Yes, the arrogance and pride of the Terrans can always be relied upon.
A battle at Larissa was the perfect opportunity to rid himself of his enemies at home and further afield. To give the impression the battle was real he’d been forced to sacrifice his own nephew and a sizable contingent of Carian ships.
“My Lord, they say the Terrans have...”
Tissaphernes lifted his hand to silence the automaton. He had been so busy contemplating his own short and long-term plans that the pathetic scouts had slipped his mind. The mere mention of them increased his blood pressure.
“Silence!”
When I arrive at Larissa, I will finish them off, and all of this will have been worthwhile. Who knows, that fool Qahreman might even survive this.
This seemed to calm him, and he tried to imagine how the fight might be going.
Ah well, if not...I can always get another nephew!
He looked back to his officers. They had pleaded with him before engaging the jump engines, but he had no time for their whining. The light cruisers were heavily damaged by the destruction of the Terran vessel, and he’d been sent requests for rescue parties, engineers, and even an assault party to help defend against a fully-fledged assault. He considered both of the Khanda class light cruisers to be lost; it was only a matter of minutes or hours before it would be decided.
I left them an escort. They should be thankful for that.
The thought of the Zacynthian warship put a smile on his face. It was one of the smallest ships in his fleet and nothing more than a token gesture for the survivors on the Khanda cruisers.
That will take care of yet another one of my Zacynthian friends.
He had tried to protest, but he had been given no leeway on this one thing. On the personal orders of the God King, he had been forced to make use of the Terran mercenaries. He had considered wasting them on scouting or patrols, but Dukas Phalinus had asked the Emperor for the opportunity for his forces to show their true strength. Tissaphernes spotted a chance and had offered him to lead the main contingent into battle alongside his own Leleges forces. By stripping out a number of the larger ships, he had reduced the effective power and chances for success for Phalinus. All under the guise of keeping a flexible reserve a short distance from Larissa. This left the primary fleet under strength for the job, but he knew the pig-headed arrogance of the Terrans would demand they fought, and hopefully died.
Either way, I win.
“I do not care. Tell them to deal with it themselves. I have a battle to win. Send a message to Darbabad Forouzandeh. I want her division of ships to meet with the rest of our forces at Larissa.”
The automaton almost spoke but quickly returned to his duties.
He then looked back at the new chief engineer for Vairya.
“Now, how soon until we arrive at the assembly point?”
The automaton bowed.
“Six minutes, My Lord.”
“Then ensure every crew member is at their station and ready.”
“My Lord.”
The Darbabad nodded smartly and then left to give his own orders. Tissaphernes watched him leave. As his eyes moved from right to left, he surveyed the damage on board his own ship, and it filled him with a bitter anger inside. At least a hundred automatons must have been killed or injured, due to the damage from the destroyed Terran cruiser and the large debris field it had created. That concerned him far less than the fact a mere light cruiser had been able to hurt his precious command ship. He looked down at the myriad of automatons and lifted his lip slightly.
“We will meet with the rest of the fleet in less than six minutes. We will stay no longer than is necessary to change course, re-spool our engines, and align the fleet. You will all fight at Larissa, and we will personally deal the final blow to their Titans.”
He expected something, a cheer, or a glimmer of pride. Instead, he saw nothing but emptiness in the eyes of his automatons. They carried out their tasks with no great pride or pleasure; it was a duty to them, nothing more.
Pathetic. When I claim all of Ionia, I will make changes, he thought.
The border worlds of Ionia were regions of space long contended with the Terrans. Over hundreds of years both sides had settled and counter settled worlds and moons, only to be evicted by the next warlord. Tissaphernes had been commanded to calm the region by the personal decree of the Emperor.
Yes, I will take best of both and create something never seen before in the Empire.
