Crimson Worlds Collection II Read online

  Calloway gritted his teeth; he knew what was coming. When the ship’s engines fired, Raptor would accelerate at maximum, heading off in a random direction, trying to confuse the missiles’ targeting. It was hard to build enough velocity to escape, especially beginning at a standing start, but Raptor was going to do her best.

  “Initiating thrust plan Gamma.” The AI made the announcement a few seconds before the engines burned, giving the human crew an instant’s warning.

  Raptor shook wildly as its engines, which consumed almost 40% of its hull space, roared to life. Calloway felt the breath forced out of his lungs despite the protection of his couch and the relief provided by the drugs. It took most of his strength to breathe in and out. It was hard to think at all, and almost impossible to concentrate on anything. He was wondering, in a moderately confused state, just how much acceleration the ship’s engines were generating.

  “Now accelerating at 32.7 g.” The AI’s announcement answered his question. The computer was untroubled by the massive forces torturing the crew, and its voice was calm and even as always. Raptor was now accelerating at a far higher thrust than it was designed to endure. Its reactor was running at 125%, an overage so severe there was a real chance its containment could fail, with catastrophic results. Reactors were designed to scrag and terminate the reaction if a problem developed, but at this level of output, anything was possible. The engines were blasting well past their design specs, and Calloway knew they could also fail in a number of ways, most of which would vaporize his ship in an instant. The vessel’s frame rattled and shook, enduring pressures far beyond what it was built to withstand.

  Calloway lay in his couch, nearly crushed to death despite the padding all around his body. His thoughts were slow and hazy, but he tried to stay as focused as he could. He knew he was asking a lot of his ship, but it was the only way he could think of to try and survive…at least against this initial barrage.

  The ship took off at an angle from the incoming volley, quickly building velocity. A number of the enemy missiles locked on to the ECM buoys, revectoring at 200g thrust to target the decoys. But almost half began to swing around and pursue Raptor. Stingray and Hornet were still powered down, hiding behind the planet and its moon. It looked like neither had been discovered yet…and that was how Calloway wanted it.

  Raptor blasted toward Adelaide, as the pursuing missiles steadily closed the distance. Calloway still had a few tricks up his sleeve, but he needed to get closer to the planet, and he wasn’t sure they were going to make it. It was going to be close…very close.

  “Raptor Control…” He addressed the AI by its formal designation. “Go to 130% on the reactor and increase thrust level.” That should get them there ahead of the missiles…that is unless one of the overtaxed systems failed and they briefly added a second sun to this system.

  Chapter 9

  C1 Headquarters Building

  Wan Chai, Hong Kong

  Central Asian Combine, Earth

  “I would like to thank you all for coming on such short notice. The information I wish to share with you is far too sensitive for the normal communications networks.” It was a small Asian woman speaking. She was stylish and impeccably dressed, though age was finally catching her, and she walked with a cane now. Her already small frame was frail and bony, but her eyes blazed with undiminished intelligence. She looked completely harmless, but such an assumption would have been extraordinarily erroneous. Li An was as harmless as a viper in a pile of leaves. A member of the CAC Central Committee, she had been the head of C1, the CAC’s external intelligence agency, for forty years, and she was one of the most feared people on Earth, at least among those who knew who she was.

  “Minister Li, I believe I speak for all present when I thank you for inviting us here and convening this meeting.” Mahmoud Al’Karesh was Li An’s counterpart in the Caliphate. The Chairman of State Security had less blood on his hands than Li An, but only because he was twenty years younger. “At the risk of speculating on the nature of your news, I believe we have all noticed some rather…shall we say…unorthodox activities on the part of the Alliance military.”

  Li An maintained her emotionless smile despite her annoyance at Al’Karesh’s audacity. The Caliphate official was a guest, and in the CAC there was a code of conduct that was rigidly followed, at least on the surface. She could have written his boorishness off to ignorance, but she knew it had been deliberate. Al’Karesh was perfectly aware of CAC customs, and his speculation on the likely reason for the meeting was a clumsy effort to achieve a sort of dominance over the aged CAC spymaster. But Li An had dealt with rivals far more intelligent than Al’Karesh, and she simply ignored his rudeness. For the moment.

  The CAC and the Caliphate had been bitter enemies during the Unification Wars, but a shared rivalry with the Alliance had ultimately pushed them together for almost a century of uninterrupted cooperation. The relationship had been beneficial for both powers. The Caliphate had arguably achieved at least a fleeting position as the strongest Superpower, and the CAC had gained a solid hold on third place. There was a considerable gap between the top three and the remaining Powers, and the interstellar struggle had largely become a dance between the Alliance and the Caliphate-CAC bloc. The other Powers tended to ally with either side as their interests dictated. Except for the CEL and Europa Federalis, which continued to fight their own century-long battle with only brief pauses along the way.

  Now the Caliphate-CAC relationship had become strained. After a promising start, the Third Frontier War had become a disaster for the two allied Powers. The war left the Alliance as the preeminent Power, with a level of dominance unseen since the Unification Wars. That position had since been seriously eroded by rebellions and internal strife but, by most accounts, the Alliance still clung to the number one spot among Earth’s Superpowers.

