Burning Crucible

Procyon

The Fast-class cruiser RN Jericho generated a flare as it emerged from transit outside the orbit of UM-7, the last planet in the system, an equivalent distance from Sol to Sol-7, the Sun to Jupiter. It extended masts and began transmitting a request for the Transterran home office to grant a meeting with the NorCom representative it carried.

Planet-side, as had become habit, Kilgore intercepted the MIL officer heading for the chairman’s office with a frown. “The chairman asked not to be disturbed unless absolutely necessary. Is there something I can assist you with?”

“Off squelch, mouthpiece. I lack time for meddling today. I need the chairman immediately. Wake him, sober him, get him off his mistress, I don’t care.”

“Great men need sleep, drink, and fond attention,” Kilgore calmly reminded. “My instructions were to have specific view of things to be considered absolutely necessary.”

The MIL officer fought but failed to keep a disgusted grimace from his face. He growled and said, “Management bastard son of a godless whore!” but quickly recovered his composure. He sighed in resignation. “Our sensors are picking up a signal from a NorCom warship that just arrived in-system. They request a high-level meeting.”

“About what?”

“They’ve been attacked by a fleet that emerged from the Crucible Rift: non-human. Their garrison at Zebra Station is destroyed and forty-seven Ursae Majoris has been occupied. The garrison at Virginis is encircled but holding out barely.”

Kilgore felt a chill spreading from the base of his spine. “They followed them back. They followed the renegades back. When they came out of the rift the first thing they detected was Zebra Station, so they went there first, now they’re doing the Virginis Run. They’re already in Virginis.”

“Sir?” The MIL guy seemed confused by what was then shining as obvious in Kilgore’s mind.

“Do we have any ships in range to intercept the NorCom?”

“Yes, sir. Valencia is testing its engines in the outer boundary. They can rendezvous with the NorCom in twelve hours.”

“Are they moving?”

“Yes, sir, Valencia is fueling now. The NorCom is on a vector for the SolCorp platform. They’re broadcasting their demands over the Guard channel.”

“Return to your post. I’ll inform the director and he’ll contact you directly.”

***

An outbound Reuter’s ship got video footage of Valencia in formation with RN Jericho and sold it back to Transterran for 100 Cr. per foot/second. The camera zoomed in on the NorCom vessel. Scorches marred the hull plating in wide swathes and were indicators of recent time spent in action. The population of Octavia watched. Lefleur watched. His commo screen flashed once as a transmitter link was established with it. The emblem of the RN Jericho appeared on the screen and was replaced by a bald, wrinkled squash of a man’s head.

“My name is Harmon Vik. I am the prime administrator of Apex Corporation in the sixty-one Virginis system. The government there has asked me to visit you on their behalf. There is a most urgent matter I must take up with you. Is this channel secure?”

“Of course,” Lefleur said and looked to his security chief for confirmation and got a nod. They’d provided the NorCom with a frequency to negotiate on. “Please speak freely.”

“We are at war with a race of non-humans. The NorCom frontier has fallen. We gave them hell but there’s too damned many of them. Not too many of our ships got away from Zebra Station. They knocked out the surface guns on Avalon and landed ground forces. Now the only thing keeping them off Pax is the orbital garrison. We need your assistance. Any heavy ships you have in serviceable condition absolutely must be sent to our aid. ”

Lefleur assembled his advisory council to hear the NorCom ambassador. The department heads touring other systems were replaced by their assistants.

“We barely have enough to defend our systems against piracy,” Lefleur said and folded his hands on the polished top of the meeting room table. The display in the center had four screens, one for each direction people were seated around it. “It would be irresponsible for us to divide assets there are already not enough of.”

The image of the NorCom ambassador shifted as it refreshed. His face said that he was set to wait. Communication lag time was a tense 20 minutes each way with signal boosting. Kilgore leaned in as Lefleur tilted toward him. “Sir, I think it would be wise to not mention the progress we’ve made on the twelve provinces.”

“Exactly what I was thinking,” Lefleur said and signaled the waiting associates to bring in soy-caff. “But now I wonder what other reason the NorCom could be here except the truth.”

“But what is the truth?” Kilgore said.

“What indeed? It is not immediately obvious, that’s why we move cautiously.”

“Yes, sir.” Kilgore said and watched the closest display. The NorCom ambassador’s face changed as their transmission arrived and he listened to Lefleur’s reply. Harmon Vik reacted badly.

