Black Dawn (Blood on the Stars Book 8)

by Jay Allan

“You mind if I help?”

  Andi recognized the voice, and her head spun around. She hadn’t seen Tyler in nearly two years, and when he’d arrived with the others she’d just lowered the ramp before heading back to the bridge, ready to blast off the second they were all aboard. She wanted to jump out of her chair, run to him, throw her arms around him.

  Tell him how much she missed him.

  But she was a warrior in her own way, just as he was. And her ship needed her now, her crew. Her passengers, including Tyler Barron.

  “What do you suggest, Admiral?” It was nothing like the first words she’d imagined having with him, but business had first position in her thoughts now. And right now, business was getting the hell out of the mess they were in.

  The targeting systems on those ships are configured for longer-ranged engagements. I know how they work.” He paused, just for a second. “If you don’t mind me taking the helm, I think I can work up an evasion plan good enough to get us to Dauntless…hopefully without taking any hits.”

  Andi felt a few seconds of reflexive resentment. Pegasus was, after all, her ship, and the suggestion that anyone could fly her better than she could poked at a raw nerve. But it quickly passed. What Tyler said made sense…and beyond that, he was probably the person she trusted most in all of the universe. She jumped out of her seat and looked back toward him, gesturing with her arms toward the chair. “By all means, Admiral. The helm is yours.”

  Barron nodded, and he raced over, leaping into her chair. He pulled the movable workstation around, positioning the nav panel in front of him, and began working at the controls.

  Andi watched nervously. She knew Barron was a gifted capital ship pilot, and probably the best ship commander she’d ever known…if not the best that had ever lived. But he’d never flown Pegasus, and his experience had been with much larger vessels. Her controls were different in a number of ways from those of a Confederation warship.

  She could see him struggling for a moment, and then getting the hang of it. The ship jerked hard to port, and then about ten seconds later, to starboard. After that, the changes began to happen more quickly, every two seconds, or even faster.

  Andi looked at the display, confirmed her suspicions. Several of the patrol ships were firing at Pegasus now. Their lasers were like candles to Dauntless, but one solid hit would probably disable Pegasus completely. But none of their shots hit. None even came close.

  Barron handled her ship flawlessly, maneuvering as though he knew exactly where the attacking ships would fire. Which, in a way, he did.

  She reached out and grabbed onto the handhold around the perimeter of the bridge, hanging on as her ship began shaking wildly. Barron hadn’t let off on the forward thrust at all, save for the diversions to alter the ship’s course enough to avoid attacks. As she watched, she also realized he’d brought Pegasus around on a course that put Dauntless between her and most of the attacking ships.

  “Dauntless…this is Pegasus. We’re coming in fast. I’m going to break hard and clamp onto the hull. I’ll signal when we’re on tightly, and then blast the hell out of orbit and make a run for it.”

  “Admiral?” Andi was looking at Barron when he heard the voice, and she saw the emotion in his expression. She remembered what Atara had told her, how she’d been in a coma for months, and only recovered after Barron had left the ship.

  “Atara…my God, I’m glad to hear your voice.”

  “And I’m glad to hear yours, Ty…but I suggest we leave all that for later. The hits from these ships are starting to smart, and I’d really like to get out of here without having to blow them to bits. And when those fortresses open up, we’ve got real problems.”

  “Roger that, Atara. We’re coming in hot. I’m going break hard and slip right into the cradle. Less than two minutes.”

  “I’ll hold you to that, sir. Two minutes.”

  Andi gripped harder onto the rails. Two minutes to docking meant one hell of a ride in.

  She trusted Tyler to get it done, to bring them all safely to Dauntless.

  She just wasn’t sure she trusted her stomach to make it though his wild maneuvers. Her gut was usually iron, but then again, she’d never seen anyone fly a spaceship quite the way Barron was right then.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  CFS Repulse

  Passing Through System Z-21

  Year 316 AC

  “We’re picking up massive energy trails, Commodore. There’s no question, the enemy came through this system.”

  Sonya’s words cut through her sister like a knife. The Z-21 system was on a direct course toward the Confederation, and the fact that Hegemony forces had been there, and were already gone, was about as bad a piece of news as she could have expected.

  She’d reorganized her battered and dispersed fleet after the Hegemony fleet disengaged. They’d raced forward toward the very transit points to which her ships had been headed before they discovered they were on a line to the Confederation and not out into unexplored space as they had all expected.

  Her first instinct was immediate pursuit, to stay as close to the faster Hegemony ships as she could, but cold reality demanded a different set of priorities. Most of her ships had suffered considerable damage, and very few of them were in a condition to deploy maximum thrust, or anything close to it. In the end, the fleet had waited almost eighteen hours before beginning pursuit, and even that repair period had allowed no more than two thirds of her ships to achieve something remotely close to maximum acceleration. She’d left the others behind, in a stretched-out trail of vessels limping along at whatever thrust levels they could manage. For the most part, they were clustered together, forming small groups for mutual protection. Most of them would make it back, if they weren’t intercepted and destroyed by some enemy force. But what they would return to was a guess she didn’t even try to attempt.

