21 December 1591“Your food is certainly much better than ours,”
Korvettenkapitän Fiedler said, folding his napkin and placing it beside his empty plate. “You must have resupplied recently.”
Lieutenant Commander Ernestine Alexander took another sip of the rich Potsdam red her guest had presented as a gift, while she thought about her answer. “Wanderer is large enough to host an extensive hydroponics suite.”
“Of course,” Fiedler said. “Brilliant.
Führung-2 is a good ship, but the Empire values minimalism and efficiency.”
“You’ve been out here awhile?” Alexander asked. Her head was starting to hurt from the subtle intrigues. Or maybe that was the wine.
Fiedler seemed all but oblivious to the game they were playing. Which she suspected meant he was very good at it. The Andermani flashed his easy smile and answered without hesitation. “Four years.”
“Four years!?” Alexander choked out before she could stop herself.
“Minimalism and efficiency.” Fiedler shrugged. “Expanding the Empire’s knowledge of wormholes is a crucial mission. My crew and I understand this. Sometimes personal sacrifice is necessary for the long-term good of the Empire. You are certain the Star Kingdom will not object to us working in this system?”
“We don’t have any permanent presence here. I can’t promise that won’t change in the future.” Hyperion was only three transits from Manticore. “And your government won’t object to us poking around Sachsen?”
“Poking around? No. Provided you do not settle or mine there. I must warn you that a gang of pirates has holed up in the mountains of Sachsen B-II. Our
Schlachtgeschwader defeated their mobile forces, but they have surface to orbit weapons and will not hesitate to fire on your ship if it gets too close.”
“Human pirates?”
Fiedler’s brow furrowed. “What else? Little gray men?”
Alexander smiled and sat her wineglass down. “Perhaps I should go easy on this.”
She would bet the entire White Haven estate the Andermani had contact with aliens based on that deflection alone.
“It is an excellent vintage,” Fiedler said, pouring more into his own glass. “If you choose to explore beyond Sachsen, the Empire will not protest. However, we would consider bringing armed ships through a stabilized wormhole a violation of Andermani territory and respond in force.”
Alexander blinked at him. “A what?”
“You do not have this?” Fiedler asked, sounding surprised. “A stabilized wormhole is permanently open. Any ship can pass through without a transit device. You will recognize it when you see one.”
“That sounds useful. Can you tell me more? So that we know what to avoid?”
“Of course.”
***
Ernestine Alexander escorted
Korvettenkapitän Fiedler to his shuttle and then headed straight for the bridge. She watched the Andermani survey frigate crawl away at a meager 2000 km/s until it vanished from HMS Wanderer’s sensors. Then, ordered her navigator to transit the wormhole to Sachsen.
She found the system exactly as he described it, a wide binary of hot white stars orbited by massive super earths and gas giants. Sachsen B-II, the only world suited for habitation, had higher gravity than Sphinx and a mountainous terrain covered in dense jungle foliage. The wrecks of ten LACs floated near the planet. At the range of twelve light hours, her sensors couldn’t confirm whether those were of human or alien origin.
HMS Wanderer spent about half an hour collecting sensor data, then transited back to Hyperion and set off on a least time course for Manticore. She did not detect
Führung-2 sitting just five million kilometers off the wormhole terminus. Nor did she see the frigate transit into Sachsen and race away towards New Berlin.
As usual, the Star Kingdom’s political establishment struggled to reach a consensus on the new species in Hyperion. The Conservatives advocated for an isolationist policy. Ignoring the system would prevent another alien entanglement the Kingdom couldn’t afford. Progressives wanted to send a diplomatic mission. Friendly contact with an interstellar civilization could bring fantastic benefits. The Liberals, entrenched in the business community, had an eye for the planet’s mineral wealth and potential as a trading hub.
An Andermani presence posed unexpected complications, but the plan was already in motion before that news arrived. The Diplomatic Corps would send a team, accompanied by experts in xenolinguistics and xenoanthropology, to contact and negotiate with the new species. While they did that, the 3rd and 4th Geosurvey Companies would undertake a quiet search for additional mineral deposits.
HMS Wanderer’s return was fortuitous because it meant the Admiralty didn’t need to shake loose another survey cruiser for the mission. She took the diplomatic team aboard and headed back to Hyperion. The marine corps transport Monte Cassino accompanied her, as did the transit tender RMAS Arrowhead, HMS Amphitrite and HMS Ariadne. The slow commercial ships would require months to make the journey.
