by Jay Allan
Sam Taggart was clearly the kind of officer Barron had helped to create. He’d guessed that when he’d placed her in command of Constellation with by an order that was not entirely legal. But he hadn’t been sure. Not until he’d seen her in action.
Not until he’d had the chance to sit on the superbattleship’s bridge and watch her tear into the Highborn.
He flinched as a pair of Highborn beams ripped by the ship, and he found that he was holding his breath. He exhaled hard as he realized, and he stared silently at the officers all around him, scared almost certainly, but also totally focused on the battle. Constellation’s evasive maneuvers had spared it from hits by either beam. Holsten didn’t want to think about how close those shots had come, but he’d have bet half his fortune they’d been inside three hundred meters, and maybe a damned sight closer than that.
“They’re running, Mr. Holsten.”
Holsten had just begun to realize the Highborn ships were decelerating when Taggart’s report firmed up his realization. For an instant, he wasn’t sure what to do. Then, he realized, she was waiting for instructions from him.
He wasn’t a naval officer. He wasn’t even in the chain of command. But he’d almost singlehandedly assembled Simpson’s fleet and pulled Constellation from the shipyard, placing Taggart in the captain’s chair. Colin Simpson would command the fleet and Grimaldi, and Taggart would continue to skipper Constellation. But he suddenly realized that both of them were going to look to him for guidance, and the idea hit him like an avalanche. He felt the urge to send for Tyler Barron, or for Clint Winters, but as dire as things were rapidly becoming on the old Union front, he still believed the bulk of the enemy forces, and the decisive battle, would come out in Hegemony space.
And that left him in charge, if not in official command.
“Shall we pursue?” He could hear the predator’s snark in Taggart’s question. He wasn’t sure she thought chasing the enemy was the right tactical call, but he didn’t have any doubt what she wanted to do.
“No, Captain…if they’re going to pull back, let them do it. They’ll come and give us a fight soon enough…let’s go and get ready for it. We’ve lost enough ships here.” He could see the damage Simpson’s fleet had suffered, though he imagined the enemy’s withdrawal might give the commodore a chance to save his cripples.
To save the lives of the spacers on those ships.
Holsten wanted that because he’d come to respect and feel for the Confederation’s naval crews in a way he once couldn’t have imagined.
He also wanted it because he knew Simpson would need those ships and spacers at Grimaldi, every one of them. If those men and women were going to die, better it happen in that great fight, the effort to hold the line and protect the heart of the Confederation.
Chapter Six
Forward Base Striker
Vasa Denaris System
Year 328 AC (After the Cataclysm)
“What can we spare? That’s the real question. We’re going to be hard pressed here when the Highborn come, I think we all agree on that. And I doubt anyone here thinks it will be long before they do come. But if Gaston Villieneuve and his new allies overrun Grimaldi, it won’t matter whether we hold here or not. Almost eighty percent of our supplies are coming from the Confederation and the Alliance…and every bit of that will be cut off if the enemy take Grimaldi and move to cut off Dannith and the other frontier ports. Worse, if they’re able to hit the Core and the Iron Belt, we’ll lose the actual production facilities. Our ability to sustain the war effort will be irreparably crippled.” Tyler Barron sat at the head of the large table in Striker’s main conference room. He was speaking to the officers gathered there, a dozen and a half of the top commanders of the Pact powers, trying to be as even handed as he could be. He knew full well, the new threat of an enemy invasion across the Union border was of greater immediate concern to his own people than it was to those from the Hegemony. His former enemies, now turned allies, had seen half their nation occupied, including Calpharon, their capital. If Striker fell, most of the rest of their nation would soon follow. But Barron couldn’t just ignore the threat to the heart of the Confederation.
More than that, he couldn’t completely banish the distraction struggling to pull him from his work. He had the small screen on the table in front of him angled so no one else could see it…at least he thought no one could. It didn’t display fleet manifests of supply figures, or maps of the systems affected by the Union-Highborn offensive. No, it was focused on one small icon, in the very system where Striker was located, the image of a single ship, moving steadily away from the fortress toward one of the transit points.
Pegasus.
Andi was gone…again. She had to go, even Tyler couldn’t argue otherwise this time, but that didn’t dull the pain, or the worry. They’d said their goodbyes just before she’d boarded her trusty old ship, hours after they’d sent Cassie back to Megara, in the care of Lita Mareth and through a wall of sadness that possessed almost physical dimension. Their last night together as a family had been spoiled by the emergency communique that confirmed the threat of invasion from the Union had become an actual attack. Barron had spent most of the night trying to decide what to do, how to aid in the vital defense of Fortress Grimaldi…even as he realized any help he diverted from his own forces would arrive far too late to intervene in what seemed like an impending battle.
And Andi had decided to leave even sooner than she’d planned, right after she’d seen Cassie safely off in the care of her trusted nanny…and the squad of Marines Tyler had sent to guard the child wherever she was. Tyler Barron was surrounded by comrades, officers, spacers, Marines…hundreds of thousands of men and women looking to him every moment, following his orders with fanatical devotion.
But in a way that cut deep to his core, he was alone.
