Cauldron of Fire (Blood on the Stars Book 5) Read online

  “No quarter…yes, sir.” Barron paused. “Fortune go with you, Imperator Vennius.”

  “And with you, Commodore Barron.”

  Barron turned and looked toward Atara Travis. “We have our orders, Commander. Let’s end this nightmare.”

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  CFS Dauntless

  Astara System

  Year 311 AC

  Vennius sat at the spare workstation on Bellator, out of the way, like some observer or staff officer there to watch Egilius and his crew in action. He’d stayed out of the routine operation of the ship, and even of the task force his protégé was commanding. He’d known every level of service, and he was well aware how much damage he could do by micromanaging, by interfering in things well handled by his officers. But now, he looked out over the bridge, his eyes locking on the display, on the battle that was still shaping up before him.

  The final battle…

  “Commander Egilius,” he said, his voice loud, firm, “the fleet will advance. It is time to finish this.”

  “Yes, Your Supremacy.”

  Vennius could see the situation, so suddenly transformed from virtually hopeless to nearly certain victory. His words, and the evidence he had so diligently prepared, had worked. He’d hoped they would, trying to depend on the honor and pragmatism of the Alliance’s warriors, but, truth be told, he’d been far from sure. He’d sat on the bridge, silent, his insides twisted into knots, as he watched those agonizing moments to see the effect his broadcast had on the Red Alliance forces.

  Now, he felt the pressure of acceleration as Bellator moved toward the remnants of Calavius’s force. The advantage had shifted completely, the forces remaining to the usurper hopelessly outnumbered…but they were Alliance warriors, all, and Vennius knew they were well aware this would be a fight to the death. No one would retreat, nor fall back…and those who had been willing to accept amnesty had already done so. The next hours would see hard and bloody work, and it would not come free. He would lose ships and warriors, far too many…and when it was all over and he had the victory, he knew there would be no joy, no sweetness. The whole sorry affair had been a waste, of resources, of warriors’ lives. The emergence of greed and lust for power in officers he’d served with was disillusioning. It was a rite of passage perhaps, a reality a maturing Alliance needed to face, but Vennius regretted it nevertheless.

  He watched as the remaining Red battleships fired their own engines, accelerating toward his approaching ships. They were traitors, corrupt, at least the officers in command were…but Vennius wondered how many spacers on those ships would have switched sides if they could have, how many were even now preparing to die at the behest of officers unfit for their loyalty.

  “Entering primary battery range in twenty seconds, sir.”

  Vennius nodded at Egilius’s report. Barron’s ships, their massive particle accelerators vastly outranging anything his Alliance forces possessed, had opened up. One Red battleship was already gone, and two more were holed in half a dozen places each, freezing fluids and atmosphere gushing out into space.

  Vennius had lived a warrior’s life, and for the past year he’d sent his forces into battle to kill thousands of their former comrades. But he’d seen too much of brother fighting brother, and he’d secretly been glad this would be the last fight…either way. Now, he had one last task to perform, one word that would commence the beginning of the end.

  He paused, staring out at the ships moving toward his fleet, his mind placing the images of officers with the ship names. Commanders who had served under him as Commander-Magnus, men and women he’d known, at whose sides he’d fought.

  He took a deep breath, pushing back the pain, the doubts. There was no time for that now. There was only time for duty.

  He looked over at Egilius, nodding. “Fire,” he said emotionlessly. “All ships, open fire.”

  * * *

  “Damage is extensive, Commodore, but there are no fires, and all systems are at least marginally operational.”

  “Very well, Commander.” Barron was exhausted, and relieved. The battle had been ferocious, the Red warriors aware that their choice was stark…victory or death. Barron’s forces had ensured it would be the latter, though they had paid their own price. He’d lost another of his new battleships. Resolution had been caught between three Red Alliance ships and destroyed before help could reach her. Every one of his remaining six ships was damaged, and all of them had suffered heavy casualties. But there wasn’t an enemy ship left in front of his force. Nothing but floating debris, and dead, lifeless hulks.

