Black Dawn (Blood on the Stars Book 8)

by Jay Allan

  He nodded. “Yes, Andi, I do.”

  “Good…and as I was saying, your best effort is fine, because that’s all you’re getting from me. Anybody who tells you they’re sure they can get a hundred Marines to do something like this is full of shit.”

  * * *

  “Yes, I believe I can assist in that effort.” Atara Travis sat on the floor, leaning against cargo shuttle’s cold metal wall. It wasn’t the ideal place for a meeting, not in most respects. But it was useful in terms of privacy…and Atara didn’t want anyone knowing she was even having a meeting, and especially not with whom she was speaking.

  “I knew you were the one I had to reach.” Andi Lafarge sat right next to Travis, so close they were whispering, their words barely audible past a few centimeters.

  The shuttle was locked, the AI instructed to allow no one to enter until Atara authorized it, but she also knew the sensitivity of what they were discussing…and as much as she trusted her people, there were over a thousand spacers on Dauntless. It was just too easy to slip a spy or informant into a group that large. Everyone on the ship had been part of the White Fleet, away from home for months, but she had no idea what was happening on Megara, or how long it had been underway.

  “I was surprised to hear from you, Andi…and relieved.” In truth, she’d been stunned. As far as she’d known, Andi Lafarge had retired to a mansion on Tellurus to enjoy the fruits of her success. Megara was perhaps the last place she’d expected to encounter her friend. “I was trying to come up with a plan to help Tyler…and to be honest, I wasn’t having much success.”

  “No more surprised than I was to find Dauntless here…not to mention all that seems to be going on. I really can’t give you much insight on what’s behind all these charges. I don’t know if this is just some insane mistake of some kind…or if the Confederation is teetering on the brink of civil war, but one thing I do know is, we can’t leave Tyler down there. I saw what happened to Gary Holsten. The Senate will conduct a show trial, but Tyler won’t have counsel, or a chance to review the evidence. He will be convicted, and then he’ll be sent to some prison world…and we’ll never see him again.”

  Atara knew, perhaps more than anyone other than the two of them, how Andi felt about Barron…and the reverse. Now, listening to the tone of her friend’s voice, she realized that hadn’t diminished at all in the nearly two years since they’d seen each other.

  “We’re not going to let that happen.” Atara’s words were firm, but she knew she didn’t have the goods to back them up, not yet. She’d spent the two days after Barron’s arrest nervously awaiting her own relief from command, and possibly even her arrest. She hadn’t disobeyed Whitten’s orders in the end, nor opened fire on any Confederation installation, but she’d been sure she’d gone too far. She wondered if she owed her continued status as Dauntless’s commander to the sheer magnitude of the things going on. Had Whitten just overlooked her out of carelessness? If he’d checked her out at all, he’d have known she was very unlikely to sit and do nothing while Barron was railroaded and condemned to life on a penal asteroid.

  “No…we’re not.”

  Atara could hear the resolve in Andi’s voice. She’d been shocked—and thrilled—when Lafarge’s message had gotten through to Dauntless, a communique to her disguised as a social call to an old friend. She’d almost ignored it, as she had all incoming mail that hadn’t come on official channels, but she’d happened to glance at it and see who had sent it.

  “You have a plan?”

  “I do…but I need help.”

  “You know I’ll do whatever you need.” That was true, to an extent. Atara would do anything…but she was far from sure what she could get the crew to do. They were loyal to her, and they loved Tyler, but asking them to commit what could be considered treason was a shaky prospect at best.

  “I’m working with one of Gary Holsten’s people…and a pair of Marine officers and their company.”

  Atara listened, and she couldn’t help but feel the desperation of their situation. The two of them, hiding in a supply shuttle that had come to Dauntless with a load of fresh foodstuffs for the crew—and one stowaway—discussing taking on the Confederation Senate with a hundred Marines and a handful of other conspirators.

  “They wanted my help to rescue Gary…and I agreed. But I had my own price. That they also help break Tyler out.”

