Ep.#15 - "That Which Other Men Cannot Do" (The Frontiers Saga) (8 page)

“No, it’s okay,” Josh interrupted. “I just wasn’t expecting it to be that much, is all.” He eased his throttles back as he brought his nose back down, settling into level flight. “Damned thing climbs like a rocket, that’s for sure,” he said, this time without the additional effort. “I was only vertical for five seconds, and I’m at five-five already. That means vertically this thing can get to space in what, three minutes?”

“
About that,
” Deliza confirmed, “
but more likely you’d be on a forty-five-degree climb, not straight up. Far more energy efficient since you’d still have to pitch over and accelerate in order to attain…
”

“Ya, ya, ya.” Josh pulled his throttle back to zero thrust, allowing his airspeed to drop off as he added upward pitch to maintain level flight. “I’m going to jump down to five hundred meters at minimum cruise speed.”

“
Why?
” Deliza wondered.

“
That’s not in the flight plan,
” Loki chimed in.

“Hey, we’re supposed to be testing the jump systems on this flight, right?”

“
Yes, but…
”

“Then why waste time flying down to five hundred meters when we can jump down to five hundred meters?”

“
Because until the jump system has been fully tested, it’s safer to…
”

“It was safe enough for me to jump from orbit down into the atmosphere, wasn’t it?” Josh said as the Super Eagle began to buffet slightly. “Selecting a jump to five hundred meters altitude on a forty-five down,” he announced as he pitched his nose down. “Auto-jump is armed. Activating.” Josh took his fingers off the flight control stick, allowing the Super Eagle’s automated flight control systems to take over, keeping the ship on a perfect course as the jump drive quickly made the calculations to put the ship exactly where Josh had indicated. Only two seconds after he had activated the auto-jump system, his canopy turned opaque for a split second to protect his eyes from the jump flash. In that second, his ship dove from an altitude of five and a half kilometers, at a forty-five-degree angle, down to an altitude of half a kilometer—
automatically
—all without the assistance of a copilot behind him managing the calculations. Two spins of a knob, two touches of a button, and a little movement of his throttle and his flight control stick afterward, and Josh was now several kilometers further along his course and five thousand meters lower…and it had taken him all of five seconds to get from the
thought
to the
result
.

“Damn,” Josh exclaimed as his fighter leveled off again and the G-forces subsided. “This thing is sweet.” He dialed up another jump. “Let’s try single-click, on-demand jumps, shall we?”

“
Josh…
” Loki began, in his usual cautionary tone.

“Ease up,” Josh interrupted. “Just let me play a bit, then we’ll get to your flight plan, I promise.” He tapped his navigation map display a few kilometers ahead of his current position, placing a target icon. He then executed a snap turn to his left, changing his ship’s course by forty-five degrees to port. A press of the jump trigger button on his flight control stick, and his canopy cycled opaque and then clear again. He glanced at his map, noting that the target icon had moved to the right side of his display. “This is so cool.” He executed another snap turn, this time changing course ninety degrees back to starboard. Another touch of the jump button, and the targeting icon was directly in front of him again, but only a few hundred meters away. “Guns, guns, guns,” he said with a smile. “That would be a kill, boys and girls.”

“
Are you done yet?
” Loki asked impatiently.

