Duel in the Dark: Blood on the Stars I

by Jay Allan

  “Do what you can, Fritzie. It…” Barron paused. “Just do what you can. Barron out.”

  He tapped the com unit, and then he leaned back, closing his eyes. He’d almost told Fritz that getting the primaries back online—or even getting him one good shot from them—could be the difference between victory and defeat. Between life and death. But he’d held his tongue. She was the best engineer in the fleet, and the hardest worker he’d ever seen. She would do everything possible, he was sure of that. And the last thing she needed right now was more pressure.

  “Commander Travis is at the door.”

  The AI’s voice startled Barron. “Open,” he said, turning his head and watching as his first officer walked into the room. He could see the bridge behind her, bustling at a somewhat lower intensity than it had been during the battle. The enemy ship was still at least two days away, and Barron had knocked back the status to yellow alert, sending half his people at a time to their cabins with orders to sleep. If they could.

  Barron moved his neck around on his shoulders, trying to work out the knots and kinks. He hadn’t slept, not in the nearly one week since Dauntless and the enemy ship had first engaged. He reached down to the desk, taking a pair of stimtabs in his hand and tossing them into his mouth.

  “Sit,” he said to Travis, as he grabbed a small cup of water off the desk and washed the pills down.

  “How many is that for you?” There was concern in Travis’s tone.

  “I could ask you that too, Commander, couldn’t I?”

  “We’re both going to need liver regens after this is over.”

  “If we make it back. At this point, growing a new liver doesn’t seem like too high a price.” He paused, and his face darkened. “Atara, we’re in real trouble. Half the secondaries are out, blasted to scrap, with no chance of being repaired. With the primaries still offline, we’re just too outgunned. Your shot hit their engines hard—I expect we’ll have the edge on maneuver when we fight it out. But what does it do for us? We could make a run for it, get away…but that’s not an option anymore. We’ve can’t retreat…we’ve got to defeat them. Somehow. And I just don’t know how we’re going to engage and get the better of them. They’ve got too much operable firepower compared to us.”

  “This asteroid field will play havoc with their scanners. The concentration of radioactive elements is off the charts.” She paused. “If we blast a few of the smaller ones before they get here, the debris field will be spread out. They’ll have a hard time targeting through the background radiation until they’re right on top of us.”

  “It’ll be a gunfight at knife range…but they’ll still win it. Your idea’s a good one, but we need something more. We’ve got to find a way to inflict some damage beyond what our guns can manage. And some way to gain an edge with our advantage in thrust.”

  Travis stared down at the table, shaking her head. “Any way we can hurt them, we’re in their range too, aren’t we?”

  “Unless…” Barron looked up. “We still have those U-111 units onboard, don’t we?”

  Travis nodded. “Yes, ninety-four of them, I believe. But…”

  “They have stealth capability…”

  “Yes, but it’s old and outdated. I doubt it would work against the Alliance scanners.”

  “In the field? With the radioactive dust of dozens of pulverized asteroids floating around, degrading scanners?”

  Travis’s eyes widened. “That just might work…but we’d have to plan it perfectly. Ninety-four sounds like a lot, but space is a big place.

  Barron smiled. “I know just how we’re going to do it.” He slapped his hand down on the desk, and jumped up to his feet. “C’mon, Atara…we’ve got a lot of work to do before that ship gets here.”

  * * *

  “C’mon, Sam, show us!” Walt Billings dropped down from the shaft, stumbling slightly as he landed hard on the deck. “I saw you looking at it when we were up there.”

  “Yeah, Sam, come on.”

  “We want to see!”

  Carson stood in the center of the engineering space, feeling the heat on his face, the redness coming on despite his best efforts to resist.

  “We’ve got work to do, guys.” He turned and walked toward the door, but Billings ran around and stood between him and the exit.

  “The work can wait a few seconds. We could all use a short break, and something good in the middle of this shit. So, let’s see!”

