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

by Jason Anspach

  “Engines!” bellowed the captain as tech stations exploded in bursts of surged energy.

  Rommal stumbled toward the comms. The digital tactical table had gone dark. The captain would fight the ship. It was the admirals’ job to fight the battle.

  Beyond the forward bridge windows, he watched as the massive ship heeled away from the oncoming Republic fleet. Away from a mass of ships that looked like a charge from some wild desert cavalry. Ranged fire was being exchanged with the lead corvette force. But at least, thanks to the captain’s quick thinking, Imperator was presenting a working deflector array.

  Bridge power went down for thirty seconds.

  The massive Republic armada swung past the fleet at speed, firing into every ship. One of the Imperial corvettes ruptured and died. Terror and Revenge fired at will, raking the massive destroyers guarding the carrier.

  The bridge crew screamed to restore power and get back into the fight.

  Below, a massive explosion rumbled through Imperator’s superstructure. There was something ominous about the way the main beams groaned. Like the twin roars of some dying dinosaur, mortally wounded.

  No, thought Rommal. Not now.

  ***

  Republic Super Carrier Freedom

  Ten ships were either destroyed or combat ineffective. Casualty reports were pouring in. And while the ring of destroyer escorts was attempting to shield the massive carrier from direct Black Fleet turret fire, the enemy battleships were throwing everything they had.

  The destroyer Hildago took multiple hits from the two sister battleships of the wounded Imperator. The shots came in over the course of a minute. The first one found a hole in the starboard deflector array. The second smashed amidships, causing a series of small secondary explosions to erupt up through upper deck quarters and targeting sections. The third shot hit the engines, knocking out two of the giant drives with such kinetic force that the exterior nozzles for both engines came away in an explosive tumble.

  The final shot targeted the bridge. As much of the bridge crew around Landoo caught their breaths, she assumed that Hildalgo’s command crew was killed by that hit.

  Stricken, the destroyer slowed. But she continued to fight from her waist batteries as the fleet passed close to the outer wing of Terror.

  “Engineer of Hildalgo says he’s scuttling, Admiral. Advising us to clear away from the blast radius.”

  “Best speed now,” cried the captain, not bothering to wait for any particular instructions from the fleet admiral. There was only one option. Get away from the destroyer that was about to explode.

  Landoo had been on the verge of dropping all fighters and making a battle of it right here and now regardless of the Legion’s plans. But Interceptor shields wouldn’t stand up to the blast from the catastrophic destruction of a starship. So she nodded at the captain, confirming his decision to get clear.

  Revenge was now shooting directly into the carrier with as many batteries as she could bring to bear.

  Ten seconds later, escape pods jettisoned from the dying Hildalgo like petals peeling away from a fiery star flower.

  ***

  Kraka-booooom!

  The destroyer went up all at once. Imperator took the brunt of the damage, as she was nearest and dead in space. The newly facing fully powered deflector was smashed, and the blast wave ripped across one side of the battleship. Turrets, stores, and other important subsystems were torn away from the hull, and even much of the plating was ripped away, exposing life hab and quarters to the nuclear effects of the blast.

  Imperator now looked as though she’d been KO’d on both sides of the hull forward amidships. An internal fire was out of control, and power only barely flickered to active through much of the command stack.

  21

  Imperial Flagship Imperator

  As the auxiliary bridge came online, Rommal ran through the command channels getting status updates from the commanders currently engaged in battle with the retreating Seventh. An electrical fire on the main bridge had forced the command team of the Imperator, and the fleet ops officers, to pull back to the secondary bridge.

  A priority message from Captain Vampa, commander of the Terror, appeared on the comm station Rommal was hovering over.

  “Admiral,” began Vampa in her dark alto command voice. “Our sensors are scanning the Legion’s assault fleet. They’re not re-boarding the Legion fleet. They’re under full impulse and making best speed for our group.”

  Rommal waved at the OIC sensor officer. The man, who was busy directing his team through a systems re-route, acknowledged the admiral’s gesture and came over.

  “Find out what the Legion’s fleet is up to!” Rommal hissed.

  Without a word the man commandeered a sensor station for himself. His hands swam expertly across the digital interface, dragging sensor arcs out and command-overriding allocated power to the information sweep.

  “Admiral,” continued Vampa, “if I may. I think we should get all Interceptor groups up. We may need the cover to execute a retreat.”

  “Negative, Captain. This battle is still manageable,” Rommal replied. “My ship has been hit hard, but we have helm and seventy percent of our weapons capability. We will not be retreating today. But I do agree with you: let’s get all groups up.”

  The sensor OIC stepped close and showed the admiral a readout on his datapad. The Legion’s fleet was moving in at close range.

  They’ll try to board us, thought Rommal darkly.

  “It looks like we may still get a chance to kill them in their ships, Admiral,” noted the sensor OIC.

  ***

  Republic Super Carrier Freedom

  “Heading two-six-zero established, Admiral. All ships report disengaged from direct fire combat with the enemy fleet.”

