Ruins of Empire: Blood on the Stars III Read online

  And yet there is still doubt. The Union’s leadership is indefensible, and their destruction would be a cleansing. But the ships we destroy are crewed by men and women much like those who serve with me. They fight because they are ordered to do so, and worse, because their families are virtual hostages for their obedience. The Union has a simple compact with its spacers. If you fight and die, your families will be cared for, and if you flee, they will pay the price for your cowardice.

  I have come to appreciate that there are different kinds of courage. The Union pilot, who sacrifices himself in battle so his wife escapes Sector Nine’s torture chambers or his child has enough food to eat…can I hate this enemy or call him a coward? Can I rejoice at his death? I derided the Union, much as my comrades do, but now I see there is depth to this picture, dimensions beyond that which are easily visible. I saw the essence of courage in the Alliance crew my people faced at Santis, yet there is much of that same strength in the men and women who crew the Union vessels. We deride them as sheep, pity them as fools who mindlessly follow orders. But it is easy to speak of defiance, and quite another to actually resist when the only result can be the suffering of those close to you.

  The vast, endless reaches of the Badlands bring a strange focus to all of this. The ghosts of our ancestors drain away my thoughts of victory as the ultimate end to war. Who “won” the great conflicts of the Cataclysm? Which pile of unburied dead were the victors? And which the vanquished?

  And, most terrifying of all the questions surging forth from my deepest thoughts. Am I looking at our past? Or our future?

  CFS Dauntless

  System Z-37 (Saverein)

  Inside the Quarantined Zone (“The Badlands”)

  309 AC

  “All fighter probes report negative contacts, Captain. Lieutenant Timmons’s patrol even flew a pass through the dust clouds along the outer system. Our long-range scanners are also clean.” Travis turned and looked over at Barron. “I think we’re alone here, Captain.” Her tone carried a message of its own, that even she thought he was being overly vigilant.

  Barron nodded. “Very well, Commander. Recall scouting patrols and proceed toward the transwarp point. But I want scanners to remain on full active mode.” He had been more intense than usual, more cautious. He suspected he even looked a little paranoid to his crew. Which was fine…because he was a little paranoid. If Holsten’s suspicions were real, if the smugglers who had returned to Dannith were telling the truth, the key to total military dominance over humanity lay out there, ahead of his ship, deep in the Badlands.

  Barron didn’t like relying on the word of smugglers, and even less having the whole group of outlaws aboard Dauntless, their ship docked to the battleship’s hull. He knew it made sense to bring along the only people who had actually seen the Union forces, but the whole thing still made him uncomfortable. Still, he had to admit, this particular group had at least presented considerable evidence to back up their claims. There was little doubt that a Union vessel had chased them across the Z-111 system. He didn’t like the idea that the enemy was already there either, even if it was only a frigate. His people were late already, and if they didn’t get there before the Union battleships—the ones he knew were coming—it could be the worst disaster in Confederation history. Indeed, it could very well be the end of the Confederation.

  Battleships. Plural. He knew how the enemy thought, how they operated. They’d been ahead of the Confederation on this since the beginning. If Holsten and Striker hadn’t ordered Dauntless to Dannith before they’d had conclusive evidence, all would already be lost. His respect for the two men grew considerably. They’d acted instead of analyzing, sending his orders when all they’d possessed were vague rumors and sketchy scraps of information. And they’d done it artfully. If there had proved to be nothing to their suspicions, all they had done was recall a battleship for a well-needed refit, perhaps at a system farther back from the front than ideal, but nothing that would have seemed all that strange. Barron would have never known his ship had been sent to Dannith for anything but repairs. But when the smugglers arrived with news of events at Z-111, Dauntless was in a position to investigate.

