The Last Stand Read online

  Winters was silent for a moment. Barron looked over at his friend and nodded. “I know…I wouldn’t know what to say to me either. Don’t worry, I’ll pull it together and be ready for the fight, Clint. You know me well enough to be sure of that. But it’s…hard. I wish I could see her, just one more time…and my daughter.” Barron was in a dark place, and he knew he had to pull himself out of it, lie to himself if that’s what it took. Duty was calling, as it always did, and he knew he’d have to answer.

  As he always did.

  But not just then. He still had some time to feel sorry for himself.

  He could imagine the plaque on his memorial. ‘Tyler Barron—he sacrificed every chance at happiness, everything he’d ever desired, for the Confederation.’ Barron had never been comfortable with the pomp and adoration that had followed him from his birth throughout his famous career, but he’d never questioned his path. Until now. He looked at his life and saw all he’d missed, all he was likely to miss in the future. That’s worth a statue or two, I guess.

  He put the glass to his lips, and he drained it.

  Winters looked uncertain, but only for a few seconds. Then, he rallied, and he looked back at Barron. “We will find a way, my friend. You’ll get back. You’ll see Andi again…and you’ll see your child, your children, no doubt, grow up in peace.” Winters managed to sound convincing enough, but Barron knew his comrade too well to believe he was anything like confident of victory. And, if he was, it was only because he hadn’t seen the Others yet.

  He let out a sound, something very close to a snort. “We’ll see how you feel when the enemy gets here, when you see those ships…”

  He paused, and he stared right at Winters, his eyes locking with his friend’s. “…and what those beams of theirs do to a ship’s hull.”

  * * *

  “Are you insane?” Chronos stared across the table at his comrade on the Hegemonic Council with an expression that suggested he was barely restraining himself from leaping across the polished granite slab and strangling the other Master. Chronos had always disliked Thantor, but that had grown into full blown hatred as the second highest rated member of the Council had continued his campaign to discredit and obstruct Akella. Chronos was Akella’s ally, and he tried to tell himself that was the sole cause of his fury. He was the eighth most genetically perfect human in the Hegemony, but he realized, somewhere in the cold recesses of his mind, where brutal reason trumped all other things, that his intellect had proven insufficient to deter himself from occasional self-delusion.

  Akella was his ally, but she was far more. Hegemonic society did not support—or even allow—permanent pair bonding. Sexual relationships existed for recreation, and to produce children with suitable genetic partners, and nothing more. The marriages and other customs common in many of the Rim cultures, and in the imperial histories as well, were considered beneath Hegemonic Masters, who were expected to act as individuals in all things, and make decisions devoid of animalistic emotional constraints.

  Except Chronos and Akella did have a relationship, one that would create a major scandal if it was discovered. His rage toward Thantor was fueled by that fact, and by the affection he felt for his lover—he wasn’t ready to call her more than that, even in secret. Love and the other terms used by the Rimdwellers were forbidden to him, by Hegemonic law and custom, and he hadn’t come far enough to utterly disregard all he had believed his entire life.

  His anger stemmed also, he realized, from petty jealousies. Number Two was the father of Akella’s first child, as he was of the second. He knew that shouldn’t bother him, that he should be above such things…but he wasn’t. It gnawed at him every time he looked at Thantor, and the fact that he knew Akella had never had any feelings at all for her first pairing partner seemed illogically irrelevant to him. The sight of Thantor infuriated him.

  But there was more at stake now than his secret feelings and jealousies. Thantor was pushing for something very dangerous…and stupid as well.

  “Chronos, I am aware that you have bonded with he Rim warriors, shared whatever camaraderie has developed between former enemies now fighting together as allies, but the facts remain clear. Colossus is an irreplaceable asset, the greatest and most powerful vestige of the old empire available to us. We found it, we poured the industrial output of a score of worlds into its repair and deployment. It is ours…and finally, we have the change to take it back.”

  “Take it back? You think it is that simple? Aside from the tactical risks—and Colossus opening fire on Calpharon once the Confeds realize what we are doing is only one of those—we need the Confeds, and the other Rimdwellers allied with them. Your recklessness would cost us an ally, and hundreds of warships in the coming fight, in a pointless effort to retake a vessel that will be fighting at our side anyway?”

  Chronos was careful not to make an argument based on loyalty or honor. The Rimdwellers were still considered barbarians by many of the senior Masters, certainly Thantor, and as such, unworthy of such concepts. To Thantor, the Confeds were fit to be used as he saw fit, and discarded once their utility had passed. Chronos had come to respect his allies, and even to regret that he had fought so long against him. Much of that conflicted with his long-held beliefs, and he was still sorting it all out. But he was damned sure he wasn’t about to stab Tyler Barron and his spacers in the back…and he wasn’t going to let Thantor do it either.

  Whatever it took to prevent it.

  “Chronos, I commend you for your years of service, but I wonder if working so closely with the Rimdwellers has colored your analysis. The Confeds have seen the enemy, they have faced the Highborn in battle. They understand the threat now. What options do they have? They need us, more perhaps than we need them. Once we have retaken Colossus, we will offer them recompense, some reward or another to appease their primitive pride. They are savages, after all, are they not? We have much to offer them that is beyond their technology.”

