by Jay Allan
“They’re still coming through, Admiral. Over a hundred so far.” Cortez was a hardened veteran, but Compton could hear the fatigue in his voice. A few small forces had transited the gate over the last two days, but nothing like the monstrous battle fleet now emerging into the system.
“Activate the rest of the mines.” Compton had been trying to save as much ordnance as he could, but there was no point now. This would be the big fight, and his worry wasn’t preserving mines—it was saving the fleet.
“All mines active, sir. It looks like they’re taking a toll.”
They weren’t mines really, at least not in the sense the word is typically used. They were one-shot weapons, bomb-pumped x-ray lasers units, pouring all the energy of a thermonuclear warhead into a single, highly concentrated blast. They could destroy a moderately sized vessel with a single shot, ripping through even the First Imperium’s dark matter hulls like they were paper.
“I just wish we had more,” Compton muttered softly, mostly to himself. He’d deployed the last of the precious ordnance in his supply train, and it was still only a moderate coverage. The enemy would take some damage, but the intensity would diminish quickly as the mines expended themselves.
“Admiral Garson is to move his ships toward the X20 warp gate.” Ian Garson commanded the logistical task force, thirty-two freighters and other supply and maintenance vessels, many of them now empty. They could add little to the fight to come, and Compton wanted them safe. Or whatever passed for safe in the circumstances.
“Yes, sir.”
Compton stared ahead at the display. He was right where he belonged, where he’d been for so many years now. Terrance Compton had led many fleets in combat, fought numerous desperate battles. Including the Alliance’s colonial rebellions, the struggle against the First Imperium was his fourth war. Thousands had died serving in the formations he’d led, and while he’d rarely tasted defeat, he’d known the guilt and anguish that accompanied watching so many of those who followed him killed.
Now, another battle was before him, just two days after the last one. But there was something different inside him now, an exhaustion so profound it took every bit of strength he had to force it back. Terrance Compton knew he would never give up…but for the first time in his life he wanted to.
“Bring the fleet to battlestations, Commander.” Once more into the breach…
“Yes, sir.” Cortez hunched over his workstation, and an instant later, the flag bridge was bathed in the red light of the battlestations lamps.
Compton leaned back, watching the enemy vessels pour into the system. One hundred twenty had already transited, and they were still coming. Half a dozen had fallen to the mines, and another twenty had been damaged, but he knew that wouldn’t stop them. This was a First Imperium fleet. There was no morale to break, no fear that would drive them away. There was only one way for his people to win—to survive—and that was to destroy them. To destroy them all.
“It’s time to scramble Admiral Hurley’s fighters,” he said, ignoring the grinding fatigue he felt.
“Yes, Admiral.”
Cortez is tired too, I can feel it. He looked around the flag bridge. They’re all exhausted…how could they not be? But they will do what they must. Just as I will.
“Admiral Hurley acknowledges, sir. Her people will be ready to launch in two minutes.”
Compton nodded, feeling the urge to smile at Hurley’s readiness. But the grin was stillborn, washed away by thoughts of the losses the fighter corps had taken in the campaign. His fleet had invaded First Imperium space with 718 fighters. Hurley would be launching 187.
“Prepare to begin maneuvers,” he said. “Midway, Saratoga, Petersburg, and Prinz Friederich will form a line.” The four battleships had the last of the external missile racks installed. The rest of the fleet would rely on internal ordnance only. We won’t be able to do many more full reloads, Compton thought. Even with internals only.
“Yes, Admiral,” Cortez replied. And a few seconds later. “All ships confirm, sir.”
“Very well, Commander. Captain Horace is to engage the engines. The group is to advance at 5g.”
The battle had begun.
* * *
“I want those racks cleared. And I do mean now, Commander.” Admiral Barret Dumont stared straight ahead, his scowl almost freezing the air in front of his face. The oldest active officer in the Alliance service, he’d been commanding task forces since before half his staff had been born, and when he issued an order, he expected his crews to take it as the word of God.
