by Blaze Ward
Arott listened as his bridge crew adjusted. Just being around Keller’s legend had already had an effect on his people. Galina would have never tried something as subtle as a drift, once upon a time. Unless there were friendly dreadnaughts or Imperial battleships, Stralsund was at least the equal or better of any other vessel on the field of battle for firepower, and the master when it came to capabilities.
Now they were learning sneaky. If one could be said to be sneaky in a battlecruiser. But then, Auberon had perfected that art as a strike carrier.
He could learn, too.
Ξ
The darkness of deep space was seductive. It was one of the reasons that Jouster had always wanted to be a pilot instead of a ship bunny. You were out here alone, nobody to rely on, facing the other guy one–on–one.
At least normally.
It was rare to engage an Imperial squadron that didn’t have at least some level of fighter protection. He had been part of a wing that had gotten in the kill shots on the Imperial battleship Klagenfurt, when he was younger and on the war front, after they had swept away her pitiful escorts and hounded her into a bad orbital insertion.
That was before he was forced to grow up.
Today, he and his people were going to do a pretty good impersonation of a missile cruiser while they distracted the Imperials from the truly ugly surprises in store.
The wing was flying a standard Aquitaine formation out here, something they almost never did. Three little vee’s of fighter craft, with himself on the left and Bitter Kitten on the right and each of their teams on a plane behind them, like a flyby at a parade. In the middle of the formation, da Vinci in her little P–4 Outrider scout technically on point, with the two S–11 Orca medium bombers, flying like another team of M–5’s.
To the Imperials, it would look like a normal flight wing should. Even the GunShip Necromancer was where tactical doctrine said she should be, tucked in at the back of the formation instead of leading.
It was a stupid way to do things, putting all the firepower at the back and tying the melee fighters down in asinine ways. And it was one of the best things dragon lady had done, letting him adjust everything to take advantage of all the firepower Auberon and her extremely non–standard flight wing could launch from her flight bays.
Hell, the only ship not here right now was Cayenne, and that because too many sensor reflections from this wing might make someone actually look closely at them, instead of just assuming a simple flight wing assault with missiles.
Jouster was pretty sure Gaucho was grinding his teeth, grounded on Auberon’s flight deck. Maybe he’d get his chance later.
All hell was about to break loose.
Chapter XL
Date of the Republic June 16, 394 Alexandria Station, Ballard
Damn it.
Sykes knew that fate was a fickle bitch, some days, but this was just pushing it a little too far. Station security had been almost comically easy to avoid for several days. Why did they have to find him now?
Worse, those people were good. Come to think of it, they were in forest green instead of gray, so they weren’t station security after all. They were Aquitaine fleet.
That made sense, in a coldly rational way. Obviously, he’d had free run of the station since he set off the first vac alarm. Not hard to do when you knew where they had disabled various sensors to hide from the Sentience. Others could hide just as well from them.
Obviously, the rogue demi–god had panicked and called in the fleet to save it. He would have done the same.
At least he had gotten here first.
Sykes could only imagine wandering randomly into strangers like that when they were between him and the computer core he needed to reach to commit deicide. That would have been all manner of awkward and suspicious.
He leaned out from behind a pillar and fired again. His first shot, at the girl, had missed, due to the big trooper knowing enough to protect the officer with him. Now they had cover. So did he.
And that cop was good. Almost too good.
Sykes snapped off two more quick shots to keep heads down over there. Hastily, he pulled the control panel cover the rest of the way off the door controls and peeked inside.
Good old paranoid engineers. There was the manual override to unlock the door, just in case the Sentience decided to start slaughtering people again.
Sykes pushed the button and heard the door beside him click open. Another quick shot, just in case, and he threw himself through the opening.
From the other side, it was just another hallway, worming its way down into the guts of the monster. He pushed the button to trigger the door mechanism, just as a shot floated down from that marine and nearly blinded him. A second shot made the hatch ring as it locked home in the frame.
Sykes leveled his pistol at the control mechanism and triggered three quick shots into it, plus one into the door frame itself to hopefully weld the metal in place. You never knew if it would work with a facility this old, but he didn’t have much time and there was much to do.
Ξ
Damn it.
Moirrey was out of her crouch as soon as Arlo said the door was closing, racing across the room even faster than her marine could move.
Too much heavy firepower, Vo? Or too much pasta…
The door controls threw a roostertail of sparks all over the place just before she grabbed for it. She recoiled, half–blind from the flash of light and stumbled backwards, square into Arlo’s chest.
“Ya know,” Arlo said as he caught her and lifted her back to her feet bodily. “If he was smart, he might have lobbed a grenade back through the door just before he closed it. It’s what I would have done. You’d have been right on top of it when it went boom.”
Moirrey frantically looked at her feet.
“But,” the marine continued in a quieter voice. “He didn’t. Maybe you should let me lead, boss?”
“Sorry,” she said, rattled. She didn’t do combat. Maybe she should let an expert on the topic handle things like that. “We need the map.”
