by Jay Allan
Vennius cut the line, and then he looked across toward Globus. The commander could see the intensity in the Imperator’s eyes. For all his rank and his true understanding of the situation, he found himself as rallied by Vennius’s words as a first-year spacer.
“Commander Globus, go to the shuttle bay. I want you to transfer to Patentia at once.”
“Sir?” Globus was surprised at the order.
“This will be a hard fight, Commander. It is foolish to have both of us on one vessel.”
Globus was going to protest, but the logic of Vennius’s statement was obvious. Still, he felt something else. There was more to it than just rational precaution and good tactics. There was something in Vennius’s tone…
“Yes, sir,” he finally said. He was still uncomfortable, but he knew his duty…and Vennius’s order was militarily correct. He saluted, and then he turned and moved toward the bank of lifts, taking one last look at Tarkus Vennius before he slipped inside one of the cars.
Chapter Thirty
Formara System
“The Bottleneck”
313 AC
“There’s something, Commander. I can’t quite figure it out, but the rhythm of the thing is somehow…off.” Walt Billings was lying on the deck, his arms extended over his head and under the bulk of the stealth generator. He was checking connections. It was just about all he could do. For all of Fritz’s and his own engineering skill and experience, they were still mostly uncertain about exactly how the thing functioned.
“I don’t like it.” Anya Fritz was standing off to the side, her eyes moving back and forth between Billings and the panel of gauges she had set up next to the ancient device. She had been monitoring everything she could think to check since the instant the device had been installed on Dauntless, and none of her readouts had deviated from dead normal. But she agreed with Billings. Something wasn’t right. The generator was vibrating more intensely than it had. It could be something loose inside…or a hundred other things, half of which she doubted would ever occur to her.
“Everything looks normal down here, Commander…at least as much as I can tell.”
Fritz shook her head and sighed. She wanted to tell herself she was being paranoid, that there was nothing wrong with the ancient machine that was keeping them all alive. But her gut, which had served her well for so many years, was screaming otherwise.
“I want to rerun every diagnostic we’ve got for this thing, Lieutenant. The power conduits and reactors too. If anything is affecting the flow of power to the generator, we’re going to find it.”
“Yes, Commander.”
Billings slid out from under the generator, and climbed up to his feet. He tapped the small comm unit clipped to his collar. “Treiger, we need the full scanning suite in here, and I mean right now.”
“Roger that, sir. On the way.”
Billings slapped the comm unit again, closing the line. Then he looked over at Fritz. “Don’t you think we’d better report this to the captain, Commander?”
“Report what? A couple engineers with the willies? We don’t know anything.” Fritz shook her head, but even as she did, she realized Billings was right. She activated her own comm unit. Unlike most ship’s engineers, she had a direct line to the captain.
“Sir, Fritz here.”
“Yes, Fritzie…what is it?”
“Sir, Lieutenant Billings and I are concerned about the stealth generator…”
* * *
“Engage!” Jovi Grachus stared at her bank of screens, watching as the Union fighters closed. They outnumbered her force, but she didn’t let that bother her. She’d heard enough about Union pilots to have a pretty good idea her squadron, and the Confed veterans flanking it, could handle their enemies.
She brought her ship around, eyes fixed on her chosen target. The Union pilot’s response was more sluggish even than she’d expected. She had become accustomed to fighting Confeds, to dealing with the technical superiority of their Lightning-class fighters. But the Union ship was less maneuverable and, for once, she had the technical edge. She blasted her engines hard, and then she launched her first missile. She’d closed to point blank range, and the weapon homed in on its target in a matter of seconds. The Union ship jerked around wildly in an attempt to evade the deadly attack, but it was too little, too late. She watched as the image disappeared from her screen. Then she scanned for another victim.
She felt much of her old strength invigorating her in combat. Sitting in her quarters on Dauntless, and earlier on Grimaldi and with the Alliance fleet, she’d had too much time to think. She felt like a fool for the hatred she’d nursed toward those she now called allies, and for all the intensity of Stockton’s dislike for her, the guilt plaguing her was just as strong. She’d killed many Confed pilots, men and women who weren’t here for this fight because of her. Noble warriors who should never have been her enemies, who’d died because she’d sought to indulge her own pain in mindless vengeance.
Now, she felt the cleansing nature of battle. The Union had manipulated Alliance affairs, incited and funded a civil war that had not only brought shame on her, but also had wreaked havoc on the fleet. Thousands of good warriors had died fighting each other in a pointless struggle, one based almost entirely on lies. The whole thing was a lesson in futility and waste…but it told her one more thing. The Union was definitely her enemy. There was no doubt, no hesitation, no misplaced rage…and she smiled as she took down her second target, making her tally two for two with her missiles.
She dove in with lasers, swinging her ship around and firing at a third Union ship. She was still far out, and her enemy took off, trying to escape her attack. Her eyes narrowed, her hand tightening on the controls. The thoughts that had plagued her were gone, even the worry about the desperation hanging above the overall battle. There was nothing now but the predator…and the prey she had chosen.
