Finest Hour (The Exiled Fleet Book 3)

by Richard Fox

  “The Baroness has her own writ, and that is to break the will of Albion,” Tiberian continued, “to see the once mighty and defiant star nation brought to its knees and surrender completely. As Albion goes, so will the rest of the feral nations. If they defy us, then that will spread to the rest of the ferals and our re-conquest will take even longer, be even bloodier…and even we do not have the resources to grind down every planet. Would you rule a graveyard, young one?”

  “Killing the boy serves the same purpose.” Gustavus swiped the back of a hand through the command wheel, dismissing it. “This last fleet under Gage is nothing. When the rest of the ferals learn of the prize we took at Coventry, then the Baroness’ writ will be complete. You’re wasting time and lives—lives that matter, at any rate.”

  “No, Gage is more of a problem than we first anticipated,” Tiberian said. “He’s known to the rest of the ferals for rising above his low-born status, for winning against the odds.”

  “If there’s one enemy I hate,” Gustavus said, touching his scarred face, “it’s the competent ones.”

  “Gage has the reputation that can rally the ferals against us. Killing him is too easy, and his legend as a martyr would hurt us in ways we can’t destroy. Once I get the boy prince…he’ll either surrender to keep him alive or I’ll slit Aidan’s throat while Gage watches. He’s no hero if he chooses to let the boy die. Both ends serve our needs.”

  Gustavus stroked his chin. “Or we just kill them all and be done with this,” he said.

  “Heh. You’ve too much of your father in you,” Tiberian said. “We must rule these people, and slaves must accept their collars. Learn to love the lash. Eubulus understands this. Why else hasn’t he simply erased Theni and the rest of this planet’s cities with atomics?”

  “The Indus on this world are a warrior breed.” Gustavus frowned, then he narrowed his eyes at Tiberian. “If these surrender, the rest of the Indus will lose the spine to fight us.”

  “So you can be taught,” Tiberian smirked. He scratched the air in the holo with two fingers and Eubulus appeared, standing at a command semicircle at waist height.

  “What?” Eubulus grunted. His face was worn, an edge of worry to his otherwise imposing stature.

  “I have my quarry,” Tiberian said. “I’m going to Theni City to fulfill my writ. Leave it intact until my work is complete.”

  “Your Albion pets are up to something,” Eubulus said. “Their fleet has grown larger, and they’re on an intercept course.” He touched a panel and flicked his hand to one side. A new holo of the planet showed the Orion and more ships closing fast.

  “They are of no concern,” Tiberian said. “Once I have the boy, they will kneel to us.”

  Eubulus raised an eyebrow to his brother. “We’re in the end game. The star fort of theirs has been enough of an issue and I was just about to resolve it…but I grow tired of placating you,” he said. “Go. Gustavus will command the Minotaur in your absence. Better to have a commander that’s focused on the task at hand. You fail to return and the ship is his. You fail to get the boy and I’ll take you back to Assaria in chains to remove your stain from the family—and the ship will still be my son’s.”

  “Don’t get too comfortable,” Tiberian said as he removed a command bracelet and tossed it to Gustavus. He marched out of the holo sphere to a waiting lift.

  CHAPTER 18

  Wyman squeezed his eyes shut and opened them wide. He nudged his control stick to one side as he drifted too close to Ivor’s wing.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Sorry.” Wyman tapped fingertips of his left hand against his thumb. His brain was raw. Loose thoughts ran circles through his mind and the distant mountains surrounding Theni seemed to warp slightly if he stared at them too long. “Been a long day.”

  “If only the Daegon would ease up so we could have a couple hours of crew rest,” Ivor said. “I’m going to send them a strongly worded letter. On an energy blast. Which won’t work. I’m tired too, OK? You had a whole hour on the ground while they put your fighter back together. Ass.”

  “New orbital track,” Ranbir said and a trio of Indus fighters joined their formation. “Troop carriers. Projected landing zone is Rambagh Park. This one’s got a fighter escort.”

  “So probably not more murder balls,” Ivor said. The Daegon had sent several of the missile-laden pods at the city, and the Indus and Albion fighters had grown weary of trying to intercept any after several devastating losses. “Whose turn is it to be the rabbit?”

