Dauntless (Blood on the Stars Book 6) Read online

  There was something else, too, another regret, beyond those he felt for the people he was leading into deadly danger. He knew he’d been harsh with Andi, that he’d hurt her. He had done it to protect her…but he still regretted that his last words to her had been hurtful.

  Barron could feel the anger inside. He’d always fought the enemy, but now he truly felt hatred for those he faced. The Union had caused generations of pain to his family, to the entire Confederation. They were an evil that had to be eradicated, whatever the cost. He knew he might not live to see it, but if his people could destroy the pulsar, he imagined the fleet surging forward, crushing the Union defenses and driving all the way to Montmirail.

  He imagined nuclear fires, total destruction. He wasn’t proud, and he knew it wasn’t the Confederation’s way to exterminate enemies, but he couldn’t help himself. It was what he wanted.

  I guess I am whatever that makes me…

  * * *

  “He won’t even speak to me.” Jovi Grachus’s voice was somber. She spoke softly. “Perhaps he’s right. I did terrible damage to all of you.” She turned and looked at Dirk Timmons, finding it difficult to maintain her gaze on the man she’d crippled.

  “No,” Timmons said, firmly. “No one has more cause for anger than I do, but war is war. Jake is indulging his own pain, yet how many people’s loved ones has he killed in battle? When we’re in space, facing each other, we fight. When we met, you won, and I lost. Had it gone the other way, I would have done the same to you.”

  “Jake understands that, Dirk.” Stara Sinclair sat across the small table from the other two. “It’s not that…it’s that it was Kyle.”

  Timmons nodded. “They were close. Even when I first got here, when Jake and I were still…rivals…I could see they were almost like brothers.” He looked across at Sinclair.

  “Closer than brothers. Kyle told me what Jake was like when he first got to Dauntless. I wasn’t on Dauntless yet, but Kyle was. Jake was wild then…I mean really wild, beyond what you’ve all seen. He was undisciplined. He’d have gotten himself killed for sure. You knew him, back then, Dirk.”

  Timmons nodded. “I never knew much about where he’d come from… But you’re right, something was…driving him, back then.”

  “Kyle got through to him, reached him somehow. Jake didn’t become disciplined, exactly, but he learned to think when he flew. A lot of his wild antics were deliberate, ways to build his reputation, but Kyle Jamison taught him how to think in the cockpit. Jake’s distraught at losing Kyle, but he also blames himself for not getting there in time.” She turned toward Grachus. “It’s not about you, Jovi, not really. I’ve tried to reach him, to get him to let go. Not only to accept you, but to forgive himself too. But he’s not ready.”

  Grachus nodded. “I understand, Stara. I felt the same way about Kat. I blamed Commodore Barron and Dauntless. I would have done anything to destroy this ship. It took me a long time to realize what a dangerous and wrongful road I was on, and to change my course. I understand Commander Stockton’s anger, I truly do. But we’re about to go into battle…” She paused. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have come. My people will be a disruption.”

  “No,” Timmons said. “It’s good you’re here. The pilots you brought are all top aces. If we’re forced to fight our way to the pulsar, the squadrons are going to be vital. Dauntless can’t use her weapons, not while she’s in stealth mode. So, the fighters are her only offensive weapon until she gets to the pulsar.

  “I just hope Commander Stockton is able to put aside his anger during the battle. He is our leader, after all.”

  “He will. At least when it’s most vital.” Timmon’s voice was firm.

  “How can you be so sure, Dirk?” Sinclair looked at him with a quizzical face.

  “Kyle will make sure he is.”

  Sinclair and Grachus looked at him in confusion.

  “The part of Kyle that’s still with Jake. The recollection of his friend, his mentor. The one thing Jake could never do is disappoint Kyle Jamison. Kyle would have put aside his own rage and anguish for the good of the mission, and Jake will know that when the time comes.”

