Finest Hour (The Exiled Fleet Book 3), Page 2

  The surviving ships lurched forward, engines roaring, and made straight for the Orion.

  “Helm!” Price called out. “Get us clear!”

  Gage gripped his console as the ship canted to one side, and a groan from the stressed superstructure carried through the bridge.

  The Orion’s cannons opened fire, striking the prow of the lead Daegon troop carrier and blowing it apart. Another ship charged through the debris and its hull was shredded like a fist punching through glass. The damaged ship faltered and spun end over end as its engines malfunctioned. A broadside from the Ajax blew it into a fireball that flashed out before being snuffed by the void.

  “They’re closing on us,” Price said.

  Gage ignored her and zoomed in on Aidan. His shuttle and escort were circling high over Theni City…and a pack of Daegon fighters were closing on them.

  “Marksman,” Gage said into the open channel. “Marksman, what are you doing? Get into the city’s anti-air envelope now!”

  No response.

  “Brace for impact!” came from a bridge officer.

  The holo tank flashed red and overrode Gage’s control. A wire diagram of his ships appeared, with a red-outlined Daegon ship barreling straight toward it. The Orion’s forward batteries fired in sequence, each plasma bolt striking just below the enemy’s prow and angling it up ever so slightly with each hit.

  The Daegon ship pierced through the ship’s shields and glanced off the upper hull, tearing through a point defense battery. Gage looked out the forward windows and watched the troop carrier rumble past the bridge’s superstructure. The deck shuddered so hard he was almost thrown off his feet.

  Red light flooded the bridge as the Daegon’s engines passed by.

  Damage alerts pulsed in the holo tank, an ugly scar across the top of the Orion’s hull.

  “That was too close,” Price said.

  The troop carrier exploded and a piece of the hull struck the bridge, ripping out the windows and the forward stations. The men and women at their posts didn’t even know what killed them.

  Thorvald was there, pressing Gage to the deck and protecting him with his own body as bits of the hull careened around the command dais.

  “Aidan!” Gage struggled against the Genevan’s grip, but he was pinned. “Get help to the prince!”

  CHAPTER 2

  “If we had the clearance codes, we would’ve given them to you by now!” Marksman yelled into comms net.

  Nick “Freak Show” Wyman rolled his eyes and did another visual scan from his Typhoon’s cockpit. The Cobra squadron, and the shuttle they escorted, were flying racetrack patterns above Theni City, still above the upper atmosphere.

  The flash of a distant ship-to-ship battle made his hand clench against his control stick. Part of him wanted to be in that fight, but another part of him remembered the absolute terror of his last tangle with a Daegon ship, where he’d destroyed a capital ship’s shield emitter through flying best described as “suicidal tendencies” and a series of lucky shots.

  “This is ridiculous,” said his wingman, Betty “Rosy” Ivor. “Indus want to get all formal and proper in the middle of a goddamn invasion? Who the hell do they think they are?” She brought her fighter alongside Wyman’s wingtip and waggled her craft slightly. “Let’s call their bluff and just dive in. Get this over with and get back to the Orion.”

  “We got wounded in the shuttle,” Wyman said. “You think they can take the g’s of a rapid descent?”

  “They don’t have to do a hell dive,” Ivor said. “We can do it and that way Marksman will know the Indus aren’t going to light us up.”

  “Too risky.” Wyman craned his neck around to see explosions from the Daegon invasion fleet. “You really want to piss off the new CO that badly? We just got assigned to the Cobras. Let’s stay off the shit list for a little while, yeah?”

  “You’re no fun,” Ivor said, and her fighter drifted away.

  “No. Nothing to declare!” Marksman shouted. He’d kept dual commo lines open so his squadron could “lean forward in the cockpit” and be ready for the signal to finally escort the shuttle to the spaceport.

  “Got bogies on the scope,” announced Sparks, a pilot on the outer perimeter. “Least a dozen. Coming in fast.”

  Wyman’s heartbeat accelerated and the cold chill of adrenaline hit his system. He double-checked his missile loadout and charge to his plasma cannons. His fighter was loaded for bear, but that proved to be little comfort.

