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Beyond Hope
- Chapter 23 - A Thorough Housecleaning[]
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Tour of the Facilities[]
Boojam Shipyard
Spider's Moon
Kowloon System, Federated Commonwealth (Lyran State)
December 1st, 3055
Kapitain Wells floated over an orbital gantry. There were twelve more in this particular installation, and seven out of twelve of them held…well..
"We're still working out some bugs in the program." Temporary Commodore Giao Pham was explaining, "Over in three, there, you can see we've just got the core from last month's forging process being secured for the first major structural spine and ribs. Four's got the base ribs and engine reinforcements about forty percent, and the structures gang has begun assembly of the shielding hull and some of the power-feeder conduits. Five's got the Tier one work finished, they're starting on the inner hull layer between core and what will be the pressure decks."
Radially symmetrical, and inside-outward construction. "Those are…?"
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Merchant Class JumpShip
"This line's building Merchant class ships." Giao said, "The ones you asked about, that's on line three, about six thousand kilometers…" she pointed, "...that away. Trailing in Boojum's orbit a good forty minutes' flight. We set it up closer to the large Core-Forges. The Nghien Roskovskiy and Sithers-Deen Co-ops do most of the personnel housing for that line."
"I see…so you're using forgings for the Mako prototypes, and castings for the commercial ships. Why the difference?"
"We can do the forgings, Ma'am. Jump core 'casting' is really an extrusion method, the product is superheated and pushed through the 'casting assembly' then super-cooled to achieve a Glass-State in the Titanium/Germanium alloy. Forging's more complicated, but the gear is smaller, makes it easier to service,maintain, and construct, which is how and why the first jumpship cores were forgings, not castings….but it's also very expensive. We've got seven slips active here on the commercial line, out of twelve, but we made five deliveries in the last year. Over there? We've got twelve slips, and one active-and it's gonna be two years before we have a good core to put into slip two unless next week's forging actually comes out within spec."
"So what's the hold-up?" "We're still mastering how to run the equipment." Giao said seriously. "My family, Pham-Desteen, are Snarkers, but we're 'known' for our metalwork, especially big projects, and we're the number-one co-op out here for reverse-engineering the heavy shipyard equipment, now you'd think that would be an 'in', right?"
"Logically."
"Put those forges at Alarion or Pandora and you'll see them turning out a core in three months, instead of six-the difference is we know how to build, how to adjust, how to repair the equipment, but those guys at Lockheed CBM, or Ioto? They've got generations of people schooled in how to operate the stuff better than we can."
“Basically you’re saying you know how to turn a wrench but they know how to turn a screwdriver. Despite the surface similarities they actually have quite important distinctions.”
"Skills matter, we're still in the 'learning how' phase, we've done ship repairs before, but it's that 'other' knowledge-like how to optimize work-flow and 'read' the product that we're still learning. Ten years from now we'll be able to out-produce them line-for-line, but right now? We're still greenhorns and it shows. The list of accidents at the yards since Her Grace authorized the expansion looks like the casualty listing for a minor war."
“Okay skilled labor is too rare in this industry to keep that up. I’ll see what strings I can pull to get some of their guys out here to train yours up.”
"Developing the skilled labor pool at all is how it GOT that long." Giao noted. "We'll get there, and the accident rates ARE dropping, but some of this is making-it-up-as-we-go. My brother had to actually do ENGINEERING for the first time since he came home from UW Donegal ten years ago, to fill the gaps in what we don't have because nobody realized we'd need it."
“Still we need to narrow that gap and Lockheed CBM or Ioto can help with that.”
Giao gestured, and they took the 'broomstick' maneuvering unit low over 'line one'.
"Is that mylar?"
"Yeah. we've found that we can make a temporary pressure area for some of the fine work using mylar balloons instead of reinforced ferrocrete and ship-steel permanent structures, which is how the merchant line is even competitive given how much lead time there has to be on the jump cores."
"That won't last thirty seconds in an attack."
"No, but it only takes about two hours to get it back up and running after. Same for some accident types." Giao said, "now, you've seen this part of the yard…you were interested in the Ordnance storage and depots?"
“Yeah. Show me.”
"Okay, so we'll need to catch a shuttle from here, it's closer in, in the Rings. If you want, you can witness a disarm trainex on the way-Boojum One's hosting the quarterlies for the Quhon-Rattleboro co-op out of the Snark area."
“Waste not, want not.”
The 'shuttle' turned out to be grossly under-weight and overpowered.
"This is-"
"Mining skiff, only the plating's denatured after a close miss, so we fixed it with Starslab and a coat of paint and reassigned it to shuttle work in the Boojum belts. Get comfy, it's a nine hour flight pulling one gee to the turnover and one gee for the slow-down."
Wells turned off her radio so she could whisper a prayer in private before entering the skiff.
Inside, the skiff had a double row of seating, pressure curtains stowed over airlock doors and interior doors, the whole thing was sectioned.
It was relatively well appointed, all things considered.
"Mining skiff?"
"Usually the method is you find a medium rock, dismount the engine pack, and assemble the control deck and pressure area on one side, and the engine packs and maneuvering thrusters around it, then drive it to a processing area, where the skiff's dismantled from the cargo and reassembled for re-use. This one was a little too close when Shorty Galvan-Deen screwed up fusing on a half kiloton rockbreaker."
“Sounds overly complicated. Why not just create a tugplate adapter?”
"It does, doesn't it? Only see, a mining crew with a skiff is maybe four people. A cargo ship big enough to do the same job would need around twenty. Same for most dropships. The Hannelans use a tugplate design, but it hasn't caught on-the rock has to be a certain size and shape or it goes unbalanced. These? If you can do the calculus, you can rig it to damn near anything."
“Yeah but with the right design the same calculus with a tugplate would cut a lot of the disassemble and re-assemble time out without increasing manpower needs.”
