Steele's Demon Star: The Glory Game, #2

By Dietmar Arthur Wehr

Steele's Demon Star is the second volume in the thrilling, military SF series, The Glory Game. Captain Damascus 'Mac The Knife' Steele and his boss, Vice-Admiral Akane Hara, have prevailed in the space battles with numerically superior forces from the Paradyne interstellar conglomerate and now look forward to some peaceful and boring exploration but the universe has other plans for them. A star nation's ruler with dreams of building a galactic empire is heading their way and a totally unexpected astronomical discovery will push Steele, his crew and his ship to their limits. This mission will be anything but peaceful and if the Demon Star doesn't kill him, there are other threats both human and alien that might. How long does he have before his luck runs out?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dietmar Arthur Wehr
• Release date: Jun 4, 2020
• ISBN: 9781988998107

Dietmar Arthur Wehr

Dietmar started writing SF novels when he was 58 after a career in corporate financial analysis. He got tired of waiting for David Weber to write another Honor Harrington series book so he decided to write some military SF of his own. He lives near Niagara Falls, Canada. In his spare time, he dabbles in steampunk cosplay, pursues his interests in science, history and free energy. He can be contacted via his website.

Book preview

Cast of (Major) Characters:

THE HEREDITARY REPUBLIC of Caledonia(HRC):

Senior Admiral DeChastelain (Chief of Space Operations of the HRCN)

Admiral Chris Stoner (Deputy CSO)

Admiral Frank Slade (Chief of Logistic and Personnel)

Vice-Admiral Akane Hara (Squadron/Task Force Commander)

Vice-Admiral Evan Saville (Squadron/Task Force Commander)

Vice-Admiral Fletcher (Squadron/Task Force Commander)

Vice-Admiral Kettering (Squadron/Task Force Commander)

Vice-Admiral Zietzev (Squadron/Task Force Commander)

Captain Damascus Steele (Ex-HRCN, Captain of Diamond K)

Captain Lavrov (Captain of heavy cruiser Vanquisher)

Captain Forstchen (Captain of battlecruiser Relentless)

Captain Musato (Captain of heavy cruiser Valiant)

KINGDOM OF SOCORRO:

King Pierre

Minister of War Bochette

Grand Admiral Beauchamp

Fleet Admiral Scheer (Commander of Capital Fleet)

Vice-Admiral Molitor (Task Force Commander)

Vice-Admiral Bradley (Task Force Commander)

Rear Admiral Nolan DeSoto (Commander of heavy cruiser squadron)

Commodore Eugene Sogard (Commander of destroyer squadron)

Captain Molotov (Captain of destroyer Caliburn)

STELLAR ALLIANCE:

Secretary for Economic Affairs Michael Columbus

Fleet Admiral Toriega

PARADYNE INTERSTELLAR:

Chairman of the Board Calvetti

Executive Director Mercer Chopra

Teresa Hardesty (Captain of destroyer Iroquois)

Glossary of Terms:

CO – Commanding Officer

XO – Executive Officer

TO – Tactical Officer

EO – Engineering Officer

HO – Helm Officer

TacComp – Computer programmed for solving tactical problems

NavComp – Computer programmed for solving navigation problems

AstroComp – Computer programmed for astronomic queries

Doppler Effect – Tendency for sound or light waves to stretch or compress depending on whether the source is moving closer or further away.

Contents

Cast of (Major) Characters:

Glossary of Terms:

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Author’s Comments:

Chapter One

CAPTAIN DAMASCUS ‘MAC, the Knife’ Steele, looked at his docked ship, Diamond K, with a critical eye. The shipyard said they were finished installing the upgrades which had involved opening up the hull and Steele wanted to make sure those hull sections were restored correctly. Having started as a freighter, the Diamond K was far more than that now. But in spite of her weapons, military-grade power plant, combat systems, and structural reinforcement, she was not a real warship because she wasn’t armored. That was both a weakness and a strength. The lack of armor meant she was vulnerable to both energy and missile weapons that an armored ship could tolerate. The very same lack of armor also meant the ship was less massive than an armored ship of the same size and could, therefore, accelerate faster.

