Black Dawn (Blood on the Stars Book 8)

by Jay Allan

  She’d intended to keep her pursuit of Lille to herself—and, of course, her crew—but now she decided she would have to tell Gary Holsten and Van Striker. The spymaster and the admiral had been very good to her, and she considered them both friends. Even in her current state, Andi Lafarge never forgot her few true friends.

  If Lille is risking being on Megara, he’s up to something big. It had crossed her mind several times that Lille could even be after either Holsten or Striker. The Union agent was an assassin, after all, and both of her friends were high-value targets. That was something else that was weighing on her…the fear that she might get to Megara too late.

  She turned back to Merrick. “I’m going to go down to engineering and see if Lex can squeeze a little more thrust out of the engines.” She’d been pushing Pegasus harder than she ever had before, but her old ship had also enjoyed a serious refit since her last mission, courtesy of her newfound wealth. Now, she needed even more.

  “I’ll make you a deal, Andi. You go back to your quarters, try to get some rest…and I’ll go down to engineering and help Lex get what he can from the engines.” Merrick wasn’t an engineer of Lex Righter’s caliber, but Andi knew he had a good bit of experience working on spaceship engines.

  She also knew her chances of getting any sleep were effectively zero. But perhaps she should put on a show, try to make her people think they had gotten her to go to bed. She owed them, at least by her reckoning. They had all achieved the vast wealth they had so long pursued, and yet they had all come back to Pegasus’s cramped quarters and the danger of her quest for revenge. Not one of them had pulled out, gone back to the gilded existence they had fought so long to attain.

  That was loyalty, and however scarred she was, however damaged and compelled to pursue a possibly ruinous trail, she had long ago sworn to herself she would always repay that rarest commodity in kind.

  “Okay, Vig…I’ll try. But I’m not promising anything. Maybe Rina can watch the bridge for a while.”

  “Already here, Andi.” Rina Strand was another of Andi’s people from the early days. The two had been in more scrapes together than she could count, and they’d saved each other’s lives more than once to boot.

  “You just like my chair.” Andi forced a smile. The darkness inside her was too strong to allow those kinds of feelings to emerge. She wondered if that would always be the case.

  Just then, it felt like it would be.

  “I do like that chair, Andi…I can’t deny it.” Strand returned the grin, hers looking authentic. “Just try to get some rest.” She paused. “You’re going to need everything you’ve got when we reach Megara…you know that.”

  Andi nodded at her friend. She did know that. Ricard Lille was no easy target. She would need all she had to defeat him.

  But knowing that and actually getting some rest were two different things.

  Two very different things.

  Chapter Fourteen

  CFS Repulse

  Unknown System 20

  Year 316 AC

  Sara Eaton was watching three of her ships dying on the display.

  Three more of her ships.

  Two of the vessels were freighters with damaged drives, abandoned by their crews and left in the control of artificial intelligence units. The third was a cruiser, also a victim of malfunctioning engines. Unlike the freighters, it was still manned by a skeleton crew, one entirely made up of volunteers.

  Volunteers doomed to die.

  Eaton knew the fact that the nine men and women on that ship had offered to stay, without orders and without any real hope of survival, should have made it easier on her…but it didn’t. Not really. They were her people, more of her spacers, about to die, even as the rest of the fleet continued its nearly hopeless flight.

  She wondered if it mattered. If in some ways, it wasn’t more merciful for the nine volunteers to meet their ends now, rather than continuing on. Her fleet had plunged out into deep space, following long-forgotten transit paths leading to…who knew where? Now, even the hope of continuing that grim journey felt as though it was slipping away. Their chances rested entirely on the hope that there were transit points orbiting the companion star that lay ahead.

  She waited, hoping to see the cruiser open fire, to get a shot in before the enemy finished it off…but she knew that was a false hope. The Hegemony battleships massively outranged the Confederation heavy cruiser, and Eaton knew, almost for a certainty, that she would watch her people die without getting off so much as a single shot. She regretted allowing any of them to stay, despite their stated—but ultimately futile—hope that they could get the engines back up to full power in time.

  Perhaps the worst part of it all was how she’d withheld what support she could have sent to support her latest three laggards. Olya Federov and Jake Stockton had both requested permission to lead bombing strikes to support the trailing ships. Stockton, particularly, had done so repeatedly. She had refused them both. No number of sorties was going to save those ships, and she couldn’t afford to lose more pilots, not when she knew she’d need them soon enough. The enemy forces had taken several days to emerge into the system, most likely because Stockton’s relentless assaults had disordered them badly. But now they were pursuing the fleet again, and their thrust levels outmatched her own. They were going to catch the fleet, sooner or later, and she was going to need every fighter she had then.

  She saw the indicators on her screen light up. Energy readings. The enemy ships along their front line were powering up their weapons. There was no warning, no demand for surrender, no communication of any kind. Eaton saw starkly just what kind of enemy—what kind of war—the Confederation faced. The Hegemony was brutal, unyielding…and they operated under the absolute certainty that they were superior, that any who opposed them were inferiors, fit only to serve, if to live at all.

