The Glory of the Empress

by Sean Danker

  “That’s it, then?”

  “That’s it.” Mao got to her feet and went to the console. “And he knows what’s coming next.”

  “Fair enough.” Bjorn strapped in.

  Mao keyed the com. “Tenbrook isn’t falling for it,” she said. “There’s only one way to give Doyle a chance now. We have to make such a mess that Tenbrook and his people have to focus on us completely. And they will. I wish there was another way.”

  She leaned forward, putting her weight on her hands pressed to the plastic. Bjorn watched her close her eyes.

  “I don’t know if this matters to any of you,” she said, hands curling into fists, “but I know that some of you aren’t overly fond of Doyle. We aren’t doing this for him. Or for his passengers. This isn’t about those people. It’s not about Ganraens, defectors, or immigrants. It’s not about us, and it’s not about Tenbrook. It’s not even about the war. We’re doing this for the same reason we do everything else. For the glory of the Empress. Is that clear?”

  The company line, right up until the end.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Bjorn said with the others.

  “Honor and glory to the Eternal Empress,” the commander murmured.

  “Always may she reign.” There was no hesitation in the chorus.

  29

  “I want concentrated rail-gun fire on Perdita again,” Mao ordered. “We can’t sink him, but we want maximum casualties in there.”

  Bjorn shook his head and forced himself to focus. “Sei, don’t overcommit. If Tenbrook’s scouts don’t scatter when it starts, I’m going to redirect you to destroy them before they can confirm Doyle’s location.”

  “I read you.”

  “I want maximum impact,” Mao said into the com. “Quantity, not quality. There’s no one coming to rescue us, and there’s no one coming to rescue them. Disable them if you can’t get the clean kill. These people won’t play hero.”

  Nearly half of Tenbrook’s ships had jumped away, but that still left an impressive force. Bjorn didn’t recognize the formation they were taking, but it seemed safe to assume it was part of a strategy intended to counter an Everwing assault.

  Perhaps these targets were what Tenbrook was expecting. Bjorn began to adjust his own approach.

  Mao was looking at him.

  “No pressure, right?” he asked.

  “There’s only you to do this. I trust you.”

  Bjorn was taken aback by the way she was looking at him. Of course Mao had feelings, but so far she’d done a good job of keeping them to herself. Bjorn hadn’t expected her to choose this moment to let the mask slip.

  He returned her gaze, raising an eyebrow. “I know,” he said.

  Mao cocked her head, then smiled. There was sudden movement, and he looked up to see a xeno scrambling along the outside of the viewport.

  “Huh,” Mao said, staring at it. “Get off my ship.”

  There was a sharp crackle of blue electricity, and the creature spun off into space.

  She watched it float away, then glanced at Bjorn. “That was one of the things that was on Oasis, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Not cute.”

  “Right?”

  “In range,” Diana said, and Bjorn could see her grin on his feed.

  “Weapons free,” Mao said, putting on her commander face and settling into her chair.

  “All that stuff you wanted to do in training but no one would let you?” Bjorn said, tracing lines on the grid with both hands. “Now’s the time.”

  The viewport had to grow dim to shield the eyes of the crew from the sudden splash of light from the direction of Tenbrook’s fleet as all four fighters struck at once. Diana had flown a dangerous route across Tenbrook’s armored line, disrupting their shields. The other three had put precision aside in favor of savagery, and the result was no fewer than five of Tenbrook’s largest warships gone in an instant.

  The formation broke at once. The majority of Tenbrook’s ships were going evasive, but others moved forward.

  “He’s onto us,” Mao said, getting to her feet and putting her hands on her control globes. “We have to try to steer him away. Focus on his point men without looking like that’s what you’re doing.”

  Bjorn redirected Golding and Morel to harass Perdita, and sent Ibuki to hunt at his own discretion. “Diana, don’t let anyone into the debris field. No one at all.”

  “It’s completely flipped,” Mao said. “Now they think they might be safe in here. They don’t realize we can see.”

