Invasion (Blood on the Stars Book 9) Page 20

  “But this is an invasion, not a running battle. They do have ground forces to support, and hundreds of warships. They’ll have to stop and refit at some point. The wars against the Union all fell into stalemates as whichever side managed to advance got bogged down until they could establish forward bases.” He hesitated. “They’ll make it this far, Sara, I’d bet on that…but I can’t imagine how they can go much farther.” His tone was uncertain, and he wasn’t sure himself if he was stating his conclusion, or just wishful thinking. “Maybe they had enough unengaged units to pursue us right after the fight at Ventica, while the ships that fought our forces were being resupplied—that’s a sobering enough thought. But, whatever happens now, their resources can’t be infinite. I considered pulling back, getting the fleet out of here before they can engage us…but we need to fight somewhere. We need to make them expend resources. We’re not going to win this war in straight up battles, not even if those damned fools on Megara do pull their shit together and get the rest of the fleet up here. They’re just too strong.”

  He’d let his gaze drop down to the floor, but now he looked right at Eaton. “We’ve got to look to logistics. We have to make them use up their fuel and ordnance…pull them deeper into the Confederation, and farther from what have to already be very long supply lines. All the while, we’ll be falling back on our own support.”

  “I agree completely, Admiral. We have to do all we can to stretch their resources.”

  “Then we fight them here, as planned…but we don’t try to defeat them. We hit and run, pull back, make them burn as much fuel as possible, without letting them close enough to really hurt our battle line.” He walked back toward his desk, stopping a few meters from Eaton and turning back to her as she responded.

  “Those tactics will put even more pressure on the fighter wings, Admiral. I don’t know how much they could have left in them.”

  Winters didn’t respond, not immediately. He’d tried not to think too much about Jake Stockton. He knew Eaton had been quite fond of Stockton personally, and he was sure she was mourning his loss deeply. He hadn’t known the famous officer all that well personally, but then, who didn’t know of the fleet’s most celebrated pilot and his exploits? Winters felt the loss as deeply as any of his people did. The cold reality of it had set in as the fleet transited from Ventica, when the final tallies of the battered roster showed Stockton hadn’t been among those who’d made it back. Winters had come to imagine the famed Warrior was invincible, just as, he suspected, every other spacer in the fleet had. But no one was invincible—a timely lesson, if nothing else—and fate had chosen this dark moment to take one of the best from his battered and beleaguered comrades.

  Just when they needed him more than ever.

  “They’ll do what they have to do, Commodore. Just as they always have.” He knew Eaton was worried about the morale of the fighter wings, of how Stockton’s loss would affect them. In truth, he was as well, but there was one good reason to ignore it.

  There was nothing he could do about it.

  He couldn’t bring Stockton back, and without the squadrons, his fleet didn’t have a chance. Too much rested on what happened when the enemy finally emerged from the transit point, and Stockton or no Stockton, he’d chosen to believe his pilots would do their duty. That they would find a way to succeed.

  No matter how many followed their beloved commander into the darkness.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Station Vesta-9

  2,000,000,000 Kilometers from Planet Dannith, Ventica III

  Year 317 AC

  Stockton felt naked. He’d been in open space before, protected by nothing but his survival gear, but, as far as he was concerned, it wasn’t the kind of thing anyone ever got used to. The suit had a skin-tight fit under his flight suit, but it inflated slightly in response to the vacuum conditions as he’d evacuated his cockpit and then opened the canopy.

  He felt a shiver, but he knew it was his imagination. The suit was a good insulator. It wouldn’t last as long as a proper spacesuit would, but it was actually more likely he’d be too hot at first rather than too cold. He’d been scared already, of course, even before he’d decided to leave the confines of his ship. He had been left behind. He was trapped, and the vast forces of the enemy were all around.

  They all think I’m dead. He imagined Stara back on Repulse, sitting in their shared quarters, sobbing inconsolably. That was a fiction, his mind’s way of projecting his vanity. Stara would be devastated at his loss, but he knew her well enough to realize she’d be stone faced and stoic, at her station in flight control, and not a soul on Repulse would see a tear escape her eye. She was as tough as he was…tougher, he sometimes thought, and there wasn’t a doubt in his mind she would be there when the other pilots needed her. She would do her duty, and while it dinged his ego to imagine her remaining functional in the face of his perceived death, her strength was one of the things that made him love her as much as he did. He wished he could get word to her, let her know he was still alive.

  What would be the point? You’re alive now, but your chances of getting out of here really suck…

  He wasn’t the only pilot of the fleet still in the system, he suspected. Some of his people had ejected from damaged fighters, and he knew Winters and the fleet hadn’t been able to rescue them all before they’d had to withdraw. Stockton didn’t blame the admiral. He knew Winters had been forced to consider the thousands on his ships, and even the billions of the Confederation. He’d always known the pilots of the fleet’s fighter corps were expendable. It was the nature of their role. Even he couldn’t argue that massive battleships should be risked to recover a handful of pilots floating across the battle zone.

