The Last Stand Read online

  “And mine, Mr. Holsten. But I am not your problem. The Greens and the Reds have been at each other’s throats since I first came to Megara as a Senatorial aide eons ago…but Cyn Avaria and Kettle Vaughn have never agreed with each other more than they have in the past several months. The constant requests for more funding, more resources, more ships…it has become difficult for many of our Senators to accept, especially when the grave threat we are meeting is still somewhat amorphous, at least to their views.”

  Holsten was about to speak, but Flandry continued before he started. “And, we cannot forget these troubles in the Union. Montmirail is a proven enemy, one we have fought against for a century. I have no idea what is happening there—and that is an area where I submit your own organization could be more effective—but this latest request from the admiral, for half the already thin forces that remain in home space to be detached immediately to the Hegemony front, makes that of considerable concern. We would be hard-pressed to meet any significant Union attack, even now. We can hope their internal struggles continue until we are able to recall more of our forces, but that seems a very tenuous strategy. Perhaps more importantly, it is one I—we—will have considerable difficulty presenting to the Senate.”

  Holsten shifted on his feet. He didn’t like Flandry, but he couldn’t argue against the logic of the Speaker’s words. It would be difficult to convince the Senate to authorize so many remaining fleet units to depart Confederation space…and that would leave the home sectors almost entirely unprotected. Even his notorious Red files might not be sufficient to gain the votes needed.

  “Perhaps we could enlist Andi Lafarge’s aide again. She was quite successful at…persuading…the Senate to send the initial reinforcements to the war zone.” Holsten didn’t like the idea of dragging Andi back into the political swamp. He’d tried to leave her alone as much as possible, to protect her in Tyler’s absence. At least as much as someone with Andi’s skills and experience needed protection.

  There wasn’t the slightest doubt in his mind Andi would already have been at the front and in the thick of the fight at Tyler Barron’s side, save only for Cassiopeia. But, even as his mind rattled off the various reasons not to involve her, he knew he would have to ask for her help again. And she would give it, if only because it was the one way she could support Tyler.

  “Captain Lafarge is a…formidable…individual, Mr. Holsten, however, I am not sure she will be helpful in this instance. There is considerable resentment in some quarters regarding her…tactics…in pressuring the Senate to authorize the deployment of the main fleet to the warzone.”

  Holsten just nodded. He had already decided what he was going to do, and he didn’t care to waste his time and effort arguing with Flandry.

  Yes, Speaker, they resent her…but they are afraid of her, too, and I have found few things work as quickly and effectively as fear.

  Chapter Five

  Vigillius Nebula

  8 Transits from Calpharon (Hegemonic Capital Planet)

  Year 323 AC (After the Cataclysm)

  Stockton ran the calculations in his head for the fourth time, and he got a different answer yet again. The first time, he’d thought his people just might make good their escape. Then, that hope faded in an instant, replaced by the grim realization they were all doomed. That change had been triggered not by doubts or fear, but by new data on the maneuverability and thrust capabilities of the approaching missiles…and the fact that they had just kicked up from 130g to over 160g. There was no way his people could evade anything with that kind of engine power.

  Then, seconds later, some fragile bit of hope streamed back into his mind, this time courtesy of an ally whose abilities he doubted, one he still thought of as the enemy. Kiloron Gelak’s ships were screaming forward, accelerating at full power even as they opened fire on the remaining missiles.

  Most surprisingly to Stockotn, they were hitting a number of them.

  He’d ordered the Hegemony reserves forward, but they’d surprised him with the rapidity of their approach, and now they were shocking him yet again with the accuracy of their fire.

  Stockton was impressed with the marksmanship he saw, and even as he realized it might save his life, he felt a bit of irrational resentment at seeing the Hegemony pilots come so close to the abilities of his own people. He’d long felt pride in the skill and training of his pilots, and watching the Heggies do so well dinged that conceit. The Hegemony was new to fighter ops, and whatever technological advantages they may have possessed seemed inadequate to bridge the gulf in abilities.

  Now he wasn’t so sure. He was still confident his people could win out in a dogfight against any force out there, but the Hegemony squadrons weren’t the enemy anymore, and the Highborn didn’t appear to have fighters of their own. That reduced the prospects for a massive scrum between squadrons almost to zero.

  He should have been happy about that, he knew, but on some level he almost wished his people had enemy fighters to match in a good, old fashioned dogfight. Stockton had become an expert in bombing tactics over the past seven years, but at heart, he was a fighter jock of the old school, and somewhere inside him, he felt the only truly worthy battle for a pilot was to match up with his counterpart, one on one, jousting to determine who was the best.

  He remembered those days well, the massive dogfights with the Union wings, and he knew, beneath all the false humility and disciplined caution, that he had been the best

  Stockton watched as more and more of the incoming missiles vanished, and his respect for his new allies grew—grudgingly—with each one that winked out on his screen. He stared for perhaps half a minute, distracted, lost, save only for the instinct driving his evasive maneuvers…and then his laser focus returned.

