Invasion (Blood on the Stars Book 9) Read online

  He’d waited for the first days for his captors to come put a bullet in his head or to work him over and put that reputation for endurance to the test. They hadn’t questioned him in any substantive way, and if they didn’t want information from him, he figured they had to want him out of the way. He would certainly be out of the way if they killed him and dumped him in a sand pit or fusion core somewhere. But no one had come, neither assassin nor inquisitor. No one save the pair of hands with dirty fingernails that slid his meager, twice daily rations through the small opening in the door.

  Earlier in his confinement he’d imagined ways to escape, but he’d realized that was another thing that seemed easier in concept than in reality. He was locked behind stone walls and a steel door. There were no hinges on his side, no accessible lock he could try to pick, no tools to use. Nothing.

  He’d tried to talk to his guard, but the man had said nothing, not in the seventy-six times he’d slid the food tray into the room. Lille himself had visited a few times early on, but there’d been no sign of him either in the weeks that had followed. Striker wondered if he’d even see the Sector Nine assassin again. If he did, would it mean Lille had come to kill him…or to discuss the real reason he’d been taken hostage? He figured the odds there were just about fifty-fifty.

  Striker jerked his body up into a seated position. He was tired of trying to find a tolerable pose lying, though he knew half an hour of sitting up would send him back down, seeking comfort that lay out of his reach. A concrete slab in place of a cot didn’t make anyone’s list of torture devices, even when the individual in question had slept on one for a month or two, but Striker was covered in bruises, and he was out of positions that didn’t inflict enough pain to make sleep impossible.

  Think, you fool. Whining about pain, sleep…it’s weak, and worse, it’s useless. You have to find a way to get out of here.

  You have to.

  But the thoughts ripping through his mind, the desperate, driven analysis, yielded the same thing a month of similar effort had done.

  Nothing.

  * * *

  Ricard Lille stood next to the window, looking out over the main thoroughfare of the Confederation’s capital city. It felt strange to be in Troyus, in one of the palatial suites of the Royalton Hotel. He was living like a magnate from one of the Iron Belt worlds in town for a holiday, money in hand and a string of mistresses in tow.

  Except for the mistresses, he thought wistfully. He’d had to leave his at home. And procuring temporary replacements was…impractical.

  Ricard Lille had very specific—and not a little strange—sexual appetites, and he had a stable of well-kept women back at his own Villa on Montmirail. Lille had never craved power, at least not in the conventional sense, and he’d long been immune to the lust for position that so blinded politicians and their like. Even Gaston Villieneuve, though his friend had always been a bit different than most of the others. Villieneuve was driven by power, of course, but he’d always been in control of his judgment enough to be patient. That slow burn approach had paid off mightily, and Villieneuve was now the uncontested dictator of the entire Union. The ambitionless Lille, despite a bump or two along the way, was still at his longtime ally’s side. A cold-blooded and highly skilled killer with no interest in political advancement was a wonderful pet for a dictator to have, and Lille was entirely aware of how that fact secured his position, and guaranteed the wealth he craved so much more than pointless political power.

  Lille had almost retired several times, rich enough already to live like a king, but he’d always been stopped by two facts, each one as immovable as the other. First, he doubted Villieneuve would have allowed it. The head of Sector Nine, and now dictator, always had people he needed to have…removed…and he’d always depended on Lille to see it done. Refusing the call of so powerful a friend and sponsor was not likely to lead to a peaceful and quiet retirement.

  Second, Ricard Lille loved killing people. It was his favorite thing, an addiction, beyond sex, beyond any bauble his wealth had bought or any delicacy his kitchens had prepared for his table. He enjoyed nothing more than taking down a worthy opponent, like a hunter stalking the most dangerous of big game. The act of taking a life, of seeing his victim defeated in the end, the terror in the eyes…it was ecstasy to him.

