Call to Arms: Blood on the Stars II

by Jay Allan

  “Concerns? Not from the front, surely? It seems the new supply arrangements are working perfectly…and the Confederation fleet appears to be in headlong retreat.”

  “That is certainly true, though I am inclined to be cautious before I count the Confeds out. The Union has had them on the verge of defeat before, but they always seem to find a way to crawl back. We should not underestimate their capabilities.” Villeneuve paused. “That, however, is not my concern. I called you here on another matter, or at least one tangential to the war itself.”

  Lille stared across the desk attentively. “How can I be of service?”

  “I am concerned about Admiral D’Alvert.”

  Lille stared back, his face an emotionless mask. “The admiral was one of the prime movers behind our supply ‘solution,’ indeed, our current success would have been impossible without his years of planning and lobbying the Presidium for the resources to implement Supply One. The war seems to be going very well under his direction…so may I assume you are thinking in terms of a post-war problem? The general’s ambitions, perhaps?”

  “You come right to the heart of it, Ricard. Admiral D’Alvert is not a fool, but he is not a pliable man either. The current First is ruthless of course, in his own way. But he is temperate as well, predictable…controllable. D’Alvert, on the other hand, has few inhibitions. He would be dangerous in the First’s chair.”

  “You think he aims so high?”

  “I do. It is only conjecture so far, of course. I have no real evidence. But still, it is Sector Nine’s responsibility to protect the Union—and its own power. And we have never allowed a lack of evidence to interfere with our taking…precautionary…actions.”

  Lille’s tightly-controlled expression cracked a bit, revealing a hint of surprise. He turned and glanced back at the door, a reflexive instinct. “You want me to assassinate the admiral,” he whispered.

  “Yes, Ricard. Not now, of course. Admiral D’Alvert’s skills are extremely valuable at the moment, and his attention is fully absorbed by the ongoing war. But once the victory is won, D’Alvert will be the conqueror, the hero. He will have intolerable influence in the fleet…and a chance to transform military glory into political advancement. Perhaps even a coup attempt, one very likely to succeed. I remind you, he is a member of the Presidium as well as a fleet admiral, a consolidation of power bases that has seldom been allowed to occur, for obvious reasons. One bullet can open the First’s chair, and what could be more natural than the war hero stepping into the vacancy?”

  “You want me to infiltrate. To get myself in position and wait for the moment when the victory is won, when the Confederation is beaten. And then to strike.”

  “Precisely. As soon as the war is over. We can blame Confederation infiltrators…or perhaps traitorous elements in our own military. That might be useful in terms of eliminating any other officers we might deem too dangerous.” He paused. “If I am wrong, if D’Alvert harbors no such ambitions, at worst it is a wasted effort.” His tone was firm, unwavering. The notion that in such a case he would have ordered the death of an innocent man was clearly utterly irrelevant to him.

  “No, Gaston…I do not believe you are wrong. D’Alvert has always been an ambitious man, and he will recognize victory over the Confederation as a unique opportunity. I would be surprised if he did not make a move. And he would act quickly. Glory is fleeting, after all, and he is smart enough to know that.”

  Villeneuve paused, glancing unconsciously around the room, indulging the constant paranoia that was an occupational hazard for a man in his position. “I considered allowing things to follow their course, to stand aside and not interfere. But I decided the risk was simply too great. The current First is mostly concerned with his own luxury, and he is content to delegate the bulk of the actual work of running the Union to the other members of the Presidium and the senior ministers. That has provided a degree of, how shall I put it, security, for those of us in senior positions and a dissipation of executive power among a larger group. D’Alvert is far more energetic, more likely to upset the established order. It is just too great a risk.”

  “I agree, Gaston. D’Alvert would certainly be less predictable, and that alone is sufficient reason to eliminate him.”

