by Jay Allan
The doctor was about to say something, but Barron spoke first. “I want the truth, Doc. No evasive answers, no overblown responses. Don’t ‘handle’ me. I just want to know, and I want to know now.” A pause. “Is she going to make it?”
The doctor looked like he was going to answer, very likely just the kind of longwinded reply Barron had forbidden. But then he remained silent for a few seconds, and he looked down at the floor. Finally, he managed to come close to returning Barron’s gaze.
“No Admiral,” he said, “I don’t think so. She’s just too badly injured. We can keep her alive for a short while, but I don’t think there is any way to save her.”
* * *
“Two minutes to transit, Admiral. All remaining ships are on a straight-line course for the point.”
Clint Winters grunted his acknowledgement at the report. The bridge was filled with smoke, and his ship, like the sixty or so others that remained from his four hundred vessel task force, had been savaged. Great breaches had been torn into the hull, and Highborn beams had bored holes deep into the vessel, slicing into vital systems and killing crew.
By any reasonable measure, his task force had been destroyed. At least as an effective fighting unit. But it had stayed in the fight long enough to cover the main retreat. It had completed its mission, done its duty. Now his battered survivors were making a run for it.
He could call it a retreat, perhaps even a withdrawal, but the Sledgehammer had never had much use for bullshit. Every ship he had was in a headlong rush to the point, blasting full at whatever thrust level remained in their tortured engines. There were a few lagging behind, the victims of damaged thrusters and reactors. Those crews were very likely going to die, but for the first time in eight hours, Clint Winters was beginning to believe that some of his people were going to make it out. His flagship, even. The vessel had taken a barrage of hits, but through some strange fortune, both its reactors and engines remained at seventy percent or better operational capacity. The enemy was still in pursuit, and any instant the fatal shot could come. But his forward ships were already transiting, and his own vessel would be following in less than two minutes.
“One minute to transit.”
One minute…
He breathed deeply, staring at the display. The point filled the center of the screen, a hazy circle, black against the black of space, but somehow different enough to be seen. A blurry countdown of numbers above showed the decreasing range. All around, flashes appeared on the screen and then vanished, the shots from half a dozen Highborn vessels in close pursuit. The ship was within thirty seconds of transit, but Winters knew that was still plenty of time to die.
The enemy wouldn’t follow if his ship made it through, at least he didn’t think they would. Their forces were spread all across the system in total disorder, and they had no idea where the combined Confederation and Hegemony fleets were deployed in the next system. Going through in small groups was tactical idiocy, and the Highborn had exhibited a strong knowledge of fleet operations.
No, they wouldn’t follow, and that meant they had twenty seconds left to kill the Sledgehammer and his flagship.
Most of the other ships had already transited. About fifteen were strung out behind Winter’s ship, mostly due to engine damage and the resulting thrust limitations. The admiral didn’t like the idea of going through the point while some of his people were still struggling to get there, but he’d given the order for every ship to make its best speed, and he owed his flagship crew the same chance he’d given all the others.
Besides, he could do literally nothing for those whose ships were slowed by damage. Nothing except wish them the best.
Which he did as his ship slipped into the point, and into the relative safety of alternate space…bound for the next system.
And for the next battle. Because if ‘Sledgehammer’ Winters was sure of anything, it was that there would be another fight.
And he had some scores to settle.
* * *
“We’re here to bid farewell to one of our own. On a day when we are mourning thousands of comrades, and when others dear to us remain in the sickbays, many clinging desperately to life, it is hard to single out one officer, one spacer for special note. There were so many heroes at Calpharon, so many friends who will be missed. But even among heroes, one man stands tall, and he casts a shadow over all of us.”
Reg stood and watched as Admiral Barron spoke, and she could see the strain in his face as he struggled to maintain his composure as he spoke to the entire fleet. He was on a podium that had been hastily set up on what was left of Dauntless’s beta landing bay, and he spoke to the crew of a fleet that had been savaged, to spacers who had all lost friends, mentors, leaders. There was some relief at having made an escape from the Sigma Nordlin system, but beyond all the pain and anguish of loss, there was one other inescapable fact looming over the entire fleet like a dark shadow. They’d been beaten by the Highborn, soundly whipped, and if they’d inflicted considerable damage on the enemy as well, that was cold comfort.
And they’d lost Jake Stockton.
Reg still couldn’t believe it. She was devastated, of course, but it all felt very unreal, theoretical. Some part of her refused to believe Stockton was really gone, and that pointless determination held back much of the pain. Hearing Barron’s words wore that resolve down, just a bit, but it still held. It wasn’t based on reason, nor on analysis, but she was content to continue to fool herself. She had much to do, more than seemed possible. There were casualty reports to review, and vast rearrangements of the OB…more holes to plug than she could easily grasp. If a bit of self-delusion helped her get through it all, so be it.