Meanwhile, the Admiralty settled on a refit plan for the remaining Triumph-class battlecruisers. The RMN needed powerful close range energy weapons platforms, so the R92 specification sacrificed missile cells for increased endurance and a battery of 20cm Energy Torpedo generators. A minor upgrade, it should take about a month per ship and BuShips planned to have them converted mid-year.
Triumph R92 class Battlecruiser 28,000 tons 857 Crew 3,803.7 BP TCS 560 TH 2,520 EM 0
4500 km/s Armour 8-82 Shields 0-0 HTK 158 Sensors 6/0/0/0 DCR 24 PPV 154
Maint Life 2.69 Years MSP 2,237 AFR 261% IFR 3.6% 1YR 442 5YR 6,627 Max Repair 420 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 1,000 tons Magazine 120
Captain Control Rating 3 BRG AUX CIC
Intended Deployment Time: 6 months Flight Crew Berths 20 Morale Check Required
NG60-840 Warship Impeller Drive (3) Power 2520 Fuel Use 75.74% Signature 840 Explosion 14%
Fuel Capacity 1,913,000 Litres Range 16.2 billion km (41 days at full power)
20cm Energy Torpedo Launcher (4) Range 100,000km TS: 4,500 km/s Power 10-2.5 RM 10,000 km ROF 20
15cm Near Ultraviolet Laser Mk1 (14) Range 180,000km TS: 4,500 km/s Power 6-3 RM 30,000 km ROF 10
100mm Point Defense Autocannon Mk 2 (14x4) Range 30,000km TS: 4,500 km/s Power 3-3 RM 30,000 km ROF 5
AN/CAT-3a Beam Fire Control System (2) Max Range: 192,000 km TS: 4,500 km/s 95 90 84 79 74 69 64 58 53 48
AN/CDT-3a Point Defense Fire Control System (2) Max Range: 96,000 km TS: 4,500 km/s 90 79 69 58 48 38 27 17 6 0
Rukes GFR-48 Gaseous Fission Reactor (2) Total Power Output 96.2 Exp 5%
HLS-6 Solarian Horizontal Launch Cell System (20) Missile Size: 6 Hangar Reload 122 minutes MF Reload 20 hours
AN/CAT-3a Missile Fire Control System (2) Range 13m km Resolution 10
Mark 8 Heavy Missile (20) Speed: 24,100 km/s End: 6.9m Range: 10m km WH: 9 Size: 6 TH: 128/77/38
AN/SSL-3a Ship Tracking Array (1) GPS 1680 Range 24.9m km Resolution 140
AN/SML-3a Missile Tracking Array (1) GPS 12 Range 4.8m km MCR 430.9k km Resolution 1
AN/SPG-3a Gravitic Detection Array (1) Sensitivity 6 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 19.4m km
Strike Group
2x Ares Pinnace Speed: 7013 km/s Size: 9.98
The Geosurvey Companies found fourteen million tons of Gallicite on Basilisk II, but the deposit’s low accessibility made it unprofitable for mining. The marines moved to Medusa to wait for a future expedition.
14 June 1592“My Lords. My Lords, please.” Prime Minister Winter Mount mumbled, wringing his wrinkled hands in frustration.
Prince Richard Winton-Serisburg wondered yet again why his mother picked someone with so little backbone for the Kingdom’s most important political role. Unless utter dysfunction in the Lords was her goal. Still, he couldn’t blame the man for staying out of this shouting match. Michael was in rare form today, even by the standards of the infamous Winton temper.
“I didn’t know there were so many gutless cowards in the whole Star Kingdom!” The Crown Prince roared. “And yet here you all sit. On the Royal Council. Grandfather is turning over in his grave.”
“Your Highness,” Baron Tweenriver, Chancellor of the Exchequer, said in a tight voice. “We all grieve for the lives lost on Hyperion II…”
“Do you!? Because all I hear are platitudes and excuses! Those monsters butchered two hundred of our people. Worse than animals. How can you, any of you, look at those images and then sit here talking about
their rights?”
“It is their planet,” Countess Fairburn, Secretary of BioScience, said. “We should never have been there.”
“That makes it okay? It’s our fault? Because we tried talking to them?”
“And exploiting their minerals.”
