Iron & Blood: Book Two of The Expansion Wars Trilogy

by Joshua Dalzelle

  “OPS, dig in and see if you can quickly see where the Aludra Star is,” Captain Celesta Wright said. “But don’t waste a lot of time on it … I just want to know if she’s still in the system and still on-mission or if Captain Rawls has any idea what happened to her.”

  “Checking now, ma’am,” Accari said.

  “Tactical! Full active sensors,” Celesta stood. She was supremely annoyed that the 508th ships were still so far out in the system and had not moved down to clear the jump point. She’d expected to transition in and have millions and millions of kilometers to maneuver and get her bearings, but now three Darshik cruisers were still in the immediate neighborhood and she had no idea what the status of the mission was.

  “Incoming message from the Relentless, ma’am,” Lieutenant Ellison said.

  “On the overheads, if you please,” Celesta said, not turning back to her com officer.

  “Captain Wright, this is Captain Rawls aboard the Relentless. I … We are very glad to see the Icarus join the fight. Right now the Aludra Star is further down in the system preparing for her second attempt to make orbit over Juwel and deploy her shuttles. Captain Wolfe arrived before we did and was chased away from the planet once and there are an unknown number of enemy ships in the system. They have some that are transmitting active radar and others that appear to be hiding.

  “Captain Wolfe has been in contact with the Marines on the surface of the planet and so far they are holding out so the mission is still critical. I’ve transmitted the mission logs we’ve received from the Aludra Star along with our own over the Link. We are currently accelerating to meet the formation of Darshik cruisers below us and will then proceed on to Juwel. Please advise as to what capacity the Icarus will be supporting. Relentless out.”

  Celesta didn’t say anything for a moment, looking at the main display as the mission clock came up through the Link along with all the pertinent countdown timers each ship had shared. The Aludra Star was conspicuously absent and she knew Wolfe must be hiding out in the weeds, not wanting to broadcast his position needlessly. Her eyes narrowed as she realized the 508th destroyers must have been loitering along the perimeter for days while the assault carrier was trying to push in and make orbit. No wonder Wolfe was running silent; his escort had left his ass flapping in the breeze while they huddled around the jump point and waited for him to either crash upon the rocks or pull another miracle out of his bag of tricks. Either would suffice if Rawls’s main objective was to give the appearance of doing his job without putting his ship in any real danger.

  Was this push down into the system a result of guilt finally getting to him, or was it the Darshik ships breathing down his neck and he was getting panicky? Celesta pulled her terminal around and discreetly pulled up the service record of Ed Rawls, at least the one that was available to all field grade officers, and read the highlights. She wasn’t really digging for dirt, she just wanted to see what his experience and training had been before being put on the bridge of a destroyer. What she found did nothing to assuage her suspicions as to why the escort ships were hanging back.

  “Coms, open a direct channel to the Relentless,” Celesta said.

  “Go ahead, ma’am.”

  “Captain Rawls, this is Captain Wright aboard the Icarus. We’re reviewing the mission logs now, but in the meantime I think we need to press ahead as quickly as possible so that we can clear the orbits over Juwel prior to the Aludra Star arriving.

  “I’m in position to take out the two cruisers bearing at you from your fore, port quadrant. When you see the Icarus begin to close in I would suggest you veer your formation towards the remaining two ships and concentrate fire on them. The Darshik cruiser-class vessels are quite susceptible to damage from our laser cannon. If we get in close and make quick work of these four we can be on our way while keeping our standoff weapons in reserve. Icarus out.” She turned and made a chopping motion across her throat to let Ellison know to kill the channel, but the double-chirp over the speakers told her he’d beaten her to the punch.

  “Nav! I want a tactical intercept of the two tangoes directly ahead of the Relentless, maximum performance,” she said. “Tactical, maintain active sensors and ready all weapons. We’re going to hit them hard and fast and try to salvage this mess so Captain Wolfe has a chance to make it through. As soon as you have valid returns from the targeting radar bracket them and begin plotting a firing solution. We’ll use one Shrike each … we don’t have the time to play around and draw them in for the laser batteries.”

