by Jay Allan
* * *
Reg jerked her hand hard to the side, her ship’s thrust angle moving sharply, and the wall of g force slamming into her from the side. She could see the vague glimmering of laser blasts ripping by just to the port side of her fighter, slight hints of the trajectory of her enemy’s shots as they passed through intermittent clouds of gas and particulate.
That was close…
She was soaked in sweat, and she felt as though she was staring right into the eyes of death. But the trembling had passed. She wasn’t sure if she had overcome her fear, or merely accepted the inevitability of defeat. She didn’t care. She was still fighting, struggling against her enemy with all she had, every scrap she could dig up. And if she had to die, that was the way she wanted to go.
The Highborn fighter had dueled with her for almost twenty minutes, executing one elegant maneuver after another. The attacks had been deadly dangerous, but they had also been conducted in ways that made her own counterattacks difficult, if not impossible. But now, something had changed.
The enemy ship was coming in hard, right toward her. For an instant, she wondered why her opponent had given up his choreographed dance, his tactic of wearing her down, gradually increasing his advantage in the battle. Then she realized.
All it took was a quick glance at the long-range scanner, and the blasted and crippled hulks that had been three dozen Highborn carriers. Her enemy had increased the intensity of his attacks because he’d run out of time. He needed to direct his wings, find a way to get them back to landing platforms that could accommodate them. And that meant ending the one on one duel, and doing it quickly.
Reg felt a new wave of fear, but with it she sensed opportunity as well. Her enemy was a terrible danger as his ship came tearing toward hers…but he was more vulnerable as well. The risk she faced, the growing shadow of death closing on her also offered her a chance at victory.
She stared at the screen, her mind racing, calculating alongside the targeting computer, putting all her attention and focus into lining up her shot.
Her last shot.
She, too, was sacrificing defensive effort, betting all on one last attack…a wild gamble that she could get off the killing shot before her adversary did.
She drew a deep and ragged breath, adjusting her targeting every half second or so…and then she fired.
She waited to see if she’d delivered the kill shot…or simply left herself open to her enemy.
She got a partial answer seconds later, as a laser blast ripped by so close, it looked almost as though she could have reached out and touched it…and then a second shot hit her fighter dead on, and she could feel the stricken craft disintegrating all around her, hear the wild hiss of her life support slipping away.
* * *
Stockton felt a deep, jolting pain at the base of his head, almost as though he’d been turned inside out. He shouted, a primal scream of torment as his head seemed to explode inside his skull. He could hear and feel crackling sounds all around his cockpit as arcs of high amperage electricity snapped all around. He felt half a dozen more shocks, one after the other, every one of them painful and distracting.
He’d been hit, that was immediately clear. It was evident the shot that had struck his ship hadn’t quite been the kill shot his opponent—and the part of his mind that was still him—had so desperately wanted. His fighter was damaged, and he was injured. But he was still in the fight.
And none of it drew his focus from what he was doing. His eyes remained fixed, and his right hand was tight on the throttle. His enemy was there, in his sights. To his unabashed horror, he knew it was time.
His fingers tightened, and the lasers whined as they sent their deadly pulses of concentrated light to the Lightning craft he knew carried Reg Griffin.
Half his control panel had shorted out, but he had one screen left, and his adversary’s ship was displayed dead center on that. His first shot missed, by less than three meters.
But the second slammed right into the fighter, tearing open the entire starboard side…and a few seconds later, the entire ship broke up, bits and pieces spinning off in a dozen directions.
Stockton stared at the now empty space where Reg Griffin’s fighter had been, and he felt the satisfaction of the predator, the almost unrestrained rush he had always enjoyed after victory in combat.
And somewhere else, in that lone and helpless part of his brain, there was only despair, and guilt so deep and biting, he prayed to any power that might aid him to empower one of his old pilots, to send one of them to defeat him and end his suffering at last.