“Already ahead of you,” he replied as he pulled the backpack around front and opened it.
The path they were on was a straight shot down. And the bad guy were in front of them. Would he wait and ambush them, or was it a race?
Suddenly, Moirrey realized why command was no fun. Ye had to make split–second picks and being wrong meant maybe being dead.
Crap.
The map wasn’t much better. The station was built with radii, but they were generally ten degrees apart. Even this close to the middle, that meant a long lateral, right or left, made worse because the thirty–six coming in were dropping down to the six original ones. So they might get down another frame and run into the guy again.
“Suvi, can you hear me?” she called to the room.
There was no response. The woman might not know what had happened. Would she even realize it if they all got dead and there was nobody to come rescue her?
Double crap.
“Right,” Moirrey continued, flipping a coin in her head. “Bad guy’s facing us across the bulkhead, trying to figure out which way we’re gonna go.”
She looked for the side doors out of here. Both appeared at roughly the same spot on the side walls, not buried in junk but not immediately visible.
“We’re right–handed,” she continued, “because of course we are. Peoples is.”
She fixed Arlo and the doc with a steely glare.
“Most people are, anyhow,” she continued with a smile halfway between a snarl and a smirk. “Some of us is in our right minds, ya know. Lefties. Left we go. Gets us kinda close. Close enough.”
She let go a deep breath and reached into her back pocket. The pistol was warm from the heat of her butt moving. Or her hands were really cold right now.
Whatever.
“Doc,” she fixed him with a hard look. “I needs you with us at the finale, but yer not armed. So stay back a bits, but don’t get lost. Ye
ll if someone jumps you, m’kay?”
She watched the effect her words had on the man. On one hand, he were just a scholar, tall and kinda dorky. Other hands, his da were the meanest marine she knew, although Mrs. Navin the Black, Senior Chief Crncevic, was a semi–retired drill instructor on Ladaux and supposed to be as tough as nails. Plus this man had a sister who were a marine on Athena.
Probably tough enough.
She watched a hard gleam settle in his eyes.
“You can count on me, sir,” he said quietly. It were a tone she’d no heard from him yet.
Maybe that were good. She weren’t counting on him, but they were alls counting on her, especially Suvi.
But more important, Lady Keller were counting on her.
Chapter XLI
Imperial Founding: 172/06/16. Ballard system
The two forces closed inexorably as Emmerich watched the projection. Against another foe, he might have come down the gravity well as fast as his squadron could close. Most commanders would, with this level of advantage.
Most commanders weren’t taking on Jessica Keller. Or Moirrey Kermode. Women who thrived on the unexpected and lateral maneuver. They wouldn’t have had more than a few days preparation in system, but there had been two weeks of flight time first, knowing that it was him they would meet at the end. Surprises would be obvious and fast, but probably not deep.
Emmerich nodded to himself. The two sides were close enough. Not close, but he could expect the first wave of incoming missiles in another three to five minutes, in a fleet standard engagement.
Nothing Keller did was standard, but physics was physics. There were only so many ways to engage someone with missiles and escorts.
Here, he had more escorts, but she had more missiles, by far. The Aquitaine force would get one solid missile launch salvo off in an attempt to overwhelm him, and then everything would hinge on that roll of the dice.
After that, he had as many missile tubes as they did, and more defensive guns. She had more fighters, but he only had to kill her, and perhaps the battlecruiser. The rest of the force he could simply sweep aside.
Emmerich smiled harshly. Ten more minutes or so until the primaries came into range. That was when the weight of the Empire would tell.
“Captain Baumgärtner,” he announced to the room in a stentorian voice. “This is Command Centurion Keller across the field. She will have some trick planned. Let us see if we can identify it. Order all vessels to do a full–saturation missile launch. All missiles to be targeted on Auberon.”
His flag captain nodded back and turned to the rest of the room.
“Squadron,” Baumgärtner called loudly. “Time on target attack. All tubes rapid fire. Target Alpha One. Acknowledge. Flagship is farthest out and will launch immediately.”
A rumbling of calls came back from various parts of the room as each comm officer contacted his charge and confirmed the orders.
Around him, Emmerich felt Amsel’s hull ring with the sound of six missile tubes spitting their fiery venom into the darkness. Someone outside the battleship’s hull, ahead of them and looking backwards, would see six pillars of flame jet from the great vessel’s waist as it launched a full salvo of missiles, like hunting dogs suddenly erupting from the grass, and turning to chase the fox.
“Very good, Captain,” Emmerich said. “That should throw their timing off even more as they slow down to deal with the missile strike incoming. Let me know if either wing of fighters drifts out of position. That will probably indicate our first engagement.”
“Will do, Admiral,” Baumgärtner said as he turned back to the room. “Sensors, confirm the current arrangement of enemy forces.”
Emmerich watched the projection spin to an overhead view. Amsel and her consorts moving left to right slowly. Ahead of them and a little to starboard, Auberon and the battlecruiser charging, like ancient knights with an outstretched lance on the jousting pitch.
