by J. N. Chaney
“They really are just bit players, crew aboard a tramp transport,” she told Urbanek, Tanner, and Densmore during a recess. “But they also know more and just aren’t saying it. It’s something all three of them have in common. I can probably find out what it is if I dig around in their minds.”
Densmore gave a sly smile and shook her head, though. “That won’t be necessary. This fits nicely with some intel we’ve unearthed about the Bilau and their mindset. I think I know what they’re holding back and how to get them to tell us all about it.”
Back in session, Urbanek gestured for Densmore to take the floor and speak. She walked up to the three Bilau, giving them a broad smile as she did. From the audience, Thorn could feel apprehensive fear radiating from them in waves.
For a moment, she just studied the Bilau, then she focused on one of them. “Tell me about The Way.”
The Bilau suddenly sneered back at her. “Do not dare to speak of our magnificence. You aren’t worthy.”
The alien abruptly stopped, realizing he’d been goaded into revealing the very thing he’d been desperately trying to suppress.
“Okay, then help me understand. Why did you try to wipe out the Meksun?”
The Bilau agonized for a moment, before settling into a resigned manner, accompanied by a wintry gaze.
“They were decadent. Weak. Flyers.” He shot a glare at the three Meksun who were watching from the back of the hangar. “They couldn’t defend themselves, so they saw The Way unfold before them as we took what was rightfully ours!”
“You will all soon see The Way unfold before you, too,” another of the Bilau snapped.
Densmore crossed her arms and gave a disgusted grimace. “Not only genocidal, but raving zealots, too.”
“It’s worse than that,” Urbanek put in. “They’re raving zealots who were trying to conceal their raving zealotry. They don’t even have the guts to stand up for their own beliefs, no matter how twisted they are.”
Densmore nodded and turned back to the Bilau. “I definitely will not be sorry to drop you three into the ice.”
The proceedings collapsed into chaos as the three Bilau, suddenly spitting, shouting, and flailing about, were dragged away by burly Marines. Thorn watched until they were gone.
Tanner, sitting nearby, rubbed his chin. “We might live to regret saving even these three,” he said.
Thorn sighed as the blast door sealed behind the Bilau, abruptly cutting off their hissing shrieks. “Well then, sir, let’s make sure that reactor at Farthest Star never goes cold.”
Thorn couldn’t resist a whistle. “Okay, that is one hell of a lot of ships.”
The Hecate had just cut out her Alcubierre drive and was powering toward the star ahead. Her new, upgraded drive and anti-grav system made the twenty g’s the destroyer was pulling irrelevant. They might as well have been sitting in a space dock. Before she flipped to begin decelerating, though, Thorn found himself in a ringside seat, looking out of the open witchport at the most fearsome collection of military might ever assembled.
Even without the Reserve Fleet, which had remained behind to protect human space, the ON by itself counted one hundred and ninety-two ships of all classes, including sixteen super-dreadnought carrier hybrids of the same class as the Tobruk, Urbanek’s flagship of the Second Fleet. Scoville had moved his own flag from the venerable battleship Arcturus, which was, along with the Hecate, one of only a handful of ships that had been involved in the war from its outset. He now commanded the Third Fleet from the Memphis.
It wasn’t just the ON present, though. A newly constituted Fourth Fleet, composed of task forces contributed by the Imbrogul, the Astarti, the Owath and the Philomek, fleshed out the force with another forty-two ships, ranging from battlecruisers to corvettes. Even the Nyctus had a presence, with seven of their few surviving warships taking station on the fleet’s right flank. Winuk commanded them from their sole remaining battleship, the Thunderous Tide.
This vast assemblage of ships, now known as the Combined Fleet, filled the space around a nondescript white dwarf called Kellogg’s Star. It wasn’t quite on the border with Bilau space, but it was close enough to let the fleet strike in any direction. Intel reported the Bilau as massing in their own space just three systems away, apparently intent on intercepting the Combined Fleet no matter what direction it headed. As yet, though, the Bilau had only marshalled about one-third of the Combined Fleet’s strength, so it was a win-win no matter what they did. If they did actually intercept, they’d almost certainly be wiped out in detail. But if they didn’t, then the Combined Fleet could roam, unmolested, across Bilau space. Either way, it offered Scoville, in overall command, a window of opportunity to make the aliens’ lives as miserable as possible.
