Finest Hour (The Exiled Fleet Book 3)

by Richard Fox

  “Close it! Close it!” Salis fell to her knees, both palms blistered and blackened.

  Carruthers pushed the door shut, her face passing through the smoke. Hydraulics within the safe squealed and the smoke ceased. Carruthers sank against the side of the safe, then slumped over.

  There was a whoosh as emergency air vents kicked on.

  +This is nothing+

  A chill ran down Salis’ arms as her AI injected her with painkillers. New armor plates shifted down her bare skin and covered her burns.

  There was a loud crack, and the vault door went ajar. A small cylinder was tossed in and rolled to a stop at Salis’ feet. She stomped a foot over it and her armor formed a seal around the device as she picked up her carbine.

  The flash bang went off with a muffled crack, and she winced in pain as her armor absorbed the blast.

  Salis jammed the muzzle of her carbine into the space between the frame and the door and opened fire. In two seconds of sustained fire, she emptied the entire magazine of flechette rounds. When she jerked the weapon back, it was flecked in blood and gore.

  The vault door flew open and an Indus soldier, his entire front covered in blood splatter, jumped over two bodies and went right for her. Salis grabbed him by the wrists and swung him like a sack of potatoes into the vault wall. He hit so hard a red print of the impact remained after he crumbled to the ground.

  Shots fired and struck Salis in the arm holding her carbine where the plates had thinned. Instead of having little to no effect on her like a fully armored Genevan would expect, the bullets hit with enough pain that she dropped her weapon.

  Glycas tossed his empty rifle at Salis’ face and lunged at her with his crystal knife. She let the barrel bounce off her helmet and sidestepped the stab, snapping a kick into the Daegon’s chest and stomach hard enough to stop him in his tracks.

  He switched his grip on the knife and slashed it at her face. The tip caught her forehead and cut through her armor, leaving a gash over her left eye. Her AI tightened the press of her helmet over the wound, but blood ran into her eye and she lost half her vision.

  Salis caught the arm and bum-rushed Glycas into the wall, pinning his arm there. She brought one palm back and slammed it into his shoulder, dislocating it with a wet pop.

  Glycas clenched his jaw in pain and stared at Salis with pure malice.

  “We want him alive,” the Daegon said, spitting blood. “Resist and we’ll see the boy suffer.” His gaze flinched to the side for a split second.

  Salis swung Glycas around as Pegarius opened fire from the doorway. Bullets thumped into Glycas’ back as Salis used him as a human shield. When Pegarius adjusted his aim higher, she ducked down and shoved Glycas away. He hit Pegarius in the chest, sending them both down in a heap.

  Pegarius threw Glycas off and went for a pistol on his hip.

  Salis raised an arm and a punch dagger snapped out of her armor plates. She stabbed Pegarius in the throat and sent his head flying with a twist of her wrist. She spun back around and found Glycas leaning against the wall, his breathing fast and shallow.

  “You will…be ruled,” the Daegon said, smacking his dry lips. “Tiberian…he has you now.” His head tilted back and his eyes quivered rapidly.

  “Send him.” Salis put a boot to Glycas’ neck. “He’ll get the same.” She snapped his neck with a sharp kick.

  The sound of gunfire echoed down the stairs leading to the vault. Salis picked her carbine back up and braced herself against the door. She slapped a new magazine into the weapon and raised it up as a head peeked over the top of the stairwell.

  “Friendlies!” a man called out. “Albion Marines. We’ve killed the last of the attackers. Indus already have reinforcements coming.”

  “Stay up there until we have this sorted,” Salis said. “No Indus in the embassy. Do a visual confirmation of any Albion personnel that should be in here. Shoot any fresh faces.”

  “Understood. But do you need any medics?”

  Salis looked back. Bertram was next to Carruthers, a hand checking for a pulse. The steward shook his head quickly.

  “Negative. Stay up there until I tell you otherwise,” Salis said to the Marine.

  “Mr. Berty!” Aidan shouted. “Mr. Berty, I want my Tigey!”

  Bertram touched the bottom of his emergency hood and looked at Salis.

