New Frontiers (Expansion Wars Trilogy, Book 1) (14 page)

“I came as fast as I could, Mr. President,” Marcum huffed as he marched into the temporary office of the Chief Executive with as much dignity as he could muster. “The
Amsterdam
had to come full about and she’s missing one of her main engines.”

“Grab a drink of water and a seat, Admiral,” Wellington waved him to where three other men were sitting in large, overstuffed recliners. “We have a lot to discuss and not enough time to do it in.

“You’ll all note that Ambassador Cole is conspicuously missing during this meeting. He’s currently en route to his own starship where he will escort the remaining Ushin ship away from New Sierra and DeLonges and hopefully finalize what could be a very lucrative treaty deal for the Federation. I’ve vested him with enough authority to conclude the deal quickly, but he knows what his limits are. He assures me the Ushin on the remaining ship are also able to speak for their people … something about rank being non-existent in their culture or some bullshit. What I need from you gentlemen, as the more influential members of your respective enclaves, is to make sure any treaty we bring out of these negotiations is ratified quickly so that CENTCOM may act upon it. As you’ve no doubt guessed it will involve the use of military force.”

“I think you’ll find that your hands will be full simply convincing us first, Mr. President,” James Nelson from Britannia said in a clipped accent that identified him as being from the capital world. “I find it hard to believe that it is in the best interests of the United Terran Federation to become militarily involved in a dispute between the Ushin and the Darshik.”

“That’s fair enough, ah … Mr. Nelson,” Wellington seemed to flounder as the legislative members were no longer called senators. “Putting aside the three attacks on Terran ships, two in sovereign Terran space for a moment, let’s go over some facts that I think you might not be fully aware of.

“When the Asianic Union and Warsaw Alliance broke off, they took a sizable chunk of the New European Commonwealth with them. For all intents and purposes call it the entire enclave, since the planets still loyal to the old Confederacy are astronomically located such that we would have to fly through ESA systems to reach them, which they are no longer allowing. Latest intelligence before the blackout indicated they were actually mining some of the more strategic jump points … that’s an unprecedented move in our history as a spacefaring people.”

“We’re all well aware of this, Mr. President. If there—”

“What isn’t widely known,” Wellington went on, steamrolling over the interruption without even raising his voice, “is that the Third, Fifth, and Eighth Fleets were largely left intact after the Phage War. That means that despite our technological superiority, the numbers favor them. And it gets better … Admiral?”

“Practically speaking, all of our fissile material came from the New European Commonwealth.” Admiral Marcum stood, having already been warned by the President that he would be required to provide technical background during the meeting. “Specifically, two planets that are controlled by the ESA.”

“Is this really a problem?” Nelson asked skeptically. “We still have over sixteen star systems, some with multiple habitable planets. Statistically some of those systems must have the material we need.”

Marcum shook his head slowly as if exhausted at having to explain something simple to someone so dense. “The material isn’t the issue,” he said. “We can get Uranium-235 almost anywhere … but the processing facilities to produce it in useable quantities are on those two planets. We need the enriched product they produce for our fission-fusion warheads. Thankfully, starship reactors are much more simple and don’t require such an exotic fuel or we’d be in an even worse place, but at our current rate of consumption we’ll lose our ability to produce Shrike warheads within the next year. In case anybody was wondering, the Shrike has become Fleet’s primary ship-to-ship weapon.”

“And the Bespitd munitions depot was just destroyed.” Former Senator Illoka from New America nodded his head in understanding. “Other than scaring us, why is this important?”

“Because the Ushin, as part of our tentative treaty agreement, have offered us technology that will allow us to no longer need fissionable material from the ESA worlds, at least not for weapons production,” Wellington said. “We’ll get into those details later, but the more significant offer from them is up to twenty-six new, human-habitable planets within practical range of our territory.”

This announcement set off a flurry of loud, shocked responses as each member of the new Parliament tried to wrap their head around the implications of so many new planets ready for colonization.

“As you can see, gentleman, this is quite an offer,” Wellington said, finally moving to sit behind the wood desk that dominated the room. “But it’s not without some drawbacks, both philosophical and practical. First to the practical, if you wouldn’t mind, Admiral.”

