by Jay Allan
Barely seven minutes…better than I expected…
He took a deep breath, gulped down the rest of the water, and looked around for a few seconds. Then he walked across the open deck and back to his ship. “Thanks, Chief…good job.” He nodded toward the head of his flight team, and he reached up and grabbed a rung on the small ladder, climbing up the side of his ship and leaping back into the cockpit.
He shook his head once, his face twisted into a sour scowl at the reek of the small space. There hadn’t been time to do a normal cleaning, not after the mission to Vexa Torrent, and certainly not just then. But it didn’t matter. It would only take a few minutes to become accustomed again to his own stink. He reached to the side, and tapped the controls, closing the cockpit’s cover. He heard the familiar sound, the locking bolts sliding into place, and a few seconds later, the hissing sound as his life support reengaged.
He looked down at his console, at the row of lights, four of them green, and one yellow. The last one was his flight control status…the okay to launch his otherwise ready ship. He was about to reach down and call Stara on the comm, but then the light flicked over to green.
All systems were a go. Jake Stockton had lost count of the times he’d launched his fighter into space, but he new it had been many hundreds.
And now, plus one…
He grabbed the controls, looked quickly around the bay, and he pulled the throttle back, blasting his engines hard, and propelling his ship down the launch tube.
Back into battle.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Free Trader Pegasus
Somewhere in the Badlands
Year 323 AC (After the Cataclysm)
“We’re still a long way from Calpharon, at least based on the charts we’ve got. But I think we need to talk about what we’re going to do when we get closer. Do we just fly right up to the Hegemony capital and announce ourselves? Or do we hang back, try to get some word to Admiral Barron? And what if we run into Hegemony patrols?”
Andi looked up at Vig. She hadn’t been ignoring him, not really, but she was deep into the translations she was working on. Sy had managed to extract more data from the third and fourth data chips, and it was nothing less than fascinating. Andi had scavenged the Badlands for years, scooping up bits and pieces of old tech, but now she was seeing imperial history unfold before her, the most detailed information she’d ever seen on the fall of the empire…or at least the years leading up to the Cataclysm. She’d lost track of how long she’d been up, how any hours, days, she’d been hunched over the table, working tirelessly, with only short breaks to eat something or run to the bathroom.
She looked up at Vig, and a quick sniff of her shirt told her she needed to make time for a shower, at least. “I’m sorry, Vig, what did you say?. I was pretty deep into these files.”
“I asked, are we going right to Calpharon, or are we stopping somewhere short of there and trying to get a message through?”
Andi could see Vig was tense. He clearly didn’t like the idea of entering Hegemony space, much less venturing to the enemy—no, that wasn’t right, they weren’t the enemy anymore—capital.
“We’re not at war with them anymore, Vig. We’re allies now.”
He nodded, not looking entirely convinced.
“I don’t know yet. We’ve still got a long way to go before we need to decide that.” She knew the Hegemony and the Confederation were allies now, and she wouldn’t have given a second thought about flying right to Calpharon…except for Cassiopeia. She felt bad enough taking her daughter through the Badlands, and she’d tried to avoid the thought that they were getting closer to the Hegemony border. Reliance on an old enemy turned friend was enough to satisfy her concerns for her own safety, perhaps even for that of her crew. But Cassiopeia was another matter entirely.
“The scanners are clear, at least. If the war with the Heggies accomplished one thing, it was clearing the vagabonds and scoundrels out of the Badlands. We haven’t had a contact on the scanner since we left Dannith.”
Andi smiled thinly. “We were some of those scoundrels, my friend. I don’t imagine you’ve forgotten so quickly.”
“We ran into worse types than ourselves, Andi…didn’t we? I’m glad some of them are gone, at least. Makes this trip a little easier, less nerve wracking. At least until we cross that border.”
“The Hegemony isn’t going to give us any problems, Vig, assuming they’ve even got any ships left on the Rimward border. I have to imagine they’ve got all their strength massed at Calpharon.”
“No, I know they won’t, I guess. I just…don’t like it. A lot of people died fighting them, and now we’re helping them.”
“We’re helping them to help ourselves, Vig. Don’t forget that. If going through all these files with Sy has proven anything to me, it’s that the Highborn will subjugate everyone on the Rim if they get past the Hegemony. This fight is for us, for our futures, as much as it is for theirs.”
It’s for Cassiopeia, too…
Andi took a deep breath. She really believed what she had just said. She’d suspected it before, understood why Barron had to go, but now any remaining doubt was gone. The fight against the Highborn was the deadliest and most serious the Confederation had ever faced. They couldn’t lose. Whatever the cost, they had to find a way to prevail, or at least to beat back the enemy.
“Hey…enough distracting my assistant.” Sylene stepped out into the main room, and she walked toward the table. She’d only been gone a few minutes. Like Andi, she’d found it almost impossible to drag herself away from her work.
“Your assistant is still the captain of this ship, sister dear. And I need a few minutes with her once in a while, no matter how determined you are to monopolize her time.”
