Barbarians at the Gates

Chapter Twenty-Three

FNS Midway, In Transit, 4095

“I noticed that you can’t sleep,” Elf said in the half-darkness of the captain’s cabin. The artificial starfield thrown over the bed shone upon her, lending her features an otherworldly air. “The responsibilities of command pressing down on you?”

Roman nodded without moving the rest of his body. The captain’s cabin onboard Midway was huge, far larger than anything he felt that he had a right to expect—or needed. Three years of service since graduating from Luna Academy hadn’t left him with much in the way of possessions, although one wall was covered with some old-style printed books he’d picked up on shore leave. Admiral Drake, he’d been informed, was a keen book collector and so Roman had attempted to follow in his mentor’s footsteps in that regard. He’d soon discovered that books were an overpowering habit and, somehow, they bred on his shelves.

“Yeah,” he said after a long beat. “I don’t want to fuck this up…”

Elf was now his best friend and his lover. But no one knew about it outside his cabin. Whenever she was on duty, most particularly when she was surrounded by others, she was all Marine. Their relationship didn’t quite break any regulations, but if it became known, people would talk.

And he didn’t want that for Elf. She was a damned good Marine. She’d earned every promotion she’d ever gotten.

So he kept it quiet. And hoped no one would figure it out, because there were times that Roman thought that the Federation Navy ran on chatter and rumors.

Elf snorted and poked one of her fingers into his stomach. “And when was the last time you fucked something up?”

“I wasn’t in command then,” Roman said. “I mean…I didn’t know I was going to wind up in command of the Enterprise, so when I did, I hadn’t had any time to think or plan. Here…the buck stops with me.”

“And you know what you are doing, you know that it needs to be done, and you know that the Admiralty has faith in you,” Elf said dryly. She poked him again, harder. “And if they didn’t have faith in you, they wouldn’t have given you the Midway. How many of your graduation class have their own newly-constructed assault cruiser to play with?”

“True,” Roman agreed. He reached out and touched the bulkhead, marvelling at the faint vibration he felt as the ship’s stardrive drove her on into the endless night. Only three of his fellow year-mates from Luna Academy had been promoted to captain—two of them, like Roman himself, originally had been forced into a dead man’s shoes. Several others had been killed in the incessant wars tearing the Federation apart. “Of course, we are also the test-bed for the whole concept. We fuck up, and the whole construction program goes to hell.”

Midway was the latest design of assault cruiser, a cross between a heavy cruiser and a battlecruiser. She was fast enough to catch almost anything in known space—apart from a starfighter or gunboat—and armed to the teeth. He couldn’t take her into battle against a battlecruiser or anything heavier, but Midway would have no difficulty evading anything powerful enough to punch her out. The designers had talked about using her as a fast scout, but the Admiralty had marked her and her sisters down for commerce raiders as soon as the potentials had percolated through their collective heads. And then there were the prospects for covert insertion missions and other interesting tasks.

Roman’s appointment to command her was a sign that some very powerful and well-connected people had a great deal of faith in him.

And yet, although he hadn’t wanted to admit it to Admiral Drake, he had his doubts about the mission. Not the part about sowing dissent between the two warlords—that clearly served the Federation’s purposes, although that alone suggested the enemy would know who was to blame—but raiding commercial and industrial starships like simple pirates. His parents had been killed by pirates, long ago, and he’d hoped to be assigned to hunt pirates. The Donna Noble had spent the six months before the Battle of Terra Nova escorting convoys and chasing pirates, and he’d enjoyed every last moment of it. It felt as if he were avenging his parents every time he killed a pirate’s ship.

But then, Federation Navy was tearing itself apart and, scenting an opportunity, the pirates had begun to press their efforts closer and closer to the Core Worlds. Roman hadn’t been allowed—officially—to see accurate figures, but the ones he’d obtained from an old friend suggested that pirate activity had increased tenfold over the last three years. It didn’t take much mental effort to deduce that their depredations were actually damaging the Federation’s economy quite badly, particularly when the Federation Navy couldn’t spare the ships to escort convoys and patrol the more vulnerable systems. How many more ships would be taken, their crews tortured and killed, before the civil wars ended and the Federation Navy resumed normal patrols?

“The sooner we win, the better,” Elf said when he put his fears into words. “If what we’re doing in this sector helps win the war, we need to do it. Besides, how many people legally visit The Hive anyway? The last I heard, the Senate had quarantined the entire system and banned all entry without special permission.”

“The pirates don’t pay attention to the Senate’s orders,” Roman pointed out. He threw back the covers and climbed out of bed, standing naked against the artificial starlight. Outside the hull, there was nothing more than the madness-inducing continuous displacement space. “I just wish I felt more comfortable with our orders.”

