by Jay Allan
“Yes, Admiral.”
“And advise all ships…we need to maintain maximum fire levels. We’ve still got enemy forces pouring out of those dust clouds, and we’ve got to hit them hard.” His own ships were performing well enough, if somewhat below the standards of his fleets from years before. But most of the mercenary company ships were sluggish, and the smaller navies, the vessels of the independent planets, were appallingly slow. He’d always suspected nepotism and cronyism were rife within the small fleets, but now he had no doubt. It seemed every man and women in uniform for some of these planets was some politician’s idiot kid or cousin.
Except for the Columbians. They’re sharp, which shouldn’t surprise me with Jarrod Tyler in charge…
“Yes, Admiral.”
Bunker Hill shook, as a pair of enemy battleships closed on her. She returned the fire, giving better than she got, but even as Garret looked around on the scanner for support, he realized all his vessels were fighting two or three of the enemy. His flagship was neck deep in the fighting, along with almost every ship he had. He was feeling the loss of Darius’s battleships, but he still agreed they had to destroy the enemy’s infrastructure as quickly as possible.
This will be a bloody day…
“Get me Admiral Harmon,” he snapped suddenly. Harmon’s ships were on the way back from their bombardment of planet three.
“On your line, Admiral.”
“Camille, if you can throw some coal in those engine fires, I’d sure appreciate it. We’re up against it here, and I’ve got a bad feeling more is coming our way.” He allowed himself a brief smile. He and Harmon had always shared an interest in old-Earth wet navies, one he’d just referenced with his ‘coal’ comment.
“On the way, sir. Better coal than canvas if we’re in a rush.”
“True enough, Camille. Every second you can shave helps. This fight’s going to be one to match any we’ve had before…so get here as soon as you can.” He cut the line, and his eyes darted to the position of her ships, heading his way from the ruins of the third planet. She’d be in range in ten minutes, eight maybe, if she really blasted her engines. His forces would take a hard pounding, but he was pretty sure they could hold out.
Except…
What is it? What is bothering you?
The edginess was still there, and the tightness in his gut.
He was staring at the enemy line. There was something about it, something he didn’t like. He took a deep breath and tried to figure out what he was looking at, what seemed so…wrong.
* * * * *
“Now. Now is the time.” Aaron Carrack sat on his raised platform, glaring out over the dozens of workstations positioned in concentric circles around him. His flagship was a massive vessel, far vaster than the old Alliance Yorktowns at the center of Garret’s pathetic force, larger even that the two Martian superbattleships. But it wasn’t the deadliest weapon waiting for his enemies.
“Yes, Marshal, at once.”
Carrack watched on the massive displays as the great chunks of rocks, nothing more than asteroids to all but the most intensive scans, began shifting in space, angling themselves toward the enemy as massive projectors extended out from deep bunkers.
He stared at the line of symbols, the circles and ovals and small squares that marked the location of Garret’s vessels. The enemy had sent a force of light ships to planet four…that was a disappointment. Carrack had hoped to divide the enemy’s forces even further. But the Eagles had pulled away, heading for Vali…and that left Garret and the rest of the fleet, in his grasp, every ship within range of the great weapons.
“Status report?” he snapped. It was the moment of victory, and when he had crushed the enemy, he would see to the Triumvirate as well. Humanity would have a new ruler, that much was true. But it would be no monstrosity, no vestige of subhuman clones turned into digital abominations. A man would be the supreme leader of Occupied Space. He would rule all.
“Weapon systems powering up, Marshal. Projected time to full charge, two minutes.”
“Hold fire until all guns are ready, Commander. I want the first shot to be a full barrage.”
“Yes, sir.”
Carrack thought about how long he’d worked, strived, all in the shadow of Gavin Stark’s clones, waiting, counting the moments until the genetic failure endemic to all the Shadow Legion clones claimed them. Stark’s flawed creations rarely lived longer than thirty years, and almost never thirty-five, and the images of the great man himself were no different. But all Carrack had waited and prepared for had been snatched from him. The hideous creatures had somehow transferred their minds into the old First Imperium computer they had found.
Now, I will have to do it the old-fashioned way…assassination. Or whatever killing a computer was called. But later. First, this…
He stared at the screens, watching the status boxes, one after the other turning green. Until all indicators showed ready.
“All batteries charged, Marshal.”
Carrack smiled. He remembered Augustus Garret, Erik Cain…many of the others who had thwarted Gavin Stark so many years before. Now, at last, they would taste defeat. Death.
“All batteries, open fire.”
Chapter 32
Just Outside Planet Three’s Orbit
Draconia Terminii System
Earthdate: 2321 AD (36 Years After the Fall)
“All ships are to advance. The attack will proceed as planned.”
“Yes, General.” The aide was one of Jarrod Tyler’s longest serving. She’d been one of his officers since the days when he was merely Columbia’s army commander, and not the planet’s absolute ruler.