Steele was acutely aware of her vulnerabilities, but they didn’t bother him because he intended to keep her out of combat with real warships. And in the unlikely event that he couldn’t avoid a battle, he would try to use what was in her cargo hold. Admiral Akane Hara owned the company that owned the Diamond K, and the Admiral had taken Steele’s recommendation to give the former Q-ship the ability to automatically deploy missiles or anti-ship mines in sufficient numbers that should prove deadly to any warship up to and including battlecruisers. And even that wasn’t the final word on the ship’s capabilities. There was still more than enough room left in the cargo hold to store what were called missile boats plus unarmed shuttles and utility bots. The missile boats were capable of carrying missiles externally in addition to their internal laser and had proven to be valuable assets in more ways than one.

Admiral Hara was waiting for him when his inspection pod docked with the shipyard’s administration complex. He noticed that she was wearing a Navy uniform again now that she’d been officially recalled to active duty.

I hope I didn’t keep you waiting long, Admiral, said Steele.

Not that long. I don’t mind if you take a few more minutes to check the hull out carefully rather than rush back prematurely. How’s she looking?

If I didn’t know what they had done to the hull, I wouldn’t be able to tell, he said as the two of them began walking down the corridor. She’s ready to go, and the crew can be called back from R&R within 24 hours if necessary.

The Navy will be glad to hear that. They want Diamond K surveying wormholes leading to unexplored space as soon as possible. But there’s been a new development. Caledonian Aerospace Corp. has developed drones specifically designed to do the initial surveys of wormhole turbulence. They’ve built two prototypes and have offered them to us to field test. The Navy has endorsed the proposal. As soon as the K leaves this shipyard slip, C.A.C. will send their prototypes up to be taken on board, along with a company technician trained in their use. If they work as advertised, they’ll make the K’s first wormhole transits a lot less stressful on both the crew and the ship.

Steele nodded. Yes, I can see how that would be a big help. I still wish you were coming with us, Admiral. This whole enterprise is your brainchild. It seems a shame that you can’t see it working.

Hara stopped and looked around carefully to make sure no one else was within earshot before looking at Steele. Keep what I’m about to tell you confidential, Mac. Socorro is making aggressive moves again. They’ve sent two full squadrons of destroyers to a super-giant blue star that has three very valuable wormholes. The problem is that this star is closer to two inhabited systems than it is to the Socorro, so their claim to it is bogus. Those two inhabited planets don’t have the tech level or industrial base to build or buy navies that can stand up to Socorro so King Pierre’s Navy will very likely retain control of the blue super-giant. What’s got our Navy and its political masters worked up are the statements by Socorro’s King and his Ambassadors that they don’t recognize the concept that wormhole cluster systems belong to the nearest inhabited planet. There are two other super-giants, which the nearest inhabited planets are incapable of controlling, that Socorro could very well be looking at next. One of those two is closer to us than it is to Socorro. I’m being given a half-squadron of heavy cruisers and rumor has it that my four cruisers will be sent to that super-giant to secure it against any Socorro attempt to grab it. Our war with King Pierre’s Navy was over less than a year ago, and there’s a good chance we could be at war again soon.

Steele was shocked. It bothered him that if Caledonia and Socorro resumed their war, he would be left out of it again. His less than impressive service record left him in command of a Navy supply ship that never saw combat. He therefore never got the chance to show what he was capable of while in the Navy and successfully crippling both a heavy cruiser and a battlecruiser in mercenary service didn’t count as far as the Navy was concerned. The feedback he’d gotten from unofficial queries to the Navy’s Bureau of Personnel was that he had just gotten lucky in those battles. He had no objection to being in command of the Admiral’s Q-ship in peacetime, but his sense of duty to his planet raged against the unfairness of not being allowed to do what he’d been trained to do in time of war.

Those near-sighted politicians down-sized the Navy to pay for more social programs. If Socorro’s willing to re-start the war, is the Navy going to be capable of fighting one? he asked.

