Blood on the Stars Collection 1

by Jay Allan

  “Very well.”

  “Sir, Lieutenant Federov requests permission to launch fighters piecemeal, as they are ready.”

  Barron shook his head. He hated the idea of sending his people out one at a time, to stand in the way of two full enemy squadrons. But then he saw the seven dots in the display, less than half a squadron pursuing the incoming ships. He realized any fighter could be the one that prevented a critical hit to Dauntless.

  “Granted,” he said softly.

  I’m sorry, Olya, but you’re right. We need every bit of force we can get, no matter how much the risk to your people…

  * * *

  “Come on, baby…you know you can do it…” Stockton wasn’t sure talking to his fighter was something his instructors at the Academy would have considered effective…or sane. But he was close, so close. And he knew the bombers were going to launch their weapons on Dauntless any second.

  His eyes were fixed on the range display, the numbers counting down. He was closing. Another ten minutes would put him in optimum range. But he didn’t have ten minutes.

  He stared at the targeting display, his eyes locked on the closest fighter. It was long range, very long. The AI was showing the chances of scoring a hit at less than two percent, and below one percent of one causing enough damage to stop the enemy craft. But Stockton had never liked AIs.

  Good pilots are born, not made. And they damned sure aren’t programmed.

  He opened his hand, stretching his fingers, closing them tightly around the throttle. He stared intently, his finger squeezing gradually as he focused on the target. His lasers would lose a lot of power at this range. A glancing blow wasn’t going to do it. He needed an engine or cockpit hit. The shot had to be dead on.

  His headset was quiet. He knew the others were doing the same as he was, putting all they had into picking their targets, getting ready to fire. They would all wait, he was sure of that. They would hold their fire until the AIs said they were close enough. But not him…

  Fuck the AIs…

  Stockton’s fingers tightened, the metal of the firing stud hard and cool against his fingers. His head was locked, immobile, his eyes fixed on the targeting display. The AI was feeding him data, but he ignored it.

  If you don’t think we can hit, shut the hell up. I’ll do it myself…

  His fingers tightened, slowly, steadily, even as he moved the controls slightly, correcting his firing angle. Silence…one second…two…

  Then he heard the high-pitched whine, his dual turbo lasers firing. Once…then again. And again.

  It was the third shot. He saw the dot on his screen, a small ring appearing around it, the designation for a hit. And then it vanished entirely.

  “Oh yeah, baby!” His shout echoed in the cramped cockpit, and he thrust his arm up hard and screamed again.

  The com unit crackled to life. “Nice shooting, Raptor!” It was Jamison. Thunder. And his voice was almost feral. “Raptor showed us how to do it, people. Now let’s take these bastards down!”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Interplanetary Space

  Between Krillus IV and Krillus V

  307 AC

  “They’re breaking off, Lieutenant! They’re running! Should we pursue?” The pilot’s voice was excited, even giddy.

  Tillis “Ice” Krill listened to the reports that continued to come in, half a dozen of them so far, all saying essentially the same thing. The surviving enemy fighters were pulling back. They were running.

  Ice shook his head as he sat in his fighter’s cockpit. He had managed to take down two of the enemy birds, and he was proud of the job his Yellow squadron pilots had done—proud of the entire strike force, actually. He was in command on the scene now, of the remaining Blues and even a few of the Greens that had made it through the fight, as well as his Yellows. Commander Jamison was chasing down the enemy bombers, and Raptor had gone with him. That left Krill in charge.

  He was calm and cool now, as he was in battle and everywhere else, a trait that had long ago given him his call sign. But he felt the same anger as the rest of the pilots, rage at the losses they had suffered and the urge to chase the enemy down, to destroy every last one of them. But that wasn’t possible.

