by Jay Allan
Some of those pilots out there fought against Kat’s squadrons…
Vennius had selected Invictus’s crew himself, and he knew that every fighter pilot Kat had taken with her had been one of the best the Alliance had. He looked at Dauntless’s squadrons shaking into battle formation, and he could see their skill at work. He knew they had seen three years of constant combat, of brutal battles against an enemy that outnumbered them. Many who had survived the battle with Invictus had no doubt fallen in those fights, but some remained. That was almost certain. And now that skill was deployed on his side, to save the Alliance. It was a strange turn of events, one he could never have predicted.
He sat still, silent, watching as his fighters engaged the enemy squadrons…and then, a few minutes later, as Dauntless’s wings slammed into the flank of the confused, swirling battle. They hit Calavius’s fighters hard, driving into them with a ferocity that would have made any Alliance warrior proud.
Vennius watched, and as he did, he began to understand how Invictus had lost her fight. And he knew these squadrons, this ship, this crew—and their captain—deserved their reputations. He was glad they were on his side.
* * *
“Raptor, you’ve got one on your tail!” Talon’s voice was urgent on the comm, her worry clearly on display. Corinne Steele was one of Blue squadron’s oldest veterans, a pilot who’d been flying with Stockton since the Battle of Santis.
“I’m fine, Talon,” he replied, suspecting his voice conveyed no more conviction than he felt. He’d been trying to evade the Alliance pilot behind him, but his moves had been sluggish, every attempt to break the pursuit too late or too slow. He’d have lost the average Union pilot by now, he was sure of that. But the Alliance flyers were a damned sight more dangerous.
“I’m on my way, Raptor,” Steele said, her voice brittle with tension. “But I’m twenty thousand kilometers from your position, so you’ve got to hang on.”
“I said I’m fine, Talon. I can handle this.” Stockton was scared, so scared his body was drenched in sweat, despite the climate control of his cockpit. But he was also frustrated, and determined to break out of the funk that had been dragging him down. He wouldn’t be what he had become…he would be what he had been, or he would die in the effort. And he’d be damned if he needed one of his pilots to bail him out from one enemy in pursuit.
He swung the throttle around, a sharper move than he had managed up to then, if still slower and clumsier than what his old self would have managed. He thought for an instant he’d surprised the pursuing Alliance pilot, that he’d broken free. But then he saw the movement, the fighter still there, in his blind spot.
For all he’d told Talon he didn’t need help, he felt a hint of relief when his eyes moved to the display, and he saw that she had disregarded his orders. She was still coming on, but it would be almost two minutes before she got there. And two minutes was an eternity.
He watched on the display as the enemy’s laser blasts zipped by, one so close it almost grazed his ship. That one caused a few burnouts in electrical systems, and it warned him of his mortality.
He remembered a hundred times he’d watched rookies, talking them through crises, their first encounters with the enemy. He’d been successful sometimes…and not some others. The numbers in fighter combats were daunting, and the hard truth was, few in his profession survived for very long. The high command was almost devoid of fighter pilots, mostly because there were so few old pilots to promote to flag rank. Stockton had never even considered the odds before, and now it was all he could think of.
He swung his fighter hard to the starboard, blasting at full thrust for a few seconds, and then letting his engine power drop off. It was abrupt, unpredictable, the closest he’d come to something his old self would have done. But the enemy was still on him, still firing. He’d recaptured a flash of his former capability, but now he felt coldness and fear again.
“Enough of this…you’re Raptor, not some wet behind the ears trainee. Pull it together, man.” He put all of his will into an effort to focus. He tried to let go, almost to become part of his fighter, as he’d always done before. But he couldn’t quite get there. His moves were solid, but they were all delayed. He thought about each one, where before it had been almost pure instinct. He managed to stay one step ahead of his pursuer, but he knew before he would have broken free of the pursuit, even managed to come about and destroy the fighter chasing him.
