The Price of Conquest

Kressa held her fighter in formation and listened to Commander Alyn's uncommonly emotionless voice give final instructions to the individual fighter pilots.

"Ensign Bryant, you're in A-flight with me," Alyn's voice sounded through her flight suit's transceiver. "Stay close."

For an instant, Kressa felt betrayed. The captain must have ordered Reese to keep her close. But then logic replaced base emotion, and she realized Jonathan would never give such an order, and Commander Alyn would never obey it. Probably the commander just wanted someone with her abilities nearby, for once the battle started, Alyn's responsibilities as flight commander would be complete; his people aboard Stingray One would take over, keeping track of the overall picture from their loftier vantage point, and Alyn would be free to join in the fighting. And he was just reckless enough to want someone with Kressa's skill close at hand in case he got into trouble. She relaxed and acknowledged the order.

"All right, everyone," Alyn said, "now the waiting begins. Nobody move until you hear the captain's order."

Kressa drew a deep breath. Now the waiting begins.

She gazed beyond her fighter's canopy, beyond the other ships holding formation with hers, to the distant form of the Esprit. Somewhere near the dreadnought, their ships all but invisible at this distance, was the enemy.

Enemy. Something you could face, fight, kill, without the burden of guilt. Not men and women with mothers, fathers, lovers, children. Not individuals, misguided or otherwise, following Gaunis's orders to defend his personal beliefs and ambitions. Not people. Just enemy. She shuddered at the distinction, and then dismissed the thought from her mind.

To the left of her instrument panel, a small screen showed a magnified image of the Esprit, beamed from Stingray One. In front of the dreadnought, six tight formations of Patrol fightercraft moved slowly away from the huge warship, their courses tracing an unwavering line between their mothership and the Stingray. There was no other indication that the High Admiral intended to attack.

Kressa wondered if it were all a bluff.

And then Gaunis's rough voice came over the comm, "Confederate vessels, this is your final chance to leave the system. If you do not comply immediately, you risk the safety of your ships. I await your reply."

Kressa tensed at the High Admiral's ultimatum, fully aware that Jonathan would not back down.

The captain's reply an instant later supported her belief. "Admiral, I await yours."

Kressa began counting seconds and watched the screen image of the Esprit. Nothing appeared to happen. But as she reached fifteen, Jonathan gave the order to attack, and the black, delta-winged form of Stingray One erupted with blinding bursts of fire that leapt invisibly across the distance separating the Confederate ship from the dreadnought.

The warship's shields deflected many of the shots, but some struck fighters and emerging missiles, creating brief bursts of destruction. Before sense could be made of the first volley, a second barrage of lights flashed from Stingray One, accompanied by flights of deadly missiles.

Without return fire from the Esprit, the battle appeared remarkably one-sided, but as Kressa drew within targeting range of the enemy fighters, she discovered the extent of the Esprit's offensive weaponry.

Flights of streaking missiles turned the Confederate fighters' approach into an obstacle course, and the sudden flare of precise heavy pulse cannon fire from the dreadnought showed that the High Admiral had no apprehension about using energy weapons against the smaller Confederate vessels.

Kressa found that keeping out of the path of the enemy missiles and shots required every bit of her piloting skill, but she continued determinedly onward, flying toward the oncoming enemy ships, firing whenever she locked onto a target.

Her fighter lurched suddenly as one of the Esprit's powerful beams pierced her shields and cut a long gash in her ship's side. Her damage control computer reported a malfunction in one of her standby systems, but loss of the system would not affect her ability to do her job, and her main and back-up instruments continued to function normally. She quickly weighed the problem, recharged the shield, and decided to stay in the fight.

The six swarms of Patrol fighters continued forward to meet the onrushing Confederate vessels. The twelve ships that made up each Patrol squadron remained in their odd, tightly spherical formations. Kressa could find no logic in the strange configurations.

"A-flight—to me," Alyn's voice sounded over Kressa's comm.

She located the commander's ship and banked toward it. Three other fighters swept into attack formation around her as she followed Alyn toward the nearest of the oncoming Patrol squadrons.

The other Confederate flights reformed as well. Each team sped toward one cluster of enemy fighters to cut off their approach to Stingray One, ship-to-ship weapons firing nonstop.

The Patrol craft retaliated instantly with their own energy weapons and missiles, but the Confederate ships' shields held against the fire, and their maneuverability helped avoid the missiles.

