Andromeda's War (Legion of the Damned Book 3)

by William C. Dietz

  McKee had learned a great deal about her commanding officer during the last hour—and her previously positive opinion of him was beginning to slip. “So you installed a new chief. Now what?”

  “Huzz says that Empress Ophelia was captured and given over to the Hudathans in exchange for a thousand-year peace treaty and unfettered access to the wreck. Huzz and most members of the tribe liked that. But when Oppo began to levy a 10-percent tax on the sky metal, his popularity took a dive.”

  “Which is why the Paguumis are willing to buy the ridiculous assassination-plot story,” McKee observed.

  “Exactly,” Remy agreed. “So I agreed to help Huzz take over in return for his help in rescuing Ophelia from the Hudathans. The ridgeheads have a base north of here.”

  “So that’s where we’re headed?”

  “Yes,” Remy replied. “The rest of the team will arrive soon. We’ll go after the empress right after we bury Captain Suzuki.”

  Remy made it sound so simple. But McKee knew better. She’d done battle with the Hudathans and barely survived. Now she and Avery would be forced to face them again.

  —

  SAVAS BASE 001

  Admiral Nola-Ba was extremely happy. After weeks of waiting, the message had finally arrived. And it was everything he had hoped for. First, a battle group the size of his own had dropped hyper and was orbiting Savas. Second, new orders had arrived. He was to: “Convey Empress Ophelia Ordanus to Hudatha with all possible speed.”

  And then? No mention was made of what reception he would receive—but Nola-Ba felt sure that his previous rank would be restored and, depending upon the current state of clan politics, he might receive a medal or two. All of which would be welcome—but nothing compared to the full restoration of his honor.

  So it was with a light heart that he made his way up onto the roof. The sun was high, which meant that his skin began to morph from gray to white moments after he stepped outside. The shuttle was waiting, and so was Empress Ordanus. She looked gaunt and wore little more than some filthy rags. But regardless of her appearance, Nola-Ba had to admit that the Human was courageous. Her head was held high, and her back was ramrod straight. “Where are you taking me?” It was said with all the self-assurance that one would expect from a monarch.

  “To Hudatha,” Nola-Ba replied. He saw the Human flinch and knew that she knew. Once on Hudatha, there would be no possibility of a rescue. At that point, all she could hope for was some sort of deal. A ransom that would cost her race dearly. “Put her on the shuttle,” he ordered.

  Chains rattled as troopers escorted the Human up the ramp. Nola-Ba took one last look at his surroundings. Savas was a shit hole, and it was good to know that he would never set foot on it again. The ramp gave slightly as Nola-Ba made his way up and into the cargo compartment. Ophelia was safely strapped into an oversized acceleration chair—and her eyes were closed as the shuttle’s engines began to spool up. Then the ship was in the air and nosing out over the berm that surrounded the base.

  That was the beginning of what would be a two-hour trip up to join the destroyer Thunder Hand in orbit. So Nola-Ba took the opportunity to activate his data pad and review the latest draft of his report. The goal was to highlight his accomplishments without being too obvious—and simultaneously minimize the role luck had played in capturing Ophelia.

  Time passed, and Nola-Ba was in the process of rewriting paragraph sixty-seven for the umpteenth time, when the pilot’s voice was heard over the intercom. “Sorry to disturb you, Admiral . . . But enemy ships dropped hyper a few minutes ago, and the Thunder Hand is breaking orbit to engage them. I was ordered to turn back and land.”

  The announcement came as an enormous shock, and Nola-Ba felt a momentary sense of despair. No! This couldn’t be happening. Not now . . . Not when he was so close to leaving. He saw Ophelia’s eyes pop open. Much to his surprise, she’d been able to pick up a smattering of Hudathan during her weeks of imprisonment, and judging from the expression on her face, understood what had been said. “It is a momentary reprieve only,” Nola-Ba told her. “Your ships will be destroyed in short order—then our journey will resume.”

  “You’d better hope so,” Ophelia said levelly. “Because if they aren’t, you’ll be the one wearing chains.”

