Empire's Ashes (Blood on the Stars Book 15)

by Jay Allan

  She looked at the screen on her desk, at the fleet’s deployments. Can you do it Andrei? I know you’re good—you’d have lost the whole fleet by now if you weren’t—but the enemy is so advanced, so powerful…

  Maybe. She was no expert in naval tactics, but she realized there was one way. Killing Gaston Villieneuve.

  The Highborn had arranged some kind of Alliance with Villieneuve, that seemed apparent. But what would happen if Villieneuve died in the battle? Perhaps the Highborn would withdraw.

  Or switch their support to the other side…

  Ciara had fully intended to honor her promises to Kerevsky, to forge a peace treaty and even friendship with the Confederation. But the Confeds were at war with the Highborn. She’d thought about that in fleeting terms before, but now she realized something with cold certainty. The Confederation was very likely going to lose that war. Ciara had made promises, but if there was any way to kill Villieneuve, and to take his place as the ally of the Highborn, perhaps she could salvage things after all.

  Denisov wouldn’t like it…but surely, he’d realize there was no other war. And if he didn’t, well, Ciara had come to genuinely like her admiral, but if the officer’s sense of integrity threatened her only way out…well, anyone was expendable in that situation.

  We have to reach Villieneuve’s ship and kill the bastard, or none of his matters.

  And Andrei Denisov will sacrifice himself, if necessary, to do that. He hates Villieneuve as much as I do…

  She reached down to the comm. “Get me a secured line to Admiral Denisov at once.”

  * * *

  “You have all served well, with courage and distinction. Whatever happens, you will always have my gratitude, and my profound respect.” Denisov stood in the center of Incassable’s flag bridge, addressing his command staff. They had been with him, as a group at least, for more than four years, and they had served him well. Many of the individual officers had served under his command far longer, and no small number had been with him in the Confederation. He wished them all peaceful and enriching lives, but he knew they would likely have neither.

  He’d raced to repair what damage he could in his ships, and he’d placed Montmirail’s defenses at their highest readiness. But inside he felt only despair. He couldn’t explain what he’d seen, except to assume that somehow, Gaston Villieneuve had managed to ally with the mysterious Highborn. He had no real evidence that the ships he’d faced were those of the enemy the Confederation was fighting so far out beyond the Badlands…but he couldn’t imagine what other force could have displayed such might, such unfathomable technology.

  He’d been caught by surprise, and the only positive note had been that he’d listened to his instincts, and fled the battle almost at once. He’d still lost almost a third of his ships, but he had preserved a force in being, and brought it back to defend the capital.

  For all that will accomplish…

  Denisov was an experienced commander, one who’d seen his share of battles, and his tally of victories as well. But he knew he couldn’t defeat the force that was almost certainly coming. He knew that Barron had employed his fighter wings against the Highborn to considerable effect, and his first thought had been to emulate the Confederation tactics. But his own squadrons were depleted and inferior in every way. He’d struggled to put as many hulls into service as possible to feed the fight against Villieneuve, but restoring the Union’s battered and demoralized fighter groups had been a lesser priority. He had squadrons, and no small number of his pilots were veterans of the fighting against the Hegemony, but all told, he would get no more than four hundred of them into space, and Union attack ships were decades behind the Confed Lightning IIIs, and even worse with bomber kits installed.

  Denisov was proud of his spacers, and he considered himself a patriot. But he felt shame as well, sadness that the mighty Union had fallen so far, that with twice the systems of the Confederation, it had never been able to match its rival’s technology or economic might. Now, his people were very likely going to die. They were going to die because they lacked the numbers, the tech, the weapons to face this new enemy.

  They were going to die, because destruction in combat was a far preferable option to falling alive into Gaston Villieneuve’s hands.

  He’d considered running, pulling his fleet out and dashing for the border. It was the sensible option, and the only one that offered even a chance of survival. But he just couldn’t abandon the Union capital to Villieneuve’s renewed tyranny, not without at least trying to mount a defense. If he fled, his spacers would once again be outlaws in their homeland. They would leave behind friends, families, loved ones.

