Into the Black

(Redan System)

The system had little in the way of defenses, barely enough to keep a lone pirate ship from running roughshod over the system. The single trade station was armed, sure, but the weapons were mainly to keep orbital debris from striking the station. The laser systems were designed with efficiency in mind, melting targets over time, rather than going with something that had enough power to punch through the hull of a maneuvering starship in one go. Even the stupidest pirates would be able to take on the station and win, if they wanted to.

But that was fine, since there really wasn’t any reason for pirates to come here. The Redan system was a wholly unimportant system from a tactical or strategic standpoint. After all, agricultural worlds and resource worlds, while not supremely abundant, were not as immediately important as manufacturing worlds or fleet bases or other such things.

Redan I was a molten, Venus-like world, which was notable only for the quantity of iron on its molten surface. Of course, the heat and proximity to Redan’s star meant that mining operations were problematic to undertake, especially when other resources existed elsewhere, and they were easier to acquire. There was a token mining effort on the planet, but that was only so people didn’t have to ship in what few metals they needed. The total population of the planet was less than one hundred.

Redan III and IV were gas giants, with some rocky moons that sported small outposts. Gas mining would have been useful to the system’s development, but, ironically, the gas giants were mostly bare of the really useful gasses, like helium 3. Instead, the two gas giants and their moons sported what little industry the system had. The low gravity on the moons made manufacturing more efficient, while the higher gravity inside the gas giants made creating certain materials easier. Between the two planets and their moons, the population was only about fifteen thousand people.

Redan II, on the other hand, was a lush world, and almost completely flat. The largest ‘mountain’ on the world rose to a ‘staggering’ fifty meters, and there was no ‘canyon’ deeper than ten meters. Even the oceans that covered 30% of the planet only reached a depth of forty meters. Still, the soil was fertile, and the lack of seasons due to the planet’s placid 0.1 degree axial tilt made for a growing season that lasted all year long.

Unlike some agricultural worlds, Redan II didn’t have any single product that was hugely important on its own. No, there was just a lot of food. That food made up 25% of the gross agricultural output of the sector. But since it was all things like wheat or rice, and not anything that was terribly valuable, there was no reason for pirates to raid the Redan system.

Even the idea of trying to take the system over and convert it into their own fiefdom didn’t really work. The planet produced enough food that any interruption or price hike on the shipments would be noticed, and investigated. And the Imperial Navy, who had a base less than a week away at normal FTL speeds, would have no qualms about coming in to stomp on a would-be Pirate King who threatened the food supply.

So, when a Hellspace rift opened, and an Ihm frigate emerged, with shields up and weapons at the ready, suffice to say that no one was ready for what was about to happen.

(Commercial Freighter Nothin’ But a G Thang, New Compton System)

Captain SD Dogg was not having a good day. Well, he had been having a good day, up until a minute ago. Running cargo that may or may not be entirely legal wasn’t exactly a glamorous life, but it beat a lot of the alternatives, and no one told him what to do, which was a big plus. Especially when coming into New Compton. They knew him here, so well that he could put the ship on autopilot and blaze up.

Which is exactly what he had been doing, a moment before. Enjoying some choice New Compton Reef, while relaxing with that cutie with the booty he had running engineering. Just as he was about to get a bit of that good good, the whole world starts blaring, alarms going and ruining his mood.

As he stepped into the freighter’s cockpit, he felt the ship shake. Good thing he left the shields up before the smoke break, and that they were stronger than any freighter’s shields ought to be. Some damn fool was shooting at him! No way he was taking that shit just lying down!

‘Doc’ Dre looked up from where he was sitting in the pilot’s seat. “These scaley fucks just dropped out of a hole in space, and started thinking they’s hot shit. New Compton’s hearing us, and sending some of the local enforcers to tell them to go away, but, well, they’ve got that military shit, and we only got the shit we could get from civvie black markets. Unless you want to go all in?”

“Well, shit. These guys want to play, then let’s play. I ain’t danced in a long time. Time to break out the big toys, and see how they like it.”

The ship lurched as Dre began maneuvering, pushing the ship’s engines as hard as he could, hard enough that the inertial dampeners were having trouble keeping up all the way. “All right, then. What kind of fun you want to give them?”

“They fucked with us, and they ain’t even have the manners to go and ask us anything before blasting. I say fuck them all the way up. We got the special shit that my girl put together, right? Never went and tested it, because no one stepped up on us and made us need to use it. Sounds like we got ourselves a volunteer.”

“Hell, yeah. Just let me get in position, gotta make the shot count, since we only made one of the things.”

“Yeah, I got ya.” Captain Dogg slipped into the copilot seat, which doubled as the gunner seat when things got heated. Let the flyboy fly, and the shooters shoot, that was the idea. “You get me steady on them long enough for a lock, and I’ll waste these fools.”

“Right, so sit back, relax, and strap on your seatbelt. You never been on a ride like this befo’!” As Dre spoke, he turned the ship hard, hard enough that the supports screamed. But that was fine. He managed to get the freighter into position, nose facing the Ihm corvette that had been chasing them.

“We gotta break ‘em off somethin’, and its gotta be bumpin’!” Captain Dogg said, as he saw the targeting software lock the ship up. He thumbed the trigger, and felt the ship shake again, as their one torpedo launched.

