Tales from the Service: The Man from Prospero

2952-11-20 – Tales from the Service: The Man from Prospero 

As you may recall from my conversation with Kirsten Reid, recent intelligence harvesting has given Confederated forces a good idea what life is like on at least one of the Incarnation home worlds, Prospero. Theoretically, this is the closest Incarnation world to the front lines, and thus, when its location is discovered, a likely candidate for invasion. This is hardly a surprise to anyone, especially not to Incarnation planners. 

Among the many thousands of enemy personnel who have fallen into Navy hands during this conflict, some have been excellent intelligence sources, but most have given Naval Intelligence nothing of use, either because they could not be persuaded to talk, or because they had nothing of military value to say. 

Lieutenant Reid forwarded me an account sent to her by one of her associates in Naval Intelligence a few days ago. Why he didn’t send it directly, I can’t imagine; perhaps he thought that she would have more influence to get it published on our text feed. For the record, I would have published this account no matter who sent it in, because it represents a rare glimpse into how Incarnation prisoners are being housed here in the Sagittarius Gate system. 

Lieutenant Sebastian Hayes frowned down at his data slate as he walked down the broad master corridor running the length of the habitation module, glancing up only occasionally to examine the numbers on the doors. He usually tried to avoid trips to Facility 41, but orders were orders. 

He stopped at door 59, checked the list on his slate one more time, then pressed his wristcuff to the panel. With a flash of orange lights and a warning buzz, the heavy blast door began to grind open, swinging into the broad compartment beyond. 

Reflexively, Sebastian stepped back from the doors, his imagination picturing a horde of prisoners-of-war flooding outward toward escape, but few of the dozen or so plain-clothed men lounging in the broad antechamber beyond even looked up as the door opened. On each one’s right temple was a patch of shiny metal and blinking lights. They’d all been shown the layout of the station when they arrived; there was no escape for them in the main corridor; it led only to the central hub guard-station. They couldn’t even get into any of the other prisoner compartments without an access code from the officer on duty. 

Sebastian surveyed the listless faces inside the door for several seconds, then crossed the threshold. This facility didn’t house officers, Immortals, or others with nonstandard implants, so he wasn’t in any particular danger unless they all decided to gang up and pummel him into the deck. He wasn’t armed, of course; the guards wouldn’t risk putting a weapon into the hands of the prisoners. 

The blue pinstripes on Sebastian’s uniform told the residents of this compartment who he was, of course. In their months or even years of confinement, they’d all seen Naval Intelligence analysts enough times to recognize the uniform.  

On both of the long sides of the antechamber were open doors leading into the bunkrooms, which could not be closed during daytime hours. At the far end of the space were two more doors – one leading toward the communal mess hall, and the other toward the sanitary facility. 

Sebastian looked down at his slate, then looked back up. “Yarov Shakil?” He called out. Hopefully, the Incarnation pronunciation of this name was similar to how a Vorkutan would say it.  

Nobody looked up; the trio engaged in a huddled conversation nearby continued their whispering conference as if they had not heard, and most of the rest went back to playing cards or reading the paper books they had been issued by the prison staff. Sebastian frowned and took a few more steps into the compartment as the door behind him slid closed. Just because the prisoners recognized his uniform, didn’t mean they were predisposed to helping him. Most of the ordinary spacers and soldiers interned on Station 41 tried to avoid dealing with anyone wearing blue pinstripes, and he could hardly blame them. 

Fortunately, the dossier on Sergeant Shakil contained a file photo taken at the time he was processed into custody. He was old for an infantryman – he'd given his age at forty-three standard years – but he was fit for his age, thin and wiry, with a tan and much-lined face. None of the people out in the open resembled Shakil. Threading his way around the prisoners, he peeked into each of the open barracks chambers one by one. His man wasn’t in any of them. 

That left the sanitary annex or the mess hall, and Sebastian far preferred to do an interview in a mess hall, so he went there first. If Shakil was using the head, Sebastian’s questions could certainly wait. 

He spotted his man sitting at one of the long mess tables, hunched over a cup of food-fab coffee and a book. Squaring his shoulders, Sebastian marched up to the opposite side of the table. “Yarov Shakil, isn’t it?” 

“Would you be here if it wasn’t?” The man didn’t look up. 

Sebastian looked around, then sat down at the table. He didn’t particularly care whether anyone else heard, but since it was between meal times the mess hall was nearly empty. “I’ll be as quick as I can, Mr. Shakil.” 

