Cauldron of Fire (Blood on the Stars Book 5) Page 38

  “On your headset, Commodore.”

  “All squadrons, this is Commodore Barron.” He still wasn’t used to that, or to commanding more than one ship and strike force of fighters. “We all know the odds we face, the desperation of the situation. For those of you from Dauntless, you know we have never let the odds concern us. For the rest of you, I will not try to sugarcoat things. We have a difficult fight before us, so all I ask of each of you is to give your absolute best, to fight with all the strength you can muster…and to think only from moment to moment, combat to combat. The road is traversed one step at a time. My heart is with you all.”

  He turned toward Travis and made a cutting motion under his chin. He knew his pilots would fight hard, even the rookies. They would give the Alliance wings one hell of a scrap.

  But in the end, he also knew they would lose.

  * * *

  “All squadrons, break!” Stockton angled his throttle, bringing his fighter around, toward the edge of the approaching Alliance formation. There was a gap in the line coming toward his people. Not a large one, but enough to turn to his advantage.

  His people had managed to get the best of the missile exchange, despite the enemy numbers, a tiny victory he owed half to his people and half the Confederation’s superior ordnance. He’d lost four ships—none of his Blues—though only two had been destroyed. Not that the ones who ditched have a chance of pickup. He knew the fleet was in dire trouble, and he wasn’t in the mood to fool himself with uplifting nonsense. His pilots floating in their survival gear would sit there helplessly, watching the destruction of their allies as their life support slowly waned.

  He fired his lasers, taking out an enemy fighter almost immediately. He was flying better than he ever had in his life. There was almost no conscious thought, just pure instinct, fueled by his rage. He didn’t have a doubt he was going to die today, but he had something he had to do first, and by God, he was going to see it done.

  He fell in behind a second enemy ship, firing again. A near miss, followed a few seconds later by another hit. That was three, counting the one he’d taken down with one of his missiles. But the usual elation wasn’t there. He wasn’t out here to rack up pointless kills. Only one victory mattered. He had an engagement, one that had been long in coming.

  His eyes moved over his scanners, searching the massive enemy formation, looking for his target. He was determined, his focus unshakeable. In the bay, his mind had wandered, to Stara, to the battle, to Dauntless and her crew. After launch, he’d seen to the dispositions of his squadrons, done the job Commodore Barron had entrusted to him…Kyle’s job. But now his fighters were engaged, and each pilot was more or less on his own. This was a fight to the finish, one where there could be no thought of retreat. So, his obligations were finished, and that left one thing on his mind.

  Vengeance.

  He scoured the scanner, looking for his enemy. His eyes locked on an Alliance ship that had just destroyed one of Repulse’s fighters. The pilot was highly skilled, clearly an ace, and for a moment he thought he’d found his opponent. But something wasn’t right. A capable pilot, yes, but not the one he was looking for.

  Not the one who killed Kyle. Who crippled Dirk.

  His hands gripped tightly on the controls, his finger closing on the firing stud, blasting another ship out of existence.

  Maybe if I kill enough of your pilots, you’ll find me…

  * * *

  “Commodore, I’ve got Commander Fritz on the comm.”

  Barron’s head snapped around. There was anticipation on his face, but he didn’t dare to allow it to blossom into hope. “On my line.”

  Travis turned and nodded. “On your line.”

  “Fritzie, tell me you’ve got some good news.” Barron could hear noise in the background, fighting. Explosions, shouts. Too close to Fritz. Far too close.

  “I think we’ve got it working, sir.” Her voice was tentative, and she was almost shouting, trying to be heard over the chaos in the background. “I mean I’m sure we’ve got it working, but I don’t know how long we can keep it up.”

  “I have every confidence in your engineers, Fritzie.”

  “It’s not my engineers, sir. It’s the Marines. They’re holding on, but I don’t know how much longer they can keep the enemy back. If we lose the building, there’s no comm. If we lose the power plant, there’s no comm. If we lose the uplink antenna, there’s no comm.”

