Black Dawn (Blood on the Stars Book 8)

by Jay Allan

  He’d despaired of finding a way to defend the planet when Barron had first given him the assignment, but then he’d made a miraculous discovery. There was an entire Marine division on Dannith, and not just any unit, but a hardcore veteran formation. The division’s commander and XO were gone, apparently on some kind of leave. It seemed strange to Blanth that the commander and the second in command would be gone at the same time, but he put it out of his mind. He was just excited to find thousands of veteran Marines available to help defend Dannith, though the presence of the unit made his own situation more complex. Barron had put him in charge of the local defenses, an order of dubious legality, perhaps, but one Blanth intended to obey. But the Marine division had half a dozen officers who outranked him, and thirty or more his equal. He’d had to tread carefully when integrating them into the defensive plans, framing his directives as requests and dropping Barron’s name often. So far, none of the division’s senior officers had refused or disagreed. With any luck, that would continue.

  “Now, Administrator.” His tone was harsher, and he pulled Cantor out of his chair and led him over to a large workstation against the far wall. “Issue the orders, now.” Blanth wondered if the “and don’t force me to put my gun in your mouth” that resounded in his head was apparent in his tone.

  Cantor leaned forward, activating the station with his thumbprint.

  “Awaiting your command, Administrator.” The AI’s voice was familiar, its cadence much like that of the familiar units on Dauntless.

  Cantor took a deep and ragged breath. “Defense Order One, effective immediately,” he said, with rather more certainty than Blanth had expected. “All defense units are to mobilize at once. All members of the militia are to report to their units immediately.”

  Blanth was impressed. Against all odds, Cantor had done well. He looked at the still clearly terrified politician and grinned. “We’ll make a leader out of you yet, Administrator.”

  * * *

  “All wings, stay tight, keep your focus on your assigned targets…and let’s hit these bastards hard.” Alicia Covington sat in her cockpit, a place that had become intimately familiar over seven years of war against the Union. She was a Survivor, the unofficial term the fighter corps had attached to those who’d been serving when the war broke out…and were still there at its end. It was a depressingly small group, even when expanded to include those still alive but too badly injured to remain on duty.

  Covington was the commander of Base Grimaldi’s entire fighter strike force, and Admiral Winters had called on her to accompany his fleet to Dannith. Until Winters had shared Tyler Barron’s communique with her, she hadn’t realized just how desperate of a fight they faced. Dannith’s orbital forts had a large number of squadrons, but they were second tier units, garrison forces of the type assigned to worlds not on a threatened frontier. At least those thought not to be. Clearly, that’s changed.

  Covington had led some crack units during the war, and she’d reached the highest tier of pilots, those ranked just below Jake Stockton, and until his tragic injury, Dirk Timmons. She’d been fortunate enough to have a considerable number of experienced pilots under her at Grimaldi. Even with peace, and with the clearly disordered state of affairs in the Union, the fortress was the Confederation’s highest defensive priority.

  But Dannith was another matter entirely. Its orbital platforms were considerably larger than she’d expected, and she knew the base there had always been fairly busy trying to suppress and deal with smuggling and unauthorized activity in the Badlands. But fighters were little use in such activities, and no one had expected an enemy to appear from the depths of dead space.

  Covington checked her display and adjusted her course. She hadn’t assigned herself to a wing command, preferring to remain free and able to go wherever she was needed. The enemy fleet was impressive, and some of its ships were the most massive she’d ever seen. Barron’s notes had strongly emphasized the need to hit the largest ships as quickly as possible, as they possessed powerful railguns capable of crippling even the largest Confederation vessels in one or two shots. As she looked at the mass readings, and saw the immensity of the vessels on her screen, she wondered how her mostly green pilots were going to manage.

  She saw energy readings spike, and her scanner reported the enemy ships in the front of their line had opened fire. The small point defense batteries weren’t much of a danger, not at the current range of her squadrons, but she knew they would become steadily more deadly as the distance decreased…and her gut told her she was going to lose many of her rookie pilots. Skillful execution of evasive maneuvers was something that came more from experience than training. And that meant two-thirds of her people were going to have one hell of a hard time.

  “Wings one, two, and three…prepare for attack runs.” The three wing commanders acknowledged, and Covington watched as her lead squadrons moved forward. She had significant forces closing on the targeted enemy ships, but she had a nagging feeling it wasn’t going to be enough. She’d never battled enemy battleships that didn’t have their own fighters, and her mind was racing, trying to develop tactics on the fly. She needed something…and she needed it now.

  She flipped her comm unit to a direct line to the lead wing commanders. “Listen up, you three,” she said, still trying to think of exactly what she wanted to say. “We’ve got to hit these ships hard. We don’t know anything about them, but Tyler Barron said they were tough…and we know Admiral Barron isn’t easily shaken by anything. We don’t have tactics for fighting without having to worry about enemy fighters, and from the size of these ships, we’ve got to hit them as hard as we can.” She paused. “We don’t know how effective their point defense batteries will be in close…but we need to come in anyway, down to shorter ranges than normal. Much shorter. We need to pump up our hit ratios, because it looks to me like these bastards can soak up some serious damage before we take them down.”

