by Jay Allan
His tactical sense was screaming at him, telling him to alter Dauntless’s facing, to bring his own primaries to bear. He’d put the battleship’s gunners up against any in the Confederation, even without the half dozen veterans who’d remained behind with the White Fleet. He could win a long-ranged duel against another ship of the class…he was sure of it, though the addition of the cruisers to the mix was problematical. As was the fact that such a course would mean killing another thousand Confederation spacers. He wasn’t ready to cover his hands in that much blood from men and women who’d fought at his side against the Union just two years before…and killing so many spacers would make it almost impossible to rally the navy against the approaching Hegemony threat.
“Admiral, Commander Glaven says he will try, but he is not hopeful.”
Barron turned toward Dauntless’s captain and just nodded. He hadn’t expected anything different. Anya Fritz might have come up with something, some kind of bizarre feat of engineering that seemed impossible to everyone else. Glaven was a top notch engineer, experienced and well-respected. But he wasn’t Anya Fritz.
Who might be dead as far as Barron knew.
Likely was dead, he thought, before pushing the thought out of his mind.
Barron stared at the display, his eyes darting from the transit point to Dauntless, and then to the battleship chasing him. His ship wasn’t going to make it, not unless the captain of the pursuing vessel was careless and sloppy. Titania would get off a shot for sure, maybe even two…and every vestige of his battle experience told Barron he wanted to shoot first, to inflict the first damage, not take it.
But the ghostly faces of all those Confederation spacers stared at him from the edges of his mind.
Damn…
He didn’t know what to do. He wasn’t sure if he could even bring himself to fire first. He knew they would most likely fire at him, that waiting would only put Dauntless at a disadvantage…but, still, he didn’t give the order. He waited, his eyes fixed on the point, his mind willing his ship to reach it, to transit to the next system…to get through before the pursuing ship could open fire.
For what that would be worth. It was just one system farther. He knew he’d never escape again, that the battle he’d avoided here would almost certainly take place there.
He looked at the large-scale display detailing the Confederation’s network of transit points. He’d tried to head out for Dannith or Grimaldi, but his pursuers had gotten there first, boxing Dauntless in. It forced him to turn away from any kind of union with major forces stationed at Grimaldi, or at Dannith, where the White Fleet would most likely return…if any of it did.
Dauntless had raced across much of the Confederation, her course further constrained by the approaching interception forces. Finally, she’d blazed a trail across a large section of the Iron Belt, and then back out toward the Far Rim. Barron knew that area well—the naval base at Archellia, and beyond, the route to the Alliance. There were advantages to going there…he was a legend on Archellia, the planet’s greatest hero, and it was a place where he knew he had a good chance of rallying the local forces to his cause.
And he would have access to the Alliance as well, a chance to communicate with his allies there…to request help, if necessary, to fight his own people. He’d provided that very same assistance once to Tarkus Vennius and his Gray Palatians, and he had no doubt that Imperator Tullus would side with his old ally.
Still, for all the advantages of Archellia, there was one huge negative. The system was distant, both from the heart of the Confederation and from the threatened border along the Badlands. Barron had come home to prepare to face the Hegemony, and now he was on the run, fleeing to a remote planet, far from the deadly threat he had no doubt was coming.
“Four minutes to transit, Admiral.” Atara Travis’s voice sounded calm, professional…to everyone on the bridge save Tyler Barron. He could hear the tension his friend was hiding so well from the others, and he knew she was as aware as he was that the pursuing battleship would open fire any second.
“Increase evasive maneuvers to level three.” Barron had held back on the most aggressive evasion plans, because they would also slow Dauntless down. But if he didn’t give Titania’s gunners a challenge…
“Engaging level three maneuvers now. Transit time now…” There was a short pause, barely noticeable. “Four minute forty seconds.”
Barron took a deep breath, even as he saw the bright flash in the display. For an instant, he wondered if Titania’s weapons had scored a hit, but then he realized Dauntless hadn’t shaken or vibrated, nor had she shown any signs of damage…and no alarms had gone off. An instant later, the scanners confirmed it.
A clean miss.
Barron felt a rush of excitement, but he knew Titania would get a second shot…and maybe a third.
He sat, struggling with the feeling of helplessness, knowing there was nothing he could do. Even returning fire would require him to divert energy to charge up Dauntless’s primaries.
He could see Titania slipping back slightly, and he knew the battleship had cut her thrust to recharge her own guns. That would help, but not enough. The two ships were traveling at high velocities, and a minute or two of extra thrust wasn’t going to get Dauntless out of range before Titania fired again.
Even if Dauntless made it through the transit point with no damage, he didn’t see how he would get his ship across the Delphi system and to the next point. All he was playing for now was time, a small delay before he’d have to surrender…or fight it out with Confederation vessels. In any other circumstance, he suspected he might surrender rather than spilling friendly blood. But yielding now sold out all those who’d put themselves on the line to rescue him. Atara and Bryan Rogan—and all of Dauntless’s crew—would pay a grievous price if he surrendered.
