Evan Currie - Heirs of Empire

You’ve a lot to answer for, Corian. I don’t enjoy killing Imperial armsmen, not even the ones who deserve it.

The Fire Naga was flying tight to the third wind layer, and, unless Kennick was very much mistaken, they were quite close to the speed record.

It was hard to say, because flight speed recorders were notoriously unreliable at altitude, and they’d need ground speed confirmation to make it official, but he had never seen a pilot pull off some of what Brennan had. They were coming into sight of the city now, and already the sails of the flotilla were visible.

“We’re late,” Brennan said grimly, noting the plasma trace that was visible even from as far off as they were.

“There was no chance we’d arrive before the battle began,” Kennick said. “It’s a minor miracle that we’ve arrived this fast, given the message we had to deliver.”

“Fat lot of good any of that did,” Brennan growled. “No one would even talk to us.”

“Trust the skipper,” Kennick said calmly as he made their weapons live. “She knew what she was doing.”

“She knew she was giving me busy work,” Brennan growled.

“If that were the goal, the skipper would still have us running around the empire with phony messages,” Kennick told him flatly, “and we’d most assuredly not be in a position to fly into the heat of the biggest air battle the empire has seen in … well, my memory for sure.”

Brennan didn’t lose the scowl, but there was likely something to that.

“Fine. I’ll stop whining,” he finally said. “Do you have an approach course for me?”

“Not yet,” Kennick told him. “Orbit the battle at least once. I’ll try and get data from the battle networks below. Boiled seas, look at all the ships in the muck …”

Brennan banked slightly, looking down himself, and whistled at the sight. There had to be dozens of cruisers and transports lying strewn about the ground under the battle, in a space stretching back for miles. There were fires burning. The composite materials most ships were made of didn’t burn easily, but under constant lase fire everything had its limits.

They couldn’t see the warriors from their altitude, but flashes of light against the smoke below made it clear that while the ships may be down, the fighting was far from over.

“Get me a vector so we can do some good here,” Brennan urged, eyes glued to the scene.

“Patience, Brennan,” Kennick said firmly. “This isn’t a game. We do not rush into this. That just gets us killed, or, worse, someone else killed who doesn’t have it coming.”

Brennan grumbled but couldn’t really do anything since Kennick controlled the guns. And even if he didn’t, there was no way to tell by eye friend from foe in the mess under them.

“The Pillar of Miogaro is below us, thirty degrees north by up spin,” Kennick said. “That’s the baron’s flagship and where your sister is. They’re safe and are directing the engagement while providing long-range fire support.”

“Thank the gods.” Brennan let out a breath he hadn’t even been aware he was holding.

“It gets better,” Kennick said, grinning. “The Caleb Bar has withdrawn from combat, flying the skipper’s colors. I think we’re looking at a fair fight.”

“Then someone screwed up.”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t on our side this time,” Kennick answered, relieved. The Caleb Bar was well known on board the Andros , thanks to Gaston being one of the engineers who’d designed the blasted thing. None of them wanted to share the same sky with that monster if it was gunning for them.

At least one thing has gone according to plan so far. We may actually pull this off.

Field Marshal Groven directed the charge, not from the front of the pack, but not from the rear either. He’d led enough battles to know that neither actually worked out so well in most cases. If you led from the rear, your troops would learn to mock you, and more often than not you received vital information a moment too late. Leading from the front, on the other hand, was a quick way to decapitate your command structure.

He picked a unit close enough to the front for him to see the fighting with his own eyes, but far enough back to not attract as much attention from the enemy as other active combatants. He also didn’t wear his usual uniform. No sense in giving anyone with a lens any ideas.

They were at the city walls now, the first real challenge to the ground campaign.

Even the hastily deployed legion they had been forced to fight through hadn’t been much more than a bump in the road. The Thirtieth Legion was composed of good fighters, but they had been sent into battle barely prepared against an already fighting force twice their size.

Corian should have known better, but I suppose he was sacrificing them to buy the Ninety-Eighth a little more time.

Groven found the action more than a little distasteful, though he’d have done the same thing if pressed hard enough. Now they were facing an entrenched and prepared force, however, and he knew personally that they weren’t going to lie down for anyone.

Not even a former commander.

Artillery from inside the walls slammed into their positions, still ranging shots but more than close enough to kill a few, injure more, and throw the whole operation into disarray.

“Get the counter artillery division moving,” Groven ordered. “I want those shots tracked back to their source and those guns taken out !”

Indirect artillery was rare in the empire, mostly due to the expense of the consumables involved. The empire itself could afford it, of course, but most of the time it was relatively unnecessary due to the Imperial control of the skies. Unfortunately for Groven, that meant that counter artillery was a rare specialty indeed, and the few he’d managed to scrape up were going to be hard pressed.

Still, he heard the sound of guns roaring in the distance, the men rising to the needs of the moment.

An explosive shock wave made him flinch, and he looked up to see the cruisers duking it out above him, one he couldn’t recognize becoming a blaze of fire as it started to lose altitude.

“Watch that ship!” Groven ordered. “I don’t want it dropping on any of our heads!”

This fight is getting out of hand.

“I’ve got a track for you, kid. Check your displays.”

About time! Brennan managed not to say anything aloud as he glanced at the numbers Kennick had sent back to him. “Got it. Hang on—this is going to get a little wild.”

The Fire Naga banked hard, sails shifting as he cut into the wind and began to use that pressure to push them down. The Naga accelerated as it began dropping from the third layer, nose coming over as the fighter lay out on its side and then pointed down.

The fight below spiraled around the two sitting inside the Naga, along with the entire world, but Brennan didn’t even blink as they plummeted down through the second wind layer, still accelerating. Kennick was starting to sweat, but he wasn’t about to distract the kid and, frankly, knew that the kid was a far better handler than he’d ever been. He just focused on the targeting reticule and the ships he’d marked as threats to the Pillar of Miogaro .

The fight was a scene of aerial chaos, ships from both sides interpenetrated and in some cases intertwined to such a degree that it had taken several minutes for him to figure out who was friend and who was foe. Even the ships in the fight had seemed confused, at least until someone opened fire on them, and at the moment a pair of light destroyers were closing on the Pillar from her flank.