“The crews are already working on it, sir.” Antonio Allesandro was Dumont’s tactical officer. The two worked well together. Allesandro was one of the few younger officers who could stand up to the ornery hundred year old admiral, and for his part, Dumont considered his current aide as one of the best he’d had in his very long career.
“I don’t want working, Commander. I want done.” Dumont was wearing two hats, as he’d been since X2. He was in charge of one of Compton’s task forces, but he was also running Saratoga. Captain Josiah had been killed in X2, and the ship’s first officer had been transferred to take his own command. Compton had offered to find Dumont another flag captain, but the grizzled old warrior had told him not to bother…he’d just as soon run the ship himself rather than break in a new officer in the middle of a running fight. And that’s just what he’d been doing for the past few months.
“The crew chief reports they’ll be finished in ten minutes, sir. He’s says he’ll guarantee it.”
“Damned right, he will,” Dumont roared. He’d been watching the screen. The warp gate was finally quiet, the seemingly endless flow of ships coming through finally halted. Dumont knew better than to make hasty assumptions, but he was hopeful the enemy force had completed its entry. Still, he had a scowl on his face. It was good news that no more ships were emerging, but with 130 already in system, the fleet had its work cut out for it. This is going to be a tough fight…but I think we can pull it out. Having Terrance in command is worth an extra task force. But I don’t even want to guess at the losses we’re going to take.
“Alright, Commander, let’s get the missile launchers loaded and the ordnance armed. I want us firing ten seconds after the crews are back inside.”
“Yes, sir.” Allesandro relayed the commands. A few seconds later: “All stations report ready to fire on your command, sir.”
“Very well. Send orders to all ships. The task force will commence missile launch in ten minutes…and anyone not ready to fire by then better go jump out the airlock and save me the trouble of throwing him out.”
* * *
“We’re carrion birds on this one, people.” Greta Hurley’s voice came through the fighter’s main speaker. “The enemy came right through the minefield, and they’ve got at least two dozen ships that are seriously banged up. I want them dead…every one of them. Before they can fire on the fleet. So look for the damaged ones…and send them to hell.”
Mariko sat at the controls, her hand gripped around the throttle, and nodded. She had every intention of doing exactly what Hurley had commanded…in all its descriptive fury. Her mind—and her spirit—were consumed with rage, with the need for vengeance. She’d come back from the last battle as squadron commander, indeed her ship had been the unit’s only survivor. The wing commander had planned to reassign her to another outfit, but a last minute appeal to Admiral Hurley had saved the Gold Dragons.
No doubt the wing commander resented Mariko’s going over his head, but she just couldn’t let the Dragons die. The men and women were gone, but their spirit lived, and allowing the squadron to be disbanded would have been an affront to their memory. She’d been sure the admiral would agree, and Hurley had indeed granted her request. Now Mariko had five new ships, survivors from other shattered units. But they were all Dragons now, and she was determined they would fight like Dragons.
“Okay, we’re going in, and I want this formation tight. We’re going
to find one of the damaged Leviathans, and we’re going to blast it to atoms.” Her voice was determination itself. It was time to go into the deadliest fight of her career, and she had a squadron full of people she didn’t even know. But they didn’t have to know her to fight for her. And God help any of them who didn’t give everything they had. Mariko Fujin had a ferociousness far beyond what anyone expected when they set eyes on her tiny frame. She was 155 centimeters and 42 kilograms of pure fury.
“Tight,” she growled, “I said I want this formation tight. “Dragon Four, you’re out too far. Dragon Six, you’re lagging behind. Pay fucking attention, people.” She knew she was demanding a level of precision they weren’t all used to. Tough. They’re Dragons now, and they’re going to fly like Dragons. The squadron had a reputation to uphold, and she wasn’t about to let that die the way her comrades had.