  He pulled his throttle to the side, so hard, he felt a jarring all the way up his arm. The move re-oriented his thrusters yet again, even as he shouted into the comm. “All squadrons, come about and reengage.” The Hegemony squadrons had turned the tide, but they weren’t going to eradicate the incoming wave, not entirely.

  Not unless his own ships joined in.

  He tightened his fingers on the firing stud yet again, and another missile disappeared. His eyes scanned for the next target as his lasers recharged, and his mind dove into yet another analysis of his people’s chances to escape. The odds had improved, but by every measure he could conceive, it was still a wild guess.

  He saw the Hegemony ships, approaching from behind his own formation. The sleek vessels were faster even than his new Black Lightnings, and while he found that troubling on one level, just then he was ready to take any advantage he could get. He watched as another half dozen of the enemy warheads disappeared.

  Then, the surviving weapons began to detonate.

  * * *

  Gelak blinked, watching in surprise as the enemy missiles made their final approaches and began to explode. The warheads were massive—almost certainly antimatter-armed. They couldn’t take out more than one fighter each, despite their massive yields, not at the ranges between units in the Rim formations. But it took far less than a direct hit for one of the massive warheads to take out a fighter. An explosion within half a kilometer essentially vaporized the target, and one within a kilometer and a half, even two, destroyed a ship, or did something very close to that. Detonations as far out as five kilometers caused significant damage, often crippling one of the small vessels.

  In the current fight, that kind of damage was effectively a death sentence.

  Gelak had watched as almost sixty of Stockton’s fighters went down in less than a minute, more than half of those blasted to atoms, and the rest badly battered, floating helplessly in their shattered vessels, beyond rescue, without hope. Those pilots were all dead, even as they sat in their cockpits gasping for whatever air damaged life support systems were still able to produce. Gelak had been trained and conditioned to approach war coolly, dispassionately, but that hadn’t relieved him of his human emotions, neither the ones that
fueled lingering hatred of the former enemies from the Rim, nor those that generated respect and empathy for fellow warriors facing their own death struggles.

  He was still firing, still tracking any incoming contacts, until he suddenly realized the enemy missiles were gone. His people and the Confeds had destroyed all those that hadn’t detonated on their own. Gelak’s mind raced, his usual focus on orders and discipline weakened somewhat by his thoughts on the implications the enemy weapons held for future battles. His squadrons had been trained largely in imitation of the Rim wings, but those very forces, led by none other than the famous Jake Stockton, had been savaged by a single vessel’s attack. The master of fighter combat had been roughly handled by an enemy that didn’t even appear to possess fighters, and Gelak knew, before he even analyzed the situation more closely, that small ship tactics were going to have to change.

  No one will realize that more quickly than Admiral Stockton…

  Gelak still frowned as he thought of Stockton, of how many Kriegeri the Confed pilot’s wings had killed in the war. But there was respect, too, and he realized he was already relying on Stockton’s skill, depending on his former enemy to lead the fighter wings—all of the wings—toward a new way to face the enemy threat.

  He was starting to look on Stockton as his leader.

  It was a surprise of sorts, but amid his mixed and confused emotions, Gelak realized that he had confidence in Stockton, and for all it still stung, he was ready to follow the Confed into the desperate struggle that lay ahead.

  Gelak checked his status monitors again, more of a habit than anything else. He hadn’t been close enough to any of the warheads to suffer damage. But as he sat there, he realized he didn’t know what to do next. The surviving ships in the attack wing still had their bombs. Would Stockton lead the battered force against the original target? That seemed wildly reckless to Gelak, but he’d come to expect the unexpected from Jake Stockton. And he would follow orders, whatever they were.

  The question became moot a few seconds later, however, as Gelak checked his scanner and he saw another wave of the deadly weapons launching from the original vessel…and from the other two positioned behind it as well. The initial volley had almost obliterated the attack force, and now three times as many missiles were inbound. Gelak wasn’t in overall command, and for an instant, he imagined himself following an attack order from Stockton, in spite of what he was seeing…leading his people forward to certain death.

  That would be foolish, wasteful…a sacrifice without purpose. But if the order came, Gelak would obey. It was who he was, and he knew he didn’t have it in him to refuse. Even one that meant certain death.

  He would die, if necessary, as he had lived. As a creature of discipline, one of obedience.

  * * *

  “Get the hell out of here, all of you. Now! Back to the motherships.” Stockton was already bringing his ship about, setting a course back to the landing platforms. His strike force had survived one volley—at least some of it had, courtesy of the Hegemony squadrons’ intervention—but there was no way any of his pilots would escape a second assault, much less one three time the size of the first. There was only one choice. Run like hell.

  He checked his reactor reading. He was at full thrust, and he could already see the thirty Black Lightnings moving ahead of the rest of the formation. The Hegemony ships were farther toward the rear than the rest of his forces, closer to their own mother ships. The rest of his forces were more or less together, about twenty thousand kilometers in front of Gelak’s Kriegeri…and the pilots in the newer ships were going to make it back ahead of the rest of the Confeds and Alliance birds.

