Shadow Space Chronicles 1: The Fallen Race (43 page)

Kral nodded.  To a normal Chxor, that suicidally brave action would be inexplicable.  He thought he understood it, at least somewhat, now.  “We shall give them, ‘supporting fire,’ I believe is the word.  We must stop them from killing the human prisoners.  Message to all ships, open fire, primary target is the enemy Ship Commander.”

The three dreadnoughts of Force Trojan opened fire.

***

Lucius watched the battle unfold ahead and bit back a curse.  His missiles had plenty of range to the enemy force.  The chance that a single missile might impact the repair base kept his force from engaging.  He watched, throat swelled in pride as ten small mining ships, obviously crewed by men who’d had enough, moved out of the debris field to interdict the oncoming Chxor.

“Get a message to them, tell them they only need hold a little while.  And for God’s sake, tell them Force Trojan is friendly!”

He watched as the first fire left the mining ships.  The mining lasers fired from only a couple thousand kilometers, caused minor damage.  The Chxor retaliated and fired their massive fusion lasers.  One of the light ships vanished and a second spun away to leak air into the void.  Lucius hoped those on board had vac-suits.  Knowing the Chxor, the prisoners kept as slaves probably didn’t.

“I think they’ll realize that, Baron,” Reese said, as Kral’s force opened fire. 

Force Bravo’s screening cruisers lay to the rear of the formation, positioned to interdict fire from Lucius’s force.  The massed fire of three dreadnoughts targeted one ship.  That dreadnought took hit after hit, before it finally vanished into a haze of debris.

“Plot the course of that debris, make sure it’s not headed straight at the station.” Lucius commanded.

“
Should be clear, Baron, the Chxor angled for a firing pass.”

A second dreadnought shuddered suddenly and then the forward end exploded.  “What was that?” Lucius said.

“Looked like it hit something.”

***

Forrest crowed as two hundred thousand tons of rock smacked head-on with one of the lead dreadnoughts.  “I got me a dreadnought, I got me a—“

The ship lurched, and the engineering console exploded.  Alarms blared.  Forrest looked over at Boris.  “Oh, bummer dude.”

Something hit the mining ship.  The whole ship shuddered and a scream of escaping air swirled through the cabin.  Forrest flew out of his chair and slammed against the wall.  Boris threw himself across the cockpit to wrestle with the heavy manual door where he finally threw it closed.

Forrest stared up through the canopy, “Is that what I think?”

Boris looked up, then looked at the dead lights across his panels.  “Da.”

They stared as the aft end of their ship drifted away.

“
Well, shit.”  Forrest looked over at Boris.  “I think we’re done here.  Got a bottle?”

“
Da.  Two.”

***

With the loss of the second dreadnought and their commander, the squadron split its fire between the mining ships and the ships of Force Trojan.  The screening cruisers of Trojan Force stayed in position to deflect that inbound fire.  In this case, the standard Chxor formation worked perfectly.  Two cruisers received moderate damage.

Both enemy Chxor dreadnoughts got badly mauled.  One lost power after only a few minutes more.  The other continued to fire right up until it exploded when one or more of its fusion reactors lost containment.

Lucius breathed a sigh of relief, “Contact the cruisers, order them to surrender or be destroyed.”  If those ships weren’t already in the midst of mutiny, he figured they would surrender.

He looked up and his eyes ranged to Chxor Force Alpha.  All eight dreadnoughts, and ten of the twenty four screening cruisers were gone.  The remaining cruisers lay stretched out over thousands of kilometers of space.  Some of them leaked atmosphere; others, unharmed, drifted without purpose.

“
Launch the Marines to secure the repair base.  Have the shuttles begin recovery operations as soon as they’ve dropped the Marines.”  Lucius said.  “I want every one of those miners saved, every one that survived.”

Only four of the mining ships remained under power.  He didn’t know how many people had just died, but he did know he wanted to be able to personally thank the people who had placed themselves between the other prisoners and the Chxor.

***

“We’ve finished loading the personnel transports, and begun salvaging the base.  Best guess is around eight hundred thousand prisoners of war.  Mostly human, but also some Ghornath, a few thousand Iodans, and even a couple hundred Wrethe,” said Captain Urenski, the commander of the transports they used to evacuate the prisoners.  “Colonel Proscia and Brigadier General Morris have handled security, they’ve got teams aboard all my ships.  Most of the prisoners are too grateful to be out of Chxor hands to make any problems anyway.”

“
How many Chxor captives?” Lucius asked as he turned to Brigadier Morris.  He’d offered Colonel Proscia another promotion, but the Marine argued he wanted to retain his battalion.  Lucius let him win that battle for now, but soon, he knew, the Colonel might get a promotion from necessity.