“We can’t spare anything, Tyler. You know that.” Barron had expected resistance to the diversion of forces from Chronos and Akella and the other Hegemony leaders, but Clint Winters’s words startled him. Winters was a Confed officer, even as he was…and it was his home being threatened as much as it was Tyler’s.
“If Grimaldi falls, they could cut us off out here, Clint. They could hit the Iron Belt, or even Megara.” Where I sent Cassie so she could be safe…
“I know that. But those systems are all heavily fortified. They can hold out for a time, even against a heavy attack. If we can’t hold here, what happens? We lose the rest of the Hegemony…and we get pushed back, probably all the way to Dannith, almost back to Grimaldi itself. Anything we send now is going to get there after the fight happens there…and that means those ships will be in the middle of the Badlands when the decisive action takes place, not contributing to either desperate struggle. They’ll reach a Grimaldi that managed to hold out, or a system occupied by the enemy. Either way, they’ll accomplish nothing. If we keep everything we’ve got here, at least we know it will be part of the fight. If we can repel the enemy attack at Striker, and it looks like the Union threat in Confederation space is a prolonged one, we can revisit this, mount a proper relief expedition…and take back Grimaldi if the bastards managed to seize it.”
Barron wanted to argue, mostly because he understood just how crucial Grimaldi was, and just how soft the Confederation’s underbelly would be to an invading fleet if the great fortress fell. Nearly a century of war with the Union had centered on Grimaldi and a small string of fortified stations in adjacent systems, and it had never fallen, not in any meaningful way. If that line was truly pierced, the Highborn would have helped the Union do what they had never managed in four different wars…slicing past the Confederation’s belt of defenses and into the heart of its primary systems. That had only happened once in Confederation history, when the Hegemony had invaded. That had resulted in the conquest and occupation of Megara itself, and brought the Confederation to the brink of utter defeat.
That could never be allowed to happen again.
Barron was far
from satisfied with his friend’s assertions, but he knew Winters was right. There was nothing he could do to aid the defense of Grimaldi, not in time. Even trying would reduce his strength at Striker, creating weakness for no offsetting gain.
But how could he leave the few remaining defenders back home to their own devices, especially after he’d stripped the Confederation of almost every military asset that could make it out to Hegemony space?
“I feel your pain, my brother. Indeed, I share it. If the enemy is able to reach the Confederation’s Core, there is little to stop them from advancing to Palatia itself. But we must fight where we can truly defeat our enemy, and that is here.” Vian Tulus was the last one Barron had expected to argue against moving assets back to defend home space. Protecting the capital world was almost a religion to Alliance warriors. They all swore to sacrifice anything to ensure their homeworld was never again enslaved…which is exactly what would happen if the enemy overran the Rim. But Tulus was resolute, and Barron saw not the slightest hint of doubt in his eyes.
“You are our leader, Tyler…in every way that matters. This must be your decision. If you feel the correct move is to dispatch a contingent back to defend Confederation space, then you must do it…and we here, will have to find a way to endure with less.”
Barron had still been looking over at Tulus when Akella spoke. He turned toward the Hegemony leader, and even as he was trying to process what she had said, he saw Chronos sitting next to her, nodding.
The Hegemony leaders, who stood to lose everything if the fight to hold Striker failed, were advising him to consider weakening the forces defending the fortress…and Vian Tulus, with a spiritual imperative to hold Palatia at all costs was recommending against sending forces back to the Rim. It took him by surprise, and for a moment, he just sat quietly, as comprehension slowly did its work.
He understood what it really meant, beyond specific strategic opinions. Whatever their pasts, as strangers, even as enemies, the nations of the Pact had become one unit, its members, the leaders he was fortunate enough to have at his side, forged in the fire, together for one purpose. To defeat the Highborn.
Akella was prepared to lose the rest of the Hegemony if that was the best course for the war to continue. Tulus would leave Palatia naked and unprotected…to commit his ships and warriors to the main fight. Wherever Tyler Barron decreed that struggle would take place. The weight of responsibility was almost unbearable, and he struggled to bear it. He wanted to run, to leave someone else to fill his shoes, but he knew that was one thing he could never do. His long-dead grandfather, the spacers lost in his many campaigns, even his daughter, so recently sent away from Striker…their eyes all stared back at him from the darkness of his mind, encouraging him, making any retreat from his duty unthinkable.
He didn’t know how he could find the strength he would need. He was devastated at Andi’s departure, and terrified about what would happen to her. He missed his daughter, only hours gone from Striker, with a pain that ate through his soul. His cold, realistic view told him his forces would be outmatched, that he didn’t know how to achieve the victory his allies needed, the one they were counting on him to lead them to.
But he felt something else, not quite hope perhaps, but something like it. The Confederation, the Alliance, and the Hegemony were allied as one, the greatest concentration of power and force since the old empire fell. It was almost time to truly put the war machine he had forged to the test. He dreaded the losses, the death, the suffering…but perhaps, just perhaps, if the assembled warriors—his warriors now, all of them—could prevail, they could win the peace they all craved. They could preserve their freedom and defeat a race of would-be gods who would enslave them.
