by Kal Spriggs
His transmission cut out in a squeal of static, replaced by Admiral Rao's voice. “I think we've heard enough of him.” Rao's voice was calm, almost conversational. “Theatrics and displays, that is what the Mombara regime used to maintain power. They executed protestors at the Gurkali Massacre. Then they called it a victory against anarchists. They destroyed our economy, selling bits of it to mega corporations out of the Parisian Sector, while talking about embracing interstellar economic principles. Admiral Mizra has come to depose a legitimate election, in order to claim power.”
“Their time is over. They have resorted to theatrics again and again, and when that fails, they attack with physical violence. I'm not having it. I'm not calling on our people to rise up. Instead I ask that the Mercenaries charged with defending our world execute the traitor Harkari Mizra.”
The transmission seemed to be coming from the shipyards, which made me confused. I hadn't escorted Admiral Rao anywhere in the past day or two. As far as I knew, he was still in his quarters aboard the Pentacane. But the enemy was between us and the shipyard. Surely if his words were being retransmitted, then they'd be getting the original signal, even if it was a tight beam, there were too many ships to try and get past without someone intercepting it.
Maybe it was a recording, maybe it was someone with a program to look and sound like him. For that matter, maybe it was his decoy or it really was him. Either way, I could see the effect his words had.
Admiral Mizra's dreadnoughts had emerged at over three hundred thousand kilometers from Harmony, almost in orbit around the planet's moon, and in range of the Guard Fleet picket around the station. His dreadnoughts opened fire on those ships, while their escorts formed up in a defensive formation, firing their own weapons at any mercenary ships within range.
The ships that far out from Harmony were among the least trustworthy of the formation, and the ones that survived were retreating, most of them running directly away from the fight, a couple of them jumping to strategic warp and leaving the system entirely. Cowards, some part of me judged them. Yet I couldn't fault them too much. The enemy had two dreadnoughts and over sixty other ships. It was far more than we were ready to fight.
It seemed the Admiral had found a way to take their main advantage away. They'd lost the element of surprise and position, spent it on going after Admiral Rao. Because whether he was at the shipyard or not, he'd been the bait. At this point, all of the Drakes had launched and formed up. The Centurions' ships had formed up alongside Hammer Squadron and a dozen other mercenary vessels. The Skysliders and our Drakes both were receiving target updates and flight paths.
The last of the Guard Fleet picket had died, before any of them had time to get away from the firepower directed against them. I could see strike craft launching, now. He clearly had a carrier of his own. There weren't as many as we had, but there were still a lot more of them than we had planned for.
“Nashim Rao, stand down. Surrender,” Admiral Mizra snapped. “You are defeated.”
“No,” Rao answered, his voice hard. “You're the one defeated. Surrender, Harkari, and I'll grant your crews clemency.”
“To hell with you,” Mizra snarled, “to hell with your clemency. I'll not ask again. My ships are ready to launch assault shuttles.”
“Very well, you leave me no choice,” Admiral Rao snapped. “Harmony Defense Forces, defend your homeworld.”
And then, as I watched, I understood. All those inspections, all those transports checking out the ships and the stations, they hadn't been inspections and surveys after all.
A heartbeat after I realized that, warp drives throughout the still, cold Harmony Defense Fleet began to come online. The dreadnoughts, cruisers, and destroyers came online in a cascade, as ship after ship went live: drives, weapons, and sensors.
Admiral Mizra's two dreadnoughts were the closest to the yards and in response, his ships pulled back, withdrawing behind the protective screen of his smaller vessels. At that moment, Commodore Creed ordered us to attack.
***
The mercenary forces volleyed over a hundred warp missiles as all of our warp-envelope strike craft swept in to attack the two dreadnoughts. Those missiles had been timed to home into attack range just as we closed the distance. Both squadrons of Drakes zeroed in on the two dreadnoughts while the missiles and Skysliders whipped past.
We opened up with our disruptor cannons as we closed. At our closing rates, we only had time for a single pulsed shot before we screamed through the engagement area and deployed our bombs. Twenty-four Drakes released a total of three hundred and eighty-four hundred megaton matter-antimatter bombs. Even before they detonated, we were zeroing in behind the Skysliders and the warp missiles, diving at the enemy formation of cruisers and destroyers, firing as we came.
The detonations around the two dreadnoughts were staggering, inconceivable to the human brain. For one brief moment, an area only fifty thousand kilometers across burned with the light of hundreds of brief-lived stars... and when it cleared, there were no dreadnoughts left behind us.
It happened too quickly to process, and the enemy fire lashing at us as we closed didn't slow. Our enemies didn't even know they were dead, not yet, and they were trying to kill us right back as we killed them.
I saw icons wink out as we closed, joining with the Hammer Squadron formation as they arrowed at the formation of escorts, firing as we came in, just long enough to get the Skysliders in among the enemy ships before we lanced up and away, dancing out ahead of the detonations as another one hundred and forty four bombs and a hundred warp-drive missiles all struck at the same time.