  “Air’s clear. Good work on the emergency vents.” Salis looked at the corner next to Glycas’ body and saw the stuffed animal. “Get that for him.”

  She shut the vault door and went to Carruthers’s body. The front of her hood had melted, succumbing to whatever toxic fumes had come off the Daegon breaching device. Salis hoped her passing had been quick. She put a hand to the safe and felt its temperature rising.

  “Not a lot of time.” Salis found Aidan cowering beneath a cot. She touched the helmet and the armor plates returned to her.

  Aidan wiped tears from his wide eyes. “Are you OK?” the boy asked.

  Salis felt pain creeping up from her burned hands and her forehead throbbed. She willed the face mask of her helmet off and wiped her blood-covered eye with the edge of a blanket.

  “It’s nothing,” she said. “Just a minor laceration. I have sutures that can—”

  “Just a boo-boo, my Prince,” Bertram interrupted, brushing the stuffed tiger off on the blanket and thrusting it into Aidan’s arms. “She’ll be just fine. Won’t. She?”

  Salis reformed her mask. “Yes. I’m fine.”

  “The ambassadee-or…” Aidan craned his head up to look around, but Bertram moved to block his view.

  “We have to leave very soon,” Bertram said, “don’t we, Ms. Salis?”

  “This location is compromised.” Salis pulled up a map of the city on her internal HUD, and her AI picked out several other secure locations. “But…Albion has a number of safe houses across the city. We might be safer there.”

  “Might?” Bertram rustled Aidan’s hair and gave Tigey a pat. “Can we do better for him than might?”

  “This is…we’re in a city under siege and there could be more of these Daegon anywhere. I’m…I’m trained for this, but I was trained to be the junior agent, not in charge of the whole protection detail…of just me. Genevans work best in teams. Our AI’s link data and—”

  “And what does your training tell us to do right now?” Bertram asked.

  “We evacuate under disguise and do our best to blend into the populace. Avoid hostile contact until we can signal for evac.” Salis flexed her fingers, fighting the pain that stiffened them.

  “Then let’s best be going,” Bertram said. “We need coats and perhaps a snack and…Master Aidan, can you do something for me?”

  “What, Mr. Berty?” the boy asked.

  “We have to go, and there are some scary things on the way. Will you keep your eyes closed as tight as you can for me? And don’t let Tigey see either, OK?”

  “OK.” Aidan’s face fell, and Salis felt a strange twinge of emotion. The child wasn’t falling for simple excuses anymore. He knew what they didn’t want him to see.

  Bertram scooped the boy up and flung a blanket around Aidan’s head and shoulders.

  “Best you go up first,” he said. “I made sandwiches earlier. I’ll get them.”

  Salis nodded and hurried to the door.

  Aidan buried his face against Bertram’s shoulder and squeezed his stuffed animal tight. He felt something small and hard in the left leg, like a grain of rice was in there. He’d have to tell Mr. Berty about it later, but when he had to keep his eyes closed, he had to be quiet too. Those were Ms. Salis’ rules.

  CHAPTER 17

  In the command holo of the Orion’s bridge, Gage watched as ships died in the void. The Indus fleet had contracted against the Daegon incursion, but the enemy had maneuvered toward the southern pole and tore through an entire Indus fleet.

  The numbers were nearly equal in terms of ships, but the Daegon had massed their forces in one mutually supporting sphere,
with their smaller vessels forming layers around the battleship analogues carrying the fleet’s commanders. At the same time, the Indus were sending in more and more ships piecemeal…and losing them rapidly.

  “XO, why don’t we have comms with the Stiletto or the Cutlass yet?” Gage asked.

  “The Daegon are jamming all the channels,” she said with a shake of her head. “The bandwidths are chock-full of noise and we’re too far away for a tight-beam IR to our ships…or even the Indus. At least they should be able to form a beam relay and talk to each other.”

  “Doesn’t look like it.” Gage zoomed in on a slugging match between Indus heavy cruisers and the outer Daegon sphere. “The Indus are default aggressive. When they realize they’re within engagement range, they attack. No one’s coordinating this defense. It’s like they’re hoping the Daegon will run out of munitions before they run out of ships…this is…”

  He gripped the edge of the control ring.

