Invasion (Blood on the Stars Book 9) Read online

  He sucked in a deep breath. Now for the hard part. “I can tell you that my Marines will continue the resistance, even increasing the intensity of our strikes. I know this possibly endangers the prisoners, and risks pushing the enemy to even greater efforts to crush the will and defiance of the people of Dannith…” Not to mention the possibility they just say, ‘the hell with it,’ and blast the place to radioactive dust. “…but there is no other choice, none we can accept. It is not lack of care for those who might be hurt, but if the choice is between suffering and death…and surrender…then there is no choice at all. There is no treasure greater than freedom, nor any cause more worth fighting, and if need be, dying, for. The Marines have taken an oath, and the words we spoke, grim and solemn, leave us no choice. But, I will not seek to enforce the intractability of our code on the Dannith units. Each soldier in those commands must decide for himself or herself…will you remain, stand with us and follow this fight to its end, whatever that may be? Or will you leave now, return to your homes, to see if the enemy will pardon you for your resistance, and if they will release your families from imprisonment.”

  He turned and looked back at his senior officers. Not one of them agreed with his decision to release the local troops. He knew the arguments. They needed all the strength they could get, and the enemy would almost certainly interrogate any returnees, and they would gain information on the hidden locations of his bases. That was all true, of course, but none of it mattered in Holcott’s estimation. The local units were a fraction of his combat power. It was the Marine units that really mattered, and letting the civilian soldiers go could only stretch his already-dwindling supplies farther.

  The intel on his locations was almost as irrelevant. He knew he had to move his forces anyway. No matter what he decided, what commands he issued, some of the local troops would desert. It was evitable. In fact, some already had. His only chance of maintaining the secrecy of his positions was to hold the Dannith forces as virtual prisoners…and to shoot them down if they tried to escape. And, he just wasn’t ready to do that. He knew some Marine officers might have, but he wasn’t one of them.

  “Before you decide what to do, I urge you all to truly think about what you can do about the camps, and about the imprisonment of your families. Any attack on the camps would be doomed to failure, in fact, it is no doubt what the enemy hopes to see. Even if all the Marines joined in, such an assault would be doomed to bloody failure…and, as likely as not, the prisoners would all be killed in the fighting or executed by the enemy forces. Your urge to save your families is admirable and understandable…but I beg you all to consider the reality before you resolve to do anything foolish.”

  Holcott paused for a few seconds. He felt as though he should say more, offer some kind of encouragement, sympathy…something. But, there was nothing else. He didn’t know if Steve Blanth would have had any deeper insights, or more stirring words, but he’d done, and said, all he could. He’d made a decision. The Marines would fight, they would continue the struggle and never yield…and damned the consequences. That sounded cold, brutal, but this was war, and there was no way to make it a gentle pursuit. The Confederation was fighting for its survival, and it needed every man or woman to do what he or she could, the spacers in the fleet, and the ground pounders on every planet, holding back the enemy, or harassing them as his people had done. In the end, he’d felt his choice had been no choice at all, but he’d also realized he’d had to give the local troops the chance to leave.

  He just prayed they would listen to him. If some thrown together force of Dannith troops assaulted the camps, they’d not only get themselves massacred, they’d probably get the prisoners killed as well.

  “All local soldiers are released, but if you wish to go, you must go now. Anyone who stays is part of this military command, and we are in a state of war. Deserters after today will be shot, and this force will continue to attack the occupying army every way we can, regardless of the enemy’s response, either against us or against civilians. Make sure you all understand this…and act accordingly.” His voice was cold, reflecting his own deep, frozen thoughts. He was in this fight, to the death…and every man or woman who remained with him would be as well.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  1,150,000 Kilometers from CFS Repulse

  300,000,000 Miles from Planet Ulion

  Venga System

  Year 317 AC

  The Battle of Ulion – Phase Three

  Stockton’s eyes were fixed on his screen, and they looked into a nightmare. Suddenly, it all made sense. The enemy escorts—and that’s just what they were, in every sense of the word, escorts—blocked the way to the battle line, and gunned down his fighters with deadly accuracy as they raced through.

  He cursed himself, even as he watched the deadly scene unfolding. He’d seen the Hegemony tactics improve from one engagement to the next, adapting quickly to the need to defend against bombing attacks. Yet, now, he found himself shocked when the enemy deployed technical modifications…ships clearly fitted out to target fighters.

  “All squadrons, break formation. Stay as far away from those escorts as…” He paused for an instant as his instincts jerked his had to the side, pulling his ship away from a burst of incoming fire from one of the …frigates were the closest thing the Confederation had to them. Eight different shots converged on his prior position, and he didn’t doubt he’d be dead if he hadn’t followed his impulse.

  “These ships are dangerous…” He didn’t know what to say, what orders to issue. His scanner confirmed just how deadly the enemy ships were. He’d lost several dozen of his people, just in the past two minutes, though the increased evasion efforts appeared to be slowing the rate of slaughter. He cursed himself. He’d let his squadrons fly right through the enemy formation…he’d served his people right up to the Hegemony escorts. He’d had a reason, of course. At their current velocity, the only way his people could have gone around was to decelerate at full thrust, and pull back. It would have taken several hours, at least, and probably more, before they’d reformed and reached the target battleships. The fleet just didn’t have that kind of time. The only real tactic Winters and Eaton had was to maximize fighter strikes, and Stockton knew that well. Which is why he’d led his people straight ahead.