The enemy formation simply vanished. Dozens of ships were gone, wiped out of existence before they'd even known they were dead. Dozens more took glancing hits, just enough to shatter their warp drives and the armor beneath, sending them tumbling, either powerless or with damaged systems that could barely sustain their crews. Still more were lifeless hulks, their radiation shielding failing and their crews scorched alive, burned by the horrible energies released.
A small handful emerged unscathed. Four or five destroyers. A pair of cruisers. Almost a full squadron of corvettes. I saw them as my Drake swung away, a handful of untouched survivors amidst the carnage of what had been a powerful, dangerous force.
Admiral Rao spoke again, “To the survivors of Admiral Mizra's force. I say to you: surrender. If you value your lives. If you value the principles of our world. Surrender and you will be spared.”
The remaining ships dropped their drive fields.
My gaze was going to the ships that Admiral Rao's people had brought online, though. I caught what I'd been searching for a moment later. A drive field on a destroyer flickered and then died. Then on a cruiser. Then a pair of destroyers one after another.
It happened all through the force, as ship after ship failed. They hadn't been receiving regular maintenance or services. They hadn't been properly stored or mothballed. For that matter, I knew they couldn't have slipped more than a few hundred people aboard those ships, not under the guise of standing up the yards.
It had been a bluff, a distraction. Just as Admiral Rao's presence had been bait to the trap, they'd manned their ships with skeleton crews, on ships that could never have fought a real battle, and they'd done it knowing that they would all die if we didn't manage to frighten Admiral Mizra into pulling back in fear... and exposing his ships to the fighter strike.
I looped my Drake around, taking stock of our losses. Almost a dozen of the mercenary ships on the perimeter had died or fled the system. All of the Guard Fleet picket was gone, wiped out of existence. I guess they shouldn't have stuck around.
The Drakes had taken a few hits. I saw two missing from our squadron. Lieutenant Stroud was gone, along with Warrant Officer Black. Three more were gone from the second squadron.
Almost a dozen of Hammer Squadron's Starsliders had died in the attack, most as they swung away from their bombing runs. But in the process, we'd killed two drea
dnoughts. The realization shocked me. Dreadnoughts were terrifying opponents. They were powerful, neigh unstoppable. And we'd destroyed two of them with just twenty-four Drakes.
I didn't have time yet to think about the thousands of enemy personnel who had died. I didn't have time to think about the empty bunks there'd be back on the carriers. The pilots who had died in the service of the Mercenary Guild, rather than fighting to defend their homeworlds.
No, just at the moment, all I could think about was that things had changed. Twenty-four Drakes had just killed a pair of dreadnoughts worth tens of billions of Guard Dollars. And even though I was one of the pilots, even though it could have meant the life of me, my best friend, and a whole lot of my people if we'd failed... well, I couldn't help but wonder if it wasn't a change for the better.
***
Winning the fight was far from the end. We spent the next few days in recovery. On the planet, the election had come and gone. President Nashim Rao had given a speech. Sometime during all that, the Tenacity, Mel's battlecruiser, had returned.
I spent a lot of time standing in for the exhausted shuttle pilots, flying from one wreck to the next with search and rescue teams. Many of the wrecks that hadn't been vaporized still had some power systems online, some pockets of atmosphere, some places where survivors were holding out, waiting for rescue.
They'd been our enemies, but that didn't change what we owed them as the victors. We pulled hundreds of injured and trapped crew out of those wrecks. Far more than I would have expected to survive.
The search and rescue teams also recovered a lot of bodies. I don't know how many times I'd hear their tones turn to excitement as they found a pocket with air... only for their voices to go wooden as they turned up compartments empty of life.
It was physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausting. Most of our squadron spent a few hours at a time piloting a mix of civilian and military shuttles, saving as many people as we could.
I got the call to report in my dress uniform along with the survivors of the security platoon just as we were wrapping things up. Most of the rest of the debris was being put into a mass for salvage and recycling at that point. We all assembled aboard one of the Valkyrie transports and the Admiral was there, her expression serene. She didn't tell us what to expect, she just took a seat and we did the same. The Valkyrie dropped to the planet fast, with a disregard that told me that either the flight path had been cleared or else this was a combat drop.
Out the port-hole, as we came howling down out of the sky, I caught a glimpse of a pair of combat skimmers flying escort.
We settled down onto a landing pad. The Admiral led the way out and Ashiri and I marched our squads out behind her. Off to the side, I saw another shuttle, this one in the rust red colors of Hammer Squadron, and I saw several people in dress uniforms forming up. The Admiral went into line with them, and I fell in next to her, wondering just what the hock was going on.
About then, I realized that we hadn't landed on a normal landing pad. We'd landed in some kind of stadium. In fact, there were a few tens of thousands of people in the stands. And there was a band. I realized they were playing some twangy music that sounded rather awful. Then, to my shock, they began playing the anthem of Century, more or less.
The band wasn't hitting all the right notes, or even most of them. But they were playing with gusto. Even standing at attention, I was able to make out some kind of official stand. And then I recognized the man who got up to speak.
I didn't really listen to most of it. I was tired and weary. He said some nice things about valor and honor. He kept it relatively short. Then he went down the line of all of us, presenting us with medals. I had to hide a smirk as he paused with the Admiral, trying to find a spot to pin her award on and finally just pressing it into her hand and giving her a salute.