Barron didn’t want to die, and he didn’t want his spacers to die. But if there was a cause worth that kind of sacrifice, this was it. This fight was for nothing less than the future.
He knew what he had to do.
“No ships to the Rim. Not now. That is just what the enemy wants.” Barron knew his conclusion was nothing more than a wager, a bet that the Highborn-Union attack on the Confederation was a diversion, an attempt to convince him to weaken his position at Striker.
He couldn’t be sure of course, but if that had been the enemy’s plan, it had some a hair’s breadth from achieving just that purpose.
But Barron had fought many wars, led invasions, and defended against them, and he’d learned to trust his gut. He was about to bet the future of the Rim, of all free humanity, that the Highborn hadn’t been able to get enough force all the way around the Badlands to sustain a full scale invasion. They might even take out Grimaldi, but it would take a lot of ships to press home with a full-scale invasion.
If he was wrong, Dannith, Megara, the Iron Belt, could all be lost.
And Cassie is on the way back to Megara…
“We stand here…and we hold. At all costs.” The last words came out in a tone so bone-chillingly cold they seemed almost to freeze in the air before him.
“Yes, my brother, we hold. At all costs.” Tulus was the first to repeat Barron’s declaration, and he stood up as he did.
“At all costs.” Clint ‘The Sledgehammer’ Winters was next, and he jumped up to his fleet and challenged Barron for the deepest and coldest tone.
“At all costs.” Akella was next, and Chronos after her, and then one by one, all present stood and repeated Barron’s words, their tones reverent, like a series of sacred oaths.
The Pact was going to fight it out at Striker…and they were going to hold.
They were going to hold, or they were going to die. All of them.
* * *
“Andi, everything checks out. All systems look…” Vig’s voice trailed off to silence. He paused for a few seconds, and then he asked, “Are you okay, Andi?”
Andi Lafarge was staring out of the small lower deck window, her eyes fixed on the blackness of space. She could see Vasa Denaris, the system’s sun, but Striker, even the large planet it orbited, were invisible to the naked eye.
But Andi saw it nevertheless, in her thoughts if not with her eyes, and she found it hard to look away. Tyler was there, on that massive fortress Pegasus had just left behind. Cassie wasn’t on Striker anymore, she was even farther away. Andi and Tyler had sent their daughter, along with Akella’s children, back to the Confederation.
The Confederation that was itself now under direct attack. Andi wanted desperately to believe her daughter would be safe, but she knew very well that all of their lives depended on defeating the Highborn. That was why she was where she was, why she had done something that had taken every bit of her strength and resolve. She had left Tyler again, entrusted her child to Lita Mareth’s care…and she was leading her small crew once again into the endless void.
She sniffled, as softly as she could, trying to brush her sleeve across her face as nonchalantly as she could as she turned. She had changed in many ways, but there was enough of the old Andi Lafarge to compel her to at least try to keep anyone from seeing her cry.
“That’s good, Vig…not really a surprise, considering.” Anya Fritz had arrived at Striker along with the first antimatter shipments from the Confederation. Andi considered the engineer one of her closest friends, and Fritz had insisted on checking Pegasus out from bow to stern as soon as she heard Andi was leaving. She’d even beat Andi to asking her to do just that, and perhaps more amazingly, she also beat Tyler to it.
“We’re going to find it this time, Andi.”
Andi couldn’t tell if Vig really believed that, or if he was just telling her what she wanted to hear. They were following good data, she was confident of that at least. If this had been one of her normal runs back in the day, she would have been optimistic. But the future of everyone and everything she cared about rode on this voyage, and even if she did manage to succeed, if she didn’t get back soon enough, if Tyler and the fleet were attacked and defeated before she returned, it would be too late, even if she found what she was seeki
ng.
“We’ll find the planet, at least.” Andi didn’t have an exact location, but she had enough navigational data to narrow it down, and she had faith in her ability to sniff out a destination. She still had her Badlands prospector’s nose, and she was damned sure going to use it. But what would she find when she tracked down the planet? Would there be defenses? Would there be enough clues to lead her to what she sought? Planets were extremely large, and it could take years to search one systematically.
That assumed anything had survived the past three and a half centuries. The Cataclysm had left unimaginable devastation in its wake. Even the current civilizations on the Rim had crawled from the ruins. The information she wanted might have been destroyed by imperial fleet units three hundred years before…or by Badlands prospectors much more recently. She, herself, had been at Aquellus, when every installation on that planet had been vaporized by a massive antimatter explosion, one triggered not by old imperial defenses but by Union Sector Nine operatives. As far as she knew, the world she was seeking was the only other place with the data she needed, the twin of the facility on Aquellus. If it had suffered a similar fate that water world, all her efforts, the risks she taken, the Marines who had died on Pintarus…it would all have been for nothing.
“I think you should get some rest, Andi. You’ll want to be sharp when we get to the Badlands.”
Andi just nodded, though she had no intention of taking Vig’s advice. She had work to do, and she could start by going over the navigation information…again. The closer she could get her approach, the more systems she could eliminate from consideration, the faster she could do what she had come to do.
There wasn’t going to be much rest, not for a long while.
Chapter Seven
UWS Casaleon