  “I did the last one,” Ranbir said and Indus language filled the channel. “The others say they lost half their squadron to a murder ball and they refuse.”

  “We’re not up here for show,” Wyman snapped. “Hostiles are coming down in our sector and we’re dealing with it. I’ll be the rabbit. Again.” He looped around and nudged his throttle forward.

  “Anyone have any missiles left?” he asked.

  “Two,” Ivor said.

  “One…and three total with the other Chakrams,” Ranbir said.

  “Didn’t…didn’t they just do a turn and burn at a FARP?” Wyman said. The availability of forward air rearm/refuel points had decreased as the battle wore on, but the Indus had fought hard to keep them open.

  “The city’s main depot is off-line,” Ranbir said with a huff. “Computer systems are haywire. They’re having to do everything by hand and missiles aren’t getting to where—”

  “Fine. Complaining up here isn’t going to make more magically appear. We have seven total air-to-air missiles with the last one I have.” Wyman marked targets on the approaching wave of drop pods and assigned them to the other fighters.

  “Freak Show,” Ivor said, “don’t go rabbit on this one. Feels off to me.”

  “Why’s that?” Wyman asked, his mind too tired to pick up on what she suspected.

  “Pretty decent fighter complement with this wave,” she said. “Haven’t seen fighters with murder balls, have we? They loose off that many missiles, they’re sure to hit their own fighters. Daegon don’t seem to mind losing troops, but they don’t throw their fighters away for nothing.”

  “Yes, I was just about to say this,” Ranbir added.

  “Don’t go running the gauntlet? Twist my arm, why don’t you?” Wyman cut his speed and the rest of the fighters caught up to him.

  “Freak, where’s Marksman and everybody else?” Ivor asked him on a private channel.

  “Hell if I know,” Wyman said. “Command and control’s gone to absolute crap. Daegon are jamming long-range comms. Repeater stations on the ground keep getting taken out. Just fly straight and shoot anything that doesn’t look like us. Or the Indus. Or…that about covers it.”

  “Yeah, yeah…tone!” Ivor said as their targeting systems locked onto the Daegon fighters escorting a half-dozen landing craft.

  “Firing,” Wyman said, loosing his last missile, his fighter jolting as it leapt off the rails. He kept a lock on his tear-shaped target, his systems communicating directly to the missile to guide it in. White streaks traced a line from his ship to the oncoming force.

  “Come on…hold this time,” Wyman said under his breath. The missile closed, but the enemy ships made no evasive maneuvers, as if they didn’t even know they were under attack.

  A flash of light so bright his canopy activated emergency screens left an artifact band across his vision. One hand went up over his eyes, but the light cut out as suddenly as it arrived.

  “The hell?” Ivor asked over their channel as it filled with static.

  “I’ve lost my fish,” Wyman said, his missile gone from his scope. The rest of his systems blinked on and off, then stabilized. “Where are their fighters? I can’t—”

  Energy bolts snapped past his canopy and he gunned his fighter forward into a steep climb.

  There was a panicked transmission in Indus that cut out. Wyman looked down and saw an expanding fireball and two Daegon fighters speeding away.

  “Lost one,
” Ranbir said.

  Looking to one side at the oncoming troop carriers, Wyman said, “Hold them off. I’m going to run rabbit anyway.”

  “We just decided—shit! That was close!” Ivor said.

  “I’ve got a hunch. Be prepped to run their escorts down.” Wyman turned to the landers and increased his speed. Even in his exhausted state, the Daegon defense against his missiles piqued his mind. Using a wide-spectrum energy burst—if that’s what it was—to break his guidance systems was something new. And using something like that to protect rank-and-file soldiers—already under a fighter escort—struck him as being off.

  There was someone important in those troop carriers.

  He opened fire with his cannons just beyond the max effective range. His bolts fizzled just before they reached their targets, but one hit home and sent a carrier lurching to one side. Two sped forward, putting themselves between him and the rest of the landing force.