  “Aye aye, ma’am,” Lieutenant Commander Adler said crisply from the tactical station. “Do we want to have the Relentless try again for one of the tangoes?”

  “We’ll be down there and past before the Relentless can get close enough to bother with a kill shot,” Celesta said. “Just pipe our targeting info onto the Link and the Relentless’s tactical officer should get the hint. I don’t want to cause further insult by calling over again.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Course plotted and ready, Captain,” the chief at Nav said.

  “Helm, let’s go,” Celesta leaned back in her seat. “Sound alarms and engage the RDS, all ahead full, maximum velocity of .15c. Be ready to haul us back down so we can deploy our missiles.”

  “All engines ahead full.” The helmswoman grinned as she gave the general warning alarm three short blasts and advanced the throttle for the reactionless drive system. The surge of acceleration from the gravimetric subluminal drive pushed them back as the acceleration overwhelmed the artificial gravity field generator’s ability to nullify it. They’d long ago learned that the drive was capable of such violent and abrupt maneuvers that the new standing order was to give the general alarm three short blasts before executing a maneuver if possible, the crew now understanding that meant hold onto something solid.

  The Icarus shot forward, reaching almost four hundred g’s of acceleration within seconds as the reactors poured power into the improved RDS pod attached to the aft section of the hull. Rumor was that Tsuyo had developed a much more robust gravimetric compensator and the new class of Terran starship would put up numbers that made the Icarus all but obsolete. Celesta briefly lamented about how quickly space combat was changing, the timetables compressing so that engagements were over in mere hours rather than spanning for days and weeks.

  “We have positive tracking locks on both tangoes, weapons updating,” Adler said.

  “We’re at target velocity, RDS to null,” the helmswoman said. Celesta noted that she was the only one to adopt the new vernacular for the drive system. Her other starship drivers still called out thrust power levels despite the fact the RDS produced no thrust.

  “Tactical, do you want helm control or can you call out our decel while we’re in so close to the targets?” Celesta asked, shaking her head at the power of the new drive. Close was a relative term since they were still over thirty-seven million kilometers away.

  “I’ll call out decel, Captain,” Adler said. “We’ll have plenty of cushion and the Shrikes are forgiving to slight variances in our relative velocity.”

  “Very well, you have command authority until weapon release.” Celesta leaned back. The next hour went by quickly as the Icarus bore down on the two hapless Darshik vessels. They realized far too late that there was something very, very different about this new arrival and turned to try and regroup with the other two, but the Icarus was already there.

  “Helm, braking thrust!” Adler called out. “Two hundred and fifty g’s.”

  “Two hundred and fifty g’s all reverse, aye!” The power level to achieve this wasn’t as drastic as the acceleration had been, and Celesta could barely detect the inertial shift. She watched the main display as the Icarus shed relative velocity so quickly she seemed to almost stop in space.

  “Tactical, you’re clear for weapon release at your discretion,” she said, pressing her palm to her terminal so the computer could take a biometric reading for command authorization to fir
e weapons.

  “Firing! Missiles one and two are away … both Shrikes are squawking, burning hot and clean,” Adler said. “Impact in … thirty-four minutes.”

  “Coms, let the Relentless know that as soon as these targets are clear we’ll be turning downhill,” Celesta said over her shoulder. “Tell Captain Rawls I’ll look for him once his taskforce dispatches the remaining two.”

  “Aye, ma’am,” Ellison said.

  “How do you think this will play out with Captain Rawls having overall operational command of the mission, or at least his escort force, and us coming in unannounced and uninvited?” Barrett asked quietly.

  “It’s honestly something I haven’t the time to worry about,” Celesta said candidly to her XO. She’d been trusting Barrett’s discretion more and more the longer they served together, so she relaxed her instincts to filter her comments when talking to him. “Rawls can either get with the program or get out of the way. He may have already screwed this mission up beyond our ability to get it back on track. What I can’t figure out is why Wolfe didn’t just usurp command … Rawls seems like he’d be amenable to someone with combat experience calling the shots.”

