Dauntless

by Jay Allan

  Save for the fact that they will die as heroes, with honor. They will be remembered, and their sacrifices will inspire their people.

  Grachus had believed in that once, with all her heart. She still did, to a point. But she’d come to see war differently than she had as a young warrior, steeped in Alliance orthodoxy. Defending one’s nation, family, comrades…these were noble pursuits, without question. But war was a dark undertaking, and she no longer glorified it as she once had. If we worshipped war less, would Kat still be alive? Is any victory, any honor in battle worth the life of a friend? A sister?

  She had no uncertainty about the rightness of this fight, however. She was doing all she could to pay a debt to her allies, and she was battling a dishonest and treacherous enemy. There was honor here, even amid the death and suffering of good men and women.

  She wondered, for an instant, why war was so endemic to people, one conflict seeming to lead only into the next.

  She didn’t have any answers…and she suspected she never would.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Formara System

  “The Bottleneck”

  313 AC

  “Blues, Eagles…we’re going in. There are no enemy fighters, and most of the defenses are back by the pulsar. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have some point defense platforms here, and you all know those bombers handle like pigs. So, we’re going to clear a path for them. I know you’re all exhausted, that your fuel’s running low, that your batteries are drained. But, we’ve got to do this. For Dauntless, for Captain Barron. For everything we hold dear.” Stockton was yelling into the comm, trying to give his worn pilots all the support and encouragement he could muster.

  The fighters had blasted hard to overtake the slower bombers, and now they were leading the way in. Behind them sat Dauntless, once again visible on the scanners, and, even farther back, the entire Union fleet. A dozen battleships were ahead of the others, advancing at full thrust, but they wouldn’t get there in time, not to stop Stockton’s attack. His shattered fighter squadrons and his wing of bombers had a clear path ahead of them, save for whatever guns the enemy had deployed around the reactors. And, he was going to make damned sure none of them stopped his attack craft from doing their jobs.

  “Bombers, you’re all at full thrust. Dauntless is exposed again, so that means we’re out of time. You’ve got to get in there and dust those reactors…knock out the power to that big gun before it blasts Dauntless.”

  A wave of acknowledgements and “yessirs” flooded his comm line, and he could tell from the tones of his people, they were ready. Most of the pilots who’d launched with him were veterans, and almost all of those who survived were experienced and seasoned warriors. They knew what was at stake…and what they had to do.

  Stockton pulled back on his controls again, blasting forward, feeling heat from behind him as his reactor and engines began to overload. He’d taken the usual anti-rad drugs before launching, but he was pretty sure he’d need a serious cleanse when he got back, if not more. He hadn’t even looked at the radiation readings in the last hour, and he’d ordered the AI, in no uncertain terms, to stop warning him every five minutes about the toxic levels.

  No weapons platforms showed on his scanner. That was good. It meant, at least, that the enemy didn’t have any large fortresses with the reactors. But that didn’t guarantee they hadn’t tucked point defense batteries onto the various stations that housed the power plants. He knew he’d never pick those up, not without some idea of specifically where to look, and that meant his interceptors were bait first and attack craft second. They’d know where the batteries were when the guns opened up and fired at them.

  He brought his ship around, closing rapidly, his eyes darting from one screen to the next, waiting for any signs of enemy fire. A few seconds later there was a bright flash on the left most of his displays. The pulsar…

  He felt his stomach tighten, knowing that, in that instant, Dauntless could have been destroyed. But, as he looked frantically, he could see the small blue oval still on the screen. The battleship had remained, and an instant later, he confirmed that the great weapon had missed. Barely.

  Even as he was focused on Dauntless, his alarm system went off. His close-range display was alive with activity, point defense turrets opening up all along the line of reactors.

  He’d been right. The weapons were built right into the stations holding the power plants. It looked like quad turrets on each one—dangerous but not as bad as he’d feared. He angled his ship hard to bring it about, heading right toward the nearest station, moving his hand wildly, giving the enemy gunners as difficult a target as he could.

  “These things are armed, just like we thought. Be as careful as you can, but we’ve got to go in now. Dauntless needs us…and we’re out of time.”

  His scanner lit up as more turrets opened fire. Blasts of focused laser-light zipped past his ship, but his erratic approach pattern was doing its job…and as each battery opened up, it gave away its location.

  His eyes narrowed, zooming in on the gun on the closest platform. He was coming in quick, and that meant he’d only get a few shots before he whipped past. The bombers had to come in behind him. The cumbersome attack craft would present a much easier target to any batteries he missed.

  He fired, and then again, and he felt a grin break out on his face as he saw he’d hit. The gun was silent now, and he was already looking for his next target. He was past the first wave of platforms, but he could see his comrades following his lead, blasting away at the stations all down the line. They were battered and beyond fatigued, but they all knew what was at stake, and he watched on his scanners as they scored hit after hit against their mostly-stationary targets. Their lasers weren’t powerful enough to destroy the stations, or to disable the reactors, but they were picking off the point defense installations.

  They were taking losses, too. Charging right into the guns was a dangerous tactic, even with the best evasive maneuvers. But there was no hesitation, not a single question from any of his pilots. They threw themselves at the stations, ignoring the danger.

