by Nick Cole
From the tiny bridge of the corvette, Tarrago Prime, by morning light, looked like some city under Republic bombardment. Individual freighters were climbing off and away into the roiling clouds, thrusters at full, spooling up to make the jump to light speed as soon as possible. Below, fires had broken out in several buildings, and across wide swaths of the city dark smoke roiled out of control as city services, stretched to the breaking point, tried to respond and couldn’t.
Crowds were rioting, or looting. And there was a massive battle still underway at the shipyards. But even from here, and listening to the battle above, Desaix knew that Tarrago was lost.
Two destroyers were reported destroyed in close volley fire with the enemy battleships. The carrier was trying to cover the remaining ships so they could reach the jump point and get out of the system. Once the governor was aboard the carrier they’d abandon the system altogether—but until then, naval and marine personnel were buying time and escape windows with their lives.
The Audacity docked with the landing platform atop Central Hall, though she didn’t actually land, because she was much bigger than the available space to put her down. As soon as they were secured, with the big engines howling to maintain position and the repulsors throbbing wickedly like tribal drums in order to maintain altitude, the governor was rushed out under heavy marine guard and boarded back near quarters at the aft of the ship.
Across the platform he could see people being barred by the marines from entering the landing area. People who were hoping to get on his ship and get off Tarrago Prime.
Desaix received an inter-ship comm alert. “Captain, this is Governor Toltai. I authorize you to depart immediately. The situation is too critical to remain one moment longer.”
Desaix watched as the marines tried to keep the people back. He could see children. Wide-eyed and frightened as their frantic parents screamed at the marines to let them pass.
“Captain!” shouted the governor over the comm. “As an appointed official by the House of Reason, I demand—”
Desaix cut the link.
“Patch me through to the marine commander!”
A moment later he had the man. Looking out through the cockpit window he could see the armored and armed officer stepping back from the collapsing barricades swollen with refugees.
“We can take five hundred.”
He saw the man turn and stare at the mass of seething desperate people.
“Might be more than that, Captain,” replied the marine. “Letting them through now.”
“Get your men aboard too,” Desaix added before the man cut the link.
Across the vast empty platform, the marine officer shook his head, straightened, and saluted. Then he spoke to his men, who stood aside to let the mob surge forward.
The desperate mob ran toward the hovering Audacity. One man, who looked frightened to death, picked up a little girl and held her in front of him. Desaix knew the man would force her ahead of him if he had to. He would get his little girl on aboard, casting her fate to the galaxy.
The little girl was holding a wobanki doll. Her face was frozen, as if in disbelief.
“Chief,” said Desaix once he’d gotten through to the loadmaster in lower cargo. “Open everything up. We’ll take them all.”
“It’s not safe, sir.”
“Doesn’t matter. Get everyone on board. She’ll hold.”
Desaix cut the link and patted his ship. She’d held before. She’d hold again.
“C’mon, old girl. One last time for me.”
Black Fleet Shock Troopers, Third Group
Central Hall Safe Floor
Tarrago Prime
0615 Local System Time
There were only five left.
Five troopers from the platoon that had set out to capture the governor.
Updates were still coming in from Nightstalker Six. The defense of the gate had held against the latest push to dislodge the defenders. Now it seemed the Repub was pulling out, or even surrendering already in some places, according to reports. But it wasn’t over yet. Legionnaires were trying to blow up the shipyards.
There was some chatter that if the Repub still held the orbital defense gun they might turn it on the shipyards in order to deny this new enemy the chance to build more ships. And if that was the case—if anyone fired the massive gun at the planet—then it was over for everyone on Tarrago Prime. That thing would leave a smoking crater ten miles wide.
“Nightstalker Actual says your mission priority is still high, TAF02,” relayed the comm operator.
Bombassa watched as his remaining men used a cutting torch to slice into one of the walls leading onto the floor that protected the governor. There was no intel as to whether the governor was in there or not. Drone recon on the corvette had gone dark. The one assigned drone had been taken out by automated point defense fire.
The cut into the security wall was almost finished.
The other troopers stood back, pocketed their gear, and readied their weapons and bangers for breach.
Bombassa held up two fingers, indicating two flashbangs and then breach. He pointed out the order of who would go first. Or rather who would follow him through first.
He got acknowledgement clicks and nods.
The trooper cutting into the wall stood back, waited for a nod, then kicked down the weld. As the slice of wall fell inward, he stood back, handed his cutting torch to Bombassa, and readied his weapon.
Two bangers were flung through by other troopers. Their armor went offline for a second to harden itself against the negative EMP side effects of the explosives.
All they heard was the low crinkle of crumpling metal, like breaking glass, and then a yawning silence. The suits soft-booted as they threaded the smoky gap in the wall, trying to pick out targets on the other side.
But there was no one.
The floor was clear.
It was palatial and well-appointed, and there were even trays of fine food and drink still laid out, as though the troopers had only just interrupted some embassy party being thrown among the overstuffed couches and imperial leather chairs. Mirrored halls and richly decorated rooms gave way to an admin center beyond a wide kitchen.
