The Last Stand

by Jay Allan

  “Nothing as specific as you would like, I’m afraid, Colonel. A lot of suspicious odds and ends there, but nothing that would stand up in an imperial court, I’m afraid. Lord Andros has been quite adept at covering his tracks. He’s up to something, I’d bet my pension on it. But what, I couldn’t say.”

  “There are other ways to handle this matter outside the conventional legal system, Trellic. I have considerable authority direct from the crown to handle matters of imperial security.” Tragonis didn’t say any more. They both knew what ‘other ways’ meant. “But before we go that route, we need some degree of certainty, even if we can’t prove it.” The investigation of Andros had begun rather innocuously, as an examination of possible fraudulent use of imperial funds. Tragonis had expected to find just another example of an imperial noble lining his own pockets, and he’d imagined collecting some level of restitution if he could put the case together. He would have handled things differently if it had been up to him, but outside of offenses like treason, the crimes of the nobility had been winked at for centuries.

  There probably wouldn’t even have been an investigation at all, except the parlous state of the imperial treasury had placed an emphasis on pursuing financial crimes to bring in additional revenue.

  As soon as Tragonis’s people began looking into Andros’s Project Obsidian, however, they found one troubling detail after another and, worse perhaps, apparent links to other…problematic…events in different sections of imperial space.

  Lord Andros the thief was a minor affair for his office to pursue. Andros the traitor—and Tragonis would need real proof to make that claim, and to send a termination squad—was something entirely different.

  “There are signs Andros had people on Bellastre, right before the financial collapse there. And on Mandolith, just months before the first rebellions. But again, no real proof of involvement.”

  “Forget proof, Trellic. Tell me what you think? Is Lord Andros deliberately inciting rebellions and economic disasters on different worlds?”

  “Forgetting proof? Before this last trip, I would have said no. What would a noble of Andros’s station have to gain by such activities. He lacks the military support to make a play for the scepter, and what else could he gain by destabilizing important imperial worlds? But the coincidence of it all is becoming a bit much to explain away.”

  Tragonis shook his head. “I don’t know…but I can tell you this. We’re damned sure going to find out what is going on.”

  “I agree, sir, but how? I’ve got people watching Andros and his top lieutenants, but we have no idea who else he may be allied with.”

  “Let’s take a look and see if we can trace any involvement backwards. The empire has been…troubled…for some time now, but we’ve seen a two hundred percent increase in major incidents on imperial worlds over the last three years…sharp economic declines, terrorism, even open rebellion. That is a massive increase, and far too much to blame on bad luck. Someone is behind it, some of it, at least. I want the team on every individual case file to reexamine their evidence for anything—anything at all—that points toward Andros or his known associates.” Tragonis paused. “If we’ve got an imperial lord of that level plotting something, we need to know about it…as quickly as possible.

  “Yes, Colonel. I will see to it at once.”

  The operative got up and nodded sharply toward Tragonis. Then he turned and walked out of the office, leaving his superior to sit and think in the quiet of his office.

  What are you up to, Andros?

  Chapter Sixteen

  148,000,000 Kilometers from CFS Dauntless

  Sigma Nordlin System

  Year 323 AC (After the Cataclysm)

  The Battle of Calpharon – The Warbirds Return

  “Dauntless, this is Admiral Stockton…put me through the Admiral Barron!” Stockton was still trying to shake the disorientation from his head. Small ships like Lightning fighters were not made for interstellar transits, and they lacked the shielding larger ships employed to minimize the effects of alternate space on their crews. Stockton had been a trailblazer of sorts in his younger days, one of the first pilots to take a fighter through a point, and he’d done in enough times to be considered the foremost veteran of the procedure. But that didn’t mean it was easy on him.

  The strange, largely unexplained space in the points, combined with the bizarre forms of radiation endemic to it, and a host of other seeming unnatural factors, had variable effects on human beings traveling through. Those on properly shielded ships usually suffered no more than mild dizziness, headaches, nausea, and perhaps short periods of mild confusion upon exiting. Pilots in poorly protected fighters endured more direct effects, hallucinations, irregular heartbeats, extreme disorientation. A small percentage even succumbed to permanent effects, and could suffer heart attacks, strokes, permanent insanity. It was just another notation on the spreadsheet for a mission of the sort Stockton had just led. A single pilot took his chances, endured a small risk, one the bravado of most fighter jocks could ignore. With thousands of fighters going through a point, the rare but deadly side effects were a mathematical certainty.

  Stockton blasted his engines hard as he waited for Barron to come on the line, accelerating toward the flagship with everything his depleted fighter had left. Still, it was going to take too long to get back, for his bird to get refueled and relauched. He needed to get the rest of his people into space. Now.

  The enemy had been right behind his fleeing squadrons, and from the looks of their approach as they’d neared the point, they weren’t planning to wait. Highborn ships were going to be coming through soon, perhaps any minute…and Stockton wanted his fighters, the rest of them at least, the four thousand Confed, Alliance, and Hegemony craft still fresh and ready to go, in space to meet the enemy. He wasn’t sure how many of the missile arrays on the enemy battleships his people had managed to knock out, but he knew however many were left would tear apart his wings if they were able to execute a coordinated launch. The sooner his bombers got into space, and the closer to the point they met the invaders, the better they would be.