Tyler sat on Lucia’s bridge, looking out over the small control center of one of Columbia’s four homebuilt ships. Most of the ragtag fleet he’d been able to put together for his world had been assembled from older, surplus craft, bought as often as not in trade for Columbia’s exports, particularly the valuable pharmaceuticals manufactured from its native plant life. But his flagship and her three sisters were the core of the force in every way, designed and built in Columbia’s lone orbital shipyard. They were a source of planetary pride, a statement that Columbia belonged in the first tier of post-Fall worlds. Now, they would enter battle for the first time.
Lucia was only a cruiser, however, and while the ship was less than ten years old, her design dated back to the years before the Shadow War. Columbia was prosperous, certainly, with a vibrant economy, but she’d been in the path of war too many times, and she carried the debts of a planet that had been compelled to rebuild its infrastructure several times in the last century. That drain weighed on growth, and there was only so much military ordnance Columbia could produce, or buy, despite Tyler’s best efforts to overcome those constraints.
Tyler’s relentless drive to maintain and expand his planet’s military had been born of the very tragedies Columbia had suffered, but that didn’t lessen the costs of what had happened. Even Tyler couldn’t ignore basic mathematics, and he’d had to make difficult choices. In the end, the fleet had become a subordinate priority to the army, if only because it was more realistic to maintain a force that could hold the planet on the ground than it was to construct a fleet powerful enough to keep an invader at bay.
Now, Columbia’s ships, both newly-built and secondhand, were approaching planet four. Squadrons from three dozen other planets accompanied them, a chaotic swarm heading for the enemy’s outermost inhabited world. The ships were all light, and none of them mounted the half-gigaton monsters the battleships carried in their missile launchers. But Tyler was confident his hodgepodge force had enough power to obliterate the target. He might not be able to turn the world into the utterly barren, scarred nightmare Garret’s ships had left of planet three, but he’d make damned sure there wasn’t a factory or refinery, or a simple storehouse left standing to support the enemy war effort when he was done.
“We’re picking up energy readings, General.”
&nbs
p; Tyler’s head spun around. His natural paranoia flared up. “On my screen.”
He looked down, trying to figure out what he was seeing, exactly what the numbers on his display portended. He was an infantry officer at heart, not a naval leader. He could manage a bombardment well enough, but if something else was going on…
Then, it happened. All at once, ten blasts of energy lanced out at his fleet. Half of them missed, ripping past his ships and into the depths of space behind. But the others found targets, and in every one of those cases, the vessels hit had been utterly destroyed, not even twisted, floating wreckage remaining where seconds before, a warship had stood.
* * * * *
Garret blinked, staring back at the display, trying for an instant to convince himself he hadn’t seen what he had just witnessed.
The flash had been bright on the scanner, but it was the data, the numbers, that truly gripped his gut and squeezed. They dwarfed even the massive energy output of the enemy’s huge superbattleships, and they made the great main guns of Bunker Hill seem like flickering candles by comparison. But the true horror struck when he got the damage report from Petersburg. The former Russian-Indian Confederacy ship was old, certainly, but she was also one of the largest vessels in Garret’s fleet, massing almost as much as one of this Yorktowns, and carrying even thicker armor plate. Right now, according to his scanners, this great warship was wracked by internal explosions and pouring great geysers of flash freezing fluids and atmosphere through the massive rents in her hull. Petersburg was without power, her engines and weapons down. And he’d be stunned if half her crew hadn’t been killed. At least half.
Petersburg had been untouched just seconds before, newly arrived on the battleline. Now she was close to wreckage. No, she is wreckage. Garret knew the ship was done. All that remained was to try to save some of her crew.
If that was even possible. Then the realization hit him hard…his priority wasn’t saving a few hundred crew on a stricken battleship, it was saving his fleet.
He could hear the tension in the communications firing back and forth between ships, in the chatter on the flag bridge. His people were as aware as he was what had just happened, and the implications. It wasn’t panic…yet. His people were too disciplined for that. But it wasn’t far away either.
He stared at the display, watching as more reports streamed in. Petersburg hadn’t been the only victim of the first barrage. Abe and Ortega had also been hit. The two cruisers weren’t gutted and half-consumed by internal fires and explosions, as Petersburg was—they were just gone.
Garret’s hand balled up into a fist, and he pounded it against his thigh, the frustration he felt finding a way out. For an instant, he felt like an old man, finished, exhausted, ready to sit and watch the world end. But that only lasted a few seconds. He felt a burst of adrenalin, and his mind cleared. The old courage came back, perhaps a bit more slowly than years before, but strong nevertheless. There was no panic, no confusion in his mind. He knew what he had to do. It was in times like this his people needed him most, and after being there for them for eighty years, he wasn’t going to fail them now.
He analyzed the situation, quickly, concisely. Fear wasn’t a factor for him now, nor fatigue, only data. The enemy had heavy fixed guns, that was clear. Advanced ones, certainly—probably with some First Imperium tech in them—but still, just a tactical factor.
One made worse by the fact that they hid them, and enticed you toward them. And you followed, like a damned fool cadet in some Academy simulation designed to teach caution and humility.
Still, they were finite in number, something that could be overcome. Dangerous, but not invincible.
