Chapter Fifty-Three

Family Problems

Hellena marveled at the cruiser's responsiveness. It was one of the most powerful heavy cruisers she had ever heard of, let alone commanded, but it moved as quickly and easily as a light escort cruiser.

Honestly, the new Birdsong was almost equal to some of the smallest capital ships. Not only that, but the damn thing could hit as hard as one as well.

“Fire!” Hellena yelled, and the front-mounted rail guns hammered massive slugs into the side of the shieldless Line ship, which promptly holed.

Before the gasses had a chance to escape, something inside ignited, and blasts rocked the ship from the inside as flame burst from the breaches.

“They’re done, boys and girls,” Hellena laughed. “Nav, get us a jump fix to get us ahead of the last two.”

“Yes, Captain!”

That was another thing this brilliant ship had. Jump computers fast enough to micro-jump with only thirty seconds warning! It was a revelation and one she intended to learn to use to the full.

She had already been given the chance to learn, and it was not wasted. Twice during the battle, she had used it to great effect. Once, the Birdsong jumped out of range of a beam weapon, and then she used it to finish off the last escort.

Now, she had been tasked to chase down fleeing remains and did not intend to allow a single one to get away.

“Jump plotted.”

“Send it to the flight and then jump us,” Hellena said with satisfaction.

The crazy amount of automation in these cruisers meant that her surviving crew members had managed to crew a full five ships. That meant the songbird flight was still at full fighting strength—a fact the enemy had not been prepared for.

Not at all.

She checked the long-range scan as they came out of the jump, seeing the Emissary moving through the remaining forces like an avalanche. Implacable, unstoppable, and leaving a trail of destruction behind it.

The Line had not really managed to replace its losses here just yet, and it had been a fairly easy fight.

Too many of the enemy capitals had dismissed the Songbirds and the Marshalls with their automated cruisers as lower-ranked threats, focusing on the mighty Emissary. They had swiftly paid for that decision as five pairs of railguns might not be the equal of a Beam weapon, but they were not exactly love taps either.

Even now, Captain Crush and his people were snapping up weakened enemies as they dove back and forth through the enemy lines.

“Let’s get these last two and get back to the fight!” Hellena growled.

The enemy cruiser vanished as the flight swooped on it, and a flash of light on their rear sensors was a testament to its destruction. That just left the damaged capital.

“Hellena to Songbirds, Stormflock. I repeat, Stormflock!”

The flight broke apart, forcing the capital to spread its shield power evenly, and then fired from all sides as they swung down in tight arcs, shooting past the capital and repeating in an endlessly shifting cycle that gave the shields no time to recharge.

In no time, they failed, and the railguns punched straight into the armor.

Two minutes later, the armor failed.

Three minutes and the lights went out as the capital began to drift.

She was just about to order them to turn and start the half-hour burn back to the main battle when the emergency broadcast came.

“This is an emergency message! I repeat, emergency! The Ten Suns have begun to overwhelm me, and I am losing cruisers fast. If anyone can help, I would appreciate it!” Queen Lucille’s voice came over the comm line.

One by one, her captains sent the ready signal. They were ready to answer the call, even against their own.

“Hellena to Crush,” she called over the line.

“Crush here; we are all over a thirty-minute burn away.”

“I know; I am asking permission to engage,” Hellena said.

“No one expects this of you,” Crush replied calmly. “To attack your own…”

“Marshall Crush, they attacked us first,” Hellena replied. “They killed our friends and made us kill our own to survive.” She sighed. “I hate to sound like Vauban, but this is a matter of justice.”

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“Understood,” Crush called back. “I don’t have to tell you what it would mean to attack us, right?”

“No, you do not,” Hellena said angrily.

“Just checking,” Crush chuckled darkly. “Boone has given his authorization.”

“Thank you, Marshall. Songbird flight responding.”

They turned and fired their engines for the jump point. It would not be long.

===<<<>>>===

The arrival of the Songbirds in Confederacy space heralded a shift in the battle almost immediately. Hellena was nothing if not thorough, although many thought her obsessed. Neither side of that argument was entirely right or wrong.

What mattered was that she knew every ship in the Ten Suns fleet like she knew the path home. It wasn’t something she even had to think about.

The beacon IDs on her screens were not something she even had to think about. Immediately, she knew which ships were weakest and how to attack them to maximum effect.

The Songbirds' flight tore through the escort destroyers without even slowing down and arrived at their first target: the Blythe Spirit, the Capital ship and flag of the second daughter of the Corn Crown clan. It was a powerful ship, with enough weapons on the front to keep any enemy thinking twice.