  Atara was shocked for a moment, but then it passed and she smiled instead. The idea was dangerous, reckless…but after a second’s thought, she’d decided she wasn’t at all surprised to hear it come out of Andi’s mouth. No one had ever accused the ex-smuggler of a lack of audacity.

  “What can I do?”

  Andi hesitated. “I’m afraid participating will put you at terrible risk, Atara…you and all of your people.”

  Atara wasn’t sure every spacer on Dauntless would appreciate her making a decision like this for them, but Tyler Barron had led them all, and saved most of their lives at one time or another. She wasn’t going to give up on him…and she didn’t think most of the crew would either.

  “Go on.”

  “We’re going to intercept the convoy taking Gary Holsten to the spaceport. He’s been convicted already, and he’s being shipped out early in the morning in two days.”

  Atara smiled again. “I’m not even going to ask how you know that.”

  Andi just grinned. “Holsten will be out in the open…and we’ll have the element of surprise. But Tyler is still on trial. He’ll be in his cell when Gary is moved. If we don’t break him out then, at the same time we get Holsten…we’ll never have another chance.”

  Atara nodded, an instinctive agreement with what Andi had said. If Holsten was rescued from captivity, the security level around Barron and the other prisoners, already intense, would become almost unimaginable. Whatever chance there was of getting to him would be lost.

  “Do you have the location where he’s being held?” Atara suspected it was somewhere on the Senate campus, but a successful rescue operation would need far more specific coordinates than that.

  “I will.”

  Atara looked at Andi with a quizzical expression on her face.

  “It was part of the deal I made. The Marines would help free Gary…and the Confederation Intelligence people would find out exactly where Tyler is.”

  “Do you trust your contact?” Atara looked doubtful.

  “I didn’t have any choice. It’s the only chance we have to get to Tyler.”

  Atara’s dubious look slipped away, and she nodded again. “I don’t like it, but you’re right. There is no other option.” A short pause. “So, you’ll need some kind of diversion when you’re ready to strike. That’s what you need me for?”

  “Yes…With Dauntless in orbit, you can probably jam communications in the capital, at least for a short time.”

  Atara stared back blankly for a few seconds. She knew Andi was direct, and practiced a sort of controlled recklessness, but the idea of a Confederation battleship jamming communications in the capital was insane. Brilliant. “Yes…I think we can manage that.” Atara wished that Anya Fritz was still onboard, but she’d been left behind along with the rest of the White Fleet. Still, she had enough engineering muscle aboard to pull off what Andi needed…and even one or two engineers she trusted enough to bring into the plan. “What else?”

  “I’m not sure what else you can do, Atara…” She hesitated, uncomfortably. “…except, of course…we’ll need to get off Megara, and out of the Olyus system, until we can clear things up. I think I can get them to orbit in Pegasus…but we’d never make it out of the system. But Dauntless…there’s not a ship here that’s a match for her.”

  Atara had been thinking the same thing. She could think of a million reasons to refuse. They’d be on the run, fugitives, until—unless—they could clear things up. She’d be making that choice for a thousand loyal spacers, men and women with friends, families, careers. Amid all of that, a single word came to her lip
s.

  “Yes.”

  She looked at Andi, her eyes burning with intensity. “You get Pegasus back to Dauntless…and I’ll get us out of the system.” Atara could see the relief, and the gratitude in Andi’s expression. “You have a company of Marines…that’s what, about a hundred?”

  Andi nodded. “A bit more.”

  “That’s not enough for two operations like this.”

  “It’s all I’ve got.”

  “I’ve got Marines on Dauntless, too.” Atara didn’t know how she felt about asking her Marines to assault the Senate campus…and she had no idea which ones were most likely to go along with it. But she was sure just who would know. She reached for the small comm unit on her belt and pulled it to her lips. “Bryan…it’s Captain Travis. I’d like to see you…immediately, if possible.”

