Chapter 010: Vacations

Human Space is composed of 61 sectors and 660 subsectors, currently controlled by the forces of the Solar Federation or Confederation of Mankind. Each sector and subsector is a self-contained realm, centered upon the exit of the hyperlane (naturally occurring long-distance Hyperspace routes allowing for almost instant travel between two fixed points) through which Mankind first entered them. Sectors range from 60 to 100 terraformed worlds and up to a thousand exploited and claimed star systems. Much younger subsectors rarely have more than 4-5 Terran worlds and more than 50 claimed star systems.

Hyperlanes connect 721 ‘nodes’ into a network ranging from the edge of the Galactic Center to the edge of the intergalactic void. It is a thin network. To travel between two sectors without using a hyperlane, a ship would have to navigate through hundreds of thousands or even millions of unexplored star systems.

The Human Space is roughly divided between the Core, the Inner Colonies, the Outer Colonies, and the Frontier. The Core is composed of the ten star sectors colonized by the Solar Commonwealth during the Golden Era of Mankind, and currently controlled by the Solar Federation. Inner Colonies were colonized during the years following the War of Purity, mostly by the national governments of Earth who received colonies as a reward for the role they played in the Transhuman Alliance downfall.

Once the Solar Commonwealth began collapsing, the creation of new colonies became the preferred way of dealing with political radicals that threatened to tear the Core apart. This spawned the Outer Colonies - the area where ten thousand political, religious, philosophical, and sociological ideologies coexist and fight with each other for centuries, each weirder than the last. The Frontier is the last addition, including the ravaged and wartorn areas captured in the wars between the Confederation and alien species, and the recently discovered and barely inhabited subsectors.

Encyclopedia Galactica

Book 1, page 6

***

Officially, the Subsector B-72 was split between four competing powers. The Plesian Corporate Alliance, the Tavian Republic, the Techtrian Hierocracy, and the Numenian Union. However, the true situation in the sector was more convoluted.

These countries, when compared to the sectorial powers, were weak. The most populous of them, the Tavian Republic, had a population reaching forty-five million. There were sectorial powers whose armies were more numerous than the combined population of the Subsector.

These four powers were locked into a mexican stand-off. None of the four parties dared to make the first move, in fear of exposing themselves to their other rivals.

The Texian Protectorate was one of the five lesser powers of the Subsector which had developed by taking advantage of this stalemate. It was officially a part of the Republic of Tavia. However, its population - merely 2,5 million according to the last census - was militarized and organized well enough that Tavia preferred to keep itself away from Texia’s interior affairs. Planetary invasions even of this scale were troublesome and costly.

Texia received military aid from its supposed overlord. Tavia received modest taxes and had a place where it could expel its political troublemakers who didn’t get irritating enough to have them murdered. Texia got wealthy by exporting many minerals from its mines (both in the asteroids littering the system and from the Mining World of Texia-III). Tavia had pre-emption rights for Texian minerals useful in warship construction and repairs. In short, not a poor arrangement.

It also made the Texia system a suitable place for a two months long vacation needed to repair the Echo. It was a stable non-tyranny, with its population open to outsiders and having enough interstellar traffic for its government to invest in some places where the crews could relax during their stops in Texia, such as parks. Which is quite the achievement when your world lacks atmosphere. It even looked believable, as the dome’s ceiling was covered in displays showing a fake sky.

Christopher took advantage of a momentary stop in the walk to sit down on a bench overseeing a small river. It was a fake river, only a few hundred meters long. But from his current position, he saw neither end of it, which made it look genuine.

A refreshing change after being sealed in the Echo for a while.

“Tiriel, I realize you like nature, I do. But how many times are we going to walk around this park before you’re satisfied?!”

She spun towards him with that playful smile of hers. She looked as impeccable as ever. Though for once she had replaced her humble light green dress with a pale blue one and had left her gloves and the circlet on Echo. She also displayed a rather austere white handbag, with no ornaments or writings.

“You realize that each time you suggest going back, I add two more laps around the park to the plan?” This sounded like something that Tiriel would do. The more time he spent with her around, the more it perplexed him how such an upright and prudent girl could be this mischievous. “How can you call yourself a man if you can’t even keep pace with such a feeble girl as me?”

“Oh, no no no. That won't work on me. I read about your Variant, I know you have increased endurance. And I know how much you love lengthy walks. You are a seasoned hiker.” Christopher refused to be baited.

Normally, he should have been delighted to spend his time with a girl, especially one this charming. However, he was ordered to accompany her, which ruined the impression. The Captain forbade crew members on shore leave from going anywhere alone, and there was constantly an officer somewhere near.