  Striker had assured Barron that reinforcements would follow, but Dauntless’s captain knew it would be weeks before any ships from the front could reach Dannith, and longer for them to get to his position deep in the Badlands. Dauntless would be on her own, for a long while, at least…against whatever the Union had sent to retrieve the artifact. It felt oddly familiar, much like the situation at Santis. But this time the stakes were higher, and he was virtually certain he would be badly outnumbered.

  Numbers weren’t a consideration, not this time. There would be no retreat from this mission…there could be none. Allowing the Union to recover an ancient weapon of almost unimaginable power, or even an artifact that might be such a weapon, was out of the question. There were only two options…victory or death.

  His people would be in a fight for their lives and for the future of the Confederation, a desperate one against the odds. They’d been there before and come through. He was confident they would rise to the occasion, give their very best…and their best was damned good. But this time he wasn’t sure it would be enough.

  He watched as his people went about their duties, glanced at the display as his fighter patrols began their flights back to Dauntless. He was nervous, edgy. He’d never liked the Badlands, the strange haunted feeling of passing by worlds that had once been the home to billions of human beings, but were now graveyards scavenged by freebooters. It was a constant reminder of mankind’s self-destructive nature, one that struck a bit too close to home now.

  Barron had done duty in the Badlands, and he didn’t particularly care for the brand of rogues who operated out in the desolate systems, picking at the bones of the dead civilizations, looking for trinkets of old tech they could sell on the black market. Every scrap of ancient technology that ended up in the wrong hands endangered the Confederation, and possibly killed his people. He didn’t doubt for an instant there had been old tech in use in the Union’s construction of the Supply One base. The Confederation had come dangerously close to losing the war because of that incredible structure, and he was enraged at the thought that it might have come to pass because some smuggler had cared only for the currency his black-market buyer had possessed, and not the fact that he, she, or it had probably been nothing but a Sector Nine front.

  “Captain, we’re picking up energy readings from the Z-33 transwarp point.” Travis’s voice was deadly serious.

  “Battlestations, Commander,” Barron said, his voice firm, even. “Scramble all fighter squadrons.” He had no idea what was coming, but his people were deep in the Badlands, and that meant the chance that anything but trouble was coming was vanishingly small.

  “Battlestations, Captain,” Travis snapped back. “All squadrons acknowledge.” The klaxons began sounding, the familiar call to the almost one thousand specialists and veterans on Dauntless to man their stations. They had been there before, many times, and all around there was nothing but the quiet efficiency of a well-oiled machine.

  Barron glared at the display, through the red glow from the battlestations lamps, his gaze one of defiance, of determination. Dauntless hadn’t gotten the full refit he’d hoped she would, but she was a Confederation battleship, one with more than her share of honors. If whoever was coming through that jump point wanted a fight, by God they would get one.

  * * *

  “Launch tubes powered up and ready. All squadrons, you are cleared to go.” Stara Sinclair sat in the center of the main console in Dauntless’s launch control center. Her screen displayed a series of bars, readiness indicators for the ship’s five squadrons. Dauntless had been built to carry sixty fighters, but her current complement was seventy-eight. That was a change wrought in the fire, when Dauntless and Intrepid were trapped behind enemy lines, their fighter ranks swelled by the remnants of squadrons abandoned when the battle line
had been forced to retreat. Sinclair had been stunned when Captain Barron had somehow managed to get official authorization to retain eighteen of the extra strike craft, and she’d been pushed to the edge of her wits dealing with the fallout from cramming an extra squadron into Dauntless’s launch rotations and maintenance routines.

  She watched carefully as the status monitors switched to green. Dauntless didn’t have enough catapults for a normal launch routine with five squadrons, but Captain Barron had ordered three times the normal number of patrols to scout the system, and that left a lot of open slots on the rotation.

  Her hands moved over her keyboard and touchscreen, moving small symbols, issuing go ahead orders to ships in the second and third waves. She had the extra spaces, but they were all over the place, two openings from Blue squadron here, three from Red squadron there. The ships would get out there quickly, that much she could guarantee. The formations would be a mess, but that was the squadron commanders’ problem, not hers.

