The Last Stand

by Jay Allan

  Mankind would have leadership, drive, renewed vigor.

  They would have gods to rule over them.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  12,000,000 Kilometers from CFS Dauntless

  Sigma Nordlin System

  Year 323 AC (After the Cataclysm)

  The Battle of Calpharon – The Breaking Point

  “Hit them now, and hit them hard, by God!” Reg Griffin had already launched her two torpedoes, and she’d hit with both of them. That had been no surprise. It was almost impossible to miss at the absurd ranges from which her people were attacking. It was the perfect tactic, almost overpowering…save for one horrifying aspect. The staggering casualties the closing wings endured closing to such ranges. The fighter corps had always endured some of the highest casualty rates in the service, and sayings like, ‘There are no old fighter pilots” had been common. But the hell her people had faced in the battle still raging all around had made the worst of the ‘old days’ seem like a stroll in a pleasant wood.

  She’d lost count of the fighters in the group immediately around her position, probably because she couldn’t bear to confirm the empty slots on the order of battle. Too many ships had been destroyed, and others had completed their attack runs and turned about to begin their trips back to the fleet, to their landing platforms.

  At least the ones that still had landing platforms. She’d lost count of the battleships destroyed as well, and those that had pulled back with severe damage. The line couldn’t hold much longer, and she knew she should follow her squadrons, and set her own course back to Dauntless in the hope that Anya Fritz’s sweating technicians had somehow kept the bays open.

  But she didn’t. At first, she’d determined to stay and direct the still-incoming waves, each one smaller than the last, as fewer and fewer battleships managed to get their remaining bombers into space. She’d been looking for Stockton the whole time, intending to ask him what he wanted her to do next.

  But she hadn’t been able to find him.

  At first, she’d suspected that he was just far off on the other end of the formation, but now she’d searched everywhere and found no trace of his ship. Her first thought was, he’d turned about and was on his way back to Dauntless. But she didn’t believe that.

  ‘Raptor’ Stockton did a lot of crazy things, but the idea that he had headed back while his waves were still coming in seemed almost ridiculous to her. If he’d had any chance at all of leading yet another substantial attack wave out, perhaps, but it was clear that wasn’t going to happen. By her best estimate, there were fifteen hundred bombers that should have been part of the current wave still stuck inside their motherships, or destroyed in the bays. There was no reason for Stockton to rush back, not when his leadership would do far more good directing the attacks of the ships that made it to their targets.

  So, where is he?

  Reg was getting edgy, nervous…but it wasn’t in her to imagine that Stockton’s ship had been destroyed. She knew the defensive fire was fierce, and even with all the damage the bombers and the battle line had inflicted on the enemy, the Highborn were still getting off intermittent missile volleys. The area of space around the enemy line had become the graveyard for the fleet’s squadrons.

  There had been hundreds of casualties, but it seemed inconceivable that Stockton could have been one of them. Still, her stomach tightened with each passing minute. Finally, she began comming the wing commanders, asking if any of them knew anything. The first three were as unsure as she was, but number four’s response almost made her throat seize up.

  “He got hit, Commodore. His ship wasn’t destroyed, but he was moving at a high velocity…directly through the enemy fleet. I tried to get a fix on him, but with all the Sigma-9 emissions…I lost him. I’ve been trying to find him ever since, but he’s just…gone.” The wing commander was James Dillon, one of the toughest and grittiest pilots in the strike force. And he sounded almost as though he was about to burst into tears. His tone, even more than his words, struck Reg.

  She threw her head back in her seat, struggling to gasp for air, to force it down her throat. No…no, it’s not possible. It’s not possible…

  “Send me the location data you have, Jim…now!”

  An urgency gripped her, a wild, uncontrollable need to go out and find Stockton, to locate his damaged ship. There wasn’t much she could do if she found him, and there was no way to get a rescue ship this far through the enemy formation. That made her effort almost futile from the start. But if she didn’t look for him, she would have to accept…that he was gone.

  She listened to the wing commander’s acknowledgement, and a few seconds later, she plugged the incoming data into her nav computer. She stared at the screen, struggling to hold onto what little hope she still had.

  Stockton had been on the far side of the enemy line…and heading farther away from the Confederation fleet…deep into the system, behind the Highborn formations.

  Where there was no hope at all of rescuing him.

  It was utterly pointless to follow, to take even more risks onto herself. Even if she found him, there was nothing she could do. But she just couldn’t leave him out there alone.

  Whatever the risk.

  “All incoming squadrons, pick the targets doing the worst damage to the battle line…and get in, launch, and blast the the hell out as fast as you can.”

  She flipped off the comm, not wanting to listen to the flood of questions and concerned remarks about her orders. She had something to do, and she didn’t want to talk about it.

  And she damned sure didn’t want anybody else coming with her.

  She plugged the coordinates into the nav computer, and she blasted off, farther past the enemy line, in the direction Stockton’s ship had gone.

