Call to Arms: Blood on the Stars II Read online

  Chapter Four

  FSS Victoire

  Arcturon System

  In the System Oort Cloud

  Union Year 212 (308 AC)

  Hugo D’Alvert sat in his chair, staring out over Victoire’s flag bridge. His seat was raised on a dais, a meter above the other stations, as was standard in the Union service. D’Alvert was no ordinary commander. He was a fleet admiral and a member of the Presidium, which gave him power in both the military and the political spheres. It was a rare straddling of two of the primary branches of power in the Union, and it was one he intended to ride all the way to the First’s Chair, especially after his forces conquered the Confederation.

  “The fleet is to arm all weapons and prepare to advance.” His words were imperious, his very demeanor dripping with arrogance. He was a creature of the Union in every way, driven since childhood to rise to the highest levels of power. It was the nourishment he fed upon, the very air he breathed. And his ruthlessness in protecting it, or in acquiring more, knew no bounds.

  “Yes, sir,” came the nervous response. D’Alvert’s crew were acutely aware that he could—and potentially would—throw any of them out of the airlock if they displeased him in any way.

  The Union navy was a highly professional force, led mostly by career officers who enjoyed certain levels of privilege but who were also limited in the heights they could attain. The Presidium was paranoid of the prospects of a military coup, and the officers of the navy performed their functions surrounded by a virtual swarm of political officers and spies tasked with watching for any signs of rebellion.

  Admirals like D’Alvert were far from the norm, more political animals than career officers, and they didn’t receive the same respect from the rank and file…not that any spacer on Victoire, or any other Union ship, would dare express anything but razor-sharp obedience.

  D’Alvert had already sent his fighters forward, over one hundred-fifty squadrons. Enough, he was certain, to overwhelm the Confeds’ wings. The two forces had already engaged midway between the battle lines, and a massive struggle was underway.

  His intelligence reports had warned him that Confederation pilots were well trained and highly skilled, but he had disregarded them as overly paranoid. In an even fight he might have been concerned, but he had an advantage in numbers of almost two to one, and he didn’t doubt for an instant that would be enough. Still, he wasn’t about to take chances. If enough enemy bombers got through his interceptors, they could hurt his battleships. Badly.

  If the fighters can’t stop them, I’ll give them something to attack…

  “The first line is to move forward, thrust at 4g.”

  “Yes, Admiral.” Sabine Renault was a career officer, one D’Alvert knew had risen to command rank without starting with any political influence or patronage, just as he had.

  For all his power and arrogance, D’Alvert still remembered his early days, picking through the garbage for food in one of Picardie’s worst slums. His home world had been a poor one, even more so after a rebellion against Union authority that had prompted an immediate and brutal response. He could still remember the orbital bombardments, and the soldiers, turned loosed on the survivors in an unrestrained orgy of rapine and murder.

  He had suffered as much as any of the Picardans, losing both of his parents and his home. But he’d learned a different lesson than his friends and neighbors. They had harbored resentments, anger. They’d preserved notions of renewed rebellion, tempered in their actions only by fear. But D’Alvert watched the officers of the occupation force, the operatives from Sector Nine, the new governor and his political aides. They had power, real power. They lived well, many of them very well, even amid the smoking ruins. He decided then and there, that would be his future. And for fifty years he had single-mindedly pursued that goal, with a level of success the young and hungry man he’d been could hardly have imagined.

  D’Alvert pushed the memories aside. They had no place in his mind. Nothing did, save the pursuit of victory he planned to leverage into absolute power. He turned his eyes to the main screen as the ten ships of the vanguard moved ahead, their thrust accelerating their movement vectors, pushing them out in front of the main fleet. The lead vessels were smaller than the rest of his battleships and, as far as he was concerned, they were also expendable. The task force had come not from the massive Union shipyards, but from the newly-subjugated Blue Star Duchies, and its greatest value to D’Alvert was he didn’t care how many of its ships he lost.

