Winds of Vengeance (Crimson Worlds Refugees Book 4) Page 24

  Harmon leaned back in his chair. He looked around the room. Most of the faces staring back at him were non-committal, but the few that weren’t were nodding their agreement. He realized he faced a fundamentally different situation that Terrance Compton had with the fleet. Protecting a hundred or more ships, which could scatter, hide, move…it was different than defending a single, stationary planet. Especially when almost everyone on that world was clustered into one small developed area.

  The idea of sending away much of his strength, of leaving only a token force to support Earth Two’s network of fortresses and fixed defenses, seemed reckless…but as he considered Achilles words—and West’s as well—he began to realize what he had to do.

  “Erika, I need you to assemble a proposed list of ships for a reinforcement fleet. And make it strong, if we do this, we need to fight this war out there somewhere…and we need to win it.”

  “Yes, sir…I will cull out the slower ships to remain on system defense duty. And with your permission, I will give orders to begin activating the mothballed squadrons…and calling the reservists to duty. If we push hard enough, we should be able to get some of the old ships in the line within two weeks…and back up the forces we leave behind.”

  Harmon stared across at West. He had a choice to make. Did he put West in command of the fleet, or did he hold her back to command the system defenses? He wanted to keep her, but he could only think of one other naval officer he trusted enough to take one of the two crucial commands. And that officer couldn’t leave the system…his other duties made it impossible.

  “You will lead the relief force, Erika, and when you link up with Admiral Frette, you will assume command of the combined grand fleet.”

  “Yes, sir.” He could hear the relief in her voice. He suspected she had been ready to give him quite an argument if he’d ordered her to stay. “And who will command the forces in the system?”

  “I have someone in mind, but you’ll have to recall him from reserve status.” He stared across the table, amused at the confusion in her expression.

  He smiled, looking down at himself, putting his hands on his midsection. “I might have to suck in my gut a little, but I’m willing to bet I can still fit in my old uniform.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  From the Log of Captain Josie Strand

  I am commanding twelve vessels…commanding them in a combat situation. How did this happen? The captaincy of Starfire was an extraordinary promotion in itself, more than I, twenty-nine years old and unblooded in battle, could have imagined. But now I have other ships, other crews depending on me. And we find ourselves not only in battle, but holding the line against an unstoppable enemy force.

  I have long studied the battles of the Pilgrims, the stories of how the old fleet reached Earth Two against the odds, of how the Regent had not only been defeated but destroyed. It is common for those of my age to look at the exploits of our parents with considerable awe…and a certain level of despair. How could we hope to match their exploits, to appear to history as anything less than a disappointment?

  But now I see things differently, for the peace we have enjoyed for so long is clearly at an end. And I see the challenge those of my generation will face. The officers and the spacers of the fleet were heroes, men and women who accomplished the near impossible. But they were all veterans, officers and spacers who had fought the First Imperium in human space, and had first faced combat in the Third Frontier War. The captains who commanded battleships—and who led squadrons of ten or twelve vessels—were mostly in their forties, already hardened by war when they first sat in their command chairs. It is that which will be the challenge of my generation, to step forward, to shoulder burdens far too soon, before we are truly ready. And to find a way to step up, to prevail…for excuses have no place in life or death struggles. We will either live or die…and the republic with us.

  Bridge – E2S Starfire

  System G47

  Earth Two Date 12.09.30

  “That’s the last of the missiles…” Josie Strand’s voice was soft, faint, her words little more than a whisper to herself. She’d held the warp gate for hours, far longer than she would have dared to hope she could. But that stand was almost over. The missile volleys had given her ships a chance to cool their superheated main guns while still barraging everything that came out of the gate. But when her guns heated up again, she’d have a stark choice…cease fire or keep shooting until her particle accelerator batteries literally melted down. Either way, the path would be clear for enemy ships to come pouring through the warp gate.

  The enemy had maintained the pressure, sending ship after ship to almost certain destruction. Strand had read the accounts of the enemy’s relentless attacks, of their indifference to losses as long as the mission was completed. But it was one thing to hear about it, to read about it…and quite another to face it in reality, to stare into her screens watching it happen right in front of her. It was chilling in a way she’d never experienced before, and her already substantial respect for the Pilgrims and what they had accomplished with the old fleet grew.

  The enemy had adapted to the situation. They were still sending ships through to almost certain destruction, but the few Gargoyles that had transited earlier had been replaced by Gremlins…and by even smaller ships of some previously unidentified class Strand had christened Gnats. The enemy was willing to continue to lose vessels to force their way through the gate, but they were only sacrificing light units. Strand had read about the enemy’s battle line vessels, the Leviathans and the immense Colossuses, and she wondered if any of those monsters were stacked up even now on the other side of the gate, waiting for her guns to fail, for her missiles to run out.

