by Jay Allan
“Ilius…” He paused, trying to think of what to say, but he didn’t have any great wisdom to offer, only friendship. “We have served together for many years, my friend. You are a tribute to the Hegemony. We will fight this battle together, as we have so many before…and we will both see its end.”
He’d come up with the words he’d needed, but there was only one problem.
He didn’t believe any of them.
* * *
“Two minutes to point defense perimeter, Admiral. All arrays report ready. We’re tracking the incoming contacts, and we’ve got full data on the fleetnet.”
Barron nodded, though he didn’t respond to Vinson’s report. He was too focused on the display, and on the line of dispersed projectiles heading toward Striker and the fleet. Something was wrong, he was sure of it. If the enemy had some new kind of weapon, there would be more of them. The Highborn had to know that once his fleet’s point defense batteries opened up, they were going to sweep a lot of—whatever those things were—away.
Barron took a deep breath and held it. If his military career had taught him anything, it was just how long two minutes could be in certain circumstances. The enemy very likely had a good idea of the range of his point defense arrays. Were those projectiles going to engage in some kind of wild evasive maneuvering? Were they antimatter missiles with some way he didn’t understand to get to his ships, or perhaps to Striker? The fortress was enormously powerful, mounted with a staggering number of immensely heavy weapons. But its evasion capability was severely limited. It wasn’t exactly a fixed target, but it wasn’t a ship that could move and shimmy a hundred ways to make itself a tough target. Striker was huge and heavily armored, but it wouldn’t take many multi-terawatt antimatter bombs to take it out.
His eyes flashed up, toward the top of the screen. Down to one minute…
He breathed deeply again, struggling to retain his countenance, to be the unyielding commander, the officer without doubt, without fear. His people deserved nothing less from him.
He was about to turn and snap out an order to Vinson, but something caught his eye, and he stopped dead. The incoming projectiles were vanishing.
No, not vanishing…
They were detonating. Not in the massive, almost unimaginable fury he’d been expecting, but relatively modest explosions…far too distant from his ships to cause any damage at all.
He didn’t understand. It didn’t make sense. Why would the Highborn commit so many fighters to such a pointless display? What was he missing?
He wondered, for about twenty seconds. Then his eyes and ears answered the question for him, his own recognition of what was happening on the screen coming in at a dead tie with Vinson’s report.
“Sigma-9 radiation, Admiral. A dense cloud of it, all along our line…heading toward the fleet at high velocity.”
Barron was still confused, at least somewhat. But then the main display—and every screen in the control room—went dark. Sigma-9 emissions made Highborn ships difficult to target…and now an immensely larger spread of the mysterious radiation was heading right for his fleet…blocking his scanning net completely.
Barron opened his mouth to shout out orders…but he had nothing, no idea what to do.
None at all.
Chapter Twenty-One
Fleet Base Grimaldi
Krakus System
Year 328 AC (After the Cataclysm)
“I don’t know what to say, Emmit. You were the last one I expected to arrive with reinforcements.” Holsten paused for an instant. “It took a lot of faith to pull those ships out of the yards so quickly.” Holsten wasn’t an expert on naval tactics or ship construction, but he’d considered doing just what Flandry had done when he’d commandeered Constellation, and the lecture from the yard supervisor on all the almost finished systems that could fail on the other two ships had dissuaded him.
He was vaguely troubled at feeling less daring than the politician with whom he’d both sparred and cooperated.
“You managed to get that out without saying, ‘how did any politician manage to do that?’ Indeed, you spoke very diplomatically, almost like…one of us.” Flandry smiled, coming close to a laugh but holding back. The battle was over, and Grimaldi had held, but the base was a wreck, and so was the fleet positioned around it. Thousands had died, and as soon as the enemy was able to assemble a new force, they’d almost certainly be back. It didn’t take a flag-ranked logistics officer to determine that the next defense would be a hell of a lot weaker than the one that had just barely repelled the first invasion. Given time, some of the fleet damage might be repaired, but getting Grimaldi back to more than a fraction of its former combat power was going to take years.
