Tree of Liberty

by Wayne Basta

  Had that all been a mistake? Had he started a war with the Alliance for nothing? Lost in his own thoughts and self-doubt, he allowed himself to be moved back to his cell without another word.

  Things weren’t going as well as Katerina would have liked. The Dotran commander had proved far more cautious and determined than the ones she had last faced. She had been unable to extricate her fleet from two Dotran divisions. Likewise, she had been unable to push the battle closer to Ailleroc, leaving the ground defenses mostly useless.

  “We’ve just lost the Melbourne,” Dolan said, his tone showing uncharacteristic signs of emotion.

  That was the third ship in the fleet to be destroyed or completely disabled. Every ship had taken damage to some degree. While they had done just as much damage to the Dotran fleet, in the long run, being outnumbered meant that equal damage would be a win for the Dotran.

  “All ships, emergency jump to standby coordinates alpha,” Katerina said, deciding on a new tactic. “All fighters, emergency burn to Ailleroc. No retrieval.”

  Dolan gave the smallest hint of a frown but said nothing as he relayed her orders. No one wanted to retreat. In fact, no one would have thought the great Admiral Sartori would ever consider it, she mused to herself. But she wouldn’t let the legend keep her from doing what was necessary.

  The capital ships started engaging their hyperdrives as soon as they had a clear line of departure, while the fleet’s fighter craft engaged their engines, headed back to Ailleroc. They were small and fast enough to get past the Dotran capital ships pinning the fleet in. It would likely cost the lives of several fighter pilots, especially all those adrift from ejecting, but most would make it through. Trying to retrieve them to the carriers would cost more lives in delays.

  A nauseous feeling passed over Katerina as her ship jumped. It lasted only a few seconds, as the rendezvous point was a short distance outside the Roc system. The jump point was merely a way of keeping the Dotran ships from ascertaining their final destination.

  Several minutes went by while the rest of the fleet appeared at the jump coordinates. After a quarter of an hour, not all the ships had appeared, and Katerina was forced to assume that they were losses. Fortunately, they only amounted to a gunship and an escort carrier. She hated losing any ship, but those were the weakest in the fleet.

  “All ships transmit damage reports and shield status to the flagship,” she ordered.

  As the data filtered in, she watched the indicators for the fleet’s shields. The time away from the fight allowed the crews to make emergency repairs and the shield generators to power up. Not for the first time, she wished for the regenerative shield technology the rebels had stolen and somehow gotten to work.

  She ignored incoming communication requests from the task force and task group commanders. They wanted to know her plan, but until she knew whether it was feasible, she didn’t want to share it. If the fleet’s condition had deteriorated below combat-capable, she wouldn’t send them back in to die.

  Finally satisfied that repairs had restored enough ships to fighting condition, she ordered, “All ships, I’m transmitting jump coordinates. Rig ships for silent running. We’ll be operating under radio silence.”

  At her order, the fleet once again jumped to hyperspace. They emerged seconds later back in the Roc system, in a very close orbit of Ailleroc. With all the ships from the fleet running silent, no active scans were performed, and the tactical display remained blank.

  “Major Anderson, link us with the Ailleroc orbital satellite system,” Katerina ordered.

  Soon, limited data began appearing on the tactical display. The defense satellites weren’t as accurate as a ship’s sensor suite, but they did provide full coverage of the space around Ailleroc. As she suspected, the Dotran fleet had remained in an orbit that placed them over the planet’s biggest ocean—their weakest defense points, where defense batteries were scattered wider than was ideal due to the limited availability of land to build them on.

  This ocean currently lay on the other side of Ailleroc from Katerina’s fleet. Hopefully, with their limited energy emissions, any scout ships the Dotran fleet had observing this side of the planet wouldn’t have detected her fleet’s appearance. The Dotran should be unaware of her return to the fight.

  Activating the fleet’s comm, she sent a low-power signal to the nearby ships. “Transmitting deployment orders. Maintain radio silence and keep energy emissions low except for shields. Begin powering up to full strength. Link with satellite network for target data.”