The fighter squadron from the station was to port of his current flight path and had drifted back from the original straight line of the charge. No doubt, they had orders to turn away and flee if he moved in that direction, since they could be easily isolated and engaged. Turning that way, however, would open his rear flank to the other two forces turning suddenly inward.
He would do the same.
Similarly, the strangely–configured squadron from Auberon was ahead of their flagship, but not far. Just enough that they could simultaneously salvo all of their missiles in from a slightly different vector, probably hoping to slip one past the edge of his defenders and into Amsel’s flank. What they should have done was come at him in a single mass, where all of the fighters and the warships could attempt to overload him with a single wave of missiles, followed by all the fighters attempting to swarm him like wasps.
Not that it would work. His escorts had specifically trained for that sort of thing, knowing what, and more to the point, whom, to expect at Ballard. Even the guns on the escorts had been tuned for the M–5 Harpoon fighter instead of the more–maneuverable M–6, knowing what they would encounter here.
In the projection, Petrograd unleashed her missile pattern next, six more missiles joining in, programmed to a very tight flight pattern. Finally, SturmTeufel’s four joined. It was not as impressive as the several dozen Aquitaine would respond with shortly, but he had gotten in the first move.
Now Jessica Keller would have to dance to his tune.
Chapter XLII
Date of the Republic June 16, 394 Above Ballard
“Squadron, this is the flag,” Jessica said, trying to sound calm and rational when she really wanted to smile and possibly dance a little jig.
The Red Admiral had launched everything he had at her, and done so early. Not what she had expected, but within the realm of her planning.
“Stand by to move to Phase Three. Break. Sensors, confirm targeting lock.”
There was a small pause as Centurion Giroux worked his magic. He never got enough credit for the hundred little things he did that made things so much easier for the rest of the team. When this was done, she would need to thank him personally. She didn’t do that enough.
That is, if they were all still alive.
“Flag, sensors,” came the quick reply. “Confirmed. All sixteen missiles have locked on Auberon and are closing. They timed it to overwhelm us with a single wave.”
She could hear the smile in his face. And the relief. This was something they had all planned for, gamed out, prepared. It wasn’t the most predictable move on the part of an Imperial commander, but this wasn’t the average admiral. This was Wachturm.
The Red Admiral.
And it had gotten personal.
He was coming for all their souls.
If she could keep it personal, she could keep him from seeing the other things she had done until it was too late. And maybe, just maybe, keep him from killing Suvi and Moirrey. If she did that, she won, regardless of her possibly dying in the process.
Simple as that.
It might be personal, but it was also a duel between nations. Suvi’s survival from all this meant a defeat for the Empire, regardless of whatever else they might accomplish.
That woman had to survive.
“Squadron, initiate Phase Three,” Jessica said, letting the iron bleed into her voice. Things were going to get ugly shortly, and she owed that Imperial Gentleman more than he could possibly repay, even with his life.
Possibly his soul would cover it.
She could send him to hell to explain everything to Daneel Ishikura and maybe then she could sleep.
“Bridge, flag,” she continued, “go dark immediately. Flight deck, stand by to launch the siren when Giroux confirms our status.”
“Flight deck acknowledges,” Iskra said quietly. “Standing by for secondary launch of the siren.”
Jessica might have been more surprised if the woman personally walked onto the flag bridge to convey her message. It would have been a close thing. Iskra n
ever spoke on the comm if she could avoid it.
It must be tense down there, cooped up on the flight deck, waiting for all your birds to return, to have to count empty roosts when it was all done, and be unable to contribute anything to the outcome of the battle except to send them out to possibly die.
Jessica took a deep breath. Nobody got to live forever. Except possibly Suvi. And then, only if Jessica and Moirrey could save her life.
Ξ
“Tactical,” Arott said sternly, dropping into what he called his game–face. “Prepare to accelerate and initiate combat. Prepare for Phase Three. You have the bridge.”
“Acknowledged,” Galina said tightly. “Sensors, let me know the instant the siren begins to sing. Gunnery, confirm your lock on Echo Two. Defense, if none of those missiles can get through us and the destroyers, we might be able to stretch this surprise out for a whole other round of fire. After that, they’ll be too busy to try it again. Gold star for the crew if you succeed. Bridge crew drinks will be on me.”
Arott smiled. Galina was turning into a new kind officer as well. A better one. This battle would be good for his whole crew. She never would have deigned to color that far outside the lines before this. Spit and polish linearity was her signature.
Yes, Keller was going to remake the whole fleet in her own image.
If she lived long enough.
If not, maybe Stralsund would have to do it for her. Or at least carry that flag forward.
Creator knew, she wasn’t likely to survive this. And yet, she did not waver in the slightest.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Death or Glory.
No, he should not say that out loud. Perhaps at her memorial service. She would have earned it by then. They all would have.
Ξ
“Gun deck, they just got stupid. Let’s return the favor.”
Kigali actually smiled. Nobody was shooting at him. Not yet, anyway. That wasn’t going to last, considering what was about to happen.