Ruins of Empire: Blood on the Stars III Read online

  “I can’t shake him, Raptor!” Corinne “Talon” Steel was one of Stockton’s best, a Blue squadron veteran in every particular. But he could hear the fear in her voice now, the loss of the iron control she usually displayed in combat.

  “Keep moving, Talon…don’t let him get a lock. I’ll be there in a flash.” His eyes dropped to his display. Talon’s ship was more than fifty thousand kilometers from his, and she was blasting hard along a trajectory leading her farther away. “Flash” was an optimistic assessment, he realized. It was going to take him a while to get there…but nobody else was closer.

  “I’ll try, Raptor…but he’s on me like glue…” Stockton heard the waver in her voice, and his stomach clenched. A fighter pilot relied on confidence, on the self-assurance it took to maneuver without hesitation or delay, to make split second decisions. If she lost that…

  “Listen to me, Talon! You’re a Blue squadron ace with seventeen kills, not some wet behind the ears rookie fresh out of flight school. Cut the shit now, and break free of this bastard.” He knew his pilot—and his friend—was in deadly danger, and he felt guilty for yelling at her. But he had to shake her out of the fatalism that was beginning to take hold. He needed the best “Talon” Steele could give him, and he was going to get it out of her, whatever it took.

  He saw a flash on his screen, and, for an instant, he thought Steele’s fighter had been destroyed. But the small blue symbol was still there, the menacing red icon on its tail.

  He took a deep breath and pulled hard on his throttle, slamming the control all the way back. The engines blasted at full, a deafening roar reverberating through his cockpit as 10g slammed into him before the dampeners could absorb any of the force. It felt like a sledgehammer, and he could feel himself slipping toward blackness, his field of vision narrowing as the intense pressure beat relentlessly against him. But Jake Stockton’s fighter was like an extension of his body, and his will was a force to be reckoned with. He struggled against the pain, and he held onto consciousness by pure stubbornness, if nothing else.

  Then, the dampeners kicked in, reducing the effective force beating down against him. He gasped for breath as the pressure receded enough to allow him to expand his lungs. He was still feeling the equivalent of 3g—uncomfortable, but a massive difference from the crushing hell of 10g. His clarity improved, and his recovering eyes locked on his display. Talon was still there, but he knew any second could be her last. Her pursuer was closing, and his deadly laser blasts zipped all around her wildly gyrating ship.

  He could see he’d gotten to her, though, awakened the veteran pilot inside, and incited her pride and confidence to push back against the fear. Her evasive maneuvers were tighter, faster, more random than they had been. She still wasn’t able to break free, but she was giving her tormentor the hardest possible target.

  Stockton was getting closer, and he squeezed his finger tight, firing his lasers as he entered extreme range. A hit from so far out would have been the sheerest stroke of luck. But he wasn’t trying to hit the Union fighter…he was trying to get the enemy flyer’s attention. He was trying to save his friend’s life.

  His ship shook hard. Confederation fighters were state of the art, the most technologically-advanced small craft in space. But they weren’t designed to run at maximum thrust for very long. The fighter’s turbos were for rapid repositioning or for accelerating into an attack or out of immediate danger. Stockton ignored that fact, and he held his throttle tightly, pulled all the way back, his engines screaming as they continued to blast at maximum thrust.

  The whining sound of his lasers echoed through the cockpit as he fired again and again, struggling to break his target’s concentration if not to score a hit at this range. But the Union pilot ignored it and clung to Talon’s fighter, following her, matching her every evasive maneuver.

  Watch this guy, Raptor…this is capable pilot.

  He was tearing through space, right toward the enemy, firing wildly, focused solely on getting the Union ace off Talon’s tail before it was too late. But now he began to realize, a pilot this good could turn about on him. If he wasn’t careful, he’d save Talon by getting himself blasted.

  No…no way. This guy may be good where he comes from, but now it’s time to show him who I am…

  Another blast came close to Talon’s fighter…no, this time it hit. Stockton held his breath for a few seconds, waiting and staring while his scanners updated the display. It looked like one of Talon’s engines was out. Her cockpit seemed intact, and even before he commed her, he could tell from the changes in her vector that she was still in control. But she was never going to make it giving the enemy her back. Not down an engine.

