposed, but the original intent was undermined by the little-known fact that 99.999% of space was boring blackness. Hell, most systems didn’t even have a particularly nice vista by most standards, and the vast majority of talks the ship was sent to were inevitably conducted over the disputed planet or region, which were almost exclusively mining or farming locations.
He was sure that it would be very awe inspiring, if it ever got the chance.
“The Orions have confirmed that they’ll be attending, but we’re still waiting on the same from the Republic.”
Carmine nodded. “Not surprising. The Nine Stars have always been less… willing to talk.”
“There is truth in that, Sir,” the Ship’s Captain and lead diplomat agreed.
The Cale wasn’t exactly a big center of diplomacy, and Carmine was lucky that he’d been able to keep what influence the colony had over the past couple decades that he’d been living there. Not that he’d planned on becoming a mover and shaker in the Cluster when he left Earth or anything, it just seemed like that was the way things turned out.
“What about the reports of pirate activity?” he asked.
“Nothing solid there, but we are seeing upticks across the board,” Captain Callum Brooke told him with a scowl. “The only places not seeing upticks are where they’ve been reinforcing the line against the Imperium… and maybe in Imperial captured systems, though reporting is iff out of those.”
“Not surprising, on any point,” Carmine sighed. “I expect we’ll see things get worse long before they get better.”
“Not taking any bets on that,” Carmine snorted. “If the Cluster hasn’t already lost ships to either mutiny or just opting to run, I’ll eat my pistol… and sooner or later, we’ll see those ships show up in someone’s private army.”
Callum nodded.
There was no question about either of those points, sadly. The golden age of piracy had been killed deader than a colony on a hot world, but the conditions were right for a comeback. Plenty of space to run, a few high profit systems with minimal defenses, and now a major event drawing what remained of those defenses all out of position.
Oh, yes, the stage was set for a new era of piracy that could rewrite the very meaning of the word. Before that, however, they had other business to deal with, starting with the Orions and Republic of the Nine Stars.
“Our defenses should be sufficient to handle pirates,” Callum said.
“They should, but there should have been no chance of an attack at Orson’s Reef either,” Carmine said grimly. “There are those out there who are not interested in being bound by what should be.”
“Point made, Sir,” Callum frowned. “I’ll keep everyone on their toes.”
“You do that.”
*****
Genesis Seat
Hours later, a second refuel at Caledonia’s outbound station, and several checks of every system on board later, Eryn was readying the Seat for a foray into Jump space.
“Navigation coordinates from the Deal, Eryn,” Jinsha informed him, sending the numbers over. “I found nothing that stands out.”
“I’d be surprised if there was,” Eryn admitted as he ran the numbers as well. It was, strictly speaking, a bit of overkill but he didn’t see any harm in being thorough. Jin’s work was fine, however, and the numbers from Carmine checked out, so he punched them into the system.
“We’re ready to jump.”
Jinsha just nodded, so he brought the program up and ran everything through the checklist.
They were far enough out from the star that there was effectively no relativistic pull on the ship that could be measured, fuel levels were topped off, weapons all ready as full and primed… albeit with safeties fully engaged.
The last green light lit off, and the ship’s automatic systems kicked in to throw the Seat into jumpspace.
There was a flicker in the space they left behind, reality shimmering slightly like a mirage, and the Genesis Seat was simply… gone.
*****
Libation
“Say that again.”
Kroger was not having a good time of things. He hadn’t slept in… well, he’d forgotten when, if he were honest with himself. The war the Empire was waging should have been nothing more than a minor bit of amusement for his forces, they’d never presented as much of a fighting force in any of their previous engagements.
Now, it seemed that he was learning that was entirely because the former Empress was too soft hearted to unleash their potential.
He never would have seen that coming, not in a million years.
What sort of ruler lets other push her around so much? he was exasperated, the Imperial forces were just tearing through everything the Cluster threw up in front of them, and they didn’t even have the decency to seem put out that the entire Cluster had mobilized against them.
If not for the sacrifice made at Orson’s Reef, we would already be overrun.
“Sir, the Orions and the Republic seem… unwilling to bend on their demands,” His diplomatic secretary told him firmly. “They seem willing to persecute the war unless we give up those systems and all future claims.”
Kroger snapped, hand slamming down onto his desk. “Do those fools not understand that this is an existential threat? The Empire isn’t going to stop with the Cluster if we let them roll over us like that!”
“Yes, sir, of course.”
Kroger was loathe to give up the claim to the systems involved. Several of them were cash crop worlds with either excellent literal crops, or high access to relatively rare yet high demand minerals.
“And if we do give up our claim?”
“The best offer is one of neutrality,” the Secretary answered with a grimace. “Favored trading status from the Orions is also on the table, but nothing more.”
Kroger snorted his amusement, “Of course. They’ll not risk their own lives, but they’ll happily sell us weapons from now to the heat death of the universe if we have the money to pay for it.”
“Yes sir.”
“Fine, I’ll let you know my decision,” Kroger snapped. “Get out.”
The other man blinked, “Sir…”
“I said out. And tell my staff to find Admiral Fenn. I want words.”
“Very well, Mr. President.”
Goddamn those outcluster bastards, cowards, and sheep the whole lot of them.
*****
Genesis Seat
Travel in jump space was… rarely eventful, or at least that was the politest way of putting things. Most tended to call it boring to the point of insanity and tears. How fast a ship could make, using in-universe terms, was largely a factor of how deep they could manage to sink into the dimensional axis that Jump space existed along.
Jump Space was simply another word for that dimensional axis, actually, a particular direction in space-time that didn’t correspond to any direction humans could sense but existed all the same. In essence, it was like traveling in time, yet also not at all like that in the least.
Yes, that was the simplest way to describing Jump Space. It was like time travel, but really not.
After that, the descriptions started getting… complicated.
The farther along that dimensional axis you moved, the younger the universe around your ship became. By transitioning far enough back into a younger, smaller, universe you could traverse great swathes of distance at point C fractional speeds and yet, when you returned to the dimension of entry like a submerged ping pong ball bursting back to the surface of a body of water, you would be in a location much farther in the sidereal universe than seemed possible.