  “I know this is a dangerous mission, Ricard, and difficult…but I have a reward for you upon its completion. There will be much work to do when the Confederation is conquered. Its people will have to adapt to a different way of life. They will have to learn to serve the good of the state. The job will be a vast one, and Sector Nine will need to expand massively to do it. I need a good man to take control of the overall operation. You have served me well, my friend, and you have the moral…pliability…to do what is necessary to see the job done.” Villeneuve stared across his desk. “Handle the D’Alvert matter, Ricard, and the position is yours.”

  Lille stared back, the mask of neutrality that usually covered his face gone, replaced by undisguised shock. “I don’t know what to say, Gaston. Thank you.”

  “You have earned it, my friend.”

  And you are the one least likely to betray me once you have stolen vast treasures from the Confederation and established yourself in your own power base. At least I think you are…

  * * *

  “Nothing. The supply fleet is three days overdue, and we’ve heard nothing. Not a thing!” Hugo D’Alvert was mad. No, beyond mad…he was positively raging, as close as a man could come to the fiery heart of a supernova. He had the Confeds on the run. And now a late supply convoy was keeping him from finishing things.

  “No, sir. No word, either from the supply fleet or from the escort.” Isaiah Beltran answered firmly, at least compared to the rest of the command staff who’d been quaking every time D’Alvert’s eyes moved in their directions. The Union admiral was a feared man, there was no question about that. But Beltran had been with him a long time, and even a monster needed a close confidante or two.

  “I want a patrol dispatched to Arcturon now. I want to know exactly where that supply convoy is, and why it has not arrived on time.

  “Yes, Admiral. At once.”

  “If Admiral Lund has been negligent in his command of the force, he will pay dearly.” D’Alvert’s mind was clouded with anger, but there was clarity below it. The supply line had given him a strategic advantage, and had enabled him to take the Confederation by surprise. Invasions always bogged down as fleets moved past supporting range of their bases, and it took time to establish forward facilities on captured worlds. The Union’s true advantage in the war lay not in its numbers, not in the early victories that had pushed the Confederation forces back with such heavy losses. It was the unorthodox system of supply, the simple but brilliant solution D’Alvert himself had been instrumental in creating.

  But every day his fleet was forced to sit idle drained away that hard-won advantage, the edge he’d gained through years of work and trillions of credits in expenditure slipping through his fingers. He’d read the history, and the intel reports. The productive capacity of the Confederation, especially of the worlds of its legendary Iron Belt, was truly awesome. The Confederation was easily diverted in peacetime, its inexplicably weak government bowing almost without exception to calls for funds to be diverted from military expenditures to other, often wasteful, purposes. D’Alvert couldn’t imagine paying mindless heed to the wishes of the masses, of allowing the mongrels in the street to vote for their leaders. Those who couldn’t rise to power existed to serve. It wasn’t his pronouncement…it was that of history. The weak had always been compelled to do the bidding of the strong, as they always would be.

  He knew he had to win the war in one massive offensive. The Union had committed everything it had to the attack, leaving its home systems and other borders dangerously undefended. But three wars against the Confederation had taught a stark lesson. Once the beast was roused, the productive engine of its enemy would outproduce the larger Union. Vessels would stream from the shipyards, fighters
at first, then escorts, and, eventually, even capital ships would be launched in unimaginable numbers. Fear would drive the people of the Confederation to unite, and weapons would pour forth in a torrent the Union couldn’t hope to match.

  D’Alvert knew his history well. The last war had almost been a catastrophe. The Union First had died, and the nation had become divided, rival claimants fighting for power. The Confederation fleets had been strong, victorious, massed on the border. But its citizens’ fear had faded away, and they demanded a cessation to hostilities. In the end, that peace had only cost the Union two of the eight worlds it had conquered years before. An almost insignificant price for the time to rebuild, prepare. And a breathtakingly foolish act by the Confeds, allowing their enemy to escape to fight another day.

