Ashes of Empires: Frontier Saga, #2

1

Sergeant Talon Stiler gripped the overhead rail tight as he leaned over the shoulder of the troop shuttle pilot and kept his eyes on the vessel’s sensors. Have they seen us?

The pilot – Private Connor Beatson – shook his head. The only survivor of a Terran Union military force tasked with hunting Stiler down, Beatson was captured when Stiler had stolen his stealthy Reaver-class troop shuttle. Now, the young man’s future depended entirely on his flying skills.

He looked up at Stiler. You realise the entire Third Fleet is blockading the system? A battleship… cruisers… escorts… interceptors… railguns… missiles…

Stiler grinned. They really didn’t want him getting off Baker V alive. Sure, but you know what we’ve got they don’t?

Beatson shook his head.

Stiler’s grin widened. The clear lack of any alternative but to strap in and charge on ahead.

Fucking Marines… Beatson muttered under his breath, just loud enough for Stiler to hear. I’ll do what I can.

Stiler let the comment go; he understood the frustration of facing impossible odds. Only days ago, he and two-hundred other Marines had dropped onto Baker V to rescue Professor Cate Campbell, an engineer and scientist stranded on a world overrun by the biomechanical Dioscuri. But after losing most of his company before they’d even landed, the mission had become a desperate fight for survival, the aliens – who were already close to wiping out humanity – making Stiler and his people fight for every inch. Yet they’d pushed on and fought their way through.

Upon locating Campbell, they’d discovered she had not only found a way to win the war against the Dioscuri but also a treasonous plot at the highest levels of Terran Union military command. And while the architect of the treachery, General Taggart, was now dead, the Third Fleet didn’t have the benefit of Campbell’s evidence proving his betrayal.

To the fleet commander Admiral Osaka, it looked like Stiler had murdered a member of Union High Command.

As the troop shuttle edged closer to the fleet, the tension on the bridge increased. The diminutive vessel had heavy armour and state-of-the-art sensor-jamming technology, but in a stand-up fight with a warship it would barely last a minute. Stiler held his breath, waiting for the fateful whine of a target lock alarm.

We’ll know if they’re onto us in the next sixty seconds. Beatson said. Start praying to your favourite deity.

Stiler’s eyes shifted from the sensors to the other survivors of Baker V: Professor Campbell, and Stiler’s fellow Marine, Dave Sinclair. Here goes nothing…

Fifteen seconds passed… and still neither the fleet flagship Jupiter nor its escorts moved to intercept.

Thirty seconds.

When he saw Beatson’s hand inched towards the comms panel, Stiler drew his pistol and held it to the man’s head. Uh uh.

Forty-five seconds.

A squadron of Vampire-class interceptors launched from the Jupiter.

Shit, Sinclair whispered a heartbeat before the shrill tone of an enemy target lock filled the bridge. Couldn’t we get lucky just once?

The comms system came to life. This is Admiral Osaka with the Third Fleet. Stand down immediately or be destroyed.

Time for another plan! Stiler grabbed Beatson’s headset and put it on. Admiral, this is Sergeant Talon Stiler, you need to know that General Taggart—

General Taggart was a friend and a hero. Osaka’s voice was hard and cold. And that was the only warning you’re going to get.

They’re firing! Beatson cried out. Gripping the troop shuttle’s control sticks tight, he took evasive action. Hold on!

Stiler reached for the grab rail and groaned as the troop shuttle veered away, the G-forces driving his stomach up into his throat. Sensors showed the Jupiter unleashing dozens of shots at their vessel, seconds before a naval-calibre railgun round pounded into the troop shuttle. The vessel rocked under the impact of the hypersonic slug, the cockpit instruments strobing with red warning lights.

As Beatson fought the control sticks, Stiler leaned in close, trying and failing to decipher the ship’s complex damage displays. How bad?

Bad, Beatson said through gritted teeth. "If we don’t surrender, the Jupiter is going to pound the snot out of us."

That’s not happening, Stiler said, brandishing the pistol where Beatson could see it. So don’t go getting any ideas.

