The Phoenix Requiem (The Phoenix Conspiracy Series Book 7) (23 page)

While there is no formation or strategy that I know of that will allow our remaining defense force: one-thousand, eight-hundred, and thirty-two capital ships, and about twenty-five thousand starfighters, to defeat a force of ten-thousand capital ships and one-hundred-thousand drone fighters; that does not mean we run away, nor does it mean we allow ourselves to fall gently!

To flee would be to allow Capital World, the bastion of the free galaxy, and beacon of order itself, to be destroyed by the armies of darkness and forces of chaos that have come to challenge our right to exist. And to let them defeat us with the ease I am sure they are expecting, would be to defy our nature, and abandon our hopes of preserving our loved ones, our way of life, and everything we hold dear. We shall do neither!

If they have come to take us, then I say, let them try! For we shall not fall easily! When they expect a whimper, we shall roar! And when they expect us to stay down, we shall climb again to our feet and fight on! Together, in solidarity, as humans and Rotham, as life that will not be stamped out by the darkness, we shall resist them with the fury of a thousand suns! So, let them come, I say. Let them come in their numbers and their hordes. And we will take them, and we shall cast them back into the sea! Again and again. As many times as it takes! Until they leave us be, or break themselves against the bulwark of our resolve!

On our feet, we stand together! And if we should fall, we shall fall together! But if that night takes us, and steals us away, know that this is not the end! For the stand we make today, here, in this place, against the vilest of evils ever to have gathered, will be a stand long remembered! Our sacrifice, should we not win the day, is but a setback in the war against this evil. The boldness with which we stood, and the ferocity with which we resisted, shall be a rallying cry, sounded far and wide, from one end of the galaxy to the other. And all life everywhere will unite, as we have done, and resist this evil, this so-called
Dread Fleet
, until it is utterly extinguished from existence!
Oorahh
!”

Sir Arkwright then signaled for the broadcast to terminate. It might not have been the stuff of cinema, but that speech had been his best, improvised effort to raise the morale of his forces, and himself, in the face of certain death against an overwhelming force.

He then wasted no time issuing commands to better prepare their defense—as well as it could be prepared. Since the effort to split up the Dread Fleet had failed, that meant only one thing, direct engagement. And the only way to penetrate that damned Phalanx shield would be for the capital ships to move in close enough to let loose their missiles and fire their guns. Beam weapons would be of no use, at least to the defenders.

“Send the following orders to their respective commanders,” said Sir Arkwright, and his staff acknowledged him. “This fleet, the First Fleet, all five hundred ships are to hold position and prepare to engage. On my command, we will charge the enemy and get into weapons range. But not until they have cleared most of the distance to us.”

“Relaying order to all ships of the First Fleet,” said the Comms chief.

“Tell Sir Doran to take the ISS
Frontier
and all two-hundred ships of the Second Fleet and move them close to our position, to support our port flank.”

“Aye, sir, relaying order,” said the Comms chief.

“Command Fleet Admiral Ravinder to take the ISS
Hyperion
along with whatever ships of the Second Fleet that remain in fighting condition and have them join the formation of the First Fleet.”

“Yes, sir. Transmitting orders.”

“Command Fleet Admiral Sullinger to take the ISS
Seeker
and the two-hundred and seven ships of the Fourth Fleet and move to a position close to our fleet, similar to the Second Fleet, but supporting our starboard flank.”

“Acknowledged, sir. Transmitting orders.”

“Next,” continued Sir Arkwright, “Command Fleet Admiral Zeller to take the ISS
Assassin
and the Fifth Fleet and position its two-hundred and seven ships directly below our fleet. When we finally charge the enemy, the First Fleet, and its supporting fleets, will do so directly. But order Fleet Admiral Zeller to prepare to delay his engagement for thirty seconds after we engage the enemy, and to position his attack to strike the enemy formation from below.”

“Yes, sir. Acknowledged. Transmitting orders.”

“Command Fleet Admiral Faried, and the surviving ships of the Sixth Fleet, along with the ISS
Colossus
, to do like the remains of the Third Fleet and join formation with the First Fleet.”

“Aye, aye, sir. Transmitting orders.”

“And, finally, command Captain Adiger and the ninety ships of the Seventh Fleet, along with the ISS
Black Swan
, to move to the correct side of the planet and prepare to engage. I think by now we can rule out any fear that the enemy will take us unaware from the far side of the system.”

“Yes, sir,” said a member of the Comms staff, while the Comms chief was busy, “I will relay the order at once.”

“As for the Rotham flotillas,” said Sir Arkwright, “Inform the Nau that his forces must be deployed in the following way: Alpha Flotilla shall combine forces and provide support to the First Fleet; Bravo Flotilla and its remaining ninety ships shall combine forces with and provide support to the First Fleet also; as for flotillas Charlie through Golf, they are to combine forces and provide support to Fleets Third through Seventh, respectively. Make it clear to the Nau that this is not a request.”

