Chaos Quarter: Imperial Ambitions Read online

  If he turned to attack, he’d be massively, humiliatingly outgunned. If he fired both pulse cannons and all six of his forward thirty-millimeter guns at one point, he may pierce their armor, but even that was doubtful. The front of the Schiavona had one hundred centimeters of DU-Steel, not much when going up against a Commonwealth warship, but enough to deal with pests like him. And that was pretty much what he was to these guys.

  He’d thought of trying a blind jump, and then brushed it aside. Last time he’d tried that, he’d almost ended up inside a star, and he hadn’t had nearly six hundred refugees aboard. And even if they did try it, their pursuers would just read the distortion in space-time, use it to deduce where they’d gone, and follow them. Whether they died in this system or another, they’d end up just as dead.

  It struck him all as incredibly unfair, and not just for all the people in the cargo bay. Twice now he’d been sent out into the Chaos Quarter with a ship that was, in Jones’s words, “advanced enough to deal with anything you’ll find out there.” And twice now he’d found himself fighting Europan warships. And this time he didn’t have another hostile warship to play the Europans off against.

  Every time he glanced up at the viewscreen, he felt as if the destroyer was mocking him. Just sitting there, growing slightly larger with each passing moment, inevitable—boring straight on in with a cold, methodical stubbornness. He could foresee what was going to happen, how they would pull into missile range and—

  Boring straight in!

  He sat up straight in his seat, startling the people around him.

  “What? What is it?” Cindy exclaimed.

  “Thought of something,” Rex chuckled. “Lucius, take a look at our pursuer and tell me the one thing he isn’t doing that he really should be.”

  Lucius looked at him, confused, and then turned to the destroyer. Clued in by Rex, it only took him two heartbeats to figure it out.

  “He’s not jinking,” Lucius said.

  “He’s not jinking,” Rex said with a vicious smile. “Our arrogant Europan enemy has so little respect for our ship and its abilities that he’s ignoring one of the most basic rules of space combat.”

  “Pride goeth before a fall,” Lucius declared, a rare smile breaking out across his face.

  “Wait, what? What’s going on?” asked Cindy.

  “Yeah, I’m not sure I understand,” Jake added.

  “Cindy, strap yourself down,” Rex ordered.

  Still confused, she did as he asked. Rex did the same; so did Lucius.

  “Intercom, all ship,” Rex ordered, the computer chirping in response. “Attention, everybody, listen up! As you may be aware, we are currently being chased by a Europan warship. I have a method for dealing with this idiot, but doing so will require a few seconds of very hard G. Everybody is to lay themselves out on the floor, wherever you happen to be. If you are near something that is bolted down, garb the hell onto it. If you are around the wounded, get on top of them and try to hold them in place. This will not be comfortable, but if it works we’ll be free and clear. You have…seven minutes to comply.”

  He waved off the intercom and turned to Jake.

  “I need you to go down to the sick bay and strap down the worst of the wounded. And if you feel like informing Vermella, I guess you can,” said Rex. “Not that you need to or anything.”

  “Right,” said Jake. For a moment he looked like he was going to ask for more information, but he didn’t, and moved off at full sprint.

  “What exactly are we doing?” asked Cindy as the bridge door slid closed behind Jake.

  “We’re gonna yaw the bastard,” Rex replied, the anticipation thick in his voice. Cindy still looked just as confused as ever, but just shook her head and sat back in the scan chair, clutching at the armrests.

  “Just let me know when it happens,” she said, resigned.

  “Oh don’t worry; you’ll notice this,” Rex answered.

  “Our window will be seconds,” said Lucius, back to his usual seriousness.

  “Yep. The moment we have a shot, you take it, ’cause I’m gonna hit the ventral jets the moment I see that beast,” warned Rex.

  “Don’t worry about that,” Lucius replied confidently.

  “I have to ask,” said Cindy. “Exactly how much am I not going to like this?”

  “Have you eaten recently?” asked Rex.

  “Not since before the battle,” Cindy replied.

  “That’s a good thing.”