  The ships of the fleet began moving again, breaking out in task-force formations. They spread out around Ailleroc in all directions. She had timed it so all ships would cross the terminus of the planet and gain line of sight on the Dotran fleet at the same time.

  The slow orbits necessary to achieve the maneuver added another long period of waiting. This time, she didn’t mind. Every minute spent slowly orbiting meant another minute crews had to repair their ships. While the Dotran were undoubtedly doing the same, they were still engaged with the planetary batteries.

  As they passed over Ailleroc, the ship’s passive sensors started picking up signs of the Dotran fleet. Weapon energy signatures and engine emissions reached them. Combining this data with the satellite network, her ships would now be able to make targeting solutions.

  With a grim smile, Katerina transmitted another order: “All ships, commence firing.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Punching through the Alliance troops’ shield, even with their limited fuel supply, had taken longer than Saracasi would have liked. They had finally succeeded and laid waste to the previously protected troops and equipment. A small part of her felt bad about the slaughter, but it was overruled by the knowledge that the Alliance had done the same thing to the Enroian defenders when the MEF had arrived.

  Fracsid’s gunships had started to return from their recon missions, and the news gave her both hope and apprehension. There had been no sign of the Alliance forces over Sulas, Kol, or Cardine. In fact, there hadn’t been any Alliance forces over Sulas. Where before the planet had been under a massive blockade, now there was nothing.

  Had the Sulas force and MEF combined forces somewhere? Either one was more powerful than the Union’s entire navy. Together, they would be unstoppable. Perhaps Admiral Sartori had decided that small, equal-strength task forces protecting every world in the sector was giving Saracasi’s fleet the advantage. If that were the case, it meant Saracasi would have more freedom to move about but would have to avoid battle.

  The other possibility worried her. If the Alliance had somehow gotten word of the approaching Confederate fleet, Sartori could be setting up an ambush for them. She had discussed this possibility with Bryel, but he had dismissed it as impossible.

  Even if it were true, and Saracasi had proof of it, there was little she could do about it. The Confederate fleet would be making its first appearance in the sector in the attack on Ailleroc. The only way to warn them would be show up in the system—potentially alerting the Alliance if they were unaware, or getting her fleet destroyed if there was an ambush.

  Her comm device buzzed, and Saracasi reached for it from where she lay on her bed. “Yes?”

  “Commodore, the Durandall II has returned,” the officer of the deck, OOD, told her.

  Ar’cher’s ship had been sent to Irod—the furthest away—and was the last gunship to return. Now Saracasi would know, at the very least, where the Alliance wasn’t. “Patch me through to Captain Ar’cher.”

  A moment later, Eri’dos’s gravelly voice came over the speaker. “Yeah? What is it?” Eri’dos Ar’cher had been with the Union before there was a Union, yet he still made no effort to conform to military protocol. Saracasi ignored it.

  “Captain, what’s the word from Irod?”

  “The word’s nothing. System’s clear, as far as we could tell,” Eri’dos said.

  Responding to him in kind, Saracasi shut the comm channel without
another word and called the OOD back. “Wake Captains Brieni, Needa, Relis, and Novastar. Set up a conference for ten minutes. Then signal all ship captains we’ll be meeting in half an hour.”

  Saracasi climbed out of bed and hopped into the shower. The conference would be done via computer link, but she hated working while feeling dirty. It was close enough to when she normally got up, and since she had already been awake for the last hour, she had no plan to return to bed. After the quick shower, she pulled on a fresh uniform and took a seat at the room’s desk right at ten minutes.

  She connected to the conference and found her four senior commanders waiting for her. Solyss, like always, had an immaculately pressed and clean uniform, not looking at all like he had been woken in the middle of the night. By contrast, Fracsid was still rubbing his eyes and hadn’t dressed for the day, though fortunately his pajamas were decent.

