Crimson Worlds Successors: The Complete Trilogy

by Jay Allan

  Garret had been only too ready to agree. Darius suspected it had taken all the old admiral had to pull his fleet back from Armstrong, to save the irreplaceable ships and abandon the Marines, and he could almost feel the relief pouring over the comm line when the decision was made to go back. Darius didn’t know Garret all that well, but he was extremely familiar with the great admiral’s campaigns. It didn’t take much to realize Garret didn’t like running, and damned sure not when doing so left allies behind, at the mercy of the enemy.

  Darius’s study had told him one other thing…whatever Augustus Garret had to do to gain the victory, he did. Whatever the cost. He’d read about Garret’s actions at the end of the First Imperium War, how he’d trapped half his fleet—with his best friend in command—to close off the warp gate leading to enemy territory. There had been no choice, Darius knew that well enough, and he had no doubt he would have done the same, but it made him respect the admiral, more even than he might have anyway.

  The plan hadn’t come to him until later, and when he’d first suggested it to Garret, he’d gotten every bit of resistance he’d expected. But he’d argued his point, explained his rationale, and finally, sounding as though he’d tasted something bad, Garret agreed. The Marine fleet, all the ships under his command, the larger of the two forces, if not the most modern, or necessarily the stronger, would stay back. The Eagles would transit into Armstrong’s system and attack the Black Flag forces, as though they’d responded to a distress signal and blundered in, unaware of the vast size of the besieging fleet.

  Darius wanted the enemy thinking they had his people, that they could crush his fleet by sheer force of numbers. Darius knew Black Eagles were more than numbers, and he was sure his people could put up one hell of a fight, if he concentrated his forces, and tried to defeat the enemy units piecemeal. But that was exactly what they weren’t going to do.

  Darius’s two wings would take on the main enemy forces, outnumbered ten to one or more in some spots, while his center pressed on directly for the planet. The Marines had to be desperate by now. He knew enough about ground combat to understand they’d be low on ammo, and probably food too…the enemy using its superior numbers to hem them in, collapse their flanks. Darius knew how good his father was, the kind of fight Erik Cain would give the enemy. But he also knew General Cain and his Marines would go down this time, unless help got there in time. And Darius’s center was escorting his assault transports, and the entire Black Eagles strike force. If the Black Flag wanted a ground battle, he would give them one…one they would never forget. Regardless of what it took to get his people there.

  The plan called for Garret to wait…to wait far longer, he suspected, than the legendary admiral would find easy to do. Then, if Darius’s plan worked, his ships would come streaming through just as the Black Flag forces were converging to finish the Eagles. All hell would break lose, and the battle would turn into a wild melee, groups of ships scattered all over the system…and, finally, Commodore Allegre leading the center Eagles force back from the planet, with any luck, enough to turn the tide and secure the victory.

  It was risky, some might say reckless, but it was the only way that offered any reasonable chance at all of saving the Marines.

  Darius’s eyes were fixed on the screens, watching as the two groups, each of four battleships, plus every smaller support vessel the Eagles’ fleet had been able to put into space, struggled to engage the massive forces pushing down on them. Space combat wasn’t two dimensional like ground warfare, and ‘holding back’ an enemy was more of a general term than a literal one. There was nothing a ship could do to prevent another from zipping right by, but there were practical ways to attempt to defend areas of space like an army holding ground. For example, a battleship could position itself so it’s weapons came to bear on the enemy vessel as it exposed its rear to fire.

  The Eagle ships on the wings were executing almost perfectly, but they were too outnumbered to hold. Each of them was quickly surrounded by three or four times their number, and still more enemy ships streamed through the gaps, pursuing Darius’s rapidly moving attack force.