“Eh.” The thin man shrugged, still not looking up from his book. 

Sebastian switched his slate to note-taking mode and took a breath. “You grew up on Prospero. I want to know about it.” 

The man shook his head. “Never heard of it.” 

“Really.” Sebastian arched one eyebrow. “Then why do we have record of so much message traffic between you and people on that world?” 

Shakil finally looked up, his eyes narrowed. “How did you-” 

“Not the point.” Sebastian tapped his slate. “I just want to know a few things about Prospero. You spend ten minutes answering my questions, and you can be the barracks hero this week.” 

Shakil slowly closed his book and sat back. “War’s going that bad, is it?” 

Sebastian smiled. “It’s going pretty well, I think.” 

The Incarnation sergeant rolled his eyes. “How would I be the hero?” 

“I talked to the guards.” Sebastian swiped across his slate screen to bring up the image he’d saved on his way over. “Prison regulations permit up to two cats, small dogs, or other domesticated animals per barracks compartment, as long as the prisoners take care of them.” 

Shakil’s eyes darted from side to side, then fell on the image of two adorable gray kittens for sale in a pet-shop over on the Sprawl. Surely, a man who’d grown up in a small agricultural settlement on a world like Prospero would miss the presence of animals that he’d known in his youth. 

A wistful smile crept across Shakil’s much-lined face, only to be smothered in an instant “Make it dogs.” He looked up from the screen, but his voice was still low. “I grew up there, but I don’t know anything secret.” 

Details

Tales from the Service: The Plea of the Kyaroh, Pt. 2

2952-11-06 – Tales from the Service: The Plea of the Kyaroh, Pt. 2 

This week we conclude this transcript of the interview I did a few weeks ago with Advisor Lved of the Kyaroh delegation. I have nothing more to add to the record than what is presented below. 

D.L.C. - Duncan Chaudhri is a junior editor and wartime head field reporter for Cosmic Background.     

S.A.L. – Senior Advisor Lved is a close associate of the chief of the Kyaroh delegation to the Sagittarius Gate system, and speaks in this interview as a private individual of his people, not as an official representative of his government. Lved’s grasp of Anglo-Terran is quite good, but not perfect; in this transcript his words will be presented verbatim, without correction. 

T.B.M. – Commander Tory B. Monaghan is the outgoing Alien Sapient Welfare Officer for Kyaroh on the Sprawl. She has learned the language of her charges and in this interview will act mainly as an interpreter to smooth over language and cultural differences. 

[T.B.M.] – The situation must be dire for your government to have changed its mind so quickly. You said the Incarnation is storming your underground settlements with ground troops; surely that must be prohibitively expensive to them. They can’t sustain a war of attrition like that for long. 

[S.A.L.] – We do not think so either, but they could destroy a sizable portion of our people and fully dominate several less-populous worlds. Perhaps they hope to capture the mines and industry of conquered cities to turn them against you, as they have turned our shipyards to their own ends, but in this they are unlikely to succeed. 

[D.L.C.] – Your shipyards? 

[S.A.L.] – Commander Monaghan, is it permitted to discuss this matter further? 

[T.B.M.] – I believe it is. 

[S.A.L.] – The Incarnation uses captured Kyaroh shipyards to build their troop transport vessels. These yards were built to fabricate colonist transports, not warships, so they were well suited to this purpose. As far as your government or mine can determine, every troop ship observed operating with their fleet is a modified Kyaroh design. 

[D.L.C.] – Strange. Why wouldn’t they build their own? 

[S.A.L.] – You are aware their primary warship design is also captured technology? 

[D.L.C.] – I’d certainly suspected it. We’ve seen several accounts of how easily it is to mistake Grand Journey starships for Incarnation cruisers. 

[S.A.L.] – We do not know the full story of this, but we are certain the Incarnation has not conquered Grand Journey worlds. Perhaps there was once friendship between the two. We have asked the Gilhedat but they do not provide answers. 

[T.B.M.] – If they did have peace with the Incarnation at one time, and barter technology with them, they might not want that to be well known. 

[D.L.C.] – Maybe the Incarnation’s earlier leaders were less militaristic. 

[S.A.L.] – We have seen no sign of regime changes in the decades we have interacted with the Incarnation humans. Their policy toward us has been consistent and increasing subjugation from our first contact. But it seems a certainty that the Grand Journey contacted them much earlier. 