  Denisov knew what it felt like to be an exile. He’d made friends in the Confederation, served proudly alongside Tyler Barron and his spacers. But he’d hid the aching loneliness he had felt, the longing for a home he’d never expected to see again. Could he do that to his people? Would they follow him once again to such a fate?

  “Admiral…First Citizen Ciara is on your line.”

  Denisov’s head swung around, an almost involuntary reaction. He’d already reported on the situation and his plans, and he hadn’t expected to hear from Ciara again until after the battle. If there was an after.

  “Put her through, Lieutenant.” He slid his headphones forward, over his ears. Whatever Ciara had to say, he doubted it was anything he—or she—wanted the entire bridge crew to hear.

  “First Citizen…”

  “Admiral, listen to me carefully. I know the enemy—and they must be the Highborn—are too powerful, that your fleet is likely facing defeat. But if you can identify Villieneuve’s flagship…and destroy it…” Her words faded out for a few seconds.

  Denisov’s first reaction was disapproval. The idea of targeting a specific enemy leader didn’t sit well with his sense of honor. But then his hatred flared hot. Gaston Villieneuve was on the verge of regaining absolute power…and if there was any way to stop that…

  He didn’t imagine killing his hated foe would save his fleet, or prevent the Highborn and the rest of Villieneuve’s fleet from destroying his own. But ridding the universe of Gaston Villieneuve was an accomplishment, perhaps even one worth dying for.

  “I understand, First Citizen.” He didn’t say any more. He didn’t have to. If it was possible, if he got any chance—regardless of whether the battle was won or lost—he would kill Villieneuve.

  * * *

  “Bring your ships forward, Gaston. My forces will destroy the rebel fleet, but it is up to your ships to engage and destroy the Montmirail defenses. I believe that will serve our purposes better than my own forces blasting them to atoms at long range. We want your people to see you as a liberator and a hero, not an invader.” The Highborn didn’t say anymore, but the words, ‘and a coward’ seemed to hang in the air.

  Villieneuve listened to Percelax’s words on the comm. The Highborn was making sense, of course…but Villieneuve had been completely prepared to allow his new allies to crush all of his enemies. Denisov’s fleet was the largest danger, certainly, and the Highborn ships would almost certainly crush any defense the rebellious admiral tried to mount. But the fortresses around the capital were far from insignificant, and his ships would have a serious fight on their hands. He had no doubt Ciara had seen to sweeping out any of his loyalists who’d remained. Treachery seemed unlikely, but perhaps fear could accomplish something similar. Perhaps he could secure the surrender of at least some of the fortresses. But then he shook his head.

  They know too well not to expect mercy when I reclaim power…

  His reputation had long been useful, the fear that billowed out before him everywhere he went had won many victories for him, without even firing a shot. But it didn’t exactly encourage his enemies to surrender…

  “Of course, Commander Percelax. My people will be in position and ready to assault the fortresses, as soon as you have destroyed Denisov’s fleet.

  Villieneuve hated Andrei Denisov. He’d i
magined the admiral’s death, always in excruciating detail, a thousand times, and he’d promised no shortage of horrors he’d inflict in the exceedingly unlikely event the officer fell into his hands still alive. But what he didn’t let anyone else see, what he tried to hide, even from himself, was that he was terrified of the admiral. Denisov was a gifted tactician, a strategist far beyond the mediocre talents the Union’s system tended to produce. Before the Highborn had come, Villieneuve had endured months of waiting…waiting for the final attack, for Denisov to come and destroy what remained of his fleet, and to hunt him down. Those thoughts had grown into something like a stark, almost uncontrollable terror. He would face the fortresses, if only to maintain his standing in the eyes of his new allies. But he would wait, and allow the Highborn to rid him of Denisov first. Once the admiral was gone, morale would collapse throughout his fleet, and likely on the fortresses as well. Perhaps he could manage to secure their surrenders with promises of amnesty. It would be foolish for any of them to accept his assurances, of course, but it was an error others had made before…and the terrifying might of the Highborn, combined with Denisov’s death, just might push at least some of the station commanders to yield.