  “They might think Everwings can’t maneuver in this.”

  “Let them think that.”

  It was frustrating; battle inside the debris field would be even more heavily weighted in the Everwings’ favor, but Mao couldn’t let the fight get too close to Doyle.

  “Incoming contacts,” Lydia announced.

  “Who?” Mao asked, looking up at the AI’s camera.

  “It’s Tenbrook’s guys that just jumped away,” Bjorn said. “I know what they’re doing. It won’t work. All fighters, break off and fall back to the outside.”

  There were more flashes of light, and ships began to appear.

  “What the hell?” Mao demanded.

  “It’s Cophony. He’s reading my vectors and jumping in ships. He wants to get lucky and jump someone in front of an Everwing. The impact would make the pilot vulnerable. It’s the only way he has to fight back.”

  “He’d go that far?” Mao asked, appalled.

  “Why not? It won’t do him much harm. And the cost of a little fuel doesn’t bother him—it’s all on Tenbrook’s tab. He must be some kind of five-space genius. Are you all getting this? We’re going to make a big change. It’s SOP for a flyover to orient like you’re going over the top. It’s best for visibility and because our brains like to think in terms of up and down, but now when you make a disruption pass, find another way. It might feel strange, but you’ll stand a better chance of winning the collision lottery,” Bjorn said.

  “Can’t we just burrow through them?” Ibuki asked.

  “That’s what Cophony wants. He’s trying to bait you into doing just that—he wants you to use up your fuel as fast as possible. That’s good,” Bjorn said. “It means he’s not confident. If he wants to end it quickly, then we want to settle in for the long game.”

  A cruiser materialized in front of Diana, but she was able to divert in time. If it had been anyone else, they would have struck it head-on. The kinetic barrier would have protected the fighter itself, but that moment on rebound as the ship equalized, preparing to accelerate again—every single ship Tenbrook had would be looking for that split second. That was their only chance, and the pirates all knew it.

  It was an expensive strategy, but against Everwings there were no easy solutions. Tenbrook’s heavy-handed tactics would inevitably work if this dragged on for too long.

  “How long can we stay out of it?” Bjorn asked Mao, watching Golding obliterate another pair of ships whose pilots bravely tried to skirt the perimeter.

  “As long as we can. You’re the one running this battle, Bjorn. Without you they can still do damage, but it’ll just be a dogfight. We have to protect your influence for as long as possible, and that means not revealing ourselves.”

  “We could help,” Bjorn said.

  “It’s a poor trade-off. Trust me, Lieutenant.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Major, if you’re predictable to me you’re predictable to Cophony. Stop trying to step back for a view. I have the view. Trust my lines. Break off before they cut you off. Sergeant, I’m seeing a weapons malfunction.”

  “It’s my rail gun,” she reported. “I still have everything else. I can stay out here. My nanorepair will correct it; the barrel overheated and malformed.”

  “Diana, they’re getting too close to Doyle. I do
n’t care what you have to do. Don’t let them find him.”

  “I’m on it.”

  “All units, I’m drawing lines in red. Avoid them. That’s where they’re baiting you. Why’s Tenbrook just sitting there?” Bjorn, eyeing Perdita, asked Mao. The battle station hadn’t moved since jumping in.

  “Mind games. He’s trying to look tough, but Golding and Morel hit him harder than he expected. The majority of that station has to be committed to its jump drive, and he has to protect that. The personnel are going to be weighted around the outside of the superstructure. We’re not damaging the station seriously, but we’re killing a lot of its crew. Tenbrook doesn’t want us to see him bleed. I keep telling you, he’s not as crazy as he wants you to think.”

  “So Cophony’s running tactical on their end.” Diana gasped. Her face was shining with sweat, but her red eyes were bright. Her vitals were dangerously elevated.

  “I don’t think you’re going to get your shot at him,” Bjorn told her frankly. “Sorry. How do you feel?”

  “I’ve never felt like this in my life. This is what I wanted.”