[D.L.C.] – That is an additional objective in your space, then. The shipyards. If they can’t build those troop transports, they can’t invade worlds. 

[S.A.L.] – Yes. And it is these yards that give a relief squadron some hope of being repaired without returning to Sagittarius Gate. There are repair facilities there too. If a surplus of engineer and technician labor is shipped, one of these yards might be recaptured and configured to service the Seventh Admiral’s vessels. 

[D.L.C.] – That sounds like a nightmare project. Rigging Kyaroh civilian liner yards to repair and refit Confederated vessels on short notice? I shudder to think. 

[S.A.L.] – You forget that the Incarnation has been using these facilities to service its own vessels. Some of the work is likely already done. 

[D.L.C.] – Should we scrub this from the transcript, Advisor Lved? If the Incarnation realized they should expect a strike against the yards- 

[S.A.L.] – Publish this exchange without alteration. We have taken this into account. 

[T.B.M.] – You want them to know someone’s coming? 

[S.A.L.] – Perhaps better to say that we think it advantageous to make them react to this news, whether the Seventh Admiral sends ships or no. Perhaps it will immediately slow their offensive. Perhaps it will make them push too rapidly. 

[D.L.C.] – My head hurts just thinking about what it would take to make that your preference. But as long as our Naval Intelligence has no objection, I will not redact anything from the record. 

[S.A.L.] – If your Seventh Admiral sends the ships, we will do what we can to supply and repair them. We have no need of troops; all that is needed is the interdiction of the flow of new enemy forces to our worlds. 

[D.L.C.] – Which requires fighting the Incarnation navy, or at least chasing them off. 

[S.A.L.] – Correct. I do not foresee this to be an easy task, though again the Kyaroh are not entirely without aid for those who attempt it. 

[D.L.C.] – What size of force would be required to improve your peoples’ prospects? 

[S.A.L.] – Any force that can arrive swiftly would be welcome. Even a few smaller warships would force our enemies to change their plans. A larger force would by necessity have greater effect on their campaign, but it would do us no good for your fleet to tarry many of your months organizing a crushing blow. 

[D.L.C.] – Is there anything else you wish to tell our audience? 

[S.A.L.] – Only this. The Kyaroh do not wish to be a client people, even a well-cared-for client. We will honor our pacts. But we will not accept human dominion over our worlds, whichever humans set out to achieve it, and by whichever means. We do not seek to commit our people or yours to an alliance. This is a request for mutual benefit for this conflict, and if it should fail, you lose only what was risked. 

[T.B.M.] – I remember our past conversations. This at least hasn’t changed. 

Details

Tales from the Service: The Beauty of the Nebula

2952-10-30 – Tales from the Service: The Beauty of the Nebula 

Stefan Giunta swept his Cavalier’s directional sensor cluster across the thick mass of nebula gasses as he and Clemens circled around it. Based on the strange readings he was getting, the cloud had to have a high phased matter concentration, but he lacked the equipment to determine quite what kind. Flying through a phased-matter soup would put a lot of wear and tear on their rigs, but compared to the damage it could do to their mothership, they would be expected to take that risk. 

Beyond that, of course, it was nearly impossible to get any clear picture of the inside of the cloud. There was some chaotic radar reflection from some angles, but no infrared readings, nothing on gravimetrics, and nothing on the visible light scopes. 

“Think maybe there’s some debris in there, Giunta?” Clemens asked. 

“Could be.” Stefan panned the directional array back and forth, looking at the raw-data readout to try to get some better sense of what he was looking at, since the modeling computer had spat a series of errors and given up on the problem several minutes beforehand. “I think it’s all contiguous, but I can't get a good picture of the structure.” 

“Denser sub-layer of gas?” 

“Don’t think so.” Stefan fiddled with the frequency settings on his radio emitter. “The radar profile has hard edges from some angles.” 

“Let’s just call it in as a possible pirate harbor.” Clemens sighed. “The skipper will either have us light it up or route us around, and either way it won’t be a problem anymore.” 

“That’s probably safest.” Stefan knew only too well that Brushfire pirates did love to build forward bases in outriding clouds of the nebula, making it easier to raid nearby systems and get back into hiding, without leaving an easy trail back to the main hideout deeper in. “But I think we should get a visual.” 