“I shouldn’t worry about it,” Elf advised. She picked up a pillow and threw it at him with devastating accuracy. “We do have a few more hours before we are required to return to duty…unless you intend to whine some more?”

“Fuck you,” Roman said without heat.

“You just did,” Elf reminded him. “If you want my advice, you ought to keep a closer eye on the Delta Commandos and not worry so much about the pirates—or acting like a pirate. They may have orders that you won’t like…”

Roman frowned. The Delta Commandos—Uzi and the nine enhanced soldiers along with him—had come on board just before Midway had departed the Boskone System. They’d been given a suite of cabins and kept to themselves, refusing to interact with the Marines or any of the other crewmen. If they were training behind closed bulkheads, Roman didn’t know about it—or anything else they might be doing. The file he’d been given on them had been surprisingly thin, merely a brief outline of some of their capabilities and an order to take their requests and suggestions into account, if any were offered. Roman suspected that was actually a way of saying to treat any suggestions from Uzi as orders.

He looked over at her and lifted an eyebrow.

“Are you saying that they can’t be trusted?”

Elf shrugged, which did interesting things to her breasts.

“I’m saying that they tend to do the dirty work—wet work—and that they have a very dark reputation among the Special Forces community. You cannot assume they will follow your orders, whatever regulations may say about a captain being the sole authority on his ship. Their superiors in the Senate may have given them specific orders, and told them to keep them from you. They report to the Senate Oversight Committee specifically.”

She frowned. “The Colonel told me once that a team of Delta Commandos arrived on Luton when the rebellion against the ruling caste was underway. The rulers had begged their allies in the Senate for help and they sent the Delta Commandos, who somehow got into rebel territory and butchered the rebel leadership, along with their families and friends. They then manipulated the rebels into fighting each other with a program of planned assassination and black propaganda. This whole plan—putting the warlords at each other’s throats—smacks of their work. God alone knows what they have in mind.”

“So they definitely can’t be trusted,” Roman said. “Are they actually good fighters?”

“Individually, better than most Marines,” Elf admitted. Roman could tell that that admission had cost her. “Their enhancements—each of which cost ten billion credits, by the way—make them formidable in any combat zone. On the other hand, they don’t always play well together. And an enemy who refuses to panic, or assume that she’s automatically beaten, is going to have a fair chance of defeating them.”

She grinned. “But they’re damn hard to kill. You could toss one of them into vacuum, and it wouldn’t do more than piss him off.

“Anyway, enough doom and gloom.” She reached for him and pulled him towards the bed, pushing him down and straddling him, her hands running over his chest and up towards his neck. “If you’re not going to sleep, I have something else for you to do…”

“Long night, sir?” Commander Janine Trojanskis, his executive officer, said as she offered him a mug of strong coffee.

Janine was several years older than Roman, and by all rights should’ve had her own command years ago. Yet a black mark on her record prevented her from being promoted past her current rank. Since her file was sealed, Roman had no idea what Janine might have done to annoy the Admiralty. It couldn’t have been gross incompetence; she was a good officer, he’d seen that already. Roman’s best guess was that she’d insulted an admiral in some way, and that personage must have decided that forcing her to serve under a younger man was sufficient punishment.

“Of course not,” he said, knowing all the while he was lying. Elf had told him he needed to go see the doctor to get a sleep aid, but he’d declined; the story of Captain Trautman who’d accidentally slept through the Battle of Prince’s Burg due to taking a drug to get to sleep was still well known throughout the Federation. “Ship’s status?”

“All systems functioning nominally, sir,” Janine assured him as he took the command chair. “The Midway is fully at your command. I stand relieved.”

“I relieve you,” Roman said, settling down into the command chair. “I suggest that you get some sleep. We’ll be in the Tranter System soon enough, and I’ll need you on the secondary bridge.”

He settled back into the command chair, took another sip of coffee, and considered the engineering reports. Janine was right—they were all nominal—but he always checked them himself. After two weeks of travel—first through three Asimov Points, and then crossing the inky darkness of space—it paid to be careful. If the stardrive broke down while they were traveling between star systems, they would be stranded in interstellar space. It was a spacer’s worst nightmare, apart from the Slowboaters—and they were just plain weird.

The hours ticked by slowly until Midway reached the mass limit and dropped down to Slower Than Light speeds. Roman knew the odds were vastly against an enemy picket ship having the sheer dumb luck to be lurking anywhere near their arrival point, but he launched a pair of stealth drones and kept Midway under cloak until he was sure. The Tranter System was effectively enemy territory, and discovery would force them to retreat into FTL and come at the target from another direction.

“Take us in,” he ordered. “Tactical, continue to monitor the drones. Inform me if there is the slightest hint that we’re not alone out here.”