He felt like a dead weight. Especially as locals kept a considerate distance and didn’t cause any troubles. Even the local law-enforcement looked more like a futuristic police than futuristic death squads. Their attitude towards outsiders was considerably better than their colleagues from Tavia proper.

“Let it be your way. We’ll come back soon. Let’s rest here for ten minutes before that, though.” She was either mindful of his tiredness… or she was using it as a pretense to remain here for a moment longer.

She perched on the bench next to him and took out a lunchbox from her handbag. Then she glanced at him, and smiled wryly.

“You can stop drooling, I made some surplus sandwiches. Help yourself.” Phew! There are moments when she is irritating… but also those when she is comparable to a saint.

“Excuse me and my desire to stay here as long as viable.” Tiriel continued. “I’m afraid the homesickness is catching up with me. I miss the open spaces.”

“Oh, right.” Christopher stopped stuffing himself with the sandwiches. For a moment. A small victory of his willpower against the inevitable. “How did you even become a part of Echo’s crew? Beleriand is way away from this place.” Not as much as whatever passed for the United States in the 28th Century, but still a year or two of travel.

“Captain Keller operated in the Inner Verge Oversector, visiting Beleriand quite regularly. He moved to the European Oversector after he obtained the Echo. I traveled here with him.” She ate her sandwiches gracefully. Small bits. Long chewing. Not answering until she had finished processing the last morsel of food.

“Ok, but why?” This sounded like a decision he wouldn’t make. Going so far away from home, choosing a hazardous job.

“The list of career options for a noble with no chances of inheriting a title are restricted, especially when she wants to see the Galaxy a bit. Since my father knew Captain Keller, he got me admitted as a part of his new crew when he was leaving the Inner Verge.” It took Christopher a second to process what he just heard.

“Wait, you’re a noble?” She was about to take another bite of her sandwich when she heard his question. She froze and shifted her head toward him.

“You didn’t read my personal file? I’m most certain that I spoke of it during the interview.”

“Well, I have read no personal file, save for Rukh’s. And I only checked his to know how he looks. I didn’t know that he is so distinct.” The only representative of that rather obvious to spot Variant aboard Echo. Then again, if they told him to search for a man looking like a wolf, he would have grossly misinterpreted that instruction. “It didn’t feel ok to violate people’s privacy, even when it was legal to do so. I mean, if it’s important, you will end up mentioning it when we are working or wasting time together.”

The look he received from her was… complicated. Thoughtful, certainly. But she gave him no hint of whether she approved or disapproved of what he just said.

“That still feels saddening. Couldn’t you tell I’m of noble birth with how dignified my behavior is?” She eventually broke the silence. Her smile left no doubts whether she meant that for real.

“Oh, yes! Your behavior is most dignified, my lady. Especially that one time when after learning that Tendrik is afraid of spiders you put a fake, plush spider in his lunchbox.” Tendrik freaked out in the midst of the bridge, during his shift as an assistant to tactical officer. Who, thankfully, approached the situation with understanding.

“A just retribution for infecting my comm-implant with a malware that changed my overlay. I woke up one day only to notice that my reflection in the mirror has extensive cyberware mods.” Ok, that counts as something that needs disciplining. Prank, sure, but hacking implants violates the law. Not like a lot of people here remember it.

“So, uhm, what does it mean to be a noble? I’m not up to date with social changes.” Both curiosity and the desire to break the somewhat awkward silence caused this question.

“That depends on which faction and country we talk about. With mine, the nobility serves as the country’s elites. So politics, academies, administration and so on are always open to you and dominated by your kind. Plus, you have entire villages and cities that de facto belong to you and maintain your lavish way of life with their taxes. Which serves as a nice basis for building a commercial powerhouse and a presence on the market.” She took another bite of her sandwich. Christopher, who finished eating his part of the food, took advantage of that to speak.

“That sounds nice. For the nobles.“ She nodded, but the answer had to wait until she finished chewing.

“You also get duties. Nobles are expected to serve as an example for the masses, a symbol of what they can become if they struggle hard enough, as getting nobility for accomplishments is easy. Almost as easy as losing it for misbehavior. Any crime is punished more strictly, and most of your belongings within your country are attached to your title, so if you lose nobility you lose more than that. Also, you are expected to serve your people, which stretches from working as a policeman to becoming a soldier. Does that suffice as an answer to your question?”

“Indeed.” While the first half made it sound like stereotypical ‘corrupt nobles ruling everything with an iron fist’ scenario, the other half made the issue more sophisticated. “Not what I expected.”