  She watched as the ships of Blue squadron ripped down the catapults and into space. Jake Stockton had already launched, and her eyes moved to the display, finding the small icon that represented his ship. She’d had feelings for Stockton almost since the day he’d set foot on Dauntless. He’d been all cocky and obnoxious on the outside…but she had seen something else there. His loyalty, his dedication. There was a bit of a performer in Stockton, but it only took one look at how his friends, and his pilots, revered him to know there was a lot more to the man than he let others see.

  Still, she’d denied her emotions, and even spurned his advances. She hadn’t taken his interest as a sign of any real feelings. Stockton had a reputation, and she’d considered his flirtations nothing more than an acknowledgement that she was female, and perhaps that the hotshot fighter jock liked the way she looked walking down the corridor in her uniform. He wasn’t the first overly confident pilot she’d had to shoot down. Her position put her right in the line of fire of the least controllable group of spacers in the fleet, and she’d built a wall around herself. She’d drink with the pilots in the officer’s club when off duty, and she was popular enough with the squadrons, but they’d all been trained, more or less, to direct their cocky charms elsewhere.

  She’d held her ground until Stockton had a close call, even closer than usual. She’d raced down to the flight deck, unable to hold in her relief that he’d survived the crash landing. All her emotions came pouring out, even as she struggled to put them back in their place. She’d been angry with herself afterward. For letting the professionalism that was her pride slip. And for allowing herself to get too close to Stockton. He was the best pilot she’d ever seen—not that he needed to hear that—but he was crazy, too. He was bound to get himself killed one day, and now that dread had made its home deep in her gut. But there was no way out, not any longer. Not since Stockton had returned from a near suicidal mission to deliver data on enemy dispositions to the fleet and told her he loved her.

  The Scarlet Eagles were queued up right behind the Blues. The Eagles were without their squadron leader. Dirk Timmons was still out on patrol, and he’d have to return to Dauntless and refuel before he could join his people. Stockton was doubling as their commander now, and she had to stifle a small laugh. Timmons and Stockton had hated each other since they’d been rivals at the Academy, and the fact that they had buried the hatchet—enough, at least, to trust each other with their beloved squadrons—suggested that nothing was truly impossible.

  She reached out, tapping the communication unit. “Bridge, flight control reporting. All fighters launched.”

  “Acknowledged, fighter control.” A short pause. “Nicely done, Lieutenant.”

  Sinclair smiled. Commander Travis was popular on Dauntless. She was tough, the captain’s disciplinarian when necessary, but she was also energetic, focused, and as far as Sinclair was concerned, outright brilliant.

  Her eyes moved back to the display, watching as the fighters shook down into their squadrons, and then their battle formations. She sighed softly, her eyes darting quickly to both sides to make sure no one had heard. She was considered a stone-cold officer, one who maintained her calm in the middle of the fiercest battle and kept the launch control center running no matter what. And that reputation served her well, even if the constant death and destruction of the war had begun to get to her. She worried about Stockton, of course, but her mind was also full of images, the faces of men and women, pilots Dauntless had lost in its recent struggles. Captain Barron had pulled his ship from the brink of destruction more than once, but in fifteen months the ship had lost more pilots than the number of its original complement. Dozens of comrades, lost out in the depths of space, dying alone, terrified. Everyone assumed she had ice water for blood, but even that was inadequate to ward off the effects of so much loss and fear.

  And more will die today…

  Her eyes moved to the other end of the display, to the icon representing the Union battleship that had just emerged. Captain Barron had acted quickly, and Sinclair was confident Dauntless could best her foe, at least assuming no additional ships transited. But she’s come to realize that no victory was free.

  And that price would be paid in the blood of men and women she knew…including those she’d just helped launch.

