Message for the Dead (Galaxy's Edge Book 8)

by Jason Anspach

  “Are you coming with us? Or do we got get to killed without the pleasure of your company, old man?”

  X smiled.

  “I need a ship, Admiral. A fast one. Something expendable and not needed for your operations. I’ve got a little game I want to run on this Goth Sullus. So I’ll also need a daring crew that’s been in a pickle or two.”

  Landoo smiled with her mouth, but there was nothing but pure spite in her eyes.

  “I know just the ship. Audacity just came in from Black Fleet space. She’s docked at thirty-seven. I’ll alert her commander.”

  15

  Imperial Fleet

  Terror, Third Wing Interceptor Command

  Approach to Bantaar Reef Republic Base

  Lieutenant Commander Kat Haladis limped away from the digital sandbox showing the opposing forces in and around the crescent-shaped asteroid field that surrounded the massive gas giant known as Bantaar Reef, home of the Seventh Fleet’s headquarters. Within the center of the crescent lay the prize: the Republican super-carrier she’d almost gotten at the Battle of Tarrago. It was surrounded by more than ninety smaller vessels, ranging from destroyers to frigates to auxiliary carriers, along with a wide array of special-duty corvettes.

  Within the hour they would all be nothing more than an expanding debris field.

  And she hated the thought of it. Because she wouldn’t be flying, or fighting, in this battle.

  The flight surgeon wouldn’t clear her for duty. Until her leg could be reconstructed and cybernetically augmented, she had been relegated to command and control duties aboard the bridge of the Terror.

  And so now she stood, watching. Little more than a spectator.

  First Wing departed off the battleship Imperator and swept in, shooting up the outlying turret defenses along the tidally locked asteroid belt. Turret fire was heavy, but insufficient to slow the attack. Third Squadron managed to take out the reef’s torpedo storage bays for a main supply depot, and the result was an apocalyptic bloom that lit up half the reef and destroyed the small planetoid that was home to Ordnance Command.

  Second Wing was next to hit the naval station. Escorting the torpedo bombers in, they would try to take out the carrier escorts and their screen of Aegis-connected ships.

  Republican interceptors would…

  But they weren’t.

  They weren’t coming out to engage beyond the defensive perimeter.

  Kat picked up her comm. “Wolf Leader,” she called, irritated because the whole left side of her body was on fire with the nerve pain that had plagued her since she’d ejected from the burning wreckage of her fighter at Tarrago.

  Second Wing’s flight leader came back over the comm. “Wolf Leader here.”

  “Wolf Leaer, this is Siren Six.” Siren was the designator for Terror’s command team. Six was the identifier for Interceptor Operations. “Tactical says those bandits are not engaging your attack.”

  “Negative, Six. We’re inbound and hot on the escorts. Bombers ready to drop.”

  “Sitrep on bandits?”

  There was a pause as the signal flared and washed out in a sudden storm of static.

  “Thirty seconds to release, Six. The bandits seem to be clearing jump exits and escorting shuttles. Keeping Third away from the slow movers. Repeat, they are not engaging.”

  Kat ached to be out there in her tri-fighter dialing in her blasters and going head-to-head against the Repub fighter pilots. Instead, forcing her face to betray none of the pain her body felt, she set down her comm and limped out into the main darkened central nexus of the battleship’s Combat Information Center.

  Captain Vampa, the raven-haired commander of Terror stared, hands folded, down at the massive tactical display of the unfolding conflict around Bantaar Reef. “Time to main gun range solution?” she snapped at some unseen figure in the dark.

  “One minute, thirty-nine seconds.”

  Kat approached her commander.

  “Captain,” she began.

  Vampa didn’t turn. Instead she remained intent on the battle unfolding in miniature beneath her eyes. As though she were forcing her will to become a real thing out there in the desperate duels for firing position as pod-mounted blasters flared and enemy ships took strafing fire, responding with lethal doses of volley fire from their PDCs and aft batteries.

  “Enemy bandits are not engaging, Captain.”

  “And…?” replied Vampa. Her voice was dry and sarcastic.