  “Not you two.” Wyman pulled into a high, tight loop and dove down on the transports, bolts from ventral turrets blazing past him. He angled to one side and pulled his trigger, sending a long line of plasma bolts through the landers’ formation. Most missed, but he managed three solid hits before he sliced between two Daegon ships on their left flank.

  His comm channel went crazy with English and Indus, but he ignored whatever warning was coming and hit his port-mounted maneuver thruster. His Typhoon spun around and he opened fire again, his bolts crossing with incoming fire and hitting a lander in the belly.

  A bolt hit his right wing and shook him like a pea in a can within his cockpit. He got to see the wing holding on by a few metal spars before it ripped away completely and he fell down in a flat spin.

  “Ejecting!” Wyman slammed his back against his seat and held his spine as straight as possible as he grabbed two emergency handles behind his head and pulled.

  His canopy ejected and a rocket beneath his seat shot him out of his stricken fighter. He held on for dear life as his seat tumbled end over end through the frigid sky. Glimpses of a dogfight, burning wreckage, and a war-torn city swam around him.

  Just why his ejection seat’s parachute hadn’t deployed became an immediate concern to him.

  Wyman grabbed one of the handles by his head and yanked on it with no effect. He found the other one whipping around his face and fought to catch it, the centripetal force of his fall and the wind making something so simple almost impossible. Finally, one finger hooked on the line and he pulled them both as hard as he could.

  There was a click and the parachute deployed. The silk composite canopy caught the air and yanked him so hard his neck felt like it was about to snap. He looked up at the risers, checking that they had deployed properly, then he looked around him. Daegon fighters had no qualms about shooting him. He’d seen them do it to other ejected pilots.

  Fighters swirled in a dogfight not far from him, and he counted more Chakrams—and one Eagle—in the fight than Daegon ships.

  “Ha. I was right,” he said as cold air stung his eyes. “Escorts tried to break contact when I went for the VIP. Ranbir and Ivor took them from behind. Not that I feel all that smart right now.” He looked down, wondering if he’d land in a power line, a burning building, or someplace that would break several of his bones on impact.

  Then he noticed hunks of ice flowing past the island with the Golden Temple.

  “Not the river, not the river, not the…oh no…” Wyman looked up at a new sun forming on the horizon. A massive fireball made up of hundreds of distinct pieces blazed down from the sky. There was only one thing in the void that size.

  The Amritsar.

  He watched as the star fort broke apart, sections exploding as they overheated, like a comet dying as it entered a star.

  At least it’s going down over the ocean, he told himself.

  A tone grew in his helmet as the ejection seat’s sensors read that his descent was almost over. He looked down at a row of blocky houses passing beneath his seat.

  “And here we go…” He braced himself against the back of his seat and put his arms over his head.

  The seat twisted itself around and the back slammed into a wall. Wyman’s world became dust and splinters as he crashed through the second-story floor and came to a sliding stop on a rug. The seat tipped over on its side, his helmet smashing through a small wooden footstool.

  Wyman opened one eye and looked up through the gap he’d come through. He patted himself down, checking to see if pain told him where he’d broken bones.

  He heard a man yelling, and an Indus with a thick gray beard and wielding a ceremonial kirpan knife ran at him from a doorway.

  “Albion! Albion!” Wyman held up his arms to ward off a blow.

  The old man, wearing little more than an overly long tunic and a small turban, waved the knife over his head and kept screaming.

  “I’m your friend! Really!” Wyman slapped at the release on his straps, but they wouldn’t open. Keeping one arm up and using his other hand to remove his helmet, he smiled at the old man, who looked more confused than frightened.

  “See, I’m not blue or green like the Daegon.” He dropped the helmet and gestured to his pale, sweat-soaked skin. “See? You know that’s what they look like, right? I’m not Daegon.”

  “Daegon!” the man raised the knife higher.

  “Nahim Daegon!” a little boy said from the doorway. “Nahim Daegon, Dada.”

  “Nahim?” The man shuffled back to the boy.

  “Yeah, nahim Daegon, pal.” Wyman tried twisting his strap latch open, but it moved painfully slow.

  “You…are Albion?” the boy asked in halting English.

