Albion Lost (The Exiled Fleet Book 1)

by Richard Fox

  Light exploded across Lucan’s visage and his whole world went sideways. He hit the ground hard. Part of his mind demanded he roll, raise his arms in defense, but his body refused to answer. Blood seeped off his shattered cheekbone and dribbled into his mouth.

  +Up. Up!+ came from his gestalt.

  Tiberian stepped over the Genevan, reversing his grip on the sword and raising it over his head. He drove the tip through Lucan’s chest, pinning him to the ground. Blood spurted out of the Genevan’s mouth. He grabbed the blade and tried to pull it free.

  “Enough sport,” Tiberian said as he stood up and pointed to the King. “The time of false kings is over. Your people will see this and they will learn. They will be ruled.”

  A pair of Daegon dragged the King to Tiberian. He slammed a hand around Randolph’s throat, then lifted him into the air.

  “Nobis regiray!” Tiberian snapped the King’s neck with a twist of his wrist, then tossed the body beside Lucan. Daegon cheered and raised their weapons high. Tiberian looked across the bodies on the ground, stopping at the Queen. He picked up a dinosaur doll made of cloth, half-soaked with blood.

  He barked a question, and his warriors answered him with silence.

  Tiberian went to Lucan and grabbed the impaled blade by the handle.

  “Where is the child?” He brandished the doll over Lucan’s face. Lucan’s lungs were too full of blood to laugh, but he managed a weak smile.

  Lucan raised a hand as the light faded away. It fell across Randolph’s chest as he joined the King in death.

  Chapter 13

  Thorvald jogged down the dank tunnel, his rifle swaying across his body as his sabatons splashed through puddles of water. Light from overloaded, half-functioning lights flickered against roughhewn walls, casting irregular shadows.

  “Are you sure this is the way?” Salis asked from behind him.

  “I know where we are. Another two hundred yards and we’ll find the exit path.”

  “You said that the last two times.”

  “Did I know both ways were caved in? No. Neither did you. Now, unless you…” Thorvald’s gestalt sent him a pulse, jostling his arm toward a tunnel on their left.

  “Someone’s coming,” Thorvald whispered and raised his weapon. His armor amplified the sound of footfalls from around the corner.

  “Leather shoes…running but carrying something, judging by the uneven steps…one person,” Salis sent on a closed channel. “Not Daegon.”

  “Not the time to take risks.” Thorvald and Salis pressed their backs to the wall just to the side of the dark tunnel where the runner approached. Thorvald took one hand off his rifle.

  A man in dirty overalls ran into the hallway. He managed one step before Thorvald grabbed him by the collar, slammed him against the wall, and slapped a pistol out of the man’s hand. Thorvald pressed his elbow into his throat.

  Tolan let off a croak.

  “I don’t know you,” Thorvald said through his faceplate. His gestalt sent a chill down his spine, trying to warn him of danger, but the only thing around was the disarmed man pinned to the wall.

  “How about…now?” Tolan’s visage shifted to thinner lips, pointed nose, and skin tone that was a few shades lighter.

  “Faceless!” Salis raised her pistol and twisted her body away from Tolan to protect the Prince shielded against her chest.

  “He’s with intelligence,” Thorvald said, lessening the pressure on the man’s neck.

  “And you aren’t Royce. He’s two inches taller.” Tolan’s eye twitched and Thorvald felt pressure against his sternum where Tolan held a vibro-knife point against the joins in his armor. The blade was unpowered, but a flick of a finger and a twist of the wrist would plunge the blade into his heart, armor or no armor.

  Thorvald retracted his armor away from his face.

  “You…” Tolan’s lips pulled into a half-sneer. “Bet if I had a chance to dig deeper into your little friend, we’d figure out your part in this disaster. Patsy or traitor? Why don’t you just tell me now?”

  The blade powered up with a whine.

  “What’s he talking about?” Salis asked.

  “You were assigned to wild space,” Thorvald said. “I saw your mission reports. Ship. You have an off-the-books ship. Where is it?”

  Tolan let out a low growl as the muscles in his knife arm readied to strike.

  “Salis. Show him.”

