Chapter Eleven

  Confederation SDB (System Defense Boat) 91A3

  400,000,000 Kilometers from Planet Eugellius

  Phantara System

  Year 321 AC

  “What the hell is that?” It was a rhetorical question. No one on the defense boat’s bridge had any idea what they were seeing, that much was clear.

  Captain Charles Pilson’s eyes were focused on the screen with the same disbelieving stare the other four members on his bridge crew wore. The new contact on the display was the largest he’d ever seen.

  The largest he’d ever heard of.

  The vast…whatever it was…moved forward behind a line of Hegemony battleships. Pilson thought for a moment it was an asteroid or some other kind of natural occurrence, but it became immediately clear what he was seeing was a spaceship.

  An unbelievably vast spaceship.

  What is that thing…and what is it doing here?

  Pilson had been doing his best for the past hour or so to disguise the stark terror he felt at the continuing succession of Hegemony warships transiting into the system. It had taken him half that time simply to believe what he was seeing. Phantara wasn’t a heavily populated system, nor one that possessed resources of a vital nature. Its two inhabited worlds were sparsely-populated. Belian, the third planet, was mostly agricultural, covered with vast robot-worked farms. Ghoshen, planet number two, was an ocean world, exporting food and products derived from its vast seas. The system was reasonably prosperous, if unspectacular, but it had nothing to justify a massive Hegemony invasion.

  Save for one thing. Pilson had realized almost immediately after the initial shock had faded. Phantara was on the most direct route from Dannith toward the coreward heart of the Iron Belt. The enemy had not come for the system’s grain and fish, nor for its two hundred million inhabitants. They were making a move on the densest part of the Iron Belt, stabbing at the productive engine that powered the Confederation war machine.

  Pilson and his seventeen defense boats—plus the sixty fighters in Ghoshen’s orbital station—were simply in the way.

  Not for long, he grimly realized.

  The officer knew his ships and crews were doomed. Their choice was a stark one, death or surrender. Pilson’s first reaction had been one of defiance, a determination to fight to the end. But as more and more Hegemony ships streamed through the transit point, cold realization sunk in. He could order his ships to stand and fight—and if he was lucky, his captains would obey and not simply yield on their own—but such a sacrifice would be to no purpose at all. Every one of his vessels would be blasted to plasma before they got close enough to fire a shot. He would be sending his people, all of them, to pointless death. He might as well order his vessels to self-destruct for all the good a show of resistance would do.

  He thought for a moment about pulling back, taking position in front of Ghoshen’s orbital platforms. The ocean world was the better defended of the two inhabited planets, but that only meant it had two platforms instead of just one. And it didn’t take more than a passing glance to realize the stations were no better off than the defense boats. There were no truly heavy guns, none of the massive particle accelerators carried by the large fortresses on the frontier and in the Core and Iron Belt systems. Not one gun on Phantara’s platforms would survive to get off a shot. That was nothing more than mathematical certainty.

  Pilson’s choice was a stark one. He and his people could die for no reason, achieving nothing by their sacrifice, or they could try to surrender, and find out what lay in store for them in captivity.

  He hated the choice, and if it had been only him, he very well might have fought—and died—in the hopeless struggle. But he had fourteen hundred men and women in his defense boats and on the fortresses. Most of them were planetary militia, not full time Confed navy. Pilson had been in the navy, for ten years before retiring to take the local defense command in his home system, and the streak of defiance in him was strong. But not strong enough to send more than a thousand part-time warriors, friends and neighbors as well as subordinates, to certain death.

  He would contact the enemy, ask for terms.

  And hope they didn’t just come on and blast his tiny force to dust anyway.

  * * *

  “Commander Ilius, the enemy force is attempting to contact us. It appears they wish to surrender.”

  Ilius sat in the center of the vast control room, the sprawling nerve center of the vast ship he now commanded. The vessel had been an imperial construct, built centuries before and rediscovered in far better condition than any other old tech vessels yet found. It had been called Project Zed for the years—decades—it had taken to study and repair it, to integrate new Hegemony systems and controls onto the vastly superior old tech foundation the vessel provided.

  There had been doubts, and heated debates in the Council about the vast sums expended, and the immense flow of precious resources the project had consumed, but in the end the naysayers, those who claimed the Zed could never succeed, had been proven wrong.

  Project Zed was active, the vessel was in space, under its own propulsion, following the fleet. And what had been known for so long by its code designation now had a more conventional name.

  The Colossus.

  The thing almost defied any normal imagining of a spaceship. Over sixty kilometers in length, it outmassed the largest Hegemony monitors by a factor of nearly five hundred to one. It bristled with weapons, and only partially active as it was, it outgunned the entire Hegemony fleet. It was a doomsday device, a weapon of such withering power, Ilius couldn’t imagine the enemy would choose to continue the fight.

  Not after they saw his new command in action.

  “Ignore the communications, Kiloron.” Ilius wasn’t a brutal man, and he didn’t enjoy needless killing. But the sooner the Confederation understood what they faced, the quicker their intractable defense would end. His eyes moved over the display, and he shook his head at the motley flotilla floating in space between the Hegemony fleet and the system’s inhabited planets.

