There was one thing the Indomitable could still do. Damn! Honor demanded she first explain to Captain Valgerd that the Indomitable held a self-destruct device, a powerful nova bomb secreted there as a failsafe in case her Jotun crew’s loyalties turned against the Legion.
The thought of admitting to the device filled Loobie’s mouth with an ashen taste. Doubly so since it had been her idea in the first place.
“You hesitate, Captain,” said Valgerd. “Let me assist you. We have known for years about the nova bomb. I urge you to remote detonate the device.”
“I shall,” said Loobie, “but tell me, please, Valgerd. Why didn’t you disable it?”
“To do so would be a trivial technical matter but would prove our disloyalty and so vindicate your reasons for installing the mechanism in the first place. We have left well alone. It would be best that the Hardits do not board and claim this ship, even in its disintegrating state. I do not like the little creatures. They are the most dishonorable race I know, but under the right kind of pressure can shift from laziness into great acts of innovation. I do not wish for them to capture this ship.”
“Understood.”
“Excuse me a moment, please,” said Valgerd, and then turned to issue commands to her crew in the plosive whistles of the Jotun tongue.
Indomitable was too massive to outmaneuver the little Hardit warboats. It didn’t need to be, it was a Type-71 destroyer – a battleline warship.
The Jotun-crewed destroyer picked up pace as it closed the distance to the hostiles. At 2,000 klicks her missile batteries erupted in frantic volleys, expending all their ordnance in less than a minute. The first wave of missiles emerged like a shockwave of death, ship killers followed closely by EMP nukes. The second wave detonated short of the enemy boats, a curved shield of defensive munitions.
Indomitable’s laser batteries sliced through anything coming through her defensive cloud.
And for the few Hardit boats still coming after that, her ferocious point defense awaited. The Jotun and their ship had performed magnificently.
The breath caught in Loobie’s throat, choked with regret and pride. In her final moments of life, the dying ship’s final actions were magnificent.
And her crew… Loobie’s mind started whirling. Only the warship needed to die. Her brave crew could still evacuate. She started emergency calculations – how could they accommodate the destroyer’s crew in the other two ships that were already overcrowded?
Those thoughts withered and died.
Indomitable’s laser batteries went cool, her point defense never came on line. She had held on bravely for one last act, but hadn’t clung to life long enough to see it through.
Valgerd came back on view. “We have eliminated the ships in the enemy attack wave.” The Jotun captain was barely visible – even the emergency lighting was failing in the Jotun CIC. “Regrettably some managed to exfil Marines first. Your cause is good, Captain Lubricant. It is… strange for me to say this, but we believe in the Human Legion. Freedom must be won, and only you can win it. We are drifting and boarded. Activate self-destruct now.”
“Very well. Farewell, Captain …. We thank you and your brave crew. Lubricant out.” She saluted the Jotun, who saluted back.
“Self-destruct signal ready,” said Lieutenant Charge.
“Do not initiate,” said Loobie suddenly. “The responsibility is for my shoulders alone. Give remote detonation to my console.”
“Transferring control, aye.”
The activation control appeared on her command station screen.
You die with honor, she mouthed, thinking that would be the appropriate Jotun battlefield farewell. Then she activated the control.
Nothing happened.
Valgerd come back on screen. “Captain Lubricant, have you activated the remote detonation?”
“Yes. It is ineffective.”
The Jotun rolled a deep growl around her throat. “As I feared. We have been boarded. Hundreds of them. I have lost communication with all sections outside of CIC. All systems are down.” Her head jerked up in response to something, but Loobie couldn’t see or hear what. The Jotun issued orders in her native tongue. The translation came through as: “Activate citadel mode. Salvage what honor you can. We have failed in our duty.”
White noise attacked the comm link, which soon succumbed, dying altogether.
Tactical display showed Indomitable disintegrating, and the Hardit attack craft destroyed. Beowulf and Leviathan were on their own.
Actually, she corrected herself, there was one more key participant in this drama. All the time that they were accelerating away from the combat zone, the 40,000 klick elevator tether was looping around to lash them.
