by Jay Allan
“Yes, sir. Perfectly.”
Cain’s reputation was one of coldness, of an utterly unshakable firmness in battle, and he lived up to that standard, at least publicly. He owed that much to his Eagles, to be what they expected, what they needed him to be. But deep down, in the thoughts he kept tightly locked away, he began to doubt, to wonder if his forces would prevail. He’d worried about battles before, of course, but those concerns had always been about how many of his Eagles he would lose, how long it would take to defeat an enemy. This was the first time he’d watched his warriors fighting and wondered seriously if they might lose.
The enemy was capable, clearly well trained, and fearless. They weren’t a match for the Eagles, though. Not one on one, nor even two on one. But his forces were outnumbered nearly five to one. His people had faced those odds before, indeed, they’d defeated forces ten, even twenty times their size. But those had been raw, backward planetary armies, not well-trained adversaries armed with gleaming new ships, and technology that matched their own, perhaps even exceeded it in places.
One thing was clear enough. Tom Sparks had been right. There was no question in his mind the Black Flag ships incorporated First Imperium technology. The enemy’s x-ray lasers cut through the reinforced armor of his battleships, tearing through compartment after compartment, and gutting the great vessels he’d spent so much treasure to produce. But that wasn’t what hit him the hardest. His Eagles were dying, their losses far more severe than they’d been in any campaign since the earliest days of the private army. He knew his people were used to being the best, and now he began to wonder how they would react to a sustained, vicious, desperate fight after so many years of seemingly effortless victories.
He looked around the control center, a way of disguising his glance over at Ana, making it appear he was checking on everyone. She had done well, executed her duty as effectively as his most experienced comm officer could have done. But she was a distraction, and his concern for her chipped away at his icy demeanor in battle. There was nothing he could do about it, at least nothing short of having guards drag her away, and he wasn’t ready to do that. There was a very real possibility they would all die in the next few hours, and, as emotionless as he liked to think he was, he also knew he couldn’t stand the possibility of dying with her hating him.
“General, is there anything I can do?”
Darius turned and looked up at his brother. “No, Elias, not now.” He knew his twin had stayed away from places like the control center, his effort not to spread confusion through the Nest. Elias’s hair was shorter, but now that he’d started wearing his colonel’s uniform, no different from Darius’s own general’s garb, save for the stars on the collar, it only made things more disconcerting for the Eagles, especially in battle.
“Stay,” Darius said, as his brother turned and started walking toward the lift. “Grab one of the extra workstations. You might as well watch the battle, see firsthand whether we win…or whether we die. I don’t think anybody will be rattled by your presence right now, not unless you wrestle me out of my chair and take my place.”
Elias nodded, and he walked over to an empty chair, sitting down.
Darius was glad his brother was there, in the control center. He hadn’t given up on the battle, not by a long shot. He still figured his people could win, would win. But he’d also considered the chance they wouldn’t, and if they were all going to die, he wanted Elias there, close by. He’d resented his brother for so long, but now all he had was regret for what the two had allowed to come between them. He was too realistic to think they could ever go back to the way things had been years before. There would always be some discomfort between them, and nearly twenty years of separation and anger could never be totally erased. But he was grateful for whatever peace the two had managed to make, and if they did die here, he was glad they would die friends again.
“General, Captain Grayson is on the comm.” Ana’s voice was remarkably calm, cool, though Darius knew she had to be terrified. It was that same strength that had caught his attention on Karelia, and it affected him no less now. “He thinks he has identified the enemy flagship, and he is requesting permission for Eagle Fourteen and Eagle Nine to break off and go after it.”
“On my comm, Cadet.” His eyes darted to the screen, focusing first on his two battleships…and then on the now flashing dot, the target they had identified.
“He’s on your line, sir.”
“John, how sure are you?”
“Pretty confident, sir. Maybe seventy percent. We’ve been tracing the comm traffic, and that ship seems to be a hub of some sort. It’s not conclusive, but if we’re looking for their command ship, that one’s the best bet.”