Hara hesitated. She was privy to classified information on new technology and Mac, now a private citizen was not cleared for that information. In terms of the number of active ships, no. King Pierre didn’t reduce the size of his fleet the way we did so his Navy outnumbers us now, but there’s been a technological breakthrough that is only now being retrofitted. One of my four cruisers has it. I can’t share the details with you but trust me when I say that it’s a gamechanger. It’s also why I’m only being given four heavies. The rest of the squadron is being retrofitted with the new system. As they become available, they’ll be sent to join me to replace the cruisers that haven’t been upgraded yet. I’ll be fine, Mac. My flagship has the new system, and that’ll be enough to start with. She resumed walking, and Steele kept pace.

I’m glad to hear that although now I’m dying to find out what that new system is. Are you sure you can’t tell me?

Hare chuckled. Yes, I’m sure, Mac. She refrained from revealing to him that the possibility of retrofitting the new long-range detection system to Diamond K was also being considered although the actual work would not be done until all Navy warships had been converted. If the K were going to survey unexplored star systems, being able to detect other ships within the confines of those systems would be a handy thing to have if she should come across another active star-spanning civilization. The fact that humanity hadn’t come across one so far was little comfort to Naval planners given the very old and very alien ruins that had been discovered over a decade ago. The estimated age of those ruins was roughly 55,000 years. That was plenty of time for another intelligent species to achieve star flight capability. And as the volume of human-explored space gradually expanded, some thought it was only a matter of time before humans stumbled across another space-faring race.

The two of them remained silent until they reached the station’s hangar bay where a Navy shuttle was waiting for the Admiral.

I can’t stay longer, Mac. I was on my way to my new flagship when I heard that you were inspecting the K and ordered my pilot to detour here. I expect that you’ll be getting your mission orders within twenty-four hours. I tried to find out where the Navy is sending the K, but they wouldn’t tell me.

Steele didn’t try to hide his surprise. You mean that I’m not taking the K back to SGR1?

Well, that’s the thing. I don’t know whether you will be or not, but I can’t see HQ keeping the mission a secret if they intended to send you back to SGR1. What would be the point?

Yes, I can see the logic of that, said Steele. He held out his hand, and Hara shook it. Good luck with your new squadron, Admiral.

Thanks, Mac, and good luck to you too. Not that I think you’ll need it, but it never hurts to have a bit more luck, right?

Steele laughed. Right. As they let go of each other’s hand, he felt the urge to salute her, but aside from being overly melodramatic, it would also have been inappropriate since he wasn’t wearing the Navy uniform and was not on active duty. Hara gave him a friendly nod as she turned to enter the hangar bay. He waited until she had boarded the shuttle before heading back to the station’s Operations Center to confer with the Yard Master about making arrangements for his ship’s departure.

It was 13 hours later when Diamond K’s mission orders arrived. Steele was on board reviewing the supply situation with Commander Chilton, the XO when the Bridge notified him of the new orders. He told the com officer to read the unencrypted message to him over the intercom.

Yes, sir. Message reads as follows. To Captain Steele, commanding officer of the Diamond K from HRCN Operations. Under the terms of the contract between the HRCN and Hermes-Tyche Corporation, the first survey target will be SGB7. Ah, there’s an astronomic designation, Captain. The message then continues. After locating all wormholes in the system, Diamond K’s secondary priority will be the survey of any wormholes in SGB7 that lead to unexplored space. Be advised that four heavy cruisers of the 55th cruiser squadron under the command of Vice-Admiral Akane Hara will be arriving at SGB7 within seven to ten days of your arrival. Admiral Hara has the authority to modify your survey mission if the situation warrants. Signed, Admiral of the Green, Jason Tulagi.

Thank you, Tyler. Steele got over his surprise at the destination quickly. Having made the decision to secure control of SGB7, the Navy brass had concluded that finding out where that system’s wormholes led to would be a good idea too. It occurred to Steele that Diamond K would be at risk of attack by Socorro forces during the 7 to 10 days it would take for Admiral Hara and her cruisers to arrive. He made a mental note to make sure that the ship’s transponder was turned off when it arrived at the blue supergiant’s system.

Advise Navy Operations that Diamond K will be leaving dock within twelve hours, ordered Steele. He looked at Chilton. Let’s finish this quickly, XO. I told Ops we’d leave the shipyard dock within twelve hours, but I want us out and on our way in six. I hope that’ll impress them with our professionalism.

