The colossus, p.26
The Colossus, page 26
part #12 of Blood on the Stars Series
In the end, it hadn’t even been close. Every one of the incoming ships had been wiped out before a single one had reached effective detonation range.
Still, Ilius didn’t intend to take any chances. He had his share of bitterness against the enemy after the losses of six years of endless struggle, but he’d come to respect them as well. The Hegemony was close to victory, it had brought overwhelming strength to bear.
But the Rimdwellers were not defeated, not yet.
“We’re receiving a transmission from the enemy flagship, Commander.”
Ilius’s head snapped around abruptly. A communique? That was a surprise.
“On my line, Hectoron.” He put his hand to the side of his head, checking to ensure that the earpiece was snuggly in place, just as the words began.
“This is Admiral Tyler Barron, commanding the fleet of the Grand Alliance. This communique is directed at the Hegemony supreme commander or any other officers with authority to discuss the peace terms previously provided.”
Ilius listened, his suspicion growing with every word. The Rimdwellers, at least their military commanders, had remained intractable, unwavering in their dedication to drive the Hegemony from he Rim at all costs. There was something about the transmission he didn’t like, something wrong somehow.
Still, they have to realize they are beaten, that Colossus is stronger than anything they’ve got to face it. Even the greatest warrior knows when the fight is over, when more death and destruction can serve no purpose.
That all made sense, and he’d long known the day might come, the moment when the Rim finally capitulated. That was the true purpose of Colossus, the primary goal of his mission. It was why the great warship had been held back, why it hadn’t turned its enormous guns on inhabited worlds. Why Chronos had allowed the Rim fleet to escape after the last fight.
The Hegemony was there to bring the Rimdwellers back into the fold, to protect them, lead them to an enlightened future, not to destroy them. But now that the very goal of his mission seemed to be in reach, he found it difficult to accept.
He tapped his earpiece, pausing the playback. “All scanners on full power, Hectoron. Frequency regulation targeted to detect radioactives. I want the slightest contact reported, I don’t care if it’s a meteor the size of my fist.” He’d be damned if he was going to let the enemy slip another bombing strike past him. Colossus was huge, but a small escort ship packed with high-yield nukes was a threat, even to the monstrous vessel. If he let it get close enough.
“Yes, Commander.”
Ilius restarted the comm unit. He listened as Tyler Barron spoke, and the words pouring out into his ears startled him, even more than the initial transmission itself had. Barron was reading off the terms of the peace proposal the Hegemony had offered. Then he began stating counter-positions, proposed changes to the treaty that might end the terrible war on the Rim.
Tyler Barron was negotiating terms of surrender.
Ilius had been skeptical of the chance the Rim would yield, even faced with the might of Colossus, and when a capitulation finally occurred, he expected it to come from the political leaders, probably over the objections of Barron and his officers. Or after the Rim military forced had been smashed into oblivion.
Tyler Barron had been an intractable enemy, a military genius who’d found one way after another to counter everything the Hegemony had thrown at the Rim. If he was beaten, perhaps the war was near its end.
Ilius let himself believe that, for a few seconds. But something still didn’t feel right. He found himself strangely disappointed to think that Barron had been broken…and then he began to doubt it entirely.
Why would he be talking surrender terms? Is he really beaten? Or is he planning something?
* * *
Jake Stockton sat in the cockpit of his fighter, waiting for the orders. He was nervous, edgy, as he always was before a combat launch, and he could feel the familiar moistness of perspiration under his survival suit. Stockton was a cold, focused veteran, but he wasn’t a robot. He was tense and scared, as anyone would be. As every pilot under his command no doubt was.
Still, despite the familiarity, the memories of similar situations, there was something different to what he felt. There was a finality to it this time, a sense that the battle about to begin might very well be the final struggle. He was anxious, too, twitching in his seat as he awaited the final launch orders.
One thing was missing. Stockton usually had an eagerness to get into the fight, and urgency born of his deep confidence in himself, and in his people. That wasn’t there this time, at least not to the extent it usually was. He knew his pilots would fight hard, but didn’t have any real hope of victory remaining. Even if his people obliterated the ranks of the enemy fighters, his bomber force was a fraction of what it had been…and the fleet had never faced a more overpowering enemy.
If, through some miracle, Admiral Winters’s desperate operation succeeded, if Colossus was destroyed, that still wouldn’t win the war…it would just leave the Confederation back where it was, facing the full might and power of the main Hegemony fleet, and it would do so minus whatever ships it lost defeating the massive superbattleship. Any future conflicts would take place in the new reality, where the Hegemony fielded its own fighter squadrons, where huge waves of bombers could no longer move unescorted against the enemy battle line. Even if Colossus housed the only Hegemony squadrons at the moment, there was no doubt that would change if the war continued.
Whatever happened in the coming hours, the monopoly his people had possessed in small craft was already gone. Tactical reality would revert back to past norms, with interceptors engaging in massive dogfights, struggling to open the way for focused and targeted bombing runs. The bombers, vastly fewer in number, would deliver a fraction of the ordnance they once had, and they would still have to face ever-improving Hegemony point defense arrays.