  The Hegemony had also left its stragglers behind, though in their case a far more brutal calculus was at work. The enemy had to know she would follow them, that the ships left behind would be overtaken and attacked by massively larger forces. She left her people behind in the sincere hope they would make it back to the Confederation. The Hegemony commander or commanders—she had no idea at all how their hierarchy worked—had cast their cripples aside to be chased down and destroyed.

  Eaton had ordered her ships to hunt down and obliterate those Hegemony stragglers with a grim satisfaction she found somewhat disturbing in terms of her view of herself. There was animosity in all war, of course, but she was surprised at just how quickly she’d developed a searing hatred for the Hegmony and its forces…and she knew the war to come would reach a level of brutality beyond even the worst of the Union-Confederation struggles.

  The turn of events, the disastrous accident that had likely put the enemy on a course toward the Confederation, had one bright spot. There was a chance now, maybe a good chance, that the fleet would make it back home to stand with their comrades in the coming deadly, savage conflict.

  Eaton sat quietly, and her thoughts were far different from her usual reasoned rationality. She wanted to kill Hegemony spacers. She wanted to destroy the new enemy utterly and without mercy. They were a blot on humanity, and the restraint she usually felt and exercised was gone now.

  Completely gone.

  * * *

  Stockton sat on the cot in his quarters, slouched forward, his head in his hands. He’d pulled off the nearly impossible landing, and all four of the pilots following him in managed to do the same, hanging close to his tail, emulating everything he had done on the way in. It was a miracle, or as close to one as he’d ever seen, but now, sitting in the quiet, with no combat imminent, he had time to think.

  And that was a dangerous thing.

  Stockton always tried to keep busy. He carried too many ghosts around with him, too much sorrow and loss to endure endless quiet hours. There were friends who, even now, he still expected to see walking through the door one day. One of those was Kyle “Thund
er” Jamison, who had been Stockton’s commander for most of his career. He’d been more than a friend—even…a brother. Stockton had been moments short of saving his friend that fateful day, even seconds. Every time he thought about that day, his mind went to what he could have done differently, just a little bit better…and he felt it pulling at the fraying bonds of his sanity.

  And Jovi Grachus…she had killed Jamison, and Stockton had nursed a burning hatred for the Alliance pilot, even after the Palatians became Confederation allies. Then, in a perverse twist of fate, he’d worked through his anger toward Grachus and learned to accept the new ally…just in time to see her die in battle. In place of the satisfaction he’d expected to feel at Grachus’s loss, there was only more sorrow and mourning.

  The door slid open, pulling him from the increasingly morose train of thoughts. Stara walked in. They had each had their own quarters on Dauntless, though they’d spent most of their down time together in his. When they’d both transferred suddenly to Repulse, no one had even bothered with the window dressing of giving them separate cabins. Things were tight with so many spacers moving onto the fleet’s new flagship, and there was no space for quarters that would be left largely unused.

  He'd been wild as a young pilot, and he’d enjoyed gambling with the others, bragging about his exploits, and generally living up to the legendary image of the ace pilot. Now, he realized he had become a grim creature, focused on duty not just because of dedication, but also because there was so little else left of him.

  “The strike force is in far better shape than we could have hoped, Jake. Better than ninety percent of the fighters are ready for action or close to it. As soon as we get enough of the bays back in full operation, you’ll be ready to launch most of your force, if need be.” Stara Sinclair had slipped into the room, unnoticed by a Stockton deeply immersed in his brooding.

  He looked up and managed a smile for her. He appreciated her, in so many ways. She was beautiful— to his eyes, at least—but she was also smart…and she had a kind of good sense he found to be very rare in people. She didn’t come in with pointless phrases, telling him to “cheer up,” or something equally nonsensical. She understood, as he did, that such things were not just idiotic, they were also insulting. They implied the things causing his depressed mood weren’t important, a kind of thinly disguised, “I’m sorry you lost so many of your pilots and that all of your good friends are gone, but give us a smile!” Stara was far more sophisticated in her approach, and while he generally saw through it, he appreciated the effort and intellect behind it.

  “That’s good news.” He noted she didn’t mention that seventeen of his people had died trying to land in barely-functional bays…or that more than three hundred had failed to return at all from the last, seemingly endless battle. Including thirty-four pilots who’d suffocated or frozen in disabled fighters or escape pods, simply because none of the fleet’s ships had been able to launch rescue boats in time.

  Less than half the pilots that had been with the fleet when Dauntless left were still in service, and the fact that about eighty of those had survived and were in the fleet’s sickbays didn’t go very far to mitigating the severity of the losses. Neither did the fact that he’d pulled the last of the crated fighters from the fleet’s supply ships and drafted everyone he could find with flight experience to fill in some of the holes in his order of battle. He shivered at the thought of the losses a bunch of shuttle pilots and flight school washouts would endure when he had to lead them against a Hegemony fleet.

  Stara plopped down on the bed and sat silently for a moment, leaning slightly toward him so her head was resting on his shoulder.

