Attack Plan Alpha (Blood on the Stars Book 16) Read online

  Rogan and his escorts stepped in the lift, and he reached out and tapped the controls. He had Marines fighting in a dozen places, and he intended to check on them all. But first, he was going to the control room. He was going to check in with the forces he’d sent there and make sure they were ready for anything that might happen. Striker’s control room was deep inside the hull, safe for the moment from any enemy incursions. But Rogan didn’t know how many Highborn troops he’d have to face, and if there was one job he never took for granted, one duty he considered utterly sacred, it was protecting Tyler Barron.

  If the enemy wanted to get to Striker’s control room and threaten the admiral…they would have to go right through General Bryan Rogan first.

  * * *

  Stockton tapped his thrusters, pushing his ship forward, in the general direction of the Pact fleet. He felt strange, almost uncertain what to do next. He’d reached Reg Griffin, convinced her to use the data he’d sent. He’d done all he could do to help his friends and comrades, those he’d betrayed so terribly over the last five years.

  He felt urges, old ones, pushing him to make a run back toward the fleet, to escape from the Highborn and return to where he belonged. It was the old survival instinct that had served him so well, in his many battles and in somehow enduring his captivity and enslavement. But it was misplaced, a part of his past that no longer served him. There was a longing to go back, but he knew it was impossible. Even if he could escape the Highborn formation, which seemed unlikely at best, the hard truth was, he didn’t belong there anymore. It wasn’t his home, not anymore. The enemy had taken that from him, perhaps the worst thing they had done to him. He wasn’t the man he was, and even if his old friends could somehow forgive his treason against them, he knew he never could. He’d always had an immense will to live, a driving force that had pushed him through one nightmare after another. But now, his conscious mind, his intellect, fought against it. Death offered the only path to release, to peace. Life held only more torment and misery.

  Better to die here. You’ve done all you could do, helped every way you can. It is time. This is the end…

  He took a deep breath, and his mind filled with images. Kyle Jamison, his old friend, more even than a brother, gone so long now that Stockton’s memories of his face had begun to fade. Admiral Barron, the officer—the man—Stockton respected above all others. The man you let down so badly. Reg, Dirk Timmons…all the others he’d served with, both those still alive, and those who’d been lost in the endless years of war. Stockton was sad, filled with self-loathing, unwilling to make an excuse for himself, to acknowledge that he’d had no control over what he’d done. But he felt something in his remembrances, and bittersweet emotions flooded into his thoughts.

  And Stara Sinclair. He could see her face in front of his, almost as though she was there, her pale blue eyes meeting his. He reached out to touch her cheek, but his hand moved through only open air. Stara was gone to him, just as all the others. He still loved her—she was the only woman he’d ever loved—but he couldn’t face her again, even if there had been some way to escape. Jake Stockton’s overpowering need to survive, the iron will that had saved him a hundred times was finally almost gone…and he knew what he had to do.

  One last battle…one last way you can help them, even if just a little…

  He gripped the throttle tightly and he took a deep and full breath. The Highborn would discover what he’d done eventually, very soon probably, but Stockton wasn’t going to wait. He wasn’t going to sit there, quiet, hiding in plain sight. No, if it was finally time for him to take a stand, to strike. If it was time for him to die, he was going to do it as he had lived.

  In blood and fire.

  Alright, you bastards…lets see how long it takes you to beat me…

  His eyes narrowed on the nearest Highborn fighter, and he adjusted his vectors, angling toward it…as his fingers moved toward the firing stud.

  * * *

  “Bring us forward, Commander. It’s time for Colossus to earn its keep.” Sonya Eaton sat in her position in the center of the massive vessel’s bridge. She’d been hugely intimidated by the power of her ship, at the enormity of its crew, at the still half-mysterious nature of its modified imperial tech, but she realized as she stared forward, she had adapted. It wouldn’t be entirely accurate to say she was calm as her giant battleship moved into the fight, but she was settled, focused.

  “Yes, Commodore.”

