Black Legion: 05 - Sea of Fire

by Michael G. Thomas

  Attack!

  Chirisophus leapt up into the air and brought his shielded arm down onto the head of the two remaining mercenaries. The impact was like a thunderclap, and both were thrown back against their boarding vessel. The shield vanished for a moment, as the surge had been so great that the capacitor would need to refill. It didn’t matter, though. The mercenaries were stunned, and Chirisophus was like a rampaging lion. As they struggled to defend themselves, he stabbed at them. One stab, then another until he was hitting like a hydraulic punch. They struggled to parry or to avoid the attack, but they came in so fast there was nothing they could do. He tore them apart until both slumped lifelessly to the ground.

  “Get off my ship!” he growled.

  Silence filled the command deck until the dull thud of gun impacts brought him back to the battle. Chirisophus looked around and was dismayed to see half of his comrades had fallen in the fight. Over twenty mercenaries lay bloodied and broken, but only one moved. One of the surviving Epilektoi walked to the fallen warrior. His armor was cut and dented, and blood ran down from a pair of holes in the man’s shoulder plating. He bent down and then stabbed the mercenary through the throat. Blood gurgled and bubbled from the wound as the last few seconds of life faded from his eyes.

  Good, that is a valuable lesson for them. I hope for their sake they learn it well.

  Chirisophus looked over to the senior officers further back that were still busily managing the battle. With so many ships in their vicinity, it was a fight that was almost too much to manage. Not for his crew, though. The Valediction was a ship that reflected the spirit of Laconia in every way. Tough and bristling with weapons, it made up for what it lacked in new technology with excessive firepower and double the armor that a Titan required.

  “What of the enemy troops on the dorsal escape deck?” he called out.

  Kentarchos Monsimm pointed above his head.

  “The nearest spatharii are dealing with breaches on the upper decks. I have dispatched two squads to the dromon service area. They assure me the ship will be clear in the next minute. The ship is safe, for now.”

  Chirisophus walked back slowly, carefully avoiding the pools of blood forming around those killed in the fight. The VOB system continued to show the bloody battle for the Sea of Fire. His armor flashed as explosions rippled in all directions, with friend and foe alike suffering in the carnage. Kentarchos Monsimm simply turned back to continue issuing orders to his hundreds of crew. The ship was under a constant barrage now, and many enemy vessels were moving in with a desperate rush to try and seize them as prizes, just as the mercenaries had attempted. Several squadrons of ships were still circling the Titan, and one group in particular had just changed to face them.

  “My Lord, the Boubak is on an intercept vector,” said Jeane Coxand the senior tactical officer.

  “Good. It’s time they were involved in the fight. Bring us back between the fleet and the next layer of mines.”

  He looked away and then back, as though something new had just occurred to him.

  “And match their encoding.”

  It didn’t take long for them to change their position, and as the lancing strikes from Boubak struck, the Titan did something none of the enemy ships had been expecting. Rather than firing at the Boubak, the ship fired its own heavy cutters at the newly arrived Hayastani ships coming from the other direction. Each shot was carefully calibrated to the exact wavelength, diameter, and duration of the Boubak. The first shots struck a heavy cruiser and flickered as they ran down its hull. Jeane Coxand held her breath as she waited, and then came the response. It wasn’t much. Just three blasts back at the Boubak.

  “Come on, do it!”

  Seven Carduchian heavy fighters moved on through the fleet, and the first two were knocked out by concentrated fire from a group of Median capital ships. Each of them was flagged differently, but all were clearly of Medes design. One by one, the heavy fighters performed lateral spins and opened fire on each of them, completely unaware that the Black Legion controlled only one. All of them returned fire, and two even put a burst into the flank of the passing Boubak. The Median battleship shrugged off the ill-considered attack and instead fired at the Titan. A dozen lancing strikes from its heavy cutters struck Valediction’s bow and penetrated through the plating.