  She saw a small flash, one of the enemy ships opening fire. Actually, she suspected her ships were already gone, their crews dead even as she watched the projections in the display. The lagging vessels were a full six light minutes behind, and that meant what she was seeing now had happened three hundred sixty seconds before.

  She didn’t think any of the ships would last that long.

  Even as that thought crossed her mind, one of the freighters vanished from the display, followed a few seconds later by the AI report that the vessel had been destroyed.

  There were a few quiet gasps on the bridge, but for the most part her people were veterans, and they remained silent. They’d lost comrades before, and while she didn’t suspect they’d become any less disgusted by it than she had, she knew they were harder, more disciplined than they had been before the war with the Union.

  She waited, watching, counting the seconds. A quick glance at her screen told her it would be almost nine minutes before the cruiser was even within extreme range…and she had a pretty good idea of the odds of the ship surviving that long.

  She’d barely finished that thought when the small circle representing the cruiser brightened. A hit.

  The ship was still there, but as she continued to watch, the damage reports began coming in. The vessel was hurt, badly, its already diminished thrust completely gone now. She felt a controlled sort of panic, an urge to get some help to the ship, to somehow save her people she knew were about to die. Losing spacers in a battle was difficult enough, but the camaraderie of facing an enemy together somehow made it easier to endure. Watching one of her ships hunted like a wounded animal, a hundred million kilometers from any help, was almost too much to endure.

  She continued to watch as a pair of Hegemony battleships increased their thrust and blasted out in front of the main formation. An instant later, one of them opened fire, and the second freighter disappeared from her screen. Now, the desperate cruiser was alone.

  She wanted to look away, but she couldn’t. She wouldn’t let herself. If you can send them out there to die, you can damned sure watch it.

  She sat still…all of
Repulse’s bridge was still, silent. Every officer present was watching the display, immersed in the same horror that engulfed Eaton. Part of her wanted the cruiser to survive as long as possible…and part wanted the whole thing to be over. But, whatever she wanted, time was passing slowly, each second seeming to drag out almost to eternity.

  Part of her still hoped the enemy would stop, that they would contact the ship, demand its surrender. She knew that wouldn’t happen. She didn’t know much about the Hegemony, but she’d seen no willingness to take prisoners. The naval officer in her, the strict, hard persona that had fought so many battles, was grateful for that fact. There was guilt, of course, for her relief that her people would die, but she couldn’t imagine the intelligence the captured spacers might be forced to divulge.

  As much as Sara Eaton, the human being, wanted her people to live, the flag officer, the part of her who had already dared to imagine the war that was likely coming, wanted those few spacers to die. Better that than to become the instruments by which the enemy found the Confederation…and killed millions more.

  A few seconds later, she got her wish, as the cruiser was hit twice in rapid succession, and disappeared in the fury of nuclear fusion.

  * * *

  “What are you saying, Ivan?” Eaton stared across her desk at Fensker. The astrogation specialist had come to see her for an unprecedented second time in as many months. His first visit had convinced her to take the fleet on a desperate dash across the vast stretch of space between the stars of the binary system.

  She’d agreed with him then, but this visit filled her with utter dread.

  “I’ve checked it five times, Commodore, and I’ve had the main AI review my findings and run its own analysis. I can’t be one hundred percent sure, but I’d put my confidence level above ninety percent. Even ninety-five percent.”

  Eaton looked back down at the images on the large tablet Fensker had brought with him. It was just about the biggest of the portable units, but it was still too small for her to make out the details the scientist was pointing out. To her eyes, the scans just looked like random arrays of stars, with a few highlighted in red or blue…but Fensker had pointed to each of them and stated a specific name. Some were stars she’d heard of before, others were unknown to her. But the fleet’s chief astrogator seemed utterly certain of his analysis.

  “You’re that sure, Ivan, really? This is no time for boasting or exaggeration. I have to know.”

  “Commodore…how long have I served with you? Have you ever known me to state something with virtual certainty…when I wasn’t virtually certain?” She could hear the sorrow in the scientist’s voice.

  Eaton felt like she’d been punched in the gut. Fensker had always behaved in all ways with a strict scientific code. If anything, he was likely to denote a level of uncertainty where, really, there was none. She couldn’t imagine him puffing himself up with half-proven assertions.

  That meant they had trouble. Big trouble.

  “So, you’re telling me that we transited into the outer star of a binary system…and that the inner star is a system in the Badlands?”

  “Yes, Commodore, that is what I’m telling you. It is reference number Sigma-112, colloquially known as Bellephoron. It’s well-documented, if uninhabited”

  “How is that possible? How could the point we came through remain undetected for so long?” She knew the answer, even as she asked the question.

  “The system is outside the Confederation, Commodore, and the inner planets were of modest value. It has four transit points, making it somewhat of a hub in the inner Badlands. There was simply no reason for any ships to make the extensive journey out to explore the companion star…and, in point of fact, few ships capable of so rigorous a trip would have visited this system. Our own fleet is outfitted to military standards, and yet we are having a…difficult…journey. It’s highly unlikely some Badlands free trader or explorer’s ship could survive the trip there and back. With no one coming through the other side, until us, there was no indication of a transit point located so far from the primary, nor any reason to suspect one.”

