The Eternal Fortress (Star Legions Book 6)

by Michael G. Thomas

  She will make a nice price, if we can take her.

  “There are your escorts. They were tucked in behind the battleship,” said the pilot.

  The raider veered to the right and then accelerated as a boost from its main engines kicked it closer to the enemy. At the same time, a pair of Bactrian cruisers came out from behind the shadows of the battleship. They were both beautiful vessels, a mixture of classical architecture, armour, and lavish expenditure. Even so, they were no more powerful than the Terran battleships moving to their flanks. Only a few guns blasted at the approaching small craft, and instead they turned their attention to the more serious threat of capital ships.

  “Good,” said Xenophon, “that will give us a little breathing space.”

  Off to the right a formation of six dromons headed towards the oiler and one of the transports. Gun turrets on the capital ships opened fire on them, but the volume of fire was low and relatively inaccurate. Only one dromon was hit, and it easily shrugged off the attack with little more than a shudder.

  “Incoming fighters!” Tamara yelled.

  She tagged each of them and then swivelled the gun mount around. It could only move around twenty degrees in each direction, and no matter how hard she tried, it was impossible to align on the approaching fighters.

  “I can’t hit them from here. I count six of them, all heading for our dromons.”

  “Do it,” said Xenophon.

  Tamara, as during the escape from Bijar Prime, had taken up her post in the nose of the raider. Her small frame, good eyesight, and excellent shooting ability made her the perfect gunner for the Night Scythe. The pilot, an aged-looking man with a metal patch over his left eye, merely laughed at her and yanked on a control. The raider tilted ten degrees and shunted across several metres. The man made expert use of the lateral thrusters and then put them back on course.

  “Perfect,” said Tamara.

  She took careful aim and fired. The quadruple mount fired with such intensity it could be felt throughout the craft. Each blast sent a long streak of flame that instantly dissipated in the cold vacuum of space. One fighter exploded and a second lost a wing and engine before spinning out of control.

  “Good shooting, lady,” said the pilot.

  Xenophon watched as they rushed past the wreckage and onto the nose of the Bactrian warship. Another dromon swept by to the left, blocking the view for a brief moment. Then it was gone, and the view of the enemy ship was there in all its glory. Xenophon spotted several small gashes in her hull, classic marks of impact and debris damage during a battle. He opened his mouth to speak but was dumbfounded at the shape of a single Elamite battleship in Hayastani colours. The markings were clearly different to the rest of the ships. A twinkle along its port flank announced the firing of its guns.

  Gods!

  The view from the cockpit went black, and for a second Xenophon thought he’d been killed, or at the very least knocked unconscious.

  * * *

  Mercenary Corsair ‘Sanguine’, Fleet Assembly Point, Geghard Quadrant

  The corsairs swept in with great speed and cut a path through the defending fighters. Three were damaged, but all were still full functional and able to unleash a formidable quantity of gunfire into the enemy craft. Sanguine led the way and took a triple volley to her dorsal section that finally destroyed the entire upper solar sail assembly. Chunks of plating and three spars tore off and floated behind the vessel. On they continued until the Bactrian battleship and her repair ships came into view. They had manoeuvred so that they were coming in from above and well away from the flank gun positions, just in case they were operational.

  “Cruisers!” said her number two.

  The two capital ships moved out from behind the Bactrian Grand Battleship and pivoted to present their flanks to the approaching swarms of dromons. The first began shooting, and one dromon was immediately hit. Kallinos watched the formation of dromons with great concern.

  “Bring us in between the Terrans and the battleship. Dive at maximum velocity!”

  The corsair rotated a hundred and eighty degrees, pulled back, and then activated its primary engines. A bright flash marked the activation as they hurtled down and towards the ships. These terms were of course an obvious misnomer, as in space there was above or below, only a relative position to other objects. As they moved down in a short column, she was given a brief moment to examine the cloud of dromons and their tiny number of Seafox fighters.

  “The Terrans should invest in something a little more capable at some point.”

  She wasn’t talking to anybody in particular on her ship, but two of the other mercenaries muttered in agreement. They made it halfway when a Seafox vanished in a tiny blue flash of energy.

  “See,” she said while shaking her head, “the Carduchians have a much better idea about fighters. Make them larger, with shields and jump engines. Anything else is just a free kill for your enemy.”

  “A message from Kentarchos Cadmus. He says Xenophon and his squadron are leading a strike on the battleship. Here are their target locations,” said a mercenary buried behind two small display units.

  Kallinos looked at the information and then back to the tiny window.

  “Yes, I see them.”

  There were multiple designs and colours, but all bore the marks of the Black Legion. One vessel in particular stood out above the rest, and this one was a little bigger.

  “That is Xenophon. He is using the raider.”

  They were now only seconds from moving in between the two groups of vessels, and already both sides were firing. The gun turrets of the Terran dromons were capable of a substantial quantity of fire, but it was light and far from capable of damaging something like the cruisers. The return fire, however, was devastating, and the already damaged dromon took another hit that set an engine spiralling off into space.