The vast bombing attacks of the war that had been so central to the Rim’s survival were a thing of the past, and even at their best, they had only served to create a kind of shaky stalemate.
Stockton knew he had to find a way. A way to keep training his people to fight enemy fighters. A way to make much smaller bombing attacks succeed. A way to do his part to stave off defeat.
Assuming he survived the day. That seemed a questionable enough proposition as he looked at his screen, then projecting a copy of Dauntless’s main scanner feed.
Stockton’s mind raced, trying to think of anything he might have forgotten. But there was nothing. He had done all he could to prepare his people. He’d put every pilot who’d been around long enough to have dogfighting experience in an interceptor, and he’d relentlessly drilled the others, the ones who had never engaged in fighter versus fighter duels. It was far from perfect, but if it came down to a full-scale battle between strike forces, as it looked like it was going to, Stockton’s people would be far readier than they had been at Santara.
His eyes caught a flashing light on the edge of his screen. A fighter showing as active and occupied, one of the spares not on the launch roster. He reached down to his controls, about to activate the comm unit, when the mysterious new pilot beat him to it.
“Captain Federov reporting for duty, Admiral.”
Stockton was surprised. Federov was still in sickbay, at least she was supposed to be. “Captain, what are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be in the infirmary?”
“I’m fine…and I figured you could use every bit of help you could get, Admiral. A quick check of the flight database told me you had more ships than pilots. I can push that back toward balance, at least by one.”
Stockton could hear the fatigue in her voice, and the pain he knew she still felt. By any reasonable measure, she wasn’t fit for duty, and he almost ordered her out of the ship immediately.
Almost.
Then, he put himself in her place, imagined how he would feel sitting in a hospital bed while all of his comrades launched for what very well might be the final battle. He wanted to tell her to stay. He wanted her to be safe, to keep her from the rigors of battle, at least until she was truly recovered.
But he couldn’t do it.
She wouldn’t be safe anywhere, not even in sickbay, and at least in her fighter, she could play a role in what happened. He couldn’t deny her that. To Stockton, such a thing was a basic right.
“Welcome back, Captain Federov.” The words fought him as he spoke them, but got them out anyway. Anya Federov deserved to launch with the strike force, and whatever his personal feelings, his fear for his friend, he couldn’t stop her.
He wouldn’t.
“Take command of your old wing, Captain. The formation is still mostly intact, if smaller than they were.” Then he paused, and a dark smile crept onto his face, grim yet also appreciative. “It’s good to have you back, Olya.”
Back where you belong…
* * *
“The terms offered already represent significant concessions on the part of the Hegemony. While I am gratified at your interest in seeking an end to the terrible hostilities that have engulfed our peoples, I must decline your requested modifications and insist that the terms be accepted as presented.”
Tyler Barron sat in his chair, listening to the response from Colossus. The officer’s tone was patrician, clearly someone who’d lived his entire life at or near the pinnacles of power. Barron recognized it well, and he saw in it a familiarity to his own life as the descendant of the Confederation’s greatest hero. The man speaking was used to being obeyed, yet his words were gentle, his refusal firm, but soft in some ways as well.
They really mean it…they want us to accept their terms. Still, despite the refusal he’d just heard, he suspected the Hegemony would negotiate further, that they would offer some concessions as part of true peace talks.
The only problem with that was, they were going to have to march over Tyler Barron’s broken body before his people accepted any kind of surrender, no matter how softened it was or how dressed up with pointless frivolities. His strength had wavered, his body and spirit nearing the end of their endurance. But such things had brought him farther from yielding, not closer. He had lost too much, and he wasn’t sure he even knew how to look ahead to the rest of his life, even if the Hegemony forces withdrew and left the Rim unmolested. He’d truly begun to wonder if there was any real end to the nightmare for him, save the death in battle he seemed born to meet.
He was a trapped animal, and he wondered if Hegemonic lore had any fables about such a beast.
Still, it served his purposes for them to believe—or even suspect—that he might be serious. That his people were ready to surrender, that they were simply trying to save face before they did. He needed their attention diverted from Winters’s ships, and their refusal of his modified terms gave him just what he needed.
What the hell would you have done if they’d accepted?
He looked up at the display. There were shadowy gray ovals, symbols representing the projected positions of Winter’s troop ships. The AI was displaying them where the schedule showed they should be, but the fleet’s scanners hadn’t picked up a sign of any of them since they’d moved out toward Colossus.
That was crucial, of course. If Dauntless’s scanners had picked the ships up, there was no doubt Colossus’s would have, too. They still might. They’re better than yours…
If the enemy behemoth detected so much as a hint that Winters’s ships were there, the whole plan was shot. Those transports needed to reach Colossus, and they needed to force board before whatever Kriegeri were inside that thing could react and repel them at their points of entry. Whatever chance Rogan and his Marines had depended on surprise…and on Andi being correct about reduced Hegemony crew levels. Colossus could carry a million ground troops, Barron had figured, maybe more. If the enemy had managed to place even a fraction of that number aboard, Rogan’s Marines wouldn’t last more than a few minutes, even if they made it onboard.
