Tsuros was hung over.
I don’t think the other inmates could tell. Bloodshot eyes and a short temper? That was Tsuros every day. His uniform was impeccable as always. No whiff of liquor could escape that aura of soap and starch. I only noticed when he was still. There was a dreamy linger in his gaze and a new depth in his glower. He couldn’t sleep either. Behind that troubled brow, Steel Wave rode again.
The projector was waiting for us in the classroom. Murderess flinched when she saw it. Normally, silhouette trainings were spaced out to give us time to heal. The classroom lights were working again, and the screen was rolled down without the tether. Some poor engineer had caught hell. It pleased me to know everyone was suffering. But my schadenfreude was short-lived.
“Lucky day, inmates. Lucky day!” Tsuros boomed. He clapped his hands together in mock-excitement. Dread rippled up the line.
“I had a revelation this morning! I was watching you apes fumble through flight training, astounded that Corrupt somehow managed to strike three static pylons. Three! Is that a squadron record?”
It wasn’t, Murderess had hit four the week before. Still, three was too many. Corrupt struggled to stand. The impact contractions had nearly crushed him.
“As I watched that sad farce, Jué wù struck. I realized for the first time just how generous the HCPS Navy truly is! In spite of your monumental ineptitude, they have accommodated each of you with your very own bunk and footlocker. To me, this seems extravagant! I’m a frugal man. If it were up to me, you would all be housed in deep space at no cost whatsoever.”
Tsuros paced behind us as we stared forward at the projector screen, locked in rigid attention. I stopped breathing as his boots drew close to me. Someone was about to get nailed and I hoped it was me.
Instead, Corrupt swayed at the end of the line. Tsuros snuck up behind him. I hated that. The sound of Tsuros’ boots was a fundamental constant of this place. When he moved silently, it felt like cheating.
Tsuros set a hand between Corrupt’s shoulder blades and shoved. Corrupt pitched forward and banged his knees on the deck. It had to hurt like hell, but he sprang to his feet and back to attention at once. Tsuros resumed pacing.
“Yes inmates, the navy is indeed magnanimous! I decided to take a stroll through the barracks, to see how appreciative you all are! I expected to find them immaculate!”
The heavy steps continued, ticking down to our doom. Tsuros halted directly behind me.
“Imagine my disappointment.”
Tsuros slammed his fist into the back of my head. My vision went black, my eardrums rang like cymbals. I clenched my jaw, fighting to stay on my feet. If I went down, I wasn’t getting back up. My cheeks burned.
I deserve this.
Tsuros continued down the line, belting each inmate. WHAM! He hit Pirate. WHAM! Murderess. Corrupt was at the very end of the line. I tensed up, stifling a suicidal urge to cry NO! I was afraid the blow would kill him.
WHAM!
Tsuros didn’t pull his punch. If anything, he hit Corrupt harder than the rest of us. Corrupt was unconscious before his head hit the deck.
“Pubic hairs! Bloodstains! Scabs! Every bunk except one was filthy! The place was a fucking pigsty! How can you live like that? You disgust me!” Tsuros howled.
How? I knew the others were wondering the same thing. Every morning, we rushed to make the barracks spotless before flight training. How could we have missed so much? Either Tsuros was lying or someone sabotaged us.
“You two! Drag this trash to the refuse chute.”
Tsuros thrust the sign of the horns at Murderess and Liar then jabbed his thumb at Corrupt’s body. They hurried over and grabbed Corrupt’s arms and legs.
“Sir, he’s breathing!” Liar said.
I sucked air through my teeth. It was impossibly brave of Liar to speak up while Tsuros was doling out punishment. Tsuros stared at Liar, I was afraid we’d be dragging him to the chute too. But Tsuros surprised me.
“Then take him to the infirmary instead, idiot. Doubletime. Afterward you are to proceed immediately to waste reclamation and get suited up with the others. Since you ingrates want to live like swine, you can spend the rest of the day wallowing in shit. If you are unable to complete quarterly tank maintenance before 2000 hours, you will spend the night in there. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir!”
“DISMISSED!”
