Benjamin Gold

Location: CWS Argo, Hahn System, Eastern Block of Nations

“Shit.” LT Briggs exhaled slowly as her eyes darted between the holo-tank in the center of the bridge and her work station. She wasn’t the only one.

Nearly half an hour had passed since the Stark Kingdom of Windsor’s cruiser Benjamin Disraeli opened fire on the Commonwealth task force it had been a part of. In the first couple of minutes of battle it had taken out the only battleship in the system, Lancelot, a battlecruiser, and the missile cruiser Deluge. The task force flagship, Andromeda, was damaged severely, but CAPT Jacobson kept on fighting.

To split the cruiser’s fire, and engage from multiple vectors, the task force’s five remaining ships paired up into two groups of two and scattered. Andromeda did her best to limp away, but Disraeli continued to close on her. It was a short game of cat and mouse. Some brilliant evasive maneuvers had kept the battlecruiser from being blown to pieces by the powerful energy blasts of Disraeli’s main energy cannon, but Ben suspected they had reactor damage, and their speed was half power at best.

Without a clear shot with their cannon, Disraeli relied on her ninety missiles tubes. By some miracle, Andromeda, didn’t explode from the first salvo, but a second salvo, split between the flagship and one of the two groups, finally did the ship in. Andromeda exploded and created her own mini sun for a moment. Ben was forced to sit there and watch as the Captain who’d led several successful raids with a powerful task force was turned to star dust.

The two remaining pairs of Commonwealth ships swung wide and continued to attack, but Disraeli’s defensive measures were something Ben had never seen before. Powerful shields capable of withstanding full broadsides of missiles were backed up by point defense lasers that made anything in the Commonwealth’s arsenal hopelessly inferior. It was no wonder they lost.

Disraeli stayed on course for a least-time intercept with the Blockie forces heading their way, but continued to engage the nearest Commonwealth group. Ben sat stunned when one of its massive energy beams struck one battlecruiser aft and practically cut the engines right off the ship. The battlecruiser spun out of control and off into deep space without any power. Ben predicted that everyone on board that ship had died when the internal compensators failed, and they all got turned to mush.

By the time Disraeli exited the engagement envelope with the Commonwealth task force they’d lost four of their nine ships, and none except Argo were without some damage.

Ben had brief communications with the surviving captains and they were following CAPT Jacobson’s final orders just like he was: evade and return to New Lancashire so the sector would know their allies had betrayed them.

“Get drones two and three as close to the Blockies as possible.” Ben ordered as Argo continued to sprint toward the FTL limit.

The Blockie formation had sent a few missiles in Argo’s direction, but they were beyond the eight-million-kilometer range, and meant as a simple “get out” measure. Ben had no intent to remain in the system one second longer than he had to, but he wanted to see what happened next.

“Five million kilometers.” LT Briggs informed as Disraeli drew closer to the Blockies. “You think they’re talking?”

“Maybe some friendly banter back and forth?” SGT O’Neil was on the bridge now. His marines were good to go, but nobody was coming after Argo. Still, the marine SGT was the type of person who liked to be ready for anything.

“Holy shit!” The main cannon from Disraeli opened fire on the Blockies from three and a half million kilometers away. That was pretty far for energy weapons.

The warships evaded, but they were never the target. The beam hit the armored cone head of the mobile dockyard dead center, punched through it, traveled through it lengthwise, and came out its ass. A cascade of explosions ran down the cleanly bisected structure until the whole thing was engulfed in fire and nothing more than ever-expanding debris. The warships didn’t take kindly to that, and opened up on the cruiser with everything they had, but didn’t fare much better than the Commonwealth task force.

“We just lost drones two and three.” LT Briggs informed as either the Blockies or Star Kingdom took out the drones observing them.

“Did we get data on those energy blasts?” That was what he really wanted. A cruiser’s gun that could punch through six-meters of battleship armor or destroy a missile cruiser in one blast was something they needed as much data on as possible.