“We’ve got missiles incoming, so gunners, stay focused and blow those fuckers away.” She watched on the screen, sitting back silently for the next ten minutes as her fighters launched their anti-missile rockets and then opened up with point defense lasers. The mass of icons on her display rapidly thinned, half of them gone…and then three-quarters. By the time the barrage reached detonation range, less than 5% of the warheads were still there. But that was still thirty nukes, and almost as one, they detonated.
She heard the alarm sound, as her fighter was bathed in radiation from a nearby warhead. Damage to the ship itself was light, but she knew her crew had just taken a potentially lethal dose of gamma rays. A cleanse would reverse the effects as soon as they got back to the ship, but that would take them all out of the action for the rest of the battle. And who the hell is going to lead the squadron while I’m laid up?
She punched at her controls, expanding the area shown on the display. Several of the squadrons had taken losses from the enemy missile attack, but her Dragons had come through without losses. Two of the other ships had minor damage, but the squadron was still intact and ready to attack.
“Dragon Four, I’m not going to fucking tell you this again. Bring it in…I want you ten klicks off Dragon Two’s wing…and not a centimeter more. Understood?”
“Yes, Commander,” came the nervous reply.” Greta Hurley had done more than give Mariko the squadron—she’d also bumped her up to lieutenant commander. It wasn’t official yet, and she still wore her old insignia, but as far as her crews were concerned, she was Commander Fujin.
Don’t yes commander me…just don’t make me order it three times.
“Alright, we’re coming into enemy laser range. I know you want to launch those torpedoes as quickly as possible and get the hell out of here, but that’s not how the Dragons fly. We’re targeting that Leviathan directly ahead, and we’re going right down its throat. We fire from point blank range in this squadron, and anybody with an itchy trigger finger is going to regret the day they were born.” She wondered if she was overdoing it, but she hadn’t had time to learn anything about the pilots she’d inherited…and she damned sure didn’t come all this way through the enemy barrage to pop off her birds at long range and miss.
She turned toward Isobe. The gunner was leaning over his station, staring into the targeting scope. “You ready, Hiroki?”
“I’m ready, Commander.” At least the crew of her own ship was familiar. Her bird ran like a finely tuned machine.
The enemy laser fire was thick, but Greta Hurley’s tactical innovations had been enormously effective at reducing losses to enemy interdiction. The constant, almost random, blasts of acceleration and deceleration didn’t do anything for those with less than cast iron stomachs, but they wreaked havoc on enemy targeting systems. And most pilots would gladly endure a bout of spacesickness if it came with a 70% reduction in the chance of getting scragged by enemy fire.
One of the icons on her screen flashed red. “Dragon Five,” she snapped into the com. “Report!”
“We took a hit, Commander. Looks like a grazing shot. We’ve got some damage, but I think we’re good to finish the assault.”
Mariko sat in her seat nodding. “Very well, Dragon Five. Report if anything changes.” Maybe they are Dragon material after all…
She sat for another few minutes as her ship hurtled toward its target, guided by the navigation AI and its constant defensive course changes. Then she gripped the throttle and took a deep breath. “Okay, Dragons…this is it. Beginning final attack run.”
Her eyes shot toward the display, checking the range. Fifty-thousand kilometers, well within the effective range of the plasma torpedo. But not close enough for her.
“Follow me in,” she snapped into the com, as she moved the throttle forward and to the left. She felt the 3g of acceleration push her back into her seat with three times the force of her own bodyweight. Staying focused in high g environments was one of the hardest things for new pilots to master. Indeed, many never did. It was the biggest cause of washouts for last year trainees at the Academy. But Mariko Fujin barely felt a miserable 3g.
Her eyes stared ahead, and every thought in her mind faded away, every thought save the enemy ship looming ahead—and the torpedo her people were going to plant right inside it.
Her eyes darted toward the display. Twenty-thousand kilometers.
“On my command, Hiroki…” The screen read fifteen thousand.
Ten thousand.
Her hand tightened on the throttle, ready to fire the engines hard to clear the looming target.
Seven thousand.
