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  Assuming she and her pilots could destroy the monstrous things.

  There were ships docked with all of them, in varying stages of repairs—and serving in some way as additional armor, or at least, as obstructions to incoming attacks. Covington didn’t care about the ships though. She wanted the shipyards, and that meant getting to the long cylindrical structures at the center…and blasting them to bits.

  She flashed a glance at the closest structure, designated ‘alpha,’ the one her team was attacking. Most of the ships at the docking ports were escorts, in various stages of reconstruction, but two were battleships, big ones that undoubtedly mounted railguns. The ships were in various stages of repair, and it didn’t seem likely they had their main batteries back online yet.

  Still, Hegemony battleships were dangerous, and for more than a year, they’d been her primary targets. She felt the temptation to send some of her bombers against the vessels, but she resisted it. Picking off a couple heavies would be a nice addition to her list of kills, but she couldn’t risk leaving the shipyards functional. “Stay on target, all squadrons. We’re not getting distracted by those ships. The shipyards are our targets. We hit them now, and we make it count.”

  She gripped the controls tightly, and her eyes narrowed on the targeting display. She was coming in hard and fast, and that meant she’d have a short window to take the perfect shot. The shipyards were huge and slow moving, perfect targets…but Covington didn’t want to hit an attached ship or some peripheral appendage, a docking port or something similar. She wanted a direct hit to the station’s rotating midsection. She wanted all her people delivering torpedoes to the core structure of the great shipyards. Nothing less would be enough to destroy the huge constructs.

  She drove her ship in, noticing that several of the escorts had broken free and were firing. The point defense fire was getting fairly heavy, but nowhere near the worst she’d seen in her battles against the Hegemony. She thought about increasing her evasive maneuvers—and ordering the squadrons with her to do the same—but she shook her head grimly and put the thought aside. She had to take out those shipyards, and she couldn’t afford to sacrifice accuracy for more variability in her approach vector.

  She watched as the range dropped, her tension ramping up as the defensive fire steadily increased. She was soaked in sweat, uncomfortable…and damned scared. But she knew her duty, as she was sure all her people did.

  The shipyards had continued to launch escorts from the repair docks, and there were a dozen active in the immediate area, all firing, though at various levels of effectiveness. Some were clearly only partially operational, while others mounted something closer to full broadsides of their weapons. The overall intensity was increasing, however, and she was beginning to lose ships. One incoming shot came close—too close—to her own ship, but she shrugged it off, and continued in.

  She continued to ignore the enemy fire, even as another of her ships vanished from the display, and then, seconds later, two more. She hated losing anyone, but the casualties were still light compared to those in the recent assaults on the enemy battle lines. The shipyards had been lightly defended, especially before they began to deploy the vessels in their docks. Winters’s fleet had caught the enemy by surprise, just as they had hoped to do.

  They’re used to pacifying half-primitive survivors of the Cataclysm. They haven’t had to deal with the kind of initiative to launch behind the lines attacks like this. Maybe, just maybe, we can actually pull this off…

  Her hand tightened further, and she adjusted her sights…and let loose the torpedo.

  She pulled up, blasting at full thrust, struggling to get enough of course change to clear the great bulk of the shipyard, rapidly growing on her screen.

  Her ship streaked across the top of the massive construct, clearing it by less than a kilometer, even as her screen displayed the preliminary damage assessment.

  A hit. A direct hit.

  There were massive explosions erupting from a great gash in the monster ship’s hull, where the blob of plasma had impacted, and she felt a rush of excitement. One hit wasn’t going to take out the giant vessel, not even close, but even as stared at her scanners, the squadrons formed up behind her came in, one attack run after another, planting hit after hit on the great platform.

  She allowed herself a little smile. The fight in Megara, the battle to cripple the enemy’s logistics…it had just begun, and she knew there was a long and desperate road ahead over the next several hours.

  But, her people had drawn some blood, and she felt a rush of excitement, satisfaction.