“Aye, sir,” said the Comms chief. “I will personally oversee that the order is given, and that the Nau understands it clearly.”

“Very good,” said Sir Arkwright. He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms.

“Sir,” said the Defense chief. “If I may?”

“Yes?” asked Sir Arkwright.

“What about the other human ships? The renegades. Such as the ISS
Harbinger
and the rest that came with it?”

Sir Arkwright felt a wave of anger at the mention of the
Harbinger
, a stolen dreadnought commanded by a traitor who deserved the death penalty, as far as Sir Arkwright was concerned. But the queen had made it abundantly clear that the
Harbinger
and its forces were not to be attacked or otherwise disturbed, and that their commanders were not subject to Sir Arkwright’s direct authority.
Perhaps it is for the best
, he thought, controlling his anger.
They may help in the battle, to some small degree, and if it were up to me and not the queen, I would have spent crucial resources bringing the criminals to justice
.

“Leave them be,” said Sir Arkwright. “Those ships are free to do as they please. No orders need be sent. Except for general commands that affect the entire defense force.” At least the damned
Harbinger
had stopped spamming the
Victory
with message after message.

“And of the remaining ships engaged with the enemy?” asked the Defense chief.

“What?” Sir Arkwright practically leapt from the command chair and raced to the Defense station. “There are ships presently engaged with the Dread Fleet? I ordered the vanguard and its support ships back!”

To have disobeyed his retreat order had not only been brazenly cavalier…it was suicide.

“They are not our ships, sir,” said the Ops chief, whose instruments were more sensitive than those at the Defense station. “It is a small squadron of vessels that arrived with the
Harbinger
, but, unlike the rest of the
Harbinger
’s flotilla, these are clearly not of human design.”

“Rotham?” asked Sir Arkwright. “Polarian?”

“Unknown, sir,” said the Ops chief. “They are the battering ram ships that first engaged the enemy.”

“Those bastards are still alive?” asked Sir Arkwright, incredulously.

“Not all of them,” said the Ops chief. “In fact, the squadron seems to have taken about fifty-percent casualties.”

“But they haven’t all been destroyed?” Sir Arkwright couldn’t believe it. “And they’ve been engaged with the enemy this entire time!”

“Yes, sir,” said the Ops chief.

“Those brave, noble, insane souls,” muttered Sir Arkwright, as he thought about them. Had he been wearing his dress uniform he would have taken his cap off in respect. “To answer your question,” he turned to his Defense chief. “We do nothing.”

“Not even send them an urgent message suggesting they retreat—assuming they still can?” asked the Defense chief.

Sir Arkwright shook his head. “Those ships are expressly not under our command. Their captains are free to do as they please.” After a brief pause, he added, “No matter how insane or suicidal it is.”

Sir Arkwright returned to the command position to wait for the Dread Fleet to make the first move. He didn’t have to wait long.

CHAPTER 10

After listening to Sir Arkwright’s speech, from the War Room, as well as his orders to each of the defense fleets, which had been propagated by the officers on board the indomitable ISS
Victory
, the sovereign flagship, Kalila felt a kind of renewed optimism. However, the feeling was swiftly crushed as she examined the 3D and tactical displays.

She could see Capital World, although the display was unable to project it in all of its unparalleled glory, and much of the surrounding system. Some distance from the planet, many hundreds of lights, representing the capital ships, were holding position in formation, ready to defend the world from the oncoming attack. Hundreds more lights were moving, on the display it seemed to be at a sluggish pace, but Kalila knew that in reality those ships were racing at full sublight thrust to get into position, according to Sir Arkwright’s commands.

Taken together, all of the lights—with friendly lights lit up either blue or green, human and Rotham starships respectively—it seemed they had amassed a powerful, nigh invincible armada of warships that should easily be able to defend the planet, the crown jewel and heart of the Empire. She had liked how Sir Arkwright had described it, something like the bastion of freedom and beacon of order.

The words had rung true in Kalila’s ears when she’d heard them. For if Capital World fell, so too did the Imperial government, and gone with it would be any hope the humans had of survival as a unified species. Rather, instead of Imperial citizens sharing a common allegiance, they would once again be separate, locally governed planets, with nothing binding them together, nor anything forcing members of one system to help defend another. The planets would do as they had before her ancestors had unified them; they would stand alone. And, should Capital World fall this day, then those planets, each in turn, would fall as well, alone.  

The part of the speech she did not agree with, but felt no need to correct, was the rallying promise by Sir Arkwright that, even if the defenders failed in this battle, the war would go on and somehow the good would triumph over the evil. That by some inexplicable miracle, the rest of the free galaxy would band together and create a unified force capable of stopping the Dread Fleet. Kalila knew that wasn’t true. It would be impossible. The fact was, if they lost the battle here today, it would not be a lost battle in a long, protracted, ongoing war. Rather, losing the battle meant losing the war too.

