Cauldron of Fire (Blood on the Stars Book 5)

by Jay Allan

  I’m running out of time…

  She took her eyes off the enemy in front of her, just for a second, glancing over to the mid-range display. There was another fighter, on a direct trajectory toward her. She’d have known it was him, even if her AI hadn’t confirmed the tracer readings. The other pilot, the one she hadn’t been able to forget, was coming for her. Coming to save his comrade.

  He is doing exactly what I would do…

  She shook her head. She wanted to meet this pilot now, to fight the final duel between them here. But that was impossible.

  She fired again, closer this time. Her quarry was enormously skilled, but she had him. Her eyes flashed to the scanner, to the position of the approaching Confed fighter. She had enough time to finish her current target off. The Confed ace was still too far to be a serious threat.

  But then you have to break off. You have to pull away before you get tied down in another fight here.

  She wanted to stay. With every fiber of her being, she wanted to fight that battle now. Pride was on the line, and, perhaps more pointedly, the knowledge that this pilot was out there, that sooner or later she would have to face him, had weighed heavily on her. She was scared—something difficult for her to admit, even to herself—and the longer their duel was delayed, the more those feelings ate away at her.

  Enough. You have duties waiting for you.

  Her eyes narrowed, and her hand tightened around the controls, her finger pushing down slowly…

  Chapter Sixteen

  CFS Dauntless

  Tarantum System

  Near the Porea Transit Point

  Year 311 AC

  “My compliments to your people, Lieutenant Federov. Their performance was nothing less than brilliant.” Barron had felt compelled to congratulate Federov immediately. He’d just watched six of her people, the ones who’d managed to get their craft landed in moderately good condition to rearm and refuel, cut through the enemy bombers like the wrath of God. The half dozen fighters had destroyed five bombers outright, and they had damaged and turned back a remarkable eleven more. Barron watched on his screen as the two surviving ships continued their now almost hopeless attack run.

  He couldn’t help but admire the courage and dedication of the Alliance pilots, but that wasn’t going to stop him from blowing them to bits. The chance of a mere two ships getting through to launch range was pretty poor, especially against a roster of gunners like Dauntless’s. Barron wasn’t prone to overconfidence, but he’d also expected his batteries to face a lot more than two targets.

  He turned his head, looking toward the far end of the display. Illustrious was facing greater immediate danger, though even her inexperienced squadrons had rallied to hit the approaching bombers hard. They hadn’t shattered the attacking formations the way Dauntless’s pilots had, but they’d done far better than they had before.

  This is where heroes are forged. Barron didn’t want to think about the losses Illustrious’s wings had suffered, but he couldn’t avoid the realization that half the battleship’s fighters had been destroyed or damaged.

  “Commander…Red squadron is to move toward Illustrious and do anything they can to intercept the approaching bombers.” Barron hadn’t done detailed calculations…he didn’t know if the Reds who had just performed so well would be able to adjust their courses and reach Illustrious in time. He wasn’t even sure if Dauntless would reach Illustrious in time. But his gut told him it would be close…and, regardless, it was all he could do. The screen was clear of fresh attackers, and the newly-launched Reds had plenty of fuel, even if they had expended their missiles already.

  “Yes, Commander.” Travis relayed the order. “Projected one minute thirty seconds until remaining two bombers are in launch range. Four minutes forty-five seconds until we enter firing range of the squadrons attacking Illustrious.”

  Barron leaned back, taking a breath. There was nothing to do now but wait. Wait and see if his gunners could pick off the last two attackers…and if his efforts had been enough to save Illustrious.

  * * *

  Stockton watched in horror as Timmons’s ship took another hit. He was sure his comrade was dead, that the purpose of his efforts to intervene had morphed hideously from saving a friend to avenging one. But the dot on the scanner, the electronic avatar of Timmons’s fighter, didn’t blink out of existence as he expected.