  Nola-Ba would never allow himself to be taken alive—but there was no point in saying that. The shuttle was in a steep dive by that time—and Nola-Ba could feel himself coming up out of the seat. Only the harness held him down. “We have a fighter on our tail,” the pilot said grimly. “Stand by for evasive maneuvers.”

  The shuttle rolled and began to corkscrew downwards. Nola-Ba had been a pilot in his youth and felt no discomfort. But the Human threw up. Her vomit disintegrated into individual globules that orbited her head like miniature planets. Then, as the planet’s gravity started to take hold, the droplets were sucked down to the deck.

  The stench was nauseating, and Nola-Ba struggled to ignore it as the aircraft jinked left and right. “We lost them!” the pilot said jubilantly.

  “Good,” Nola-Ba replied. “Return to base. Warn them that we’re coming.”

  I will fight, Nola-Ba told himself. And I will win. It was a bold prediction—and he hoped it was true.

  —

  ABOARD THE HEAVY CRUISER MARS

  Even though Admiral Hiram Nigata was seated on the bridge of the heavy cruiser Mars, he was, by virtue of his rank, a man alone. Because it was his responsibility to consider the strategic situation rather than the fate of any one vessel, including the one he was on. The Mars was the responsibility of Captain Somlyo and his crew. So Nigata sat and watched the multicolored symbols battle each other in the sphere-shaped holo tank in front of him.

  Nigata had been hoping to find the enemy when his squadron of ships entered the Savas system, and his wish had been granted. Except that rather than the single battle group that the diminutive admiral expected to face, there were two. The ridgeheads had a combined force of two light cruisers, four destroyers, eight destroyer escorts, and a noncombatant supply ship.

  But even though Nigata’s squadron consisted of only one cruiser, two destroyers, three gunboats, and a nearly defenseless transport—he had what might prove to be an equalizer in the form of a seventy-two-year-old carrier named the Swarm. Because, assuming that intelligence estimates were correct, the Hudathan ships had only 124 fighters between them. And the Swarm was carrying a full complement of 650 twin-engined Tachyon aerospace fighters. Each Tachyon was armed with twin energy cannons, six missiles under each stubby wing, and a pair of “ship killer” torpedoes nestled below their bellies. The heaviest load-out of any ship-launched fighter in the Human or Hudathan inventories.

  Still, it was all Nigata could do to keep his face expressionless as three enemy destroyer escorts (DEs) closed in on the gunboat Iapelus and attacked her simultaneously. Nigata saw a flash inside the holo sphere as the gunboat and her eighty-six-person crew were reduced to their component atoms. That produced a groan from the bridge crew and a stern admonition from Somlyo.

  But a flight of six Tachyons was closing on one of the DEs, and it was only a matter of moments before it was struck by three torpedoes and transformed into a miniature sun. An eye for an eye. A cheer was heard this time, and the captain joined in.

  The Hudathans understood the threat presented by the Swarm’s fighters, however, and a destroyer was closing in on her. Nigata smiled grimly. The carrier’s skipper was an officer named Constance Povy. And she knew better than to launch all of her fighters at once because if she did, they would run out of fuel at the same time.

  So two-thirds of the Tachyons were still aboard the carrier, and minutes before the destroyer could close with the Swarm, a hundred fighters shot out to intercept it. They attacked en masse, and the destroyer’s screens flashed incandescent as dozens of missiles and torpedoes exploded against them. The scale of the attack was i
rresistible, and it was only a matter of moments before the destroyer’s shields failed. Explosions rippled the length of the hull, the ship broke in two, and pinpoints of light appeared as the wreck scattered dozens of escape pods in its wake.

  But that was a distraction. The squadron’s mission was to find and rescue Empress Ophelia, assuming she was alive and still on the planet’s surface. To do that, Nigata had to put marines on the ground. Marines plus some armor. A battalion of leathernecks was already dropping down through the atmosphere. But their armor was still on the transport Hercules, which was under the protection of a destroyer, a gunboat, and two flights of Tachyons.