  Chronos didn’t answer the question directly. It was a trap, and as much as he was being driven by anger, his intellect was still in play as well. Thantor wanted to discredit him, to make it appear he was too closely aligned with the Confeds.

  “Have you even glanced at the battle reports, either from this war or the last one? Have you scanned the casualty figures as you sat here in safety? Have you learned nothing of our former enemies, now our tenuous allies? Think what you will of the Rimdwellers, but there are many of them, and they possess considerable military strength. The Confeds, their military in particular, are driven by a sense of honor and loyalty. It was difficult to bring them to our side, to overcome the bitterness from the recent war. Do you really believe they will accept your petty gifts after we have seized Colossus and killed more of their people in the process? Are you really such a fool, Thantor?”

  Chronos clenched his lips as he cursed himself for letting the last line to slip out. Thantor was more highly ranked than he was, and in the Hegemony, that was the most important source of authority. Chronos knew Number Two was driven by wild ambition, to the point he’d begun to question his rival’s sanity. But without any proof, his options were limited. And he knew Thantor had support on the Council. Perhaps even enough.

  Enough to turn hard fought allies back into enemies. Enough to throw away any chance to hold off the Highborn. To save the Hegemony. You can’t let that happen.

  “Your outburst is unbecoming, Chronos. You are a member of this Council, and we all expect you to behave as such. You are too close to the Rimdwellers, perhaps, to craft a clear visualization. This is forgivable, perhaps even understandable…but it cannot be the basis of Council decisions.” A short pause. “I move that we vote on the measure to launch a surprise raid to retake control of Colossus and then to repair relations with the Rimdwellers in some yet to be specified manner.”

  Chronos leaned back in his chair, still angry at his loss of control. His eyes scanned the table, as unobtrusively as he could manage. He considered himself adept at rea
ding expressions, and what he saw was unnerving. It was impossible to be sure, of course, but his gut told him the vote was going to be close.

  Too close.

  “Wait…” He stood up, raising his hand in front of him. “I would say one more thing. I will not participate in the Hegemony’s act of suicide. If you would ignore the deadly threat approaching, risk losing the allies we have struggled so hard to attain…you will do so without me. I give my proxy to Akella for this vote, and I leave you all with this promise. Vote to try to retake Colossus from the Confeds, and you will also have to vote for a new supreme military commander…for you will have my resignation, along with my utter contempt.”

  He turned abruptly, with all the military posture and sharpness he could muster, and he walked out of the room, ignoring the cries for him to remain.

  He walked through the door and out into the corridor, wondering if his dramatic display would be enough to prevent his colleagues from making a tragic mistake. He’d done all he could. Now, it would be up to Akella.

  Chapter Three

  Vigillius Nebula

  8 Transits from Calpharon (Hegemonic Capital Planet)

  Year 323 AC (After the Cataclysm)

  Stockton stared down at the small panel under the ship’s main controls. It was a little different in the new Mark V’s, slightly lower and farther to the starboard side of the cockpit. But he knew just what it was. Stockton was notorious for his aggressive, and often reckless, tactics, and overpowering his ship’s reactors and engines had long stood front and center in that arsenal of unofficial weapons of war. He’d done it so often, he’d heard it referred to more than once as the ‘Raptor Maneuver,’ named after his famous callsign. The tactic had saved the lives of many pilots, himself included…and it had cost no small number as well. Now, he found himself wondering how much extra power he could squeeze out of the new ship’s reactor.

  He hadn’t expected to resort to his old tactics in the new ship, at least not so soon. But the new enemy ships, and the mysterious wave of approaching missiles, were forcing his hand.

  He paused, holding his fingers near the panel before pulling back. No, he wouldn’t overload the reactor. He couldn’t. Only thirty of his ships were the new Black Lightnings, and there was no way Jake Stockton was going to break and run and leave ninety percent of his people behind.

  No damned way.

  But his people weren’t going to escape either, not simply by running. The math on that was stark and unavoidable. That only left one option.

  “All ships, cut thrust and come about one eighty. We’re going to open up on those things, blast them all to atoms before they can reach us.” His people would never get all the incoming weapons, he knew that…just as he knew he was trying to deceive his people into believing they could. Hopelessness wouldn’t serve them, and if a lie squeezed a bit more effort from them, saved even a single life, he was okay with that.

  He stared at the screen, even as his hands moved over the controls, adjusting the settings. An instant later, long thin lines stretched out behind each of the missiles, their approach trails for the last two minutes. The warheads were coming in fast, but also straight, with almost none of the kind of evasive maneuvers he’d trained his pilots to execute for so many years. Even with their massive acceleration rates, the incoming missiles would be relatively easy to target. The more his squadrons could destroy, the fewer would remain to kill his pilots.