  He was a monster, at least to the standards of most people. He knew that. He just didn’t care. His opinion of humanity in general, of people’s abilities, their intellects, their capacity for rational analysis, was abysmal. They were animals to him, save for the few who gained his respect. To his—admittedly sociopathic—mind, culling them was a service to humanity. He enjoyed killing, and the height of pleasure and personal satisfaction for him came from taking down the most capable adversaries of all. Nothing fulfilled Ricard Lille like defeating a dangerous and adept foe…and toasting to his victim afterward.

  Lille had always respected Van Striker. The Confederation admiral had proven a deadly adversary in the recent war, and, along with Tyler Barron, he’d led the Confeds to victory, despite everything Lille and Villieneuve had tried to do to push their own forces forward. He’d long imagined Striker as an adversary, about the cat and mouse game the two might play…but in the end, it had been a disappointment. He’d had the element of total surprise, of course, or things would likely have been very different, but taking Striker prisoner had been almost comically easy.

  Capturing targets wasn’t his usual trade, of course, but as much as he’d have preferred a straight assassination, that didn’t dull the melancholy of the simplicity of the chase. He knew he could have killed Striker on the spot, even more easily that capturing the admiral.

  Going after such a lofty target should have given him the usual satisfaction, but it didn’t. He wasn’t sure if it was the ease of victory, or the fact that he hadn’t experienced the kill, but the whole thing had left him with an empty feeling…angry and frustrated.

  He’d decided to finish Striker once and for all several times, but Desiree Marieles had…asked…him to wait. It had shown strong control and judgment on the part of the agent to hold back the orders he suspected she’d wanted to give him. Villieneuve had given her extensive power over operations on Megara, that much was true…but Lille was outside such organizational tables. He answered to Villieneuve, and only Villieneuve, and if Marieles failed to remember that, he would be more than happy to throw her corpse in some Troyus City garbage reclamation center.

  That would upset Villieneuve, and damage the campaign to disrupt the Confeds, which he had to admit had been far more successful than he’d imagined…and which was the reason the annoying and obnoxious agent was still breathing. But, despite his restraint, he hated Marieles, and he suspected he would truly enjoy watching the life slip out of her. Not now—he was loyal to Villieneuve and all his friend sought to accomplish—but one day, perhaps, when she least expected it, when she was deep into the rewards she would receive for her success, and her guard was down. Lille imagined the moment, the stark terror in her eyes as she realized what was happening, too late to escape it.

  He shook his head, trying to drive away the pointless imaginings. He always tried to stay sharp, to avoid such idle and distracting thoughts, but he’d been on Megara too long with too little to do. Routine espionage wasn’t his specialty, and he was honest enough with himself to acknowledge that he wasn’t particularly good at it. So, he’d stayed out of the way, keeping Striker securely under lock and key and otherwise biding his time the best he could.

  Now, at least, he had a target.

  Commodore Jacen Tomlinson, the officer Marieles’s toy, Whitten, had left in charge of Megara’s defenses. Marieles had commed him weeks before and asked him to take care of Tomlinson. He’d told her it would take time, that he had to prepare to assassinate a target as prominent as the commodore. That had all been a lie, of course. He’d spent the day after her call following Tomlinson around Troyus, and he’d had half a dozen chances to scrag the officer. The
commodore traveled around with a pack of enormous bodyguards, but the bumbling fools looked for all the world like they’d been chosen because they were Tomlinson’s friends—or because they were good at kissing his ass—and not for any real training or ability. Lille could have killed the fleet commander, with or without also taking down the guards, and it would have been absurdly easy. But instead, he did nothing. Tomlinson could become a problem to the operation, but, as far as he’d been able to determine, so far the officer had just pissed off Desiree Marieles. She’d been pissing him off for months now, so she could wait. Wait and see if he felt like removing the thorn from her side.