“That’s what happens when you turn basically all sentient life against you, guys,” Thorn said, staring past the imposing might of the Combined Fleet and into Bilau space beyond.
Tanner’s voice cut off his reverie. “Stellers, Winuk’s on the comm for you. He asked for Wixcombe to join in. Putting them through now.”
Winuk’s voice replaced Tanner’s. “Thorn, I don’t know if I’ll have a chance to say this later, so I’m going to say it now. I want to thank you for the effort you’ve put into sparing my people. It is . . . appreciated, very much so.”
“You need to thank a lot of people, not just me, Winuk.”
“Indeed. However, none of this would have been possible without you and your daughter. I can only hope that we will acquit ourselves well and prove worthy of redemption.”
“I’m sure you will, Winuk,” Kira said. “I’ve been on the other end of your weapons more than a few times, remember? They were hard fights for sure.”
“I can vouch for that,” Thorn put in.
“That fighting spirit has largely left us, I’m afraid. My people will always keep a path open to flee. Simple survival has become our nature, I fear. Or, at least it has for some of us,” Winuk said, his voice thick with shame.
“Just because you’re Nyctus, you don’t have to be Nyctus,” Kira said. “The way your people used to be is gone. It’s time for your people to start a new chapter in your story.”
“Listen to her, Winuk. She knows what she’s talking about,” Thorn said.
“You are both very wise. It is clear why you are meant to be together.”
Thorn smiled. “Yeah, it is, isn’t it?”
23
Thorn gripped his talisman and simply breathed. He kept his eyes closed, focusing on his inner self. He tried not to focus on his actual self, sitting cross-legged in the Hecate’s witchport—at least not yet. That was the Thorn Stellers who could see the massive Bilau fleet rolling toward them like the shockwave of an exploding star.
“Final count for the Bilau fleet is three hundred and two ships,” a voice—Thorn wasn’t sure whose—said from the comm. He tried to maintain that inward focus, but it deflated like a punctured balloon and he gave up. He opened his eyes and glanced at the tactical display.
“Huh.”
There were surprisingly few icons, he thought, then he realized the display had changed the scale. With Bilau ships closing on the 260 or so of the Combined Fleet, the device had decided to portray squadrons only, each icon therefore roughly representing five to ten ships.
He pulled his attention back from the display and put it where it belonged—out the witchport, into the void and the ether infusing it, where an unseen ocean of magic ebbed and flowed.
“Stellers, Tanner. I’ve got Admirals Scoville and Urbanek on the channel.”
Thorn glanced at the comm and saw it had switched to a secure, private channel. “Sirs, Stellers here,” he replied.
“I know you’ve sat through all the intel briefings, Stellers. So I won’t bore you with the details. Bottom line is that the Bilau outnumber us and outgun us. Their ships are more advanced, and so’s their weaponry,” Scoville said.
“Not to mention they are fanatically pissed off,” Urbanek pu
t in. “They’ve apparently decided enough is enough, so they’re drawing a line here, at Caleb’s Folly.”
“Not surprising, sir. We’ve taken out, what, a half-dozen of their worlds now?” Thorn thought about the bombardments, each a deluge of Avalanche missiles, upgraded versions of the weapons that had obliterated the Nyctus world of Kuvor. So far, all had delivered thermonuclear payloads, but Thorn suspected there were sterility prion warheads lurking somewhere in the fleet, ready to be used. Probably aboard the Stiletto, Densmore’s spooky battlecruiser, which had actually joined the Combined Fleet as an independent ship—one of only two, the other being the Jolly. So far, she’d done nothing but hang silently around in the fringes of their attacks on the Bilau planets. He found it hard to believe that the Stiletto was here only for her combat capability, which really wasn’t that impressive for a ship her size.
