The battle of clouds

Chapter 1:

2 March, 2474.

The library of the battleship Peter the Great was full. The fleet had just released the document detailing the history, organization, defenses and situation on the planet Clouds, and many people liked to read in groups where they could comment and argue what the contents meant for them. They were going to invade the planet after all.

"What a planet of cults," Robert said. He was a pilot in his mid twenties. This was going to be his first time facing an organized enemy. The same was true for most people on the fleet, they'd spent the last five years hunting pirates, defending supply lines and scaring pioneers that tried to build homes on planets the empire said was theirs. It had been rather dull, but now Robert could feel the excitement in the air.

"That's their plan. What they do," Florian, another pilot, sitting on the same table as Robert, said.

"Eh?"

"You know. You read the files," Florian glanced at the device in Roberts hands, "Founded as a refuge for all those groups who were oppressed elsewhere."

"You mean all the weird freaks who can't fit in anywhere else. There are people who think that the perfect world was in the seventeenth, twelfth, first centuries or the stone age. Pagan cults, fanatic cults, personality cults. Look at this, this one worships some ancient artist, this other plucks out the eyes of every other child, then the ears of every other one. How do they even communicate?" Robert thought about how people like, fanatics, always felt ready to fight to the death. Generally that was a problem for the infantry, but who knew what kind of stuff they might have hidden all over the world. Probably something that could destroy his fighter in seconds if he ever got careless. Or then they might just wave their swords at him.

"It says that they think loss of senses leads to perfection in the other ones. Not much good in a fight though," Florian laughed.

"Freaks. No wonder that this place is ripping itself apart." Supposedly they had rules that each group had a land of its own and couldn't harm others. It sounded nice, but from what Robert had read about the history of the world, it didn't work in pratice.

"That's why we are going there. To stop this stuff," Florian said. The weakest groups, those who wanted to live in some kind of ancient world, had been the first to fall prey to the other ones. So they bought safety by hiring mercenaries. They bought their services with raw materials, gold and if they had nothing else, themselves. They called this sacrifice to the gods.

This current intervention had begun when one of the sacrificed escaped. She had been born on the planet Clouds and lived a good life with her tribe, picking berries or doing whatever stone-age people did. Robert wasn't sure. She told in an interview that she'd heard of great cities existing, but she had thought that meant hundreds or at most thousands of people. She hadn't heard of technology, but some elders, probably they who first started to live the life or their first children, had told her of magic. They promised her that after the sacrifice she would be taken away by the gods, to live a glorious existence where all would be provided for her and she wouldn't have to lift a finger. It hadn't worked out that way.

She had been been confused, unhappy, a slave. She hadn't spoken of any details, only that eventually she learned what had happened to her, and why. And one day she had gotten lucky. Not only had she managed to escape, but she also found someone who wanted to hear her story and tell it to the world.

The great powers of the galaxy had promised to end the terror on Clouds. Everyone was on their way, the European ninth fleet had just been able to get there first.

"I don't know why we're in such a rush though," Florian said. "The frigates are blocking the charted routes out, and we'll have reinforcements here in two weeks. And word is that we are supposed to attack tomorrow."

"What reinforcements?" Robert asked. "I thought that the fifth was still a month away?"

"The Americans and Miliati are just two weeks away, word is the Japanese and Koreans are organizing a joint squadron..."

"That's the answer to your question right there. Those two are two weeks away, that means we got two weeks to take the damn planet. The crown-prince himself wrote an article saying we need to rid the world of these unhumans ways," Robert said, then lowered his voice. "I say that they want to wipe them out before anyone else can get here. The Americans at least are ideological allies to at least half the groups the crown-prince listed as unhuman." And Robert thought that the asians would probably support the rest just out of spite. It'll be he... problematic," Robert smiled. If they wanted to take the planet in two weeks, they'd have to charge openly with the capital ships against the orbital defenses, no time for hiding behind nearby planets and letting the fighters soften them up. And the planetary moon, or two big rocks, could hardly hide a frigate, never mind three battleships.

"Problematic? Heavy cannons, land based missiles, a completely working logistical system. When we could lose no-one at all," Florian threw the reading device at the desk. "Well, I won't be at the front of a suicide line."

"What!" a woman shouted from the other side of the room. Florian, Robert and several others turned, "What did you say?"

"Uh, captain, I said that I will be at the front if and when I am ordered," Florian said. "Just as well if the fleet comes with us, it'll be good protection for our fighters if there's several big ships around."