'DId I mention how much of our infrastructure gear is hand-me-downs?" Giao quipped, "most of the skiffs went out of use about fifty, sixty years ago, it's why we can afford to use this one as a bus, and why my Granddad bothered to weld the segments in place."
“Now that makes some sense.”
"Your concern about the Newtown Square incident-Her Majesty's order…" Giao began, returning to a subject Wells was still mulling on how to fully address, even moreso having seen this much.
"How did it happen?"
"Sheri Rhoades was answering a distress call, that turned into a pursuit. The Rhoades have a mining burrow in the Newtown Square Kuiper, and Her Grace may have forgotten, but I have copies of the documents-the Noble Ruler of that world let the licenses to what he considered a useless bit of deep space territory full of dangerous rocks, so we have a patrol that operates there on an annual basis to deliver mail and supplies and do your standard health-and-welfare stuff…well, the Clanners showed up and Sheri…reacted. Not the smart way, but the way someone who has something to lose reacts."
“So they decided to engage rather than retreat.”
"Not what I'd have done, not what Mitch Cartwright would've done either, and Li would have had kittens, I think." Pham agreed, "but Rhoades saw a warship and it was prowling with stated intent, and she had six missile casings and her relatives had fifteen K mining charges that would FIT the torpedoes instead of the conventional warheads they're supposed to have. I've got the whole crew on stand-down pending a full investigation…but it's still a bad situation. Clanners who've hit other Spacer communities don't leave a lot alive." she paused, "Or at least, that's the rumor we caught from a Jarnvolk trader two years ago."
“Well seeing how as a Clan force hasn’t jumped the truce line to express their displeasure over the matter seems to indicate the Archon is at least talking with them.”
Giao chuckled, "Why would they jump the line when we're above it? They can come reaving right in, and it won't make a burble on Focht's treaty with 'em."
“True and that we’re even having this conversation still indicates we’re having fortune on our side.”
"Y'all are." Giao said, "from my perspective, please excuse it, ma'am, we're in this because my Duchess got official attention on us at a bad time, and that means the Central Government's going to try to make my people work our trade using pathetic little lasers and conventional explosives instead of tools that work. Hell, for all I know, some meddler from Tharkad wants to put my people down at the bottom of the WELL, with SHOVELS." she rolled her eyes as she finished the preflight. "Digging like primitives in a pit under…ugh…open sky."
“You have to admit with the horrors of the Succession Wars people have a lot of valid reasons to be nervous.”
"The succession wars were a distant thing, Kapitain." Giao said, "for my people, they were something that we read about in school, and our ancestors heard about on Comnet or read about in wellwallah media. We didn't really do that much participating beyond selling materials and sometimes equipment. I'm a Snarker, that means this is as close as I've ever gotten to an earthlike planet, so when the dirtyfeet nuked each other it was a distant tragedy happening to someone else. Very sad, but not our problem to solve."
"THIS is as close as you've gotten?"
"Yeah." Giao said, "I have a natural, rational aversion to being exposed to uncontrolled solar radiation with only a magnetic field to keep it out, and an aversion to having an open, unsealed not-a-roof where the only thing holding the air in, is gravity. Not to mention that natural biospheres are geared superbly for killing people at random. And there's really nothing you can do to stop them."
“Tell that to my Uncle who’s spent his entire life on a planet, nearly seventy years now, and not even a hint of cancer or anything more serious than a flu.”
Here, the young 'temporary Commodore' shrugged. "Fair, but not for me. Other people can roll that dice, I'll take my lifestyle over that one any day and twice on saturdays. I was seven years old before I had to learn to walk-like, with your legs, but I could rig my own suit by age five."
“That sounds awkward.”
"Yeah, I had to waste three years in a burrow on Hatter and they only let me out again, once I could stay upright on my own. Very inconvenient for a gal who grew up on the float."
“How are you not wracked with pain in gravity?”
"Who says I'm not?" Gaio asked, "gravity sucks, but it's easier if you just focus on how it's like sustained acceleration-the same methods you use under thrust are what you use in the Well. Docs say my body reacts pretty well to the bone-meds, but I don't have to worry about being stuck with a Down-Well assignment unless or until Li gets back and makes me."
“Humans evolved down in the Well as you call it.”
"But some of us escaped that." Giao said impishly, "I don't have a problem with people choosing to live that way-that's theirs. I don't want to do that is all, at worst my kids will have to do a Hatter tour once they can secure their suits and know to check the filters and seals, or maybe I'll shakc up with someone on a bigger rock that has its own gravity, but open skies? Wind? Wildlife? Ew. not for me. I'll take an environment I can control thanks, where I can do the maintenance and it works."
“Heh. So be it. Got anything that’ll help pass the next eight hours?”
Giao brought up a screen, "Fiction and Prose contest from last year, unless you feel like writing, there's also a few games and some import media, and of course, the library files are full of material."
“Of course the worst part of extensive media libraries is actually choosing.”
"Thus, our friend the Index file. My uncle's second wife has a net-series going, it's listed under 'thrillers' but it reads like porn."
“Eh. It’ll be more action than I’ve had for a while so I’ll take it.”
"I warned you…here you go." the screen shifted to a text display.
Wells hardly noticed falling asleep four hours later.
Testing Facilities[]
Boojum 2
Kowloon System, Federated Commonwealth (Lyran State)
Boojum 2 is an airless rock without tectonic activity, mostly made of various flavors of silicon and iron with a generous salting of heavier metals in the crust and a rather extensive network of cratering.
Perfect for a nuclear detonation testing facility, the whole place is roughly twice the size of Luna by mass and volume.
"Point one two gees, imagine that."
The skiff landed on jacks, and Giao helped Wells down to the dusty surface. "The blastex is going on about five kliks to the local north-northwest, and ten kilometers down." Giao explained.
"Subsurface?"
"Since the Rim Worlds conquered Kowloon in the 26th century." Giao confirmed, "They didn't even know we were doing it for most of that time-they focused on the 'habitable world' and left us mostly alone-aside from harassment by their navy, anyway."