  She was afraid, too, of course. Only a stone or a lump of clay could face the battle just beginning and feel no fear. But she was ready for the battle. She would fight for the Confederation, for her home, for her comrades…and for those who were no longer there. Her sister, Sara. She’d always felt a bit of resentment toward her older sister’s success, at feeling as though she’d lived in the elder Eaton’s shadow. As she sat there, she longed to be back in the shade cast from Sara’s brilliant career, to spend just a few moments with her sister, to hear her voice, or even to sit silently together. But that was impossible. All that was left was to claim vengeance, to pour her sadness and grief into pure, unfiltered, stone-cold rage.

  “All weapons stations, I want one last diagnostic. We’re going to fire every gun the instant we get into range, and I don’t want any…” She stopped abruptly. Something new had just moved onto the main display.

  What the hell is that?

  But she knew almost instantly. She knew with a cold certainty…even if it was impossible.

  “Active scans now…I want all the data we can get on that contact.”

  The silence on the bridge told Sonya the others had all seen it, too…and they had all reached the same conclusion. The icon on the screen was large, and while it was red like all the other Highborn forces, in every other way it matched a single other symbol on the display.

  The large blue circle that represented Colossus.

  No, it can’t be…

  “I want those scanners checked and rechecked, Commander. Now!” But it wasn’t a scanner malfunction. Sonya knew with a cold certainty exactly what she was looking at.

  It’s a twin of Colossus…

  She’d been focused, cold and ready for battle, but now she felt almost punch drunk. She struggled to cope with the wild thoughts and fears swimming in her head, while maintaining the cool exterior she owed her spacers.

  She wrestled with the surprise, with the unexpected threat looming before her people. Colossus had been one of the Pact’s few true advantages. Had the enemy found another ancient imperial ship? Worse, perhaps, had they been able to build their own? Eaton’s uncertainty began to fade as the scanner data continued to flow in. The metals in the hull, the ship’s exterior systems…they were far newer than Colossus’s. The Highborn hadn’t found that thing, she decided, with something close to certainty.

  They had built it.

  The thought was a dark one, somber and chilling. If the enemy could build one such behemoth, they could build more. The idea of facing a phalanx of Colossus-sized ships almost sapped her hard-fought courage, but she told herself that was tomorrow’s problem. As she stared at the display, there was a single Highborn ship of the class, just one of the monster ships present, save only for her own Colossus.

  She took a breath and held it for a few seconds. She was still lost, still trying to center herself…but she was gaining more control. She knew what she had to do. She knew with cold certainty.

  “Vector adjustment…full thrust. All weapon stations on full alert.” She stared across the bridge toward the tactical officer’s station, returning the gaze of her still-stunned subordinate. “Now, Commander. Bring us right at that thing…full speed.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Free Trader Pegasus

  Telus Zakaris III

  Year 328 AC (After the Cataclysm)

  “Easy with that…this is sensitive equipment.” Sy Merrick had never worked on something as exquisitely sophisticated as the imperial computing unit, and her insides had
been held in a vice with every connection she’d undone, and every part she’d disassembled. The whole thing was a gamble, she knew, a massive bet that she and Lex would somehow be able to reassemble the thing…and that it would work once they powered it up again. A hundred things could go wrong, but she guessed that was an improvement over the thousand problems she’d expected when she’d first begun.

  “The shaft is too narrow, Sy.” Her brother’s voice echoed with frustration, and most of all, with worry. They all knew they’d found something extraordinary, and if they managed to wreck it trying to get it out…

  “It’s not too narrow…you just have to be careful.” She spoke into the small comm unit clipped to her collar. She’d been shouting down to Vig, but she was almost halfway to the surface, too far to simply yell anymore.

  She’d disassembled the AI as much as she’d dared, but it was still a tight fit, despite the fact that Andi had ordered the drill to make three more passes, widening the shaft considerably from its initial diameter.

  “Tight is putting it mildly. The next time you take a computer apart to move it, pay attention to the space you’ve got to get it through.”