But one was all they needed. Faster than fast, the torpedo flew, and when it hit the Ihm ship, it put the smack down on it. The fucker was just GONE. As he surveyed the destruction, Dogg just smiled. “So just chill, ‘till the next episode.”

After all, Black Star wasn’t the only ones who could make Starbolts.

(Naval High Command, Inner Throne, Aurum Throni, orbiting Terra)

“How many attacks does this make?”

Admiral Yamamoto was not pleased. The war with the Ihm had started disastrously for the Empire, and especially the Imperial Navy. However, thanks to quick thinking, the intervention of the Black Star Navy, and, of all things, an assassin, things could have been much, much worse. They had blunted the Ihm advance, and even struck a couple hard blows that forced them onto the back foot.

But even with those big hits, the Ihm hadn’t been defeated, not even close. They’d even managed to almost reverse one of their setbacks, briefly trapping the Black Stars in that twisted Hellspace dimension. Sure, they had escaped, but the Ihm had almost scored a major morale victory.

Now, though, they were forced to consider the next steps. The Ihm had already lost their homeworld, and much of their territory now existed in Hellspace. A counter-invasion would be an exercise in futility. He refused to send the fleet, already stretched thin, into certain defeat.

And it would most certainly be a defeat. The Ihm apparently did not need to worry about all the negative effects of Hellspace, like demons showing up to tear your crew apart. Probably due to them all worshipping that new god of theirs.

Their Imperatrix was even immortal, it seemed. Oh, she’d been killed when Starbolts rained down on her head, but somehow she was back, living in Hellspace, according to the last reports they’d gotten from captured Ihm. They said that she was now immortal, by the grace of their goddess, and that she would return again, and again, more powerful each time she was killed.

So, pushing back into Ihm space was impossible, and prosecuting a war in Hellspace was madness. The Navy was moving to take back the systems that had been initially taken, but the logistics were strained. The bases they’d prepared along the border had been wiped out in the opening stages of the war, as the Hellspace drives the Ihm used allowed them to bypass traditional lines of battle, while the Navy was hamstrung by the jammers which took their Transition drives off the table.

The Ihm had lost a significant portion of their fleet in the opening salvoes of the war, and especially in the Black Star Navy’s escape from Hellspace. The damages were enough that Naval Intelligence believed that the Armada could not prosecute a full invasion of Imperial space. There was some hope that this meant the war would move to a stalemate, which the Navy could use to rearm and retrain, learning new strategies and tactics to face this new threat.

Of course, the only groups that had any experience fighting in Hellspace, other than the Ihm themselves, were the Black Stars, and a small outfit of mostly Nomads known as the Chaos Brigade. While technically a mercenary group, the Chaos Brigade was more equivalent to a warlord and his warband, roaming space and taking what they needed, as they needed. They hadn’t been spotted in Known Space for some time, however, so Intelligence believed they were fighting some foe out in unexplored space. Either way, they weren’t available for strategy consultations.

Thankfully, the Black Stars were still within reach, though they would need some time to recover from their ordeal. Yamamoto made a note to send a representative to Star’s Reach, to see if they could hire Black Stars as contractors. They needed a way to attack and pursue the enemy, even in Hellspace, without falling prey to the dangers this new incarnation of the Ihm Imperium posed.

But that was for the future. In the present, he had to deal with the problem of Ihm raiders. The Ihm clearly knew that they didn’t have the strength to fight a conventional war, not until they recovered their losses. But pitched battles were not the only way to win a war.

Moving alone, or in groups of up to five, Ihm warships had started using Hellspace to attack shipping and unguarded planets across the Empire, including worlds that were entire sectors back from the front. They would hit a target, do as much damage as they could, and then flee into Hellspace as soon as any real opposition showed up.

According to the reports his assistant had just handed him, there had been thirty-seven attacks, resulting in the destruction of over a hundred ships and trade stations. Overall damage was mostly light, but some areas were more damaged than others. At Redan II, for instance, the biosphere had been knocked into disarray, as the trade station orbiting the planet had been forcibly deorbited.

Indeed, that was the worst of the attacks. The agriworld was facing a potential mini-ice age, if nothing was done. The current growing cycle was ruined, and next season’s crops were likely going to be sickly and small, if they grew at all, thanks to the dust choking out the light. The experts expected that the clouds would settle down eventually, in about three years. By then, Redan II might actually become a tomb world.

A few Ihm ships had been destroyed by armed merchantmen, pirates, and smugglers who got lucky, but, most of the time, the ships managed to slip away, leaving broken ships and cargo jettisoned into the void. They weren’t even stealing the cargo! The damn Ihm were just hunting and killing, trying to make the Empire bleed as much as it could.

They needed a response, but what could they do? Asymmetrical warfare favored the attacker from the beginning, since they could choose the terms of engagement, which limited how much strength the Empire could bring to bear. And since the Ihm could just hide in Hellspace, without worrying about reprisals their ability to try and cut the head off the snake was severely hampered.

He was no longer certain whether this war was one that could be won. There were simply too many potential hazards and pitfalls. No, he would have to inform the Empress that winning was no longer possible, as he saw it, unless you counted the survival of the Empire and as many of its people as possible as the winning conditions. That, at least, he was an outcome he was certain that he could still deliver.