  Landoo listened to her adjutant give the fleet status report as the big carrier lumbered away from the firefight.

  “Damage report?”

  “Coming in now, Admiral… uh… we lost eight hammerheads… fourteen of the escort frigates… and two destroyers. Masstaar reporting heavy casualties, multiple fires, and a reactor leak in three. Captain Ariedies requesting permission to withdraw for escape and repairs.”

  That left…

  “And the Legion’s fleet?”

  “Closing, Admiral. As per the plan. They’ll commence boarding operations in the next ten minutes. Admiral Ubesk has greenlit our next strike. We are to target the Terror this time.”

  That mean Ubesk intends to board the Imperator, and he wants her sister battleship busy dealing with incoming.

  “Admiral!” shouted an enlisted sensor tech. “We got birds in the air on all enemy groups. They’re putting out fighters fast. Real fast.”

  Admiral Landoo didn’t hesitate. She knew exactly what that meant. Without fighter cover, those legionnaire assault transports were sitting ducks.

  “Launch all wings now. Tell them to group up and cover the assault ships. Everything in the air! Now!”

  ***

  101st Legion, Charlie Company

  Aboard Imperial Dreadnought Revenge

  Of the four transports flying Charlie Company in under heavy fire, three made it. One got picked off by a tri-fighter as she made her approach to the breaching site. The wicked little fighter came in, blasters screeching, and found the fat and heavy assault transport, made for planet-dropping from high altitudes fast, flaring over the hull of the battleship.

  One blaster shot cooked off the portside engine, which cascaded into an onboard explosion, killing Third Platoon.

  But First, Second, and Fourth made it into the massive support ship hangar bay within the sprawling matte-gray battleship Revenge. All three transports disgorged legionnaires, who found themselves in an immediate firefight with the hangar crew.

  Admiral Ubesk’s primary target was Imperator. The next phase of his plan would concentrate on tying up one battleship with advance assault teams carrying high-yield explosives while the Seventh targeted the third
battleship with SSMs. This would allow the main Legion boarding force to attempt to take Imperator.

  But why not deal a mortal wound to one of the other battleships if the opportunity presented itself?

  Charlie Company and two other companies from one of the most famous Legion fighting units in the history of the galaxy had been selected for the raid. There would be no capture, no prisoners, no surrender. Take the three critical points in the ship and detonate high-yield explosives internally. Exfil the ship before the detonation.

  If possible.

  Ion gun batteries were Target One.

  Engineering at the aft of the ship and below the command stack was Target Two.

  And Target Three was a particular hangar bay that had been identified by strategic intelligence and deep sensors. Due to its position within the battleship, a sufficiently large explosion here could damage a nearby reactor.

  Charlie Company took the bay. They moved in teams, fighting their way along the dock ramps that reached out into the void from within the lower decks of the battleship. The bay appeared small for such a massive battleship; intel reported that it was reserved only for ships that had come bearing priority cargo or important prisoners.

  Charlie’s Fourth Platoon was the first to engage the shock troopers stationed aboard the Revenge. And Fourth got the worst of it. If Third hadn’t been blown to pieces across the void before boarding, they might have been able to support Fourth’s flank. As it was, exposed and on the far side of the cavernous hangar, Fourth could only close ranks and try to hold off the shock troopers’ counterattack.

  But the shock troopers were not held off. Once they’d pinned the Legion defenders with suppressive fire, they flanked, popped bangers, and overran Fourth.

  To a man.

  Still, their sacrifice provided time for First and Second to place explosive charges that would destroy the bay. Gunners from the assault transports covered First and Second’s return to the waiting ships, despite the heavy return fire. A surface-to-air missile smacked into one dropship as it lifted off, spilling a door gunner and three legionnaires, but the transport limped off the deck and into open space.

  When the final transport got away, the commander of Charlie Company ordered a detonation.

  Five seconds later a massive explosion tore out the guts of the battleship, erupting along the bottom of the hull and sending twisted and flaming deck plating out into space. Along with most of the shock troopers who had taken the hangar bay.

  It was the only element of the raid that was successful. The assaults on Targets One and Two—the ion gun batteries located forward of the rear command stack, and Engineering—both failed. One hundred percent casualties were reported in the other two companies that took part in the raid on the Revenge.

  ***

  Legion Super Destroyer Mercutio

  Commander Keller and Admiral Ubesk watched the disposition of forces as both lines of ships collapsed into one another. The Legion fleet had the numbers, but the mighty Black Fleet battleships had the superior firepower.

  As for the assault ships—smaller, slow-moving, and filled with leejes just itching to get into the battle and put the hurt on Goth Sullus and his shock troops—they’d gotten close to the battleships quickly enough, but not close enough to avoid the casualties they were now taking. The Black Fleet tri-fighter wings shot up the transports as they tried to board the larger battleships.

  The Legion fleet had pivoted en masse at close range and was now firing at broadsides into the massive deflectors of the larger Black Fleet vessels. In response, the ion gun batteries aboard Terror and Revenge were loosing heavy displacement destabilized particle shots into the sides of the Legion’s line of sturdy destroyers.