Moving tactically in turtle formation, covering every angle, every entrance, every blind spot, they found the sealed blast door beyond the industrial-grade kitchen. A small placard indicated this was the supply and service entrance that led out onto the boarding platform.
One of the troopers bent to hacking it. He plugged in a cable from his bucket, and the display appeared to overlay his real time HUD as a virtual keyboard framed itself near his gauntlet. There was no way a cutting torch was getting through this beast of a blast door. Bombassa stowed the cutting torch on his harness and waited.
The trooper must have been a pro level code slicer, because he had the door open in thirty seconds. Beyond its massive girth, a long and shadowy service ramp crawled up onto the platform high above. They could hear the loud whine of the corvette’s massive thrusters at idle. And beyond that, what sounded like a stadium of screaming fans raging at some loss. There was even blaster fire.
“How we gonna knock out a ship, Sarge?” asked a trooper.
Bombassa shook his head. He had no clue. The mission had been to snatch. Snatch meant take from a residence. Knocking out a Repub warship hadn’t been part of the op order.
And yet the unofficial motto of the shock troopers had become… Can do.
“There’ll be marines guarding the boarding ramp to the ship. Take care of those. That’s the best we can do. If we can board it, then we’ll take the ship. If we can’t board… then we’ll destroy it or call in fire from the battleships by tagging it with the target designator on your weapons. But wait until I give the order to do so. Roger?”
Acknowledged all around.
“You did good today, troopers.”
***
They came out tactically. Moving and engaging stunned marines who hadn’t figured on
anyone getting through the perimeter defenses below. Defenses that had been left behind to die in place.
Three marines went down before they began to put up a decent defense. But there was nowhere for anyone to hide. The landing platform was wide and open, and the last of the evacuees were scrambling up the boarding ramp. In other words, the firefight turned into a street showdown. Like something out of the frontier past. when Terran marshals had been all there was for justice on a dozen colony worlds.
Bombassa knocked their officer down with a shot to the chest that left a burning hole in the man’s armor.
The lowermost cargo door of the corvette began to rise into the closed position. The engines grew into a monstrous howl as marines and shock troopers went down.
There were three troopers left when the repulsors engaged to full and set a bombastic tribal beat hum-pulsing through everyone’s skulls and armor.
Another trooper went down.
Bombassa let his weapon go and ran, its sling keeping the slapping weapon against his body. Now he was at a full-tilt dead run, arms and legs pumping.
The corvette began to slowly pull away from the high landing platform. Black plumes of smoke ran up into the sky to meet gray clouds that roiled and burst in sudden showers. The first big fat drops of rain began to fall on the platform.
Marines were firing at him as his powerful legs pumped and his hands pulled him forward for all he was worth. And then he was out over the platform and flying across the narrow void that had only just opened between the departing ship and the platform.
No net.
No ropes.
No second chances.
At a grunted vocal command, the armor magnetized his gauntlets for free climbing as he sailed across the widening gap.
One gauntlet held on as the ship climbed away above the cityscape, engines howling, wind trying to drag Bombassa off and down into the burning city far below.
His rifle slipped and then tumbled off into the city canyons. He was holding on somewhere near the massive engineering block at the rear of the ship. Or where he thought engineering must be. Through rents in the armor he could see the inner hull.
The burning city was shrinking away rapidly below him, even though the lumbering ship was only slowly climbing away from it. Republican Lancers raced past with Black Fleet tri-fighters giving chase, firing blasters as they went.
Bombassa now knew what he hated more than HOLO jumps. This. He hated this with all his soul. He was a savage. At heart he was a savage who hated the future and longed only for the land and sea, and a bit of wind with which to sail.
But he pushed all that back to some other part of his mind, as he’d always done in the years since leaving Kimshana, and pulled the cutting torch from his belt. He flicked the onbutton and watched its burning, twisting length grow from the housing canister, like the sword of some mythic and ancient warrior. Then he slashed at the outer hull, hoping he’d find some place thin enough, and unarmored enough, to make a decent cut.
He found the spot. The armor had been stripped away from a massive panel, probably to access the portside thruster array. He cut through, and the panel tumbled off into the gray storm and silver sunlight as the ship climbed through what had to be approaching ten thousand feet.
Bombassa pulled his boots up, contracting his abs, and pushed them up and through the opening. He felt his feet find some kind of shelf. He magnetized his boots and then crawled up, hand over hand, after them.
He was inside the darkness of the outer hull. He switched to low light vision and began to crawl through piping and circuitry, looking for an external maintenance hatch to violate.
14
House of Reason
Utopion
To Orrin Kaar, Admiral Devers looked frantic. And though it took effort to resist the urge to dress down the admiral for his failure to control the situation, Kaar knew that now was not the time. He needed to soothe the admiral’s delicate ego and sensibility.
“I’m losing ships!” Devers called out. “This is disaster!”
