The Borsen Incursion

The Borsen Incursion

A space warfare saga by Julian M. Miles

Copyright 2012 Julian M. Miles

Smashwords Edition

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Contents

Prologue

Terms

Chant of the Betrayed

The Power That Seeks

Arms Race

Police Action

Harsh Lessons

Dreadnought

Sacrifices

Ghosts

To Kill and Kill Again

Childcare

My Name is Vengeance

A Farewell to Fools

Privateers

Out of Time

Truth in Blood

And Far Away

Observers

Leng’s Crusade

Leader of the Pack

Haunted

Reunion

Zen and Ink

Look Upon My Works

Late Delivery

State of Play

Taken

Sister Strange

Aces Deep

Dead Letters

Last Men Standing

Now You See Me

Seeds

Slash and Grab

Diversion

Plus Ca Change

No God But Me

Epitaph

The End of Ways

Fall From Grace

We Ran

Eternal Witness

Sympathiser

The Tau

Step Into My Parlour

Sleight of Tentacle

Over the Top

High Time

Prelude

Against All Odds

Deal With the Devil

Legacy

Appendix One: Lexicon

Appendix Two: Timeline

Appendix Three: CRITTURS

Appendix Four: Ranks

Appendix Five: Dara

About the Author

Connect with Julian Miles

Other Books by Julian Miles

Credits

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Prologue

Five hundred years have passed since the cataclysm that ended mankind’s twenty-second century early. As the dust and ashes settled, the only cohesive force remaining was the United Nations; now controlling a military largely comprised of a homeless host. Nations had become mere footnotes in history. Indeed, history itself became an endangered thing during that first frantic decade. But stronger, more disciplined minds prevailed. The United Nations became the Unified Nations. Five years later it accepted the ruins of the United States of America into itself and became the USE: Unified States of Earth.

Earth Command was the power behind the throne. The military hardcore that had walked from the ashes of devastation, and rebuilt with ruthless determination, was not going to be derailed by the squealing masses this time.

For the following two hundred years, humanity rebuilt along old lines with renewed vigour. Science gave access to the stars before the end of the first century. From there, mankind went forth. By the end of the second century, mankind had encountered eight sentient races, but nothing to challenge its technological lead and fundamentally barbaric treatment of less advanced civilisations. ‘We are a star-faring race with a colonial mindset’ was how several swiftly silenced observers termed it. The survivors of the eight races would have agreed, had each of their single world ‘reservations’ been permitted the technology to access such data.

For the last three hundred years, mankind had been the unchallenged ruler of all it surveyed. Earth Command’s early dynamism, forged in the crucible of conquest, decayed into bureaucracy, elitism and nepotism. It was hidden behind layers of needless complexity and over-regulation, which swiftly surpassed the same maladies that had riddled the governing bodies of the USE before the end of the second century.

Surviving observers quietly considered that the USE and Earth Command’s time was done and, as is the way of all empires, a new order would rise to prominence in due course. They hoped that the genesis of this new order would be relatively painless for the inhabitants of the thousands of worlds and habitats, spread across incomprehensible distances, that depended upon the infrastructures and hierarchies of power for their safety and supply.

In the five hundred and first year, something happened at a far-flung outpost. The response was noted by the NewsNets as ‘a rapid mobilisation of significant forces’. After that, there was silence. Eventually some disturbing rumours started to percolate in from the farthest edges of human-populated space. Rumours of strange occurrences: unexpected raids and devastated worlds.

Earth Command confidently predicted a quick campaign and easy victory. A few senior officers had concerns over the strategies chosen, but the heads of the monolithic military bureaucracy ignored them. After all, what could possibly challenge those who rule two thousand worlds?

Terms

(Y502 PA)

The sheer arrogance of an opponent that announced which planet they would attack next had initially been met with disbelief, treated as disinformation. Eleven planets later, Earth Command had decided enough was enough. Word was starting to spread and unrest was following hard on its heels.

They had asked their greatest commander-turned-politician to return, and orchestrate a salutary lesson for these brigands. Commodore James Harbon prepared a plan from his memories of mock battles and extensive reading, heedless of tactical objections from the few who had seen what these ‘Borsen’ could do. Then he waited for the next announcement.

He was mildly disappointed when his name-world, Harbon, was declared as the next target. While he regretted having to relinquish his Ambertree groves to make room for emplacements, he made a small fortune from some careful property acquisitions prior to the planetary fortification announcement.