Stiler turned his head to Campbell and Sinclair. The Jupiter was the only remaining Sol-class battleship left in the Union fleet, and only the great Dioscuri arc ships could match it for sheer firepower. Neither of them had ever expected to be on the business end of its cannons, and it showed in their faces.

He forced a smile, but it did little to rouse Campbell or Sinclair from their malaise. We’ve survived worse odds than this.

We hit blackjack once, Sarge… Sinclair said, then groaned as another railgun round slammed into them. But I think we’re about to lose our chips.

Admiral Osaka knows I was Taggart’s target, Campbell said. Hand me over and you guys might be able to negotiate a way out.

Stiler held her gaze for a second, torn. Campbell wasn’t a soldier, but he respected she was as strong as any Marine, and if he was going to die, he’d be proud to do it alongside her. But he’d gone through hell to rescue this woman, and what she had discovered on the surface of Baker V would give humanity its best chance of victory against the hated Dioscuri. Except only she, Stiler and Sinclair knew the secret to turning the tide against their alien aggressors – there had been no way to broadcast her knowledge off world.

If all three of them died on this troop shuttle, the Union would be doomed.

Would it be better to surrender her?

Stiler was under no illusion that handing over her would save the rest of them, but if she lived, she could get details of her discovery to those who needed it…

No, Stiler shook his head. We make it together or we don’t make it at all.

Campbell nodded and Stiler turned his attention back to the battle. He was surprised that, while the troop shuttle continued to be the focus of the Jupiter, the rest of the fleet’s ships weren’t piling on as well. There were dozens of cruisers and escorts that could help split their ship open in seconds, using weaponry more suited for the task. The Jupiter’s railguns were designed to target large and easy-to-hit targets, so against a nimble troop shuttle, they were horribly inaccurate.

Stiler’s eyes narrowed. It made no sense.

New contacts! Beatson cried, his voice filled with panic. A Dioscuri fleet just arrived on the far side of the Third Fleet! Osaka’s forces are peeling off to engage!

Now it made sense. The arrival of the Third Fleet in system earlier that day had caused the Dioscuri to scramble reinforcements – Osaka must have predicted they would come and was holding back forces to counter when they arrived.

Now dozens of enemy ships – hundreds – were arriving, and the Third Fleet was pivoting to face the new threat. Interceptors and escorts ranged ahead of the larger ships, trying to keep the Dioscuri ships off the Union cruisers, which were starting to pound the Dioscuri vessels with their long-range guns.

As Osaka prioritised the fleet’s survival over revenge, it seemed the so-called traitors aboard the troop shuttle had been forgotten. And, for the first time since arriving in this blighted system, Stiler believed he might have caught a break.

Then another railgun round hit them.

"The Jupiter is still engaged! Beatson yelled. That shot damaged our main drive reactor!"

Stiler swore. A damaged drive reactor was serious business, and the troop shuttle was already bleeding speed. What do you need to do to get the drives fired up again?

A miracle? Beatson said as he pressed a few buttons on the console. "If I power down every non-essential system, I might keep enough speed to stop the Jupiter getting into optimum range."

Do it, Beatson, Stiler ordered. Your job is to keep us together for five more minutes.

He made a show of putting this pistil back in its holster. There was a slight chance Beatson could still sell them out to Osaka, but Stiler considered it less likely than before the shooting started. Besides, he had to trust the man, or he couldn’t do what he needed to do to get Osaka and the Jupiter off their ass.

Gesturing for Campbell and Sinclair to follow him, Stiler left the bridge and headed for the troop hold, the others on his heels. When they arrived, he fixed them both with a hard gaze. We’ve got to figure out how to get that battleship off us.

Does this thing have any weapons? Campbell looked around at the racks of carbines and small arms lining the walls. Anything better than these pea shooters?

Stiler shook his head. A pair of missile launchers that won’t scratch the paint of that battleship, and a bunch of power armour, carbines and explosives for ground offensives.

