Duel in the Dark: Blood on the Stars I

by Jay Allan

  Kyle…

  Kyle “Thunder” Jamison was more than just Dauntless’s strike force commander, and Stockton’s immediate superior officer. He was Stockton’s closest friend, even a brother. And his maneuver would leave Jamison alone with half a dozen raw pilots facing the brunt of the enemy attack.

  He felt the temptation to cancel his orders, to come around and head toward the center, to come to Green squadron’s rescue. But he pushed it aside. The twenty-four fighters to the enemy rear could inflict enormous damage on Dauntless. And if there was one bit of training, of mantra, driven into every pilot’s head, it was that the mothership comes first. If he pressed on, maybe—just maybe—he could hurt the enemy force before it had a chance to hit Dauntless.

  Thunder can take care of himself…

  He wanted to believe it, he tried to make himself believe it. But he was plagued with doubts. The only thing that drove him on was the sound of Jamison’s voice, urging him to do his duty, to focus on what had to be done. No matter what the cost.

  He pulled the throttle, feeling the impact as he blasted forward at full acceleration. He was burning half his fuel, he knew that. But the sight of those laden-down fighters was impossible to ignore.

  Lined up like just so many sheep…

  * * *

  “Optiomagis, we’ve pushed through the center. We’ve knocked out seven fighters from the central squadron, and the rest are scattered.”

  “Very well, Optiominus. Continue to engage. Do not allow the enemy to reform.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Junus knew his orders fell squarely into the category, “easier said than done.” It seemed clear the Confeds had positioned their weakest pilots in the center, but now that they had broken, chasing them down would obliterate his own formation.

  And that squadron on the flank is good. Too good…

  He cursed himself for not outfitting more of his birds for anti-fighter operations. Commander Rigellus would have listened to him, he was sure, if he’d urged a pure interception strike…or the commitment of Invictus’s sixth and last squadron. But arrogance had reared its ugly head. He’d been sure he could defeat anything the Confeds threw at him with three squadrons, but now doubts were eating away at his certainty. And even if he could prevail, the losses were going to be…

  He thought about ordering a withdrawal, but every bit of his training rebelled against the idea. Alliance forces did not run.

  But they do retreat when it makes tactical sense…or at least they can.

  He knew few Alliance commanders were willing to risk the dishonor of fleeing from an enemy, no matter how much it was tactically the right thing to do.

  No, we’ve shed too much blood to come away with nothing. It’s time. The best time we’re going to get, at least.

  “Black Fist and Hydra Squadrons…full thrust now. Vector directly toward enemy capital ship. All other squadrons, protect the flanks of the attack force. Keep the enemy fighters from breaking off and pursuing. At all costs.”

  Losses had been heavier than he’d expected, and now he was doubling down. It was all or nothing. If Black Fist and Hydra could do enough damage to the enemy vessel, the casualties wouldn’t matter. Invictus would finish things. And the Confeds were losing as many birds as he was. Two crippled strike forces canceled each other out.

  Still, his mind drifted back to Invictus’s sixth squadron. He’d left the Gleaming Shields behind, committed to combat space patrol duties. It was standard procedure, but now he wondered if he’d made a grave error, if those twelve fighters would have been the weight that shifted things to total victory.

  There was no point in debating such things now. The Gleaming Shields were too far away to intervene, even if Commander Rigellus would be willing to release them. He had what he had…and he’d just doubled down.

  Once thing he knew for sure. He needed every fighter in the mix. Every fighter.

  He gripped his ship’s controls, angling the vessel toward the center of the melee. Then he pulled back, fired his engines at full thrust. It was time to finish this.

  One way or another.

  * * *

  “Green squadron reports heavy losses, sir. Casualties in excess of fifty percent.”

  Barron heard the words, but his mind blunted the true meaning. There was no point in beating himself up over the deaths of so many pilots. Not now. There would be time for that later, when the battle was won. And if it was lost, Barron would likely join them in death. The only reward for such a disastrous outcome would be to escape the doubts and recriminations.