  “Roger that, Commander. Agreed.”

  The other officers replied with similar responses.

  Covington was still calculating, trying to guess at how cutting the range would increase hit rates…and how badly her rookie formations would get hurt penetrating so deeply into the enemy’s fire area.

  “Come in as close as you can…we need as many hits as we can get. This is no fight in deep space. There are millions of Confederation citizens on Dannith, right behind us, and Admiral Winters only has three battleships to face the attackers once we’re done.”

  Her commanders replied again, and she could hear confidence in their tones, and aggression. That wasn’t a surprise. Her first three wings contained most of her veterans, many of the pilots from the battleships, and the extra units Winters had drawn from Grimaldi’s forces. She was hoping the experienced pilots would set an example for their green comrades. She didn’t expect miracles, but anything she could do to help make her rookies ready before they went in was worth it.

  Because they needed something, and without it, she dreaded watching the garrison pilots trying to take on those battleships.

  Chapter Forty

  CFS Dauntless

  Delphi System

  Between Orbits of Planets Four and Five

  Year 316 AC

  “Still no response, Admiral.” Atara spoke calmly, softly, but Barron knew her better than anyone, and he, perhaps alone among all those present, could hear the stress in her voice. “We’re still pretty far out for high certainty on scanner readings, but it looks like their reactors are at full power.”

  Barron nodded briefly, then looked back down at the small screen on his own workstation. He had the warbook files up, the database of all known vessels, both Confederation and foreign. The ships coming at Dauntless were Confeds, for sure…but he hadn’t been able to get reliable IDs yet. One thing was certain. They were coming from a totally different direction than Titania and the other vessels that had chased Dauntless into the Delphi system. That meant Barron and his people had hostiles c
oming from two vectors, and that they were now hopelessly outnumbered.

  He looked back up at the main display. No sign yet of Titania, nor any of her escorts. But it wouldn’t be long, mostly likely just a matter of minutes, before the vessels that had pursued Dauntless across a dozen systems emerged to continue their relentless hunt. And joined up with the new task force now showing ominously on his scanners.

  It would be different this time, though…with or without the intervention of the new flotilla coming from the Haustus transit point. Dauntless’s engines were completely offline. The ship was traveling at a considerable velocity, but without the ability to accelerate, Barron knew he could never escape from Titania. And without changing the current vector, Dauntless couldn’t reach one of the other transit points, either, or try to evade an approaching attacker.

  “Status report from Commander Glaven?” Barron knew he was treating Atara like his first officer and not Dauntless’s actual captain…but it was clear she didn’t object. He’d tried to get her to go to sickbay a couple times since they’d fled the Olyus system, just to get checked out, but she’d remained stubborn, and Barron hadn’t been able to bring himself to make it an order. No matter how exhausted she looked, or how recently she’d been in a deep coma. They’d both taken small breaks, left the bridge when Dauntless hadn’t been in any immediate danger, but Barron hadn’t gotten more than six hours of sleep since he’d been rescued, and he’d have been willing to bet Atara hadn’t gotten any more.

  She didn’t respond, she just tapped at her comm, and then snapped a request for an update once she had a line to engineering. Then she listened to Glaven’s response, and she looked back across at Barron. “Commander Glaven reports he will be attempting an engine restart in approximately thirty minutes, sir. He believes he can regain sixty percent thrust at that time…perhaps as much as seventy.”

  Barron nodded, and then he took a deep breath. If Glaven was successful, it would vastly improve Dauntless’s tactical situation, giving the battleship plenty of power for evasive maneuvers. But anything less than one hundred percent thrust rendered any attempt to escape futile. Titania would close to range again, this time long before Dauntless could escape through the next point.

  And if the new force was also hostile, as he was virtually certain it was, it would also catch Dauntless and engage, possibly even before Titania did.

  Barron looked at the local stellar display, a map of all transit points in the current system and all those within two jumps. Haustus had four points, leading both Rimward and back toward Megara…which meant the new ships could simply be passing through, headed inward from some frontier system with no idea of what had happened on Megara. Or they could be coming from the capital, another force sent to hunt down Dauntless. Barron had hoped, at first, that the vessels were just on a normal deployment…but their failure to respond to his repeated communications didn’t bode well.

  Barron had struggled to avoid combat with friendly forces—those that should have been friendly—but he realized now, with a sickening feeling, he’d gone as far as he could without fighting. He might have surrendered, even at the cost of sacrificing himself, of yielding to whatever plot was at work back on Megara…if it hadn’t been for the Hegemony.

  He had to escape the pursuit, remain free and able to rally the Confederation’s forces. Somehow. He didn’t know what he could do, how he could accomplish what seemed like an insurmountable goal, but he knew he had to try. Even if he had to kill fellow Confederation spacers to do it. The prospect of the Hegemony striking a totally unprepared Confederation was simply too terrible to contemplate. Billions could die…the entire Rim could be reduced to virtual slavery. Or even extinction.

