Empire's Ashes (Blood on the Stars Book 15) Read online

  Empire’s Ashes

  Blood on the Stars XV

  Jay Allan

  Copyright © 2019 Jay Allan Books

  All Rights Reserved

  Contents

  The Crimson Worlds Series

  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

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Appendix

  Strata of the Hegemony

  Hegemony Military Ranks

  Books by Jay Allan

  The Crimson Worlds Series

  (Available on Kindle Unlimited)

  Marines (Crimson Worlds I)

  The Cost of Victory (Crimson Worlds II)

  A Little Rebellion (Crimson Worlds III)

  The First Imperium (Crimson Worlds IV)

  The Line Must Hold (Crimson Worlds V)

  To Hell’s Heart (Crimson Worlds VI)

  The Shadow Legions (Crimson Worlds VII)

  Even Legends Die (Crimson Worlds VIII)

  The Fall (Crimson Worlds IX)

  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)

  Cauldron of Fire (Blood on the Stars V)

  Dauntless (Blood on the Stars VI)

  The White Fleet (Blood on the Stars VII)

  Black Dawn (Blood on the Stars VIII)

  Invasion (Blood on the Stars IX)

  Nightfall (Blood on the Stars X)

  The Grand Alliance (Blood on the Stars XI)

  The Colossus (Blood on the Stars XII)

  The Others (Blood on the Stars XIII)

  The Last Stand (Blood on the Stars XIV)

  Empire’s Ashes (Blood on the Stars XV)

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  Chapter One

  Forward Outpost Seven

  Delta Orion System

  Year 327 AC (After the Cataclysm)

  “Commander, we’re picking up energy readings from the transit point.” The officer’s words were tentative, his tone edgy. There were any number of things that could cause a transit point’s emissions to spike, most of which were benign, but Outpost Seven was positioned along the line of systems that formed the tentative border between Hegemony systems still controlled by the Pact, and those in the Occupied Zone. It was the front line of a war that had been largely silent for three and a half years, but which no one expected to remain so indefinitely.

  “Full scan, Lieutenant. Get the AI on it as soon as we have more data.” Commander St. James shared a bit of the scanner officer’s tension, but it was weaker, more controlled. St. James had commanded Outpost Seven for almost two years, and in that time there had been at least a dozen alerts and causes for concern, all of which had proven to be nothing.

  Still, it had been almost four years since the Battle of Calpharon. No one had expected the lull in the fighting to last so long, and St. James’s hope that the Highborn had decided to cease their invasion warred with a growing sense that a renewal in hostilities was ‘due.’

  “Yes, Commander. All scanners retargeted. We should have updated readings in…four minutes, thirty seconds.”

  St. James just nodded. He was anxious, more so, he realized, than he’d thought at first. He’d told himself it was just an asteroid or a concentration of particulate matter coming through. Or even one of the completely unexplained pulses that sometimes spewed forth occasionally from the mysterious points that allowed humanity to travel from system to system.

  But he had a bad feeling this time, one that grew with each passing second.

  He glanced at the chronometer. Four minutes wasn’t a long time by any reasonable measure, but it could feel long, especially in situations like the current one. There was nothing to be done, no order he could issue that would change the fact that the automated scanner stations monitoring the point were four and a half light minutes from the outpost. That was a speed limit imposed by the universe, one that had held firm, despite the advancement of human science. Only the transit points themselves offered a way around that constraint, and St. James had taken the word of the physicists that moving through the point did not actually involve exceeding lightspeed, but rather altering the distance between systems via alternate space. It was all very confusing, and he wasn’t sure the experts knew as much as they claimed to. Still, the points worked, that much he’d seen hundreds of time through personal experience.

  He would just have to wait four minutes—down to more like two and a half as he looked again at the display—to get the report from the focused scans. He turned toward the tactical station, intending for a moment to put the outpost on alert, even to launch the fighter squadrons. But he held back. He’d put his people on battlestations the first three times the scanners had picked up dust clouds and meteors coming through the point, and he’d long since decided to show some restraint. One day, enemy ships could very well pour through the point, and he wanted his people sharp and ready when that happened, not jaded and dulled by too many false alarms.

  Not that any of it matters…not if the Highborn ever come through in force.

  The outposts were placed along the entire disputed border, every one of the seventeen systems that connected to space controlled by the enemy. But they watched that frontier more than defended it. Their true purpose was one upon which St. James didn’t much like to dwell. The most important systems on the outpost were not weapons, but communications drones, the ones St. James would send off when and if Highborn vessels every did stream through the point. The drones would race to the system’s only other transit poi
nt, and they would take back the warning, the news every Confederation, Hegemony, and Alliance warrior had been expecting—and dreading—for more than three years.