“Bad idea.” Clemens’s voice had gone from lackadaisical to sharp in an instant. “Our rigs will be in maintenance for a week while the techs figure out what that cloud has done to them. And Commander Jansson will have us scrubbing deck plating and recycler tanks the whole time for risking a couple of brand-new Cavaliers just to satisfy our curiosity.” 

“No sense for us both to go in, then.” Stefan disengaged his autopilot and put his hands back on the stick. “Continue your orbit. I’ll catch you on the other side.” 

Clemens’s sigh was cut off by the other pilot muting the comms channel, probably in order to call in the uncertain sighting as a possible pirate installation. Stefan chose a course across the slightly narrowed middle of the cloud, then accelerated to a speed that would take him through in about two minutes and pointed all of his sensors forward. Running right into some object was incredibly unlikely, because even at the thickest part the cloud’s gasses would not reduce his visibility below a dozen kilometers, but he was interested in surviving this gamble, even if it did mean scrubbing recycler tanks. On the off-chance there was something to see, he’d be the one to see it. He’d heard stories of strange things people thought they’d seen in the Brushfire Nebula, and thought most of them just spacers’ tall tales, but perhaps today he’d have a story of his own. 

A few moments later, Stefan’s Cavalier entered the outer part of the gas cloud. There was no sudden transition from open space to misty pink and grey, only a gradual transition from the usual infinite crowding of background stars, to a black sky with fewer and fewer stars, then to no stars at all except the hazy orb of the putative local primary. Only when he was deep into the gas did the Cavalier’s lights start to light up the colors and striations that had been visible from a distance.  

“Still got you on sensors, Giunta.” Clemens had apparently gotten over his distaste for the idea, probably because he would get to be the one to tell Janssen “I told him so” if things went wrong. “See anything?” 

“Nothing yet.” Stefan gave his rig some reverse thrust, further extending his time inside the cloud. “Visibility is about fifteen or twenty klicks.” 

“You’ll be coming up on the largest area of radar artifacts in about ten seconds... Make that twelve.” 

Stefan put hi counted down in his head as his craft hurtled through the darkness. What was he expecting to see? Pirates building a new outpost? The shattered wreck of a hauler which had blundered into exotic phased matter and had its reactor go critical? Some strange nightmare shape uncoiling in the gloom like the cantina tall tales? 

The Cavalier’s lights glinted on something ahead. Stefan leaned forward against his restraints and stared hard, even though he would have plenty of time to review the recordings from all his cameras later. Whatever it was, it reflected the lights back into his eyes as it gently tumbled through the nebula pocket, but he got a glimpse of a jagged but somehow regular profile. 

In an instant, he was past the object, but just as quickly another one, this one far larger but obviously of the same kind, loomed up on the starboard side, each of its pillar-like protrusions as long as a space station’s docking gantry, each a different thickness, and each faceted like it was cut by a jeweler with hands the size of moons. 

“Woah.” Stefan made a few small corrections to his course. What he was looking at was so beautiful it could only be natural formations, but he hadn’t the faintest idea how such things could form out here. “No pirates, Clemens.” He paused to appreciate a smaller object, about the size of his Cavalier, that was particularly intricately formed. “Just some of the prettiest rocks you’ll ever see.”  

The position of this anomalous formation is, obviously, withheld, presumably to protect the objects from tampering until a Hegemony scientific expedition can study them in greater detail. Unfortunately, no images are provided with this account; most likely the intelligence officer aboard Flit Diver put them under seal to reduce the chances of someone guessing the location of the anomaly. 

I will spare you all Mr. Giunta’s longer description of the objects; it would nearly double the length of this feed item. He seems to regard seeing them as a life-changing event, though he is certain they are natural crystalline minerals. 

Details

Tales from the Service: The Anomaly in the Clouds

2952-10-23 – Tales from the Service: The Anomaly in the Clouds

Though I recorded some other interviews while I was away, I don’t want to overload the feed with this relatively dry, informative material.

While we have been out in Sagittarius, a few interesting things have happened back in the Coreward Frontier worthy of mention. The raid at Adimari Valis has been well covered in other media outlets, obviously, but the arrival of Flit Diver at Maribel the day before the raid was announced in the media seems to have been largely overlooked.

For those of you who do not know, the Flit Diver is a carrier of the Rahl Hegemony Navy. While no formal pact appears to exist between the Confederated Worlds and the Hegemony stabilizing the border region until this conflict is ended, even a token force sent to the Maribel defense zone seems a gesture of goodwill indicative that such negotiations are ongoing. We at Cosmic Background get very little message traffic out of Hegemony space, though we are certain we have many readers and viewers there.