“Anunwe, give me an update. Are we going to get clear in time?”
— Chapter 40 —
Ever since they had escaped the lash of the elevator tether by a hair’s breadth, Loobie’s mind had been a battlefield where Colonel Nhlappo’s orders to ‘not look back’ fought it out with the Marine maxim to leave no one behind. She wasn’t an impulsive action hero, such as McEwan, Loobie’s mind craved data. But they were running blind and she would have to decide on gut alone.
“Still no message from New Detroit?” she asked the Comms officer.
“Negative,” Ndiaye replied. “Contact with surface lost. Picking up energy readings aplenty. There’s a war going on down there all right but we’re being jammed. We’ve reported our status back to the defenders, but whether they’re listening is impossible to say.”
“Draft a report to the main fleet at Khallini. Keep to the bare facts. I’ll add my conclusions and send via Hummer once we’re safely away.”
“Drafting communication, and preparing an emergency lightspeed send, aye.”
There isn’t much in the way of analysis I can add, thought Loobie. We’re heading for Khallini before we know the results of the battle there. If the Legion loses, we’ll just have to hope the survivors can rendezvous with us.
“Picking up a new signal,” said Ndiaye. “It’s a shuttle, sir. Pilot ID registered as Flight Private Remus. He’s made it home!”
A cheer rang out, but it felt forced. There was still no sign of the other Stork. Where was Romulus?
Let them cheer this miniature victory, thought Loobie. I wish I could.
They’d left behind Indomitable and several hundred thousand Marine pods. Some of them could be salvaged. Don’t look back, Colonel Nhlappo had ordered. But many of the pods could be retrieved so long as Loobie got to them quickly enough before they disappeared into the vastness of space. Should they send their surviving small craft back?
When the signal came on screen, it wasn’t Remus, but his adopted half-brother, Romulus, who appeared.
“Welcome back,” said Loobie. “What took you so long?”
For once, she would have welcomed his habitual cheeky rejoinder. Instead, Romulus looked battered and exhausted. Dried blood streaked from his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth – signs that he had flown at gees that would have killed most of Beowulf’s crew. When Romulus eventually found his voice, the words emerged in a monotone. “We ran into a dark fleet of Hardits. Our sensors didn’t pick them up until we nearly bumped into them. Mind you, it’s not all bad. Whatever stealth tech they’re using seems to prevent them from seeing us either. Also, I know it sounds crazy, but the farther they get from Tranquility the slower they become. Captain, the reason we stumbled across them is because they were following the same path as us back to the squadron. They were pursuing you. Like rabid snails. Not fast, but you can’t afford to stop. God knows how many more are on their way.”
Loobie’s spirits sank. She had her orders and the responsibility of making hard command decisions, but until now she had clung to the hope that she could send small craft back to retrieve survivors not just of the Hardit attack, but of their sudden exit. Hundreds of cryo pods were still in orbital parks or had been abandoned in the process of being attached to the harness.
Loobie tightened her heart and abandoned thoughts of rescuing more pods. The Colonel had been right. She owed it to the Indomitable and those left on Tranquility to survive. But her gut didn’t agree, knotting so suddenly that she had to fight from retching.
“Anunwe, anything?”
“No sign of pursuers,” replied the Sensor lead.
Wixering Hardits! Where were they? Beowulf and Leviathan were traveling along a laser-straight course at barely more than walking pace. Why were the Hardits not swarming all over them? An auxiliary process in her mind popped up the suggestion that the Hardit vessels were being powered from Tranquility’s surface. Maybe they were slowing? It sounded strange but they knew nothing about the capability of these Hardit craft other than their capabilities were wildly different from any craft they’d ever seen.
“There’s a bright side to the Hardit pursuit,” said Romulus, though even the perpetually upbeat orphan only sounded half convinced. “They’re so single minded that they abandoned Tranquility orbit to come after you. All of them, best we could tell. My brother was ready to contest the space with the ugly monkeys to buy time for the Antilles garrison to send boats to pick up the pods we left behind. But the Hardits were gone.”