  He checked the readings. Power dead, radiation leaking all around. The fighter was done, little more than a floating chunk of debris, with perhaps half its mass remaining. But somehow it was still there.

  Stockton felt a burst of rage, tempered by fragile rays of hope. Could Timmons still be alive?

  He was shaking with anger, his mind focused on one thing…to chase this Alliance pilot down. To blow that fighter to bits. He knew it was the same enemy. He had no evidence, no way to prove it, but he didn’t have a doubt. This pilot would keep killing his people unless he did something about it. He had to end this.

  You don’t have nearly enough fuel…

  The Alliance bird must be low too, he answered himself, with more determination than sense.

  He’d envisioned a fight right there, but now he could see the enemy pulling away, blasting at something close to full thrust.

  You coward…

  But even as the thought entered his mind, he knew this pilot was no coward. It was more than fear driving this adversary to evade combat right now. It was discipline.

  And what about Warrior? If there’s any chance…

  “Warrior, respond. Warrior, this is Raptor, please respond.” Nothing but static.

  His ship is badly shot up…he could be alive, without comm…

  Stockton imagined his comrade, floating alive, in the ruins of his cockpit, desperately trying to contact Dauntless with his comm and transponders dead.

  Fantasy. You’re just trying to tell yourself he could be alive.

  He stared at the screen, watching the Alliance ship accelerate away. If he was going after his enemy, it had to be now. He knew he might not have enough fuel, but every fiber of his being cried out to him to try. It was time to destroy this adversary.

  Before more of my people die…

  But he couldn’t get the image of Timmons out of his mind, trapped, cut off, without even the means to call for help. And your people…you think the words, but do you understand the meaning? They need you here, not chasing a vendetta.

  His hands were clenched hard, pale white from the tight grip on the controls. He was conflicted, a battle raging in his head, his heart. He wanted to chase down his enemy…but he knew what he had to do. Vengeance would have to wait. The showdown would come another day.

  “Warrior, do you read me?” He loosened his grip on the controls, letting his ship’s thrust drop off. His vector was close to Timmons’s, and he angled the throttle now, adjusting his course to match.

  The dot on the scanner blinked slightly as he got closer. Whatever was left of Warrior’s ship, it was still putting out trace energy. Stockton had thought the fighter was completely dead, but now, closer, his scanners were definitely reading something.

  C’mon, Warrior…

  He brought his ship around, matching vectors and increasing velocity, coming up behind Timmons’s crippled ship.

  “Rap…th…you…”

  Stockton’s face tightened as he listened to the comm. Was he hearing words in there somewhere…or was it just the static?

  “Warrior, is that you? Do you read?”

  Another blast of static. Stockton looked down and exhaled hard. I must have been hearing things.

  Then: “Raptor…do…read…”

  “Warrior, I read you.” Stockton slammed his hands down on the control panel, a wave of excitement taking him as he recognized his comrade’s faint words. “I read you, Warrior. Relax. I’ll get the retrieval boat out here now.”

  “Roger th…Raptor.” A pause, and a burst of static. Then, “Thanks…friend. Thanks.”

  Stockto
n smiled as he dialed up Dauntless’s flight control line. Yes, we are friends, Warrior. I wonder when the hell that happened?

  * * *

  “Both targets destroyed, Commodore.” Travis’s words were unnecessary, but he didn’t begrudge her making a report she clearly enjoyed so much. Barron had been watching the action, his eyes focused on the screen as Dauntless’s aft starboard batteries opened fire. He’d been tense, despite his confidence in his people, but once the firing started, it was over in less than a minute. The first bomber went down almost immediately, hit head on and almost completely vaporized. Barron had initially thought it was the first shot that hit, but the AI confirmed it was the second battery to open fire.

  The second bomber evaded several salvoes, before a glancing hit tore off a large section of its tail. The ship had retained some maneuvering power, but it was clearly too damaged to continue the attack run, and it turned about and tried to flee. Barron almost ordered his guns to stand down, but something held his tongue. An instant later, a pair of turrets fired almost simultaneously, blasting the Alliance ship to atoms.