“Outer systems are a bitch to patrol.”
"Yup, makes it nice if you don't want to be hassled." Giao agreed as they walked to a tram laid on the surface. "When Anh Cu'ong launched the Freedom War, a few of ours took their base on Boojum 3, you've visited there-the Terrans built the surface facility for the Rimjobs."
“And you just expanded it. Subsurface obviously.”
"Yup. it was a perfectly good base, once we killed the staff, so ours cleaned it up and used it." Giao said cheerfully, "It's easier than building an O'neill cylinder to act as a trading post, cheaper too."
“So where’s the viewing area?”
The tram slowed at a recessed doorway made of ferrocrete and shipsteel.
"Down the elevator." Giao explained, "We'll be in Bunker A while the testors and their examiners are in Bunker B, after the disarm, assuming all goes well, I'll tour you through the B bunker and you can get a look at the gear first-hand."
“Very good.”
Wells had seen AFFC qualification facilities, but the structure here was heavier. This wasn't meant to go idle for decades between cycles.
"How often do you test here?"
"About every three months." Giao said, "we do a contamination sweep during the off-seasons and we've had to replace armor and shielding pretty frequently, part of why everything is so bulky down here-it absorbs and dissipates if someone has an oopsie."
“That’s a rather large ‘oopsie’ to have.”
"Yeah, which is why we put so much emphasis on training before you get to shoot your first load." Giao confirmed, "This site we do Five, Ten, Fifteen kiloton tests. Megaton testing is done in one of the played out burrows on Hatter, or out in the Kuiper."
Wells was making notes with a pencil and small notebook for her reports as they walked, more floated really.
"Megaton shots?" she asked.
"Yeah, you're not going to crack a hundred kilometer nickel using bitty little ten and fifteen kay shots. Big stuff you crack on the faults using big shots, the bagging isn't that different but believe me, a teller stack is just what's asked for if you find a DeeKay."
"Dee Kay?"
"DInosaur Killer?" Giao said, "You know, Old Terran history? The thing that supposedly ended the Dinos? Something that big, you aren't going to scratch it up using less than megaton shots."
“Yeah. Media loves playing up how useful nukes are in space but really you’ve actually got to get them into the target.”
Giao nodded, "Yup. ones are useful for boring holes in series on a Dee Kay, or for busting up little rocks of around half a kilometer to a kilometer. Tens for hard material once you've bored the holes for the shot, fifteens for hard materials where radiation might be a problem with the ore-they're more efficient burners, when they're made right, and megaton shots if it's either REALLY big, or you REALLY have to break it up in a hurry."
“So how many people have access to the nukes?”
"Aside from the guys who build them? Pretty much anyone who's passed the class and qualified. I think the current count is around thirty thousand, with six thousand having an instructor rating." Giao said, "Remember, there's half a billion of us out here, every major family's got at least one, most have a dozen or two, atomjacks working for them."
“That sounds like a lot of access points. How do you control that?”
"Lots of access points? Maybe. It's like dirtyfeet owning cars I imagine. Most coops have rules of their own, some of the wildcatters buy theirs instead of building them, but the main point of control is fissionables and triggers. The fissionables are needed on the layer-cake Hydrogen bombs, while the triggers are more or less too finicky for most folks to even bother trying to assemble."
“A car is less likely to cause a major incident.”
"Tell that to the people who get run down when Free Skye decides to have a drag race through a market." Giao commented, "I bet it's not a minor thing to them."
“Perhaps but there is still a market left. One of these in the wrong hands and there’s much less left.”
"Thus, the training requirement." Giao said, "gotta understand, Kaptain, my people have been working with this stuff since we fled Sol centuries ago. Idiots don't get to take the class, if they do take it, they tend to self-eliminate in their cert run, and most Co-ops have a…limited…tolerance for people's ideological bullshit, if an Atomjack seems likely to nuke a burrow or town, or drop it where it ought not be dropped? He'll usually have an 'accident' before he gets too far in his plans-nobody wants the heat."
“The most dangerous person is the loner.”
"Yeah, and if you're a loner, you might not ever GET the classes, never mind a qualification shot." Giao responded. "Think about this-lots of empty out here, but everyone lives in each others underwear, because pressurized, safe, liveable conditions have to be made, and maintained. I grew up with less 'open space' in the burrow than most Dirtyfoot houses have in their bedroom-at least, if you believe the holos. If you're not social? You end up not surviving long out here."
“Still all it would take is one person. We have reems and reems of studies, enough to fill entire warehouses.”
"Like it wouldn't take just one guy to assemble a nuke in the middle of a surface city and light it up??" Giao asked, "I seem to recall a few incidents in the 28th century where one lone guy with all the security clearances and security in the world, lit the entire Star League up like a landing day firework-he didn't even need a nuke, just a laser pistol."
“Hence why certain things have not been pursued since then and made rare. So they can be secured and controlled.”
"And lost anyway." Giao observed, "How much tech-tree is gone from everyone, because it was 'secured' somewhere a House Lord decided to park an orbital bombardment, or maybe just a cup full of poison in the right meal? Knowledge isn't what's dangerous. What's dangerous, is ignorance." she tapped a bunker door, "We're here."
Inspection of the Facilities[]
Nothing looked unprofessional. There were no frantic improvised repairs, no unmaintained equipment, event the paint.
Even The Paint had been maintained down here.
On the screen, in another maintained chamber, a young man was working on a two meter by one meter cylinder that anyone with an AFFC Strategic Weapons certificate would recognize as a copy of the fifteen kiloton Peacemaker warhead.
With a clock going in the corner of the screen.
"What happens if he fails?" she asked.
"We'll have to hold the rest of the cycle in a different bunker." Giao said, "This is the live disarm phase, the student there? He's Coast Guard, so he's got to handle Milspec as well as mining shots, including common, known, documented forms of sabotage from the past. Gunny, how far is the student in there?"