  Stockton fired again, taking out a turret on the last station, before his momentum took him past the line of targets and back out of range. He began to decelerate, but he knew there was no time. Long before he was able to change course and come back around, the bombers would have completed their run.

  And if they didn’t succeed, Dauntless would be gone, blasted to dust with everyone onboard.

  * * *

  Tyler Barron watched in awe as his fighters threw themselves at the line of power stations. He wondered how those men and women had anything left. From the numbers on the scanner, he knew just how many of their brethren had been lost already. But they’d mustered the courage and stamina to hurl themselves once more into the deadliest danger.

  He’d been just about certain that Dauntless’s remaining lifespan would be measured in seconds, but now he watched as his pilots fought mightily to give the old ship one more chance. If they could knock out enough of the power supply, even enough to delay the pulsar’s next shot…

  “The bombers are going in now, sir.” Atara Travis watched the same scene Barron did, and he’d have bet her conclusions were identical. They were witnessing heroism, in its purest unadulterated form. It was a desperate, fragile hope those ships were giving Dauntless…but it was hope. And it was all Barron and his people had.

  His body was tight, his shoulders hunched forward from the stress, expecting the killing shot to come at any moment. The bombers could complete their mission, but if they did it a second too late, Dauntless would be gone.

  Still, even temporarily disabling the ancient weapon could turn the tide of the battle, allow the Confederation fleet to engage and defeat their Union rivals. Barron preferred the thought of surviving to see that victory, but he didn’t let himself think that far ahead. Even if the bombing wing saved Dauntless from the pulsar, there was a damaged, but still dangerous, enemy
battleship minutes from range…and a dozen more coming up behind, enough to finish his ship even if it survived the first encounter.

  The interceptors had destroyed more of the gun emplacements than Barron had thought possible, but some still remained, and now he saw symbols disappearing from the display, bombers falling victim to the defensive fire.

  He sat still, silent, barely remembering to breathe as the first torpedoes launched. The plasma weapons streaked forward, and Barron felt his hopes surge. The same emplacements that had fired at the bombers themselves redirected their focus to the incoming warheads, but they were too few to effectively interdict the wildly gyrating drones, accelerating at 25g toward their targets. Then, he saw the symbols change, the tiny dots converting to larger, fuzzier circles.

  The plasma torpedoes had converted to pure energy. Nothing could stop them now, and unlike the battleships that were their usual targets, the power stations were mostly immobile. They were firing their repositioning jets, but Barron could see that was going to prove almost entirely ineffective. The lack of effective defensive fire had allowed the torpedoes to close to point blank range before triggering the reactions that formed the massive plasmas.

  The plasmas were on fixed courses now, and the stations used what minimal maneuvering power they had to escape from the approaching doom. A few of them managed, barely. But more than two-thirds of the torpedoes slammed into their targets.

  Barron was excited, anxious, waiting for the damage assessments. It was far from certain the small strike force had possessed enough destructive power to take out the large stations. Or, at least, enough of them to cripple the pulsar.

  He watched his scanners, waiting. Seconds passed by, each seeming like an eternity—and each feeling like the one that would see the pulsar firing again, blasting Dauntless to a cloud of radioactive dust.

  Barron was tense…hell, he was scared to death, not only of his own fate and his ship’s, but of what would happen to the fleet if his people failed.

  He stared, his eyes unmoving, just as he knew every officer on the bridge was doing. Then, one of the stations disappeared from the display. The data that flowed in just after left no doubt. The torpedo hit had breached its containment, releasing the vast energies of the thermonuclear reaction.

  Then, another followed. Data was pouring in, now, a fast and furious stream, and Barron could see there was massive damage to other stations. The ones that had managed to shut down their reactions in time were still there. They were gutted hulks, perhaps, but the plasma torpedoes were not powerful enough to disintegrate targets of that size. That didn’t matter. Each power station that shut down was one fewer feeding energy to the Union’s massive gun. Barron didn’t know how many it would take to shut the pulsar down, to save his ship, but as he saw more and more of the stations destroyed outright or disabled, his hope began to grow.

  He turned, looking to the side of the display, to the orange sphere that represented the pulsar. It was still there, undamaged, but it hadn’t fired. He glanced at the chronometer. Enough time had passed since its last shot. At first, he tried to control his expectations. He told himself maybe the great gun was pausing to refine its targeting, to ensure that it finished Dauntless with the next shot. Or that the reduced power had increased the recharge time. But more seconds, elapsed…and then minutes.

  Dauntless’s bridge was silent, no one daring to speak, to state what they were all thinking.

  The bombers had done it. They’d cut the power supply to the pulsar and saved Dauntless.

  At least for now.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  CFS Vanguard

  Formara System

  “The Bottleneck”

  313 AC

  Striker’s eyes were fixed on the display, watching Dauntless’s squadrons assault the power stations. The idea was a brilliant one, and Striker had decided outright, whoever had come up with it would be decorated with every medal he had the power to bestow. Destroying the pulsar was the ultimate goal, of course, but even disabling it would allow the Confederation fleet to close and engage the Union forces without being cut to ribbons, and then move on the weapon itself.

