by Jay Allan
“Yes, sir.” Teller turned and snapped out a series of orders himself. The Nest’s control center was a beehive of activity, nearly three times as many officers and technicians on duty as had been there before, still including Ana Bazarov. Darius had told her to stand down, to get to the underground shelter, along with her sister and the other non-combat personnel. But she’d done the unthinkable, the one thing more likely to land her in the Eagles’ history than any martial feat imaginable. She’d refused Darius’s command.
“I’m at my position, sir,” she had said firmly. Darius almost argued, but then he did something even less precedented in the history of his illustrious little army. He let it go.
He had strong feelings for Ana, and he’d wanted her as safe as he could make her. But he knew she’d been right to take the stand she had, and he remembered the day they had met, her standing there, wounded and half naked, about to be assaulted by a band of drunk, Raschiddan soldiers. He’d saved her, from a terrible ordeal at least, and probably her life too…and she’d turned, staring up at her savior with hatred in her eyes, cursing him out for invading her world. Something in that instant had struck him. She was beautiful, and he enjoyed her company, but he knew it was her strength—her brave defiance—that had truly captured his attention, and ultimately his affection.
“All six regiments are boarding, sir. It’s going to take some time to get all the transports loaded up.” Translation: We’re never going to get the ground troops out of here before the Nest gets engaged.
“Very well, Colonel. All transports able to load up and depart are to head toward Columbia.” Darius didn’t have a doubt Jarrod Tyler would be pleased to house more than ten thousand of his veteran warriors. The battle for the Nest would be a space engagement, won or lost in the cold depths. Any boarding action would be a final stage, and launched only after the battle was nearly over. But if these forces were planning on invading Columbia as well, he knew his people could do good service helping to hold the allied planet.
“Fighter squadrons in position, sir. They are requesting permission to engage.”
“Negative, Colonel. Advise Major Wiggs his forces are to follow the missile strikes in, but not too close to final engagement range until all warheads have detonated.” Darius had no intention of losing his precious veteran pilots to radiation from the missile barrage…but he did want them on the enemy the instant the bombardment ceased. Their precision attacks could obliterate ships that had taken damage from warhead near misses.
He’d almost held his squadrons back, detailed them to protect his own battleships, but his main fleet would be in the Nest’s defensive perimeter before the attacking fighters caught them…and Darius had buried hundreds of anti-assault batteries into the hard crust of the frozen moon. Unlike a normal planetary surface, Eos’s small satellite had no atmosphere to speak of, nothing to weaken the laser batteries when they opened fire. But they were still on a fixed surface, and that allowed them to draw on power no mobile platform could match. The general rule of thumb was that fighters were best for intercepting fighters. Darius was about to put that to the test.
“Point defense array is opening fire, General. Enemy missiles coming into range now.”
Darius didn’t respond. He just sat and watched. The whole thing felt strange. He had always been the sort of commander to lead from the front, but he’d serve no purpose at all on the bridge of one of his battleships, nothing more than a distraction to a seasoned captain. And there was no ground battle to fight, at least not yet.
“Any response from Columbia yet, Cadet?” He stared across the bridge, trying to soften his tone when he directed it toward Ana, but likely failing. His persona in battle was one well-formed by now, and, as hard as it was, it had served him well.
“No, General. No response. Shall I resend the communique?”
“Yes,” Darius snapped, realizing as he did it would be of little worth. There was no question Columbia had received the message, so whatever reason they’d failed to respond, it had been intentional. He couldn’t understand what was happening. He didn’t trust anyone, not completely, at least, but Jarrod Tyler had been one of those he’d thought least likely to turn on him, and especially in the fight against the mysterious attacker. Tyler was almost clinically paranoid about Columbia being invaded again. Was it possible the enemy had gotten to him somehow, persuaded him to join their cause? That would be a disaster for the Eagles, giving them enemies on both sides of their stronghold. Columbia alone could never defeat his forces, but if Tyler’s ships joined the attackers instead of coming to his own aid as he’d expected…
No, that just doesn’t make sense…
“General…” It was Ana.
“Yes, Cadet?”
“I’m picking up residual transmissions from Columbia, sir. There’s something going on down there.”
Darius snapped his head around. “Colonel, are there any enemy contacts deeper in-system?”
“Negative, sir.”
“No, Colonel,” Ana said. “It’s something happening on the surface. I have the AI sifting through media transmissions. There seems to be some kind of lockdown in place. I can’t tell…”
Darius stared across the control room. He was looking at his lover, but all he saw now was his communications officer.
Then, she turned back toward him. “Sir…General Tyler has been shot.”
Shot? An assassination attempt? “Any word on his condition?”
“It seems his is still alive, Colonel. I can’t find any mention of his condition, but I did get a report of emergency surgery. It appears a full media blackout is in effect planetwide.”
Darius sat silently for a moment, his eyes darting every few seconds to check on the status of the fighting around the Nest. His fleet’s missiles were beginning to detonate, and an enemy vessel blinked off the screen, bracketed between three warheads that detonated simultaneously all from less than a kilometer away. He was distracted now by Tyler’s situation, but he felt a wave of excitement. The AI network directing the operation of his missiles was one of Spark’s newest developments, one designed to maximize the timing and location of missile detonations. There was far from anything conclusive to draw yet, but so far, the effectiveness of his missile barrage appeared to be devastating.
