Nightfall

by Jay Allan

  Tyler Barron heard Stara Sinclair’s words. He might have argued, even ordered that the fleet’s flight crews do a better job, and get more squadrons out faster. But, Sinclair was the best he’d ever seen at what she did. He imagined she had already unloaded on the deck chiefs on the other ships, probably far more aggressively than he would have. In the end, you could push just so hard, and then reality stood in the way like a brick wall.

  “Very well, Captain.” He paused. He didn’t have to say a word to her. He knew she would do everything possible no matter what. But, it came out anyway. “See if you can push them a little harder.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He cut the line and mumbled to himself, the words coming out softly, but far more audibly than he’d intended.

  “It’s over.”

  He leaned back in his chair, even as Atara looked over. He could see her thoughts were the same as his. The enemy’s third line was advancing, and there was no longer any doubt. The battleships would come into range before he could get another sizable bomber assault out.

  He’d have to send the bombers back out in small groups, as each three or four ships finished refit. That would make the whole thing far more dangerous for those going in without the benefits of mass.

  But, he would do it anyway. It just wasn’t going to make enough difference.

  At least not to save the fleet, or save the battle.

  “Atara…better make sure Dauntless is ready for close combat. And then, check on the other ships. We’re going to be in the shit, probably before we even get the first squadrons back out.”

  “Yes, Admiral.” She turned back to her workstation, but he could feel the coldness in her, the resignation, even as the same thing began to take over his own body.

  He was scared, and didn’t want to die at Craydon, nor watch all the rest of his people killed as well. He considered contacting Admiral Nguyen, discussing some kind of last-minute retreat plan. It was just possible the fleet could make a run for it. Everyone wouldn’t get away, not even close, but some might.

  But, there was no point. If they couldn’t stop the enemy here, they were only going to have a harder time farther out, where they would lack the fortifications and production of the Iron Belt. And, where they would face the enemy with a fraction of the strength they’d had at Craydon.

  The idea of living a bit longer, of trying to grasp for some kind of hope, however baseless, maybe to see Andi again…but, there was no point.

  He might have ordered the fleet to run for it if there had been some real hope, but the allied forces of the Rim were at Craydon in strength, and even the unexpected arrival of the Union fleet had proven to be too little to hold off the terrifying power of the Hegemony. A few pointless, hopeless, bleak weeks or months were of no value, and he suspected there would be more pain in that than in dying right there and then.

  He felt pain for his people, and for the Palatian, and even, to his surprise, for the Union spacers. Admiral Denisov had been true to his word, and his people had fought steadfastly alongside their old enemies.

  And, now they will die with us…

  Barron never imagined he’d be watching a Union fleet blasted to pieces and feel only sorrow.

  He sat silently for a moment, listening as Atara moved from addressing Dauntless’s own gunners, to relaying his orders to the entire Confederation fleet. He was overstepping, he knew, but Nguyen was on Bastion, all the way at the far end of the formation, and if the fleet was going to fight to the last, it was time to get ready to do just that.

  He turned, about to tell Atara to send a communique to Nguyen’s flagship, when she spoke first…and eliminated the need.

  “Incoming comm from fleet command, Admiral. We are to initiate Plan Black at once.”

  Barron nodded. He would have grinned if anything approaching a smile could have penetrated the grim and morose cloud surrounding him. Nguyen had come to the same conclusion he had. Plan Black. The orders the two of them had prepared for just such a situation.

  For the fleet’s final battle.

  “Pass on the admiral’s order, Atara. All task forces, prepare for Plan Black.”

  “Yes…Tyler. I’ll see to it.”

  Barron sat silently, listening as his aide, his friend, worked her way through the task forces, all the way to the Union fleet, with a respectful…suggestion…to Admiral Denisov, to join with the rest of the forces in one last, well-ordered struggle.

  She turned and looked back at him. She’d contacted all but one of the fleet’s sub-commanders. And, as Barron saw here glancing over, he knew why she had paused. There was one contact he had to make himself.

