Nightfall

by Jay Allan

  But, first, he had six battleships to blast to atoms…

  * * *

  Tyler Barron just stared at Atara for a few seconds, and he nodded his head. He could see she was struggling with the whole thing, and he’d almost activated the comm and done it himself. But, Dauntless was her ship, even though Jake Stockton was a fleet level commander now, who actually outranked her.

  That was a technicality, Barron knew. Atara deserved her own stars, and if they lived long enough, he intended to make sure she got them. In the meantime, she had been clear that she was content to serve at his side as she had for so long, and that she actually preferred that duty, at least until the war against the Hegemony was under control. Barron was deeply relieved by that. The fight his people were in was enough, without losing his right arm.

  He watched as she leaned forward, activating the comm. “Flight deck Alpha…Admiral Stockton is cleared to launch.” She’d barely choked out the command.

  They were words Barron couldn’t have imagined, even an hour before. He’d watched Stockton come in, and for a short while, he was sure the pilot wasn’t going to make it. Then, the news. He was in…and fine. Well, close to fine. Banged up a bit, but not seriously wounded.

  He felt a wave of relief, amid the stress and terror of the battle, and it lasted perhaps thirty minutes, the extent of the time Stockton had given to humor the doctors in sickbay. He was fine, and he told that to anyone who came within earshot. Then, when he had endured all he could take, he just got up and walked out of sickbay and back to his quarters. Ten minutes later, he walked back out into the corridor, wearing fresh survival and flight suits to replace the shredded and damaged garb he’d been wearing.

  Then, he went right to the flight deck, and began terrorizing anyone he thought might be able to find him a fighter to fly. Stara tried to stop him—half the flight crew tried to stop him—but, he was like force of nature. Barron’s recollections were second hand, of course, but he knew Stockton well enough that he was one of the few who weren’t at all surprised.

  He had been a bit shocked at his own response, when Stara Sinclair had called him and asked him to intervene. He refused her, though seconds before, he had intended to agree. He still wasn’t sure where the thought had come from, but suddenly it became clear he couldn’t deny his hero pilot the chance to get back out with his fighter wings. If this was to be the final battle, he deserved to fight it alongside the men and women he’d forged into such a deadly weapon. And, they deserved to have him there with them.

  Atara knew that, too, though she clearly had some trouble actually authorizing the pilot to launch. Barron understood, and he imagined Stockton down there, blood still crusted across his face, hunched forward, almost certainly in pain from the cuts and bruises that covered him, ready to launch in the dusty old, previous generation Lightning, the only ship still on Dauntless even potentially capable of flight.

  Whether it was or was not actually capable remained to be seen.

  Barron sat quietly, waiting. With anyone but Atara, he would have intervened and given the order himself, but he didn’t have the slightest doubt she would do what she had to do. He’d never seen Atara Travis allow herself to be defeated by anything.

  And, so she hadn’t. Her voice was a bit shaky, but it had been loud and crisp when she said, “Cleared to launch.”

  Barron took a deep breath and, seconds later, he felt the distant vibration. Jake Stockton was back out there.

  Back where he belonged.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Bridge – CFS Dauntless

  20,000,000 Kilometers from Craydon

  Calvus System

  Year 318 AC

  “Admiral…there’s no other choice. We’re getting the fighters back out there as quickly as we can, a squadron at a time, even half a squadron. But, it’s just not enough.” Barron had been watching the battle…watching as the battle was being lost. His people were fighting like demons, and the relentless self-sacrifice of the Palatians had stunned him like nothing he’d seen before. Even the Union forces were fighting well and bravely, though he’d found that rather more difficult to acknowledge. But, it wasn’t going to matter. None of it. The enemy was just too strong. It was going to be a fight to the finish, and Hegemony casualties would be beyond anything in any other battle of the war.

  But the invaders were going to be the last ones standing.

