The Last Stand

by Jay Allan

  No one responded. The air was heavy with fear. That was something Villieneuve had cultivated all his professional life, but as he stood there, he wondered where he had failed. Clearly, his officers had been more afraid of Denisov and the rebel fleet than they were of him.

  But that was going to change.

  “I can only assume that you all lacked the motivation necessary to propel you to victory. For that, I accept blame…and I am ready to correct my error. I have dispatched orders, and teams of loyal Sector Nine operatives. They are even now en route to your home worlds…” At least the ones I still control. “They are charged with seeing to your families, my good officers, and ensuring that they are…safe.” It was clear from the expressions in the room, everyone present completely understood his meaning. “When we again meet the traitors in battle, perhaps knowing that your loved ones are in…good hands…will help you focus on the matter at hand. Victory.”

  The officers shuffled around nervously, but none had the courage to speak. Finally, Admiral Fierra took a half step forward. “First Citizen, we are with you to the end. But we…cannot ignore that the traitors have gained a considerable advantage in terms of hulls and tonnage. The battle…should have gone differently, First Citizen…but it didn’t, for whatever reason.”

  The officer was clearly nervous, but Villieneuve listened, and in his mind, a single thought developed. Only one of the men and women in the room seemed to have the courage to speak out. That might have angered him at one time or, more likely, tripped his paranoia over an admiral who might one day become a threat. But as he stood there, he knew he needed someone capable, an officer who could help him fight the war.

  He needed his own Denisov.

  “Admiral Fierra…” His tone was dark and menacing but, as he watched, he saw the officer stood his ground. Very good. “…you are entirely correct. We are not in a position to reengage the traitorous fleet, not immediately in any event. We must withdraw…to Aquitara. The system is heavily fortified, and both the planetary governor and the local military commander are loyal.” You hope they still are. “We will be well defended while we reorganize, and both Aquitara and two nearby systems possess significant shipyards. With fortune, we will be able to replace at least some of our losses and repair our damaged units.”

  The assembled group of officers nodded their agreement, though Villieneuve suspected there was rather less sincerity in it all than he would have liked. After a moment, Fierra said, “Aquitara is also a long journey from here. That is a danger we must overcome, but it will be an advantage if we’re able to reach there. Admiral Denisov will come after us, almost certainly, and the distance will strain his logistics. Any obstacles in his way will help buy us the time we need. Denisov may be against us, but that does not remove the fact that he is a highly-skilled admiral, the best in the service, in my opinion.”

  The other officers rustled nervously. It was always dangerous to push Gaston Villieneuve, and whatever the current situation, he retained the ability to lash out at those within his reach.

  “You are correct, Admiral Fierra. Andrei Denisov is a traitor, a wild dog who needs to be put down…but it is at our own peril that we underestimate his abilities.” He glared at the group of officers. “We have just had a reminder of that fact. Our situation has its dangers, and a successful pursuit by the traitors is only one of those hazards. And it is not one alleviated by further delay. We will set a course for Aquitara at once. All ships unable to keep up with the fleet are to be abandoned and scuttled to prevent their falling into enemy hands.”

  “Yes, First Citizen.” The replies were shaky, uncertain. All save for one. In every way, Fierra was maintaining his discipline and courage, and Villieneuve made an immediate decision.

  “Admiral Fierra…you are hereby promoted to fleet admiral and placed in overall command of all loyal forces.” It was something that ran against Villieneuve’s instincts. Fierra had a strong record, and he had sworn to serve against the traitors…but he was far from one of Villieneuve’s creatures. He had less control and influence over Fierra than he liked, but he knew one thing above all others. He had to survive, and eventually, he had to win a military victory. And Fierra was the likeliest to achieve that goal. Throwing any of the others present against Denisov again would be like feeding children to starving wolves.

  “First Citizen…I don’t know what to say.”

