Revenge of the Ancients: Crimson Worlds Refugees III

by Jay Allan

  “All ships acknowledge, Admiral.” Kip Janz sat at his station, off to the side of Hurley’s command chair. “Should I order them to follow us in?”

  “No,” Hurley said. “We go in reverse order. We’ll land last.”

  Janz nodded. “Yes, Admiral.”

  Hurley knew she was being silly. Landing order didn’t really matter, not with four ships. It wasn’t like she’d put her bird at the end of the line with a dozen squadrons coming in. But it was something, a minor token. The admiral who’d gotten most of her people killed would be the last to come in.

  “Admiral,” Wilder said, turning back toward Hurley as he did. “I’ve got Chief McGraw on the line. He wants to talk to you.”

  Hurley almost smiled. It was…unusual, to say the least for a chief to contact an admiral directly. But if there was a non-com in the navy with the balls to do it, it was Sam McGraw.

  “What is it, Chief?” Hurley didn’t hesitate, she didn’t get hung up on protocol. McGraw was one of the hardest veterans she’d ever known, and if he had something to say to her, she would listen.

  “Admiral, it’s the bay. It’s a shambles, a total wreck. It’d be closed for sure if the only alternative wasn’t leaving you all behind.”

  “Yeah, Chief, I get that. But it is the only alternative to leaving us behind.”

  “Admiral, you need to get your crazy flyboys to take it easy coming in here. They’ve got a quarter the usual clearance…which means if they don’t take it slow—very fucking slow—they’re going to crash. And then anybody behind them is shit out of luck.” McGraw was one of the few non-coms with the grit to swear to an admiral. Hurley knew another type of office might be offended, but she loved it. McGraw was a miserable old cuss, but there was never any doubt he was giving his best…and in the end, that’s all she wanted out of anybody.

  “Alright, Chief, I’ll remind…” Her voice trailed off. She was looking at the display. There was an energy burst, coming from the Z17 warp gate. Her eyes were fixed, unmoving. “Chief, stand by.” She stared, waiting. And then it was there. A red icon. An enemy ship. Coming right toward Midway.

  * * *

  Compton stared at the screen, watching the flashing icon move slowly in from the Z17 warp gate. It was single ship, a Gargoyle according the preliminary scans. But that didn’t matter. Right now it might just as well have been a fleet of Colossuses. Midway didn’t have an operational weapon hot enough to light a candle. The damage control teams were hard at work, but it would be at least a day before they got any of the laser cannons back online.

  He knew what his people were thinking. They were staring at the screens, looking at the distances…from Midway to the Z18 warp gate, and from the new contact to the Midway. They were calculating, trying to determine if the flagship could get to the warp gate and transit before the enemy vessel was able to engage. All but Compton. He already knew. His mind had done the calculations, automatically, almost subconsciously. The Gargoyle would intercept Midway seventy thousand klicks short of the gate. And then the First Imperium vessel would open up on his battered ship. And Compton and his people would die…just before they reached the warp gate and escape.

  He slapped his hand down on the com. He already knew the answer, but he had to ask anyway. “Art, I need some lasers back online. Now.”

  “Impossible, sir.” The voice paused for a second then continued, its tone grimmer. “I know it’s life or death, sir, but there is absolutely no way. We’ll be lucky if I can keep the reactor running so we can at least run for it.”

  “Do what you can, Art,” Compton said, cutting the line. He took a deep breath and held it for a few seconds before exhaling. For fifty years he’d always found a way, a tactic to extricate a trapped force, a stratagem to defeat a superior enemy. But now there was nothing.

  Is this how it ends? A lifetime of war? With total helplessness?

  His mind raced, trying to come up with a way…any way. But there wasn’t one. Midway was doomed.

  He tried to console himself, told himself the sacrifice was worth it, that his people had bought the escape of the fleet with their looming deaths. And he did believe that…but it didn’t make it any easier to accept the price those who’d followed him here were about to pay.