Even so, the nukes had worked with devastating effect, turning planets in blasted, irradiated cinders. The casualty count was estimated in the billions, now. It was no wonder the Bilau were out for blood. Thorn told himself they’d be out for blood anyway, though, because that was their basic nature—aggressive, expansionistic warmongers. Worse, the aliens had obviously applied a rigorous sort of discipline to their fury. They’d held the bulk of their fleet back, despite the Combined Fleet razing planet after planet, until they decided it was the right moment to strike.
So here they were, two fleets, almost 600 ships, about to slam headlong into one another. The Battle of Caleb’s Folly would be recorded in the histories as the pivotal moment, when the survival of entire races hung in the balance.
One of those races was, of course, humanity itself.
“Be that as it may, Stellers, we knew it would eventually come to this,” Scoville went on. “We’ve tried issuing ultimatums to the Bilau, but, unsurprisingly, they’re not interested in anything but blood. So we’re about to engage with a bigger, more powerful fleet, which is motivated by an unquenchable rage. We’ve only got one clear advantage over them, and that’s you.”
“The Starcaster Corps is definitely the ace up our sleeve today,” Urbanek agreed. “And you’re the most prominent, potent Starcaster we’ve got. So we’re letting you off the leash, Stellers. You’ve got leave to do whatever you need to, to help us win this battle.”
“We’ve propagated the same message out to the other Starcasters across the fleet, but as we understand it, none of them are capable of what you are, Stellers,” Tanner put in.
Thorn narrowed his eyes at the comm. “Sirs, what are you saying, here? Are you asking me to rewrite reality so we just win this battle outright? Are you ordering me to do that?”
Scoville barked out a laugh. “A blunt question, so it deserves a blunt answer. No, we are not ordering you to do anything in particular, Stellers. Honestly, you’re still pretty much a black box, as far as us old salts are concerned, anyway. You do whatever you do, and things happen as a result.”
“More to the point, we don’t really get the implications of it,” Urbanek added. “As I understand it, changing reality is potentially dangerous.”
“Yes, sir, it is. If I just made the Bilau cease to exist—and I’m really not sure I could—that would have ripple effects that we couldn’t foresee.”
“How about just killing them all so we don’t have to fight them? There are a lot of people, human and alien, that I’d really rather bring back home safe and sound, rather than making Caleb’s Folly their grave,” Scoville said.
Thorn blinked in surprise. They’d come a long way from the days of deep suspicion and mistrust of Starcasters. Now the brass were quite content to ask Thorn to just win the battle for them. He got it—no rational person wanted to oversee the deaths of potentially thousands of their subordinates.
“Again, sir, I’d have to kill them off somehow. We’ve got no idea what the long-term ramifications of that might be.” Thorn looked down at his talisman. “Sirs, what I can promise you is that, if it looks like things are going bad for us, then I’ll do whatever it takes. Until then, though, I’ll just do my damndest to help win this thing.”
“Then that will have to do,” Scoville said. “Now, gentlemen, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a battle to win.”
Scoville signed off, Urbanek right behind him. Tanner lingered a moment.
“Stellers—” he started, then stopped.
Thorn gave the comm a bemused look. “Sir?”
“Stellers, you’ve done damned good work in the time we’ve served together. I know you’ll do the right thing when the time comes.”
Thorn smiled. “Thank you, sir. It’s been an honor serving under you.”
“This is starting to sound like a eulogy,” Tanner snapped. “Let’s just go do our jobs, then go home. You’ve got a family and a farm waiting for you.”
Thorn nodded, to himself as much as the comm.
“Yes, sir, I do.”
The Hecate shuddered under the impact of another missile, the reactive armor offsetting much of the blast. Another salvo came racing toward her, but the point-defense systems were predicting a 100 percent takedown, so Thorn swung his attention back to the battle raging around them. The void was no longer a void. It was now full of engines of destruction hurtling about, missiles racing toward their targets, railguns coughing out hypervelocity death, Bilau energy weapons shredding hull plates, fighters locked in vicious dogfights, all of it punctuated by whirling debris, glittering clouds of frozen atmosphere, and bodies, or parts of them.