  The Duchies were on the far side of the Union, a group of worlds that had been loosely allied, ruled for over a century by quasi-independent merchant princes and drawing great wealth from trade with the less-advanced planets farther out. At least until Union forces overwhelmed their defenses and forcibly annexed them, executing the ducal families and seizing control.

  Now the wealth of ten generations of traders served the Union, and the surviving vessels of the Ducal navy had been conscripted to serve in the war against the Confeds. It was a strategy that made sense all around. Losses didn’t matter. In fact, they were a positive. D’Alvert and the rest of the Presidium wanted to get rid of the potentially troublesome Blue Star forces anyway. Their ranks were riddled with former nobles and others with the most reason to resent Union rule. They were a liability, best eliminated. And heroic death in battle was easier to explain away than mass executions.

  The conscripted spacers knew that as well, but their families, their entire homeworlds, were effectively hostages for their loyalty. There were Sector Nine operatives all over the Blue Star planets, and the ruthless reputation of the Union’s spy agency had reached the farthest reaches of human-occupied space. The Blue Star spacers had been left with little doubt what would happen to their loved ones if they failed to serve the Union with courage and obedience…even to death.

  D’Alvert watched the screen as casualty figures from the fighter battle began to come in. They weren’t good. The Confed pilots were taking down three or four of his birds for every one of their own they lost. He dismissed it at first as a series of isolated incidents, perhaps an elite squadron or two engaged with his green pilots. But the numbers were the same across the enormous engaged area. Confed interceptors were blowing through his escorts and moving against his bombers. D’Alvert had expected his numbers to prevail, for his bombers to break through in force and savage the enemy battleships. Now it looked like his strike forces were going to be slaughtered thousands of kilometers from their targets.

  “The advance guard is to increase thrust to 8g and move to engage the enemy fighter wings.”

  “Yes, Admiral.”

  “And send an order to all interceptor wings assigned to attacking the enemy strike force. They are to break off and move to defend our bombers.”

  “Sir…that will allow the entire enemy bomber force to attack without…”

  “I am aware of what it means, Captain. I trust you are also aware of how orders work.”

  “Sir!” Renault snapped back, properly chastised. D’Alvert didn’t like being questioned, and certainly not by a subordinate in battle. He might have come down harder on another officer—his reputation for casual brutality had been well-earned—but he liked Renault, and there was just enough left of the young man he’d been to respect someone who had clawed their way up, as he had.

  D’Alvert stared at the display. He knew his order would open up the way for the Confed strike to break through and launch their attack runs unimpeded. But he didn’t care. The enemy bombers would encounter the advance guard, the Blue Star battleships. They would savage those vessels, no doubt, but he didn’t care. He would let the bombers expend all their ordnance ridding him of the troublesome Blue Star contingent. Then he would send in his main battle line…and destroy the Confeds.

  * * *

  “Mustang, you’ve got one on your tail.” Timmons leaned back, his seat retracted as far as it would go. The ace pilot flew his fighter from a position as close to lying down as he cou
ld. Every one of his comrades who’d seen the pose had remarked on how uncomfortable it looked and wondered aloud how anyone could fly that way. But no one could argue with the results. Timmons had more kills than any other pilot on Repulse, more than twice as many as anyone else except Aires.

  “They’re all over the place, Warrior. They’re coming in from all sides. It’s almost like…” Aires’s voice stopped abruptly, and Timmons saw his friend’s fighter thrust hard to port, then again a few seconds later back to starboard. But the bird pursuing him was locked on, unshakable.

  “Stay cool, Mustang…I’m on my way.” Timmons took a deep breath. His vector wasn’t ideal for trying to bring his ship around to help his friend. He was going to need all the thrust he could get. He reached down and flipped off the safeties, and then he pulled the throttle hard, back and to the left. His engines roared, the sound almost deafening in his cockpit, as he was slammed back into his seat, 18g of force overloading his dampeners and hitting him like a sledgehammer.