“Realistically, we would struggle to fend off a serious offensive on our own territory,” Marcum began. “That means that any military assets that are sent to help the Ushin leave us just that much more vulnerable. There has been a strong effort since the Phage War to implement planetary and system-wide defenses, but so far only the more wealthy systems have managed to get anything in place. We’re working to mitigate that, but there’s currently nothing in place so we’re completely dependent on a depleted Starfleet. So … from a purely practical standpoint we can deploy the Fleet to help the Ushin or hold them back and protect our own systems.”

“This raises another problem,” Nelson said, his eyes never leaving Marcum’s. “I’ve seen the numbers … Fleet doesn’t have enough ships to protect
all
Fed planets.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Wellington cut in. “No matter what’s decided here, hard choices will need to be made about what systems are critical and which will need to fend for themselves. So now that we know what’s at stake, here’s where the logic gets a bit mushy. In the last ten years we’ve gone from knowing about one other species from humans in the galaxy to four new ones, each seeming to be much further up the technological ladder than we are.”

“Is there a point to this, Mr. President?” Illoka asked. “With all due respect, sir, we all know we’re here to be sold on something. Let’s hurry along to the point and then we can get down to the nitty gritty of the matter.”

“Very well,” Wellington said. “We need allies. From what we’ve been exposed to it’s unrealistic to think that we can remain isolated and keep to ourselves. We’re too spread out, our ships are too slow, and we’re extremely vulnerable after the Phage War. The Ushin are offering territory, planets, and technology in exchange for military intervention. With the new Articles of Federation we’ve all just signed I have the authority to deploy CENTCOM assets in emergency situations, but I don’t think this would count as one. For the Fleet to be involved in the Ushin/Darshik conflict I would need a resolution from the Parliament. Let’s also not forget that we’ve been attacked as well.”

“What you’re essentially asking us is if we’re willing sacrifice people and ships defending one alien species from another, but not out of some misguided altruism,” Nelson said, standing up to indicate he wanted the floor. “While this is not something we’ve had to deal with in the last few centuries, it’s not without precedent. Most of Earth’s history in the post-industrial age was defined by the application of military force. The Americans in particular had a very aggressive interventionist doctrine towards the end of their run, and even the reformed North American Union liked to apply pressure with its Navy. This sort of action is always presented to the public as being something other than what it really is: using force to protect something someone has that we want, or to take it from someone else who won’t share. Am I right so far?”

“Yes,” Wellington said, his eyes narrowed with suspicion, but he made no move to stop Nelson.

“The Ushin are willing to pay dearly for our help,” Nelson continued. “Over two dozen habitable worlds and access to their superior technology … I don’t see how we can say no. You all heard the reality we’re faced with: Without help the Federation won’t last long, and the ESA will be able to pluck even more worlds from our control, one by one. This is not something I do lightly, Wellington … but I’ll take your proposal to the floor and push it through.”

****

Pike shut the feed off and leaned back. He’d discreetly planted a listening device on Wellington when he’d brought the President back to New Sierra. It was something he regularly did, and without much guilt, since he worked for Wellington directly and the man was woefully inadequate when it came to briefing his personal intel operative after such a meeting. Pike had learned early on that it was much more efficient to just listen in and get the entire picture so he was ready when Wellington inevitably came to him with some outlandish request afterward.

What he had just listened to, however, disturbed him greatly … but should it? The PMs and the President had basically just colluded to drag humanity into another war for what amounted to payment by the Ushin. Despite having a military organization that was hundreds of years old, the concept of war was largely lost on this generation of humans. The Phage War was a flailing, knee-jerk reaction to being attacked, but what Wellington was proposing was an offensive based on false pretense in order to gain the resources the Ushin were willing to part with. Was he being naive in thinking this was something they should not be considering? He certainly didn’t think of himself as much of an idealist, not given the things he’d seen and done in his lifetime, so what was it about this in particular that made it so repugnant?

Taking the scale factor away he had to concede that this was no different than some of the things he’d done as an agent in the CIS. Were any of his political assassinations really so different than sending a few squadrons of starships to hit the Darshik? When you boiled away the distracting details of each there wasn’t really any distinction between his killing of a single person to encourage a certain political outcome than there was in killing Darshiks for the Ushin.

“What the hell,” he muttered and began bringing the Broadhead’s primary flight systems back online. Pike had what was kindly called a “flexible morality” and it was one of the main reasons he was found to be psychologically suited for work as an agent.

