Fortress World Hadrian

The Sunless Fleet spent six more days on Archon Waystation. During that time, Nightwing’s repairs were finished, the other ships secured weapons and supplies, and members of the fleet said goodbye to their civilian counterparts, friends and family, knowing full well that a trip to Fortress World Hadrian could possibly be a one way trip.

For me, I stewed on my own importance in the days leading to our next expedition. After the shock of Ulysses’s proposed mission wore off, and I regained some semblance of logical thought, it took me less than an hour to realize why the Pirate King thought he needed me.

I never understood Caerleon’s insistence on archaic language. Since our society was founded on games, I thought the use of terms like ‘knights’ or ‘lady’ or ‘prince’ were all for thematics, the aesthetics of it all, to make the games more theatrical.

That was until I met Arthur’s older sister, Morgan, known colloquially to all as “The Witch of Hadrian.”

Morgan fulfilled both traditional interpretations of a “witch.” She was extraordinarily beautiful and talented. Her intelligence, a threat to Arthur’s royal succession, earned her the title of protectorate of Caerleon’s then backwater shipyard. Upon arriving, many in Caerleon believed Morgan’s political days were over.

They were wrong. In under three years of being declared its guardian, Hadrian became known as the Fortress World, the imperium’s unbreakable bulwark. Siege after siege, Morgan eviscerated her enemies all with cold, merciless calculus. Her understanding of planetary defense, the once-thought unsolvable problem in space warfare, was unparalleled by any of her peers.

But Morgan was as reliable as she was untrustworthy. In political games, Morgan buried her rivals in gambits of treachery and deceit. I heard a story once that in backroom deals to secure funding for new orbital docks, Morgan received substantial funding from three separate interest groups and had them all purged for corruption shortly after.

In other words, she was not someone you fucked with.

I tried to tell this all to Ulysses. Oh I tried. But Ulysses seemed disinterested.

“I don’t know what you think you know,” I said, “but I haven’t spoken to Morgan in years. What do you think having me there is going to accomplish?”

“Finally, she sees her life’s purpose,” Ulysses laughed.

“This isn’t funny, Ulysses,” I snapped. “If you think Morgan’s going to hold her fire because I’m aboard Circe, you’re in for a rude awakening.”

“Well,” Ulysses crossed his arms. “Then maybe be useful and tell me what you think is going to happen.”

“Hadrian isn’t called a The Fortress World for show,” I pointed at Kindred Lancer, stationed outside Circe’s window. “You think having one Phalanx is cool? How about an entire battalion’s worth? I don’t care how many ships you bring, you’re going to be picked apart.”

“Is Hadrian impregnable?” Ulysses asked. “Do you believe that?”

“Nothing is impregnable,” I rolled my eyes. “But there’s a difference between practice and theory. Theoretically, if you gave me enough tea and pieces of paper and maybe several months, I could tell you how to conquer Hadrian. In fact, that would probably earn me imperial honors. Practically, however, you’re going to get half of us killed. Morgan solved the impossible problem of this era.”

“Which is?”

I wasn’t sure why I was still bothering with this ingrate.

“Planetary defense,” I explained. “Let me ask you this. If you were given the choice between defending your homeworld or destroying your opponent’s, which would you choose?”

“I’d defend my home,” Ulysses answered. “That seems obvious.”

“And you’d be wrong,” I replied. “The answer is to pack your homeworld aboard colony ships and send everything you have to your opponent’s world.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because defending your homeworld is, theoretically, not possible,” I said. “A planet is exposed in three dimensions. There are near infinite vectors of attack. Orbital platforms, a reserve of mobile fleets, it doesn’t matter. A single Phalanx from the edge of the system could bombard multiple major cities before you pinpoint its location.”

“And how is Hadrian any different?”

“Because Hadrian can move. The southern hemisphere is equipped with the universe’s most sophisticated Lemmings-Hyder engine, powered by a shitload of deuterium and the planet’s geothermal core. Hadrian is subspace capable.”

“You’re joking.”

“I’m not laughing. How is this not the first thing you learn about Hadrian? And, now that I think about it, do you even know where it is?”

“This,” Ulysses sighed, “has been… very enlightening.”

“Good, because–”

“Fortunately for us, everything you’ve told me is completely irrelevant.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’d be concerned if we were going to lay siege, that I’ll grant you,” Ulysses said. “But we’re not.”

I slammed my hands on the window pane.

“Do you think I’m blind?” I scoffed. “I can literally see your engineers outside filling Edge of Knight’s armories with fusion missiles and plasma. If those are not weapons for laying siege, then what are they?”

“Methods of last resort,” Ulysses shrugged. “It never hurts to be prepared.”

“And what’s your method of first resort?”

“Like I said,” he pointed at me. “It’s you. You should have a little more faith in yourself, Miss Greymoor. Rest up. You’re going to want to look nice for the big occasion.”

I released an exasperated yell and stormed out. Emiko waited outside.

“Everything will work out,” she reassured me.

I shook my head and tossed my hands in the air.

“I have no idea where you’re getting that confidence from,” I sighed. “Wait. Let me guess what you’re about to say.”

We laughed and said it at the same time.

“You’ll see.”

We set out a week after our arrival at Archon Waystation. With its civilian flotilla parked at the station, the Sunless Fleet looked like a real battle group. None of that would matter once we arrived at Hadrian, of course, but at least we looked the part.