  Still, he felt guilty for struggling to find a way to survive when some uncounted number of his people were out in the black vastness of the system, with nothing to do but wait for their life support to run out. It was a fate every pilot feared, and one they all knew was a possibility from the day they entered the Academy. The fighter jocks always liked to think they faced the most terrible fates, but Stockton had seen engineers burned to death trying to restore power and ship’s crew sucked out into space without survival gear. War was hell, and with experience, he’d come to realize there was no point in debating who had it worse. Death was death, and pain, fear, hopelessness…they plagued all those who took the oath and set out with the fleet to face whatever enemy threatened.

  Still, as he reached out and grabbed onto one of the handholds next to the airlock, he caught an image in his mind of his people, helpless, staring silently into the darkness, imaging homes and loved ones they would never see again.

  He moved his head closer, examining the outer controls of the airlock. He knew he might face that same hopelessness. If he couldn’t get into the station, he didn’t even have the remote chance he hoped for to find some fuel. He would be no better off than any pilot drifting in the darkness awaiting death.

  He moved his gloved hand across the panel, sliding a lever and then hitting a large, central button.

  And the door slid open, almost immediately.

  Stockton was stunned, and he jerked back, almost losing his grip on the handholds.

  Keep it cool, Raptor. Slip up here, and you’ll take a damned slow tour of this solar system.

  He stepped inside the airlock, and he stared at the inner control panel. Just because the outer door worked…that doesn’t mean the pressurization and life support does…

  He worked the controls, and the outer door slid shut.

  But then, nothing happened. No sounds of air flowing into the compartment. No sign of any functioning heating system. He waited another minute, and then he moved back toward the controls. The switch to open the inner door appeared to be in good shape. The outer door was operational, so there was some sort of remaining power in the station. It seemed at least reasonable the inner door might also open.

  If the inside was pressurized, opening the door would slam him
hard into the outer door. He could work the controls, see if the door was indeed functional, but if conditions inside weren’t the same vacuum as the outer compartment, he would be betting his life.

  Which isn’t worth all that much right now…

  He wasn’t going to escape. Not unless he could find fuel, and get it back to his ship before his dwindling resources were exhausted. That was the first step, before he even worried about slipping past the enemy forces all over the system and getting to the transit point, and then somehow tracking the fleet and catching up. And whatever he found inside the station, he would almost certainly need more fuel along the way.

  It seemed close enough to hopeless, but Stockton wasn’t the kind to give up. Or to sit and wait while the time he had slipped away.

  He reached out, and he worked the controls, pressing the central button…and he stared right at the door as it started moving.

  * * *

  “Hold your position, Captain. We’ve got to keep those tanks bottled up coming out of the transports, at least for a few hours.” Blanth struggled to shout his orders into the comm unit. He’d been doing it all morning, ever since the scanners had picked up the first enemy waves coming in, and his throat was raw and choked with dust, his voice cracking.

  “Yes, sir…we’ll try.” Isaac Trevise was a good officer, a Marine in every sense of the word, and the shakiness Blanth heard in the man’s voice told him just how desperate the situation had become already. Trevise hadn’t sent updated casualty figures in almost an hour, but they’d been over twenty percent in that last communique, and the fighting had been intense since then. Trevise and his people had the misfortune—they would have called it honor back at the Academy, Blanth thought, with an amount of derision he suspected was less than healthy—to hold one of the few chokepoints, a location geography made a primary place to try and delay the enemy advance on Port Royal City.

  Blanth knew he couldn’t stop the Hegemony. He’d known that before they launched a single lander, before Admiral Winters had been forced to retreat from the system. But he was surprised at the vastness of the enemy’s invasion force. Trying to resist was a pointless waste of lives and equipment…but he knew his people had to make at least some kind of show at trying to repel the enemy. The morale of the population would be important in the guerilla struggle he intended to lead, and images of his Marines fleeing at the first sight of enemy ground forces were not conducive to maintaining support among the soon to be occupied civilians.

  It wasn’t much use to the morale of his Marines, either. Being beaten, forced to retreat, that would be bad enough. But running and hiding at the first sight of the enemy? He couldn’t imagine anything more damaging to his people than that.

  Not even getting torn to pieces in the field.

  He ducked down, a reflexive response to a series of massive explosions that erupted just south of his position. The Hegemony forces had managed to get some of their tanks deployed, and they’d been shelling the Marines pushing toward perimeter of the landing zone for the last fifteen minutes or so. The giant armored vehicles were immensely powerful, but Blanth was relieved that they were indeed firing the same conventional explosives they had used in the first invasion. That wouldn’t give his people any real chance to hold out, but it suggested the enemy had returned with the same intention they’d had before, to occupy the planet without inflicting widespread slaughter.

  That would help his guerilla campaign. If the enemy had been willing to kill millions of civilians with high yield weapons, the situation would have been hopeless. He had a few strongholds that just might endure some kind of nuclear assault, but if the invaders targeted truly powerful ordnance at his positions, the resistance would be stillborn.