  Sparks of light flared as an enemy destroyer, a DE, and a couple of dozen fighters zeroed in on the transport. And they had plenty to shoot at. The Hercules was far too large to land. That meant she had to send the marine corps’ tanks down in assault boats and shuttles. So hundreds of small craft were swimming around the transport, and they made excellent targets.

  Nigata felt his stomach muscles tighten as dozens of tiny lights went dark inside the holo tank. Each represented a ship that wouldn’t reach the surface, supplies lost, and lives ended. Nigata gave an order that sent his second destroyer in to protect the transport, but she was still turning toward the Hercules when a bolt of energy struck her. That was followed by another, and another, which produced a momentary sun. “The moon!” an excited voice exclaimed. “The bastards have STS cannons on the moon!”

  Nigata swore under his breath. The moon. Of course. The Hudathans had been there for a period of time and had the good sense to fortify the moon. His squadron had been fighting for its life from the moment it dropped hyper—so there had been no time in which to check on it. Still, Nigata thought to himself, I should have thought of it . . . I should have . . . Focus, he told himself. Think.

  “Tell the Hercules to abort the drop and take up a position on the far side of the planet,” Nigata instructed. “Once she arrives there, the landings can begin. And send some Tachyons to neutralize those guns while the rest of our ships pull out of range.”

  It was a good plan. The only possible plan. Because powerful though the STS cannons might be, they couldn’t fire through the planet. There would be trouble though . . . since the marines were putting down in two widely separated locations. Maybe landing craft could be used to unite the marines, and maybe they couldn’t. But that was what generals were for. In this case, a two-star named Hollister. Assuming the poor bastard was still alive.

  “Uh-oh,” the XO said, “it looks like one of their transports is laying eggs.”

  Rather than boats or shuttles, the Hudathans preferred to use egg-shaped landers to put their soldiers on the ground. Since the ridgeheads had no way to know that a Human battle group was on the way, it seemed safe to assume that they’d been planning to reinforce their ground troops from the beginning. And now, with marines landing on the surface, the need to do so was that much more urgent. The landers hadn’t gone unnoticed by the Tachyon pilots, however, and Nigata could hear a mishmash of radio chatter by touching one of the buttons in his armrest. “Tally ho!” a female pilot said. “Watch my six. Over.”

  “Shit! They nailed Meyers . . .”

  “Damn . . . Did you see that? My missile hit that egg square on, and it’s still intact. Those things are tough.”

  “Give it a torpedo,” another voice put in. “That should do the job.”

  Nigata switched his attention back to the holo tank in time to see one of his gunboats fall victim to a brace of DEs. His command was bleeding to death.

  “Engaging,” Somlyo said laconically, as the cruiser fired a broadside of ship killers at one of the enemy cruisers. It responded in kind and Nigata felt the Mars shudder as Hudathan missiles exploded against her shields.

  What followed was a seemingly endless five-minute slugfest in which two powerful ships tried to batter each other to death. But the Mars was slightly larger, her shields were stronger, and she had more throw weight. So even with a Hudathan DE rushing in to help its sister ship, the Mars managed to win. There was no explosion. Just a flare as the other vessel’s shields went down, its propulsion system dropped off-line, and it began to drift. “Let’s finish it,” Somlyo said grimly. “Prepare to fire energy cannons.”

  “Belay that,” Nigata said. “Let them take her under tow.”

  The crew people sitting around Nigata looked at the admiral as if he was crazy, but the captain understood. “Aye, aye, sir. It will take most of what they have left if they want to save her.”

  That was Nigata’s plan. To break the battle off while he still had some ships. Because if the empress was still alive, and if the jarheads managed to rescue her, it would be his responsibility to take the royal home. “They’re going for it,” the XO said happily. “Or trying to.”

  “Good,” Nigata said. “Send the following message to all commanding officers. They are to withdraw to the side of the planet opposite the moon. Execute.”

  —

  PLANET SAVAS

  The fact that Huzz had not only helped to engineer Oppo’s death but participated in the assassination, didn’t prevent the newly elevated chief from staging a well-attended funeral for his predecessor. Thousands of tribal members came. And in keeping with Paguumi tradition, hundreds of the dead leader’s katha were slain, butchered, and roasted over communal fires.

