by Jay Allan
It rolled down the ramp, and onto the torn ground, its giant treads sinking down more than half a meter through the mud and torn up ground…but that didn’t stop it. It didn’t even slow the thing.
It moved steadily forward, clanking loudly as it did…and through his mesmerized shock, Blanth heard other sounds. High pitched whines, loud cracks…and then, suddenly, he realized the thing was firing. Rockets blasted out of launchers, whipping across the battlefield at what had to be hypersonic speeds, and other guns fired a combination of solid projectiles and searing energy weapons.
A cold feeling took Blanth’s insides. The thing was huge, a massive war machine, the likes of which he’d never seen before. Just the sight of it was enough to terrify even the most hardened Marine, but that wasn’t what shook Blanth the most.
No, what really got to him was the sudden realization that the thing wasn’t just moving.
It was moving right toward him.
Chapter Forty-Seven
CFS Dauntless
75,000,000 Kilometers from Primary
Delphi System
Year 316 AC
“I need all the power you can give me…whatever the risk.” Barron was on the comm, speaking to Glaven. He had to finish the fight with Titania, to somehow win that combat, before the ships coming in from Corinth could close. There were voices in his mind, ominous thoughts that it didn’t matter, that even if he destroyed the battleship and its escorts, he had no chance at all of escaping the task forth blasting toward Dauntless from across the system. Those ships were still fairly distant, but they’d come close enough for detailed scans, and the two lead ships, were both battleships. Barron had tactics, tricks of war up his sleeve. He just might be able to best Titania’s force. But, Dauntless would be battered after that fight, and even fresh and with his absent squadrons in their bays and ready, he doubted he could survive the final assault heading his way. The two battleships had ten squadrons between them, one hundred fifty fighters…and Titania had almost certainly advised whoever was in command that Dauntless had no interceptors at all. That meant his ship would most likely face an attack by ten bomber squadrons.
Dauntless would never even engage the second set of approaching vessels. The bomber strikes would obliterate his ship…and there was nothing he could do about it. It was almost a mathematical certainty.
“I can try to open the fuel lines, shoot for ninety percent on the reactors, but it’s risky, sir. We can’t know where we’ve got weakened feeds, and if the wrong one gives way…”
“Do it.” Barron knew he owed his engineer more than a two-word reply. But he didn’t see any advantage in adding, “because we’re all as good as dead anyway.”
He turned toward Atara’s station. “As soon as those fuel lines open up, push it to the max. Those ships coming from Corinth are going to launch their bombers any minute, and we’ve got to be done with Titania before those ships get to us.” And finish us off…
“Yes, Admiral. I’m on it.”
Barron glanced over at his longtime number two—and his friend. He felt guilty for once again subverting her role as Dauntless’s commander, but if this was to be their last fight, something seemed strangely right about it, one final repeat of the teamwork that had earned them such success over the past years. At least, it seemed that way to him. For all her loyalty, he wondered if Atara harbored any resentments. Their missions together had been astonishingly successful, but she’d been in his shadow throughout. The Barron name had long focused the attention on him, despite his constant attempts to recognize Atara’s contributions, and those of all his people.
“Increasing power to primaries now.”
Barron watched as the meter showed the energy feeding into the main guns. Titania would be recharging her own weapons, and the race to fire first was a vital one. There was no guarantee the next hit would knock out the other ship’s primaries, but both vessels had taken damage, and Barron knew Dauntless’s weapons were hanging on by a thread.
Whoever was in command of Titania was cautious, and likely inexperienced as well. Barron had seen it in half a dozen things, including the tentative move of launching most of his fighter strike as interceptors. That had cost his attacker a chance to finish Dauntless then and there, and, while such thoughts made him uncomfortable, he suspected his reputation had gotten to his adversary as well.
That was an edge.
“Advise gunnery I want those weapons firing the instant they are powered up.” He knew it was an unnecessary order, that his crack gun crews would perform as they always had…and, if he rushed them too much, if they missed the target for lack of time to properly target, that second or two shaved off the clock would be expensive indeed.
“Yes, Admiral.”
He looked forward, his eyes fixed on the display, even as the lighted bar reached the end of the meter and changed from yellow to green.
The guns were ready.
* * *
Heaton sat on Titania’s bridge, trying to keep the contents of his stomach from rising back up. His ship was locked in a desperate duel with Dauntless, the two vessels trading shots with their deadly primaries. Heaton’s force had the edge in numbers, but none of his escorts were in range yet. For the moment, the battle was primary vs. primary, and the winner was likely to be the next ship to score a hit.
Heaton had let Barron’s reputation get to him, psyche him out. He was still kicking himself for not sending in more bombers. An extra squadron or two would have overwhelmed Dauntless’s defenses and crippled the battleship…if they didn’t destroy it outright. A chance to end the battle, to defeat Tyler Barron, thrown away by his fear of his adversary.