  “They don’t have long. Get ready on the guns. I want to punish our Hayastani friends.”

  * * *

  Mercenary Raider ‘Night Scythe’, Fleet Assembly Point, Geghard Quadrant

  A missile screamed towards the dromons, one of dozens released to cut down the approaching craft carrying the troops. The external turret mounts fired almost continually as the crew targeted and tracked every one of them. One by one, the missiles were hit, and the dromons continued their journey. Each was forced to drift from side to side to avoid the never-ending barrage of flak on the approach.

  “Hold on!” yelled the pilot.

  The raider spun about twice, pulling hard to the left just as the first group of corsairs arrived. The huge warships dwarfed the raider and accompanying dromons, completely blocking off their view.

  “Kallinos,” said Xenophon.

  His voice was happy and tinged with relief. The first ship sailed past; then two more, followed shortly by a narrow gap. It wasn’t there for long, but it gave them enough of a view to see what was happening to the Elamite. The corsairs were sailing past the ship and pounding her, one at a time. The torrent of fire was perhaps not enough to cripple the ship, but it was more than enough to give the small craft time to complete their mission. More corsairs moved in, and then they were gone as quickly as they’d arrived. The missile fire dropped substantially against the dromons, and now their path was clear to the nearby Bactrian warship.

  “There!”

  Xenophon pointed at a large tear on the port side, just under the armoured prow of the massive battleship. It was the point where the largest umbilical was connected to the ship, along with several gantries and a scaffold complex from which an airtight working area had been constructed. Five or six small tugs were in the area and busy working on the exterior of the ship. None were armed, and one quickly exploded from a direct hit by one of the enemy’s own stray missiles.

  “Understood, we’re going in,” said the pilot.

  The man didn’t even check with Xenophon as to what he wanted. All he needed was the target, and he would do his job. The raider was not too diffe
rent, in terms of handling and controls to a dromon, but the computer system was completely alien. The engineers had done what they could, but some of the manoeuvring modes were more luck than judgement right now. With typical Terran efficiency, he made the subtle course changes and sent the updated data to the group of following dromons.

  “First team reports in. We have two dromons ready to assist.”

  “Good,” said Xenophon, “There’s only enough space for one team to get inside. The rest will have to find their own way.”

  He then pointed to the ship.

  “Her shields; how are they?”

  The pilot pulled two toggle levers, and one of the screens changed colour. The ship was displayed from the side, and coloured patterns marked where the shields were strongest. Even as they watched, the colour patterns began to shift, and entire sections were left completely clear.

  “She has power, but we must have caught them by surprise. Her capacitors are only protecting a little under eighty percent of her hull, and even those parts are fluctuating severely. We can knock down sections with just a few shots.”

  He pointed at one grey section on the schematic.

  “There are even sections with no shielding at all. It’s a real mess for them.”

  “That’s why Terrans always come out on top,” Tamara said.

  Both of them looked at her, but neither seemed to share her easy confidence. The pilot was much older than Xenophon, and by the way he handled the raider, he was clearly an expert pilot. There were many like him since the end of the fighting between Attica and Laconia and their long lists of allied colonies and worlds. The man looked back for a quick glance at Xenophon.

  “Give it another five minutes, and they’ll be fully protected. Their generators are powerful but slow. If they had a crew on her with half a brain, they would have kept her impenetrable.”

  Xenophon grimaced as he imagined the fear on board the warship.

  “If they were competent, we’d already be dead. They think they’re safe because they are in the middle of a fleet getting ready for an offensive. They are not here to defend territory.” He rubbed his chinstrap, “Plus of course, why would we stay in this sector?”

  “Why indeed?” agreed the pilot.

  Xenophon looked to the approaching ship, and Tamara took the opportunity for her own question. She twisted her head back from her uncomfortable position.

  “Why not hit them in the weak spot and be done with this? A couple of atomics and this ship will be toast. It’s not our fault they left her like this.”

  Xenophon grinned.

  “Because, my dear, we want that ship.”

  The pilot looked briefly to him, grinned, and moved back to the controls. It might not mean a thing to Tamara, but to men like them the Bactrian was truly a work of art, and something anybody with naval experience would want to see more of. The Titans were far more powerful ships, but they could never compete with the history and mythology that surrounded the Bactrians.

  “But why?”

  Xenophon sighed.

  “They are much more than ships, Tamara.”

  She shrugged as he tried to justify their very operation. It didn’t take long for him to give up.

  “Okay, I can see you’re not interested. But these ships have a value in every conceivable way. The Legion can use them, and so can I.”

  Although they had no real need for it, Xenophon could quite easily see why Chirisophus wanted it, and he fully agreed. The Black Legion was no invading force. It was a group of mercenaries, held together by a shared culture, identity, and most important of all, a shared desire to be well paid. Taking this prize would be a huge boost to morale, if nothing else. The monetary value for the vessel was beyond all of the loot already taken. There was also the fact that a fleet sailing with such a relic was making a statement. Who would stand in the way of a foreign force that could take what it wanted, when it wanted? Tamara looked at Xenophon and laughed.