“I concur, but that ship’s deep in their formation, and it’s one of those monster battleships. You’re going to take a hell of a lot of fire going in, and then you’ll still have to take it down. We don’t have firm data yet on those huge ships, but it’s a good bet they outgun you.”
“That’s why I want to take Eagle Nine with me. Captain Ying agrees.”
“Both your ships have taken damage. Don’t bullshit me, John. Do you really think you can get through? Because I don’t have two battleships to throw away on hopeless efforts right now.”
“We’ll get there, sir. Somehow.”
Darius didn’t like answers like that. He preferred hard data to displays of bravado. But Grayson was as good a ship captain as the gods of war made, and taking out the enemy flagship would go a long way toward scratching out a win.
“Do it,” he said grimly. Then: “I’m sending all the fighters in your sector with you.” All the fighters we’ve got left. “Also, take Eagle Three with you. If we’re going to do this, let’s make the hell sure it gets done.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good luck, John.”
“Thank you, General. Grayson out.”
Darius leaned back and watched as the two dots representing Grayson’s two ships began to move. It was clear Eagle Fourteen’s captain had already laid in his nav data before he’d called HQ. Darius took a deep breath, and he looked back at Ana. “Get me Captain Strickland on Eagle Three, Cadet.”
“On your line, General.”
“Bill, get that ship of yours moving after Eagle Fourteen and Eagle Nine. They’re doing something crazy, and you and your people are the cavalry.”
* * * * *
“Maintain fire…I want every gun hot enough to brew a pot of coffee firing at full speed.” John Grayson sat in his command chair, amid the smoky air of Eagle Fourteen’s battered bridge. Years of dominance had made a desperate fight to the end seem like a distant memory, but now Grayson’s thoughts were full of images, fights against the First Imperium, the Shadow Legions, battles where the ultimate victors had suffered devastating losses. Victories notable for the desperate need that had driven them, and for their Pyrrhic nature.
Eagle Fourteen had driven forward, slipping through a gap in the enemy line, and gaining a jump of sorts. But it wasn’t long before the enemy reacted, clearly realizing Grayson’s intentions. A dozen ships responded, changing their thrust vectors, trying to come around and intercept the two Eagle warships.
The fire coming in had been light at first, but it increased steadily, even as the target ship blasted its own engines, decelerating, trying to move away from the approaching attack.
The enemy’s reaction only increased Grayson’s determination to press his attack. The vessels fighting the Eagle fleet seemed to show no regard for self-preservation, but that attitude apparently didn’t extend to the high command. The enemy flagship—and Grayson had no remaining doubt that’s exactly what it was—had been deployed to the rear of the formation, and now it was looking to retreat further, to escape the Eagles coming for it.
Grayson had seen Darius Cain on the front lines of battles, with enemy fire and shells blasting all around him. The thought of leaders pushing their warriors into a battle to the finish while cowering behind t
hem disgusted him. Even before he’d been an Eagle, he’d served officers like Augustus Garret and Terrence Compton, fighting admirals who shared every danger with the men and women they commanded. He’d wanted to destroy that flagship already, for the tactical advantage, for the morale effect it might have on the enemy fleet. But now there was something else, something primal. He wanted to kill the officers on that ship, to give them a taste of what their warriors suffered, of what hundreds of Eagles had endured in the battle.
Eagle Fourteen shook hard, another hit. The battleship’s armor was strong, extraordinarily so, thicker and denser than that on any human-constructed vessel that had come before it. But even the dense iridium alloy had its limits, and Grayson knew there were great breaches in his ship’s hull. His damage control teams had done brilliant, tireless work, and Eagle Fourteen was close to fully-operational. But Grayson knew much of that consisted of fragile, hasty repairs that could give out at any time.
Not yet though. Hold together…for a while longer…
“Increase thrust to 8g,” he snapped as he saw the target ship slowing to a stop and then starting to move in the reverse direction. “Gunnery, target their engines.” He’d be damned if he was going to let that bastard get away.