  “From what I’m reading in the mission logs it sounds like Wolfe made his case for an approach Rawls vetoed, and then the captain said, ‘fuck it,’ and went off on his own,” Barrett said. Celesta smiled slightly as there was no doubt to whom people who had served with Wolfe were referring to when they said The Captain.

  “It looks like he pulled some insane stunt to transition that assault carrier into the system deep down the well … much more risky than anything he’d tried in the past with the Ares.”

  “Including when he flew that same ship through the atmosphere of a planet?” Celesta said, arching an eyebrow.

  “Easily,” Barrett said, not catching the humor in her voice. “This was an all or nothing gamble and he must have had a lot of faith in his navigator and chief engineer.”

  “Impact missile one! CIC is doing battle damage—Impact missile two!” Adler interrupted herself as the sensor feeds came in. “Stand by … Tango Two is completely destroyed, Tango One is flagging and venting atmosphere. Shall I target the remaining ship again?”

  “Negative, Tactical,” Celesta said as she read the same scrolling battle damage assessment from CIC that Adler was. “It’s out of the fight for—”

  “Tango One has exploded,” Accari said calmly. An instant later the threat board updated and the target disappeared from the display and was replaced with a larger navigational hazard warning icon as the debris cloud spread.

  “As I was saying, it’s out,” Celesta said. “Helm! Heel over, seventy-two degrees to port, ten degrees inclination and roll in gently to ahead full!”

  “Hard to port, aye!” the helmswoman said. “All engines ahead full.” Celesta watched as she gently rolled the throttle on the RDS up. No point in needlessly abusing the ship or her crew by slamming the drive to full power when she just wanted to get heading downhill and find the Aludra Star.

  “Nav, plot an indirect course down to Juwel,” Celesta ordered. “I want to shallow out near the orbit of the sixth planet and then try to come up behind the last known position of the Aludra Star—OPS, get him that info—and then we’ll accelerate past Captain Wolfe’s assault carrier and clear his orbital lanes so he can deploy his drop shuttles. Any questions?”

  “No, Captain,” the specialist said. “Plotting course corrections now.”

  “Helm, you’re clear to execute your new course when you get it.” Celesta leaned back. “Tactical, we’re not hiding from anybody at this point so keep the sensors active. Coms, please inform the Aludra Star that we’ll be coming around onto the same course we assume they’re on and will overtake them to the planet to provide an escort and that the 508th taskforce should be following us down.”

  “Aye aye, ma’am.”

  “I guess it’s a good thing we did decide to fly straight here instead of routing back through New Sierra,” Barrett said. “This was right on the edge of being a total loss.”

  “It seems that way,” Celesta said quietly. “Not that CENTCOM has put much of an effort into reclaiming this system. All the boomers and newer class ships are sitting in berth while obsolete or reserve units have been dribbled out in small numbers for the Darshik blockade to use for target practice, not to mention the chance to refine their tactics against Federation ships.”

  Barrett didn’t answer but his face clearly indicated that he was thinking very hard on what she’d said. It wasn’t as if it was a big secret that CENTCOM had whiffed on the Juwel System. The core systems were fearful and were keeping most of the military power back to cover their asses, but in the meantime they were chumming the waters by letting the Darshik take and keep Terran star systems. If they didn’t punch back hard here and now she had no doubt that it would only be a short matter of time before they began seeing strikes deep into Terran space.

  “New node coming up on the Link, sir,” Dole said.

  “Who is it?” Jackson asked, only mildly curious. He assumed Pike would be popping up now that he either had done what he’d come to do or had seen something he thought they’d missed, which would be a fair assumption.

  “It’s the Icarus, sir,” Dole said, blinking in surprise.

  “What?!” Jackson said, walking over to the OPS station to look for himself. “What the hell is she doing here?”

