The Founder's Chosen Sequence 02 Part 02

The bulk container freighter Acer blew apart for the fifth time. She was a hybrid cargo carrier; an internal cargo with magnetic brackets for external cargo containers. The torpedoes hit her stern, right over her reactors. Her rear half simply bent and flowed outwards, civilian alloys becoming liquid, then gas in milliseconds. Forward of the impact, her cargo bays shattered like a puzzle thrown to the floor. The wreckage got large the further forwards they went, growing from shrapnel, to bits of recognizable space ship parts, to entire chunks of cargo and hull.

Glowing icons tracked each of the identified civilian bodies. The only intact ones came from the forward most sections. They were hundreds, killed instantly by the impact, mottled purple as they flew free. It was like Adrian had thrown glitter all over his first combat kill.

“Judging by the numbers of bodies we found in only the forward sections, the harvester’s entire population was onboard. My question is why they opened fire at all,” Lady Commander Capetian said. All twenty-four Cos were on the virtual call. She’d called the meeting as they gathered at the jump shelf before regressing towards Kyera.

The patrol hadn’t turned up any more ships, but it had dug up other evidence. A lost scanner probe with a dead battery and passive transmitter had been hauled aboard by the destroyer Asbury Park. Its logs revealed it had come from the battlecruiser Iris, which was presumed lost to rebels weeks ago.

A comms buoy had been located and its hard drives recovered, revealing comms logs from half a dozen ships. The conclusion was blatant; rebels had come through here with captured Armada hardware and hit the planetoid convoy with a single nuke stolen from the Armada. Perhaps the harvester had sided with them or was already rebelling on its own

That left the mystery of why the fight even happened. Adrian had a theory. “Milady, my guess is they hoped Belladonna would dock with the anchorage for an inspection. When I stopped short, they got trigger happy and detonated, then followed with the torpedoes. After that, I’m guessing panic made them run,” Adrian said. The freighter scattered, and the bodies plummeted into the clouds. They began to glow, but only briefly as resistance from thick atmosphere vaporized them.

“It’s a good theory, Major, but it relies on a lot of assumption about enemy behavior,” Capetian said.

“Well, we’ve found no evidence that there were actual trained forces on that ship, so I’m guessing based on experience fighting under-trained rebels,” Adrian said.

“Surely what happened was the rebels saw how easily the entire formation swatted their assault away and fled before they could be discovered,” a new voice said. Lord Major Iloni, CO of the destroyer Dog Days.

“Yes, that would be intimidating surely,” Capetian said.

Adrian had gotten used to that treatment. He shrugged and tipped back his flask. Black rum burned its way down his throat, and a sweet, smooth buzzing followed. Taking calls in his cabin instead of the bridge had advantages.

“Anyways, good thinking running the moment the station detonated, you probably saved your ship serious damage,” Capetian said.

Adrian smiled and took another drink. “Thank you, milady” he said.

“However, there’s at least half a dozen rebel ships that have made it through here and past Kyera. We need to assume hostility until proven otherwise. We enter Kyera at condition one and scan until we’re safe,” she said. “Any objections?”

Silence.

“That’s all. I’ll see all of you in the next system. We regress in fifteen minutes,” Capetian said.

Adrian returned to the bridge. He passed an electronics technician petty officer instructing a dozen of their new PH soldiers on accessing a Harrows’ neuro-fiber cables within the hull and repairing them.

He supervised regression, then turned the bridge back over to the second watch and went back to bed.

“Sir, a moment,” Demirici said.

Adrian spun around. “What do you need, Milady?” he said.

“I want to talk quickly,” she said. “Officer’s conference?”

“Yeah,” he said. The Officer’s conference had half a dozen chairs around a little round table. Most officer business took place in the lounge two sectors aft. This was for inter-ship meetings. Adrian sat himself down and waited while she pulled out her chair and folded herself neatly into it. Nobles were taught to sit properly at a young age. Demirici’s face betrayed a quiver of her lower lip.

“What do I say to the torpedo crew?” she said.

“Over killing several thousand civilians?” Adrian said.

