Storm of Vengeance Page 29

  “Well done, Lieutenant. Get your people moving.” His eyes darted up to the top of his helmet display, to the flashing yellow light he knew signified the detonation switch.

  He paused, standing still for a few seconds, fighting off a burst of dizziness. His trauma system had just started giving him another round of blood substitute, and, as he stood for a moment, he started to feel a bit better. He was uncomfortable, not just from the pain, but from the general messiness inside his suit. The med system had soaked up as much blood and other fluids as possible, but the inside of his armor was still a sticky mess.

  He took as deep a breath as he could imagine, trying to center himself, to pull up enough strength to follow his Marines back to the surface. But, he just didn’t think he could make it…and the last thing he was going to allow was for anyone to stay behind to help him. He’d already sent Stanton and most of the others back up, and he knew it was going to take everything the remaining Marines had to make it in time…and that did not include carrying their wounded commander through the corridors at a snail’s pace.

  “Sir…everything here is set. Shouldn’t we all leave together?”

  Cameron felt a flush of anger, but it quickly subsided. He’d known his Marines would question why he wasn’t coming. They knew he’d been wounded, of course—anyone who’d seen the huge gash on the front of his suit, patched up with sterile packing, knew that. But, he’d done a good job of misleading them, of telegraphing that his injuries were less severe than they were…a bit of deception made a lot easier by the fact that, as commander, he was the only one with control over his own medical readouts.

  He stood for a moment, uncertain what to say. He’d planned on staying behind, seeing the mission through to the bitter end. But, he found the idea of surviving, or at least having a chance at it, to be an appealing one.

  Besides, with the motion sensors, his rationale for staying, to detonate the charges if the enemy appeared to be on the verge of reaching them, was no longer operative. He questioned if he would be able to keep up with the others…and, he knew they would slow down to accommodate them if he couldn’t. And, that, he couldn’t allow.

  But, that was easy enough to handle. One quick thought to his AI, and a massive overdose of sedatives would end his Marines’ burden.

  “Okay then…let’s go…”

  Cameron froze, his eyes darting to the scanner projection inside his helmet, just as his AI warned him of what he was seeing.

  “Enemy forces approaching…”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Flag Bridge, E2S Cain

  F-74 System

  Earth Two Date 02.27.43

  Terror. Absolute, utterly frozen fear ripped through Terrance Compton’s body, pushing him to the limits of his control. It wasn’t primarily fear of death, though he was scared out of his mind of that as well. No, it was the responsibility, the deep and mournful bell of Erika West’s voice telling him he was in command of Raj Chandra’s fleet.

  He would have argued with her…if he hadn’t been shocked to speechlessness by her words. But, even as he sat there, silent, trying to keep his body from shaking uncontrollably, he started to try to grasp for some kind of stability. There wasn’t time to argue, nor to debate who was better prepared to take command than he was. The fleet was in a desperate fight, a struggle for survival, and uncertainty was almost as much an enemy as the First Imperium forces currently closing to point blank range.

  Admiral West had the larger force, but the enemy was clearly focused on his ships—he struggled to think of them as his ships. Her forces were coming on at maximum thrust, but Compton knew that his outnumbered comrades had to hold out somehow…and the first step to making that happen was to give them the commander they needed.

  His thoughts argued with themselves. He knew he didn’t have the experience to lead a force like the one he now seemed to command. No, not seemed. Erika West was the navy’s commanding officer, and she’d put him in charge. The other captain’s, the ship commanders locked in desperate battle, would be looking to him for orders.

  It doesn’t make sense…why would she put me in command?

  But, even as he wondered, he grasped at seeds of understanding.

  The fleet was locked in battle, ships matched off against their First Imperium counterparts. There were no fleet strategies now, no desperate maneuvers. Just a fight to the finish. And, morale was the vital thing now.

  She wants to invoke the memories of my father…

  He felt an instant of resentment, but then it passed, and he realized, Admiral Terrance Compton would have been the first on to use whatever worked.

  And Erika West learned at his feet…

  “Lieutenant Brickell…all ships are to increase reactor output to one hundred ten percent. All excess power to the main batteries.”

  The bridge officer looked back across the wide space of Cain’s control center, pausing, appearing uncertain for a moment. They had all heard West’s orders…but there was hesitancy, too.

  Compton paused himself, his mind tearing at itself, even as West’s words repeated themselves again and again in his head. You wanted to prove you were your father’s son…was that just shit? Or did you mean any of it?

  He could feel a chasm opening up, threatening to pull him away, to break what resolve he’d managed to scrape together…but then there was something else, a feeling he’d never experienced before, a strength of sorts, even an anger.

  “You heard me, Lieutenant,” he said, surprising even himself with the raw determination in his tone. “Now!”

  “Yes, sir.” The officer spun around and passed on the orders, even as Compton stood up from his station, tearing off the straps of his harness and walking across the bridge. He hesitated, just for a few seconds, staring down at the command chair…the one still stained with Raj Chandra’s blood. Then he turned around and sat down, sitting as bolt upright as he could manage, as his eyes glared out across Cain’s bridge.

  “All ships acknowledge, Captain.”

