Opening Moves (7 page)

“
Oh, wonderful! And
your
evidence for that is where exactly?” Mairwen said with growing frustration. “We cannot go on like this. We must do something! Honorable colleagues, we must form a unified fleet to oppose the Ashani.”

“
And this is why the other members did not attend,” Serrok shook his scarred head. The cybernetic ocular that had replaced his left eye shone angrily as if to emphasize its master's mood. “They knew just too well that you and the Érenni government would try to use this situation as a pretext to establish greater control over the rest of the Pact.”

“
Excuse me?” Mairwen staggered back in shock. She gasped. “But... but that is preposterous!”

“
Every single time we meet you say that we must come closer together, that we must tighten our ties, and why? For what?” the Komerco demanded. “Tell me, 'Honorable' Mairwen: who would profit the most from such an integration? Would it, perchance, be the Érenni Republics with their skilled diplomats and their reputation for backroom deals? It sure would be nice for you to have others provide the credits and blood for your defenses,” Serrok stated caustically. “The
Pact of Ten Suns
is an economic partnership. We trade goods and occasionally send aid to other members during natural disasters or incidents. We work together to fight pirates and raiders, but we are
not
a military union. We don't need to be because each of us,” he gave her a mock smile, “is strong enough on his own.”

“
You're not listening! The Dominion will not stop at Toklamakun, Serrok. They will attack the Pact next! We must formalize a mutual defense treaty to prevent that from happening!” The rumble of distant thunder seemed to underscore Mairwen's words.

“
Proof, damn it. I want proof,” Serrok snapped, anger rising in his own voice. “A Dominion force annexing a solar system more than fifty light-years away isn't proof of an impending invasion. Your whole case is an exercise in scaremongering!” the grizzled diplomat growled. “All you really want is greater power over us. That's why you set up the Pact in the first place, wasn't it?”

“
Of course not!” Mairwen yelled in frustration. “We are a peaceful people. We have neither the need nor the desire to subjugate others!”

“
Then you certainly won't mind if my people formulate our own response to this situation – if we even have to,” Ambassador Serrok shook his head.

“
Actually, a united declaration would be better,” Gwythyr rumbled slowly to Mairwen's slight surprise. “There's no need to call for a united fleet. But presenting the Dominion at least diplomatically with a unified
front
might dissuade them from further aggression.”

“
Exactly!” The Érenni representative seized on the idea. “Even if it's just words it still might make a difference. We should issue a joint statement condemning the attack on Toklamakun and warning the Ashani that we will oppose further expansion close to our borders.”

“
No.” Serrok's voice was flat and cold. It carried with it a steeled resolve. “We will make our own statement. We don't need the Érenni to speak for us. None of the other races do. That's why you are speaking to an empty chamber.”

There was a long silence punctuated only by the fall of rain and the grumbling of thunder in the sky. Founded more than two hundred years ago the Pact of Ten Suns had been an Érenni suggestion, a grouping of the smaller powers to try and face the larger powers of the galaxy, namely the Rasenni Empire. But despite many members the Pact had yet to make a truly united showing in any matter. There was a human proverb Mairwen had taken up some time ago that described the Pact's dilemma quite succinctly:
Too many cooks spoil the broth
. The member races were simply trying to get whatever they could out of the alliance with the minimum of sacrifice. Despite the noblest wishes and aspirations greed and apathy ruled the Pact. She only saw that now. The whole thing was rotten to the core and would fracture under the tiniest pressure.

“
So the official position of your government is to do nothing?” Mairwen asked formally.

“
We will keep a watchful eye on the Dominion, maybe even increase our military budget. But ultimately, we are too far away and too large for the Ashani. And we have the STARFIST ready for launch.”

“
That hulk?” Gwythyr scoffed. “If we were to believe your government, that mockery of a ship ought to have been ready to launch ten years ago!”

“
Do not mock us, Tuathaan!” Serrok spat. “The STARFIST is the most powerful ship in the Pact!”

“
By the time it's finished the universe will have collapsed!” Gwythyr laughed with a dismissive gesture. “Typical Komerco, all appearance and no substance.”

“
Enough!” Mairwen called pleadingly. “Honorable colleagues, we must stay on topic!”

“
I will not sit at this table and be insulted!” Serrok waved two of his four arms at the Tuathaan envoy. “This discussion is over. And what a meaningless waste of my time it's been. The Dominion's no threat to us and was probably justified in its operations against Toklamakun, just like they were on Aeta!”

“
You don't seriously believe the propaganda they told about responding to Aetu pirates! I know I listed that as a faint possibility, but come on!” Gwythyr rose from his chair, his thick, muscled arms stemmed against the table. “Really? Sweet fate, you're a greater fool than I first thought!”

“
I am not here to trade insults,” Serrok rose from his own chair, towering over Gwythyr. “I've made my people's position clear. Good day.” And with that he turned and stormed away.

“
It'll be a good day when he curls up in a corner and dies,” Gwythyr muttered, sinking back into his chair. The hairs on his sun-darkened arms stood up. “This is the second debate on the Ashani he has ruined.”

During the debate following the fall of Aeta the surviving leaders of that world had practically begged the Pact for help. Their impassioned pleas had found only deaf ears, and almost as soon as they finished speaking the meeting had been hijacked by the Komerco to discuss trade and mining rights.

“And yet, we do not have the authority to impose a solution,” Mairwen stated flatly, a great sadness swinging in her voice. “We must go alone into this crisis.”

“
True,” Gwythyr sighed. “The other races listen to the Komerco. They believe them when they talk about Érenni plots meant to undermine their authority and independence. They have no honor. I'd rather trust a man I'm in a blood feud with than them.”

