Duel in the Dark: Blood on the Stars I

by Jay Allan

  The first few months of his command had been difficult ones, as such things usually were, especially since he’d had to overcome the usual resentments, the impression that the Barron name had more to do with the insignia on his collar than his skills and service. But he and his people had gotten past it all and become a solid team, and Barron would have put Dauntless against any other ship in the fleet, despite the fact that she was neither the newest nor the largest.

  “Dauntless, all scans check out. Please transmit alpha codes for final authorization.”

  Barron leaned forward slightly and flipped open the small panel on the armrest of his chair, revealing the keypad below. His fingers punched out a code, one only he and his first officer knew. It was another wartime procedure, a failsafe designed to prevent an enemy from using a captured vessel to approach a Confederation world. Its implementation before the outbreak of hostilities, and on a world so far from the prospective battle zone, attested to just how worried the Confederation’s leaders were of an impending attack, and the fifth column tactics the Union would almost certainly employ if hostilities broke out.

  He felt himself snapping back to his rigid posture, staring straight ahead as he waited for the confirmation. No one on the planet had Dauntless’s code—at least, no one living. Only the base’s AI. And security protocols prevented any direct contact between the core data systems and unconfirmed ships, for fear of viruses and cyber attacks. That meant the base crew would have to manually input Dauntless’s code to check its validity.

  “Dauntless, you are cleared to dock at bay three. Welcome to Archellia.” The voice on the speaker was crisp, professional…but there was something else there too, something besides the provincial accent. A touch of excitement perhaps. Archellia was far from the core worlds or the disputed frontier, a quiet frontier capital overseeing a cluster of fringe systems and mining colonies on the far edge of Confederation space. The planet was home to a sizable naval base, but the frontier it guarded was a quiet one, facing mostly independent and militarily weak systems, and its naval complement was one of small patrol vessels and scoutships, designed to counter piracy, not to face invasions. A visit by a frontline warship was a quite a rarity.

  “Understood, Archellia Control.” Barron’s hand moved toward the com controls, but then he paused and added, “Thank you, Archellia. It is good to be here.” He tapped the sensor pad, closing the connection. He could have allowed the comm officer to conclude the transmission, but he had a lot of nervous energy, and he disliked the idea of an aloof commander, acting as if pressing a button or reading a report himself was too much of an effort.

  “Commander Travis, you have the con.” He stood up slowly, taking a step from his chair. “Bring us in…” He turned and looked around the bridge. “…and authorize shore leave for all off-duty personnel as soon as base operations have secured Dauntless.” He fought back a smile as he heard the not-so-quiet rumble. It wasn’t exactly a cheer, but it left little doubt as to how much his overworked bridge crew was looking forward to a break. He imagined the areas of the ship farther removed from the exalted presence of the captain would experience a rather more…enthusiastic…celebration when Travis passed on the command.

  “Yes, Captain.” Atara Travis’s voice was sharp, crisp. Travis was a tough officer, one whose relentless intensity left no doubt how far she would go to keep Dauntless functioning at maximum efficiency. She’d come with Barron, transferred from Excalibur, where they had been first officer and tactical officer, respectively.

  Barron remembered the first time he’d met her, three years before. He’d been struck by her beauty at first, but it was quickly followed by respect. Travis was smart…more than smart, brilliant. And she was hard as nails.

  Travis hadn’t come from a naval family. She had fought her way up from the streets of Hepheseus, the most notorious world in the Iron Belt, an industrialized hell whose ruling Oligarchs lived in orbital refuges to escape the sludgy waterways and dark gray haze that hung heavy in the sky. She’d never spoken of how she’d gotten the money to book passage off her native world, nor the means by which she had obtained the education to pass the Academy’s fearsome entrance examinations. And Tyler had never asked. Travis had become like a sister to him, and a best friend too…and they were a solid captain-exec team now, the best in the fleet, many said.