She stayed on her enemy’s tail, matching every maneuver he made, closing steadily. She fired again, closer this time, and her shots came within meters of hitting the target. This Union pilot was better than most, she suspected, certainly more skilled than the two she’d taken down with missiles. But he wasn’t good enough. She fired, again and again, as her hand moved back and forth, adjusting her thrust and vector, hunting her victim.
Suddenly, the enemy ship vanished. She felt the rush of adrenaline, the feeling of the kill that had always driven her. She’d taken down three of the enemy so far, and as she looked at the screens, she saw that her people—Alliance and Confederation alike—were slicing through the enemy formation. They were taking losses, of course—they were too outnumbered to simply sweep away their foes, no matter the skill differential—but she was sure they would prevail. Whatever else happened in the Bottleneck, these fighters would not attack Dauntless, nor the other Confed squadrons engaging the enemy battleship.
And that was all she could do, at least right now. That, and wish the best to her comrades elsewhere in the system.
* * *
“Lex, can you coax a little more thrust from the engines?”
Vig Merrick looked across Pegasus’s cramped bridge toward Lafarge, his pained expression leaving little doubt how he felt about upping the already uncomfortable g forces pressing down on them all. Pegasus’s dampeners weren’t a match for those on a modern vessel or a warship, and Lafarge had compounded that over the years by investing heavily in her ship’s engines. Pegasus was the fastest free trader she’d ever seen, a fact that had not only been a source of pride, but had probably saved their asses more than once too.
“I’ll give it a try, Andi.” There was a hint of doubt in the reply. “I’m hesitant to push them too hard considering where we’re going. You don’t want to be in the middle of the biggest space battle in three hundred years and have the abused engines give up the ghost, do you?”
“No, of course not. But I know you won’t let that happen.” She turned her head and looked toward the display. She’d had to wait until the
entire Confederation fleet had transited, and then Pegasus had to travel across the entire system to the transit point leading to the Bottleneck. It was killing her not know what was going on there. Was the fleet engaged? Were they winning? Losing?
And where was Dauntless? She’d tried to stay focused, but her mind kept drifting off toward Barron, imagining him on Dauntless’s bridge, creeping through dozens of enemy battleships, right in the pulsar’s deadly field of fire, with only the ancient artifact she’d brought back from the Badlands between him and total destruction.
Could it possibly work? Could Dauntless truly sneak up close enough to the Union’s superweapon to blast it to bits with those deadly primary batteries? And, even if Barron managed that, how would he escape? Dauntless would be trapped behind the entire enemy fleet. She knew Striker would do everything he could to break through in time, but she didn’t see how it was possible.
“I’m upping the power to the engines by eight percent, Andi…but don’t ask me for more. Not if you want to be sure we’ve got full power once we transit.”
“You’re the best, Lex.” She felt a flash of gratitude, for Lex Righter, and the rest of her people. She hated the fact that she was putting them in danger, but she was also glad she wasn’t alone. For all she felt driven to follow Barron to the Bottleneck, she was enough of a realist to know there probably wasn’t much she could do when she got there. She’d likely arrive just in time to watch him die…and if that happened, she would truly be grateful for her people. She would need them then, and she knew they’d be there for her.
* * *
“Task forces Beta and Delta, full deceleration. Come about and prepare to engage the enemy forces behind the point.” Van Striker was sitting in the center of Vanguard’s massive control center, in more pain than he’d admit to anyone. He knew he owed his life to his doctors, to the amazing care that had put him on the road to recovery. Albeit, a long road. His entire medical team, from the surgeon general to the technicians who’d changed his dressings and supervised his therapy sessions, had told him the same thing. He wasn’t ready to lead the fleet into battle.
And he’d told them all the same thing too…but now he wished he’d been a little more diplomatic in his phrasing, especially since they’d been right.
He was uncomfortable, pretty much all the time, and the pain was relentless, especially when he didn’t take his painkillers, which he hadn’t touched since before the final transit. If there was one thing Van Striker knew without a doubt, it was that he would need every bit of mental clarity he could get. He might have ignored his doctors’ orders to take the command of the fleet, and paid the price in pain and fatigue, but he never let his mind wander from just what was at stake…and the terrible risk Barron and his people were taking. Dauntless and her crew needed everything the fleet could give them, and that included Striker himself sucking up and enduring whatever pain he had to.
He hadn’t expected any tactical wizardry from the Union fleet commander, and he’d almost been careless. But there had been fewer Union ships waiting under the guns of the pulsar than he’d expected. At first, he’d worried that the enemy had lured him forward, so they could lash out somewhere else, while the entire Confederation fleet was in the Bottleneck. But any force of that size was unlikely to have been able to advance around his fleet…and the only other route of attack was through the Periphery, fraught with all the same problems that had made it an untenable option for his own, better supplied, forces.
He’d launched the probes on an impulse, one he could easily have failed to indulge. And, the probes found the “missing” Union ships, massed together in the heavy dust clouds behind the transit point, systems powered down, waiting to attack his forces if they retreated.