Now he watched from the centre of a square mile of white marble, incised with the sigil of Earth Command in gold, as the enemy vessel arrived and took synchronous orbit between the planet and closest moon. He waited, tapping his foot impatiently.

She just appeared. Naked and three-metres tall. Waist-length cobalt-blue hair seemed to move of its own accord. Her magenta gaze conveyed indifference. He thought that she would have been a true beauty but for the tentacles that served her as arms.

James swept a half-bow as he used the intelligence gathered about these alien beings to shape his opening line: Greetings, Madame Athshper. I am Commodore James Harbon.

The woman-thing tilted her head to one side before replying.

I am Sthtera, Mistress of the Borsen. My thanks for your flattery, but it will not save you.

James recovered his fabled diplomatic aplomb.

Madame Sthtera, my apologies. I presume that you are empowered to negotiate surrender terms on behalf of your forces?

Your ignorance of honourifics is irritating, James. You may call me Sthtera. As for surrender, I am prepared to accept yours, disappointing as it is.

James straightened his robe and decided that, for posterity, he needed to emphasise the sheer genius of the strategy deployed.

My dear Sthtera. You are now within range of more firepower than you can possibly conceive of. At my merest gesture, your vessel will be reduced to wreckage and you will be taken by our scientists, who are eager to get their instruments into you.

Sthtera seemed to contemplate for a moment.

I recognise your proud defiance. Now cede this planet to rapine.

James sighed and brought his famous sneer to bear.

Sthtera, I am a man of considerable military experience. Your single ship, although quite impressive, is vastly outgunned and outnumbered. Your situation is untenable. Let me be clear. The only way you will get this planet to ‘cede’ is to kill everything before my forces can react.

Sthtera smiled and her tentacles twined in discomfortingly suggestive ways.

I am delighted! Foolish arrogance, but such a noble gesture. I accept.

Sthtera extended her tentacles to either side of her as she flung her head back and sang a single, pure note. While the echo faded, Commander Harbon watched uncomprehendingly as the warp-field swept overhead. As grey drowned his senses, the singing void rent his body to pulp and the pain continued far beyond his sanity’s hold.

GX1342 stands as a monument to the two billion people who died on it. It is now known only by its planetary designation, as Earth Command has expunged the name of James Harbon from every record. The man who sacrificed twenty percent of Earth Command’s forces with a single sentence has no memorial.

There is a single exception to this erasure: ‘harbon’ is now slang for anyone who brashly takes on, and spectacularly fails at, a task due to blithe disregard of the circumstances and their utter lack of competence.

Chant of the Betrayed

(Y512 PA / Y501 PA)

The hangar bay was gloomy, the lights having been stepped down to mark the arbitrary night aboard the troop carrier. At tables across the wide expanse, the warriors of the Ninety-First drank, shouted and carried on as if their lives could not end the next day.

In the shadows of the main power ducts, Commander Ethan Gould sat, sipping some of Sergeant Percy’s finest distillate without a wince or a blink. His grey-green eyes regarded the gathered men, his enhanced optics running numbers and states on everything he saw. A stationary figure amidst the revelry caught his attention. At a table halfway down the hall, Major Garstang raised his mug toward him, while his other hand made a clenched fist against his chest. Commander Gould sighed as he braced himself, then nodded. The Major climbed up on his table and the hall grew quiet as ripples of awareness turned the men toward him. As the stillness amplified the sounds of the warship speeding through Hirsch to another bloody conflict, the Major took a swig of his mug and started in.

It is time! Let the memory never fade!

With a roar, eight thousand voices joined in the Chant of the Betrayed.

"Here’s to the lads of the old Eighty-Two -

Blasted to dust when the Borsen blew through…"

As the familiar words tore at old scars, the sole survivor of that event, the one that marked the start of the Borsen Incursion, remembered the truth once more…

They had been waiting for something to appear, but a three-metre-tall, incredibly beautiful, naked woman with tentacles for arms was not on the expected list. The forward emplacements were nothing but steaming, screaming remains before she reduced the field of invisible mutilation about herself and apologised profusely, in perfect English, for her AI. She then introduced herself as Athshper, ‘WarpMistress’ of the Borsen.

Ensign Ethan Gould had run away that day, terrified beyond reason by the whispering in his ears. Just as some people could hear radio waves, he could hear the Borsen AIs private communications. His report on the encounter had been buried so deep he was still astonished that he was alive.

Anyone with the old skullcomms could receive transmissions from the Borsen AIs. Those transmissions were very persuasive, utterly sincere, and told the Eighty-Two that the Borsen were a race of females. The ‘old Eighty-Two’ stood there, stunned, as Athshper offered them consort status. Then the fighting started: the majority, who favoured acceptance, turning upon the few who balked at participating in treason.

