Blood on the Stars Collection 1

by Jay Allan

  “Hit, Commander!”

  She looked back at the main display. Both primaries had hit their target. The AI was still chewing on the data, trying to assess the damage inflicted. Travis knew that would be an estimate at best. Looking from the outside, tens of thousands of kilometers away, was far from a perfect way to detect damage. But she could see the enemy’s thrust dropping…to less than half its previous level. That wasn’t an absolute certainty—the enemy captain could have cut thrust voluntarily, perhaps even to mislead her—but her read of the Union vessel’s earlier moves suggested an inexperienced and unimaginative captain, one unlikely to attempt such a rapid-fire deception.

  “Very well,” she said, trying to hold back her own excitement. A hit was a good thing, but they were deep in the shit, and she still couldn’t see any way out. It wasn’t the time for feeling good. “I want the engines ready for maximum thrust back toward the artifact…as soon as the primaries fire again.”

  “Yes, Commander.” Darrow relayed the command to the engine room.

  Travis glanced over at the officer sitting at her station. Captain Barron had requested Darrow for his crew after the communications officer had suffered the misfortune of serving under the only Confederation captain in history convicted of treason. The mud from that sorry incident had splashed far, and nowhere more heavily than on the man who’d sat at the guilty officer’s communication station.

  There had been no proof against Darrow, none at all, but no other captain in the fleet would take him onto his or her crew. Barron’s sense of honor had been offended by the injustice of it all, and he’d personally requested Darrow as his senior comm officer. Travis had been against the move at the time, her own past having taught her to invariably expect the worst from people, but now she had to acknowledge the captain had been right. Darrow was a fine officer, and she didn’t doubt his loyalty for an instant. Dauntless was stronger for his presence, and any suspicions that might have existed about his trustworthiness were long gone.

  She looked at the status bar for the primaries. Just over half charged. She slapped her hand on her own comm unit, pulling up Billings’s line.

  “Yes, Captain?” The engineer was tired, and he sounded out of breath.

  “Lieutenant, I need those primaries charged now. You have to push more energy through those lines.”

  “Captain…the reactors are at full power now. We…”

  “Then take the reactors to one hundred five percent…but I need those primaries in thirty seconds. And twenty would be better.” She slammed her fist down on the control, cutting the channel before the engineer could reply. She didn’t have time for the usual disclaimers on the dangers of overpowering the reactors.

  She looked back at her screen, at the energy numbers from the transwarp gate. The first enemy ship would emerge any second, and the others would be close on its heels. She was running out of time to break off. And she wanted that last shot.

  * * *

  “All right, Dauntless!” Dirk Timmons shouted loudly, his voice echoing off the bubble of his cramped cockpit. He was racing back to the ship, along with the rest of his Eagles and the Blues, when he saw the first shot of Dauntless’s primaries on his scanners. Both weapons had connected, and it looked from what he could tell like both had scored solid hits. And the second shots had been even better placed.

  His fighter didn’t have the scanning suite to do complex damage assessments, but there wasn’t a doubt in his mind the primaries had hurt the Union battleship…on top of the three bombs the Greens had planted in her. He could see the ship’s thrust had dropped, that she was accelerating at less than 1g.

  He checked his fuel gauge again, and some of the elation slipped away. He had enough to get back easily, at least to Dauntless’s current location, but he also suspected the battleship wasn’t going to be there by the time his people made it. There was something coming through the transwarp link…and he was almost certain Commander Travis would pull back out of range. That was a sound tactical maneuver, but also one that would leave his squadrons chasing their mothership, burning massive quantities of fuel to catch her and land. And he was far from sure any of his people had enough left.

  “Warrior, I need you to bring your people around. Dauntless is going to have to pull back, and you don’t have fuel to waste.” Kyle Jamison had read his mind. Timmons had come to respect Jamison tremendously, both as his immediate superior, and as a man. “Thunder” Jamison was a deadly pilot too, if not quite his equal in the cockpit.