  And, why so many of them were dying even as he watched.

  He angled his thrusters again, firing at full for a few seconds, then letting off entirely. He was bracketed between two of the frigate-like vessels, along with about half a dozen of his pilots. There had been more half a minute before, at least ten…but the defensive fire was raking the area with deadly effect.

  Stockton was a cold veteran, and an experienced leader, but now he froze. He didn’t know what to do. Send his ships on through to gut out the worst the escorts could throw at them and then press on to the enemy battle line? Or decelerate hard and attempt to turn about and attack the escorts. He was sure the plasma torpedoes would wreak havoc on the small enemy vessels, but the vector and velocity of his strike force was just about as bad as it could be to launch a bombing run on the frigates.

  The indecision hung like a cloud in his mind, enduring for what seemed an eternity, though on some level he knew it was only seconds. Still, his people were dying during those seconds.

  “Full thrust...forward. We’re staying on target. We’re going to hit those battleships, and damn these frigates.” He pulled back hard on the throttle, feeling the g forces slam into him for an instant, before the compensators intervened and bled off some of the pressure. He jerked his hand back and forth, adding some irregularity to his vector, even as most of his thrust pushed his fighter straight ahead. “Don’t forget, evasive maneuvers the whole way. All it takes is letting off for a couple seconds, and you’ll end up a ball of searing hot plasma.”

  He looked back at the screen, at the great gaps that had been torn in his formations. Some of that was disorder, his fighters breaking off along different vectors in their attempts
to escape the incoming fire. But, he was too old a veteran to fool himself, and his best guess was, he’d lost almost a hundred ships already. He could have asked the AI for a count, of course. The machine was dependent on the reliability and receipt of transponder signals, but it would come close to an accurate count.

  Stockton didn’t want to know. There was nothing he could do about it, and whatever the number, it wouldn’t change what he was going to do. So, he left it for later. He had no time just then for grief and guilt…all he wanted was vengeance.

  The enemy could cut up his squadrons, kill his pilots, but he could bring some darkness on them as well…and he damned well was going to do just that.

  * * *

  “Commodore, the scanning analysis is complete. Those escorts appear to have some kind of version of the standard Hegemony point defense lasers, but they have been modified to allow for rapid fire…almost like an automatic weapon. It appears they are also configured for slight adjustments in targeted, firing bursts that cover a larger area, exponentially increasing the chance of scoring a hit. We should have more specific data in a few minutes, but it looks like functional accuracy in increased by a range of six to eight times, at least at optimal range.”

  Sara listened to Fuller’s words, and even though she’d come to most of that conclusion already herself, the sound of her aide saying it struck her hard. She’d known the enemy would continue to improve its ability to face bombing attacks, and while her darkest fear was to one day see Hegemony strikefighters on Repulse’s scanning displays, she knew such a program would take years to implement.

  But, changing their light escorts, replacing or improving the defensive batteries…you should have seen that coming…

  She didn’t underestimate the engineering complexity of even that kind of change. For one thing, the guns had a fire rate several times what she’d seen before. Beyond factors like wear and tear on lenses and other hardware, firing guns that quickly required delivering a lot of energy in a very short time.

  A lot of energy.

  She watched as the strike wings ripped through, grimly absorbing their losses and pushing on toward the enemy battleships. She might have expected the commander of the assault force to order the ships to move against the escorts that were hurting them so badly, or pulling back to regroup…at least she might have expected that if Jake ‘Raptor’ Stockton wasn’t that commander.

  Stockton was acting as if he hadn’t even noticed the deadly attacks on his people, save for implementing enhanced evasive maneuvers, and his squadrons were following him without hesitation, as if they’d just flown through serene, empty space, and not a screen of escorts that had taken down over a hundred of their number. Not for the first time, she felt pride in those pilots, and stark realization of the quality of the people being sacrificed in the repeated assaults.

  She turned her eyes back to the display, watching as the escorts continued to attack the final wave of bombers passing through their formation. The squadrons were moving at high velocity—thank God!—and it would take the frigates considerable time to come about and pursue.

  They won’t pursue…they’ll try to position themselves to hit the wings as they head back…

  She almost ordered Fuller to get Stockton on her line, but she didn’t. He knew what the enemy would do, and he would almost certainly do anything he could to bring his people back without passing through the line of escorts again. She didn’t know if he’d manage it—the Hegemony ships were fast and maneuverable—but he would damned sure try, and her repetitive and unnecessary order wouldn’t do a thing to help.

  Besides, he’s leading the strike in now. They paid in blood—and in advance—for this one…let him stay focused. Let him return the favor…

  She took her eyes away from the fighters. Stockton knew what he was doing. She glanced back at the line of escorts, now clearly positioning themselves to intercept the fighters when they returned to the fleet. She thought about the guns, those deadly, rapid-firing lasers that had so hurt her squadrons. How do they provide enough concentrated energy to charge them so quickly? She didn’t know, but something nagged at her.