The Tranter System was fairly typical, as star systems went, although it lacked a gas giant that could be mined for He3. It had seven rocky worlds orbiting the system primary, one of them habitable and, like many other worlds, home to an intelligent race. Roman had seen holograms of the inhabitants and it was easy to see why they were called Trolls: they were huge, ugly and given to carrying clubs and swords around wherever they went. The human settlers had used their technology to convince the Trolls that the humans were gods—a few thunderbolts had ensured they would be worshipped with fervor—and started shipping Trolls out as slave labor. It might have been against any number of laws and regulations, but Trolls made good security guards and slaves, although they didn’t possess the brainpower to handle advanced technology.

Or so the file claimed.

Personally, Roman wondered if that were actually true. The Trolls might prefer to be taken for dumb animals, only a step or two above cats and dogs. It would certainly be safer.

“Captain,” the tactical officer said sharply. “I am picking up energy signatures from AP-1!”

“Go to tactical alert,” Roman ordered calmly. Energy signatures on their own proved nothing—AP-1 was a good place to station a defense force—but if the defenders were on the alert, they might have picketed the entire system. “Can you get me a breakdown at this distance?”

There was a long pause.

“At least nine starships, all dreadnaught-sized,” the tactical officer said, finally. “They’re mounting modern scanners and tactical drives. I can’t pick up anything else at this distance.”

Roman nodded, thinking hard. The Federation Navy had only a handful of dreadnaughts in service—and none of them had been assigned to this sector. The dreadnaught design had been superseded by the superdreadnaughts, with the last dreadnaughts being built during the Inheritance Wars. After the wars, some had been sent to the Naval Reserve, while others had been decommissioned and sold as scrap. ONI had warned the Federation Navy that pirates and Outsiders were buying decommissioned ships for their own purposes, but no one had put a stop to the practice. Even a hull, without drives, weapons or sensors, was worth billions of credits.

It stood to reason that warlords would buy up every starship they could find, hiring mercenaries to help fight their wars and defend their worlds against the Federation Navy. It was rare to encounter a mercenary unit with anything larger than a heavy cruiser, but Roman couldn’t think of any reason why one couldn’t have nine dreadnaughts—apart from the crewing issue. A dreadnaught needed upwards of four thousand men to run effectively, although they could have modernized the ship and placed greater dependence on automated systems than the Federation Navy preferred.

Or perhaps one of the warlords had made a deal with the Outsiders and offered support in exchange for military assistance. Roman could see the sense in that, too.

“And AP-2?” Roman asked.

“Nothing, as far as I can tell,” the tactical officer said. “They don’t even have an ICN station on duty near the Asimov Point…”

“Unsurprising,” Roman commented dryly. It wasn’t as if the Marx System had anything to offer, apart from pirates and perhaps a black colony or two. The civil war that had literally destroyed the entire planet hadn’t left much behind. “Still, we will be careful. Very careful.”

Midway slipped towards AP-2 carefully, every passive sensor alert for a prowling starship. Logically, Roman told himself, there was no reason for Governor Hartkopf’s forces to picket the Asimov Point, not when there was nothing to be gained by trying to hold it and no reason to expect anything to come out of it. On the other hand, the governor had to know that Admiral Justinian would turn on him one day and perhaps attempt to use AP-2 as a possible angle of attack. In that case, securing the Asimov Point might seem like a good idea…although there were more direct ways for Justinian to get at his enemy without a costly diversion.

“No sign of any cloaked ship,” the tactical officer reported very quietly. There was no need to speak softly—sound didn’t travel in the vacuum of space—but no one had been able to break crews of the habit. “Still…passive sensors only, sir.”

Roman nodded. Passive sensors wouldn’t give the ship away, but they also meant that Midway’s sensor capability was grossly reduced. A cloaked enemy ship near the Asimov Point might spot them and launch a barrage before Roman’s active sensors located her presence. It was risky, but it cut three weeks off their journey.

“Take us in,” he ordered. Midway glided forwards, very gingerly, as if she expected an ambush at any second. They were within the Asimov Point… “Jump.”

Space twisted around the cruiser, then they were suddenly in the Marx System.

“Report,” Roman snapped. At least missiles weren’t already being fired towards them. “Are we clear?”

“No sign of any watching picket ships, captain,” the sensor officer reported. “The system might as well be deserted.”

“Maybe,” Roman said. It would take months of searching to locate a hidden colony or starship—if the task was even remotely possible. “Helm, take us towards the first waypoint. And then we will go pay a call on The Hive.”

He smiled at their relief. If nothing else, the long trip was finally over.

“It’s time to go hunting,” he assured them. “Let’s see what we can find, shall we?”