There was no questioning it. Seasons Base was falling apart.
Even the slightest of observations revealed that the station, once proudly high in the orbit of the planet its inhabitants had nicknamed New Westminster, was beginning to degrade. The orbital adjustment RCS was spotty at best, and just this month they expelled twice as much propellant as they had the last month, and twice again as the month before. And yet the station's orbit still shifted.
The situation aboard was no better. The agridomes, without maintenance from the companies that originally constructed them, were running at low efficiency. And while the Octavarium engineering corps was clever, and had built plenty of makeshift hydroponics bays in their time to sustain the fleet, a station sized terrarium was a different matter. Severe rationing was imminent, even with the fleet's own hydroponics bays being run on double time to help feed the populace.
It was only a few years ago that the corridors were brightly lit, the reflections on the walls and in the eyes of the station's denizens serving as literal beacons of hope. "We're free," it said. "We're free and a nation." Those days when colonization of the planet seemed so close, and that the garden world of New Westminster was soon to be the capital of Natio Octavarium. Where millions would live, nestled away between Bretonia and Liberty, safe from the Gallic incursion into Sirius. Safe from stigma of shameful lives lived and deeds done in eras past. Safe from the fear of having to return to lives of banditry and interdiction.
But now the lights were fading in the hearts and halls alike. Though the Natio had been given amnesty, no amount of amnesty could make up for the isolation. Resources in the system were scarce, and what little astroecological balance there was, stellar phenomena over the few short years rendered it dead. The once closely neighbouring systems known to Sirius as Kansas and Humboldt were becoming one. The ice belt that was an extension of the Barrier grew ever closer to the planet. Habitability was sure to be lost.
In the months leading up to the ice belt's approach, the station became a spine for the fleet of ships that amassed under the Octavarium banner to adhere themselves to. While no one wanted to make the call, it was plainly obvious that the colonies were unsustainable, and that the evacuation order would need to be given.
And so it was.
Seasons, or what remained of it, was dismantled. Usable components and materials were packed into cargo containers and attached to any ship that could fit them securely. People were packed into the safest ships that they could fit into. The last few warships became mobile habitats, albeit well-armed ones.
Over the years, the flagship of the fleet, the VCS Metropolis, had taken significant damage time and time again. Every time it was near the brink, it was brought back and rebuilt. First with the Lane Hackers. Then with the Hellfire Legion. And the third time, with the Zoners. But traumatic injuries that one recovers from still add up, and one day, the sum of their lingering effects can break through and deliver one final, devastating blow.
In the course of the evacuation, the Metropolis broke her back.
Working parts were scavenged and distributed throughout the fleet. The Black Cloud II took on most of her cargo and inhabitants. And, under order of her commanding officer, the rest of her wreck was sent off to burn up in the system's sun.
With no flagship, no income, no resources, and no allies, they were vagrant again.
The first few months weren't so bad. There was a sense of unity in knowing that the denizens of the Octavarium Fleet were still self-sufficient. But cabin fever began to take its toll. While several of the ships were long-haulers with ample cabin room, the whole of the fleet was only designed for eight, maybe ten thousand people. Twenty thousand would be a squeeze. Thirty thousand was simply not sustainable.
Two weeks into their exodus, the fleet had entered interstellar space. They were along the edge of the Barrier, where the rocks were out of reach but still accessible in case, by immensely low chance, someone found them. Their course was straight for the Cortez system, which once would be accessible through Magellan, but their access to that system had been cut off originally by the Gallic siege and later by the instability of the jump hole leaving the Kansas system. Instead, their only option was a nine lightyear marathon through interstellar space.
Since the discovery of jump holes and later the construction of the jump gate network, linear interstellar travel was all but ancient history. Only deep space probes and hydrogen atoms were likely to be encountered during their two year trip through the interstellar medium.
A few days later, aboard the OCS Repentenace, the Montante-class gunship that served as the temporary command ship of the Octavarium Fleet, Lieutenant Florence Clemens had an epiphany.
"Cruise restrictors!" she shouted, bursting onto the ship's bridge. As far as command decks go, that of the Montante was not particularly large, and was prone to echoing when someone on it was particularly loud.