Still, there were casualties. One of A-flight's fighters took a direct hit from the lead pair of Patrol vessels. Kressa reacted just quickly enough to dive out of the path of the detonation-driven shrapnel. Her escape left her in position for a disabling shot at one of the Patrol ships. Another member of A-flight took out the enemy ship's partner with its rear guns as it flashed by, and Commander Alyn destroyed two more enemy vessels in rapid succession.

"Draw those fighters out of formation," the commander ordered. "I don't know what they're up to, but I don't like the looks of it."

Kressa drove in close to the Patrol formation before her, firing continuously. The shield of one of the enemy ships blazed for a moment, and then melted away, the vessel lurching as Kressa's weapons cut at unprotected surfaces. Return fire from the ship ceased abruptly, and it veered crazily away, its wild flight ending in an explosion.

Kressa angled to starboard, drawing a trio of enemy ships after her. She glanced back with a curse as she realized that the other members of A-flight were too busy to back her up. She streaked away as the pursuing vessels began to fire. Seconds later, they broke off and returned to their formation.

Were they really that unsure about taking her on three-to-one? Or were they following orders to remain in formation? The latter seemed infinitely more likely, and she realized she had to get back to do something about it.

Her sprint away from her three pursuers had carried her some distance from A-flight, and she had to fly a wide, sweeping arc to rejoin the battle. She chose a return course that would bring her in behind the Patrol formation. With luck, they wouldn't notice her arrival until it was too late.

As she maneuvered through the turn, she took the time to glance at the handful of tight skirmishes raging between Stingray One and the Esprit.

The battle was less than three minutes old, yet the Patrol squadrons were already over halfway to the Stingray. All six of the Patrol formations had succeeded in sustaining a semblance of order, but they were beginning to grow ragged from the ferocity of the Confederate fighters' attacks.

The clash between the two principal combatants, however, appeared far less equal. Stingray One's pulse cannons exacted a heavy toll on the dreadnought's shields, and on the vessel itself where the shields had been breached. But the Esprit stood firm, continuing to retaliate with missiles and an occasional shot from one of her heavy pulse cannons.

Kressa banked the final few degrees to bring her ship into A-flight's skirmish from the rear. Another of the Confederate fighters had vanished, but Alyn and the third fighter were holding their own against the remaining seven Patrol vessels, intimidating them with seemingly reckless dives meant to shatter the nerves of the pilots and the integrity of their formation.

As Kressa drew closer, the two Patrol fighters at the rear of the formation peeled away from their comrades, joined up, and started straight toward her, firing in controlled bursts intended to weaken her shields. She knew it would be senseless to turn away; any defensive maneuver would only give her opponents more of a target to fire upon. Instead, she drove straight into the blazing guns of the onrushing ships, the majority of her shield power routed to her forward deflectors, her fire button depressed and locked as she swept her weapons from one target to the other.

To their credit, the Patrol fighters did not break until she was nearly on them, but by then it was too late for one of the vessels. Its shield dissolved under her fire in a sharp flash made brighter and longer by the dissolution of the ship an instant later.

The second fighter rolled away from its partner's ruin, but a shot from one of Kressa's side-mounted guns crippled the vessel and sent it tumbling helplessly away. She abandoned the damaged target, rebalanced her shields, and swept on.

She had nearly caught up to the five ships that were all that remained of the Patrol formation. Two of the vessels were engaged in a running dogfight with Commander Alyn, another two were holding their own against A-flight's third remaining fighter. The fifth Patrol ship, flying in the center of the diminished formation, continued straight on, apparently unconcerned about the plight of its companions and unaware of Kressa's presence.

Kressa took the advantage. She sped up on the unsuspecting vessel, keyed her targeting computer to the fleeing ship, and waited for a lock-on.

A warning alarm blared.

Trained reflexes responded instantly and she threw her ship into a defensive roll, glancing about to locate the ship that had targeted hers. But there was no vessel in range. Bewildered, she pulled her fighter back in toward her original target.

The Patrol vessel had altered its course—in reaction to her attack, Kressa guessed—but was easing back into line now, driving closer to Stingray One. Once again, the enemy fighter displayed no awareness of her presence as she sped up on it from behind.

Her weapon's lock-on signal sounded as she came within range again, but she had barely enough time to register the tone before it was overridden by her targeting alarm.

She rolled her ship again, automatically. Her target swerved sharply in the opposite direction. Again, she scanned for approaching danger.

