Past the Redline

Throttle Sixty-Four

Diana’s idea of hurrying up and ChaOS’ were very different.

She sat in her cockpit, leg twitching spasmodically with unspent energy, and stared at the readout hovering before her. It was the fightercraft she was in as a wireframe, each part going from red, to orange, to green, and finally to blue once the final checks were complete. As it was, the ship was ninety-percent there, but it was going too slowly for her tastes.

“We still have several minutes before the two fleets reach medium-range of each other. It’s unlikely that they’ll get any closer than that over the course of this engagement,” ChaOS said.

Diana flicked her hand across the display, and it shifted to the side and miniaturised itself. Instead, she opened up a tactical map of the local area. To one side was the Federation’s formation. The cruiser she was on was slowly moved to be at the farthest point from the oncoming Bolgian fleet within the diamond-formation taken by the cruisers. The rest of the formation was mostly undisturbed.

The shift that placed them at the rear was rather subtle. She would have saluted whomever had organised it if they weren’t currently on opposite sides. It looked natural, and unless the Bolgians were paying very close attention, they might not have noticed that one cruiser was in worse shape than the others.

The Bolgian fleet wasn’t as well outlined. The distance made it difficult, and they were going all out with their ECM to confuse and disorientate the Federation tracking systems. It wasn’t working too well, but it still made it so that a ship would occasionally appear in a slightly different position after a correction. The stream of long-range missiles racing towards the Federation fleet wasn’t helping things. Some of them were screaming that they were entire battlegroups instead of a lonely missile or two.

Lines painted themselves between the two fleets, and readouts flashed into being and disappeared as the cruiser communicated with the other nearby ships about its status and the status of the fleet.

At the moment, the only real sustained fire came from heavy lasers and a few railguns that could fire fast enough to score a hit every ten shots.

With the range they were dealing with, that mostly meant that the two fleets were scratching away at each other’s shields.

Once they got closer and more accurate, things would change drastically.

The Bolgians’ vanguard was much smaller than the Federation fleet. It wouldn’t last, Diana knew. She imagined the crews knew it too. But, in the dozen or so minutes where they were close enough to really exchange some fire, she imagined that they would work hard to knock out a few of the Federation’s ships and maybe cause some disarray in their formation.

After that, the main fleet would approach. It wasn’t going to be able to have a sustained engagement. The Federation was moving too quickly and at too steep an angle, and they didn’t want an engagement to begin with.

What would occur, she imagined, was a very long game of cat and mouse. The Federation had a head start and decent enough stealth to hide away if given the opportunity. In a one-on-one between two ships of equal tonnage, Diana gave the Federation two-to-one odds of coming out on top. The Bolgian had the numbers to swamp them and something of a home-field advantage. They had a whole world to resupply from if the engagement lasted long enough that that became a concern.

“They’re going to hit and run, aren’t they?” Diana asked.

“It seems like the logical choice, yes,” ChaOS replied.

Diana nodded, checked the time left until the ship was ready, then sat up with a grin. “Well then, I think it’s time to make things more interesting for the Federation. Can you bring up the exact terms and conditions I need to fulfil in order to avoid causing any war crimes?”

“Oh no,” ChaOS said, but a few boxes of text nonetheless appeared in the air before her, crisp lines of legalese that ChaOS was parsing through to find the exact loopholes she’d need to jump through. It was, quite simply, far more complex than any light-speed jump or piece of cross-system navigation.

“Right, I see it,” she said with a growing smile. She coughed a few times, cleared her throat, then made sure she was sitting in such a way that her lungs could get their fill of air.

“Setting up fleet-wide frequency in three… two…” A timer appeared, then counted down along with ChaOS. It went green, and Diana was live. The transmission was unidirectional, sent right from the cruiser’s main relay and entirely unencrypted. There were additional intricacies. She would have her original, non-translated voice heard with translations to common filling at the end of every sentence. She’d have to moderate herself and pause for the translation to keep up.

It was a lot of small, annoying things to set up, but it made some sense, in a sort of overly-bureaucratic way.

“I am Captain Diana Slowbane of the starfighter Styx. I am declaring, as per Federation-wide and Galactic Space-Going Wartime Protocol, that I am currently in possession and control of Cruiser 8421. The ship is under my command.”

She waited for the translation to go out, then continued.

“My crew consists of me. I have taken possession of this ship, its weapons, its life support, and its control systems. The entire ship is under my command. This is not an act of piracy as the Federation has, by its own actions, declared war upon the system where I currently reside.”

ChaOS was helpful enough to point out how that loophole would work. By using her and promising to pay her to attack the Bolgians, they had essentially employed her as a mercenary, which was, technically, an act of war that was easily provable, though she doubted an unfair court would accept that. It gave her some legitimacy as a combatant.

A combatant on the Federation’s side. But, since she resided in this system (or rather, she lived aboard her spacecraft which was in the system) she was allowed to change her allegiance to neutral. She wasn’t, under Federation law, allowed to join the Bolgians. But she wasn’t. She was merely defending her home system from an incursion.

That the incursion happened to be from the Federation was a bit awkward, legally speaking.

“I am hereby commandeering this vessel and giving all due warning as to its change of allegiance. The crew, other than those lost in the boarding of the vessel, are all currently prisoners of war and are imprisoned aboard the vessel. I am demanding that the Federation assist in the removal of their personnel from the ship so that it may continue wartime operations under my command.”

That was, of course, not what was going to happen. Technically though, by claiming to have prisoners (which the crew being unable to move through the ship freely sort of were) she neatly sidestepped a few potential legal issues. Offering them back was just polite.

“If the Federation deigns to assault this vessel, then all military actions will be met with force in kind. If you have further issues, you can communicate them to the appropriate legal offices in the nearest Federation court in the… Volgo system. Thank you!”

The transmission ended and Diana fell into a fit of cackles.

If this were just a case of her grabbing the ship, then she’d be in hot water. She couldn’t use its weapons against the Federation fleet without essentially using a captured-vessel-turned-prisoner-ship against a fleet filled with compatriots. But the law said that any hostile military action could negate that, as long as the Federation fired first.

Diana watched as the Federation fleet paused for a few long, long seconds. Then some Bolgian missiles struck too close for comfort and the fleet returned fire against the approaching enemy.

That, technically, was an act of war.

The transmission reopened before the Federation could get anyone with some legal savvy on the line. “I see that you have continued to fire upon residents of the system. In accordance with protocols and the following provisions…” She waited as ChaOS rattled a long string of codes in something akin to rapid-binary that a legal expert could cross reference to their heart’s delight later. “That continued assault will be considered an act of war in violation of any previous agreements between us. We, thereby, will act in kind. Please prepare for imminent assault.”

The line went dead once more and Diana giggled. “Think they’ll buy it?”

“It’s possible, though unlikely. The claims are too farfetched to be entirely believable. The more likely scenario is that a Bolgian spy or sympathiser has co-opted the cruiser’s communications.”

Judging by how none of the local ships had turned their weapons on the cruiser, even if the flagship was asking why they weren’t firing at the Bolgians and why they were transmitting such nonsense, the Federation had bought into the charade.

“ChaOS, let’s make this spectacular.”

“As you wish, Mistress.”