Ruins of Empire: Blood on the Stars III Read online

  “Yes, Captain.”

  Barron stood up abruptly. He was a creature of duty, and there was nothing in his life as important as his role as Dauntless’s captain. But he was a curious man too, one who craved the pursuit of knowledge. It was beginning to dawn on him that this was the greatest discovery in Confederation history, and he felt an irresistible longing to see it. Now.

  “Commander, you have the con,” he said simply, matter-of-factly. “I’m going over with the Marines.”

  Travis spun around, a look of undisguised horror on her face. “Captain, I suggest you wait until Captain Rogan’s people have…”

  “You have expressed your concern, Commander Travis. And I appreciate it. But I’m a big boy, and I can take care of myself.” His tone was a little harder than he’d intended. The last thing he wanted was to snap at Travis, especially when he knew she was right. He had no place going over there with the Marines, no place at all. He was Dauntless’s captain, and he belonged on her bridge. But he was going anyway.

  It’s your fault, Atara…I couldn’t do this if I didn’t have someone as competent as you to leave in command. He held back a smile.

  “I’ll be careful,” he said, his voice softer. “But that thing over there could change history. It is the most momentous discovery in our lifetimes. In ten lifetimes.” He paused. Then he smiled at her and turned around, bounding across the bridge toward the lift.

  * * *

  Barron sat on the shuttle, moving around, trying to get comfortable. He wasn’t used to body armor, but Captain Rogan had insisted. No, more than insisted. The Marine, who’d followed every order Barron had ever given with almost fanatical obedience, had come closer to mutiny than Dauntless’s captain had thought possible, absolutely refusing to proceed unless his commanding officer wore the full combat kit.

  Barron knew his presence, armored or not, made his Marine commander intensely uncomfortable. There was little doubt Rogan considered the captain’s safety his personal responsibility, one he took very seriously. He’d tried to talk Barron out of coming. Then he’d suggested the captain wait until his first wave had gone in and secured the docking area, at least. Barron knew it all made sense, that Travis and Rogan were right. He had no place on the assault shuttle. But that didn’t matter…he had to go. It was curiosity, yes, the desire to be one of the first to set his eyes on a find of historical significance. But there was more to it than that.

  Hundreds of his crew had died since he’d taken command of Dauntless, brave men and women, devoted, loyal…killed following his orders. He’d sent so many of his people into dangerous situations, and now again, he’d ordered his ship’s Marines to go into the unknown. This time he was going with them. He didn’t know if it was Stockton down in sickbay, probably dying, or the nearly twenty pilots he’d lost fighting Vaillant, but duty didn’t matter now, nor obligation. The truth was, he had to be on this shuttle, and so he was. If something went wrong, if he was killed or incapacitated…well, then, Atara Travis would be one of the best captains in the fleet. He didn’t have the slightest doubt.

  “Commencing docking procedures now. Hold on back there, this might get a little rough.” There was an edginess to the pilot’s tone. The immensity of the ancient vessel was almost overwhelming. It had been here, deep in the Badlands, undiscovered for centuries. It was impossible not to be intimidated by it.

  The shuttle lurched as its deceleration thrusters fired, and again as the pilot hit the maneuvering jets, aligning with his chosen spot. Barron could feel the vibration as the boarding umbilical extended, and then a sharp metal on metal sound as the diamond-tipped blades dug into the ship’s hull, aided by short-ranged, high-powered lasers. It took a while, longer than normal for sure. That wasn’t a surprise. The ancient alloy was undoubtedly superior to anything used by the Confederation.

  Finally, the comm squealed again. “We’re in…Marines, you are clear to board.”

  Rogan jumped up, and he was half way across the room before Barron had managed to undo his harness. Dauntless’s captain had to fight back a laugh as he watched the Marine so clearly make sure he was between Barron and the door. He finished fumbling with the harness and shoved the straps aside, getting up and reaching down to grab the assault rifle at his side, something else Rogan had insisted upon.