  In the short time she’d served aboard Terror after returning to duty, Kat had discovered that the commander had no other setting. And yet despite Vampa’s thinly veiled contempt, her crew adored her to the point of sycophancy. As did much of the fleet. Because what the captain lacked in personality, she made up for in skill. It was her maneuver at Tarrago that had put hot fire among the Seventh’s destroyer screen and ruined their flank.

  “And…” continued Kat, feeling suddenly self-conscious in front of this tall and beautiful woman whose body and face hadn’t been ruined in combat, “I think they’re not going to give battle. They’re going to jump out of the system.”

  As an officer, it was Kat’s job to deal out the tactical truth as she saw it, no matter what people thought of her or what the consequences were. The Republic played those games. Imperial officer training had beaten that out of her.

  Captain Vampa turned slowly.

  “That… assessment,” she said coldly, “would be at odds with the overall tactical strategy Admiral Rommal has assured us the Republic will follow. Intel from General Ordo indicates they’ll try to run and gun. Lure us into one of their stupid retrogrades they’ve been training for. Thinking we’re dumb enough to play their silly little games.”

  “I understand, Captain,” replied Kat. “But my pilots are telling me their interceptors are clearing jump exits and escorting shuttles aboard the larger ships. It looks like an exit. If they were going to retrograde on us, ma’am, their interceptors would be buying time to let the big ships put some distance between us and them.”

  Beyond the dark windows of the bay, out there among the Seventh, a frigate’s engines ignited, causing a bright flash that looked like the time-lapsed life and death of some star not long for the galaxy.

  Vampa inhaled, then breathed out sharply through her nose. She searched the woman standing before her. Obviously Kat Haladin was a capable pilot. She’d been one of the heroes of Tarrago. She’d even received a medal from the emperor himself, along with that giant shock trooper Vampa wouldn’t might getting to know. The woman did know fighter ops.

  “Recommendations,” said Vampa.

  Kat moved toward the display and called up the sand table gesture controls. “We can move here,” she said. “That would cut off the jump exit for much of the fleet. But we’ve got to alter course now.”

  Vampa had altered course at Tarrago. In so doing, she’d saved the battle—by bringing her waist guns alongside the Republic’s main super-destroyer for effective broadside fire into her escorts. She’d also gotten a severe reprimand, due to the fact that Terror’s deflectors had been knocked out. And she hadn’t received a medal from the emperor like the girl in front of her had.

  That had irritated Vampa. She was competitive, and very ambitious.

  “Noted,” said Vampa. She turned her back on the interceptor ops coordinator.

  Kat stood, waiting for something further. But when it was clear nothing else was forthcoming from her commander, she returned, or retreated it seemed, back to the interceptor ops node.

  Three minutes later, as the Imperial noose closed about the neck of Repub forces at Bantaar Reef, the Repub ships began to leap away into hyperspace, darting off like bees into the nether of faster-than-light travel.

  ***

  Seventh Fleet Arrival Docks

  Bantaar Reef

  Owens had to commandeer a heavy lift speeder to get him and X down to the docks. Already other stations were going up in sudden destruction as ghostly tri-fighters swept in acro
ss the base. But Landoo’s acquiescence to X’s plan had saved the day. Beyond the glass enclosures, the last of the shuttles were docking on the big ships of the Seventh, and moments later those ships were leaping away to hyperspace.

  As X and Owens neared the dock where the corvette Audacity still held position, the once-busy base of Bantaar Reef seemed an abandoned place that might never be occupied again. Stores and other essentials had been discarded pell-mell by those seeking to board their ships. Owens pulled off the main passage and headed through the massive arch that led to the hangar and dock. More equipment lay scattered here, never fully loaded before the abandon station order was given. It was all such a waste. Owens felt as though he were driving through what the future of the Republic would look like if the Legion lost.

  At least they left base power on, he thought. If they’d killed that, then the atmospheric force fields would have failed, and boarding the corvette would have taken a lot longer. Especially if someone had decided to depressurize the station as a parting gift.

  “You’re sure this is going to work?” he asked X.