They searched through the compartments inside the troop hold, desperate to find anything that would give them a chance. Stiler opened storage lockers and rifled through gun racks, tearing the ship to pieces almost as much as the railgun rounds peppering it from long range. All he found were weapons and tools designed to take out conventional threats in a ground battle – carbines, grenades, breaching explosives, small scouting drones, power arm—

Stiler blinked.

His eyes settled on one item, then shifted to another.

Uh… Prof? Stiler locked eyes on Campbell, who was ripping apart a different part of the hold. Ready to get your hands dirty?

It took a few minutes, during which the troop shuttle took several more punishing hits. Even though the Jupiter’s railguns were horribly inaccurate against such a small target, it was firing whole broadsides –the occasional shot was bound to hit pay dirt. Eventually, it would strip enough armour from the troop carrier that it would be curtains for them.

Unless Stiler’s gambit worked.

Drive thrust down to eighty percent! Beatson called out from the bridge. If you guys are up to something, you better get it done soon!

Campbell stood up from the floor, where she’d been tinkering with one of the scouting drones. It’s as ready as it’ll ever be. You guys will need to lift it, though.

Stiler nodded and, with Sinclair’s help, hefted the device over to the troop shuttle’s small airlock. With the push of a button, he closed the inner seal, then with the press of another he sent the drone packing, peering through the window as the compartment vented and it was launched into the void.

Their final, desperate Hail Mary.

It’s away, he said.

Sinclair nodded, focused on the datapad in his hands. I’ve got control.

The front-facing camera on the drone combined with its advanced sensors made piloting the thing easiest than breathing, but Stiler still had to take care of the last part of their desperate plan.

Campbell had built it, Sinclair was steering it, now Stiler had to protect it.

Returning to the bridge, Stiler gripped the back of Beatson’s chair and leaned in close. "Turn the ship so our drive plume is facing the Jupiter."

Beatson said nothing for a second, then turned to look at Stiler. We’re already taking a beating and you want to give them a shot right up our ass?

Sure do.

"Exposing the most vulnerable part of the ship to naval railgun batteries?"

Yep.

Beatson swallowed. If even one of those slugs hits us, it could blow all the way through to the reactor…

Don’t make me draw my pistol…

Another railgun round smashed into the hull, ending the argument. Whatever doubts Beatson had about Stiler’s plan, he had to hope it would give them a better chance than being slowly picked apart from long range. He turned the vessel so that it was burning away from the battleship, exposing its tail – and its main reactor – to the Jupiter’s gun batteries.

Now it was a race: Sinclair inching the drone closer to the Jupiter, while the flagship popped off shots, just one accurate hit enough to end them.

Stiler watched in silence. Exposing the troop shuttle’s tail to the battleship’s guns would have two effects. First, it kept the attention of the Jupiter’s gunnery officers on the troop shuttle – even as the rest of the fleet skirmished with the Dioscuri fleet, an enemy exposing its weak point was an irresistible target. Second, the troop shuttle’s impossibly hot drive plume would divert the attention of the battleship’s sensors and defensive systems. Like its guns, neither was designed to cope with a tiny target.

A tiny target like the drone, loaded up so heavily that Campbell couldn’t lift it.

That one was close! Beatson cried out as a railgun round zipped past at hypersonic speed, vanishing into the void. We have to change tack, Sergeant!

Hold your course! Stiler shouted over the cockpit’s wailing sirens and alarms, his eyes on the instrument panel, tracking the drone. Hold… Hold… Now Sinclair!

The breaching explosives they’d loaded aboard the drone detonated, a blinding explosion lighting up the blackness of space. Watching it on the bridge’s rear-camera feed, Stiler smiled. It remained to be seen if they’d landed a heavy enough blow to stop the Jupiter, but it was better than waiting to be annihilated one railgun round at a time.

Well, that was something, Beatson said as he looked at the display. A second later, the shrieking alarms cut out, the sudden silence loud on the bridge. What the…?