  “What would we do if we were there?” Price asked.

  “If Chadda had listened to me and brought his perimeter rings in closer to the planet—doesn’t matter. We only have the tactical problem in front of us. Show me the Daegon’s projected course,” Gage said.

  A dashed red arrow traced ahead of the enemy fleet and wrapped around the planet, coming close to the Amritsar star fort and Theni City. The low orbitals were awash in red haze from the holo, showing Gage that data from there was so fragmentary that it was unreliable. Two blue diamonds of Albion ships pulsed—the last-known location of the two destroyers Gage had left behind for repairs.

  “They’ll pass over Moga and Sunam, major population centers, before they get back to Theni,” Gage said. “My guess is that they’ll launch more ground assaults and come in for the killing blow on the Amritsar once they clear the horizon.”

  “I concur,” Price said. “At current velocity…we’ll reach the planet half an hour after the Daegon reengage the star fort.” Her face fell. “It may well all be over by then.”

  “Commodore,” said Ensign Clarke as he ran up to the command dais. “Sire, I think we have a way into the Indus comm network.”

  “Then what are you waiting for?” Gage asked. He reached into the holo and flipped a screen toward Clarke, showing broken connections back to every ship in the Indus fleet.

  “One of our techs found a backdoor to their alert network on Harihara, the inner moon. It really is almost sloppy of the Indus to—”

  Price slapped a palm against her station.

  “An old signaling station on the planet’s surface. Visible wavelength semaphore to—we can get in, but it’s technically an act of war for us to hack into their system,” Clarke said.

  “I doubt the Indus will open fire on us,” Gage said. “Get in there and get me connected.”

  “Aye aye.” Clarke turned and waved a hand and sailors at his station went to work.

  “Some good news,” Gage said and opened a channel to the Castle Itter.

  “Commodore…” Price did a double take as the connection went through, “what are you doing?”

  “Long shot,” Gage said.

  A screen with Klaven came up.

  “Ah, Commodore, I was curious if you knew just why the Indus seemed determined to piss away all their combat power while the—”

  “I need your spine cannon in this fight,” Gage said. “The Castle Itter’s main gun can destroy the Daegon’s capitol ships. There’s an engagement envelope where a miss won’t endanger the planet coming up in—”

  “Impossible.” Klaven shook his head. “The Reich is neutral in this conflict. We are simply here to observe and report, not intervene.”

  “Klaven,” Gage said, leaning closer to the Duke’s screen, “you see those cities burning? The Daegon aren’t here to wage war on just Albion or just the Indus or even the Kongs. They are here to conquer all of us. If the Reich sits on the sidelines now, it will be even worse for your people when the Daegon come for you. And they will.”

  “I’m afraid there’s no evidence of that happening.” Klaven crossed his arms over his chest. “And there is no way I would ever fire the spine cannon with a habitable world in the firing arc. One strike to the arctic ice would be catastrophic to the environment.”

  “The Indus would rather worry about a too-long winter than a Daegon occupation, Klaven,” Gage said. “You know how to command a war ship. You know what the Indus are doing wrong—they’re fighting with too few ships at a time because they can’t coordinate a counterattack that has a chance of succeeding. All of settled space is like this right now.” Gage held up a hand and tugged at his fingertips. “We come together and we can beat them.” He closed his hand into a fist.

  “I cannot,” Klaven said, then looked away slightly. “I will not. The Kaiserinna has spoken.”

  “She doesn’t even know yet,” Gage said. “How will you look in her eyes if you go back to Prussia Zwei with a clean hull and no battle honors? When she decides to fight the Daegon—and she will—you won’t—”

  Klaven’s screen cut out.

  “Stuck-up, blue-blooded, little…” Gage trailed off.

  “I’ve got the Cutlass,” Price said. “The connection is bad but—”

  “Give it to me,” Gage said, and a grainy picture of Lieutenant Commander Timmons came up on Gage’s console.

  “Commodore?” Timmons had her void helmet on, and sparks leaked down from a rent in the roof of his bridge behind him. “The skies over Theni are a mess right now. The Daegon attack—”

  “Are you mobile?” Gage asked.