  “Gentlemen, our last recon ship has returned. As of a few days ago, no Alliance ships have been spotted at any world in the sector. We only didn’t get eyes on Ailleroc, due to their distance from here, nor Dantyne or Mirthod, due to our lack of gunships. I find it unlikely they’ve gone to either of those worlds. That leads me to two possibilities. One, the Alliance has combined their forces at Ailleroc, either to meet the incoming Confederate fleet or by sheer coincidence. Or, two, they’re planning a massive assault somewhere and were either in transit or waiting in deep space during our recon visits,” Saracasi said, laying out her thoughts.

  Davidus nodded in approval of her assessment. “The most likely explanation is that the Alliance gained intel on the Dotran fleet. They undoubtedly have a strong spy network in the Confederacy, and we can’t rule out that there are still spies among us.”

  The fact that he made that point, potentially implicating himself, was particularly poignant, but Saracasi had already made the decision to trust him completely. “I agree. That means we have two choices: rush to Ailleroc and try to help the Confederate fleet, or take advantage of some undefended worlds.”

  “What about that report we got about the Dotran showing up on Kol and attacking our shipyard?” Fracsid asked.

  Saracasi frowned. She hadn’t liked the sound of that report. The Dotran turning on them would be an insurmountable problem. But it had just been a rumor received from some transport crews, and she couldn’t make decisions based on rumors.

  “If it’s true, then it means the Dotran have already engaged the Alliance and survived. If it’s not, which I tend to believe, then it’s just a rumor. Transport crews are prone to exaggeration.

  “Mirthod and Dantyne have been clear of Alliance ships since we chased them away a few months ago. I ruled them out as locations for the Alliance fleet, given their relative strategic unimportance. But this may be our best chance to liberate Sulas,” Saracasi concluded.

  On the screen, Solyss frowned. “Isn’t General Dustlighter leading an effort to do just that right now?”

  Saracasi nodded. “He is. We may be able to help him.”

  “What about the planetary defense guns?” Fracsid asked. “If the general hasn’t recaptured any of the batteries, they’ll tear us to shreds. The fleet has grown a lot since the last battle there, but we still don’t have any cruisers. Our only heavy ship is the Black Market, and she’s not at peak fighting shape.”

  “He’s right,” Davidus said. “A battle carrier would normally be able to withstand an attack from defense batteries for a reasonable amount of time—at least long enough to provide some support to ground forces—but I wouldn’t want to try it for very long in our condition.”

  Saracasi frowned. Gaining control of the Black Market was supposed to have opened up those kinds of options to her, but due to the lack of dry-dock maintenance after years in deep space and all the modifications the Fox had made, the ship was almost more of a liability. She still had lots of guns, at least.

  “I still think Sulas is the best option,” Sarcasi said. “Even our threat might be able to help General Dustlighter. According to the timeline Commander Prytoker gave us, the Confederate fleet has already reached Ailleroc. If the Alliance set a trap for them, it’s already been sprung.

  “We’ve already deployed what few troops we have to help the Enroians. As we’ve discovered, our orbital bombardment ability is lacking in effectiveness. And if the Alliance fleet survives the confrontation with the Dotran, which, given Admiral Sartori’s reputation, we all have to accept as a very real possibility, we can’t face the combined fleet, making us useless as a defensive force. So we’re going to Sulas, unless anyone has another suggestion or objection,” Saracasi said.

  When no one said anything, she briefly hoped they weren’t holding anything back. She really did want to know if this plan was idiotic—or even more idiotic than she already knew it was. In the end, though, the decision fell to her.

  “How’s the shield holding?” Zeric asked, unable to keep his nervousness from his voice.

  “Well, we’re not dead yet. So, pretty good,” Ymp said, her tone sarcastic.

  Zeric frowned and gave her a dark look. “Very funny. You know what I meant.”

  “We’ve drained fuel from everything on the base we could find. The Alliance didn’t leave us much,” Ymp said.

