by Jay Allan
4,000 Kilometers from Fleet Base Grimaldi
Krakus System
Union Year 231 (327 AC)
“I am very grateful, Mr. Holsten. The ships of my…fleet…suffered considerably in our fight at Montmirail, and during our subsequent escape.” Andrei Denisov still had a hard time thinking of his ragtag group of refugees as a fleet. He’d picked up a few more stragglers, and his current OB listed forty-two ships, but only three of those were battleships, and the meager fighter wings his trio of capital ships carried had been badly hurt as well. But there was no question his vessels were a lot closer to battleworthy than they’d been when they had first limped across the border. Holsten had diverted supplies and spare parts, and teams of engineers, to the Free Union forces, even as he’d struggled to prepare Fortress Grimaldi and his own patched together force for the coming fight.
“I wish we had more time, Andrei, but I suspect we don’t. If the enemy gives us another week, we might get you some reinforcements for those squadrons. I’ve got some fresh Lightnings on the way, and about a hundred pilots fresh from the Academy.” Holsten’s voice expressed just how much chance he believed they had of getting that week. Not zero, perhaps, but the damned closest thing to it.
Holsten had come to the rescue of Colin Simpson’s fleet, which had included Denisov’s ships as well, and that intervention had saved a lot of ships from almost certain destruction. Now, the remnants of that force, Denisov’s and Simpson’s ships, plus a few more Holsten had managed to scrape up, were positioned all around Grimaldi. The great fortress had served for nearly eighty years as the linchpin of Confederation defenses against the Union. The last thing anyone present had expected was a renewal of that purpose, but the intervention of the Highborn had changed things enormously. The chance to bring the totalitarian Union into a friendlier status with the Confederation had been shattered by the Highborn reinforcements sent to Gaston Villieneuve. Now, those forces were heading toward Grimaldi…and they would likely arrive at any moment.
“We’re in a good position to fight with the fortress…except for the range of the enemy weapons. If they want to take the time, they can pound us from outside our own range. Grimaldi has some heavy guns that can likely match the Highborn beams…” Denisov paused. He’d been about to say, “I remember those,” but he didn’t think references to old battles fought against his current allies served any useful purpose. “But we might need to advance the fleet units…perhaps to just beyond the minefields. Otherwise, we’ll all end up sitting and watching as the enemy trades fire with the fort.”
“That might make sense. You can discuss it with Commodore Simpson.” Holsten’s tone changed, a bit of gallows humor slipping in. “Remember, I don’t know shit about naval tactics, Andrei. My contribution to this fight was illegally diverting everything I could find with a gun on it. When the enemy comes through the point, it’s your show, and Simpson’s.” A few seconds of silence. “And I’m Gary…please, stop Mr. Holstening me to death, my friend.”
“Very well, Gary.” Denisov felt a grin slip onto his lips. The sense of amusement was a passing one, but it was also welcome. He couldn’t remember the last time he had laughed, or even smiled.
Or had cause to.
His world had become a toxic mix of despair and fear, and the words of a friend were a welcome beam of light in the darkness.
It lasted about thirty seconds.
“Admiral, we’re picking up energy readings at the transit point.” Denisov turned his head abruptly, looking at the display. The smile was gone, and his stomach felt as though a giant hand had clenched all around it. The energy spike could be a number of things, but he didn’t have the slightest doubt about the actual cause.
“Gary…”
The response came through the comm before he could get any farther. “We’re reading it here, too, Andrei. Good luck to you, my friend. To all of us.”
The line went dead, and Andrei Denisov took a deep breath, and then he began snapping out orders to his officers.
* * *
“Take her to the shuttle, Gaston. We’ll want her launched as soon as the fleet has completed the jump.” Percelax looked over at Villieneuve. The Union dictator was far more agreeable since his Collar had been installed. Percelax had understood Tesserax’s directive during the time it had taken to secure control of the Union, and he’d even agreed it had been wise to wait to encollar the Union leader until the civil war was finished. But that hadn’t made it easy to put up with Villieneuve’s arrogance. It had taken considerable control for the Highborn commander to put up with such insufferable insolence from a mere human.