His mind raced. He had two choices. Keeping the fleet in its current position was not an option. It would be suicide. He didn’t know the rate of fire of those things—and he was hesitant to take a wild guess. The stretch of seconds that had passed since the first shot was a good sign. The longer it took to recharge, the fewer shots the enemy could take, but if he stayed where he was, those guns would gut his fleet.
He could pull back, steer clear of the heavy weapons’ field of fire. But he had no idea of their range. He could assume he was at the very edge of their target area, but he couldn’t be sure. If he’d set the trap he had just blundered into, he would have waited until his victims were deep within range before opening fire, so even flight would be a doomed strategy.
Or, he could advance, bring the fleet into range and blast those things to atoms before they did the same to him. Assuming he could close before his fleet was reduced to shattered hulks and clouds of plasma.
He could think of a hundred arguments for retreat. Certainly, the almighty book counseled caution in situations with as many unknown factors as this one. Pull back, take stock of the situation, that’s what his Academy professors would have said. But Garret had never had much use for the damned book anyway, nor for the pompous windbags lecturing endlessly about theory, as if war was something that could be structured with a set of rules.
His rebellious nature had caused him no end of grief at the Academy, at the hands of stodgy, unimaginative officers with the ability to make his life utter misery, but it had served him well enough in his battles. And his unmatched success had been a personal vengeance on those who had tormented him. He’d listened to himself, the voice deep inside his whole career. He wasn’t about to stop now.
“I want nav coordinates on those things, and I mean now, Commander. All of them. All ships, prepare for maximum thrust.” Augustus Garret didn’t run. He didn’t back down. Not even now, when he’s an old man.
“Yes, Admiral.”
The old feelings were there, the killer instinct that had driven him in all his battles.
“Do you have them?” His voice was harsh, demanding. There was no time to lose. Even as he waited for a response, he saw the energy readings spike again. Another shot. His eyes darted to the screen, ignoring the reply from his aide and watching as the latest butcher’s bill came in. Three more cruisers hit, two of them obliterated, the third a gutted hulk. A few of the crew might escape, maybe ten percent, Garret figured. But he didn’t have time to think about that now.
“Yes, sir,” the aide spat out in a tone that suggested he was close, but not quite there yet.
“Put me on fleet comm.”
“On your line, sir.”
“All ships of the fleet, you are to advance at maximum practical acceleration toward the enemy heavy weapons…with full evasive maneuvers. The destruction of those guns is your absolute priority. You are to ignore formations, and each ship is to move as quickly as possible. All gunners are to fire at will as soon as ships enter range.” He sighed to himself after he finished. He knew his orders would leave his ships open to the enemy vessels, that the Black Flag battleships would swing around his flanks and rake his ships as they advanced. But there was no choice. His heavy vessels could take a little pounding from their equals, but those heavy guns would obliterate his fleet if he let them.
“All task forces acknowledge, Admiral.”
“Very well…let’s get Bunker Hill moving too, Commander. We need every gun we’ve got.”
“Yes, sir.”
Garret leaned back and took a deep breath. Into the fire, one more time. The fear was still there, to an extent, after all these years. He’d hidden it for a lifetime, never let his officers and spacers see it. But it was different now, fuzzier. At this point in his life, so many friends gone, so much disillusionment, he wasn’t even sure he cared…and yet it was still there, the desire to live, perhaps more instinctive now than rational.
For all his fame and the accolades that had been showered on him, he realized now, he had never been happy. A life given wholly to war. No children, no grandchildren, no one waiting home for him to return from his campaigns. Parades and decorations were cold company on the long days and cold, lonely nights during his rare moments of peace. War was his mistress, his wife, and now, when he was so old he’d left mos
t of those he’d loved behind, she was still there, driving him, demanding all he had to give. She was a jealous mate, and only now he realized she would never let him go.
Chapter 33
Approaching Planet Two (Vali)
Draconia Terminii System
Earthdate: 2321 AD (36 Years After the Fall)
“We will be entering orbit in four minutes, General.”
Darius was still having trouble getting used to Ana giving him reports. He’d almost sent her away three times, not because he didn’t trust her or have faith in her abilities, but simply because he found she distracted him from the nearly impervious focus that had become his norm in battle. For almost his entire career, that would have been reason enough, and he wouldn’t have hesitated. Personal feelings didn’t come into military decisions, nor vague notions of fairness. Tactics had always ruled his judgment. Until now. Ana had done the work, she’d come through his rigorous training program with flying colors, and he couldn’t deny her the place she had earned, as new a feeling as that was to him.
“Very well, Lieutenant. Eagle Ten and Eagle Thirteen will enter orbit and conduct an intensive scan.” Admiral Garret’s forces hadn’t had an inordinately difficult time dealing with planet three’s defenses, but Darius Cain didn’t take unnecessary chances. He hadn’t had any reports from Garret since he’d split off from the fleet, nor from Jarrod Tyler out at planet four. “The rest of the fleet will hold position, three hundred thousand kilometers from insertion point.”