  Stockton could hear her breathing, and he could feel the tension in her body. He pushed back his grief and his dark thoughts, and he tried to rally himself to be there for her, as she had always been for him. She endured the losses as he did, and the fact that she did it sitting in flight control only meant she had a better view of the carnage, and generally more contact with those who died. She had lost friends, as he had—in many cases, the same people—and he reminded himself he had no exclusive ownership over pain and loss in war.

  “We’ve got to get as much of the strike force ready as we can, Stara.” He wanted to talk to her about anything but fighters and squadrons and the inevitable next battle. But he couldn’t. There would be more fighting ahead, that was a virtual certainty, and the less he prepared, the more of his people would die.

  There was more to his choice of subject than that, though, and it nagged at him. He was afraid he was losing the ability to talk to her about other things. Their personal relationship had always existed alongside their professional combat roles…and he was realizing it had always been subordinate. For all their time together, all the nights they’d spent next to each other in the dark, the vast majority of their time had been spent discussing fighter tactics and the business of the squadrons. He wondered, when it was all over—if it was ever over—what would actually remain for them. He loved her, he didn’t doubt that, and he knew she loved him. But what would they be like together in peace? Would they be happy? Or would they drift apart when the duties and responsibilities that kept them close were no more? Would the pain they shared—so much pain—doom any chance they had of happiness?

  He pushed those thoughts aside, as he usually did when they tried to find their way back into his mind. He had other things to think about, to do…first and foremost, trying to make sure that he lived long enough to face such problems with Stara. The Hegemony was a huge obstacle in the way of that goal.

  He thought about the battles he knew lay ahead. He had almost no idea of the size of the Hegemony’s forces, or how quickly they could be mobilized…or for that matter, whether the Confederation would face the challenge alone, or if the other nations on the Rim would see the danger and come to its aid.

  He only knew two things for sure. First, that fighters would be a huge part of the struggle to come, the one real advantage the Confederation had against an enemy that was otherwise technologically superior.

  Second…that advantage would be fleeting. He didn’t think for an instant that the Masters would allow the situation to continue for long. He didn’t know if that meant Hegemony fighters would appear, or simply that the enemy’s defensive doctrines would improve, but he was certain that six months later, or a year, the squadrons would face greater danger from the enemy.

  That meant the squadrons had to make their strikes count, exploit their advantage to the greatest extent possible.

  Before they lost it.

  * * *

  “We can go faster, Admiral, but the cost will be more ships dropping out of the formation. I’ve got repair crews working on all vessels, and I’m monitoring their progress hourly. But it’s just going to take time. The fleet suffered considerable damage, and we need to get weapons systems back online, too.”

  Eaton listened to Fritz’s report, agreeing with every word but still growing more frustrated. Under the best circumstances, the enemy would leave her fleet behind, but her vessels were staggering along at just over half their normal maximum acceleration. She was tempted to order all ships to push forward at their best thrust levels, but there wasn’t much point in catching the enemy without the strength to put up a fight. Tyler Barron had already brought home the news of what was coming, she was sure of that. She needed to get the White Fleet back, somehow, combat ready and prepared to renew the fight.

  “I understand you’re doing all that can be done. But we have to get back before the Hegemony ships locate the route home. We’re out of time. I need you to work your magic. Take some chances if you have to, cut some corners, whatever you have to do. But get this fleet moving faster.” She knew she was being unfair, that the fleet would be even farther back if it hadn’t had Anya Fritz directing repair efforts. Eaton couldn’t even imagine keeping track of work on so many ships at the same time, which Fritz appeared to be doing with remarkable effectiveness.

 
; But she also knew they had to get back. Now.

  “Yes, Commodore. I will take another look at everything and try to come up with some ways to speed up the work.” She paused. “Meanwhile, there’s something you should consider. Every ship is in a different condition, so the time to get the fleet up to maximum thrust is however long it takes to repair the most heavily damaged ship. Leaving vessels behind is the clearest way to cut the time. You’re going to have to decide the minimum number of ships you will take forward, and how many you’ll leave behind. Because, in the end, that’s the choice.”

  “Very well, Captain Fritz. You do what you can, and I’ll consider my answer to that question.” She cut the line.

  Fritz was right. She’d been thinking about it for hours now, and she was no closer to an answer. The entire fleet had been hopelessly outmatched against the Hegemony forces. She’d only be weaker if she led barely half of the remaining ships forward.

  But the enemy was probably scattered now as well, sending detachments through every transit point, searching for a route to the Confederation. The faster she could move her forces, the more chance she had of picking off small enemy forces, cutting off branches on the exploration tree.

  She shook her head. Everything felt like desperation, choices between one bad decision and a worse one. She’d never been as uncertain as she felt now. She had no idea the smallest number of ships she would lead forward, and no clear sense how to reach a final decision.

  She just knew that number was more than what she had ready now.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  ITN Headquarters

  Troyus City, Planet Megara, Olyus III

  Year 316 AC

  “Admiral Whitten is here.”

  Marieles was sitting at her desk, staring at the screen, still trying to comprehend the unmitigated disaster that had just occurred. So many months of effort, culminating in success far beyond the wildest imaginings she’d allowed herself at the start…and half of it lost, in a matter of hours.