“The garrison… they succeeded?” asked Loobie.
“All they could find, yes. And there’s more. We’re carrying a load ourselves.” Romulus had recovered slightly, sounding pleased with himself. “We’re towing a Hardit fighter craft we had an argument with on the way back to the ranch. Figured someone would like a look at it.”
Another cheer rang through CIC. Loobie only half joined in. Romulus was the most charismatic person on either ship, and the most unpredictable too. The crew would rest their hopes on him until, one day, he would inevitably let them down catastrophically. But that wasn’t today.
“CAG,” she told Dock, “get every combat-capable craft re-armed, refueled, and back into space to fly a tight CSP. I’ll instruct Captain Phuong to do the same.”
“Already underway, sir.”
“Good. And while you’re out there, start organizing long-term rosters. Until someone proves to me that we have shaken the monkeys on our tail, I want a permanent CSP.”
“Understood, sir.”
She sighed. “Keep focused, everybody. It’s going to be a long road home.”
—— PART VI ——
AN EMPIRE
FORGED
IN BLOOD
Human Legion
— INFOPEDIA —
HISTORY OF THE LEGION
– Second Battle of Khallini
The Human Legion had initially come to Khallini intending to establish a forward base to conduct a reconnaissance of the local area, not expecting a fight on their arrival. But fight they did, and by capturing or recruiting the defeated imperial forces, the Legion acquired more than hard assets and personnel: they gained a more comprehensive strategic intelligence update than their initial plan would have delivered.
They also acquired a tsunami of rumor…
Earth has declared independence…
The Muranyi and the Amilxi are in alliance, and have already annexed half of the old White Knight Empire…
Earth has been given over to the Hardits to use human slaves to mine out the planet…
Some of the new recruits even suggested the civil war was a lie, a story told by the White Knights to justify a program of change and renewal forged in the flames of a fabricated war.
The only information acted upon by the Legion immediately was the consensus belief that the Old Empire defenses in this sector were collapsing before the rebel 3rd Fleet’s advance, an unstoppable progress that would lead all the way to the White Knight homeworld. After all, the secret mines, the bio weapons and technical advances that had been conceived as a last-ditch defense against this 3rd Fleet showed that the imperials had taken the threat very seriously.
What to do? Captured frigates stiffened with Legion loyalists were dispatched to five of the nine nearby systems that were considered potential allies in light of the updated intelligence.
Meanwhile the bulk of the Legion forces would inherit the Old Empire plan and prepare a defense against the rebel fleet.
Scarce quantum-entangled resources were used to build FTL comm links connecting the five reconnaissance frigates to the Khallini fleet. By the time the frigates reached their destinations, they would either carry news of a stunning victory for this rising power called the Human Legion, or know the Legion’s main force had been exterminated and consequently seek sanctuary.
The hopes for freedom in the galaxy – the very existence of the Human Legion and perhaps humanity itself – all depended upon the outcome of the Second Battle of Khallini.
— Chapter 41 —
“I admit you perplex us,” said the onscreen image of the enemy ensign. “We are far superior in numbers, armament, technology, and the recent memories of crushing every pitiful attempt to slow the 3rd Fleet’s progress.” She gave a contemptuous sneer. “Why did you not flee the moment we reached the outer system? Were you unaware of our presence?”
“Gotcha!” said Xin in a private channel. “This little squit has given away that they’re rattled. From what they can see of our strength, we should have run at the first sight of them. They’re wondering what’s making us so confident.”
Del-Marie Sandure answered the enemy negotiator from within a privacy shroud. The ensign sitting in a 3rd Fleet warship could only hear Del-Marie and see him in his smart ambassador’s uniform. To guard against cyber-attack from the New Empire ship, the privacy shroud encased the incoming signal in firewalls. The image seen on the Ops room main screen by the Legion command staff was a cleaned interpretation created by the privacy shroud.