  “Yes, yes, we will submit to customs inspection,” Marksman said. “Now, you going to clear us for descent before these Daegon catch up to us? Because I guarantee they won’t fill out your goddamn forms…you are? You are. Thank you. We’ll be right down.”

  “I’m going to love this planet,” Briar said. “I can tell already.”

  “Cobras,” the squadron commander said, “blue flight with me on escort. Red flight hang back and deal with the Daegon that think we’re an easy target.”

  Wyman’s ears perked up at the order. He was the red flight leader.

  “Go for orbital interdiction or hit them on the way down, sir?” Wyman asked.

  “Our Shrike guidance systems turn to shit in the upper atmosphere,” Marksman said. “Delay them in vacuum and we’ll be low enough to feed them a missile if they catch up to us. But don’t let that happen, Freak Show.”

  “Aye aye.” Wyman banked his fighter around and vectored toward the oncoming Daegon fighters. The teardrop-shaped fighters were mere blips on his HUD, but they were closing fast.

  “Rosy, Sparks, Flame Out, on my wing. Let’s get set for a tilt.”

  “We’re not jousting,” Ivor said. “We’re about to go three-to-one in near vacuum. These are crap odds.”

  “We’ve been through worse.” Wyman linked his targeting computers to the other Typhoons and assigned targets to each. “Watch the edges, boys and girls. These guys can surprise you. Set for full spread, double Shrikes to each bogie.”

  “That’s our whole loadout,” Flame Out said. “The foundry that makes Shrikes is back on Albion and I doubt there’s any fresh munition deliveries on the way.”

  “Just do it,” Wyman said. “Marksman said there’s wounded in that shuttle, but Rosy and I have a bit of experience escorting VIPs. Very VIPs, you get me?”

  Even with their encrypted comms, Wyman didn’t want to voice his suspicion of just who really was on that shuttle.

  “I get you,” Freak Show said. “Target’s locked.”

  Blue bolts from the Daegon fighters snapped past Wyman’s cockpit. He jinked from side to side, confident that the enemy didn’t have a solid bead on him, but that they were shooting just to throw him off. He looked down, and the HUD on his visor showed him where the shuttle and the rest of his squadron were, like he could see through the bottom of his cockpit.

  “Single launch ready,” Wyman said. “Prep for a dead drop soon as we pass.”

  “Are you nuts?” Sparks asked. “We’ve got the range. Just do a—”

  “Launch!” Wyman hit a trigger and a single Shrike sprang off his fuselage. Three more missiles joined it, closing fast on the enemy. He tapped an override command onto his targeting computer, and the grips on the rest of his missiles loosened ever so slightly.

  Thin white beams came off the edge of the Daegon fighters, destroying each of the missiles with ease.

  “Go for guns, and ready drop,” Wyman said, an edge of panic to his words. Swallowing hard, he opened fire. Green plasma pulsed out from under his nose and he rolled to one side, still firing as return fire from the enemy seared his undercarriage. An error alert pinged from one of his missiles and he found himself trying to cancel the firing solution for that Shrike, dodge incoming fire, and ready his attack all at the same time.

  There was a brief cry on the radio, then the Daegon squadron roared past him. He slapped a palm against his targeting panel and all his Shrikes ejected off his fighter. He dove toward the planet, the sudden acceleration pul
ling blood from his head and graying out his vision.

  “Come on, work. Work!” He looked up and saw a dozen starbursts as his flight’s missiles activated. Entering into a dogfight, even in the void, meant hard maneuvers after the initial pass as pilots attempted to come in behind their foes for a kill shot. These sudden turns greatly reduced their forward velocity…and made them easy targets for the missiles he and the other Typhoons had dropped like mines in their wake.

  The Shrikes accelerated at speeds no human pilot could tolerate and destroyed most of the Daegon fighters within seconds.

  Wyman ignored Ivor’s shout of triumph and rapid-fired his plasma cannon along the path of an enemy survivor, throwing up a cloud of bolts in its path. The Daegon did a barrel roll and dodged two of Wyman’s shots, but a third clipped the edge and sent the fighter tumbling end over end.

  Wyman fired again, but his control stick buzzed. His capacitor was spent, and he was defenseless for another good thirty seconds.