Apparently, the Flit Diver’s pilots had a bit of an interesting experience on the way across the Reach; their course took them close to the edge of the Brushfire Nebula, where they claim to have seen something quite spectacular.

[N.T.B. – This gesture of supposed goodwill is also an excuse to rotate Hegemony squadrons through a combat zone; trust the Hegemon to never let an opportunity to season his forces go to waste.]

Stefan Giunta adjusted the settings of his interceptor’s onboard radar, trying to find a combination where the artifacts along the left margins of the display disappeared. The Cavalier was a relatively new machine, having just been introduced the year before, and he still hadn’t flown one with a properly automated radar rig. He didn’t mind; the techs would work out the bugs eventually, and in the meantime, it was the fastest and most nimble strike rig in the Hegemony fleet, with enough firepower to make quick work of anything it managed to run down.

“Lead, I’m having sensor trouble. Anyone else picking up anything in that cloud?” Stefan bit back the word “again” automatically; he didn’t want the squadron comms log to suggest he was dissatisfied with the quality of his machine, and thus risk being reassigned to a squadron flying the older, far less glamorous Cuirassier. Stefan had flown Cuirassiers for the first four years of his service career, and while they were a capable machine, they would feel slow and cumbersome next to the Cavalier.

“Nothing on my plot.” Commander Daniel Jansson, the squadron leader, replied in an instant. “Anyone else?”

“Just some radar artifacts.” Elliott Clemens’s voice was full of grumpy exasperation that fortunately the transcript would be unable to record. “The radar is so sensitive it picks up denser areas of the nebula.”

“Probably nothing, but why don’t you both go check it out anyway.”

“Aye, Commander.” Stefan switched to a direct channel with the other pilot. “Clemens, you’re ahead of me, so why don’t you lead.”

“Acknowledged.” Clemens split from the formation and banked toward the extending arm of the nebula, and Stefan followed. The purple and orange haze of a nearby active area of the Brushfire Nebula soon filled his forward view, hiding all but the brightest stars. Few people lived in or around the nebula, partly because the area was not suitable for planet formation, and partly because high concentrations of phased-Epsilon and phased-Rho particles posed a risk to starships with standard phased-matter condensing reactors. Dense nebula clouds could even interfere with strike craft operations.

Fortunately, their squadron’s forward patrol, and their mothership’s course generally, were not intending to go into the Brushfire; they merely needed to skirt it until they reached the edge of Memoire de Paix. A more direct route to their destination through the Silver Strand was of course quite out of the question; it would violate treaties if Hegemony military forces passed openly through that region, and no-one had been able to arrange it even on a solidarity mission.

Though they didn’t intend to go through the nebula, its many far-spreading and poorly mapped arms moved, in astronomical terms, relatively fast. Theoretically, a pirate band – this was one sort of inhabitant the Brushfire always seemed to have plenty of – could use its greater knowledge of this shifting condition to set up ambushes on passing ships, thus requiring the Diver to send out forward patrols to clear each jump zone. Pirates attacking a fully escorted light carrier seemed farfetched to Stefan, even if brigands from that very nebula had battled Confederated cruiser squadrons on almost equal terms not yet fifteen years before. The Confederated military was soft and risk-averse; pirates knew that the same wasn’t true of the Hegemony Navy.

Oddly, as he came out of his turn on Clemens’s tail, Stefan saw that the radar artifacts in the nearest section of nebula hadn’t gone away. Normally, this sort of interference was resolved when the more capable forward-facing sensors were brought to bear on the problem.

“Still seeing it.” Clemens made a small course adjustment, and Stefan mirrored it. “You think maybe there is something in there?”

“Several somethings is more likely.” Stefan again tried to adjust his radar to clarify the plot, again without result. “But that’s a dense gas pocket, probably holding together under its own gravity. Visual sighting in there is going to be impossible.”

“No reactor signatures, nothing on infrared.” Clemens sent a proposed course to Stefan’s display. “Let’s do a close circuit. If we don’t pick anything up on thermal, there’s nothing to see.”

“Lead on.” Stefan moved the course from his display to his autopilot, then turned to the sensor controls. Even with the unreliable hardware on the Cavalier, if there were pirates hiding in there, he was about to know it.

Details
  • You are here:  
  • Home
  • Tales from the Inbox