  Villineuve looked at Fierra, and then at the just-demoted officer standing against the far wall. Estaban La Ventrolle was one of Villieneuve’s creatures, or at least he had been thirty seconds before. But he had also lost the crucial battle, turned an even match into a desperate fight for survival. Villieneuve didn’t believe in allowing second mistakes, certainly not when the first was so egregious.

  “Say ‘thank you.’ Or say nothing. I’m sure you have considerable work to do. Take whatever steps you deem necessary, Fleet Admiral, but get this fleet out of here and on the way to Aquitara at once.”

  “Yes, First Citizen. Thank you, First Citizen…”

  “Dismissed…all of you.” Villieneuve looked across the room, at La Ventrolle. The admiral had served him loyally for years, and he’d even turned in colleagues whose plotting had created too much suspicion. But Villieneuve had just humiliated La Ventrolle in front of the others, and he had stripped the officer of much of his power. Villieneuve understood very well how enemies and traitors were made. He had his doubts La Ventrolle had the stomach to truly oppose him, but he wasn’t taking any chances.

  “Estaban…please stay a moment.” Villieneuve stood silently as the other officers left the room, leaving him alone with the admiral, and the two Sector Nine operatives standing quietly by the door.

  “Estaban, I wanted to assure you that you possess my continued confidence. I just believe that a change right now will help to foster a recovery in morale. You will always remain in my confidence, and I will continue to look to you as one of my most trusted advisors.” He stepped forward and embraced the admiral. But as he did, he looked across the room, his eyes meeting those of the senior agent present. The man looked back, and he nodded once, a communication whose meaning was clear. He had understood Villieneuve’s command perfectly. Estaban La Ventrolle was too much of a danger.

  The agent knew what he was expected to do.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  CFS Dauntless

  Sigma Nordlin System

  Year 323 AC (After the Cataclysm)

  The Battle of Calpharon – Forward Colossus!

  “We’ve restored full power to all areas of the ship, Admiral. It wasn’t that bad of a hit, just in the wrong spot. My people have a temporary redirect in place, but give me twenty minutes or so, and I’ll have fresh transmission lines installed.”

  Barron knew he owed the restoration of Dauntless’s power—on the bridge and elsewhere—to Anya Fritz’s incredible skills, and no less to her unstoppable drive, but the first thought to come into his mind was a dark one.

  If we have twenty minutes…

  Dauntless had been hit twice so far, and each time the vessel had suffered power failures, first to the primaries batteries and then to almost a third of the ship, including the bridge. He usually ridiculed such thoughts, but he couldn’t help but wonder if some bill had come due for past good luck, for the close escapes that had marked his career. Had fortune abandoned him?

  The battle was raging all around. Barron had watched as one ship after another signaled massive damage, only for most of them to vanish from the display or turn dark soon after. Those that disappeared had exploded, Barron knew, most likely because their reactors’ containment had been breached before they could be shut down. The others, the small gray icons on the display, were dead hulks, vessels with no energy output at all, the ghostly remains of ships that had once been proud units in his fleet. The lack of energy output didn’t necessarily mean their crews were all dead. Yet. Some of the contacts were even surrounded by escape pods and lifeboats, and others no doubt still h
ad live spacers crawling around in survival suits. But they were living dead, men and women still struggling, but with almost no hope of survival.

  Barron stared at the display, watching the rest of the battle. The Hegemony ships were taking even more fire than his. Clearly, the enemy understood those were the strongest and most powerful vessels present and, though the railguns were having trouble targeting the strange Highborn hulls, when they did hit, they inflicted considerable damage, more even than Barron’s newest and heaviest primaries.