  The damaged enemy righted itself and spun its nose toward Wyman. One side of the firing arc traced around the ship’s edge lit up.

  Ivor shot over Wyman’s canopy and destroyed the Daegon with a quick burst.

  “That’s five for me,” she said. “Guess you got an assist on that one.”

  Wyman dove his fighter toward Theni City and checked his scope. No Daegon…but only three Typhoons.

  “Lost Flame Out,” Sparks said. “No ejection. No pilot.”

  Wyman looked up to the void as wisps of clouds carried past his fighter. Traces of burning debris cast lines through the sky as he descended deeper and deeper into the atmosphere. There would be nothing of Flame Out to recover. Nothing to return to his family or properly bury.

  What would remain was doubt—doubt that Wyman could’ve come up with a better plan that would have beaten all the Daegon and kept all four of them alive for the next fight.

  “Roger, keep gun-camera footage intact for graves registration,” Wyman said. “Vector in on Marksman’s beacon. We’ll join up with them at the spaceport…head on swivels. There may be enemy stragglers that made it down.”

  “So who’s in that shuttle?” Sparks asked.

  “Whoever it is, it’s our mission to get them to the ground safe and in one piece,” Wyman said. “We’re not there yet. Mission’s still going. Don’t forget it.”

  “If Flame Out knew,” Ivor said, “he’d know it was worth it.”

  “Oh…” Sparks said. “Oh, that’s who it…never mind. Five by five to the beacon.”

  “Five by five,” Wyman said.

  CHAPTER 3

  Gage stared into the flickering holo tank. Crewmen were already repairing the bridge’s hull, and the sunspot of plasma torches and chatter at the gash were the only other signs of activity around him. He’d sent Price and the rest of the survivors to the auxiliary bridge while he readied for what he anticipated would be a difficult discussion.

  The last of the Daegon ships had been destroyed nearly half an hour ago, but Admiral Chadda and the rest of New Madras were scrambling to contain the Daegon troops landing at Punam, the city on the coast. The isthmus had been sealed off in short order; it seemed the Indus ground troops were better organized than the void forces. This didn’t surprise Gage as the citizens were of the Neo Sikh faith and more militant that the average Indus.

  From what Gage could glean from the New Madras interlink, the official story was of a great victory in orbit, and a minor incursion to the ground that would be eliminated shortly. Gage had his doubts about that, but he had his own problems to worry about.

  Through the gap, he could see the long scar across the Orion’s hull. The entire top deck had lost pressure and the casualty list grew longer every time he looked at it. Turrets annihilated. Torpedo tubes destroyed. At least they’d all been empty when the Daegon ship had tried to ram her, else the accidental detonation would have made the damage even worse.

  Captains from the rest of the fleet appeared in the holo. All looked tired, strung out from the extended nightmare that had been the retreat from Siam and the pursuit by the Daegon through the Kigeli Nebula.

  “11th,” Gage said. “Albion’s light burns. You’ve all done well today.”

  “How is the Orion?” asked Vult of the battle cruiser Ajax. “Do you need to transfer the flag?”

  “The damage looks worse than it really is.” Gage’s jaw worked from side to side, as if the half-truth left a bad taste in his mouth. “Damage control estimates all systems will be back online within the hour. Replacement components are already being fabricated aboard the Helga.”

  “And what exactly are we still doing here?” asked Arlyss of the Renown, a hint of derision to his tone. “New Madras clearly isn’t a safe harbor for us—treaty with the Indus or not. There is a plan, isn’t there, Commodore?”

  Erskine, the captain of the Valiant gave Arlyss a dirty look.

  “The nav buoys linking New Madras to Vishuddha and Cathay Dynasty space were destroyed before we arrived,” Gage said. “It will take at least two weeks of constant Ashtekar particle survey before any ship can enter slip space.”

  “Then we do a hard bore to Vishuddha,” Arlyss said. “The Daegon can’t touch us in slip space and—”

  “Eight months,” Gage snapped. “Eight months it’ll take us to do a hard bore to Vishuddha. Thirteen to Lantau in Cathay space. Other systems that are closer are already under Daegon control. None of our ships can spend that much time in slip space, not with the damage we’ve taken. We’re supplied to do hard bores from Albion to our colonies. The most we were ever meant to move beyond our supply chain is three weeks. And as you have figured out by now,” he glanced at Arlyss, “this is as far as we can go until a proper course through slip space can be charted. The path back to the Kigeli Nebula has collapsed, not that I think any of us want to go back there.”