Her interjection startled the man seated in the captain's chair. "Lords alive, Florie!", he shouted back, turning his seat slightly and angling his head towards her, wincing slightly as the reflection hit him from what felt like six directions at once. "Is there something you want to tell us, or are you going mad already? Because we've got two years to go."
She cleared her throat. "Sorry, Kane. What I meant to say was, I think we've got a way to cut down on the length of our journey significantly."
Kane stood up and turned around. The autopilot had already been engaged; he was just filling a chair and taking in the blue-white sights of the void between Liberty and Bretonia. "Okay, followup questions. What are cruise restrictors, and is this going to get us killed?"
"In reverse order, no, it won't, and on top of that, you've willingly been in engineering bodges of mine that are more dangerous than this." She smirked. "Inside the confines of a system, there are certain aspects of the heliosphere that make it dangerous to go much faster than about five times the speed of light via a self-sustaining superluminal reference frame. Trade lanes sustain a static superluminal reference frame, so they're only limited to the stability of the power plants and synchronization between sequential trade lane rings, which these days caps out at around eighteen cee. All modern cruise engines are capable of surpassing five cee, but for efficiency and safety purposes, they're restricted to between four and four and a half cee depending on the model and size of ship. And marketing, of course."
Kane blinked. "But we're outside the heliosphere of any system, so we can go faster?"
"Precisely. Deep space tests have proven that up to ten cee is safe. Most of our ships can only go up to eight cee outside of a heliosphere, but that'll still halve our transit time to Cortez. The fleet will have to drop out of cruise for us to remove the restrictors, and we'll have to put them back in before we reach Cortez, and it'll take about 24 hours each to remove and replace them."
Kane paused for a minute. "You're sure this won't kill us?" he asked again.
Florence smiled. "You can shoot me if it does, sir."
"Go for it. I'll broadcast to the fleet that we're stopping for the maintenance operation."
Lieutenant Clemens' idea had worked. The fleet was speeding along twice as fast as before. It would be eleven months before they had to decelerate, replace the restrictors, and enter the Cortez system at standard cruise speeds.
As the months wore on, the journey took its toll on the Octavarium people. While they were all thankful they would only be in tin cans for a twelve months total instead of twenty-four, many were of the opinion that twelve months was eleven months too long.
Cabin fever, Kane once thought, was only experienced by those unaccustomed to long hauls through space. People used to the pleasantries of living on the ground or in wide open stations that did an adequate job at simulating it. But by the tail end of the journey, even he was starting to feel it coming on. Every week, the fleet would stop for a few hours to exchange goods and people, perform maintenance, and relax. There was no proper neural net access in interstellar space, and point to point communications that could reach across superluminal reference frames ran at fairly low data rates. There was barely enough available to maintain a few dozen voice calls, and fleet security and command data took precedence. People separated from their friends and families could use the few hours a week to catch up and visit, but even with that, the feeling of isolation was often difficult to tolerate.
The maintenance windows were also used for Octavarium's ministers and the fleet's military command to debrief, plan the next week's actions, and update on fleet conditions.
"Boss, you're not going to like this," was a phrase that Lieutenant Tobiah Nitzan, the fleet's quartermaster, said to Kane once in a while. This time, it had been almost a month since the last, and as the transit to Cortez was nearing its end, Kane showed actual worry in his response.
"Lay it on me, Tobes."
Nitzan sighed. "We got a snippet of news off the neural net. We're still too far out to get a good loss-free connection, or hell, even a fairly correctable one, but we know for sure that Gallia's taken the whole Leeds system and is pushing fighter wings through Magellan and into California." He handed Kane a tablet with recovered neural net data on it.
Kane dropped his coffee. The seal on the canister didn't break, and not a drop of the scalding liquid spilled out, but he didn't reach down to pick it up. There were more pressing matters at hand. He looked at the tablet, then back at Nitzan. "What about Cortez? Are we about to punch through the heliosheath right into a god damned Valor? Is this all for nothing?" The tablet began to shake as he held back an outburst he felt building up.
Tobiah reached out and steadied his friend's hand. "Cortez is okay, Harold. They've only got a few fighter wings there patrolling near the Magellan hole. The way we're coming at the system, we're going to be racing toward the jump hole to Coronado. The frogs don't even know that's there."
Kane let out a relieved breath. "Barrier Gate's still there and is still open to the public?"