"He's on fourth iteration, the solution is to block the firing circuit and cap off the tritium accelerator. He's already disarmed the secondary triggers put in to simulate the Alderton incident back in 2950."
"Alderton…sounds familiar." Wells noted.
"Daniel Alderton, Free Skye activist and one of your 'lone wolves' planted a fifteen kiloton nuke in a shopping center on Donegal in 2950 hoping the incident would trigger a rising-it didn't." Gaio started, then gestured to the NCO overseeing the exercise.
The Gunny explained, "The Bomb Squad they sent in with Lohengrin was lucky-his secondaries didn't work and the Tech disarmed the primary-but that was a poor quality secondary, his design would've worked if he hadn't been using scavenged parts from a ruin. Lance Corporal Meier in there is angling for bomb-squad with one of the Brownwater groups, Arm/Disarm certification is a job requirement."
The Lance Corporal held his hands up as the timer chimed.
"You were screwing with me, You're a lot more careful than you let on." Wells accused.
"You were screwing with yourself, Herr Kapitain." Giao said, "We are aware of how dangerous industrial equipment can be out here. What you might not fully grasp, is that a Rockjack who goes lone nut? He's not going to bother wasting time with Nukes, not when there are cheaper, easier ways to do much, much worse, that even we have trouble countering. Gunny, what time are the test shots?"
"You've got another six hours before we run the finals." the Gunny told them, "You want to check Lance Huang's disarm before you go?"
Giao sighed, "Yeah, I should, I'd hate to go all this way without at least checking on ONE of my students."
This led to another tram-this one underground, with airlocks.
"Expensive facility."
"It was. It is. It's worth it." Giao said.
Fifteen minutes later, they arrived-with a deceleration that Wells clocked at just under three gravities.
"Let's take a look." Giao led her into the chamber. "Lance Corporal, how did you identify the correct sequence for disarming this explosive ordnance? Walk the Kapitain through your procedure from start to finish, leave nothing out-this is for your rating, Go!"
Lance Corporal Li Danh Huang, of New Saigon, began explaining his identification process, disarm procedure, and tools to the FedCom officer, in minute detail, noting 'tells' like where wiring had been substituted and the presence of tertiary electronic circuits in the arming assembly, additional pathways for the Tritium boost phase, and colour and texture of the alloys in the components.
It was almost word-for-textbook what AFFC trains Strategic Demolition personnel in, save that he also tried to explain what the components are doing when the device is armed and ready to deploy.
"How long were you trained for this?" She asked.
"I'm on my forty eighth month, Ma'am. Once I get my warshot, I'm up for a Warrant Officer spot."
“And warshot scenarios are included in your disarm training?”
"Aye Mum…er, Yes Ma'am, it doesn't do much good if you can't put the warheads back in storage when you didn't fire 'em, now would it? Or if one strays off and runs out of fuel, you don't leave armed nukes laying around for some poor salvager to find, Ma'am."
Wells nodded and made more notes.
"Card?" Giao asked.
He presented a plastic tab, she took a stylus and made a mark, then unfolded it. "Hmmm…yeah, pack your gear, Lance, you've got one last item on this cycle before I can sign you off."
"Aye mum."
"The last item being?" Wells asked.
"Assembly and detonation of a test shot under controlled conditions." Giao said, "Blaster's GOT to know how to do that safely. Accidents are catastrophic."
“That is an understatement.” Wells nodded. Giao walked her through the final procedures as they rode the elevator to the surface, in order to reach the control booth for the live detonation range.
"We drill a hole, and line it, then the components are lowered into place, and the tester and a master blaster go down the hole. There's really no way a Human being could run fast enough, but if there's a master in the chamber they can step in and do a disarm if there's time, the testor goes back to the classroom where whatever mistake they made gets corrected and in a year they can try again."
"If they can't?"
"That's why we get the extra pay and the really nice death benefits, Herr Kapitain." Giao said without any amusement, "also why we dig a five to ten kilometer shaft for the test shot instead of doing it in a crater where the thermal and radiation pulse would kill everything in several kilometers."
This time, Wells saw the drilling rigs first. They were spaced roughly five kilometers apart along a basalt-iron 'flat' of bedrock exposed to open space.
“So why not use clean rounds? Radiation they put off would be minimal and with no air thermal isn’t a problem.”
"Clean rounds, or laser-trigger fusion? First, Laser Triggers are a controlled item for military use only-up until Her Majesty issued the order taking over the Coast Guard, we were a Civilian paramilitary police agency, even Lizzie Ngo can't get a license for that-and rumour had her dating one of the Archon's sons. LCAF and AFFC both wouldn't give a part-time Militia that level of equipment, but there's nothing in the law saying we can't use non-regulated materials."
“Except the radioactives are controlled materials.”
"Article 32 of the Annexation Treaty." Giao commented, "To convert the planetary power grid to use something besides lots of fission reactors costs too much-even the Rimjobs didn't really put much effort into it before or after Dinh Diep, because it's civil infrastructure, and Article 32 specifically puts Kowloon as 'hands off' the infrastructure."
“Except the isotopes that make nuclear fission power production work are not the same as the isotopes to make nuclear fission weapons work.”
"Breeder reactors use Plutonium, some of it ends up…Oh right… Okay, Kowloon's power grid, it uses a closed fuel cycle, weapons grade Plu is almost an automatic byproduct after the fifteenth or twentieth time through the breeder-could you imagine trying to store that? for fifty thousand years?? And it's a key industrial material for the Belts-we can make our own, but by taking the dangerous waste off world and using it…"
“Mein gott. They’re called ‘dry casks’ and you clearly have places you can safely put them.”