  His gaze moved next to the Alliance forces, and he could feel his eyes moisten. Vian Tulus’s Palatian ships had lower effective attack ranges, and the Imperator had responded by sending his ships right into the teeth of the enemy fire, closing to point blank range and blasting away. The lower range was aiding their targeting, and the less sophisticated Palatian guns were actually scoring a good number of hits. But the cost had been horrendous. Half of Tulus’s ships were either gone, or strung out in a line of dead or almost dead hulks along the fleet’s axis of advance. The human suffering that lay behind the almost antiseptic images on the screen was almost beyond calculation, and the Confederation’s top admiral felt it wearing him down.

  “Well done, Fritzie, as always.” Barron realized he hadn’t responded, that he’d just sat quietly as his mind wandered to his allies, and to the battered ships of his fleet. “Just stay on things. Keep us in the fight as long as you can.” It was a vague command, pointless, but it was all he had. He didn’t know what else to say. He knew he would be on the verge of issuing a withdrawal order if he’d been the combined fleet’s sole commander. But he wasn’t. If he pulled back, he imagined Tulus would follow, with however many of his ships were able to extricate themselves from the close-in firefight raging around them. But if the Hegemony fleet didn’t retreat, too, he wasn’t sure there was much point. The battered Confederation and Alliance fleets could never defeat the Highborn by themselves. That was clearer even than it had been before. They would need antimatter, for one thing, and the only remaining production source of that precious substance was a single world on the Rim side of the Hegemony.

  He knew Chronos should retreat as well, that it was the right decision tactically. The war wouldn’t be over, not if the combined allied forces maintained a significant force in the field. They’d hurt the Highborn in the battle, and the enemy would need time to regroup and repair their damage. Barron didn’t overstate the likelihood of a delay changing the realities of the dark situation, but playing for more time was just about the only option he could see that offered even a hope of victory.

  Retreat was always difficult for him to consider…and he knew it would be worse for Tulus. But Chronos was the real problem. Barron had to accept defeat, crawl away with what forces he could extricate and lick his wounds for the next fight. But Chronos had to abandon his capital. His home.

  Barron knew how that felt, only too well. He’d given the orders to yield Megara, and he’d pulled his forces back from the Confederation’s capital system. He could still feel the pain from that, the lingering wounds of leaving the planet’s billions defenseless. Millions had died in the aftermath of his withdrawal, but his choice had been the right one. Remaining, fighting to the last, would have sated his warrior’s honor…but if he had done so, the war would have been lost, and the Confederation subjugated by the Hegemony.

  Chronos now faces that same choice. You need to make sure he understands, that he makes a decision based in fact, and not in pointless warrior’s pride…

  “Atara…” His voice was soft, and it was heavy with resignation. “…get Commander Chronos on my line.”

  She looked back, and their eyes met for an instant. Then she nodded and said, “Yes, Admiral.”

  She turned back toward her station, and Barron knew at least one other person on the bridge understood exactly was he was going to do.

  The big question was, how would he respond if Chronos refused? What would he do? Would he stay, and condemn his people to almost certain death, the Confederation and the Rim to ruin?

  Or would he abandon an ally, flee to fight another day in an effort that would almost certainly prove utterly futile.

  He had no idea.

  * * *

  “Lexiconia has been destroyed, your Supremacy. And Vexillania.” The aide’s words echoed across Imperator Vennius’s bridge. Every officer present heard them clearly, and not one showed the slightest sign of emotion. The Palatians were likely to die, but if that was their fate, it was clear the flagship’s bridge crew, at least, had decided as a group to die as they had lived. As Palatian warriors.

  Tulus looked back, through the haze of smoke, ignoring the caustic assault the stinging chemicals launched on his eyes. His ship was dying. His fleet was dying. Half his ships were gone, and every hull that remained carried some degree of damage. It went against his Palatian creed to retreat, to even consider such a course, but he found himself wondering when the communique would come. When the word to withdraw would reach his battered vessel.

  Tulus knew he could issue his own orders any time he chose. He was the Alliance’s Imperator, and the sole and only commander of the Palatian fleet. But withdrawing from battle was almost anathema in any situation. The thought of leaving an ally—a real ally, like the Confeds—pushed the thought to the very edge of impossibility.