  He’d almost held the raw Greens back, but there had just been too many enemy fighters inbound, and he’d needed their numbers…especially with the Reds all the way over at Santis, too far away to intervene in time.

  If we had Federov’s people here…

  “Very well, Commander.” Barron almost didn’t answer at all. He probably wouldn’t have if it had been anyone else but Commander Travis. But he knew she was mourning the lost pilots as much as he was.

  “Commander Jamison reports the remainder of Green squadron is hopelessly scattered. Two enemy squadrons equipped for anti-ship strikes are moving through the gap.”

  Barron just sat in his chair, staring across the bridge at Dauntless’s exec. He felt the urge to answer, to react to the report, somehow. But the crew was already at battlestations, all weapons manned and ready. There was nothing to do but wait.

  Finally, he said, “Put estimated time to combat range on the display, Commander.” Then, a few seconds later, “All crew are to take a course of stims five minutes before contact.”

  “Yes, Captain.” Travis’ hands moved over her workstation. “Forty-one minutes until fighter strike enters firing range.”

  “Time until Red squadron arrives?”

  “Twenty-nine minutes, sir.”

  Barron sighed, trying to keep it as silent as he could manage.

  That’s twelve minutes to refuel and relaunch…not enough.

  He looked over at the display. The data was old, he knew, and somewhat of an estimation. But he saw the situation clearly enough. The enemy force was heading directly for Dauntless. There was a cluster of his fighters hot on their tail, but he couldn’t tell if they would reach the strike force before it was able to launch.

  And if they get in range intact, we’ll never shoot that many birds down quickly enough. They’ll get through the defenses, and…

  He remembered his grandfather’s tales, stories of massive fighter strikes devastating capital ships. He’d taken a grave risk leaving Dauntless with no combat space patrol. That had paid off in terms of the fighter battle still raging. But now the cost of having numbers in the dogfight was coming due.

  He slapped his hand down on the com unit. “Fritzie, I want you to send a team of your best people down to the launch bay alpha immediately. They are to help Chief Evans refit Red squadron.”

  “Captain…yes, sir.” Fritz sounded like she might argue, some version of “my people are engineers, not fighter support techs.” But Barron suspected the seriousness in his voice had deflected any argument.

  “And Fritzie…we need to get the Reds refit and back in the launch bays in about ten minutes, or your people are going to have a shit ton of damage to deal with. I need everything you can spare. I realize that will leave damage control understaffed, at least for a while…but there’s no alternative.”

  “Understood, sir. I’m on it now. Fritz out.”

  * * *

  “Shit.”

  Stockton was cursing to himself. It was pointless, he knew, but he did it anyway.

  “Shit.”

  He stared straight at his display, watching the cloud of dots in front of him heading directly toward Dauntless. He’d taken a gamble, left half his squadron to withstand double their number so he could move against the enemy’s reserve squadrons, the two dozen craft outfitted for attack runs against Dauntless. But the enemy blasted forward before he could engage, escaping from hi
s attack and heading straight through the gap where Green squadron had been. He and four of his pilots were in hot pursuit, straining their engines to the breaking point, trying to catch up before the enemy ships were able to launch their torpedo salvoes.

  His eyes caught movement on the short-ranged display, three small dots, moving toward his small group of fighters.

  His com crackled to life. “Raptor…Thunder here…form up on me. We’ve got to hit those bombers.”

  Stockton allowed himself a little smile, and he felt a small wave of relief. Commander Jamison was alive…and he had two Green squadron pilots with him. Stockton hadn’t been sure any of the inexperienced pilots had survived.

  “Thunder…damn, it’s good to hear your voice.”

