by Blaze Ward
The War Advocate plotted several options for him on a screen. Most Directors would instinctively jump into a rear, flanking corner when making an attack run like this. They would pass over or under their suddenly-damaged foe and then prepare to escape.
Few considered that such a path inevitably brought them into the range and arc of the big, slow cannons that Fribourg seemed to prefer on their capital vessels.
Others would cross directly on the beam, crossing its T.
That risked spending the most time within reach of the most weapon installations.
Vrin’s War Advocate was among the best, the shrewdest. Vrin had brought the man’s career along as quickly as his student could absorb the lessons of the great masters of maneuver: Sun Tzu, Musashi, Kublai, Burke.
His projected course brought them out of their jump right above the bow of the Battleship, traveling down the ship’s centerline at high speed, passing up and over, where the usual design for such a vessel left the cannons with a slight downward tilt. Not much, but eight to ten seconds difference at that speed before passing out of their firing arcs. No time for the Imperial to get off a second shot, even if he was prepared enough to fire his first.
Plus, if they were lucky on the first shot of the Mauler, they might rupture enough of the weapon turrets fore to allow them to come back for a second pass, once the great beast was rendered toothless and blind.
He felt like a single panther hunting a mammoth. It was truly a shame he had been unable to bring an entire pack of wolves with him.
Vrin nodded to his disciple with a warm smile. Truly, a genius move. Abrupt. Decisive. Potentially game-changing.
“Engage.”
CHAPTER L
DATE OF THE REPUBLIC NOVEMBER 8, 398 ABOARD AMSEL, ABOVE ST. LEGIER
Jessica studied a map projection of the surface of St. Legier with a guilty twinge in her soul.
How many times had she dreamed of doing this? Of flying her flag in the skies above this planet, watching bombs shatter its defenses, as a final step towards bringing down an Empire?
And here she was now, trying to stop it. Trying to uphold both an Emperor and an Empire.
Obviously, the Creator has a supremely black sense of humor.
Eighteen scramjet bombs had fallen on the fringes rather than the cities, just reinforcing her opinion of the nature of the attack.
To cross that much empty space and launch a surprise bombing raid, and then do so little actual damage.
She had a powerful realization as she watched. Apparently, it showed on her face, as well.
“What is it?” Casey demanded in a fierce whisper.
“That commander over there understands 2218 Svati Prime,” she said back, loud enough that Emshwiller, Saar, and a number of other men close by could hear her.
Casey gave her a confused look, but Saar nodded with an angry grimace similar to hers.
“Where it all started for me, Your Majesty,” Jessica continued. “We got your fleet’s attention by raiding a frontier world and dropping a gigantic bomb on the place. Ours did barely any damage.”
“Physical damage, Admiral,” Saar corrected her.
“Correct,” Jessica agreed. “The psychological effect staggered the entire Empire. Captain Wald asked me why we would do something like that, but he had been thinking of it in military terms. It is the same here.”
“So Buran is doing this to move an Empire?” Casey asked.
“Not Buran, Your Majesty,” Jessica replied. “Dittmar.”
“But why?” the Emperor’s face grew clouded and confused. “We’re already at war with Buran, even if it is far away.”
“What better way to rouse a population?” Saar interjected. “It is rumored that Admiral Dittmar did not want the Peace with Aquitaine. If he has accused the Emperor, excuse me, your Father, Your Majesty, of treason, it would not be hard to convince the population that Aquitaine was at the root of it, given that several officers of the Republic are here being celebrated at the highest levels.”
“And tomorrow, we are at war again,” Casey said. “Jessica, if we fail, we’ll have undone everything my father and Uncle Em worked so hard to accomplish. I’m sorry.”
Jessica fixed the young Emperor with a steely eye.
“I don’t plan to lose, Emperor,” she growled. “If I have to shatter the entire Imperial Fleet to make my point today, to have peace in the wake of this coup, that is the price that I must take to my grave.”
At what price peace?
Today, perhaps, everything.
“Captain Saar,” Jessica began. “This vessel is brand new and had just passed her Builder’s Trials with flying colors. I will need you to use her up entirely in the next hour.”
“Admiral?” he looked askance at her.
Jessica turned to glance at Emshwiller as well, including him in the orders she was about to give.
At what price, peace?
“Amsel, and Kali-ma, are to uncouple and override all of the interlocks and safety features on every beam installation,” Jessica ordered in a heavy, almost primal voice. “When that vessel arrives, everyone who can bear is to immediately open fire, without orders. Further, they are to continue to fire everything they have, up to and including the overload and destruction of the weapon itself or the generators behind it, on my authority. Both warships are new, but I expect to age them a decade today. Both can go back to drydock tomorrow, if we are successful.”
Saar and Emshwiller both nodded soberly and relayed her orders.
Casey grew a little white around the edges, jaw clenched and lips pursed, eyes straight ahead.
Silence descended on the bridge as they waited for Buran to make his next move.
“Alert,” a man’s voice called in a warm tenor tone. “The Raider has jumped. Repeat, the Raider has jumped.”
Jessica could feel it in her bones.