  And the idea of abandoning his friend, his blood brother, of breaking off and pulling back—running—while Tyler Barron remained, fighting almost certainly to his own death, pushed it well over that chasm. Tulus would not leave, could not leave, until Barron did, and no number of losses, no butcher’s bill would change that. And, while he fought, every Palatian would battle at his side.

  “All ships, reengage engines, full thrust forward.” His fleet had closed to short range, mostly to bring their own weapons to bear against an enemy whose reach greatly exceeded their own. That had been a costly exercise, but Tulus had some cause for pride in his people. They’d managed to do considerable damage to the difficult to target Highborn ships…and Tulus had a skill for keeping tactics simple. If something worked, than more of it might well work better.

  If they weren’t going to pull back, then he was going to lead them forward.

  If we must die, let it be a death worthy, at least, of a song…

  “All weapons, maintain full fire. Overload the reactors if necessary, but we’re going in, and we’re firing every meter of the way.” His voice was hard, and venom dripped from his words. Tulus didn’t want to die…but he had been prepared for death since the day he’d left his home to begin the Ordeal. That coming of age ritual had marked the beginning of his life as a Palatian warrior.

  And every Palatian warrior was ready to die when his time came.

  If Vian Tulus’s time had come, he knew how he would face it. He was going to go down with his hands soaked in enemy blood.

  * * *

  The comm with Chronos had gone about as Barron had expected. His ally understood the situation, he was sure of that. But he’d remained indecisive. The Chronos he’d come to know, even to like against his initial impulses, was not one to prevaricate, but the decision to abandon Calpharon, to order whatever meager evacuation could be done quickly, and to leave almost all the planet’s billions to the enemy’s mercy, was too much for him. Barron had argued, urged his comrade, but so far to no avail. Chronos hadn’t refused, but he hadn’t agreed either. And they were running out of time.

  The situation was bleak. The line wasn’t going to hold much longer. If Chronos didn’t make a decision, and soon, Barron knew he would have to make his own. And abandoning an ally would not come any easier to Barron than leaving Calpharon would to Chronos.

  He looked around, grasping for anything, any way to stabilize the situation, to give the fleet a chance to hold. But he was rapidly running out of resources.

  Winter’s ships were still too far out. They weren’t going to make it in time. The fleet would be destroyed before the reserves got into
range. Barron felt hopelessness closing in on him, the final defeat he’d so long eluded hanging over him like a dense, black shadow.

  But he had one last card up his sleeve.

  “Atara…send a communique to Commodore Eaton. Colossus is to move forward.”

  “Yes, Admiral.” Atara’s words were calm, her voice stone cold. Barron knew she understood. It was time for the last effort, one final chance to try and stop the enemy assault.

  Barron had kept the massive ship hidden, held it in reserve. He’d discussed the strategy with Chronos, and the two had debated the relative advantages and disadvantages. Keeping Colossus off the line cost a lot of firepower. But the enemy had moved deeper into the system, and now Colossus had a good chance of striking the Highborn flank.

  Combined with Winters’s forces…just maybe it will be enough…

  It was a hopeful thought, for all of thirty seconds. But it died in an instant, crushed by a fresh wave of despair.

  “Admiral…we have scanner reports coming from transit point one. Energy readings. It looks like…”

  Atara didn’t finish. She didn’t have to. Barron could hear the words, almost as though she’d shouted them in his ear.

  It looks like incoming vessels transiting.

  Barron leaned back in his chair, feeling as though he’d been gut-punched, as if some spacer’s god was toying with him, punishing him for his instant of hope. Clint Winters and his ships had served a dual purpose, as a general reserve, and as a force to guard against an enemy flank attack. Now, his ships would have to serve that last purpose, and that left the main fleet without any reserves, save for Colossus alone.

  And the Highborn still had ships pouring into the system from their initial entry point as well.