Republic Ascendant — Chapter Six
Book two in the Empirefall Chronicles follows the story of the fall of the Rew Confederacy and the rise of the Rogers Republic.
In orbit, railguns speak; on the council floor, knives do.
[PROLOGUE • CH 1 • CH 2 • CH 3 • CH 4 • CH 5]
CHAPTER Six | “Justice for the Dead”
“Packet green,” Estal Jenks said, the pads of his clawed fingers tapped at the comms board. “Ansible window in one-two-zero seconds. Last additions?”
“None,” Vorr said, eyes fixed on their silent running plot. They’d been running dark since the drop, and recovering the two pinnaces had broken that sheath momentarily.
“In queue,” Estal tapped the international iconography. A confirmation glyph winked and was gone, swallowed into the mass taps of light queue that was interstellar communication. “Packet away. Drift beat by ninety seconds; we’ll be in the first downstream hop.”
Yarra pressed a headphone cup tighter to her ear. “Captain –” She paused, and Vorr reached out with the lattice to calm her anxiety. “- ghost bounce is back, Sir!”
“I see it, Yarra,” Qira Nehl’s voice stayed even as she mirrored her combat panel. “Starboard quarter, five-one-five by minus ten.”
Yarra began clicking on the archaic lock-and-key switches, polling the onboard library. “Passive key matches Captain Xendu’s data core.”
Qira shook her head, the disappointment radiating across Vorr’s shared connection with her. “Confirmed, Captain,” she sighed audibly and long. “It’s the Resolute Republic.”
“We’re sure they’re not masking?”
“Can never be fully sure until they start shooting at you,” Qira replied with enough sarcasm in her voice to imply she did not doubt their identity.
“We’re getting a TBS tight beam,” Estal said, with a wince at his lips. “They’re requesting you, sir.”
The Talk-Between-Ships tight beam required a paired Republic key. There was no question now, the crew on the other side were Republic officers.
“Put it up,” Vorr said, motioning to the speaker over his head.
The TBS came clean and clear, without encryption headers, “Republic’s Flame, this is Resolute Actual. Purge your network drive and auxiliary storage of the data you illegally seized from Confederate Relay Two-Seven. Confirm purge on this channel. You have just under ninety seconds before the Ansible update.”
Estal’s eyes flicked between the Captain and the lifeless speaker. Vorr felt Qira’s breath tremble and heard Yarra’s sharp inhale. A warming calm joined him on the lattice as Chief Maru helped offload the mental barrage of the bridge crew.
Vorr reached up and pressed the thick channel button on the side of the speaker. The onboard mic came to life with the heavy click of the circuit. “Resolute, this is Flame Actual. Negative your last request. My report was filed lawfully. Please identify yourself for the record.”
The silence on the line stretched to an eternity. “You misunderstand your position,” said the urbane voice on the speaker. “Comply. Delete the data or be destroyed. Sixty seconds.”
Vorr tapped the button lightly, jittering the housing but not opening the channel. Waiting he finally clicked open the mic, “No.” The channel snapped shut with the hiss of metal.
“Combat posture, condition one,” Vorr said in an iron-calm. He pressed into Chief Maru’s lattice, Prepare to comfort the dead and dying.
“Drums spinning,” Qira called from her station. “Hatches open.”
“Great Maker!” Yarra shouted, “we’re being painted by active.” Mirroring her board to the central console she reported, “they’re on top of us, six-by-six-by-two.”
The Flame’s jammers swelled with noise, fraying the light spectrum into ragged cloth. Deep subspace pings tolled like cathedral bells. Crossing lines covered the plot in intercepting zones and color coded based on emergency threat assessments.
“Paint them back,” Vorr growled. “Qira, Rails three and four first, Missiles hold profile.”
“Aye,” Qira called as the Flame bared her teeth.
The speaker coughed as the tight beam TBS broke through the combat-ready jammers. “Don’t be stupid Declanian. You’re going to get your crew killed.”
Vorr reached up and brushed the talk button, but held his finger away. Willing himself to ignore the barb.
“That’s time,” the voice said again in a sing-song taunt.
Two rail gun slugs arrived almost at the exact second, splashing into the Flame’s forward shields. The angled energy turned the powerful slugs into inert screaming dust that peppered the Armaplast harmlessly.
The danger was the two missiles that rode the railgun slugs’ wake. They were shedding decoys like glitter and rotating in their powered approach.
“Point defense, pickets,” Qira snapped.
“Pickets away,” Yarra answered.
