by Jay Allan
“Maybe…but ships can float around in orbit, and remain functional with some basic maintenance. Antimatter is not the easiest thing to store, especially over long periods. A nanosecond’s failure in containment, and the antimatter—and everything around it—is gone. And, failure percentages start to increase from infinitesimal to not all that rare when the time frame moves to years and decades. Don’t forget, a single failure in one container destroys everything in the storage facility. There are some equations to predict the survival percentages for antimatter stockpiles over long periods. They’re highly theoretical, of course.”
Eaton’s mind had shifted, though, to a matter of more immediate tactical significance. “Those are light ships. If they’ve got antimatter aboard…that’s a weakness.” The Hegemony battleships seemed to keep their antimatter stores in heavily protected magazines deep in the bowels of the giant vessels, but the small escorts were lightly armored, and a fraction the size of the enemy capital ships.
She looked up at the main display, focusing on Stockton’s squadrons as they moved in against the enemy escorts. The fighters were taking losses, bad ones…but not quite like they had on the first pass. The veteran pilots knew what to expect this time…and the escorts were maneuvering hard now, trying to escape Eaton’s approaching battle line. That upset their own targeting efforts. Even as she stared at the display, she saw one of the enemy ships wink out of existence…and then another.
Stockton’s fighters had scored hits…hits that had almost certainly ruptured antimatter pods. There was no other explanation for ships—even light escorts—being obliterated by fighter lasers.
And, if a fighter’s lasers can do that…
“All ships, full thrust…now. We’re going in. All vessels are to open fire as soon as they’re in range and have a target.”
“Yes, Commodore.” Fuller repeated the order into his comm, even as Eaton turned her gaze back to the display. Stockton’s people were fully engaged…and the sooner she could get her people into the fight, the fewer of his would die needlessly.
She leaned back as Repulse jerked forward, the increased thrust momentarily overcoming the compensators before some semblance of normal gravity returned to the bridge.
She could see the enemy battleships on the display, a section of the main line branching off, heading for her ships. Engaging the escorts might cost her everything. Getting away after fighting the smaller ships looked like no better than a 50/50 proposition.
But, she’d made her decision, and she was going to stand by it.
“All weapons…prepare to fire.”
Chapter Fifty-Two
Just Off the Promenade
Troyus City, Planet Megara, Olyus III
Year 317 AC
Lille sat on the roof, crouched down, watching the street below through the small, portable scope. He’d always had sharp eyes, a useful asset for an assassin, but he wasn’t trusting anything right now. He had two kills to complete, and then he would get off Megara. Things were way too hot on the Confederation capital, and he’d be glad to leave it behind.
It would be good to get home. He’d always enjoyed his work, but the fatigue was catching up to him. A good long break was an appealing prospect, and the sooner he could get back, the happier he’d be.
But, first, he had to finish his business. It always had been—always would be—his first priority.
The dark gloom of the rainy night had given way to fractured morning light that hinted at a sunny day to come. There were still clouds, and the sun took turns between hiding and shining through to bathe the still-wet streets in light.
It was almost time. Lille expected his target to appear at any moment.
He was ready. He’d checked his rifle twice, loaded it, even wiped the lenses of the sights with a special rag. He had analyzed every meter of the street, and he’d checked and doublechecked the distance from his perch to the target zone.
He’d had time to prepare, hours of time during the fading night and the newborn morning, and he was ready. The usual adrenalin was racing through his blood, his eyes clear and focused. Ricard Lille never felt better or more energized than he did just before a kill. He’d often considered retirement, spending the rest of his life relaxing in the comfort his career had earned him…but he just couldn’t give up the feeling of the hunt. He was an addict, he knew, no different than any other, and he couldn’t go that long without a fresh hit.
But, the two victims he would claim on Megara would last him for some time, he was sure of that. These kills would settle some scores, eradicate the stink of failure that clung to him from his recent encounters. Lille enjoyed killing for its own sake, but there was something beyond description about settling a score, about righting a past mistake. Ricard Lille would kill any target he was sent to terminate, but he had to kill anyone who’d gotten the better of him, who’d escaped from his grasp.
He looked down the street, saw a small crowd approaching, perhaps a dozen people. He brought the scope around, moved from face to face, until…
A thought rang out in his head, cold, businesslike.
Target acquired.
* * *
Andi looked up at the ladder, even as she reached up and plucked the tiny drone out of the air. It had taken her weeks to regain Ricard Lille’s trail, but now she was sure she had him. Finding the drone in the foulest depths of Troyus’s deep black market had been difficult, and it had cost a king’s ransom, enough to buy a palace on some pleasure world. But, the tiny device had proven its worth. It had accomplished its mission, and the ladder in front of her, pulled down from its normal, retracted position was just another bit of confirmation.
She put the small device, which looked very much like an insect of some kind, into her pocket, and she moved her hand under her jacket, unsnapping the strap that held her tiny sidearm in place. The gun was still there, tucked snuggly under her shoulder.
She stared at the ladder, her eyes moving slowly across each rung, and then her hands gripping, slowly, carefully, searching for anything abnormal…a trap, an alarm, something. But, they were clear as far as she could see, at least the few that she could reach from the ground.