  She didn’t answer. There was no point. Vig was just letting off steam. She knew her brother well enough to recognize when he was just giving her a hard time just for the sake of it.

  She was harnessed in just above the net containing the final pieces of the AI. If she’d taken it apart just right, if the somewhat rough trip up the shaft hadn’t damaged anything, if she and Lex could hook the thing into Pegasus’s power grid without burning either it or the ship’s electrical system out…just maybe she could get the thing working again. They’d made copies of the all the formulas and procedures, just in case, but Sy’s gut told her they weren’t going to recreate the Nigrum Mortem virus without the machine’s active help. Not in time, at least.

  She could see the light above. The surface was less than twenty meters farther up. She glanced back down, checking one more time to see that the lines hadn’t tangled. The fewer times the sensitive equipment she had in tow hit the walls of the shaft, the better.

  Another minute or two went by and then her head popped out into the speckled late afternoon sunlight. She scrambled up and waved to the pair of Marines standing around the edge of the shaft. “Come on, let’s get this stuff up,” she said, rubbing her leg where she’d bashed it against the wall. It was just a bruise, but it hurt like hell.

  She watched as the Marines pulled the net out of the shaft and set it onto the ground next to it. They moved to opposite sides, reaching out to pick it up again, but Sy put her hand up, gesturing for them to stop. She was going to take everything out where the package sat and carry each piece individually onto Pegasus. Andi wanted to lift off as soon as possible, but Sy had convinced her it would be easier to reassemble the AI, the main components of it at least, before liftoff. And by easier, she’d meant just a little less impossible.

  She turned and looked up at the two Marines. “Okay, help me get this netting off. And be careful…this is delicate stuff.” Sy had nothing but respect for the Confederation’s Marines, and the six Tyler Barron had sent with the expedition were veterans in every sense of the word. But as dedicated and courageous as they were, and as fierce in battle, handling fragile items wasn’t their strongest pursuit.

  And one clumsy move, one broken piece of electronics, could make the difference between recreating the weapon the empire used to defeat the Highborn…and a failure to achieve that end that saw every Confederation spacer and Marine dying in a losing fight.

  She walked over toward the two warriors. “Here, let’s start on this end…”

  * * *

  “I sent the Marines up, Andi. They’re helping Sy and Lex get the AI loaded onto Pegasus. We’re going to have to leave most of the equipment behind to get the thing into the bay. She pulled every data unit she wasn’t sure was totally fried. They’re sophisticated imperial models, tight and compact…but there are still a lot of them. If even half of this data is accessible, I can’t imagine what secrets this thing holds.” Vig Merrick turned and looked back at the ruins along the edge of the cavern. “This is an amazing find, Andi. We have to send someone back here when we can…who knows what could be retrieved here?”

  “Probably a lot.” There had been a time a find like the current one would have filled Andi with pure energy. But all she wanted to do just then was get the hell out of the cavern and back to the ship. If the Highborn were defeated and her life returned to a normal level of chaos, she probably would send an expedition back. But she looked out over the underground ruins, and she knew in her heart, it was the last time she would stand in such a place. She was done digging through old wreckage, searching for bits and pieces of humanity’s lost past. She would always support such efforts, but she promised herself, if she ever got the chance, she would be content with a quiet life with Tyler and Cassie.

  “Alright, that’s everything.” Andi had just put a few bits of equipment into her pack, but most of it she was just leaving behind. She’d seen Vig scoop up some old computer chips and the like, and she’d almost gotten a laugh out of it. Her friend had more money already than he could ever spend. But old habits died hard. They had in her, very hard. But they were dead. Her days as a Badlands prospector would end in a few hours, when Pegasus launched…and she doubted she would ever look back. “Ross, Sellia…are you both…”

  A loud crack shattered the near silence of the cavern. Then five or ten more, in rapid succession. Andi’s combat reflexes acted on their own, throwing her to the ground. Vig’s were sharp, too, but just a bit slower than Andi’s.