He was better than he had been these past few weeks, but beyond the fear, all he felt was frustration. After what he had been, he couldn’t accept being just a solid pilot. He was Raptor…and he would be again. Or he would die trying.
“Just a few more seconds, Raptor.” It was Talon’s voice. He could see her ship on the tactical screen now. She was coming on hard, right for the bird on his tail. Even as his eyes focused on the small icon, his ship shook hard and went into a wild spin. He’d taken a hit. Not a direct hit…if it had been that, he’d be dead. But his screen was going wild. His ship was definitely damaged.
“Got him, Raptor!” He felt relief at Talon’s words. He wouldn’t have lasted thirty seconds longer in his damaged ship.
“Thanks, Talon…appreciate it.” He knew she’d just saved his life. He was grateful, but his mind was full of shame and self-loathing. He was the one who came to the aid of his people. He saved them, not the other way around. He felt fear inside, the stark terror that had plagued him since that day in the launch bay, and he hated himself for it.
“Raptor…my scanners show your ship is pretty banged up.” It was Kyle Jamison, and Stockton could hear the concern in his friend’s voice.
He looked at his scanners. His fighter was damaged, but it was still functional. He’d lost his top engine, but his reactor and weapons were still operational. He would never have left the battle before, not while his ship had fuel vapors and even one half-power laser left.
He knew Jamison was giving him an out, an excuse to go back to the ship. It filled him with self-loathing, and part of him screamed out to refuse, to stand with his squadron and plunge back into the fight. But then he said, “Roger that, Thunder. Returning to Dauntless.”
He shook his head, even as he angled his thrusters and blasted off toward the battleship.
There’s no need to fear death anymore. Raptor Stockton is already dead. And life as a shaking, useless coward is no life at all…
Chapter Thirty
CFS Dauntless
Cilian System
Deep in the Alliance
Year 310 AC
“Give me another shot, Doc.” Barron was staring straight ahead, his eyes fixed on the display as he pointed toward his arm.
“Captain…” Doc Weldon was standing right behind Barron’s chair, holding on as the battleship shook with each evasive maneuver.
“No arguments, Doc. We’re in the middle of a fight…and I have to stay sharp.”
“Tyler…I need to get you to sickbay. These stims I’m giving you are only making things worse. Please.”
“Captain, I can handle the bridge…you know that. Go with Doc.” Travis had turned in her chair, for about the hundredth time in the last hour, to look over and check on him.
Barron knew both of them were concerned about him. Truth be told, he was scared himself. He’d never felt like he did, and he was beginning to believe Doc that something was seriously wrong. But none of that mattered, not fear, not illness, not the worry of his crew. Not while the battle still raged. The enemy was pushing toward Sentinel-2. Barron hadn’t had much time to evaluate the overall tactical and strategic situations, but it was a damned good bet that without the base, Vennius’s cause would be lost. And the Confederation would have hostile Alliance fleets racing toward its soft underbelly. No, there was no way he could leave now. Not until the fight was won.
“Both of you, listen to me…” He paused, gasping for breath. “I will not be moved from this spot, not while we are in battle. He turned his head back toward Weld
on, trying, without success, he suspected, to hide the dizziness he felt. “Now give me that shot, Doc. That’s an order.”
Dauntless shook hard, almost as if to stress Barron’s point. His eyes darted to the display. There were two enemy battleships approaching. Barron’s ship had been facing off against another of the Alliance vessels, but that ship was silent now, hit half a dozen times by Dauntless’s great primary batteries. It was clear the power of her main guns had caught the notice of whoever was in command of the attacking fleet.
Barron snapped his head around toward Weldon. The doctor had fallen to one knee, barely hanging onto the Barron’s chair until the ship stabilized. He looked like he was going to continue to argue, but then he just reached down and grabbed the syringe. He hesitated, just for a moment, and then he gave Barron another injection.