  “I don’t know, Captain, but she’s already firing on the enemy that’s bunched up near Captain Rawls’s taskforce.” Dole pointed to the intermittent telemetry feed streaming in. “Do you think CENTCOM sent Captain Wright to back up the 508th?”

  “I don’t think Celesta Wright is acting on specific orders from CENTCOM, no,” Jackson shook his head. “She’s here of her own volition I’m sure of it. But, this is an opportunity to get this mission back on track … the Icarus is equipped with the latest reactionless drive system that can put them down at the planet well before we could make it there even under full acceleration.”

  “Should we send them a message, sir?” Epsen asked.

  “No,” Jackson said after a second of thought. “Captain Wright will be able to determine pretty easily what my plan is from the mission logs we sent the Relentless. We’ll wait until the Icarus closes and makes contact first.”

  The next four hours went by uneventfully as Jackson kept one eye on the battle taking place near the system boundary with the 508th destroyers and another making sure his crew didn’t become distracted or complacent. The Star wasn’t the stealthiest of ships, and although she was coasting dark and maintaining com silence the Darshik knew they were there. The aliens weren’t going to just forget about them because of a little skirmish up away from the planet. No … they’d been far too quiet and too passive about seeking out his ship. Jackson knew there had to be some nasty surprise in store for him.

  “Captain, we’re approaching Waypoint Bravo,” Ensign Dole said, covering a yawn with his hand. “All mission parameters are still in the green, sir.”

  “Very well,” Jackson said. “Helm, you’re clear for your first velocity change when we cross Waypoint Bravo. Keep the engine output down to thirty-three percent.”

  “At Waypoint Bravo engines ahead one-third, aye,” the helmsman said.

  Jackson had put in six incremental bumps in velocity so they didn’t have to burn the engines at high power for an extended period of time. It would put them down over Juwel when they needed to be, and he had wanted to allow the 508th taskforce time to catch up should Rawls have been so inclined to come down and actually provide an escort. As it was now he expected to be overtaken by the Icarus at any time, and he was infinitely more comfortable with his old protégé racing down ahead of him and clearing out any enemy ships.

  “OPS and Coms … get your relief up here and then go grab some rack time,” Jackson said. “Same for you, Tactical.”

  “I’m okay, Captain,” Commander Simmons said.

  �
��I wasn’t asking, XO,” Jackson said sternly. “I want first watch fresh and ready when we come onto our final course correction. We’ll have to go full active sensors at that time and everything will be coming at us fast.”

  “Yes, sir,” Simmons said and nodded at Epsen to call up his relief for him.

  “Next I want—”

  “Sir! We just lost the Racer!” Dole exclaimed, pointing up to the main display where the Link telemetry was. At first Jackson thought the other ship had just dropped off the Link, but as he looked at the last good update he could see the Intrepid-class ship took two hard hits in rapid succession before disappearing.

  “Damn,” Jackson whispered. “They outnumbered and outclassed the remaining two cruisers … how the hell did the Racer get hit that hard?”

  “Message coming in from the Relentless on the fleetwide channel,” Epsen said.

  “Just tell me what it says,” Jackson said, still watching the raw data that was scrolling across the screen.

  “Captain Rawls said the Racer had been pursuing the last Darshik cruiser that had broken off and was trying to escape,” Epsen said. “He’s not sure exactly what happened because the Racer was between them and the enemy ship, but he’s assuming the cruiser got in a lucky shot … the target was also destroyed in the encounter and the rest of the 508th is coming down towards Juwel.”

  “Damn!” Jackson repeated, this time with a little more heat. He felt helpless and it wasn’t a feeling he was ever comfortable with regardless that there was little he could have done had he been there. Nor could he really fault Captain Rawls for the incident from what he was seeing on his display. Rawls had moved his ships into an offensive formation that allowed them to cover each other with overlapping spheres of fire, exactly as he would have done, and they’d still lost a ship. He barely knew Captain Sanders, the Racer’s CO, but he still felt the loss of so many spacers keenly.