Michael’s nostrils flared. “I don’t have to listen to this.” He shoved his chair away from the table and stood, glowering at everyone before biting out “Good day, My Lords” and stormed from the chamber.
Long minutes passed before anyone spoke again.
“Much of the military agrees with him,” New Dijon said, breaking the silence. “Especially the Marines. It was mostly their people who were… killed.”
“I’m not sure that I disagree with him,” Winter Mount said, wringing his hands. “What happened was horrible. Truly. But the precedent! He’s talking about a genocide. We can’t just purge a whole species from a planet! No matter what they did. The voters won’t stand for it. They’ll claim it was always about the minerals. The optics would be terrible.”
“Your voters, maybe.” Richard said. “I think if we released more of the details. Perhaps some images. Heavily censored, of course. The public might support at least a limited intervention. The settlement is a military outpost. It’s not like we would be killing alien civilians or children.”
“A military outpost,” Tweenriver said. “Which implies a much larger military somewhere else. You want to start a full-blown war with these people?”
“The Andermani won’t hesitate to remove a hostile force,” New Dijon said. “They will take the planet and it’ll give them a foothold that much closer to Manticore. Having a forward base of our own in the region to block their expansion towards us would be expedient.”
“There’s a quote for the history books.” Countess Fairburn said, in a voice that dripped acid. “‘The genocide was expedient.’ - Suzanne Descroix, Defense Minister, Star Empire of Manticore.”
New Dijon shot her fellow Progressive a dark look across the table.
“In my mind, the Andermani presence is more reason to stay out.” Tweenriver said. “We don’t need more trouble with the Emperor. Not after our Conservative colleagues’ fiasco a few years ago. ”
The Council debate continued long into the evening, with no resolution in sight.
***
The government had to announce the massacre to the media, but provided few details. Public opinion split with some groups condemning the expedition to an inhabited planet and others condemning the lack of response to the murders. Crown Prince Michael fanned the flames of the latter with several appearances on popular talk programs where he presented images from HMS Wayfarer and Hyperion II as evidence of the threat posed by aliens and castigated the Liberals for being too soft in their approach to the problem.
In September, Survey Squadron 1, which had spent the past year exploring the systems of Nuada, Yalta and Santander, beyond Basilisk, was on the way home to refuel. Twenty million kilometers from the Nuada-Basilisk terminus, HMS Andromeda picked up a gravitic signature shadowing the group. Her computer flagged it as Arbalest 002 with high confidence.
HMS Arete stayed in formation with the survey cruisers, while Andromeda broke off to drive the Arbalest away. The mysterious ship fled and the Manticoran frigate gave chase. With only a few hundred km/s advantage, she would need several days to bring the target into missile range. Just before that happened, the Arbalest vanished, despite being well inside Andromeda’s sensor envelope. The frigate failed to reestablish contact even after a thorough search of the area. Eventually, she left to rejoin her squadron.
The Star Kingdom’s researchers completed several important projects this year: Maintenance Support per Facility: 1600 tons, Salvage Module 500, Fuel Production: 48000 liters, and 25cm Energy Torpedoes.
Late in October, CruRon 2, the six light cruisers led by HMS Donnelly, left Manticore orbit. They had orders to undertake an extensive training exercise in Manticore-B’s Unicorn Asteroid Belt. The squadron proceeded to Manticore-A’s LP1, near the gas giant Roc, and jumped out precisely on schedule.
They did not emerge at Titan’s LP2, as expected. Instead, they appeared at LP3, trailing the rogue planet Fenris. Over six billion kilometers from Gryphon and just over seven billion from the Manticore Wormhole Junction. Waiting for them were five Anzio-class Marine Corps transports.
The entire force moved to the Matapan terminus where it rendezvoused with HMS Trailblazer, whose official orders put her in Hennesy, RMAS Arrowhead and RMAS Osiris. They topped off their tanks from the support vessel and then transited, watched only by the local sensor buoys.
By the time anyone on Manticore noticed they were missing, it was far too late to recall them.
The ad hoc task force arrived above Hyperion on December 10th. Eight full marine regiments, a small army of almost twenty-thousand personnel and five hundred heavy weapons, descended on the alien outpost before the creatures even knew they were in orbit. The lizard-like aliens put up a fierce resistance, but numbers told, and when the shooting stopped four days later not a single one survived.