  Barron had beaten himself up, questioned his decisions, the tactics he and Nguyen had employed…even wondered if the sixteen battleships sent to Megara with Clint Winters might have been the difference, just enough force to give a chance of actual victory at Craydon.

  He craved an answer that would let him push the torturous thoughts aside, but the one his mind gave him was profoundly unsatisfying, either for the side of him that sought relief, or the one that desired self-flagellation.

  Maybe.

  It was that close. Barron had even managed to convince himself a few times there was still a chance, even with the forces present. But, he’d never been good at self-delusion, and the armageddon happening all around Craydon was quickly slipping into the realm of pure mathematics.

  The fighters had fought like wild predators, and they’d knocked out more than three-quarters of the enemy railguns, but the losses had been astonishing, worse than anything Barron had seen or even imagined in his worst nightmares. Forty percent of the bombers were gone, and even with those damaged ships successfully landed, and the pilots who’d managed to ditch and were still floating somewhere, waiting for rescues that would likely never come, a third of the pilots Stockton had launched with at the start of the battle were dead now.

  The battle line had not been spared the carnage, and three separate groups of enemy heavy units had closed, raking the allied ships with the railguns that remained operational. They’d gotten a surprise this time, though, when Barron had ordered the Confederation ships to open up with their own augmented main guns, almost matching the range of the railguns, and ripping into the Hegemony ships with nearly as much destructive force.

  Witter’s warnings about the untested weapons had proven prescient, however, and despite the damage inflicted on the enemy, the weapons had taken their toll among the firers, too. Barron had been staring right at the display when Indefatigable’s batteries erupted in a massive explosion that blew the front of the battleship completely off. He had ordered nearby units to try to save the crippled vessel, but the enemy concentrated fire, sensing an easy kill. About a hundred of the crew had managed to get out in the lifepods in time, but the other ninety percent had been lost when the ship lost containment and vanished from the display.

  Indefatigable had been the only total loss from primary battery malfunctions, but three other battleships had lost their main guns in less catastrophic ways…and, in two of those instances, the damage had left the engaged ships in combats they could no longer win. Integrity drove forward with all her engines could give her, bringing her secondaries into range and blasting away at the enemy, but the damage she’d taken on the way in had just been too severe. Her containment had endured through one critical hit after another, but she was a floating hulk, without any energy production, and, almost certainly, any survivors from her crew.

  Halcyon’s end had been more dramatic. Barron had watched in stunned amazement, as the battleship, stripped of all her weapons, blasted her thrust at full directly toward one of the largest enemy vessels. He’d opened up a comm line, intending to order Captain Barrett to alter his course, but he stopped just before he spoke. He realized Halcyon was doomed, with no hope of escaping the enemy ships closing on it. He couldn’t save her crew, and he wasn’t going to deny them some last meaning in their deaths.

  Fate, however, had been less merciful, and the big ship lost containment less than one minute from completing its ramming run. The explosion had been massive, but too far from any enemy vessels to do any damage.

  He was amazed at the heroism he saw all around, and even at the
way Denisov’s Union forces fought selflessly at the side of their old enemies. The Union ships were less advanced than their Confederation counterparts, their fighters nowhere near as sophisticated. They suffered even more severely at the hands of the invaders, but they held, standing in line, fighting a hopeless battle against the oncoming enemy.

  Barron was still troubled at the presence of Denisov’s forces. They’d been his enemy as long as he could remember. They’d been his grandfather’s enemy. And, he still held them responsible for Ricard Lille, and what had happened to Andi.

  Though, they tried to kill Denisov, too…and now he and his people are here, fighting at your side…

  He didn’t have time to try to understand his conflicting opinions. All he needed to know was, his forces would likely have been defeated already if they’d had to fight without the Union fleet.

  They were all together there, in that moment…the three greatest Rim nations, and whether they’d been friends, enemies, both, now they were fighting to save all their homeworlds.

  And, they were losing.