  “And yours, Raptor.” Stockton could hear the strain in Jamison’s tone, the exhaustion. And he knew his own rasp couldn’t sound much better. The two were experienced, capable pilots, among the best in the service. But neither had ever been involved in anything like the battle they’d been fighting for the last couple hours…

  “We’ve got to catch those ships, Raptor. I don’t care if we burn our engines to cinders…we’ve got to get there.”

  “I’m with you, Thunder.” Still, Stockton felt strange, wrong somehow. He stared at the screen, at the still-raging battle he and Dauntless’s strike force commander were exiting at full thrust. They were doing their duty, trying to catch the enemy force ahead…but it still felt like running. He hated abandoning the rest of Dauntless’s pilots—including half of his own Blue squadron—but the first rule of the fighter tactics was clear. Protecting the mothership was always the priority. Always. And that was just what they were doing.

  “Thunder, if we force-power our reactors we might be able to catch those birds before they launch.”

  A few seconds of silence passed. Then: “That’s against regs, Raptor. You know that.”

  “Regs? Who cares about regs? We’re out here on the edge of nowhere, on the way to losing half our people. And that tin can is our ticket back home. We’ve got to take out those fighters, at least some of them. It doesn’t matter how good we are if we can’t catch them in time.”

  Stockton could hear his friend’s breathing on the line, but there was no response, not right away. Finally, Jamison said, “Okay, let’s do it, Raptor. All fighters…full force power procedures now.”

  “You’ll have to disable your AIs,” Stockton added, “or the failsafes will stop you.”

  “Yes, Raptor is right. Shut down AI safeties.”

  Stockton took a deep breath. He punched in his override code, disabling the ship’s AI. Then he flipped a pair of switches on the side of his throttle, committing his reserve fuel, and force pumping it into the reactor. It was dangerous, something regulations expressly prohibited, an overload that could easily scrag the reactor…or worse. But it was also good for a ten percent bump in acceleration.

  Fuck regulations. We have to get to those fighters…

  He looked at the display, watched as the AI updated the projections, taking into account the fleeting burst in acceleration. It was going to be close, really close. But they just might get an attack in before the fighters launched. And every bird his people took down was one that couldn’t plant a plasma torpedo into Dauntless’s guts.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  AS Invictus

  In Orbit, Krillus V

  Alliance Year 58 (307 AC)

  “The strike force is approaching the enemy battleship, Commander. They are being pursued by a small number of Confederation fighters. The rest of our squadrons are still engaged with the enemy. The battle is…apparently even, the end result still in doubt.” Invictus’s executive officer was clearly trying to hide the surprise in his voice, with limited success.

  Kat heard Wentus’s words, and she understood his disbelief. The forces engaged in the dogfight were roughly equal in numbers. And Alliance forces didn’t fight to draws, not when they matched their enemies in strength. They had a sixty-year tradition of victory, an imperative to win at all costs. Yet, every report from the battle still in progress suggested a stalemate. At best.

  Her thoughts were elsewhere when Wentus made his report. She had a choice to make, whether to press forward, gamble and take some risks, or stay where she was, exert caution, and wait.

  There was no question what Alliance orthodoxy demanded. She knew where the enemy was, and she had the advantage. It was time to advance, time to go in for the kill. The enemy’s fighters and her own were locked in a struggle to the death, and soon all the engaged forces would have to break off to refuel and rearm. She still had two squadrons moving in against the enemy vessel, and unless that battleship had more fighters in reserve, there was no chance Invictus would face the same kind of attack. Not if she engaged now, before the surviving enemy fighters could land and rearm for anti-ship strikes.

  The way was the way, and its demands were clear. She knew what she had to do. But there were doubts as well. She was beginning to truly respect this enemy commander, seeing in his actions a mirror image of herself. She tried to imagine his responses to her actions. What would he do if Invictus moved forward, closed to firing range? Would he stand and engage? Accelerate and seek to whip by her ship, limiting the immediate combat to a single pass? Or would he withdraw, run?