  And the better the fleet would be if his pilots were able to launch their torpedoes before the enemy missiles tore their formations to shreds.

  “Jake…Tyler here. I’m glad to see you made it back, old friend.” Barron sounded distracted, harried. Of course, he’s got the entire fleet to worry about…as well as dealing with the Heggies. Stockton had enjoyed little success in trying to avoid the derogatory nickname for his former enemies, now his allies. He’d been in good company with that, at least in the fighter corps.

  “I’m glad too, sir…but right now we need to launch everything, every bomber we’ve got. The Highborn first line is right behind my squadrons. If we can go against those bastards as they come through, maybe we can get a free shot in…before they hit us with those missiles.”

  “I’ll issue an order to scramble all our squadrons…and I’ll request the Alliance and Hegemony forces do the same.”

  Stockton frowned as he heard Barron’s words, and the tension behind them. He knew Imperator Tulus would do whatever Barron asked, and he couldn’t imagine Commander Chronos would hesitate to launch his own wings along with those of the other contingents. But he felt uneasy about the disorganized nature of the divided command structure. It wouldn’t take more than one disagreement—or even just a delay—at the wrong time to cause a disaster. Not that Stockton knew how to fix the problem. He certainly wasn’t ready to serve under Hegemony command, and he couldn’t imagine the Confederation’s larger, more powerful ally would accept a subordinate role…especially not when it was their capital planet being attacked.

  “Very well, Admiral. I should be landing in thirty minutes or so. I’ll send a comm to control and have my flight team ready to turn my ship around so I can get right back out.” His mind was on the coming battle, mostly, but the communique he’d just mentioned would serve one other purpose. Stara Sinclair would be reli
eved to hear his voice, to know he had returned once again. And a few seconds with her once he landed—all he could really spare—would remind him of just what he was fighting for.

  “Are you sure you’re okay to go right back out, Jake?” Barron’s words sounded sincere, but Stockton was well aware both he and the admiral knew there was no choice. It was, more than anything, a friend expressing concern for another.

  Besides, all the survivors from the fight in Vexa Torrent would be turning around and launching right back out into the fight…and Stockton’s place was to set the example to his exhausted and haggard pilots.

  “I’m always okay, Admiral…you know that.” A pause, and then a slightly more useful reply. “I’ll grab another hit of stims before I launch, sir. Doc will probably give me a lecture, but if we get through this and all I end up with is a case of the shakes and a few days in detox, I can live with that.”

  “Take care of yourself, Jake…we need you.”

  Stockton just nodded to himself. There was true affection in Barron’s tone, the sound of a man who didn’t want to lose a valued friend.

  Another friend. How many have we all lost?

  There had been more in Barron’s voice as well, the desperation of a commander who needed every one of his key people to face what was coming.

  Stockton adjusted his course, and punched up the acceleration slightly. The sooner he was back in the landing bay, the better. Every second counted.

  * * *

  The fighter kicked hard with every burst of power to the engines. Reg Griffin did her best to ease the controls, to gently feed fuel into the reactor, but the ship still bucked wildly as she did. There was no choice. She’d just have to put up with it, and hope she only had to contend with discomfort, that her ship didn’t give up the ghost completely.

  Look on the bright side…

  It was the kind of thing that pissed her off when people said it, but it was actually applicable to her situation. She’d been almost certain she was going to die in Vexa Torrent, and she’d had no less than six of the enemy missiles on her tail—almost close enough to detonate—when her Lightning slipped into the transit point. She’d h eld her breath as she slipped into the alternate space, traveling seven lightyears in a few seconds, and as best she could concentrate through the disorientation, she wondered if the missiles were still chasing her, if she would emerge back in Sigma Nordlin only to be obliterated within sight of the fleet.

  She’d been through now for almost four minutes, and there was no sign of the missiles. No sign of any enemy ordnance. The Highborn weapons were a deadly danger to the fighter wings, but at least the warheads themselves didn’t seem to be transit-capable. She didn’t know why, whether the warheads were too volatile, or their shielding too weak. Perhaps the AIs controlling them went down inside the points. Honestly, she didn’t really care. All that mattered was, she had gained a reprieve, that all of the pilots who got through the point had. The Highborn advance line wasn’t far behind, but the battleships were a bit farther back…and that promised enough time for all the returned ships to reach their landing platforms before they could be fired on again.

  Of course, that didn’t account for the troubles damaged ships—like hers—might face.

  She slowed the acceleration even more, but she knew that wasn’t going to work. She’d run for her life back in Vexa Torrent, screaming toward the transit point with all her ship could manage. Now, she had to decelerate before she reached Confederation. She’d been fortunate to be posted on one of the newest battleships in the fleet, and the vessel’s crew and equipment were among the very best in the navy.

  Neither of which would help her if her ship went screaming past at uncontrollable velocity.