“Yes. Telescope footage has been going around despite my attempts to squash it. Fire control is dead air and misery,” she said. “I don’t know how to tell them that.”

“Remind them all that those people were happy to watch us dock with their home then blow us up,” Adrian said. “Then, that they put their own civilians in danger when they fired on us. We didn’t know they had civilians aboard.”

“So tell them it’s the rebels fault?” she said clearly.

“Yes. The rebels thought we were playing games. They thought they could go to war, put their people in danger and walk away. We were stronger than falling for their shit,” he said.

“I can see something wrong with telling our crew to be monsters,” she said.

Adrian thought it over. “Yeah, go on?”

“Most common soldiers are here to just do a job, right? They’re not bloodthirsty in my experience,” she said.

“That’s a good point,” Adrian said. Not everyone was him. Most soldiers weren’t lifetime career soldiers. He closed his eyes and thought it over. This was the downside of being a supply officer for so long; he hadn’t seen combat since his enlisted days. “However, we’re going to be fighting a lot more rebels probably. Think about how low they’ve already gone to booby trap an entire anchorage. And we’ve only met our first rebels. There’s more, and then the Talwar are out there waiting for us. I want us to be monsters to fight them,” Adrian said.

She nodded along. “I’ll make it work to them, sir. It logically makes sense, but emotionally.” She shook her head. “Nevermind. Just so you know, according to the atlas, that station is not Timerid.”

“Really?” he said.

“There’s no census data but there’s a paragraph about how the people of that harvester were descended from a single extended Imperial family,” she said.

“Then it’s a good thing I shut down their hatred of the Timerids,” Adrian said. “Have you heard any whispers? I know things aren’t perfect, but at least all the lead figures are gone or silent.”

“Everyone’s slowly dropping their guard again. Adding all those new soldiers seems to have helped because of all the new faces that needed to be introduced. Everyone’s just starting over, emotionally,” she said.

“That’s good. No one has been added to the brig, so, success,” Adrian said. He sighed, as one of his main anxieties was lifted. “Anything else you need, Milady?”

“No sir, I’m going to hit the gym. Its squats time,” she said.

“You’re a night person?” Adrian said.

“Oh yes. I don’t have the energy to just get up and work out, then go to shift.” Then, she raised an eyebrow. “I haven’t seen you there.”

“I’m a morning person,” Adrian said.

“Really?” she said, and arched her eyebrows

“Always,” he said. “I also am a fan of doing the same workout every day. Curls, pull ups, bench press, push-ups, and then leg press and squats. Then boxing,” he said.

“How much time do you spend on swordplay?” she said.

“All the time I’ve got left. Varies by day, but I’m always practicing,” he said and tapped the gladius hilt. “You?”

“I’m woefully out of practice, sir. Never been much for swordplay, that’s why I learned to shoot them from a hundred thousand kilometers,” she said.

Adrian laughed a little.

“Anyways. If someone challenges me to a duel, I guess I’ll just die.”

“Let me know and I’ll just confine you to quarters. They can’t duel you if you can’t make it there,” Adrian said and winked.

She smiled and nodded back. “Appreciated sir.”

He stood, “I’m going to bed. Have a fun workout.”

They egressed ninety-two hours later into Kyera.

Immediately Belladonna was greeted by a scattering of passive advertisements. Adrian winced as a couple screens blared.

“Comms, silence that now.”

“Yes sir, Firewalls are being updated,” comms said through gritted teeth.

The system that unfurled had was scattered with charred mausoleums. There was dead wreckage in orbit of all four rock planets.

Adrian read the atlas over. Kyera had had 150 million people 40 years ago. Now, it was down to 50 million. The Imperial burn had only wiped 30 million of those away. The rest had moved away over the years.

The planet itself had a breathable oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, and biosphere of bacteria and simple multi-celled lifeforms. As Belladonna entered high orbit, the telescope panned over and Adrian saw the glassy craters across its surface. The oceans were deep blue puddles around a third of its surface, while the blatant lines of continental shelves separating light and dark rock marked their original expanse.