  * * *

  “Black Fist squadron…you’re the last unit out here with torpedoes. We’ve got two enemy ships coming on strong at 140.111.302…right for the center of the Alliance line.” It felt strange to Timmons to be so worried about Alliance ships, but the Palatians had been dedicated allies in the war against the Hegemony, and they’d suffered horrendous losses at both Megara and Craydon, fighting to save Confederation planets.

  Timmons respected his allies, and their spirit in battle. The Palatians weren’t the only ones with honor.

  “You’ve got to hit both of them, and it’s got to be now.” Trying to take out the railguns on two large Hegemony battleships with a single squadron was a difficult enough proposition, but there were only eight Black Fists left in action, and the acting squadron leader was a pilot who had launched as fourth in command. But, that was eight more torpedoes than all of the combined thirty-two squadrons in front of the Palatian line. The weapons had been well-used, and they’d done their damage…but, they’d fallen short.

  The Palatian battleships were strongly-built, but they lacked even unenhanced versions of Confederation primaries. They were massively outranged by the Hegemony forces, and that meant their unwavering courage had mostly led them to slaughter. Three of their battleships had managed to close enough to open fire with their broadsides, and they had drawn some blood, taking out two of the enemy battleships before all three of them were blasted to plasma. But, most of the Alliance ships were knocked out of action before they could get close enough to strike back.

  Timmons watched as the eight fighters swooped in, attacking with the courage and determination he had seen all across the battle line. They closed, to almost insane ranges, losing two of their number on the way in. Then, they launched.

  The closest ship took two hits, added to damage it had already absorbed. The vessel shuddered, and there was a noticeable drop in power output. The point defense systems were still active, and they inflicted yet another casualty on the Black Fists, as the attacking ships tried to come around and return to base. Timmons didn’t know for sure, but he bet himself, the Hegemony ship had lost its heavy guns in that attack.

  It had been costly for the pilots who’d come in at the ship, but at least they had succeeded.

  The attack on the other ship hadn’t gone nearly as well. One torpedo scored a hit, but it slammed into one of the vessel’s extremities, too far from the vital systems to do more than superficial damage. As if to dispel any hope Timmons might have had that he was wrong in that assessment, the ship fired its dreaded railguns almost immediately after the torpedo impacted…and scored a hit on one of the largest Alliance battleships, splitting the enormous vessel open like an egg.

  Timmons stared at the spectacle for a moment, realizing that what he saw as a small dot flickering out of existence had, in actuality been hundreds of Palatian spacers dying. Some, no doubt, went quickly, incinerated before they even knew what was coming. Others had clung to life, even while the ship itself began to split apart. Timmons knew some compartments would have retained integrity longer than others, and that even in the cold and vacuum of space, death was far from instantaneous. He’d spent so much time with the squadrons, watching pilots wiped out by the hundreds, he’d forgotten just what a nightmare it was when a battleship’s entire crew died, almost as one.

  He stared at the enemy ship, the only one with functional railguns still remaining in range of the Alliance battle line. If he could have taken it out, he could have bought some time for the Palatians to regroup, perhaps even for some of their squadrons to rearm and meet the next Hegemony wave.

  But, that one ship would wreak havoc. It wouldn’t close, and before the Alliance battleships could advance to bring their own weapons into range, more of them would be destroyed. Timmons didn’t know if it would be one more, two…five. But, each one represented almost a thousand trained spacers.

  He wondered, for a brief and terrible instant, if a suicide run could take out the ship’s heavy guns…if he could save thousands of his allies if he sacrificed himself. He wasn’t sure if he was seriously considering it or not, but, as the thoughts drifted through his mind, he realized how profoundly he believed he would die right there in the Calvus system. The battle was lost, and perhaps none of the Confederation or Alliance spacers there would live to see another fight anyway.

  Is another hour of life—or three, or five—worth letting thousands of other spacers die?

  He was still thinking that when his comm crackled to life.