Andi smiled. The brother-sister jibes were a welcome touch of normalcy, a distraction from the dark realization of the magnitude of the threat they all faced, that all mankind faced. But she felt the pull of getting back to her work, almost like the gravitation from a large planet. The parts she had already translated only increased her trepidation, but she knew the road to victory would be paved with knowledge, with an understanding of the enemy.
An enemy that had played a major, but yet unknown part in the empire’s fall.
“I’ll leave you two to your sniping back and forth. I’ve got work to do.” She turned back toward the workstation.
“I have work to do, too. How about you, brother? I have to imagine there is something on the bridge that needs your attention.”
Vig looked back at his sister, and then at Andi. “Fine, fine…but you two are going to have to get some sleep eventually, you do know that, right?”
Neither of them answered. They were both already neck deep in the old imperial histories. “Andi, I’ve got another section here. I’ve only translated a small chunk, but it looks important to me…”
Andi hardly noticed as Vig waved his hands and turned to head back to the bridge ladder. Her mind was centuries in the past, back in the waning days of empire.
Planet Alisia, Venta Tabalus III
Year 11,695 IR (Imperial Reckoning)
Year 39 BC (Before the Cataclysm) by Confederation Calendar
362 Years Ago
Smoke hung over the city, and streams of people ran through the streets, smashing anything breakable they could reach, and setting fire to anything that would burn. Chaos had gripped the capital city, a strange sort of collective madness that engulfed the administrative center of not only the planet, but of the entire sector. The news reports had spoken of disturbances and violence in different areas of the empire, but now the darkness had come to Alisia. It was almost as though a world was trying to tear itself apart, to embrace its own destruction.
The planet, a major world of the empire, part of a vast polity that had not fallen to an outside enemy in ten millennia, was destroying itself, its people driven, it seemed, to sheer madness.
The troubles had begun with an economic downturn, one
that had quickly escalated and ultimately turned into a near collapse of order on a planetary scale. The empire, already deep in decline from one end of its vast dominions to the other, had dispatched aid, first advisors and imperial representatives to calm the people and assure them of the emperor’s support. When such efforts failed utterly to stem the tide of decline, words were followed up by emergency shipments, food, medical supplies, crucial replacement parts, and money…as much as overtaxed imperial systems could supply. But it was all far too little and too late. The aid provided temporary pauses in the rioting, but in the end, it failed utterly to halt the decline.
“It is magnificent, Ellerax, is it not? In a dozen sectors, worlds burn, the people take to the streets, rampaging, destroying. The malaise that has gripped the empire is not all-encompassing. Indeed, there is little productive to what is happening, save that the rioters are driven by something. Humanity’s energy is not spent, and once the decrepit old system is dragged down, we will see to a reinvigoration. The empire will be reborn, from the ashes, if necessary.”
Andros was next to his ally—his creation—as the two stood on a hill looking out over the dying city. “It was costly, more so even than I had anticipated, to set this decline into motion. We only accelerated its arrival, of course. There can be little doubt the empire was on an unstoppable course to utter destruction on its own. We are not damaging civilization, we are saving it. We are limiting the damage, using it as a tool, bringing the empire low, but not into the deepest pits of despair. Then, when enough worlds have descended into darkness, when the screams of the people can no longer be ignored, we will make our move. You and your brethren, Ellerax…you will lead mankind out of the darkness. You will revitalize the empire, and lead mankind into the future.”
“It is unfortunate that so many need be killed to achieve a goal that is unquestionably desirable to all parties. A revitalized empire will pursue renewed research and technological advancement, it will herald in an era of vast economic expansion. People will be relieved of the need to support corrupt leaders, men and women who are no better than they are, who are driven only by lust for power. Humanity requires guidance, and we will provide that. It is a testament to mankind’s folly that such destruction must occur before a golden age can begin. The…humans…are weak, but they are my charge, and I would see as few suffer death and misery as possible.”
Andros looked up at the figure as he listened, two-thirds of a meter taller than he was and perfectly proportioned, a view in his eyes of human perfection. Ellerax and his brothers and sisters of the Highborn, were brilliant, physically large and powerful, free from disease. They could go days, even weeks without sleep, and he could only guess at their intellectual capacity. They were humanity’s future, what people would be—should have been—if only the best and the strongest had survived to pass on their genes. The project had corrected the wrong path humanity had taken, it had restored ten thousand years of genetic progress…and added millennia more to that. Ellerax was what people would have one day become if they’d allowed themselves…but he was there, next to Andros, ready to shepherd humanity forward to a bright new day.
That was worth some death and suffering.