“Nope.” Josh pulled his flight control stick back, bringing the Super Eagle’s nose straight-up vertical once more. As his airspeed quickly fell away, he dialed in a jump distance of three kilometers, then tapped his jump button. Another cycle of the canopy to opaque and back to clear, and he was three and a half kilometers above the Atlantic. With his power at only enough thrust to maintain minimum cruise speed in level flight, his airspeed quickly fell away, as did his rate of climb. Just before he came to a stop, he tapped the jump button again, jumping another three kilometers toward space. As his canopy turned clear again, he glanced at his flight displays. He was seven kilometers up, and his speed had fallen to zero. His ship seemed to hover in mid-air for a moment, its nose pointed straight up. He felt the Super Eagle begin to slide backwards, its energy no longer sufficient to counteract the Earth’s gravity. With considerable finesse, he manipulated his flight controls to keep his ship pointed straight up as the fighter slid straight down, back toward the vast ocean below. Five KPH…ten, then twenty. Finally, while still falling tail first, he tapped the jump button again, jumping the Super Eagle, tail-first, down to three thousand meters above the planet. He pitched back over, bringing his ship into another forty-five-degree dive, and executed one last jump. As his canopy cleared again, he leveled off, added enough power to maintain level flight, and glanced at his navigation map once more. “Guns, guns, guns,” he said again, a grin stretched from ear to ear.

“
Are you done showing off?
” Loki asked.

“For now,” Josh replied. “Screw the Falcons,” he added. “I wanna fly Super Eagles.”

* * *

“He’s got a good point, though,” Cameron said, as she picked at her salad.

Vladimir said nothing, only shoveled another fork full of food into his mouth and watched Nathan with an expectant look on his face.

“Sure, he’s got a point,” Jessica chimed in, “he’s just a year too late with it, that’s all.”

Vladimir looked at Jessica, then back at Nathan. “You have nothing to say?” he wondered, still chewing.

Nathan shrugged. “They are both correct. However, it doesn’t really matter. Even if we stopped all offensive actions and took a purely defensive posture from this day forward, the Jung would still come at us with whatever forces they deemed necessary. The only reason that Earth is still alive today is because the Jung haven’t yet figured out how
many
ships they
need
to send, in order to finish the job…and that’s only because of the communications delay inherent with traditional FTL communications. They simply don’t have adequate information…
yet
.”

“Eventually, they will,” Jessica said.

“Did it ever occur to anyone that a
cease-fire
might be a good thing?” Cameron wondered.

“It would be nothing more than a stalling tactic,” Nathan insisted.

“During which time the Jung would rally their forces,” Jessica added. “Probably stack them up at various locations, all within a few days FTL of us.”

“Exactly,” Nathan agreed. “And when the time is right, they’ll attack with enough force to destroy us…or at the very least, send us running back to the Pentaurus cluster, with our tails between our legs.”

“The stalling tactic can work in our favor as well,” Vladimir pointed out, speaking in between bites. “We can build more ships, create better weapons, train more people…”

“We can never match the Jung’s industrial capacity,” Nathan told him. “That’s how wars are won, you know. By factories and farms. That’s why we must continue to destroy their ships and their factories.”

“But what if you’re wrong?” Cameron said, reaffirming her point. “What if we
could
coexist peacefully with the Jung?”

“It will never happen,” Jessica insisted.

“How can you say that?”

“Just look at the facts, Cam,” Jessica replied. “We have the jump drive. We have superior energy weapons, and shields. What we
don’t
have is the infrastructure to
build
what we need…to take advantage of our technological edge. That’s
exactly
what Dumar is trying to do with this lull that he’s created by clearing the Jung from the twenty light year sphere around Sol. We’ve got a year, two at the most, until the Jung figure all of this out for themselves, move their ships into position, and take us out. Every ship we destroy is one less ship that can attack us. Every system we liberate is one less industrial base to support the Jung, and possibly one more that can support us. Because of the liberation of Tau Ceti, we could have eight more jump frigates added to our fleet in just two years’ time. Probably less, given that we have Takaran fabrication technology.”

“A war is what you shall have to fight,” Nathan muttered to himself.

The others at his dining table stopped and looked at him.

“Something Dubnyk once said to me.” Nathan took a drink from his glass. “Seems he was right.”

Vladimir shoveled a spoon full of potatoes into his mouth as he spoke. “Why do you keep going back to see that old man?”

“Because our captain is a history geek,” Jessica teased, “and that old fart is a walking, talking museum exhibit, straight out of the twenty-fourth century.”