  “The Cutlass is limping like a dog hit by a car,” Timmons said. “We can break orbit, but there are Daegon everywhere.”

  “And the Stiletto?” Gage asked.

  “Lost with all hands when the Daegon destroyed the void dock,” Timmons said, then look up suddenly. “Guns, slew to starboard forward. The bombers just broke off from their vector on us and—yes, I see the torps! Counter fire! Counter fire!”

  “Do you have the VIP aboard?” Gage asked.

  Timmons didn’t reply, his focus elsewhere. The commander stood as panicked shouts filled the channel. Timmons twisted back to the camera.

  “I don’t have him. He’s still down on—” The channel washed out with static, then died.

  “Heaven receive them,” Gage said and crossed himself quickly. He looked down for a moment, then back to the holo. “I need Chadda, Price.”

  “Comms is working it,” she said. “All the Indus channels are a mess. There’s…there’s some sort of data loop that keeps breaking into the comms.”

  A new screen came up, showing a burning building beneath flame- and smoke-strewn skies. A sea of low rubble stretched across the ground. A single, frightened voice speaking Indus kept repeating the same phrase as the picture bobbed up and down as whoever held the camera moved forward. The video panned down, and Gage realized that the cameraman wasn’t walking over debris, but bodies.

  The building, the walls once majestic and gold plated, were stained with soot, the bottom stained red with blood from executions still being carried out by Daegon soldiers.

  “This is the Malout Gurdwara.” The translation was sterile, carrying none of the fear and pain Gage heard in the speaker’s voice. “The Daegon will rule us. Surrender. We will be ruled or we will die. This is the Malout—”

  Gage cut the feed.

  “Bastards,” Price said. “That’s a house of worship. Not even the Mechanix or the Reich are so low.”

  “Get me the Amritsar,” Gage said. “Then have the ship captains on deck.”

  “Working,” Price said as she looked up at him through the holo.

  “This is all on me,” Gage said. “I put Aidan down there because I thought he’d be safe…now we’re the ones out of danger. Lady Christina would’ve high-tailed it into slip space with him and the rest of the fleet by now.”

  “And they all would’ve starved to death between stars,” Price said. “The Indus are still f
ighting. Theni City…the fighting isn’t as bad there. And the Prince has Salis with him. She’s better trained for this than anyone on that planet.”

  Gage looked over at Thorvald.

  “She will protect him,” Thorvald said. “She may abandon the embassy if it’s under threat…So long as she lives, Aidan will live. And so long as she lives, I can find her.”

  “I sent him down there to be safe while I defended him in the void…but now the Orion is the safest place in the system.” A wry smile crossed his face. “Irony.”

  “We’ll be back within range to New Madras in five and a half hours,” Price said.

  “The fight looks like it’ll be over before that,” Gage said. “If the Indus surrender, getting Aidan back aboard will be…more difficult than I can imagine right now.”

  “Then how do we keep the Indus in the fight?” Price asked.

  “Get Chadda on the line,” Gage said.

  ****

  “There.” Tiberian looked over a map of Theni City, a perfect holo recreation compiled from sensors and cameras from all across the Daegon fleet. With the claw tips of an armored hand, he plucked a pulsating dot moving out of the Albion embassy.

  “You can’t be sure,” Gustavus said. “Your agent failed his mission. If the ferals know he planted a tracker, this could be a snipe hunt. Something to lure us away from the boy.”

  “Glycas’ last message said the boy was alive and that the tracker was locked. That’s Aidan.” Tiberian zoomed in on the dot. “But he’s moving slowly…on foot. An easy hunt.”

  “If your agent was able to plant a tracker, then why didn’t he simply kill the boy?” Gustavus asked. “Your obsession with taking him alive serves no one but your own ego, Tiberian. It’s time to put an end to this. A saturation bombing will suffice.” The younger Daegon traced a circle in the holo and a command wheel appeared.

  Tiberian snarled and grabbed Gustavus by the wrist. “How long?” Tiberian asked. “How long have we planned our return? How long have we watched these mongrels rut about, killing each other, perverting their bodies with technology…suffering under their own impulses. All of this is part of the plan.” He let his nephew go.