He directed his stealthy ship into a steep climb that would take it out of the low orbit it had been loitering in and break connection with the device he’d put on Wellington. It was one of the better bits of tech he’d gotten from CIS before the fall of Haven; the tiny transmitter would actually dissolve away the next time the shirt was laundered and his boss would be none the wiser. As he felt the throb of the Broadhead’s reactionless drive he wondered what, if anything, he should do with the ill-gotten information. Normally when he pulled one of these counter-intelligence stunts with his boss it was as a sort of checks and balance and he never trafficked information that couldn’t have been found through legitimate means had someone just known to look.

This was different, and he couldn’t easily explain away potential actions he might take that would be rightly considered treason were he found out. The documents he’d leaked to the media regarding Jackson Wolfe notwithstanding, he had no desire to be branded a traitor and he really had no moral high ground to plant his flag on save for a vague uneasiness about senior politicians manipulating the government for gain. But was there really anything wrong going on here? The Fleet flies out to help a species that is asking to be protected and is offered a haul of planets in return. Alliances have been struck for weaker reasoning and other than the “politics as usual” aspect of it Pike wasn’t so certain Wellington and Marcum were in the wrong.

No … for now he’d just keep the recording to himself and do as he was ordered. Wellington hadn’t been able to get a straight answer out of his CENTCOM Chief of Staff regarding Project Prometheus, so while they’d been hooked into the
Amsterdam’s
com system via the Tsuyo provided backdoor Pike had also cast a wide net through any of Marcum’s files he could find. As soon as he’d dropped off the President at the New Sierra Platform his new orders were to start hunting for whatever this project was.

“Gonna be another long, lonely trip,” he groused as the Broadhead zipped away from the planet and towards the Columbiana jump point.

“Captain Wright is on the com, Admiral.” Marcum’s aide stuck her head in his office.

“Thank you, Lieutenant Emerson,” Marcum said. “I’ll take it in here.”

“Senior Captain Wright reporting as ordered, Admiral.” Celesta’s face appeared on the monitor.

“Are you alone in your office, Captain?” Marcum said, fighting to keep his voice neutral.

“Yes, sir.”

“I don’t think I need to tell you how badly you’ve pissed me off this time, Wright … suffice it to say that at my earliest convenience you will be removed from the bridge of that ship,” Marcum started, still struggling to keep his tone measured and professional.

“Unfortunately for me, that day isn’t today. I’ve reviewed Commander Barrett’s service record and I just don’t think he’s ready to assume command, nor can I afford to have the
Icarus’
efficiency go down the shitter by swapping in a new command staff on the brink of a major offensive. I need Ninth Squadron and your ship at their best.” Marcum stopped and just stared at his captain. She was staring back at him impassively, not offering any explanations or excuses.

“Needless to say, I don’t think you’ll need to worry about me forcing you onto the bridge of the
New York
. What it is about you Black Fleet officers that makes you think you know best is beyond me … but I’m about to do some long-overdue house cleaning once this—”

“Admiral, if this is supposed to be some sort of pep talk before a major military operation I fail to understand how this in any way is helpful to either you or me,” Celesta said, managing to look bored by the whole thing.

“Oh, I’m sorry … am I holding you up, Captain?” Some of the anger Marcum was feeling began to slip past his façade.

“No, sir, you’re not,” Celesta said calmly. “But you’ve indicated that we have an operation upcoming and I’d prefer to focus on that. I’m not denying that I disobeyed orders and ordered my ship out of orbit as well as leaving the station while it was on lockdown. We could argue the finer points of that, but I get the distinct feeling that it wouldn’t be a productive conversation, at least not right now.”

“Very well, Captain.” Marcum swallowed down his retort. How was she able to so easily get under his skin? He knew it was beginning to look like he had a personal axe to grind with regards to Wright and that put her at an advantage.

“Barring any surprises during tomorrow’s full session of the new Parliament, it will be announced that we’ve agreed to terms and will be entering into a limited protection treaty with the Ushin. We’re expecting a full brief package from Ambassador Cole’s staff in the next few hours, and as soon as we’re authorized we’ll be sending the first intelligence assets to begin verifying everything we’re told.

“Due to a variety of reasons, not the least of which being the attacks on Terran ships and systems, we will want to move very quickly to take back the initiative. The Ninth Squadron will be deploying with the advanced formations to establish beachheads in the Ushin systems we’ll be expected to clear of Darshik ships.”

“Do we have any sort of intelligence on Darshik strength levels in these systems, sir?” Celesta asked. “We’re only marginally more familiar with them than we were with the Phage when it attacked, and I’d prefer not to have a repeat of how that turned out.”