The Hecate slewed hard to one side. A Bilau cruiser, with a missile frigate in company, plowed toward the Memphis. Scoville’s flagship had taken a series of devastating hits, including several suicide attacks by Bilau fighters and a crippled corvette that had ripped off a good chunk of the carrier’s bow. It was a testament to her sturdy engineering that she remained in the fight, still conducting flight ops with her fighters, and still carrying Scoville’s flag. But the Bilau seemed to sense blood and had sent forces converging to try to finish the carrier off.
Thorn desperately wanted to intervene, but he’d focused his efforts on a squadron of Bilau heavy cruisers, led by a pair of battleships that had almost broken the ON line. If it succeeded, a chunk of the Third Fleet would be cut off from the rest, and from the Second Fleet. Losing the Memphis would be a tragedy, but letting the fleet get cut in two would be a catastrophe.
Thorn had tried to seize control of key Bilau personnel, to try to disrupt the operations of their ships, or even cause something disastrous to happen. But the Bilau seemed to be much more decentralized in how they ran their navy, so Thorn had to jump from mind to mind, seeking someone who could enter the wrong command or push the wrong button. He eventually gave up and fell back on magic as firepower.
He crafted a ring-shaped Hammer effect, hundreds of meters across and centered on the lead Bilau battleship. His awareness plunged deep into his focus, he reached out with an open palm, marshaled his determination and intent, then snapped his fist closed. The Hammer-ring likewise slammed closed and abruptly tightened around the battleship like a noose. Reactive armor detonated all around her amidships, fruitlessly trying to stave off an effect that had no physical existence. A large portion of the battleship’s mid-section had been battered and buckled by the Hammer-blow, but she drove on, pouring out energy bursts at the thinning ON line. Thorn saw the Jolly Green Giant race in to intercept, but even Bertilak’s formidable little ship wasn’t a match for the big battlewagon.
“Thorn, Winuk here. I have an idea.”
Thorn let out a ragged breath, collecting himself. “Go ahead, Winuk. Any idea right now sounds like a damned fine thing.”
Kira braced herself as the Gyrfalcon slammed through a hard turn, Mol driving her upgraded engine to full combat overpower. Trixie let out a loud whoop.
“Oh, yes, you go, girl!”
Mol, her voice taut from the spillover effect of excess g-forces, growled out something between a laugh and a groan.
“Thanks, Tr
ixie, but if you could just keep those point-defenses doing their thing, so I don’t have to feel what it’s like to weigh a thousand pounds, that’d be good.”
“Sorry, Mol, but there are a lot of missiles flying around out there—”
She stopped as the trio of missiles Mol’s maneuver had been meant to dodge raced by. “Like those ones,” Trixie added.
Mol swung the Gyrfalcon back onto a straight course, and the crush of undamped g’s faded. Now a massive wall of spaceship loomed in the view, the flank of the carrier Delhi, one of the Tobruk’s sister supercarriers. She hung in a vicious firefight with a flotilla of smaller ships, light cruisers, and frigates. She seemed to be holding her own, but Kira decided to help as they swept past her. While Mol lined up a target, one of the cruisers, Kira reached out with a powerful sweep of Joining, like a searchlight. The Bilau had no way of counteracting magic—as far as the Starcasters knew, anyway—so there was no need to be discreet. Her mind swept across the bridge crew, but she couldn’t find any particular Bilau she could control to cripple the ship. So, instead, she pushed and seized control of all of them. It taxed her right to her limits, but she dug deep and bent the bridge crew to her will.
Cold rage became a burst of panic and confusion, then that was washed away by mute compliance. Kira had the helm swing the light cruiser directly into the path of one of its sister ships, while the gunnery officer switched fire to a third cruiser. A flight of Goshawk fighters just launched by the Delhi immediately pounced, seizing on the confusion to wreak even more havoc and destruction. With a loud gasp, Kira released the Joining and sank back in the crash couch.
She was just in time to find Mol jinking them up and over a frigate, pouring railgun shots into its flank. Trixie whooped again and spun the point defenses around, turning a desperate volley of point blank missile fire from the frigate into scrap.
“Love this job,” Mol hissed, then fired again, a plasma bloom lighting her screens as she notched another kill.
