by Jay Allan
“Yes, Highborn. I shall do all possible to serve.” No, please…no…
“Excellent, Thrall-Commander. The sooner we are able to end this pointless resistance, the more lives we can save among your former people. Then, all humanity will be united, and they shall prosper…and serve.”
“Losses are of no account, Highborn. Only victory matters. Only service to the Highborn.” There was a robotic tinge to Stockton’s tone. He could hear it—or, more accurately, sense it, somehow—but he couldn’t change what he was saying, nor even stop the words from forcing their way out.
“Nevertheless, I would see the conflict concluded with less bloodshed if possible. Your former comrades are misguided, but they can be saved from their foolishness. When they are subdued, they will learn to occupy their rightful place in the order of things.”
“Yes, Highborn.”
“You may rise, Thrall-Commander. I wish to discuss tactics with you, and address some concerns. Specifically, the size of the force you will command in the coming battle. It is larger, I believe, and by a considerable margin, than any you have led before. You command more force than any Thrall has ever led. I had some reservations about entrusting so many fighters to your command, but I can hardly place any of the Highborn into one of the vulnerable small craft…and even if I could, I don’t believe superior intelligence would adequately replace your considerable experience in this branch of operations. I have pondered this for some time, and you have proven the value of experience with your training efforts. It is rare that one of the Highborn offers such effusive praise to a mere human, but you have earned these accolades. And you will soon have the chance to earn more.”
Stockton felt repulsed at Tesserax’s words, and even more so at the thought he was supposed to feel grateful. He was even more repelled that part of him did feel that way. He struggled yet again to regain control of his body, to lunge forward, to attack the monster standing in front of him. But to no avail.
Worst of all was the satisfaction he felt, the pride at the Highborn’s words. The part of Stockton under the Collar’s control was reacting to the praise…and enjoying it.
He felt as though he would retch, but even that outlet was denied to him. All he could do was struggle pointlessly to find some way, any way, to kill himself to end his misery. His slavery.
And to prevent the catastrophe that was coming for his comrades and friends, the disaster he knew he would help invoke.
But there was no way. He was helpless, trapped and condemned only to watch, as he fought against everything he believed in, everything he cared about.
Chapter Thirteen
CFS Dauntless
Beta Telvara System
Year 327 AC (After the Cataclysm)
“I don’t know any other way to say this, so here it is. I know you’re the most capable person for this job, and I know how difficult it will be…and dangerous. But you are right…there is no choice. Our survival may very well depend on your mission and your skills. Just promise me one thing…please be careful. Come back to me. I can’t lose you.” Tyler Barron had fought the bloodiest battles in Confederation history, been wounded, saw friends and comrades die, but nothing had been as difficult as letting Andi go, wishing her luck as she prepared to board Pegasus and head straight into space controlled by the deadliest enemy Barron had ever fought. It was killing him inside, and the only thing that allowed him to hold it all together was the idea that he couldn’t contribute to the doubts and guilt Andi no doubt already felt at leaving. She was doing what she was because she believed it was the best way to protect Cassie, and everyone else as well, but he knew from his own experiences that wouldn’t be enough to keep the self-recriminations at bay. She would second guess herself, wonder if she’d been too cautious, if she should have set out sooner. He’d been there many times, and he would spare her those feelings to the extent it was possible. It took all his discipline to keep himself from trying to hold her back, and the last thing he was going to do was cloud her thoughts further, and in so doing, increase the already great danger that lay ahead for her.
“There is no other way, Tyler my love, and so I will say the same to you. You’ve fought battles before, more than most could easily recall, but I have a bad feeling about this war…and I know you’re going into Occupied Space, at least in part, to open the way for Pegasus to slip through. I can’t argue against that while still making the case for the importance of my own mission. But be careful…please. Be ready to pull back if the enemy is too strong. There will always be another day, a chance to hold the line at Striker, or somewhere else…unless you let it end here.” She paused, and he could sense the slightest bit of moisture in her eyes. “I can’t lose you, either. I came from nothing, and now I have you and Cassie. That’s why I will make it back here, whatever it takes. And if I get back and you’re…not here…I’m going to…”
Barron nodded, and then he looked at her, struggling to hold her gaze. He fought like mad against the thoughts pouring into his head that it might be the last time, that it would be…but they forced their way in anyway. He leaned forward and took her into his arms.
“I will be back, Tyler…and I will bring the secret of how the empire defeated the Highborn. You just make sure you and this fleet are waiting for me when I do.”
“I will.” Barron didn’t like lying to her, or even misleading her, but he, too, had a bad feeling about what lay ahead for the fleet. He knew why he was moving his forces forward, and Andi’s mission was only one of the reasons. He still had no answers for the list of problems that accrued to hanging back at Striker waiting for the enemy to come, which was still his choice in a purely tactical sense. Near the top of that list stood a communique he had received form Holsten just before the fleet departed. It had been the first message sent on the new comm line extending back to the Confederation. The chain of transit point relay stations reduced communication time from Megara to Striker from two months to less than ten days.