  “Captain, please…let us at least go through and secure the immediate boarding area.”

  “Very well, Captain Rogan,” Barron replied. He gestured toward the hatch with his rifle. “I will follow.”

  “Thank you, sir.” The Marine’s tone was heavy with gratitude. “All right,” he snapped to the twenty other Marines in the shuttle. Let’s move out. Now!”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Command Center

  Fleet Base Grimaldi

  Orbiting Krakus II

  “Scanners confirm enemy ships emerging from the Landar transwarp point, Admiral. It looks like a dozen frigates so far. No capital ships.” Commander Jarravick had been Striker’s key aide before the admiral was promoted to command of the entire fleet, and he’d remained at that post, even as the responsibilities attendant to it increased exponentially. Striker knew Jarravick deserved a bump in rank to match the increase in the size and importance of his workload, but it was just something he hadn’t gotten around to yet. He made a mental note to revisit the issue when the recent crisis had passed. And before the next one starts…

  “Very well,” he replied, his voice almost robotic. He’d been listening to the reports as they came in, but most of his mind was elsewhere. He’d expected the enemy move against Grimaldi, at least he’d considered it a strong possibility, especially if this new offensive was the real thing. But not so soon. The enemy was advancing from four different jumping off points, and the transwarp network between systems imposed its own timetables, to which even the most aggressive battle plans were subject.

  Striker had been sure it would take at least another week to consolidate a combined fleet large enough to take on the main Confederation force and its forward base. Grimaldi had ten particle accelerators even heavier than a battleship’s primaries, and two dozen squadrons of fighters. It was a formidable target, and it was strongest in a situation like this, backing up the fleet. It would take everything the Union could muster to break through. And no matter how many ways Striker tried to figure it out, he couldn’t come up with any way it was possible they could launch that all-out assault now. Not this quickly.

  “The picket line is to engage, Commander.” He’d deployed a line of his own light escort ships near the transwarp portal, thirty ships strong. They’d be blown to bits by a force of battleships in a straight up fight, but they were more than enough to face the Union frigates…and then maybe to harass any of the enemy’s heavier vessels if they started coming through.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Striker stared at the huge 3D display in the middle of the control center. There were twenty-nine blue ovoids in two rough lines, every battleship he’d been able to muster. Almost every capital ship the Confederation still had in space. He’d lost half a dozen of the big ships since the enemy offensive began, and ten more had been forced back to the shipyards, most of them so badly damaged they didn’t have a beam hot enough to toast a piece of bread. It would be months before he got any of those ships back, especially since he’d sent them farther to the rear, bypassing the more forward shipyards in danger of being overrun if the enemy broke through.

  “Commodore Harris acknowledges, Admiral. The forward line is advancing.”

  “Put the fleet and the base on yellow alert, Commander.” Striker almost ordered full battlestations, but he held back. If the enemy was just probing, his pickets could handle things. His battleships had all seen action over the past few weeks, and their crews were exhausted and depleted by losses. They were here to face a major enemy attack, if it came, not to chase around enemy escorts poking their nose through the portal.

  “Yes, sir. All fleet line units to yellow alert. Grimaldi base to
yellow alert.”

  An instant later, Striker’s eyes caught the lamps around the control center glowing yellow. New personnel began moving into the control room, as the alert status called more of his people to their duty stations.

  He watched as the display updated his forward line’s approach to the enemy. The battle began as both sides opened fire. The escort ships were lighter-armed than the battleships that formed the main strength of the fleets, but they were faster and far more fragile. The fight was sharp, quick. His frigates had half a dozen cruisers adding some heft to their line, and it showed. The Union lost eight ships, to only four Confederation vessels, and the survivors turned and raced back at full acceleration toward the transwarp point.

