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

by Jay Allan

  Everything he was, everything he had become in more than two decades at war would be used to kill his friend, the comrade he’d left behind to take his place. Then he would lead the Highborn wings against the rest of his old squadrons, and open the way for the Highborn line to destroy the fleet. To kill Tyler Barron.

  To kill Stara.

  The misery rolled over him from every side, burying him in hopelessness, even as his eyes caught the countdown clock on the wall, the numbers showing less than one hour until the Highborn fleet began to transit after Barron’s forces.

  Before his journey to treachery and utter, black despair was completed.

  He couldn’t scream, couldn’t cry, couldn’t utter the slightest complaint.

  He couldn’t even stop himself from feeling the anxious, creeping anticipation that filled the Collar-controlled part of him. He wasn’t only going to help kill everyone who’d ever meant anything to him.

  He wanted to do it, bristled at even the slight delay that lay ahead.

  He had become a monster, and he hated himself with greater intensity than he’d ever despised any enemy…and he could feel his sanity slipping away, what little remained of Jake Stockton slipping away, as fine dust caught in the wind and scattered to oblivion.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  CFS Dauntless

  Beta Telvara System

  Year 327 AC (After the Cataclysm)

  “Readings confirmed, Tyler. There is an enemy force in position astride our course to the exit transit point. A large force.”

  Barron turned toward Atara’s station. The news was clearly bad, and her tone only made it worse. But he really knew things were dire when his friend addressed him informally on the bridge. Atara was like a sister to him, and apart from Andi, he was closer to her than anyone else. Despite that, she’d always shown considerable discipline in according him the respect she felt the commander was due in front of others.

  “One more fight before we get home. We’ll handle it.” Barron spoke loudly, his words almost reflexive, and intended more for the officers on the bridge than for Atara. His longtime aide knew as well as he did the fleet had more problems than just the ships waiting ahead. They weren’t going to outrun the Highborn forces pursuing them. The fleet had barely escaped from the last system, and Barron knew his people had, at most, hours before their enemies followed suit. Then, they would be fleeing desperately from one enemy force…right toward another. His mind raced, every tactical option he could think of quickly considered and rejected. There was no way, nothing he could do. His people were going to be attacked from two sides, sandwiched between Highborn forces, surrounded, and perhaps even englobed. The enemy had planned it all perfectly.

  The fleet was going to be destroyed.

  Barron knew such things were rarely as total and complete as they seemed, and terms like ‘destroyed’ were rarely as fixed as their meanings suggested. Some of his ships would almost certainly escape, scattered remnants, perhaps, damaged and militarily ineffective. He could almost see it in his mind, a line of straggling ships, limping back toward Striker, the dazed survivors onboard staring blankly at their screens and wondering if the enemy would follow and finish them. Whatever happened, the fleet as a unit, the great combat force he had led on a failed quest to liberate the occupied systems of the Hegemony, would be functionally obliterated.

  The only real question was, how badly could his people hurt the enemy before they were crushed? He had no real idea of total Highborn strength, or what other reserves, if any, they possessed. If he savaged their forces, even as his own fleet died, could he weaken them enough to buy his survivors, and his comrades at Striker, and back on the Rim, time?

  Would it even matter? Was there any way to prevail in the war if his own force was defeated? Could even Confederation industrial might keep up with the immense power of the Highborn? The ships he was about to lose represented billions of manhours of labor, and trillions of credits…not to mention the very special, and highly-trained men and women aboard them. It would take years to replace them all, if it was even possible.

  And the Highborn weren’t going to give the Rim years.

  He took a deep breath, trying to remain calm in the face of what seemed to be certain doom. He’d faced death before, and as much as he wanted to live, he’d always been aware of the risks of his profession, prepared on some level for the sacrifice he’d always known he might be called upon to make. But it was harder now. He wouldn’t just die a warrior who’d finally failed to outrun fate. Thousands of spacers would meet their ends, too…and he would leave Andi behind, and his daughter as well.

  Will she remember me? Barron wondered how much Cassie would recall when she was grown, whether he would be more than the vaguest of memories in some recess of her mind. Whether she would have more of her father than a few old pictures and a scattered, incoherent recollection or two?

  Then, his thoughts turned truly dark. When the fleet was gone, so too was the last real hope to defeat the Highborn. The cold truth was, Cassie wasn’t going to grow up, or if she did, she would do so as a slave, condemned to worship a twisted race of genetically-engineered monsters for the rest of her life.

  I am so sorry, my sweet girl. I have failed you so completely…

  Barron felt as though he was coming apart. He loved Andi and Cassie, with all the intensity he possessed. But as much as they’d added to his life, they weakened him now, stripped him of the cold view of the heroic warrior. He could face his own death, grim in his resolve to the end, but not a failure that condemned those he loved to misery and despair.

  And in that, unexpectedly, a new strength began to form.

  He felt his teeth grinding, and he realized his hands were clenched tightly into fists. His people might be trapped, they might not seem to have a chance…but no fate was absolute, and they could still fight. Until every ship was destroyed, every veteran spacer killed, it wasn’t over.