“Seriously, Nathan,” Cameron pressed, “why
do
you keep going back to see him?”

“I don’t know,” Nathan admitted. “Jessica’s probably right. I suppose I find him a curiosity.”

“You just feel responsible for him,” Vladimir snorted as he chewed.

“A little of that too, I suppose,” Nathan admitted. “He’s got an unusual knack for seeing the big picture…and I mean
really
big. It must have something to do with him having seen humanity from two vastly different points in time. His perspective is unique. No one has ever lived through such horrific events, and then lived long enough to see the outcome a thousand years afterward. How can one
not
wonder what he thinks?”

“I thought we were talking about Galiardi?” Vladimir said as he raised his glass to wash down his food. “How did we end up on Dubnyk?”

“
Galiardi
, on the other hand… Him I do
not
find interesting,” Nathan said.

“Then you don’t agree with him?” Cameron confirmed.

“No, I
do
agree with him,” Nathan replied. “I
do
think we are provoking the Jung to come at us with even more force. I just think they would still do so, whether we provoked them or not. That being the case, I don’t see any reason
not
to continue our offensive.”

“Then why not take it all the way?” Cameron suggested. “Why not just attack the Jung homeworld?”

“Because we don’t know where it is,” Jessica reminded her.

“I was speaking hypothetically.”

“And I was being sarcastic.”

“
If
we knew where the Jung homeworld was located, I would
not
be opposed to attacking it, directly,” Nathan admitted.

Again, the room fell silent.

“It’s not like they don’t have it coming,” Jessica mumbled as she took another bite of her meal.

“An ‘eye for an eye’ is not always the right answer,” Cameron said.

“Maybe not, but it would be fair.”

“It’s not about right and wrong,” Nathan said, “nor is it about fair and unfair. It’s about survival, plain and simple.”

“That’s right,” Jessica agreed, “and the Jung think they have a greater right to survive than we do.”

“Don’t we all?” Vladimir said as he scooped up another fork full of food. He noticed the silence, and looked up. “Well, don’t we?”

“He’s right,” Nathan agreed. “It’s part of our nature…to survive.”

“Then why do you all look so surprised?” Vladimir wondered.

“Maybe because it’s the first thing you’ve said without your mouth full of food,” Jessica laughed.

CHAPTER THREE

“Captain on the bridge!” announced the guard at the ready room hatch as Cameron passed by him.

“Report,” she barked as she made her way to the center of the Celestia’s bridge.

“Twelve contacts jumped in thirty seconds ago,” Ensign Kono reported from the sensor station. “Appeared two million kilometers out.”

“All departments report general quarters,” Luis reported from the tactical station.

“Targets ID as combat jumpers,” Ensign Kono added.

Cameron turned to look at her tactical officer. “I thought we only had eight CJs left?”

“Last I heard,” Luis replied, “and I show them all still at Porto Santo. Nothing on the arrival schedules, either, sir.”

“I’m getting Corinairan IDs and codes coming in now, Captain,” Ensign Souza announced. “Their ID codes are valid. Receiving transmission. They were sent by the Corinari. Their flight leader is requesting clearance into Porto Santo, to deliver his ships and crews to Ghatazhak Command.”

“Why weren’t they on the delivery schedule?” Cameron wondered.

“I can ask, but at their current range it will take at least twenty minutes to get a response,” Ensign Souza explained.

“Stand by on that,” Cameron ordered. “Mister Hunt, take us out of orbit. Plot an intercept course and jump out to meet them. Arrival distance of one thousand kilometers.”

“Leaving orbit, aye,” Mister Hunt answered from the helm.

“Plotting intercept jump,” the ship’s navigator added.

“Shall I stand down from general quarters?” Luis asked.

“Negative,” Cameron replied. “They’re probably friendlies, but better to err on the side of caution, Lieutenant.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Leaving orbit,” the helmsman reported.