  He’d had a passing impulse to pursue more than friendship and professional respect when they’d first met. He wasn’t above using the Barron name to supplement his own charms when sufficiently motivated, but it had never gone beyond a passing thought with Travis. Discipline had won out. Tyler Barron had a bit of a reputation in the bases and ports of the Confederation, one he had to admit was at least partially deserved, but he never let any of that come aboard his ship or interfere with duty. That had been his policy as a first officer, and he only redoubled his conviction as captain.

  And it worked out for the best in the end.

  That relationship was more important to him than any dalliance. Even one with a woman as striking as Travis.

  He walked toward the hatch leading to the lift. “I will be in my quarters if you need me, Commander.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He walked through the doors, taking a deep breath as they slid shut.

  “Deck three,” he said softly.

  He leaned back against the wall and let out a long, hard sigh. Dauntless had come back from her dangerous posting, and at least for now, his people were safe. His demand for a dangerous posting, his need to prove—to himself as well as anyone else—that he was as capable of facing danger as his renowned grandfather, hadn’t cost him any of his crew. War still loomed, and he wasn’t naïve enough to expect that his people would come through such a conflict unscathed. But at least none of them paid the ultimate price solely because their commander had felt the need to prove himself. Only now did he truly think about how he would have carried that guilt. He was thankful he didn’t have to.

  Now, maybe he could actually get some rest himself.

  Maybe.

  * * *

  “It was nice of the high command to send us clear across the Confederation so you could be home in time.” Lieutenant Walt Billings looked down from a narrow catwalk, five meters above Dauntless’s main engineering deck. He had a burnt system control rod in one hand, and a fresh one in the other, but his attention had been diverted from the power flow regulator to the conversation taking place on the main deck below. “We didn’t know we had such a big shot down here in engineering.”

  Sam Carson looked up and smiled at his comrade. “Yeah, Walt, well you know the fleet admiral and I are like this.” He held up his hand, his thumb and forefinger almost touching. “So, I just asked him if a hundred extra lightyears added to the trip was such a big deal…”

  The two men laughed, and in a few seconds it spread to the others working in the engineering space. Dauntless’s crew was tightly knit, but its engineering teams were even more so. They’d only had minor repairs to contend with until now, but they all knew if—when—it came to open war, the survival of the ship would rest on them as much as, possibly more than, anyone else. The gunners took credit for blasting enemy ships, and the fighter pilots notched their throttles with each kill, but when it came to getting a damaged laser cannon back on line in time to fire, or giving the captain maximum thrust when he needed it, it was the engineers who would get the job done.

  They tended to relish their roles as the unheralded and unappreciated branch of the service, but Dauntless’s team knew that didn’t apply to them. Captain Barron had made it clear from day one he thought they were the living, breathing heart of the ship, and for almost a year now he had been true to his word, even making frequent visits to the engineering spaces. The captain had picked up a set of tools more than once, and joined his engineers in whatever task they were completing, though it was an open question as to whether his efforts had been of any help. Barron’s lack of engineering skill had become the joke of
the section, but the men and women there had come to love their captain.

  They had all been surprised when they got the word Dauntless was headed to Archellia, but none more than Lieutenant Sam Carson, engineer and native Archellian. Carson had only been with Dauntless for five months, but he liked to think he’d made many friends among the rest of the crew. He’d been the victim of a few practical jokes when he’d first arrived, a fate his earnestness had made inevitable. But he’d taken it well, and within a few weeks he was knit into the fabric of Dauntless’ engineering team as though he’d been there for years.

  The news of Dauntless’s destination had been doubly opportune for him. Carson was not only going home…his wife was pregnant with the couple’s first child. He hadn’t known about it when he’d shipped out to join Dauntless’s crew. Indeed, with the difficulty of communications along the border, he’d only found out a few weeks before Dauntless was ordered off the line. And now the ship was arriving in plenty of time for him to be there for the birth.

  “It’s such an honor to serve with someone so important, isn’t it, guys?” Billings grinned at the half dozen engineers and technicians working alongside Carson. “You’d think having a good pal of the fleet admiral on board would be worth something. Better rations, at least.”

