Christopher Nuttall: Barbarians at the Gates

Luna Academy, Sol System, 4092

“Cadet Garibaldi,” Professor Kratman said, walking through the desks until he was standing right in front of his chosen victim, “I wish you to consider something for the benefit of your fellows. What do the First Battle of Zion, the Battle of Spider Bite and the Battle of Athens all have in common?”

Roman Garibaldi fought hard to keep his expression under control. Professor Kratman wasn’t known for suffering fools gladly and the obvious answer—all three battles had been fought in space—was almost certainly not the right one. But then, there might not be a right answer; Kratman was hardly above throwing an unanswerable question at the class. The professor—his face was badly scarred by radiation burns, leading to much speculation outside class—was waiting patiently. Disappointing him was not an option.

Roman considered it briefly, thinking hard. All three battles had been studied extensively during Second Year, right before the cadets had passed their first tests. The three battles were significant—two had marked the start of a war; the third had effectively ended one—but there were hundreds of other such significant battles in the Federation’s two thousand year history. He ran his hand through his blond hair and smiled as the answer came to him.

“Sir,” he said. “The three battles represent conceptual defeats.”

“Oh?” Professor Kratman said, peering down at him. “And were the defeats imaginary, then? Were the dead bodies floating in space delusions of an oxygen-starved mind?”

Roman shook his head, ignoring the titters from his classmates. If nothing else, Professor Kratman taught cadets how to think on their feet.

“No, sir,” he said. “The defeats represented a failure of imagination by the losing side. They thought they knew everything and allowed themselves to be surprised by the enemy.”

“Interesting,” Professor Kratman mused. He made a show of stroking his hairless chin. “And would you care to elaborate for the benefit of your fellow cadets?”

“Yes, sir,” Roman agreed. It wasn’t as if he had a choice. Besides, he was uncomfortably aware that he might just be giving the professor rope to hang him, as Kratman was also known for allowing cadets to trip themselves up in the hopes they would learn from the experience. “Prior to the First Battle of Zion, it was commonly believed that aliens would be peaceful, rather than being just as violent as humanity. When the Zion Defense Force encountered alien starships emerging from a previously undiscovered Asimov Point in the Zion System, they allowed themselves to be suckered into a position that allowed the Snakes to obliterate the entire force with ease. The result of this failure was the occupation of Zion and the First Interstellar War, which served as the catalysts for binding the Federation together.”

Of course, he thought as he took a deep breath, the Inheritance Wars are still a sore subject in the Federation.

“In the Battle of Spider Bite, the…ah, loyalist commander knew that all he was facing were converted freighters and a handful of local defense starships. He charged through the Asimov Point, leading a fleet of battlecruisers and battleships, only to run into an enemy armed with compressed antimatter, a substance that had never before been used in combat. The result was the total obliteration of the Federation force and the Inheritance Wars.

“In the Battle of Athens, the rebel commander knew the loyalist forces would have to come through one of the Asimov Points in the system and had drawn up his forces to contest the gateway, as military doctrine demanded after the discovery of the first Asimov Point. The rebels were taken completely by surprise when the loyalists, using the continuous displacement stardrive, bypassed the Asimov Point network and assaulted their positions from the rear. It was the decisive battle of the Inheritance Wars.”

Roman braced himself. “In all three battles, one side was presented with something completely outside its context,” he concluded. “They suffered from a failure of imagination.”

“An interesting viewpoint,” the Professor said. He looked around the room. “Would any of you care to comment?”

“I would, sir,” Cadet Blake Raistlin said.

Roman rolled his eyes inwardly. Cadet Raistlin was from one of the wealthiest families on Old Earth, with ties that led all the way up to the Grand Senate, and when they’d first met, Raistlin had tried to put the RockRat in his place. He had been astonished to discover that Roman was not only able, but willing to fight back.

But Raistlin had gone on. “How could any of the commanders have predicted that they would be faced with a threat outside their… accepted context ?”

Professor Kratman, unlike some of the other academic staff, showed no inclinations to play favorites. “Would you care to elaborate, cadet?”

Raistlin shot Roman a mischievous look. “The defenders of Zion expected to face human enemies, not aliens,” he said. “Compressed antimatter was only a theory, as was the continuous displacement drive. How could they have prepared to face a threat they didn’t even know existed?”

“Interesting point,” Professor Kratman mused. He turned and faced Raistlin. “Do you believe that the universe is fair , cadet?”

“No, sir,” Raistlin said. It was one thing that had been drummed into their heads since they had entered Luna Academy. The universe was not fair. It simply didn’t care about humans—or aliens. “But you cannot blame a commanding officer for doing everything by The Book and then being defeated by something outside of The Book.”

“The Board of Inquiry might disagree with you,” Kratman said dryly, referring to the inquiry held whenever a Federation starship was lost on active duty. “Let us consider the situation, just for a moment. Why did the defenders of Zion believe that aliens would be peaceful and friendly? Answer—the general belief at the time, encouraged by the discovery of Graveyard a few years prior to the First Interstellar War, was that a violent and aggressive race would not make it into space. Their logic was fundamentally flawed as humanity , a violent and aggressive race, had already made it into space. They thought of humans as being somehow…less than aliens. If we made it through the bottleneck and out into space, why couldn’t another violent race? Reasoning from a single example, like Graveyard, produces dubious results, not least because Graveyard might have been the result of an interstellar war.”

Roman shivered. A few years after the discovery of the network of Asimov Points—which allowed instant travel between star systems—human explorers had stumbled across a dead world, destroyed by nuclear war. The level of devastation had been so high that no one knew what the inhabitants had called themselves. Their records had been so badly damaged that no one would ever know what had taken place to cause the war, or why it had been fought to such a dark finish.

“The Battle of Spider Bite is also indicative of the dangers of stagnated thinking and unchallenged assumptions,” Kratman continued. “The loyalist commander knew that the rebels didn’t have the firepower to take on his entire fleet. It should have occurred to him that they would not have declared independence and started the war without being sure that they had something that could tip the balance in their favor. And they did—compressed antimatter. The resulting disaster could have been avoided, if only by holding a formation that was more than a premature victory parade.