"That's the other thing. The Gate's still open, but the system's got new owners. The Crayterians."
Tobiah Nitzan was the Quartermaster of the Octavarium Fleet. His job was to keep a logistical, central inventory of all fleet assets from the top down, supported by his subordinate quartermasters, who handled the asset management for the ships they were each assigned to. While in theory his job seemed like a glorified database manager, he was also in charge of ensuring that stock was kept proper and organized.
This trip, he sacrified some of the organization in favour of getting the whole fleet into and out of interstellar space intact.
"Alright, we've got thirty minutes to take stock before maintenance to replace the cruise restrictors begins," Kane announced. He was standing at the head of a tactical display table in the conference room slash converted mess hall aboard the OCS Repentance. Across from him at the other end of the table was Nitzan, and on the side to his right was Florence Clemens. "Ships. Largest to smallest."
Nitzan cleared his throat. "OCS Silent Man," he said, drawing a crude outline of a light carrier on the table. The computer understood his sketch and replaced it with a model of the ship he named. "Ibis-class light carrier. Yours truly, Lieutenant Tobiah Nitzan commanding. Minor technical faults. OCS New Millenium, another Ibis-class light carrier. Lieutenant Florence Clemens commanding. Major technical faults; reactor's sucking down twice as much fuel as it should. She'll have enough to get to Coronado but I'm afraid she's probably just going to be mats after that."
Kane looked over at Clemens. "Sorry, Harold," she said. "We picked up her hull and guts used in the first place. I'm surprised it made it to the exodus in the first place."
Nitzan continued. "OCS Black Cloud II, Huginn-class operations cruiser. Rotating crew commanding. Minor technical faults.Guns and Limelight array stripped down for power concerns. She's basically an incredibly durable transport right now, but with some love and work, we could get her up and running as a proper capital ship again. ADSV Fort Resolution, Eyrie-class multirole factory and maintenance vessel. Johnathan Jones commanding. No technical faults. This one's in good shape. Should be, though; it's brand goddamn new." He looked up. "Jones wasn't too thrilled with us shoving its maintenance bays full of fighters, though. Moving on, though."
"OCS Repentance, Starbridge-class command ship, he continued. "Taskmaster Harold Kane commanding. No technical faults. OXS Spirit of Radio, Cormorant-class light gunship. Lieutenant Kelly Combs commanding. No technical faults. Lukewarm Fusion... AT-1300 retrofit transport. Geoffrey Kane commanding. Minor technical faults, though the ship's older than all of us and Geoff put together so I'm pleasantly surprised we don't have that one listed as major. And finally, Paranoid. Spatial-class deep space clipper. Specialist Natalie Combs commanding. No technical faults; this is what it was made for."
Kane smiled. "Seems things are alright in the large craft department. Fighter complement, go."
"This is where it gets tricky," said Nitzan. "Two Waran-type heavy bombers, ADS R-13B Rook variant. Two Havoc Mark II-type light bombers. One of each docked to each Ibis-class carrier. Ten Raven's Talon-type strike fighters, ADS R-9W Raven variant. Two aboard each Ibis, and two are in the long-term maintenance bays on the Resolution."
"The other four are bolted to the hull of the Fusion," Florence chimed in. "They haven't been powered up since we left but their electronics are still functional and there doesn't seem to be any vibration damage."
"Moving on rapidly. As for heavy fighters, there are two Bayonet-type EWAR retrofits, both in cold storage aboard Fort Resolution. We didn't want to bolt those to any hulls what with the sensitive electronics inside. Interceptors, not a whole lot there either. Two old CX-series Scimitars bolted to the Fusion, and two Voyager-type interception freighters, ADS R-11A Kite variants. Both of those are free flying, mostly autopiloted with a rotating skeleton crew making sure things keep going relatively smoothly."
"Anything else to report?"
Nitzan and Clemens looked each others' ways, each waiting for the other to start. After a few seconds, the fleet's chief engineer spoke first. "Our transponders are invalid. As soon as we hit the 'net, we'll be claiming to fly Natio colours but as far as the 'net's concerned, we're just a band of freelancers. We're going to need to get ourselves re-registered in short order, and if not under a banner recognized as our own, then under one that's at least recognized."
The fleet's leader leaned forward, planted his elbows on the edge of the table, and folded his hands in front of his mouth. "Tobes?"
