The White Fleet (Blood on the Stars Book 7) Read online

  He took a deep breath. That explained everything. The pyramid was a command post of sorts, to keep an eye on the locals and make sure they were keeping up with their production quotas. Any failure, any resistance, could be easily punished by sending out a few of the soldier types, the Kriegeri, and massacring as many as it took to restore obedience.

  They probably didn’t have to do even that very often. A light show or something around the pyramid would probably be enough to dazzle and terrify the locals.

  His realizations only dragged down his mood. The people he was describing to himself didn’t seem to be good material for likely allies, or even benevolent neighbors. Deep down, Barron knew his people faced a fight…but, still, he couldn’t start it. He had to stay the course, hope beyond hope for a peaceful solution.

  “Put me on a line to the lead enem…unidentified…ship. Patch in translation AI set for high Imperial.” Barron actually spoke a little of the ancient imperial tongue, a benefit of the eclectic education he’d received as the scion of a wealthy and powerful family. But he didn’t think his patchy and rough attempts at getting a message across in the old language were likely to aid the cause of diplomacy.

  “You’re live, Admiral. AI active.”

  “Attention approaching vessels…” He second-guessed himself, wondered if his tone was too hard-sounding. “This is Admiral Tyler Barron, commander of the White Fleet. We are representatives of the Stellar Confederation and the Palatian Alliance, on a peaceful mission of exploration. We have no hostile intent, and if we have encroached on your space, it was purely by accident.”

  He sat in his chair, bolt upright and as tense as he’d ever been. A response now could open the road to peace…or start a war right then and there.

  There was nothing. Silence. This is not good…

  Barron sat still, his eyes darting from one side to the other, watching the crew of the control center at their posts. There was no chatter, no sounds save those from the equipment. He felt as though he were falling, as if a darkness had come to take him. His grandfather was the hero of the Second Union War, the man the history texts say saved the Confederation. And I will go down in history as the one who went out and found a deadly new enemy…another war and countless more dead…

  Suddenly, the comm unit crackled. A voice blared out, firm, cold.

  “Attention, invaders. You have entered the space of the Hegemony. This is an Act of War. You will yield at once, power down your ships, and prepare to be boarded…or you will be destroyed.”

  Barron was struck by the casual sense of superiority evident in every syllable uttered by the speaker. He was stunned as well by the sheer audacity on display. These people—the Hegemony, apparently—did seem to possess superior technology, but could they possibly think their four warships could take on the entire White Fleet? It seemed absurd.

  Could they be so certain of their own superiority?

  Barron couldn’t imagine the kind of confidence run wild that could fuel such an attitude. But, he knew if these people wanted a fight, they would get one. Almost every man and woman in his fleet was a veteran of six bloody years of war. They had seen friends die, stood to their posts in the midst of battle, faced enemy forces that outnumbered and outgunned them. To Barron’s way of thinking, no four ships in the universe could defeat his fleet.

  He reached up to his headset and flipped the small switch, activating the transmitter. “I repeat,” he said, knowing in his gut there was no point. “We are not invaders. We are peaceful explorers, and our encroachment into your space was accidental.”

  “You have thirty seconds to surrender, Inferior. Then, you will be destroyed.” There wasn’t a bit of hesitation in the voice.

  Barron turned toward Eaton. “All ships are to hold position. If there’s going to be a fight here, we’re not going to start it. All squadrons are to prepare for launch…but they will remain in the tubes until I give the order…understood?”

  “Yes, Admiral.” Eaton activated her own headset and transmitted Barron’s orders.

  He looked up at the display, wondering if the Hegemony commander was bluffing…or if he’d so casually start a war against people that had to be as much a mystery to him as he and his were to Barron. He wanted to believe it was posturing, that a commander of such a small force wouldn’t take that kind of step against a superior force that offered peace.

  He wanted to believe that. But he didn’t.