  If he was out there, she was going to find him.

  If she could stay alive long enough.

  * * *

  “All ships report new course established, Admiral.”

  Clint Winters just nodded, and as he did, his cold and stony gaze passed over the tactical officer. Winters wasn’t angry, at least not openly, but his intensity was raw, and hot like the inside of a reactor core.

  His force had turned about, setting a course to reinforce the main fleet. The battle looked grim from where he sat, and he had been far from sure his mostly-light vessels would make enough of a difference. But there had been relief of a sort that he was at least going to stand with his comrades, that they would fight, and if need be, die, together.

  Now he was heading back where he came from, his new course away from his friends and allies, and toward the new enemy forces pouring into the system. Winters was a cold realist, and he’d known the challenges the fleet faced. But he’d held out some hope, at least, some thought that if the fleet fought hard enough, savagely enough, they would find a way to prevail.

  That was gone now.

  The enemy ships were still streaming through the point ahead of his forces, over two hundred so far, and no sign yet of an end. There were none of the larger vessels, the battleships, but that was cold enough comfort considering that the cruiser-sized Highborn ships were more than a match, even for the few larger hulls of his scant battle line.

  Winters had led a few of the smaller forces sent out to harry and delay the Highborn fleets, but this would be his true baptism of fire against the mysterious enemy. He had reviewed the data the fleet had collected from the last major battle, and he and Tyler Barron had discussed their plans endlessly. Winters had been almost anxious for the enemy to strike. He was very direct in his approach to things, and if there was a fight coming, he was always the first to say, ‘bring it on now.’ But he felt the usual force that drove him weakening. Not even the Sledgehammer could look at the Highborn approaching, watch their ships winking in and out of the scanner grid, and not feel some trepidation.

  Still, he would go to his grave denying it was fear.

  He looked over the display, noting the velocity of the emerging enemy
units. His job had been to protect the flank of the main fleet while the battle was fought. But Winters was enough of a realist to know the battle couldn’t be won. The fleet would withdraw. Soon…or the war would end there and then, And, that meant his duty was clear. He had to keep the enemy flanking force from blocking the fleet’s retreat path through the system’s second transit point. If the damaged, fleeing units of the main force were hit on the flank by fresh Highborn ships, a defeat would soon escalate to utter catastrophe.

  He watched as more and more ships came through, bringing the enemy total closer to three hundred. That was more than his people could possibly defeat. The next hours would tell if it was more than they could contain.

  And if they could hold back the Highborn for long enough, just what price they would pay for that success.

  * * *

  “All batteries, open fire.” Sonya Eaton was standing in front of her chair. She wasn’t sure what had driven her to rise, the tension of the battle, or the grim determination she felt to lead her ship forward, to savage the enemy any way she could. Or perhaps, it was just an understanding of the vast power she controlled.

  She listened to the acknowledgements from the main gunnery officers. The organizational chart for Colossus was unlike any she’d seen before for a Confederation ship. There were literally hundreds of weapons on Colossus, of varying sizes and degrees of power. The main guns, the primary armament that had served the vessel in its imperial days, were silent, non-functional. Neither Hegemony nor Confederation science had been up to the task of repairing the titanic guns. But even the vast ship’s secondary weaponry dwarfed anything she’d seen on the largest battleships. And even though she knew the ranges of the weapons, and she’d seen them test fire at those distances, it was still hard to believe.

  There was no sign on Colossus’s bridge that the offensive array had opened fire, no change to the power systems, no flickering of lights, no audible sounds. But the screens across the bridge, and the enormous 3D main display in the center of the voluminous space, lit up brightly as several dozen beams raced forward, moving across nearly half a million kilometers of space. No armament Eaton had ever seen, and certainly no energy weapon, had anything like that kind of range. But the great shafts of energy blasted forth from Colossus and ripped across space, taking almost two second to reach their targets.

  And to her astonishment, hitting several of them.

  She’d opened fire at long range mostly to get the enemy’s attention, to distract them from their continued obliteration of the main fleet. To take some of the pressure off of Barron and the others. But she hadn’t expected to score any hits so far out.

  The greatest challenge to fighting the Highborn was overcoming their mysterious use of Sigma-9 radiation, and effectively targeting their ships. That reality had forced the bomber squadrons, and even the battleships of the line, to close to point blank range to achieve acceptable hit ratios. And the cost for that in shattered vessels and spacers’ blood had been immense.

  But Colossus’s targeting systems had zeroed right onto the enemy vessels, and the strange phasing effect caused by the radiation did not shake the locks. Long range was still long, and two seconds was a considerable time for an evading ship to move enough to shake even the best targeting…but the deadly fire struck no less than three of the Highborn ships.

  And it struck them hard.

