Call to Arms: Blood on the Stars II

by Jay Allan

  Travis looked back at Barron and smiled. “No more than ten minutes, Captain.”

  “Five minutes, Lieutenant Darrow. I want that shuttle ready in five minutes.”

  * * *

  “It’s definitely a Union navigational data unit. It’s damaged, but most of the data seems to be recoverable. It might take some work, but I think we can pull at least eighty percent of it off of here.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant. What do you need to proceed?” Travis stood back about a meter, staring at the partially disassembled device in the center of the room.

  “Honestly, Commander, I could have my whole team and the equipment brought over here, but I think our best bet is to disconnect the thing and bring it back to Dauntless. It’ll be a lot easier to work on it there.”

  “Is there any chance you could damage it in transit?”

  “A small one, I suppose, but I’m confident we can get it moved without any harm. Honestly, I’d say the risk of leaving it in place is greater. There’s no question this thing should have been wiped. Some freak malfunction must have prevented the erasure…but there’s no guarantee what’s left of the ship’s AI won’t find a way to reroute the destruct signal.”

  “You mean the systems on this ship could still erase it?”

  “Probably not, Commander. I’m just saying I think that risk is greater than the one of moving it.”

  “Okay, get your people ready. I just need to clear this with the captain.” She turned and took a few steps away, toward the portable long-range comm unit her people had set up along the outside wall. She waved off the tech who was standing there, looking at her expectantly, and she reached down and grabbed one of the headsets, pulling it on as she toggled Dauntless’s channel.

  “Dauntless…Dauntless, do you read?”

  Dauntless here, Commander.” Darrow’s voice was loud and clear.

  “Get me the Captain, Lieutenant.”

  “Yes, Commander.” A few second later. “What is it, Commander?”

  “It looks like we have a Union nav unit, sir. It’s damaged, but Lieutenant Varrick believes he can retrieve substantial data.”

  “That’s great news, Commander.”

  “He wants to move it over to Dauntless to complete the work. There’s a small chance of damage in transit, but Varrick seems to believe there is a greater danger if we leave it here.”

  “I’m inclined to agree, Commander.” Barron’s voice grew softer, almost as if he was whispering. “To be honest, Atara, I feel like we’re on borrowed time just sitting here. I’d feel better if that thing was here, and we could move as soon as the resupply operation is finished.”

  “I concur, Captain. I just wanted to confirm with you.” She turned and shouted across the room, “Lieutenant, start disconnecting that thing. I want it back on Dauntless as quickly as possible.”

  “Yes, Commander.”

  “Atara…” It was Barron, still on the comm.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “While you’re over there, can you see if you can light a fire under those shuttle crews? I’d really like to finish the resupply as quickly as possible.”

  “I’m on it, sir. I’m sure Varrick and his people can handle the nav unit without me breathing down their necks.”

  “I’ve always considered your breath on the crews’ necks to be a tactical asset, Commander…though in this case, I’m inclined to agree.”

  “Consider it done, Captain. Travis out.”

  She couldn’t keep the tiny smile from her lips. She’d known exactly what Barron was going to say, right down to the concern about the speed of the freight and fuel transfer operations.

  “You’re in charge here, Lieutenant. I want this thing on the way back to Dauntless as quickly as humanly possible. Understood?”

  “Yes, Commander. We should be done in thirty minutes.”

  “Try for twenty,” she said as she turned and briskly walked out of the room.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  CFS Repulse

  Mellas System

  Just Outside the Outer System Dust Cloud

  308 AC

  Three systems…through one after the other, the retreat had continued. An inexorable, disordered, unruly flight from the victorious Union forces. The most shameful, ignominious defeat in the history of the Confederation, one that had every officer, every line spacer in the fleet buried in the blackest gloom. No critic, no rival, no political enemy could have blamed Arthur Winston more bitterly or profoundly than he did himself. The navy had been his entire life, his self worth inextricably connected to his success—or failure—as an officer. He had failed, miserably. He had failed the spacers who served under him, the navy he loved, even the memory of his mentor, Rance Barron. And he had failed the Confederation.

  Winston had been forced to fight with himself at each transwarp link, struggle to overcome the urge to turn and fight, to seek the incalculable relief offered by the prospect of death in battle. And if it had only been his own life at stake, he’d have stood and faced any odds, gratefully meeting death’s embrace. But it wasn’t only him. He commanded thousands of spacers. And behind his battered fleet lay the nearly one hundred worlds with untold billions of inhabitants, who had all been counting on his forces to protect them. No, a suicidal battle would be the coward’s way out. Despite his shame, despite his despair, he would keep his head. He would command his fleet, and most of all he would preserve it, reorganize it, prepare it however he could for the next fight…for as long as the navy retained a force in being, the Confederation would survive.

  There was no doubt retreat had been the right course of action. A fight to the finish would have been more romantic, certainly, and for an old man like him, shattered and broken, it would have been the merciful route. But he was of no concern, and the tactical realities had been clear. His fleet was depleted, low on supplies, its morale at a low ebb. Any battle would have been a slaughter, and the loss of his fleet would have left half the Confederation defenseless.