The XO’s grin demonstrated his agreement. I’ll make sure we meet that deadline, Skipper.

Chapter Two

SECRETARY FOR ECONOMIC Affairs Michael Columbus took a deep breath and stepped up to the podium to give his report to the Stellar Alliance’s Grand Council. This session of the GC, like most of the monthly meetings, had a bare majority of members present. Since each member came from one of the Alliance’s inhabited planets, it was accepted practice to attend every other meeting to minimize travel to Earth and back. His monthly report usually consisted of dry statistics with a predictable narrative, but this time would be different. His department’s team of analysts had finished a major review of the long-term economic impacts from the expanding network of wormholes, and he was confident the report’s conclusions, which he whole-heartedly endorsed, would surprise a lot of the members.

Good evening. Normally I review the latest economic statistics covering interstellar trade, both in physical and monetary terms, but this report will instead deal with a long-term analysis of the economic impact from wormholes. Columbus paused to gauge the reaction and noted a slight increase in the background murmuring from the members.

"As I’m sure everyone knows, wormholes have so far only been found in star systems containing stars classified as super-giants. The longest wormhole discovered so far connects systems that are six hundred ten lightyears apart. The average distance is around three hundred seventy-seven lightyears. Because the distribution of super-giant stars is highly random, the large-scale view within the volume of space that humans have explored so far has three clusters where super-giants are relatively close together and I emphasis the word relatively. As luck would have it, none of those clusters lies within Stellar Alliance space although depending upon how these clusters are defined, there is some overlap.

"This should not be taken to mean that Stellar Alliance space does not have any super-giants. We do, and we have thirteen of them within the spherical volume that constitutes the Alliance. As soon as it was determined that wormholes could be traversed safely, freighters began using them to shorten transit times thereby increasing the number of trips a star-freighter could make in a year with obvious benefits, and my department has been tracking commercial starship traffic patterns from the beginning. We now have enough data to show trends.

The obvious trend, which I’m certain will not be a surprise to anyone, is that commercial wormhole traffic as a whole is increasing but that doesn’t tell the whole story and especially not the really interesting story. What we see more and more are freighters that use the three clusters as if they were the hubs of a, for lack of a better expression, super-nexus of wormholes. I’ll illustrate this concept with a visual example. The lights in the amphitheater dimmed, and a holographic image appeared over the audience.

Let’s say that a freighter had a regular run between Kilimanjaro on one side of Alliance space and Oceanus approximately one-third of the way around the center of Alliance space. That’s a straight-line distance of fifteen hundred ninety-seven light-years. If that freighter wants to use wormholes, the most obvious choice is this connection denoted as wormhole A and B. The freighter would have to travel eighty-eight lightyears using normal FTL to get from Kilimanjaro to wormhole A, then journey another sixty-two lightyears to get from wormhole B to Oceanus. That shortcut reduces one-way travel time by sixty-two percent, and that’s what we started seeing in the beginning. Now, it’s more likely that that freighter would follow this path. Three new wormhole connections appeared.

The freighter still goes to the same super-giant where wormhole A is but instead takes wormhole C up into one of the three wormhole system clusters to D. It then travels via FTL to wormhole E but along the way, stops at Gavutu to drop off and pick up cargo. Wormhole E leads to F, and the freighter now uses FTL to get from F to G with another stop along the way at New Capetown. As you can see, wormhole G connects to the same star system where wormhole B is located, and from there the freighter carries on to Oceanus. Total transit time from Kilimanjaro to Oceanus is thirty-one days. That’s more than twice as long as the direct route, but the freighter is now visiting four planets versus just two. That’s the advantage that wormhole system clusters can give, and the volume numbers reflect this. Shipping volume within Alliance space that does not involve any wormhole system cluster has grown one hundred twelve percent over the last year. But volume involving at least one super-giant within a cluster has grown by two hundred ten percent over the same period, and we expect that trend not only to continue but to accelerate as shipping companies become aware of profitable routes using the clusters. A surge in background murmur told the Secretary that the members were paying attention now.

"There is a serious long-term implication to this trend that is defined by this statistic