“Nor I, Captain.” Marcum leaned back in his seat. “We’re in a wait and see position until Cole’s team gets the briefing scrubbed and sent up to us. Communicating with the Ushin is still ponderous and, at times, inaccurate so it’s slow going.”

“And yet we’re rushing in to—”

“You and I don’t make policy, Captain,” Marcum cut her off. “And we’ll not be discussing it now. The reason for this meeting, besides wanting to look you in the eye before I decided whether or not to have you relieved of command, is to tell you I want you to begin organizing all Black Fleet assets in this system any way you see fit to facilitate a quick deployment. You’ll be the first ships out to the initial rally point and then your destroyers will be flying ahead of the convoy when we make the final push. My aide will be transmitting your official orders that will give you the authority you need. Any questions?”

“Many, many questions, sir,” Celesta said. “But it will wait. We’ll begin redeploying all Seventh Fleet ships as soon as our orders come in.”

“Then that will be all, Captain.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

****

Celesta killed the channel and stared at the screen for a long moment, noticing the details of CENTCOM’s new crest for the first time as it replaced the image of Admiral Marcum’s scowling face. She really didn’t think what she’d done had been so severe as to warrant the Chief of Staff’s reaction. In her mind, she’d taken bold, decisive action when everyone else seemed to flounder and had pulled their asses out of the fire by getting her ship to where it could do the most good. Instead, it looked like it had sunk her career. She also caught a whiff of an underlying anger directed towards her. Celesta had always thought Marcum was one of her more ardent supporters despite Wolfe’s warning not to trust him. How she went from being considered for the command of a battleship to being told her days in Starfleet were numbered was a mystery to her, but like her mentor had said over and over: Marcum’s rank of admiral became an honorific when he became CENTCOM Chief of Staff. Now he was a politician before he was an officer.

“Commander Barrett and Ensign Accari, please report to my office,” Celesta said conversationally and waited for the computer to beep softly to let her know it understood and had paged the two officers. When the knock came at the hatch a moment later, she let the two in and motioned for them to take a seat.

“Is there a problem, Captain?” Barrett asked, obviously concerned.

“More than one, but let’s get to them in order,” she said as she began pulling up the sensor feeds and putting them on the four large monitors that were arrayed along one bulkhead. “We’ve been tasked with prepping the local Black Fleet assets for redeployment to an as yet undisclosed staging point. We should have orders coming up momentarily that will give me the authority to order them onto new courses.”

“We’re leaving, ma’am?” Accari asked. “Right after this system was attacked?”

“We’re preparing for a counterattack,” Celesta corrected. “I’ll explain all that in due time. I think the faster we get out of this system the better, however, so let’s take a look at our orders and get to work.”

Her orders from CENTCOM ended up being as vague as she expected them to be, but they did empower her with enough command authority to get the other Seventh Fleet captains underway and steaming up to where she wanted them. Since most of the Black Fleet ships were orbiting DeLonges she sent an immediate transmission to Orbital Control to have them all moved up to a high holding orbit and ordered them up to escape velocity. It would take the better part of the day for them to untangle themselves from the random formations they had moved into to get up and away from the planet.

Celesta had no doubt her Fourth Fleet counterpart had received similar orders and she wanted to get her ships moving first. After she’d sent Accari up to the bridge to handle getting her orders to the fourteen ships in orbit around DeLonges, she messaged Lieutenant Ellison directly to have him order the two Black Fleet assault cruisers in orbit over New Sierra to form up on the
Icarus
.

“I think the sixth planet will make the most sense to form up around,” Celesta said, having changed one of the monitors to a real-time depiction of the DeLonges System with a top-down view. “We’ll still be far enough down the well to give the older ships plenty of room to accelerate to transition velocity, but we’ll be out of the mess down here.”

“So we’re really doing this,” Barrett said. “We’re going to war over the attack in the Xi’an System.”

“It would appear so,” Celesta said slowly. “You feel we shouldn’t?”

“I feel like I would like to know more about the Darshik, and from a source independent from the Ushin,” Barrett said. “While most people have no idea what the Phage actually was, we do. The Vruahn could have been straight with us the moment they knew Xi’an had been attacked the first time, but they withheld support and information until after millions were dead.”

“And you think the Ushin are similarly duplicitous?”