Barron felt the drug’s effect almost immediately, but it was weaker than it had been before. “More, Doc…I need a larger dose.”
“Captain…”
“Do it,” Barron snapped, surprising himself with the anger in his voice. He turned, noting the status bar on the primaries. Almost charged. “Commander, target the closest approaching ship. We need to stop at least one of them before they get their own batteries into close range.” The hit from a moment before hadn’t done any major damage. The Alliance main guns had a shorter range that Dauntless’s primary batteries, and their power dropped off sharply as distance increased. But Barron knew from his memories of Santis…those weapons could rake his ship at close range and do horrific damage. Dauntless was stronger than the Alliance ships, none of which seemed to be as large and powerful as Invictus had been. But he reminded himself again that these were not Union conscript crews. The Alliance spacers had been raised since birth to be warriors. They were enemies to be respected. Feared.
“Now, Doctor,” he repeated, holding back the anger this time. It was frustration, at how miserable he felt, at the timing, at the crushing responsibility of knowing he had involved the Confederation in yet another war. None of it was really targeted at Weldon, and certainly not at Atara Travis. He knew their resistance was driven by concern for him, even if they were in the path of his growing rage.
“Primaries locked on and fully charged, Captain.”
“Fire,” Barron commanded, wincing slightly as Doc jabbed the needle into his arm again.
* * *
Stockton sat for an instant in his fighter after it came to a stop, gritting his teeth and resisting the urge to climb out as quickly as possible. His mind was racing with thoughts of fire, of the agony of his flesh burning off his body. He’d always considered himself tough, able to take whatever came at him. But he’d been stripped of that illusion. He had suffered more than he’d thought possible, and he knew he would do anything to prevent that from happening again. He had been broken, like a prisoner who tortured beyond the bounds of endurance. But it had been no enemy inquisitor who had defeated him, it had been the fire.
And he didn’t know how to find his way back.
He could feel his body shaking. This was the hardest, sitting in his ship in the bay. This was where it had happened, that day he’d lost control of his shattered fighter and crashed hard into the bulkhead. He’d tried to escape from the cockpit then, but the auto-eject system had failed, and the manual latch had been twisted and inoperable. He’d banged on the clear hyper-polycarbonate of the cockpit, even as he felt the flames rising up, the indescribable pain of the fire.
He slammed his fist against the release control, and the hatch opened. He’d stayed as long as he could manage, but now he scrambled out of the fighter, climbing quickly down the ladder to the deck. His eyes moved to the rear of his ship, to the half-melted remains of his number one engine. He knew fighter combat well enough to realize he’d survived that shot by a measure of scant centimeters.
At least in space, the vacuum would kill the fire.
He turned and moved toward the bank of lifts along the edge of the bay. He’d spent endless hours in this space, enjoying the near-silence when Dauntless wasn’t on alert. Just being around the sleek craft, lined up and ready for the moment action called…it had been his life, his calling. But now, he just wanted to get back to his quarters.
“Jake?” He heard the voice, and he froze.
“Stara…shouldn’t you be in fighter control?” The words weren’t the most personal he could have spoken to a woman he loved, but they were the best he could manage. He already hated himself, and Stara, for all her herculean efforts to reach him, only made it worse. His shame was magnified in front of her, and her compassion mocked him.
“Lieutenant Winters is filling in for me. The squadrons are engaged. There’s nothing for us to do now but watch, and I wanted to check and see if you were okay.”
“I’m fine,” he snapped, regretting the anger in his voice almost immediately. “I’ve got to go, Stara,” he said, turning back toward the open lift in front of him. “You’d better get back to your station.” He didn’t look at her. He had an image of her face in his mind, hurt, confused by his aloofness. He didn’t want to see the real thing. Not now.
He lurched forward, into the car, and reached out to the control panel, counting the seconds until the doors closed, leaving her behind in the bay. Then he stood there, enduring a fresh wave of self-loathing.