  “If he’s hostile, we can’t risk it,” she said.

  Thorvald felt the blade’s pressure lessen as Tolan’s eyes darted to Salis.

  “Show him.”

  Salis retracted armor from Prince Aidan’s cocoon, enough that Tolan could see the boy’s face.

  “The King ordered us to keep him safe,” Thorvald said.

  Tolan pulled the knife away and slid it into a sheath on the small of his back.

  “You were going for the Reading tunnel?” Tolan asked. “Useless. The city is burning. What isn’t on fire is full of Daegon troops. Come with me. I’m going to Siam to find Admiral Sartorius.”

  +Go!+ The gestalt’s order hit Thorvald like a punch.

  “That’s not an Albion world,” Salis said. “Get us to Cardiff or—”

  “Under attack and the Daegon have all the nexus points blockaded,” Tolan snapped. “I can make it to Siam in two days if I make a good entry into the slip. Now are you coming or not?”

  “Aidan’s best chance is off world,” Thorvald said to Salis.

  She closed the cocoon and motioned down the tunnel with her pistol.

  Tolan picked his pack out of a puddle and ran off; the Genevans followed close behind.

  “How did he get a knife on you?” Salis asked through the suit-to-suit comms as they ran.

  “I don’t know this gestalt. It’s like a hand-shy dog…nothing about this is right. It’ll take time to sync.”

  “What was the Faceless talking about with you? Why are we even trusting someone who’d mutilate themselves like that? That augmentation is forbidden on every core world. Even the Mechanix won’t go that far.”

  “Save it. If I become a danger to Aidan, my gestalt will kill me. Worry about getting the Prince out of here first.”

  Tolan looked up at a brass plate on the wall and slowed to a stop. He tapped a rock jutting from the wall, then another, then another.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Salis asked.

  “She new here?” Tolan looked to his left, then snapped his hand onto a rock on his right. The wall sank back several inches, then slid to the side. Lights flickered on, revealing a hangar housing a single dingy freighter with a decent share of dents and scorch marks from poor thermal shielding.

  “You’re kidding,” Salis said.

  “Tell us you’re kidding,” Thorvald said.

  “The Joaquim has plenty under the hood where it counts. You try flying around wild space in something shiny. See how long you last before scavs rip you—and your ship—open and sell the parts to the highest bidder,” Tolan said. He took a data slate from a pocket and tapped out a command. The cargo ramp lowered with an ugly creak, catching several times before it hit the ground.

  “Now how about you two not look this lovely gift horse in the—”

  An energy blast shattered a rock over the hidden entrance. Daegon warriors raced out of the distant darkness down the tunnel.

  “Get in! Get in!” Tolan slapped a red button on a control panel inside the hangar as the Genevans ran past. Energy blasts smacked the doors and slipped through the closing gap before the door shut with a pneumatic hiss. Tolan tapped a code onto the panel and the hangar doors slid aside slowly.

  The setting suns over the East Ocean cast red and ochre bands across the sky. The crash of waves sent spray into the air and onto the Joaquim’s nose.

  “Of course this happens at high tide.” Tolan aimed his pistol at the control panel, waited until the doors were clear of the freighter’s wingtips, then fired twice.

  Thorvald stopped on the cargo ram
p as Salis continued into the ship.

  “Are you coming or not?” Thorvald asked.

  “You know how to fly this thing, meathead?” Tolan sprinted up the ramp and tossed his pack onto an acceleration couch where Salis was strapping in a groggy-looking Aidan.

  “No.” Thorvald raised the ramp as Tolan opened the bridge door with a spin of the lock.

  The spy jumped into the helm station and slapped controls. The engines came to life with a chug and a brief squeal of metal.

  “That’s not a good sound,” Tolan muttered.

  “When was the last time you had this thing serviced?” Thorvald asked as he buckled himself into the astrogation station.

  “Right before I ran like a bat out of hell from Scarrus with the most wanted man in the galaxy chained up in the cargo hold. Did I mention getting shot at by the most wanted man in the galaxy’s buddies before I hit slip space? Or was it before I dropped off that shipment of spliced panthers on Orosis?” Tolan cocked his head to the side in thought. Shrugging, he fed power to the thrusters. “You know how to do a pre-flight check?” Tolan asked.