“Fire!”
She felt the bump as the weapon launched, and she slammed the throttle hard, full forward and to the right. Ten gees of force slammed into her, forcing the breath from her lungs, as her ship’s engines blasted at full power, changing its course just enough to clear the looming enemy vessel, missing it by less than a thousand klicks.
Then she cut the thrust and sucked in a deep, relieved breath. Her eyes went right to the display, searching for the damage assessment. All her ships had scored direct hits, pummeling the already-damaged First Imperium battleship with six double-shotted plasma torpedoes. Her people had followed her in, exactly as she’d ordered, and they’d delivered a fatal blow to the target. Two of them had fired from even closer range than she had, the last coming a bare 500 meters from slamming into the enemy ship.
She allowed herself a vicious little smile. Yes, she thought. They are definitely Dragons…
* * *
“Bring us in right next to Midway.” Udinov growled out the order. The fight had been going on for hours, and now they were moving to point blank range.
It’s time to finish this…
“Yes, admiral.” Stanovich tried to hide the pain in his tone, but he was only partially successful. Udinov’s tactical officer sat at his station, punching at his controls with one hand. His left arm was broken—badly broken. But he had absolutely refused to leave his post during the battle.
Udinov looked over Petersburg’s flag bridge, which was also serving as the ship’s command center. Captain Rostov was in sickbay, unconscious and fighting for his life, and most of his bridge crew was dead, killed when a 2 gigaton enemy missile detonated less than 800 meters from the ship.
The air was thick with smoke and the smell of burnt machinery. Two girders had fallen from the structural supports, and they were laid out across the floor. There was a crushed workstation under one, its dead occupant still pinned underneath. Udinov knew his ship was badly shot up, but she still had three active laser batteries, and he’d be damned if he was going to lag behind.
The fight had been raging for hours, and Compton had ordered all the battleships in the fleet to form a single line. The mines had taken a toll, and the fighters had launched a devastating strike, destroying almost twenty-five enemy ships before they returned to their launch platforms to refuel and rearm. The cruiser squadrons had conducted a series of brilliantly-executed high-velocity attack runs, and John Duke’s dwindling force of fast attack ships had sliced repeatedly into the enemy l
ines. Now the final act had begun. There were no more complex strategies, no elaborate formations. It was a toe to toe slugfest, the fleet’s battleships against the survivors of the enemy fleet.
“We’re ten thousand kilometers from Midway, sir, and our navcom is locked with theirs. What a strange thing is war, Udinov thought. A few days before Midway and Petersburg had been faced off against each other. They’d come a hair’s breadth of firing on each other, and now they stood side by side for the second time in two days, united, fighting their common enemy. We need to remember this when we fall prey to foolishness, when petty fears and rivalries drive us to the edge.
“Laser batteries are to increase to 110% power and maintain fire.”
“Yes, sir.” Stanovich sounded concerned. Overpowering the lasers was dangerous under any circumstances, but Petersburg was in rough shape. The ship’s AI was constantly scanning for damaged systems, but it was impossible to find every severed connection or compromised cable. And pumping 110% of normal power into battered systems was a good way to blow them out completely. But if the extra intensity blew away a First Imperium battleship before it blasted your ship to atoms, it was a risk worth taking.
The bridge lights dimmed as more of the reactor’s power was diverted to the weapons. Petersburg’s three remaining main batteries were targeting a single enemy ship, a Leviathan, the same vessel Midway was blasting. The enemy battleship was still fighting back, but with fewer and fewer of its weapons as the combined lasers of the two human dreadnoughts ripped into its ruptured hull.
“Keep firing,” Udinov said, as if his determination could recharge the lasers faster. He could see the enemy ship was dying, but a First Imperium vessel, especially a battleship, was dangerous until the end.
Almost in answer to his thought, Petersburg shook hard, and the flag bridge was plunged into darkness. The workstations stayed live, and a second later, the emergency lights engaged, providing a dim but workable illumination.
