Nightfall

by Jay Allan

  “Admiral…I have the flagship. Admiral Nguyen says you may issue the orders when ready.”

  Barron just nodded toward Atara, and then he held her gaze for a few seconds. It was time. “On my line, Captain,” he said softly to her, knowing she’d understand what he wanted.

  “On your line, Admiral.”

  “Jake…I just wanted to talk directly with you before you launch. I won’t bother with a speech, or any half-assed rallying cry. You’re too old a veteran for that, as I am. I just wanted to say, good luck to you, old friend, and to all those who fly with you.” Barron could feel a shakiness trying to take his voice, but he resisted, held it back. Stockton was a friend, and a man he admired hugely…though he remembered the young version of the hero giving him fits on more than one occasion. He wondered if he would ever see the pilot again.

  “Thank you, Admiral.” A pause, then: “It’s been the greatest honor of my life serving with you, sir. Whatever else they say about us in the years ahead, we definitely made our mark. Good luck to you, too, Admiral.”

  Barron listened to the words. He understood a goodbye—when he said it and when he heard it. And both had just happened. He wasn’t sure he would die, that Stockton would die.

  But, he was damned sure worried about it, and he knew Stockton was, too.

  “Admiral Stockton…you may launch your wings when ready.”

  “Yes, sir.” Stockton had always been somewhat of a discipline problem, but the words that came through Barron’s comm were sharp, perfect, almost like some instructional video at the Academy. He could almost see the crisp salute in them, and he knew it was a last show of respect.

  Then, no more than thirty seconds later, he felt the first launch. He knew Jake Stockton as well as anyone did, save perhaps for Stara Sinclair, and he’d have bet the stars on his shoulders that his strike force commander had been the first one to go.

  * * *

  “Maintain position, Commander.” Andi Lafarge sat in the center of Hermes’s bridge, looking in every particular the part of a Confederation captain, but inside, she’d never felt more out of place, more like an imposter.

  “Very well, Captain.” She heard the response, and some part of her mind acknowledged it, but her thoughts were mostly on other things. The battle, what would happen, the last words she’d spoken to Tyler…and whether they would actually be the last words the two shared.

  And, she thought about how she ended up in a crisp new uniform on the bridge of a Confederation naval vessel. Andi had crawled out of one of the gutters in one of the worst slums in the Confederation, and she’d clawed her way to wealth, and no small amount of notoriety, and through that entire time, her focus on acquiring all she wanted, on assuring she would never again be at the mercy of those around her, had been single minded.

  She wasn’t an arch-criminal, not by any standards, but she suspected the list of laws she had broken at one time or another was fairly lengthy, and she’d fled from more than one ship much like the one she commanded now. She’d come to expect the unexpected, but she’d never imagined the actual reality she faced now, either of the Confederation’s grim struggle for survival, or her place in the ranks of the warriors fighting that battle.

  Her orders were clear. Stay in position at the rear of the fleet and await further instructions. Tyler hadn’t come up with some new task as an excuse to get her away from Craydon and out of the Calvus system, but she didn’t doubt he would try to get her to run if things began to fall apart.

  This time, she wasn’t sure she would obey, though. She knew as well as the career admirals did, Craydon was, in many ways, the Confederation’s last chance to stop the enemy. The Iron Belt was essential to any hope of building and repairing ships, and implementing the new technologies. She had no doubt some ships would escape from a defeat at Craydon, and flee to the frontier, to make yet another defensive stand. But, a loss at Craydon would take all hope of victory away. The war would be over, in all meaningful terms, and she believed one thing with unswerving certainty. Tyler Barron was not going to survive a defeat at Craydon. She loved Barron, and she knew him in ways no one else did. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind.

  And, if he was going to stay, she was going to stay, too. Hermes was no real addition to the fleet’s fighting power, but that didn’t matter to her. There were simply times one had to draw a line, and say, ‘this far and no farther.’

  This was that time.

  Victory or death at Craydon, and no other option. None she would accept.

  * * *

  “Dragons, Sabers, Red Waves, with me. We’re going in one after another, a long line. Target Gamma two, three, and four. Wolverines, Black Stars, Silver Hawks…you’ve got Gamma five, six, and seven. These things are huge, and we’ve got to take them out, now. They’re target priority one.” Stockton tapped his throttle, adjusting his vector to a direct line in on the huge battlewagons at the front of the Hegemony line. They were the biggest things he’d seen yet, larger by half than any of the enemy’s other ships, and well more than double the size of the Confederation’s Repulse-class monsters. They had railguns, he would have bet anything on that, and maybe even a larger battery of the deadly weapons than normal. There was no way he could let those things past him and into range of Barron’s and Nguyen’s ships.

  Stockton didn’t know if the big ships were some kind of reserves sent from the Hegemony home worlds, or if they’d just been held back in the earlier fights, but either way, it was damned depressing to see even more powerful Hegemony ships streaming in from the transit point. The enemy already had countless advantages in the fighting, and his fighters were just about the only edge the Confederation possessed. He was glad to have the monopoly on fighters—the Confederation would have been conquered already otherwise—but it was a terrible burden and a drain on morale and stamina to bear such responsibility battle after battle.

