Birthright: Battle for the Confederation- Consequence (27 page)

              Dennix froze as the Priman turned back to look him in the eye.  "Your people were so foolish to trust you," Tash scolded.  "You are dishonorable, unworthy.  You'd turn your back on your own planet just to keep yourself in power, in control, the trappings of materials.  You should be the first to die!"

              Dennix looked at Shae, panic on his face, as the first massive laser bolts came crashing down onto the capital district.  The ground shook, explosions rang through the windows as they shattered, and Shae raced to grab him as Senator Zek Dennix simply passed out.

              The opening salvoes of Tash's fleet concentrated on two objectives: saturating the capital and therefore the government's ability to operate, and neutralizing the Centurion defense platform close at hand.  The battle station was equipped with huge shield generators, and in an application such as this where it orbited a fixed location above the surface, the shields were able to be projected outwards, serving as a first line of defense against shots from out-system.  The shields could be repositioned as needed to intercept laser blasts, detonate inbound torpedoes, even affect the trajectory of kinetic weapons.  The station took the full brunt of a full barrage from thirty cruisers, though, and with shields down was quickly overwhelmed.  A handful of Confed ships in the area started to realign themselves as well, and the force that laid the initial bombardment on the capital shifted fire to them, the savage massed fire quickly rendering the Confed vessels into flaming, debris-spewing wrecks, shedding lifeboats as they were dragged into the upper atmosphere of Delos.

              "Senator!" Dennix heard, and realized he was shaking violently.  It angered him for some reason, more so than having his building destroyed while he was inside it.

              He swung his hands at the direction the voice was coming from and the shaking stopped.  He opened his eyes slowly and saw Enric Shae hovering a step beyond his reach, a mix of concern and perhaps annoyance on his face.

              "You dragged me down here?" Dennix asked, and Shae only nodded.  "Thank you."

              Dennix stood up slowly, on one knee, then levered himself to a standing position with the help of a table.  He looked around and realized he was in some sort of storage space.  It was dimly lit, cluttered with metal boxes, containers, and lighting that was either in power save or perhaps on batteries if the power grid had been destroyed by Tash's shots.

              "Where are we?" he asked Shae.

              "Sublevel storage," Enric Shae offered, "under one of the research wings.  Nothing important above ground to blow up, so I figured we would wait here for a minute.  But we shouldn't stay long."

              "Why not?"

              Enric paused, looking at Dennix as if the man has just proposed a hiking trip to the moon.  "Because the day only ends two ways.  First, the Primans win.  They'll come back and reduce the surface even more, making sure our infrastructure is gone.  They'll land and occupy the place, and they sure as hell won't be saving a spot for us in their plans.  We don't want to be captured by them.  Second, our navy wins.  And if they do, they'll be coming for us.  Right or wrong, evidence or no, they'll want us out of here.  Maybe they'll try running things on their own, maybe they'll try and get some new people in here, but I guarantee you we have no friends out there, either.  The only way we survive is to not be here when the dust settles.  Then we figure out who's in charge and what to do.  We live to fight another day."

              Dennix was about to argue and then simply gave up.  Enric could see it; the man's shoulders slumped, his eyes sunk to the ground, even the skin seemed to hang off his jaw and thickening neck.  Whatever grand plans he'd been harboring these last couple years, whatever visions he'd cooked up of himself and his glorious years of rule, it was all over as of right now.  The absolute best he could hope for today was exactly what Enric had just suggested.  They simply needed to survive, and then see what options there were left.  The mighty had fallen.

              Dennix looked at Enric, sullen and defeated.  "Do we have a way out?"

              Shae nodded.  "I made contact with someone.  Hell, there were a couple people that wanted to help us; they probably want us to feel in their debt if we come out the other side doing well.  There's a smallish transport just outside the government district.  It's in a hardened facility like all the other important and paranoid people's ships.  The motor pool is one level down, and we can grab any vehicle there and be aboard in twenty minutes."

              Dennix, the man who never seemed to have trouble telling people how it was and what they should be doing, no longer had any words.  He just stood up straight and clenched his jaw, waiting for Enric to lead the way.

              Captain Sirian Elco stood between the helm stations as the on-screen timer counted down to zero.  On schedule, the ship's computer brought Avenger out of hyperspace, accompanied by the other eleven ships that had made it to Delos without suffering any mechanical issues.

              As soon as the sensors started populating the holo field, Elco's hopes sank.  He tried to maintain his posture exactly, lest the crew see his reaction to the incoming picture.

              "Well," he said quietly, though most of the bridge crew heard him, "this will certainly end badly.  For the Primans, of course," he added with a grim chuckle.  The crew had been together through this for years, knew each other's mannerisms and thoughts.  It would be hard, maybe they wouldn't make it through the day, but if you couldn't make a joke about your unenviable position in a lopsided slaughter, what was left?

              Elco watched in the holo field as the Fourteenth tightened up its formation and launched fighters.  The Priman Commander's fleet had appeared instants after the Fourteenth, and was now forming up as a separate element, ready to race into the fleet over Delos to attempt to do their part as well.  Admiral Bak had created an ops order, but they certainly needed help and a lot of luck if they had any chance of swinging the battle their way.  Already, some of the attacking Priman ships over Delos had maneuvered and were forming up to meet the Fourteenth.

              There was a chime at the communications station, and Elco suddenly noticed more blips in the holo field.  The IFF showed many as friendly, but there were also a number of yellow icons; no alignment noted, just a ship with a beacon announcing a name, registry number, tonnage and a few other stats mandated by treaties and regulations.