“Yeah,” Chief Yates was already analyzing. “It’s definitely in the petawatt range. That’s as much as I can give you now.

Ben pinched his eyes shut and tried to force down the feeling of dread in his gut. If a cruiser could hit as harder than a battleship, then he didn’t want to know how much wallop those dreadnaughts were packing.

“Two minutes to transition.” The LT announced, and the countdown clock started ticking on the side of the holo-tank.

Engineering engaged the Alcubierre Drive and made sure everything was nominal before sending back a green status to the bridge. All departments similarly checked in.

“Ship reports ready for Alcubierre transition, Sir.” The LT made the customary announcement even though Ben could see all the green lights on his command holo.

Ben made sure to double check everything before nodding back to the LT and giving them the go ahead for transition. “Start the countdown.”

“What I don’t get is why the Kingdom is taking on both us and the Blockies. I get a double cross, but now they’re on everyone’s shit list.”

“That’s simple.” Ben’s eyes were assessing the latest damage estimates from the Blockies getting pounded fifteen million kilometers behind them. “They’re killing two birds with one stone. They’ve decimated the offensive units of our Fleet in York Sector. Now, we only have enough to garrison the settled colonies and do occasional commerce patrols. They’ve also crippled the Blockies offensive firepower. Taking out that mobile dockyard accomplished our original mission. They played us, and now they’re going to have freedom of movement throughout the sector while we have to hunker down and defend our colonies and merchant lanes. It’s actually brilliant.” Ben didn’t like thinking that about people who’d just kicked his team’s ass.

Thirty seconds later, Argo accelerated out of the Hahn System faster than the speed of light. It left behind three battlecruisers still scrambling to escape, a Blockie force that was getting decimated, a cruiser that had taken a giant leap forward in war-fighting technology, and thousands of dead spacers and marines from warships that had either been blown apart or were floating graveyards in space.

***

Mark “Coop” Cooper

Location: New Lancashire, United Commonwealth of Colonies

“Everything looks good.” Coop waved the sniffer over a few more things as he walked back out of the cargo hold of a large hauler.

There was only one item inside the hull of the large ship. A sizable construction fabricator was being shipped down by some faber company he’d never heard of. Raw materials would be fed into the mouth of the mechanical behemoth and out would pop items that Town Center needed to expand and continue their colonization of New Lancashire.

Coop thought as he walked past the gaping exit maw on his way down the ramp.

The ship was not one of the vessels on Coop’s special list. He had one ship come through and pay his toll, but it was a small ship, and their tribute was only five hundred. That made today a slow day, but every cent he made was a cent he could put toward something bigger. He was collecting a nice little nest egg.

His good mood was permanently ruined by a loud wailing sound that rolled across the entire city. It started low, and then over a few seconds grew progressively louder until its pitch pummeled his eardrums. It repeated like that over and over again. People all across the spaceport were already running around like chickens with their heads cut off, and the blaring announcement wasn’t helping.

“All military personnel, report to your assigned staging areas. All civilian personnel, please report to the nearest shelter. The Planetary Defense Center is now at Defense Condition One. This is not a drill.”

“Corporal?” PFC Nickelbaucher sprinted across the tarmac as Coop toggled through his sensor options.

Sure as shit, his HUD showed the PDC’s shield had been raised. “You heard the announcement. Back to the base!”

The spaceport wasn’t sheltered underneath the coverage of the invisible energy dome, and even once they got under that dome Coop didn’t have a lot of faith in it. Since New Lancashire was a new colony, and Town Center wasn’t a large city, the planet’s PDC was equipped with a vulnerable Class One shield. On the plus side, it reached all the way to the ground, but on the down side, it was able to do that because it didn’t offer nearly as much protection as was necessary to ride out a large-scale assault.

Coop couldn’t think of what else this could be. The Blockies were finally tired of getting kicked in the nuts, and they were coming to finally settle the score.