"Yeah, in a casing with a layered trigger, then into a big rock, to turn it into little rocks." Giao agreed, "Much more efficient, and we don't have to worry about some dirtyfeet nutcase stealing it for his dirty bomb project. This way, it's regulated and we have some control over who gets the fissiles, who has them, and who's using them. The other way,and we end up having to post permanent guards to keep foreigners from trying to steal the stuff...which happened back in the 2970s when Duke Dinh's Grand Father tried to shift out of our recycling arrangement into something more traditional."
“Here’s the problem Giao, why we’re even out here. Someone did misuse the trust and access given to them and did something with it that if the Clans wanted to could use as justification to make worlds burn and we can’t stop them.”
"That was true before the incident at Newtown Square, Herr Kapitain. Let me lay it out from our side; The engagement occurred outside the 75,000 kilometer limit, the Steel Vipers brought a warship, and engaged civilian transports with it, using weapons that make what we smacked them with look a bit like…well, Naval PPC's do damage at Kilotons per second. They initiated and our crewmen responded-but there's Turtle Bay, and there's the fact the Clanners have used the threat of orbital bombardment AFTER claiming to bid away their naval assets, I've seen the briefings, and there's something else. I told you, I know how to make a world burn for a lot less cost and effort than using a nuke. So does every kid who has had to learn how to navigate between burrows."
“Before these were limited, isolated incidents. Terrible yes, but nothing compared to what they could easily decide to do now.”
"IF they're going to, then they were already going to." Giao asserted, "it's the psychology in their own founding documents-they're bullies, and their threats are the only 'promise' they actually will uphold-sooner or later, they'd lose a fight and escalate anyway, losing it at Newtown Square reduced civilian casualties, but they were already escalating."
“But the less justification we give them the more time we gain to punch the bully back and it counts.”
"And when is that? Herr Kapitain? When they have fifty percent of the Realm? Sixty? Eighty?" Giao asked, "When do you stop the slavers? How long do you wait for them to devour you before you fight back? They've got forty percent of the realm, and another twenty percent is above the truce line and under threat. The Vipers backed off of Newtown Square, they haven't been back in that system since losing that cruiser."
“Tell me, do you have any familiarity with big game hunting?”
"Let's look here…I live in hard vacuum, or burrows, I divide some time to ports if they're orbitals, I avoid going to planets, I've maybe read one or two books on it. How familiar are you with the processing cycle that keeps a nullgee burrow alive with air and water?"
“Okay then I’ll reframe the question. Do you go into a gun fight with a knife?”
"Depends on the situation, there are situations where you WANT the other guy using a gun, because he'll likely kill himself." Giao said, "we're dealing with psychopaths, who murder and enslave and call it a 'civilization' but they're running around on the stolen property of the Star League and they're the biggest bandit kingdom so far."
“We’re in the open field. Minimal cover and all we have right now are knifes to stop the Clans while they have guns. Sure they get stupid and let us hurt them now and again but we’ve given them a reason to get smart and use their guns correctly.”
Giao showed her teeth, "Open like that? That's when you start throwing rocks…like Anh Cu'ong did to the rimjobs…and those were more powerful than ten or fifteen kiloton nukes, and a hell of a lot harder to stop."
“Until what is left? You’re largely safe from the consequences of what Newton Square could very easily bring about.”
"Belts, burrows. Settlements." Giao told her, "We can rebuild, we've done it before, but those Clanners? Theyr'e Dirtyfeet, that missile shouldn't have been able to take out a ship that size, but they run full pressure atmo inside, and they didn't know how to do damage control, they're 'warriors' playing in space, Herr Kapitain, we're spacers who sometimes have to go to war, and that's a difference they're not ideologically or psychologically equipped to deal with."
“We’re not safe from your consequences.”
"Herr Kapitain, you're about to get a force of potentially a quarter million volunteers from the Kowloon Belts, Spacers, who know how to live, fight, and survive in the Black the way you know how to walk on grass." Giao explained, "we're what you put between you, and them, and we're willing to do it this time, but we have to be able to do the work. I'll own the mistake at Newtown Square, but that's a putting the blast light back in the casing-you can't un-do what's been done, you can only be ready."
“It is not a question of your skill as spacers, you’re clearly able combatants. The question is one of judgment, being able to see past your burrows, stations, and solar systems and recognizing your actions and how you conduct this war has ramifications for the rest of us.”
"My first tour, it was under the Regency." Giao said, "there was a rogue comet, out by Winter. Fair sized one too. One of the Drummer-Holden families picked it up on a trading run, and reported it, now we were operating illegally at the time-the Regency had ordered the Coast Guard disbanded and tried to replace us with his cronies…but we caught that comet before Winter did-so it never hit, five hundred million people who never look up past their atmosphere, are still alive in their arcologies, because we knew what to do, and we did it. Mistakes were made, they can't be un-made, we can only do better, or fail again, there is no third option."
“We’re still building the right tools for the job to supply you with. We’ve only been benefiting from the Helm core for just shy of 30 years.”
"I know. We're in a bad spot here-we're above the truce line and if the Clanners come, they'll come in force." Giao allowed, "With relic warships and hell weapons and all the condensed nightmares of centuries in the hands of psychotics. That's our situation, that's what we're dealing with. I know it, you know it, hell, even Her Grace the Duchess knows it. So we deal as best we can, while we can and you're hoping no more mistakes like Newtown Square-and you're missing that I'm hoping the same thing, Kapitain. I don't WANT to open my morning dispatches and find out there's been another incident before we're fully ready…but I have to live with Finagle's law, which states anything that can go wrong, is going to go wrong at the worst possible time, so minimize the impact of 'worst' as far as possible to keep options open."
"Arsenals?"
"Each of the co-ops has one of their own, but they're limited in how many warheads they can maintain, so most of them are only a few dozen, Sithers-Deen has a couple hundred, but they're spread out from Boojum to the Kuiper and most of theirs are small." Giao said, "as for Major arsenals-the Guard maintains six, each containing around a thousand rounds of military grade dismantled and a ready supply of one hundred fifty, not including what's stored in shipboard arms rooms, which is none right now, because that's the first thing I did after finding out one of ours popped a Nuke on a Clanner Cruiser-I pulled everyone back and ran an inventory check to verify condition, readiness, and most important, that nobody's been handing them out to strangers."