The cities were two bright spots on the lighter continents, surrounded by rings of smaller towns. There was a single space elevator in orbit, servicing a decent sized anchorage. The name was something local. According to Armada protocol, navigation designated it Aleph Anchorage. The three smaller, free-floating ones in orbit were designated Bavo, Carlon, and Deltol.

5^th squadron orbited while Capetia spoke with whoever was in charge below.

Until Adrian’s earpiece buzzed.

“All ships this is squadron-actual,” Lady Capetian said. “I’ve received sensor data from Kyera’s ruling noble house. Apparently, they counted nine ships racing through. Those nine rebels shot down half a dozen freighters on the way past, and my navigation has confirmed the wreckage. We’re going to follow, but since there’s no real assets in the next two systems we’ll do it cautiously. So, we’ll sweep this system to reassure everyone things are fine, then move on to the next,” Capetian said.

Right, Adrian thought. Easy enough; do another pattern search. He weighed whether the system being inhabited would make rebels more or less likely to be hiding here.

That was when he was pulled into a private conversation. “It was his call, I’m saying bring him in,” Molitor was saying.

“Fine,” Capetian said. “Major Huxton.”

“Yes milady,” Adrian said. Only him, Molitor, and the two battlecruiser COs were in here.

“You’re here because you sniffed out an ambush and I need people I know are clever. The governors Kyera come from House Mirakis. House Capetian has had relations with them for a long time. While Capetian has held steady after the withdrawal of the Empire, Mirakis fell dramatically. They’re desperate. And they didn’t give us sufficient sensor data. All I received was scattered recordings of individual ships targeting civilian ships and a few Armada pickets trying to protect them. And a promise that there are nine ships in total,” she said.

Adrian remained silent, because he recognized the pause was a rhetorical one, and not an invitation for questions from lowborn.

“I don’t trust them. I don’t think they are outright betraying the Systems. I think they’re playing both sides out of desperation,” she said.

“Last I checked this was a Unified Systems, not a bunch of feudal warlords,” Molitor said.

“Well, the noble houses out here are desperate, not that that justifies possible betrayal. If their numbers turn out to be wrong and they’ve provided indirect aide to the rebels or Talwar, they’ll be dealt with,” Lady Capetian said, voice rock solid in her fury.

And the Timerids and other rebels, Adrian thought. He didn’t say it out loud, because they weren’t important to Capetian.

“So, what do you want? Why not make this public information?” Molitor said.

“Half these destroyers are crewed by people from the South Wildlands. I don’t trust all of them and their leaders to put the Armada over their homes. They’re forgetting about their higher loyalties because of local issues,” she said.

“It’s something we forget from time to time,” Adrian muttered.

“Yes,” Capetian said quickly. “So, know this and keep eyes for me, understood?”

“Yes milady,” Adrian said.

“Yes, My Lady,” Molitor said.

Adrian ended the call.

“You alright, sir?” Demirici said, looking right at him.

He swallowed and rearranged his face. “All good. Any thoughts on this system?”

“Nothing really. I grew up in the North Wildlands. I thought we got hit hard by the great Imperial purge, but this is something else. And then there’s those ancient ruins. The Atlas says they’re two-thousand years old,” she said.

“Thank goodness we don’t have weapons like that anymore. And that we won the robot wars,” Adrian said.

“Agreed, sir,” she said.

They turned up nothing but a few outlying anchorages with supply needs that weren’t being met with Kyera paralyzed. Comms relayed their concerns back to Kyera itself. One anchorage with a cholera outbreak received a water purification plant and antibiotic stockpile from one of the UNREP tenders.

They moved on to the jump shelf.

“Look, half-million kilometers to port,” Ellie said and pointed at a console.

Adrian looked and saw the tumbling knife-hull of a Talwar built destroyer. The Talwar built their ships angular and sleek. Their capitol ships were great sword. The dreads had railers mounted down the spine, and the carriers had hangars swept back along the wings.

“Is that hostile?” Demirici said with tentative eagerness.