  “We’ve got Alliance troopers inbound, Fritzie. Tell Bryan his people they just have to hold out another hour.”

  “He’s not here, sir. He’s up fighting with his people. The enemy’s in the building, Commodore. My people are all armed, but I doubt we’ll be able to hold out an hour. So, if you’re going to use this thing, I suggest you do it now.”

  “Roger that, Fritzie.” He felt the pain cut at him, the thought of Rogan and his Marines being wiped out, of falling just before help arrived. “You’d better get your people on the shuttle now, Fritzie. You’ve done your work.” A few armed engineers weren’t going to make the difference for the Marines…and Barron wanted his ace engineer back onboard.

  “Not so fast, sir. I said we’ve got it working, and we do. But it’s in shit shape. If you want to transmit anything at full power, my team and I will have to be right here. If we leave this thing unattended, it will melt down the instant a full charge goes through it.”

  Barron felt a pain inside at the sudden realization that he faced a stark choice. If he wanted to use the comm nexus, it meant leaving Fritz and her people on Palatia. Likely leaving them to their deaths.

  He paused, wasting seconds he knew he didn’t have. He understood almost immediately what he had to do…but he couldn’t accept it. Couldn’t say the words.

  Finally, he took a deep breath. “Fritzie, keep that thing working. Whatever it takes.”

  He turned toward Travis, about to signal her to cut the line. Before he changed his mind and ordered Fritz back to Dauntless. But he paused, the sudden fear taking him that this was the last time he’d talk to his engineer. His friend. “Well done, Fritzie, as always. Give your people my respect…and my thanks. For everything.”

  “Yes, sir.” He could hear the emotion in her normally cool voice. They both knew the situation.

  He almost said something else, but then he turned and gestured to Travis, and he listened as the soft click signaled that the line was closed.

  If he was going to sacrifice Fritzie and her people, it could not be in vain.

  Barron looked over at his second in command. “Get me Imperator Vennius, Atara. Immediately.”

  Chapter Forty-Five

  AS Princeps

  40,000,000 Miles from Palatia

  Astara System

  Year 62 (311 AC)

  “It is time, Ricard. Vennius and his allies have proven themselves to be more deceitful than we’d anticipated, but now they’re trapped. There will be no escape. Here I shall vanquish my old friend, now my enemy. Here I will secure my dynasty for a thousand years.”

  Lille took a deep breath, cringing inside at the carelessness of Calavius’s words. His Palatian followers, many of whom served him only because of Lille’s superbly crafted lies, would not react well to talk of “dynasties.” The Palatian Patricians had a virtual monopoly on the highest offices, but within that select group, the leaders were chosen on merit. Or at least that was what was widely believed.

  Lille struggled to understand Calavius. He usually figured people out in an instant, but the Alliance Imperator was almost schizophrenic. One moment he was an arrogant fool, spouting off without discipline…and the next he was shrewd, calculating. Worst of all, it seemed impossible to tell which version would surface at any given time.

  He’s mad now. Lille knew Calavius was upset that Vennius fooled him, lured him to Sentinel-2 and then slipped away to join his Confederation allies…forces that had not withdrawn and gone home, but had instead executed a daring and brilliant strike to seize Palatia. Whatev
er happened, however the battle ended, Lille knew that would be a particularly cutting shame for Calavius. The Palatians’ history of enslavement and oppression made the idea of losing control of the homeworld, even for a brief time, a particularly touchy subject.

  “Yes, it is time. We have done much work to come to this pass…and soon you will be the uncontested Imperator of the Alliance.” Lille knew that Calavius’s forces greatly outnumbered their opponents, that even with the Confederation ships and their superior tech—and Tyler Barron—the battle would almost certainly be won. But he was worried about what Vennius and Barron had planned. They had to know they could never hold Palatia…so, for all they had managed to pull their plan off almost flawlessly, one question remained. Why?

  They almost certainly would have been better off fighting it out at Sentinel-2, with the fortress and all its resources backing them up. Taking Palatia humiliated Calavius, but Lille couldn’t believe that was the sole purpose.