It was a clever plan, one he fancied he might have devised in his enemy’s place. And one he hardly expected from the latest in a string of mediocre Union admirals.
“Beta and Delta task forces confirm, sir. They project twenty-three minutes to a full stop.”
The fleet had been moving in-system, away from the hidden enemy forces, if at a moderate acceleration.
He’d been about to give the order to increase acceleration and advance when the probe reports came in. He hated dividing his forces, but if he didn’t, his fleet would be caught between two enemies and surrounded. And, he couldn’t turn the entire force and engage the ships behind. Barron needed him to divert the enemy’s attention. Dauntless already had one enemy battleship on its tail, and if Striker didn’t move the main body into range, the Union commander would be free to detach as many ships as he wanted to hunt down Barron and his people.
“Very well, Commander.” He paused, his eyes on the display, counting the enemy battleships behind the fleet…and calculating how outnumbered the two task forces he’d sent to intercept them would be.
At least they’ll be moving away from the pulsar…unlike the rest of us.
He took a deep breath, almost wincing at the pain it caused. Just about everything he did hurt. He knew what he had to do, what he was going to say…but it still took him a few seconds to actually get the words out.
“Commander…all other fleet units are to advance. Full acceleration, directly toward the pulsar.”
* * *
“Captain, the stealth generator is down!”
Barron sat in his chair, frozen for just an instant as Fritz’s words echoed in his mind. It was the one thought that had occupied his thoughts since the fleet left Grimaldi, the one thing that could doom his ship and mission. And it had finally happened.
“Evasive maneuvers, Commander,” he snapped toward Travis. “Random pattern at your discretion.”
“Yes, sir.” He could hear the emotion in Travis’s voice, not fear—at least, not only fear. Frustration too. They were close, so close to completing their seemingly impossible mission. To fail this close…it was unimaginable.
He felt Dauntless lurch hard to starboard, then, almost immediately, back to port. He knew Travis would manage the evasion pattern every bit as well as he could…and he knew it wouldn’t save them, not in the long run. It might buy a few seconds, perhaps a minute or two, but Dauntless was over ten minutes from even the extreme range of its primaries. He’d seen enough of the recordings of the fleet’s last encounter with the pulsar to fully understand the power, not only of the weapon itself, but of the sophisticated targeting system the ancients had built into it. Dauntless might evade one shot, maybe two…but there was no way she was going to make it into her own firing range.
“Fritzie, we need that generator back online. Now.”
“We’re working on it, sir.”
Barron felt a coldness inside as he recognized something in Fritz’s voice he’d never heard from his engineer before. Uncertainty. She was lost, overwhelmed by the ancient technology she didn’t understand. And if his engineer couldn’t pull off her usual wizardry, Dauntless and her crew were finished.
And the war may be lost.
“Picking up a power spike from the pulsar, Captain.” Travis was scared, that was obvious, and hearing the fear in his resolute first officer’s tone unnerved Barron more than any combat crisis alone ever could.
He was staring at the display when it flashed. The enemy weapon had fired…and missed. It took a few seconds for him to realize the shot had come within four hundred meters of Dauntless, too far away to cause damage beyond a few surface system blowouts, but the nearest of misses by the standards of space combat.
The ship shook again as Travis wildly changed thrust vectors, angling the ship’s position and firing the engines in a different direction every few seconds. Barron was a hardened veteran of space combat, but even he was feeling the wild gyrations in his stomach. He gritted his teeth and tried to focus his eyes on a single point, trying to steady his gut. He could face danger, battle to the end against the enemy, but he didn’t want to vomit in front of his crew. He was a Barron after all, and if he was going to die, he was going to die like one.
&
nbsp; “Gunnery…I’m going to want those primaries ready the instant we’re in range.”
“Yes, sir. We’re updating firing solutions every thirty seconds. Project first shot in nine minutes forty seconds, subject to variation from evasive maneuvers.”
“Very well.” It was all academic. He didn’t know the odds of surviving for nearly ten more minutes, but he didn’t think they were very high. If pressed to make a guess, he’d have said two percent.
The display flashed again, another shot from the pulsar. This one was even closer than the last, less than two hundred meters. Barron’s board lit up with damage control reports, a whole series of external scanners and antennae on the starboard side of the ship.
Barron turned toward Travis, but he didn’t say anything. She was as capable as any officer in the fleet of conducting evasive maneuvers. Nothing he could do, nothing he could say, would help Dauntless now. He felt helpless, and frustrated that his people had gotten so close…all for nothing.
He felt the ship jerk hard again, then a second or two later, he heard a loud crash…and Dauntless started spinning wildly out of control.
The lights on the bridge went out, the space lit only by showers of sparks flying from two dozen places, workstations and equipment overloading. The display was out, and his own workstation screen was dark. He could hear distant rumbles, explosions deep inside the ship. He wondered for an instant how many of his people had just died, but then he put it out of his mind. Without a miracle, he and the rest of the crew would all be dead too in a minute.