  Cindy shook her head, and reestablished her death grip on the armrests. Rex took two deep breaths, watching the destroyer pull closer. The viewscreen ticked off the miles until it was in effective missile range. Rex didn’t actually need to be in effective range. Momentum would put his missiles in effective range quick enough.

  “Get ready,” Rex warned.

  Lucius’s hands were already on his yoke, an inch from the trigger. Rex grasped the steering yoke in front of him, shifting to the right in anticipation of what was to come.

  “Executing,” he said simply.

  He cranked the ship around on its vertical axis, yawing hard. The ship’s maneuvering jets spun it around 180 degrees, but did nothing to arrest its momentum. Longshot still shot toward the nearest jump point at one-tenth the speed of light; it was just doing it ass first now.

  Rex slammed hard against the side of his seat, pulled right by the sudden g-forces. His vision blurred, but he could still make out the viewscreen. It had switched to the front cameras when he began the maneuver. He saw blackness and stars for a fraction of a second and then the shape of the Europan destroyer, unmagnified, small and distant.

  He forced his mouth open to shout at Lucius to shoot, but the man was already clamping down on the triggers. Longshot’s six Rake antiship missiles leaped from their tubes simultaneously. As soon as they did Rex pulled back hard, his vision going gray as the ship lurched upward.

  The missiles raced to their full speed, ripping toward the destroyer at 20 percent the speed of light. The Europan destroyer burned straight for them at the same speed. Even at one hundred fifty thousand miles distance, they had no real time to react. The forward defensive guns of the destroyer opened fire, cutting down one of the missiles. The other five hammered home into the front of the destroyer. At such speeds it didn’t matter that they were just light antiship missiles or if the destroyer had one hundred centimeters of armor. The missiles hit with nuclear-level force, consuming the destroyer in massive explosions that swept over the hull, turning the center into a molten slag. All around that slag the vessel shattered, hurtling chunks of debris in every direction.

  Rex saw none of this. He fought to see anything, his vision nearly black as Longshot’s sudden rise drained the blood from his head. He held as long as he could, desperate to get away from the hurtling debris. Then, after a half-dozen long seconds, his grip on the yoke relented. He did not release it entirely; a sudden stop would just reverse the G and put everybody through a new type of hell. Instead he tapered off, his vision clearing up as he went. After nearly a minute of this, Longshot was back to one G.

  His body wailed at him, his right side heavy and stiff. For a moment it felt as if he were still under the stress of the spin. He half-seriously prayed that none of his organs had shifted. But each passing second brought him closer to normal. He shook his head a few times to clear off the last of the near blackout.

  “Everybody okay?” he asked.

  The sound of retching greeted him. Lucius was slumped over the side of the gunner’s seat, spitting to get the remaining vomit out of his mouth. Rex’s own stomach was little better, and he decided it would be better to just get it over with. He bent over the edge of his seat and let loose.

  Looking up he saw Cindy. She massaged her temples, but held her stomach.

  “And that is why you never tail a ship without jinking around behind it,” said Rex.

  “And why you never fight at cruising speeds,” Lucius added.

  “Ugh…” said C
indy.

  Rex shrugged. “Betcha glad you didn’t eat anything now.”

  “Please shut…up,” she said, gritting her teeth and clutching her head.

  “Rex, if we’re this sick, heaven knows what the cargo bay looks like right now,” Lucius pointed out.

  “Or smells like,” Rex said. “Gonna be a long trip home.”

  “Well worth it,” said Lucius.

  “Indeed sir,” Rex replied, his chest feeling remarkably light. He couldn’t recall a time he’d ever felt this relaxed after vomiting before.

  “But before we start celebrating: computer, status of the Europan ship?” Rex asked.

  “The Europan vessel has been completely destroyed. Our ventral armor has sustained damage from their debris,” the computer informed.

  “Anything serious?”

  “Nothing has penetrated the hull. The ventral turret is seriously damaged, but the ship’s systems are all functioning normally,” the computer explained.

  “Excellent. Resume course for the nearest, safe jump point.”