Flak, lidar, and counter missiles screamed out at the oncoming beasts. The first missile flinched wrong and ate a defensive rocket. As the warhead disintegrated the weakened forward shields passed the kinetic force to the Armaplast, which ate the shotgun blast of shrapnel without buckling.
The second missile rolled low, dodging the defensive fire, coming along the seam. The warhead overshot the cargo container holding the forward rail cannon. The warhead control detonated just beyond the bracing joint, punching the binding like a boxer landing a body shot in their fight for gold.
“Shields held,” Qira said. “Armor dinged. No breach.”
“Return fire,” Vorr said. “Rails three and four: six-meter walk across their bow.”
“Firing!”
Two rail cannons belched their imperceptible mass of spiteful streams stitched for the Resolute’s forward quarter. The first round flattened against their shields and flared; the second skipped off the energy barrier like a stone.
“One and two, go now.”
“Incomming!” Yarra shouted, her voice pitching up hard. Vorr reached forward with his lattice, but the static shock from her consciousness rebuffed his calm.
Another rail slug broke against the Flame’s shield as its partner punched through an overlap and carved a gutter. Chief Maru was on the net before Vorr could ask, “Damage Control, pod eight, hull breach.”
“Eight is storage,” Vorr said to himself as he gripped the control console to steady himself as the gravity well shrugged off a power surge.
The Resolute feathered sideways, lengthening the relative distance of her cargo truss. The shift threw Vorr’s solution off, forcing the combat computer to recalculate the entire payload. It was an old haulers trick, and Vorr knew it well.
“Counter,” Vorr ordered quickly. “Dump the tail shield into the grav, flip nose-high. All rails put rounds down-range on their attitude jets. Missiles high-amid ships, proximity detonate. Hold missiles til my command.”
Qira’s hands flew across the control platform like a musical instrument as she issued orders to the gun captains. “Locked, sir.”
He could feel her apprehension. She was still fine tuning her vectors, but she hadn’t wanted him waiting on her.
“Let it fly.”
“Slugs away,” Qira confirmed as the tail shield fanned to vapor, the nose of the ship kicked up. Lights dimmed momentarily as the power drain of firing all four rail cannons at once coursed through the power grid. “Profiles locked in missile guidance, top-attack wedge, delay fuse, proximity detonation.”
“Punch it.”
A pair of deep, low, thuds announced the release of the missiles just as the four slugs found home. The first two slugs disintegrated against the shields as the energy barrier converted their mass and kinetic energy into potential energy to dissipate.
The third slug entered just below the conning tower, exiting the ship on its eternal journey through the void. The final slug nailed the primary ventral RCS cluster. Blue jets of gas screamed as they tore at the airless space, then went black, as still as the grave.
“Good strike,” Qira reported. “Scopes show gas leaking.”
“They’re compensating dirty,” Yarra replied. “Looks like they’re dumping starboard RCS to arrest the spin.”
The two missiles knifed like daggers towards the wayward destroyer and its own counter measures bloomed, echoing the tactics the Flame had just employed.
“One splashed, short by ten-k,” Qira reported, Vorr didn’t need his lattice to feel her disappointment.
“Incoming return,” Yarra called, gripping her safety handle as the shield bucked from the first slug’s hit. The following three slugs landed amid-ships along the containerized weapons.
The banshee wail of the decompression alarm bit hard. Vorr clicked the master control as Chief Maru once again took direct command of damage control, “Senit, I need a team forward to boxes one and two.”
The Flame’s own second missile used the death of her sister as a blind, and passed into the envelope of the Resolute’s counter measures. Landing amid beam, the explosion was fast and violent.
Pattern recognition quickly identified broken bodies, power nodes, and hull plating breaking away and tumbling into space. “Good HIT!” Qira called, and the bridge crew erupted in a cheer.
The victory felt painfully short lived as Vorr’s damage control officer finally checked in on their own damage. His response was broken and full of static as his wireless headset tried to counter the noise of escaping atmosphere, busted electronics, and the cries of death. “Rog– fin– open– two– two– KIA– offline.”
“Chief Maru, I need that cleaned up.” Vorr called, turning to look at the ship’s master systems display. “Qira, another volley down range if you please.”
Aye, sir.” Qira paused for a moment then shook her head. “I’ve got no response from the number two gun crew, and gun one is on safties.”
“Fire three and four then,” Vorr turned to his Crew Chief. “Chief Maru, send a runner please.”
“Already did, Captain.”
Vorr nodded, then added, “put a single missile on its tail.”
“Aye, sir.”