  She looked down at her screen, running calculations in her head, as her AI crunched the numbers. It all came out the same, just as she’d expected. Everything depended on two absolute parameters.

  First, the performance of her battered ship wasn’t going to improve, at least not before she got into the bay and her flight crew did their magic. And second, she had to reach Confederation with her velocity down almost to zero.

  She pushed up the thrust level, trying to ignore the increased turbulence. Her ship bounced all around, but the engines were still online. Her dampeners were out, so she felt the pressure slam into her as the deceleration increased…3g, 4g, 5g.

  She struggled to breath, the force slamming down on her chest resisting her efforts to fill her lungs with air. The life support system seemed to be working, but there was a hint of something acidic, a caustic fume in the cockpit’s air.

  She punched a few buttons on her workstation, something that required considerable effort under 5g of constant force, and the screen shifted. There were half a dozen icons on the display, and one large one right in the middle.

  Confederation.

  She’d sent the survivors of her initial wing on ahead, all nine of them. She’d stayed back as the rest of the strike force transited, taking Stockton’s place as the last to come through. Now, she was close. But close wasn’t the same as being there.

  She checked the range, recalculated her vector and deceleration. Everything looked good.

  She was back, and on track to reach the ship in twenty-four minutes.

  As long as her ship hung in there that long.

  * * *

  “I know you have much to do, my brother, but I could not allow this monumental struggle to begin without wishing you good fortune. We are with you, all of Palatia’s warriors. We will make our mark this day, and claim our share of the glory. Our swords will taste the enemy’s blood, and we will make them pay a grievous price.”

  Barron sat on Dauntless’s bridge, listening to Vian Tulus, hearing the enthusiasm in the Alliance Imperator’s voice. He’d listened to such speeches before, and he considered Tulus one of his closest friends, indeed as the blood brother he’d become in a scared Palatian ritual years before. Tulus was everything a friend and brother could be, and he had never once failed to answer a call to come to Barron’s aid.

  But Tyler Barron was tired of war. He didn’t care about glory. He had once, he had to admit that, but such youthful desires had been washed away with blood. Tulus’s speech was more like something he’d have said in his younger years, but it would have been more than half a lie even then. He’d followed the only path he’d felt was open to him in life, but choice or not, he made the best of it. He had craved glory, he had looked forward to chances to make his mark, to lead his people against the enemy.

  But the cost had been too great, too many of his spacers dead, too many friend gone. Glory and victory were heady experiences, he wouldn’t deny that fact.

  But the price was always too high.

  Tulus was the product of Palatian culture, and Barron knew enough about the history of that tortured world, of the misery that had forged the Palatians into iron, and led them from slavery to conquest. Palatian morals and ideas didn’t match up very well alongside those of the Confederation, but then Barron would be the first to acknowledge that hypocrisy and dishonesty were rampant in his homeland. It was too easy to discredit a rival culture, to apply morals and ethics blindly, and often without acknowledgement of the failures of one’s own society. The Palatians had suffered terribly because they had been weak, because they had trusted their neighbors. And that had led ultimately to a culture that prized strength above all, and whose warriors had set out from their newly-freed world and subjugated those who had once ruled over them.

  Barron understood, but he wanted only peace. He missed Andi, and he longed to see his daughter. He’d done his part, fought more than his share of battles. And yet still, he had no choice. Without victory, all he cared about in the universe would be lost to him forever. It wasn’t glory he craved, not anymore. All he wanted was peace, and a chance to live his life, to hold his child in his arms and to walk through the woods as he had as a boy, listen to the wind, and the water in a nearby creek.

  He didn�
��t have that choice, though. He didn’t have to chase glory anymore, now it pursued him. And as always, it presented him a stark choice. Victory, and the spoils of the triumphant warrior…or defeat and utter desolation. Billions depended on him, looked to him to protect them, and he doubted any of them could understand the weight of that load.

  He held back a small laugh, a sarcastic realization that he and Tulus would do exactly the same things, that their paths were still tightly aligned…and it didn’t matter at all that their motivations had so radically diverged.

  “And to you, my brother. Your warriors have followed you here because it was their duty to do so, because they are Palatians, and because you are their Imperator. But they have come for another reason, too. They, as I, recognize a true warrior, a leader who inspires courage in all around him. They have come because they are proud to fight under you, my brother, just as I am proud to fight at your side.”

  Barron had responded as he knew Tulus expected, as his friend needed him to respond. It wasn’t his place to argue about why they were there, or to lecture Tulus on perceived flaws in his culture. No, only one thing was important to Barron. Vian Tulus had always been at his side when he was needed…and Barron could do no less for his brother.

  “Our bomber squadrons will be ready to launch in five minutes, Tyler. They will follow your orders, and Admiral Stockton’s, as though they came from my own lips.”

  “As always, Vian my great friend, I thank you for your steadfast aid.”

  “I have told you many times, there is no need for thanks between blood brothers. Fight with me, my friend, stand by my side as the enemy comes. I will ask no more of you than this.”

  Barron paused for a moment. He might have intended to say something else, but suddenly, it was gone, out of his mind utterly. There was something on the monitor, something that had seized his attention.