He wasn’t going to let that happen again. Titania was damaged, but not as badly as Dauntless. He had the edge, even in the one on one matchup, and he wasn’t going to let it slip away. His gunners weren’t a match for Barron’s and he knew he couldn’t maneuver his ship through its evasive patterns with the grace his opponent did…but all he needed was one hit. He wasn’t an expert on battleship combat, but he knew how fragile the primary beams were…and his scanners had given him a fairly detailed reading on Dauntless’s condition.
He flipped on his comm unit, calling up the gunnery station. “We’ll be powered up in thirty seconds,” he said into the microphone suspended in front of his mouth, not addressing anyone in particular. “We need a hit…whatever it takes.” He wondered what good his words could do, if they would encourage his people, or rattle them. He wasn’t even sure whether he’d said what he had because he thought it would help, or because he was so tense and edgy himself.
The seconds counted down, with an agonizing slowness he could barely endure. He took a deep breath as the readout dropped below ten seconds…and then five.
Then, Titania shook hard, rolling around to the starboard, as alarm bells went off all around him. Barron had somehow managed to fire first, that was obvious, as was the fact that his gunners had scored a direct hit.
Heaton was pulling up damage control, even as he watched the timer drop down to zero. But then, nothing happened. He waited a few more seconds, and then he called up engineering and confirmed what he already knew.
Titania had lost her primaries.
His ship was siting in space, too far out to open up with her secondaries, and in range of Dauntless’s still functional guns. Barron’s ship would to continue to pound away, with her shots unanswered. Heaton’s first impulse was to withdraw, to pull back and try to get out of range. But, he was a Confederation officer, and he had his orders. He was to stop Dauntless, and capture or kill Tyler Barron…and no risk to himself or to his ship or crew changed that fact.
If he wasn’t going back, he had to go forward. He had to get into secondary range…before Barron gutted his ship with Dauntless’s primaries.
“Forward, Commander…full thrust. All secondary batteries stand by to open fire.”
* * *
“Another hit!” There was genuine excitement in Atara’
s voice, if only for a few seconds. For that short, fleeting time, she’d forgotten they were firing at a Confederation ship, or that they were being run down by a force they had no hope of defeating. In that instant, there was only Dauntless, and its incomparable crew…and the fifth straight hit they had scored against Titania.
The battleship, a friendly vessel now turned enemy, had been trying to close with Dauntless, to bring the battle into secondary range. It made sense…it was just what Barron would have done. But, it had failed.
Barron had ordered all spare power to the engines, decelerating as hard as he could, prolonging the time until Titania could close. And, he’d continued the forced powering of the primaries, cutting twenty seconds between shots.
He stared at the screen on his workstation, analyzing the hit assessment data streaming in. Titania wasn’t out of the fight, not yet, but Barron knew he could finish her off. The battleship had already lost most of her thrust, and it would be three more minutes until she entered secondary range. And, even when she did, she’d already lost half her guns, and Dauntless had most of her broadside remaining.
Barron could see the escort ships moving forward, racing to the aid of the wounded battleship. Their combined fire was a danger, even to a battleship like Dauntless, but Barron’s ship’s guns would tear the smaller craft to scrap before they could close and inflict much damage. Everything relied on knocking Titania out, and, as yet another blast of the primaries hit the stricken ship, Barron knew he was close.
The prize to be won was modest, perhaps another forty minutes of life…before the bomber waves the two newly-arrived battleships had launched reached his victorious but wounded vessel. It didn’t make sense, in one perspective, to kill comrades when there was so little hope of survival, but giving up simply wasn’t in Tyler Barron’s makeup. He would fight until the end, until the last hit closed his eyes for good.
“Admiral…scanners indicate Titania’s power levels have dropped to near zero. No sign of any thrust.” Atara stared across the small space between their stations. “I think they’re dead in space, sir.”
Barron felt the feral instinct he knew all successful combat commanders possessed, the call to finish off a wounded adversary. But, he pushed it aside. He’d destroy Titania, kill however many of its thousand strong crew were still alive…but only if he had to. It would gain him nothing now, and for all that his blood was up, he restrained himself.
“Primaries…cease fire. Those are still fellow Confederation spacers out there.” A pause. “Let’s get the defensive turrets armed and ready. We’ve got bombers coming in.” He knew there wasn’t a chance of defeating the massive wave of ships inbound…or even surviving the assault.
But, he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to give it all he had. If his people had to die, they would die fighting.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Blackstone Heights
Outside Port Royal City
Planet Dannith, Ventica III
Year 316 AC
“Fall back…now!” Blanth’s order was loud, a primal scream shouted into the comm unit—and to anyone close enough to hear directly. The words tore at his throat as he put everything he had into them.
He was running now, freed from the momentary shock that had left him standing dumbfounded in front of the hellish war machine that had rolled out of the lander. He understood now, why the ships were so big…nothing smaller could have carried such a monstrous vehicle, and even as he fled from its grasp, knowing he owed his escape—if he could call it that when he was still in the middle of desperate danger—almost entirely to luck. The enemy tank—he used familiar terminology in his thoughts, though he realized such a label was woefully inadequate—had unleashed an astonishing amount of firepower, and the fact that none of it had come his way, despite his presence right in front of the thing, had been the purest act of providence.