The entire effort had been a stunning success, however, and with only a small force, Percelax had managed to take control of the entire Union. Now, he had opened a new front against the Confederation, thirty transits behind the main battle lines.
The coming fight would be a difficult one, his own small force against whatever amalgam of vessels the Confeds had managed to throw together. But even if he was unable to destroy the great fortress and press forward into the heart of the Confederation, he could still achieve success. The attack was only a diversion, an attempt to draw forces from the main human positions before Tesserax launched the final assault there. Attack Plan Alpha had been carefully developed, and Percelax’s primary part was to instill fear in the enemy, play havoc on their dispositions. Every ship diverted to the new front was one less component of force available to stand against Tesserax’s fleet. Every supply convoy that went to Grimaldi instead of Striker aided the war effort.
But Percelax had his own plans. His attack would serve its stated purpose, simply through its existence. But he wasn’t going to fight the battle like a diversionary force. He was going to hit the humans with everything he had. He couldn’t be sure when he might receive reinforcements, though he suspected with the end of the civil hostilities, at least the Union shipyards would resume operations soon enough. That would add some forces to his fleet, even if additional Highborn forces were delayed or redirected.
If he could break through, if he could destroy the desperate defensive line the Confed had managed to assemble, he could shatter the enemy’s morale, perhaps with even greater effect than Tesserax taking base Striker. If he could win without taking too many losses, he could then move on any number of vital, and undefended, targets. The credit for pacifying the humans would go mostly to Tesserax, of course. He was the viceroy, and the overall commander—and highly placed among the Firstborn as well. But Percelax could ensure his own advancement, and his position in the Highborn command structure, with peripheral glory of his own. If he could defeat the humans at their Grimaldi base, terrify their political leaders, even move on their central worlds, he would gain his own share of the rewards.
He had another plan as well, one he considered a bit of a wildcard, but intriguing in its possibilities.
“The shuttle will launch at the designated time, Gaston. See that the pursuit, and the firing plan, is carried out exactly as specified.”
“Yes, Highborn.” The respect in Villieneuve’s voice was appealing to Percelax. The humility, the recognition that he was but a mere human addressing one of the gods, was a major improvement from his pre-Collar demeanor. Villieneuve was just as imperious with his own subordinates, of course, and that suited Percelax very well. He didn’t care at all about the lower echelon humans. He needed the best the Union forces could give, and while he might have imagined different kinds of motivations stronger than the raw political terror that drove Union spacers, there certainly wasn’t time to change anything before the battle. He had only had a few Collars, and it would likely be years before he could obtain anywhere near the number he would need for the Union fleet personnel. That left him little choice but to rely on their fear of Gaston Villieneuve. He’d gone so far as to instruct Villieneuve not to address him as ‘Highborn’ in the presence of others. The continued illusion of the dictator’s independence and senior position in the new coalition was
useful, and as much as Percelax would enjoy making Villieneuve crawl before him in front of his subordinates, it would have to wait until after the battle.
“I will be leaving here in a few moments, Gaston, and returning to my flagship. I am relying on you to execute the plan in my absence.” Percelax wondered if he wouldn’t be better off staying until the shuttle had launched, but a Union warship filled with uncollared humans wasn’t a place he wanted to be during the coming battle.
“You can rely on me, Highborn. I will see it done.”
Percelax turned toward the woman standing silently against the opposite wall. Sandrine Ciara was docile and obedient, so much more agreeable than she had been. She owed Percelax a great debt. The Highborn didn’t know, or much care, about the specifics of Union torture methods, but he suspected he had saved the defeated Ciara from a horrific and slow death. Now she would do as he wished, but not out of gratitude. Ciara was the first recipient of the experimental second generation Collar, a much small version of the device, designed to elude detection.
It had still been in first stage testing, but he’d requested a prototype before he’d left for the Union. He’d been told to expect a forty percent chance of a fatal reaction to the still-experimental device, but he’d had no other use for Ciara, so he’d made that bet…and it had paid off.