  He had not offered quarter, but neither had the enemy requested any. He considered those fighting his people to be traitors, but they had proven they were still Alliance warriors. They had died for their cause…and they had taken hundreds of his people with them.

  “I’ve got Commander Tulus on the comm, sir.”

  Barron gestured for Travis to connect the Palatian. “I am glad to see you made it through, Vian.”

  “And I you, my friend. The battle was hard…yet I feel victory is near.”

  The battle was all but over, only one ship remaining…Calavius’s. Vennius himself was in pursuit, in Bellator, with half a dozen other ships. Calavius’s flagship seemed to be making a run for the transit point, but now her engines had been blasted to scrap. Whatever the Red Imperator, the usurper, had intended, was immaterial. He was trapped, his fate rapidly approaching.

  “Yes. Vennius will have much work to do. I fear it will be more difficult to heal the Alliance’s wounds than simply declaring amnesty. Mistrust, once deeply embedded, is hard to wash away.”

  “You speak wisely, my friend. Yet, I believe we can achieve it, and much else…with your help.”

  “I will provide it…any way I can.”

  “And we shall prove that honor is not lost to us. You have helped us win our war…now we shall stand at your side, until your own enemy is crushed.”

  Barron nodded, but he didn’t answer right away. It would be Vennius’s decision whether to intervene in the war. Barron didn’t doubt the Imperator would honor his promises, but the Alliance fleet was badly battered, and the job of meshing its warriors back into one force would be long and hard. Just how much Vennius would be able to send to aid the Confederation remained an open question. But at least there would be no second front, no invasion through the Confederation’s soft underbelly.

  “We will be fortunate indeed to have such allies, Vian Tulus.”

  * * *

  The battle was over. All but over. Only a single Red ship remained, and the space of Palatia’s system was littered with debris, with floating clouds of radioactive dust that had once been Alliance warships. Thousands had died, despite the fact that the result of the battle had been all but predetermined. It was waste, pure and simple, and yet it had proved to be unavoidable.

  The battle had raged for hours, the doomed Red ships fighting with a ferocity Barron could only respect, despite the terrible toll it extracted from his forces. Even when two-thirds of their ships were gone, the survivors closed their ranks and fought on, moving to point blank range, even as Vennius’s units clustered all around, virtually surrounding them.

  Laser batteries fired again and again, concentrated pulse of high-energy light slamming into hulls, melting and vaporizing the dense metals. Compartments erupted as they were exposed to the vacuum of space, debris—and men and women—blown out into the frozen void. And still, even as their batteries were slowly silenced, the Red ships battled on, firing what guns remained operational. Near the end, the last few vessels closed to a few thousand kilometers—almost adjacent in space combat—and fired with their small, anti-fighter turrets, the only weapons that remained to them.

  Vennius’s ships, too, suffered, some destroyed, others blasted into crippled wrecks. In all his storied career, of all the vicious fights he’d seen, none had been this brutal, this painful. And yet, it had continued on, longer than he’d thought he could end
ure. But finally, the shooting had ceased, the last of the enemy destroyed.

  Almost the last…

  “I will grant you a concession to long comradeship, my old friend.” Vennius stared at the face in the screen, that of his former companion, now turned enemy. Calavius’s eyes showed his fear, and his shock at his defeat. Barron had ordered the cessation of fire, the communication with the last ship serving the Red cause. Even through the rage, the fiery need to avenge so much death and pain, he’d wanted to speak one last time to the man who had been the architect of such tragedy, a man he had once called friend.

  “You will spare me?” It was an undignified question, one unbefitting to a Palatian.

  “Do not bring further shame on yourself, Calavius. Try to reclaim some part of what you once were, here at the end.” Vennius’s words were hard. He’d ached enough at his old friend’s treason, agonized all he was going to over fighting one who’d once been close. Too many had died needlessly. Whatever mercy he might have felt, or pity, was gone.

