Brothers in Valor by H. Paul Honsinger

Author:H. Paul Honsinger [Honsinger, H. Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literature & Fiction, Space Opera, Action & Adventure, Science Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Military, War & Military
Publisher: 47North
Published: 2015-06-29T07:00:00+00:00

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CHAPTER 8

* * *

22:45 Zulu Hours, 13 May 2315

“No contacts,” Kasparov announced, as he (or someone at his station) had announced every fifteen minutes—exactly—for the last fifteen hours and forty-five minutes.

“Very well,” Max responded as he (or someone else at his station) had responded every fifteen minutes—exactly—for the last fifteen hours and forty-five minutes. Despite the repetition, neither man’s voice held even the most infinitesimal hint of boredom.

For the last fifteen hours and forty-five minutes, the Cumberland, alongside the Nicholas Appert, had been crossing the roughly two light-years of space that separated the space unambiguously controlled by the Union and its newly acquired, quasi-allied “Associated Powers” from the space unambiguously controlled by the enemy. While under the dominion of neither human nor Krag, the zone being traversed by the Cumberland was by no means devoid of hazards. Any Union force attempting a crossing faced aggressive enemy patrols, extensive minefields, stealthed sensor buoys, even stealthier kamikaze drones, and the occasional hidden Fishbait or Fruitbat class fighter mini-base. Any Krag coming from the opposite direction would encounter similar perils.

The Admiralty’s precise but typically bureaucratic and bloodless name for this area was the Zone of Indeterminate Control. There was even a set of standing special orders governing vessels operating in the zone: Rules of Engagement “S.” The vessel commanders who guarded and patrolled the zone cut through all those syllables and generally referred to the area by the word for the letter “S” in the navy’s phonetic alphabet, calling it “the Sierra.”

But ordinary spacers had a way of coming up with names for things that had both less precision and more real meaning than the official ones. For the zone, they adopted a name derived from a term first coined (in Middle English) around the year 1320 by the people of London for the location of the frequent hangings imposed by the brutal justice of the day: nonesmanneslond. The term evolved over the centuries, and people, usually soldiers, applied it in many different contexts; but it was during the First World War that the name truly took hold.

No-Man’s-Land.

In places such as Sectors Z-114, Z-403, Z-410, Z-415, Z-424, and Z-509, the fleets were at that very moment clashing as one or the other side attempted to force a crossing. But over more than 99 percent of their border, human and Krag stared at each other across two light-years of generally quiet space, neither knowing when and where the other might attack.

Max had chosen to take the Cumberland and the Nicholas Appert across No-Man’s-Land in Sector Z-948, which was not only quiet at that time, but over which human and Krag had never fought. Indeed, because the Union and Krag star systems adjacent to Sector Z-948 were of little strategic value, neither side expected the other to attempt a crossing there and, accordingly, devoted few resources to guarding it. Few resources, that is, in comparison to those lavished on those sectors where strategists deemed an attack to be more likely. The two skippers,

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