Echoes of Glory (Blood on the Stars Book 4)

  Echoes of Glory

  Blood on the Stars IV

  Jay Allan

  Copyright © 2017 Jay Allan Books

  All Rights Reserved

  Contents

  Blood on the Stars Series

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  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Epilogue

  The Crimson Worlds Series

  Blood on the Stars Series

  (Available on Kindle Unlimited)

  Duel in the Dark (Blood on the Stars I)

  Call to Arms (Blood on the Stars II)

  Ruins of Empire (Blood on the Stars III)

  Echoes of Glory (Blood on the Stars IV)

  Introducing the

  Flames of Rebellion Series

  (Published by Harper Voyager)

  Flames of Rebellion (Book I)

  Rebellion’s Fury (Book II) – Fall 2017

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  Chapter One

  Excerpt from the Meditations of Tarkus Vennius

  I was born a slave, in thrall to those who had conquered my world. I saw my people prostrate before offworld invaders who ruled every aspect of my planet. Yet, my own bondage was short-lived, my memories of servitude few and fleeting. When I was still a child, I saw my parents and their brethren throw off the chains that had bound us for a century, and drive the invaders from our world, cleansing mother Palatia with their blood. The cost was immense in death and suffering, yet no price was too high to reclaim our freedom…and our honor. Those who died in that first epic struggle are memorialized forever on the Wall of Heroes, their sacrifices remembered with almost religious fervor by those who followed.

  I came of age amid war and strife, and as a young man I took my place in the battle lines. The task of securing independence had fallen to the generation that preceded me. For mine, the duty was to preserve it, expand it, and to secure vengeance—the blood price of a hundred years of Palatian slavery and misery.

  We burst from our homeworld, our fervor unmatched, the cries of millions of murdered ancestors driving us on. We wrought unimaginable devastation on our enemies, killing without mercy. Those who had once called themselves our masters were slaughtered in their multitudes, and the survivors were brought back in their own chains, to spend their lives toiling in the mines and factories to build the Alliance. Their worlds were left silent wastelands, naught but the sound of the wind whipping through the abandoned ruins that had been their cities. Thus was it that the Palatians repaid those who had shamed and humbled us.

  I am an old man now, most of my life behind me, a legacy of service and battle. That nascent Alliance, whose new flag I followed to my first wars, is now a powerful nation, spanning thirty systems and fifteen billion human beings. The way we chose—the only way we could have chosen—is hard, not only on our warriors, but even more on the subjugated. For Palatia rules the Alliance, and those defeated in battle are at the mercy of their conquerors. For a people fresh with the memory of murder and slavery, pity is a sparse resource.

  Now I look at what we have built, and for the first time I am filled with doubts. The strength that forged the Alliance was wrought in the fires of subjugation, of shame and misery. But Palatia’s nightmare will pass from living memory with the last of my generation, and the future will belong to those who have lived their entire lives in strength, in triumph. There is resolution still among us, for we have raised our children and grandchildren to respect our ways. But can lessons and texts and songs sung of the past replace the cold remembrance of a conqueror’s lash, of loved ones tortured and killed?

  Though I have shared these thoughts with no one, I have begun to fear for the Alliance, to wonder if the iron strength that built and preserved it can endure the loss of our abstemious ways. Can battle waged for plunder and wealth sustain our core as powerfully as combat fought for honor, and for dedication to the state? Will we remain honorable warriors, tough but principled? Or will we become little more than organized pirates, our strength existing only to enrich the coffers of our most powerful families?

  Another thought plagues me, one I dare not speak of, nor even allow myself to believe. Did the Alliance I remember ever truly exist? Did the warriors at my side so many years ago serve for honor and country with the selfless purity I’d imagined? Or were the earlier battles I recall fought as much for wealth and material gain as those of today?

  Victorum, Alliance Capital City

  Palatia, Astara II

  Year 61 (310 AC)

  Vennius Tarkus was a hard man, a cold man in the eyes of most of those who served him, the very embodiment of the Palatian warrior elite—tireless, pitiless, strong in a way that made granite seem soft as sand. But in the near-darkness of his palatial office, lit only by the dying embers in the gray stone hearth, there sat a grim figure, hunched over. His usual mask of the indefatigable fighter was set aside for a time, exposing the crushing fatigue of an old man, worn by a hard life and too many sorrows.

  Tarkus was wealthy, and powerful almost beyond imagining. He was respected, feared, lauded as a hero of his people. He had climbed to the very heights of his profession, and the black jacket hanging neatly on the back of his chair bore the platinum starburst, the insignia that identified him as Commander-Maximus, the Alliance’s senior military officer and the commander of its fleet.

