Jack Campbell: Leviathan

Geary looked over at Desjani. “Captain, this one is yours.”

“Yes, sir.” She didn’t sound as exultant as she usually did when given such an opportunity. Tanya instead radiated grim determination as she gave orders that continued Gamma One’s turn and bent the vector downward again.

Gamma Two had dramatically tightened its turn, also coming up, as Tulev’s Leviathan led the charge to assist Amazon’s survivors.

“ Amazon has shut down her power core,” Lieutenant Castries said. The battleship was completely helpless now, a derelict doing a ponderous, uncontrolled tumble through space.

With the dark battle cruisers sweeping down and only minutes from firing, the wreck of the Amazon began volleying out escape pods as her surviving crew sought whatever tenuous safety the pods might offer.

Something in the Marine views distracted Geary for a moment. He moved one hand to close them out, then paused as he saw Marines moving into a large compartment filled with command equipment. The room resembled the primary command center on Ambaru Station at Varandal, but was even larger. Several individuals in generic civilian suits like those of the man and woman Geary had arrested at Ambaru were standing around, hands raised, except for one who was repeatedly and angrily swiping at what must be virtual controls in the air before her. She spun about and began berating the Marines. Even though Geary wasn’t listening to the exchange, he could tell the woman was trying to assert authority over the Marines. More Marines entered, along with Victoria Rione and Colonel Rico. Rione said something to the woman that caused her mouth to snap shut, then Rico ordered some of the Marines to restrain her.

He couldn’t spare the time to find out the details, but the frustration on the part of the suits’ leader and the purposeful way Marine hackers were moving to the facility’s command locations made it clear that the data destruction sought by the agents had not been achieved.

Realizing that it no longer mattered whether Victoria Rione found the critical information needed to restore access to the hypernet because fleeing and leaving the dark ships able to use the gate to attack Unity was not an option, Geary minimized the Marine windows and focused all attention on the clash of battle cruisers that was about to occur.

The dark ships flashed past the wreck of Amazon , pouring fire into the derelict. With Amazon ’s power core shut down, the only way to destroy what was left of her was by an overwhelming number of blows that shattered her armor and hull. Ten dark battle cruisers had enough firepower to accomplish that.

Amazon came apart under the merciless barrage, breaking into large and small pieces that spun away from each other.

Even though nearly every dark weapon was aimed at finishing off the battleship, shots from some of the smaller dark ships targeted the escape pods, knocking out or destroying several and certainly killing the men and women inside.

“Damn them.” Geary did not realize he had spoken those words aloud, but he knew that he wasn’t aiming his wrath at the cold minds of the dark ships but at the people who had programmed them and the people who had decided to trust in such weapons.

The dark battle cruisers had only seconds to enjoy their victory. Tulev did not attempt to clip a corner of the dark formation, instead smashing nearly straight up through one side of it, seven human-crewed battle cruisers against five automated dark ships.

Geary barely had time to register explosions before Tanya took Gamma One through the same portion of the dark battle cruiser formation, slashing downward.

Dauntless rocked with hits but kept going.

He tried to focus on his display, tried to take in the results of the two attacks.

Geary heard Desjani breathe a single, despairing word. “No.”

Gamma Two, going through first, had taken the brunt of the enemy fire.

Leviathan was gone, reduced to a stream of wreckage spreading out along her former vector.

“Good-bye, Kostya,” Desjani murmured. “Your war is over.”

Captain Parr’s voice sounded, but his image did not appear before Geary. “ Incredible got shot to hell. We’ve lost practically all systems except maneuvering. That’s damaged. We can keep up for now, but that’s all we can do. Fire control and weapons are all off-line, life support barely functional, comms marginal, numerous hull penetrations.”

One battle cruiser destroyed, and one out of the fight.

Clouds of debris marked the fates of two of the dark battle cruisers. Another had taken a lot of hits but still appeared operational.

It took all of Geary’s effort to put aside thoughts of Captain Tulev and set up the next engagement. The battleships on both sides had been out of the last fight, but now Gamma Three and Four came together to sweep past just below and just above one of the dark formations containing six battleships.

In the wake of that engagement, a single dark battleship swerved away from its companions, moving erratically, then abruptly exploded.

But as Gamma Three maneuvered for its next turn, the battleship Revenge lurched off vector, broadcasting massive damage.

“You’re doing what you have to do,” Desjani said, her voice steady, her eyes burning. “We’re taking out one of theirs for every one of ours we lose.”

He wanted to tell her that he didn’t know how much longer he could live with that kind of fighting but realized it did not matter. The odds that he would be living at all for more than a few additional hours appeared to be vanishingly small.

Victoria Rione’s image appeared before him. The battle had carried Dauntless more than three-quarters of a light-hour from the government facility, too far for a comfortable conversation under current conditions. She spoke without pausing for any replies from Geary, looking steadily forward, her voice as firm as her bearing. “Admiral, we have found files that confirm what Admiral Bloch told you. The Armageddon Option is real, and the most powerful so-called Defender Fleet ships do have the codes necessary to weaponize hypernet gates. At the moment we are locked out of all hypernet gate functions and are trying to access any of them that we can. We are still looking for any codes that might disable or divert the dark ships, without success. Every file on this facility is being copied on portable storage devices and also transferred directly to Mistral ’s databases. We have discovered a large number of files pertaining to research on how to copy the Syndicate method of gate blocking, but any results were either never listed here or scorched-earth deleted from the systems before we reached this facility.

“We have found no command personnel and no researchers, contractors, or representatives. Records indicate the station had nearly four hundred people here before an emergency evacuation order was given. The remaining security personnel, who are all private contractors, have been disarmed and detained. The Marines have also freed a dozen prisoners from a high-security detention center, along with some medical personnel who stayed behind to look after the prisoners when the rest of the staff unsuccessfully tried to flee.

“We have discovered vast areas in the facility that have been untouched since construction. They contain equipment that is in working condition but decades obsolete. If the government had ever shown up here, they would have been in for some unpleasant surprises.”

Rione took a deep breath. “And we found my husband. The Marines are estimating they will be able to depart the facility in another hour, but Commander Young on Mistral says they will need to be sure they can reach the protection of your ships before they leave the dock.”