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  “I understand, sir, but can we afford to count on such an untrustworthy…ally?”

  “Can we afford not to? If things are hopeless anyway, what do we have to lose?”

  Barron fell silent for another minute or two, clearly deep in thought. Nguyen suspected Barron was trying to analyze the situation with some rationality, but prejudices like those he had against the Union –like almost every Confederation spacer had against the Union—were hard to overcome.

  “We need the help, Admiral, I can’t argue with that. But, the Union?”

  “Can we be picky, Tyler? Do we have any real choice? And, does it seem that difficult to believe that the Hegemony has taken action against the Union as well as us? We never had any reason to believe they had deployed all their strength against our forces. They are larger than we are, and more powerful. Considering the forces we have faced, are you really so convinced they don’t have even more? It wouldn’t take another fleet the size of the one we’ve been fighting to give the Union a run. You know how battered they were in the last war, and in the subsequent near-collapse they suffered.”

  Barron just nodded.

  “So, what do we do? If they are secretly allied with the Hegemony, if this is all some kind of trick, why would they even bother? We can’t beat the Hegemony forces alone…with the Union ships added in, it would be even more hopeless. If we send them away, we can’t stop them from coming on anyway and attacking us. We don’t have any strength to detach. If the Union wants to invade, if they want to blast dozens of our planets to radioactive ash…we can’t stop them. So, what do we have to gain by not believing them, by not working with them?”

  Nguyen paused, but Barron remained silent, so he continued, “I understand your reservations, Tyler, and I share them. But, I don’t think we can afford to pass up the chance this is real. I don’t have up to date intelligence on Union fleet strengths, but I’m willing to bet they’d replace the ships Admiral Winters took. More than replace them. And, it will be a force the enemy doesn’t expect. I’m not saying it will be enough for us to win, but we’ll be a damned sight better off.”

  Barron stayed silent and still for another moment. Then, at last, he nodded his head slowly. “You’re right, Admiral, of course.”

  Nguyen wasn’t sure how sincere Barron was, but it was progress, and he decided he’d settle for it.

  Barron took a deep breath and then, he surprised Nguyen with the words that came out of his mouth. “We should send Captain Chanticleer back at once to rendezvous with Admiral Denisov. If we’re really this desperate, if relying on Union aid, on the Union keeping its word is all we have left, we can’t waste any time.”

  He looked up at Nguyen, and he took a deep breath. “Because, even if they’re legit, it’s still a crapshoot on them getting here on time.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Planet Megara, Olyus III

  Year of Renewal 263 (318 AC)

  The Invasion of Megara – The Fight for the Landing Zones

  “Keep up that fire!” Seth Alivari was hunkered down behind the wreckage of an old building, now no more than a pile of twisted metal and shattered masonry. But, it still served as cover, which was something that the Kriegeri his Marines were facing didn’t have in abundance.

  The orders had been clear. Hit the landing zones, and don’t let up. The Kriegeri were well-armed, technologically advanced, and enhanced with multiple implants that made them stronger and faster than normal human beings. If they broke out of the LZs, they would be ten times harder to stop.

  Alivari was a battalion commander, and his people were stretched out across a five-kilometer front. It wasn’t so much a ‘front’ as a semi-circle surrounding one of the biggest landing zones. Major Truscott and his battalion linked up with both of his flanks, completing the circle of almost a thousand Marines pounding on the enemy forces as they emerged from their landers.

  Before they landed, even. The supply of anti-air ordnance was far lower than Alivari—and certainly Bryan Rogan—might have hoped, but what was available had been used well. The landscape all around the LZs was littered with the wreckage of landing craft, some of them still marked by great plumes of smoke, rising like dark gray towers against the mid-morning sun.

  Alivari wanted to feel good about things. Certainly, the battle had gone well so far, but, he knew that wouldn’t last. That it couldn’t last. Megara was blockaded, and by all accounts, the fleet had bugged out. The enemy forces were vast, and they were supported by complete orbital control. Megara wasn’t exactly a center of military production, even assuming any factories that existed could still function once the battle was truly underway. That meant the Marines were eventually going to run out of ammunition and supplies.

  Bryan Rogan was a capable commander, a true hero of the Marines, but he wasn’t a magician. He’d gathered up everything he could, and he’d stored it in the most secure locations. But, when it was gone—used, captured, or destroyed—the Marines would be down to knives and clubs.

  Such weapons weren’t much good against automatic rifles and artillery, not to mention giant tanks of the sort Alivari had heard about. Stories of the massive armored vehicles had made the rounds among the Marine units, and the size of the war machines, grew, Alivari suspected, with each retelling.

  He hadn’t seen the things himself. None of the enemy landing forces had managed to bring the heavies online yet, and he hadn’t been involved in the fighting on Dannith. But, word of things like that spread, and when the enemy could get a meaningful number of the tanks deployed and on the loose, the Marines would have no choice but to pull back. That meant deploying either into the cities, to dig in and fight to the last and risk staggering civilian casualties, or fleeing to the hills, to the rugged areas far from the urban regions.