Stiler put a hand on the pilot’s shoulder. "I served on a Sol-class ship once, a long time ago. Got friendly with one of the maintenance crew. We got drunk one night, and she told me something about the gun batteries on those big ships. She said it doesn’t matter if they can take out an enemy vessel in a few salvos; without their main targeting computer, they might as well be throwing rocks."

And you just knew where to find the main targeting computer.

Stiler winked. That’s how I met Allura. I was standing guard outside the server room.

And until they fix it, those railguns would struggle to hit Baker V, let alone us, chuckled Sinclair from the doorway. We did it.

Beatson wiped his brow on his sleeve. So can I stop showing that beast our ass now?

Sure thing, Stiler replied. Now your job is getting us the hell out of here. And telling me if there’s any contraband booze aboard this hulk.

2

R oyal flush? Stiler raised an eyebrow at Sinclair from across the table, then looked down at his own cards and sighed. I owe you another hundred credits.

Your tab is getting out of control, Sarge. Sinclair scooped up the carbine round casings that passed as poker chips. Might need your shirt next.

You should be so lucky, Stiler laughed. Sinclair wasn’t far wrong though: if they ever made it back to the core systems and Sinclair called in what he owed, it would hurt. My deal.

He swept the discarded cards towards him, combined them with the rest of the deck and got to shuffling. He was thankful they’d found the deck amongst the personal items in the ship’s lockers. There was little else to occupy their time as the Cutlass drifted aimlessly through the Baker system.

The battered remnants of the Third Fleet had long withdrawn, the Dioscuri fleet settling into orbit around Baker V, but so far the aliens had either not spotted the troop shuttle or just had no interest in it.

But now Stiler was in limbo. He had places to be and secrets to share, neither of which he could do floating to nowhere in a small troop shuttle. His options were limited and universally terrible: return to Baker V, where they’d find hordes of Dioscuri to welcome them; set course for the nearest system and, lacking the benefit of a skip drive, look forward to their corpses arriving in a few thousand years; or continue to limp along and hope help eventually arrived.

That last option was the one they’d chosen – for now – happy enough to stay alive and wait for a miracle. They had plenty of food and water aboard, so basic survival wasn’t an issue, but being stuck on a tin can with nowhere to go was becoming more untenable the longer things carried on. Even though it was the safest option in the short-term, it offered no hope in the long term.

And there was only so long Stiler could face losing to Sinclair at poker.

If nothing else, he was glad modern Union military troop shuttles didn’t rely on solid fuel for propulsion. It let them keep the Cutlass’ engines cranking indefinitely, generating enough acceleration for a comfortable false gravity equivalent to Earth. Older models didn’t have that luxury. Being able to walk around some parts of the ship rather than float passed for a win when you were stranded on the edge of human-controlled space with no real way home.

Stiler dealt the cards and once again landed himself with a low pair; the smile on Sinclair’s face suggested he had vastly more. Stiler had learned to hate that his companion’s goofball humour and general lack of seriousness wasn’t just a feature on the battlefield. It translated to his poker game as well, with Sinclair wholly unable to bluff and seemingly disinterested in trying. That didn’t matter, though, when he was pulling excellent hands out of his ass so regularly. They played three more hands, and Stiler lost every one of them, equalling the longest losing streak he’d had aboard the Cutlass. It didn’t help that his mind wasn’t entirely on the game.

Dr Campbell who’d taken their drift into nothingness the hardest. A brilliant woman with a secret that could win the war, she’d been rendered inert by their extended time aboard. Working with Beatson, she’d helped get the troop shuttle back in fighting shape, cannibalising some systems to get others working again, and patching the troop shuttle together as best they could after the firefight with the Jupiter. But now everything that could be fixed had been. There were a few systems that no amount of elbow grease or ingenuity could replace, but aside from those, her work was done.

A few times, Stiler had tried to involve her in games of poker, but she’d shown little interest in social interaction. But her isolation wasn’t a problem that was going to be solved now – stuck out here, there were few problems he could solve now – and the thought frustrated and concerned him.

Beatson to Stiler. Piped through the internal comms, the pilot’s voice filled