  Every instinct in Striker screamed that he should order his line to pursue, especially since four or five enemy vessels were lagging behind, engine damage preventing them from engaging full thrust. But this wasn’t a time to ignore caution. Picking off a few escorts wasn’t going to change the status of the war, and if he got his pickets too close to the transwarp point, they were vulnerable. A few enemy battleships coming through at the right moment would savagely tear into his light forces.

  “Commodore Harris advises his forces are pursuing the…”

  “Negative, Commander. Harris is to stay where he is. No pursuit.”

  Striker could feel the pause, an uncomfortable quiet in the air while Jarravick took the slightest bit of extra time to respond. He knew the aide disagreed…that virtually everyone in the control room disagreed. To them, after more than a year of brutal fighting, it seemed anathema to let Union warships escape. He understood how they felt, but he didn’t have the luxury of reacting on pure emotion. Van Striker knew he needed every scrap of force he had if the enemy eventually launched a full-scale assault on Grimaldi. The enemy was playing some kind of game with him. This was the third time Union ships had transited, and still he’d seen nothing stronger than a cruiser.

  He hadn’t figured it out yet, but he was damned sure going to. The Union had more escorts than the Confederation, and they no doubt considered the light craft far more expendable than their battle line. But what could they gain sending in such forces? They couldn’t expect to launch a credible assault on the Confederation fleet base with frigates. Yet no heavier forces had followed.

  What are they up to? Is it all just an elaborate scheme to mess with my peoples’ heads, to run them ragged before the real attack? Or is it a diversion?

  And what about Dauntless? He’d been looking for a place in the order of battle for weeks now where he could spare a battleship or two…but there was nowhere. His forces had fallen back all along the line. He hated the idea of leaving Barron on his own…and, worse, if there really was some ancient ship out there, he was taking a terrible risk not supporting Dauntless.

  But if Grimaldi fell…if the enemy really had a way to sustain an offensive, the entire Confederation could be in jeopardy. And even an ancient artifact of astonishing power wouldn’t do any good if Megara and the rest of the Core worlds were destroyed or occupied before it could be studied and put to use.

  Perhaps the Union can’t sustain an invasion the entire way. Maybe they just wanted to push us back to Grimaldi, then take the time to build up their logistics…

  Almost on cue, Jarravick turned toward him. “Admiral…report from Commodore Harris…”

  Striker turned and met his aide’s gaze, and as he did he could almost hear the words before they were spoken.

  “Union battleships transiting, sir. Three so far, but energy readings suggest more are in the tube.”

  Striker took a deep breath and sat silently for a few seconds. Then he said simply, “Commodore Harris is to withdraw his forces two million kilometers from the transit point.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And bring the fleet to red alert, Commander. And Grimaldi base as well.”

  * * *

  Sara Eaton walked across Intrepid’s bridge. Her once tidy control center was a battered wreck. She stepped over the large rubber-coated cable running across the center of the space, a temporary power reroute put in place by her engineers in an effort to replace the shattered conduit that had once run just above the ceiling of the bridge.

  There were scratches and gouges on the once smooth and polished floor where the debris had fallen, but at least the damage control teams had hauled away the shattered chunks of the conduit…the one, she reminded herself, that had sent two of her people to sickbay with broken bones and other injuries.

  At least no one was killed…in that incident.

  She knew that had been a matter of pure providence. If either Lieutenant Dulles or Ensign Colmes had been a few centimeters forward of where they’d stood, both would have been killed instantly. That fortune, though she thought “fortune” was a grandiose term for what her people had experienced over the past few weeks, had not extended to others in different areas of the ship. Intrepid had suffered heavy casualties in its recent fights, including an abnormally large number of fatalities. Her people—and she herself—had been hardened in the brutal early months of combat, and even more so in their desperate mission behind enemy lines, when Intrepid and Dauntless had destroyed the enemy supply base. But the intensity of the fighting over the past month had pushed them all to their limits.

