The Fringe Wars

3.12

Repercussions

Space, three quadrants out from Terra

"Will, initiate reverse engines. Cut forward movement. Let's not step on the welcome mat quite yet," Heid ordered from her chair on the bridge.

"Aye, aye, Captain," Will responded.

The slightest change in the constant hum of the Arcadia's engines was all that could be noticed when the ship was brought to a standstill.

"What do we do now?" Sylvian asked.

"We wait," Heid said. "Nolin, run scans on the ships in Terran orbit. Mark the Unity and her complement. I want to know the exact location of every CUF ship near Terra."

"Aye, aye, Captain," Nolin said.

The CUF had never had to fight any significant space marine fleet before, and because of that, the armada had been kept small, with military budgets supporting ground forces, gunships, and patrol ships far more than warships.

While the CUF armada still dwarfed the specter fleet, the Arcadia changed the game. A Titan-class warship, the Arcadia dwarfed every other CUF ship except for its equals—the Unity and the Littorio.

At the academy, she'd devoured books covering the Jovian War. In its epic space battles, the lunar, Mars, and Europa colonies had fought Earth's massive space marine force for independence.

Earth had treated its colonies much like Alluvia and Myr did now. The difference now was, the Collective didn't have an enormous force like Earth had had. Too far from the Jovian system to worry about massive scalar battles, the CUF designed its military strategy around two roles—a traffic cop to police fringe ships, and a guard dog over the colonies. The armada contained many gunships and patrol ships, but few warships, frigates, and destroyers. Its energy-based weapons, such as phase cannons and photon guns, could rain down terrifying damage on land-based targets. The same weapons posed far less danger in the vacuum of space, where a shot fired could be tracked from thousands of clicks away, giving its opponents hours to change course to avoid hitting a blast that could only travel in a straight line.

The Arcadia had been a typical CUF warship, armed only with energy weapons. But Heid had added armaments that could wreak havoc on a warship and break apart anything smaller, like a frigate or a destroyer. She both dreaded and looked forward to using them. She mused the Arcadia looked more like a pirate ship now than a military ship, and she felt pride in its new look. She wondered what that thought said about her.

"Captain," Nolin said, "the Unity just fired its phase cannons at the planet."

Heid clenched her armrests. "What was the target?"

He answered several seconds later. "I have the coordinates." He turned around. "It was Broken Mountain."

She collapsed back in her chair. Broken Mountain, first a temporary home for those freed from the Citadel, had become the sanctuary of any refugee found homeless or whose life was in peril.

"Sylvian, connect me to Terran headquarters."

A moment later, Hari's distraught image appeared on Heid's screen.

"What's going on down there, Hari?" Heid demanded.

Hari yelled a command to someone offscreen, and then turned back to Heid. "The CUF evacuated Rebus Station last night. And they've just bombed Broken Mountain. We have no details on the severity, but from visuals, it looks like a total loss."