“No. Her ID numbers are still written on her flank. She’s one of ours we bought in the past,” Elli said.

“Alright, calculate the jump and we’ll regress,” Adrian said. They jumped out mid-formation.

Adrian looked around the bridge. “We’re doing one incoming torpedo drill, then everyone gets twenty-four hours of rest, copy?”

“Copy,” they said and threw themselves into their work.

Sixty-six hours later, they egressed into Widows Shade. The system was a binary. Two orange, dimmer main sequence stars orbiting each other. They danced so close they were pulling the outer layers of each other’s atmosphere apart and sharing them between each other. Orange gasses wound between them, sculpted into endless, whirling curtains of reddish plasma and superheated gas as they flew one star and were sucked back into the other.

Adrian had been to a few high-class balls as an officer, and he understood the metaphor in the name. The stars looked like two older, widowed noblewoman dancing together, getting closer than any married couple would for brief moments of affection, before separating again. It was a bond for the dead planets between them.

Adrian only needed to glance at the atlas to see that none of their five planets were close to inhabitable. The inner three had had their atmospheres blasted off by the combined firepower of the two stars. The outer two were gas giants that were so far away their clouds frosted over. The only reason this system had a name and not a designation number was the beauty of its two suns.

Adrian supervised as they got underway. Until he saw Demirici stand and lean over an enlisted man’s shoulder. “Weapons, what’s going on?” he said.

She looked up. Her gaze was sharp, and a faint smile curling on her lips. He guessed what it was even as she opened her mouth. “Sensor flash, sir. A tiny, geometric eclipse of one of the suns. Range is five-zero-two million kilometers.

Eight and a half minutes visual away, Adrian calculated quickly. “Are they near a planet?”

“Negative sir, open orbit.”

“Do not scan actively. Report their range and angle to the flagship, then track with a telescope and focus passive sensors on that area,” Adrian said.

“Sir, if we launch sensor probes and get two more points of reference, I can triangulate her exact position and then vector with only passive sensors,” Elli said with an eager smile.

“Granted. Launch away, and report to the flagship,” Adrian said.

“All COs,” Lady Capetian said on the command channel. “We’re going to do a vector search. I’m assigning each ship a range of vectors to active scan. Do not focus on the one ship we’ve spotted. If you see any more ships, report them to the flagship and do not signal them out for special scanning. Do not alert them we’ve spotted them.”

Those grid coordinates were sent straight to the scanners, who got to work.

It took another hour to get the probes in range for good triangulation. The ship was adrift, constant bearing increasing range.

“I’ve detected heat emissions coming off her, so either she’s just drifting or she was very recently abandoned,” Elli said.

Adrian studied their entire assigned region while his subordinates discussed the specifics.

“If she was destroyed, I’d be seeing flecks of debris matching her vector. There’s nothing. I’m guessing she’s seen us and is running cold,” Demirici said.

Running cold was a figure of speech. There was no such thing as true heat invisibility in space. Every ship radiated heat into space.

There was merely cutting all major heat and radiation emission sources and using your EWAR to hide yourself in the sheer limitless volume of space, or, in this case, the background radiation of a nearby star.

“Who spotted it?” Adrian said.

A hand went up. Chief Baldrin. One of the few chiefs left. Demirici looked Adrian’s way and nodded. Good, Adrian could reassure the crew he did not have permanent animosity to the senior enlisted.

“Noted,” he said. He scribbled down ‘provide administrative award to Chief Baldrin for spotting possible hostile.’

“Ma’m, Asbury Park just turned her active scans up to high,” Demirici said suddenly.

Sensor beams were a beacon of various frequencies scouring space, announcing to anyone listening that the ship was looking for something.

Adrian squinted at the destroyer. “Who gave that order?” he wondered.

“Asbury Park, turn your active scanners off,” Capetian said, answering his question.

“My Lady, we’ve located another hostile.”

“My orders were passive scans only.”

“We now know this hostile is a battlecruiser, and matching Iris’ configuration,” came the utterly confident reply.

“That does not matter, I gave a specific order. You have now told them we see them,” Capetian answered in a calm, neutral voice.