  Carson opened his mouth to argue again, but then he closed it without saying anything. It was pointless. He knew his comrades well enough to realize they would never slack off, never tire of the chase.

  “Fine,” he said, pulling the small tablet from his pocket. He held it close to his face, swiping a few times, pushing the text aside. That was a letter from his wife, and it was none of anybody’s business…no matter how much they hounded him. Lise’s words hadn’t really convinced him she wasn’t still mad, but anything from her was a welcome respite from the hell of battle. She’d told him she regretted that they’d parted on uncomfortable terms, that she understood why he had to go. He believed she was sorry they had argued, less so that she understood his reasons for leaving. He was going to write her himself, as soon as he had a free moment, tell her he felt the same way. But that would have to wait until he’d worked himself through the still enormous list of repairs on the schedule.

  He looked at his grinning comrades and turned the tablet around. There was a photo there, a newborn baby, all red with puffy cheeks. His son, the other news Lise’s letter had delivered.

  “He’s cute, Sam…must have gotten most of his DNA from mom.”

  The engineers in the hold laughed, jockeying to get close and have a look.

  “Congrats again, Sam.” Billings was a wise ass, far more likely to give him a hard time than a serious emotion. But now his voice was sincere. “That’s why we’re working so hard…so we can get this tub fixed up and get the hell out of here. So you can give your son a kiss.” The others nodded, and gave him a ragged round of applause.

  “Thanks, guys. Really. I don’t know what to say.”

  “Say about what? Why I have half a dozen engineers standing around like they’re at some kind of picnic? Can I assume Dauntless is one hundred percent operational again?” Fritz stepped into the room, holding a section of heavy duty cable. Her uniform was covered in black dust, and it had a large tear down one side. She looked like she’d just been crawling around somewhere in Dauntless’s guts…which Carson knew was probably exactly what she had been doing.

  “Sorry, Commander…we were just…ah…”

  “Carson was showing us the kid, Commander.” Billings looked a little startled still. “We kept at him until he gave in.”

  Fritz stepped forward, an ominous presence approaching like some dark shadow. “So, I can assume that all of you have work you should be doing, correct?” Her eyes focused on Billings.

  “Yes, Commander…we’re on it.” Billings looked around at the others. Then they all started moving toward the exit.

  “Not you, Sam.”

  Carson stopped, feeling like he was trapped in a spider web, watching as his comrades fled through the doorway and out into the corridor.

  “Commander, I’m sorry. They kept asking me, and I finally…”

  “I don’t care about any of that, Sam.”

  Carson struggled to hold Fritz’s terrifying gaze. “Yes, Commander.”

  “I don’t want to hear about that pack of lazy dogs chasing you around, distracting you from your duty.”

  “No, Commander.”

  “No…what I care about is getting a look at that tablet myself. Congratulations, Sam, you’ve got the best reason of all of us to get through this…and back to Archellia.”

  Carson stared back, trying to hide his stunned surprise. Then he caught the smile on Fritz’s face as the fearsome engineering chief walked over and held her hand out for the tablet.

  * * *

  “This is an import
ant mission, more than any normal combat space patrol. I think we have a good chance to defeat the enemy ship, but half our systems are hanging by a thread.” Barron’s words were a bit more optimistic than his thoughts. He had a plan now, at least, which was better than just sitting and waiting. His people did have a chance…but he wasn’t sure thought it was a good chance. “The asteroid field is going to reduce their effective range to less than fifty thousand kilometers. But if any of their fighters get through and launch a successful attack…well, that will probably be the battle. It won’t take much to knock the reactors down or take more of our guns offline. I’m not even sure what’s keeping the still-working ones functional.”

  Jamison turned toward Stockton, exchanging nods with his friend. Then he returned his gaze to Barron. “We’ll see it done, sir. Whatever it takes.”

  Barron sat impassively. Jamison was his strike force commander, and he was downright dour by the standards of the fighter corps. But even he was prone to the bravado Barron knew was an essential part of what allowed a man or woman to crawl into the cramped cockpit of a fighter and launch into a battle.