  The computer did so, setting the ship on autopilot. Rex looked over to Cindy again. She was sitting straighter in her chair, looking a bit more settled.

  “You want to tell them?” Rex asked.

  “Tell them?” she said, her eyes resolving. “Oh! Oh, yes!”

  “Intercom on,” said Rex and then waved for Cindy to go ahead.

  “Everybody, it’s Cindy. Mr. Vahl has destroyed the Europan ship. We’re in the clear,” she said. She couldn’t contain a smile and wiped a joyous tear from her face.

  “We’re free.”

  A dear bought victory, another such would have ruined us.

  —General Henry Clinton

  The Reservation, Anglesey, Anglesey System, Chaos Quarter, Standard Date 9/5/2507

  “Sire, with regret, it does not appear we can land at the town’s spaceport,” a tech said, entering the passenger cabin of the transport.

  Tertius’s eyes narrowed. The tech squirmed under his gaze, retreating back a few inches.

  “Explain,” Tertius demanded.

  “The tarmac of the spaceport is…umm…covered at the moment, sire,” the tech managed. “We will be landing just south of it, sire.”

  Tertius scowled at the man. The tech, nothing more than a glorified serf, bowed low and backed out of the cabin. Tertius grumbled, and cast a look at the warrior seated next to him. It was a subcommander named Obstinatus, the head of his personal guard. Obstinatus nodded compliantly, mimicking his better’s expression.

  The transport continued its descent, touching down softly. An executive craft, built for nobles, it did not spill open like the larger, troop transports. Instead a small door opened a few feet down from Tertius, illuminated by a blaze of sunlight.

  The smell hit him before he even reached the door. It was still potent, the sickening stench of death. He’d come across it a few times before, on the frontier with the Terrans. He’d always found it unnerving, no matter how many times he encountered it.

  When he reached the door and looked out toward the spaceport, he went from unnerved to disturbed. The shock of it froze him in his spot. Bodies lay in a carpet on the tarmac, hundreds of them. Nearly two-thirds of the concrete pad was littered with the ruined remains of warriors—some piled in heaps, some gruesomely torn apart. He’d seen injuries like that before, in videos from the war with the Terrans fifty years ago. The dead warriors had been fired upon by a large caliber weapon.

  “God…” he whispered.

  “Lord-sire?” said Obstinatus from behind him, still unable to see what was going on.

  “Nothing,” Tertius managed. “Proceed onward.”

  They filed out of the transport, each of his ten guardsmen pausing at the doorway, as frozen in place as Tertius had been. They pushed on, forming up around Tertius.

  The walked through the open meadow of the valley floor, a dozen meters to the edge of the tarmac. The southern end of the spaceport was clear of bodies. Tertius realized that this was where the ship had been—Baliol’s ship. He hadn’t believed it when he’d first gotten the signal from the transports, three hours after the battle had begun. But the voice had been unmistakable. Lucius Baliol had been here, right here, fighting with the rabble against his own kind.

  And much as he hated the man, Tertius could not deny his effectiveness at war. Macabre gore stretched out in front of him. Bat-like birds tore at the bodies as did a half-dozen wolves. Tertius nodded to one of the warriors, who fired his gun in the air. The bat creatures and wolves scattered, scurrying away from the dead.

  “We proceed,” Tertius declared. He backed away from the tarmac, walking slowly around the perimeter of the spaceport. The warriors cast solemn glances at their fallen comrades, hiding any emotion they might be feeling.

  They cleared the spaceport and began crossing a small meadow, toward the town. They’d made it halfway when a figure ran out of the town, spastic and wild. It was a warrior, shirtless, his face caked in blood and grime. He pulled to a specific spot in front of them and then stopped dead. His manic eyes fixed on Tertius.

  “Let him sleep!” the warrior screeched. “You’re making too much noise, and he needs to sleep! If he doesn’t sleep, he can’t get better!”

  Tertius stiffened, his hand instantly going to his sidearm. Impudence like this had only one punishment. But he stopped short and then took a step forward, testing the man.