“
Looks like around seven thousand.  We’ve got them secured in the cargo holds of a couple ships, under guard.  We… uh, failed to capture the base command staff alive.”  The Brigadier looked slightly embarrassed, “Some of the prisoners got to them first.”

Lucius nodded, “Understood.  I’m not sure I want to dissuade people from rebelling against the Chxor.  I’m also not sure I want a policy of killing the bad ones discouraged.”  Lucius shrugged, “Even so, I’d prefer some of them got a trial for their crimes, however apparent their guilt is.”

“Understood, sir.”

“
What about the recovery of the miners?” Lucius asked.

“
That’s been rough, sir.” Captain Doko spoke, “It’s been pretty gruesome, so far.  None of those ships were designed for battle.  Most of the people aboard the ones that took damage are dead.  We’ve found a handful of survivors off a couple, but… we’re finding a lot of people who could have survived if the Chxor just gave a damn about basic safety.”

Lucius nodded.  “How many?”

Captain Doko sighed, “Each of those ships had between eighty and a hundred and twenty crew.  Of the six that were destroyed, we’ve picked up thirty survivors.  I don’t think we’re going to find any more at this point.”

Lucius winced, “I see.”  He let out a ragged sigh.  “Were you able to get names of the dead?”

Captain Doko nodded, “The Chxor kept extremely accurate records on these prisoners.  I take it, they considered all of them troublemakers.  We know exactly who manned what vessels, even if we don’t know what position they held.”  He cleared his throat, “We, uh, also recovered the two men who claim they’re responsible for leading the attack on the dreadnoughts.  One of them claims he threw the asteroid that destroyed the Chxor dreadnought in a collision.”  He coughed slightly, “We found them drunk off home-made alcohol in the cockpit of one of the destroyed mining ships.”

“
That’s…” Lucius found himself at a sudden loss of words.  “Bring them in, I suppose.”

“
Yes, sir, I had them brought on-board already.  I understand they’ve had some time to sober up.”

Two Marines escorted the two men in.  The lead man’s scarecrow appearance startled Lucius.  His gaunt face split in a wide grin and it looked like he did a lot of that.  The man who followed looked like he should have had excess weight, his skin hung loosely off his frame.  A fierce black beard carpeted most of his face.

Lucius held out a hand, “Gentlemen, you saved a lot of people’s lives today.  I want to personally thank you for your efforts, and to tell you that your companions’ sacrifices will not be forgotten.”

The lead man stared at Lucius as if he’d sprouted tentacles.  “Aw bloody hell, all this time in a Chxor prison and a fecking Nova Roman’s gotta be the one to rescue us?”  He turned to his companion.

“Boris, tell me you still got that second bottle.”

***

CHAPTER
XIV

May 2, 2403 Earth Standard Time

Faraday System

United Colonies

“So we’re down to two weeks,” Lucius said.

“
Plus or minus,” Kandergain answered from where she sat at his desk.  “It really depends on how many ships they put together, where they departed from, and a dozen other factors.  And as you know, I’m not omniscient.”

“
I think you mentioned something like that before,” Lucius said, as he stepped behind her and kissed the top of her head.  He inhaled her scent and felt some of his tension leave him.  Seven days after the fight at Melcer, he still had a lot of work to keep on top of.  He also had too many new issues to worry about.

“
How are things with the Saragossan prisoners?” She asked.

Lucius sighed as she mentioned the most painful problem, “Most of them still remain hostile.  There’s a couple, like the one who led those miners on their attack, who seem at least somewhat open to peace.”

“But?”

“
But that leaves thirteen thousand, many of them ex-military, who would love to start a war here.  We’ve had to keep them secured in a separate processing facility and that hasn’t exactly made them more friendly.  We’ve had numerous escape attempts already.”  Lucius shrugged, “I’m tempted to ask the Garu to ship them off somewhere in the Republic.”

“
Might be your best option,” Kandergain said, with a sigh.  “Some bridges can never be repaired.”

“
I just wish I could get through to them that we’re trying for a fresh start,” said Lucius.

“
Give them passage to a different world, and something to start their new life, that might help,” Kandergain said.

“
Yeah.”  He rested his hands on her shoulders and began massaging them.

She laughed, “You’re the tense one, shouldn’t I do that?”

“Just touching you relaxes me.” Lucius said.  It was true enough.

“
Well, in that case—”

The com unit on the table chimed.  Lucius bit back a curse.  He hesitated before pressing the answer button.  Somehow, he knew this would be bad news.

“Yes?”

