The Tanith Gambit Read online

  Space Viking Legacy: The Tanith Gamit

  Dietmar Arthur Wehr

  Published by Dietmar Arthur Wehr

  Smashwords Edition(Uploaded January 8th, 2014)

  Copyright 2013 Dietmar Arthur Wehr

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Links:

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  Dedication: Here’s to all the Skyes in our lives and in our dreams.

  Chapter I

  Prince Lucas looked out at the city of Malverton, the Capital of the planet Marduk from the aircar that was taking him back to his ship, the damaged Nemesis. Over 72 hours since the Battle of Marduk and Malverton was only now approaching anything that could be called orderly. Units of the Army and the police, that had remained loyal to the Crown, were now rounding up the defeated and demoralized remnants of Zasper Makann’s People’s Watchmen along with a firm approach to discouraging impulsive acts of looting and mayhem. Other cities were also slowly getting back to normal as well. Cleaning up the mess both physical, financial and emotional, of the civil war would be a longer process and Trask didn’t envy his friend and now Prince-Protector, Simon Bentrik for having to take on that task.

  Trask had his own challenges. He was Prince of Tanith but what did that mean now? Up til now, Tanith had been a Space Viking base because that was the best way to build up his own forces, find allies and get information about the whereabouts of Andray Dunnan, the killer of Trask’s wife Elaine. But Dunnan was dead now and in tracking him down, Trask had also helped save Marduk, one of the few remaining Civilized Worlds, from the despotic madness of Dunnan and his puppet, Zasper Makann. Trask had long ago decided that he would no longer raid other planets for his own personal profit but if Tanith continued to operate as a Viking base, giving logistical support to other Space Vikings, then Trask would be no better than they were and the deaths of even more innocent men, women and children would be on his hands too. Having built up Tanith into a thriving if low population, Civilized World, Trask had come to realize that he’d rather build than destroy and that was going to be difficult to do as long as Space Vikings continued to choke off the recovery of Civilization among the hundreds of planets of the former Federation. His friend and 2nd in Command, Admiral Otto Harkaman would be waiting for him on his flagship. He’d ask Otto for advice.

  As the aircar settled gently to the floor of the huge cargo hold, Trask saw Harkaman walk up to the aircar. As he got out, Harkaman said.

  “I heard about Dunnan. How do you feel, Lucas?” Trask looked around and saw that no one else was within hearing distance. Addressing his Sovereign by his first name was okay in private but would not be appropriate in front of others. Harkaman knew that and had made sure that he hadn’t violated that protocol.

  “My hatred for Dunnan is gone but I didn’t feel any satisfaction from executing him. I felt the same as if I had put down a rabid dog. Come to my quarters, Otto. I need a drink and we need to talk.” As they walked down the corridor of the section reserved for senior officers, Trask felt a pang of guilt as he walked past the quarters where the Lady Alvarath was staying. She would undoubtedly want to know that Trask was back aboard but that would have to wait until after his discussion with his Admiral. Once inside his own quarters, he took off his princely jacket, threw it onto the back of a chair and sat down while calling for the bar robot. After Harkaman got settled himself and both of them had ordered drinks, Harkaman looked at his friend and said.

  “So…do you know what you want to do now?” Trask grinned. Leave it to Otto to come straight to the point.

  “Not exactly. I know what I DON’T want to do now. I don’t want to continue to operate Tanith as a Space Viking base. I’ve had enough murder and pillaging to last me ten lifetimes and I won’t help anyone else do it either. You have the best grasp of Grand Strategy of anyone I know. What are my options now?” Harkaman waited until the robot had brought their drinks and then replied.

  “You hit the nail on the head, Lucas. Grand Strategy is exactly what you need to be thinking about now. I’ve already given this question a lot of thought while the fleet was on the way here from Gimli and with your permission, I’ll just quickly summarize the current situation and then I’ll explain what I see as your best option.” Trask gestured for Harkaman to continue.

  “From the perspective of Space Vikings, Tanith makes a lot of sense as a Viking base. It’s deep within Old Federation space whereas the other Viking bases are more or less on the periphery. So any Space Viking that raids deep into the Old Federation has less distance to travel to get repairs and cash in his loot if he goes to Tanith. That means that the other bases are losing business and they can’t be happy about that not to mention that fact that we’ve declared a growing list of planets as off limits to Viking raids. We know that Prince Viktor doesn’t like that for obvious reasons. Planets that are protected are more likely to rebuild a high technology base and will be more able to fight back against future Viking raids. If there’s one thing that all Space Vikings agree on, it’s the need to keep the Old Federation on its knees otherwise Space Vikings will end up being the prey instead of the hunters. That’s inevitable of course but most of them don’t know that or don’t want to admit it. There’s one other thing that all Space Vikings and especially people like Prince Viktor agree on and that is keeping the location of Viking bases secret from planets like Marduk, that have both the technology and the economic base to take out Viking bases if they knew where they were. I’m frankly surprised that the senior officers of the Marduk Navy didn’t ask you for that information when we were here the first time.” He was about to say more but Trask interrupted him.