“Good. And what measures would you implement to make such an incident less likely in the future?”
"Rules of engagement were updated." Giao told her, "we shifted to a weapons hold stance with release moved up to Patrol level-that's organizational and we'll be updating it to 'division' level under the AFFC rules-basically regimental command for your lot, that's a huge move from commander-in-the-field levels we were at before."
“Good. There will always be those who think we shouldn’t have nukes at all. The Succession Wars have scarred humanity’s psyche that deeply. But we do have to fight this war with the tools we have.”
"Ayeh, we do." Giao agreed. The ground vibrated as the first shots went off on the range.
"Right on time, so nobody ****** up so far."
Taking a Cruise[]
Golden Lake Sea - Kowloon, Federated Commonwealth (Lyran State)
"...seasick?" Arbuthnot leaned over the side of the fast-moving hydrofoil and vomited again.
"Definitely seasick. You know, if you'd mentioned it, we could've taken a Chopper." Duchess Ngo said helpfully, offering him a bottle of fresh water to wash the awful taste from his mouth, "Or hopped a suborbital from Nha Tranh, you didn't have to ride in a boat, General."
Golden Lake smells like sulfur all year 'round, and has a high acid content, making this allegedly 'fresh water' inland sea something almost too inimical to earthborn life to endure.
"I…wanted to see…" he said.
"Could've seen it from the comfort of an aircraft, we're almost there." Liz offered, "General Steiner, how're you doing with this?"
"It's not bad, Your Grace." Adam Steiner gripped a rail to stay steady as the fast boat clipped waves. "Telling the truth, I kind of like this. It's soothing…aside from Herr General's discomfort, anyway."
“Here. Try and get this down.” An Able Seaman said as he handed Arbuthnot a small cube. “It’ll help sir.”
In the early morning summer mist, with only one sun up, their destination loomed.
"What's it called again?"
"We never named it to my knowledge." Liz admitted, "but it's where Tranh Truk Ngo organized the '67 uprising, and it's the last bastion of the pre-conquest Kowloonese Republic. So naturally, it's a tourist destination for a certain kind of tourist."
"The kind that want to see submarine pens." Adam agreed.
"Yep. We had to rebuild them from scratch-the ones the pre-invasion government stored here were rusted out by the acidic waters, but we have better alloys than my ancestors did, and better materials over-all."
The 'mini-cutter' banked on the surface and they were swallowed into a tunnel under the strange stone reef that barely poked up above water level here.
In the gloom, four shapes the size of small dropships loomed.
Well, medium sized dropships, anyway.
"U-One, Two, Three, and Four." she told her guests, "My ancestors copied the American Ohio class SSBNs with twenty second century tech updates, if we'd had more than the original U-One, we might've been able to Stop the Rimjobs from landing for another six to eight weeks."
"And these?"
"We pulled most of the missile silos and replaced them with commo gear and sensors, we kept a few, but the odds that a surface to orbit missile will do a damn bit of good aren't high-they're a desperation ploy if we lose the orbitals and help is still months out." she allowed. "The payload on the launchers are basically dumbed down Peacekeepers, but they'll fit a laser-triggered warhead if AFFC decides they need to."
"What do they have right now?"
"Conventional White Shark warheads." Liz said, "We thought about giving them the same warheads the Guard has, or rockbreakers, but the risk is far too high of fallout. So these are just High Energy Conventional stuff, they'll still smack a dropship, but forget killing anything bigger unless you get REAL lucky."
“Better than nothing. Which is what a lot of worlds have.” Adam commented.
"Yeah, but now that AFFC's taken over the Guard, I can ask for a Luftenberg." Liz said, "which will be even better for the mission than a quartet of obsolete ballistic missile subs."
“Those are popular items right now, Liz. Difficult to produce and one hell of a wait list.”
"We have shipyards, let me license build a copy and in ten years or so we'll have one." she said without a flicker of remorse. "Heck, it's another angle of business in the region, if we start fabricating parts for the prime contractors we can maybe shorten the time it takes for everyone else to have one too."
“You’re eventually going to hit the limit of what you can do, Liz.” inquired Adam
"Yep.' she sighed sadly, "I will…but if I increase productive capacity and spread it around, it'll take a lot longer to reach that limit. I've still got two hundred million people who're out of work, or under-employed, and could use the jobs, and that's just on Kowloon, never mind the rest of the system, or neighbors like Winter, Jessenice, Hood IV…"
“We’ll see what we can do to get those people working, bBut that’s a later problem. Right now I get the feeling there’s something else you want to show us.” "Right you are, and right this way." She led them off the cutter onto the dock. The Militia here were dressed similarly to the Coast Guard spacers-enlisted in blue, officers in a tan-Khaki, a few infantry in rust-and-green camouflage that matched the local plant life and soil patterns.
She strode ahead of them, returning salutes until they reached a stairwell.
Past the stairwell, were a pair of armored doors, which slid open with that well-maintained silence you get when something like them is properly lubricated and maintained, instead of neglected.
"Welcome to the real Planetary defense command." Liz told Adam, "Not that office in the capital, this is where we do the real business."
“You’ve really been holding out, Liz.” Adam said as he took in the command center.
"My grandfather, really." Liz said.
“For what it’s worth I get it. Growing up on Somerset, there was a lot of fear the Archon would want to strip away resources from the Academy.” Adam nodded.
“But because of a screw up it is happening here, and now.” Elizabeth said flatly.
“Since you’re so close to the front and in raider territory I’ll do what I can to make sure we don’t take too much from you but yeah.” Adam nodded.
"Evelynn, Guests."
