by Jay Allan
Chapter 3
Eagle Fourteen
Outer System – Epsilon Indi II
Earthdate: 2321 AD (36 Years After the Fall)
“If we’re going to intervene, Colonel, it will have to be soon.” Grayson’s voice was close to non-committal, but not quite. Black Eagles weren’t supposed to let normal human emotions affect their judgment, but Elias could tell the captain was angry watching the heavy cruiser being slowly overwhelmed by the pirates. The ship was from the old Alliance navy, just as Grayson himself was. He didn’t doubt his brother’s officer would sit and watch the ancient warship defeated and destroyed, but he was sure Grayson wouldn’t like it.
Elias didn’t know what to do. Every impulse within him cried out to come to the stricken ship’s aid, but he knew his mission was important too, and opening fire would advertise Eagle Fourteen’s presence. Atlantia was his home—or at least it had been—and he’d come there to determine whether its government was in communication with the Black Flag. Or worse. Though the fact that their patrol is not interfering with the raiders is pretty close to an answer…
He knew what Darius would do. The Eagles’ commander had an almost unparalleled ability to focus on the mission, to disregard the cost or the collateral damage. But Elias wasn’t his brother.
“Do it,” he said grimly.
“All weapons stations, power up and engage targeting systems. Lock onto the raiders.” Grayson’s voice was that of a veteran who had seen battle dozens of times, and Elias could hear the confidence in his commands…and also the relief at not being forced to stand by and watch as one of Admiral Garret’s ships got blasted to scrap.
Elias worried that Eagle Fourteen couldn’t handle the pirate flotilla, especially after another three ships had blasted out from behind the warp gate, bringing the total force to six. That was more than enough strength to vaporize the beleaguered old heavy cruiser, but Eagle Fourteen was a powerful battleship, larger even than the old Alliance Yorktown class that had claimed their place so firmly in history during the wars against the First Imperium. Elias was no expert on space combat, but Grayson didn’t seem too concerned, so he just sat and watched.
“All batteries report locked and ready to fire, sir.” The tactical officer sounded as cool and experienced as Grayson. Elias had once derisively referred to his brother’s soldiers and spacers as little better than pirates themselves, and though he’d revised that estimation considerably over the past two years, he still found himself continually surprised at just how professional and effective a fighting force Darius had created. He still wished his brother had devoted his considerable skills to service of his home world and not as a mercenary fighting for pay…but then, his own experiences at the hands of Atlantia’s government gave him pause even in that viewpoint. Though he’d never have believed it several years before, he realized such power was perhaps more safely placed in Darius’s hands than in a government more interested in the accumulation and preservation of its leaders’ power than anything else.
“Fire.” He froze for an instant as he heard Grayson give the command, the order that would give away Eagle Fourteen’s position. A smaller ship might have passed for any number of vessels, but no one else in present-day Occupied Space possessed warships like those of the Black Eagles.
Elias heard the sounds of the massive laser batteries opening up, the almost incalculable output of Eagle Fourteen’s three enormous fusion reactors poured into devastating beams of focused light, ripping through space, tearing into the pirate raiders with unimaginable destructiveness. One of the targets simply vanished, hit by three blasts almost simultaneously, and then a second followed, leaving nothing but a superheated plasma in its place.
The others stopped firing at the cruiser, and they came around, bringing their weapons to bear on Eagle Fourteen. Their laser pulses slammed into the battleship’s heavy armor, and Elias could feel the vessel shake. The attacks caused damage, but it was minimal, a fact confirmed as he listened to Grayson fielding the reports. Outer compartments breached, external scanners destroyed…but nothing critical.
“Captain…is it possible to disable one of those vessels?” Elias blurted out the thought the instant it popped into his head. He stared at the display, suddenly intrigued by the prospect of taking one of the ships—almost certainly Black Flag, he knew now that they’d fought back instead of run—captive.