“All we can do for Admiral Stockton—and especially those of you in his beloved fighter corps—is to behave as you always have, to make him proud. And that is what we will do, all of us. Our fight is not over, far from it, and even without Jake, we must go on. Fight on.” Barron stared forward for a moment, and Reg could see the pain in his gaze. Stockton had been one of Barron’s closest friends. They had fought side by side for twenty years, from one war to the next. But there was something more driving that hurt. Reg knew Atara Travis had been badly wounded. She didn’t have any details, but as she looked up at the admiral, the man who remained the last hope for the fleet, she began to feel cold realization, about Stockton, about all of them.
Is there no end? Will the loss, the death never stop?
* * *
“The reactors all appear to be fully functional, Commodore. The outer sections of the ship suffered heavy damage, but most of it appears to be limited to newly installed Hegemony and Confederation systems. Very little of the original imperial hardware seems to be badly damaged.”
Sonya Eaton listened as the aide detailed the myriad ways in which Colossus had been battered in the fight, but she found it difficult to concentrate. Perhaps it was exhaustion, or numbness at all the death and loss the fleet had suffered. She even tried to see some base satisfaction in the Hegemony capital suffering what Megara had just a few years before…but it didn’t work. She didn’t like the Heggies, and she still carried a heavy weight of resentment for the former enemy responsible for so many deaths, her sister’s included, but she couldn’t quite hate them anymore. They had fought bravely alongside the fleet, and now all she could feel for them was sympathy. Worse, her inability to enjoy the misfortune of the Hegemony only made her angrier, and moving toward acceptance of the now-allied Heggies felt like a betrayal of Sara.
“We’ll continue this later, Commander. I just received a message from Admiral Barron. He’s sending Anya Fritz over to take command of repairs as soon as she gets Dauntless’s crews sorted out. Make sure this is all organized so Commodore Fritz can properly evaluate and prioritize operations.” Sonya had been surprised when Barron had told her he was sending Fritz, though she quickly realized she shouldn’t have been. The fleet was badly battered, but it wasn’t destroyed, and Colossus was its single most power
ful weapon. The war would go on, and if there wasn’t much hope as far as she could see, there was a surprising amount of determination remaining among the crews. She was hesitant to call it ‘morale,’ as it had a dark, almost morose feel to it. She wasn’t sure many of the fleet’s spacers were hopeful of victory, but she was damned sure every one of them wanted revenge. She didn’t know what would happen when the Confed fleet fought the enemy again, but she was sure of one thing.
It would be a nasty, bare-clawed struggle. She’d never seen more condensed fury than what saw all around her.
And in the fighter squadrons most of all.
For all of Colossus’s immense size, the ship only had a few fighter bays that had been hastily installed to house the first Hegemony squadrons. But the pilots on the massive vessel had retreated to their small section of the ship and shut the hatches, and a dark cloud lay over the whole area. She could almost feel the seething rage on the bridge.
Sonya still couldn’t believe Jake Stockton was gone. Next to Admiral Barron himself, Stockton had been the fleet’s biggest hero, and to the wings, he was almost a deity. He’d survived so many close calls, come back from so many apocalyptic battles, most of his pilots had come to view him as invulnerable. No one had ever survived the amount of combat Stockton had, not in a fighter. Not even close.
His death was like a dagger to the heart for the thousands of pilots who’d so long revered him. Who still did.
She hadn’t known Stockton all that well, but she felt his loss as keenly as most in the fleet did. She hadn’t even realized how much she had bought into the pilots’ view, how she’d always assumed that whatever else happened, the fleet’s strike force commander would be there. Stockton’s loss would be felt by all, in more than just an emotional way. The wings were crucially important to the war effort…and she couldn’t imagine anyone could fill his shoes.
Anger might lead his people into battle, for a time at least. She was almost afraid at the frozen malevolence she could feel drifting up from the pilots’ quarters. They would fight with unimaginable fury, she didn’t doubt that. But she wasn’t sure that would be enough. Anger might replace the morale effect Stockton brought to his wings, but nothing could fill the void where the greatest fighter combat tactician who’d ever lived had been. Stockton’s death only portended even greater loss to his squadrons, and Sonya winced as she imagined watching them throw themselves at the enemy in incoherent fury.
She turned and walked back to the huge room behind the bridge, the place she’d commandeered as her office. She had a million things to do, and rest was far, far down on that list. But she needed a few minutes to herself.
She slipped inside and leaned against the wall as the door slid shut. Then she let out a long, deep breath.
“Well, Sara…I did my best, sister. I tried to make you proud.”
She looked across the room, and she saw Sara’s face, a shadowy image hovering in the forefront of her mind, as a stream of tears began to roll down her face.
* * *
“What is it, Anya?” Tyler Barron had nothing but respect for his longtime engineer, but he was in a dark place, and he’d been snapping at everyone around him. The losses at Calpharon, the state of the war, the death of Jake Stockton…and now, Atara Travis lingering near her own demise…it was all too much. And Anya’s cryptic message, her insistence that he meet her outside the landing bay—or what was left of it—and her refusal to tell him what it was about, had rubbed him the wrong way.
Not that there had been any good ways recently.
“There is someone here to see you, Admiral.” Fritz was usually deadly serious, but her normally deadpan voice seemed unusually light. He was starved for anything less than morose, but the cheery sound of her voice only pissed him off. “You dragged me down here to meet with someone? In case you forgot, Fritzie, I’m in command here. People come to me.”