Arbuthnot gasped when he saw Evelynn Mosovich's face, but Adam just said, "Colonel, Now I know why you weren't at the port when we arrived."
"General, Sir." Evelynn greeted him, "Liz, I know you're proud of the base, but you know next to nothing about how it works."
"I defer to your superior knowledge, Colonel." Liz said formally.
"Don't stare, it's rude." Adam prodded Arbuthnot.
"I'm used to it." Evelynn Mosovich's 'face' was mostly medical myomers and implants, her voice was a badly tuned vox-box, and she looked like a half-eaten cadaver with cameras for eyes as a result.
"Okay, we've got close orbit Air monitoring along the west wall, the main situation board shows both active Coast Guard, and ground forces Militia in as close to real-time as we can manage."
"The base itself?" asked Adam.
"Give it five megatons to get through the overburden before we burn." Mosovich said, "It's not where you want to be standing if it actually drops in the pot, but you saw on the approach-a force of 'mechs would have one hell of a hard time getting into the door, this is the top of a sea-mount and the seabed drops away at about a seventy degree angle to a depth of two kilometers right outside."
“Not bad. What's your backup plan?"
"Command and coordination in a war situation will shift to the submarines and to mobile units, or to the distant orbitals if we've got time for it, either way the Clanners won't be able to pull a 'surprise we've vertically enveloped you' scam without knowing where the boats are, or where the mobile headquarters units are moving to." Evelynn gestured, "This, is peacetime coordination and the second helping of the burglar bait, despite what Lizzie here thinks it could be."
“Something to add to your planning, we’re pretty sure the Clans can track active fusion engines from orbit. Not sure how deep you’d have to run but they’ve tracked us pretty solidly.”
Evelynn laughed, a grating sound. "Yeah.. neutrino detection, the Rimjobs did the same. They have a harder time picking up ordinary neutron sources though, especially under shielding. The subs are running fission piles, and unlike the 21st century versions, ours have good shielding and quiet operation with fuel-cell backup…and a two kilometer dive range before you start worrying about pressure on the envelope, so they'll have to penetrate quite a lot of water to shut them down."
“Don’t know how good at it they really are but they’ve come damn close to my HQ too many times.”
"Presume they're perfect, and plan accordingly-U One through Four are the third helping of burglar bait." Evelynn said, "they focus on those, it lets the rest of the Militia, or the garrison, get things done until they die. I was at Tamar, I saw what relying on any single strong point gets you." she looked at Arbuthnot, "it's where I got this pretty face, during the retreat. Hopefully you'll add a few layers between so we can do more than die slower waiting for relief, but right now the strategic plan is to draw out any invader until help can arrive, and I hate that plan. Castles have a habit of falling."
“We’ll also do our best while we’re here to wargame and teach you how the Clans fight. So you can be better prepared.”
"General, I need to know how many of my boys and girls you're taking with you when you leave, so I can figure out how many replacements we need in the pipeline to stay viable."
“I’m hoping we can get away with only taking the Warships from you.”
Evelynn didn't frown, because her face couldn't. "So more, we need to make up for the outer layer defenses with more bodies..."
"I wish I had better news. I know a bit about being left hanging out here on the front lines with insufficient assets. I don’t want to inflict that on your people. But the reality is it might not even be my final call.” Adam nodded.
Arbuthnot still looked shocked, and this time, Elizabeth tapped him..gently…on the foot. "General, you have something useful to add?" she prodded him.
"...more bodies?" he finally stammered.
"Yeah. see, we're here-" Elizabeth tapped a display and a map of the Truce appeared. "This is significantly above the Tukayyid truce-line, we're an industrial world with a history, and we just nuked one of their battlewagons. Her Majesty asserted control, because if she asserts control, then the Clanners have to account for HER displeasure, not just a jumped up bunch of hicks in the back end of beyond." she said crossly, "She sent THE Adam Steiner, one of the most competent combat commanders in the Lyran State, to head this mission up, and you, as a logistics man, to help him."
“And knowing the Clans like I do, we may have some chance at reprieve if we do assert control. Because there is no way the Red Corsair wasn’t a Clan effort to try and provoke us into destabilizing the Truce as the aggressors. Despite what they may seem on the surface they are not completely guileless when it comes to politics and public perception.”
Liz turned to her maimed sister in law, "Evvie, could you bring out the war plan files and let the Generals examine them? It's easier than me trying to explain something I barely have any knowledge of to pros who know much more than I'll ever learn."
Evelynn nodded at an aide who stepped forward with several large tubes.
"Now, as Duchess I'm supposed to be here, but I'm going to defer to expertise and get out of the way." Liz told them, "once you've reviewed the planning, our logistics, distribution and units, then you can explain to me what I need to sign to make it work." Liz said, "I don't tell a plumber how to plumb, or Generals how to Officer, and if I'm out of the way, there's significantly less chance of my yap opening and stupidity flowing out. I'll be upstairs at the lighthouse, reading quietly."
She turned, and walked out of the command center.
"Did I offend her?" Arbuthnot asked.
"No, Lizzie's just being…uncharacteristically mature." Evelynn said, "I don't know when or how it's happened, but she's finally growing up."
“Newton Square. She’s coming to grips with the fact that she actually needs to be a Duchess.” Adam nodded.
"You mean, that she's going to have to live with it." Evelynn nodded, "Maybe…but this is the most hands-off I've seen her since she was a little kid."
“It’s good she’s not meddling but at the same time as Duchess she should be involved. This needs to be part of her education too. So that she knows what is being asked of her people and how to spot a good plan versus a bad plan. She’ll figure out the balance eventually.”
"She did give me a directive, so I think she wants US to present HER with your critiques whole. It's something she might've learned from Helena." Evelynn suggested, as aides brought out several color-coded data storage devices.
"What's all this?" Arbuthnot asked.