  He couldn’t understand the leaders of the Confederation making such a foolish decision, the craven nature that allowed them to cease hostilities even before reclaiming the rest of their own lost systems. He appreciated the productive capacity and wealth of his adversary, but the Confederation and his people disgusted him. They were weak…and they would fall. Whatever it took.

  “Captain, contact Admiral Galt. He is to command the patrol…and he is to relieve Admiral Lund and assume command of the supply flotilla. He is to do whatever is necessary to get those ships here as soon as possible.”

  “Yes, Admiral.”

  D’Alvert knew Lund would have a long list of excuses, but he wasn’t inclined to listen to justifications for failure. If the supply ships had arrived on time, his forces would already be moving against the Confeds. He might have caught them demoralized, low on ordnance, disorganized. Instead, they had more time to reorder their forces, to bring up their own resupply. He still had numbers, but whatever had knocked Lund off schedule had cost him some of his advantage. And he’d see the damned fool stretched out on an electric grid in the sub-levels of Sector Nine headquarters if his incompetence cost him even part of the gain his years of planning had created.

  Nothing was going to stop him now, and he would let no weakness, no hesitation, interfere with whatever was necessary to drive his forces to the ultimate victory. Then, the hated Confederation would be gone, its rich worlds existing to serve the Union. And he would have an open route, straight to the First’s chair.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Briefing Room

  CFS Dauntless

  Arcturon System

  308 AC

  “I want to thank you for shuttling over here, Captain Eaton.” Barron sat at the head of the table, his designated position as both Dauntless’s captain and as the senior Confederation officer present. Nevertheless, despite his unquestioned authority to command the forces present in the system, he was making every effort to underplay his command role, to offer his colleague the maximum amount of respect possible. He knew his authority here had nothing to do with the Barron name, but a lifetime of sensitivity to the preferential treatment he had so often received left him a bit uncomfortable issuing orders to Eaton. He would, of course, when he had to, but he much preferred to discuss tactics with her and gain her genuine support. Besides, he had no idea what to do next.

  “Of course, sir.” Sara Eaton sat just to Barron’s side. The table was large enough to accommodate at least twelve, but Eaton and Barron were the only two present. Unlike Dauntless’s commander, Eaton seemed to have no problem with the command arrangement, or at least, if she did, she was hiding it well. She had stepped gracefully into the role of the respectful subordinate.

  “Resupply and refueling will be completed within the hour. I have ordered the remaining enemy vessels destroyed as soon as the last wave of shuttles is clear. Our respective staffs will have some extra work converting Union ordnance and replacement parts to our own uses, but there is no question we have improved our situation considerably. And all of our vessels are fully refueled.” He glanced over, catching Eaton’s faint nod of acknowledgement. “I believe we must now discuss our next steps.”

  “I agree, sir. There is no doubt we are on the enemy’s supply line…and the convoy we intercepted will surely be missed. Destroying the volume of supplies we did was unquestionably helpful to the war effort, but it seems to me that we cannot stay here, at least not out in the open.”

  “We have both come to the same conclusion, Captain.” He paused, sighing softly. “Or, shall we dispense with the formalities? I’m Tyler.”

  Eaton looked slightly uncomfortable, but after a few seconds it seemed to pass. “Thank you, Tyler. I’m Sara.”

  “So, Sara, what do we do next? It seems to me we have several considerations. What best safeguards our ships and crews? What allows us to provide maximum support to the war effort, as our duty demands? Clearly, these factors may not necessarily point to the same course of action.”

  “I believe we must do everything possible to support the fleet, sir…Tyler. Regardless of the risk. The losses suffered in the early battles have been severe, and we have been forced to abandon many systems. I can’t believe the status of the war is anything short of critical.”

  “Our assessments agree. Our two ships are only a small portion of the navy, but the Confederation needs every resource it has left, including us. My first instinct was to rejoin the fleet. But there is little doubt that the enemy’s main force lies between us and Admiral Winston.” He hesitated. “I do not shy away from the prospect of battle…but there seems to be little advantage in throwing Dauntless and Intrepid away trying to get past thirty or more enemy battleships. I simply don’t see how we can possibly sneak around the Union fleet. A small ship or two might have a chance, but two capital ships?”