  Nothing less would serve where his blood brother—and the Alliance Imperator—was concerned.

  “Get me a line to Invictus, please, Atara.” His voice was soft, but inside, he was marshaling his strength. This would likely be his last communication with Tulus, and he’d be damned if he’d sound anything less than the defiant warrior, worthy of a Palatian’s respect and ready for whatever was to come.

  * * *

  “Go to battle with honor, my brother, and if it be our fate to die here, then let us see it is well done, that we fight as warriors, even until the last breaths escape our bodies. It has been my privilege to find a friend and brother so far from home. Die well, Tyler Barron…and remember, you go into battle not only as Confederation officer, but as a Palatian as well.”

  Tulus cut the line. He would have preferred to speak with Barron for the last time in private, but there was no time. The Hegemony battle line was rapidly approaching, even as the scattered groups of bombers made what runs they could. The squadrons had fought like lions, and Tulus nodded his head in silent respect to all of them, Alliance and Confederation alike.

  Even the Union wings, he thought to himself, with some surprise. They weren’t as good by any measure, as either the Confederation or Alliance wings, but they had displayed unwavering courage, and that was enough to win a full measure of his respect.

  “Are you ready to die, old friend?” he asked, looking over at Globus. It has been a long road for us, yet, I think we have reached its end.”

  “A Palatian is always ready to die with honor. We have fought well, your Supremacy. If we must die, this is as good a place as any…” The Commander-Maximus looked around, his eyes moving across the bridge, and over the screen displaying the other ships of the combined fleet. “…and this company fitting for a warrior to die among.”

  Tulus sat for a few seconds. Then, he took a deep breath and said, “All Alliance ships prepare to advance at full.” Tulus’s ships didn’t have Confederation primaries, not even the un-enhanced versions. They had a much longer gauntlet to run before they could deal out death to the oncoming next wave of their enemies…and Vian Tulus wasn’t going to die in some one-sided exchange, staring out helplessly while an untouchable foe obliterated his ships.

  He was ready to die, but he would take the blood of his enemies with him. The Hegemony might prevail, defeat the Alliance and the Confederation, but they would pay such a price that men and woman yet unborn would speak of it in hushed tones, and even the descendants of the victors, would feel the chill of death through the generations.

  “All ships ready, your Supremacy.”

  Tulus’s face tightened, turning almost to a vision of cold stone.

  “Advance, Commander. To battle, and if it be our fate, to death.”

  * * *

  “All ships forward, Commander.”

  “Yes, Admiral. As you command.” Guy Lambert’s voice cracked a bit, but the aide managed to hold it steady as he responded. Denisov knew his tactical officer was as aware of the situation as he was.

  Andrei Denisov was sitting in his chair in the center of Illustre’s bridge, shooting a glance over at Lambert. The battle had been brutal, a wild, vicious struggle that had gutted the forces on both sides. But, it was almost over now, something Denisov knew very well as he looked out at the main screen, at the lines of
Hegemony ships pressing forward.

  Denisov was sore, too. More than sore. Every millimeter of his body ached. He’d shifted every way he could manage, turned and leaned forward, and even gotten up half a dozen times. Nothing he did relieved the pain. And, the fatigue was indescribable. Even the slightest exertions brought on near fits of hyperventilation. He should still have been in sickbay, as the doctors had reminded him, what, fifty times? At least it seemed like fifty.

  That wasn’t an option, of course. He’d come to Confederation space to try to ally with the Confederation, and he had succeeded. They had battled together, the old enemies, side by side, and they had given the Hegemony one hell of a fight. But, it hadn’t been enough. The enemy was just too strong. Denisov’s ships had been battered, and no small number destroyed already, and he knew he had just given the order that would send the survivors to their doom.