I moved towards the door with the others. The back of my head pounded with every step. My mind raced ahead of the pain, trying to figure out how we could clean the Augean waste reclamation tanks before 2000 hours without Corrupt. It was a two-day job to get them cleaned and cycled.
“Traitor!” Tsuros barked, breaking my stride.
“Yes, sir?”
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going? Your bunk was clean. Sit down.”
He pointed at the chairs beside the projector. Murderess looked up from Corrupt. Her face contorted with hate.
Oh no.
I slumped into the chair as they picked up Corrupt and carried him away. I was stunned at what Tsuros had done to me. He’d set it all up so the others would blame me.
I was supremely fucked.
Tsuros killed the lights and strutted over to the projector.
“Now, where were we?” Tsuros asked, grinning like a fiend.
“Despicable, sir,” I said.
“Don’t get clever with me,” he warned. “I can stick you with the shit-squad.”
I almost asked him to.
“Or with Corrupt,” Tsuros added, reading it in my face.
There was never a choice. I swallowed and faced the screen. Tsuros had a fresh stack of transparencies prepared.
“The rats on Ta Bing drowned in a rain of shells. Unbeknownst to High Command, Admiral Chinci executed a surprise attack against EZ Aquarii. This time, the Collaborators had no advance warning.”
Tsuros put the first sheet on the glass, a battle map. Steel Wave thrust towards Sanguinus as Collaborators converged on them from all directions. He took a deep breath and stared at the map for a few moments, savoring the memory.
“You should have seen it, Traitor! The battle of Hydroparastatae was a slaughter like no other. The Clabs came at us like madmen, sacrificing themselves in droves to slow our advance. We penetrated their lines and found what they were so desperate to protect. Hidden in the shadow of Sanguinus was the gravity signature of a massive ship. We were hot to chase, but it was impossibly fast. The ship escaped into null-space before we made visual contact. The rest of the Clabs tried to flee, but it was too late for most. When the dust settled, there were barely any survivors left to interrogate. From those few, we pried a name for the Collaborator superweapon. They called it the Titan Forge.”
Collaborator superweapon? I forgot all about my aching head.
“Hydroparastatae was our anagnorisis. At last, we had proof of the traitors in High Command. Some of Chinci’s captains argued we should ignore the Titan Forge, fly to Sigma Draconis, and seize control of the empire.”
Tsuros paused, biting back something he’d been about to say. I didn’t dare ask if he was one of those captains.
“Admiral Tong Lang Chinci balked at the Rubicon. Perhaps it was duty, perhaps it was honor. I think she simply couldn’t resist hunting the greatest whale of all time. Iacta alea est.
“We chased the Titan Forge deep into Collaborator space, beset at every step by traps and ambushes. The Clabs continued their harried construction as they fled, devouring asteroid belts and drinking deep from nebulae. After months of pursuit, we finally caught up with them at the Wolf 497 Anomaly. It was our first look at the beast.”
Tsuros placed a illustration of the Titan Forge on the glass. It was huge! The Zhanwu carrier was drawn next to it for scale looked like an ant. The Titan Forge resembled a silver moringa seed, eighty kilometers in diameter. At the bottom right corner of the sheet, a classification was stamped. Three mi. I could be executed just for viewing this, if I wasn’t already condemned. Tsuros swapped to an isometric representation where arrows showed three pieces of an outer shell orbiting the Forge.
“These are a trigonal hosahedron of free-floating lune. Incubators. They constantly bombarded the core with gamma radiation. It’s difficult to tell on this 2D representation, but each of these has an independent orbit.”
“What happens when lune overlap?” I asked.
“It amplifies their output. When two lune overlap, they flood space with pions and neutrinos. We witnessed only one triple stack. It created an exponential increase. The discharge was intense enough to burn out sensors twenty thousand kilometers away.”
I stared at the image and wondered how the hell it could generate that kind of power.
“In addition to incubating the core, the lune were also the propulsion source for the Forge. They were the first examples of radiative plane projection. The great-grandfather of the RAMP system in your ships. At the time, Steel Wave had nothing that could match it. This behemoth could outrun our swiftest ships.”