  Darius knew the enemy could never catch his ships, not at their current velocity. But his vessels couldn’t continue to move so quickly, not if they intended to land ground forces on Armstrong. Even at maximum deceleration, he’d have to start soon, and then the enemy forces would have to make a choice. Maintain their own acceleration, zipping by Darius’s ships, and Armstrong…or decelerating along with the Eagles. Either way, Darius was betting he’d get his people on the ground, just. His ships were tough enough to endure a single attack run if the enemy maintained its acceleration, and if the enemy did decelerate, it would take them more time to close. It wouldn’t be enough for any other military force in Occupied Space to execute a full combat landing, but his Black Eagles could make it work. Barely.

  Darius stood up slowly. It wasn’t easy to stand with Eagle Eleven’s engines blasting as they were. He turned toward Teller’s station. “You’ve got the fleet, Erik,” he said calmly.

  Teller looked horrified. “Darius, you can’t…”

  “That’s my father down there, Erik. And my mother, too.” He didn’t say anything else. He didn’t have to.

  He walked across the bridge toward the bank of elevators. No instructions, no last minute directions on how to approach the planet or how to deal with the enemy. Darius Cain trusted very few people to any degree at all, and only the sheerest few with his life and the lives of his Eagles. Erik Teller was at the top of that miniscule list.

  Darius’s mind was already in the bay. On his armor, the landing…and what he would find on the surface.

  On his parents, and on the desperate race to save them and the rest of the Marines.

  Chapter 23

  LZ “Aerie”

  Planet Armstrong, Gamma Pavonis III

  Earthdate: 2321 AD (36 Years After the Fall)

  Darius stood in the center of the landing zone, watching his Eagles stream out of the sleek landing craft that had brought them down to the very edge of the battle. Most landings were conducted away from the main area of fighting, giving an invading force time to emerge from their ships and form up before they could be engaged. It was a virtual rule of war…an attack force didn’t land in the teeth of direct enemy fire.

  It was a rule Darius Cain had just broken. He’d brought his people down right into the teeth of enemy resistance, almost directly on top of their main battle line. He suspected most people would call the operation ‘crazy,’ but like all his other insanities, it had a grounding of solid logic behind it. First, it gave him the advantage of surprise. If he’d assessed one thing in his encounters with the Black Flag so far, it was a decided lack of military creativity. They were a force that operated in most ways, ‘by the book.’ It almost seemed as though someone with millions of soldiers and no understanding of war had relied on a manual to plan out a campaign. They followed the book well, and that tended to make them competent and capable, but to an adversary like Darius Cain, it also made them predictable.

  The Eagle landers were heavily armed and armored, and they laid down a heavy bombardment on the enemy position as they came in, enough, at least, to disrupt most of the return fire. Darius had lost four landers on the way down, and every one of those hurt, but in terms of overall losses, it had gone better than he’d dared to hope.

  Now his soldiers were coming out of their ships, armed and ready. The lead elements were going into battle within minutes, if not seconds. Darius knew his landers would continue to take damage from the fire raging all around the LZ, but again, it was a risk he’d considered and accepted. The Eagles already on the ground would be on the enemy positions before the still-arriving ships took too much damage. His warriors had won their reputations through audacious behavior, by engaging in tactics others shied away from, and he wasn’t about to stop now.

  He moved toward the front, followed, as always, by the detachment of the Eagles’ mo
st experienced veterans, the guard Erik Teller had formed to keep an eye on their sometimes too aggressive general. The Eagles’ commander had resisted, to a point, but Teller had insisted, to the point of threatening to resign if Darius didn’t accept at least some kind of bodyguard. Darius had been pretty sure his second in command was bluffing, but he wasn’t about to risk the only other officer he really trusted to stand in his place, not to mention his best friend, so he’d reluctantly agreed…after negotiating down the size of the detachment.

