Storm of Vengeance Read online

  Cameron moved his arm, his hand clapping down on the outside of his armor. He was a career Marine, and he’d long considered his fighting suit almost a part of his body. But, now, he suspected his life expectancy without the heavy armor’s protection would be something like ten seconds.

  Maybe twenty, if he got really lucky.

  And, it would be an almost unimaginably unpleasant twenty seconds.

  “Alright, let’s get formed up. We came here to do a job.” There wasn’t any time to waste. The only thing the Marines had going for them was the hope that the enemy hadn’t guessed ahead of time they’d be crazy enough to put ground troops on the planet. But, that surprise—if it had been a surprise—was gone now, and giving the First Imperium defenders time to react could only throw away what little chance his people had at success.

  “Move it…now!” His tone was harsh, demanding. There was another reason not to wait. He couldn’t even imagine what the hellish panorama was doing to morale…and that could only get worse if he let his Marines stand around and really think about what they were about to do. “Scanner teams…deploy. I want the best route underground found…and I mean now!”

  “Yes, sir,” came the first response, followed almost instantly by a series of other acknowledgments. He saw his Marines setting out in all directions, platoons forming up in defensive lines, and pickets moving forward. They had some idea where to look, all the data the full scanner suites of the landing ships had been able to provide, but Cameron knew it was little more than guesswork. But, tons and tons of antimatter wasn’t an easy thing to hide, and once his teams got their gear operational, he was sure they’d pick up the readings they needed. Then, it would just be a matter of triangulation…and finding a way down kilometers below the surface.

  He just didn’t know if they’d finish before the enemy move bots up to the surface and hit his people in their camp, but he was going to make sure he was ready if they did. He turned and watched a group of Marines digging a trench of sorts in the black, rocky ground…and then he went over to direct their efforts personally.

  His gut told him his small army was going to have a hell of a fight on the surface before they even got a chance to get underground.

  And, he was going to make damned sure they were ready for it.

  * * *

  “Novas, on me. We’re going in on that big bastard, and we’re going to blow it to hell!” McDaid was exhausted, his chest aching from the g forces his wild maneuvers had pulled. But none of that mattered, not now. There had only been one Leviathan in the task force moving against Strand’s ships, and he’d sent half his remaining fighters against the superdreadnought. The enormous ship had been untouched as it approached missile range, and McDaid had sent his first wave in just as the vessel was launching its long-range ordnance.

  The fighters had planted close to a dozen of their small nuclear warheads into the target, or just around it. McDaid had watched as the fury of the twenty kiloton explosions tore into great sections of the hull, blasting tons of the molten debris out into space.

  The ship had shuddered, as one of its reactors failed, followed by another. It’s thrust had dropped by about fifty percent, and dozens, if not hundreds, of missiles got stuck in their launch tubes. The first attack had been an enormous success, but for all the damage his vanguard had done, McDaid knew the ship remained twenty million tons of floating death. Even down two reactors and bleeding atmosphere, the Leviathan would rip into Strand’s wounded ships as soon as it entered energy weapons range…which was longer for it than anything the Earth Two admiral had in her line.

  And, McDaid had no intention of letting that happen.

  He’d lost ten birds already, on top of the casualties from the first sortie, but none of that mattered, not now. The main fleet had already withdrawn, followed by an enemy force vaster than anything McDaid had ever seen. Strand’s ships were all that remained in the system…the only places his fighters could land. That made it easier to fight like banshees, to ignore personal fear. If the fleet’s battleships were destroyed, his pilots were all dead anyway.

  And, if death was to be their fate, he was damned sure they were going to face it taking those cursed machines to hell instead of freezing to death in powerless cockpits.

  He angled his throttle, bringing his fighter toward the Leviathan. He’d led the first strike in, and he’d planted two warheads himself. He didn’t have a bomb left on his bird, nothing but a pair of lasers barely strong enough to scratch the meters deep armor of the great super-battleship. But he’d held the Novas back in reserve, and now it was time for his crack squadron to strike. And, missiles or not, he’d be damned if they were going in without him.

  “Stay tight, Novas…let’s see if we can’t drop all these bombs right on top of each other.” McDaid wasn’t sure if his second attack, even with his elite veterans, could do enough damage to destroy the Leviathan, but he was going to see to it that the hulking vessel was as close to a pile of scrap and radioactive slag as possible when it reached Strand’s ships.

  McDaid could hear the chatter between the Novas, and he allowed himself a tiny smile at the level of their morale. They all knew how dire things were…but none of them seemed to let that affect them at all. He knew they were all scared, but every one of them had put the fear in its place, and now they were moving forward, relentless, merciless, about to show the First Imperium what a bunch of ‘inferior’ biologics could do.

  McDaid watched as the ship grew on his scanners, almost replaying the scene of fifteen minutes before. He’d ordered the rest of the first strike back to their base ships to land and rearm for yet another sortie…assuming, of course, any of the battleships had functioning landing bays when they got there. Now, he was coming in hot yet again, dodging the heavy defensive fire that had already claimed two of his Novas.

