Cauldron of Fire (Blood on the Stars Book 5) Page 10

  “Scanners on full, sir. No contacts but fighter squadrons. We’re picking up two hundred forty-two ships now.”

  “That’s impossible, Commander. How can this many fighters be here with no base or mother…” He suddenly felt sick. Enemy battleships would only make the fight more uneven…but the lack of them could only mean one thing. They had dropped the fighters here before proceeding somewhere else…

  They knew we were coming.

  Again.

  “Send a flash communique to Commander Tulus before the fleet transits.” The Gray Alliance ships were light minutes ahead of Dauntless and Illustrious now, and it would be almost half an hour before a message could travel there and back. His first instinct had been to call for help…but those fighters would reach his two ships long before Tulus could get back.

  “Yes, sir. Sending now.”

  “Commander Tulus, we have encountered large numbers of enemy fighters. This is a trap. They were waiting for us.” Barron’s words were cold, matter-of-fact.

  “With no motherships?” Travis turned to face him.

  “It seems so, Commander. They must have dropped the fighters here.”

  “How long can pilots operate in a fighter without a break?”

  “These are Alliance pilots, Commander. They’re born and bred to follow orders.” Barron was struck by both the stark strangeness of Alliance culture, and how much he admired it. He didn’t want to live in such a society, and the Alliance was certainly cruel to those they conquered, but he’d be damned if he didn’t respect them on some levels. As allies or enemies. It was a refreshing change from the utter and complete vileness of the Union.

  “But why operate here without battleships? They could have ambushed us just the same with their mother…”

  “Because they needed their motherships somewhere else.” Barron paused, just for a second, his face going pale as realization set in. If the traitor in their midst had struck again, if Calavius’s people knew they were coming through here, they knew why as well. “Priority comm channel to Commander Tulus. Now!”

  Travis spun around, her hands flying over the controls. “On your line, sir.”

  “Commander, this is a trap. The enemy fighters attacking us…everything. They know we were coming. They know about Commander Mellus. You have to get through to her fleet before they’re attacked and destroyed.” His words were hasty, not carefully chosen. Normally, he’d have handled Tulus with a softer touch, one that sounded less like orders. But there was no time.

  He glanced down at the scanners, at the range display. Tulus’s ships were ahead of schedule. He did a quick calculation, one that told him his Gray Alliance counterpart would jump before his messages arrived.

  He was on his own here…and Tulus and his people would face what was waiting for them without warning.

  Barron considered the whole situation, and with each passing second his conclusion grew glummer, more ominous.

  If this leaked, that means the traitor is…

  “Commodore, Blue and Scarlet Eagle squadrons requesting launch authorization.”

  “Launch,” he spat, robotically. His thoughts were elsewhere.

  There were only six of us there that day. That means the traitor is in Vennius’s inner circle…

  The implications were terrifying. But the soft vibrations of fighters launching pulled him back to the present. His ship was going into battle…and nothing else mattered. Not right now.

  * * *

  “Bearclaw, Kraken, Direwolf, Banshee squadrons, engage enemy interceptors. Red Dragons and all other interceptors on me. We’re taking the bombers in. We’ve got two battleships picked off from the main force, and we’re going to take them both down.” Grachus pulled back on her controls, kicking in her turbo thrusters, even as the acknowledgements began pouring in on her comm. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind her people would follow her orders. All her life she’d been shut out, treated as an outsider, despite Kat Rigellus’s mentorship. But the fighter corps was different. Her promotion, given directly by the Imperator, and her reputation as a stone cold killer in the cockpit, had made her a legend, at least among the pilots. It was an odd feeling, for once to be the subject of admiration. She liked it, she could admit that to herself at least. But she intended to get more from it than personal satisfaction. She couldn’t be sure, not until she got closer scanner reads, but her gut—and the preliminary mass readings—told her those were Confederation ships out there. And if there were Confeds here, Tyler Barron was probably with them.

  She brought her ship around, plotting a course to skirt the flank of the incoming formation. The four squadrons she’d detached to meet them would be outnumbered, but Alliance pilots paid no heed to such things. They would fight. And they would hold their own.

  And I will lead these bombers right into attack range…

  She glanced down at the screen again. One of the battleships was immense. That has to be one of the new Confed ships. The other was somewhat smaller, though still massive by Alliance standards. Dauntless?

  She punched at her controls, pumping up the power of her scanners. She was going beyond the posted maximums, but she had to know. She had every particular of Tyler Barron’s flagship in her AI. In just a few seconds, she’d be sure.

  It didn’t matter, not really, not strategically at least. Destroying two Confed battleships would be a major victory, whether or not Barron was there. Killing Barron would be useful to the Red cause, of course. He was a highly capable officer and his loss would hurt the Grays badly. For all her discipline, she couldn’t take her mind off the revenge she craved so powerfully.

  She felt invigorated as the screen display the positive ID. CFS Dauntless. Tyler Barron was here.

  It’s time, Kat. Today you will be avenged, my friend. My sister.