  Barron didn’t like gunning down crippled enemies, but he hadn’t told his batteries to stand down either. Honor and mercy were all well and good, but there was no question that anyone his people allowed to escape would come back at them. Would kill more of his people. These were Alliance warriors…and if he didn’t crush them when he had the chance, he knew he had no hope of beating them.

  “Very well,” he said, gesturing toward Travis. “That’s our last immediate threat…so let’s focus on Illustrious. We’ve got to get her through this.” He could see the bombers moving directly toward the other battleship. Illustrious had a few handfuls of fighters, perhaps a dozen in total, lined up in a disorganized and scarttered defensive position. It was more than Dauntless had had defending it, in numbers at least if not in skill and experience. But the bomber forces heading toward Illustrious had half a dozen interceptors out in front and, as Barron watched in horror, the experienced Alliance fighters ripped into Illustrious’s green pilots.

  He winced as a pair of Confed fighters vanished one after the other. Illustrious’s squadrons were paying a fearsome price, but they were still in the fight.

  “Forward defensive batteries entering range of attacking bombers in twenty seconds, sir.”

  Barron nodded silently, his eyes fixed on the display. His batteries would get some shots at long range before those bombers launched, but it wasn’t going to be enough. Illustrious was operational again, to a point, but he knew how fragile her repairs were, and how badly damaged the ship actually was. She couldn’t take too many more hits from plasma torpedoes, and unless his six fighter pilots could get there in time—and get past the defending interceptors—at least a dozen ships were going to get to launch range. And with her engines maxing out at thirty percent power, Illustrious and her green commander weren’t going to evade that many projectiles.

  “Entering…”

  “Open fire,” Barron interrupted. There wasn’t a second to spare.

  He watched as Dauntless’s defensive turrets opened up with an almost synchronized broadside. He nodded his head in satisfaction at the readiness of his people, but he wasn’t surprised when the shots all came up misses. His ship was still at extreme range for hitting targets as small as individual bombers, and even his skilled gunners were pushed to their limits.

  “All batteries, focus on the rear wave of bombers.” It was counter-intuitive. Most gunnery protocols specified firing at the bombers closest to the target. But his people weren’t going to get them all no matter what, and they had a better chance of honing in on the ships that would be in range longer.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Barron watched the lopsided fight as Illustrious’s ragtag line of interceptors fought against their more skilled and experienced Alliance adversaries. The fight was far from an even matchup, but a small cheer went up on Dauntless’s bridge when the second Alliance fighter in ten seconds vanished. The raw Confeds were losing two or three for every one they killed, but they held their ground and fought hard.

  Barron’s respect for the young pilots grew, but he also realized the dogfight was serving the Alliance force’s purpose, drawing off Illustrious’s combat space patrol and opening the way for the bombers to get through.

  The six Red squadron fighters zipped in from the edge of the close range display, blasting at full acceleration directly toward the Alliance bombers. The fighters were in moving fast, close to 0.005c now, which meant they’d be in range of the attack ships for less than a minute before they overshot their targets. The bombing run would be long over before they could decelerate and return.

  Barron watched, counting down. The half-dozen fighters were perfectly formed up, like a deadly blade slicing through space toward the enemy bombers. Illustrious’s ships were suffering in their exchange, but they had managed to pin down all the enemy interceptors, which meant that Federov’s six Reds could focus solely on the bombers.

  The fighters zipped into range, and almost immediately, their lasers opened up, strafing the cumbersome but fast-moving attack ships. The first blast was at long range, and only one shot scored a hit, a glancing blow that was nevertheless enough to knock one ship out of the battle.

