The Grand Alliance

by Jay Allan

  “What do you think they’re up to, Illius?” There was no greeting, no formalities, just a no-nonsense question. Illius and Chronos were of like minds on most things. The acting fleet commander deeply respected Number Eight, and he dared to believe that the expedition commander felt some admiration for him as well.

  “I don’t know, Commander, but I’m concerned. They’re courageous, these Rim dwellers, and sometimes aggressive bordering on reckless…but I haven’t seen them do something for no discernible reason.” A second’s pause. “Also, we’re getting some readings that are…confusing.”

  “Confusing?”

  “Yes, sir…it appears the enemy is firing their particle accelerators from considerably beyond our previously-noted range for the systems.” Illius hesitated a few seconds, and then he added, “We are uncertain if this is factual, or if it is some kind of electronic countermeasures designed to confuse our scans.”

  “What is your gut, Illius?”

  The Megaron wanted to reply that it had to be some kind of trick, that the fleet had extensive records on Confederation primary beam ranges…but then his promise to avoid arrogance came back into his mind.

  “I really don’t know, Commander…but I don’t think we can take the chance. If they have somehow increased the range of their weapons, we need to be ready for it.”

  “I agree, Illius. Adjust your formation to assume the enemy will open fire at the indicated ranges. We’ve seen enough careless assumptions backfire today.”

  “Agree, sir.” A short pause. “Have you been able to repair the comm system?” He’d been surprised to hear from Chronos, especially since he’d reviewed the damage on the surface himself, and he’d been sure it would be a day at least before even limited communications were restored.

  “No…the ground comm is still down. I’m on Orbital Platform One.” There were perhaps ten seconds of silence, then: “Illius…the enemy’s change in tactics, their direct approach. They have increased their weapons range. That’s why they’re coming straight for us.”

  Illius had already turned toward the display by the time Chronos had finished. His eyes darted from one cluster of enemy ships to another, and he began some range calculations in his head.

  “Commander, I agree. If the enemy decelerates just before entering range, they’ll have time to get in at least a partial bombing strike…and then their battleships will come into range.”

  “You see, Illius, again this enemy shows us their mettle. They do have a plan, and one that makes perfect sense. Just because we didn’t know about it didn’t mean it wasn’t there. Tyler Barron is no fool, and he wouldn’t throw his fleet away unless he was sure there was some way to prevail.”

  “Still, we have the advantage in tonnage and guns.”

  “But will we still have a gunnery advantage after another wave of bombers hits us?”

  The two men continued speaking, mildly annoyed by the two second delay the comm signal took in each direction, but determined to develop a course of action, some way to reclaim the initiative.

  In the end, they came down to two choices. Accept the fact that the enemy would get another bomber strike launched, and pull back right under the guns of the orbital platforms, the ones that were operational, at least.

  Or accelerate hard, push forward and try to close the distance before the enemy battleships could launch their bombers again.

  Both options had their risks, and their advantages. Finally, Illius took a breath and said, “So, Commander, what will it be? It is your decision, but whatever it is, it must be made now. Do we advance? Or do we pull back under the guns?”

  * * *

  “You are insane if you think I’m going to help you hunt down Marines…here on Megara, or on the fifteenth moon of Evelon Zed.” Steven Blanth had been a prisoner of the Hegemony for years now, and he’d made the best of it, at least as far as engaging civilly with his captors. But he’d never forgotten they were the enemy, and he had never turned coat and betrayed his comrades. He’d find a way to kill himself before he’d do that. Most likely, that would be death by Kriegeri. The Hegemony soldiers were under orders not to harm him, but he figured it he pushed one hard enough…

  “Steven, have I lied to you in the time we’ve spent together? I promise you, on my word as a Master of the Hegemony, we are not seeking to kill your Marines, simply to move them to a secure area where they can be monitored and properly supervised.

  “Prison…you want to put them in prison.”

  “How many do you think are wounded now? We found more than fifty of them dead at the comm station, and that doesn’t take into account how many had been inside when the explosives detonated, and left only ashes. Or the casualties at the sites of the other terrorist attacks.”

  Blanth held back a smile at a reminder of the series of raids his comrades had somehow managed to execute. He felt a moment of Marine pride, like nothing he’d experienced since his own comrades of Dannith had launched their own attack on the command center there.

  Carmetia was right, of course. The Marines who’d launched the raid, if any of them had actually escaped, were on the run, hungry, cold, tired. Half of them were probably wounded. They would die on their own, many of them at least. And, his Hegemony captors had treated him humanely.

  But given a choice, he would be out there with those Marines, clad in tattered fatigues, carrying a battered rifle with a handful of fresh rounds, with every Kriegeri in Troyus City hunting him down. He’d bristled at captivity, even while, in some way, he’d adapted to it as well. But in his heart, he was still a Marine, as he would be until the day he died.

  “Marines ignore wounds, Master Carmetia. Haven’t you figured that out by now?” He could see she was frustrated. He wasn’t exactly in the loop, but it appeared she’d been given the responsibility for rounding up the renegades, and certainly for making sure they didn’t do any more damage.