  “Albion.” Wyman nodded furiously and slapped his chest.

  The boy and old man spoke to each other, then the old man sheathed his dagger and helped Wyman unlock his straps. The pilot fell onto the floor and gave the dusty, splintered-covered surface a quick kiss, then he pushed himself up to sitting and wiped his brow.

  “Sorry about the mess,” he said.

  “Tea?” the boy asked, a small saucer and steaming cup in hand as he came through the doorway. “We having tea. You?”

  “Sounds great.” Wyman took the cup by the handle, raised it slightly in toast, and took a sip. “Thanks, you guys don’t know where there’s another air base with a spare Typhoon around here, do you?”

  “More tea?” the boy asked as an old woman peeked around the doorframe.

  “One more…then back to the fight,” Wyman said.

  ****

  An Indus soldier crept over the wreckage of a warehouse, the sheet-metal siding of the walls torn and scattered about like a ripped-up letter. A Daegon lander was crushed against a collapsed shelf that had almost reached the ceiling before it was brought low. The soldier’s footsteps cracked broken pottery and small pewter plates as he went closer. Boxes spilled down the lander, covering it like a fractal dune.

  “Spread out,” he said to the squad behind him. “There were other landings nearby. More controlled than this one. They might be here.”

  “No one survived that, Chowaniec” said another soldier, motioning with his rifle barrel.

  “The captain wants to know for sure,” Chowaniec said, “so we’re going to find out. Just cover me.”

  He slung his rifle over one shoulder and tossed boxes aside, each landing with a crack of porcelain.

  “Careful, the captain will make us pay for all that,” said a young soldier with a thin suggestion of a beard from the doorway.

  “Shut up, Silvas. The Daegon broke everything in here,” another said.

  “But—”

  “You want to do this?” Chowaniec heaved a box at the protestor and nothing else was said.

  Clearing away a pile of metal plates, Chowaniec found the Daegon lander’s hull. It was hot to the touch, the onyx surface scuffed and cracked.

  “Anyone know what their doors look like?” Chowaniec asked, sloughing away more broken merchandise.

  �
��I heard they’re eight feet tall with no beards—like they’re all women or something,” Silvas said.

  “So you’re a Daegon?” a soldier muttered.

  “And they’re green with three eyes—”

  Chowaniec craned his neck around to look at the frightened soldier, who promptly shut up. Touching the hull, Chowaniec felt a seam that he couldn’t see. He ran his fingers down the side and jerked his hand back when he felt a tremor, backpedaling and bringing his rifle up.

  “What? What is it?” an Indus asked.

  “Damned if I know.” Chowaniec went to one knee and aimed his weapon as a hum filled the air.

  A section of the lander’s hull exploded outward, the circular edge of the hull catching Chowaniec just above the neckline and decapitating him instantly.

  Shots rang out as a Daegon in deep-purple armor leapt out of the ship. He flinched as Indus bullets sprang off his armor, denting it and knocking off fragments. The Daegon grabbed his chest and threw his hands out, and four tiny spheres hit the ground.

  The explosion from the grenades threw Silvas against the wall and his head cracked against it, his helmet and turban absorbing most of the blow. His rifle went flying and he struggled up to his hands and knees, ears ringing.

  The first Daegon fell forward, blood pooling beneath his body.

  More Daegon climbed out, each armed with a rifle fixed with a serrated bayonet. They swept over the injured Indus, finishing them off with a stomp to the neck or stab to the base of the skull.

  A final Daegon emerged, a pistol bedecked in thorns in one hand, a short sword held in the other. A short, regal-blue cape hung heavy in the cold air.

  The other Daegon soldiers collapsed to form a perimeter around Tiberian as fresh Indus soldiers charged into the warehouse, guns blazing.

  Tiberian shoved his men aside and dashed forward, so fast that Silvas thought the man had transformed into a spirit as he closed the distance to the Indus reinforcement. Tiberian shoulder-charged a soldier, knocking him back so hard his boots, turban and weapon went flying away. The Daegon spun, slicing his blade through two soldiers, cutting a line that began at one’s hip and ended at the other’s shoulder.