  “Breaches!” yelled one of the junior tactical officers.

  That was the point when the Bactrian ships slipped through the second layer of mines. Four vanished in a series of flashes, and the Grand Battleship was engulfed in energy from a direct impact. Even the Boubak was temporarily affected, and her guns stopped their precision attack, just for a moment. When the flashes cleared, a large portion of Hayastani ships were mixed in with the Carduchian heavy fighters. Both sides blasted away at each other with no consideration for tactics or position in the battle. Now Carduchian fought Hayastani, and both fired upon any other ship not bearing their colors.

  “Incredible,” said the Kentarchos.

  Strategos Chirisophus moved alongside his commander and watched the ships from both Satrapies turn on each other. Some of the mercenary ships joined in; the rest withdrew to a single group of warships around the shape of the battleship Mithra.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Xenophon was right after all. His plan was deceptively simple. All we needed to do was get both forces into the Sea of Fire. Their mutual hatred far surpasses anything they feel toward us.”

  He looked to his commander.

  “We do not need to win this battle, just to survive it long enough to let them do the work for us.”

  Chirisophus sneered at the mention of Xenophon, but uncharacteristically kept his mouth shut. Instead, he watched with amusement as the cruisers, frigates, fighters, and battleships of the Hayastani scattered at the suicidal assault of the Carduchians. As each minute went by, more of the small, but powerful craft arrived. He even spotted three of them ram one of the Hayastani cruisers in an attack that destroyed both the cruiser and the three smaller ships. The auletes contacted them both at the same time.

  “Signal from the Antaeus.”

  Chirisophus rubbed his chin.

  “It says?”

  “Jump,” answered the auletes.

  Kentarchos Monsimm looked to his supreme commander with a hopeful expression and waited for his orders. It seemed an age before Chirisophus finally relented.

  “Very well. Jump.”

  That was all it took for the order to be sent to throughout the ship. Even as Valediction began to turn about, it was possible to see the flashes as each of the Terran ships left the carnage. Half had gone by the time they were aligned, and still the bloody border fight continued.

  “Do it,” he said calmly.

  With a gentle moan the massive Titan accelerated away, leaving nothing but the wreckage and ruin of the hour-long battle and hundreds of corpses. As they continued on through space, Chirisophus pondered what would be coming next. He knew there would be plenty of fighting left, but he also knew he would have to deal with both Dukas Xenias and Xenophon, a fight he didn’t particularly relish. He looked to Kentarchos Monsimm.

  “Make sure the shields are ready. We will be needing them when we reach our destination.”

  * * *

  Light Cruiser ‘Antaeus’, Hayastani Border

  The arrival at the border was perhaps the most harrowing journey Xenophon had ever taken. The course was complex, with a secondary waypoint halfway through to throw off pursuers. Now they were hurtling toward the point previously visited, the one place Xenophon knew for sure was safely outside the Sea of Fire. The first waypoint had been exactly where the prisoners had said, and for that Xenophon was eternally grateful to the Scythian. One wrong turn and they would have accelerated into one of the constantly moving arms of energy. He’d left Golnaz, the Carduchian squadron commander with the Kentarchos, just in case they needed any more information. Xenophon had also ensured that the Scythian was present, as a suitable incentive to provi
de quality information.

  The ship had shuddered so much that he thought they might be destroyed on the journey, and on more than one occasion a number of the crew had been quite vocal on obtaining more information from the prisoner. The good news for Xenophon was that this last part of the journey gave him a short period of time to head to the medical bay. Their route was showing signs of the Sea beginning to thin, and the shaking had already stopped. He’d left Roxana and Glaucon to assist on the command deck and rushed down to see Artemas, with Tamara hot on his heels. It didn’t take long to make their way down the dorsal corridor to the medical bay and right to Lady Artemas’ bed.

  Xenophon moved close to her side while Tamara caught the attention of the medical orderly.

  “How is she?”