“Now you listen to me! We cannot stop them. The Pax garrison has a chance to hold out for a while if they have some damned support! We know you’ve been refitting EuroCon ships! There’s one right beside of us!” Vik raged. “Give us these ships. Anything you can spare. Loan them to us. Sell them.”

“Anything not needed for local defense would already be on the market,” Lefleur said. “And since we’ve dispensed with diplomacy, please tell me why I should jeopardize the safety of my employees by sending them into harm’s way? Such valuable assets are not easily committed.”

“What?” Vik went purple. “Your employees are already in harm’s way. They just don’t know it yet. That’s because those bastards have to finish with us first.”

They should’ve sent someone with less temper, Kilgore thought as Lefleur deactivated the connection.

“Sir, they might be attempting a ruse. If they know we have warships, this may be their excuse to draw them out. We remember the incident at Delta Pavonis too well. We would be fools to trust them when they strike us so willingly.”

“I agree, sir. The NorCom has demonstrated its bad faith before: at Delta Pavonis and in the ban of our products from their allied worlds.”

“I think they recognize our past poor relations. They would not be here unless it were absolutely necessary. Perhaps now is the time to take a step toward improving those ties.”

They drank soy-caff and waited for the NorCom’s reply. When it came, the man had gone frosty with rage. His voice was even and measure. “You weren’t listening you sons-of-bitches. Once they’re done with us, they’re coming for you.”

“And what does the NorCom intend to do?” Lefleur said. He drew a breath to add more but was content to wait 40 minutes for the answer.

“Second Fleet is on the way in from Earth. They’re the scheduled rotation and they’ve got the newest equipment. They’ll emerge from transit in sixty one Virginis. That system must not fall before Second Fleet arrives. The garrison is holding but not indefinitely. We need food, medicine, and for God’s sake, some reloads. Once my ship is fueled I am departing for the Virginis jump point. I need an answer by then. Will you help us?”

***

Lefleur adjourned the meeting and retired to his office to consider the costs and benefits of his options. Kilgore knocked on the door and stepped through without waiting for acknowledgement. Lefleur stood overlooking the settlement with a water glass in his hand in his office.

“Something you’d like to discuss, mister Kilgore?

Kilgore stopped in front of Lefleur’s desk. “Chairman, sir, if you value my opinion I find that the NorCom ambassador’s argument could have merit. The NorCom Ninth floated twenty warships heavier than our twelve provinces. What if these invaders are choosing to eliminate the greatest threat before moving on us? The twelve provinces would not stop them from doing it once the NorCom was destroyed.”

Lefleur sat down at his desk and dropped his into his hands. He massaged his forehead with his fingers. “Then if the NorCom Ninth was so easily defeated what difference would twelve ships make?”

“They were not easily defeated. The invaders paid a heavy price for Zebra Station. Their forces in sixty-one Virginis are only enough to prevent a breakout by the NorCom ships that survived. We’ve gleaned that much from the intelligence they’ve shared.”

“We cannot commit our forces so piecemeal. We must build up enough strength to deliver a decisive attack when the time is correct.”

“There is no other time, sir, once the invaders finish sterilizing Avalon, the bulk of their forces will move on to Pax Oceanus. Is that when the time will be correct, sir? Or how about when they sterilize Pax and move on to New Saxony or here?”

“Mind your tone, boy,” Lefleur said. “The time will be correct when I’m absolutely certain that the assets I’m committing are going to deliver the maximum benefit. I don’t know if that time is now. I don’t know enough about the situation yet.”

“Sir, if the NorCom frontier has been attacked and we haven’t then the situation is perfectly clear. We have assets that we can use to make a difference. We’ll need NorCom goodwill for any chance of repelling a move into our own space.”

“Which they’ve not made.” Lefleur said.

“Yet,” Kilgore said. “And there is the human side to consider. There are seven hundred thousand refugees from Avalon packed into the cargo ships from the last NorCom supply shipment. They made it as far as Pax but the settlement can’t support all of them. Disease and starvation have set in. New Saxony could support them, or we could here, but we have to act.”

“How can you be so sure?” Lefleur said and spun to watch Procyon A set.

“I’m only sure that if we fail to act soon, all will be lost. And there is not just the twelve provinces. We have Five Kriegsmarine.”

“What?”

“Forgive me, chairman, once we received word of their return, I ordered the renegade ships to the top of the refit list.”