Another thump followed by a loud bang spiked Vorr’s heart rate. “Report.”
Yarra shook her head, “it was a light beam, they fired a bow chaser at us.”
“Thats for swatting rocks,” Maru grumbled with almost a laugh in his voice. “No major damage sir, looks like that just tripped a main auxiliary breaker on the shields.”
The outgoing pair of rail slugs passed through the Resolutexs lifeless shield, cutting a pair of vicious corridors of death into the forward housing. “Adjusting vectors, we almost overshot.” Qira reported, followed by a pained, “missile intercepted.”
Vorr bit at his lip, in a bad habit he’d been forming over the last month. “Chief, status on one and two?”
Maru shook his head, ever so slightly, passing a feeling of knowing carnage into Vorr’s lattice. Audibly, to the bridge, he kept his tone positive, “we have DC teams on them, sir.”
“Very good, Chief.” Vorr eyed the long-lense camera display as it tracked the Resolute. The IR-cameras were showing blooms of heat. “Estal, give me TBS to the Resolute.”
Estal clicked away on the mechanical keyboard, trying to establish a cross-network handshake. Dropping a fist on the keyboard, Vorr flushed with the wave of his anger. “No good, Captain, their central computer has locked us out.”
“Incoming!”
Vorr glanced back at the system board just as a trio of slugs punched into his forward shield matrix. The reinforced electron barrier broke the metal to heat and energy as a new mental alarm from Yarra proceeded the ship bucking like a young bronco.
Thrown forward into the command console, Vorr felt the metal tear into his sensitive dermis, ripping open a gash above his eye. Instantly his right vision filled with hot wet blood as he caught his breath on the floor.
Over their link, Maru sensed Vorr’s injury and cursed, “Corpsman to the bridge.”
“Kele!” Qira shouted as she stood from her duty stool. She paused, the training of a naval officer fighting her desire to save her lover.
“Stay at your positions,” Vorr said, finally pulling himself to his feet. A quavering gasp echoed across the bridge at Vorr’s damaged face. “It’s superficial,” he said, calming his own shaky voice. “Send them back cannons three and four, followed by missile one.” He wiped at his eye, trying to clear his vision. “Do we still have a Skeinhead in launcher two?”
“Aye, sir.”
“I want it on the heels of that missile,” Vorr said, gritting his teeth. The AIP-77 Skeinhead was the primary precision systems-killer in his arsenal. A bomb-pumped x-ray warhead would knife its way into systems taking out power trunks, reaction mass lines, fire control, and dataspines. “Detonate missile one ahead of two to build a sensor blind.”
Vorr felt the light touch of his corpsman on his shoulder, as they pressed a fast sealing compound on his wound. They didn’t have time to close the skin, so it would heal as a nasty scar. My father wore a scar to the end of his days. Vorr conceded to himself.
The hard clacking of Qira’s keys paused for only a minute. “Solutions ready, sir.”
Yarra’s excitement spiked in Vorr’s mind again, “They have two more missiles knifing at our exposed rears.”
“Counter measures,” Vorr barked. “Qira, fire.”
The Flame lit up like a Christmas tree as the rear-two powerful slugs pounded away from their cannons and a pair of missiles erupted from their sealed silos in the cargo hold. Simultaneously, two needler turrets sent a wave of counter missiles at the oncoming malevolence.
Providing a wall of static and noise, the ECM added their song to the already noisy battlespace.
The pair of Flame’s slugs arrived first. Qira’s first slug’s new vector had been directly on target for the bridge. The arrival of the round was announced by a flash and a sudden violent expansion of oxygen and fuel. The second round passed just over the command spire hurtling out into the black.
Resolute’s two incoming missiles brought their response. The counter missile battery struck the second incoming bird, flash-frying the optics for a split second. In the heartbeat it took to come online, the first missile banked hard, head-over-heels and crashed into the number four container, housing Vorr’s fourth railgun.
He felt the tremble in the metal, followed by the agonizing death cry. Vorr could do nothing. He closed his eyes, letting the emotion and pain wash over his consciousness like a violent dam bursting.
Faintly in the darkening sound he heard Qira shout. In the silent stillness Maru was by his side. They locked mental hands, holding each other against the onslaught of anguish.
As quickly as it began, the cold stillness of death broke through. “Report,” Vorr asked, knowing he didn’t want the answer.
“Containers four through seven are gone,” Qira announced. “Our own birds are about ready to sack Resolute back.”
Vorr reached into his lattice and pressed comfort into Qira’s heart. “Prepare to detonate.”