  X nodded and re-crossed his long legs.

  “Remind me why,” Owens pressed. The plan they’d hatched with Keller had gone beyond the shadowy world of Dark Ops dirty work, straight down the rabbit hole into Nether Ops insanity. But Owens was the item, and X was the salesman selling the must-have shiny.

  “A war of attrition wears out the Legion a lot faster than the Republic,” began X in almost scholarly tones. “All the Legion knows how to do is fight. And they do it well. But a war has so little to do with fighting and so much more to do with resources. And the House of Reason has a deep bench of players from across the Republic only far too willing to supply them with enough to wear the Legion out. Forcing a battle at Utopion gives us the chance to knock both sides out at once—and it gives the Legion a chance to fully implement Article Nineteen. It’s not a great chance, no. But it’s our only play as far as I can see.”

  Owens spotted a man guarding the cargo deck with an N-4. Even though the man had no armor, his bearing and vigilance tagged him clearly as a leej. Owens pulled up alongside, and the legionnaire hustled forward to escort them aboard.

  “Corporal Casso, sir,” he said, recognizing Owens and saluting.

  “What’re you doing here, son? Where’s your unit?” Owens asked as they followed the corporal into the depths of the Audacity’s hangar deck.

  Casso reached a comm station and held up one finger. “Got ’em,” he said. “Cleared to depart.”

  A moment later the portside cargo doors began to seal off the open deck.

  Casso turned back to Owens. “Captured at Tarrago. Assigned to the gun. Escaped with this crazy bunch, and no one’s bothered to tell me where to report. I did make sure Legion HQ knew I’d escaped, sir.”

  “That’s fine. Things are a bit chaotic right now. Stick with me and I’ll get you back in a unit.”

  “That’s all right by me, sir. Looking forward to some trigger time. Very much so.”

  X cleared his throat and asked to be taken to see the captain immediately.

  ***

  Beyond the cockpit windows of the bridge, tri-fighters were streaking in to strike other stations. Just as an explosion rocked the planetoid the Audacity was docked to, as a curvy, orange-skinned Tennar slipped past Owens, casting her doe eyes up at the powerfully built legionnaire as she slid into the pilot’s seat.

  “So,” said Desaix. “Where are we taking you?”

  “Tarrago,” stated X simply.

  “We’re not going anywhere if I don’t clear mooring lines and get a departure clearance from control,” Atumna whispered so that she could be heard over the din of electronic chatter.

  “Tarrago?” Desaix stood between X and Owens on the flight deck, his stance suggesting complete resistance to moving the ship one parsec back toward the prison they had just escaped from. “We just came from Tarrago.“

  A Black Fleet bomber streaked past the bow, and a massive explosion rocked the station beyond the hangar deck.

  X, as usual, wasn’t having a bit of anything that didn’t serve the byzantine maneuverings only he saw within his mind. “Good, then you’ll be familiar with the route. I can see why the admiral selected you, dear boy. At first I thought I was being fobbed off on an under-crewed ship of the line that wasn’t, most likely mind you, going to survive escape from the system currently being overrun by that madman Goth Sullus and his bunch. So wheels up, Captain, or whatever it is that you do to get this bucket flying in the right direction.”

  Desaix also wasn’t having any of it.

  “Why, exactly, would we want to go back to the prison planet of that… madman, as you call him? Just so you know, the original Audacity was blown out from under me at Tarrago. We… uh… requisitioned this one,” Desaix added with a hint of pride.

  “We stole it!” said Atumna. “Classic combat hijack. Like in the movies!”

  Beyond the cockpit window, fires engulfed a turret battery. A moment later it detonated in spectacular fashion. Across the comm screen and the front HUD projection, words in big block ghostly projection appeared: “Catastrophic Breach in Progress. Abandon Station. Abandon Station. Abandon Station.”

  “Need to disconnect now! Seriously,” cried Atumna as the vibration of the explosion shook the Audacity’s violently.

  “Disconnect now. Take us out, Atumna!”