* * *
Median Battleship ‘Sraosha’, Larissa System, Core Worlds
Xenophon waited patiently and began to wonder if Xenias had decided against his request. Communications traffic outside of the ship was becoming more and more erratic. That moment of doubt spread throughout his entire body, and he wondered what would happen to them now. If Xenias failed to act, then they would be forced to deal with this situation on their own, and he had strong doubts they could come out on top. They were outnumbered and facing a large unit of skilled, heavily armed, and armoured Terran mercenaries. The enemy commander was shielded both by them and an energy unit powered directly from the ship.
You fool, you should have stayed with Xenias.
He enjoyed the soldier’s life, much more actually than he would ever have expected. Nonetheless, his real skill came in strategy and tactics, not in the blunt end of combat. It reminded him of the last words of Clearchus on Cunaxa.
“Xenophon?” asked Artemas.
He turned his eyes to look at her, and for what must have been the first time could see fear there. They had been in difficult situations before, but this was different. They were completely exposed, high off the ground level, and facing a deadly enemy. But his thoughts vanished in a flash when he spotted a white light above him. He had time but not much, and he used it to throw himself down to the ground. Artemas began to do the same as the flash rushed through the ship. The shockwave was so great it knocked everyone standing to the ground.
Only Xenophon and Artemas had managed to grab onto the consoles nearby. Glaucon must have sensed it earlier because he’d held onto a pipe on the right while Roxana and Tamara had been knocked further to the side of the raised open space.
“Now!” called out Glaucon.
He was the first to break cover and rushed at the Zacynthians. Without his pulse cannon, he was forced to make do with nothing more than his pistol. He didn’t even bother withdrawing his kopis blade and dashed into the middle of the group, shooting dead the first three Terran mercenaries. He looked back to Xenophon and waved with his pistol.
“Come on!”
Two of the Terrans climbed to their feet, but Glaucon kicked one to the floor and place the pistol to the other’s forehead.
“Stay down, boy!”
Xenophon rushed in to assist his friend and held the deadly looking Laconian weapon out at the scattered and fallen Zacynthians. One reached for a firearm. Xenophon responded with a double blast to his leg. The pulse rounds at this range blew a fist-sized hole through the armour and sent the poor man reeling in pain. Artemas arrived next, ignored the fallen and wounded around them, and pointed to where the enemy commander had been.
“Where is he?”
Xenophon climbed up to the slightly raised level to find the shield generator off-line and the commander’s cloak strewn on the floor. He looked down to his comrades.
“Dammit, we need him!”
“Over here!” shouted Tamara.
All three turned their attention to the teenager. She had spotted movement on the bridge section leading to the next level. Small numbers of Median soldiers moved from cover, but they were in groups of two of three and quickly forced back by gunfire coming from the command deck of the ship. One took aim at Glaucon, only for a blade to appear out of his sternum. A squad of Laconian spatharii rushed up the ramp to meet them while one of their commanders pulled back his Asgeirr-Carbine from the mortally wounded Median warrior.
“Chirisophus must have got his
act together,” muttered Glaucon.
Xenophon wasn’t so sure that was the good news his friend thought it was. The Laconians were undoubtedly the masters of ground combat, but these warriors all bore different emblems, showing they had been under the command of various different Komes. Upon spotting these feared warriors moving towards Xenophon and his friends, the remaining Zacynthians threw down their weapons and dropped to their knees in deference.
“Stop him!” shouted Xenophon.
His voice had rose in pitch, partially from the stress and strain of the fight, and also so that he might be heard over the din of the battle. It was a pointless gesture. The communication nodes in all of their helmets allowed crystal clear audio traffic, regardless of background noise and interference at short ranges.
Tamara broke from cover and chased after the tall Medes. From nowhere came the shadows of Median guards, but these were not the equal of the other warriors they had come across. The first two merely presented their bodies for her to gleefully cut down.
“Help her!” complained Roxana.