  His eyes were fixed on the approaching ships. They were still several light seconds away, a good bit out of range, even of Barron’s primaries. They hadn’t launched any fighters yet, and he wondered how they would make good on their threat when they were still so far out.

  He didn’t have to wait long for his answer.

  His eyes were fixed on the chronometer, and the thirty second countdown Eaton had activated when the Hegemony officer made his threat. It was moving down. Three…two…one…

  Nothing happened, not for a few seconds. Then the screen lit up, energy readings from the approaching ships, almost off the chart.

  Eaton spun around, and Barron could see in her eyes what he’d just caught on his screen.

  “It’s Formidable, sir…she’s been hit by some kind of beam. Captain Fitzgerald reports heavy damage.”

  Barron’s eyes were still on the screen. Even as Eaton reported on Formidable, two more of his ships took hits.

  Two things hit Barron like a sledgehammer. First, his people were at war again.

  And, second…the enemy’s guns massively outranged his own fleet’s weaponry.

  * * *

  Atara Travis walked across the open space in the center of the village. It was a common of some sort, she imagined, though exactly what the small, muddy section of ground was good for eluded her. She’d found it difficult to accept that people actually lived the way the natives did, without any technology, save for the mining tools and rough clothes the Masters deigned to supply to their…she didn’t finish the thought, but her anger flared anyway. She’d come from the bottom rungs of society, and she’d known poverty so intense that she’d rummaged through garbage for something to eat…but the idea of allowing people, victims of a war fought centuries before, to exist in such a primitive state, digging with hand tools through radioactive mines until the exposure killed them, fueled her growing anger, even hatred, for the people who called themselves Masters.

  She turned and glanced back to the hut where their prisoner from that group sat quietly, engaging in short discussions with the various experts trying to learn more about him. She tried to imagine a ship full of such people. And entire fleet.

  Travis was frustrated. She understood Barron’s orders and the reasons for them, but part of her wanted to grab the obnoxious fool and beat all the information they needed from him. He’d been rude and arrogant in verbal exchanges, but he hadn’t given up any information the teams hadn’t already known. She wondered how someone with such a high opinion of his standing would hold up under a real interrogation. She’d fought the Union for years, learned to hate them with a passion…but she occasionally envied them the unrestrained tools at their disposal. Sector Nine wouldn’t put up with this piece of shit and his nonsense. They’d throw him on a rack…and he’d be lucky if his refusals to submit to a medical exam didn’t get him dissected.

  The usual crowd of villagers was gathered around the hut. They hadn’t dared to try to rescue the Master—no doubt, they think we’re some kind of rival gods, and they’re afraid to provoke us, too—but they remained outside the makeshift prison, chanting and singing and in between, looking generally mournful.

  Watching the people practically worshipping beings who left them in such a pathetic state was throwing fuel on the fire of her anger. She’d have called Barron, and done her best to argue for more aggressive methods…except she understood the same thing he did. Any wrong move could easily drag the Confederation into a new war, against an unknown and apparently very advanced enemy.

  If there�
��s any way to avoid that now…

  Travis tended toward the pessimistic, and as she thought about it, she realized she’d already decided war was inevitable. She just wasn’t sure she’d last long enough to fight it.

  The infection rate from the virus seemed to be one hundred percent, or something very close to it. Most of the landing party was showing symptoms, and she figured she had two days, maybe three, before she wouldn’t have any Marines left standing to guard the prisoner or the shuttles.

  She’d watched helplessly as everyone around her fell sick, first with the relatively minor early symptoms, and then fever and delirium, before they finally ended up in cryostasis…and, for thirty-seven of them so far, death.

  But she was fine, at least so far. She hadn’t had a sign of the disease, and except for some fatigue and stress, she felt great. She suspected it was a matter of time, and each day she expected the onset of symptoms. But the days passed, and she remained healthy, even as the people around her got sicker and sicker.