  By any reasonable standard, Intrepid should be in spacedock, her savaged systems getting the attention and repairs they needed, but there were other ships in worse shape, and Admiral Striker needed her in the line. So, Sara Eaton was going to do everything she could to make sure her ship was ready to do whatever was required of it.

  “Status report?” She stood for a few seconds as Commander Nordstrom jumped out of her chair and moved toward his own workstation. She’d been in her quarters when the battlestations klaxons went off, and she was silently cursing herself for leaving the bridge at all. She’d only done it after thirty-six straight hours on duty, and after the fourth time Dr. Jervis had practically demanded she get some rest, but as such things tended to go, the instant she’d nodded off, the enemy had decided to make another move. The klaxons had awakened her even before Nordstrom’s comm an instant later. She’d leapt up and raced to the bridge, and she suspected her disheveled state was quite the sight to her crew, accustomed as they were to their captain’s fastidious nature.

  “Four enemy battleships have transited, Captain. Energy readings suggest additional vessels are en route. Admiral Striker has ordered the fleet to assume combat formation Beta-2, ten million kilometers from the transwarp point. I ordered the engine room to engage thrust just before you arrived on the bridge.”

  “Excellent, Commander. Well done.” Even as she replied to her exec, she felt Intrepid’s engines kicking in. The dampeners absorbed most of the thrust, but she could still feel the acceleration. “Weapon status?”

  “The primaries are online, sir, but the power transmission lines remain fragile. Commander Merton doesn’t know how long he can keep them operational without making additional repairs. All secondary batteries are operative, except for numbers four and nine, which were destroyed in Hystari.”

  “Very well. Advise Commander Merton I want him to do everything possible to keep the primaries online.” She knew as the words left her lips it was pointless order. Merton knew how crucial the main guns were. The fact that they were operational at all was a testament to the efforts of his engineering teams.

  “Yes, Captain.” Nordstrom’s tone suggested he felt the same way. But he relayed her comments just the same.

  She turned and looked at the display. Seven enemy battleships now. And the power readings from the transwarp link suggested multiple additional vessels in transit. The enemy had been sending small forces through and then withdrawing, but this was looking like the real thing.

  Eaton had mixed feelings. She knew a major fight would be difficult and dangerous, that more of her people would likely be injured or killed. But that battle was coming whether she liked it or not, and par
t of her was relieved to get it underway. The ignominious flight from Hystari still stuck in her craw, and the engagements that followed had been hardly more satisfying. She hated retreating, watching the Confederation’s proud navy falling back before the enemy onslaught. But the Krakus system was a crucial choke point, the last decent place to mount a concentrated defense before the Iron Belt. The Confederation had already lost Grimaldi base once, but that had been when Admiral Winston was in command. She didn’t think Striker would yield it so readily, at least not without one hell of a fight.

  It’s about time…

  Chapter Twenty

  Inside Abandoned Spacecraft

  System Z-111 (Chrysallis)

  Deep Inside the Quarantined Zone (“The Badlands”)

  309 AC

  Barron crouched down, cautiously peering around the corner. He could hear the sounds of gunfire up ahead. He’d suspected the Union frigate had landed personnel on the spaceship, and Rogan and his Marines hadn’t been aboard more than two minutes before that was confirmed. It only took another ten seconds or so before Dauntless’s resident warriors had confirmed they were facing not just some random spacers, but a force of FRs, their hated rivals.

  The Foudre Rouge were the Union’s elite soldiers, clones, created and raised for a single purpose: to fight in service of the state. They were conditioned, surgically-altered, subjected to endless training and ruthless discipline. To most people in a place like the Confederation, they were considered slaves, the manner of their “birth” and subsequent treatment a crime against humanity. But to the Confederation Marines, they were just the enemy, and a century of brutal warfare had only increased the hatred between the two forces. There was no quarter in a battle between the Marines and the FRs, none given and none requested. A fight between the two was always to the death.