Blood on the Stars Collection 1

by Jay Allan

  “I’ll go, Commander…”

  “No…Sam…it’s too dangerous.”

  “You’ll never make it, Commander. I’m the only one who can do it now.”

  Fritz stumbled, dropping slowly to her knees.

  “No…I can…” She gasped for breath.

  “You know there’s no choice, Commander. Give me the rad suit…” Miraculously, the shard of metal hadn’t hit the open rad suit.

  Fritz hesitated, but then she nodded slowly. She moved her arm, wincing in pain as she slid out of the suit. Carson reached over, helping her pull the metallic fabric off. He tried to be as gentle as possible, but it tugged against the chunk of steel in her shoulder, and she let out a loud cry.

  “I’m sorry, Commander.”

  Fritz looked back up at him with teary eyes.

  “No, Sam…I’m sorry…”

  * * *

  “All guns concentrate on the midsection…let’s pound that ship right at the source of the explosion.” Kat hadn’t abandoned her caution, not entirely, but she was beginning to believe she had the victory. The enemy ship was still sitting dead in space, no fire, not even any power generation her scanners could detect. It certainly looked like the massive explosion had been some kind of critical hit, and every second the enemy just sat there seemed to confirm that. But she wasn’t taking any chances, not with this enemy commander. The area of the explosion had to be the weak point, and she wanted every gun she could bring to bear blasting away at it.

  “Yes, Commander.” The arrogance was back in Wentus’s voice. Kat had always served her people, and despite any private concerns she might have had, she’d always believed in the cult of Palatian strength and superiority. Her people were brave, devoted to duty, and they had prevailed in every war they had faced since they’d broken free of servitude. But now she wondered how they would handle defeat. She’d watched her first officer and the rest of her bridge crew, noting the changes in their moods and tones as the battle ebbed and flowed.

  The Alliance had never faced an enemy that could defeat it, not really. The best its smaller foes had managed was to make victory costly. But even on the verge of victory, Kat recognized that this enemy could have prevailed. And she was fairly certain her people realized that too. How would it affect them? Would they push it aside, rewrite the history in their own minds, removing any recollection of potential defeat? That was likely, the solution that was most in line with the Alliance’s dogmatic principles. But she knew she would never forget. And she worried what the war with the Confederation would be like…the war her victory was about to bring to her people.

  She stared down at her workstation, watching on the screen as her gunnery stations fired. Her crews were racing against each other, she knew, striving to fire the kill shot, the one that destroyed the enemy vessel. But there wouldn’t be one, not if the enemy’s reactors were down. Not unless there was some kind of magazine full of explosives or something similar. There was no containment to breach on a scragged reactor, no “quick kill” shot that would turn a vessel into a miniature sun. The enemy was helpless, but there were still emergency systems, batteries, scattered pockets of life support. Her people would literally have to slice the enemy vessel to bits…and it was a big ship.

  “All guns, increase to one hundred ten percent output.” It was a strange order, she knew, considering the enemy’s apparent status. But there was still something nagging at her, a vague concern that seemed to make no sense. She wanted her adversary blasted to atoms as quickly as possible.

  “Yes, Commander…all guns to one hundred ten percent.”

  * * *

  “Fritzie, what’s going on down there?

  No response. Fritz was Dauntless’s last hope…Barron knew that for sure. And if his engineer wasn’t responding, something was terribly wrong.

  Barron’s eyes moved around the bridge, watching his people at their stations. They were pretending to work, though he knew without power there was little any of them could do. But there was no panic.

  He was proud, more so than he could adequately describe, and he mourned for them. They were all going to die. They’d put their faith in him, followed his every command to the bitter end. And their reward would be death.

  Barron thought of his grandfather, of the talks they’d had about service. They had been few. No doubt Rance Barron had thought there would be time when his young heir was older. But war had come again, and with it this time, the elder Barron’s death. Talks postponed became talks that never were, and much of the old man’s knowledge had died with him.

  You taught me some things, grandfather…but not how to die. And not how to bear the guilt, to watch others die because they followed you. How did you do it? So many terrible battles, so many thousands dead. All of them there because they followed you. How did you endure it?

  But he wasn’t ready to give up. Not yet. He tapped the com unit.

  “Atara?”

  “Yes, sir.” Travis was down in the main gunnery control center, ready to fire the primaries when the reactors restarted.

  “Something’s wrong down at the reactor…Fritzie’s not answering my com. Get down there as quickly as you can.”

  “Yes, Captain. I’ll report as soon as I’m there. Travis out.”

  Barron sat in the middle of Dauntless’s bridge, the nerve center of one of the Confederation’s massive battleships…and he felt utterly helpless. He wanted to run to engineering himself, to see with his own eyes what was happening down there. But that would do no good. His place was here, sitting stern and unflappable…even as he felt himself falling to his doom.

  * * *

  Sam Carson shoved his legs into the bulky rad suit one at a time. Then he pulled it up, sliding his arms through as well.

  “Sam, are you sure?” Fritz was leaning against a nearby wall. There was blood covering the front of her uniform, and a large chunk of jagged steel was still wedged in her shoulder. Her voice had become a scratchy rasp, the pain from her wounds apparent with every word.