  The group turned and looked over at Carson, spitting out a wave of affirmative responses.

  “I’m going to miss you all, I really am.” Carson smiled broadly, though there was a touch of sadness behind it.

  Dauntless would be on Archellia for a month, perhaps five weeks, depending on how quickly the base’s maintenance team could complete the battleship’s refit. Then she would be on her way, presumably back toward the front, to join one of the battle fleets massing behind the border. But Carson wouldn’t be with her.

  Carson had considered asking for a transfer when he got the news about his wife’s pregnancy, but he’d hesitated, not wanting to desert his new shipmates on the eve of war. But Captain Barron himself had gotten the news and intervened. He’d called Carson to his quarters, told him he was one of the most promising young officers he had ever seen. Then he’d told him there was a posting available at the fleet base on Archellia. He’d offered it to Carson then and there, and Carson had accepted, though not without some sadness about leaving his new comrades so soon.

  “It looks like everyone’s having a grand old time here. Isn’t that nice. Can I assume today’s maintenance roster is complete already?” It was a low-pitched growl, one that would have been gender-indeterminate if everyone on Dauntless didn’t know the roar of the ship’s chief engineer by heart.

  Anya Fritz walked into the center of the main deck, her eyes moving from one of her people to the next, cutting through them like a high-powered laser. Fritz was an engineer, but as far as her people could tell she was nothing less than a sorceress, wielding some kind of black magic to pull shattered systems back from the brink, to coax a few more megawatts from a dying reactor. Her skills were renowned across the fleet, and most of her team suspected it was the Barron mojo that had secured her transfer along with the captain.

  They were glad to have her skills aboard, but that didn’t change the fact that she scared the shit out of them all. The captain called her Fritzie, but none of her officers and techs would dare do the same. The very thought was enough to evoke night terrors in a veteran spacer.

  “Sorry, Commander. We…ah…” Billings was staring down from the catwalk, his cockiness gone, struggling for words.

  “I’m sorry, Commander.” Carson flashed a glance up at Billings and then back toward Fritz. “We were talking about my transfer. It won’t happen again. We’re actually in good shape on the repair manifests. We’ll be done before the ship docks.”

  Fritz sighed, her eyes focused on Carson. Then she shocked them all. She smiled. “Don’t worry about it.” She glanced around the room, throwing a quick frown up toward Billings. “Just finish up…and then we can give Lieutenant Carson here the sendoff he deserves. And I’ve got a bottle of twenty-year old bourbon to get us started.”

  She turned and took a few steps toward the exit. Then she stopped and looked back. “I’m going to miss you, Sam. Just like everybody else.”

  Chapter Five

  Victorum, Alliance Capital City

  Astara II, Palatia

  Year 58 (307 AC)

  “Commander-Maximus, you sent for me?” Kat stood at the open door, peering into the palatial office.

  “Kat! Come in. Please, have a seat.” The officer sitting behind the massive desk stood up as he spoke. He was a large man, tall and muscular, and his face was scarred and hard-looking. But now he smiled, and his voice was almost soft, affectionate. “And, please, none of this Commander-Maximus nonsense. Not when it’s just the two of us. I remember when you used to sit on my lap and call me Uncle Taks.”

  Commander-Maximus Tarkus Vennius was a man to be reckoned with, one few ship commanders would dare to address with anything but the gravest formality. But Katrine was the daughter of Lucius Rigellus…and Lucius Rigellus had been Vennius’s best friend since childhood. The two boys, later men, had been virtual brothers, through decades of life, war, struggle. They had completed the coming of age Ordeal together, and they had served side by side as they rose through the ranks. Vennius had practically adopted Katrine after her father’s death in battle.