  Doc Weldon was still on his feet, though she knew he shouldn’t be. Weldon was sick, his body ravaged by the deadly disease. She didn’t dare to think about what variety of drugs—and in what massive doses—he injected himself to keep moving. The long-term effects of such heavy dosing had to be considerable, but she supposed that didn’t matter if there was no long-term. Weldon was the best candidate to find a cure, and when he finally lapsed into the coma that had taken so many others, it would pretty much seal the fate of the rest of the landing party. The scientists on the fleet were working around the clock too, but Weldon was incredibly gifted, and he was on site. If he couldn’t find a solution, it was doubtful anyone else would, at least not quickly enough. The doctors still aboard ships might figure the whole thing out eventually, but that would be far, far too late.

  “Captain Travis…we just got a communique from Dauntless.” The officer’s voice was shrill, and it didn’t take much listening for Travis to realize the news wasn’t good.

  “What is it?” she said, letting more of her frustration slip into her tone than she’d intended.

  “There are ships entering the system from transit point delta. They’ve attacked the fleet.”

  Travis moved toward the officer, and the hut the landing party had turned into a makeshift comm center. She had to get as many details as she could.

  Not that she could do anything about…anything.

  Travis was a fighter, and her place was on Dauntless as the ship—her ship—went into a fight. The frustration hitting her was intense, almost overwhelming.

  The war she’d expected had come…and she was stuck down on a shithole planet, wallowing in the mud and waiting for a deadly plague to take her…while her people, her ship—Tyler—went into battle.

  * * *

  “All ships are to advance at maximum thrust.” Barron snapped out the order, almost instinctively. The enemy weapons were longer ranged than his own, and they had surprising hitting power, even so far out. His ship were sitting ducks at this distance. He was used to having the range advantage, and he knew exactly how well it could be used, even by an outnumbered force. He had to get them into primary range…now.

  “Yes, Admiral. All ships, maximum thrust.”

  He leaned back, expecting the usual hard push from the thrusters. He was still surprised every time Dauntless’s upgraded force dampeners kicked in and absorbed most of even the ship’s massive maximum thrust. The new units were not only stronger than the old ones, cutting out as much as 12g of force, they were faster, too. The old ones always kicked in late, which meant a couple seconds of enduring the full force of the engines. Now, it was an almost imperceptible delay, one that manifested as a strange feeling that was already gone by the time the brain processed it.

  His eyes darted to the display every few seconds. The enemy ships—he’d been correcting himself every time he’d called them that, but there seemed little point now—had fired only their first volley. That gave him some hope. Their weapons were longer ranged than his, and they seemed to have more hitting power, too, a problem that would probably become more severe once the ships were closer. But, it also looked like they needed time to recharge before firing again.

  “Fleet order…all squadrons, launch.”

  “Acknowledged, Admiral. All squadrons launch.” Eaton repeated his order on the fleet comm, and no more than a few seconds later, Dauntless shook gently, the effect of the distant launch catapults sending his ship’s fighters into space. He imagined Stockton had been the first one out, or damned close to it, and he would have bet his fighter commander was already on the comm, badgering the launch crews on the other ships to pick up the pace. Commanding Stockton hadn’t always been an easy job, but Barron was pleased to see how his wild fighter jock had matured into his command position. He knew Stockton hated it, at least on some levels, but he was certain the legendary Raptor would get better performance from his fighters than anyone else could. He was legend, to young pilots and veterans, and Barron knew they would follow him anywhere.

  Even into the unknown, to fight a new enemy.

  “All ships report launch operations underway, sir.” A short pause. “Dauntless launch control reports all squadrons launched, Admiral.”

  Barron turned toward the display, just as the enemy ships opened up with their second barrage. Formidable took another hit, and he could see from the reports streaming down his screen that the battleship had taken considerable damage. Her thrust was down to sixty percent, and it looked like she was experiencing sporadic power outages. Another two of his ships had also been impacted by the long-range beams. The enemy was scoring hits with roughly half their shots, which was an astonishing rate at such a long range.