And the inaugural message had been a warning from Holsten about Senate rumblings and unrest in the Iron Belt.
Barron held Andi for a few seconds longer, and he could feel that she was gripping him just as tightly. But he knew he had to let her go. The fleet was moving forward, and the conditions in the system were ideal for Pegasus to slip away. The star was active, and magnetic pulses and the locations of dust clouds and sub-planetary detritus would offer some cover, as Pegasus slipped out through the system’s third point, one leading through more Occupied Space, but also toward the periphery of what had been the Hegemony’s coreward edge.
“You have to go now.” The words scourged Barron’s throat as he spoke them, but he couldn’t let his selfish desire to keep Andi there longer jeopardize her safety or her mission.
She took a half step back, and then she leaned in and kissed him. “Remember, I’ll be back…so make sure you’re here, too.” She looked at him for a few seconds, running her hand lightly over his cheek. Then she turned, and an instant later she was gone.
Barron stood where he was, transfixed, fighting to organize—and fend off—a torrent of conflicting feelings. He didn’t move for a long while, not until an officer stepped into the room and gave him the report he’d known was coming, but for which he was surprisingly unprepared.
Pegasus had launched. Andi was gone.
* * *
“He’ll be alright, Andi…just like we will be.” Vig Merrick sat a meter and a half from Andi, in his usual place on Pegasus’s tiny bridge. Her first officer, and one of her closest friends, a younger brother to her in every way that mattered, was trying to cheer her up. But she knew he was full of shit. Vig Merrick was no dewy-eyed optimist, and he knew just how deadly dangerous a mission they were on. He was just as aware of the hazards the fleet faced, and the danger that followed Tyler Barron and his spacers. The move into the Beta Telvara system had driven away a small Highborn force, and the forces of the Pact had retaken a single system without a shot being fired, but that
was hardly a decisive victory in the war. Of course, the real achievement in Beta Telvara had been getting Pegasus launched, and through the point into the adjacent Rho Lexicor system, apparently undetected.
The fleet faced worse ahead, with the same near certainty that she and her people did. But time and distance were doing their job on her. The sadness was still there, and the fear, but Andi Lafarge was once again the stone cold Badlands prospector, armor in place. She opened the gates in her mind, allowed the rage at the enemy, the fury she felt at being forced from her family, to fuel her, to power her as she went forth.
As she set out to find a way to repel the Highborn.
Or to destroy them.
“I’m okay, Vig. You know me. You’ve seen me in action before.”
“I have, Andi…but never when you had so much to lose.”
She looked at Vig, and for an instant her shield of pure rage failed her, and she was vulnerable. “I never had so much to protect either, Vig…to save.”
Merrick nodded. “That’s true.” He sighed softly. “We’ve been in some tight spots before, but this is the toughest mission we’ve ever undertaken. I remember when the Badlands seemed like the edge of the universe. But the Hegemony is beyond the Badlands, and we’re going to the other side of the Hegemony. Are you sure about that data? I see how you came to the conclusions you did, but there are some assumptions in there…and we still don’t know exactly where we’re going, just a series of clues we hope will make sense when we get close.”
“I won’t lie to you, Vig…” Though she almost had blurted out what he wanted to hear instead of the truth. “…there is guesswork in all of this…a lot more than I admitted to Tyler.” She was silent for a moment. “But there’s no choice. The fleet isn’t going to win this war, Vig. The enemy is too advanced. They’re too powerful.” She took another breath. “They’re more intelligent than us, too. We’re so repulsed at the whole idea, at them seeing themselves as gods, we don’t want to accept reality. They’re better versions of humanity, stronger, smarter, perhaps even immortal.”
“You’re the last person I’d expect to admit that, Andi.”
“What…you mean to tell the truth? They are better than we are. They were created by people to be the future, and they represent the pinnacle of imperial technology. That doesn’t mean I think they’re preferable, or more moral…and it damned sure doesn’t mean I’m ever going to surrender, to bow down to the bastards. But it’s damned foolish to ignore the obvious because the truth is uncomfortable. We’re fighting an enemy that has every advantage…and the only one we have is knowledge that they were once beaten. I don’t care if we have to fly into the heart of a sun, we’re going to find out how that happened…because if we don’t, if we go back empty-handed, we’re just going to watch everyone we care about die.”
Vig didn’t respond. He just nodded silently, and then he turned back to his workstation.
Andi knew she’d unloaded, that she’d dumped all her dark thoughts and realizations on him. She’d always believed in knowing the truth, however blunt. However dark and ominous. But she’d found that most people preferred lies, fantasies, delusions…even when they were facing deadly danger.