The next transparency was a series of measurements and equations. I puzzled at them, but the math was far beyond me.
“I’ll summarize,” Tsuros said, reading my confusion. “The mass of the Titan Forge is far, far greater than it should be. There are three possible conclusions. One, our instruments were malfunctioning or compromised. Two, the Collaborators have some kind of space-bending technology. Three, they found a way to collect matter from a neutron star.”
Impossible. Tsuros had to be bullshitting me.
“Believe it, Traitor. If permitted, I have no doubt the Titan Forge could have annihilated every ship in our fleet. But like all the works of the Devil, the ancient shackles hold. The Forge had no choice but to retreat, outrunning our missiles and escaping into null-space. Just as Admiral Chinci anticipated.
“She had split Steel Wave into three attack wings, Alpha, Beta, and Gamma. Alpha’s task was to surprise the Forge at Wolf 497 and flush it into retreat. Beta and Gamma wings waited in ambush at the two closest systems. Gambling that Murfid was the most likely escape vector, Chinci assigned her most powerful artillery to Gamma wing and took direct command.
“Chinci won her bet. The Titan Forge emerged from null-space at Murfid with shields down and defenses offline. The behemoth was greeted by a furious barrage from all sides. The Titan Forge was incredible, not invincible.”
Tsuros placed the transparency I’d been waiting for, The Mark I Hyperion Hyperlauncher. I devoured every detail. Nine tubes arranged in a ring around a central magazine, twice as long as the main ship body. Each tube had a dedicated four-man gunner team. There were 134 engineers on board, more than many capital ships required. The design was wildly complex, there were twenty reactors, two for every tube, one primary, and one propulsion. It reminded me of a gatling gun.
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“Our surprise attack destroyed the outermost lune. The second lune was damaged so badly the Forge had to abandon it. Several hyperlauncher torpedoes made their way to the seed-core, bursting like solar flares. All the firepower we could muster was not enough. The Forge was able to raise her shields and limp away to Arcturus.”
“Once more, the history of mankind pivoted on Admiral Chinci. Alpha Wing and Beta Wing were too distant to join us in time. Arcturus was a Collaborator stronghold. Chinci would have to fight with a third of her fleet or risk the Forge escaping again.
“Admiral Chinci chose to pursue. Our call for emergency reinforcements was answered by S-Admiral Xishi. Strike Force San was close to a ringship. They would be able to join our attack. Xishi requested we delay and prepare for a joint assault, but there was blood in the water and Chinci would not be denied.”
Tsuros placed a transparency entitled “ASSAULT ON ARCTURUS–GAMMA WING.” My eyes leapt to another unknown ship type. Tsuros tapped his finger on the illustration.
“Reciprocity, the very first Wusexikai Shield Battery to see combat. We had just one Zhanwu Carrier, two Mark III battleships, five frigates, and the Hyperion hyperlauncher. Admiral Chinci had the helm at her flagship, Bulldog. The last operational VTS Ultra-Dreadnaught.”
The next transparency was marked ASSAULT ON ARCTURUS–COLLABORATOR DEFENSES. The entire sheet was filled with Collaborator ships and defensive structures. I could barely sit still. This was the stuff of legends! Tsuros grinned at me.
“We stormed into Arcturus. The Clabs outnumbered us three to one, but we were Steel Wave! We carved a bloody road through the defenders, hell-bent on our quarry. The Forge cowered in the shadow of Ursurus, docked at the outermost orbital ring for emergency repairs. As we battled our way across the system, the first waves of Strike Force San emerged from null-space at our rear.”
The next transparency was Strike Force San.
“Shangjiang Xishi’s fleet boasted three Zhanwu Carriers, Two Guandao Missile Frigates, and five Mark V battleships. Xishi arrived last, in command of the Shunian, a prototype Mark VII battleship.”
Shunian was gigantic. The flagship was double the size of later production Mark VIIs. I would have loved to pore over a full schematic, but Tsuros was moving ahead rapidly.
“Xishi broadcast orders for Gamma Wing to hold position and wait for Strike Force San. We could not comply. We were too deeply committed to slow our advance. We reached the Roche limit of Ursurus, audaciously poised within range of their planetary defense array. The Clabs must have thought we’d gone mad!”
