by Blaze Ward
Vo paused. Studied them for a moment.
“The ancient Romans used the term decimation to describe a punishment. Every tenth man would be removed from the line and executed. I intend to punish you almost as hard if you stay, in order to winnow you down. There are seventeen percent more men here than will make that final cut. One in six of you will not measure up. Will not be tough enough, smart enough, or hungry enough to stay. The price you pay will be blood, sweat, and tears, gentlemen. The reward will be belonging to the best unit in the Imperial Land Forces, when the Grand Marshal is looking for a unit to put at the tip of the spear. Because we are going to war, you and I. Together.”
Another sound. A short, sarcastic laugh, perhaps, chopped before it fully developed. The reaction of the common foot soldier to the suggestion that a flag officer was going to get his boots muddy.
“You and I,” Vo repeated. “I will march every mile with you. Qualify every weapon with you. Eat from the same kitchen. Face the same danger. The cohort commanders you will inherit have already been through that fire with me at Field School, so they can testify. The rest of your officers will face the same tests, the same duty. None of them have earned their space here, either.”
Vo found himself pacing again, the mad energy similar to what had taken hold of him in a small clearing behind the Imperial Palace, just before launching his historic assault on an entire empire.
“Some of you are here because you believe yourself to be warriors. Heroes,” he snarled, letting the fury take hold and burn itself out. Better they find it out today, so they could slink away before their stupidity got someone more worthwhile killed. “I have no use for warriors. None. I want soldiers. I require men who understand that driving a truck full of food and ammunition is just as important a job as leading a tank charge against a fortified position, possibly more so. We are links in a chain, and this unit, this Legion, will only be as strong as the soldiers doing the dirty work, in the corners or in the scrum. A cook in a field kitchen contributes more to the war effort than a man with a rifle, because the cook makes sure that hundreds of men are fed and ready to fight when the time comes. Gentlemen, that is what it means to be here, if you are allowed to stay. We are a Legion. Let the rest of the Army come to fear and respect what that means. Fear and respect us.”
Vo raised a meaty hand and pointed at a small unit off to his left, a small patrol of assault skiffs, holding a smaller standard than the 189th’s.
“That man is Cohort Centurion Alan Katche,” Vo announced to the assembled men. “In a legion, the senior line officer, the one who commands the First Cohort, is known as the Primus Pilus. It mean First Spear in the ancient tongue. The man who will be the first to engage with the enemy. You will follow him into battle, because he will be in front of you getting there. I chose him for exactly that reason.”
Below, the standard of First Cohort was raised, held, and then lowered again, a silent rallying point for the men to see. Katche had been one of the stars of Field School with Vo, and happily joined this new adventure.
In the center, Horst raised the divisional colors in salute as a response.
“But I will not be far behind you,” Vo continued, drawing his 12mm revolver from the holster and holding it sideways in the air for the men to see. “This is the weapon of the Fourth Saxon Legion. It is now the weapon of the 189th Legion. A firearm throwing a metal slug at supersonic velocities. You will learn to use it, qualify in it, master it. As I did.”
He had them now. Vo could feel it. The energy crackling off of the men was nearly palpable as he spoke, thankful for all the classes in command and public speaking that Command Security Centurion Crncevic, Navin the Black, had insisted on as part of a rounded education for a dumb punk from the slums.
Vo holstered the big pistol and reached across to draw the sword now, holding it aloft to reflect the hazy sunlight.
“And this is not the cavalry saber I used at Thuringwell when I invaded that planet and took it away from you,” he said, engendering a quiet, almost-unconscious growl from the men. “al-Inverness forged it for me, but it is not mine. This sword is yours. It belongs to the commander of the 189th Legion. It is the 189th Legion. It can be worn with dress, as I am now, but it will also work just fine to kill a man, if I have to.”
Vo slid the sword home in its scabbard and paused to scan the entire field, left to right, front to back.
“You men are all volunteers,” he said conversationally. “Are you ready for the challenge of your lives?”