“My Lady, we now know the battlecruiser is indeed active and the intel is accurate. Give me a few minutes and I can see if,”

“You will speak with me before we leave this star system and answer for insubordination,” Capetian said.

Silence. The destroyer continued painting the new contact with her sensors. Both contacts continued drifting, playing cold.

“Radio signature detected, ma’m. I don’t have a lead but I’m sharing the general area we triangulated it to while it was running,” Molitor said over the command channel.

Rumor broadcast the data to every ship. It was a cylinder of space, between the two existing contacts.

They were at three, then, Adrian thought.

“All ships. The enemy knows we know they are here. So we’re going to play a ruse. You may actively scan the contact identified as Iris, and scan search for the new contact. Do not scan the contact Tower One,” Capetian said.

Adrian looked at the bridge. “This new contact area. Go full active scanning and search for her,” he said.

Several hours passed. Adrian had learned during his enlisted days that warfare was long stretches of boredom punctuated by instances of sheer terror. When he’d become supply officer on that UNREP tender, he’d learned space warfare wasn’t boredom, but carefully measured, long stretches of stress punctuated by moments of sheer terror.

They measured every angle of the radio transmissions, counting the seconds between each. Then they calculated celestial drift per second based on the star’s gravity, and fed that into the calculations. When their theoretical calculations came up with nothing, Demirici had her staff test one vector at a time.

They weren’t the ones who located her. It was Molitor again. “Ma’m, contact appears to be a destroyer hull. Hull type is one of the old Imperial models, but we can’t get a transponder.”

“Good work, My Lord. Stand by,” Capetian said.

Adrian felt her indecision over the radio. There were still many ships out there. He cursed Asbury Park’s CO Lord Nygard for blowing their advantage.

“This system is completely barren. Set course for target Iris at two-four gs. Do not scan the unidentified target, I want her passively tracked to see what she does. We’re taking the initiative,” Capetian said.

“Milady, what if they take the fight?” Adrian said.

“Depends on what that unidentified contact turns out to be, Major. And how many more of them there are, is your bloodlust sated?”

I just wanted to know, Adrian thought. “Yes, Milady.” He looked around his bridge. “Helm, two-four gs acceleration. Match the flagship’s course.”

They formed into a cone of Harrows, the two battlecruisers and UNREP trailing behind as they set off. At the tip, Capetian pointed her Harrow’s flat nose straight at the distant tail of Iris.

Iris was an old Imperial battlecruiser. While the Talwar liked angular and deadly, the Imperials wanted grand monuments of warships. Iris resembled a fortress tilted on its side, shaped like a diamond for best turret clearance with the citadel protruding from the center.

She didn’t react to the pursuit. Eight other ships did, including the destroyer they’d found. Emerging from around the twin star’s coronas, they coalesced into a single formation. Adrian counted five destroyers and a lone cruiser-massed ship.

The unidentified contact remained silent, and dark.

“Time to intercept?” Adrian said. He checked the clock over the bridge. It was now 2230 hours.

“Sir, eighteen hours,” Elli said.

“Turn watch over,” Adrian said. “If anything changes, sound condition two and alert us immediately.”

He waited until all the first watch officers were off the bridge, then departed on his own. His stomach suddenly felt empty. He stopped short, and swallowed. He felt dizzy just trying to stand in double gravity while that hungry.

When had he eaten? Lunch?

He realized he had no memory of lunch, because that was when they’d egressed. It had been breakfast of a protein bar in his cabin.

He rushed to the officer’s mess fast as he could walk in double gravity. Running in his state was too risky.

Dinner was mercifully still on the hot plates when he arrived. He grabbed three rolls of bread and two hockey pucks of steak. Instead of ketchup, he slathered everything in green sauce made from peppers and tomatoes harvested from the ship’s oxygen gardens and sat down to eat.

He wolfed down the first roll before looking up around him. The table was half-occupied, and there were three ensigns around him. One had a sash of dull yellow. One was a Timerid woman. All three looked young enough to be fresh out of officer college.

