A Shifting Alliance (Galaxy Ascendant Book 3)

by Yakov Merkin

  Then what was the plan?

  Darkclaw examined the tactical display, and then he realized something. He had been incorrect in his determination that the Empire’s goal had been to draw in the Alliance forces. There had been something far more subtle at work, something he had somehow missed. They had been working to draw in certain segments of the Alliance fleet. Specifically, Darkclaw’s own Tyrannodons, and his closest allies, the Felinaris and Snevans.

  Then, in front of his eyes, Darkclaw saw most of the Alliance fleet, notably the entirety of the Legion Navy contingent and most of the Talvostan fleet, quietly reposition themselves, with some pulling back a bit while others more broadly altered their positioning in regard to his own fleets. Moves which would weaken the overall Alliance offensive, just when the enemy was, quite possibly, out of options, and leaving his fleet and those of his close allies taking the brunt of the enemy fire. Then he came to a realization that made his blood run cold.

  It was all so obvious now, but possibly far too late. Darkclaw tried to open channels to his allies, but, as he had dreaded, all communications were being jammed. With no other means by which to take action to avert the coming catastrophe, Darkclaw frantically tried to use the tactical display’s interface to reposition his forces, prepare them as best he could, but unless he had just grossly misjudged what was happening, it was not going to be anywhere near enough.

  CHAPTER 58

  “Admiral, I think we’ve determined where the Revittan flagship is,” said Lieutenant Azir.

  “Finally. Where?”

  “Over at point five three one mark seven. It’s a unique ship class, which maybe should have tipped us off earlier, but we didn’t want to jump to conclusions.”

  “Excellent. Have the attack wing form up. We’re going to punch our way through to the grand admiral himself and see if we can’t bring this thing to an end.”

  Felivas sent a signal to their Legion Navy and Talvostan support, and quickly prepared their attack vectors as the Swift Strike and is escorts finished off several more Revittan warships with which they had already been engaged. He couldn’t wait to tell Nayasar just how well this old frigate, which she occasionally made fun of, had held up in this massive, lengthy battle.

  “Increase power to forward shields, and prepare to accelerate to full attack speed,” Felivas ordered. “go in hard and fast, and get out quick if things get too dicey.”

  He would have described his attack wing’s position, at the forefront of the offensive and in close proximity to the enemy at nearly all times, as quite dangerous, if the whole battle hadn’t suddenly become a congested close quarters slog a few hours ago.

  Even if they weren’t able to take out the grand admiral or otherwise remove him from the battle, Felivas noted as the Swift Strike’s fighters began to attack a nearby gunship while his ship itself fired on the frigate it had been accompanying, the planet’s shield would either be depleted before long or a large enough opening in the enemy lines would be made for transports to start making their way through holes in the shield and down to the surface. Even once the battle up here was done, there would be more work to do, if by largely different people.

  “All ships still able to fight reporting ready, Admiral,” his communications officer said.

  “Then let’s do this,” Felivas said as he tightened his hands on the arms of his chair.

  The force of the acceleration pushed him back into the seat slightly, and Felivas smiled. He still missed some aspects of being a full-time fighter pilot, but this was satisfying in a whole different way.

  “All batteries, open fire!” he ordered as soon as they came within range.

  The Swift Strike shook as the enemy fired on them as well, but moving as quickly as they were, the enemy didn’t land too many hits on them as they moved yet closer to the more dangerous and important target protected by the enemy’s rear line.

  After a bit more progression, however, Felivas noticed something odd. The Legion Navy forces that had been providing support had dropped back slightly for some unexplained reason, and, as he watched on the tactical display, they stopped firing on the Imperial fleet.

  What in the hell?

  “Lieutenant, open a channel to our Legion Navy support. I want to know what in the galaxy they think they’re doing back there.”

  “Um, Admiral,” came the nervous response moments later, “all of our communications are being blocked.”

  How was that possible? The Revittans certainly did not have that capability, or they would have done so at the outset of the battle. Which only left…oh no.

  “Come about!” he ordered. “Divert all auxiliary and nonessential power to shields!’

  Moments later, his fears were confirmed as the Legion Navy ships opened fire on his own, as did the Talvostans a few moments later.

  For a brief second, Felivas found himself paralyzed with fear and indecision, but he quickly snapped out of it. “Launch all emergency distress beacons!” he shouted as he sent directions to the rest of his ships via the tactical display, and the Swift Strike was rocked by fire from both the Revittans and the Alliance. “Get us out of here!”

  It was all too clear, however, than they were not going to make it; they were too deep, and without support. His hands clenched into fists as he rose from his chair despite the shaking. “Weapons free; fire on all enemy targets! Keep them focused on us.”

  On the tactical display, he saw that several of his ships had had a similar idea, drawing the attention of their attackers and allowing for some of the Felinaris ships that had been further out to slip away, for the moment, at least.

  “Shields down to forty percent!” Commander Noran shouted as the ship was buffeted by enemy fire.