He shifted his thoughts back to Columbia. This is bad, whatever is happening down there…
“Colonel Teller, I want the troop transports to blast toward Columbia at full thrust, and land as soon as possible. Full invasion protocols. They are to broadcast their IDs and attempt to avoid conflict with the Columbian forces, but they are to occupy the Prime list of objectives, using whatever means are necessary.” The Eagles had a Prime list for every world in Occupied Space, a roadmap for invasion and assumption of planetary control, media facilities, vital utilities, military installations, data centers.
“Yes, General.”
“And Colonel…I want you to go. Get down to the bay and take command of the operation.”
“Sir…”
“Do it, Erik. It’s a difficult situation, and we don’t have enough data. One of us has to be there…and if things go badly here, at least you’ll be in a position to reorganize, and keep up the fight.” Darius knew a dictatorship was never more vulnerable than it was when the strongman was incapacitated. If there were Black Flag plants down there—and there almost certainly were—now was the time they would make their move. Even domestic rivals could make their plays to overthrow Tyler while he was unable to respond effectively.
Teller looked like he was going to argue with his friend, but then it seemed the futility of it overcame him. “Yes, sir.” An instant later: “Good luck, Darius.”
“And you, my friend. Now go.” He looked across the control room. He’d almost told Ana to go along too. Columbia wasn’t exactly safe right now, but it was probably more so than the Nest. He hated the idea of her being in danger, but he knew she would only argue with him, and that no matter how much he insisted, she would refuse t
o go. He didn’t have time for that now, and it was a display his Eagles didn’t need to see.
He turned, taking a brief look at her, just the back of her hair. He tried to keep the dark images from his mind, scenes of her lying in the twisted wreckage of the Nest, gasping for breath as the air hissed out the holed out hull, her body broken and bloody and dead.
He forced himself back to focus, and he watched as the rest of his missiles impacted. His people had taken out more than a dozen enemy ships, including three of the massive battleships. It was a good result, better than he’d dared to hope for.
But now he sat, his eyes locked on the scanners as the enemy missiles moved toward his fleet, slipping into the Nest’s defensive envelope. His batteries opened up, dozens of missiles vanishing as the AI-controlled lasers flashed again and again. But there were a lot of warheads coming in, and they were getting closer to his own ships.
Chapter 11
Marine Headquarters
Planet Armstrong, Gamma Pavonis III
Earthdate: 2321 AD (36 Years After the Fall)
“You’ve done an incredible job here, Cate…and I mean more than just this recent mobilization. I remember how bad things were before the Second Incursion, and my life hasn’t taught me to expect anything but a return to complacency once the threat was gone.”
“It was hard, Erik. The funding drying up was bad enough, but we managed to replace some of that, at least. We opened up the hospital to non-military use, converted some of the arms to high tech products for export. We couldn’t support a large active-duty Corps, but we managed to keep it alive, and the best fighting force in Occupied Space, at least until Darius started the Eagles.”
Cain just nodded.
The two were walking across the drilling fields. Cain remembered a day when the great parade grounds were full of recruits, thousands and thousands of new trainees marching back and forth under Armstrong’s great yellow sun. That had been the apogee for the Corps, the years right after the move from Earth. It had been a short peak, one shattered by the arrival of the First Imperium, and right after that, Gavin Stark and his Shadow Legions. Cain had once started to try to calculate the percentage of those Marines in his mental images who had survived, the veterans of the Third Frontier War and the recruits from the years just after…and worse, his mates from Camp Puller back on Earth. He’d known the result would be grim, but then he realized it was worse than he’d thought, and he’d abandoned the effort, having decided he didn’t want to know the answer.
“So, we’ve got twenty-one thousand total combat strength?” Cain phrased it as a question, but he already knew the answer.
“Twenty thousand, nine hundred, sixty-four. Counting the two of us.” Gilson paused. “Less than four thousand of what either of us would call veterans, and maybe another twenty-five hundred trained to anything close to the old standards. The rest were rushed through. We tried to pick the best of the volunteers, and I think we managed to do a pretty good job with that, but they’re not going to equal the forces you and I led forty years ago. Not even close.”
“Marines always get the job done. We’ve believed that for a long time, Cate. I don’t want to stop now, do you?”
She shook her head.
“So, we’ll need a little more faith in this one, but we’re not losing this war. I didn’t come back from fifteen years in that stinking pit to lose my last war.”
“I’m with you, Erik. Elias Holm always wanted us to command together. I know two chefs in the kitchen is usually trouble, but I think we can make it work, don’t you?”
“I do, Cate. We worked that youthful pride nonsense out decades ago. We’re just two old warriors, heading into the field one more time. And I wouldn’t do it any other way than at your side.”
As soon as Cain finished his sentence, the alarms all around the parade ground went off, and a second after that, both their comm units buzzed.
“What is it,” Cain replied, managing to get his unit off his belt an instant faster than Gilson.