“If you expected deadly decadent courts overflowed with black-hearted nobles busy backstabbing each other and doing perverted things in their dungeons, then I can give you directions to some.” Her ironic smile left no doubts. She was probably used to such an image of nobility. “Then again, my image might be warped, as my father was born a commoner. He became a noble around the time he met Captain Keller. Unfortunately, the only answer I always got when I asked him how did this happen was ‘Oh, that’s a terribly boring story full of sudden plot-twists, explosions, and battles, nothing interesting.’.”

“That sounds like Captain Keller. Are you sure that whatever is making everyone aboard Echo weird isn’t a transmittable disease, with the captain being Patient Zero?”

Tiriel giggled, in a very non-noble manner.

That’s when the priority message arrived.

***

Captain Keller entered the bridge. The present shift was skeletal, with the only higher ranked officer present being the exec. Some lieutenants and petty officers skittered around, busy doing menial, repetitive tasks that made for ninety-nine point nine nine percent of serving aboard a warship.

It was an opinion of every spaceman in existence that films and books exaggerated the remaining point zero one percent.

“So, it looks like they are here.” The captain spoke to Commander Drathari once he familiarized himself with the contents of the main screen. “Sooner than I expected. We did stir an anthill, didn’t we?”

“Two heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, four destroyers and something with the size of a battlecruiser but the acceleration of a capital ship. An armed supply vessel, I presume.” Lena answered formally. Captain began making mental preparation for the talk that it so obviously foreshadowed. “They engaged their particle shields right after exiting Hyperspace, so besides their size, we know nothing more. However, this is close to the register of ships that the Guild assigned to the subsector.”

The Captain was about to answer when Lieutenant Commander Innocent entered the bridge. The recent arrival nodded towards the two officers and moved towards the tactical officer’s seat.

“I see, I see. The timetable seems to fit.” Captain replied. The plan was moving as planned. “We sent the emergency call right after the hyperstorm passed. Forty-seven days is enough for the call to reach every part of the subsector with the civilian traffic, and for the Guild to gather its forces.”

“I nevertheless consider the plan suicidal, captain.” Lena replied, keeping her tone down. Too many non-enlightened crew members nearby.

“Trust me here, Lena. It will be ok.” The details of the image on the monitor changed. “They took their shields down, huh. They’ll probably send us a message soon. Some deceitful ‘we’ve responded to your call’. And look! Look who they sent!” Captain laughed. “That’s absolutely hill…” He was cut short when the contents of the monitor changed.

A large inscription showed up above the Guild’s relief force, saying ‘When my alien friends ask me what’s wrong with Mankind.’. Heavy cruisers were signed ‘communists’ and ‘slavers’. The light cruisers were dubbed ‘fascists’ and ‘anarchocapitalists’. Destroyers were ‘perverts’, ‘religious loonies’, ‘oligarchies’ and ‘dictatorships’. The cherry on the top was ‘secretive and omnipotent NGOs’ plastered above the supply ship.

Captain knew the captains of all the arriving ships personally, save for the destroyers. He knew their political allegiances and governments that were ‘secretly’ supporting them. This made him laugh like a maniac for a while, ignoring the perplexed look on Commander Drathari’s face. Finally, he recovered.

“Innocent, what did I tell you about using the ship’s sensor feed to make memes?” The tactical officer turned his face towards the captain and answered with the recording of the Captain's voice.

“Only when they are really funny, Innocent.” I should stop adding that clause to practically every rule I issue. It makes them stop being rules, especially with Innocent around.

“Right, I forgot about that.” The Captain turned towards Lena, who was waiting for some explanation. “You should learn that the Guild is no monolith. Lots of internal groups, and lots of captains who support certain governments and their agenda. We have ways of making sure they cannot betray the Guild’s secrets, but other than that, they are deep in said government’s pockets. Hastati belonged to the navy of the Imperium Romanum, hence slavers. Progress’s captain is a hardline communist working for the New Comintern faction. Thus, communists. Nietzsche is a small sign of Pact of Steel being interested in the subsector, as its captain is a former officer of the Kriegsmarine. Thus, fascists. Agreement’s captain is from the Free State, so anarchocapitalists. The destroyers were borrowed from local countries. Liberation’s from Plesja, Strength from Numena, MD4 is from Techtria, and Talon is from the Tavian Republic. So, perverts, religious loonies, oligarchies and dictatorships. Finally, we have Hercules, an armed supply ship, belonging to the Department of Logistics of the Explorer’s Guild. Thus…”

“‘Secretive and omnipotent NGOs.’ Yeah, I think I get it now.” Commander Drathari shook her head. She still looked concerned. “Captain, uhm, I must admit that I do not understand a few things. Can we talk in private?”