“Well, I do have some idea how to behave.” A pause. “especially when I’m truly grateful, which I am.”
Flandry extended his hand. “You don’t like me much, Gary, I know that.” The politician put his hand up as Holsten looked like he might argue. “No, really, it’s okay. I don’t much like you either. At least we’ve wrestled with each other for a long time. But I don’t want to be a Highborn slave any more than I suspect you do, and against all odds, we seem to make something of a good team. I’d say the same about Admiral Barron. I like him even less than I do you, but I wouldn’t have anyone else out there at Striker.”
Holsten smiled and he grasped Flandry’s hand as the Speaker lowered it again. “So, not friends exactly, but allies of necessity? I can live with that.”
“So can I.” The two men shook hands vigorously. “So, is the situation here as bad as it looks to me? I know you’re not a navy man, and we will definitely want Commodore—I mean Admiral—Simpson’s thoughts, but for the moment, I suspect your sense of these things is sharper than mine.”
The last of Holsten’s smile vanished. “Well, as you said, I’m no expert, but I’d have to say the fleet is mostly floating wreckage, and if anything, Grimaldi is worse. We pushed them back, and they were in just as bad shape…so, I guess what happens next will depend on how long it is before the Highborn receive reinforcements. Between my intelligence assets and Admiral Denisov, I can state fairly equivocally that the Union is unlikely to substantially reinforce their own fleet. They might manage some repairs, but that’s all. And that won’t be enough for a renewed offensive.” Holsten took a breath. “But it won’t take a massive Highborn force to slice through here, not with the fleet and Grimaldi in the shape they’re in. Constellation took significant damage, as well, though I’d say she’s still combat worthy. The two new ships didn’t take a lot of hits, but then they weren’t really completed either. It’s a damned good thing the enemy retreated, because either of those could have suffered any number of critical failures if their systems had been really tested. We’ll have to find a way to get them closer to finished while they’re here. That won’t be easy without a shipyard, but we’ll need them a hell of a lot more stable by the next battle. They’ll have to do more than scare off the enemy…they’ll be in the middle of one hell of a fight.”
“You’re sure there will be a next battle?” Flandry looked at Holsten. “I mean soon?”
“I don’t know anything about how the Highborn are getting ships and supplies to the Union, but they’ve got to be doing a wide sweep around the outer edge of the Badlands. That’s a long trip, but their ships are faster than ours, too. Considering the density of our deployment at Striker, there is a massive force multiplier in play here. A force that is almost irrelevant to the fighting out there could be decisive here, and even threaten the Core. My guess is, they thought what they’d sent would be enough, and it probably would have been if you hadn’t brought Starfire and Argo. I suspect they’d planned to take Grimaldi, and then bring fresh forces up to invade the Confederation. If that’s the case, those reserves are already on the way, probably close. Possibly even already in Union space. Based on what Denisov was able to tell me, I’d say we can be pretty sure we’ve got at least a month…perhaps as much as four or five.
”
“A month?” Flandry sounded horrified. “I was thinking a year, hopefully longer.”
Holsten shook his head. “I seriously doubt we’ve got a year, Emmit. I don’t think it would take that long for them to send forces if they left their space now. But the Highborn are pretty relentless. I find it very hard to believe they didn’t have reserves on the way even as they launched the attack here. I’m hoping to get that four months, but I’m not sure I would bet on it.”
“What are we going to do? We might get a couple newly built cruisers up here, but there’s nothing else strong enough to make a difference. We’ve got the next eight of the Excalibur-class, of course, but they’re nothing but partial skeletons now. It would be a miracle if any of them could be ready in less than two years.