Sandrine Ciara would escape from the fleet, and she would go to the Confeds, beg for sanctuary. He found it difficult to imagine the humans would stupid enough to take her in. She had no apparent usefulness now that her bid for power had been crushed. But his analysis of human thought told him there was roughly a fifty percent chance Ciara would not only be granted some type of sanctuary, but she would manage to get to a place where she could cause disruption and damage to the Confeds…eventually. That was a gamble worth taking, especially when all he was risking was an otherwise worthless human and one brand new Collar.
“See to it, Gaston…and see that your fleet performs well. The enemy has a small force, but the fortress is a substantial construct, and per your records, the weapons of its main batteries are close to matching even those of our Highborn vessels in range. It is time for the vengeance you have so long sought, Gaston. I want you close to Admiral Fierra at all times. Allow him to direct the fleet’s attack tactically, but he is not to communicate with the enemy under any circumstances. Is that understood?” Ideally, Fierra would have been encollared as well, but Percelax had an extreme shortage of the precious devices, and he’d been compelled to use them all to ensure the Union authorities he’d left behind would remain loyal. He’d had only the one unit he’d used on Ciara…and he’d considered Admiral Fierra far too vital to the coming attack to risk his life needlessly on untested hardware.
“As you command, Highborn.”
Percelax turned and walked slowly away, smiling at Villieneuve’s pleasantly obsequious demeanor as he headed down the corridor toward his shuttle.
* * *
“All units, prepare to advance on my command. We’re going to push forward at one ten percent. All engineering teams on full alert.” Simpson sat on Vandengraf’s bridge, staring forward at the main display. Sam Taggart had offered him Constellation as a flagship, but he’d declined. He had a superstitious streak he’d never been able to shake, a common enough trait among spacers, and Vandengraf had gotten him back from Outpost Twelve. Abandoning the trusty ship didn’t seem quite right. Constellation was by far the most powerful unit in the fleet, save only for Grimaldi itself, but Sam Taggart had handled her vessel well, and he didn’t think she needed the fleet commander breathing down her neck.
“All ships acknowledge, Commodore. The fleet is waiting for your signal.” Simpson was still trying to get used to having Larson Jaymes relaying his commands. Simpson had never been the sort to take on ‘projects’ or to make himself a mentor to those in need, but something told him Jaymes deserved a second chance. The ill-fated commander of Outpost Twelve had acquitted himself flawlessly in that hopeless battle, and while his career reverses had been self-inflicted, he seemed committed to redemption.
Simpson’s eyes flashed across the bridge to another station. Antonio Graves was still his senior aide as far as he was concerned, despite the fact that Jaymes had about six month’s seniority. He had decided to give Simpson his second chance, but he’d also instructed Graves to watch his counterpart like a hawk, and to take over if he deemed it necessary.
Simpson took a deep breath and leaned back. He felt the urge to call someone, to report his intentions. But Gary Holsten wasn’t a naval officer, a fact the spymaster had made abundantly clear when he’d confirmed in no uncertain terms that Simpson was in sole and uncontested command of the entire operation…the fleet, Grimaldi, everything.
He can tell me that, but I’m not sure he has the authority to put me in command. That wasn’t terribly relevant, of course. With his—equally quasi-legal—promotion to commodore, Simpson was the highest-ranking officer on the scene. Grimaldi rated a single star flag officer in command, but it had been some years since any commodore had sat in the fortress’s command center. The onetime vortex of Confederation military activity had endured a decade of irrelevance, during which it had lost some of its squadrons, most of its veteran crew, and become a lower level command assignment.
It had also slipped to a much lower priority level for updates and repairs. Simpson wouldn’t say the fortress was obsolete, and its main guns had been replaced three years before—thank God!—but despite its size, it had become, in many ways, a second-class facility.
Perfect for a second-class commander, a glorified ship captain with a questionable set of stars on his shoulders and a damned near impossible task…
A single mission. To stop the enemy invasion of the Confederation.
