by Jay Allan
He would have his victory.
* * *
Captain Turenne was perched on Temeraire’s bridge, his eyes moving quickly, from station to station, trying to think if there was anything else he could do to make his ship combat ready.
Turenne’s family was an influential one, heavily involved in Union politics. His siblings were all government officials, schemers whose thoughts rarely strayed from the acquisition of political power. But he’d been different his whole life, and the games the political classes played left him cold. It was just as well, because he was the youngest of four, and if politics had been his vocation, he’d have been relegated to the scraps his two brothers and his sister had left behind.
Turenne had wanted to be in the military since childhood. He’d studied every book he could get about war, both those involving the Union, and also what he could obtain from the classified files of pre-Cataclysmic history. His first interest had been ground warfare, but the Union’s infantry battles were mostly left to the Foudre Rouge, clones spawned solely to serve as soldiers, leaving little room for the scion of a powerful family to build a career. So, he’d chosen the navy instead.
He had started as an officer, and he’d come up through the ranks, surprisingly to some, as much on his own talent as the upward draft his family connections provided. Now he found himself in command of a battleship. Temeraire would serve well in the upcoming campaign, he would make sure of that.
He’d guessed the fleet would be attacking the Confeds, that the classified work so clearly underway was dedicated to making the pulsar mobile. The ancient weapon changed the nature of battle completely, and he knew it was capable of wiping out the Confederation fleet without any help at all from battleships like Temeraire. But there was more to an invasion than that, and Turenne knew the transits into each system would be difficult, and would leave plenty of fighting for warships like his own.
He’d done all he could to prepare his crew, to bring them up to the standards he demanded. He’d driven them hard, and he’d pulled a few strings too, even using his own resources to secure better rations. He’d won them over by looking out for their needs in a way few Union officers could be bothered to do, despite the tough standards and exhausting exercises. Some resisted of course, but, perhaps surprisingly, many did not, and a fair percentage even excelled under the relentless drive of their new captain.
Turenne had gotten rid of as many of the slackers as he could, resorting again to family influence to transfer them off Temeraire. There were plenty of Union captains who shirked their duties. Turenne had decided they could take his castoffs.
“Captain Turenne, we’re getting a level one communique, Captain’s ears only.”
Turenne felt his body tighten. Was this it? Were the orders to move out about to come?
“I’ll take it in my office, Commander.” He turned and walked across the bridge, toward the set of double hatches that sealed his private room from the main bridge. “Open,” he said crisply, not even pausing as the AI slid the doors to the side, closing them immediately after he entered. The light snapped on as he slipped through the doorway, and he walked around the large desk and sat down.
“Level one comm protocols,” he said, again to the AI.
“Level one protocols active, Captain.”
He reached out and hit the comm button. “Send in the communique, Commander.”
“Yes, sir.”
There was a pause, perhaps a second or two as the system decrypted the order. Then he heard a voice in his headset. For an instant, he wasn’t sure, but then the speaker identified himself.
“This is Minister Gaston Villieneuve, Third of the Presidium, now in direct command of the fleet. This communique is for the ears of all personnel, ship commanders and above. Many of you have been expecting orders to set out from this system, to begin the final invasion of the Confederation. I can tell you now that those orders will not be coming.”
Turenne was confused. He wasn’t an expert on politics, but he was connected enough to have some idea that the Union didn’t have time to waste. Why would Villieneuve postpone the invasion? Is there a problem with the maneuver system?
The answer was immediately forthcoming.
“Our enemies have relieved us of the need to take such a dangerous step. They are en route to this system even now, their entire fleet and their Alliance allies. They are coming to attack the pulsar, but they advance to their own destruction. We could stay as we are…but we will do more than simply shoot them down as they advance. You are all receiving navigational instructions. Several task forces will be deployed to the far side of the transit point, positioned in the dust clouds between planets two and three. You will be there, waiting for the enemy to retreat, and then you will attack, and destroy whatever vessels escape from the pulsar.”
Villieneuve’s voice paused for a moment.
“Victory is at hand, and all who distinguish themselves in this glorious fight will be rewarded…”
The tone coming through the comm changed, darkened.
“And any who fail to give all they can will suffer.”
Chapter Seventeen
Fleet Base Grimaldi
Orbiting Krakus II
Krakus System
Year 313 AC
Andi Lafarge walked down the almost-deserted corridor. Grimaldi was the main Confederation military base, and as such, it ran around the clock. Now, it was on somewhat of a skeleton staff, and the secondary docking bays were a bit of a backwater with the fleet gone.
On their way to the Bottleneck…
Lafarge had passed two others since she’d gotten off the lift. One had been a guard, who’d given her access pass the quickest of cursory glances. The other had been a technician of some kind, looking tired and as though he was headed for his quarters. She wasn’t even sure he had noticed her as they passed each other.
Pegasus had been granted special access to occupy its berth, by none other than the fleet admiral himself. That had been quite an exemption to normal procedure, especially when berths were at a premium. When the entire fleet had been formed up at Grimaldi, there were nearly two hundred warships in the system, not only the battleships that formed the core of the Confederation’s might, but cruisers, destroyers, and frigates too, the support ships that protected the flanks of the battle line.