“Yes, Captain.”
Eagle Fourteen shook again, and this time Grayson could feel his ship was hurt. There were distant rumbles, the sound of subsidiary explosions. He checked the status monitors to confirm what he already knew. His ship was bleeding air through half a dozen hull breaches. The damage parties were on it, he was sure of that without checking, but there was only so much they could do when the damage was coming in faster than they could repair it.
A quick glance at the display told him Eagle Nine was worse off. Ying’s ship was falling back, her thrust dropping as her damaged engines failed to match Eagle Fourteen’s 8g. Grayson thought for an instant about falling back, keeping pace with the other ship. But there was no time. Whatever chance he had to take out that flagship, it was now. Even a few minutes could be the difference, more time for the enemy to escape, for the ships closing from all sides to finish off both Eagle battleships.
He stared straight ahead, and then he said, “Set the reactors to overload level one, and increase thrust to 10g. We’re going right down their throats.” This was going to take everything he and Eagle Fourteen had, and if he held back—anything—he ensured defeat.
“Yes, sir…increasing to 10g.”
“Main guns, continue blasting their engines.” He could see his people had scored two hits—no, three—on or near the enemy’s engines. The Black Flag ship was still accelerating, but as he was watching, his gunnery crews scored a fourth hit, directly on the engines themselves. His eyes darted to the small screen on his workstation to confirm what his gut already knew. The enemy’s thrust had died completely. The Black Flag’s command ship was moving along through space at a crawl.
Grayson watched, his eyes fixed, the stare of a predator in his gaze. The enemy wasn’t going to get away, not now. This would be a duel to the end, a deadly fight at point blank range.
“Cut thrust to 4g, divert power to the batteries. All guns, shut off all safeties…fire at maximum overload levels. It’s time to finish that piece of shit.”
Chapter 15
Marine Headquarters
Planet Armstrong, Gamma Pavonis III
Earthdate: 2321 AD (36 Years After the Fall)
“I’ve got a transmission from Admiral Garret, General.”
Cain swung around abruptly and hurried toward the small table he was using as a makeshift desk. He’d been following the battle from a pair of mobile screens set up in front of a large antenna. He didn’t like what he’d seen so far.
It wasn’t that Garret was any less skilled than he had been in the battles from years ago, nor that his people weren’t fighting hard. The enemy vastly outnumbered the Marine fleet, but it was more than that. Humanity’s young colonies were far from matching the industrial might of old Earth, and the ships of Garret’s fleet were mostly old, and the rest poorly constructed. The days of vast shipyards producing leading edge warships like the old Yorktowns were mostly passed, save perhaps for the Eagles. And clearly the Black Flag.
The enemy ships had a sharp technological advantage over Garret’s old vessels, one that was making a major difference in the struggle now raging. Skill and courage were immensely valuable in war, but even those traits had a limit.
Cain grabbed the headset and pulled it over his head, nodding for his aide to play back the message. Garret’s flagship was better than a light hour from Armstrong now, and the words he was about to listen to had been sent more than sixty minutes earlier.
“Erik…I’m going to keep this short and to the point. We’re losing up here. I’m willing to fight to the end, in fact, I’d consider death in battle a mercy right now. But if we hold any longer, there won’t be anything left of the fleet. I’m going to pull back, head to the Nest and see if I can link up with the Eagles. I’m not even sure they’d be enough to overcome this assault force, but they’re our best chance.”
Cain listened, tensing at the realization that the enemy would be coming, that Armstrong would likely be under attack by morning. But he felt relief on another level. He’d been entirely unsure Garret would adhere to the plan, pull back and seek help if the fight was unwinnable. He knew it hurt the admiral to abandon the ground forces, to leave them at the mercy of the enemy…but it was the right call.