* * *
Egilius was standing on Bellator’s bridge, firing off commands. He was holding on to the back of his chair to steady himself, as he snapped his head back and forth, from one station to another.
“Damage control, I want those starboard batteries back online…now!”
“Optiomagis Metus, increase the cycling on the evasive maneuvers. We’re too close now…we can’t give them any easy shots.”
“Gunnery, all batteries target Arguere.”
A flurry of acknowledgements came back to him, from his comm and from all around the bridge. Egilius had been surprised when Vennius had given him tactical command of the fleet. He’d felt out of his depth, unready for such a responsibility. But he’d quickly adapted, overcome his hesitancy. Vennius needed him…the Alliance needed him. Nothing more needed to be said. He had to give not just his best, but whatever else he had buried deeply in himself. He had to prevail. Vennius had to prevail. Whatever the cost. The way is the way.
He turned back toward Metus. “Contact Draconis. Commander Hephesus is to come around and target Arguere from the flank.”
“Yes, sir.”
The battle was raging, undecided. Either side could still win, and Egilius knew he had to push, to hurt the enemy enough to make them fall back. He focused mostly on tactical matters—his place was to defeat these enemy ships, here and now—but he understood the strategic situation facing Vennius, and he also knew that the longer the Commander-Maximus could hold out, the more difficult it would be for Calavius and his traitorous followers to gain total control of the Alliance. Simply surviving would be a victory for Vennius, at least one of a sort. But that survival had to extend past just this battle. The resistance needed to maintain a fleet in being, the ability to stay in the fight. And that meant Egilius not only had to win, he had to defeat the enemy while keeping his own ships from being battered to scrap.
“Commander Hephesus acknowledges, sir.”
Egilius turned his head, his eyes settling on the main display. Draconis was already adjusting course, altering its vector toward the target. As in the earlier fight, Egilius was banking on the likelihood that the outright destruction of vessels would break the enemy’s will faster than spreading damage across the whole fleet. It was far from a certainty the enemy would break off if they lost a couple ships, but his gut told him Calavius couldn’t risk all the vessels he controlled. Not while so much of the fleet seemed to be uncommitted.
He looked off to the side, to the enemy flank, where the Confederation battleship was moving in from its entry transit point. Dauntless had arrived at an opportune moment, just before the traitors attacked. Egilius didn’t like to
admit his forces needed help, but they were outnumbered and still carrying damage from the previous battle. He wasn’t ready to jump right to acknowledging a need, but he was damned glad to have the help.
He turned toward the smaller screen on his own station. Arguere was being battered by three of his ships. The vessel was trying to pull back, but its velocity and vector were far from optimal for such a maneuver, and though the damage assessments were incomplete, it was clear the ship’s engines had been hit pretty badly.
“Match Arguere’s movements. All ships, maintain close range and continue to fire.”
“Yes, sir.”
Egilius felt a strange combination of feelings. Excitement, the cry of the warrior aching for the kill he could feel coming. It was tempered, though, by discomfort, by a queasy hesitancy. Weeks before, he’d have called Arguere’s crew his comrades. He’d have fought at their sides. He knew the vessel’s captain. Savilla Danelus was a good officer. And though she was more of an acquaintance than a friend, Egilius knew her well enough to bet that she was here not because she had plotted with the perpetrators of the coup, but because she believed the foul lies Calavius and his people had spread.
An honest Palatian warrior who believes we are the traitors, who acts on her honor, as she sees it, to save the Alliance. And now I have to kill her.
“Increase power to batteries. One hundred ten percent. And tell engineering I want the reactors pushed to the limit.” Egilius regretted what he had to do…but he was still going to do it. Danelus had chosen the wrong side, and for that, honest mistake that he believed it was, she had to die. There could be no half measures, no hesitation to do what was necessary. Not when the future of the Alliance was at stake.
“Commander, Castellum has been destroyed by the Confederation battleship.”