  It was no mystery why Teller had been so determined to do what he could to protect his friend. Darius often drifted toward the front, for a variety of reasons, including the fact he simply did not like being the kind of general who led from behind. Some of his reasons might have lacked compelling military justification for risking the life of the commander-in-chief, but now it was different. He had people to find, to save…assuming they were even still alive. His father, in particular, who from all Darius had been told over the years, was no less likely to be in the thick of the fighting than his son. If his parents were still out there, holding out, he was going to find them and make damned sure they stayed that way. And whether he was in time to save his parents or not, the Marines were his allies, and he had to come to their aid before they were overwhelmed and destroyed.

  He swung his head back and forth, watching his Eagles snap into formation and advance, under scattered fire the entire time. The enemy had been surprised by his aggressive landing, and they’d only managed to respond in a disordered and haphazard manner, as he’d anticipated. If the enemy had been ready, if they’d responded and hit his lead elements with everything they had, his gamble could have ended in disaster. But for all the strengths of the Black Flag, tactical creativity wasn’t one of them.

  He looked back and forth as he moved forward. He was surrounded by the troopers of the Black Regiment. The Blacks had been his first unit, though they’d been a company then, and only later a battalion, and they’d given the ‘black’ to Black Eagles, when his army’s name became more commonly known. When the Eagles expanded, the Blacks remained the senior formation, though Darius had to admit, Cyn Kuragina’s White Regiment had become damned near as good if not their outright equals.

  Darius had always believed in having an elite reserve. He’d studied every similar force, from the Spartiates of ancient Greece to Napoleon’s Old Guard, and he was convinced of the utility of having an intensely reliable, last ditch force to throw into the battle…though until the Black Flag came along, his people had rarely been challenged enough to put the theory to the test. Now, however, he was going against that maxim, at least in that he was throwing his senior troops in first. Time was of the essence. Any chance to save the Marines—to save his parents—relied on cutting through the enemy formation and throwing their entire army into hopeless disorder as quickly as possible.

  The fire was increasing in intensity as he moved forward, and he could see his people were taking casualties. He knew the forward services units had just landed, under fire just as the combat forces, and that even now, they’d be setting up the field hospital and aid stations. Darius understood how to generate loyalty from his soldiers, and ensuring they knew they’d be cared for no matter what, whether it was regular rations or medical care when they were wounded, was a big part of that. He’d long considered his thoughts on the matter to be purely mercenary, intended to manipulate his soldiers, to get the best service he could from them. But now, as he watched the first of them fall, he knew it was far more than that. His devotion to the Eagles was as genuine as their loyalty to him. He’d first truly realized that when almost all of them had elected to stay with him to fight the Black Flag, despite the lack of tangible rewards, and the likelihood the fight would be a difficult and brutal one.

  It was one thing to retain and attract people when the rewards were great. He’d had a hundred applications for every available slot in the Eagles over the years, probably more. Service with his private army had been a virtual guarantee of wealth, and the superiority of his soldiers had kept casualty rates relatively low. But there were no rewards to be had now, at least not tangible ones. All this war—which was already being called Black vs. Black, despite the fact that the Eagles were only one component of the coalition—was likely to offer was death and suffering. Darius had been attracted to the mercenary trade expressly because the relationship between fighter and paymaster was so clearly defined, so unencumbered by emotional baggage and the kind of manufactured patriotism governments used to control their citizens. He didn’t think much of people in general, and his powerful cynicism made it difficult for him to form emotional bonds. But, now he realized his connection with the Eagles ran deep.

  “Activate comm…try to contact any Marine forces.” He snapped out the order to his AI. He didn’t think it was likely he could get through the jamming, not with just his suit’s power, but it was worth a try.

  “Negative, General. Interference is too great.”

  “Keep trying.” The landing forces still coming in had heavy auxiliary power units. If he hadn’t hooked up with the Marines by the time they were set up, there was a good chance they could power a message through. The Marines might not be able to get a response back, but at least he’d be able to direct them to link up with his forces.