Artemas moved ahead and found her path blocked by a party of Median soldiers. She parried an attack with her blade, and then the Laconian joined battle. A furious melee ensued, and she found herself stuck in the middle of it. Xenophon ran past and paused only for her to shout at him.
“Keep moving...”
She ducked to avoid a blade and then stabbed the nearest in the throat.
“Stop Qahreman!”
He rushed on with Glaucon at his flank. Roxana tried to assist, but the gunfire from the opposite side of the ship forced her back. They had now moved to a ring-shaped level with a gap in the centre that ran down to the lower levels. Qahreman was on the other side, Tamara hot on his heels. She took aim with her rifle and knocked down a Median soldier that had been taking aim at the teenager. It wasn’t enough to stop a second who managed to strike the girl in the shoulder.
“Bastard!” she cried out, spinning wildly before hitting the ground.
Qahreman stopped and looked down at the injured Terran. His face was very similar to Tissaphernes. In fact he was the spitting image of the man. Xenophon saw all of this and increased his pace rather than waiting to take aim. More Medes soldiers appeared as if from thin air, and he began to find progress was slowed. More Laconians arrived, but the throng was doing its job. At least a dozen Medes had locked shoulder to block the path and presented thick armoured shields and pulse rifles in their direction.
Interesting, he thought. They are finally learning the value of Terran equipment and training.
It was the kind of topic he would have found fascinating to discuss with Glaucon, but the midst of battle was hardly the preferred time.
“Get back, brother,” said Glaucon.
Xenophon moved as suggested, noting his friend had recovered his massive pulse cannon. The weapon was not standard issue by any means, but since recovering it, he had never let another person touch it. He took aim at the centre of the line and held down the trigger. His stance settled back as he put his weight into the weapon to maintain a near continuous burst. By the time he stopped, half of the Medes were dead, and the others were ducking down behind the cover offered by their dead comrades.
“I’ll take care of this. Go and help Tamara.”
Xenophon didn’t hesitate, hurtled himself over the group and past them to the other side of the circular walkway. Qahreman watched his approach and placed his feet apart, adopting a fighting posture unlike anything Xenophon had seen before. Xenophon slid alongside his friend and bent down to lift her up. Incredibly, she was unhurt. The armour had absorbed the bulk of the impact, though he suspected the bruising would be impressive.
“You ready?” he asked.
Tamara coughed and then lifted both her hands, each containing a blood soaked kopis blade. Xenophon grinned and then pointed his right fist at their enemy. The razor sharp weapon Clearchus had wielded for so long pointed at the chest of the Median leader.
“I’ve said it already. This is your last chance. Surrender your ship and end this fight, or face complete destruction.”
The Medes noble laughed and cursed in his own tongue. He was taller than he appeared from a distance, easily a head taller than Xenophon, perhaps a little more again. His armour was a work of art and fitted him like a glove. His helm fitted so closely it was impossible to see where flesh ended and plate began. Yet it was the two short sagaris battle-axes that made his throat catch. These were not the clumsy weapons of old, but slender handles with heavy cutting blades running to a point.
“No, my Terran friend, it is you.”
The Median commander extended the weapon in his left hand towards the great battle that was taking place throughout the ship.
“Surrender now or you will be on your way to destruction!”
Tamara looked to Xenophon with a tight brow.
“Did he just say what I thought he said?”
Xenophon laughed and hurled himself forward at the mighty figure.
“So be it!” he roared.
Tamara reached him first and slid past to avoid the swinging axe. It was close, but she was as fast as even a Medes assassin. Xenophon stopped short and stabbed with his right hand. Qahreman batted the attack away with a rapid parry and brought his right hand down. Xenophon carried a fallen Median akinakes dagger and parried the attack, but only just. The weapon buckled under the weight of the strike, and part of the crossguard near his fingers splintered away.
“Now!” cried Tamara.
