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  “Yes, sir.” Travis turned back toward the workstation, her hands moving over the controls, almost in a blur. Then she leaned over the comm and issued the orders to the engine room. “Course change executing in two minutes, Captain.”

  Barron stared at the display, his eyes on the enemy contact, silent for a moment. “I don’t trust this ship,” he finally said.

  “Sir?”

  “This ship. Its captain. If we’re right, someone on that ship managed to pick up the trail we left through those dust clouds. Anyone who did that, who perceived it as a threat, is dangerous.” Barron’s mind wandered back, almost seven years, to the desperate battle against Katrine Rigellus and Invictus. Dauntless had won that fight, but by the slimmest of possible margins, and Barron never deceived himself into thinking luck hadn’t played a huge part in the victory. He’d become accustomed to assuming Union captains would be mediocre tacticians at best, but he knew every service had its standouts. Was he facing the Union’s version of Rigellus?

  “I want all squadrons placed on full alert. Pilots to the ready rooms. All fighters armed and ready to launch.” He turned and looked back at the display. “I just don’t trust whoever’s commanding that ship. I want to be ready…whatever happens.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Fortress A-074

  Geosynchronous Orbit

  Barroux, Rhian III

  Union Year 217 (313 AC)

  “Barroux Fortress Control, this is Union vessel Flamant, requesting status report.”

  Remy Caron stood in the orbital platform’s control center. The room looked like a wreck, but miraculously, none of the vital equipment had been destroyed. The bodies of the security troopers, and his own people who had fallen, had all been removed, but the walls and floor were still marked by bullet holes and stained with blood.

  He looked across at one of his soldiers—he’d decided they’d all had enough of a baptism of fire to be called soldiers now—and nodded. The man moved the rifle toward the man seated at one of the workstations.

  “You’re going to answer that communique, Lieutenant Cezare, and you are going to use normal protocol. Give no indication that anything is awry aboard this platform or any of the others.” In fact, the entirety of Barroux’s orbital defense network was firmly in the hands of Caron and his rebels, though it remained an open question if they’d managed to spare enough specialist crew to man the weapons systems.

  The technician glanced hesitantly in Caron’s direction. He was clearly terrified.

  “If you give any warning, or say anything I think might be the slightest bit abnormal, Pierre is going to blow your head right off your shoulders. Do you understand?”

  The quivering man managed a shaky nod.

  “I want you to remember, even if you’re able to give some kind of warning we don’t catch, if they don’t approach normally, we’re going to assume you tipped them off…and Pierre will blow your brains out. We’ll have plenty of time to kill you, no matter what they do. So, keep all that in mind.” He gestured toward the wall. “And remember what happened to the security forces, and to many of your own comrades. There is only one way off this station for you still breathing, and that’s with us. Understood?”

  “Yes,” the technician croaked weakly.

  “Barroux Fortress Control, this is Captain Givan, commanding Union vessel Flamant. Please respond.”

  Caron nodded. “Go ahead. Answer them.”

  The man extended his arm, his hand shaking as he struggled to work the controls. “Flamant, this is Barroux Fortress Control. Lieutenant Alian Cezare on duty.”

  “What was the cause of your delay in responding, Lieutenant?”

  “Nothing…I mean, we’ve been monitoring the surface activity, Captain.”

  “Report on status.”

  “Status green here, sir. The surface of Barroux is completely in the hands of the rebels, however.”

  “We had received a report that General Lisannes landed ground forces to pacify the rebellion.”

  Cezare turned and looked toward Caron.

  “Tell him the landing failed. That Lisannes is dead.”

  Cezare turned back toward the comm unit. “Yes, sir. General Lisannes landed his forces, but they were overwhelmed and defeated. I’m afraid the general is dead, Captain.”

  “That damned fool.” It was a different voice on the comm. “Lieutenant, did you provide ground fire support to the General’s operation? It was still unsuccessful?”

  “Negative, sir. Our installations are not set up for ground bombardment, only to defend against approaching ships.”

  “Well, we’ve got a landing force with us, Lieutenant. Not glorified thugs like Lisannes’s people, but real soldiers. Foudre Rouge.”

  Caron felt his insides clench when the voice on the comm mentioned Foudre Rouge. The Union’s clone soldiers were dreaded by every enemy, and by the downtrodden masses of its own worlds too. Genetically engineered, conditioned from birth to be merciless, the Foudre Rouge were the stuff of nightmares.

  “Very well, Flamant. You are cleared to approach.”

  “Acknowledged, Fortress Control.”

  Caron stood and watched. Then he reached down and grabbed a portable comm unit. “They’re coming in, Henri…get your people ready.”

  “Yes, Remy. We’re all set here.”

  Caron wasn’t entirely confident his people and the captives they had with them would be able to operate the defensive grid. He hoped so, and he wanted to believe that was enough.

  Because if they couldn’t, there would be Foudre Rouge storming the stations in an hour…and he’d be dead a few minutes later, along with all his people.

  But that wouldn’t be the worst of it. After they reclaimed the stations, the Foudre Rouge would land on Barroux. They would crush his disorganized and terrified soldiers, and then they would exact their revenge on the people of the planet.