“Intercept jump plotted and ready,” the navigator added.

“Very well, Mister Sperry,” Cameron said. “Let’s go out and say hello.”

“Jumping in three……two……one……”

The Celestia’s bridge lit up for a split second as the ship jumped from high Earth orbit to the inbound flight of combat jump shuttles, some two hundred million kilometers away.

“Jump complete,” Mister Sperry reported.

Cameron tapped the control panel on the right of her command chair, changing the magnification settings on the spherical main view screen that enveloped the forward half of the bridge itself. Before them were twelve Corinairan utility shuttles, all of them modified into combat jump shuttles.

“I have the lead ship, Lieutenant Aday, on comms, Captain,” Ensign Souza reported from the Celestia’s communications station.

Cameron tapped her comms control. “Lieutenant Aday, this is Captain Taylor of the Celestia. Your flight was not on the arrival schedule.”

“
Apologies, Captain,
” the lieutenant replied over the loudspeaker. “
That’s why we jumped in from a distance.
We were dispatched in secret by the prime minister, at the request of Captain Navarro of the Avendahl. He wanted to replace the combat jumpers lost during the liberation of Tau Ceti, but did not want it to be public knowledge that Corinair was still sharing resources with Alliance forces in Sol. Something about keeping the ‘Nobles of Takara’ in the dark about our force strength.
”

“I understand,” Cameron replied. “I take it things are still a bit tense, then?”

“
Yes, sir. Just a bit. The nobles haven’t taken any overt actions as of yet. However, they don’t really have the firepower to take on the Avendahl. Word is they aren’t looking to stir up any trouble outside of their own system, but not everyone is convinced that’s the case. I have orders from Captain Navarro for the transfer of my ships and crew over to Commander Telles of the Ghatazhak. I’m transmitting them now.
”

Cameron turned to look at Ensign Souza, who nodded his head to confirm receipt. “Ensign Kono?” Cameron said, looking to her sensor operator.

“I show standard armaments for combat jumpers. Crew of three, loaded with supplies. Looks to be spare parts, mostly. Four of the jumpers are carrying additional passengers. Ground crews, most likely. No side arms.”

“All their weapons and shields are powered down,” Luis added.

“Very well.” Cameron keyed her mic again. “Lieutenant. You’re cleared to Porto Santo, via a jump to high Earth orbit. We’ll transmit approach frequencies and jump waypoints. You may follow us to Earth.”

“
Thank you, sir. Aday, out.
”

“Comms, dispatch a jump comm buoy and notify Alliance Command
and
Ghatazhak Command,” Cameron directed.

“But, you’ll ruin the surprise,” Luis joked.

“If I know Commander Telles, he doesn’t care much for surprises,” Cameron replied.

* * *

“We simply do not have the resources to continue liberating additional worlds,” Admiral Dumar argued. “We are down to only four hundred troops, and the number of ships that can deliver them has also been greatly diminished.”

“Did you not just receive an additional twelve combat jump shuttles?” the Coporan representative reminded the admiral.

“Yes, and although they are formidable ships, each of them can only carry five Ghatazhak soldiers. Even if we used all twenty ships now at our disposal, that would only put one hundred men on the ground.”

“But you also have utility shuttles, and cargo shuttles, and…what did you call them? Boxers?”

“Boxcars,” the Admiral corrected. “Utility shuttles can normally only carry ten fully outfitted Ghatazhak. Cargo shuttles, fifty.”

“And your boxcars? Can they not carry hundreds?”

“At least,” the admiral admitted. “However, the boxcars are our best means of moving equipment and supplies between worlds. Committing them to combat actions puts them at risk. We lost two of them on Kohara.”

“We have many cargo ships in the Tau Ceti system,” President Kanor reasoned. “And we have shipyards. If we were to outfit some of those ships with jump drives, they could take over the role of interstellar cargo, thus freeing your boxcars for combat actions.”