  “What do you intend?” Calavius’s voice was shaky. He was clearly trying to remain firm, but it eluded him.

  “Fight your ship, Calavius. Finish this like a Palatian. Die on your bridge, with some shred of honor, and not as my prisoner, tried before all of Palatia and executed while throngs scream for your blood. Die as the man I knew so long ago, not the detestable creature you have become.”

  Vennius turned toward Egilius. “Commander, prepare to fire all batteries. Advise the other ships.” He looked back toward the screen, saw the terror in Calavius’s face…and then something else. His enemy nodded, and looked back with a calm that had not been there an instant before.

  “You have won, Vennius,” he said simply. “There was a time I could not have imagined facing you as an enemy. I will not apologize, nor will I ask again pointlessly for mercy. What has passed between us cannot be undone, and I die as your enemy…but even among enemies, there can be respect. I thank you for granting me a warrior’s death. Accept now this farewell, from one who fought at your side for far longer than he struggled against you.”

  “And farewell to you Gratian of the Calavii.” Vennius felt anger, rage…a hatred he knew would never leave him for all his old friend had done. But there was remembrance too, of a different time, and for this moment, he focused on that. “May you find in death what eluded you in life.”

  He turned toward Egilius, his eyes cold, and he said grimly, “Open fire.”

  * * *

  Grachus leaned forward in her cockpit, feeling utterly drained. Not so much physically—she’d been rested and ready for a protracted combat that never came. But emotionally, she had come a long way in a short time, through self-doubt and anger, and the realization of the damage she had done.

  Most of the squadrons had sided with her, convinced by her words, and those of Vennius, that they had sworn themselves not to the just Imperator, but to a traitor and a liar. She suspected they all felt a dose of the shame that tormented her, and she was proud that they’d risen above it, done the right thing in spite of the fact that it required them to admit their own foolishness.

  Let them blame it on me. It is my fault, after all, at least partly. Many of them followed me, trusting in my judgment…my judgment that proved so horribly bad in this case.

  She glanced at the screen, her eyes on the splinter of her force, the pilots who remained loyal to the Red cause. They had pulled back from their former comrades…and the new Grays let them go. Grachus had almost ordered her people to stand down—the idea of shooting at those who had launched as comrades was repugnant to her—but before she could issue the command it became clear to her that none of her pilots had the stomach to fire upon their former allies, at least not unless they were fired upon. Which they weren’t.

  She reached out, extending her hand toward the comm unit’s control panel. She had one more duty, one she dreaded. It was one thing to speak to her people, to urge them to stand down. But the situation was still uncertain. Vennius’s words had suggested he would welcome any Red warriors who wished to switch sides, but she was responsible for almost two thousand pilots. She needed to make sure. She needed to formalize things…and the closest ship was Dauntless.

  She hesitated. It was no longer hatred of Barron that ate away at her. It was shame. But there was no choice, and failing to do what duty demanded would only make things worse.

  She flipped on the unit switching to the Confederation command channel. “This is Commander-Princeps Jovi Grachus, commanding the former Red Alliance fighter wings. I wish to formally accept Imperator Vennius’s offer and confirm that all fighters currently standing down along the line wish to submit.” Word like “submit” were never easy for an Alliance warrior, and she felt a twinge as she said it, despite her certainty that it was the right thing to do.

  “Commander Grachus, your communication is acknowledged. Advise your forces to remain in place, with weapons systems down until we are able to provide more specific instructions.” There was a pause, and then: “Commander, please hold for Commodore Barron.”

  She was startled by the words. Contacting Dauntless had been difficult enough, but facing Barron himself…well, not “facing,” exactly, but…

  “Commander Grachus, this is Commodore Barron. I just wanted to thank you for ordering your forces to stand down. You saved many lives today, and if I may be so bold as to say, you did the right thing for your people.”

  She was stunned. This was the man she’d pursued, whose death she had sworn, and imagined too many times to count. Now he was on her comm unit, no animosity in his voice, no recrimination.