* * *
Andi was staring at Pegasus’s display. She’d been trying to get a read on the massive fighter battle taking place across five hundred trillion cubic kilometers of space, but her attention had been diverted to what had seemed to be one great duel between pilots. She’d guessed the pilot in the Lightning was Reg Griffin, a few seconds before the fighter’s ID beacon confirmed it. She’d been leaning forward, and her body tensed rigidly, becoming more and more astonished at the abilities of the Highborn pilot Reg was fighting.
Then, suddenly, Reg’s ship vanished from the screen.
Andi gasped, and she felt her insides convulse. It took all the will she could muster to hold the contents of her stomach down. She had considered Jake Stockton one of her very few true friends, and she’d mourned his death terribly. But she’d quickly gotten to know Reg, and she’d developed a strong attachment to the pilot.
The pilot she’d just watched die.
She felt a wild rage growing inside her, a fury that defied any satisfaction. She wanted Highborn blood, and if she could have, she would have consigned their entire accursed race to utter extinction. The distance to the main fleet was still too great for any but the haziest of scanner data, but Clint Winters had managed to pinpoint Dauntless…and he’d sent her word that Tyler was still alive. That was an assumption, she knew. It didn’t appear the flagship had suffered serious damage yet, but that didn’t mean there weren’t casualties aboard. But the news had been gratifying nevertheless.
For about five minutes…until she’d watched Reg Griffin die in front of her.
“Andi…”
Vig’s voice cut through the gloom surrounding her. Her eyes remained fixed forward, watching Reg Griffin’s killer bank away and blast hard from the scene of the epic battle. She was consumed with the desire to chase down that pilot…and frustrated at her inability to do more than watch the ship fly back toward the main battle.
“What is it, Vig?” She immediately regretted the caustic anger she’d allowed to slip into her tone.
“We’re picking up a signal. It’s faint, but I think it’s a transponder…from a pilot’s survival suit.”
Andi had barely been listening, but a few seconds later, Vig’s words sunk in and suddenly made sense.
“Location data on the screen,” she snapped, her own hands moving over her controls, zooming the display area to a small zone around the area where Reg’s ship had been destroyed. She adjusted the data, accounting for the intrinsic velocity of the destroyed ship.
A velocity that would impart to anything—anyone—who had ejected from it.
A few seconds later, a small blinking light appeared…right where Reg’s ship would have been.
“Vig, set a course for that point…now!” Andi had promised Clint Winters she’d keep Pegasus out of the fight, away from the enemy forces. She had already partially broken that pledge by bringing her ship much farther forward than caution allowed. Now, she was going to lunge even farther, right to the very edge of the great fighter battle still raging.
She tried to tell herself it was okay, that Clint Winters hadn’t really believed she would stay back, and in that fact lay some sort of absolution.
She didn’t take breaking promises lightly, but if that was Reg Griffin floating out there, she just couldn’t leave her. The pilot could be wounded, her survival gear damaged. Even if all was well, her life supp
ort would run out far before the fleet could pick her up, even under the best circumstances.
And the fleet is going to have to make a dash to escape the system, which means there won’t even be any rescue operations…
Besides, Clint Winters was violating orders, breaking his own promise to Tyler. Andi knew she had played a role in that, of course, but she latched on to it…and tried to justify her actions, even to herself.
Andi looked back at the display, her hands flying about on her controls, trying to enhance the signal, to confirm the beacon was, in fact, from Reg Griffin’s escape pod. But there was too much interference from the battle raging all around. Her gut told her it was Reg…but she had no real proof.
But Andi Lafarge had always listened to her instincts, and they hadn’t killed her yet.
“Full power, Vig…if that’s Reg Griffin floating around out there, we’re her only chance…”
Vig just nodded, and Andi knew her old friend had left one glaring question unasked.
What chance did Pegasus have of moving that far forward, finding Reg and bringing her aboard, and then getting out in one piece?