  She’d be damned if her pilots were going to let even one of those shipyards escape.

  She angled her ship around and blasted back toward Constitution. “All ships,” she yelled into the comm, “no hanging around and watching. Get back to base as soon as you’ve launched your torpedoes. We’ve got to rearm and get the hell back at these bastards.”

  Before the enemy can get all the ships they have in-system out here…

  * * *

  “All ships…I said full thrust, and that’s just what I meant. Strip off all safeties, and get me everything those reactors can give.” Winters was standing next to his chair. That wasn’t a particularly safe or smart thing to do going into battle, especially at the thrust levels Constitution was putting out. One malfunction in the dampeners, or one particularly rough random evasive maneuver, could send him to the deck. Hard. But, he was too edgy to sit, too anxious waiting to see if his ships could close with their targets before the warships blasting out from around Megara arrived.

  He’d sent some of his battleships against the massive fleet of cargo ships, but he’d kept a most of them with him, and they were bearing down on the outer system asteroids and moons, where the enemy mining ships were hard at work, digging out thousands of tons of raw materials and feeding them in to the clusters of refining vessels positioned nearby. The whole thing was an astonishing display of engineering and ingenuity, and he was amazed by it. The raw productive capacity the Hegemony forces had managed to set up in just a couple months exceeded anything he could have imagined. The immensity of the logistics fleet, the hundreds of billions of man-hours that had no doubt gone into its construction…it all filled him with amazement. It was an incredible example of human ingenuity and dedication.

  But, he was going to destroy it all anyway.

  He’d had a passing thought, a morose feeling on the waste of it all, even a few seconds of philosophical debate with himself, vague speculations on what humanity could achieve with such industry if it wasn’t always so hellbent on fighting with itself.

  But, that combat, that self-immolation the human race seemed to prize so greatly, it had been his career, his life. It was what he did, and by God, he was going to do it now. Billions of Arbeiter had labored to build this gargantuan fleet, and now he was going to destroy it with just sixteen battleships, whatever it took to see that done.

  “We’re entering range, Admiral.” Winters hadn’t needed Harrington’s report, but the aide had just been doing his duty, so Winters humored him.

  “Very well, Commander. Fleet order, all ships. Cut thrust to twenty percent.” A pause, just a couple seconds. “Open fire.”

  Constitution’s primaries fired no more than a few second later, along with the familiar distant whine, and the short-lived power drain that were almost trademarks of the weapon system. Winters tightened his fist in excitement, and then again, after a quick look at the display confirmed his other ships had fired as well. Forty-eight heavy primaries lanced out across the thousands of kilometers, and a few seconds later he saw that, even at extreme range, seven of them hit.

  Confederation primaries had always been powerful weapons, but those fired by Winters’s ships were enhanced, powered up according to Dr. Witter’s specs. Winters knew he was taking some chances, that most likely he’d see some failures in the systems before the battle was over. But, he’d been able to open fire from a much longer r
ange, and that meant he had more time to blast the enemy support ships before the bulk of their warships could arrive.

  He was far from sure his people would have enough time, that they could destroy all the target ships quickly enough, but one thing was certain as he watched two mining ships explode and saw streams of damage assessments coming in on two others.

  He’d caught the enemy unprepared. And, that meant his people had a chance, at least.

  And, maybe a good chance.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Landing Bay – CFS Dauntless

  20,000,000 Kilometers from Craydon

  Calvus System

  Year 318 AC

  “Ahhhh…” Stara Sinclair screamed as she saw Stockton’s ship rip into the landing bay and slam into the bulkheads, erupting into a massive fireball as it did. For an instant, even as she watched the fire teams working to control the conflagration, she was sure he was dead. No one could have survived in that inferno.

  But there was a shadow in her mind, something she’d seen but not completely processed. Her eyes had caught it even as the fighter came tumbling onto the flight deck and then, perhaps twenty seconds later, she realized what she’d seen.