  “Negative, Lieutenant…all personnel, listen up. Fuel status says we head back now.” He watched as the dots on his screen moved away, the enemy fighters returning to their own mothership. He wanted to believe Dauntless’s squadrons had won the fight, that the enemy was indeed fleeing, as his pilots were shouting. But he knew better. The Alliance fighters had come even farther than his own people had. They were breaking off to refuel and rearm, not because they were broken. They’d be back, Krill was sure of it. And his people had to be ready. Right now, they were low on fuel, out of missiles. No, there was no question of trying to continue the battle.

  “Back to Dauntless, now. Form up on me.”

  He got a wave of acknowledgements, though the number of responses was small, especially considering he was in command of three squadrons right now. What was left of three squadrons.

  He stared down at his screen, at the large blue oval that represented Dauntless. And the seven small dots following a cluster of enemy fighters, so close now, the icons were barely distinguishable on their own. The enemy strike force was almost in range…and no seven fighters ever made were going to stop it cold. Dauntless was going to endure a bombing run, and Krill knew his people might return to a mothership whose landing bays had been blown to oblivion.

  “C’mon you guys…catch those bastards. Take some of them down.” His words were barely a whisper.

  Krill and Stockton were rivals, the two best pilots on Dauntless. They baited each other constantly, vied for the informal title of best on the ship. Though Krill would never admit it, he knew he was number two, and he considered Stockton the best natural pilot he’d ever known.

  If anyone can catch and engage those bombers…

  He smiled, his best wishes for his rival.

  Get it done, Raptor. Get it done.

  * * *

  “Launch clearance granted. Transferring controls to your console. Good luck, Lieutenant.”

  Federov was strapped in, her hands on the throttle. “Acknowledged, control. And thanks.”

  She flipped the lever next to the throttle, activating the magnetic catapult. The force slammed into her like a hurricane, pushing her hard into her chair as her fighter raced down the launch tube and back out into space.

  She angled the throttle, engaging her fighter’s thrust, and adjusting her vector directly toward the approaching enemy ships. There had been twenty-two of them left when she’d climbed into her fighter. There were twenty now. The birds chasing the strike force had drawn blood, and each enemy bird they knocked out was one less to fire on Dauntless.

  It’s time for Red squadron to join the party…

  She twisted around in her seat, trying to work out the kinks, the stiffness. Her people had been back from the mission to Santis no more than fifteen minutes before her bird had been cleared to relaunch. She hadn’t even thought that kind of turnaround was possible, but the bay was swarming with ship’s crew, including a dozen engineers sent down to help with fighter refit. And at the center of it all was Anya Fritz, Dauntless’s chief engineer, a taskmaster as unrelenting as Chief Evans, with a lieutenant commander’s clusters to back it up.

  The bay had seethed with tension. The normal staff were resentful of a bunch of engineer interlopers poking their noses where they didn’t belong…and the engineers, considering themselves the masters, here to rescue the flight techs and get the job done. But the tension had created a weird sort of energy, a drive to get the job done, one that had pushed them all to do just that little bit extra.

  She’d been so uncomfortable, she was grateful to be back out in space, but the strange partnership was working, she couldn’t deny that. The fact that her fighter had launched so quickly was the only proof required.

  “Red leader, this is Red
Eleven…I’ve launched, and I’m following your vector.”

  “Acknowledged, Red Eleven. Let’s go give these bastards a welcome they won’t soon forget.”

  And now Red squadron had two fighters. Two ships to stand in the way of twenty.

  She stared straight ahead, wishing she had missiles. The bay crews had refueled her ship and recharged her laser batteries. But there simply hadn’t been time to reload the heavier ordnance.

  She was moving directly toward the incoming enemy ships. No fancy flying. No finesse. There wasn’t time.

  She picked out the closest of the enemy craft, tapping her throttle, aligning her vector toward the target. She adjusted the guns slightly, a bit of intuition added to the AI’s precise calculations. Then she fired. Her lasers blasted out, half a dozen shots in as many seconds. And then she watched her screen as the enemy ship winked out of existence.