"You think to much Lieutenant. When you think too much about what you can't control, you worry too much, and that's not good."

Florian rose up to stand in salute "Yes ma'am, I will not worry ma'am"

The captain glared at Florian, frowned, then saluted back. "Carry on,"

Florian waited until the captain had left the room, then slowly looked around whether there were other officers around that didn't like talk like his, then continued. "Worry too much my ass. When a battleship with five thousand crewmen and another five thousand marines breaks up in low orbit and falls in a million pieces towards an enemy planet, I'll tell her who should have worried."

"Yeah, the admiral." Robert said. He was certain that everything would go fine, if they decided to attack victory would be a certain thing, a fleet was more valuable than prestige. Wasn't it? He smiled, hoping Florian would get it. 'If there is anything to get in a smile', he said to himself.

"Now, the briefing is in an hour, and after that who knows how much spare time we'll have. And if I'm going to get shot at, I'd like to know from where. Like these New Spartans,." Robert said, then began reading again. Another cult down on the planet. They had all kinds of weapons, and they modified themselves in all kinds of ways. Their Marathon record was fourteen minutes and fifty-four seconds. Robert shuddered at the thought of what they had done to themselves to achieve that.

After some time the people in the library started getting up and moving towards the great briefing room of the ship. Robert went with them. "Freaks like that won't stand a chance. Good as single fighters, but against us, hah," one said. "We need to go in full energy to propulsion, they don't have the mobility..."  said another. "Two weeks of flying, two years of lying laying on a beach, calling it occupation. What do you think, Robert?"

Robert turned to look. It was Rico, one of the pilots in his squadron. "Oh, to the beach. Heh, you know those Greco-Romans," Robert said. Rico looked confused. "The ones who wanna live like it's the year 99. Warm climate, no weapons more advanced than an iron spear, wine, orgies. And they have a mixture of monarchy and democracy just like us. We should get along just fine"

"Yes," Rico said. "To the beach! Attack!" he laughed and lunged forward towards the briefing room. A couple other pilots who had been nearby ran as well, shouting "Party, party." Rico muttered something to them, and they begun shoting "Orgies, orgies," instead. Robert laughed, but didn't bother running with them. He could always get a party feeling after the battle was over, he reckoned.

The briefing room compartment of the ship was equipped with moving walls and floors, tables, chairs and all manner of devices that could be brought to existence or removed by a few simple commands. It lacked decorations save for a couple flags painted on the bright yellow walls. Nationalism and energy, Robert had been told. Normally the compartment had dozens of briefing rooms, but now the walls were all set to make way for one great one, able to fit all the pilots, gunners and officers on the battleship who could be expected to have to make any kind of choices in the battle to come.

Everyone rose up to stand in attention as Admiral Akayev, the jovial, overweight commander of the fleet, walked in. He took place in one corner of the room, beside a computer-pole, ran his hand trough his gray hair, quickly straighetened his jacket, then told them to be at ease. he tested the computer beside him, turning around the planet and zooming in and out a few times before continuing. "Everyone can see that planet, yes?" the admiral waited a while. An officer beside a score of computers on the other side of the room nodded. "Good."

"This is the planet Clouds. Their orbital defenses are grouped into four clusters, and planetary defenses are evenly spread. These two clusters," he said while highlighting the mentioned places on the picture, "are owned by the Allsafe and the Wu-Wu corporations, paid to defend this planet. This third one is held by the New Spartans group of the planet, and this last one is held by the planetary council." He pressed a button and the logo of the Wu-Wu corporation appeared beside the planet. "The planet doesn't know this yet, but Wu-Wu works for us now. We paid them more."

The crowd laughed, the admiral continued once the chatter had worn off. "Yes. We have more money than silly planet. The plan is simple. Battlesquads one and two, Peter the Great, Barbarossa, Erik the Red and support will do a battle insert near the Wu-Wu cluster, horizontally with the planet, facing the Allsafe cluster. Battlesquad three, Lionheart, Vespucci and support will do a battle insert facing the Allsafe cluster, head to planet. Seven frigates will keep blockading the routes. Cruisers Ancona, Bari and Split will be held in reserve, here, fifteen minutes away," the admiral kept zooming, highlighting and painting in arrows and symbols on the picture as he spoke. "The Wu-Wu cluster will also aid in the attack, especially against planetary attacks. During the attack the smaller ships and fighters will be planetside of the main ships and towards the side of the Spartan and council clusters. We will fight in low orbit, that way the enemy clusters will find it harder to fire on us."