  “Wait a minute! How can the location of Viking bases still be a secret after all this time? Space Vikings have been raiding the Old Federation for what….over two and a half centuries?” Harkaman nodded.

  “That’s right but think about a typical raid. A ship lands and releases hundreds of armored combat fighters who take what they want and kill anyone who gets in the way. They don’t stand around chatting with the natives. It’s understood by all Space Vikings that no raider still alive gets left behind and the dead don’t talk so how are the natives going to know where that ship came from or went too? They can’t and that’s why Civilized Worlds like Marduk, Aton and the others, haven’t sent fleets of ships to burn the Viking bases to the ground by now.” Trask nodded.

  “Alright. If you put it that way, it makes sense. Go on.”

  “So as long as Prince Viktor and the other base owners think that you’re still one of them, they’ll still think of you as competition instead of as a mortal threat but word is going to get back to them of how you’ve become an ally of Marduk and that will scare them silly. The Marduk Navy used to have a fleet of about twelve ships and could regain that level of strength if it was prepared to pay the price although putting the Malverton Navy Yard back in operation will take months. Twelve armed ships might be able to take out every single Viking base simultaneously if they were smart about how they did it and knew where to go although I’d want at least 18 ships if I was going to try it. And if those navy ships stayed around the bases and picked off Space Viking ships as they came in for repairs, they could eliminate 80-90% of all Space Viking ships within nine months. Viktor and the others know that! When they find out that you’ve switched sides, Tanith
AND Marduk will be in serious danger.”

  “I understand why Tanith would be in danger but Marduk too?” Harkaman nodded.

  “Those three Space Viking ships that we recruited to help liberate Marduk will sooner or later head back to one of the other bases, most likely Xochtil because it’s closer than the others. They’ll then tell Prince Viktor about Marduk’s civil war and how half its navy was destroyed outright and part of the other half suffered heavy damage AND how your ships helped tip the scales of the battle in Bentrik’s favor. Now put yourself in Prince Viktor’s boots. He’s just got back from a multi-ship operation to put that fiend in human form, Duke Omfray on the throne on Gram. Omfray will owe allegiance to King Konrad of Haulteclere, who is also Viktor’s liege Lord and cousin. So Konrad now effectively controls two Sword World planets and a Space Viking base. I’d be willing to bet you a year’s pay, that Konrad has further ambitions and he won’t sit still when Viktor informs him that the Xochtil base is now in jeopardy because Prince Lucas has gotten very cozy with the new and far more ruthless head of the Marduk Navy. In Marduk’s present weakened condition, a Space Viking fleet of even just eight ships could potentially destroy what’s left of the Navy and leave Marduk wide open to a feeding frenzy of Viking ships. And if they pull that off, it just might become the precedent that gets enough Space Vikings together to successfully attack other Civilized Worlds. I’ve always thought that if enough Space Vikings could be convinced to band together, they could take out all of the Civilized Worlds and put recovery of the Old Federation back centuries. So far, nobody’s been able to bring enough of them under one leadership. Prince Viktor, with Konrad’s backing might be able to do it.”

  “My God, Otto! That mad dog, Dunnan, may have set in motion a new dark age that will make the last three centuries look like a picnic by comparison.” Trask smacked his fist into his other hand. “There has to be a way to prevent that horrible outcome, but how?” Harkaman put his drink down and got his pipe ready and lit while he organized his thoughts. Trask waited patiently. Finally Harkaman was puffing away on his pipe and was ready to respond.

  “Okay. Plan A. You change your mind and continue to operate Tanith as a Viking base with messages sent to Viktor and the others that you will not divulge the locations of their bases. I know it would be difficult for you to accept that and there’s a significant risk that Viktor or one of the others simply wouldn’t believe you and Tanith might be attacked anyway. Even if it wasn’t, Marduk would still be in danger.”

  “Plan B. Convince Simon to sign a Mutual Defense Treaty with Tanith as was discussed before the civil war. We then make sure that all of the Viking bases owners know about it. Even though Marduk is weaker than it’s been in a long time, there’s still a psychological bias against attacking it. The Treaty might just make Viktor pause long enough for Marduk to rebuild its fleet and naturally we’d be building more ships too although where we’d get the officers and crew to man them, I’m not sure.”

  “Is there a Plan C?” Harkaman shifted position in his chair and said in a quiet voice while looking at his drink.

  “Yes…there is. It’s very risky. Plan B was essentially a defensive plan. Plan C is offensive. It’s a variation of the plan to hit all Viking bases simultaneously. Essentially, it involves changing Tanith from a Space Viking base into a Space Viking trap. As ships come in, they’re either destroyed or forced to surrender but in any case are not allowed to leave. Capturing ships would be ideal because it makes you stronger while Space Vikings as a whole get weaker but finding the crews for the captured ships will be a huge problem. If no Viking ships are allowed to get away and warn others, then ships should continue to trickle in for months, maybe even years. When your fleet gets big enough, you send half of them to surprise and take over another base and catch incoming ships there too. When enough additional ships have been captured AND manned, then you go after a 3rd base, and so on. The tricky part will be preventing word of the change of base ownership from getting around. Pulling this kind of long term operation off successfully will require lots of planning, preparation and far more luck than I’d want to have to count on. It could very easily blow up in our faces and we’d have an armada of Viking ships in our sky ready to sterilize the planet’s surface with hellburners. On the plus side is the very real prospect of dealing Space Vikings as a group, a big enough blow to make them think long and hard before messing with the Prince of Tanith again, if there are any left at the end of it.” He paused to take a puff from his pipe.