  He’d already abandoned enough citizens. The stars along his line of retreat were orbited by inhabited planets, and the transwarp links from those systems led to other Confederation worlds. His retreat had pulled his forces all the way back through the systems of the Military Border and into the Provinces. Though not as vital or as populated as the planets of the Iron Belt and the Core that lay deeper into Confederation space, the worlds of the Provinces held tens and hundreds of millions. These weren’t the people of the Military border, raised under the specter of war, born and bred to serve the Confederation forces and to face the brunt of invasion. The worlds of the Provinces lay far enough back from the hostile Union border that the thought of enemy conquest, of bombardments by Union spacefleets, had long seemed far-fetched. But now that reality had come.

  “The supply convoy has begun to transit into the system, Admiral.”

  Winston looked over at his aide. Beltran had been trying hard to sound positive since the retreat from Arcturon. The admiral appreciated the effort, but it was in vain. Winston knew Beltran was as morose as the rest of the spacers of the fleet…and none was more miserable than he himself. But duty was more important than self-pity.

  “Very well, Captain. I want supply distribution to begin at once. Priority to fuel and ordnance transfers, ships with the lowest stocks to be serviced first.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The vessels of Winston’s fleet had been fighting almost nonstop for months now, the last, terrible battle only the most recent in a string of defeats. The wealthy Confederation had placed massive stores of supplies on the worlds of the Military Border, but the endless fighting had burned through most of those—and what remained had been destroyed when the fleet had fallen back. His ships and crews needed rest, and they needed a morale boost…neither of which they were likely to get. But at least the worlds of the Iron Belt had managed to pour out supplies, and the massive convoy held enough—fuel, food, spare parts, weapons—to bring his wounded fleet back to f
ull readiness, at least in terms of materiel.

  He glanced over at Repulse’s massive 3D display tank, focusing on the cluster of small spheres pouring from the Halos transwarp link. There were freighters, dozens of them, and massive tankers he knew carried the output of half a dozen tritium production facilities. Civilian vessels moved forward as well, liners hastily converted to carry reserve troops and replacement naval personnel, as well as all manner of private craft stuffed full of whatever useful supplies they could carry.

  “Resupply operations are to continue around the clock. I want every vessel fully reprovisioned and refueled within forty-eight hours.”

  “Yes, Admiral.” The aide’s voice was tentative. Winston knew what he had ordered was an almost impossible goal. But that didn’t matter. The Union fleet would be coming, and his ships had to be ready. They had fled, trading space for time, but he’d already made a decision. Mellas was as far as he would go. As far as he could go. The system had four transit points, and three of them led directly into the heart of the Confederation, to the older, more populated Provincial worlds, and then to the Iron Belt and Core beyond. However outnumbered, however battered and demoralized, his fleet would have to fight here. The lives of billions depended on it.

  We have to find a way to win…

  His forces were weak, the fleet grievously wounded by the losses it had suffered. But at least he knew where the enemy would be coming. He could be sure that no enemy forces would emerge from three of the four transit points. Unlike the disaster at Arcturon, there was no chance he would be outflanked here. The enemy would have to take his fleet on straight up. But he would be outnumbered. Badly.

  He stared at the bank of screens on the wall of his flag bridge. They were displaying images from probes and from the ships of the fleet. There were large freighters floating near several of his battleships, small tugs moving out from their gaping cargo doors, carrying cased fighters into the landing bays. His fighter squadrons, at least, would be at full strength, thanks to the herculean efforts of the Iron Belt factories that produced the small craft. But he knew numbers weren’t everything. He’d lost a lot of veteran pilots, and their places would be taken by green replacements, “wet behind the ears” flyers who would be blown away in vast numbers as soon as the battle started.

  That was tomorrow’s problem. Today’s was getting the fleet refit and ready for the battle he knew was coming. He’d left picket ships behind, just inside the Turas system, monitoring the transit point to Mellas. He’d know when the enemy fleet was coming, and he would make sure his people were ready.

  Somehow.

  * * *

  “Admiral Striker, I have transferred Helios and Discovery to Fifth Fleet. That gives you nine capital ships, though admittedly, some of the vessels are old.” Gary Holsten sat next to the hotel suite’s window, his back to the breathtaking view of Troyus City’s immense, kilometers-high skyline. He’d been as direct with Van Striker as he could, at least as far as he could go without outright implicating the admiral in a plot many would call treasonous. The officer had played along well enough, blithely accepting everything from the unorthodox nature of the chain of command running through Confederation Intelligence to the meetings in locations like the suite at the Royalton.

  “Old is an understatement, at least with vessels like Helios and Resounding.” Striker spoke firmly, no sign of fear or disappointment with the forces Holsten had managed to assemble evident in his tone. “There is more to a fighting ship than its age, however. And more to naval crews as well.” Holsten knew Striker was well aware of the situation at the front. The spymaster had done everything possible to create a fighting force to support Admiral Winston’s battered First Fleet, snatching what newer vessels he could from Third Fleet while he scraped up every older ship he could find in mothballs somewhere. But ships weren’t the only thing in short supply now, and he’d had to hunt just as diligently for crews, ultimately activating officers and spacers who’d been retired for decades.