“Hi,” he said, and sawed off a chunk of steak and ate it. When he was done chewing, he looked back up and saw them still staring at him. The noble was trying to eat, but his eyes couldn’t get off Adrian. “Are we fighting?” he said.

“No sir,” the noble said and shook his head. A bit of meat flew out of his teeth and landed somewhere.

Okay, that was good. “Well, what’s up?” he said and looked around.

“We’ve been talking sir. How powerful is the enemy? Like, we almost were crippled by a freighter,” the noble said.

Adrian turned over the awkward phrasing in his mind a bit. “Not sure. Numbers wise, we have the advantage. I don’t know who’s crewing them now, and that will make the difference,” he said.

“Is that why we keep drilling over and over?” the noble said. Lord Haritax, Adrian read. Where the fuck was a last name like that from? Which culture had produced it?

“Yeah,” he said.

“What if the drilling is wrong, sir?”

“Do you have any suggestions to im…” he stopped short as he understood the terrified look in their eyes. Haritax’s awkward phrasing was him trying, politely, militarily, to admit they were afraid. Then, a thought occurred.

Oh fuck I’m a real authority figure now.

Being a supply officer meant he got to do spreadsheets and feed people. The most inspiration he did was working late nights with his staff while planning deployments, being on the ground with them. This, commanding a whole warship, was a new dimension.

There were a million generic propaganda lines he’d learned to answer. None of them felt right for him to answer, because they were cheap, mass-produced answers and this was a personal conversation.

“My apologies for disturbing you, sir, you must be very tired after a long day,” Haritax said in a perfectly conciliatory tone.

“If the training is wrong, we’d know by now. That’s why we’ve done all this internal training, to make sure everything works,” Adrian said, and looked around at them. “Think of it as programming a computer. You do the same thing over and over. Even if you’re injured, sleep deprived, or terrified your body will still remember.” He poked his own temple.

“Yes sir,” Haritax said.

Adrian looked around at them. “Anything you’re afraid of going wrong?”

“No,” Haritax said.

“No,” the other young man, Ensign Haixho said.

“Yes,” the Timerid woman, Ensign Rosckowski growled. The fact that the three of them sitting together relieved Adrian. She was accepted.

Adrian snickered. “I see who has the balls here. What’s going on, Ensign?”

All three of them smiled a bit. Haritax poked her.

“We’ve wasted plenty of time on gunnery drills for the main railers, sir. This ship is designed for massed torpedo attacks. Our armament barely counts as anti-ship. There’s other things we can spend the time on,” she said.

“You never know. We might run headlong into a gunfight,” Adrian said, and shrugged. “That’s it. It’s very possible we might be outside our intended role. The reason doesn’t matter, it could happen and we should be ready.”

She nodded slowly. “What if we’re wrong, sir?”

“Then we figure out what went wrong and ix it,” Adrian said. He took another bite. When none asked a question, he committed to eating fast as possible. Quick glances told him the others were also eating in silence.

He finished eating before them, so great was his hunger.

“We ready?” he said to them.

“For the battle, sir?” Haritax said.

“Yeah.”

“Yes sir,” he said.

“No, sir,” the other two said.

Adrian looked between them.

“No, sir,” Heritax said and hung his head. Maybe Lennier would have simply given a polite nod of admission, or puffed out his chest in superiority. Heritax was clearly younger and less shaped by nobility experiences.

“That’s okay,” Adrian said and smiled a little. He thought of something else to say but decided to leave it at that.

“Are you sure, sir?” Rosckowski said.

They really sounded like kids, Adrian thought. “Yeah,” he said. He continued eating his steak.

---

Hello everyone. Happy New Year! It has been a long week off but I’m glad to be back with you and starting 2025 with a new chapter.

No, I don’t have any new year’s resolutions. I don’t plan my life in advance, I just do thingsin the hardest way possible every time.

I posted this on notes but I’d like you all to see. I went out and got this commissioned Artist is called Penguink studio. Presenting: Belladonna, and every other of the many, many Harrow destroyers in service.

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