  He could feel the sweat pooling on his neck, running down his back. McDaid wasn’t fearless, far from it. He was scared to death, even more now, taking his second run through the Leviathan’s deadly gauntlet. But, there was no time to think of that now. He was here for his people, for the Novas…to give them the example they needed, as they swooped in like avenging angels, determined to blow the immense First Imperium ship to atoms.

  McDaid hit his thrusters again, driven by an almost random bit of intuition. His eyes flashed to the screen for an instant…and then back again as he realized a shot had missed him by less than ten meters. He could feel the hair on his body tingling with static electricity, and seconds later, a series of overloads filled his cockpit with sparks.

  His arm shook loose from the throttle as he felt a series of shocks, and then he took a deep breath and struggled to regain his focus. He swung his other arm around, grabbing the controls, keeping the ship on target. The range display dropped under ten thousand kilometers, and a quick glance confirmed that the rest of Nova squadron was right behind.

  He stared straight ahead, feeling a passing shiver at how close that last shot had come. He turned back to the scanner to check on the Novas’ formation again…but his eyes never made it.

  He never saw the shot that vaporized his fighter.

  * * *

  No!

  Strand was watching the display when she lost track of McDaid’s ship. She’d almost ordered the fighter commander to return to base, to let the armed fighters go in and not to risk himself again when he didn’t have enough firepower to accomplish anything. But she’d remained silent…and now she wanted to throw up.

  Her eyes darted around the display, and then she turned toward her own workstation screen, her fingers frantically moving across the surface, desperately looking for some sign of Cooper McDaid’s fighter. But there was nothing.

  Nothing but a small energy spike that told her all she needed to know.

  She’d known McDaid for years now, and she’d genuinely liked him…and she couldn’t put into rational thoughts just how much his efforts had done to give her fleet a chance at victory. She knew war had
its costs, and sometimes they struck close to home, and she struggled to control her pain, maintain her focus. Still, a single tear escaped her eye, making it halfway down her cheek before she wiped it away.

  She’d been counting on McDaid. Her ships were already engaged with the leading wave of enemy vessels. They were holding their own, but they were outnumbered…and more First Imperium ships were moving forward. Despite her best efforts to analyze the two forces, she just didn’t know if her people could prevail. It seemed like a coin toss to her.

  Or worse now, without McDaid.

  Then, she saw it. The fighters of Nova squadron. There hadn’t been a word on the comm, not a whimper of sorrow nor a shout of rage. But, not one of those vessels veered off from the course they’d been following behind McDaid. Another one took a hit, spinning out of control for a few seconds before its reactor blew. Then a second, obliterated by a direct hit.

  But, the others survived, and they closed, relentlessly. Strand watched in amazement as McDaid’s people drove directly toward the Leviathan, ignoring the incoming fire, holding their missiles as the range dropped below five hundred kilometers.

  Three hundred.

  She felt the urge to close her eyes, not to watch as the ships impacted with the great battleship, but then the fighters launched, one after another in rapid succession, before pulling up and missing the hulking behemoth by less than ten klicks.

  She sat still for a moment, stunned, watching as warhead after warhead slammed into the First Imperium ship. She was too close to see the actual fury of the explosions and the damage they inflicted, but the energy readings told the story.

  The Leviathan shuddered, and its engines halted completely. The blasts from the impacting missiles gave way to a second round, internal explosions now, as the stricken ship began to tear away at itself. Strand could imagine what was happening in the endless halls of the battleship, as system after system overloaded, adding to the deadly chain reaction.

  She knew that the middle of the ship would be the most protected area, the massive armor plating of the central core shielding the magnetic bottles that held the ship’s store of antimatter fuel. Whole chunks of the vessel had been blown away now, and power levels had dropped precipitously. But, the death struggle continued, even as Midway shook from another hit. Strand’s ship had been fighting two First Imperium cruisers. One was gutted now, a silent, broken hulk…but the other maintained its fire, even as Strand’s attention was riveted to the agonies of the dying Leviathan.

  Then, it happened. Even as she was watching the display, the already elevated energy levels went off the charts. The AI hadn’t updated the image yet, but Strand knew as soon as she saw those numbers.

  The Leviathan had lost containment. The antimatter at its core had annihilated, vaporizing every millimeter of the great ship.

  Strand felt a burst of energy, and her confidence soared. Her people still had one hell of a fight on their hands…but now, for the first time, she believed they would win, that their victory was more than a coin toss.

  More than that…they had a reason to win, one more driving force to push them harder. Cooper McDaid had given all he could to achieve the victory. His pilots had followed him.

  Now it was time for the fleet to honor the lost hero.

  “Commander…all ships are to close at full thrust. It’s time to finish this.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Flag Bridge, E2S Garret

  F-76 System

  Earth Two Date 02.24.43

  West sat quietly in her office. She’d always been an active person, her energy levels high, ready to face whatever threat presented itself. But, now she was facing the thing that was hardest for her. Waiting.