Coming at her from the right, but still too far away to set off her ship's alarm, was a single Patrol fighter. Alyn's ship was coming up behind it. A second enemy fighter closed on him rapidly from the side.

"Commander, to your starboard!"

"I see it," he said, the sharp crack of his guns nearly drowning out his voice as he fired on the fighter before him.

The enemy's shield brightened, deflecting the assault. It continued to race toward Kressa.

"I think you're onto something, Bryant," Alyn said, dipping his ship to avoid the shots of the trailing vessel. "These two are determined to stop whatever you're doing." He fired at the fighter before him again, forcing it to veer from its course.

Kressa had fallen behind and to port of the solo fighter she had been chasing. She rushed in to realign her ship.

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As she drew within firing range, she switched off her targeting detector's auditory alarm, counting on Alyn to protect her from behind. Her firing computer lock-on sounded success an instant later. Almost simultaneously, the targeting detector display began to blink a warning.

She fought the almost instinctive urge to respond to the warning, and depressed the firing button instead.

The dual lines of her forward guns' tracers cut a parallel path between her ship and where the target ship—had been!

Incredulous, she watched as the vessel completed the inhumanly fast defensive maneuver that removed it from the path of her weapons.

How—?

A bright flash illuminated her cockpit from behind, and she put aside her astonishment long enough to locate the fading explosion of the ship Alyn had been chasing. Before the light of the detonation completely died, the commander began to fire his aft weapons at the vessel behind him.

Kressa turned her gaze forward again.

It was almost four minutes into the battle, and A-flight had pursued and depleted its enemy squadron for well over three-quarters of the distance to Stingray One. Three other Patrol squadrons whose numbers were also greatly diminished, but whose formations remained loosely intact, flew slightly ahead of them, preparing for a pass at the black ship.

Kressa frowned. If the Confederate forces flying against those squadrons were not able to immobilize them soon, Stingray One's gunners would be forced to turn some of their sorely needed attention away from the Esprit to deal with the approaching enemy fighters. But, she realized, Stingray One was beginning to have worse problems than those that might be offered by a few beleaguered fightercraft.

The Esprit had begun to fire its energy weapons at the black ship almost continuously now, aiming at the gashes its missiles had torn in the black ship's hull. Even from a distance, Kressa could see areas where Stingray One's bare metal infrastructure had been laid open by the dreadnought's attack. Still, the damage was minor compared to what the black ship had done to its opponent.

She returned her full attention to her target, intent on finishing it quickly and then joining one of the other flights in dealing with the remaining Patrol formations.

She came in on the lone fighter from above this time, determined to score at least a glancing hit. But, once again, the vessel made an impossibly quick defensive roll as she came within targeting range.

She cursed in disbelief.

"What's happening up there, Bryant?" Commander Alyn asked.

She glanced over her shoulder to where the commander's ship was approaching, alone this time.

"I'm not sure, sir. Every time I approach…" She hesitated, and then swept up on her mysterious opponent, intent on showing Alyn what she could not explain. This time, however, she did not wait for her firing computer to signal a lock-on. Aiming manually, she whipped in behind the enigmatic vessel, her targeting warning lamp blinking on again, and fired.

Her shots barely brushed the Patrol fightercraft's shields as it executed another impossible roll.

"Did you see that, Commander?" she asked, keeping her ship just out of targeting range of the enemy vessel until some sense could be made of its behavior. "The instant I get into firing range, the ship veers off."

"Acknowledged, Bryant. Keep on it. I'll join you in a moment. Lieutenant Schienna—to me," he called to the remaining member of A-flight.

Kressa continued after the single fighter, her thoughts racing through what she had discovered about the vessel's aberrant behavior.

The ship was obviously reacting to her attacks, but the Patrol had never equipped its fighters with targeting detectors, and as far as she knew, they still didn't. There simply wasn't enough room or power aboard a Patrol fighter for the massive United Galaxy sensing devices. Only through dint of Teneia's miniaturized, energy-efficient components could Confederate fighters support equipment capable of detecting the emanations of the Patrol vessels' lock-on beams. Yet it was obvious that this one vessel was detecting something and reacting to it. But if the Patrol had a new device for sensing Confederate lock-ons, why weren't the rest of their fighters equipped with it?

Another thought entered her ponderings. Why hadn't the ship turned to defend itself? Why the single-minded course toward Stingray One, diverting only when she approached close enough to—?