  “I’m happy for you,” Bjorn said dryly.

  “Doyle should be in the clear. I think they’ve learned their lesson.”

  She was right; Tenbrook’s ships were pulling back from the debris field, their pilots instead choosing to take advantage of the cover offered by Cophony’s expensive game of naval musical chairs.

  “Something isn’t right,” Mao said. “Letting us stay on the offensive plays to our strengths, not his. He and Cophony both know it. He’s up to something. Get ready.”

  “Inbound jumps.” Bjorn tracked the signals. “They’re jumping directly into the debris field.”

  “That’s suicide,” Mao said. “What are they thinking?”

  “I don’t know. Diana, get out of there.” Bjorn turned to Mao. “Is there really no way we can do something to hurt Perdita?”

  She opened her mouth, then looked away from him.

  “Only one way,” she said.

  “Burrowing?”

  “In theory.”

  “It’s too big. You’d never reach the reactor. Or an ordnance magazine.”

  “I know. That’s why we aren’t doing it.”

  “You might make it one way, though.”

  She hesitated. “You might.”

  “So?”

  Mao shook her head. “I won’t order it.”

  “Why not? We aren’t getting out of here. Where’s the harm in making sure he doesn’t either?” Bjorn asked.

  “Because Doyle could still get a move on,” she growled. “And then we could leave. What did he just launch?”

  Bjorn turned his attention to the signals in the debris field. “They’re showing as unmanned shuttles.”

  “Shields,” Mao barked, and the explosives that Tenbrook had tried to sneak in behind them went up, atomizing debris in a truly stupendous radius.

  “He’s clearing the way,” Bjorn called out, redirecting Ibuki.

  “Incoming contacts,” Lydia reported.

  “He knows Doyle’s in there,” Mao said, grasping the control globes. “Disable stealth protocols and optimize for speed. We’re the closest to Doyle.” Mao took manual control, banking the ship sharply. The debris field seemed to spin around them.

  “Diana, we need support,” Bjorn said.

  “No,” Mao countered. “Their communications are broken: no line of sight, no visual code. We handle these guys in here, and they won’t be able to report back that they’ve found either us or Doyle. Keep all four fighters in the open. Don’t give Tenbrook any reason to send more ships in here.”

  It felt like a dream. Bjorn controlled the distant battle while in the midst of another one.

  Mao attacked head-on, the Lydia charging in with blinding, undulating webs of targeted plasma beams flashing out from her forward and starboard batteries. The commander’s goal wasn’t to score kills; it was to draw attention to herself. The Lydia was well armed, but it was armed for combat, not assassination; that was what the fighters were for. The Lydia alone couldn’t simply make ships vanish.

  The pirates fired back in earnest.

  The Lydia rocked, and the AI gave a warning about shield integrity. If Mao cared, she didn’t let on.

  The Everwings were being forced to keep their distance from Perdita, which had surrounded itself with an ever-shifting shield of jumping ships.

  Diana and the others were still devastating Tenbrook’s ships with relative impunity, but it seemed that was a price Tenbrook was willing to pay in the short term.

  That had to mean something, and Bjorn could think of only one thing. Tenbrook had another plan.

  Perdita began to advance, bringing its protection with it. Tenbrook must have gone out of his way to collect every fighter and drone he possibly could, because they were out in numbers. There were swarms of them, the pilot of each hoping for a chance collision with an Everwing.

  “Impact,” Golding called out. Feeling a spike of panic, Bjorn saw her decelerate dramatically, her fighter obviously destabilized. All three other fighters converged on Golding as the pirates took aim at her, forcing every targeting computer in the fleet to recalculate to take them into account—then they were gone, and so was Golding, before the computers could catch up.

  Bjorn let out his breath as she accelerated away, the pirates’ fire arriving half a second too late. She’d only struck a glancing blow against a ship jumping in; if it had been a true collision, Tenbrook would’ve had more than enough time to destroy her despite the efforts of the other pilots.