  “Roger that, Thunder. I was just thinking the same thing.” Both men left a simple fact unspoken. They had no idea where Dauntless would go. Commander Travis would give them all the guidance she could, but if, as it appeared, the battleship would soon be evading multiple enemy vessels, he knew Dauntless’s first officer would be hesitant to transmit her intentions too explicitly, even in code.

  “Bring your people around toward the artifact, say 3g tops. Then, as soon as Dauntless breaks, try to follow.”

  “Roger that, Thunder.” Jamison was farther forward, bringing in the last of Yellow squadron. The Reds and Greens had been farther forward. They had already landed.

  Even now, Timmons knew, Dauntless’s bay crews were frantically refitting those ships, prepping them to launch when whatever was coming through the transwarp link emerged into the system. He knew, probably as well as Commander Travis, what a daunting situation they all faced. There could be no retreat from this battle. Leaving something as awesomely powerful as the ancient vessel to the enemy was inconceivable.

  Dauntless was the best the Confederation had. Timmons was sure of that, as was every other man and woman on the aging battleship. But even the best eventually ran into too much. His mind was beginning to cloud with darkness, with the growing belief that he and all his comrades would all die here in this haunted system.

  His alarm dinged, and he looked down as his screen. Another Union ship had just emerged from the transwarp point. A battleship, and from the early data coming in, a big one.

  Shit…

  He could see Dauntless now on the scanner, her thrusters firing at something that looked very much like full thrust. She was heading in the general direction of the artifact, as expected. Then he got the recall signal, along with navigational data for his people to return.

  “All right, Blues and Eagles…we’ve got to chase Dauntless, and we’ve got to catch her while we’ve still got enough fuel to land. That means precise maneuvering. Anybody who is careless is going to end up ditching…” Assuming we all don’t end up ditching. “…and with the enemy coming up, there’s not likely to be a rescue ship coming along before you freeze or suffocate. So, let’s stay sharp.”

  His people were all veterans, and they didn’t need to be reminded of what he had just told them. But he’d seen too many experienced pilots make that one mistake at just the wrong time. He wasn’t going to let it happen to any of his people, not if he could do anything about it.

  “Let’s go, boys and girls…back home. Back to Dauntless. Engage thrust now.” He pulled back on the throttle, feeling the pressure of the increasing thrust slam into him. He angled his head, slowly, painfully, checking to confirm that his squadrons were following. Then he just leaned back, allowing the padding of his seat to absorb as much of the force as possible, his mind drifting to the odds of his people getting back to Dauntless.

  He figured it at about 50/50. He didn’t like that answer, so he went back over the numbers again, this time factoring in every detail he could think of that had a bearing on the squadrons stretching their fuel enough to catch Dauntless.

  The second time he came up with 60/40. Against.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Bridge

  CFS Intrepid

  Krakus System

  Sara Eaton stared at the screen in stunned silence. She gasped for air, forcing it into her lungs, even as her eyes clung to the blank spot on the screen, the one where Angus Douglas’s fighter had been a few seconds
before. There had been no nervous chatter, no sign of fear or distress beyond the norm. One instant, her veteran strike force commander was there…and the next he was gone.

  The pain was odd, theoretical. She knew it was there, but it didn’t hurt, not really. Not yet. It was just a vague…something. Douglas had been a loyal member of her crew, even a friend. But he was far from the last member of her crew who would die this day.

  “All right, we’ve all got work to do. This battle is far from over, and we’ve got our orders.” She turned her head toward the exec’s station. “Commander Johns, I want full evasive maneuvers as we advance.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  She tapped her hand on the comm unit. “Commander Merton, we’re about to enter firing range. Are you ready to power the batteries?”

  “Yes, Captain, we’re ready.” A pause. “I’ll get you that one fifteen,” the engineer added.

  “I know you will, Doug.” She shut the line and looked over at the display. Her guns would be in range any time.