  He knew he was envied, even as he was respected, that untold thousands of warriors dreamed of one day rising to his exalted rank. Yet he felt no joy, no satisfaction in his status, none save a vague and waning sense of accomplishment for the Alliance’s decades of victory.

  In truth, he felt used up. His wealth, his estates, his many honors…they brought him little joy. The fawning adoration constantly thrust upon him had actually begun to grate on his patience, even the fraction of it he suspected was sincere and not simply pandering by those who sought advancement and fav
or from him.

  He leaned back in his chair, sighing softly, drawing solace from the crackling of the glowing embers. His mind was deep in thought, as it so often was, but this time there was more there than the analysis of fleet strengths and logistics reports. The images in his mind were mostly from the past, and the desire they evoked in him was one he’d never allowed himself to seriously consider before. Giving up his offices, his exalted rank, and retiring to his estates.

  It was something he knew was impossible. He’d come too far to escape now. No Alliance officer of his rank had ever left the service, and Vennius knew it was his destiny to die in uniform, one way or another. Yet, there was a worse fate even, one he hoped to escape but knew still stalked him. Tarkus Vennius was one of two or three Palatians whose names had been put forth as candidates to succeed the Imperatrix, when that worthy leader finally succumbed to age.

  It was an honor beyond any other, one unthinkable to decline if offered, but Vennius dreaded it above all things. The office was too political to suit his simple soldier’s ways, and he knew his grim and cold mannerisms were a poor fit for the job. But he also understood his odds of elevation were high, perhaps an even money bet. And he knew if he was acclaimed, that once again, escape would elude him.

  He inhaled deeply, holding the full breath for a few seconds before exhaling. He held a tiny tablet in his hand, no larger than ten or twelve square centimeters. His gaze was fixed upon it, on the image of a woman in her mid-30s, looking out from the screen with a broad smile, one that had been directed at Vennius when the photo had been captured. A sad look found its way onto the old man’s face, memories of Katrine Rigellus, from that day and many others, drifting in and out of his thoughts, sapping his usual iron resolve and leaving only a deep sadness in its place.

  Kat had been gone for three years now, yet the wound her loss had opened in Vennius’s heart hadn’t healed. She had been the only child of his best friend, and after Lucius Rigellus’s death in battle, Vennius had cared for Kat, coming to look upon her as his own daughter. He’d given her a father’s love, and savored a parent’s pride in her almost unparalleled series of achievements. She had meant more to him than the offspring of his blood, and he still felt her loss every day.

  His own children had been disappointments to him. They had taken their places in the ranks of Palatia’s warriors, of course, and their privileged statuses had all but assured them of rapid advancement through the ranks. But they were dissolute, at least by Vennius’s hard standards, too distracted by the family’s wealth, and by pursuits in areas far afield from the battlefront. He’d been forced to extricate them from scandals and other difficulties too many times, and for all the decorations and accolades they’d received as his sons, neither of them had an achievement of note to call his own.

  “You were the ideal, my dear Kat, the perfect Palatian Patrician. Millions look up to you still, follow your example. Your sacrifice has immortalized you, and the echoes of your glory shall never fade.” He stared at the image for a few seconds, feeling an unfamiliar sensation, a chink in his icy control, moistness in his eyes. He placed the tablet down on his desk. He wanted to believe all he had just said, to glorify her death, yet there were doubts…and he knew, deep inside, beneath the discipline and indoctrination, that he would trade all Kat’s glory, and all of his own, to see her sitting across his desk, staring back at him with that smile. Even just one more time.

  He sat, still and silent for a moment, and then he turned toward his screen. He ached to sit and nurse his wounds, to indulge his grief, perhaps drown it in a sea of brandy, but there was no time. The demands were still there, the pressures of his posting. The fleet was back to strength, damaged vessels repaired since the last war, destroyed vessels replaced. The Alliance was as strong as it had ever been—stronger even, at least to outward appearances. But not all was well. There was dissension, talk, in the admiralty and on the Council itself, that the Alliance should have joined the Union attack on the Confederation three years before, that the operation that had cost Kat her life had been too timid, too tentative. That Invictus’s defeat should never have been allowed to stay the Alliance’s hand.

  Such talk was fueled, he knew, by the whispers of Union agents and the spreading of Union coin. It cut at him to think that the Alliance he’d devoted his life to serve, to which his beloved foster daughter had given hers, had fallen so far from its ideals that foreign bribes could steer its policy. He longed to disbelieve such a possibility, but the evidence had grown too strong to ignore. He’d sent two Union agents to the scaffold already, but he had no doubt more were plying their trade, whispering in the ears of Alliance officers and buying their cooperation with gold. And, though it pained him deeply to acknowledge it, he was sure many of those officers were listening. The calls were growing louder for the Alliance to declare war on the Confederation, to invade and claim its share of the prize, to weaken the great power that lay closer, and create a buffer against any future Union aggression.