  He didn’t have a choice. Not anymore.

  “Captain…put me on ship-wide comm.”

  “Yes, sir.” She reached out, her hands flying over the controls. “On your comm, Admiral.”

  He took a breath, pausing for a second before he began. “Officers and spacers of Dauntless, this is Admiral Barron. I cannot explain what is happening, what machinations are behind my arrest on Megara, except to say that I have never engaged in anything remotely like that of which I was accused. I can offer no proof, save my word, which I hope you will accept. We have served together before, many of you for years and through more desperate battles than we can easily recount. I ask all of you to stand with me now…even though we face a fight we would do almost anything to avoid.”

  He stopped, glancing over at Atara, drawing some strength from the look of absolute loyalty in her haggard and exhausted face. “We face two task forces. The one approaching now has not answered our communications attempts, and while we cannot yet be sure they are hostile, it seems likely that they will prove to be so. And the forces we faced in the Santorus system will almost certainly transit imminently. We cannot hope to prevail against both of these forces, not if they are able to join together and fight us as one.” Another pause, as Barron mustered all the strength he could to say what he knew he had to say. “Therefore, as soon as the engines are back online, Dauntless will move directly toward the force already in the system. We will engage and…defeat…these ships…” He’d almost said “destroy,” but he’d stopped himself at the last second. He wasn’t sure if it was because he was worried about how his people would react…or if he had convinced, or fooled, himself that he could disable his pursuers and leave most of the crews alive. “…and then we will turn to face the forces following us from Santorus.”

  Barron held his voice steady, mustering all his command experience to push back against the doubts, to give his spacers what they needed. But he knew just what they all faced, and he realized a battle against either force would be a difficult one. The chances of defeating both were vanishingly small, especially since Dauntless was already damaged, and she was without her fighter squadrons.

  “I understand how difficult it will be for all of you to engage in battle against Confederation comrades, to fight with the fire you have always shown in combat. I cannot offer anything that will make this any less painful, save to remind each of you that the Hegemony is coming. You have all seen this new enemy, the power of their ships and technology. You know we have no higher duty than to prepare the Confederation to face what is coming. If we must fight our comrades, spill the blood of fellow Confederation spacers…then that is what we will do. Our only alternative is to stand by and do nothing, as cataclysmic war comes, and millions, perhaps billions, die in the onslaught.”

  He turned toward Atara and nodded, signaling for her to cut the line. Barron’s people had followed him in many battles, and he was hopeful, if not confident, that they would stand with him again.

  He sat silently for a few minutes, trying to center himself, to prepare for what was coming. Then he found out exactly what was coming at his vessel.

  “Admiral…we’re picking up the beacons on those ships. They’re all from the Megara garrison, sir.”

  Atara didn’t elaborate. She didn’t have to. Barron knew exactly what that meant. More ships sent to hunt him down, just as he’d suspected.

  More he had to destroy if he was going to have any chance at all to prepare the Confederation for a Hegemony invasion.

  He had to hit those ships and take them out. Quickly. Before…

  “Admiral…we’re picking up energy readings from the Santorus transit point. We’ve got ships coming in.”

  Barron felt his insides tighten. His ship was alone, soon to be bracketed between hostile forces. He had to destroy the ships on his scanners, and he had to do it quickly…before Titania and her escorts caught him between two enemies.

  That was just what they were now, these old comrades. Enemies…however uncomfortable that made him, however much the guilt of what he was about to do would go with him to the grave, he understood that those spacers would be trying to kill his.

  “Commander…set a course toward the forces already in the system. I want maximum available thrust the instant Commander
Glaven gets the engines back online.”

  * * *

  “Scanners confirm, Captain. Dauntless appears to be accelerating toward the unidentified force. Readings indicate significant thrust levels in excess of fifty percent.”

  “Very well, Commander.” Heaton leaned back, trying to ease the disappointment he felt at the report. Dauntless’s engines had been dead when the ship entered the transit point…or at least it had appeared that way. He’d tried to hold his excitement in check as he brought his ships around to pursue, but the prospect of engaging Barron’s battleship with her engines down had inflated his hopes nevertheless…not just of victory, but of the chance to disable Dauntless and not have to destroy her. A chance to take Barron prisoner, instead of killing him and a thousand of his crew.

  That prospect now seemed to be lost. While Dauntless might have less than its full thrust, it was still clear the battleship had enough power to fight. He didn’t fool himself that Tyler Barron, or any of his veterans, would yield, not while their vessel was still battle-worthy…if they would under any circumstances.

  His eyes moved to the other force, the one Dauntless was heading toward. He expected help in pursuing Barron, and the presumed entry point of those ships into the system could indicate a route from Megara…or half a dozen other things. Heaton was just a ship captain, and until days before, the largest vessel he’d commanded was a cruiser. He wasn’t privy to naval dispositions across the Confederation, and he had no idea what those ships were, if they were from the Megara home forces or not…and he wouldn’t until he got close enough to pick up their beacons.