“They’re finished?” Lefleur said and turned away from the binaries touching on the horizon together. He maneuvered the chair back to his desk. “Why didn’t you consult me first?”

“Pardon, sir, but I felt it was too trivial for your direct attention,” Kigore said. “Worn parts were replaced but overall the ships were in remarkable condition. The last word from New Saxony is that the Five Kriegsmarine remnants have been resupplied, rearmed, and renamed, though final upgrading may take some time.”

“Do you have a list of them?” Lefleur said and reached for the micro-disk on the desktop that held his conversation with the NorCom ambassador. The four hour recording had been edited down to twelve minutes of dialogue.

“I can forward it to you, sir.” Kilgore said.

“Send them.” Lefleur said and gave him a look that said, “Are you still here?”

“Yes, sir. They’ll need crews.”

The lad is always thinking. Lefleur thought and said, “Draw them from wherever you need to. Coordinate it personally. Try not to get taken hostage this time.”

Kilgore laughed. The chairman had wit.

***

61 Virginis

“What’s the Great Menace doing today?” Hurricane asked as the bridge hatch closed behind him. USS Ranger orbited the water world Pax Oceanus in high orbit, protected from what the locals called “the zapper swarm,” by the weapons of the garrison built into the planet’s 5th moon, a captured asteroid 80 Km. wide.

“Just watching us, like they’ve been doing since we got here,” Quickdraw called from the sensor station where he noisily worked a large wad of gum between his jaws. It was VF-221’s turn on the duty roster. “They caught some cargo ship coming in from Eridani a few hours ago and smoked his ass right quick.”

“Was he close enough for SAR to get out to him?”

Quickdraw shook his head. “Ten minutes after we got his jump flare, we got his reactor core losing containment. Whatever these zappers are, they sure know how to exploit a weakness.”

“Those merchies are just gonna keep coming in blind and dumb until the word gets out,” Hurricane said and adjusted his drift toward the commo-station. “Poor bastards.”

“They should’ve turned around once they came out of transit and went straight back the way they came,” Quickdraw said. “Hell, that’s what we should’ve done. That’s what Groove would’ve done.”

“We’ll never know,” Hurricane said and grabbed the seatback of the nearest comm. station as he floated by with the hand not swathed in a derma-cast. Captain Groove was gone, vaporized in the same type of plasma stream that had done in Pancho, Cooper, and two other Gunslingers. “He was probably just unlucky. Look at us, we should be dead already.”

“You should be dead already,” Quickdraw corrected as Hurricane maneuvered himself into the commo chair one-handed. “They never got close to me- and that wasn’t luck, just simple, God-given skill.”

When Hurricane strapped himself in and donned a headset, he was surprised to hear someone transmitting bagpipe music into space. The source was something at the system fringe, too far away for the sensor feed routed from Pax Garrison to detect, but it was getting fractionally louder as the transmitter got closer.

“Yo, Hurricane, the cluster they got watching us is starting to disperse. What the hell do you think that means?” Quickdraw had his feet up on the sensor console. Duty rosters were filled on a squadron-by-squadron basis.

“Negit clue, Boss. Maybe they don’t like what they’re hearing. Bagpipes were invented to scare horses. I think that’s why they were outlawed for a while.”

“Smleck, if they think that’s bad, we should play them some Hank Williams,” Quickdraw chuckled. “I had this instructor in officer basic who would play it over the inter-link on endurance missions. It was so awful I almost washed out.”

The pipes droned on, a tune that the Ranger’s computer had analyzed and identified as “Cock o’ the North.” Hurricane smiled despite Nitrogen burned hand and fingers. The message in the harsh but compelling droning was a willing and eager fight. Ranger was receiving spares from PAXMIL. He’d have an F/A-300 waiting for him when he healed. That was enough to take heart in.

“Wash out? And miss all this excitement?”

“How on Earth could I miss all this excitement?” Quickdraw agreed and stretched out his arms as he yawned. “What would you be doing on Mars about now?”

Hurricane mentally calculated the calendar date in Goddard. “There are only two things to be doing on Mars right now. The Viking Carnival and wishing you were at the Viking Carnival. Man, I wish I were there right now.”

“Is it an implosion?” Quickdraw asked. Hurricane turned down the volume on the aberrant transmission. “I mean, what’s so danged good about it?”

“I don’t know,” Hurricane said and laughed at something Quickdraw couldn’t understand. “But while I was on planet, I went every year.”

