Alarm of War
Authors: Kennedy Hudner
A Novel of War and Conflict in the Victorian Sector
Kennedy Hudner
Copyright © 2012 Kennedy Hudner
All Rights Reserved
Cover design by Kip Rich of Color Lake, Inc.
Maps by Deneika Janski
ISBN: 978-4675-3876-3
To Jennifer, for thirty six wonderful years, and more on the way.
And to the countless science fiction and fantasy writers who gave a shy kid growing up in a very small town a glimpse of other lives and other worlds. And a sense of hope. I hope this book helps repay that debt.
Nobody writes a book alone. I’ve been lucky enough to have three dedicated readers who have given me valuable critiques and endless encouragement: my wife, Jennifer and two sons, Joshua and Daniel. I can’t thank them enough for their support and patience, and for putting up with me when I would space out at dinner as some scene or another suddenly kidnapped my attention and ran off with it.
Numerous other readers have given me great suggestions and caught embarrassing mistakes, including Beth and Bruce Hillson, David Menard, Hope Lombardi, Hugh Murray, Mike Mastromonico, Michele Fontaine, Rob Kimball, Don Kray, Steve Jordan and Mark Strickman. Many others, including my sister-in-law, Beth Hillson and an old high school friend, John Mello, gave me numerous helpful hints on publishing. Any mistakes you find in the book are my own.
This is a science fiction book, set far in the future. All of the characters are fictional. Any resemblance to any real person, living or dead, is not intended. If you think you see yourself in this book, take the nearest spaceship to Fleet Headquarters on Victoria and consult a therapist.
Intrigue. Betrayal. A devastating surprise attack and a frantic fight to survive.
Gritty warfare in space as four young officers respond to the alarm of war.
Four officer cadets in the Victorian Fleet meet in training camp. Emily, the young woman who dreams of becoming a Fleet historian, but discovers her real talents lay elsewhere. Grant, the arrogant son of Victoria’s most famous admiral. Hiram, the nervous but brilliant strategist, and Cookie, intent on joining the Fleet Marines. Together, they survive the trials and hardships of training to join the Fleet, unaware that that their home is about to be plunged into a maelstrom.
For three hundred years, the Kingdom of Victoria has enforced peace across the galaxy. But it has grown complacent, and its enemies are ready to strike. The Tilleke Empire and the Dominion of Unified Citizenry have been waiting a long time, and now is their chance. As their web draws closed around Victoria, the band of new officers find themselves on the last line of defense. They’ve been trained well – but will it be enough to save the kingdom?
I cannot hold my peace, because thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.
Jeremiah, 4:19
Victorian:
Queen Beatrice
Princess Anne, daughter of Queen Beatrice
Alyce Douthat, Admiral, Commander of Home Fleet
Robert Giunta, Admiral, Chief of Fleet Operations First Sea Lord
Harold, younger brother of Queen Beatrice. Head of Victorian Foreign Office.
Katherine Penn, Vice Admiral, Commander Third Fleet
Nathan Schuster, Rear Admiral, Commander Fleet Logistics and Personnel
Oliver Skiffington, Vice Admiral, Commander Second Fleet, on the
London.
Jeffrey Teehan, Rear Admiral, Commander Fleet Intelligence
Sir Henry Truscott, advisor for the Royal Family.
Emily Tuttle, Recruit.
Hiram Brill, Recruit
Grant Skiffington, Recruit
Maria “Cookie” Sanchez, Recruit
Michael Bishop – Tactical Officer on Missile Cruiser
New Zealand
(Home Fleet)
Captain Julie Grey – Commander Missile Cruiser
New Zealand
, Home Fleet
Alexander Rudd – Lieutenant, Executive Officer,
New Zealand
Rahim Bahawalanzai, pilot on the
New Zealand
Chief George Gibson - Sensors Officer
New Zealand
Chief Thomas Freidman – Weapons Officer –
New Zealand
Andrew Lord –Tactical Officer trainee on
New Zealand
Laura Salazar – Tactical Officer trainee on
New Zealand
Jim Eder – Captain, Battleship
Lionheart
Home Fleet
Yossi Gur – Captain, the
Yorkshire
, Cruiser (E)
Benny Peled –Commander and XO The
Yorkshire
Victor Zamir – Sergeant of Marines, The
Yorkshire
Livy Wexler – Sensor’s Officer for the
Yorkshire
Andy Richter – Chief on destroyer HMS
Galway.
Tobias Partridge – Seaman, Bridge crew,
New Zealand
.
Specialist 4 Lori Romano on the
Yorkshire
–AI Specialist
Otto Wisnioswski, Private, Fleet Marines
3 battle groups: Coldstream Guards, Black Watch and Queen’s Own Guard.
Battleships
: Lionheart, Invincible and Isle of Man.