  And then, St. James and his people would die. They would fight, of course, extract whatever price their batteries and squadrons could on the enemy. But the outposts had been built as warning stations, not fortresses…and Thomas St. James was enough of a veteran to understand just what it would mean for his small command when the Highborn did come through that point.

  “Enhanced data coming in, Commander. The AI is working on…” A pause, and then the officer turned, the essence of his report clear in his eyes. “Highborn ships, Commander. Six confirmed…and continued energy readings at the point.”

  St. James had been waiting for those words for two years, wondering how he would respond to his moment of truth. And very likely, his own death warrant. Now that it was actually happening, he felt strangely cold about it all, almost clinical. He was afraid, he supposed, but it felt odd, distant, almost unrelated to his actions.

  “All squadrons are to scramble for immediate launch. The AI is to download all scanner data into the drones.” He would command his people in battle, see that they did everything possible to inflict as much damage as possible on whatever was coming through the point. But he knew his most important task was seeing that the drones escaped the system. The longer he waited, the more data he could send back to Admiral Barron.

  But if he waited too long, the enemy might intercept the drones.

  He turned back toward the display, realizing he hadn’t been listening to the scanning officer’s continued reports. He’d imagined the very circumstance then unfolding around him since he’d first arrived on Outpost Seven. Now, he knew he was living it, that it had arrived.

  That he and his people likely had only hours to live.

  * * *

  “Alright, let’s keep those formations tight, all of you. We’ve run enough exercises, practiced this again and again. It should be secondhand to all of you by now.” Commander Susan Contrall sat in her cockpit, knowing all she said was pure truth, but also that it was irrelevant. Her people were mostly rookies, new trainees rushed through the Academy and shipped to the front lines along with all the new Lightnings Confederation industry had been able to produce. Training and practice were useful, essential even, but no amount of preparation could truly ready a pilot to face the enemy.

  She had six veterans in the entire wing, to command and steady ninety-one pilots who’d never fired a shot in anger. It seemed strange, at first, that the contingents posted along the most forward borders were so heavy with new pilots, but she’d understood quickly. It came down to a single word, one that concisely expressed the grimness and brutality of war.

  Expendability.

  Her squadrons were valued, of course. The Pact needed every ship it could get, every spacer, every bit of combat power. She knew Admiral Barron cared for every man and woman in his command, that he took no life for granted. But he had no choice in many of his decisions, no more than she did. Fighting the enemy would be a costly endeavor, and she’d always known that her people would be among the first to die if it turned out that their outpost was along the Highborn’s chosen invasion route.

  That, at least, was still undecided. The force that had emerged from the point was substantial, but not overpowering. It might be an advance guard, the leading edge of a massive invasion…or just some kind of scouting effort.

  She would know soon enough, when the new arrivals stopped, and she could see just how many ships had come.

  She stared at the display, quickly analyzing the enemy formation, developing a plan of attack. There were still ships transiting, and uncertainty about the scope of the incursion meant any plan she developed would be risky, based on guesswork as much as tactical expertise. She only had a single wing, and she decided to strike as hard as possible against the forces already deployed in the system. If she was watching the lead elements of a massive invasion, she didn’t have the strength to defend against it anyway.

  “Green Dragons, you’ve got the lead. Steel Gators, Dark Storm, you’re both on the starboard flank. Push forward, and get in position for a flank run.” Contrall watched as her pilots executed her commands, and she felt some faint optimism as she saw the tightness of their formations. They were well trained, if mostly unblooded by combat. They were flying with commendable precision, and skillfully executing complex flight plans. Facing an enemy firing back at them would be a rude awakening, no doubt, but the years of practice and preparation were at showing in their flying as they approached.

  Contrall had faced the enemy in battle. She had been at Calpharon, seen the enemy missile volleys, and she knew just how deadly a danger they really were. She’d commanded Outpost Seven’s wings for a little over a year and a half, and she’d developed an attachment to her people unscarred by the constant losses of active combat. For a veteran like herself, that had felt like a luxury, a real chance to bond with her pilots, to get to know them, and to mold them into a special team.

  That respite, she realized was over. She didn’t realize just how over it was, though, not until a moment later.