"War Plans by color code. Speculations on likely and even unlikely hostile conditions. There's Sapphire, which is the newest one and it's based on what she picked up on the subject of the Steel Vipers, Green, which is Clan Jade Falcon, Purple is an unexpectedly deep Marik incursion, Red is the Combine pulling a deep raid, Blue is a civil war in the Lyran Commonwealth, Brown is if the Federated Suns turn from ally to conqueror…and White is a plan of action if Comstar decides to go bigger than Scorpion and try to take us all."
The logistics officer paled, "A civil war?"
"We're a paranoid bunch, somewhere in the back archives we've got plans for what to do if the Rim Worlds re-forms and tries a stab." Evelynn stated, "Most of these, except the Clan ones, date back to her Grandfather's time, but with updates for current events as best we can learn them. They're all incredibly flawed, but that's what you get, when you're out in the boonies."
"What's the current 'blue'?" Adam asked.
"Stay out of it, focus on fighting external enemies and hope whoever wins isn't feeling vengeful today." Evelynn stated, "It's a shit plan but it's what we've got."
Adam perused the data blocs, "We can do better." he said. "Let's look at your general defense posture and you can explain what it's intended to look like, before we make serious changes."
Arbuthnot looked pale all of a sudden.
“You okay?”
“You’ve planned for all of this?” Arbuthnot stated.
“Of course.” Evelynn answered.
“General Steiner, you have nothing to say on the matter?”
“Actually I’m shocked in a refreshing way. Prefer peace, but always be ready for war.” Adam smiled.
"That would lean heavy on whether we're really prepared, or just deceiving ourselves." Evelynn commented, "Jury is still out-nobody recognized that one of ours would fight the enemy without first calling home until it happened."
“That you even have plans is a huge step up from what I’m used to. How often do you drill to the plans?”
"Training and upkeep cycles are quarterly, we usually pull ops from the books about every three months on the whole. People still have their regular jobs except the Coasties, they usually squeeze in tactical and scenario training every couple of months between repair and maintenance cycles. So…not too terribly different from my time in the 26th, though we're short on 'mech assets and we usually have to use live-fire exercises because we don't have enough simulator capacity…and there's the random drill cycle, which we decide using dice rolls, so a given regional company or battalion might find their beepers going off at weird times for a Bandit Drill, or the ever reducing chance of actual bandits. I mean, sure the Duke of Tamar was kind of slack until the Wolves were literally at the door, but doesn't everyone do it that way?"
“You’d be surprised. I’ve toured worlds where they didn’t even test their comm lines from the monitoring stations to HQ and so when things did happen the militia commanders didn’t even get word until it was almost too late.”
"Yikes…" Evelynn visibly shivered, "that's pretty bad. Why does AFFC allow it?"
“Take a bucket out to a range. Empty an autorifle clip into it. Take a one millimeter by one millimeter piece of tape at a time to plug the holes. It’s constantly being filled by water.”
"We're going to have to plug a lot of holes." Evelynn nodded, "Which tells me I'm going to have to ride the Assembly for more budget…"
“And just to make it worse, you have to fill out a form in triplicate between applying each piece of tape. Stating how much tape you used, explaining why the tape doesn’t always stick despite it being well known that the bucket is constantly being filled with water, and why you need more tape.” "So we've been incredibly lucky…" Evelynn speculated.
Arbuthnot chimed in, "and the bucket's not just filed with water, it's filled with swimming organisms who want OUT of the bucket, or want to eat the tape, or who…corruption, Colonel, I know you only made Hauptmann in the regulars before you were maimed, but corruption is making all those holes bigger, and we can't do without the organisms causing it…or do away with them."
“Not just corruption. A supply chain that has to handle hundreds of different variants and chassis of mechs, aerofighters, and conventional forces. Lack of standardization, lack of production to make that standardization possible, and all the bureaucratic nightmare it all entails.” Adam nodded.
"That's why she ordered the WHOLE Coast Guard, isn't it?" Evelynn asked, "because they're standardized, they're trained, and we can make more of them….and it's why you're going to have to draw on our Militia-because you know we can resupply them. Isn't it?"
“As cold blooded as it might sound, if we’d done things the way you have the Clans would have been drowned in bodies and never gotten a foothold.” Adam admitted.
"Then, General, we need to work on one thing first." Evelynn stated, "Before the Coasties are all gone, except the training and part timers, and before you leave…we need to design a deployable formation. War Plans Red, Brown, Tan, and Green, only a new version-one that gives the Realm a unit that can slow and delay the enemy until we can manage better."
“It’ll entail a lot of ‘We regret to inform you’ letters and for that I know I’ll have a lot to answer for but yes.”
"General Steiner, do you know my people's history?" Evelynn asked, and removed a cloth patch from her pocket. "Three million dead fighting Amaris right to the gates of Terra, General. There isn't a world short of Earth itself that sent as many to defeat the Amaris Empire. 'We regret to inform you' is practically my people's motto, the originals.." she laid the patch on the console in front of him, "Were wiped out trying to relieve Kentares when nobody else would go. There won't need to be a draft, but there will be. I guarantee there won't need to be one…but the law, is the law."
“Then let’s roll those maps out and start reviewing the plans.” Adam nodded.
Letter between Lovers[]
My Dearest Arthur,
General Adam Steiner and Colonel Mosovich presented me with War Plan Azure, and explained the needs to me. I can't help wondering if this wasn't your mother's plan all along. I'm not sure how I feel about it, but it feels righteous. Hopefully, you are safe and well and doing well. For my part, I have signed and drafted ducal decrees and General Steiner has laid out the levies required by the Realm for this situation.
We remain unmolested for the moment, but when my people are on the front, facing the Clans, it will take no time at all for them to be on our doorstep.
With luck, perseverance, and courage, we may yet weather this coming storm. I miss you though, and think of you often, especially in the rare quiet moments. Stay Safe, remember I love you, and come home to me.
Elizabeth -Archived item from the papers of Arthur Steiner-Davion, dated December 18, 3055