  “I believe you’re correct. Even if we were able to stay away from the enemy battleline, it seems impossible to avoid detection. They would have left scanner buoys and probes at the transwarp points. And once they know we’re there, they would respond with a force large enough to overwhelm us.”

  “Which brings us back to the original question. What do we…”

  The door slid open, and Atara Travis came rushing into the room.

  “Atara?” Barron looked up, an anxious expression on his face. He knew his exec wouldn’t have interrupted him, not without good reason.

  “Sir, Lieutenant Varrick and his people have decoded the enemy nav unit.” Travis was as cool as they came, but Barron could see she could barely control her excitement. “They recovered the deployments of the entire enemy invasion force, sir. Forward fleets, garrisons, escorts…everything. As of three days ago.”

  Barron glanced over at Eaton before snapping his eyes back toward Travis. “My compliments to the lieutenant and his team, Commander. That is…impressive news.”

  “It certainly is.” Eaton nodded as she spoke. “Though if we can’t get it to Admiral Winston, it may be wasted.”

  “We may have to try to get through now, whatever the risk.” Barron’s initial excitement was fading. The discovery was of immense tactical significance, but if he couldn’t get it back to the fleet it was valueless.

  “That’s not all, Captain.” Travis extended her arm. Her hand was grasped around a small tablet. “There is information about the enemy’s logistical arrangements…a possible answer to how they could be moving so quickly and staying in supply.”

  “What is it, Commander?” Barron had wracked his brain again and again, but he hadn’t managed to come up with any way the enemy could have done what he knew for certain they had done. It simply took too long to build forward supply and production bases, even given suitable systems. And he’d reviewed the operations reports from Intrepid, scanning every grueling detail of the early defeats the fleet had suffered. It hadn’t been a pretty picture, but one thing was certain. Any production facility capable of producing so much as a milliliter of tritium had been destroyed before the fleet fell back. The Union was fueling its ships somehow, but it wasn’t from captured Confederation supplies or installations.

  “The details are sketchy, sir, and what Lieutenant Varrick was able t
o decode is on this tablet.” She leaned forward and placed the unit on the table. “But it appears the Union has constructed some kind of mobile logistics facility. It is referred to as ‘Supply One.’ Based on what we could discover from the nav unit, it is the nexus of their entire logistical tail.”

  Barron shook his head. “What kind of mobile installation could possibly supply enough fuel and ordnance to sustain a fleet the size of their invasion force? It doesn’t make any sense.” Eaton glanced back and forth between Travis and Barron. “Even if it was twice the size of a capital ship—or ten times—how could something mobile possibly carry enough materials to sustain the kind of forces the Union has thrown at us?”

  The room was silent, his companions clearly as stumped as he was. Finally, Travis spoke. “Sir, I can’t explain, but the nav data seems very clear on this point…and it’s not like we have any other working hypotheses.”

  Barron took a deep breath, staring back at his first officer for a few seconds before responding. “You cut to the heart of it, Commander, as always.” He paused again, a troubled look coming over his face. “Did the nav unit give us a location for this supposed supply base?”

  “Yes, sir. According to the latest update, the base has just been moved forward, to the Varus system.”

  “Varus? That’s just two transits from here.”

  “Yes, sir,” Travis replied. Her tone was somber. Barron understood why. They all knew the third planet of the Varus system was a major provincial hub, a world with several hundred million Confederation citizens. It was one thing to think in terms of retreats and withdrawals, but quite another to be reminded about the people left behind.

  “It seems we have a choice,” Barron said softly. Then he looked back up at Travis. “Please, Commander, have a seat. We must decide on a course of action, and I would have your input.” He looked over at Eaton, wary of any signs his fellow captain objected to inviting his first officer to their command meeting, but there were none.