  “Talon, listen to me. On my mark, I want you to blast hard to the starboard…and then pulse your positioning jets and swing around, firing at the bastard. Once you open up, keep firing until I tell you to stop.”

  “Sir?”

  “No questions, just do it!”

  Stockton tapped his throttle, angling his thrust, altering his vector to the other side of the enemy fighter. If Talon did as he’d ordered, they would bracket the Union bird, and they could bring their fire in from two sides. With any luck, it would restrict the enemy’s movement enough for Stockton to blast him.

  “Talon…three, two, one…mark!”

  Stockton angled his controls hard, his own positioning jets moving his thrust vector, applying 10g of acceleration at a sharp angle to his current course. He fired…then again, his laser blasts closing on the enemy. The Union fighter finally reacted to the threat, giving up his pursuit of Talon and spinning around abruptly, sending a volley of laser bolts Stockton’s way.

  He felt the sweat pouring down his neck, the thunderous pounding of his heart in his chest. The enemy’s shots had come close, far closer than he’d expected after such an abrupt change of focus. He’d gotten the bastard off Talon’s tail, but now he was locked in a death struggle himself. And the man or woman in that ship was good. Damned good.

  The two fighters were facing each other, both pilots firing away. There was no time to maneuver for an advantage, no chance to get behind the target. It was a gunfight, a blazing, no holds barred shootout to the finish. Stockton fired again, but his adversary’s evasive maneuvers were as good as his own, and his laser bolts went wide. He’d always had a knack for random zigs and zags, precisely the type of move that confounded targeting computers and pilots alike. But he was facing a foe as unpredictable as he was. And his enemy’s shots had been near misses, dangerously near, despite his own best efforts to present a difficult target.

  Stockton had talked Talon out of her fear, but now he had to admit, to himself at least, he had to face his own. He was used to being the best pilot in any fight. He’d been outnumbered often, of course, and surrounded. He’d faced death more times than he could count. But the idea of falling here, after all he’d been through…of being killed at last by a single Union pilot, it was more than he could accept. For all his words of encouragement to Talon, he was allowing himself to be distracted by his enemy. Images of Stara flashed through his mind, of the pain she would feel when he didn’t return.

  No. This isn’t you. You aren’t a trainee, scared and pissing yourself in the face of the enemy. You aren’t a lovesick fool, either. You’re Raptor, and you’ve sent four dozen Union pilots to the depths of hell.

  Four dozen and one…

  He gripped his throttle tightly, trying to empty his mind, to release the intuition that made him such a deadly warrior. His finger was poised over the firing stud, waiting…waiting. He watched his enemy’s moves, even as he put his own fighter through a stomach-churning series of maneuvers, bursts of thrusts in different directions confounding his enemy’s own targeting.

  He tightened his finger—slowly, steadily. And then the enemy disappeared, the icon winking off his display. He’d been so focused, so intent on battling his foe, he hadn’t noticed Talon coming up from behind.

  He hesitated for a mome
nt, stunned at what had happened. Then he tapped his comm unit. “Nice shooting, Talon.”

  “Thank you, sir!” The pilot, so recently terrified and facing death was excited, pumped up by the kill. “Time to get back into the fight,” she said, her voice again that of a stone cold predator.

  “No,” Stockton replied. “You’ve got an engine out, and this group isn’t the bunch of green pilots the Union usually fields. Get back to Dauntless now.”

  “Commander, I can’t…”

  “Now, Lieutenant. That’s an order. I don’t have time to argue with you. If you go back into this fight with a wounded bird, you’re as good as dead.” His voice came out rougher than he’d intended.

  “Yes, sir,” Talon replied miserably. “Returning to base as ordered, sir.”

  Stockton felt a wave of regret, and his hand went to the comm unit. But he stopped before flipping it back on. There would be time to apologize to Steele later. For now, she was heading back to the ship, and that was where she belonged.