  He’d heard the acknowledgements coming in, all six squadron commanders answering, almost as one. He didn’t really pay attention, though. The six squadrons formed up behind him were among the fleet’s very best, and he didn’t doubt for an instant their pilots would follow his instructions precisely.

  He knew it was a little ridiculous for the overall commander of more than three thousand fighters—no, he thought to himself, over four thousand again. Admiral Denisov had placed the Union strike force under his command as well, and their numbers had replaced his losses from Megara, and then some. He was glad to have reinforcements, of course, but he’d struggled a bit with it, too. He didn’t trust the Union…and, truth be told, he didn’t think much of their wings either. But, he needed everything he could get, so he’d sent the Union squadrons straight forward toward the enemy battle line. He would have ordered them to engage the Hegemony escorts—it was cold and blunt, perhaps, but he’d rather lose Union pilots than his own—but they didn’t have the new cluster bombs. And, over a thousand of his Confederation and Alliance birds did.

  He was coming up on the target, his torpedo armed and ready. He watched as his range dipped down, under five thousand, to four thousand.

  Three thousand.

  He launched his torpedo, and then he pulled back hard on the throttle, blasting his engines at full to clear the target…just as his computer registered a hit. He felt his fists tighten, as his ship lurched hard into a wild spin. Half his instruments shorted out in a wild burst of sparks, and a light but acrid smoke filled the cockpit.

  He felt a pain in his side, and then he realized there was blood pouring down…and he heard a loud hiss, as air began to escape from a crack in his cockpit.

  He’d been hit, and even before he checked any of his equipment, he knew it was bad.

  You damned fool…that was light fire, and you blundered right into it…

  Two battles in a row. He’d let himself get hit in two battles in a row. He’d been pushing himself to the edge, desperate to do whatever he could to sustain the fight against the enemy. His cockiness had always been there, t
elling him no matter what, he would make it through. Now, he felt the armor of that assuredness slip away, as he gasped for air and winced at the pain in his side.

  He’d pulled himself out of more than one mess before, but even as he reached down and tried to work the controls, what was left of them, he knew this was going to be bad.

  You’re in trouble now, Jake…

  * * *

  “Stara…” It was Admiral Barron’s voice on the comm, and Dauntless’s flight control chief knew what it was about. She’d been watching Stockton’s ship approach for the last few minutes, struggling the entire time to maintain her focus, and not to think about what if…

  “Admiral, I’ve got his ship on my screen.” She knew what the admiral was calling about.

  She wasn’t even sure how Stockton had coaxed the thing back to Dauntless. Her screens showed that every guidance circuit was fried, every flight control blown, even the AI knocked out. All blasted to scrap. However Stockton was flying that thing, it had to be ninety percent raw instinct.

  “What can I do to help, Stara?” She could hear the tension in Barron’s voice, the anguish. Stockton was Barron’s friend, there was no question about that, but she knew there was more to his concern. Stockton was a vital component in the fight against the Hegemony, and she knew the admiral was also worried about losing one of his most potent weapons.

  She found that upsetting, and she struggled to hold back a surge of anger. Stockton was more to her than some killing machine to continually unleash against the enemy. She knew she was being unfair to Barron, but it was hard to feel any other way.

  “There’s nothing you can do, sir. Nothing I can do. He’s cut out of the net; his circuits are burnt to hell. I can’t even get a comm link to him. He’s going to have to bring that thing in all by himself.”

  And, if anybody can do that, it’s you, Jake. Please…

  “The ship’s yours, Stara. If you need to reorient or adjust our positioning…”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  She stared at her instruments, and even as she checked everything for the second or third time, she realized she’d told Barron the unvarnished truth. There was nothing she could do, absolutely nothing…except clear out the bay and hope Stockton came in soft enough to walk away.

  As he’s done more than once…

  She already had the bay on alert. Med teams, fire control crews…all were standing by. There was nothing she could do in the bay herself.

  But, there’s nothing you can do here, either…

  She jumped up and ran down to the corridor leading to the flight deck. Her presence wouldn’t make a bit of difference to what happened, but it didn’t matter.

  She had to be there.

  * * *

  How the hell many times is this going to happen?

  Stockton had made it through more than one emergency landing, so many that he wondered for an instant why he had such a reputation as a master pilot. The answer was quick in coming, though, shot back by the side of his brain that housed his ego. Hundreds of combat missions, against disastrous odds. Repeated sorties, beyond the norms of human endurance. The need to set an example, with every more insane displays of skill and courage. Battles against the enemy, against fatigue, against damage and equipment failure.

  He’d had more than one close call, certainly, but stacked up against the number of times he’d blasted out from the flight deck to face the enemy—the various enemies—his record was pretty damned good.

  That may have been true before, but this time you just screwed up. You underestimated the enemy, and you got distracted, hit by a shot you should have easily avoided. It would serve you right if this was the time you lost it all…

  He’d made it back to Dauntless, but even he wasn’t quite sure how. His scanners were shot to hell, and the data he had coming in was something comparable to a blind man feeling his way back home through a hundred kilometers of dense jungle. A lot of gut had gone into it, along with all the judgment and analysis he’d been able to muster.