  “Commander, we’re picking up some strange readings from the enemy ships.” Contrall had already noticed that the Highborn vessels—and she was still only assuming it was the Highborn coming through the point—were different from any of the previously encountered classes. They were larger than the normal, cruiser-sized units, but smaller than the heavy battleships that had fought at Calpharon.

  She flipped her scanner array to full power, directing it toward the cluster of enemy ships ahead, even as she leaned toward the comm and said, “All units, direct scans toward the enemy ships. Relay all data back to Outpost Seven command.” Information on new enemy ship classes was vital intel…and despite her pride in her squadrons and their still unproven combat capability, she still realized the major purpose of the outpost line was to warn the main fleet, and to provide as much data as possible on whatever was coming through.

  That included new Highborn ships.

  “Commander, we’re in missile range…but I haven’t detected any launches yet.”

  “Me either.”

  “None here.”

  Her lead squadrons commanders were all telling the same story. They were at least ten thousand kilometers past the range that had normally prompted enemy missile volleys.

  Contrall looked down at her own screens. Nothing. The bulk of missiles launched at Calpharon had come from the enemy battleships, and the force in front of her squadrons had none of the heavy battlewagons, at least not yet. But the vessels her people faced were substantially larger than the enemy cruisers. Large enough, she would have guessed, to mount missile launchers. Especially when those weapons had been so effective against the Rim bombers, and almost four years seemed like more than enough to install the systems in the mid-sized vessels.

  “Wait, Commander, I am picking something up. Might be a missile launch…”

  Contrall felt her insides tighten a bit. She wasn’t surprised the enemy had missiles, but she realized she’d let optimism get the best of her for a moment.

  “Alright, you all know what to do. We practiced those evasive routines a hundred times.” Yes, they know what to do…but you know they are still rookies, at least in terms of facing the enemy.

  She’d seen the casualty lists from too many fights, analyzed the ratios a hundred different ways. It was an inescapable conclusion. New pilots died in far greater numbers than veterans, often at six or eight times the rate. Her pilots knew what to do when the enemy missiles came for them…but that didn’t mean some of them weren’t going to die.

  A lot of them.

  She angled her own controls, brought her thrust vector around and upped her engine output. She’d been holding back, waiting to see what sector of the formation saw the heaviest action. But if her people were going to face a missile attack, she was going to be up there with them. She w
asn’t sure her example would do much to pull her rookies through the ordeal, but it wasn’t going to hurt.

  Besides, they deserved to have their commander up there with them, and it was the only place she knew to be in a fight. She’d mourned the loss of Jake Stockton as fervently as anyone in the fighter corps had done, even the entire Confederation as a whole, but she also honored his memory, by remembering his teachings, and the creed he had instilled in every pilot he’d commanded, and even more, in every commander he placed in charge of others. Lead from the front.

  She adjusted her course again, moving toward the center of her small formation. Once, ninety-odd bombers would have been considered a substantial force, but the scope of battle had escalated enormously over the past twenty years. Great battles were fought by thousands of fighters, and in a struggle like Calpharon, her ninety-seven ships would be little more than one unit out of dozens.

  She looked down at the screen again, ready to track the incoming missiles.

  But there were no missiles. No clusters of the great weapons moving toward her ships, no sign of any incoming volleys.

  There was something, however.

  Her eyes fixed on each of the three closest enemy ships. The contacts weren’t missiles, she was sure of that, but there was something going on around each of the Highborn ships, a hazy glow around each of the reddish symbols at first, and then, as more data came in, a grouping of small white dots on the black screen.

  It took her a moment to realize what she was seeing. Then she felt as though her blood had frozen solid.

  The enemy ships were launching small craft of some kind. Her squadrons were still too far out to get detailed readings, but she didn’t need them. The coldness in her gut told her what she was seeing.

  Highborn fighters.

  Chapter Two

  Forward Base Striker

  Vasa Denaris System

  Year 327 AC (After the Cataclysm)

  The child threw a small red rubber ball across the room, knocking over a pile of data chips on the desk in the process…and then she laughed wildly. She was tall for a girl of four and a half, and her long, light brown hair was almost an exact copy of Andi’s. Cassie reminded Tyler of her mother in many more ways than one, including a few that tied his stomach into knots with concerns about her future. Andi Lafarge was smart, capable, resilient, reliable…and sometimes gut-wrenchingly reckless. There was no guarantee, of course, that Cassie would dive into things as aggressively as her mother was wont to do, but he could see enough foreshadowing to fuel worry. Tyler had some years to go before his daughter would have the chance to put him through the wringer as her mother had, diving wildly into one dangerous situation after another, but part of him still dreaded it.