  He told himself he’d ordered her back solely out of concern for the damage to her fighter, for the increased danger she would face against the experienced Union pilots zipping all around. That was true, to an extent…but he had to admit there was something else at play, something he wasn’t very proud of.

  He was relieved so capable an enemy was gone, of course, and proud of his pilot for scoring such an illustrious kill. But part of him was also angry. It was irrational, he knew, a foolish resentment. But he felt as though he’d allowed the kill to slip through his fingers, and he was annoyed his pilot had scored the victory. It was nonsense, and he knew he shouldn’t care who took down an enemy fighter. But Stockton was driven by an almost relentless competitiveness. As much as he knew it was dangerous, he also realized it made him what he was.

  But his ability to focus was as much a part of his essential make up as his unrestrained drive, and now he fell back on that, eyes darting to the display, picking out another target. He still had zero kills, and if there was one thing Jake Stockton was not going to do in a battle this fierce, it was return to Dauntless empty handed. Raptor didn’t whiff.

  And four dozen and one was still out there somewhere…

  * * *

  “Arm defensive batteries…prepare to open fire.” Tyler Barron sat in his command chair, leaning forward. As was often the case, his harness was loose, hanging down from the edge of his chair. It was a violation of regs, of course, but worse, he knew, it was a bad example to set for his people. He reached down and grabbed the strap, pulling it into place and latching it.

  “All batteries armed and ready, sir.”

  Barron had been looking at the main display, the large three-dimensional holographic tank in the center of Dauntless’s bridge. The enormously expensive and complex device was a technological marvel, but he often found the small screen on his workstation easier to follow. And right now, it showed the problem clearly. Barron had deployed his best fighters to screen against enemy bombers. He’d been sure his crack squadrons would obliterate any strike force heading for Dauntless. But his interceptors had been locked in a desperate battle with the enemy’s escort fighters. These were no ordinary Union squadrons, they were veteran formations from the most celebrated ship in the enemy fleet. Vaillant was in many ways the enemy’s counterpart to Dauntless, though, unlike his own aging vessel, the enemy battleship was almost new…and half a million tons heavier.

  He was still confident his people could hold their own, and eventually gain the edge, but they’d been too tied up in the struggle with the enemy interceptors to do a comprehensive job hunting down the bombers. A dozen of the torpedo-armed craft had gotten through and were heading right toward Dauntless. The arrogance of not deploying a defensive patrol was coming back to haunt him.

  “Captain, Lieutenant Timmons reports he has five fighters ready. He requests permission to launch.”

  “Permission granted. He is to launch at once and engage the enemy bombers.” The returned scouts were drawn from different squadrons, and more than half of them were still being refueled and rearmed, but he was just thankful he had something left in the bays to deploy against the rapidly approaching attack force. A force of five fighters was vastly preferable to nothing, and when they were led by an officer like Dirk Timmons…they just might pull him out of the fire.

  He felt the familiar vibration of Dauntless’s launch catapults, and his eyes darted to the screen, checking the range of the approaching bombers. It was close, but Timmons’s people would get off a quick attack. They didn’t have missiles, he knew that much. He hadn’t gotten a specific report to that effect—probably because Timmons didn’t want to risk being ordered to wait for full rearming—but there simply hadn’t been enough time. Five fighters, each with a pair of missiles, might have obliterated the incoming bomber phalanx, but it would be more difficult business with lasers, and far more time consuming. Timmons might take out half of the enemy ships…but even he would never get them all.

  “I want damage control parties ready to go. Advise Commander Fritz, priorities are the primary batteries and the reactors.” Barron knew he would have to close and face Vaillant before this fight was decided. His own bombers were making their attack run on the enemy ship, and the next few minutes would determine if either or both battleships entered that final fight damaged. If he could hang on to his primaries, he had the edge in the fight. If not, it would be bad business, and even if Dauntless was victorious, she’d come out of the battle crippled. And retreat now meant yielding the ancient tech to the Union. That was unthinkable.

  “Commander Fritz reports all engineering stations ready, sir.”