  She felt a wave of excitement, satisfaction…but it only lasted a second. She was staring at her screen when she saw it, all along the enemy frontage. Nineteen surviving craft, and coming from them, smaller dots.

  Plasma torpedoes…

  She slammed her fist against the fighter’s console, swearing under her breath as she did. Nineteen was better than twenty-four, but it was still too many.

  At least they had to fire at long range…

  She sat for a few seconds, frozen, a passing moment of indecision. She felt helpless watching the torpedoes move toward Dauntless, but she realized there was nothing she could do. Then she heard a small ding, her scanners reporting another enemy ship destroyed. It was Dauntless this time, her anti-fighter turrets opening up, scoring a hit. Then another enemy ship disappeared…the work of the pursuing fighters this time.

  She let out a hard sigh. There was nothing she could do about the barrage headed toward Dauntless. All she could do was make sure the enemy paid the price, that none of those ships escaped to rearm and return.

  She glanced at the screen. She had four birds now. They were strung out, disordered. There was no chance to form up in any meaningful way. There was only one thing to do.

  “Red squadron, attack at will. All ships…attack at will.”

  * * *

  “All sections, brace for impact.”

  Barron reached down and grabbed the straps of his harness, pulling them across his chest and snapping the latches into place. Regs said all crew were to be strapped in during any red alert, but Dauntless’s captain hated the damned bulky things, and they had hung down from the bottom of the chair, unused. Until now.

  “All stations report ready, sir.” Atara Travis was also strapped in, as was every other officer on the bridge.

  Barron knew what had happening in the gunnery control sections. The anti-fighter turrets were targeting the incoming plasma torpedoes, firing as quickly as they could recharge. But the weapons were hard to intercept. They began their run as physical projectiles, but on the way to the target they triggered an internal reaction, converting the normal matter of the torpedo into a high energy plasma. It was a chess game between the gunners on the target ship and the AIs controlling the torpedoes. The warheads had small positioning engines, and they could adjust their vectors and correct targeting until they converted. After that, they were nothing but superheated plasma, traveling on a fixed vector and velocity, the AIs that controlled them vaporized by the conversion.

  “Engine room, forward one-quarter thrust.” Barron barked out the command, his eyes fixed on the display. Most of the torpedoes had already converted. That made his laser turrets obsolete, but it gave him a chance to evade, to move his hulking ship out of the path of the deadly weapons that could no longer adjust their own vectors.

  “Forward one quarter.” Travis echoed his command, and an instant later Dauntless lurched ahead, her engines blasting at one-fourth of capacity.

  Barron’s gaze remained set, his mind following each of the weapons heading for his ship. Dauntless’s gunners had taken out five of the torpedoes before they converted. Now four more zipped by into the space where Dauntless had been. But there were ten more still coming.

  “Bring us around, course 311-120-128…increase thrust to forty percent.” Barron spoke rapidly, knowing his command was coming too late.

  “Executing,” Travis snapped back.

  But Barron had been too late. Dauntless shook hard. Then again an instant later. The second hit sent a shower of sparks flying across the bridge as a power conduit overloaded. The lights flickered for an instant, and Barron could hear the distant rumbles of explosions.

  He slapped at the com unit, his eyes still fixed on the display as he did. Two more torpedoes zipped by, but another slammed hard into Dauntless’s bow.

  “Damage report.” Barron reached down and grabbed his headset, pulling it roughly over his head. “Now, Fritzie. What’s going on down there?”

  “I don’t have it all yet, sir.”

  Barron could hear the sounds of shouting in the background, urgent calls for teams to deal with one problem or another…and worse ones, cries that hit him in his stomach, those of wounded men and women. His men and women.

  “How bad is it?”

  “It’s bad, sir. We’ve got power drains in multiple locations. At least half a dozen external compartments are compromised. I think the reactor’s okay, but I’m worried about that jury-rigged repair to the cooling lines. I just got back to engineering from the launch bay, and I’m still trying to get on top of things. Give me another few minutes, sir, and I’ll get back to you with better info.”

