The Last Stand

by Jay Allan

  He looked down at his scanner, his eyes panning across the enemy fleet, one line of ships after another. They were close now. The battle lines were savaging each other, and Stockton watched as two of the Highborn battleships opened up with what he instantly knew were their main batteries. The weapons were similar to the blue-hued beams he’d seen before, but they were arranged in sets of nine, eight circling one in the center, and when they struck a target, they tore through any physical substance. Armor, heavy sections of hull plating, anything that lay in the path of those beams simply vaporized, and the deadly fire emerged from the other sides of their targets. Even battleships were ill-prepared to endure that kind of damage, and only luck saved those struck from utter destruction. If the beams tore through non-vital areas, a ship could survive, albeit with considerable damage and casualties. If the beams struck reactors or vital power lines, even the greatest ships of the line were obliterated in an instant.

  He felt sick watching the devastation ravaging the fleet, and the only thing holding him back from despair was the realization that less than a third of the Highborn battleships appeared to be up in the line, battling the Confederation and Hegemony forces. Many of the others were only damaged, of course, and some, perhaps, would be quickly patched up and would join the fight. But he’d rarely had the opportunity to see so closely the good his people had achieved. He’d struggled with losing over a thousand pilots on one strike, but as he watched the Highborn battleships tearing into their opposing numbers, he knew without question his people had saved more lives than they’d lost. Tens of thousands more spacers would be dead, he knew, if the Highborn had managed to bring their entire line to the fight unscathed, and any chance of victory, however slight it might seem, would have been gone.

  That helped him, on some level. Nothing would make so many deaths a good thing, but in Stockton’s book, dying for something was a hell of a lot better than dying for nothing.

  His eyes shot to the side. Something was flashing, on the far end of the tiny display. He reached out, and tapped at his controls. The AI responded by adding a small label to the contact.

  He felt a burst of excitement as he stared at the screen, and he reached out and slapped his hand against the comm unit. He almost called Stara again, but he knew her plate was full. So, he connected directly to fleet rescue command on Renown.

  “This is Admiral Stockton...I’m transmitting coordinates. I’m picking up Commodore Griffin’s beacon. Dispatch a rescue mission at once.” Stockton had almost written off his newly-promoted second-in-command. He’d scanned all across the combat zone, looking for any sign that her ship had survived. There had been nothing. Stockton had almost given up on her. But as he looked down at the screen, he understood immediately. She had waited, kept her beacon silent until she’d cleared enemy range. He nodded, and even allowed himself a thin smile. He couldn’t imagine the self-discipline that had taken, the pressure she must have felt to send the signal out, even as she sat in her cockpit, watching her life support slowly dwindle.

  He’d made the decision to promote her spontaneously, but now, as he stared at the faint contact on his screen, he was even more convinced he’d picked the right officer. The one he needed to help him manage the wings.

  The one to lead them herself if he didn’t return from a mission.

  He sat for a few seconds, and then he angled his scanner display back toward the fleet deployment area. He’d done all he could do for Griffin, and he wished her the best. Now, he had to organize the squadrons fitfully launching from the fleet’s battleships, and he had to turn them into some semblance of an effective strike force.

  A quick view of the struggle between the two battle lines told him two things. First, Admiral Baron and Commander Chronos were directing their ships brilliantly, inflicting more damage on the enemy than had seemed possible.

  And second, that is wasn’t going to be enough. He had to get his bombers back out there, whatever the risk, whatever the cost.

  Because the fleet was losing the battle.

  * * *

  Shafts of light lanced through space, the mysterious weapons of the Highborn, blue beams speckled with dark gray, visible along the entirety of tens of thousands of kilometers of space as they sliced their ways to their Confederation and Hegemony targets. The Confed primaries were mostly invisible, as were the lasers serving as the secondary weapons of Barron’s battleships, and the main armaments of the Palatian vessels. Hegemony railguns were invisible as well, at least away from the projectile itself, but all the deadly fire was lit up on the display. The energies at play, the vast amounts of raw destructive power the two sides were hurling at each other, almost defied comprehension.

  Vian Tulus had faced danger before. As a Palatian noble, he had been raised since birth to be ready for his death. The concerns of a true Palatian were not to survive at all costs, but rather, to die well, with honor and courage. And he had watched the past hours as thousands of his warriors had done just that.

  The Palatians considered themselves above the political distractions that plagued their neighbors. Tulus knew that wasn’t entirely true, a nationalistic conceit that internal dissension and outright civil war had roundly disproven. But the best of Palatia was there, lined up next to their Confederation allies, fighting the enemy with every weapon they possessed, every watt of energy that remained in their ships’ reactors…and the last breath of every man or woman sweating at their posts if need be.

  It wouldn’t be Tulus’s decision whether the fleet was commanded to withdraw, or to stand and fight to the last. He only knew what he would do if he’d been the supreme commander and the world behind the fleet had been Palatia. He understood the wisdom of thinking in terms of the war as a whole, of fighting for ultimate victory and not to defend a single world…but he was too much a Palatian to think he could make such a choice himself.

  We are what we are, even if our ideals enslave us, drive us to defeat instead of victory.