  Barron nodded. Then he looked back to his screen, watching as Timmons’s fighters sliced into the bombers.

  One down…two. Three…

  The fighters were well led, but they were still a collection of pilots from different squadrons. Their formation was loose, and despite Timmons’s best efforts, their attack was disorganized. They took down seven of the bombers, but that still left five heading toward Dauntless.

  The battleship’s guns opened up next, the short-ranged anti-fighter lasers tearing through space toward the deadly craft. One down. Then another. But three more made it to launch range, and their torpedoes lurched forward from their bomb bays.

  “Target those torpedoes,” Barron shouted, but before the words escaped his lips, he saw on the screen that the weapons had already converted to plasmas. The pilots in those bombers were as good as the ones in the enemy interceptors. They’d come in on a line right for Dauntless, traveling at such velocity that their warheads didn’t need to accelerate further.

  “Engines, full thrust port,” Barron shouted. Evasive maneuvers were the last line of defense to protect his ship from the approaching torpedoes.

  “Full thrust port,” Travis snapped back, just as Barron felt the g forces slamming hard into him. The ship was vibrating, the sound of the battleship’s engines almost deafening, even on the bridge, more than three kilometers forward of the main engineering spaces.

  Barron watched as one warhead zipped by, missing Dauntless by less than three hundred meters. Once converted to plasma, the weapons had no ability to exert thrust or alter vectors. He’d dodged that one, at least.

  “Cut thrust now!” he roared, his eyes fixed on another of the incoming warheads.

  “Cutting thrust!”

  The pressure vanished, leaving nothing but the stomach-churning feeling of weightlessness for a few seconds, until the compensators responded and restored the sense of partial gravity to the bridge.

  Dauntless had evaded another of the deadly weapons.

  Barron’s eyes were already fixed on the third, and even as he opened his mouth to shout out a command, he knew he was too late. The ball of superheated plasma was headed right for Dauntless…and there was no time.

  “Secure for impact,” he shouted, but even as he did, the ship shook hard. A shower of sparks flew across the bridge as a
ruptured support beam collapsed, tearing apart a heavy electrical conduit as it did. The stations on one side of the bridge went dark, their flow of power cut.

  The emergency lamps activated, casting an eerie glow across the space.

  Barron was already on his comm, flipping the channel to Fritz’s direct line.

  “What’s it look like, Fritzie?” he snapped, even as he looked around the bridge and realized his ship had taken a bad hit.

  He caught a chemical scent in the air, and the ionized smell of electrical fires through the ventilation ducts.

  His ship had taken a very bad hit…

  Chapter Ten

  CFS Intrepid

  Hystari System

  Sector 3 – “The Front Line”

  309 AC

  “I’m picking up energy readings, Captain. From the Epheseus transwarp link.” Heinrich Nordstrom spoke calmly, without any detectable fear, though everyone on Intrepid knew what lay beyond the Epheseus portal. First was an empty, useless solar system of four rocky planets, barely warmed by the waning light of an ancient star. But one jump beyond was Jellicoe, a former Confederation planet that had been controlled by the Union for three generations…and the current base for one of their major battle fleets.

  “Active scanners on full, Commander.” Captain Sara Eaton sat in her command chair, though “sat” was less than an entirely accurate description of the pose. She had a large cushion—not at all authorized by regs—and she leaned sideways on it, hanging heavily off one side of the seat. She’d been wounded, badly, less than two months after rejoining the fleet, and she’d spent ten weeks in the fleet hospital on Cavenaugh while the surgeons put her back together again from the shattered bits of bone that had been all that remained of her spine.

  She’d only been back on Intrepid for a week, and she felt lucky to be there at all. She’d spent every day in the hospital in a near panic that fleet command would assign a new captain to permanently replace her. She was in good standing, of course, decorated for her role alongside Tyler Barron in destroying the enemy’s Supply One base. They’d have given her another command if she’d lost Intrepid, she didn’t doubt that. But she wasn’t ready to lose her ship, or to leave her crew behind. They had been to hell and back together, and they were her brothers and sisters…and in a way, her children as well.