  The interceptors fired again and again as they zoomed into close range, obliterating two bombers and damaging three others. Then, almost in an instant, it seemed, they were past the formation. Barron smiled as they cut their thrust and spun around in almost perfect unison, bringing their lasers to bear on the targets they were rapidly leaving behind. Another three bombers went down.

  Federov’s pilots had done an amazing job, far better than he could have expected. But he still wasn’t sure it would be enough. Nine bombers remained on target, and they were going to launch any second.

  His eyes were on the display as Illustrious’s gunners got one—and his own people hit two more—but then the remaining six jerked slightly on the screen, and a smaller dot moved forward from each bomber.

  “Six torpedoes launched,” Travis said, her tone attesting that she knew how needless the announcement was.

  Barron’s stomach tensed. Illustrious wasn’t going to dodge them all. Not six. Not shot up like she was, limping along on less than one-third thrust.

  The next thirty seconds seemed to stretch out, almost without end. The tiny dots streaked across the display, and Barron stared as Illustrious fired her thrust, blasting straight ahead with all her wounded engines could give. A pair of torpedoes zipped right by, one so close he was sure it had hit until he saw the speck of light emerge on the far side of the battleship.

  A third weapon missed an instant later, as the big warship abruptly changed its vector and fired its engines again. Barron could see a fourth was also going to miss…but the other two slammed into Illustrious’s side, one right after the other.

  Barron stared, aghast. The bridge was silent, every pair of eyes bolted to one screen or another, waiting for an update. The seconds passed, slowly, agonizingly, and Barron realized he was holding his breath. He let out a loud exhale, even as images went through his mind, scenes of Illustrious splitting in two, torn apart by massive internal explosions. But as he took a deep breath, and then another, the small blue icon remained on the screen. Illustrious was still there. She was dead in space again, and her side was wracked with explosions. Barron couldn’t imagine the suffering, the number of her spacers lying dead, wounded, struggling to escape from shattered compartments. But there were numbers next to the icon, a small column of blue figures attesting to the fact that the ship retained detectable energy production. She was still transmitting, at least from her ID transponders. And, an instant later, Travis turned toward Barron, a smile on her face.

  “I’ve got Commander Hachet for you, sir.”

  “On the main screen, Commander.”

  Dauntless’s main comm display lit up. A man in a torn uniform stared back at Dauntless’s bridge crew. He had a long cut
down the side of his face, with a small crust of mostly-dried blood tracking its length. The air was hazy with smoke behind him, and the sounds of several klaxons rang in the background. He looked half in shock, but he was standing in front of the battleship’s command chair.

  “Status report, Commander.” Barron was nodding slightly, his approval of how this desk officer had handled his initiation into the ranks of combat officers.

  “It’s bad, sir. We’re on emergency power. Reactor B is still operating, but at less than ten percent. Our power transmission lines are torn to bits, and landing bays beta and gamma are hopeless wrecks. Internal comm is spotty, but mostly operative. And I think we can have alpha bay open in half an hour.”

  “That’s good news, Commander.” He wasn’t sure he’d really characterize it as good, but it wasn’t the worst it could have been, and for now he was willing to call that a victory. “Casualties?”

  Hachet’s face dropped. “I don’t know, sir. We’ve got a lot of areas cut off…and a lot of people…trapped.” A pause. Then: “They’re bad, sir.”

  “I know it’s hard, son.” When the hell did you get old enough to call other officers ‘son’? “Focus on the people who are still alive, Commander. You brought them through this far, but they still need you.” Barron took a deep breath, holding it for a few seconds. “The dead will wait.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Barron wasn’t sure how much good his words did for Hachet. It had taken some time, and no small number of casualties, before Barron himself had been able to compartmentalize his thoughts effectively. Hachet seemed like a good officer, a good man. And Barron knew that meant he was likely torturing himself.

  “Stay on your damage control, Commander. Power and maneuver are most important…that and getting at least one bay operational.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And, Commander?”

  “Yes, Commodore?”

  “You did a good job here. Your people were lucky to have you.”