  “Very well, Lieutenant.” He looked straight ahead toward the main display, his eyes coldly focused, feeling as he never had before. He was still scared…but that didn’t matter now. He knew what he had to do, and he wasn’t going to let his comrades down, not this time.

  He could feel a coldness taking him, and he opened himself to it, yielded to the strange sensation. He’d heard his friends many times, Admiral West certainly, and President Harmon as well, speak of the feeling of a predator that took them in battle. Now, he felt it too, and his blood almost cried out for the destruction of the enemy…the foe his father had died fighting against. The enemy his people had battled for more than half a century.

  The deadly foe he would fight now…with all he could muster.

  * * *

  “All ships, maintain full fire.” Erika West sat like a carven statue on Garret’s bridge, shouting out commands like some angel of death, come to bring ruin and devastation on her enemies. There was no fear, no hesitation, no regret. Not while the battle still raged.

  She had no time for personal thoughts, nor even emotions. What little concern had remained of what her people thought of her was gone, too…though she suspected any spacers’ inclinations that their fighting admiral had lost her nerve were gone now. They might curse her as an insane demon, one who’d brought them to their deaths, but the briefest look at the maelstrom into which she’d led them had washed away any hints of cowardice.

  Cain shook hard, and West smiled. Not because her ship took a hit, but because it had entered into firing range. The battle had raged for hours now, and the system was full of debris, battered ships bleeding atmosphere, clouds of radiation that were all that remained of vessels where moments before, human and robot crews had battled each other, neither side seeking nor granting quarter. The battle would be one to annihilation, and West’s ships had been mostly out of the action as they pursued the First Imperium fleet, desperately trying to accelerate and reach the enemy forces
before they wiped out Chandra’s—now Compton’s—fleet.

  West knew she should be worried about Compton, that her friend’s son didn’t have the skill and experience to command a fleet, even if he did have his father’s heart buried in there somewhere. Even more shocking, the younger Compton had made his share of mistakes, and West wasn’t usually the type to give second chances, and most who’d served with her considered her cold and unforgiving. She’d always smarted a bit knowing those views were out there, but she’d long ago decided that, true or not, she could turn the opinions to her advantage. The ‘ice admiral’ and ‘West the merciless’ had helped her build her reputation…and that had been a huge part of what she’d turned into the successes she’d won. In the end, victory came from the men and women who fought each battle, and they could be driven to give their best by love of a leader, as they had been with the senior Compton…or by fear and intimidation, as West knew had been the case with many who had followed her.

  For all the analysis West put into her battles, the matchups and the tactical plans, she knew this battle would be won—or lost—as all ultimately were, by the hearts of men and women. And, for all Terrance Compton had failed to live up to Earth Two’s unreasonable expectations in his youth, she believed he had it in him. And, perhaps more importantly, she knew her people would follow him if he showed it.

  So, she’d taken a gamble, made a spot decision and placed him in command when he’d told her Chandra was wounded. Despite her reputation for stone cold tactics, Erika West relied on her gut, too…far more often than almost anyone knew. And her gut told her to trust Terrance Compton.

  “Engineering reports reactor output up to eighty-three percent, Admiral.”

  “Very well,” she said coolly, doing all she could to play on the persona she’d built over a lifetime. “All ships are to accelerate to maximum thrust and close on the enemy’s main body.” Her ships were facing a rearguard that had pulled away from the main First Imperium fleet. She knew its purpose—to hold her forces back until the Regent’s main body finished off Compton and the rest of the fleet. The fortresses were already mostly gone, the curse of all non-mobile platforms once an advancing enemy got into close range. She’d told herself some of the crews, at least, had managed to evacuate, but she didn’t really believe it. She’d watched most of the bases fighting to the very end.

  She’d planned the battle going on now…basing it heavily on her intuition for how the First Imperium forces would react. She’d considered every possibility, every action the enemy might take, but until those ships had taken off after hers back in the G48 system, she hadn’t known it was going to succeed.

  Even then, she’d sweated the whole trip to the decoy system, deathly afraid the enemy fleet would advance and attack…and overwhelm her outnumbered forces before they reached the help she’d been pretty sure, but far from certain, had been waiting for them in F74.

  She pushed those thoughts aside. There was no use wasting time on what might have happened. Carefully planned or a wild gamble, her scheme had worked, at least as far as luring the enemy to the desired location.

  It was still an open question how that fight would go.

  She looked across the display, her eyes moving along the pointed lights of her battleline. There were a lot of ships gone already, including more than ten blown to dust by the antimatter missile barrage of the enemy fleet…and her fleet had endured the lighter side of the attack. Chandra’s ships—Compton’s now—had been battered brutally, thousands of gigatons of warheads screaming in and detonating all around. The survival of any semblance of Chandra’s battleline was another debt she owed to the crews of the fortresses. The Regent’s ships had been forced to blast the asteroids with massive waves of warheads, weapons that hadn’t been available to come at the ships of the fleet.

  She closed her eyes for just a second, recalling the fire and death that had surrounded the bases. Then she opened them again, and she was focused, the emotions creeping around the outside of her psyche gone, back where they belonged.