“We can try, Colonel.” Grayson didn’t sound doubtful, not exactly. It wasn’t in the Black Eagles’ mantra to acknowledge there was anything they couldn’t do. But Elias knew no Black Flag ship had ever been captured. “We’ll have to gut their power and AI systems so they can’t self-destruct, and then we’ll have to board before they can override and destroy the ship.”
“Then let’s try, Captain. I imagine my brother would like a closer look at the enemy, and I’d wager the Eagles can tackle this kind of difficult assignment.” Elias held back a smile. The Eagles were the best, without question, but if they had a weak point, that was it, their status and the pride they had in it. He stared at the display, watching as the four remaining vessels spread out, moving to surround Eagle Fourteen. They didn’t operate like outlaws. Elias didn’t have the pure military experience his father and brother did, but he knew a disciplined unit in action when he saw it.
“Yes, Colonel.” Elias suspected Grayson knew he was being manipulated a bit, but also that the Eagle was helpless to resist. Darius’s culture of excellence had absorbed his people body and soul, and failing at anything, even something nearly impossible, was anathema to the Eagles.
“Lieutenant Criss,” Grayson said, turning his head toward the tactical station, “Major Corrigan is to prepare his strike force for a boarding action. Advise the bay I want the assault shuttles ready to launch immediately. Gunnery control, I want one of those ships disabled, not destroyed.
Elias listened to the string of non-stop commands, and he watched as the tactical officer handled them all calmly and efficiently. He was still amazed every day watching his brother’s people in action. He’d derided them for so long, and even now he had some trouble accepting how truly good they were. Darius was a genius at managing people. The Eagles feared no enemy, but they were terrified of one thing…of not being the best.
He knew Darius’s talents came at a cost. He needed the very best people to start with, and he was ruthless at culling those who couldn’t make the cut. Darius Cain loved his Eagles, but he didn’t think much of humanity in general, and he had no use for those who couldn’t measure up to his demanding standards. Elias understood the utility of his brother’s ways now better than he had, but he still thought it was a dark and cynical point of view, and a damned hard way to live. For all he’d endured over the past few years, Elias still maintained a belief in people that his brother lacked. Though, now, unlike before, he was far from sure which of the two of them had a clearer view of things.
Two more of the enemy ships vanished from the screen, and the other two began accelerating, trying to get away from the deadly battleship. They likely thought they were faster than the massive warship, but Darius Cain’s behemoths had enormous engines, and the latest in force-dampening technologies. Eagle Fourteen couldn’t blast its engines at full, not without buttoning up its crew in the tanks, but she could manage 20g, which would feel like a crushingly uncomfortable—but survivable—6g to the crew.
“Crew, prepare for heavy acceleration.”
Elias leaned back in his seat and took a deep breath. He was startled when the acceleration kicked in just a few seconds later. When Troy Grayson gave an order, he clearly expected his people to be on the ball and ready to obey. And slackers who didn’t jump quickly enough could enjoy the experience of bearing six times their body weight away from the protective cushioning of their acceleration couches.
“I want those ships disabled, dammit. Get the guns focused on power generation systems.” Grayson’s voice was labored, somewhat, by the pressure, but Elias was impressed with how close t
o normal Eagle Fourteen’s captain sounded.
Elias’s limited knowledge of naval combat was enough for him to realize that targeting individual systems, especially on ships whose internal layouts were unknown, was damned near impossible. But to the Eagles, ‘damned near’ and ‘totally’ were two entirely different things.
The pirates—we’ve got to stop calling them that, they’re so much more dangerous than just raiders—were heading toward the warp gate. They weren’t going to get there, not before Eagle Fourteen blasted them to atoms, and that meant time was short. Based on past encounters, the few times United Fleet or Eagle forces had been able to catch and defeat Black Flag squadrons, the enemy ships would self-destruct as soon as they realized escape was impossible.
