The Last Stand Read online

  Vig was silent for a moment, and then he took half a step back, and he looked right at Andi. “So, tell me…what is this all about?”

  “Do you remember Aquellus?”

  Vig’s faced seemed to go pale. “I’ll never forget that place, Andi…no matter how hard I try.”

  The mission to the water world had been a difficult one, and she and Vig had lost friends there.

  “I found something there, something I kept. I’m sure I showed it to you, but you might not remember.” The trip to Aquellus had been a contract job, and the imperial artifacts her people had found had been delivered to their sponsor. All except for one item. “It was a folio with a dozen data chips in it. I thought it might be interesting…hell, I probably should have turned it over with the other stuff we found, but it was damaged in the battle. The data on the chips was scrambled by radiation. I had it checked out when we got back, but no luck. I almost tossed it all, but then I figured anything from imperial times was worth keeping, even if it was useless.”

  “I take it you feel it’s not useless anymore?”

  “I don’t know, Vig. I always meant to have it checked by someone else. The District isn’t exactly home to the Confederation’s foremost data retrieval experts, is it? But I never did. Honestly, I forgot all about it.”

  “So, what reminded you…and sent you all the way back to this shithole to find it, no less at a time like the present?”

  “I was never able to find out what the chips contained, but there was something written on the cover, something I was able to get translated from old imperial. It didn’t mean anything to me back then. Not until very recently.” She paused, and she looked right into Vig’s eyes. “How much have you heard about this new war, about the enemy we face?”

  “Not too much, really. Just that we’re now allied with the Hegemony. That was a lot to absorb.”

  Andi nodded. “Yes, it was. What else have you heard?”

  “Just the name of the enemy…Highborn. I’m not sure what it means. Doesn’t really make any sense to me.”

  “I’m not sure what it means either, old friend, but the words on the folio cover were, ‘Chronicle of the Highborn.’ Whoever these…people…are, they were known to the empire. They must have been a threat all the way back in imperial times.”

  Vig’s expression changed, a look of surprise replacing one of curiosity. “You think the data chips carry information about the enemy? Information that might aid the war effort?”

  Andi just returned her friend’s gaze.

  “But even if you find them, do you really think you can get someone who can retrieve the data?”

  “That’s where I need your help, Vig.”

  Merrick’s look of confusion persisted, for a few seconds. Then: “Oh…you think Sylene might be able to do something.”

  “She’s the best computer expert I’ve ever known, Vig.” Andi paused and looked down at the floor. “I’m afraid I lost touch with her a few years ago, after she left Decarion.” A pause. “I was hoping you knew where she was.” Andi could feel tears welling up again, and she endured a wave of self-hatred as she thought about her friend. “If she’ll even help me after all these years.”

  “Of course she’ll help you, Andi…why would you even doubt that?”

  “She was my best friend, Vig, and I don’t even know where she is. I had to ask you. I haven’t seen her in years, haven’t even exchanged letters with her.”

  “You’ve been busy, Andi, right at the center of all that has happened to the Confederation.” It was Vig’s turn to pause. “I’m sure Sy would have kept in better touch with you, but she’s…struggled…in her own way since she left Pegasus.”

  “Struggled? She should have had more than enough money. If she needed more she could have come to me.”

  “Not money, Andi. Sy left the ship because…well, because it all got to her. The danger, the loss of friends. Captain Lorillard’s death was difficult for her to accept. I don’t think she could have endured losing you, too, and I think that is what drove her away. But, of course, by leaving she did just that. She had a place with you and the others, Andi. It was the closest thing either of us ever had to a real home. I think she left because she thought she couldn’t handle the stress, that she might fail you at some crucial time, and my coming aboard helped her feel that she wasn’t leaving you without someone you could count on. But she was lost after she left.”

  “That’s why she moved around so many times?” Andi had made an effort to stay in touch with her friend at first, but Sylene hadn’t remained in one place for more than a few months.