Her approach! That was what the ship was responding to. It wasn't her lock-on beam, it was her proximity. Detecting her ship's approach would require only a crude sensor field, and it would explain the activation of her targeting alarm every time she drew near; the system reacted to sensor emissions.

But there was still the question of where a sensor-field generation and detection device would fit in the limited space within a Patrol fighter. Had Gaunis sacrificed one of this vessel's other systems for the sensors? The guns, for instance? It sounded unlikely, yet it would explain why the ship never turned to defend itself.

Kressa shook her head at the thought. No one would take a fighter into battle without guns. Even with an eleven-ship escort, the chance of surviving was practically nil, and she could not believe Gaunis inspired such suicidal devotion in his pilots. Besides, what would an unarmed vessel do once it reached its target?

"Bryant," Alyn's voice pulled her out of her reverie. "Prepare to attack. On my order, move up from behind. I'll be on the left, Schienna on the right. I don't know what that vessel is, but reports from Stingray One say there's one like it in each squadron. We've got to stop them."

"Yes, sir!" Kressa heartily agreed, and then related her suspicions about the vessel's proximity field.

"Very good, Ensign. Command, pass the word: All ships are to fire on manual, don't wait for computer lock-on."

Pulling her ship into formation with Alyn and the th'Maran pilot, Schienna, Kressa noticed the scattered fireball destructions of enemy ships as Stingray One fired on Patrol fighters that had evaded the shots of the smaller Confederate vessels.

"A-flight," Alyn said, "on my order… Now!"

As ordered, Kressa did not wait until her firing computer had locked on, did not even wait until she was sure of a clean shot. She angled her fighter in after the enemy ship and began firing instantly. Alyn and Schienna did the same.

The three parallel pairs of fire struck the Patrol vessel almost simultaneously, causing its shield to glow bright for an instant before it twisted away in a high-gee move impossible even for a Confederate fighter.

Kressa stared in disbelief. No pilot could survive such a maneuver!

And that, she realized as she tried unsuccessfully to keep up with the enemy vessel's impossibly rapid course changes, was the answer to the mystery ship's abilities—and where the Patrol had found the room to pack in the extra equipment.

"Commander," she called. "I don't think those ships have pilots. They're drones, sir, using sensor fields to evade our attacks." She halted her explanation, realizing suddenly that her theory had quite a few apparent facts, but no conclusion. Just what were those ships up to?

Alyn and Schienna, having come in close to the sides of the target ship, had managed to stay with it through most of its wild flight. Now they moved up on it from behind, Schienna in the lead, weapons flaring.

The Patrol ship showed no reaction to their approach; it continued forward, pulling within firing range of the Stingray. But it did not fire.

Bewildered, Kressa eased her fighter back, abandoning any hope of reaching the vessel in time to do any good. Alyn and Lieutenant Schienna had things well in hand.

She scanned for another target, wheeling her ship toward the nearest swarm of Patrol and Confederate vessels. But as she began her turn, the Patrol ships abruptly broke off all attacks and sped away from Stingray One in full, top-speed retreat.

Completely befuddled, Kressa sped to join the other Confederate ships in pursuit of the fleeing Patrol vessels.

But not all of the Patrol ships had bolted. Four vessels continued on their previous courses, diving straight at Stingray One. Kressa realized they must be the remaining drones.

Stingray One fired on the ships as they drew closer, devoting a seemingly inordinate number of guns to the destruction of the vessels. But the drones seemed as sensitive to the black ship's powerful targeting sensors as they were to the proximity of Confederate fighters. One of the ships disappeared in a bright flash of cross-fire from two of Stingray One's anti-aircraft guns, but the remaining three had little trouble evading the shots.

A dozen Confederate pilots had remained behind to deal with the drones. Kressa started to double back to assist, but a command from Stingray One halted her in mid-turn.

"Confederate vessels—vacate the area immediately. Repeat: Break off the attack and fall back now!"

The urgent ring in Jonathan's voice banished any thought of questioning or even wondering at the order. Kressa twisted her ship in a sharp turn just as the massive arrowhead-shape of Stingray One rolled in space, turning its less-damaged side toward the approaching drones.

As Kressa flattened her turn into a course that would take her straight away from the black ship, she remembered Alyn and Schienna closing in on the ship she had first identified as a drone. She twisted in her seat to find them streaking away from their one-time target.