Lafarge knew more about naval combat than most people suspected—herself included sometimes. She’d learned most of it the hard way, finding ways to pull her tiny ship and its crew from one tight spot after another. The rest had come more recently, from talking to Barron, and even more, from studying everything she could on his various battles.
She’d never let him know, but she’d been fascinated by the natural skill he possessed. He’d run Dauntless like that massive ship was an extension of his own body. She still couldn’t figure out just how he’d managed to save the day in that encounter out in the Badlands, when he’d somehow managed to defeat an entire Union fleet and destroy an ancient superbattleship before the enemy could salvage it. He’d saved her people there and, despite some initial friction between the two, it had been the start of the most important relationship of her life.
The only relationship that lasted much past sunrise. Lafarge didn’t let people get close to her, save for her crew—or, at least she never had before. That policy had certainly failed where Barron was concerned, but even as she thought about him, she realized she had genuine feelings of friendship for Striker and Holsten…and she was just about positive she and Atara Travis would be the best of friends if they ever got to spend some real time together. Not to mention the Tyler Barron stories the two of them could trade.
Her life had gone in unexpected directions over the past few years, and as she thought about the insane thing she was about to do, she realized just how much she, too, had changed. Barron and those around him had become almost like a family to her. The thought of losing them all in some hopeless battle while she searched the Confederation’s mo
st exclusive worlds for a new home, was sickening.
She continued down the corridor, still surprised at the lack of activity. With the whole fleet gone, the lower docking bays were mostly superfluous, and the few ships left behind were either freighters berthed closer to the storage holds or damaged ships under repair in the shipyard.
She turned the corner and walked toward a door, pulling the tag from around her neck and pressing it to the small sensor panel next to the hatch. It pinged softly, and the door slid open, revealing the transparent walls of the bay, and beyond, her ship. Pegasus was right next to the station, a small umbilical connecting to the ship’s main hatch.
She paused and looked out at the vessel. Pegasus was just a free trader, and an old one at that, but Lafarge had poured most of her early profits into her ship. There was more to Pegasus than met the eye, and that was just how she liked it.
She’d decided what she was going to do almost immediately after she realized where Barron had gone. She wasn’t sure it made any sense. Pegasus was armed, much more powerfully than the other free traders in its class, but the strength of her guns was mathematically indistinguishable from zero next to the might of the entire fleet. She wasn’t going to come to the rescue, tip a close battle to a victory. She didn’t know what she could do that would make any difference. She just knew she had to be there.
Flying Pegasus alone would be a handful. She could manage it, as long as nothing malfunctioned seriously. She’d had to repair systems on the ship herself in the past, especially before she’d pulled Lex Righter from a drunken binge and added the brilliant but troubled engineer to her team.
Still, she knew it would be difficult. She could fly the ship, but she’d have a hard time manning the weapons at the same time. And if she had to make any repairs, she wouldn’t be able to fight or pilot the ship until they were done. There were countless ways that could lead to disaster.
She’d been too distracted to be scared, though, first angry at Barron, and then determined to rush to his aid. But now, fear crept in. She might make her way to the Bottleneck, but Pegasus wasn’t going to make any kind of difference in what happened there. For an instant, she felt the urge to turn around, to walk back to her quarters and forget the whole thing. But she didn’t move. She had to do this, even if it was a waste of time.
Even if it was suicide.
She turned toward the hatch and reached out for the controls.
“Hey…”
She spun around, startled at the voice from the far doorway. Her first thought was some guard was going to ask for her ID, but then her eyes settled on the shadowy figure standing there. Vig Merrick.
“Vig?” She was confused. “I thought you were on your way to Olysar?”
“I was, but then I realized you hadn’t made any arrangements at all, and I got suspicious. So, I pushed my reservation to the next scheduled ship. I thought you might need someone to talk to.” He stepped into the room and looked out at Pegasus. “At first, I figured you didn’t sell the old girl because you couldn’t bear the thought. And, after all, it’s not like you need the money now. But then, I got the alert that her bay had been activated. I figured maybe you’d decided where to go, and you were taking Pegasus there, but then I saw there was no destination in the file. I asked myself, why would she try to keep a secret of where she was going…”
“Vig…”
“The next time you decide to sneak away and do something foolish by yourself, remember to wipe everybody else off the alert list.”
“Vig, I appreciate you coming down here, but this is something I have to do, and I can’t ask you—I won’t—to come with me.”
“Who said anything about asking? Unless you’re planning to keep me on this dock at gunpoint, we can just cut this whole exchange short.”
“You don’t understand. This is dangerous.” A pause. “It’s even stupid. It’s just something I have to do.”
“Andi, you led us for years, got us out of one tight spot after another. You made us richer than any of us ever dreamed possible. Did you think we’d leave you to face anything alone?”
“We?”
“Yes, we. Lex is already aboard, giving her a full systems check. I managed to catch Rina and Dolph before they boarded their ships. They should be here any minute. The rest of the crew would have been here too, I’m sure, if they hadn’t shipped out already.”