  Terrance Compton had been in difficult fights before, even ones others had called hopeless. In X2, he’d been the only one in the fleet not ready to give up…and his perseverance and skill had gotten his people out of that trap. But now he was done. He knew it, with a chilling certainly. He had no way out.

  “Admiral, I’ve got Admiral Hurley for you, sir.”

  Greta! The fighters. He had a brief flash of hope, but only for an instant. Hurley only had four birds left, and there was no time to rearm them. Another dead end.

  “What is it, Greta?”

  “Admiral, our scanners are picking up…”

  “We’ve got it too, Greta. It’s a Gargoyle. But that’s enough now. More than enough.”

  “Sir…” Her voice was soft, hesitant. “Make a run for it…for the warp gate.”

  “I already did the calculations, Greta. We won’t make it.”

  “Yes you will. I’ll stop the Gargoyle.”

  Compton was silent. Hurley wasn’t an officer prone to empty boasting. “Greta, your people are out of torpedoes. There’s no time to reload…and no chance four fighters can take out a Gargoyle with lasers.” He felt a rush of pride in her…and an uneasiness too. He was beginning to understand where she was going.

  “We have two torpedoes in my bird, Admiral.”

  “Yes…but they’re stuck in your bomb bay.”

  “That doesn’t mean they’re useless, sir.”

  “Greta…” The full impact of terrible clarity was descending on him. “No…”

  “It’s the only way, sir.” Her voice was somber, but there was decisiveness there.

  Compton leaned back in his chair, his mind running wild, trying to think of alternative, anything. But there was nothing.

  “What about your other fighters?” His voice was grim, like death.

  “There’s no time to land them, Admiral. We both know that. And my people do too. They’ve volunteered…they will run interference when we make our run, do their best to cover us.”

  “You’re talking about suicide…twenty people…”

  “Not a bad trade for the hundreds on Midway, sir. Is it? How many times have we discussed the mathematics of war?”

  Compton felt an agony deep inside. No, he couldn’t send more of his people to certain death. And Greta Hurley…she’d been a close friend for years, one of his inner circle. The last of the senior officers, save Erika West. It seemed unreal to him. Had it come to this? His old comrade, the fleet’s celebrated fighter corps commander…was she really going to crash her ship into the enemy Gargoyle?

  He felt paralyzed. He knew there was no other way, that Hurley and her people would die anyway if the Leviathan destroyed Midway. But for a moment, he thought he had reached the end of his ability to contemplate such horrors. Then Hurley let him off the hook, at least somewhat.

  “Terrance, we’re going to do this no matter what. Send us off with your blessing and not as mutineers. Please.”

  Compton sat still, his eyes watery. He was trapped, and he knew it. “Very well, Greta, my friend. You have my blessing…and the gratitude of everyone on Midway. God go with you and those who serve with you.”

  “Thank you, sir. For this…and for so many other things. It’s been an honor serving with you. Goodbye, Admiral Compton.”

  Compton struggled to force the words from his throat. “Goodbye, Admiral Hurley.”

  * * *

  “Alright, John…are you ready.” Hurley’s tone was soft, sad.

  “Yes, Admiral…I’m ready.”

  “I think Greta will do now, John.” She glanced over at Kip Janz and the rest of her crew. “That goes for all of you.”

  “Thank you,
Greta,” Wilder said grimly.

  “Then take us in, John.”

  “Yes, Adm…Greta. The other ships are in position thirty klicks ahead.” Thirty kilometers was nothing in space combat. But the three other fighters would draw enemy fire, and shield Hurley’s ship. With a little luck—an odd use of the word perhaps—her fighter would get through the enemy defenses…and smash into the hull at high speed. The kinetic energy released, and the explosive force from the plasma torpedoes would be devastating. Enough, certainly, to take out a Gargoyle. As long as her bird didn’t get picked off on the way in.

  “Kip, is everything ready?”