She moved her foot up onto the first rung, and then she paused. Her boots were heavy, and if she was right, if Ricard Lille was on the roof above, silence was essential.
She pulled her boots off, and then she turned again, beginning up the ladder. She felt the cold of the metal rungs on her bare feet, and she paused at every step, securing her footing and struggling to remain silent, even as she checked the next section of the ladder for traps.
She was hesitant, even after she’d studied each step up. Lille was a master assassin, and traps of all sorts had always been a major weapon in his arsenal. There were more dangers than she could easily imagine, from contact poisons, to all kinds of camouflaged explosives, but she’d accepted that she could only do what she could. She’d known going in, the matchup against Lille would be her greatest test, that she might very well fail, that her prey was likely to kill her instead of falling victim to her attack. She’d accepted that, and she’d struggled to keep it from interfering with her focus.
Still, now that she was so close, it was becoming difficult to keep such thoughts at bay. She imagined never seeing Tyler again, not having the chance to apologize to her crew for sneaking out on them.
Having her last thoughts be of the man who had broken her had also bested her in the end, the enemy who’d taken her life as well as her self-respect, his last and final victory over her.
She took a deep breath and moved up another rung, stopping again to steady herself, to check for traps. Five floors hadn’t seemed like that much to her, but she realized it was going to take her longer than she’d expected to reach the top. There was no room for a mistake. The slightest noise, or missing any kind of alarm Lille had set, would tear away her chances of success. Even if Lille just came to the edge of the roof to look down, she was as good as dead.
She continued to c
limb, even as the thoughts closed in, suffocating her. There was regret, sadness at the thought of never again seeing those close to her. And, there was fear, deep and dark inside her, making her heart pound like a drum and her stomach convulse. She’d accepted the need to do what she was doing, realized she couldn’t go on without the vengeance her soul screamed for…but that didn’t eliminate the fear, or the desire to live. She thought of herself in Pegasus’s small wardroom, laughing with her old crew over a few too many pitchers, and almost asleep in the cool darkness of Tyler’s quarters, next to the only man she’d ever loved, watching as he slept. Even as she climbed another rung, she knew those happy moments could very well be anchored to her past, that her future could extend only seconds farther, and into darkness.
She thought about turning around, climbing down…forgetting about her crazed need for revenge. But, she just shook her head. She was who she was, and she couldn’t live with things as they were. She needed her balance back, her sense of herself restored. Without it, she couldn’t be anything to Tyler, to her crew…to any of those she cared about.
And, there was only one way to achieve that, to reclaim what see was, who see was.
She reached up and grabbed the next rung, pulling herself up slowly, silently…
* * *
“We’ve got over a hundred extra squadrons ready for action, and with a little luck, we’ll have them all berthed in another two days, maybe three.” Van Striker had spent much of the past week arguing with his subordinates on Megara’s orbital fortresses, listening to an endless series of reasons why they couldn’t take more fighters into their bays. As often as not, he’d let them finish their arguments, some clearly carefully organized, others just bursts of half reasoned thoughts. Whatever the base commanders threw at him, he’d responded to each of them in the same way, a concise reminder of what Tyler Barron and Sara Eaton had done so many times before, how many extra fighters they’d crammed onto the flight decks of their battleships. That hadn’t always stopped the arguments instantly, but it had taken the wind out of them. There wasn’t a base station in Megara orbit that didn’t have more extra space than the largest battleship.
“That’s better than I thought we’d do…and that’s with Dirk Timmons taking all the Academy upperclassman with Tyler’s fleet.” Gary Holsten was walking down the street next to his friend, flanked by four guards and followed by a small cluster of aides. The two men and their staffs, both naval and intelligence, had been working around the clock to prepare Megara for the attack that was very likely to come. Striker suspected Holsten harbored some flickering hope that Barron and Winters would find a way to stop the enemy before they reached the Confederation’s capital, just as he himself did, but in his analytical mind, he knew that was almost impossible. There would almost certainly be a fight at Megara.
He’d done all he could to prepare, called in every Confederation vessel he could reach, activated every reserve unit, activated the militias and local ground forces, and reinforced them with over one hundred thousand Marines, many of whom had been faced off against each other just weeks earlier, on the verge of outright civil war.
He’d exceeded his authority—on more than one occasion—but he doubted the Senate, which he could have disbanded less than a month before if he’d wished, was about to give him a hard time. He still had some play left from the fact that the military had called off a coup it could easily have completed. And, just about every Senator in that building was scared to death, calling for the Navy to find a way to protect them.
He knew one day, the Senate and the Navy would be arguing again, about one issue or another, but for now they were both united, ready to face the threat everyone had finally accepted was real.
Striker appreciated the spirit of cooperation, but it was the fear he relied upon most to keep the rancorous Senators in line. The politicians were used to passing laws, giving mandates…but they were usually very far from the fighting. Now, they were on the front lines, and Striker imagined, with some grim amusement, that at least half the Confederation’s noble leaders had crapped their pants sometime over the past two weeks.