“We will, of course, inflict the least possible damage on the worlds of the empire, kill as few as possible. But we must weaken what remains of the old establishment. We have been able to secure some support from elements of the fleet, but not enough to mount an open challenge to the throne. Your abilities, and those of your brethren, are astonishing, Ellerax, but you are few in number. Even with the waves of additional creche groups of your kind, for now, we have only the five hundred of you…the Firstborn. There is no doubt your intellect will guide our efforts with greater skill than mine, but yet, I fear we have little prospect of standing up to tens of thousands of imperial warships, and untold millions of the emperor’s soldiers. The program is nearly three quarters of a century old, and I fear it will be another twenty-five years before the empire is weak enough for us to make our final move. I will be old then, Ellerax, near the end of my natural lifespan, but you will still be young, if your kind even age at all. When I die, I will do so knowing I have done what was necessary to save the empire, that I have left the future of mankind in the immensely capable hands of the Highborn.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Colossus
Behind Sigma Nordlin VI
Year 323 AC (After the Cataclysm)
The Battle of Calpharon – Into the Flame
“Maintain position…minimum possible thrust.” Sonya Eaton sat in the center of Colossus’s immense—bridge somehow seemed an inadequate term to describe the sprawling control center—watching over one hundred of her people toiling away at their workstations. The massive bridge crew was far larger than those in any Confederation craft, and even then, more than half the available stations were unoccupied, their original purposes more a matter for conjecture than anything else. Colossus was a testament to the might and technology of the old empire, and she found it difficult to wander its corridors in anything except dumbstruck awe.
The fact that she was in command of the thing, that the almost unimaginable total of forty thousand spacers under her orders amounted to what was essentially a skeleton crew for the gargantuan vessel, wore on her like a lodestone. It was too much responsibility, far too quickly. She wasn’t ready, but Tyler Barron had assured her of his trust, and that, more than anything, was keeping her going.
Perhaps hardest aspect of all was the fact that she knew she sat there in Sara’s place. Her sister had been Colossus’s first Confederation commander, but now the elder Eaton was gone, lost in combat along with so many others. Sonya understood why she seemed a logical replacement…and yet she didn’t understand.
How could Admiral Barron think I’m ready for this?
The answer was painfully clear. None of them were ready for what they now faced. She’d spent her career looking up to Tyler Barron, and she’d followed his orders with a sort of reverence that went beyond normal military discipline. But as she sat there, she wondered if Barron himself struggled to grasp with the immense responsibilities he carried. Sonya was young to command something as powerful as Colossus, certainly, but Tyler Barron was young, too, at least to completely control the Confederation’s entire military establishment. His grandfather had been one of the greatest heroes in history, but the older Barron had been almost sixty when he’d fought his famous battles. His grandson was almost twenty years younger…and he was facing an even more deadly adversary.
Eaton tried to ignore the doubts, to focus on her duty, her job. But it was hard for yet another reason. Her orders were to stay put, to sit quietly while the fleet fought, while thousands perished in combat. The inaction had been nothing less than torture.
Wait until the right moment. Until the enemy fleet advanced over the red line. Those were her orders. Then, she would act. Colossus would emerge from its cover behind the massive gas giant, and it would hit the Highborn forces in the flank, a total surprise, both in its appearance and its power. If everything went just right, if the fleet was still holding on, if the squadrons of bombers were doing enough damage, if the enemy behaved as expected…just maybe Colossus could make a difference.
Eaton knew the ship she commanded was enormously powerful, but as she looked at the scanner displays of the enemy fleet—transmitted through satellite reflection from the ships of the line—she doubted if even a warship as powerful as the one she commanded would be enough to turn the tide.
“Commander, advise engineering I want all systems rechecked…and I want the reactors ready to increase output on my command.” It was a waste of time, perhaps. She’d already had her people check every weapon, reactor, and transmission line on the gigantic vessel, at least the ones they could get to. Colossus was as ready as it was going to be, and as she sat there, she knew the more important question was, would her people truly be ready for what they had to do when the time came?
Would she?
* * *
“Stara, come on…you need to light a fire under your people in the bays. On Dauntless, and even more on the other ships.” Stockton instantly regretted the severity of his tone. It wasn’t Stara’s fault the launch was proceeding so slowly. By the standards taught in the Academy, the kind of operation his people were attempting, putting bombers in space from ships involved in a close range firefight, was impossible. The incoming fire, the wild evasive maneuvers…it all made launching fighters a nightmare.
Stockton had heard all of that before, but he tended to ignore words like ‘unfeasible,’ and ‘impractical’…and, most of all, ‘impossible.’ It could be done because he wanted it done, because the fleet needed it. That was enough for him, and it damned well better be enough for those around him.
“We’re moving things as quickly as possible, Jake, and you damned well know that! The battleships are in the middle of level one evasive routines. We’re getting the fighters out two or three at a time between flight deck shutdowns, and it’s a miracle we’re managing that. Now, sit tight and leave me the hell alone. Do you know how difficult it is to link launch operations with evasive maneuvers like these?”
He stared at the comm unit for a few seconds, his regret at yelling at her mixing with the tension driving him. He wanted to apologize, but even as his hand moved to the comm, he saw that she had cut the line. He almost called her again, but he realized she was far busier than he was. His challenge would come later, leading the attack, once he had enough ships in space. Getting that force out to him was Stara’s job, and he knew he had to let her do it.