  “Yes, sir.” He hesitated. “Yes, Greta. I’ve got the reactor’s containment system hooked into the plasma torpedo triggers. When the torpedoes blow, the fusion core will go too. It should be perfectly timed with our impact.”

  “Very well.” She could already feel the 3g pressing against her as Wilder accelerated toward the enemy ship. It would take about twenty minutes to get there, assuming they managed to get through the big ship’s defenses.

  She flipped on the com, opening the channel to all of her ships. “Okay, people…we all know what we’re about to do…and we know that this is our last mission. We’ve all been living on borrowed time, ever since the X2 gate was blown, and we were trapped. I want you to know, in all my career, I have never been prouder of men and women, than I am of the nineteen of you. We are warriors, all of us, and death is part of our creed. So, I say to you all now, if we are marked to die, we could not do it in better company…nor in a better cause, that of saving our friends and comrades.”

  She flipped off the com, sucking in a deep breath, and fighting to hold in her emotion. Wilder was flying the ship, Janz was checking his handiwork on the torpedoes. But she had nothing to do…and her mind wandered, back through the years. Her days at the Academy, her first assignment. The great battles of the Third Frontier War, the relentless campaigns led by Augustus Garret and Terrance Compton that brought the Alliance from the brink of defeat to total victory.

  I’ve come farther than I’d imagined possible, lived a life that young lieutenant could hardly have dreamed in her wildest fantasies. And I’ve known good people. Friends.

  Some of those comrades are waiting for you, men and women lost…long ago, and recently too.

  She felt the fear, the pain. She didn’t want to die. She wanted to live, to stay in the fight…to get back and see what awaited them on Shangri la. But she knew it was not to be. And if she was fated to die here, this was how she’d always imagined her death.

  She felt a pang for Wilder…and Janz and the others in the four doomed ships. They would die heroes, covered in glory. But Hurley knew glory was a poor replacement for life.

  She wondered what they were thinking, the others in her doomed attack. Were they remembering families, people they had already left behind? Were they fighting back the fear, steeling themselves to die as they’d imagined they would, up in arms and shaking their fists at the enemy?

  She looked down at the display. They were entering the enemy’s defensive perimeter. Rockets were detonating around them. One of the covering fighters disappeared from the display, the victim of a nuclear explosion less than five hundred meters away. But the others pushed on.

  Then another ship was gone, and her fighter pressed on, its sole remaining defender just ahead, blasting bravely toward the enemy. Half her people were gone, dead…but the rest continued forward. They had a job to do.

  She glanced down at the display, watching Midway blast toward the warp gate, and she felt a wave of satisfaction, a new burst of courage. Fortune go with you, Terrance Compton…

  The last escort disappeared, blown to bits by an enemy laser turret. But they were almost inside the defense perimeter. One more minute…and it would all be over.

  The fighter shook hard, and went into a vicious roll. Structural supports fell, smashing into equipment. Kip Janz jerked upright, shaking around as a deadly blast of electricity took him. A girder smashed into the back of Hurley’s chair, severing her harness and sending her to the floor.

  No…not this close. Midway…we can’t fail.

  She was in pain…her arm, her legs. She had broken bones for sure, and every breath was a torment. She forced herself up to her hands and knees, and that’s when she saw. John Wilder, on the floor next to his pilot’s station, his face a mask of blood. He was dead, she knew that immediately. She turned, painfully, looking around the cockpit. They were all dead. She was the only one left.

  She struggled to her feet, staggering forward, toward the pilot’s chair.

  I…can’t…fail…

  She plopped down in the seat, yelping in pain from a dozen injuries. She tried to focus, to clear her mind. The fighter was heading for the enemy vessel…almost, at least. It looked like the Gargoyle had detected the danger…and it was trying to alter its vector.

  She grabbed the throttle, veered to match the enemy’s course change.

  No way…no way you get away from me…

  She felt the fatigue, the exhaustion. The agony was almost unbearable. But she refused to give up. It was pure will, her indomitable spirit against fear, pain, weakness.