  He’d heard the voices in opposition as well, noble men and women who could not be bought with foreign treasure, standing by the mandates of the proclamation that had sent Kat and Invictus on their final mission. The Confederation had proven its strength, and one of its ships, apparently alone and without aid, had defeated the Alliance’s flagship, and its most decorated Commander-Princeps. It was now three years into the war, they declared, and the Union fleets were stopped along the frontiers, a stalemate that showed no signs of ending soon. Vennius had added his own voice to theirs, and he was sure the Imperatrix agreed. The Confeds appeared to be weak, even Vennius saw that in the disarray of their politics and the indiscipline of their people. But they had a hidden strength that emerged in war. They had shown it in the previous conflicts against the Union, and they were displaying it once again, fighting the larger enemy to a virtual stalemate. No war against them would be short, no victory easy.

  Vennius understood the recent urgency behind the Union appeals, the desperation to draw the Alliance into the conflict before the Confederation could bring its superior industry to bear. Even now, dozens of new ships filled the spacedocks of the Iron Belt worlds, potentially enough force to shatter the deadlock and turn the war decisively against the Union. But Vennius saw no sense in Alliance involvement. The Union was not to be trusted, and an invasion now only risked another stalemate, one where Alliance fleets diverted the new Confederation battleships from the Union frontier. The logistics of an invasion remained difficult, and if the Alliance fleets were bogged down long enough, more Confederation forces would pour out of the shipyards, virtually ensuring a continuing, drawn out conflict.

  Still, for all his certainty, it was difficult to make such an argument too aggressively in public. The way is the way. How many times had he said it? His people did not avoid wars, they did not fear enemies. Alliance arms were invincible. To even suggest otherwise was the basest treason and cowardice.

  No matter how ridiculous it is to claim invincibility, we must continue to do it, to defy rationality in the name of national pride. Kat was our best…and she was defeated. How do they honor her and yet not learn the lesson from her loss?

  “Commander-Maximus…Commander-Princeps Horatius and Commander-Honoris Calavius are here to see you.” He looked up with a start. The voice was firm, emotionless.

  Ah, yes…one of the soldiers…

  Vennius looked up with a start. It was late, and he wasn’t expecting visitors. He’d sent his staff home hours before. Except for the guards…

  That was another change as well in recent months, one he did not like at all. In all his long decades of service, he’d never felt the need to have bodyguards standing outside his office. That had been Horatius’s suggestion. Insistence, more like it.

  He’d resisted his subordinate’s urgings at first, but the more he’d listened to Horatius’s reports the more concerned he’d become. Finally, the other officer had gotten him with a blatant call to consider not his own safety, but
how valuable a hostage he would be. He still found it unthinkable to imagine Alliance warriors moving against a superior officer, but he also knew things had changed, that the Alliance he’d served as a young man was no more. In the end he’d acquiesced, deciding there was no harm in caution.

  “Enter,” he said, trying to hide the concern in his voice. The men had not come to his office unannounced at such an hour with good news…he was sure of that. Certainly not both of them. Calavius was one of the two or three officers in the Alliance of rank almost comparable to his own, and a man he’d called friend for half a century. No, this visit in the middle of the night meant trouble.

  The door slid open, and the two officers walked in.

  “Commander-Maximus…” Horatius snapped to attention.

  Calavius stood next to the junior officer, his pose more relaxed, the expression on his face betraying caution, but none of the nervousness of his comrade. It was a less vertical slope he stared up from his rank to Vennius’s perch than that looming over his companion. “Good evening, Tarkus,” he said, his voice soft, warm, as if speaking not with an exalted officer, but with an old friend. Which he was. The two went back fifty years, to their days as young men, setting out in the hastily-converted freighters and other makeshift craft that had been the first Alliance fleet. “I’d say I was surprised to find you here at this hour, but then this is the first place we looked, so I don’t imagine that would be too convincing.”

  Vennius smiled, briefly and without conviction perhaps, but he managed something, at least, for an old friend. “It is no more burdensome than our battles, my brother, yet I find that the stiffness from my chair wears me down more than our enemies’ weapons ever did.”

  “We are old men, Tarkus. Thus is the field where our battles are fought.” He gestured toward the somewhat messy desk. “We have come with news, my old friend. Upsetting news.” He turned toward the other officer. “Commander Horatius, please update the Commander-Maximus.”