A Shifting Alliance (Galaxy Ascendant Book 3)
Page 31
Almost as if on cue, alarms began to alert Felivas to yet another Revittan trick—though it might have been more appropriate to attribute it strictly to the non-Revittan Sai’var personally. A large Revittan fleet, several hundred strong, appeared from hyperspace far closer to the battle than Felivas would ever have dared attempt himself, and immediately began to assault a Snevan position which, in hindsight, had not been strongly reinforced, and seemed to be trying to cleave the overall Alliance formation in two. They could not let that happen.
“Senkar,” Felivas said after opening a channel to his Snevan friend, “have the flanks of your threatened battlegroups turn to engage the enemy point blank; I have assistance headed your way.”
“Acknowleedged,” Senkar replied. The large Snevan didn’t appear at all concerned, which was both normal and, given the situation, very helpful.
Felivas then opened a channel to the Legion Navy’s supreme commander. “We have to start tightening the noose,” he said. “The longer this drags on, the more time Sai’var has to pull something that might finally work.”
The supreme commander hesitated a bit; he was always very wary of what he considered overly aggressive maneuvers, but nodded. “You want us to turn the entire battle into a melee?”
Felivas nodded. “The enemy, despite gradually losing, is still basically standing firm and only retreating slowly, while fighting. We need to make some part of their fleet, even just a small one, break so we can start cutting off sections of their fleet and take them apart piece by piece.”
“I see your point, but our ships are not nearly as effective at close ranges,” the supreme commander replied. “We would be lowering our effectiveness.”
“Fine,” Felivas replied, hoping the Tehlman didn’t detect any of his exasperation. Nayasar would have failed at that completely. “Your fleet can cover our more advanced forces, but from as close range as possible; you don’t like it, but some close-range engagements might become necessary. Just… watch your fire, when things get intense, well, even more intense.”
The supreme commander, who still looked wary, or perhaps even slightly nervous, nodded after another moment of hesitation—how did such a person reach a position of such importance?
“Excellent,” Felivas said, then ended the transmission.
“Do we have any clue as to where the Revittan command ship might be?” Felivas asked as he redeployed several fighters squadrons to intercept the movements of a small enemy force.
“None yet, Admiral.”
What he wouldn’t give for that information.
Felivas instead found a location in the battlefield where a mixed group of Tyrannodon and Talvostan ships were having difficulty advancing against Imperial opposition.
“Have the rest of the wing follow us to the following position,” Felivas said as he sent the coordinates to helm.
The Swift Strike and its support easily slipped through the more muddled center of the battle and hit the Revittans from behind and above, pinning them between two walls of fire and quickly dispatching them.
“Being hailed by one of the Talvostan ships,” called the communications officer.
“Put him through,” Felivas said, and smiled when he saw a familiar face, Tiverias. He was more Nayasar’s friend, of course, but Felivas had spent some time with him as well after the rescue of everyone from the hollow world, and he liked the young Talvostan.
“Thank you for the assist, Admiral,” Tiverias said cheerfully.
“My pleasure,” Felivas replied with a nod. “However, I am curious to know how you ended up in this predicament in the first place.”
“The enemy is doing something weird with their remaining stations, so I thought to try and take them out. Apparently, the enemy commander saw us coming.”
At first, Felivas didn’t see anything strange on the tactical display, but then he ordered a scan, and saw what had likely drawn Tiverias’s attention. The stations, still behind the planetary shield, seemed to now be drawing on some planetside power source, and there were massive buildups within each of them.
“I see it too, and it can’t be good. But we need more ships. Tiverias, can you call in some Legion Navy battlegroups? I feel they will more readily respond to you than to me. “
“An idiotic state of affairs, but that’s the Alliance for you. You have a way to get us behind that shield?”
Felivas grinned. “I’ve already been back there once today. Call in that backup, and send any heavy fighters you have with you to start harassing any nearby enemy ships that could prove annoying.”
“Got it,” Tiverias replied, and Felivas muted the connection as he relayed several orders.
Thankfully, the reinforcements arrived extremely quickly, and after relaying orders, Felivas had a hole made in the shield again and led the Felinaris/Talvostan/Legion Navy force into breach.
“Can we tell just what the stations are doing with all of that power?” Felivas asked.
“Unclear, Admiral. They’re clearly storing it up for something, but we have the technical readouts for stations of this type and there is nothing there that could possibly use so much power.”
“That we know of. We have to be ready for anything when Sai’var is concerned. Have everyone accelerate to attack speed and focus fire on the closest station.”
Due to the fact that the false stations and their fighters had since joined the battle proper, these remaining battlestations only had their own armaments for protection, the Alliance forces made short work of the first one.
While en route to the second, something new happened. A wave of ion energy shot out, caught several of their ships in its radius, immediately disabling them. On the scanner, its energy level decreased slightly. So that was it, then. Even if more energy meant a larger wave, however, this would only be a major issue once the larger battle progressed into the planet’s atmosphere.