Eagle Fourteen maintained a reduced rate of fire as she blasted forward. Even the Black Eagles’ great battleships had limits to their energy generation, and 20g thrust pulled power from the gunnery stations. The great main guns were silent now. Their powerful shots were more useful for destroying enemy ships anyway, and if there was going to be any chance to capture one of the Black Flag’s ships, it would be the needlers and their precise, tightly-targeted beams that would win the day.
“Strike forces are loaded and ready, Captain. Launch command advises all shuttles are go for launch on your command.”
Elias was stunned. It had only been a matter of minutes since Grayson had ordered the strike force to prepare. How could those troopers possibly have gotten to the bay, armored up, and boarded the shuttles so quickly?
“Launch now, Lieutenant. The shuttles will set a course directly between the two enemy ships.”
“Yes, sir.”
Elias nodded, at least as close to a nod as he could manage under the strain of an effective 6g pushing down on him. He reaffirmed to himself that whatever lay in his future, he would never get truly used to space travel, at least not the hard kind that accompanied combat.
The firing continued, and then one of the enemy vessels vanished in the thermonuclear fury of its reactors overloading. It could have been the result of one of Eagle Fourteen’s guns, but in his gut, Elias knew it wasn’t. He felt a chill thinking about an enemy that would so coldly and consistently choose death over capture.
The last ship was still there, though, and a glance at the display told him the vessel’s engines were dead. It wasn’t firing anymore, and the scanner readings showed no power generation. That was far from a perfect conclusion—there were many ways to hide such things from a ship’s sensors—but it was a good bet Grayson’s people had disabled the pirate ship, just as they’d intended to do.
“The shuttles are to change vectors toward that last ship. I want a minimum time course to intercept. Major Corrigan is to board and take the vessel as soon as docking is complete. His priority is to seize the reactor space and the main AI center, and then to secure the remainder of the vessel.”
Elias understood Grayson’s orders. If the enemy was able to override their damaged systems and blow the reactor, the Eagles would lose their prize.
And if they did it after Corrigan’s people landed…
Elias wondered how long it would be before he stopped being amazed at the conduct of these soldiers he’d called brutal thugs so many times.
* * * * *
“You all know why we’re here, so I’m not going to waste time going over that again. We don’t know the layout of this ship, but that’s not going to stop us. We get to those vital spaces, and we secure them…before these pukes blow this ship, and us with it.” Buck Corrigan was Black Eagle through and through. Unlike many of Darius Cain’s soldiers, he had not been an adoptee from the Marines or some other declining or defunct military force. He’d come from a dirt-poor planet, and even among the destitute farmers clawing out a bare sustenance level survival, his poverty had been exceptional.
His father’s debts had been staggering, and the fact that most of the assessments the local lord had placed on the family were bogus meant exactly nothing. The elder Corrigan had died in debtor’s prison, worked to utter exhaustion in the quarries, leaving his only son to inherit his obligations. But Buck Corrigan wasn’t his father, and his solution to his problems had been a direct one. He’d driven a spike through the offending lord’s eye, avenging his father and effectively canceling the family’s debt in one fast stroke. Of course, the action had made him an outlaw, one without the resources or opportunity to escape his miserable—and now very dangerous—homeworld.
Until the Eagles came. Darius Cain’s mercenaries had been a much smaller force then, their now-fearsome reputation still in its infancy. They’d been sent by the ruler of the other inhabited planet in the system, a vain and foolhardy man who’d been willing to throw his own poor world into debt to send a punitive expedition against his rivals who had offended him.
Grayson had watched in wonder as the soldiers, no more than a thousand of them at that time, landed with perfect organization and, in a matter of days, utterly obliterated a planetary army five times their size. He was astonished by the invader’s suits of armor. He’d heard about powered infantry, the Marines and Janissaries and other formations who’d fought mankind’s great wars before the Fall, but he’d never expected to see any in person.