When he came to a stop in front of me, I had a chance to see that he looked ill at ease out in a civilian suit. He looked tired, too, just as tired as I felt. I wondered if the costs of defeating Admiral Mizra kept him awake, or if it was all the duties he'd taken on as President of Harmony.
“Cadet Armstrong,” He gave me a faint but real smile. His gaze flicked over to the Admiral and back to me. “There is a saying older than flight about apples and trees. I will not repeat it, but I will say that I am glad that you are made of the same fire-forged steel as your Admiral. If not, then I would be dead and my world, well, I fear what Admiral Mizra or Major General Tibault or any of the others would have done to it.”
He pinned the award on to my left breast, right next to the award for valor that I'd received from defending Directorate Thirteen from alien attackers, an award I couldn't even explain how I'd received without violating a whole lot of confidentiality regulations.
“Thank you, Cadet First Class Armstrong, for fighting to save my world, a debt we will not forget,” he told me. Then he moved on. I heard him murmur similar things to First Squad. In the end, it went like most other military ceremonies, and I realized that my feet hurt and I just wanted to go back to the ship, to the comfort of my quarters and out of the cameras.
The ceremony wrapped up and we marched back to our shuttle. The Admiral sat down across from me. As the engines spooled up, we had a moment of almost privacy. “Is it over?” I asked her.
“This ceremony is,” she answered, apparently taking my question literally. “We'll have a memorial for our fallen later this afternoon. Then we go on.” For just a second, I saw shadows in her blue eyes, so similar to my own. I saw the dreadful weight she carried, and I wondered how she did it. Part of me felt empty, exhausted, broken.
“You'll be headed back to the Academy, soon, Jiden,” The Admiral gave me a slight smile, “Back to your friends, back to your boyfriend.”
Oh, God, I haven't told her that Kyle proposed. I wondered how she'd take the whole story. Knowing my luck, she'd probably just laugh about it. Let's just tell her after it's all resolved...
The courier ship arrived from Century a few days after that. I registered the arrival of the courier ship that would take me home with an odd mix of resignation and relief. So much had happened here at Harmony, it almost seemed unfair that I'd have to go back to finish my last semester at the Academy.
I hadn't touched my correspondence work in weeks. I didn't know if I'd have time to finish it before I got back to school. Ashiri and I were both exhausted. My last message to Kyle must have been incoherent and I half expected him to look at me like I was insane when I got back. He'd probably never talk to me.
The Admiral ordered me to suit up and prep one of the Valkyries, with a message that it was time to debrief “Captain Amiss.”
***
Chapter 19: My Family Is Strange And Dangerous
The Admiral had me pilot a shuttle over. She was the only passenger. I was feeling particularly nervous as I landed the Valkyrie combat shuttle in the battlecruiser's docking bay.
I went to the back, listening to the shuttle's systems power down and the light tap and click of metal cooling. The Admiral stood and straightened her uniform, “Ready?”
I nodded and toggled the shuttle’s ramp, waiting a moment as the Admiral started down it and falling into step behind her.
I saw my cousin Mel at the lead of the strange group that awaited us and she snapped out a salute, “Captain Melody Amiss, ma’am.”
The Admiral returned that salute crisply, “It’s alright, dear, we can drop that charade. Even if I hadn’t known you were still alive, I’d have recognized you instantly the first time I saw you here.”
Mel’s mouth dropped, “Um, you knew I wasn’t dead?” I had to fight a smirk at the slight tone of disappointment in her voice.
The Admiral gave her a stern look, “I found out about your arrest and I’ve been monitoring every record of you since. When the ‘update’ came through changing your DNA in the general database, I suspected it was you… then I just tracked down the corresponding match. Please, dear, I’m not an imbecile. I can thi
nk things through.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Mel said quickly, “sorry ma’am.” I felt a bit of pity for her.
“Which is why I arranged for your company’s assignment here,” she went on. “Originally my intention was to meet you in private, but as you can see, things came to a head more rapidly than I would have liked.” She made a face, “And we Armstrongs attract trouble like magnets do iron-filings.”
“You’re her grandmother and you’re part of our organization?” One of Mel's crew asked in suspicion. I had no idea what he was talking about. The only organization the Admiral was a part of was the Century Planetary Militia, right?
“I’m affiliated with your organization,” the Admiral answered, her blue eyes locking on the man like the primary weapons from a ship. “Which means I’m fully briefed on the threat, though some of that is more recently than I’d like. Your group isn’t much for sharing information.” Her expression softened slightly, “They’ve authorized me to make contact with both you and Miss Yewell, here… and they’ve reassigned you as well.”
“Reassigned?” The two of them spoke at the same time.
“This little war in the shadows you’ve had with the Chandral seems to be winding down. Most of their people are being reassigned while they figure out what the next move is. Agent Walker’s expertise and his relationship to Aldera Kynes makes him useful for some of the joint and applied research we’re doing on Century.”
Chandral? I wondered. Were they some kind of pirate group affiliated with the Drakkus Empire?
“And me?” The woman she'd called Yewell asked.