  It remained to be seen how well his Marines could hamper the enemy anyway…and if their own success would be their downfall. He imagined there was some point, some level of casualties his people inflicted, a certain amount of supplies and ordnance destroyed, that would prompt the enemy to escalate.

  You might get all your Marines killed if they do too well.

  You might even get the planet glassed. Are you ready for that? Are you ready for your resistance to turn a hundred million human beings from prisoners of a foreign occupation into that many charred corpses?

  He wasn’t sure he was…but, if it happened, there would be one solace.

  He would be dead, too.

  * * *

  Venticles knelt before the silent figure on the pedestal before him, a show of submission and loyalty to the Master he had served his entire life. His status as a trusted officer, a retainer of sorts, granted him access to the fleet’s commander without formal invitation. For an Inferior, it was a high honor and a sign of great favor.

  Chronos glanced down at his aide, motionless, silent for a moment. He was deep in thought, a state between concentration and meditation. He’d studied the mental disciplines that had been practiced by various groups in the old empire, and he’d become quite adept at several. He had always found such exercises freed him, tapped into areas of intellect and analysis otherwise out of reach of his conscious mind. The ideal among the Masters, especially those of high rank, was pure analysis, but Chronos had come to believe the human mind and psyche were rather more complex than most of his peers believed. He knew many of his colleagues ridiculed some of his ways, but he tended to ignore them, taking what small solace he needed in his own deep and searing disrespect for most of them and their abilities. Though he was just as committed to the advancement of the human race’s genetic lines, more than any of his true peers, he believed there was more required for true capability than simply strong DNA. He’d seen a rot setting in, a complacency among those who stepped into positions of authority and privilege through no actions of their own. He had come to see striking similarities to the decadence and decline that had led to the empire’s fall, though even he, known already as the maverick on the Council, hadn’t dared to share such thoughts.

  “Speak, Venticles.” It was a simple command, direct. Chronos knew his aide would have knelt silently until he granted express permission to speak.

  “Landings have commenced, Commander. All first wave units are in position, and the second wave is in final approach. There have been pockets of moderate resistance, but in all, the occupation units are running ahead of projection.”

  “Things appear to be well in hand here, Venticles.” There was a pause, even a hint of disappointment. The Confederation was the enemy, at least until they submitted and were absorbed into the Hegemony. Simplistically, he knew he should embrace any weakness in an enemy, but he’d allowed himself to hope these new humans might bring more to the Hegemony than additional labor and industry. He’d imagined a new spark, even an influx of Master-level, or near Master-level, populations, and a catalyst to break the Hegemony from the calcified orthodoxy that had begun to set in all across the vast nation.

  Chronos had decided to remain back at Dannith to supervise the first true invasion of a Confederation world. It was, in truth, the second invasion, though of the same planet. The last action on Dannith’s surface had been an ill-conceived effort with too small of a force deployed to achieve success. He was determined to analyze and review the enemy’s ground tactics and capabilities. With some hesitation, he had ordered the main elements of the battle fleet forward without him—there was no room in the war plan for delay—while he held back the flagship and her escorts and observed the landings and the resulting combat on the surface. His extended presence in the system also allowed him to monitor the forward movement of the Support Fleet. The vast collection of supply vessels and factory ships was as crucial to the successful completion of the war as the largest of his battleships.

  He had done both now, and he was pleased with the results. The supply train had successfully transited, along with its escorts, and he had a better idea of the enemy’s ground defense capability as well. He was not impressed. The enemy had made some cursory attempts to resist the landi
ngs, and then they retreated—ran—to the hills and wilderness areas. There was no need for him to remain to watch the Kriegeri root the enemy from their hiding places. That was not fit work for a Master, certainly not one ranked eighth in all of the Hegemony. No, he would go forward now. He had assumed the world under attack was a frontier colony of sorts for the Confederation, and the data already seized on the ground confirmed that assumption. There were far more populated planets ahead. He was sure of that.

  It was time for him to go and take command of the lead elements, to push forward. The war would be won by breaking the enemy’s morale, not by eradicating them…and not by conquering a frontier system. He saw no better way of accomplishing that goal than slicing straight through to their most important worlds, to their capital.

  Chronos had dipped back into his thoughtful analysis, forgetting for an instant his aide was present. “Ah…Venticles…there is little reason for us to remain. The ground forces can complete their work without our supervision.” A pause. “We will advance immediately, at full thrust. It is time for us to return to the main fleet.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  CFS Dauntless

  650,000,000 Kilometers from Planet Argolith

  Halos System

  Year 317 AC

  “Continue broadcasting the message, Atara. We don’t want any misunderstandings here.” Barron was sitting in his desk chair speaking into the comm unit. He’d left Atara Travis in charge on the bridge, and he’d just repeated his orders for the third time, though he knew it wasn’t necessary with his reliable second-in-command. He was just edgy, anxious to get to Megara and resolve things once and for all, and to avoid any further chance of combat with his Confederation comrades.