Nitzan cleared his throat again. "We've got enough small craft and guns to hold off a Gallic strike force but we don't have enough military butts to put in seats. We need one pilot per ship, two bombardiers for the two Rooks, and at least four extra trained crew for each Kite. That alone puts us at minimum thirty pilots, some of whom in a surprise engagement we are... expecting to lose." He paused for a moment, and then added, "Also half our useful combat ships are in cold storage or bolted to hulls with no way to get pilots in them under fire."
"So we've got the firepower, but we can't staff two thirds of it."
"Yessir."
Harold stood in contemplation for a few seconds, looking at two of his three most trusted advisors -- and friends. "We enter the planetary system, find the Coronado jump hole, and burn like hell for it then. Once we're on the other side we burn for Barrier Gate and start making phone calls. I'm sure we've missed a lot."
Harold Kane, Minister of Relations, stood before three of his four co-ministers in the strategic planning room aboard the OCS Repentance. The fourth, Minister Delacroix of Intelligence, was preoccupied with replacing equipment and securing short-term supplies through his contacts at Barrier Gate Station, where the Octavarium Fleet was temporarily moored.
"They're offering complete autonomy for our people as the first non-Crayterian member of a new federal republic in their space. And, regardless of whether or not we accept, humanitarian aid for our people and a place for Aquila to effect repairs on our ships."
There was silence. Kane brought up the Crayter Republic's drafted agreement on the display table.
"Fully autonomous governance, mutual defence, open use of Crayter installations, full Republic residency for all our people. And, most importantly, an opportunity to help colonize a planet located away from the Gallic fleet. Borneo. Tau-44. It'll be open to settlement by all members and allies of the Crayter Federal Republic."
Florence Clemens, Minister of Engineering spoke up from across the table. "So we'd be Crayterians, then?"
Kane met her eyes with his. "No," he asserted. "We are, and always shall be, Octavarium. It doesn't matter what colours people think we're flying. I told the Crayterians as much. We are Natio Octavarium, not Crayter. We would just be allied with them, working in mutual interests. Their laws, social programs, diplomacy, all nearly perfectly compatible with our own. And I've been assured that we have autonomy over our diplomatic affairs so long as they don't cause harm to the other members of the Crayter Federal Republic -- currently just the Crayterians themselves -- and their people."
He looked over to Minister of Finance, Tobiah Nitzan.
"This is the kind of change that defines a turning point in a nation's history," Nitzan said. "It's not something we should consider lightly at all. But it is necessary to consider it for the survival of our people."
Kane nodded and turned to Minister of Services, Ellen Rey.
"We don't really have any other options," she said matter-of-factly. "But we still need to vote it. And this is a critical nation-level change that will directly the whole of Octavarium, so it has to be unanimous."
The military leader slash face of the nation cleared away the drafted charter from the display table and called up a voting interface. He entered a unanimous requirement to pass, and the other parties present confirmed the requirement as accurate. Each Minister had a simple choice placed on the massive display panel in front of them, yes or no. Their vote would be recorded and archived as soon as they selected their choice.
"Okay. Natio Octavarium to become an autonomous member state of the Crayter Federal Republic. Yea," he said, pressing the affirmative response on his side of the table.
Immediately, his response buttons changed to a green checkmark, and at the same time, the absentee vote from Minister of Intelligence Victor Delacroix appeared to his right. Yea.
Rey looked for a long moment at Kane's face before closing her eyes and exhaling slowly. Her hand came down on the display slowly, and as she released it, the voting panel switched to a green checkmark. "Yea."
Clemens submitted her response almost instantly after Rey. A green checkmark appeared. "Yea."
Kane nodded silently and looked to his left.
Nitzan looked down at his panel for nearly half a minute in silence before bringing his hand down and speaking. "It's the only way our people are going to survive. At this rate, Gallia will not rest until they've crippled Sirius, or worse. Small nations like ours are the easiest targets for extermination. They blockaded us into Kansas with a pair of Valors. The weight of the Crayterians might be just enough to keep them at bay, but a publicly known and recognized military and national alliance? That could force them to reconsider." The green checkmark appeared. "Aye."
The center of the display table proudly flashed two simple words that would change the future of Natio Octavarium forever.