  Then, in a transparent effort to buy the tribe’s support, Huzz repealed the unpopular metal tax. It was a very popular decision and one that cemented his position as chief.

  The rest of the team had arrived by this time and was camped a discreet distance away from the Paguumis, who were in the midst of the first of what promised to be a three-day mourning period. If carousing, feasting, and bride taking could be called “mourning.”

  That was a source of considerable frustration to Remy, who wanted to march north but couldn’t do so without a sizable force of southerners to bolster his tiny command. For one thing, the legionnaires were sure to encounter the northern tribe and would have to do battle with the Hudathans as well.

  But it was clear that the southerners were in no mood for war and wouldn’t be until the wake was over, and their warriors were sober. That meant all the legionnaires could do was rest and catch up on deferred maintenance. The unit had been working the T-1s, RAVs, and drones hard, so there were plenty of issues that needed to be dealt with. It was also an opportunity for McKee to slip away and have a few minutes with Avery.

  They left camp separately, made use of their knowledge of security to slip through the perimeter, and met half a mile from camp. It was a dangerous thing to do—but neither one was in a mood to be safe. Avery got there first. The meeting spot was on a low rise that would allow them to see anyone who might approach with their night-vision gear. The only problem was that it’s impossible to kiss with a helmet on.

  So the first thing McKee did was to remove her brain bucket before sitting down next to Avery. There were none of the romantic touches that he had arranged on Orlo II. No candles, no wine, and no bathtub. But there was the dim glow that emanated from the Paguumi camp, the moon, and the soft night air. No words were necessary as McKee entered the circle of Avery’s arms and their lips made contact. It was a long, hungry kiss that left both of them wanting more. “We can’t,” McKee said as she pulled away. “Not here. Not now.”

  “I know,” Avery agreed. “But we can talk. Tell me what happened after you left Orlo II. Tell me everything.”

  So McKee told him about the trip to Earth, about her run-in with Ross Royer, and the meeting with her uncle. That led to an account of the Mason assassination and her part in it. “Ophelia was there,” she said. “I could have killed her. I should have killed her.”

  “You didn’t know,” Avery said sympathetically. “You did the best you could. No one could fault you for that.”

  “My uncle did,” McKee said sadly, as te
ars trickled down her cheeks. “And now he’s dead. I saw the news on Algeron. They sent troops down into the Deeps to find and kill him.”

  “But we’re alive,” Avery reminded her. “And we’ll be together. All we need to do is survive this. Do you remember the plan we agreed on?”

  McKee nodded. “I think about it every day. We’ll leave the Legion, settle on a rim world, and begin new lives.”

  “That’s right,” Avery agreed. “So remember that. Focus on it. Ignore everything else.”

  “What about Ophelia?” McKee wanted to know. “The beacon is on. She’s alive.”

  “It’s impossible to know if she’ll survive what’s coming,” Avery responded. “But let’s say she does. Maybe we should back off. Who put us in charge?”

  “That’s easy for you to say,” McKee objected. “Ophelia didn’t murder your family. But it’s more than that . . . She’s evil. Thousands have died.”

  “I admire your sense of responsibility,” Avery said. “Not to mention your courage. But I’m selfish. I want you for myself. And if you try to assassinate Ophelia, you’ll get killed.”

  McKee stared at him through the gloom. “I’m sorry, John. I really am. I want you, too . . . But my uncle was right. I allowed Ophelia to live. And that means I’m responsible for every person she killed since then. I can’t live with that.”

  Both of them stood. “I love you,” Avery said simply.

  “Don’t say that, John,” McKee said. “It hurts enough already.” With that, she turned and ran away. The darkness took her in.

  —

  Daska had seen all of it via the drone that had been hovering above the lovers and felt nothing. No surprise, no sense of betrayal, and no anger. But the interchange did trigger a programmed “need” to report the conversation to Empress Ophelia. That was impossible, of course—and would remain so until Ophelia was rescued. The robot accepted that the same way it reacted to changes in the weather and the “pain” that stemmed from a worn coupler. What was, was.