  Calavius sat with his eyes glued to the massive screen he’d had installed. Princeps was his newest ship, one he’d taken over almost-finished in the shipyard. It was the biggest vessel in the Alliance navy, the sister ship of Katrine Rigellus’s ill-fated Invictus. Lille thought the name was a bit foolish. Though better than Princeps Calavius, at least.

  He was tense, waiting to see what he hadn’t been able to anticipate. Lille was accustomed to being smarter than his opponents, but he had to admit that Tyler Barron had proven to be quite the match for him. And Vennius was no slouch either. Whatever they had planned, he knew he had to be ready…because Calavius wouldn’t be.

  He was still thinking that when the speakers in the room crackled loudly…and a few seconds later a voice came blasting through at full volume.

  * * *

  “Epsilon Wing, tighten up those formations. You need to cut a hole through those fighters so the bombers can get through.” Jovi Grachus was staring at her dashboard, at the extra screens her flight crew had installed. The very idea of commanding almost two thousand fighters in battle was something that had never occurred to her. Less than a year ago, she had been a squadron commander with little hope of rising any higher.

  Imperator Calavius made all this happen…

  She was trying to reassure herself, to banish the doubts Jarus had instilled in her. He’s a fool, she told herself. He allowed himself to be seduced by Vennius’s lies. But she knew Jarus was no fool. He was one of the smartest men she’d ever met, and the most honorable, aspects that had been central to her consideration of him as a mate…beyond of course, the—far less important—facts that he was good-looking and charming.

  “Sigma Wing, you’ve got the flank. Watch those Confed squadrons slipping around your coverage area. We’ve got numbers, so there’s no excuse for slipups…none of them get by. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Commander.”

  Even as the acknowledgement came through, her thoughts had returned to the confused morass that had taken control of her mind. She’d been devastated by Kat’s death, and she’d sworn revenge against the Confeds the moment she’d gotten the news. But her rage toward Vennius had grown more slowly…and now she began to realize how much she’d listened to Calavius’s announcements, his proclamations. He had declared the Commander-Maximus guilty of a litany of crimes…treason, connivance with the Confederation, the murder of the Imperatrix. It all came together when she’d heard that. Kat couldn’t have lost a straight up battle. She’d been lured in by the Confeds, and set up by her oldest family friend, who had sold out his people for Confed support. It had all seemed so clear.

  But is any of it true?

  Her speakers suddenly blasted out a loud wave of feedback, hurting her ears, shaking her from her thoughts. She reached out, tried to adjust her comm unit, but then, a voice blared out, the signal strong, so powerful it overwhelmed every other incoming feed.

  “Alliance warriors, this is Tarkus Vennius. To some of you Imperator, to others the enemy…and no doubt to your view, a traitor.”

  She stared at the display in shock. How was this possible? She tried to ignore his words, tried to cultivate the rage that had sustained her, but doubt had blunted her anger.

  “I know many of you have been told that I sought to gain control of the government, that I conspired with foreign powers…” There was a brief hesitation, a bit of pain slipping into the otherwise firm voice. “…that I killed the Imperatrix.” Another pause. “I am here to tell you all that you have been listening to lies…lies told by my old friend, and now my blackest enemy, the man you call Imperator. Calavius. And lies told by his allies from the Union.”

  Grachus sat listening in stunned silence. Her eyes moved to the display, but even the battle raging all around her had slowed almost to a stop. Whatever Vennius had to say, whatever the thousands of warriors now engaged in a struggle to the death thought of it…they were all listening.

  Grachus felt herself plunged into confusion. She didn’t know what to think. She mistrusted Vennius’s words, but now they piled on those of Jarus. She shook her head, and sucked in a deep, ragged breath. She didn’t know what to believe.

  “Kat,” she said softly to herself, feeling a tear slipping from her eye as she did. “What do I do? How can I honor you best, my old friend?”

  * * *

  “I want that signal jammed at once!” Calavius was on his feet, his hands balled into fists, screaming at the cluster of officers, mostly sycophants, gathered around him.