Many of his Marines hadn’t been as fortunate. He had no accurate count of casualties, but there were a dozen of the immense tanks out now, all of them firing, bringing hell itself to the field, and turning his counterattack into a disastrous retreat. There were enemy soldiers, too, tight columns pouring out of the ships, right behind the great tanks. Blanth’s plan had been valid, one that would have been well-suited to resist the planetary assaults he’d seen, but he had nothing—nothing at all—to stop those tanks.
His mind raced. The Dannith forces certainly didn’t have anything that would be useful. Peterson’s Marines might, especially since the colonel seemed to be the cautious type who didn’t like to bring his people anywhere without a full complement of equipment. The heavy artillery pieces could probably damage the tanks, but Blanth knew a lot of those guns had been taken out by the bombardment…and the others were dug in. Deeply. It would take a long time to get them out, and to move enough transport capacity to carry them.
He wasn’t even sure he had much transport left. He’d requisitioned everything he could find on Dannith when he was preparing the defenses—another series of illegal, or at least gray area, orders—but he suspected much of it, perhaps most of it, had been destroyed in the orbital strikes. Tracking down what remained, and organizing it to move heavy weapons, while under attack by those…things…wasn’t going to be easy.
More likely impossible.
He realized he was getting ahead of himself. First, he had to get his people back into cover…before he didn’t have any of them left. A quick glance around the plain showed entire groups had been wiped out, and most of those remaining had gone prone. The Marines were firing at the tanks, but their assault rifles weren’t doing anything to the armored monsters. A few of his people had popped off rifle-mounted grenades, but those, too, had been too weak to cause any damage to the approaching vehicles.
He cursed himself for not issuing the hyper-velocity rocket launchers. He’d decided the weapons were too heavy and cumbersome, that they would weigh down his people and keep them from launching the lightning strikes on the landers that he’d envisioned. Now that his original plan was in ruins, his mind raced, thinking about where the launchers were stored, and the best way to get them into the hands of at least some of his units.
“Go,” he shouted. “All of you…retreat. Get back to the bunkers, or any cover you can find.” He pushed himself even harder, and his jogging pace morphed into a full-fledged run that felt a little too much like a rout. His luck held, though, as far as enemy targeting was concerned. The tanks were all firing, their array of weapons sweeping the field. But, fortune stayed with him, and could see the entrance to the command bunker up ahead. He felt a few seconds of tentative relief…and then he realized the fortifications weren’t going to do all that much to protect his people, not against the heavy weapons the tanks seemed to possess. His first thought had been to get his survivors back underground, but now he realized that would only be a deathtrap. He had to get them completely off the ridge, and someplace that could offer an impediment to the tanks, a location where he could set up a rally point, and cobble together whatever he could of the capital area defenses.
The enemy had hoodwinked him, completely. He’d seen landings before, but the forces involved were always light. He couldn’t imagine the logistics of transporting such massive war machines, and the power of the landing craft that brought them down to the surface. The fleet had faced a deadly enemy, one more powerful and advanced than its own forces…and, now he realized it would be the same thing on the ground.
He needed his own heavy forces, and air combat ability as well, but he didn’t have any of it. Not on Dannith.
He was nauseous, and he skimmed along the verge of panic. He was in over his head, and he wanted nothing more than for a superior officer to step up, to relegate him to his place and take command. But, there was nothing…and he knew if he didn’t hold it together, whatever slim chance any of his people had to survive would be gone.
Images of the maps around Port Royal City flashed through his mind, hilly sections, the spaceport, the river
.
The river.
If he could get his people across, he just might be able to buy some time. He suspected the enemy would find a way to pursue, but the tanks were massive. It would take more than a portable pontoon bridge or two.
And, there were forests on the other side of the river, vast dense woodlands. The kind of cover that just might help put up a defensive position to hold back the armored assault.
For a while. And, he was playing for moments now, thinking forward one step at a time.
“All forces…withdraw toward the river. The rally point is the forest south of the city. Pass the word along on whatever comm you’ve got.” The chain of communications just might get the word to most of his people. At least he hoped it did…because the ones who didn’t get the message were probably going to die.
* * *
“No sign of pursuit yet, Admiral.”
Winters sat back in his chair, trying to hide some of the despondency that had taken hold of him. He knew what he’d done had been tactically correct, that no one could fault him for it. No one but himself. The ‘Sledgehammer’ was not the kind of officer who ran from an enemy, any enemy…and certainly not when the withdrawal left millions of civilians behind.
He’d watched the bombardment, as much as his severely limited scanning assets could relay to him. It had been difficult to sit and stare at the screens as the planet was pounded so thoroughly, and even though he knew throwing what remained of his fleet away wouldn’t have stopped any of it, it still hurt to think of how many people on the ground had been killed, wounded…and what shape the Marines and other defenders were in, even as the enemy had begun to land its own ground forces.
His sole solace was the realization that, whatever he might have expected, the enemy had not launched an extermination strike. It was hard enough to watch the limited attack…he couldn’t imagine what he would have felt seeing over a hundred million people killed while his own ships hid in the dust clouds and watched.