  He’d do it if and when he felt the overall operation was in danger, and he didn’t discount the possibility that Marieles might offer him something he wanted in return, something that would spur him into action. But whatever that might be, it wasn’t going to be her half-hearted attempts at seduction. She was an attractive woman, no doubt, and she’d honed the art of seduction as part of her tradecraft, but she couldn’t imagine in her wildest dreams—or nightmares—the things that excited Ricard Lille.

  No, Tomlinson had gotten a reprieve, a small one. And as long as the officer continued to spend his time decorating his new office and trotting from party to party with his posse of bodyguards, Lille would let him live, especially if he continued to annoy Marieles without actually endangering the operation.

  He stared across the room, looking at the far wall but not really seeing it through his thoughts. Van Striker was another matter. In wartime, breaking the admiral, getting the tactical and strategic information he possessed, would be a major goal, one that would virtually prohibit actually killing him. But, now, Lille couldn’t imagine anything useful the officer could tell him…and the longer he kept the Confed alive, the greater the chance that something would go wrong. If Marieles wanted to discuss real threats to her operation, Lille couldn’t think of many more dire than what Striker might do if he managed to escape.

  Destabilizing the Confeds made sense, to a point, but the Union wasn’t ready for a rematch. Not yet, no matter how much chaos Marieles managed to create.

  But one day the Union would be ready, and when that happened, Van Striker would be a deadly threat, a strategist the Union navy would never be able to match. Better he disappeared now than to take any chances.

  Yes, he had decided. He would kill Striker, and he would do it now. It made sense. It was the smart, cautious play.

  And the fact that it would irritate the hell out of Desiree Marieles was an added bonus.

  Chapter Fifteen

  CFS Repulse

  900,000,000 Kilometers from Planet Dannith, Ventica III

  Year 317 AC

  “Commander…” Sonya Eaton hesitated after the first word escaped her lips. There was nothing Fuller could do, nothing any of the more than one thousand officers and crew on Repulse could do, save for the two engineers locked in the damaged reactor, trying to repair the damage before the radiation finished them both.

  She looked away from the tactical station, her eyes cast downward, toward the floor. She should do something…the voices inside her head were screaming at her. She was Repulse’s captain. Her sister had given her the battleship when she’d requested her own command, showing no hesitation at all in doing so. And Sara Eaton wasn’t one who would give a ship—her own flagship until a few months earlier—to anyone she didn’t think could handle it, not even a fellow officer who shared the same set of parents.

  She was wrong this time, though. I wasn’t ready…I’m still not. She gave me Repulse, and now I’m sitting here doing nothing, just waiting for the enemy to finish us.

  She looked back up at her screen, at the readings scrolling down, almost too fast to read. Repulse was battered, but her ship was still battleworthy…except for the problem in the reactors that had effectively crippled the battleship. It was a fluke, she suspected, some random effect of one of the hits the battleship had taken, but for once, the answer had eluded Anya Fritz’s brilliance.

  And now she’s going to die in there…and us right after.

  She tried to think of something—anything—to do, but there was nothing. What would Tyler Barron do? It was an easy question to ask, and an impossible one to answer, but she didn’t see a thing that anyone could do, not even the Confederation’s most famous admiral.

  She was edgy. No, she was scared to death. Not just of her own fate, though the prospect of certain death approaching so unstoppably was sobering on its own, but also for her people. She hadn’t commanded them for long, but they’d given her all they had to give.

  Now they’ll die with me. Because of me.

  That wasn’t entirely fair, but she had no place for cool, rational analysis just then, not when it came to assessing blame for her ship’s situation. There wasn’t much to be gained by spending her final moments in indulgent self-flagellation, but that was exactly what she intended to do.

  Unless Fritz can save us…

  It was a spark of hope, struggling to remain lit in the dark gloom of her thoughts. Anya Fritz had saved Dauntless more than once, and no small part of the credit for Tyler Barron’s glorious victories had rested on her engineering wizardry. She managed to keep a spark of hope alive, even as the time and the relentless inactivity pressed in on her.