  On Elisa and Zoe…

  * * *

  “Did anything sound strange about that exchange to you, Captain?” Ricard Lille was standing next to the comm station, looking across Flamant’s small bridge.

  “No sir, not especially. The lieutenant sounded nervous, but he did just watch an entire planet overrun by rebels and then a landing force sent to reclaim it destroyed.”

  “Perhaps.” Lille still wasn’t comfortable. Something felt…wrong.

  He didn’t know what it could be, what he expected. The officer on the station had sounded nervous, but Givan was right. The man had witnessed a planetary uprising, and then, a few weeks later, he’d watched an entire landing force annihilated. That would be upsetting to anyone.

  The stations can’t fire at the planet. What genius thought of that? It might have shaved two percent off the budget…two percent the project manager probably stole anyway.

  The orbital stations would have been useful, especially since Lille had full authorization to use whatever force he deemed necessary. He was more than willing to bombard the surface, prepared to accept any level of collateral damage to swiftly put down the rising. But that option seemed off the table without the fortresses. His fleet consisted almost entirely of troopships and transports, armed, but not with sufficient weaponry for a planetary bombardment. The Union didn’t have warships to spare quelling internal revolts, not now, not with the climactic battle of the war imminent a dozen transits away, in the Bottleneck.

  “Bring us in, Captain. The stations may not be able to provide fire support, but they’ll still be useful for managing the landings.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Lille turned and glanced back at the seat he’d been using on the bridge. He was planning to sit, but he was tense, and he decided to stay on his feet. He despised this mission. He was an assassin, a manipulator behind the scenes. Leading more than twenty thousand Foudre Rouge, crammed into every marginally spaceworthy hulk he’d been able to scrape up, was about as far as it got from his area of expertise. But he understood the importance of sending a message
across the Union. There was unrest everywhere, but nowhere had it progressed as far as it had here. Whatever happened in the next few weeks in this system would reverberate throughout the Union.

  It was time to drown all of this, the demonstrations, the strikes, the brewing rebellions—drown them in the blood of Barroux.

  “Sir, we’re picking up increased energy readings from the lead platform, sir.”

  Lille’s head snapped around, toward the display. But before he would respond, Givan spoke again. “Energy spikes on all stations on this side of the planet, sir.”

  “Pull us out of here!” Lille’s response was faster than his analysis. He’d already been concerned, worried something was wrong. Now he knew. The rebels controlled those stations.

  He didn’t know how. The whole thing seemed impossible to him. But Ricard Lille was nothing if not a realist.

  “Get us out of here, Captain.”

  “Full thrust, reverse course,” the captain snapped.

  Lille reached out and grabbed onto the back of the closest chair, bracing for the thrust that came an instant later. It was hard, better than 10g for few seconds, and he fell to his knees, his legs slamming hard into the deck. Then, the dampeners activated and cut the effective pressure on the bridge to something closer to 3g.

  The initial burst had pushed Lille to the ground, but now he reached out and grabbed hold of the chair, pulling himself up into the seat. His legs hurt, but he realized immediately it was just bruising, no real injury. His training and experience had given him an extraordinary sense of his own body.

  “Status, Captain?”

  “We’re decelerating at maximum thrust, sir. Thirty-five seconds to dead stop.”

  Lille shook his head. That was too long. He despised space travel. On a planet’s surface, if you decided to change directions, you could do it rapidly. In space, it took minutes, even hours, to reverse course. He’d given the order half a minute before, but the ships were still moving toward the stations.

  Toward…

  He didn’t get a chance to finish the thought.

  Flamant shook hard, and Lille reached out, barely stabilizing himself in the seat. Damn. He’d been fairly certain the platforms were rebel-controlled, ever since Givan reported the power spike. But there had been at least some doubt…

  Flamant shuddered again.

  No doubt now…

  “Can we return fire, Captain?”

  “Not with the engines at full thrust, sir. We don’t have enough power.” A pause. “Our armament isn’t strong enough to engage the stations anyway, sir. It wouldn’t make much difference, even if we could power the batteries.”

  “Okay…just get us out of here.” It was perhaps the stupidest order Lille had ever given. Flamant—and the rest of the ships in his fleet—were already blasting at full, directly away from the attacking platforms. There was nothing more Givan, or any captain, could do…except maybe get out and push.

  “We’re getting reports from the other ships, sir.” The captain turned and looked across the bridge toward Lille. “The platforms have opened fire.”

  Lille didn’t respond. It wasn’t fear…he’d faced death before. But now he struggled with his greatest weakness. He despised being helpless, and right now there was nothing he could do but sit where he was and hope Flamant was able to reverse course and pull out of range quickly enough.

  “Glycine reports two hits. Her thrust is down to thirty percent.” The communications officer was reciting incoming communiques.

  “Very well,” Givan acknowledged. “All vessels, maintain thrust and course.” There was nothing else to do.

  “Thetis reports severe damage, Captain.” Before Givan could respond, the comm officer turned and looked toward him, his face pale. “Thetis has been destroyed, sir.”