  “Yes…she finally managed to adjust, to an extent. I think she probably wanted to reach out to you a hundred times, but she felt as though she’d let you down.”

  “Let me down? I let her down.”

  “No, Andi…neither of you are to blame, not in any real way. I wanted to tell you all of this years ago, but Sy insisted that I not say anything. She didn’t want to be a burden.”

  “A burden? She was my best friend. How could she think I would…” Andi let her words trail off. Then: “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You’re my best friend, Andi, and my captain. I owe you everything I have, everything I am. But Sy is my sister, and, well you know…I guess I figured she’d change her mind, reach out to you herself. Then, time slipped by, and…”

  Andi just nodded as Vig in turn allowed his voice to fade to silence. Finally, she asked simply, “Do you know where she is now, Vig?”

  He nodded. “She is on Sebastiani. She’s been there a year, no more. I think she’s been more comfortable there than anywhere else.”

  Andi leaded forward, reaching into a large trunk she’d opened. She pulled out a dusty rectangular object, a box of sorts with a leather cover. “Here it is.” She looked back at Vig. “Now, let’s get back to the spaceport. Pegasus is there, and ready to fly us to Sebastiani.”

  * * *

  “Vig, Ross, Dolph, Rina, Lex…this is Cassiopeia.” Andi felt strange introducing her daughter to her old crew—her friends. She couldn’t imagine any of them had ever thought of her as a mother. But next to Tyler, they were the most important people in the galaxy to her, and it seemed somehow right.

  “This just goes to show that none of us can predict the future, Andi.” Vig smiled, and he leaned forward, extending his hand even as the child reached out and grabbed his finger.

  Andi stood and smiled as her crew gathered around, making various sounds at Cassiopeia and congratulating her in one way or another. “This is Lita Mareth,” she said softly, extending her hand to the older woman standing against the far wall. “She helps me take care of Cassiopeia. She did the same for Tyler, she’s told me.”

  The woman smiled and nodded. “I did indeed. Young Tyler was somewhat of a terror, I can tell you that much.” Mareth looked about seventy years old, her whitish-gray hair tipping off her age in a way her nearly wrinkle-free skin and upright bearing never would have. “It is a pleasure to meet all of you.”

  The crew exchanged pleasantries with Cassiopeia’s nanny, and a few minutes later, Andi looked at them all and said, “I have to go to Sebastiani. I am going to see an old member of the crew, one who’d left before I met all of you. She is Vig’s sister, which is why I contacted him. I didn’t realize he’d round you all up, pull you from your lives. If Sylene is able to help get the information I am seeking, I may ask Vig, and any of you who are willing, to take a trip back into the Badlands, farther even. I would go myself, but I’m afraid my days of venturing into the depths of space are gone for quite some time.”

  “Andi, we all owe you, most of us our lives, all of us the prosperity we’ve enjoyed. But none of that matters. We’re your friends. If you need us to do something, we’ll do it. All it takes is you asking.” Lex Righter looked at her, even as the others all nodded.

  “I love all of you. You are the best friends anyone could ask for.” Andi stood for a few seconds and looked at her crew. She
could see other faces, too, floating in the background, those who’d been just as close to her, just as loyal, but who’d been lost out in the Badlands. Gregor and Jackal, and Captain Lorillard, the man who’d taken her in, who’d left Pegasus to her. Her life had been a hard one in many ways, but she’d met some extraordinary people, too. All in all, she rated herself pretty damned lucky.

  Though the prospect of losing it all, everyone she cared about, loomed like a shadow over her. She was on Dannith because she wanted to help Tyler, because she thought the data on this chips might prove useful. But mostly, she was there because she truly believed it would take absolutely everything she could do, all that Tyler and his officers and spacers could give, the full effort of the Confederation, if there was to be any chance to defeat the enemy.

  Any chance to save the Rim.