Cruisers
: New Zealand, Emerald Isle, Australia, Southampton (Captain George Gilman), (Gloucester (Captain Joseph Wicklow and Lt Cmdr. Kamela Greer), Bristol (Captain Jack Rowe), Norfolk, Surrey, Exeter, Glastonbury, Canterbury, Kiwi, Wellington, Sydney, Brisbane, Tasmania.
Destroyers
: Swansea, Repulse, Auckland, South Wales, Canberra, Sydney, Newcastle, Coral Bay, Perth, Darwin, Melbourne, Aberdeen, Dundee, Dublin, Scotland, Killarney, Limerick, Cork, Belfast, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Oxford, Southampton, Coventry, Cape Town, Nottingham, Sheffield, Halifax, Stornoway, Waterford, Seaforth Head.
Frigates:
Kilimanjaro, Everest, Mt. McKinley, Annapurna, Elbrus, Manaslu, Eiger, Jungfrau, Matterhorn, Olympus, Snowdon, St. Helens
Colliers
: Sea Horse, Fleet’s Pride, Dough Boy
Arks
: Javelin, Battle Ax, Kite Runner
Michael Hudis, Chief Advisor to Citizen Director
Anthony Nasto, Citizen Director
Admiral John Mello – leader of First Task Force attacking Victoria. Ship is
Vengeance
.
Commander Jodi Pattin – Aide to Admiral Mello
Admiral Scott Kaeser – commander of Second Task Force attacking Victoria. Ship is the
Fortitude.
Captain Hatton, captain of the battleship
Vengeance.
Admiral Oscar Quigley of the Dominion Ship
People’s Pride.
Emperor Chalabi
Prince RaShahid, son of Emperor – Captain of
The Emperor’s Pride
Admiral Omar Hassan al-Bashir, a member of the Royal Family
Chapter 1
Post Diaspora 950
The Conspirators
In Darwin Space
T
he opening moves of the Dominion War took place two years before the first shot was fired, over a glass of vintage Merlot.
Three people sat in a room overlooking the Daskin Sea on Darwin, undeniably the most beautiful planet in the inhabited universe. Darwin had become a resort planet. It had craggy mountains that reached to the heavens, thousands of miles of pristine beaches, lush forests, a stable climate, moderate temperatures and no dangerous life forms of any kind.
Except for Man.
Darwin had become the headquarters of the League of Human Worlds. All of the organizations necessary to maintain normal relations among the far-flung worlds kept an office on Darwin. In the leading city of the planet, San Marino, nestled beside the Daskin Sea, there gathered diplomats, trade delegations, religious groups, doctors of the League Health Organization, academics, researchers of every interest and variety…and conspirators.
In a small, private hotel overlooking the harbor, three people discussed their common grievances. Michael Hudis lazily eyed his two guests. He was, technically, the Assistant Under-Secretary of Foreign Affairs for the Dominion of Unified Citizenry, a minor functionary in a very large bureaucracy. Actually, he reported directly to the Citizen Director, who he had known since the dusty playing fields of grade school. His function was to do the bidding of the Citizen Director. Hudis’s value was that he got things done.
Today, he was fomenting a war.
It had taken four years to reach this point. A word dropped here, a gesture there. An offhanded comment at a diplomatic gathering, watching closely to see who laughed, who grimaced, who looked away, and who looked thoughtful. Seeds planted and their furtive offshoots carefully nurtured…and hidden. Carefully hidden, always hidden from the probing eyes of the Vickies. And finally, a very discrete invitation to this meeting, where people representing nations would freely speak their mind and state their intentions.
“The damn Vickies are killing us,” Elizabeth Dreyer complained. She was a Special Assistant to the Cape Breton National Security Advisor. She was supposed to be on Darwin for her honeymoon. “After the discovery of the worm hole to Sybil Head and the Dominion, we spent one hundred trillion units – one hundred
trillion
! – to build the space port, repair docks and warehousing needed to handle the freight traffic to the new worlds. Cape Breton was the lifeblood of the new worlds for one hundred years, but then they discovered the wormholes to Victoria, and Cape Breton has been relegated to the status of a backwater port.”
She was a striking woman, with long tawny hair and flashing green eyes. Now her face was contorted and ugly, and it struck Hudis that she would not age well.
“We’ve no way of paying our debt burden,” she continued. “Our industry is moving to Victoria to be closer to the shipping nodes. Anyone with an ounce of ambition or wealth emigrates, and the ones left behind can barely scratch out a living. Victoria is sucking us dry.”
Her complaint was understandable, Hudis acknowledged. Cape Breton
had
been the gateway to the new worlds. It had enjoyed the good fortune to have been settled and industrialized before the wormhole to Sybil Head had been discovered, and that discovery had been followed almost immediately by the wormhole to what was now the Dominion. As more and more colonists had journeyed to the newly discovered planets, Cape Breton had been the system that had supplied them with everything from sugar to the colony ships they flew in, and had grown wealthy in the process.