  “Keep your formations tight,” she said into the comm. “We’ve got multiple waves coming in.” She’d taken the Confeds by surprise, though perhaps not as much as she’d hoped. She had planned to get in behind them as they passed and attack from the rear. But for all she hated Tyler Barron, she was painfully aware he was no fool. He’d launched a scouting force to check the dust clouds…forcing her to launch her attack prematurely. She still had the edge, but she was facing two powerful ships, and she knew she had one hell of a fight on her hands.

  She checked her display. The bomber squadrons were dropping in right behind her screening fighters. She hoped her blocking force would divert most of the Confed interceptors, that they would waste squadrons on bombing attacks targeting her non-existent battleships. But as she watched the last of the Confed fighters clear their platforms, she realized that part of her deception, at least, had failed. Every one of those Confed birds was outfitted for fighter to fighter combat. And that meant her people were heading into one serious melee.

  Part of her wished she was with the blocking force. She didn’t like ordering her people into a fight at such a disadvantage, especially not when she wasn’t with them. But success here would come from killing battleships, not fighters. Nothing was more important than getting the bombers through.

  Nothing.

  * * *

  “Yellows, Reds, Mustangs, Jaguars…keep those ships in the center occupied. Blues, Eagles, White Condors…with me. We’re going for those bombers.”

  Stockton nodded to himself as he listened to Kyle Jamison snapping out orders over the comm. Jamison was officially Dauntless’s strike force commander, but he effectively commanded all Confederation fighters in the battle. Right now, that included Illustrious’s six largely-raw squadrons. Stockton didn’t envy his friend right now. Sending those green pilots up against Alliance flyers was almost murder. But there was no choice. Dauntless’s wings could hold their own—they could even outmatch the Alliance pilots, on anything like even terms. But they couldn’t win outnumbered four to one.

  And if that squadron is out there. That pilot…

  Stockton had been thinking about the last battle pretty much constan
tly from the moment he landed back on Dauntless. The Alliance had one hell of a flyer out there somewhere, one he had to find—and kill—before any more of his comrades found themselves outmatched and blasted to atoms.

  The threat wasn’t theoretical. Stockton had faced off against this enemy, and the experience had shaken him. Winning the victory he needed would take everything he had…and perhaps for the first time, he wondered if that would be enough. He’d fought many battles, but this was new. He’d never doubted his ability to defeat a single enemy in a one on one matchup. Until now.

  “Roger, Thunder. Blue squadron with you.” He paused, just for an instant. Then: “All right Blues, we follow the commander in. Take out as many interceptors as you can, but remember, that’s a big force of bombers, and they’re our primary target.” Ignore the interceptors, go for the bombers…it was often the right call, but there weren’t many situations pilots hated more. Nothing made enemy fighters deadlier than ignoring them, ripping by to attack the attack bombers, leaving flanks and rear exposed. But every man and women understood, before they every launched for the first time, that their first and overriding purpose was to protect the battleships.

  Stockton had heard it put a dozen ways, some of them impressive exercises in diplomatic phrasing, but he preferred the bluntness of “expendable.” Which was exactly what he and every pilot flying with him was, at least compared to the four million tons of Dauntless and her thousand crew.

  “Blues, on me. Let’s go. Arrowhead formation, full thrust…now.” He blasted his engines full, feeling the g forces slam into him, pushing the breath from his lungs. The enemy had a screen of interceptors out in front of their bombers, and on the flanks as well. Stockton’s mind raced, looking for a vulnerable spot…but there wasn’t one. At least none his squadron could get to in time. However Blue squadron approached, they’d have to fight their way through…and they’d have to leave enemies behind them.

  “We’re on your flank, Raptor.” Dirk Timmons’s voice was cold. It was clear he knew as well as Stockton what they were up against.

  “Roger that, Warrior. We just cut through these interceptors…straight through to the bombers.”

  “We’re with you, Raptor.”

  Stockton stared at the controls, his eyes fixed on the enemy formation on his scanner. There were half a dozen interceptors right ahead. A quick glance to the side confirmed that Timmons’s Eagles had a larger number than that in their path, a dozen or more.

  “Looks like we’ve got the weak spot,” he whispered to himself.

  Weak being a relative term of course…

  He moved his hand, his fingers sliding along the arming controls for his missiles. He wanted to save the heavy ordnance, blast through the interceptors with just lasers, but he found himself shaking his head even as he was still considering it.

  No, the Alliance pilots were just too good. Trying to hold back missiles would cost him in casualties, and he suspected he would lose enough of his people in the best circumstances. Maybe launch one?

  He shook his head, at least as well as he could under more than 8g. A fighter armed with missiles was cumbersome, harder to handle, especially in a dogfight with experienced interceptor pilots. And one carrying a single one of the heavy weapons was off-balance besides. It was something he’d try against Union squadrons, maybe. But the Alliance pilots were just too good.

  “Blue squadron, arm all missiles.” He had a passing vision, his squadron launching their barrage, blowing away every enemy fighter in its path. But he knew better. Nobody blasted Alliance squadrons away like that.