Worse, he would lose any chance of spreading the word about the Hegemony. Confederation officers and citizens would no longer listen to what he had to say. There would be no one to take heed of his warning and prepare for the holocaust he feared was even now coming for them all.
No, he would have to fight, no matter what it did to him to kill so many comrades. But he still wanted the extra time. He wasn’t sure what he expected another day or two to accomplish, but he kept the hope alive that something would happen, that he would find some way to get the warning to those who would listen, before the unthinkable happened.
His eyes caught another flash, Titania’s second shot. It was considerably closer than the first, but still a miss. He checked the distance to the transit point, the time until Dauntless would wink out of existence into the Santorus system through the strange alternate space that lay between the points. It was a sanctuary of sorts now, a few seconds of escape from the grim reality of normal space.
And then, into Delphi…and a chance to alter Dauntless’s vector. Barron figured the chances of it buying enough time were about one in ten.
He watched as his destination grew on the main screen, as the distance from his ship to the alien blackness of the point’s core loomed ever closer. They were there…only seconds more before Dauntless entered the point. Barron took another deep breath, one he intended to hold until he saw the Delphi system all around him.
Then Dauntless spun wildly around, flipping end over end. Barron could hear the distant explosions far off toward the battleship’s aft. His ship had taken a hit, he knew that immediately, and from the feel of it, a bad one. He only had a few seconds to think about it before he felt the strange floating sensation, the vaguely sickening feeling of alien space…and then, a few seconds later, stillness, as Dauntless returned to normal space, her scanners and instruments still recovering from the transit.
Barron let out his breath, and even as he did, he could feel the sensation of free fall…and he realized, Dauntless’s engines weren’t blasting.
At all.
* * *
Davis Heaton watched as the damage assessment reports streamed in. It was good n
ews. Titania’s primaries had scored a hit on Dauntless—by all indications, a serious one. The commander of the force sent to stop the renegade battleship was excited at his gunners’ success, all the more because Barron’s evasive maneuvers had been extremely effective…but there was something else, too, regret at firing on another Confederation vessel.
Heaton’s family had been aligned with the Whittens for three generations, and he’d been brought up to continue that tradition, a career choice that had hindered him as Torrance Whitten had failed to achieve the command levels expected of him. Until just a few weeks earlier, when Whitten himself had been named commander in chief of the navy…and had entrusted Heaton with the command of Titania, along with a mission presented as crucial, to track and apprehend Tyler Barron on Dauntless.
If he was unable to take the renegade officer prisoner, his orders were explicitly clear. He was to destroy Dauntless.
The words seemed almost unreal. Heaton hadn’t been a Barron loyalist, at least not in the sense of looking to members of that family for patronage and career support. But he’d looked up to Tyler Barron as a hero with as much genuine feeling as any naval officer, or, for that matter, any Confederation citizen. Barron was one of the fleet’s greatest heroes, and Dauntless its most famous vessel, even if the current bearer of that designation was a replacement. To a career Confederation officer, chasing Tyler Barron was a nightmare become real.
He’d read the reports on Barron, seen much of the evidence that had been released. It all looked damning, he had to admit that much, but still, part of him simply couldn’t believe it. He’d tried to convince himself it was true, to accept the reality, however distasteful, but every time he considered it again, something held him back from full acceptance.
Why hasn’t Dauntless turned and fought us? If they’re all traitors, they’d do anything to make good their escape.
He’d expected the fleeing battleship to turn and give battle for hours now, days. His force outgunned Barron’s battleship, but the admiral had a reputation for taking on forces far larger than those he commanded…and somehow clawing out a win in the end. Titania led a small task force, but she was the only battleship, and Dauntless was her twin. Criminal or not, the Tyler Barron he knew of would never let a few cruisers and escorts hold him back from an otherwise straight up fight.
Unless he doesn’t want to fire on Confederation vessels…
Heaton knew troops had been killed in Barron and of Gary Holsten’s escapes, but it certainly seemed that the fleeing admiral was trying not to engage any Confederation ships if he could help it. And that didn’t match up with the idea of Barron as a criminal and a traitor.
“Dauntless is transiting, Admiral.”
Heaton turned, flashing his eyes toward the tactical station. If the readings were correct, Dauntless’s engines were completely down. Barron was escaping now only because his course had been a direct one to the transit point…and his velocity would take him through before Titania’s main guns could recharge and fire again.
“Deactivate primary batteries. All power to the engines.” It was a command decision, and the correct one. He could continue charging his guns, but that would be ignoring reality. Dauntless would be lightyears away by the time the weapons were ready to fire…and Titania and her companion ships needed to adjust their vectors to match up with Dauntless’s insertion angle and follow Barron’s ship through the point. As it was, Dauntless would have an hour’s jump on his ships. If he wasted time and energy, that would only increase.
As much as he hated the idea of fighting—even destroying—Tyler Barron and Dauntless, he intended to see it done in the next system. The chase had gone on long enough, and if Dauntless’s engines were really offline, it would over soon enough.