  “I said stop!” the warrior screamed. He brought his hand up and extended his fingers like a gun. They shook visibly. “I need him to get better! You understand? He can’t get better unless he sleeps, and you keep waking him up!”

  Tertius took another step, and then stared down into the grass. At the warrior’s feet was a body or, rather, pieces of one. Several rounds must have hit whoever he had been, ripping him into dozens of bloody chunks. He pieced it together. This corpse must’ve been the friend or lover of the mad warrior in front of him, and the stress of battle had broken the warrior’s mind. Tertius had seen warriors suffer this before. Too much battle, too much stress and chaos—it shattered a person beyond repair.

  “I understand,” Tertius said. The mad warrior relaxed a bit, lowering his “gun,” but not retreating. Tertius pulled his sidearm and drew a bead on the crazy man’s chest. The warrior made no effort to move; he just stood there, his left arm shaking violently.

  Tertius squeezed the trigger twice, double tapping the mad man. He collapsed in a heap, a few feet from his fallen friend.

  “What happened here?” said Tertius, shaking his head sadly.

  His warriors said nothing, just let his words hang in the air. They continued on toward the town. The nearest line of buildings was crumbling, shot to hell by a large weapon, undoubtedly the same one that had killed so many on the tarmac. As they approached the nearest structure, a warrior appeared. From his black epaulets, Tertius could tell he was a subcommander. He had a haggard look, but from first glance clearly wasn’t mad.

  “Lord-sire,” he said, bowing his head.

  “Who would you be?” Tertius asked pacing up to the man.

  “I am Rixator,” said the man. “Ranking, surviving subcommander, lord-sire.”

  “I was informed that Proeliumira was in command of this brigade,” said Tertius.

  “He was, lord-sire. He has gone on to the Warrior’s Hall,” said Rixator. “My apologies, lord-sire; we are assembled for review as your communications requested, just to the north of town. We did not expect you to land where you did, lord-sire.”

  “Where else would a man land a ship but at a spaceport?” asked Tertius.

  “Very true, lord-sire. I apologize if I was not clear as to what happened…there. If I may ask something, lord-sire?” said Rixator.

  “Go ahead.”

  “I heard a shot, lord-sire. I feared a survivor may have hidden and assaulted you and your warriors,” Rixator explained.

  “One of your men had a broken mind,” said Tertius. “He had to b
e destroyed.”

  “I understand, lord-sire. He…he won’t be the last,” said Rixator.

  “I have not yet read any reports on this battle,” Tertius announced. “Perhaps you can explain why so many of our finest half men lie dead and in pieces?”

  “It might be easier to show you, lord-sire,” said Rixator. He motioned him on with a sweep of the hand and a respectful nod. They made their way north, through the town. More bodies met Tertius’s stare. Some belonged to the serfs—all of them armed and in body armor. But most of the dead were warriors. So many of them…

  “You expect me to believe that serfs did this?” Tertius asked as they walked.

  “They were…spirited,” Rixator managed. “And they had help, lord-sire.”

  “Yes, I have heard of Baliol’s involvement,” said Tertius.

  “It was not just him, lord-sire. He had at least two men in powered armor with him, fighting alongside the serfs. Perhaps leading them, lord-sire,” Rixator reported.

  “That makes sense,” Tertius said, a strange feeling of relief coming over him. “It is not likely servile beasts would be able to do such damage on their own.”

  “We can confirm at least one of the suits was of Terran design, lord-sire,” Rixator added.

  “Terrans…” sighed Tertius. He’d figured they were involved the moment he’d heard Baliol’s name come over the comm. He wasn’t much of a politician, but he had the distinct feeling that this would complicate things, in the future.

  They made their way to the north end of town. A short way off, in the open meadow, sat the remaining transport. The warriors were assembled before of it. The enormity of the loss sank in at that moment. Seeing the dead was one thing, but seeing those who remained was something else entirely.

  He came to a stop in front of the warriors. They stood in a horseshoe shape, with Tertius and his people in the middle. As one they clutched a fist to their heart in salute. Tertius took a long moment to look them over, taking note of the haunted look in their eyes.