  Eaton was close to defeat, but she wasn’t there yet. She knew Barron had stared into the abyss as well, and he’d come back.

  She glanced at the display, watched as the rest of the ships of the fleet moved toward the Carthago transit point. It looked like they would make it. The enemy’s first line was just too battered to pursue effectively, and the masses of ships now moving forward behind that vanguard were too far, even with their superior thrust capability. Admiral Winters and the fleet would live to fight another day, even if Repulse didn’t…and that was something, at least, to be thankful for.

  It was better than dying in a crushing defeat, knowing your cause was lost along with your own life. It was cold comfort, perhaps, but it was all she had. That, and a fleeting, desperate hope that Anya Fritz had one more miracle in her.

  * * *

  Stockton brought his fighter around, altering his vector gradually toward the closest enemy battleship. He’d been trying to thread the needle, to bring his small force up on a course between the two approaching behemoths. Trying to force both of them to slow their acceleration and plow some of their thrust, at least, into evasive maneuvers.

  It had worked better than he’d hoped, a testament to how seriously the enemy took the threat of bomber assaults. But Stockton had already squeezed as much as he could from it. His ships were too close to split the difference any longer. He had to send bombers toward targets now, even if they didn’t have any torpedoes, and he’d had to decide whether to take both squadrons in against one of the enemy vessels, or split the attack and try to maintain the deception against both.

  Any enemy analysis of his past formations would suggest that he would hit one of the ships, trying to bring enough force to bear to cause significant damage…and that was true. It was what he would have done. If he’d had any actual torpedoes to launch.

  And if those two ships weren’t the first ones that were going to get into range against a helpless Repulse…

  He split his force, a bare dozen birds going in against each of the looming monsters ahead of them. It was all bluff, and if the enemy smelled a trick, if they ignored the incoming craft, decided the size of the attack wasn’t enough to warrant slowing the advance, or caught on that something was wrong, Stockton’s entire plan would be for naught.

  And Repulse would be as good as dead.

  He looked at his screen, watching as the two squadrons formed flawless attack formations and headed toward the two target ships. He was proud of his people, but he also realized, the entire effort was probably pointless. At best, they could only buy Repulse another ten or fifteen minutes.

  But if Jake Stockton had a personal philosophy, it was never to gi
ve up, not until you were stone dead. And he was very much alive.

  He angled his thruster, blasting the engines hard to slow his approach velocity. It wasn’t what he’d normally have done, but anything that slowed his approach bought a few more seconds. Unless the enemy caught on.

  So far, the battleships had slowed their acceleration considerably, and they were engaging in wild evasive maneuvers. Stockton managed a smile. The entire dance happening in front of him was a testament to the respect his people had won from the enemy…the fear of massed bomber attacks they had instilled in the Hegemony forces.

  He shook his head as a series of flashes darted across his main screen. He was close now, close enough that the enemy’s defensive fire was getting deadly serious. He had a set of crack pilots on this run, but he knew he could still lose some of them. There was risk in every sortie, but something about his people being killed on a diversion, an “attack” that couldn’t hurt the enemy, bothered him beyond normal levels.

  He jerked his own hand, letting his instincts add to the AI’s evasion program. There was skill in flying through heavy fire, of course, but he knew full well there was also luck. Gut feel played a role as well, somewhere between experience and fortune. That wasn’t logical, perhaps, but Stockton—and every other veteran pilot he’d ever known—was convinced of it. He let his own instincts run free, his hand moving almost on its own, angling his thrusters every second or two.

  He was under ten thousand kilometers now. That meant two things. First, the enemy fire was thick, laser blasts ripping past his ship. Far too many of them were coming close, five hundred meters or less from his fighter. And, second, his diversionary attack was almost over. He could come in close—the enemy would be used to such daredevil tactics by his squadrons, and it would seem almost normal—but unless he was planning to ram, he’d have to pull up and try, somehow, to get his people back to Repulse and pray Anya Fritz had the engines back online by then.