  “What choice is there, Commander?” Carson looked around the room, his eyes finally landing on the spot where the suit’s head covering had landed. “If I don’t go, we all die.” Carson hoped he sounded brave, but inside he was struggling to fight the urge to run for the door. He’d never felt fear like this, and the idea of stepping into that chamber terrified him like nothing he’d ever experienced. But there was no choice.

  “You know what to do, right?”

  “Yes, Commander. I know.”

  And if you do it fast enough…if you get out of there in a few minutes, just maybe this suit will be enough to save your life…

  “You are a good man, Sam…one of the best I’ve ever served with…”

  “Thank you, Commander.” His voice cracked a little as he spoke, but he managed to cling to his fragile control. He knew Fritz meant well, but the last thing he needed now was emotion, to think about what he was about to do. This was an engineering fix and nothing more. At least that was what he told himself…that was what he needed to believe to step into that chamber.

  He slid the head piece down over the suit, running his hand over the connecting strip. The rad suit was the best protection Confederation science had developed, but that chamber was full of high energy gamma rays. The suit would offer considerable protection, but it wouldn’t block everything.

  He stood in front of the airlock for a moment, taking a few deep breaths. The AI control system was down with the ship’s main power, so he reached out and opened the emergency panel. There was a handle inside, and he placed his hand around it and pulled.

  The door slid open and he stepped in. Then he turned and repeated the process with the interior panel, closing the door behind him.

  There was a similar control on the inner door. He opened the panel and stared at it for a moment. When he opened it, the airlock would be flooded with radiation. He didn’t know how long he had, what number of minutes and seconds his suit would keep the dead
ly threat at bay, or at least enough at bay that regen treatments could save his life. But he knew it wasn’t long. He didn’t have time to waste. Dauntless didn’t have time to waste.

  He reached out, putting his gloved hand on the control. Then his fears burst out from every corner of his mind, images of Lise, of his child…of him doubled over in sickbay, vomiting blood as his body surrendered to radiation sickness. He found himself wishing Billings or Fritz had been able to do this…and then he hated himself for those thoughts. He felt the urge to turn, to run. But he knew that wouldn’t save him. If he didn’t get the reactor online, he would die anyway. And everyone else on Dauntless would die with him.

  He felt a sudden burst of determination, and he pulled on the latch. The door slid to the side, and Carson stepped out into the reaction chamber.

  Okay, you’re in…now do this as quickly as possible, and get the hell out of here.

  * * *

  Atara Travis raced down the corridor. She’d taken an intraship car from the gunnery station, using her command overrides to divert battery power to the otherwise shut down system. Dauntless was a big ship, and the gunnery was almost a kilometer away from main engineering. Right now, seconds counted.

  They were fighting for their lives, for the lives of everyone aboard Dauntless. And she’d be damned if she was going to let him down. But for the first time, her self-assurance was gone, and she didn’t know what to do. She’d been waiting to fire the primaries, to put everything she had into making a single shot count. But now she was racing through the ship’s gloomy, partially-lit corridors, headed to engineering to see what had happened to Commander Fritz…and if there was any chance at all of getting the reactors back online before Dauntless was blown to atoms.

  She sucked in a deep breath, pushing her legs harder as she saw the open doors to the section ahead. She raced through…and stopped abruptly. There were bodies everywhere, and wounded men and women. And lying against one of the bulkheads was Anya Fritz, covered in blood, a huge chunk of metal sunken in her shoulder.

  “Anya, what is…” She froze, her eyes fixed on the clear shielding between the engineering deck and the control room of the reaction chamber. The radiation markers were flashing red…and inside the contaminated control room she saw a single figure, clad in a bulky rad suit moving slowly toward the columns of tubes and circuits on the far wall.

  “My God,” she whispered to herself. Then she looked at Fritz. “Anya, who is that?

  * * *

  Sam turned his head back and forth, scanning the conduits and control panels in front of him. There was a break, somewhere in the system. It would be an easy fix, he knew, which seemed odd considering the tremendous importance of his task. But first he had to find the malfunction.

  He was moving quickly. If he wanted to get out alive, he knew time was his enemy. He could feel the frustration building. The engineering team had been able to isolate the problem, to a certain degree. But he still had to find the damaged connection, and the only way to do that was to check each one in turn.

  He could feel his uniform below the metallic fabric, wet, soaked with sweat. The rad suit was hot, like an oven inside, and it was cumbersome, slowing his movements. He was tense, knowing each second that passed might be the last one, the final chance to save Dauntless. And he was scared to death, struggling to keep his body from shaking as he worked his way down the line of pipes and wires and conduits that made the reactor function.

  Then he saw something. Not the damaged section, but a clue where to find it. It was an alarm, one that had been tripped when the damage occurred. But it was also damaged, its wiring charred.

  That’s why we didn’t get anything on the main panel…

  He reached out, holding an instrument he’d pulled from his bag. It was a battery-powered spectrographic scanner. It would pulse energy through the reactor’s circuits, not enough to do anything except identify the location of the break. Carson knew it had to be close. The tripped alarm was part of a limited series of connections.