  “Captain, I’ve got a priority message from Legatus. She is falling back with heavy damage. Enemy units are coming through the warp gate. Gargoyles…” Hahn paused abruptly. He turned and looked right at Strand. “And six Leviathans…”

  The words hit Strand like a punch in the gut, but she focused and nodded calmly back to her tactical officer. “Very well, Commander.”

  It took forty minutes for that message to reach us…

  Her thoughts were running wild, but she knew she couldn’t let anyone see how unnerved she was. She had to hold it together, for her crew…and for the mission. But what was the mission now? Stay and hold the warp gate as long as possible…which she knew wouldn’t be that much longer? Or pull back now, make a run for it? It would take some time for the First Imperium vessels to transit and get into formation before chasing her group, and that might be just enough to offset their greater acceleration capacity. At least for a while.

  She suspected Admiral Frette would order her to pull back—when she received Legatus’ communique and her own message got to Starfire. Staying at the warp gate was pointless, virtual suicide. The enemy advance through the other gate would cut her people off from the rest of the fleet. She glanced down at her screen, doing a few quick calculations. She figured she could just make it…if she bolted now. But expecting Frette to issue a withdrawal order and choosing to run on her own initiative were too different things.

  She looked up at the main display, watching as another icon winked out of existence. It was one of the new ships, the very small ones. Her people had taken out over fifty enemy vessels, but the tonnage destroyed painted a different picture than the gross numbers. Except for a few mid-sized Gargoyles, she had expended all her missiles—and almost worn out her main batteries—to eliminate what was, in all probability, nothing more than the advance guard for a far heavier fleet.

  She knew what she had to do…the only thing that made sense. But she felt like a coward. She wished the admiral could give her the order, take the burden from her shoulders, but Compton was almost ninety light minutes away, and even if Frette had issued a recall as soon as she’d received Legatus’ report, it would still be more than an hour before the communique reached Starfire.

  By then it will be too late…even if thr
ough some miracle we’re able to hold the line here for that long, the enemy coming in from the other gate will be behind us…

  She cleared her throat and took a deep breath.

  “Commander Hahn, order to all vessels. Prepare to fall back. I want all ships ready for maximum thrust in two minutes.” She knew her order was an unreasonable one, far too little time to switch over a reactor’s full output from the weapons to the engines. But there was no choice. She knew ships had executed maneuvers like that before—and some far more difficult—but everything her people had been taught in the Academy told them what she was ordering was crazy.

  We’ll see how much our parents handed down to us, the strength inside them that made them so formidable…

  “All batteries will cease fire in one minute.”

  Hahn stared back at her, a stunned look on his face. She gestured toward his station, and he turned and relayed her order. She suspected he tried to sound businesslike, as if he was relaying any other command…but he failed, his own doubts coming through in every word.

  She knew the two minutes had been tight even if she had ordered the guns silenced immediately. But that wasn’t an option. As soon as her task group ceased fire, enemy ships would keep coming through. And if her people stayed where they were any more than a minute, two at the most, the enemy would open fire.

  She sat silently, pushing herself up, sitting almost at attention. Her face was like carved stone, and her eyes blazed with a burning light. Starfire was her ship…its crew, and its companion vessels, they were her responsibility. She understood, at least she thought she did, where the Pilgrims had found the strength to do all they had.

  Her plan was daring, reckless even. It required every man and woman under her command to perform perfectly. And she had to bring them through it, hold them up, give them the strength to unleash the greatness within.

  “All weapons…cease fire.” Her voice was like ice. “Engineering, switch power to drive system now. Prepare for 65g acceleration, course 067.302.186…directly back toward our entry warp gate.”

  Her eyes darted around the room, watching her tiny bridge crew at their stations. She knew they were scared, overwhelmed…but they were doing what she had commanded. She felt pride, and a searing pit in her gut. These men and women deserved more than to be led to their destruction. They deserved victory, survival. And whatever it took, she would make sure she helped them win those things.

  “All ships report ready to engage engines, Captain.” Hahn sounded surprised that all the vessels in the group had managed to execute the difficult orders. But Strand wasn’t. She understood now, the meaning behind all the accounts of the fleet’s journey, how normal men and women had risen to such levels of heroism.

  And she realized if the republic was to survive, they would have to do it again.

  “Commander Hahn, order to all vessels…engage at full thrust.”

  * * *

  “My God…” The words came out before Frette could react, hold them back. Her screen had filled with stats and schematics. Legatus and the rest of the ships of her group had just come with the range of the fleet net…and what her systems were transmitting told an ugly story.

  The battleship was badly damaged, three of her secondary batteries out of commission. More than out of commission…two of them were twisted heaps of melted and re-hardened metal. Legatus was reporting her main batteries currently online, but a deeper look at the information on her screen told Frette the big particle accelerators were barely functional. They’d been out multiple times, but the ship’s chief engineer and his exhausted team had somehow managed to restore functionality…despite the fact that dozens of support systems were blasted to useless scrap.