The first missile ate an incoming counter rocket. As its flight path began to waver, Qira punched the controlled detonation. It took a second and a half for the command to leave her keyboard, travel across space, and the missile to understand it had been asked to sacrifice itself.
The second and a half were an eternity in Qira’s heart. They had just lost both missile pods, the Skeinhead in flight was their last true offensive punch.
There was no orange and red bloom, just needles of white on the tactical repeater; thermal ghosts blossoming under the hull’s skin. Datastreams guttering as trunks throughout the ship were severed. A pressure fog burst across the ship’s hull as one compartment flashed from frost to steam.
The x-rays worked their way down-the-ship, ejecting out the far side where they joined the rest of their cosmic ray brethren.
Resolute lay, just over five-hundred thousand klicks away, dead in space.
“Ox leaking, secondary fires, they haven’t dumped their weapon pods.” Qira reported as she frantically reviewed the scopes. “I’m calling them a dead stick, noting in the log eighteen-forty-two.” She grimaced at her screen. “Confirm the bridge is burned out, if their Captain was there instead of the CIC, he’s gone.”
“Understood,” Vorr replied, turning to Maru, “our butcher’s bill?”
“Only railgun three is online.” Maru said, starting with their offensive capabilities like they’d been taught in the Confederate Academy. “Containers four through seven are gone, eight is damaged, we have holes in the hull —”
“My crew,” Vorr interrupted. “We can sort out the ship later, what about my crew.”
Maru shrugged sheepishly, he’d spent too long in the Confederate Navy. “Thirty-two confirmed dead, eighteen are missing from the cargo pods, six injured who won’t see subspace and we have thirty to forty walking wounded.”
The sour stench of vomit filled Vorr’s throat. The uneasy nauseous pain of loss charged up his throat, threatening to pop. “Thank you, Chief,” he said, pushing the unease back to his stomach.
Maru’s lattice was filled with a pang of embarrassment and apology, as he missed Vorr’s violent self-reflex.
“Dispatch Colonel Xendu to the Resolute, I want answers.”
Adra Rogers did not pace. She sat straight-backed in the small chamber off the Council floor, where truths were meant to be blunted by rugs and warm light. The recording ran on the wall: the demand to delete, Kele Vorr’s refusal, the fight.
She’d sent two ships.
Not because she made a habit of doubting her captains, no, because she doubted him.
Declanian, ex-Confederate officer, scrupulously loyal on paper. In her head, the old calculus kept whispering: what if you’re being played by the one who would know best how to play you? Insurance had seemed prudent. A sister ship with matched teeth to verify, to escort, to pull him out by the scruff if his ghosts were louder than her orders.
But… but, something didn’t add up.
She’d sent the Flame to do the job, with Resolute as backup. How had Resolute slipped in first, and why had they butchered the technicians.
She wouldn’t shed a tear for her enemies dead, but her own dead, and her own captain’s hands … that needed answers.
Back five seconds,” she told the clerk. “Freeze on the tasking report.”
The screen obeyed. Two taskings sat side-by-side, same timestamp, the way two blades can sit in one sheath if someone has shaved the leather thin. The first bore her signature: block-chain encrypted and verified. The second rode a privileged channel she had never been given, stamped executive council necessity, with a text block she had not written: Proceed at speed. Neutralize on contact. Clear site of witnesses.
“Who authored that?” she asked, voice neutral.
“Liaison office,” the clerk said, and hated that his hand trembled. “Routing shows a Council override. The name is… redacted.”
“Of course it is,” Adra murmured.
The inner door opened without a knock. Councillor Wex slid in on a smile, politeness sheathed over impatience. He never resisted a stage.
Adra’s ever faithful clerk quickly cleared the screen. If Wex had seen it was on, he would not have seen the content.
“Madam Rogers,” he said smoothly. “You’ve heard. Tragic. Operational confusion in a chaotic theater. Vorr’s temperament is volatile. This is why I urged dispatching the Resolute to ensure compliance.” He tisked his teeth in a way that grated at Adra. “If the Flame’s Marines… well…” He held up a hand, miming at contemplation as if he had not prepared his entire speech. “-One hates to think it, but your Declanian captain does have… history. We should shape the narrative before panic breeds factions.”
He said Declanian the way a surgeon says necrotic.
Adra did not rise. “These are private chambers.”
“Yes, yes, Council override,” Wex continued, stomping his cane into the ground, trying to draw attention back to his words and not his actions. “We need to get ahead of the narrative, if the public learns your Declanian murdered technicians –”
Adra felt her head jerk uncontrollably, stopping Wex before she could hide the motion.