  Tulus was a capable tactician, and a good strategist, too. He understood the likelihood that the best possible chance of defeating the Highborn in the end might very well require abandoning Calpharon and pulling the fleet back while it still remained a force in being. Once, he would have scoffed at such notions, shouted loud cries of ‘coward’ to anyone proposing them. But he’d seen Tyler Barron abandon the Confederation capital of Megara and then return triumphant.

  And if he knew one thing without any doubt at all, it was that Tyler Barron was no coward. It might not be something he could have brought himself to do if the world being abandoned had been Palatia, but he was able to understand and respect the decision if his allies made it.

  Imperator Vennius shook hard, and Tulus’s mind snapped from his thoughts back to the battle raging all around. He looked over at the main display, just one of the bits of advanced technology in the new Imperator-class battleships, courtesy of the Palatian treaty with the Confederation. Perhaps more, his mind focused on his status as Tyler Barron’s blood-brother. Imperator Vennius mounted Confederation primaries, though not the newest models. It was the only ship in the Palatian fleet to carry such armament, though there were another six Imperator-class vessels under construction back in the Alliance.

  Another advantage of retreating, of trading space for time. We, at least, will become stronger. We are still rebuilding, and so is the Confederation. If our losses are not too great, we will be stronger in a year, and much more powerful in three.

  It was an alien way for a Palatian warrior to think, but just as Tulus had shown Barron the ways of the warrior, the Confed admiral had taught the Imperator a lesson or two. In victory. In winning, not just honor and glory, but the war itself.

  Tulus felt the urge to issue orders, to micromanage his forces. But his people knew what to do. The computers were handling ninety percent of the targeting anyway, and his veteran gunners didn’t need him shouting at them as they covered that last ten percent. His ships had shorter ranges than either the Hegemony o
r Confederation vessels, and he’d issued the orders to advance until all guns were in range, regardless of enemy fire. Regardless of the losses suffered.

  Those losses had risen to about twelve percent of his ships in the fight so far, and he realized it could have been worse. Much worse. The enemy appeared to be targeting the Hegemony and Confederation ships with greater priority. They’d clearly—and correctly—assessed his ships as the lesser threat. That was mostly about technology, about the power and range of guns, but it was still a hard thing for a Palatian Imperator—for any true Palatian—to accept. And he felt an irresistible compulsion to ram it down the Highborn’s throats.

  “All ships, increase forward thrust to 5g. All gunnery stations, maintain full fire.” It was all he could do to equalize the difference in equipment, to increase the effectiveness of his ships’ fire against the Highborn vessels. Palatian targeting systems were less efficient than those of their allies, their guns weaker. The combination of those factors meant that Tulus and his warriors weren’t carrying their share of the load. They weren’t inflicting enough damage on the enemy ships.

  “Overload reactors if necessary, but I don’t want a gun silent in this fleet, is that understood?”

  “Yes, your Supremacy.”

  No, his ships weren’t keeping up with those of his allies.

  But he was going to change that, whatever it took.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  CFS Dauntless

  Sigma Nordlin System

  Year 323 AC (After the Cataclysm)

  The Battle of Calpharon – The Battle Lines Meet

  “Hegemony’s Glory has taken another hit, Admiral. She’s losing atmosphere.”

  Barron’s head snapped around at Atara’s words, and his eyes zeroed in on the Hegemony flagship. Barron still had a confused relationship with Chronos. There was a functional partnership there, and even something of a proto-friendship developing, but it all still lay under the shadow of the war the two had fought against each other. Deep in his mind, beyond the respect that had begun to grow, part of Barron still thought of the Hegemony commander as an enemy, He could almost hear the voices of thousands of dead spacers, like wind howling on a dark, storm-tossed night, calling to him to abandon the Hegemony forces, to leave them to their doom.

  But friend or resented former adversary, Barron knew the war effort needed the Hegemony. It needed Chronos. Akella was a brilliant leader, he’d decided that almost the instant he’d met the Hegemony’s Number One. But the political opposition to her was too strong for her to defeat alone. Chronos was her most powerful ally, and his loss would not only deprive the allied forces of one of their best commanders, it would likely put the Hegemony on the road to domination under the megalomaniacal Number Two.

  That would destroy the fragile alliance, and likely any chance the Hegemony had of surviving the war. The Rim forces would withdraw, and with some luck, perhaps, enjoy a short respite. But then, the reorganized Highborn forces would come to complete the conquest, and the Rim would have no chance on its own.

  Chronos simply wasn’t expendable…but he was a warrior at heart, even as Barron and Tulus were. There was no way he would agree to withdraw, to pull back while the rest of his forces, and his allies, were still in the thick of the fight. No matter how much damage hi flagship had taken.

  Barron was frustrated at Chrono’s stubbornness, but then he almost heard the sounds of laughter from all those who’d counseled, ordered and begged him to stay back from the front lines over the years.

  He turned and looked back as the display, at the battle raging all around.