  “All right, Fritzie…just remember, we’ve got the enemy battleship heading right toward us. They’ll be in range in…” He glanced down at the readout. “…twenty-nine minutes.”

  “Understood, sir. Fritz out.”

  Barron felt a chill. He’d never heard his chief engineer sound so rattled.

  “Bring us around, Commander. Reverse thrust now.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Barron watched another spread of plasmas move by on the display…and then two more, the last two, coming right at Dauntless. He knew there was nothing he could do. The weapons were too close, but he had to try.

  “Increase thrust to flank, Comm…” The ship shook hard, and the bridge spun around, the grav control system giving out. Barron was thrown forward hard, his chest slamming into the harness. He felt the breath ripped from his lungs, pain in his shoulder, his sternum. The bridge was plunged into darkness for a few seconds, only the red glow of the battlestations lamps remaining to light the way.

  Then the emergency lights snapped on, a soft glow replacing the brightness of the main lighting panels.

  “Captain, Commander Jamison reports he has multiple fighters coming in, fuel status critical.”

  Baron stared down at his screen. He punched at the controls, pulling up schematics of Dauntless, each of them speckled with small, glowing dots…damaged areas. And both landing bays were lit up like holiday displays.

  * * *

  Sam Carson wiped his arm across his forehead, trying without much success to mop away the sweat that was pouring down into his eyes. He was crouched down, reaching inside one of the main panels, pulling out handfuls of fried circuitry. The plasma torpedoes had hit the outer sections hard, but internal explosions and burnouts spread the damage throughout the ship. There were radiation leaks in a dozen places, and burned out electronics in more spots than he could count.

  “Sam, how does it look down there?” Commander Fritz sounded edgy. Carson couldn’t even imagine the number of problems she was juggling right now.

  “It’s bad, Commander. I’m only on panel one, but I’d bet the whole system is fried.”

  “Damn…” Fritz cursed softly. Carson suspected he wasn’t supposed to hear it, so he pretended he hadn’t. “All right, Sam…assign a squad of bots to replace it all. I need you up here. The primaries are down again, and we’ve got twenty-three minutes to get them back online.”

  “Yes, Commander. On my way.”

>   He jumped up, wiping the black residue from his hands. He pulled the portable com from his belt, punching in the code for the engineering AI. “I need a squad of maintenance bots in sector F11. The entire central trunk needs replacement.

  “Acknowledged. Dispatching bots now.”

  Carson nodded, a pointless gesture, he knew. Then he turned and moved out into the corridor, heading toward weapons control. He took a breath, and then he went into a coughing fit. There was smoke in the air, chemical residues.

  We’re going to have to deal with that too…

  But the enemy battleship was coming…and that made the primary batteries the most important repair, even if half the crew was choking on toxic fumes.

  Twenty minutes…

  Carson was an engineer, not a tactical officer. But he knew how the ship would fare in the coming fight without its main guns. The Alliance battleship was fresh, undamaged. And Dauntless was already a patchwork of hurried repairs. Without the main guns…

  He walked down to the end of the corridor, reaching up and grabbing a rung of a small ladder leading up. Half the turbo lifts were out, and he didn’t have time to look for one that was functioning, or worse, to get stuck in one. Not now.

  He climbed up, not even thinking about it for the first few levels, but by the time he’d scrambled past seven decks and was heading for the eighth, he was feeling it. And weapons control was another three levels from there.

  He was breathing hard by the time he got there, his shirt half soaked through with sweat. Something felt off, like he was heavier than normal.

  Probably the grav control system is out of whack…

  That wasn’t a priority. The main guns and the launch bays were all that really mattered now.

  At least the reactor seems to be at one hundred percent…or close to it.

  He paused for a second at the top of the ladder, sucking in a deep breath. The air was better up here—there were still traces of noxious fumes, but they were far less concentrated than they’d been on the lower decks.