  His eyes moved down to the small display on the device, and he felt a wave of excitement. There it was. But his satisfaction was short-lived. He walked about two meters, and he looked up at a bank of equipment ten meters high. And the damage was almost at the top.

  He sighed, trying to ignore the clock in his head counting down the minutes until enough radiation would penetrate his suit to build up a lethal dose. He was thankful he didn’t have an exact figure on how long he could survive.

  Maybe I’m dead already…

  There was a small access ladder next to the tower. It was an easy enough climb…for a man who wasn’t wearing a baggy, ill-fitting rad suit. But there was no choice.

  He reached up, grabbed the highest rung he could reach, stepping up with one foot, then the other. His sweaty hands slid around inside of his gloves, making his grip tenuous as he moved slowly upward. His injured hand ached terribly, and he tried to put most of his weight on the other hand, and his legs.

  It felt like hours were passing, but he knew it had just been seconds. Still, he didn’t have even seconds to waste, and he pushed harder, climbed more quickly.

  Then his eyes locked on one of the panels. He could see the blackened steel around it, and he knew immediately he’d found it. Anya Fritz was the most gifted engineer he’d ever known, and she had scanned and searched every system in Dauntless’s reactor. Carson and his comrades had fixed and replaced dozens of components, and Fritz had declared with all the confidence she’d been able to muster that the problem he was now staring at was the last one.

  Carson knew that had been a guess when she’d made it, and Dauntless had been pounded repeatedly since then. He could repair the severed connection and the reactor could still remain dead, damaged in a five other places, ten. But he couldn’t do anything about that.

  He pulled the panel off, fumbling with it in the heavy gloves. It finally came free, and slipped from his grasp, clattering loudly on the deck below.

  “Damn.”

  He reached inside the small opening, struggling to pull out the burnt sections of the connection. He had replacement parts with him. They weren’t going to be a perfect fit, but they would do the job. Assuming he could get them in place.

  He worked feverishly, the tension and fear making it hard to concentrate. He was rushing, moving too quickly for such fine work. But somehow he was getting it done. The replacement part didn’t fit, but he managed to come up with a workaround. It wasn’t pretty. In fact, it looked like some mad scientist’s wild creation. But it should work…

  He pushed the final connection in place, and he tapped the com controls on the side of his suit’s headcover. “Commander, I think it’s in place. The reactor should be good to go.”

  “Well done, Sam…now get the hell out of there.”

  Carson started to scramble down the ladder, letting the toolkit drop. It hit the deck below with a crash. He felt a burst of hope. He was going to get out…and maybe, just maybe, his fix would do the trick. Captain Barron would have his power…and a chance to win the fight. A chance for all of them to survive.

  Then the ship shook. Another hit.

  Carson felt himself jerked hard, and he tightened his grip, struggling to hold onto the ladder. He held firm, for a few seconds. Then Dauntless shook again, and he felt his hand slip off the rung. He held for a second, perhaps two or three, nothing but his injured hand gripping the ladder. The pain was intense, fire shooting up from his arm, through his chest.

  He felt the shattered arm giving way, his body slipping off the ladder. Then falling…and landing on the deck, hard, his face mask slamming into the solid metal floor.

  His body was wracked with pain, his arm, his chest. He’d broken several ribs, he could feel that for sure. And the clear inside of his mask was splattered with blood.

  The cracked, shattered mask, with a gaping hole in the center…

  There was a strange sensation, a tingling feeling he’d never experienced befo
re. He remembered his training, the classes at the Academy. Radiation was a silent killer, unnoticeable, invisible.

  Except at massive levels…when it could actually be felt.

  He felt himself beginning to lose consciousness.

  “Lise, I’m sorry…”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  CFS Dauntless

  Krillus Asteroid Belt

  40, 500,000 kilometers from Santis, Krillus IV

  Year 58 (307 AC)

  “Commander, we’re picking up energy readings from the enemy vessel.” There was surprise in Wentus’s voice. And confusion.

  Kat didn’t answer. She looked down at her screen, staring at the numbers. The scanners were imperfect, inexact. But the power spike was massive. This was no set of batteries kicking in, no emergency power source. It was the enemy’s main reactor. It couldn’t be anything else.

  And that means…

  She felt a coldness inside her, a realization.

  “All engines, reverse thrust.” But even as she gave the command she knew it was too late.

  “Commander…”

  “Now! Full power, reverse thrust.”

  “Yes, Commander.”

  Her eyes were on her own screen, reading the incoming scanner data. The numbers didn’t lie—the enemy had managed to restart their reactors. Was it a desperate repair job, an attempt to ward off imminent destruction? Or…

  Or was I lured in? Was their reactor failure feigned?

  She tried to imagine the raw courage and grit it would take to willingly shut down a ship’s reactors, to sit and endure a pounding without answer, all to lure your enemy forward. It seemed too fantastic to believe…but then she thought about the enemy commander, about the concern she had felt all through this encounter. If this was deliberate, he’d have to have a plan to make it work, to make the risk worthwhile…and that could only mean one thing.