Andi didn’t know…but she was going to find out.
Chapter Forty-Two
CFS Dauntless
Beta Telvara System
Year 327 AC (After the Cataclysm)
“Full thrust, all units. We’re going home.” That was beyond oversimplification, but Barron figured they were words his people needed to hear. The arrival of reinforcements hadn’t eliminated the danger of utter destruction, but it had at least given his people a chance. Just maybe, they could fight their way out.
Even as he turned back and looked at the display, he could see that much of the blocking force was decelerating, preparing to come about and engage the newly-arrived Pact forces. The Highborn ships that had planned to trap his fleet in a wedge between hostile forces were now facing that very danger themselves. And Barron was going to make the most of it while he could.
“Atara, I want all ships ready to open fire the instant we are in range of those ships. If we push the engines hard enough—and maybe a little over redline—we should be able to engage them about the same time as the bulk of Admiral Winters’s forces do.”
“Yes, Admiral!” He could hear the old bloodthirsty sound in Atara’s voice, and his mind flashed back to a dozen other desperate fights.
He still wasn’t sure the newly arrived fleet was commanded by Clint Winters, not technically, at least. But he didn’t have any real doubt. First of all, he didn’t know anyone else with the guts to so overtly disregard his clear orders.
Second, the directness and ferocity with which the fleet was coming in, chasing down the Highborn ships at what looked like maximum thrust levels, had the mark of the Sledgehammer all over it.
Barron looked down, checking the status of landing operations. Federov’s bombers were all back in the bays, but half the interceptors were still out there, waiting in landing queues or forming a rearguard to hold back the newly-arrived Highborn wings.
Blasting the battleships’ engines at full thrust was going to make it hard for those last fighters to keep up, to get back before they exhausted their fuel. But it was a chance he had to take. He couldn’t risk what remained of the fleet’s battleline for less than a thousand fighters. He wondered about a life that had enabled him to reduce the possible abandonment of a thousand pilots to basic mathematical analysis.
What else might I have done, have been, if I had not been born a Barron…
“Atara…alert the wing commanders of the rearguard. The fleet is pulling out, and they’re going to have to keep up. Fifteen minutes…they are to hold for fifteen minutes, and not a second more. Then I want them back here, I don’t care if they burn their engines down to molten goo to do it!”
Because any of them who don’t do it are going to die…
* * *
“You’ve got the ship, Vig!” Andi leapt up from her chair, and she raced back toward the ladder leading to the lower deck. She could hear Vig’s voice in the background, but she was already sliding down, and she couldn’t make out what he was saying. She wanted to be at Pegasus’s controls, but she needed to be down in the airlock. Vig could handle the ship as well as she could, as much as part of her hated to admit that, but she wasn’t sending any of her people out on the exceedingly dangerous operation of hauling in what she hoped—without any real proof—was Reg Griffin’s survival pod.
She bounded across the lower deck, almost losing her footing as the thrusters kicked in before the dampeners could compensate. Vig wasn’t just pushing Pegasus forward, he was moving the ship in a zigzag pattern, being cautious to evade any enemy fighters that might notice the vessel’s approach and decide to take a few shots.
That was smart, the kind of veteran move that only confirmed her confidence in her friend. It also made it pretty damned difficult to get around on the ship.
The others were all strapped in, and Andi threw up her hand as she saw several of them moving their hands toward the harnesses. “Stay…there’s nothing any of you can do right now.” That was true, more or less. She probably could have used some help trying to haul Reg’s pod into the ship, but she’d resolved to handle that herself. Apart from that, she needed Vig at the controls and Lex in engineering…and for everyone else to stay the hell out of the way.
She tore open the door next to the airlock, pulling one of the suits from the rack inside and climbing into it. She was trying to move too quickly, and she almost lost her balance, her hand reaching out and catching her before she fell. She stood still for a few seconds, one foot in the suit and one out, and then she finished. She zipped up, not an easy thing to do alone with her hands in large bulky gloves, and then she muttered a command to the small AI that ran the survival gear. “Activate life support.”