  “I hope you’re right.” Grachus didn’t sound doubtful, exactly, but it was clear she was far from convinced. Sinclair’s expression suggested the same. But Timmons’s stare transmitted nothing but absolute confidence.

  * * *

  “I want that power feed escalated slowly…and I do mean slowly. This thing’s old, and we have no way of knowing how fragile some of these circuits are.” Anya Fritz spoke smoothly, deliberately, but Walt Billings could see through it. The two had worked together during desperate battles, when Dauntless’s survival depended on them restoring systems in minutes, sometimes seconds, but he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen her this tense.

  It made sense, in a way. They weren’t in the desperate fight yet, but they were about to be…and if this ancient hunk of only partially-deciphered tech failed, even briefly, it wouldn’t matter how quickly they restored the ship’s other systems. They were all done for.

  “Increasing one percent every two seconds, Commander.” Fritz was actually a captain now, and he a commander, but the whole crew had agreed to use the ranks they’d possessed in their days as members of Dauntless’s crew. He wasn’t sure if it had more to do with the stated reason of not having three or four captains floating around or with pure spacers’ superstition. He tended toward the latter, and though he was an accomplished engineer and a man of science and mathematics, he had to admit, he felt better for it himself.

  “Very well, Lieutenant. Maintain that level.” Fritz’s eyes were locked on the row of scanning devices she’d connected to the generator. They’d come up with everything they could think of to track, to try to head off problems, but even Fritz understood only half of how the thing worked. There was a level of guesswork and faith in everything they did with the device, and as much as Fritz had cautiously nursed the thing every time she activated it, he knew once they were in the Bottleneck, she would have the rest of Dauntless to worry about as well.

  “We’re up to forty percent, Commander. That should be enough in our current position.” The artifact was still a mystery in many ways, but Fritz and Billings had managed to get a handle on what it could do at various power levels. As far as they could tell, with the engines shut down as they were now, forty percent should prevent any scans from detecting Dauntless, or any signs of the big ship.

  “Captain, Fritz here.” She was speaking into the direct comm to the bridge.

  “Where are we at, Fritzie?”

  “Request fleet check. We should be off their scans.”

  “Hold for a second.” The line went quiet, for perhaps a minute. The fleet was spread out, and transmissions were restricted to lightspeed. Barron’s “second” had been overly optimistic.

  “Confirmed, Fritzie. All ships report negative on scans.”

  Billings thought he could see a little relief on her face. He certainly felt better. But the tests would only become progressively more difficult.

  “Thank you, Captain. Estimate two minutes to next check.”

  Forty percent was enough to hide the ship with minimal power output. Now, they would see just how far they could push the engines, without giving away their position. They’d done some testing already, but the whole mission had been such a rush, they were still going at least half on gut feel. Billings knew they weren’t going to eliminate that entirely, but he was hoping to get down to a quarter raw instinct and the rest hard data.

  “Power at forty-six percent and increasing, Commander.”

  He was hoping, but he just didn’t know if they’d get there.

  * * *

  “There are trails everywhere, Andi. Across at least ten light minutes, and thick. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.” Merrick seemed genuinely surprised, but Lafarge wasn’t. She’d never witnessed such a dense level of ion trails either, but then she’d never followed almost the entire Confed
eration fleet before, not to mention a good chunk of the Alliance navy as well. The astounding readings Merrick was passing on to her were nothing more than she’d expected. It confirmed they were on the right course, but the sheer magnitude also validated her dread that Admiral Striker was leading the fleet on a desperate assault against the enemy pulsar.

  “Have a guess on how old these trails are?” She was chasing the fleet, but she wasn’t ready to catch it, not yet. Striker would just send her back if his scouts picked up Pegasus trailing the fleet, assuming some cruiser didn’t just blast her tiny vessel to plasma before Striker even knew she was there. Those spacers had to be edgy, and it would only take one hair-trigger to finish off her ship.