The streets of Town Center were chaos. People were scrambling everywhere to get where they needed to go. The MP’s and a few squads were waving people through the gates of the military base and funneling people to the PDC’s shelter, but they looked harried and overworked. They were supposed to be checking people for weapons and scanning GIC’s to confirm identities. Instead, it looked like they had their hands full ensuring no one trampled anyone else to death.

“Go right in.” The MP LT who’d sat at Coop’s tribunal was in command, and he didn’t even look up. He just caught the shadow of a large LACS and waved Coop through.

Coop’s team was formed up around him, and their armor and weapons created a small bubble that the nervous civilians avoided. Once through the gate, Coop peeled off to the side and headed toward Charlie Company’s assembly area.

The rest of the Company was rushing into the dusty square behind the Company building. Many were still pulling on armor with their weapons slung across their back or gripped precariously under their armpits. The squad leaders were laying into those soldiers and spurring them forward with unveiled threats about what the Blockies were going to do to them if their shit wasn’t squared away.

“Cooper.” SSG Hightower’s voice cracked over the audio in Coop’s LACS. “Get your team into formation.”

Coop didn’t waste oxygen and just clicked back an affirmative response. As a specialty team, they didn’t stand in the large formation. They made their own formation to the left, with Coop in the squad leader position. Since they’d been working for the last few hours in armor, while the rest of the Company had been doing whatever else was on the training calendar, they looked ready to go while everyone else was still fumbling with their gear and getting into a straight line. Coop savored the moment and made sure that LT Wentworth, who was at the rear of the main Company formation, saw that his team was ready to go.

“Your nose is so deep in her asshole you’ve got a brown smear,” the SSG snapped back when Coop continued to ping the LT with his team’s readiness. “Just stand there until I tell you otherwise.”

“Roger that, Staff Sergeant.” Coop couldn’t hide the smugness in his voice. For once, he wasn’t the one unprepared.

Charlie Company was just one of the units forming up in the immediate vicinity. Coop saw puffs of dust as hundreds of other soldiers trampled the ground in their own assembly areas. Town Center didn’t have a large garrison, but everyone they did have was getting ready for imminent invasion.

Coop monitored his team and company nets. If shit really went down, he’d be given access to the Battalion net to arrange for fire missions outside his Company, but whoever made that decision hadn’t gotten that far in the prep yet.

Everyone else was facing forward while the NCOs did a quick inspection of their gear, but Coop knew where to focus to figure out what was going on. When the LT’s head cocked to the side and she turned around, that was the nonverbal sign the Coop needed to know something was about to go down. The only question was what?

“Cooper!” The LT’s voice announced on a private channel. “Report back to the spaceport immediately.”

“Come on guys, back to the spaceport,” Coop ordered.

The team didn’t make it more than a few meters before the LT cut them off. “Only you, Cooper. The rest of your team will fall in with the rest of the Company.”

Some of his team might be a pain in the ass, but Coop had gotten used to them. It always paid to have someone he could order to do the shit work.

Still, an order was an order, so he jogged off toward the collection of landing pads was a solid pace. He wasn’t the only one. Several other soldiers in LACS armor were in front or behind him, and they were all heading to the same spot. That ended up being a Spyder with its engines running hot and a crew chief waving frantically for them to get onboard. A stampede of metal boots clanged up the ramp as HI infantry got onboard and strapped in. There weren’t any charging racks, so they settled for the five-point harnesses, which they ended up stretching to their maximum.

“Coop!”

“Mike!” Coop didn’t even recognize the man in the V2 armor next to him. “How’s it hanging?”

“Long and to the left.” The larger HI trooper clapped Coop on his metal shoulder. “Know what this is about?”

“No one tells me shit.” Coop smiled back. “But I’m pretty sure everyone thinks the Blockies are invading.”

“Sit down, buckle in, shut up, and listen.” A voice Coop had only heard a few times before during All Hands messages onboard Abraham Lincoln shut down any side conversations. “This is Rear Admiral Nelson, and I’ll tell you what’s really happening.”