  Kat smiled. “That was only because Tarkus was too much of a mouthful for me back then. A breach of protocol, perhaps, but I was only three.” She walked up toward the desk, a tentative smile slipping onto her lips. “Still, it’s a bit unseemly for a lowly ship commander to address a Commander-Maximus in such a familiar way, wouldn’t you say, Uncle Taks?”

  Kat had been troubled since she had returned from the front lines, but her spirits lightened now, at least temporarily. The Commander-Maximus was widely feared by the officers under his command, especially those who had seen him on one of his tirades, but she had long thought of Tarkus as a second father. She loved the gruff old man, and she knew he loved her.

  Vennius gestured toward one of the guest chairs. “Sit, Kat. Be comfortable…and humor an old man who has far too few joys in life.” He paused until she had taken the seat, then he dropped back into his own chair. “And I wouldn’t call you a lowly ship commander, certainly not after your exploits in the last war. I can’t walk down the Via Magnus without seeing your image hanging from a building in ten meters of Gybilian silk.”

  The recent battles had won the Alliance six of the Unaligned Systems, worlds that had now surrendered, taken their place among the other conquered planets that formed the Alliance. They brought their industry with them, and millions of their former citizens, new Plebs to feed the endless war machine. It was the Alliance’s way, to conquer or die. And it was the lot of the subjugated to become part of that apparatus, to spend their lives hard at work in the mines and factories, producing ships and weapons under the watchful eyes of their masters. Indeed, the Alliance’s flag was emblazoned with its mantra, Vae Victis. Woe to the defeated. And the Patricians and Citizens of the Alliance—and the Probationary-Aspirants who served under them—took it to heart.

  It was a hard way, a life dedicated to duty, to strength…but it had seen the Alliance grow from the seed of a single world, poor and subjugated by offworld conquerors, to a proud interstellar nation of thirty systems in less than sixty years. There were Alliance citizens still alive with living memory of servitude, and as a people they had sworn a collective oath. Never again.

  Katrine nodded slightly, but the smile died from her lips. The recent war had been as successful as any of those that preceded it, perhaps more so. The losses had been terrible, especially among the fleet and ground units that had fought the final campaign to take Heliopolis. The planet had been the strongest of the Unaligned Systems fighting the Alliance, and the most technologically advanced. The captured technology would be as valuable as the planet’s considerable resources and industry, though much of value—inclu
ding the secrets of the great pulsar weapon—had been destroyed in the conquest. The weapon’s inventor had been onboard his creation, and Kat’s people had blown him to atoms along with the gun itself.

  At least the fall of Heliopolis had broken the will of the other worlds, ending the war in one bloody stroke.

  “There were many heroes in the campaign, Uncle. I fear my contributions have been overstated.”

  Vennius smiled. “Overstated? Nonsense. If anything, you deserve more accolades, though I fear we’ve run out of honors to bestow. I have no doubt, Kat, my dearest…one day they’ll add Magnus to your name. I only hope an old man lives long enough to see it.”

  Only three commanders had been granted the appellation Magnus in the sixty years since Alliance forces had burst forth from their homeworld. It was an honor beyond honors, and even the imperatrix would bow before one who held it.

  Kat shook her head. “You’re far too kind, Uncle. I do only as duty demands.”

  “So do all, at least they pretend to do so. Yet few have achieved what you have, despite duty and effort.” A hint of sadness slipped into his voice. “Your father would have been proud of you, Kat. Proud to bursting.”

  “It is kind of you to say so, Uncle…and yet I find that as time presses on, I remember less and less of father. Indeed, most of what I know of him is from retellings, not from time I spent with him. In that regard, all I have are vague recollections. There is a lake on the estate, inland from the coast, up in the mountains, pure, cold. We used to go there when he was home on leave. I remember swimming in the early mornings, the sun just rising over the western peaks, the water so cold it nearly took my breath away. It is a pleasant memory, but it seems all too little when so much else is gone.”

  “I have many memories of your father as well, Katrine. There has been no one I called brother with more sincerity than your father, though we shared neither mother nor father. To this day I’m grateful to have had such a friend for much of my life.”