  Outside the shield bubble around their captured base, the Alliance had rows of artillery and tanks arrayed, firing blaster shots into the protective field. They had been doing this for several days already. Zeric felt very fortunate that Lahkaba had succeeded in getting the orbiting fleet away. Had the more powerful guns aboard the cruiser and carriers been in use, this siege would have ended long ago.

  “Well, at least the Alliance didn’t really expect us to take the base,” Zeric said. “Otherwise, they would have brought in heavier artillery or wouldn’t have left the shield functional at all—like they did with those defense guns.”

  After securing the base, Zeric’s forces had discovered that the guns used to defend Sulas from orbital attack had been disabled. They were working on repairing them, but they hadn’t been able to find the necessary parts. The Alliance had done this as insurance, in case their trap failed.

  Although the shield functioned, most of the base’s deuterium fuel supply had been removed, leaving them little power to operate it. What they had would last for a while in maintenance mode, but while being bombarded, the shield drained more power.

  He wasn’t confident they would even outlast the shield. A massive array of Alliance troops had been assembled outside the base. They had arrived too quickly to have come from other parts of Sulas but hadn’t been deployed in advance. However the Alliance had known about his attack against this base, they hadn’t known the exact details. Otherwise, he doubted they’d have ever gotten inside the base in the first place.

  “So, how long until Armageddon?” Zeric asked.

  “Just under a day,” Ymp said grumpily.

  “Still no luck breaking the jamming?”

  Ymp shook her eyestalks back and forth in imitation of a Terran shaking their head “no.” “No luck. It’s a pretty tight field.”

  “So, no way to tell our friends to pick up the timetable,” Zeric said with a sigh. “Well, we succeeded in getting the Alliance’s attention focused on us. So, in that sense, the plan has been a rousing success.”

  “You never planned to live through it, anyway,” Ymp said bluntly.

  Pretending she had just made a joke, Zeric said nervously, “I don’t expect to survive any of my plans. They’re my plans, after all.”

  An awkward silence hung in the air for a long moment. Ymp said nothing in reply, and Zeric knew she hadn’t bought it. He said nothing more, though. If she wanted to continue this line of questioning, she would have to do so all on her own.

  “I notice you haven’t been drinking,” Ymp said.

  “We’re in the middle of a siege. Plus, there’s no booze,” Zeric replied.

  “The base commander’s office had a full liquor cabinet,” Ymp said. “Ever since you had to t
ake command of this military, I haven’t seen you without a drink of some type in your hand, but then you insist on leading this very dangerous mission—something a general should never do—and you stop drinking. I can only conclude you’re prepared to die.”

  Zeric frowned. “Have I really been drinking that much?”

  Ymp just stared back at him.

  “All right, maybe I have. But I didn’t stop because I’m ready to die. I don’t want to die. I actually feel more alive than I have in a while. I’m not cut out to lead from behind a desk, if I’m even cut out to lead at all.

  “If friends die beside me on the battlefield, it sucks, but at least I know I was right there beside them. When friends die because I ordered them to do something while I sat safely behind the lines, I can’t stand it. So I won’t do it anymore. Maybe that makes me a terrible general, but you know, I always said I’d be a terrible general.”

  Ymp said nothing for a while. She was never one to hold back a rebuke for his behavior, so he wondered how bad her comment would be. Finally, she said, “Actually, I think it makes you a great leader. Though you’re right, it does make you a terrible general.”

  Zeric chuckled and then more grimly said, “Well, doesn’t really matter anymore. In the next few hours, unless we can hold out longer, I’ll become a very dead general, whether I want to or not.”

  After Katerina’s fleet had returned to Ailleroc, refreshed and moving in for a sneak attack, repelling the Dotran assault had happened quickly. Fortunately, she had lost no more ships and had destroyed several Dotran ones before they had fled. She had expected the enemy fleet to return soon after, but it had been more than a week without a sign of them.

  Unfortunately, while she had defeated the Dotran, the battle had been costly. Six ships had been completely destroyed and several more were in need of repairs that would take months, all while a rebel fleet was still out there somewhere.