They had certainly lost all hints of restraint, and the august body had opened the financial floodgates, providing money for any endeavor the military proposed, up to and including arming their own staffs, in the, presumably unlikely, event the enemy was able to land sufficient ground forces to invade Megara.
Of course, such an eventuality was only unlikely in the way Striker had presented the idea. In truth, he was far from sure even the system’s massive defenses would be enough to stop the Hegemony. He hadn’t put much effort into any plans for evacuation, but that was mostly because he couldn’t make himself face the possibility…not because he didn’t think invasion could happen.
Besides, there was no way to evacuate a population of twelve billion, and the thought of selectively withdrawing the politically connected while leaving everyone else behind turned his stomach.
“With any luck, the minefields will be…” He’d turned toward Holsten, but then his words stopped abruptly. He felt something…strange. He hesitated, for just a few seconds, and then he took another step forward.
And, he felt his legs buckle.
Chapter Fifty-Three
The Promenade
Troyus City, Planet Megara, Olyus III
Year 317 AC
Gary Holsten turned back toward Striker, a quizzical look on his face. The admiral had been speaking, but then, he’d abruptly stopped. Holsten wasn’t alarmed at first, but when his eyes met his friend’s, his insides seized up into a series of impenetrable knots.
Striker was looking back, and his eyes were visions of shock…and fear.
The naval officer took half a step forward, and then he dropped to one knee, swinging around, his arm reaching toward his friend, grabbing onto Holsten’s jacket.
Holsten extended his hand, trying to grab Striker’s but missing, even as the admiral coughed, and a geyser of blood erupted from his mouth. The admiral stumbled, ending up prone, his body wobbling in the middle of the rainsoaked street, as the blood poured down his chest.
“Call a med team…now!” Holsten shouted toward the guards, even as he pulled the pistol from under his jacket and looked around the street. He was on his knees, hunched over his stricken friend, alternating between searching for the threat and checking to see how badly Striker had been hit.
The guards, save for the one on the comm calling for help, had fanned out, weapons drawn, looking all around the street. The big Marines carried assault rifles, and they were looking, watching, waiting for any sign of the attacker.
Holsten had expected another shot, and he leaned down, remaining quiet, ready to try to get a read on direction. But, there was nothing.
Nothing but the moist and gurgling sound of Van Striker gasping for breath, and the feel of the wounded officer’s fingers, struggling to hold onto Holsten’s arm.
Holsten leaned down, bringing his lips to Striker’s ears. “Help is on the way, Van. Hang on, my friend…just a few minutes.”
Striker looked back at Holsten, his head moving slightly, an imperceptible nod. But, his eyes were cloudy and unfocused…and the strength in his hand, his fingers, was weakening.
Holsten scoured the street again, pistol in hand. Still nothing. No more shots, no signs of movement save for the crowds, now beginning to scream and flee for cover, and the guards, still searching everywhere for the attacker.
He looked back down, scanning Striker for signs of the wound. He couldn’t find it at first, but then he reached around under the admiral’s neck…and he pulled back a hand covered in blood.
No…please…
Gary Holsten was a strong man by any measure, described as often as not as a cold slab of granite, but now he felt as though he was descending into a nightmare. The Confederation had been saved at the last second from the disaster of civil war, and now it faced the seemingly invincible onslaught of the Hegemony invasion. The univers
e as he knew it was collapsing all around him…and leaning over Van Striker, his arms wrapped around his friend, holding him up in his prone position, was too much.
He looked around again, his eyes catching a cluster of Marines running down the street, the first response to the calls for help. He could hear the sirens, too, the Troyus police, no doubt…and the med teams as well.
His head pounded with rage and frustration, and he held onto Striker, comforting his friend, and listening to the sirens growing louder, wondering if they would get there in time.
* * *
Andi heard the crack, and she recognized it immediately. A sniper’s rifle…probably with a silencing cap. It had been quiet, so much so, she doubted she would have heard it at all if she hadn’t been so close to the roof.
Her first thought was Lille had discovered her, that he’d gotten off a shot at her. She checked herself, one hand on the ladder, the other feeling all over her body for blood or a wound. But, there was nothing. And, no sign of the assassin above her.
She felt the adrenalin in her body. It had already been flowing, of course, but now if felt as though a massive hose had opened up. Whatever, the risks, she knew one thing. She didn’t have time to waste.
She raced up the ladder, bounding up toward the roof. She saw the small tripwire, too late, even as her hand moved through it.
She reacted instantly, by pure instinct, without time for conscious thought. Four large spikes ripped through the air, two from each side. She jerked her body hard to the side…and avoided three of them.
The forth one took her in the side. Her eyes caught it first, sunk close to ten centimeters into her body, just about at kidney level. The image was surreal for an instant, almost antiseptic.
Then, the pain hit.
Agony radiated out from the wound, and she almost lost her grip. She held on, as much through pure stubbornness as anything else. Her head jerked to the side, and she saw the alley, fifteen meters below. She’d never been crazy about heights, but her discipline took over. The drop, the wound in her side…they weren’t her worst problems.