  At least as long as the battle went on…which seemed like it would be for quite some time.

  * * *

  Cain shook wildly, and along the port side of the bridge, a massive panel fell, slamming into the deck and sending a shower of sparks flying all around. The battleship was immense, a dark monolith of metal that made the ships that had served in the wars of its namesake seem almost tiny slivers by comparison. The automation and the ancient technology unlocked by the Mules had made something like Cain possible…but there was little difference between the driving force that made men and women ride the behemoth to war. Terrance Compton looked around his command chair, at his people, at their steadfastness, even as the great chunk of metal that carried them through space’s deadly vacuum began to break apart.

  “Bring us around, one hundred eighty degrees in the Y plane.” Compton wasn’t even sure where the orders were coming from inside him, or the deep and strong voice with which he delivered them…but he didn’t let that stop him. He’d never met his father, save for his conversations with the machine that bore what remained of his knowledge and memories, but he felt proud—more so, for the first time in his life he believed his father would be proud. His people were dying all around him, but he believed he was leading them well…and that his presence invoked the legend of the great Admiral Compton, inspired the sweating, bleeding men and women to find a way to dig deeper, push harder. Terrance was no philosopher, but he believed warriors facing death deserved to believe in whatever things aided them in their time of trials. And, for many of Earth Two’s people, even the Next Gens and Tanks who’d never known the man as Terrance himself had never known him, that was Admiral Compton, the great commander who had led them through the First Imperium to Earth Two.

  “Captain, I’ve got Admiral West for you.” He could even hear the respect in the officer’s voice, where a few hours before there had been uncertainty and doubt. He was terrified, still…that hadn’t changed. But he drew some gratification from the redemption he felt, far more quickly than he’d imagined possible.

  “Admiral…Captain Compton here.” West’s forces were finally closing in, and even as the enemy was pushing hard, striking to finish off his battered survivors, her ships were moving up behind them, ripping past their rearguards and coming hard at their biggest and toughest ships, ignoring damage and danger as they moved inexorably forward.

  “Terrance…you’ve done a spectacular job. You’ve pulled your people together, and despite your lack of experience, you knew what to do. You’ve got me believing the spirit of your father is alive in you.”

  “Thank you, Admiral.” Compton wasn’t sure how much he believed West and how much she was manipulating him—even for his own good—driving him to do what he had to do. And, he didn’t care, not now. He’d longed to hear the words she’d just spoken for so many years, it almost didn’t matter how sincere she was.

  “Listen to me, Terrance…we’ve hurt these bastards, but the battle isn’t over yet. They still outnumber us, and their ordnance and supplies will probably outlast ours, so we’ve got to win this fight and win it now. Bring your people forward, right at mine. Let’s put these damned robots in a vice and squeeze until there’s nothing left.” She hesitated. “Are you with me, Terrance?”

  He could feel the wave building in him, the combination of pride, rage, vengeance. He knew West was working him, but it didn’t matter. She was right.

  It was time.

  Time to win one for his father.

  “I’m with you, Admiral.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  E2S Midway

  In Orbit Around Planet G-48 II

  Earth Two Date 02.27.43

  “The first wave is coming up now, Admiral. Three hundred six Marines aboard…” A short pause. “One hundred ninety-four wounded.”

  Nothing Hercule had just said surprised Strand, but she felt the impact of the words just the same. Just over three hundred Marin
es out of the nearly two thousand she’d landed, and almost two-thirds of them were wounded. She was sure there would be more in the next waves—her pilots had reported as much—but, she also knew the first group was almost certainly the largest. No matter how she did the math in her head, Cameron’s Marines had lost two-thirds of their number.

  Perhaps even three-quarters.

  “Anything else from General Cameron?” She’d managed to piece together the fact that Cameron had gone down to the designated ground zero…to supervise the final operations himself. There had been combat down there, heavy combat, but from the last reports to come in, it seemed like the Marines had cleared the area.

  It was anyone’s guess how long it would stay cleared, but it was still about the best news she could have hoped to get.

  “Second wave status, Commander?”

  “Projected launch in seven minutes, Admiral.” Hercule hesitated, holding back on reporting any numbers.

  “Continue, Commander.” Strand had an idea what had held her aide’s tongue. But, she had to hear it. She had to know.

  “Forty-three Marines, Admiral. Approximately half wounded.”

  “Any sign of General Cameron?”

  Hercule looked back across the bridge. “Negative.”

  Strand wasn’t surprised, but she was disappointed nevertheless. She was really rooting for Cameron.

  She sat still in her chair, watching, even as the ships of the first wave began to dock…and those of the second lifted off. Still, without Devon Cameron aboard.

  She stared at the display, at the grim and hellish surface of the planet, trying to imagine what kind of nightmare it was about to become. She realized, analytically, at least, that when those charges blew—if they blew—the fleet would have accomplished its mission, destroyed the Regent’s source of antimatter. For such a blow against the enemy, casualties barely figured into the calculation. Whatever devilish plan that twisted machine had planned, she couldn’t imagine it had included her people actually destroying the entire factory. It would be a victory, a massive one that, on a spreadsheet, justified all the losses her forces had suffered.