  If they didn’t, he would have to destroy them. He would take losses, but he was reasonably confident his fleet was strong enough, and something close to sure the Highborn wouldn’t let the attack fail even if his Union ships weren’t up to the task.

  He would keep his flagship back, close enough to appear to be in the fight, but not in any real danger. Then, he would return to Montmirail, to where he belonged. The planet sat in the center of his display, the Union’s capital, a world he hadn’t seen in more than five years. He was back, close enough to stare at sensor images, at least.

  In a few hours, perhaps a day or two, he would again set foot on its surface, reclaim the reins of power that had been stripped from him.

  And he would wash away his enemies, anyone even suspected of being untrustworthy.

  He would wash them away in rivers of blood…

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Free Trader Pegasus

  Planet Number Four (Pintarus)

  Undesignated Imperial System 12

  Year 327 AC (After the Cataclysm)

  Pegasus rocked hard, the ship shaking wildly as it skipped along the upper reaches of Pintarus’s atmosphere. Andi wasn’t completely certain that she had indeed found the legendary imperial capital, but after analyzing the scanner readings a hundred different ways, she finally allowed her instincts to make the decision. And her gut told her, the blackened, ravaged planet below indeed held the sorrowful remnant of the once-vast metropolis that had been the center of an empire ruling over trillions of human beings for a hundred centuries.

  In other circumstances, she would be eager, her mind racing at the chances to learn more of the empire, to discover new secrets of its awesome technology, to uncover fresh details of its horrendous fall. But all she wanted as she sat and endured the rough ride down was to find what she was looking for, and to get the hell out, to return home. Andi had once craved profit, and she still felt a hunger for knowledge…but none of it could match the ache she felt to get back to her family.

  Dark thoughts crept all around, worries about Tyler and the fleet, images of Cassie enslaved, or left crying and alone amid the fires of invasion and conquest, tugging at the body of her governess. Andi had seen too much darkness, too much misery, to overlook such possibilities.

  Especially when they were as likely as they were just then.

  Andi understood fear very well. She had always tried to hide it, to portray an image of the unshakable adventurer. But she’d damned sure felt stark terror, more times than she could count. The final moments of her epic battle with Ricard Lille, times spent crawling through haunted ruins, battling old imperial security systems, watching enemy spaceships moving on Pegasus, waiting to see if incoming fire connected, or if her people lived for another few moments. She knew just what it felt like, and the thought of her daughter experiencing anything like what she had almost broke her, even as she sat quietly on Pegasus’s bridge.

  “I’m updating the landing sequence, Andi, seeing if I can’t give us a smoother ride in. It’s not like we’re coming in against some kind of defensive array.”

  Andi look over at Vig, but she didn’t say anything. You hope we’re not coming at any active defensive system…

  She didn’t think there was a huge danger of any operational planetary defense networks down on Pintarus’s surface. The old orbital forts, more than a hundred of them, a vast array, had all been reduced to useless scrap, and it didn’t seem likely ground installations had fared any better. Not based on what the scanners had revealed of the utter obliteration that lay below her descending ship.

  It would be a different story once her people were on the ground. She’d run into functional—or partly functional—security bots and the like on more than one occasion, and she was about to set foot on the capital of the empire. She couldn’t imagine the kind of security that had existed…or what might remain still prowling around in the ruins. It wouldn’t take much of a remnant of that awesome ancient power to kill her and every one of her people.

  The ship shook hard again, throwing her forward into her harness. That’s going to leave a bruise…

  She winced at the pain. It was no big deal, certainly nothing that was going to take first—or tenth or a hundredth—place on her list of injuries. But that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt.