The suit puffed up a bit as cool air pumped in, and Andi stood for a few more seconds until the small green light to the inside of her faceplate illuminated. The suit checked out. She was ready.
She opened the inner airlock door and stepped inside. A moment later, the door slid shut, and she could hear the sounds of the pumps evacuating the chamber. Thirty second later, the outer doors were open, and Andi Lafarge was in space, clinging to the hull of her ship.
She looked around, feeling like a fool almost immediately. She was enough of a veteran of the deeps to realize what a tiny thing a human being was in the utter vastness of space. She snapped a quick order to her AI, and a small image projected inside her helmet. Her suit was linked to Pegasus’s main system, and her portable display gave her the scanner reading she needed to track down what she hoped was Reg.
“Vig, about two kilometers forward. Six degrees in the Y axis, and 44 in the Z.” She knew she didn’t have to provide such detailed instructions. Vig had the scanner data, too, and he knew exactly what Andi was trying to do.
“Andi…first be careful. EVAs are always dangerous. And…” A pause. “Well, we don’t have much time. We have to cut our evasive routines to try to get close enough to that beacon, and well…”
Andi understood, even though Vig hadn’t managed to get the word ‘hurry’ out of his mouth. It didn’t tend to align all that often with ‘be careful.’ But Andi wasn’t going to put the rest of her people at any more risk than necessary, not them, and not the tenuous trail they had to a way to defeat the Highborn.
That meant she was going to hurry. The hell with careful…
She climbed out of the airlock, her magnetic boots gripping the metal of Pegasus’s hull. She had a lifeline, of course, but it was only twenty meters long. If Vig couldn’t get close enough, and Andi got a visual on Reg…well, it wouldn’t be the first time she’d ended up floating free, relying on her air jets to make it back to the ship.
She clung to Pegasus’s hull, her eyes fixed on the projection in her helmet. She was struck by the seeming peacefulness of space, despite the fact that she knew she was in the center of one of the largest battles eve
r fought. She was well aware of the almost unimaginable distances involved in space travel, but it still felt like a surprise that she couldn’t see any ships…or explosions and combat.
Time passed, and she could feel the ship’s deceleration, and finally something that felt very much like Pegasus had come to a dead halt.
That was dangerous, she knew. She was sure Vig had Ross Tarnan in the topside turret by then, but it wouldn’t take a lot for a few Highborn fighters to cripple her ship, if not destroy it outright.
Two minutes…you’ve got two minutes to find her, and then you have to go back in and get your people out of here…
She looked all over, again, a pointless effort. If she found Reg Griffin, it would be on her scanner, not with her naked eyes.
“Andi…right off to the starboard. Fifty meters, almost directly on the ship’s Y plane…”
She turned and looked, but even at such close range, she couldn’t see anything. But the contact was there, on the small projected display, and she felt a burst of excitement. Her hand dropped to the tether, and she was about to unclasp the latch when Pegasus lurched slightly.
She wasn’t sure what had happened, not at first. The thrust—if that’s what it was—had been too light even to be the positioning jets. Then, she realized.
Vig is clearing the air lines. He’s using them to push the ship toward Reg…
It was beyond precision flying, and Andi knew she might have to let go her belief that Vig was almost as good a pilot as she was.
She watched as the contact drew closer, and finally she could see it, the tiny blinking light of a Confed escape pod. She let herself drift away from the ship, her tether still in place, and she maneuvered her way toward the pod. Vig’s repositioning had been almost perfect, an uncanny degree of accuracy for such a thing. She reached out, and she grabbed hold of the pod…and then she affixed it to her tether. She breathed a sigh of relief as she activated the winch…and then she felt the line pulling her—and Reg Griffin—back toward the ship, and to safety.