  The two of them were waiting at the side of the bed, one of many inside the cramped medical bay. The room was circular in shape, and the beds faced out from the walls and toward the center where a small group of medics could tend to their injuries. The constant fighting in the Sea of Fire had taken its toll, and there were another seven crew being treated for gashes, concussion, and flash burns. Lady Artemas lay slightly upright with a variety of tubes connected to her arms. At the other side of the bed was the medical orderly, an older looking Terran, with a baldhead and standard military issue scrubs.

  “She was lucky. Another thirty minutes and we would have lost her.”

  Xenophon took in a long breath, realizing how close he’d come to losing her for good. He reached out with his hand, and she grabbed it.

  “Are we there yet?” she asked weakly.

  Xenophon smiled and then spotted the shape of another familiar face three beds over. A female face looked back at him and nodded politely. It was Desma of Mantinea, and her arm was raised and suspended in a sling arrangement. She looked wide-awake, and her wounds were the classic injuries sustained in close ranged combat. He looked back to Lady Artemas.

  “Not quite, nearly though. We’re heading for the border and into Hayastani space.”

  Artemas’ eyes fluttered for a moment.

  “Hayastan?”

  She tried to move, but Xenophon pushed harder against her arm. The medical orderly looked at her reading on the computer unit and nodded.

  “You need to stay here to give time for the healing to continue. The internal damage is light, but it will take twenty hours at least for the tissue repair to take hold.”

  She thanked the man, and when he was finally away looked back to Xenophon.

  “Tirbazus has been plotting against the Empire for years. He’s a dangerous man. You have to...”

  Tamara leapt onto the end of the bed and narrowly missed landing on her legs.

  “It’s okay. Tirbazus is in the Sea of Fire, so are the Carduchians.”

  Artemas looked confused and turned her attention back to Xenophon.

  “What? They hate each other. How...”

  Tamara pointed to Xenophon.

  “It’s all about Xenophon today. He made them come for us, and now they’re tearing each other apart.”

  Lady Artemas still looked confused.

  “But how did you navigate the Sea of Fire? And why is Tirbazus taking so many ships. I don’t understand.”

  Even as she spoke, it began to coalesce in her mind. Images of her last visit, ancient accounts of the region, and the reports that came in to Babylon Prime. The Imperial family was large and spread out, and it was difficult to keep this kind of information private. She rolled over a little and groaned in discomfort. Xenophon moved a fraction closer, but she refused to let him speak.

  “Of course, it makes sense. He has been lobbying on Babylon Prime for years about the disputed border region. His family never forgave their defeat at the Sea of Fire. The Carduchians invaded, took the border worlds, and then unleashed their secret weapon.”

  Xenophon was confused and looked to Tamara who just shook her head.

  “Weapon?”

  Lady Artemas nodded and beckoned toward a glass of water. Tamara handed it over, and after three small sips it was replaced.

  “Yes, the weapon; a massive engineering project to mine the artificial nebula that ran around the border. It failed catastrophically, destroying many worlds and wiping out the Hayastani fleet. That was more the three hundred years ago.”

  Xenophon hadn’t heard the story before. As far as he understood it, the Sea of Fire was an ancient celestial phenomenon a millennia old, but that really didn’t matter. If the regional story was of a weapon, then that was what they believed, and he couldn’t change that. Artemas looked at him, her face confused and concerned at the same time.

  “How did you navigate? Chirisophus destroyed any chance of paying for local guides.”

  Xenophon’s mind returned to what he had done with the prisoner. He closed his eyes, the pain and memory of what he had seen still seeping back into his mind. He was of no doubt he’d done the right thing. In fact it was taught in every Terran military academy that intelligence was always critical. It was standard practice to capture and interrogate local commanders at every stage of a conflict. Even so, he still knew that what he had done was an act of personal violence against an unarmed man.

  “I...I took the information from our prisoners.”

  Artemas might have been delirious, but she could see the difficulty he was in. She did her best to look reassuring.

