Novu Sol Star System

Freedom Spire

Ares Centios

Rear Admiral Centos didn’t come down to Freedom Spire often. Being born on one of the core worlds of the Stellar Democracy meant that every kid got a small vacation to visit Novu Sol in all its glory, sometimes more than once if they had the right selections of classes. He had no need to come here unless on business and the only reason he was in the capital in the first place was to transfer the TriStar military personnel off his ship so they could continue their education elsewhere.

This was, however, some serious business. Apparently big enough to pull every flag officer that was within two hours flight of Novu Sol to the Spire for an in-person meeting. Which was not a good sign, though if it was something like say, a declaration of war, then he wouldn’t have been summoned but rather given orders and sent on his way. So as he settled back in his seat, sipping his glass of water while the last stragglers finally found their seat, he studied the large auditorium and the people at the lectern.

Admiral Julia Vales and President Desar were both there, hunched over a tablet to review some data. He assumed that Vales was here to present the information, and the President being the leader of the nation here to back her up in case certain actions needed to be taken. There were a few techs checking to make sure the hologram system was working properly but they weren’t anyone Centos knew. He was surprised to see General of the Marines Natao Omar and General of the Army Ceta Graves in the front row, as while Marines were deeply linked to the Navy, the Army was more distant. He didn’t see any other Army personnel here so perhaps she was here just as a courtesy.

His attention was pulled back to Vales as she stepped up the lectern, clearing her throat into the mic to get everyone’s attention. The room fell silent, expectant of what vital information the head of the Navy had to offer.

“Afternoon everyone, and thank you all for coming on such short notice. This presentation will be recorded and copied to every flag officer in the Novu Navy. Let me dispel any fears or rumors now, no, this is not a summons to war. It is an informational briefing on something that has occurred that you all need to be aware of.” She paused to let that sink in, no one spoke of course, but everyone seemed to sit up a bit straighter, focus more intently on their superior.

Vales dimmed the lights and a massive hologram lit up the air above vales head. A vision of a star system with ships lying in wait for prey to fall into their trap. Centos’ eyes narrowed, was that SanxingC?

“This here, in case you don’t recognize it, is SanxingC, the star system that anchors the end of the Free-Confederacy Trade Route. The unusual property of this star system is that rather than the Trade Route ending at some point far outside the gravity well like all the other Routes do, this one rides right up to the redline of gravity,” Vales paused for a second. “Most ships exit the Trade Route and are already coasting over the redline, though some helmen fast on the con can immediately reenter hyper without accidentally triggering a return trip on the route. Ships entering from the Confederacy usually have to exit hyper somewhere else in the star system and transit in normal space for at least ten minutes before entering the Trade Route.”

Centos narrowed his eyes at the set up, most of them knew that, even if it had been rusty knowledge from long years running fleets rather than helming ships.

“Admiral Tobin was in the Confederacy on a dual mission; to both train the newer TriStar ships in merchant protection and to thin the pirates out there since the Confederacy is undergoing yet another revolt and our shipping is starting to get targeted heavily again. One of the TriStar ships had a close encounter with Desson and Ionosphere, but did not engage her, an action of which I approve as it seemed Desson did not realize that they were here under our protection and bound to report to Tobin about spotting her.”

Suddenly he was very interested. Had they gotten her? No, no he should know better than to hope like that, he would know when she was dead when it was on the news before official reports confirm it.

“So Admiral Tobin set a trap, taking his battleship with a healthy supporting force of battlecruisers, light cruisers and destroyers and having them lay in wait for her to arrive while Tobin took Liberty out system and would use a microjump to come in and seal her into the trap. Desson came in on almost a perfect vector and the battlecruisers, like they planned, forced her on to a vector which would make it easy for Liberty to engage and hopefully disable her ship.” Vales paused to let the scene play out above her, Ionosphere zipping across the system into the jaws of the trap at a compressed time scale. Her ship twisted up and into a narrow green cone and a few moments later, Liberty was there, her hull glowing like a comet in the night sky. She began her attack and watching this, he couldn’t help feeling pride. Battleships were the pride of the fleet; it was an honor to command one and even more an honor to fly your flag from one. Tobin was a lucky man to have such an asset at his disposal. The tactical plot paused here, Ionosphere trapped between the force of battlecruisers already showing their vectors moving to cut off any escape without exposing her engines to the ship that was to be her killer.

“And then,” Vales voice got more serious, “This happened.”

When the plot resumed it's deadly play he watched, first with interest, and then with mounting horror as Ionosphere turned it's vector onto a deadly collision course with the Liberty. The battleship turned to present her thickest armor and strengthened her shields on that side to such a degree warning icons popped up around the representation of the huge ship, warning of possible overloads and parts of the ship that should have power, like life support and weapons on the far side, were shut off to preserve the ship in that moment. The speed at which Ionosphere had climbed in that short distance was terrifying and even as he watched the battlecruiser shields shrugged off a direct missile hit like it was nothing. He knew the Atmosphere-class battlecruiser. That should not be possible but even as he thought that another thought struck him.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

He couldn’t claim to understand Desson, he wanted her dead and he knew she was a psychopath, simple as that, but if she rammed Liberty, she would be dead, her ship would be dead, converted to dust and debris by the massive kinetic energy of the collision with a larger, less moveable object. Even for a psychopath who would want people dead for little reason and having no qualms about killing, that made no sense. She should be trying to preserve herself, not trying to die.

Centos got the answer to a question he was almost too afraid to ask. A second before the rogue battlecruiser would have hit the Liberty, the battlecruiser engines turned purple and a haze of static and energy flashed across the plot, making all the various ships in the plot look hazy before it refocused.