“Of course, but we still need men,” the admiral replied. “Men with guns, and who know how to use them.”

“We may not have ships, or weapons, but one thing we do have are men,” the representative from Pylius stated. “Men full of hatred for the Jung, I might add. If they could be trained to fight, perhaps by your Ghatazhak…”

“That would take months, perhaps longer,” the admiral said, waving his hand dismissively.

“I’m not suggesting you train them to be as mighty as your Ghatazhak,” the Pylian representative countered, “just that you train them to shoot straight and follow orders. My people have always been willing to fight. We have just never had the tools, nor the opportunity to do so. They will line up by the thousands, I assure you.”

“And they will die by the thousands, I assure
you
,” Admiral Dumar replied.

“As they will if the Jung return, and in greater numbers.”

Admiral Dumar sighed.

“There is something else we must consider,” President Scott said. The other men at the table turned to look at him. “You have all been discussing if we
can
continue to liberate Jung-held worlds. Perhaps what we
should
be discussing is whether or not we
should
be liberating them.”

“I believe that goes without saying,” the minister from Weldon scoffed.

“Odd statement, coming from the world who most protested being liberated without consent,” President Scott replied.

“That was then, this is now,” the minister answered.

“There are those on Earth who feel that we are provoking the Jung by attacking their forces and liberating their worlds. There are those who say that we are no better than the Jung by doing so.”

“
We
don’t destroy entire societies in order to make them more
manageable
,” the Tannan minister sneered.

“Or entire worlds simply to send a
message
,” President Kanor added.

“Gentlemen,” Admiral Dumar interrupted, “let us not stray into ethical debates, as the question is one of practicality, not morality. Let us assume, for the moment, that we had the forces needed to liberate every Jung-controlled system we wished. The question of whether we
should
, or should
not
, must be decided based on necessity, not ethics. What do those systems have to offer us? Is it worth the losses that we might face?”

“You’re wrong, Admiral,” President Scott argued politely. “The question
is
one of ethics. It always has been. You can tell yourself that you liberated Tau Ceti because of their shipyards, Tanna for their propellant refineries, or Pylius for their thousands of able young men ready to pick up arms against the Jung. But what of Kalita? What of Copora? Neither of them had anything to offer the Alliance.”

“Their proximity to Earth was the justification for their liberation,” Admiral Dumar insisted.

“Nonsense,” President Scott replied. “That may have been the reason you took out the Jung ships in those systems, but you destroyed the Jung surface forces because it was the right thing to do.”

“Only because leaving them intact might pose unexpected complications at a later date,” Admiral Dumar replied.

“Such as?”

“Such as a population that might be punished at the hands of those very forces left on the surface,” the admiral argued. “Which, I might add, is precisely what occurred on Kohara during the two weeks immediately following the defeat of the Jung’s space forces in Tau Ceti. So you see, Mister President, as much as you’d like to
think
of liberation as the morally
right
thing to do, it is still a matter of practicality.”

“Yet, you said that we do not have the resources to safely do so,” President Scott reminded the admiral.

“As notification of a resource issue, not as opposition to the idea. On the contrary, Mister President, it is my belief that we should continue to remove Jung forces from every system within the Sol sector, while we still have the advantage. Eventually, the Jung
will
get a jump drive of their own, either by stealing it or figuring it out for themselves. It might take months, it might take years, but they will get one. Best we create as strong a position as possible, while we still can.”

“If we continue to liberate systems, how will the Alliance be able to protect them?” the Pylian representative wondered.

“By installing secondary jump systems in our ships, we are extending our immediate response zone to thirty light years,” Admiral Dumar replied. “Once all ships have been outfitted, we should be able to counter anything the Jung are likely to throw at us, barring a full-scale invasion.”

“And if they send such an invasion force?” the Pylian representative inquired.