  That was fine. He wasn’t going to order his faster squadrons to wait for the slower units. But it wasn’t fine for him to be with them.

  He knew what Admiral Barron would have said, that his life, his skill and experience, were vital to the outcome of the war, that it was his duty to get back, regardless of what happened to the rest of his squadrons. But Stockton wasn’t wired that way and, for that matter, neither was Barron. Stockton had revered the admiral since the days when he’d been a squadron commander under Dauntless’s then-new CO. But he knew for all the admiral’s honor and courage, he’d be spewing outright hypocrisy if he urged his fighter commander to run for home ahead of his people. Tyler Barron had never left his warriors behind to save himself, and if there was one person truly vital to the war effort, it was the navy’s supreme commander.

  He tapped his throttle forward, easing slightly off on the thrust level to match the rest of his ships. A few seconds later, he eased off a bit more. The Alliance fighters were slower even than the old Lightnings, and Stockton was no more ready to leave them behind than he was his own pilots. There was time for everyone to get back, at least there was if the enemy missiles didn’t have any more surprises in store for him.

  He stared back at the screen, watching the oncoming volley, struggling to keep hard analysis in place over the fear and frenzy of combat. He was going to have to develop tactics to face the enemy weapons, and his mind was already working on it. To no avail, at least not as he sat there, staring at the missiles pursuing his fleeing force. He had no idea what to do, how to lead his wings in the next fight. And he doubted the enemy would give him long to think about it.

  The difficultly in establishing scanner locks on the enemy ships required his squadrons to close to point blank range before launching their weapons. But that would now mean enduring multiple waves of the deadly cluster warheads. He tried to imagine a battle line of the larger enemy battleships, and the barrage of warheads they would unleash on his attacking wings. That would be devastating, a bloodbath.

  And any ships that got past the missiles would have to endure the regular defensive fire from turrets on the ships themselves. He had no idea what the new, larger vessels carried, but the smaller ones had mounted substantial point defense arrays, and Stockton would have bet a sizable amount the heavy units were just as well armed with the small, rapid fire lasers.

  He pulled himself from his analysis long enough to check and recheck the range calculations. His ships were still plotting ahead of the incoming missile barrages. There would be enough time to land all his survivors, and for the motherships to pull out of the system. There wasn’t a large margin, but it would serve. Barely.

  It wasn’t enough, though, to stop the drumbeat sound of his heart echoing in his ears. Or the sweat pouring off of him. The flight suits were new, too, and they were slimmer and less bulky than the old ones. But they were hot, at least when the internal life support systems were off, as they were inside the cockpit.

  He looked over to the edge of the display. His forward squadrons were approaching their landing platforms. His pilots were inexperienced facing the Highborn, but they were veterans in every other way. The motherships were undamaged, a pleasant change from the situation in many of his past battles. That mean his experienced squadrons would land quickly.

  That couldn’t be soon enough for him. He knew he’d be back, that he’d face the same dangers again, probably in vastly larger numbers. But just then, he was ready to take any respite, to gain any opportunity to pull back and think about the new problems his wings would face. They had suffered terribly in the war against the Hegemony, but now he wondered if any of them would survive the new conflict beginning all around them.

  If any of them would see home again.

  Or if there would even be a home left when the enemy was done.

  He didn’t have any answers. But he knew he had to get back to Calpharon and tell Admiral Barron about the enemy’s massive battleships and their cluster missiles.

  If there is anybody who can figure a way to fight this enemy, it’s Tyler Barron.

  But for all Stockton’s faith in his longtime commander, the hard pit in his stomach told him he didn’t believe his longtime commander would find a way. The Confederation had fought many battles, endured many challenges, and he had remained steadfast and resolute
during each of them. But Jake Stockton realized he was losing what little hope remained to him.

  He was becoming more and more certain that last battle he’d so long imagined, the final day he would step into his fighter, was rapidly approaching, that one day soon, he would take off and fly into his destiny.

  Chapter Six

  Warehouse District

  Port Royal City

  Planet Dannith, Ventica III

  Year 323 AC (After the Cataclysm)

  “It’s good to see you, old friend, even if it’s in this dusty old place. I know we left some trinkets in here, but honestly, with all we’ve made since, I can’t imagine you need to sell off a bunch of old crap.” The voice was immediately familiar, and a smile slipped onto Andi’s face, despite the sad and somber shadow that had shrouded her for months.

  “Vig! Thank you so much for coming.” She spun almost one hundred eight degrees, and she threw her arms around her friend’s neck. “I hoped you would be able to make it.”

  “Be able to? Andi, you have to know I’d have come from the galactic core if you beckoned. And so would the others. They’re all back at the spaceport. The whole crew, together again.”

  Andi was usually stone cold, a block of granite immune to emotional appeals, but Vig’s words, and the loyalty and devotion of her old comrades of which they spoke, almost had her blubbering like a child. She held the tears back, barely, but her eyes were moist as she struggled to force out her words. “Thank you, Vig…so much.” She tightened her grip and hugged him even more firmly.