  “Of course, Captain. Your office?”

  “No, General, I’d like you to come to…shuttle bay alpha. And I’d like you to come alone.” She paused. “Please don’t tell anyone where you are going.”

  “Yes, Captain. I’ll be there at once.” Atara knew the Marine had to be surprised, but his voice didn’t give any indication of it.

  Andi looked at Atara and said, “How are you going to get your Marines down to the surface without setting off a firestorm?”

  Atara smiled and turned her head, looking across the shuttle’s cargo bay. “The same way we got you up here. I assume you made some arrangement to get aboard this shuttle…I’d wager you can manage to make a similar one to slip a few Marines off on the ground, once it returns.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Bridge

  CFS Repulse

  Unknown System 20

  Year 316 AC

  “All batteries…redirect fire to target beta.” Sara Eaton was in her chair, her body angled to the side, as her eyes darted between the bank of status screens on the outer wall and the 3D display in the center of the bridge. Her whole body ached from the relentless tension, and sweat had plastered her uniform to her back. The battle had raged for more than eight hours, and while ultimate victory was as untenable a goal as it had been at the start, her spacers had performed beyond even her greatest hopes. The Hegemony fleet might very well obliterate her force, but they certainly wouldn’t bring home any reports that their victory had been an easy one.

  “Yes, Commodore.” Sonya Eaton was at her station, looking no less disheveled than her sister, or any of the bridge crew. But she was as focused on her duty, as resistant to the effects of fatigue and fear as her older sibling. “All guns locked on target beta.”

  Sara glanced at the symbol in the display, the Hegemony battleship Repulse and two of her sister-ships had been battering. The idea of letting up on a wounded enemy before it was finished went against every instinct in her battle-hardened body, but she and Jake Stockton had somehow developed a new tactic, one that came about organically between the two of them.

  Stockton was bringing his fighters in against the badly wounded Hegemony ships, recklessly closing to insane ranges to target the hull breaches and weak spots in the battered vessels. Eaton had been stunned by the amount of damage the squadrons had managed to inflict with only their lasers remaining in their arsenals.

  The cost had been high, of course, the knife-fighting range vastly increasing the hit rate of the enemy’s defensive fire, just as it allowed the fighters to target with such pinpoint accuracy. Losses had been increased further by Stockton’s efforts to conserve fuel in order to keep his fighters in action as long as possible. He’d kept velocities down to a minimum, reducing the need for massive amounts of fuel-guzzling thrust, but also making his birds easier targets for the enemy defensive batteries.

  Sara had stopped counting casualties among the squadrons when the number reached two hundred. It had increased probably by another hundred since then, but despite the lack of any kind of relief provided by not knowing, she hadn’t checked again.

  She could hear the distant whining of Repulse’s broadside. About half the battleship’s guns were still in operation. The fleet had suffered terrible losses, and many of the ships remaining in the line were near-cripples, some with just one or two secondary batteries still in operation. But her people had known the reality of their situation for months now, and they fought on with all the tenacity and courage she could have hoped to see.

  She peered across the display, and she saw another of her battleships pounding away at a critically-damaged enemy vessel. She understood…but she also knew the fighters could finish off that wounded ship…and there was a whole line of fresh Hegemony vessels still advancing, outnumbering her remaining forces by a greater ratio than they had at the start of the fight.

  “Commander…order Northland to break off from its current target and engage the nearest intact enemy vessel.” A pause. “The squadrons will deal with the ship they’re facing now.”

  “Yes, Commodore.” Sonya repeated the order.

  Even as she finished, Sara said, “All ships are ordered to break off from severely damaged opponents. We’ve got to hurt as many of those ships as we can…and the fighters can swarm the cripples.”

  “Yes, Commodore. At once.” Sara could hear her sister’s agreement in her tone. Sonya had surprised her older sibling with the bloodthirsty edge she displayed in battle. She’d always been the quiet one, the passive one.