At the back, however, was a weak point where the frame had been extended. The stuck-up bitch had never bothered to have the aft shields extended because what enemy would ever know?

Hellena knew, and her ship was more than capable of putting rail gun slugs into the comparatively tiny half-meter square gap.

The Spirit had an ammo locker in the area, and it went up as planned. That was one capital down, but there were plenty more to go.

She was hesitant to contact the Queen but swallowed her fear and did so anyway.

“Captain Hellena, thanks for the assistance,” Queen Lucille added. “I seem to be getting overwhelmed here.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Hellena answered. “Permission to make a suggestion, Ma’am?”

“Go ahead,” Lucille answered.

“You are a magnificent pilot, Ma’am, but predictable. You are moving the cruisers in patterns. It is how my father’s people are able to target them so effectively.” Hellena crossed her fingers that this was the kind of monarch that could tell the difference between respectful advice and criticism.

“Acknowledged,” Lucille replied. “Sending update to Pilot Drones.”

The cruisers began to move much more unpredictably, and the Ten Suns were slow to react; the result was a lessening of pressure on the massive Ascendant.

Hellena dove back into the fight, taking out smaller capitals when she knew a weakness but churning through the opposing cruisers with ease.

The Ten Suns were the pride of the Confederacy, but the hard truth was that the fleet and the whole collection of Confederated planets were stuck in the past.

They spent so much time squabbling and scheming against each other that sometime in the past, they had stopped trying to improve their own lands as much as they tried to prevent their neighbor from improving their own.

It had caused stagnation, and it was showing now.

The aging fleet was a relic. Its weapons and systems were stuck in the past.

The Imperium, on the other hand, was an innovator, with ships that incorporated more tech than most capitals and probably had a cost to go along with it. They redefined what top-of-the-line meant.

That same attitude that stagnated the confederacy pervaded even here in the battle. Several times, groups failed to help a struggling ship because it belonged to a clan that would be weakened by its loss.

The battle stabilized, and the Imperium-class ship began to pull ahead. The coordination of the Suns was breaking down as more and more it broke up into factions.

Then, her comm line lit with an enemy transmission.

“Captain Hellena of the Imperium,” Hellena answered, making her new allegiance clear.

“Traitorous bitch!”

“Oh, hello, Father,” Hellena grinned. “So, how is your acquisition going? Well?”

“You will pay for this if it is the last thing I do!” Her father growled over the line. “Where is your loyalty to your family?”

“You never quite understood this, Father, but in order to inspire loyalty, you have to do something to deserve it,” Hellena said.

“The Imperial Line—”

“Is already running for the fucking jump points,” Hellena laughed. “The neighboring system was so easy to take. I came here because I wasn’t needed anywhere else!”

“The Falling Waters clan—”

“Is finished,” Hellena nodded to her comm officer. “I prepared this just in case I got a chance to come here.”

The burst transmission was on full broadcast and included the message from her father about seizing the system for their clan, as well as her father’s personal code.

Within seconds, several ships had disengaged, and that was likely just the start. None of them were firing on each other as yet, but that would come sooner rather than later.

“What have you done?” Her father wailed.

“The Seven Family Council are hard men but fair,” Hellena hissed into the comm. “They will teach you the humility you failed to learn on your own!”

Finally, she saw it: the Falling Waters Clan’s largest capital ship and the Flagship of the Ten Sun fleet, Ravenwing. It was making for the jump point back to their own system, running from the fight that he insisted they start.

He had not an ounce of honor left in him. Perhaps he never had any to begin with.

She was just about to lead her flight back into combat when the thirty-odd ships came through the jump point.

The entire holdings of the Falling Waters.

Swearing, Hellena informed Queen Lucille, but they were in for a surprise. Near a dozen ships contacted the Ascendant, formally withdrawing from the fight and promising to pay reparations if they were allowed to leave unharmed.

The Queen agreed.

More ships followed their lead, and then a good half of the Ten Suns remaining forces were heading away from the battle and toward the Falling Waters Fleet.

For a second, Hellena felt an urge to contact her father, urge him to surrender, but he beat her to it by a hair.

The Ravenwing stood to and was swarmed.

It was over. Her father would stand trial, and those only ended one way. Perhaps he still had enough pull to spend the rest of his life in prison, but she doubted it.

The remaining ships of the fleet were still attacking the Ascendancy, but there was no chance they would win. Not now.

Knowing Confederacy politics, at least half of them were only waiting for a chance to destroy each other.

She was proved right within five minutes, and Queen Lucille cleared her to return to the other system.

Hellena took one last look around the edge of the confederacy and put it behind her forever.