“Sir. Yes, sir,” came the reply.
“Really?” Vo sneered. “Is that all you have? I need bad-ass killers, not kittens. Are you ready to sweat for me? Bleed for me? Kill for me?”
“SIR! YES, SIR!”
“Better,” Vo said as the immense sound receded. “One final history lesson for you men. In ancient times, a captain raised a unit, but he only got paid when he was able to march the men in front of the paymaster. When he could muster them and present a military unit worth the name to the king who was hiring. Those of you who remain, I will only make you wear these nice uniforms you have on twice in any year. First will be on Empire Day, and then on the anniversary of today, which will henceforth be Muster Day. I expect the rest of the year you will be training or fighting, and too busy to get all dressed up because you are the meanest, toughest bastards in the Army. Are you men prepared to cross that line and learn what it means to belong to the 189th Legion?”
“SIR! YES, SIR!”
Louder still. Vo smiled.
“Primus Pilus, muster the Legion.”
Part 2
Emergency
Chapter I
Imperial Founding: 179/11/10. Fleet Headquarters, Above St. Legier
“I have the watch,” Captain Colson said as he took command of the sentry room.
“Standing down,” Captain Siembieda replied, saluted, and left.
Arn Colson had already confirmed that the eight men on watch were sharp and prepared. The men rotated through on two-hour shifts, one departing every fifteen minutes as his replacement arrived. The never-ending watch decreed to protect the capital world from another raid.
It was no longer enough to keep fleets close at hand. Buran ships could jump rapidly to the edge of scanner range, center themselves, and then land their next jump, the shorter one, with deadly accuracy. Fleet Headquarters had been utterly savaged three years ago, a combination of internal sabotage and treason that allowed a Mako an unchallenged raking pass at the closest possible range.
Grand Admiral Wachturm had other plans, if Buran ever tried it again. Thus the watch.
“Alert,” one of the men called. “Unknown signal in section fourteen.”
Colson reached out a hand and flipped up the smooth, metal plate protecting the button that would trigger something approximating Armageddon: alarms on all decks, warnings sent to all ships, and the deadly minefield coming live.
That was why a full naval captain had this duty. The minefield. There were always going to be issues, firing weapons without gunners first carefully identifying targets downrange.
The Grand Admiral had complained that enough alerts weren’t being identified, but he had also made it clear that the only time a captain would get in trouble was by not being paranoid enough for this duty.
The button was red. Glowing with internal light as a malevolent eye in the darkness, even as bright as the room was.
“Confirmed,” another voice chimed in. “Enemy warship has jumped into near space.”
Buran had returned.
Captain Colson smashed his fist into the button. Immediately, the sirens started up.
But more importantly, the station’s shields activated automatically. The eight men in this room now had unlocked control of the various weapon stations around the facility, at least until gun crews could roust and take control themselves.
Those after-action reports had suggested a difference of more than forty seconds doing it this way, which might b
e life and death in this situation.
The first Type-4 beam fired into the darkness, clear at the edge of effective range, against a ship that would jump again in a matter of seconds. But it was a statement of purpose.
This time, Fribourg was prepared for war.
Chapter II
Imperial Founding: 179/11/10. IFV Firehawk, Above St. Legier
“Bring the squadron to full alert,” Admiral Tom Provst growled as soon as he entered the flag bridge of IFV Firehawk.
One look at the screen in his office had told him this wasn’t a drill.
“Already done, sir,” Commander d’Noir replied, secured at his station and running things well enough. “All escorts are cleared and we are ready for maneuvers.”
“Bridge, Provst here,” Tom said as he got to his station.
Captain Al Kistler’s face appeared on a screen immediately. Tom still found him to be a lean skeleton of a man with droopy eyes, but they made a great team. Tom was looking forward to taking command of IFV Valiant in a few months when she was completed. IFV Firehawk was a proud vessel, but she was old by the standards of warfare Yan Bedrov had unleashed on the galaxy. Him and Lady Moirrey Kermode.
