Shadows of the Gods: Crimson Worlds Refugees II (19 page)

I do not believe it is coincidence that the enemy has now advanced from each of the warp gates in this system, save the one we entered from. At the very least, we were discovered here, and the First Imperium forces were able to move from unknown locations to approach from multiple entry points. However, I believe the situation is far graver than that. I have no proof, no evidence of any substance, but I now believe the enemy has known where we were for some time, that they have been organizing their forces, awaiting the right moment to strike here. If this is the case, I confide in you that I have no idea what course to pursue, what actions to take to try and extricate ourselves from something that feels like a rapidly closing trap. We must extricate the fleet from X56 for certain, though I now question if this will serve any purpose save to delay the final combat. Nevertheless, we must try to escape the enemy, at least for a time.

Your mission is of vital importance. You must destroy the enemy forces that have already transited through the X57 gate. If you are able to do so before additional units appear, you are to button up your people in the tanks and follow the fleet to X54 at maximum speed. However, if additional First Imperium forces transit through the warp gate before the rest of the fleet has left the system, you must remain in place and hold them back…at all costs. We must have time to withdraw the rest of our ships. Nothing can interfere with that.

You have my utmost respect, as do the men and women who serve under you, and I assure you that all of our thoughts will be with you as you enter battle…and we shall look ahead with confidence to your safe return.

Flag Bridge

AS Saratoga

X56 System – Near the X57 warp gate

The Fleet: 134 ships, 30,177 crew

“All ships, fire!” Erica West stood next to her chair, deep within
Saratoga’s
massive bulk. The flag bridge was about as deep inside the ship as a location could be, save for the reactors…better protected even than the main bridge, where Captain Black ran the mighty battleship. Still, she could feel the great battleship shake to its girders every time the First Imperium lasers slammed into her. The enemy weapons were longer-ranged, and West and her people had no choice but to sit and take it. Until now.

“Yes, Admiral.” A moment later: “All ships report engaged.” Hank Krantz had been West’s tactical officer for a long time, almost since the day she’d taken command of her first task force. That had been years before, and the enemy then had been the CAC and the Caliphate, not the First Imperium.

She stared at the display, her eyes fixed on the enemy formation. It was a moderate force—eighteen Gremlins and four of the larger Gargoyles, not much stronger than the fleet that had come through the X58 warp gate and engaged John Duke and his people. West expected more enemy ships to come pouring through any minute, but so far she still faced the same twenty-two ships.

She could feel the vibrations under her feet as the reactors operated a few points over one hundred percent power, feeding energy into the massive x-ray lasers.
Saratoga
was one of the Alliance’s largest class of battleships, its nearly two kilometer hull bristling with the strongest weapons developed by man. And she was pouring everything she had hotter than a candle into the First Imperium line.

Her ships had taken damage from the enemy’s missile barrage as well, an attack they had also been forced to endure without returning the fire. The fleet had expended the last of its missiles six months before in X18, and despite a full scale effort to ramp up production, supplies were still very low…and
Saratoga
and her fellow ships had none at all.

West had only lost two vessels outright in the barrage, a CAC destroyer and a PRC frigate, but there was widespread damage throughout her forces. Even
Saratoga
had seen one of its heavy laser cannons knocked out, along with half a dozen minor systems. Still, all things considered, they’d gotten off light. She knew it could have been worse. Much worse.

She could see the two big ovals on the screen, her battleships positioned right next to each other, pouring fire into the heart of the enemy formation.
Conde
was smaller than
Saratoga
, and she didn’t pack as much of a punch, but the older battlewagon was the second strongest thing she had…even if she was a Europan ship.

West was as skilled a tactician as anyone in the fleet, rivaling even Compton, but she struggled with diplomacy and the realities of making a multinational force like the fleet function. It took a constant effort to hold her tongue, and even then some things slipped out that shouldn’t.

She didn’t think much of the Europan navy, and when she wasn’t keeping her mouth shut, she tended to speak her mind in full. And she hated Gregoire Peltier with a raging passion. She blamed the Europan admiral for his part in the mutiny, and she’d bristled with rage when Compton had pardoned him and the others. To her, treachery was unforgivable, regardless of the situation. She knew that wasn’t practical, that Compton’s way had almost surely been best for the fleet’s chances of survival. But she was what she was, and there wasn’t a doubt in her mind, if it had been her decision, Peltier would have been spaced for mutiny. And if the rest of the Europans didn’t like it, there was plenty of room in the airlock.

“Admiral,
Conde
reports heavy damage. One of her reactors scragged, and Captain Trevian has the other operating at one hundred ten percent.”

West nodded. “Very well, Commander.” She had to admit that, despite her prejudices, Trevian was impressing her in the way he fought his ship. The Europan navy was riddled with nepotism and cronyism, with far too many well-connected types putting in a few years carrying commissions they didn’t rate before returning back to Earth and the political offices their families controlled. And she felt officers like that were even more useless—and dangerous—with a formation like the fleet. There was no room in her view for privileged elites seeking to maintain their perquisites, not when you were trapped deep in enemy space, facing possible destruction at every turn.

Still, Trevian seemed to be one of the good ones. She would have expected a Europan captain to use a damaged reactor as an excuse to pull back from the line, but there hadn’t been a whisper from
Conde’s
bridge. Indeed, Trevian had responded by cranking up his working reactor to dangerous levels to keep his ship in the fight. She didn’t know his background offhand, but she made a note to herself to check when she had time…assuming any of them made it out of this system, of course. She was beginning to suspect he was one of the minority of Europan officers who had risen through the ranks based on merit and not influence. Either that, or he was that even rarer beast, the scion of an entitled family who possessed genuine talent and dedication to his duty.