  “Why don’t we all settle in? It will take some time to get launch clearance.” Andi hadn’t always waited for formalities like permission to take off. But she was trying to keep her brief visit to Dannith as quiet as possible. She loved Tyler, with every fiber of her being, but she despised the fame that came with being his wife. She knew he didn’t like it any more than she did, but he’d been born into it, an inescapable trap, and he’d become more adept at handling it than she had in such a shorter time. If he couldn’t get away from it, she would share it with him, as she had shared danger and pain and war, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t try to shak it when she could.

  “I’m sure you all remember where your quarters are. I haven’t changed a thing.” She smiled and passed her eyes over them all, feeling a renewed burst of gratitude, along with guilt for dragging them all to Dannith. Then she turned and she went to her own cabin, and she sat on the bed, sucking in a deep breath as she felt the façade of strength she’d held in place crumble, and the tears begin to stream down her face.

  Andi felt sadness, guilt for dragging her young daughter across space, for leaving her in the care of others, for bringing her to places like Dannith and its notorious Spacer’s District. It helped a little that she’d enlisted the aid of the woman who’d cared for Tyler as a boy, but mostly, she railed inside against a universe that could make her breathtakingly wealthy, and yet deny her even the simple choice of protecting her child from such things.

  But, of course, she also knew that was just what she was doing, protecting Cassiopeia. She wanted her daughter to know her father. She wanted Cassiopeia to grow up and live her life, and not die at the hands of a deadly enemy or to be carried off in chains by the conquerors. Andi had endured that particular vision far too many times in recent weeks. Tyler had tried to sound upbeat in his messages to her, but she knew him far too well for that to succeed. He was scared, not of physical danger, but of losing the war. She was sure of it. And if the fleet was defeated and destroyed, there was no doubt in her mind, the Confederation would fall soon after. Andi would die fighting to the end before she would yield, but that was not a choice her daughter could make, nor one she could either, not while Cassiopeia depended on her. She’d imagined taking off in Pegasus, fleeing to the farthest deeps of unknown space, anything to save Cassiopeia. But she’d pushed those thoughts away. She wasn’t ready to accept defeat, not yet. Nor even to plan for it. The war wasn’t over yet, and she was damned sure going to do all she could to make certain the enemy got the best possible fight.

  It was all she’d ever really known how to do, the one thing she’d been truly good at. No one who knew Andi Lafarge would call her anything but a fighter, and one hell of a scrappy one at that.

  And the Highborn, whatever the hell that name meant, were going to find out just what that truly meant.

  Chapter Seven

  CFS Dauntless

  Orbiting Calpharon (Hegemonic Capital)

  Sigma Nordlin IV

  Year 323 AC (After the Cataclysm)

  “I was surprised you wanted to come up to Dauntless, Commander. I would have shuttled down to the surface. Your command staff is all down there, after all, as well as the main tactical center.” Tyler Barron sat across the table, trying to decipher the edge he could feel from Chronos. He’d come to know the Hegemony commander pretty well, and despite his lingering resentments, he’d also developed an admiration for the man, if not yet outright friendship. He was cautious about making wild assumptions on someone still fairly new to him, but he was sure something was wrong.

  Something besides the deadly enemy approaching, and the desperate fight that loomed over all their heads.

  “I wanted to speak to you privately, Admiral, and to be honest, I was not confident I would be able to guarantee that on Calpharon. It is sometimes difficult to ensure one is not being watched…or listened to. ”

  Barron had suspected something was wrong. Now he was sure.

  “You can be confident no one is listening to us here, Commander.”

  “We were enemies not long ago, Admiral. I do not believe we serve any useful purpose in denying that fact. Nor do I believe our alliance has a chance to succeed against our mutual enemy, unless you and I can come to trust each other.” A pause. “Many will say I am foolish to tell you this, that there is no need, that I would be best to keep my mouth shut. I have not even discussed it with Akella, but you are a fighting man, as I am, and, unless I have badly misread you, an honorable one. I pledge to you now that you will get nothing but absolute honesty from me as we fight side by side, and I will back that promise with this.” He hesitated again, but only for the briefest instant. “There was a vote on the Council several days ago. Some of my people, some of the senior Masters, wanted to launch a surprise raid and take control of Colossus back from your people.”