  The smaller ships couldn’t stand up to that kind of firepower at close range.

  Then Commander Keller’s plan to knock out key systems rewarded the combined Legion/Republic fleet with a massive internal explosion aboard the Revenge. Now only Terror was capable of striking out with both of her ion guns.

  Which were still fearsome. Two powerful shots collapsed the deflectors of the Legion destroyer Veritas and holed her aft of main power. The ship broke into two pieces and exploded, taking several swarming tri-fighters with her.

  “We have units aboard their flagship, sir,” said the tac intel officer liaison for comms. “Six Three and the Seventy-Fifth are engaged in heavy fighting…” The officer expanded the digital display of the Imperator and highlighted the area amidships. “… here,” he said, pointing at the spot where two Legion units had managed to breach the hull. “We also have several other teams making their infil in the next two minutes.”

  “Well,” muttered Keller to the ever-silent Admiral Ubesk. “That’s a start. Order the reserves into those breaches. Commit all our forces.”

  ***

  Imperial Flagship Imperator

  Deck 32, Forward of Main Stores

  The shock troopers responded to the alert that the hull had been breached in the forward section behind the split bow forward hangar. The initial gains by the legionnaire assault teams, blasting their way through bulkheads and blast doors with explosives, were stopped cold at deck thirty-two by Shock Trooper Unit 246. Their commander threw three squads of heavy weapons–supported assault teams straight into the face of the advancing legionnaires, then flanked the attacking force with burn teams using special napalm jet throwers.

  The Legion commander quickly realized the main assault had been a diversion. His troops were being cooked alive by the shock trooper burn teams coming at them from all sides inside the tight passages. Hot bursts of flaming jet fuel forced them to either give ground or be roasted alive.

  The commander chose neither.

  Running out of time and with no other options, he ordered the rest of his available troops to fix bayonets and assault directly into the shock troops forward of their position. In an instant, legionnaires and shock troopers were mixed in hand-to-hand combat within the comm data processing node the Legion had been trying to advance through in their effort to secure the forward reactor of the Imperator.

  A Legion platoon sergeant left behind N-3 laser tripwire mines for the pursuing burn teams who were attempting to close the flaming noose. The first burn team to find one of these mines went up in a powerful explosion that rocked the deck and knocked out local main power. Aux power kicked in, bathing the close-quarters combat of leej and trooper in a bloody wash of emergency lighting.

  The few who would survive described the fight as a bloody vision of hell between competing hordes of demons.

  A shock trooper firing point-blank with a servo-assist tri-barreled N-50 into a mixed mass of friendlies and foes.

  A bucketless legionnaire, shot in a dozen places, coming up from out of the chaos behind the firing trooper with a bloody combat knife only to cut the man’s throat between bucket and chest plate in the blink of an eye.

  The blood spray still in the air as some other trooper turned and unloaded full auto on the throat slasher who went, finally, down.

  All of this repeated dozens of times within the small space as both sides fought with neither tactics nor support. Within the comm node there was only a desperation to cause as much pain to the warrior in front of you, and to be quick instead of dead.

  Both sides called for reinforcements.

  Both fleets gladly provided more bodies.

  More and more troops were pushed into the breach aboard the Imperator.

  Because both sides knew that if the flagship fell… then it was all over. That the battle was either won or lost, depending on which side you’d hoisted the flag for.

  ***

  Imperial Flagship Imperator

  Auxiliary Bridge

  Admiral Rommal was making his report—and his suggestion—to the emperor when a comm officer interrupted him. Which was a thing that was just not done. Not because Rommal was the fleet admiral… but because of whom he was talking to.

  No one willingly sought conta
ct with the man known as the emperor. Even the most opportunistic knew, or rather sensed, that some advantages the powerful might provide to an eager up-and-comer weren’t worth the unknown price when it came to Goth Sullus.

  “Admiral,” whispered the comm officer. “New contact.”

  Rommal stared at his officer in utter disbelief. Realizing for the first time that the thing about not interrupting anything to do with Sullus had been no more than an unspoken rule they’d all been subconsciously obeying. No one had ever stated it as standard operating procedure.

  And yet it seemed like the most inviolable of laws.

  “It’s significant,” continued the officer, despite the obvious contempt Rommal was regarding her with.

  “Excuse me,” began Rommal… and hesitated. They’d never fully figured out how to address Sullus beyond calling him “Emperor.” And even that title had been forced on their leader by Rommal himself, of all people. The title had just appeared in his desperate mind after his own perceived failure at the first major engagement.

  But what would one call him besides “Emperor”? How did one finish a sentence like the one he’d just begun?

  Your Grace?

  My Lord?

  Your Highness?

  Those thoughts, in the middle of this grand battle the likes of which the galaxy hadn’t seen since the Savages, disappeared when the comm officer brought up the feed from deep sensors.

  “What is it?” he murmured.

  There was a long pause.

  Then…

  “Uh… we have no idea, sir.”