  “Thank you, Commodore. I was…” She hesitated, not sure what to say. “…wrong in my earlier allegiance and actions. I made a deep error, and I fear it caused much damage before it was rectified.”

  “We have all made mistakes, Commander. You had the courage to correct yours, and for that, you have my admiration. I welcome you to the Gray Alliance, and I hope we are able to meet in person soon.”

  Grachus was struck again by Barron’s graciousness. She’d built him up in her mind to be a monster, imagined him as some devious Confederation killer, devoid of honor. “I thank you for your wisdom, Commodore Barron. I blamed you for years, held you accountable for Katrine’s death, but I was wrong.” Grachus had chosen Dauntless as her contact to arrange for the transfer of her forces to Vennius’s Gray fleet. She preferred not to think of it as a surrender, but whatever it was, she’d compelled herself to go through Dauntless to arrange it, a bit of self-flagellation she felt lay on the road to redemption. She hadn’t expected to speak with Barron himself, but as soon as she’d given her name, he’d come on the comm line immediately.

  “Thank you, Commander. I didn’t know Commander Rigellus, but even in the brief moments I spoke to her, I could tell she was an extraordinary officer. I regret that we met as enemies, and not as friends.” Barron paused for a few seconds. “You showed tremendous leadership today, Commander, in following your conscience, in leading your people to what you knew was right…and the vast numbers in which they followed you speaks volumes about your abilities as a leader. I hope we may serve together in the future…and if it is not too much to ask, perhaps one day we can sit down, and you can tell me about Katrine Rigellus.”

  “It would be an honor, Commodore. I look…” Her voice trailed off. There was something on the scanner, a tiny blip—a fighter. It was moving toward her, at high speed. The battle was over, the forces had all stood down. Except this…suddenly she understood. It was Stockton.

  “Commander?” Barron’s voice echoed in her headset, but she ignored him, her eyes fixed on the display, on the grim death that approached her.

  Stockton had to know the battle was over, that she and her people had sworn to Vennius’s service. Unless…yes, of course. That other pilot. She’d fought an epic struggle with another Confederation flyer, and Stockton had been racing to intervene. Suddenly, it was completely clear. Stockton wasn’t
fighting the Grays’ battle, nor the Confederation’s. He was fighting his own. He wasn’t attacking on Barron’s orders. He was coming for her. He was avenging his comrade.

  Most likely his friend…yes, certainly his friend…

  She slammed her hand to the side, hard, pulling back to fire up her engines. The battle wasn’t over. She hadn’t survived, at least not yet.

  She threw her ship into a wild evasive maneuver, moving her vector to a nearly perpendicular angle from her attacker. She didn’t know what to do. Should she fight, try to destroy Stockton? They were on the same side now…could she begin her service to Vennius by killing one of his pilots?

  “Commander Grachus…is something wrong?” She could hear the concern in Barron’s voice, but her thoughts were elsewhere, trying to decide how to deal with the deadly threat heading toward her.

  Against any other flyer, she might have simply tried to evade. But Stockton was far too good for that. If she didn’t fight him with everything she had, struggle with all her skill to destroy him, he would finish her for sure.

  Perhaps death is still the price you will have to pay for your foolishness…

  * * *

  Stockton’s eyes were fixed on the tiny dot on his scanner. His fighter was ripping through space, his reactor’s safeties completely shut down. The g forces pressed into him, going beyond discomfort, to outright pain. He struggled to inhale, forcing his chest to expand, to push against the pressure almost crushing him. But he ignored it all.

  The battle was over—most of it, at least. But he still had a score to settle. The dozens of squadrons, the battleships all around the system, the lines of escort ships…had all stood down. But there was one enemy left, a single fight that remained, one that would be finished only when one of the combatants was dead.

  Stockton’s mind was clear, no thoughts save those relevant to the battle. He’d tracked his enemy down, and now he was heading into the fight. Soon, Kyle…I will avenge you, my brother.