“Not me.”
Barron stood, frozen in utter shock. No, it can’t be…
“At least not always. You come to me your share of times, too.”
Andi!
He spun around, toward the voice. It was her. For an instant, he refused to believe it. It wasn’t possible, an apparition. He was hallucinating. It couldn’t be her, not so far out.
But it was.
He lurched forward, throwing his arms around her, pulling her close to him. His mind was a vortex of conflicting thoughts. The last place he wanted Andi was in such a terrible place, so soon after the horror of the battle. But she was there, in his arms after so long, and for a few precious moments, the rest of the nightmare receded, and Tyler Barron felt something he could hardly remember.
Happiness.
“What are you doing here, Andi?” He asked the question, but for those few seconds, he didn’t really care. All that mattered was she was there. “How?”
“Pegasus, of course. I put the old crew back together. Honestly, it was the easiest trip through the Badlands I ever had. Nothing like an invasion to clear out the troublesome elements. Not too many frontier toughs wanted to tangle with the Heggies, it seems.”
“You came all the way out here?”
“Yes…I had something I had to do. Someone you had to meet.”
Barron stared in wonder as another familiar form slipped into view. Lita Mareth had been Tyler Barron’s governess more than thirty years before. “Lita…it’s been a long…” His words stopped abruptly. Lita was carrying something.
Someone.
Andi turned toward the governess and scooped the young child into her own arms. “I want you to meet Cassiopeia Barron.” Andi smiled, and as she saw moistness gathering in Tyler’s eyes, her own tears began to stream down her face. She looked up at him and said, simply, “Your daughter.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Forward Base Striker
Vasa Denaris System
Year 323 AC (After the Cataclysm)
“The Highborn are humans. Or, at least, they were created by humans. From humans…” Andi stood at the head of the table, or at least the long metal sheet propped up on storage crates that passed for one. Base Striker, named for the Confederation’s lost admiral, and one of Tyler Barron’s mentors, would eventually be the center of resistance to the Highborn invasion, a massive logistical center, armed to the teeth, with facilities to support massive fleets and direct operations across a vast swath of the Rimward Hegemony and the old Badlands.
But just then it was a single shell, barely pressurized, with three decks, almost empty save for the piles of crates strewn all about. The facility didn’t even have its own power yet. It drew energy through a series of umbilicals to two battleships stationed alongside. If the enemy attacked anytime soon, they could destroy the Pact’s new headquarters with a single shot.
Andi hated the name. Pact seemed…she wasn’t sure. Odd? Pretentious? But alliance would have been too confusing with the Palatian Alliance part of the mix, and Pact actually came naturally, from the document formalizing the whole thing. It was an astonishing agreement, one negotiated mostly by Tyler, who’d proven to be a steely dealmaker despite his oft-stated disgust for politicians and their ilk. It wasn’t ratified yet, but she didn’t think anyone who’d been in the deadly fight at Calpharon gave much of a shit what a bunch of Senators lightyears away thought anyway.
“Humans? So, they are not aliens, after all?” There was surprise in Akella’s voice, but even as the Hegemony leader spoke, her eyes moved across the table to Ellia. The Hegemony researcher has suggested hints of exactly what Andi had just declared so definitively, but Akella had found it difficult to believe. She’d known of what had then been called the Others as long as she had conscious memory, and they’d gone from a phantom ‘bogeyman’ threat in her eyes to a real and terrible danger…but they’d always been aliens. At least in her mind’s eye.
“They were created in the waning days of the empire. As best we have been able to learn, they were not developed to destroy humanity, nor even to enslave it. The
old records we have found—and which we have brought with us—suggest the project that resulted in the Highborn was conceived to save the empire, to combat the lethargy that had sapped its strength and brought that vast realm to the verge of collapse.”
The words were powerful. A few of those in the room, Tyler of course, and Clint Winters, already knew all Andi was explaining. She’d briefed them all individually. Indeed, she’d even delayed her private reunion with Tyler to tell him what she’d learned. It was that important.
Though, maybe someday, we’ll be less important, the two of us…and left alone. The three of us…
She hoped that with all her heart, but she didn’t really believe it. She might slip into obscurity one day, assuming the Confederation survived the war, but Tyler never could. He’d been born into a role he couldn’t escape, and his own list of deeds had only cemented him in that prison cell.
“The effort failed, of course. I’m afraid we haven’t managed to extract much of the later data yet, though I believe we will ultimately secure more information. What we know is, the Highborn began to split from those who created them. They seemed to become arrogant, and to think of themselves as gods, and of normal humans as supplicants…lower beings to worship them, even as, in a twisted way, they guided humanity forward and protected human civilization.”
Andi hesitated, looking out over the room. Two rows of stunned faces stared back at her, even from those who already knew all she had just said. It was a lot to comprehend, and she herself was still struggling with it. The Cataclysm had always existed for her as a historical event shrouded in mystery. The empire fell…everyone knew that. But no one understood the details or the causes, not with any specificity.