Still, all the better to eliminate them now. Felivas relayed orders to his attack group, and they advanced further, even as more Revittan ships jumped in at the edges of the battlefield, serving to further compress the action and make things more chaotic.
What is the plan? He asked himself. Despite everything the Imperials had pulled so far, they were slowly but surely being driven back and defeated. There had to be something more to all of this, but it was frustratingly impossible to make any determination.
We’ll spring whatever trap he has eventually, and then break both it and the Empire, working together.
He led his allied force to their next target, weapons blazing.
CHAPTER 53
Asharra, seated on the bridge of the Protector, had thought herself ready for whatever the Empire might have waiting for them. She was wrong, dead wrong.
As soon as the fleet dropped out of hyperspace, gasps were audible across the bridge, and Asharra couldn’t stop herself from staring in shock for a few moments. Before them, in orbit of the planet, was the monster that could only be the Final Awakening Corras had talked about, the gigantic hybrid of a Conqueror-class battlecruiser with the massive weapon that the ship was built around dominating its entire front half. In person, it somehow looked even bigger; larger than the entire Free People’s Alliance fleet combined.
Fortunately, those in overall command were not shocked into silence.
“This is Admiral Dahar,” he broadcast. “All groups, report in.”
“Hammer Wing, standing by,” Asharra replied as the other capital ship groups and individual fighter squadrons checked in. With Commodore Mierran and her squadron off to Fayren, Asharra had been placed in command of an entire group of warships. Well, it was technically a group, but not a large one. The rebellion had brought everything they had, which amounted to thirty capital ships and about a hundred fighters.
A pitifully small fleet, but hopefully enough to hold back the fleet of a dozen Imperial cruisers, each larger and more powerful than those of the rebellion, while they did as much damage to the superweapon as possible.
What the hell were they supposed to do? This was unlike anything Asharra had ever seen, and here she was, in command of the forces assaulting it.
“Run whatever scans we can on that thing,” she ordered. “See if there’s a weak spot, or something, anything that we can exploit. Until then, begin probing its shields, but don’t get too close.”
Asharra shut out the sounds over the fleet comm link as the bulk of it attacked the Imperial warships. She didn’t need to hear people dying for what was ultimately a delay and distract operation. Time was a factor as well; the escort ships had certainly sent out a distress signal immediately after the rebel fleet had arrived, and, sooner or later, enough Imperial might would be brought to bear. Likely sooner.
“Anything yet?” Asharra asked as she clung to the Shift, her lifeline for remaining calm.
“No obvious weak point,” one of her officers replied. “However, we have found something that might be useful. Because this thing is so big, it has separate shield generators for different sections, so it might be feasible for us to simply brute force one of them and get through to the ship itself, at least for a brief time, before other generators are brought online or rerouted.”
It wasn’t much, but it was something.
“Were scans able to determine where its hyperdrive is located?”
“No, Captain. We haven’t been able to get scans to penetrate the hull; we were only able to learn what we did about the shields from observing the energy readings.”
“Then our target has to be its engines. We keep that thing from clearing the planet’s gravity, we keep it here. Send word.”
The Protector and the rest of Hammer Wing moved into firing range, with their fighters closing in as well, and began to concentrate fire on the rear of Final Awakening.
“Any shield readings?”
“Hard to say precisely, but it appears that we are doing damage to it.” The officer paused for a moment. “Incoming fire.”
Almost immediately, the Protector was rocked as cannon fire from Final Awakening itself impacted.
“Don’t let up!” Asharra ordered. “We are not retreating before the job is done.”
“This thing’s cannons are too slow and large to hit us,” sent the leader of Phoenix Squadron, “but I’m not getting the impression we are doing much over here.”
Before Asharra could reply, one of her officers cut in. “Enemy fighters, inbound. A lot of them.”
“Phoenix Squadron, Valyn Squadron, fall back and defend the fleet,” Asharra ordered. “Shrike, keep hitting the target.”
She opened a channel to only the rest of Hammer Wing. “Tighten formation, but not too close. Don’t want to make it too easy for that superweapon to hit us, but the fighters will annihilate an isolated ship.”
She received acknowledgements, and within moments the rebel fighters were engaging the swarm of Imperials. How long would they be able to hold? How long would the shield protecting Final Awakening’s engines hold?
What more could she do?
The Shift was always there, waiting. Even in a battle like this, it could be of use. She had done so before, but to draw on so much, to do something that brought back memories she wanted to keep buried…
Was she really going to let good people die and risk the mission just to protect her feelings? Unbidden, she heard the voice of her dead mentor, Aleron, repeating something he said on occasion. “Stop being such a woman.” It was always in jest, by and large, but it held meaning, too. She couldn’t let her feelings dictate her actions.
Asharra opened herself fully to the Shift, and shut her eyes as she let her awareness grow, to a point where it was almost overwhelming.