  He had an idea, one born of intellect, experience, tactical brilliance…but most of all pure stubbornness. Barron couldn’t allow the Highborn to destroy or enslave his family. He wouldn’t.

  “Fleet order…all ships are to decelerate at full thrust. We’re moving back toward our entrance point.”

  Even Atara looked stunned as she listened to his command. “You want to reverse course, Admiral?” It was perhaps the first time he’d ever heard his comrade checking to confirm an order in front of the bridge crew.

  “That’s exactly what we’re going to do. The enemy will be coming through that point any time now, Atara…and we’re going to meet them as they transit. And we’re going to give them one hell of a reception. It we can get back quickly enough, we’ll have the edge as they transit. Then we’ll come about and deal with those ships on the other side of the system.” It was crazy, unintuitive. If it worked, the histories would call it genius. Barron had been leading his people on a desperate retreat for weeks…and now he was going to turn about, back the way they had come. It made sense, in its own way. It was the only option that allowed him to face the two enemy forces separately, at least for a time. Even at Highborn thrust levels, those ships at the far point would take almost a day to reach his position. If the fleet continued on its current course into the system, the two enemy forces would converge, and they would hit his fleet more or less simultaneously.

  If he had to take on overwhelming forces, he’d rather fight them one at a time. Even if it meant moving farther from home to do it. He might even find a way to slip around the enemy blocking force once he drew them from the transit point. He was too much a realist and a veteran to believe his people could truly prevail, but maybe a few more of his ships would make their way back, escape from the trap springing on them.

  And almost certainly, he would spill more Highborn blood, destroy ships that Clint Winters and the warriors at Striker wouldn’t have to face.

  A moment later: “All units confirm, Admiral. Revised maneuver plan is being implemented.” He could tell
from Atara’s tone she had finally comprehended his reasoning, even that she agreed with the decision. That didn’t mean she believed they would prevail, but when the choice was between bad decisions, Atara had always been in favor of the option that allowed her to come closest to wrapping her hands around the enemy’s throat.

  Barron tapped his comm unit. “Stara, it’s Tyler Barron. I need the wings ready to launch as soon as possible. We’re not moving toward the force at the far side of the system, we’re coming about, and we’re going to hit those bastards the instant they come through after us. I’ll want Admiral Griffin and her people deployed before the Highborn ships transit in.”

  “Yes, Admiral…understood. It was clear from the venom in her words that Stara Sinclair was also onboard with the plan. Barron knew grief and a need for vengeance had warred in her mind for four years. He couldn’t do anything about the pain of loss, but if killing Highborn could offer her any therapy, she was about to get a massive dose.

  No amount of killing could compensate Stara for Jake Stockton’s loss, or Barron for the realization that he would likely never see his daughter again…but that wasn’t going to stop either of from trying to drown their misery in enemy blood.

  * * *

  “Forward, all ships. All batteries, prepare to fire on my command.” Vian Tulus sat, appearing calm, even as his insides were twisted into knots. He felt the urgency of the moment, the call to fight with a ferocity unlike anything that had been seen before. There was tension as well, the knowledge that the Rim could very well fall to the enemy if his people, if the entire fleet, fell short on the destruction meted out in the coming hours.

  And, as much as he tried to deny it to himself, he was scared as well. He knew the odds, the vanishing chances he had of surviving the battle that was about to begin.

  If I must die, let the battle be one worthy of a song…

  It was a noble thought, in the best traditions of Palatian Imperators.

  Assuming anyone is left to write the song…

  “All units report prepared for action, sir. The fleet is ready.”

  Tulus just nodded, and then he turned toward the display. The Highborn forces were coming through, but Barron’s abrupt decision to reverse course had caught them by surprise. They were transiting in a long column…and Reg Griffin and the fighter wings were already closing hard, with two thousand bombers formed up right behind her interceptors. The bombers would begin their attack runs soon, braving the dangerous swarms of enemy point defense missiles, and deadly lances of their defensive beams.

  But this time, the enemy will have something to worry about besides the fighters and bombers…

  Just maybe, the battleline’s advance and engagement would create enough distraction to give the attack ships some cover, and more of the small craft would make it through.

  Tulus’s flagship shook hard, a significant hit from the feel of it, and a reminder of the cost his people were likely to pay to aid the bombing wings. He’d never heard of battleships being used as diversions for small craft. It was almost always the reverse. But the Highborn line was still forming up, and that limited the damage they could inflict on his ships. It was a priceless opportunity to close before the Highborn could bring their full strength to bear. And if those two thousand bombers could get in with their formations reasonably intact, they could gut the Highborn vanguard.

  If they did well enough, Tulus would see that they, too, got a song. Assuming he lived long enough.

  “We’ve lost a pair of starboard batteries, sir, but the engines and reactors are undamaged, and the rest of the offensive array is operational.”