  Just as the med teams started yelling and an emergency vehicle went racing down the flight deck, weaving its way around the chunks of flaming debris.

  He’d elected. Jake had ejected from his fighter just before it crashed and exploded. It hadn’t quite made sense to her, even as she saw it, because it was something she’d never seen done before.

  Never even heard of being done. Ever.

  The timing, the focus it would take to pull something like that off…it was almost impossible.

  But, that was Jake Stockton’s specialty, at least when he wasn’t going after the completely impossible.

  She felt a burst of hope, but she clamped down on it. Timing the eject sequence, launching it with the required precision, that was only part of the problem. Eject systems had been designed for deep space, not for the confines of a landing bay. She tried to imagine Jake being tossed out from his fighter, the velocity of the ship mixing with the force of the ejection.

  She looked across the bay as she ran, and she saw that he was lying against the far wall. He’d been sent flying across the deck, and slammed into the bulkhead with some force she couldn’t imagine. She’d thought for sure—again—that he was dead, as sure of it as she’d been when the ship exploded. It was hard to imagine anyone surviving what he’d just been through.

  Then, she saw him moving.

  Not just moving, but, was it possible? Getting up? On his own power, more or less?

  She broke into a dead run, and covered the rest of the distance in five or six seconds. “Jake,” she cried as she stumbled to a halt just outside the ring of medical techs surrounding him.

  He turned toward her, and she saw the side of his head, already blackened with bruises and half covered with a sheen of bright red blood. He was battered, banged up almost beyond easy recognition…but he was standing up on his own, and barking out orders to the techs trying to check his wounds.

  “I need a ship ready to go immediately.”

  Stara heard the words, but she couldn’t believe them, even from Jake Stockton.

  Then, an instant later, she realized he was dead serious. He was beaten up, in pain no doubt, and luckier maybe than he’d ever been. But, ‘Raptor’ Stockton was okay. He was in one piece, and Stara knew her biggest challenge would be keeping him out of a Lightning…at least until the doctors checked him out.

  * * *

  “I am pleased to hear that Admiral Stockton survived his landing. While death in battle is always a fitting end for a warrior, we have great need of the admiral, still. Please relay to him my greatest regards, and assure him he will always be regarded as a Palatian as well as a citizen of the Confederation.”

  Tulus flipped off the comm unit, cutting his line to Tyler Barron. His blood brother was too occupied for idle talk, though Tulus appreciated the update on Jake Stockton’s condition. The methods of war necessary against the Hegemony were difficult ones for a Palatian to accept. Holding back, waiting for fighters to knock out as many of the enemy heavy batteries, swung too close to cowardice for some, especially those with views deeply steeped in the early lore of the Alliance. Though, the Palatian pilots had never been so awash in glory as they were been in the current war…nor as deeply blooded in one vicious fight after another.

  Tulus didn’t especially like sitting back in his flagship, withdrawing, waiting to engage the enemy…but he understood the need for such tactics. And, he recognized just how much Stockton had done, how crucial the master pilot had been to keeping the war going. It was almost impossible for a Palatian to honestly assess a combat situation and acknowledge that his forces would have been defeated, but without the sacrifices of the fighter corps, and the leadership of Jake Stockton, the war would almost certainly be over, the proud Alliance reduced as the Confederation would be, once again into bitter slavery.

  “I want the fleet ready to move the instant we receive the go ahead, Commander.”

  Cilian Globus turned toward Tulus and nodded, a respectful gesture between the Commander-Maximus and the Imperator. The two highest-rank Palatians were completely in sync regarding what they had to do to fight the Hegemony. It was difficult for both of them, and they’d had to spend considerable time dealing with less enlightened officers, who saw only fear and disgrace in a failure to simply move forward and engage the enemy with everything. Tulus knew such tactics would be suicidal, that any who pursued them would fail in the highest and greatest duty to defend sacred Palatia. Still, he found it a constant strain to hold back everything he’d been raised to believe, all he’d been trained to do.