  “Steven, you are killing them by not helping me. They’re out there, and over a hundred thousand Kriegeri are hunting them down. They’ve already found twenty-two of them, and sixteen of those ended up dead. If you help me bring them in, I will guarantee they will be treated as you have been. Help me save them, Steven. Help me save them before they’re all killed.

  Blanth had to admit one thing. Carmetia was convincing, all the more so because he believed she was telling him the truth. And she was right, the Marines still out there, at least any who couldn’t get back to their previous hiding places, would most likely end up dead.

  It made sense for him to help her, at least from her perspective, and he was sure his refusal frustrated her intensely. But there was one thing she didn’t comprehend, one fact he’d never been able to make her understand.

  Death wasn’t at the bottom of a Marine’s list of options, and wherever it stood, it was damned sure north of surrender.

  * * *

  “It is good to hear from you, my brother. Once again, we go forward together to battle.” Vian Tulus sat in the center of Invictus’s great bridge, warrior, fleet commander, Imperator. He was in his glory, leading his people into a great battle, advancing alongside trusted friends and allies. It was the Palatian ideal, and if Tulus had pushed behind the tight constraints of Alliance protocols and ways of thinking, he had not strayed so far that the call to battle didn’t fill him with energy, the blood of the warrior pumping through his arteries with every beat of his heart.

  “You know what to do, Brother. I didn’t call with orders, nor to waste time on idle chat, but simply to wish you fortune and honor in the coming fight.”

  Tulus’s emotions stirred with each of Barron’s words. He knew the loss his friend had suffered. His Palatian sensibilities filled him with grim satisfaction that Andi Lafarge had died an honorable death. A warrior’s death. But he knew it was different for Barron, and that his friend’s grief was without bounds.

  “Victory first, spoils later. It is time to win the peace that will allow us to prosper.”

  “And
to you, Tyler my brother. Victory, fortune, glory. Go forth to the fight, and know I am at your side, now and always.” Spoils later…and grief, too. After the fight. After the enemy feels our fire.

  Tulus heard a short click as the comm line severed. There was little enough time to prepare, and Barron’s words had fanned the flames of his courage and determination.

  “Engineering is to monitor the new primaries closely. We had little enough time to test them out, and if they fail, I swear to the Old Gods, I will space whoever is responsible.” The short range of the Palatian weaponry had been a source of continual frustration to Tulus, and it had kept his ships from the battle line on a number of occasions. That shame was now a thing of the past, at least for the four newest and strongest ships, all of which had taken their place in the forward formations, next to Dauntless and the Confederation’s center division.

  “Status of bomber refit?” He had a pretty good idea, but he knew getting the next strike launched before the fleet entered primary range was going to be tight. He wanted up to date projections, and he wanted them now. Tyler would get his squadrons launched in time, he didn’t have the slightest doubt about that. And he’d be damned if he was going to see his own people lag behind their allies.

  “Launch operations projected to commence in thirty-eight minutes.”

  That was close, too close. “I want that schedule shaved down, Sub-Commander. Thirty-two minutes maximum. Thirty, preferably.” He knew his orders were almost impossible. The Palatian ships weren’t a technological match for those of their Confederation allies, even if they now carried enhanced primaries. The landing bays on Invictus and her sister ships were far less streamlined and automated than their Confederation counterparts.

  But the flight crews on those decks were Palatians, and Tulus defied them to fail the direct command of their Imperator.

  “Flight control acknowledges, your Supremacy. Launch to commence in thirty-two minutes.”

  Tulus leaned back in his chair, considering for a few seconds about pushing for the thirty. But he held back. Thirty-two would be difficult enough.

  There was an artform in threading the needle between almost impossible and outright impossible. And his gut told him, he’d just managed that maneuver perfectly.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  CFS Constitution

  Olyus System

  Year 320 AC

  The Second Battle of Megara – “All batteries…open fire!”

  “The bombers are commencing their attack runs, sir. Admiral Stockton is at the front of the formation.”

  As always…

  Clint Winters had been a hard-driving officer since the day he’d graduated from the Academy, but it had been as a senior commander that he’d picked up his nickname, ‘the Sledgehammer.’ He was relentless, stubborn, courageous to a fault, and he demanded total commitment from his spacers. By all normal standards of human contact, he’d always expected them to hate him for it…but they loved him instead. They followed him with a fervor unmatched, and they adored him with an intensity second only to the near worship they reserved for Tyler Barron.

  But as tough as Winters was, as unstoppably aggressive, he bowed his head in silent respect to the focused insanity of Jake Stockton. The pilot had done more directly, without a doubt, than any other single human being, Winters and Barron included, to keep the war going against the Hegemony. His fighter strikes would go down in every history of the war, his tactics would be taught at the Academy for a century or more.

  Assuming we win, and there is an Academy…

  Winters didn’t respond to the aide’s report. There was no need, nothing to say. Everyone on the bridge knew the bombers were attacking. Hell, Winters would have bet everyone on the fleet knew. The battle lines would engage soon, and while the enhanced primaries weren’t a surprise to the enemy anymore, they were still a crucial difference in the matchup. The railguns hit harder, and they retained a slight range advantage—and, of course, not all the Grand Alliance’s ships were equipped with the new primaries—but the clash of the battle lines would be closer to an even match than any the forces of the Rim had yet seen.