  Felivas made sure that throughout it all, as they lost ship after ship, and as they themselves drew ever closer to the inevitable, he remained calm, collected, and sure in his commands. His crew was professional, but no amount of no-win scenario training could properly prepare someone for the real thing. Felivas himself wasn’t ready. But he was in command, and they could not see any doubt or fear in him.

  “Keep us moving, in the most erratic pattern possible,” he ordered as they were hit yet again and sparks flew on the command deck. “Fire until we have nothing left, and focus on the Legion Navy ships. Make them pay for every hit.”

  The Alliance would pay dearly for this. Somehow, no matter what happened here, Nayasar and Darkclaw would find a way.

  “Shields down to ten percent!”

  And on the tactical display, none of their other ships showed as functional; either disabled or destroyed. There had been good people on them, good friends.

  “Give everything we have left to shields and set a course for the Legion Navy. We are going to fight our way out of this, through them.”

  They would not make it, but they would die fighting. No, he determined as an image of beloved Nayasar flashed into his mind. They were not yet dead, which meant their fates were not sealed.

  “Shields collapsing!” Came the alert as they closed with their past and now present enemy, weapons blazing.

  “Stay the course!”

  Then the Swift Strike was hit, hard, and only a vice grip on his command chair kept Felivas from getting tossed across the deck as several others were.

  Within moments, explosions rocked the command deck, consoles overloading. A few officers went down screaming as they were caught by the blasts, and Felivas could do nothing about it.

  A few minutes later, however, the onslaught abruptly stopped. Felivas took the moment to run to the side of a Lieutenant Everas, who was on the floor, unmoving, and checked for life signs. Thank the Omnipresent, she still lived, but Felivas could see from the expressions and positions of others nearby that not everyone was so fortunate.

  “Status!” He demanded.

  After a few seconds, someone made it to a console and replied. “We’re dead in space, Admiral. Small enemy craft are approaching.”

  Boarders.
Of course. The Alliance traitors had told the Revittans where exactly he was. It was fortunate, as that was the only reason any of them still lived, but he had no intention of becoming a Revittan prisoner.

  Felivas briefly considered ordering all hands to abandon ship, but surrounded as they were, the escape pods would be easily captured or destroyed. Then, there was the option of offering to surrender himself to spare his crew any harm. However, even if the Revittans would agree to that and could be trusted in any degree, his crew, his second family, would never agree to that.

  He opened a shipwide channel. “Attention all hands. This is Admiral Kharitzon. Prepare to repel boarders. Feli ammil.” Omnipresent be with us.

  Turning to the remains of his command crew, he said. “Get the wounded to as safe a location as possible, then barricade the doors and ready yourselves. We will not become easy prey.”

  He helped in the preparations as one of their number remained at her console, monitoring the situation as best she could, given the immense damage to the ship.

  “Enemies have boarded,” she said as Felivas re-wired the deck’s door panel to seal them shut. “Crew engaging them.”

  “Just let me know when they’re near us,” Felivas said. He didn’t need—or want—updates that would only tell him how much of his crew, how much more of his crew, was likely dead.

  They will pay. They will all pay.

  They prepared as best they could, then positioned themselves and waited.

  “They’re here,” the officer said before abandoning the console and taking her position.

  “I want to say that it has been the greatest honor to have served with so fine a crew. Whatever happens to us, the war is not over. Our enemies will all be made to pay for what they have done today.”

  The sounds of banging and drilling began to come from beyond the doors.

  “Khiya il’Felisihu, khyia il’Felikhar,” my life for the Omnipresent, my life for Felinar, Felivas began to recite the oath every Felinaris took during their initial swearing in ceremony, and after a moment, everyone began to repeat it along with him, one line at a time, volume growing louder and louder.

  Then the doors burst open.

  “Felikhar ad-melkhan!” Felivas shouted as they opened fire.

  For the first few moments, they held, their hail of fire felling the first Revittan troopers to enter the deck, but it wasn’t long before they were simply too many, until they started to pick off members of Felivas’s crew, and the defenders started to run out of ammunition.

  “Keep firing!” Felivas shouted as he pulled a wounded Commander Noran behind additional cover.

  It wasn’t much longer before Felivas’s weapon beeped, letting him know it was out of power, and amid more and more of his brilliant crew falling to enemy fire, something within him seemed to snap. With a roar, he drew his sword, vaulted over the trashed console he had been using for cover, and sprung toward the troopers. His felinite blade sliced clean through the helmet of the first trooper he struck, and he managed to grievously wound several more in his frenzy before something struck him from behind, and he fell to his knees, then collapsed completely as his strength left him.

  I am so sorry, Nayasar, he wanted to say to her as he lost consciousness, you were right all along, and now we are going to pay the price for not listening, for not seeing what you saw.

  CHAPTER 59

  For several seconds, all Nayasar could do was watch in horror as her worst nightmare unfolded in front of her, and her ships, as well as those of her close allies, were betrayed and fired upon. Those clawless, kerakhil scum! The entirety of the Legion Navy, the Alliance’s planetary fleets, and apparently most of the Talvostan Navy had turned on them without warning, while the rest of the Talvostan cowards fled the system as things went to hell.