  He gasped for air, even the forced flow from his mask too little to fight the crushing pressure bearing down on him. He tried to ignore the pain, the feeling that his ribs were going to force their way out of his chest at any moment. Mostly, he struggled to stay conscious. His friend was in trouble, and that was all that mattered to him. He’d stay awake and focused because he had to…because if he didn’t, Mustang would die.

  He was soaked with sweat, his pressure suit sliding around uncomfortably on the slick wet sheen, rubbing the skin beneath raw. But none of that mattered. Through all the physical torment, the wave of blackness threatening to engulf him, there was nothing in his mind save Mustang’s ship. And the fighter on his friend’s tail, firing at the wildly gyrating Confed bird.

  Timmons’ ship was screaming toward the enemy now. His course adjusted, he pushed back on the throttle, cutting the acceleration. He felt the relative relief as the force dropped to 6g, and he felt his hand moving more freely on the ship’s controls.

  He tapped the throttle to the left, then again once more. His eyes narrowed, focusing on the targeting screen. The enemy fighter was there, still tight on Mustang’s tail, even as the Union pilot began his own evasive maneuvers in response to Warrior’s approach.

  Damn, this guy is good…

  Timmons had been among the many pilots in the Confederation service who’d been vocal in their disrespect for their Union counterparts. The initial battles of the war had been disastrous for the Confed forces overall, but the fighter duels had been largely one-sided affairs, with victorious squadrons rearmed and relaunched again and again as their overmatched motherships retreated.

  However, this pilot was no rookie, and no one’s fool. If Timmons could have admitted it to himself, he’d have acknowledged this enemy to be his equal, even his superior. But he didn’t have it in him to do that, so he simply whispered to himself, “Be careful, Warrior…this one is dangerous.”

  He flipped on his laser cannons, and he moved his finger to the firing stud. He’d burned his missiles already, so he’d have to do this Union ace the old-fashioned way…at close range. He stared, his eyes following every move his enemy made. The fighters were moving at nearly 0.005c, and that limited the range of evasive maneuvering. He’d expected his target to give up on Mustang, to focus on escaping his deadly assault, but the Union bird stayed stubbornly on Aires’s fighter, the repeated laser blasts coming uncomfortably close.

  “Damn…this guy’s got balls…” Timmons surrendered his mind to his targeting, falling into an almost trancelike state. He was digging down, reaching for the intuition, the inner strength that made him the pilot he was. His friend was going to die…unless he blasted this fighter now.

  He pressed down on the stud, his cockpit echoing with the whining sound of his lasers firing. He was wide. He stared straight at the display, adjusting the throttle, bringing his ship around ever so slightly. Then he fired. And again.

  His blasts were close, within a hundred meters of his target. But that wasn’t good enough. He watched the scanner as his enemy’s shot came so close to Mustang’s bird he thought for an instant his friend had been hit.

  There’s no more time…

  He took another deep breath and held it, his concentration fixed, unbreakable. He stared at the small dot on the scanner, the enemy fighter seven hundred kilometers ahead. He had to hit now. If he didn’t, it would be too late. He was here to save his comrade, not avenge him.

  He watched as the enemy bird wiggled back and forth on the display, the moves seeming almost random. Most pilots allowed patterns to creep into their maneuvers…and that was when they died at the hands of attentive pursuers. Predictability was death in the cockpit. But the fighter in front of Timmons was gyrating wildly, all the while maintaining its grip on Mustang.

  Timmons was still, unmoving, his held breath screaming to escape his lungs. He nudged his throttle, trying to anticipate his enemy’s next move rather than reacting to the last. It was risky. No matter how good he was, how careful, he was guessing. It was a gamble. And the bet was Mustang’s life.

  * * *

  The cockpit was hot from the constant heavy thrust of the engines. Union fighters were effective in combat, but they lacked the kinds of luxuries the more expensive Confederation craft had. Like proper insulation for the cockpit.