  The Gargoyle was close…just a few more seconds. She hoped Janz’ jury-rigging had held…but even if it hadn’t, the fighter was moving at almost 0.02c, and the kinetic energy the impact would release was almost incalculable.

  She pushed on the throttle, increasing the thrust. The pain had been bad before, but now, at 4g, it was utter torment. She screamed, her shouts of pain echoing in the small cockpit. Her mind reeled, and tears streamed down her cheeks. But her hands held firm on the stick, increasing the thrust. Five gees. Six.

  She felt as if her body was being torn apart…pain like she’d never imagined. Let go of the throttle, her mind screamed futilely. But she held on…somehow.

  “This is for all our people you killed, you bastards! My friends, my comrades.” She took one last agonizing breath…and then she thrust the throttle forward full.

  Chapter Seventeen

  AS Saratoga

  System X108

  The Fleet: 82 ships (+2 Leviathans), 19,989 crew

  West watched as the enemy ships closed on her fleet. Her ships had retreated abruptly, and their sudden withdrawal had caught the First Imperium fleet by surprise. The human vessels had mostly broken contact, at least for a short while, and she knew the damage control teams were working feverishly to put that time to good use.

  All except the ships that had serious damage to their engines. They were still trying to get back…with the enemy on their heels. The two vessels whose engines had been knocked out totally hadn’t lasted more than a few minutes on their own, and she had watched the display silently as each ship died, along with almost 350 of her people…men and women she had abandoned.

  West stared at the display, watched as the enemy approached. The First Imperium AIs had no doubt determined the humans were beaten, that they had retreated because they were broken, fleeing for their lives. And she ached for the moment they would realize they had walked into a trap…that their destruction was at hand.

  She knew it was foolish to superimpose human thoughts on the First Imperium AIs. As far as her people had been able to tell—and Cutter had done a lot of research—the control units of the First Imperium fleet had no self-preservation directives, at least not as such. Sacrificing an entire fleet to achieve an end was a perfectly valid strategy to them, one they wouldn’t hesitate to employ if it made sense.

  The Regent, she suspected, was different. Almost certainly so. Indeed, it had identified humanity as a threat and launched a war of genocide to protect itself. That wasn’t the thought process of a sane thinking machine. And it certainly exhibited a self-preservation initiative.

  “All ships in position, Admiral. Enemy forces are pursuing. They will reenter weapons range in…approximately six minutes.”

  And they will e
nter Cutter’s range in three…

  “All ships stand by. Prepare to fire as the enemy moves within range.” If it comes to that. West wasn’t a very trusting person—she respected most peoples’ competence as little as their loyalty—but for reasons she couldn’t fully explain, she was sure Cutter had the situation in hand. The scientist was the smartest person she’d ever met, and when she’d heard of his exploits, how he’d stood and defended a group of wounded Marines, facing almost certain death in the process, she realized he was no pompous academic. This was a man worth trusting.

  She glanced down at the screen. Less than two minutes. She felt the time passing slowly, each tortured second reluctantly giving way to the next. She knew the intelligences on those ships weren’t beings, that they wouldn’t die in panic and shock and pain when Cutter opened up on them. But she let herself imagine that anyway.

  One minute. One more minute, and we’ll see what our forefathers left here for us…

  * * *

  Beverly Jones leaned forward, her hand tight around the throttle. She could hear her heart beating, like a drum in her ears. There was sweat on her neck, dripping down from her hairline. In somewhat less than clinical terms, she was scared shitless. Not just of the enemy, but of the almost forty fighters and two hundred crew under her command. She knew she was about to get a lot of them killed, and she was struggling to deal with that, to shove the doubts aside and do her job.

  My job by default…how did Admiral Hurley and Mariko do this so effortlessly?

  No, she realized. Not effortlessly. They had their doubts, their fears…but they handled them. And I will too.

  “Okay, people, Admiral West is counting on us. Let’s not let her down.” She took a deep breath, and then she leaned closer to the com unit. “Attack!”