Two minutes later they were in the lounge.

“Ok, so… permissions to speak freely?” Lena said, prompting the captain to roll his eyes.

“Lena, we’ve been through that. You have it from now until the heat death of the universe. C’mon, what’s going on?” He knew what was the issue. He predicted Lena being worried about it.

“The Echo is one heavy cruiser. Powerful, yes. I’ve seen enough to learn that it has a reasonable chance with an average battlecruiser. However, the plan you presented starts from ‘defeat the relief force’. With all due respect, this is absurd.” This showed that she was a fine candidate for a warship captain. She refused to be satisfied with a simple ‘it’ll be ok’, especially when the opponent was much more powerful. The true issue was changing her into a suitable candidate for the Guild’s captain.

“Lena, I’m more than conscious that your background as an officer of a navy is screaming that we’re all going to die. I understand that.” Slowly, without raising my voice. “It’s all within my predictions. I’m not saying that this will not be an awfully hard battle. In fact, if we let it change into a battle, it’ll mean our defeat. The whole point is to win without starting the battle. You might have not noticed it, but that’s our specialty.”

“Thus far I only saw it being a specialty of Lieutenant Commander Innocent.” Ouch. I must ask Lith for some ointment. That was quite a burn.

“And who do you think taught him that, huh?” Well, that’s not a lie. Though not a truth, either. God, it’s so darn complicated. “I’m about to reveal to you just how powerful the Echo and its crew are. Which will be helpful once we start clearing this sector of the true threat.”

“All right. I can’t believe what I’m saying, but… let it be your way, captain.” This called for a lot of concession on her part. Or perhaps her sanity began to break, just as everyone else’s already had? If her superior officers in the Ardent Navy saw her now… they would probably brand her insane. “There is one further issue. It’s about recruitment.”

Of course, what else could be an issue.

“I question the sense of launching such a massive recruitment drive.” Commander Drathari continued. “After the incident with the Pristine Jewel, we still had 376 crewmembers left. This is an exceedingly low figure for a heavy cruiser. However, the Echo was extensively modified for a maximum level of automatization. This meant that we were understaffed, though not so much that it began undermining the Echo’s capabilities.” Though understaffed enough for Tiaa to continue tormenting me with demands for an expanded recruitment. For years now. “Why are we now stuffing ourselves to the brim with recruits from Texia?!”

“Normally, heavy cruisers have a crew reaching two thousand members, including a battalion of marines. With only 376 crew members, including a platoon of marines, we were seriously understaffed. We need to muscle up.” This was, technically, true.

“Captain, we got one thousand two hundred and seventy-six new crew members!” So many. And yet still not enough. “I understand that Texia turned out to be a fertile ground for recruitment. But this is getting out of hand! The Echo was modified for a lower number of crew members! At this point we are buying sleeping bags from Texia and putting them in the corridors to let them have a place to sleep! This is, with all due respect, irresponsible!”

And it also makes Tiaa super angry at me. Which is still probably better than her ordinary behavior. To think she still thinks I didn’t notice!

“The Echo is capable of waging warfare in space. You said that yourself.” While still grossly miscalculating the Godhammer. Battlecruiser? Pfff. In perfect circumstances, it wouldn’t even be a fight. “Our marine detachment is composed of absolutely the best soldiers that one can get without hiring mercenaries or selling their soul to any faction. However, they are not numerous enough for the task at hand. Also, we lacked numbers in the crew as a whole. Texia is an excellent recruitment world. Locals are favorable towards us, and the Protectorate is not notable enough to have a lot of spies going around it.” Bonus points for most of the recruits returning here once we deal with the issue at hand. I’m certain that those assholes from Tavia will be delighted to see how I bolstered the Protectorate with an influx of veterans for their navy and army.

“I noticed their ‘favourableness’. I swear you ate dinner with half of their military officers and government members.” And I got everything that I required for the plan to work from that. The Texian government seems reasonable. Once we’ll be leaving the subsector, I’ll speak a few kind words about them to the Alliance for the Preservation of Democracy’s members.

“Oh, you know, perks of a position. Is there anything else you want to talk about?” His tone left little to doubt in his opinion about the direction of the talk.

“Yes. It’s about… it’s about the officer in charge of the enlistment.” Oh, so it’s that now. “Are you confident that Innocent’s the best pick here? I’m not questioning his skills and competence… “... only his sanity, huh? Well, we all do, Lena. “... but his… impartialness.”