“Such is the price of war, Admiral,” Kaar said gently. He hadn’t thought of Devers as the type to care about the loss of men under his command.
“I’m not sure how much longer my super-destroyer can hold up!”
Ah. The cause of the admiral’s care suddenly came into focus.
“Then fight, man!” Kaar shouted. Not unkindly. Like a coach rallying his players.
Devers sniffed. “That’s not all. The Republic kill team destroyed the shipyard. Entirely.”
Kaar stood up from his desk. “What?”
“I don’t know… I don’t know how they got past the blockade but they did. Sullus’s shock troopers are supposedly hunting them down, but I don’t think they’ll catch them.”
Kaar formed a steeple with his fingers and pressed it against the bridge of his nose. He let out a long sigh. “Without that shipyard, we will find ourselves at a standstill.”
“Or worse,” said Devers. “With just a few of the remaining fleets massing into an armada, Tarrago could be won back.”
“You speak of that which you do not know. There are no other fleets.”
Devers opened his mouth to object, but closed his mouth again on seeing Kaar’s severe look.
“At least,” Kaar continued, “no fleets that can help the Republic.”
Devers shook his head. “So what should I do, Delegate Kaar? Attack Sullus’s fleet?”
“No!” snapped Kaar as though reprimanding a bad dog. To hell with the admiral’s feelings. “Continue your current course of action. I need time to prepare the necessary political and strategic countermeasures. We are not defeated. Not at all.”
Black Fleet
Third Wing, First Squadron, “Pit Vipers”
0631 Local System Time
Lieutenant Kat Haladis, the new commander of the Pit Vipers, rolled out on a Lancer’s six and opened fire with both blasters. Shots smashed into the engines, tearing apart armor plating and striking deep into the engine housings of both nacelles. Static electricity discharged all across one of the pylon-shaped engines, and the ship exploded.
A message from Fleet appeared as she reached up to increase the forward deflectors while passing through the expanding debris cloud of her kill.
“Viper Lead, priority tasking. New mission. Break off from the fleet and engage the carrier with your squadron. We need to knock out her jump computers so she can’t get away. Highlighting structural targeting data to you now.”
Kat acknowledged and scanned the battle, reorienting herself as to where the big battleships were now engaged in close-range volley fire with the remaining destroyers. And behind those, off in the stellar distance, was the grand prize. A Repub carrier virtually undefended.
“Vipers! Break off and form on me. We’ve been cleared to go after the carrier.”
Republic Seventh Fleet
Bridge of the Freedom
0633 Local System Time
The message from Emergent had just come in. Atlantica was finished. Admiral Nagu had transferred his flag to Emergent.
Admiral Landoo acknowledged and waited. Audacity was due at any moment. Then they could jump away, and everyone who could get clear was on their own. There really wasn’t much they could do now. This battle was lost. A total defeat.
“We should leave now, Admiral,” said the CIC. He was standing in front of her. But she wasn’t seeing him. She was merely watching the destruction of everything she’d ever known.
It was as though some audio loop was playing over and over in her head.
How could this be?
How could this be?
How could this be?
“General Toleda on Tarrago Prime will surrender once we’ve jumped away. He’s just waiting for your signal.”
How could this be?
“Audacity?” she murmured.
“Arriving in five minutes. Once it docks and we get the governor aboard, we can jump. Shall I recall all fighte
rs?”
“What about the destroyers?”
“Admiral Nagu will buy us time. Atlantica is done for. Reactor core breach in progress. She’s about to go up like a candle. Emergent is the only one that can jump. And she’s taking a pounding. Honestly, those ships won’t last much longer, ma’am.”
The admiral stared in horror at the holographic display. Each ship had thousands of crew. And now they were either dead or stranded. They’d be taken prisoner. Maybe.
Why hadn’t the orbital defense gun fired in support?
And…
Why hadn’t the new Raptors been enough?
And…
Who was this enemy? Where had they come from? What did they want?
She shook her head once and stepped back as though suddenly realizing where she was. She stared around at the darkly lit CIC with its array of tactical computers and messaging lights. Each and every one of them somehow dire. Each one telling a story of death and destruction. Techs sat before stations, closer and more connected with the ongoing carnage and horror at the front of the battle than she was.
The line Nagu was holding to get the carrier away.
If they lost the carrier…
“Let’s get out of here. Signal our retreat to all units. Tell the group to stand by to jump once Audacity docks.”
And then she heard one of the techs shout, “Enemy fighters incoming.”
Republic Seventh Fleet
Second Squadron, “Gunfighters”
0634 Local System Time
There were clearly more tri-fighters than Raptors now. The battle had switched from making attack runs on the lead battleship to just trying to keep the fighters off her back.
Atumna got the recall order and didn’t need to be told twice to get out of there. She broke away from the battle over the Imperator and raced back toward the cover of the ruined super-destroyer Atlantica.
Three tri-fighters gave pursuit while point defense turrets from the fearsome battleships chased her and every other Raptor pilot.