  Colossus’s weapons were antimatter-powered, all of them. The energies driven through the massive emitters challenged her comprehension. She understood the concept of superior technology, but it was still difficult to understand forces so far beyond what she’d known and seen that they seemed almost…magic. If a Confederation laser managed to travel half a million kilometers without losing the cohesion of its photons, and spreading into the equivalent of a kilometers-wide flashlight, it would be lucky to retain enough power to light a birthday candle. But the old imperial weapons not only hit at such ranges, they hit hard. The Highborn ships shook under the impact, and their hull plating gave way, the shots penetrating deeply, inflicting internal damage.

  She sat, stunned, still for a few seconds. Then she snapped out more orders. Maintain fire at maximum rate…and increase engine thrust.” A pause. “We’re going in, people…and we’re going to show these Highborn just what Hell really looks like.”

  * * *

  “Colossus is engaging, Admiral.” Atara’s words were entirely unnecessary, at least to provide information. But Barron knew his longtime comrade had not intended the words for him. She knew he was watching himself, that if anything, he’d seen the massive vessel open fire before she had. The report was for the others on the bridge, an effort to sustain the morale of the exhausted and scared officers and spacers. Dauntless’s people were among the Confederation’s best, but they weren’t made of stone. The relentlessness of the Highborn assault, the eerie ability of their ships to seemingly blink in and out of normal space, and the utter devastation wrought by their deadly beams, had worn down their resolve, breaking down courage in an unstoppable drive toward hopelessness.

  “Yes…and she is coming in right on their flank. Just as we planned. That will be a surprise to the enemy.” Barron’s reply was heavier with bullshit than he typically liked, but he, too, understood his people needed all the support they could get. Colossus was coming against the enemy flank, and the old imperial vessel’s weapons were at least the equals of the Highborn’s fearsome guns. But whatever its size, Colossus was one ship in one place, and for all the shock and awe of seeing the immense battleship coming into the battle, Barron knew it wasn’t going to be enough. Especially not with the enemy coming through point one as well as point three.

  Barron watched, and he was startled as the first shots scored several hits. The range was still long, and despite Anya Fritz’s best efforts, she had been no more successful than anyone else at repairing the vessels titanic main batteries, or even really understanding how they functioned. But even the great ship’s secondaries were monstrously powerful, and its restored imperial scanners and firing routines appeared to be vastly more effective at targeting the Highborn ships.

  He was still staring at the screen as another round of fire ripped out from Colossus, and another three Highborn ships were struck…and one disappeared utterly from the display.

  He felt a burst of hope, but he realized almost immediately, it was misplaced. Colossus would hurt the enemy, certainly. But it was only one ship, and the enemy fleet was vast.

  And none of them are in range yet. Colossus is big, but that doesn’t mean indestructible…

  The cold dose of reality hit even harder as he realized Colossus was the most forward of every vessel in the fleet. The flank attack would be effective in hurting the enemy, no doubt, but Sonya Eaton and her spacers had the longest journey to pull back, to escape from the system.

  Barron had left ships behind before. Tactical necessity was often a harsh taskmaster, and while he carried the scars of those instances, he also knew they had been necessary. No commander could lead if he wasn’t prepared to send people to their deaths when necessary. But Colossus was the one ship in his fleet, Dauntless included, that wasn’t expendable. Any conceivable effort to stop the Highborn would center on that chunk of imperial technology, as a weapon in itself, and as a base for continued research and development.

  We’ve waited too long already…we need to pull out now. Colossus has to break off…and soon. He didn’t want to test just how much punishment the vast ship could endure, but he wasn’t willing to bet if could survive being englobed by Highborn warships.

  He stared down at the comm. His last conversation with Chronos had been inconclusive. He believed the Hegemony commander had been close to agreeing on a joint withdrawal—and the attendant emergency evacuation of those who could escape from Calpharon—but there had been nothing since.

  Now, he knew he had his own decision to make. If Chronos wouldn’t give the order, would he issue his own, pull his fleet and the Alliance f
orces—and Colossus—out, and return to Confederation space to prepare for the Highborn’s inevitable arrival?

  Could he go and leave his new allies behind to face utter destruction?

  He would have to make that decision, and soon…but not without one last effort to keep the combined fleet together.

  “Atara…get me Chronos on the comm.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  HWS Hegemony’s Glory

  Venta Traconis System

  Year of Renewal 268 (323 AC)

  The Battle of Calpharon – The Retreat Begins

  “I need another two hours, perhaps three. The evacuation is underway, but even limited to only essential personnel, it is a time-consuming process.” Chronos was holding back the uncertainty he still felt, the doubts about whether he should—whether he could—truly abandon Calpharon and its billions. He tried to tell himself it was the correct strategic decision—it almost certainly was—and also that the inhabitants would be okay, or at least humanely treated. That was a much wider question, and one even his efforts to delude himself failed to satisfy. Calpharon was an immense prize, a world of massive industry, and some of the very best of the Hegemony’s population. But the Highborn had shown little hesitation in obliterating planetary populations when it served their purposes.