“While the Usurians were preparing to fire, Admiral Chinci demanded the immediate and unconditional surrender of all Collaborator forces in the system. I can still remember the fire in her eyes, the murder in her smile! Tong Lang Chinci, the Angel of Death!”
Tsuros banged his fist against the projector for emphasis.
I jolted in my seat.
“There were no white flags from the Collaborators. They knew all about Steel Wave. They answered our demand with a T-GZK burst, one of the most horrific weapons ever devised. The battle could have ended right there, with every living organism in Gamma Wing sterilized. But the Collaborators didn’t know about Reciprocity. The Wusexikai Shield Battery detected the hypernova formation and activated. It drank in the incredible energies flung at our fleet and reflected them back at their source. Can you imagine it?”
I shook my head.
“Neither could the Clabs. Before that day, no military had ever deployed T-GZK weaponry against an inhabited planet. It was too barbaric even for the VTS. The Ursurian fools were the first, with their unwitting act of self-genocide. The reflected burst caused a mass-extinction event across the entire hemisphere. A billion collaborators died in a single shot.”
I could only blink at the screen. A billion!
“We had no choice but to return fire. Our answering barrage destroyed all three of Ursurus’ orbital rings. On the far side of the planet, the survivors awoke to find the sky ablaze. The three great bands that spanned their horizons shattered. They fell in a cataclysmic rain. It will persist for centuries. Ursurus was once the busiest shipyard in Collaborator space. Today, it is an irradiated graveyard. In fifty thousand years, the planet will still be uninhabitable.”
I drew my head back from the idea. Tsuros pressed on, twisting the knife.
“This is the work of the Collaborators. They will make any sacrifice for their demon god. They will martyr planets, snuff entire systems. They would slit this galaxy’s throat to bloody his altar. This is what you’re fighting against! The Clabs could have surrendered, but they chose planetary suicide.”
He threw a picture of Ursurus on the projector. The planet was dark and cratered, the space around it buzzed with debris that had not yet spun into a ring.
“Even the total destruction of a Ursurus was not enough to convince the Collaborators to relinquish Titan Forge. There was great chaos in the aftermath. Some of the Collaborator wings fired wildly, some were motionless. Civilian ships scrambled from all over the system, flying at us on collision courses. Freighters, tankers, transports, miners, we swatted them down like flies while they sacrificed themselves to slow our advance. It felt like Hydroparastatae all over again. Ahead of us, the Collaborators rallied for a final defense. We surged forward, eager for another shot at the Forge.
“In all of this, we’d nearly forgotten Strike Force San at our rear. We received an emergency transmission from the Shunian. Shangjiang Xishi appeared on our coms. He was pale and shaken.”
A sheet with Xishi’s portrait cracked onto the projector, side by side with Tong Lang Chinci’s. The contrast was stark. Xishi’s face was a ruin of involute sags. Chinci’s lines were sharp enough to draw blood. I saw what Tsuros meant. The woman was a weapon. Tsuros’ eyes lingered on the screen before he moved to the next sheet.
TRANSCRIPT – SJ XISHI – ZJ CHINCI
ARCTURUS - 5217:08:23:0414 – 3MI
SJ XISHI: ADMIRAL CHINCI! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?
ZJ CHINCI: I WAS FIRED UPON, SHANGJIANG. I RETALIATED
SJ XISHI: YOU’VE KILLED THEM ALL!
ZJ CHINCI: NOT YET, SIR. BUT I WILL.
*SJ XISHI TRANSMISSION INTERRUPTED*
Tsuros pointed to the interruption.
“This is when Xishi’s side of the screen locked up. That withered old face was frozen in an expression of fathomless disgust. Behind us, we saw Strike Force San begin to maneuver. He was giving orders off-air.”
ZJ CHINCI: ALL UNITS, EXECUTE PLAN FOUR
*SJ ZISHI TRASMISSION RESUMED*
SJ XISHI: ADMIRAL TONG LANG CHINCI. YOU HAVE COMMITTED CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY. YOU ARE RELIEVED OF DUTY. CEASE PURSUIT AND STAND DOWN.