  “No bullshit, Kyle. I need those fighters kept away from Dauntless. Whatever it takes has to mean just that. Whatever it takes.” Barron knew he was telling his officer that the mission was more important than any—all—of his pilots’ lives. He hated it, but he meant it anyway.

  Jamison’s looked right into Barron’s eyes. His look was cold, serious. “I understand, sir. Whatever it takes.” He paused for a few seconds before turning back toward Stockton. “We’ll have to go in waves…maybe three. We’ll need birds positioned farther back to cut off any enemy fighters that try to run through our interceptors.” Another pause. “That means we’ll be outnumbered at the point of contact. Our lead forces could take losses. Bad losses.”

  “I’ll take the lead, boss.” Stockton’s words were emotionless. The patina of arrogance that usually surrounded him was entirely gone, replaced by a grim determination. “Give me my Blues…and Ice and half his Yellows. You and Lynx can take the Reds and the rest of the Yellows and form two reserve lines.”

  He turned around and stared back toward his rival. “That good with you, Ice? You game to fly with me? I’d bet between us, we can do what has to be done.”

  Krill had been sitting quietly in the back of the small briefing room. He stared back for a moment, silent. Then he said, “I’ll fly with you, Raptor.” There was warmth in his normally frigid tone, and he even managed a rare smile. “And you bet your ass we’ll do what has to be done.”

  “I’ll take the second line.” Olya Fedorov spoke up now. She had been standing along the back wall listening to the discussion. “I’ll take most of my Reds.” She looked at Jamison. “If you agree, sir, you can take the third line. The surviving Greens and the rest of Ice’s Yellows…plus a few of my best Reds. You’ll be the final defense, the last chance to take out anything that gets through us.”

  Jamison shook his head. “I’ll fly with the lead group.”

  “No, Kyle…you can’t do that.” Stockton snapped at his friend in a tone that verged on insubordination. “I mean, you’re the commander, sir. We don’t know what’s going to happen, how they’ll come at us. We need you where you can see things happening and react. It’s our place to be in the front lines, not yours.”

  Jamison looked as if he was going to argue, but Barron held up his hand. “I’m afraid Raptor is right. Your place is in the rear line…just as my place is here, and not in a fighter out there. I need your command abilities, Kyle, not senseless bravery that gets you killed. I need to know I can count on you, that you’ll keep those fighters from getting through and launching any attacks on Dauntless.”

  The pilot sat for a few seconds, staring down at the floor. Then his head moved up and said, “Yes, sir. Understood.”

  Barron looked out at his four squadron leaders. “I can’t express how fortunate I am to have such gifted and capable squadron commanders. I know what you went through in the first battle…” Barron hesitated. His fighter squadrons had lost half their strength already, and now he was sending them on another desperate mission. He knew the need to stop the bombers would put his people at a disadvantage against enemy ships fitted for dogfighting. And that meant more casualties, probably a lot more.

  “We understand, sir,” Jamison said. “We’re ready to do our jobs, Captain, whatever it takes. You worry about Dauntless. We’ll keep those bombers away.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Planet Santis

  Krillus IV

  307 AC

  “I’d say it’s one company, Sarge. They’re lined up on the ridgeline, and it looks like the enemy is moving to attack.” Thoms was breathing hard as he forced out the words, each exhale turning into a cloud of white condensation in the frigid morning air.

  “Enemy strength?” Hargraves was cold too, probably more even than Thoms, who’d run several klicks back from his scouting mission.

  “Looks like two hundred or more to me, Sarge. I’d guess they want to pin down the reinforcements before they can get into the hills.”

  Hargraves nodded. “I’d wager we drove the bastards damned near crazy. The last thing they want is a hundred more Marines hidden in these hills.” The sergeant was proud of what they had accomplished over the last month, the way they had held out against a much larger force. But his satisfaction was tempered by the losses they had suffered. All the civilians were dead…and so were three quarters of the Marines they’d started with. They’d been on the verge of annihilation when the reinforcements arrived out of the blue.