  “No way to be sure, Andi. It depends on how hard they burned their engines in this system, whether they executed any formation changes, and the like. Judging by the insertion and exit angles, and the distance between ingress and egress points, I’d guess they used a moderate amount of thrust.” A pause. “Three days? Maybe four.”

  She leaned back and sighed softly, rubbing her head with her hand. She had to catch up, of course, but not too quickly. She looked over at the display, at the next system. It was about thirty-six hours from one point to the next, assuming standard burns and maneuver. Even if the fleet had slowed to reform, they’d be in the following system by now.

  Probably.

  “All right, Vig, let’s head to that transit point. We don’t want to fall any farther behind.”

  “Okay, Andi.” She could tell her friend had done the same calculations she had, and come to an identical conclusion. The next system was clear.

  Probably.

  Chapter Nineteen

  KCV Krillus

  Krillian Flagship

  Divanus System

  Year of Krillus 71 (313 AC)

  Marieles stood and watched the final stages of the battle. The Krillians had won, and now they were pursuing the remnants of the Alliance force. Krillus sat on his platform, looking insufferably pleased with himself. She wondered why. His forces had outnumbered, outmatched, and outgunned the Alliance border patrol by a factor of at least ten. Indeed, she saw reason for considerable concern in the amount of time it took the Krillians to push back their enemies, especially since the battle had been a surprise attack, one executed without a formal declaration of war.

  She’d heard the Alliance warriors were good, but now she realized she hadn’t truly understood how good. The Krillians would still have numbers, even after the Alliance rallied its available forces, but now she wondered if that would be enough. It didn’t matter, she decided. In fact, the best possible scenario was for the powers to weaken each other in an inconclusive struggle. She just needed the Alliance to feel threatened enough to pull back its expeditionary force, or at least some of it. Then, her mission would be a success.

  She was relieved, at least, to have been allowed out of the plush quarters that had served as her prison. She’d underestimated Krillus, deemed him a fool who would believe anything she told him. But he clearly doubted her promise that aid was on the way, which was disturbingly insightful considering there was, in fact, no assistance coming. The Union was out of resources, and she was there, beyond the Rim, effectively trying to make something out of nothing. She had succeeded, at least, in urging Krillus to take advantage of Alliance weakness and invade, but now she was becoming concerned she wouldn’t live to make it back to the Union, to gather the rewards a grateful Gaston Villieneuve was certain to offer.

  She was distracted from her thoughts by Krillus’s voice, as shrill and annoying as ever, but now more sinister than she’d noticed earlier. “Do you see, Ambassador? The first engagement is ours. Alliance space has fallen to us, and even now, my troopships approach. Divanus III is not much of a world, I will admit that, but it will be a welcome addition to my holdings.”

  “Your forces are to be praised, Great and Terrible Krillus. A magnificent victory, by any measure.” She was sick to death of humoring the fool with his ridiculous title, but now wasn’t the time to pique his anger.

  “Your praise is appreciated, Ambassador. We have defeated no more than a border patrol, of course, but it is a start. Only half of my forces have arrived, and when the entire fleet is here, we will cut right through Alliance space. They will expect us to seize their outer worlds, and the great industrial planets they have conquered in recent years, where we could hope to find support from the inhabitants. But we will not do as they imagine. This will not be a war over scraps. This is a unique opportunity, and we will not waste it. We will go right past their subjugated worlds…straight to Palatia itself.” He paused, staring at Marieles as if they were on the best of terms, as if he hadn’t held her captive for days.

  “We will destroy the Alliance homeworld with nuclear fire, Ambassador. We will break the back of these arrogant warriors once and for all. And when that is done, we will conquer the Alliance whole, and add its industry to that of the Holdfast. We will be the largest nation in the Rim, a match, even, for the inner domains.”

  Marieles smiled and nodded. She wondered if Krillus could pull it off, if he could actually conquer the Confederation. And if he does, am I creating the next monster to slay? What would the Holdfast be with all the resources of the Alliance added to their own?