ZJ CHINCI: ALL UNITS! SHANGJIANG XISHI IS A COLLABORATOR SYMPATHIZER. HE HAS BETRAYED THE NAVY! I AM ASSUMING DIRECT COMMAND OF STRIKE FORCE SAN. ANY WHO OPPOSE ME WILL BE DESTROYED!
SJ XISHI: YOU FOOL! YOU’RE SURROUNDED! STAND DOWN OR- *TRANSMISSION ENDS*
Sergeant Tsuros rapped his finger on the final line.
“Xishi’s voice vanished in thunder. How can I describe it? It was like Mahler’s tenth symphony. Shunian had nine reactors on her starboard side. The Hyperion hyperlauncher played a schreckliche chord upon them. Sforzando! Nine null-space torpedoes, synchronized to the picosecond! Fired before Xishi even gave the order to stand down. Chinci knew! Der Teufel tanzt es mit mir!“
Tsuros’ eyes blazed with malevolence in the projector light. The next sheet showed Strike Force San’s capital ships packed into a tight formation.
“In those days, Hezo Battle Protocol dictated the command detachment should fly in close formation. They huddled together to benefit from the excellent protection of their Wugui Shield Battery. It was an effective strategy against the Collaborators. Few of their weapons could penetrate the telluric particle shell.
“But we weren’t Collaborators! Our hyperlauncher torpedoes phased right through the shell, directly into Shunian’s reactors. They exploded in blooms of relativistic shearing like razor chrysanthemums. Shunian was annihilated in a single volley! A terrible chain reaction began.”
Tsuros took out his red pen, drawing arrows radiating out from Shunian.
“Nearby was the Quanto, a Guandao missile frigate commanded by Zhongjiang Ding Yahno. At first, it seemed she might weather the explosion, but a fire ignited in her magazine. Fifteen seconds later she was consumed by a massive eruption. Her sister ship Minbing and reserve Zhanwu Glia were dragged down to Diyu with her. In a single stroke, Strike Force San had lost their Shangjiang, their Zhongjiang, and both of their main artillery!”
When Tsuros finished drawing, the sheet looked like a diagram of a fusion reaction. What a shot!
“Audentis Fortuna iuvat! Learn that well, proditor. Strike fast, strike first! Without Chinci’s audacious attack, neither of us would be here. Gamma Wing would have been encircled and overwhelmed. You would never have existed. Don’t look so enthused, you degenerate! You’re mine now. You will exist until I order you to cease.”
My hands were clenched in excitement. I’d lost myself in Tsuros’ tale. Visions of capital ships going off like a string of fireworks danced before my eyes.
“Now, imagine the chaos manifest that was the Battle of Arcturus! A planet in flames beneath us, the stars glittering with death. Before us, a collaborator fleet, swelling with reinforcements. Behind us, the headless serpent of Strike Force San. Ten to one, Traitor! Ten to one, and we set upon them!
“Again and again, they tried to swallow us, but we stuck in their throats until they choked! We were not alone. A few true patriots remained in Strike Force San. One carrier and one battleship swore allegiance to Chinci and turned their guns on the Reconciler filth in their ranks.
“Three days of battle, Traitor! Three days of go-pills and sorties. Casualties, calamities, carnage! We had to become animals. Every second of life had to be clawed from the flesh of our enemies while they strove to return the favor. But we were better than them, almost ten times better.
“Almost…”
Tsuros trailed away, gazing into the distance. His expression dragged me back into the dismal classroom. For a moment we had both forgotten we were losing the war.
“By the third day, Strike Force San was no more. As its sole remaining battleship tried to flee the system, the hyperlauncher spent its very last torpedo to blow the coward to bits. Collaborator reinforcements kept arriving. There seemed to be no end to them. They couldn’t outfight us, but it was increasingly clear they could outlast us.
“Gamma Wing was depleted. Three of our frigates had been destroyed, two had exhausted their magazines. We were down to one Zhanwu with only a third of her fighters remaining and most of her pilots too fatigued to fly. Our sole remaining battleship had only half of her cannon online. Only Bulldog was still fully operational. The Ultra-Dreadnaught had been designed for the lengthy battles of the VTS era. She was still in fighting condition.