  That choice, even though it would be Brian Rogan’s when it came, was one hell of a reason to keep up the pressure, to pen the enemy in, keep them bottled up in their landing zones.

  His head snapped around, moving toward the sound he’d just heard, the one still ringing in his ears. An explosion, there was no mistaking that. And, close.

  His eyes darted around and focused on the column of smoke rising up, perhaps half a kilometer from where he stood. That’s Company D’s ground…

  He waved his arms toward his aide. “Get Captain Corrigan on the line right…”

  He finished the command, but neither he, nor the aide, heard it. Two more explosions, within perhaps a second of each other, had hit with deafening roars, both closer than the first had been.

  Alivari knew something was going on, and he had a good idea what it was. The hope he’d felt a few seconds earlier was gone, and he knew his people would be on the move soon, opening the way for the enemy to form up and begin their advance. The effort to keep the enemy penned in was almost over, at least if those explosions meant the enemy had opened up an orbital barrage.

  * * *

  “Damn…” Bryan Rogan was in his command post, his eyes darting from one scanner to another. The flow of incoming data had been shrinking steadily. His satellites were all gone, of course, but now he was losing ground stations, and all around the LZs, the enemy was doing everything they could to jam his communications. But, what he could see wasn’t good.

  His people had been performing well, extracting a gruesome price from the enemy advance forces, and keeping them penned up in their LZs. Everything had gone exactly as he’d planned. As he’d hoped.

  For a while.

  He was a victim now of his own success. The enemy’s inability to break out of their beachheads had forced them to escalate. It was a strange form of poker he was playing, fighting such a dominant enemy. He could push, his Marines could fight well…but if they were too successful, they compelled the enemy to bring out the bigger guns.

  In this case, orbital bombardments.

  The Hegemony fleet could blast Megara into a lifeless, radioactive wasteland, of course, if that’s what they wanted. But, it was clear they planne
d to take the Confederation’s capital intact, or as close to that as possible.

  They’re going to get it a little less intact now…

  He could see the streaming video coming in from the LZs. All of them.

  His positions were being blasted, his Marines, who’d had the invaders penned and suppressed in most locations, were now diving into whatever cover they had. The bombardments were heavy, though Rogan immediately noticed there were no nukes, no mass drivers, no true weapons of mass destruction. Just conventional bunker busters and other ordnance…in massive quantities.

  Casualties were mounting rapidly. His people had kept losses fairly low in the first hours, but now that was all shot to hell. He didn’t even have casualty reports from almost half his deployed units. Between jamming and disorder, he’d lost contact with a large number of battalions.

  He stood where he was, barely listening to the reports his aides were shouting at him. It was all nonsense, pointless information that had nothing to do with the crucial decision he had to make. He had reserve units, ready to send forward, to back up the Marines at the LZs. That had been his first impulse, and he almost issued the order. But, then he hesitated.

  Anything I send out there is just going to get blasted. We can’t stand up to that kind of bombardment intensity.

  He knew his best chance to defeat the enemy was to hold them at the LZs. But, was that possible anymore, in the face of the bombardment? And, would he just compel the enemy to increase the intensity, widen the target areas, even add nukes and other really nasty stuff to the mix? He was angry at the Senate, certainly, but was he willing to risk being the reason millions of Megarans died?

  The Hegemony forces were ignoring unfortified urban areas so far, but they were blasting the perimeter of Troyus City, where he’d positioned some of his forces. Anyplace he sent his people, the enemy would very likely bombard. That made the open areas death traps, and the potential urban battlefields virtual abattoirs for the millions who lived there. There was military advantage in fighting for the cities, at least as long as he didn’t think the enemy was ready to glass the planet, but, on a world like Megara, the cost in lives would be almost incalculable.

  The Confederation’s capital was a heavily developed world, but there were still considerable remote areas, mountains and deep forests, the kinds of places his people could defend for a long time against even aggressive attacks. He would be giving up the initiative, but he’d begun to realize that was gone already. His forces had held the enemy as long as they could, and they’d inflicted what could only be horrendous losses on the invading enemy’s lead units. But, if he left his people out there, they would be massacred.

  The time had come to play the long game, to hold out, give the enemy a hundred different places to subdue. It would give him tactical flexibility, allow him to choose when and where to strike out against any areas the enemy left vulnerable.

  But, it meant giving up the population, allowing the cities to be taken and occupied by the enemy. That was the kind of thing a Marine like Rogan never thought he’d consider. He’d imagined he would give the orders to hold and fight, stand in the line with his people and battle to the death to save the civilian inhabitants.

  But, that very act would consign billions of them to almost certain death.

  No, he couldn’t make the cities his battleground. He would leave forces behind, certainly, special forces teams hidden, ready to strike behind enemy lines and do everything possible to disrupt Hegemony operations. But, the main force would pull back.

  He hesitated for a minute, and even in those few fleeting seconds, he could see the situation deteriorating rapidly. He had to get his people away from the LZs, and into cover.

  And, he had to do it now.