And we’re Marines, Augustus. We’re not at anybody’s mercy…
“Good luck, my friend. Do what you can, what you have to do. Hold out, somehow, against whatever they throw at you. We will be back, you have my word. One more, my old friend, one more hopeless battle. It’s not our first, by God, and we made the others work somehow. We’re old and tired, but we’ve got this one more in us, I know it.” There was a long pause, then: “Elias Holm is with you, Erik, and Terrence Compton and Darius Jax…all the lost friends who fought at our side. You are never alone my comrade. You never could be. Until I return…”
Cain stood and listened as the signal stopped, replaced by faint static. He stood for a moment, silent, contemplative, images of the warriors Garret had mentioned slipping quickly through his thoughts. Then he turned toward the aide and said crisply, “Sound the alert. I want all battalions in the shelters by 0800. I want the orbital defense satellites activated immediately. All ground missile installations are to arm ordnance.”
“Yes, sir.” The officer sounded a bit flustered at Cain’s barrage of orders, but the general kept going, firing one off after the other, barely stopping for a breath between.
He flipped on the comm unit again, pausing for an instant before he began to speak. When he started, his message was short, to the point. “Message received, Admiral. Good luck to you and all who serve with you. Don’t worry about us…we’ll be here when you get back. I don’t care what the Black Flag sends here, when they hit the ground, they’re going to find Marines waiting…and that’s going to be the worst day they’ve ever seen.”
He took a deep breath and then glanced over at his aide. “Transmit.”
The man had a defiant look on his face, one that hadn’t been there before he’d listened to Cain’s words. “Yes, sir!” the officer replied, the emotion behind his expression evident in his tone as well.
Garret’s message had affected him, too, reminded him of who he was. He’d felt tired, the weight of his fifteen-year ordeal pushing down on him…but now an old strength was coming back. He thought of enemies from long ago…and, for all the damage they had done and terror they’d inflicted, he remembered where they were now…while the Marines were still here. The soldiers who were coming…they served those who took him from his family, who tortured him relentlessly, who almost broke him in the dungeons of Eldaron.
Now it was payback time, and if there was one thing Erik Cain knew how to do, it was take his revenge.
* * * * *
Aaron C
arrack sat on the raised platform in the command center. It was what his enemies, the navies and fleets of most of Earth’s colonies would have called a ‘flag bridge.’ But it was far more than that, a vast space with more than seventy officers at various stations, including the ship’s captain and his own operational staff. All of the others, save for the exalted Carrack, the Marshal and Grand Commander of the Black Flag’s fleet, sat below, under their master’s watchful eye, and constantly reminded that in every way that mattered to them, he was their lord and master.
Carrack was a cruel man, and he enjoyed the fear his power inflicted on those around him. He’d used his exalted position to take everything he wanted, indulging the slightest whim without any concern for the impact on those around him. He didn’t seek their love, nor their admiration. He wanted only their fear, the abject terror of what would befall them should they fail him in any way.
Carrack endured the same relationship in reverse at the hands of the Triumvirate. They’d saved him from captivity years before, but as time passed, gratitude had turned to hatred…and fear. And greed. He saw in the members of the Triumvirate, in the vast resources they were beginning to assemble, his road to his own power, and he’d followed it, to the top. Or, at least the top under the three Stark clones that had made the whole enterprise a reality. Carrack knew he owed everything to the Triumvirate, but that didn’t stop him from hating and resenting them because they were above him in the command structure. And for all the years he’d served them, he didn’t doubt the price he would pay for failure was no less terrifying than that he would mete out on his own subordinates.
“The enemy fleet is withdrawing, Marshal.”
Carrack felt a wave of excitement, but he hid it. His emotions were not the concern of his subordinates, not unless they incurred his anger and wrath. But the satisfaction he felt was real, and powerful. Intelligence had confirmed that Augustus Garret was in command of the enemy fleet, and that made victory that much sweeter. Carrack had seen Garret, along with Erik Cain and the rest of their allies, destroy Gavin Stark’s bid for power and crush his seemingly unbeatable Shadow Legions. Carrack had been a marginal player then, a mid-level operative with a bright future following his mentor’s expected conquest. Garret and the others had destroyed all that, and Carrack had waited thirty-five years for his vengeance.