And, now that the vanguard had failed in its efforts to divide the Dread Fleet into smaller, more vulnerable units; and the enemy had successfully maneuvered its many thousands of ships into the tight, phalanx formation, where the shields of each of the starships somehow pooled together to form a combined shield that protected the entire fleet; and all of the enemy’s vast host had seemingly arrived…defeat seemed inevitable. So great was the enemy. If Kalila’s many hundreds of warships, totaling nearly two-thousand ships, once the Rotham were taken into account, had seemed like an invincible force, then there were not words powerful enough to describe the profound unstoppability of the enemy. For while Kalila had hundreds of blue and green lights at her command, ready to defend her and this world, just out of attack range were thousands upon thousands of red lights, in tight formation, in such a great mass that it clearly outnumbered her forces by at least five to one.

Kalila was not a battle commander, although she had helped to command battles before, alongside Captain Adiger, mostly in her civil war against Caerwyn,
may he rot in the deepest pit of Hell
, none of that qualified Kalila to consider herself an experienced battle commander. But even
she
knew, just as her admirals must, that, in a space battle, a ratio of three to one was considered an overwhelming force. Such an unovercomeable number of warships that no strategy could be employed by the smaller force to defeat the larger one. Not through means of direct combat. And now they stood, awaiting the onslaught of a force five times their strength—one whose configuration, and shield advantage, forced her ships to engage them at close range, with no tactical advantage whatsoever. It was a recipe for disaster.

Truly, this is our darkest moment, she thought. Renora, The Apollo Yards, even the massacre of Centuria V, none of it compared to the blood that would be spilt this day, or the number of lives that would be lost in a probably futile endeavor to ensure the survival of not just the Empire but the human species as well. If and when the Dread Fleet won the day, the remaining thousands of ships would rain death down upon Capital World, until all life was destroyed—the lustrous world reduced to ashes and char. The very history of the human species, stretching back long before even the hundred-year-old Empire, would be lost in the firestorm that awaited them.

While I cannot let myself believe that this is truly the end
, Kalila reflected,
of everything we have forged, everything we have fought for, everything we have created, through both sacrifice and enterprise; that all of it was meant to live just one more day, and then be extinguished forever, it is hard to deny that is the destiny awaiting us
.

“Are you all right, Your Highness?” asked Sir McTavish. Kalila looked up from the displays to see that all three of her advisors were looking at her, and all seemed a bit concerned. Immediately, Kalila better composed herself, stood taller, and masked whatever emotions had expressed themselves upon her face. She would be resolute until the end—a pillar of strength, like her ancestor, the first king of the Empire. The kind of leader the Empire needed once again. The kind that, despite all his positive traits, her father never could have been.

I did the right thing
, she reminded herself, for the thousandth time. Even though the course of events had led to this—the almost certain annihilation of humanity. Surely, nothing she had done could be blamed for the arrival of this kind of evil at their doorstep.

“I’m fine,” she said, looking at each of her advisors in turn, showing them the strength of her unyielding eyes.

“As you say, Your Highness,” said Sir McTavish.

Sir Vasquez remained quiet and Fleet Admiral Lawson, who clearly looked skeptical, opened her mouth as if to speak, but then wisely closed it before saying anything that might have contradicted or upset Kalila. At least, Kalila assumed that would have been the effect of her words. Fleet Admiral Lawson was not the type to speak in reassurances or platitudes, but instead she spoke candidly and unfiltered. That was something Kalila liked about her, but it was also something that could easily place Fleet Admiral Lawson on Kalila’s wrong side, were she not careful.

“In your opinions, you, my advisors,” she said, looking at the three of them once more. “Can we win this battle?” She made a gesture toward the displays, which clearly showed two large forces of starships, though the red lights vastly outnumbered all others.

“Of course we can,” said Sir McTavish immediately. “We must only have more resolve than our enemy. Besides, the tide of rightness is on our side. Evil can never prevail, not in the end. In that I am certain, Your Highness.”

Kalila scrutinized him. “You, Sir, truly believe that good must always triumph above evil?”

“Yes, I do,” he replied, holding his ground.

“Then why is it that, so often, wrong-doers succeed and those who are good fall victim to them and their schemes and their violence, and the guilty escape, unharmed and unpunished? As if rewarded for their dark cunning and willingness to inflict harm upon another for their own personal gain?”

She seemed to have stumped him with the question, for it took him several seconds to reply. “I cannot answer that,” he admitted. “Nor can I say that there is some kind of karmic force governing the universe that ultimately corrects things, like I have implied, Your Highness. I only wished to express my optimism that we will win the day, because we deserve to win the day.”

