by Kal Spriggs
As an older man appeared, reclined in a command chair, Daniel fought a frown. There was something wrong, he sensed, yet he spoke anyway, "I'm Senior Captain Daniel Beeson of the United Colonies. I want to inform you that we are pursuing the pirate and renegade Reese Leone. We are here to provide assistance in securing the system--"
"Thank you, Senior Captain," the other man interrupted, his face twisted in a sneer, "but we are not in need of any assistance. We have the situation well in hand."
Daniel's eyes narrowed at the other man's tone. "Who am I speaking with?"
"I'm Commodore Stephan Caras," the man replied. "I'm in charge of this system."
Daniel glanced at his XO, who shrugged in reply. They had no information on a Stephan Caras. In fact, now that he thought of it, 'commodore' wasn't a rank that the Centauri Confederation used. This Commodore Caras didn't wear any rank on his ship-suit, either.
Daniel's eyes went wide as he noticed what appeared to be blood spattered across the shoulder of the command chair. "You mutinied."
The other man snorted, "I killed the elitist bastards who had no claim to the power they held. And I made a deal with the people who offered me rank and authority for doing what needed to be done." He waved a hand, "I don't know who your United Colonies is, and I don't really care. I own this star system. If you or your forces approach this planet, I will destroy you."
Reese will be down on the planet already, Daniel thought. This had become a race... and he didn't have time to try to reason with this man. He cut the communication channel and took a deep breath, "Full readiness, designate all present ships as hostile." He opened a link to Kaigun Motogami and Admiral Collae. "Please ready your vessels. The Centauri Confederation ships have undergone a mutiny, designate them as hostile."
Kaigun Motogami only gave him a grim nod. They had hoped to fight a depleted force marshaled by Reese, not anything near the combined forces they faced.
Admiral Collae cocked his head, "We are certain?"
Daniel forwarded him the exchange, even as he looked over his squadron's readiness. Captain Bowder's Lancer and Commander Matthew Copley's Gallant were at full readiness. The Spathae’s damage had been repaired and the destroyer’s commander, Lieutenant Commander Shaw, seemed eager to prove his ship could fight. This engagement would be decided by speed, Daniel knew. The mutineer crews would be disorganized, confused. They would be initially buoyed by success, but if he could hit them hard, those feelings would twist to fear. He could shatter their morale... but this fight would take time.
"Colonel Wachope," Daniel said, "ready your Marines. Combat insertion. Maximum speed." They'd have to expect that Reese was already on the planet. In fact...
Daniel's gaze went to Lieutenant Giovanni. "Lieutenant," he said, "you're our resident expert on Reese Leone... and Colonel Wachope will need that expertise. Report to his shuttle immediately." He tried not to think about the fact that he was sending Emperor Giovanni's little sister to a shuttle that would be diving through interceptor fire to land on a hostile planet.
He forced his mind away from that and back to the battle. The pirate destroyers and cruisers had set up an initial screen. They would have to drive through that formation before they hit the Centauri's mutinous ships.
"Lancer and Gallant," Daniel ordered, "tighten up formation. Prepare to engage."
***
Lieutenant Commander Forrest Perkins felt as if he were watching a nightmare unfold. Not only had Reese's people made it down to the planet, but then the blockade force had dissolved in confusion... and now they seemed to be working with Reese's people.
With his ship between the planet and the alien station, he felt as if he had a very real sword of Damocles hanging over his head.
"Skipper!" Petty Officer Godbey blurted, "The Constellation just arrived!"
Forrest took a gasping breath. He felt like a drowning man who'd just been offered a lifeline. "Range?"
"Uh... two hundred thousand kilometers from our current position," Petty Officer Godbey said after a moment, "They are on approach to the planet, I count ten Shogunate and twelve Colonial Republic ships with them."