              "Captain," the comm officer stated, "we have several incoming comm requests.  One is from Confed Navy HQ, one from the Priman Commander just off our starboard, one from Admiral Bak, an Enkarran ship showing designation of
Union
, a Talaran Captain Lazaf, three others whose registries are in our database but I've never seen before..."

              "Ok, we're popular.  Connect everyone up, and make sure all our feeds are synchronized; everyone needs to be in on this."

              A pause as the tech made it happen.  "Channel open, Captain."

              Elco spoke quickly, trying to get ahead of the situation and keep some order to it, lest ten different people all try to begin at once.  "Hello, well, everyone.  Avenger has received hails from all of you, so in the interest of full disclosure all of us are connected to each other.  Please tell me these calls have something to do with stopping the attacking Priman forces over Delos."

              Captain Krent of the Union spoke first.  "We are here to help, Captain.  Anywhere there is a fight against the Primans, we will offer our ships.  I see there is a Priman on this channel, though.  What is this about?"

              "As Admiral Bak mentioned in the broadcast I assume you all received; the Primans aren't as unified as we thought they were.  They have their internal disagreements just like the rest of us.  The forces accompanying us want to stop the assault as well."

              "We were told in no uncertain terms to leave," said Captain Lazaf, commanding four Talaran cruisers. 

              "Yet here you are," replied Elco with a grin.

              "Yes, we seem to have not listened to Mr. Shae's demands."

              "Enric Shae," grumbled Admiral Bak.  "He's as complicit as the Senator.  Everyone, thank you for responding.  Confed units, you should have the plan.  Any late arrivals, my hope is this; we need to break up that attacking Priman force.  There is a single ship among their formation that is the heart of their efforts.  Destroy that ship, and the new Priman Commander with us will take control and call off the assault."

              "That's it?" asked an officer whose header information labeled him as being at navy HQ in the asteroid belt.  "They'll just stop, or do we keep destroying their ships?"

              Ravine spoke, Elco only wishing he could have moderated the discussion.   "We will make our fleet stand down, Captain.  After that, there will be no need for further conflict."

              The captain, though not appearing too pleased, nodded and remained silent.

              "All ships," Admiral Bak continued, "here is the plan.  We'll create a force from the parties that were waiting in-system, and that includes HQ.  I see you show two Crusaders and two destroyers, is that correct?"

              The HQ captain just nodded in the affirmative.

              "You will form a force and attack the starboard side of the Priman fleet.  My force will attack the port side.  If we can get them to split their forces, so much the better.  Spread them out, run them around; we do not need to destroy every last ship right now, and such a battle will cost more lives than we need to spend.  We only need to keep them fighting until we can determine their command ship.  At that point, I'll take Majestic and any others necessary and destroy the vessel.  The longer it takes, the more friendly units might just show up as well.  Watch your IFF displays; the Priman ships we arrived with have friendly codes and will show up as such in your systems, so keep an eye out when pulling the trigger.  And no matter what happens today, thank you all for your efforts here.  I only hope we live up to our expectations."

              The two forces approached other, long range fire flashing back and forth occasionally between them as targeting computers were verified and systems checked.  Finally, at the high end of medium range, the Confed forces broke off to the outsides of the Priman formation, making to race down the flanks.  The Primans bored onward, their intentions unclear.

              The Confed forces ran down the side of the Priman fleet, raking the enemies with concentrated laser and torpedo fire while the Primans handed it back.  About halfway through the maneuver, the Priman fleet split but instead of breaking to the sides or chasing one element, one force started a loop upwards and another started a loop downwards.  The elements completed their maneuver when they'd made a one hundred eighty degree heading change, now pointed back at Delos with the Confed forces slightly ahead of them.  Both the Confed and Priman fleets lanced out at each other at their preferred engagement range, laser batteries at their most effective, shields at their optimal distance to dissipate energy, and torpedoes with enough time to maneuver towards a target but close enough to not run out of fuel in the meantime.  It was a stalemate formation, neither fleet immediately wanting to close the range where damage piled up quickly and ships died with every pass.  It gave both sides room to maneuver and rejoin forces if they wanted to gather back together to attack the enemy en masse.  As ships accumulated damage, they rotated positions with other vessels in the formation, creating a swarming mass of ships undulating through space, spitting lasers and torpedoes at each other, small fighters sometimes racing outwards to launch torpedoes or attack enemy counterparts who got too close.

              Elco sat in his chair on the bridge, the face of Loren Stone on one of his displays from the XO's position one deck below in C3.  There wasn't a lot to do, actually, in a coordinated fleet movement such as this.  The Admiral had dictated the maneuvers, so Avenger just needed to maintain her position and fire on the enemy when she could.  Occasionally there would be an order to shift positions to relieve another vessel with damage, but until the two forces of ships broke down into smaller elements, Elco simply needed to follow the plan.

              "Lieutenant Caho," Elco said as he swiveled his chair to look through the glass partition at the sensor operator behind him, "anything yet?"

              Her face scrunched up as she tried to make some sort of adjustment to her board while talking to the captain.  "I have a couple candidates, but nothing like the message traffic during the first engagement.  Maybe he learned his lesson and he's keeping comms to a minimum."

              Elco grimaced.  "Send me a list of the ships you show as possibilities.  If nothing else, we'll take them out one by one."

              He tabbed over to a comm frequency for Admiral Bak and the Priman Commander.  "I have a short list of candidates for Tash's ship, but nothing as definite as last time."