  “And like I said, the biggest problem will be finding crews for all those captured ships. Tanith by itself just doesn’t have the population base or the educational level yet to train the crews we’d need. Amaterasu and Beowulf might be able to train the thousands of people that we’d need over time but Plan C is something that can’t be delayed very long. If you start turning away Viking ships when we get back, word will start filtering out to other bases that Tanith is no longer a Viking base and it won’t be too long before ships stop coming to Tanith. You could still go for Plan C by taking over another Viking base like maybe Xochtil when you’ve got the crews ready to take over the ships but that won’t help Marduk in the short run from a potential attack by Viktor’s ships.”

  “The best way to make Plan C work, which would also help Marduk in the short run, when they could really use it, is to exploit Marduk’s existing naval training programs to provide the necessary crews. As soon as we get back, we start capturing incoming ships. The first few can be assigned to Simon’s Navy. All he’d have to do is send the crews to Tanith to pick them up. That will bolster Marduk’s defenses quickly. Now at this point, I see one of two things happening. Either there’s a Viking attack on Marduk, which Simon’s Navy should be able to beat off. Any survivors of that raid will then convince the rest that Marduk is just too tough of a nut to crack. Once the attack is beaten back, Simon would then be safe in redeploying his newly acquired ships towards expanding the whole effort by taking control of another Viking base and catching ships as they come in there. The other sequence of events is that Viktor doesn’t attack Marduk and in the meantime, Simon will continue to send more crews to Tanith to man additional ships that you can then use to expand the operation to other bases.”

  “Now with over 200 Space Viking ships in operation, even Marduk wouldn’t be able to provide crews fast enough to man them all so when we’ve stretched both Marduk’s and Amaterasu’s and Beowulf’s ability to provide crews to the limit, any additional ships captured, can be traded to other planets such as Aton, Isis, etc. that would know how to use them or to planets similar to Amaterasu, that don’t know how to build them but could quickly learn how to use them.That would make potential Viking targets less vulnerable as well.” Trask nodded but said nothing. Wiping out all or most of the 200 Viking ships was an extremely ambitious goal, maybe too ambitious. But even if they only succeeded in cutting that number in half, a lot of lives would be saved from raids that didn’t happen and it might give planets in the Old Federation, the breathing space they needed to get the upper hand in the centuries old conflict. At the very least, having a Royal Tanith Navy with a dozen ships should pretty much ensure that Tanith would be safe from Viking raids. But the outcome if something went wrong, would be catastrophic for Tanith. Did he have the right to risk the lives of his subjects, which might include Lady Valerie, on such a roll of the dice? Part of him wanted to try it and another part of him was terrified of it. Finally he said.

  “Okay. Is there an Plan D?”

  “No, that’s all.”

  “You’re right. Plan A is not acceptable. So do you recommend B or C?”

  “Tying Tanith to Marduk politically ie. Plan B, is safer in the short run but riskier in the long run than Plan C. Plan C has additional complications which are that Boake and Captain Trevord AND their crews might not want to actively fight other Space Vikings. We’d have to capture their ships in order to keep word of what we’d be doing, from getting around. I’d hate to
have to take Space Scourge away from Captain Valkanhayn after all of his loyal service to you but if he objects to the plan, we wouldn’t have any choice. The one thing that you have to keep in mind, is that as long as Space Vikings are operating in large numbers, no one is really safe even with Mutual Defense Treaties. Not unless there’s a dramatic shift in military power here in the Old Federation.” Harkaman paused, then said.

  “My recommendation is Plan C.”

  “Alright, you’ve given me a lot to consider and I’ll make a decision soon. In the meantime, please remind me of the current status of all our ships.”

  “Certainly, Lucas. Nemesis, Corisande II, Queen Flavia and Space Scourge are all damaged to varying degrees but all four are space worthy. So is Viking’s Gift. Grendelsbane and Sun Goddess suffered only minor damage. Those three have already hypered out for home. The Gilgamesh troop transport is undamaged and would like permission to head home too. Damnthing, Curse of Cagn and Harpy have apparently finished looting the city of Drepplin and last I heard, Damnthing was headed for Xochtil while the other two were on their way back to loot Dunnan’s abandoned base on Abaddon. Right now there are only two Royal Marduk Navy ships here. Vindex is on High Guard in orbit and Dreadnought is on the ground here at the civilian spaceport. The rest of the fleet with Admiral Bargham hasn’t arrived yet from Gimli. The good news is that all of our ships can make it back to Tanith where we can repair them ourselves.”