  But that was tomorrow’s problem.

  * * *

  “All forces remaining in home space are to mobilize, Commander Globus.” Vennius’s voice was deep, hoarse. The Imperator of the Alliance was feeling every moment of his seventy-eight years. “All vessels are to be fully supplied and equipped for combat operations.”

  “Yes, Your Supremacy.” Vennius could hear the anger in Globus’s tone, a virtual copy of his own. The Krillians were no match for the Alliance, at least not in normal times. They were taking advantage of the fact that the Palatian forces had been badly damaged in the civil war, and the survivors had been divided, with the better half thirty systems distant, on the Confederation-Union line. Worse, Vennius knew it just might work.

  Against any other power, it almost certainly would work. The Krillians would be well positioned to demand a favorable peace once they had conquered several planets. But the Alliance didn’t yield. Never. The way was clear on this. Not only would Vennius never agree to offer the enemy a cubic meter of Alliance space, he would make that inbred piece of garbage sitting on his great-grandfather’s throne, styling himself a god-king, rue the day he was born.

  “You will take command and assemble the fleet…” What remains of it in Alliance space, at least. “…and move toward the Krillian border. I will join you there.”

  “Your Supremacy…I strongly urge you to remain on Palatia. This is your place.”

  “I will lead the fleet, Commander. We are weak because of my actions, because I allowed Calavius to deceive me and bring civil war down on us. Because I was compelled to seek aid from the Confederation, creating an honor debt that drains our strength. I will take responsibility, Commander. It is my place to lead our warriors into this fight.”

  “Sir…we will likely be outnumbered. You will be safer here.”

  “That is of no consequence, Cilian, though I challenge that view in any event. There is no safe place. We must defeat the Krillians. We have become arrogant. We think Palatia is unconquerable. Yet, the defenses we built over a lifetime are gone, destroyed by us, and by our allies as we fought our own brothers and sisters. The capital is in grave danger if the enemy penetrates this far into our space. Certainly, no Krillian army could conquer Palatia, but with the orbital defenses gone, even a modest fleet could gain control and launch a nuclear strike.”

  He could see Globus’s expression change as the realization set in that the Krillian invasion, happening just when it was, was a deadly threat. “Your Supremacy…”

  “No, Cilian. Your loyalty and protectiveness speak well of you, and I am appreciative. But I am too old a warrior to stand down now. The Alliance needs me. It needs every warrior, young and old, raw
and veteran. It is time to face this enemy…and to remind them who we are.”

  A wave of anger and determination swept through him. He’d felt weak, old and worn by all that had happened. But this was a threat from outside, clear and unquestionable, a surprise attack made without even declaration of war. He would not only see the Krillian forces defeated, sent back across the border in wholesale flight, but he would make certain that Krillus himself was held accountable for what he had done. He would see that the foreign monarch, a man without honor or integrity, paid the only price that would atone for what he had done.

  He would see Krillus dead.

  * * *

  “You are both very dear to me, Lucius, Ariane, as children of one I thought of—still think of—as a daughter.” Vennius looked across the room at the two Rigellus heirs, trying to hold back tears.

  “You are dear to us as well, Uncle Tarkus.” Lucius stood facing the Imperator, at almost rigid attention. He was every centimeter the young warrior, the elder heir of the great Regullii, and in his noble bearing, all his mother Katrine would have wished for. All Vennius could have hoped to see as well, or at least what he would have wanted most of his life. Now, as he prepared for war yet again, he dared to let him think what other lives Kat’s children could have ahead of them, if the Alliance were a different place than it was. They could be scientists, musicians, artists, inventors. These vocations were admired in other cultures. They led to wealth, admiration, honor…but in the Alliance such things were performed by subjugated people, little above slaves, and the only true calling for a Palatian was that of war. Certainly for Patricians as highly ranked as the Regullii.