  “No…”

  “No big deal. That part’s boring. Pull the grav buoy data for Siam.”

  “Ugh…”

  “How about you get on the ship’s nose and pretend you’re a hood ornament? At least then you wouldn’t be taking up space on my bridge.” Tolan flicked a comm switch. “Hang on back there, other Genevan and Prince Aidan. This’ll be ugly.”

  Tolan brought the ship off the deck and roared out over the waves.

  ****

  Wyman ducked beneath his fighter and quickly surveyed the damage. The bottom of his Typhoon had ugly black streaks peppered by silver shards of metal. He frowned and touched one of the shiny bits, which was cool against his fingertips. The metal must have come from the enemy fighter he’d destroyed…but it wasn’t like any kind of material he’d ever seen used in spacecraft. He flicked it with his fingers and knocked it loose. It fell to the tarmac with a slight tink.

  “Ensign Wyman.” A robot with a telescoping body and several arms rolled over to the side of his fighter, then rose out of view. “The replacement of your canopy will take one hundred eighty-seven seconds. All facility units are in use. Connect battery cables to your unit to shorten your time at this station.”

  “Right. Got it.” Wyman slid open the armor panel on his battery casing and electricity arced out of the housing and struck his finger. When he jumped back, he banged his head against the bottom of the fighter. Shaking his numbed hand, he rubbed the back of his head.

  There, impaled in the battery, was a tiny bit of shiny metal.

  “Service, you think you can get that out?” Wyman scooted away from the casing as it gave off an angry buzz.

  A mechanical arm bent under the fighter and extended to the battery. A lens looked over the damage, then four rubber-tipped fingers sprang out of the arm. It plucked the metal out and dropped it to the ground. The lens clicked several times, then the arm retracted to the robot.

  “Attach the power cables,” the robot said. A section of the tarmac popped open, revealing a bright yellow cable head.

  “You’re sure?”

  “This facility’s central programming will not allow me to recommend an action that could be detrimental to the health and well-being of Albion citizens or allied military personnel.” The robot dropped the gouged canopy to the ground with a crack as a mule-bot rolled over with a new canopy.

  “Not the most dangerous thing that’s happened to me today,” Wyman muttered as he grabbed the power cable by a pair of handles on the neck and jammed it into the battery. Green lights blinked on the cable and the housing. Wyman scurried out from beneath the fighter and found Ivor leaning against her fighter, her head buried in her hands.

  A distant thunderclap rolled through the air. The sky over New Exeter glowed, a mock sunrise to the setting suns in the west. Fireballs crisscrossed high above, the final moments of the blasted remains of the Home Fleet and enemy ships.

  The rearm/recharge pad was a simple clearing butting against the small town of Reading. The faux-grass covering had rolled up next to the tree line once the three fighters signaled their approach. The automated facility kept its service robots and some munitions buried in a low hill a few yards away in the woods. Queen Diana had insisted on such facilities across most of the populated areas after the First Reach War when the Reich had landed a corps of soldiers outside New Exeter and laid siege to the city. The war ended before Albion had a chance to launch a counterattack, but that another power had touched down with near impunity had changed the royal family’s outlook on planetary defense. Generations had grumbled at the expense and higher taxes, and right now, Wyman was thankful he had a place to get his Typhoon back into the fight.

  Robots worked on the third fighter, swapping a burnt-out cannon and fixing missiles to the wingtips.

  “Where’s Dandy?” Wyman asked.

  The sound of projectile vomiting came from the woods.

  “Who the hell are they?” Ivor asked, looking to the sky. “No demands, no warning. They’re just here to kill us?”

  “I got a feeling they’d have nuked the entire planet by now if they just wanted to kill us. Their ships don’t match anything I’ve ever seen…we just need to hold them off. Buy time for 9th and 5th Fleets on Cardiff to get back. The Cathay and Indus will send help, I’m sure of it.”