“
The Pact is a failure, a mockery of the ideals of its founding generation,” Mairwen's voice was a resigned whisper. “The Rasenni think we are a joke, and if the Dominion also sees us as weak and divided how long until they tear us apart?”

Gwythyr leaned forward. “This has to stay between the two of us. The Tuathaan Elder Council does in fact believe the Ashani are preparing for war. Most think it will be an attack on the Ukhuri, but enough clans are convinced that it'll be an attack on us and have been accelerating our war industries as a countermeasure.”

Mairwen looked up. Her face brightened noticeably. “So you do not agree with Ambassador Serrok?”

“
We trust what we see, Honorable Mairwen, and what we've seen and what our intelligence apparatus has unearthed shows a massive increase in the Ashani navy. Their raids also have increased in frequency. To my shame it is no longer the Tuathaan who dictate the rhythm in this game of tit for tat,” Gwythyr noted with a hint of true sadness. “Serrok and his people are too far away to care. But both the Érenni Republics and the Tuathaan Clanholds now share a border with the Dominion. Justified or not, we must be ready.”

“
You propose an alliance?” the Érenni female quipped, seeing a ray of light in the darkness of the failed meeting.

“
I'm authorized to agree on a secret arrangement,” the old diplomat shrugged. “If one of us is attacked the other will come to their aid. Perhaps the Pact will follow. Or perhaps they will cower behind their borders and stick their heads in the sand. Nevertheless, we at least will stand together.”

Mairwen smiled widely. “I am sure my government will most gratefully accept this offer. They have already begun the evacuation of one of our colonies. The Érenni Republics do really believe a Ashani assault is imminent, and that when they come they will show no mercy. That is the lesson
we
have drawn from what we were able to gather from the events at Toklamakun and Aeta.”

“
Caution is a wise trait, Honorable Mairwen, as long as it doesn't turn into panic and paranoia,” the Tuathaan envoy remarked. “We are ready. The clans of the Tuathaan never shy away from battle. The day has yet to dawn that we abandoned our friends. I say, let them come! Between your defenses and our fleets we will drive them back with their non-existent tails between their legs!” he grinned widely, showing a number of golden teeth where
something
had hammered gaps into his jaw.

Mairwen considered the Tuathaan an enigma, a needlessly violent antithesis of the peace loving Érenni. They made for very strange allies, and she didn't quite understand how a people so mired in internal petty squabbles was able to time and again present that very united front she had so desired in a heartbeat. Yet right now she suddenly recognized something else about the Tuathaan. Despite their mysterious origins and volatile nature they were a honorable race, and it seemed that they valued the Pact in their own way perhaps as much as the Érenni did.

“Thank you again, my dear Gwythyr. I hope it doesn't come to it, but still, thank you.”

Outside the rain continued to fall much to Mairwen's satisfaction. The rain was known to wash away the old and reveal the new in its shining entirety, and so perhaps here, too, that was happening. The old Pact was gradually being washed away to reveal a newer and stronger bond between its two most prominent races. Sooner or later the Dominion would come. Mairwen believed that, no, she
knew
it. The only hope they had was that when the war started the defenses would hold long enough until help arrived. Because otherwise, Érenni civilization would simply cease to exist.

The meeting was closed, for what it was worth, and the Pact would never again meet in the halls of Tanith, nor would Mairwen delight in the planet's thunder storms or Serrok argue over resource and shipping rights with its leaders. Such mundane trivialities were soon to be lost in the coming events, for as one storm wracked the clouds of Tanith a far greater storm was brewing beyond them. Toklamakun had fallen. The Ashani were on their way.

FOLDSPACE, [foʊldspeɪs]

Foldspace (also: the fold) is a common designation for gravity pockets accessible via the bending of space-time through
Malenkov-Okuda
'warp bubble' engines. It is the only known method of traveling faster than the speed of light.

Contrary to common perception foldspace is not a fully formed separate dimension in the vein of the classical popular idea of 'hyperspace'. Instead, the fold consists of an unknown number of regionally limited pockets outside of real-space (also: normspace) created by the gravity wells of (inter)stellar objects. In effect, a foldspace pocket can be pictured as a double-walled shell in which, depending on drive core strength and integrity, speeds in excess of several thousand times the speed of light can be attained. The boundary of the 'inner wall' is marked by the pocket's gravitational center (usually a star) in which the gravitic shear becomes too great for
Malenkov-Okuda
engines and their compensators to function. The outer boundary is equally unstable and exposed to outside forces, primarily other foldspace pockets.

Integral to interstellar travel in the fold is the
Mannheimer Effect
: gravity wells in foldspace act, in layman's terms, like magnets towards one another. Foldspace pockets will always try to create links between each other, thereby creating overlapping and interconnected gravity fields and, ultimately, foldspace corridors. The largest known foldspace corridors have an extent of a dozen light-years across, the smallest permanent ones range can be as limited as twenty thousand kilometers.

A transition in and out of the fold is only safely possible outside the immediate gravity well of a star. For example, ships equipped with commercial compensators for their
Malenkov-Okuda
drives, trying to transition into the Sol System, can only do so at distances from the sun exceeding the orbit of Mars by roughly eleven million kilometers. A transition in and out of real-space any closer than that carries with it an exponential risk of catastrophic drive failure and therefore the loss of ship and crew due to distortions in the stellar gravity field. Military drive compensators have higher tolerances. In 2761 C.E. the Sino-Japanese light cruiser,
A.N.S. WHUZAN
managed a transition to real-space one and a quarter million kilometers rimward from Mars but needed a complete drive overhaul afterwards.