And Liberty was dead in space with the Ionosphere nowhere to be found. A massive gouge on the side of the battleship as it slowly tumbled away, the rest of the Novu ship rushing to the ship’s aid.

“That was a recreation of the event with special filters on,” Vales said into the stunned silence. “That was not an error, Ionosphere managed to transit into hyper well inside the gravity redline. The warping of space is so unsettling to the eyes that it can, at it's best, make humans dizzy. It made one of my staff throw up and faint, so while I will be sending the raw data to all flag officers, please be warned that you should not view this lightly. But we need to discuss what exactly happened to Liberty.” She made a motion and a new view replaced the tactical plot, showing the view from a shuttle flying by the gouge to assess damage.

Except it wasn’t a gouge, not really. There was nothing missing that Centos could spot, rather it looked like a large dent on a plastic toy, the outer shell collapsed into the ship as though it was hollow. All the armor, the weapon ports as strange as it looked, it was there, it just was in the depression. Some people gasped but Centos' mind was already straying to what the inside might look like.

He didn’t have to imagine for long as the view spit to a screen showing a Marine wedging himself through two warped bulkheads to a pocket where he could stand, the light from his helmet sweeping around to see the extent of the damage. It stopped and he heard the Marine’s strangled gasp of horror. Marines were tough but what his light was resting on was a scene straight from hell itself.

What had once been the hatch to a missile battery was half swung open, cockeyed at an odd angle due to the way the way the bubbled passage curved and fused with the hatch to keep it open. Someone had been making a run for it away from what was going to be the impact zone when the warping of space-time had dented Liberty. They never made it out. Their arm was half fused into the frame of the hatch; the ghostly shape of the arm could be seen fused into the metal of the passage beside the hatch, metal stained red as though it had been forged that way rather than infused with blood. While the rest of the body seemed twisted in an agonizing position of pain and fear everything seeming at just the wrong angle, a foot fused to the deck at the ankle, the face had no eyes, blood seemed to just be pooling in the sockets where they should have been, and the skull looked like someone had flattened it without breaking the skin. It almost looked like a mockery of the human form.

Someone in the auditorium was retching. Centos himself had to look away from the horrors that the ripples in space-time had caused this poor rating. He felt the blood drain from his face. Not only had The Admiral disabled a battleship, but she had done it in a way that pales in comparison to anything else she could have done. It might have been better if she had just blown them up rather than this. What should have reduced her ship to ash had let her escape and kill… how many?

“535 people were KIA due to this.” Vales reported as though she heard his thoughts. “Another 96 had serious injuries from needing to be cut free of body parts fused to walls. All of the crew suffered side effects from this, a short list of the side effects being things like nausea, vomiting, loss of balance, internal bleeding, and blindness. The battlecruisers had to tow her home and left behind most of the escorts to gather up their merchants and the TriForce ships before they came home as well.”

“Is Tobin still alive?” Someone asked.

Vales nodded. To even be considered for a flag position on a battleship your career and connections had to be damn near perfect. Dimitry Tobin had been an exceptional officer and one that many in the navy considered to be perfect for the slot. Always calm and well mannered, his flag-showing tour had been highlighted by many of the worlds he visited not with disdain or eye rolls like some other, but generally well-liked. If there was a ‘face of the navy’, Tobin was it.

“Admiral Tobin is alive, but like I said, no one escaped the side effects.” She made a small hand motion and the split scene above her vanished, leaving the room darker but at least no one had to stare at that poor person anymore. “He suffered blindness in his right eye, balance issues and some nerve damage in his right arm. Nothing a year of regeneration and physical therapy can’t handle. He’ll be returning to Castle to recover with his husband.” Vales bright back up the lights.

“Any more questions?”

“How did she do this?” Centos asked. “If one of the other nations has found a way to weaponize hyperdrives, we should have heard about it.”

Vales looked over to the President who nodded to her to go on.

“I’ve checked with all our various intelligence branches and none of them have found any hint at the idea of a ‘weaponized hyper jump.’ We are currently working on the assumption that Desson was desperate because she was facing down a battleship and decided to test her luck with a jump inside the redline rather than surrendering. We do have a few people in the Test Yards trying to simulate exactly how it works just in case.”

“Thank you Ma’am. I did not mean to question the abilities of our intelligence agencies, I was just curious.” He said, sitting back as another younger flag officer jumped in with a question he tuned it out.

It wasn’t important. Not at the moment.

They had been so close to having the Murderer of Centurion in their grasp, so close to her being dead. He would never admit it to anyone but he was almost glad. He wanted to see her defeated as badly as any other officer, to see her brought to justice and executed for her crimes. Centos, however, wanted to be that person. He wanted to be the one looking into her eyes as Marines marched her onto his ship in chains. He had to be, for all the family and friends he had lost, the memories and moments all burnt to ash by her hand.

Everyone felt the loss of Foundation in the Stellar Democracy, but those from the place that had once been a city felt it more keenly, the place that was there was gone and it would never return even if they rebuilt an exact replica. It was all just dusty memories now, glimpses in the words and shared moments of people who had lived there but had been away that fateful day, bits of movies and shows filmed there that would never return to there for sequels, books that spoke fondly of it would now forever be entombed in a curse of the past and only in fiction could anyone ever return to Foundation in the present.

Perhaps it was foolish of him, being only one man among a crowd who all wanted the same thing, to lay claim to revenge against Desson.

But for now he would, no matter how foolish.