He’d thrown all caution to the wind, marching right into the Eagles’ camp, shouting that he wanted to enlist. The soldiers laughed at him and told him to go home, but then fortune smiled on him. A man, an officer, saw him and walked over. “What do you want, boy?” the man said to the stunned sixteen year old.
“I want to join you. I want to be a Black Eagle.”
The men laughed again, but not the officer. “You want to leave home? What about your mother, your father? Your family?”
“My mother’s dead, sir. The pox, ten years ago. My father’s dead too…the local lord worked him to death in his mines. And I’m an outlaw, because I killed the lord, paid him back in kind for my father. This may be my home because I was born here, but if I never see the dust-covered rock again, good riddance.”
He wasn’t sure if he remembered his words perfectly or not, but whatever he had said, it had been the right thing. The officer, who had turned out to be none other than Darius Cain himself, took a liking to him. Corrigan might not have had perfect recall of what he had said, but Cain’s words he remembered perfectly. “Sign him up, boys. This kid’s an Eagle for sure. He’s just been waiting for us to get here and pick him up.” The mercenary commander turned around and walked away…and Buck Corrigan’s miserable life changed on the spot. There’d been brutal work and deadly combat in the years since, pain and suffering along with the immense rewards and fast promotion he’d enjoyed. But that day marked the last time Corrigan had felt helpless, unable to influence his own destiny.
He moved forward, through the corridors of the Black Flag ship—at least he assumed it was a Black Flag ship—his eyes scanning every hatch, every conduit or bit of equipment running along the ceiling or affixed to the wall. There were half a dozen troopers behind him, lined up in single file. The narrow ship’s hallway was too small to accommodate two armored soldiers side by side. That was a tactical problem, one Grayson considered. Ideally, his people would fight in a more open area, a compartment or something similar. But even in the narrow corridor, one armored Eagle could likely eliminate the two or three unprotected enemies he might face.
His people were spreading out through the ship, but half a dozen had stuck with him, a couple even trying to take the point and lead down the corridor, before Grayson had sent them back with one armored gesture.
The major knew there had been armies throughout history where the regular soldiers resented the officers, where a great gulf existed between the two groups. But the Black Eagles revered their officers, every one of whom had started their careers as a normal footsoldier, a tradition that stretched as far as Darius Cain himself. There were no privileged elites in the Eagles, no scions of wealthy or military families, no political appointees. Every Black Eagle
had earned his place in the hard crucible of war, and those of higher rank served to show the rest what they, too, could achieve.
Grayson himself, rich enough now to live like a lord himself on any planet of his choosing, had considered retiring. But then he realized the true strength of the organization Darius Cain had created. He’d been one of the best for years now, and it was a part of him he couldn’t leave behind. His gratitude and loyalty to the man who’d given him escape from the hell into which he’d been born, the comradeship with the other Eagles…they were things he couldn’t walk away from, no matter how much treasure he accumulated. He had found himself, and he was what he was, what he would always be. A Black Eagle.
“Major, I think we found the main power plant. There’s about a dozen enemies here, sir, armed with assault rifles. We’re pretty close to the main reactor, so we’re clearing out the space with blades.”
“Very well, Lieutenant. Proceed.” The molecular blades were hand-to-hand weapons, made from the hardest know alloys and honed to an edge no wider than ten or twelve molecules. The knives were built into the Eagle’s armor, and they could cut through almost anything, steel, stone, reinforced concrete. Human flesh didn’t offer any resistance at all.
Grayson glanced up at the display projected on his visor. The lieutenant’s location showed up as a small dot on his screen. There was a partial layout, but the Eagles hadn’t scouted the whole ship yet, so the AI had blanked out the areas where no data was available. There was an unknown section between Grayson and the lieutenant, and one good way to take care of that.
“Let’s go,” he said to his six companions. “Let’s find our way to the reactor, and lock this ship down.” He raised his arm, holding up the heavy assault rifle connected to his armor. Then he trudged down the corridor, heading toward the reactor room.