  Barron stared back, trying to hide his shock. He wasn’t all that surprised that some of the Hegemony Council members would propose such a scheme, foolish as it was in light of the approaching enemy, but he was stunned that Chronos had freely admitted it to him.

  “I am grateful for your honesty, Commander.” He wasn’t sure he’d kept all the edge he was feeling out of his tone. He’d come to accept Chronos and Illius, and those of their Kriegeri warriors with whom he’d dealt. They’d spent six years trying to kill each other, but in the end, they weren’t all that different. But he still despised the Hegemony’s system, and the conduct of the Council members of whom Chronos spoke only confirmed that dislike.

  “I owe you nothing less, Tyler.” Chronos’s shift to informality was accompanied by a vulnerability in his tone. “I know of your political leaders, and I have heard stories of your past difficulties in dealing with them. It is no different, I am afraid, for us. At least not in essence. I was able to stop the vote from even taking place, but if we are to be allies, you have a right to be aware of dangers from within as well as without.”

  “How did you stop the vote?”

  “I threatened to resign my position.”

  “I thought your genetic rating dictated your status on the Council.”

  “It confers on me the right to sit as Eighth on the Council, and it carries a heavy responsibility to do so. But there is no law preventing a Council member from resigning, and no restraint at all from giving up ancillary roles…like supreme military commander.”

  “You threatened to do that? You would really have left your warriors without you in the face of what is coming?”

  Chronos just stared back at Barron for a few seconds. Then he said, “I believe your people enjoy an old imperial game, one played with cards. Poker, I believe it is called. Sadly, my people have not retained the custom, though I daresay I know enough about it to coopt some of its tenets. Bluffing, I believe it is called.” Chronos managed something close to a smile. “Perhaps one day, if we both survive the war, you can teach me how to play.”

  Barron locked eyes with his Hegemony counterpart, and he smiled. “I think you know more of the game than you let on, Chronos.” He was still angry, furious at the pompous fools on the Council who persisted in seeing his people as little more than animals to be toyed with.
But Chronos and Ilius were living proof that the people of the Hegemony were different from each other, even as those on the Rim were.

  Barron wanted to trust Chronos to keep the Hegemony politicians in check, but that was more than he could manage. He wasn’t even sure he could handle the Senate back on Megara. He would have to rely on blind faith, on the promise of warrior to warrior.

  And Chronos would have to do the same.

  * * *

  “The minefields are in place, just as Admiral Barron specified. Our analyses, both human and AI generated, show a range of probabilities of the enemy’s approach course. The most likely scenario, at seventy-nine percent, is a direct assault through tube number three, with an additional eleven point four percent that the attack will come from both tubes one and three. As such, we have placed the greatest emphasis on emplaced defenses against an incursion through tube three, with secondary priority assigned to tube one.” Ilius stood along the far side of the room, in front of the massive wall display. He held a long pointer in his hand, and he was moving it toward each location as he spoke.

  “I am inclined to agree, Ilius, and yet, I imagine the enemy can analyze the data as well as we. It would be the most extreme arrogance to assume either that they are unaware of the importance of this system to us, or that, knowing the state of our stellar geography, that they will not scout the space around Calpharon before their main fleets arrive. Perhaps they will react by choosing an axis of attack we are less likely to expect, and for which we are more poorly prepared.”

  Barron listened to Chronos’s challenge, and the tactician inside him agreed. If he was directing the attack, he would come from transit point four, the most difficult for an invader to approach and the farthest from Calpharon. Despite those disadvantages, it would be worth the delay and the extra effort to sidestep fixed defenses, at least in his estimation.