Lafarge looked at her first officer, a stunned expression on her face. She didn’t know what to do, or even say. She couldn’t let them come, she just couldn’t. If she felt some compulsion to throw her life away, that was her affair, but she wouldn’t allow her crew, her friends, to follow her.
“Vig, I can’t tell you how much this means to me, but I can’t…”
“You can, and you will.” The voice came from the hall, and even before the figure emerged from the shadows, Lafarge knew it was Rina Strand.
“Rina, I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything. We’re following the fleet, I assume?”
“We? No, I was just…”
“You were just nothing. We’re going with you, and that’s final. Don’t make us waste a big chunk of our hard-earned cash buying some tub to chase after you.”
“Rina…” Her voice tailed off. Rina Strand was even more stubborn than Vig. She was never going to get her to change her mind.
“I don’t have any plan. I was just going to follow the fleet. It will be pointless danger, with nothing to gain. You both know Pegasus can’t make a difference in a battle like the one that’s going to take place out there.”
“And yet, you’re going.”
“I have to…but you don’t.”
“If you think that, Andi, you don’t know us as well as I thought you did.” It was Vig this time, staring at her as intently as Stand had been.
She felt helpless. She wanted them to come, as much as she’d ever wanted anything, but the guilt she felt over the thought of taking them with her, into pointless danger…
“We’re coming with you, or we’re following you…it’s that simple.” Rina took a step forward, standing no more than a meter from Lafarge. “If you let us come with you, at least we’ll be able to maneuver, shoot, and fix a blown circuit at the same time.”
She hesitated, wondering if they would really find a way to follow her, or if that was an empty threat. Yes, she thought, they just might.
“Just say ‘yes,’ Andi. We’re wasting time out here. Dolph will be down in a few minutes, and then we can get going. You think it’s important enough to go, then let’s go. There’s no point wasting time.”
“Rina…” Lafarge felt her resistance crumbling. She knew they wouldn’t give up, and she loved them for it. “Okay, you can come.” She sighed, and then she looked at each of them in turn. “You guys are a pain in the ass, do you know that?”
Then she smiled, fighting to hold back a tear. “And you’re the best, too. All of you.”
Chapter Eighteen
Approaching Transit Point Omega
Confederation-Union Border
Portas System
Year 313 AC
The room was quiet, dark, just the faint light from the desk lamp faintly illuminating the large space. Atara Travis had insisted he take the captain’s suite of rooms, and she hadn’t taken no for an answer. He wasn’t sure how much of that was respect and friendship, and how much was a superstitious need to return as much as possible to the way it had been. Barron had felt bad about kicking her out of her rooms but, truth be told, he was just as happy to recapture as much of the past magic as he could.
His old quarters were familiar, of course, but strange and foreign in a way now, too. Travis hadn’t changed anything, and the suite looked almost as it had for the nearly seven years it had been his home. But it felt different anyway, as did the command chair on the bridge, and everywhere else he’d been on the ship.
He still loved Dauntless, and he knew she’d always be his first ship, bu
t he’d been surprised at the difference in how he felt. He’d conceived the desperate mission because there was no other way to save the Confederation from defeat before the enemy’s superweapon, but part of him had also ached to return, to recapture the way he’d felt those years as Dauntless’s captain. But, try as he might, that feeling was proving elusive.
He stared at the small window, out into the blackness of space. How many times had he traveled from system to system, without so much as a passing notice of the beauty of that great, black ocean? He looked out at the pinpricks of stars, most of them out of reach, man’s effective grasp stretching no farther than the network of transit points his ancestors had constructed centuries before.
He was going to die. All his people were going to die. He’d tried to shake that feeling, to grasp for the confidence that had always been there for him, but there was nothing. Only the gnawing thought that his people’s loyalty would be their death sentence.
“How did you do it, Grandfather?” His voice was soft, sad. Some of his most cherished memories were of his childhood, time spent with his famous grandfather. They’d hiked and fished and spent days out in the far reaches of the Barron estate, and he knew the elder Barron had given him much, helped make him the man he’d become. But he’d lost his grandfather far too soon, to the crucible of the third war with the Union. The older man had died before he could teach Barron about war, about leading men and women. Before he could truly prepare him to carry the weight of the family’s legacy.
“How did you deal with the guilt?” It was one thing to lead people into battle knowing many would die, and quite another to know they were going because of you.
Barron had sometimes felt he could hear his grandfather’s voice in his head, most likely his mind’s way of communicating what he thought the old man would have said. But now, there was nothing but silence.
The fleet was approaching the final transit. In a matter of hours, it would be time. Dauntless would engage the stealth generator and move into the Bottleneck. If the ancient device worked perfectly, if he made no mistakes, if luck was with them…Dauntless might just get close enough to destroy the deadly weapon and save the Confederation. But he didn’t see any way his ship could get out afterward, past the entire Union fleet, and back to the relative safety of the Admiral Striker’s armada. He’d tried to convince himself he would find a way, told himself his people were the best, that they would manage somehow. That had worked for him in the past, but now all he felt was coldness.