The admiral paused, let the plan sink in a bit before continuing. "Then we will attack the Spartan cluster. A standard attack, we won't have the element of surprise anymore. The land attack will start as soon as possible, so we may do some planetary sweeps before attacking the Spartans."

"The cults on this planet are of uneven skill, the monoperfectionists not very good at all, the Spartans horrible machinations geared only towards war. Be careful, and remember that we have better organization, discipline and will than the enemy. And firepower," the admiral laughed, "If things seem hard at any point, remember our strengths and that your friends are right next to you. When you do that, the enemy has no chance of victory however malformed, perverted or fanatic he is."

"We will leave the council cluster as it is because of political considerations. There are people there, some, most, that we have come to save, not destroy. But if you get shot on from it, shoot back." Another small bout of laughter.

"I want everybody ready in two hours, the battle starts at 07:00 GMT. It'll be daytime on the main scene of the battle, and cloudy, so that should lower the efficiency of the planetary defenses somewhat. But expect them to be fully operational for at least ten minutes until we can disrupt systems enough." The admiral took another dramatic pause. Robert sighed. "Good luck."

Some of the people in the room were already getting ready to leave when one of the commanders walked up beside the admiral and talked to the crowd. "There'll be little time for further briefings. The admiral will see some senior staff in his personal communications room, a couple units will reconvene here once the rooms are back in common order. Mostly everybody, get to your stations and make them ready, there will be telebriefings on position. We don't have much time. Understood?" the commander said.

"Understood," the crowd said as one.

"Then check your calendars and hurry out."

Once he had wriggled himself trough the crowd and out to the corridor, Robert began to run. He was in a hurry. He wasn't the only one.

***

The Wu-Wu representative stood in the middle of the gloomy room, waiting for the council-members of the planet, all clad in the same looking black capes covering faces and features, to rise up from the floor. After the initial roll-call earlier, all the council-members were shuffled around the room so that no-one would be able to tell which faction any single council-member was from. The Wu-Wu representative, Shen Lu, thought that it was the most ridiculous way of doing things he had ever seen. "Are you done flying around then?" he asked as the shuffling seemed over.

"Is control of the..." one of the council members began.

"Yes, everything is under command of your general Dwarala. The are no hidden back-doors for us to take control over, the crew is willing to fight to the end. Is this what you brought me here for? Don't you read memos?" Shen sighed. Less than two hours before the Europeans jump in and the council is wasting it's time on this. They should be spread out all over the planet, ready to fight.

"The Wu-Wu have a history of betrayal, it is prudent of us to make sure of everything."

'Then start reading trough the damn computer code instead of talking to me.' "Wu-Wu does not betray, we merely accept some commissions and decline others. For example, we have not betrayed you, we even sold you our military infrastructure and staff for a very reasonable price."

"Reasonable price!" a council member said and took a step forward before standing back again. "You spit in our faces and tell us you are cleaning them. We could have bought ten clusters, ten better clusters, for the same price we have paid you! If you don't betray, why did the Europeans contact you first then? Hah."

"I told you we should have accepted their demands. There are other empty worlds for those that..." another council member began to say.

"Easy for you to say, you're not the one asked to leave nor the one they hate. They'd never let us get more than one hour away from here, then they'd just shoot us out of the sky. Besides, I'm not leaving my home," another, a big one, said. Several of the other council members muttered in agreement.

"Are you done?" Shen asked. "Good. The European contact was part of the plan, you will remember. And as for the price, your credit isn't worth much anymore, and there are not ten other defense clusters to be bought, are there Pelly?" Shen looked as the council member shook. Perhaps they would not learn that the whole deal with the shuffling and dark cloaks was useless, if they wanted to hide their identity from him they should stand in thick lead boxes. 'Preferably air-tight.' "Now, while this discussion is amusing, for me, having sold our remaining cluster and hardware, it is also pointless. I still have lots to do before they come, and I am sure that you do too," he said, then began walking. He ignored their writhing and attempts to speak. They wanted him to promise them victory, but they didn't understand that the more desperate they were, the better it was for Wu-Wu. Desperate people would pay far more, and the Wu-Wu still had plenty of things to sell, never mind what he'd just told them. The council tried to save their planet, but in two weeks either the Europeans or the Wu-Wu would own the planet. There was no other way. Shen Lu smiled.