  It was hard enough for her to deal with endless days and hours, but she’d found it difficult to endure the aching slowness of the clock, while the eyes of her people bored into her. They still thought she’d run from the enemy, that her nerve had failed her, and she’d fled, leaving Strand’s people and the Marines behind. West had never allowed herself to care much what people thought of her, but it was too much this time. The image her spacers had was as close to opposite who she was as it was possible to come. Erika West knew she’d made mistakes, that her orders had sometimes been cold and callous, focused entirely on results, and perhaps less on the human cost than they should have been.

  But, she’d never run from anything in her life.

  Until now. She’d been spending more and more time in her office behind the bridge. She’d surprised herself at the solace the closed hatch provided…and just how much she needed it.

  She knew not all of her people believed she’d broken. Some—especially among the few pilgrims in the fleet’s ranks—no doubt suspected she had some kind of plan. Others, perhaps, had paid attention to where the fleet was going, or more accurately, to where it was not going. She’d done everything possible to keep the fleet’s nav data classified at the top command level, but it was hard to hide the fact that, wherever the fleet was going, it wasn’t Earth Two.

  West would drive her fleet deep into the galactic core before she would lead the enemy to Earth Two.

  She took a deep breath, glancing back at the chronometer, stunned almost to disbelief that less than four minutes had elapsed since the last time she’d checked.

  She turned and looked over at the screen on her desk, her fingers moving across it, bringing up the latest scanner reports. The enemy was following her fleet, of course. She’d done everything possible to make it look like the whole thing had been a panicked rout, that she and her people had reached the limits of their endurance, that they had abandoned caution and were fleeing for something that promised safety.

  She didn’t know if the First Imperium intelligences believed she was heading to Earth Two…or if they just intended to follow her fleet and see where it went. West knew well enough, she couldn’t go on forever without returning to base and replenishing her forces. And, there was only one base this side of the Barrier large enough to support her fleet.

  The one place she couldn’t go…not while those enemy ships were on her tail.

  That’s why she was going to destroy them.

  She was going to try, at least. Her plan was detailed, and it made sense, at least as much sense as anything did in the current circumstances. But, she couldn’t even guess if it would actually work. Would the enemy continue to follow her, hoping to find Earth Two…or would they attack before she’d led them to the place where she wanted to fight them? Would they break off, give up on chasing the fleet and return to G48? That, at least, she didn’t think was likely. She’d left Strand’s people there, and the Marines…but she was pretty sure the main enemy fleet didn’t know she had landed ground forces on the planet.

  Unless some word reached the enemy fleet, some kind of warning about the Marine attack. Would the enemy break off then? Or would they discount the chance of such an attack succeeding and ignore it?

  Or did the forces they left behind defeat Josie…did they wipe out her fleet and take the Marines down before they’d even landed?

  She didn’t believe that. She wanted to think it was because of her analysis of the situation…or because of faith in Strand.

  But, she was concerned she was just believing what she wanted to believe, what she had to believe.

  She pushed the doubts aside. There was nothing she could do about any of it now. The die was well and truly cast. It was too late to go back, to fight a probably hopeless battle in G48. If she’d lured enough of the enemy forces from that system maybe—just maybe—she’d opened things up for the Marines to get down to the surface. Their mission seemed pretty hopeless anyway, but West remembered Elias Holm and Erik Cain. She’d long ago learned not to bet against the Marines, and she hoped Cameron and his warriors had enough of the spirit of those who’d come before them to do what she needed them to do.

  Staying wouldn’t have accomplished anything anyway. The massive force in pursuit of her fleet was too str
ong. Even if she’d stayed, if her forces had linked up with Strand’s, they wouldn’t have had a chance. That was the enemy’s trap, the one she’d expected.

  And, this was her answer to it.

  She moved her hands over the display, sliding the long-range map. Another six jumps. Six more systems. Assuming the enemy continued to follow and didn’t just blast their superior thrusters and close before she got there.

  Erika West had been through countless trials, but this was the most difficult. Her people had always considered her hard, unyielding…but this was the first time a significant number of them actually despised her, blamed her for cowardice. She’d known that would happen, of course, but she’d underestimated just how deeply it would cut at her. She had too much to consider…tactics, timing, the overall campaign. But, she found herself coming back again and again to thoughts about her crew, about what they were thinking.

  The AI interrupted her. “Admiral…Commander Sampson is at the door requesting entry.”

  Her stomach tightened. Was something wrong? Was the enemy closing?

  No…Avery wouldn’t waste time walking back here if there was an emergency…she’d just call on the comm…

  “Let her in.”

  The hatch slid open, and Avery Sampson walked tentatively into the office. “I’m sorry to disturb you, Admiral…”

  “Come in, Avery.” West gestured for her aide to sit across from her desk. “Is anything wrong?”

  “No, Admiral…at least nothing to do with the tactical situation. The enemy fleet is still keeping back a system and following. We’ve picked up flashes of stealth drones here and there, but I can only assume they’ve got more of them out there. I’d say there’s no chance of losing them.”