Christopher Nuttall - Barbarians at the Gates

After all, they were currently in what amounted to a civil war. Who could you trust?

But, despite that thought, Roman still felt a thrill of anticipation as the captain issued the order.

“Jump.”

There was a faint flicker of unease—gone almost as soon as he noticed it—and the displays flickered. And little else. But, despite the lack of drama, they had just hopped thirty light years in a split-second. The scientists swore blind that the transit wasn’t actually instantaneous, but it took less than a picosecond, a time period that no human mind could measure. Roman was almost disappointed. Surely, his first jump as a commissioned officer should be more exciting.

But he knew he should feel fortunate. Only a handful of humans felt anything more than a brief shock when they passed through an Asimov Point, but those who did tended to do poorly in space. And if he’d wanted to stay in one place for the rest of his life, he would have stayed a RockRat.

“Jump complete,” the helmsman said. “Moving to fleet position now, sir.”

“Bring up the main drive and prepare to take us out,” the captain ordered calmly.

Roman sucked in his breath. Enterprise and the remainder of the Retribution Fleet had started their long crawl towards Harmony, a trip that would take more than a month. He looked forward to the journey, but he still felt a strange sense of foreboding. Who knew what was waiting for them out there?

“Madam Exec?” the captain asked, motioning toward Roman and Sultana.

Commander Duggan just shook her head, apparently understanding whatever it was the captain refused to say. “Come on, you two,” she said to Roman and Sultana. “Those tactical simulations won’t beat themselves, you know.”

Roman nodded and stood up, taking one last look at the holographic display. The mighty carrier wasn’t alone. Hundreds of starships followed, flickering through the Asimov Point and into formation. The massed power of the Retribution Force seemed unstoppable. And yet a chill ran down his spine.

“But if you think you’re unstoppable,” Kratman had said, years ago, “you won’t look for your own weaknesses.”

Marius sat in the sealed observation blister, half-wishing he could see outside, even though he knew it would be unpleasant. Stardrive had many advantages, but it was dangerous to look out into space when it was activated. Instead, he looked down at his terminal, yet his thoughts kept wandering. It was hard to concentrate on anything.

For the first one thousand years of interstellar exploration, the human race had been forced to follow the Asimov Points if they wanted to cross interstellar distances in a reasonable amount of time. A star that possessed no Asimov Point—or no Asimov Point that linked into human-settled space—was unreachable, at least by Federation starships. Quite a few political renegades and RockRats had built STL colony ships and set out to found a colony somewhere well out of the Federation’s reach. The discovery of the stardrive—allowing limited FTL travel without an Asimov Point—had placed some long-lost colonies back in contact with the Federation, or created new mysteries where colony ships had simply vanished into the darkness of space. Every space cadet knew the stories—the lost treasure ship of Titan, or the daughters of the King of the Stars—and dreamed about finding them somewhere in the interstellar void. Like most such myths, they were impossible to prove one way or the other.

No one was permitted to use the Observation Blister when the stardrive was activated, moving the fleet through an effectively endless series of tiny gravitational distortions. Marius, like most humans, could not have explained how the drive worked to save his life, but he did know that watching the effects on the starlight could cause sickness, perhaps even madness. Instead, he peered down at the latest report from the training exercises and thought dark thoughts about politically-appointed officers. He’d been given command of the massed firepower of seventy superdreadnaughts, which wasn’t enough to deal with the potential problem.

Admiral Parkinson, to be fair, had agreed to continue with training exercises during the long flight to Harmony. During the first two weeks of transit, Marius had run every simulated drill in the book and several that had never been officially written down. He’d wanted to run some live-fire exercises as well, but Admiral Parkinson had vetoed the idea, citing concerns over cost and delays. But the results hadn’t been encouraging.

The Retribution Force was shaping up, albeit slowly, yet it wasn’t anything close to ready for combat. Given a few more months, he was confident that every unit would do its duty, but for the moment…he scowled and shook his head. He couldn’t make soldiers out of a bunch of ill-trained reservists overnight. Especially considering that quite a few of the officers had been in the Naval Reserve because a superior officer had wanted to put them somewhere harmless.

It was easy to understand why. Some of them actually made Admiral Parkinson look competent.

He glanced down at the latest report and made a face. There was one advantage of dealing with Admiral Parkinson: the man didn’t have the imagination to be dishonest, or even cook the files in his own favor. And Marius would have bet good money that he’d never heard of a Cover Your Ass code, allowing the files to be quietly reedited after the fact.

The Retribution Fleet had all the supplies it needed, locked up tight so some profiteering quartermaster couldn’t make a profit by selling them on the black market, yet some of the commanders were jerking Marius’s chain. The readiness reports on at least twenty superdreadnaughts would have been grounds for an immediate court martial during his first command. The commodore would have had the malefactors locked up and shipped home before they had known what hit them.

But Marius didn’t have that option. As it was, he’d been forced to pull rank to reshuffle the commands so that each superdreadnaught squadron was led by competent officers.

A quick tap on his terminal brought up the star chart. There was no way to know how Admiral Justinian had placed his ships, but the further the fleet proceeded, the more likely it was that they would run into trouble. In two weeks, they would enter Jefferson and pass through the Harmony Asimov Point. If Justinian didn’t show his hand before then, he would have to show it at Jefferson or fall back on the defensive.

He shook his head. Nothing he knew about the rogue admiral suggested he was a man who would be content to stay on the defensive.

There was no point in hoping that the fleet’s progress was a secret. The Senate had loudly proclaimed the launch of the Retribution Fleet—they’d had no choice, considering the Battle of Earth, much less the executions—and pledged to bring Justinian to justice. Marius knew that a single commercial ship with military-grade sensors could have tracked them as they passed through the Gateway, then made a wide dog-leg around the fleet, passed through the next Asimov Point ahead of the fleet, and then raced home. It would be easy for Justinian to track the fleet and plan his ambush.

But why hadn’t he attacked? In Justinian’s place, Marius would have harried the Retribution Fleet and slowed it down until he was ready to crush it. Standard military doctrine stated that the attacker required a three-to-one advantage for certain victory. Sure, the Retribution Force was more than powerful enough to beat Seventh Fleet in a straight up fight, but then, Justinian would know that, too. He would have something unpleasant up his sleeve.

Marius shook his head and keyed another switch. If nothing else, he would do his duty unless relieved or killed in action.