“Here,” Kistler said simply, glancing at the camera occasionally while focusing his attention elsewhere.
“Al, I can’t imagine they came all this way to attack the station,” Tom said. “Get us deep, clear down to the edge of the atmosphere, and then keep all the escorts high, so we and the cruisers have a clear field of fire across and up for the primaries.”
“Another bombing raid, Tom?” the man asked in a quiet tone that was sharper than the eyes ever looked.
“Bad feeling,” Tom admitted, listening to the ominous rumble deep in his gut. It had always served him well. “And keep us close enough that we can fire upwards in support of the station with the heavy stuff and not hit friendlies.”
“On it,” the captain said, cutting the circuit so he could get to work.
“d’Noir,” Tom turned to his Flag Commander. “What are we facing?”
“The single biggest fleet of Buran vessels I have ever seen, Admiral,” the man replied. “And I’ve been to Samara.”
Tom cursed under his breath. Samara was where Imperial fleets went to get their asses kicked. If Buran had come here instead, this was going to get ugly.
He pressed a button and a projection took shape over the standing table between them. St. Legier at the center as a grapefruit. Fleet Headquarters in orbit as a grape. A mind-numbing collection of dots in red, dancing around dots in white and green, friendly warships and civilian traffic in orbit.
“Four capital ships, Admiral,” d’Noir continued. “Including a JumpCarrier, what the system calls a Megalodon, and two Carcharias. At least ten cruisers of various configurations we’re still trying to identify, plus a dozen Hammerheads floating around, mostly as escorts, but also moving like wolf packs on any solitary vessels they can catch.”
“Confirming a Roughshark,” a new voice called. One of the men around the outside of the room watching monitors and data feeds from all directions. “I have bombs in the air. Repeat, bombs in the air.”
“Send a signal to ground forces, just in case they missed it,” Tom ordered. “Missiles will never catch them. Order any vessel with decent parallax on beams to try to shoot down bombs. Let’s avoid firing Primaries into the ground, though. We’ll let a missile hit the planetary shields rather than knocking them down ourselves and opening the way.”
Assents from all sides. Monitors turning sideways as Firehawk pitched down and rolled to get closer to the atmosphere. Hopefully, other squadrons would recognize what he was doing and do the same. Plus, getting his ships low made it harder for Buran to maneuver, since jumping down on them from a much higher elevation took tighter control. Not that they wouldn’t, but it made them come out at a flat angle, rather than diving. Easier for gunners to line them up in the thirty seconds you had to shoot.
Tom didn’t figure anyone was crazy enough to take him on directly. He was in the shadow of the station, where those big beams could fire in support if someone tried. Plus, his battleship had three cruisers and eight escorts close at hand, a mix of old frigates and the new corvette designs coming on line as fast as the yards could roll them into space.
Hopefully, it would be sufficient. Al Kistler had a particular young man on his bridge, a Lieutenant Wiegand earning his rank and learning the craft of being a sailor from some of the best men Tom knew. A man with places to go.
“Contact,” a voice called from the comm. Kistler, forward on his bridge. Tom felt his shoulders come up and forced them back down. “Enemy squadron incoming. Stand by to take fire. All weapons engage the enemy flagship as you bear.”
Tom stared hard at the second screen, showing the close-in trouble that had just dropped on top of them. One of the Great Whites was coming, with a small pack of Makos trailing in his wake.
Someone wanted to play. And this was going to get messy.
Firehawk’s Primaries and Type-3 beams poured into the Carcharias about to pounce. Around them, the Imperial squadron did the same.
The bow of the beast even looked like a great white shark, from this angle. Three tines coming out of a triangular mouth that served to focus the three Mag-Shear emitters.
Firehawk wasn’t one of Bedrov’s new designs, armored and insulated to take on a squadron like this. She was of the generation that was meant to destroy Aquitaine, back when that had been the goal.
The first shark belched fire and all Tom’s screens turned to hash.