  “Alright Black Regiment…we all know how good you are,” he said after he flipped the comm to the Blacks’ channel. “Let’s show these conditioned zombies just who the Black Eagles are. Let them learn what every other mercenary company in Occupied Space already knows.” He could hear the responses, the sounds of hundreds of his people beginning to cheer. Then, he added, “I hope you don’t mind if I go into this fight with you. Because this is where I belong, surrounded by my Eagles, and driving the enemy straight to hell!” A wave of cheers burst out on the comm. The Eagles were ready for battle.

  * * * * *

  “We haven’t been able to get through the jamming, General. But we’re getting preliminary reports that the new arrivals appear to be engaging the Black Flag forces.”

  Erik Cain glanced at the communications officer and then over at Gilson. “It’s the Black Eagles.”

  “You can’t be sure of that, Erik,” she said, clearly trying to remain cautious.

  Cain understood, and he usually thought the same way. But not this time. He’d watched the precision of the operation, the apparent discipline of the landing troops. He’d never seen a force come down so close to hostile troops, not even Marines. If those troops weren’t Black Flag reinforcements—and it certainly didn’t look like they were—they had to be the Eagles.

  Besides…he could feel his son out there. It didn’t make any sense, not really, but it was true nevertheless. He’d known all along, on some level, that Darius would come.

  “It’s the Black Eagles, Cate.” A pause. “We have to attack. Now.”

  Gilson looked over at Cain. “Erik…” She paused. Cain knew what she was thinking, that what he was proposing was risky. He’d bought time with his wild attack days before, threw the enemy into disorder that slowed their operations. But the cost had been high, in casualties and supplies, and now, after weeks of sustained battle, the Marines were running low on…well, everything.

  “Cate, the only reason to hold on, to conserve supplies, was to last until help came. Well, whether that’s the Black Eagles out there or not, they seem to be attacking the enemy. The help we were waiting for, hoping for, is here. What do you want to save supplies for? To die a little more slowly? To stretch out the agony? If we stand here in these defensive positions, and this new force is defeated, do you really think another relief expedition will arrive in the few extra days we can make our ammunition and food last?” He paused, looking at his comrade of so many years. “This is our chance, Cate, right now. Do we sit here? Or do we strike, hit the enemy with everything we’ve got? We can bracket them, trap them between our forces and the new arrivals.”

  Gilson stared back at Cain. There was
still worry in her eyes, uncertainty. He remembered her being more aggressive years before, less choked with caution. Age, he thought. I feel it too. If I wasn’t so sure that is Darius out there, would I be in such a rush to throw everything into one last effort? He wanted to think the answer was yes, that he was the same officer he’d been decades before. But the fatigue was there, deep in his soul, and it took all he had to push, to sustain the immense effort it took to lead men and women into a desperate fight to the death.

  “Okay, Erik,” Gilson finally said, her voice soft, her efforts to hold back the concern partially successful. “Let’s do it. One last strike. Either victory…or an end to the Corps that will be worth a story or two.”

  Cain nodded. “One last strike.”

  But if we fail, who will be left to tell the stories?

  * * * * *

  Darius jogged back toward the command post. He’d led Colonel Falstaff’s Black Regiment as they attacked the enemy position. The Blacks had hit almost dead center in the enemy line, driving hard in an attempt to split their formation. They’d had a certain amount of surprise on their side at first, but the enemy resistance had quickly solidified. The Eagles found their advance slowed to a crawl, and ultimately, they’d experienced something they hadn’t known in many years. A stalemate.

  The Eagles of the Black Regiment had been stunned, enraged. No one they could remember had ever stood against them. Darius had watched his beloved soldiers throwing themselves at the enemy, killing four or five for every trooper they lost, but no matter how hard they hit, how many they gunned down, the enemy stood firm. So much of war was based on breaking the enemy’s morale, something the Eagles often had managed simply by showing up. But this adversary was fearless, and trapped as they were, bracketed between the Eagles and the Marines, Darius had come to realize the battle would be a fight to the death. Literally.