  Years of watching friends die can harden anyone…

  She listened as the order was repeated…and as, one by one, acknowledgements came in. Sara doubted anything she did would make a difference in the final outcome of the battle…but if her people could hurt the enemy enough, just maybe they could discourage them from attacking the Confederation.

  * * *

  “Keep those tubes clear. Send another few ‘bots in there if you have to, but I want those things open.” Anya Fritz spoke calmly, her voice showing none of the stress of the moment. She was in Repulse’s engineering section, near reactor number three. She’d been from one end of the massive ship to the other during the battle, and she’d continue racing around until the Hegemony forces overwhelmed the fleet and finished her off, along with the rest of the battleship’s crew.

  Technically, Fritz wasn’t part of Repulse’s complement, no more than she’d been part of Dauntless’s. Hers was a fleet-wide command, and she was in charge of all engineering operations, not any individual vessel’s. But that was mostly an honorific, at least in the middle of a battle like the one going on. Comm jamming, distances between ships, and the inability to closely examine damage on the other vessels, all combined to make the idea of a fleet-wide damage control commander somewhat useless in the middle of a fight. For all practical purposes, she was now Repulse’s chief engineer, as she had been on the old Dauntless for so many years.

  She stumbled as the ship rolled to the side, reaching out and grabbing onto one of the metal bars extending from the wall to steady herself. Repulse had been hit again, and while she didn’t have any data on it yet, she’d become adept over the years at monitoring things by feel. It was a solid hit, but she was pretty sure it hadn’t caused any major damage. The severity of a hit depended on a lot of things—range, angle of impact, the location on the ship struck. A beam could slice through a ship’s guts, tearing into its reactors or main power lines…or it could expend itself boring through heavy armor and vast, empty cargo holds. The difference between a critical hit and one that was ineffective could be less than one percent variation on the impact angle.

  “We’ve got it, Captain. I just deployed two more of the ‘bots,” Walt Billings replied. “We’ve got all but four of them deployed now, so if we need to deal with another major hit, we’re probably going to have to pull some off of something else.” Billings had served under Fritz on the old Dauntless. Her first impression of the officer had been that he was something of a clown, a man of some intelligence, who would likely never excel—and certainly wouldn’t make it long term as part of her team—but she’d had to admit, he’d surprised her,
and he’d become one of her few true errors of judgment. By the time she was bumped up to the fleet’s top engineer, Billings had taken her place on Dauntless, with her blessing. Nevertheless, when Dauntless set out for home, Billings had volunteered to stay with the fleet, as Fritz had, and he’d transferred to Repulse to take over for the flagship’s wounded chief engineer.

  “It’s a damned certainty we’re going to get hit again, Commander…so go ahead now and figure where you can spare some ‘bots…and a few of your engineers, too.” She’d stepped back from doing things like that herself, even though she had a pretty fair idea where they could best spare resources to divert to the next crisis. She knew Billings would reach the same conclusions she would, and she’d decided to let him do just that. If he resented her stepping into his role, pushing him back into the effective number two slot, he hadn’t shown it. But Fritz didn’t see any reason to run roughshod over the officer, especially since he’d long ago won her respect.

  She’d mellowed somewhat with age, softened her hard and aggressive style…a bit.

  “I’m on it, Captain.” Billings snapped off a salute, a much sharper one than he’d managed in his younger days, and he turned and walked across the deck toward a ladder leading to one of the catwalks snaking across the engineering section.

  She turned to walk back to the main console, to check on the status of a half dozen damage control parties at work in different areas of the ship when Repulse jerked forward again, hard. Showers of sparks descended all across the engineering deck as one system after another shorted out. It had been a bad hit, she knew that immediately, but she wasn’t sure just how bad yet. The main lighting was still active in engineering, and that was a good sign. Her mind raced, eyes darting around, processing the damage she could easily see. She narrowed it down to two likely scenarios, one she could deal with fairly quickly, even getting Repulse back into the fight in a few minutes.