  “All ships, increase evasive maneuvering. Institute nav plan beta-2.”

  “Nav plan beta-2, sir.”

  He’d designed beta-2 himself. It cut the effective forward acceleration of his ships somewhat, but it would give the enemy AIs something to think about, and maybe reduce the effectiveness of their targeting.

  He watched as the range counted down. The enemy fired a third time, and then a fourth. His evasive maneuvers had helped, cutting the enemy’s accuracy to less than twenty-five percent. He wondered if that would last…or if the targeting computers out there were sophisticated enough to adjust. He wasn’t going to take that chance.

  “All ships…switch to nav plan beta-2.”

  “Yes, Admiral.”

  Barron felt Dauntless lurch hard as the new nav plan took effect. He didn’t have many rookies aboard Dauntless, or the anywhere in the fleet for that matter, but he suspected the ones he did have would see their stomachs put to the test by the wild gyrations. Possibly some of the old timers, too.

  He reached out and put his hands on his chair’s armrests, an instinctive reaction to the ship’s hard bouncing. His eyes remained focused on the range counter.

  “All ships, reduce forward thrust to thirty percent. Arm primaries.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The fleet was almost in range. The primary batteries were energy hogs, and he had to cut thrust to get them charged. The guns were potent—perhaps not quite as strong as the enemy’s weapons appeared to be, but they would send the message they were intended to send.

  Whoever was out there might call themselves Masters…but they weren’t the only ones who knew how to fight.

  And they didn’t have any monopoly on deadly weapons either.

  Barron watched the chronometer and the range finder. One by one the comms came in from the fleet, his ships reporting their primaries were armed and ready.

  Barron’s eyes were fixed on the display, watching as the range dropped. He waited as the numbers slipped into the range band of the primaries. He paused few more seconds, counting down from the last enemy shot, getting as close as he could before the attackers fired again. Then, he turned toward Eaton and nodded.

  “Captain…all ships, fire.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine


  PUV Carcajou

  Approaching Barroux

  Rhian System

  Union Year 219 (315 AC)

  “All ships report weapons fully-charged and ready to engage, Admiral.”

  Andrei Denisov sat in his command chair, trying with all his ability to look calm, ready. He was a veteran, one of the few Union officers who’d distinguished himself in the disastrous war against the Confederation. He’d always been a confident commander, cool and professional under fire. But he’d never led more than a single ship in battle. He appreciated the massive promotion Gaston Villieneuve had given him, but now he was worried it had taken him too far, too fast. He had two-dozen vessels under his command, about to go into what he knew would be a vicious fight. And that didn’t count the huge armada of transports on the other side of the transit point, waiting to invade Barroux after his fleet blasted the orbital defenses to scrap.

  He stared at the screen in front of him, at the scanning data scrolling slowly by. He’d sent in a cloud of probes to back up his ships’ sensors, and now he was getting his first good read on the planet’s defenses. The fortresses were there, as he knew they would be. And something else, too. Small contacts, clustered between the orbital forts.

  It took a while to get a solid read on what they were. Some kind of laser platforms or buoys. That was unexpected, and it meant Barroux had a lot more firepower than he’d expected…and he’d already been worried about the forts.

  He felt the urge to withdraw, to return to Montmirail and report that the rebels had somehow increased the planet’s fortifications, and they were now too strong to assault without a much stronger force. But no stronger force was available, nor would they be for quite some time. And Gaston Villieneuve wanted Barroux pacified, now. It was likely just as dangerous—and maybe more so—to return home empty handed as to take a chance and assault the planet’s defenses.

  “The fleet is to institute maximum evasive maneuvers, starting now.” His ships were still out of range of the fortress guns, and a quick review of the mass of the laser buoys suggested they would have a somewhat shorter target zone. But he wasn’t taking any chances. Any way he looked at it, his fleet was going to pay a heavy price, and whatever he could do to lessen the damage until his ships were in range was worthwhile.