  Her eyes darted around, moving between four red ovals, Union battleships coming into range. There…that one. It was closest, and it was also damaged already. Conqueror had hit it twice with primaries. Eaton normally rated her ship the equal of any in the fleet, but Intrepid was grievously wounded, with nothing save half her secondaries left to face the enemy. She needed a weakened target.

  “All batteries, target enemy contact A11. Prepare to open fire on my command.”

  “All batteries report ready, Captain,” Johns replied a few seconds later.

  She watched the range counting down, felt the wild jerks as Intrepid’s engines did their best to provide a difficult target to the enemy gunners. The Union ships had left her vessel mostly alone, concentrating their fire on Conqueror and Superb. It made sense to Eaton. Both of those vessels were in far better condition than Intrepid.

  She was grateful for the respite…but it pissed her off too. In an illogical way, it offended her that the enemy didn’t respect Intrepid enough to fear her. She was going to make them sorry for that…

  “Batteries ready,” she said softly. Intrepid was well within range now, but as long as the enemy was going to ignore her, she’d use the chance to close to point blank range.

  She could see the deadly fight between the four Union ships and Conqueror and Superb. The Confederation vessels were giving better than they got, but they were outnumbered too. As Eaton watched, Superb took a hit, a bad one. The great vessel visibly staggered, its engines shutting down for perhaps ten seconds before kicking back in at half their former thrust. She knew that hit had caused damage…and that it had killed people. But the battleship’s primaries were still online, another shot lancing out even as she watched. The massive particle accelerator beam slammed into the enemy ship that had just scored the hit, and repaid it in kind. The Union vessel’s thrust stopped entirely, and unlike Superb’s, it didn’t come back, not even partially.

  Eaton felt a rush of excitement, the thrill of the hunt. A ship without thrust was vulnerable, the extreme predictability of its exact location exposing it to enormous damage. She wondered if—it was Captain Wringer on Superb, she remembered—Captain Wringer would wait for his primaries to recharge…wait while each second, the crew of that thing frantically tried to get its engines restarted. It was tempting, she had no doubt, to aim the deadly main weapons with enviable precision, and rip deeply into the enemy vessel’s hull. But Eaton didn’t think she would let so much time go by. No, she would fire her secondaries.

  Just as the thought crossed her mind, the display came alight, Superb’s entire broadside opening up, raking the wounded enemy ship. Apparently, Captain Wringer had come to the same conclusion she had. The high-powered lasers didn’t have the same punch as the deadly accelerators, but they hit hard enough, especially when nearly a dozen slammed into the stricken vessel’s hull.

  The ship was still now, motionless save for its residual velocity. It didn’t respond, not a weapon returning Superb’s fire, even as a second broadside smashed into its shattered hull.

  Eaton looked back at her own screen, at the ship Intrepid had been approaching. Still no significant fire. They think we’re a spent force. They’ve written us off…

  She turned back toward the drama between Superb and its adversary, watching as the Confederation battleship attacked relentlessly, seeking the kill. She felt a burst of raw ferocity, a satisfaction at the impending deaths of so many Union spacers. It was a feeling she didn’t dare analyze too closely. This was war, and right now, her comrades were killing the enemy.

  Her own ship was closer now…moving into short range. She had to fire soon. The enemy would pick up the energy build up in her weapons from this distance.

  “All gunnery stations, lock on.”

  “All stations locked, Captain.”

  She glared at the screen, her hands tightly gripping the arms of her chair, fingers white from the pressure. She could see her target, and even as she was looking she knew the enemy captain had realized he was in danger. The vessel’s guns had changed their targeting—now they were firing at Intrepid. But her evasive maneuvers held, and the laser blasts went wide to the port and starboard.

  The range readout dropped further, into the red zone. Not just close, but point blank range. It was time.

  “All batteries…open fire.”