The Shogunate vessels would be a match for Reese's ships, Forrest hoped. He brought up the icons of the Colonial Republic ships on his display. He made out six cruisers, the other ships were a mix of a dozen or more modified cruisers of some kind and destroyers. Those must be Admiral Collae’s ships, Forrest realized. Backed with Captain Beeson's ships, they should be a match for the blockade force.
"They just launched shuttles," Petty Officer Godbey said.
"Prepare to give them covering fire as they pass," Forrest said. He looked at Petty Officer Godbey, "Notify Captain Beeson of our presence, tight beam transmission. Tell him we've, uh, appropriated a high stealth vessel and we're in position to intercept any move to take the station."
"Yes, sir," the noncommissioned officer replied.
Forrest watched those shuttles come in. Somehow he knew that Alannis would be aboard one of them. Even if Captain Beeson hadn't ordered her to do it, she would have volunteered. Those shuttles would have to thread a gauntlet of fire to reach the planet's surface. Once there, they'd have to fight their way through hundreds, maybe thousands of Reese's people.
And all Forrest could do was watch.
***
Daniel stared at Lieutenant Meyers, somewhat stupefied, "I'm sorry, what?"
The communications officer spoke as if she didn’t really believe what she had to say, either, "Lieutenant Commander Perkins has appropriated an enemy ship after escaping captivity..."
Daniel waved a hand, "Alright, I got that. Let him know to maintain his position..." He saw she'd created an icon at the specified coordinates. "He is not, I repeat, not to open fire without my express direction. He's our ace in the hole."
Daniel brought up Lieutenant Commander Miller's engagement parameters and he modified them slightly. "I want to time our missile salvo so that we force the enemy to choose between engaging the shuttles and defending themselves." The shuttles had the best jamming and evasive packages they could, but there were only twenty of them for a lot of ships to fire at. Throwing missiles at the enemy would mean that the shuttles should punch through relatively unscathed.
This would be a hot drop. To his knowledge, the United Colonies Fleet had never done this kind of assault on a planet while still fighting for control over the orbitals. Focus on the task at hand, he thought.
There were too many issues with integrating their defenses with the Tanis Defense Force elements, but at least the Katana-class frigates used similar software so they'd managed to establish overlapping fields of defensive fire with Kaigun Motogami's force. "Please ask Kaigun Motogami to adjust his force's vector to five four three," Daniel said. "We'll launch approximately thirty seconds after them, to allow our missiles to overlap with theirs."
Daniel bit his lip. This had quickly escalated into a full-scale battle and one that might decide the fates of millions of people. "Shogunate forces launch missiles on my mark...."
He monitored the progress of the shuttles, the acceleration of three different types of missiles across tens of thousands of kilometers between two approaching forces. "Fire!" He snapped. He waited a moment and then saw Admiral Collae’s force launch their missiles, in crisp sequence. "Engage," he said and Lieutenant Commander Miller volleyed his missiles. The Gallant and the Lancer volleyed their external racks in a single action, but the Constellation's internal tubes went to maximum speed and the ship seemed to hum as the four missile tubes fired eighteen missiles in thirty seconds.
The three salvos went out in sequence with the Shogunate and Colonial Republic squadrons. Daniel's force had an edge in range due to their closing velocity, but it wasn't much of a difference.
The weight of fire favored his force, Daniel quickly saw. The Centauri mutineers had no fighters and he saw only four squadrons from Reese's force. The Centauri vessels seemed to mount fewer missiles than expected as well, though t
he force seemed to be designed more for interdiction than a stand-up fight.
In all, the Shogunate element launched two hundred of their Ono-pattern fission warhead missiles, the Admiral Collae’s forces launched sixty-four Hellcat fission-fusion-fission missiles, and Daniel's squadron launched another fifty-eight of the Mark V ship-killers.
The enemy had launched just under three hundred missiles in reply. It was a ragged volley and Daniel immediately saw that their commanders hadn't coordinated the fire. In fact, it looked as if some of the ships in the mutineer force hadn't even coordinated their fire with each other...
"All forces," Daniel snapped, "Initiate jamming on target frequencies, deploy countermeasures and then transition to vector two two three."