  “If you say so. All I see is an old ship that will slow us down.”

  She then unlocked one strap, but Xenophon tapped her on the shoulder.

  “No. I need you here. You’re the best person I know with those guns, and if they come for us, you will keep them off my back. Got it?”

  She looked at him, her eyes suspicious and inquisitive. For a moment it seemed she would protest, but there was nothing about Xenophon’s demeanour that suggested he was being anything but honest.

  “Okay. Don’t take too long.”

  She looked back to her sights, and Xenophon turned about and leapt down the steps. He went a little too fast and was glad when he hit the bottom and managed not to roll forward and onto his back.

  “A little excitable, aren’t we?” Glaucon asked.

  The raider shuddered, and then the clearing shifted to the side.

  “We have an entry point.”

  Glaucon’s expression changed and became more serious. He looked back at the small unit inside the raider. It was an odd selection of spatharii from different Terran colonies. Their heavy armour and equipment marked them out as the traditional infantry used by Terrans for all kinds of jobs. The Night Blades also waited patiently, each in their dark uniform and armour and cradling a mixture of weapons. Unlike the spatharii, they were more interested in flexibility. Their equipment and armour made them less durable, yet eminently more useful to fulfil various combat needs.

  “Final checks,” said Glaucon.

  They each checked their armour calibration and that their weapons were ready for battle. A few clicked as the safeties were finally removed, making them primed for battle.

  “Docking in five,” said the voice over the loudspeaker system.

  Xenophon held his breath on feeling the raider make contact. Though he could not see it, he knew full well that the Corvus attachment would already be latching onto the outer plating of the ship. As expected, a series of vibrations announced their attachment. Above the starboard door a light flashed red twice. Glaucon looked back to his friend.

  “You ready for this?”

  Xenophon nodded.

  “Definitely. We get inside and steamroller them. If anybody falls, leave them. We’ll come back for them later.”

  Glaucon smiled at that.

  “No problem. If we fail, there’ll be no need for anybody to go looking for the fallen.”

  He looked back to the door and waited until the flashing light stopped and then turned green.

  “Go, go, go!” Glaucon shouted.

  The warriors released their harnesses, and at the same time the side door opened into the small Corvus attachment. At the end the spike attachment was spinning about to create an entry point. Two flashes announced the completion of the job and full access to the ship.

  “With me!”

  Glaucon was first out, along with a single spatharios who staggered along under the weight of a borrowed Arcadian siege shield generator. Normally, they would land at a hangar or other open space. This time they’d entered exactly where the work crews had been busily operating. Several threw themselves to the ground upon spotting the advancing Terrans.

  “Forward.”

  Like soldiers on parade, the Terrans filed out and onto the wide deck area. There was more than enough space. Inside, the ship was just as opulent as on the outside. Instead of metal flooring, walkways, ladders, and gangways, everything was exquisite marble and polished metal.

  “Shields!” barked one of them.

  A gentle hum announced the activation of several mobile shield units, and the timing was perfect because as soon as they stepped onto the marble floor, they came under fire. Pulses of energy bounced from the oval shaped shield. Glaucon continued onwards, and the entire group of spatharii behind him. This particular deck was triple width compared to a normal section, and filled with artwork and sculptures on both sides. The ceiling was low, and itself fitted out with gilt and imagery. Xenophon followed, and around him moved the Night Blades. One of these elite warriors ca
rried a portable scanner to help pick out signs of the enemy.

  “Dukas!”

  Xenophon instinctively ducked, and it was only just enough to save him. A scythe-type weapon swung where his head had been and embedded itself into the wall. The heavily armoured mercenary didn’t have time to take a second; the Night Blades were already on him. One fired at point blank range, while another plunged two needlepoint daggers down into the collar. The warrior dropped lifelessly to the ground, and a second turned to run.

  “Stop him!”

  The spatharii were ill equipped to pursue, but a single Night Blade gave chase, jumped up to the wall, and spun down to catch the mercenary. They both tumbled to the ground and directly in front of a spatharios’ carbine. The mercenary looked up to find a gun to his face.

  “Sarvan?” Xenophon asked.

  His tone was stern, tinged with threat. The two guns pointing at his head can hardly have helped either. At first, the mercenary began spluttering, but when a kopis blade appeared at his throat, he simply pointed inside the ship and up to the left.

  “What do you think?” Glaucon asked.

  Xenophon checked his left hand, noticing the ammunition feed had jammed. A quick tap released it, and he looked back at his friend.

  “I think we go up.”

  Glaucon looked back to the mercenary and pointed his pulse cannon at his chest.

  “Sarvan?”

  As he said the words, he leaned in closer, increasing the threat. The armoured figure stood his ground, but the look in his eyes gave away his fears. Again the mercenary nodded. Glaucon sighed and then pointed to one of the Night Blades.

  “Bring him with us. He can show us the way.”

  He then gave a simple hand signal to the rest of the warriors. A unit of spatharii detached to the right where two metal ladders were above them. Xenophon pushed on towards Glaucon.

  “We need to cut off the head. If his information is right, we can hit then before they can respond.”