  The Tennar’s slender tentacles flew across the controls. As soon as the ship’s AI gave the signal that mooring lines had been cleared, she grasped the engine control throttles and put the Audacity in motion.

  Desaix slid into the co-pilot’s seat and ran a systems check. He set the nav comp to begin the calc for a jump to Tarrago.

  “You were about to tell me why we want to go back to that madman,” he said to X as he input trajectories and selected the best possible debris-field-free jump exit points.

  “Why… to talk to him, dear boy,” X murmured drolly as he strapped into the navigator’s chair directly behind the captain. A moment later he had his pipe out and was stoking it to life. Owens found a seat at the rear of the bridge.

  “You can’t smoke on a starship,” Desaix muttered.

  “So I’ve heard,” said X, puffing the burnished dark wood pipe. “But you’ve got bigger problems to worry about than an old man and his pipe.”

  He was right. As the Audacity cleared Bantaar Reef’s defensive perimeter, it was immediately clear that one of the big battleships was moving in to cut off the jump exit point for the under-crewed corvette.

  ***

  Audacity

  Bantaar Reef

  The Audacity was a fast corvette, but she wasn’t a tricked-out light freighter or blockade runner. Under impulse, she wasn’t nearly as fast as the interceptors screaming past her hull as she tore away from Bantaar Reef.

  “Engaging,” said Rocokizzi over the ship’s comm. He was down in Battery Control, running a jury-rigged fire control station that allowed him to take command of any battery on the ship while keeping the rest on auto-engage. The only problem was that auto-engage—a feature much touted by the House of Reason as an improvement that favored the high-production corvettes over their more heavily crewed capital ships—rarely managed to score a hit.

  Three tri-fighter interceptors came in fast at the corvette, strafed the dorsal deflector, and ran up a line of bright fire that almost knocked out the reactor shielding. Power flickered on the bridge, and emergency damage control automation announcements sprang to monotone life with urgent warnings of impending disaster.

  Desaix shut off the master control alarm systems.

  Ahead the massive battleship loomed into view.

  “Watch those main guns, Atumna,” warned Desaix. “At this speed we won’t be able to avoid an ion shot.”

  “Got it, Captain. But we can’t back off if we’re gonna make the jump window.”

  X noted the harried, almost green Repub protocol and admin officer br
aced against the bulkhead entrance to the bridge. She looked as though she was about to say something, but then, as Atumna rolled the Audacity over on her side to avoid hitting another ship, the woman stumbled away from view, and it was clear that she was seeking some place to be privately sick.

  X raised his eyebrows in a kind of mirthful satisfaction at this.

  “Oh-three master portside power management bus offline,” reported Jory from comm. “She’s telling me we have a fire on board.”

  Captain Desaix looked back at Owens. “Can you handle that, Major?”

  Owens nodded and stood.

  A wave of tri-fighters swept in like a swarm of angry insects, blasters raking the forward deflectors. Panel warning indicators shrieked indignantly at the damage. Atumna took her hand from the engine throttles and re-routed emergency reserves to the damaged array then cranked her head over to the left to check the aft display as more fighters streaked down the length of the spindly hull.

  “Watch those fighters, Rocko!” she shouted over the comm. “They’re going for our engines!”

  Over the bridge speakers, Rocokizzi’s voice came in hollow and booming. “Well they’re in for a surprise then.” Targeting sensors pitched urgently in the background, indicating the guns he was running were cycling through their loading and engagement status.

  Now it seemed to X, looking placidly out from the hydra of straps he’d ensconced himself within in the navigator’s chair, that the Audacity was diving in toward the forward split hull of the immense Black Fleet battleship ahead.

  “I say…” began X. “You rather do drive this thing like a fighter as opposed to a ship of the line, don’t you, little girl?”

  “Window?” shouted Desaix.

  “Still good, Captain,” replied the Tennar, her entire body bent forward over her control station, her beautiful head staring at the ship ahead in fierce concentration.

  A moment later the ship was racing up the length of the battleship’s forward section as though it were just hundreds of feet over some technological dust-gray moon. Turrets, power domes, and other structures flew past the cockpit windows.