“
Lucius!” Admiral Mund spoke, “Not interrupting, am I?”

Lucius bit his inner lip, “No of course not.”

“Well then, if you can disentangle yourself from Kandergain, we need you and her up here immediately.”

“
I am not entangled with Kandergain,” Lucius growled.  He heard her chuckle behind him.

She snagged the unit from him, “We didn’t have time, you old goat!” She yelled.

He snagged the phone back, even as he started to prepare, “What’s the crisis this time?”

He froze at Admiral Mund’s next words, “We just detected a Balor force arriving at the edge of the star system.”

“I’m on my way.”

***

“
Any ideas why they’re here two weeks early?”  Aboard the
Patriot,
Lucius and Kandergain stepped into the conference room.  Admirals Mund and Dreyfus had a number of links open and both snapped out commands to officers and ships preparing for battle.

“
They don’t tell me their plans, Lucius.  The two month mark was an estimate.  If the Balor feel you’re a real threat, they might have assembled more quickly than we expected.  Also, they could have played games with their navigation, cut some time off their transit, though it’s harder with their drives.”

He nodded, then looked to the waiting Admirals.  “What’s the weight?” Lucius asked.

“They’re pretty far out,” Admiral Dreyfus hedged.

“
How bad is it?” Lucius said, not liking that answer.

“
Pretty bad.” Admiral Mund admitted.  “They are far out, almost at the system’s Oort cloud.  There’s a lot of junk in this system, so that and the range has made our a mass estimate very rough,” he warned, as Lucius stepped forward to the repeater screen.

“
Six superdreadnoughts?  Thirty capital ships?”

“
We think around half of those are carriers.” Admiral Dreyfus said.  “They don’t have as high a power signature.”

Lucius closed his eyes, “That’s over a thousand of their fighters.  That’s over two thousand two hundred megaton warheads and four thousand sixty megaton warheads,
just in their fighters alone!
”

“
We know.”

He felt Kandergain’s hand on his shoulder, “Focus, Lucius.”

He sighed, “That’s more than we’d expected.” He didn’t have to say it was far more than their most pessimistic plans.  “What are they doing, so far?”

“
Right now, they’re just waiting.” Admiral Dreyfus said.  “Best guess, from looking at the tactical chip you brought back, they’re scanning the system.  We know they’re capable of doing inter-system jumps, though they don’t undertake such actions normally due to difficulty with the calculations.”

Lucius shook his head, still disturbed by that ability.  Human ships couldn’t make a jump through shadow space at any less than a light year without spending a massive time in calculations.  Even then, the accuracy of the jump would be lousy.  Tactically, most considered it impossible.

To the Balor, apparently, it was merely difficult.

“
Very well, they’re gathering data.  I trust all our ships are on standby to minimize emissions?”  At the nods, he relaxed some.  They couldn’t hide the presence of the colony, not if the Balor had the sensors to see it.  They could make it difficult for them to judge the strength and disposition of the United Colonies forces.

“
I’m glad we’ve got the majority of the fleet away from Faraday.”  Lying quiet and distant from the colony, the fleet would be almost invisible, especially in the cluttered star system.

The glaring exception, of course, would be the captured Chxor ships and Emperor Romulus’s forces.  Both forces sat in standby orbits over Faraday.

“OK, if they follow their normal course, then, they’ll send a group of dispersed scouts in, looking for trouble.”  Lucius stared at the map.  “They’ll probably kick off sometime later tonight, maybe early tomorrow morning.”

“
Odds are, they’ll see the Nova Roma forces in orbit.” Lucius nodded at Admiral Mund.  “Since they don’t know for certain about the Dreyfus Fleet,” he looked to Kandergain for confirmation, “we can reasonably expect they’ll think that’s the sum of our forces.”

“
What are you saying?” Admiral Mund said.

“
I’d like to keep our full strength unknown for as long as possible.” Lucius said.  “We can probably clobber the hell out of their scout forces with our full strength, but then they gain the knowledge they want.  If we conceal our full strength until the opportune moment…”

Admiral Dreyfus nodded slowly.  “You want to keep the main body here?”

Lucius nodded, “Any additional forces we use we can move out with maneuvering thrusters, then light up a few thousand kilometers clear of the Fleet.  The Balor will, hopefully, think it’s just a detachment.”  The Fleet lay between the orbits of the unnamed gas giant Lucius had ambushed Kleigh at, and a barren, lifeless rocky planet.  The Faraday colony lay inside the next orbit after, several million kilometers star-wards.

“
So…” Lucius frowned, “We peel off our fast units, to deal with their scouts.  They’ll coalesce into a body to test our strength, and we clobber them… say here.” He pointed at the gas giant.  “That stops them well clear of the colony and won’t give them reason to look here.”