Holsten sighed, feeling as though the answer forming in his mind would sound very much like something Tyler Barron would have said. “Well, Emmit, I guess we dig up what we can, arm some freighters and the like…and we do what we can to repair as much of this…” he gestured to both sides with his arms. “…and we fight, as we always do, with whatever we’ve got.”
Emmit Flandry looked back, nodding, but also looking stunned…and very much like he was going to throw up.
* * *
“Escort it into…” Holsten looked down at the screen. He didn’t want to admit how skilled he’d become at reading military displays, but finding a place on Grimaldi that could handle a landing was easier said than done. “…delta bay.” The base’s landing bays were mostly opened spaces full of twisted wreckage and burnt out debris. The station had managed to land its fighters—the ones that made it back—but Holsten still wasn’t sure just how that had happened. He’d been stunned at the levels of damage when he’d toured the flight decks, and a shuttle like the one coming in was going to be harder to land than a Lightning.
“Yes, sir.” Holsten had tried to get the station’s officers to stop calling him, ‘sir.’ He wasn’t a military officer, after all, and technically not even in their chain of command. But everyone had come to accept him as the de facto commander on the scene. Even Commodore, now Admiral, Simpson, the unquestioned military superior present, deferred to the intelligence chief.
Perhaps it made more sense in this instance. The shuttle coming in was damaged, a Union model that had apparently escaped from the enemy fleet in the late stages of the battle. It had blasted out into the deep system and had been on the way back when its engine had finally given up the ghost.
A pair of Lightnings had grappled the thing and decelerated enough to land with it in tow, but it wasn’t the prospect of the cumbersome cluster of ships navigating the wounded bay that most troubled Holsten.
It was the voice on the comm he’d received. The one that claimed to be Sandrine Ciara. Gary Holsten hadn’t trusted the Union rebel when she’d been in charge on Montmirail and negotiating an alliance with the Confederation. He damned sure didn’t trust her now. He knew Gaston Villieneuve well enough that he’d been certain the rebel leader would have found her way to an unpleasant death already…and her presence was deeply disturbing. He’d almost ordered the fighter patrol to open fire and blast the small ship, but he’d decided that would be a bad idea in front of Andrei Denisov’s people. The Free Union forces had been weak before the battle, and they’d fought like demons through the engagement, enduring heavy losses. But Holsten knew his people needed every ship they had, and every bit of effort from each spacer in the fleet.
Besides, he was curious to see what she had to say. Most likely, assuming it wasn’t a trap of some kind, she was just seeking sanctuary. It seemed improbable that she’d managed to survive this long and escape from Villieneuve, and even more of a stretch to imagine she’d done it carrying any kind of useful intel. But Holsten had always stressed to his operatives the importance of completely analyzing any situation. Anything Ciara had seen could be useful, especially any hints that could derived about additional Highborn forces already in Union space or expected.
“I’m going down to the landing bay.” Holsten stood up, feeling strange for announcing his intentions. He still clung to the position that he was an advisor only, but it was becoming more and more difficult to ignore the fact that the spacers on Grimaldi were clearly looking to him for leadership.
He stepped onto one of the lift cars and tapped the code for the bay onto the small keypad. The audio control circuits were out, but he was fairly certain the elevator shafts leading to the bay were still functional, even though a good portion of Grimaldi’s network of lifts and intrastation cars was damaged, with collapsed shafts and power outages making certain areas of the vast fortress almost completely inaccessible. Of course, many of those areas were twisted and shattered debris now, ripped open to the vacuum of space and unusable.
And some still hold the bodies of the spacers who’d been stuck there, trapped and unable to escape.
He sighed softly, taking advantage of a few seconds alone to drop the veneer of strength and optimism he’d tried so desperately to maintain in front of the others. Grimaldi and the fleet had held, and that was good. But Holsten knew the respite they had gained would be a short one…and possibly very short. His desperation was clear, even in what he was doing just then, going down to meet Sandrine Ciara’s shuttle. He didn’t expect she could offer any real help, but he couldn’t afford not to see what she had to say.