  * * *

  Tyler Barron stared intently at the display. He wasn’t surprised at the new contact. He’d expected to run into enemy forces by now…even earlier. The only question remaining was whether the Union battleship was alone, or whether more vessels would transit into the system momentarily.

  The enemy vessel was launching fighters, and he gazed at the tank, watching the clouds of tiny dots appear. Dauntless was facing a powerful vessel, a line battleship with all the tonnage—and presumably fighters—as his ship. But he had gained the edge. He’d put his ship on red alert the instant he’d gotten the report of a vessel jumping into the system, and by the time he’d gotten a clear confirmation it was an enemy warship, half his squadrons were already in space. It was an aggressive maneuver. Most captains would have gone by the book, launched a probe or a scouting party, perhaps, waiting for conclusive data before sending out a full-scale strike.

  His actions were unorthodox in other ways, too. He hadn’t retained a CSP around Dauntless, no last line of defense in case enemy bombers broke through. He’d sent all his ships toward the Union ship—five full squadrons, less the roughly dozen ships he’d already had out on patrol. He’d armed two of his squadrons, Yellow and Green, as bombers, with Olya Federov’s Red Squadron flying close support. He was relying on the superiority of his pilots to execute both a powerful strike against the enemy, and to form an effective screen to protect Dauntless. It was a lot to expect, but he knew what his pilots could do, especially with officers like “Thunder” Jamison and “Raptor” Stockton in the lead.

  “I want active scanners on full, Commander,” he said without looking up. If there’s the slightest increase in energy output from that transit point, I want to know about it. Even if it’s nothing but a chunk of rock drifting through.”

  “Yes, Captain,” Travis responded.

  “The incoming patrol ships are to be refueled and refit immediately as they return. I want them formed into a CSP under Lieutenant Timmons and ready to launch as quickly as possible.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Barron wasn’t overly worried about the foe Dauntless was facing now. But if another ship came through the portal and launched a fresh strike force while his fighters were still engaged…

  “Captain, I’ve been working on the ID of the Union ship. She’s not broadcasting her beacon, but I’m pretty sure she’s Vaillant, sir.”

  Barron’s head snapped around toward Travis’s station. “How sure are you?”

  Travis turned, and she looked back at Barron. “I can’t confirm it, Captain…but I’m fairly certain.”

  Barron felt his stomach tighten. If Atara Travis said she was ‘fairly certain’, he took it as an abso
lute assurance. And that meant trouble.

  “I want those patrols back aboard as quickly as possible. They are to employ maximum thrust.”

  “Yes, sir.” Travis spun back around, relaying the captain’s orders with her usual quiet efficiency.

  “And Atara…” Barron was still looking toward his exec’s station. “Advise Commander Jamison that his fighters are likely facing veteran squadrons.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Barron took a deep breath. The Union fighter corps had suffered horrendous losses in their invasion of Confederation space and the subsequent battles along the stalemated front, and most of their battleships fielded squadrons almost entirely made up of new trainees. But Vaillant was the pride of the Union fleet, an infamous battleship with a kill record as impressive as Dauntless’s…and her squadrons were among the very best in the Union service.

  Barron’s people were going to have one hell of a fight on their hands…and they hadn’t even reached their destination.

  Chapter Nine

  550,000 kilometers from CFS Dauntless

  System Z-37 (Saverein)

  Inside the Quarantined Zone (“The Badlands”)

  309 AC

  “You’ve got one on your tail, Talon!” Stockton’s voice was raw, testament to just how hard of a fight the Union fighters were giving his squadron. Squadrons. He had the Scarlet Eagles under him right now as well as his own Blues, filling in for a Dirk Timmons who’d been out on patrol when the launch orders had been issued. The Eagles were good, a match for his own Blues, though he’d never have admitted that publicly. But the Union wings they were facing weren’t the usual pushovers. Stockton had become accustomed to racking up multiple kills in each battle, but he hadn’t taken down a single enemy bird yet, and one or two of them had given him a run for it.