“
You realize if they see us anyway, they can jump in on top of us and fire before we realize they’re here.” Admiral Dreyfus said.

“
Yes.”

“
Oh, good, glad you took that into consideration,” His light tone belied the worry on his face.  Admiral Dreyfus frowned, “So, we’re the backstop, I don’t mind setting out the early fighting, but what’s the overall plan should the worst happen?”

“
The worst?” Lucius asked.

“
He means what happens if you die,” Admiral Mund said, dryly.

“
Ah.”

“
Well, hopefully we drive the scouts back, and then let the main body come in.  Try to pull them towards the main fleet at high speed.”  Lucius frowned, “Get them coming in chasing our faster ships and we might get them moving fast enough they can’t avoid a head on close weapons pass with main body.”

“
That… might work.” Admiral Dreyfus admitted.  “Of course, if they see us in time, they can just alter course and do a quick firing pass outside our range.  Or they could volley all their missiles.”

“
Yeah.” Lucius said.

“
What do I tell the Emperor to do?” Admiral Mund said.

Lucius looked at him.  Despite their best efforts, many of the Nova Roma ships still required significant repairs.  Almost all of them were combat capable, but they were still low on personnel and many had systems in marginal shape at best.  Finally, Lucius shrugged, “Pray.”

***

The
War Shrike,
the
Peregrine
, the
Gebneyr
, and all eight of the Nagri-class battlecruisers, along with three squadrons of destroyers, coasted a hundred thousand kilometers before they lit off their drives and altered course to intercept the largest body of the scouting Balor.

The Balor altered course almost immediately.

Lucius chuckled slightly, “Somewhat arrogant, aren’t they?”  The enemy destroyers, rather than scatter, began to draw closer into a formation.  Clearly they preferred hard data to estimates via sensors.

“
They’ve only been defeated a handful of times.  I’ve never heard of them in this kind of strength.” Kandergain said.  “They must believe it’s impossible for them to lose.”

“
Well, it’s the impossible I get paid for.” Lucius said, then frowned, “Remind me to ask Kate if I actually do get paid.”  Oddly enough, it wasn’t something he’d considered yet.

“
Why don’t we focus on the immediate problem rather than whether you’ll be eating out of the garbage in a month or two?” Kandergain said.

“
Hmmm, yes, definitely remind me to ask her.”  He rapped his fingers on his leg, “Message to all ships, keep the speed down.  Let’s not clue them into the fact we can match their speed with this force.  Well, not until we chase down the survivors.”  Lucius grinned.

“
They’re not the only ones being a little over-confident?” Kandergain asked.

“
Ah.” Lucius shrugged, “That reminds me.”  He opened a channel to broadcast to all of the United Colonies ships.  “Defenders of the United Colonies, this is Baron Lucius Giovanni.  Today, the tyrannical Balor invade our system.  They think that their empire, their race, shall supplant humanity.  They come to destroy our society and to consume our people as food.”

“
Today,” Lucius said, “We take a stand.  Today, we will drive them back.  Today, the Balor will know defeat as never before.”

“
A century from now, your grandchildren will look back on this day and know that everything changed at this time.  They will know that humanity, in its darkest hour, came together and said ‘No!’  They will know this day as the end of fear.”

“
I know of no other place I would rather be.  I know of no other men and women I’d rather stand beside,” Lucius said.  “The Balor, the Chxor, they think we are a doomed race... a fallen race.  Today we are the Champions of Humanity and we’ll prove them wrong.”

***

The two forces closed faster.  Lucius watched the interception force closed up formation.  Lucius put the squadron of Kris-class destroyers out front, with their anti-missile batteries.  He hoped the two Archer destroyer squadrons would help to balance the missile capabilities of the enemy.

He knew his five squadrons of fighters would help some.

Even so, he angled to force the engagement near the gas giant and its moons.  Should the destroyers launch a truly devastating missile launch, they could try to use the planet to cover a withdrawal.

“Launch the fighters,” Lucius said.

The ship thrummed as the twelve fighters launched.  The small craft formed up, to bolster the formation.  A moment later the
War Shrike'
s fighters launched as well.  Lucius watched the sensor data on the enemy firm up, despite the heavy jamming.

“
Looks like three of their Ravager cruisers, and an even dozen Daggers,” Reese said as he massaged data out of the emissions.  “I’ve got sensor lock on all of them.”

Lucius just nodded.  They neared the maximum enemy powered missile envelope at just under six hundred thousand kilometers, if the scout elements carried the heavier missiles.