“We have no reason to flee,” said Del-Marie, managing to speak in a tone of calm respect in a way that was completely beyond Arun, who would just growl defiance. “Our quarrel is not with you. We are here to defend the interests of our White Knight masters. Our legal masters. While the current unpleasantness persists, we are securing White Knight property until the situation is resolved and the identity of our masters becomes clear, whereupon the Human Legion shall immediately and humbly surrender all systems that we control to our rightful masters.”
The 3rd Fleet negotiator sat back in her chair and pulled at her ear lobe. Then she cast her gaze to the overhead.
You might as well come out and say that we’re a contemptible little rabble, thought Arun. It’s obvious that’s what you’re trying to convey.
When the 3rd Fleet scout ships had first encountered the Human Legion presence at Khallini it had been a Jotun captain who had demanded to know who the frakk they were. The lowly, human ensign who had replaced the Jotun as representative finally stopped trying to look uninterested and deigned to speak to the Legion riffraff. “So, you’re chancers. Rogues. Plunderers gambling that the civil war will outlast your lifespans, and that others who come after will pay for your crimes.” She sniffed as if bored. “Let me inform you of our fleet’s progress.” She sent across a data file that was checked by the privacy shroud before being loaded into a safe, sandbox process on a dedicated smart screen. It showed the victorious progress of the New Empire’s 3rd Fleet through the sector.
“Do you think to halt our advance with your pitiful rabble? We shall roll this sector all the way up to the White Knight homeworld, where we will evict the illegal squatters of the imperial capital. You may surrender to us or die. Your choice.”
“We prefer to do neither,” Del replied. “If you advance into the system we shall defend ourselves. I repeat, our quarrel is not currently with you, but you could easily make it so.”
“Then, as you so quaintly put it, we shall quarrel. See you in hell.” The ensign vanished from the screen.
Del cancelled his privacy shroud and swiveled his chair to face the Legion leaders standing beside him in the Ops room of the recently renamed flagship, Vengeance of Saesh.
“I do not like th
is,” said Admiral Kreippil, smacking his heavy tail into the deck for emphasis. “Ambassador Sandure’s words were never going to cause the enemy to withdraw. I would have preferred to use this opportunity to curse the enemy myself, and snap my jaws in defiance. All we have achieved is to concentrate our fleet’s command staff in a single location.”
“Which we agreed upon,” stated Indiya, “in order to ensure our command staff discussions are neither overheard nor corrupted.
Kreippil ran a tongue along his lips. The Littoranes did this unconsciously when they needed to enter the water. Arun had been around the amphibians long enough to interpret this as a signal that Kreippil thought everyone’s brains were misfiring from being in air for far too long.
Del shook his head. “With respect, Admiral Kreippil, I don’t believe the exchange was wasted. What the enemy wanted us to see was a junior officer with all the verbal grace of a ground hugger taking their first ever crap in a zero-gee toilet. It was a calculated insult. After all, for a Jotun officer of the New Empire to talk to a mere human would be to afford us more respect than we deserve. Don’t let this apparent lack of interest deceive you. I am certain that unseen AIs and human experts were interpreting my every word and non-verbal communication. Those experts will be reporting that I genuinely believe we shall win this battle. I have sown a seed of doubt.”
“Which means they will proceed cautiously,” said Arun, “and that allows us to defeat them in detail. My battle plan demands it. They’re too strong to be taken on all at once.”
“I agree,” said Xin. “General McEwan’s plan still holds good, Admiral Indiya remains in tactical command, and we all understand our orders and our duties. Therefore we have nothing further to discuss.” She raised her helmet in readiness to seal it over the neck of her armor.
“Good,” said Kreippil, flicking his long tail with relish. “Colonel Lee is clear thinking and eager to draw blood. The battle to come will be hard fought. Many of us will ascend to the heavenly shoals before this engagement is over. Yet the blessing of Divine Retribution is upon us all. I am proud to share that blessing with you, foul heathens though you may be. Now go, return to your ships and play the parts the gods have assigned you.”
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