He waited as he received acknowledgements and then snapped, "Initiate."
As he and his allies vessels began their jamming, he saw the enemy missiles go haywire and as he'd expected, the nearest ones detonated in response to the loss of target. Other missiles behind were blinded, many of them following similar tracks, sometimes even overlapping.
The missile salvo became a cascade of failing missiles as missiles detonated, blinding each other and the enemy ships... and then the United Colonies salvo dove through and into the enemy formation just as the combat shuttles whipped past.
He'd chosen to focus fire on the most cohesive element of the enemy force and all of the United Colonies munitions focused on just the six cruisers of Reese's force. Those six cruisers took over forty missile hits and all of them vanished, blotted out of existence as if they'd never been.
The Shogunate missile salvo also focused, but their lighter ten megaton warheads detonated in and around the enemy destroyers. Over seventy percent of their missiles went home and over a hundred of them detonated in tight clusters around the enemy destroyers, the fire sporadic as they reeled from the loss of their command ships.
Admiral Collae’s missiles were spread across the mutineer force, each ship facing individually lighter missiles but every one of the twenty vessels receiving two or three inbound missiles. The Colonial Republic force's fission-fusion-fission warheads were powerful, blinding detonations, the proximity detonations dazzling sensors even at this range.
Daniel had a moment to watch the combat shuttles dive into the planet's atmosphere, dodging fire from enemy ship. He gave one last prayer that he'd made the right decision, that Colonel Wachope and Lieutenant Giovanni would be able to stop Reese, that they wouldn't all be killed by enemy fire before they ever even made planet-fall, and then they vanished behind the enemy jamming.
"Engage defensive fire, launch interceptor missiles," Daniel snapped. Their tight formation began to come apart. The ships of his squadron had practiced close formation operations, but they hadn't practiced it with their Shogunate allies, much less with Admiral Collae’s vessels.
The three parts of his force broke into their constituent elements as they faced the inbound missiles. Each group laid down overlapping fields of fire, but now the staggered launch from the enemy actually favored them. As missiles died, they created chaff and obstructed the defending ship's sensors. Enemy missiles poured through those holes in the sensors.
Daniel winced as one of the mutineer's missiles detonated, a powerful antimatter detonation that was a match for the ones his forces had launched.
More of those detonated and Daniel saw one of the Shogunate destroyers vanish. Then a second one. One of Admiral Collae’s cruisers vanished.
The Constellation lurched where a pair of fission warheads detonated. The impacts were close enough to hammer the ship's defense screens and throw Daniel painfully against his seat restraints... but the defense screens held and the ship continued on its course.
Then they were through and Daniel grinned as he saw the havoc that his missiles had caused.
Reese's ships were simply gone. Three of the mutineer's destroyers and two of their cruisers were gone as well, killed either by lucky hits or by inexperienced crews.
Even better, five of the enemy ships had begun to withdraw at maximum acceleration. They'd either had enough or they simply wanted no part in this fight.
Daniel grinned as his force aligned with the remaining ships. They had the advantage now. He opened a line to the enemy ship, to "Commodore" Caras.
"You are outnumbered. You can't survive against our forces. Surrender."
Caras wiped blood from his nose, where he'd been slammed into his display. To Daniel's surprise, the other man grinned. "We're not surrendering... we've accomplished our mission. We were just the decoys."
"Captain!" Lieutenant Tim Gray called out, "New contacts, twenty... thirty... fifty enemy ships. Range is fifty thousand kilometers and closing!"
***
Gorgon Colony, Kapteyn's Star
Centauri Confederation
March 5, 2410
Lieutenant Alannis Giovanni bit back a curse as the entire shuttle lurched and she nearly lost her breakfast. She didn't normally get sick, but the shuttle's gyrations as it evaded incoming fire combined with the lack of windows in the armored drop bay left her feeling more than a little green.
She'd be fine if she were flying or at least in the copilot seat. She hated being back here, where she couldn't see and had no control.