An instant later, an explosion ripped the drone in an incredible burst of blinding light that continued to develop, spreading out in a searing white sphere. Identical detonations shattered the two remaining drones, the explosions proceeding outward in immense balls of light that quickly enveloped the black wedge of Stingray One, and then caught and engulfed first Schienna's fighter, and then Alyn's. But the fate of the three vessels took on secondary importance in Kressa's mind as her own fighter went abruptly out of control.

Releasing her hold on a control stick gone suddenly dead, she threw her arms up to shield her face as, all around her, her fighter's control boards erupted in geysers of burning sparks and flame. Within seconds, the cockpit had filled with thick, acrid smoke.

Blind, choking, fighting to keep from breathing the hot smoke, and thoroughly baffled by her ship's inexplicable failure, Kressa secured the faceplate on her helmet, and then hit the manual fire control lever with one hand, the emergency braking thrusters with the other.

Her fighter bucked as the braking thrusters fired, flinging her hard to the left, her safety harness digging painfully into her shoulders, chest, and legs through her flight suit. Around her, the cockpit flooded with a fine chemical mist that extinguished the flames and slowly cleared the worst of the smoke from the air.

Biting back a cry at the pain in her left side where the harness had crushed against her ribs, she drew several deep, burning breaths, and tried to blink stinging tears from her eyes. The air in her helmet should have been good, the impurities of the atmosphere in the cockpit filtered out, but a pungent smell lingered, and the breaths she took left her lungs dry, unsatisfied, begging for more. She became lightheaded, and her vision blurred as a wave of nausea swept over her.

She recognized the dizziness and nausea as symptoms of weightlessness. Her fighter's gravity generators must have failed, as well. But why? How? And what had happened to the other systems?

She took another ineffective breath and focused blearily on the ruined boards before her, utterly dismayed by what she saw.

Her fighter was completely dead, all systems down. Not a single instrument functioned. No life-support. No engines. No comm system. Nothing. The ship had become a silent metal tomb turning slowly in space.

What had happened?!

She fought down panic, pulled another empty breath into aching lungs, felt a roaring in her ears, a crushing tightness in her skull. The air recyclers in her flight suit weren't functioning either.

She reached for her faceplate, prepared to rip it from her helmet, but thoughts of the hot, chemical-laden air of the cockpit forced her hand away from the mask. She located the valve on her fighter's emergency oxygen supply. Like the fire control system and braking thrusters, the oxygen back-up was mechanical; it would work without electronic assistance. She turned the valve, and then placed her gloved hand on the vent, expecting to feel the pressure of clean air rushing into the cockpit, but the vent was still.

The memory of her damage control computer reporting failure of her standby systems early in the battle flashed into her head, and she let her hand drop, resigned to the fact that she would have to survive on the air trapped in her suit.

She began to take shallow breaths, determined to conserve what little breathable atmosphere remained. She reminded herself to relax and make no unnecessary movements that would increase her body's need for oxygen or its output of heat energy, for without power, her fighter would be unable to radiate any excess heat she produced, and she could easily bake herself alive. Assuming, of course, the air lasted long enough for her to die of the heat…

She pushed aside that cynical thought and worked on holding back the darkness intruding on her senses.

She let her eyes rove to the slowly revolving scene beyond her fighter's canopy, seeking something to concentrate on, something to help stave off unconsciousness.

She noticed Calton first, its thin blue crescent sharply defined against the blackness of space. The system's sun was a bright point of light beyond the planet. The swept-winged form of Stingray One hovered in front of the crescent, motionless, glowing with a bright yellow-white light that—

Glowing?

She stiffened against the safety harness, her reminder to limit her movements momentarily overcome by shock. She regretted the move as unconsciousness eased a step closer.

She tried to relax, studying the impossible image of Stingray One through the gray that rimmed her vision.

Stingrays were supposed to absorb light, not emit it, she told herself dimly. Yet the contradiction to that was rotating slowly before her eyes, burning its pattern into her failing vision.

Stingray One was glowing.

Like a cooling piece of once white-hot metal, she mused, the thought vague, disjointed.

The image of the drone explosions came to her then, a memory of searing white heat engulfing the ship.

Oh, gods… Jonathan…

She rolled her head to look away. A shallow breath caught in her throat, and she tried to blink away the lightless after-image of Stingray One that seemed to hover in space on the far side of her fighter. But the shadow-image would not disappear. Even as her vision tunneled, the scene diminishing to a narrow field as the gray edges of her failing sight faded to black, the dark specter remained.

With a silent sob, she closed her eyes, no longer able to hold back the greater darkness.