  I must be getting old…

  She could see from the display, Pegasus was less than three kilometers from the surface. Andi was Pegasus’s primary pilot, of course, but Vig had handled most of the landings. She’d almost brought the ship down herself, but her longtime comrade deserved better than to get pushed aside just when Pegasus was about make her most celebrated landing.

  “See if you can stabilize her at around a kilometer and a half, Vig. That should be close enough for intensive scans. We’ve got to find what we’re looking for. We haven’t got the time or the manpower to search the whole planet on the ground.”

  “Got it, Andi. About thirty seconds, then we can do a few tight orbits.”

  They weren’t exactly going to be orbits, not so close to the ground, but Andi detested people who pointlessly corrected things like that. She knew just what Vig had meant.

  She’d have preferred orbiting. It would certainly have been a more comfortable ride. But she had to get lower, closer to the ground. She was looking for signs of certain structures, trying to pinpoint precise details she’d gleaned from a dozen different sources. She could scan mountain ranges and large land masses from orbit, but to pick out the wreckage of a building, or a central pavilion—especially when all she might find was a shattered portion—she had to be close.

  She flipped a switch, and then she spoke softly into her headset. “Prepare to begin sensor scan and analysis.”

  “All systems are ready, Captain.” Pegasus’s AI had known its share of different voices. Changing them had been somewhat of an affectation for Andi, and somewhere along the line, it had become an outright habit. The current incarnation was female.

  She had spent considerable time programming the AI as Pegasus approached the planet. The details she was seeking could take months to find by eye, years even. But the computer could go through vast scanner input data in seconds…and now it knew what Andi was seeking.

  Her stomach lurched a bit as Pegasus’s descent slowed and then stopped abruptly. The ship was hovering about fifteen hundred meters above what looked like the dried bed of what had once been an ocean. Andi turned and looked over at Vig, even as Pegasus pitched hard up and then back down. “These are some serious wind currents.” She didn’t expect a response. There was nothing to say. She’d been on some hostile worlds before, but Pintarus had been the imperial capital. She imagined it had been a pleasant and temperate planet.

  And it was, almost certainly…at least before the Cataclysm
…

  She wondered what nightmares had claimed the planet, what gruesome destruction men had unleashed on each other there. The seas were dried and pocked beds, the few signs of city development little more than twisted ruins, melted into slag and rehardened. But most of the developed areas were simply gone, utterly vaporized or buried deep under the surface that had now been mostly reclaimed by the encroaching forests and jungles.

  “How are we going to find what we’re looking for, Vig? If it’s even here, it’s probably buried somewhere. It will be a miracle.” She could feel herself beginning to despair, the true magnitude of the job she’d come to do weighing on her with oppressive force.

  “We’ll find it, Andi. You did your work, the way you always do it. We’ve got enough landmarks to search for…at least some of them will still be recognizable enough to spot.”

  Andi looked over at Vig, staring intently for a moment. She’d been waiting for the uncertainty in his voice, for the inevitable signs he was bullshitting her. But he was solid as a rock. She sat for a moment, gathering her strength, rebuilding her confidence. She’d come all the way beyond the Hegemony, to the very center of the old empire.

  I’ll be damned if that is going to be for nothing…

  “Okay, Vig…let’s get moving. The AI’s got the data…we’re probably best letting it direct the scanning sweeps.”

  She turned and looked up at the display. She knew the computer would find what she was looking for, if it was found at all. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t going be searching herself, trying like hell to beat the machine.

  * * *

  Andi had tried, but she hadn’t beaten the AI. A planet is a large place, almost unimaginably vast to one searching for individual buildings and geographic features. Her eyes were sore, burning, and she didn’t even try to guess how many square kilometers she’d scanned with them. But the alert had come from the AI, not from her. She still wasn’t sure yet that they were in the right place. The matches were far from perfect. But the broken and battered wreckage of ancient buildings, what little was left of them, looked like it could be the section of the capital city she sought.