“Your coalition expects decisiveness,” Wex said pleasantly in a failing attempt to extricate himself from the room.
“You concluded the massacre was the Flame’s doing before my office received the first packet?” She tipped her head, a small movement, a scalpel.
“Odd. Because the recording I just watched shows the Resolute Republic firing first after demanding the deletion of evidence. Vorr’s Marines posted no heat signatures on entry. The Confederate technicians were already dead.”
For the barest moment, something in Wex’s gaze flinched – like a pupil shrinking under light. Then the smile returned, thinner. “Then we should be grateful. A misunderstanding with a terrible cost.”
“You just accused my captain of killing civilians,” Adra said, very gently. “Be precise when you retract.”
“If,” Wex said, “I misspoke, I’ll be sure to have my details corrected for the committee hearing.”
“What hearing?”
“Uhm, madam Chancellor,” the clerk stared at his shoes, avoiding her gaze. “We just received a censure hearing for tomorrow to review your conduct of the war.”
Wex’s jaw worked once, almost invisible. “I assume it’s just a formality,” he said. “Pending full review.”
Adra let the quiet fill the room until it pressed at the skin. How did you know there was a massacre at all, if you hadn’t seen the packet? She did not ask it aloud, she didn’t let her face even twitch as her eyes stayed locked with Wex’s. How is there a hearing before the report is even public?
“Your position is not what it was. Accidents happen to leaders who –” Wex paused, his face calm as milk. “Well, it’s better we not dwell on accidents.” He inclined his head, the bow of a man who knew how to play the game. “Have a good evening, ma’am.”
The door sealed behind him.
“Madam?” the clerk whispered.
“Lock the privileged channel that carried that instruction,” Adra said. “Mirror it to off-world vaults. Sign with my hand. If anyone cracks it, I want a timestamp and a name.”
“Yes, Madam.”
“And pull Vorr off the lists, I don’t want him commanding anything.”
The clerk looked away, “Vorr will take that as a disciplinary move.”
“I know,” Adra rocked her shoulders with fatigue. “But if they’re going to use him as bait for me, I can’t have him on the line until I deal with them.”
She did not yet know whose hand had slid that second order in beside hers. But she knew it existed. And she knew it had assumed two things: that she would doubt a Declanian long enough to be useful, and that Kele Vorr would kneel when told.
“There is no doubt in my mind Wex was a part of the conspiracy, but he wouldn’t have been stupid enough to send the order himself,” Adra said to her aide, rubbing at her tiring eyes.
“After this little display,” he replied, shrugging.
Councillor Wex walked the private corridor adjacent to the council wardrooms. He adjusted his cuffs, rolled his shoulders once, and let the artificial smile ease off his face.
That could have gone better. He mused. He had always been impulsive, and when he heard the report had arrived … well he wanted to gloat.
Tomorrow she will hardly notice him, he’s not on the docket to testify. The only way he could stick it to her was to be first, but now he was first in the firing line.
The panel in the wall did not exist, but he pressed his palm to it anyway.
The glass darkened, then cleared: a small space, all shadow and angled light, the air perfumed faintly with graphite and cold metal. He attached his personal communicator. There was no image, by design, just a subtle radio carrier held so low in the comm chatter no one would notice it.
“The wrong crew won,” he said, voice hushed to a whisper.
“You assured us to the contrary,” said a voice that always sounded amused.
“The objective,” said another, softer voice, “has not changed.”
“Can you kill this review tomorrow?” Wex asked, burying his admission to warning her himself. “She has evidence our ship killed the station.”
A third voice, dry as old silk interrupted: “But she doesn’t know it was our ship.”
Wex held his tongue, this was turning against him.
“Is that correct, Councillor?”
“Slightly,” Wex said. He let himself feel it, briefly: irritation like a copper taste. “I misspoke in a meeting with her, I referenced the wrong ship.”
“How bad is it?” The always amused voice asked, losing some of his humor.
“If we eliminate her,” Wex said, biting his lip. He hadn’t intended to end Adra’s life, but he also had no intention of rotting in a prison barge. “Then there won’t be a problem.”
The pause stretched an eternity before the soft voice of the second participant took a hard tone. “That.” She said, coldly. “We will hold that option.”
The amused voice sighed. “Such waste, Councillor.”
Wex bowed his head in supplication, despite being unseen. “My apologies to the cabal.”
He palmed the panel without further preamble and the wall became a wall again. Councillor Wex turned to leave as his practiced smile returned, like a badge someone wore to get into office.
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