  Lille sat silently. He had nothing to add, no way to improve Flamant’s chances…or those of any of his ships. His nearly eidetic memory flashed needless details into his mind—five hundred three Foudre Rouge soldiers on Thetis, along with nine hundred eleven assault rifles, three thousand six hundred four grenades, and assorted other ordnance he’d cataloged. All lost now.

  Flamant lurched hard. For a moment, Lille wasn’t sure the ship had been hit, but then he saw Givan on the comm, requesting a damage report. He listened, and from what he could hear, and the relative calm on the captain’s face, he deduced that it hadn’t been bad.

  This time…

  His eyes darted toward the display, fixing on the vector angles and velocity. Flamant was heading away from the fortress now, at least, though the ship was still closer than it had been when he’d issued the order to pull back.

  He wasn’t a naval officer, but his mind worked the numbers, the acceleration, in kilometers per second per second, comparing the results to the range he recalled for standard planetary defense grids. Six minutes, more or less.

  Six minutes to safety.

  At least temporary safety. He had no idea how he was going to get into orbit to land his army. But that wasn’t the worst problem he faced.

  The greatest danger was going back to Montmirail empty-handed…going back and telling Gaston Villieneuve that he had failed again.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Formara System

  “The Bottleneck”

  313 AC

  Damn.

  Barron had been watching the Union battleship, noting every vector change it executed. And every one of them brought it closer to an intercept course with Dauntless.

  Barron’s ship had moved through more dust clouds—there had been no way to avoid them, at least not without course changes that would have added hours to Dauntless’s trip. Barron was now certain that was how the enemy ship was tracking him. That was upsetting on more than one level. Not only was his ship’s invisibility at least partially compromised, but whoever was in command of that vessel knew what he was doing in a way few Union commanders did. Barron had wondered if he would have picked up the subtle trail through the dust. There was no way to know, of course, but he’d admitted to himself, there was a good chance he’d have missed it entirely.

  His problems were growing, and he was going to have to make a decision. If he did nothing, that ship would keep coming…and if it found a way to get a sensor lock, it might engage Dauntless just when she was closing on the pulsar. But if he attacked his pursuer, he would be sending up a flare to every Union battleship in the system. He could only imagine how the enemy would react to the sudden realization that a Confederation battleship had slipped around their formation and was now closing on the pulsar.

  He looked at the display, at the small line designating Dauntless’s current vector. He’d brought his ship deeper into the system, as far as he could from the enemy battle line. Even if the pursuing ship sent out the alarm, it would be difficult for any of the other ships to reach Dauntless before she got into firing range of the pulsar.

  Just this one on our tail…

  Of course, running into a dozen enemy warships after destroying the pulsar would make getting home a difficult proposition, even if the mission was a success. Barron thought about that for a few seconds, and then he put it out of his mind. He’d always known the odds on coming back from this mission were long.

  “Enemy vessel adjusting course again, sir.”

  Barron had just noticed the modification when Travis reported it. He watched as the ship angled a bit, zeroing in even more directly on Dauntless. Barron didn’t think his pursuer had an exact location for his ship, but even a general area was problematic. If the enemy came at him when he was ready to fire at the pulsar, the whole attack—the whole mission—could be endangered.

  And he didn’t even want to think about what would happen if that ship chasing him got a real scanner lock. Then he wouldn’t have to worry about fighting an enemy battleship. One quick transmission of the coordinates, and Dauntless would be dodging shots from the pulsar itself. Barron had no illusions about the danger that would represent.


  “Launch all fighters, Commander,” he said abruptly, surprising even himself with the suddenness of the command. “They are to attack and destroy the pursuing enemy vessel.”

  “Yes, sir.” He wasn’t sure if he though Travis sounded surprised, a little perhaps, but not as much as he’d expected.

  “As soon as launch operations are complete, execute course change Gamma-2.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Gamma-2, another vector change, a sharper one this time. It would add almost half an hour to Dauntless’s arrival into attack range of the pulsar, but Barron knew he didn’t have a choice. Launching fighters would give away more than Dauntless’s presence in the system, it would place a pin in the map with its exact location. The course modification would address that, at least, and take the ship even farther from the enemy line, far enough, Barron hoped, to get his ship into firing range before Union battleships could intercept. He’d done the calculations in his head, and he’d had the AI crunch them. It wasn’t an exact science…there were too many variables for absolute certainty. But every projection told the same story.

  Dauntless would make it with time to take a shot, at least…unless the one battleship on her tail managed to track her new vector.

  * * *

  “Admiral, I am certain we have a contact. The pattern has been repeated in each successive dust cloud. Look at the data I sent. I don’t know if it’s a ship or some kind of weapon, or what it is. But it’s on a line toward the pulsar!” Turenne was leaning forward in his seat. He didn’t understand what he was following, but he didn’t doubt any longer that he was tailing something. Still, he was having a hard time convincing the admiral to take it seriously. Granted, the fleet commander had other things on his mind, not the least of which was the entire Confederation fleet bearing down on him. But this was important.

  He waited for the signal to travel to the flagship and back. He’d been moving away from the main fleet, and Temeraire was getting close to the one light minute limit Bourbonne had placed on him.