“At Bulldog’s helm, Tong Lang Chinci had been awake for the entire battle. Her voice was a tortured rasp, but the orders never slowed. Her eyes were bloodshot, but they never lost their fire. One defender remained, an ancient N’Graya Owlmoon class Ark that could do little more than absorb fire meant for the Titan Forge. Bulldog flew in close and opened up with her Hypercane cannons.”
My head perked back up at the mention. The Hypercane was an iconic weapon that had defined its era, like the katana or the M1 Garand. Tsuros seized on the chance to draw me back in.
“The VTS didn’t fuck around, Traitor! Every single thing they did was overkill. When those Hypercanes roared, every microbe on Bulldog felt it. Twenty-three thousand explosive bolts per second! Every third bolt was incendiary plasma. When you hit a ship it looked like you were drawing a bead with an arc welder. We quartered that poor Owlmoon, easy as slicing an orange. Remember oranges?”
I nodded eagerly. I would kill for one.
“At last, Chinci had a clear shot at her quarry. Bulldog sank her teeth into the last lune and ripped it to shreds. The Titan Forge was ours at last, stranded in space! But we’d hooked Santiago’s marlin.
“Our artillery was spent, and we had nothing left that could destroy the beast. Alpha Wing was still a week away. Hezo reinforcements were inbound, but we didn’t know if they would aid us or attack us. We should have retreated, but we couldn’t bear to. Not after all we’d spent.
“Then the Glömer arrived, and it was too late.”
The stack of transparencies had dwindled to just two remaining. First the AGA/LAG 81 diagram that had started this whole mess. Then the final sheet, an illustration of three spherical carriers patterned like footballs.
“Here they are, Traitor. Look at them! Those are Goldberg polyhedrae. The Forge technology adapted into carriers. Each of those pentagons is a propulsive-shielding device, the hexagons are fighter bays. The Glömer were only a third the size of one of our Zhanwu, but they were a thousand times more massive. Imagine the power it cost to propel them!
“The Glömer took up a defensive orbit around the Forge, like three electrons of a gargantuan lithium atom. It began to move again, the Glömer were towing Forge! They didn’t even bother attacking us. They expected us to accept we’d been eclipsed.
“We could not. We attacked with everything we had left. AGA/LAG 81s swarmed from fighter bays, wasps boiling from their hives. The 81s were incredible interceptors. They made our A88 fighters look like biplanes. They shot down everything we threw at them, we couldn’t get a single missile through.
“During our entire impotent attack, more 81s pullulated from the Glömer. Finally, they hit a critical mass. A horde switched roles and went on the offensive. Harriers! They nipped and nibbled and gnawed us down to nothing. The Zhanwu went down before she could get half of her fighters out. Soon, the battleship shared her fate.
“Admiral Tong Lang Chinci’s last act was to overcharge all of her reactors and order all hands to abandon ship. The lifeboats fired off like a cloud of lice lifting from a corpse. I was one of those lice, Traitor.
“I watched the Admiral fly right at the Titan Forge with 81s attacking her from every direction. Firing all her guns at once, roaring defiance! The fighters couldn’t stop her. She rammed right into the silver skin of the Titan Forge!”
I was riveted, scarcely breathing.
Tsuros shook his head.
“It was all for naught. The Titan Forge swallowed Bulldog whole. There was no massive explosion, no surprise victory. The Forge escaped, and we lost.
“We lost, traitor. We’ve been losing ever since. After the disaster at Da Jiao, a vast purge began. We strung the Reconcilers up in the streets. We raced to discover the secrets of Forge technology, to build new fleets that could destroy the Collaborators. We seized control of High Command and went into full wartime production.”
Tsuros gestured at the walls of the prison and let his hand drop.
“We were too late. Now, here we are, Traitor. One last shot to save mankind. One final mission, and you’re the one. Do you understand me? The others are just fodder. Never forget that. You’re the one. Now get the fuck out of my sight.”
Tsuros turned off the projector. I scurried away and left him in darkness.