Simpson had been nearly frantic in his quarters when he’d first gotten the alert. But he quickly pulled himself together. He wasn’t sure if he’d truly gotten hold of himself, or in some grim and morose fashion, he’d simply accepted his fate. Then he decided it didn’t matter. He had enough to think about with the battle about to begin, and his mind grasped for inspiration, for ideas. He’d been halfway to the bridge when it had come to him.
He couldn’t move his ships forward too soon. If he did that, the enemy would halt outside his range and blast his entire fleet to scrap. He needed Grimaldi’s longer-ranged guns to counter the Highborn weaponry. But if he stayed where he was, lined up around the fort, the enemy would form a line and engage in a duel with Grimaldi, while his ships sat useless and out of range.
He couldn’t allow that. The only chance his people had was to hit the enemy hard, with everything they had at the same time. Everything. And that meant driving his ships forward, just as the enemy moved into range. It would be costly, dangerous, but the fleet would be moving just as the enemy was engaging a fresh Grimaldi. By the time the fortress started taking serious damage, his line would be in range…and every ship he had would open up.
There was no elegance to his plan, at least not past the attempt to convince the enemy his fleet would remain in line in front of the fort…until every ship made a mad dash forward. Then it would be a toe to toe slugfest, a vicious brawl…and he’d given one further fleetwide order that would be difficult for some ships to obey.
Every ship was to target the Highborn. The Union fleet was far from inconsequential, but without their far more advanced allies, Simpson knew they could never mount a real invasion of the Confederation. They might even take Grimaldi, destroy the great fortress, a goal that had eluded them for three-quarters of a century. They might annihilate his fleet. But they would never get through with a force powerful enough to advance much farther.
And preventing an invasion, stopping the enemy in or near the Krakus system, would be a victory…even if it cost every ship he had, and Fortress Grimaldi.
Survival would be nice, a pleasant outcome of the battle. But stopping the enemy, gutting their forces enough so they couldn’t press forward, was all that really
mattered.
Chapter Eight
Free Trader Pegasus
Alfaris Bootes System
Year 328 AC (After the Cataclysm)
“No, I don’t think so. Beta Zonaris has the right number of planets, but the orbital data is off…by a lot. I know we can’t be sure everything we’ve got is entirely accurate, but there are too many inconsistencies there. Let’s drop it from the list.” Andi knew she was moving a bit quickly in eliminating possible systems from the shrinking number she considered possible destinations. The data from the imperial capital had been hastily assembled from the spotty information that had remained after the old intelligence headquarters building had collapsed, and the corresponding data on Badlands systems was even worse, mostly drawn from an informal database that had been updated and shared by the loose brotherhood of Badland prospectors. Andi could get defensive in her own right when anyone denigrated her former profession, but that didn’t stop her from acknowledging that a lot of her peers had been little more than liars and pirates.
A lot of them.
“I agree, Andi. I wouldn’t say it’s a hundred percent, but probably ninety-five. Given our time constraints, I think we need to focus on higher probability prospects.”
Andi looked up from the flat screen on the table and glanced over at Vig. She had a tendency to take things on herself, to assume no one could do a better job—or one nearly as good—but she reminded herself that Vig had become one hell of a navigator in his years on Pegasus. And her own mind was far from clear. Her personal worries, the fear for her loved ones, ate at her constantly…and she couldn’t be sure it wasn’t affecting her incisiveness.
Bottom line…listen to Vig. Take him seriously. He can help…
“You’re right, Vig. On that vein, let’s cut Talus Vellus and Gamma Allantra. They’re a little closer to matches, but still outside the mean. We’ve got at least a dozen systems that are more likely matches, and together, I’d put the odds that our target is one of those twelve or fourteen well north of ninety percent. I’ll take nine chances in ten, anytime.” She also remembered being on the wrong side of ninety-ten probabilities before, but she didn’t let herself think of that. She didn’t have time, and her best bet was to go with the numbers.