“All hands, stand by to receive a charge,” she ordered in a voice that didn’t waver.
CHAPTER LI
DATE OF THE REPUBLIC NOVEMBER 8, 398 ABOARD KALI-MA, ABOVE ST. LEGIER
It was a weird way to fight a battle, by any standards Wiley had ever studied or experienced.
In a classical engagement, like Fribourg and Aquitaine had routinely fought, one squadron dropped into space and marched down into the gravity well to fight, with the loser fleeing back up and out.
This felt more like how Corynthe did it. Pirates waiting outside in the darkness, with every bit of stealth they could arrange.
Someone would drop out of JumpSpace and slowly bring everything on-line.
If you were a pirate, you snuck up on him and caught him from behind, like chasing a cute boy and grabbing his ponytail when you got close enough.
If you were the Law, you did the same thing, for the same reason, but got to be the good guys in the eyes of the population, stopping those pirates and hauling them off to jail.
Here, Jessica had apparently chosen the worst of both worlds.
The Blackbird was sitting a little inside that zone that would generally kick a ship out of JumpSpace. She couldn’t jump herself without ruining the tune on her sails, but someone coming at her at full speed would be able to leap away fairly quickly, even without the weird jump drives Buran was using.
Kali-ma, for instance.
And Wiley was protecting a high flank.
Amsel was traveling in a counter-clockwise orbit, looking down on the planet’s northern pole. Kali-ma was above, behind, and off to starboard, on Jessica’s orders, right at the edge of the JumpSpace line.
But just outside it.
Around her, the whole Flight Wing held station with both vessels, a cloud of angry mosquitos, but they were orbiting around Kali-ma, rather than Amsel.
They should have been orbiting both. Plus, they were laid out all wrong for a standard engagement.
Wiley smiled, imaging the thought processes of the other guy.
It almost looked like she and Jessica were amateurs, here.
>
They would never be so sneaky as to be luring the guy in, or anything.
Normally, the Combat Team was on point, twelve mixed Uglies with beam weapons and minimal shields, at best. Today, they were back aft, a girdle of mice circling an elephant like tiny moons.
In their place, Eel and the other three boys of the Heavy Team were surfing Kali-ma’s bow wave. These were the bigger craft, frequently two-man jobs designed to crack shields and heads interchangeably, led by the craziest pilot in the Navy.
At least until the Twins had joined.
Rocket Frog and Neon Pink had redefined crazy in their own ways. With any luck, their brand of crazy would be just what was needed today.
Actually, with any luck, the alien would decide discretion was the better part after all the damage he had done, facing all this firepower, and disappear forever, letting the Imperials sort their own shit out.
Wiley didn’t believe that for a moment.
Still, how many people got to serve under both a Queen and an Empress?
“Commander,” Himura’s voice broke into her reverie. “Orders from the Flag.”
A chime indicated the message on her board. She opened it and read the implications, keying a comm back to Engineering.
Erik Doležal appeared on her small screen.
“Boss?” he asked, looking up from whatever he was doing.
“Orders from Jessica,” she replied, sending the message along.
A moment passed.
“That’s gonna be expensive,” he muttered, mostly to himself.
“Empire’s paying,” Wiley replied. “Or we’re running like hell for home and trying to convince the Republic to pay when we pull in there with news. Make it happen quick.”
A thought struck her, lost in all the excitement up until now.
“Speaking of which,” she pressed a series of buttons to close this comm and open an intership relay.
Galen Estevan appeared on a screen.
“Wiley, what’s the news?” he asked in a breezy voice that masked the man’s hard-driving demeanor. Nobody had shared anything useful with him, even over secured channels.
Galen was tall in that family, a man of average height when Uly and the twins were so much shorter than average. Galen’s wife, Kara, was another short one, making Galen look like a giant, half a head taller than the rest and still two or three centimeters short of Wiley’s height.
“Jessica thinks it’s going to happen shortly,” she replied. “I might suggest you get your ass and Marco Polo out of the gravity well. If it goes bad, we’re going to have to bug out, and I don’t look forward to having to get to Republic space without fresh coffee.”
“Glad to know my place in your universe, Kali-ma,” he laughed at her. “Remind me to buy a battlecruiser to fly when we get home, so you can haul cargo for me, next time.”
Wiley laughed back. Galen flew Marco Polo because the tiny, cargo-carrying Mothership could go anywhere, cheap, and serve even the smallest colonies amazingly profitably.
He probably could afford to build a battlecruiser, if he wanted. The man had learned money from Uly Larionov, after all.
“Deal,” she said, closing the channel.
It might be interesting, seeing what a Corynthian ship yard could do along those lines, if they went away from the basic Mothership design that had been their bread and butter for so many generations.
“Wiley,” Himura called. “Bad guy just jumped.”
“Flight Wing,” Wiley called into the open push. “Everyone shut it down and roll on your gyros right now. If this is it, you have about five seconds to be in position. Light Wing, prepare for phase two.”
She didn’t bother to wait for their answers.
Yan had Kali-ma lined up on a parallel track with the Blackbird, rolled over on her side. From here, he could bring every single of the five Type-3’s to bear: all four blades and the stinger on the tail. It was a great deal of firepower for Corynthe.