  “All ships prepped for maximum thrust, your Supremacy. All weapons online and ready.”

  “Very well, Commander.” Tulus turned his head, and looked straight ahead toward the main display. It wasn’t time, not yet. But, it would be soon. And, he was ready. To fight the enemy, to defeat them and send them fleeing back to their home worlds far beyond the Badlands.

  Or to die in the fight. To die like a Palatian.

  * * *

  “He’s alive!” ‘Warrior’ Timmons was on the forcewide comm. There wasn’t a pilot in arms, not one wearing a Confederation uniform, or Alliance colors—and even, perhaps, those in Union greens—who wasn’t relieved to hear that Jake Stockton had somehow landed his battered fighter.

  Stockton’s comm had been down, and for the last hour or more, the pilots of every squadron in the system had struggled to stay focused, all the while wondering what would become of their revered leader. Some of the pilots had picked up Stockton’s ship on their scanners, and the word spread that it still appeared to be at least partially function, and heading back to Dauntless. Timmons had tried to interject several times, struggled to keep the wings focused on the fight. He’d had some success, a considerable amount even, mostly through dirty tricks like telling them Stockton was counting on them, and the like. He didn’t hesitate to share the first good news he’d gotten on the subject.

  It was time for the strike force to cut loose. Time to take vengeance for what had almost happened to their leader. “All ships with torpedoes, with me. We’re going to hit that battle line, and we’re going to do it with everything we’ve got. Squadrons with empty bomb bays, back to your motherships. Load up and get the hell back out here.”

  Timmons brought his fighter around, nudging his vector toward the row of enormous, but battered battlewagons just ahead. Stockton’s people had hit the new enemy heavy units hard, but there were still six of them moving forward. They were monsters, bristling with weapons and massively armored. Stockton’s people might have knocked out all the railguns, but Timmons didn’t know. And, those ships looked like they could easily mount double spreads of the deadly weapons.

  He had to be sure.

  “Blue squadron, Yellow squadron, Scarlet Eagle squadron, with me
. We’re going to hit those lead ships, the ones Raptor attacked. We’ve got a score to settle with them…and we owe it to Raptor to finish what he started.”

  He listened as the squadron leaders acknowledged, struck by the lack of familiarity of any of the voices. There had been enormous turnover, of course, since Timmons had served on Dauntless years earlier, and almost every pilot who’d been in that battleship’s veteran squadrons then, had moved on. Some were dead, he knew…more than he wanted to think about. Others were badly wounded and retired from the service, as he had been. Still more were commanding their own squadrons now, or even full wings.

  He’d checked the Scarlet Eagles’ roster when he’d first reported to Dauntless, and there wasn’t one pilot left from his days commanding the celebrated formation. It was the nature of things, he knew, but it still triggered a sadness inside him, a melancholy for the loss of his youth, a longing for days he now looked back on fondly.

  In his ship, at the head of the formations, nostalgia didn’t matter. Memories didn’t matter. Only the battle raging all around him. The ships behind him might not be the Scarlet Eagles he remembered, but the squadron itself would always be his. And, now he could lead them in, a new generation, with Stockton’s old Blues, and Dauntless’s Yellow squadron as well.

  He glanced at the screen, checking on the other formations, shouting orders into the comm as he directed the various wings scattered across the system. He wasn’t officially Stockton’s second-in-command, but he’d seized that place, and not a pilot out there had resisted his doing so. They would follow ‘Raptor’ Stockton anywhere, he knew, but he fancied that most of them would be willing to fly alongside ‘Warrior’ Timmons into some pretty dark places, as well.

  Timmons was going to lead them there…at least until Stockton got back out. He owed that to his old rival, and his friend. He would watch the squadrons, see that they did what they had to do.

  He had Stockton’s back, and he took that duty very seriously. He stared at the screen again. He had squadrons to command, wings to refit and lead back to the fight, formations to reorganize.