“And you think deserving a victory means it shall be delivered to us?” she asked.

Sir McTavish looked uncomfortable. “No, I cannot say that I profess to that specifically,” he said. “But, with Your Majesty’s forgiveness, I also cannot allow myself to believe that this,” he gestured toward the displays, countless lights representing numberless warships, “Is the final chapter in our story. After everything we have been through, after everything we have survived. We will find a way to prevail. We are human, that is what humans do.”

Kalila partly frowned, finding herself wanting to believe him, but ultimately finding his argument unsatisfactory. She turned her attention to Sir Vasquez. “And you, Sir? What chance to you give us?”

“I cannot estimate our chances, Your Highness,” he said. “However, I will speak of one thing in our favor, something that we have that the enemy has not. And often, throughout history, it has been the thing that turns the tide of a battle, allowing an outnumbered force to destroy its enemy or send it retreating.”

“And what is that?” asked Kalila.

“Necessity,” said Sir Vasquez, meeting her gaze. “The Dread Fleet has come here with a singular goal, it would seem, to destroy us. But their survival and well-being does not hinge upon that goal. And so, while they are here, for whatever reason, to destroy us, our reason in being here, and fighting this battle, is one far more compelling, one that will force our people to fight harder, suffer longer, and resist death and defeat with unparalleled courage.

“And that thing, Your Majesty, is, as I said,
necessity
. To the enemy, either they win this battle or they go elsewhere. To us, either we win this battle, or we all die, and with us so too perishes all that we love and care about. That necessity, that desperation, if you will, can often be the thread that, when pulled, controls the tide of battle. And it favors us, Your Highness, not them. So, while they
do
outnumber us and
seem
to be an unstoppable force, we have gathered here in all our strength and refuse to be moved. They will come, and let them, as Sir Arkwright has said. But there is no greater resolve to empower a soldier than desperation to survive. And we all know, as do our people, that our continued existence rests in the need to prevail this day. And because of that, Your Highness, I say we have a chance.”

Kalila nodded, accepting this. She did not think such a thing made such a difference as having thousands more ships, but she agreed it was not irrelevant, and that it did favor the defenders. Though she could not steer herself around the very apparent fact that her forces would ultimately all be destroyed, and soon after, her with them.
I am the last monarch of the Empire
, she thought.

“And what say you?” Kalila turned her gaze toward Fleet Admiral Lawson. “You’ve been notoriously quiet over there. I’m sure you have something to say about our situation, or some advice to give.”

The old admiral looked up, but hesitated before speaking. Eventually, when she did speak, she was as coarse and candid as ever. “I’m sorry, Your Highness, but if you are looking for reassurance, or hope, or whatever the hell else might allow you to believe we will win the day, you will have to look elsewhere.” Fleet Admiral Lawson looked away from Kalila and down at the displays. “I cannot count so many dots,” she said brusquely. “But, from where I’m standing, they have come to kick our asses. Sure, like they say,” she motioned toward the other two advisors, “We will fight hard and fierce, doing all we can to defend our lives, and freedoms, and all that crap. But, in my experience, ideals do not win battles. Numbers win battles. And the truth is,” she looked up, meeting Kalila’s gaze once more, “The enemy has the numbers and we do not. Sure, there will be a lot of blood spilt, many starships destroyed, and much fighting before the end comes. But the end is coming. It is at our doorstep. And there is nothing we can do to stop it.”

Kalila nodded, accepting that that was probably true. Even though, deep inside, she yearned for some sort of hope to cling to. Unfortunately, her inner search for that hope came up empty, and she found herself back where she had been, leaning over the displays, watching the massive swath of red dots begin to move toward the green and blue dots, and realizing, for the hundredth time, just how tremendously outnumbered the defenders were.

***

Nimoux saw the light through the window and knew, before Summers reported it, that the Nighthawk had taken another massive blow from the energy vortex.

“Shields are beginning to fail,” said Summers from the Defense post. “A few more like that and we will have total collapse.”

“And once the shields fail,” said Nimoux. “How long can the armored hull survive before a breach?”

“I have no idea,” said Summers. “I’ve never fought anything like this before. But, at the rate it is destroying our shields…I would say, not long.” She looked at him with a kind of desperate sorrow in her eyes. He couldn’t see her green irises very clearly from his position in the command chair, but Nimoux got the vague impression that she wanted to tell him something else, something personal. Like she wanted to say goodbye. Or apologize. Or something?

“Sir, I keep moving the ship, like you asked,” said Jay, stealing Nimoux’s attention. “But wherever I go…it’s like somehow this damned vortex knows we’re going to be there and hits us again. I…I can’t get us away from it. If I accelerate to top speed, it catches us; if I move us about randomly, it still finds us.”