  “Then what are your orders, Commodore?” Vult asked.

  “Turn to, make ready for battle,” Gage said. “I want a full readiness workup from every ship in the next three hours. Priorities to the Helga’s foundries will be assigned and then we’ll cross-level crews as needed.” He raised a hand as the captains stirred. “As needed. I know every ship is shorthanded right now, but I need every warship on the line that I can get. I don’t know when the Daegon will return, but what we just fought was a recon force. They’ll be back, sooner than any of us would like and with enough force to take the entire planet. At least that’s what I would do if I were the Daegon and had just sacrificed so many ships and lives.”

  “They’ll likely know we’re here,” Vult said.

  “Yes. Perhaps the beating we just gave them in the Kigeli will make them think twice about attacking us here—here with a sizable Indus navy at our side,” He half smiled, almost believing his feigned confidence.

  “And the Indus are still our erstwhile allies?” Arlyss asked. “They’ve been…flaky in the past.”

  “Leave the Indus to me. The rest of you worry about your ships. Stay on close alert until further notice. We don’t know when—or where—the Daegon will return. Albion’s light—”

  “The Crown Prince,” Arlyss interjected just as Gage was about to close out. “Where is Prince Aidan?”

  Gage’s grip tightened on the console, his anger rising. “The prince is safe. We will leave it at that.” Gage tapped a key and muted Arlyss, who continued talking. “If there is nothing else?”

  Arlyss, visibly agitated, raised a finger next to his face as his mouth moved but no one heard him.

  “Next meeting in three hours for ship status update. Albion’s light burns.” Gage ended the conference. The holo switched back to an orbital view of New Madras. Red icons marked where a ground battle raged at Punam, a few hundred miles from Theni City where Aidan had landed not too long ago.

  The city—and the Albion embassy there—was the safest place for the boy, Gage told himself. The Orion had come so close to being lost…the city had to be the best place for Aidan.
Even though there’d been a close call on the way down.

  He looked over to the wounded bridge and shook his head. There was no perfect solution. All he had were the decisions he could make and the consequences that followed, intended or not.

  ****

  Clouds surrounded Wyman’s fighter in an endless gray as his and the other two Typhoons descended on Theni City. Sunlike glows from their engines marked their positions as turbulence rattled his cockpit.

  “Scope’s clear,” Ivor said. “Least something’s going right for a change.”

  “You just jinxed us,” Sparks said. “We’re going to land and the locals will shoot us on sight because we look like Daegon.”

  “I heard the Daegon—the real ones, not their infiltrators—have blue or green skin,” Ivor said.

  “Where’d you hear that nonsense?” Wyman asked as his HUD pinged with a new flight plan from Marksman. He frowned as the new route was to fly several circuits over Theni City before landing at Bathinda Spaceport. There was a large no-fly zone over the center of the city and the route had them skirting too close to the zone for his taste…and the change struck him as entirely unnecessary.

  “Clarke told me,” Ivor said. “He’s on the bridge staff and he saw the Commodore talking to one of the Daegon in the holo tanks and…blue skin. Then Darren in sick bay saw the gene profile of the steward that poisoned all the captains and—”

  “Stow the scuttlebutt, Rosy,” Wyman said. “We’ve got a new flight plan. Sending it now.”

  “Does Marksman know we’re running on fumes?” Sparks asked. “I’ve got three shots left in my magazines before I’m down to using passive-aggressive flying and rude hand gestures against the Daegon.”

  “Show the flag,” Wyman said. “Altitudes not much higher than the drone ceiling for the city. We’re meant to be seen.”

  They broke through the cloud cover and Wyman did a double take at the expanse of Theni City. The urban sprawl stretched for miles between two snow-covered mountain ranges, far larger and far more densely packed than any city on Albion. They banked onto their flight path and went right over the wide circular plane of Bathinda Spaceport, itself ringed by defenses and a tall circular wall.