  The Treaty of Mars had ended the Third Frontier War. It had also cost the Caliphate a dozen systems and a huge percentage of its resource production. The war had been over for seven years, and the CAC was beginning to recover both economically and militarily. But the Caliphate was still mired in a massive economic depression, and its armed forces had only begun to rebuild. The CAC had clearly moved into the number two position among the Powers, and the Caliphate had sunk to third…and was struggling to keep from falling into the second tier.

  Although the Caliphate and the CAC remained allies, considerable resentment had built up, and for the first time in a century there was a real possibility of a realignment among the Powers. The diplomats had been working furiously, seeking whatever gain could be had. The CAC was particularly worried about any cooperation between the Alliance and the Caliphate, which would be a grave threat, especially since the Pacific Rim Coalition was almost certain to join any such lineup. That concern was the primary reason the CAC’s master spy had called this meeting. Presenting the Alliance as a likely aggressor, whether true or not, was helpful to CAC diplomacy.

  “Chairman Al’Karesh is quite correct as to my reasons for asking you all here.” Li An looked out over her guests, glancing at each for an instant before continuing. “We have recently become aware of very alarming activity by the Alliance military. Our analysts have reviewed the data and, while it is clearly not normal, it does not seem to be conventionally consistent with pending military action against any of the other Powers.” She took a short breath. “Candidly, we do not know what they are doing.”

  “I want to express my own gratitude to you for extending this outreach. I, too, have become quite concerned about recent Alliance activity. Their previously purely defensive deployments now seem to be undergoing a major reshuffling. We have no reasonable conclusions on the reasons for this as of yet.” Igor Tankovich was the Director of the Russian-Indian Confederacy’s spy organization…one of them, at least. The Russians had a history of cloak and dagger operations, and they employed several competing agencies. Bitter rivals for the most part, they tended to spend as much time fencing with e
ach other as spying on external Powers. Tankovich was the head of GRU, arguably the most powerful and far-reaching of the competing organizations.

  Li An smiled and nodded deferentially to Tankovich. He was the only person in the room older than her, though she had to admit he still looked pretty good, even if he had put on at least 30 kilos. In many ways, he was the most important to her of all those present. That fact had less to do with the Russian’s abilities than with the realities of international power politics. The Russian-dominated RIC was definitely in play, more so than any of the other Powers. Its position had leaned slightly toward the Alliance for many years, but the power realignment after the war had caused considerable concern in St. Petersburg.

  She had spent an enormous amount of time since the war analyzing the relative strengths and positions of the Powers. There was going to be another war eventually; nothing had resolved the fundamental disputes between the nations. The Alliance had a massive frontier, with extensive access to unexplored space, but many of the Powers were becoming hemmed in, denied access to warp gates leading to new systems. Conflict was inevitable.

  She was worried about the Caliphate, but only moderately. In the end, there was just too much bad blood between them and the Alliance. The two Powers, and their predecessor states before them, had been enemies for 200 years. Both governments had employed extensive propaganda campaigns, inflaming nationalist and racial hatreds to rally support for the fight. And the Alliance held a large number of ex-Caliphate colonies…holdings the Caliph wanted back. It was extremely unlikely the respective governments could overcome all of this and become allies, at least in the near term. In the end, the Caliphate would side with the CAC.

  The German-dominated CEL and Europa Federalis were both essentially useless as allies. With the unending feud between the two, alliance with one meant war with the other. There was no gain to be had from pursuing either, so Li had discounted both in her analysis.

  The South American Empire was barely clinging to Superpower status. Blocked off from access to new systems, its tiny collection of colonies wasn’t enough to prop up its bankrupt terrestrial economy. The empire had sided with the Caliphate-CAC bloc in the last war, and they’d suffered massively as a result. They were unlikely to openly join any side in a new war, at least not until it seemed almost certain they were aligning themselves with the victors.

  The Martian Confederation would never side with the CAC. Li An had established a relationship with Roderick Vance, helping the Martian’s chief spy in his manipulation of the Alliance rebellions. By his own admission, Vance even owed her a favor. But she didn’t kid herself that there was any real chance of bringing the Confederation in any war alongside the CAC. Her efforts there would be to maintain neutrality and keep the Martians out of any new conflict.

  That left the RIC as the only significant Power really up for grabs. They had been marginally allied with the Alliance in the war, but their involvement had been half-hearted and limited to a few support units. If the Confederacy joined the CAC’s bloc and provided its full support, it could make the difference in the next conflict.

  “Igor, my old friend, you are quite correct. The Alliance activity is bewildering. I do, however, have two working hypotheses.” She had known the ancient Russian for a very long time. Indeed, a lifetime ago the two had briefly been lovers. Li An had discovered Tankovich’s weakness for Asian women, and she’d used it to her full advantage. The dalliance didn’t long outlive the needs of her operation, however. Though she’d moderately enjoyed the Russian, Li An’s sexual preferences ran more toward women than men. It was something she’d kept private over the years…the CAC was a conservative society, and it was particularly difficult for a woman to reach the heights of power. She didn’t need her personal affairs being used against her. A few of her lovers with less than ideal discretion had been the victims of unfortunate accidents, but the secret had been largely kept. Even those who knew about it were afraid to cross the CAC’s deadly spymaster.