  Tulus nodded, acknowledging the damage report. Not as bad as I feared…

  A few seconds later, one more word slipped into that thought. Yet. Worse was coming, and very probably soon. But his people were close now, and there weren’t enough Highborn ships in position yet, at least not enough to wipe his line out.

  He knew he should have cleared his advance with Barron, but as much as he respected his blood brother, the Confeds tended to get a little squishy about casualties. They were brave, and they died in droves when need be, but for all he’d become an honorary Palatian, Barron had never been able to view sending men and women to their deaths quite the same way Tulus did. He would never see glory as a thing worth dying for…and as much as his blood brother had changed him, Vian Tulus still heard the warrior’s call.

  He was leading the greatest force the Alliance had every fielded, in the most desperate battle it had fought. If that wasn’t a thing worth a death, he didn’t know what was.

  The minstrels will sing of what we do here for a thousand years…

  * * *

  “Let’s go, people…we all knew this day would come. Either we destroy this fleet coming through the point, or they’ll do the same to us. This isn’t a battle, it isn’t a contest…it’s a raw, blood-soaked struggle to the end. Only one side makes it through, so when you’ve launched your torpedoes, you use your lasers. But no one breaks off, not until I give the word. Understood?” It was a question she knew six thousand pilots couldn’t answer, at least not that she could hear. But she’d led them into enough deadly battles to know what they were saying in their cockpits, spread across seventy thousand kilometers of open space.

  “Bombers, you’re in this, too. I want you tucked in right behind the interceptors. As soon as the enemy fighters are cleared away, you go in. No delays…just blast your way in and let those plasmas go. And take it in close…so damned close you can see the paint peeling on their hulls.”

  Reg could hear the acknowledgements coming in, a tidal wave of voices on the comm. She couldn’t make much of it out, but it didn’t matter. It wasn’t for her. She knew her people would obey her commands, whether they acknowledged or not. The shouts were for them. Morale was a strange thing, and compelling men and women to do terrifying things was as much an art form as it was psychology.

  She brought her ship around, checking a few times to make sure her formations were in place. The battle was mostly in the hands of the wing and squadron commanders now. She was focused, waiting to send the bombers in, but beyond that, she had one other task she set above all others.

  She was looking for someone, for a specific ship…and she suspected the pilot of that fighter was looking for her. They’d fought twice, deadly duels that had pushed each to the limits of their abilities. She’d held her own, more or less, but in the deepest depths of her mind, she’d come to an unexpected and disturbing conclusion.

  That pilot was better than she was.

  Not enormously so, nor enough to deprive her of a chance at victory. But the fight would be the greatest of her life, and the deadliest. It would take all she had, every bit of skill and strength she could muster. If she could prevail, she would almost certainly deprive the enemy squadrons of their leader.

  And if she failed, the Pact wings would lose theirs, the officer who had led them back from the brink after Jake Stockton’s death.

  Reg’s stomach ached. It felt as though it was shriveled into a tiny ball, and even as she took hold of herself with iron discipline, she could feel her hands quivering slightly. She was determined, ready…craving the death of her enemy.

  And she was scared, more abjectly terrified than she’d ever been in all her years at war.

  There were thousands of fighters behind her. The wings she led had the advantage in numbers, at least until more of the Highborn ships were able to transit and deploy. It was an opportunity, and she intended to exploit it.

  Her eyes scanned her display, searching for one single ship.

  Nothing.

  He might not even be with these forward forces…

  She considered that for a moment, but then she dismissed it. In the end, it had only taken one thought to reach her conclusion. Would you be anywhere but with these forward wings?

  She looked again, her eyes moving from one cluster of ships to another. She didn’t have any real way to ID her enemy
, but she was confident she’d know when she saw him.

  Then her eyes froze.

  One ship, apart from any formation, flying with a grace and style the masses of fighters on both sides lacked. It was far from a certain identification, but Reg had no doubt at all. Her hand moved, almost on its own, altering her thrust angle, beginning to change her course, to head for the fight of her life, the one she’d come for.

  The one that would likely be her last.

  She wondered if she’d spotted her enemy before he did her, some uncertainty nagging at her…but seconds later she got her answer.

  The ship was changing course, too, heading right for her.

  And it had launched a pair of missiles directly toward her fighter.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Confederation Border Outpost Twelve

  Sigma Delaris System

  Year 327 AC (After the Cataclysm)

  “Commander, we’re picking up energy output from the transit point.”

  Larson Jaymes was sitting at his station, in the middle of the outpost’s small control center. The outposts on the Union border were small installations, devoid of weaponry, by terms of the peace treaty between the two powers that had demilitarized the border.

  It was also a place the Confederation navy had, in recent years, sent its problem officers and spacers, those one step away from being bounced out of the service. The practice had been in place, informally, of course, since the start of the Hegemony War, and it had continued with the subsequent conflict against the Highborn. Jaymes owed his continued presence in uniform to those conflicts, in fact, and the insatiable demand they had created for ever more officers, ships, and spacers. If there had been any meaningful stretch of peace, Jaymes knew he’d have been expelled from the service, certainly after the third time he’d been drunk on duty.