“We’ve got unidentified ships inbound, sir.” A pause. “A lot of ships.”
Cain felt his stomach tense. He’d known for two years war was coming, but now, it seemed, it was here. That wasn’t confirmed, not officially. At least theoretically, there were other possible reasons why unidentified ships would be pouring into the system, but he didn’t let any of that nonsense work its way into his head. The enemy had seized the initiative. He’d played his cards as though he would be dispatching Marines to worlds that were attacked all across Occupied Space, but now he saw the enemy’s strategy. He felt like a damned fool. He’d never even imagined a surprise attack against Armstrong. Against the Marines’ home base.
His mind was locked in the past, when the planet had been surrounded by layers of Alliance colonies, systems any invader would have to take before they could reach Armstrong. Now, Occupied Space was fragmented, and half its worlds had already yielded. It seemed so obvious now, but the vulnerability hadn’t occurred to him before, and from the look on Gilson’s face, to her either.
“Let’s go, Cate. We’ve got to get Augustus on the comm.” Garret’s fleet was stationed in orbit, ready for battle. Neither the admiral, nor Cain or Gilson, had expected a strike at the very heart of the Marines’ domain, but none of that mattered now. The enemy may have hit sooner than expected, but they would still have one hell of a fight here. “And let’s get the Marines ready, assuming they get through and start landing troops.
Yes, sir…one hell of a fight.
* * * * *
Augustus Garret sat on Bunker Hill’s bridge. The battleship was one of the old Alliance Yorktowns, with fifty years of hard service in her metal bones, but she was still one of the strongest ships in Occupied space, save perhaps for the awesome implements of destruction Darius Cain had built for himself. And, of course, whatever the enemy might have advancing toward the planet.
Garret was old. His health was still good, more or less, and thanks to the rejuv treatments, he was up and walking—and serving—at an age when most men who’d lived were a generation dead. But he was old nevertheless, and he could feel the spirit that had driven him, the raw power he had turned into so many victories, slipping away.
He’d almost refused the command, stepped aside to let a younger officer take his place. But the situation was desperate, and what remained of the friends he’d fought alongside for so many years had all committed to this last battle. Perhaps age and experience still had a trick to two it could pull on youth and exuberance. He had one more victory in him, he figured. A final curtain call for humanity’s most famous admiral. And then he would follow and old soldier’s creed. He would fade away.
“All ships, prepare for forward thrust.”
“Yes, Admiral.” A few seconds later. “All ships report ready to engage engines at your command.” Ronald Starn was young to be a full commander, but Garret had seen the young officer in action, and he’d granted the promotion on the spot, along with an offer to serve as his aide and tactical officer. Starn had seemed stunned, and it had taken him a moment to force a breathless acceptance from his parched and frozen throat.
Garret had become accustomed to near-adoration among the younger officers. He knew his career had reached legendary status, and he appreciated the respect for what he had achieved. But the great victories that had saved mankind had not been the work of one admiral, nor even that of a conclave of naval commanders and Marine generals. It had been the work of thousands and thousands of men and women, a vast number of whom gave all they had for those triumphs. The tendency people had to accrue credit, and the acclaim that went with it, to a few visible figures at the expense of so many others, made him uncomfortable, and he long ago reached the point where even the most basic praise galled at him in some way.
“Give the order, Commander. The fleet will accelerate at 3g.”
“Yes, sir.”
Garret leaned back, a reflex action he still hadn’t shaken. The force dampene
rs were far from perfect, but they could handle 3g without any noticeable effect. The devices hadn’t existed in the days of the Frontier Wars and the struggles that followed those conflicts. It was another bit of technology owed to the First Imperium, something researchers had managed to translate from the often-indecipherable science of the vastly more advanced power.
He turned and stared at the display. The fleet he commanded was large, and by the standards of the day, immense, but in many ways, it was a shadow of the great forces he’d led so many years before. Mankind simply did not have the resources it had once possessed. The scattered colonies across Occupied Space could grow and evolve into heavily populated worlds with highly developed industry and science, but they would need a respite from external threats to do that.
And they also need to stop fighting with each other. That’s always been our problem, hasn’t it?
None of that mattered now. He had what he had, and whatever dreams he might harbor for a peaceful future, that time was most definitely not now.
“Enemy lead elements are passing the orbit of planet six, sir.”
“Very well. Drop fleet thrust to 2.5g. We don’t want to push too far out from Armstrong, just enough to protect the planet from collateral damage.” For what good that will do. If we’re defeated, or even driven back, the enemy can hit Armstrong with whatever they choose.
“Yes, Admiral.”
“And all ships, arm missiles. We’re going to flush our external racks, and then we’re going to launch every internal warhead we’ve got.” Garret didn’t have much intel on the enemy ships, but he was starting to get mass readings, and he didn’t like what he was seeing. There were at least a dozen vessels out there that had sixty thousand tons or more on Bunker Hill, and four that were really big. He’d never seen anything quite like those behemoths. The great battleships—and what else could they be?—were larger than the Eagles’ dreadnoughts, even than Mars’s huge pair of superbattleships. He had no idea what firepower something like that carried, but he suspected he’d find out soon.