  Now, you’ve got to land this thing…

  The throttle was still responding, at least partially. It was sluggish, and it had gone dead three or four times on the way back…but whatever spirit of fortune had followed him for so many years had brought the controls back.

  He was coming up on the landing bay now, and he was approaching far too quickly. He tapped the throttle. Nothing. Then again. A short pause, and then his engines fired, decelerating sharply as he moved closer, and the great grayish-white hull of Dauntless filled his field of view.

  He’d slowed down some, but his velocity was still too high. He tapped the controls again. Nothing. He tried again, and then three or four more times. Nothing. No thrust, so sign of any response at all.

  The spirit was gone, and he was on his own. And, at the speed he was coming in at, there was no piloting trick, no skill at flying, that would save him. Especially with no thrust.

  He was dead. He believed that, completely…for a few seconds. Then, he had an idea. He just wasn’t sure there was time.

  His ship was moving toward the landing bay entrance, and he turned, looking away, his eyes locked on a small control board off to the side.

  The ejection system. He should have bailed out when he was closing on Dauntless, but he’d told himself he could land his mortally wounded ship. Now, he would pay the price for that hubris.

  Unless he could eject in the landing bay.

  It sounded crazy, and he was sure his instructors back at the Academy would have said it was impossible. It wasn’t impossible. To the part of Jake’s mind that made him who he was, nothing was impossible. It would take precision timing, certainly. He didn’t have time to do the calculations, but his best guess was, he’d have a window of about one-third of a second.

  If he could hit that instant of time, he might make it. If the system was functioning perfectly in a ship clearly shot to hell. If he got lucky and he didn’t slam into any of the vehicles or stacks of the ordnance laying around the bay.

  If he could make all that work…then he’d just slam into the bay floor with enough force to break every bone in his body.

  But, it was the only chance he had. He watched for another few seconds, as the fighter slipped inside the bay, and then he pulled the controls to initiate the escape sequence.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  CFS Constitution

  Olyus System, 3.2 Billion Kilometers from Megara

  Year 318 AC

  Alicia Covington stared straight ahead at the row of mobile shipyards. The structures were immense, like nothing she’d ever seen before, long cylinders with great arms protruding in all directions, creating spacedocks for the ships under repair. She’d knew the situation in general terms, realized that the enemy had been able to quickly return its damaged vessels to service, but she hadn’t really understood until she laid eyes on the things.

  She had six hundred eleven fighters under her command, several hundred fewer than Winters’s sixteen battleships could carry, but the strike forces had taken terrible losses, and there hadn’t been nearly enough squadrons based at Craydon to make up for the shortfall. There had been talk, she knew, of transferring units from some of the other ships, but the fleet had already been facing almost hopeless odds against an enemy everyone agreed would attack Craydon. In the end, Winters had insisted he would take his ships with their own complements, and nothing more. Covington had supported that decision, at the time. But, the instant she saw the size of the things she’d come to destroy, she wondered if that had been a mistake. She wasn’t sure her ships had the firepower to take out the vast constructs, and there were only so many targets the fleet’s sixteen battleships could hit.

  If she’d had six hundred fighters, she’d have felt better, but she’d sent two-thirds of her wings to meet the enemy warships rapidly approaching Winters’s fleet. The garrisons were a bit lighter than she’d expected. No, not lighter, but more spread out. She’d been afraid there would
be warships mixed throughout the support fleet, but that hadn’t been the case. At least, not for the most part. But, the job of holding back the enemy reserves, of keeping them at bay while Winters’s ships pounded the mining and supply vessels, had fallen squarely on her squadrons.

  The enemy has called on every ship in the system, including battleships that had been in orbit around Megara, no doubt for surface bombardment missions. Most of those appeared to be older ships with varying degrees of damage, and preliminary scans suggested there were no railgun-armed ships in the system, save for those attached to the shipyards and under repair. That was good news, and not entirely difficult to understand. The Confederation battleplan, at least where the fighter corps was concerned, had been based almost entirely on targeting those fragile weapons, knocking them out before they could close to firing range and blast their Confed counterparts to scrap. The enemy would want every railgun they could get in the force attacking Craydon, and that meant, with any luck at all, Winters’s ships would be spared the single greatest danger they might have faced.

  “Let’s go, teams Alpha, Beta, Gamma…you’ve got your designated targets. Now, let’s go in and get the job done.”

  She was going in with the alphas herself. She’d almost led the bomber wings against the approaching Hegemony warships, but in her gut, she knew the mobile shipyards were the most important targets. The fleet had come back in Olyus to deprive the enemy of their supplies, of their ordnance production capacity, to strip them of all the support that allowed them to push so quickly through enemy space, denying their foe the time to dig in, rebuild, bring up reserves. And, nothing in the logistics fleet was as crucial to that as the repair facilities. Replacing the mobile platforms would take at least a year, and maybe longer, and it would tie the Hegemony forces to a fixed base of operations. That would offer the Confederation forces the only real respite they’d seen since the war began. It would also open up the enemy’s very long and tenuous supply line to disruption.