  Tankovich leaned back in his chair and looked across the room at Li An. His mind drifted back across the decades, fondly remembering his host’s extraordinary seduction skills. She’d gotten the better of him on that operation, but he didn’t care. It had been worth it. “I suspected that you would have some insight to offer. Are you prepared to share with us?”

  “Of course, Igor. That is why I asked you all to come here.” She looked around the table and took a breath. “Our first theory is that the Alliance has discovered a previously undetected warp gate leading from one of their Rim worlds to a strategically sensitive location elsewhere. As you are all aware, the Alliance used such a discovery to great advantage during the recent war.” She glanced over at Al’Karesh as she delivered the pointed barb, repaying the Caliphate spy for his earlier rudeness. The Alliance had used a newly-located warp gate to seize the Gliese 250 system and, subsequently, a massive sector along the Caliphate frontier. She smiled almost imperceptibly as Al’Karesh squirmed. The Gliese affair was not a welcome topic of conversation in the Caliphate.

  Li An continued, slowly moving her gaze from Al’Karesh to her other guests. “If this interpretation is correct, the Alliance military movements could, in fact, be aggressive in nature. They could be massing for a strike through this new warp gate, and that attack could come anywhere…against any of us.” She paused, trying to read the faces of those assembled. “This is our primary hypothesis.”

  “We also have considered this.” Al’Karesh sat rigidly upright as he spoke. Clearly, he was concerned about the possibility of the Alliance gaining another advantage by bursting out into a previously secure sector. “Do you have a proposed plan of action, or are we here to simply discuss obvious concerns?”

  Li An looked back at the Caliphate official, but she refused to take the bait and become angry. “Yes, Chairman Al’Karesh, we do have a proposed course of action, but before I move on to that, we do have one other theory.” She glanced away from Al’Karesh. She was a master at controlling her emotions, but sometimes it was difficult. She really couldn’t stand the little shit. If he hadn’t been the Caliph’s cousin, she thought derisively, he’d be shoveling camel shit in some desert. “We believe it is also possible that the Alliance has discovered something of significant value on one of their frontier worlds. Perhaps a find similar to that on Epsilon Eridani IV.”

  A low murmur rose in the room. None of them had considered such a possibility, and the prospect of the Alliance discovering another ancient artifact deep in their own space was unsettling. The balance of power was in a precarious state already – a major Alliance technological advantage could shatter it permanently.

  “This hypothesis is somewhat supported by the force compositions of the Alliance fleets. The naval units they are moving are decidedly second line formations. Perhaps they feel older vessels are sufficient to defend an important site deep in their own space.” She paused, taking a short breath. “Nevertheless, we still believe the first theory is the most likely. They may be moving older ships simply because that is all they can spare and still maintain the border defenses on their inner colonies. With the losses they suffered during the recent rebellions, this is a decided possibility, if not a probability.”

  Tankovich leaned back in his seat. The furniture in the conference room was of the highest quality, but the chair creaked anyway under the Russian’s massive weight. He had always been a big man, Li An thought, but now he’s a fat man too.

  “Assuming we concur on the likely reasoning behind the Alliance’s moves, what are the CAC’s intentions?” He paused, but before she answered he added, “And what would you have us do, my dear Minister Li? You did not call this meeting for nothing.”

  Li An looked out across the table, her expression a blank canvas. “I am afraid I am not at liberty to divulge what actions the CAC may choose to undertake on its own.” She paused…it was time to try to sell her plan. “But I do have a proposal for joint action, assuming your respective governm
ents are in agreement with us.”

  Tankovich shifted uncomfortably in his chair. The RIC was willing to listen to CAC entreaties, but if Li An was going to suggest a military alliance, she was moving far too quickly. The Russians tended to act cautiously – ponderously some said - whatever course they ultimately chose. He opened his lips to speak, but decided to remain silent. Li An knew all of that - he would wait and see what she has to say.

  “I propose that all of our nations mobilize their space-based armed forces and deploy significant formations near our borders with the Alliance.” She glanced methodically around the room, weighing reactions. “I want to be clear, we are not suggesting an attack on the Alliance…merely that we all apply pressure. The presence of significant forces in a position to strike Alliance targets will compel them to retain heavy garrisons. This will starve any offensive launched via a newly discovered warp gate.” She paused as the others considered her words. “It is the least aggressive stance we can responsibly take. It does not require us to initiate any hostilities, yet it still serves our purpose. I do not believe any of us can afford to simply wait and see what the Alliance is doing.”

  The discussion continued for hours, and by the time her guests filed out of the room, Li An was confident she’d convinced them all. Whether or not they could persuade their faction-ridden governments was another question. She bid them all goodbye, all except Tankovich. She asked the Russian to stay.