Because of his sensitivity, Ensign Ethan Gould had never had a skullcomm. Because of that he missed the explanation. All he heard was Athshper’s offer and her AI chatting with other AIs as skirmishes broke out around her. They were dispassionately making wagers on which of their wearers was likely to be the first to consummate her relationship with her new consort by giving her AI a new body.

The Eighty-Two were dead and gone. But there was a good chance that their bodies, or parts of them, would be involved in some of the killing tomorrow. Commander Ethan Gould checked the lowest set of status symbols on his optics. Each trooper had an immolator built into his armour these days. The Borsen would not be getting any more consorts.

The Power That Seeks

(Y521 PA)

The darkness sang with the power that bled from the walls. Great sheaves of cables and conduits drooped from the shadows above and curved away into the dim recesses beyond the Pillars of the Mothers.

Athshper made her way round the crumbling stone bier – and its long-dead, yet still-terrifying, resident - to stride through the short, arched entranceway that led to the heart of Avallea. Inside, a nest of tentacles ceaselessly traversed the acres of control surfaces. From within that writhing mass, a sibilant female voice emerged.

Daughter mine, what news?

Athshper genuflected and then prostrated herself on the floor: The last of the consorts has expired, our Mistress. We have reaped five thousand Knights and ten thousand breedings.

That is favourable hearing. Rise, my daughter.

Athshper sat up and wrapped her tentacles around her knees.

The voice came again: They made rugged warriors, this Earth Command. What of them, since the challenge over the planet they called Harbon?

They ignore us. Despite our excellence in rapine, they refuse to limit us. It is as if they hope we will tire of them.

We shall not. The decrees of the void delivered of Mother Eshnba are clear. They are the race we have sought since she uttered them. Like any stagnant pool, they are covered by scum, the dross who seek only to be above others and to secure their continuance. We must skim them: a culling in blood to rouse their ruling competences. When they rise, we shall see a change like none before.

Could they become allies?

Not in their present forms. The decrees state that one will rise and lead Joyous Ghosts against us. The one who does that may develop some useful insights, but they are a short-lived race. I have not the cognition to see how they may overcome that. Goad them hard, my daughter. Their rulers are set like parasite upon host, with many deep-leeching grips that we must shake loose. When that succeeds and the ruling competences awaken, maybe I will be able to see.

It shall be done, my mistress.

Arms Race

(Y529 PA)

The day was beautiful, a cloudless clear blue sky over rolling hills, the view interrupted only by copses of trees, and the occasional sheep.

Plus me, in One-Bushi. Standing a hundred metres tall, its gloss black finish detailed in matt grey, with the edges of its cooling vanes and detection arrays polished to bare metal - a detail stolen from pre-Apocalypse sports car design, I had been told.

My command channel clicked into life: Okay, Manfred, your board is clear. Skies are open and the ground for a hundred clicks is ours. How does it feel?

I stretched my arms and looked up, peripheral displays showing One-Bushi’s arms mirroring my movement. I revelled at the detail on the heads-up display, telling me that my airspace had been violated at two hundred and twenty-seven point three metres by a hawk, that I was surrounded by thirty-nine probably non-hostile sheep within a half-click radius, that the nearest squirrel was one point oh-four two clicks due south and there were nine humans one point oh-one clicks to the west in full stealth suits, equipped with very advanced laser targeting equipment and commercial grade sidearms. That stopped me.

Toymaster, I show armed intruders just past a click west of me. They are equipped to be hidden except for fancy laser painting kit. Are we expecting visitors?

Negative on that, Manfred.

There was a pause as the channel went mute at their end. Toymaster was talking to the owners of the ‘toyshop’. Then the channel opened again.

Mama Bear says you can lop Pinocchio's nose off any time you like.

I smiled. It was at this point my dermal sensors detected eight low power laser hits.

"Manfred to all players, being painted by hostiles, am about to go

weapons-"

That was as far as I got. Next thing I knew, after a deafening metallic ‘clang’ followed by strange singing greyness, I was tumbling through the air while trying to puke myself hollow, as a resounding crash indicated where my now pilotless mecha had fallen. Then I landed - with a splash - in something that felt solid, and the lights went out.

I came round in hospital two weeks later. I was broken in most places and bruised everywhere else. The ninety-metre fall should have killed me, but by sheer luck I had landed in a shallow pond.