  Antimatter.

  The Hegemony utilized antimatter, most notably in its massive railgun systems. But, by all accounts, they remained far behind the old empire in both the use and production of the precious material. Antimatter had various uses, but none more profound than as a source of immediate and massive energy. Was it possible? Had the enemy fitted their laser turrets to use antimatter as a power source?

  The thought was a sobering one, both in terms of the strength of such a weapon, and in the enemy’s ability to so rapidly put it into use. But, there was something else, a thought nagging at her ‘decidedly not an engineer’s’ mind.

  Antimatter was volatile, deadly dangerous to handle. Even a microsecond’s failure of containment could cause it to annihilate with whatever normal matter it encountered. That was one reason for the slow rate of fire of the enemy railguns. The antimatter fuel was stored in small canisters, held in the most remote and protected innards of each vessel.

  But, if they’re using antimatter to fire surface-mounted point defense batteries…

  It was an idea floating in her mind, one perhaps not quite fully formed. More the kernel of one.

  And, she needed someone with a far better grasp of the science involved. She looked down at her comm unit, pausing for perhaps half a minute. She didn’t want to make the call, to disturb the one person she knew was most likely to figure out what she was just poking around.

  She reached down, setting the channel herself, even as she pulled the headset on. “Sickbay…this is Commodore Eaton.” She paused, one last bit of hesitation before she pushed forward. “I need to speak to Captain Fritz…immediately.”

  * * *

  What the hell…

  Clint Winters sat in his chair, staring at the incoming scanner data. He was looking at the past…and the future. Commodore Eaton’s fighters were five light minutes away from his battle line, and the images on his screen showed what had transpired roughly three hundred seconds before.

  They also gave him a glimpse of what awaited the squadrons he’d been about to send forward, the hundreds of fighters of Ulion’s defensive forces, every one of them armed with torpedoes and ready to hit the approaching Hegemony battle line, following up on the damage Stockton’s wings had already inflicted…and were about to do again.

  He was stunned at the effectiveness of the Hegemony escorts—and, somehow, not at all surprised at the same time. It didn’t make sense, of course, to have two contradictory views, but that didn’t change the fact that he did. He knew the enemy’s science and technology were advanced, ahead of the Confederation’s own, and he’d been waiting for them to develop stronger defenses against bomber attacks. Yet, it was still surreal, watching as his squadrons were cut down by ships suddenly possessing four or five times the firepower they had before.

  For an instant, he felt the urge to hold back the launch order, to pull his ships back and make a run for the transit point. Whatever meager chance he’d had of defending Ulion was probably gone now. He’d never get enough bomber strikes through the escorts to wear down the enemy battle line. It was a sobering thought for a military commander to contemplate a retreat that would leave over ten billion civilians to the mercy of the invaders. But, without the fleet, the entire Confederation would be as good as lost. Tyler Barron had a powerful force under his command, and by all accounts, he was rushing to the system even then to join the fight. But, if Winters lost his ships, Barron would only step into his shoes, commanding a portion of Confederation strength, against the massed might of the Hegemony.

  “All fighters…launch at once.”

  The order blurted out, almost unconsciously, but even as he sat, waiting for the nearly immediate acknowledgement, his resolve hardened. His ships were still far out, and the enemy escorts, some of them at least, would almost certainly have time to cut off the fighter strike
. But, there was no choice. None he would consider.

  Losing the fleet would be disastrous, he knew that…but he just couldn’t abandon Eaton and all her ships…and if his people bugged out just then, the Hegemony forces would cut off and finish every vessel she had. It would be a catastrophic defeat, and he would suffer stunning, irreplaceable losses…and implications far beyond the fall of Ulion. No, he had to follow through with the plan. He had to engage the enemy, at least long enough for Eaton to bring her task force closer to his, closer to the ultimate retreat route.

  He looked at the far end of the display, at the line of symbols representing Eaton’s ships. They were accelerating, moving forward.

  She’s going to engage the enemy escorts…before they can savage her fighters again. He felt a wave of concern. Eaton’s battleships were also moving closer to the enemy battle line, and the utter devastation the remaining railguns would unleash on her vessels. But, he found himself nodding as he watched, realizing it was what he would have done as well. Eaton’s task force had all the fleet’s veteran pilots. They were a vital resource, one the fleet simply couldn’t lose.

  “All ships…prepare to initiate thrust at 8g, directly toward the enemy escort group.”

  “Yes, Admiral.”

  He would be bringing his ships in deeper, increasing the risk no one at all would escape from the battle, and his inner voice was screaming at him to hold back. He hesitated for an instant, a passing flash of uncertainty. Than he told his inner self to drop dead. Those were his people out there, in both fighter groups, and in Eaton’s battleships, as well as in his own. And, he’d be damned if he was going to let them fight alone…or leave anyone behind.

  “All ships, engage. I want primaries fully charged and ready to fire as soon as we enter range.”