  Lille watched the functionaries, those who had fed off Calavius’s favor, standing in shock, their attention divided between the screaming of the man they had all sworn to follow, and the calm, authoritative voice coming through every speaker in the ship.

  “We’re trying, Your Supremacy,” an officer yelled from against the wall, where he was crouched over a comm panel. “It’s being broadcast from the main nexus on Palatia.”

  “Shut down the speakers then. Everywhere on the ship. Everywhere on every ship!”

  “We can’t, Your Supremacy. The nexus AI has systems override authority. I’m afraid we can’t disengage…we can’t even shut down the comm system.”

  “I am transmitting evidence, recordings of the Imperatrix, with me after I rescued her from Palatia. As she lay dying from the wounds inflicted by Calavius’s soldiers. I am also sending proof that I had no contact with the Confederation until after Calavius assumed control on Palatia…even my certified log entries as testimony that I was against the dispatching of Invictus to the Confederation five years ago, that I merely obeyed the orders of the Council and the Imperatrix at the time…a command our ruler came to regret in the months and years following.”

  “Then burn out every comm circuit on the ship!” Calavius was screaming at the top of his lungs.

  Lille stood to the side, silent, watching. He held his poker face firm, but inside he was reeling. He thought he’d been familiar with every crucial aspect of the Alliance’s military, but now he suddenly understood the reason for Barron’s desperate attack on Palatia.

  The Alliance was so dedicated to the defense of its homeworld, so sure no enemy could ever invade it again…they’d developed a communications system like no other. Their comm nexus was powerful enough to broadcast to anything in their system, strong enough to burn through any jamming attempt. And, perhaps worse, the AI that operated it had override codes for all Alliance ships. Even the communications officer of a vessel couldn’t stop the receipt of the transmissions…couldn’t even turn down the volume.

  It was a disaster, and even as he still pondered the implications, he knew it. Everything could fall apart here. He’d done his best to connect as many officers as possible to Calavius, to tie their wealth and influence to the Red Imperator’s reign, to implicate them deeply enough that there was no way to go back. But he’d only been able to reach a portion of those adhering to the Red cause. The rest had been influenced by propaganda…a wave of lies that Vennius—curse him—was now countering.

  It
was impossible to be sure how many would listen to Vennius’s words. The Gray Imperator had been a hero to his people for decades. It was one thing to turn people against a figure who wasn’t there, one who seemed guilty merely by his absence, and quite another for that brainwashing to hold under the impassioned words of that old hero.

  “I know many of you opposed me with honor, believing the lies you were told. I hold no grudges, and I welcome any of you now who wish to switch sides…or even adopt neutrality until you are able to analyze the situation with care. I will pardon any who rally to me now…and I will respect the non-combatant status of any who claim neutrality. I seek no vengeance, save against the traitor, Calavius, and those who still adhere to him, knowing now what he is. His claims are built on lies, and he is but a puppet of the vile Union.”

  Lille listened to the words, gritting his teeth and shaking his head. Vennius was good, very good. He wished again that he’d been able to corrupt the old Commander-Maximus, that he could have used Vennius instead of Calavius. But there was nothing to be gained by such thoughts. He had to make a decision, and soon. Could he salvage the situation? Or was it time to slip away, to accept defeat and escape back to the Union.

  Fleeing now meant near total disaster. His plan to bring the Alliance into the war on the Union side was not only in ruins, it was likely to backfire terribly. The Confederation had come to Vennius’s aid with forces they couldn’t spare. Lille couldn’t see any way they’d have done that without assurances from the Gray Imperator that the Alliance would reciprocate if he was victorious.

  The battle wasn’t over. It was still unclear how many would listen to Vennius’s plea, and how many would stay in the ranks. Certainly, those deeply involved with Calavius, the ones who had taken bribes, who had been complicit in spreading lies and propaganda…they had no choice but to fight alongside their master. No one who knew anything about Vennius could doubt how such warriors would fare at his hands.