  Too slow.

  Andi heard the sound of her friend landing next to her, a loud thud, a clumsier move than she would have expected from Vig. She’d pulled her rifle out, and she opened fire, shooting blindly, in the direction the shots had come from.

  I knew we’d run into trouble here…

  She’d had a bad feeling since Pegasus had landed, but there was no satisfaction in being proven right, not this time. She’d run into partially functional imperial security bots before, and she’d always made it out.

  Though not all her people did…

  She fired again, her weapon set on semi-automatic as her eyes scanned for a hint of her target’s location. She could see fire coming from a mound of cover off to the right, near where she’d last seen Ross Tarnan. But something else was wrong. Her rifle was the only one firing from her position.

  “Vig, come on…lay down some fire. I think there’s only one of…”

  She turned her head slightly and saw Vig lying next to her. His rifle was about half a meter away on the ground. He wasn’t moving.

  She pushed against his body, and he rolled over onto his back, his arms splayed out to the side and his eyes wide open…and lifeless.

  Andi’s insides clenched, almost like a fist. She felt something purely elemental, a fury that almost tore her apart. She cursed, spewing out a series of foul remarks that would have made a veteran freight spacer blush. Then she opened fire again, switching to full auto and spraying the area in front of her.

  She tapped the small comm unit on her collar. “Ross, keep that thing pinned. I’m going to make a move on it.”

  Andi ignored the wild protestations coming through her earpiece. Ross was shouting for her to stay in cover, begging her not to do anything foolish, as were the Marines, who’d no doubt been dispatched with orders from Admiral Barron to keep an eye on her. But they were all too late.

  Andi was already up, prone behind a small pile of debris. Her eyes focused on a spot, the source of the enemy fire. She was almost sure there was only one bot back there…and from the rate of fire, it was only partially functional. Imperial security units were tough, but Andi had taken down more than one in her days in the Badlands.

  And this one was going down.

  She was filled with pure rage, driven even harder by the pain of loss growing quickly inside her. She fo
rgot about everything for a moment, the mission, the rest of the crew, her own survival. None of it mattered, not then. Her anger had turned her into a monster, unstoppable, desperate, starved for vengeance.

  Some part of her mind cried out that the bot was just a machine, that it had only followed its programming, that destroying it wouldn’t bring Vig back. It wouldn’t do any good at all.

  But Andi wouldn’t live in a universe where the thing that killed Vig continued to exist.

  She stumbled forward, staying as low as she could, leaping behind another pile of masonry and bits of twisted metal. She slammed in a new clip, and she emptied it, hosing the entire area around the bot with fire, even as the Marines began moving as well, trying to push ahead and toward her.

  The security unit responded to the threat, and she could hear projectiles slamming into the mound of debris as she reloaded. But then, the two Marines opened fire, and the bot turned to face the newest threat.

  Andi saw her chance. She slung her rifle over her shoulder, and she pulled a pair of grenades from her belt. She leaned down, grabbing the pin in each with her teeth and pulling them off.

  She raced forward, counting down and using the focus to hold back the wild storm churning in her head. Some part of her knew revenge against a machine was pointless, but she didn’t care. Destroying the thing that killed Vig was all she could do, however useless it might be. And she needed to do something.

  She held a grenade in each hand as she raced forward, gritting her teeth against the enemy fire she knew could come at any instant. But then she saw the bot, positioned behind two piles of wreckage. Her arms moved, one after the other, hurling the grenades forward, and continuing the countdown as she dove to the ground.

  Three…two…one…

  The two weapons exploded in rapid succession, sounding almost like a single extended blast.

  Andi didn’t know if the grenades would be enough, but she wasn’t going to take any chances. She had already leapt back up to her feet, and as her rifle came around into her hands, she opened fire again, racing forward, and firing right into the enemy unit, now less than five meters away. The bot was down, and it looked completely destroyed, but she reloaded anyway, and she emptied the new clip into the thing.