Nothing compared to what the Imperials could bring to the table, but it might be enough.
She would settle for letting loose with all the hounds of hell right now. Combined with Amsel and the flight wing, it might be enough.
She would know, shortly.
CHAPTER LII
DAY: 313 OF THE COMMON ERA YEAR: 13,445 VESSEL - RS:32G8Y42 – “DANCER IN DARKNESS.” FRIBOURG SYSTEM: “ST. LEGIER”. STATUS: COMBAT MODE
Vrin felt Dancer In Darkness almost shiver in excitement as he rose from the dark depths of otherspace to rend this new foe. The Entity recognized the value of this last run, at least as much as his crew did.
Already today, they had shaken an Empire, even one as barbaric as Fribourg.
Now, they might manage to slay an Emperor.
The jump seemed to stretch into an eternity, when a run on the Capriole Drive over this short of a distance usually flashed by too quickly to notice.
Shudder.
Realspace.
Vrin felt like Jonah, confronting the whale.
A Roughshark was built on a much smaller hull that his foe, the base design itself a modification of the Mako. Fribourg might call it a light cruiser, if it was possible to make such an equivalence.
Facing him, passing beneath as Vrin saw the stars again, an Imperial Battleship. Twice as wide, almost three times as long.
Well-matched opponents, when Vrin could do this.
“Fire the Mauler,” Vrin commanded calmly.
A firehose of energy erupted from Dancer In Darkness’s mouth, that hollow spot at the center of the three tines that housed the beam weapons forward.
Against the gray hull of the beast, the blanket of energy looked almost pink in hue, a salmon fleeing madly from the shark’s closing jaws.
His own hull hummed with the furious release of batteries and generators emptying as rapidly as they could without melting.
Vrin could only imagine the sound aboard the Battleship.
He had never been the victim of a Mauler, to hear the sound of metal tearing, the whistle of air suddenly free to escape into the vacuum of deep space.
To listen to a warship dying, even one that had never been truly alive in the first place.
He imagined it as the dying bellow of a gutted whale.
The massive beast beneath him had been apparently surprised, even as she made herself a tempting target. Not one of the big cannons fired as he traversed the top of her hull. Only the lesser beams appeared to have any preparations to fight.
Still, at this point, it was the rest of the suite that would hurt, because something was wrong.
Imperial warships fought predictably.
Slow, staccato bursts of energy designed to wear him down, like a river content to cut a new bank.
As Vrin watched the incoming pulses of light sparkle and vanish into the First Stage Exciters, he finally understood the importance, the value of placing the older woman in charge.
She had done something new, in a star nation that valued conservatism of thought and action over all else.
She had understood the stakes, and the timing.
The ship below him fired far more rapidly than any Imperial he had ever seen.
There would be time for only one tilting pass, armored knights charging one another with energy lances poised and shields held close.
No tournament this, passing with a single blow and then lining up for the next shot.
No, she was intent on hitting him with as much energy as she could, hoping to overload him before he could escape.
But even an Imperial Battleship lacked that capacity. Not in the few seconds Dancer In Darkness would be close enough to rend.
“Director, we are taking fire from the escort and his attendants,” the War Advocate called with a taut voice.
Yes, he could see that.
They had not bothered with missiles. There would be no time. Nor the slow, over-powered cannons.
And the escort should not be able to hit his shielding this accurately. Not fro
m that distance.
They had done something to change the focus on their main beams.
Worse, both vessels were firing everything at a rate that would risk burning out the weapons themselves out in the few seconds while this combat yet raged.
Never had an Imperial vessel been so profligate, so reckless.
It was an unwelcome revolution in naval warfare, if Fribourg and his allies were beginning to fight like the Lord of Winter.
Short. Fast. Hot.
Worse, while Dancer In Darkness was equipped with such rapid-firing weapons, but they could barely range on the Battleship. He might as well throw rocks at the distant escort.
The effect would be similar.
And then the little craft, the things called Starfighters, fired again.
Not as a wave of random pulses, as he had expected.
No, they had held to some private command, pivoted until every tiny fish was suddenly facing him, and fired in unison.
“War Advocate,” Vrin called sharply. Sharper than he intended. “Can we hold?”
That much energy, that rapidly, might actually overload the First Stage Exciters. At this engagement range, Dancer In Darkness would be annihilated, unable to charge the batteries fast enough to prevent catastrophic overload.
“I think so,” the man said tersely.
Vrin had never seen Ro Malar Arga Rues unsure.
But they had never been here, either.
On one screen, the countdown until the Capriole Drive was recharged and they could leap to safety.
On another, the rising, red tide as the First Stage Exciters filled, like a bucket left out in the rain.
Only they would face death, and not simply a spill on the floor, when the crimson reached the top.
Vrin felt his breath grow shallow as adrenaline pulsed.
Never had he come so close to death.
Others had failed, their Entities and crew unable to react rapidly enough to achieve success.
Dancer In Darkness had never failed him.
And he had never failed the Entity.
He would not fail today, either.