Xenophon couldn’t see the opening, but he stabbed with Clearchus’ heirloom, feeling the satisfying crunch as it punched into the thin armour along Qahreman’s left flank. He ripped out the weapon and struck again, but something lifted him high, and he was hurled across the air and crashed to the ground. The impact of his landing sent him sprawling along the polished black floor. The only thought he had as he moved was that he had to keep from the edge or he would fall to his death. He flayed about but succeeded in only rolling over twice before coming to a stop. He lay on his back, his vision blurred before he started to panic. Xenophon looked to his left, then his right. A shape rushed at him, and he lifted his arm to finds he was being lifted back up by Roxana.
“It’s Xenias. He hit us again. Next time tell him to stop after the first volley.”
She smiled, and he thanked the Gods she had been close enough to grab him. He squinted and looked at her face, but he was sure there was something wrong. It took a second or two before he picked up on the taut muscles in her cheeks.
She’s in pain.
He looked down and saw three small puncture wounds on her chest. His heart pulsed with a burst of adrenalin at seeing them. He had known Roxana for many years now, and although she was older than him, they had been good friends. She and Glaucon were the only real links he had back to his home on Attica, since being forcibly exiled during the rule of the Thirty Tyrants. That thought of home sent a charged feeling of bitterness through him. His father had died, and he knew exactly who had been the cause of it.
“Xenophon?” asked Roxana.
He immediately felt guilty for letting his mind wander and turned his attention to his friend. He did his best to smile and then looked down, dreading to see what had happened to her. The small puncture wounds were tiny, yet from each a trickle of dark red blood ran down to her navel.
“What happened to...”
She put her hand on his mouth.
“Not now, we need to finish him.”
She straightened him up and handed him a kopis blade, one of the many weapons now littering the decks of the ship. Just five metres away were Qahreman and Tamara engaged in a deadly duel. Tamara was quick and managed to inflict a number of light stabs to the taller fighter. Qahreman swung the axes with deadly precision. One strike was all it would take to end the fight in his favour. Glaucon had arrived, and he’d stumbled into the fight, only to find the speed of Qahreman to be too much. Two blows to his cuirass, and he had
staggered back, shaking his head.
“What the hell do we do now?”
Artemas and two Arcadians arrived. She rushed ahead, but Xenophon grabbed her and held her back. Whether by instinct or accident, he saved her from the threat of four more Zacynthians who must have escaped from earlier. Each carried an aspis shield in their hands; a large device fitted with a low power shield and kopis blades. Xenophon looked at them and back to Artemas.
“Get him near the edge.”
She raised a questioning eyebrow but he said no more.
“Glaucon, help her.”
His friend lifted himself painfully towards Qahreman, who simply laughed as the Terrans tried to overwhelm him. One of the Arcadians ran in too close and received a blow to his temple from one of the deadly sagaris battle-axes. He crashed to the ground, nothing but a lifeless corpse. Glaucon, Roxana, Artemas, and Tamara all moved in to the fight, with just Xenophon staying back to survey the battle. A Zacynthian broke ranks and ran at him.
Come on! Get him to the edge!
The Zacynthian was on him and surprisingly good with his sword and shield. Xenophon beat aside the attacks from the Terran’s own kopis, but every time he returned the blow, it was deflected from the shielded aspis. The warrior managed to strike him with the edge of the shield, and to Xenophon’s surprise, he found himself down on one knee and reeling from the powerful blow. A quick glance to his right showed him that his friends were still busy fighting Qahreman, and his handful of guards in the confusion had no idea what was actually happening.
It’s now or never!
The signal to Dukas Xenias was short and coded. There was no acknowledgement, just the mighty rumble as the victorious Terran warships opened fire on the battleship once more. This time the impact knocked three warriors from the ledge they were fighting along, but Qahreman remained upright. Xenophon looked to the left, but all his comrades were either on the ground or hanging off the edge of the ledge. Glaucon hung by just one hand, and Roxana lay flat on her belly trying to help him.
Black Legion: 04 - Last Stand Page 19