Her eyes shifted to the side, watching her display. Whatever made Trevian tick, she didn’t have time to worry about it now. She had bigger problems…over a hundred fighters heading back to her two capital ships, far more than their normal capacity. And if she didn’t get them landed somehow—in the middle of this battle, no less—they were going to start running out of fuel and life support.

“Commander,” she said, pausing for a second while her eyes locked on the cluster of tiny symbols approaching the fleet, “inquire about the status of
Conde’s
landing bays. We’ve got the whole strike force heading our way critical on fuel, and we’re going to have to figure out some way to accommodate them all.”

“Yes, Admiral. Immediately.”

She turned her eyes back to the display, and she felt a wave of excitement when she saw that two more of the enemy ships were gone, one of them a Gargoyle. While she was watching, a third First Imperium ship winked out…the victim of
Conde’s
continued fire.

“Admiral, Captain Trevian reports that his bays are moderately damaged, but at present he believes he can land fighters.”

“Very well, Commander.” She felt a wave of relief.
Saratoga’s
bays were still operational, but they didn’t have nearly enough capacity to handle all of Hurley’s people. And she damned well had no intention of letting those crews float helplessly in space until their fuel and life support gave out. No, whatever she had to do…she would do it.

Saratoga
shook hard again, another hit. Then another. Her ship was big…and durable. But she knew it could only take so much punishment. A quick glance confirmed the bays were still operational, and the reactors were still at over ninety percent. But she’d lost two of her big laser cannons, and that was a significant bite out of
Saratoga’s
firepower.

She glanced down toward her display, her fingers reaching out, punching up the latest damage figures.
No
, she thought to herself…
let Davis Black run his ship, and you do your own job
. Black was one of the best ship captains in the fleet, and she knew she was lucky to have him.

She flipped the switch on her com unit, dialing up Admiral Hurley’s line. “Greta,” she said, “You have to get your people landed…burn the last vapors you’ve got, but get here. I’m not sure how long these landing bays are going to hold up.”

She took a deep breath, and waited for a reply. Hurley’s squadrons were still four light seconds out…and the eight or ten seconds she had to wait for a reply seemed like an eternity.

Come on, Greta…get those birds here…

*    *    *

Compton lay still, feeling as if he was simultaneously floating and being crushed. He’d been half a century in space now, fought dozens of battles, yet he’d never truly gotten used to the misery of the acceleration tanks. He hated every minute of it, laying in the thick, viscous liquid, his body bloated and uncomfortable from the cocktail of drugs that enabled him to endure 30g or more of acceleration. But most of all he detested the disorientation the pressure and the injections caused. It was bad enough under any circumstances, but when his people were in combat it was maddening to lie there, wondering if your senses were true, if you were following the actual battle or simply hallucinating. And Compton knew when he made mistakes, people died.

He’d always avoided high gee maneuvers whenever possible, planning his battles around them when he could. He hated them personally, but most of all he knew they were hard on the crews…and they degraded efficiency terribly. But now there was no choice. The enemy had come through two of the system’s three warp gates…and they could push larger forces into the system at any time. He needed to get the fleet out of X56, as quickly as possible, back the way they had come.

He moved his left index finger, scrolling along the small display over his head. It was far from the ideal setup to monitor the fleet, especially when he had forces dispatched all over the system, but it was all he had. He’d centered the screen on West’s fleet, and he could see her ships lined up, facing the enemy at point blank range. There were nineteen icons…that meant she’d lost three ships so far, though Compton knew he was looking across almost twenty light minutes…and with the two sides practically stopped in space blasting away at each other, that was a long time. He could only imagine how many more of his spacers had died in twenty minutes.

He stared at the display, struggling to focus, losing track of how many times he’d had the same thought. For all the hundreds, probably thousands, of hours he’d spent in the tanks in his long career, his mind still fought to stay on point, to fight off the daydreams, to keep his decision-making as sharp as possible. And despite those efforts and the impressive discipline that always drove him, he still found himself struggling for minutes on end with a single thought.

What should I do now? Do I stay in X54, hold the fleet in place and wait for the detachments to return…if they return? What if the enemy sends more ships in after we’ve transited? How will I even know if any of the rearguards are still alive?

His thoughts went in circles, first rejecting the notion of moving on without the rest of his people…then realizing waiting would put the fleet in greater jeopardy. And the landing parties…what should be do about them? Should he withdraw all the way back to X48, take up defensive positions around the planet and wait for their mission to be complete? Or would he only put the expedition in greater danger, leading the enemy back to them? Should he race back and pick them up now…and abort the planting effort? That might be the safest option in the extreme short term, but it would also condemn thousands of his people to starvation.

He could move through an unexplored warp gate too, try to break out into clear space before he fell back to X48. That way, if the enemy followed him, he would lead them away and not toward the expedition. X53 seemed a likely choice. There was a virgin gate leading there from X54, one not too far from the X56-X54 portal his people were blasting toward now. They could make the jump back to X54 and then to X53 in less than eight hours. The only alternative was to continue back into X51 the way they had come. And X51 was a transit system, with just two discovered gates…the one from X54 and the one to X49, where they’d originally come from. And that was just one jump from X48 and the expedition.

But if he transited to X53, he risked getting cut off from X48, running into more enemy forces. And if the fleet got trapped in X53, unable to fight its way back into X51, he wouldn’t be able to get back and retrieve the expedition.

He reached out with his left hand, pressing the button for another stimulant injection. He’d already had three, and he was moving quickly into the danger zone, but there was no choice. He simply had to retain his sharpness…to keep the focus he needed to thing this through. Because, once the fleet transited back to X54 he would have to know what to do. And right now he had no idea…no idea at all.