“The more worlds we liberate, the more unlikely that becomes,” the admiral explained. “Assuming that there are no battle groups in transit that we have missed, it would be at least three months before any of your worlds could be reached by the Jung. By then, we will have three jump-capable warships with which to respond. By four months, we will have five, not to mention a few dozen gunships, and plenty of KKVs, both jump capable
and
conventional.” Admiral Dumar looked at the tired faces sitting at the table with him, knowing that the decisions made at this table today would influence multiple worlds, and billions of people. Every person at the table was equally aware, and it weighed just as heavily on their minds as it did on the admiral’s. “Gentlemen, we can do this. We just need the commitment of people and resources, particularly your industrial capacities, in order to do so. We can provide you all with Takaran fabrication technology. Within weeks, you will have several of them. Within months you will have dozens. A year from now, your industrial and technological capabilities will have increased one hundred fold.”

“Assuming we all survive,” the minister from Weldon commented dryly.

“I will not lie to you,” Admiral Dumar said. “The risk is great. But inaction carries the same risk, perhaps even more so. Granted, the Alliance liberated your worlds without consent. I truly wish that had not been necessary, but necessary it was…and
still is
. However, I will not drag you further into war
without
your consent. So, I ask each of you, here and now, to support us as full members of this Alliance, complete with all the risks
and
rewards that such an alliance brings, and help us bring the same freedom to the rest of the core.” Admiral Dumar looked at the men at the table. “How say you?”

Admiral Dumar watched as one by one, five hands went up. He looked at the sixth man, President Scott, at the far end of the table. “Mister President?”

“There is a famous quote from old Earth,” President Scott recalled, “one that my son taught me. It was from long before the great plague. ‘All that is needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.’ The Earth and the people of the Pentaurus cluster formed this Alliance for the purpose of protecting all our freedoms. More importantly, we did so to ensure our very survival. We shall not give up.”

President Scott raised his hand.

Admiral Dumar smiled. “Gentlemen, I thank you. Return to your worlds, and put out the call. Soldiers, technicians, specialists, engineers, general laborers…everyone is needed. We are going to war.”

* * *

Captain Nash walked across the hangar bay of the old Jung fighter base on the small asteroid orbiting Tanna. Crews scurried about, busy with the ongoing task of converting the base into an operational support facility for the new gunships currently being produced on the surface of Tanna. On the far side of the hangar bay stood twenty-two men, clustered around the entrances to the first four boarding tunnels that had been added to the base to allow the new gunships a place to berth when not in operation.

“Fall in!” Lieutenant Commander Rano barked as he noticed his commanding officer approaching.

Captain Nash walked up and stood next to the lieutenant commander as his men quickly got into formation. He paused a moment to look them over. He had spent the last seven days putting them, and many others, through simulator hell in preparation for this day. He only hoped it was enough.

Once the men had gathered, Captain Nash began. “Gentlemen, welcome to Cobra Base. Those of you gathered here today have consistently scored the highest in both your practical and written assessments. Because of that, you will be the first to receive your ships. For most of you, your ride up from the surface this morning was your first time in space. So, for those of you who left your breakfast on the floor of the shuttle, or worse, on your neighbor’s lap, don’t feel too bad. You’ll get used to it. For the last week, you have all trained separately. Flight crews have trained in the cockpit simulators, engineers and sensor operators on computer simulations, and gunners in the quad-gun simulators. Now, you’re going to train together, in the real thing.”

Captain Nash glanced at the expressions on the men’s faces, none of which looked terribly confident. “Yeah, I know, a terrifying thought. In a perfect world, you’d all spend a couple months in full-ship simulators before you’d go anywhere near the real thing. Unfortunately, this isn’t a perfect world. The fact is, we need these ships manned and ready for action as soon as humanly possible. Good idea or bad, it is what it is. All of you were chosen because you were the best of your class, and therefore, have the highest probability of being able to operate your gunships safely, without flying them into one another, or shooting the ship next to you.”