  “Can we get communications back?” she asked as she scrambled to relay orders to whoever she could via the tactical display. It didn’t allow for actual communication and was painfully slow, but it was all they had for now as the enemy surrounded them and with every passing second was trying to seal them in.

  She’d been right all along, but it brought no pleasure. As the Felinar and its escorts attempted to evade the heavy volume of fire incoming from both the Alliance and Revittan forces, she realized with despair that Felivas had been far out front; there was no way he’d made it out of there. She fought back the tears that threatened to fall; he might be alive yet, if a prisoner, and either way, she could not let her crew see her in a state of panic and despair.

  “Squadron of Legion Navy ships bearing down of us, with Revittans closing from behind!”

  Said Alliance ships, according to the display, were also conveniently between them and space outside of the planet’s gravity well, though there were still interdictors to destroy before they could get out.

  “Alter course, take us straight into those kerakhil, slash formation. And get some comms back!”

  Nayasar stilled any thoughts of revenge as the Felinar accelerated toward the enemy. They had to get their ships out of here before they could even consider how to strike back.

  As they drew closer, and came under heavier fire, Nayasar finally heard the blessed sound of Darkclaw’s voice, coming over a low-quality but functional channel.

  “Nayasar?” he asked, abandoning and pretext of honorifics.

  “I’m here,” she said. “Do you have a plan for getting us out?” The Felinar shook again, and Nayasar couldn’t help but notice more of her ships vanishing from the display.

  “There’s no easy solution,” Darkclaw replied quickly, and despite his even voice Nayasar could hear the stress. “We let ourselves get too spread out, and too close to the Legion Navy and Talvostan fleet. I will take control of the ships nearer to my position, but in truth every ship or group of ships will have to fight their own way out. Any attempts to move to assist others will likely be suicidal.”

  “And what about the Legion Navy interdictors?” The Felinar shook as it led the way through the Legion Navy lines, alarms blaring.

  “We will deal with that once we get as many ships as possible out of the line of fire.”

  “Understood,” Nayasar said, then turned to her crew. “You heard him; let’s get ourselves out, then see what comes next.”

  Nayasar braced herself against the tactical display as she opened a channel to her ships and started to search for effective avenues of escape.

  Thankfully, it was clear that there were several weaker areas, specifically those where Talvostan Union ships that had fled had originally been located. Additionally, one small advantage of the battle having become so close range was that the enemy ships now surrounding her and her allies were close enough to each other that there was risk of friendly fire if they all tried to engage at once. Nayasar would have wondered if this had been their first plan, or if it was a secondary one after another failed, but she didn’t have time right now.

  She opened channels to the Felinaris, Tyrannodon, and Snevan ships nearby. “Attention, this is Grand Admiral Khariah. All ships, do what you must to break out, then jump to hyperspace as soon as you can. Rendezvous coordinates will be provided.”

  “We’re free of the containment,” announced the Felinar’s helm operator as the ship spun around to face the chaotic scene and the Legion Navy ships in pursuit of their group.

  “Can we get to hyperspace?”

  “Not from here; if we get further out, we’d probably be out of range of the interdictors.”

  “Negative on that. Get us a few undamaged ships for an escort. We have to help more get out by poking holes in the Legion Navy line. And someone figure out where the enemy has their interdictors!” If they destroyed or disabled those ships, most of the fleet would be able to jump out from where they were, so long as they weren’t too close to the planet.

  Moments later, the Felinar, weapons blazing, shot back toward the traitors, firing then moving on, with its escorts following suit. Numerous warships vanished or broke apart in
fiery explosions, and yet more broke rank to pursue the far faster Felinaris ships.

  Thank the Omnipresent that Legion Navy discipline was not the greatest.

  These little successes, however, did not change the reality of the situation. Hundreds of her and her allies’ ships were surrounded.

  “There, take us to point one-nine-four-eight mark one. Hard and fast, but not too close.”

  “What about the ships chasing us?”

  “Ignore them for the time being. They won’t catch us for a while, and we have people to save.” Everyone either outside of the planet’s gravity well or just inside it could be saved, in theory.

  The Felinar led the way into another strike and withdraw attack, then another.

  “Move to my position!” Nayasar ordered a large group of trapped Snevan and Tyrannodon ships that sat in between Legion Navy and Revittan forces. The burnt-out hulks of ships that had already succumbed to the bombardment of an enemy sure that their prey was not getting anywhere were slowing the enemy advance simply by being obstructions, buying the survivors some more time.

  As the ships began their breakout attempt, an alarm alerted her to the fact that several battlegroups’ worth of Talvostan ships had just somehow appeared behind them. A microjump, in coordination with the Alliance interdictors?

  “Come about!” she ordered to her squadron as the traitorous Talvostans opened fire, obliterating one of her ships immediately. She’d pushed too far, Nayasar realized, and with the locations of the Alliance interdictors still unknown, she might have just doomed herself and her crew to death, or capture—which could be even worse.