Andi Lafarge knew she was leading her people into the gravest hazard, but she also knew Tyler, his officers, the entire fleet, and then the Confederation, would fall to the enemy if she didn’t find a way to defeat them. There was no place for self-delusion in that reality, no time for allowing herself to believe what she wanted to believe.
She was heading out on what would be the most important mission of her life. And she could not fail.
No matter what it took, what sacrifice it demanded of her.
* * *
“Extended line, now!” Reg Griffin tightened her grip on her fighter’s controls, even as she gave the command for her wings to spread out, to wrap around the flanks of the enemy formation. There were two hundred Highborn fighters moving toward her force, and watching them approach she confirmed her worst concerns, both about the technology of the enemy fighters, and the training of their pilots. She still couldn’t explain that last part, but it didn’t matter anymore. All that mattered was learning how to defeat the enemy.
She had an answer in this fight, one she doubted she would enjoy when it came to a final, decisive fight. She had five hundred ships to the enemy’s two hundred, and hers were piloted by long-service veterans with dogfighting experience, backed up by the picked best of the new trainees. Confidence bolstered her against fear, and she relished the respite it offered, even as she knew the advantage was temporary, that the enemy in the war overall could field at least as large a force as she could.
She listened as the acknowledgements came in, each of her five wing commanders sounding off in perfect order. Seconds later, she could see the ships on her scanner beginning to move, as half the fighters added lateral velocity to their forward vectors. She’d watched some of the video from the battles at the outposts…seen how the enemy forces had outflanked and destroyed the fighters sent against them. The images from Outpost Seven stuck most vividly in her mind. Susan Contrall had been a friend of hers, an old friend.
A friend who had died in one of the first encounters with the enemy fighter formations.
Griffin had been training the squadrons for half a year since then, driving them mercilessly, berating her pilots brutally for every error they made, every lapse in judgment. She’d yielded some of the love they had given her in the months after she’d leapt into the breach Stockton’s death had left, and that hurt her, cut deeply. There were nicknames now, insulting ones—and a few even she had to admit were funny—whispered in the dark corners of pilots’ country on dozens of battleships. That was one of leadership’s burdens, she had told herself, and after a while, she’d learned to ignore it all.
Nothing was more important than getting her people through the great ordeal that lay before them. If the survivors cursed her until the day they died, she would accept that price if those deaths came when they were old and in their beds.
As long as there were survivors.
Her eyes moved rapidly, back and forth, checking the enemy movements, and those of her own forces. She had the edge, and she was almost sure her people could prevail, that they could win the fleet’s first engagement with the enemy fighters. That seemed strange, unexpected. The enemy had at least ten thousand of the small craft, and enough launch platforms to carry them all at once.
Why would they leave a force like this here, too large for a scouting effort…and too small to face a major incursion.
She looked again, checking the status of her formation. Her two wings had stretched out to each flank, and her force now had twice the length of the Highborn line. The enemy fighters were almost within missile range. She thought for a moment, questioned whether she should authorize all her squadrons to launch. Ship to ship missiles were still in very short supply, and she had no idea how deep the enemy’s stores were. She considered for an instant trying to hold some portion back, but then she saw the enemy line open up, two hundred fighters launching almost as one.
“All squadrons…prepare to launch missiles. Pick your targets…and I want those locks doublechecked.” The decision had been sudden. Logistics would be a massive problem, especially if her people were forced to fight larger battles. But this was the first time her main forces were meeting Highborn squadrons, save only for the disasters at the outposts. They needed to win, and win decisively. She had to stop the fear that was eroding morale, sapping the will and the strength of her pilots, most of whom were still far more comfortable engaging in bombing runs than dogfights.
She reached out and flipped a series of switches, arming her two missiles. She tapped at her controls, selecting targets…and establishing fire locks. She glanced at the status screen. All her squadrons reported ready.
She took a deep breath, holding it for a few seconds. She’d fought at Calpharon, and the pilots who’d died at the outposts were hers no
less than those in formation all around her. But she knew, in every way that mattered for the future of the Rim, for the very survival of the Confederation and all its people…the real fight was about to begin. It would start with her next command.
“All ships…launch!”
Chapter Fourteen
225,000,000 Kilometers from CFS Dauntless
Omicron Alvera System
Year 327 AC (After the Cataclysm)
Reg’s left hand clasped into a defiant fist. One of her missiles had scored a hit, and she’d watched a Highborn fighter blink out of existence. Her right hand tightened as well, though it was still griping her ship’s controls, jerking back and forth in a wild series of evasive maneuvers. The enemy had launched missiles as well, and half of them were still out there, coming on strong. She’d lost a dozen ships so far to the barrage, and even as she watched, another three blinked off the display in rapid succession. But her people had inflicted vastly greater harm on the enemy. Forty-eight of the Highborn fighters, almost a quarter of the total, were gone entirely, or floating dead in space. And almost four hundred of her wings’ thousand missiles were still inbound, bearing down on the enemy formation like death’s scythe.