He sat and listened as the voice continued, sounding very much like a combat officer trying to act like a diplomat. He sympathized, deep on some involuntary level, with his counterpart. Barron was no diplomat either, and largely, he despised the breed. He fancied his adversary felt much the same, and he could hear the discomfort in the otherwise cold and confident voice.
His mind dredged up some old and lost lines, scraps of something very ancient and mostly lost that he’d once read. If he and I had met by some old ancient inn…
He felt anger, at himself, at the thoughts in his head, the feelings of familiarity, of understanding toward his enemy. He preferred the cold simplicity of hatred, yet the voice in his ears sounded entirely too reasonable, too honorable.
He’d come to grasp at the threads of the cause of the conflict, to understand, that the Hegemony’s motivations, in their own way, were as principled as his, at least from their perspective. He’d tried to resist such thoughts, but they had proven to be as stubborn as they were pointless. He would never yield, and seeing his enemy as human, even as honorable after a fashion, offered him nothing. Better to battle monsters, to kill barely human savages drunk on destruction and conquest. Fewer ghosts haunting his sleep.
Still, reasonable or not, honorable or not…his adversary had given him what he needed. Now, he would give them something to think about, something other than the dozen troopships even then creeping forward, their power systems at minimal levels, their velocities slow, their stealth units working as well as Anya Fritz’s fine tuning had allowed.
Here’s something to divert your attention…
He tapped his headset, and he pulled the small microphone around, in front of his mouth. He wanted his enemy to hear every word he said.
“I regret that you have rejected our offer of a peaceful resolution. Your position leaves us no alternative, no choice but to continue the struggle to repel your invasion from the Rim.” He cut the line, and then he turned toward Atara.
“Admiral Travis, all fighter wings are to launch at once.”
“Yes, sir.” Travis hesitated for just a few seconds, a shared glance between two old friends, about to go once more into battle together. Then she turned and relayed the command to flight control. A few seconds later, gentle vibrations marked the launch of Dauntless’s squadrons, and the display began to fill with the hazy clouds of massed fighter formations, as a hundred battleships sent their wings forth into the fight.
Barron took a few deep breaths, watching as Stockton’s people, all that remained of the mighty strike force that had fought so courageously through six years of war, set out toward Colossus. But that wasn’t all he had to distract the enemy.
It was time to go all in, to bet everything.
“Alright, Atara…I think it’s time. Fleet order, all battleships are to move forward toward Colossus.”
“Yes, sir,” came the instant reply, sharp with aggression and defiance. A moment later, after the relayed command had reached the ships spread out over nearly five light seconds of space and their acknowledgements had returned, she turned back toward Barron and simply nodded.
Barron could see the immensity of the battle line, the combined might of the Rim, moving forward.
It looked like a grand attack, a great battle unfolding, but it was all a ruse, a distraction, designed only to draw the enemy’s attention away from Winters’s handful of ships. Barron had no idea if it would work, if the enemy would be distracted, and even if they were, if the great battleships of the Rim would be able to pull away in time, before Colossus blasted them to scrap. But whatever lay just ahead, whatever realities would determine the outcome, there was one thought in Barron’s head, one realization that tore through the fear and gloom like a razor.
Damn, it was a beautiful sight. All the power he’d been able to muster, moving forward, the greatest fleet the Rim had ever seen, advancing as one. Former neighbors, enemies, come together as allies to face the enemy. Kat Rigellus’s people were here, massed and ready for battle. His enemy from so many years past, the one whose defeat and death still plagued him. She was there, somehow…there with her people. It didn’t make sense, but somehow, he believed it.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Colossus
Lyra System
Year of Renewal 266 (321 AC)
Ilius was transfixed by what he saw on the display. The Rim fleet, all of it, advancing directly toward Colossus, and in the forefront of the formation, the fighter squadrons, formed up in successive lines, bombers following interceptors. It had all happened very quickly, and he was still trying to comprehend what was happening. He’d no sooner rejected the changes the Rimdwellers had requested in the terms than they’d cut off discussions and formed up to attack.
It was aggressive, wildly so for a force that had moments before been discussing surrender. He wondered at what was happening inside the enemy command ships, the discussions, the debates. The arguments. He’d been stunned when the enemy had even responded to the terms they’d been offered. He knew why Chronos had extended them, and why the commander had at least hoped they would elicit a response, but he had expected nothing but silence. The Rimdwellers were a lot of things, some of them admirable, some less so, but they’d always fought like cornered wildcats, and the idea of them surrendering, even with terms that softened the sting of capitulation, seemed unlikely to him, at least while they maintained forces under arms. He’d been sure Colossus and the rest of he invasion force would have to obliterate their military, crush their ability, if not their will, to resist…but he hadn’t expected that fight to come so soon, so abruptly.
His mind raced. Had the Rim militaries been compelled to explore surrender by their civilian leaders? The politicians who ran the Confederation, and no doubt the other Rim polities, seemed to show considerably less will than the soldiers and spacers, especially toward terms that ensured their continued comfort and some degree of authority and perceived power. Had the modifications the enemy had proposed been some kind of compromise, and were the commanders now taking advantage of the Hegemony refusal to launch an attack before their political masters could restrain them?