  She looked at a screen mounted on the back of her glove and shook her head. “Nothing on any network. We could have surrendered by now and wouldn’t even know it.”

  Wyman grabbed her by the shoulder.

  “Don’t. To admit defeat is to dishonor the King. You remember the oath from the day we earned our wings?”

  “‘The navy’s ships and sailors carry the weight of Albion on their shoulders. I will not falter. I will not fail in my duties.’” She nodded and stood up a bit straighter.

  “Repairs are complete!” a robot announced as it backed away from Wyman’s ship. The power cable detached on its own and retracted into the tarmac.

  Dandy stumbled out of the high grass, his face deathly pale.

  “You OK?” Ivor asked.

  “One hundred percent. Let’s get back up there,” he said.

  Wyman ran to his Typhoon and climbed up the robot to get into his cockpit.

  “Your ship is rated at seventy-three percent combat efficiency,” the robot said. “Please avoid any further damage.”

  “No promises,” Wyman said as he slammed his helmet on and closed the canopy. His fighter powered up and he held his breath as some of the panels flickered…then stayed on.

  “This is Rosy, almost green across the board.”

  “Dandy. Green enough.”

  “Stay on me. We’re heading for New Exeter. Hug the coastline and keep your eyes open for anything else flying. We’ll join up with any friendlies and engage any hostiles we can pick off.”

  Wyman sent power to his vectored thrusters and brought his fighter straight up. The Typhoon hovered in place as the engines realigned and sent the craft hurtling forward. Wyman crossed over the ocean a few minutes later and kept his ship low over the waves.

  The domed mothership loomed over the distant city, its flat bottom alive with running lights. The crystal mounted on top glowed like one of Albion’s moons. Brief flurries of exploding ships and energy bolts came and went around the ship.

  “The big one doesn’t seem that interested,” Dandy said.

  “Like it’s just watching, no worries about being in a war zone,” Ivor said.

  “Doubt we could even scratch the paint with our guns…but look at this…” Wyman zoomed in on the underside of the ship where blocky shuttles took off from open bays. “Bet we’d get their attention if we sent a couple missiles in there to say hello.”

  “We don’t have a chance in hell of getting that close,” Dandy said.

  “But they might. Whole wing of Typhoons coming in on our seven o’clock.” Iv
or sent the track for the incoming fighters to her wingmen.

  “Either of you picking up their comms?” Wyman reached for his radio panel when he saw five of the spear-tip fighters swing around the crater wall surrounding the city.

  “Contact! Straight ahead.” He marked the lead as a target and keyed his missile sensors.

  “We’re better off joining—”

  A civilian ship, barely larger than a ground-to-orbit shuttle, burst out of the crater wall just behind the enemy fighters. It angled its nose up, then suddenly dove for the ocean. The spear tips banked away from Wyman and made for the shuttle.

  “What the hell?” Wyman’s missile toned a lock, but he hesitated.

  “Any Albion military, this is the Intelligence Ministry ship Joaquim. We need immediate air support! We have a bleed in our gamma relays. I repeat, a bleed in our gamma relays,” came over several encrypted channels and in the clear.

  Wyman fired his locked missile and opened his throttle. The enemy fighter’s edges brightened as it prepared to fire, slowing as the missile streaked through its engines and sent the wreck crashing into the wave-pounded rocks around the crater. Two of the enemy fighters broke off their pursuit of the shuttle and looped back toward the Typhoons.

  Mentioning “gamma relays” in any transmission was code for a member of the royal family in danger.

  “Joaquim, this is Freak Show. I’ve got three fighters on the way.” He dared a glance over his shoulder and saw the wing of Albion defenders spreading out to meet a wave of enemy ships coming off New Exeter. “We’re all you’ve got for now.”

  Missiles leapt off Ivor and Dandy’s wings. The diamond tips of the enemy fighters glowed as the four weapons closed the distance. Wyman targeted a fighter already painted by Ivor’s missile and fired off his last Shrike.

  Thin energy beams intercepted each of the initial missiles, forming a brief wall of smoke and fire between the two forces. Wyman’s missile shot through the smoke and a massive fireball erupted on the other side as it hit home.