  “Xenophon. Because of Chirisophus you had no choice. We could have bought the information to travel through this wilderness with coin. Instead, he chose the path of violence and looting; he has no business leading our escape. Whatever you did, it was for the good of all of us.”

  She rubbed at her face.

  “Me especially.”

  Xenophon didn’t quite understand. He opened his mouth to ask, but she pulled him close. Their faces moved closer and closer until she twisted slightly to position her mouth next to his right ear.

  “I was pledged to Tirbazus upon our next meeting, a goodwill payment for services rendered, long past.”

  Xenophon was stunned. She pulled back and looked at him, but his face was a bewildering image of confusion and surprise.

  “Why do you think somebody as high in my family left home during this crisis of my uncle and his brother? As long as I am away from Tirbazus, I will safe, and that means no official visits near him.”

  Xenophon had always suspected there was something more to her being away from the royal home, but she’d never wanted to speak about it. Now that he knew of this agreement with Tirbazus, he was even more convinced that he had to keep them apart.

  “Is this pledge still valid?”

  She began to answer, but only then did Xenophon really understand exactly what she was trying to tell him. He swallowed hard and his eyebrows rose a fraction.

  “Wait, are you telling me you are engaged to the Satrap of Hayastan?”

  Now it was Artemas’ turn to look sheepish.

  “Technically, yes. Not just me, though, he is already married, don’t forget.”

  She looked away and at the others in the medical bay.

  “It is a political gesture, a trade to shore up support and to create a long-term family alliance. I had no intention of ever...”

  She noticed the look of stunned surprise about him, but Tamara simply laughed. He looked at her, his face both pleading and questioning, and that did nothing to calm her down.

  “Trust you, Xenophon.”

  “What?” he asked in a mock, offended tone.

  “To find the only woman in the fleet due to be married. That is a real skill.”

  The wall-mounted speaker buzzed and then so did the earpiece communications node sat loosely over his ear.

  “Thirty minutes until arrival, all hands to battle stations.”

  He glanced back to Artemas who again smiled at him.

  “Go to them. You need to get us through this Satrapy and fast. Tirbazus will not take kindly to having been beaten in this way. He is a proud leader, and th
is will weaken him. The enmity with Tirbazus goes back to the creation of the Sea of Fire. It was the Carduchians that created it, a powerful barrier to block access to annexed border colonies. He wants them back. You can use that.”

  Xenophon squeezed her hand and then headed for the door. Tamara whispered something in Artemas’ ear, and she immediately laughed. Then she leapt off and followed Xenophon out of the medical bay and into one of the many narrow corridors.

  “What did you say?” he asked.

  Tamara moved her in finger from side to side.

  “I’m not telling.”

  Xenophon shrugged.

  “Fair enough. In any case we’ve got other concerns right now. Like what happens when we arrive on the border.”

  They quickly arrived on the command deck just as another powerful arc of energy lashed at the ship. Kentarchos Cadmus appeared to sigh in relief at spotting him.

  “Our arrival is imminent. I brought the other prisoners to the deck, as you requested.”

  Xenophon looked at Golnaz. He’d expected the Carduchian to be far worse for wear, but now he could see the marks from his interrogation were less significant than they had seemed. Minute by minute he seemed to be returning to normality.

  The Scythian really was more skilled than I gave him credit.

  He stepped closer to the prisoner and then noticed the small group of his comrades off to the side.

  “Golnaz. Satrap Tirbazus has sent a full invasion force into the Sea of Fire, a neutral zone that defies all Imperial laws. He has engaged your own people in open warfare, not to fight my people, but to seize the opportunity for the unfortunate incident that occurred between you and I.”

  Golnaz shook his head while Xenophon pointed to the VOB system. The external view changed shape at one point and then displayed video imagery of the battle they had just left. Carduchian ships fought bravely against a horde of much heavier and more numerous Hayastani ships.