“Yes, I’m well informed of what you mean.” He is really into that. He probably showed up on the bridge simply because he smelled an opportunity to make a joke about something. A pleasant break. “I’m certain that you’re aware that proselytism - be it religious, philosophical or political - is not forbidden aboard this ship, as long as it adheres to certain rules. Innocent isn’t forcing anyone to anything. All he is doing is taking advantage of how backward Texia is. Their religious policy is the same as the one of the Republic of Tavia. Agnosticism is weak to proselytism, especially when the preacher comes from a hundred times more advanced and educated country.” The fact that Innocent has pretty much every apologetic and theology book ever written memorized on his hard drive doesn’t help. At least the recruits won’t be here for too long. “I do not care even if he converts them all, which I assure you is not possible. I’m ok with that because besides being good in preaching, he is also wonderfully efficient in counterintelligence. He can smell a spy from another solar system.”

“That’s…” She connected the dots. He could see that in her face. “That shuttle. The one that crashed.”

“Yes. As I mentioned, he is good at finding spies. I left the execution to Vincent, though. He is much better at keeping it simple and secret. I limited Innocent’s part in that to making sure that everyone he found to be deceitful flew in the same shuttle.” It soothed the last remaining bits of fire that kept her going. She deflated visibly and answered.

“Let it be. But I’d like you to quit hiding such things from me.” Captain nodded in return. It didn’t matter to him. The sole reason he didn’t tell her about it earlier was that he knew she would put up some resistance against the plan. He used the secret as a coup de grâce… and now he no longer had to keep any secrets from Commander Drathari.

Besides, she will trust me unconditionally once I prove to her I’m worthy of it. Which, in this case, means the plan succeeding.

Full Metal Priest: Get back to the bridge, please. I think it’s trying to communicate with us.

High damn time.

***

Unfortunately to the Galaxy, the only existing type of FTL communication was a courier ship flying between star systems. This made long-distance intersystem communication a major pain. It was restricted to the speed of light. And while light was fast, it wasn’t enough when it came to such distances.

The ‘relief’ fleet appeared in the system five hours and twenty-seven minutes before the light carrying their image arrived at Echo, now hooked up to the orbital shipyard on a geostationary orbit above the capital city of Texia-III. The message dispatched from its flagship was recorded four hours and fifty-seven minutes before it reached the Echo. The reply would take a bit over five hours to reach the recent arrivals.

This didn’t encourage a protracted talk. In a way, the long-distance communications resembled letters from the times when they were written on paper and took a lot of time to reach their destination. The key distinction was that they were video recordings now.

“This is Rear Admiral Hao Yunqi of the Explorers’ Guild.” The man in the recording was an Asian. Older and much more wrinkled than Captain Keller, he was almost entirely bald. A nanopaint tattoo of a coiled serpent covered the left half of his face, the jaws of the creature closing in on his eye. “We’ve received your call for help and arrived as fast as possible. Please, state the nature of the emergency, and the support that you request.”

“That was... concise.” Commander Drathari commented.

“Yes, indeed. Because we hate each other to the bone.” Which, the captain continued in his mind, could be said about himself and seventy-five percent of the local Guild’s officers. At least now I know why they were such a bunch of obnoxious pricks and wanted us away from their playground when we arrived. “All right, time to answer that walking Yakuza stereotype. Vincent, do the honors.”

“All right. Live in 3, 2, 1… go!” Vincent answered, giving Captain time to position himself in front of the camera.

“This is Captain Alexander Keller.” Stupid savoir vivre demanding introduction. “During our routine travel from Tavia to Texia, we encountered the Pristine Jewel. The Tavian Republic’s merchant ship, which had perished in Hyperspace ten months ago.” He is conscious of that, so taking the time to describe it is like using toddler talk. Diminutive, yet he can’t do a thing here because all I do is illustrate the situation. Heh.

“We’ve boarded the ship, however, we were repulsed by the manifestation of NIGHTMARE TURQUOISE.” Captain went on, utilizing one of the Guild’s cryptonyms. Nightmare meant an extradimensional, while Turquoise stated its type.

“However before that took place, the investigation of the ship led to the discovery of signs of a third party’s presence.” Time to play smart. “We believe that an unknown in size detachment of TERROR CYAN is operating within the Subsector B-72. We request your assistance in the routine Search & Destroy operation through the Yellow Zone of the subsector. We’re sending the data secured on Pristine Jewel together with the proposed patrol route and a report about the damages and casualties suffered in the incident in the attachment to this message.”

And absolutely all of that is fake. Let’s hope that Vincent and Innocent made them convincing.