As it turned out, Ulysses did know where Hadrian was. Nemura had provided its coordinates, which added to my suspicions surrounding her behavior. A Federation AI helping the Sunless Fleet. It sounded too good to be true.

“Is no one going to ask why a Federation AI has access to imperial military secrets?” I said. “Not even I know where Hadrian is at all times.”

“You know, if you really think about it,” Diane replied. “The Sunless Fleet also has access to imperial military secrets.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Nightwing?”

“Bingo.”

“You’re not concerned Nemura will inform the imperial hierarchy?”

“Who cares?” Diane shrugged. “We’ve already faced the Caerleon military once. The cat’s out of the bag now.”

In the last few days before we arrived at Hadrian, Diane and Emiko spent time addressing my role during combat.

“At first,” Diane said, “I thought I would just have you act as additional brain capacity for Emiko. But then I realized that was a bit boring and a little cruel.”

“Just a little?”

“I’ve since decided,” she ignored me, “that you’ll be Emiko’s partner. You two will share the responsibility of micro navigating Nightwing during short burst engagements.”

“Great,” I yawned. “How am I supposed to learn, exactly?”

Diane cocked her head sideways. She snapped her fingers.

“How else?” she asked. “With practice. Bridge Mode.”

The transition to Bridge Mode the second time was a lot more seamless than the first. To begin with, I didn’t feel like I had died, and second, my connection with Emiko and Diane felt much stronger, more familiar.

“In another lifetime, we’d do real trial runs,” Diane said. “Unfortunately, we can't do that during this journey, so we’ll have to settle for the wonders of technology.”

She snapped her fingers again.

Nightwing’s windows darkened and then lit up again with a blanket of artificial stars. Holographic projections sprung to life. Planets, enemy ships, and miscellaneous debris filled a simulated world.

“Unfortunately, death in this simulation feels abysmal,” Diane groaned. “Try not to get us killed too often, Elaine.”

Emiko and I spent most of our waking hours in the next few days in the simulator. There was a lot for me to learn, more than I had ever learned while cruising along in the academy. Emiko reacted to dangers at lightning speed and computed evasive commands before I even registered possible threats. More than once, I was the sole reason Nightwing erupted in a tower of flame.

“You’re thinking too hard about assessing things,” Emiko said. “That’s why you’re slower. The key is to always assume danger. If you were the enemy, where would you strike us from? Evade from there.”

“But our enemies might be human,” I argued. “Humans aren’t perfectly efficient.”

“That’s right. And don’t pretend you aren’t human yourself,” Emiko said. “Nightwing has shields and armor. We’ll survive even a direct hit in some circumstances. Fight within the margins that the ship has given you.”

We got better. Or at least I got better. By the end of the first few days I was issuing commands and completing Emiko’s maneuvers just a few microseconds behind her. Learning to siphon neural capacity from others helped.

Bridge Mode brought us closer. It feels weird to say that something so artificial accelerated our relationship, but you don’t spend hours in a sustained neural connection and not feel a deeper resonance with your partner.

Even outside of the simulator, in spite of Emiko’s lack of emotive responses, certain quirks began to seem apparent to me. She would fiddle with her tea strainer if something bothered her. She folded her hands together when she was happy.

It was strange, then, that despite the fact that Diane, Emiko, and I shared equal time in the simulator, I didn’t feel the same strength of connection with the captain, almost as if she had shut off a part of herself from the crew.

“You’ve noticed it too?” Emiko said when I brought it up with her. “Impressive. That was faster than the others.”

“Stephen and Vladimir know too?”

“The captain keeps certain things to herself,” Emiko sighed. “It’s the burden of leadership, I guess you could say.”

“It feels like more than that,” I said.

“Diane was one of the first who tested Bridge Mode,” she replied. “There’s always a residual spirit in the neural connection. You leave a part of yourself in there. I think Diane left something, something she regrets leaving behind. I think she’s learned to close off parts of her after that.”

There was no training on the last day of our journey to Hadrian. Ulysses placed the entire fleet on full alert as we charted through the last few hours of subspace. Nightwing was deployed, with Nemura over video communications counting down when we were to drop out of subspace.

Alone.

“You’ll be in the vanguard,” Ulysses ordered. “Nightwing was built on Hadrian, yes? Then after the initial exchange of fire, I’m sure they’ll recognize their own ship.”

“This could be a trap,” I warned. “Who knows what’s waiting for us outside. She might have not even brought us to Hadrian.”

“I was asked to provide coordinates for Hadrian,” Nemura answered in her blank cadence. “As you must remember, Lady Greymoor, I cannot lie.”

“Great,” I murmured. “She knows my name.”

“I’d worry more about surviving,” Ulysses laughed.

“Prepare for deceleration,” Nemura ordered. “On my mark.”

Nightwing’s crew, myself included, took a few moments to glance at each other. Nobody said anything, but I could feel that they, in one way or another, shared my thoughts and concerns.

“Wait a second,” Stephen paused. “Did any of us tell those two engineers what’s about to happen?”

Diane blinked and looked at Emiko. Emiko looked at me. I looked at Vladimir. Vladimir looked back at Stephen.

Stephen turned to the ceiling and whispered what I assumed was a prayer.

“What were their names again?” Stephen shrugged. “Anyway.”

“This is it people,” Diane snapped her fingers.

“Decelerate in three. Two. One.” Nemura counted.

“Mark.”