  The rest of the fleet could easily obliterate so small a force, but they hadn’t come here to demonstrate the power of the battleships and escorts that had fought the Rimdwellers for six bloody years.

  They had come to display the power of Colossus.

  “Weapons systems online, Kiloron. Target the four closest defense vessels, and establish firelock.”

  “Yes, Commander.” A few seconds later. “Main batteries locked on and ready to fire.”

  It was ridiculous overkill using the primary weapons system to destroy such tiny and poorly armored ships, but displaying the power of those guns was the entire purpose. Ilius knew he could destroy all seventeen of the defense ships as easily as four, but his goal wasn’t increasing the body count…and the obliteration of four ships would serve his purposes as just as effectively.

  He looked at the enormous display, and he felt an instant’s hesitation. He was a Master of the Hegemony, one of the most genetically-perfect human beings in existence. Many of his kind succumbed to arrogance and elitism, but Ilius was serious about executing the responsibilities his position placed on him. The Hegemony itself existed for a higher purpose than conquest and power. It existed to gather all humanity together, where the most capable and intelligent specimens, judged by impartial genetic testing and not corrupt politics, could protect them all.

  To prevent another disaster like the Great Death.

  That was a vital calling, a higher purpose. And yet, Ilius regretted having to kill another few hundred Rimdwellers.

  He regretted it, but that wasn’t going to stop him. Nothing would stop him from completing the Hegemony’s sacred mission.

  “Locked batteries…fire.”

  * * *

  Pilson recoiled as the flash on the display hit his eyes. For an instant, he thought the screen had overloaded, but then the brightness faded, leaving the same view as before.

  Minus four of his ships.

  He looked down to his own workstation screen, doublechecking what he saw on the large display, even as cold realization gripped him.

  The enemy was well out of range, even the railguns on their largest battleships. But they had fired nevertheless, and utterly destroyed four of his ships.

  They didn’t fire…it fired…

  He felt as though he couldn’t breathe, and he gasped for air. It was no surprise that the massive contact was a warship, and a vastly powerful one, but just then he realized how much he’d relied on whatever doubts his mind had managed to gather, on false hopes that he was wrong, that the thing was something far less deadly than a gargantuan floating fortress.

  “Captain, we’re getting comm signals from...”

  Pilson raised his hand, stopping the officer’s report. He was getting communications from the rest of the ships. He didn’t need anyone to tell him that. The only reason the orbital platforms and the planetary governments weren’t also on the line was that they were too far back. The light that would tell them what had happened was still traveling through space on its way to them. It would be another two minutes before they saw…and two more before their frantic calls could reach him.

  “Resend the communique…and make sure it’s clear we’re surrendering.” Pilson hated himself as the words came out of his mouth. Yielding was difficult enough, but begging the enemy to accept the surrender made him want to grab his sidearm and blow his brains out.

  “Yes, Captain.” He could hear the growing fear in the officer’s voice. It was no surprise. No more than a dozen spacers in his entire command had seen real combat, and the rest had, at most, gotten into a scuffle with a smuggler’s ship or crew. “Resending.”

  Pilson felt the urge to order his own guns to fire, but the thought was so ridiculous, it almost made him laugh. He was at least a hundred thousand kilometers out of range still, and he suspected his defense boats’ guns would do little more to the immense enemy vessel than throwing rocks at it would.

  Still, if he’d been close enough, he would have fired, if only because it would have made him feel better about himself.

  He stared at the display, watching, waiting for the next shot to come. The four ships that had been targeted had been the closest to the enemy behemoth, but he guessed his entire flotilla was in range. But nothing happened, no additional fire, nothing on the comm. Just the entire enemy fleet closing steadily, on his ships, and on the planets beyond.

  He felt anger, a simmering rage. They were toying with his people, tormenting them before they finished things. He’d have sacrificed himself and his crew if he’d had a chance at closing and ramming one of the approaching vessels. Anything but sitting still, waiting until the enemy decided to kill them all.

  Then, the comm officer spun around. “Captain, we’re receiving a transmission.”

  “On speaker, Lieutenant.” Pilson figured his people deserved to hear what their killers had to say.

  “…repeat, Confederation force, your surrender is accepted subject to the following terms. You will power down all ships and remain in position. You will evacuate all personnel from the orbital forts around planets two and three, and you will complete said operation in one hour. Both planets will surrender at once and prepare to receive occupation forces. Refusal to any of these terms will result in the immediate destruction of all vessels and fortresses, and invasions of the inhabited worlds.” A short pause. Then, ominously, “You have one minute to respond.”

  There was relief, and then Pilson felt sick. He could surrender his ships, but he couldn’t communicate with the planets or the forts in time. He scooped up his headset and pulled it on. “This is Captain Charles Pilson, commanding Phantara defense forces. I accept your surrender terms regarding my ships, but I cannot reach the orbital platforms or planetary authorities within your stated time period.” He hesitated, and then he added, hating himself as he said it, “I do not anticipate any difficulties in securing the surrenders of the fortresses and the planets, subject to the time constraints and distance involved.”