  “Captain,” he yelled for his senior aide. “Get me a line to as many command posts as you can raise…and get runners ready to go to the others. We’re pulling back from the LZs…and, we’re doing it now.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  CFS Constitution

  Alvion System, Midway Between Transit Points

  Year 318 AC

  “Admiral, passive scanners confirm contacts at 203.124.011. Three vessels, estimated tonnage below twenty thousand each.”

  Winters was nodding as he stared at the display, but then he turned toward the tactical station, his eyes meeting Davis Harrington’s. “Any change in vectors or thrust?” He wasn’t sure how complete the data coming in was. Constitution and her fifteen companion vessels were limited to passive scans while in stealth mode, and the contacts were at the extreme edge of maximum range.

  “Keep the passive scans on it, Commander. And, get the AI crunching the data. Maintain course and thrust levels.” He felt an urge to cut the fleet’s thrust, but he held it back. Witter had assured him the stealth generators could hide the engine output from detection by all but the very closest scanners, but he still felt like the 10g his ships were blasting at was as good as waving a flaming torch on a dark night.

  There wasn’t time for caution, though. He had to get to Megara, and the sooner his ships arrived there, the better chance they had of completing their mission. If that meant risking detection, there was nothing he could do about it except trust to the new tech Witter and his people had installed in his ships.

  “No sign they’ve detected us, Admiral. They’ve got their active scanners on full, but no course changes, so sign of alert status or power surges in engines or weapons…at least as far as our passive scans can pick up at this distance.”

  That was the rub. Everything Davis just mentioned could be happening on those ships, and just slipping by the passive scan readings.

  No, not everything. We’d see any vector changes, at least. Though, it wasn’t like three scoutships were going to alter vectors to engage sixteen battleships, even if they could see them. Or even one.

  “Send a pulse comm to every ship, Commander. Stay on course until further notice.” He didn’t love the idea of using ship to ship comm, even with the almost-undetectable direct laser pulses. But, he liked even less the chance that one of the fifteen ship captains could get unnerved, do something foolish. He’d been clear about procedures for the operation, but he’d been a flag officer for long enough to realize how differently people could interpret situations.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Winters looked back at the display. The scoutships were definitely still on the same course, not a hint of any change. If they’d spotted any of his ships, they were being some very cool customers. His stomach was tight, his fingers clenched around the armrests of his chair as he watched. But, he saw a positive to it as well. This encounter was his first test running into enemy ships, and if his sixteen battleships slipped right by them…well, just maybe they could pull the whole crazy thing off after all.

  The fleet had gone through two systems already, with no sign of any Hegemony presence. The one advantage of the enemy’s lightning advance to Megara was, they hadn’t had time to broaden the axis of their advance. Their attack had been a spear wound to the Confederation’s heart, but even two transits from Megara, there were systems devoid of any Hegemony presence.

  Alvion was the last star before the transit to Olyus, before Winters’s ships emerged in Megara’s system and made the desperate run toward the enemy support fleet. He’d managed to keep his mind from thinking about what happened after that, about how the hell his ships would escape after they’d blasted the supply and support vessels. That depended, of course, on just how strong a defensive garrison the enemy had left behind, and how well the stealth units held up. There were all kind of ways things could go into a shithole, but Winters had stopped thinking about them after he’d hit number twenty.

  “Admiral, the scoutships appear to be decelerating.”

  Winters looked at his own screen, confirming what his aide had just reported. For an instant, he was sure the Hegemony ships had picked up his ships, or at least one of them, but their maneuver didn’t suggest a response he wou
ld expect in that case. There was no movement back toward Olyus, no apparent drone launches, no sign of an attempt to send back a warning. No concentration of active scanners around his fleet’s position.

  The longer he watched, the more he realized what was happening. The scoutships were taking position in the center of the system. They were pickets, flank guards, positioned where they were to watch for precisely the type of operation he was leading toward Megara.

  But, they didn’t appear to be aware of his ships.

  Winters still felt like an icy hand was gripping his spine, but through the deep and cold stress, hope began to poke through. He wasn’t sure he believed his people were going to make it to Olyus…but he was beginning to believe it was possible.

  And, that was a start.

  * * *

  “Transit in one minute, Captain. Stealth systems at full power.”

  “Very well, Commander.” Captain James Eugene sat bolt upright in Tenacity’s command chair. The battleship was one of the Confederation’s newest and most powerful, like most of the others assigned to what had become informally known as Operation Midnight. The ship had quad mounted particle accelerators, enhanced with Dr. Witter’s upgrades, plus over two dozen heavy laser batteries. She was a killing machine, the very best Confederation science and industry could create. That made her an unlikely scoutship.

  But, that’s exactly the function she was serving at that moment.

  “Thirty seconds to transit.”

  Tenacity was at battlestations, and Eugene was sure every member of his crew was well aware of the deadly danger of their mission, and its almost indescribable importance. They’d all fought the Hegemony forces, and they knew what they were up against. The Confederation had no chance to match the enemy’s numbers, or, in the short term, their technology. But, if the Hegemony logistics fleet could be destroyed, or sufficiently degraded, it was just possible the principles that defined war on the Rim for more than a century would reassert themselves.