“Believe me, I know how that is, brother,” Quickdraw said. “I’ve gotten so drunk sometimes that I swear I’ll never do it again, but I keep on doing it.”

“It’s something like that. There is one girl I would love to take to that carnival. It goes without saying that you can only handle it with the right company. There’s a lot of crazy stuff that happens.”

“A night she’ll never forget?” Quickdraw’s brow furrowed with puzzlement when Hurricane laughed again. “What?”

“If you’re going back to Sol system when your commission expires you should definitely check it out,” Hurricane said. “As for me, I can only hope that the lovely planet Pax Oceanus floating so serenely below us will offer something close.”

“So you’ve already made plans not to go back?”

“I’ve got everything I need right here,” Hurricane said and pointed a finger toward his head. He thought of Jena. “If not Pax, then I’ve heard some great things about Avalon. I like what they’ve been doing there. Their aerospace design bureau is top-flight. They put out the best merchandise on the frontier. I think I could find a place there.”

“Once it’s our again, you mean.”

“Yeah.”

***

Procyon

“I apologize for my initial brusqueness. Our situation is very tenuous and it affected my manners. Please forgive me.” Harmon Vik said as Kilgore filled his glass with green Centauri Brandy.

“As will all things, context must be well considered before important decisions such as this are finalized, think nothing of it,” Lefleur said and waved away Kilgore as he moved to fill another glass. “This is my security chief, Raphael, and my advisor, Newton Kilgore. Everything you say to me can be said to them.”

Harmon Vik seemed exhausted by his ordeal. “All we can hope for is that Second Fleet will arrive safely. When my ship left the Virginis system, scouts were being sent out to look for them, to warn them in hopes that a repeat of the Zebra Station debacle can be avoided. If the zappers get them before they reach the safety of Pax garrison then the NorCom frontier is lost.”

Lefleur sat with Kilgore, Raphael, and Harmon Vik in an impromptu war-council that Lefleur agreed to after careful consideration of what he did and did not know. Harmon Vik was even uglier in person, with bald head covered with warty growths and a foul disposition.

“How often are fleets deployed from Earth?” Raphael said. “Before the collapse of the EuroCon intelligence such information was known, but our sources now are less efficient.”

“Replacements are sent out every two years,” Vik said. His instructions were to be as forthwith as necessary. “When Ninth Fleet becomes overdue in Sol system it will trigger the NorCom contingency plan for such an event code-named Burning Crucible. A fleet will be assembled an immediately sent to Avalon.”

“Why not Virginis?” Kilgore said and replaced the Centauri Brandy in Lefleur’s supply locker. “It’s closer to Sol and could be reached first.”

“There isn’t sufficient landmass on the surface of Pax Oceanus for an assault force of any capable size to be dropped,” Vik said. “The ground defenses we’ve built are underwater and very well protected. Virginis is designed to be a last holdfast. No, the Avalon system is where the counter attack will take place.”

“I’ve spoken with my advisors and we’ve reached a consensus,” Lefleur said. “We will supply what you ask. Given the circumstances we cannot refuse. Tell us, who will be in command of our forces and how will they be used?”

“The commander of Ninth Fleet was killed at Zebra Station. Our commander on Avalon is still there directing the resistance. Pax Mil will be in charge overall. Your forces will be integrated into the Burning Crucible plan. It was designed by Anthony Kinkaid. You’re familiar with him, I’m sure.”

Lefleur growled with remembrance. “Yes, despite our feelings about him among our residents here on Octavia, we do acknowledge that he was possessed of a great military mind.”

“The timetable for the counterattack is already underway. Burning Crucible will begin in eighteen months contingent on the arrival of Second Fleet. Once they’ve been refueled and provisioned, we launch for Avalon with everything we’ve got, including whatever you can give us.”

“And you expect this plan to succeed?” Raphael said.

“We expect that many lives will be lost regardless of the outcome, perhaps even some of those you part with so unwillingly. It is bad luck to speculate on success before the end is decided.”

“Point well taken.”

There was a moment of uncertain silence as each man sipped his intoxicant and considered the future. Harmon Vik lowered his glass in afterthought and said, “There is another issue to discuss. The orbits of Pax Oceanus are cluttered with ships filled with refugees who escaped Avalon before its fall. We can provide enough air and water to keep them for a time, but our food supplies are critical. We must find them a haven.”

“Sending them to Earth is out of the question?” Lefleur queried him.