  He waited, his stomach doing flops, and for a few seconds, he wondered if he would prefer it if the enemy just blew his ship to plasma without warning. That would be quick, and his pain and shame would be over. But then, a response came in.

  “Captain Pilson, your surrender is accepted, subject to your obtaining the agreement to all terms by the commanders of the fortress platforms and the duly constituted planetary authorities. Your vessels are to power down at once, but your flagship may maintain sufficient energy output to facilitate the required communications.”

  Pilson let out a deep breath, realizing he’d wanted to survive more than he had realized.

  He looked over at the tactical station. “Order all ships to power down immediately.” Then he tapped the side of his headset, and he said, “Understood. All ships are powering down now. I will contact the orbital platforms and ground authorities at once.”

  Pilson held back a sigh. He’d retired from the navy to come back, to live a quiet life patrolling the backwater system he called home.

  And instead, you end up surrendering to the biggest damned Hegemony ship in space…

  * * *

  “Our scans suggest evacuation operations have been completed, but we’re too far out for sufficiently detailed scans to confirm that.”

  “They have had sufficient time to comply, Kiloron. I was very clear. If they have failed to complete their evacuations, the consequences are on their heads. Main guns are to target both orbital platforms immediately, and prepare to fire.” Colossus hovered within range of planet two, surrounded by more than a hundred battleships and a vast array of escorts and support ships. It was an almost absurd force to face such a piddling system, but that was the point. If Ilius could make clear to the Confederation’s leaders that further resistance was pointless, he just might be able to end the war sooner, before millions more were killed on both sides. That was one reason he and Chronos had chosen such a small system. Perhaps they could send their message without devastating the massively populated Iron Belt worlds that lay ahead.

  It was worth trying, at least.

  “Weapons stations report ready, Commander.”

  Ilius hesitated, but just for a few seconds. He could easily wait to confirm that everyone was off the two platforms. He’d given the Confeds a very tight schedule to complete the evacuations, and another twenty minutes wasn’t going to make much difference.

  But he wasn’t going to wait. If the Hegemony was going to compel the Confederation to surrender, he had to make sure his words were taken seriously. He’d given them sufficient time, and they had to understand he meant what he said.

  “Fire.” His voice was almost devoid of emotion.

  He watched as the vast main batteries fired, and the two orbital stations, weak as such things went, but still sizable constructs, essentially vanished. One disappeared entirely in a burst of thermonuclear fury, leaving nothing but radiation and heat where millions of tons of steel had been seconds before. The other was ripped into three sections, quickly crumbling into a floating field of twisted wreckage, and molten steel that refroze seconds later and began a slow and tortuous descent toward the planet’s atmosphere.

  Ilius sat for a moment, awash in awe for the new weapons, and the awesome firepower the imperial-Hegemony hybrid possessed. Project Zed had not been simply a construction effort, it had required a national push to stockpile sufficient quantities of antimatter to power the vessel. No other energy source could feed its massive engines, its awesome weapons. And, even for the Hegemony, antimatter was a precious and staggeringly expensive commodity. Ilius was a highly-ranked Master, but he was below Chronos’s level, and he wasn’t privy to the most classified information. Still, he was pretty sure completing and fueling the Colossus had pushed the Hegemony’s economy to the brink of collapse.

  More pressure, urgency for the great weapon to make the difference, and win the war.

  Ilius was quiet for a moment, and then he turned his head toward the communications station. “Send a communique to the enemy flagship. They are free to go. We will allow all ships to depart the system through transit point two. They are to leave at once.”

  That would be a surprise to the Confederation commander and his spacers. No doubt they’d all been trying to adapt to the prospect of life as prisoners of war. But Ilius didn’t need a few hundred captives. What he needed was for them to go and find the Confed fleet…and to tell their comrades what had happened.

  To begin spreading the fear and hopelessness that would end the war.

  Chapter Twelve

  CFS Dauntless

  750,000,000 Kilometers from Planet Danovar

  Santara System

  Year 321 AC

  “Are you ready, Jake?” Tyler Barron stood in his office less than a meter from his strike force commander. From his friend. Barron had depended on Stockton’s seemingly unmatched abilities for as long as he could remember, back to the days when that reliance manifested itself in things like the command of a particularly important patrol mission. Now, Stockton was an admiral, and as soon as he left Barron, he would go down to Dauntless’s flight deck and await the order to launch over six thousand bombers. When that command came, he would lead every one of them forward, on yet another desperate mission.

  Perhaps the most desperate yet.

  “As ready as I’m going to be, sir. As I’ve been every other time.” Stockton’s voice was stern, and Barron didn’t doubt for an instant his strike force commander would do whatever was necessary to lead his wings into the fight. Still, he couldn’t help but remember a younger Jake Stockton, one full of piss and vinegar. The older man was by far the better leader, but something had been lost in that transition, the charm of the cocky young officer, the charisma of the pilot who scoffed at death every chance he got.