  He’d expected resistance when he sent the notices out. He had commanded men and woman twenty, thirty, even forty years out of the service to report for active duty on a single day’s notice, and he had done it with false authorizations. But the response had been overwhelmingly positive, the retirees surging forth in impressive numbers…with no one questioning the legality of the call up.

  They remember the last time the Confederation was on the brink of destruction…

  “We have done what could be done, Admiral. I only wish I had more ships, more crews to give you.”

  “We will make do with what we have, Mr. Holsten. Admiral Barron certainly did… He was also outnumbered, I will remind you, and leading a force that had been driven back in defeat.”

  “He was, Admiral.” Holsten knew quite a bit more about the Confederation’s most beloved hero than he suspected the great man’s protégés in the military chose to remember. Barron had won the Confederation’s survival in a series of great military victories, but he’d gained the control needed to do it through something very near a coup. If he’d been a different sort of man, if he’d craved power for its own sake, the Confederation, at least as its people knew it, would have died at his own hands.

  Is that what you’re doing? Forging documents, spinning a web of lies to transfer ships to the front, all to emulate the great Rance Barron?

  He liked to think that was the case, though he knew military success had washed away Barron’s legal transgressions in a way he could never match. He would have no such protection if the shit hit the fan. But the Confederation came first, with him as it had for Rance Barron. If he had to be a casualty of the war in his own way, that was a price he was prepared to pay for victory.

  “We will make Admiral Barron proud, Mr. Holsten. We will live up to his memory…and the ideals he set for all of us.”

  Holsten wondered if it was seemly for the living to envy the dead. Rance Barron had been a great hero, but his stature had also benefitted from a tragic death in battle, followed by decades of retellings of his exploits by worshipful protégés. Such things whitewashed a man’s memory, Holsten knew, carrying away flaws, deficiencies, all the things that made a human being real. Barron had been a great man, there was no question about that, but when he lived he was a man. Now he was a legend.

  Holsten knew there was a certain amount of bluster in Striker’s declarations of confidence, but there also something sincere. The navy had seen its highs and lows, but it had held off the Union for almost a century, and its personnel—including its senior officers like Striker—carried on Rance Barron’s legacy. They would never yield. In that grim tenacity, in the willingness to sacrifice whatever they had to, they found the strength to fight on, and the confidence to be sure they could prevail.

  Holsten was less certain, and he found himself envying the simple loyalty and courage that so effectively drove officers like Striker. He was just as determined to save the Confederation as any hero in uniform, but he was consumed by doubts, and by carefully hidden fear. He’d risked his position, his fortune, his very life to ensure the forces at the front had the best chances to win the deadly fight underway. But he wasn’t sure he really believed they had that chance, and deep within his own mind, he struggled against the urge to give up.

  “I will do everything possible to provide you with additional reinforcements, Admiral, but I’m afraid you cannot count on anything beyond the resources currently under your control, at least in the short term. I have transferred everything I can from Third Fleet.”

  Transferred…that’s a nice way to sanitize outright fraud…

  Holsten knew he could call it whatever he wanted, but he was well aware of the reality. He’d slipped several powerful capital ships from the Confederation’s home forces without Senatorial approval. Fake maintenance manifests, forged service requests, fictional orders of battle.

  “We will use it all well, Mr. Holsten. And don’t worry about the old veterans. They’ve been in this situation
before, and they fought their way to victory. They will do it again.”

  “Godspeed, Admiral Striker.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Sector Nine Headquarters

  Liberte City

  Planet Montmirail, Ghassara IV,

  Union Year 212 (308 AC)

  Gaston Villeneuve sat in his office. He had a mountain of work piled high on his desk, but he was troubled, distracted.

  “You wanted to see me, Gaston?” Ricard Lille poked his head into the room. Lille was one of Sector Nine’s top agents, and one of Villeneuve’s few friends. Still, he hesitated to barge into the office. Friendship was a fragile thing among those who occupied the Union’s upper strata. It was a culture committed almost exclusively to the acquisition of political power, and few of its players would allow anything to interfere with their own advancement. Not even friendship. More than one top Union official had advanced himself by turning in one or more of his friends, for real offenses, or simply imagined ones they could make stick.

  “Come, Ricard.” He gestured. “Sit.”

  Ricard walked across the richly-appointed office, pulling back one of the chairs in front of the desk and taking a seat. “You look unduly grim, Gaston. Unless I am far more out of the loop than I believe, there would seem to be little reason for dissatisfaction.”

  “The news from the front is good, Ricard, better even than we’d dared to hope.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a problem, certainly not one requiring my particular skillset.” Ricard had completed many missions for Villeneuve, including the abortive effort to bring the Alliance into the war. But killing people was his specialty—he had proven an uncanny ability to get to people who were thought to be invulnerable.

  “Not at first glance, perhaps. But I have looked a bit deeper, and I do have some concerns.”