  The four pilot feeds beside his grid were all different. Diana looked elated. Ibuki wanted to get even for Compton. Sergeant Golding wore an expression of intense concentration, as did Major Morel.

  Lydia was warning Mao that she was pushing the reactor too hard. Bjorn didn’t blame her for being liberal with her plasma fire. She wasn’t shooting at just enemy ships, but also at the debris, to create more debris to mask them.

  Mao wasn’t listening to the AI anymore. Bjorn could hear her humming the Evagardian anthem.

  Tenbrook was getting closer. Caught between the remnants of this strike force and Perdita, the Lydia would be done for. They couldn’t get away, not as long as Doyle was still there.

  An alert flashed.

  “Doyle’s spinning up,” Bjorn called out.

  “About time,” Mao said through gritted teeth, rolling the ship out of the path of a hail of projectiles. Proximity mines were detonating on the shields with terrible regularity. The pirates were just throwing them out by the dozen, and Mao wasn’t even remotely interested in avoiding them.

  “Tenbrook’s charging his fusion cannon,” Bjorn announced.

  “It’s Doyle’s output,” Mao replied. “That much power has to show up despite all this. Tenbrook’s targeting him. But he doesn’t have time; Doyle will jump before he can fire. We’ll do a hot pickup, Bjorn. Plot me a course. We’re all getting out of here together.”

  “All units recall,” Bjorn ordered the pilots. “Doyle’s getting ready to jump.”

  Mao’s intended course materialized on Bjorn’s grid, and he plotted clean, conservative vectors for the fighters to return to the Lydia. It would have to be fast; once Tenbrook knew what they were doing, the game was up.

  “We’ll need an emergency burn,” Bjorn told Mao. “The timing’ll be tight.”

  “Just make sure they all know where to be.”

  “Doyle’s away.” Bjorn clearly saw the Sunbath jump out.

  “Godspeed.”

  Bjorn felt a slight chill. “Tenbrook’s still charging.”

  “If he thinks he can hit us with a fusion cannon, then I’ve been giving him too much credit,” Mao said. They emerged from the debris field, barreling toward Perdita, and the four fighters circli
ng it. None of the enemy pilots were even sparing a glance for the Lydia; they were all desperately flickering their shields in fear of the fighters, and struggling to get out of the cannon’s path.

  “We’re close enough,” Mao said. “Bring them in. We’re going home.”

  30

  “THE signature’s different,” Bjorn reported as he finalized the paths for the fighters to return to the Lydia. Syncing with Bjorn’s plan, all four Everwings streaked away from Perdita.

  “Don’t worry about the cannon,” Mao snapped. “Get my pilots in safe.”

  “Why isn’t he powering it down?” Bjorn shot back.

  “I don’t give a damn! If he was targeting us, we’d know.”

  “He’s not targeting us.” Bjorn blinked, looking down at the grid. “Why isn’t he targeting us?”

  “Coming in hot,” Ibuki was saying over the com.

  “Abort,” Bjorn said suddenly, canceling the vectors. “Abort. Do not return. Commander, evasive!”

  It was too late. The viewport couldn’t keep up; the flash was so sudden and intense that both Bjorn and Mao were blinded.

  Bjorn remembered putting himself in Tenbrook’s position during the first battle. How did you fight something you couldn’t see? How did you defend against ships that were too fast to catch? Ships that couldn’t be tracked, couldn’t be targeted?

  Couldn’t even be destroyed with a single successful hit?

  You used a weapon that couldn’t be hidden from. A weapon that couldn’t be avoided. Tenbrook had made some alterations to his fusion cannon.

  It was no longer a weapon of precision. What emerged from the cannon wasn’t the projectile Bjorn expected. It was a vast inferno.

  The fighters peeled away in time, but Mao’s attempt to get the Lydia clear was far too late. The Lydia was struck at the aft, and the impact was too much for the ship’s gravity drive to compensate for. Bjorn was thrown forward against his straps, then jerked back. His eyes burned, and white and black spots swam across his vision.