"You've kept your powered armor proficiency rating," Colonel Jack Churchill Wachope spoke, his voice relaxed despite the circumstances. She had dealt with him only once before, the little she knew about him was that he’d survived the Chxor occupation of his homeworld of New that his men seemed to think that he walked on water.
"Yes, sir," Alannis replied. They'd stuffed her in one of the "combat spares" that they had. Though from the way it fit her almost perfectly, she had some suspicions about some of the Colonel’s preparations. Either he'd kept a suit of powered armor for her just in case or else he'd planned to have his people preemptively "protect" her by stuffing her in an armored suit.
"Any thoughts about Reese's tactics?" Colonel Wachope asked.
"He'll be direct," Alannis said. "He'll probably have anti-air capability. If he's suborned the blockade fleet somehow then he's definitely going to have support on the planet itself." Alannis considered the situation and she immediately forgot her discomfort. "He'll have ambushes set up, multiple layers of defense... he's not going to hesitate to use lethal force."
"What about if you're present?" Colonel Wachope asked.
Alannis frowned, "If he knows I'm there, he'll do everything he can to avoid killing me. But he's going to want to take me alive."
"That's what I thought," Colonel Wachope nodded. "So if he has any really nasty surprises for us at the landing zones, he might hold off on triggering them."
Alannis shuddered a bit as she realized what that meant. "You're going to let him know I'm there."
"It's a tactical decision. I can't say I'm crazy about it... and General Proscia might have my scalp over it, but I think it's the best bet." She couldn’t see his face behind the helmet, but she could hear a grin in his voice. This is fun to him, she realized with shock.
"Well," Alannis said after a moment, "If we're going to do this... shouldn't we weight it?"
"What do you mean?" Colonel Wachope asked.
"I mean, right now we're landing in four areas," Alannis said. "If Reese tracks your signal back, he might make the assumption that I'm aboard your shuttle. He could target the other landing zones with impunity."
The faceless powered armor didn't show Colonel Wachope's expression, but she could hear respect in his voice. "So, you think we land the whole force in one location? That's... high risk. What if your ex-husband doesn't hold you in such high regard?"
"He will," Alannis said softly, "Especially if you let me compose the message."
She knew exactly what to say.
***
"Boss, we're getting a transmission, I think you should see it, channel three," Reese heard over his headset. Reese looked up from the pile of esoteric equipment that his technical team
had begun assembling with the help of the locals.
Reese brought up channel three. "...this is Princess Alannis Giovanni of the United Colonies, this message is for Reese Leone." Reese sighed. This was what he'd been afraid of... so much for keeping his dirty laundry private. For just a moment he considered not answering, but he knew Alannis would go on if he didn't.
"This is Reese," he replied, "go ahead." She was skilled enough that she could probably track his signal back and discern his location. Then again, if they'd looked at the diagrams of the Temple, they probably could guess where he'd set up. The antechamber was central to the massive facility, just outside of the actual Temple of Communion.
"Reese, we're coming to get you. This is your chance to surrender, to pay for your crimes. No one else needs to die." Reese's heart twisted at the strength in her voice, the compassion. Yet he hardened himself against what he knew would be next. "This is your chance to do the honorable thing, to set a good example for your son."
"Everything I've done," Reese bit out, "I've done for you and our son. And at the end of the day, it will be me saving him, saving us all. And when you get here, I'll show you that. Reese out."
He switched back over to his command channel. He didn't trust himself enough to continue speaking, he'd given away too much already. "Disable the tactical nukes on the landing sites. I want full confirmation once they're made safe. Order our ships to cease fire on their shuttles. Power down the anti-air batteries as well."
"Sir?" One of his lieutenants asked.
"Do it," Reese snapped. The men he'd selected to command this operation weren't mentally conditioned disposables like many of Marius's people. They were, however, just as dedicated to the cause... and they knew the importance of carrying out the plan to the exact specifications. After all, the Temple was only part of Marius's goals here.
***