  “We should get moving. We gotta go around those hills to link up with the…” Hargraves paused. “Wait…think, Thoms. Did the enemy have their whole force out there? All of them?”

  The Marine looked right back at Hargraves. “It sure looked like it, Sarge. Had to be most of ’em if not all.”

  Hargraves turned and looked behind him, staring out over the rolling ground to the south.

  “Whatcha thinking, Sarge?”

  Hargraves didn’t answer. He just stood still, looking off into the distance. Finally, he turned back toward Thoms. “Get everybody up and ready to go, Private.”

  “Yessir. We movin’ around to link up with the Marines on the ridge?”

  “No.” Hargraves could see his answer was a surprise to the Marine.

  Hell, it’s a surprise to me too…

  “Where we goin’ then?”

  “We’re heading south. We’re gonna see just how many troops they left behind in their camp…and we’re gonna blow the place to hell. Their food, ammo…everything.”

  Hargraves knew it was a daring plan—some would say crazy—but if his people could pull it off they’d do a hell of a lot more for the cause than adding eight guns to the troops on the ridge. The fact that Confederation reinforcements, from wherever they’d come, had been able to land meant that the enemy no longer controlled Santis’s orbit. And that meant the troops on the ground had no source of resupply.

  “Shit, Sarge…even if they took almost everybody, there’s no more than eight of us. You gotta figure they left more than that.”

  “Maybe so, Private. But they won’t expect this. If we move fast enough…”

  He didn’t finish. He didn’t have to. His people were Marines. All they needed was the order to go.

  * * *

  “Forward, all forces. The longer we wait, the more time they have to dig in.” Millius was walking forward, watching his three centuries—what was left of them—shake out into an assault formation. Frontally charging an enemy on high ground wasn’t an act of tactical brilliance, he knew that. It would be difficult and costly. But anything else took too much time, and after the last month he wasn’t about to let another hundred of these cursed Confed Marines to break out loose into the countryside. He’d managed to keep the tritium production facility mostly operative, despite several attacks, but with so many fresh troops, he knew the Confeds would hit it
again and again…and if they had enough chances they’d get lucky.

  Casualties are bad enough, but if I let them destroy the production facility, I’ve singlehandedly blown the whole mission…

  No, there was no time. It had to be a frontal assault, and whatever the cost in blood to crush the enemy, he was prepared to pay it.

  The way is the way…

  He watched as his forward units surged up the slope…and were cut down by the deadly fire. They pushed forward at first, ignoring their losses. He expected nothing less. They were Alliance stormtroopers, after all.

  But the troops dug in on the heights were good too. That was no surprise. He’d spent a month trying to hunt down a single platoon, and whatever arrogance and sense of superiority he’d had when he landed was long gone. He didn’t know what was happening in the space above Santis, but the arrival of enemy ground troops and the failure of Commander Rigellus to communicate in over a week weren’t good signs. Had the intel been wrong? Had the Confederation been able to send a strong enough force to overwhelm and destroy Invictus? The intel reports had certainly failed to warn on the effectiveness of the enemy’s ground troops.

  He saw his lead elements, about halfway up the rise. They were slowing…in places they were stopping entirely. But they weren’t running…he swore the day he saw an Alliance force rout would be the day he met his death in battle. They were firing back at the enemy, scrounging for the miserable few bits of cover available on that mostly open hillside.

  No…

  He knew he had to keep his forces moving. They couldn’t win a firefight, not against a dug in enemy on higher ground. They had the numbers to win by sheer force of weight…but they had to keep going.

  He grabbed his com, but then he clipped it back on his belt. Words weren’t the answer, he decided. Deeds would win this fight. He reached around, grabbed the assault rifle strapped to his back. Then he started forward, a brisk walk at first, but then almost a run.

  His forces would push those last few meters, take that position. And he would lead them there himself.