  Still, the end result of that slugging match almost certainly, depended on just how hard Stockton’s people could hit those Hegemony battleships, how many railguns they were able to knock out.

  The savaging and scattering of the enemy’s advance line was a big plus for Stockton’s wings, of course, but Winters could see more frigates and cruisers deployed in clusters around the capital ships. There were plenty of point defense assets still out there, even beyond the massive suites on the battleships themselves. The bombing wings would pay a terrible price for driving their attacks home. Indeed, the first wave had already completed its assault, and the casualty totals were grim.

  Winters knew it didn’t matter, and he was even more certain Stockton knew that. Jake Stockton was well aware that any chance the battle line—and the fleet as a whole—had for victory in Megara relied on his squadrons hitting the enemy hard.

  There was no one Winters would have trusted more with that job, but it was still hard to sit and watch, knowing his own fate, and that of the crews of his ships, relied so heavily on the actions—and the sacrifice—of others.

  The rest of the strike force was arrayed in three successive lines, each about three minutes apart. That was cutting it close. The battle line would move into the enemy’s railgun range in about seven minutes, while the Hegemony ships were hopefully still distracted by the last bomber assault. There would be two minutes, perhaps, ore one minute forty-five, from the moment the enemy railguns could open fire to the point when the enhanced primaries moved into range. Anything that pulled the enemy’s focus from the approaching line of battleships for that short stretch was vital to the Rim fleet’s chance of victory.

  It was tight, well-planned, but far from guaranteed to execute properly. A hundred things could go wrong, and blow up the precise schedule. Winters’s mind had meticulously listed all the problems, all the unexpected developments and combinations of factors that could upset the delicate balance.

  In the end, it only took one. Winters was watching as the readings began to come in, and he realized it immediately. Engine output, all along the Hegemony line.

  Are they pulling out already? Running?

  Winters knew that was wrong the instant it popped into his mind.

  No, he realized. They’re pulling back into support range of the orbital bases.

  Winters didn’t know how much work the Hegemony had managed to complete on the rebuilt forts. He knew the ones at Craydon were half-done, at best, but it was dangerous to assume just what the enemy had managed to do. He’d hoped the forts lacked operational weapons systems, but now he realized that had been dashed.

  That’s more guns against us during the main fight…

  That wasn’t good, especially if there were railguns on those forts. Almost certainly, there were, at least the enemy would have planned for such batteries. The question was, were they completed and operational. And, the answer was yes. Why else would they be pulling back toward the forts?

  A cold thought ripped through his mind. How should we respond?

  Nothing made the ‘Sledgehammer’ more uncomfortable than not knowing what to do. And, just then, he had no idea.

  “Get me Admiral Barron.” Winters snapped out the command, almost instinctively. He knew he didn’t have to report what was going on. He was one hundred percent sure Barron was watching, even as he was.

  But they had to decide what to do, and they had to decide immediately.

  * * *

  “Second wave, attack!” Stockton sat in his cockpit, throttle pulled to the side, bringing his ship around after his attack run. He’d gone in with the first wave, and he’d been one of the first to deliver his deadly payload, right into the guts of one of the biggest Hegemony behemoths.

  He was planning to hang back, to go in again with the last wave. He wouldn’t have more ordnance to
deliver, of course, but the final wave of bombers would be the ones tasked with distracting the enemy as their railguns came into range. That would be a vital two minutes, and that short period of time could decide the entire battle.

  Then the Hegemony ships began firing their engines, pulling back from the direction of his attack, and from the approaching battleships of the Confederation and its allies.

  It made sense to him, almost immediately. Pulling back would delay the moment when the two fleets came into range, and that meant the bombing strike would be over by the time the battle lines engaged. That would leave the Hegemony ships still possessing operational railguns to take full advantage of the brief window they’d have before the new primaries came into range.

  Then, he remembered the fortresses orbiting Megara, and he truly understood.

  If those forts have operational railguns…

  No doubt, the enemy expected a larger advantage from their advanced weaponry, one the enhanced primaries would cut by almost eighty percent. That still left the Hegemony with two minutes before the fight became a truly two-sided affair, but if they were supported by heavy orbital batteries, that seemingly short time could be long indeed. And, maybe decisive.

  Stockton had planned to keep the enemy focused on his bombers, a major reason he’d stayed back to make another run alongside the final wave. He’d figured he just might manage to strip away some of that advantage, giving the enemy something to worry about besides shooting at advancing Rim battleships.

  That’s shot to shit now. Nothing left to do now but hit them as hard as possible.

  He thought for a moment about decelerating the last wave, trying to delay the engagement and reconfiguring it to the precise moment the battle lines would come into range. But that was almost impossible, an infernally complex calculation with enough variables to make his eyes bleed. Even if he had exact data on the enemy fleet’s planned course and velocity—which he didn’t—he had almost no real chance of pulling it off on the fly. He had no idea how Admiral Barron would react, and no time to find out, and besides, nothing his people did would do a thing about the fortresses.