  “So, after all we’ve done, the number of systems we’ve come through, the people we lost…we’ve managed to lead them back to the Confederation anyway. Is that what you’re telling me?”

  Fensker shifted uncomfortably, the guilt written on his face. “I wouldn’t have put it exactly that way, Commodore.” He paused, looking at Eaton. “For one thing…we have led them dangerously close to the Confederation, but not all the way there. Perhaps there is a course we could take, a way to turn about and lead them away from the border. They appear to have pursued us rather doggedly and not scattered their strength exploring other transit points we have passed.”

  Eaton nodded, barely. She appreciated Fensker’s words, and his attempt to give her hope…but the scientist had no idea what the Hegemony forces had done along the route, or just how large their fleets truly were. For all any of them knew, there was a force as large as the one bearing down on the fleet now in every other transit route they had gone by.

  “Is there such a route?” Eaton was doubtful. She was no expert on Badlands navigation, but she knew the close-in systems of the dead zone tended to have small numbers of working transit points, and that they mostly led back and forth to other nearby stars. The routes out into deep space were relatively few…and it would take considerable luck to chart a course that would lead away, without going through a system that would raise suspicion. The stars near the border tended to have fairly considerable traffic from smugglers, survey ships, and the like. It would only take one appearing on Hegemony scanners to give things away.

  Fensker sighed. “I haven’t explored every option yet, Commodore…” She could tell the answer from his tone. “…but it will probably be difficult.”

  “You mean impossible.”

  “No, Commodore…not impossible.”

  “But not within any risk parameters I can accept. Not when leading the Hegemony right to Confederation space is the downside.”

  Fensker looked down, his eyes avoiding hers. “No, Commodore. Probably not.” A pause. “I am so sorry, Commodore. I should have checked this before I counseled you to…”

  “That’s enough of that, Ivan. There was no way you could have foreseen this.”

  “Yes, Commodore.” She could tell Fensker still blamed himself. She wished she could say something that would ease the officer’s guilt…but she suspected she’d feel the same way.

  She sat still for a moment, silent. Then she reached out and put her hand on Fensker’s shoulder. “Thank you, Ivan. You’ve done your duty. Now, it is time for me to do mine.”

  She took a deep breath, and then continued, her voice softer when she did. “As soon as I can figure out what that is.”

  She sat where she was, thinking she’d dismissed the officer…until she noticed him still standing there, looking uncomfortable, and a little confused.

  “That will be all, Ivan. Perhaps you can review your calculations. It’s important that we’re sure about this.” She didn’t have a doubt the scientist was right, and from the expression on his face, neither did he.

  He nodded. “Yes, Commodore. Immediately.” He turned and walked across the room, and out through the door…leaving Eaton with a problem to solve, and one hell of a pounding headache.

  * * *

  Sara Eaton looked out across the bridge, her eyes fixed on the display, at the vast array of Hegemony ships moving even now toward firing range. She had time—maybe—to get her ships out of the system before they were engaged and destroyed. That was what she would have done before…it was what she’d intended to do, and her ships were even now moving toward the targeted transit point. But Fensker’s words were still echoing in her mind, the news he’d brought her standing in her way.

  She’d known since the day Barron had left to return to the Confederation that the fleet likely faced destruction, but it was one thing to know that while continuing to
fight and flee, and quite another to face the fact that the moment had come. The final fight was upon her.

  Her mission had been clear: to keep the enemy confused and occupied as long as possible, to preserve the secret of the Confederation’s location. Circumstance had betrayed her, and the course she’d pursued into the depths of the darkness had instead brought her back around, no more than seven transits from the Confederation border itself.

  Her mind raced, desperately searching for tactics, ideas, anything. But there were only two options. Lead the enemy back through the Badlands, a hair’s breadth from the inhabited Rim.

  Or fight here, to the death…and hope the enemy didn’t push on farther after her ships were gone.

  It was a poor choice, one of the worst she’d ever faced. But, to Sara Eaton, only one of the options was possible.

  She turned her head, looking across the bridge toward her sister. “Sonya…issue a fleet order. All ships, battle stations. All squadrons…scramble and prepare to attack.” She stared across the bridge, aware every eye was fixed upon her. “We’re going to fight it out right here.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Troyus City

  Planet Megara, Olyus III

  Year 316 AC

  The silence on the street was ominous. Troyus City was usually bustling in the early evening, especially right before a weekend. The streets all through the city center were lined with restaurants, and they were usually packed, as were the venues in the theater district, and the clubs that lined the waterfront south of the main government sector. But tonight, a table could be had anywhere, as could admission to any of the sought-after shows or the hottest clubs. Most of the capital’s population was home, watching the newscasts.

  The crisis had broken the day before, and most of those who hadn’t skipped work to watch the telecasts had raced home early, after, in most cases, a stunningly distracted and unproductive day. The stories had come out in rapid succession, starting two nights before with the announcement that the former head of Confederation Intelligence had been convicted of a vast conspiracy and widespread corruption…and sentenced to life imprisonment on a penal colony in the distant Corvega system’s asteroid belt.