  Frette could imagine conditions on Legatus. She’d served on badly damaged ships. The battleship’s crew would be stringing wires around to bypass shattered conduits, sealing off depressurized compartments, battling radiation leakage. There would be casualties too, she realized…some dead, crushed by the collapse of structural supports or blown out into space when the outer hull was ruptured. Others would be wounded, overcome by radiation or burned by internal explosions.

  Her mind slipped back, thirty years before, to the tumult, the stark terror of those awful battles…and through them the one thing that had rallied the men and women of the crew, pushed back the fear and galvanized them into an invincible force. The steady words of the one man, Terrance Compton, blasting through the com units on every ship.

  Compton’s words, his inspirational speeches had pulled his people back from the brink, when the darkness had threatened to take them. She could remember his leadership, how it had affected her.

  That’s me now…but how can I fill his shoes?

  Compton had taken a beating as well, but the republic’s newest battlewagon was the toughest thing in the fleet. Frette’s flagship had stood firm, surrounded by its escorts, battling the First Imperium forces pouring into the system from behind her fleet. Akira’s and Strand’s groups had also been holding back the enemy, their mandates to stand as long as they could. But Compton’s fight had been to the death. If she couldn’t defeat the enemy forces coming through the warp gate leading back toward Earth Two, the entire fleet would be cut off…and surrounded by the enemy ships coming from every direction.

  “Set a course directly for the warp gate…40g.” She was staring at the small screen on her workstation. She had sent an order to Captain Strand on Starfire to abandon her warp gate defense and pull back to the original entry warp gate. She had been stunned how long Strand had managed to hold the line there…longer than her counterpart in Legatus…and Hiroki Akira was one of the fleet’s best officers, a Pilgrim who had fought beside Terrance Compton. Frette had been surprised again that Strand had taken it on herself to order her forces to retreat, pulling back as soon as she received word that Akira’s ships were falling back. The tactical brilliance Strand had displayed was gratifying, but the maturity was even more extraordinary in its way. Young officers tended to push too hard, fearing death less than they did being branded a coward. But Strand had inflicted massive damage on the enemy, and then she had pulled her forces back when her position became untenable, and she got her people out, ahead of pursuit.

  Frette and her force had been just as heavily engaged, and her people had savaged the First Imperium ships that came up from behind the fleet. The center of the battle had been Compton going toe to toe with an enemy Leviathan. The two battleships had come to a virtual halt at a range of less than fifty thousand kilometers…and they pounded away at each other. Compton had been hit hard, and Frette had watched her displays nervously, keeping track of her overworked damage control crews and the small legion of bots that kept the battleship functioning in battle.

  The Leviathan had been a tough opponent, it’s powerful batteries firing, the deadly beams smashing into Compton’s hull. But the human flagship was stronger still, larger and packed with First Imperium technology adapted by the Mules. Her reactors were the strongest mankind had ever built, and every watt of power they generated had poured through the dual particle accelerators built right into the spine of the colossal vessel. The devastation put forth by those deadly weapons at such short range was incalculable…and it had been too much for the Leviathan. Frette was still feeling the residual sensation, the electric charge of watching the enemy battleship torn to pieces…and finally obliterated as the magnetic fields enclosing its antimatter fuel failed.

  The Leviathan had been the center of the enemy force, and its destruction had opened a gap in the enemy formation. Excalibur had pushed forward, engines blasting at 30g as she slid into the hole, launching missiles and firing its batteries in both directions. Captain Chandra’s ship wasn’t the equal of Compton, but it was a modern republic battleship, and its heavy weapons wrought massive destruction all around against the lighter Gremlins and Gargoyles. The fleet’s cruisers and escorts followed Excalibur, targeting vessels damaged by the battlewagon’s heavy guns and finish
ing them off. By the time they had finished, the First Imperium task force was gone, save for a rearguard standing between the human fleet and the warp gate. And now Frette’s eyes were focused on the display showing the two dozen remaining enemy vessels. Her gaze was angry, feral.

  “Commander Kemp, Compton and Excalibur and all escorts are to prepare to advance on the warp gate.”

  “Yes, Admiral.”

  “All ships are to engage as soon as they enter range.” Her eyes moved across the large main screen. The display showed Akira’s battered ships…and farther back Strand’s task group, zipping across the system at almost 0.4c. Behind Strand came the enemy forces that had come through both of the far warp gates. The fleet that had savaged Akira’s ships was in front, but Strand’s pursuers were gaining ground.

  As the enemy ships closed, her scanners picked up more and more data…and the true scope of the forces moving across the system. There were almost two hundred vessels…with a dozen Leviathans in the lead. It was enough to crush her fleet, to destroy every ship she had. There was no choice. Her group had to take out the enemy rearguard…and clear the way for Strand’s and Akira’s ships to reach the warp gate and escape from the enemy trap.

  Escape…at least for now. But we’re a long way from home, and those ships will keep coming.

  If there was one thing Frette remembered about the forces of the First Imperium, it was their relentlessness. She could get her fleet out of the system—probably, at least—but she had no idea how she was going to get them home.