Chapter III
Imperial Founding: 179/11/10. Fleet Headquarters, Above St. Legier
Emmerich Wachturm looked at the screen in his office and decided that this might be the day he died in battle. But at least he was in orbit where he could command things more easily, rather than being stuck on the ground, helpless to do anything but watch.
Buran had sent an entire sector fleet, somehow snuck them across the tremendous distance from the border, and the even vaster one from beyond Ninagirsu. Had done so after Em’s scouts had begun to locate and dismantle the highways of secret transmitters that Buran had hidden in the darkness between stars, where neither Fribourg nor Aquitaine ever looked.
Somewhere, there was an entire region of Buran space left undefended. If Em could have, he would have telepathically linked with Jessica and told her, just so she could go out there and do something about it.
He had never imagined that Buran would ever return to St. Legier. And never with an Armada this vast.
A signal chimed. Em pushed a button and the hatch opened.
Lt. Commander Gunter Tifft entered. He had grown into himself, from the self-conscious Quartermaster aboard Firehawk into a steady, capable aide, good enough at his job that Em could afford to leave Hendrik Baumgärtner, his long-time aide who was now an Admiral of the White himself, at home more, rather than chasing all over space with the Grand Admiral on surprise inspections. Or send Hendrik to do them for him, like now.
“Orders, sir?” Tifft asked simply. He was good at that. Everything Em needed from the man and nothing more.
“I have good admirals in charge tactically, Gunter,” Em said. “We’ll let them fight until they ask for help. Anything I do at this point is likely to muddle things at the moment they will need diamond clarity. We have another problem.”
“Sir?”
“That fleet out there is not normal, Tifft,” Em fumed, tapping on the monitor to emphasize his point. “They have never, as far as I know, assembled that many warships into a single formation. Certainly not outside of their homelands. Not even defending the places we’ve attacked.”
“Smash and grab, Admiral?” Tifft asked. “That’s enough force to destroy this station if they wanted to.”
“Not without suffering horrendous casualties in the process, Gunter,” Em replied. “We’ve upgraded the guns and I have enough firepower in close orbit to do that job. Buran has never been
that careless about lives. They fight when attacked, but almost never provoke.”
“Would this be an attack on the planet again?” Tifft asked. “One Roughshark was able to drop a dozen bombs. The damage was minimal, but they were only trying to be seen, not to do significant damage.”
Em watched a blue dot appear on his screen.
“Good call, Tifft,” Em said. “The first bomb has launched, a scramjet pointed straight down. Order all vessels to engage any Roughshark they can locate.”
“On it, sir,” Tifft said.
“Hold,” Emmerich said. “Let’s move to the flag bridge now. If they come, I’m feeling too close to the outer hull for comfort.”
Em rose and grabbed a briefcase with key papers. Everything else was electronic, and he would feel better, buried deep in the insulated bowels of the station, where the Mauler hopefully couldn’t get to him.
They exited the hatch just the lights and grav-plates flickered.
Somewhere, someone had just mauled the station.
And it was likely to get worse before it got better.
Chapter IV
Imperial Founding: 179/11/10. IFV Firehawk, Above St. Legier
“That’s one,” Tom Provst yelled triumphantly as the bomb exploded mid-flight.
A ragged cheer went up from the men around him on Firehawk’s flag bridge. The ship was hurting, but the Carcharias, one of the so-called Great Whites, had hopefully been hammered at least as badly on her pass.
The Makos accompanying on the first pass had escaped relatively unscathed, but that was the result of better tactical doctrine from Fribourg these days. All the new corvettes kept their pair of Type-3 beams tuned for short-range, close-in work when on patrol in the home system. At least until they had a reason to adjust them. At that range, they hit like Primaries, a dull sledgehammer wielded by an ogre. If the older escorts couldn’t pour as much firepower into someone swooping by, Tom still had several cruisers handy. All of them had fired on the lone capital ship as it passed and ignored all the cruisers with it.