It was time to finish things.
No matter how sick it made him.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Battleship Danais
Ventica System
1.5 Million Kilometers from Planet Dannith
Year of Renewal 260 (316 AC)
“Honored Master, our scanners have detected large numbers of the enemy’s small attack ships on a course toward the fleet. Preliminary estimates suggest in excess of nine hundred units inbound.” The man had entered the room and prostrated himself before Raketh, speaking only when the Master gestured for him to do so.
“That is not unexpected, though we might have hoped for a smaller number of the troublesome craft.” Raketh would never condescend to discuss his thoughts with an Inferior, but in truth, he was concerned about what the fighters meant for the battles to come. The enemy’s invasion fleet had possessed a similar number and, if Raketh’s assessment of the size and scope of habitation on the Rim proved accurate, the world his forces were attacking was only a frontier planet. Even if it was a regional capital, there was little doubt larger and more powerful worlds lay beyond. How many of the attack craft would a major industrial planet possess? The enemy’s primary capital? Or their military headquarters?
The man kneeling before Raketh was a Red Kriegeri, one of the highest ranking of the Hegemony’s Inferiors. Indeed, he was so close to Master rank himself that several generations of careful breeding might result in his descendants achieving the coveted status one day. But in the presence of the commanding Masters of the fleet, he was little more than a slave.
“Go,” Raketh said, his voice cold and unemotional. “Issue a fleet command. All ships are to plot a maximum speed course toward the enemy planet…and execute at once.” The fleet couldn’t simply accelerate all the way to the target world. If it did, it would simply fly past at high velocity, without enough time to engage the enemy ships or orbital defenses, much less land an invasion force. But he was wary of the approaching small craft, and well aware that they were capable of attacking repeatedly if they had time. He wanted to limit the window when the attack ships could engage before his own fleet was in range of their launch platforms.
“As you command, Master.” The man remained bowed low for a few seconds, a show of respect to the Masters present. Then he rose and walked out of the room to execute Raketh’s orders.
“We must again endure the assaults of the enemy’s small craft.” There was frustration in Raketh’s tone, an emotion he could express now that there were no Inferiors present. For though he had been raised from birth in the Hegemony’s culture of assured superiority, he still understood the danger represented by the small craft. He knew how badly they had hurt his ships, and how frequently they had disordered and halted his fleet.
The fleet could face hundreds, that was certain. The forces of the Hegemony, once massed and directed forward into enemy space, could endure such attacks by thousands. But he had no idea how many there were, and as he considered that, he realized how little he truly knew of the enemy. That was not a concern worthy of a Hegemony commander, and certainly not of a first century Master…at least not according to all he’d been taught. But there was something there, something new. He didn’t doubt a Hegemony victory in the coming war…the thought of outright defeat was inconceivable to him. But for the first time, he wondered just what the cost would be, how difficult a fight it would take to subdue the Rim dwellers.
* * *
“You must issue the orders, Administrator Cantor…and you have to address the planetary population as well. Admiral Winters’s fleet has taken position in support of the orbital defenses, but we must prepare in the event he is defeated. If the enemy lands ground forces, it will be vital that we are prepared to resist strongly during the first hours…and turn them back at their beachheads. To have any chance at all, we will need not only the defense forces, but the militia as well. It will take every citizen of Dannith to hold the planet.” Captain Blanth was beyond frustrated with Cantor. The Administrator, as far as he could see, was utterly useless. No, worse, he was an impediment. The Marine remembered Admiral Barron’s final comment, his authorization to shoot Cantor if he had to. He hadn’t taken that seriously when Barron said it,
and he was pretty sure such a thing exceeded the admiral’s authority, but still, it had crossed his mind more than once since, if not entirely sincerely.
Cantor looked back at the Marine, his eyes bloodshot, his expression one of despair. He’d harassed Blanth relentlessly, trying to come up with some way he could escape from the planet that had foolishly elected him as its leader. But the Marine had clear orders from Admiral Barron, and despite the limitations of his miniscule force, he’d kept the politician under constant surveillance. He suspected his actions had violated a dozen laws, both local and Confederation, but he didn’t care. As far as he was concerned, Tyler Barron’s orders were as good as the word of God, and the fact that General Rogan had repeated them solidified Blanth’s resolve into pure, unyielding steel.
“Administrator?” Blanth was ready to have the politician dragged down to the broadcast center if need be, but there was no way the man elected as Dannith’s leader was going to sit in his office and whimper as the planet faced the greatest threat it ever had. Not on his watch.
When Cantor still remained where he was, Blanth leaned forward and put his hand on the man’s shoulder…quite a bit more gently than he’d intended at first. “There is no time. You must issue the final mobilization orders now, and then you have to go to the comm center and speak to the people…you have to tell them what’s happening before rumors run wild and panic sets in.” Blanth had a good idea that panic was coming no matter what he did, if it wasn’t already spreading.