“Maybe.” Barrett shrugged. “I do think we’re being spoon fed information in order to reach the conclusion they want us to. I’m also not so certain I believe that a race of beings with advanced starships and colonies on other planets somehow can’t build an effective weapon and deploy it. The Vruahn were also pacifists but were able to build powerful warships, the Phage itself, and even cloned humans to do their fighting.”

“Unfortunately, Commander, we’re all drawing our conclusions based on the limited information we each have,” Celesta said, ignoring the last part of his comments as they raised an unpleasant reality. “And that isn’t much, given that CENTCOM and the civilian oversight is being very tight-lipped.”

“How do you reconcile with that, Captain?” Barrett pressed her.

“I simplify it for myself,” she said, turning to him. “I took an oath when I joined Starfleet and accepted my commission. If I’m told that to protect humanity we need to fly back in harm’s way, then that’s what we’ll do. I may question the wisdom of it, but if the time comes when I find I can no longer perform my duty in good faith I’ll resign my commission and return home. But what I won’t do is openly defy the orders of those who are appointed over me.”

Barrett said nothing and Celesta couldn’t help but wonder if her professed faith in the chain of command was a result of her previous meeting with Admiral Marcum.

The admiral’s biting, angry remarks had completely blindsided Celesta, as she thought she had enjoyed his trust and genuinely felt she was doing what was expected of her. She was from a world where trust was earned and not so fickly revoked, and the higher she rose in the ranks of Starfleet and the closer she got to that gray demarcation line that blurred the boundary between military and politics the more she realized things weren’t so cut and dried. It didn’t bother her so much that Marcum had used her and her ship’s legend to further his own agendas, as she was beginning to suspect was the case, but she was annoyed that despite the repeated warnings from someone who had been there she’d still allowed herself to be caught off-guard when it turned on her.

“How long until those two cruisers get up here?” she asked Barrett. He blinked a few times at the sudden change of subject before recovering.

“Fourteen hours, ma’am,” he said. “Give or take an hour. They’re parked down in a holding orbit stationary relative to the Platform, actually trailing along behind it. Once they’re cleared they’ll have to push away into traffic and move through three transfer orbits to get up to us.”

“Send them new orders to just meet us over the sixth planet with everyone else.” Celesta stood and logged off her terminal. “I want the
Icarus
away from New Sierra as quickly as possible.”

“Aye, ma’am.”

****

“This has to be some sort of record,” Admiral Marcum commented as he read over the summary sheet of the resolution that had just been passed in the Parliament. “Nearly unanimous too.”

“Always a few holdouts,” President Wellington said as he sat carefully in his seat. “Don’t worry, it’s all in there. How are things on your end?”

“Wright and Everett are organizing the taskforce.” Marcum laid the document down on the table in front of him. “The
Amsterdam
is in no shape to fly so I’ll be transferring over to the—”

“You’ll be handing command of this mission over to Fleet Admiral Pitt, or another suitable flag officer, and you’ll be transferring your stuff down here to your office … the place where you’re supposed to be when I need you,” Wellington said. “You’re the CENTCOM Chief of Staff, the liaison between Fleet and my office. You are
not
supposed to be standing on the bridge of a starship interfering with your people. From what I’ve seen recently you’re far too close to the operations side.”

“Mr. President, if I may—”

“This is not a negotiation, Marcum!” Wellington said loudly. “Either get with the program or get busy with your resignation. I need you doing the job your position requires. You’re fairly useless to me if every time I need an answer from you I have to wait four weeks for a com drone to find you.”

“Yes, Mr. President,” Marcum said neutrally, knowing this was an argument he wasn’t going to win. “I’ll assign someone as soon as I get to my office. I can’t afford to have Pitt gone for that long.”

“That’s fine,” Wellington said. “Just make sure it’s someone who can work well with Captain Wright since she’ll be executing the initial push. Which ship is taking the
Amsterdam
’s place? This is just idle curiosity, mind you … I’m not micromanaging Fleet operations.”

“It’ll have to be the
New York
,” Marcum sighed. “She’s the only
Dreadnought
-class ship that’s FMC. The
Amsterdam
is out and the others are at the Tsuyo-Barclays Shipyards over Arcadia getting the RDS refit.”

“Get your people spun up and get those ships out of the DeLonges System as fast as you can,” Wellington said. “We have legislative approval on this so let’s not sit on it. The Ushin are holding up their side of things so far, at least according to the diplomatic team, so as soon as Fleet Planning decides this is an acceptable risk given the size of the taskforce we’re fielding I want them underway.”