Suddenly, she could see the battle going on around her from a new perspective, could see each fighter arcing around, struggling to get out of an enemy’s sights or get an enemy into theirs.
All it took was a few small manipulations; a hand slipping slightly as one aimed, taking a slightly less sharp turn, to decide who lived and who died. Unfortunately, the rebel forces fighting the Imperial escort ships were too far away for her to help, and, either way, the superweapon was what mattered. Hammer Wing and Phoenix Squadron continued to pound away at the shield.
“Are we getting anywhere?” Asharra asked, eyes still shut.
“Not sure,” came the reply. “We also have even more fighters coming in.”
Asharra bit back a curse. Shift or no Shift, they only had so many fighters. They had to do something.
“Get us moving, and take us in closer to the superweapon.”
“But the cannons?”
“Won’t make us any more dead than an overwhelming number of fighters back here. Maybe they’ll be a bit more reluctant to shoot at us if their own are in the line of fire. If not, we’ll be close enough to ram if it comes to that.”
“Understood, captain.”
Asharra retained her connection to the Shift, and kept her eyes squeezed shut as they accelerated. One way or another, this mission would be over soon.
CHAPTER 54
“We’re cut off from that side too!” one of the rebels called as Corras fired off several more shots, then ducked back behind the partially open doors of the armory that they had made into their holdout point.
“How much time till the fleet gets here?” asked Reki, who was nursing a minor arm wound.
“They should have been here ten minutes ago,” said another rebel as yet more Imperial fire cut through, and caught someone in the head. Their numbers were dwindling.
“They’ll be here,” Corras said. “But I don’t like us getting trapped in this position.”
“Safer here than out there.”
Corras was about to reply when he heard a too-familiar sound, the sound of heavy things walking, and a pit formed in his stomach. “We have to get out of here, now.”
“Didn’t you just say that we’re penned in by fire on both sides?”
“Yes, but if we stay here much longer we will all be very, very dead.” There was the sound again. “They’re sending in zadir.” While no longer the primary way the Empire fought wars on planetside, the massive, animal-shaped mechanized assault platforms were still the apex predators when it came to planet-based weaponry.
Everyone quieted, and someone closed the doors almost completely, leaving just enough room for two soldiers with rapid-firing repeaters to keep the troopers from getting closer. “Why the hell would any of those be stationed here?”
“No idea,” Corras replied, “but right now, that doesn’t matter. What does is that we are trapped in a building full of ammunition, and if the Empire is willing to sacrifice it to be rid of us, it’ll take only a few shots from a zadir.”
“We should break out from the side those things are approaching from,” Reki said. “They’ll hold their fire with their own people in the way, at least for a few moments, and we can then cut through the forest, buy some time, at least.”
Corras nodded, and looked around at the two dozen or so people they had left. “Take whatever you can carry, and grab something big we can use to force some heads down before we run out.”
Corras took a turn at the repeaters while the frantic preparations were made, and the booming steps of slowly approaching zadir units grew ever closer. A whole lot would depend on what types were here. Some they could outrun, at least for a while, but others would chase them down immediately.
“Ready,” someone said as Corras fired into a group of troopers exiting an armored vehicle, killing or wounding all of them. It was almost enough to trick him into thinking they could hold. Everything depended on the fleet getting here.
The armory doors opened wider, Corras and the other
gunner moved to stay behind their protection as a volley of shoulder-launched rockets fired above him and into the Imperial positions.
“Go!” someone shouted, and without hesitation, Corras abandoned the too-heavy repeating gun and sprinted through the sporadic enemy fire toward the foliage.
He ignored the cries of pain of those unfortunate enough to get hit as he sprinted, wounded arm pulsing, old legs protesting, and as he got through the thickly wooded area and into a clearing, a shot that could only have come from a zadir impacted near him, and he went flying. As he struggled to pull himself up, he felt a pair of hands grab him and pull him behind a large metal plate that looked like part of a training course.
“What do we have?” he asked as he caught his breath.
“A couple of rockets, not much else.”
The heavy sounds suddenly became deafening, as a pair of wolf-shaped zadir units bounded from the trees and began to angle their weapons toward the small rebel band.
The rockets fired, each hitting the head of one of the zadir, but all it did was slow the pace at which they leveled their weapons.
There was nothing else to do; something must have happened to the fleet, and because of that, they were going to fail. Corras saw his family in his mind as he stared death in the face.
The cannons leveled.
And suddenly, fire shot through the air and slammed into the zadir units’ sides, staggering them, and then yet more cannon fire clean blew them in half.
“Look there!” Reki shouted, pointing, as a heavy wind blew into them.
Corras looked up to see a squadron of fighters streak by, several breaking off from the main group, presumably to attack other ground targets.
Corras fumbled for his personal comm and pulled it out as a cheer erupted from the remains of their team, and someone contacted him. “What took you so long?” he asked.