  Aurore Lefebrve was normally as cool as they came. The Union fighter corps tended to lack skilled, experienced pilots. The personality types that most often excelled in the cockpit tended to do poorly in the rigidly controlled Union society. The men and women who would have been most likely to rise to the top of the Confederation’s squadrons often found themselves imprisoned at an early age or, worse, they fell into the hands of Sector Nine, weeded out as risks to the tight social order. But Lefebrve wasn’t a typical cocky pilot. She belonged to the much smaller group that also excelled in the cockpit, the cold-blooded automaton, the emotionless, stone cold killer.

  Even so, her cool was failing her now. Many of the Confederation pilots she’d fought—and killed—since war broke out had been highly skilled. But the one on her tail now was something else again. She’d tried a dozen evasive maneuvers, but he was still on her like glue. He hadn’t managed to hit her yet, but she knew it was only a matter of time…and there wasn’t much of that left.

  She’d almost run her target down. The pilot she’d selected as her victim was clearly also highly skilled, if a bit more predictable than the devil on her tail. She’d almost had the kill…but then her own pursuer had come out of nowhere. She’d had to respond to the new threat, but she’d refused to give up her prey. The kill was hers, fairly won, and she had no intention of surrendering it. But she hadn’t been able to lose her own pursuer, not while constrained by the need to stay with her own target. She’d managed to avoid the incoming fire, but now she realized it was a losing battle. She was stubborn, strong-willed, but she prided herself on her logic, her rationality. The pilot on her tail was too good. The payoff of a single kill wasn’t worth the risk.

  Break off…get away from this pilot. The battle here is far from over.

  She took a breath and moved the control hard to the starboard, pulling back and increasing her thrust to escape, allowing her victim to escape. But she was too late.

  She heard the sound first, a loud crash followed by the shrieking of metal twisting, structural supports snapping. Then the hissing of air escaping from her ship. Her visor slammed down automatically, and she could hear the emergency air supply pumping into her helmet. Then the cockpit went dark as her reactor kicked out.

  Her fighter was careening out of control now, spinning end over end. The hit had been a glancing one, which was the only reason she was still alive. But her ship was dying. Without thrust she couldn’t alter her flight vector…and that made her a sitting duck. She’d never been defeated in a dogfight before, but she knew now she had no choice but to eject.

  She reached down, her hand hovering for an instant over the large red lever.
Then she pulled it…and she felt herself being thrown upward, even as the top of her cockpit broke away.

  She was pushed out into space, her emergency cocoon activating, expanding all around her. It would keep her alive, even in the frozen, airless vacuum of space. For a while, at least. Long enough to be rescued, if the Union forces won the battle.

  And long enough to die slowly, watching the defeat if they do not…

  Chapter Five

  CFS Repulse

  Arcturon System

  Just Inside the System Oort Cloud

  308 AC

  “I don’t understand. It’s almost as though they sacrificed those ten battleships just to absorb the impact of our bomber strike. But who would do something like that?” Winston spoke softly, to himself as much as anyone, watching the display as his bombers savaged the enemy advance guard. Four of the battleships were already gone, and the other six were badly damaged, bleeding air and fluids into space from their broken hulls.

  Winston had been elated when he’d first seen his attack waves going in, scoring hit after hit. But then he realized the enemy had let his squadrons through. They’d put up a fight at first, a nasty one, but then their interceptors had moved en masse to the support of the Union’s own strike force. His fighter pilots had begged to follow, but he’d gone by the book, and ordered the escorting squadrons to remain and continue to support the attack force.

  That’s where you dropped the ball…

  He stared at the display, at the constant flow of scanner data reporting hit after hit on the enemy capital ships.

  They’re decoys…

  It didn’t make sense. The advance guard ships were smaller than the units the enemy had held back, but they appeared to be reasonably new, well-armed vessels. He’d panicked for an instant, wondering if it was all a trick, if the ten battleships were actually freighters or some other kind of dummies, using ECM to pose as capital ships. But those concerns vanished when his bombers closed and the vessels opened fire. They had formidable anti-fighter batteries, far more powerful than those any freighter could mount.