  Still, for all his hope and admiration for the plan, he was far from sure it would succeed. No scanner would show that the pulsar was out of operation, no alarms would go off confirming the enemy weapon was now inoperative for lack of power. All he could do was watch, and allow his hope to increase with every passing second that didn’t see Dauntless or another of his ships blasted to plasma. He’d already lost half a dozen of his frontline battleships outright, with as many more badly wounded. His best guess was that, including the losses from the forces fighting the enemy flanking force, more than ten thousand of his spacers had died already in the fight, with thousands more no doubt wounded on their damaged vessels.

  He’d expected to see the superweapon’s next shot by now, but the fact that the blast was thirty seconds overdue was far from conclusive. The delay could be the result of a hundred other factors. Nevertheless, his excitement grew. He was so focused on what was happening deep in the system, he even forgot the endless pain that had wracked his body since he’d first boarded Vanguard at Grimaldi base. For a moment, at least.

  “Admiral…we’re seventy-five seconds past the projected time for the last enemy shot.”

  Striker nodded, and he grunted softly. It was the officer’s job to make reports like that, but he couldn’t imagine anyone not realizing he already knew exactly how long it had been. He doubted there was a spacer in the fleet who didn’t know.

  He hesitated, perhaps for another ten seconds, turning his head slowly, looking out over the rows of officers at the workstation clusters all around the fleet command center, dozens of men and women, all of them veterans of six years of bloody war. All the battles, the losses, the almost unfathomable suffering and destruction…and now he sat in his chair, realizing it had all come to this. The next few hours would decide the war, he was certain of that. And, as he watched the still silent pulsar on his screen, he dared to hope that decision would prove to be a victory.

  “All task forces, maximum acceleration. Engage and destroy the Union fleet…and then on to the pulsar.” He suspected his voice sounded remarkably calm, but it was all a façade. Inside, despite years of endless battle, stress, losses, pain…he felt like a cadet on his first cruise, his insides twisted into knots. All the spacers he’d lost, those back in the fleet’s many hospitals, struggling to recover from horrible wounds…they were all with him now. The time had passed with agonizing slowness, as he’d held the fleet back, waiting, hoping Barron and Dauntless could somehow do what they’d come to do. But the wait was over.

  All of the Confederation was there.

  It was time. Time for the final battle.

  * * *

  “Sir, we have analyzed the enemy attack, and there is a danger. The power flow to the reactor has dropped…”

  “Do you think I’m a fool, Admiral? That I cannot see what is happening?” Villieneuve didn’t yell, he didn’t raise his voice a decibel. But it would take an astonishing level of unawareness not to perceive the danger, the deadly threat implicit in every word he spoke.

  “No, sir, of course. But there is nothing we can…”

  “No, Admiral. There is not.” Villieneuve glared at the now-terrified officer. “Did I not question you when I arrived, ask you if the pulsar was adequately protected?”

  “The pulsar is very well defended, sir. No fighter attack could have seriously damaged it.”

  “You didn’t consider the power source that allows the weapon to fire to be important?”

  “We had three hundred-sixty fighters stationed there, sir.” Admiral Bourbonne was retaining his composure…just.

  “Which were sent in piecemeal and destroyed by a vastly smaller Confed force.”

  “Minister, I…”

  “Silence, Bourbonne. There is no time for excuses and idle chatter. We must act at once. In all likelihood, the pul
sar is inoperative now, but it is not damaged. The reactors were costly, but they are replaceable.” Though how am I going to replace them…and stave off disaster while I do? That is tomorrow’s problem. “The pulsar is not. It is unique, its value without price. It must be withdrawn at once. The fleet is to advance now and engage the enemy. We must keep them back long enough to get the pulsar out of the system.”

  “But, sir, without the pulsar’s support, and with the detachments we have made…we will be at a grave disadvantage against the Confederation’s main force.” A short pause. “I will at least recall the ships sent back to deal with the enemy battleship…”

  “You will do no such thing. Those ships are to escort the tugs pulling the pulsar from the system.”

  “But there are a dozen capital ships in that force!”

  “Yes, and if they and the pulsar are the only things that get out of this system, then so be it.” Them and me, of course. Villieneuve would find some meager satisfaction in watching Bourbonne die with the fleet, but he had no intention of joining in himself. “None of this would be necessary if you’d deployed adequate protection to the pulsar, as I commanded, Admiral.” Villieneuve knew he himself was at fault as well. He could have deployed more units to the rear on his own initiative, but instead, he’d taken Bourbonne’s assurances at face value. It was a grave error for a man who generally believed almost nothing of what he was told.

  The truth was frightfully simple. Gaston Villieneuve was no expert in space war, and he’d never imagined the Confeds would manage to sneak some kind of infiltrator around his entire fleet. He’d planned for every contingency that seemed possible. There had been no way to anticipate what had happened, no reason to consider it a possibility…at least none that would have occurred to anyone beforehand.

  None of that mattered now. The reality was clear. He had to salvage the situation somehow, and find a way to buy enough time to build a new power system for the pulsar…once he got the ancient weapon out of the Bottleneck and to, at least temporary, safety.