It seems that while my bosses had been all fired up to reproduce the Titan-class combat mecha from the last decade pre-Apocalypse, a rival consortium had been working on something obscure, reverse-engineered from captured warp technology. The idea had been to provide a warp-field beam weapon for use against Borsen powered-armour troops and their mecha-style command units.

I had the dubious distinction of being a side-effect to the discovery that the warp-beam could overload gravitic cores. The barely understood technology had caused One-Bushi’s safety measures to eject me - straight into the warp-beam. Any effects of that - including my delayed landing - had been classified. I would need to be promoted three times before I could discover what, if anything, had happened to me.

Most of my recovery time was spent lying in bed, contemplating redeployment, as Project Samurai had been placed on hold ‘pending review’. As that usually meant the project was over, Mama Bear strolling in to my room was a surprise. Reflex kicked in and my cast actually creaked as I tried to salute. She waited until I recovered.

Manfred, I am told you will be up and about within a week.

Should be, sir.

Good. We need you back to pilot One-Bushi.

I thought we were shut down, sir?

She smiled.

It seems that their trick device needs to be mounted separately to everything and requires a huge power supply for repeated use. Even when miniaturised as far as possible, it still looks like a twenty-metre-long assault rifle. So I made a few suggestions.

I grinned.

Like adding an armoured power-feed and grips for One-Bushi?

Precisely, Manfred. Project Samurai and Project Wallaby have been merged. Welcome to Project White Knight.

Police Action

(Y535 PA)

It hangs there, blotting out the stars and everything else with its grey opacity. The great arc swings flawlessly across the sky and extends all the way to the ground. It marks the line between the living and the dead, as we wait to see which we will become.

We tried to reason with them, but they ignored everything after the first message we sent, to which this edict was issued in reply: Your proliferation is contrary to the mandated density of a colony. Reduce yourselves or we will purge your planet. You have seven rotations to comply.

It took our leaders two days to work out that we had been given a week to cut our population sufficiently to meet the limit mentioned. The problem was that no-one had any idea what that limit was, except for the Borsen, who were not giving us any clues.

When the facts were leaked, the public went berserk. Our small Earth Command base had already thrown everything it had at, and been ignored by, the single Borsen ship that hung in geostationary orbit between Lacroix and our moon, Janette. They had also sent for help, but admitted that any effective assistance would be over a week in arriving.

My world devolved into anarchy and insanity. There were incidents of mass murder, but the experts agreed that any significant population reduction would have to be geographic in scale. As no-one was prepared to make that decision, most people resigned themselves to whatever came. It’s horrific to see what supposedly civilised people will do when all hope has gone and the only certainty is death.

Alana and I are in my merchant company’s flagship in low orbit over the northern polar cap, in formation with the rest of our fleet and the smaller fleet of what had been our main rival. Each ship carries specialists, families, friends and a lot of supplies.

We gathered on the observation deck as the warp-field appeared and proceeded to depopulate the southern hemisphere.

This sickening idea to save something, including us, occurred to me two days ago. I discussed it with Alana and some of my smarter people. They agreed with me. So, in utter secrecy, we set about the only option to save a bit of Lacroix.

We hinged our plan on population distribution. The most densely populated continent was Heremoste and it lay entirely in the southern hemisphere. It was a huge gamble, but everyone I spoke to agreed: a depopulation exercise, if applied as we would apply pest control, would start with the areas that had the highest concentration of ‘pests’.

As soon as the warp-field started to spread from far to the south, after the sighs of relief, I opened a channel to the Borsen ship.

This is Lacroix Colony. We can still be productive if you cease the purge when mandated density is achieved. We will endeavour to maintain correct density from today onwards. Please provide up-to-date colony mandates to ensure compliance. I shrugged at Alana. It was worth a try.

There was no reply. The field swept northwards for another hour, then stopped just after it passed the equator.

Since then, two hours have passed.

Suddenly, there is the hum of a channel opening.

Lacroix Colony. Proposition accepted. Purge ceased as density is at mandate minus twelve percent. Data feed appended to this message contains colony mandates as requested and quotas to be met each anniversary of this day. Further failures to comply will result in full purge.

With that, the warp-field vanishes like a switch has been thrown. While we scream and shout, the Borsen ship departs. Shortly after that, the happiness fades as there is no real cause for celebration. Too many have died, and we have lost the Earth Command base because it was situated just off the coast of Heremoste. We look at each other, the joy of survival warring with the bleak truth of the horrifying cost.

I am still trying to get a grip on the Borsen’s treatment of Lacroix. They did not