  He’d considered retreating, slipping away with what he could extricate from the line. But, the Confeds and the Palatians were standing firm, and he decided his people would do no less. Both of his new allies looked down on Union arms, he knew, but they didn’t understand the damage poor leadership had inflicted on the campaigns of the past wars, how badly the gifted officers that existed were constrained by fear of Sector Nine or by jealous, and better connected, superiors. The Union spacer could hold his own in any fight. Denisov believed that with all his heart, and he felt certain his people had shown that at Craydon.

  He found himself hoping that Tyler Barron had noticed as well, even as he cursed himself for caring. His people had followed him bravely, despite the fact that doing so had almost certainly put them all at grave risk, and almost guaranteed they couldn’t go home.

  He hoped some of his people did manage to survive the battle somehow, though he didn’t know what would be left for them once the Hegemony conquered the entire Rim. He just knew he wouldn’t be there.

  He wouldn’t leave Craydon in defeat, to flee with whatever ships managed to get away, to hide until the Hegemony hunted him down. No, he would die where he was.

  He was scared, though the familiar feeling of his heart pounding was absent, replaced by an odd, steady rhythm, the artificial pumping action that kept him alive.

  For a few moments longer, at least…

  * * *

  “I need those primaries back online, now!” Atara Travis was shouting into the comm, her hard words directed at her engineering teams. Dauntless’s engineers were highly skilled, as were all the battleship’s spacers, but Barron knew the ship, Atara’s ship, was weaker than it had ever been in terms of damage control. He’d sent Anya Fritz with Clint Winters’s force, in the hopes the brilliant engineer could keep the stealth generators working long enough to give the attack on the Hegemony supply fleet a chance. Walt Billings had become a brilliant engineer in his own right, and the head of Dauntless’s team when Fritz wasn’t there…but Billings had been killed in the battle at Ulion months before.

  Even as he watched Travis pushing her crew, he couldn’t help but think about how many people he’d served with were gone, how many skilled officers had been lost in battle after bloody battle.

  Dauntless’s primaries had remained in action for far longer than Barron had hoped, but finally, the battleship took a solid railgun hit. It wasn’t as bad as it might have been, but the impact, and the secondary explosions it caused, had torn up huge sections of the enormous network of power feeds that kept the heavy weapons functioning. It had taken Dauntless out of the fight, save as a target, but that would only last for another two minutes. Then, the broadside of secondaries would be in range, and if the ship could avoid taking another hit until then, she would be able to resume dealing out death to the Hegemony invaders.

  Barron almost told Atara it was pointless to try and get the primaries back, that the teams would never be able to make repairs before the ship entered secondary range. But, he kept his silence, let Atara run her ship.

  A few seconds later, she came to the conclusion herself, and she ordered the teams to abandon the main guns and focus on keeping the broadsides in action. The two of them were in sync again, as they had been for so many years.

  Barron waited as Dauntless closed the distance to the enemy line, the battleship gyrating wildly, her nav teams doing everything possible to offer the most difficult target possible to the enemy railguns. One of the great shots ripped by, less than half a kilometer from the ship’s hull, but nothing stopped Dauntless from pushing on.

  Barron thought about the battle, about defeat. About the end.

  He had fought. He had done everything he could…but it hadn’t been enough. His grandfather had been the hero of the Confederation, the man who’d saved it from destruction.

  And Tyler was the one who’d lost it.

  He thought about his grandfather, what the old man would say to him if he could be there. And, he thought about Andi. He’d almost tried to get her to leave, as he’d done at Megara, but something had held him back. It cut through him like a blade to think of her dying at Craydon. He wanted her to run, to escape. But, he realized, there was nowhere to go. For her, escape would only prolong the agony. Barron had found himself hoping, even expecting, that most of the people of the Confederation would adapt to being virtual slaves to the Hegemony, that they would adjust to the loss of the freedom few of them had ever truly appreciated anyway. He believed most of them would manage to eke out some kinds of lives under the rule of the Masters.