  “I want full AI targeting protocols. All ships, open up with lasers at maximum range, and maintain continuous fire.” His ships still had their bombs, but they were next to useless against the incoming missiles. He considered ordering his people to dump the heavy nukes, but he held back. Dropping the bombs would increase maneuverability, but there wasn’t time. The incoming missiles were less than half a minute from entering firing range, and his people needed every second they could get.

  He flipped the arming switch for his own lasers, and he stared at the targeting screen, lining up his first shot. He wished there was more time, that he’d had the chance to develop a cohesive combat plan. As it was, his people would be firing wildly, wasting innumerable shots as multiple ships targeted the same missiles.

  Even as he completed his own targeting, he faced the cold truth deep in his mind. His wings simply didn’t have the firepower they needed, even if they managed to distribute their shots effectively. But there was no other way, nothing else he could do.

  Or was there?

  The Kriegeri. He’d kept the Hegemony squadrons in reserve, as he had on previous missions. He told himself, and anyone else who asked, that he was concerned about their inexperience, worried about meshing operational flying styles…anything but the truth.

  The Kriegeri still gave him the creeps. Their heavy conditioning and rigid obedience to the Masters ran counter to every impulse that made Stockton who he was. And despite his greatest efforts, and the many lectures he’d given his pilots on the subject, Stockton still harbored some resentment and ill-feeling toward his old enemies. His wings had bled themselves dry in the war against the Hegemony. There had been such intense suffering, so much death...more than he could forget. He knew there had been no choice but to side with the forcer enemy, that the Highborn could very likely defeat the combined forces of the Rim and the Hegemony, much less either of them alone, but he still struggled to consider the Kriegeri as real allies.

  But just then, he needed everything he could get. Every fighter, every pilot…every shot. He looked down at the comm for a few seconds, and then he slapped his fingers down on the controls. He sucked in a deep breath, holding it for an instant before he spoke.

  “Kiloron Gelak…you are to bring your wings forward immediately. We have to target and destroy the incoming missiles, and we need every gun we can get on the line.”

  Stockton shook his head slowly, even as he listened to the Kriegeri’s crisp and formal reply a few seconds later. The idea of the Hegemony fighters saving his squadrons, even his life, didn’t sit well with him. But as he stared at the wall of approaching warheads, and he calculated the number of shots his people would get off, he knew that was just what he was about to see…his force saved by those he still thought of as enemies.

  If they were saved at all. Kriegeri or no, he knew that was still at best a coin toss.

  * * *

  “All squadrons, full thrust. Rear units move forward. We are advancing in a single line.” Gelak snapped out the orders in the same controlled and dispassionate voice he’d always used, but inside, he was on fire. It was widely believed that Kriegeri didn’t experience fear or desire, that they were essentially automatons, following orders without question, with almost no regard for personal survival. Gelak had always known that was a myth, of course, and the tightness in his body put rest to any thought that he couldn’t feel fear.

  He did follow orders, though, even when they came from a Rimdwelling Confed who’d been placed in command of his forces. And he welcomed the chance to show what his pilots could do, despite their lack of extensive combat experience.

  He looked down at the flight controls in front of him, but he left them untouched. He fired up his ship’s engines with little more than a thought, and he set his course with another.

  No, not thoughts, he realized, not exactly. There was a very specific skill to connecting with the neural link, one that took considerable practice to master. The thing monitored specific brainwave activity, it didn’t read his mind. But with the proper skills, it could reduce reaction times, and that could mean the difference between victory and death for a pilot.

  His people hadn’t seen the combat hours most of Stockton’s Confeds had, but they’d spent enormous time in their ships learning their craft regardless. And they were Kregeri, chosen for their aptitude, both for war, and specifically for fighter operations. And Gelak would put a Hegemony Kriegeri up against a wild and undisciplined Rimdweller any day.

  Kriegeri were not immune to pride any more than fear.

 
; His ship lurched forward, moving toward the Confed and Alliance fighters, and beyond them, the vast cluster of approaching missiles. He watched as Stockton’s people opened fire, blasting one after another of the incoming warheads. In a matter of seconds, several dozen had been intercepted, and in the first minute, the number reached into the hundreds. But even amid the devastating defensive fire, the mathematics of the situation became ever clearer. The ships on the forward line were too few, their fire too light to clear away the entire enemy volley.

  But if Gelak’s ships could get up there on time…

  He reran the calculations, checked the time until his lead ships entered firing range. Three minutes, fifteen seconds. That would get his people up to the line before the enemy warheads could close…just before. His ships would open fire, blast as many of the missiles as they could. But they would pay for that shortly thereafter, as the surviving weapons likely targeted them as well as Stockton’s ships.

  He pushed the thought aside. Death in battle was a possibility all Kriegeri prepared themselves to face. He wanted to live, as he knew all his pilots did, but there were worse fates than death in combat. And, while he generally avoided too much consideration of strategic matters that were beyond his purview, Gelak knew the Hegemony was fighting for its very survival. He was not only doing his duty, carrying out his obligation to the Masters…he was battling for the future, for the very survival, of his family, and all those he knew on his home world. For untold billions like them throughout the Hegemony.