  * * *

  “Admiral Flynn’s task force is pressing forward, sir…but the losses…”

  “The losses are not relevant now, Commander.” Van Striker listened to his own words, feeling as though they were coming from someone else, a demon devoid of human emotion and morality. But the voice was his, and though he despised what he had just said, he also meant it. He’d drawn a line in the Krakus system, perhaps even staked the future of the Confederation on victory there. Triumph here was all that mattered. No cost, no casualty list, no amount of suffering was too much to endure to attain it.

  “Yes, sir.” Jarravick’s voice had a grave tone to it. Striker suspected his aide understood what was driving him now. How can he look at me now and not see a monster?

  Striker turned and looked back across the command center, toward the unadorned spare workstation where the head of Confederation Intelligence sat, silently watching. Striker had urged Holsten to leave several times, but all his efforts had been in vain. The spy didn’t offer any tactical suggestions, he didn’t try to exert any control over Striker or his officers. He just sat quietly. Waiting to see if he and those around him would survive. If the Confederation would survive.

  Striker had come to truly like Holsten, a development that had taken him completely by surprise. He didn’t think much of spies, and even less of rich scions born into massive family fortunes…but the longer he’d worked alongside Holsten, the more he’d come to realize just how different the man was from most of those with similar backgrounds. He lived a life of almost unimaginable luxury, yes, and he’d dated half the models and actresses on Megara, but on closer inspection, much of that was a façade. Holsten was a creature of duty, as dedicated and resolute in his own way as any who wore the uniform of the navy.

  “Vanguard is reporting heavy damage, sir. And Superb has been bracketed by two Union battleships. Her primaries are down, and she’s bleeding air.”

  “Very well.”

  He watched the action on the display, listened to the reports. His people were putting up a vicious fight, the instances of extraordinary heroism worthy of decoration almost beyond count. He found himself hoping beyond reason that the time would come when those medals could be bestowed, when some at least, could gather, having survived the nightmare…and pay respects to the thousands lost.

  The Confederation vessels were riddling their enemies with hits, blasting massive Union battleships to scrap. But they were losing too many of their own. Entire fighter squadrons had been obliterated, and hundreds of pilots had ditched, floating in the vastness of the system, helpless, waiting to see if their comrades would win
the fight and rescue them…or if they would die alone in the frigid blackness of space.

  It was a holocaust the likes of which he had never seen before…and there was no sign of an end. The Union pressed on with a comparable disregard for losses, and everywhere they had the advantage of numbers. Every battleship of his that took down its opposite number was engaged almost immediately by a fresh one, and sometimes by two. Reports flowed into station Grimaldi, hot and heavy, each one of them like the shrieking howl of a banshee, speaking of death and torment.

  Still, Van Striker had remained in his place, barely wincing even when the report came in that Fortitude, his old flagship, the vessel from when he’d commanded Fifth Fleet, had been destroyed. He’d shut his mind down, forcing his thoughts away from his old ship. He didn’t have time to think of just how many friends he’d just lost.

  He stared at the display, watching the immense battle that had degenerated into scattered struggles all across the system. Battleships dueled each other, smaller escorts made hair-raising attacks at their much larger counterparts. And, all across the system, the fighter squadrons threw themselves at each other and at the battle lines, torpedo attacks and strafing runs exacting a terrible toll. There were great victories, and gut-wrenching defeats, but slowly he began to come to a conclusion, one the AI projections confirmed, one he had feared from the start. His people were losing the fight.

  It wasn’t by a large margin, but it was a fact nevertheless. Unless the Union forces broke, they would overcome his fleet…and he knew the enemy wouldn’t falter. The Union spacers knew too well what awaited any who failed in their duty. The shadow of Sector Nine was everywhere on that fleet, he knew, the culture of fear those spacers had been born into controlling them with a power no less effective than the Confederation’s patriotism.

  Striker turned again, looking back at Holsten. He could tell the intelligence chief had come to the same conclusion. They were going to come close…but they were going to lose.