His suspicions were still strong, but he could feel them slipping away slowly. He knew he was trying to convince himself she was a useful ally, in spite of his instincts. It was weakness, he knew, his utter lack of any idea what to do to get ready for the next attack. That didn’t make it any likelier Ciara could offer real help, but it did give Holsten a crutch to lean upon, a ray of hope to hold back the darkness…and in spite of himself, against all his instincts and efforts, he allowed himself to believe Sandrine Ciara just might have some kind of useful intelligence, some way to aid the effort to face the enemy when they returned.
And in the deepest recesses of his mind he could hear a voice, his own, distant and soft…calling him a damned fool.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Forward Base Striker
Vasa Denaris System
Year 328 AC (After the Cataclysm)
“I want the AI working on this, now! Change frequencies, increase pulse modulation…we need those scanners back online.” Tyler Barron was standing in front of his chair, waving his arms as he spoke. He usually remained calmer, more circumspect in action, but he’d been taken by surprise. He’d imagined the enemy projectiles were super-powerful warheads, perhaps with some kind of system to compromise his point defense. He’d been worried, about the barrage, terribly worried.
But he’d never guessed at the true purpose of the thousand small missiles.
They weren’t weapons at all, at least not in the context of inflicting direct damage onto his ships. No, not a single explosion had rocked Striker or any of the more than a thousand vessels in the fleet. The projectiles hadn’t even closed all the way to the base and fleet before they detonated.
They had just blinded Barron’s force.
“It looks like the entire line is affected, Admiral. We’re still getting reports from the far end of the formation, but it appears to have hit everyone.”
“Full evasive routines, all ships. Now!” Barron didn’t know what was coming behind the dense cloud that blanketed his scanners, but he knew, whatever it was, it was going to be bad.
He looked up at the display. The initial static pattern had faded. The scanners were actually fully functional. The Sigma-9 radiation had only truly blinded his fleet for a few seconds. The sensor suite had recovered, more or less, and he could once again see his ships lined up around the fortress.
What he couldn’t see was the enemy, nor Reg Griffin’s wings, nor any of the small scoutships he had sent forward to monitor the enemy’s approach. The long radiation cloud acted almost as a shade pulled down over a window. Barron’s scanners worked, but the
y couldn’t detect a vessel of the enemy fleet. Nothing. The wall of radiation blocked his beams cold.
“All units acknowledge. Evasive routines underway.”
Barron nodded as the officer spoke, but his eyes were fixed on the display, on the long line of small dots representing his ships, and the hazy black cloud lying in front of the fleet.
“All ships…adjust positions. Maneuver thirty thousand kilometers up in the Y plane.” Barron didn’t like moving his ships that far from Striker, but leaving them blind was a worse option. He had no idea how long the radiation cloud would disrupt his scans, but the thing was finite in size. If his people could get to a position giving them a straight vector over the cloud, they should be able to get at least some scanner readings.
Unfortunately, Striker was stuck where it was. The fortress wasn’t a mobile unit, not by any conventional standards. It did have some positioning engines, designed mostly to allow it to engage its own minimal evasion routines. Without that ability, the station would be blown to bits in minutes by any major assault. The distances in space made targeting somewhat difficult, but it was the unpredictability of a target’s precise location at any instant that really made it tough. A totally fixed and motionless target reduced the whole exercise to mathematics, and even the most complicated firing solutions were simple exercises for computers and AIs.
“All units confirm, Admiral. Repositioning underway.”
Barron nodded, but even as he saw his ships altering their thrust vectors on the display, he realized it was going to take too long. The enemy would know he’d respond as he had—and the radiation cloud was moving toward his fleet anyway. It wouldn’t be long after his vessels got a look around it that it would pass through them anyway. Once the radiation was behind his fleet, it might be an obstacle to an orderly retreat, but it wouldn’t affect the battle anymore.