  We’ve got to do more damage…we’ve got to hit them harder…

  He tapped the side of his headset. “Fritzie, we need more power to the primaries. We’ve got to hit those ships with more punch.” The statement seemed absurd to Barron, at least on one level. When he’d first seen the original primaries when he was still in the Academy, he’d been amazed that any weapon could be so powerful…and the newest models on his best ships were twice as strong as the old ones.

  But he’d learned a harsh reality in his years of war. Someone always had something better.

  “Admiral, we’ve taken considerable damage. If I increase power flow to the main batteries, the reactors could easily fail. We could lose a transmission line. Even the particle accelerators themselves could burn out. Or worse.”

  “I know all that, Fritzie, but we’re losing the battle.” Barron paused for an instant. He hadn’t intended to say that out loud. “We need all we can get now, any way we can get it. Just do what I ask, Fritzie. Do your best…that’s always gotten the job done.”

  There was a long pause, and then: “Yes, sir. I’ll do what I can.”

  Barron turned toward Atara’s station. “Same orders to all ships. I don’t care if they overload every system they’ve got, we need more power going through the weapons, and we need it now. We’ve got to take down more of those Highborn ships, before they can get the rest of their fleet through the point and into position.”

  “Yes, Admiral.” Atara’s voice was grim, and Barron understood just what was going through her mind. It wasn’t the aggressiveness of his command that troubled her, nor the danger. But Dauntless had Anya Fritz onboard, and none of the other ships did. Whatever chance there was of a catastrophic failure on the flagship, it was that much likelier on vessels with engineers who were mere mortals.

  Barron watched as the ships of his battle line continued to fire. A battleship, Columbia, disappeared from the screen as he was looking. Another one of his heavies, and another eleven hundred of his spacers.

  Eleven hundred fourteen, a voice from the back of his mind asserted.

  The primaries were still lancing across the shrinking no man’s land between the two fleets, at least the ones that were still operational, but now, the distance had closed to secondary range, and the laser batteries of the ships without particle accelerators had opened up, adding what firepower they could to the mix. Barron wasn’t sure how much damage a laser cannon could inflict on the advanced material of the Highborn hulls, but he needed everything he could get, and more…and he welcomed the batteries of his cruisers that were beginning to fire.

  He looked over at the full system display, at the cluster of ships positioned facing transit point one. The enemy attack had come through point three, as expected, and with enough force to almost convince Barron the entire enemy fleet was coming through from there.

  Almost convinced him, at least.

  Clint Winters and his four hundred ships were deployed almost quarter light hour to the rear, positioned to intercept any enemy incursion from the point deemed second most likely to face an enemy attack. Point one was important for another reason. An attack from there could endanger the fleet’s likeliest line of retreat, through point four. At least assuming Chronos and the other Hegemony commanders could be convinced to retreat.

  Barron hadn’t raised that issue yet. He wasn’t even sure what he thought was best. He’d be in favor of retreating, of fighting another day if he believed it would be the likeliest way to eventually defeat the enemy. But it wasn’t his capital that would be abandoned, nor billions of his people. And he knew how that felt, what it took from a man’s soul to pull back, leaving billions of civilians at the mercy of the enemy.

  He didn’t know if he could convince Chronos. He had no idea, even, if the Hegemony fleet commander could order such an action himself, or if he would need Akella or the Council to issue a command of that magnitude.

  He wasn’t even sure he thought it was a good idea. He didn’t believe they had a very good chance of success in the current battle, but he was far from sure it would get any better elsewhere. It was just as likely the matchup would be even more lopsided when the battle ravaged fleet reformed and stopped to face the enemy again.

  His eyes were fixed on Winters’ ships. He wanted to leave them in place. His gut told him the enemy would be coming through point one as well as point thre
e. It was a perfect strategy. Perhaps most convincingly, it was what he would have done in the enemy’s place. Timing and coordination would be difficult, but if a Highborn force came through when his people were heavily engaged, and Winters’s ships weren’t there to meet them, there could be a disastrous collapse of morale. His people were veterans, most of them at least, but there was a limit to what even an experienced warrior could withstand. The Kriegeri were bred for war, trained from childhood for combat, but Barron had come to understand not even the Hegemony soldier class was immune from hopelessness and fear. The Palatians were…well, Palatians, but he’d come to know that warrior culture well enough to realize that even they were not proof against normal human weakness. If the enemy came streaming through that transit point without Winters’s ships there to meet them, the fleet could disintegrate, its spacers frozen at their controls, gripped by panic, units breaking down, ships making desperate attempts to flee.

  But if he didn’t call back Winters and his force, the main Highborn attack was going to break through. He’d calculated and analyzed every aspect of the battle. The bombers on their way in would hit hard. He had enough confidence in Stockton to be sure of that. But they would be gunned down in huge numbers as they attacked…and those that made it through would face another desperate challenge trying to land. It was difficult enough to launch a large strike force while the battle line was engaged in a firefight. It would be almost impossible to retrieve and rearm them. The battleships would be within point blank range of the enemy by then…and it was a fool’s guess how many of the bays would even remain operational by then.

  Stockton’s people would hurt the enemy, badly perhaps. But it wasn’t going to be enough. Barron needed more. They all needed more.