  But, he knew Andi Lafarge well enough to realize she would never be one of them. She would fight, he knew, with her last breath…and he respected her too much to try to tell her what to do again. He would let her decide—and from the position of the lightly-armed Hermes, advancing even then at full thrust, he could see she had made exactly the choice he’d expected.

  She would die in Craydon, just as he would. He only hoped he went first. It was selfish, he knew, a small mercy for himself, one obtained only by shifting that pain to her. But, it was a weakness that pushed through the wall of strength he’d erected in his mind.

  “Admiral…we’re picking up energy readings at the transit point.”

  Barron sighed hard. More enemy forces? Was it even possible? “I don’t suppose it matters much now if they get reinforcements, Atara, do you think?”

  “No, sir…not the enemy entry point. The Axella point.”

  The words bored into Barron’s skull, but it was ten or twenty seconds before he truly understood them. The Axella point was directly behind the fleet, on the opposite side of the system from where the Hegemony forces had entered.

  If they have ships out there, things are worse than I thought…

  It seemed unlikely, but he couldn’t imagine who else it could be, what force could be coming through that transit point, even as the massed forces of the Confederation, Alliance, and Union faced the final struggle.

  Then, he saw the symbols on the display. He was confused at first, uncertain. Then, he just stared in stunned disbelief.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  SWS Enlightened One

  Just Inside Axella Transit Point

  Entering Calvus System

  Year 318 AC

  Sara Eaton sat in the seat to the right of the immense—throne was the only way she could describe it—where the Enlightened One sat, and she looked straight forward, eyes on the screen as the scanners rebooted and began to display the situation in the space around Craydon.

  It was nothing short of apocalyptic. There were floating clouds of debris everywhere, and, about 30,000,000 kilometers from the planet, the two battle lines were standing toe to toe, firing away at point blank range. It was a stage of battle no fight against the Hegemony had reached—had been allowed to reach—at least not in such scale. The cost of it was evident everywhere she looked.

  We got here just in time.

  Or, just too late…

  She wasn’t sure which it was, but she knew there was no room for delay.

  “Enlightened One, wi
th your permission, I would give the fleet order to attack.” Eaton suppressed the sigh her body desperately wanted to expel. Her military career had put her in situations she’d never have imagined as a young cadet, but none quite as utterly surreal as pandering to some petty Far Rim despot with delusions of near-divinity. One who’d not only given himself a ridiculous—name, title?—like the Enlightened One, but also named his flagship after it. It turned her stomach every time she had to humor him, but she knew her duty.

  And, it’s not like the Sultan is any better…

  She’d split her time between the flagships of the two dominant Far Rim powers, trying to appease the vanities of both rulers, and realizing just how fragile the alliance she’d somehow cobbled together truly was. If either the Sultanate or the Sapphire Worlds withdrew their fleets, she’d lose the other as well, and most of the minor powers, too. The whole thing was built on a precarious balancing act where each nation felt secure sending its fleets so far away, precisely because their rivals were doing the same.

  She’d had a headache for weeks now, one apparently impervious to all known forms of medication.

  The Sultanate and the Sapphire Worlds had long been enemies, rivals for dominance on the outer reaches of the Far Rim. They’d casually despised each other for generations, but they’d avoided having any real conflict beyond a few small skirmishes. That had been accomplished through one simple expedient.

  Cold, stark fear of the Alliance.

  The Palatians controlled a much larger empire than either of the Far Rim nations, and the Alliance worlds, while still rough and far out in the wilds of the distant Rim by Confederation standards, were vastly more populated and cosmopolitan than the fringe borderland systems of the Sultanate and the Sapphire Worlds. That had long been something the Alliance had not hesitated to exploit, and each of the Far Rim powers had fought three losing wars against the Palatians, shedding a dozen systems between them in a series of shameful treaties. Still, not once had they resolved their differences and joined together to face the Alliance as a united bloc. The allure of watching their rival smashed by Palatian arms had always been too compelling.