  “I always knew you wanted my job…”

  Timmons couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He’d been relieved at the news Stockton had somehow survived his crash landing, but he’d never imagined his friend would launch again less than an hour later. It was a shock…one more line to etch into the legend of Jake Stockton.

  Something for future generations to debate about, to wonder whether it actually happened, or if it was just some old space tale.

  If there even are future generations…

  * * *

  “You did one hell of a job, Warrior. Let me see if I can finish this last bit.” Stockton was struggling to sound strong, but it was an act. Every centimeter of his body ached, and his fatigue almost laughed at the high-dose stim he’d just taken. Whatever images of hell he’d imagined in his life, he knew it couldn’t be much worse than how he felt as he blasted his fighter toward the target, one tiny ship and one man, coming in at an enemy behemoth, bristling with weapons.

  But there was no choice. He’d had a bad feeling, a frigid coldness down his spine that told him Timmons had been about to do something crazy. And, why not? It wasn’t hard to decide there was no chance anyway. But, Stockton wasn’t quite there, yet, at least not in the part of him that housed his spirit.

  “Thanks, Raptor. That means a lot. I’m surprised to see you back so soon. Damned glad, but surprised. Still, that’s a rough run for only one ship. Let some of us go in with you, take off some of the heat.”

  Stockton jerked his hand wildly, trying to make up for the lack of thrust and maneuvering power in the obsolete old ship. He was going to respond to Timmons, to tell him, ‘thanks, but no thanks,’ but he was too late. Warrior was already on the line, rounding up nearby pilots to make another run, one without torpedoes, one with a single purpose, to draw fire from Stockton.

  Flying down the throat of a Hegemony battleship was just about the last thing Stockton wanted to do, but watching his comrades do it alongside him with no role save as targets was even worse.

  But, he realized nothing he did or said now would ward them off…so, it was time to go in, and see what he could do. The ship he was flying was a pig, but it had a plasma torpedo in its bomb bay, and he had a target. Everything else was window dressing.

  “Well, it looks like we need one more hit in just the right place…”

  Stockton continued toward the target, his ship pitching w
ildly back and forth in a desperate attempt to avoid the incoming enemy fire. His makeshift wingmen were coming on in an even crazier pattern. None of them had to worry about aiming a torpedo.

  Pulses ripped by all around, at least half a dozen coming within two hundred meters of his fighter, but they missed…his ship, and those of his comrades.

  Somehow, they all missed.

  Stockton was flying in as wildly as he could, putting every bit of his considerable skill into piloting the fighter in. The other ships were drawing off at least some of the fire, but he knew his greatest ally was luck. He’d been cocky as a young man, but age had brought awareness with it, even wisdom. He was doing what he was doing because there was no choice, not because he didn’t think he could be hit. He knew all his experience and ability would mean nothing if fortune deserted him, even for an instant.

  He came right at the enemy ship. It was close, and getting closer every second. The fire was almost impossible to avoid, every battery on the giant ship targeting the small cluster of fighters. Yet, he still came on, through the nightmare of fire, down to the closest point-blank range he’d ever seen.

  Then, he loosed his torpedo, and he struggled to clear the rapidly approaching target…zipping by no more than a hundred meters from its gray hull, even as the damage assessment confirmed he had hit the target just where he’d intended. Damage was clearly considerable, but it was just a guess as to whether he’d taken out the railguns.

  Whether he’d save three or four thousand Palatian warriors…or his risky—crazy—attack had been for nothing.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Bridge – CFS Dauntless

  20,000,000 Kilometers from Craydon

  Calvus System

  Year 318 AC

  “We’ll have the bombers ready to launch again in twenty minutes, Admiral…but, I’m afraid the situation is highly variable across the fleet. We’ll get maybe thirty percent of the total birds out this side of an hour. The others will trickle out one squadron at a time, assuming the damage control crews can get the bays back to some level of functionality.”