  “All right, listen up. We hit that first line as hard as we can, but we don’t stop. So, make those missiles count…because anything you don’t take out is going to be coming around and following us in.” Whoever had set up the enemy formation knew what they were doing. The Alliance Interceptors were moving at low velocity, their vectors nearly perpendicular to his approaching craft. It wouldn’t take the survivors long to reorient their courses and come up behind his people.

  “Maintain full thrust. We’re going in hot.” It was the only choice. The velocity would make it harder for the enemy fighters to follow. It would buy some time before his people had Alliance fighters coming at them from behind, though it would also take his people right past the bombers before they could decelerate. They’d have to make their attacks count…and quickly.

  The enemy fighters were growing on his screen. It was almost time. He flipped the two switches on his control panel, activating the final arming sequence for his missiles. Then: “All right Blues…let’s go get ’em.”

  He swung the stick around, hard to starboard, picking out one of the Alliance fighters. His hand tightened, his finger pressing down on the firing stud. But he stopped. His target had blasted its thrusters hard, upsetting his target lock. When Dauntless had first arrived on the Rim, he and his people had been accustomed to the lower proficiency of the Union squadrons, but they’d gotten a lesson quickly. Now, he didn’t even react. He just readjusted his thrust, picking out another target. He didn’t have as hard a lock as he’d have liked, but he didn’t have time to waste either. His ship was moving at almost 0.005c, and he’d be out of engagement range in less than a minute.

  He moved his hand over the controls, adjusting his course slightly with each tap on the throttle. He pushed to the port, then again. And he fired.

  The fighter lurched as the missile broke free of its hardpoint and blasted out for the enemy fighter. The drone had a far higher rate of thrust than his fighter, and it accelerated toward the target at 25g.

  The Alliance ship reacted immediately, swinging around, firing its engines in an attempt to escape the deadly warhead. Stockton watched for a few seconds, as his prey struggled to elude the missile, to keep away long enough for the madly-accelerating weapon to exhaust its fuel supply. Then he turned back to the scanner and started to look for another target. But before he found one, his own warning system buzzed.

  “Incoming missile,” the fighter’s AI said, in its annoyingly calm tone.

  It’ll blow you to atoms too, he thought pointlessly toward the AI.

  Stockton’s hands moved almost by themselves, even as he focused on the screen, getting a read on the missile’s approach. It was coming directly toward him, and he angled the throttle and blasted at full, changing course, even as the missile reacted.

  He counted under his breath as he watched, and as he shifted the angle of his thrust again. The AI was doing the same thing, rattling off ranges and times to contact, but Stockton worked by feel as much as hard data. The Alliance missiles were shorter-ranged than the Confederation weapons, and their acceleration topped out around 21.5g, a pair of facts that Stockton knew had saved more than one of his pilots over the past six months. But he’d let this enemy get too close, and the missile was closing hard.

  He flashed a glance to the attack screen, checking on his own weapon. He thought he’d had the enemy dead to rights, but now he could see that the Alliance pilot had managed to evade the missile. He couldn’t be sure, not on such a quick glance, but his gut told him the warhead would run out of fuel before it caught the enemy ship.

  Damn.

  He wasn’t sure if the thought was spurred by his own miss, or by the fact that he was wasting time and attention on tracking his missile when he needed to put all his focus into escaping the weapon closing on him.

  He slammed the throttle hard, back and to the side, radically altering the vector of thrust. His ship’s course changed far more slowly, as momentum carried him forward. The inability to make wild and immediate course changes, as a flyer in an atmosphere could do, was one of the toughest aspects of space combat. It was difficult to evade a faster projectile, but enough random moves could mess with the AI guiding the thing, and he only needed to stay away from it for another…forty seconds or so.

  He knew it would be close, all the more so for the sweat he could feel pouring down his back in rivulets. He’d let his pride get
the better of him, turned his focus almost purely to the offensive instead of watching out for enemy attacks. It was an error he swore not to repeat. Assuming he got the chance.

  He angled his ship’s thrust yet again…and then he hit the positioning thrusters and spun the small vessel around one hundred eighty degrees, blasting his engines again, decelerating at full. It was a move than made no sense, mathematically at least. But he was counting down the missile’s fuel supply, and he knew the abrupt reversal would confuse the AI, briefly at least. And every second counted.

  He could see the missile getting closer, its trajectory bringing it toward his ship…or, more accurately, near his ship. The drone was blasting its own thrusters, correcting its course, locking in on his fighter. It was close now.

  But it’s almost out of time…

  His eyes were locked on the scanner display as he swung the throttle yet again. Now he was buying mere seconds. The missile would have him in half a minute, maybe less. But he’d just bet his life the thing would run out of fuel before that.

  He watched, waiting to see the engines cut out, each fraction of a second stretching out, feeling like minutes. He kept up the evasive maneuvers, but this close they were increasingly ineffective. The missile was reacting to every change of vector, refining its targeting. It had him.

  He stared, but the drone’s thrusters kept blasting. He’d counted down, but now he was past zero, his guess on the thing’s fuel capacity proving inaccurate. Still, he knew he couldn’t be off by much…could he?

  His confidence surrounded him like a wall, high, thick, impervious. Almost. But each passing second wore away at it, doubt growing, pressing in on him. Could he have made that much of an error?