  And what would her fighter strike accomplish? She wanted to wait, to be sure her squadrons caused enough damage to give her a clear edge in the fight to come. But if she waited, she might allow a wounded enemy to pull back…or to recover and refit its surviving fighters, even launch a desperate attack against Invictus with its rearmed squadrons.

  Kat had never had difficulty making bold decisions before, but now she was torn. She tried to tell herself she was overestimating her opponent, but the doubts remained, nagging at her, even as she made the only choice she could.

  “Prepare for full thrust maneuvering. All personnel to battlestations.”

  “Yes, Commander.” She could hear the enthusiasm in Wentus’s voice, seemingly pushing aside the officer’s earlier hesitancy. She wondered if it was sincere, or if it was nothing more than years of Alliance indoctrination. Ambitious officers did well to act as though they longed to be in battle, that facing and defeating an enemy was life’s greatest pleasure. Kat had long lived that mantra, but now she wondered if there might be more satisfaction in bringing her people home alive, returning them to loved ones.

  She wondered what she truly wanted. More glory, bought at whatever cost in blood? Or to walk the rocky shores of Litora Montis, to hold her children close to her, to see them grow…and to know their mother as more than just a presence that passed in and out of their lives between campaigns. She understood such thoughts were dangerous. The way was the way, and that was all she needed to know, all any Alliance officer needed to know. She remembered her grandmother, the old woman’s remembrances of servitude, the stories Kat had heard about the days before the Rising. Her people were warriors for a reason, because they refused ever to be slaves again. But still, she found herself having to push back against idyllic images of home more and more often.

  She was in battle, and victory here would surely launch her into the lofty ranks of the Alliance’s fleet commanders. Yet she couldn’t push away the thoughts of her son’s hugs, or the feel of her hand slipping through the soft silkiness of her daughter’s blond hair.

  The way is the way…

  She slowly, methodically, forced herself to focus, to set aside the distracting thoughts. Alliance culture said there was no time for such things, but even if there was, it clearly wasn’t now.

  “All personnel at battlestations, Commander. Ready to execute full thrust operations.”

  She’d shaken herself from her brooding, and Wentus’s words finished the job, cleared her mind.

  “Execute,” she said, her voice grim, controlled. The warrior was back in charge, ready to do what had to be done. “Course directly toward the enemy vessel.”

  “Yes,
Commander. Interception course plotted. Engaging thrust now.”

  She took a deep breath, preparing for the force of the engine’s thrust to hit her. It was a reflex by now, an unconscious act. The other thoughts were gone. Whatever questions she might have, or doubts, this was not the time. She was Katrine of the Rigelli, a Patrician, an Alliance warrior, and that was how she would behave. She carried the lives of her people on her every decision, even the future of her nation. And now she would do her duty. She would engage and destroy this Confederation battleship. Then she would hold Santis and its tritium production facilities until the fleet arrived.

  Thus will be the spoils of my victory here. Another war, thousands more dead. Millions.

  The way is the way…

  * * *

  “Captain, Red leader requests permission to land.” Travis sounded edgy, with good reason. Dauntless was facing an imminent attack from the incoming fighters…and scanners had just picked up the mystery vessel, the enemy battleship they had all expected to find but that had been little more than a projection until a few minutes earlier. It was coming right at Dauntless, pushing to reach the Confederation vessel less than thirty minutes after the fighter strike.

  “Permission granted. Advise Lieutenant Federov we are short on time. She is to get her people aboard as quickly as possible.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Barron looked at his screen. Stats were coming in, updating…data on the ship heading directly toward his. It was big, the AI’s best guess at this range was that the enemy vessel outmassed Dauntless by two or three hundred thousand tons. It wasn’t a massive difference, not with four million ton ships. But any chance he was facing a lesser opponent had vaporized. The minimal intelligence he’d seen on the Alliance suggested they were somewhat behind the Confederation in technology, and that their ships were smaller, less powerful. But the vessel heading toward him looked like more than a match for Dauntless.